⁹ “… for they are Yours; ¹⁰ and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them.

Community in its finest form, that is what the Father and Son experienced. While the Trinity is the most unique and central part of Christian understanding of God, Jesus here gives the most attention to the communal relationship between Himself and the Father. Earlier He spoke much of the Holy Spirit as bringing to the disciples’ memory everything Jesus had taught them. But all three are spoken of as God, in perfect harmony.

Practitioners of other religions deride Christians for not having enough gods (only three) or holding to polytheism (a belief in many gods). Christians believe, though, there is one and only one God. Jesus spoke of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and built His teachings on (and never undermined) the monotheism of the Jews. To be sure He removed the barrier between God and man through His incarnation. But that bringing together God and man into one individual was unique to Him. He was the matchless God-man. As such, at the point of incarnation, it makes sense that there would things about such a union that would stretch human understanding. And this is, in part, why the Trinity is so easily misunderstood.

This is not to say that the Trinity was dependent upon the incarnation, for the 2^nd person of the Trinity has existed before and apart from incarnation. Yet, we can only delve into these things from the human side, and so incarnation is important to our understanding of the Trinity.

So Trinitarian teaching views the Father as being God overall, the ultimate Creator and Judge of all that there is. The Son is viewed best in His incarnation, as God merged with humanity in the single person of Jesus. The two have had and always will have an intimate relationship, that is best described as Father and Son. The Holy Spirit is viewed as God working unseen in the world, doing the will of the Father on behalf of the Son. Words fail in describing this triune God. This ought to be expected, for though God can be approximated in human language, He cannot be contained or limited by our inabilities to think or express what we know about Him.

In all cases, He is viewed as one God, not three. Father, Son and Spirit do not exist independently from each other, but are in perfect oneness, perfect community. One God in three Persons. We are not saying there are three Gods in one God. He is one God and He exists as three persons.

Lord, Your mystery and at times incomprehensibility causes me to fall down and worship You in amazement.