Cross and Union

In his Theology of the New Testament (Zondervan, 2005), Frank Thielman responds to the claim that justification is secondary to participation with Christ in Paul’s theology. Thielman does not agree, but he does say that it is true that “Paul’s references to the death of Christ more often support his notion of participation in Christ’s death than they support explanations of God’s justification of the sinner.”

If true (and I take Thielman’s word for it), this would seem to have important implications for our understanding of the effect of the cross. Christ’s death is more often seen as the ground for our participation in Christ’s death (and resurrection) than as the ground for God’s judicial verdict (though Paul says both). That may link up with Ephesians 2, which shows that the cross is the means for breaking down the dividing wall between Jew and Greek. Through His death, Jesus burst the boundaries between us and God, and made it possible for us to share in the life of Jesus, which is the life of God.