Participation in Pauline Theology

What does it mean to be in union with Christ? Though participation in Christ is central to Paul's letters, consensus on its theological meaning eludes scholars. Some have questioned whether there is a coherent interpretation of this motif at all. New Testament scholar and Anglican priest Joshua Heavin brings fresh clarity to the issue in this rigorous volume. Heavin carefully combs through Paul's numerous references to participation in Christ--including co-crucifixion, death, burial, and life with Christ--to delineate Paul's consistent theological and rhetorical program. What he finds infuses the covenantal traditions of Second Temple Judaism with christological mystery. Revisiting Scriptures central to the Christian faith, Participation in Pauline Theology helps readers hear afresh the lively Word of God in all its transformative capacity. After analyzing debates about participation in critical Pauline studies over the past half-century, Heavin offers a constructive reading of Paul that helps students and scholars of the New Testament recover a theological mode of listening to Paul's challenging rhetoric--one in which the church, united with Christ by the Holy Spirit, becomes a participant with Christ in his death and resurrection. Paul's manner of theological announcement and exhortation to the hearing church, at once unsettling and enlivening, is a covenantal way of speaking with astonished wonder and delight about God's saving action in Jesus Christ.