LIFE IN THE TRINITY

To know the Triune God more deeply we always stay within the Jesus story. We stay within the story because we know that who God is in Jesus he is eternally within himself. He is not different in himself from who he is towards us in Jesus. So we continually move through the story centred on Jesus to discern ever more clearly and deeply who the Triune God is within himself. For reflection on Trinity is not a movement away from Jesus, but always a movement further into Jesus. We move into ever more deeply into the one who is alive here and now revealing himself to us by his Spirit.

As we immerse ourselves in the Jesus story, God opens himself to us through Jesus and the Spirit showing us more and more that he is the communal being who eagerly seeks communion with us. He also opens us to himself in the Spirit through Jesus enabling us to draw near to him as our own Father sharing in his circle of love. In this loving action, God continually creates an intimate two-way relation between himself and us and us and himself. This is an ongoing and dynamic relating in love that fulfils God’s purpose for us. For he always wants to be God with us and he always wants us to be with him in deep union and communion. Within this dynamic and relational knowing we know ever more fully the love that surpasses knowledge.

When considering knowing God the very first thing we say is Jesus. For Jesus is the unveiling of God to us. And as so we say Jesus we also say that God IS Father, Son and Spirit as one communion of love. We say God IS Triune simply because that is the way God has made himself known to us in Jesus within the gospel story. As T. F. Torrance says, “Through his self-revelation in the incarnation 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”. Trinity isn’t added on to everything else we say about God, Trinity is who he is. So we begin with Jesus and the Triune Communion and continue with this view of God all the way through. Everything else we say about God must be Jesus shaped and thus trinity shaped.

However, when we start speaking about God as Trinity we must be careful to always stick with Jesus. As Geordie Zeigler says reflection on Trinity is not a movement away from Jesus, but a movement further into Jesus. So we don’t attempt to know more of Trinity by leaping into abstract and speculative thinking about the three in one. We stay focussed on Jesus as his Spirit takes us ever deeper into who he is. Then we discover God opening himself to us in such a way that we know him in the inner relations of his divine Being as we share in the Son’s communion with Abba Father by the Holy Spirit”.

“When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:4)

When the Father’s Son appeared on earth as the man Jesus people saw him. Now he is at the right hand of God and there he is hidden in God.  No one can see him.  But one day he will appear in full glory and every eye shall see him.
 
When Jesus appears, we shall appear with him because we are in him and he is our life.  Every eye will see Jesus and every eye will see us.  The veil will be drawn to show the fullness Christ’s glory.  And the veil will be drawn on our glory with him.  Everyone will see our share in the glory of Christ.  God’s ultimate purpose is to bring many sons and daughters to glory with his Son (Hebrews 2:10).  And this reaches its climax when we appear with Jesus in glory.

God’s Spirit unveils all this before the eyes of our hearts so that we already see something of our future glory in Jesus. For the Spirit is actually the presence of the future within us. He brings us into a foretaste of all that it is to come. So now, in the Spirit, we rejoice in sure expectation of the future glory that we will share with Jesus even as we enjoy it in part right now. And we say with Paul, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us (Romans 8: 18).

In Colossians 3, Paul says you have died with Christ (v3). He goes on to say that Christ is now your life (v4).

And so your life is HIDDEN with Christ in God (v3). Jesus was once visible to human eyes. His friends saw him living, dying and then ascending beyond their sight. Now Jesus, as the new man, is hidden in God enjoying the deepest union with God. And your life is hidden with Christ.  That’s where your real life is.  False teachers were telling the Colossian believers to practice rules and rituals to attain union with God above. Paul says we already have union with God.  Jesus is in God and so are we with him.

In union with Jesus, we now live with an entirely new centre. I am no longer in the centre with all things revolving around me and my needs. I now live out of a new centre with all revolving around Christ in God. This is an entirely new centre. So my mind is set on things above where Christ is in God, and where I am with him. All my attention is set on the above. I still live an earthly life below enjoying earthly things. Nevertheless, I do so from a new centre with Christ in God. From this new centre I am aware of my new identity as a new human within a new humanity in union with the new man who is always in God and I with him. All this meets my deepest needs and liberates me for a new life with Christ in God.

Christ died for us and we died with him. We died to the old order in Adam under sin and death. Christ rose from death as the new man in new creation and we have been raised with the new man as the new humanity. Now we are continually with Christ enjoying new life – resurrection life. Of course, we look forward to the future resurrection of our bodies to live on the new earth for ever.  Nevertheless, we are already raised with Christ.  We already live in the sphere of resurrection and resurrection life is within us. We are resurrection people. 

As those who have been raised with Christ we seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. For as Paul says in Colossians we have died (to the old order in Adam) and our lives are now hidden with Christ in God. Or as Paul says in Ephesians God has raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We are now seated with Jesus in heavenly places and so we set our minds on things above.

As you set your mind on things above what do you see? You see Jesus seated at the right hand of God.  He rules over all powers.  And since Jesus is in a position of authority at God’s right hand, there is nothing to prevent us from having permanent access to this heavenly world into God’s Presence. United with Jesus we are above with him by the Spirit and he is with us below by the Spirit.

The New Testament word koinonia refers to sharing in something. Before the world began Father and Son shared in the divine life as they mutually indwelt one another in the Spirit. Within this communion of love they also shared an ultimate purpose. The Father delighted in his unique Son so much that he wanted to create a vast family of sons like his Son.  This single purpose arose out of the self-giving love of the three. And the three persons are always together in achieving this single purpose. For the Father continually works to accomplish this shared purpose through his Son and by his Spirit until the purpose comes to fullness. Then the Son will say to his Father here I am and the children you have given me.

John tells us, “…that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship (koinonia) with us; and indeed our fellowship (koinonia) is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3-4). In the communion (koinonia) of the Spirit we share ever more deeply in the life and love of Father and Son. For in the Spirit we know that we are in Jesus and that he is in us. And in that living union we share in his relationship with the Father now and forever. In the communion (koinonia) of the Spirit we also await ever more eagerly the consummation of the eternal purpose.  For the Jesus that we are one with is the goal of all things and we are fully included in him. All this makes our joy complete.

Our lives are now hidden with Christ in God and when he appears we shall appear with him in glory. For God’s intention is to bring many sons and daughters to glory in Jesus. As he appears before his Father, he is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters for he is deeply one with us. In his Father’s presence he gladly declares, “Behold, I and the children God has given me”

Here and now we are called to live our daily lives with this ultimate purpose in view. That requires a REVOLUTION in the way we see. Little adjustments won’t do. We have made ourselves the centre of the universe with all things orbiting around us and for us. So we tend to see all things from a centre in ourselves. We are to rather see from a centre in God so that with the Father we see what he intends for his Son and us in him.

This revolution can only take place through REVELATION by the Spirit. For only the Spirit can unveil Jesus to the eyes of our hearts enabling us to see as God wants us to see. So, with Paul, we must keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give us the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that we may know him better. Knowing him better we know ourselves better. And we live and move in the sure expectation of our ultimate destiny that is inseparable from him.

We humans were created for a purpose bigger than ourselves or anything else in this world.  Paul gives us a glimpse of this purpose in Romans 8.
 
In verse 29 Paul tells us that God’s ultimate purpose is that we might be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. The Father always delighted in his dearly loved Son with whom he was well pleased. And so he eagerly desired a vast family of sons like his Son.  This heart passion gave birth to his ultimate purpose.

In verses 15-18 Paul tells us that now the Father gives us the Spirit of adoption enabling us to live as the family of sons and daughters in union with his Son.  The Spirit of adoption enables us to cry Abba Father in full assurance while leading us daily into the life of dearly loved children before our Father. In the Spirit of adoption we are daily transformed into the likeness of God’s Son so that our final destiny is already happening.

Looking towards the future Paul invites us to see the whole of creation waiting in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For Creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God (19-22).

The Father’s purpose is all about his Son and the children in union with him. That’s us! And so we find a purpose that is bigger than ourselves or anything else in this world within his purpose

In 2007 The Eagles put out a new album called “Long Road out of Eden”.  One of the tracks is “Frail Grasp on the Big Picture”.  We need to constantly hold God’s big picture before us, but our grasp is frail. Too often we lose God’s Panoramic view because we are looking at the little parts that relate to our own little lives. 

Long before anything existed Father, Son and Spirit were united in a communion of love and joy.  Within this communal life the Father had such delight in his Son that he wanted a vast family of children just  like him. This family would share in the communion of the Son with his Father in the Spirit.  And within this communal life they would be transformed into the likeness of the Son.  The Father loves the Son so much that he has a passion to see his Son in many other sons and daughters. All this will magnify and exalt the Son.  And this supremacy of the Son is the Father’s deepest passion and greatest purpose.  So it is the Father’s Son who fills God’s big picture from beginning to end.

For sure we are included in all this.  For according to the Father’s passion and purpose, his Son’s destiny is bound up with us and our destiny is bound up with his Son. For the Son was chosen before the foundation of the world to be Jesus: God with us as one of us and we with him in deepest union by the Spirit

We humans need a sense of purpose and destiny that is within God’s Ultimate Purpose. But sadly, we tend to ask, “what is my purpose and my destiny”?  We see all things from our own viewpoint. And so each one becomes the very centre of his own small universe. We need to see from God’s point of view.
God had a purpose for us and the whole of creation before he made anything. That purpose has not changed. It was and is Jesus. All things were created through him and for him (Colossians 1:15). And by his Spirit God “has made known to us “the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:9-10 NRSV). The whole of the Father purpose is centred in his Son, is done through his Son and is for his Son.
Where do we fit in the Father’s purpose? God’s entire purpose is all about Jesus and Jesus is all about us. For we are in him and he is in us. God wants a large family who share the likeness of his Son (Romans 8:29 NRSV). We are that family of sons and daughters in union with the Son. But we must always remember that it isn’t about us. It is totally about the Father’s Ultimate Purpose in the Son for the Son. However, when the end comes the Son hands it all back to the Father so that God will be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28).