Although a once-for-all death to
sin occurs in baptism, as Christ died only once, this death must be constantly
re:actualized. One habitual action of self-seeking is to be replaced by another
in those who have moved from death to life. Sanctification—growth in holiness
or dedication to God—must replace “greater and greater iniquity.” This is
achieved by means of regular self-offering to God. This regular “self-offering”
finds its roost in a dynamic and ongoing narrative posture before God. Those
who have died to sin and now live to God in Christ Jesus must embrace the
logical corollary: we now offer ourselves in obedience not to our passions but
to our newfound Lord (Rom 6.11, 13, 19).
In Galatians 2.19, Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ.” His
use of the Greek perfect tense can be translated as English present tense: “I am crucified with Christ.” This
crucifixion had a starting point but no ending point “this side of the
eschaton.” Paul uses the same grammatical construction in Galatians 6.14: “The
world has been crucified to me, and I
to the world.” The daily life of believers is one of reaffirming and
re:actualizing the separation from former ways (whether pagan or ethnic Jewish)
that faith in the gospel inaugurated and baptism expressed. It is the ongoing
expression of our “fundamental option” rightly ordered, our narrative posture
of dynamic faith before God.
To share in Christ’s faith is to
share in his obedience. Heartfelt obedience to the gospel means accepting
Christ’s death not merely as the SOURCE of salvation but as the PATTERN of
faith/obedience. Paul hints at the interrelationship of faith and obedience
with a coin he termed and uses twice in Romans: the “obedience of faith” (Rom
1.5, 16.26).
Obedience isn’t optional, nor
even a good supplement to faith.
The gospel isn’t merely to be
BELIEVED but OBEYED.
Obedience and Faith are
essentially synonymous.
New obedience to the gospel MUST
replace obedience to one’s passions. This obedience is a self-offering to God.
When this self-offering occurs, the results are (1) nonconformity to this age
(“death” or “crucifixion” to the world) and (2) transformation or renewal of
the mind (elsewhere, having “the mind of Christ”; conformity to Christ
crucified. This transformation of the mind is the fruit only of a stance
towards God that welcomes the divine power of the cross to effect change.
Faith is a separation from the
Law and from the self, and an identification with the cross of Christ. It is an
experience of participating in the death of Christ in order to experience to
the life of Christ. Faith begins by acknowledging the faith of Jesus and dying
with him by no longer relying on the law or the self for right relations with
God. Faith continues by daily relying on Christ as the energizing force for all
of life, and by allowing the faith of Christ—expressed in his self-giving,
loving death—to express itself over and over in the life of the believer.
Paradoxically, this life is a death, a crucifixion, so that the Crucified One
may live in the crucified one; the crucified but living Christ lives in and
through the crucified but living believer.
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