Spiritual Transformation - Key #4

July 6, 2007 | Filed Under georges boujakly, missional, spiritual formation |

The goal of spiritual transformation is conformity to Jesus Christ.

In light of the last post it is important to recognize that God’s telos is not nebulous. It is specific. It is love but it is love of a specific kind. It is particular. It is as particular as the life of the trinity: a life of perfect love.

Romans 8:29 refers to this particularity as conformity to the likeness of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ shows more than anyone else what the perfect life of love is like in the way he goes about loving as described in the Gospels. He loved God fully, and loved others fully. Nothing spared, not possessions, not even life itself. Paul tells Timothy to participate in his own spiritual transformation to attain a particular goal: godliness, i.e. to be and to behave like God (1Timothy 4:7-8).

But the telos of God and its particularity are not individualistic endeavors. God intends a kingdom, a society, a people after his own heart, a community of love (after his likeness). How ridiculous it is to think that I individually can become Christ-like or that I can express Christ-likeness in its fullness. To think that individually I can contain all that Christ-likeness is, borders on madness, creates endless frustration and promotes hubris. Love is a community affair. Personhood implies community. Christian personhood implies a community of love a la Christ. Conformity to Christ is a communal effort. Each contributes but none completes in himself what Christ-likeness is.  The full stature of Christ is the trajectory of the community of love, the church. The church moves to become like Christ as its members express love for God, for others, for themselves, and for the cosmos.

Spiritual transformation is not me and God alone. It is us and God.

What would change in our preaching for example, or in our ways of doing church in general, if we had this one end (Christ-likeness) in mind as a community of love?

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