Today’s Scripture

Psalm 8           Proverbs 8:22-31        Romans 5:1-5              John 16:12-15

 

 

            This time of year we focus our attention on school graduations and promotions.  We celebrate the learning attained, the achievements, the plans for the future.  Prior to World War II, and eighth grade education was a significant milestone where today a High School diploma seldom holds entry level skills.  All of the knowledge and skills one acquires does not mean much unless that person can apply those skills.  The greatest knowledge and skills mean little without using them wisely. 

 

Wisdom is highly desired.  We look for wisdom in many places.  We call on the wisdom of people who have been through a situation before us.  We call on the wisdom of those who have expertise in an area.  We also overlook or discredit many sources of wisdom around us.  Last year’s manager of the year in baseball, Jack McKeon, had the wisdom of many years in baseball, playing, coaching, and holding different positions at all levels.  He was successful in turning a team with a losing record around into the ultimate winner.  His team counted on him for the wisdom he brought.

 

We remember Solomon’s response to God when asked what he wanted.  He asked for wisdom.  Solomon knew that no matter what gifts God would give him, they were of naught if he did not have the wisdom to use these gifts wisely. 

 

This eighth chapter of Proverbs is an essay about wisdom.  As you read this chapter including the verses we just read, it is wisdom who is speaking as a person to us.  As we study this verse, it is Jesus Christ who is wisdom.  He is the source of all wisdom to us.  He was created before creation and was present at creation.  Jesus, in his prayer before his betrayal asks God to restore him to the glory he had even before the world began [John 17:5].  He was with God “in the beginning” and through him all things were made at creation [John 1].  Jesus is God’s word.  Paul refers to Jesus as the “wisdom of God.”  [1 Corinthians 1:24]. 

 

Jesus, in that wisdom, delights in mankind.  That means he loves you.  He shows us God’s love in how he gave himself completely for us.  He gave himself in perfect obedience to God’s will and commands, not taking anything for himself.  He gave himself in perfect love for you, giving himself up on your behalf to pay the price for your sins, redeeming (buying) you back from sin, death and Satan.  In baptism and in faith you are God’s child again, adopted and brothers and sisters of his own dear son Jesus. 

 

Jesus was at God’s side from eternity.  He was God’s craftsman not just for the extent of creation but for your eternal life.  Jesus gives wisdom for that eternal life as he gives his commands to you:

1. I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  [John 14:6]
2. The work of God is this, to believe in the one he has sent.  [John 6:29]
3. When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me.  [John 12:44]
4. Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them…  [Matthew 19:14]
5. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  [John 3:16]
6. Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my father in heaven.  Whoever disowns me before men, I will disown before my father in heaven.   [Matthew 10:32]
7. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin."  [Mark 3:29]

 

Today we celebrate the Trinity.  God, in his ultimate wisdom comes to us and reveals himself to us in the three persons of one God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Jesus speaks to us of all three persons in these passages.  As a result of knowing the Triune God and faith in Jesus’ wisdom and truth, we enjoy the blessings of God in all three persons.  There is no greater wisdom than what Jesus, our Lord and Savior has revealed to us. 

à        The Father gives us all things in this earth and the next.  In this world, he has called each to be stewards, caretakers of all that he has given from the blessings of creation to spreading his word to others.

à        The Son gives us access to the Triune God.  He is the source of God’s love and goes to all lengths to save us.  When his love is absent, we have no hope.  With his love, we have perfect peace, hope and joy.

à        The Holy Spirit guides us into all truth, takes what is Christ’s and makes it known to us and even lives in our bodies.  The Holy Spirit is God’s power in us, giving the gift of faith, to carry on the love of Christ in our lives, and the power to love as he first loved us (forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.)

 

We cannot understand the miracle of how God can be those three persons all in one.  But, we can believe and trust in him for the great gifts he brings as our Triune God, the one and only true God.  Let us join together in confessing the miracle of the Triune God in the words of the Athanasian Creed.

 

 

 

The Athanasian Creed

The Church’s Confession of the Holy Trinity

 

Whoever will be saved shall, above all else, hold the catholic* faith.

Which faith, except everyone keeps whole and undefiled, without doubt he will perish eternally.

And the catholic faith is this:

that we worship one God in three persons and three persons in one God, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance.

For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.

But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one:

the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.

Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.

The Father uncr eated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated .

The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible.

The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.

And yet there are not three eternals but one eternal.

As there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensibles but one uncreated and one incomprehensible.

So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty.

And yet they are not three almighties but one almighty.

So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.

And yet they are not three Gods but one God.

So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord.

And yet they are not three Lords but one Lord.

For as we are compelled by the Christian truth to acknowledge every person by himself to be both God and Lord,

So we cannot by the catholic faith say that there are three Gods or three Lords.

The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten.

The Son is of the Father alone, not made nor created but begotten.

The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son, neither made nor created nor begotten but proceeding.

So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.

And in this Trinity none is before or after another; none is greater or less than another;

But the whole three persons are coeternal together and coequal,

so that in all things, as has been said, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshiped.

He, therefore, that will be saved is compelled thus to think of the Trinity.

Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe faithfully the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man;

God of the substance of the Father, begotten before all worlds;

and man of the substance of his mother, born in the world;

Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.

Equal to the Father as touching his Godhead and inferior to the Father as touching his manhood;

Who, although he is God and man, yet he is not two but one Christ:

One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh but by taking the manhood into God:

One altogether, not by confusion of substance but by unity of person.

For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ;

Who suffered for our salvation,

descended into hell,

rose again the third day from the dead.

He ascended into heaven,

he sits at the right hand of the Father, God Almighty,

from whence he will come to judge the living and the dead.

At whose coming all men will rise again with their bodies and will give an account of their own works.

And they that have done good will go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire.

This is the catholic faith which, except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.

 

 

*universal, Christian

 

 

Early in the fourth century, a north African pastor named Arius began teaching that Jesus Christ was not truly God. The Church responded decisively in A.D. 325 with a state –ment of faith (The Nicene Creed), which confessed that Jesus is, in fact, truly God. Toward the end of the fifth century, another creed was written that delved further into the mystery of the Trinity. Though attributed to Athanasius, a fourth-century opponent of Arius, this anony –mous creed clearly came at a later stage in the debate.

The Athanasian Creed proclaims that its teachings concerning the Holy Trinity and our Lord’s incarnation are “the catholic faith.” In other words, this is what the true church of all times and all places has confessed. More than 15 centuries later, the church continues to confess this truth, confident that the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, has given Himself for our salvation.

 

Athanasian Creed (Quicunque Vult) from Lutheran Worship. Copyright © 1982 by Concordia Publishing House. Used

by permission. Distributed by the LCMS Commission on Worship for congregational use only. Commercial reproduction,

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