> A consistent theme found throughout the Pauline corpus is participation with Christ, first and foremost this is done in baptism (Romans 6:1-4), but also by enduring actual bodily hardships and trials such that Paul can say he carries the literal sufferings of Jesus in his body (Galatians 6:11-17, 2 Corinthians 4:7-12). Paul thinks that suffering as Jesus suffered is both meritorious and will result in the spiritual transformation of our bodies (Philippians 3:7-21, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27). Just as Jesus was rewarded abundantly and physically exalted in his act of obedience toward God (Philippians 2:6-11), so too can participants in Jesus Christ attain this same transformed body through faith and righteous living apart from the Mosaic law. Jesus's death seems to have both appeased God's wrath for sin (korban) and leads to a superabundance (uperperissos) of grace so that its rewards can be credited to the accounts of his participants in such a way that they too can attain to the same kind of righteous life Jesus has, leading to salvation (Romans 3:25-26, Romans 5:15-21, 2 Corinthians 5:21). Paul tells members of his churches to imitate him (1 Corinthians 11:1) and encourages his audience to offer their bodies as spiritual sacrifices to God (Romans 12:1). We see a very literal acting out of this in later writers like Ignatius of Antioch who thought of his martyrdom procession as being comparable to that of the Old Testament scapegoat (peripsema) resulting in the expiation of sins and final salvation (Brent, Ignatius of Antioch: A Martyr Bishop and the origin of Episcopacy, pg. 48-49). I suspect all of this is simply a Christianization of the already extant tradition of martyrdom in Second Temple Judaism and embedded in Maccabean literature (4 Maccabees 17:20-22). Indeed, Ignatius of Antioch seems to paraphrase 4 Maccabees 9:17 and 10:5-7 in his Epistle to the Romans, ch. 5 (ibid., pg. 117-118).
