I in You

Posted on February 28, 2010 by David Cartledge

The Son was always in the Father.  He was always God living inside the Father

Then the Son became human.  He did not just appear as a human he became fully human as one of us.  Here, in John 14.20, he is speaking to us as the incarnate Son.  He is telling us that he is still in the Father as a human being.  This Son of the Father has become human forever.  Now at the centre of heaven, we find a human and this human is in the Father.  So the Triune communion now includes a human being!  Before the incarnation of the Son, there was Father Son and Spirit.  Now there is Father, Spirit and Incarnate Son.

The human being who is now part of the Triune Communion is a real human.  He is fully human as we are.  The Son did not just appear as a human.  He became a real flesh and blood human as we are.  Nevertheless, we must be clear that he is now a new human.  The Son came into our real humanity.  He took it down into death to bear the consequences of human sin and then he rose again as the new man who is head of the new humanity.  Following his resurrection, he was taken into heaven to be in the Father as the new human, the new humanity, the new creation.  The human being who is now part of the Triune Community is the new human who is real human as we are.

This is amazing in itself, but Jesus goes on to amaze us even more by saying, “and you in me”. Triune communion now includes a human being and we are in this human being.

What does this say about our relationship to the Triune communion?

The Son is in the Father.  That means he lives inside the Father.  Jesus says we live inside him in the same way.  That means we are included in the Triune Communion.

The triune communion now includes a human being and it also includes us.  We are fully included in the communion.

Does that mean we become divine?  The early church fathers used to say that the Son become human so that we might become divine. Is that so?  We do not become divine in the sense that we now share in the divine being.  Nevertheless, we do share in the Son’s life in God.  In union with the Son, we share fully in his own unique life in his Father.

That means we share in his continuing love relationship with the Father.  The Son is fully loved by his Father. On earth he heard the Father say, you are my son whom I love with you I am well pleased.  The Son continues to live loved by Father.  In union with the Son, that which is his becomes ours.  He is loved fully; we are loved fully. If I say, God does not really love me then I am saying God does not really love his Son.  I am in the Son.  Everything that is true of him is also true of me. He is the Father’s beloved Son and I am the Father’s beloved son in union with him.   Here lies the deepest truth about us.

Baxter Kruger says,

Staggering and startling as it is, it remains the great truth about us.  It is the secret of our existence. It may be veiled to us, hidden from our sight and very far removed from the way we see ourselves and our lives; nevertheless, it is true. The eternal Son became human. As a human being, he knows his Father inside and out, and dwells in faithfulness and security, joy and freedom with his Father in the Spirit. And we have been included in his incarnate relationship with his Father. We are included.

What does all this mean to us in our daily living?

I want to look answer that question by considering Belonging and Becoming.

Belonging

One of the most important things in human life is Belonging. We really find our true identity in knowing we belong.  This is not so strong in our individualistic culture.  Each individual seeks to find his or her identity in  what I acquire or what I achieve.  But this 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.  Identity is communal and relational.

Jesus tells us that we belong to the Triune Communion.  The Triune communion now includes a real human being and we are in that human being.  That means we belong.  And in that belonging we know who we are.  Or is it not better to say that in this belonging we find who we are by knowing Whose we are.  In union with the Son we belong  in the Triune Communion.

Our belonging is Sure. It is sure because we belong in union with the incarnate Son.  Our belonging does not depend on us or anyone else.  It simply depends on union with the Son.  He belongs as a new human being within the Triune Communion and we belong in union with him.

Our belonging us Real. This is not an imaginary belonging.  We don’t just say it is a great idea to lift us up, but it is not real.  Our union with the Son is real.  The Son united himself with us in our humanity and remains united with us in our humanity as the new man.  And the Spirit, through faith, unites us to him.  The Spirit brings us to faith in Christ by revealing Christ to us.  Then, having brought us to faith, the same Spirit engrafts us into Christ.  Being in Christ is not just an idea it is a reality through the Spirit.

You can sense something of how real it is when you hear Paul’s words to the Colossians,

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, 3for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ who is your* life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory (Colossians…3.1ff).

Becoming

We already belong to the Triune Communion.  We are now called to become who we are in our daily experience.  We are to become Son’s and daughters who actually live in the communion that is already ours.

It is very important that we see our call to actual communion in terms of belonging followed by becoming.  If we fail to see that we already belong in the Son’s relationship with the Father we will be left ever striving for our own union with God.

We will always be on the performance treadmill trying to move towards union with God by doing our best to appease him and by doing our best to use techniques to gain union with God.  We will always fail in this pursuit and so we will never be at rest in God. We must see that we already belong. We cannot be more in union with the Father than we already are.  And within the joy of this belonging we seek to become who we already are in our daily experience.

Evangelicals are fond of talking about each person’s own relationship with God.

I am then expected to pay a lot of attention to pursuing my own personal relationship with God  But should we talk about my personal relationship with God?  Should we not rather talk about Jesus’ relationship with his Father and my participation in that relationship as the main thing?You are not a lone ranger, striving for your own relationship with the Father.  You are always included in Jesus’ relationship with the Father.  John’s gospel is the stunning news that the Father’s Son has received us into his relationship with the Father.  Jesus has included us in his life with his Father in the Holy Spirit. So it might not be right for us to talk about our relationship with God.  What John points us to his something better – we get to share in the Son’s relationship with his Father.  The Fathers’ Son has become human to lift us up into himself and his relationship with his Father.

We aim to become who we already are in our daily experience.  But we do not do this alone.  Jesus says, you in me, and I in you.  The Son is in us by the Spirit to enable us to become who we are in our daily experience.  We will explore that next time.

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I am in my Father

Posted on February 14, 2010 by David Cartledge

The purpose of the Triune communion is inclusion.  The three want to include us in their communion of love.  More specifically, we saw that the purpose of the Triune Communion is to adopt us into the Son’s relationship with the Father so that we share in their fellowship.  We can now say with John, “Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son…

In this post, I want to look at this same purpose of inclusion as we hear of it from the mouth of Jesus himself in John 14:20.

I am in my Father

and

you  in me

and

I in you.

Jesus tells us that we are all In One another.

I am in my Father

It’s odd for us to talk about being “in” another person.  We usually talk about togetherness as being “with” someone else.  Why does Jesus say he is “in” the Father?

I think that ultimately, we will have to admit that we don’t really know what “in” means.  Jesus is taking us into depths that leave us out of our depth.  The best place to begin is to say we don’t really know what is going on.Nevertheless, we can look at Jesus in the Father in three ways.

Father and Son are One in Doing

Earlier in this passage, we hear one of Jesus disciples say, “Lord show us the Father”.  Jesus replies whoever has seen me has seen the Father.  Then he elaborates with these words,

10Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.11Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.

14.10-11

The works that Jesus is doing are the works of the Father.  Whatever Jesus does the Father is doing because the Son and Father are in each other.  You cannot separate them.  When the Son works to help people the Father is working in him.  They are in one another.  So Jesus can say if you have seen me you have seen the Father.

All through the gospel of John you see Father and Son in one another in doing.  Right at the start John speaks about God creating all things through the Son.  We go on and see the Son always looking towards the Father to see what he is doing and moving with the Father into healing people and teaching people and liberating people.  He always listens to the Father and responds to what he says and does. Jesus moves towards his death on the cross only at the time that set by the Father.  He must offer himself to the Father on our behalf in the Father’s time because he does all in union with the Father.  You cannot separate Father and Son they always live and move and act together.  They always have and they always will.  The Son is always in the Father.

Father and Son are One in Loving

God is love. And in Jesus prayer to the Father, recording in John 17, Jesus speaks about in-ness as oneness in love.  The Father loves the Son giving himself entirely to the Son.  The Son loves the Father giving himself entirely to the Father.  Between Father and Son there is a continual movement of self-giving that is total.  And the Son’s self-giving love towards the Father is so deep that it can only be described as being in the Father. There is no separation, no distance or withholding.  Rather there is full freedom to know and be known, unqualified appreciation and unreserved embracing,  complete sharing and self-giving.

All through John’s gospel we see Jesus indwelling the Father in love relationship.  Every step he took was with the Father in love.  All through we see the main thing is the Son’s love relationship with his Father.

Father and Son are One in Being

Before the Son became human, he was in the Father so that they were One in Being. John opens his gospel by telling us that the Son was with God and was God.  As a human, we hear Jesus take the Divine name “I Am” to himself.  And towards the end of John’s gospel Thomas falls before him saying, “My Lord and My God”.  In this broader context when Jesus says, “The Father and I are One” he means more than one in will and purpose. Father and Son are One in Being.

We saw previously that the church came to speak about this mutual indwelling as “perichoresis”.  The word has the idea of one thing containing another.  The Son contains the Father.  The Father contains the Son.  Both Father and Son contain one another in the unity of the Spirit.  The Father contains the Son in himself so that they live inside one another.  Yet the Son remains the Son distinct from Father and Spirit.

This perichoretic unity shared by the divine persons goes beyond any kind of unity found within creation. It is deeper than anything experienced between the closest human persons.  We cannot grasp this.  It is the mystery of the Trinity.

The Son was always in the Father.  Then the Son became human.  He did not just appear as a human he became fully human as one of us.  Here, in John 14.20, he is speaking to us as the incarnate Son.  He is telling us that he is in the Father as a human being.

This Son of the Father has become human forever.  He didn’t unzip his human skin when he returned to the Father, he remained fully human.  Now at the centre of heaven, we find a human and this human is in the Father, he mutually indwells the Father.  He is in the Father and the Father is in him.

Do Father and Son still live inside one another as fully as they did before the Son became human?

The incarnate Son is still in the Father.  He is still one in Being with the Father.  They still live inside one another and always will even though the Son remains fully human forever.

We don’t really know what is going on when Jesus says that he is in the Father as a human being.  He is taking us into depths that leave us out of our depth.  Nevertheless, we must see that he is telling us something that is truly amazing.

He is telling us that 

the Triune Communion now includes a human being!

Why would the Son of God become human?  He had no need of this.  He has forever known his Father and enjoyed his Father’s full attention and affection.  He has forever shared in the fellowship of life with his Father in the Spirit.    Why would he become human?  Was it because of some deficiency in his fellowship with the Father?  Was it because of boredom?  The only reason to become human was to include us in the Triune Communion. We will explore this as we consider the next statement,

“You in me”.

Triune communion now includes a human being and we are in this human being.

What does this say about our relationship to the Triune communion?

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One Purpose in Communion

Posted on February 7, 2010 by David Cartledge

Within the communion of three persons, there is a single purpose.  This single purpose is born out of the self-giving love of the three.  And the three persons are always together in achieving this single purpose.

What is this One purpose shared by the three?  We can state this purpose in a few sentences.

The purpose is to extend the communion of love to include us.  The three say this communion of love is too good to keep to ourselves we want to open it up to include others.  The one purpose of Triune communion is inclusion. The three want to draw us within the circle of their shared life and love.

We can also say what the single purpose is in a word-Adoption.  The purpose of Triune Communion is to adopt us into the Son’s love relationship with the Father in the Spirit.  We sometimes speak about receiving Christ into our lives.  But God’s purpose is that the Father’s Son might receive us into his life.  In his life, we are adopted sons and daughters sharing in his love relationship with the Father.

We can look at the One purpose in communion as adoption before time, within time and beyond time.

The Purpose of Adoption BEFORE TIME

Paul tells us that before the world was made,

“In love God destined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will… (Ephesians1.5)

Before time, God destined us to adoption.He destined us to adoption in love.  He destined us to adoption in his son.   He did this so that as adopted sons and daughters we would share in his love relationship with the Beloved Son.

If we want to understand who we are and why we are here, then we must begin with the communion of the Father and Son in the Spirit.  This relationship holds the answer to the “why” of creation, the “why” of your life and mine.  When we start with the Triune communion the purpose of creation emerges.  The Father, Son and Spirit created the human race to share what they have together with us.  They brought us into existence so that we might share in the Son’ love relationship with the Father in the Spirit.   The One purpose arising out of the triune communion, before time, is our adoption into the Son’s relationship with the Father.

The purpose of Adoption WITHIN TIME

God’s purpose before time was that we might be adopted in to the Son’s relationship with the Father so that we might participate in the triune communion.  But humanity chose to reject this and go 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 communion.

According to Galatians 4.4-6, The Triune God moved into action the in “The fullness of time” or “When the time was fully come”.  At this time God moved in two ways.

God sent his Son (v4, 5)

4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

The Father and Son enjoy love relationship with one another.  Out of this love relationship, the Father sent the Son to become human.  He sent him with the purpose that we might be adopted as sons (the term sons includes daughters).

Seeing the incarnation this way has great meaning for us.  Irenaeus, of the church Father’s, used to say,  He became what we are that we might become what he is.  He became what we are- human.  That we might become what he is-sons.  He is the Father’s Son, the unique son.  We become what he is, son’s and daughters of the Father.  We become sons and daughters because of our union with The Son

In what sense are we now sons in union with the Son?

Some point to our legal status.  Adopted sons have a legal status.  So we have the full legal rights to be sons and daughters of God.  The NIV highlights this in the way it translates Galatians 4:4

4 But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5 to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.

The western side of the church has always stressed the legal aspects of salvation.  That’s why so much is said about the need for a change in status.  We major on justification by faith as right status before God.  Adoption follows this right status as the full legal rights of adopted sons.

We must ask two questions at this point?

Is it true that adoption refers to our legal status as Sons and daughters of God?

Yes.

Is our adoption as sons and daughters more than legal status?

Yes.

The full truth is God’s Son became what we are so that we might become what he is.  He is the Son of God in love relationship with the Father.  He doesn’t just have a legal status as son, he is in love relationship with his Father.  We are now in union with the Son so that we become what he is.  We share in his love relationship with the Father.

But in church as we have known it, has this relational side been under emphasised and the legal side over emphasised?

God sent his Spirit v6

6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

Note that the Spirit is identified here as the Spirit of God’s Son. The Son was sent into the world to make us sons.  Now the Spirit of that same Son is sent into our hearts.

The Spirit of God’s Son cries Abba Father within us.  Abba is the Aramaic word for Father. It means something like Papa.  While God’s Son was on earth, he addressed God as abba.  In the garden we hear him pray,

‘Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want’ (Mark 14:36).

The Spirit of God’s Son now cries the same abba within our hearts.

As the Spirit cries abba within us are we mere spectators of the Son’s love relationship with abba?We may observe this love relationship as mere spectators.  We ponder passages of scripture.  We read books to help us ponder better.  We stand back and see the sheer beauty of this love relationship between Father and Son.  It may be moving to do so.  Yet we are mere spectators.

Father and Son want us to move from spectators to participators. They want to include us.  They don’t want to keep the love relationship to themselves.  They want to open the circle and bring us in so that we actually participate in the love relationship.

The Spirit of God’s Son is the one who enables us to participate.  Through the Spirit of God’s Son within us, the son’s own abba before the Father cries out within us as we share in the Son’s relationship with abba.In heaven, Jesus speaks his own abba before the Father and his abba is echoed in us through the Spirit of the Son within us.  This is sharing in the Son’s abba relationship in the Spirit.

Because of our individualist mindset, you may view this participation as an individual in isolation. The Spirit cries abba within my heart.  And so I, as an individual, participate in the Son’s love relationship with the Father.

But Paul is speaking here about participating communally in the Son’s love relationship with the Father.  All the pronouns are plural.

This is the Purpose of adoption within time. It is the purpose that flows from the heart of the Triune Communion

The Purpose of Adoption BEYOND TIME Roman 8.18-23

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

In this passage, Paul personifies Creation .  It is like a person longing for something big in the future.  What is creation eagerly longing for?  It waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.  In God’s new world to come the sons of God will be revealed in full freedom and glory.  Then the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

For all this, the creation groans with longing.

Paul goes on to say,

“And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,  groan inwardly as  we wait eagerly for adoption as sons”.

In these words we hear the tension of the already and not yet.  God’s Sons and daughters already have the firstfruits of the Spirit.  We already have the Spirit as the Spirit of God’s Son, the Spirit of adoption.  In the Spirit, we enjoy the already of our adoption.  Paul speaks of this earlier in the passage

15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, Romans 8:15-16

Nevertheless, the fullness of our adoption is not yet.  And so we groan within us as we wait for the fullness of our adoption.

  • In that fullness, our bodies will be resurrected so that we share the resurrection body of God’s Incarnate Son.
  • In that fullness, we will enjoy the freedom and glory of the sons and daughters of God.
  • In that fullness, we will participate fully in the Triune Communion.

In, freedom, and glory we will share in the Son’s relationship with the Father in the Spirit.  This is the finale of the One purpose of Triune communion.

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Posted on January 31, 2010 by David Cartledge

Three Persons in Communion

In our Western culture we are very individualistic.  That means we see ourselves as individuals and we even relate to God as if he were an individual.  But God is not an individual.  His Oneness is not the oneness of a self-contained individual.  It is the unity of a community of  persons.  God is a Triune Community.

We use the word “community” in different ways.  The word may mean all the people who live in a particular area or place. He is well liked by people in the community.  The word may also mean a group of people who are similar in some way.  We talk about the black community and the business community.  Community may also mean friendship between different people or groups, and a sense of having something in common.

All of these fall short of what we mean when we say that God is Community.  With that in mind, I want to look at God as Three Persons in Communion.  The term communion takes us into a deeper personal oneness.

We can consider this communal life of God in two ways.

(1) Mutual Self-giving

God is love (1 John 4.10).   John does not say God has love or God is loving.  He says, “God is love”.  God loves because that is who he is.

When we hear the words “God is Love” we usually think first of God’s love towards us.  However, before we see God’s love to us we must see God as love within himself.  Our God is love because he is three persons in love relationship.    The Father has always loved the Son.  The Son has always loved the Father.  These two have always loved one another in the love of the Spirit.

Love expresses itself in self-giving.  And that is how God is love within himself.  The Father loves the Son and always gives himself to the Son.  The Son loves the Father and gives himself to the Father.  The Spirit gives himself to both the Father and the Son.

Royce Gruenler writes about this self-giving love within God as three persons. He says that within God’s love relationship there is what he calls “disposability”.  Each of the three persons is at the disposal of the others.  The Father is always at the disposal of the Son making himself available to him.  He is always there for the Son expressing his delight in him as the beloved with whom he is well pleased.  The Father is glad to put the spotlight on his Son as the one he wants to honour.  The Son always at the disposal of the Father deferring to the Father by seeking to do his will in all things.  He always looks to see what his Father is doing.  He always listens to hear what his Father is saying to him.  His face is always turned towards the Father in desire and delight.  He is always actively serving the Father to advance his purpose in the world.  He defers to the Father out of self-giving love for the Father.  The Spirit is always at the disposal of both Father and Son by making himself almost anonymous as he serves them.  He seems only to desire that they be honoured by all.   The Spirit is honoured most as he enables others to forget him and glorify the Father in the Son.

In Jesus, we see God as three persons in self-giving love towards one another.  That points us to what God has always been and always will be.  There has always been within God a movement of love between three persons.The three are always towards the others and for the others in mutual self-giving.   We are glad to see God is love towards us.  But what God is towards us flows out of what he is within himself.  All three persons give themselves freely and fully to us as the overflow of their self-giving love within themselves.  All three persons are there for one another as they  put themselves at our disposal

Kevin Giles writes about God as a “fellowship and communion of equals who share all that they are and have in their communion with each other, each living with and for the others in mutual openness, self-giving love, and support; each free not from but for the others”.

(2) Mutual Indwelling

Jesus said, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me”. Therefore, to see the Son was to see the Father.  He also said, “I and the Father are One.  They are one because Father, Son and Spirit indwell one another.  The Father is in the Son, the Son is in the Father and the Spirit is in the Father and the Son.  They are in one another mutually.

The church came to speak about this mutual indwelling as “perichoresis”.  The word has the idea of one thing containing another.  The Son contains the Father.  The Father contains the Son.  Both Father and Son contain the Spirit and the Spirit contains both Father and Son.  All three persons contain one another fully and yet they remain distinct as persons.  The Son contains both Father and Spirit wholly within himself.  Yet the Son remains the Son distinct from Father and Spirit.

Perichorises is mutual indwelling.  Each person penetrates the others and is penetrated by them.”  Each person fully contains the others and is contained by them.  This isn’t easy to grasp.  A can contains soup but soup does not contain  the can.  We dip a bucket into the sea so that the sea contains the bucket and the bucket contains the sea, but this is not the same as three persons wholly containing each other.

The distinct Persons of God actually live IN each other!  They so mutually indwell and contain one another that each person is whole God indwelt by whole God.

This mutual indwelling means that we cannot think of the three without thinking of their Oneness.

It also means that we cannot think of the One without thinking of the Three.  Gregory of Nazianzus said that, “No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the splendour of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the One”.  So we cannot ever think of any one person of the Trinity without at the same moment thinking of the other two.

Because the three persons so interpenetrate and indwell each other, when one is present the other two are present also.  It is impossible to encounter one person without also encountering the others.  To meet Jesus is to encounter the Father and the Spirit through him.  When you see the Son you have before you whole God because whole God indwells him.  As the Holy Spirit indwells you, whole God indwells you because whole God indwells the Spirit.  That’s how the Father and Son make their home within you by the indwelling Spirit.

Kevin Giles writes, “The unity of God is not to be thought of in terms of one substance but rather as the most intimate, the most loving and most profound triune communion…What grounds this divine union and communion is the mutual interpenetration of the three divine persons.”

So we see Triune Communion as mutual self-giving and mutual indwelling.  The Father, Son and Holy Spirit dwell in one another and exist for one another in such a way that each is who he is only in his relations with the others.

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The Faceless God

Posted on January 24, 2010 by David Cartledge

Jesus is the Face of God.  That means all our thinking about God must start with Jesus. He is the unveiling of God.  As we look at Jesus we are able to see the inner life of God.  We see the internal relations of God as Father, Son and Spirit in personal communion.

But is Jesus the starting point for thinking about God in Western Theology? I suggest that in the west our thinking about God begins the Being of God as One essence or substance.  That means that we live before God as the Faceless Being of philosophical theism.

This Faceless Being was Aristotle’s God.  Aristotle ( 384-322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato.  He saw God as timeless, changeless and passionless.  For Aristotle, God was the “unmoved mover”.  Aristotle’s God lives in splendid isolation within his own perfection.

The theologian, Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), was greatly influenced by Aristotle.  We can see this in the way that Aquinas defined God.  He decided, on logical grounds, that the investigation of the One God must come before that of the Triune God.  We must first explore the essence of God as the “simple, perfect, infinite, omnipotent, omnipresent, immutable, eternal, impassable, one.  Notice that the One Essence was his starting point.  Only after exploring fully the essence of God in terms of these abstract attributes can we move on to consider God as Trinity and then later still, God in Jesus.

The English Puritans also made the Faceless Being their starting point.  Question 4 of their Westminster shorter catechism asks, What is God?  There is a problem with that question? The catechism does not ask Who is God, but What is God?  From the start, we are to think of God as a “What” rather than a “Who”.

So what is God according to the catechism?

“God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth”.

This answer raises some questions about their view of God:

Is this the very first thing you want to say about God?

Would you describe this God as a Faceless Being?

Could this God be Allah?

In Western Theology, thinking about God begins with this abstract essence or substance.  We explore the attributes of the Essence.  The Being of god is infinite, eternal, immutable, omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. Having fully defined the One Being, we move on to look at the Triune God, but mostly in terms of proofs texts and perplexing puzzles.  Then, a long way down the line, we look at Jesus.  We say Jesus is God.  What we mean is Jesus is this Divine Being, this essence. We then have to fit Jesus into the Essence.

Does all this have any practical bearing on our daily walk with God?  I think it does.  Too many people have in their hearts the vague fear that God may turn out to be different from Jesus.

Thomas Torrance says,

“We fear that there may be “Behind the Back of Jesus” some dark inscrutable God, some arbitrary Deity of whom we can know nothing”.

Before this vague nameless dread, we can only quake and shiver as he withers our souls.    If this God has a face at all, it is frowning on us with continual displeasure over our failures to measure up to his perfection and rules.

Will God turn out to be different from Jesus?  He tells us clearly, “I and the Father are One”.   He also says, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father”.  What Jesus is and does the Father is and does.  They are one in being.  There is, in fact, no God behind the back of Jesus.  The only God is the one that we see and meet in Jesus.  Jesus is the open heart of God towards us. Therefore, God is, not one thing in himself and another thing in Jesus.    He has not shown us one face in Jesus but kept his real face hidden from us.  God is who he is as revealed in Jesus and that is who God will always be for ever.

That is why we must always start our thinking about God with Jesus.  He is the unveiling of God as persons in relation.  We keep Jesus at the centre of our vision of God and allow what we see in him to shape and colour everything else that we say about God.  If we do not begin with Jesus we will all end up living before a FacelessGod that is remote, solitary and turned in on himself in his own perfect Essence.

Thomas Torrance served in World War 2 as a Padre.  He often recalled an event that deeply affected him during the conquest of Italy,

“When daylight filtered through I came across a young soldier (private Phillips) scarcely twenty years old lying mortally wounded on the ground, who clearly had not long to live. As I knelt down and bent over him, he said “Padre, is God really like Jesus?” I assured him that he was … As I prayed and commended him to the Lord Jesus he passed away.”

God is really like Jesus because he is the Face of God.  In the Incarnate Son, God has opened himself up to us his own inner life as three persons in communion.

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Jesus, the Face of God

Posted on January 17, 2010 by David Cartledge

The Father’s Son became human in Jesus.  That means Jesus is the unveiling of God.

18No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son,* who is close to the Father’s heart,* who has made him known. John 1.18

Apart from the Incarnate Son God remains hidden.  We cannot know him.  No one has ever seen God.  No one can ever see God.  He remains hidden from us.  Religion may try to see God but it just comes up with a nameless and faceless being that we call God.  Only in Jesus do we see the face of God.

Thomas Torrance writes,

“When we look into the face of Jesus Christ and see there the very face of God, we know we have not seen and cannot see God anywhere else or in another way but in him, for he is God himself become human, and there is no God except the God who has come and meets us in Jesus”.

Jesus is the face of God.  In him, God has opened himself up to us as he is within himself.  He has shown to us the internal relations of God as a community of love.

In Luke 10.21-22.   We hear Jesus speaking to his Father out of the Triune community of love.

21 At that same hour Jesus* rejoiced in the Holy Spirit* and said, ‘I thank* you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.*

The Son rejoices in the Spirit before the Father.

At Jesus’ baptism, the Father sent the Spirit to remain on Jesus.  Here, in Luke 10.21, we see that the Spirit the Father sent is the Spirit of joy in the Father.  And that joy of the Spirit springs up from the heart of the Son to the Father.  With deep joy, The Son thanks the Father for revealing great things to little children.  Here we see that Life in the Trinity is the Son delighting in the Father with great joy.  That joy is expressed in and by the Spirit.  And the Father always responds by saying. “this is my Son with whom I am well pleased”.  All three persons are included in the expression of joy.

The Son testifies, “all things have been handed over to me by my Father”.

The Son speaks to his Father as Lord of heaven and earth.  His Father is the Sovereign Lord who does what he chooses with all things that he rules over. What the Father has chosen to do is hand everything over to the Son.  Why?  Because he loves his Son and is well pleased with him.  Listen to Jesus,

35The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands.

… John 3:35.

The Son speaks of the exclusive knowing of Father and Son.

22All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son

What kind of knowing is Jesus talking about here?  And why is the knowing of these two persons so exclusive?

Jesus knows who the Father is from within the Being of God. I know myself within my own being as no one else knows me.  The Son knows the Father from within his own being because the Father and Son are one in being.  That means the Son knows the Father more intimately and deeply than anyone can ever know the Father.

The Father and Son know one another personally as one being.  The being of God is love.  God is love.  So at the centre of their knowing is love. In the face of Jesus, we see that God is love towards us and what he is towards us he is within himself.  The Son and Father know one another as one being in love relationship.

The Son claims that we can only know who the Father is as the Son reveals him

22All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’

The Son does not reveal to us as one who has some truth about God to make known.  He is the Father’s Son one in nature with the Father.  He is, therefore, the very unveiling of God in person.  He alone knows who the Father is because he is one with the Father in being.  That means the revelation of God is not the revealing something about God, but God revealing himself out of himself in such a way that he who reveals and he who is revealed are one and the same.

The face of Jesus reveals to us the relating of Father and Son in the Spirit.  We only see God as Father and Son relating to each other.  There is no other way to see God.  We only know the Son as Son relating to his Father.  We only know the Father as Father relating to his Son.

Having spoken to the Father Jesus turned to speak to his disciples.  He said to them,

23  ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! 24For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it…

The disciples see the face of Jesus.  In his face, God is unveiled as persons in love relationship.

This makes them truly blessed!

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