Holy Trinity at Bethlehem/St. John Ev. Lutheran Churches

The Holy Trinity

Each year, the first Sunday after Pentecost is designated as Holy Trinity. Holy Trinity Sunday is a time for the Church to teach and to dwell on that great mystery of God: the fact that our God is both one God, but also three persons. This ancient observance is one that arose in order to combat incorrect teaching. During the years of Constantine and Athanasius, throughout the 300s and into the 400s, the Church was pressed by on all sides by the Arian heresy, a teaching that taught that Jesus was created by God, thus elevating God the Father and demoting God the Son. One of the ways the Church Fathers fought was by preparing an Office with canticles, responses, a Preface, and hymns. In time, this grew into our modern observance of Trinity Sunday.

But, what is the Trinity?
The Trinity is a made-up word which we use to describe that part of God's nature which he has revealed to us: God is one and only one as is taught in Deuteronomy 6:4, where God says "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one" (see also Isaiah 44:6, Isaiah 48:12; 1 Timothy 2:5). Yet at the same time, God has three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This is perhaps best shown from Matthew 3:13-17, where the Father speaks, the Son is baptized, and the Holy Spirit descends like a dove (see also Genesis 1:1ЦЦ3, together with Psalm 33:6 and John 1:1; Genesis 48:16 with Isaiah 63:9ЦЦ10; also Isaiah 48:16).

One of the three universal Creeds, the Athanasian Creed, was written in order to combat the Arian heresy and reaffirm the Biblical doctrine of the Trinity. Typically, therefore, on Holy Trinity, most churches (Messiah included) will recite it.

The Lutheran confessions put it this way: "There is one divine essence, which is called and which is truly God, and ... there are three persons in this one divine essence, equal in power and alike eternal: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. All three are one divine essence, eternal, without division, without end, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, one creator and preserver of all things visible and invisible" (Augsburg Confession I:2-3). These three persons are equal in works, rank, and attributes (see Job 33:4; Isaiah 9:6; John 5:2 3; 8:58; 1 Corinthians 2:10ЦЦ14; Ephesians 1:10; 3:14ЦЦ16).

When we worship God as the Trinity, one God in three persons, we are worshiping God as he is, that is -as he has told us he is. All praise, honor and glory be to God- Father, Son, and Holy ghost.