What Member(s) of the Trinity Live in Us? And Where Does this Take Us?

[B Griffin]

What Member(s) of the Trinity Live in Us?​

Scripture is clear that each individual member of the Trinity lives in us:

• That God the Father lives in us is the subject of Eph 4:6, 2 Cor 6:16, and 1 John 4:12.
• That God the Son lives in us is the subject of Rom 8:10, Gal 2:20, Eph 3:17, and Col 1:27.
• That God the Holy Spirit lives in us is the subject of 1 Cor 6:19, 2 Tim 1:14, and James 4:5.

There are also several places in Scripture that the members of the trinity are mentioned in combination as living in us.

• Rom 8:11 says, “The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead” lives in us.
• 1 Cor 3:16 and Ephesians 4:30 say the “Spirit of God” lives in us.
• 1 Thes 4:8 says God has “given us His Holy Spirit.”
• Gal 4:6 says, “God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son” to live in us.
• Rom 8:9 says the “Spirit of God” and the “Spirit of Christ” live in us.

In my mind, the hardest one of these to fully grasp is that God the Father Himself lives in us. But it isn’t hard to accept because Jesus told us in John 14:23 that after His resurrection, He and His Father would come to us and make our hearts Their home.

The upshot of all these things, of course, is that it does not matter what name we use for God when we say He lives in our hearts. We might use "God", "the Father", "Jesus", "the Holy Spirit", "the Spirit of God", or "the Spirit of Christ". But no matter what name we use, when we say, “God lives in our hearts,” we do not intend to exclude any member of the trinity. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit live in our hearts.

Where Does This Take Us?​

The sheer magnitude of this truth gives us pause and fills us with a sense of awe and wonder. According to Scripture, God’s presence in our hearts is our path to knowing Him (John 14), our path to wisdom and knowledge (Col 2), our path to all truth (John 14, 16), our path to knowing the deep things of God that are otherwise unknowable (1 Cor 2), and our path to receiving other things from out of the vast resources of God (John 16).

I hope this thread will increase our appreciation for the God who lives in our hearts and who plays the most vital role in our spiritual growth and maturity. Unfortunately, we also will likely be confronted by those who think God has withdrawn from active participation in our lives and instead points us to the Bible to get everything we need. Fortunately, God is still at work in us, and the Scriptures are on our side.

 

[ViaCrucis]

An important Trinitarian term is perichoresis. It's a somewhat difficult word to translate, it is described as the way the Three Persons co-inhere one another: the Father being in the Son and the Spirit, the Son is in the Father and the Spirit, the Spirit is in the Father and the Son. It refers to how we can never separate the Three, so, for example, it is impossible to speak of the Father doing something apart from the Son and the Spirit, and likewise of the Son, He does nothing apart from the Father and the Spirit, and likewise for the Spirit. Thus when we confess that the Father made all things, it is not--and never can be--at the exclusion of the Son and the Spirit. Rather to speak of the Father as Maker of heaven and earth means also that the Son and Spirit are Creator, the one and only Creator-God.

So when we speak, then, of--for example--the Spirit's indwelling, we cannot and never can speak of the Spirit indwelling us apart from the Father and Son also. If the Spirit lives in us, then that means the Father and the Son also live in us--it can be no other way. In this way Jesus can say that He and the Father will send "Another Comforter", and simultaneously say "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you". The Holy Spirit is not Jesus, the Holy Spirit is distinct, He is Another; and yet Jesus Himself will come and make His abode in us through the Spirit. For where the Spirit is, the Son is, and the Father also, it can never be otherwise.

This is also why every prayer is a Trinitarian prayer. To pray to the Father is to pray to the Son and the Spirit also. And the same with the Son and the Spirit.

The doctrine of perichoresis speaks of how each Person is in each Person, the Three are always One; always distinct in Hypostasis, but never separate, never alone. There is never a division of the Essence (for God is one, Deuteronomy 6:4), and neither is any of the Divine Persons alone. There is always the Three-and-One.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

So I take it that you have no problem accepting that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live in our hearts. What is the big takeaway from that? Please provide Scriptural support to further debate.

I consider the fact that the Holy and Blessed Trinity is with us and dwells in our hearts by grace to be a given. I have no reason to have any problem accepting that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit make their home in our hearts. That's normative Christian teaching.

And it gets brilliantly deeper as we go on to talk about things like Theosis, the Sacraments, and the whole scope of what our salvation means.

God gives Himself away, and in so doing is saving us, healing us, and bringing us into Himself. I mean, St. Peter says we have become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). By the grace of God we are partakers of God, God gives Himself away.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[B Griffin]

I consider the fact that the Holy and Blessed Trinity is with us and dwells in our hearts by grace to be a given. I have no reason to have any problem accepting that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit make their home in our hearts. That's normative Christian teaching.

And it gets brilliantly deeper as we go on to talk about things like Theosis, the Sacraments, and the whole scope of what our salvation means.

God gives Himself away, and in so doing is saving us, healing us, and bringing us into Himself. I mean, St. Peter says we have become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). By the grace of God we are partakers of God, God gives Himself away.

-CryptoLutheran

Theosis: the deification of man? Are you expounding on it by reference to 2 Peter 1:4, or are you talking about something else?

 

[B Griffin]

Let's consider for a moment the first benefit I mentioned in the OP, namely that Jesus living in us is our path to knowing Him.

John 14:19-23 (NKJV) reads:

19 “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. 20 At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. 21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”​

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22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?”​

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23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.​

Jesus says here that after His departure from the earth, He would not be seen by the world, but would be seen by those of us in whom He lives because He would manifest Himself (make Himself visible) from inside our hearts.

What is the take-away? Stay tuned to Jesus, because seeing Him is only possible when He makes Himself visible from within your heart. He may do it while you're praying. He may do it while you're reading your Bible. He may do it while you're singing in the choir. He may do it while you're sitting in the pew. He may do it while you're preaching a sermon. He may do it while you're in the middle of a business meeting. He makes Himself known from within our hearts bit by bit, day after day, and by these manifestations our knowledge of God increases. It happens no other way.

Thus says the LORD:

“Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
Let not the mighty man glory in his might,
Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;
But let him who glories glory in this,
That he understands and knows Me,
That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
For in these I delight,” says the LORD.

The New King James Version (Je 9:23–24). (1982). Thomas Nelson.

 

[B Griffin]

Here is another irreplaceable ministry of the Holy Spirit:

But as it is written:​

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“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,​

Nor have entered into the heart of man​

The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”​

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. (1 Co 2:9-10) NKJV​

There are "things" that are given to us by direct revelation from the Spirit of God that can not enter our understanding by any physical means. These "things" include the "deep things of God" that are searched out by the Spirit of God (vs. 10).

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. (1 Co 2:12) NKJV​

Don't miss the purpose clause of verse 12: we received the Spirit of God into our hearts IN ORDER THAT we might know the deep things of God. The Holy Spirit Himself teaches us these things (vs. 13). These things are hidden from those in whom the Spirit does not dwell, these things seem foolish to them, and these things cannot be known because the Spirit is not in them to reveal them (vs. 14).

This is not a ministry that has been delegated by the Holy Spirit to another authority on earth today, as some have claimed.

 

[AbbaLove]

26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;"

"That I AM the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
For in these I delight,” says the LORD."

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

"26... according to our likeness, ... 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.