The Oneness of God in the Bible

The Oneness of God

By Eugene Seaich

Edited by Kerry A. Shirts

How about looking at Scripture? John clearly says the Father and Son are

ONE (John 10:30) because the Son shares the Father's "Indwelling Presence" (John 14:10)--no doubt through the Father's Spirit--and that the disciples can also become ONE with them as they are ONE (John 17:20-23). 3 Nephi repeats the same thing (28:10), which is that the ONENESS of the Godhead is something that can be shared with men, and it is obviously more than a "oneness of purpose and will." In short, any "son's" deification consists of sharing a "fulness of [the Father's] deity" (Col. 2:9, PLEROMA TES THEOTETOS), undoubtedly by means of the Spirit (compare the fifth Lecture on Faith).

Indeed, Christians during the entire Patristic period aimed at no less than a share of God's own deity, i.e. to be "refashioned in the exact likeness of God (homoiosis theoi)" (Cunliffe-Jones, HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, 149-50). The New Testament thus indicates that some are being transformed even now "from one glory to another by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. 3:18), until they arrive at "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13), and are filled with "all the fulness of God" (3:19). Then they will share in "the very being of God," 2 Peter 1:4, NEB). And when Christ reappears, they will be "like him" (1 John 3:2), possessing bodies "like unto his glorious body" (Phil. 3:21), and "joint heirs" of God's kingdom (Rom. 8:17).

Perhaps the least understood of God's essential characteristics is his divine "fulness"—or the totality of his divine powers and attributes. Philologically, this mysterious "fulness" may be defined as the complete "Divine Nature" (2 Pet. 1:4), i.e. that which makes those in whom it dwells divine. One writer has therefore defined it as "Godhood without God himself" (Eugène de Faye, in TDNT, VI:300), i.e. "Godhood in the abstract," or what Paul simply refers to as "a fulness of Godhood" (theotes, Col. 2:9).

Though we are never told the precise ontological structure of this divine "fulness," it would appear to be a special manifestation of God's Spirit, something which made the Savior "holy" at his birth (Lk. 1:35), "begat" divine Sonship in him, then filled him with a "fulness" of his Father's "glory" when he was baptized (Lk. 3:22; D&C 93:15-16). The Father's "glory" in turn appears to be a sign of God's spiritual "presence" and awesome power:

And now, O Father, glorify me "with thine one self" (para seauto), with the glory I had with thee before the world was (John 17:5).

According to John's Gospel, then, those who receive Christ's "glory" receive a "fulness" of the Father's power and attributes, a substantial reality which the KJV calls "Truth":

And the Word...dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, a glory full of truth (aletheia)...And of his fulness have we received (John 1:14, 16).

The disciples' "glorification" with Christ is therefore equivalent to receiving the Father's "fulness" and dwelling spiritually "in him," as the Doctrine and Covenants confirms:

For if you keep my commandments, you shall receive of his fulness, and be glorified in me as I am in the Father (D&C 93:20).

Yet the "fulness" is much more than a simple "investiture of authority," for it again refers to the Father's actual presence within the recipient, bringing with it God's personal power:

And when they had set him in their midst, they asked, by what power, or by what name, have you done this (Acts 4:7).

He that hath seen me hath seen the Father...The Father dwelleth in me, he doeth the works...I have declared unto them (the Father's) name (John 14:9-10; 17:26).

It would seem to me that the ONENESS of the Godhead therefore consists of sharing the ONE GOD'S person fulness and presence, and with it the mysterious "godhood" (THEOTES) that makes those in whom it dwells "gods," but only "gods" with the ONE GOD'S own divinity, never their own.

This, as you will note, is quite different from henotheism, which is "One God in many forms."

The scirptural Oneness of God is "One God, whose single godhood is shared by many others," and who are made "gods" by HIS indwelling presence.

A couple of references also from John Tvedtnes:

Clementine Homilies 16.16 has Peter saying, "Why, do you not see that if the one happens to be self-begotten or unbegotten, they cannot be called the same; nor can it be asserted of him who has been begotten that he is of the same substance as he is who has begotten him? Learn this also: The bodies of men have immortal souls, which have been clothed with the breath of God; and having come forth from God, they are of the same substance, but they are not gods. But if they are gods, then in this way the souls of all men, both those who have died, and those who are alive, and those who shall come into being, are gods. But if in a spirit of controversy you maintain that these also are gods, what good matter is it, then, for Christ to be called God? for He has only what all have." (ANF 8:316)

In Homily 16.10, Peter notes that "each one finds in the Scriptures whatever opinion he wishes to have in regard to God." (ANF 8:314)