In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
On more than one occasion I've had people say things to me like this: "Well my God would not be so judgmental or cruel as to limit salvation only to those who know and trust in Jesus Christ. My God wouldn't forbid women from being pastors. My God wouldn't count monogamous homosexuality as a sin." And on and on it goes. It finally boils down to their god being and thinking and feeling just like them. Their god is just a higher version of themselves, a creation of their own minds which they then project above them as the divine power, a god made in man's image.
But the true God, the God of the Scriptures, is not the product of our imaginations. His will is not something we can shape and mold according to our liking. Rather, He is who He is, regardless of our expectations or desires or thinking. He is the Creator and Lord of all, who is utterly higher than us and to whom we are all accountable. God is not to be thought of in some generic and casual way as merely "the man upstairs." He is the Almighty, the Omniscient, the Eternal Lord of hosts. Our puny minds cannot fully grasp who God is. All we can do is humbly confess who He is according to how He has revealed Himself to us in the Scriptures (as we do in the Athanasian Creed) and worship the mystery of His triune nature–three persons in one God and one God in three persons.
Isaiah was given a vision of God in the full awesomeness of His heavenly glory. And it wasn't any sort of casual experience at all. Isaiah saw the Lord Himself sitting on His throne, high and lifted up, and the train of the Lord's flowing robe filled the temple. There were six-winged angels called seraphim all around the throne. And as they flew they called back and forth words of praise to the Trinity, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!" Their majestic voices shook the doorposts, and the house was filled with the smoke of incense.
When Isaiah saw these awesome things, what was his response? It was not one of joy but one of penitent humility and fear, "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts." It was said in the Old Testament that no one may see God and live. Why? Because humans are sinful and God is holy. Those two realities are not compatible. Nothing unholy can come into God's holy presence. Direct contact with God by us fallen creatures means our death. It's like touching a live power line. Electricity is a very powerful thing and, rightly used, is a very good thing. But if you come into direct contact with it, you're history. In a much deeper way, that's how it is with God. Coming face to face with Him on your own is a truly terrible thing. His light exposes our darkness. His righteousness reveals our judgment.
We should learn from Isaiah, then, that the appropriate attitude for us before God is one of reverent humility and holy fear. God is no one to be trifled with or treated as an equal, as if He changes like we do. Today's Epistle reminds us that the depths of God's wisdom are unfathomable. His judgments are unsearchable and His ways past finding out. None of us are even remotely in a position to give God advice or become His counselor. None of us can say that God owes us anything, since every good thing comes first from Him. Your lives and your eternal destiny are entirely in the Lord's hands.
We must ask, then: If that is so, what is His attitude towards us? Especially recognizing our sinfulness and His holiness, how is He going to treat us? If He wanted, He could simply be done with us and give us over to eternal destruction; that would be entirely just. Since we are at His mercy, is He a God of mercy?
The answer to that question is found most clearly in today's Gospel reading. There we learn that although God is entirely just and righteous, though He always condemns and punishes sin, yet He is also merciful and loving, and in His Son He has provided a way for us sinners to be saved and made holy, so that we might come into His presence without fear. John 3 says, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." Our Lord Jesus, the glorious and eternal Son of the Father, came down from heaven to rescue us who otherwise would have perished. Our unholiness would have doomed us and separated us from God and all that is good forever. But Jesus took that unholiness and sin away from us and put it upon Himself. He took our iniquities into His own flesh so that we might be cleansed from them. The woe and the judgment that we would have experienced Jesus bore for us in our place on the cross. By that death of Christ, God's wrath is now appeased; His holiness is entirely satisfied. Therefore, all who believe in Christ and who rely on His saving work are declared righteous. You who trust in Jesus are holy in God's sight; for you are one with Him who took away the sin of the world. In Jesus you see God and live by His grace.
The unknown, unsearchable God is revealed to us not through our own speculation or feelings but through Jesus and His Word. In Christ the Lord's ways are not past finding out, but rather they are revealed to be ways of love and mercy. So it is that the Gospel says, "God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." Jesus did not come to damn us but to rescue us. He did not come to convict us but to pardon us. He did not come merely to give us principles for living but to give us a whole new life–His life.
That's what Jesus is talking about with Nicodemus. Nicodemus, you see, is still trying to figure out the "God" thing. He reasons that Jesus must be from God, because He's able to do these signs and miracles. And so Nicodemus figures that Jesus might be able to teach him something so that he can get his spiritual life together and make religion really work for him. But Jesus responds in a way that shows he's missing the point entirely. The Christian faith is not about getting your life together, it's about getting a new life. It's not doing something of yourself to get in touch with God and in harmony with His will, it's about being reborn in Christ. Jesus said, "Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
To see the kingdom of God you must die to this life, to reason and experience, to logic and common sense, and to your own ideas of what God should be like. This life is marred and corrupted by the fall into sin, and so it must pass away. We must receive a new and holy life that is acceptable to stand in God's presence and to enter His kingdom. And that life is given to us by Christ. For He lived a sinless and holy life for us. He fulfilled the commandments entirely and completely kept the Law of love, even to the point of laying down His life. Now He is risen from the dead in the flesh to pour out His life by the Holy Spirit on all who believe. Jesus said, "Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God."
It is in holy baptism, then, that we are reborn in Christ. We are not born again through some decision of our own, any more than we had a part in deciding to be born the first time. Rather, we are born again as children of God purely by the gracious will of our heavenly Father. Just as our Lord Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so we are conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Church through the water of baptism, the washing of rebirth. There we are given a life in Christ that is everlasting. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and passes away. But that which is born of the Spirit is spirit and does not pass away.
Do you see now why the doctrine of the Trinity is so important? It's not just some sterile, intellectual exercise that's separated from our real experience. It's not just some complex theology that we have to pay tribute to once a year by reciting a longer creed. This doctrine of the Trinity is our very life. This is the one, holy, catholic, apostolic faith, which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved. We do not just believe in some sort of generic "god." For if that is all we believe, then we remain condemned by His holiness. No, we believe in the Father who created us and the Son who redeemed us and the Holy Spirit who sanctifies us and makes us holy. We believe in the Father who loves even us sinners, in the one and only Son who demonstrated that love by redeeming us with His holy and precious blood, and in the Holy Spirit who pours out that love upon us by water and the Word. We believe in the Father who reaches out to us fallen creatures in mercy, whose Son takes on our nature and bears our judgment and saves us, whose Holy Spirit delivers to us all the saving gifts of Christ in the preaching of the Gospel and the holy supper. It's all from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit; and back again in the Spirit, through the Son, to the Father.
Today you are given to come into the very presence of this one and only true God in Holy Communion. No longer do you need to say as Isaiah did, "Woe is me!" For the angel came and touched Isaiah's mouth with a glowing coal that had been taken from the altar, and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away and your sin purged." Even from this altar the body and blood of Christ, aglow with His divine life, touch your lips and are put into your mouths. By these gifts your iniquity is taken away and your sin purged. By them your lips are opened to join with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven to proclaim: "Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabaoth; heaven and earth are full of your glory. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!" "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever and ever."
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit