The Thursday within the Octave of the Feast of the Holy Trinity
Posted on June 19, 2025 by under
Scripture: St. John 15:18-26 (NKJV)
15:18 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 He who hates Me hates My Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. 25 But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’
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.”
Devotion
John the Apostle and Evangelist records the words of Christ speaking of the unity of the Father and the Son. Clearly the Father is God and the Son is God—but in this case, our Lord also explicitly includes the Holy Spirit. Knowing that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, and also knowing that He proceeds from the Father, might by itself be enough to know that the Holy Spirit is a person in the one God. These verses are a key testimony from our Lord Christ Himself as to how we should think of the relationship between the three persons in the Godhead—He will send the Holy Spirit from the Father, so we can say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son. They are one in purpose and will. That purpose and will is to comfort and help us here on earth as we await our final salvation, whether that be to see our Lord return in glory, or whether we rise with the dead on Judgment Day. Either way, our Lord loves us and wants to keep us strong in faith until the end.
Collect: Almighty and Everlasting God, Who hast given unto us, Thy servants, grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity: We beseech Thee, that Thou wouldest keep us steadfast in this faith, and evermore defend us from all adversities; Who livest and reignest, One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
