In my last blog, we touched on the concept of the relational Trinity as the Creator of the church.
Let’s not forget how radical this concept of
Plurality-in-Unity was to the first apprentices of Jesus. They would never make
up something so crucial and counter-cultural. They inherited from their Jewish
ancestors and from the Old Testament a fierce allegiance to the one, unique God
(the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4, for
instance). They had a powerful bias against
any other teaching. Nevertheless, the concept of “Trinity” arose out of their experience. In addition to God the
Father,…
“… they had also come to confess Jesus as the risen and exalted Lord. In addition, they were conscious of the ongoing divine presence within their community, a presence provided by the Holy Spirit" (Stanley J. Grenz, Created for Community)”
So the word “Trinity” did not arise as a result of aimless, 1st century, philosophical speculation in an ivory tower think-tank.
Rather these early disciples experienced God’s Three-ness. Certainly, they could make no more sense of the Trinity intellectually than we can. No matter. The Apostles powerfully proclaimed the Trinity as their new worldview. Confusion never stopped these new Christians from worshipping this Plurality-in-Unity, which they had so dynamically experienced as life.
You and I have been fashioned to actively partner with this relational
Community-of-Three, as His intimate allies. It’s who we are. And gives us unimagined
value and worth. Nothing else in life brings this level of satisfaction, living
in alignment with our Genesis 1 & 2 design. This image and likeness of God
is dynamic. Each and every one of us becomes God’s active representatives on
earth, partnering with Him in His plans. We have been fashioned to complete His
assignments together with Him, in different ways and in different arenas.
Through faith in Christ, we have been redeemed and restored to relationship.
Restoration means that God’s people now experience God’s presence and participate
in His own eternal Community of light, love and life. The Trinity makes Himself
a generous love-gift to us. He then
calls His people to experience this life and also to make our lives a generous love-gift
to others in community and in the
world, especially the marginalized and oppressed. The Trinity is our Model for
humanity, persons-in-community made in His image. This is at the core of the
spiritual DNA upon which this dynamic faith-community was built, our dynamic
life-focus.
For more on how this relational Trinity impacts our every day lives, please go to my website: JimFredericks.com
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