Today the feast of the Holy Trinity is celebrated, which we must also touch a little, so that we do not celebrate it in vain; although this name "Trinity" is nowhere to be found in the Holy Scriptures, but men have thought it up and invented it. That is why it is called coldly, and it would be much better to say "God" than the "Trinity".
This word means that God is threefold in the persons. Now this is a heavenly thing, which the world cannot understand. That is why I have often told your love before that one must understand the and any article of the
*) This sermon is found in a b c and in two single printings from 1522 and 1523. Cf. Erl. A. 12, 407.
D. Red.
The Lord does not need to base faith on reason or uniformity, but to grasp and base it on the sayings in Scripture, for God knows well how it is and how He should speak of Himself.
(3) The high schools have invented various distinctions, dreams, and fictions to indicate the Holy Trinity, and have become fools about it. Therefore, let us take from the Scriptures a few sayings, so that we may comprehend and conclude the divinity of Christ. And first of all, from the New Testament; there are many sayings, such as the one in John Cap. 1, 1. 2. 3: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word; the same was in the beginning, and the beginning was in the beginning.
start with God. All things are made by the same, and without the same nothing is made that is made." Now, if he is not made, but is the maker himself, he must certainly be God. And since John says afterwards, "And the Word became flesh."
4. item, from the Old Testament; for so says David in the 110th Psalm, v. 1: "The Lord said to my Lord, sit thou on my right hand," that is, sit on the king's seat, and be a lord and a king over all creatures, and all things shall be subject unto thee, "until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Item, in another Psalm: "What is this man, that thou rememberest him, and the Son of man, that thou lookest upon him? You will make him a little lacking in God; but with honors and adornment you will crown him. Thou wilt make him lord over the work of thy hands: thou hast put all things under his feet. Sheep and oxen all, and the wild beasts, and the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea, and that which passeth through the ways of the sea," Ps. 8:5-9. That is, you have made him lord over all the earth. Paul interprets this saying of the Psalm to the Ephesians Cap. 1, 20. and Col. 2, 9. 10. and interprets it masterfully. Now if God has set him at his right hand and made him lord over all things in heaven and earth, then he must ever be God, for it would not make sense that he should set one at his right hand and let him have as much power over all creatures as he has, if he were not God; for God does not want to give his glory to another, as he says in the prophet Isaiah Cap. 48, 11. So we have two persons, namely, the Father and the Son, to whom he has given as much as he has under him. For "to sit at the right hand" is to be like God and to have all God's creatures in his hand; therefore he must be God to whom he has given this.
5 God has also commanded us not to worship other and foreign gods. Now we have in John that God wants the Son to be honored with honor, so that he will be honored. For thus read the words in John, Cap. 5, 19-23,
Christ said to the Jews: "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself but what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, the Son does also. But the Father loves the Son, and shows him all that he does, and will show him even greater works, so that you will marvel. For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them: so also the Son quickeneth whom he will. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that they all may honor the Son as they honor the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which sent him." These are, I think, clear words about the divinity of Christ. Since God commands that there should be only one God, and does not give to any other creature the honor that belongs or is due to God, and gives it to Christ, then he must be God.
6 So also St. Paul says Rom. 1:2, 3, 4: "God promised the gospel beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures of his Son, who was born to him full of the seed of David according to the flesh, and powerfully proved to be a Son of God according to the Spirit, who sanctified at that time he was raised from the dead, even Jesus Christ our Lord. So then he began according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit he was for ever, though it was not clearly known beforehand; for it was not necessary that we should make him a Son of God, but only that we should declare and understand that he was the Son of God. And this is the concern of the Holy Spirit; as Christ himself says in John Cap. 16, 13: "When the Spirit of truth shall come, he shall praise me." And in another place the evangelist John Cap. 17, 1-5. writes that Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and said: "Father, the hour is here, that thou shouldest glorify thy Son, that thy Son also should glorify thee; even as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he might give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they may know thee, that thou only art true God, and whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ,
recognize. I have glorified thee on earth, and finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, Father, glorify me to thyself with the clarity which I had before thee before the world was."
(7) Hence the saying in Psalm 8: "Cry unto me, and I will give thee the heathen for an inheritance, and the end of the world for a possession. There he is certainly set up as king over all things, because he is God's child; for otherwise the whole world is not subject to any prince or king. Likewise, in another Psalm, David publicly calls him God and says Ps. 45:7, 8: "God, your throne remains forever and ever; the scepter of your kingdom is a straight scepter. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest the ungodly creature: therefore hath God, thy God, anointed thee with oil of gladness, more than thy fellows." Now God does not make such a king who is not God; for he will not let the bridle out of his hand, he alone wants to be a lord over heaven and earth, death, hell, devils and over all creatures. Therefore, since he makes him lord over all that is created, he must ever be God.
(8) Therefore no more certain reason can be given of the deity of Christ, than that the heart should be wrapped up and closed in the sayings of the Scriptures; for the Scriptures begin gently, and lead us to Christ as to a man, and after that to one Lord over all creatures, and after that to one God. So I come in fine and learn to know God. But the philosophers and the worldly-wise people wanted to start at the top, so they became fools. One must start at the bottom and then come up, lest the saying of Solomon be fulfilled in us, Proverbs 25:27: "He who eats too much honey is not good, and he who studies hard things finds it too hard.
(9) So now of the two persons, the Father and the Son, faith is sufficiently established and confirmed by the sayings of Scripture. But of the third person, namely of the Holy Spirit, Matth.
28:19: When Christ sent forth his disciples, he said, "Go ye, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." There he gives the Godhead also to the Holy Spirit, because I must trust or believe in no one but God alone; for I must have one who is mighty over death, hell, and the devil, and over all creatures, that he may command them not to harm me, and may draw me through; so that I have one in whom I may freely build. So Christ decides here that one should also believe and trust in the Holy Spirit; for this reason he must also be God. So also in the Gospel of John Christ speaks much to his disciples of the Holy Spirit and of his power or reality.
Item, in the 1st book of Moses Cap. 1, 2. it says: "And the spirit of God floated on the water. However, this saying is not as clear as the previous one; for the Jews make it uncertain to us and say that the Hebrew word means a wind.
11 Item, in the 33rd Psalm v. 6, David says: "The heavens were made by the word of the Lord, and all his host by the mouth of his Spirit. Here it is clear that the Holy Spirit is God, because the heavens and everything in them were created by Him. Likewise David says in another Psalm: "Where shall I go before thy Spirit? and where shall I flee before thy face? If I go to heaven, thou art there; if I go to hell, behold, thou art there also," Ps. 139:7, 8. Now this is not due to a creature, that it should be at all ends and fill the whole world, but to God the Creator.
Therefore, we cling here to the Scriptures and to the sayings that testify to the Trinity of God, and say: I know that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but how they are one thing I do not know, nor should I know. That is enough for the first part. Now let us return to the Gospel, and say a little about it, as much as we have time to spare.