Transformed into the Same Image (eBook)

INHERENT TO THE CONVERSATION about deification is the question: Into whom are the being-deified being deified? David Litwa rightly notes that deification etymologically means something like “God-making.”1 This raises the question of the character and identity of the deity into whom humans are made. This essay offers a perspective on deification in Paul by focusing on to whom it is that Paul thinks believers are transformed.

It is plain to me that Paul thinks that the faithful are in the process of being changed into the likeness of Christ. Paul says as much in Romans 8:29. Moreover, I regard Paul’s prevalent union-with-Christ theme as chief among the ways Paul indicates his conviction that the faithful take on the life of Christ. As the apostle says in Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20 ESV). Though connecting deification with Paul’s union-with-Christ emphasis is certainly not a consensus view among Pauline scholars, I will not here argue for it.2 Rather, my starting point is that Paul conceived of union with Christ as allowing for transformation into Christ, whom Paul understood to be the divine Son of God. To clarify: I take it that Paul regards Christ as divine, that the faithful are in the process of transformation from one degree of glory to another (that is, transformation into Christ’s image [2 Cor 3:18]), and so it is appropriate to speak of conformity to Christ under the category of deification.

To talk about deification in Paul is, then, to raise the question of the identity of Christ. This question quickly becomes: To what aspect of Christ’s life are believers conformed? Is conformity exclusively to Christ’s incarnate life, or does it include conformity to his life prior to and subsequent to his incarnation? I suggest that since the apostle’s understanding of Christ’s life with God and so his divinity defines Paul’s understanding of Christ’s human life, we must take this into consideration when thinking about deification. It is Christ’s divine, nonhuman existence that shapes the apostle’s understanding of Christ’s human life.3 The obvious fact that Paul talks much less about the human Christ than about the risen and exalted Christ (and also about Christ prior to incarnation) underscores this. When we talk about deification in Paul—that is, becoming like Christ—we need to include, if not focus on, the Christ that Paul focuses on: the one who was in the form of God (Phil 2:6), who lives at God’s right hand (Rom 8:34), and who is highly exalted (Phil 2:9).4 That is, since Christ in Paul is primarily the being who lives with God, our understanding of who it is who believers are transformed into must take this into account. There has to my knowledge been little investigation of Christ’s nonincarnate life in regard to deification. This is the focus of my essay.

I begin with the observation that, curious though it may be, Pauline interpreters regularly speak of deification in the same breath as assimilation to Christ. This oddity rightly assumes that Paul thinks of Christ as divine but wrongly conveys the idea that Paul does not make a distinction between Christ and God.5 We should, however, maintain clarity about the fact that for Paul the faithful are being deified into the likeness not of God the Father but of Jesus Christ, God’s Son. The ancient world (both Jews and non-Jews) conceived there to be many deities inhabiting the cosmos.6 I suggest that Paul thought of Jesus Christ as a divinity superior to all others, apart from God the Father.

As just mentioned, I contend that union with Christ, which allows for conformity to Christ, is for Paul much more expansive than conformity with Christ’s earthly life. It involves, and essentially so, conformity to Christ’s exalted life, life which includes all of Christ’s time—Christ’s time prior to his incarnation, the time of his incarnated life, and the time of his life post-resurrection.7 To be noted is that when Paul describes conformity to aspects of Christ’s earthly life, Christ’s exalted life literarily and conceptually surrounds Christ’s incarnated life. The curious order in Philippians 3:10 perhaps demonstrates this most clearly. After Paul declares that he seeks to know Christ, the apostle states his longing to know the power of Christ’s resurrection before describing his desire to share Christ’s sufferings and to be conformed to Christ’s death. Paul continues by expressing hope to attain resurrection from the dead.8 Here we see that Paul wraps reference to conforming to aspects of Christ’s incarnated life with references to Christ’s exalted life.

Paul marries baptism with Christ’s death to the possibility of walking in newness of life/resurrection life (Rom 6:3-4). The apostle describes the consequence of being crucified with Christ as Christ living in him (Gal 2:21). He then goes on to describe Christ (the Son of God) as the one who gave himself, that is, died (Gal 2:21). Since the one who died lives in Paul, again, crucifixion is enveloped by life; conformity is not to Christ’s earthly life except as that life is defined by Christ’s resurrected and exalted (divine) life. Such is the dynamic also in Galatians 5:24-25: belonging to Christ means not only crucifying the flesh but living by the Spirit. Boasting in the cross of Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world is crucified to Paul and vice versa, means new creation (Gal 6:14-15). The cross—an event in Christ’s earthly life—only means something in light of its power to introduce new creation. Conformity to Christ is more expansive than conformity to his earthly life.

In search of greater clarity about the character of Pauline deification, I will discuss two features of Christ’s identity. These are features that, as far as I can tell, have not had much play in the conversation. I summarize these features here and expand on them shortly.

The first is that Paul understands the term Christ to mean “Messiah.” While the apostle understood Messiah in light of Jesus crucified, risen, and exalted rather than within the boundaries of Jewish expectations, the fact of Paul’s abundant use of the word Χριστός indicates that he, along with his fellow Jews, conceives of Messiah as God’s saving agent.9 Paul’s choice to emphasize heavily that Jesus is Messiah, that is, God’s redeemer, must be a significant factor in our understanding of the being into whom the faithful are transformed. As far as I can tell, this understanding is very rarely brought into conversation with the topic of deification in Paul.

The other feature of Christ’s identity to which I draw attention is that, for the apostle, Jesus is a divine Messiah.10 Paul conceived that though for a few decades Jesus Messiah had an earthly sojourn, Jesus Messiah lives with the eternal God. I propose that, for Paul, Jesus is Messiah not only when he is on earth but always. That is, both Christ’s life prior to his incarnation and his exalted life are as Messiah. It is, then, not that Jesus is Messiah only during his human life and/or as an eschatological Messiah. Jesus is divine Messiah.