Trinity Sunday 2024

Tomorrow is the Lord’s Day. After Pentecost the Church enters into an ordinary season organized around the revelation of the Trinity. Traces of the Trinity are found throughout the entire Bible, beginning in Genesis 1, and the fingerprints of tri-unity are ubiquitous throughout creation. But it was after the resurrection and ascension of Christ and outpouring of the Holy Spirit that the Triune nature of God began to be clearly and consistently proclaimed.

God is One in Three and Three in One. As the Church confesses in the Athanasian Creed:

Now this is the catholic faith: that we worship one God in Trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither confounding their persons nor dividing the essence. For the person of the Father is a distinct person, the person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son and such is the Holy Spirit. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Spirit is uncreated. The Father is immeasurable, the Son is immeasurable, the Holy Spirit is immeasurable. The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal. And yet there are not three eternal beings; there is but one eternal being. So too there are not three uncreated or immeasurable beings; there is but one uncreated and immeasurable being. (3-12)

This confession of God’s Triunity sets Christianity apart from every other religion and defines the difference between orthodox Christianity and sub-Christian, adjacent traditions (such as Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses/Watchtower Society). We worship one God, and that one God exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in simultaneous and co-equal glory, power, and substance.

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is the solution to the philosopher’s problem of the one and the many, debated since ancient times. Which is most basic? Which serves as the foundation of all reality? Is it one or many; monism, dualism, or pluralism? The answer is: none of the above. The Triune God is the foundation of all reality, and his Triunity establishes and explains the relationship of the one and the many observable throughout creation and human history.

The doctrine of the Trinity is a great mystery, but it is not irrational. We do not close our eyes and leap into the dark, hoping the Christian faith is true. It is by means of this truth that we are able to recognize and understand all other truth. We do not establish Christian truth by means of neutral science. We establish scientific truths and the process by which we discover it through the order and rationality of a Triune Creator who has made us in his image.

When the celestial creatures in heaven and translated saints surrounding the divine throne sing praise to God, they do so in a triune way. Holy! Holy! Holy! Yahweh is the holiest of all. The Father is holy, the Son is holy, and the Spirit is holy; these Three are One, the holy God over all! So tomorrow the Church will sing the trisagion with our brethren and non-human fellow worshipers above. The Bride of Christ will be lifted into the heavenlies to join the chorus that sings God’s praise day and night. Worship is an encounter with the living God, an experience of the noumenal. It is participation in the living communion of redeemed creation, the new heavens and earth that is growing until this present, sin-cursed world is fully eclipsed. O come, let us adore Him! --JME

Pentecost Sunday 2024

Tomorrow is the Lord’s Day. Pentecost, an OT feast that was resurrected and transformed by Christ’s death and resurrection. The celebration of harvest began the harvest of the nations, bringing people from the ancient world to the Savior, uniting them with one voice in the worship of the Triune God. The Church is to be truly Pentecostal, though that name has come to be associated with a particular church tradition and a particular view of the charismatic gifts that our congregation (and the historical Church) does not affirm. Nevertheless, there is a real sense in which we are, and ought to be, pentecostal in our identity, worship, and witness to all the nations.

When Christ sent the Spirit to indwell and empower his Church on earth, the curse of Babel began to be reversed. Confusion became confession. Separation became reconciliation. Rebellion became repentance and reverence. That is what we celebrate on Pentecost: the coming of the Spirit, the blessing of the Spirit, and the in-gathering of the nations.

As we meet together for worship tomorrow, we come as people from very different places, backgrounds, and experiences. Yet that diversity is transcended by a greater unity we have found in Christ, a unity of faith, forgiveness, and filial love to the God who has redeemed and reconciled us by the blood of his Son. We have been taught the language of Zion that we may share together in prayer and praise. We have been adopted into God’s family, being formerly orphans and strangers. We have been given a place to sit on Mt. Zion when we once tried to build a tower and climb into heaven by our own efforts. Babel was a place of judgment, but Pentecost has brought salvation to those who had been scattered far and wide.

Now that we are able to understand one another’s speech and relate to one another, what are we to talk about? Like the apostles, God has loosed our tongues that we might proclaim the wonderful works of God! We are to be stewards of the gift of language by speaking of heavenly things, praising God for his goodness and calling one another to faith and obedience to the true King, God’s own Son.

May the Lord bless us with joy as we enter into his courts tomorrow. Come with thanksgiving and praise. The Lord is gathering the strangers from all nations into glory. He has poured out his Spirit upon us all. Let us come together and shout his praise! --JME

The Lord Who Flew to Heaven

Photo courtesy pexels.com

Tomorrow is the Lord’s Day. Thursday was Ascension Day when the Church has historically remembered and given thanks that the Savior returned to his Father and assumed his throne to rule over all creation. Tomorrow our Scripture readings in the morning service as well as the sermon will focus on the theme of Christ’s ascension. If someone objects that the Scriptures do not command us to take any special notice of the Lord’s ascension and question whether this liturgical acknowledgement is a violation of the Regulative Principle, I would point out that we have the same authority to meditate and celebrate Christ’s ascension tomorrow as we do to have Scripture readings and a sermon on the Regulative Principle instead. It is never wrong to give thanks for our Savior’s redemptive work.

Christ ascended to the Father’s right hand, but of course, the Father doesn’t have a “right hand.” God is a spirit, without “body, parts, or passions.” The language of “right hand” is metaphorical, symbolic of the position of authority which Christ has been given because of his victory through death and resurrection. But if the “right hand of God” is figurative, the place Jesus has gone and currently resides is not. Though his divine nature is omnipresent, his human body (and nature) is not. Unlike Lutherans, the Reformed do not believe the humanity of Christ has been “divinized” and achieved ubiquity. The God-Man still has location, and since the ascension, his location is in heaven.

Heaven is a real place, not just an idea. It is a created place, not an eternal domain. God made heaven, just as he made hell (also a real place), the earth, the sky, and the rock we call Mars (in reference to the demon associated with it). Heaven is as real as the grocery store just up the road from my house, but I have it on good authority that heaven is considerably nicer. (I expect their free sample day is better, and the bananas are always perfectly ripe.) Heaven is not imaginary, it is not fairy-land (that is another place), and it is not a metaphorical device. It is a place. Christ is there. The Father’s presence resides there. The saints in their disembodied form are there (having arrived two thousand years ago after Christ’s resurrection and ascension, cf. Psa. 68:18; Heb. 11:39-40). At least two saints are there who are not disembodied. Enoch and Elijah were taken to heaven without surrendering their body and breath to Death. Like Christ, they have a human body in heaven right now, though unlike Christ, their bodies are not yet resurrected and glorified.

Heaven’s current location and configuration is not permanent. At the end of this present world, heaven will come down, and heaven and earth will be one (Rev. 21-22). There will not be some Christians in heaven and others on earth in the eternal state, as the (false) Witnesses of Jehovah claim. Heaven will be united to earth in the consummated new heavens and earth. The new creation that began at Christ’s resurrection will be completed. The earth and its present wickedness will die under judgment and then be made new (2Pet. 3). The universe will be delivered from bondage and resurrected (Rom. 8:18-25), just like the saints. If you think the Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Ocean are impressive now, wait until you see what they look like in their glorified state.

Men have long dreamed of flying. They tell stories about it, they build machines to try it, and they literally dream about it at night. Why would such dreams be so pervasive in the human race? I think it is an aspect of general revelation, a rarely identified or understood connection to Christ’s ascension when the Last Adam, the true Man, the King of creation, flew up into the heavens to receive his reward and fulfill his destiny of life with God. The first Adam disobeyed God and failed to complete his mission. Rather than flying into the sky, he fell down dead and returned to dust. But where the first Adam failed, Christ has succeeded. The Church does not marvel at, imitate, or worship Superman. We worship the true Man, the One who flew into the sky, the Lord Jesus Christ, not a make-believe comic book hero but the Lord and Savior of the world. O come, and let us adore him! --JME