Home > Work > Cruciformity: Paul's Narrative Spirituality of the Cross
1 " To be in Christ is to be a living exegesis of the narrative of Christ, a new performance of the original drama of exaltation following humiliation, of humiliation as the voluntary renunciation of rights and selfish gain in order to serve and obey. "
― Michael J. Gorman , Cruciformity: Paul's Narrative Spirituality of the Cross
2 " Faith, for Paul, is a death experience, a death that creates life. "
3 " To be sure, this justification is a gift, an unmerited act of sheer divine grace, but from start to finish the gift demands and offers complete identification with the cross of Christ, not only as the basis of a right relationship with God, but as the very shape of that relationship. "
4 " For Paul, the will of God is known in essence in the obedient death of Jesus. In concrete and specific ways, however, God's will is known only when one offers oneself and one's body daily as a living sacrifice to one's rightful Lord: "
5 " Those who respond in trust or faith to the faith of Christ are moved into Christ, into the sphere of his life. In that sphere, and there alone, is justification to be found. Simultaneously, those who move into Christ find that Christ has moved into them, so to speak. "
6 " Faith, therefore, is a liberation that is also an incorporation, specifically an incorporation into Christ the new lord, and into his body. "
7 " faith is an inauguration into a community and into a life of dying, or cruciformity. "
8 " Faith, then, for Paul is first of all cruciform participation with Christ that liberates participants from the hostile powers that rule human existence and brings them into the powerful sphere of Christ's benevolent lordship and community. "
9 " faith is an initial and ongoing participation in the faith (i.e., faithful death) of Jesus. "
10 " for Paul private belief and public confession of it - including baptism - go hand in hand.3 Both are needed for salvation. "
11 " Paul's act of faith has enabled him to share in the faith of Jesus, the faith that expressed itself in self-giving love. "
12 " Baptism is a symbolic narrative not only of incorporation into Christ but also of ongoing life in Christ. Although a once-for-all death to sin occurs in baptism, as Christ died only once, this death must be constantly reactualized. "
13 " Faith is a separation from the law ("I died to the law") and the self ("It is no longer I who live"), and an identification with the cross of Christ ("I have been crucified"). "
14 " Faith begins by acknowledging the faith of Jesus and dying with him by no longer relying on the law and the self for right relations with God. Faith continues by daily relying on Christ as the energizing force for all of life, and by allowing the faith of the Sonof God, expressed in his self-giving, loving death, to reexpress itself in the life of the believer "
15 " Specifically, the believer's faith is cruciform faith because Christ's faith(fulness) was expressed on the cross. "