One of the greatest mysteries of God has been confessed to be true by us today in the Athanasian Creed. God reveals these mysteries about Himself in Scripture, yet we cannot rationally understand it. God is singular. He is One God, yet there are three distinct persons within this Trinity. The persons of the Trinity are all eternal, uncreated, infinite, almighty and God. They are each distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, yet they cannot be divided nor are they blended together as though it were the same person acting as different characters. The Father begets the Son, the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from Father and Son.
Even if we cannot fully comprehend the ins and outs of what God is as He has revealed Himself, even if the Athanasian creed is long and is difficult to keep our attention. It is good for us. The Nicene creed and the Apostles Creed are also good for us to read, learn, and recite. A creed is a statement of belief. It helps summarize and verbalize from Scripture who God is and who we are. But it also teaches us who God is and His nature regarding us and His creation. As we speak it, and repeat it, the creed teaches as we listen, so that the reciting of the creed strengthens that very faith which is being confessed.
The mystery of God we confess in the creeds reminds us how finite our minds are and how vast the separation that remains between us and God because of our sin here on earth. Yet the creeds remind us how God does not discard us due to our weakness, ignorance, unbelief, or sin. Again and again throughout Scripture and from generation, and even now God continues to stoop down. To create, to redeem, to call to faith, and reconcile sinners to Himself, into the Church, receiving His gifts. And the creeds reflect this. “Who for us men and for our Salvation came down from heaven” as we say in the Nicene Creed or as we said in the Athanasian creed today: “For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man; so God and Man is one Christ; Who suffered for our salvation…”
Why does God do this? God does this because of another attribute of God: an attribute which helps us to begin to understand the mystery of the Trinity and its unity and that is of love. For God is love. A giving love, a selfless love. That is why He created the heavens and the earth. He created out of love, to have the world but specifically Man and Woman as objects of His Love.
God the Father almighty is the maker of heaven and earth. He designed and created and made all things good, because of His love. Yet He knew that sin would arise and that is why the Father had already begotten, that is set aside His Son, the Word, to be born in human flesh in the fullness of time.
This brings us to the verse which we heard in today’s Gospel lesson. The verse that is a favorite of many. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” God is also the Son, Jesus Christ. He who came to redeem the world from sin, by coming into human flesh and receiving the sin of the world including yours and mine. These sins He took to the cross to satisfy God’s righteous wrath upon sin. He came not to condemn but to save us and all people from condemnation. However, as the Gospel of John chapter 3 continues we hear that there are those who will be and are condemned because they refuse to believe. They refuse to humble themselves before God and receive the gift of His love.
How does one believe? Well that brings us to the specific work of the Holy Spirit, the comforter, the helper. Without His work, we could never know God as Father or Son: as creator or redeemer. We cannot come to faith on our own as St. Paul declares in Ephesians 2:3-8
“We were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith.”
That is what Jesus was trying to explain to Nicodemus in John 3. To believe, to be born again, or as the Greek says to be born from above. It is not a choice of our own, but passive on our part. It is the work of the Holy Spirit through water and the Word. It is He who gives understanding and as Jesus later said leads into all Truth. It is the Holy Spirit who caused Scripture to be written so that in the hearing of God’s Word, faith can be worked, sins can be confessed, understanding can be given, mysteries can be accepted, and hearts may be changed.
It is the Holy Spirit who calls, gathers, and enlightens you, me, and all the host of believers into the Church by His Word as it is preached, taught, and heard. As that Word is attached to the fellowship of Holy things in the Sacraments, so that the whole Christian church can receive forgiveness of sins. How and Why?
Because the Holy Spirit points people back to the cross of Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ, to the Father. So that in all things God works together so that we might see His love for us as it is revealed in His saving work at the cross of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins. Then as we continue to confess, as we continue to ponder the mysteries of God’s Word, studying it through the lens of the cross and God’s love, as we continue to come where He promises to be: hearing His Word, remembering our baptisms, confessing our sins, receiving Christ’s body and blood in the bread and wine, we are given greater understanding by faith. By these mysteries we are given the clarity of God’s peace: peace with God, peace in our hearts, and peace by His Truth and love for us. We are made strong to confess God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to unbelievers around us so they too may hear and believe. We are built upon Jesus Christ and surrounded by the company of heaven to boldly rebuke by Word and deed our flesh, the world, and Satan’s accusations which would separate us again from God’s love. We cannot do this by our strength. No, but by God’s strength. So come, receive God’s strength. Be made one in Him and with the Church on earth and in heaven.
God did not create you for death but for life: eternal life with Him. So that on the last day, even as Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead your body shall also be raised unto life everlasting. Therefore, live in Him, receive of Him, confess Him, and in that confessing and receiving, be made strong in faith, hope, and love, unified in the powerful name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Pr. Aaron Kangas