Scripture and the Reformation: Living in Christ

...yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing. ~ Galatians 2:16-21
Should anyone knock on my heart and say, "who lives here?" I should reply, "Not Martin Luther, but the Lord Jesus Christ. ~ Martin Luther
Once the real inner journey begins—once you come to know that in Christ, God is forever overcoming the gap between human and divine—the Christian path becomes less about climbing and performance, and more about descending, letting go, and unlearning. Knowing and loving Jesus is largely about becoming fully human, wounds and all, instead of ascending spiritually or thinking we can remain unwounded. ~ Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ

Christ is alive!

 We recite every Sunday that "Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again." But maybe we should add with some emphasis: Christ is Alive!

 And then Christ is alive in me...

 What does that mean? 

 There's some heady theology here from Paul, and Martin Luther simplifies it quite beautifully.

 Remembering that "Christ" is not Jesus last name, but instead the eternal second person of the Trinity: the messiah, the anointed one.

 The one about whom we say:
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.

One with the father. True God.

A divine mystery. Christ from the beginning and Christ with us. Christ alive with us.

For Paul, and for the reformers, the law was a punishing thing. But a living Christ made the law useless in terms of salvation. It made the law useless in terms of truly living.

Instead, as Richard Rohr hints, salvation comes from a God who wanted to close the gap between the divine and the creation. A God who is always reaching us to show us what life truly is. 

What a fully resurrected life truly is.

One in which Christ lives in us, loves us, and loves through us.


Prayer: Live in my Christ Jesus, and love through me in ways that I may know what live truly is. Amen

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