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The first act of the Trinity

Genesis 1.2-2.4a NRVA
The first act of the Trinity was the creation of the universe, which is the same as to say that there has never been a time when God was not three-in-one. We know this because Genesis says that ‘in the beginning’ there was ‘God’ and ‘the Spirit of God swept over the face of the waters,’ or ‘rushed’ or ‘hovered’ over them - perhaps like a bird. And then John’s Gospel boldly goes on  to state that ‘in the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God, and The Word was God.’ And this Word both spoke things into being, (‘and God said’), and ’came to his own... people’, to dwell with them and rescue them from the darkness that had engulfed the world in the course of human history.
That it was always in God’s nature to share our humanity should come as no surprise because Genesis goes on to say that ‘God created humankind in his image; male and female he created them.’ For us to be ‘like God’ in any credible way, God has got to have the innate potential to become ‘like us’.
There is also a sense in which the Spirit bridges the distance between God the Creator and God Incarnate. John’s use of the term ‘The Word’ to describe Jesus reminds us that in Hebrew thought God’s Wisdom had created the world, and Greek-speaking Jewish theologians had already identified God’s Wisdom with the Greek idea of ‘The Word’ before John’s Gospel was written. The Word as God’s creative Spirit rushing over the waters, and The Word dwelling among us ‘full of grace and truth’ are two of the ways in which we encounter God’s spirit of Wisdom.

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