LIFE IN THE TRINITY

The Old Testament reveals that God is present throughout the entire universe, yet it also shows that He dwelt in a special way in the temple. The temple was considered the house of God, the place where people went to meet Him (Psalm 27:4).

With the coming of the New Covenant, this understanding changes. God’s dwelling place is no longer a physical building but His people (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). The God who fills the universe now lives within us. We are a people of His Presence. We can look at this in the context of our union with Christ. Through the Spirit, Christ is in us, and we are in Him. As Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

When we consider God’s personal presence, we may want to sense his presence. And we feel disappointed if we don’t.  We say it has all come to nothing.  I wanted warm feelings of God with me all the time, but I don’t enjoy this. You may even become introspective, looking inside to see if you can feel anything at all of God in there. 

We must recognise that a genuine sense of God’s presence is a gift from God to us.  We cannot produce it.  What we can aim to do is simply live present to his presence in the whole of life, trusting God for a sense of his presence.  As we do so, we trust the God of grace to grant us a sense of his presence that will flood our lives with his joy.  

By the Spirit, the Father and Son make their home within and among us (John 14:23). Our sharing in the Triune communion could not be deeper. The Father and the Son come to us as their own dwelling place. Each divine person mutually indwells the others, and so, through the Spirit’s indwelling, both the Son and the Father make their home in us and among us.

Presence makes encounters possible. The sort of encounters that fill life with meaning. Only through presence can we truly meet anyone or anything. Others may be around us, yet we do not experience their presence until we are present ourselves. In the same way, though God is always with us, we may not recognise his presence until we become attentive and open.

Every human being longs for life to have meaning, but perhaps what we are really longing for is presence itself. Without presence, nothing carries meaning; but in the presence of our Father, through the Son and by the Spirit, all of life becomes saturated with significance.

God is always present to us and he invites us to be present to him.  Sadly, we are not always present to His presence. However, he persists, calling us to freely turn our hearts toward Him as the One who is already near. He really does want us to live awake and attentive to his presence. As we do, we trust the God who is with us and in us to meet us, granting us moments of real encounter in the midst of ordinary life. These encounters cannot be manufactured; they are pure gift. At the same time, we are called to be present to his presence, attentive to his attentiveness toward us.

Just before Jesus offered up his life for us, he said, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever – the Spirit of truth.” Jesus, the Father’s Son, asks the Father for the Spirit of truth to guide us into all truth.  

The “truth” into which the Spirit guides us is not abstract concepts or a set of doctrines. Jesus declares, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Therefore, truth is not something but Someone — Jesus himself. He is the truth about God, showing us the Father’s heart, and he is the truth about humanity, revealing who we are called to be in communion with God. To know the truth, then, is to know Jesus personally and in knowing Jesus, we know the truth that sets us free.

But the truth of the Father through the Son comes to us by the Spirit of truth.  The Spirit of truth brings Jesus, the truth, to us so that we see him with the eyes of our hearts.  He is “the Spirit of truth” sent by the Father and Son to lead us into all truth.  
The Spirit comes within us, shining the light of the Son right into the depths of our hearts so that we see the glory of God in his face. He is “the Spirit of truth” sent by the Father and Son to lead us into all truth.  The Spirit of truth can do this in us because he is Himself God, true God of true God. And so, he alone can bring Jesus, the truth of God, to us

Paul writes, “… because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba Father! Here, the Spirit is called the Spirit of God’s Son. Just as the Son was sent into the world to make us children of God, so the Spirit of that same Son is sent into our hearts, giving us the Son’s own Abba Father cry to God. Abba is the Aramaic word for Father. During his life on earth, Jesus addressed God this way (Mark 14:36). Since Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Greek, it is more likely that he often called God Abba.

This shows that the Father and the Son do not wish us to remain spectators of their relationship. Instead, they invite us to participate in that same love. The Spirit of God’s Son makes this possible. Through the Spirit, the Son’s own cry to the Father becomes our cry, uniting us with Jesus’ relationship to God. In heaven, Jesus still speaks his “Abba” before the Father, and that same cry is echoed within us through the Spirit living in our hearts.

This means that we share in the Son’s relationship with the Father through the Spirit. It is not only a personal experience, although each of us can individually know it. Paul’s language emphasises the plural: we are sons and daughters together. The Spirit binds us as a community, drawing us into the Son’s love for the Father. Therefore, as God’s family, we cry “Abba” together. Through the Spirit of the Son, we are caught up into this relationship of love, not only as individuals, but as one people united in Christ.

Paul tells us that before God created the world, He destined us for adoption in Christ (Ephesians 1:5). In love, God destined us to become His sons and daughters, so that we might share in the relationship He enjoys with His Beloved Son. From eternity, Father, Son and Spirit lived in perfect love. The Son was always close to the Father’s heart, and God desires that we also live as deeply loved children in union with His Son.

Yet humanity turned from this purpose. We sought independence, choosing to live apart from God. But the Triune God did not abandon His plan of adoption. Father, Son, and Spirit resolved together: “We will not exist without them. We will bring them back to where they belong.”

To accomplish this, the Son became one of us, giving Himself fully to bring us into God’s family. The Father gives Himself to us through adoption. In making us His children, He shares with us the fullness of His love and life. Furthermore, the Spirit of adoption comes to dwell within us, assuring us we are God’s children (Romans 8:15). The Triune God does not remain distant, offering mere help for life’s problems. Instead, He gives Himself—Father, Son, and Spirit—that we might live in the reality of His nearness to us and our dearness to him. 

This is the highest blessing we can receive, for God has nothing greater to give than Himself.  Truly, in giving Himself, He has given us every blessing.

God has never been alone. From all eternity, He has been a communion of three persons—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, loving one another. Within this communion, there is one purpose, flowing from their self-giving love. And the three always work together toward this single purpose.

That purpose is fulfilled in Christ, and in us being united with Him. Even now, our lives are “hidden with Christ in God,” and when He appears, we will appear with Him in glory. At the end, God will bring all things together in Christ—things in heaven and on earth. 

Because we are hidden with Christ in God, we share in His relationship with the Father through the Spirit.  Paul tells us that before the world began, God destined us for adoption: “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” (Ephesians 1:5 NLT).

Here, we see God’s communal purpose is adoption. The Father brings us into the Son’s relationship with Him. Through the Spirit within us, we can cry out, “Abba, Father.” In love, the Father chose us, through His Son, so we could share in His relationship with the Beloved Son. As adopted children, we are welcomed into the eternal love shared by Father, Son, and Spirit.

If we want to understand who we are and why we exist, we must begin here: with the eternal relationship of the Father and the Son in the Spirit. This relationship explains creation, our purpose, and our destiny. The Trinity made us to share in the life and love they already enjoy together.

Before creating the world, God freely chose to be united with us by becoming one of us. This decision was not forced or required but came purely from His love. God desires to be with us, and He wants us to be with Him.

God does not need anything outside Himself to be God. He is complete and perfect within His own Triune life. He did not create the world because He lacked something or needed humanity. No!  He created us for a relationship and chose to enter into a relationship with us and with creation. This shows that God’s connection to us comes from love and freedom, not necessity.

However, God’s freedom does not mean He can freely choose to stop loving us. God is love itself; if He stopped loving, He would no longer be who He is. From the very beginning, He chose to be “God with us,” rather than a God without us. This is revealed most clearly in Jesus.  In him, God became human to show us the depth of His love.

There is no other God than the One who has freely chosen to share His eternal life with us. Through Jesus, we see that God’s very nature is love — a love that gives and goes on giving for ever deeper relationships. Most importantly, Jesus reveals that God’s love is completely free, offered to us not out of need, but out of grace.

We must not define God’s love by considering human love and saying God is like that, only much better. We must rather focus on God’s love revealed through Jesus and by his Spirit. As Marty Folsom writes,  “We must let the activity and self-giving of Jesus fill out for us what love looks like, especially if  we are to use the term of God”

With our eyes fixed on Jesus, we see that the Love of God revealed through him is totally self-giving. God so loved the world that he gave his Son to us and for us.  The Son loved us and gave himself to us and for us as one of us. Then God’s self-giving goes further as the Father gave his Spirit, through his Son, so that his self-giving love is poured freely into our hearts. Now, through the Spirit, we can respond to God’s love as we live in communion with the self-giving God.

This love, revealed through Jesus and by the Spirit, is also unconditional.  For it does not depend on any qualities we humans possess or any actions we perform. Whatever I may be in myself, wise or foolish, rich or poor, believing or godless, none of these is the reason for being loved. Yes, God does look for a response from us, but our response is not the basis for his self-giving love towards us. 

This self-giving and unconditional love, revealed in Jesus, perfectly corresponds to who God always is. So, we don’t say the real truth about God and his relationship with humanity might be something different. Rather, the love that God displays in Jesus by his Spirit is a true and faithful expression of the God who is Love.

The Father’s Son chose to become a servant even though he was equal with God. As a lowly servant, he was obedient even to death on a cross. Because of this, God raised him and gave him the highest name. One day, everyone will bow and confess Jesus as Lord (Philippians 2:9–11).

This exalted Lord met Paul personally on the road to Damascus. After that, Paul experienced Jesus as a living presence throughout his life. He believed that Jesus, who was crucified, was his Lord and the Lord of all. Paul saw himself as a servant who no longer lived for himself, but for Jesus, who died and rose again.

Paul used the language of a servant (or slave) to show his complete obedience to Jesus as Lord. However, this wasn’t obedience to a harsh and oppressive Master.  Paul was serving the one who had become a servant himself (Philippians 2:7). He saw himself as a servant of the Servant who was exalted as supreme Lord. Paul regarded serving Jesus as the highest honour. And he now lived for this Lord as this Lord lived in him, enabling him to serve. Paul saw his own life as one of “slavery” to Jesus, who is now exalted. 

Like Paul, we are called to live under Jesus’ rule, with his Spirit working in us. As he lives in us, we serve him and are changed to become more like him. That means becoming lowly servants of the Servant-Lord and, in his name, servants of all.

Paul’s encounter on the road to Damascus was a shocking turning point. The experience took Paul by surprise. He had been strongly against Jesus and his followers.  He believed it was his duty to stop this new movement, which he saw as a threat to Israel’s purity and its relationship with God.  Paul thought calling a crucified man the Messiah and welcoming Gentiles without requiring circumcision went against the Torah. His passion for the Torah led him to oppose the early  Messianic movement. He was very serious about his divine duty to destroy the dangerous messianic movement. 

But then Jesus appeared to him, claiming Paul for himself. In that moment, Paul saw that the crucified Jesus was truly the Lord, and he was called to serve him, especially in reaching the Gentiles. This was an act of unexpected and undeserved grace. Paul was deeply grateful and made grace the central theme of his life and message.

This experience completely changed Paul. He had to do a complete about-face, acknowledging that he had been wrong about Jesus and that this crucified yet exalted Jesus was God’s Messiah. Yes, he realised he had been wrong about Jesus. Now, instead of being zealous for the law, he was zealous for Jesus, the Messiah. And as a result, the one who once persecuted Jesus’ followers became the one who was persecuted.

This life-transforming encounter shows us the power of grace.  May we, who now live under grace, continually open ourselves to God’s undeserved favour.  Only as the God of grace carries on the work he began in us are we transformed with ever-increasing glory.