NOTES for Eph 3:14-21; Luk 12:49-53
From speaking about the new people of God, Paul turns to the spiritual life. It is, of course, no accident that he calls the Church the Body of Christ and speaks of Christians as its members. Clearly, this is neither an allegory nor a matter of shared ideas. The faithfulness of the faithful makes possible that essential, organic unity of Christians with Christ which the apostle describes as Christ ‘dwelling’ in the hearts of His followers. This image recalls another, associated with the prophetic tradition: the prophets, too, often spoke of the breath (Spirit) of God entering a person’s heart. For Paul, evidently, Christ’s dwelling in the hearts of the faithful is inseparable from their life in the Kingdom, in which they cannot otherwise take root (verses 14–19).
Of course, it is no accident that the apostle raises this theme in the context of his reflections on the new people of God: it is precisely the living spiritual bond between the faithful and the risen Christ that makes them a new people. There is nothing fundamentally new in this approach: throughout history, God’s people have been God’s people not because of exceptional religious devotion or a high spiritual level, but because of God’s presence among them since the Exodus, the covenant at Sinai and the giving of the Torah. Only the quality of these relationships is new. Previously, God’s presence was an objective reality that shaped and spiritually renewed the lives of those ready to follow God by following the Torah. Now Christ’s presence in the hearts of the faithful depends only on the faithful themselves, not merely renewing their spiritual lives but transforming them completely, so that at the end of time, when the Kingdom is revealed in all its fullness, they may become fully part of it, as far as this is possible for transformed human nature. For Paul, the messianic people are not simply a people who have accepted the Messiah; from the apostle’s point of view, only a people who share one life with the Messiah can become such a people: the life of the Kingdom, which neither Jew nor Gentile can attain without Him.