X Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith X
Gervasius and Protasius, Martyrs in the 1st century
19. June 2011
1. O Almighty, Everlasting, Merciful God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, with Your Son and the Holy Spirit, has made and does still preserve heaven and earth, all the holy angels, and the whole race of mankind, together with all other creatures, and who, of Your great goodness has revealed Yourself unto mankind in Your Holy Word as the One Eternal God in Three Persons of the Same Essence, Power, and Glory: You, O God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Holy and Ever, O Blessed Trinity, we worship and adore, and in true faith praise and acknowledge You, honor and magnify Your Holy Name now and forever. Amen.
2. Our sermon text for this morning, dear brothers and sisters, is from the Gospel according to John the Apostle and Evangelist who writes: 1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the reign of God.” 4Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the reign of God. 6That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?” 10Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? 11Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. 12If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13No one has ascended into heaven except He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.” 16“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” This is our text.
3. The Athanasian Creed begins: 1Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith. 2Whoever does not keep it whole and undefiled will without doubt perish eternally. 3And the catholic faith is this, 4that we worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the Persons nor dividing the Substance.
4. American Christianity has fallen away from what the Church confesses in her Creeds. The Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds all confess and teach that the Holy Spirit is God and the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. George Barna conducted a poll in 2009. This Barna Poll indicated that over 50% of American Evangelical-Protestant Christians understand the Holy Spirit as a force or power rather than as a living entity and Person (68% of those under 25 say He is a symbol of God’s power or presence but not a living entity and Person; 59% of Busters, 55% Boomers, and 56% of Elders) (Issues, Etc. 30. May 2011). Only 33% of American Evangelical-Protestant Christians disagree that the Holy Spirit is not a living force. Barna’s Poll shows that over one-half of all American Evangelical-Protestant Christians do not believe a key doctrine regarding the Triune God. Over 50% do not believe that the Holy Spirit is God. The state of American Christianity, therefore, is in need of a serious reformation for one half of American Evangelical-Protestants hold a very serious heretical error.
5. The Athanasian Creed takes Christian doctrine serious. The Creed promises eternal life to those who confess and believe the catholic faith, but the Creed furthermore condemns to hell those who do not confess and believe the catholic faith. Too many Christians get hung up on the Athanasian adjective „catholic“ modifying the noun „faith“. The Creed uses „catholic“ for it is the old Church usage that means „universal“; the adjective „Christian“ is the modern Church usage. The Creed confesses that the faith confessed by entire Church is the only and true saving faith. Lest we doubt what this Church’s saving faith is, the Creed immediately defines the catholic, Christian faith: we worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the Persons nor dividing the Substance.
6. The Athanasian Creed exhorts us to worship the Triune God. It is not enough to just believe, teach, and confess the Triune God, but we must worship the Triune God. We worship the One, True God who is One God comprised of Three Persons and Three Persons comprising One God. We worship the One, True God who is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each Person – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is fully and completely God. Here we see why over 50% of American Evangelical-Protestants Christians do not believe the Holy Spirit is a living Person and God, because many times in their Divine Services they do not worship God as the Triune God. If the Holy Spirit is not regularly worshipped as God, then over time people will stop believing that He truly is God.
7. Churches whose Divine Services trace back to the Apostles have a visible and powerful worship of the Triune God. The Trinity abounds in the Historic Liturgy of the Divine Service. Thus in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the Anglican Church, and the Episcopal Church, the liturgy is centered upon the Holy Trinity. This does not guarantee that every Roman Catholic or Lutheran will correctly understand or confess that the Holy Spirit is God, but they really have no excuse not to confess this because their churches really worship the Triune God each week in their Divine Services.
8. Our Divine Service abounds with Trinitarian references. A cursory look reveals the following. The Invocation: In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Absolution: I forgive you all your sins in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Gloria Patri: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. The Kyrie: Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us (where the first Lord is the Father and the last Lord is the Holy Spirit). The Gloria in Excelsis: Thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of God the Father. The Collect of the Day concludes: through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. The Triple Alleluia (one alleluia for each Person of the Trinity). The Creed: I believe in one God, the Father Almighty ... and in one Lord Jesus Christ ... and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life. The Sanctus: Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabaoth (one holy for each person of the Trinity). The Nunc Dimittis: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. The Post-communion Collect: We give thanks to You, Almighty God, … through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God. The Benediction: The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. The Triple Amen. (Weedon’s Blog, Tuesday 14. June 2011).
9. The true, Christian Church worships the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We worship this Triune God because this Triune God has worked out our redemption from all sin and brought us eternal life and salvation. God the Father sent His Son Jesus Christ into this fallen world. The Son of God merited the world’s salvation by suffering, dying, and rising again. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, speaking through the Prophetic and Apostolic Scriptures and through those Scriptures reminds us of all that Christ has done and said.
10. Men and women are born sinful. We must receive a new birth. We who are born in the flesh must be born anew in the spirit. „The Lord Jesus calls this new birth from the Holy Spirit, a new birth from the water …. The new birth from the water is the water of Baptism, the grace-filled water of life, the washing of rebirth in the Holy Spirit. This, water is available – and because we now know that the Holy Spirit works through the water, so we know where the hem of Christ’s garments are that makes us recover from all of our disease“[1] (Löhe 353 §7).
11. In the Baptismal font the Triune God saves us by washing away our sins. This is the work of God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. At that Baptismal font each of us first confessed the Triune nature of God, and thus we confess that very essence of the Trinity today in our Divine Service, in remembering our Baptism, and in the Athanasian Creed all of which affirm and teach that we are saved by the work and power of the Triune God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. „There are Three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and these Three are One“ (Löhe 356 §12) and they bear witness to the one way and means of salvation: through the vicarious sacrifice of the Son who was sent by the Father and who is testified as the world’s savior (der Welt Heiland) by the Spirit. Amen.
12. Let us pray. Blessed are You, O Lord God of our fathers, and greatly to be praised and glorified forever. For in Your infinite majesty and wisdom You did show grace and favor upon Your fallen human creation, redeemed us, and sanctified us; may we ever worship You thus, for in worshipping we believe and in believing we hold fast to the gospel that proclaims that we are restored in everlasting fellowship with You, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit: Three Persons yet One God. Amen.
that we worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity,
neither confusing the Persons nor dividing the Substance.
X
All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the New Testament Greek Manuscripts, Luke © 1995 by Reuben Joseph Swanson.
Löhe, Wilhelm. A sermon preached on Allerheiligsten Dreieinigkeit Sunday in Neuendettelsau, Germany on John 3,1-15. Copyright © 1859 The Rev. Wilhelm Loehe. The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind, Tr. © 2011. Löhe, Wilhelm. Liturgy for Christian Congregations of the Lutheran Faith. Copyright © 1902 Frank Carroll Longaker.
http://weedon.blogspot.com/2011/06/speaking-of-glorifying-holy-trinity.html
[1] Gott Lob, daß wir mit unserm sehnlichen Verlangen nicht abgewiesen werden! Der Herr nennt die neue Geburt aus dem heiligen Geiste auch eine neue Geburt aus dem Waßer, und damit enthebt Er uns aller Verlegenheit. Denn was wir unter dem neugebärenden Waßer zu verstehen haben, darüber können wir keinen Zweifel haben: es ist das Waßer der Taufe, das gnadenreiche Waßer des Lebens, das Bad der neuen Geburt im heiligen Geiste. Dieß Waßer ist erreichbar – und weil wir nun wißen, daß der heilige Geist durches Waßer wirkt, so wißen wir wo der Saum der Kleider Christi ist, der uns genesen macht von aller unsrer Krankheit.
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