The Passion of The Trinity
Date: April 7th, 2024
Cost: $700
Canvas: 24” x 30”
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God!
—1 John 3:1
Doug, in his sermon, tackled the lie that started around 1100 A.D.: God the Father poured out his rage against people onto Jesus, “forsaking” and killing his only son as a substitute for the penalty for our sin. This lie struck real terror in me as a kid and still echoes today at age 49. My old nature uses this (and other tools) to get me running for cover from God.
But, it’s clear from the Gospels that Jesus only wants to heal us, free us, and love us forever. It’s also clear that Jesus and the Father are completely one at all times. Jesus said, “The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” [John 14:10-11, NIV] Paul increases our understanding further, saying that The Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the grave, and “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ.” [2nd Corinthians 5]. Steve McVey said in his book, Beyond an Angry God, that if The Father, Son and Holy Spirit separated for even a split second, the entire universe would vanish since it exists inside of God…inside The Trinity.
I actually had a lot of different images running through my mind to depict the full Godhead embodied in Christ on the cross. I wanted to show God’s nature in a physical way. I also wanted to show the complete inward sacrifice and love of The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for each other. But, at the same time, I wanted to show God bursting outward…shaking…utterly desperate from love…suffering our pain…suffering even the intensity of His own love for us as he goes down to the bottom of Hell…surging with wrath against the dragon of evil…slaying it…freeing us…lifting us out…declaring victory over death…and embracing us with eternal life!