Holy
Trinity
Rom
11:33-36
6/4/23
Our
text this morning is the conclusion of an important discussion that the apostle
Paul began in chapter nine. He has been
wresting with a topic that had obviously occupied his thought a great deal and
was emotionally challenging for him. Paul had started by saying in chapter nine,
“I am speaking the truth in Christ--I am not
lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit-- that I have great
sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself
were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my
kinsmen according to the flesh.”
The apostle is wrestling with a difficult truth. On the one hand the Gospel was the
fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel – the promise he had made to
Abraham. But on the other hand it was
apparent that the majority of Jews were rejecting faith in Christ. To be sure, as Paul himself notes, there were
Jews who believed. But the fact of the
matter was that most had not and that the Church was rapidly becoming a Gentile
Church.
Paul identified the basic problem at the end of chapter
nine. He wrote, “What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue
righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith;
but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in
reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it
were based on works.” While not denying
God’s grace, the Jews had thought that their works were part of the reason they
were saved.
The result was that they were rejecting Christ and the free
gift of salvation present in him. Paul
said, “They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is
written, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a
rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to
shame.’”
Yet as Paul continues, he also indicates that there is more
to it than this. In fact, he calls it a
“mystery.” Yes, the majority of Jews had
rejected Christ, while Gentiles were believing.
But this was part of God’s plan to save both Jew and Gentile. Paul explained, “Lest you be wise in your own sight, I want you to understand this
mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the
fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”
God’s
calling of Israel would not fail. Just
before our text, Paul says, “For the gifts
and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one
time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their
disobedience,
so they too have now been
disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may
now receive mercy. For God has
consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.”
Paul said that Israel’s
disobedience had been the occasion of God’s mercy to the Gentiles. Yet mercy
shown to the Gentiles would also be the occasion for mercy to be shown to the
Jews.
How exactly was this going to
work? With this question we arrive at
our text where Paul shows us that he has pursued the matter as far as human
reason can go. The apostle exclaims, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom
and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how
inscrutable his ways!” The apostle says
that God’s ways can’t be fully understood.
It’s just not possible.
He explains in our text, “‘For who has known the mind
of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift
to him that he might be repaid?’” These statements come from Isaiah and the
book of Job. In both God emphasizes that
he is the Creator who defies understanding.
Creatures are not capable of grasping his ways. As Isaiah says, “Whom did he consult, and
who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught
him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are
like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales.”
Today’s text shows us that we are unable to understand how
God does things. And if we can’t
understand how God does things, how can we expect to understand God himself? It won’t be happen – it’s not possible.
We can’t
understand God. However, the Feast of
the Holy Trinity reminds us that God has revealed himself in a way so that we
can describe God. We can know accurately about what God is like, even if we
can’t understand how it works.
Now in our
sinfulness, we would like to leave God there as unknown. We would prefer this because then we can be
our own god. We can do things as we want
to do them. As sinners, we don’t really
want a God who tells us how things are to work.
We want the freedom to decide how we want to do them. We want to use our
time, resources, and sexuality as we wish.
The good news
of the Gospel is that God did not leave us there – trapped in the slavery of
sin that man calls “freedom.” Instead,
he acted in his Son in order to give us real freedom – he acted to give us
forgiveness. Paul told the Galatians, “But when the fullness
of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman,
born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we
might receive adoption as sons.
And because you are sons,
God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”
In the Old Testament God had said, “Hear O Israel, the Lord
is our God, the Lord is one.” God
revealed that there was only one God. That was the absolute certain truth. Now to be sure, there were things that made
one wonder if there was more to the story.
Scripture spoke about the Wisdom of God, the Spirit of God, and the Son
of Man in terms that suggested something more. Yet they remained nothing more
than hints to the true nature of God.
When God sent forth his Son to save us, he revealed himself
in a new way that explained all the earlier hints. The Father sent forth the Son, as he was
incarnate by the work of the Holy Spirit.
The incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, began his public ministry with
the triune nature of God placed on display.
He, the Son stood in the water while the Spirit of God descended on him
and the Father said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
God sent his Son to redeem us from the curse of the
law. Deuteronomy said, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in
the Book of the Law, and do them.” We
are people who certainly fit this description.
Yet Paul explained, “Christ redeemed
us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us--for it is
written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” Christ received the curse meant for us. He was cursed in our place in order to free
us from the curse of the law.
Breaking the law brings a curse. It also brings death, because the wages of
sin is death. Yet God had sent forth his
Son in order to defeat death. Jesus died as he hung on the tree of the cross.
He was buried. But on the third day God raised him from the dead. He vindicated Christ and on Easter began the
resurrection of the Last Day.
It was as the risen Lord that Jesus
gave us the clearest statement about God.
On a mountain in Galilee he announced to the apostles, “All
authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And
behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Because of God’s saving revelation in Christ, we have
learned that the one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is Three in One – the Triune God. Scripture teaches us that the Father is God,
the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.
Yet the three are not three Gods. There is only one God. The three persons of the Trinity are distinct
as they relate to one another. Yet God
remains one.
Reason cannot understand how this works. That is hardly surprising. As Paul says in our text, “Oh, the depth of
the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his
judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”
We can no more understand who God is than we can understand how God
works.
However, this does not mean we have no knowledge about God. Instead, what God has done in the incarnate
Son has saved us. And this saving work
has revealed more about the nature of God. We have learned that the one God is
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is
three in one, the triune God.
It will always be important to confess the truth about the
Holy Trinity. We confess what God has revealed about himself – the description
that is true. That is why confess the Nicene Creed. This is why we say the Gloria Patri – “Glory
be to the Father, and to the Son, and the to the Holy Spirit as it was in
beginning, is now and will be forever.”
God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
He has always been the triune God, and always will be. To err knowingly – to choose to believe
something different - is to lose salvation.
Yet on this Feast of the Holy Trinity we return to the
reason we know about the Trinity. The
Father sent forth the Son to be incarnate by the work of the Spirit. God acted in the death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ to give us forgiveness. We know God as the triune God because he
has saved us. And so we say with Paul, “For from
him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever.
Amen.”
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