The Triune God: The Origin of Mission
SUNDAY October 8
The Triune God: The Origin of Mission
The mission of God in Scripture has Jesus at the front and center as the only way to salvation. Christ Himself declared: “ ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me’ ” (John 14:6, NKJV). But Jesus also helps us understand the centrality of the triune God to His mission.
Everything Christ did was either for or from His heavenly Father (see John 4:34, John 5:30, John 12:45). However, we must always remember that Jesus’ mission did not begin when He came into the world. He had received it from the Father even before the creation of our world (compare with Eph. 1:4, 1 Pet. 1:20).
Therefore, God planned His outreach to humanity even before He laid the foundations of our planet, and He intentionally entered into humanity’s history in order to accomplish this purpose.
The Son created the world (John 1:3), and at “the fullness of the time” (Gal. 4:4, NKJV), God demonstrated His love by sending the Son here (John 3:16, 17). The Son came, died on the cross, and conquered death. Then, sent from the Father, the Spirit came here (John 14:26, John 16:7), convicts the world (John 16:8–11), and today continues the mission of the Father and the Son by empowering and by sending God’s people out for mission (John 14:26; John 16:13, 14).
Read John 20:21, 22. How should the understanding that mission finds its origin in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit shape our mission?
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Even though the word “trinity” is not found in the Bible, missionfocused trinitarian evidences are numerous. For instance, after His resurrection, Christ appeared to His disciples and promised them: “ ‘I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high’ ” (Luke 24:49, NIV; emphasis added). Here we find the reality of the Godhead’s mission in one sentence: the Father’s promise, the Son’s assurance of the fulfillment of the promise, and the promise itself, the coming of the Holy Spirit (see also Luke 3:16; Acts 1:4, 5, 8).
We learn from this that the mission is not ours. It belongs to the triune God. As such, it will not fail.