Recap: How to become God’s Beloved
I shared a quote from Henri Nouwen’s book, Life of the Beloved – then how to apply it to our lives daily. It’s the ABC D & E of claiming and appropriating our Belovedness in Christ in a practical way: Accept, Believe, Confess, and Daily Explore your identity as God’s Beloved child. How are you doing with practicing the ABC D&E ? Now we explore the beautiful Trinitarian Dance of Love. My purpose is to give you THE BIG PICTURE that will ravish your heart and draw you into God’s love and explode you outwards in love.
The Trinity as the Dance of Love
God is The Eternal Community of Love: the Lover (Father), the Be-Loved (Son) and the Love (Spirit). God’s internal or intra-Trinitarian love between the Father and Son by the Spirit eternally explodes outwards in ecstasy, creating the other (creation) in love, for love. Human beings are the climax and pinnacle of creation, made in the Trinitarian image and likeness, to rule and reign over God’s creation in love, by love, for love. Who God is in the heavens (as Trinitarian Love) is imaged on earth in male and female being one with God, each other and creation – an ever-expanding inclusive Dance of Love.
The Eastern Greek Church Fathers used perichoresis from the 4th century to describe the Trinity in his/her internal and external relationships of love. Greek choreo means inter-penetrate, mutually indwell, co-inhere – becoming one without absorption as in loss of identity or personality. God’s love enfolds and unites, simultaneously differentiating and maturing each person in their uniqueness, as they become one. This idea/reality was grounded in John’s Gospel – see references below. From the 9th century choreo became associated with choreia, to dance (English: “chorus”) – the image of the ‘dancing around’ of the Trinity came into use to explain the beautiful mystery of the Perichoresis. Continue reading The Dance of The Beloved
