What is co-inherence?

When I say it is by necessity of nature, I do not mean that the divine nature, in which the divine Persons subsist, distinguishes Them; for that nature is one and common to Them all. The nature of the Son is the same with that of the Father; and the nature of the Spirit the same with that of the Father and the Son; and this nature, which They in common partake of, is undivided; it is not parted between Them, so that one has one part, and another a second, and another a third; nor that one has a greater and another a lesser part, which might distinguish Them, but the whole fullness of the Godhead is in each.

"There never was a moment when God was incomplete, as He would have been without Son or Spirit. The whole three Persons are co-equal. God would be still incomplete if Son or Spirit were not in everything 'such as the Father is' … The union of the Three is not one of barren necessity. It is a free and living union in which all are bound together by an absolute outpouring of each to other in love. We may think of the joy which the Father has in giving—in communicating without reserve to the Son 'all the fulness' (Col. 1:19) of His being … and it is the joy of the Son to receive—to feel the infinite flow of the Father's love concentrated in Himself, and … the gladness with which He welcomes most those wishes of the Father which will cost most to Himself … It is the glory of them all to be One … by a moral living for and in each other, in a mutual devotion such as serves as an example for men." (emphasis ours,),

To employ again words used by another with regard to the Trinity and quoted elsewhere (See "'The eternal Son," by R.E., p. 3). "Here and there (in Scripture) we are shown (as it were) an opened heaven and the Godhead is revealed in its 'essential Trinity.' … God is shown to us as dwelling in no solitary grandeur. One who called Him 'Father' is in His company, and who establishes the truth of the title by sharing with Him the full possession of that glory, which created things may 'see' but none but God can 'have' … God is love, and the union of the Three is not one of barren necessity. It is a free and living union in which all are bound together by an absolute outpouring of each to other in love. … It is the glory of Them all to be one … by a moral living for and in each other, in a mutual devotion such as serves as an example for men."

"There is but one cognition in the Divine being, although the Father, the Son, and the Spirit partake in the cognition in different ways… This it is which makes, we may say, the true oneness in the Eternal Trinity. God is love: and the union of the Three is not one of barren necessity. It is a free and living union in which all are bound together by an absolute outpouring of each to other in love. We may think of the joy which the Father has in giving—in communicating without reserve to the Son, 'all the fulness' (Col. 1:19) of His being … and finding it all the more His own because lavished freely on the Only Begotten. And it is the joy of the Son to receive—to feel the infinite flow of the Father's love concentrated in Himself; and in the gratitude which must always be a part of filial love we may understand, to some extent, the gladness with which He welcomes most those wishes of the Father which will cost most to Himself, (the joy) with which He reflects that He mixes nothing of His own with what the Father gives Him."

"For the threefold personality of God does not contradict His unity in any way: it shows the manner or condition of it. There are not three independent units side by side, on a level with each other, each almighty, each eternal, each finding in Himself the source of His own life. The unity of the three blessed Persons is not a similarity of character and qualities and powers … three Beings each of Whom is a God. (Will the reader carefully note the exact language employed here—"a God" not "God." Each is God, but not "a God."). It is true though inexpressible, unity of Three Persons … incapable of existence apart from one another. The life of all three is one and the same life, and it has but one source, not three. The very titles by which They are known to us, imply this. They are not proper names, like those of heathen divinities, but titles of relationship, which involve each other, and would be meaningless alone. Fatherhood is impossible without sonship, and sonship without fatherhood."

Plurality in unity is here clearly revealed, each Person having a distinct personality and a distinct part and sphere of action in all that the Triune God does, yet not independent of, but in essential relationship one to the other.

Being One in nature, substance and essential being, they love necessarily the same things and so have the same thoughts, will and purpose about everything, though each having His distinct part in activity and relationship in all that the Triune God does, but always working together in complete unison carrying out one common purpose and will. Thus of Christ, the incarnate Son, we read: "For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." "Believest Thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself: but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." "And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee." "I cast out devils by the Spirit of God." "Who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God" (Col. 2: 9, John 14: 10; John 5: 17; Luke 4: 14; Matt. 12: 28; Heb. 9: 14). Each Person of the Godhead takes part in what He, the incarnate Son, does. (John 1: 14; 1 John 5: 20; 1 John 3: 8).

The spring and source of all is in the Father's love, but the relationship itself is in the Son. This excludes, in His glorious Person, all thought of generation, offspring or subordination. Such thoughts are not consistent with the co-existence, mutuality and co-equality of that God Who is One yet God all Three. "I and the Father are One," and again, "I am in the Father and the Father is in Me," (John 10:30; John 14:10), speak of the relations and intimacies of Godhead, from eternity to eternity, yet spoken in Manhood in time, by the Son. In coming out to reveal, He is Himself what He reveals, and being Man, while still abiding in the unity of Godhead, all the blessed joys and affections proper to the filial relation are His without a break, in the Manhood He took. In this way the communications that belong to the relationship, in its heavenly and eternal blessedness, is brought before us from the Son's own lips, in the seventeenth chapter of John. There, God the Spirit records, through John, the words of the incarnate Son in His prayer to the Father, and as units in the great aggregate that was before Him in that prayer we are privileged to listen and adore and to link ourselves with the home of Divine Love, and the counsels of eternity from which all has come.

The Son was in the Father as one with Him in the fulness of the Godhead, one with Him in all His counsels of love and grace, and one with Him in all the activities that would give effect to His eternal purpose, and secure those that the Father had given Him to be His companions in His own house for evermore. This was the place rightly belonging to the Son who dwelt in the Father's bosom, and who was the object of the Father's affections whether in eternity or in Manhood. As being in the Father He was one with Him in all His desires, thoughts, feelings and movements; and the resources, power and attributes of the Godhead belonged to the Son as to the Father.

Without the Trinity love was not known, righteousness, holiness - the spiritual nature of God and purity as such. That is, He never was revealed as He is and always was. All the true nature of God, that is, what He is, without the Trinity is unknown. The Father wills; the Son quickens whom He will; but because we have separate wills, why necessarily have the Father and the Son? The Spirit distributes to whom He will; but this is not separate from the will of the Father and the Son. They have not the same counsel but one counsel, mind, purpose, thought; yet they act distinctly in the manifestation of that counsel. The Father sends the Son, and the Son the Spirit. Yet when the Son comes, He is not thereby separate from the Father. "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." So He casts out demons by the Spirit of God; yet He casts them out. There is unity in all that constitutes oneness when we speak spiritually - not unity as one by arriving at the same things, or union, or by being united, as we are by having only one Spirit dwelling in all, but - by being one in eternal being; so that all else flows from that one will and counsel, yet so as that distinction in action in that will is revealed to us: not distinct will, but distinct willing.