Easter 4 Cantate
Dear friends in Christ. This Sunday has received the name “Cantate” from the first Latin word of today’s Psalm: Sing to the Lord a new song! For He has done marvelous things. How fitting this psalm is especially now in the Easter season. Especially now we remember and have every cause/ reason to sing and rejoice: Jesus rose from the dead! Sin, death, devil and hell are all defeated. That’s the marvelous thing that the Lord God has done for us—in addition to everything else He has done. That new song we sing to the Lord is the song of salvation both now and forever.
Let us not forget: this new song we sing, this song of salvation, is sung to the Lord. He and He alone is responsible for our salvation. But the vital question for us to ask is: Who is the Lord? Or: Who is the God that we are to worship and praise; the God who brought us salvation? Of course, that God is the holy Triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here is the deep, great mystery of the Christian faith—there is one God, one divine being; but yet three distinct persons. The creed of the Church puts it: The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
People will often readily admit “I believe in God.” But the question really is: who is the god that you believe in? Is it the holy Triune God—or some non-descript Supreme Being who for the most part leaves us alone, helps those that help themselves, who has nothing to say unless he is spoken to and only affirms us and won’t damn us because we’re too good? The simple fact of the matter is: unless a person worships the holy Triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—a person is worshipping a false god. Many in society have a “Unitarian” notion of God, not a Trinitarian. That is, they will recognize a “Supreme Being” –the Father—but somehow Jesus is lesser, not quite divine, not quite God. As we study our text this morning we will hear Jesus’ words ringing in our: All should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. Sing a new song to the Lord, the holy Triune God!
1. In our text, Jesus makes it absolutely clear who He is—the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Our text: Then Jesus answered and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does. Here Jesus tells us of that relationship that exists within the Trinity. The Persons of the Godhead are not off each doing His own thing: the Father does His, the Son is off doing something else and the Holy Spirit doing something completely different. Instead, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do. There is that perfect unity of essence and will of the Father and the Son. That means that it is impossible for the Son to act or to do differently than the Father.
There is only one divine wisdom and power that the Father and Son show by the divine works that they do. We usually think of the work of the creation as the Father’s work—but He did not do it to the exclusion of the Son and the Spirit. We read that at the creation the Spirit was hovering over the face of the waters; and St. Paul writes of Jesus [Col. 1.16]: By Him all things were created in heaven and earth, visible and invisible. Jesus’ work of salvation also included the Father and the Spirit, as the apostle writes [Heb. 9.14]: Christ…through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God. Our faith and life of good works we generally refer to the Holy Spirit—but again, this is not without the involvement of the Father and the Son. St. John records the words of Jesus [Jn. 14.26]: But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.
Not only is the Son incapable of doing anything contrary to the one divine will and essence, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but also He can only do what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. Because there is that one divine being/ substance there is that perfect communion and communication between the Father, Son and Spirit. Because the work and the will of the Father and the Son are one; because they are so united in nature, will and action, Jesus says in our text: For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does. The Person of Christ Jesus, true God and true man, does divine things because He is true God. That’s why if a person rejects and does not honor Jesus, the God-man, a person rejects the true God. We hear Jesus’ question ringing in our ears which He would later ask His disciples: But who do you say that I am? Or, as He puts it in our text: All should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. All depends on how we regard Jesus. Do we recognize Him as true God? Do we sing that new song of salvation to Him as to the Father and Spirit, then all is well. If not, then we reject the true God and must fear our eternal fate.
2. Jesus, the God-man, shows He is worthy of all divine honor and glory, that we should sing the new song of salvation to Him, that He is one true God together with the Father and Spirit because He does what only true God can do—give life. Jesus says in our text: "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.
Christ gives life. He does so through the work of the Holy Spirit in the word and sacraments. The life that Jesus now gives us is full spiritual life. Notice how Jesus says it here: when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. The dead are the spiritually dead—that’s us and all people as we come into the world: dead in trespasses and sins. That means that there is no spiritual life in us; we do not know God aright; all we can do is sin and go further away from the Lord and earn for ourselves nothing but God’s wrath and damnation.
But in grace Christ comes to us, the spiritually dead, and by the work of the Holy Spirit in the word and baptism He brings us to spiritual life; that is, He creates faith in our hearts. To give life, is something that only God can do: For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself. The Son possesses life in Himself and He can give us that new spiritual heavenly life.
Now we, dear Christian, the ones in whom Christ has given/ created new spiritual life, have passed from death into life. We have gone from the death of unbelief to the life of faith; from the death of falsehood to the life of truth; from the death of sin and guilt to the life of righteousness. The eternal life Christ gives us is ours right now and will continue into eternity: he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life. The forgiveness of sin and eternal life are ours the moment that we are brought to faith/ spiritual life. Now during our earthly lives we have great peace and joy—by faith we receive the forgiveness of sins Jesus brought about for us by His life, suffering and death; now, in Christ, we are God’s dear children and heirs of heaven; now we are assured that things are right between us and God and that heaven stands open to us. Now we sing that new song of salvation to the Lord, to the Triune God, the God of our salvation. We have passed from death into life.
That spiritual life comes by hearing the word that Christ, the Son of God, speaks in His word and sacrament: the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. When we were brought, spiritually dead, to the font of Holy Baptism, there we heard the Word and Christ, by His Holy Spirit worked faith in our hearts; or for some, later on in life as they were walking about spiritually dead, they heard the word and Christ then brought them to spiritual life. Now our lives as Christians, of being spiritually alive are lives of continual hearing and obeying the Word/ the voice of the Son of God and putting our trust/ confidence in Him for forgiveness of sin and eternal life. The certainty of our salvation goes hand in hand with faith in Christ, faith which He worked and preserves in us by His Holy Spirit at work in the word and sacraments.
3. Christ, true God and true man, gives life—something only God can do; therefore He is true God, working together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. But now when Jesus gives life—spiritual life—He works through the instruments/ means, namely the word and sacraments. The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live, but not all the spiritually dead will hear/ come to faith. Now the spiritually dead can reject Jesus’ working, reject His life-giving word and faith. But come the Last Day none will be able to reject/ not hear Jesus’ voice. That’s when Jesus will call all the dead out of their graves and reunite them with the soul for the public final judgment. Jesus says in our text: Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth--those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.
Here is the final result of Easter—death is undone. Jesus rose from the dead on Easter; death’s stranglehold has been broken. Now when Jesus, the Conqueror of death, calls forth all the dead from their graves, death will have to surrender all its victims. What more glorious proof of the divinity of Christ is there; that He who is true man is also the true God, the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity?
Now, people can and do resist Christ calling them to spiritual life; then, come the Last Day, they will be unable to. All the dead—not just the Christian— will rise. Here we see that neither soul nor body is annihilated/ simply wiped out, ceasing to exist. Instead, the same body we had during our earthly lives and which died will be raised and joined to our soul which, for the unbeliever has been in the torments of hell; but which for the Christian has been in heaven with our Lord since death. Death will truly be undone. This is the glorious result of Easter and why we already now and for all eternity can sing the new song of salvation to the Lord, the holy Triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Not only does Jesus, the Son, show that He is indeed true God and call all the dead from their graves but as further evidence that He is true God equal with the Father, the Father entrusts Him with the Final Judgment. Our text: For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will. For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. All sins committed, are sins against God; that’s why He judges and condemns. If the Father gives the judgment to the Son, He is clearly saying that Jesus, the Son is equal and divine.
The basis of the judgment is how the person stood in regard to the salvation that Jesus brought about. If in faith they trusted in Him and His work and received the forgiveness of their sins and eternal life, if they honored the Son and the Father—and this will be shown by their works, they will enter eternal life in heaven. If they did not believe, trust in Jesus and His saving work, did not honor the Father or the Son, did not receive in this life the spiritual life the Son was offering in word and sacrament—this will be shown by their worthless deeds and that they did not separate from sin, they will be eternally condemned in hell.
In this Easter season and beyond, let us sing that new song of salvation to the Lord, to Christ Jesus, because He is not only true man, He is the Son of God proven by Him giving spiritual life, raising the bodily dead and holding the judgment. INJ Amen.