....faith and life....life and faces

God with us

Trinity

And the Spirit of God? The understanding of the Old Testament already indicated  that the Spirit of God is nothing other than God's Spirit, but still not exactly identical with Him. And Jesus refers to this. The Spirit promised by Jesus to His disciples is not an impersonal power: He is active within and for man.  He sanctifies us,  introduces us to the truth, helps and consoles us. He is the Spirit of God and also the Spirit of Christ. Nowhere in the Scriptures or the dogma of the Church is the Holy Spirit simply identified with the Father or the resurrected Lord. But neither can He  be separated from them.

For this reason,  at the incarnation of Jesus, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are already mentioned separately. Later, during the baptism in the Jordan River, this happens again (Mt 3,13-17). After His resurrection, Jesus again summarizes   all three names of God: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Mt 28,18). In the letters of the Apostles, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are also mentioned with equal reverence and love. Over the centuries, the Church has adhered to this biblical model and concludes the official prayers with the words: through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord and God, who lives with You in unity with the Holy Spirit for ever and ever.

Maybe now you feel like putting this letter aside and saying: "I don't get all this: one and equal but still different, not identical, not exactly  interchangeable ..." But does it make sense to live for a God who can be entirely comprehended with our human intellect? The first Christians and disciples of Jesus did not have this theological-philosophical problem. They were convinced: there is only one God. He is God the Father, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This God is present in Jesus of Nazareth. His word is the word of God. His will is the will of my creator.  They  believed  this  even  when  they were in doubt: "Lord, help my unbelief!" (Mark 9,24).

We come closer to the value of this mystery for our life, if we presume God to be a loving God, to be  love itself  (1 John 4,8.10) He is not the lonely Allah; not the top monarch. He is beyond singular and plural. Although one, there is community within Him. God shows Himself to us as a vital, creative God. Within Him is relationship and encounter, knowing and loving, turning toward the other and receiving. His love also shows itself in His relationship with man. He "goes out of Himself" to meet us and be close to us.  Only  if  we  look  at  God,  do we begin to understand why there is love, affection, fondness, relationships and community among human beings in this world: God Himself has poured  out His  being over this world and all of creation breathes His Spirit.   

                                                                                God with us

The gift of grace

is the same as light for a plant. We feel reborn and live accordingly. This is why the Scriptures call what Jesus Christ brought us a "new birth", a "new creation". Grace is not "something" within us, an expensive accessory. Grace is really nothing other than the love of God to us and the Spirit of God Himself within us.

The Scriptures use always new pictures and images to show that God is active within us in this way: We are children of God (1 John 3,1); God "dwells" within us as in a temple. (1 Cor 3,16; Tim 1,14). Can anybody seriously say that belief in this God alienates man from himself? According to Christian belief, man was created "in the image of God". Only if man finds God, will he be able to find himself. Naturally, this intense and unsurpassable closeness of God is only an offer. We can "give God notice". God is not a demon and He does not occupy the house. God's presence within man is not static. It is up to us to intensify it or to let it waste away.

We have now reached the point when we need to talk about the greatest mystery of the Christian faith: the triune God. Jews and Moslems take offense at this. They fear that it jeopardizes faith in the one and only God. At the Rock-Mosque in Jerusalem we find this sentence: "Allah is one, there is no son".

Christians have never, not even for a moment, dropped the faith in one God. God is one only God. The basic commandment of the Old Testament was always valid: I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other Gods besides me.

But during the course of history, the faithful experienced more and more that this God is not "simple".

After having read all this, you may now have some idea of how multifarious the reality of God is. That God is triune, is no speculation of man. Who could ever have the idea to imagine God like this! But God has revealed Himself exactly in this way. Christians don't believe that God used Jesus as a mask and disguised Himself in Jesus' human form: Jesus IS God. It is Christian conviction that the Holy Spirit is God Himself, not only a force emanating from Him.

God has shown us: This is the way I am. It is not His problem how we reconcile this with the laws of our intelligence and logic. This question has puzzled us ever since and theologians have pondered it for 2000 years, with no end in sight. Even if the terms "Trinity" or "triune God" are not mentioned in the Scriptures, the question has been referred to several times in the Bible. Although Jesus was really and entirely a human being, He knows that He is one with "His Father" in a unique way. (John 5,20,26; 8,58;Matthew 11,27; 26.63...) This is why His contemporaries reproached Jesus that He put Himself in the place of God!