Relationship (Romans 8:12-17)

People use a few different objects to try to explain the Trinity, or the Christian belief that there is one God who makes himself known to us in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For example, an apple or egg is one item which has three parts. Apples have skin, flesh and core, while eggs have a shell, albumen or white, and yoke. Water can illustrate the Trinity because it is one substance which exists in three states: solid, liquid and gas. Another illustration of the Trinity is a clover leaf which has three parts to make the one leaf.

While each of these objects can help us understand the Trinity to a point, they are also limited in their ability to help us embrace the mystery of the Three-in-One God who is at work in our lives as our Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier.

The authors of the New Testament didn’t use objects like eggs, apples, water or clover leaves when they wrote about the Trinity. Their focus wasn’t to explain the Trinity as an object to understand. Instead, the writers of the New Testament wanted to point us towards the Divine Being who invites us into relationship. One example of this is the New Testament reading for Trinity Sunday, Romans 8:12-17. Here, the Apostle Paul proclaims the good news of Father, Son and Holy Spirit who welcomes us into a new relationship with him so we can live a new kind of life.

Paul writes that ‘all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God’ (v14 NLT). Last week we celebrated Pentecost Sunday and talked about God giving his Holy Spirit to us to help us have faith in Jesus. In today’s reading, Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit helps us have a new relationship with God as his children and not as slaves. In the ancient world, slaves had no rights, were expected to do what they were told, and received no wage for their work. Paul writes that through the gift of the Holy Spirit, we aren’t slaves who live in fear of being punished, but God has adopted us as his children (v15). The word Paul uses is a legal term which means having the full rights and privileges that come with being part of a noble family. When God adopts us as his children, he gives us his Holy Spirit as well as the value, status, honour and privilege which come with being in relationship with him.

When the Spirit gives us this new relationship and identity as God’s privileged children, we can approach him as our loving heavenly Father. Paul writes, ‘Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”’ (v15 NLT). Before it was the name of a 1970s Swedish pop group, Abba was what an Aramaic child would call their father. It is equivalent to daddy, dada, papa, or another name which a young child might call their dad. It is a name that implies affection, dependence, and trust. Calling God Abba shows an intimate, personal relationship between father and child. Martin Luther reflects this in his explanation to the opening of the Lord’s Prayer when Jesus teaches us to call God Father, ‘so that we may pray to him as boldly and confidently as dear children ask their dear father.’ Through his Spirit, God brings us into relationship with him so we can know him as our heavenly Dad, and we can learn to love him, respect him, and trust him for everything we need for life in this world and the next.

When the Holy Spirit brings us into this new relationship with our heavenly Dad, he also brings us into a new relationship with his Son, Jesus. Paul writes that ‘together with Christ, we are heirs of God’s glory’ (v17 NLT). As privileged children of our Divine Dad, the Holy Spirit brings us into relationship with Jesus as our brother and we become heirs of the same glory that he has received. Everything that belongs to parents is given to their heirs. In the same way, everything that belongs to our heavenly Dad is given to his Son as his heir and is also given to us as co-heirs with the Son. We receive every good thing that belongs to the Father through the Son because of the new relationship we have through the Spirit as God’s children. This includes the glory that the seraphim proclaimed in Isaiah 6:1-8, and that Jesus received when he was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven.

This new relationship we have with our heavenly Dad as his liberated and privileged children leads us into a new way of living. Paul writes in verses 12 and 13 that when we put our old, sinful nature to death through the power of the Spirit, we will live. The sinful nature is ‘hostile to God’ (8:7) and rebels against the good God wants for us because it is more focussed on itself and what it wants than on God and what our loving heavenly Dad wants for us. This leads to death because God is the source and sustainer of all life. When our old nature rebels against and leads us away from God, we move away from the life he wants to give us. When we live in relationship with our heavenly Dad as his liberated and privileged children and heirs through faith, and we grow in our relationship with him, we find the life to the full that Jesus promised us (John 10:10).

We live and grow in our relationship with God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit in pretty much the same ways as any human relationship. There is lots of advice about how to have healthy relationships with other people, but some key elements include spending time together, talking honestly with each other, listening to each other, and being prepared to give as much as we hope to get. A growing relationship with God works in very similar ways: spending time with God in Sunday mornings as well as during the week, talking honestly with God in prayer, listening to God as he speaks to us through his Word, and giving back to God because he has given everything to us first through his love for us in Jesus.

An apple, egg, water, or clover leaf can help illustrate how the three Persons of the Triune God can be One. However, they can’t really convey the mystery of the depth of relationship which exists within the Trinity as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit share one Divine essence and purpose. As we celebrate Trinity Sunday, God invites each of us to be part of this Divine relationship as the Spirit gives us a new identity as privileged children of God, our heavenly Father invites us to call him Dad and trust him for everything we need in this life and the next, and as our brother Jesus shares his full inheritance, everything he has received from the Father, with us. As people who have a new relationship with God as his children whom he loves and to whom he gives everything, we also have new lives to live as we grow in his goodness and join our Dad in bringing his life-giving goodness to the world.

More to think about or discuss:

• What is your favourite illustration of the Trinity? How does it help you understand the Three-in-One or Triune God?
• What are your thoughts about viewing the Christian life as a relationship with the Father through the Spirit with the Son? What do you like about this? What might be challenging about it for you?
• What do you think is important or helps with healthy & strong human relationships? How might these help you have a healthy & strong relationship with God?