We learn from Jesus that the life entirely devoted to God is not static, but dynamic. To put that in other words, we come to realize that following God is not simply a matter of devising a complete list of what to do and what to avoid, as if following such a list with absolute rigor would be the same as the life that Christ lived. When we look at Christ in the gospels, we see that Jesus continually surprises his disciples. Jesus often broke social norms for the sake of mercy and yet did not entirely abandon those norms. In spite of our best efforts to circumscribe the Christian life, there is no way to complete the statement “Jesus always...” with the exception of “behaves consistently with himself,” which, though true, is not particularly helpful in questions of practical living.
Even saying that Jesus always does what is right or that he always shows mercy toward others, or that everything he does is good requires us to take the meaning of those terms from the life and example of Jesus himself. After all, it is not difficult to point to places where Jesus was by no means right, merciful or good by independently and secularly generated definitions of those terms. Jesus is often harsh with people, not least the Pharisees, made them look foolish, and broke the Sabbath, which was a command given by God himself to the people.
The point is that, in spite of how helpful it might seem if we were to have a definitive list of appropriate and inappropriate behavior so that we would have an infallible rule by which to determine whether an action is right or wrong, such a list does not exist and is actually in contradiction to the dynamic nature of the life of Christ. To imagine that we can contain the Christian life in a list of ethical norms is to collapse it into a static, impersonal code rather than what it actually is, the living, active, and personal God living in and through the believer.
Indeed, the fact that Christ is not just dynamic but personal is extremely important. When we say that the life of Christ and, therefore, the life of Christians, is not static, we do not mean that Jesus lived in any way that was random or misleading. The fact that Christian behavior cannot be encapsulated in a series of propositions does not detract from its absolute reality. Jesus is a person who lives consistently with his personal being. It is one of the distinguishing aspects of a person that they do not always do the same thing, but are able to evaluate circumstances and behave appropriately to each circumstance as it arises.
Let us look at this issue from another point of view. If we were to say that God behaves in a certain way, regardless of changing circumstances and, because of the nature of things, God must do so, what we have done is established a way of behavior, an ethical norm that is not subject to God; indeed, God is subject to it. God is indeed sovereign, even over ethics. This does not mean that God willfully changes his mind regarding ethical behavior so that it is not connected in any way with the nature of God, but that the being of God is transcendent and supreme, even over our ethical formulations. God is constant and faithful in every way. Our perception of the Christian life and our understanding of the God who gives rise to it is not.
Participatory
This subsection should not be surprising. Its main point has been made in different ways in various other sections. As a result, it will be very short. From Jesus, we see that the Christian life is participatory. Strictly speaking, we do not see this in Jesus, but rather we hear in from him. In all of Jesus’ teaching on the Holy Spirit, we see that it is through that Spirit that we become partakers of the things of Christ. When the apostles began to preach and teach, the idea of being “in Christ” quickly came to the forefront.
What we mean when we say that the Christian faith is participatory has already been emphasized. It is to say that the source and norm of our living are not found in ourselves but in Christ. Just like we cannot think out the attributes of God except in light of Christ, just as we cannot think out how the culmination of God’s plans will work out except in light of Christ, so we cannot think about our life in Christ except in light of the incarnation. It is to say that we are not free to think up our own way of living in isolation from Christ, but must allow the fact of the incarnation to shape our lives from beginning to end without exception. It is not truly our Christian lives that we are living but Christ is living his life in and through us in such a way that every aspect of our humanity is implicated.
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