Uncreated, Infinite, Eternal

 Jesu Juva

St. John 8:48-59                                                 

June 15, 2025

The Holy Trinity C        

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.  With those words our Lord Jesus Christ said a mouthful.  Before Abraham was, I am.  Make no mistake what Jesus is claiming here:  Before Abraham walked the earth nearly two thousand years earlier—before Abram believed the Lord and it was credited to him as righteousness—before Abram was promised descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky—before Abram packed up everyone and everything and set out for the land God would show him—before all that—before Abraham was—the Son of God already existed.  In fact, the Son of God eternally was, and is, and ever shall be.  That’s what our Lord means when He says:  Before Abraham was, I am.

        It’s a claim of divinity.  Jesus is God:  Uncreated, infinite, eternal.  Let no one tell you that Jesus is not God.  His humanity is easy to see and easy to believe.  He looked like an ordinary man.  He was born.  He ate and drank.  He slept and wept.  There was nothing in His appearance to suggest anything other than humanity.  But with His Word, Jesus asserts His divinity—Before Abraham was, I am.

        About three hundred years after Jesus said those words, the church’s confession finally caught up with what Jesus so plainly asserted.  At the council of Nicea, the church confessed that Jesus is God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made.  And a century later, the Athanasian Creed cemented what we know for certain about this Jesus—that He is infinite, eternal, and uncreated.  But what we confess about the divinity of Jesus largely began with these words from the Savior’s own lips:  Before Abraham was, I am.

        Today is the Feast of the Holy Trinity.  And what we confess about Jesus, we also confess about the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Each of the three persons of the Trinity is infinite, uncreated, eternal, and almighty.  Not three, but one.

        You know, if we decided to invent our own religion and our own god, we certainly wouldn’t do it this way—using a Trinitarian model.  We’d probably keep things simple and straight forward.  Why make things more difficult—more mysterious—than they have to be?  Thankfully, we don’t have to make up anything about the faith we confess, or about the God who loves us.  The Holy Trinity has revealed Himself to us in the Scriptures.  We simply believe it and confess it to the whole world.

        Confessing the Trinity with clarity isn’t easy these days; but then again, it’s never been easy.  Just look at the kind of abuse Jesus suffered from the religious folks of His day.  In love, Jesus told them who He is.  In love, Jesus invited them to believe:  If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.  In love, Jesus asserted His divinity: Before Abraham was, I am.

        But in response, our Lord’s Jewish audience unloaded a barrage of insults and hate—essentially calling Jesus deranged, deluded, demented, demonized, and Samaritan scum.  And when Jesus uncorked the doctrinal truth that He is the eternal Son of the Father—that before Abraham even existed, Jesus existed—that, in fact, there never was a time when Jesus did not exist.  At that point, Jesus’ hearers started looking for smooth stones to start hurling His way.

        Jesus speaks the truth despite a loud and vocal opposition—despite the risks, despite a downturn in His approval rating and a plummeting popularity. Jesus endures the abuse—takes it on the chin; but He defends the doctrine.  When it comes to His teaching, Jesus doesn’t give an inch.  He refuses to back down on the doctrine—even while suffering insults and abuse and threats. 

        Martin Luther, who was no stranger to insults, abuse, and threats, expressed it this way in one of his sermons on today’s Holy Gospel.  Luther asked:  “What does Christ do here?  He [allows] His life to be covered with shame and He endures it in silence; but He defends the teaching, for the teaching is not ours but God’s. . . . There patience ceases and I must venture all that I have and suffer all that they inflict upon me, in order that . . . God and His Word shall not suffer.  For that I perish matters little, but if I let God’s Word perish and remain silent, I do harm to God and all the world” (Day by Day, p.383).

        Luther reminds us why we bother to confess and defend all the doctrinal details about the Holy Trinity—and all the other teachings of Scripture, for that matter.  Why should we bother to defend the most fundamental distinction in all of God’s creation—the distinction between the two sexes—between male and female?  Why bother speaking the truth in love about God’s gift of marriage and family as the center of life—the fundamental building block of society?  Why bother rejecting what is false—and rejecting what is evil—even though (in this world) it means abuse and ridicule and persecution or worse? 

        Why bother?  Because the doctrine isn’t ours.  The teaching isn’t ours.  It is God’s.  But He has entrusted it to you—to believe it and learn it and share it with others.  Luther says that staying silent isn’t an option—that keeping quiet about God’s truth doesn’t help, but harms the world.

        What we teach about the Trinity—what we declare about the Divinity of Jesus—these teachings come from God.  God gives us His truth because He loves us.  And Trinity Sunday is a great time to sharpen your understanding of God’s truth.  Doctrinal dumbness and Biblical ignorance will do you no good.  And you can be sure that, in the long history of the church, doctrinal dumbness has never, ever strengthened the church, but weakened it.  Error begets error.  When the baptized no longer believe anything faithfully and firmly and with conviction, we do harm to our neighbors.

        But God the Holy Trinity wants to use you for good.  You are worthy of rescue and deliverance.  You are precious and priceless.  That’s why God became one of us—became a fellow human being from a little town called Nazareth.  In Jesus, God expressed Himself fully for us men and for our salvation.  His enemies called Him a blasphemer—a Samaritan—said He had a demon—threw the kitchen sink at Him—nailed Him to a cross.  But in truth Jesus was the Word made flesh, God become man, dwelling among sinners . . . to save sinners.

        In Jesus, God was seen.  In Jesus, God was heard.  In Jesus, God was touched.  This same Jesus—crucified and risen—comes here to lead us into all truth.  That truth is that God became a man, went to the cross, endured the agony of sin’s hellacious punishment.  He died for sinners; old and young, rich and poor, wise and foolish.

        To know Jesus is to know our loving God.  For God loved us so much that He suffered and died to forgive our sins—so that you will never see death.  Yes, you will die, but miracle of miracles, even physical death cannot separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

        In Jesus, God has become accessible to you.  He isn’t out of reach or unknowable.  He comes to you in such ordinary, understandable ways:  In simple Words, in the washing of Holy Baptism, in His holy meal.  In these simple ways, God the Holy Trinity makes Himself known to you—and makes you wise unto salvation.

        Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I AM.”  That means that Jesus is uncreated, infinite, divine.  He is all-knowing and all-powerful.  He is just and holy.  He’s all of that and more.  But most importantly, He loves you; and He is always at work for your eternal good, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.