Meet the Apostle Paul—Part Eight
One blogger has noted that the New Testament uses the phrase “In Christ” (or “In Him”) 180 times and 143/180 times are used by the Apostle Paul.[1] Obviously this was an important point but what does it mean?
When Saul/Paul (read this post) is confronted by the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, the Messiah states, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4). Yet, no evidence exists that Paul ever physically laid hands-on Jesus or had anything to do with His arrest, sham trial or crucifixion.
But obviously Jesus’ words had a massive impact on Paul’s thinking. It would not have been lost on the Apostle both before, during and after his time in Arabia that Jesus made no distinction between Himself and His church.
One writer[2] helpfully stated that for Paul, to believe in, trust in and be faithful to Jesus means you belong to the Messiah. What is true of Jesus is true of those are faithful to Him. For Paul, we belong to and represented by unfaithful Adam or we belong to and are represented by the faithful Christ. We are slaves to sin or slaves to Jesus (See Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15).
A debate has raged for decades now among New Testament scholars as to how to understand texts like Galatians 2:20. If you click over to Biblegateway.com and check out the translation of this verse by the NIV on the one hand and the Common English Bible on the other, you will find two different versions.
The NIV reads, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” But the Common English Bible reads, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in my body, I live by faith, indeed, by the faithfulness of God’s Son, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
The debate over which translation should win the day involves a dive into ancient Greek that few reading this blog will want to take. However, those taking the latter view displayed by the Common English Bible, do not deny the necessity of “faith in” but also strongly argued that it is important to note the faithfulness of Jesus.
To swing this back around, if we are “in Christ” and represented by Him, then the Son’s faithfulness to the Father’s command is important for all of us. It is both our example and vital to our standing before the throne of heaven.
I hope this makes some sense. We have a lot more to dig into so tune in next time.