Reading the Bible Again For the First Time by Borg Marcus J

Author:Borg, Marcus J. [Borg, Marcus J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperOne
Published: 2009-10-13T04:00:00+00:00

“In Christ”

The short phrase “in Christ” is one of the two most important metaphors Paul uses for his vision of the Christian life. (The other is “justification by grace,” which we will consider next.) In his letters, Paul uses “in Christ” (including the phrase “in the Lord”) 165 times and the roughly synonymous phrase “in the Spirit” about twenty times. As a metaphor for the Christian life, “in Christ” has several dimensions of meaning. I begin with its opposite.

Life “in Adam” Paul is a dialectical thinker; he often thinks in contrasts or oppositions. The opposite of life “in Christ” is life “in Adam.” The two metaphors refer to different and sharply contrasting ways of life: humanity “in Adam” is nothing like humanity “in Christ.”

Life “in Adam” is one of Paul’s primary metaphors for the human condition. Within the sacred imagination of the Hebrew Bible, Adam is the first human, the being whose primal act in the Garden of Eden began the human story of grasping, exile, sin, and death. Adam sought to seize or grasp equality with God.46 The result was exile from paradise and lost intimacy with God. Life “in Adam” is thus the life of separation or estrangement from God.

It is also the life of sin and death, which Paul says came into the world through Adam. What does he mean by this? Does he mean simply that, beginning with Adam, people started sinning and dying, and they have been sinning and dying ever since? No, his language is too strong for that: he calls sin and death “powers” that have “dominion” over us. What does he have in mind? Is sin a “power”? Do we experience it as a “power”?

I do not know if everybody does, but I strongly suspect that Paul did—and that’s why he uses this language.47 To explain by contrast, there is a “free will” understanding of sin: we are free in each situation to choose right or wrong. When we choose the wrong, we have sinned. But this is not how Paul understood matters. Rather, life “in Adam” is life under the dominion of sin. Sin controls us; we are not free.

Paul describes the lordship of sin over life “in Adam” in an extended and powerful passage. Though sometimes interpreted autobiographically, the “I” of the passage is best understood as referring to what life “in Adam” is like for anybody. It is a life of bondage and internal conflict.48

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. . . . I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. The good that I would do, I do not do; but the evil that I would not do, that I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

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