The Triune God as Life and Life-Giver

The Triune God Is Eternal Life!

When the Trinity is mentioned, most could easily enumerate the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, but few may pause to consider all that these titles imply. To be sure, the terms themselves indicate something of the nature and character of the Triune God, and also, derivatively, of the nature and character of our experience of God.

Above all, the terms Father, Son, and Spirit indicate that the Triune God is a God of life. The begetting Father is the source of the divine life. God the Son, as the object of the Father’s begetting, is the expression of the divine life (John 1:18). God the Spirit is the very essence of the divine life (Robichaux 11). The Lord Jesus revealed that “just as the Father has life in Himself, so He gave the Son to also have life in Himself” (John 5:26). Furthermore, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2). Hence, it is altogether accurate to say that God is life and that life is the intrinsic element of God’s being.

The Bible further reveals that God’s desire is to give His eternal life to man (John 3:16; 10:10). Therefore, just as life is the defining attribute of God’s being, so it is also the defining attribute of God’s work in His full salvation. Certainly, the forgiveness of sin and the ascription of righteousness to the repentant sinner are important initial steps, yet they are only the necessary preliminary to God’s goal of dispensing His divine life into man. We were appointed to eternal life (Acts 13:48). We are justified by faith that we may receive the divine life; our justification is thus a “justification of life” (Rom. 5:18). Lee explains, “Life is the goal of God’s salvation; thus, justification is of life…. Through justification we have come up to the standard of God’s righteousness and correspond with it, so that now He can impart His life to us” (Witness Lee, Footnotes, 623)

Were God’s salvation merely a redemptive one, believers would not require a Father, Son, and Spirit in the Divine Trinity. Perhaps a Judge, a Redeemer, and an Advocate would suffice. Though the Bible certainly reveals the Triune God in these judicial functions, these functions are ultimately remedial, and hence, procedural. Rather, God’s goal in redeeming sinners is to dispense the divine life into them. Unbelievers are not only sinful, but also alienated from the life of God (Eph. 4:18). The Lord therefore clarified: “I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly” (John 10:10). God Himself promised eternal life (Tit. 1:2) and gave it as a gift (Rom. 6:23). Indeed, the hallmark verse of the Reformation, Romans 1:17, declares, “But the righteous shall have life and live by faith.” God attributes righteousness to His believers not as an end in itself, but rather, in order that they may have the divine life and live by it.

God the Father is the fountain, the source, of the divine life (Psa. 36:9). At the time we were born again, we were actually regenerated by the Father with the divine life (1 Pet. 1:3); God the Father is thus truly the Father of all genuine believers (John 20:17; Rom. 8:15). Furthermore, Christ came as the embodiment of the divine life (John 1:4; 11:25; 14:6). Through His death and resurrection, the divine life was released from within Him and dispensed into all His believers (John 12:24; 3:36). Now they, as the many brothers of the Firstborn Son, share His divine life and nature. Finally, the Spirit as the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2), is the essence and reality of the divine life. He is the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45) imparting the divine life into the believers (1 Cor. 3:6).

All the believers in Christ have been granted, as one of the most precious New Testament bequests, the ability to know God (Heb 8:11). Though one may know the Triune God in many different ways (as Creator, Benefactor, Redeemer, Guardian, etc.), ultimately the deepest knowledge of God issues from knowing the Father, Son, and Spirit in their intrinsic element; that is, knowing the Triune God as the divine life. Believers begin by receiving the divine life when they are born again. Then, the more they experience and partake of the Triune God as the indwelling divine life, the more the divine life within functions to metabolically transform them (2 Cor. 3:18). Thus they mature in the divine life (Heb. 6:1) and are conformed to the image of Christ as the Firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:29). In eternity, all the believers will ever be the many brothers of the Firstborn Son, ever enjoy the Spirit as the flowing river of water of life (Rev. 22:1; John 7:38-39), and as the many sons, ever express the Father in His divine life.