The below thoughts (and some direct quotes) are stated or inspired by an interview with Kyle Strobel's by Tony Reinke as Kyle reflects on insights from Jonathan Edwards.
For the full interview click here
Beatific
Gods self-Knowledge is beatific. It is not a sterile, unattached, impersonal knowing of facts or simple information about Himself, it is personal, affectionate and relational knowledge. It is a knowing that causes the one who knows to desire/long for (it is affectionate) the one beheld/known. God's life is beatific vision.
Christ is God's perfect self understanding. An understanding so exact and complete it manifests/generates (begets eternally) a completely distinct and separate person (also with his own distinct understanding and will) as the only (eternally) begotten Son.
The Father delights in the beauty of the Son
(the Fathers exact and perfect self understanding [Logos] and perfect image of himself)
and
The Son enjoys the Father's delight.
The Spirit
God's life (Spirit/Love) springs forth from (out of) beatific vision i.e. the beholding of the Infinite beauty of the Son (the perfect self understanding/Logos of the Father) and the Son's response of mutual delight/life (Spirit) in his Father flows (overflows) out (as the Spirit) to his creatures/creation (particularly his image bearers who are most able to participate in and enjoy this mutual delight...us).
The Father generates the only begotten Son. The Son and Father gazing upon one another in love generates the Spirit as love.
Perfect and infinite knowledge of the beauty of God produces perfect and infinite love/affections as (in the form of) the Spirit.
God's life is religious affection (inward; generated from within between the Father and the Son) and pure act (outward; flowing out to others).
The Son is the image of God and the Spirit is the illumination of that image.
God's life consist of (is)
Perfect and infinite knowledge (understanding/Logos)
and
Perfect and infinite love/affections (will/Spirit)
We are like God
All knowledge of God is affectionate knowledge i.e. A kind of knowledge that always produces affections, desires, longings. It is true of God and therefore, as his image bearers, must also be true of us.
The knowledge he has in his own life governs how we know him as well.
Religious affection is seeing God and thereby knowing God and having your affections inclined towards him
The only way for us to know God is through God's self revealing.
You can't have true knowledge of God without having your heart inclined towards him because all knowledge of God is affectionate.
Because this is true in God's life it has to be true in our life.
Partakers of God's very own nature
The sight of the Father Christ has by nature we are given by grace.
2Pe 1:3-4 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
...His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.
How? ...through the knowledge of him. i.e. God has given (by grace) us everything we need to participate in and experience life and godliness.
...he has granted to us his precious and very great promises...
How? By his own glory and excellence i.e. By his infinite worth and perfect action/conduct
Why? So that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature.
Beholding God by faith is a darkened version of the beatific vision.
We behold God now by faith and will behold him in eternity by sight but in both instances the common denominator is beholding him i.e. Being caught up and participating in the beatific vision (that eternal delight of the Father gazing upon his Son and his Sons response of joy/delight). In both cases (now by faith and in eternity by sight) this is a progression. As we see God now by faith we are changed as our faith increases. As we see God in eternity by direct sight we will also be changed as our understanding/view of him grows fuller/clearer.
The process of change in eternity has nothing to do with sinfulness, for Christ himself increased in faithfulness (learned obedience) through the things he suffered, yet his suffering had nothing to do with being sinful but with being incarnated as a finite man.
As finite creatures, we too will constantly be growing in our relationship and understanding (and joy) of the infinite i.e. God. The reason is there is no end to the infinite i.e. God. God has created us like himself with the capacity to participate in the infinite. Our beholding him will increase by virtue of him being infinite and our being finite i.e. We will always be expanding since we will never arrive i.e we will never be infinite since only God can be so.
Beauty
Primary beauty is God's love life i.e. The life of love that transpires between the Father and Son in and by the Spirit.
All knowledge of God is visual so all knowledge of God is beholding his beauty. Not a physical but a spiritual beauty and beholding.
Why is it when we see something beautiful it "takes our breath away?" Because beholding God (the most beautiful/glorious) is an affectionate knowledge.
A thorough discussion of the ideas that inspired the above comments is discussed extensively in Kyle Strobel's book "Jonathan Edward's Theology: A Reinterpretation"
