Before All Things: A Meditation on John 8 for Holy Trinity Sunday

Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day:

and he saw it, and was glad.

Then said the Jews unto him,

Thou art not yet fifty years old,

and hast thou seen Abraham?

 Jesus said unto them,

Verily, verily, I say unto you,

Before Abraham was, I am.

 

It is fitting, I think, that we enter into the long season of Pentecost with a festival to the Holy Trinity:  the divine Name into which all Christians are baptized, sealed, and sent into the world.  While the term Trinity is not specifically used in Scripture, it was used by the early Church Fathers to declare truths which Scripture makes undeniably clear.  Specifically, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all God, and yet there is only One God.  The three Persons of the Holy Trinity are not emanations or modes of each other, but discernable in their presence and work, even as they work together as One in the Creation, Redemption, and Preservation of His people.  As is attributed to St. Athanasius in the Creed bearing his name from the 4^th or 5^th century, there is only one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Spirits; yet there are not three gods, but One true God.  We confess this mystery because it is what God has revealed about Himself through His Word, beginning with the mysterious Tetragrammaton transliterated from ancient Hebrew into English as YHWH, or Yahweh.  It is this Name that Jesus claimed in John 8 when He said, I AM, which is the literal meaning of the Name Yahweh; it is a verb of being that includes all past, present, and future, revealing God as the very ground from which all reality and all creation emerges.  The Father and the Son share this indivisible divine essence, as does the Holy Spirit, without confusing their Persons or violating their unity.

 

Beyond the clear testimony of Scripture which should be more than enough to demand our faithful confession, without the doctrine of the Trinity, the Doctrine of Justification is made meaningless.  If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not One God in three Persons, then the Holy Baptism which Jesus established is rank idolatry and a violation of the 1^st Commandment to have no other gods besides YHWH.  To declare Jesus is Lord would violate the same Commandment, and Jesus would be made a liar.  Yet in reality, Jesus proved that He and the Father are One by living a life without sin, teaching and prophesying about the redemptive work He would accomplish through His life, death, and resurrection, and then doing what He said He would do.  No one in all of human history has ever done that—prophesied their own death and resurrection, and then accomplished it in the presence of countless witnesses.  And it is Jesus who promised the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost after His Ascension, sent to His people by both the Father and the Son, to convict the world of sin and draw them to salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.  Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures, because He alone was the Word made flesh to dwell among us—He is Immanuel, God With Us.  The Father, the Word, and the Spirit are inseparable yet distinct, and their revelation to us in our redemption is a blessed glimpse into the unfathomable mystery of the King of the Universe.

 

Yet even beyond this, the very act of the Vicarious Atonement promised by Jesus and so well explicated by St. Paul in his Epistles, would become nothing if Jesus were not fully God and fully man.  If Jesus were not fully God, he could not satisfy the sins of the whole world, but rather would die in his own sins.  If Jesus were not fully man, His sacrifice would not be on our behalf as human beings.  Without the divine Son who gives His life for the sins of the world, there is no Gospel of grace.  Instead, as most heretical deviations from the doctrine of the Holy Trinity have evidenced across the centuries, any system that denies the full divinity and human of Jesus, falls into some form of legal system that demands mankind raise himself up by his own merit to be worthy of eternal life and fellowship with God.  Without the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, we are left in our sins to work in vain toward a summit we cannot climb, and goal we cannot reach, for our fallen nature precludes us from the perfection we know the justice of God must demand.  Apart from the Gospel of Grace in Jesus Christ alone, life becomes a mire and mixture of cabalistic attempts to win divine favor, to justify oneself above one’s neighbor, to gain some secret knowledge presumed necessary to ascend into the heavens, or to wallow in the depravity of violence, greed, and debauchery.  The world is full of these religious systems, hawking their wares and empty promises to every ear that will hear them, luring the ignorant into rituals and rites and ceremonies and secret societies that add greater bondage to darkened minds, and deeper despair to sorrowing souls.

 

Yet Jesus’ Gospel is pure, simple, and made known to all by His Word and Spirit.  By His Word we know that the Father so loved the world that He gave His only Son to save it, that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but have eternal life.  By His Word we know that Jesus’ work upon the Cross finished our salvation, that by His stripes we have been healed, and that to know Him is to know the Father.  By His Word and Spirit we are taught to walk in His righteousness for His Name’s sake, to aspire by faith and repentance to the good works of the Law, and to trust by faith and repentance in the free gift of Jesus’ gracious forgiveness of our failures.  The Way of Jesus is not a mystery in the sense that it is hidden from the world, for the Word and Spirit of God go out into every corner of creation, calling all people to eternal life and reconciliation with God through faith in Jesus Christ.  The Law and Gospel of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are published plainly for all to read, to hear, to inwardly digest, and to understand, just as the divine Wisdom of Proverbs 8 declares:  He stands in the gates, in the doorways, in the thoroughfares, in the city squares and the humble hearths of home, calling in love to those who would be saved from the perversity and destruction of evil.  As God has loved the world and sought to save it, He does not hide His grace in a corner, under a basket, or in some secret society, but rather He declares it from the mountain tops of Sinai, Carmel, and Calvary.

 

It is the love of God that sends His Word and Spirit into the world to seek and to save the lost, so that all people might have the opportunity to know Him as Savior and Lord.  The festival of the Holy Trinity is more than a remembrance of the doctrinal mystery declared by Scripture about the God whom we serve, but also a celebration of the mystery of love which pursues us through His power, grace, and mercy.  The mystery of the Holy Trinity is not an irrational contrivance of theologians, but rather a confession of the divine mystery which seeks and saves us from sin, death, hell, and the wiles of the devil.  To confess the Holy Trinity is to confess the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has done all things well, fulfilled every promise, and sent His Word and Spirit to seal you to Himself for all eternity.  Glory be to God alone, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, and unto ages of ages.  Amen.