Three Persons, one God, one way of salvation

Sermon for Trinity Sunday

Romans 11:33-36  +  John 3:1-15

We celebrate today as Trinity Sunday. As you know, the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible. Therefore, some people argue, neither is the teaching about the Trinity in the Bible. Or, as other people argue, we believe in the doctrine about the Trinity even though the word Trinity isn’t in the Bible, and, therefore, we should also believe all sorts of other doctrines that aren’t in the Bible. Both arguments are flawed.

The word “trinity” itself is actually nothing special, nor was it invented by the Christian Church. It comes from a Latin word that simply means, “threeness,” just as the word “unity” means “oneness.” The doctrine of the Trinity isn’t as mysterious as people make it out to be. The Bible speaks, in very simple terms, about our God having a Threeness quality, and a Oneness quality—a threeness of Persons and a oneness of Essence or Being. God isn’t three Beings working together as one, nor is He one Being split into multiple parts. He’s one undivided essence. One God, not three Gods, with one mind, one will, one purpose. But there is also a threeness quality to this one God, a threeness of Persons, clearly revealed in Scripture, especially in the New Testament, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Both qualities of our God describe who He is, and so it’s vitally important that we know and confess both His oneness of essence and His threeness of Persons, always keeping both qualities in view.

The threeness or “trinity” of God is presented to us very simply today in the Gospel you heard from John chapter 3. Like the rest of the Bible, these verses don’t use the word “Trinity” even once. And yet, the doctrine of the Trinity is revealed there—specifically, how the three Persons of the Holy Threeness have an integral part in the salvation of sinners.

If you were here on Wednesday evening, you heard the verses that come right after today’s Gospel, John 3:16-21. Today you heard the context of those verses. Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, came to Jesus at night to have a quiet conversation with Him. Rabbi, he said, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing, unless God is with him. Now, Nicodemus wasn’t speaking for all the Jews, and certainly not for all the Pharisees, who concluded that the signs, the miracles, Jesus was performing proved that He was in league with Beelzebub, with the devil! But for his part, and speaking for at least a few others, Nicodemus drew the right conclusion from Jesus’ miracles. They proved that He had come from God.

But Nicodemus didn’t realize just how right he was, that Jesus had “come from God.” He thought that Jesus had come from God like the other prophets who were sent by God. The prophets “came from God” in the sense that, at some point in their life, God called them to speak to Israel on His behalf. But the Person of the Son of God wasn’t called at some point in His life. He existed already in the beginning with God the Father. He is the “only begotten” Son of the Father, born of the Father in eternity as light is born of the sun. He was in heaven with the Father, and then He literally came from the Father’s side, as a Man, into the world. As Jesus says later, No one has ascended into heaven, except for the one who came down from heaven, namely, the Son of Man.

But Jesus doesn’t spend any time explaining how He had come from God, or anything about His relationship with God except to state that He is the Son of God, and the Son of Man. What He focuses on is how Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work to bring about man’s salvation. How can a person be saved? How can a person escape eternal condemnation? How can a person enter the kingdom of God?

Truly, truly I tell you, unless a person is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now, many people today are so ignorant of the truth, so far removed from the Christian religion, that they don’t even believe there is a kingdom of God, much less care to see it. But the truth is, seeing or entering the kingdom of God is the goal of human existence. It’s God’s ultimate purpose for mankind, after mankind was banished from the kingdom of God because of our sin, because of Adam and Eve’s choice to rebel against their Creator. To enter the kingdom of God is to be reconciled to God, to be accepted by Him again into His house, into His family, into His kingdom. To enter the kingdom of God is to escape from the devil’s kingdom and from everlasting death. Only two possibilities exist: either one is a subject of the devil’s kingdom, or of God’s kingdom.

And the only way to see the kingdom of God, Jesus says, is to be born again. Born a second time. That’s because, your first birth wasn’t good enough. You aren’t good enough just as you are. Apologists for homosexuality like to point out that they’re “born that way.” Well, that’s the problem—a problem that all people share. The way you were born is unacceptable. Why? Because “flesh gives birth to flesh.” And that flesh, that sinful nature that we’ve inherited from our parents, and they from theirs, isn’t clean, isn’t pretty, isn’t innocent, isn’t even neutral. It’s wicked, twisted, and corrupt. By nature, everyone hates the true God—the One who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No, Jesus says, you have to be remade, become an entirely new person in order to see the kingdom of God. And that new life can’t come from you, as little as a tiny baby can give life or give birth to him or herself.

Nicodemus didn’t understand that Jesus was talking about a spiritual rebirth. He thought Jesus was talking nonsense, as if a person had to go back into his mother’s womb and be born again. But Jesus explains: Truly, truly I tell you, unless a man 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. Those who have been born of the flesh have to be born again of the Spirit. “Water and the Spirit,” a reference to one of the primary tools the Holy Spirit uses to give that new life and new birth, Holy Baptism, which is, as St. Paul calls it, a washing of rebirth and renewal in the Holy Spirit, the washing of water by the Word. The Person of the Holy Spirit is the one who works faith in our hearts through the Word, as it’s preached by itself, and as it’s connected to water in Holy Baptism. The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. Yes, the Spirit gives life through the Word, but Jesus connects that word with water, emphasizing the great gift that the Holy Spirit gives in Baptism. Baptism comes with the promise of rebirth, the forgiveness of sins, being clothed with Christ, the promise of resurrection to a new, spiritual life now, and the promise of a future resurrection to life everlasting.

But what is it exactly that the Spirit draws us to, turns the eyes of our hearts to, brings us to trust in? To what does Baptism connect us? Jesus explains that to Nicodemus: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. This is why God the Father sent God the Son into the world. This is what God the Holy Spirit was teaching Israel all along in the Old Testament Scriptures and what He now preaches to our hearts through the Word of the Gospel: Just as Moses long ago made a bronze serpent and lifted it up on a pole, at God’s command, so that the Israelites who had been bitten by venomous snakes (as a punishment for their grumbling against God) might look up at it and be mercifully healed by God from the venom that was killing them, so Jesus, the Son of Man, had to be lifted up on a cross, so that all those who were destined for eternal death might look to Him in faith and be saved—look to Him, no longer hanging on a cross, but preached in the world as the One who was crucified, who gave His life on the cross, preached in the world as the One whose death on the cross we are connected to, in the eyes of God, through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, where the name of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is placed on the baptized, where the one who once was lost in Satan’s kingdom is rescued and given entrance into the kingdom of God by a new spiritual birth.

And that’s the goal of our one God, who is three Persons. That’s what the whole history of the world has been about. It’s why the world hasn’t been destroyed yet, in spite of people’s multiple attempts to bring the wrath of God down upon themselves with their godless behavior and their endless idolatry, with their refusal to believe the Word and to amend their sinful lives. God the Father knows that He has children who have yet to be born, and to be born again of water and Spirit, sinners who will become His children, by the work of God the Spirit, who will bring them to the knowledge of God the Son, that they may not perish but have everlasting life. And there we see the Trinity in all its simplicity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit diligently carrying out the plan of our salvation.

Don’t try to comprehend the Holy Trinity. Instead, believe what the Scriptures have revealed about our God, and rejoice that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have granted you the blessing of Baptism, the blessing of faith, and the new birth into His kingdom. And just as God’s goal and purpose for mankind is our eternal salvation, so let it also be the goal of your life, to enter, and then to remain in His kingdom until Christ comes again, living in love as holy children of God within His kingdom even now, and urging the lost to enter His kingdom, too, to know and believe in the one true God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To Him be the glory, both now and forever. Amen.