'In Adam', 'In Christ' - some exploratory thoughts

These words of Paul in Romans often float over us. We find it very hard to conceive what it means to be part of another, part of one another. We are so geared by society to see ourselves as atomized individuals. My own spirituality over the years was so often in roots that began with me and God, others being fitted in later.

Psalm 16 knits things together more than that. It begins 'Keep me safe, O God', but very soon we are hearing that the saints in the land are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight (v 3). He makes the move to the corporate as soon as he can

This strikes me forcibly as I reflect on my ministry at the moment. Everything I do I realise has been a gift to me from someone. It is been thought, pondered, prayed over, tried and tested with others. Even a sermon prepared by myself and then re-visited, has the benefit of the experience of it being preached with others. Yesterday was much more so. I was using a visual aid made for me by a friend several years ago (it has had several outings now). The talk also came from earlier team work, which I got out from the cupboard and polished up. But that is one instance of something I sense far more deeply.

I realise how all I am is God's gift to me. How I hate those moments when I sense myself wanting to take the credit. How downright stupid they are!

This sense of corporateness needs to take hold in many areas. To take just one - I was reflecting yesterday on some thoughts shared by a friend from another culture: that all religions know God's judgment of evil doers and the reward of the righteous (we had been reading an Old Testament psalm, and he was I think also relating it to another major faith), but Christians alone know the grace and mercy of God.

That got me thinking afresh about the link between judgment and forgiveness, one that Christians in my experience always struggle with. One way into this is from the corporate.

Before Christ we as humanity live in a world where God in his dealings with us has the language of judgment and forgiveness. He deals with us as a society (I think of the Old Testament laws).  The needs of society demand that justice be seen to be done, and this is important for the individual to (eg to take responsibility, to understand the seriousness of sin... the list is endless).

But, in Christ, we read that there is 'now no condemnation' (Romans 8.1). The quandry - how to hold this with what I have already said, the quandry of many tomes!

What is not often emphasised (though it is there I think in the puritan tradition, somewhat hiding in the idea of election and foreknowledge), is that we are here stepping into a new corporateness, into a landscape (kingdom) where there is indeed no judgment. That this is a landscape we can enter only because God has come amongst us in history. Historically, everything has changed. I can now know of Christ and what he has done. God deals with humanity in a new way. Everything now looks different. Hence Jesus invites me to the narrow way, warning me that the broad way leads to destruction. But that does not hang over me as a threat. Rather, it is the counsel of a friend who has come alongside me and is guiding me and helping me. The words come as those of wisdom on the way, a reality that dawns in my own heart.

If I remain at the individualistic level, all this becomes much more of a tangle.

These are of course only exploratory thoughts. I stand at the foot of a mountain. But I rather like the look of the snow-covered peaks.