I grew up outside the inner circle, looking in. At least that’s how it felt. Moving from the rural Midwest to the metro New York City area was a culture shock, to be sure. The gangly, shy, sheltered homeschool kid from the cornfields shows up at school in the urban jungle of streetwise, multi-cultural, gritty, “cool” kids. Ignorant of the lingo, behind on the trends, clumsily out of place. I think there are movies about this.
Looking back now, it may not have been quite that dramatic. The pictures betray that we were all a bunch of self-conscious, puberty-victimized, awkward middle schoolers who didn’t have a clue, trying to eke out our social survival and now cringing at the clothes and hairstyles we then believed were so great. Even still, I clearly remember the pain of being an outsider. Of not fitting in. Of being excluded from the friend groups. Of never feeling like I could penetrate that inner circle.
Belonging in God’s design
It feels good to be in the inner circle, whether it is a circle of friends, a family circle, a church leadership circle, or a corporate C-suite. We long to know that we belong, that we matter, that we are valued, and that we are loved. I believe God longs for this as well.
Interestingly, from the beginning of Scripture, God Himself is described as a kind of circle, an “us.” In Genesis 1:26 we find,
“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness….”
Who is the “Us” referring to? In addition to God the Father, we find the Holy Spirit was there at creation:
“And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:1).
Then, according to apostles John and Paul, we see that long before His incarnation, Jesus was also present at creation:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made…. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1-3, 14).
“For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him” (Col. 1:16).
It is difficult to comprehend how one God can also be three persons. We can understand severely limited illustrations, like water taking the form of liquid, solid (ice) or gas (steam)—very different and distinct expressions of the same substance. Yet understanding the oneness of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three co-eternal, individual, yet unified entities can stretch our imagination beyond its finite bounds. The concept of eternity alone presses my mind outside its limits! So, I will not attempt to explain here what others have expounded much more thoroughly, yet still incompletely. What we do know is this: God is, by nature, an “Us.”
Why does it matter that God is an “Us?” According to theologian and author John Peckham,
“The Trinity explains how God could be love prior to the creation of the world. Think about it. Before God created the world, there was nothing but God. How, then, could it be that God is love (1 John 4:8, 16)? Before the world was, who did God love?. . . If, on the other hand, God is more than one person, then God could enjoy love within the Trinity before there was any creation.”1
The primary burden on Jesus’ heart was that we would be part of His circle and experience a taste of the inconceivable love contained within the Godhead.
Speaker and author Ty Gibson comes to a similar conclusion, saying,
“If you begin to understand the relational nature of personhood, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that God who made us in His image must be a relational dynamic. . .To say, ‘God is love,’ necessarily equals relationship.”2
Basically, God did not need us to love and to be love. God has His own inner circle. A circle that embodies the epitome of unity and oneness. Then why create? Just as a couple in love may yearn to expand their circle and share their love through having children (Gen. 1:28), God yearned to expand His circle. It’s as if the love of Father, Son, and Spirit was so full it overflowed. And even with full foreknowledge of the future choices of humanity and what that would cost Him (Isa. 46:9-10; Acts 2:23), God could not help Himself from giving us life. Why? Because He is love. He simply did what love does. Though the fall of man and the plan or redemption would permanently and irreversibly alter the nature of the Godhead itself, He still deemed creation worth the cost. That is how badly He wanted the chance to have you and me in His circle.
An eternal invitation
It’s no wonder, then, why Jesus prays so fervently in John 17 for the unity of His people. He’s about to go to the cross. He has spent the previous chapter telling His disciples what is to come and promising them the presence of the Holy Spirit. God would be with us, always! Now, in John 17, we get a most intimate look into the soul of Jesus. He pours out His heart, interceding for us. He reminds the Father how He has revealed Him to the world (vs. 6). He prays for the disciples’ protection (vs. 15), their sanctification (vs. 17), and their joy (vs. 13). Then, expanding His prayer to include all future believers, Jesus moves to His prominent theme, a prayer for our unity not only with each other but with the divine “Us”:
“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me” (John 17:20, 21).
Did you catch that? The primary burden on Jesus’ heart was that we would be part of His circle. That we would experience a taste of the inconceivable love contained within the Godhead. That’s why in verse 24, Jesus continues saying, “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am….” Even as Jesus is heading toward Gethsemane and the cross, even as He is beginning to bear the weight of the world’s sin, even as He is starting to feel the awful pangs of separation from God prying His heart out of the intimate circle He has inhabited from eternity, His final desire is to be able to share His circle with us.
Jesus knows that we cannot comprehend a love like the love He has known. He is willing to sacrifice Himself for us to have the chance to. He’s pouring out His heart in intercession so that we might experience what He is about to lay down. It is all worth it for the joy that is set before Him (Heb. 12:2). It is all worth it if it means that we will have a chance to enter His circle.
I don’t know if you feel like an insider or an outsider today. In your family, with your friends, at work, in your church. But I do know that there’s a circle open to you today. An inner circle. An intimate circle. A circle with belonging, meaning, value, and love more than anything we have experienced. Just as the first chapter of Scripture gives us a glimpse of the circle of God, in the final chapter of Scripture we again see Father, Son, and Spirit together, this time inviting us into Their circle for eternity:
“And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads…. And the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’” (Rev. 22:3,17)
1 Peckham, John. “Understanding the Trinity: The Crucial Importance of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Adventist Review, March 2, 2024. https://adventistreview.org/theology/doctrines/understanding-the-trinity-2/
2 Gibson, Ty. “The Heavenly Trio.” Restore Podcast. Hosted by Javier Diaz. August 20, 2020. Published by: Florida Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. Podcast audio, 24:20. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/restore-episode-52-ty-gibson-the-heavenly- trio/id1088469664?i=1000488694657
