Villagersonline : blogs : russ : ATP 3: Trinitarian Community

From: russ
Date: Sat Jan 28 13:47:21 EST 2012
Subject: ATP 3: Trinitarian Community

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sunnygirl7d: No Subject (1/30/12)
Mike_Wise: Good stuff (1/30/12)

russ: No Subject (1/30/12)

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russ: No Subject (1/30/12)
Mike_Wise: Good stuff (1/30/12)
sunnygirl7d: No Subject (1/30/12)

A Theological Primer
Snippet 3: Trinitarian Community
(read all snippets)
We Christians believe that God has lived in community for all eternity; there was never any time (nor will there be in the future) when any of the three Persons did not exist. Since all three are Persons, God has always experienced relationship within the Trinity. Since all three are all-loving, the relationship has always been one of perfect love.
In that perfect love, there is a natural order. The Father sits at the top of the order; He is deserving of all honor, power, and authority, and the others love to give it to Him. Under this authority sits the Son, who submits willingly and delightedly to the authority of the Father. (The Spirit is also involved in all of this relationship, but I'm not clear exactly how the Spirit fits in.)
It's shocking to human ears (especially to American ones), but this authority structure is natural to the relationship, and is expressed in a purely loving way. The Father's authority is never destructive or domineering, and yet is pervasive; the Son's submission is neither subservient nor denigrating, and yet is complete. When we look at the relationship of Father and Son, we see the ideal of what human authority can be: full of love flowing in both directions, without undermining the natural structure and order of the relationship.
Moreover, since God loves perfectly, each Person of the Trinity loves to give (and give up) to one another. It is not simply that the Son chooses to submit to authority because it is His role; instead, He delights in giving glory and honor to the Father because He loves the Father so completely. In fact, the Father promises to do the same: in the culmination of all things, when sin is wiped out and we are taken to Heaven, the Father will glorify the Son above all things.

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From: sunnygirl7d
Date: Mon Jan 30 00:08:38 EST 2012
Subject:

hey russ,
i thought this was well written for the 'not yet christian' ear....am enjoying the snippets!
d

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From: Mike_Wise
Date: Mon Jan 30 13:20:25 EST 2012
Subject: Good stuff

Russ,
I too am enjoying the snippets. I love where you say The Son DELIGHTS in giving the Father his submission. It is as it should be and I wish I was more like Jesus in that regard. I have my moments sure but submitting to God sometimes feels so out of character and yet I know that, when I am in perfect loving submission to God it's the only time I am truly who I was always supposed to be. Jesus truly is the 'firstfruits' in this regard.
One note though, In your piece you speak of the culmination of all things 'when we get to heaven', to the best of my ever growing theological knowledge, the true culmination doesn't lie when we get to heaven but when heaven and earth are made new again. The culmination is found truly in the beginning of the story.
I've been listening to NT Wright's Simply Christian on audiobook lately and one of the things he states is that the resurrection doesn't prove there to be a life after death, resurrection proves that God will fulfill his promises. Jesus isn't dead when is seen by Martha and Mary at the grave, he WAS dead but he was made fully alive again, and that is the great hope of us all. It's not the afterlife we're hoping for, it's new life, a new fully restored life right here on earth in God's great kingdom which is already being established here and now as we live.

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From: russ
Date: Mon Jan 30 14:18:33 EST 2012
Subject:

Thanks for the comment, and especially for the critique. I'll have to think about it. I've posted a footnote with "TODO: Mike Wise says, ..." in the "official" text of the book. That reminds me that I need to spend some time to think about it. :)

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