NOTES for Co2 4:10
Paul spoke several times in different of his messages with different words the same thing: Christianity is not a certain new, messianic religion and life in the messianic Kingdom, the same Kingdom that waited so much (or thought, waited) if not all Israel, then its overwhelming majority. Here is only, this Kingdom did not turn out such, as the majority waited to see it, and its life did not turn out as well such, as many waited. It, as seemed, has nothing common either with religion, or with the politics.
On the other hand it is directly connected to something "not of this world", what we cannot see with eyes and not feel with hands, what opens only thanks to the relationships and communication with the Resuscitated. And the apostle understands of course perfectly that, whatever are the external, historic reasons of the torture of Jesus, the spiritual reason of what happened is this rejection by the world of the Kingdom, which will not disappear until the moment of its [ this world] complete transfiguration. But if it is the case, then each of us, if only we are really Christians, i.e. the inhabitants of the Kingdom, has a relation to His death. Or, more exactly, His death has a relation with us.
And the problem here is not in the ascetic refusal of the world or a certain "mortification", which several Christians liked so much in the Middle Ages. The problem is that, to what extent we live according to the laws of the Kingdom, and to what extent the laws of the not transformed world have the power on us. In the current era, the era of the Kingdom to come, every Christian lives on the border of two worlds, belonging to both simultaneously: in the Kingdom and in this world being transformed, but not yet totally transformed, which existed before the arrival of the Savior. The same life can be considered for Christians as a norm; the question is only that what defines the life of a concrete Christian: the laws of the Kingdom or the laws of the not transformed world.
If and insofar it is defined by the laws of the Kingdom, then as much such a person will reject the not transformed world. But on the other hand according to the degree of rejection by the world, the Christian living according to the laws of the Kingdom will penetrate more and more into the life of the Kingdom, which Paul calls "the life of Jesus". Even remaining in the not transformed world, he will more and more become an inhabitant of the Kingdom and less an inhabitant of "this world". And the day of the complete and definitive triumph of the Kingdom, when the world will be finally totally transformed, the Kingdom will become the only reality of his life. The day of the triumph of the Kingdom will also become the day of his triumph.