The Holy Trinity

The Holy Trinity (C)

June 16, 2019

Text: John 8:48-59

            There is one God.  He is the only God.  He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  There are not many gods.  It is not the case, as was believed in the ancient world, and in many places today where paganism prevails, that various gods preside over various geographical locations, or that various gods have this or that specific power or area of influence, like the Greek or the Roman gods, or the various patron saints of Roman Catholicism.  Nor is it the case, as is perhaps the predominate view in the modern Western world, that all gods are basically the same god, that we all just call him or her or them by different names and have different understandings, that we all have part of the truth.  No, there is one God, and He is the only true One.  Anything else, whether wood or stone or figment of our imagination, is a worthless idol. 

            Sarah and I were recently on a field trip with our daughter in which we learned of the Nez Perce religious theory of the great rope coming down from heaven, at the end of which the various strands fray in all directions, representing the various religions and paths to god.  There are many religions, many paths, according to this theory, but they all wind up in the one rope to heaven upon which we all ascend.  This idea is very attractive, not just to the traditional Nez Perce, but to the 21^st Century American.  And it is completely, totally, wrong.  There are not many paths.  There is one path.  There is one Way.  Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  No one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6).  This is the great scandal of Christianity.  This morning Jesus declares that if you do not know the Father through the Son, you do not know the Father.  If you do not have Jesus, you do not have the Father.  You do not have God.  But if you know Jesus, which is to say, if you know Him by faith, believe in Him, trust Him as your Savior from sin and death, then you know God and you have God as your Father who loves you and makes you His own.

            In our Holy Gospel, we find Jesus in the Temple arguing with the Jews.  These Jews had been following Jesus and listening to His teaching, but they drew the line at the divine claims He was making about Himself: That He is the Light of the world, that He is the eternal Son of the Father, that He is going back to the Father by way of His death and resurrection, that in this way He sets His disciples free from their bondage to sin, death, and the devil.  In our text, they call Him a Samaritan and claim He has a demon.  That, my friends, is the sin against the Holy Spirit, to claim that the Spirit active in the preaching and miracles of Jesus is not the Holy Spirit, but a demonic spirit.  This is a confession of unbelief.  Jesus makes it crystal clear to the Jews and to us: To dishonor Jesus is to dishonor the Father who sent Him.  It is to reject the one true God.  To honor Jesus and keep His Word is to honor the Father and to know and believe in the one true God.  And the one who so honors Jesus by keeping His Word, which is to say, believing in Him, will never see death.

            This is confounding, because we all die.  Unless Jesus returns first, which is always a possibility, you will die.  You will physically expire.  Your soul will separate from your body.  Your body will go into the ground and return to the dust from whence it came.  The Jews think Jesus is talking about physical death, which is why they bring up the example of the greatest Old Testament saint, the Patriarch, Father Abraham.  He died, they say.  Yes, but that is not what Jesus is talking about.  Jesus is talking about spiritual death.  Jesus is talking about eternal damnation, eternal separation from God.  That is where every one of those other paths leads.  Eternal death and damnation. Hell.  You cannot get around it, no matter how fervently you may love the image of the rope with the frayed ends.  That’s wishful thinking.  It’s not the Bible.  It’s not the preaching of Jesus.  In other words, you have no authority besides your own feelings and desire if that’s what you believe.  Jesus, the eternal Son of God, who became flesh, born of the Virgin Mary, to be your Savior, says otherwise.  You do not know God apart from Jesus.  You do not have God apart from Jesus.  Jesus leaves no doubt about who He is:  “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58; ESV).  YHWH.  Jesus is YHWH.  The God of Israel is a Man.  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is the Man standing before the Jews in the Temple.  And they reject Him.  The Jews reject the God of Israel.  They reject their salvation.  And so they will see death.  They will see it eternally.   

            But here we have this amazing Promise from our Lord.  The one who keeps His Word will not see death.  To keep His Word is not just to hear and obey.  It is to believe in Him.  Faith.  Faith in Jesus Christ receives life and salvation in the forgiveness of sins.  The one who believes in Jesus never really dies.  It is true, when you physically expire, your body goes into the ground.  But your soul goes to heaven to be with Jesus.  You do not die.  You live.  And then, on the Last Day, that glorious Day when Jesus comes again visibly with His holy angels to judge the living and the dead, He will raise you and all the dead.  In your body.  And He will give eternal life to you and all believers in Christ, in your body!  So even physical death is just a temporary state.  When you die, you live, and in the end, you live fully and completely, forever with your Lord.  Only one way leads to life, and that way is Jesus. 

            Jesus is the revelation of the one true God.  We know the Father through the Son whom He has sent into the flesh to be our Savior.  We know Him as our Father who loves us through the Son whom He gave into the suffering and death of the cross to atone for our sins and make us His own.  We know Him as the Father who gives us real and eternal and abundant life through the Son whom He has raised from the dead.  We know Him as the Father who gives us His whole Kingdom as our inheritance through the Son who has ascended into heaven and rules all things at the right hand of the Father.  And the Father sends us His Spirit through and in the Name of His Son.  The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.  We know the Spirit in His bringing us the Son, Jesus, in the Word and the water and the Body and the Blood. 

            Here a little catechesis may be in order.  The words Trinity and Triune mean three in one.  There is one God.  He is three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  There are not three Gods, but one God, and yet the Persons are distinct.  This doesn’t work out mathematically.  You cannot comprehend how this can be.  It is the greatest and most glorious mystery of the holy Christian faith.  The Father is the unbegotten Source.  He begets the Son from all eternity.  There is never a time when the Son is not, or there wouldn’t be a Father.  He is only Father because He begets the Son (how’s that for a Father’s Day sermon?).  The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son from all eternity.  And within the Tri-unity of God, there is perfect love.  And perfect love always reaches outside of itself.  Perfect love creates its own object.  And so the Father creates, through the Son, who is His Word, and in the Spirit.  And when things go awry in Adam’s Fall, the Father sends the Son in the Spirit to save, to redeem sinners by His sin-atoning death, and restore us to righteousness by His resurrection.  And the Spirit, who is sent by the Father through the Son, comes to us in preaching and Sacrament to give us saving faith in Jesus, the Son, who restores us to the Father and shows us the Father’s love.  It is all this beautiful, incomprehensible Trinitarian action, our life and salvation. 

            But we only know it in Jesus.  The same was true for Abraham, by the way.  Abraham longed to see the Day of Christ.  He saw it, Jesus says, and was glad (John 8:56).  How did Abraham see the Day of Jesus?  It’s a fair question on the part of the Jews.  He saw it by faith.  He saw it in the birth of Isaac, the son of promise, when Abraham was 100 years old, and Sarah 90, well past their childbearing years.  He saw it when God commanded him to sacrifice Isaac, his son whom he loved, on mount Moriah.  He knew and believed that through Isaac the Offspring would come, Messiah, and he knew and believed that God could and would raise Isaac from the dead.  He saw it when the Angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Christ, stayed his knife-wielding hand and spared the dear boy.  He saw it when God Himself provided the sacrifice, the ram caught in the thicket.  All prophecies of our dear Lord Jesus Christ in whom Abraham believed and trusted as the Savior who would crush the serpent’s head and deliver us all from sin and death.  The Old Testament saints, too, were saved by faith alone in Christ alone, the Christ who was to come, even as we in the New Testament are saved by faith alone in Christ alone who has come and made the sacrifice for our sins.  He is our life.  He is the only way to God.  He is the only Savior.

            There is one God.  He is the only God.  And in Christ, you know Him as God for you, your God, who loves you and forgives your sins and gives you eternal life.  If you ever forget who this one true God is, look at a crucifix.  He is the God who does that for you.  Then make the sign of the holy cross and remember the Name He has written on you in Holy Baptism.  It is the fullness of His own Triune Name: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.