The Rev. Paul J Cain
John 8:48-59
One God in Three
Persons
Trinity Sunday, First Sunday after Pentecost, 26 May 2013
Immanuel Lutheran Church, Sheridan, Wyoming
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
One God in Three
Persons. This is the simple truth. Yet, every Trinity Sunday, some explanation
is in order.
Trinity. The word
isn’t in the Bible.
That is a true
fact, but it is not the whole truth. The word may not be, but the
concept is. One just can’t say it in one word.
How would you
explain one God in three persons and three persons in one God without
speaking of Three Gods, demoting Christ and the Holy Spirit, or teaching about
a “god” with multiple-personalities? Scripture clearly teaches three in one
when Jesus tells us that disciples are made by teaching and by baptizing in the
[one] Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
In order to teach
this Bible concept, Christians came up with one new summary word: Trinity. Take
“Tri” from triangle or tricycle and “unity” and put them together like the
Cookie Monster teaches phonics on Sesame Street, and you get “Trinity.”
You learned the
Apostles’ Creed from the Small Catechism. It got its name to honor the
continued teachings of Christ and His apostles. By the year 325, false teachers
had arisen that were not teaching about God from the Scriptures. In order to
correct this, Christians composed a creed that said what the Scriptures said
about Father, Son and Spirit being one God in three persons. The Nicene Creed was
written at Nicaea and Constantinople, sites of two ancient Church Councils or
conventions. The third universal or ecumenical creed was named in honor of the
great defender of the Trinity, St. Athanasius.
And the creed
explains in great detail the very simple point of today’s Holy Gospel: Jesus is
God. There are three persons in One God.
The Jews answered [Jesus] him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a
Samaritan and have a demon?”
Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you
dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he
is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will
never see death.”
The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as
did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste
death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets
died! Who do you make yourself out to be?”
Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father
who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ But you have not known him.
I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like
you, but I do know him and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that
he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”
So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you
seen Abraham?”
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of
the temple.
Picking up stones to throw at Jesus never seems like a good
idea to me. Why did these Jews do so? They thought Jesus was…well, many things.
A Samaritan. This was a way to really run a guy down. Jews
and Samaritans didn’t get along. After the united kingdom of Saul, David, and
Solomon split, the conquerors resettled the land with non-Jews who intermarried
with the remnant of the so-called 10 lost tribes. They weren’t ever totally
lost. The folks down south in Judah claimed they had lost the true religion and
pure blood of their ancestors. Good Samaritans were rare, if not non-existent
in the eyes of most Jews of the time.
A demon. Yes, this is a common complaint against Jesus. You
think people today “demonize” their opponents? This is where that idea comes
from. Jesus was possessed or at least taught demonic ideas—or so these Jews
thought.
The real problem that Jesus was to these Jews and the
official leaders of the day was what they considered to be blasphemy, Jesus
saying He was sent from God, spoke for God, was the Son of God, and therefore
IS God. Their zeal for protecting God from pretenders ignored the One True God
in the flesh in their midst.
We spend our grammar school years learning about words. We
learn to read before we read in order to learn. And we learn about verbs. We
learn about tenses. We sometimes introduce them to children as past, present,
and future. Jesus turns all of those on their head when He simply says: I am.
I am is a loaded phrase, especially in Old Testament Hebrew.
I AM is . one name by which God reveals Himself to His ancient people. And this
isn’t the first time Jesus has publicly said who He was by saying I “equals
sign” God. I am the door. I am the vine. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
I AM says, I and the Father are One. And so the people brought out their
granite baseballs.
Picking up stones to throw at Jesus never seems like a good
idea to me, especially today, but people do. They don’t like the Jesus of the
Bible, so they throw a stone. They don’t like hearing their pet sins condemned
by Jesus, so they call Him old-fashioned. They don’t like His claim of
authority over them and their lives and their actions, so they deny His
divinity, His truth, or even His very existence. And before we get too proud,
we all realize that even Christians at times do the same thing. It is easy to
agree with the Word in public where you have the support of other Christians.
It is harder to put the Word in practice when no one else is watching…except
God Himself.
We continue to pray for steadfastness in the Word. We pray
for those who are persecuted to the death for holding to the Word above all. We
pray for those who are imprisoned merely for their confession of Christ. We
pray for those who face subtle but real persecution in our land for not
“getting with the times,” “going with the flow,” or condoning what “everyone”
allegedly does.
It is particularly popular to say that all roads lead to the
same God. If a group, teacher, or body of teachings denies the clear
self-disclosed message of who Jesus is and what He has done for you, one is not
taking Christianity or the Bible at face value. No, the Father of Jesus cannot
be the God of Muhammad and Islam. Even Jews who reject their Messiah cannot
claim a separate salvation on the basis of the Hebrew Scriptures. Denying the
existence of Adam and Eve, the historical nature of Jonah, the Virgin Birth and
Jesus’ physical Resurrection are all anti-Christ and cannot be properly
believed, promoted, or tolerated in Biblical Christianity.
We conclude where we began: One God in three Persons.
Trinity. Tri-unity. One in three and three in one. Simple, Biblical, yet
impossibly complex. It is a statement of belief, of faith, not of complete
comprehension. Thus Christians throughout the centuries have explained the
Trinity.
We have many Bible texts including “in the Name,” “I and the
Father are One,” “The Lord our God, the Lord is One,” and many others.
Christians composed the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds.
They composed the Athanasian Creed.
Shortly after the Nicene Creed was first confessed, St.
Patrick taught the Trinity to the Irish using a hymn he wrote and the famous
shamrock.
And while the words may be new, the teachings are the same,
old Bible truth: One God in three persons. Amen.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
