Romans 8:12-17
Holy Trinity Sunday
Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke Sunday, May 26, 2024
“A Simple Message From a Complex God: We Are God’s Children”
It’s so simple and yet so complex.
I realize that it doesn’t seem like those two adjectives should go together, but sometimes they do. Isaiah received his call as a prophet. He stood before the throne of God and looked on a scene that filled him with awe and wonder. That’s a simple enough description, and it captures the main thrust of that passage we heard earlier, but that’s really just a summary. We could look at the details of the scene and the complexity of it and discuss for much longer the seraphim and their six wings and the tongs and the altar and a God who is not just holy but three times holy. It’s complex in a beautiful way.
It’s so simple and yet so complex. God loves the world so much that he sent his Son. On one level we can hear that simple message and rejoice. It’s simple in a beautiful way. But it is also so complex. Why does he love us? How can God himself as a man stand in front of a secret follower at night and explain to him God’s plan? It is so profound that we dare not call it simple, and complex enough that it baffles even Nicodemus. It’s so simple and yet so complex. Our God is a triune God. The youngest among us can learn that the word means one-in-three and three-in-one, and they can recite the truth about the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is that simple. But the truth is also so complex that on this Sunday devoted to the doctrine, we can read the entire long creed with a long name and still only scratch the surface when it comes to seeing what God is like. He is so complex that we cannot possibly fully grasp his nature, for as is fitting for God, he is like nothing else in our experience.
And even though this day is devoted to the doctrine of the Trinity, the point is not only to learn what that word means or how it describes God. The point of this Sunday is to be edified by the truth about what God has done for us and to praise him in response. That’s exactly what Paul would have us do as he relates truth about God to us in our verses from Romans 8. There’s a simple message here. Paul himself sums it up by saying “we are God’s children.” But these verses are also profound and complex enough that they could take up many sermons. If we’re going to join in the Athanasian Creed today, we’ll only have time in our service for one sermon, so I would like you to focus with me on three key words as we look at this passage together.
The first word should not surprise you at this point. The word is Trinity. But look closely and you won’t find that word anywhere in the reading. In fact, you won’t find it anywhere in the Bible. This is a word that the Church came up with and uses to describe what the Bible tells us about the nature of God. The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. There is only one God. We don’t mean that the Father Son and Spirit are all parts of God or different ways that God acts. We don’t mean that he just describes himself this way. God is this way. He is unlike anything we have ever seen or experienced. Trinity is a simple word to describe a God far too complex for us to wrap our minds around.
And yet, you can see the Triune God in our verses. The Spirit leads us to love and good works. He leads us to a relationship with God. We can cry out to our Father, the Father, and we have a unity with Jesus Christ. We don’t learn about the Trinity for Trinity’s sake. We learn to see and stand in awe of the Trinity in action for us.
Which brings us to another word. Our second word is adoption. Unlike Trinity, this word is something that we can connect to our experience. We see a legal process play out in the lives of people. A child becomes a member of a new family. Loving parents adopt him or her to raise as their own. I heard a pastor remark recently, and he is right, that parents don’t go around introducing their children saying, “This is Joey. He’s adopted.” That’s the sort of thing villains in the movies say. Loving parents don’t say that. They say, “This is my child.” And they give to children who are adopted all the love and care and help and status of children that were born into their family.
That’s an amazing picture of our relationship with God. And it’s even more amazing when we think about who we are. Paul encourages us not to live in harmony with our sinful flesh, but that’s what we so often do. When we came into this world, that was all we could do. A verse or two later, Paul describes the slavery that sin is. We had been slaves to sin and fear. We had been unable to do anything to help or save ourselves. We had only sin to offer God, and we were already destined for death. We can understand how parents would look at an orphan child and see cuteness and see potential and see a future. But God looked at us and saw none of those things. So he acted.
God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, called us to be his own children. He connected us to Jesus Christ, our brother. He connected us to the perfect life that Jesus lived and to the innocent death that he died. He removed our sins and gave us the perfection of Jesus. This adoption means that God can look at us and say, “This is my dear, perfect child.” And he’s not pretending. He’s not faking. This is real. That Jesus rose from the dead is all the proof we need. And I realize that what I have just been saying is not spelled out in the verses in front of us. There’s no mention here specifically of the death of Jesus. And the reason is that this is Romans 8. Paul has already been moved by God to write 7 previous chapters that do talk about those things.
Notice how our verses do start. “So then…” Since everything Paul has written for those previous seven-plus chapters is true, here’s the difference it makes in the lives of believers, brothers. Now you have been raised to life. God’s spirit lives in you and allows you to live in harmony with him. Your life gives testimony that you have left the sinful flesh behind. It gives testimony that you are God’s own child and you can address him as Abba, father. Abba is the Aramaic word explained by the Greek. It’s what a child calls his father.
And even if you are one of those people who in this sinful world did not have a dependable and loving and caring earthly father, you have the perfect, loving, caring Abba who is also all-knowing and all-powerful. No matter what your earthly experience, you can cry out to him confidently as a dear child.
And that relationship has one more blessed implication for us to consider. There’s one more word in these verses to which I would draw your attention. The word is “Glory.” I suppose technically in our verses the word glory doesn’t show up, but a form of that word does. Here’s how our section closes: Now if we are children, we are also heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, since we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him.
The relationship has been established. Here, Paul lays out the timeframe. As children of God and with Jesus Christ as our brother, we share everything that he has. We already considered how he shared his death with us and our sins have died. He shares his resurrection with us and we live new lives of faith. He will also share that physical resurrection with us when he returns and calls all people out of their graves with the believers to join him in heaven. That’s the glory to which Paul points us. But that is a future reality. Now there is still suffering. Now there are still troubles. Just as Jesus suffered and then was glorified, so also his brothers and sisters. We may face many challenges and trials and difficulties. But we have the joy of knowing that as God’s children, we will be with God forever in glory.
And that’s the good news to which our three-in-one and one-in-three God keeps directing our attention. The doctrine of the Trinity isn’t a curiosity or a test to pass. It’s a message of comfort and hope and joy. It is that simple and that complex.
The Text: Romans 8:12–17 (EHV)
12So then, brothers, we do not owe it to the sinful flesh to live in harmony with it. 13For if you live in harmony with the sinful flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the actions of the body, you will live.
14Indeed, those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15For you did not receive a spirit of slavery so that you are afraid again, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we call out, “Abba , Father!” 16The Spirit himself joins our spirit in testifying that we are God’s children.
17Now if we are children, we are also heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, since we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him.