Paul: A Very Short Introduction by E. P. Sanders

Author:E. P. Sanders [Sanders, E. P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780192854513
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2001-01-15T07:00:00+00:00

A change at work in the world

One of Paul’s most striking views is that those in Christ had already begun the process of transformation which would culminate at the return of the Lord. Sometimes, in fact, he wrote as if the change had already taken place: ‘If any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come’ (2 Cor. 5: 17).

This is, however, overstatement by Paul’s usual standard. In Romans, although he puts ‘death with Christ’ in the past tense, he stops short of putting resurrection with Christ into the past: ‘We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life’ (Rom. 6: 4).

One would have expected, ‘As Christ was raised . . . we too have been raised’. ‘Walk in newness of life’ implies that the full transformation comes at the return of the Lord or the resurrection. In Romans 8: 19–25 Paul makes clear the relationship between what Christians already have and what is to come. In the present age, the whole creation awaits liberation from bondage. Christians have the ‘first fruits’ of the Spirit, but we still await full adoption as ‘sons’, which means ‘the redemption of our bodies’. On the basis of such passages one might think that the only changes, in Paul’s view, were in God’s attitude towards the individual, and in the individual’s outlook and mental orientation. He held, however, an intermediate position between ‘the new creation has already arrived’ and ‘only attitudinal changes have taken place’.

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