LIFE IN THE TRINITY

Life is at the very heart of the Gospel of John. Near the end of the book, John explicitly states that life is the purpose for which the Gospel was written: “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30–31). From beginning to end, John presents life as the great gift that Jesus brings, as the Way, the Truth, and the LIFE.  

In John’s Gospel, life refers above all to eternal life. This eternal life is not merely endless existence. Jesus himself defines it in his prayer to the Father: “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Eternal life is relational knowledge of the Father and the Son.

The Father fully knows the Son, and the Son fully knows the Father, dwelling forever in perfect communion. Astonishingly, Jesus invites us to share in this divine fellowship. Through him, we are brought into the relationship that the Father and the Son have always enjoyed. This is why Jesus declares, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Abundant life is participation in the living relationship of God.

We enter this life through the Spirit. Jesus speaks of the Spirit as “living water” (John 4:10–14), a free gift that becomes within believers “a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Through the Spirit dwelling within us, we are drawn into the communal knowing of the Father and the Son. In this way, eternal life is truly Trinitarian. 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being (John 1:1-3).

As John contemplates the whole universe, visible and invisible, he traces its origin to this Word, the Son. Reaching back before creation itself, John sees two persons: the Word and the Father. He sees them turned toward one another, face-to-face, sharing life, delight, and love before anything else existed. He sees not only companionship but shared action: both are active in the making of everything that is. They love to be together and to work together; their shared joy overflows into creation.

When John gazes at the world, he does not see a solitary deity producing creation alone, but all things coming from the Father through the Son, in perfect fellowship. Later, he will declare something even more astonishing: this same Word through whom all things were made became flesh and dwelt among us as one of us. And as the story unfolds, we witness Father, Son, and Spirit working in harmony again, this time to bring forth a new creation.

We often think of Jesus only in personal terms, and he really is very personal. Yet we must not stop there. The one we know personally is also cosmic. To see this, we must take the phrase “all things” seriously.  John insists on the sweep of that phrase: all things. Not some, not most, but emphatically ALL things.  In the rest of the New Testament, we learn that all things came into being through him, are held together in him, and were made for him, and in him.  At last, all things will reach their glorious climax in him (Colossians 1: 15-17; Ephesians 1:9-11).  

The prologue of John’s Gospel serves as an overture to the entire narrative, much like a musical prelude that introduces themes which later unfold in full. It opens by directing our attention to the one John calls “the Word”: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.”

The word translated “with” is strikingly intimate. It can mean “toward,” even suggesting two persons face-to-face. Eugene Peterson paraphrases, “The Word present to God, God present to the Word.” Before anything existed, the Word was turned toward God, in living communion.

So, as our minds are taken back before anything existed, we see two persons in a relationship. One is called the Word, the other God. Later, John names them more fully: the Word is the Son, and God is the Father. He pictures them in deep closeness: the Son “in the bosom of the Father,” or, as another translation renders it, “close to the Father’s heart.” So even before God made the world, relationship was at the very centre of who God is.  God himself is persons in communion.  That’s who he is.  

Here John turns us toward the eternal relation between Father and Son. Love is not yet named, but the unfolding gospel story makes clear that love is the beating heart of this fellowship. The story John tells flows from that eternal communion of love. 

The story unfolds in time when the Word became flesh and entered history. He came as one of us to draw us into the communion that is God’s own life—the communion we now share through the Spirit, the third divine person, who descended upon Jesus like a dove and whom he later promises to us.

God is made known to us in the face of his Son, through the Spirit. We rejoice in what we now know, confident that this knowledge is truly of God himself. For God has not remained hidden or distant; he has revealed himself freely and graciously through his own Son and Spirit. Our knowledge of God could not be more trustworthy, because it comes from God, is shaped by God, and leads us into God. And yet, even as we affirm the truth of what we know, we recognise that we are gazing into mystery.

Mystery is often understood as something unknowable or unsolvable, as though it marks the limits of understanding. Richard Rohr helpfully reframes mystery as “endless knowability.” Mystery is not the absence of truth, but the abundance of it—a depth that continually opens before us, revealing ever richer layers of meaning without ever being exhausted. It is not simply that God cannot be understood, but that God is always being known more deeply.

The apostle Paul speaks in this way when he prays that, through the Spirit, we might grasp the height, length, depth, and breadth of Christ’s love. Yet in the same breath, he acknowledges that this love surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3: 19). This is love as endless knowability: a love that continually unfolds, drawing us further in. Even beyond this life, the love of Christ will always exceed our grasp, as we go on and on discovering the fullness of his love for us.

Therefore, we set our minds and hearts on God as he is revealed in Jesus, trusting the Spirit to lead us ever deeper into the love that forever surpasses our knowing.

Our knowledge of the Triune God does not begin with abstract speculation or carefully defined concepts, but with personal encounter. God meets us before we ever attempt to explain him. Jesus Christ, the living Word, comes to us in the power of the Spirit, and in making himself known, he also makes the Father known. To see Jesus is to see the Father revealed in him. From this living encounter, faith is awakened, and that faith is given concrete expression as we are baptised into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

As the Spirit enlightens the eyes of our hearts, we begin to perceive a distinctly Trinitarian pattern in God’s saving work. In the unfolding drama of the gospel, we learn to recognise that everything God does for our salvation is from the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. This is not merely a theological formula but the living shape of God’s gracious action toward us. Over time, this pattern shapes our understanding of who God truly is and draws us into a life of worshipping the Father through the Son and in the Spirit.

Such worship is not confined to moments of prayer or gathered devotion. It extends into the ordinary rhythms of daily life, shaping how we live, love, and hope. In this sense, we are Trinitarian long before we have studied the doctrine of the Trinity. We may lack precise definitions or technical language, yet the reality of the Trinity is already present to us.

The Triune God stands before us in the story of salvation and dwells within us through the indwelling Spirit. The Father and the Son make their home in us by the Spirit, and God’s Triune love continues to meet us, drawing forth our response of wonder, love, and praise.

I once read a book titled The Pursuit of God. It challenged me to “follow hard after God” The book also provided me with ways to channel my serious pursuit. I do think we should take our pursuit of God seriously.  Yet, as I have reflected more deeply on Scripture, I have come to see that the biblical story places even greater emphasis on God’s pursuit of us.

The whole drama of the Bible is the story of a God who moves toward humanity. The Father pursues us in his Son and by his Spirit, drawing us back home to himself. In this gracious movement, God reveals not only who he is toward us, but who he eternally is within himself—a God of love, communion, and self-giving.

Our journey of faith does not begin with our searching, but with God’s seeking. The Father encounters us through Jesus and in the Spirit. And our ongoing communion with God continues in the same way: the Father continually comes to us so that we might share in the Son’s own relationship with him in the Spirit.

By the Spirit, God personally encounters us, enabling us to participate in all that he has accomplished in Christ. As we share in the Son’s life, we come to know the love of God in the communion of the Spirit. 

So, when we speak of pursuing God, we must begin by recognising that God has first pursued us. Only in light of His constant pursuit of us can our own pursuit of Him be rightly understood. A serious pursuit of God is always born from an awareness of His prior and gracious pursuit of us.

In the garden, God walked with the first humans, seeking communion with them. Daily, they enjoyed the presence of God walking through the garden that was their home. God’s coming was not an interruption but the most natural rhythm of life in the garden. To speak with God was as effortless as breathing. He spoke to them, and they breathed in His word. They responded, breathing out their hearts to Him.  Nothing was more ordinary than these encounters with the communion-seeking God. Life was communing with God, and communing with God was life itself.

What was true in the garden is now truer still for us in Christ. The Father and the Son come to us by the Spirit, making their home with us. Attentive to our Father as dearly loved children in Jesus, we cry Abba Father with Jesus. God is not distant or waiting to be invited. He is present, indwelling us by His Spirit, for relationship. To commune with God is, once again, meant to be as natural as breathing.

However, this often does not feel like our daily experience. Instead of prayer being as simple and life-giving as breath, it becomes as complicated as living itself. Prayer becomes something we do rather than a way of being with the Father in the Son by the Spirit. We try to get God’s attention rather than resting in His nearness. What we need is not better techniques, but deeper awareness. God is, and always has been, a communion-seeking God. When we grasp this, prayer becomes less an effort and more a response, and everything else flows naturally from this living reality.

We come before God, both in our longing and our brokenness, our hope and our failure. We approach, not presenting an improved version of ourselves, but standing honestly before the One whose love for us never wavers. We trust that God already knows us, receives us, and desires our presence more than our performance. Communion, therefore, begins when we stop trying to control our relationship with God and entrust ourselves to the God who shapes the encounter. True communion is not something we manufacture; it is something we open ourselves to. As we entrust ourselves to the God who loves us beyond what we can measure or imagine, we are drawn into a depth of fellowship that surpasses anything we could create on our own. In the Spirit, we are drawn toward the Father through Jesus.  We get to share in Jesus’ communion with the Father.

Our anxious efforts to perfect our prayers often hinder the very communion we seek. Even with the best of intentions, we can become preoccupied with evaluating our prayers — wondering whether they are good enough, deep enough, or effective enough. In doing so, our focus turns inward, and we risk distracting ourselves from what God is already doing within us.

The heart of prayer is not self-evaluation but God-attention. When we fixate on what we are doing or what we are gaining out of it, we shift our gaze away from God and back onto ourselves. We must see that the form and fruit of communion belong to God, not to us.

Our task is both simple and demanding: to turn toward God in trustful openness and remain there. Even our prayers come from God’s Spirit praying within us through Jesus to the Father.

The Triune God is a living communion of love who has graciously moved toward us through Christ and by the Spirit. The purpose of this self-giving movement is to draw us into the joy of God’s own communal life. And we share in this communion as we are brought to the Father, through the Son, and by the Spirit. 

What must we do to share in this communion of joyful love?   There is nothing special that we need to do other than turn up just as we are.  Not as we should be, could be, or hope one day to become, but simply as we are in this moment. Yet being truly ourselves before God proves far more difficult than it sounds.

In our relationships — including our relationship with God — we tend to present the version of ourselves we believe will be most acceptable. Fear of rejection often shapes how we relate to others, and even to God, leading us to hide behind subtle forms of pretence. Yet before God, such performances are unnecessary and ultimately harmful. God does not seek an edited version of us, but invites us into a relationship marked by vulnerability and honesty.

To stand before God in this open way requires deep trust in His love. Scripture assures us that God demonstrated this love in Christ while we were still sinners, still resistant, still far from Him. That same love remains unwavering now. We are invited to lean our whole weight upon the God who desires us as we are in the present moment. Only confidence in God’s love makes genuine openness possible.

This does not imply that God is content to leave us unchanged. On the contrary, He meets us to transform us from the inside out. But transformation is not a prerequisite for communion; it is its fruit. We come as we are, trusting His love, and longing to be renewed within the fellowship of Father, Son, and Spirit.

We all want to hold a “correct” view of God, and may assume that the way we see God aligns with the great orthodox creeds. Yet, honest reflection may reveal that your image of God does not fully align with the God revealed in Jesus. Old assumptions can continue to shape our thinking. For many, this means living under a heavy burden of guilt, shaped by a harsh and punitive deity who feels menacing rather than merciful. With such a view of God, nowhere feels safe from the looming presence of a God created out of our own fear. What we need is a huge shift toward the God revealed in Jesus: the God who invites us into loving communion rather than dread.

The God we encounter in Jesus, through the Spirit, has already done everything necessary to restore that communion and continues to work so that it becomes a reality in our daily experience. We are invited to trust that it is God’s initiative, not our effort, that establishes our relationship with God. Our part is simply to turn toward God with openness, attentiveness, and a willingness to receive His love. This is not an obligation to be met, but an invitation into transforming encounters of love.

Such a journey begins with knowing, deeply and personally, the vastness of God’s love for you. All of us must return to this truth again and again; indeed, we can never receive too much of it. Our walk with God is shaped and strengthened when we rest confidently in His love. Everything else required of us in life is meant to flow from this lived experience of God’s extravagant affection.