LIFE IN THE TRINITY

Father, Son and Spirit act as One.  That means in Jesus, the Almighty acted among us in lowly weakness.  In the utter weakness of the cross God completely destroyed the power of sin and death. These are the greatest powers that oppress us.  And the Almighty wiped them out in Jesus.  He did so in weakness. This is the power of God Almighty that was demonstrated in Jesus the crucified Lord of glory.

The power of God expressed in the lowly weakness of Jesus demands a complete overhaul in our thinking about power.  We are still affirming that all power belongs to God but we are saying it differently.

Father, Son and Spirit act as One.  That means the Almighty comes to us personally in the presence of the Spirit.  Yes, the Almighty power of God Himself is expressed within our human weakness as the Spirit strengthens our inner beings with power so that Christ himself may dwell in our hearts.

In this way, the power of the Triune God is revealed to be essentially personal.  This personal power does not crush and coerce forcing us to conform.  Rather it is gracious power that sets us free to willingly serve God just as Jesus was always free for His Father in the Spirit.

 Again,  the power of God expressed in our human weakness demands a complete overhaul in our thinking about power.  It is always power expressed in and through the weak and lowly liberating and transforming us from the inside out.

Father, Son and Spirit act as One.  That means in Jesus, the Almighty acted among us in lowly weakness.  In the utter weakness of the cross God completely destroyed the power of sin and death. These are the greatest powers that oppress us.  And the Almighty wiped them out in Jesus.  He did so in weakness. This is the power of God Almighty that was demonstrated in Jesus the crucified Lord of glory.

The power of God expressed in the lowly weakness of Jesus demands a complete overhaul in our thinking about power.  We are still affirming that all power belongs to God but we are saying it differently.

Father, Son and Spirit act as One.  That means the Almighty comes to us personally in the presence of the Spirit.  Yes, the Almighty power of God Himself is expressed within our human weakness as the Spirit strengthens our inner beings with power so that Christ himself may dwell in our hearts.

In this way, the power of the Triune God is revealed to be essentially personal.  This personal power does not crush and coerce forcing us to conform.  Rather it is gracious power that sets us free to willingly serve God just as Jesus was always free for His Father in the Spirit.

 Again,  the power of God expressed in our human weakness demands a complete overhaul in our thinking about power.  It is always power expressed in and through the weak and lowly liberating and transforming us from the inside out.

We believe in God the Father Almighty.  But how do we view this Almighty Father?   I used to simply project onto God the greatest power I could imagine.  As the God who is unlimited in power He is able to do anything. But my mind was projecting onto God a kind of power that is not His power at all.  God is certainly the supreme power.  But that does not mean we have said what is most important when we declare that God is the Almighty who can do anything

I now know that I can only see the true nature of God’s power as I stay within the biblical story focussing on the decisive expression of the power of God in the death and resurrection of Christ.  According to this Triune Drama, the Father acts powerfully through His Son and by His Spirit to create, redeem and complete the world in a personal way that liberates others rather than, exploiting, controlling or forcing them. The power of God made known through Jesus by the Spirit is not abstract omnipotence but omnipotent love that reconciles, redeems and restores. And that does so even in weakness and lowliness.

 The Triune Drama has completely transformed my thinking about power in general and God’s power in particular.

John says, “God is love”.  If we did not have the Jesus story we would say that among many other things God is loving. God is the great power, the supreme mover of all. God is the great judge to whom we are all answerable etc.  And this all-powerful judge is also in some way loving.  So we would remain unacquainted with the God who is love.

God is the love that brought the Father’s Son into our world as a helpless baby.  He was conceived in power as the Holy Spirit will come on Mary, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her.  And yet, the child conceived in power was born in weakness totally dependant on his mother’s care.  This helpless baby was all-powerful love among us.

God is the love that took the Father’s Son to the cross in order to restore our union and communion with God.  Yes, while we were yet sinners, alienated from the God who is love, His love was demonstrated towards us in the event of  Christ dying and rising for us.  He loved us unto the deep and dark abyss of death so that we might be raised with him into the very life of the triune God who is love.

Now, the God who is love pours His love freely into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.  And together we say, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”

John says, “God is love”.  If we did not have the Jesus story we would say that among many other things God is loving. God is the great power, the supreme mover of all. God is the great judge to whom we are all answerable etc.  And this all-powerful judge is also in some way loving.  So we would remain unacquainted with the God who is love.

God is the love that brought the Father’s Son into our world as a helpless baby.  He was conceived in power as the Holy Spirit will come on Mary, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her.  And yet, the child conceived in power was born in weakness totally dependant on his mother’s care.  This helpless baby was all-powerful love among us.

God is the love that took the Father’s Son to the cross in order to restore our union and communion with God.  Yes, while we were yet sinners, alienated from the God who is love, His love was demonstrated towards us in the event of  Christ dying and rising for us.  He loved us unto the deep and dark abyss of death so that we might be raised with him into the very life of the triune God who is love.

Now, the God who is love pours His love freely into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.  And together we say, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”

“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1)

 Here Paul calls us to imitate the God who is love by walking in the way of love.  But we can only respond to this call as “dearly loved children”. Only as we know the depths of God’s love for us can we begin to love as He loves us.  And we do know God’s love because it has been demonstrated in God’s Son who gave himself up for us.  Furthermore, the same love has been poured into our hearts by the Spirit. Let us, then, settle for nothing less than knowing God in love through the Son and in the Spirit aware that we can never get enough of it.

Everything else that is required of me in life-my love of God, myself and others-all flows out of my personal knowing of God’s extravagant love for me in Christ by the Spirit. With the Son before me and the Spirit within me I am now called to live as a dearly loved child and walk the way of love. And yet not I, for Christ himself lives in me loving in me and through me as the one who loved me and gave himself for me.

God our Father always delighted in His Son, and the Son always delighted in His Father.  The two delighted in one another in the delight of the Spirit. And the Father created us so that we might share in the delight of Father and Son in union with the Son by the Spirit. Our Father desired a beautiful creation filled with the delight of Father and Son in the Spirit.

 We humans rejected the Father’s loving intention for us, but He persisted.  He sent his Son to become one of us so that in union with the Son, by the Spirit, we might be included in the Father’s love for the Son.  And the Father delights in our inclusion loving us just as He loves His unique Son, Jesus. 

The Father’s Son desired to serve His Father in this way because he too delights in our inclusion.  For  just as the Father delights to include us in His love for the Son, the Son delights to include us in his love for the Father.  The Father’s Son always wants to share with us the same love he has ever shared with His Father.

We sometimes speak about receiving Christ into our lives.  But  the good news is that the Father’s Son receives us into his life that we might share in the delight of Father and Son in the Spirit.  With Christ we now delight in the Father’s pleasure in the Son and the Son’s pleasure in his Father as the Spirit opens their happiness to us.  And we delight in the gladness of Father and Son towards us as we participate in their love in the communion of Spirit.

Did God create us because he was lonely, unfulfilled, bored or under compulsion?  Or did God make us and all things simply because He wanted to out of the overflowing fullness of His own inner life?

Well, our God is  a triune communion of love. An eternal circle of love in which there is fullness of joy in the happy relationships of the three.  And in celebration of their shared fullness there was overflow in creating all things. For within the happy triune circle there was a free desire to create those who would be included within the contented communion of love and joy.

But humanity chose to reject this gift going the way of independence.  We wanted to live our own way apart from God.  But the triune communion did not give up on their purpose.  Together they said we love them so much that we refuse to exist without them.  We will go after them and bring them back into the fellowship that we enjoy together.

The triune One did not have to restore us.  There was no external necessity imposed on Him.  He did not restore us to rescue himself from sadness over our plight.  He did not restore us to rescue himself from some lack within himself.  No!  God restored us to communion with Himself out of his own fullness.  The fullness of love and joy within the triune Communion overflowed in coming after us to restore us to the eternal purpose of communion within the triune circle of love. It was all an expression of freedom out of fullness. 

Our God is three persons mutually indwelling one another in other-centred love. Within this communion of three persons, there is one purpose born out of the self-giving love of the three.  And the three persons move indivisibly as One to achieve this single purpose.

What is the One purpose shared by the three? We can state the purpose in a single word-inclusion.  The three want to extend the communion of love to include us.  They are fully satisfied within the Triune communion.  They do not need to move beyond themselves in order to gain fullness.  Nevertheless, they do not want to live within themselves and for themselves.  They rather want to open up the Triune circle to include others.

Together the three decided that the Father’s Son would become human so that in union with him we might be included in the Triune Communion of love.  And all things were created through Christ and for Christ so that in Christ we humans might share in the Son’s love relationship with the Father in the Spirit.  Yes, the One purpose arising out of the Triune communion, before time, is our adoption into the Son’s relationship with the Father so that in the Spirit we might participate in the Triune Communion of love.

If we want to understand who we are and why we are here, then we must begin with the One purpose of the Three.  This single purpose holds the answer to the “why” of creation, the “why” of your life and mine.

When we say God is Love we may focus first on God’s love towards us.  But should we not rather focus first on God as love within himself?   Our God is love because He is three persons in love relationship.  In the gospel story we see the Presence of the One God in the dynamic and loving action of the three towards us but also towards one another. The Father loves the Son and always gives Himself to the Son in the Spirit.  The Son loves the Father and always gives Himself to the Father in the Spirit.

God’s action among us in Christ is the profound demonstration of the love that He is within Himself.  He does not act in love towards us because He needs someone to love.  He acts freely out of the fullness of love that He is within himself. We must not, therefore, even suggest that God created the world so that He might have others to love, or that the Father sent the Son to redeem us so that He might once again have others to love.

In the gospel story we do see the One God moving together in self-giving love towards us.  But they do so as three persons moving dynamically out of the self-giving love they are within their own Triune life.  There has always been within God a movement of love between three persons.  Each of the three is always with the others and towards the others and for the others in mutual self-giving.   We are glad to see God as love towards us, but what God is towards us flows out of  the Love He is within himself.  All three persons give themselves freely and fully to us as the overflow of their self-giving love within themselves.