One of my favorite discussions to get into with atheists is about the Trinity. They love that it doesn’t make sense, and, as it turns out, so do I. Why would I expect the One responsible for this inexplicable universe to have a personality that made sense to me? But as a believer, there are some serious aspects of the Trinitarian nature of my Master about which I am ill at ease.
For instance, this passage to which Chambers refers is one that I really find difficult. It either is not referring to the Trinitarian nature of my Master, or it makes this nature accessible, and inclusive of me. It’s one thing to say that my Master has this nature made up of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the Three are One in some fashion. It is a whole other matter to say then, that my Master’s human creatures (like me) can be included in this nature.
The problem is that I know I will never be God. Yet, for whatever reason, the Apostle John was convinced that we will be like Him. I don’t know what it means to be “like” God, and in this passage I am even challenged further that I will be “in” my Master as my Master is “in” the Father. Part of my problem with that is that the Apostle did not use some specific narrow Greek word for “just as”, or some special preposition for “in”, but the general purpose common words which are easily understood. While the Greek preposition “in” has a wider range of meaning than the English equivalent, it still represents the idea of something penetrating beyond the surface and proceeding within the object.
So taking only verse 21 of John 17, I am left with this idea that, just as Jesus is “in” the Father and the Father is “in” Jesus, so I will be in both. That is some deep water. It is a concept that troubles me. I am not even as “clean” as Isaiah and his “unclean lips”. My people are not even as “clean” as his “people of unclean lips”. How can I be “in” my Master? How can I exist within the boundaries of the Person responsible for creating, maintaining, sustaining, and eventually destroying something as vast as the immeasurable universe I live within? I can’t even understand it on a micro-cosmic level, how can I be “included” within the Creator of it?
This is my real problem with the Trinity, not that my Master would have that as part of His nature, but that I can be somehow included in such a nature. And not because I cannot accept or believe that such a nature has the capability to include others in it, but rather because I know my sin and profane nature. How can someone like me (and there are many like me in this world) be included in this way with One like Him?
I know this bothers me, but my Master has a very familiar answer. It is possible because my Master makes it possible. I cannot be holy, but my Master sanctifies me (the process of making me holy). I cannot be perfect without sin, but my Master takes away the wrath demanded by justice for those defects on which I have worked so diligently (a process also known as “propitiation”).
These are the activities taken by my Master which make such an inclusion in the very nature of my Master not just possible, but inevitable. That is where I am headed regardless of how much I cannot understand or refuse to accept it. I am to be somehow included within the boundaries of this Person, this Creator of the micro and macro cosmos.
So, if this is my destiny, laid out by One so powerful so as to make it as certain as the dawn, why then should I be concerned about a job, insurance, house, food, clothes, car, and anything else uncertain as my family transitions to living in a different state? Seriously, what else matters if that destiny is certain? What else can compete for my concern if that future lies just ahead? What is left to worry about? What is there to cause me angst? How can anything unsettle me if that is true? I would hope that dogs would not make me as upset as they do, but they do.
If I live my life with the certainty that I will be included in my Master, then the last part of verse 21 will also become true. The world (cosmos) will believe that my Master was sent with a purpose. The purpose and intent of this inclusion is the eventual inclusion of others in this cosmos. I am not supposed to be alone in this amazing impossible experience. But, rather, as I experience and live this inclusion out daily, others see and believe, and hopefully enter into the inclusion as well. Faith allows me entrance into Heaven, love enables me to bring friends. So, once again, it isn’t really about me after all. How surprising…or not.
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