On God: The Trinity in Self-Giving Love

We believe in one God, eternal and infinite, revealed to us as Trinity. The God we know is not the unmoved mover of philosophy, not the distant clockmaker of deism, not the impersonal force of mysticism. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who has bound Himself to His people through covenant and who makes Himself known through personal relationship.

We believe in God the Father Almighty, whose very nature is self-giving love. John, the beloved disciple who leaned against Jesus at supper, named this in three words: God is love (1 John 4:8, NET). Not that God is loving — an attribute among others, one quality beside power and wisdom and justice. But that love is what He is. The statement is ontological before it is ethical. Love is not something God does when the occasion calls for it; it is the character of His being from which everything He does flows. His being is not self-contained but radically open toward the Son and toward creation. In the Godhead, there is no hidden corner, no reserve, no protection of self. The Father gives all to the Son and receives the Son's obedience as the form of love. This self-giving is not weakness but the strongest power in the universe, because it is the power of One who has nothing to lose and everything to give.

We believe in the Son, who is fully God and fully human, who took flesh at a specific moment in history and lived a specific human life under specific human conditions. He was born of the Virgin Mary, lived under the Law, submitted to human limitation, and submitted to human death. His incarnation is not a spiritual doctrine but a historical fact. The Son's assumption of human flesh means that our humanity is not foreign to God. It is the medium through which God knows the human condition from the inside.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and rests upon the Son. The Spirit is not impersonal energy or an abstract principle. He is a person, with will and knowledge and character. Within the Godhead, the Spirit is the living expression of the love shared between Father and Son — not a witness to that love from outside, but its personal reality within the divine life. The Father's self-giving to the Son and the Son's to the Father find their living form in the Spirit. And this love does not remain enclosed within God. Paul writes: the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Romans 5:5, NET). The Spirit does not bring us a report of divine love. He brings us the love itself — the same love that is the interior life of the Trinity, now given to dwell in human hearts. He spoke through the prophets, working inside the hearts of men to make the will of God known. He unites us to Christ, making the relational connection between the branch and the vine operationally real. He makes us partakers of the divine nature, transforming us into the image of Christ. He leads us into truth, teaching us what Jesus taught and making known to us what is yet to come. He dwells in us now, in this present moment, not deferred to some future state. The Spirit is not optional infrastructure to the Christian life. He is the very condition of it.