Grace to you, and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Again, I give thanks to God for you and am looking forward to seeing you again in person, Lord willing.
You have the Scripture readings for today printed on the back of your service insert. You can follow along, if you like, as I read the Gospel from Luke chapter 6.
Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” And He spoke a parable to them: “Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye.
In this Gospel, Jesus instructs His disciples to “be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” The Apostle Paul wrote similar words in his epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 5: Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
Mercy is a form of love. Love can be a sincere commitment to anyone, to the good and to the bad, to friend or enemy. But mercy is when genuine kindness is shown specifically to the unkind, to the wretched, the pitiful, the miserable, the helpless and the wicked. Jesus tells us to be merciful just as your Father also is merciful. How is He merciful?
In what way does our Father “judge not and condemn not”? Certainly He is the Judge of all mankind. His Law tells us what He judges to be right and wrong, and He does indeed condemn the wicked. The Apostle Paul says, Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.
So in what way does He “judge not, condemn not, and forgive?” He says through the prophet Ezekiel, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord GOD, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel? Even when people wickedly rebel against Him, our Father doesn’t want to see them die, doesn’t want to see them burn in hell. Even though they hate Him, He still cares about the wicked, and wants the wicked to repent and live with Him eternally, because our Father Himself has provided the sacrifice of atonement for all sin. Our Father Himself, in His mercy, has chosen to judge and condemn His Son as the substitute for all sinners. Our Father’s desire is for all sinners to believe in Christ, to be forgiven through faith in Christ.
That’s how He judges not, condemns not, and forgives, by treating sinners kindly—far better than we deserve—by desiring their life and their repentance, and by sacrificing His own Son for them.
And He calls on His children to be like Him in this, to have a heart of mercy toward those who are unkind, wicked, nasty or mean. A judging and condemning heart looks for the faults in your neighbor and seeks to expose them, whereas a merciful heart seeks to help your neighbor and hide his faults.
Jesus also includes a warning in our Gospel against hypocrisy. You’re a hypocrite if you pretend you’re better than your neighbor, or if you pretend to know God and yet refuse to show mercy to your neighbor. The only ones who can be merciful as God is merciful are those who have first recognized their own great need for God’s mercy, who have noticed the plank in their own eye, the selfish heart in their own chest that loves to take offense, that loves to put others in their place. The more you recognize your own wretchedness, the more you will value your Father’s mercy, which moved Him to send His Son for you, and still moves Him to forgive you your sins as you look to Him for mercy. The more you value your Father’s mercy toward you, the more ready you will be to show it to others.
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.
Peace be with you.
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Grace to you, and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I thank God for all of you, that, even in my absence, you have come together this morning to pray, to support one another in bearing the cross, and to encourage one another in the Christian faith and in leading the holy life of love to which God has called us.
On the back of your service folder you have printed the three Scripture readings for today, the Third Sunday after Trinity. I encourage you to read them at home with your families. You’ll hear the prophet Micah express awe at the great mercy and compassion of the God whose outstanding character it is to forgive sins. You’ll hear the Apostle Peter’s encouragement to humble yourselves before this God, because He exalts the humble. He also warns you to watch out for the devil, who is seeking to devour you—to lead you astray from the humble, penitent faith that mourns over sins and trusts in Christ for forgiveness—forgiveness which He alone purchased with His blood shed on the cross for you.
I’ll read today’s Gospel to you from Luke 15 and just make a couple of brief comments on it:
Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man receives sinners and eats with them.” So He spoke this parable to them, saying: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance. “Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!’ Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Notice that the tax collectors and sinners drew near to Jesus. Why? Because He condoned their sins or told them it was OK to sin against God? Not at all! They drew near to Him because they acknowledged their sins. They knew that their sins had earned God’s wrath and punishment for them. But Jesus was revealing to them the same God who revealed Himself in the Old Testament as a God who, as Micah had said, “pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of His people, who does not retain His anger forever, who delights in mercy.” Only now, God was not revealing Himself through a mere prophet. God was revealing Himself in Person—in Jesus, who is God in the flesh.
The tax collectors and sinners found in Jesus a God who doesn’t excuse or permit sin; He condemns it. But at the same time, He Himself volunteered to suffer for it and to be condemned for it in the sinner’s place. That’s how He can welcome sinners who come to Him for mercy. Where Christ is, there God is merciful. And everyone who comes to Him for mercy and healing will receive it. The two short parables Jesus told of the lost sheep and the lost coin picture for us, not only God’s willingness to forgive sinners, but His joy in doing so.
The devil, that prowling lion, will tempt you in two directions here. He’ll tempt you, either to despair of God’s mercy, because your sins are so great, or he’ll tempt you to despise God’s mercy, as the Pharisees did in the Gospel, because you think your sins aren’t so bad after all—while the sins of other people are so bad that they just might be unforgiveable.
Watch out for the devil, on both sides. The last thing he wants is for sinners to acknowledge their transgressions and to draw near to Jesus for mercy. But that’s exactly what God wants: for sinners to repent and draw near to Jesus to be forgiven. In fact, this very Gospel is what brings sinners to do just that.
Remember your Baptism, where Jesus first received and forgave you, the sinner. Remember your Baptism, which still “works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this.” Remember your Baptism, which “indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” Peace be with you.
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Jeremiah 26:12-16 + Acts 12:1-11 + Matthew 16:13-20
Dear saints of God, who have been sanctified, that is, made holy, by the blood of Jesus Christ and by the washing of water with the Word: Today we celebrate the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Through the Word of God that they preached, you have become saints. And they, in their writings, referred to you baptized believers in Christ as saints. So we will not hesitate to give them the same distinction.
We celebrate their feast day because of their faithful witness of Christ: a testimony they left behind for us both in their preaching and in their blood, which was willingly shed for the sake of Christ and His Gospel, and also for our sake, so that you and I may know that what they preached was worth dying for. They serve as teachers; they serve as examples, specifically for those who hold the office of the ministry as they did, but also for all Christians in their vocations.
Peter and Paul were equals, but they weren’t the same in every way. Peter was a Jewish fisherman from Galilee, a married man; Paul was a Jewish tent-maker from Tarsus who was born a Roman citizen, a man who chose to remain unmarried. Peter was impetuous, quick to speak and act, down to earth and simple in his style of preaching and writing; Paul was a scholar, an intellectual, whose writings were more complex. Peter even referred to that in his second epistle: “Count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”
Peter and Paul were different in many ways, but they were equals in the most important way: equals in confessing Christ. They shared a common Christian confession, a common Christian ministry, and a common Christian cross.
First, they shared a common Christian confession. You heard in the Gospel Peter’s clear confession: Jesus asked His twelve apostles, “Who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Those few words are full of meaning. Peter was connecting all the Old Testament dots of Messianic prophecy to Jesus as the promised Savior, who was true God and true Man, who is the only hope, the only Redeemer of sinful men.
Paul, at first, denied that Jesus was the Christ and was a persecutor of Christians. But after Jesus converted him, Paul’s confession couldn’t be clearer: And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Peter and Paul confessed Jesus as the Christ by preaching against sin, by calling sinners to repentance, by teaching that sinners are justified before God by faith alone in Christ. Peter’s sermons recorded in the book of Acts are beautiful Gospel gems. Here is part of one of them: God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. And we are witnesses of all things which He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they killed by hanging on a tree. Him God raised up on the third day, and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead. And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He who was ordained by God to be Judge of the living and the dead. To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.
Paul’s words to the Romans are just another way of saying the same thing: But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe… Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.
You may remember that St. Peter himself once stumbled on this point when he was in Antioch and, for fear of the circumcision group, stopped associating with the uncircumcised Gentiles. Paul had to confront Peter on that occasion to bring him back to the truth: I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.”
In all things, in all articles of doctrine, Peter and Paul confessed in perfect harmony with one another, as equals who didn’t come up with their own doctrine or borrow it from others, but were given their common doctrine directly by their common Lord Jesus.
In the same way, neither of them took it upon himself to be an apostle, but they were chosen equally by Jesus and called into a common Christian ministry.
We learn in Luke 6 that Jesus personally chose twelve of His disciples, including Peter, to be apostles. The book of Acts and Paul’s own epistles tell how he, too, was directly chosen by Jesus to be an apostle, and that he didn’t get his apostolic authority from Peter or from any man, but only from Christ. In this ministry, none is superior or inferior to the other. You heard in today’s Gospel of the ministry Jesus gave to Peter: I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
The rock on which Jesus will build His church is not Peter the man, but Peter the chosen minister who confesses Jesus as the Christ. In other words, this is the ministry of Christian confession on which Jesus would build the church, the preaching ministry by which the Holy Spirit would convict sinners of their sins, and bring sinners to faith and so justify and save them. And it’s not the ministry of one man, but of all the apostles in general, as St. Paul also writes to the Ephesians: Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.
The tools of this ministry are also the same among all ministers—Peter and Paul and all ministers after them who are called by God, through the Church, into the office of the Holy Ministry. The tools are keys, the “keys of the kingdom of heaven.” It is the authority given by Christ to speak and to act in His name and in His place, to forgive sins to penitent sinners and to retain sins to the impenitent. It’s the ministry of Word and Sacrament that convicts sinners of their sins, calls them to repentance, and applies the righteousness of Christ to the penitent.
It was Peter who proclaimed on the Day of Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins.” It was Peter who said, “Baptism saves us.” It was Paul who spoke of baptism as the “washing of water with the word,” and as “washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” It was Paul especially who taught the Corinthians about the importance of Lord’s Supper as the communion with the body and blood of Christ, given and shed for the forgiveness of sins. And it was both of them who emphasized the power of the Word of God to give new birth and new life.
Finally, Peter and Paul were equals in confessing Christ in that they bore a common Christian cross, the cross of suffering for the name of Christ. They bore it faithfully, even to death. You heard in the reading today from Acts how Peter was imprisoned and shackled for his confession of Christ. It wouldn’t be the last time. Jesus had told Peter ahead of time that Peter would die a martyr’s death, and after He told him that, He said to him, “Follow Me.” And Peter did follow, rejoicing that he was counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ. So when, in his epistles, he encourages Christians to endure suffering patiently and joyfully for the sake of Christ, he knew exactly what he was talking about.
Paul once “boasted” of his sufferings, not to make himself look good, but to show how weak he was and how powerful Christ was to sustain him: Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? And Paul, writing to Timothy, shows us how a Christian prepares for death: I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory…For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.
Dear saints of God, there is so much for us to learn from St. Peter and St. Paul and from their confession of Christ. Let us honor them, not with a Sunday service, but with a lifetime of learning and studying the doctrine they have handed down to us, and by following the example they have left behind for us, their example of faith in Christ, of ongoing repentance and renewal and growth in holy living. Let us follow their example of bearing the Christian cross with patience and with joy. And let us be bold, as they were, to confess Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, in life and in death, and in hope of the resurrection of the dead and in the blessed eternal life to come. Amen.
Last week, on Trinity Sunday, we heard Jesus’ dialogue with the Pharisee, Nicodemus, and we learned of God’s gracious plan of salvation, which includes the lifting up of the Son of Man on the cross, and the new birth of faith, worked by the Holy Spirit through the Means of Grace—faith which looks up to Jesus and receives eternal life from Him. We heard Jesus say that, “Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” This week, we see a vivid example of that very truth.
This week, in Jesus’ parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus, we encounter a man—the rich man—who was not born again and didn’t enter the kingdom of God; instead, his soul went to hell when he died. But we also encounter another man, Lazarus, who was born again and did enter the kingdom of God.
The rich man is the main character in this parable, because Jesus was addressing this parable to rich men, to a group of Pharisees. The entire chapter of Luke 16 is Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees for all their hypocrisy, for their love of money, for their unscriptural divorces and remarriages and adulteries. Now, with this parable, Jesus reveals the source of their wickedness: a loveless, godless heart. And He will drive home to them the seriousness of their condition and the dire consequences of going through life with a loveless heart. A loveless heart is a dead heart that needs to be replaced, lest they, or we, end up like the rich man in hell.
As Jesus describes the rich man in the parable, we’re struck by how innocent the man appears. He is no murderer, no thief, no adulterer. He, like all citizens of Israel at that time, was a church member, a circumcised son of Abraham, a worshiper of the true God—or at least so he appeared to be. Jesus describes him as a rich man who “fared sumptuously every day.” He wore expensive clothes, he had more than enough to eat, and he had enough wealth that he wasn’t just living paycheck to paycheck. Nor is he described as an abuser or oppressor of the poor, as if he got rich at their expense. So far, nothing that sounds hell-worthy, is it?
So what is it that Jesus highlights as his hell-worthy flaw? He did…nothing. He did nothing, when he could have easily done something to help poor Lazarus—poor Lazarus who was not just some poor man out there in the world, but the poor man placed at the rich man’s gate every day.
And yet, even then, it wasn’t the doing nothing that condemned him. Because Lazarus also did nothing, didn’t he? Is Lazarus credited with a single good work in this parable? No. He sat at the rich man’s gate, with sores all over his body, begging. Begging is not a good work. Being sickly or poor does not make you closer to God or more pleasing to God. Lazarus did nothing, and yet he entered the kingdom of God, while the rich man did nothing, and went to hell. No, it wasn’t the doing nothing that condemned the rich man. It was the apathetic, loveless heart that prompted him to do nothing for his neighbor, for his brother, for his fellow church member in his desperate need.
Now, Jesus says that when Lazarus died, the angels “carried him to Abraham’s bosom” where he was “comforted.” Why speak of this place of comfort as “Abraham’s bosom”? Because Abraham was the father of the Jewish people. Abraham was the one whom the Pharisees claimed to be their father as they mocked and ridiculed Jesus for daring to claim that salvation was by faith alone in Him alone. The Pharisees fully expected to be dining with Abraham at the heavenly banquet because of their good works. Well, here Jesus describes Abraham as the comforter of the poor beggar who receives the poor beggar to his side even while the rich man is separated from Abraham by a great chasm and receives no comfort at all from Abraham.
What does that tell us? Who are the true “sons of Abraham”? The Apostle Paul tells us very plainly that the true sons of Abraham are those who walk in the footsteps, not of Abraham’s good works, but of Abraham’s faith; he is the father of those who believe in God and trust in His promises of eternal life through Christ.
As Jesus revealed in the Gospel last week, the only way to not perish but to have eternal life is to look to the Son of Man, to Jesus, in faith, to be born again. So, even though this parable doesn’t say anything about Lazarus’ heart, we let Scripture interpret Scripture, and therefore, we know that he ended up at Abraham’s side because he shared Abraham’s faith in Christ.
This parable presents a real problem for those false teachers who make the Christian life about personal fulfillment and prosperity and happiness and health. Look at Lazarus. He was a believer. He was loved by God and favored by God and granted a place of comfort in heaven, but his earthly life stank. And so it is in this life that believers in Christ are often not the prosperous ones, not the rich ones, not the healthy and happy ones, while the wicked often prosper and have a cushy life full of earthly pleasures. But we see how things end for the believing Lazarus and for the unbelieving rich man. If you could trade places with one of them, which would you choose? Only a fool would choose the rich man, who enjoyed earthly pleasures for a little while but will spend eternity in torment, in flames.
His own words to Abraham demonstrate his own regret, his own desire to go back and do things differently. And yet, his words also reveal, that his heart is the same old dead heart as before. Why? What is his first concern? Himself and his own suffering. Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. When Abraham says that there’s nothing to be done to help him, then what? He does think of his brothers who are still alive. He doesn’t want them to come to this place of torment. Isn’t that a little bit of love? No. Not at all. Not to want other people to suffer is not the same thing as love.
As John said in the Epistle, “God is love.” Do we hear a word from the rich man about God? No. Does he trust in God? No. Does he fear God? No. Does he love God’s Word—the Law and the Prophets? No. On the contrary, he denies that God’s Word will have any power to convince his brothers of anything. Only something else will convince them. Only a man coming back from the dead! No, Abraham says. If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.
And right there is where Jesus is hammering the Pharisees. They had Moses and the prophets. In fact, they boasted about how well they knew and obeyed the Law of Moses and how much they honored the prophets. And yet what did Moses and the prophets require? Very simply, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” And, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But they didn’t. They had a bad heart. As Jesus says elsewhere, “From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”
A loveless heart may produce all of those evil things, or it may simply produce no good thing. Either way, a loveless heart is a dead heart. And the only thing to do with a dead heart, is to replace it with a new, living one. Only God’s Spirit can do that. He does it by revealing people’s dead hearts to them and by bringing them to be sorrowful and terrified over their lost condition, because it really will lead to hell and eternal torment. And then, to those who are terrified, He reveals Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, whose death on the cross makes up for all the lovelessness of men.
Now, when God’s Spirit, working through God’s Word, brings sinners to faith in Christ, He gives us new birth. He creates a new heart in us and replaces the old, dead one. And that new heart is a living heart, a loving heart. Faith alone saves, but faith is never alone. It is always accompanied by love. John spoke in the Epistle today about the impossibility of loving God who is unseen, if someone has no love for his neighbor, whom he sees.
The Spirit’s work of renewal in the reborn, regenerated heart is an ongoing work, a work in which He battles against our sinful flesh that still doesn’t love and never will. But where the Spirit is working, where this struggle is happening, the Christian will love his neighbor. God said in Jeremiah 9, I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight. Lovingkindness, justice and righteousness are also the delight of those who have faith in Christ, and the entire Christian life is a life of growing in these things as the Spirit of God molds us into the image of our brother Jesus, and of our Father in heaven.
Where there is no love for the neighbor, there is no faith, and where there is no faith, there is no life, only death. But where there is repentance and faith in Christ, there is pure forgiveness, life and salvation. And there is a person who loves and who will continue to grow in love, even as Christ has commanded us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. This is the new birth that God gives through water and the Spirit, not a faith of the lips only, but a faith of the heart that expresses itself in love. The rich man in Jesus’ parable ignored the warnings of Moses and the prophets and didn’t believe them. May Jesus’ words today serve to renew your regenerated hearts, so that you may be zealous for every good work, and that genuine love may rule your words and your actions today and every day. Amen.
On this Trinity Sunday, as we “worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity,” we are introduced to each Person of our triune God in the Gospel—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And as we hear the words of Jesus in His dialogue with Nicodemus, it’s anything but a dull, boring, philosophical explanation. It’s a life or death kind of conversation that Jesus had with Nicodemus, and it’s a life or death kind of teaching that the Holy Spirit brings us today in these words. There is only one God, and you must know Him and know Him rightly in order to be saved. In fact, Jesus says later in the Gospel of John as He prays to His Father, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Well, you only know the true God as He reveals Himself to you in His Word. So consider carefully the words of Jesus in John chapter 3 as He reveals the Holy Trinity to you—the only God, the saving God.
Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, so that he wouldn’t be seen. He was an important teacher and leader in Israel, and apparently a very sincere, a very respectful man. But for all his sincerity, for all the respect he showed Jesus, even though he was a teacher in Israel, he didn’t know the true God rightly—not yet. Anyone who doesn’t want to be seen with Jesus shows that he doesn’t know God rightly. But he did know one thing rightly: Rabbi, he said, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.
Yes, Jesus had come from God. He says over and over, especially in the Gospel of John, that He had been sent to earth by God, His Father. But knowing that Jesus was a prophet sent by God is still not knowing God rightly; it’s still not enough—not enough to be saved. Not enough to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus is quick to point that out to Nicodemus: Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Now, Nicodemus was a Pharisee, some of the most religious, law-abiding, good-work-performing people in all the land, a descendant of Abraham and a circumcised citizen of Israel. And yet, with one sentence, Jesus discounts all of those things and declares that rebirth or regeneration is the only way into the kingdom of God—into God’s favor, into God’s family. Only by being born again can anyone see heaven.
Nicodemus at first interprets Jesus’ words in a physical way: How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” So Jesus explains a little bit: Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. In other words, Jesus explains that He isn’t talking about physical rebirth, but spiritual birth. Just being born into this world does not make someone a subject or an heir of God’s kingdom. Not at all.
Because “that which is born of the flesh is flesh.” That’s the flesh we inherited from our first father, Adam, who rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden. We all start out life—from the moment we’re born, from the moment we’re conceived—outside of the kingdom of God, dead in sins and trespasses. The way into God’s kingdom, the way out of death and into life, is already blocked off to us from birth. Only if the Spirit of God gives us a new birth can we live.
That new birth takes place as the Holy Spirit works faith in our hearts, faith in the true God, the only God, the saving God, the God who forgives sins, the God who takes ungodly, unrighteous people and justifies them, for free, for the sake of Christ Jesus, the Son of God. That message of rebirth by Spirit-worked faith in God and His Messiah filled the Old Testament. “The righteous shall live by his faith.”
And now, in the New Testament, starting with John the Baptist, God the Holy Spirit has specifically attached His promise of forgiveness and regeneration to water and calls it Holy Baptism. To be baptized is to be born of water and the Spirit. That’s the means the Holy Spirit uses to wash away sin, to justify sinners. That’s the New Testament way into God’s kingdom—through Holy Baptism and the faith connected to it—Baptism that is performed in the name of the triune God, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Now, if Baptism is to be performed in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then each Person must be God; it would be blasphemous to be baptized in the name of any creature. The One who has power over life and death, the One who creates faith where there was only unbelief, the One who gives a person birth into God’s kingdom—that One must be God; only God can do those things: forgive sins, give spiritual birth to a person, make a dead person alive, and open the kingdom of heaven. So the Holy Spirit is God, together with the Father and the Son. This is the only God, the saving God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. No one can be saved except by faith in this God.
The Spirit’s work of regeneration is invisible; you can’t see Him doing it. Jesus compares it to the wind. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. You can’t see the Spirit working or explain the origin of faith. But you can see the effect of the Spirit’s work. A person who formerly didn’t trust in Jesus’ atoning death for sin now believes that the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin. A person who formerly lived to please him or herself now lives to please God. A person who formerly didn’t care about hearing God’s Word now can’t get enough of it. A person who formerly was ashamed of Jesus is now ready to face death for His sake. That’s the night and day change that occurs when a person is born again. People don’t change themselves in matters of faith; it’s the Holy Spirit who changes them, through water and Word.
Nicodemus heard the words of Jesus, but it still didn’t make sense to him, because, as the Apostle Paul says, the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. What Jesus revealed next about “heavenly things” sounds even more foolish to the man without the Spirit: No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. What does that mean?
It means, no man can know God or understand His thoughts, because no man has ever ascended into heaven to see Him. But there is One who knows every thought of God, every action, every plan and purpose. That One is the Son of Man who came down from heaven—Jesus, who appeared to be just a man to Nicodemus, Jesus who was born in time according to the flesh, but who, according to His divine nature, was with God from the beginning, and was God. He came down from heaven, was incarnate as the Son of Man. And yet, because He never ceases to be God, Jesus could also say, as He was standing right there in front of Nicodemus, that the Son of Man “is in heaven.” Now, tell me, can any creature be in two places at once? Of course not! Therefore, Jesus is God. So. Since we can’t ascend into heaven to know God, God has come down to reveal Himself to us in the Person of Christ, and the Holy Spirit drives that knowledge home into our hearts. As Paul says to the Corinthians, For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ. To try to know God, or worship God, or enter into God’s kingdom in any other way but by hearing and believing the Word of Christ is useless.
And what is the mind of the Lord which we know through Christ? Jesus has been building up all along to that very climax: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. This one picture from the Old Testament summarizes perfectly the work of the triune God on our behalf. The people of Israel sinned against God and against Moses by grumbling and complaining in the wilderness: Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread. So God sent venomous snakes into the camp to bite them, to kill them for their sin. Death has always been the punishment for sin, ever since God told Adam, “If you eat of this fruit, you will surely die.” But the people of Israel repented of their sin, and God, in His mercy, chose to heal them. He could have just miraculously zapped all the snakes and healed the snake-bitten people, but instead He had Moses make a statue of a serpent out of bronze, and lift the serpent up on a pole. And whoever looked up at the serpent on the pole was healed and didn’t die.
What a beautiful picture of the Trinity’s plan to save fallen mankind. God the Father sends God the Son into the flesh and has sinful men lift Him up on a pole—a cross—so that all who look at Him, that is, who believe in Him, should not perish but have eternal life. No one can believe in Him by his own strength or power, just as no one can give birth to himself. But God the Holy Spirit comes in Word and in water and turns the sinner’s eyes toward Jesus in faith, and so heals us from the snake-bite of sin so that we won’t die from it, but will live forever in God’s kingdom.
This is the life or death message of Scripture, because without faith in this triune God, and without the working of the Holy Spirit to create and sustain that faith, you will surely die under the wrath of the only true God. But His desire for you, His purpose for you is that you not die. His purpose for you is that you know the only God, the saving God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Through Holy Baptism He has brought you into His kingdom and made you sons of God. Through His Word and His Sacraments He sustains you in His kingdom and teaches you to live as sons of God. This is the God whom we worship, “one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity.” He is the only God, the saving God. Blessed be His name forever and ever! Amen.
