“Tri Unity”
[John
14:18-24]
February 5, 2017 Second Reformed
Church
We are back in the Upper Room. Jesus is talking with the Eleven. Jesus explains that anyone who loves Him will
show that love by obeying Him – if we truly love someone, we will do those
things that please the one we love – if we really love Jesus as people saved by
Him, we will do what He has commanded us to do.
And Jesus explains that those who love Him – those who believe in Him
savingly – those who have faith and do what He commands – will receive the
indwelling of the very Person of God the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of Truth – He
will indwell them forever.
We continue Jesus’ teaching:
And we see first, this morning, Christians
have a Father.
“I
will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me
no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.”
For three years the Eleven and other
believing disciples follow Jesus. He is
their Rabbi – their teacher – to have Him taken away by death and by ascension
to the Father is leaving them alone – as children left behind after the death
of their father.
If you have not been an orphan, you
can only imagine or approximate – perhaps with the loss of a husband or wife –
the hole that is left when the one you lived with is gone. The Eleven were experiencing that kind of
loss, even before Jesus left.
But Jesus assures them that after He
ascends back to the Father, He will come to them. Even though the world will not be able to see
Him – since He physically remains at the Right Hand of the Father – all those
who believe in him will see Him.
How?
Through His Word read and preached, through the Sacraments, and through
the life that all those who believe receive in and through Him.
Jesus says that because He lives –
because He has been physically resurrected from the dead – all who believe live
and are physically resurrected from the dead – and become through Jesus and in
Jesus – sons and daughters of God the Father.
Paul puts it this way:
“In him also you were circumcised with a
circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the
circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you
were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who
raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the
uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven
us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us
with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed
the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them
in him” (Colossians 2:11-15, ESV).
Paul says since we who believe in Jesus
were put to death through baptism, and since we were raised by Him spiritually
through faith alone in His salvation, and since Jesus has paid the debt for all
of our sins, and since we have been forgiven for our sins and made righteous,
God made us alive now and eternally, and all evil has been defeated.
All we who believe have life just as Jesus
has life, and we will have physically resurrected life just as Jesus has
physically resurrected life, and just as Jesus is the Son of the Father, we are
made sons and daughters of the Father – and we are being made into the Image of
Jesus – the First-born and Only Begotten Son.
Through Jesus, we have a Father – we
have God Who is our Father.
Second, those who truly love Jesus
are loved by Jesus and the Father.
“In that day you will know that I am in my
Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps
them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father,
and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
Jesus says that there is a union between
believers and Jesus and God the Father – and the Holy Spirit Who indwells
believers. And Jesus tells them that “in
that day,” they will know that this union is a reality.
Now, we do not become God – or a part of
God. Believers do not become gods – as
the Mormons teach. We remain human
beings, but through the work of Jesus and the Gift of the indwelling of God the
Holy Spirit, we are united in the purpose and will and salvation of God the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
It is similar to the unity that we have as
believers: we are not all the same, we
don’t always agree on everything, but we all believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ
which unites us together as His people.
This means that we are being changed – matured
– sanctified – made holy – made into the Image of Jesus – by God working in and
through us to His Glory and to accomplish His Will.
Jesus tells the Eleven that they will
understand this “in that day.” What is –
or was – “in that day”? When did the
Holy Spirit first eternally indwell believers?
“When the day of Pentecost arrived, they
were all together in one place. And
suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it
filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire
appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts
2:1-4, ESV).
When the day of Pentecost came – and from
that time forward – believers knew that they were indwelled by God the Holy
Spirit – and there is a unity between the believer, God the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, because of the work of Jesus and the indwelling of God the Holy
Spirit.
We are united in the same sense as when
Paul writes, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good
works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians
2:10, ESV).
And how is this seen?
Notice one of the themes of the Upper Room
Discourse: If you believe in Jesus
savingly and you know what He commands, and you do what He commands, that is
proof that you love Him. We’ve heard
that before.
Now, if we are united with God, we will
desire to please God and show our love of Jesus – and our growth in the faith –
by doing all those things He has commanded – and by bearing fruit in doing so –
as we will see in a future text.
For example, let’s say Shirley left her
purse unguarded, and you see that she has a bunch of fifty dollar bills in it,
and you think to yourself, “I could use some of those,” but then you think,
“Wait, Jesus said not to steal, so I won’t take any of her money, and I repent
of considering it.” In doing this, you
remember the command of Jesus, you obey the command of Jesus, and you show that
you love Jesus – and Shirley.
And Jesus tells them that if anyone loves
Him, the Father will love that person, and Jesus will love that person, and He
will manifest Himself to that person.
If you love Jesus – which is proved – it
is shown to be true – if you obey the things that Jesus commanded – if you do
the things Jesus said to do, then the Father will love you and Jesus will love
you.
Understand, Jesus is not saying that you
and I have to perfectly – sinlessly – keep all of His commandments in order to
be loved by the Father and the Son. No,
we are to strive for sinlessness – we are to strive to keep all the
commandments Jesus has given – and God the Holy Spirit is working in us to make
us a holy people – which we will be when Jesus returns. We are to strive to be holy and sinless, and
as we keep more and more of all that Jesus said, we will know the love that He
and the Father has for us all the more clearly.
Remember what John 3:16 tell us about the
love of God the Father for all who believe: “For God so loved the world, that
he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have
eternal life” (ESV).
If we obey Jesus, we know the reality of
God the Father’s incomprehensible love that sacrificed His Only Begotten Son to
save a people who hated Him.
And all we who really love Jesus – we who
are loved by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit – to us, Jesus will
manifest Himself – He will make Himself obvious, apparent, evident, plain.
What does that mean?
The Eleven wanted to know as well:
“Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, ‘Lord,
how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?’”
Judas – also known as Thaddeus – asks
Jesus, “How are You going to appear to us and keep the world – unbelievers – from
seeing You? If I can see You, what will
stop anyone else from seeing You?”
Do you understand the problem?
Third, the Father and the Son indwell the
believer.
“Jesus answered him, ‘If anyone loves me,
he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and
make our home with him. Whoever does not
love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the
Father's who sent me.’”
Judas’ (not Iscariot) problem is that he
thought Jesus meant that He would physically manifest Himself to the Eleven
after His Ascension. That is not what
Jesus means.
The answer that Jesus gives may be
somewhat startling to us as we hear Him speak of the Tri-Unity of God and His
indwelling of us:
Jesus sums up what He has been
saying: If you love Me, you will obey
Me. If you obey Me, the Father will love
you. If the Father loves you, the Father
and I will make our home with you and the Holy Spirit.
Jesus says that – after the day of Pentecost
– God the Holy Spirit indwells believers and the Father and the Son make their
home with Him in us.
How can we understand this?
First, we must remember that Jesus is a
human being – just like us – and He can only be in one place at a time – and He
is seated at the Right Hand of the Father in Heaven. Jesus is not with us in His humanity.
Second, God is a Spirit. He is not limited by a physical body or the
confines of time and space. God is
everywhere at once. God the Father, God
the Son – Jesus’ Divinity – and God the Holy Spirit are everywhere at
once. And though we especially have the
indwelling of God the Holy Spirit – the Third Person of the Trinity working in
us and through us – Jesus says that all Three Persons of the Godhead reside –
make Their home – with believers. The
Father and the Son dwell in and through the Holy Spirit’s indwelling of us.
God really dwells in us and with us as He
works us into the men and women He has called us to be. God is Tri-Unity – One God in Three
Persons. And He is with us – and we are
His – forever.
On the other hand, Jesus says that those
who do not do what He commands, do not love Him. No one can say that Jesus is their Savior,
but they don’t have to obey Him. That is
a lie of the devil. Anyone who says they
love Jesus and may do what they want, are not Christians.
From the beginning of His ministry, Jesus
explains that He came to do the Father’s Will, and He emphasizes again that the
fact the Christians have a Father, that the Father loves believers – as does
Jesus, and the Triune God indwells Christians – it is the Word of the Father –
it is the Truth of the Father.
How do we respond to this?
Paul writes:
“For you did not receive the spirit of
slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as
sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our
spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God
and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may
also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:15-17, ESV).
These words should fill us with joy!
As believers in the Gospel of Jesus Christ
– as those who have received as truth all that Jesus did and said – God the
Father is now our Father and we can go to Him as His adopted children. Jesus is our brother and our Advocate, Who
intercedes for us before the Father. God
the Holy Spirit indwells us to make us holy at the Day of Christ Jesus. We are united with God through faith and we
have been called to do all those things that Jesus has commanded so it would be
known and manifest to the world, as God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are
manifest to us – that we love Jesus, and He is truly our Savior.
Have hope, little children, if you believe
the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God the Holy Spirit indwells you, and the Father
and the Son are with you – you are united in the Tri-Unity of God as God’s
people – those who are His witnesses to the ends of the world.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You that You are
our Father and that You love us for Jesus’ sake. We thank You that Jesus did not leave us
alone but sends God in Tri-Unity to be with us and to bring us to the last day
when all will be restored and we will be holy with You. Help us not to be confused, but to take
comfort and to have joy in Your being with us and loving us and caring for us
and providing for us day by day. For it
is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
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