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Yesterday, we looked at the beauty of encountering the Triune God. Today, I want to focus on how this indwelling by the Holy Spirit takes shape in our lives.

Immersed in Love; Overflow of Love

Augustine’s picture of the Trinity imagines the Holy Spirit as the bond of love between the Father and the Son. The Father is the Lover, the Son is the Beloved, and the Spirit is the Love of the Father for the Son. What, then, does it look like for a believer to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit?

It means that the Father’s love for the Son will be replicated in the believer’s delight in Jesus. The very love that the Father has poured out on Jesus throughout all eternity is the love that is present in our hearts. Whenever you hear the name of Jesus and feel your heart leap for joy… whenever on your darkest days you lean heavily upon the love of God for you shown in Jesus Christ… whenever you are enraptured in worship at the beauty of Jesus Christ’s suffering for your sins – you are experiencing the eternal love of God the Father for His Son! The Spirit of God is residing in you so that the love of the Father for His only Son is coursing through your veins. Your heart is reflecting the Father’s.

That’s why anyone who claims to love God must inevitably love the Son of God. If you claim to love God but not Jesus, you don’t know God. The Spirit is not in you. Likewise, if you claim to honor God but do not honor Jesus, you have no spiritual life in you because the Spirit gives honor and praise to Jesus.

Irenaeus of Lyon said that “the Spirit-filled man is the man who is truly alive.” In other words, only the Christian who is indwelt by God the Spirit is truly alive, living life to the full. Only the Christian knows what it is like to be immersed in the love of God, to participate in the love relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that has been taking place from eternity past. Christians live in love because Love lives in them.

While taking a class on worship in seminary, I remember some discussion about the hymn “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.” Some classmates questioned the theological truthfulness of one line in the last verse: “All who live in love are Thine.” They worried that such a statement could be interpreted as saying, “Everyone who loves belongs to God regardless of their standing with Jesus.” I understand the concern.

But when properly understood, the hymn is quite right. Only the Christian can live in Love because only the Christian understands the very nature of God. Only the Christian has the Spirit of God residing in his heart – the Spirit who allows true love to flow in and then through the heart. Yes, all who live in love (rightly understood) belong to God, and all who belong to God will necessarily live in love.

The apostle Paul believed the goal of Christian teaching is love. This truth brings us back to where we began. If the sum and substance of Christian theology is “God is love,” then the goal of all our sermonizing and catechizing and teaching must be love. God is our goal.

The Trinity is vitally important because it leads us to actually participate in the essence of God’s self-giving love. To be indwelt by the Spirit is to be immersed in the love of the Father for the Son and then to overflow with that love into self-giving actions on others’ behalf as we point them to Jesus.

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