LIFE IN THE TRINITY

In the gospel story, we learn that God is the Father who in the Spirit did not spare his own Son but freely gave him up for us.  And, God is the Father who, having sent his Son, sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts bringing us into communion with abba Father in the Son.  God’s whole Being as three persons is his Being for others beyond himself. He does not choose to live for himself alone

The gospel story declares clearly that the Triune God is the fellowship-seeking God of love.  What we may miss, however, is that this fellowship-seeking love flows out of the fellowship that God is eternally within himself.  Within the mutual indwelling of the three Persons, each Person is who he is in relation to the other two. The three Persons eternally exist in, through, with and for one another.  And his being for us and with us expresses his own life as three persons who are eternally with and for one another. 

God is not an impersonal and static divine being.  The One Being of God is rather personal, dynamic and relational as three persons who belong inseparably to one another. And this Communal Being of love wants us to belong.  He wants this so much that he has moved beyond himself, through his Son and Spirit to open himself to us and to open us to himself.  He wants to bring us inside the communal love that he is within himsel

God is a communion of Triune love.  The three Persons are eternally with each other and for each other. The Father is for the Son in the Spirit.  The Son is for the Father in the Spirit. 

This God is also for us.  He is so for us that he eagerly seeks communion with us. God doesn’t need to be for others to fulfil himself.  No!  Within his own life, the three persons are for one another in the fullness of self-giving love.  And this fullness for the other within his own life flows out in a fullness of love for others beyond himself.

From eternity, this God has determined in love that he would be with us and for us as our Father in Jesus by the Spirit. He also determined we would be with him as his dearly loved children in Christ by the Spirit. He has eternally determined himself to be this God and no other.

In Romans 8: 31-34, Paul tells us that God is for us.  Here is Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase: 

So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing… I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

We belong to the community of the King.  We belong because God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves (Colossians 1:13). Within this community, we speak to one another about God because we know him as the One who is present among us. However, as we speak to one another about God, we want to hear God himself.  

The Father wants to be known and makes himself known by speaking to us through Jesus, the Living Word, by his Spirit. In the beginning, the Living Word spoke everything into existence.  That same living word became flesh and lived among us as one of us. 

He came into history as God in person speaking to us as one of us. And now he calls us to be always attentive to himself as the Living Word who speaks to us personally through the Written Word that bears witness to him. Furthermore, he now lives in us enabling our free response. Apart from the Living Word, our thoughts about God will likely derive from what we think is good and beautiful in the world. This can never provide authentic engagement with God.

Only God can reveal God. And that is just what God does through Jesus in the Spirit. The Living Word is a person who speaks personally to us in living encounters.    As he does so, he opens to us the Father’s heart. In this way, we come to know this God who wants to be known.

John 17 records a prayer of Jesus to his Father.  He speaks much about the Father’s love for him.  In his Father’s presence, he talks about the Father loving him before the foundation of the world (John 17: 24).  And it is clear that Jesus still enjoys his Father’s love.  Furthermore, all through the prayer, he expresses his love for the Father as the Son.   

As Father and Son make their home with us, we share in this love.  Towards the end of his prayer, the Son says to his Father I want the love with which you have loved me to be in them and I in them (John 17: 26).  That happens when Father and Son make their home with us in the Spirit. We share in the Father’s love for his Son and the Son’s love for his Father.

As Father and Son make their home with us, we share in the Son’s joy (John 17.13).   Jesus speaks about my joy in them.  In love relationship with the Father, the Son has great joy.  It is the joy of the Father’s home. To be at home with the Father in a love relationship is to be full of joy in the Father’s love. A joy that surpasses all other joys.  As Father and Son make their home with us, we enter into the joy of their home. 

As Father and Son make their home with us, we share in Jesus’ peace.  Not just any peace, but my peace. Peace I leave with you; MY peace I give to you (John 14: 27). There is perfect peace in the Father and Son’s home.  As they make their home with us we experience this peace that surpasses all understanding.  Jesus’ peace at home with his Father is in us by the Spirit.  

Jesus tells us that he and his Father will come to us and make their home with us (John 14: 23).  I suppose we all have our ideas of what home is.  Even so, we can all agree that home means belonging. And belonging is one of the most important things in human life. We find our true identity in knowing we belong. This is not so strong in our individualistic culture. We find our identity in what we acquire, how we appear, or what we achieve.  But this kind of individual identity is always lacking and the human heart cries out for belonging.  Who we are and what our lives mean is found in belonging to someone or something.  True identity is communal and relational.

Father, Son and Spirit belong together.  The Son belongs to the Father as the one who lives in the Father by the Spirit.  And the Father belongs to the Son in the same way.  They belong to one another as they mutually indwell one another in self-giving love.  We might say the Triune Communion is the perfect home in which the three persons belong to one another.

Jesus tells us we belong because Father and Son have made their home with us in the Spirit.  In that belonging, we know who we are.  Or is it not better to say that we find who we are in this belonging by knowing whose we are?  We belong to Father and Son and they belong to us.  They make their home with us and we find our home in them.

I once read a book about the attentive life. The writer encouraged me to walk through all the moments of my life attentive to who God is with me for me. The book was helpful.

However, at one point, the writer says he wants to connect with the centre of his being to make a home for God. That sounds good, but should we aim to make a home for God?  Jesus tells us that he and his Father come and make their home with us,  We don’t make a home for Father and Son; they have made a home with us. 

Father, Son and Spirit mutually indwell one another as one communal being.  That means where the one is the others are too.  So the Spirit indwelling us is the Son indwelling us. And, the Son indwelling us by the Spirit is also the Father indwelling us. Because of this, Jesus tells us that both he and his Father make their home with us by the Spirit.  Our sharing in the Triune communion could not be deeper. All this anticipates our life together on the new earth: 

“See, the home of God is among the people.  He will dwell with them; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes.” (Rev. 21.3-4) 

By his Spirit, God makes his home with us here and now.  He does so in anticipation of making his home with us fully on the new earth. And as Father and Son make their home with us in the Spirit, we find our home in them. 

Jesus once said to his Father, You have loved them even as you have loved me John 17:23). How can God love us as he loves Jesus, his Son?  Is it because, like Jesus, we are full of love for God?  In another place John writes, This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us (1 John 4:10).  We don’t love God as we should, but still God loves us as he loves Jesus.  Why?  Simply because God IS love.  But we can say more.

First, We are in Christ.  Our lives are hidden with Christ in God.  And so, in union with Jesus, we are included in the divine circle of love. The Father loves the Son and loves us in the Son as he loves his Son.

Second, Christ is in us. The Father loves us and sends Jesus into our hearts to live within us by his Spirit.  Now, deep within us, the Father loves Jesus.  And now deep within us,  Jesus loves the Father so that we love the Father as Jesus loves the Father in and through us.  That means we really do participate in the divine circle of love.  

So, as Philip Yancy  has written: “There is nothing we can do to make God love us more and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.”  In union with Jesus, the Father loves you as he loves his dearly loved Son. And yet, too many live before God less loved than they are. We need to see, really see, that we could not be more loved.

How can God love us as he loves Jesus, his Son?  Is it because, like Jesus, we are full of love for God?  In another place John writes, This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us (1 John 4:10).  We don’t love God as we should, but still God loves us as he loves Jesus.  Why?  Simply because God IS love.  But we can say more.

First, We are in Christ.  Our lives are hidden with Christ in God.  And so, in union with Jesus, we are included in the divine circle of love. The Father loves the Son and loves us in the Son as he loves his Son.

Second, Christ is in us. The Father loves us and sends Jesus into our hearts to live within us by his Spirit.  Now, deep within us, the Father loves Jesus.  And now deep within us,  Jesus loves the Father so that we love the Father as Jesus loves the Father in and through us.  That means we really do participate in the divine circle of love.  

So, as Philip Yancy  has written: “There is nothing we can do to make God love us more and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.”  In union with Jesus, the Father loves you as he loves his dearly loved Son. And yet, too many live before God less loved than they are. We need to see, really see, that we could not be more loved.

Before any humans were created God was already loving.  The Father loved the Son in the Spirit and the Son loved the Father in the Spirit. I think we can say that God is a circle of joyful love. 

Because God is a circle of love he is content. He is not needy.  He is not lacking anything.  And yet, the love of the lovers cannot be contained.  They must expand the circle. The three persons had such joy in the circle of love they wanted to extend it to others.  So they created us to share in the love and to become loved and loving with them in the circle of love.   The God who is love created us in love, through love and for love within the circle of love. 

We did not want all this.  We wanted to live our own way.  We wanted to live in self-love.  So we rejected the circle of love.  But God didn’t give up on his purpose.  We did not love the God who is love, but in love, he loved us and came after us.  Through Jesus and the Spirit, he brings us back within the circle of love to be loved and loving within the circle of love that God is. 

As Father Son and Spirit move together in the world, we see that the divine persons are so tightly bound up together that we cannot think of one person apart from the others.  Indeed, their relationships with one another make them who they are as persons. 

It follows from this that human persons are also defined similarly by their relationships with one another. God created us to be relational to the point that being relational makes us persons.  However, our relationships with others are now seriously depersonalised. But through Jesus and the Spirit, God’s relations with us and our relations with God are deeply personalised.  And so, T. F Torrance speaks of Jesus as the personalising person, who restores us as persons in relation to other persons. 

As God personalises us in Jesus and the Spirit we come to know something of God as the communion of Father, Son and Spirit within their inner life.  We cannot begin to understand this by merely studying the doctrine of the Trinity.  Only as personalised persons sharing in the communion of love can we begin to see who the Triune God is.  

When Eugene Peterson began to see the Trinity as an emphatic statement that God is relational he moved into a new life of praying as relational and serving as relational.  I suppose that was because he was in the process of being personalised. He was personalised by the Person of the Son who lives as a dearly loved Son in a relationship with his Father in the communion of the Spirit.  And who also lives in us as a personalising person restoring all our relationships in the Spirit.