Sermon for the Festival of the Holy Trinity
Romans 11:33-36 + John 3:1-15
If you grew up (or are growing up) as a Christian, you may not think twice when you hear the word “Trinity.” You know what we mean by that word. It’s so fundamental to the Christian faith. Everything we believe as Christians begins with this simple truth revealed in the Holy Scriptures. There is one God. He is the Creator of all things. He exists eternally. He has no beginning. He was not created. Everything that is not God was created. It has a beginning. It was brought into existence. This God who created all things exists eternally as three distinct Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is not the same Person as the Son. The Son is not the same Person as the Holy Spirit. Each of the three Persons is God. Yet they are not three Gods, but one God. One in essence. One in will. One in purpose. And that purpose, above all, is the salvation of the human race.
One of the key aspects of the doctrine of the Trinity is that we know God the Father only through God the Son. As Jesus said, “No one knows the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” And we only truly know the Son through God the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “He (the Holy Spirit) will testify about Me.” And “No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit reveals the Son to us through preaching. So hear now how the Spirit reveals Christ to us in today’s Gospel, and how Christ, in turn, reveals the Father to us.
Nicodemus came to Jesus at night looking for answers. He got some. But he didn’t fully understand them at the time. Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him. The signs, the miracles that Jesus was doing did what they were supposed to do. They made it clear to everyone who cared to notice that the things Jesus was teaching were authorized by God and approved by God. The miracles were God’s way of confirming His approval. That’s what Nicodemus meant when he said, “unless God is with him.”
He was right. God was with Jesus. The Apostle Peter would later preach about Jesus: God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.
God was with Jesus. Notice how the Scriptures sometimes use the word “God” to refer specifically to the Father. God, as in, God the Father, was with Jesus. The Apostle John does the same thing. In chapter 1 of His Gospel, he writes, In the beginning was the Word (that is, the Son of God), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. So the Son of God is also called God. He was with God the Father in the beginning. And God, as in, God the Father, was with Jesus during His earthly life. And it’s also true that God, as in, God the Holy Spirit, was with Jesus, who once applied these words of the prophet Isaiah to Himself: The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, for He has anointed Me. So you see the Trinitarian nature of one of the names given to Jesus in Holy Scripture: Immanuel—God with us.
Nicodemus, of course, didn’t understand all that. He thought Jesus was just a man—a great teacher approved by God, but still just a man. Then Jesus goes on to reveal much more to him.
Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Remember, Nicodemus was a Jewish Pharisee. Even more than the rest of the Jews, they put their faith in their birth according to the flesh, their birth according to their human ancestry going back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To them, the Jews were members of the kingdom of God by birth. But even being born as a Jew wasn’t enough for them. It also took obedience to the Law of Moses—human obedience, obedience to the Law, obedience according to the flesh.
Jesus destroys all that with one sentence. Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Your first birth, your birth according to the flesh and your obedience according to the flesh, counts for nothing in God’s kingdom. Contrary to popular belief, people are not born into God’s kingdom. Not all people are children of God. Not all people are going to heaven when they die. You have to be born again.
Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
Nicodemus is still thinking in terms of the flesh. He knows it isn’t physically possible to have a second physical birth. That’s foolish! But this is what the Apostle John said back in chapter 1, He—the Son of God—came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
A new birth—a spiritual birth—is necessary to see the kingdom of God, a birth connected with believing in Jesus, the Son of God.
Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Again, it’s not your natural birth, your “blood birth,” that makes you a child of God and an heir of His kingdom. A spiritual birth is required, a birth that takes place by “water and the Spirit,” which we call Holy Baptism, which the Apostle Paul refers to as a “washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.”
But someone will say, “No, Baptism doesn’t give new birth. Baptism doesn’t save. Only faith saves.” But it’s not an “either/or,” according to Scripture, either Baptism or faith. He who believes and is baptized will be saved. Faith—believing in Christ Jesus, true God and true Man—saves and gives new birth. Baptism saves and gives new birth. The Holy Spirit saves and gives new birth. The Word of God saves and gives new birth, as St. Peter also wrote: “You have been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.” Spirit, water, word, and faith—these all belong together.
Notice what doesn’t go together with these: human works, human obedience, human ancestry. In other words, “the flesh.”
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Human ancestry, obedience, and works are all meaningless before God. What we inherit by birth from our parents, and they from theirs, is not membership in God’s kingdom, but sin and shame, and a nature that is thoroughly corrupt and inclined toward evil. What we earn by our works is condemnation, because they are imperfect and impure. Spiritual rebirth is essential for every human being—a rebirth that takes place as God, through His Word, calls us to repent of our sins and trust in Jesus, true God and true Man, for the forgiveness of sins, and as His Holy Spirit works faith in our hearts. See the Holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—always working for our salvation!
Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Regeneration (rebirth) into God’s kingdom is spiritual, not physical. You can see a physical birth. You can tell when a person is going to be born and you can trace a person’s ancestry by DNA. But you can’t measure the work of the Spirit that way, just as you can’t see the wind. You can’t see a person being brought to faith. You can’t see the inner rebirth or a person’s conversion from unbeliever to believer. What you can see is the effect of the wind, as it blows the trees—or the dust, in our case. What you can see is a person being baptized for the remission of sins, confessing faith in the Holy Trinity, gathering faithfully with his fellow confessors around Word and Sacrament, and bearing the fruits of the Spirit in his life—love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
There’s far more in today’s Gospel than we can cover in one sermon. That’s what next year is for, right? In conclusion today, let me just point you to the last two verses. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
The Son of God, the Word, who was with God in the beginning and who was God, became flesh for one purpose: to be lifted up on the cross—true Man in order to suffer and die in the place of man, true God so that His sacrifice would be worth enough to purchase the forgiveness of sins and eternal life for all men. God the Father gave His Son for this purpose. God the Son willingly came for this purpose and carried it out. God the Holy Spirit fills the world with the preaching of God the Son, brings sinners to faith in Him and seals eternal life to them in Holy Baptism, so that we may be rescued from this world that is perishing and spend eternity with the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is how we know the Holy Trinity, and this is why we gladly confess Him before the world. Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity! Amen.
