It was central in the life of Abraham who, before God found him and justified him based on the righteousness of the promised Messiah, dwelled in Ur of the Chaldees, a land where they worshiped many false gods. Abraham sought and trusted in the one God who justifies the ungodly based on the merits of Christ (Romans 4:5). It was central to Israel's existence under the Old Covenant. God had brought them out of Egypt, an idolatrous nation, and made a covenant of promise with them. The first words God spoke to them concerning this covenant was, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD" (Deuteronomy 6:4).

It was vital that they give their allegiance to the one true and living God because they lived in the midst of nations that worshiped many false gods. Israel was a monotheistic (one God) society, whereas other nations were polytheistic (many gods). God revealed Himself as the one true God. He commanded them to worship Him and Him alone. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3). The Bible, using human language, describes God as "a jealous God" (Exodus 20:5). This means He alone is to be worshiped, and He requires a worship free from all superstition. God sets Himself before us in order that we may look to Him alone for all that is good for us. He claims His own just right in order that His glory may not be transferred elsewhere.

One proof that men by nature do not know the true and living God is that we by nature will transfer God's glory elsewhere (Romans 1:18-25). This is proven by two things that are true of every person by nature: (1) "There is none that seeketh after God" (Romans 3:11), i.e., there are none who seek the one true and living God. We seek a god, but only a god of our imagination. Until we, like Abraham, seek the one true God who justifies sinners based on the righteousness of Christ and expect Him to fulfill His promise in Christ, we do not seek the one true God. (2) By nature we have "no fear of God before our eyes" (Rom. 3:18), i.e., no reverence or respect for the honor of God's character in the salvation of sinners conditioned on Christ. This is proven in the fact that we by nature believe something other than Christ's righteousness is the ground of salvation. By nature we do not believe God's Gospel, His promise of salvation conditioned on Christ alone. To this degree we fail to give God alone the preeminence in salvation. To this degree the glory of God is obscured and all men by nature sink into idolatry.

In the New Testament Christ correctly identified Himself as God. He was not claiming to be another god. He echoed the teaching of Moses. In Mark 12:28, a scribe asked our Lord which of the commandments is the main commandment. Christ answered -

The first of all the commandments <is>, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this <is> the first commandment. And the second <is> like, <namely> this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment than these. -- Mark 12:29-31

Christ said we are to love God with undivided commitment, devotion and loyalty, while at the same time claiming to be that very God - "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30). If Christ were claiming to be another god, He never would have made the statements He made to the scribe in Mark 12. He would have had to say, "Split your allegiance between the two of us." We are going to talk about the doctrine of the Trinity in another message, but let me say here that the Trinity is not opposed to the unity, the oneness of God. The Trinity actually enables us to form right conceptions of the oneness of God. It presents to us three Persons, not three gods, but one God who subsists in three Persons. The oneness of God is found in His nature or essence so that there is but one divine nature or essence who subsists in three distinct Persons. And by virtue of that subsistence, each Person of the Godhead is God.

The oneness of God is central and vital to believers today. Without a belief in the one God, there can be no belief in the Gospel and Jesus Christ whom the one God has sent to fulfill all the conditions of salvation. This was just as true for all the Old Testament believers (Isaiah 45:20-22, for example). The Apostle Paul emphasized this often. In his first letter to the Corinthians he wrote -

There is none other God but one. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) But 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, and we by him. -- 1 Corinthians 8:4-6

What was Paul saying? That we receive all things from both the Father and Christ. How can this be so? Because in essence they are one and the same. God is one. So the Scriptures emphasize the oneness of God. Consider the following:

(1) God is one - Deuteronomy 6:4; Malachi 2:10; Mark 12:29-32; 1 Timothy 2:5; Ephesians 4:5-6; James 2:19.

(2) There is no other god or none beside the true and only God - Deuteronomy 4:35-39; 1 Samuel 2:2; 2 Samuel 7:22; 1 Kings 8:60; Isaiah 44:6-8; Isaiah 45:5-6, 21-22; 46:9; Joel 2:27.

(3) There are none to be compared to Him - Exodus 8:10; 9:14; 15:11; 2 Samuel 7:22; 1 Kings 8:23; 2 Chronicles 6:14; Isaiah 40:25; 46:5; Jeremiah 10:6.

(4) He alone is God - 2 Samuel 22:32; Nehemiah 9:6; Psalm 18:31; 86:10; Isaiah 37:16; 43:10-12; 46:9; John 17:3; 1 Corinthians 8:4-6.

(5) He alone is to be worshiped - Exodus 20:5; 34:14; 1 Samuel 7:3; 2 Kings 17:36; Matthew 4:10; Romans 1:25; Revelation 19:10.

(6) No others are to be accepted as God - Exodus 20:3; Deuteronomy 5:7; Isaiah 42:8; Hosea 13:4.

(7) He is supreme over all other so-called gods - Deuteronomy 10:17; Joshua 22:22; Psalm 96:4-5; Jeremiah 14:22; 1 Corinthians 8:4-6.

(8) He is the only true God - Jeremiah 10:10; John 17:3; 1 Thessalonians 1:9.

Belief in the existence of God and belief in one God is not enough in and of itself to bring a person to a saving knowledge of the one true and living God.

Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. -- James 2:19

But without faith <it is> impossible to please <him>: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and <that> he is a rewarder them that diligently seek him. -- Hebrews 11:6

The revelation of the one God is given so that sinners might seek the one true and living God and turn from their idols, their superstitious thoughts about God.

For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. -- 1 Thessalonians 1:9

Because God is the one God, the true and living God, He holds men responsible to seek and worship Him alone, to submit to Him, and to trust in Him. Consider the following:

I. ONE GOD MEANS ONLY ONE GOD TO SEEK AND TO WORSHIP

By nature men know there is a god, but by nature we do not know the true and living God. God enjoins that He alone is to be sought after and worshiped. He requires a worship that is free from all superstition. He sets Himself before us in order that we may look to Him alone. He claims His own just right in order that His glory may not be transferred to anyone else. Men search for deity, but their search is corrupted by self-love, self-righteousness, and ignorance. Refer again to Romans 3:11. As we have said before, men by nature think God is one like themselves, therefore, they seek after an idol.

God cannot be sought after, trusted and worshiped unless we know His attributes, His glory. And His attributes are revealed in the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. God makes Himself known in Christ who is the express image of the Father, and who is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. If we are to seek God savingly and know God savingly in order to trust and worship God savingly, we must seek Him and know Him as He is revealed in Christ, the one sent of the Father to fulfill all the conditions of our salvation (Matthew 11:27; John 17:3).

II. ONE GOD MEANS ONE STANDARD FOR ALL

When God created Adam, He set Adam in the garden and He gave Adam the commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This tree represented God's sovereign authority over Adam. It was God who set the standard for all. Adam fell when he took sides with Satan against God in desiring to set his own standard. Satan told him -

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. -- Genesis 3:5

Men always seek to be "as gods" when they insist upon setting their own standard for right and wrong, for saved and lost. God's standard of righteousness declares all men and women without exception to be guilty before God. God's standard is perfect righteousness, and this is the standard for all, Jew and Gentile (Rom. 2:1-3). The problem with sinful man is he does not want to submit to God's standard of righteousness and salvation (Rom. 8:7). This is evidenced when sinners refuse to believe that God is so holy that He will not save a sinner who is either ignorant of or not submitted to the imputed righteousness of Christ as the only ground of salvation (Rom. 10:1-3).

God says there are none righteous, no, not one. God says there are none good but Himself. God says that by deeds of law no flesh shall be justified. But sinful men and women insist upon believing salvation conditioned on themselves in opposition to God's standard. People today who teach and believe that Christ died for all without exception and that salvation is conditioned on faith are denying God's standard. God's standard says that righteousness is the only condition for salvation. God's standard says that men can only find righteousness by faith in Christ. Saving faith receives and pleads Christ and His righteousness as the only condition for salvation. Those who speak peace to sinners who are either ignorant of or not submitted to Christ's righteousness are denying God's standard, seeking to be "as gods," just like Adam in kinship with Satan. God's standard of judgment is in Christ. And that brings us to the third point.

III. ONE GOD MEANS ONE WAY OF SALVATION -

For <there is> one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; -- 1 Timothy 2:5

There is one true God, and because this is so, everyone must come to Him for salvation. The Bible makes it clear that there is only one Savior. God alone is the source and originator of salvation. This one God has determined to save a multitude of guilty sinners chosen out of Adam's fallen race. But this one God is holy. He cannot save one sinner apart from His holiness being honored. So it is impossible for Him to save sinners if salvation is conditioned on those sinners in any way. So this one God appointed His Son to be their Mediator, Surety, Representative and Substitute. He conditioned all of their salvation upon His Son and sent Him into the world to become incarnate and to satisfy law and justice for them in His obedience unto death. This one God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to establish a righteousness that would enable Him to be both a just and justifier. He is the one God who declares the end from the beginning, who works all things according to the good pleasure of His will. He is the one who sends righteousness by His beloved Son, and there is no god beside Him (Isaiah 46:9-13).

This one God commands sinners to believe His promise of salvation conditioned on this one Savior. He commands sinners to enter into judgment with Him, a holy God, based on the righteousness Christ has worked out for them. This one God promises to save sinners who seek Him, find Him, and trust Him as the God who justifies the ungodly based on the imputed righteousness of Christ. Herein is revealed the only standard of Judgment and the only way of salvation. This one God has commanded all men everywhere to seek Him and to repent. In Acts 17, the Apostle Paul is preaching to idolaters in Greece. He tells them about the one God they do not know (Acts 17:22-23). He begins there teaching of God's character attributes. This is revealed --

{27} That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:

These things are revealed to encourage sinners not to fashion a god after their own image or imagination but to seek God as He is revealed in His word through Christ as the one who justifies the ungodly based on the righteousness of Christ.

{28} For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. {29} Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.

Everything we are and have is to be attributed to God's power and goodness to us providentially. We are never to attribute these things to our own power and goodness. We are all children of God by creation (not by adoption). We are born into this world as fallen, depraved sinners who have rebelled against God. By nature we are in Satan's family. But by creation we are all children of God. Therefore we are responsible to seek the Creator, the one true God and not to fashion our own god.

{30a} "And the times of this ignorance God winked at.

God despised the willful ignorance and idolatry of the Gentiles for many, many years, and as an evidence of His contempt and indignation, He overlooked them and gave them no new revelation other than what they had by light of nature and natural conscience. God is an unknown God to those who have only the light of nature. Many things can be known of God by light of nature but not that knowledge which is necessary for salvation, the knowledge of God's glory revealed in Christ and salvation based on His righteousness alone. It takes the light of the Gospel according to God's word to see this. So God left them in their ignorance and He was just in doing so.

{1:30b} But now commandeth all men every where to repent.

This repentance is a change of mind concerning who God is, what He is like, what it takes to satisfy Him. It involves a change of mind concerning ourselves as sinners to see the impossibility of salvation based on our character and conduct. It is a change of mind concerning Christ and the ground of salvation, the righteousness of Christ imputed, which excludes every other ground and exposes our idolatry and dead works. It requires an admission of idolatry and dead works. Why repent?

{31} Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by <that> man whom he hath ordained; <whereof> he hath given assurance unto all <men>, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

(1) The day of Judgement! God has appointed a day when He will judge the world in righteousness. How righteous do we have to be? We must be as righteous as that Person whom God appointed and whom God raised from the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ. The great issue of the Judgment is this: DO YOU HAVE A RIGHTEOUSNESS THAT ANSWERS THE DEMANDS OF GOD'S HOLY LAW AND JUSTICE? It is impossible for any sinner to have it based on character and conduct. If anyone has it, it is only by imputation, God freely giving it. We then receive it by faith.

(2) Assurance unto all men. God has given full proof of this--that sinners who are either ignorant of or not submitted to the righteousness of Christ will spend eternity in hell, and those borne of God, in Christ, will spend eternity in heaven. How? "He hath raised Him from the dead!" Christ as their Great High Priest paid their debt to both law and justice. He represents His sheep. He magnified and satisfied God's holiness, faithfulness and truth on their behalf. They are pronounced righteous and holy in this life and at Judgment based solely on Christ's righteousness and holiness imputed.

IV. ONE GOD MEANS ONE REDEEMED PEOPLE - All who come into the kingdom of God by His grace in Christ Jesus are equally saved, equally justified, equally holy and sanctified, equally fit for Heaven, and equally certain for Heaven all based on the righteousness of Christ freely imputed and received by faith. There are many differences amongst God's people. There are differences in gender, race, nationality, economic status. There are also differences in gifts of the Spirit, rates of growth and knowledge. But none of these differences recommend any one of God's people nor do they make one more saved or holier than another.

The universality of the Gospel is bound to the oneness of God, for Paul wrote -

Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? of the Gentiles also: Seeing <it is> one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith. -- Romans 3:29-30

One God and Father of all, who <is> above all, and through all, and in you all. -- Ephesians 4:6

Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new <man>, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond <nor> free: but Christ <is> all, and in all. -- Colossians 3:9-11

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace <be> on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. -- Galatians 6:14-16