Participating in God's Own Life

What’s the whole Christian life about, anyway?

We know that God created the world, and that He had a plan for it that went wrong… but what was that plan, and how does He make sure it is accomplished despite our fallenness?

Paul teaches us that the whole point of God creating the world (or the Son of God who is also the image of God (Col. 1:15-16) creating the world), was so that the whole earth might be filled with human creatures who are conformed to the image of God’s Son, Jesus (Rom. 8:29).

But, how is this achieved, and what does this actually mean?

It is effected, again Paul tells us, at first by baptism (Rom. 6-8; Gal 3:26-29; and 1 Cor. 10) and then going forward by Communion through which God communicates to His creatures, through His Son, the very Spirit which unites the Son to the Father.

Through baptism, we are buried into Jesus’ death (Rom. 6:3), so that when we come out of the water, having been raised in baptism by the very Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead, “we also walk in new life” (Rom. 6:4).

Paul also says that the Son whom God sent into the world (Rom. 8:3) effects the adoption (making sons and daughters) of human beings, through baptism and the Spirit, because of which these humans cry out “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15).

Paul is saying the almost unthinkable–that we participate, post-baptism and by the Spirit, in the unique prayer of the Son to his Father. In other words, by the Spirit we participate in Jesus’ unique relationship to the Father. The One who has always been one with the One God, comes and rescues fallen humans and includes them, by being included in him, within the inner life of the One God Himself.

According to Paul, the Christian life is about–in part now but eventually in full– participation in the very life of the God who made and sustains the universe!

Come join us at Ooltewah United Methodist Church as we seek, day by day and week by week, to be grasped by this vision of the Christian life!