One way to test what the Bible teaches about God is simply to walk the line from beginning to end and read what it says, in its own words, without importing anything. That is what this article does. Every passage is quoted from the King James Version and can be checked.

What Moses was given

The confession God gave Israel is a statement about number:

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:" (Deuteronomy 6:4)

Moses had already pressed the point twice in the same book: "the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him" (Deuteronomy 4:35), and "the LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else" (Deuteronomy 4:39). The first commandment assumes it: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3).

This was not one theme among many. It was the sentence Israel recited.

What the prophets kept saying

Centuries later the wording has not moved.

• "I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me" (Isaiah 45:5)
• "I am God, and there is none else" (Isaiah 45:22)
• "before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me" (Isaiah 43:10)
• "in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one" (Zechariah 14:9)
• "hath not one God created us?" (Malachi 2:10)

Solomon prayed it at the temple: "that all the people of the earth may know that the LORD is God, and that there is none else" (1 Kings 8:60). David said it: "there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee" (2 Samuel 7:22). The Levites said it: "Thou, even thou, art LORD alone" (Nehemiah 9:6). The psalmist said it: "thou art God alone" (Psalm 86:10).

What Jesus said when He was asked directly

A scribe asked Jesus which commandment was first of all. He had every opportunity to revise or expand the answer. He quoted the Shema:

"And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:" (Mark 12:29)

The scribe replied, "Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he" (Mark 12:32). Jesus' assessment of that reply is recorded: "when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God" (Mark 12:34).

A first-century Jewish scribe restated strict monotheism back to Jesus, and Jesus commended the answer.

Elsewhere Jesus prayed, "this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3), and told Philip, "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9).

What the apostles wrote after the resurrection

If the understanding of God changed after Calvary and Pentecost, the letters are where we would see it. Instead the same sentence keeps appearing.

• "there is none other God but one" (1 Corinthians 8:4)
• "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" (1 Corinthians 8:6)
• "One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all" (Ephesians 4:6)
• "there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5)
• "God is one" (Galatians 3:20)
• "it is one God, which shall justify" (Romans 3:30)
• "Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well" (James 2:19)

And of Christ they wrote, "in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9), and "God was manifest in the flesh" (1 Timothy 3:16).

The words the Bible uses, and the words it does not

This part is simply checkable. Search the King James Version for the vocabulary most often used to explain God's nature, and here is what you find:

• "one God" appears 8 times.
• "trinity" appears 0 times.
• "triune" appears 0 times.
• "three persons" appears 0 times.
• "co-equal" and "consubstantial" appear 0 times.
• "God the Son" appears 0 times. Scripture says "Son of God" and "the Son."
• "eternally begotten" appears 0 times.

That observation is not an argument about who is right. It is a fact about vocabulary, and anyone can verify it in a concordance in about a minute. The point is only this: when we explain a passage, it is worth knowing which of our words came from the text and which came from somewhere else. Terms that are not in Scripture may still be useful shorthand, but they carry no authority the text itself has not given them.

Where that leaves a reader

From Moses to James, across roughly fifteen centuries and dozens of writers, the wording never varies: God is one, and there is none else. Jesus affirmed that confession when asked point blank, and commended a scribe who repeated it back to Him. The apostles kept writing it after the resurrection.

Whatever conclusions a reader draws about how the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost relate, they have to be drawn inside that fence, because Scripture builds the fence on nearly every page and never once takes it down.

For a related study, see our article on baptism and the name given in Matthew 28:19, and use the study tool to read any of the passages above in their full context.