Deut 6:4 vs. The Trinity

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD"

This is the Shema which has been quoted by Jews for thousands of years. It is something very important to them because it reminds them that they serve only one God and not many.
For centuries Trinitarians have argued that Deu 6:4 speaks of the unity of three persons in one God but i am writing this to show that this scripture indisputably only speaks about God, the Father.

In Acts 3:21-22, Peter states...

 "Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of ALL his holy prophets since the world began." For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall you hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you."

Peter is quoting Deu 18:15 which says "The LORD your God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of you, of your brethren, like unto me; unto him you shall hearken;"

So who was the God that Moses was speaking of in Deu 18:15? Peter states it clearly in Acts 3:26...

"Unto you first God, HAVING RAISED UP HIS SON JESUS..."

It is God the Father that raised up his Son from the evidence above and therefore it was God the Father who spoke though Moses saying that he would raise a prophet. Even the writer of Hebrews states that God the Father is the one who spoke to the fathers by the prophets in the OT. For further proof of this notice that God says "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. The scriptures declares that it is God the Father who gives Jesus what to say (John 12:49).

Now since Acts 3:22,26 is proof that Moses is speaking of God the Father in Deu 18:15,18, then Deu 18:16-17 must be also due to the context. It reads:

"According to all that you desired of the LORD your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. And the LORD said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken."

Moses here is quoting Deu 5:25-26,28 about what the children of Israel said to him about God in Exo 20:19; Exo 20 and Deu 5 are almost parallel chapters. Deu 5:25-26,28 reads, "Now therefore why should we die? for this great fire will consume us: if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any more, then we shall die. For who is there of all flesh, that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? And the LORD heard the voice of your words, when ye spake unto me; and the LORD said unto me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto you: they have well said all that they have spoken."

From this evidence, we can conclude that the children of Israel saw the great fire of and heard the voice of God the Father. Trinitarians cannot deny that in the whole chapter of Deuteronomy 5 (all the way to the last verse) Moses is quoting the children of Israel and God the Father.

Now, in Deuteronomy 6, Moses starts to give all of the commandments that God the Father gave him. In verse 4, the famous Shema is given "Here O Israel, the LORD our God is one Lord". As i demonstrated earlier, it is God the Father who gave Moses the commandments in Exodus 19, Deu 5 and Deu 18 so it is only logical to believe that Deu 6:4 is also only speaking about God the Father and none other. Do you really think that Moses was speaking about God the Father and then when Deu 6:4 came up, he switched to talking about the Trinity? God forbid, for that only results in confusion. Therefore neither Moses nor the Children of Israel believed in any Trinity. You even have Jesus in Mark 12:32 telling one of the scribes that he was correct in saying that "...there is one God and there is no other God but he". This is in correlation with scriptures such as 1 Cor 8:6, Eph 4:6 and Mal 2:10.

A Trinitarian view of Deuteronomy 6:4 is simply the result of eisegesis. Rather than search the scriptures for the truth, Trinitarians have put their own logic into this passage. Example: A Trinitarian would say, "Since the Father is God and Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit is God, then Deu 6:4 is refering to the Trinity; it also uses the Hebrew echad which denotes a unity." Firstly, there is a reason why (although Jesus is God), that the Father is called "The only true God" and the word echad can denote either a unity or a numerical one. Instead of putting our own logic into it because we want to strengthen our arguments, lets look the evidence the scriptures really put forth. In the case of Deu 6:4, it doesn't confirm any Trinity.

Troy Jenkins