The Holy Trinity

The Holy Trinity (B)

May 26, 2024

Text: John 3:1-17

            The Father is God.  In the beginning, it was He who created the heavens and the earth, all that is.  In the beginning, He spoke… spoke into existence, ex nihilo, out of nothing.  He spoke forth light into darkness, life into no-life.  He formed and filled what was formless and void.  And He still preserves it, all that He has created.  He still takes care of it.  And you.  He formed you, knit you together in your mother’s womb.  He fills you.  He preserves you, and cares for you.  He is the Source of all that is good.  And He loves His creation, loves you.  He is the God who so loves the world… loves it, that is, in this manner… that He sent His Son, the Beloved, His only-begotten, into the world, to redeem it, redeem us, from all that has gone wrong as a result of our sin; to raise us up out of our fallenness and death; to deliver us from the power of the devil, and from hell itself.  He sends His Spirit to take possession of us; to restore us through Jesus Christ, the Son; restore us to the Father, and make each one of us a child of God, that we may pray to Him as our Father who art in heaven, and take our place in His House, and in His Kingdom.

            The Son is God.  Eternally begotten of the Father, and of one substance with Him.  He is the eternal Word, the speaking of the Father in the beginning, bringing forth what was not.  By Him all things were made.  He is the true Light that enlightens every man.  He is the Life of the world.  And He is the Form, the Image of the invisible God, according to which man was made.  It is He who walked with our parents in the Garden in the cool of the day.  It is He who appeared to the patriarchs in days of old, the Angel of the LORD.  He is the Word of the LORD who came to the prophets.  And in the fulness of time, at just the right time, the Word became flesh and pitched His tent among us, the true Tabernacle and Temple of God.  The eternal Son of God was born in time… of a woman, a daughter of Eve, a daughter of Israel, the Virgin Mary.  Flesh of our flesh, now.  Bone of our bone.  The Incarnation.  The Nativity.  God loved the world in this manner, that He gave His only-begotten Son.  To be with us (Emmanuel).  To be one of us.  To take our sin and death upon Himself.  To be our Sacrifice of Atonement.  Crucified, dead and buried.  And on the Third Day to rise.  To be our righteousness, our justification.  To be our life, having defeated death forever.  To live.  To reign.  To ascend on High, seated at the right hand of God the Father in heaven.  Not only according to His divine nature, which never stopped reigning.  But in our flesh.  Our brother reigns as God.  For us, and for our salvation.  And that, not far away.  Near.  Intimately so.  Hidden, but present.  Bodily.  In words and water, bread and wine.

            The Holy Spirit is God.  Proceeding from the Father and the Son.  Brooding over the waters of creation… over the waters of baptismal New Creation.  Blowing where He will.  You hear His sound (the Preaching, the Scriptures!), but you know not where He comes from, or where He is going.  Except that He will always be where Christ is breathing forth His proclamation, and present in His Signs.  The Spirit is the Divine Breath.  He spake by the prophets, inspired, literally breathed into the writers of Holy Scripture, Old and New Testaments, what they were to write.  And He is breathed out by the proclamation of that writing to this very day, and at this very moment.  Inspiring faith among those who hear the Gospel, breathing Christ into ears and minds and hearts and souls.  That whosoever believeth in Christ, the Son of the Father, shall not perish, but have eternal life.  He is the Spirit who descended upon Christ, the Son of the Father, at His Baptism in the Jordan, and remained on Him.  He is the Spirit who drove the Lord Jesus out into the wilderness to do battle with Satan on our behalf.  He is the Spirit who was present to heal in Jesus’ earthly ministry, the Spirit spoken forth in our Lord’s teaching, driving out demons, enlivening the dead.  He is the Spirit breathed out by our Lord on the cross, and by the risen Christ upon His disciples in the upper room.  The Helper.  The Paraclete.  Descending upon the Church.  A mighty, rushing wind.  Tongues of fire.  Fleshly tongues loosed.  Sins forgiven.  A people gathered (congregated) and sanctified (set apart for holy use).  Gifts bestowed.  A valley of dry bones clothed in sinew and flesh and skin, enlivened, Jew and Gentile, the New Israel, the holy Christian Church.

            So, the Father is God.  The Son is God.  The Holy Spirit is God.  Three distinct Persons.  And yet, there are not three gods, but one God, our Triune God, the Holy Trinity.  The Holy Catholic Faith (as in the faith of all Christians, of all times, and all places) is to know Him.  Not to comprehend Him.  That is impossible for mortal man.  And you know the problems with all the silly illustrations we use to try to explain what is unexplainable.  The apple with its skin, flesh, and core, or the egg with its shell, white, and yolk.  This is the heresy of partialism.  The God who appears, now as Father, now as Son, and again as Holy Spirit.  This is the heresy of modalism.  We’re guilty of modalism, for example, when we use the various states of water (solid, liquid, gas) as an illustration of the Trinity.  It is not that the one God has three different masks, appearing one way at one time, then another, then another.  No, He is three distinct Persons.  Nearly all illustrations of the Trinity end up in some heresy or another.  The Church Fathers do have some good ones… For example, a spring as the source of the flowing water and the refreshment that proceeds from it; the sun with its light and heat.  Okay, maybe.  But the best thing is to stick with the Creeds, which express what we know from Holy Scripture, and nothing more.  See, the Triune (Three-in-One) nature of God is not a concept to be understood by human reason.  It is God’s revelation of Himself, to be received, believed, confessed, worshiped, and adored.

            Now, be warned.  This God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is the only God.  And that means that Christianity is the only true religion.  All other gods are false gods.  They are idols.  And, therefore, all other religions are idolatrous religions.  But, of course, Christians, insofar as we are sinners, are pretty good at manufacturing false gods, ourselves.  Idols.  To have an idol, is to fear, love, or trust something or someone more than Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  It is to place anything, or anyone, above, or before Him.  What things, what people, do you put before our God?  Your spouse?  Your family?  Your job?  Money?  Pleasure?  Sports?  Every sin, remember, is a sin of idolatry.  It is a disordering, a displacing of God from the top, and a placing of another in the spot only God can fill.  Repent of that.  Repent.  Your Father sent His Son to redeem you from that.  The Spirit breathes Himself into you by His Word to turn you from that, bring you to repentance, and faith in the Son, who restores you to the Father. 

            And it is all by grace.  The Father sends the Son in love to redeem the world, and whoever believes in the Son (that is faith, bestowed by the Spirit) shall not perish, but have eternal life.  John 3:16 is a trinitarian verse.  And it isn’t only redemption from death and hell.  It is redemption for relationship with the God who loves you for all eternity.  And so, relationship with one another, the holy Church.  God reveals Himself to you as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  He has given you His Name.  You have access to Him.  You may call upon Him.  You may invoke Him.  And when you do, you may be certain: He is present, for and with you, with His forgiveness, life, and salvation.  And you, of course, are baptized into Him, immersed in His love, and in the Communion of our Triune God.

            Marvelous!  Marvelous.  And in the end, that is all we can do… marvel at the sublime mystery.  “Blessèd be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity.  Let us give glory to Him because He has shown his mercy to us” (Introit).  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.