Holy Trinity
Rom
11:33-36
5/31/26
In 1964 the Second Vatican Council
of the Roman Catholic church issued Lumen Gentium, which is Latin for “light of
the Gentiles.” This was one of the principal documents of the Second Vatican
Council, and as an official declaration of this church council it is considered
to be dogma in the Roman Catholic church – it is something that must be
believed.
Lumen Gentium addresses the
relationship of those who have not received the Gospel to the people of God. In
speaking about Islam it says, “But the plan of salvation also includes those
who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these are the Muslims,
who professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and
merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.” So the dogma – the
position that must be believed by Roman Catholics – is that Christians and
Muslims worship the same God.
Now it seems very unlikely that any
Muslim is going to agree with this. The Koran certainly mentions Jesus, whom it
calls Isa. But according to the Koran Jesus was only a man, and not the Son of
God. He was a great prophet and apostle who did not die by crucifixion, but
instead was taken up into heaven by God.
The Koran explicitly rejects the
idea that Jesus is the Son of God. It also condemns the very idea that God is
anything but one. It says to people like you, “O followers of the Book! Do not
exceed the limits of religion, and do not speak against Allah, but speak the
truth; the Messiah, Isa son of Marium is only an apostle of Allah and his Word
which he communicated to Marium and a spirit from him. Believe therefore in
Allah and his apostles, and say not, Three. Desist, it is better for you. Allah
is only one God; far be it from his glory that he should have a son.”
The idea that there is only one God
has existed in the world for a long time. It was the faith of Israel in the Old
Testament. It has continued to be the faith of Judaism. It has been the belief
of Isalm since it was created by Muhammed in the seventh century. The
philosophical thought of the Greco-Roman world included positions that looked
very much like monotheism – the belief that there is only one God.
Because the Christian faith knows
the Old Testament to be the Word of God, it too confesses that there is only
one God. Yahweh had revealed about himself in the Old Testament, “Hear, O
Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” This confession of one God
continues in the New Testament. St Paul told the Corinthians who lived a world
that believed in hundreds of gods, “Therefore, as to the eating of food offered
to idols, we know that ‘an idol has no real existence,’ and
that ‘there is no God but one.’”
It all seems straightforward … until
the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. In Galatians Paul describes how we were
under the curse of the law. The holy and just God has revealed his will. But as
fallen people, we live imprisoned under sin.
Therefore Paul tells us, “For all who rely on works of the law
are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does
not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’” We cannot live perfectly according to God’s
will so we would have faced God’s curse and judgment.
However, God did not leave us there.
Paul goes on to say in 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!’”
Now Paul has explained exactly how
God redeemed us. He wrote,
“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.’”
Jesus Christ received the curse in our place when he died on the cross. Paul
began the letter by saying that Jesus, “gave himself for our sins to deliver us
from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and
Father.”
This deliverance did not just mean
forgiveness. It is the rescue from death itself. During Easter we celebrated
how God raised Jesus from the dead. God vindicated Jesus and began our
resurrection in him. Paul told the Romans about the Gospel that it was
“promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures,
concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the
flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the
Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Paul says that God sent forth his
Son into the world to redeem us. He explains that God has sent the Spirit
of his Son into our hearts. He describes God as the Father. The simple picture
of the one God has become much more complicated.
Our text this morning is from the
end of Romans chapter 11. We should recognize from the start that Paul is not talking
specifically here about the Holy Trinity. Instead, he is bringing his
discussion about how God has dealt with Israel to a close – a topic that he
began addressing in chapter 9. Many
Jews, the descendants of Israel had rejected Jesus Christ. But Paul seeks to
explain that this fact doesn’t mean God’s word has failed. Instead he is
dealing with both Jews and Gentiles in order to save.
Paul explains as much as he can …
until he can’t go any farther. As he reaches the point where it exceeds human
understanding and our ability to explain it 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! ‘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?’ For from him and through him and to
him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”
Now if we cannot understand and
explain what God does, what chance do we have in understanding and explaining who
God is – what he is like in his very nature? After all, God is God, and we are not. And so
Paul’s words give us the right attitude as we come to what God has revealed
about himself in Scripture. We find that we can describe what God is
like on the basis of his word, even if we can’t understand and explain how it
is true.
What we learn is that God is one,
and that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is one and when the risen
Lord instituted baptism he said to baptize “in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” He said not “names” but “name,” for there is
only one God.
There is one God, yet in Scripture
God reveals himself again and again as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The
baptism of Jesus is the beginning of his ministry. Jesus stands in the water. The
Holy Spirit descends on Jesus in the form of a dove. And the Father says, “This
is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Paul ends Second Corinthians
by saying, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
Now one way to try to explain this
is to say that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not truly distinct from one
another. Instead, they are different ways or modes by which the one God reveals
himself. This is known as modalism. It is an ancient heresy that continues
today in so-called “one God Pentecostals.” But at Jesus’ baptism we see all three
persons of the Trinity interacting at the same time. On Pentecost we celebrated
how the Son who is seated at the right hand of the Father poured forth the
Spirit. Jesus talks about the Father and the Spirit and how he relates to them.
There is no getting around the fact that while there is one God, the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct from one another.
The other way to explain it is to
say that the Son and the Spirit are not really God. This is what the heretic
Arius said about the Son, and others made similar claims about the Spirit. They
argued that the Father created the Son and the Spirit. They are like
God in being highly exalted creatures, but they are not God in the same way
that the Father is God.
It is only because of Jesus Christ
that we know God to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so questions about the
Trinity are closely linked with the confession about who Christ is. Scripture
is clear in revealing that he is God. John says about Jesus, “And the
Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his
glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace
and truth.” Yet John has just about the Word, “In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Paul told the Colossians about Christ, “For in him the whole fullness of
deity dwells bodily.” The Son, Jesus Christ is true God. He was not
created because nothing created can be God.
In the same way the Spirit is true
God. The Spirit is set side by side with the Father and the Son. Peter says
that to lie to the Holy Spirit is to lie to God. The Spirit carries out the
divine work of creating new spiritual life as he regenerates and renews the
believer.
There is one God. God is Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. They are distinct from one another, and yet they are also
related to one another. The Church uses the term “person” to confess this
truth. The Son is the Son of God. He eternally stands in relation to the Father
as the Son. We confess this truth using the language of “begotten.” We are
using human language to describe what God has revealed about himself, so as we
have seen, this does not mean that the Son was created. Instead it means that
he alone stands eternally as the Son in relation to the Father.
The Spirit also relates to the
Father and the Son as the One who proceeds from them. Jesus said,
“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the
Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.”
Paul told the Romans, “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if
in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not
have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” The Spirit of God is
the Spirit of Christ.
God’s Word teaches us that he is
eternally this way. There has never been a time when he was not this way, nor
will there be in the future. We confess this in the Gloria Patri every time we
say, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was
in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.”
These relations between the persons
of the Trinity exist within God himself. But Scripture teaches us that they do
not in any way divide the oneness of God. Jesus said, that “I am in the Father
and the Father is in me.” He said, “I and the Father are one.” The Spirit is
the Spirit of God. The Spirit is the Spirit of the Son. And when we speak about
the external work of God we recognize that it is the one God who acts as
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
These are the truths that we are
about to confess in the Athanasian Creed. At the end of that creed we will say,
“This is the catholic faith: whoever does not believe it faithfully and firmly
cannot be saved.” This is not the claim that one must remember and understand
every statement perfectly. It is saying that you cannot knowingly reject these
biblical truths.
And at the same time there is the
need for each one of us to grow in our understanding of the Holy Trinity. To
confess Jesus Christ is to confess the Trinity. We see this as Christianity
stands in opposition to Isalm. We see it as Christianity stands in opposition
to Mormonism, and the Jehovah Witness. We see this as Christians reject the false
claims made by the Roman Catholic church about God.
While there are indications of the
Trinity in the Old Testament, it is only in Jesus Christ that we have come to
know the triune nature of God. The Father sent the Son, as he was incarnate by
the work of the Holy Spirit. Our very
knowledge of the Trinity reveals God’s action to save us.
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