6:4-1. אֶחָד or אַחַת is translated “only” or “alone” in Ezek. 7:5, “‘Evil, only evil, behold it is coming!” (MISB). The text means evil as opposed to good. It does not give us a definition of the nature of the evil as singular or one. It will be only evil, and not good. Also, “only she is my perfect dove; only she of her mother he chose; of the one bearing her” (MISB, Song 6:9). You can see that the text is not describing the internal nature of the chosen daughter. Also 1Kings 4:19, “and he was the only deputy who was in the land” (MISB). And most importantly, Zechariah 14:9, “And Yãhweh will be king over all the earth; in that day it will be Yãhweh alone, and his name alone.” In this last text, the phrase “Yãhweh alone” is exactly as it is in Hebrew in the Shema, but it is quite clear that it does not define the internal nature of Yahweh. Rather it states that His name is the only one as opposed to all other rule and authority that might try to usurp His name. (cf. pg. 15.2.1b “Yahweh...alone” Biblical Hebrew Syntax, Bruce K. Waltke).
Although, only or alone is proper in Deut. 6:4, the way to deal with those who say it must be one person is to point out that an entity called one can be made up of parts. For instance, “Then join them for yourself one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand” (Ezek. 37:17, MISB). Here we see that what is one is made up of two parts, the house of Israel and the house of Judah. And of course, the famous text in Genesis 2:24, “and they shall become one flesh” shows that what is regarded as one is not restricted to one person. And there are other texts that speak of the one Elohim, where “one” is meant and not “only”, and this is the way to explain those texts.
1. The main fault of the Trinitarian view is not that the Almighty is mostly a mystery to us, but that it is illogical, and causes the faithful to accept an illogical type of thinking—which eventually leads into other errors. Trinitarianism disposses the believer of their reason so that they have to take everything on authority. The logical fault is that trinitarians believe that three persons are each all of G-d and not just parts of G-d that make up One whole.
The trinity has another error, not one of logic, but one of speculation. It claims that the Almighty is threefold. But we are not told that in Scripture.
2. The main fault of Judaism is that it denies Messiah. It denies him in the form of the Angel of Yahweh. It denies that He appeared on Mt. Sinai, and denies that Moses saw Yahweh or spoke face to face with him, and denies that Yahweh appeared in human flesh in Yeshua.
Both the error of Christianity and Judaism can be traced to Greek Philosophy. Thomas Aquinas put it this way. What is perfect cannot change, because perfection can only change by becoming imperfect. This led to the conclusion that what is perfect cannot have parts or movement because that would entail change. So Judaism first adopted the idea that G-d is a singularity in the absolutest sense, and Christianity tried to introduce the same ideas after learning that Messiah is Yahweh, but with contradictory results. The Jewish view does not contradict logic. It does contradict reality.
This
Greek view of perfection is not biblical. The Scriptural view of
perfection allows diversity,
and allows change from one diversity of perfection
to another diversity of perfection.
Perfection is variety and variety is perfection. The alternative is to
reduce concepts of the Almighty to the static nature of a mere lump of rock, and
to do so is idolatry of the heart, just as Ezekiel said, the house of Israel has
taken idolatry into their hearts—and what I think he means is their philosophy
of the Almighty. The same is true of the house of Judah.
Let us now turn to our diagram at the left and show how to dispell the unreal philosophy of Judaism and the illogical one of Christianity on the nature of the Almighty. Our purpose here is not to describe the nature of the Almighty so much as to remove the logical and realistic roadblocks to knowing that Messiah is Yahweh. First consider the first two lines at the top with the dashes. Both are infinite, but both have gaps. If you take a few points away from infinity, you still have infinity, so each line is infinite in itself. Now where the first line has gaps, the second line does not. If you merge the two lines then they complement each other and form a perfectly solid line, which is an infinite line greater than the first two. The second line has more gaps than the first. If the first represents the Father, and the second the Son, then we can say one is greater than the other, yet both are still infinite, yet both are less than the One Almighty (represented by the gapless line).
Then consider the right angle representing all of the Almighty. The two sub angles, a, and b, are called complementary. Where one falls short of the whole right angle, the other fills up and completes the whole. This is what it means to say that the Son is the (τὸ πλήρωμα) “fullness” of the Almighty. The word actually means “complement”: “He is also head of the body, the assembly of Israel; and he is the beginning, the first in rank born¹ from the dead; so that he himself might come to have first place in everything. 19 For it was the Fãther’s good pleasure for all the complement to dwell in him” (Col. 1:19), and “For in him all the complement of the Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col. 2:9). On the word “complement” see BDAG, 3rd edition, pg. 829, "1b. that which makes something full/complete, supplement, complement". When we say that love fulfills the Torah, we do not mean that love is all of the Torah. Executing a convict is not love to the convict (cf. Exodus 20:6 on the limitations of love). What it means is that love completes or fills up the Torah to the very top.
Now the diagrams at the top are pathetically simplistic, but they are only to illustrate a point. We are told that the Spirit of Yahweh is sevenfold (cf. Zech. 3:9; Rev. 3:1, 4:5, 5:6; Isaiah 11:2), so the Spirit complements the Father and the Son in yet another dimension. The sevenfoldness of the Spirit, and the lack of the Scripture calling the Almighty “three” should give us pause in making any speculations about the absolute nature of the Almighty. Jewish objections (on the basis of אֶחָד or the immortality of the Almighty) to how the Almighty can die and rise again, or how he can be a man are simply answered in that only part of the Almighty did so, the infinitude of the Son being set aside and kept for him by the Father, and the life he lost being restored. But as there were gaps in the representative lines above to begin with, a temporary loss of life is just one of the gaps.
Therefore to say that there is a logical or realistic reason for denying the Almighty Son is simply to limit the Almighty in what he can do. The whole of the Almighy is the Father, Son, and Spirit together, yet the Son is Almighty, so is the Father, and so is the Spirit.
16:1a or "the springtime"; the word in Hebrew is האביב. It means "the green ears" or the "ripe ears", also defined in Hebrew as "the springtime"; The first thing one must notice is that the text says "Observe the month". It does not say "Observe the green ears"; There is a big difference! To observe the month means all the festivities of it, the solemnities, and other commandments pertaining to the first month. Why then does the text add "of the green ears" to "month"? The word Aviv is like our modern word "Spring". Spring refers to the springing of plants, but what if plants do not spring for some reason? Does that mean it is not spring? Not at all, because plants or no plants, when March 20 comes, "spring" has arrived. The technical time, March 20, is the day of the equinox, otherwise known as the first day of spring, and March is the month of "the spring". The etymological reference in the word "spring" is an observation of what is supposed to usually happen at or around March 20. Plants are supposed to come up or put on new growth.
In like manner, "the Aviv" or "the green ears" is an observation of what is usually supposed to happen in the first month. The phrase may be translated "Observe the month of the springtime". There is a difference though, and that is because the first month is a real month determined by the new moon, in which 15 or more days lie in the new year, its association with green ears is greater than that of March with spring, because March has a majority of its days in the old year. Almost without fail, the green barley ripens to the first edible state (in which it can be roasted) by the middle of the first month. Or to put it another way, the grain can be eaten just prior to the spring equinox in the Mediterranean Climate of Israel . Therefore, the observation of the association between the ripe ears and the first month. This association however has nothing to do with the month of Aviv being determined or figured by going out and looking for green barley—at least not any more than setting the time of the spring equinox has to do with springing plants. The relationship is indirect, coincidental, and observational.
The first month is still the month of "the Aviv" even if no green barely appears, such as in the wilderness, or desert, Alaska, or Timbuktu. That is to say, the first month is the proper time slot for the Aviv to appear in Israel . Therefore, it is called the month of the Aviv. If the Aviv does not appear when it is supposed to, then does this mean the proper time slot is miscalculated, or that the first month should be changed? No, the text does not say that. This would be like finding that one's wheat crop did not sprout by March 20 and then declaring that it was too early for March and that March should be postponed to April.
In the beginning, the Almighty set things up so that the year would be determined by the cycle of the sun, and the month by the cycle of the moon. The key text, Genesis 1:14, says nothing about trying to find barley to figure which month should be the first month of the months of the year. Nor does the present text mean that. It has been twisted out of shape by a small minority sect of Jews called Karaites. Further, Exodus 13:10 tells us that the timing of Passover from one year to the next is determined by a number of days from one year to the next, and not by barley. In other words, as soon as 365 days for the old year expire, and the equinox of the new year arrives "from days to days" (Exodus 13:10), then whatever 15th day of the moon comes next, on or after the equinox, then that day is the 15th day of the first month.
For every Torah observant believer in Messiah, there is another critical reason for getting this right. To say that barley determines the first month is to cast doubt on the time of Yeshua's death and resurrection, which was in AD 34. The date was March 24th (Aviv 14), a Wednesday, and the Passover Shabbat was Nisan 15, a Thursday. This was the first possible 15th of Aviv after the cycle of the year completed "days to days" (cf. Exodus 13:10). For the spring equinox that year was March 22 (Julian, due to precession of the equinoxes). To make everything depend on barley, is to cast doubt on this time, because one might argue that barley did not come in the normal time, and that therefore, the "preparation of the Passover" (John 19:14) was not March 24th that year. And to cast doubt on the true times and seasons of Yeshua our Messiah is exactly what Satan has been doing all these years, and an unbelieving minority sect of Jews fit into his plans quite well in this regard, and it is a shame to say that many torah "observant" Christians has recognized the trap of Rabbinic tradition only to flee from it and fall headlong into the trap of another less known tradition.
16:4 the first day; There is only one first day of unleavened bread in the Scripture, and this is the 15th of Aviv. The first Passover offering was sacrificed on the 14th of Aviv in the afternoon, and eaten the night following in remembrance of the redemption in Egypt from the death of the firstborn. The 14th of Aviv was reckoned from daybreak for the 14th to daybreak for the 15th. On the 15th of Aviv was the Exodus, being reckoned from daybreak for the 15th to daybreak for the 16th. They began the Exodus at daybreak for the 15th, and completed in the following night by daybreak for the 16th. The second passover offering was the festive offering, and was offered on the afternoon of the 15th and eaten in the remainder of that day and during the night to remember the Exodus. It is the second passover offering that the text speaks about, a point that is made crystal clear in vs. 8 which states that only six days remained in the feast. Daybreak to daybreak (sunrise to sunrise) was the default means of counting days for sacrificial offerings, and all other matters, except for Sabbaths. The reckoning of the days from sunrise to sunrise is confirmed by Lev. 7:15 also.
16:5 the Passover; there were two passover offerings, one sacrificed on the 14th and eaten that night, and a second sacrificed on the 15th and eaten in the remaining day part of the 15th and in the night following up to daybreak for the 16th of Aviv. The Passover in Egypt was from daybreak starting the 14th of Aviv to daybreak starting the 15th of Aviv, the day being reckoned from sunrise to sunrise, and the anniversary of the Exodus was from daybreak starting the 15th day to daybreak starting the 16th day. The commandment chronologically applies to the second Passover offering on the 15th day. (see vs. 8 for the proof of this).
16:8 six days; Only six days remained to unleavened bread. This is because the Passover offering mentioned in vs. 6-7 was the festive offering toward sunset on the 15th day of Aviv. They were to eat it in the remainder of that day, and during the night following the 15th day, as this is the night that they went out of Egypt. The anniversary day ended at daybreak, and this is when they were to return to their tents. At daybreak on the 16th of Aviv, only six days of unleavened bread remained.