One of the beautiful things about the Christian faith is the paradox of simplicity and depth. The Gospel is disarmingly artless in its claims: Billy Graham said that the message was so easy to understand that thousands tripped over its simplicity. Equally, there is a flowing elegance about the Gospel which beguiles those who enquire after it, a coherence which delights the deeper it is plumbed.
This paradox is illuminated in the words of the Apostle Paul to the Romans:
We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him (6: 6-8)
Those who put their trust in him die with Christ on the cross and become alive with him in his risen life. Put simply, they are wanted: dead and alive. It is enough to know this. And yet everyone who knows it realises there is so much more to what Paul is saying about them participating in the life of Christ.
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Two forces work powerfully to prevent us enquiring after this. The first is individualism. This is the deeply entrenched view in western thinking that we are autonomous and self-determining. The individual is rational, independent and free to make choices and shape their destiny. This is the foundation myth of the modern world. On this ground it is hard to get people to accept a truth which says that someone else shaped their destiny two thousand years ago. This leads to the second force which hinders us: contempt for history. Perhaps every generation has thought of itself as uniquely sophisticated but living on the crest of the information revolution it is possible that no generation has been tempted quite like ours. We are in thrall to the present and the myriad opportunities opening in front of us. Why look back to the ancient world for solutions when 2008 was so last year?
The truth is different. We are relational beings who shape one another. The idea of participation in the death of Christ is explicable on this basis as an intimate sharing in the life of another. Furthermore, while the Christian faith is rooted in history in the work of Jesus, it is also grounded in the present in the movement of the Holy Spirit. The very existence of individualism and contempt for history make people ache for connection with others and with the past; with whom they are and where they have come from.
Paul goes on to say in Romans: so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God (6:11). Live as if it is true and you will find it to be true, he exhorts them. This is not a confidence trick by a charlatan mind-bender. God will transform his people in the world to come, but he is not waiting until then to do this. Jesus’ death and resurrection in this world are proof of God’s unshakeable intent to begin this work now, which on that day will come to completion. Charles Wesley proclaimed in seven words - he breaks the power of cancelled sin - what this means for the Christian. It is cynical and expedient of us to suggest ‘I’m too old to change now’. Character is continually shaped by experience and God is at work in these moments to mould us into the person we shall become. Yet neither should we become so preoccupied with sin and personal failure that we turn us in on ourselves and away from others. The fruit of the Spirit is grown over many years of a prayerful daily commitment to God which runs something like this:
Lord, I believe I died with you. You gave your life for me. Today I give my life to you. Fill me with your life-giving Spirit that I may become the person you are calling me to be. Amen.
The possibilities that this opens up before us are endless and enchanting..
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