Mystical Union With Christ

If Paul had a favourite term, it was “in Christ.” The term appears more than fifty times in his authentic letters and twenty-seven times in other letters attributed to him. Elsewhere in the NT it occurs no more than four times and never in the four gospels or words attributed to Jesus. But what did the apostle mean when he used the term? James Tabor says:

Paul’s Christianity can be understood only against the worlds of mysticism, magic, miracles, prophecy, and supernatural manifestations of the spiritual worlds – both angelic and demonic – so alien to our modern scientific worldview. At the very core of these religious experiences of Paul and his followers were his two great innovations, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which he introduced in a wholly new form to his wing of the Jesus movement. (Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity. Simon & Schuster, 2012)

The importance of this new expression of spirituality is best expressed in 2 Corinthians 5:16-17. Paul made no mention of the life of Jesus and little of what he taught. Instead he wrote of what Jesus had become and what we too are in process of becoming: the first-born and the later-born members of a new spiritual family.  This is also what he meant in calling Jesus the Second Adam.

As the context of this passage in 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 expresses, this was the special insight Paul received by revelation from God. (Cf. 1 Corinthians 2:2; Philippians 2:5-11.) Tabor puts it clearly in this way: What Jesus represents to Paul is one thing and one thing only – the cosmic, pre-existent Christ being ‘born of woman’, as a flesh-and-blood mortal human being transformed to a life-giving Spirit.

Tabor also claims that Paul changed the meaning of baptism from that which had been practiced by John the Baptist and Jesus’ early Palestinian disciples. That rite had been a “a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” For Paul, baptism was not a symbolic cleansing or sign of repentance for past sin, but the initiation into an entirely new and spiritual life. (1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 3:26-27; Romans 6:3-4.)

The gift of the Spirit in baptism was equally important to Paul. The Spirit enabled living in Christ and was a guarantee, like a first installment, of continued growth and transformation in spiritual living as children of God. (2 Corinthians 1:21-22; 2 Corinthians 5:5.)

To sustain this growth in spiritual living, Paul also introduced to his churches the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. He insisted that this too was part of his revelation from Christ himself. (1 Corinthians 11:23-25 Galatians 1:11-12.) He strongly condemned those who participated but did not recognize its significance. Mark, then Matthew and Luke, also derived their renditions of the same community fellowship meal from Paul.

Writing to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 10:16) ca. 54 CE, Paul went so far as to assert that the two sacraments were not mere symbols or a memorial of Jesus’ death but actual participation in his death. This has led to centuries of dispute between the Catholic and the Protestant traditions. On the other hand, regarding the Lord’s Supper as a memorial implied not merely remembering a past event but participating in something very much present as well, and indeed with awesome future spiritual benefits – sustenance for living “in Christ” forever.