Encapsulating the Incomprehensible Identity of the Holy Trinity
Do you know who I am? I don’t mean that like Do you know who I am? Really, I’m asking you, who am I?
What does it say on the badge? Pete Metzger – that’s my name. But is my name who I am? I tried a few different social media searches. Facebook and LinkedIn yielded the most results. There were literally hundreds of other Peter Metzgers on both.
So, if I’m not even Pete Metzger (or, at least, if that name doesn’t narrow it down enough), who am I? You could say I’m Paul’s son, Lydia’s husband, James and Franklin’s dad. But as wonderful as all those titles are, that’s a bit derivative, isn’t it? It filters out the hundreds of other Peter Metzgers you could find online, but I’m more than just the sum of all the relationships I have. I’m a person all unto myself.
You probably don’t know this, but I’m an Enneagram 5. According to Gretchen Rubin, I’m a Rebel. According to WizardingWorld.com, I’m a Ravenclaw. But while pigeon-holing me into a certain category may describe me, it certainly doesn’t define me. Have you ever gone back and retaken some of those personality tests and gotten drastically different results? Yeah, because we change. I’m not the same person I was 10, 20, 30 years ago. I’m guessing you aren’t either.
Obviously you didn’t come here today to hear all about me and what makes me distinct and different – much less special or important. I say all this to illustrate how difficult a task we have before us. Today we begin a new worship series called This Is Most Certainly True. It walks us through the three articles of the Apostles Creed and finishes the sentences that all start with “I believe ______.” Every Sunday we are going to confidently assert a certain truth about God. But that does assume that you already know an all-important answer to a very fundamental question, Who is God?
If we can’t encapsulate all of my identity using my occupation, relationships, or characteristics, then imagine how hard it will be to do the same for God.
God is not here, at least not in the same way that I am here. You can’t shake God’s hand and get a measure for the man. You can’t put God under a microscope. But even though he’s invisible, you can observe him or at least you can see some the things he does, which tell us a great deal about who he is.
King David put it this way: The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.[1] When you look at the heavens and the skies – when you look at the natural world around you – what observation can you make about where it all came from? It’s the work of God’s hands!
Look at the intricacies of the human nervous system, the fine tuning of the solar system and earth’s precise placement in it. That degree of specificity couldn’t have just happened randomly. Order doesn’t come from chaos. A tornado doesn’t whip through a lumberyard and build a house. Instead, as the writer to the Hebrews puts it: Every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.[2]
Even if you don’t know him by name – even if you’ve never been introduced – just by looking at the world around you, what can you know about God? That there is one, i.e. that there is a creator, an intelligent designer, a primary cause. That he has the power and wisdom to create things well.
Still, though, God is not here. Even Creation is just a piece of the puzzle. Looking out the window can tell you something about him. Looking inside can too. The Apostle Paul put it this way in his letter to the Romans: When Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.[3]
Paul talks about our consciences. What do our consciences tell us? Whether we’ve done something right or wrong, i.e. whether we should feel proud or guilty about what we’ve done. And what does that pride or guilt imply? That there is a standard for what is right and wrong – a standard that is built into our human operating system regardless of where you grew up or what laws you were taught. There are certain things that you just don’t do, that nobody would feel good about. And where would that objective standard of morality come from if not from some higher power that is concerned with whether we do right or wrong?
If we look out the window, we can know that there is a Creator God who is powerful and wise. If we look in our hearts, we can know that that same God is just and that he holds people accountable. But that’s about it.
It’s about as much of an impression you can get of God as you got of me when you first saw me. But I can tell you this for a fact, I sure wouldn’t want to leave what you think of me to your first impression of me. I would love the chance to set the record straight, wouldn’t you? And if we care about what other people think of us, you can bet God does too. That’s why he gave us his Word – to tell you everything you need to know about him that you wouldn’t be able to know any other way.
Did you know that today is a special day? Yes, it’s our Open Air Fair, and that’s fun and exciting, but it’s also the festival of the Holy Trinity, a truth about God that believers have celebrated from the very beginning. On the first page of the Bible you hear things like this:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.[4]
Already “God” and “the Spirit of God” are placed side by side. The Apostle John helps us fill in the gaps. He says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.[5] That “Word” is Jesus, and so you have “God,” “the Spirit of God,” and “Jesus” all cooperating in Creation right on the first page of your Bible.
Father, Son and Spirit are all God, but how many Gods are there? God tells us, through his prophet Moses: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.[6]
So we have this profound mystery – a single God, but Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all God, without that single God being divided into three parts and without those three people being blended into one. That’s the Trinity in a nutshell. It’s enough to make your brain do cartwheels. I can’t explain it, and yet it is absolutely essential for your faith and life.
Over the next several weeks you’re going to hear a breakdown of what each of those three people of the Trinity have done and continue to do for you, primarily in the realms of creation, salvation, and faith. But what I want you to know about the Trinity today, while we’re still considering all of them at the same time, is simply what God tells us about himself in His Word.
As a name, “Pete Metzger” might not tell you much about who I am as a person. But the name God uses for himself is much more illuminating. He is The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.[7]
It’s a bittersweet name, isn’t it? That last part is kind of scary. What will he do to the guilty? Punish them. And who are these guilty people? They’re you. They’re me. Your own conscience has told you as much. You’ve had moments when you’ve known instantly that those words never should have come out of your mouth. You’ve had moments when you’ve known that that was not the way to treat your wife or your husband or your kids or your parents. You’ve had moments when you’ve known that you didn’t do what you were supposed to do, e.g. when you’ve left someone hanging, when you could have helped but you didn’t, when you failed to live up to the expectations you have for yourself, let alone the expectations God has for you.
You deserve to be punished. Your own conscience testifies against you. God will not fail to ensure that justice gets done. But, that same holy, just God is also compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love, forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. And just as each member of the Triune God had his hand in the creation of the world, so also each had his hand in your salvation.
The Father looked on a sinner like you and loved you so much that he was willing to sacrifice his one and only, truly perfect Son to save you. The Son loved his Father and you so much that he was willing to be that sacrifice, i.e. to die on the cross sinless in your place, i.e. to have God’s righteous justice fall on him, so that you could be forgiven and saved. And it’s the Holy Spirit who works through His Word to teach you that precious truth, to kindle in your heart life-saving faith to believe that what Jesus did was for you.
That’s who God is. That’s what he’s done for you. And that’s why we confess his name. Because his is the only name under heaven by which we must be saved.
We don’t do all this because it’s fun. There are international children’s festivals down the street you can go to to have fun. We don’t do all this because the people wearing lanyards are the nicest people in St. Albert. They’re great, but lots of other people are too. We do this, we come here, week after week, month after month, to know our Triune God – to know the ways we’ve fallen short of deserving his love, but the ways he still loves us and forgives us and restores and empowers us to face each new day with his compassion and grace, and his power and wisdom.
That’s why almost every single Sunday, we confess the Apostles’ Creed or another one very much like it, because that’s who our God is, and that’s what he’s done for you. And if you know nothing else about this great, big old Book – if you haven’t listened to a single word I said – I want you to know the profound truth of who your God is in plain language that even children can understand, the fundamental truths of the Divine in a simple but complete explanation of his incomprehensible identity. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit united in holiness and love for you. And he promises you that it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.[8]
This is most certainly true. Amen.
[1] Psalm 19:1
[2] Hebrews 3:4
[3] Romans 2:14,15
[4] Genesis 1:1,2
[5] John 1:1-3
[6] Deuteronomy 6:4
[7] Exodus 34:6,7
[8] Romans 10:10