Thursday, September 6, 2012

Summary of the Trinitarian Vision


The Trinitarian Vision
Summary
©C. Baxter Kruger, Ph.D. 2012


From all eternity, God is not alone and solitary, but lives as Father, Son and Spirit in a rich and glorious and abounding fellowship of utter oneness. There is no emptiness in this circle, no depression or fear or insecurity.  The trinitarian life is a great dance of unchained communion and intimacy, fired by passionate, self-giving and other-centered love, and mutual delight.  This life is good.  It is right, unique, full of music and joy, blessedness and peace. Such love, giving rise to such togetherness and fellowship and oneness, is the womb of the universe and of humanity within it.
The stunning truth is that this Triune God, in amazing and lavish love, determined to open the circle and share the trinitarian life with others. This is the one, eternal and abiding reason for the creation of the world and of human life.  There is no other God, no other will of God, no second plan, no hidden agenda for human beings.  Before the creation of the world, the Father, Son and Spirit set their love upon us and planned to bring us to share and know and experience the trinitarian life itself.  Unto this end the cosmos was called into being, and the human race was fashioned, and Adam and Eve were given a place in the coming of Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son himself, in and through whom the dream of our adoption would be accomplished. 
Before creation, it was decided that the Son would cross every chasm between the Triune God and humanity and establish a real and abiding relationship with us—union.  Jesus was predestined to be the mediator, the one in and through whom the very life of the Triune God would enter human existence, and human existence would be lifted up to share in the trinitarian life.
When Adam and Eve rebelled, ushering in chaos and misery into God’s creation, the Father, Son and Spirit never abandoned their dream, but wonderfully incorporated darkness and sin into the tapestry of the coming incarnation.  As the Father’s Son became human, and as he submitted himself to bear our anger, and bizarre blindness, and as he gave himself to suffer a murderous death at our hands, he established a real and abiding relationship with fallen humanity at our very worst—and he brought his Father and the Holy Spirit with him.  It was in Jesus himself, and in his death at our bitter hands, that the trinitarian life of God pitched its tent in our hell on earth, thereby uniting all that the Father, Son and Spirit share with all that we are in our brokenness, shame and sin—adoption. 
In the life and death of Jesus the Holy Spirit made his way into human pain and blindness.  Inside our broken inner worlds the Spirit works to reveal Jesus in us so that we can meet Jesus himself in our own sin and shame, and begin to see what Jesus sees, and know his Father with him. The Holy Spirit takes of Jesus and discloses it to us, so that we can know and experience Jesus’ own relationship with his Father, and we can be free to live in the Father’s embrace with Jesus.  As the Spirit works we are summoned to take sides with Jesus against our own darkness and prejudice, and take simple steps of trust and change.  As we do Jesus’ own anointing with the Spirit—his own fellowship with his Father, his own unearthly assurance, his own freedom and joy and power in the Spirit—begin to form in us, while not diminishing but augmenting and freeing our own uniqueness as persons.  The Spirit’s passion is to bring his anointing of Jesus to full and personal and abiding expression in us as unique persons, and not only in us personally, but in our relationship with the Father in Jesus, and in our relationships with one another, and indeed with all creation, until the whole cosmos is a living sacrament of the great dance of the Triune God.

An excerpt from The Shack Revisited, C. Baxter Kruger, 2012

12 comments:

Jim said...

That is truly stunning. Thank you Baxter for writing this message...for reminding us how amazing, beautiful, free, and exciting the gospel message is!

Dan G said...

Beautiful! Yes, thank you. So looking forward to reading the book.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Baxter for how the Spirit has allowed you to see and then to share with us the beauty that is the Trinity. I remember telling someone that was new to our church and that did not grasp the Trinity to "not worry about it " that I did not either and I had been going to church my whole life. I did not consider it essential, I accepted it as fact based upon the language in the Bible, but did not see how it had anything to do with my relationship to God. WOW!!! I could not have been anymore wrong about anything.

Anonymous said...

That is amazing! I can hardly wait to read the book! Lovely, lovely, lovely...

BIG TA said...

Awesome truth

Same old... said...

sounds exactly like any part of the previous books by Baxter!

a_seed said...

This is so well said. May I translate this into Chinese to share in my blog?

Florian Berndt said...

Simply Beautiful!!!

Leona said...

Wonderful Vision that you have shared with us. It was encouraging for this week that has been shaken with pain and suffering for so many in the East Coast and many who have lost loved ones. We need reminded of the intimate relationship we have with our wonderful Papa, Savior, Spirit. That vision needs shared, I hipe others are "passing it on'. I have your newest Book, The Shack Revisited. In Christ, Leona

Tomas Pales said...

I spotted your book in a bookstore today (already translated into Slovak language, wow) and got it. The concept of the Trinity has fascinated me for several years now and I have come to see it as a fundamental pattern that is reflected in our psyche, society and the universe. You might want to have a look at my article in which I tried to articulate my thoughts:
http://evolver.civicactions.net/user/litewave/blog/naturalistic_interpretation_holy_trinity_and_apocalypse

Vagabondsoul said...

Thank you, Baxter, for not unwavering from this Gospel you are proclaiming. Beautiful!

carycu said...

In episode 2: "Christological Foundations" from Baxter's January 21, 2020, Live Across All Worlds vodcast at 28:24 minutes there was a question about the origin of a previously displayed quote. Baxter recalled the quote as an excerpt of The Shack Revisited. The host insisted the quote was from this blog post. Interestingly they both recalled correctly: the entire quote as shown came from the final paragraph above; the bulk of the quote shown in the vodcast was an excerpt of The Shack Revisited (Faith Words, 2012) p. 64 with "The Spirit's passion is to bring his [sic] anointing..." excerpt from p. 247 inserted into the last sentence of the p. 64 excerpt. I credit Google Books Preview's search tool for this resolution.