Trinitarian theology causes me a lot of head scratching. Particularly difficult for me to understand is how 'It is in the Son that God is presented to us in a human life, but through his Trinitarian perichoresis that human life images both the Father and the Spirit so that the specificities of their functions and their relationships come into focus' (p. 105f, Tom Smail, Life Father like Son). However, it is in 'the gospel story where God reveals himself' (p.82, ibid), and it is here, rather than abstractions that things become clearer for me. Tom Smail points to the Centurions's comments in Luke 7 for an example of how Jesus reveals his Father:
"Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come,' and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith."
Tom Smail comments that:
What that Gentile faith grasps is that, through the exercise of what is proper to his Sonship, namely his obedience to the Father, in which he is a man under authority, he participates in what is proper to his Father - the power to utter a sovereign word that can take the initiative to break savingly into a situation - and becomes a man with authority to issue orders to illnesses.
(p. 105, ibid)
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