The Testimony of Singular Pronouns

Anyone who has at least a grade school education knows that a pronoun is defined as “a word that takes the place of a noun.”¹ Pronouns, whether singular or plural, are not complicated things. Indeed, child development experts tell us that by the age of “36 months, toddlers have mastered most pronouns.”²

In Scripture, what pronouns are used to refer to Yahuwah and tell us about who He is? Do they support the doctrine of the Trinity, which states, in part, that there is one God who exists in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Or do the pronouns tell a different story? Let’s examine Scripture to find out.

The Bible clearly and repeatedly states that Yahuwah is one.

Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel! Yahuwah is our God, Yahuwah is one!

John 5:44 [Yahushua speaking] “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?

Scripture names this one God the Father³. Take note of Yahushua’s prayer in John 17, where he acknowledges that the Father is the only true God.

John 17:1 and 3 Yahushua spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father...³ “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Yahushua Christ whom You have sent.

That God is one is further evidenced by the thousands of singular personal pronouns that are used in reference to Him. For example, in the following verses, Yahuwah uses the singular pronouns “I” and Me” to refer to Himself.

Isaiah 45:5-6 “I am Yahuwah, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no god. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; ⁶ That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides Me. I am Yahuwah, and there is no other.

Six times in this passage, Yahuwah refers to Himself as a singular person.

Additionally, countless other verses refer to Yahuwah using other singular pronouns. For example,

Deuteronomy 4:35 “To you it was shown that you might know that Yahuwah, He is God; there is no other besides Him.

We would all agree that grammatically, “Him” refers to one person.

Another example of the use of singular pronouns about Yahuwah is found in the following passage:

Psalm 86:10 For You are great and do wondrous deeds; You alone are God.

In the original Hebrew, the word “You” in the above passage is a singular personal pronoun, not the plural or collective pronoun “you.” As such, the singular “you” represents only one person.⁴

Time and time again, Scripture uses singular pronouns to refer to Yahuwah. This is quite surprising given that the doctrine of the Trinity states God is a plurality of persons. If the one God of the Bible was three persons, we would expect to find Yahuwah described in a way that would reflect this multi-person dimension. Instead of singular pronouns, we should find countless instances where the three-person God is spoken of in terms of plural pronouns such as “we,” “our,” “us,” “they,” or “them.” Instead, we find the consistent testimony that Yahuwah is one person, as evidenced by the consistent and emphatic use of singular pronouns.

Many Trinitarians overlook the thousands of instances in Scripture where Yahuwah is described in terms of singular personal pronouns to focus on a mere four passages where plural personal pronouns are used in conjunction with Yahuwah.⁵ Genesis 1:26 is one of the passages:

Genesis 1:26 Then Elohim said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

However, Trinitarian scholars admit that the pronouns “us” and “our” in this and the remaining three passages do not refer to a triune God but instead to Yahuwah and His angelic court. For example, Gordon J. Wenham, in his Word Biblical Commentary on Genesis writes, “From Philo onward, Jewish commentators have generally held that the plural [in Genesis 1:26, ‘Let us make man….’] is used because God is addressing his heavenly court, i.e., the angels (cf. Isa. 6:8).” Wenham reveals that this view changed in the second century with the advent of certain church fathers when he writes, “From the Epistle of Barnabas and Justin Martyr, who saw the plural as a reference to Christ, Christians have traditionally seen this verse as foreshadowing the Trinity.” Nonetheless, Wenham powerfully concludes that “It is now universally admitted that this was not what the plural meant to the original author.”⁷ In other words, there was a time when the second-century church fathers deviated from the original Biblical interpretation of the “let us” passages. Rightly, Wenham notes today’s scholarship has corrected the errant course:

We must ask the question, why, if God is comprised of three persons, does Scripture never refer to God using plural pronouns? Quite simply because the doctrine is not to be found in the Bible, a truth to which even Trinitarian scholars will attest. For example, The Encyclopedia of Religion states, “Theologians today are in agreement that the Hebrew Bible does not contain a doctrine of the Trinity.” ⁸ In addition, The Encyclopedia of Ethics and Religion agrees when it states, “There is in the Old Testament no indication of distinction in the Godhead; it is an anachronism to find either the doctrine of the Incarnation or that of the Trinity in its pages.”⁹

Not only is the doctrine not to be found in the Old Testament, but it is also absent from the New Testament. Anthony T. Hanson, professor, theologian, and prolific author, writes, “No responsible New Testament scholar would claim that the doctrine of the Trinity was taught by Yahushua, or preached by the earliest Christians, or consciously held by any writer of the New Testament.”¹⁰

Perhaps professor and theologian Charles Ryrie, sums it up best in his respected work Basic Theology when he writes,

“Many doctrines are accepted by evangelicals as being clearly taught in the Scripture for which there are no proof texts. The doctrine of the Trinity furnishes the best example of this. It is fair to say that the Bible does not clearly teach the doctrine of the Trinity… In fact, there is not even one proof text, if by proof text we mean a verse or passage that ‘clearly’ states that there is one God who exists in three persons”.¹¹

How, then, did the one God of the Bible become a tri-personal God? Historical records reveal that the doctrine of the Trinity was developed over almost four centuries. Again, this is a truth to which Trinitarian scholars will attest. Professor Hanson states the doctrine was, “in fact slowly worked out in the course of the first few centuries in an attempt to give an intelligible doctrine of God.”¹²

Furthermore, The New Encyclopedia Britannica, in its article on the Trinity, explains,

“Neither the word Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament… The doctrine developed gradually over several centuries and through many controversies. . .It was not until the 4th century that the distinctness of the three and their unity were brought together in a single orthodox doctrine of one essence and three persons”¹³

Language, for it to be understood, must use words that have an agreed-upon meaning. When a singular personal pronoun is used instead of a noun, we all know that it refers to a singular person. “He” refers to a singular male person and not to a “they.” As stated earlier, according to childhood development experts, even a three-year-old understands this basic principle.

When Scripture, which Yahuwah inspires,¹⁴ refers to Yahuwah using singular personal pronouns, we must rightly accept that “He” means Yahuwah is a singular person, especially when it is affirmed throughout Scripture that Yahuwah is One. The doctrine of the Trinity may claim that Yahuwah is three persons in one essence, but the pronouns tell a different story. A testimony to which we would do well to heed.

¹ https://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/pronoun.asp

² www.theroadmap.ualberta.ca/understandings

³ While there are far too many Scriptures that identify Yahuwah as being the Father to reference them all, here are some: Malachi 2:10; John 6:27; 8:54; 20:17; Romans 1:17; 1 Corinthians 1:3; 8:6; 2 Corinthians 1:2; Galatians 1:3; Ephesians 1:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:2, etc.

⁴Compare to Deuteronomy 4:1 where the plural form of “you” is used in reference to a plurality, namely the people of Israel

⁵ Genesis 1:26, 3:22; 11:7 and Isaiah 6:8

⁶ Genesis 3:22; 11:7 and Isaiah 6:8

⁷ Gordon Wenham, Word Biblical Commentary on Genesis, (Word Books, 1987), p. 27

⁸ The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade (Macmillan Publishing, 1987), Vol. 15., p. 54.

⁹ The Encyclopedia of Ethics and Religion. Edited by James Hastings. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, Vol. 6, 1919), p. 254

¹⁰ Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Image of the Invisible God. (London: SCM Press, 1982), p.87

¹¹ Charles C. Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth. (Moody Publishers: Chicago, IL, 1999), p. 89

¹² Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Image of the Invisible God. (London: SCM Press, 1982), p.87.

¹³ The New Encyclopedia Britannica (1985 edition, Micropaedia, Vol. 11, p. 928).

¹⁴ 2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:20, 3:16

This is a non-WLC article. Source: https://oneGodworship.com/the-testimony-of-singular-pronouns/

We have taken out from the original article all pagan names and titles of the Father and Son, and have replaced them with the original given names. Furthermore, we have restored in the Scriptures quoted the names of the Father and Son, as they were originally written by the inspired authors of the Bible. -WLC Team