Becoming and Being Christian

“‘Know you not,’ writes St. Paul to the Corinthians, ‘that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own? For you are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s’ (1 Cor. 6:19-20). These words are  real summary of St. Paul’s constant appeal to Christians: we must live according to what has ‘happened’ to us in Christ; yet we can live thus only because it has happened to us, because salvation, redemption, reconciliation, and ‘buying with a price’ have already been given to us and we are ‘not our own’. We can and must work at our salvation because we have been saved, yet it is only because we are saved that we can work at our salvation. We must always and at all times become and be that which – in Christ – we already are: ‘you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s’ (1 Cor. 3:22)” (Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent, p 119)

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