How can these things be? A Meditation on John 3 for Holy Trinity Sunday

Marvel not that I said unto thee, 

Ye must be born again.

The wind bloweth where it listeth, 

and thou hearest the sound thereof, 

but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: 

so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

Nicodemus answered and said unto him, 

How can these things be?

Jesus answered and said unto him, 

Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, 

We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; 

and ye receive not our witness.

If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, 

how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?

John 3 makes for a deep reflection on Holy Trinity Sunday, when the Church pauses to contemplate what God has revealed about His own nature through His Scriptures.  In this passage alone, God the Father is said to love the world so much that He sends His only begotten Son that all might live through Him, and that being born again by water and the Spirit is necessary to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  All three are distinct in their actions and their persons, and yet all three are God, sharing the same divine nature which is both worthy of worship and at the center of our salvation.  We see in this testimony of St. John to the words of Jesus, that our God is One in essence, and yet three in Persons— a mystery that set Nicodemus’ mind reeling.

If Jesus’ words here were the only ones we had in Scripture, it would be enough for us to come to this conclusion, but they are not.  This testimony that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God runs throughout the Old and New Testaments, even as the declaration that there is only One God resonates from the beginning of creation.  The Scriptures provide a testimony of heavenly things that are very difficult for human beings to conceptualize when it comes to the nature of the One who creates, saves, and sanctifies the world.  With the ancient Hebrews we confess the Shema— that the Lord our God is One— noting that even in this formulation, the Hebrew word for God (Elohim) is a plural declared to be a unity of one.  That plurality in unity continues to be revealed through the Prophets after Moses, who identify the Holy Spirit acting and moving in full accordance with the will of the Father, even as they move through history and time to bring forth the divine Messiah.  At each turn, we find that the Father is infinite, all mighty, omniscient, and eternal, just as the Spirit and the Son are, yet there are not three infinites, eternals, omnipotents, or omniscients, but One.

It should not be surprising that finite people with fallen intellects have great difficulty wrapping their minds around the nature, essence, and persons of God.  Many very bright people have stumbled at trying to reconcile this revealed mystery in the language of philosophy, theology, or science.  While the testimony is clear, that God is revealed as one essence in three persons is outside the experience or observation human beings have of anything else in the universe— there’s really nothing else exactly like God.  People are composed of body and spirit, dual natures making up one person, which is pretty easy to observe (when a person has a united body and spirit, they are alive, but when their natures are separated, they die). Animals seem to have a similar construction, but without the mysterious Image of God given to humanity in creation.  The universe seems to function with laws which govern matter and energy that are somehow united into one great cosmos.  But all these things have a beginning, which means they are not precisely speaking, eternal.  While there are echoes of plurality in unity throughout creation, nowhere other than in God Himself do we hear a testimony to the idea that the foundation and origin of all things, the pre-existing and truly eternal, infinite, and everlasting King of the Universe is Himself a plurality in unity.

But then, I think we should be happy to know that our God who made us, saves us, and sanctifies us in His eternal life and grace, is something far more than the imagination of a created human mind.  While nothing in our logic and reasoning tells us that God’s witness to His plurality in unity is illogical or irrational, we quickly surmise that His testimony reaches beyond the limits of our finite logic and reason.  The God who gave us an ordered universe of laws and logic is the architect of law and logic, and His infinite Mind is infinitely beyond that of His finite creatures, even those made in His image.  We may approach God on His terms, and He may approach us, but our God is always God, and we are always His creatures.  What God declares of Himself to His creation helps us see His fingerprints upon the clay, while remembering that there is a fundamental difference between the Sculptor and His handiwork.

But of course, that handiwork of God is something only He can do.  Only God can create us, save us from our sins, and sanctify us in His grace to eternal life in Him.  No human being could create the cosmos, anymore than a mere creature could sacrifice himself for the satisfaction of divine justice for the fallen world.  Likewise, no human being could give birth to himself by water and the Spirit, creating saving faith in the unbelieving heart.  This mystery of God’s testimony to who He is— Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever— is what the Church calls the Holy Trinity.  While we cannot fully explore it due to the limits of finite human minds contemplating the eternal and infinite God, we can confess it as it is given to us, observe its echoes in the universe around and within us, describe it in action as God manifests it throughout human history, and declare its necessity in the divine work of saving the whole world.  The doctrine of the Holy Trinity reminds us that our God is not a creation of human imagination, but the only One who creates, saves, and sanctifies those who will repent, believe, and live in Him.  Hear Him, as the Father calls you through His Word and Spirit to the salvation which is in His Son alone, that your life and fellowship may abide in blessed communion with His plurality in unity forever.  Amen.