Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination

by Ben C Blackwell

  The use of the term “mystery” suggests that we are in the realm of apocalyptic thinking, but its function is far more than simply revealing to us Paul’s apocalyptic proclivities. With “mystery,” Paul fully assigns Israel’s future to God, just as he has argued throughout that Israel has always belonged to God. He can no more claim to understand this mystery in full than he can encourage the Romans to be wise among themselves. Not only is it part and parcel of mystery that it cannot be fully disclosed,[39] but the conclusion of the chapter eloquently limns the divine prerogatives that make human comprehension of the mystery impossible.

  From Christ to Israel: Concluding Reflections

  The goal here has not been to offer a reading of the whole of Romans 9–11, but to ask what relationship there is between the cosmic apocalyptic conflict reflected in chapters 1–8 and the discussion of God’s dealings with Israel (and the Gentiles) in chapters 9–11. To begin with, certain apocalyptic motifs recur here, including especially divine power and wrath, epistemology, and the revelation of mystery.

  The larger claim is that, just as chapters 1–8 concern the way God’s intervention in Jesus Christ has revealed the situation of all humanity, so 9–11 concerns what God’s intervention has revealed about Israel in particular. We know what the enslavement of (all of) humanity looks like only from the cross and resurrection; we also know what Israel is—Israel’s creation and vocation and salvation—only from the cross and resurrection.[40]

  Reading back across the editors’ white space, we see what has happened at the end of chapter 8. Paul has led his readers to the brink of the parousia, with his affirmations of the glory that awaits “us,” the anticipation of the freedom of creation, the heightened declaration of God’s love and identification of “us” as “supervictors.” The triumphant return of Christ Jesus seems only a half-step away (rhetorically speaking), and Paul has such language available to him (as in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1 Corinthians 15). He does not take that step, however, as the triumph over God’s enemies is not complete without the salvation of all Israel.[41]

  * * *

  The term “Christian” is admittedly anachronistic, but I find that preferable to the unwieldy character of some proposed alternatives. ↵

  For an explanation of my use of the term “apocalyptic theology” and a brief response to some of the objections to its use with regard to Paul, see Our Mother Saint Paul (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 80–84. ↵

  In addition to Our Mother Saint Paul, 113–60, 194–205, see “Interpreting the Death of Jesus Apocalyptically: Reconsidering Romans 8:32,” in Jesus and Paul Reconnected: Fresh Pathways into an Old Debate, ed. Todd Still (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 125–45; “From Toxic Speech to the Redemption of Doxology in Romans,” in The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays, ed. J. Ross Wagner, C. Kavin Rowe, and A. Katherine Grieb (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 392–408; “‘For the Glory of God’: Theology and Experience in Paul’s Letter to the Romans,” in Between Experience and Interpretation: Engaging the Writings of the New Testament, ed. Mary F. Foskett and O. Wesley Allen Jr. (Nashville: Abingdon, 2008), 53–65; “‘To Preach the Gospel’: Romans 1, 15 and the Purposes of Romans,” in The Letter to the Romans, BETL 226, ed. Udo Schnelle (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), 179–95; “Paul and the Roman Believers,” in Blackwell Companion to Paul, ed. Stephen Westerholm (Oxford: Blackwell, 2011), 93–107; “‘Neither Height nor Depth’: Discerning the Cosmology of Romans,” SJT 64, no. 3 (2011): 265–78; “The Shape of the ‘I’: The Psalter, the Gospel, and the Speaker in Romans 7,” in Apocalyptic Paul, ed. Beverly Roberts Gaventa (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2013), 77–91; “The Rhetoric of Violence and the God of Peace in Paul’s Letter to the Romans,” in Paul, John, and Apocalyptic Eschatology: Studies in Honour of Martinus C. de Boer, NovTSup 149, eds. Jans Krans et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 61–75; “The ‘Glory of God’ in Paul’s Letter to the Romans,” in Interpretation and the Claims of the Text: Resourcing New Testament Theology, eds. Jason A. Whitlark et al. (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014), 29–40. ↵

  Although see “On the Calling-Into-Being of Israel: Rom. 9:6-29,” in Between Gospel and Election, WUNT 257, ed. Florian Wilk and J. Ross Wagner (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 255–69; Our Mother Saint Paul, 149–60, 202–5; “Questions about Nomos, Answers about Christos: Romans 10:4 in Context,” forthcoming. ↵

  E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 442–47. ↵

  Contrast N. T. Wright’s repeated statement that Romans 9–11 is a great narrative of Abraham’s family and its vocation (as in Paul and the Faithfulness of God [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013], 499, 501, 503, 1158, 1172, and often elsewhere). What I am arguing is that, for Paul, Israel (“biological” Israel, not the church) is known through Jesus Christ, not the other way around. My further response to Wright’s interpretation of Romans is available in “The Character of God’s Faithfulness: A Response to N. T. Wright,” JSPL 4, no. 2 (2014): 71–79. ↵

  I disagree with Thomas Tobin’s argument that Romans 8–11 is a single thematic and rhetorical unit, but he has rightly highlighted the connections between 8:31–39 and chapters 9–11 (Paul’s Rhetoric in Its Contexts: The Argument of Romans [Peabody: Hendrickson, 2004], 251–72, 320–25). ↵

  Elsewhere in Paul’s letters, that immense power is interpreted to be power in weakness, as in Rom. 3:24–25, 15:1–3, 7–9; 1 Cor. 1:22–25; 2 Cor. 8:9; 13:4; Gal. 2:20; 3:13–14; and Phil. 2:5–11, but here the emphasis lies on its redemptive character. ↵

  That is to say, ἐν Χριστῷ modifies λέγω rather than ἀλήθειαν. There are not two distinct standards of truth, Christ’s and some other. ↵

  Wayne A. Meeks rightly labels this an “impossible vow” (“On Trusting an Unpredictable God: A Hermeneutical Meditation on Romans 9–11,” in In Search of the Early Christians: Selected Essays [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002], 214). ↵

  Re-thinking Israel “backward” from the present crisis seems to be a common feature of Jewish apocalyptic texts, especially 4 Ezra. ↵

  “Light through a Prism: New Avenues of Inquiry for the Pauline Yἱοθεσία Metaphors” (D. Phil. Thesis, University of Otago, 2014), 247. Heim’s entire discussion of 9:5 is instructive (pp. 241–312). ↵

  E.g., C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, ICC (Edinburgh; T&T Clark, 1975), 2:459–60; Heinrich Schlier, Der Römerbrief: Kommentar, HThKNT 6 (Freiburg: Herder, 1977), 286; James D. G. Dunn, Romans, WBC 38 (Dallas: Word, 1988) 2:526; J. A. Fitzmyer, Romans, AB 33A (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 545–46; Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 562; Klaus Haacker, Der Brief des Paulus an die Römer, THKNT (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1999), 183–84; Robert Jewett, Romans, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 562–63. ↵

  The very fact that Paul refers to “Christ” or “Messiah” will suggest to some that he is thinking from an earlier conception of messiahship for Israel forward in order to interpret the gospel, especially in light of Matthew Novenson’s recent argument that Χριστός is better understood in Paul as a title than as a proper name. However, among Novenson’s important conclusions is that the term is used in a variety of ways and its usage does not come with prepackaged connotations (Christ Among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012]). ↵

  So also Moo, Romans, 564; Jewett, Romans, 566. Paul has already referred to the patriarch Abraham and will refer to him and other patriarchs again in 9:6–13, and near the end of chapter 11, he will insist that Israel remains beloved “because of the fathers.” ↵

  E.g., C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1957), 178; Cranfield, Romans, 2:464; Moo, Romans, 565; Jewett, Romans, 566–67. ↵

  The insertion of the neuter article τό may limit this relatio
nship (so BDF 266.2), but the parallel with Paul’s highly charged expression of his own connection in v. 3 causes me to resist overemphasis on a “merely” fleshly connotation. ↵

  An instructive review of the treatment of this verse in early versions and in patristic texts is available in Bruce M. Metzger, “The Punctuation of Rom. 9:5,” in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament: In Honour of C. F. D. Moule, ed. Barnabas Lindars and Stephen S. Smalley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 95–112. ↵

  The most natural referent for the ὁ ὢν is the preceding ὁ Χριστός; so Cranfield, Epistle to the Romans, 2:464–70; Moo, Romans, 564–68; Jewett, Romans, 567–68. ↵

  Elsewhere, Paul has claimed that the death and resurrection of Christ means that “we no longer know anyone from a human point of view” (2 Cor. 5:16). The epistemological implications of the apocalypse of Jesus Christ reverberate throughout Romans, but especially in 9–11. ↵

  This section draws heavily on my earlier essay, “On the Calling-Into-Being of Israel.” ↵

  See the NRSV and the translations of Barrett (The Epistle to the Romans, 179); and Fitzmyer (Romans, 558). And see the use of wirklich in Ernst Käsemann (An die Römer, HNT8a [Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1974], 250); H. Schlier, (Der Römerbrief, 289); and Eduard Lohse (Der Brief an die Römer, MeyerK [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003], 270). ↵

  The Epistle to the Romans, 2:474. ↵

  For the connection between “calling” and “creation,” see 4:17 and my “On the Calling-Into-Being of Israel,” 260–61. ↵

  See, for example, Jub. 19:13–14, 22:10–24; Philo, Alleg. Interp. 3.88–89; Pelagius’s Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, OECS, ed. Th. De Bruyn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 116; Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 16. See also the discussions in N. Richardson, Paul’s Language about God, JSNTSup 99 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 26–94; and Martin Parmentier, “Greek Church Fathers on Romans 9: Part II,” Bijdragen: International Journal for Philosophy and Theology 51 (1990): 2–20. ↵

  Note John M. G. Barclay’s observation that, in 9:6–18, “It is hard to avoid the impression that Paul is out to scandalize his readers” (“Unnerving Grace: Approaching Romans 9-11 from the Wisdom of Solomon,” in Between Gospel and Election, WUNT 257, ed. Florian Wilk and J. Ross Wagner [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010], 91–109, quotation on 107). ↵

  On the Scriptural interpretation here, see especially J. Ross Wagner, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul in Context in the Letter to the Romans, NovTSup 101 (Boston: Brill, 2002), 78–117. ↵

  I introduce 2:5–11 because the text is so often adduced as evidence of Paul’s expectation about future judgment. My own view is that chapter 2 largely serves to undermine customary distinctions between Jew and gentile in order to drive the audience to the conclusion of 3:9. ↵

  See also E. Elizabeth Johnson’s survey of vocabulary in Romans 9–11 that “reflects attitudes common in apocalyptic contexts” both generally and specifically in Paul’s writings in The Function of Apocalyptic and Wisdom Traditions in Romans 9-11, SBLDS 109 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1989), 127–29. ↵

  This discussion draws heavily on my forthcoming “Questions about Nomos.” ↵

  This comment touches on the larger debate about πίστις Χριστοῦ in particular and Paul’s understanding of faith in general. My own view is that ἐκ πίστεως here, as in 3:26, is a shorthand expression for those who have been grasped by the gospel of Jesus Christ (cf. Phil. 3:12). ↵

  This paragraph severely summarizes the discussion in “Questions about Nomos.” ↵

  See especially, Ross Wagner’s discussion of 9:33 in Heralds, 126–31. ↵

  The classic articulation of Paul’s apocalyptic epistemology appears in J. Louis Martyn, “Epistemology at the Turn of the Ages,” in Theological Issues in the Letters of Paul (Nashville: Abingdon, 1997), 89–110. For an exploration of epistemology in 1 Corinthians, see Alexandra R. Brown, The Cross and Human Transformation: Paul’s Apocalyptic Word in 1 Corinthians (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995). ↵

  See further the important observations regarding the role of Christology in Romans 10 in Jonathan A. Linebaugh, God, Grace, and Righteousness in Wisdom of Solomon and Paul’s Letter to the Romans: Texts in Conversation, NovTSup 152 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 198–209. ↵

  Even in 11:23, it is God who is said to be powerful to re-graft οἱ λοιποί. The conditional statements of vv. 22–23 are both prior and subordinate to the eschatological claims off 11:25–32. ↵

  God, Grace, and Righteousness, 217–18. ↵

  Michael Wolter, “Apokalyptik als Redeform im Neuen Testament,” NTS 51, no. 2 (2005): 171–91, especially pp. 183–84; R. E. Brown, The Semitic Background of the Term “Mystery” in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968); Markus Bockmuehl, Revelation and Mystery in Ancient Judaism and Pauline Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 170–74. ↵

  As Samuel I. Thomas puts it, “The term ‘mystery’ itself entails a denial of access to its meanings; it often denotes things not understandable by human imagination, things—in Elliot Wolfson’s words—that are beyond ‘the spot where intellect falters before its own limit’” (in The “Mysteries” of Qumran: Mystery, Secrecy, and Esotericism in the Dead Sea Scrolls, SBLEJL [Leiden: Brill, 2009], 1). This feature of mystery stands in considerable tension with the exegetical industry devoted to parsing precisely the manner and means of “all Israel’s” salvation. ↵

  This statement also applies to Paul’s discussion of Abraham in Romans 4; see especially the statement that Abraham is “father of those who believe while uncircumcised” (4:11) and that Abraham trusted the “God who makes the dead live and who calls into being that which does not exist” (4:17). ↵

  A second “conclusion” to 8:31–39 comes in 15:7–13, with the unified praise of God, but defense of that point will need to wait for another occasion. ↵

  13

  Apocalyptic Allegiance and Disinvestment in the World

  A Reading of 1 Corinthians 7:25–35

  John M. G. Barclay

  The label “apocalyptic” is a scholarly construct, even when applied to texts that contain the matching Greek vocabulary. It is a term we use to describe a cluster of texts, or a constellation of ideas, as defined by our own selections and configurations of the material.[1] For this reason, what counts as “apocalyptic” is constantly negotiable and inherently malleable, influenced by ideological preferences and theological trends.[2] It is a sign of health that New Testament scholarship undergoes periodic convulsions of self-questioning on the deployment of this term, and in the present, as on previous occasions, it seems best to re-ground our discourse in the textual evidence of Jewish “apocalyptic” literature. Here too, of course, the label is a scholarly construct, encompassing a changing literary tradition of considerable inner variety and extremely fuzzy edges. But we can trace Paul’s deployment of themes, motifs, and patterns of thought that are characteristic of such literature, without needing to make strong claims that their notions of revealed knowledge, oppressive powers, determinate times, or future cosmic change constitute a single package, or are taken over unchanged into Pauline theology.

  First Corinthians is shot through with motifs whose closest literary parallels lie in this Jewish “apocalyptic” tradition. The clash of cosmic powers narrated in 1 Cor. 15:20–28 is replete with constructs of time, power, and resurrection that echo that tradition, while Paul’s celebration of a selectively revealed wisdom which confounds the truth-claims of “this age” or “this world” (1 Cor. 1:18–3:21) can be readily shown to match motifs familiar from “apocalyptic” literature.[3] Sandwiched between these significant expositions of the meaning of Christ in cosmic time and reality is a passage that has often struck scholars as an “apocalyptic” moment in Pauline reasoning. In 1 Cor. 7:25–31, Paul refers to “the present constraint” (διὰ τὴν ἐνεστῶσαν ἀνάγκην, 7:26) and “suffer
ing in the flesh” (θλῖψιν τῇ σαρκί, 7:28) in terms that remind many of eschatological expectations of crisis and woe. He also refers to the compression of time (ὁ καιρὸς συνεσταλμένος ἐστίν, 7:29) and the passing of “the form of this world” (παράγει τὸ σχῆμα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, 7:31) in language that evokes “apocalyptic” configurations of time, urgency, and cosmic change. Significant parallels can be drawn between Paul’s policy of detachment (“as not”) in 7:29–31 and the calls for disinvestment found in some “apocalyptic” texts,[4] and it is frequently argued that Paul’s expectation of an imminent end here decisively influences his preference for singleness over marriage.

  I wish to argue here for a new reading of ἡ ἐνεστῶσα ἀνάγκη (7:26) and to suggest: a) that the deep structure of Paul’s reasoning in this chapter is shaped by an “apocalyptic” understanding of the Christ-event; b) that the alteration to the structures of the cosmos effected by the resurrection has reconfigured human allegiances, establishing a new order of priorities; and c) that this re-prioritization (rather than simply the imminence of the end) so downgrades normal investment in the routine structures of life that singleness is found preferable to the divided loyalties of marriage. Without that edge, scandalous as it is to our modern sensibilities, the Pauline policy of disinvestment is in danger of collapsing into inner detachment (as in Stoicism) or into an existentialist, individualized freedom of decision (Bultmann).