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Synod delegates on Saturday night heard J. Todd Billings talk on “the mystery of our union with Christ in relation to Transformed & Transforming.”

Synod delegates on Saturday night heard J. Todd Billings talk on “the mystery of our union with Christ in relation to Transformed & Transforming,” echoing themes of unity established by the general secretary and the General Synod president earlier in the week.

“[The RCA’s ministry goal] Transformed & Transforming is not part of our constitution, but it does fan the flames of living into our identity in Christ,” said Billings, the Gordon H. Girod research professor of Reformed theology at Western Theological Seminary. “The common thread in our ministry is union with Christ, and union with Christ is central to the gospel itself.”

Billings spent time discussing the themes of justification and sanctification as it relates to Transformed & Transforming. Justification, he told delegates, involves “a change in status before God,” while sanctification involves becoming more like Christ. Or, in the words of John Calvin, they are “the double grace” received in union with Christ.

“The key is to hold both [justification and sanctification] together with distinction without mixing the two,” he said. “Christ is our only source for both our ministry and our unity.”

Following Billings’s talk, delegates spent time in small groups, discussing the ideas of justification and sanctification, as well as ways in which Transformed & Transforming can help the church live into its identity as the RCA.

See full synod coverage at www.rca.org/synod