“The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

Irenaeus of Lyon

The Father’s Son united himself to 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 very deeply one with Jesus that we are never to think of ourselves as isolated from him in any way. Martin Luther says,

“by faith you are so cemented to Christ He and you are as one person, which cannot           be separated but remains attached to Him forever and declares:  ‘I am as Christ.’               And Christ, in turn says, ‘I am that sinner who is attached to Me, and I to him’”.

In this living union, we are not deified, as if our humanity were now mixed or intermingled with Christ’s deity.  No, in union with 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 God always intended us to be. God always wanted to be in relationship with others who would be united to Him sharing in his own life.  And so, as we live in union with God in Christ by the Spirit, we become more authentically human.  We become the humans that He intended all along.  Humans in union with the human fully alive in God, with God, to God and for God.

The Father’s Son united himself with us by becoming human. The Spirit of the Father’s Son unites us personally to the Father’s Son so that we share in all that he is with his Father.  Without becoming divine ourselves we now share in the very life of the Triune God in the Son and by the Spirit.

The same Spirit who unites us to the Father’s Son now indwells us as the Son’s own presence deep within us.  That means we do not observe God from afar as those isolated from him.  By the Spirit we are in the Son and the Son is in us just as he is in his Father and his Father in him.  Both Father and Son make their home with us by the Spirit.

Within this living union and communion we know Who God is.  And in knowing Who God is we know who we are.  Or should I rather say we know whose we are?  For in union with Christ I come to know God as the One to whom I now belong.   I am His home; He is my home. Finding my true home in him I find myself for I now know whose I am.  And I  rest in Him as one who belongs. This is true peace and happiness

Adam was created in the image of God, but he was only a type of the one who is the image of God – Jesus. He is the true image of the invisible God. The Father’s Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.  In him the invisible God is made visible.  In Jesus, we can now see what God is actually like.

Jesus is also the true human image.  There are all sorts of ways that we may define humanity.  But true humanity is defined in just one way-Jesus.  He is the human. So Jesus is the true divine image as the true human image.  For he is the One who is both authentically divine and authentically human. 

We are called to imitate Jesus so that we become like him and image him in the world.  Does that mean we simply observe and imitate isolated from him through our own efforts?  That would be anything but good news!  It would simply throw us back on ourselves and our own powers of accurate observation and perfect imitation.  We would know nothing at all of the  life-giving communion with God that enables us to image Him as we are transformed into Jesus’ likeness.

We are in union with Jesus for he lives in us as we live in him. And within this living union he encounters us personally in the Spirit so that we gaze on his glory.  In this living encounter we are transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory.  Only in this way do we imitate him so that we image him to the glory of His Father.

We do not approach the knowledge of God in Christ with mere rational thinking defining, debating and disputing.  Rather, in lowliness of mind we open ourselves in wonder before the mystery of Christ.  We do not strive for mastery in our knowledge of God in Christ.

We tend to speak of knowing in terms of “grasping”. We grasp a thing when “we’ve got it.” And if we have grasped something, we take it into our possession so that we can do with it what we want.  We have gained mastery over the object of our knowing.

But we know God, not as we “grasp” him mentally, but as He encounters us personally drawing us into His own Triune life in Christ by the Spirit.   We know God, not as we make Him our property, but rather as we are transformed through love as participators in His Triune life in the Son by the Spirit. In fellowship with Father and Son in the Spirit we know not through gaining mastery over the mystery of God.  We simply gaze into the mystery as God makes Himself known though Jesus in the Spirit.

As we do so, we may articulate something of who He is, but we are always aware that we are expressing the inexpressible.  For He is more to be worshipped in sheer wonder than rationally defined and debated and disputed.  Jurgen Moltmann reminds us that we know the Triune God in wonder only as far as love and participation reach.

Paul spoke about “the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people.   To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27) .

The mystery of Christ is now open to us.  Nevertheless, we recognise that there are depths to the mystery of Christ that will always be beyond our knowing.  T. F Torrance continually reminds us that we can apprehend something of who Jesus is, but we can never comprehend him.

So we must avoid becoming too rational trying to gain mastery over the mystery.  Instead, depending fully on the Spirit, we gaze in wonder before the One who is open to us and yet always beyond us.   We give less attention to explaining the mysteries of our faith and more to adoring the God of mystery.

Christ himself is the mystery.  How can it be that God becomes human?  How can it be that God lives and moves and dies as human?  How can it be that God remains human so that one of the Triune Communion is actually human forever? We do not try to answer these “how” questions with rational analysis.  We rather gaze into the mystery of who he is with awe and wonder.

In the Jesus’ story we see the true God as human in lowliness. In the same Jesus’ story we see the true human who shows what it means to be human.

Jesus is the true God with humans and for humans.  He is also the true human with God and for God.  He is the true human who  lives in trustful obedience towards His Father in the Spirit. And he lives this way in joyful thanksgiving to the Father in the Spirit.   So, looking at Jesus, we see what it means to be truly human.  He shows us that real human existence means existence in relationship to God.

We may want to define ourselves as humans in all sorts of ways, but with our eyes fixed on Jesus we  only define true human life as life towards the Father in the Spirit.  With Jesus in view, can we really understand ourselves or explain ourselves in any other way?

 Joined to this true human in the Spirit, we live as true humans towards our Father. We do so as Jesus lives his own life towards the Father in and through us by His Spirit.  Of course, we continually we fail to live towards the Father like Jesus and yet we have full assurance knowing that Jesus is the true human before the Father on our behalf.  All that Jesus is in the presence of the Father we are in union with him by the Spirit. In Jesus, the true human, we are always fully loved and accepted as those who participate in his own life with the Father.

When the time had fully come the Father sent His Son among us as one of us. In this event we see the eternal will and purpose of God become actual among us. Yes, as we fix our eyes on this one man, we know what was the will of God at the beginning of all time, and even before time.  We see opened to us the eternal purpose- God with us and we with God in union with the Father’s Son.

But surely we get to know God’s eternal will and purpose by studying bible texts that speak about His eternal decrees.  God has decreed certain things before the foundation of the world.  We simply look at the texts that speak about these eternal decrees and make logical deductions from them.  I used to approach God’s eternal purpose this way.  I ended up with a warped view of God.  A God who fixes the eternal destiny of individuals before they are even born.   A God who has to be difficult to trust.  You can never really be sure if He has fixed your own destiny as one of the chosen ones.

Now I see that there is only one revelation of the eternal will and purpose of God.  The revelation of God Himself in the man Jesus.  So if we try to invent a doctrine of God’s eternal decrees apart from Jesus we will end up with an idol.  And not a very attractive one!  But with our eyes fixed on Jesus we are drawn into assured fellowship with our Father in the Spirit.  We know for sure that Jesus is the Father’s chosen one and in union with him, by the Spirit, we share in His close relation with the Father.

The biblical drama unfolds with so many ups and downs and twists and turns. But in all the many changes there is just one goal-Jesus.  Everything is moving towards him and climaxes in him. Jesus is the last thing in the whole drama, the ultimate intention.

That is true.  But Jesus isn’t only the last thing; he is also the first. Even before the world was made God decided to be with us as one of us.  He never wanted to be God without us.  Before we humans came into existence God had already decided to be in the deepest fellowship with us.  And this decision happens in Jesus.

Only in the Jesus’ story is God’s original decision opened to us.  We  have no other way of knowing what God first decided . We certainly do not speculate above Christ or behind him to an eternal decree of predestination apart from Christ.  No!  We fix our eyes on Jesus and see God’s eternal purpose unfold in his story.  

This focus sets me free from all uncertainty.  Now I do not look back to a horrible and absolute decree that says God might not actually want me.  With Jesus before me as both the first and the last, I know for sure that God only wants to be God in fellowship with me in Jesus.

Jesus is the Father’s original decision and ultimate intention and so are we in union with Jesus by the Spirit.  We may assure our hearts in that beautiful Triune Reality.