Complete self-giving also allows receiving revelation and being revelation. Christ said about Himself that He speaks what He heard from the Father (John 5:30; 15:15); Christ also says that the Spirit will take from Him and will speak the words of truth, which belong to Him, Christ (John 16:13—14). And there is also the mystery of the third, who does not interfere, who loves so much that he is ready to ‘not be’, to give life (or, if we speak in terms of history and formation, salvation), ready for the mystery of sacrifice. And ‘sacrifice’ means ‘sanctification’, offering oneself as a sacrifice in order to allow the other two to reach perfection in their reciprocal contemplation.
This gives us a wonderfully dynamic image of God, the Living God – not because He is such and cannot be anything but triumphant life. No, He is God, Who is Love, in Whom sacrificial love is sealed by the Cross, in Whom love is expressed in a voluntarily chosen, chosen death. And the victory of the Resurrection over death – an inseparable mystery of God.
Death and love are similar. Until we have loved, we can assert ourselves. We affirm our own personality by contrasting, opposing our ‘I’ to any other personality. I am, and therefore the other is absolutely ‘other’. This is what we see in our fragmentary, fragmented humanity, such is our empirical everydayness in the form of individuals, the last limit of fragmentation (the Latin ‘individ’ is a calque of the Greek ‘atom’ – indivisible. – V.A.). When love is born, the urge to self-assertion is very strong. We say ‘I love you’ – and the whole emphasis lies on ‘I’. ‘You’ – just an object, and the word ‘love’ is used not in its life-giving sense, not as a verb, but, if one may say so ungrammatically, simply as a conjunction, linking ‘I’ and ‘you’. But according to how love grows, so does the knowledge of the other, fascination, admiration, reverent honoring of him. ‘I’ diminishes, ‘you’ gains increasing significance, and the relations between them cease to be a link, become an action, a dynamic. They become an active, dynamic situation (we will still stop in detail on the ontology of love in the key of family, marital life, when we talk about marriage – V.A.).
In this mutual relationship, the other gains increasing significance, and the significance of my ‘I’ diminishes. And gradually ‘beloved’, ‘loved’ means ‘everything’ (‘I myself mean nothing to myself.’). Christ about love said that there is no greater love than that when someone is ready to lay down his life for the beloved, for the neighbor (John 15:13). At the beginning of the Gospel of John, we read that the Word was with God (John 1:1). In Greek, this ‘with’ is not static, but a dynamic expression. The Word itself – God the Word is entirely directed toward God, directed at Him. This means that ultimately love corresponds to the dying of all self-assertion, even of all desire for self-assertion. Love – reverent worship of the beloved, he – the subject (in the sense: subject, personality – V.A.) of service and has become the absolute center.
And then love corresponds to the fullness of life. What is the justification of the life of the one who has given his life? One sage said: ‘To tell someone “I love you” means to say “You will never die”’. Of course, we are not talking about words when we say ‘I love you’ lightly, without depth. But if in the relationships we talked about above, one gives his life, his very being, then his love will be supported by the love of those for whom he has ceased to exist in terms of self-assertion.
This is the dynamic vision of the Trinity, where death by love is overcome by the victory of love, where sacrificial love flourishes in the resurrection with such life that cannot be taken away because it is given away. It (love – V.A.) is not defended, it does not assert itself, it is supported and defended by the love of others by consuming, emptying themselves, reverently accepting what is given, giving away life and accepting it back.
‘No one takes my life from me, – Christ says, – I give it myself’ (John 10:18). And the Apostle Paul speaks of His death and resurrection: ‘God raised Him from the dead’ (Rom. 4:24). Yes, one can give life – undying reality, and eternal life is given to him by another.
Obviously, the dynamic vision of the Trinity is reflected in our understanding of relationships. It is also directly related to the first name of God – Jesus, with what we said, that our God is the Man Jesus…”
“Clearly, the dynamic vision of the Trinity reflects on our understanding of relationships. It is also directly linked to the first name of God—Jesus, with what we said, that our God is the Man Jesus…” (I must interrupt the father’s speech, as I see we are captivated and begin to think that we understand something and even have experienced it, and now our mind wants to lead us into its chambers of understanding and force us to settle down, as if this is what we were seeking. Of course, not! What I want to say now, we will discuss in detail in other sections, but my love for you and the spirit’s fervor compel—better said, force—me to say something now.