Delighting in the Trinity

by Michael Reeves (a summary by Pat Evert)

Introduction, Christianity is about knowing God, to grow in the enjoyment of Him.

What was God doing before creation? God in His essence is more than mighty or creator. He is Father, the Source, the generous Giver, the One who loves and delights in His Son. He doesn’t make creation so that He can be creator or have a world of slaves. But rather out of His generosity and great delight in His Son, He explodes in overflowing love. For eternity He as Father was loving and begetting the Son. He wants to share all, Himself. His nature is to give Himself and beget the Son.

Creation, the Father’s love overflows – Single-person gods are self centered and create out of an essential neediness to use others. But the Father and Son out of ecstasy made creation. He has always enjoyed showering His love on His Son, and in creating He rejoices to shower it on children He loves through the Son. He is not in need of receiving, like us. He is full, super-abundant and overflowing. His very nature is that of giving, and as such He finds great pleasure. He delights in making all His creation fruitful. The Creator allows us to turn away from Him and live without Him, this is sin. When He filled the heavens with billions of stars it shows His generosity.

Salvation, the Son shares what is His – Sin is to love self and pleasure, rather than God. The Son did not come to appease and rescue us from a wrathful God, but rather to show us the Father. God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. The Son came from the bosom of the Father and sacrificed Himself, so that we can be adopted into the full priviledges of sons. Now that same Spirit that rested on Christ, rests upon us. And now we enjoy the ever abounding love the Son has always known. Other gods might forgive us, but the Father LOVES us. He brings us into wonderful intimacy with Him, sparing nothing. “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” He comes not only to shows us the Father’s love, but to share His knowledge of the Father with us.

The Christian life, the Spirit beautifies – The Spirit doesn’t just give us gifts, He gives us Himself. The Spirit’s personal presence in us means we are brought to enjoy the Spirit’s own intimate communion with the Father and the Son. If the Spirit were not God, He could not do that. His own life of fellowship with the Father and Son, He shares with us. We as flowers drink of this fountain of love and soak up the sun’s rays until we radiate His beauty and fragrance. In our love and enjoyment of the Son we are like the Father; in our love and enjoyment of the Father we are like the Son. This is the happy life the Spirit calls us to. He makes us full of joy and overflowing.

“Who among the gods is like You, O Lord?” If God is not a Father, if He has no Son and will have no children, then He must be lonely, distant and unloving. If God is a Stalin in the sky, we will want to run from Him. Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor is the heart of holiness. The wrath of God is the sincerity of His care. The glory of this God is all about laying down His life and bearing fruit.