Isaiah 6:1-7; Romans 11:33-36; St John 3:1-17; St Matthew 28:18-20
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
With this Sunday we come to the end of the festive half of the Church Year. If you look back upon the half year behind us, we see a panorama of great events: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Good Friday, Easter, the Ascension, Pentecost. Not merely seasons of the Church calendar; a page turned, but great events on earth. Events in which the hand of Almighty God was evident, working out what was absolutely necessary for man to come into his own, to be what God intended man to be here in time and hereafter in eternity. These are not earthly holidays, but heavenly feasts in which the Triune God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - dwells with us, among us, and for us; working on our behalf for our salvation.
Today is different, though. Today we are celebrating the Festival of the Holy Trinity. We are not commemorating some act of God for our salvation, as on other festivals, but we consider the great doctrine that our God is a mysterious God, three distinct Persons in one divine Essence. This doctrine, along with the equally mysterious, Incarnation of the Son, is the center and foundation of Christianity. To confess “I believe in God the Father, in His only Son our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit,” is essential to be a Christian.
Some might say, “Well, sure, every Christian, believes this doctrine and its not necessary to preach on it.” But not everyone believes it. It must be preached. For even within the Church their are many who longer believe what the Christian Church confesses in the Three Articles of the Apostles’ Creed. God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth? Nah. Evolution is the thing. Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from all eternity, true Man, born of the Virgin Mary? No. He was a great prophet, but a mere man, the same as you and I; not the Second Person of the Godhead. Man regenerated by the power and working of the Holy Spirit alone? Nope. It’s you have to do your own part; make yourself ready to receive or surrender or whatever.
Those who believe thusly have given up the doctrine of the Holy Trinity because they cannot comprehend it. Why do we still believe, teach, and confess it? Is it because we understand it? By no means! We’re just as dense as Nicodemus when it comes to this article of faith. No one can understand or explain how there can be three Persons and yet only one God. Yet we believe, teach, and confess that there is one God and three Persons in that God precisely because in His Word God tells us this is true.
If God in His Word reveals a truth which we cannot grasp with our reason, or does not comport with our understanding, we don’t assert ourselves, rather we dow to His wisdom, but chains on our reason, and humbly exclaim with St Paul: O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! From Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. In this humility we learn today from God’s infallible Word what He has revealed to us concerning Himself.
He tells us: The fool says in His heart, “There is no God.” It is not that men deny the existence and presence of God merely lack in judgment, or are half-wits, in fact many professed atheists are, at least world speaking, intellectually gifted. Perhaps we come closest to the meaning of “fool” when we say that he is foul, morally corrupt, dishonest. For the world, nature itself, bears undeniable testimony that there is a God and you are not Him.
This can be proven first by the Holy Spirit speaking by the pen of St Paul in the first chapter of today’s Epistle: The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature, namely, His eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse (Rm 1:18-20). Even those who have never heard a Word of Scripture, the revealed knowledge of God, still have the book of nature, which though silent, speaks volumes. As David wrote, The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge (Ps 19:1-2).
Besides the testimony of the creation there is in every man a voice of conscience bearing witness to the existence of God. Again, St Paul, speaking of the Gentiles who do not know the Law or have ever heard of the Ten Commandments, says, They are a law unto themselves. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting though accuse or even excuse them (Rm 2:14-15). They don’t have the Ten Commandments as God gave to Moses on Sinai, but they know by nature that stealing and murder and adultery are wrong. They know there is a Supreme Being. This knowledge is planted in every man’s heart by virtue of his nature, being created by the very God he denies. The man who denies the existence of God is morally corrupt, for he does this against his better knowledge.
Yet, who God is and how He is in His divine Essence will always remain an insoluble problem. To know more of God than creation and conscience tell man, we must do to the specific revelation God has given us of Himself. We must go to Holy Scripture. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known (Jn 1:18). To the eternal Word we must go for more complete knowledge of God. What has God revealed concerning Himself? Time and again He impressed upon His people: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. St Paul writes, There is no God but one (1 Cor 8:4); and There is one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all (Eph 4:6); and even, There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ (1 Tim 2:5).
That is one God is not one in Person is evident by His own words at creation: Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. God speaks of Himself in the plural. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth by the enteral Word and Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. Let there be light. Even before there was the sun or stars! The Father created through the Word, as St John makes plain: In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. All things were made through Him. This Word, no mere vocable, but of one Essence with the Father, became flesh and dwelt among us.
In the New Testament this eternal reality is clarified for us in several places: first in the word of Gabriel to the Virgin Mary: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy - the Son of God (Lk 1:35). Again later at the Baptism of our Lord in the Jordan River when the heavens are opened and the Father declares, This is My beloved Son, and the Holy Spirit descends as a dove. In John 3 when Jesus is catechizing Nicodemus He clearly makes reference to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirt. But perhaps the most explicit example - which ought really to be the Gospel text for today, and all the catechumens know it - from Matthew 28: Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Mt 28:19).
The three Persons in God are separate and different. Each Person is different from each of the others. One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the Persons nor dividing the Substance. The Father is not made or created or begotten, but is from eternity. The Son is neither made nor created, but begotten of the Father alone. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son, neither made nor created nor begotten, but proceeding. All three are equally eternal, equal in glory and majesty, power and might, so that in all things, the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity is to be worshipped. This is the Biblical doctrine. Whoever does not keep it whole and undefiled will without doubt perish eternally.
But how do we make right use of this doctrine? What is the point? It is not an academic pursuit; an intellectual exercise. It is not merely saying, “Ah yes, the Triune God is the true God, and there is none beside Him.” No. All Theology is immanently practical. What one believes effects how one worships. And vice versa. In a way what is found between the covers of the Lutheran Service Book confesses more what we believe than what is between the covers of the Bible. This is the pastoral nature of all Biblical theology. Thus if the doctrine of the Holy Blessed Trinity is important then you ought to see it everywhere in the liturgy. Not just subtly, but overtly. Everywhere. And it is!
The Invocation: In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The Absolution the same.
The Gloria Patri of the Introit. The Kyrie is Trinitarian as is the Gloria in Exclesis. The Collect concludes through the Son in the Spirit to the Father. The Creed. The readings are the Word of the Father through the Son in the Spirit. The prayer of the Church is prayed equally so. The Sanctus, as you heard from the Old Testament lesson, is a reference to the Trinity: Lord, Lord, Lord. Even the Lord’s Prayer and Words of Institution are Trinitarian, though more subtly. The Nunc Dimitis concludes with the Gloria Patri as does the Collect. Finally the Benediction is clearly Trinitarian, once again, Lord, Lord, Lord.
Why is this? Why is the liturgy saturated with references to the Holy Trinity? Precisely as the Athanasian Creed confesses, “We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity.” We worship. Not that we do something. Rather the highest form of worship is to receive in faith the gifts the Triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - has to give. And these gifts come in the Holy Word and Sacraments as the Scripture lessons for today testify.
In the Gospel Jesus solemnly declares, Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is begotten from above of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. He is speaking of the Trinitarian gift of Holy Baptism. You were baptized into the Name of the Triune God; God Himself doing the baptizing. God the Father was there and He declared, “I am your God. You are My child. I have created you, and though you became a sinner and fell away from Me, this shall no longer separate us. I forgive you everything. I will care for you as your Father as long as you are in this world. And when you leave this life, heaven will be open to you as your eternal home. Believe this. Be Mine unto death.”
The Son of God was there, took you in His arms, and said, “You poor, sinful man, I am your God and Savior. All I have done for mankind I have done for you. My blood cleanses you from all sin, you shall have the cloak of My righteousness as your clothing. In death I shall be at your side as the mighty Victor over death and hell and lead you safely through death into eternal life. Only consider yourself My blood-brought property throughout life until death.”
The Holy Spirit was there and said, “I am your God and you shall be Men. I have regenerated you, I have given you faith and a new heart and made you a child of God. I will be your Helper and Comforter and Teacher. I will be your Strength that you may overcome and continue and remain a child of God until death. Permit Me to live in your heart, to rule you in body and soul and do nothing to drive Me from you.” This is the solemn promise of Holy Baptism, the sacrament from the Triune God, which you make right use of when you remain true to it, daily remembering its wonderful blessings, and using it as a constant source of comfort and joy to your sin-stricken hearts.
Further, the Old Testament lesson and the vision of Isaiah is a marvelous analogy and foreshadowing of the Sacrament of the Altar. For the terrified prophet beholds YHWH Sabaoth, the Lord God of hosts, the perfect Holy Trinity, and considers himself as good as dead on account of his sin. Only the fiery messenger of the Lord doesn’t annihilate the man of unclean lips, rather he takes with tongs a burning coal from the altar, a remnant of the sacrifice whose aroma fills the nostrils of the Lord and satisfies His wrath as a substitute, and he flies it to the prophet, touching his lips. He has fellowship with the sin-offering, he participates in the sacrifice. This is a foreshadowing, beloved, of the Sacrament of the Altar, which is flown to you by the messenger of the Lord. It is the Coal, the Body and Blood of Christ the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It touches your lips as you partake of the sin-offering; you participate in the sacrifice, and by faith your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.
This will have to suffice for today as we celebrate the Festival of the Holy Trinity, that blessed doctrine of Holy Scripture which we believe, teach, and confess as the one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith and are saved eternally. Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! From Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - be glory now and forever. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
With this Sunday we come to the end of the festive half of the Church Year. If you look back upon the half year behind us, we see a panorama of great events: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Good Friday, Easter, the Ascension, Pentecost. Not merely seasons of the Church calendar; a page turned, but great events on earth. Events in which the hand of Almighty God was evident, working out what was absolutely necessary for man to come into his own, to be what God intended man to be here in time and hereafter in eternity. These are not earthly holidays, but heavenly feasts in which the Triune God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - dwells with us, among us, and for us; working on our behalf for our salvation.
Today is different, though. Today we are celebrating the Festival of the Holy Trinity. We are not commemorating some act of God for our salvation, as on other festivals, but we consider the great doctrine that our God is a mysterious God, three distinct Persons in one divine Essence. This doctrine, along with the equally mysterious, Incarnation of the Son, is the center and foundation of Christianity. To confess “I believe in God the Father, in His only Son our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit,” is essential to be a Christian.
Some might say, “Well, sure, every Christian, believes this doctrine and its not necessary to preach on it.” But not everyone believes it. It must be preached. For even within the Church their are many who longer believe what the Christian Church confesses in the Three Articles of the Apostles’ Creed. God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth? Nah. Evolution is the thing. Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from all eternity, true Man, born of the Virgin Mary? No. He was a great prophet, but a mere man, the same as you and I; not the Second Person of the Godhead. Man regenerated by the power and working of the Holy Spirit alone? Nope. It’s you have to do your own part; make yourself ready to receive or surrender or whatever.
Those who believe thusly have given up the doctrine of the Holy Trinity because they cannot comprehend it. Why do we still believe, teach, and confess it? Is it because we understand it? By no means! We’re just as dense as Nicodemus when it comes to this article of faith. No one can understand or explain how there can be three Persons and yet only one God. Yet we believe, teach, and confess that there is one God and three Persons in that God precisely because in His Word God tells us this is true.
If God in His Word reveals a truth which we cannot grasp with our reason, or does not comport with our understanding, we don’t assert ourselves, rather we dow to His wisdom, but chains on our reason, and humbly exclaim with St Paul: O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! From Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. In this humility we learn today from God’s infallible Word what He has revealed to us concerning Himself.
He tells us: The fool says in His heart, “There is no God.” It is not that men deny the existence and presence of God merely lack in judgment, or are half-wits, in fact many professed atheists are, at least world speaking, intellectually gifted. Perhaps we come closest to the meaning of “fool” when we say that he is foul, morally corrupt, dishonest. For the world, nature itself, bears undeniable testimony that there is a God and you are not Him.
This can be proven first by the Holy Spirit speaking by the pen of St Paul in the first chapter of today’s Epistle: The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature, namely, His eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse (Rm 1:18-20). Even those who have never heard a Word of Scripture, the revealed knowledge of God, still have the book of nature, which though silent, speaks volumes. As David wrote, The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge (Ps 19:1-2).
Besides the testimony of the creation there is in every man a voice of conscience bearing witness to the existence of God. Again, St Paul, speaking of the Gentiles who do not know the Law or have ever heard of the Ten Commandments, says, They are a law unto themselves. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting though accuse or even excuse them (Rm 2:14-15). They don’t have the Ten Commandments as God gave to Moses on Sinai, but they know by nature that stealing and murder and adultery are wrong. They know there is a Supreme Being. This knowledge is planted in every man’s heart by virtue of his nature, being created by the very God he denies. The man who denies the existence of God is morally corrupt, for he does this against his better knowledge.
Yet, who God is and how He is in His divine Essence will always remain an insoluble problem. To know more of God than creation and conscience tell man, we must do to the specific revelation God has given us of Himself. We must go to Holy Scripture. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known (Jn 1:18). To the eternal Word we must go for more complete knowledge of God. What has God revealed concerning Himself? Time and again He impressed upon His people: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. St Paul writes, There is no God but one (1 Cor 8:4); and There is one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all (Eph 4:6); and even, There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ (1 Tim 2:5).
That is one God is not one in Person is evident by His own words at creation: Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. God speaks of Himself in the plural. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth by the enteral Word and Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. Let there be light. Even before there was the sun or stars! The Father created through the Word, as St John makes plain: In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. All things were made through Him. This Word, no mere vocable, but of one Essence with the Father, became flesh and dwelt among us.
In the New Testament this eternal reality is clarified for us in several places: first in the word of Gabriel to the Virgin Mary: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy - the Son of God (Lk 1:35). Again later at the Baptism of our Lord in the Jordan River when the heavens are opened and the Father declares, This is My beloved Son, and the Holy Spirit descends as a dove. In John 3 when Jesus is catechizing Nicodemus He clearly makes reference to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirt. But perhaps the most explicit example - which ought really to be the Gospel text for today, and all the catechumens know it - from Matthew 28: Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Mt 28:19).
The three Persons in God are separate and different. Each Person is different from each of the others. One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the Persons nor dividing the Substance. The Father is not made or created or begotten, but is from eternity. The Son is neither made nor created, but begotten of the Father alone. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son, neither made nor created nor begotten, but proceeding. All three are equally eternal, equal in glory and majesty, power and might, so that in all things, the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity is to be worshipped. This is the Biblical doctrine. Whoever does not keep it whole and undefiled will without doubt perish eternally.
But how do we make right use of this doctrine? What is the point? It is not an academic pursuit; an intellectual exercise. It is not merely saying, “Ah yes, the Triune God is the true God, and there is none beside Him.” No. All Theology is immanently practical. What one believes effects how one worships. And vice versa. In a way what is found between the covers of the Lutheran Service Book confesses more what we believe than what is between the covers of the Bible. This is the pastoral nature of all Biblical theology. Thus if the doctrine of the Holy Blessed Trinity is important then you ought to see it everywhere in the liturgy. Not just subtly, but overtly. Everywhere. And it is!
The Invocation: In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The Absolution the same.
The Gloria Patri of the Introit. The Kyrie is Trinitarian as is the Gloria in Exclesis. The Collect concludes through the Son in the Spirit to the Father. The Creed. The readings are the Word of the Father through the Son in the Spirit. The prayer of the Church is prayed equally so. The Sanctus, as you heard from the Old Testament lesson, is a reference to the Trinity: Lord, Lord, Lord. Even the Lord’s Prayer and Words of Institution are Trinitarian, though more subtly. The Nunc Dimitis concludes with the Gloria Patri as does the Collect. Finally the Benediction is clearly Trinitarian, once again, Lord, Lord, Lord.
Why is this? Why is the liturgy saturated with references to the Holy Trinity? Precisely as the Athanasian Creed confesses, “We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity.” We worship. Not that we do something. Rather the highest form of worship is to receive in faith the gifts the Triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - has to give. And these gifts come in the Holy Word and Sacraments as the Scripture lessons for today testify.
In the Gospel Jesus solemnly declares, Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is begotten from above of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. He is speaking of the Trinitarian gift of Holy Baptism. You were baptized into the Name of the Triune God; God Himself doing the baptizing. God the Father was there and He declared, “I am your God. You are My child. I have created you, and though you became a sinner and fell away from Me, this shall no longer separate us. I forgive you everything. I will care for you as your Father as long as you are in this world. And when you leave this life, heaven will be open to you as your eternal home. Believe this. Be Mine unto death.”
The Son of God was there, took you in His arms, and said, “You poor, sinful man, I am your God and Savior. All I have done for mankind I have done for you. My blood cleanses you from all sin, you shall have the cloak of My righteousness as your clothing. In death I shall be at your side as the mighty Victor over death and hell and lead you safely through death into eternal life. Only consider yourself My blood-brought property throughout life until death.”
The Holy Spirit was there and said, “I am your God and you shall be Men. I have regenerated you, I have given you faith and a new heart and made you a child of God. I will be your Helper and Comforter and Teacher. I will be your Strength that you may overcome and continue and remain a child of God until death. Permit Me to live in your heart, to rule you in body and soul and do nothing to drive Me from you.” This is the solemn promise of Holy Baptism, the sacrament from the Triune God, which you make right use of when you remain true to it, daily remembering its wonderful blessings, and using it as a constant source of comfort and joy to your sin-stricken hearts.
Further, the Old Testament lesson and the vision of Isaiah is a marvelous analogy and foreshadowing of the Sacrament of the Altar. For the terrified prophet beholds YHWH Sabaoth, the Lord God of hosts, the perfect Holy Trinity, and considers himself as good as dead on account of his sin. Only the fiery messenger of the Lord doesn’t annihilate the man of unclean lips, rather he takes with tongs a burning coal from the altar, a remnant of the sacrifice whose aroma fills the nostrils of the Lord and satisfies His wrath as a substitute, and he flies it to the prophet, touching his lips. He has fellowship with the sin-offering, he participates in the sacrifice. This is a foreshadowing, beloved, of the Sacrament of the Altar, which is flown to you by the messenger of the Lord. It is the Coal, the Body and Blood of Christ the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It touches your lips as you partake of the sin-offering; you participate in the sacrifice, and by faith your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.
This will have to suffice for today as we celebrate the Festival of the Holy Trinity, that blessed doctrine of Holy Scripture which we believe, teach, and confess as the one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith and are saved eternally. Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! From Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - be glory now and forever. Amen.
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