Most Christians are taught that the one God of the Bible is “one Being in three Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—who share the same divine substance.” This formulation shifts the identity of the “one God” to an abstract “divine essence” or “substance” shared by three Persons. For the biblical writers, however, the one God is not some impersonal “substance” (a What) but a personal “He,” “Him.” This is why He is given the personal divine name Yahweh in Deuteronomy 6:4.

In Mark 12:29, Jesus affirms this as the first and greatest all the commandments. Note how the scribe later approvingly responds to Jesus:

“You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that He is one, and there is no other besides Him” (Mark 12:32–34).

For Jesus and the scribe, “our God”—Yahweh—is a single “He,” not “one essence in three persons.”

Jesus defines eternal life in the Kingdom age to come as knowing the Father as “the only true God” and Jesus as His Messiah whom He has sent (i.e., commissioned).

There are two distinct parties in these statements:

1. “You, the only true God” (the Father);
2. “Jesus the Messiah, whom you have sent” (God’s agent).

Paul echoes this in 1 Corinthians 8:6, drawing on Israel’s prophetic monotheism (cf. Mal. 2:10). For us Christians, “there is only one God, the Father.”

Notice how unnatural these verses would sound if Jesus and the Father shared one divine “essence” or “substance”:

• Acts 2:22: “Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God…”
• Acts 2:36: “God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
• Acts 3:13: “The God of Abraham… has glorified His servant Jesus.”

Jesus identifies himself in this way post-resurrection:

• “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17).
• “The one who conquers… I will write on him the name of my God… and the name of the city of my God” (Rev. 3:12).

The point is simple: if Jesus says he has a God, he cannot be that one and the same God.

Paul summarizes it clearly in 1 Timothy 2:5–6:

“There is one God and one mediator between God and humanity, Messiah Jesus, who is himself human. He gave himself as a ransom for all, a testimony at the appointed time.”

The one God and the one human mediator are clearly distinct. And however one defines death, God cannot die!

As for the Spirit of God, the phrase denotes God’s own Spirit—depending on context, His power and presence at work (Ps. 33:6; Luke 1:35). Scripture never defines a third divine Person called “God the Holy Spirit,” nor does it present believers praying to or worshiping the Spirit.

So let us hold to the simple, unmysterious Jewish-Christian unitary monotheism of the patriarchs, the prophets, the messianic kings, Jesus, and his apostles:

• The one God of Israel—Yahweh—is the Father alone;
• Jesus is His uniquely sent, human Son, exalted as the lord Messiah (never the LORD God);
• And the Spirit is God’s own Spirit, active from creation and now at work in a distinctive way by or through His Son.