Until Christ Be Formed in You

Christian -- the word falls easily from our American lips. We have Christian dating services, Christian singles clubs, Christian aerobics, Christian schools, Christian counseling centers, etc. We have Christian values and we want our children to marry a good Christian man or woman. `Christian' has become a well-used adjective describing almost any activity of life that is somehow qualitatively different from other experiences of the same activity. Yet, `Christian' is also a noun. Luke tells us that in Antioch, sometime around the year 45 A.D., the disciples were first called Christians. (cf. Acts 11.26). Until that time, for about the first 15 years, they were identified as either followers of `the Way' or simply Nazarenes.

Tucked away in Paul's letter to the Galatians is a remarkable little phrase. Paul, burdened that the Galatian Christians not fall prey to a false gospel, labors throughout his letter to set them back on course with the true gospel of Christ. Finally, his heart aching, he cries out, "My little children, with whom I am in travail until Christ be formed in you!" (Gal 4.19).

Until Christ be formed in you. That's a remarkable phrase! To be formed in Christ is surely at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. Furthermore, I am convinced that Paul continues in intercessory travail over today's church that Christ be formed in us, individually and corporately.

It has been said that `Christian' means a `little Christ' or `like Christ.' If you approach almost any child who is a Vacation Bible School graduate and ask her or him where Jesus lives, in all likelihood you will be told, "Jesus lives in my heart." And, that is a true statement. Paul, in his maturity, expressed it differently, but the thought and intent are the same: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me..." (Gal 2.20) Christ lives in us by virtue of our incorporation into him. As surely as we have died with him -- as surely as our sin was nailed to the cross -- we are equally certain that we are alive to God because the resurrected one, whose name is Jesus, lives in each one of us. (cf. Rom 6.5-11)

Have you ever visited an amusement park and viewed yourself in one of those fun-house warped mirrors? You appear either tall, lanky, and skinny, or short, rotund, and stocky, or crinkled and disfigured. Because of the twisted mirror -- the reflecting agent -- your image is distorted. God's image in humanity has been subjected to a fun-house warped mirror; but, here the humor ceases. Our human nature is fallen. As such, when God stands in front of us as if before a mirror, the image reflected back is distorted. Yet, when God stands before Jesus, the image is reflected perfectly -- not only because he was God, but also because as a human being he was perfect, pure, and sinless. (cf. Heb 4.15b)

Jesus' resurrected spirit has been given to us. He has been born in us. (cf. Jn 3.1-15) We really are new creatures. (cf. 2Cor 5.17) It's not that we are like new creatures. We are new creatures. At the very heart of our being is a new spirit. We are -- by virtue of our incorporation into Christ, enacted at baptism -- Christians. In theological jargon, ontologically we are Christians.

In as much as Christ lives in me, I, in my very being, am a Christian. I could subscribe to the Judeo-Christian set of ethics and act in a so-called `Christian' manner, but without Christ in me, I would not be a Christian. Analogously, I could learn to bark and act like a dog, but that would never make me a dog. By definition, then, I cannot be a Christian unless Christ lives in me.

It is Jesus' life actually in us that Paul longs to be formed in us. The pure and sinless image of God, perfectly reflected in the humanity of Jesus, is resident in our humanity, though embryonic from the start. As we daily, year after year look into the face of Jesus, his spirit in us longs to be conformed to himself; and, as Paul writes, "we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the spirit." (2Cor 3.18) The image of God in Jesus is being formed in us.

In like manner, the New Testament is very clear that the church is in fact the body of Christ, albeit in a different form than his body of flesh which has ascended to the right hand of the Father. Paul's description of the church as the body of Christ is not simply a metaphor. How could it be? When he was headed for Damascus, determined to stamp out the church of Jesus Christ, he was blinded by a light and confronted by a voice which said, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" And he said, "Who are you, Lord?" And he said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." (Acts 9.3-5). At the moment of his conversion, Saul/Paul was confronted with the reality of the church as Jesus' own body, yet in a different form; to persecute the church was to actually persecute Jesus.

Given the spirit of individualism which pervades 20th century, Western thought, we cannot help but be blind to the possibility that when Paul writes, "until Christ be formed in you," he means a plural `you' -- a corporate `you'. As much as Jesus longs to see his image formed maturely in individual Christians, so he equally yearns to see his image formed in his body, the church. Indeed, that was his prayer the night before he died: "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me...." (Jn 17.20-23)

Individual spiritual formation is for the sake of the church, Jesus' body-in-a-different-form. Corporate spiritual formation -- the formation of the common life of Christians as Jesus' body -- is for the sake of the world. As people were drawn to Jesus in his own day, so people will be drawn to him today in his body, the church. He is, after all, the same yesterday, today, and forever. (cf. Heb 13.8) The church's mission is to be Christ -- to be his body -- in the world today. Therefore, to be involved in Christ's mission today, we together, in our common life as a church community, must give ourselves to be formed in him and to be formed by him.

In order to be dually -- individually and corporately -- formed in Christ we must know everything there is to know about this man Jesus. But, to stop there would be to do him and ourselves a grave disservice. We must know him and enter fully into his life. The church calendar annually reviews the life of Jesus from pre-natal expectation to ascension. Its liturgical seasons, collects, and lectionary Scripture readings leave no stone unturned about this person in whom we are being formed. Alone and with others, such daily prayerful steeping in the word of God, by the Word made flesh, is the only hope for formation, individual and corporate. Until Christ be formed in us -- it is the only hope for the world.