Darrell Johnson, Experiencing the Trinity (Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, 2004), 37, 51-54.

“At the center of the universe is a relationship.” That is the most fundamental truth I know. At the center of the universe is a community. It is out of that relationship that you and I were created and redeemed. And it is for that relationship that you and I were created and redeemed! And it turns out that there is a three-fold-ness to that relationship. It turns out that the community is a Trinity. The center of reality is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

There is no two ways about it: thinking about God as Trinity is challenging. If done right, it is very invigorating. But there is no denying the fact that thinking about the one God as three and three as one is just plain hard work…

…

What does it all mean? It means that in the deepest mystery of his being God is an intimate relationship, a fellowship, a community of love.

What does all this mean for us human beings? It is in that three-fold subsistence of love that we “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). It is out of that love that God the Father created the world (and us in it) through the agency of the Son and energy of the Spirit. It is out of that love that God the Father sent the Son into the world to be born of the Virgin through the power of the Spirit. It is out of that love that God the Father handed over the Son, through the Spirit, to the cross, reconciling the world to himself. It is out of that love that God the Father sends the Spirit in the name of the Son to dwell within those whom the Son purchased for the Father. From our creation, to our redemption, to our glorification, we participate in God’s Trinitarian love.

Let me suggest just three everyday consequences of knowing all this. There are more which I’ll spell out in the subsequent chapters.

(1) First, we now know why when relationships go sour, all of life goes sour. We were created in the image and likeness of God. “Let us make humanity in our image, according to our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). There are many dimensions of God’s character we were created to reflect. But chief among them is this “us-ness” of God. God does not exist alone; and neither do we who are created in God’s image. Thus God says of Adam in the garden, “it is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). Why? Because Adam will be lonely, yes. But more importantly because “Adam alone” is not Adam in the image of God. God is not a solitary God. Adam does not reflect who God is until Adam shares life with Eve. The singer Barbra Streisand used to sing, “People, people who need people, are the luckiest people in the world.” Well, they are not only the luckiest, they are the only people who reflect the nature and character of God. Thus, after God says, “Let us make humanity in our image,” the text says, “And God created man in his image: male and female he created them” (1:27).

“To be is to be related.” Because it is true of God; it has to be true of us. We need to be in relationship in order to be fully human. In the famous words of the poet John Donne: “No man is an island.” It is because we are created in the image of the Trinity that loneliness is so crushing, that broken relationships are so debilitating, that death is so painful. Lack or loss of relationship violates our essential nature, created to reflect the relational essence of God.

That is why Jesus emphasized “righteousness” so much. Righteousness simply means “right relationship.” He came to reconcile us to the Father, and he came to reconcile us to each other and to ourselves. Nothing grieves the Triune God more than people who will not work at relationships. On the other hand, those who in their personal, church, business and political lives strive for righteousness are most in touch with the Trinity.

(2) Second consequence: balance. The Christian life, since it is grounded in and shaped by the Trinity, is like a three-legged stool. Knock out one leg and the stool wobbles, and falls. Knock out two legs and the stool falls. Most believers are Unitarian in practice. Some are binitarian. Few are truly and fully Trinitarian. We therefore live “off balance.”

The God who has claimed us for himself is Father, Son and Holy Spirit; not just Father, not just Son, not just Spirit. God is God for us—Father. God is God with us—Son. God is God in us—Spirit. Jesus says, “Go, make disciples, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Being a disciple of Jesus, therefore, involves entering into the full reality of God’s name, enjoying the full benefits of God’s mighty acts as Father, Son and Spirit. Embrace the full Trinitarian nature of God and our lives have balance.

(3) Third consequence: fullness. “Baptizing them in the name ...”. The Greek word baptizo means to immerse, to plunge in and beneath, to be inundated and drenched. To be baptized in the Trinitarian Name is to be immersed not just in water but in the very reality of the Name! We are given the unspeakable privilege of entering into and participating in the Trinitarian community of love!

Do you realize that? When we say “yes” to Jesus as Savior and Lord, we are immersed into the love and life of God the Father; and are immersed into the grace and truth of God the Son; and we are immersed into the power and purity of God the Spirit. Most of us are not yet experiencing and appropriating all that was given to us at conversion. We know something of the love and power of the Father. We know something of the forgiveness and freedom of the Son. We know something of the pervading and transforming glory of the Spirit. But we have yet to know the fullness available in the Triune God.

The good news is God will not rest until we do!

I am often asked to identify myself using one of the theological or ecclesiastical labels of our time. Am I Evangelical? Conservative? Reformed? Charismatic? If I must identify myself, I prefer the label “Christo-centric Trinitarian.” For as I love and worship and obey Jesus Christ, I keep ending up at the feet of a Triune God. And then, all I want is all that the Father is, and wants to give me, and all that the Son is, and wants to give me, and all that the Spirit is, and wants to give me. What I want is to be alive in the intimacy at the center of the universe.