B, Holy Trinity – Romans 8:15-17a Isaiah 6:1-8 “Here I am, Abba!”

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The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen (2 Corinthians 13:14 ESV)

God in all his Triune glory wants a personal relationship with you. But how does this happen? How can a holy glorified God live with humanity? Surely there are things which just wouldn't allow this to happen!

If God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and omnipresent how could we have a relationship with any equality? How could we be in community with a perfectly complete and clean holy God when all of us know we have hidden within each of us things which would bring us great shame before God, and would in fact spoil the holiness of heaven?

What is this relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? How does my relationship with the members of the Trinity practically play out in my relationships with my family and friends, in my daily chores, in all the mundane things we as humans attend to every day?"

First, let's see how the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit exist in unity as a community. God the Father is neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit. He is his own identity and he is God. The Holy Spirit is neither the Son or the Father, he also has his own identity. The Father and the Holy Spirit have been eternally the same.

On the other hand, Jesus Christ was born as a human to Mary. What he was like before his birth is not clear, but he did exist. We know he was and is with the Father and the Holy Spirit from eternity. His pre-human existence is referred to as his pre-incarnate being.

Jesus Christ, God the Son, was implanted or conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit when Gabriel spoke God's word to her. His life on earth bore two natures at the same time, both God and man. He ascended to the right hand of God and is still very much human, but now perfected and glorified, through his sinless life, death and resurrection. Jesus is his own person, he is not the Father or the Holy Spirit, but like God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, he too is God the Son.

The Trinity is so much greater than our understanding. Our human mind makes no sense of things hidden from our limited sensory selves. We might begin to ever so slightly know the immense glory of the Trinity and its holy being by considering water in its three separate states, liquid, solid, and gas – water, ice, and steam. They are the all same element but have different properties in themselves in these states. But this is far from a satisfactory explanation of the Trinity.

Humanly, we will never rationalise — One person of the Father plus One person of the Son plus One person of the Holy Spirit equals One Holy God! Nevertheless, we are called to believe this because Jesus tells us this is so in Scripture.

The church has been trying to get a handle on the Trinity from the day of Pentecost. Early in the church there was a belief that the God of the Old Testament could not be the God of the New Testament. The God of the Jews was a wrathful evil god; where as the God of the New Testament was a God of love.

In 144 AD a chap named Marcion gathered a following believing this idea. His reasoning was that the world was evil so it must have been created by an evil god, Jehovah, who was not the Supreme God, but rather an arbitrary vindictive God.

One might understand where he came from when misreading the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, out of context, which he did due mainly to the fact he hated the Jews. Marcion did not accept the Old Testament and only adhered to the Gospel of Luke after editing out the Jewish references, and the Epistles of Paul. This movement became known as Marcionism and was one of the first heresies in the early church.

The other heresy was called Gnosticism. Its name is derived from the Greek word gnosis which means to know or have knowledge. One had to attain levels of secret knowledge to escape the evil world of matter into the spiritual holy realm. Once true understanding came then salvation would come.

These two heresies opened the way for the church to begin recognising a common creed, to decipher the heretics from the believers. It also opened the way for the community of believers to adhere to common accounts of Jesus' ministry which they used in worship. In short they accepted the canon of Jewish Scripture which we call the Old Testament, and then the four Gospel accounts, Acts and the writings of Paul plus others.

But this didn't happen overnight and it took many hundreds of years of misunderstanding, confusion, and sometime bloody conflict, for the church to appear with a clear canon of Scripture and a confession of belief to distinguish the Trinitarian Christ centred church from the heretics.

So as the Church we now have the three creeds, or symbols — the Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. They get the name symbols of faith, from the old understanding of the word symbol. In the ancient times couriers would carry messages for leaders and they would also carry something from whom they came to identify they were legitimate and not an imposter or enemy. They might carry the king's coin, his symbol, to prove the oral or written message's legitimacy. This is similar to the seal of a signet ring used also to identify the origin of official transcripts.

What you and I believe is contained in your creeds, the creeds of the church. If you want to know what one believes, the creeds are your point of reference. They guide the church in the Word of God and point to the work of the Triune God amongst us.

But where the rubber really hits the road is how the Trinity functions for us as individuals, today. In the Nicene Creed we confess, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified. For us to worship the Triune God, he must be present and we need to know we are in the presence of the Triune God — Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

And so what does being in God's presence do? When Isaiah realised he was in the presence of a Holy, Holy, Holy God, he knew he was not clean or holy, he was far from blameless – that he was far from perfect! Yet one of God's seraphim makes Isaiah clean and holy before the Lord.

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for." (Isaiah 6:6–7 ESV)

So too with us! We are made clean when the Holy Spirit gathers us, enlightens us, and fills us with the gifts of Jesus which he began doing while visibly teaching in Judah, Samaria, and Galilee and now continues everywhere but hidden. The Holy Spirit comes from the Father and the Son to do just one job, deliver us to the Father and the Son forgiven and with faith.

But if the third member of the Trinity is holy, namely, the Holy Spirit, how does his holy presence with us not destroy us? It's because our guilt is taken away and our sin atoned for.

Isaiah was touched with a burning coal on the lips as the Seraphim announced to him the word of God. We too have been touched by the Word of God and with fire. Just like the apostles had received the Holy Spirit from Jesus after his resurrection, we too have received the Holy Spirit, because of Jesus' atonement for our sin on the cross. Your sin is now covered and your guilt has been taken away.

How this happens is best explained in Paul's letter to the Romans…

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. (Romans 8:15–17a ESV)

This adoption allows us complete access to the Father. This is quite profound, since we now can address a God, who is bigger than all creation and even eternity itself, as Abba. The English equivalent of this is an infant trustingly calling out, "dada", as the child loving falls into its father's arms.

How this plays out is quite profound yet it's also practically simple, so simple a child allows it to occur so much easier than most adults. Jesus, God the Son, makes the great exchange with us. He steps out of the Trinity and onto your cross, so you and I can step into the community of the Triune God just as God's own Son with all the privileges as one who has been eternally begotten, and faithful and pleasing to God.

We get back our relationship with God. This is a relationship of love where he seeks to provide everything for us and dwell with us. We have a relationship with Jesus Christ our risen brother and Lord, who continues his work of intercession which first began at the cross and our baptism. And we have a relationship with the Holy Spirit, which is best seen in how he gathers us and leads us in all forgiveness—of us and us towards others. He gathers us into fellowship most holy, with each other, with the Father and the Son.

So when you hear the voice of the Triune Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then you and I can pray, "Here I am! Send me." (Isaiah 6:8 ESV) Why? Because we know we have an almighty God who wants to be with us and have us cry out, Abba!

Abba Father, encourage us to believe that you are our Father and we are your children. Help us to pray to you with complete confidence just as a child speaks to its loving father. Amen.