5 - Interchange and suffering

Summary

In a book published more than twenty years ago, which he characteristically described as a ‘slight essay’, Professor Moule1 discussed what he termed the ‘strange paradox’ at the heart of Christian faith, arising from ‘the finality and yet constantly repetitive nature of salvation – the finished work of God in Christ, over against his continued work in the Body of Christ which is the Church’. It is one aspect of this tension, namely the relationship between the sufferings of Christ and those of Christians, that I wish to explore in this essay.

In previous essays on the theme of ‘Interchange’, I have argued for the importance of the theme of participation for understanding the Pauline view of redemption. In various key texts, Paul expresses the belief that – to adapt the words of Irenaeus – Christ became what we are, in order that, in him, we might become what he is. Christ identified himself with the human condition, bore the likeness of Adam, in order that men and women might bear his likeness and become children of God. Commentators have at times interpreted some of these passages in substitutionary terms, but a careful analysis shows that this is a misinterpretation. It is not a case of Christ becoming what we are in order /that we might become what he once was. If we experience glory and life as a result of Christ's self-humiliation and death, then this is because he himself has been raised in glory; if righteousness comes to us as a result of Christ being made sin, then this is because he himself has been acknowledged as righteous at the resurrection.