LIFE IN THE TRINITY

Just before Jesus went to the cross he said that he would ask the Father to give us another just like himself. This other one would be with us forever. True to his word, Jesus received the Spirit from his Father and poured out this promised gift on his own. The exalted Jesus does not want to leave us alone. He wants his own Spirit to be with us and in us so that we know him in the Spirit’s presence and serve him in the Spirit’s power.

For the Spirit comes from Jesus and unites us with Jesus. The Spirit is the living personal connection between Jesus at the right hand of God and us where we are. We are in living union with Jesus because he has given himself to us in his Spirit. And so we are never disconnected from him.

In the Spirit, Jesus comes among us in such a way that we know that he is in his Father and that we are in him and he is in us. We are all in one another. And the Spirit is the living reality of this living union: Jesus in the Father and the Father in him; Jesus in us and we in him. The Spirit is given so that we know this union as a living reality in our daily lives. And so, union with Christ is a deeply personal, dynamic and relational sharing in Jesus’ life with his Father

May the Spirit enable us to live into this living union.

“We all love stories of triumph, and we want to be on the winning side, but God does not defeat his enemies in the way we might anticipate. In fact, God subverts human triumphalism in that he wins by losing” (Timothy Gombis). Jesus dies on the cross in weakness and yet, that death has power to overturn the reign of sin and death. In utter weakness he disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross (Colossians 2:15). And then God raised Jesus from death exalting him in triumph as Lord over all. In this drama, all our expectations of triumph over powers are overturned.

But if these “powers” have been defeated, why does evil still appear to carry on reigning supreme as before? Is the good news of God’s triumph over darkness just wishful thinking? On the cross, God did triumph over the dark powers that ruled over us: sin, death and Satan. And we can see something of this victory even now as people are rescued from the domain of darkness to be transferred into the kingdom of the Son God loves. As free people, we are now the community of the king sharing his love relationship with the Father in the Spirit. Truly we are rescued and restored to communion under God’s triumphant rule. However, we will only see this triumph fully revealed in the future in God’s plan to sum up all things in heaven and earth in the Messiah (Ephesians 1:10). Now, as the community of the king, we struggle against the powers of the present evil age with God’s power through weakness. And we do so with a mix of joy and grief.

Jesus promised life in fullness, but he was himself brutally executed. It seemed like death had the last word. However, death is not the end of the Jesus story. For by the Spirit, the Father raised Jesus from death declaring him to be Son of God in power.

The risen Jesus was exalted to his Father’s right hand with all authority in heaven and earth. He also received from his Father the promised Spirit to be poured out on his own. From that moment, Jesus’ disciples lived in the presence and power of the risen one. As they looked back at the cross, through the living presence of risen one, they saw that the old order had ended and a new one had begun. And so, the resurrection completely changed how they now saw the cross. They once reflected on the cross as the sad end to all their hopes, but now, they saw the cross as the beginning of a great turnaround. Yes, they now saw that something had happened during that dark hour that had changed the world. They saw that Jesus died to defeat the dark powers that have dominion over us. And they saw that God brought into being his new creation with the resurrection of Jesus. The world was now a different place, for the dying and rising of Jesus marked the end of one era and the start of another.

As we now survey the wondrous cross and the resurrection that followed, the Spirit opens to us a new vision of the God who has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.

Before the world was made, the Son was always with his Father enjoying joyful communion in the Spirit. However, the Son was chosen to be God with us as one of us. And in obedience to his Father, he came among us in deep lowliness. He actually descended from his joyful communion with the Father into a world that is alienated from God. He came to turn us from estrangement into the communion of joyful love for which we were created.

Jesus accomplished his mission as a lowly servant who was totally obedient. His obedience flowed from a deep love for the one he called Father. His life was a constant expression of worship as he offered himself freely to do his Father’s will. He came into the midst of a disordered, distorted, and divided world living faithfully towards his Father in thankfulness, praise, and adoration. His whole life was an offering of total devotion towards his Father in the Spirit.

All this came to its climax in his obedience unto death in which he offered himself freely as the sacrifice for sin on our behalf. This is the one who loved his Father and gave himself fully to his Father even unto death on the cross. This is the one who, in loving his Father, loved us and gave himself for us on the cross. His whole intention was to turn us from our rejection of God into glad communion with his Father in the Spirit. May we now give ourselves freely to this God becoming the community that was intended all along.

In Romans 8: 19-23 Paul says creation is like a person yearning for something big in the future. What is creation eagerly longing for? It awaits the revealing of the children of God.  In God’s new world to come, the sons and daughters of God will be revealed in full freedom and glory. Then the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. And creation is groaning in labour pains awaiting all this.

Paul goes on to say, “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption”. In these words, we hear the tension of the already and not yet. Already, as adopted sons and daughters, we have the Spirit of God’s Son, the Spirit of adoption. And this Spirit is the presence of the future giving to us a foretaste of future freedom and glory. Already, by the Spirit, we enjoy something of our future life

Nevertheless, the fullness of our adoption is not yet. And so we groan within us as we wait for the fullness of our adoption. In that fullness, our bodies will be resurrected so that we share the resurrection body of God’s Incarnate Son. In that fullness, we will enjoy the freedom and glory of the sons and daughters of God. Right now our lives are hidden with Christ in God and when he appears we shall appear with him in glory.

In Romans 8: 19-23 Paul says creation is like a person yearning for something big in the future. What is creation eagerly longing for? It awaits the revealing of the children of God.  In God’s new world to come, the sons and daughters of God will be revealed in full freedom and glory. Then the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. And creation is groaning in labour pains awaiting all this.

Paul goes on to say, “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption”. In these words, we hear the tension of the already and not yet. Already, as adopted sons and daughters, we have the Spirit of God’s Son, the Spirit of adoption. And this Spirit is the presence of the future giving to us a foretaste of future freedom and glory. Already, by the Spirit, we enjoy something of our future life

Nevertheless, the fullness of our adoption is not yet. And so we groan within us as we wait for the fullness of our adoption. In that fullness, our bodies will be resurrected so that we share the resurrection body of God’s Incarnate Son. In that fullness, we will enjoy the freedom and glory of the sons and daughters of God. Right now our lives are hidden with Christ in God and when he appears we shall appear with him in glory.

Even before God created the world his purpose for us was adoption. And when the set time was fully come God acted to fulfil his purpose by sending his Son. (Galatians 4.4-5). The Father and Son enjoyed love relationship with one another before they made the world. Out of this love relationship, the Father sent his Son into the world as human. He sent him so that we might be adopted as sons (the term sons includes daughters). Jesus is the Father’s unique Son and we become sons and daughters because of our union with The Son.

Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father (Galatians 4: 6). The Son was sent into the world to make us sons. Now the Spirit of that same Son is sent into our hearts crying Abba Father.  Abba is the Aramaic word for Father. While God’s Son was on earth, he addressed God as Abba (Mark 14:36).  And now, through the Spirit of God’s Son, the Son’s own Abba Father cries out within us as we share in the Son’s relationship with Abba. In heaven, Jesus speaks his own Abba before the Father and his Abba is echoed in us through the Spirit of the Son within us.

Paul is speaking here about sharing in the Son’s love relationship with Abba Father together.  All the pronouns are plural. We are Sons and daughters communally.  And so, we cry Abba Father together.  As the Son relates in love to the Father, we are all caught up in this together in the Spirit.

In the Jesus story we see the dearly loved Son relating to his Father in love. He was constantly responding to his Father in love as he overflowed in the joy of the Spirit. We would do well to constantly pay attention to all this. However, God wants us to move from being mere spectators of the triune communion to being participators. The communal God wants to include us within the communion.  The three don’t want to keep the love relationship to themselves they want to include us.

We sometimes speak about receiving Christ into our lives. But God’s purpose is that the Father’s Son might receive us into his life. Within his life, we are adopted sons and daughters sharing in his love relationship with the Father in the Spirit.

If we want to understand who we are and why we are here, then we must begin with the relationship of Father and Son in the Spirit. This relationship holds the answer to the “why” of creation, the “why” of your life and mine. The Father, Son and Spirit created the human race to share what they have together with us. They brought us into existence so that we might share in the Son’s love relationship with the Father in the Spirit. The one purpose arising out of the triune communion, before time, is our adoption into the Son’s relationship with the Father.

The Triune God is a communal being. This relational God has never been alone and turned in on himself. He has always been a communion of three persons mutually indwelling one another in love. Within this communion of three persons, there is a single purpose for us arising out of the communal life of the three. And the three persons are always together in achieving this single purpose.

What is this purpose shared by the three? We might say what the purpose is in a single word – inclusion. As an expression of overflowing joy within the communion the three want to open up their life to include us. The three want to open the circle and bring us in so that we actually participate in their shared life and love.

We can also say what the single purpose is in another word -adoption. Paul tells us that before God made the world he destined us for adoption (Ephesians 1:5). The NLT puts it this way, “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure”.

Humanity chose to reject God’s purpose and go the way of independence. We wanted to live our own way apart from God. But the Triune communion did not give up on the eternal purpose of adoption. Together the three said we love them so much that we refuse to exist without them. We are determined to go after them and bring them into the communion.

Jesus has opened up a new and living way into God’s holy presence, but will we enjoy the access?  Not by our own efforts.  We need the Holy Spirit to take us into God’s presence personally. Through Jesus, the Spirit brings us to the Father witnessing with our spirit that we really are the children of God.  Through this inner witness, we have the assurance to enter right into the Father’s presence crying abba Father.

Paul says, through Jesus by the Spirit we BOTH have access to the Father (Ephesians 2:18). He seems to be speaking about both Jew and Gentile as one community.
God has always been a communion of joyful love.  And we are privileged to participate together in this fellowship as one community living in the Spirit.

Thomas Torrance says, “God has opened himself to us in such a way that we may know him in the inner relations of his divine Being and have communion with him in his divine Life as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” And again, “God has established an intimate two-way relation between himself and us and us and himself, making himself accessible to us and giving us entry into the inner fellowship of God’s life by allowing us to share in God’s own eternal Spirit.”

Let’s enjoy all that God has opened up to us as we enter his holy presence through Jesus as the new and living way in the Spirit.