The Holy Trinity
Sunday, June 15 (The Feast of the Holy Trinity)
Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity:
Let us give glory to Him because He hath shown His mercy to us.
Let us bless the Father and the Son with the Holy Ghost.
—Liturgical text; Tobit 12:6b, d
A writing for the Trinity Sunday:
On Sunday, the Church celebrated the Feast of the Holy Trinity, the day on which we ponder the incredible and incomprehensible mystery of the Holy Trinity and worship Him in spirit and in truth. We believe that God is Three Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet there are not three Gods, but one undivided God. While the Church confesses the Three Ecumenical Creeds, teaches in systematic and theological terms the doctrines of the Holy Trinity, and devotes much of her time to understanding the Trinity and safeguarding herself against theological heresies, nevertheless words, doctrines, and mortal minds simply cannot understand the Holy Trinity.
Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith. God requires faith for salvation, and faith must be grounded in truth. We must believe and confess what God has revealed to us in His Word. Any beliefs or doctrines held apart from Scripture cannot stand. We must cling only to what God has revealed to us. Indeed, He has made it necessary for salvation that we believe in Him and worship Him. That we worship God in spirit and in truth is the catholic faith.
And the catholic faith is this: We worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the Persons nor dividing the substance. The perplexing nature of our God is attested to in sacred Scripture. We learn that our God is Three Persons in one God. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet there is one Father, one Son, and one Holy Spirit—yet, there is only one God. The catholic faith clings to the divine mysteries revealed in Scripture, and it does so blindly. Sight cannot reveal to us the nature of God. Christ, during His earthly ministry, came to preach heavenly things. He came to preach salvation, to fulfill the Scriptures, and to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. All that is necessary for salvation is necessarily outside of human understanding—especially the doctrine of the Trinity, that our God is three distinct Persons in one undivided God.
Just as we are compelled by the Christian truth to acknowledge each distinct person as God and Lord, so also are we prohibited by the catholic religion to say that there are three Gods or Lords. Reason will discern that the Trinity cannot be. The flesh will contend that God can only be one “person,” or that the Triune God is impossible. Yet it is fitting that the very nature of our God is incomprehensible. For not only is the nature of God itself an ungraspable reality, but His love for us is an even greater mystery.
But it is also necessary for everlasting salvation that one faithfully believe the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is the right faith that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is at the same time both God and man. This is the heart of our Trinitarian confession. We move beyond the initial confusion concerning the nature of the Trinity, and ponder the weightier mystery of Christ’s Incarnation. This is the heavenly substance Christ came to preach. These are the heavenly things that we cannot understand. This is the unimaginable love of God. With Nicodemus, we shudder at these words. How can God, whose nature is already, by necessity, ungraspable and incomprehensible, become Man? Furthermore, how can the Incarnation occur only according to one Person—that is, how can the Son become incarnate, but not the Father or the Holy Spirit? Yet the sum of our salvation is not found only in Christ’s Incarnation, but also in His death, resurrection, and ascension.
For as the rational 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, ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, God Almighty, from whence He will come to judge the living and the dead. The heart of our confession lies in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Only through Him can salvation be won, and only through Him can we attain everlasting life. Likewise, only through Christ can we come to the truth and believe in our Triune God. This will not produce a perfect understanding, but it will produce the contentment of faith that is necessary to say, “This we believe, teach, and confess.”
And those who have done good will enter into eternal life, and those who have done evil into eternal fire. We will, on the Last Day, give an account of our own works. We must recognize, however, that the good for which the heirs of heaven will enter eternal life is not their own, but it is the good imparted to them through faith by the Holy Spirit. The evil for which the sons of Satan will enter eternal fire is their rejection of God’s Word, abandonment of the true faith, or denial of Triune God. We, dear Christians, take refuge in our confession. We know that our God is merciful, righteous, and just. He is loving, almighty, and everlasting. He is our God, for He is God of all creation. We have all that is needful for salvation, for we have the priceless and eternal gift of faith. Cling to it. Believe it. Treasure it. We concern ourselves not with the rational realities to which the mind can attest, but to the priceless treasures of everlasting life found in the incomprehensible confession of Christendom.
This is the catholic faith; whoever does not believe it faithfully and firmly cannot be saved.
Luther on the Holy Gospel, John 3:1–15:
Today we celebrate the festival of the Holy Trinity, to which we must briefly allude, so that we may not celebrate it in vain. It is indeed true that the name “Trinity” is nowhere to be found in the Holy Scriptures, but has been conceived and invented by man. For this reason it sounds somewhat cold and we had better speak of “God” than of the “Trinity.”
This word signifies that there are three persons in God. It is a heavenly mystery which the world cannot understand. I have often told you that this, as well as every other article of faith, must not be based upon reason or comparisons, but must be understood and established by means of passages from the Scriptures, for God has the only perfect knowledge and knows how to speak concerning himself.
[…]
We can, therefore, have no surer foundation for our belief in the divinity of Christ than that we enwrap and enclose our hearts in the declarations of the Scriptures. The Scriptures gradually and beautifully lead us to Christ; first revealing him to us as a man, then as the lord of all creatures. and finally as God. Thus we are successfully led to the true knowledge of God. But the philosophers and the wise men of this world would begin at the top and so they have become fools. We must begin at the bottom and gradually advance in knowledge, so that the words of Proverbs 25:27 may not apply to us: “It is not good to eat much honey; so for men to search out their own glory is grievous.”
Our faith in these two persons, the Father and the Son, is therefore sufficiently established and confirmed by passages from the Scriptures. But of the Holy Spirit, the third person, we read in Mt 28:19 that Christ sent forth his disciples, saying to them: “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Here divinity is also ascribed to the Holy Spirit, since I may trust or believe in no one but God. And I must trust only in one who has power over death, hell, the devil and all creatures, whose authority withholds them from harming me, and who can save me. None will suffice except one in whom I may trust absolutely. Now, Christ in this passage commands that we should also believe and trust in the Holy Spirit; therefore he must be God. In the Gospel according to John, Christ speaks frequently to his disciples of the Holy Spirit, his power or existence.
[…]
Therefore, we cling to the Scriptures, those passages which testify of the Trinity of God, and we say: I know very well that in God there are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; but how they can be one I do not know, neither should I know it. This may suffice for the first part.
—Martin Luther, from “Sermon for Trinity Sunday; John 3:1-15,” taken from Martin Luther’s Church Postils.
Hymn of the Day for the Holy Trinity:
1. All glory be to God alone,
Forevermore the highest one,
Who did our sinful race befriend
And grace and peace to us extend.
Among us may His gracious will
All hearts with deep thanksgiving fill.2. We praise You, God; Your name we bless
And worship You in humbleness;
From day to day we glorify
The everlasting God on high.
Of Your great glory do we sing,
And to Your throne our thanks we bring.3. Lord God, our King on heaven’s throne,
Our Father, the Almighty One.
O Lord, the sole-begotten One,
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son,
True God from all eternity,
O Lamb of God, to You we flee.4. You take the whole world’s sin away;
Have mercy on us, Lord, we pray.
You take the whole world’s sin away;
O Lord, receive our prayer this day.
From God’s right hand Your mercy send,
To all the world Your grace extend.5. You only are the Holy One
And over all are Lord alone.
O Jesus Christ, we glorify
You and the Spirit, Lord Most High;
With Him You evermore shall be
One in the Father’s majesty.—Lutheran Service Book (LSB) 948
Author: attr. Martin Luther, (1483-1546), tr.: W. Gustave Polack, 1890-1950.
Collect of the Day for the Holy Trinity:
Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given unto us, Thy servants, grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity, we beseech Thee that through the steadfastness of this faith, we may evermore be defended from all adversity; who livest and reignest, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Liturgical and theological notes for the Feast of the Holy Trinity:
Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost, and the first Sunday in Ordinary Time. It is fitting that the “ordinary time” of the Church begins with a feast commemorating the very nature of God. The Church has concluded its Paschal Cycle—the period of the church year centered on the life, death, and resurrection of God the Son—and now enters into a commemorative and prolonged season of spiritual growth and renewal and devotion to God’s Word and catechetical study.
The name of the Triune God is, after all, the name into which we Christians are baptized. It is the name spoken over us as the baptismal waters sanctify our sinful flesh and bring us into the sheepfold of Christ. Thus, the lengthened season of Ordinary Time begins with a reminder of the name into which we are baptized. Our continued emphasis throughout this time on growth and renewal begins with a reminder of the moment we were spiritually cleansed and regenerated, when our hearts could by faith cling to the eternal mysteries of the catholic faith.
Trinity Sunday is one of the only feasts in the liturgical calendar that is not dedicated to an event, particularly in the life of Christ, such as the Resurrection, or a saint, like St. Andrew’s Day. Rather, it is dedicated to a doctrine—perhaps the doctrine of all doctrines. Seldom do liturgical feasts expressly commemorate the Trinity. Most center on the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, or otherwise commemorate one of the saints for whom the Church gives boundless thanks—and while the Trinity may always be preached on these days and is always active when these feasts are celebrated, seldom is this brought directly to our attention and given for our faithful and prayerful consideration.
Trinity Sunday is a later addition to the Church calendar, but it nevertheless stands apart as an important feast of the Church dedicated to the doctrine of all doctrines—the incomprehensible nature of our God. We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance. This extends far beyond the bounds of human understanding, yet for our loving and almighty God we give thanks and praise.