Inform Your 'Faith'

To be, or not to be, that is the question...As Shakespeare questioned in Hamlet. Well, for Paul that is in fact the question too. It is a truism for Paul - as well as the rest of Scripture - that salvation brings about an inward change by way of regeneration that is expressed outwardly in our behavior or how we conduct ourselves. From the word go we are continually undergoing a process of transformation that unfolds throughout life. Having been saved we are being changed. Having been set free from sin we are being, “transformed. . .from one degree of glory to another.” (2 Cor.3:18) as a result of God the Father who, “has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Col.1:13-14) The Pauline ethic is not merely a matter of do’s and do nots, though we do find such ethical imperatives in Paul. His ethics are  more a matter of who we are in Christ and how who we are in Christ transforms our present life.

New Life: Be what you are in Christ

The above is new life for Paul. We are no longer in bondage to our formerly depraved natures but have been made alive (Eph.2). This new life was, “ created in Christ Jesus for good works. . .that we should walk in them” (Eph.2:10). Implicit within this ontologically salvific statement is the causal will of God. Throughout the bible we see the ethical life couched in the reality and purpose of God’s will. It is His salvific intent. IN his epistle to the Philippians Paul writes for the church to, "work out your salvation...for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." (Phil.2:12d-13). This 'will' and 'work' is the elsewhere spoken of as sanctification. This is effect of salvation or new life that our God has purposed.  Sanctification precipitating from this new life, for instance, is to be worked out and attended to precisely because it is God’s will. Paul touches on this when he promulgates, “. . . brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification...” (1 Thess.4:1-3).

This ethical life is brought about through instructional means according to the purposes of God as result of being re-born.. This is commonplace as, “The New Testament generally and the apostle (Paul) in particular consistently urge those who have experienced God’s gracious redemption to lead holy and godly lives.”   We are, thereby, taught to do this or that or not to do this or that. Paul often rebukes or exhorts the church to live according to the Christian ethic salvation has brought about vis a vis new life (cf. Eph.4,5; Col.3). Again, Paul writes the Thessalonians, “we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory”(1 Thess.2:12).

Paul can specifically inculcate the ethical life because of the underlying assumption found in any Pauline ethical paranesis, namely, that Christ’s death and resurrection envelopes us in new life. New life that can be instructed to live accordingly. The “central focus”, of Paul’s ethical instruction is, “that the moral life is the consequence of a new creation effected by Christ’s death and resurrection.”

This redemptive historical nuance underlies the warp and woof of Paul’s ethical expectations throughout his writings. “It means a real inclusion within the reality of the divine act of redemption”. We have already been ‘created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Eph.2:10) yet, we will be walking in them. Paul elsewhere says, even more emphatically, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the, new has come.”(2 Cor.5:17). The tense of the red highlighted words is indicative of what has already been realized in Christ historically and expressed or lived out presently, as it were. One will be able to do good works and live out a Christian ethic because of what they already are in Christ for, “the new life of believers receives its specific character in what ‘once’ took place with Christ.” Moreover, the prepositional phrase, “in Christ” (above in red) locates the activity and reality of the new creation with, in and through Jesus Himself. It speaks to the antecedent union with Jesus necessary for practicing the Christian life. The surrounding context in Ephesians substantiates this meaning (1:4,2:6,7,12a). Jesus is the proximate location of the new creation. As John Murray put it, “It is in Christ that the people of God are created anew.” Apart from being united to Him in His death and resurrection (Rom.6) we could not and would not walk in good works (Eph.2:10d) because, “good works necessarily follow from the union of believers with Christ. . .What Christ effects in his people is in a sense a replica or reproduction of what took place in Him.”

So, Paul can command an ethical life only because of what has already been established fait accompli in, by and through Jesus Christ. Ethical imperatives are always couched in salvific indicatives. As Ridderbos posits, “...the new life in its moral manifestation is at one time proclaimed and posited as the fruit of the redemptive work of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit - the indicative; elsewhere, however, it is put with no less force as a categorical demand - the imperative.”

New Life: Become what you will be in Christ

   Beyond bringing about a distinctly Christian life by way of instructional means based upon the eschatological reality of what Christ has done previously there is another eschatological appeal Paul employ’s to encourage Christian living. Paul looks to the reality of what God has already achieved in Christ for us in eternity - but nevertheless in Him - as cause to live the Christian life, or better, to grow into who we already are in Christ. “Because of the historic event of the resurrection of Christ, the church is controlled by the risen Christ (i.e. in heaven), but the process by which the risen life of Christ manifests itself is on earth. . .”  In locating our new life in union with Christ or more precisely in union with his fully resurrected life who is raised from the dead and seated in heavenly places (Eph.1:20)  Paul understands that we are striving toward that end or reaching forward to what has been fully achieved there - where Christ is. Paul finds much motivation in knowing the risen and exalted Christ and the ‘power of his resurrection’ (Phil.3:10) he exerts himself, “to press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind an straining forward to what lies ahead” (3:12-13). Paul envisions the perfected new man where Christ is and suitably recognizes that his goal is to attain the full realization of that new life already achieved by Christ historically but now being lived out completely in eternity. Paul himself embodies an eschatological ethic that compels him to look ahead to the full realization of new life. He is motivated to work out a distinctly Christian life because of what awaits him as he affirms when saying, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”(3:14). This is underscored in what he concludes in this section of Philippians. He brings to mind our heavenly citizenship and how we await Christ’s return as Savior to transform our physicality. With this anticipation of future fulfillment he then exhorts his readers to, “Therefore...stand firm”(3:20-4:1). Paul finds great incentive in living out the Christian life and fostering a distinctly Christian ethic in what awaits him and them. He throws out an ethical imperative on the grounds of future promise.  Paul looks forward to eternal life as incentive of sorts. Unlike the Johannine literature, that treats eternal life as a present reality, Paul treats eternal life as a future inheritance. For the apostle this is a bona fide reason to continue conducting ourselves as Christians.