You know, sometimes when somebody you know has been sick, suffering from some nasty illness, you look at them and you say “poor old so and so he’s just a shadow of his former self. He looks so diminished.” The good news is that if you are in Christ, if you are indwelt by the Spirit, if you are a follower of Jesus, you are just a shadow of your future self. The person you are right now is as it were a signpost pointing to the wonderful, extraordinary, glorious, unique person that you will be in God’s good time and in God’s new world. That is the hope that is set before us.

Within the story, everything points to the death and resurrection of Jesus as the pivot-point of the ages; the old cosmos has met its end, and God’s eschatological righteousness/justice has broken in upon the preset, making everything new…The distinctive shape of obedience to God is disclosed in Jesus Christ’s faithful death on the cross for the sake of God’s people. That death becomes paradigmatic for the obedience of the community; to obey God means to offer our lives unqualified for the sake of others. Thus, the fundamental norm of Pauline ethics is the christomorphic life. To imitate Christ is also to follow the apostolic example of surrendering one’s own prerogatives and interests.