Participation in Christ

What does it mean to ‘participate’ in Christ?

~ Chad Chambers ~ 2 Comments

As discussed in several earlier posts (see here), I spent most of my research time over the summer concentrated on the phrase ‘in Christ’ in Paul.

I chose to do this for multiple reasons, I will not bore you with them all, but one of the reasons is I find a lot to like in what is called the Participatory School of Pauline Soteriology (also called Apocalyptic, Eschatological, Mystical and even Pneumatologically Participatory Martyrlogical Eschatology by one well-know lover of acronyms).

Yet, one of my main critiques of this school is there is often no clear understanding of what ‘participatory’ means. In other words, it sounds great (and more importantly seems to be a faithful reading of Paul) to say we participate in Christ, but what does that actually entail.

Thus, I was on a quest this summer to find how I would define participatory soteriology in Paul and I returned with five key terms.

  1. Unconditional – given as free gift
  2. Real – a concrete reality
  3. Relational – become fully relational beings
  4. Transformational – produces actual and lasting change
  5. Eternal – once Christ is put on it is forever

Obviously, each of these terms needs to be more fully described and more importantly tied with texts*, but they at least introduce the themes I see orbiting around the phrase ‘in Christ’ in Paul’s letters.

A second idea I found during my quest is the recognition that Paul incorporated three central realities into those found ‘in Christ’: righteousness, baptism into death, and an exalted newness of life. Also, fundamental is Paul found these ideas first in Christ. That is to say, they are realities present in Christ which are then ‘put on’ those ‘in Christ.’ Thus, my understanding of ‘in Christ’ found a referent in Christ. It became a phrase that describes both the cause and effect of Paul’s understanding of salvation.

While I have long way to go to complete my quest, the phrase I continually returned to this summer, in teaching and research, is at least a beginning,

What is real in Christ is real in those now ‘in Christ.’

 

*The central texts for these ideas, and I believe for understanding ‘in Christ’ in Paul, are Rom 3, Rom 6, Gal 3, and Eph 2.

Baptized into Christ’s Death

~ Chad Chambers ~ Leave a comment

Last week I asked some questions concerning Paul’s use of συν-compounds and over the next few weeks I am going to unpack those questions. This week I start with “What does it mean to die with Christ?”

I see four themes entangled within this question:

  1. Death’s connection to new life
  2. Our participation in Christ’s death
  3. Christ’s death and reconciliation with God
  4. Death’s connection to suffering

Today – Death’s connection to new life.

We live in a world mortified of death. To grow old, to move towards death, to move into death are sources of shame and embarrassment. In this mindset, death is the enemy who must be fought off at any cost. Thus, we (Western Culture) spend an enormous amount of time, energy, and money seeking to escape death or at least ward off its coming. The sad state of this mentality is that the very thing we are most afraid of controls our thoughts and actions. Our motivation and goal is avoiding death not attaining life. Just don’t let me die!

I believe, however, that Paul sees things very differently. Life is the motivation and life is the goal. That is why he can write, “To live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21). Either way for him is life. Death is life with Christ (Phil 1:23) and life is Christ living in you (Gal 2:20). The eternal reality for all in Christ is life but mysteriously for Paul life requires death.

Rom 6:3-4 “Do you know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

A significant, perhaps the most significant, feature of being in Christ is that in him there is a newness of life; new creation (2 Cor 5:17). Yet, the reality revealed by the glow of the cross and the empty tomb is that new life springs forth from death. Paul writes, “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him” (Rom 6:8). In other words, life in Christ moves from life towards new life through the doorway of death.

Ironically, it is those in Christ, where life is the motivation and goal, who learn to accept mortal death because the newness of life already experienced in Christ, not our inevitable death, shapes our existence. Death is not feared because we have learned that only by passing through the stench of death do we come to smell the sweetness of new life; in dying with Christ we live in ever-present newness of life.

Paul and συν-compounds: Murray J. Harris

~ Chad Chambers ~ 2 Comments

In studying συν Χριστω, I was intrigued by Paul’s use of συν-compounds. Most of these compounds only appear in Paul in the New Testament but they seem to incorporate so much of Paul’s theology – engaging past, present, and future realities for those ‘in Christ. It turns out I am not the only one who finds these terms significant…

Also see James Dunn and Con Campbell.

Murray J. Harris – Prepositions and Theology (204-205)

There are more words formed from συν than from any other preposition…

Of special significance are eleven verbal συν-compounds in Paul that are without an accompaying explicit συν Χριστω (or equivalent), yet with a reference to Christ clearly implied or stated. These eleven verbs may be grouped around two main motifs, two crucial redemptive events, namely, Christ’s death and burial, and his resurrection with all its consequences, events that are reenacted in Christian baptism (cf. Ro 6:3-10)…

At the beginning of their Christian experience, believers

  • have died with Christ
  • were crucified with Christ
  • were buried with Christ
  • were raised with Christ
  • were made alive with Christ

Throughout their earthly Christian experience, believers

  • are being conformed to Christ’s death
  • suffer with Christ
  • are sitting with Christ in the heavenly realms

At the consummation of their Christian experience, believers

  • will live with Christ
  • will be glorified with Christ
  • will reign with Christ

But Christians are not associated with aspects of Christ’s historical life before his passion. For example, Paul never says believers are baptized with Christ, are tempted with Christ or are transfigured with Christ.

Paul and συν-compounds: Con Campbell

~ Chad Chambers ~ 2 Comments

In studying συν Χριστω, I was intrigued by Paul’s use of συν-compounds. Most of these compounds only appear in Paul in the New Testament but they seem to incorporate so much of Paul’s theology – engaging past, present, and future realities for those ‘in Christ. It turns out I am not the only one who finds these terms significant…

Also see James Dunn and Murray Harris.

Con Campbell — Paul and Union with Christ (219-220):

As for our theme of union with Christ, Dunn states that the συν-compounds are even more significant in Paul’s usage than the phrase συν Χριστω:

For the real force of the ‘with Christ’ motif is carried by the remarkable sequence of about forty ‘with’ compounds which constitute yet another distinctive feature of Paul’s writing. He uses them both to describe the common privilege, experience, and task of believers and to describe a sharing in Christ’s death and life.

Indeed, McGrath goes so far as to say that ‘the quintessence of Saint Paul’s doctrine of the solidarity of the body of Christians with Christ is contained in the concepts embodied in the words which we have been considering’. Believers suffer with him (Rom 8:17), are crucified with him (Rom 6:6), are nailed to the cross with Christ (Gal 2:19), are united with him in his death (Rom 6:5), are fellow members of the same body (Eph 3:6), are built together in him (Eph 2:2), die with Christ (2 Tim 2:11), and are buried with him (Rom 6:4; Col 2:12). God brings believers to life in Christ (Eph 2:5; Col 2:13), who are raised up with him (Eph 2:6; Col 2:12; 3:1) and live together with him (Rom 6:8; 2 Tim 2:11). They become like Christ (Phil 3:10), are conformed to him (Rom 8:29; Phil 3:21), are joint-heirs with him (Rom 8:17; Eph 3:6), are joint-partakers of the promise (Eph 3:6), and are seated together with Christ (Eph 2:6) so that they may reign with him (2 Tim 2:12) and be glorified with him (Rom 8:17).

Paul and συν-compounds: James Dunn

~ Chad Chambers ~ 2 Comments

In studying συν Χριστω, I was intrigued by Paul’s use of συν-compounds. Most of these compounds only appear in Paul in the New Testament but they seem to incorporate so much of Paul’s theology – engaging past, present, and future realities for those ‘in Christ. It turns out I am not the only one who finds these terms significant…

Also see Con Campbell and Murray Harris.

James Dunn — The Theology of Paul the Apostle (403-404, list of all usages in footnotes on 402-403)

Particularly notable are the clustering of the compounds in several passages. Rom 6.4-8 and 8.16-29 deserve particular attention…

The prominence of the death-resurrection motif in the compounds uniting the believer to Christ underlines the distinctively Christian, that is, Pauline, character of the teaching. Paul appeals not simply to the wider sense of the appropriateness of death imagery when describing the beginning of the process of salvation. Fundamental is the eschatological claim that with Christ’s death a whole epoch has passed and a new age begun. Moreover, this new age is characterized by the steady reclaiming of individuals for an ever closer conformity to the risen Christ. In some sense the event of Christ’s passion and resurrection has to be reenacted in believers until the renewal of the new age is complete. Not only so, but the process cannot, almost by definition, be something merely individual and individualistic. Rather, by its very nature it is a shared experience which involves creation as well. The ‘with Christ’ cannot be fully enacted except as a ‘with others’ and ‘with creation.’