This final episode reemphasizes what makes the God of Christianity unique, compared to the those of Judaism and Islam. The program unpacks the fork in the road, Christ Himself, based on Romans 10:9. Christians believe that Jesus was God incarnate who rose from the dead. He was given all authority and dominion and made judge over all creation. He is the chief cornerstone upon which the Jewish Law and prophets are made complete. Jews are admonished by Peter to receive the Messiah or be "cut off." (Acts 3:23) True Jews are those who believe Jesus was the Messiah who rose from the dead, and Jews who don't have essentially forfeited their "jewishness." According to 1 John 2:22-23 rejection of the Son means one no longer has Yahweh as his God. Therefore unbelieving Jews do not believe in the same god, since they reject the Word of God who explained the Father. (John 1:14, 18) Since Muslims also reject the deity of Christ and the resurrection, they also do not believe in the same god. Critically the god of Islam is not remotely like the god of Judaism revealed in the Tanach (Old Testament). Allah is the author of evil, and has no knowable essence. He is so "wholly other" that a "relationship" with him is problematic if not impossible. "Relationships" are based on the free-will interactions between 2 beings. Since Allah wills everything, good and evil, belief and unbelief, "free will" between men and God doesn't exist. So "relationships" are precluded. In contrast with Islam, the god of Jews and Christians thrives off of relationships. The entire Bible presumes that God wants a relationship with humanity. And the logical outgrowth of this God is the incarnation of Christ. The Triune God, revealed only in Christianity, is therefore not the same as the god of Judaism and Islam.
The Holy Spirit is Clearly a Person
This episode expounds on the testimony of the personhood of the Holy Spirit from the New Testament. While Jews affirm the deity of the Holy Spirit, they deny that the Spirit is a distinct person of the godhead, mostly claiming that references to the Holy Spirit are simply manifestations of God. But this "manifestation" rubric doesn't adequately do justice to the clear personal qualities attributed to the Holy Spirit, who can be lied to (Acts 5:3), tested (Acts 5:9), resisted (Acts 7:51), insulted (Hebrews 10:29), grieved (Ephesians 4:30), and blasphemed (Matthew 12:32). Rejection of the distinct personhood of the Holy Spirit therefore means that Jews do not believe in the same God as Christians.
The Personhood of the Holy Spirit
This episode surveys references in the Old Testament to the Holy Spirit, ultimately arguing that many can not be explained by appealing to the personification of God's creative activity. Instead of finding distinctive persons in the Godhead, Jews typically understand references to God's Spirit as poetic expressions of God's working in creation, as seen in Gen 1:2 , where the Spirit of God hovering over the waters signals the beginning of creation week. The personification argument is however unconvincingly in light of several verses that ascribe indisputable qualities of personhood to the Spirit's activity. The Spirit grieves (Isaiah 63:10) and instructs (Nehemiah 9:20), and Micah even queries if He is "impatient." (Micah 2:7) Some verses draw distinctions within the Godhead: prophets speak the words of the Lord that are sent "by His Spirit." (Zechariah 7:12) Interpreting the "Spirit" of God as merely the personification of God's power or creative activity doesn't square with descriptions of personhood and the Spirit's apparent distinct presence within the godhead. The Biblical evidence of the personhood of the Holy Spirit is of course very relevant to the question, whether Jews and Christians "believe" in the same god.
God the ‘Son’ in the Old Testament?
Most of us know that the distinctive difference between Christians and Jews is that Christians believe in the deity of Christ whereas Jews do not, some contending that the deity of Christ, God the Son and the trinity were doctrines not revealed till the New Testament. This program begins a series of episodes explicating common questions surrounding these doctrines, highlighting the pertinent Old Testament Scriptures that point to the fuller revelation of the godhead in the Christian faith. This episode begins with Psalm 2, noting that the Messiah is called "my Son," and is "begotten" in time, "today I have begotten you." If Christ is the ETERNAL son of God, how can He be begotten "today?" This episode demonstrates from several Scriptures that God the Father "begat" God the Son upon Christ's accession as king. Luke cites the resurrection as the fulfillment of Psalm 2: "God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it also written in the second Psalm, 'You are my Son; today I have begotten you.'" (Acts 13:33) While the average Jew living prior to Christ probably did not consider God's future Messiah as "God the Son," much less one of the three persons comprising the Trinity, he nevertheless hoped in the future absolute rule of God's Messiah, as Christ's final entry into Jerusalem suggests. Together with the distinctive elements of Judaism introduced in the last 2 lessons (justifying faith in God's provision and God's dealing with man through a perfect representative), hope in God's Messiah, make up the core of Old Testament Judaism, which naturally carried over into New Testament Christianity.