Transform By Grace Adewuya

The Theological Critical Reflection

Transformed by Grace by J. Ayodeji Adewuya
As I submerge into Dr. J. Ayodeji Adewuya’s book “Transformed by Grace,” I see that he provides a straightforward theological study of Romans 6-8 demonstrating that Paul’s theology revolves around sanctification. Dr. Adewuya presents that Paul’s focus is on the new life in Christ, its privileges and obligations. These three chapters constitute a unity where Paul answers the criticism that salvation by grace encourages sin, centers chiefly on the conflict with sin and the law, and the realities of the new life where the Holy Spirit enables and energizes the believer to live in a manner that the law could not match (p. 17). However, I will focus on identifying
the components and benefits of grace and its relationship with holiness/sanctification as well as the communal holiness.
According to Dr. Adewuya, Paul expresses his expectation of Christians to act in response to God's grace, and that the response must be the pursuit of holiness of heart and life which is made available through Christ Jesus, and enabled by the Holy Spirit. Christian holiness is to be lived in obedience to Christ as one of the components of grace. It relates to Christian duty, has much to do with Christian happiness, and ought to be foremost in Christian purpose (p. 13). Paul’s arguments of sanctification and a life that is transformed by the grace of God require Christians to have a complete ethical transformation. It is a call to the Roman Christians, and by inference, believers today, to live a different lifestyle, to be a representation of God's holiness, in order to make him known to the world. Paul’s intention is to lead Christians to the realization that the gospel of grace leads to righteousness (p. 19), that holiness must be understood as a quality to be demonstrated in the lives of those who are called by the name of the Lord.
By the grace of God in Christ we have been saved, and to share His grace means to be partaken in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ which bring us under the lordship of God. In other words, as we live the life of Jesus, we live a life of obedience to God, serving Him above all, and surrendering all we are to Him. In His death, we are crucified with Jesus dying to sin that once was our master. As Jesus was raised from the dead so will we in the novelty of life that God intended for us in Jesus. So, sin is no longer our master, but God. We serve sin no longer, and it has no power over us anymore. Therefore, we, as Christians, must understand that grace leads us into righteousness. It is a dynamic impulse to a new way of living where the believers, being crucified with Christ, have to die to sin. This is accomplished as we are baptized in water in connection with Christ’s death – a pictorial representation of spiritual justification and regeneration. The baptism into death is so that we should be resurrected with Him in order to walk in the newness of life. According to Paul, death with Christ excludes any possibility of bondage and practice of sin. So, the new person in Christ has the ethical and moral responsibility to live a holy life empowered by the Holy Spirit (p. 24). As we share the life of Christ, we embrace the grace of God in Him which, as Dr. Adewuya states, becomes a dynamic antidote for sin (p. 25). So, to be under grace means to share the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
As Christians walk in the novelty of life, by the grace of God, sanctification is the rightful expectation of a regenerated person. Nevertheless, it does not minimize the responsibility and obligation with respect to goodness. Christians must choose what is good, to follow after righteousness, to strive for moral excellence (p. 30). Although we are new creatures in Christ, we must surrender ourselves to God and become an instrument of righteousness fighting against sin. This is an important component of grace in the life of the believer as he/she is no longer in bondage of sin. As we live our lives to God, we bear the fruit of the Spirit – the qualities of the new way of life we have in Christ, fighting against sin and bringing deliverance to those under its yoke. In light of that, no one can choose Christ as Savior without choosing righteousness and obedience as his/her goals. In choosing Christ, we embrace the life he lived to live in righteousness and obedience as a transformed person in submission to God bearing the fruit of holiness, and resulting in an everlasting life and fullness of joy. Only as we die to sin we can walk in this novelty of life. Dr. Adewuya discloses that death frees us from our former obligations so that we can serve our new master. As we enter into a new relationship with God through Christ, sanctification is no longer a requirement as the law stated, but a spiritual allegiance and inward affection (p. 47).
However, as I understand Dr. Adewuya, our struggle continues, for we are free from sin but not from the temptation to sin (p. 48). Living in the age of the Holy Spirit, we were supposed to understand the significance of the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Dr. Terry Johns in the book “A Future for Holiness” lays out the reason of our misunderstanding. Our problem is that the church no longer fits a life of holiness as it was in the beginning. We fill in our need of holiness with programs, activities, and groups that, supposedly, would keep us from committing sin, not knowing that only the Holy Spirit gives us the power to overcome sin as He leads us into the path of righteousness. There is a need for us to return to the principles (core values) of the early church in regards to holiness and restore the imago Dei in us.
As Dr. Adewuya explains, Paul makes it clear that the flesh is hostile towards God; it produces death and it cannot please God. Nevertheless, he expounds that Paul presents in his letter to the Romans that they are able to please God because the Spirit of God dwells in them as they live in novelty of life in Christ Jesus. Therefore, the Person, presence, and power of the Holy Spirit are the adequate provision for Christians to live the newness of life. He initiates, guides, and empower us so that the righteousness God requires is fulfilled (p. 82). Life in the Spirit is possible only because the Spirit resides in us. Only in the power of the Holy Spirit can a Christian overcome the temptations to sin and live a life of righteousness. The solution of the human problem of sin is a life lived under the discipline, guidance, and direction of the Holy Spirit.
As Dr. Adewuya states, Paul sees the Holy Spirit as the moral force for Christian daily life. Thus it is right to suggest that those led or governed by the Holy Spirit are the children of God, both communally and individually – the body of Christ (see p. 69, 70, and 72). The need of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives is essential for us to achieve a life of holiness that has been offered to us by God through Jesus Christ death and resurrection.
Nowhere in the Scripture says that to be joined with Christ would make life easier.
Nevertheless, the message of the Gospel is a message of victory. With the understanding that we, as Christians, face temptations, Paul makes it clear that we are not immune from suffering either. Instead, suffering is to be understood as a normal part of Christian experience. Let us not forget the words of Jesus in John 16:33: “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” So will we. Moral life, for Christians, is to be seen as a journey through life sustained by fidelity to the cross of Christ, which brings a fulfillment no law can ever embody. Therefore, the importance of a recovery of the integrity of the church is needed. In order to do so, Hauerwas, in his book “The Hauerwas Reader,” explains, we need a community of people who are capable of being faithful to a way of life, even when that way of life may be in conflict with what passes as “morality” in the larger society. That way Hauerwas identify the importance of the church as crucial for sustaining the Christian journey. Mark Medlin, during our forum, presented that the personal expressions of holiness and the attention to those expressions has led the movement into a sort of self-sealed environment apart from the realities of the world. Each day we move farther away from the core values of the early church. Due to so much
diversity of beliefs it has become difficult to recognize Pentecostal from other nominal faith practices and even the secular world. Hauerwas as well strived to present the significance of the role of the church in the development and practice of Pentecostal social ethics. The response to it, I should say, would be to live a life in a community that expresses the agape of God.
Nevertheless, living in a postmodern worldview, we face various different circumstances that place the church in a position where we, Christians – the body of Christ, must make a decision as Joshua did (Joshua 24:15).
As Samuel M. Powell says in his introduction of his book “Embodied Holiness,” holiness is a bodily and spiritual matter, where “body” commonly means the physical body of the believer (the subject of holiness), the physical body of the historical Jesus (the importance in holiness), the church (the living context of holiness), and Eucharist (Christ incorporated into us). Therefore, the body is the center of the concept of holiness in the New Testament. Rodney Clapp agrees with what Hauerwas says on his essay (Embodied Holiness, p. 19-38) that Christians should be worry about becoming holy (p. 63). Clapp’s understanding of Hauerwas’ point of view of the peasant discloses that we, in a way, have some kind of embodied and habituated knowledge of holiness – Michael Polanyi’s concept of “tacit knowledge” (p.64) affirming that Hauerwas is right to think that the church faces a considerable challenge in becoming a “disciplined body of disciples since professional and consumer assume the church has no right to tell them what to believe or do (p. 71). Clapp refers to it as the illusions of individualism. Clapp also agrees with Hauerwas saying that we, Christians, are always contingent and dependent, and he goes on to emphasize a reality of Christian character: we are
called to worship. Christian worship corporate both physically and socially, a preeminent practice of the kind of holiness Hauerwas seeks – a doubly embodied holiness (p. 75). Clapp writes that this double embodiment is also found in the sacrament of water baptism and the Eucharist. This goes hand in hand with Adewuya as he points out that Paul’s exhortation is for the community to live according to its position and status in Christ. He puts the responsibility for living a holy life squarely on the Christian community (Transformed by Grace, p. 84). Using Adewuya’s quote from Richard Hays where he says that the church is the countercultural community of discipleship, the moral concern is not the character of the individual but the corporate obedience of the church – “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and well-pleasing to God…” (Rom 12:1-2). The community is called to embody an alternative order that stands as a sign of God’s redemptive purposes in the world (p. 86-87).
What I see throughout my readings and discussions is that the importance of holiness is not only a restoration of God’s image, to be plugged into the body of Christ, to love one another, to live according to His standards (ethics), but also to become a vessel, an instrument of God’s transforming power to interact (interrelationship) with one another and be used by the Holy Spirit to bring change and transformation into one’s life. It is a way to reveal God to others through the embodiment of His holiness. This world discloses a great need of change in its ethics. Holiness must go beyond our boundaries, and we must be willing to walk the extra mile in order to reveal God’s grace and love to a broken world desperate in need of a savior.