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The Trinity of Love – Dean Eaton

Trinity Sunday  –  Dean Eaton

St Petri Lutheran Church Nuriootpa

Reading – Luke 16.12-15 (NRSV)

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

As we gather for the Worship of God on this Trinity Sunday, we recall that the coming of Jesus revealed that what we are dealing with is not have a God who casually meanders around the Universe giving men and women the option of eternal life in Heaven or Hell.

This is no passive benevolent deity. No, here is the Hunter after the hunted, the hound of heaven, the Olympic sprinter in pursuit of the finish line, the Loin of the tribe of Judah pursuing his prey. The youthful romantic in the Song of Songs wooing His lover.  God calls the Church into existence through His Word. He gathers us around Himself to proclaim to us his saving acts in Christ’s life, death and resurrection. He commands us as His redeemed people to daily wait in the upper room and in a mighty rushing wind, with Pentecostal flames of fire we are set upon by the God who has chosen us;https://stpetri.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/20190616_message.mp3

  1. To adopt us into His family – calling us His sons and daughters.

  2. To redeem us by His own blood – giving us victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil.

  3. To grant us an eternal inheritance – being coheirs with Christ.

  4. To fill us with His Holy Spirit of Love having “appointed us to go and bear fruit–fruit that will last.”

  5. We are chosen to be glorified.

Our experience of God is in stark contrast to a world without God. Such a universe was well imagined by novelist John Paul Richter who has portrayed this sense of forsakeness and desolation in his novel ‘Siebenkas.’

Falling asleep on a quiet hillside, he has a ghastly dream vision of a Christ who has lost his heavenly Father and who confesses that he has been wrong, that he has misled men into a false faith and lulled them into false security. “We are the orphans all, both I and ye. We have no Father.” Tearfully this Christ confesses that he has journeyed through the infinite cosmos, and nowhere has he found a Father. He has met with nothing but the dreadful emptiness of the universe.

Shattered and shaken, this disillusioned Christ sums up his vain passage through the cosmos: “Oh, dead, dumb nothingness!” necessity endless and chill! Oh, mad, unreasoning Chance!… Every soul in this great corpse-trench of a universe is utterly alone! I am alone-none by me. O Father! Father! where is that boundless breast of thine, that I may rest upon it?

Jean Paul’s terrible vision ends with the sleeper’s wakening from his nightmare.

He hears the evening church bells ringing and finds that he is back in a comforting world which rests in the hands of the Father of Jesus Christ. And so he finds again his faith in that “boundless breast’ in which beats a heart that cares for us all. This one divine being is tri-personal, and these three are joint partakers of the same nature and majesty of God. In other words they are ‘one’ in the sense that they possess,a) The same nature – Holy love. b) The same power – Knowledge & authority. c) The same purpose – To have an eternal family. d) The same intention – To love their creation.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all the time giving and receiving from one another.

Before anything was created God was love. The society of the Godhead (trinity) has always been together in love. Allah — the God of Islam is one God, however, Muslims do not believe in a trinity. But if God is not a trinity how could God’s nature be love before the creation if there was no-one to love? Plus, if Jesus and the Spirit are not co-equal with God the Father then we are dealing with a remote God who has only ever sent agents of himself.

Jonathan Edwards said; “It seems to be God’s design to admit the church into the divine family as his son’s wife. The end of the creation of God was to provide a spouse for His Son Jesus Christ, that might enjoy him and on whom he might pour forth his love…Heaven and earth were created that the Son of God might be complete in a spouse. The spiritual marriage of the spouse to him, is what the whole creation labours…..to bring to pass.” This continuous action of the Godhead in mutual glorification, giving and serving spilled over in the creation of the universe, humanity, and all livings creatures. God did not create because He was lacking in something but rather because He had everything.  The Divine family, therefore, has always intended to have a family. Even before the creation.

The end goal of all the work of the Spirit is to bring us as the bride into the divine family.

The three persons inter-dwell (cf John 17:20ff), that is they find their fulfilment in one another not within themselves. Therefore they naturally do three things which mark all divine relationships, and should be part of human relationships; 1. They SERVE one another. 2. They GLORIFY one another, and, 3. The GIVE to one another.

Jesus said in John 15:9 – “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.”  How exactly has the Father loved the Son?

John 13:3 – “…the Father had put all things under his power.” John 3:35 – The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. (Heb.1:2) John 5:17-26 contains almost a summary of most of the things that the Son has received from the Father. John 5:17-20 – The Gift of Work. John 5:21 – Authority to raise the dead. John 5:22 – Authority to judge the world. (Jn. 17:2; Matt. John 28;18; 1 Cor. 15:27; Eph. 1:20-22; Phil. 2:9-11; Heb. 2:8). John 5:23 – Honour. (Acts. 2:36) John 5:26 – Authority to give life.

Then between chapters 6 -13 in John we see some further ways that the Father has given to his Son. John 6:27 – The Seal of Approval. John 6:37-39 – Assurance of his inheritance – us. John 8:54 – Glory – The Father manifested or revealed himself through Jesus. (Heb. 2:9; John 1:8;3:13;8:42;17:5,24). John 10:30 – Oneness. (John 17:18-24). John 12:50 – The Truth to speak. John 13:3 – All Things Under His Power.

All of these gifts of the Father to the Son are done by the witness and the power of the Spirit. The Father having given the Kingdom to His Son we then see the Son giving it back to the Father – 1 Cor. 15:24; “Then [comes] the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father…”

Here we see the Son completing the work of being the first fruits of many sons and daughters. Bringing them into the circle of eternal love – the true family of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This happens by the will of the Father, through the sacrifice of the Son, by the drawing power of the Holy Spirit.

The Father loves Jesus His Son, Jesus in turn calls, redeems, sanctifies, and glorifies us, then we see the Son giving us to the Father at the end of the age.

John 15:9 – “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.”

Can we now begin to understand something of the height, depth, and scale of Jesus love for us as his bride?  Can we now see that the end goal of all the work of the Spirit is to bring us as the bride into the divine family?  Can we now see that the God our Father calls us all into the life of the Trinity now and forever.

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