LIFE IN THE TRINITY

Saul of Tarsus was a zealous Jew who seemed to think that God called him to severely punish those who were hindering God’s righteous purposes.  That meant he was ardently opposed to Jesus and his followers. However, a very different God met him on the road to Damascus. This God came to Saul declaring love for those Saul once hated. Indeed, in this encounter, God also showed that he loved Saul even as he was filled with hate and murder.  

This encounter transformed Saul.  He now loved what he once hated. The one Saul hated most was Jesus but now this hated Jesus meets Saul embracing him with love. In this encounter, Jesus also called Saul to share his love with the Gentiles.  How could Saul do this?  Naturally, Saul hated the Gentiles and only wanted to tell them how God hated their ways and was bent only on punishing them severely. Nevertheless, he is now called to tell the Gentiles how much God loved them and wanted them. This revelation of love was unexpected and involved a massive reorientation. He was moving wholeheartedly in one way, and then suddenly he was heading in a radically different direction. This shift happened because God intervened dramatically in a revelation of the risen Jesus changing everything.  

The unveiling of Jesus to Saul on the road to Damascus made everything new.  He now had a new understanding of who God really is through the unveiling of Jesus by the Spirit.  He entered into a new way of living: sharing in Jesus’ communion with the Father by his Spirit.  And also, a new vocation: sharing in the mission of Jesus in the Spirit on behalf of the world and the whole cosmos.

When I first came to faith, I knew very little about God. However. in my journey, I soon became serious about knowing who God is and what he is like.  I realised that I needed to think hard about who God is. So, I read books on knowing God. However, I did not see that I needed to think first about how we know God.  I failed to see that the way we know God determines the kind of knowledge we have of him. So what is the right way of knowing God?  Where do we find out what God is really like? We continue using our minds to discover who God is and what he is like. Nevertheless, we must humbly accept that we are not in charge of knowing God. Knowledge of God begins with God’s desire to make himself known and it happens as God unveils himself through Jesus and by his Spirit. We come to know God in living encounters as those now known by God.  

Knowledge of God is relational and given relationally as he encounters us through Jesus and by his Spirit. And our knowing grows ever deeper from inside the circle of our life within the Triune Communion and not from without?  Within that communion, we pray with Paul that we may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,  and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Are we able to discover who God is by our own reasoning?If you ask people about God, they may say, I think God is… In their own minds, they decide what God is like or even if he exists.  That isn’t where we should begin.  God has shown us what he is like by unveiling himself through Jesus and his Spirit.  That means we always begin by saying, God is like Jesus.  

Through Jesus, God unveils himself showing who he is as Love. In love, the Father’s Son came to us as a human person.  He participated freely and fully in our human plight, going down to the very lowest place on the cross. He faithfully walked towards the cross in self-giving love for us.  In this dark event, God unveils himself showing who he is as Love. 

How do we come to know this truth of God as Love? Jesus tells us that he is the way and the TRUTH and the life. He is the truth about God because he is the true God.  He is the truth about us because he is the True Human.  We come to know him as the truth as he encounters us personally by the Spirit of Truth.  And so, this truth is personal.  The risen Jesus comes to us in personal encounters as the presence of God with us and for us as one of us. We do not know the truth in this dynamic way constantly and perfectly.. Far from it! The point is that Jesus is the truth coming to us personally by the Spirit of truth

Through Jesus, we see that divine persons are persons in relation. They are who and what they are in distinction from and yet in relation to one another within the one communal being of God. The Father is different from the Son and the Spirit.  And the other two persons are different from the Father and each other.  Each person is different and has distinct characteristics.  And yet the differences do not divide them as separate individuals.  In their differences, the three are interrelated with one another. 

Does that change the way we see ourselves as persons?  Should we no longer consider ourselves individuals apart from other persons?  I think so. Jesus shows us that persons are who they are in relation to other persons. That means we should not consider people as individuals who may form relationships.  We are who we are in relations. That means we are called to depart radically from all forms of individualism.  For example, we no longer see the church as a gathering of individuals who come together so that each individual can be blessed and depart to live his or her individualistic life more fruitfully.  The church is essentially a communion of persons in union with Jesus and in him sharing personal communion within the Triune Communion.  Father, Son and Spirit are who they are in in their communal life.  And they have opened up their communal life to include us. And in this communion with the Triune God, we share in his communal life as a Spirit-enabled and Spirit-led communion of persons.  We are definitely not a mere collection of individual believers who come together for the good of the individual.

So often, Jesus speaks about himself, not by pointing to himself, but by drawing attention to his relationship with the Father.  We see him constantly relating to his Father in the Spirit. In this way, he opens the life of God to us as communal. He shows that God is not an individual.  Nor is he a cluster of three individual persons. He is a communion of three persons mutually indwelling one another as One.  The three persons are different but do not live and move as separate individuals. 

But what is a person? We think we know what a person is because we are persons. So the three persons in the One Being are persons just like us. But isn’t that the wrong way around?  Shouldn’t we rather begin with God as he has made himself known through the unique person, Jesus?  In him, we see what a person is.  Jesus is who he is as Son in relation to his Father. The Father is who he is as Father in relation to his Son.  We also are persons in relation to other persons.

In union with Jesus, we share in his communion with the Father by the Spirit.  And within this communion, we learn what it is to be a person.  Indeed, within this communion, we become persons in the way the relational God intends us to be. T. F. Torrance refers to Jesus as the personalising person who personalises us by the personal Spirit.  He does so, as we share his communion with the Father in the Spirit.  In union with him, we become more and more persons in relation to God, one another and all creation. 

Paul tells us that “The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Spirit which has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). Paul is speaking about God’s love for us rather than our love for God.  We know this because he goes on to speak about God’s love for us, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Together, we know that we were once God-rejecting sinners.  Even so, we know we have been deeply loved.  And we know this not as mere deduction, but in living experience.  For the very same love is poured into our hearts by God’s Spirit.  And so, we can live confident of our belonging rather than in fear and bondage (Romans 8:15). Furthermore, we know that nothing, “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (8:35–39). God has loved us, loves us now, and will love us forever.  

In Rom 8:28 we hear about our love for God.  “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God.” Such human love toward God is a response towards the One who showed his love for us through Christ’s death for the ungodly. We who once were God’s enemies now belong to his community of love.  We receive God’s love, return his love and show his love to one another.

May this become more and more a living reality in the Spirit.  For God has destined us to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family (Romans 8:29).

The good news is all about Jesus, the one who loves.  Jesus loved us so much that he entered the depths of the human situation to rescue and redeem us. Truly, he loved us and gave himself freely and fully for us.  And now, as his community, we are to love one another as he has loved us.

This love is communally expressed in reciprocal relationships: “Through love be slaves to one another” (Galatians 5:13), and, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Paul envisages communities in which the fruit of the Spirit is expressed in loving communal relations. Within the Community of God, love is supreme. 

True love is revealed in Jesus.  He modelled life in an intimate love relationship with his Father by the Spirit. He also loved others giving themself to them and for them. However, we do not just imitate the love of Jesus as we admire it from a distance.  The Spirit of God’s Son moves in and among all to form Christ in us. As the Spirit of God’s Son lives in and among us, he enables us to love as Jesus loved us.  Jesus loved each one of us by giving himself for each one of us.  And now he lives in each one of us so that we no longer live but Christ lives in us. He lives in each one to produce his own self-giving love as he is formed in us.  This Christ-like love is the mark of God’s community through his Son in his Spirit.

The good news is all about Jesus, the one who loves.  Jesus loved us so much that he entered the depths of the human situation to rescue and redeem us. Truly, he loved us and gave himself freely and fully for us.  And now, as his community, we are to love one another as he has loved us.

This love is communally expressed in reciprocal relationships: “Through love be slaves to one another” (Galatians 5:13), and, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Paul envisages communities in which the fruit of the Spirit is expressed in loving communal relations. Within the Community of God, love is supreme. 

True love is revealed in Jesus.  He modelled life in an intimate love relationship with his Father by the Spirit. He also loved others giving themself to them and for them. However, we do not just imitate the love of Jesus as we admire it from a distance.  The Spirit of God’s Son moves in and among all to form Christ in us. As the Spirit of God’s Son lives in and among us, he enables us to love as Jesus loved us.  Jesus loved each one of us by giving himself for each one of us.  And now he lives in each one of us so that we no longer live but Christ lives in us. He lives in each one to produce his own self-giving love as he is formed in us.  This Christ-like love is the mark of God’s community through his Son in his Spirit.

God has acted through his Son and by his Spirit to create a community that is now hidden with Christ in God. Indeed, Christ is their life. In union with Jesus, we are called to be different in the way we find our identity and worth before God and one another.  

God expresses his grace towards us without regard to worth.  He accepts all freely as they are and not as they should be.  Christ died for the ungodly and the ungodly may be gladly received and renewed. People may assess the worth of others in terms of race, status, gender, wealth etc. Within God’s new community, all these grounds for competition among people have no significance. Our worth is found in who we are in Christ.  Our identity is a gift received, not a status inherited or achieved. 

God’s Spirit creates and energises the community as well as each member. So the Spirit’s primary manifestation is communal life, not individual ecstasy. To be “in Christ” is to be in relationship with people in whom Christ dwells through his Spirit. It is to share an identity that is always shaped in relation to others within the bond generated and sustained by the Spirit. 

We may slip into thinking about the “fruit of the Spirit” as individual qualities.  However, the fruit is not primarily about my individual virtues, but our communal life.  As the Spirit moves within the community we relate to one another in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me”. A decisive break with the past has taken place. He has already been crucified.  His previous life is now over.  Once he lived as a man under the law striving to keep the law.  Now, he no longer lives as that man.  He now lives as a new man with an entirely new orientation. And yet, it is not Paul himself who lives, but Christ who lives in him. The new life is not humanly generated by human effort or because of human merit. The Spirit of Christ gives the new life as Christ living within him.

We also have been crucified with Christ. Life in Adam under the dominion of darkness  is over.  We have also been raised with Christ into newness of life.  And now we live by the Spirit of Christ expressing our new life as we keep in step with the Spirit. This new life in the Spirit is worked out in the new community.  We have all been crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in all of us.  We are his new community expressing his life together on the public stage. And as Christ’s new community, in the Spirit, we enjoy freedom and the sure expectation that we and all creation will be brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God through Jesus, who is alive and reigns with his Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit.