12.5

Effects of the Christ Event (Box 12.6)

One Pauline scholar sees Paul using ten different images for describing what God accomplished in Jesus Christ:

• Justification. People stand before God acquitted and righteous (Rom. 3:21–26)
• Salvation. People are rescued from evil and wrath (Rom. 5:9; Phil. 3:20)
• Reconciliation. People are placed in a right relationship with God and one another (Rom. 5:10–11; 2 Cor. 5:18–19)
• Expiation. People have their sins blotted out or wiped away (Rom. 3:25)
• Redemption. People are bought out of slavery to sin and death (Rom. 8:18–23; 1 Cor. 7:23)
• Freedom. People are set free from sin, law, and self to live as God intended (Rom. 8:2; Gal. 5:1)
• Sanctification. People are made holy (1 Cor. 1:2, 30; 6:11)
• Transformation. People are being changed into the image of God (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18)
• New creation. People are given a new life in a new age (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 2:20; 6:15)
• Glorification. People share in the glory of God (Rom. 8:18, 21, 30; 1 Thess. 2:12)

See Joseph Fitzmyer, Paul and His Theology, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989), 59–71.