Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church

The Trinity and His Works

John 3:1-15

June 4, 2023 anno Domini

If there is one lesson we should learn from the Athanasian Creed it is that everything is tied to the Trinity. If you mess with the Trinity you’ll end up messing with Jesus. If you mess with Jesus, you’ll mess up your faith, your salvation, and your humanity.

Today is one of those odd Sundays where we focus on a doctrine or a teaching of Scripture. Scripture teaches what the Athanasian Creed confesses.  We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance.  There are three persons in the Godhead, yet there is only one God.  That is what the word “Triune” means – tri/three une/one.

In Genesis God tells us that He created humans in His image. He created them in His Triune image.  How do we reflect that image? One way is in the creation of male and female. When Adam is given Eve as his wife, he confesses that they are no longer two but one flesh. The marriage of a man and woman, that two in one flesh union, reflects the Trinity. 

That union of a man and a woman also reflects the Trinity because it is the only union of humans that produces life. The Trinity produces life and marriage produces life. If you take away the Son from the Father or the Spirit from the Father and the Son, if you just want to worship a generic creator god, a big guy upstairs, you will not be forgiven. You will not have eternal life. You will not rise from the dead. The Holy Trinity is the only God who gives life and that is dimly reflected in Holy Marriage where a man and a woman have children. That also means that any attack on humans being either male or female, any attack on marriage, any attack on unborn human life, any sexual activity outside of one man and one woman in marriage is the Devil flipping off the Holy Trinity.

Lastly humans reflect the Trinity when we live in selfless love. Once again that is reflected in marriage. In the Christian marriage vows a husband and wife vow death to themselves for the sake of the other. A husband dies to his self-love by loving his bride to death as Christ loved the church. The wife promises kill her desire to run the household and rule over her husband. Instead, she promises to respect him and obey him as the Church does Christ. When God wills it, a married couple has children and then in love they sacrifice for their children. When you have young children, you sacrifice your sleep. You sacrifice being liked when you discipline your children or remind them in their 20s and 30s that they should be in Church to receive God’s gifts. If you have children, you will sacrifice many hours in prayer asking God to give them wisdom, forgive their sins, and call them back to the faith.  In all this sacrificial love you confess the Triune God because His nature is love and His love for you is a self-less, sacrificial, unto death love, and by that love He gives you life.

That’s what Nicodemus learned from Jesus during that evening visit recorded in John 3. Jesus did not treat Nicodemus very well that night and that teaches us something about love – love isn’t always nice and pleasant. Nicodemus probably thought Jesus would be impressed by him. After all, most of the Pharisees despised Jesus, but Nicodemus wanted to talk to Jesus and greats Jesus with friendliness and flattery, (read vs. 2)Nicodemus expected Jesus to respond, “Thank you so much, Nicodemus, I’m so happy to make friends with a Pharisee. You’re a great man.”  Instead, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he has nothing going for him. (read vs. 3)  No friendly greeting. No glad to make your acquaintance. No being impressed with a Pharisee. “Nicodemus, you’re not in the kingdom of God.”  With such bluntness you wonder if Jesus would be able to graduate from one of our seminaries.

This is love – that Jesus tells you what you need to hear. Jesus gives Nicodemus an earful. Not only must Nicodemus become a different man than he is, but he can do nothing on his own to become that man. 

Once again Jesus, (read vs. 5) Nicodemus has been born of the flesh, as have you. You played no part in your birth. You did not choose when you were born, whether God made you male or female, who your parents were, if you were the first child whom you parents learned on, or you were the baby whom your parents spoiled. In that birth according to the flesh, as Jesus calls it, you were born a sinner and born a sinner, if nothing happens to your sin, you will die with your sins and you will suffer eternally. That which is born of the flesh is flesh.

Jesus loves Nicodemus too much to see him die, so in love He tells him the truth. Nicodemus, there is another birth you need, but like your first birth there is nothing you can do because this birth is from above, a birth worked by the Spirit. Jesus speaks a little parable about how the Spirit works, (read vs. 8) You cannot see the wind, but you can hear the wind. You cannot trace the source of the wind or find its end, but you can see its effect – think of white caps on the lake.

This little parable is about the Holy Spirit. You cannot see the Spirit, but you can hear the Spirit because you have a preacher who speaks God’s Word and who baptizes you. You cannot see the Spirit, but you are affected by the Spirit, and that effect is your faith. If you believe in Jesus as your Savior, you have been born from above. If you love Jesus, you have felt the Spirit move you.

As the text continues Jesus loves Nicodemus even more deeply. He loves him by pointing out his ignorance and unbelief. (read vs. 10) Nicodemus, you’re a Pharisee, you know God’s Word and yet you don’t know a thing. You’re a Lutheran, baptized as an infant, confirmed in your youth, you’ve got your Bible and your Catechism, and you don’t know what they say. You want god to be what you imagine him to be, instead of letting the Trinity be the Trinity, and living as one created in His image and redeemed by His Son to be human again.

This is how the Trinity works. He destroys you that He might rebuild you. He kills you that He might give you life. He calls you the fool that you are, that He might give you wisdom from heaven.

Now that Nicodemus has been put to death in the flesh Jesus raises Him by the Spirit. (read vs. 13-14). The only way for you to be saved is for God to save you, because you cannot save yourself. So, the Son of God came down from heaven to be the Son of Man. The eternal God chose to dwell in human flesh to save you by being you.

When the Israelites poisoned God’s name by complaining about how bad life was God poisoned them with serpents. It’s an easy lesson – you sin, you die. The serpents did their work. There was no remedy to the snakes, so the people turned to the Lord. But the Lord gave them a strange remedy. He has Moses craft a serpent like the deadly serpent and put it on a pole. Then He attached His Word to it – look at the snake and you will live. Why such a weird anti-venom? You know the answer – Jesus.

The Son of God became a man so that He might bear your sin. Jesus loaded your sins on His back and at the cross He became sin for you. He became the Serpent on the pole to save you from the sting of death which is sin. The very thing that kills us Christ became – sin, death, hell. It’s all on Jesus and He finished it off for you. Behold, the life-giving cross upon which was hung the salvation of the world. Fix your eyes on Jesus and you will live.  

This is the Holy Trinity. This is the Father sending His Son to be lifted up for your sins. This is the Spirit blowing His Word in your ears and moving your rebellious heart to faith. This is Jesus loving you, not by niceties and compliments, but by killing you in the flesh and giving you the new birth of baptism in the Spirit. Believe the Trinity. Confess the Trinity and you will live in the name of Jesus. Amen.