I have a friend who is a Benedictine monk. The way we live out our lives is vastly different, but I feel a real kinship, a oneness of spirit with Brother Sam. One of the most memorable evenings, one to which I return often in my mind, is the time he and I spent together alone in our home, in sharing our Christian pilgrimages.  

The vivid highlight of that evening still alive in my mind was his sharing with me the occasion of his solemn vows, the service when he made his life commitment to the Benedictine community and the monastic life. It’s difficult to grasp how serious that is. When a person makes a decision to become a monk, they make the decision to really remove themselves from the world and to be separated from the world for the rest of their life, and they take the vow of poverty, chastity and obedience. 

Brother Sam said that on that signal day, he prostrated himself before the altar of the church, face down, prostrate, in the very place where his coffin will sit when he dies. As he was prostrated there, he was covered with a funeral pall and the death bell began to toll, the bell that rings at the earthly parting of a brother, and it sounded the solemn gongs of death. Then there was silence, the deep silence of death.  

That silence was broken by the singing of the Colossian word, “for you have died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” (Col. 3:3) After that powerful word, there was more silence as Brother Sam reflected upon his solemn vow. Then the community broke into singing Psalms 118, which is always a part of the Easter liturgy in the Benedictine community.  One verse of that Psalms says, ‘I shall not die, but live and declare the wonderful works of the Lord.’ Psalm 118:117) 

After this resurrection proclamation, the liturgists shouted the word from Ephesians, ‘awake you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you life.’ (5:17) Then the bells of the Abbey begin to ring joyfully and loudly.  Brother Sam rose, the funeral pall fell off, the white robe of the Benedictine order was placed upon him, he received the kiss of peace from all of his brothers and was welcomed into that community to live a life hidden with Christ. 

It is a great liturgy of death and resurrection. When Brother Sam and I shared, I relived in vivid memory my own baptism, in a rather cold creek in rural Mississippi. Paul gave a powerful witness to it. Over and over again, I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me. 

This Wednesday, February 14, is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, what should be one of the most significant time periods for Christ Followers. This is a 40 day period when we deliberately concentrate on Jesus’ passion, suffering and death, all for our salvation. 

The season will climax with Easter, the resurrection of Christ. There is a sense in which the dynamic of the Christian life is dying and rising with Christ. I urge you to join me during this season, seeking to deliberately die to sin and self, that our Hallelujah on Easter will be our most joyful ever.

In my last article I introduced the fact that “In Christ” is the central category of Paul’s thinking. This phrase, “in Christ,” or “in Christ Jesus,” is used by Paul in his letters 169 times. His definition of a Christian is an illustration of this. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new has come.” (2 Cor. 5:17)

We continue our thinking. Persons who are in Christ are people in whom a new principle of life has been implanted.

I think of that in two ways. First, from the perspective of what we might call imitation, then from the perspective of immersion.

There is a sense in which the Christian walk is an imitation of Christ – a call to walk as Christ walked. Isn’t that the way it should be with Christians? “As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.”(Col.2:6)

There are all sorts of legends and fairy tales about people who pretended to be someone they weren’t – but one day they actually became that person they pretended to be. And there’s truth in that. Someone may say that it’s hypocrisy – pretending to be someone you really aren’t. But not in the Christian walk – when we walk in Christ, we seek to walk as Christ would walk. And, as Martin Luther would say, “We actually become little Christs.”

So, there is a sense in which the Christian walk is an imitation of Christ.

But it’s more than that. We must go beyond the imitation of Christ to immerse ourselves in Christ. Persons in Christ are people in whom a new principle of life has been implanted.

Conversion to Christ without immersion in Christ is a perversion of the Gospel. Stop. Don’t continue reading until you read that sentence again –

Conversion to Christ without immersion in Christ is a perversion of the Gospel. 

Persons in Christ are people in whom a new principle of life has been implanted.

You can remember those key words. Conversion, immersion, perversion. My hope is that remembering those three words will bring awareness of the whole thought. Conversion to Christ without immersion in Christ is a perversion of the Gospel.

John A. Mackay, former Dean of Princeton University Theological Seminary, has captured the truth with succinct clarity in just two sentences: “We receive Jesus Christ without cost because of what he has done for us, but it becomes costly business to receive him, because of what he will do in us.” And then the second sentence, “God’s free grace in Jesus Christ, to which faith responds, becomes costly grace when Christ takes command.” (God’s Order: The Ephesian Letter and This Present Time, New York: The McMillan Company, 1953, p. 111).

Now what that means in a practical way is that our choice is not whether we will be new persons or not – that is a matter of grace. Christ makes us new creatures. Our choice is whether we will start to become new persons. It is our choice to start that gives Grace the opportunity to make us new persons.

The start requires the two things we have indicated: requires imitation and immersion. We begin to walk as we think Christ would have us walk, and we immerse ourselves in Christ – that is we surrender ourselves to His Spirit within, and allow His grace to make us, in fact, the new persons we already are, in principle.

“All on my own,” you may be thinking and asking. Not at all! Paul, the person who most clearly and powerful sounded this in Christ reality speaks for all of us, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

I’m sure you know people as I know – a young woman who is just finding it – a life in Christ and a source of strength to rear three little children alone; a 45 year old man who is suddenly alone because of the death of his wife – but is not going it alone – Christ dwells in him; I could name five recovering alcoholics who make it one day at a time and they would tell you they make it by the power of Christ.  

Scores of people are serving God’s people in need in my community with a love not their own. It is the love of Jesus in them. Many of them are new at this and could not have pictured themselves loving and serving in this fashion even a year ago. There are persons who are breaking out of prisons of prejudice, and are beginning to think in terms of brotherhood and community. They will tell you it’s not their doing; that they’ve been as racist as any of us – but something new is operating within them – a new source of strength.

I close this article the way I began. Remember the story I repeated in the beginning – about three year old Ryan – and Jesus walking around inside. When I told that story to a group some time ago, Tom, our Director of Youth Ministries, told me a similar experience he had had with his then four-year old son, Thomas. 

Tom and Thomas were playing doctor. Tom held the stethoscope to his own heart so Thomas could listen. He got still and quiet. “What do you hear?”Tom asked.

Four-year old Thomas said, “It’s Jesus; He’s walking around.” But then he added. “Dad, why can’t Jesus get out?”

That says something about the mystery of the indwelling Christ. He dwells within – but He does get out. He gets out in power and his presence is known through us to others, when we walk in Christ.

Three-year-old Ryan and his five-year-old sister, Lisa, were playing on the floor following a family dinner while the adults tried to have a conversation. Lisa opened her new toy nurse’s kit and convinced Ryan to be her patient. She took the little stethoscope and placed it on her brother’s heart, listened intently – as good nurses do. Suddenly she announced, “I hear somebody walking around in there.”

The adults smiled at this, but Ryan, matter-of-factly answered, “Why, that must be Jesus.”

That’s the amazing promise, and one of the central claims of the Christian Gospel – that Christ may live in us. Indeed that was Paul’s definition of a Christian – a person in Christ. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (II Corinthians 5:17).

When we think of Paul’s contribution to Christian thought we usually think, justification by grace through faith. The fact is “In Christ” is the central category of Paul’s thinking. This phrase, “in Christ,” or “in Christ Jesus”, is used by Paul in his letters 169 times.

What does Paul mean by this vital image? Hundreds of books have been written on the theme. Boldly, I’m going to write a couple of articles that will at least introduce the dynamic meaning of our being IN CHRIST.

To be in Christ is to become a new creation. Phillips’ translation of Paul’s definition of a Christian could not express the truth more vividly. “If a man is in Christ, he becomes a new person altogether – the past is finished and gone, everything has become fresh and new.”

So it is – to be a believer is the identifying fact of one’s being a Christian. But I insist that being in Christ is more than just another way of talking about the Christian experience; it is the definitive word. To be in Christ is to have our being, our life,  in the very life of God. It is to live a God-centered existence.

To be in Christ implies spiritual renewal, a new creation, as Paul put it. I remember a family experience some years ago that helps picture it. In fact it’s quite a graphic picture of it. Jerry, my wife, gave her brother, Randy, a bone-marrow transplant.

The doctors were brutally honest. It was going to be tough for Randy – he was going to be brought to the door of death as all his marrow was destroyed and his immune system reduced to zero before he received the transplant – and even after that, if the transplant worked it would be a flirtation with death for a while. But his only hope was the transplant. What rejoicing there was when it was discovered that Jerry was a perfect match for the transplant.

I think I’ll never forget, and I know Jerry and Randy could ever forget, the day February 1 (1990), when the doctors made the transplant. Jerry was in a room down the hall from Randy – coming out from the anesthesia, as her marrow was being fed into Randy’s system. I was back and forth between the rooms during that six-hour process.

When the last drop of the  marrow had gone into his system, the nurse took the i.v. bag down and said, “That’s it, Randy, this is your new birthday. You’ve been given a new life.”

I can only imagine the joy of Randy  and the special oneness Randy and Jerry had – her life creating life in him.

That’s at least suggestive of the opportunity that is ours with Christ. Receiving Him, and cultivating His presence, we have a new life, a Christ-centered existence.

In Christ. We are who we are because of the personal love of God that comes to us in Jesus Christ.

I’ll talk more about this in my next article.

In my last article I discussed assurance. Wesley testified about his Aldersgate experience,

I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

Assurance is the privilege of all believers, and there is a connection between assurance and perfection. Continuing his reflection on Aldersgate, Wesley wrote,

After my return home, I was much buffeted with temptations; but I cried out, and they fled away. They returned again and again. I as often lifted up my eyes, and He sent me help from His holy place. And herein I found the difference between this and my former state chiefly consisted. I was striving, yea, fighting with all my might under the law, as well as under grace. But then I was sometimes, if not often, conquered; now, I was always conqueror.

The two convictions, all can know they are saved and all can be saved to the uttermost, issued in Wesley’s teaching on perfection. For him, “Christian perfection,” was another term for sanctification.

There must have been confusion among his followers about this issue, because he wrote his brother Charles a lengthy letter, seeking understanding and agreement.

Dear Brother, some thoughts occurred to my mind this morning which I believe may be useful to set down: the rather because it may be a means of our understanding each other clearly; that we may agree as far as ever we can and then let all the world know it.

I was thinking of Christian Perfection, with regard to the thing, the manner, and the time.

1. By perfection I mean the humble, gentle, patient love of God ruling all the tempers, words, and actions, the whole heart by the whole life. I do not include an impossibility of falling from it, either in part or in whole … I do not contend for the term sinless, though I do not object to it …

2. As to the manner, I believe this perfection is always wrought in the soul by faith, consequently in an instant. But I believe in a gradual work both preceding and following that instant.

For Wesley, the terms Christian perfection, sanctification, and holiness carried the same meaning. Holiness is not optional for Christians. Jesus was forthright: “You shall be perfect, your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48 NJKV). The Holy Spirit, through Inspiration given to Peter, confirms the call: “As He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.” (1 Peter 1:15 NKJV).

Since our reflection may be hazy, if not clear, we need to remember that, for Wesley, the whole of salvation and the Christian life was all grace, and the power of the Holy Spirit, accessed through undoubting prayer and surrender.

With that, I will continue my reflection on sanctification in my next article.