Fallen Into Knowledge

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross.
Therefore God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father

And,

But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.

The connection between these two passages, the first from chapter two, the second from the end of chapter three, was first pointed out to me by Andy Teeter and started a revolution for me, theologically. As these things often go, Andy’s comments were very brief - all of 30 seconds worth - but they stuck with me. Basically he pointed out the use of “morphe” in both passages (italicized above) and the word “politeuma” (citizenship). That was all it took.
Well, actually it steeped in my brainpan for a good while, but by the time those comments had infused properly, I had given up on Constantinian-ism.

the Church is a political entity, whose political agenda is shaped by Jesus’ self emptying - a community which is shaped “summorphe” by into the imago dei as we enact the logic of the cross, communally.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 2nd, 2007 at 9:59 pm and is filed under Lent, Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.