Lenten Midweek II
Christian
Questions with Their Answers: God and Christ[1]
March 8, 2023
Text: Christian Questions 7-12
I
invite the congregation to turn to page 329 in your hymnal as we examine
Questions 7-12 of “Christian Questions with Their Answers”…
The
one true God is the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Apart from Him, there is no God. And it is the Son, sent by the Father, who
became Man, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, to suffer
and die on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins, and who is now risen from
the dead to be our life and salvation.
We
have to get these things straight. These
are the two great dogmas of the Christian Faith: The Trinity and
Christology. And they may seem obvious
to you, because you’ve been catechized, and you’ve been in Church all these
years, and so, you’ve learned these things.
But think about this: How would anyone know about the Trinity, or about
our Lord Jesus Christ, if these things were not preached, if they were
not taught? Of course, they
wouldn’t… they couldn’t. These
things are not obvious. They are not
apparent to our human reason. And so,
whatever we may think we already know, it is good and right for us to
examine ourselves tonight, to see whether we know and believe these things aright,
to review them, and to proclaim them to our children, and to our
Christian brothers and sisters, and to those outside of the Church’s
fellowship, that they also may be brought in.
A Christian must never say of the preaching and teaching of God’s Word,
“I already know that.” If you already
know it, good! Hearing it again
will never hurt you, but it will strengthen you, as the Spirit is active
in His Word, as He promises to be. And
you never know, you may just come to a deeper understanding of the things you
already know, for, as St. Jerome reportedly said, God’s Word is “shallow enough
for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for a
theologian to swim in without ever touching the bottom” (by the way, I can’t
find a citation for that quote, so who knows whether Jerome actually
said it. And I always thought it was St.
Augustine who said God’s Word is shallow enough for a child to wade in, and
deep enough for an elephant to drown in, but… it doesn’t matter, you get
the point!).
In
any event, the Holy Trinity is deep enough an article of doctrine for
us to drown in, especially if we get too big for our britches and start to
think we can understand and explain Him in a way that satisfies our human
reason. The words, “Trinity,” and
“Triune,” do not appear in the Bible.
They were actually coined by the Church Father, Tertullian. But as you heard in our Scripture readings
tonight, the teaching of God as Three in One is throughout the
Bible. God is, as we heard, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit (baptizing them in the Name, singular, of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, Three Persons, Matt. 28:19). And even in the Old Testament, when the Name
of God (Name… singular) was placed upon the people of Israel in
benediction, that Name was Triune: “The LORD… the LORD… the
LORD.” “The LORD bless you and
keep you,” etc. (Num. 6:24 ff.), as you still hear today at the end of the
Divine Service, when, once again, the LORD sends you out with His three-fold
Name upon you.
Now,
let’s have no childish explanations of the Trinity such as eggs with their
shell, mallow, and yolk; or apples with their skin, flesh, and seeds. Those are all examples of the heresy called partialism,
as though the Father is only part of God, the Son a part, the
Holy Spirit a part. This divides
the one substance of the Godhead into three.
We should not teach such things to our children.
And
let’s not describe the Trinity as though God were Father in the Old
Testament, Son in the Gospels, and the Holy Spirit ever since; or
as though God wears various masks at different times, now the
Father, now the Son, now the Holy Spirit. These, also, are ancient heresies that have
been repudiated. These are not Christianity. Nor should we do as the Jehovah’s Witnesses
do, saying that the Father is the true God, and Jesus is only called a “god,”
honorifically, because of how good He is.
This is a rerun of the ancient heresy of Arianism. Again, it is not Christianity.
We
should simply say as our Creeds say, because they say what the Bible says. The Three Persons of the One God, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, are one substance, coequal, and coeternal. The Father, unbegotten, begets the
Son from eternity, who is begotten, not made. And the Holy Spirit, neither made nor
begotten, eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son. To the Father, we typically ascribe the work
of creation and preservation, although He does these through the Son and
by the Holy Spirit. To the Son,
we typically ascribe the work of redemption, although it is the Father who sends
the Son to redeem us, the Son who is conceived by the Holy Spirit, anointed
with Him, and imparts Him to us.
And to the Holy Spirit, we typically ascribe the work of Sanctification,
which is to say, conversion, repentance, faith, and good works, although His
work is always directing us to Jesus Christ, the Son, who has reconciled
us to the Father. And so, the work of
each Person of the Holy Trinity is Trinitarian, involving all Three
Persons.
Now,
these are a lot of fancy theological words, the “deep enough to drown in” part,
and as we grow in the faith, we should learn the theological language. But the fact is, our smallest children
already believe this. Maybe they don’t
know the words, but they do believe what the words say. In fact, they have less trouble
believing it than the adults do.
And so, here is a little catechetical drill I do with Catechism
kids, the “shallow enough to wade in” part, and it’s a good review for us. How many Gods are there? One.
How many Persons is He? Three. Who are they?
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The point is not to understand,
mathematically, for example, how these things can be (how 1+1+1 can equal 1). The point is simply to believe
it. And wonder at it. And so praise the God who reveals
Himself in this way. This is the first
great dogma of the Christian Faith, the Holy Trinity.
But
we must also know about the second great dogma of the Christian Faith, the incarnation
of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was not the
Father who entered into time and became flesh to suffer and die for us. Nor was it the Holy Spirit. It was the Son, eternally begotten of the
Father, and sent by Him, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit at just the right
time, in the womb of the Virgin Mary. To
be born under the Law, to redeem those under the Law, that we might receive
adoption as sons (Gal. 4:4).
He
is one Person, our Lord Jesus Christ, with two Natures: Divine
and Human. Now, note this
carefully. He is not two persons,
one divine, and the other human. He is
not God and Man in such a way that He is like two boards glued together,
which is the ancient heresy of Nestorianism. On the other hand, neither is He God and Man
in such a way that some new thing, a third category, neither God
nor Man, results, like how water mixed with honey results in mead (that’s the
old example. Maybe today we’d say,
Kool-Aid crystals mixed with water makes a refreshing artificially flavored
beverage. Or, remember Tang? Jesus is not like that). That is the ancient heresy of Eutychianism. Nor is it that God the Son at some point in
time came and physically possessed the otherwise unassuming man, Jesus
of Nazareth, at His Baptism or at another time, which is the ancient heresy of adoptionism. No, He is one Person with two Natures ever
since the moment of His conception. When
the angel came to Mary and preached the Word that she would have a Son into her
ears, the Word, the eternal Son of God, entered through her ears, and took up
residence in her womb, becoming flesh of her flesh. And ever since that moment, wherever Jesus
is, He is there as God and Man. Inseparable. God and Man in such a way that His two
Natures are united as one Person, yet kept distinct. His divinity, the Church Fathers say, interpenetrates
His humanity, each Nature, though, keeping the properties distinct to it.
Nevertheless,
because of this Personal Union of the two Natures, we can say things about
Jesus that we couldn’t otherwise say about a man: That Man created the
world. That Man rules all things
in heaven and on earth. That Man hears
our prayers and should receive our worship.
That Man gives life. That
Man is risen from the dead. And
because He is God, that Man can be present with us, and with all
Christians, in His true body and blood.
And,
on the other hand, we can say things about Jesus that we couldn’t otherwise say
about God. God was born of a
woman. God hungered and
thirsted. God was tired and
slept. God wept in grief and
sadness. God is a flesh and blood
Man. And so, God died.
Yes,
in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of Mary, we can say, and believe, that God
died on the cross… for you. God
died on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins. God shed His holy, precious blood to
redeem you. And we should know this
if we want to come to the Sacrament… indeed, if we want to be Christians. We should believe it and confess it. In Jesus, all the fulness of God was pleased
to dwell… in the flesh!... and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself
(Col. 1:19-20). Jesus is the revelation
of the Father’s heart to you, His Word, His Son. We meet Him in the Gospel, and as He feeds us
with His very body and blood, given and shed for us on the cross, now in the
Holy Supper.
On
one level, these things are very simple… simple enough for a child to know and
believe. Again, here is more of the catechetical
drill: How many Persons is
Christ? One. How many Natures does He have? Two.
What are they? Divine and
human. Simple. Memorable.
Like the Trinity. How many
Gods? One. How many Persons is He? Three.
Who are they? Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. Then again, these
things are deeper than the ocean, deeper than eternity. Deep enough, indeed, for you to drown in
them.
Which
is exactly what has happened to you, when you were drowned and raised
to new life in them, by water and the Word, and in the Name of the
Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
[1] This year’s Lenten Midweek
meditations make use of the resources at https://resources.lcms.org/worship-planning/worship-suggestions-for-2023-midweek-lenten-services/
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