Trinity Week – Monday

Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee. – The Spirit of Truth that proceedeth from the Father. – The Spirit of His Son. – Psalm 2:7 – John 15:26 – Galatians 4:6

Shall we feebly lisp a little more about the unsearchable mystery of the Trinity as revealed to us in the Scriptures?  The Father has from eternity begotten the Son from His Essence.  Referring to His glorious resurrection from the dead, the Father says to the Son: “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee” (Acts 13:33).

“This day” – Here is shown the incomprehensible, eternal foreknowledge of God, for whom there is neither before nor after, but an everlasting now and today.  The Son has been begotten or born of the Father, out of His Essence, from eternity (John 1:1-4, 14).  The Son is “the Brightness of His glory and the express Image of His Person” (Hebrews 1:3).  But He is the living and personal Brightness of His glory and the living and personal Image of His Person.  From everlasting to everlasting, the Father is imaged and reflected in the Son.  And the Holy Ghost is the living and personal breath, which from eternity “proceedeth from the Father,” and from the Son as well, for He is also the Breath, the “Spirit of the Son.”  What more shall we say?  The mystery is too profound.  There is a great and complete unity in the divine Trinity.

From everlasting to everlasting, in eternity, the Father begets the Son from His being; from everlasting to everlasting, in eternity, the Son is the living and personal Brightness of the Father, begotten of Him, and the express Image of His Person; from everlasting to everlasting, in eternity, the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, personal and living, completing the perfect unity of the Holy Trinity. This is the true God as He reveals Himself: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, three distinct Persons in one and the same eternal divine Essence.  And now we will be “still” (Psalm 46:10 a) and worship this Triune God, who has “done marvelous things; His right hand and His holy arm hath gotten Him the victory” (Psalm 98:1) over death, over the grave, over sin, and over the Law of God “through our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Corinthians 15:55-57).

PRAYER – O almighty and eternal God, who has given us, Thy servants, grace to know and to confess in true faith the glory of the eternal Trinity and to worship the unity of equal power and majesty; grant, I beg Thee, that Thy Church may at all times be fortified against the attacks of all adversaries by steadfastly adhering to such faith, through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, who livest and reignest with Thee, the Father, in unity with the Holy Ghost, true God, forever and ever.  Amen.

We all believe in one true God, who created earth and heaven; the Father, who to us in love, hath the right of children given.  He both soul and body feedeth; all we need He doth provide us.  He thro’ snares and perils leadeth, watching that no harm betide us. He careth for us day and night, all things are governed by His might.

We all believe in Jesus Christ, His own Son, our Lord, possessing; an equal Godhead, throne, and might, source of every grace and blessing; born of Mary, virgin mother, by the power of the Spirit; made true man, our elder Brother, that the lost might life inherit; was crucified for sinful men, and raised by God to life again.

We all confess the Holy Ghost, who sweet grace and comfort giveth; and with the Father and the Son, in eternal glory liveth; who the Church, His own creation, keeps in unity of spirit.  Here forgiveness and salvation, daily come through Jesus’ merit.  All flesh shall rise, and we shall be, in bliss with God eternally.  Amen.

(Hymn 251, st. 1-3; TLH)