The Holy Trinity (C)
June 15, 2025
Text: John
8:48-59
We confessed the Athanasian Creed
this afternoon, and that is good and right on Trinity Sunday, holding forth, as
it does, the confession of the Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity, one God,
three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… and the Two Natures of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that God, the Son of God, became Man, and that this Man is our
God, born of the Virgin Mary, to accomplish our salvation. Profound stuff, the Athanasian Creed. We should probably bring it out more than
once a year.
But this Trinity Sunday also
coincides with a very significant milestone anniversary for what eventually
became our Nicene Creed. This past
Thursday commemorated the 1700th Anniversary of the First Council of
Nicaea in AD 325. That was also the
First Ecumenical Council. Ecumenical
refers to the whole Church throughout the world, sending representatives to
meet together as one holy Church of God.
Before this there had been local councils to settle certain
disputes and bring unity to the local Churches, but here, all the bishops, as
many as possible, were to gather in what is now the city of Iznik in Turkey,
Nicaea, or Nikaia in the ancient world. And
do you see why this is important? This
is one case where the whole Christian, catholic, orthodox Church came to
agreement. We consider at least the
first seven ecumenical councils, and especially the first four, to be part of
our own Lutheran heritage… though, to be sure, the last of them predates Martin
Luther and the Reformation by roughly 700 years, AND we evaluate every
conciliar decree according to Holy Scripture...
Nevertheless, the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea has a profound
impact on this congregation, Sunday after Sunday, as we confess the Nicene
Creed. Well, to be clear, the Creed we
actually confess is the modification adopted by the next council in
Constantinople in 381, so that the full name of it is the
Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (aren’t you glad we just call it the Nicene
Creed?).
Anyway, what was it about? Why was it written? The occasion for the council of Nicaea was
the trouble stirred up by a contentious priest named Arius. (Remember this: It is not true
doctrine that divides. False
doctrine divides.) Arianism (as
his particular heresy came to be known) denied the full divinity of the Son of
God. Arius said that the Son was not God
in the true sense, but only called God honorifically. (Jehovah’s Witnesses are essentially Arians.) He called the Son the first of God’s
creatures, and insisted that there was a time when the Son was not. He even wrote hymns about this. And they caught on. There was a time when Arianism was more
prevalent than orthodox Christianity in the Church.
Well, this created division among
the Churches in the Roman Empire. It was
a big fight. And so, as the first
Emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine the Great wanted this
problem solved. So he called the
council, and even presided over it. (This
is a mixture of Church and state to which we Americans are unaccustomed, to say
the least.) Look how history lined up just
right, though, for this council to gather in peace. It really is a miracle, when you think about
it. Arius and his friends made their
case, that the Son is a creature, created in time, not fully God. (This, by the way, is the council where,
according to legend, St. Nicholas punched Arius for his blasphemes… okay, it
was a mostly peaceful council!)
The orthodox Christians, including Arius’ bishop, Alexander (who had
excommunicated Arius), and Alexander’s deacon, Athanasius (for which the
Athanasian Creed is named, though he didn’t write it), made theirs. Namely, that the Son is fully God,
coequal and coeternal with the Father and the Spirit. One God, Three Persons. And that, though there was a time when
the Man, Jesus, was not, there was never a time when the Son
was not. And, note this… on the
basis of Holy Scripture, they made their case. The orthodox theologians weren’t making up
something new. If they were, we should
reject them. All of the phrases in the
Creed are Scriptural. They were
confessing the ancient faith delivered to them by the Apostles and Prophets,
and by Christ Himself.
And, you know, one of the most
important passages of Scripture marshalled for their support, was our Holy
Gospel from John 8. The orthodox faith
confessed by the Council of Nicaea was that given by Jesus Himself. What does He say? (It absolutely confounds the Jews!) “Truly, truly, I say to you, before
Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58; ESV; emphasis added). Now, there was no question in anyone’s mind
what Jesus meant by that. “Before
Abraham was,” that is to say, eternal… “I AM,” that is, the Divine Name. Jesus is pointing to Himself, and saying, “The
almighty and eternal God, right here, in the flesh. I AM God.”
Distinct from the Father. “It
is my Father who glorifies me,” He says (v. 54). Distinct from the Spirit, too, though we go
to other passages for that. Yet one
God. “I and the Father are one,”
He says in John 10 (v. 30). That the
Jews knew exactly what Jesus meant is evidenced in their response… “they
picked up stones to throw at him” (8:59), the penalty for blasphemy. And earlier in John, we read, “This was
why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because… he was even
calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God” (5:18). So, the teaching of Nicaea is simply the
teaching of Jesus.
Oh, Arius had his Scripture
passages, too. You know one of the chief
texts? Our Old Testament reading,
Proverbs 8. Jesus is the Wisdom
personified in that text, the One who was there with the Father at
Creation. True enough. We don’t dispute that. It’s a beautiful passage, paralleling the
great Christmas text of John 1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God… All things were made through him, and
without him was not any thing made that was made” (vv. 1, 3). But, Arius says, look what else Wisdom says
in Proverbs 8: I was “the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up… When there were no depths I was brought forth…
before the hills, I was brought forth” (vv. 22-25). Sounds like there was a time when He was not,
and then He was. Now, this is important,
in case any of you are tempted to become Arians. Was there really a time before God had
Wisdom? Was there really at time when
God was not wise? Do you really want to
say that? If Wisdom is the Son, and
there was a time before God had the Son, that would be to say there was a time
before God had Wisdom. Nonsense. Proverbs 8 is not saying that Wisdom, or the
Son, was created in time. Read the text
closer. Proverbs 8 is speaking about the
eternal Wisdom of God, the Father’s eternal generation, eternal
begetting of His Son, so that there was never a time when the Son was not. And so, there was never a time when the
Father was not wise. And there was never
a time when the Father was not the Father (that’s a good meditation on this
Father’s Day). Remember how you learned
this in the Catechism: “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten
of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is
my Lord.”[1] Stick with that. Arius is not a good exegete, not a
trustworthy biblical interpreter. Don’t
listen to him.
So, here is the wording of the Creed
aimed directly at Arius. You know it,
and you say it all the time: Jesus Christ is “the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God
of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father”… that
last one was ironed out at Constantinople… “by whom all things were made” (LSB
191). Every time you say that, you’re
sticking it to Arius, and standing with the orthodox Fathers of the
Church. More importantly, you’re
standing with Jesus and the His Apostles.
You’re standing with all orthodox Christians everywhere, and in all
times. And you’re confessing what Jesus
says of Himself: “before Abraham was, I AM!”
Like Jesus before them, the orthodox
Fathers and their heirs suffered for that confession. There was violence. There was persecution. Like Jesus and your Fathers in the faith, you
may suffer for it, too. It really is an
audacious act every time you confess the Christian Creed. People die for this, you know. You’re probably okay today, but the day may
come when it costs you your reputation, your livelihood, your possessions, your
home, your freedom, your safety… your life.
“A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me,
they will also persecute you” (John 15:20).
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his
cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24).
But it’s worth it. It’s worth it, because this faith and
confession are your eternal life. See,
if it was just a creature… even the first and best creature
created by God… who became flesh and suffered and died on the cross… even if
that creature rose again… so what? Noble, maybe, but it does you no good,
because it doesn’t have the weight of the Almighty and Eternal God behind
it. If a mere creature died for you,
your sins are not forgiven, and you are lost.
Jesus had to be a flesh and blood man, to be sure, in order to suffer
and die (God can’t do those things, otherwise).
But He had to be true God, the eternal Son of the Father, for
that suffering and death to atone for your sins and the sins of the whole
world. Dr. Luther puts it this way: “We
Christians should know that if God is not in the scale to give it weight, we,
on our side, sink to the ground. I mean it this way: if it cannot be said that
God died for us, but only a man, we are lost; but if God’s death and a dead God
lie in the balance, His side goes down and ours goes up like a light and empty
scale. Yet He can also readily go up again, or leap out of the scale! But He
could not sit on the scale unless He became a man like us, so that it could be
called God’s dying, God’s martyrdom, God’s blood, and God’s death. For God in
His own nature cannot die; but now that God and man are united in one person,
it is called God’s death when the man dies who is one substance or one person
with God.”[2]
Dear Christians, God died for
you. Think about that. God in your flesh. Very God of very God. Incarnate by the Holy Spirit. Born of the Virgin Mary. Therefore, your sins are forgiven. You have eternal life. You confess this every Sunday. 1700 years ago, the Fathers at the Council of
Nicaea confessed it. So, this may be a
little unorthodox… or, then again, it is the very definition of orthodoxy…
Let’s turn to the Nicene Creed on p. 191 of Lutheran Service Book, or
the inside back cover, or just call it to memory by heart, but let’s confess
it, this gift that is our Creed…
Ready? “I believe in one God…”
etc.
In the Name of the Father, and of
the Son X,
and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] Catechism quotes from Luther’s
Small Catechism (St. Louis: Concordia, 1986), emphasis added.
[2] On the Councils and the
Church, quoted in the Formula of Concord: Solid Declaration VIII:44,
Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, McCain et al., Eds. (St. Louis:
Concordia, 2005, 2006) pp. 588-89.
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