The One God Is the Father
Scripture says God is one, and when it says who that one God is, it names the Father.
Eleven other clusters build on this: Call No Man Father, Brought Forth, Hidden and Revealed: The Descending City, The Everlasting Dominion, The Way Belongs to the LORD, His Own, Every Mouth Stopped, The Will of the Father Is to Believe, The Root Is Love, The Spirit Is God's Own and Not Left Alone.
Scripture shows this in four steps:
It all comes together in 1 Timothy 2:5.
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.” Israel said these words every day. God is one. But one who? We do not have to guess. Scripture answers the question itself, and it answers with a name.
Many are taught that “one” here means one being made of three persons. But the Hebrew word simply means one: one day, one river, one nation. The three persons have to be brought in from outside the verse.
Deuteronomy 6:4
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.”
Deuteronomy 6:4
This is where it starts. God is one. The verse gives a number, and the number is one. It does not yet say who the one is. But it does not say three.
Mark 12:29
“And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord.”
Mark 12:29
A man asked Jesus which commandment is first of all. This was the moment to say the most important thing. Jesus gave him the same words Israel had always said. He did not add a word. He did not say, “Now hear the fuller truth: God is three in one.” He said “one Lord” and left it there.
Jesus did not correct the old confession. He confirmed it.
1 Corinthians 8:6
“But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.”
1 Corinthians 8:6
Here Paul fills in the name. One God: the Father. Not “the Trinity.” Not “the Godhead of three.” The Father.
And in the same sentence he puts Jesus beside the Father, not inside Him. One God, the Father, from whom are all things. One Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things. Two names, two persons, side by side.
Think of who Paul was writing to. These people had grown up with many gods. Paul says so in the verse before: “there be gods many, and lords many” (1 Corinthians 8:5). Their question was: which one is real? If the answer was “one God in three persons,” this was the place to say it. Paul said: one God, the Father. He was not speaking loosely. He was giving people a clear answer when they needed one.
Paul prayed the same way: “I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 3:14). The God he taught about and the God he knelt to are the same. The Father.
John 17:3
“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
John 17:3
This is Jesus Himself, praying to the Father the night before the cross. Listen to what He says.
“Thee the only true God.” Jesus calls the Father the only true God. Not the first, not the greatest: the only.
“And Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Jesus names Himself as the one who was sent. The one who is sent is not the one who sends.
And He says that eternal life is to know both: the only true God, and the one He sent. If I mix the two together into one, I lose the very thing Jesus said eternal life is.
John says the same in his first letter. He writes of “that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us” (1 John 1:2). The Father is the one we come to know. The Son is the one through whom we know Him.
1 Timothy 2:5
“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
1 Timothy 2:5
This seals the chain. One God: the Father. One mediator: and he is named “the man Christ Jesus.”
A mediator stands between two sides. Here the sides are God and men. And the mediator is a man. He is not the one God. He is the man who stands between, and brings us to God.
What this means
Scripture asks its own question and answers it. God is one. Jesus kept those words just as they were. Paul named the one God: the Father. Jesus called the Father the only true God and Himself the one He sent. And the one who stands between God and us is a man, Christ Jesus.
I do not have to solve a riddle to know God. He was never a riddle. He is the Father. And He sent a man, His Son, so that I could know Him. “This is life eternal.”
Connected chains
This cluster is built on To Whom the Word of God Came, My Lord and My God, The Head Is the Saviour of the Body and Christ Carries the Father's Name. It also goes hand in hand with The Fulness of God Is His Character.