In the beginning: a sovereign God of love
The first words of the Bible are dynamic in their profound simplicity: In the beginning God! Before anything else existed the eternal God existed as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The essence of God is love according to the apostolic teaching (1 John 4:8). The triune God is absolute complete in himself as the life of the Father, Son and Spirit is best characterised by our word love. Love builds the unity of the one eternal covenantal God. The Bible teaches that there is no God but the Father, the Son and the Spirit bound together throughout eternity.
Love is a relational term, requiring both subject and object (someone loves someone else). Because God is triune, the divine reality already comprehends both love�s subject and object. The Father loved the Son and the Son loved the Father and this love between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit which is the Spirit of love. Therefore the essence of God lies in the relationship between the Father and the Son (love) which is the Spirit. In all eternity God is the social Trinity, the community of love.
Because God is love, God is self-giving. The sovereign God is a community of love, and we may as well say that God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is a kingdom of love as we find headship and submission within God himself. There is a constant movement of giving and receiving, of headship and submission in the divine life of love. Jesus hinted to this vital divine relationship when he said:
For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. John 5:26-27
The divine life is the eternal activity of the Father who as the fountain of deity generates the Son to share in his own divinity. The self-giving of the Father for the Son, in turn, is reciprocated in the Son�s self-giving for the Father. This relationship between the Father and the Son comes forth as the third Trinitarian member, the Holy Spirit. Because he is the Spirit of the Father and the Son, the Spirit of love, the Spirit is the essence of the triune God.
When we say �God is spirit� (John 4:24) we speak of the relational God who is the source of life and we acknowledge that the eternal dynamic vitality of the triune God overflows to creation. The God who is dynamic vitality within the eternal Trinitarian life relates to the world as the source and sustainer of created life. The world was created by a free act of love for a wonderful purpose that triune God has destined to be fulfilled!