Excepción de representación defectuosa o insuficiente del demandante (ejecutante) o del demandado (ejecutado)

God’s practices through Christ restored the broken relationship between God and human beings. As we read in the biblical text: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him (John 3:16–7).’ Pentecostals (and Christians) adopt Christ as the object of Pentecostal practices such as worship and sacraments because Christ links God with believers and unifies believers as one body in the community. In practices, Pentecostals participate both in the divine koinonia and also in the ecclesial koinonia through Christ.51 _{This subsection}

(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 178.

51 _{Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 156–68. See also, Macchia, Justified in the Spirit, 306–9. Koinonia}

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focuses on a Christological approach to authentic Pentecostal practices intended for union with God.

God is revealed in Christ. Through Christ, God’s love is present to human beings (1 John 4:10). This statement shows that God has practiced His will to save human beings through Christ. In order to achieve God’s redemption for us, Christ became a human being, died on the cross and was resurrected. Christ is God’s practitioner to restore the human relationship with God. Christ as the practitioner for relationality has become a bridge between God and human beings so that through Christ we participate in the divine

koinonia. Thus, Christ is the gateway to enter into an intimate relationship with God.

Relational practices with Christ are shown in practices not only on the day of Pentecost but also in today’s Pentecostal movements. On the day of Pentecost, believers in the upper room became one with Christ through the encounter with the Spirit. The

disappointment they had felt after Christ’s death was lifted, and they were emboldened and made passionate to preach the gospel of Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Their passion and intimate relationship with Christ did not remain enclosed in mind and thought. Rather, their union with Christ was actualized in their confessions and activities not only to God but also to others. Many people who heard the gospel received the message and were baptized so that they became one with Christ in their beliefs, affections and practices (Acts 2). Their practices on the day of Pentecost are the most intimate and closest practices with Christ, because the oneness with Christ through the Spirit is actualized in practices as well as in affections and confessions.52

The intimate relationship with God through the encounter with Christ impacts human relations with others. Believers’ intimate relationship with Christ does not remain in themselves, but permeates into their community (Acts 2:42). Through the encounter

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with the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, believers became passionate not only to proclaim to others their intimate relationship with God but also to devote themselves to the

fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer in the community. They became one within the body of Christ. They practiced and identified the union with Christ in their community, and by doing so were able to intensify their relationship with Christ. In this respect, an intimate relationship with God in Christ is revealed by authentic practices performed in the community. That is, believers’ practices, such as fellowship, breaking of bread and helping others, are evidence of their relationship with God in Christ. The authentic practices on the day of Pentecost are the most relational practices because they aim for union with Christ and with others.

Pentecostals are those who imitate the practices on the day of Pentecost.53 _The early Pentecostals considered themselves as ‘recovering and re-entering the Pentecostal reality’.54 _{In this sense, Pentecostal practices, which reach deep into the day of Pentecost,} offer the strength of Pentecostal theology and spirituality.55 _{At the core of Pentecostal} practices in spirituality is the Christocentric emphasis on the redemptive work to restore human relationship with God, so that those practices make Pentecostals ever more intimate with Christ. As Christ has unified us to God through divine practices, Pentecostals can come into union with God through the practices.56 _{For Pentecostals, Christ is the object of} practices such as worship, sacraments and personal practices, because through Christ they enter into union with God in practices.

53 _{Vondey, Pentecostal Theology, 12. Vondey argues that ‘Pentecostal theology reaches deep into the}

heart of Pentecost’. He sees Pentecost as the root of Pentecostal theology: ‘We might say that Pentecost is the very prolegomenon of Pentecostal theology, because Pentecostalism is a form of living fundamentally concerned with the renewing work of God as it emerges from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Pentecostals are in a sense ‘overaccepting’ the day of Pentecost in a manner that imitates the outpouring of the Spirit.’ See also, Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, 63–74.

54 _{Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, 65.} 55 _{Vondey, Pentecostal Theology, 1–36.} 56 _{Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit, 249.}

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Indeed, Christology is the central theme of Pentecostal practices. For Pentecostals, ‘experience is normal, but it is Christ who is the dominant theme’.57 _{Keith Warrington} emphasizes Pentecostal Christocentric experience in practices:

Although experience is important in Pentecostal spirituality and worship, it is

important to acknowledge that it is not experience per se but that which is associated with God, often related to the Spirit but central to which is the person of Jesus.58 For him, Christ is the centre of Pentecostal knowing, being and doing for spiritual

development.59 _{In practices, Pentecostals have experienced union with Christ, so that they} have become witnesses to Calvary and their crucifixion with Christ.60 _{For early}

Pentecostals, worship was a ‘crisis encounter, and event of meeting with the living God which precipitated certain crisis in the life of the believer according to where she or he was in their salvation journey’.61 _{Through an encounter with Christ in worship and sacraments,} Pentecostals believe that they are in Christ and Christ is in them.62 _{Ultimately, the union} with Christ achieves union with God, because Christ is the mediator between God and human beings in worship.63 _{Thus, Pentecostal practices direct them to union with God} through Christ.

Participating in the divine koinonia through Christ impacts outward relationality with others.64 _{That is, Pentecostals’ union with Christ does not remain in inward}

57 _{Clark and Lederle, et al., What is Distinctive about Pentecostal Theology? 45.}

58 _{Warrington, Pentecostal Theology, 220. See also, Daniel E. Albrecht, ‘An Anatomy of Worship: A}

Pentecostal Analysis’, in The Spirit and Spirituality: Essays in Honour of Russel P. Spittler, ed. Wonsuk Ma and Robert P. Menzies (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2004), 74.

59 _{Warrington, Pentecostal Theology, 220–1. He asserts that ‘the desire of Paul to know Christ (Phil.}

3.10) is automatically assumed by most Pentecostals to include an emotional, relational development with Christ as well as an intellectual knowledge of Christ’.

60 _{Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, 65–6.} 61 _{Ibid., 68.}

62 _{Ibid., 66.}

63 _{Geoffrey Wainwright, Doxology: The Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine and Life (London:}

Epworth Press, 1980), 46–69.

64 _{See Simon Chan, Spiritual Theology: A Systematic Study of the Christian Life (Downers Grove:}

InterVarsity Press, 1998), 102. Chan asserts that authentic union with God is achieved in the community, which is the body of Christ.

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relationality, but permeates into outward relationality with others in the community. Land’s idea of ‘fusion’ manifests Pentecostal outward relationality for union with God in the community: ‘The body of Christ is a tabernacle made up of living stone for a habitation of God through the Spirit.’65 _{In union with Christ, believers are fused or unified to the} Father and the Spirit.66 _{In practices such as worship and sacraments, Pentecostals have} encountered Christ as saviour, sanctifier, spirit baptizer, healer, and the soon-coming King, and these experiences have become their doctrinal confessions. The common encounter with Christ in Pentecostal practices unites them as one body of Christ, and strengthens their solidarity as Christ-centred community.67

Accordingly, Christocentric Pentecostal practices are relational because Christ mediates us to God and to others in the community. Hence, Christocentric Pentecostal orthopraxy deepens union with God and with others. Here, the Christocentric practices should begin with an encounter with the Spirit.68 _{Union with Christ leads believers to God} because the Spirit is the agent of such union.69 _{Therefore, in the next subsection, I}

highlight the relational practices through an encounter with the Spirit.