Becoming In The Lord

What We Are In Christ

by

Frank N. Pohorlak

ALL OF US need to be on guard against a dangerous delusion—that salvation maintains itself by the mere fact of its existence. Arnold Toynbee's premise that civilizations which did not and do not respond to challenge are not sustained or furthered, is worthy of careful consideration. The fact that a civilization exists is no guarantee that it will always continue to exist. Thus salvation, like civilizations, must be worked out, or be carried into effect, if it is not to be stunted in growth (cf Phil.2:12). Salvation in Christ can be fully enjoyed only by continuing personal commitment (cf Heb.2:1-4; 4:1,2).

SOME PAULINE PARADOXES

God is our salvation, {yet} we are told to work out our own salvation. God is our righteousness, {yet} we are told to be becoming righteous. God is our peace, {yet} we are exhorted to practice that which makes for peace. We have been crucified with Christ, {yet} we are told to deaden our members which are on earth.

These are but a few of the baffling¹ things presented by Paul. Each without the other would be a contrary; both together are the balance which makes for life.

CARRYING YOUR OWN SALVATION INTO EFFECT

How is salvation made effective? Is it you who works it out, or is it God, operating in you (Phil.2:12,13)? To ask thus is like asking, what takes the photograph. When the astronomer aims his camera at the heavens and snaps the shutter, what takes the picture? The lens or the camera? The shutter or the film? The light from the star or the darkroom technique? The exposure time or the focal length? All are needed for the one thing, the perfect picture of the portion of the heavens at which the camera was aimed. Augustine said it thus: "Without Him we cannot; without us He will not." This is a succinct summing up of a vast area of Scripture devoted to salvation, a process to be effected, a goal to be believingly achieved. Paul speaks often of what we {have} and {are} in Christ, but more often of what He is in us and what we are to become in Him, a process which ends when we fall asleep or He returns.

Paul presents divine truth in two aspects: as being and as becoming. He writes that we are to accept and appropriate an existing fact, and also to be transforming that fact into action. Paul is insistent that being and becoming are not to remain a twoness, but to be brought into a oneness.

THE BELIEVER'S HEART SHOULD BE UNDIVIDED

When man is divided in two he cannot see reality as it is. He confuses and distorts, he turns reality upside down. Man must have singleness² of purpose, and his eye should be single (uncomplicated), not wicked (Matt.6:22,23). The simple believer's devotion to God comes from an undivided heart. Since he does not doubt God's love, he will find His Word refreshing and liberating day after day. The believer looks to God with a single eye, with no sidelong glance at the world, freely and apart from prejudice. This is how simplicity becomes wisdom. That man only is wise who sees reality in God, and who translates that insight into ideal acts pleasing to God and beneficial to humanity (Titus 3:8,9), by nourishing himself with the words of faith and the ideal teaching of Paul (1 Tim.4:6).

MAY CHRIST BE FORMED IN YOU

Christ takes His form in us. We do not take on an independent form of our own, but what gives us form and maintains us in the new form is always and solely Christ Himself. It is not a vain imitation or repetition of Christ's form, but Christ's form itself which takes form in us. Man does not become God, but man becomes truly man as the participant of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Paul's anguished cry to his converts when writing the Galatian letter is that he was travailing again until Christ may be formed in them (Gal.4:19). He coveted for them what he desired for himself: Christ to live in them as Christ lived in Paul (Gal.2:20). Paul had been severed from his mother's womb so that Christ would be unveiled in him (1:15f).

"Not now" and "not yet" are lies of the Adversary. God's Word says, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: the primitive passed by. Lo! there has come new. But the Adversary says, {Not yet} crucified, {not yet} dead to sin, {not yet} dead to law, {not yet} alive to God, {not yet} more than conquerors, {not yet} free from sin, {not yet} strip off the old humanity.

To assent to "not now" is defeat, to agree to "not yet" is believing the Liar. Right now we may have victory as we go on believing {the truth as it is taught in Christ and seen in Jesus} (Eph.4:20,21).

THE RULE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

The {fact} of righteousness is not only the starting point of the new life, it is also the {rule} of righteousness as we go on progressing in the new life. Righteousness puts us under a new rule which is life, even as unrighteousness had us under an old rule which was death. It is a distortion of Paul's teaching to ascribe to him the idea that salvation is an act that is ended and nothing else. It is also a process which is continuous in growth (cf 2 Tim.3:10-12). It is not so much continual (which allows for interruptions), but ought to be continuous (which allows for no interruptions).

God's righteousness brings the believing one under the rule or tutelage of a new power, by means of which we are being conformed in character and conduct to the image of the Son of God. What was {declared} of a man {in Christ} in the past is to be {effected} by that man {in the Lord} in the present. We are to be living sanely and justly and devoutly in this current eon (Titus 2:11-14).

Paul's emphasis on acts must not be explained away by his expositors. In salvation, let us remember that grace is not grace if salvation is the product of works (Romans 11:6). But let us also not forget that grace is expected to issue in good works. Salvation by works is legalism; salvation without good works following is a form of lawlessness. Grace shows itself in {toil} (1 Cor.15:10). All our acts are to be occurring in love (Gal.5:6). What the Philippians had learned and accepted and heard and perceived in Paul, these they were to be {practicing} (4:9). To Timothy Paul wrote that his {progress} was to be apparent to all (1 Tim.4:15). We are {being created} in righteousness and benignity of the truth (Eph.4:24). Paul writes of the {work} of faith, the {toil} of love, and the {endurance} of expectation (1 Thess.1:3).

OBEDIENCE INTO RIGHTEOUSNESS

Gerhard Kittel in his "Theological Wordbook of the New Testament" wrote that, "It may be stated generally that in the NT righteousness means almost always human behavior in harmony with God's will, and well-pleasing to him--uprightness of life, doing what is right in God's sight."

When a man is declared to be righteous he enters the service of righteousness, thus displaying obedience into righteousness (Rom.6:16-18) while he is brought under the creative power of the righteousness of God. In the static sense of Hellenistic ethics God's righteousness was considered to be more of an attribute, just as it is in much Protestant theology. Yet in Paul's thinking, God's righteousness is {dynamic}, it is active, as {active} as His indignation which is being revealed against all the irreverence and unrighteousness of those who suppress the truth in their unrighteousness (Rom.1:18).

PURSUE RIGHTEOUSNESS

"As children of light be walking (for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth), testing what is well pleasing to the Lord" (Eph.5:9).

Even though we are justified by faith (constituted righteous through the faith of Jesus Christ), and God's righteousness is manifest on all who are believing, we should never forget the injunction of 2 Corinthians 5:21, "For the One not knowing sin, He makes to be a sin offering for our sakes that {we} may be {becoming} God's righteousness in Him." God's righteousness, as set forth in the early chapters of Romans, {is} ours by faith, and cannot be "put on." The well-known exhortation in Ephesians 6:14 reminds us of Romans 6:19, "Now, present your members as slaves to Righteousness into holiness!" Paul repeats this admonition in a terse form in 1 Timothy 6:11 and 2 Timothy 2:22, "{Pursue righteousness}!" Whenever we act unjustly, or are stumbling blocks to others, thus lacking the fruit of righteousness that is through Jesus Christ (Phil.1:11), we are not walking as children of light. When we are not dealing graciously among ourselves, we are causing sorrow to the holy Spirit of God.

MAN PRIOR TO FAITH AND AFTER FAITH

Man prior to faith is a slave of sin; man after faith should be a slave of righteousness. Man prior to faith is under the power of death; man after faith should be under the sway of righteousness, which is life eonian (Rom.6:16-22). Prior to faith we were slaves of sin and produced fruit unto death; after faith we are slaves of righteousness and should produce fruit unto holiness. Thus we see that because of righteousness God's Spirit is the vivifying power of our new life when we put on the new humanity (Rom.8:9-11; Eph.4:24).

 BE BECOMING WHAT YOU ARE SAID TO BE

What we are said to be we are told to be becoming. God declares {what we are} that He may require {that we become} what He declared. We are declared to be sons by the act of faith: this is our standing in Christ. We are required to become sons by acts of faith: this is our state in the Lord. We are declared to be what we are required to become. We are to become in act what we are in fact. The work of sonship is finished, the product itself is unfinished. This is Paul's thought in Philippians 3: 10-17 as regards himself--stretching out toward the goal.

Growth in spiritual wisdom and understanding was as important to the apostle as was bearing fruit in every good work. In his Colossians prayer he asks for "growing in the realization of God" and for a walk worthy of the lord for all pleasing. We need all of this, and more, just as Paul did. Hence we should add these requests to our own prayers, so as to become endued with all power, in accord with the might of God's glory, for all endurance and patience with joy. Amen.

1 In Luke 5:26 the people say, "We perceived paradoxes today" (paradoxa, baffling things, KEYWORD CONCORDANCE, page 23).

2 KEYWORD CONCORDANCE, page 272, singleness, generosity, haplotês UN-COMPOUND

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