UQ Seminar this Friday – John Frederick on The Perpetual Sacrifice of the Ecclesial Christ: Moral Formation and the Cross in Ephesians 24 May 2019 2:00pm–4:00pm Lev 3, Forgan Smith (1), UQ Room:  E319

This paper will argue that Ephesians presents the sacrifice of Christ as the means and mechanism of the moral transformation of the Church. The sacrifice of Christ will be shown to be conceived of by Paul as a two-fold reality consisting of: (i) the once-for-all event of Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection by which redemption was achieved, and (ii) an ecclesial/ethical reality by which the Church as the body of Christ perpetually participates in the sacrifice of Christ by performing grace-empowered works of sacrificial love that result in individual and ecclesial transformation. The result is a theology of sacrifice in Ephesians that goes beyond the merely behavioural function typically assigned to love and works in texts such as Eph. 2:8–10 and Eph 5:2ff.