LIFE IN THE TRINITY

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.

Jesus did not come into the world simply to “save” individuals.  He came to create a new community that lives and moves in union with him by the Spirit. In the new community, we don’t live from a centre in ourselves but from a centre in Christ.  We become part of the new community by simply trusting in Jesus, and that is how we continue living in him.  We always fix our eyes on the one we are united to so that we live and move with him, through him and for him.  And we do so as each one in the community says, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me”.  However, we do not simply enjoy Christ living in each of us as individuals.  We are his body, in the Spirit, and “From him (Christ) the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Ephesians 4:16).

This trust in Christ plus nothing is expressed in love as we keep in step with the indwelling Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ creates these Christ-centred communities to live out of the new life the Spirit gives.  In the Spirit, we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. We see his communion of love with the Father in the Spirit.  We see the love of Jesus as he gave himself for us.  And we aim to be attentive to his command to love one another as he loved us.  So, we are unified by the Spirit of Christ in our pursuit of love as we see it portrayed by Jesus. What counts in this new community is faith expressed in love

The Father sent his Son into the world to break the tyranny of sin over us.  He did so, to bring us into the circle of his communal life. We participate in this community as we are baptised into Christ sharing in his dying and rising in newness of life together (Galatians 3 7).  The Father also sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts enabling us to experience his communal life together as Abba’s children. That means our communal life is more than a good idea.  In the Spirit, we share together in God’s communal life of joyful love. 

In this new community, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28). In NT times, people were counted worthy according to these social distinctions.  Males had more value than females and free more than slaves.  And Jews felt they were of more value than Greeks. But in the new community, these have no place in giving worth.  People have worth simply because of Christ plus nothing. We are wholly taken up with Christ as all and in all. Fully attentive to Jesus, we are freed from traditional, hierarchical systems of worth. 

Jesus radically undercuts all our reckonings of worth and gives the only worth that counts. And so, in his new community, we rethink human identity and worth.   We see each one as Abba’s son and daughter in Christ dearly loved and highly valued.