The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
When St. Augustine was contemplating the Holy Trinity, in an effort to make sense of it, to try to help communicate it better to his congregants, he decided to try to clear the air by going for a walk. But as he walked, he thought about what the Bible taught concerning God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and once again it didn’t take him long before he was at his wit’s end on how to explain the doctrine of the Trinity. Still, questions kept arising, and he kept mulling over the Trinity in his mind. One God, three persons. Three persons, one God. How can it be? What does it mean? How can I better explain it?
As he was wrestling with the questions, he came across a little boy on the beach. He approached the little boy to see what he was doing. The boy had dug a small hole in the sand, and with his hands he’d go down to the splashing waves of the ocean and cup water into his hands and walk it back and drop it into the hole. Augustine asked him what he was doing and why he was doing it, and the boy replied, “I want to put all the water in the ocean in this hole.” And Augustine said, “Is it possible for all that water of this great ocean to be contained in that little hole of yours?” And then it struck him: if the water in the ocean can’t be contained in this little boy’s man-made hole in the sand, then how can the infinite, Triune God be contained in one man’s mind?
The Trinity is an interesting and rather unique aspect of the Christian faith. No other religion has anything like it at all. Try as we may, we can’t truly grasp or explain what Luther called the greatest mystery of the Christian religion: namely, that God is one, yet at the very same time, all the time, eternally, God is three persons, and these three persons exist in one Godhead.
Thus the Athanasian Creed came about, to contend, to fight against all kinds of heresies that had arisen, trying to explain two fundamental mysteries: the doctrine of the Trinity, and the person of Jesus Christ, fully human and fully divine. Thus the Athanasian Creed is the most complete of the three creeds in delineating exactly what the Bible teaches concerning the Godhead: God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In regard to the more fundamental question that should be asked first — what does it mean to have a God, or what is, in fact, a god? — Luther wrote in the Large Catechism the following: “What does it mean to have a God? Or, what is God?” The answer: “A god means that from which we are to expect all good and to which we are to take refuge in all distress, so that to have a God is nothing else than to trust and believe Him from the heart. As I have often said, the confidence and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust be right, then is your god also true; and, on the other hand, if your trust be false and wrong, then you have not the true God; for these two belong together, faith and God. That now, I say, upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god.”
In other words, a god is what you put your trust in. It’s what you value the most in life. It’s what you serve above all else, whether you realize it or not. People who think life is primarily about accumulating wealth and things, they serve a god that’s called materialism. Hedonists and Epicureans, they serve a god of pleasure. These days, most people serve the god of emotion: your feelings. Trust your feelings. Follow your feelings. Live your own truth.
Paul wrote the following about people who make gods. It’s an interesting Bible passage, Philippians 3:19: “Their end is destruction, their god is their belly.” Some translations will say “appetite.” Commentators will also point out that in Greek and Roman parlance, the belly is the seat of emotion, so occasionally a translation will put the emotion word in there, that their god is emotion. “And they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.” That’s the definition of a god.
We had a member way back in the ’90s. One of his family members left Immanuel. They didn’t much like this new Lutheran pastor, so grandpa, the head of the family, came into my office and informed me that the most important thing in the world to him was his family, and that even if his family went to a church that God disapproved of, he would follow them there, because that was his family. And I replied, “That is your god.” He left immediately. But that’s the fundamental fact, see. We set these little idols up in our hearts all the time: these gods and other gods of this world, all the gods of human imagination — materialism, hedonism, emotivism, pragmatism, feminism, communism, all the isms of our day and age and throughout the centuries. All of them are rather puny and weak gods. They live and they die in the hearts and minds of corrupt sinful nature. Remember this: the gods who are created and worshiped in a human being’s own mind never outlive the mind that created them. What kind of god is that, one that dies with the sinner?
The Christian religion believes and teaches that there is only one God, yet Christianity confesses what the Scripture teaches and shows concerning the true nature and identity of God: the one true God is a plurality of three divine persons, the three persons in one Godhead, three persons co-eternal together and co-equal in all things. All three creeds — the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creed — confess this fundamental truth. It’s an article of faith. An article of faith is a statement that must be believed if a person is going to be called a Christian and be saved from sin, death, and the power of the devil. It’s a doctrine that is not optional for the Christian. If it’s an article of faith, it must be confessed, and if it isn’t confessed, or contradicted, even worse, then that is a disqualifying belief of one being a Christian. It’s a doctrine that’s not optional.
And that’s what we have in the words of the Athanasian Creed. That’s why it begins in this way: “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic” — meaning universal — “faith. Which faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity.”
The Creed summarized what is implied and what is stated forthrightly in the Old and New Testament Scriptures concerning the Godhead. God is called Father, God is called Son, God is called Holy Spirit, yet not three gods but one God, co-equal, undivided in majesty, co-eternal, and all three almighty.
The Trinity, the God who is God, the Christian God, should never be considered as an abstraction, a simple idea, some sort of mystery to be solved, as if detached from both time and space, from real history, from flesh and blood. And that’s the point of all three of the readings this morning, all three highlighting one God in perfect unity, and what we call a Trinity: triune unity. The Trinity also manifests itself not only in its substance and its essence, but in its work, what it does. Unlike sinful humanity that’s constantly divided and at odds with each other about what we believe and what we do, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are united in one substance and in one purpose, or to use the language of Paul, one plan of salvation. They’re united in one mind and one will. In all the works of God, the Father is present and active, the Son is present and active, and the Holy Spirit is present and active.
There’s a great temptation, for a very long time within Christendom and the Christian church, to sort of cut that last one off, as somehow operating independent of the other two, that is, that the Holy Spirit works apart from the Word. No. The Holy Spirit always goes with the Word. The Word always goes with the Holy Spirit. The Word is sent by the Father. The Word is Christ. They all together always function for one fundamental purpose: to save you from your sins.
That was in the article of creation, by the way, all three persons working together to create everything. God the Father spoke, and it was so. “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” There’s God the Father. God the Son: “The Word was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” All three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, were present and active in Genesis chapter 1 and chapter 2, breathing life, ultimately breath — ruach, Spirit — into Adam, and then subsequently Eve.
So also the three persons of the Holy Trinity are present and active in the work of redemption. In Baptism, Jesus was baptized into His office as Prophet, Priest, and King in order to, as He said, fulfill all righteousness. When Jesus came up from the water, God the Father said, “Behold, this is my Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And then the Spirit descended in the form of a dove. It was the Son’s pleasure to fulfill all the works of His Father, that is, all the works of the Law, and to do His Father’s will, especially going to the cross in the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world.
See, we know God by His self-revelation and by His work. That’s how we know Him principally. We don’t know Him as an abstract idea, as in other religions. We know Him and His character only because we see it in the activity of all three persons of the Holy Trinity in action, working together to accomplish His plan of salvation for the world and for you.
The entire Trinity was involved in God’s plan. As for the Father: the Father foreknew what was going to happen to His Son, and yet He sent His only-begotten Son into the world so that it would happen to His Son. The Father attested to Jesus’ identity as the Son of God and the Son of Man by virtue of signs and wonders and works. Rabbi Nicodemus said, “We know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” The Father sent the Son to be crucified, and once crucified, the Father preserved the Son’s body from corruption. That’s part of Peter’s sermon today: “God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. David said about him: ‘You will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption.'” The Father exalted Jesus to the right hand. Jesus’ saving work was so complete, God declared Him to be both Lord and Christ, Master and Savior. Again Acts 2:36: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
As for the Son: He submitted to the works of the Law and to His Father’s will. He prayed, “Not my will, but thy will be done.” He took on flesh, assuming the nature of a human being and sharing in our weakness. The Son of God did all the works and wonders and signs that God the Father had done through Him. He taught with authority and clarity unmatched by any teacher of His time. He resisted all temptation and went willingly to the cross to be sacrificed for our sin. For our sake, God made Him, Jesus, to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the very righteousness of God. The Son of Man willingly took His part in the Father’s plan of salvation and faithfully executed it, with His own execution.
Jesus promised also the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. On Pentecost, the day of Pentecost came, and the Holy Spirit was poured out. The Spirit also brought together people from every tribe and every nation so they could hear Peter’s sermon, each and every one of them in their own language. The Holy Spirit testifies to Jesus through the Word of the Gospel and through the Sacraments. We were born again of the water and the Spirit in Holy Baptism. The Spirit speaks to us as the apostles preached and wrote the sacred words of the Old and the New Testament. The Holy Spirit speaks to us in the apostolic preaching and in the Bible itself. The Father and the Son are accompanied through the working of the Holy Spirit, who, as the Word is preached and the Sacraments rightly administered, calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies and keeps us and the whole Christian Church in true Christian faith — in part by reciting liturgy, including the Athanasian Creed. John 16:13-14: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me” — that’s Jesus speaking — “for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” All three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, working for one purpose: for the forgiveness of your sins, life, and salvation.
The Epistle reading this morning puts all three working together in and through you, working to bring you home to your heavenly rest. Romans 8: “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you’ve not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you’ve received a spirit of adoption as sons, by which we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” You are a Christian because God the Father called you by His Word, Jesus Christ. He’s enlightened you with the Holy Spirit. He brings you through this life, your death, to the resurrection, and one day your ultimate ascension into the heavenly realm, as Christ ascended. He has called, gathered, enlightened, and sanctified all of us. We are the “whosoever will be saved” people in the opening words of the Athanasian Creed. We are the ones who confess the true Christian, apostolic, catholic, universal faith. And those doctrines are not arbitrary, nor are they optional.
The name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit was given to you, not that you could fully understand and comprehend it, but it’s given to you because it’s the family name. You are sons and daughters of the heavenly Father, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. You are the temple of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. All so that through your faith and love, the world might see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. That’s, by the way, the last couple of sentences in the Creed itself. People say, “See, we’re saved by works, the Athanasian Creed says so.” No. It goes to the consequence of everything that’s been said before, that is, that you, in fact, in Christ, do good works. In the Triune name, you have life: death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, the very righteousness of God. For your sins are forgiven. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.