Michael Gorman Inhabiting The Cruciform Christ Analysis

The crucifixion of Christ is one of the central defining moments in human history. The revelation of God in the cruciform Christ is the central defining image for Christians. This is at the very heart of the case being made by Michael Gorman in Inhabiting the Cruciform God. Gorman, examining Paul's soteriology, makes the argument that for Paul justification is centered on theosis. Gorman thesis centers around defending his definition of this theosis in Paul's writings. Gorman writes, “Theosis is tranformative participation in the kenotic, cruciform character of God through Spirit-enable conformity to the incarnate, crucified, and resurrected/glorified Christ.”1 The following will examine Gorman's defense of this thesis focusing especially

on the theme of justification to the end of showing a clear understanding of the righteousness of God at work in the faithfulness of Christ for the justification of all who by faith participate in the life of God through the Holy Spirit as evidenced in Paul's soteriology.
Inhabiting the Cruciform God progressively works through a defense of theosis in Paul's writings beginning with a focus on the identity of Christ as revealed in Philippians 2 centering around the understanding of Christ being in the form of God. Gorman, focusing on the beginning of Philippians 2:6, makes the argument that both because and though interpretation of Jesus being in the form of God reveals the nature of God at work in justification. The very nature of God is one of extreme love that would go to the extend of complete rejection of self, taking on the nature of a human, and being loyal on the cross for the love and life of those who are His enemies. Gorman ties this to his theosis argument by contending that kenosis is “thus the sine qua non of both divinity and humanity, as revealed in the incarnation and cross of Christ, the one who was truly God and became truly human.”2 Therefore, theosis is found in the kenosis of the divinity and humanity of Christ on the cross. This cruciformaity of Christ becomes the foundation upon which Gorman constructs his understanding of Paul's theology of justification.
The heart of Gorman's argument centers around Paul's understanding of justification by co-crucifixion restores right covenant relations with God as an invitation to participation by the power of the Spirit in the cruciform life of Christ. Gorman defines Paul's justification as “the establishment or restoration of right covenantal relations – fedelity to God and love for neighbor – with the certain hope of acquittal/vindication on the day of judgment.”3 To be justified requires co-crucifixion with Christ by which one experiences co-resurrection with Christ leading to Spirit-enable participation in the covenant relationship that has been restored. Justification is wrought by Christ's obedience to God to the point of death in the certain hope of resurrection. To be clear justification is not a human achievement, but faith is a response to the faithfulness of Christ displayed on the cross. This human response is to divine initiative calling the individual into participation the covenant faithfulness of God. As such, the response becomes one of love for God and neighbor that cannot be separated from action, justification is a called to act in the way of Christ. Holiness is the Spirit-enable action to which Gorman turns next.
Gorman, just as did Paul, next turns to the implication of justification with his argument of a Pauline understanding of Holiness. Gorman, in line with the Jesus command to be holy as He is holy, suggests that holiness is to be cruciformed as Christ is cruciformed. Gorman argues for three fundamental features of Holiness in Paul. First, Gorman suggest that holiness is a call to living different from nonbelievers. Second, holiness is an innate characteristic of the life and activity of the triune God. And thirdly, holiness is essentially Christlikeness. It is on this last point, that Gorman's earlier point in the opening is driven home that “to be truly human is to be Christlike, which is to be Godlike, which is to be kenotic and cruciform. Theosis is the process of transformation into the image of God.”4 Holiness is the Spirit-enabled, ongoing, living out of the process of transformation into the image of God through the cruciformity of Christ.
Finally, Gorman concludes his text with an argument for the end of violence based on the character of love revealed in the cruciform Christ. Gorman argues that Paul experiences deep transformation in Christ that demonstrates that nonviolence is constitutive of Christian conversion and theosis. Gorman suggests that the resurrection of Christ was indicative of a divine embrace of those who were once God's enemies in a way that puts into context divine violence and the call for the Christian to embrace nonviolence as a part of conversion and theosis. Bring his argument full circle that Christ, as the nature of God, display that God's character is one of love not violence. Gorman makes a clear argument throughout Inhabiting the Cruciform God for a faith that is based on the faithfulness of God displayed in the cruciformity of Christ that invites us to respond in faith to the action of God and participate in the life of Christ as a means of ongoing transformation into the likeness of God. Now we will turn to future examining the ideas of the righteousness of God, justification and faith in Romans.
Paul, in his letter to the church in Roman, focuses on the righteousness of God revealed in Christ for the purpose of the redemption of the world. Out of this argument important questions arise as to how to understanding the righteousness of God that is revealed in Christ, the nature and extent of justification, and the role of faith at work in God's redeeming of the world.

A understanding of justification must be framed within the understanding of the righteousness of God that is at work in Christ.

God is being right to himself in the denial of himself in the person of Christ for the sake of the life of the world. Many wrongly suggest that justification is solely for the pardoning of sins apart from any action on our part. This wrongly suggests that salvation is either a universal experience or one predicated on God's predestination of the elect few. As Greathouse writes, “This [Rom. 3:23-24] might mistakenly be taken to imply that human redemption is as extensive and all-inclusive as human sinfulness. This is true in potential, but God's free gift of redemption is not unconditional, nor is salvation universal.”5 As Gorman correctly points out justification, as understood through the life of Christ, is one of both sacrifice and participation. Christ dies to himself, while participating in the life of God, in full hope of the resurrection. Justification is not without participation on the part of the recipient. The cruciformity of Christ is the breaking open of the life of God for the sake of the life of all creation. The response then becomes from humans to the divinely initiated act of redemption of Christ on the cross. Participation in fiath, as Gorman indicates, is the ongoing sharing in the co-crucifixion of Christ as means of living in the hope of also sharing in the co-resurrection of Christ, living out Christlikeness in the power of

the Holy Spirit.
Finally, justification by faith on the surface seems simple, but the question arises how is faith at work in soteriology.

Justification by faith alone is an important point of Paul in Romans, however the matter of whose faith is less clear. Faith, as basis for justification, can be viewed in one of two ways: the faithfulness of Christ or the human response of faith. Greathouse and Lyons suggest that perhaps it is both. As they write, “If Law as the system of salvation by human achievement is rejected as the means of being made righteous, faith as the system of trusting the crucified Christ alone for salvation includes both aspects of faith as used in Romans.”6 Consequently, justification by faith must be first understood as the display of Christ faithfulness to which humans can then respond to the divinely initiated act as an invitation to participate in the life of God. In other words, the faithfulness of God, displayed in the faithfulness of Christ that bring justification to all who believe, is an invitation of response to participate in the life of God through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to live lives of

holiness.
Through the examination of Gorman's text on Paul's soteriology, and more deeply the issues of the righteousness of God, justification, and faith at work specifically in Romans it has become clear that the God's righteousness was on full display in Christ, whose faithfulness was the means of justification for all who by faith accept the invitation to participate in the cruciform life of God. Grace and forgiveness are in the very nature of God, therefore it was in the nature of God to send Christ for our justification. The denial of himself on the cross in the personhood of Jesus provided for us the justification for our sin and the ongoing participation by faith in the life of God. Consequently, this cruciform life of God displayed on the cross is the very invitation to holiness as participation in Christ and the theosis of being transformed into the image of God. Faith is the response to the divinely initiated act of love and grace that restored right covenant relationship with God and manifest in the life of the believer as transforming into the likeness of Christ, embodying love for God and neighbor and acting accordingly in the power of the Holy Spirit.