THE HOLY TRINITY IS AN
ETERNAL MYSTERY.
MATTHEW
28:16-20
In
the name + of Jesus.
The Bible contains a number of hard
teachings. When people encounter them,
they tend to want to make the hard teachings easier. They rework the Biblical account to make it
appealing to human reason. So, for example,
our Old Testament reading detailed the creation of the universe. God created the heavens, the earth, and
everything in them in six 24-hour days.
You will not find that in any science text book. So, how do you uphold the Bible and still say
that you trust the science?
The solution for many Christians is to interpret
the first chapters of the Bible as a parable.
But here is the problem: Genesis is a historical account, and it is to
be read as a historical account. When Jesus
told parables, he made it clear that it was a parable. Many of Jesus’ parables begin, “The
kingdom of God is like” and so forth.
It is clear that Jesus is making a comparison, and that is how we
understand it. We find no such literary
device regarding the creation.
It is only when people do not believe
God’s word that they argue it is to be understood as a parable. They trust the science, but they do not trust
the word of the Lord. They read that God
created the heavens and the earth in six days, but they follow up by insisting,
“Well, that’s not what it means.” That
is unbelief.
This evolutionary mindset continues with doctrine
as well. Many theologians argue that
Christian doctrine developed over time.
They will say that the resurrection of the body was a later addition to
the faith. They will also claim that the
doctrine of the Trinity was a later innovation.
For example, some contest, “Did Noah or Abraham think the Lord is a
Triune God? Look at the Bible and you
will see they never said ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’!” That sounds persuasive. But just because they did not use the phrase,
“Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” does not mean they did not confess the Lord
rightly.
Jesus gave us the most vivid revelation of
God. He regularly referred to God as his
Father. He also made it clear that he is
the Son. Jesus declared, “All should
honor the Son just as they honor the Father.
Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him”
(John 5:23). If they are to share
equal honor, then they are equally God—Father and Son. Jesus also told his disciples, “When he,
the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth” (John
16:13). If the Holy Spirit is the
source of truth, then he, too, is God. That
is why Jesus told us to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).
It is not in the names, as if there are three gods. It is in the name, because God is one,
just as Scripture says: “Hear, O Israel!
The LORD is our God.
The LORD is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4)! And yet this one
God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This is a hard teaching. In fact, it is an eternal mystery. It did not develop over time. God is unchanging. Even if the revelation of God became clearer
over time, God did not change who he is.
The Holy Trinity is an eternal mystery.
It is not a secret, however. It
cannot be a secret because you know what it is.
You know that God is one, just as we confess in the Nicene Creed: “We
believe in one God.” And God is
three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
That is no secret. God tells us
that plainly about himself. We, however,
cannot understand it. That is what makes
it a mystery. Every effort to logically
explain this mystery ends up destroying the teaching—either resulting in three
gods or melding the three persons into one.
Rather than try to make a hard teaching easier by changing it, we marvel
at it.
The Holy Trinity is an eternal mystery. But the world did not have to wait for the coming
of Jesus to reveal it. Since the Lord is
eternal and unchanging, we find the same God on page 1 of our Bibles as we do
in Jesus’ command to baptize. This is
what we hear at the foundation of the world: “In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. The earth was
undeveloped and empty. Darkness covered
the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of
the waters. God said, ‘Let there be
light,’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:1-3). First, there is the mention of God the Father
almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
Then there is the Holy Spirit, hovering over the waters. He is the Lord and giver of life, since the
Holy Spirit plus water equals a new creation, just as he did in your baptism. So, where is God the Son? The Apostle John calls him the Word. “In the beginning was the Word. …Through him everything was made, and without
him not one thing was made that has been made” (John 1:1,3). So, when God the Father spoke, the Son was at
work. The Holy Trinity was there—as it
was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
The Holy Trinity is an eternal
mystery. Something else which is a
mystery is how people who are without sin and in harmony with God’s will can
rebel and choose what is evil. That happened
with Adam and Eve. Satan had convinced
them that taking what God had forbidden would produce happiness and freedom for
them. He sold it this way: “God knows
that the day you eat from (the forbidden tree), your eyes will be opened, and
you will be like God” (Genesis 3:5).
To this day, this desire to be like God is
the root of all sin. We want our own way. When God presents us with a hard teaching, we
conclude that God is the one with the problem or that he did not really mean
it. We reject God’s word when it corrects
or condemns us. We pray, telling God to
bend his will to our will. When God tells
us “No,” we look for someone who will tell us, “Yes! Go and do it!
You’ll be happy you did!”
Not only is God’s word rejected, God
himself gets re-created. People have
always crafted gods who are just like they are.
Canaanite gods promoted sexual promiscuity. Guess why they were popular. Going to the altars of Roman gods promised prosperity. Guess why they were popular. And anyone who is spiritual crafts a god who
is just like he is. Who wouldn’t love a
god who agrees with you on everything?
But a god who has to be created is a
powerless god. A god who you can
disagree with and who will not uphold his own commands is a useless god. That is why Adam and Eve did not take their
stand against the Lord and say, “Look now, we are gods, too! Respect us!”
Instead they hid in fear from the Lord, knowing that they deserved the
death God had threatened. If you do not recognize
your own sin, you might look brave as you boast about your importance. But in the end, death comes to all. All will be judged by God because he is God
and we are not. No sinner will stand
before him. Repent.
The Triune God is unchanging. Mankind had changed because of sin, but God
is still merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in love and faithfulness. So, the Triune God promised to save sinners—from
the very first sinners. He promised to
destroy the devil’s work. That means he
promised to take away the curse of sin. The
Lord had warned what sin meant: “You shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). But he promised to reverse death. God’s work of salvation means, “You shall
surely be delivered from death and live!”
So, you see, even the resurrection of the dead is not a doctrine that developed
over time. Our sin infected bodies will
die, but the Lord himself assumed a body in order to rescue us completely from
the effects of sin.
The eternal God entered our time as a
mortal man. This, too, is a great mystery
that God became a man and yet remain unchanged.
We will confess that later in the Athanasian Creed, although we still
will not be able to wrap our heads around it.
It remains an eternal mystery.
Just because it is a hard teaching does not make it untrue. God became a flesh-and-blood man so that he could
live in our place, perfectly obedient to God’s word. He did not seize the world by force or consider
equality with God as a thing to be grasped.
Rather, the Son of God lived in humility, perfectly dependent upon the
goodness of his Father.
More than that, the Son of God willingly took
from his Father the cup of wrath that was meant for the people of the world. After all, we had earned it. But out of love for mankind, the Father sent
his Son to consume all divine wrath for us.
The Son willingly took the cup—first, out of love for his Father and
then, out of love for mankind. God the Son
was slain on behalf of people who longed to be gods themselves. Then he took up his life again to secure our
own resurrection from the dead—a resurrection to life and light and glory and
peace. And to grant us the right to become
children of God, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to convert us from rebels to righteousness.
This is why Jesus tells us to baptize people
“in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew
28:19). The Holy Trinity made you his
very own through baptism. He cleansed
you of all sin and set you apart for a godly life both now and in
eternity. While we glorify God the Son
for our saving work, the Holy Trinity fully invested himself in saving and
restoring what was ruined by sin. God the
Father sent his only begotten Son to save us.
God the Son became a man to unite himself to us. He consumed all of God’s wrath so that we are
not consumed by it. He rose from the dead
to eliminate death. He exalts our humanity
so that we will be restored to the perfection God had intended. He will restore the Paradise he had
created. God the Holy Spirit works in us
to believe even the hard teachings, to teach us “to keep all the
instructions [the Lord has given]” (Matthew 28:19), and “to will and to work, for the sake of his good pleasure”
(Philippians 2:13).
The Holy Trinity is an eternal mystery. It is a hard teaching; but just as I cannot
tell you what you are like, so also God must tell us what he is like. He reveals himself as one God who is Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. You and I will
never be able to unravel this mystery.
In fact, I wonder, will the Holy Trinity remain a mystery even when we
see him in the glories of heaven? I don’t
know. But rather than try to unravel the
mystery, we will simply marvel at it.
Our greatest comfort comes not from what
we cannot understand, but from what we do: The Holy Trinity is on our side and
serves for our good. He is the God who
saves, who loves his children, and who longs for us to dwell with him
forever.
“May the God of peace himself sanctify you
completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one
who calls you is faithful, and he will do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
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