The Incarnate Son is in the Father.  He lives inside the Father.  That means there is now a real human being within the Triune Communion.  The Divine Son has always been part of the Triune Communion. But in the Incarnation the Divine Son became what he was not before, a real human being.  Now he is within the Triune Communion as a human being.

We are in the incarnate Son.  The Spirit has engrafted us into the Son so that we live inside him.  That means that we too are now part of the Triune Communion.  We don’t just look at the Triune Communion from a distance we participate in the Communion.  We share in the Son’s relationship with the Father.  He is in the Father and we are in the Father in union with the Son.

That means Belong.  We belong within the Triune Communion.  The Triune communion now includes a real human being and we are in that human being.  That means we belong.  And in that belonging we know who we are.  Or is it not better to say that in this belonging we find who we are by knowing Whose we are.  In union with the Son we belong  in the Triune Communion.

Because we belong, the Son is now preparing a dwelling place for us in his Father’s house.

²In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?^{* 3}And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also 14.2-3.

The Son is now in the Father’s house or dwelling place.  He is there preparing a place for us so that we can be with him where he is.  More than anything else, he wants us to be with him where he is.  He wants us to be in his home.  His home is in the Father.  He lives inside the Father.  He always dwells within the deep love of his Father.  And he always wants to open his home to us so that we can be home with him in the Father.  That is where we will be forever.

Not only are we in the Son, he is also in us.  We live inside him.  He lives inside us.  He is in us by the Spirit.

These words about Jesus being in us come immediately after a promise of the Spirit.

In v16-17 Jesus promises,

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate,^* to be with you for ever. ¹⁷This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

Jesus says to his friends he (The Spirit) abides with you, and he will be in you.   Then Jesus says immediately,

“I will not leave you as orphans I will come to you.  The Spirit in them means Jesus coming to them.  He will not leave them bereft in the world as orphans; he will come personally to them through the indwelling Spirit. the next but one statement is the one we are looking , “I in you”.

We have already seen in the weeks past that the three persons live inside one another.  That means where the one is the others are too.  So, the Spirit indwelling us is the Son indwelling us.  The Son lives inside the Spirit and the Spirit lives inside the Son.  Where the Spirit is the Son is.  You cannot separate them.  You cannot have one without the other.  The Spirit is the reality of the Son in us.  The Son is not somewhere up there in his Father.  He is not separated from us in the far corners of the universe.  The Son is now within us expressing himself in our humanity.

If the Son is in us by the Spirit so is the Father.  Because of this, Jesus goes on to tell us that he and the Father have come to make their home with us.

‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. v23

The Spirit indwells us and by his indwelling the Father and Son indwell us.  That means we become the home of Father and Son in the Spirit.  Our sharing in the Triune communion could not be deeper.  They don’t simply include us in their communion they come and make their home in our hearts.  They come to abide with us as their permanent dwelling place.  All three persons live inside one another in a communion of love.  The Son is in the Father.  The Father is in the Son.  The Spirit is in both Father and Son.  And so, through the Spirit’s indwelling, both Son and Father make their home inside us.

Father and Son have made their home with us and we find our home in them.  Within this home, we share in the Son’s love, joy and peace.

As Father and Son make their home with us, we share in the Father’s love for his Son. In his prayer in John 17 Jesus speaks much about the Father’s love for the Son.  The Father has loved the son before the foundation of the world and his love for his Son is full and overflowing.  Towards the end of his prayer the Son says to his Father I want the love with which you have loved me to be in them and I in them.

²⁶I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’ John 17.26.

Note what he wants,

“the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’ .

As Father and Son make their home with us, we share in the Son’s joy

¹³But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves 17.13.

Notice that Jesus speaks about my joy in them.  In love relationship with the Father, the Son has great joy.

It is the joy of the Father’s home.To be at home with the Father in love relationship is to be full of joy in the Father’s love.A joy that surpasses all other joys.  As Father and Son make their home with us, we enter into the joy of their home. The joy that The Son has in love relationship with his Father is in us as he is in us.

As Father and Son make their home with us, we share in his peace.  Home is supposed to be a place of peace.

While outside the home all may be broken and chaotic, within the home there is perfect shalom.  In many human homes, this peace is not enjoyed, but in the Father and Son’s home there is perfect peace.  As they make their home with us we experience this peace that surpasses all understanding.

Jesus speaks of this in 14.27

²⁷Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

Note he says my peace, not just peace, but my peace.  The peace that I have at home with my Father in you.

The Son enjoys love, joy and peace at home within his own relationship with his Father.  And as he and his Father make their home with us  we know his love, his joy and his peace.  We share in his love relationship with the Father because we are in him and he is in us.  He is our home and we are his home.

All this anticipates the final consummation of our experience of God.  As the vision of the New heaven and new earth opens up a loud voice from the throne says,

³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
‘See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
⁴he will wipe every tear from their eyes (Revelation 21.3-4).

That is the hope before us, God making his home among us in the new earth. Meanwhile the same Triune God makes his home with us. And as they make their home with us we find our home in them.

What does this mean for us in our daily living?

Last time we saw that it means Belonging.  And within that belonging we find who we are by knowing Whose we are.  When we hear that in the Spirit, Father and Son have made their home with us we see our belonging even more fully.  We belong in them so fully that Jesus prepares a home for us with the Father.  Furthermore, we belong in them so fully that they have made their home with us.  We really do see now Whose we are.  We belong to Father and Son and they belong to us.They make their home with us and we find our home in them.

We also saw that belonging means Becoming. We belong to the Triune Communion and now we are called to Become who we are by living out our personal communion.  As we hear Jesus say he is in us and through his indwelling, he and the Father have made their home with us we see that becoming is not down to you and I with all our individual effort.

Too often, we attempt to live as individuals trying to make it with an individual God up there.  You are standing on your own as an individual.  You are left to get to know God better by your own efforts.  You are left to relate to God and to reflect God in the world by your own individual disciplines.   You are left thinking that any good thing arising within you comes from yourself and must be nurtured by yourself.    All this becomes very debilitating as you live under the illusion that you must produce all things in and of yourself under your own steam.  You stand on your own before the solitary God who frowns on you in disappointment over your ongoing poor performance.

We must rather see that that the Son is in us.  And he is in us to live out his own love relationship with his Father in and through us.  He is living out his relationship with his Father within us.

What is our part?  We simply respond to his activity within us.  As we do so, we become who we really are, those who belong to the Triune Communion and who are now becoming who they are in daily experience.

Jesus wants us to see that we are all in one another.  The Son is in the Father.  We are in the Son.  The Son is in us, which also means that both he and the Father are making their home with us.  This also means that we are in one another as God’s community.

Listen to Jesus speaking to his Father,

20 ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us,^* so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one,²³I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me (John 17.20-23).

We are all in one another.