As the Father and Son behold the infinite beauty and glory of the other they experience infinite, overflowing joy, and delight in, by, and through the Spirit.
Each is the very heart and center of the others affections. We could say each is the unceasing, passionate "heartbeat" and central ¹focus of the beauty of the other. The proverbial apple of each others eye, if you will.
They are passionately moved to extol or glorify the ¹¹other and lazer focused on doing so.
They have always delighted in each ¹¹other from all eternity past and will continue for all eternity future with or without us.
By beholding and loving the glory of the other and experiencing love and delight in that beholding, each member of our ⁶three person God participates in and experiences their ⁶greatest joy and glory (worth, significance, etc).
Joy, love, and delight are the fruit of their beholding the infinite glory and beauty of the ¹¹other.
Experiencing infinite delight, joy, and significance in beholding each other drives all their actions. Bringing greater joy and significance (glory) to the other (among and within the Father, Son, in, by, and through the Spirit first, but also ⁹overflowing to us as His image bearers) is their primary aim. This is what moves God to do everything He - they - do.
To behold the perfection of the ¹¹other evokes infinite admiration, joy, delight, and love for the other in, by, and through the Spirit.
So what does any of this have to do with us?
God calling us to love Him and our neighbor is simply an extension and reflection of what God is like, i.e., this is who God is, and He calls us to reflect Him as bearers of His image.
God is ⁸full because he already is - and has - perfect joy and infinite worth (glory) within Himself as the most significant (glorious) being of all. From Him everything else came and depends on Him for existence.
Actually He is not just full but ⁹overflowing in infinite love. And this is because of the perfectly magnificent beauty, majesty, and infinite glory of each person within the Godhead.
The Spirit is God, manifested by passionate love (breath) between the Father and Son. This is who God is. He is infinite, passionate love i.e. He is Spirit.
The Spirit is the life (energy) and wind (power) of God. The Spirit is the very breath of God. Without breath, God - like us, no longer functions. To have breath is to live, and to live, we must breathe. So it is with God. Without the Spirit, there is no breath, and without breath there is no God.
The Spirit is central and vital to who God is. The Spirit's role is unique from the Father and the Son's role and vital to the relationship between them, as well as emanating from and manifested by that relationship.
With all these aspects of God's being combined means each person within the Godhead is continuously giving and receiving perfect love from the other, who is equally perfect in beauty and love, yet also unique in function.
Each loves perfectly and evokes in the other perfect love and delight because of their unique and perfect beauty and glory. They are all God together, not separately. For God to be God, they all must be together in a perfect union of beauty, harmony, and delight.
"For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.
To Him be the glory forever! Amen" - Rom 11:36
Because of this, God's love is other-oriented and focused, not self-focused. First between the Father, Son, and Spirit, but also out to others who are like him, i.e. us, who bear his image.
When a husband beholds the beauty (glory) of his wife and partakes of her love, and a wife partakes of and experiences the strength (glory) of her husband, it evokes within each a delight for the other. A delight so great that their union is like another person (as well as children who bear the image of the parents as well as God's image). They are no longer two separate individuals but a new and distinct union of love.
In God, all these qualities are perfection - nothing can be added to or taken away from God for Him to be all that He already is.
In light of who God is, He must be and is the center of all things. He is the most valuable, worthy, significant, glorious, and lovely of all beings or things.
This is why He is always calling us to glorify Him. It's not because He needs us, but because we need Him to participate in all He created us to be and experience i.e., we are created to experience Him in the fullness of His beauty-glory by participating in the glory and union of the Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit. We are designed to find our greatest glory and joy in experiencing His.
His calling us to glorify Him is the most loving thing He can do for us - as well as the most honoring thing we can do for Himself.
Our praises of him throughout eternity will be the spontaneous response to beholding him in all his majesty and glory. Just like the praises of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father in, by, and through the Spirit.
Like the Sea of Galilee, God's life is also dynamic, not static, because of the infinite beauty of the persons within the Godhead. Each is infinitely beautiful and glorious; each captures and delights the heart of the other and is captivated by the other's infinite value and beauty.
What happens when you add us to this divine mix or dance of love and delight? The love and delight only increases (multiplies), not diminishes i.e. love flows among the Father and Son, in, by, and through the Spirit then out to us and back and forth between a greater number of others (who are in His image and as close to being like God as possible without actually being Him i.e. we are like Him in giving and receiving love but unlike Him, in that He is the Source of love and we are not i.e. we are the recipients and conduits of love not the cause).
We have the ³capacity to enter into this dance of divine love because we, ⁴like Christ, are like God himself... in His image. As His image bearers, we are valuable and infinitely valued because we can display God (who is of greatest worth) in a way nothing else can (except Christ Himself, who alone did and does honor His Father perfectly above all others).
Does bringing or adding more to this divine dance "thin out" God's love? No, it increases, expands, or multiplies it just like the love of parents can expand, increase, and multiply with each additional child. But unlike earthly parents, God is the infinite source of life, love, and all created things.
And our love for each child is unique because of the uniqueness of that child and how they each can uniquely reflect back to the parents love and overflow that love and their image out to others in a way that other children can't.
The more children there are, the more facets of God's glory and affections are displayed, experienced, and enjoyed.
What is the beatific vision? Click here to find out more.
For more on the self-sufficiency (aseity) of God, click here.
For more on Christ being the only begotten of the Father, click here.
For more on how God is relationship, click here.
For more on whether God is dependent or independent, click here.
For more on the life, love, and Spirit of God, click here.
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¹this is the model we build a Godly marriage on. Marriage best works as God designed it to, when each is focused on the other, vs on themselves... with God as the central and primary focus (vs the only focus) and the source of love to and for each.
²Which is all of us until our disconnection from God - the source of life and love - is repaired and we are fully restored to God's love.
³I say capacity because to enter into this Union, we first must be restored to God through Christ due to our rebellious and ongoing distrust and alienation between God and us, created by that distrust.
This alienation must be resolved and removed so we can be fully restored and reconnected to the Source of life and love. Once it is and we are reconciled and restored, we become the full and perfectly qualified recipients of God's unobstructed perfect love as we were designed to be.
As we come to embrace and rest in His perfect nonstop love, we are increasingly able to partake of that love in the same way the Father, Son, and Spirit do. This goes to the next level when we are glorified with God in ever-increasing glory for all eternity.
There is legally no longer any obstruction between God and us if we are "in Christ." It is gone forever. So much so that the very Spirit of God in all his holiness and infinite love now indwells us, i.e. We are the temple of God, and He now lives in us as perfectly restored and clean vessels. Without Christ legally purifying us, He could not and would not be restored and reconnected.
However, practically - on our side of the union - a weak connection still exists because of our lack of perfect trust in the Father. Because of Christ, we have perfect access to all God is, but we must "plug in" by faith. Distrust is like a bad connection in a wire, causing it to regularly short-circuit and hinder the power from flowing freely and consistently through it to its intended end. But this is a separate matter. For more on this click here.
⁴The Father "beget" the Son from all eternity past, not at a point in time (like us), hence He is the "only begotten" Son. For a discussion of this click here.
⁵That infinite affection moves God to do whatever will best draw us closer to him, so we might experience more of Him and participate in more of His love.
This often includes tests and trials, pain and suffering...but not always or forever. All pain is temporary if we are plugged back into God through Christ.
When we gain from the pain what we need to (i.e. a greater humility and dependence on God), we rise above that pain. The circumstances causing our pain is often still present but it's sting is removed because we receive it as it truly is - i.e. from the loving hand of God for our ¹⁰increasing union practically for our highest good and His greatest glory. Similar to the pain we experience in a workout. It hurts at the time but we know the outcome is good i.e. increased strength. To use a familiar expression, "no pain no gain."
To say God is love is to say God is dynamic passion or affections for another resulting in an outward focus and loving action toward others. As the Father beholds the glory and beauty of Son and the Son beholds the glory and beauty of the Father, their delight, joy and passion for each other manifests as the Spirit. The Spirit of love, joy, and delight between the Father and the Son is God for God is love and He is Spirit.
In the original Hebrew Spirit means breath (movement of air or wind) among other things i.e. the passionate and affectionate breathing of God for another who is infinitely glorious and beautiful.
Spirit (Greek)
Πνεῦμα (Pneuma)
Noun - Nominative Neuter Singular
Strong's 4151: Wind, breath, spirit.
The value of the Father, Son, and Spirit is so immense, and their delight in the other is so great that it moves them to bring joy to each other.
⁶We could say that love and delight are so real and intense it tangibly manifests as the Holy Spirit - i.e., the holy passion of God - as the 3rd person of the Trinity. We could argue this is in fact the over all manifestion of God, who is both love and is Spirit. The very Spirit - passion/life - that binds the Triune God together.
⁷an analogy comparing God to a finite inanimate object - a generator - only gives a tiny sliver of truth, at best, in describing the infinitely overflowing God of perfect beauty, love, delight, and action. Clearly, God is infinitely greater than anything created. Even more so than something mechanical. He is the cause and Creator of everything that is not God. He must be greater, for without him nothing else would exist.
⁸our fullness, love, and fruitfulness as His children and bearers of His image is the overflow of beholding and participating in the beauty and glory of God in the same way He beholds and participates in the beauty and glory between and among the Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit.
⁹This resulted (and results) in an overflow of love and glory to others like Him, as well as to all the rest of creation.
¹⁰ vs legally, which is not changing but completed. Because of the work of Christ - and it being credited to us as a gift - we are seen by God as perfectly righteous. While at the same time we are becoming more righteous practically in our daily conduct, i.e. Our righteousness legally is complete while our righteousness practically is incomplete, ongoing, and increasing. Practical righteousness will not be completed but will continue until we are fully glorified in eternity.
¹¹Being other focused is central to who God is. This is only because God is 3 persons within one being.
While God is only one being, the distinction of persons within the Trinity means God is other-focused versus self-centered.
While one being consisting of 3 distinct persons is difficult to comprehend on one level, we see a picture of this in the family unit.
In a healthy marriage, each partner is focused on the other's benefit. The result of this loving union is children. When a married couple has a child, a primary part of their focus of care and affections is now on the child. While at the same time maintaining the main focus on their marriage partner i.e., each other. In order to be their best for the child, they must continue to be the best for each other first.
The analogy is limited and breaks down - i.e., it is not a perfect picture of our triune God - because the husband and wife are finite and must look outside themselves to participate in infinite love offered only by God, the Creator, who alone is infinite in love.
