In Christ
In Christ by Bishop Dan Edwards I learned a few things – quite few things actually – during my St. Paul & The Early Church Couse offered in Turkey by St. George’s College. A few of them could make big a difference for each of us as Christians and for all of us as the Church (Christians together – which is where the action is). The biggest zinger for me was the central place in our faith of a little prepositional phrase: In Christ Most of us grew up with Martin Luther’s reading of Paul and consequently his definition of Christianity. Luther read Paul as saying what we do doesn’t matter much spiritually. We just have to believe (meaning hold the opinion) that Jesus is God. If we do that, we get the benefit of his dying for us and go to heaven when we die. As for this life, don’t expect much. And when you run across evil and injustice in the secular world, don’t worry about it over much. That’s just how things are. I, for one, grew up with pretty much an individualistic religion of getting right with God all on my own. In that brand of religion, each of us rises or falls according to what he or she believes. Not until this course did I discover that Luther’s reading of Paul has been replaced by better scholarship and translation. The whole thing started with Albert Schweitzer’s game changer book, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (1930). What we have in this new perspective is something Schweitzer called Christ-Mysticism. I got that idea from studying N. T. Wright before flying to Turkey. But I didn’t honestly know what it meant. I did a good bit more reading, but not on this core point. Then we travelled all over Turkey visiting the places where Paul preached, wrote, lived, and did some of his time in prison. At the end of the tour, one of our classmates gave me one of her books, Paul by the Cambridge scholar, Morna Hooker, and that pulled it all together. Schweitzer said that faith versus works was not really Paul’s main theme and even what he said on that subject isn’t what Luther had in mind. Instead Paul was committed to what Schweitzer called “Christ Mysticism,” which shows up in the Epistles when Paul speaks of “being in Christ.” I have read those words countless times without understanding them or frankly trying very hard to do so. According to Schweitzer, they are the whole point. You are complete in him. – Colossians 2: 10 God . . . has blessed us with every spiritual blessing . . . in Christ.” – Ephesians 1: 3-. In him also we have obtained an inheritance. – Ephesians 1: 11-12
If anyone is in Christ the new creation has come. – 2 Corinthians 5: 17 (that is big) In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you were baptized into Christ, There is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, nor is there male and female for you are all one in Christ. – Galatians 3: 26-28 “Being in Christ” is what it’s all about. So what does it mean to be “in Christ?" It isn’t just going into a meditative zone although there is certainly room for that as part of the process. A lot goes into it. Ritually, being in Christ happens through Baptism and Eucharist. We place our lives on the altar to be blessed into the Body of Christ. Those rituals express a spirituality that moves beyond rule-based ethics, doing the right thing to stay out of trouble or keep our conscience clean. Being in Christ is to “walk in love as he loved us and gave himself for us.” Ephesians 5: 2. The key passage is Galatians 2: 20 (this is my paraphrase but I think it may be closer than a lot of the current translations to Paul’s voice): I have been crucified with Christ and yet I live – No, it is no longer I that live but rather Christ who lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Being “in Christ” starts by being “crucified with Christ.” In Buddhism, they call it ego-death – the death of the “I”. In 1869 Charles Spurgeon called this the death of the Old Adam in us so that the New Adam might live in his place. Paul talked about various hardships he endured as “shar(ing) in the suffering of Christ. “ But pretty clearly Paul does not think self-mortification for the sake of spiritual advancement is the right way. He would have had no use for self-flagellation and climbing stone steps on our knees. Instead of scrubbing away the “I,” that just makes it stronger. It puffs up the spiritual pride. St. Augustine, for example, was a great ascetic. He denied himself all manner of life’s pleasures, only to find his Self-centeredness still perfectly in tact. He famously said, “I have become a great problem to myself.” He said that after the mortifications and so-called self-denials. I tried to get rid of my ego to when I was younger. I sat on pillows for long hours meditating. I did prostrations. I chanted mantras. I found the more advanced I became in spiritual practice the prouder I was. It wasn’t just not working. I was getting worse. Paul has another way – the way of Jesus “who loved me and gave himself for me.” Do you see it? Christ loved us and gave himself for us out of that love. We don’t overcome the “I” by our own efforts. We love – loving Jesus would be the best possible way to go – but the main thing is to love someone or something enough to lose ourselves in that loving.
All of Paul’s letters are instructions in the art of love. 1st Corinthians Ch. 13 is the classic description but we can see it just as well in Philippians 2. It’s all over the New Testament, the setting aside of self out of love for each other. To love like that is to be “in Christ.” As St. Irenaeus said of Jesus in the 2nd Century: He became as we are that we might become as he is. One might say: He loved us and gave himself for us so that we might know the peace and joy of loving as he loves. To live in Christ is to put more store in love and less in being right, guarding our turf, or defending our pride. When early Christians fought over eating certain foods, Paul said to the smart and the free, “you are right” but don’t do it. Let your love for your fellow Christians who are upset about it guide you. That’s more important than showing off how right you are. When he wanted Philemon to emancipate the slave Onesimus, he did not assert his authority as an apostle to order Philemon to do the right thing but chose instead to appeal to him “on the basis of love.” In Philippians 2, Paul urges the people to be humble as Christ was humble deferring to each other without grumbling. To “walk in love” is to “live in Christ.” This life “in Christ” gives us the grace and blessing of Jesus own life, death, and resurrection. When we suffer we suffer with him. When we die, we die into his death. Then we also rise with him who has won the victory over death for us all. But the Christian life isn’t just a ticket to heaven. It is a mission that makes our lives count for something right here and now. After Schweitzer, another giant of New Testament scholarship, E. P. Sanders explained the communal quality of life in Christ. Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977). Sanders says Paul isn’t telling us how to “get it right” and so win the door prize to bliss while the rest of the world goes to hell. This is about humanity. We don’t live in Christ for ourselves alone (it would be a contradiction in terms to try to do so), but for everyone. And here we come to one of several little phrases in Paul that has usually been mistranslated in a way to lead us off track. Galatians is often translated as Paul saying God “was pleased to reveal his son to me.” But that is not correct and more Bibles now translate the verse properly as “(God) was pleased to reveal his son in me. Galatians 1: 15-16 My point: The Church’s ministry matters to the world. We are not simply a community of like-minded believers or a service station supplying religious consumers with sacraments. The Church is the continuing incarnation of Christ with a mission to usher God’s kingdom into the world, change lives, and make Jesus visibly and palpably present in our communities.” Our reason to be here is not just to know Jesus, but also to reveal Jesus to the world – by what we do and what we say. That’s why we have taken a solemn oath to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.” This isn’t just about us. It’s about the “new creation.” It’s about God’s Kingdom breaking into the world and setting things right.
If anyone is in Christ the new creation has come. – 2 Corinthians 5: 17 (that is big) In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you were baptized into Christ, There is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, nor is there male and female for you are all one in Christ. – Galatians 3: 26-28 “Being in Christ” is what it’s all about. So what does it mean to be “in Christ?" It isn’t just going into a meditative zone although there is certainly room for that as part of the process. A lot goes into it. Ritually, being in Christ happens through Baptism and Eucharist. We place our lives on the altar to be blessed into the Body of Christ. Those rituals express a spirituality that moves beyond rule-based ethics, doing the right thing to stay out of trouble or keep our conscience clean. Being in Christ is to “walk in love as he loved us and gave himself for us.” Ephesians 5: 2. The key passage is Galatians 2: 20 (this is my paraphrase but I think it may be closer than a lot of the current translations to Paul’s voice): I have been crucified with Christ and yet I live – No, it is no longer I that live but rather Christ who lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Being “in Christ” starts by being “crucified with Christ.” In Buddhism, they call it ego-death – the death of the “I”. In 1869 Charles Spurgeon called this the death of the Old Adam in us so that the New Adam might live in his place. Paul talked about various hardships he endured as “shar(ing) in the suffering of Christ. “ But pretty clearly Paul does not think self-mortification for the sake of spiritual advancement is the right way. He would have had no use for self-flagellation and climbing stone steps on our knees. Instead of scrubbing away the “I,” that just makes it stronger. It puffs up the spiritual pride. St. Augustine, for example, was a great ascetic. He denied himself all manner of life’s pleasures, only to find his Self-centeredness still perfectly in tact. He famously said, “I have become a great problem to myself.” He said that after the mortifications and so-called self-denials. I tried to get rid of my ego to when I was younger. I sat on pillows for long hours meditating. I did prostrations. I chanted mantras. I found the more advanced I became in spiritual practice the prouder I was. It wasn’t just not working. I was getting worse. Paul has another way – the way of Jesus “who loved me and gave himself for me.” Do you see it? Christ loved us and gave himself for us out of that love. We don’t overcome the “I” by our own efforts. We love – loving Jesus would be the best possible way to go – but the main thing is to love someone or something enough to lose ourselves in that loving.
All of Paul’s letters are instructions in the art of love. 1st Corinthians Ch. 13 is the classic description but we can see it just as well in Philippians 2. It’s all over the New Testament, the setting aside of self out of love for each other. To love like that is to be “in Christ.” As St. Irenaeus said of Jesus in the 2nd Century: He became as we are that we might become as he is. One might say: He loved us and gave himself for us so that we might know the peace and joy of loving as he loves. To live in Christ is to put more store in love and less in being right, guarding our turf, or defending our pride. When early Christians fought over eating certain foods, Paul said to the smart and the free, “you are right” but don’t do it. Let your love for your fellow Christians who are upset about it guide you. That’s more important than showing off how right you are. When he wanted Philemon to emancipate the slave Onesimus, he did not assert his authority as an apostle to order Philemon to do the right thing but chose instead to appeal to him “on the basis of love.” In Philippians 2, Paul urges the people to be humble as Christ was humble deferring to each other without grumbling. To “walk in love” is to “live in Christ.” This life “in Christ” gives us the grace and blessing of Jesus own life, death, and resurrection. When we suffer we suffer with him. When we die, we die into his death. Then we also rise with him who has won the victory over death for us all. But the Christian life isn’t just a ticket to heaven. It is a mission that makes our lives count for something right here and now. After Schweitzer, another giant of New Testament scholarship, E. P. Sanders explained the communal quality of life in Christ. Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977). Sanders says Paul isn’t telling us how to “get it right” and so win the door prize to bliss while the rest of the world goes to hell. This is about humanity. We don’t live in Christ for ourselves alone (it would be a contradiction in terms to try to do so), but for everyone. And here we come to one of several little phrases in Paul that has usually been mistranslated in a way to lead us off track. Galatians is often translated as Paul saying God “was pleased to reveal his son to me.” But that is not correct and more Bibles now translate the verse properly as “(God) was pleased to reveal his son in me. Galatians 1: 15-16 My point: The Church’s ministry matters to the world. We are not simply a community of like-minded believers or a service station supplying religious consumers with sacraments. The Church is the continuing incarnation of Christ with a mission to usher God’s kingdom into the world, change lives, and make Jesus visibly and palpably present in our communities.” Our reason to be here is not just to know Jesus, but also to reveal Jesus to the world – by what we do and what we say. That’s why we have taken a solemn oath to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.” This isn’t just about us. It’s about the “new creation.” It’s about God’s Kingdom breaking into the world and setting things right.
