Theological Journal - May 5: Torrance Tuesday

“Like the Church the individual Christian will not be able to escape the deep ambiguities of this-wordly existence whether in its cultural, social, political or other aspects, and he too will inevitably be a mixture of good and evil, with a compromised life, so that he can only live eschatologically in the judgment and mercy of God, putting off the old man and putting on Christ anew each day, always aware that even when he has done all that it is his duty to do he remains an unprofitable servant, but summoned to look away from himself to Christ, remembering that he is dead through the cross of Christ but alive and risen in Him. His true being is hid with Christ in God.
The whole focus of his vision and the whole perspective of his life in Christ’s name will be directed to the unveiling of that reality of his new being at the parousia, but meantime he lives day by day out of the Word and Sacraments. As one baptized into Christ he is told by God’s Word that his sins are already forgiven and forgotten by God, that he has been justified once for all, and that he does not belong to himself but to Christ who loved him and gave Himself for him. As one summoned to the Holy Table he is commanded by the Word of God to live only in such a way that he feeds upon Christ, not in such a way that he feeds upon his own activities or lives out of his own capital of alleged spirituality. He lives from week to week, by drawing his life and strength from the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, nourished by the body and blood of Christ, and in the strength of that communion he must live and work until Christ comes again. As often as he partakes of the Eucharist he partakes of the self-consecration of Jesus Christ who sanctified Himself for our sakes that we might be sanctified in reality and be presented to the Father as those whom He has redeemed and perfected (or consecrated) together with Himself in one. Here He is called to lift up his heart to the ascended Lord, and to look forward to the day when the full reality of his new being in Christ will be unveiled, making Scripture and Sacrament no longer necessary.”
(Space, Time, And Resurrection, 158)

How do we live each day “in Christ” as those who are Easter people?

Torrance gives a sketch here in this magnificent statement:

1.       Name and accept the mixed quality of our lives and life in the world between Easter and Christ’s return. Even so, we live not from that reality but from the truth granted us at Easter that we live henceforth from and through him and not ourselves.                                               

2.       Word and Sacrament deliver us daily from relapsing into ourselves and our own resources.  

a.       Baptism: reminds that we are forgiven and our sins are forgotten and no longer condition our relationship with God.

b.       Eucharist: teaches we are to feed on Christ alone and not our own sense of God or spirituality and share in Jesus’ own presentation of himself to God alone and grow into our own similar self-presentation in him.

In this way we can avoid both prideful self-assertion and an equally prideful resignation by eschewing self and turning instead to Christ and God’s bountiful provision for our needs in him.