But salvation is not only a matter of Christ’s work in the past, but of His person in the present, as He continues to intercede and mediate so that we belong through Him with the Father, by the Holy Spirit. “Our worship is with Christ our brother, in Christ our priest but always through Christ our sacrifice, whose death for us is the means of our cleansing, renewing and perfection”10 (See, for example, Eph. 1:4,5; 2:18; Heb. 2:10-12; 7:25).
In contrast to the “unitarian” one-way movement, James Torrance helpfully provides a Trinitarian, Incarnational Model. This diagram highlights several key aspects of participation: relationships, movement, power and worship.
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Relationships — R1 and R2 describe a twofold relationship. R1 marks the relationship between God and humanity made possible in the person and work of Jesus Christ, while R2 shows the relationship between Christ and the church, “that we might participate by the Spirit in Jesus’ communion with the Father in a life of intimate communion.”11
The Trinitarian, Incarnational Model, adapted from James Torrance,12 (R1 and R2 represent Relationships within the trinity).
Movement — Notice the arrows in this diagram. Instead of reducing God’s action to one-way movement, this diagram describes a glorious double movement — expressing the gift of participating through the Spirit in the incarnate Son’s communion with the Father (Heb. 10:10-14). At its center is not our faith or decision-making but the spiritual dynamic double movement:
(a) a God-humanward movement, from (ek) the Father, through (dia) the Son, in (en) the Spirit and (b) a human-Godward movement to the Father through the Son in the Spirit.13
Jesus Christ mediates from “above” as well as from “below,” enabling believers to participate in the double movement of worship and communion: God-humanward from the Father, in the Spirit but also a human-Godward, moving to the Father in the Spirit.
Torrance describes how this double movement of grace which is the heart of the ‘dialogue’ between God and humanity in worship, is grounded in the very perichoretic being of God, and is fundamental for our understanding of the triune God’s relationship with the world in creation, incarnation and sanctification. What God is toward us in these relationships, He is in His innermost being.14
(Note how the term “perichoretic” requires the essential background described earlier!)
Power — In other writings, I have developed the picture of “360-degree preaching” to express how the Trinitarian dynamic of God’s word begins with Him and returns full circle (Isa. 55:10,11), involving Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Of course, God “works” through Scripture text and the preacher’s words, but the whole preaching event is empowered as the triune God speaks through His Word, and empowers the preacher and convicts the listeners and transforms the lives of the preacher and the listeners.