C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity says, “The whole purpose for which we exist is to be thus taken into the life of God.” But how are sinners like us ever able to love and trust God? The answer is found in the Gospel. The Lord Jesus came to earth 2000 years ago so that today, you and I can know God.
The Gospel is the Trinitarian mystery revealed. The Father sent the Son to die and be risen for us. The Son sent the Holy Spirit to indwell and seal us for the final day of our redemption. The Gospel is an invitation by our Triune God into life within the Godhead, where the Father, the Son and the Spirit love one another eternally. We can know this love today because it was manifested among us in Jesus’ incarnation. The Father announced at Christ’s baptism in Mark 1:11, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” And Jesus explained to us in John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
Jesus’ whole earthly life is a manifestation of the Triune God. John 1:18 tells us that no one has ever seen God, only the Son who is from the Father’s side has made Him known. Jesus is the eternal Word of God (John 1:1) because He is the complete expression of the Father.
Through Jesus the Son, we can know the Father. When we kneel at our bedside to pray, we are speaking to the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit through whom we cry out, “Abba Father!” Thus prayer is joining the eternal conversation in the Godhead where the Father said to the Son in Psalm 2:8, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.” We are now His. Reading not just this Psalm, but the whole Bible now becomes an invitation to overhear the conversation between Him and the Father. And we are invited into this conversation through the Son who says to us in John 16:23, “Whatever you ask of the Father in my name, He will give it to you.”
This is the high privilege of coming before the throne of our Father in heaven, through Jesus Christ our Lord. May this realization draw us to Him with an ever-deepening longing, to know and love Him more.