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“We speak of what we know.”
᛭ INI ᛭
Today we’re celebrating the mystery of the Holy Trinity! A “mystery,” when it comes to the Christian faith, is not something you’ve got to figure out from clues, but a “mystery” is a teaching that is beyond our understanding. This doesn’t mean we can’t know anything about it. God tells us about these mysteries in the Bible, and so we can confess mysteries, even teach them, and yet they surpass our reason.
“Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity.” (Introit) We “acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity…and worship the Unity in the power of the Divine Majesty.” (Collect) “We worship the Trinity in person and the Unity in substance, of majesty coequal.” (Proper Preface) So we confessed today: “We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance.” (Athanasian Creed) Most simply!—“The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God; and yet there are not three Gods, but one God.” (Athanasian Creed)
But the Trinity isn’t just about who God is in Himself, that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has eternally existed as one God. The Trinity has to do with your salvation, as the Athanasian Creed makes abundantly clear—twice! Jesus makes this known to us as well in John 3. The Triune God doesn’t just exist in Himself. He works outward for your benefit. He created you to redeem and sanctify you, and we know this from Jesus alone.
THE TRINITY SAVES YOU BY REVEALING HIMSELF IN THE PERSON AND WORK OF JESUS.
(I. Jesus Himself is the revelation of the Holy Trinity.)
What do I mean that “THE TRINITY SAVES YOU BY REVEALING HIMSELF IN THE PERSON…OF JESUS”? Well, it means that Jesus Himself is the revelation of the Holy Trinity. It means we wouldn’t know the Trinity apart from Jesus showing up! Because of our sinfulness we have all sorts of wrong ideas about God, and we certainly wouldn’t come up with something like the Trinity that surpasses our human ways of thinking. The Bible is clear: because we are sinners, we are naturally blind to God, dead toward God, and enemies of God.
Yet, out of “unsearchable and inscrutable” (Rom 11) mercy, the Trinity saves you BY REVEALING HIMSELF IN THE PERSON…OF JESUS. We know this because Jesus talks in an odd way, today: “We speak of what we know.” He is speaking as the Representative of the Holy Trinity. In fact, using “we” is how God talks in the Old Testament. Just after our Old Testament reading God says, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for US?”
Today, Jesus speaks as the eternal Son of the Father. “God sent His Son.” Jesus is that only-begotten Son who “descended from heaven.” He was “incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man.” (Nicene Creed) Because of this Jesus, the Son of God, calls Himself “the Son of Man.” And so we confess “that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is at the same time both God and man.” (Athanasian Creed)
(Transition.)
Jesus is the Son of the Holy Trinity and makes the Trinity known to us. Jesus talks like God, “We speak of what He know,” and also says, “I’m the eternal Son of the Father. I’m the Son of Man.” We need Him to say this because without it we’d never know who the true God is or what He does.
What He does is important. In fact, we trust Jesus’ testimony about who He is and about God because of what He does. In fact, what Jesus does has everything to do with saving you and revealing the Trinity. For the TRINITY doesn’t just SAVE YOU BY REVEALING HIMSELF IN THE PERSON OF JESUS, and leave the rest to you. No, THE TRINITY SAVES YOU ALSO BY REVEALING HIMSELF IN THE WORK OF JESUS.
(II. Jesus’ Work for you reveals the Trinity and saves you.)
Whatever Jesus said was backed up by what He did! Even Nicodemus said, “We know you’re a teacher come from God, because no one can do the signs you do unless God is with him.” Jesus changed water into wine, healed the sick, even raised the dead, but His greatest sign, the Sign of Jonah, was dying, being buried for three days, and then coming back to life. Jesus says, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM.” (Jn 8) That echoes what He says today: “As Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,” that is, lifted up on the Cross.
Jesus’ death and resurrection prove everything He said about Himself and His Father and the Holy Spirit was true. Jesus said He’s the Son of the Father, and that He and His Father send the Spirit. (One God, Three Persons.) The Trinity is revealed in His plan to save you. The Trinity saves you through the Work of the Son, in becoming human, dying, and rising. The eternal Son’s blood cleanses you from your sins, God the Son’s death is the wages paid for your sin, God’s coming back to life is your eternal life.
And Jesus continues to save you and reveal the Trinity. Jesus’ Work continues in the Word and the Sacraments. Today, Jesus talks about the benefits of Baptism: “Unless one is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” No one is saved, certainly not infants (Lk 18), by delaying the saving Word and waters of Holy Baptism. Baptism makes you Jesus’ disciple (Mt 28), a child of His Father (Tit 3), and gives you the Holy Spirit (Acts 2). “Baptism saves you” (1 Pet 3), gives “the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2) The Father also “saved us by [this] washing of rebirth and renewal.” (Titus 3)
The Trinity saves through Baptism AND through all of Jesus’ Gifts. Preaching Jesus’ cross saves you. (1 Cor 1) His Absolution forgives your sins. (Jn 20) The Bible makes you wise unto salvation. (2 Tim 3) The Lord’s Supper is the Son’s body and blood for you to eat and drink for the forgiveness of sins.
Our flesh rejects this, setting up its own pathways to God apart from Jesus’ Gifts. To our sinful flesh they’re a gray area, not necessary, an add-on, a side dish. But Jesus is quite clear today: “Unless you’re born of water and the Spirit, you cannot enter God’s Kingdom.” Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you.” (Jn 6) If you [remain] in my word, [then] you’re truly my disciples (Jn 8).
(Conclusion.)
Only in Jesus do you see who God really is, what He does for you, and what His disposition toward you is. Jesus is the Son of the Father. God the Son shed His blood, died, and came back to life. This same Son came to reveal the Trinity to you, so you’d be saved. We would never come up with such a God on our own. Our idols, false gods always make complete sense. But the Son, sent from the Father, conceived by the Spirit, is the revealing of the Trinity saving you.
You are saved by what the eternal Son did and still does for you. He makes you reborn in Holy Baptism—“water and of the Spirit.” He sends out His ministers to Baptize. Jesus baptizes through them. (Jn 4) So also today. Jesus preaches sermons. Jesus absolves. Jesus gives His Supper. He’s not just revealing Himself to you in these ways. He’s revealing the Trinity. For “the Spirit blows where He wishes,” and you can see the branches swaying at every Baptism, faithful Sermon, and Supper.
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