This past Sunday was not only the Feast of the Holy Trinity, but also “Father’s Day,” which was certainly a salutary coincidence this year, all the more so as we have recently commemorated the 1700th Anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. For the eternal Fatherhood of God is fundamental to the Holy Trinity, and it is by the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that all fatherhood on earth is named (Ephesians 3:15). These are profound theological realities – and mysteries, indeed – which animate and undergird all things in heaven and on earth, the whole of creation, and the hope and promise of the Life everlasting.
Especially in the Gospel According to St. John, as we’ve been hearing over the past month or more, the relationship of God the Father and the Son is of fundamental importance, essential to the Gospel. That is true both with respect to the Godhead, the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son from all eternity, and with respect to the Father’s sending of the Son into our flesh and to the Cross on our behalf, glorifying Him in His Passion and in His Resurrection from the dead. It is to know the Father and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent, that constitutes the saving faith; which is possible only by the gracious gift and working of the Holy Spirit through the Word of Christ. So it is that the Father pours out the Holy Spirit generously upon the Church through Jesus Christ, our Lord, and the Spirit likewise lays Christ upon our hearts through the Gospel.
The Holy Trinity is not a triviality or happenstance. The Love of the Father for the Son in the Unity of the Holy Spirit is the well-spring of Creation, Redemption, and Sanctification, as we are implicitly taught to confess even in the simplicity of Luther’s Small Catechism. The very deity, life, and being of God are eternally located in the relationship of the three divine Persons. And it is likewise out of that divine relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that our salvation has been wrought – and in which our salvation is found, even now, and hereafter in eternity.
God is “the Father,” not in view of His relationship to us, but rather from all eternity in relation to God the Son. Both the Fatherhood and the Sonship of the true and only God are ever found in that relationship. But God has graciously become “our Father” by the adoption of sons in Christ Jesus through the washing of the water with His Word and Holy Spirit in Holy Baptism, whereby we share in the divine Sonship of our Savior, not by nature, but by grace through faith in Him.
All of this is so beautifully described in the preaching of St. Peter, such as many of us heard from the Acts of the Apostles on Sunday. For God the Father raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him at His right hand; “and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing” (Acts 2:32-33). Thus it is made known that “God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus” who was crucified (Acts 2:36). And the promised gift of the Holy Spirit is bestowed upon all who repent and are baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38-39). There could hardly be a more Trinitarian passage; and it is worth noting that here, as in St. Matthew 28, the Trinity is at work in Holy Baptism.
With respect to those men who are called to be fathers on earth, whether of begotten or adopted children in the home, of the wider community in various positions of governing authority and responsibility, or of the Lord’s Church as pastors and spiritual fathers of God’s own beloved sons and daughters in Christ Jesus, such earthly fathers are called to emulate the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ within their respective offices and stations. Adoption itself, as an example, is an echo of God the Father’s gracious adoption of sons by the outpouring of the Spirit of Christ upon us through the Gospel (Galatians 4:4-7). In any case, it is not that God the Father is an echo of us poor faltering fathers on earth, but that we are called to be like Him, and even in our frailty and weakness He chooses in mercy to work through us in protecting, serving, teaching, feeding, and caring for His people in a variety of circumstances. Not only that, but He daily and richly forgives our sins and raises us up from our fallenness to live and serve as His representatives.
As it is necessary to remember and take to heart that Christian pastors are sheep before they are shepherds, so it is necessary to remember and take to heart that earthly fathers of every sort are called, first of all, to be and to live as children of God in Christ Jesus. Indeed, at every age and stage of life, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ “tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father, and that we are His true children, so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear father.” And baptized into Christ Jesus, by His Word and Holy Spirit, we do cry out, “Abba! Father!” to the One who hears and answers our prayers!