Text: John 14:6-17, 25-27
Who is God? That would seem an odd question to stand
before a Christian congregation and ask.
Yet, it is one of the two most pressing questions churches must struggle
with at the very core to remain vibrant.
The second question is what has God done for his creation in, through,
and as Jesus Christ. Who is God? In the 4th Century during the
councils that gave the church the Nicene Creed one of the authors of the Creed
Gregory of Nazianzus quite emphatically proclaimed: “When I say God I mean
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” God is
Trinity. God is the loving communion of
God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If
God is love as John said at 1 John 4:8, then God is relationship for love
requires relationship. Therefore, the
Trinity is three relational beings who love and give themselves to and for one
another so utterly that they form each others person-hood and are one in
being. In the same way that I am who I
am as the result of all the relationships I have in my life the Father cannot
be who he is without the Son and the Spirit nor the Son who he is without the
Father and the Spirit nor the Spirit who he is without the Father and the
Son. God is not God without the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit.
Back to Gregory, why was
he so emphatic in stating this? Well, in
the days of Nicaea Christianity was in a bitter dispute, and bitterly divided
over who God is. There were those who
were saying that God is just God, an unknowable Creator with a moral will who
must be obeyed by his creation. They
themselves were emphatically declaring that Jesus was in no way God and that he
was just a man who showed us how to live according to the will of the Creator
who would never in anyway dirty his hands with human being. These folks, and they were good, faithful to
the church Christians, were followers of a man named Arius and they were in the
majority back then, evidence to the historical fact that at any given time over
the centuries most Christians are being swept away by errant understandings of
who God is. This is indeed true for
today and therefore we must answer who is God? But momentarily, we need to hear
more about the 4th Century church.
Gregory of Nazianzus was
bishop of Constantinople and he had a friend named Athanasius who was Bishop of
Alexandria. Incidentally, both these men
now saints of the church spent quite a bit of time in exile during this
controversy for the majority labelled them heretics. In response to the Arians and their denial of
Jesus' divinity Athanasius is famous for declaring “the unassumed is the
unhealed.” He meant that if Jesus was
not God then humanity is not healed of sin and death. If Jesus was not God the Son become human,
then the Trinity has not taken humanity unto and into himself to heal it of sin
and death with the Trinity's own indestructible life. For Gregory and Athanasius what the Trinity
had down for us in, through, and as Jesus Christ was to reconcile us to himself
(2 Cor. 5:20), heal us of Sin and Death (1 Cor. 15), and make us to be
partakers of his very own nature. Peter
says as much at 2 Peter 1:3-4: “His divine power has granted to us all things that
pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory
and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises,
so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful
desire.”
Gregory and Athanasius
believed along with the Apostle Paul (not to mention all the Apostles and Jesus
himself) that the Trinity had adopted us and not only a legal adoption but
indeed has made us to be blood family with himself and each other by Jesus God
the Son becoming human and the Holy Spirit freely given to us to make adoption
effectual. Paul says this at Romans
8:12-17 “So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to
live according to the flesh-- for if you live according to the flesh, you will
die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
For all who are led by the Spirit of God
are children of God. For you did not
receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a
spirit of adoption. When we cry,
"Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit
that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and
joint heirs with Christ--if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be
glorified with him.”
Paul again says as much
at Galatians 4:4-7: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son,
born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so
that we might receive adoption as sons.
And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our
hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!' So you
are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” To Gregory and Athanasius the followers of
Arius and his unitarian idea of God were simply still living according to the
flesh as they dutifully went about living according to the moral will of the
unknowable Creator they called God. They
were not living by the Spirit. They were
dreadfully unhealed in their hearts all the while thinking themselves to be the
ones who had it right.
The Arian controversy revolved
around whether or not God who is holy, pure, and unchanging would get his hands
dirty by really getting involved with us.
The Arians said no and that the Christian faith was all about knowing
the Creator God's moral will and being obedient to it. Gregory and Athanasius on the other hand
emphatically said yes and more so that the Trinity had indeed taken human being
into his own being and healed it. For
the Arians Jesus was only a man, a very special God-empowered man, who only
showed us what the moral will of God was that we might live accordingly so as
to not suffer the Creator God's wrath.
But, for Gregory and Athanasius by God the Son becoming Jesus the man
and taking human being into the Trinity's Being the Trinity had indeed gotten
his hands dirty with humans and it changed actual human being. In that act of new creation humanity is
healed of sin and death in the same way that Adam's disobedience caused
humanity to sin and suffer death.
Paul writes of this in Romans
5:10-19 “For if while we were enemies we
were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are
reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have now received reconciliation. Therefore, just as sin came into the world
through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because
all sinned - for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin
is not counted where there is no law.
Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was
not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to
come. But the free gift is not like the
trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace
of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for
many. And the free gift is not like the
result of that one man's sin. For the
judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift
following many trespasses brought justification. If, because of one man's trespass, death
reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of
grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man
Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation
for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for
all men. For as by the one man's
disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many
will be made righteous.”
To sum up the answer to question
two: by God the Son becoming human as Jesus of Nazareth living, dying, rising,
ascending, and yet to return humanity has been and will be healed of sin and
death and the Holy Spirit is working now in and through you and me to make this
evidently effectual. We are blessed to
partake now of the life of the Trinity that we might be a blessing to the
community in which we live and beyond.
To make this somewhat
practical, we must say that what the Trinity has done by Jesus and the Holy
Spirit is restore his image in humanity.
The Trinity is a communion of persons working in us to create community
in his image. Therefore, Jesus one and
only commandment that we love one another is of the utmost importance for who
we are as a congregation and why we are here. As the love of God has been poured into our
hearts by the Holy Spirit whom the Father has given us, we bear the family
resemblance. By the way we love one
another we proclaim not only that Jesus is Lord and Saviour, but also that the
one true God is Trinity – the loving communion of the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. This means that our primary task
is to build community among ourselves and with the community around us
according to Jesus command to love. It
means that the sincere giving of oneself in Christian community is not
optional. Being able to give loving
community to the community beyond ourselves expecting nothing in return – no
money in the plate, no bums in the pews – is our way of being in the
world. The Trinity has called us to be
community in his image in the world. We
have to be that community and we will if indeed we have been by Christ Jesus
included in the fellowship of the Trinity and their love has been poured into
our hearts through the Holy Spirit. It
is up to the Trinity in his will and wisdom whether to add to this community or
to take away from it for Jesus said “no one can come to the Father except
through me” (John 14:6) and “no one can come to me unless the Father draws him”
(John 6:44).
So who is your God? Is it the Triune God of grace who through no
will or whim of your own has bought you, adopted you, and brought you into his
own life where nothing can separate you from the love of God in Jesus Christ?
Who has chosen you each and brought you together that you might love and
support one another as the living testimony that Jesus Christ and he alone is
the Way, the Truth, and the Life? Amen.
