LIFE IN THE TRINITY

God came into the world as a human.  He came as one of us taking up our cause and making it his own.  In doing this, he makes known his glory. John says we saw his glory as the one full of grace and truth.  In one very special moment, John saw the shining forth of transcendent splendour as Jesus was transfigured on a mountain.  But as John moved constantly with Jesus he saw his glory in the lowly self-giving of the man for others.  So we see no division between what God does for us and our salvation and what he does to show his glory. It is through his grace expressed towards us in self-giving love that we see his glory.  

Moses once prayed, “Lord show me your glory”.  In response, the Lord revealed himself to Moses as The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness… (Exodus 34: 6).  In Jesus, John sees this same glory expressed in the lowly self-giving of the man for others.

Did God need to display his glory in the world?  I suppose God could have enjoyed his self-knowledge within his own Triune communion of joyful love. Nevertheless, he wanted to come to us showing his glory as the one full of grace and truth.  And now, God shines his light into our dark hearts so that we might see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Yes, the God of Grace, shows his glory personally to us in the face of Jesus as the Spirit enables us to gaze on his glory.  

God made all things good, but evil invaded his creation.  All of God’s creation now exists under the domain of darkness that reigns over everything and everyone. There is now chaos and disorder within all.  

We cannot begin to understand evil.  We can never explain it or explain it away. It defies human understanding altogether.  It is radically antagonistic to all that is holy and orderly, right and good.  Evil raises questions to which we have no answers.  

When Jesus came to serve his Father in the power of the Spirit he confronted evil directly.  The evil powers were terrified of him.  They knew who he was and also his power over them.   And they knew that he was intent on liberating people from their dark grip.  Jesus confronted these evil powers rebuking them and driving them out with only a word.  

However, it was through the cross that Jesus exposed the power of darkness and triumphed over it. There, the power of God in weakness demolished all the powers of darkness that reign over all.  And we see that this power in weakness was magnificently triumphant as God raised Jesus from death.  Furthermore, he was exalted far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

On the cross, God as human descended into the terrible darkness of evil even into the depths of its ultimate domain in death.  He penetrated the domain of darkness disarming the rulers and authorities and putting them to open shame, by triumphing over them. (Col.2:15) And now, through the same human, God rules over all things, including all evil powers, to fulfil his Sovereign purpose in love. 

This triumph over evil has happened once and for all and cannot be repeated.  And yet, God is still active within the world working out the effects of his triumph. He does so through the same crucified and risen Jesus.  He is the lamb of God enthroned at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Yes, the crucified and risen Jesus is now exalted as head over all things. As supreme head over all, he reigns with supreme authority from the Father’s right hand. He does so, however, as the God-human who is constantly present with us in all our distress and desperate need under the menace of evil powers.  He remains the Lord who will not allow us to be overwhelmed by the powers of darkness as he works out the fulfilment of his sovereign will for the whole of his creation.

We still live in the darkness, but we do so with the eyes of our hearts enlightened by the Spirit to see Jesus as supreme Lord.  God’s Spirit brings Christ Triumphant to us and us to him as the one who rules over all.  And by the Spirit, we await the day of final restoration under Jesus’ reign.  With confident expectation, we say, with the Spirit, “Come Lord Jesus”.

Through Jesus, we see God’s power expressed in human weakness.  We see God, the supreme ruler, acting not from beyond us like some impersonal force, but acting among us in a personal way as one of us.  Through Jesus, the Sovereign power of God was demonstrated even in dying. He shared our humanity and tasted our death so that by his death he might break the power of the one who holds the power of death. This kind of power is entirely different from any power which we human beings can imagine.  It is power that is supreme even over death and anything that opposes God’s purpose of fellowship with us.  

God now acts to bring the world to his own end.  He does so personally and dynamically through Jesus, whom he has appointed head over all things.  Through the exalted Jesus, the ever-living and ever-loving Father rules over the whole universe.  He does not allow his creation to come under the total influence of any system or power that clashes with his own purpose. However, it is a lordship not of naked power but of love and grace.  In patience, he wisely rules over all to fulfil his purpose of love. 

As we look around us we do not see all this. It rather seems that the domain of darkness is all-powerful. However, as God’s Spirit opens the eyes of our hearts, we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour as the supreme ruler over all. And we eagerly anticipate the day when he appears in power and glory and we appear with him in glory.

God’s Spirit is groaning over the creation that exists in bondage and decay.  And the  Spirit’s groaning is expressed in and through us, as we pray over the broken world with sighs too deep for words. In our weakness, we don’t know what to pray or how to pray, but the Spirit helps us groaning within us over the fractured world. This is one way that God Almighty continues to relate to his Creation as he moves creation towards the goal for which it was always intended. And we participate in his action.

We don’t simply observe the activity of God within his creation. We participate in it.  We are players in the ongoing creation drama. We participate as weak people groaning with the Spirit for the liberation of all things. We do so in the sure hope that Jesus, the new man, will finally liberate the whole of creation by the power of the Spirit.

Creation has a destiny. And the destiny of creation is much more than a return to what it was in the beginning. God made a wonderful world but what he made was ruined. We might now think that Creation’s destiny is that it will be restored to its pristine condition. But shouldn’t we rather say that the destiny towards which all creation is moving will be vastly different from what was first made? Jesus, the new man, will liberate the whole of creation from disease, death, decay and deformity. And he will liberate it to be a new world of light and life and love in communion with the Triune God.  A new world that will be the home of Father, Son and Spirit in communion with us.

In the beginning, when the earth was formless and empty, the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. When the first human was created, the Spirit breathed into him making him a living soul. And the same Spirit continues to breathe through all creation to animate all living things. Furthermore, The  Spirit that animates all creation also groans over the creation that is now in bondage and decay. The Spirit groans in yearning for creation to reach its future liberation.  

Paul speaks graphically of this in Romans 8.  He says creation is groaning longing for liberation into the freedom and glory of the children of God. Yes, the liberation of all creation is closely linked with our liberation into the fullness of our adoption.  And creation longs for that day to come. It yearns with groaning to share in our liberation. We too are groaning for that day of full freedom. 

Where does our groaning come from?  Paul is clear that it comes from the Spirit.  We are groaning because we have received the first fruits of the Spirit who is groaning within us for our liberation and all creation.

So, the Spirit who hovered over the chaos and emptiness at the start of creation is now groaning over the chaos and brokenness of creation in bondage to decay and ruin. And His groaning is expressed in and through us as we groan with the Spirit over the brokenness and bondage all around us. The Spirit groans over all this and we groan with him as he groans within us.

The Father sent his own Son into the world to accomplish the reconciliation of the world.  The Son gladly came, making himself nothing as a lowly servant unto death.  And his Father was pleased to raise him from death as the new human who is Lord over all. And so, in Jesus, the new creation is born in the middle of the old creation. 

As the Father’s mission proceeds within human history, he continues to hold all things together in and through Jesus, his Son. Paul speaks of Jesus this way “…he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17).  The universe is so very varied. All sorts of diverse things move and turn and spin.  And yet, amazingly, they all hold together and move as one cosmic system. How can such diverse and dynamic things hold together? Well, they are all held together in Jesus, the Son. He is the logos who first spoke all things into existence and he is the logos in whom all now holds together. 

All this is amazing in itself – just one person holding all things together. However, here is something even more astonishing. The Logos/Son who now holds the universe together is the very same Logos/Son who became flesh. That means the one who holds all things together is not simply someone above and beyond creation, but rather the one who has become part of creation.  That is true unless we believe that the exalted Son is no longer human.

In our day, too many things are said to be amazing that are not wonders at all.  But all that we have considered concerning Jesus is truly amazing!

Through Jesus, the almighty power of God is demonstrated in lowliness and littleness. Consider his birth. The Holy Spirit came on a humble girl.  The power of the Most High overshadowed her conceiving the God-Human embryo within her lowly womb. The almighty power of God that created the entire universe was acting within lowliness and littleness to bring into being the one in whom the whole universe will be reconciled to God.

Jesus, the Father’s Son, came among us as a lowly servant in the presence and power of the Spirit.  As one of us, he made our alienation and lost condition his own.  In himself, he brought the love and power of God to bear upon creation’s deep-seated disorder to make an end of it forever.  Yes, it was through him that God reconciled to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 

He was declared Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead. And ascended Lord of all he poured out the Spirit on his own.  Now they would know him in the presence of the Spirit and share in his mission in the power of the Spirit.  That means the Almighty Father’s purpose for the world continues through frail humans in the power of the Spirit.

And so, it is in Jesus, the Saviour and Redeemer of the world, that we learn how the Sovereign Creator operates in the world.  For in and through him the almighty power of God’s Love is revealed as lowly self-giving. 

In lowly suffering on the cross, Jesus expresses God’s power in weakness.  In this single act of lowly self-giving Jesus brings to an end the old age of sin and death under which all humanity was held in bondage.  In this single act of lowly self-giving, he disarms all the forces of evil that hold humanity under oppression. In this single act of lowly self-giving, he rescues us from the domain of darkness and reconciles us to God. Furthermore, through Jesus, God reconciled to himself ALL THINGS, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. The cross is the great triumph of astonishing lowly power in which God reveals that he loves us and all creation more than we can ever say. 

Following this act of power in weakness, the Father raised Jesus from death itself having destroyed death in him. He raised Jesus as the new man in the new creation. Jesus was declared Son of God in power…by his resurrection from the dead. And now he is exalted as Living Lord over all creation. All things have been created through him and for him…and in him, all things hold together.  By his continuing activity within creation, all things will reach their fulfilment in God’s eternal purpose of Love.  For Jesus is the first and last; the origin and the goal of all creation.  And the one who restores all things in himself.

This is the supreme Lord that our hearts respond to in wonder, love and praise

The Almighty God became human to live and move in human frailty. The Creator himself became a creature without ceasing to be the Creator.  The high and holy one stooping to become little and low without ceasing to be who is in majesty. This does not mean a reduction of his power.  It Rather means the expression of his power within human weakness.  In Jesus, the God-Human, God reveals himself as the one who has the inconceivable power of becoming little and low while remaining what he is eternally as majestic and all-powerful Lord. 

This God who became one of us also tasted death.  In doing so he destroyed its power for his death was the death of death. In weakness, he shows his lordship over death.  He demonstrated God’s distinctive power in weakness and suffering on the cross.  This power is so unique that we cannot describe it by comparing it to any other kind of power. 

In Jesus, the God-Human we see God in the highest acting from the lowest, becoming what we are in our lost and hopeless condition to reconcile us to God in himself. In him, we see the triumph of divine Love and Light over all darkness and evil.  

We do not learn what omnipotence is by abstract speculation magnifying human power to the nth degree.  We rather see God’s power as we gaze on his power in weakness demonstrated in the God-Man on the cross. There we encounter the revelation of God’s distinctive kind of power that is, the very opposite of what we would think or could ever imagine.