In this post, I would like to look into one dimension of a safe community. Meaningful relationships are always marked by transparency, openness and vulnerability. Again, if the Triune God is the blueprint for all relationships we might expect to find some of these dynamics within that community. Sure enough, we do. I want to briefly explore three texts that touch on these overlapping themes.
- “For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10-11).
Astonishing, this passage gives us a glimpse into the Triune relationship. The Spirit searches, explores and inquires into the thoughts of the Father. He journeys the heights and depths of God himself. The language is relational. The Father is welcoming, open and transparent. The Spirit responds to the openness of the Father with investigative energy. The Spirit is privy to the thoughts of God…he knows them all.
- “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26-27).
The Father has an intimate knowledge of the Spirit’s mind. Unintelligible groanings to us are clear to the Father because he knows the thoughts of the Spirit. The unity of will and purpose between the Father and Spirit is foundational to this mutual understanding. The text is relational once again. This divine knowing is something that seems to require openness on the part of the Father and Spirit. Though completely equal in omniscience…there appears to be some mechanism of divine sharing that facilitates this knowledge.
- “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matthew 11:27).
Exclusive knowledge of the Father belongs to the Son. Exclusive knowledge of the Son belongs to the Father. This text brilliantly displays the intimacy of the Godhead. God alone knows God. The Father gives the Son total access and vice versa. Revelation…a gracious introduction of the Father through the Son by the Spirit…is the only way one comes to know God.
All three of these texts hint at openness, transparency and vulnerability in Trinitarian interaction. Father, Son and Holy Spirit willingly allow the other respective persons into the fulness of themselves. They truly see one another and are seen by one another.
Another way of getting at this mystery is the doctrine of perichoresis, which has been defined as “co-indwelling, co-inhering, and mutual interpenetration.” Alister McGrath writes that it “allows the individuality of the persons to be maintained, while insisting that each person shares in the life of the other two. An image often used to express this idea is that of a ‘community of being,’ in which each person, while maintaining its distinctive identity, penetrates the others and is penetrated by them.”
This doctrine is rooted in Scripture that uses the language of “in” when discussing how the Father, Son and Spirit are connected. For example, “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves” (Jn 14:11). This is intimacy, openness and vulnerability at its very best.