No. 45 For some reason, our conversation has me thinking about Romans 6. Broadly speaking, in what sense is the Christian life all a matter of being conformed to the image of the crucified and risen Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit; that is to say, a matter dying to self and being raised to new life? Does this relate at all to the Spirit�s work through the Word, through Baptism, in sanctification, and even at the resurrection? >>DR. LEOPALDO SANCHEZ M.: Joshua, yours is an invitingful question that should really lead us into an important discussion on what life in the Spirit actually looks like. If we look at Christ's life in the Spirit, we find that it is a life that ultimately leads to his death and resurrection. As a suffering servant, Christ is anointed by the Father with the Holy Spirit unto death. Baptism in water at Jordan as we had said before leads to the baptism of blood in Golgotha. But the servant is also exalted. Christ is raised from the dead by the Father through the Spirit of holiness. The power of the age to come. Now, the same Spirit whom Christ bears as the suffering and exalted servant, Christ also gives to us. Our lives in the Spirit are now shaped after his. When we are anointed with the Spirit of Christ in our baptism, we, too, share in Christ's death and resurrection. In his sufferings and exaltation. In other words, we may say that in baptism, the Holy Spirit begins to conform us to the image of Christ, crucified and risen. For us this sharing or participating in Christ's pattern of dieing and being raised to new life means at least three things. So let's get into that a little bit. First, we may say that life in the Spirit means a daily dieing to self and a daily being raised to new life in Christ through the forgiveness of sins. You see after the Holy Spirit comes to us and dwells in us in baptism, the Holy Spirit does not go on early retirement and become a passive presence in our lives. Rather, the Holy Spirit remains actively involved in our lives. Through the Word of law the Holy Spirit constantly calls us to repentance so that we may die to sin. So that we may crucify the flesh in us with all its sinful desires and passions. The Spirit then also forgives us through the Word of the Gospel. So that we may be raised to new life through the power of Christ's absolution. As you have pointed out in sort of a preliminary way, Saint Paul actually describes the life of the baptized precisely as this dieing and being raised in Christ. Here is what Paul says: Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism unto death. So that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we, too, might walk in newness of life. This text from Romans 6 led Luther to say that the Christian life is nothing else than a daily baptism. In this sense, life in the Spirit is truly a constant dieing of the old sinner in us and then also a constant raising of the new creature in us through the Word. To express the same reality in a slightly different way, we may say that the Spirit actually kills the baptized in order to make him or her alive. So that's one way in which the Spirit shapes us after the image of the crucified and risen Christ. The second way in which the Spirit shapes us after the pattern of Christ dieing and being raised to new life has to do a bit more directly with our relationship with others, with our ethics. Recall that Christ's life in the Spirit is the life of the servant. Anointed with the Spirit Christ does not live for himself. As Christ tells his disciples, he does not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. And so Christ's disciples are to do the same. They are called to deny themselves in order to make room for the cause of Christ. Ultimately this means they are called to deny themselves in order to make room for the neighbor who needs to hear the Word of Christ. Yet what is true of the disciples of Christ according to their apostolic call to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world, to all people, it's also true of all Christians according to whatever their vocations are in life. In other words, all the baptized have been anointed with the Spirit to be the servants of others. Oh, we are often self-serving and prefer to be served. Christ is not like that. The Father anointed Jesus with the Spirit for a life of self giving unto death for others. And like Jesus, the church is led by the Spirit to die to self in order to make space for the other, for the neighbor. The Spirit does not simply have us look to Christ out there in order to follow him. But actually shapes Christ in here, in our hearts and minds. So is that our lives of service to others mirror Christ's own humility and self giving to them. In this sense, life in the Spirit is indeed a dieing to self in order to walk in newness of life by walking with the neighbor in his daily struggles. So that's another way in which the Spirit shapes us, conforms us to the image of Christ. Finally, we arrive at a third way in which the Spirit conforms us to the image of the crucified and risen Christ. The Spirit anoints us to share in a very real bodily way both in the sufferings and the glory of Christ. Here it is important to note that Jesus' life in the Spirit does not make him immune to suffering but rather makes him the object of rejection, attacks and ultimately death. The same is true for the martyrs of the church and also for us. Stephen, one of the earliest church martyrs, is full of the Holy Spirit. And indeed he suffers a stoning and death because of the war he proclaims in the Spirit. Saint Peter also reminds us to look at the harassment where we're seen as Christians in the world as an actual indication that the Spirit of glory actually rests on us. So the presence of the Spirit in the baptized does lead in various ways to a bodily real life share in Christ's sufferings and even death. Like Jesus, the church does not finally measure the Spirit's presence in her midst according to her lack of suffering but rather, according to her trust in the God who can ultimately comfort and raise his suffering people from the dead. And so alive in the Spirit does not only mean a sharing in the sufferings of Christ. But ultimately it means also a sharing in Christ's glorious resurrection. His bodily resurrection. Indeed, the same Spirit in whom the Father raised Christ from the dead and now dwells in us as the first fruits of our bodily redemption. Our final adoption as children of God. And it is this resurrection on the last day that is the fulfillment of the Father's outpouring of the Spirit upon us to conform us to the image of his risen Son.