If any confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them, and they
live in God. ( 1 John 4 : 15 )
We ourselves cannot be in the Lord, but the goodwill and faith that
are in us from the Lord can. These two make us essentially human.
We can shed some light on this mystery to disclose it to the intellect
if we explore it in the following sequence:
a. Our partnership with God is what gives us salvation and eternal life.
b. It is impossible for us to have a partnership with God the Father.
What is possible is a partnership with the Lord, and through the
Lord, with God the Father.
c. Our partnership with the Lord is reciprocal: the Lord is in us and we
are in the Lord.
d. This reciprocal partnership comes about through goodwill and faith.
The truth of these points will become clear from the following explanation.369 (a) Our partnership with God is what gives us salvation and eternal
life.Human beings were created with the capability of being in a part-
nership with God. We were created to be citizens of heaven and also cit-
izens of the world. We are spiritual so we can be citizens of heaven and
earthly so we can be citizens of the world. Our spiritual self is capable of
thinking about God and perceiving things that relate to God. It is also
capable of loving God and being moved by things that come from God.
It follows that we are able to be in a partnership with God.
Our ability to think about God and to perceive things that come from
God is completely beyond the reach of doubt. We are capable of thinking
about God’s unity; about God’s underlying reality, which is Jehovah; about
God’s immensity and eternity; about the divine love and wisdom that con-
stitute God’s essence; and about God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and
omnipresence. We are capable of thinking about the Lord our Savior, his
Son, and about his redemption and mediation. We can also think about
the Holy Spirit and about the divine Trinity. All these things relate to God;
in fact, they are God. Beyond this, we can think about God’s influence,
which primarily takes the form of faith and goodwill, not to mention
many things that emanate from faith and goodwill.
[ 2 ] The fact that we are capable of not only thinking about God but
also loving God is clear from the two commandments of God himself
that read like this:
You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
soul. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like it: