The Son Abides in a Ceaseless Communion of Mutual Love, Obedience and Joy with the Holy Spirit and with the Father

Nikolai Velimirovich

 

 (on Acts 2:1–11; Jn.7:37–52; 8:12)

Oh, how perfect love is always ready for perfect obedience! After all, perfect love cannot be perfectly expressed in any other way than by perfect obedience. 

Love is always vigilant in its desire and readiness to obey its beloved. And from perfect obedience flows, just like a stream of honey and milk, perfect joy, which is the content of the attractive power of love. 

The Father has perfect love for the Son and the Spirit. The Son has perfect love for the Father and the Spirit. And the Spirit has perfect love for the Father and the Son. 

According to this perfect love, the Father is in the most zealous obedience to the Son and the Spirit, and the Son is in the most zealous obedience to the Father and the Spirit; and the Spirit is in the most zealous obedience to the Father and the Son. 

Perfect love makes the Father the perfect servant of the Son and the Spirit; and the Son, the perfect servant of the Father and the Spirit; and the Spirit, the perfect servant of the Father and the Son. 

Just as no love in the created world can be compared to the mutual love of the Divine Hypostasis, neither also can any obedience be compared to Their mutual obedience.

I have glorified Thee on earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do (Jn. 17:4). May Thy will be done. Are these not the words of the Son’s perfect obedience to the Father?

Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me. And I knew that Thou hearest me always, said the Lord Jesus Christ at the resurrection of Lazarus; and later He would exclaim: Father, glorify Thy name.

Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again (Jn. 11:41–42; 12:28). Is this not the perfect obedience of the Father to the Son?

Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you (Jn. 16:7).

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever… But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me (Jn. 14:16; 15:26).

And truly, on the fiftieth day after the Resurrection, the Comforter, Spirit of Truth descended upon those to whom it was promised. Is this not the perfect obedience of the Holy Spirit to the Son?

The salvific rule that the Apostle Paul commands all the faithful to keep: Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another (Rm. 12:10)—is perfectly performed between the Hypostases of the Holy Trinity.

Each one of the Hypostases strives to prefer one another in honor; so also does each wish to decrease Himself before the Other Two.

And if each Hypostasis did not have that most sweet and holy striving to render His honor to the Other Two and decrease Himself in obedience, then in that endless love, which Each of them has for Each Other, the Trinitarian nature of the Divinity would drown in a kind of indifference of Hypostasis.

Thus, according to the boundless love of God the Spirit for God the Son, the Holy Spirit with boundless obedience hastened to fulfill the Son’s will and descended at the predetermined time upon the apostles.

God the Son firmly knew that God the Spirit would obey Him, and therefore He so firmly promised Its descent upon the apostles. But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high (Lk. 24:49), our Lord Jesus Christ commanded His apostles.

Do not ask how the Lord knew beforehand that this power from on high, or the Holy Spirit, would descend upon His disciples…. Even before the Lord spoke of the descent of the Holy Spirit, He already had a zealous and voluntary agreement with the Spirit about this.

More correctly, the Holy Spirit was also speaking through Him about Its descent. For was it not said in the Gospels: Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost (Lk. 4:1)?

And did not our Lord Jesus Christ Himself admit in Nazareth that the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled in Him: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor (Lk. 4:18)?

Clearly the Son thus abides in ceaseless communion with the Holy Spirit as also with the Father—in a communion of mutual love, obedience and joy. The anointing by the Spirit testifies to the living and true habitation of the Spirit in a specific person.

Then how could the Anointed One say anything about that very Spirit that the Spirit did not already know? Or promise any kind of co-working with that very Spirit if the Spirit had not already agreed to it?

And that the Holy Spirit abided in our Lord Jesus Christ and agreed with His every word, deed, and promise, is witnessed in today’s Gospel reading.