Isaiah 6:1-7/Romans 11:33-36/St John 3:1-17
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
In May, the year of our Lord 325, when Emperor Constantine convened the First Council of Nicea it was, in part, to combat the false teachings of a man called Arius. Arius and his followers, known as Arians, held the position that the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, was of a different substance from the Father. In other words, that He was the first created being; not eternal with the Father, but made.
Of the 1800 invited, 318 bishops, or pastors, were in attendance. Among them was a young assistant to the Bishop of Alexandria by the name of Athanasius. Already at 27 years old, Athanasius grasped the magnitude of this controversy with Arius and was a steadfast defender of the true, orthodox Christian faith. Three years after the Council of Nicea, he would succeed his mentor as Bishop of Alexandria; an office he would hold for the next 45 years of his life.
Now the Council of Nicea was the first ecumenical, that is, council of the whole church, since the legalization of Christianity in AD 313. Constantine sought to keep peace in his empire and peace within the Church was beneficial for political stability. This is the same council in which Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, punched the heretic Arius for having denigrated the two natures of Christ. St Nick spent the night in jail. When he returned, repented of his brashness and assault, was forgiven, he joined the other 318 bishops and whole council in condemning the lies and false teachings of Arius. Legend has it that the council members sang in unison what is now known as the Nicene Creed and Arius, unable to bare the true teaching of the Holy Trinity and the person and work of Christ, tucked up in the fetal position and cried. The devil, that spewer of false teaching, cannot handle the pure doctrine set to music and chant!
Though Arius was excommunicated and his teaching was uniformly condemned, as often happens within the Church he found quarter with allies who had not attended the Council in Nicea. Sadly his false teachings concerning Christ were supported by other bishops in the empire and promulgated. But upon the death of his Pastor, Alexander, Athanasius succeeded him as Bishop of Alexandria and continued to defend the truth concerning Jesus Christ and the Blessed Holy Trinity against the false teaching of the Arians. During his 45 years as Bishop, Athanasius spent over 17 years in five exiles by four different Roman emperors. He also fled the city six separate times when threats were made on his life. With the legalization of Christianity in 313, though, Athansius was not martyred, but died peacefully in his own bed in AD 373.
A century latter Arianism continued to rear its ugly head and another creed was written to combat the false teaching. This reiterated the confession made at Nicea, but delved further into the mystery of the Holy Blessed Trinity. It confessed the faith, the orthodox faith of Athanasius, Church Father, who has spent many long years combatting false teaching. Though anonymously written, the creed was named after this steadfast defender of Christianity. You confessed it today.
All this is to say that doctrine matters. Pure teaching matters. “Whoever desires to be saved, must above all, hold the catholic faith. Whoever does not keep it whole and undefiled will without doubt perish eternally.” Foundational for the faith and absolutely essential for salvation is the true and proper confession of the Blessed Holy Trinity and the right confession of the two natures of Christ, including His person and work. If one does not confess these, one is not a Christian.
Thus this is not some academic exercise. The Holy Trinity is not merely a doctrine to which we assent; a piece of divine trivia that happens to be true but doesn’t actually make much difference. This is what Nicodemus thought. He assumed Jesus to be a Teacher from God, a purveyor of knowledge and doer of signs. He is a Rabbi, but not merely. He is the eternal Logos, the sole-begotten of the Father, co-equal, co-majestic, co-eternal with the Father; not created, nor made, but begotten.
Words matter and precision is important. This is not an intellectual playground for pastors to sit and pontificate among themselves. This is the catholic faith, apart from which there is no salvation. If Nicodemus was right, if Arius was right, and Jesus was only from God and not God in the flesh, then your faith is in vain and you are still in your sins and this whole thing called Christianity is a cruel, miserable joke; the Gospels are a lie, the Epistles a farse, your Baptism worthless and the Supper a facade!
If we do not have a right trust and true confession of Christ and His relationship to the Holy Trinity, its not a minor problem, its the problem. For if we don’t have a right trust and pure confession of Christ and the Trinity we have nothing. Consider: if the Son of God is created, then He is a creature, and no creature, however holy, could possibly die to atone for your sins. No sheep or ram or goat or holy man could die for you. Only the blood of the eternal Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, of one substance with the Father, who came down from heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made Man, could redeem you.
For you are begotten of flesh. Conceived and born in sin. By your nature you do not comprehend the person of Christ nor the Holy Trinity. In fact, of your flesh, you hate and rebel against the pure teaching and orthodox faith. Flesh, without the Spirit of God, is idolatrous and covetous. It hungers, not for the true and holy Triune God, but for itself. And so it is itself consumed. It is cannibalistic because sin is the ultimate flesh-eating virus; like Arius who cowered at the pure preaching of the Word in the Nicene Creed.
Without the Spirit of God your flesh is undone. And if you presume to go to the Holy, Holy, Holy God apart from His Gospel, then you are undone all the more quickly - like Isaiah who wailed of his predicament before throne of eternal God.
By itself, apart from birth from above by the Spirit, your flesh is blind and stumbles around in the darkness, a perpetual nighttime of ignorance and unbelief - like Nicodemus who could not comprehend the things of God.
But the Spirit of God breathes where He wishes. And the only Son of the Father reveals to you His love. These two, the Son and the Spirit, speak of what they know. The Son and the Spirit bear witness to what they have seen. For they who are co-equal, co-eternal, co-majestic with the Father are within the Blessed Holy Trinity and constitute the divine council, convened from all eternity.
No one knows the mind of God, no one has been His counselor, as St Paul writes. No on has ascended into heaven, Jesus says, except He who descended from heaven.
God is love. The Father loves the Son from all eternity, and the Son, the Beloved, loves the Father from all eternity in the personal Bond and perfect Unity of the Holy Spirit. It is for the sake of this divine, eternal Love that God created the heavens and the earth, made man in His image, male and female.
And it is for the sake of this same divine, eternal Love that the Father sends His Son to redeem and save fallen creation. In this love the Son goes willingly to the Cross.
This is what grace is. The divine Love that flows eternally from the very heart of the Father for the Son which He freely chooses to pour out upon you in Christ, through the gift and work of the Holy Spirit. And thus the mystery of the Holy Trinity and the persona and work of Christ can be summarized: In this way God loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. This is the root and ground of faith, the simple confession of the learned Athanasius, the trust of all the faithful, and the hope of the life to come. “This is the catholic faith; whoever does not believe it faithfully and firmly cannot be saved.”
And this faith is gift. Not your gift to God, but His gift to you. The Father’s gift to you through His Son by His Spirit. So the coal of the Cross by which Christ was offered up for you as an acceptable sacrifice, touches you, through the preaching of the Word, and cleanses you of your sin, your iniquity taken away.
For by your Baptism into the Blessed Holy Trinity, you are begotten from above by the Father through the Son in the Spirit. And graciously you are given to see the kingdom of God. It is here. That which Isaiah beheld is here, behind the thin veneer of this reality. Do you not join your voice to that of the angels encircling the throne? Do you not sing the pure doctrine and confession of Scripture?
You are united with Isaiah and St Paul and Nicodemus and Athanasius. Here you stand before the world and against all false claims, here you sock Satan when you confess the one, true, catholic faith of the Holy Blessed Trinity and the saving work of the God-Man, Jesus Christ, on your behalf. This is the throne room of God, for here, from the Altar of His Cross, Christ touches your lips with His Body and Blood, and you are fully forgiven of all your sins. You shall not die, but live.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
In May, the year of our Lord 325, when Emperor Constantine convened the First Council of Nicea it was, in part, to combat the false teachings of a man called Arius. Arius and his followers, known as Arians, held the position that the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, was of a different substance from the Father. In other words, that He was the first created being; not eternal with the Father, but made.
Of the 1800 invited, 318 bishops, or pastors, were in attendance. Among them was a young assistant to the Bishop of Alexandria by the name of Athanasius. Already at 27 years old, Athanasius grasped the magnitude of this controversy with Arius and was a steadfast defender of the true, orthodox Christian faith. Three years after the Council of Nicea, he would succeed his mentor as Bishop of Alexandria; an office he would hold for the next 45 years of his life.
Now the Council of Nicea was the first ecumenical, that is, council of the whole church, since the legalization of Christianity in AD 313. Constantine sought to keep peace in his empire and peace within the Church was beneficial for political stability. This is the same council in which Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, punched the heretic Arius for having denigrated the two natures of Christ. St Nick spent the night in jail. When he returned, repented of his brashness and assault, was forgiven, he joined the other 318 bishops and whole council in condemning the lies and false teachings of Arius. Legend has it that the council members sang in unison what is now known as the Nicene Creed and Arius, unable to bare the true teaching of the Holy Trinity and the person and work of Christ, tucked up in the fetal position and cried. The devil, that spewer of false teaching, cannot handle the pure doctrine set to music and chant!
Though Arius was excommunicated and his teaching was uniformly condemned, as often happens within the Church he found quarter with allies who had not attended the Council in Nicea. Sadly his false teachings concerning Christ were supported by other bishops in the empire and promulgated. But upon the death of his Pastor, Alexander, Athanasius succeeded him as Bishop of Alexandria and continued to defend the truth concerning Jesus Christ and the Blessed Holy Trinity against the false teaching of the Arians. During his 45 years as Bishop, Athanasius spent over 17 years in five exiles by four different Roman emperors. He also fled the city six separate times when threats were made on his life. With the legalization of Christianity in 313, though, Athansius was not martyred, but died peacefully in his own bed in AD 373.
A century latter Arianism continued to rear its ugly head and another creed was written to combat the false teaching. This reiterated the confession made at Nicea, but delved further into the mystery of the Holy Blessed Trinity. It confessed the faith, the orthodox faith of Athanasius, Church Father, who has spent many long years combatting false teaching. Though anonymously written, the creed was named after this steadfast defender of Christianity. You confessed it today.
All this is to say that doctrine matters. Pure teaching matters. “Whoever desires to be saved, must above all, hold the catholic faith. Whoever does not keep it whole and undefiled will without doubt perish eternally.” Foundational for the faith and absolutely essential for salvation is the true and proper confession of the Blessed Holy Trinity and the right confession of the two natures of Christ, including His person and work. If one does not confess these, one is not a Christian.
Thus this is not some academic exercise. The Holy Trinity is not merely a doctrine to which we assent; a piece of divine trivia that happens to be true but doesn’t actually make much difference. This is what Nicodemus thought. He assumed Jesus to be a Teacher from God, a purveyor of knowledge and doer of signs. He is a Rabbi, but not merely. He is the eternal Logos, the sole-begotten of the Father, co-equal, co-majestic, co-eternal with the Father; not created, nor made, but begotten.
Words matter and precision is important. This is not an intellectual playground for pastors to sit and pontificate among themselves. This is the catholic faith, apart from which there is no salvation. If Nicodemus was right, if Arius was right, and Jesus was only from God and not God in the flesh, then your faith is in vain and you are still in your sins and this whole thing called Christianity is a cruel, miserable joke; the Gospels are a lie, the Epistles a farse, your Baptism worthless and the Supper a facade!
If we do not have a right trust and true confession of Christ and His relationship to the Holy Trinity, its not a minor problem, its the problem. For if we don’t have a right trust and pure confession of Christ and the Trinity we have nothing. Consider: if the Son of God is created, then He is a creature, and no creature, however holy, could possibly die to atone for your sins. No sheep or ram or goat or holy man could die for you. Only the blood of the eternal Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, of one substance with the Father, who came down from heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made Man, could redeem you.
For you are begotten of flesh. Conceived and born in sin. By your nature you do not comprehend the person of Christ nor the Holy Trinity. In fact, of your flesh, you hate and rebel against the pure teaching and orthodox faith. Flesh, without the Spirit of God, is idolatrous and covetous. It hungers, not for the true and holy Triune God, but for itself. And so it is itself consumed. It is cannibalistic because sin is the ultimate flesh-eating virus; like Arius who cowered at the pure preaching of the Word in the Nicene Creed.
Without the Spirit of God your flesh is undone. And if you presume to go to the Holy, Holy, Holy God apart from His Gospel, then you are undone all the more quickly - like Isaiah who wailed of his predicament before throne of eternal God.
By itself, apart from birth from above by the Spirit, your flesh is blind and stumbles around in the darkness, a perpetual nighttime of ignorance and unbelief - like Nicodemus who could not comprehend the things of God.
But the Spirit of God breathes where He wishes. And the only Son of the Father reveals to you His love. These two, the Son and the Spirit, speak of what they know. The Son and the Spirit bear witness to what they have seen. For they who are co-equal, co-eternal, co-majestic with the Father are within the Blessed Holy Trinity and constitute the divine council, convened from all eternity.
No one knows the mind of God, no one has been His counselor, as St Paul writes. No on has ascended into heaven, Jesus says, except He who descended from heaven.
God is love. The Father loves the Son from all eternity, and the Son, the Beloved, loves the Father from all eternity in the personal Bond and perfect Unity of the Holy Spirit. It is for the sake of this divine, eternal Love that God created the heavens and the earth, made man in His image, male and female.
And it is for the sake of this same divine, eternal Love that the Father sends His Son to redeem and save fallen creation. In this love the Son goes willingly to the Cross.
This is what grace is. The divine Love that flows eternally from the very heart of the Father for the Son which He freely chooses to pour out upon you in Christ, through the gift and work of the Holy Spirit. And thus the mystery of the Holy Trinity and the persona and work of Christ can be summarized: In this way God loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. This is the root and ground of faith, the simple confession of the learned Athanasius, the trust of all the faithful, and the hope of the life to come. “This is the catholic faith; whoever does not believe it faithfully and firmly cannot be saved.”
And this faith is gift. Not your gift to God, but His gift to you. The Father’s gift to you through His Son by His Spirit. So the coal of the Cross by which Christ was offered up for you as an acceptable sacrifice, touches you, through the preaching of the Word, and cleanses you of your sin, your iniquity taken away.
For by your Baptism into the Blessed Holy Trinity, you are begotten from above by the Father through the Son in the Spirit. And graciously you are given to see the kingdom of God. It is here. That which Isaiah beheld is here, behind the thin veneer of this reality. Do you not join your voice to that of the angels encircling the throne? Do you not sing the pure doctrine and confession of Scripture?
You are united with Isaiah and St Paul and Nicodemus and Athanasius. Here you stand before the world and against all false claims, here you sock Satan when you confess the one, true, catholic faith of the Holy Blessed Trinity and the saving work of the God-Man, Jesus Christ, on your behalf. This is the throne room of God, for here, from the Altar of His Cross, Christ touches your lips with His Body and Blood, and you are fully forgiven of all your sins. You shall not die, but live.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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