Union with Christ – Living within the Trinity
Union with Christ – Living within the Trinity.
MYSTERY: (Greek, Musterion); a sacred secret hidden in the heart of God until the appointed time of revelation; a truth that can only be known by divine disclosure; spiritual insights into God’s way of thinking and planning; hidden truths revealed by God that are beyond human intellect and reason; divine knowledge that can only be understood through the Holy Spirit; God’s thoughts and plans revealed to believers and hidden to doubters and unbelievers.
“No one has ever gazed upon the fullness of God’s splendor. But if we love one another, God remains united with us, and He makes His permanent home in us and we make our permanent home in Him. His love is then brought to its full expression in us. He has given us His Spirit within us so that we can have the assurance that we remain united with Him and He with us…. Those who confess and give thanks that Jesus is the Son of God remains in union with God, they live inside of God, and God lives inside of them. We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love He has for us. God is love; and those who remain in this love remain united with God, and God remains united with them.” (1 John 4:12-16, The Complete Jewish Bible and The Passion Translation).
Sacred Secrets. Jesus revealed many fascinating mysteries in His conversations with the Disciples, but maybe these declarations of His were more intriguing and inspiring than most… “When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am inside my Father, and you are inside me, and I am inside you.” (John 14:20); or this, “Remain inside of me, dwell in me, continue to draw your life from inside me, and I will remain inside of you.” (John 15:4-7); or even the more perplexing claim that, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives continually inside of me, and I live inside of him.” (John 6:56).
The Double Union. The idea that Jesus through His Holy Spirit is inside of me is pretty familiar. How many times did Paul say something along the lines of “Christ in me”? Actually, about 160 times. But to read that at the same time as Christ is in each of us, each believer is actually inside of Christ! Now, that is something fresh and I want to sink deep into that mystery. Christ in me, and me in Christ! Christ inside of you, and you inside of Christ! What a tremendous and wonderful mystery, a truth we accept by faith in the Christ who said it. There have been many descriptive titles given to this idea of union with Christ, of being within Christ, including: the Double Union; the Mutual Indwelling; the Mystical Union; The Double Mystery. And there have been some interesting ways to try to describe this two-way unity we enjoy with Christ: bonded in union within Christ; somehow inside of each other; a believer’s new spiritual location; participating in the interior life of Christ; intimately joined together with Christ; hidden with Christ inside of God; a Christian’s spiritual address; in a new sphere of spiritual existence; fellowship with God inside the Person of Christ; tightly wrapped around the Personhood of Jesus; regaining our original identity in Christ; being inside of Christ, we have shared in His death and resurrection, and we now we will go wherever He goes, including being seated in the heavenly realms.
“God is faithful to do what He says, and He has invited you into partnership with His Son, a life of communion and participation in His life. God has called you to co-share the very life of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:9).
Walking down the aisle can have more than one meaning, of course. One version of walking down the aisle is at a wedding ceremony to formally commit yourself to a life of love and faithfulness to your spouse. Another version of walking down the aisle is when one formally commits a life of love and faithfulness to Jesus Christ. God makes the point over and over again in the Scripture that the first version is a significant shadow of the second version. God called Himself husband a number of times, faithful to His covenant of love with His Chosen People. And Jesus called Himself a bridegroom, the spiritual spouse to His bride the Church. The earthly wedding anticipates the heavenly marriage in the New Kingdom, and is meant to give us a taste of the joy that awaits us as Jesus marries His body of believers at the wedding supper of the Lamb.
There is another way that these two marriages are similar… In both cases, essentially one person is absorbing another family, the original family of the person to whom you are committing your life. In the earthly wedding, each spouse represents his or her family, has his/her roots in that family, including DNA and heritage. It’s best, of course, and healthiest for all concerned, for each new family to welcome the new person who entered into their life. And of course, it is important that each spouse welcomes the new family with open arms, when possible.
What about the follower of Jesus? Jesus has a nuclear family too, the Holy Trinity. And when someone commits himself to Christ, he is necessarily taking on another family, the Family of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When we commit ourselves to Jesus, we form a union with Him not unlike the earthly spouses. Spiritually speaking, two become one. Jesus is inside each of us, and each of us is inside Jesus. By being united to Christ, we are in fact joining His family unit. When we abide in Jesus, when we make ourselves at home inside of Him as He asked us to do (John 15), we are entering the fellowship inside the Trinity, His original Family. As Paul has said, living within Christ means we live inside God (Col. 3:3). Wherever the Son goes, the Father and the Spirit are right there with Him. It’s a package deal. That family of Three-in-One is indivisible, inseparable, an eternal and unbreakable oneness. When we make our home in Christ, we are immediately welcomed into their fellowship. By dwelling in Christ, we have entered into His family, and we begin to take on His family’s characteristics.
Miraculously, when we trust Jesus with our very life, the Godhead invites us into their lives. The Trinity welcomes us into the Circle and share their very nature with us.
“The prime purpose of the incarnation is to lift us up into a life of communion, of participation in the very triune life of God.” (James Torrance, Worship, Communion and the Triune God of Grace). “Truly the fellowship that we have is with the Father and the Son.” (1 John 1:3).
A Little History. Before the divine invention of time, before the foundation of the world, the triune God existed in a profoundly intimate community of three Persons. Because God is love, they created the world so they could share that intimacy with the human race. They did not hoard their eternal love for each other, but instead they included humanity in their relationship. In creation, God shared His life with humanity, providing a truly life-giving relationship with Him. The Spirit of love binding the Father and the Son has proven to be the energy source of all the love in the world. The trinitarian relationship became the engine of the universe. Without the virtues within the life of the Trinity, there would be no virtues in the world, no truth, goodness or beauty. The passionate interaction within the Godhead is the spark of communion that ignites the presence of intimacy in the world. The original source of everything right in the world lies within the everlasting togetherness of the Trinity. “The great dance of life shared by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the womb of creation.” (Baxter Kruger, The Great Dance).
“We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. For truly the fellowship, the shared companionship that we have is with the Father and the Son.” (1 John 1:3).
There is a mystery to the depth of unity between the three-Personed God. Their love for each other is too deep to understand, yet close enough to experience through Christ. St. Bernard of Clairvaux once tried to describe the intimacy within the Trinity this way… “Surely if the Father kisses and the Son receives the kiss, it is appropriate to think of the Holy Spirit as the kiss.” We do know from John 14:10-11 and 17:21 that their communion is such that they are somehow inside each other. They are so closely knit that when you know the Son, you know the Father. And when you see the Son, you have seen the Father (John 14:7). Father and Son have enjoyed an intimate oneness, with the Spirit being their bond of love, since before the foundation of the world. And the triune God wants us to participate in the unity of their Family circle, the Son in us and the Father in the Son (John 17:23). Both the Son and the Father have always desired to share their home life with us (John 14:23). We are called to literally live within the Trinity, inside their relationship, being more intimate with God than with any other person (John 14:20). The Christian mystic Elizabeth of the Trinity once wrote that one of her spiritual disciplines was “burying myself, so to speak, in the depths of my soul to lose myself in the Trinity who dwells in it.”
“So you must remain faithful to what you have been taught from the beginning. If you do, you will live in close fellowship with the Son and the Father; you will live deeply in them both, sharing God’s life forever, as He has promised.” (1 John 2:24).
The Trinity’s profound love for each other has resulted in their sharing that love, their including humanity in their interaction. We have been called to participate in their life-giving intimacy, in their divine fellowship. We have been offered, through Jesus, the amazing privilege of sharing in their relationship. In Christ, we can now open our eyes to see the truth of our life inside the Trinity. Christ has succeeded in uniting the holy Trinity with fallen humanity, and the result is mankind’s inclusion in the life of the triune God. Inside the circle, we can now experience the very same love that the Father shows the Son (John 17:26). We can now confirm that the Father will love us just as much as He loves the Son (John 17:23). As Baxter Kruger says, “We don’t make Jesus a part of our world. He has made us a part of His.” We now can know our true identity, living in the circle of the Trinity, our true selves hidden within the joy and love of their intimacy.
James Houston once wrote that “God is infinitely relational and intimately personal.” The wonderful mystery is that it is God’s nature to be relational and personal with the human race. When we are baptized in the Name of the Trinity, we are restored into God’s own bosom, received into the triune life of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Their relationship is now our relationship. Their reality is now our shared reality. We thus have a joyful place within their circle. When we are baptized in the Name of the Trinity, our eyes have been opened to our permanent destiny within their life. We thus celebrate our adoption into God’s trinitarian family.
“God has given us magnificent promises that are beyond all price, so that through the power of these tremendous promises you can experience partnership with the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:4).
Is it okay to be so familiar with God that we call Him Abba, Father? Should we be comfortable addressing the almighty and everlasting God the equivalent of “Dad” or “Papa“? The ancient liturgical line leading into the Lord’s Prayer is, “We are bold to say… Our Father.” Bold indeed. And yet in 2 Peter 1:4 we are told that we are partakers of the divine nature, participants in the life of God, partners with the Godhead. We are told that God is including us in His eternal nature. In light of that, we have permission to be familiar with God, calling Him a family name. The Greek word for “partners” in that verse is “koinonos,” which means to be a companion with, to have deep fellowship with. Those are love words, words that invite communion. The truth is that we are able to join the intimate community of the Trinity through Jesus and through what He has done to renew the fellowship between God and people. Because of Jesus, we are bold to say, Abba, Father.
“The whole dance, or drama, or pattern of this three-Personal life is to be played out in each one of us.” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).
“Because of Jesus Christ, we can participate in the living out of trinitarian life inside human existence.” (Baxter Kruger, The Great Dance).
“What might it mean to live fully and freely in the life of the Trinity, knowing and loving God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as they know and love each other?” (R. Thomas Ashbrook, Mansions of the Heart).