Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination
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It is simply the case now that any form of Marcionism has been decisively repudiated and in the strongest possible fashion. The assumption by God of a body, that is to say, of a part of creation, and, moreover, of a Jewish body, effectively locks in an account of preceding reality in a fashion that perceives and affirms all the key continuities. God is revealed by this to be emphatically, unconditionally, and irrevocably committed to creation, to humanity, and to Israel. These continuities are revealed unambiguously, and hence, endorsed irrevocably by the apocalyptic moment in which Christ is revealed as both God and human.
In keeping with its nature, moreover, as an event of revelation proceeding from God to humanity, it needs to be appreciated that this event, in effect, commandeers language, among other things, to communicate. People will need to talk about this revelation and are indeed summoned to do so.[28] However, clearly, divine pressure is placed on linguistic categories so that they freight the truth in question accurately—that God has come in Jesus to creation and to Israel. Linguistic actions convey the truth of this event although they cannot and do not establish its truth; that truth is, as we have seen, internal to this event, and consequently, self-authenticating.
With these clarifications in place, however, we should now appreciate that the linguistic resources used by the first key witnesses to this event such as Paul were supplied primarily if not solely by the writings developed and preserved by Israel. The categories Paul uses in 2 Cor. 5:16–17 are drawn from the linguistic reservoir of late Second Temple Judaism. Hence, he makes claims in terms of the Christ or Messiah, the “flesh” (Greek σάρξ, rendering the Hebrew basar), the Spirit (i.e., of God), and the new creation, which is to say, a resurrected state. This is not necessarily to deny the phenomenon of translation, broadly speaking, whereby notions expressed originally in Jewish terms can be expressed in appropriately defined terms drawn from other cultures; indeed, this process might well be apparent in Paul’s texts.[29] But it is merely to affirm that as a matter of fact, Paul’s articulation of the Christ event was couched—at least primarily—in terms drawn from and semantically configured by the Jewish Scriptures.
For both the foregoing reasons, then—that Jesus, God incarnate, was a Jew, and that Paul, as a Jew, articulated this truth with language and conceptualities drawn from Judaism—we ought to repudiate strongly any Marcionite anti-Judaism within the apocalyptic account of Paul’s gospel. But it is important to emphasize in the same breath that his interpretation of Scripture is in service to the revelation taking place definitively in Christ. That revelation is articulated linguistically under its own control, presumably as the Spirit enables its appropriate articulation. Consequently, the fundamental hermeneutic at work must be christological and pneumatological—something Paul seems well aware of (cf. esp. 2 Cor. 1:20; 3:14–18; see also 4:3–4). The Scriptures are utilized to speak of Christ, and of God and of other notions, as they orbit around this central truth, that is, furthermore, at work within this very articulation (1 Thess. 2:4, 13).[30]
Most importantly, we must also appreciate that, just as we can repudiate Marcionism in the strongest possible terms, we can also repudiate Gnosticism, although, again, it is important to appreciate just why this is the case.
Like Marcionism, Gnosticism impugns the goodness of creation in some radical sense, an action that leads to a host of subsequent difficulties and distortions.[31] But it is apparent in the incarnation that God is committed in the strongest possible terms to creation. In assuming it, albeit in its warped and fractured state, it is affirmed. Moreover, in rescuing and healing it with resurrection, it is doubly affirmed. So, Gnosticism ought to be repudiated as strongly as Marcionism by this understanding of Paul’s gospel.
In sum, then, an apocalyptic approach to the analysis of Paul—and here, contrary to the way it is sometimes presented—provides the strongest possible warrant for the repudiation of both Marcionism and Gnosticism. These repudiations are necessary entailments of the apocalyptic construal that begins with the revelation to Paul of God’s activity in Christ, and subsequent location of all valid Christian ontology and epistemology in the resurrected situation that Christ, in tandem with the Spirit, inaugurated. To grasp this location and think out of it is necessarily and immediately to set one’s face against Marcion, Valentinus, and their like. Indeed, it is the only location from which to decisively repudiate these heresies because it is the only position that repudiates foundationalism. Unfortunately, founda-tionalism of any sort, even in opposition to significant heresies, inevitably collapses, taking any legitimate concerns down with it. But it is also to be thrust into a tempestuous analysis of context. Discontinuities and continuities are in play, while the deep sinfulness of the human mind and heart make the accurate detection of God’s purposes extremely difficult. Much that was previously thought to be good and pious is revealed by the work of Christ to be its very opposite, at which moment it is clearer than ever that we must grasp the single great truth that has been revealed both to Paul and to us: that God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. If we grasp this, even as we are grasped by it, then everything else is, at bottom, just commentary.
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The full title of the essay is “Epistemology at the Turn of the Ages: 2 Corinthians 5.16,” and it can now be accessed in Martyn’s essay collection, Theological Issues in the Letters of Paul (Edinburgh/Nashville: T&T Clark/Abingdon, 1997 [1967]), 89‒110. ↵
The adverbial reading seems preferable to the famous but implausible adjectival construal. See, inter alia, W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology, 4th ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980 [1948]), 195. ↵
The gender of Paul’s discussion is masculine, but the point is generic. ↵
See, inter alia, the use of belief/believing terms in 1:24; 4:13 [3x]; 5:7; 8:7; 10:15; and 13:5. In this relation, see also my essay “Participation and Faith in Paul,” in ‘In Christ’ in Paul: Explorations in Paul’s Theology of Union and Participation, WUNT 2/384, eds. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Constantine R. Campbell, and Michael J. Thate (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 37‒60. ↵
See, inter alia, 4:10–18. ↵
Barth devoted the mature period of his theological work, namely, the production of the Church Dogmatics (at the least), to the elucidation of just this dynamic—what is implicit in the claim that all true knowledge of God and humanity is located in Christ, who has been revealed to us (which is, it should be recalled, exactly Paul’s concern in 2 Cor. 5:16–17), along with the implications of this for Christian thinking about other theological loci such as creation and Israel. But Barth also had strong opinions concerning the importance of clarity on these questions (as indeed Paul did, vis-à-vis Corinth)—opinions generated in large measure by the catastrophic failures of the European church in relation to two world wars, although it should not be forgotten that he was also significantly informed by the church’s indifference to social and economic marginalization. His thought is usefully introduced by Eberhard Busch, The Great Passion: An Introduction to Karl Barth’s Theology, trans. Geoffrey Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004); and by Stanley Hauerwas, With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s Witness and Natural Theology. Being the Gifford Lectures Delivered at the University of St. Andrews in 2001 (London: SCM, 2002), 141‒204. ↵
See esp. now Chris Tilling, Paul’s Divine Christology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015 [2012]). ↵
Church Dogmatics, 4 vols. in 13 parts, eds. T. F. Torrance and G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956–96). ↵
On Paul’s use of this important language, see my essay “The Narrative Dimension of Paul’s Gospel, with special reference to Romans and Galatians,” in The Quest for Paul’s Gospel: A Suggested Strategy (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 69‒94. My key claims here are that the language of “father,” “son,” “sonship,” and “adoption” is informed by the patriarchal narratives concerning Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, not to overlook, Hagar and Ishmael. As such, the fili
al and familiar categories are significant, although the gendered dimension within the stories is irrelevant. The OT intertexts structure the relations between the different characters in narrative and dramatic terms. God “the father” offers up Isaac like Abraham; God “the son” obediently is offered up, like Isaac. This suggests that Paul’s use of this terminology has critical implications for personhood, but detaches those implications from gender. ↵
Barth’s position is summarized with incisive clarity by Alan J. Torrance in “The Trinity,” in The Cambridge Companion to Barth, ed. John Webster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 72‒91; see also his “Jesus in Christian Doctrine,” The Cambridge Companion toJesus, ed. Markus Bockmuehl (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 200‒219. ↵
This point is nicely articulated by Nathan R. Kerr in a critique, from an apocalyptic point of view, of Ernst Troeltsch; see his “Ernst Troeltsch: The Triumph of Ideology and the Eclipse of Apocalyptic,” in Christ, History and Apocalyptic (London: SCM, 2009), 23‒62. The need for an alternative account of history is noted—of course—by Stanley Hauerwas, in War and the American Difference: Theological Reflections on Violence and National Identity (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 44n16. He also notes appositely the work of Michel Foucault (Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975‒1976, eds. Mauro Bertani and Alessandro Fontana, trans. David Macey [New York: Picador, 2003]); and Jonathan Schell (The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People [New York: Henry Holt, 2003]) in this relation in War, 47‒51. To these studies, we could add the perceptive essays of Brad S. Gregory, “The Other Confessional History: On Secular Bias in the Study of Religion,” History and Theory, Theme Issue 45 (2006): 132‒49; and “No Room for God? History, Science, Metaphysics, and the Study of Religion,” History and Theory 47, no. 4 (2008): 495‒519. (My thanks to John Stenhouse for these references.) ↵
See Anathea Portier-Young’s wonderful study, Apocalypse against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011). ↵
So, Paul’s engagement with this tradition in 2 Cor. 12:1–10 is most instructive, along with what is effectively a reversal in Phil. 2:5–11. The motif of a heavenly journey or disclosure was the heart of a classic study of this tradition by Christopher Rowland, The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2002 [1982]). ↵
It is presumably still possible for Paul not to attest to the basic structure of Christian truth, as Christians such as Barth later came to explicate this. This is not fatal. The later articulation by theologians such as Barth would still be correct. But the loss of a key canonical witness to this approach would doubtless still hurt. As we have just seen, those modern interpreters located revelationally will still need to give a more broadly apocalyptic account of Paul’s history—an open account—since this is a true account whether Paul is viewed as oriented primarily by a revelation of Christ or not; God was—and is—at work in history. But one suspects that this will all unfold rather more smoothly if the interpreter of Paul can detect the apostle’s apocalyptic orientation, and explicates his life accordingly. We could interpret apocalyptically with Paul rather than in spite of him. ↵
In most recent Pauline discussion, the advocacy of this important motif would be associated most strongly with Michael Gorman; see esp. his Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009). Robert C. Tannehill supplies a useful summary in “Participation in Christ: A Central Theme in Pauline Soteriology,” in The Shape of the Gospel: New Testament Essays (Eugene: Cascade [Wipf & Stock], 2007), 223‒37. The origin of an emphasis on the importance of this motif for Paul within the modern period is usually held to be G. Adolf Deissmann; see his St. Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History, 2nd ed., trans. L. R. M. Strachan (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1912). Deissmann points out that the phrase “in Christ,” or its close equivalent, occurs over 160 times in Paul’s writings. While not all instances are of equal importance, some certainly are. Moreover, this number is impressive, along with the motif’s distribution. That is, this data is good prima facie evidence that this motif and the broader notions it points to are critical for Paul. An important recent positional volume is Vanhoozer, Campbell, and Thate (ed.), “In Christ” in Paul; WUNT 2/384 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014). ↵
Hence, Barth moves seamlessly between revelation and participation in CD I/1; see i.e., the statement—that also, most significantly, denotes the critical role in all this of the Holy Spirit: “The Spirit guarantees man what he cannot guarantee himself, his personal participation in revelation” (453). Later, briefly expounding Rom. 8:15 and the believer’s cry of “Abba Father”—“a decisive passage”—he states: “Herein consists his participation in the atonement effected in Christ. This is what it means to have the Holy Spirit. To have the Holy Spirit is to be set with Christ in that transition from death to life” (458). ↵
An excellent point of access into some further implications of this realization that I will not pursue here is Stanley Hauerwas, “Seeing Darkness, Hearing Silence: Augustine’s Account of Evil,” in Working with Words: On Learning to Speak Christian (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011), 8‒32. ↵
That is to say, an event of unconditional grace, in which salvation and its implicit knowledge are “sheer” gifts, implies simultaneously, necessarily, and intrinsically that the situation into which that grace has come is under complete judgment. It offers nothing to the knowledge of God. ↵
This famous exchange between Barth and Brunner is available in their Natural Theology: Comprising “Nature and Grace” by Professor Dr. Emil Brunner and the reply “No!” by Dr. Karl Barth (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2002 [1946]). It is critical to grasp, however, that the articles collected—and partly revised and expanded—here first appeared in 1934. ↵
As indicated earlier, I do not view the gendered language in Paul as denoting gender strictly in relation to divine personhood. English is notorious for causing difficulties here. ↵
This is a status confessionis. Parts of the church in South Africa pronounced a similar anathema against apartheid. See esp. The Kairos Document written by “the Kairos Theologians” (Braamfontein: Skotaville, 1986). The second edition is available from Eerdmans. ↵
Calvin’s views were, of course, nuanced. They are analyzed crisply by David Steinmetz, in “Calvin and the Natural Knowledge of God,” in Calvin in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 23‒39. ↵
I know of no good arguments for excluding Colossians from Pauline authorship, a judgment applying also to Ephesians and 2 Thessalonians; see my Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014). ↵
“Auditus Fidei: Where and How Does God Speak? Faith, Reason, and the Question of Criteria,” in Reason and the Reasons of Faith, eds. Paul J. Griffiths and Reinhard Hütter (New York & London: T&T Clark [Continuum], 2005), 27‒52. Edwin Chr. van Driel also identifies helpfully the flawed infralapsarian Christology at work here as against an appropriate supralapsarian account, especially appositely in relation to the work of J. Louis (Lou) Martyn and N. T. Wright; see his “Climax of the Covenant vs Apocalyptic Invasion: A Theological Analysis of a Contemporary Debate in Pauline Exegesis,” IJST 17, no. 1 (2015): 6‒25. ↵
Strictly speaking, we cannot ask what God was and was doing before the invention of time, which is itself one of the key structuring components within creation. See, in this relation, esp. T. F. Torrance, Space, Time, and Resurrection (Edinburgh: Handsel, 1976). The claim that God is antecedently what is apparent in revelation is pursued by Barth in CD I/1. The importance of election is then explored in CD II/2—an account shaped significantly by Rom. 8:29–30 and Eph. 1:4. ↵
A critical elucidation of this dynamic is T. J. Lang, Mystery and the Making of a Christian Historical Consciousness: From Paul to the Second Century, BZNW 219 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2015). ↵
Hence, as I put this elsewhere a few years ago: “Israel was a light in a dark place; she pointed forward from her origins in Abraham to the dawning of the new creation in the Christ event, and her Scriptures attest to this and explain it. Indeed, given that Christ comes from within the heritage of Israel and also constitutes its crowning moment, there could hardly be a more important or positive heritage within human history (so [Rom.] 9:4–5). Anyone in Christ is ‘grafted into’ the historical lineage of Israel (see 11:17–24). Israel’s history is the only Adamic history that really matters. Moreover, Jesus Christ the Jew, and now the Jewish King, is the template of the new, eschatological reality. So heavenly existence is Jewish, and in a way that is far more programmatic even than humanity’s original Adamic existence! But of course everything depends here on the legitimacy of the Christ event itself, in the light of which these stunning continuities are perceived” (The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009], 70). ↵
See Hauerwas, “Speaking Christian,” in Working with Words, 84‒93. ↵
A classic analysis of this dynamic is Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture, American Society of Missiology Series 42, 2nd rev. and exp. ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2009 [1989])—although Sanneh’s views are not uncontested; see i.e., the concerns articulated by Willie James Jennings in The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010). Closer to the Pauline data, see also John M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015). ↵