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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
On this Feast of the Holy Trinity, I ask you: Is God Triune? You cannot find the words “Triune” or “Trinity” in the Bible, but the Bible certainly teaches that there are three blessed Persons of one divine Substance, or at least we faithful Lutherans believe, teach, and confess that the Bible teaches that. Religious Judaism and Islam share at least some holy writings with us but deny the Holy Trinity, as do Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons. Even some groups that might call themselves “Christian” deny teachings such as the teaching about the Trinity. Does our worshiping “one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance” really matter? If such worship does really matter, why does it matter? This morning as we reflect on the Gospel Reading appointed today from St. John’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, we do so under the theme “The ‘so what’ of the Triune God”.
You and I should care about the Gospel Reading with its report of most of the Lord Jesus’s conversation with the Pharisee named Nicodemus (see John 3:18-21), as we should find ourselves in that Reading, as God reveals to us “The ‘so what’ of the Triune God” through it. For, in the Gospel Reading, Jesus speaks to you and me of the Holy Spirit’s birthing in us belief in the Son sent by the Father in order to save the world, including you and me. And, we certainly need both that belief and the salvation that it brings.
Those of us who have taught or taken classes at the university level may be familiar with third‑party internet websites that students use to rate their professors. If the Pharisees had used such a system, apparently “the teacher” Nicodemus would have been rated “number one”, or maybe he was well‑known for some other reason (Wallace, 223). In the Gospel Reading, St. John says Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews, and Nicodemus may also have been a member of their ruling council, the Sanhedrin, as St. John’s account seems to suggest later (John 7:50). Yet, in Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus essentially has to correct Nicodemus at every turn, to the extent that Jesus is amazed at Nicodemus’s lack of understanding. As a good Pharisee, Nicodemus may have studied the holy writings late into the night and worked hard for salvation, but he did not correctly get “The ‘so what’ of the Triune God”.
By nature, we do not correctly get “The ‘so what’ of the Triune God”, either. What we might figure out about God on our own is just enough to realize that we are in trouble on our own. For example, we might figure out that there is one God, but we will not realize that the one God consists of three Persons. We are born of sinful human flesh (Psalm 51:5), and, on our own, we are hostile to God and cannot submit to His law (Romans 8:7). As St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). By nature, we do not fear, love, and trust in the Triune God above all things. So, we misuse the Name of the Triune God, and we despise faithful preaching of His Word. Furthermore, because we do not fear and love the Triune God, we do not honor the authorities He places over us, we do not respect His gift of life, we do not live sexually pure lives, we do not help our neighbors with their possessions and reputations, nor are we content with what we have. (Confer the Apology to the Augsburg Confession IV:31.)
On account of our sinful natures and such sins, we deserve eternal condemnation and separation from God, but God the Father so loved us that, when the time was right (Galatians 4:4), the Father sent His only Son in order to save us. God does not want anyone to be damned for eternity, but God wants all people to turn in sorrow from their sins, to trust Him to forgive their sin for Jesus’s sake, and to want to do better than to keep on sinning (confer Formula of Concord Solid Declaration II:49). God’s promise that such repentance and faith leads eternal to salvation extends to all people (confer Formula of Concord Solid Declaration XI:28), including you and me. When we so repent and believe, then God forgives our sin.
You see, we by nature may not correctly get “The ‘so what’ of the Triune God”, but God reveals it to us, as He does this day in the Gospel Reading, as Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit’s birthing in us belief in the Son sent by the Father in order to save us. Inside the Trinity, the Father from eternity begat the Son, and, from the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit proceeds. Outside the Trinity, the three Persons together have worked for our salvation by the Son, come from and given and sent by the Father, in order to take on human flesh, be lifted up and die on the cross, rise from the grave, ascend into heaven, and send the Holy Spirit —all for us. St. Peter detailed all that in the part of his Pentecost sermon that we heard in today’s Second Reading (Acts 2:14a, 22‑36). Some do not receive such testimony, and they stand condemned already because they have not repented and believed (John 3:18). Yet others, even if few and far between, like Nicodemus (see John 7:50; 19:39) do repent and believe and so are not condemned but are forgiven by grace for Christ’s sake. God the Father sent His Son into the world to save the world, but Jesus and His Word cannot avoid condemning unbelievers (John 8:16; 12:48), while believers have already passed from death into life (John 5:24; 1 John 3:14), thanks to the Triune God acting to save them in very specific ways.
In the beginning, God the Father created such things as light into existence by speaking the Word with the Spirit hovering nearby (Genesis 1:1-3). Likewise, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are involved in our re‑creation and illumination from the darkness of our evil works and resulting death. In Holy Baptism we are born not of the will of flesh or people but born of God (John 1:13), born from above of water and the Spirit. There, the Triune Name is put upon us, and our names are given to Him. Everyone so born of God overcomes the world by the faith God gives to them (1 John 5:4). That faith, weak or strong, makes one worthy and well‑prepared to receive Holy Communion (Formula of Concord Solid Declaration VII:70). Unlike Isaiah in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 6:1-8), we do not need to fear being in the presence of God. For, like Isaiah, something from the altar—namely Christ’s body in bread and His blood in wine—touches our lips, takes away our guilt, and atones for our sin, all in the context of the Divine Service, where earthly and heavenly liturgical worship is one and the same and brings forth the good deeds that at Christ’s final coming are the evidence of the faith God gave us having been active in our lives.
We by nature may not correctly get “The ‘so what’ of the Triune God”, but God reveals it to us: the Holy Spirit births in us belief in the Son sent by the Father in order to save us from our sins. Our worshiping “one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance” really does matter, because whoever does not so faithfully and firmly believe and worship cannot be saved. Some may take offense at such an exclusive claim from faithful Christianity, but faithfulness demands nothing less than that claim. So, in the words of the Antiphon of today’s Introit, we say, “Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity.” Because “He has shown His mercy to us”, “Let us give glory to Him”!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +