The supremely important knowledge for Paul was that he had become 'a new man in Christ.' The phrase, 'in Christ', or its equivalent, is found about two hundred times in Paul's letters. To help us grasp what Paul meant by this phrase, we need to remember that 'Christ' was the Greek form of the Hebrew word Messiah, meaning the anointed one of Paul had been prepared, by his Jewish traditions, to expect the coming of God's Messiah who would manifest God's rule over the universe. With other Pharisees, Paul had awaited God's triumphant intervention in the world, through the Messiah who would come in glory and power. Like other Pharisees, Paul could not have accepted the idea of a suffering, crucified Messiah; the idea would have seemed blasphemous to him and this helps us to understand his fierce opposition to the claim of the early Church in Jerusalem that Jesus was the Messiah. But a total change occurred in Paul's understanding after he was confronted with the dynamic, living Person of Jesus, near Damascus. From that time, he identified the living Person who confronted him with the man Jesus who taught in Galilee and who died by crucifixion, and with the Messiah of God, whose coming was foretold in the Jewish Scriptures. The Jesus who died was the Messiah, the Christ, who is alive.

Paul discovered what the apostles and the early Church had already discovered that the risen, living Jesus Christ had established a new, dynamic, spiritual relationship with them, as individuals and as a community. A new dimension of living became possible for them; whilst continuing to live in the world, in a human community, they also became 'citizens of heaven' (Philippians 3:20).

We should notice that Paul never says 'in Jesus'. He always refers to being 'in Jesus Christ', 'in Christ Jesus', 'in Christ', or 'in the Lord' (Galatians 2:20). Paul is not referring to a human relationship, dependent on space, time and physical contact. He is referring to a spiritual relationship, independent of space and time and human limitations that will continue when the physical life of the body ends. Because of his conversion experience and his subsequent new dimension of life, Paul's thought always moved back from the Christ who lives to the Jesus who died. To the apostles and others who had known Jesus before the crucifixion, their thought moved forward from the Jesus who died to the Christ who lives. Paul's understanding was important for all those who followed the generation who had been witnesses of the work of Jesus of Nazareth.

 

To any Jew, the idea that God had revealed himself in the way that he had done in Jesus Christ, was revolutionary. God's holiness, perfection and transcendence seemed to separate him totally from human life. In his letters, Paul describes the early Christian belief in the Incarnation in profound ways. He refers to Christ as having pre-existed (Galatians 4:4, Philippians 2:6). In Colossians 1: 15, Paul says, 'Christ is the visible likeness of the invisible God. He is the first-born Son, superior to all created things.' Along with such great references to Christ's divine nature, Paul also affirms the full humanity of Christ (Galatians 4:4, 1 Corinthians 15:21, Romans 8:3). Seventeen times in his letters, Paul calls Jesus Christ by the title 'Son of God' or 'His Son', and two hundred and twenty times Paul refers to Jesus Christ as 'Lord'.

For the individual and the community, to be in the new spiritual relationship with Christ was to belong to a new kind of hum with spiritual life. The individual's relationship with Christ and spiritual but it had an outward, practical aspect in a relationship of love with others.

 

 

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