To really know a person means to have a deep and intimate union with that person. The knowing is about more than information; it’s about intimacy. Knowing someone is far more than knowing about someone. Jesus came to lead us into an intimate experience with God. A kind of reunion with God through our union with Christ. Because Jesus is the focus of the gospel (good news), to get to know Jesus is God’s full revelation of himself. This is the message of the incarnation, God becoming one of us, is the heartbeat of the gospel. God is not “up there” somewhere, but right here, with us and in us for God is love.
God is Love
He initiated making us, and then when we went astray, he initiated saving us. First he chose leaders, then he gave the law to show us how to live, and then he sent prophets to help us correct our course. Eventually, God came down himself as one of us. But it doesn’t stop with Jesus. Jesus told us that the Holy Spirit would infuse our minds with the mind of Christ. Reminding us of his teaching, convicting us when we stray, and encouraging us when we suffer wrong.
The Bible says plainly that “God is love,” and it is in the nature of love to share, to expand, to create and sustain life. So the Bible begins with the story of God’s choice to create. We are the result and expression of God’s love life. Love exits within the matrix of relationship. Love exits within and between persons. Relationship is the sinew that connects persons in order for love to move between them. For love is only love when it is moving between and with persons. While there may be relationships without love, there will never be love without relationship. So when God decided to expand and extend his love through relationship by creating us, the Bible record that God spoke to himself in the plural: “Then God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” God is love, and therefore God is persons-in-relationship.
Persons in Relationship
- There are three ways the Bible depicts God – three “persons” God is identified with: God is Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, who is also called the Son of God. God is the Father, whom Jesus talks about and talks to. And God is the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus sends to live with us and within us.
- These three persons, magnifications, aspects of God, are never treated as three gods, nor are they just three roles the one God plays. They are three distinct personalities within the oneness of God.
It means that God is inherently relational. He is community in unity. He is plurality in oneness. In Christian theology, we call this the Trinity. And this is what makes it possible to claim “God is love.” This eternal and abundant Love that we call “God” chose to invite more persons into divine relationship. Through us, God amplifies divine love into all creation. This is our origin, our purpose, and the context for everything that follows. This is who we are and why we’re here.
We should live our lives each day with our minds set on things above. That doesn’t mean we ignore what is going on in the world around us. Quite the contrary. To set our minds on the things above means that we put Jesus first. His mind first, his perspective first – and Jesus teaches us how to look at the world around us with a fresh sense of compassion, empathy, and involvement. This also means that we can begin now to live the life that lasts forever – our eternal life now.
Jesus not only restates that he will be in us (along with the Father and the Spirit), but also specifies that the love the Father has for Jesus will also be with us. Jesus wants us to be filled with not only the presence of God, but also an ongoing experience of the love that flows between the persons of the Trinity. It isn’t just the person of God who comes to dwell with us. It is the relationship of God that comes to dwell within us. Jesus is the one who opens the door for us to experience not only God’s love for us, but also the love of God within God that the members of the Trinity have for each other. Now we can live every moment of every day surrounded by, infused with, and engaged with the love relationship that we call “God.”