LIFE IN THE TRINITY

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.

In the beginning, there was nothing at all. Nothing, that is, except God—Father, Son, and Spirit as a circle of joyful love. However, this God chose to create all things. Our cosmos is no mere accident, but the loving and purposive work of the one true God. Creation expresses the Father’s love for his Son in the Spirit. For the Father made all things through the Son and FOR the Son. (Colossians 1: 16).  His long-range plan is that everything would be brought together and summed up in Jesus, his Son. However, in creating all things for the Son, God also created all things for us in the Son

Some may ask why creation exists at all.  Why is it what it is and not something else? There is no reason why there is something and not nothing apart from the eternal movement of Love within the life of God. The movement of love which overflows from the Father, through the Son and in the Spirit. This is the almighty love of the triune God who does not will to exist for himself alone but for others also. The ungrudging and unrestrained overflow of Love that delights to give life and freedom to his creatures. He loves the world, upholds it and blesses it. He acts in the power of his love to bring us into his own life and freedom.

As we survey the universe with wonder before its immensity and complexity along with its beauty we are in awe of the almighty God of love who made it all from love, through love and for love.  In all its diversity we see it as a great masterpiece of love.

God did not need to create the world in order to have someone to love. God IS love as three persons within a communion of love. The Father loves the Son in the Spirit. The Son loves the Father in the Spirit.  And both Father and Son love the Spirit.  Each of the persons ever pouring himself out to the others in an eternal act of self-giving love. So, God is the one who loves and is also the one who is loved. That means God loves even if there is no creation for God to love. 

Creation expresses the Father’s love for the Son in the Spirit. For The Father made all things through the Son and FOR the Son. (Colossians 1: 16 ) In love, the Father hands over the whole of creation to the Son so that the Son may rule over all as supreme King.  Truly, it is all for him and one day all will be united in him and for his pleasure. In every way, he is the goal of creation.  

Creation is joyfully received by the Son as a loving gift from his Father. And then the Son perfects creation in himself and presents it back to his Father. Paul says, “Then the end will come when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power 

(1 Corinthians 15:24).  He does so, that God may be all in all. So creation is also the Son’s gift of love to the Father.

Truly, Creation emerges from love, it exists in love. it is upheld by love and is drawn towards its destination by love.

Within the church at Colossae, there was a desire for “fullness”. So, to gain fullness, they placed alongside Jesus dietary rules, religious festivals, the worship of angels, false humility, philosophy etc.   With that in mind, Paul wants the Colossians to know for sure that all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Jesus and that we have been given fullness in him. And making that point, Paul gave the Colossians and us a magnificent vision of the Supremacy of Jesus: 

“We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body. He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so expansive, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.”  (Colossians 1:15 -20  The Message).

Here Paul shows us that there is nothing bigger or beyond  Jesus.  So we never seek fullness in Jesus plus something else. If we treat Jesus as merely a part of the picture, we become disconnected from him and then we no longer enjoy the fullness that is in him and only in him. 

As we turn to thinking about God, where do we begin?  We start with Jesus.  Through him, the one true God makes himself known.  But throughout history, there have been many great thinkers who have created great systems of thought.  Can we simply ignore what has been said so profoundly? 

Can we not, at least, begin with these great systems of thought and fit Jesus in to make them even better?  

We must take  Jesus seriously as THE TRUTH.  We cannot simply adjust the systems of thought we already have and try to fit him in. No! We have to start from scratch and build everything around Jesus.  Whenever we try to contain Jesus within one of our systems of thought we end up with a fake Jesus.

We are always going to be faced with systems of thought that seem true and are difficult to question. Yet, when we try to fit the LORD Jesus into any system of thought we will lose Jesus. We will be left with a shadow.  But don’t we do this, even as Christ-followers?   Don’t we try to fit Jesus into what we already believe about God and the world?  Do we make Jesus the starting point and test everything else by Him?  What is the test of truth in our minds? How do we know what is true?  Is Jesus our standard of truth or do we make him submit to other standards of truth? We must take Jesus seriously as the truth by seeing as him the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of all we believe.

When people begin to think about God they may assume that it is possible to begin with our own concepts of  God which we can build up into a fuller knowledge of God. However, when we think about God we only have human ideas about God that we accept as true but are actually false. And we use human words to express these ideas. The “God” that we have in our human minds is an illusion. When Jesus encounters us by the Spirit he reveals the Living God to us.  In doing so, he shows that all our human ideas about God are wrong. 

In Jesus, the living God is both revealed and concealed at one and the same time. He is revealed because when Jesus encounters us he reveals the Living God just as He is – in all His Trinitarian wonder and glory.  He takes our inadequate human ideas and words to make them servants of his own unveiling.   However, we must say God is also concealed because our human ideas and words have not in themselves the slightest capacity to comprehend God. Even the most godly among us cannot grasp all that He is!  Our knowledge of God through Jesus is true but not exhaustive. 

Because God is at one and the same time knowable and unknowable to us we never become his masters.  However, it is also true that in both cases he becomes truly recognisable by us.  We know him, not because of our own thinking and speaking, but simply because he makes himself known to us through Jesus by his Spirit.

God wants us to know him personally even though we don’t want to know him. He makes himself known to us through Jesus and he makes himself known in us by His Spirit. Jesus is The Truth and the Spirit is the Spirit of Truth who will guide us into all the truth in Jesus. He will glorify Jesus within us and among us by making the things of Jesus known to us.  He will glorify Jesus in this way so that we see, in Jesus, the glory of God himself. So we don’t decide what the glory of God is.  No!  God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. The Spirit lights up the face of Jesus in personal encounters.  And in that beautiful face, we see the glory of God.

 We only know God because God first acted towards us through his Son and also within us by his Spirit to make himself known.  And God makes himself known more and more as the living Jesus encounters us again and again in the Spirit.  We don’t begin with our own ideas of God nor do we continue with our own ideas of God.  We are always radically dependent on God making himself known to us through Jesus in the Spirit. That means God is not at our disposal.  We don’t “possess” the knowledge of God by ourselves to make use of it for ourselves. God moves out of his own fullness to make himself known.  Only then do we gaze on the glory of God lost in wonder love and praise.