“If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord” : The Prospective of Death and of New Life in Paul’s Letters
Abstract
“Death”, “dying” and “life”, as central themes in the Christian message, correspond to the universal questions of ancient philosophy and popular wisdom. St.
Paul reflects these themes while he presents the manifold consequences of Christ’s death as the unique historical event and universal act of salvation. In his sense for reality the Apostle focuses on the negative meaning of death in its natural manifestation and in its theological meaning as a power which enslaves man.
Only through Christ’s paschal mystery, human dying and death receive a positive sense and a new perspective. The Christian baptism is a sacramental form of dying which has ethical consequences.
While a disciple of Jesus accomplishes the great commandment of love, he/she dies to him/herself, and lives in the hope that the power of Christ’s resurrection will be manifested in him. The share in Christ’s victory over death is in this earthly existence rather an object of expectation and a motive of ethical behaviour than a fully experienced reality.
This transitory status can be lived as a meaningful existence only in an authentic spiritual attitude of “being crucified with Christ” (cf. Gal 2:20).