Are we dead to sin?

"For who has died has been ¹set free from sin." Romans 6:7

 

The above is an absolute statement, not a conditional one i.e. it doesn't say you will be set free if you take additional action... it says you have been set free! This is a past completed action done to and for you, not by you. We didn't set ourselves free, someone else did. And not only so, but this freedom is so complete and absolute it's described as death. It doesn't get any more final than that.

So in what sense have we been set free? First, we will look at how we have not been set free.

What we are not yet free from is our inclination to distrust God and our passion to go our ²own way. If so, there wouldn't be verse 12.

"Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions." Romans 6:12

Who is Paul talking to? Nonbelievers? No, believers! This verse implies the passion to sin is still present in God’s child and still needs addressing, after he described us as dead to sin in vs 4, otherwise why the exhortation to not let sin reign? The allure of going our own way - sin - still exists, even for a child of God.

This is ironically good news. How? We shouldn't be shocked (or devastated) when this passion within rears its ugly head. Sin - i.e. rebellious distrust of God - is still a struggle. This exhortation tells us God recognizes this passion still exists, yet He no longer holds our sin against us. Exhorting us to not let sin reign indicates that if we are in Christ, God desires to work with us and meet us where we are, fully embracing us in our ongoing struggle with sin - unbelief.

So what exactly are we set free from and dead to if not our passion to sin? We are free from sins legal claim and right to condemn us, which results in our rejection, and eternal separation from God – a separation rightly due us for our distrust of God - i.e. for not acknowledging God for who He is as trustworthy...which is the root of all sinful behavior – see link below.

And the reason we have been set free from this just condemnation is so we might be set free (Romans 6:4, 7:4, 8:4) from our ³passion to distrust God i.e. in light of being set free from sins condemnation we should “let not sin therefore reign...” 

Fully and clearly understanding our legal status is vital to our day-to-day faithfulness. It is the foundation and fountain out of which all faithfulness/obedience springs.

"We were buried therefore with him (Christ) by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Romans" 6:4. 

Another way to say this is Christ set us free legally, so we might be set free practically i.e. our legal freedom from the condemnation of sin, when clearly understood, is what diffuses our passion to sin and frees us from it.

Christ bore the judgment of sin and removed its penalty forever–not only from us but from Himself. He will not die again because there is nothing left to die for, as indicated when Christ shouted out, "it is finished." His death covered all our sins forever...full stop! Not just the ones we did, but the ones we do and are yet to do. 

The just condemnation of our sin was perfectly and completely satisfied by Christ and removed from us, placed on him, killing him – or rather, he submitted willingly to this for us. 

His resurrection is evidence of God’s approval of the total transfer of all our sin - past, present, and future - to Him and His total righteousness to us. As a result, we are now "dead to sin."

Why? ... in order that...we too might walk in newness of life… Rom 6:4b

The reason we are set free from the just condemnation we deserve is so we will live in a different or new way; no longer the way we used to live i.e. no longer contrary to God’s design and will for us and no longer under His judgment; no longer needing or attempting to gain God's love and acceptance through our own deeds. We are now dead to everything about that old way - all of it!  To use the example Paul uses to show the absolute completeness of what Christ did, we are no longer in Adam but in Christ.

Being freed from the condemnation, judgment, and rejection of God due us is the grounds on which we build our house of faithful obedience and the foundation out of which we are empowered to pursue God. The more we grasp this new freedom from condemnation and rejection and the absolute completeness of it, the ⁴freer we become in our conduct, and the more this new status of being perfectly accepted and fully loved by God wins our trust and devotion to God and empowers us to pursue Him.

For a further discussion of how unbelief is at the heart of sin, click here.

For a further discussion of our legal vs practical status click here.

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¹We are not set free from our inclination to distrust God but from the rejection by God and separation from Him that naturally and rightfully occurs because of this distrust. By our being set free from our just condemnation, our trust in God’s love is restored, stirred up, and strengthened. The more we grasp how much we have been freed, the greater our loving affections for God and the more we are stirred to pursue Him i.e. the more we are freed from our passion to pursue something other than God. Nothing else can fulfill us besides God and free us from our desires to pursue things other than Him.

The love of God is what moves us to pursue him and the total freedom from the judgment, condemnation, and death sin brings, is the evidence of that love. Let that sink in. The more it does, the more your passion for God increases and frees you from passions for things other than God. 

Though these two -- freedom from sins legal claim vs its practical hold -- are separate, they are also tied together; the latter built on and resting firmly on the former.

²an embedded sinful inclination away from God

³Passion is a strong word. We may not think of our unbelief as passionate but the idea of the word is it is a deeply embedded and tenacious distrust of God that is at the root of all disobedience.

For more discussion on the connection between unbelief, sin, and disobedience, click here.

⁴We are free, but we are not free. We are free from the condemnation, judgment, and rejection of Go,d but not free from our inclination and passion to sin. The former is completed-done-finished, the latter is ongoing. The latter decreases to the extent we grasp and believe the former. The effect of this good news - the gospel - is ongoing, constant and increasing. It is only left to us to believe it. 

Do you believe? How much? The more you do, the freer you become from your passion to sin. 

The Necessity of Judgment

The Necessity of Judgment

·        Sin defined

To understand why judgment is necessary we first need a clear definition of the essence of sin. Sin is not merely bad (unrighteous) actions - though actions say something very important about us. They are bad because of why they are done (i.e. our motive) and not just what is being done. We get a clear definition of sin in the following passage.

Rom_3:23  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

This suggests and implies the essence of sin is coming short of the glory of God.

The *glory of God (see definition of the original below) is the display of His beauty, greatness, majesty, worth  etc. Any attitude or resulting action that displays His beauty, greatness, majesty and worth is one that is glorifying/honoring to God and therefore good (righteous).

Let us look at some of the keywords in this passage.

Rom_3:23  for all have sinned^G264 and fall^G5302 short^G5302 of the glory^G1391 of God,

Sinned: G264  ἁμαρτάνω  = hamartanō; from an early root ἁμαρτ- hamart-; to miss the mark, do wrong, sin: - commit sin (1), committed...offense (1), committing (1), sin (11), sinned (17), sinning (4), sins (8).

“Sinned” appears to be what is sometimes referred to as the sin of commission (an offense we commit). We shoot (an act) for the wrong thing and therefore miss the right thing i.e. what we are shooting at is the wrong target - we miss the mark. We are pursuing the wrong thing.

Fall short: G5302  ὑστερέω  = hustereō; from G5306; to come late, be behind, come short: - am...lacking (1), come short (1), comes short (1), destitute (1), fall short (1), impoverished (1), inferior (2), lack (2), lacked (1), lacking (1), need (1), ran (1), suffering need (1), worse (1).

This appears to be what is sometimes referred to as a sin of omission (things we don't do i.e. we omit). We do not have within us what it takes to get it done i.e. we come up short; we don't have the spiritual fuel to accomplish what we should.

So we have two related but separate problems. We …have sinned and fall short…”  Not only are all our actions shooting for the wrong target but they come up short of the true target of bringing God glory i.e. recognizing or acknowledging His true worth/greatness/ honor.

In summary, missing the glory of God is simply our not recognizing God’s great worth/value in our disposition (heart) first that is displayed by our actions. This occurs two ways.

1.    We shoot for the wrong target. Instead of seeking to glorify God, we worship/value the creature or creation over the Creator Rom 1:21-23. 

2.   We come up short or are impotent in hitting the right target or that end for which we were created; the recognition and enjoyment of the full majesty and greatness of God. 

So the heart or essence of sin is not acknowledging God in all His beauty, majesty and glory resulting in our not trusting God in proportion to His trustworthiness.

The outward manifestation  and display of what we normally call sin or sinful behavior is only the fruit of our inward state of not recognizing or coming up short of recognizing the great beauty/value/worth/ glory of God. Sinful behavior is the outward display of our not trusting God in proportion to His true greatness and worthiness of our total trust.

* Glory: G1391  δόξα   doxa

Thayer Definition:

1) opinion, judgment, view

2) opinion, estimate, whether good or bad concerning someone

2a) in the NT always a good opinion concerning one, resulting in praise, honour, and glory

3) splendour, brightness

3a) of the moon, sun, stars

3b) magnificence, excellence, preeminence, dignity, grace

3c) majesty

3c1) a thing belonging to God

3c1) the kingly majesty which belongs to him as supreme ruler, majesty in the sense of the absolute perfection of the deity

3c2) a thing belonging to Christ

3c2a) the kingly majesty of the Messiah

3c2b) the absolutely perfect inward or personal excellency of Christ; the majesty

3c3) of the angels

3c3a) as apparent in their exterior brightness

4) a most glorious condition, most exalted state

4a) of that condition with God the Father in heaven to which Christ was raised after he had achieved his work on earth

4b) the glorious condition of blessedness into which is appointed and promised that true Christians shall enter after their Saviour’s return from heaven

·        The Necessity Of Judgment

Gods judgment vindicates and displays his great worth.

With a clearer understanding of sin, the reason judgment is necessary is it vindicates and displays the great worth of God.

Condemning sin (our not recognizing God’s great worth and the subsequent fruit of this) displays the greatness of God’s worth i.e. if sin is the belittling of God, what better way to show the greatness of God then to clearly condemn the disregard for His greatness. The greater the condemnation for ignoring His greatness the greater the indication of that greatness.

Not judging sin would be equal to saying God is not great. His value is not that significant i.e. it is not a big deal if you do not recognize the greatness of God.

God's life can only come to us when everything antagonistic to true life is properly addressed. This is true legally but also true practically. To ignore the greatness of God is antagonistic to true life. It is against God first because God is life. It is against us because we subsist by and through Him. Therefore it is wrong and must be condemned, hence the necessity of judgment.

Legally, we come short of giving God His due recognition. Christ on the other hand honored His Father completely and trusted Him fully. He gave the Father his total honor by trusting Him and remaining true to Him to the ultimate extent of His death. (In contrast, outside of Christ and His Spirit within us, everything we do is designed to maintain our life independent of God). Not only so but the Father then assigned Christ’s perfect record of fully honoring Him to our account. We now have the full benefit of the righteousness of Christ credited to us. While at the same time, the full consequences of our belittling God was poured out on Christ. 

God is not only just but the justifier. He is not only great and awful (i.e. full of awe or awesome) but He is love. And His love was so great, He gave the greatest object of His love, His Son, to bear the just punishment of our dishonoring the Father and rescued us from His just condemnation.

In summary, condemning (passing sentence against) our coming short up of recognizing God’s worth actually displays the greatness of God’s worth i.e. what better way to show the greatness of God then to clearly and soundly condemn the ignoring of His greatness.  The greater the condemnation the greater the indication of this greatness.

For a fuller discussion of the basis for morality click here. 

Good trees bear good fruit

Matthew 12.33-37 says, “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit (i.e. its fruit is evidence of what kind of tree it is). You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are ¹evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The ²good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil - (i.e. whatever is in the heart, whether good or evil, flows out. This is not describing something we must do, it's simply telling us what happens based on the condition of our heart).

I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (ESV) i.e. our words will be evidence of a just or evil heart. 

The ERV also gives a helpful translation...

33 “If you want good fruit, you must make the tree good. If your tree is not good, it will have bad fruit. A tree is known by the kind of fruit it produces. 34 You snakes! You are so evil. How can you say anything good? What people say with their mouths comes from what fills their hearts. 35 Those who are good have good things saved in their hearts. That’s why they say good things. But those who are evil have hearts full of evil, and that’s why they say things that are evil. 36 I tell you that everyone will have to answer for all the careless things they have said. This will happen on the day of judgment. 37 Your words will be used to judge you. What you have said will show whether you are right or whether you are guilty.” ERV

Early in my Christian life, I found this passage confusing, as I did many of the things Christ said. The reason is what Christ says sounds like salvation is the result of our efforts "...by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”  

If a man is condemned by his words, are not his words the cause of his condemnation? If you do bad things you get a bad result i.e. condemnation - and if you do good things you get a good result i.e. justification. The result is based on what you do or don't do; on good or bad words. So it sounds like salvation is based on saying good words i.e. Salvation is by works - good deeds. 

But is this what Christ is saying? Not at all! At a closer look, He is actually saying just the opposite. He is saying evil words are evidence that we are already under condemnation i.e. We are not a child of God. In short, our hearts are evil and we are under the just judgment of God. This is also the point of the following passage. 

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God...” John 3:17-18. 

This passage doesn't cite any particular bad deed. The issue is what we have not done yet versus what we have done. It says we live under condemnation because of our alienation from God. 

But what did we do to cause this?  There wasn't anything we did in terms of a particular action, such as murder, stealing, or lying. It's what we do not "do." We refuse to receive the solution God offers to address our alienation i.e. our unbelief. We do not believe we need God the way God says we do. And we do not believe in the solution God provided to address that unbelief.

Our words and deeds are simply the result/evidence /fruit of the state of our heart i.e. we have and are turned away from God and in rebellion to him. As a result, we are under condemnation. This is our true condition. If we are evil we produce evil words/fruit. If we are good, we produce good words/fruit. Our words and deeds are evidence of the state of our heart, so in this sense, they justify or condemn us i.e. they reveal or expose the true condition of our heart - by their fruit you will know them. The state of our heart is why we are justified or condemned.

Once I got a better handle on this passage, I found it very exciting. Why? Because it indicates living the Christian life is not something we must or can do in our own power. Only by God's power, spirit, love, etc. are we able to live for God. If we wish to bear much fruit we don't double down in our efforts to do good, we double down on our faith in God's offer of love. The more his love gets ahold of our hearts the more good fruit we bear. It is his love (our belief in His love for us) that produces fruit, not our efforts. 

For a fuller discussion on this, the following posts should help. 

Empowered by what...

It all depends on God and you

Love is power

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¹So what exactly is the evil Christ is referring to? It is the evil of being in rebellion toward God, resulting in our disconnection from Him. The biggest evidence is our refusal of his offer of restoration. Note the passage says "you being evil" and does not say you doing evil. He talks about doing later - i.e. "bringing forth" good or evil things - as the fruit of being evil. Distrust of God is evidence of a rebellious/evil heart. 

If we are made to be in union with God and disconnected from that union, we are broken and are missing what we were designed to have - God in all His endless love. As a result, we break/hurt others. 

This is the essence and heart of evil; to do things that harm others because we are not in union with our Creator as we were designed to be. We have chosen to be our own god versus having faith in the only true God. We live contrary to God's design of complete dependence/Union with Him. We are like a fish designed to live in pure life-giving water, but living in water full of mud. We blindly thrash about harming others and, ultimately, ourselves and eventually die. 

When we are not in union with the perfectly loving God we cannot do the things God designed us to do. Out of the void of a broken and empty heart only comes broken actions and words - evil - not good loving actions and words. As a result, we are under a state of condemnation if we are not in Christ.

Christ is clearly saying it is impossible for good fruit to come from an evil heart. A thorn bush cannot bear apples or oranges no matter how hard it trys because it is a thorn Bush. 

If a heart is good it will bear good fruit. In other words, good fruit is evidence of a good heart, a heart that has been made righteous and set free from the requirement of perfect obedience in order to be approved and accepted by God. Good words do not cause one to be righteous but are evidence someone already is righteous by Christ's efforts.

Elsewhere, Christ stated, "...Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. - John 15:5 ESV

It is not possible to produce good fruit unless we - the branches - are connected to or in union with the vine - abiding in God.

²What does Christ mean by "good person"? He is simply describing someone whose heart has been changed through union with God and is now abiding in Him and His love. 

When we abide in him we produce good fruit i.e. do good deeds. It is the organic and inevitable outcome of that union because God is the source of life, love, and all things. To be "plugged in" to Him and His love makes us loving in the way God is and originally designed/created us to be i.e. The Father is the Vine keeper, Christ is the Vine through which life flows, and we are the branches through which life - God's very own life - is manifest in and through us as fruit i.e. loving acts - good deeds.

Is God dependent?

The following article comes from the unpublished work “How Well do I Know God.”

b. God is also dependent

How can or is the Almighty, all-sustaining God of the universe dependent? Or is He? We normally do not think in terms of God being dependent, do we? In fact, this may even sound heretical at first. After all, He is the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving, everywhere present God. Everything that was, is, or will be, comes from Him. How can God be dependent on anything when everything is dependent on him? 

Well, in fact, He isn't dependent on just anything. God is definitely not dependent on anything in creation. Logic alone tells us this. Because He created and sustains everything, the creation depends on Him and not the other way around.

What about God being dependent on Himself? Is this even possible? It’s not too far-fetched when you consider that even we as mere finite humans seek to depend on ourselves and no one else. But for God, what exactly does this mean or look like? As suggested in an earlier article, the ground for God’s independence is His interdependence. This is a mystery, but in a very real sense, God is just as dependent on Himself as we are dependent on Him. So yes, God is dependent but only within His own being, not on anything outside Himself. 

However, is this real dependence as you and I understand it? If so, how? 

God is a being of three distinct persons within one God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit relate to each other as truly distinct persons

with separate and distinct roles, while at the same time, only one God. Therefore, dependence - or in God's case, interdependence - is fundamental to His being and is central to His makeup. Just because it is dependence within Himself, does not make it any less dependence or a felt reality. We may not be able to make sense of this logically, but we certainly see the evidence of it in how God relates to Himself first, then to us, and how we relate to Him. As we progress, we hope to make this clearer.

What is the practical significance of His being dependent? There are several things. Because God is interdependent, He is also an inter-relational and an inter-communicating being. He is a self-contained community, if you will. Therefore, He truly understands what it means to need and can identify with the feeling of need. How is this possible? In, through, and by the incarnation of Christ, several unique things occurred. 

Did not the Son (God) experience the pain of the crucifixion and subsequent separation from His Father? And did not Christ also experience the consequences of sin during His crucifixion with the emotional, spiritual and physical impact of this as well throughout his ministry? While on earth he entered fully - likely more than anyone - into the brokenness of this world and humanity. He experienced hunger; he got tired; he was treated throughout his earthly ministry as if he were infinitely less significant than he truly was. At the end of it all, he suffered the consequences of judgment, condemnation, punishment, and shame. Even though these were not due to His own sin (he had none), the painful consequences he experienced were as if they were - and more so since He bore the judgment of many and we only bear our own (if we are outside of Christ). 

We are told we have a high priest who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, do we not? Why? He’s been there, done that, as they say. Remember His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane as He faced the prospect of bearing the full consequences of your sin and mine, with the full weight of judgment and separation from His Father bearing down on Him? Experts say in order to sweat blood the emotional stress must be almost unimaginable to rupture the tiniest of blood vessels at the surface of our skin. 

Did not God the Father also experience the loss and pain of separation from His only begotten Son, the Son of His eternal love? On account of the inter-relationship of the Father with His Son, it was not just the Son who experienced the suffering of the cross, but the Father also, due to His infinite love for the Son. Not unlike any loving father would feel pain when He sees His child suffer loss or injustice. On account of this, God and His Son fully entered into all aspects of pain and suffering caused by separation, as well as experiencing the sins committed against Christ as a man on earth.

When you have been estranged from someone you loved; one of your kids, a parent or a spouse because of some offense causing a rift between you, how did (or does) it feel? Whatever it is you ¹felt, God the Father and the Son also felt this. Granted the separation the Son experienced was due to our sins and not His own, it was still separation nonetheless, with all the existential ramifications. 

God understands truly not only what relationship is but also what losing it feels like, possibly in a way even greater than we do. If the level of relationship, unity, and dependence between the Father and Son is perfect and on an infinitely higher level than our own, wouldn’t the pain of its loss also be infinitely greater? God not only understands the joy of loving and being loved, of honoring and being honored but also the pain of losing that love and honor and feeling its loss in and through Christ.

The fact that Christ’s heinous and reprehensible death was not due to any wrong He had done made the pain even greater. We have heard stories of someone being wrongfully accused, convicted, and then sentenced to a crime they did not commit. Then years later having that decision reversed due to new DNA evidence revealing their innocence. What a travesty of justice. The one incarcerated spends those lost years, never to be recovered, wondering if justice would ever be served. 

To suffer for your own wrongdoing, though hard, is justified, but to be accused and suffer for the wrong of someone else is the worst kind of suffering. It is the most unjust and feels the most unfair. Much of our suffering is due to our own sin. His was due only as a result of someone else's (ours).

1. A felt as well as real dependence

Christ emptying himself of His Divinity and becoming a man was a test of his trust of the Father in ways He never experienced before. He no longer had the advantage of full omniscience for understanding. While on earth He couldn’t see the complete outcome of everything as before because He willfully set it aside.

Mat 24:36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

John 8:28 So Jesus said to them, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.

John 5:19 So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

John 5:30 “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my ²own will but the will of him who sent me.

Instead of being able to rely on His omniscient deity to know things, He now had to depend solely on His Father’s direction and what the Father revealed to Him and told Him to do. Whatever manifestations of supernatural power Christ displayed was solely from His dependence on and enabling of His Father through the Spirit (remember Christ performed no miracles or entered ministry until after the Spirit had come upon him). This itself was a kind of suffering for it was a loss of benefits He formally possessed i.e. omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience. He loved and trusted His Father from eternity past; losing these characteristics required Him to trust the Father in a way He never had experienced before. This helps us understand the statement in Hebrews that Christ learned obedience i.e. He learned how to set aside his own will and as a man faithfully follow His Father’s will and direction, through the struggles and suffering He endured. His lacking what was formally and fully His -- omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence -- required him to depend on His Father in a new and different way. He no longer knew things through His own first-hand experience but knew them by faith, i.e. He had to trust what the Father revealed to Him as true and right because He could no longer confirm them through first-hand knowledge (though he likely recalled his experiencing this before he became a man).

Even though the Father and Son had a relationship of interdependence prior to the incarnation, there was now a felt dependence between the Father and Son during the incarnation in a new way that did not exist prior to that event. He learned obedience-faith through the things he suffered i.e. He went from untested to tested obedience.

In light of these things God did and can experience all aspects of being in a relationship, just like you and I, the bad as well as the good. 

If so, what does this mean for us? As far as this discussion goes, God and His Son truly and really ¹feel our pain and weakness as well as our joys and pleasures, for they experienced them as well.

Heb 4:15 For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

“Tempted” is not the idea of being enticed to wrong but to endure the experience of a difficult event or its consequent struggle, i.e. to be tested or disciplined by it. In our struggle we are often enticed to self-comfort without necessarily partaking in it. 

Tempted: Πειράζω, peirazō, pi-rad'-zo; to test (objectively), that is, endeavor, scrutinize, entice, discipline: - assay, examine, go about, prove, tempt (-er), try.

God truly and really enjoys our love and appreciates our gratitude and honor, in the same way He does the honor and glory exchanged between the members of the Trinity. This is in part due to His being in relationship throughout eternity and our being able to enter into relationship with Him as His image-bearers, i.e. we are relational like God. Since God is a relational being and we are like Him we can really and truly bring joy to His heart, not unlike the joy His only begotten Son also brings to His heart. We can bring sadness to His heart when we are alienated from Him just as when His Son was alienated from Him at the cross for the same reason, i.e. for our sin, not His.

It is also worth mentioning that Christ is our elder brother and we too are considered sons and daughters – children - of God. Though we are not the eternal only begotten Son, we are adopted sons and daughters in Christ nevertheless, who will live with God our Father throughout eternity just as our elder brother Christ. As a result, God really and truly feels the give-and-take of relationship with us in a manner similar to what He feels with his Son and similar to how you and I feel it with our kids and each other.

If we stop to consider it, where does our ability to relate to others come from? Where do we get the capacity to feel the various aspects, both good and bad, of being in a relationship? Does it come out of a vacuum or simply because we are fallen due to our rebellion? We were relational before the fall, were we not? Would it make sense that we, as His creatures, could feel and experience something more or completely different regarding relationship than God Himself? No, these qualities are in us because they were in God first and are all a part of God’s being and therefore ours as His image-bearers.

In summary

The interaction of God as a triune being is key to what makes God a relational being instead of some stoic, unmoved, impersonal force. He not only designed relationship and understands it, He is relationship. This is just another way of saying God is love. Relationship is at the very core of His Being and has been from eternity past. It is in fact why God is love. He is not just another relational being but one of perfect giving and receiving of love, honor, and glory throughout eternity past. All other relationships are a reflection of the primary relationship of God as an inter-relational Being. Nothing He does is outside of relationship, whether that be within Himself or with you and I. Relationship, and therefore love is rooted in the very essence of His being. God doesn’t simply have love, He is love. He alone is the I AM. He has always been from all eternity past. God could not be a God of love if He were not a God of relationship first.

This also explains how we can truly enter into a real relationship with God and Him with us. Relationship is not something new, strange or awkward to God but has been a part of His make up from eternity past, before you and I ever entered the picture. Dependence within a relationship is a deeply rooted quality within God’s very makeup. Just because it is dependence within Himself does not make God any less dependent, or less a reality or less a relationship. So dependence is not just a reality of our existence, but is also God’s. For us, it is dependence on something or someone outside of our being. For God, it is dependence within His, but dependence just the same.

Therefore, our independence from God is in direct conflict with the reality of God’s dependence in a far more significant way than we may have previously considered. Our attempt at independence is contrary not just to who we are as dependent beings, but also to who God is as an interdependent being. God designed us for a relationship of dependence on Him so that we could participate in and experience this interdependence He has within Him. For us to attempt to be independent of God violates not just our nature but the very nature of God.

It must be clear that there is no one or nothing outside of God that He needs to be God. In theological terms, this is known as the aseity of God or His self-existence. This is the essence of God being the one and only "I AM." God is dependent on nothing and therefore requires nothing outside of Him to be God. He is self-sufficient, self-sustained and independent. I am suggesting this independence is rooted in his interdependence. 

For a further discussion on the incarnation of Christ click here. 

For a further discussion on God's interdependence click here. 

For a further discussion on the love, life, Spirit and essence of God click here
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¹some might argue this is contrary to the impassibility of God. This says God is not subject to suffering, pain, or the ebb and flow of involuntary passions. However, the independence of God prevents Him from being passionate out of a need for others, while passionate in His need for Himself. For a closer look at the impassibility of God, click here. 

²It is worth noting that Christ says he and the Father have a seperate will. Granted Christ’s will always submitted to the Fathers, so in that sense his was one and the same with the Fathers, but in order for Christ's obedience to be meaningful it had to be His choice.