Part 3 of 12 – The Triune God

This Article is part of a multi-part Study Series called The Spirit Of Life In Christ Jesus.

 

Any discussion of the Holy Spirit inevitably leads to consideration of the Triune God. The following verse indicates the three components of the one divine Triune Godhead.

1John 5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word (Jesus), and the Holy Ghost: and THESE THREE ARE ONE.

Paul here makes it clear that “The Father, the Word (Jesus), and the Holy Ghost” are in fact “ONE.” They together are active in reaching, touching, and coming to union with believers. This union is made possible by the completed work of the entire Godhead that is “in the Spirit of Christ.” They were together in the incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth. They were together in Jesus’ work at the Cross. 2 Corinthians 5:19 (AMP) It was God [personally present] in Christ, reconciling and restoring the world to favor with Himself, not counting up and holding against [men] their trespasses [but cancelling them], and committing to us the message of reconciliation (of the restoration to favor).

Today the three are yet “one” in Jesus’ resurrection as “that Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:17a Now the Lord is that Spirit… The word “now” here indicates a change has occurred from the former state of being; that “the Lord” who was incarnated in the physical being of Jesus of Nazareth has “now” become “that Spirit.”

I said earlier the three are ONE and “active together.” This is because “God is spirit” (Jn 4:24) and the Father is in and with the Son, who now is the resurrected “life-giving spirit.” Was not the Father in and one with Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God (John 10:36-38, Isa 9:6)? We know the story how Jesus of Nazareth was not humanly conceived. His was an exogenous conception in Mary’s womb by “the Holy Spirit” (Matt 1:20) of the eternal Godhead. The eternal “Word became flesh” (John 1:1-2, 14).

Just as Father God, who is Spirit, was one in and with Jesus of Nazareth, so now the “One God and Father” is one with the resurrected “Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” who now is thereby “in you all.Ephesians 4:6 ONE GOD AND FATHER of all, who is above all, and through all, and IN YOU ALL.

Thus, the three elements of the Godhead were complicit and necessary to permit God to justly provide mankind with redemption and new life ad the fruit of God’s love. That fruit of His love is His “seed (sperma)” (1Peter 1:23); the indwelling “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:2a), given to eternally dwell in all believing men as their everlasting life (Col 1:27, Gal 2:20).

Let’s now look at 2 Corinthians 13:14, which best gives us a view of the joint-work of the Triune Godhead, which is the “one God” and the “one spirit” (Eph 4:4, John 4:24) who indwells ALL believers.

2 Cor 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ (The Son), and the love of God (the Father), and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be (is) with you all.  

  1. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ

The “grace” that we receive of the Godhead is in “the grace (free gift) of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Christ Himself is the grace of God given for us, and then also to us (Rom 5:15), to abide within the believer’s spirit as their new “life” (Col 3:4a). Jesus, via His incarnation, death of the cross, and resurrection as “the life-giving Spirit” (1Cor 15:45), which is the grace of God in the spirit-form whereby He may be given to and received into men.

Matthew 1:23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

John 1:17b grace and truth (reality) came by Jesus Christ.

2 Timothy 4:22 The Lord Jesus CHRIST BE (IS) WITH THY SPIRIT. GRACE BE (IS) WITH YOU. Amen.

  1. “The love of God (the Father

The “love of God” is the source of all that is of God given to man in Christ (Rom 8:39). The Son, as the grace of God incarnate, came as result of the “lover” of man – God the Father. The singular motive is God’s heart of “love” expressed as “the love of God” in Christ.

Ephesians 6:23b love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  

  1. “The communion of the Holy Ghost  

It was necessary that God’s Son would become incarnated in human flesh to manifest’s God’s love and accomplish God’s eternal purpose (Eph 3:11). The Son had to become available to all men in spirit-form that could personally reach and touch each person individually. That spirit-form of Jesus Christ was achieved only when the physical Jesus of Nazareth “became the life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45). 1 Corinthians 6:17 But he (the believer) that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.

Thus, we see that the three elements of Triune God, who always existed as the “(one) eternal Spirit” (Heb 9:14), reached down to mankind when God became incarnated in the human flesh of the “Son of Man.” Jesus of Nazareth suffered and shed His human blood for the sins of all mankind.

Romans 3:23-25 (AMP) Since all have sinned and are falling short of the honor and glory which God bestows and receives. 24 [All] are justified and made upright and in right standing with God, freely and gratuitously by His grace (His unmerited favor and mercy), through the redemption which is [provided] in Christ Jesus, 25 Whom GOD PUT FORWARD [before the eyes of all] as a mercy seat and propitiation BY HIS BLOOD [the cleansing and life-giving sacrifice of atonement and reconciliation, to be received] through faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over and ignored former sins without punishment.

Then upon Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, He who contained the “fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col 2:9) became “the life-giving Spirit” (1Cor 15:45). Now God in Christ was again in a spirit-form, but… now with the elements of Jesus’ humanity and human experience added into the eternal Godhead.

After the cross that “justified” and “reconciled” believers to God, the Triune God is in the spirit-form of Jesus Christ as He was seen of His disciples in the forty days following His resurrection. Now in the spirit-form of the resurrected Christ, God is in a form whereby He may literally enter into union with every believing man’s human spirit. God, now as “the Spirit of Christ,” has come to permanently indwell the believer, being eternally in union with the believer’s human spirit (1Cor 6:17, Zechar. 12:1, 2Tim 4:22b). Thus, it has become possible for God and sinful man to have communion, by their spirit-life union.

It should now be clear that it was absolutely vital that the invisible God who “is spirit” had to be fully processed in the incarnated physical being of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus passed through suffering and death in order to redeem sinful man and then He was resurrected in order that He might become the “life-giving Spirit” to believers. Only now, since “the Lord” rose to become “that spirit” (2Cor 3:17a), may believers have “the communion of the Holy Spirit” (2Cor 13:14). Every believer has thereby partaken of and entered into an eternal union with the one Godhead-Spirit as He is today, since the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Notice here below the “three” elements of the Godhead who now indwell the believers.

Romans 8:9-10 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. 10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the (your) spirit is alive because of righteousness.

In union with God, believers experience “the love of God” and “the grace of Jesus Christ," which is literally in and with each of God’s Spirit-birthed children. Paul writes that Jesus Christ, now as “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” is “with you all” (2Thes 3:16).