The King James Version translation of James 2:19 reads: “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well…” The New King James Version reads much the same. A more accurate translation, however, is: “You believe that God is one; you do well…” (Interlinear Greek-English New Testament)
James is not commending his Jewish countrymen for believing that there is only one God, which is a fundamental fact of the Jewish faith. He is commending them for believing that God IS one, singular. I am not being pedantic: there is a difference! James is referring to the Shema of Moses, found in Deuteronomy 6:4 — “Hear O Israel, the LORD our God is one God, the LORD is one.”
Jesus quoted this text (Mark 12:29). The point is that God is not the One True God among many other so-called gods, but rather that He IS one in His Person, one in nature and being. One is the only number that cannot be divided. But it has been fractionalized theologically. Do not do that but instead hold to what Moses said, that Jesus confirmed, and that James quoted.
Who then is Jesus? I’m happy to answer this question by quoting from the New Testament. Jesus is the Son of God by a unique “overshadowing” of the virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. He is also the Son of man through that same Mary when she gave birth to Jesus.
Jesus was the word made flesh. He was the image of the invisible God. So much so that to see him is as such is to see his Father. Not with the eye but with the heart. Not by observation but by revelation.
Rid your mind of the errror of the Jehovah Witness “New World” New Testament, which states that the word was “a” God. The word was made flesh — made truly human — in the person of Jesus Christ. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself…” Cults thrive on misquoting the Bible, but genuine believers in Jesus Christ love the truths of God’s word and seek “daily bread” (“rhema”) revelations!
Genesis informs us that God created the world, nature, Adam, and later Eve from Adam, and declared His Creation “good”. Complete. Perfect. But Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s clear command and sin entered the world and death through sin. We know that since then “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”.
John 1:1 begins with “In the beginning…” This paralels Genesis !:1, “In the beginning” (God created the heavens and the earth). So, John 1:1 points to a new creation, a spiritual one. Paul the Apostle later refers to “the first Adam” and his fall, and then to Jesus as “the last Adam”, the one who did not fall and that God created all things new in Christ. That if anyone be “in Christ” he or she is a “new creation”.
I have digressed from the Shema so that the reader will know that the story and the glory of Jesus Christ’s unity with his Father; relationship to the Father; fellowship and unity of purpose with the Father: all these point to his unquestionable Divinity; that he is the Son of the living God.
So, do not fall back into defensive pose thinking I am challenging or (God forbid) denying the reality of the Lord’s Divinity! I am not.
My aim is to elicit a positive response to the truth of the One True God of Moses, Jesus, and James; not to provoke a negative and defensive reaction against that undeniable biblical Truth. The divisive issue of our time is the misunderstanding by the Jews in the time of Jesus that has persisted for 2,000 years: to wit, that Jesus stated that he was God; which to them was and is a blasphemy.
God is a Spirit. Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. How to reconcile this apparent paradox? The answer is not to turn away from the truth of the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father, for to do so would be to deny the greatest challenge of the time of Jesus and to our time.
I relish the challenge, and look to God for more revelation from His word to my truth-hungry heart. Sola Scriptura? Absolutely. Sola Gratia? Of course. Sola Fide? Yes!