{"id":9019,"date":"2023-05-29T07:12:03","date_gmt":"2023-05-29T14:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?page_id=9019"},"modified":"2023-05-29T07:12:04","modified_gmt":"2023-05-29T14:12:04","slug":"trinity-sunday-5","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?page_id=9019","title":{"rendered":"
Trinity Sunday<\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Click here for a pdf version.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sermon based on John 3:1-17 (18-20)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What should you do when the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses come to your door? It\u2019s a waste of time. Just say politely: \u201cNo, thank you.\u201d You shouldn\u2019t try to talk with them because they\u2019ll skin you alive. And that has to do with a basic ignorance among us about what the Bible says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses have a book of instruction for their leaders, not the one that they give you at your door. It talks about the Bible. First, it says: Jesus was the son of God, but in the New Testament \u201cson of God\u201d means simply \u201csir.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In John 10:30 it says: \u201cThe Father and I are one.\u201d But then begins controversy between Jesus and the Jews. In 10:34, where Jesus is accused of blasphemy, he says: \u201cIs it not written in your law, \u2018I said, you are gods\u2019? Here Jesus is quoting from Psalm 82:6. To say that he is a son of God simply means he is a leader or a \u201csir.\u201d When the phrase, \u201cson of man\u201d is used, about 1\/3 of the time in the New Testament it does mean \u201cGod,\u201d because it is referring to Daniel 7:13 where it talks about the son of man coming from Heaven.  Not all the time, but only when it is referring to Dan 7:13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you get into a discussion with Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, they will say: Haven\u2019t you read your Bible?! Don\u2019t you know John 14:28: \u201cThe Father is greater than I\u201d? And then in Paul 1 Cor 15:28: \u201cWhen all things are subjected to him (Christ), then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to everyone.\u201d That means that Christ is not equal to<\/strong> the Father, he is subject to<\/strong> God the Father. Then others will say: But Matt 28:19 says baptize them \u201cin the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.\u201d Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses will correctly come right back and say: That is tri-theism. It doesn\u2019t talk about one God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do we do then? We could go on with many more examples of this problem but this is enough to show that the Trinity is not derived simplistically and directly from reading the Bible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is it we do when we confess a creed every Sunday, whether it be the Apostles\u2019 Creed or the Nicene Creed? People say: We don\u2019t need creeds; we just use the Bible!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We ask: What are people doing in worship? Shakespeare has Hamlet say to Polonius: \u201cWords, words, words.\u201d Are we just saying words? When the pastor says: \u201cThe Lord be with you.\u201d And you answer: \u201cAnd also with you.\u201d Are these are all just words, religious words, just talk?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We may have the idea that when we use whatever creed, we think: We say something nice about God, and then he\u2019ll be nice to us. Or, we\u2019ll say something nice about God, and then he owes us one. Ha!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is also an error is to think that a creed is there to remind us of what the Christian faith is about. That\u2019s also not true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we can see terribly stupid things happening, such as the seniors in Lutheran seminaries given the assignment to write their own theologies! This is absurd. They don\u2019t know enough. And they don\u2019t know what the real issues are. But it is the idea is that you know enough now to make up your own faith, and the next seminarian makes up his, and that\u2019s what it\u2019s about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An evangelical Anglican in England has written a new version of the Nicene Creed, and some Lutheran churches are using it. It\u2019s 90% wrong. It has serious defects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1967 the Presbyterian Church USA produced a confession called The Confession of 1967<\/em>. They thought: Well, let\u2019s look at things today and say what we believe. That\u2019s not how ecumenical creeds and Presbyterian (Reformed) and Lutheran confessions came to be. Creeds and confessions came to be because we were in a fight to the death about salvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is most easily seen in the baptismal service which states: Do you renounce the devil and all his ways? That is because basically confession is exorcism of the evil one. It is also spoken to the world in terms of persecution. For these reasons creeds are used in baptism and confirmation. And we then use creeds conspicuously in our worship services because we are saying: This is who we are, and this is who we are not. There is a reason for doing that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1965 when Lutherans and Catholics began official dialogue, the first theme they took up was the Nicene Creed. It didn\u2019t take very long for the two sides to say: We agree. But the important thing was they did not agree for the same reason: Catholics said: We hold the Nicene Creed because it is an irreversible development. And the Lutherans said: We hold the Nicene Creed because it is the gospel. Notice it\u2019s not because it\u2019s in the Bible. But because it\u2019s the gospel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s think about how this happened. You and I think: Now the important thing is this is what I believe. This is what I confess. And that, of course, is the wrong question. The question is: What is salvation? And how does God work? And how does he not work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is what the issue was in 325 at the Council of Nicaea (and then again when this was taken up in the first Council at Constantinople in 381). The issue was: Is there one God or two? Arius, most famous heretic of all time, knew his Bible very well and could cite these passages. For two hundred years the church had been struggling with \u201cJesus is God,\u201d and how he is God in terms of God the Father, the Lord, Almighty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were different formulas. The one that Arius used was: \u201cof a like substance.\u201d A similar substance. There was when he was not, because the Father is Almighty. Just the way it says in John 14:28 and 1 Cor 15:28. What do we do now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The formula that was used and it is in the Nicene Creed, although the way we have it translated is not as clear as in the original Greek, is \u201cof one substance.\u201d Not \u201cof a similar substance.\u201d It says in the Nicene Creed, \u201cof one Being with the Father.\u201d In other words, he is God in the full sense. There is one God. Why is that important? Because of salvation. As Paul writes in 2 Cor 5:21: \u201cGod made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What they settled in 325 and 381 is that he is true God, and there is one God. Then the question was: Is he truly human? In 431 at Ephesus the Council held that he had been born of a woman. They didn\u2019t say Mary is the mother of God; they said she is \u201cGod-bearer.\u201d What is the relationship between his divinity and his humanity? At 451 at Chalcedon they used the formula, \u201cunmixed and undivided.\u201d Don\u2019t go beyond that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is pretty heavy stuff. But the whole point of it is you can\u2019t get it simplistically from the Bible. But this is how the universal church has come to conclude we read the Bible. After all, the devil quotes scripture (Matt 4:1-10, Luke 4:1-13). There are all kinds of Christians, some 42,000 sects of Christianity. Some say: \u201cWell, I read the Bible this way.\u201d Another says: \u201cI read the Bible that way.\u201d Therefore we have this statement by the church universal. This is how the Bible is to be read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the significance of these developments for you and me? It has to do with salvation. He is truly God. And: \u201c. . . all things were made through him.\u201d If Jesus is truly God, then he is Creator as well. Then in the second place, it says: Jesus died. Again, that means that God died, because God is one. Not just one person of the Trinity died, because there is only one God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember, as soon as you think you\u2019ve understood it, you\u2019ve misunderstood it. This has to do with the fact that what God is doing is beyond us, and beyond all our thinking, as is obvious in the account of John 3:8 about Nicodemus. The Spirit blows where he wills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately a lot of people say: Well, it\u2019s the way I believe. Or: It doesn\u2019t matter. It is important to see where the lectionary committee cut the John 3 text up. They end with the 17th<\/sup> verse. But then John 3:18 reads: \u201cHe who believes is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is serious business. What we\u2019re dealing with here is the most important business in life. You would think that everybody would want to be in church every Sunday because it\u2019s pay day! He conquered sin and death because he is truly God and truly human. It makes all the difference. That\u2019s what the Gospel is. Amen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here for a pdf version. A sermon based on John 3:1-17 (18-20) What should you do when the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses come to your door? It\u2019s a waste of time. Just say politely: \u201cNo, thank you.\u201d You shouldn\u2019t try to talk with them because they\u2019ll skin you alive. And that has to do with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-9019","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9019"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9022,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9019\/revisions\/9022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}