LIFE IN THE TRINITY

As we gaze on Jesus, we see the mutual love of Father and Son in the Spirit. In this constant self-giving of Father towards Son and Son towards Father, we get a glimpse of the deep bond of love within the triune life of God. They know one another with love’s own way of knowing and finding pleasure in one another. They are constantly with and for one another as they mutually indwell one another in joyful love.
We also see this bond of love in the way they work together. They always move into action together, working with each other. The work of the Son is always done for the Father.  But it isn’t just done for the Father but also with the Father.  The Father and Son are always together in what they do.  We see this from two angles. From the side of the Son, The Son does only what he sees his Father doing (John 5:19). From the side of the Father, The Father loves the Son and shows him all he does (John 5: 20). And so they always move together as one in each and every action.. 
This Father and Son relation in love belongs to the innermost being of God. Yes, God is the dynamic communion of loving and being loved. And this love does not come from something outside God. For God IS beautiful self-giving love within himself as Father and Son in the Spirit. And his love for us is the overflowing of this fountain of love. So now we know for sure that God cannot stop loving us. He can no more cease to love us than he can cease to be God because he IS love.

The apostle John saw Jesus’ love for people as he constantly gave himself to others. He also saw Jesus’ love to the Father. He couldn’t miss that as Jesus was always turned towards his Father in loving relationship. In Jesus, John saw the man for God and the man for others even unto death on the cross in self-giving love. As John reflected on all he saw in this person he had to say, “God is love”.

John saw that God is love within himself.  And that is what we see through John’s witness. We see the Father loving the Son in the Spirit and giving himself to the Son.  The Father is always there for the Son making himself available to him. He is always expressing delight in his Son. And the Father is glad to put the spotlight on his Son as the one he wants to honour.

We also see the Son loving the Father in the Spirit and giving himself to the Father. The Son always looks to see what his Father is doing.  He always listens to hear what his Father is saying to him.  His face is always turned towards his Father in desire and delight.  He is always actively serving his Father to advance his purpose in the world. He is turned towards his Father in these ways as his expression of love for the Father. Father and Son are always towards one another and for one another and with one another in mutual self-giving love.  Truly, God IS love.

The Father’s Son united himself with us by becoming fully human.  The Spirit of the Father’s Son joins us to the Son so that we are in him as he is in us.  We are one with Christ and he is one with us. We are so deeply one with him that we are never to think of ourselves as isolated from him in any way. That means we won’t attempt to live out our own Christian life apart from Jesus. No! By his Spirit, Jesus now lives out his own life in and through us. So, we always say, I (as an individual) no longer live through my own self-effort, but Christ lives in me. He loved me and gave himself for me and now he loves me still and gives himself to me working in me all that is pleasing to his Father.

In our union with Jesus, we are not deified, as if our humanity were now mixed or intermingled with Christ’s deity.  No, in union with the man Jesus, we remain fully human with our humanity lifted up into the life of God and filled with the life of God.
In union with Jesus, we are actually more authentically human because we become the humans that God intended all along. We become humans in union with THE human fully alive in God, with God, to God and for God. Yes, as we live in union with Jesus, by the Spirit, we really do become more authentically human. 

Full of joy through the Spirit, Jesus overflowed in praise towards his Father. In the Spirit’s fullness, he went on to say, “No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Jesus revealed his Father with a human face during his life on earth. And now he continually reveals his Father personally to us through himself by the Spirit. The Spirit knows the depths of God’s being in which Father and Son know each other exclusively. And now, by the gift of the Spirit, we too can know something of the depths of God. For in the Spirit we can actually share in the mutual knowing of Father and Son.
Listen to Paul:
“The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (1Cor. 2.10-11).

As God, the Spirit shares in the inner communion between Father and Son. And the Spirit who indwells the depths of God indwells our inner depths to make known to us the mutual knowing of Father and Son. Only God’s Spirit can open this communion of joyful love to us. For the Spirit dwells in the personal being of God and is part of the deep personal communion of Father and Son in joyful love. The Spirit of God’s Son alone is able to bring us into deep fellowship so that we share in the Son’s knowing of the Father crying abba Father with the Son in the Spirit.

God does not want to remain hidden within his own divine life. He is eager to show himself so that he may enjoy fellowship with us. That is what God has always wanted and what he gave himself to through Jesus, his Son.

However, we cannot see the light of God’s glory in the face of his Son. Our minds are darkened. Nevertheless, in sheer grace, God has opened himself to us personally. By his Spirit, he has shone his light into our darkened minds and opened the eyes of our hearts to see his own beauty. Jesus came into our world as the light of God showing the glory of God with a human face. Now the Spirit comes into our hearts showing the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus his Son.

Through Jesus and by his Spirit, God opens his own inner life as a triune communion of joyful love. And, by his Spirit, God also opens us to himself so that we can enjoy communion with him within his own inner circle of love. He actually gives us entry into the inner fellowship of his own life. And so, through his Son and by his Spirit, God creates an open two-way relation between himself and us. Truly, God opens himself to us and opens us to himself.

God chose Israel to be the one nation for the many. They were greatly blessed as God’s treasured possession. Within this special covenant relationship, their calling was to be God’s blessing for all nations. They were God’s royal priesthood representing God to the nations and the nations to God. However, when the time fully came, an Israelite was born who is THE one for the many. His name is Jesus and he is the ultimate royal priest who represents God to all and all to God.

Jesus is himself the one for the many as the ONENESS of the divine and human. The eternal purpose of God is to give himself to humanity in love. And Jesus makes actual that eternal purpose among us. He is both Divine and Human joined together as one person in the deepest union and communion. So he is who God always wanted to be: God with us and for us as one of us. He is also who God wanted us to be: Humanity with God in union and communion.

Before the world was made God elected his own Son to be the one in whom God and humanity would be united. And in the man Jesus that divine election moved into time. Within our history, he brings God and humans together in himself as the God-human. Indeed, Jesus is the mystery of God’s will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth (Ephesians 1:9). In Jesus that eternal purpose moves into time becoming actual among us.

David Cartledge made the following changes to the “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life (John 14: 6)” [edit] Post on 2 November, 2022 at 16:22 UTC

Content

Jesus says, “I am the Way”. He does not say, “I show the way”. He is himself the way. He is God’s way to us. Through him, God comes to us in lowliness to reconcile us to himself. But here, Jesus is speaking specifically about being our way to his Father. We come to the Father only through him. He opened the way for us in himself and returned to his Father taking us with him into God’s holy presence as the new and living way. Truly, he IS the Way.

Jesus says, “I am the Truth. He speaks the truth and does the truth AS the truth in human flesh. Jesus is in himself the true God and the true man and the true oneness of God and humanity. In that way he is the truth who encounters us personally as the truth by the Spirit of truth. Jesus really IS the truth and if he (the truth) sets us free we are free indeed.

Jesus says, “I am the Life”. He came to give life in fullness and he is that life as the living God. He is also the life as the risen God-human who is alive for ever more as one of us. As the Spirit brings us into living union with him we share in the life that he is. We pass from death to life so that we walk with him in newness of life. We live in him as our life and he lives in us as our life. Indeed, As Paul tells us, he is our life and when he appears we shall appear with him in glory sharing in the life that he is with his Father in the Spirit (Colossians 3:2).

Jesus is true God and true man in one person. This living union is dynamic. He continually expresses his total oneness with the one he calls Father in the presence and power of the Spirit. He continually expresses his total oneness with sinful humanity in the presence and power of the Spirit. He is God moving dynamically towards humanity in love. He is humanity moving dynamically towards God in love. He deliberately enters into active and living solidarity with his fellow humans to bring us back to God in himself. This why his Father sent him into the world as one of us.

Jesus’ eyes were constantly on his Father doing only what he saw his Father doing. All his works of compassion towards needy humans were done in total dependence on his Father. He continually lived in his Father as his Father lived in him. So, all his works were the works of his Father by the Spirit.

Though he lived and moved in constant oneness with his Father He also lived and moved in total oneness with his fellow humans. He gave himself to be baptised along with sinners in the Jordan to identity totally with them. He also gave himself in a baptism in blood on the cross identifying totally with us in suffering, desolation and death. And yet, he was always at rest in his Father’s love as he served his Father to gather us into his communion with the Father.

In union with the Father’s dearly loved Son we are dearly loved children. Within this relationship, we do not do what God wants so that we can get him to act favourably towards us in some way. That sounds like God has made a contract with us. He agrees to do good to us if we do what is good in his eyes.
This is a mistaken idea that we easily slip into. Instead, we must see clearly that God has not entered into a legal contract with us. He has rather bound us to himself in a covenant of love. And within this covenant relationship, we are his dearly loved children enjoying family love.

We did not establish this covenant relationship through our responses to God. Only God can create the relationship. Our personal responses create nothing, but God looks for them as we live in union with Jesus by his Spirit. The Spirit joins us to Jesus so that we live and move in union with him. We really do share in his life as we live in him and he lives in us. And within this union, we become dearly loved children who walk in love by the freeing and enabling power of the Spirit. We have been included in the relationship Jesus has with his Father in a transforming and renewing relationship with God—a relationship that calls for our response.