Kenneth Bailey on how Christians in the Middle East have understood the Aramaic word maran atha:

As often observed, this last word can be read maran atha (our Lord has come). This translation addresses the readers and affirms a reality in the present (he is here).

The two Aramaic words can also be divided to read marana tha (Our Lord-come!). This is a request addressed to the risen Lord that looks to the end of all things with the plea “Please come!”

A variant on this second option is, “Our Lord is coming.”  This also looks to the future but it is a statement of fact rather than a plea, and it is not addressed to Jesus.

All three options are linguistically possible, and all three fit Paul’s theology.  The only other occurrence of the Aramaic maran atha is in an early Christian document called the Didache (“The Teaching”), where it appears in a chapter on the eucharist (Didache 10:6).  Some have seen a relationship between maranatha and the Greek of Revelation 22:20, “Amen, come, Lord Jesus!”  What can be said?

Many contemporary scholars have granted the validity of the two major options (present and future) and have opted for the future.  Some have granted that the word atha is a past that reads “has come” and have rejected this option as reflecting ideas that Paul could not have intended.

However the past tense (has come) was preferred by the early fathers of the church. John Chrysostom wrote, “But what does ‘Maranatha’ mean?  Our Lord has come. Why does Paul say this? To confirm what he has said about God’s plan for salvation, which is particularly evident in his discussion of the seeds of resurrection (15:1-58).”

Over the last fifteen hundred years Chrysostom’s interpretations of Scripture have been highly regarded across the Middle East, and they continue to impact the church there.  Furthermore, Syriac, Arabic and Hebrew translations have consistently read maranatha as maran atha and translated it “our Lord has come.” The Syriac Peshitta is particularly important, and its witness cannot be easily dismissed.  Syriac is a sister language to Aramaic, and the roots of the Syriac Peshitta are very early. Some of the early Arabic versions leave the two Aramaic words in the text and divide them like the Syriac, meaning “Our Lord has come.” Others have translated the two words into Arabic or written the Aramaic and then added an Arabic translation that reads, “Our Lord has come.”

Among the twenty-three Semitic versions examined, there is no break in this tradition until the nineteenth century, when two individual efforts (one in India and the other in Lebanon) read the text as “Our Lord is coming.” Finally, two late-twentieth-century versions allow for “Our Lord-Come” as a marginal note, and the most recent version (1993) places this option in the text.  Matthew Black argued that the phrase was popular because of its “ambiguity and hence flexibility: it could be fitted into different contexts, in the Eucharist, as an imprecation, or as a confession (‘The Lord has come’).  When all is said and done, for at least sixteen hundred years Middle Eastern churches have read this cry as a confession. Surely that option deserves serious consideration.

- from Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes: Cultural Studies in 1 Corinthians

100 years ago today, Francis Schaeffer was born. Here are some blog posts and articles that celebrate his contribution to evangelicalism.

Biographical

Know Your Evangelicals: Francis Schaeffer

Remembering Francis Schaeffer: On the Occasion of His 100th Birthday

Impact

Francis Schaeffer Cried for the Culture 

The Dissatisfaction of Francis Schaeffer

Schaeffer in His Own Words

What Would Francis Schaeffer Say to the Gospel-Centered Movement?

A Christian Can Defeat Himself in Two Ways

On the Need for Divine Power

On the Early Christians’ Exclusive Claims

“Why does a doctrine like the Trinity matter?” some ask. After all, the idea of one God existing eternally as three Persons is complex. A brief survey of Christian theology will show you that most heresies are heresy precisely because they get the Trinity wrong.

Even more… is it possible to completely understand the Trinity anyway? If finite human beings are unable to fully exhaust the teaching of the Trinity and full explanations are impossible, then why is it important to get the Trinity right?

Gregory of Nazianzus said in the 4th century:

“It is difficult to conceive God, but to define him in words is an impossibility.”

So words may help us along in our effort, but God will not be bound by them.

Why Bother?

When face to face with such complexity, some may wonder, Why even bother? If the Trinity is so difficult to understand, why spend so much time on it?

The answer is love. Those who love God desire to know Him personally and to know more about Him.

My wife is a complex person. I readily admit that I do not know everything there is to know about her. There are times when I simply cannot figure her out. But my love for her causes me to want to know her better.

If a husband sometimes has a hard time figuring out his wife, surely the human attempt to understand God will be even more difficult. But consider this: if I find great reward in growing in my knowledge of my wife, how much bigger will the reward be for us to grow in our knowledge of the Almighty God!

An Exercise in Love

Understanding the Trinity is not a pointless theological exercise. It is an exercise in love. We are plumbing the depths of the One who loved us enough to create us and then save us. Where our explanations and definitions fail, we go back to our knees.

Isaac Watts ended his Trinitarian hymn “We Give Immortal Praise” with these words:

“Almighty God, to thee be endless honors done,
the undivided three, and the mysterious one.
Where reason fails with all her powers,
there faith prevails, and love adores.”

Bernard of Clairvaux once said:

“It is rashness to search too far into [the mystery of the Trinity]. It is piety to believe it. It is life eternal to know it. And we can never have a full comprehension of it, till we come to enjoy it.”

Indeed. All theological reflection on the Trinity should have as its ultimate end the purposeful enjoyment of the Triune God.

Over at Desiring God, I have contributed an article called, “What Do We Do With Our Slavery-Affirming Theological Heroes?”

When I read the works of men like James P. Boyce and Jonathan Edwards, I am amazed at the depth of their biblical knowledge and the keenness of their personal application. At the same time, I am astounded that these theological giants could justify the owning of slaves, support slavery as a system, and conform to the racial prejudice common in their day.

John Piper is right: “One of the central cadences of the gospel walk is the breaking down of ethnic hostilities and suspicions, and the impulse of unity and harmony” (Bloodlines, 175). So how is it possible to believe the gospel and articulate so clearly the doctrine of justification by faith alone, yet miss how this doctrine severs the root of racism and ethnocentrism forever? Even more, how can one’s life be so out of step with one’s theology? Here are some things to keep in mind as we seek to learn from the good and the bad we see in our fathers in the faith.

Continue reading…

“Bible study won’t change your life.”

OK, I admit to indulging in a bit of overstatement to shock you into recognizing what should be obvious: just because you know the Bible doesn’t mean the Word will bear fruit in your life. It is possible to know the Scriptures, read the Scriptures, revere the Scriptures, and study the Scriptures and miss the point entirely.

Take the liberal scholar who knows the Greek New Testament better than most orthodox pastors. He can quote whole sections of the Bible in its original languages. Definitions of biblical words tumble out of his mouth as he effortlessly places everything in historical context. And yet he does not believe in the Jesus he reads about in the pages of the Bible. Sure, he is endlessly fascinated by the communities that gave us such an interesting artifact of study. But to him, his job is to immerse himself into a world of fables and dreams. The Bible is an epic story with no bearing on reality today.

Or take the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day who were steeped in the rich traditions of their people’s history. The leaders knew the Scriptures backwards and forwards, yet they had missed the signs pointing to the most important chapter in the Story that God was writing – the chapter that had been foreshadowed by the prophets and Bible writers for thousands of years. That’s why Jesus could say: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about Me, yet you refuse to come to Me that you may have life!” (John 5:39-40). He doesn’t condemn them for their meticulous knowledge of the Old Testament. He mourns the fact that they’ve missed the point of it all.

Even today, it’s possible to get so wrapped up in searching the Scriptures that we miss what God is trying to teach us. Consider would-be prophets who scour over the prophecies of Revelation trying to pull out clues and codes about the European Union or the next major ecological catastrophe. Caught up in the thrill, the writers lose sight of Revelation’s main purpose: to unveil Jesus!

Others get bogged down in theological discussions (Calvinism vs. Arminianism, anyone?) until they eventually start coming to the Scriptures to look for more ammunition for their next debate. The Bible quietly gets twisted into a divine reference book designed to uphold a beloved system of theology instead of God’s divine revelation designed to shine light on a glorious Savior.

And then there’s the common type of Bible study that begins with us at the center and brings God into our world to address our already-defined needs and problems. We look at the Bible as a book of divine instruction, a manual for succeeding in life, or a map for making sure we get to heaven when we die.

These ways of studying the Scripture will not result in life transformation. Why? Because they’re missing something. Better put, they’re missing Someone. 

Bible study alone is not what transforms your life. Jesus transforms your life. Of course, He does this through His written Word to us. So we must affirm that life change doesn’t happen apart from God’s Word. But the reason God’s Word changes our life is not because of our personal study but because in the Scriptures we are introduced to Jesus, the Author. That’s why every page ought to be written in red, as every section is breathed out by our King and points us to Him.

It’s possible to amass great amounts of biblical knowledge, to impress people with your mastery of Bible trivia, to creatively apply the Bible in ways that seem so down to earth and practical, to dot your theological i’s and cross your exegetical t’s – and still miss Jesus. Scary, isn’t it?

That’s why it’s not enough to be “Bible-believing” or “Word-centered,” because, after all, the Bible we believe and the Word we proclaim is itself Christ-centered.

The purpose of our Bible study is to know God and make Him known. The Bible unveils Jesus Christ as the focal point of human history. All creation exists by Him, through Him, to Him, and for Him. Our Bible study should exist for Him too. That’s the only kind of Bible study that will change your life.

In June, the Food and Drug Administration announced that, beginning next year, cigarette packs will have graphic pictures plastered on them.

Rotting teeth and gums, people hooked up to breathing machines, a corpse, blackened lungs – these grisly images are the newest attempt by the government to curb smoking. Federal Law will require the warning labels to take up half of the pack, on both sides, by the end of 2012.

Are tobacco companies worried? Not really. Even though the FDA estimates that 213,000 people will stop smoking in 2013, the tobacco companies estimate that their loss of revenue will be less than one percent.

Who is right? The tobacco companies or the FDA?

I’m afraid the tobacco companies are right. Their leaders recognize something about human nature that the FDA does not: Unhealthy behavior cannot be eradicated by merely pointing to the consequences.

The problem of addiction goes much deeper than a warning label. And though the FDA is commendably seeking to put an end to a destructive habit that leads to the premature deaths of thousands of people each year, it is naive to think that grisly images will deter a large number of smokers.

The Church and the “Grisly Label” Approach

Too many times in our churches, when we talk about sin, we share the assumption of the FDA: that people, when given enough information, will make rational, healthy decisions.

Not so.

Sin is irrational. It doesn’t make sense. That’s the whole nature of sinfulness – it goes against the reality of the world we live in. It goes against the grain of our intended submission to the One who has created us.

We might be able to appeal to a person’s willpower to stop engaging in destructive habits. And through common grace, some people may indeed get up the nerve to stop a bad habit.

But we are foolish to think that most people are destroying themselves because they don’t know better. The truth is, we often do know better, and yet we continue on the road to destruction.

Though we know that sin is deep-rooted and irrational, we often act as if sin’s consequences will be the big deterrent to bad behavior. So in youth groups across America, we pass out nasty pictures showing the effects of STDs and tell kids, This is what will happen if you have sex. In marriage seminars, we tell the sad stories of men who lost their families because of a porn addiction, a sexual exploit, or a burst of anger.

We Are Silly Sinners

Now don’t get me wrong. I think we should remind people of sin’s consequences. It is crouching at the door. It has the desire to master us. Be sure your sin will find you out. And of course, we tell a little child to obey or else face punishment (a swift hand to the backside, a time-out, grounding, etc.). One of the ways we learn good behavior from bad behavior is by recognizing that our choices have consequences.

But we are foolish if we think that life change will be rooted in rationality. It’s simply not so. We are silly sinners, engaging in activities we know are destructive to our bodies and souls. Yet somehow we are deceived into thinking we are special, that we will escape judgment. And no matter how many friends die of lung cancer or how many friends contract sexually-transmitted diseases… no matter how many marriages break up because of porn or how many relationships end because of anger, we continue to sin, willfully and (worse) knowingly.

Scared by the Law; Changed by the Gospel

Speaking of the consequences of sinful behavior is good. It’s what the law of God does. It can scare us into temporary obedience. But even as it reveals sinful behavior, it can’t remove and replace a sinful heart.

Grisly images may warn us against the consequences of a bad habit, but they won’t change the heart of a smoker. Only the gospel can change a heart.

What the FDA doesn’t realize (and what many evangelicals forget too) is that sin is a worship-issue. Our destructive behaviors are not just behaviors. They are a symptom of a deeper problem, a root cause – idolatry. Our affections are elsewhere. Our behavior follows our affections. And only the gospel can change the affections to the point that behavior follows.

As I recently read through Crossway’s collection of the Letters of Francis Schaeffer, I was struck by how applicable Schaeffer’s insights are today, particularly in regard to evangelical movements, leaders, and doctrine. His counsel deserves to be heeded by those of us in the “gospel-centered” stream of evangelicalism.

With this in mind, I have selected some favorite excerpts from these letters and woven them together creatively. Using Schaeffer’s own words, I am imagining out loud what counsel he might give us today.

What Francis Schaeffer Might Say to the Gospel-Centered Movement Today

1. Make sure your loyalty to Christ supersedes any loyalty you have for the “movement.”

[Brothers and sisters,] I see the need for Christians across the face of the earth who are indeed brothers in Christ, standing on the fundamentals of the faith and separated from unbelief, to come into personal fellowship one with the other to the praise of our Lord. And yet how quickly such a thing can grow into that which is merely cold, formal, and dead. The cry of my heart is that God may have mercy on us.

I increasingly see the dangers involved in organization, and I do think that most of us get the cart before the horse. That is, we organize first and then go forward, rather than growing close to one another through spiritual and personal contacts and then letting whatever organization grow naturally out of that-as the tree puts forth the leaf and then the bud and then the flower as the Lord leads.

I don’t think [that the deeper spiritual walk is] in antithesis to an organization. And yet, I must say that it does seem to me that so often organization becomes a means to an end in itself. So often it takes so much energy to turn over all the machinery that the work never gets finished. And so often we put the machinery in the place of the Holy Spirit, feeling that if we can just get organized enough then the thing is sure to go on and be successful.

Of course, this is all very wrong, and not only wrong but wicked. We must realize that it is only the Holy Spirit who can give the power, and we must realize that the only motivation which pleases our dear Lord is our love for Him. Merely keeping machinery turning, and getting all mixed up in the self-aggrandizement that so often goes with a large organization, completely casts aside this primary motive of love to the Lord and a dependence then on the one source of true Christian power-the Holy Spirit.

The problem is not one of loyalty or lack of loyalty to a “cause” or “movement.” [The problem is that] loyalty to organizations and movements have always tended over time to take the place of loyalty to the person of Christ… We must urge each other not even to give final authority to principles about Christ, but only to the person of Christ.

2. Don’t let your orthodox doctrine be disconnected from a living relationship with the living Christ.

Doctrinal rightness and rightness of ecclesiastical position are important, but only as a starting-point to go on into a living relationship – and not as ends in themselves.

[Take the Reformation, for example.] The Roman Catholic Church had come to teach the wrong doctrines. And I feel that most of the Reformation then let the pendulum swing and thought if only the right doctrines were taught that all would be automatically well. Thus, to a large extent, the Reformation concentrated almost exclusively on the “teaching ministry of the Church.”

In other words almost all the emphasis was placed on teaching the right doctrines. In this I feel the fatal error had already been made. It is not for a moment that we can begin to get anywhere until the right doctrines are taught. But the right doctrines mentally assented to are not an end in themselves, but should only be the vestibule to a personal and loving communion with God.

The danger of orthodoxy, even true orthodoxy, is in falling off the other side of the knife blade: that is, in stating the intellectual position and then placing a period. What we must ask the Lord for is a work of the Spirit . . . to stand on a very thin line: in other words, to state intellectually (as well as understand, though not completely) the intellectual reality of that which God is and what God has revealed in the objectively inspired Bible; and then to live moment by moment in the reality of a restored relationship with the God who is there, and to act in faith upon what we believe in our daily lives.

3. Live in a way that demonstrates the holiness and love of God.

We must exhibit simultaneously the holiness of God and the love of God. Anything else than this simultaneous exhibition presents a caricature of our God to the world rather than showing him forth.

We are in a day when evangelicals tend to let down the absolutes in the Word of God in doctrine and in life, and we must be careful not to contribute to this. On the other hand, we are in a day when other evangelicals are becoming more and more heartless, and we must be careful not to contribute to this as well.

The problem is in being those who insist upon the absolutes of God and yet show forth beauty to the world, which is strangling for the need of both absolutes and beauty. These things are beyond us in our own strength, but not in His strength as we allow Him to bring forth His fruits through us in this sinful and ugly world and generation.

May the Lord lead you that you not deny His existence through lack of faith, nor deny His character in either His holiness or His love.

4. Rely on the Spirit as you grow in your love for God.

[Remember that] the decisions of a growing work demand that the One who directs be constantly at hand.

It brings me increasingly to my knees – to ask that the Holy Spirit may have His way in my life; that I may not think just of justification and then the glories of Heaven (with merely a battle for separation between). [But that I may also think of] all the wonders of the present aspect of my salvation, and that they may be real to me in my life and ministry.

What a wonderful Lord we have, and how glorious it is to indeed have God as our Father, and to be united with Christ, and to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Oh, would to God that our ministry could be under His full direction, and in His power without reservation.

God really is there. He really does exist, and He made us for Himself. Knowing that He is there, and therefore that we do not live in a silent universe, changes everything. To know that we can speak and that there is Someone who will answer fills the vacuum of life that would otherwise be present. And then, when we realize His love for us as individuals – that Christ really did die for us as individuals, for us personally – life is entirely different.

You need not be afraid to enjoy God. The beautiful thing is that He uses us, but never in the way a soldier would use a gun only to throw it down and take another. He uses us, but He always fulfills us at the same time.

This post is from a Romanian pastor, friend, and former seminary colleague of mine, Ovidiu Patrick. He sent it to me a couple weeks ago, and I asked him if I could share it with others.

Grace.

Gifts.

Gladness.

Gratitude.

All these words are in a logical and theological order. In Greek, they all belong to the same family of words (charis-charisma-chara-eucharisteo).

GRACE (charis)

God is the author and the source of grace. Grace is the best thing that ever happened to man. Without grace we are condemned and lost in God’s divine court.

Grace is not a theory, a myth, or a beautiful idea. Grace is God’s favor for the lost. This divine favor is materialized in God becoming man, in the incarnation that we celebrate year after year on Christmas. Jesus Christ is the ultimate expression of grace.

The grace of God gives the condemned man what he does not deserve – eternal forgiveness and endless life – and does not give man what he deserves – eternal damnation and destruction. To be in God’s grace is to be right with God and to live a free life, free from sin that the law of God condemns and from which it cannot save you.

Grace saves. The law condemns.

Grace takes you out of all sin’s debts. The law shows the eternal debts that man has before God.

Grace has the power to change the man. The law is powerless in changing anybody.

Grace is amazing. The law is frightening.

The law shows you what only grace can do, but from God are both law and grace.

GIFTS (charisma)

Everybody loves gifts. Gifts are free, like grace. Grace doesn’t cost you anything, but it cost God all He had.

God loves to give gifts to His children. The spiritual gifts that He gives are indispensable in God’s economy. All the people of God have received spiritual gifts from Him. Throughout church history these gifts have been a controversial subject. The purpose of this article is not that of elucidating and clarifying each spiritual gift; it is not that of becoming a referee between Christians who do believe in miraculous gifts and those who don’t. The truth about gifts is that they always come because of grace. There are no gifts from God without grace. We cannot work for them, cannot bribe God for them, cannot choose them, pay for them, or insist so much in prayer before God hoping to incline His will to give them to you. The grace of God brings the gifts of God.

Sin took away everything we had, robbing us of godliness. Grace gave us everything we needed. The spiritual gifts are all we need. We cannot neglect them. Living the life based on the spiritual gifts brings fulfillment and places us in the center of God’s will. If a Christian has everything he wants, but he is not using his spiritual gifts, he will always be frustrated, stressed, and envious. Spiritual gifts are the real thing in life.

GLADNESS (chara)

Gifts bring joy in the house. Every house where you can find presents, you will find joy too. The lack of joy is either because we neglect our gifts or because we try to “steal” somebody’s gift. The spiritual thieves always try to violate God’s sovereignty over gifts. They are not enjoying what God gave them, they want what others have.

Christian life is abundant joy. When joy is missing, something is not right. Actually, joy is the objective and accurate way of testing your spiritual gifts. Stop imitating others’ gifts. Start rejoicing for the gifts you received from God.

GRATITUDE (eucharisteo)

Joyful people never forget to say, “Thank you.” Gratitude is a sign that you enjoy what you got.

More than ever before, gratitude is a missing mark of our generation. We are dissatisfied with what we have.

Gratitude is the sign that you understand grace. Grace cannot leave you in a state of ingratitude. People who do not capture the idea of grace are people dissatisfied with what they have, with their accomplishments. They always want more, no matter if it is money, physical pleasure, success, or influence.

But once you taste grace, you want more of Christ. In grace there is a continual gratitude, a peace that surpasses understanding. Grace gives you rest from all the things that exhaust you and never fulfill you. When you live by grace, gratitude for heaven is there because heaven is real for you; it is not just a wish, as the people in my country of Romania say, “I wish I can get to heaven,” “I wish I was saved, but have I done everything to deserve that?” Christ has done everything. The believer’s attitude cannot be but continuous gratitude.

The meaning and the order of these four words should capture our attention because they speak about what is essential in life, and we do not want to miss that. Where grace abounds, gratitude follows unceasingly.

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.

The biblical truth about God as a Trinity is intended to stir up our affections for our glorious God. It is not enough to know about God in three persons. We should also ask the question: What does it look like to know Him personally as a Trinity?

The Desire for Love

Every human being who has ever lived has encountered a hunger for the Trinitarian nature of God. The very fact that humans relate to one another, crave community, come together in marriage and family demonstrates the truth of this desire. The desire to love and be loved is, at its core, part of what it means to be made in God’s image.

That’s why we have so many movies and TV shows and plays and songs and books written about love. Perfect love remains elusive. We desire it. We crave it. We want to set our affections upon something or someone, and we want to be the object of someone else’s love as well.

We love and are loved because we are made in the image of a God who is love. “Our hearts are restless until they find themselves in thee,” said Augustine. That inner restlessness, that yearning for perfect love, is God-given. We were made for God.

Only Christianity satisfies the craving for a relational God of self-giving love. Islam’s Allah is distant and judgmental. Eastern religions so confuse the personhood of God with creation that it is difficult to see how they are distinct. But in Christianity, we are invited to take part in the ongoing love relationship of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We encounter God in the person of Jesus. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we come to know God.

Indwelt by the Spirit

Consider this: God invites us to partake of the love relationship that He has within Himself! We are invited to join in what some theologians have termed “the divine dance.” There is a mutual indwelling of the Persons of the Trinity that is open to us. Jesus says that He is in us and we are in Him.

The Scriptures teach that when we place our faith in Jesus Christ, the Spirit takes up residence in our hearts. Just like the Son of God took on flesh and walked among us – making His home on earth, the Spirit of God enters our being. We become temples of the Spirit, mirroring the beauty of God’s infinity within the finite nature of our bodily existence.

The Trinity is not some bare doctrine only helpful for proving the errors of Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is a doctrinal truth that represents an experiential reality. We are not only to believe in the beauty of the Trinity. We are summoned to participate in the beauty of the Trinity!

If the essence of God is self-giving love, then participation in the Trinity means we are caught up into the divine dance of love going on from all eternity. We are welcomed into the mystery of holy love. Christian George puts it well: “We embrace the mystery of the Trinity because it has embraced us.”

Tomorrow, I will follow up this post with a reflection on how this indwelling by the Holy Spirit takes shape in our lives.