Union With Christ in the New Testament

UNION WITH CHRIST IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

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Union with Christ in the New Testament GRANT MACASKILL

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Grant Macaskill 2013 Unless otherwise indicated scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2013 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2013938315 ISBN 978–0–19–968429–8 As printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

For Prof. Ivor Davidson and Rev. Alasdair I. Macleod. Hebrews 13:7

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Acknowledgements This book was written in a single semester of research leave, in early 2012, but grew out of a much longer formative period of reflection. Since I began to teach at the University of St Andrews in 2005, I have been privileged to work alongside some excellent colleagues, both in theology and biblical studies, and it is difficult to identify within this group a smaller number that deserve particular credit for their input. Nevertheless, I must mention my current New Testament colleagues—Tom Wright, Scott Hafemann, and Elizabeth Shively—for being willing to contribute their thoughts, and often whole sections of their libraries. Bill Tooman has also been a frequent conversation partner on the Jewish backgrounds explored in the book and, particularly, on Jewish reading strategies. I am also immensely grateful to my Head of School, Professor Ivor Davidson, for his support throughout this project, and for some pivotal conversations about the theological issues that I have dealt with. I am grateful, too, to a number of other young academics throughout the UK who have been an important part of my wider fellowship during the period of this book’s development: Angus Paddison, Jane Heath, David Lincicum, Brandon Gallagher, Casey Strine, and Sarah Apetrei. In the global academic community, Anathea Portier-Young, Lorenzo DiTommaso, Greg Carey, and Lynn Huber—fellows in the study of Jewish apocalyptic—have also contributed to my reflections. I am also conscious of, and grateful for, the ongoing support of Loren Stuckenbruck and others involved in the Enoch Seminar. The semester in which the book was written was disrupted by substantial library refurbishments. I would also like to thank our librarians, Colin Bovaird and Lynda Kinloch, for help in ensuring that these did not disrupt my research unduly and for, as always, maintaining good cheer. I would also like to thank Oxford University Press for accepting the book for publication. I am grateful to the reviewers, who made numerous small but important suggestions, and to Lizzie Robottom, whose advice and guidance throughout the submission process was invaluable. Finally, I want to thank again my immediate family, especially my wife Jane, and my church family here in St Andrews. We have recently said farewell to the Rev. Alasdair I. Macleod and his wife Cathie, as they retired to Lewis, and continue to feel their absence as a loss. This book is justly dedicated to Alasdair, in thanks for years of ministry, along with Ivor Davidson, for leadership and faith. The version of the Bible used throughout this book is the New Revised Standard Version. All quotes are taken from this, unless otherwise indicated.

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Contents Introduction

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Part 1. Preliminaries: Foregrounds and Backgrounds to the Study of Union with Christ in the New Testament 1. Participation and Union with Christ in New Testament Scholarship

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2. Participation and Union with Christ in the Patristic Tradition and Modern Orthodox Theology

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3. Participation in Lutheran and Reformed Theology

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4. Exploring the Backgrounds to Union with Christ

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5. Examining the Adamic Backgrounds of Union with Christ

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Part 2. Participation and Union in the New Testament 6. The Temple and the Body of the Messiah

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7. Other Images of the Temple in the New Testament

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8. The Sacraments and Union with Christ

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9. Other Participatory Elements in the Pauline Corpus

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10. Further Participatory Elements in the Johannine Literature

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11. Grammars and Narratives of Participation in the Rest of the New Testament

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12. Conclusions

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Bibliography Index of Selected Topics Index of Modern Authors Index of Sources

309 337 340 344

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Introduction How is the union between God and those he has redeemed represented in the New Testament? This is an inherently complex question, given that the object of study comprises the writings of multiple authors, each of whom may have undergone a process of theological development reflected in the corpus of texts associated with him. We may brace ourselves to find a dizzying range of potentially conflicting ways in which this union is understood: it may be conceived of in legal terms, as a bond comparable to that of the marriage contract, in ontological terms, as a participation in divine essence or energy, or in some other form or combination of forms. Not only so, some authors may confine the union to a particular group of people, while others may see all humanity as included within it. My argument in this book, however, is that, despite these possibilities, what we encounter in the New Testament is a remarkably cohesive portrayal of the union of human beings and God. A variety of images and narratives is indeed found in the New Testament, but I will argue that through these the authors develop a broadly consistent theology of union that can be outlined as follows: The union between God and humans is covenantal, presented in terms of the formal union between God and Israel. The concept of the covenant underlies a theology of representation, by which the story of one man (Jesus) is understood to be the story of his people. Their identification with him, their participation in his narrative, is realised by the indwelling Spirit, who constitutes the divine presence in their midst and is understood to be the eschatological gift of the new covenant. Reflecting this covenantal concept of presence, the union is commonly represented using temple imagery. The use of temple imagery maintains an essential distinction between God and his people, so that her glorification is understood as the inter-personal communication of a divine property, not a mingling of essence. This union is with a specific people, the members of which are depicted as the recipients of revealed wisdom, and this is the grounds of their intimacy with God. While the mystical language of vision is used to describe this knowledge, it is democratised to indicate that the revealed knowledge in question is possessed by all who have the Spirit, who are marked by faith, not just by a visionary elite. The faith that characterises this group is a real enactment of trust in what has been

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Introduction revealed in Jesus Christ, manifest in the conduct of the members of this community and particularly in their love for one another. The sacraments are formal rites of this union, made truly participatory by the divine presence in them.

This is, of course, something of an abstraction of what we encounter in the texts, and although it may describe some writings fairly neatly, it is less obvious how others (such as Hebrews or James) might be located in relation to this summary. I have no desire to flatten the landscape of the New Testament, or to press texts into a descriptive framework that is simply inappropriate, but over the course of the study the extent to which elements of this summary do, in fact, fit these texts will emerge. Our examination of the New Testament is intended to do justice both to the diversity and the coherence of the witnesses. It must, therefore, strike a balance between the descriptive task of identifying diverse participatory elements across the New Testament corpus, and the analytical task of identifying points of commonality. It will be immediately obvious to anyone familiar with the currents of New Testament scholarship in modern times that each of the statements in the summary is to some extent controversial, with further debates lying in their background. To make the claims that I do in relation to a single author, far less in relation to the New Testament as a whole, may appear to simply beg questions. I am deeply conscious of this and of the challenges involved in a study as broad as this one. But the very breadth that will preclude a detailed engagement with some of the opposing positions will allow contextual support (by which I mean the cumulative evidence of the New Testament writings) to be adduced for my own reading. New Testament scholars are usually very good at examining the context and backgrounds provided by Graeco-Roman and Jewish literature, but we are generally less successful at examining that provided by other New Testament writings and bringing these to bear on our exegesis. There is a vast amount of literature that reads Paul in the light of Qumran; there is rather less that reads Paul in the light of Peter. The objection, of course, is that we run the risk of conflating the distinctive theology of each and doing so without sensitivity to the time-lines on which they are located. But these texts are the products of a movement with a certain cohesion, generated within a compact period of time. It is, then, necessary to the historical task for us to consider how they may relate to one another and to reflect upon the ways in which even their diversity may emerge from a basic unity of thought. This is not to downplay the importance of background study, but simply to recognize that it must not be allowed to overshadow the context provided by the wider New Testament. In fact, I will devote two chapters of this book to an examination of the backgrounds to the New Testament, reflecting the extent to which my previous work on the Jewish contexts of nascent Christianity, particularly those provided by the apocalyptic literature of the Second Temple

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Period, has been significant to the development of this study. In a previous monograph,1 I argued for a widespread emphasis in ancient Judaism and early Christianity on the eschatological revelation of wisdom to the elect, an emphasis that allows the integration of sapiential and apocalyptic elements within an inaugurated eschatological schema. Even in the diversity and factionalism of ancient Judaism, covenant was a dominant concept, though one contested by the various groups that existed in tension with one another. The groups claiming to be recipients of revealed wisdom understood themselves to be the true heirs of God’s covenant with Israel, though the covenant itself was relativized in importance by this very move, requiring further revelation by God to bring about its fulfilment. The emphasis on revealed wisdom as the privilege of the true elect ensured the uptake of mystical imagery and the vocabulary of vision from the apocalyptic texts. These elements—covenant and revelation—will reverberate through the present study, too, but where the early Christian section of my previous study focused on Matthew and the Jesus tradition, here I will consider the New Testament more broadly. What some readers may find surprising is that, before engaging with this background material, I will spend two chapters discussing the treatment of our topic in historical and (to a lesser extent) systematic theology. The decision to do this reflects my sense both of the distinctive historical issues that bear on New Testament interpretation, and the unavoidably theological nature of the object of study. In terms of the historical issues, two are particularly important in relation to this project. First, a number of scholars recognize the distinctive potential of the early patristic writings, in particular, to cast light upon the New Testament. As works that emerged in cultural proximity to the New Testament, in some cases during the period of the living memory of the apostles, they provide a body of interpretation that cannot be ignored and that may inform our understanding of concepts that are particularly difficult for us, as modern readers, to grasp. One such concept is that of ‘participation’, which, as we will see in Chapter 1, has proved to be a difficult one for modern interpreters. Richard Hays suggests that the Eastern Fathers, specifically, may provide categories that help us to explicate this concept, though he himself does not pursue the matter.2 I have followed through his proposal in Chapter 2 of this volume, finding in the Fathers a useful set of categories and distinctions by which participation is considered, a helpful ‘foreground’3 to inform our 1 Grant Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 2007). 2 Richard B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11 (2nd edn. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2002), xxxii. The comments are particular to the introduction to the second edition. See our discussion in Chapter 1. 3 I borrow this word from Markus Bockmuehl, Seeing the Word: Refocusing New Testament Study (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006); see, especially, pages 64–5.

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reading of the New Testament. This will be brought to the study of the New Testament with a measure of caution, in the hope that it will help us to understand the texts that they purport to interpret. Similarly, the Reformed tradition, particularly Calvin, offers a valuable account of participation, one that is informed by theological tradition, but marked by a commitment to reading the New Testament evidence afresh, and in its entirety. Second, as the literature survey in Chapter 1 will confirm, the interpretation of the New Testament doctrines of participation in recent years has already been shaped by theological discussion, in some cases knowingly, in some cases not. By way of illustration, anyone who has followed the debate around the ‘New Perspective on Paul’ will be aware of the prominent role that discussions of ‘Lutheranism’ have played. But biblical scholars have all too often traded on ‘received’ accounts of the theology in question: how many of the studies that have casually dismissed ‘Lutheranism’ have actually examined the writings of Luther or the Lutheran tradition in any depth? Are certain readings of Paul being disavowed because they are assumed to have been governed by a tradition that is further assumed to render certain doctrines in certain ways? Are we in danger of developing readings of the New Testament that are defined against straw men and critically skewed by their own negative agenda? Moreover, just as a negative reaction to a poorly understood theology can distort the reading of the New Testament, so, too, can a positive reaction. Again, by way of illustration, there is growing interest at present in the concept of theosis as a means to explicate Pauline soteriology, but limited evidence that some of those who advocate this are aware of the fluidity of the concept or of the Platonic associations that it commonly has. The demonstrable influence of theology upon biblical interpretation, then, specifically in relation to the question of union with Christ, requires some engagement with the primary theological material, to ensure that biblical scholars are not constructing arguments upon foundations that will not bear the weight placed upon them. This requires us to identify the particular theological discussions that are relevant and to explore them in appropriate depth. This, however, is to consider only one side of the relevance of theology to the task of biblical interpretation, that which appropriately informs the work of the biblical scholar as self-critical historian. But the object of our study—the New Testament—is not just a historical artefact; it is also a body of theological literature, of distinctive importance within the traditions of the church. Analysis of its historical dimensions can never be deemed to fully satisfy the demands of the study of the New Testament: consideration of its operation within the theological traditions is as necessary an element in its study as is the evaluation of its historical contexts and dimensions. For my part, I do not consider the historical and theological dimensions of the study of the Bible to be mutually exclusive concerns, although I recognize

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that one’s view of this is determined by underlying philosophical and theological assumptions.4 This position is at odds with the principled exclusion of theology by many biblical scholars, but it has been robustly maintained by others,5 and its central recognitions of Scripture’s inherently theological character and of the value of interpretative traditions have been at the heart of a renewed interest in ‘theological interpretation of Scripture’ in recent decades.6 Although I am in essential agreement with those who have participated in this movement, I do not develop here a fully synthetic approach, of the kind that many theological interpreters would advocate. Instead, I have maintained a functional distinction between the theological and biblical components of the book by allocating separate chapters to each, while, nevertheless, allowing the findings of these chapters to interpenetrate; only in the conclusions have I engaged in a more thoroughgoing synthesis of biblical studies and theology. Moreover, I have maintained a commitment to historical-critical examination of the New Testament throughout. These decisions reflect a set of concerns that I share with others who substantially agree with the aims and principles of the theological interpretation movement7 while being critical of certain elements of its practice. These concerns have been developed in important recent works of reflection on theological interpretation by scholars who may be considered practitioners of the approach, even if they are reluctant to consider themselves ‘insiders’.8 Three of these concerns are especially noteworthy.

4 For the record, my own view of Scripture has been influenced in particular by the various studies by John Webster, notably his Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). See also his ‘The Dogmatic Location of the Canon’, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie 43 (2001), 17–43. The essay is republished, along with a number of others pertinent to this discussion, in Webster, Word and Church: Essays in Christian Doctrine (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001). 5 For a helpful categorization of the range of positions taken on this relationship, see Markus Bockmuehl, ‘Bible versus Theology: Is “Theological Interpretation” the Answer?’, Nova et Vetera 9 (2011), 27–47. I will refer to this essay throughout the following discussion, as it represents an important body of critical reflections by a theologically sensitive New Testament scholar. 6 The scale of the literature is now significant. For a useful introduction, see Kevin J. Vanhoozer, ‘What is Theological Interpretation of the Bible?’ in Kevin J. Vanhoozer et al., Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic Press, 2005), 19–26, and Christopher D. Spinks, The Bible and the Crisis of Meaning: Debates on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (London: T&T Clark, 2007). A helpful categorization of the various approaches may be found in Mark Alan Bowald, Rendering the Word in Theological Hermeneutics: Mapping Divine and Human Agency (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). 7 This use of the term to represent a movement, rather than just a functional approach, is found in Daniel Treier, Introducing Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Recovering a Church Practice (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 9. 8 In particular, I draw upon Walter Moberly, ‘What is Theological Interpretation of Scripture?’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 3 (2009), 161–78 and Markus Bockmuehl, ‘Bible versus Theology’. The latter, in particular, is resistant to being considered an insider of the movement; see pages 35–6, note 14.

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First, the principled commitment of the theological interpretation movement ‘to do justice to the priority of God’9 and to take seriously the text itself is an important corrective to the ‘magisterially’10 diachronic and reductionist approach of much historical-criticism, but the explicit critique of the latter frequently entails a resistance towards the study of the historical dimensions of the New Testament. Against this, Bockmuehl writes: It is not clear why concern for the priority of God should bypass an interest in what happened historically—or the extent to which readerly motivations may affect our understanding . . . Is not the biblical divine discourse, like most of its history of interpretation, inalienably engaged with the extratextual connections between faith and the world we inhabit?11

The biblical scholar’s distinctive object of study is a corpus of theological writing that may be historically located and that positions itself in relation to (and makes claims about) the world. In truth, of course, a range of practices in this regard is identifiable in works of theological interpretation, with figures such as Brevard Childs and Walter Moberly engaging robustly with the historical dimensions of the texts.12 Nevertheless, Bockmuehl’s comments affirm the need for careful historical work to be a necessary part of theologically sensitive New Testament study. For this reason, I maintain a serious commitment to historical enquiry in this book, devoting two chapters to the study of background and dealing, where appropriate, with diachronic issues throughout the exegesis of the New Testament. Second, some of the leading works of theological interpretation have been criticized for devoting too much space to methodology and hermeneutics, and too little to actual interpretation.13 Walter Moberly’s comments on Christopher D. Spinks, The Bible and the Crisis of Meaning,14 illustrate this concern: Although it seems accepted practice to write books about biblical interpretation that do not interpret the Bible, I am increasingly doubtful about the value of the exercise. Unless I am shown how the discussions of principle help enable

Vanhoozer, ‘What is Theological Interpretation of the Bible?’, 22. Vanhoozer, ‘What is Theological Interpretation of the Bible?’, 22, comments ‘Critical tools have a ministerial, not magisterial, function in biblical interpretation.’ 11 Bockmuehl, ‘Bible versus Theology’, 37. 12 Childs’s output engaged explicitly with historical critical issues; there is certainly no ducking of these in his commentary on Isaiah. See B. Childs, Isaiah: A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001). The same is true of Walter Moberly’s work, e.g. his Prophecy and Discernment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 13 This criticism is brought by Bockmuehl, ‘Bible versus Theology’, 40, against Treier, Introducing Theological Interpretation of Scripture, one of the most prominent recent volumes of theological interpretation. 14 Christopher D. Spinks, The Bible and the Crisis of Meaning: Debates on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (London: T & T Clark, 2007). 9

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recognition, or even production, of good and bad readings of the biblical text in practice, I can find myself wondering what difference it all really makes.15

Certainly, examples of serious extended theological treatments of Scripture could be cited, as Bockmuehl has done elsewhere.16 These, however, do not detract from the point, that the attempts to engage in theological exegesis have all too often been exercises in methodological reflection (or hermeneutical philosophy) and have advanced neither theology nor exegesis. We must deliberately allocate sufficient space to the examination of Scripture itself and this, I think, requires that we do not conflate the study of the biblical texts with the treatment of theology. They require to be coordinated, not conflated. For this reason, I have devoted specific chapters to the study of each area, rather than seeking to synthesize the study of theology with that of the New Testament. In doing so, each is given space to be considered on its own terms, while also being allowed to speak to the cognate discipline. Third, as Vanhoozer and Webster note, our account of Scripture must leave room for it to push back against sinful interpreters,17 for it to function as ‘a knife at the church’s heart’.18 For that to happen, there must be a willingness to modify our theological accounts to accommodate the unruliness of the Word. Often, however, the theological interpretation of Scripture is married to a particular account of doctrine19 and functionally seems to leave little space for the Bible to challenge that account. Again, I would suggest that we take an approach that coordinates, and that does not conflate, biblical and theological study. In order to facilitate proper evaluation of any theological account, we need to understand it on its own terms, according to its own logic. This, I would suggest, requires a functional distinction to be maintained between theology and biblical studies that, nevertheless, does not obscure their interdependence. It is for this reason that I have devoted two chapters to the discussion of key areas of historical and systematic theology, dealing with

15 Walter Moberly, ‘Review: Christopher D. Spinks, The Bible and the Crisis of Meaning’, Journal of Theological Studies 59 (2008), 711. See also his ‘What is Theological Interpretation of Scripture?’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 3 (2009), 169–70. His comments in the latter are illustrated with reference to John Webster, whose output contains more exegesis than Moberly, perhaps, allows. The criticisms, however, are directed towards the movement more broadly. 16 Bockmuehl, Seeing the Word, 60. 17 Kevin J. Vanhoozer, ‘The Spirit of Understanding: Special Revelation and General Hermeneutics’, in his First Theology (Downers Grove; Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press; Apollos, 2002), 207–35. 18 John Webster, ‘The Dogmatic Location of the Canon’, 43. 19 Notably, Barthian theology has played a key role in the development of the theological interpretation movement: Treier, Introducing Theological Interpretation, 14, identifies Barth as the principal stimulus for the contemporary interest in theological interpretation. Much of Vanhoozer’s work, which could not be located in this account, is nevertheless defined in relation to it and in dialogue with it.

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each according to its own logic, while recognizing that each ultimately constitutes a reading of Scripture, capable of informing our own reading. Our examinations of ancient and modern theology will highlight that the central question of this study is inextricably linked to three other issues. The first concerns the union of God and man that is internal to the incarnation. The orthodox doctrine of the two natures understands the incarnation as sui generis, an economic reality that is unique and, hence, non-analogous in key respects to all other experience of human communion with God. At the same time, the true humanity of Jesus makes possible human communion with God and serves as the pattern upon which the Christian life is modelled. The tradition has always sought to take seriously these two elements of distinction and identification. By comparison, various modern theological approaches to the incarnation, critical of ‘two-natures’ conceptuality, have sought to identify a much higher degree of correspondence between the divine–human union of Jesus and that experienced by believers, modifying or even denying the uniqueness of Christ. Notably, in modern times, Adoptionism and Spirit Christology have advanced such accounts of the incarnation and, correspondingly, of the union of the believer to God. Importantly, as we will see in Chapter 1 and at various points throughout the study, such accounts are often developed with specific reference to the New Testament writings and to the work of particular biblical scholars. Our study, then, requires us to consider the ontology of the incarnation. This does not require us to identify in the New Testament the precise configurations of that ontology that developed in the later christological formulations, but it does require us to pay attention to the ways in which the real divinity and real humanity of Christ are depicted in relation to human union with God. The second issue proceeds from this and concerns the nature, work, and mode of being of the Holy Spirit, both in the incarnation and in the divine– human union experienced by other human beings. It is clear even from a cursory reading of the New Testament that the experience of God is described in terms that give prominence to the presence of the Holy Spirit in human beings. As a result, accounts of union may be fundamentally altered by different conceptions of the Spirit, whether seen as impersonal divine power/energy or as personal presence and agent. Attention to the way in which the Spirit is described, then, is a necessary part of the study of divine– human union, along with attention to the configuration of the incarnation. Our reading of the Eastern Fathers will demonstrate that this was a significant part of their consideration of participation. Before turning to the third issue, it is worth making explicit that these first two take us into the territory of historical Trinitarian theology. The fact that the church considered itself compelled to speak in Trinitarian, and not Binitarian, monotheistic terms reflects the force of the New Testament itself

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and not later political or socio-ecclesiological pressures.20 Some New Testament scholars who have focused on questions of Christology prefer to speak of ‘Binitarianism’21 (or of God as ‘Binity’)22 because of the distinctive presentation of Jesus as divine in the New Testament and his prominence as an object of worship. Once the focus is shifted to the nature of the human union with God experienced by his people, however, the necessity of Trinitarian accounts of God in the New Testament becomes clearer. The third issue to which our central question is linked is that of the nature of the atonement. Inevitably, to speak of the union between God and human beings requires us to speak of the problem of sin and the way(s) in which the incarnational narrative is understood in relation to this. Quite specifically, there is the question of how the New Testament writers describe the atoning significance of the life and death of Jesus in relation to the human beings that benefit from it. Is atonement something that simply happens externally to the individual human, making possible a set of benefits, or is there some internal dimension to the atonement, by which it is realized within a person or community? How does this relate to the configuration of the incarnation itself and to theologies of the cross? The range of images used in relation to the cross in the New Testament cautions against any simple response to these questions, but they must be kept in mind throughout our study. This begs the further question: if what we are examining in our study of the union of God and human beings is essentially rapprochement, then are we not simply studying the soteriology of the various authors, a common subject matter of biblical studies, and giving it a different label? Yes and no. This is indeed an examination of the soteriological frameworks of each writer, but it is distinctively concerned with the nature of the relationship into which human beings are saved and how this relates to and transforms their modes of being. Further, it is concerned with the question of why the New Testament writers use participatory or locative grammar, vocabulary, and imagery to articulate that relationship and, proceeding from this, why those in this relationship are described in terms that suggest that they possess or embody divine properties, such as glory. Still, to note these three related issues is to acknowledge that the study of divine–human union in the New Testament is embedded within a further set of issues that have dogged the disciplines of theology and, more recently, biblical studies through the centuries. Those issues will hardly be settled in the context of a volume such as this, but a study specifically devoted to

20 Gordon D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson, 1994), 827–45. 21 E.g. Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003). 22 James D. G. Dunn, ‘Rediscovering the Spirit’, Expository Times 84 (1972), 7–12.

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divine–human union will speak to these. My findings in this book will have implications (however limited) for how biblical scholars construe the incarnation, how they construe the work of the Spirit, and how they construe the atonement. By its very focus, it may offer some fresh possibilities for resolutions of the justification debates in New Testament studies.

TH E SH AP E OF THE S TUDY The book will fall into two sections, Part 1: Preliminaries (Chapters 1–5) and Part 2: Participation in the New Testament (Chapters 6–11). My intention throughout the first part of the book is not to offer much by way of original primary research, but to survey the work of others with a view to laying the foundations for my own study of the New Testament in the second part. That said, some important conclusions will emerge throughout these early chapters, oriented uniquely towards the question that we explore in this book. The study will begin (Chapter 1) with a review of some of the key literature on participation in Paul. Most of the key recent work on participation has been conducted in Pauline scholarship and an examination of this material will help to establish the issues with which we must deal in this study. The fact that the Pauline discussion has largely been isolated from that concerning other New Testament books will demonstrate the need for a broad study such as this one. This chapter will also draw attention to the unavoidable necessity of engagement with historical and systematic theology in the treatment of this topic. In examining one author, James D. G. Dunn, we will also highlight the place that Adam Christology occupies in the discussion and the need for some clarity in the treatment of this. Chapter 2 is largely given over to an examination of the Greek patristic accounts of deification, beginning with Justin Martyr and continuing up to and through the key writings of the Cappadocian Fathers. With such a study, we pursue Richard B. Hays’s suggestion that the Eastern Fathers, in particular, may help us to understand the concepts of participation in the New Testament. These are well-trodden paths for historical theologians, though they have received fresh attention in recent years, notably from Russell,23 and there has been something of a paradigm shift regarding the influence of Platonism on the tradition. However, the recent revisions in scholarly views concerning the influence of Hellenistic philosophy and religion on the Fathers seem not yet to have found their way into biblical discussion. What emerges most strikingly from the discussion of the Greek Fathers is precisely what they do 23 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

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not affirm and go to some lengths to distance themselves from: a straightforwardly Platonic account of participation or a pagan notion of absorption into deity. Instead a range of themes emerges that corresponds surprisingly well with our summary (with the qualified exception of the covenant dimension), including a strong emphasis on revelation. This chapter will begin, however, with a study of modern Eastern Orthodox accounts of theosis. By opening with such an examination of the fully developed doctrine, our study of its early development will be placed upon a trajectory and we will be sensitized to key themes in the Fathers. It will also allow us to highlight both continuity and development from the patristic period and, in particular, the significance of post-Palamite theology to modern accounts. This discussion will serve to demonstrate the problems associated with the use of theosis in a descriptive account of the New Testament writings, as distinct from its validity in specific theological schemata. An excursus on Spirit Christology will also be included in this chapter, since that theological movement has developed in response to modern Orthodox criticisms of Catholic theology. Chapter 3 will be given over to an examination of Reformed accounts of participation. In part, the warrant for this will lie in the prominence of Karl Barth’s influence on some of the key Pauline studies, which will be identified in Chapter 1. Barth’s work must be located in relation to his Protestant forebears, however, and this justifies a broader examination of the Reformed tradition. To this end, we will focus on Calvin and the subsequent Reformed Scholastic movement. In addition to preparing the way for a discussion of Barth, Calvin’s contribution offers real resources for the examination of Scripture. As with Luther (whose work will also be considered in this chapter, particularly in relation to the Finnish School of Luther), Calvin engages in close reading of Scripture, in his case quite broadly, and does so steeped in the tradition of medieval theological doctors. A number of works have appeared in recent years that focus on Calvin’s account of union with Christ and that follow his legacy through into the Reformed tradition.24 In Chapter 4, we will begin to consider the backgrounds to the New Testament presentation of participation. By necessity, this chapter will cover a range of quite disparate material, ranging from the Old Testament through various examples of Jewish literature. Some attention will be paid to the sociological models of corporate identity that have been used to explain the participatory dimension of the New Testament, but the limited value of these requires us to identify important thematic or conceptual precursors in the Old Testament and more broadly in Judaism. In particular, we will examine the themes of covenant and glory, considering their development through the Old

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These are outlined in our discussion in Chapter 3.

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Testament and their uptake in Jewish apocalyptic. Recent developments in scholarship on both of these areas will offer important resources for our study. We will also examine the mystical tradition in Judaism, noting the particular relevance that this may have for the understanding of the mystical imagery and vocabulary in the New Testament. Finally, the issue of messianism will be considered in relation to themes of participation. Chapter 5 will involve an examination of the Adam traditions in Judaism. A detailed study of this kind is necessary to ensure that the treatment of Adamic themes in the New Testament, particularly Paul, is properly ordered. Specifically, we will take up the observation made in Chapter 1 concerning the importance of Adamic glory to some accounts of Christology and, from this, Christian participation. Such ‘Adam Christology’ is often developed on the assumption that much of the material preserved in Christian tradition that depicts Adam as glorious is originally Jewish. The problems with this view will be highlighted, as will the fact that other figures are also presented as glorious. Taken together with the findings of Chapter 4, this will highlight that glory is a property of God, shared with or given to human beings in the divine presence. Chapter 6 will begin the study of the New Testament and will focus on the paired images of the church as temple and body of Christ. That these images can be traced back to the earlier stages of Christian theology will be highlighted throughout the chapter; we can with some justification, therefore, regard them as core to New Testament theology. The pairing or fusion of the images is unique to the New Testament within Judaism and this must be explained: I will argue that it reflects the messianic interpretation of Psalm 118 (LXX, 117). Various specific observations will be made concerning how this pairing of images relates to participation: it maintains the distinction between God and the creatures present in the temple, while allowing his glory to be shared with them; it is covenantal, and specifically related to the Spiritpromises of the new covenant; and it involves a particular union between believers and the Messiah. Among the various observations made in this chapter, these are key. Chapter 7 will examine a further range of temple images in the New Testament. These do not portray the church as the temple or body and must, therefore, be treated separately from those in the previous chapter. Like them, however, they emphasize that participation is a matter of divine presence, by which God shares himself with his people, in the heavenly or eschatological temple. This concept is developed in each using covenant imagery that, once again, is specifically related to the new covenant promise of Jeremiah 31, read in terms of other prophetic texts, notably Ezekiel 36 and 37. The connection between Christian union with God and the ontology of the incarnation will begin to emerge in this chapter, particularly in the study of John and Hebrews.

Introduction

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Chapter 8 will examine the sacraments in the New Testament. We will discuss the accounts of baptism and Eucharist found in the New Testament and the symbolic references to the sacraments that may deepen our understanding of them. We will note the evidence that the sacraments can be traced back to the earliest stages of the development of New Testament theology and, indeed, that they may have informed and governed some of the theological moves that will be studied in later chapters. In particular, their covenantal significance will be highlighted. Given that the sacraments can be traced back to the earliest strata of the New Testament, their significance in establishing the broad covenantal frameworks of participation in New Testament theology will be recognized. The next three chapters, 9–11, are given over to the study of the narratives and grammars of participation in the New Testament. Chapter 9 is devoted to the study of the Pauline literature, Chapter 10 to the Johannine literature, and Chapter 11 to the rest of the New Testament, inevitably treated in less depth. We will note the limitations in seeking to develop an account of participation based primarily on grammatical constructions (the use of spatial grammar, et cetera) and will instead note that such constructions must be contextualized in their narratival contexts, by which I mean the ‘stories’ that appear to control their theologies and the ways in which they develop these. Again, these chapters will highlight the importance of covenant in structuring the underlying narratives of the various authors, to an extent that may not generally be acknowledged in New Testament studies. Throughout these chapters, we will also note the ways in which the incarnational narrative determines the ways in which participation is represented and the implications these may have for the ontological configuration of the incarnation. We will also encounter a number of ways by which the eschatological revelation of wisdom is emphasized and will note the participatory dimensions of these. The ‘Conclusions’ offered in Chapter 12 will be more than just a cursory rehearsal of the argument. It is here that the various strands of evidence will be brought together with a view to defending the summary claims offered at the beginning of this chapter and to evaluating current scholarship on participation in the New Testament. I will also seek to make clear why I believe ‘union with Christ’ to be the most appropriate description of the theology of the New Testament. The conclusions will be more synthetic in character, considering the potential significance of this study of the New Testament for theological scholarship that intends to take seriously the biblical evidence.

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Part 1 Preliminaries: Foregrounds and Backgrounds to the Study of Union with Christ in the New Testament

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1 Participation and Union with Christ in New Testament Scholarship We begin our study of participation or union with Christ in the New Testament with a review of the treatment of the topic in modern New Testament scholarship, particularly that on Paul. Within the constraints of a study such as this, we cannot examine every contribution that has been made to scholarship in this area—there would be limited value to this, in any case—but we can identify the key contributions and, from these, can recognize the issues that, rightly or wrongly, have shaped the discussion during the last century or so, including the recent resurgence of interest in participatory accounts of atonement. Most of the studies that we will examine in this chapter are concerned with Paul, the notable exceptions to this being the earlier contributions of Bousset, Deissmann, and Schweitzer, which were broader in scope. In part, this reflects the fact that the recent interest in participation has been located particularly in the context of Pauline studies. This itself, however, reflects the increasing specialization or, more pejoratively, fragmentation of New Testament scholarship during the modern period and particularly during the twentieth century.1 Scholars in each area primarily talk to other scholars working in that area and not to those in cognate fields of biblical scholarship. This has, to some extent, been ideologically driven by the conviction that attempts to construct a New Testament theology wrongly assume a theological consistency between the various writers, itself an assumption subject to serious criticism.2 But it has 1 The early part of the twenty-first century has seen some movement towards a recovery of integrated readings, following trajectories that were beginning to emerge in the late twentieth century. There were, of course, always works that sought to be more integrative, particularly in Catholic and Evangelical biblical scholarship, but these were often treated as less central to the academic field. 2 The scholarly discussion of this is substantial. Key works include Georg Strecker, Das Problem der Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1975); Peter Stuhlmacher, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments. Bd. 1, Grundlegung von Jesus zu Paulus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), notably the introductory discussion. See also the various essays in his Biblische Theologie und Evangelium: Gesammelte Aufsätze

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also reflected the nature of scholarship more widely: a growing profusion of secondary literature makes it ever more difficult to achieve thorough coverage of issues and literature once the scope of a given study extends beyond a single writer, book, or even verse. Subtly, this can alter our sense of what a scholarly voice must sound like, or what a scholarly page should look like, so that attempts to think across the fields of New Testament study (far less bringing these into conversation with fields of theology) are deemed inappropriate or impossible.3 To some extent, those concerns are valid and forcibly remind us that biblical scholarship will increasingly need to become collaborative if it is to be constructive. Yet, whatever form such collaboration might take, individual scholars need to be prepared to relate fields to one another in their contextualization of even the most specific subject matter and there is something of an inconsistency in this regard. Before we even begin our review, then, an important point has begun to emerge: there is an obvious need for studies that seek to relate this theme in Pauline scholarship to the examination of other parts of the New Testament. Other key points of enquiry will emerge in the course of our review, but this observation is the driving justification for the present study.

EARLY TREATMENTS OF PARTICIPATION IN MODERN SCHOLARSHIP

Adolf Deissmann The current interest in participation in Pauline scholarship is generally traced back within modern biblical studies to the writings of Adolf Deissmann.4 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002); Christoph W. Stenschke, ‘Strong Cases for the Unity of New Testament Theology: A Survey of Four Recent English New Testament Theologies’, Religion & Theology 17 (2010), 133–61. More broadly dealing with the unity of New Testament theology in relation to the Old, see Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970) and Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible (London: SCM Press, 1992). For an attempt to balance unity and diversity without allowing the voice of one biblical author to dictate the terms on which others are understood, see the ‘conference table’ approach of G. B. Caird and L. D. Hurst, New Testament Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). 3 In fact, it is interesting that those studies that have sought to engage in such analysis across the New Testament have typically been the work of theologians. An interesting example is that of Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, 79–89. Such works are, however, understandably light in their engagement with biblical scholarship (although Russell’s familiarity with recent movements in New Testament and Second Temple Judaism studies is impressive). 4 Chiefly, Gustav Adolf Deissmann, Paulus: Eine kultur- und religionsgeschichtliche Skizze (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1911), translated as St Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History,

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Deissmann recognized the prominence that the ‘in Christ’ formula appeared to have in Paul’s thinking and sought to explore this in relation to the wider contours of his thought and context. In his view, the formula reflected a mystical concept of intimacy with Christ, which was derived from Paul’s Damascus Road experience. The phrase ‘in Christ’ was primarily of locative significance and, famously, Deissmann illustrated this in the following terms: Just as the air of life, which we breathe, is ‘in’ us and fills us, and yet we at the same time live in this air and breathe it, so it is also with the Christ-intimacy of the Apostle Paul: Christ in him, he in Christ.5

Linked to this, Deissmann also saw Paul’s use of the genitive ‘of Christ’ as distinctively shaped by this notion of intimacy with Christ. It was a ‘genitive of fellowship’ or ‘mystical genitive’,6 basically parallel in significance to ‘in Christ’. From this, Deissmann challenged contemporary Protestant configurations of justification, arguing that ‘justification by faith of Christ (ø  Å F æØ F)’ should be understood as ‘justification in faith’,7 that is, a transformative condition emerging from intimate communion with Christ. In ways that would anticipate more recent scholarship, Deissmann saw the Damascus experience as transforming Paul’s entire sense of being,8 but he understood this within the broader context of the influence of Hellenistic mysticism.9 This Mystik was, in turn, understood in terms of the German scholarship of that period to denote a range of experiences of ‘consciousness of God’, from ego-centric mysticism, in which the self is entirely lost in God, to theo-centric mysticism, in which a consciousness of God transforms or sanctifies the mystic without effacing the individual’s self-consciousness. Paul’s mysticism was the latter: ‘[he] was not deified nor was he transformed into spirit by this communion, nor did he become Christ’.10 This meant that Deissmann understood the representative aspects of the atonement in participatory terms best described as ‘inter-personal’, that is, involving communication between persons:

trans. Lionel R. M. Strachan (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1912). See also Deissmann, Die Neutestamentliche Formel ‘In Christo Jesu’ (Marburg: N. G. Elwert’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1892). 5 Deissmann, St Paul, 140. 6 Deissmann, St Paul, 162–3. 7 Deissmann, St Paul, 169–70. 8 Deissmann, St Paul, 130–1. Compare the studies of Seyoon Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), Alan F. Segal, Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), and Carey C. Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology: Tradition and Rhetoric (Leiden: Brill, 1992). 9 10 Deissmann, St Paul, 147. St Paul, 152–3.

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The Christ-centred Christianity of Paul is therefore neither a breach with the Gospel of Jesus nor a sophistication of the Gospel of Jesus. It secures for the many the Gospel experience of God which had been the possession of the One, and it does so by anchoring these many souls in the Soul of the One.11

While understanding Paul’s mysticism in relation to Hellenistic conceptuality, Deissmann’s work carefully distinguished these, maintaining in Paul a foundational concern for the essential distinction between God and his creation and a key recognition of the mediatorial role of Christ. Two criticisms can be brought to Deissmann’s work. First, recent grammatical and syntactical analysis of ‘in Christ’ (and its various parallel prepositional phrases) suggests a more complex and fluid significance to the construction than Deissmann allowed, locally determined in each occurrence.12 Deissmann, in other words, placed too heavy a burden onto one meaning of this phrase. Second, and more importantly, Deissmann’s writings lack a clear account of how, precisely, ‘many souls’ are anchored ‘in the Soul of the One’. As important as his agitations were, his own intellectual heritage did not provide him with an adequate framework within which to account for this.

Wilhelm Bousset A second work to locate Paul’s teaching on participation in relation to mysticism was Wilhelm Bousset’s hugely influential study, Kyrios Christos.13 This religionsgeschichtliche analysis would, of course, dictate the terms of christological study in biblical scholarship for much of the subsequent century; Larry Hurtado, in the preface of his own study of Christ-devotion, Lord Jesus Christ, published ninety years later, presented his work specifically as a challenge to Bousset’s long-standing paradigms and findings.14 It is a testimony to the scope of Bousset’s study that we discuss it here in relation to a theology of participation, but it also highlights the fact that our subject matter is inextricably bound with that of Christology; an account of human union with God inevitably entails reflection upon the theology of incarnation. Like Deissmann, Bousset recognized that Paul’s ‘mysticism’ was different from its Hellenistic counterparts. In the latter, ‘the individual mystic achieves for himself the blessed state of deification. The divine is completely absorbed 11

St Paul, 258. See, Constantine Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), especially chapters 3–6. 13 Wilhelm Bousset, Kyrios Christos: Geschichte des Christusglaubens von den Anfängen des Christentums bis Irenäus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprect, 1913); translated as Kyrios Christos: A History of the Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Irenaeus, trans. John E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1970). 14 Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 13–26. 12

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into the human’.15 In Paul, however, the gravity remains with the divine being, whose will draws humans—indeed, all reality—into itself in fellowship.16 Despite Bousset’s recognition that parallels between Paul and Hellenistic mysticism are difficult to find,17 however, he saw a certain overlap with ‘mystery piety’, that is, the kind of experience associated with the Hellenistic mystery religions.18 Consequently, some of Bousset’s language concerning the experience of union with God in baptism suggests a degree of essential absorption: ‘[B]aptism serves as an act of initiation in which the mystic is merged with the deity, or is clothed with the deity’.19 Bousset identified two key points in Paul’s theology of participation. The first, as reflected in the last quotation, is the role played by baptism as an initiatory rite signifying clothing with the deity. The second is the effective equating of ‘in Christ’ with ‘in the Spirit’.20 These two formulae were, in Bousset’s view, essentially parallel and interchangeable. That observation reflected a sensitivity to both the prominence of the Spirit in Paul’s theology and the close association of the Spirit to the reality associated with Jesus. As we will see in our own study, however, Bousset failed to recognize the key ways in which the two are distinguished in Paul.

Albert Schweitzer As important as the contributions of Deissmann and Bousset were, however, it is the work of Albert Schweitzer that has left the most prominent legacy upon scholarship in this area.21 Schweitzer famously described Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith as a ‘subsidiary crater’ within the ‘main crater’ of his theology of mystical union with Christ22 and in many ways this comment has continued to influence Pauline studies, as scholars search for the ‘centre’ of the apostle’s thought. Like his predecessors, Schweitzer understood Paul’s theology as mystical and sought to categorize the apostle’s thought in relation to other kinds of mysticism.23 His essential definition of mysticism was broad enough to accommodate a range of experiences, beliefs, or phenomena: 15

16 Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 166. Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 168–9. 18 Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 164. Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 170. 19 20 Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 158. Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 158. 21 In particular, see Albert Schweitzer, Geschichte der paulinischen Forschung: von der Reformation bis auf die Gegenwart (Tübingen: Mohr, 1911), translated as Paul and His Interpreters: A Critical History (trans. William Montgomery. London : A & C Black, 1912). Also Albert Schweitzer, Die Mystik des Apostels Paulus (Tübingen: Mohr, 1930), translated as The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (trans. William Montgomery. London: A & C Black, 1931). 22 Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 225. 23 For the development of Schweitzer’s thought on this matter, see James Carleton Paget, ‘Schweitzer and Paul’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 33 (2011), 223–56. 17

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Preliminaries: Foregrounds and Backgrounds

We are always in the presence of mysticism when we find a human being looking upon the division between earthly and super-earthly, temporal and eternal, as transcended, and feeling himself, while still externally amid the earthly and temporal, to belong to the super-earthly and eternal.24

Within this, he distinguished the Christ-mysticism of Paul from the Godmysticism of John, arguing that the former does not portray the believer as united to God himself, but rather to Christ, with the experience of divine presence a mediated one. As such, there is no question of Paul’s thought involving deification. Through this alone it is clear that Hellenistic and the Pauline mysticism belong to two different worlds. Since the Hellenistic mysticism is founded on the idea of deification and the Pauline on the idea of fellowship with the divine being, it is impossible to find in the Hellenistic literature parallels for the characteristic phrases ‘with Christ’ and ‘in Christ’ which dominate the Pauline mysticism.25

This emphasis on the mediatorial function of Jesus in the union (which, pace Schweitzer, I will argue characterizes the New Testament writings broadly) is a key element of Schweitzer’s findings, and will be important to my study. But, while careful to set Paul’s Christ-mysticism apart from Hellenistic mystical thought, as well as from much of the rest of the New Testament, Schweitzer nevertheless described the union involved as leading to a certain loss of selfhood, an absorption of the individual believer into the corporate personality of Jesus. Every manifestation of the life of the baptised man is conditioned by his being in Christ. Grafted into the corporeity of Christ, he loses his creatively individual existence and his natural personality. Henceforth he is only a form or manifestation of the personality of Jesus Christ, which dominates that corporeity.26

An important dimension of this was his influential argument that this must be construed in terms of apocalyptic theology. Schweitzer was heavily influenced by Kabisch’s work on Pauline eschatology,27 which identified a straightforward ‘two-ages’ schema in Jewish apocalyptic that was carried into the New Testament. He saw Paul as expecting ‘the immediate return of Jesus, of the Judgement and of the Messianic Glory’.28 Drawing into this Wrede’s arguments concerning the place of cosmic

24

Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 1. Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 16. For further discussion of the distinctions between Pauline and Hellenistic mysticism identified by Schweitzer, see Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 37. 26 Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 125. 27 Richard Kabisch, Die Eschatologie des Paulus in ihren Zusammenhängen mit dem Gesamtbegriff des Paulinismus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1893). 28 Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 52–3. 25

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redemption in Paul,29 Schweitzer concluded that the apostle awaited an eschaton that would entail ‘the deliverance of mankind from the dominion of the powers’,30 within which the perishable world of the evil age would be transferred to the imperishable one of the new age. This transfer had begun to be realized in the resurrection, and the sufferings of believers were a realistic participation in this death and regeneration.31 This involves the transformation of believers into a new spiritual condition: ‘[T]hese Elect are in reality no longer natural men, but, like Christ Himself, are already supernatural beings, only . . . in them this is not yet manifest’.32 Two key points must be noted in relation to his apocalyptic mystical scheme. First, the eschatological reality is a corporate one. The union that exists in Christ is not with the individual, nor is the suffering of the individual the verification of that union; rather, individuals are brought into identification with his body as the church and thus lose their individual identity, participating corporately in his death in their collective suffering.33 The ‘body of Christ’ in Paul is not simply a metaphor, therefore, but a reality. Second, the apocalyptic union envisaged by Paul is at odds with traditional Judaism, but is significantly anticipated by the Jewish apocalyptic eschatologies of the period, marked by a ‘two-ages’ schema.34 Here, we encounter one of the elements of Schweitzer’s thought that lingers most problematically in current New Testament scholarship. Influenced by assumptions about the nature of Spätjudentum that were characteristic of the period, Schweitzer’s account of apocalypticism and its manifestation in Paul’s writings assumes that it is at odds with the Torah-centred ‘legalistic’ piety of the Pharisees. To be apocalyptic is to reject Torah as belonging to the evil age. In his later revitalization of Schweitzer’s work, Käsemann would inherit such a notion and, in doing so, would ensure that his own heirs, following J. Louis Martyn (discussed in ‘‘Apocalyptic’ Readings of Paul’, pp. 35–6), would operate with the assumption that Paul is essentially hostile to the Torah. Yet, as we will see in Chapter 4, the relationship of apocalyptic thought to Torah-piety is rather more complex and certainly cannot be reduced to a matter of simple rejection. Neither can such a rejection be justified by recourse to a ‘two-ages’ apocalyptic schema, since the evidence that we now have about Jewish apocalypticism reveals a much more complex and fluid schematization of time. Paul’s understanding of righteousness and redemption, then, may be more positively informed by Torah than is often assumed to be the case, even when it is identified as apocalyptic in content or emphasis. 29 30 31 32 33 34

William Wrede, Paulus (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1906). Schweitzer, Paul and His Interpreters, 167. Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 141. Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 110. Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 101–27 and 141–59. Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 26–40.

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Having identified these important elements in the pioneering German research into participation, we may now turn to consider the various developments of the later twentieth century and up to the present time. Although the various streams within this have run alongside and spilled into one another, and consequently cannot really be separated, it is helpful to consider them under a set of headings that will allow us to see where the primary currents have run.

FROM THE NEW PERSPECTIVE TO T H E O S I S AND ADAM CHRISTOLOGY

E. P. Sanders The 1977 publication of E. P. Sanders’s Paul and Palestinian Judaism,35 and the subsequent development of the so-called ‘New Perspective on Paul’, was arguably the most important of the factors leading to the resurgence of interest in participatory accounts of salvation. Challenging the assumption that Judaism was significantly and widely legalistic at the time of the composition of the New Testament, Sanders’s work called into question the validity of ‘Lutheran’36 readings of Paul, with their emphasis on the justification of the individual by faith, rather than by ‘works-righteousness’. This was not entirely out of the blue: an important antecedent to Sanders’s observations was to be found in Krister Stendahl’s seminal essay, ‘The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West’,37 which also challenged individualist readings as anachronistic projections onto Paul of modern values and psychologizing tendencies. Stendahl’s article highlighted the deficiencies in the evidence adduced for a guilt-convicted Paul, and emphasized the fundamentally ‘salvation-historical’ character of the apostle’s notion of faith. What Sanders brought to the discussion was a detailed and thorough examination of the Jewish texts that might have informed Paul’s thought, 35 E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (London: SCM Press, 1977). 36 This is the label typically used for theologies that uphold some model of justification by faith. The lack of qualification with which it is used is revealing; the faultline presented by Sanders reflects engagement with a particular kind of Lutheranism and, in certain respects, the entire debate has reflected a particular axis of Anglo-German scholarship, one in which Calvinist or Reformed theology and exegesis of the New Testament have scarcely featured. It is interesting, for example, how little engagement there has been with the work of Herman Nicolaas Ridderbos, Paul, an Outline of his Theology (trans. John Richard De Witt. London: SPCK, 1977) or, for that matter, with Calvin’s own writings. 37 Krister Stendahl, ‘The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West’, Harvard Theological Review 56 (1963), 199–215.

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from which he argued that the contemporary Judaism was not legalistic, in the sense that the word is generally used, but rather operated in terms of ‘covenantal nomism’. By this, he designated a belief in the priority of divine grace in the initiating of covenant and the place of legal observance for those graciously living under its conditions. No longer opposed to a simplistically conceived legalism, Sanders argued that Paul’s apparent negativity towards Judaism and Torah were consequential to his belief that Jesus was now the appointed way of eschatological salvation and that this requires to be explained by some notion of participation in Christ,38 though he left rather open the question of what precisely this might involve. But what does this mean? How are we to understand it? We seem to lack a category of ‘reality’—real participation in Christ, real possession of the Spirit— which lies between naive cosmological speculation and belief in magical transference on one hand and a revised self-understanding on the other. I must confess that I do not have a new category of perception to propose here. That does not mean, however, that Paul did not have one.39

In many ways, Sanders was here openly building on the work of Schweitzer, but his closer examination of the Second Temple sources—now, of course, including the wealth of material found in the Dead Sea Scrolls—as well as later rabbinic texts meant that he was much more restrained and nuanced in his understanding of how Jewish apocalyptic thought might relate to its wider religious, traditional, and intellectual context. A common theme in much of Sanders’s work is that mysticism and apocalyptic thought are diffuse elements in Judaism, not confined to distinct counter-order groups.40 Partly as a result of this, Sanders’s account takes seriously the issue of the Law—positively construed within Judaism—for Paul’s thought; hence the question of the significance of Christ is differently configured. Nevertheless, he shares with Schweitzer the conviction that forensic accounts of salvation in Paul’s theology have missed the true participatory centre of gravity.

Richard B. Hays and Michael J. Gorman Some scholars have developed Sanders’s language of participation in ways that are more knowingly theological. Richard Hays, in his important contribution to the pistis Christou debate, The Faith of Jesus Christ 41 (see ‘The Faith of Jesus 38

Perhaps the most important text for Sanders was 1 Cor 6:15, in which believers are ‘members of Christ’. 39 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 522–3. 40 See also his discussion in E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63BCE–66CE (London: SCM Press, 1992), 9–10. 41 Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ.

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Christ: Richard B. Hays Again’, pp. 31–4), takes up Sanders’s admission of ignorance and seeks to inform it in two ways. The most important of these, and the one with which Hays is primarily concerned, is the concept of ‘narrative participation’: the story of the faithful Messiah becomes the story of God’s people, with their uptake into the story made possible by his faithfulness (as an eschatological act) and their part in the story, their own faithfulness, a necessary consequence of his. This development is useful in many respects and has been influential on the scholarship of others,42 but says little of the mechanisms of participation. I will suggest in ‘The Faith of Jesus Christ: Richard B. Hays Again’ (p. 33), when we consider the debate around pistis Christou, that this is a deliberate move on Hays’s part, reflecting a nuanced theological position. In addition to this core contribution, though, Hays also suggests in passing that our understanding of Paul’s categories of participation may be informed by the study of patristic theology: My own guess is that Sanders’s insights would be supported and clarified by careful study of participation motifs in patristic theology, particularly the thought of the Eastern Fathers.43

The specific identification of the Eastern Fathers likely reflects the place of deification—what would eventually become the technical concepts of theosis and theopoesis—in their writings. Hays simply offers this as a suggestion for further research, without further development, but his speculation is taken up by Michael Gorman.44 Gorman seeks to apply the theological language of theosis broadly to the writings of Paul, arguing that the cruciform nature of the divine identity as revealed in Christ is one in which we participate in salvation: To be in Christ is to be in God. At the very least, this means that for Paul cruciformity—conformity to the crucified Christ—is really theoformity, or theosis.45

It is noteworthy that Gorman does not actually engage with the patristic writings, as Hays suggests, nor does he offer much by way of an actual definition of theosis. In his own usage, the term indicates ‘that humans become like God’.46 Theosis is ‘transformative participation in the kenotic, cruciform character of God through Spirit-enabled conformity to the incarnate, crucified, and resurrected/glorified Christ’.47

42

Notably, Douglas A. Campbell, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009). 43 Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, xxxii. The comments are particular to the introduction to the second edition. 44 Michael J. Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009). 45 Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God, 4. 46 Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God, 4–5. 47 Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God, 7.

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Gorman’s work represents a welcome attempt to offer a coherent account of Pauline theology broadly and to do so with a willingness to draw upon theological conceptuality and discussion. Nevertheless, there are some serious problems that need to be considered in relation to his adoption of terminology: both theosis and the further concept by which Gorman explicates this— kenosis—are theologically plastic terms, being used in different ways in different periods and often subject to searching critique and debate by systematic theologians. Even proponents of theosis in contemporary theology are often divided in the precise significance that they attach to the term.48 There is little engagement in Gorman’s writings with such debates, with the dogmatic critiques of theosis or with the discussions of how the doctrine should be related to historical writings.49 Consequently, Gorman seems to assume both the validity and the stability of the concept without adequate defence or definition. The danger of Platonic concepts of union smuggling themselves into the discussion without the author himself being aware of this is real,50 as is the risk of confusing patristic and Palamite theologies. This is potentially misleading, with the danger that the terminology of ‘participation’ is used in a range of ways by parties engaged in this scholarly conversation without awareness of the differences in meaning or import. A similar concern may be raised over Gorman’s use of kenosis/kenotic, which is also un-nuanced by engagement with theological scholarship.51 A second point of concern lies in Gorman’s use of identity language. A quotation will help to illustrate the issue: If, in fact, the human response of obedience/faith is co-crucifixion with (and indeed mutual indwelling with) the faithful and loving Jesus, who is in turn the revelation of God’s own fidelity, love and holiness, then is it not the case that obedience is inherently a participation in the being—or at least the narrative identity (which implies of course the essence)—of God.52

The language used here by Gorman would be troubling to many theologians, and not just those of the Western tradition. As we will see in Chapter 2, Christian theology has typically been sensitive to the need to maintain the

48 See, for example, the differences between Lossky and Zizioulas identified by Aristotle Papanikolaou, Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine–Human Communion (Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006). 49 Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God, 92–3, engages briefly with John Webster, Holiness (London: SCM Press, 2003) on the notion of ‘alien righteousness’, but there is little beyond this by way of an acknowledgement of the concerns about theosis among Western theologians. 50 This is not to rule out the potential value of Platonism for theology, but to stress the need for any such conceptuality to be used knowingly. 51 E.g. the recent collection of essays in C. Stephen Evans (ed.), Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) and the critical reflections on this provided by Ivor Davidson in his review in Ars Disputandi 7 (2007). 52 Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God, 93.

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essential distinction between God and the world. Advocates of theosis are generally careful to safeguard the uniqueness of the divine essence. By including believers within the divine identity in the way that Gorman does, the essential uniqueness of God is fundamentally compromised, a consequence of which the author himself appears to be unaware. As well as being problematic for the constructive theological account that Gorman is pursuing, this confusion is problematic in relation to the monotheistic dimension of Judaism arguably maintained in the New Testament.53 This does not mean that Gorman is wrong, of course, but he seems unaware of the potential problems associated with his language. It is one thing, as we will see in the next chapter, to speak of ‘likeness’; it is another to speak of incorporation into the divine identity. This observation allows us to distil one of the key issues that will be at stake in our reflections: if the New Testament does, indeed, have a theology of participation, how does this relate to the concerns of monotheism and the uniqueness of God? Where and how, in other words, is the distinction of Creator and creature maintained in the participatory accounts of the New Testament, if at all? Such questions, if not entirely neglected, are at least underdetermined by Gorman.54

James D. G. Dunn While the trajectory of the New Perspective has led in the direction of theosis for some, for others it has led in the direction of a particular kind of Spirit Christology, linked in turn to an Adam Christology. James D. G. Dunn is perhaps the most notable proponent of this and his work constitutes a major contribution to the study of union with Christ/participation in New Testament scholarship.55 One of the challenges posed by Dunn’s work is the extent to which it is diffused through a massive range of publications, covering a range of issues, from Christology and pneumatology to soteriology and ethics. Nevertheless, amidst this broad corpus of work, a set of themes and ideas recur. 53 Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Grand Rapids; Carlisle: Eerdmans; Paternoster, 1999). 54 Gorman is not alone in seeking to read Paul in terms of theosis. Stephen Finlan has also attempted such an approach. See Stephen Finlan, ‘Can We Speak of Theosis in Paul?’, in Michael Christensen and Jeffrey Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 68–80. 55 Dunn has developed this work in a huge number of books and articles over his lengthy career. Of distinctive importance are the following: Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (2nd edn. London: SCM Press, 1989), 98–128; The Theology of Paul the Apostle (2nd edn. London; New York: T & T Clark, 2003), esp. 200–4, 241–4.

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In particular, it is clear that Dunn understands the ‘divinity’ of Jesus to be constituted by the Spirit,56 and only later ascribed personal autonomy in the development of christological thought. This naturally raises the question as to how appropriate it is to speak of a Trinity rather than a Binity. Before the incarnation Logos and Spirit were hardly to be distinguished. After incarnation, the divinity of Jesus was a function of the Spirit. And after the resurrection the risen humanity of Jesus was a function of the Spirit.57

In speaking in such terms of the relationship between Christ and the Spirit, Dunn does not simply identify the two: he makes the Spirit that which is divine in Christ. Following the resurrection, though, the humanity of Jesus transforms the experience of the Spirit: Christ has become Spirit, Christ is now experienced as Spirit—that is true. But it is only because the Spirit is now experienced as Christ that the experience of the Spirit is valid and essential for Paul.58

The experience of the Spirit enjoyed by followers of Jesus is analogous to his own, so that just as he was divinized, so too are they. Dunn understands this in relation to the Adamic humanity of Jesus: this glorification represents a recovery of the commission, role, and splendour of Adam, so that the earliest Christology is an Adam Christology. Paul’s soteriology is an Adamic soteriology and the work of the Spirit is intended to restore true humanity in Adamic terms.59 For Dunn, as we will see in greater depth in Chapter 5, much of the Pauline corpus that makes no specific reference to Adam is nevertheless saturated with Adamic symbolism, and in many regards this is true of other parts of the New Testament. Dunn maintains his approach on the grounds not only of the examination of specific passages, but also on the interpretation of these against a particular background, that of the putative ‘glorious Adam’ myth of early Judaism. It is by detecting echoes of this myth in specific passages that he maintains his case for a thoroughgoing Adam Christology and soteriology. Granted that this is the case, an important part of our study will be an evaluation of the evidence for this myth and a reflection on its relevance for our understanding of the New Testament material. My own challenges to this, however,60 should not be 56 E.g. James D. G. Dunn, The Christ and the Spirit: Collected Essays of James D. G. Dunn (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998), 126–53, esp. 143. 57 Dunn, ‘Rediscovering the Spirit’, Expository Times 84 (1972), 12. 58 James D. G. Dunn, ‘1 Corinthians 15:45—Last Adam, Life-Giving Spirit’, in Barnabas Lindars and Stephen S. Smalley (eds), Christ and Spirit in the New Testament: Edited by Barnabas Lindars and Stephen S. Smalley in Honour of Charles Francis Digby Moule (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 127–41. Quotation on 141. 59 See, e.g., Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 79–101, 281–92, 390–412. 60 See Chapter 5.

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seen as a thoroughgoing rejection of Dunn’s work: more positive echoes of his research will reverberate throughout my own, despite a number of concerns being voiced.

N. T. Wright One final voice must be mentioned in the context of the New Perspective, that of N. T. Wright. Wright’s classic work on Paul, The Climax of the Covenant,61 seeks to take seriously the covenantal dimension of Paul’s thought, with this emphasis continuing to influence his later commentary on Romans. The narrative substructure of the apostle’s thought is shaped by the story of Israel, centred on the covenant, and the new reality of Christ is an outworking of that story. Such an emphasis runs deliberately counter to the anti-covenantal emphasis of much New Testament scholarship, particularly those following the contributions of Ernst Käsemann. Within Wright’s account, the Pauline concept of participation is governed by that of covenant: to be ‘in Christ’ is to be in the covenant community, the nature and status of which is determined decisively by Jesus’s representative work as the true Israel and by his faithfulness in such a capacity. The story of Israel, moreover, is part of an overarching biblical narrative that moves from creation to Fall to salvation, meaning that the story of Israel is understood in relation to Adam and that the Adamic elements in Paul’s theology cannot be separated from the presentation of Jesus, and his people, as the true Israel. Participation is, then, a rather more specified concept than it is in Sanders, shaped by notions of covenant representation and corporate solidarity. It is striking that in Wright’s subsequent contributions62 he has sought to provide an integrated account of the Jesus movement, from its birth in Galilee through early tradition and into the developed theology of the New Testament writers, that is consistent with this account of covenant participation. A key element within this is his claim that ‘Exile and Return’ are dominant motifs in the New Testament, traceable to the Historical Jesus. This claim has received a good deal of criticism, with many scholars considering his arguments to press the evidence for the presence of these motifs too far.63 In my own discussion, I will suggest that a nuanced concept of ‘presence’ may allow a greater degree 61 N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991). 62 N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (London: S. P. C. K., 1992) and Jesus and the Victory of God (London: S. P. C. K., 1996). 63 See the collection of studies in Carey C. Newman (ed.), Jesus & the Restoration of Israel: A Critical Assessment of N. T. Wright’s ‘Jesus and the Victory of God’ (Downers Grove, IL; Carlisle: InterVarsity Press; Paternoster Press, 1999).

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of flexibility and may be better able to accommodate the elements of New Testament imagery. Nevertheless, it should be noted that Wright’s identification of covenant theology in the New Testament is promising and facilitates an understanding of the identification of the one and the many within the story of Scripture, without losing sight of the particularity of each. One specific outworking of Wright’s covenantal account and his analysis of the teaching of Jesus is his claim that the ‘Son of Man coming with the clouds’ in Mark 13:26 (and parallels) is a corporate image for the vindicated people of God, following the resurrection.64 The grounds for such a claim lie in the Danielic background to this image, which, he claims, uses the Son of Man as a symbol for Israel and would have been understood in such terms by any firstcentury Jew. This claim is not unique to Wright65 but he has made more of its corporate dimensions than have others. The reading of Daniel is, however, problematic and there is no evidence that Jews did indeed read it that way until much later.66

THE FAITH OF JESUS CHRIST: RICHARD B. HAYS AGA IN In 1983 Richard B. Hays published his doctoral dissertation as The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Sub-Structure of Galatians 3:1–4:11,67 in which he argued that the genitive construction that links ‘faith/faithfulness’ to the name ‘(Jesus) Christ’ in several places, notably Gal 3:22, should be understood as subjective; that is, Jesus is the agent of the faith act, the one being faithful, not the object of faith, the one in whom belief is placed. Hays was not the first to advance such an interpretation: it had been proposed already by Johannes Haussleiter in 1891,68 and developed by Gerhard Kittel69 and, in Anglophone circles, by Gabriel Hebert70 and then Markus Barth.71 T. F. Torrance saw the

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Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 280–338; Jesus and the Victory of God, 510–19. 65 Wright draws on Caird’s work, eventually released as Caird and Hurst, New Testament Theology. See, esp., 377. 66 John J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Hermeneia: Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 274–324. Concerning Jewish readings, see his comments on 308. 67 Now republished with a new introduction. Subsequent references will be to the second edition, as it contains some key new material in the introduction. 68 Johannes Haussleiter, ‘Der Glaube Jesu Christi und der christliche Glaube: Ein Beitrag zur Erklärung des Römerbriefes’, Neue kirkliche Zeitschrift 2 (1891), 192–4. 69 Gerhard Kittel, ‘—ØØ  Å ı æØ ı bei Paulus’, Theologische Studien und Kritiken 79 (1906), 419–39. 70 Gabriel Hebert, ‘ “Faithfulness” and “Faith” ’, Theology 58 (1955), 373. 71 Marcus Barth, ‘The Faith of the Messiah’, Heythrop Journal 10 (1969), 363–70.

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theological significance of Hebert’s arguments, in particular, and pressed the interpretation into the service of his anti-contractual theological schema,72 subsequently (and with some justification) falling foul of the sharp critique of James Barr for making dubious semantic distinctions between Greek and Hebrew thought.73 But, as important as these debates were, it was with Hays’s study that the subjective reading reached real prominence in biblical studies. The remarkable effect that his doctoral dissertation had reflects its methodological rigour and capacity to explain the narrative logic of Galatians in relation to its Scriptural background. For Hays, the key to understanding the phrase is not just lexical or grammatical, but narratival. He marshals an impressive complex of arguments that brings together literary theory, philosophy, and grammatical analysis with the exegesis of Galatians 3:1–4:11, in order to argue that there is an underlying narrative at work, within which Jesus is presented as the ‘agent of redemption’,74 whose representative activity brings about the fulfilment of the promises made to Abraham. Hays seems reluctant to speak of this story in terms of ‘covenant’, driven away from this by the fact that the term ØÆŁ ŒÅ does not appear until rather late in the epistle (in 3:15), and by the fact that he elsewhere develops the language of Ø without reference to covenant.75 ‘In no case does Paul bring the concepts of Ø and ØÆŁ ŒÅ into explicit relation with one another.’76 While Hays makes this statement as part of a successful refutation of Greer M. Taylor’s claim that the argument of Galatians is juristic in character (specifically, in Graeco-Roman terms), I will suggest that there is no warrant for such a wedge to be driven between the two words. To speak of the Abrahamic promises is to speak of a covenant narrative. Once it is recognized that Paul portrays Jesus as the one whose obedience under the law is decisive for the destiny of those who will come after him, the subjective reading becomes the obvious sense of the phrase. Moreover, this prompts a reconsideration of the notion of justification: is it ‘by faith in Jesus’ or by participation in the ‘the faith of Jesus’? For Hays, it is the latter: the story of Jesus’s faith absorbs the world. This, however, does not mean that the human activity of faith is insignificant: It does mean, however, that ‘faith’ is not the precondition for receiving God’s blessing; instead, it is the appropriate mode of response to a blessing already given 72 Thomas F. Torrance, ‘One Aspect of the Biblical Conception of Faith’, Expository Times 68 (1957), 111–14. 73 James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), 188. 74 Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, 178–80. 75 Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, 184–7. He develops these arguments as part of a solid critique of Greer M. Taylor, ‘Function of Pistis Christou in Galatians’, Journal of Biblical Literature 85 (1966), 58–76. 76 Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, 187.

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in Christ. As such, it is also the mode of participation in the pattern enacted in Jesus Christ: as we respond in faith, we participate in an ongoing reenactment of Christ’s faithfulness.77

Prior to the publication of Hays’s dissertation, this emphasis on narrative substructure (now well established in New Testament studies) had been rare. Hays has always acknowledged that his own radical adoption of a narrative approach was influenced by the theology of Karl Barth, mediated in part by Hans Frei.78 From these scholars, Hays receives an understanding of theology that is deeply sensitive to the importance of the story of Israel in shaping the identity of Jesus Christ, and his configuration of the relationship of the believer’s faith to that of Christ is formulated in terms that reflect this. Given Hays’s own role in mediating such theology to the field of biblical studies, we must, in Chapter 3, consider Barth’s account of union with Christ in more detail, as a preliminary to our own study of Paul and the rest of the New Testament. A substantial debate has followed the publication of Hays’s book, proceeding on lexical and syntactic grounds, as well as on broader conceptual or narratival ones.79 Interestingly, despite the German origins of the debate in modern times, it has largely been confined to Anglophone scholarship, a fact that Dunn sees as reflecting a continued Lutheran ‘suspicion’ of accounts that minimize the place of justification by faith.80 The contributions of specialist language scholars have been fairly uniform in their support for the traditional objective reading,81 though the forcefulness of their claims has varied from the cautious to the rather more strident.82 In basic agreement with such findings, 77

Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, 211. Hans W. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974) and The Identity of Jesus Christ: The Hermeneutical Bases of Dogmatic Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975). Hays acknowledges these influences in the preface to the 2nd edition of Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, xxiv–xxv. 79 For a good overview, see the various discussions in Michael F. Bird and Preston M. Sprinkle, The Faith of Jesus Christ: Exegetical, Biblical, and Theological Studies (Peabody, Mass; Milton Keynes: Hendrickson; Paternoster, 2009). 80 The confinement to English is also noted by Klaus Haacker, Der Brief des Paulus an die Römer (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1999). 81 Porter and Pitts conclude: ‘The use of Ø as a head term with a prepositional specifier, without an intervening article and followed by an element in the genitive, provides further evidence that, at least from a linguistic standpoint, when Paul used the phrase he was indicating that Christ was the proper object of faith.’ See Stanley E. Porter and Andrew Pitts, ‘—Ø with a Preposition and Genitive Modifier: Lexical, Semantic and Syntactic Considerations in the —Ø æØ F Debate’, in Michael F. Bird and Preston M. Sprinkle (eds), The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Pistis Christou Debate (Milton Keynes; Peabody: Paternoster; Hendrickson, 2009), 53. 82 Porter and Pitts, ‘—Ø with a Preposition’, exemplify the former. The latter is exemplified by R. Barry Matlock, ‘Detheologizing the Pistis Christou Debate: Cautionary Remarks from a Lexical Semantic Perspective’, Novum Testamentum 42 (2000), 1–23, and ‘Pistis in Galatians 3.26: Neglected Evidence for “Faith in Christ”?’, New Testament Studies 49 (2003), 433–9. 78

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Francis Watson’s detailed study of Paul’s view of faith, which also pays attention to the way in which the apostle appears to read Scripture, draws attention to the role of Habakkuk 2:4 within a schema of antithesis between ‘by (KŒ) the works of the law’ and ‘by faith in/of Jesus Christ’. Noting other contrasts with law, and challenging a Messianic reading of Habakkuk (on the grounds of a lack of attestation elsewhere), Watson argues that only the objective genitive can be sustained. Interestingly, in supporting this more traditional reading, Watson makes a rather less traditional move, arguing that Paul reads the Torah as containing a tension between law and faith and that his doctrine of justification by faith emerges from this hermeneutical pressure.83 The debate continues, with Douglas Campbell, notably, marshalling further support for Hays’s reading, particularly in relation to the occurrence of parallel phrases in Romans.84 We will return to this in our study of Paul, and to Campbell in greater detail in ‘‘Apocalyptic’ Readings of Paul’ (pp. 37–8); at this point, what matters is that, regardless of whether or not Hays is correct, the debate has sparked a renewed interest in the range of ways by which Paul seems to present salvation as involving narratival participation in Jesus, and his faith but has, in its own way, reinforced the perception that one must choose between an account of soteriology that holds to justification by faith and one built on participation.

‘ APOCALYPTIC’ READINGS OF PAUL Alongside this, and ultimately fusing with it, is a line of scholarship on Paul generally traced back to the work of Ernst Käsemann. In an influential lecture delivered in Oxford in 1961 and subsequently published in German and English,85 Käsemann argued that the genitive construction ØŒÆØ Å Ł F, encountered at numerous points in Romans, should be understood as subjective: this righteousness is a property of God, a ‘salvation-creating power’ that ‘reaches out for the world’.86 Crucially, this power is an eschatological one associated with ‘apocalyptic’ thought. Käsemann saw parallels in the Thanksgiving Hymns (Hodayot) of Qumran, which testified to the construction being used in ‘apocalyptic’ literature with a technical significance that influenced Paul. Importantly, Käsemann saw this apocalyptic thought as 83

Francis Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2004). Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 601–38. 85 Published in Ernst Käsemann, ‘Gottesgerechtigkeit bei Paulus’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 58 (1961), 367–78. Translated as ‘ “The Righteousness of God” in Paul’, in Ernst Käsemann, New Testament Questions Today (trans. W. J. Montague. London: SCM Press, 1969), 168–82. 86 Käsemann, New Testament Questions Today, 181–2. 84

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counter-traditional, or counter-legal, representing a different view of salvation to that encountered elsewhere in Judaism. This view would underpin his arguments in the commentary on Romans that he subsequently published.87 His argument is nicely captured by Campbell: Käsemann emphasized through this set of reconstruals the sovereignty of God, the unconditional nature of the divine action within the world, the robust ethical commitment of God’s resulting community called into being by the Christ event and the reality of eschatology, in relation both to God’s present divine intervention and to the coming consummation.88

Following the initial flurry of hostility (from Bultmann89) and support (from Müller and Stuhlmacher,90 who argued further the apocalyptic basis of the phrase), Käsemann’s proposal became a more widely accepted understanding of this phrase in Paul, albeit one still debated.91 It is worth noting that his argument was influenced by a concern about a particular species of liberalism in German theology—the same concern, in fact, that drove Barth. The answer to such human-oriented theologies was to emphasize the absolute priority of unconditional divine action. For Käsemann, as a New Testament scholar, such a theology was evident in Paul. Käsemann’s work had a major impact on Pauline scholarship, but of particular significance was the work of J. Louis Martyn.92 Drawing on Käsemann’s findings, Martyn spoke of Paul’s gospel as fundamentally ‘apocalyptic’: a new age has commenced with the reality that has been disclosed to Paul, the unconditional divine grace revealed in the Christ event; in the light of this, the apostle retrospectively reconstrues his heritage within Judaism. Martyn’s account of Paul’s gospel is essentially ‘dramatic’, involving cosmic conflict between light and dark. Paul now sees that Christ has redeemed his followers from an evil dominion of spiritual powers, within which the Law operated to provide a myth of self-worked salvation, one species of the ‘religion’ to which the apocalyptic truth of Jesus is opposed. The fundamental struggle is between faith in what has been revealed and the temptation to retreat to that ‘strangely comfortable’93 reality of religion.

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Ernst Käsemann, An die Römer (Tübingen: Mohr, 1973). Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 189. 89 Rudolf Bultmann, ‘˜ØŒÆØ Å ¨ F’, Journal of Biblical Literature 83 (1964), 12–16. 90 Christian Müller, Gottes Gerechtigkeit und Gottes Volk: eine Untersuchung zu Römer 9–11 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964), Peter Stuhlmacher, Gerechtigkeit Gottes bei Paulus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965). 91 See Richard B. Hays, The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 51, note 7. 92 Primarily J. Louis Martyn, Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (The Anchor Bible: 33a: New York; London: Doubleday, 1997), but see also Theological Issues in the Letters of Paul (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997). 93 I borrow here Douglas Campbell’s phrase (The Deliverance of God, 190). 88

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Martyn’s use of the word ‘apocalyptic’ is primarily governed by Paul’s own references to the revelation made known to him, rather than by the genre designated by the term, but his basic ‘two-age’ schema and his opposing of apocalyptic and Torah are reminiscent of Schweitzer and Käsemann. His use of the label ‘apocalyptic’ is revealing, suggesting that their assumptions have been carried into his theology. Indeed, one of the criticisms brought against his approach is the failure to relate his reading to recent scholarship on apocalyptic thought in Judaism.94 Martinus de Boer has sought to address this deficiency, arguing that Paul’s thought draws on a particular sub-category of cosmological apocalypses that are developed without legal referent, notably the Book of the Watchers. But his arguments fail to acknowledge the evidence that such works are, in fact, legally and covenantally influenced and have a rather more complex eschatological scenario than the ‘two ages’ schema allows.95 This will be an important set of issues to explore further in Chapter 4. This handling of apocalyptic means that, while Martyn and de Boer agree with Hays on the revelatory and eschatological dimension of ‘the Christevent’, they differ fundamentally on the relationship of this to the story of Israel. As well as reflecting the influence of previous biblical scholarship, I would suggest that this reflects the influence of theological scholarship and the lines by which this is brought to bear on the biblical scholarly task. Barth’s influence on Martyn is acknowledged,96 but is probably significantly mediated by Käsemann; consequently, it is worked out quite differently in Martyn’s thesis than in Hays’s, where the importance of Israel to the identity of Christ is maintained. The latter arguably reflects a more thoroughgoing understanding of Barth’s theology, particularly as brokered by Frei and Childs. Recognizing this theological influence helps cast light on the rising popularity of the ‘apocalyptic’ approach to Paul among a number of theologians, who have sought to develop apocalyptic theologies, often with explicit reference to Martyn.97 It perhaps also suggests avenues by which the validity of these may be explored and critiqued. 94 See R. Barry Matlock, Unveiling the Apocalyptic Paul: Paul’s Interpreters and the Rhetoric of Criticism (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), esp. 313–15. While pre-dating Martyn’s Galatians commentary, Matlock makes observations that are significant to its evaluation. 95 Martinus de Boer, Galatians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011), 31–5. Against this, see Lars Hartman, Asking for a Meaning: A Study of 1 Enoch 1–5 (Lund: Gleerup, 1979). See also Richard Bauckham, ‘Apocalypses’, in D. A. Carson and Mark Seifrid (eds), Justification and Variegated Nomism Volume 1: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism (Tübingen; Grand Rapids: Mohr Siebeck; Baker Academic, 2001), 135–87, and my own ‘Priestly Purity, Mosaic Torah and the Emergence of Enochic Judaism’, Henoch 29 (2007), 67–89. We will discuss this matter further in Chapter 4. 96 Bruce McCormack, ‘Justification by Faith’, Galatians and Christian Theology conference (University of St Andrews, 2012). 97 Douglas K. Harink, Paul among the Postliberals: Pauline Theology Beyond Christendom and Modernity (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2003). See now, too, the collection of essays in J. B. Davis and D. Harink (eds), Apocalyptic and the Future of Theology: With and Beyond J. Louis Martyn

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Within New Testament scholarship, Martyn’s work has recently left a particular mark on the work of Douglas Campbell, whose recent massive study of Paul represents a sustained attack on paradigms that draw in any sense upon the model of justification by faith.98 Campbell openly draws upon Martyn’s approach, designating his own re-reading of Romans as ‘apocalyptic’ and setting it against both traditional ‘justification by faith’ readings of Paul and the New Perspective. The most controversial element of this has been his argument that much of the legal or forensic material in Romans 1:18–3:20 is not, in fact, reflective of Paul’s own thought, but rather that of an opponent, whose teaching is quoted and mocked by Paul for rhetorical effect, using the device of speech-in-character (prosopopoeia). This claim has proved unconvincing,99 but the controversy around it has allowed the deeper theological issues that Campbell raises to be overlooked somewhat. Campbell devotes a significant portion of the book to exposing the basic logic of the justification by faith model and then critiquing that logic,100 before arguing that this underlying framework has distorted the various scholarly interpretations of Paul through the modern period. While space will not allow us to explore that critique in full here, two of the elements that Campbell identifies in the logic of justification by faith may be singled out. First, he asserts that the model ‘argues two incompatible epistemologies: a general, atemporal, philosophical and rational conception of knowledge . . . and a particular historical, revelatory and interpersonal conception—notably, the witness of Scripture, but also the voice of God’.101 This leads to an observation about the place of natural revelation in the model, the ‘objective discernment and linkage of certain propositions within creation’.102 Second, he argues that ‘the theory presupposes in humans an inherent ability to deduce and appropriately act on the truth of certain axioms and, at the same time, a profound universal sinfulness’.103 One of the difficulties here is that Campbell’s model of justification is developed in abstraction and isolation from any actual theologian and his model does not actually correspond to the way in which given theologians deal with the issue of justification by faith. These two points are, for example, quite at odds with Calvin who, as we will see in Chapter 3, is very sensitive to the noetic effects of sin—the inclusion of the mind in the totality of

(Eugene, Or.: Cascade Books, 2012). Although Martyn’s influence is scarcely acknowledged, it is clear also in Nathan R. Kerr, Christ, History and Apocalyptic: The Politics of Christian Mission (Eugene, Or.: Cascade Books, 2009). 98 Campbell, The Deliverance of God. For a detailed summary and review, see Grant Macaskill, ‘Review Article: The Deliverance of God’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 34 (2011), 150–61. 99 See Macaskill, ‘Review Article: The Deliverance of God’, 159–60. 100 Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 36–95. 101 Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 168. 102 Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 168. 103 Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 168.

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human depravity—and recognizes the need for the priority of gracious revelation and to the place of the Spirit in the economy of salvation. It is clear that Campbell is overly reliant on a slender body of theological study with a particular focus104 and, as a consequence, fails to appreciate the way in which Calvin (followed by many in the Reformed tradition) offered an account of salvation that was participatory at the same time as being committed to justification by faith. The problem of this analysis colours much that follows, for it provides the framework and context of Campbell’s reading of Pauline scholarship, as he argues that the legacy of the different forms of justification by faith have determined the modern readings of Paul. Again, then, the shape of Campbell’s study requires us to engage with the actual theologians associated with accounts of justification by faith.

CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL The last study to be considered here is that of Constantine Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ.105 We come to it last, partly because of its recent publication and partly because, as the first study to be explicitly devoted to union with Christ in Paul, it should be of some significance in years to come. Constantine Campbell’s106 study involves a detailed examination of the various grammatical constructions in Paul that appear to indicate some kind of participation in Christ, as well as the various participatory images. Much of the book is quite technical, drawing on the author’s expertise in the study of Koinē Greek, and is consequently rather difficult to summarize here. Such material will surface in our own study of Paul, but we can note one major finding that emerges from it: against the findings of the German pioneers studied at the beginning of this chapter, he argues that K æØfiH is not a formula with a fixed theological meaning but is, rather, a plastic prepositional phrase governed locally by the usual constraints of context. In some places, for example, the phrase must be understood as locative, while in others it is instrumental. What this means is that the author is highly sensitive to the

104 This material will be discussed further in Chapter 3. The following works are mentioned by Campbell: James B. Torrance, ‘Covenant or Contract?: A Study of the Theological Background of Worship in Seventeenth-Century Scotland’, Scottish Journal of Theology 23 (1970), 51–76; James B. Torrance, ‘The Contribution of McLeod Campbell to Scottish Thelogy’, Scottish Journal of Theology 26 (1973), 295–311. There is no engagement with the critical literature on this, listed by Michael S. Horton, Covenant and Salvation: Union with Christ (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 3–4, note 6. 105 Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study. 106 To avoid confusion with Douglas Campbell, I will use this form to designate the author throughout this chapter.

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range of associations that the phrase has and does not press these into a particular scheme. In fact, K æØfiH has a range of usage determined by the elasticity of the preposition K, and close exegesis of the phrase in context demonstrates this, as we will see in chapter 3. Consequently, it is best to abandon the term formula when referring to the phrase K æØfiH; it is misleading at best. Strictly speaking, K æØfiH is a prepositional phrase, and there is no reason not to label it such. Paul’s fondness of the phrase, however, suggests that it might also be described as an idiom. Its frequency indicates that it is not an accidental combination of preposition and proper name, and yet it does not convey a fixed meaning every time it occurs. Idiom usefully captures these nuances. Thus, K æØfiH is a frequent Pauline idiomatic expression with flexible usage.107

This also undergirds his major conclusions regarding the place of participation in Paul’s thought, which are worth quoting at length from the outline form that he provides in his introductory chapter: First, the term ‘union with Christ’ is deemed insufficient to convey all that Paul includes in the theme. Indeed, other terms such as ‘participation’ and ‘mysticism’ are likewise insufficient. To do justice to the full spectrum of Paul’s thought and language, the terms union, participation, identification, incorporation are adopted, in place of previous terminology . . . Second, certain conceptual antecedents that give rise to Paul’s meta-theme of union, participation, identification, incorporation can be found in Jewish theology and the Old Testament, but most profoundly in the words of Jesus, beginning with his words to Paul on the Damascus road. While such antecedents inform Paul’s thinking, his conception remains boldly original in its language, scope, and pervasiveness. Third, the meta-theme of union, participation, identification, incorporation is regarded to be of utmost importance to Paul, yet does not occupy the ‘centre’ of his theological framework. It is, rather, the essential ingredient that binds all other elements together.108

Although the second conclusion is significant, and links Constantine Campbell’s findings to those of other scholars who have emphasized the place of the Damascus Road experience for Paul’s own ‘mysticism’, it is the first and third conclusions that are particularly important for us to consider at this point. By describing union with Christ as a binding ingredient, itself internally multifaceted, the author stresses the importance of the theme to Paul’s thought while also relating it—and in certain regards, subordinating it—to other

107 108

Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 26. Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 29–30.

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theological elements which Paul has derived from his own Scriptural heritage as well as from his revelatory encounter(s) with Jesus.

CONCLUSIONS A number of key observations emerge from this review of the literature on participatory accounts of salvation in Paul. First, apart from the early contributions of Deissmann, Schweitzer, Bousset, and Wrede—which themselves are now vulnerable to criticisms in terms of their understanding of Jewish mysticism and Hellenistic influence—there has been little effort to relate the various writings of the New Testament to one another, meaning that important contextual discussion has been neglected. This book is intended to fill that gap. Second, participation or union with Christ is sometimes effectively treated as a particular alternative within atonement theory, usually set against justification by faith, rather than being treated as a topic in its own right. While this appropriately reflects the soteriological orientation of union/participation, embedding it in a relevant theological context, it means that the focus of the discussion and the questions brought to the study of the topic are not necessarily dictated by the subject matter itself, but by related debates (such as those concerning genitive constructions). These debates must inevitably be part of our own discussion but, in our case, the focus will be firmly on the nature of the union envisaged between God and human beings. Third, the complex vocabularies of ‘mysticism’ and ‘apocalyptic’ have been prominent in the discussion, but in ways that are not necessarily helpful. These sets of vocabularies—by which I mean the words themselves and their various cognate adjectives and nouns—relate the New Testament doctrines to cultural or conceptual parallels. But while the scholarship on those parallels may have progressed to new paradigms and understandings, this is not always reflected in research on the New Testament, in which traditions concerning, for example, the tension between apocalyptic and covenant, are handed down and institutionalized. Given the developments in scholarship on Jewish mysticism since the 1950s, this tendency requires to be challenged. The background study of Chapter 4 will lay important foundations for our own reading of the New Testament evidence and will challenge some of the assumptions that operate in the field. Fourth, most scholars have recognized the distinctive Christocentrism of Pauline mysticism. In the case of the early German research, this was contrasted with Johannine mysticism, which was seen as ‘God-mysticism’ and, hence, much closer to Hellenistic notions of deification. This reading of John is one that will be challenged in the present study, but what is important to

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recognize at this stage is the broad awareness of the role of Christ as the focus of union in Pauline scholarship. Fifth, the formal connections between being in Christ and being in the Spirit (and having Christ and/or the Spirit indwelling the individual) are also prominent in the discussion. The significance of this in relation to incarnational theology must be recognized: whether in terms of Dunn’s Adam Christology or the various discussions of the person of Jesus in the pioneering German scholarship, emerging as it did alongside the Lives of Jesus movement, the notion that the divinity of Jesus is constituted by (or reducible to) the presence of the Spirit is a prominent one. This will require an attentiveness throughout our discussion of the New Testament to the identification and differentiation of the Spirit and Jesus and to the role played by each in the union of the Christian with God. Sixth, some have developed their participatory accounts with reference to Adam traditions in Judaism. In the case of Dunn, this thoroughly shapes his Christology, which in turn underpins his treatment of Christian participation. Any evaluation of such accounts must be clear as to the extent and significance of the pre-Christian Adam traditions, particularly those that speak of Adamic glory. Chapter 5 will be devoted to such a discussion. Finally, there is a clear and growing recognition that biblical scholars need to engage with theological traditions. Richard Hays has noted the potential of the Eastern Fathers to help conceptualize participation in the New Testament. This suggestion will be followed through in the next chapter, along with an examination of the modern theologies of theosis that bear upon Gorman’s use of the term. Others, such as Douglas Campbell, have highlighted the modern theological influence on biblical analysis. While his own analysis of this is questionable, the basic point highlighted is valid. As we have seen, one prominent influence on current participatory study of the New Testament is that of Karl Barth. Some discussion of the Lutheran and Reformed traditions criticized by Campbell and the Barthian account that informs the apocalyptic approach more broadly must, then, be undertaken. This discussion will be developed in Chapter 3.

2 Participation and Union with Christ in the Patristic Tradition and Modern Orthodox Theology We saw in Chapter 1 that a number of biblical scholars have recognized the necessity of systematic and historical theological discussion to the task of understanding the New Testament teaching on ‘participation’. This is not a matter of secondary reflection, to be undertaken once the New Testament has been properly read in its historical context, but a matter of primary analysis, contributing to the understanding of the New Testament itself. This chapter and the next will take that recognition seriously, engaging with historical and, to a lesser extent, systematic theology, with a view to laying some foundations for our study of the New Testament. Primarily, in this chapter, we will pursue Richard Hays’s suggestion that an examination of the Eastern Fathers could provide resources by which we may better understand the New Testament teaching on participation. While not confined to the Eastern Fathers, our study will be primarily focused upon them, with the intention to isolate some of the key points that have emerged in recent scholarship, particularly the magisterial treatment of deification in the Greek patristic traditions by Russell.1 The study will highlight the care with which Hellenistic concepts of participation, particularly those of Platonism, are handled by the Fathers and synthesized with biblical imagery and language. This is a vital issue for us to grasp, as it significantly determines what we mean by ‘participation’: do we speak of a sharing in God’s being by some kind of analogy or idealism, or of communion with a presence that remains radically alien? Or, are there different senses of participation that draw upon each of these options and perhaps combine them in a given account? The faultlines associated with these distinctions generate disputes in both biblical and theological scholarship. In biblical studies, for example, some have 1 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2004.

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argued that Paul’s thought is essentially Platonic and that this element of his theology is simply made more explicit in the patristic period;2 others vigorously resist such an account of Paul, often by arguing that Platonic elements in the patristic writings are a departure from the apostle’s thought, caused by unwitting assimilation of biblical ideas to Hellenistic philosophy.3 In theological scholarship, some within the Radical Orthodoxy movement have championed the recovery of a Platonic notion of participation, mediated by Aquinas’s treatment of analogy, in an attempt to break down the sacred– secular division. While maintaining the otherness of God, these scholars are nevertheless critical of the theologies of, for example, Calvin and Barth, for their failure to endorse a Thomistic understanding of analogical participation.4 Importantly, they see this as a betrayal of patristic tradition and, beyond this, of the Bible itself, claiming fellowship with modern Eastern Orthodox accounts in support of this. Those within the Reformed tradition, meanwhile, maintain the need to distinguish true participation as ‘communion’ from Platonic concepts of participation.5 What our study of the Greek Fathers will highlight is that they openly reject pagan notions of deification, broadly avoiding the language of apotheosis, and where they draw upon the philosophical concept of theosis, they do so in relation to the controlling metaphor of filiation, or sonship, which is a relational concept. Platonic elements are certainly encountered in the Fathers, but they are firmly subordinated to this driving theme of filiation, which is in turn embedded in ecclesiology and sacramental theology. This is pertinent to our evaluation of the language of theosis as it has begun to establish itself in New Testament scholarship. Such language positions the readings of Gorman and others in relation to modern Eastern Orthodox theology, but does it accurately describe what we encounter in the New Testament, or even in the early Fathers? In order to answer this question, and to frame our examination of the Fathers, it is helpful to begin our study with a discussion of the modern treatments of theosis before turning back to examine the patristic treatments.

2 Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). 3 See N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (London: SPCK, 2003), 355. 4 John Milbank, ‘Alternative Protestantism: Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition’, in James K. A. Smith and James H. Olthuis (eds), Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 25–41. 5 An example is Alan J. Torrance, Persons in Communion: An Essay on Trinitarian Description and Human Participation: With Special Reference to Volume One of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996). Specifically in relation to public ethics, see his ‘On Deriving “Ought” from “Is”: Christology, Covenant and Koinonia’, in Alan J. Torrance and Michael Banner (eds), The Doctrine of God and Theological Ethics (New York: T & T Clark, 2006), 167–90.

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FRAMING THE DISCUSSION: THEOSIS AND DEIFICATION Recent years have seen a flourishing of interest in theosis as a doctrine most clearly associated with Eastern Orthodox thought but arguably identifiable also in Western theology. There has been much discussion of the presence of some kind of doctrine of deification in Aquinas, Anselm, Luther, Calvin, Rahner, and Barth, among others. Sometimes this is linked to the downplaying or denial of currently unfashionable doctrines, such as justification by faith, but most often it has been driven by a commendable ecumenical instinct, drawn to what is common between the various Christian traditions. We will examine these claims in a little more detail in this chapter and the next, but prior to this some methodological reflection is required, in order to avoid a kind of ‘parallelomania’ 6 skewing our findings. In a recent contribution to the discussion,7 Gösta Hallonsten has highlighted the dangers of assuming that wherever the vocabularies or ideas associated with theosis are encountered we are necessarily dealing with the doctrine. With his comments focused particularly upon the Finnish School of Luther8 and on A. N. Williams’s comparative work on theosis in Aquinas and Gregory Palamas,9 Hallonsten argues for the need to recognize that often what we are encountering is a ‘theme’ rather than a ‘doctrine’, the latter being a ‘well-defined complex of thought that centers on one or more technical terms’.10 His point is that the doctrine of theosis in Eastern Orthodox thought, particularly in its modern formulations, is a comprehensive one, embracing all aspects of the divine economy and founded on a distinctive theological anthropology derived from a particular construal of the relationship of God to creation. It is also openly developed in Platonic terms. By contrast, when we encounter words or ideas in the Western tradition that appear to speak of salvation as involving some kind of deification or divinization, we are not necessarily encountering such a doctrine but, rather, a cluster of themes that 6 In a classic essay, Samuel Sandmel used this term to highlight the dangers of overenthusiastic identification of parallels between the Bible and other literature (notably the Dead Sea Scrolls) based on the presence of shared words or ideas. See Samuel Sandmel, ‘Parallelomania’, Journal of Biblical Literature 81 (1962), 1–13. He notes (p. 1) ‘that extravagance among scholars which first overdoes the supposed similarity in passages and then proceeds to describe source and derivation as if implying literary connection flowing in an inevitable or predetermined direction’. It seems to me that a similar tendency can be seen in theological studies at present in the attempt to find commonality rather than isolating distinctions. While commendably ecumenical in instinct, this approach may be intellectually questionable. 7 Gösta Hallonsten, ‘Theosis in Recent Research: A Renewal of Interest and a Need for Clarity’, in Christensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature, 281–93. 8 See our discussion in Chapter 3. 9 A. N. Williams, The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 10 Hallonsten, ‘Theosis in Recent Research’, 283.

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can be traced back to Scripture, lacking the comprehensive significance and the philosophical underpinning that they have in Orthodox theology. Hallonsten’s central observation is crucial and slices critically through much of the recent scholarship on theosis in the Western tradition. Methodologically, it highlights the need for us to recognize that, in Eastern Orthodox thought, theosis cannot be separated from a particular set of configurations of the relationship between God and his creation that are typically not shared by Western theology, even when there is a substantial common ground in terms of concepts of deification. It also requires us to recognize the distinctively postPalamite character of the contemporary Orthodox doctrine of theosis and to differentiate this from its patristic antecedents, even if its roots lie in these. Crucially, it also requires us to appreciate that what is encountered in the early Christian writings should not necessarily be seen as a doctrine of theosis, even when it employs terminology that we now regard as technical. Our study of the Greek Fathers will help to demonstrate the extent to which such language developed even within the patristic period. Before we turn to this, however, we will examine the contemporary doctrine of theosis. By identifying the key features of the fully developed doctrine (which, actually, we will find to be characterized by some diversity) we will prepare ourselves to recognize the way in which those elements develop in the early periods of the church. We will also more readily recognize those points in the early development of the doctrine that need to be distinguished from later shifts in emphasis.

T H E O S I S IN CONTEMPORARY ORTHODOX THOUGHT In modern Eastern Orthodox theology, theosis functions as a comprehensive and integrative doctrine. It is not simply one important element of salvation, or even confined in significance to soteriology. Rather, it is concerned with the entire purpose of God for the glorification of creation. At the heart of this comprehensive doctrine, the incarnation operates in an explicit and well-developed teleological framework, within which it is not just the remedy for sin, but is the very premise of creation. Humanity, as the image and likeness of God, plays a key role as the microcosm, the focus of the communion of Creator and cosmos, and, within humanity, the incarnation is the key point of union. This cosmic dimension of the divine economy of theosis in modern Orthodoxy is a theme to which we will return in ‘Distinguishing the Creature from God’ (pp. 49–50), for it involves a particular construal of the participation of the cosmos in God. At this stage, what is important to our argument is that we understand Hallonsten’s point concerning the ‘comprehensive’ character of theosis as a doctrine: it is concerned with the ultimate purpose of God for the cosmos, not just redemption from sin and its effects.

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This spectacular economic sweep, however, touches vitally the individual life of the believer, truly afflicted by sin, through the practices of contemplation and asceticism. In the modern Orthodox context, the doctrine is strongly tied to ascetic commitment, which is why Andrew Louth notes: [T]he most important work for Orthodox theology published in modern times is not any of the so-called ‘Symbolic Books,’ which defined the Orthodox faith in relation to Catholicism and Protestantism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, nor any of the works of the Russian émigré theologians of the last century—great though many of these are—but a compilation of ascetic texts made by St Makarios of Corinth and St Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain, called the Philokalia.11

The ascetic and contemplative task which is vital to theosis (a fact demonstrated not least by the hesychastic context of Palamus’s writing) is concerned with the purification and perfection of the intellect, the restoration of the faculties of humanity from their damaged state. Despite its noetic goal, this task is a thoroughly physical one, involving a kenosis of one’s passions through the ascetic practices so that ‘our whole intellect be directed towards God, tensed by our incensive power as if by some nerve and fired with longing by our desire at its most ardent’.12 By this kenosis and the reorientation of the mind, real humanity—humanity in communion with God—is restored. The reliance of the believer upon the power of God for this transformation should not be overlooked: a key emphasis is placed on the role of God, in the Holy Spirit, working transformatively on human nature, empowering the faculties to comprehend God in the face-to-face encounter of vision.

Participation and Likeness Underpinning this emphasis on contemplation is a conception of participation that is grounded in ‘likeness’. Because humanity bears the likeness of God, humans are able to participate in him; when they do so, their humanity is realized more fully. This takes up and develops Plato’s treatment of the nous or logikon (mind/reason), the most godlike part of the human soul, which preexists and is entombed in the body.13 Plato’s treatment of the soul is varied: some passages suggest that the soul is simple, and that the passions that must be mastered are those of the body (Phaedo 78b–84b); others suggest that the Louth, ‘The Place of Theosis in Orthodox Theology’, 37. Maximus Confessor, The Lord’s Prayer, lines 542–5. Translation from Philip Sherrard G. E. H. Palmer, Kallistos Ware (ed.), The Philokalia: The Complete Text, Compiled by the St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth (2 vols. London: Faber and Faber, 1981). 13 Reflecting the significance usually ascribed to the common phrase ‘soma sema’. 11 12

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soul is complex, made up of three parts: reason, spirit, and appetite (Republic 4:435 ff.), the first of which must rule the others for true happiness to be attained. The overlaps and distinctions between these schemata14 underpin the complex treatment of the body and its passions in Middle Platonic thought and in the Neo-Platonic writings that would later inform patristic theology. The body is not evil in any simple sense, but its passions (or those that belong to the baser part of the soul) must be ruled by the higher parts of the soul. Crucially, this is because the soul is most alike, or has the closest ‘kinship’ to, the imperishable forms of the intelligible world, that is, the divine. The possibility of participation is grounded in this concept of kinship or likeness: participants share in divinity through the proper life of their rational souls. By the contemplation (theoria) of wisdom, the soul can escape the strictures of the body and participate in the divine world of ideas, the noētos topos.15 The philosopher’s experience of divinity, then, is not that of apotheosis, of a hero elevated to divine status, but of theosis, of the cultivation of innate divinity through contemplation.16 This Platonic element is confidently advocated in modern Orthodoxy. Proponents of theosis acknowledge the significance of its philosophical underpinning and are typically critical of what they see to be a simplistic dismissal of Platonism by those in the Western theological tradition, while also being careful to stress that the uptake of Platonic ideas is selective and theologically governed. Stephen Finlan’s comments on N. T. Wright’s understanding of salvation (which explicitly rejects Platonic notions) illustrate this well: But Christian ‘platonizing’ has always been a Christian project, from the earliest days of Greek speaking Christianity. The whole biblical message cannot be tucked into the bed of Sin–Exile–Return, with no loose edges and no traces of platonizing.17

Regardless of whether his reading of Paul is upheld, the rest of Finlan’s article makes the case that Platonic anthropology is itself transformed by its adoption into a Christian eschatological framework. The process of ‘Christification’ is directed towards the resurrection and the true glorification that will accompany it, the final transfiguration of our bodies into divine light. The experience of the believer in the flesh reflects this eschatological tension, with the struggles of asceticism being a proper acknowledgement of this, not a rejection of the physical, as such, or the creation. 14 Even the elements of Plato’s tripartite account of the soul are linked to different parts of the body. 15 For example, see Plato, Phaedrus 247c. 16 John R. Lenz, ‘The Deification of the Philosopher in Classical Greece’, in Christensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature, 52. 17 S. Finlan, ‘Can We Speak of Theosis in Paul?’, in Christensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature, 71.

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Distinguishing the Creature from God The distinction between Creator and cosmos is generally maintained by two interwoven elements in modern treatments of theosis, although these are treated in varying ways in modern Orthodox theology and we should be careful of treating them monolithically. The first is apophaticism. Although its significance cannot be limited to this purpose, apophatic theology, by which divine incomprehensibility is acknowledged through the use of negative language about God, emphasizes the essential gulf between God and those who participate in him. It is precisely because the knowledge of God takes place in (and is constitutive of) union, and not in remote speculation, that such an emphasis on apophaticism is necessary. Importantly, this is traced back to the Eastern Fathers themselves: That is why the Eastern Fathers prefer the term ‘union’ to ‘knowledge’ when dealing with this approach to God. In the experience of this apophatic knowledge God is perceived on the one hand, but on the other, that which is perceived gives one to understand that there is something here beyond all perception.18

Because God is not a comprehensible object, the reality of encounter with him is a mystical experience that surpasses understanding. It is precisely because the mystical experience of true union is beyond merely the nous that some Orthodox thinkers, such as Lossky, are critical of Western scholasticism, which they see as narrowing the focus of union to a purely intellectual level.19 The second element in Orthodox configurations of theosis that maintains the distinction between Creator and cosmos is the differentiation between the divine essence and energies. This distinction is commonly associated with Gregory Palamas and his defences of hesychasm in the fourteenth century. In seeking to defend the practices of the Hesychasts, who were effectively accused of polytheism because of their descriptions of the divine Light by the Calabrian monk Barlaam, Palamas drew upon distinctions between divine essence and energies that he found in the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers and in pseudo-Dionysius;20 he developed this into an account of the accessible and participable qualities of God (energies) and his inaccessible internal essence (ousia). The mystical experience of the divine Light is defended as a participation only in the divine energies, one that does not compromise the divine essence. 18 Dumitru Stăniloae, The Experience of God (trans. I. Ioniţă and R. Barringer. Brookline, Mass: Holy Orthodox Press, 1994), 101. 19 See the discussion in Papanikolaou, Being with God, 20–4. 20 The actual terminology encountered in those writers varies, however. Palamas’s contribution was to give the essence/energies distinction its characteristic shape and vocabulary. It needs to be noted, however, that some of the scholarship on Palamas calls into question the prominence of this theme in his writing. See Williams, The Ground of Union, 148.

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This has implications for the way in which the cosmos is construed. Discussing the theology of Vladimir Lossky, probably the most significant Neo-Palamite theologian, Aristotle Papanikolaou notes that the divine energies ‘imply a going forth of God outside Godself towards another. The created cosmos is the product of this activity of God and is the activity of God insofar as it participates in the proodoi of God’.21 The obvious potential of this to collapse into emanationism or pantheism is mitigated by an emphasis on the contingency of creation, being based on God’s freedom. But the location of creation, including the incarnation of the Logos, in the divine energies also means that a place is retained for a positive, affirmative (cataphatic) theology. ‘If creation is a product of God’s free activity and participates in the energies of God, then it manifests something real about God. The possibility for cataphatic theology results from the fact that creation itself participates in the energies of God, which are God.’22 Hence, from Palamas’s own (arguably limited) treatment of this, a broader characteristic of Orthodox theology was more clearly established than it had been previously, a distinction between God in his economic relationship to the world and in his inner essence, the latter subject to the essential necessity of the generation of the Son and the spiration of the Spirit, the former free of these. The believer can therefore meaningfully and really participate in the divine energies without any compromise of the divine essence. We need to press a little harder on this issue for, once properly appreciated, the distinction of essence and energies, and the interplay of this with apophaticism, ensures a radically different notion of participation in modern Eastern theology compared to that in Western theology. God’s dealing with the world takes place in the divine energies, but these are ‘the one operation of God’23 and not the activities of three separate agents (the persons of the Trinity). Certainly, the distinction of persons is maintained in this operation in terms of the patristic formula, ‘from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit’, but the characteristic way in which Orthodox thinking distinguishes the persons by origin and not by the opposition of relations24 means that the economic encounter of the human and the divine is always an encounter with the indivisible will or attributes of the Triune God. In this dispensation, in which the Godhead is manifested in the energies, the Father appears as the possessor of the attribute which is manifested, the Son as the manifestation of the Father, the Holy Spirit as He who manifests.25

21

22 Papanikolaou, Being with God, 16. Papanikolaou, Being with God, 16. Ralph Del Colle, Christ and the Spirit: Spirit-Christology in Trinitarian Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 16. 24 See Del Colle, Christ and the Spirit, 16–23, for a discussion of the distinctives of Orthodox and Latin approaches. 25 Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 82–3. 23

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This has important implications for the way in which human participation is construed, leading to the conclusion among Orthodox scholars that Western configurations overly devolve the human experience of God onto the person of the Son, to the neglect of the Spirit. In Orthodoxy, by contrast, ‘[t]he mystical path . . . is envisaged as a union not with the Incarnate Son but as a “union with God in his energies,” which is participation in the divine nature by grace’.26 This specific criticism of Latin theology has been one of the key factors in the development of Spirit Christology in the Roman Catholic tradition, as scholars have sought to respond to it by considering the inner relationships of the Trinity, construed according to scholastic categories, and paying due attention to the nature of the Spirit’s relationship to the divine person of the Logos and to the human nature of Christ. We will examine this further in our excursus on Spirit Christology. At this point, the key point of note is the Orthodox difficulty with the concept of ‘union with Christ’.

Excursus: Spirit Christology The Eastern critique of Latin theology, particularly as articulated by Lossky— i.e. that it inadequately treats the person of the Holy Spirit and is inherently subordinationist, through its avoidance of the essence/energies distinction and its reliance on the opposition of relations—has prompted modern Roman Catholic theologians, in particular, to develop Spirit Christologies of different kinds. In most cases, these operate within the constraints of Trinitarian theology and are oriented towards theological speculation concerning the inner life of the trinity, moving from the economic experience of God to an understanding of the immanent Trinitarian relationships. To a large extent, this orientation means that these Christologies do not need to be dealt with here, although it is worth noting the role played in understanding the immanent Trinity by the ‘assimilation of the creature into the Trinity’.27 To consider the ways in which human beings are described as being united to God arguably requires us to consider how this necessarily proceeds from the being of God himself. Our whole thinking moves from the world to God, and can never move in the other direction . . . We never conclude from the Trinity to Christ and his Spirit given to us, but always the other way round.28

26

Del Colle, Christ and the Spirit, 10. David M. Coffey, ‘A Proper Mission of the Holy Spirit’, Theological Studies 47 (1986), 227–50, 230. 28 Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ (trans. Verdant Green. London: Burns and Oates 1976), 180. 27

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This emphasis on a theology ‘from below’, of course, is regarded as problematic by other modern theologians, such as Barth, and is tied to the latter’s criticism of the false distinctions introduced in Thomistic theology between created and uncreated grace. There are two particular examples of Spirit Christology that do require some attention here, however. First, one family of Spirit Christologies departs from Trinitarian accounts by developing what is essentially a modalist or adoptionist account of the divinity of Jesus. Abandoning a traditional Logos Christology, wherein the divinity of Jesus is constituted by the Son’s hypostatic union with human nature, such Christologies see that divinity as constituted by the presence of God’s Spirit, understood as a mode of divine activity and presence, rather than as a distinct person.29 The spiritual experience of Christians is, therefore, directly analogous to that of Jesus. As we have seen in Chapter 1, this christological approach is encountered in biblical studies in the work of James Dunn, who argues that the earliest Christologies in the New Testament are functional or adoptionist, requiring a modalist conception of God. Only later does this develop into a high Christology of ontological divinity. I shall defer criticism of this reading until our study of the New Testament, but we can note that these Christologies often make reference to Dunn’s findings as supporting evidence for their own conclusions. If Dunn’s findings are deemed to be weak, this has implications for the evaluation of these Spirit Christologies. Second, a particular Spirit Christology associated with David Coffey and Ralph Del Colle seeks to uphold classical Trinitarian categories but, within these, to clarify the necessity of the Spirit to the Son’s identity and the nature of the Spirit’s ministry in and to the Incarnate Son. This is, by necessity, a question linked to the ministry of the Spirit to those who are sons by adoption, but the nature of the Spirit’s ministry in each case is not identical. A lengthy quote from Coffey will illustrate his position: [T]he Holy Spirit is the Spirit precisely of Sonship (cf. Rm 8.15). As such, he constitutes both Jesus and other men sons of God, even if divine sonship changes greatly (though not totally) in meaning and content from the former instance to the latter. The Father makes the man Jesus his Son, one in person with his eternal Son, by bestowing the Holy Spirit on him in a uniquely radical way. This makes Jesus the very paradigm of divine sonship. The Father makes other men his sons also, but in a much humbler sense, viz. sons in the Son, by bestowing on them the same Spirit, who is offered to them in the sacrament of Christ. The difference

29 Notably the works of James P. Mackey: Jesus, the Man and the Myth: A Contemporary Christology (London : SCM Press, 1979); The Christian Experience of God as Trinity (London: SCM Press, 1983); Modern Theology: A Sense of Direction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); James D. G. Dunn and James P. Mackey, New Testament Theology in Dialogue (London: SPCK, 1987).

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between the two instances may be stated succinctly as follows. The Father bestowed the Holy Spirit on the humanity of Jesus in an act by which at the same time that humanity was created, sanctified and united in person to the divine Son. He bestows the Holy Spirit on other men in an act which finds them already constituted as human persons (sinners however), but with their co-operation sanctifies them and unites them to Christ the divine Son as sons in the Son, in the sense that they now possess the same Spirit who made him unique Son of God in humanity.30

Coffey has here altered the usual order of the graces in the Thomistic scheme (gratia unionis, habitus gratiae, and gratia capitis) by having the Holy Spirit first create, then sanctify, and then unite the human nature of Jesus to the person of the pre-existent Son, meaning that his Christology is one of ascent (of the man Jesus to God) rather than descent (of the Logos to the man Jesus). When considered from the perspective of the world—in terms of the quotation from Kasper (see ‘Excursus: Spirit Christology’, p. 50)—the hypostatic union is contingent upon the bestowal of the Spirit on Jesus’s humanity as sanctifying grace, yet is so in a schema that seeks to uphold the pre-existence of the Son. As Del Colle notes, then, the heart of Coffey’s Spirit Christology is a thoroughgoing ‘pneumatization of the theology of grace’ which is justified by a ‘bestowal’ model of the trinity: the Father bestows the Spirit upon the Son and the Son bestows the Spirit in return upon the Father in the bestowal of the Spirit upon Christians and their return to God. In adopting such language of bestowal, rather than procession, for the relationship between the Spirit and Father and Son, the movement of creature to God is emphasized, the connection between grace in Jesus and grace in Christians upheld, and theology properly developed ‘from below’. Coffey’s approach, and Del Colle’s development of it, are important contributions to modern theology. Whether or not they are convincing will, to a large extent, depend upon whether one is basically committed to a Thomistic approach. It is important to note, though, that even these attempts to maintain Trinitarian categories proceed from the assumption that Dunn’s analysis of the developing Christologies of the New Testament is basically correct. In seeking to construct a Spirit Christology from below, these authors affirm Dunn’s analysis of the New Testament but resist his modalistic conclusions. What significance would it have for them, however, if that analysis were challenged, as it is in, for example, the work of Max Turner31 and Gordon Fee32? In our own study of the New Testament, we shall raise concerns about the viability of even these configurations of Spirit Christology. End of Excursus 30

David Coffey, Grace: The Gift of the Holy Spirit (Manly: Catholic Institute of Sydney, 1979), 119. Max Turner, ‘Jesus and the Spirit in Lucan Perspective’, Tyndale Bulletin 32 (1981), 3–42. 32 Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994). 31

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A Different Account of Theosis: John Zizioulas As noted already, however, we must be careful of forcing all Orthodox theology of participation too tightly into the neo-Palamite pattern. Lossky, Meyendorff, and Stăniloae certainly conform to this account, but John Zizioulas avoids apophaticism and is troubled by the notion of a God beyond being, a non-participable essence of God. For Zizioulas, the internal reality of God is Trinitarian relationship and this forms the ground of a relational ontology of divine–human communion realized in the Eucharist, which is participation in the body of Christ. Zizioulas’s Eucharistic theology merits further consideration here as one of the most prominent theological contributions of the twentieth century and one consciously developed with respect to the New Testament. His argument involves a ‘pneumatologically conditioned Christology’,33 in which the divinity of the Incarnate Christ is not constituted by the Spirit (as in some Spirit Christologies), but is fundamentally shaped or conditioned by the Spirit. There is no Christ without the Spirit, no resurrection without the Spirit, for the Son always lives in the Spirit. The presence of the same Spirit in the Church ensures communion between the members and Christ himself so that they are identified with one another: Christ is present ‘with his Church if not, quite simply, as his Church’. ‘Presence’ is, therefore, a key theme for Zizioulas and this leads to a notion of corporate personality: ‘the I of the Church is Christ’.34 [B]ecause of the involvement of the Holy Spirit in the economy, Christ is not just an individual, not ‘one’ but ‘many.’ This ‘corporate personality’ of Christ is impossible to conceive without Pneumatology.35

The corporate personality of the Church in Christ is instantiated in the Eucharist, which is an act of anamnesis, of memory that makes present that which is remembered and proleptically realizes the eschaton. Key to this is his understanding of the iconic significance of the Eucharist. In the icon, something of that which it represents is present; for Zizioulas, the tradition of the church does not understand the Eucharistic icon to be a Platonic vision of that which is above, but rather a temporal anticipation of the eschaton, which is itself prototypically realized in the resurrection. This sacramental anamnesis

33

Papanikolaou, Being with God, 34. John Zizioulas, ‘Implications Ecclésiologique De Deux Types De Pneumatologie’, in J. J. Von Allmen and B. Bobrinskoy (eds), Communio Sanctorum: Mélanges Offerts à JeanJacques von Allmen (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1982), 144. Quoted and translated by Papanikolaou, Being with God, 35. 35 John Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1985), 130. 34

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‘lets the future open the past to become present’.36 The identification of the church as the body of Christ is with his actual body, which has been raised, and is meaningful because of the Spirit, who ensures that believers participate in his corporate personality, his I, as his very members, in his presence. Quite deliberately, Zizioulas traces Eucharistic consciousness back into the New Testament and sees it as governing the Church’s understanding of God and of itself from the very beginnings of Christianity.37 Zizioulas’s account of participation is quite different from the account offered by Lossky and other neo-Palamites. This raises a very serious question about whether the term theosis can be used in the examination of the New Testament without thoroughgoing definition. The term is sufficiently pliable that it can be used of the very different accounts of Lossky and Zizioulas and this means that it lacks descriptive precision. Instead, it serves as a means of integrating a number of elements that appear broadly across the tradition. These elements are shared with other traditions, where they are integrated differently, using different terminology. I would suggest that an account of participation should recognize the problems associated with this synthetic terminology and focus instead on the range of elements that are integrated in the patristic accounts, to which we now turn.

PARTICIPA TION AND DEIFICATION IN THE PATRISTIC PERIOD In a single chapter such as this, we will only be able to engage with the patristic material in the briefest of ways. The important recent monograph by Russell on deification in the Greek patristic tradition38 provides a more thorough discussion and presently constitutes the definitive treatment of the material.39 My own discussion will be heavily indebted to Russell’s study, particularly in relation to the earlier theologians. Despite the brevity of the discussion, however, some key points will emerge in our distillation of Russell’s findings and these will offer important resources for our discussion of the New John Zizioulas, ‘Eucharistic Prayer and Life’, Emmanuel 81 (1981). See, for example, his article, ‘The Early Christian Community’ in Bernard Mcginn, Jean Leclercq, and John Meyendorff, Christian Spirituality. Vol 1. Origins to the Twelfth Century (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 23–43. 38 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition. 39 Russell develops and nuances the older study of Jules Gross, La Divinisation du Chrétien d’après les Pères grecs: Contribution historique à la Doctrine de la Grâce (Paris: Gabalda et Cie, 1938), now translated as The Divinization of the Christian According to the Greek Fathers. Translated [from the French] by Paul A. Onica; Introduced by Kerry S. Robichaux & Paul A. Onica (Anaheim, Calif.: A & C Press, 2002). 36 37

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Testament as well as anticipating the cautions that must be brought to the use of theosis in describing Paul’s doctrine. The technical terminology associated with deification (theosis, theopoiēsis, et cetera) and the configuration of this vocabulary in relation to Middle Platonic thought do not fully emerge prior to the Alexandrian writers Clement and Origen. Participatory ideas are, however, present in the tradition prior to this. As has been the case with New Testament study, the older assumption that such participatory language reflected the influence of Hellenistic mystery religion or the development of Gnosticism has been largely displaced, not least through an awareness that much of the language once regarded in such terms can be traced back into pre-Christian Judaism.40 While there is no question that all such thought was affected by Hellenism, that influence was brokered through a Jewish matrix that altered all such factors in accordance with its (by then)41 monotheistic concerns. What will emerge from the study of the Fathers is that many of the elements that we identified in modern accounts of theosis also occur in their writings, but with greater fluidity of meaning and generally subordinated to the central theme of filiation. Christians have the status of ‘gods’ because they belong to the family of the One God and commune with him. This corporate participation is sacramental and is linked to the ontology of the incarnation: the real humanity and real divinity of Christ make possible Christian participation in God. Indeed, reflection on this incarnational ontology drives careful reflection on the ontology of God himself, requiring ever more precision in describing individuation within the Godhead. But it is only when we reach the Alexandrian traditions of Clement and Origen that these elements begin to be clustered around the technical terminology of theosis. For the sake of space, some limits have been set on the writers with whom we shall engage. Our discussion will begin with Justin Martyr and move through the Greek patristic period up to the Alexandrian tradition, concluding with a brief examination of the Cappadocian Fathers. While we might have fruitfully examined other writers in the period of the Apostolic Fathers, their discussions of participation are more diffuse and would have required extensive discussion for, arguably, less reward. Justin is an important starting point for our discussion, however, as the first of the Fathers to expound Psalm 82, which would become a proof-text for deification. At the other end, we have left untapped the rich vein of post-Cappadocian reflection, but only because the key developments were already in place by the time of Cyril of Alexandria. 40

Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 53–78, outlines some of the Jewish antecedents to the doctrine. His treatment of the early Christian tradition reflects the growing subtlety with which the relationship to Hellenistic elements is treated. 41 Whether older forms of Israelite religion were monotheistic or not, the Judaism that is encountered in the Second Temple period is clearly so, even if some would argue that the existence of divine mediators compromises this. See Chapter 4.

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Justin Martyr42 Justin provides a window onto the caution with which the early Fathers regarded their cultural and philosophical context, reflecting their commitment to the monotheistic categories of the Bible, but also their complex relationship with Judaism.43 In the Dialogue with Trypho, for example, where he touches upon participation, Justin explicitly discounts Platonism and his reasons for doing so are instructive. Fundamentally, he sees the affinity of the human to God as moral, and not ontological: God alone is unbegotten and the human soul has no power to see him unless empowered by God.44 But pray that, above all things, the gates of light may be opened to you; for these things cannot be perceived or understood by all, but only by the man to whom God and His Christ have imparted wisdom. (Dial. 7).45

Elsewhere (Dial. 4), such wisdom is associated with the Spirit. Justin’s pneumatology continues to be a controversial matter,46 but it is clear that he discounts the possibility of human vision of God, or participation in him, based on ontological identity: ‘that which participates in anything is distinct from that which is participated in’ (Dial. 4). The ontological gap between humans and God means that vision can only be effected by the Spirit. Nevertheless, a certain universal revelation has taken place through the limited general experience of the Logos as Logos spermatikos (‘sowing word’), who has given seeds of wisdom to pre-Christian thinkers (see, for example, 2 Apol. 13), a grace seen in the work of the poets and philosophers. This diffuse experience of the Logos, an idea derived from John 1:9, lays the foundations for later considerations of the way in which all humans ‘share’ in the Logos, but it must be treated with care, for Justin does not equate it with salvation. True knowledge of the full Logos requires knowledge of the Incarnate Christ (1 Apol. 61; 2 Apol. 10) and this requires grace. Such grace is necessarily sacramental: the soul must be cleansed in baptism in order to be illuminated (Dial. 14), and the knowledge received nurtured by the Eucharist.

42 For space, I pass over the participatory elements in Ignatius, as well as those in Valentinianism, which are important in relation to Justin’s thought. For this, see Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 92–6. 43 On the growing awareness of the complexity of that relationship, see Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed (eds), The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003). 44 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 97. 45 Translations of Justin are taken from Thomas B. Falls, Saint Justin Martyr: The First Apology; The Second Apology; Dialogue with Trypho; Exhortation to the Greeks; Discourse to the Greeks; The Monarchy or the Rule Of God (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1948). 46 For a recent overview of the discussions, see Bogdan G. Bucur, ‘The Angelic Spirit in Early Christianity: Justin, the Martyr and Philosopher’, Journal of Religion 88 (2008), 190–208.

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This sacramental emphasis is not magical, but christological: Justin’s reference to the ‘laver of repentance and knowledge of God’ in Dial. 14 depicts Christ himself as the one by which believers are cleansed and identifies the rite of baptism with him: he is the Laver in which believers are washed. In some sense, then, Christ is present in the sacrament. He also understands the elements of the Eucharist not as common, but as the very body and blood of Jesus (1 Apol. 66), nourishing human flesh and blood by transmutation (ŒÆÆ Æ ºÅ). Predating as it does the discussions of the substance and essence of the two natures and later accounts of the bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the account must be treated with care. But it demonstrates that Justin also saw Christ to be present in some sense in the Eucharist and considered this to be the reason for its efficacy in nurturing knowledge of God. Hence, Justin’s account of participation is grounded in a concept of personal knowledge based on communion, substantially mediated by the sacraments. Justin is the first of the fathers to discuss Psalm 82:6, in Dialogue 124, where he defends the claim that Christians are children of God. There he develops what has already been argued in his preceding chapter, namely that Jesus is the true Israel (a claim defended by recourse to Isaiah 42:1–2) and that those who keep his commandments have been begotten unto God. Taking up this theme of filiation in Dialogue 124, Justin discusses Psalm 82:6, exploiting a minor difference between two textual versions, that used by the Jews and that ‘of the seventy’.47 Justin applies the text to the Fall of Adam and Eve,48 embedding Psalm 82 in the historical schema of recapitulation recognized to be at work in the Martyr’s thought.49 He connects Psalm 82:6 with 1 John 3:1, which is

47 It is generally assumed that the contrast is between two different Greek versions, with Justin’s preferred text coming from a testimonial collection. The scholarship on this is extensive; Oskar Skarsaune, The Proof from Prophecy: A Study in Justin Martyr’s Proof-Text Tradition. Text-Type, Provenance, Theological Profile (Leiden: Brill, 1987), identifies a ‘recapitulation’ collection and a ‘kerygma’ collection. Comments on Dial. 124 are found on page 188. A briefer account of his work is found in Oskar Skarsaune, ‘Justin and His Bible’, in Sara Parvis and Paul Foster (eds), Justin Martyr and His Worlds (Minneapolis, Minn: Fortress Press, 2007), 53–76. See also Carl Mosser, ‘The Earliest Patristic Interpretations of Psalm 82, Jewish Antecedents, and the Origin of Christian Deification’, Journal of Theological Studies 56 (2005), 30–74, whose work provides extensive bibliography on the matter. In fact, there is very little distinction between the versions of the quotation in Justin, but it may be that he plays on the difference between  (‘but you die like men’) in the version of the Jews and in Justin’s preferred version. The latter can be translated with temporal force: ‘now you die like men’. Contextually this makes sense, but it may place too much weight on one possible sense of . 48 In fact, while Dial. 124 clearly progresses from 123, the shift of attention to Adam and Eve establishes the trajectory for the next block of material, which presents Christ as present in the post-Fall history of the Old Testament. Skarsaune believes this reflects a change to a different source text for Justin in Dial. 124. 49 See Mosser, ‘The Earliest Patristic Interpretations of Psalm 82’, 37–41.

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quoted in Dial. 123,50 through the Johannine description of believers as ‘sons’. This connection is reinforced by the conflation of John 1:12 with Psalm 82:6 in Dial. 124: ‘having power to become sons of the Highest’. Two points emerge from this. First, Justin’s discussion of Psalm 82:6 is not a tendentious justification for a doctrine of deification, but rather an exegesis of the text of the Psalm that conforms to Jewish exegetical practices of the time, bringing together mutually informative texts and making much of the subtle differences between text-types.51 Second, this exegesis is not intended to defend a concept of deification such as may be found in pagan or philosophical literature, but simply to support claims that Christians are now to be called ‘sons of God’,52 inheriting the promises made to Israel. Deification is subordinated to this controlling metaphor of sonship. The sonship of believers is developed with reference to the status of Israel as son of God and to the transfer of that status to believers under the new covenant (a theme developed throughout the Dialogue with Trypho, but notably in chapters 10 and 11). Their participation in God’s family, then, is understood in terms of the story of God’s dealings with Israel and in relation to the covenants that structure that story. Bringing the discussion of Psalm 82 together with Justin’s discussion of Platonism, it is clear that his notion of ‘deification’ is one of communion with God, understood in terms of the story of Israel, reaching its fulfilment in the church, validly understood to be the body of God’s children. It is also developed in Adamic categories, but Justin’s representation of the presence of Christ throughout the Old Testament history does not allow for a neat Adam–Israel–Jesus model of recapitulation: Christ is identified with God himself, present with Israel, and eventually taking her name and responsibilities upon himself. This treatment of recapitulation will prove significant to our study of the New Testament: along with that of Irenaeus, Justin’s account is quite different to the concept of recapitulation often imputed to the Fathers by New Testament scholars.

Irenaeus of Lyons With Irenaeus of Lyons, we begin to encounter the more familiar patterns of the deification model. Typically, of course, discussions of deification will trace the concepts back to his famous exchange formula: ‘Jesus Christ our 50

That 1 John 3:1 is indeed the verse being quoted is demonstrated by Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, 99, and Mosser, ‘The Earliest Patristic Interpretations of Psalm 82’, 40. 51 We will discuss these further in Chapter 4. 52 I use this term, rather than ‘adoption’, in recognition of the specifically Pauline character of the latter; filiation is more broadly attested in the New Testament and early Christian traditions.

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Lord . . . because of his immeasurable love became what we are in order to make us what he is.’53 The core of this formula would become more strongly developed and sharply defined by Irenaeus’s successors, as would the details of his soteriological account. It is worth noting several key elements within this. First, Irenaeus’s doctrine of transformation is clearly developed in Trinitarian terms, within which the Sonship of Jesus becomes the grounds for Christian adoption: The Word of God became man, and He who is God’s Son became the Son of man to this end, [that man,] having been united with the Word of God and receiving adoption, might become a son of God.54

This reflects what we have seen already in Justin: there is a close link between deification and filiation and, indeed, it is the latter that is the controlling concept. The dominance of filiation as a concept proceeds from the fact that Irenaeus’s primary concern is to consider the character and purpose of the incarnation of the Son. The Spirit plays a vital role in this incarnational union and this is important to Irenaeus precisely because of his counter-Gnostic affirmation of the reality of Jesus’s humanity.55 The incarnation represents the fulfilment of creation, as flesh is empowered to true communion with God by the Holy Spirit.56 This is not to neglect the pre-existence of the Logos, or to reduce the divinity of Christ to the Spirit’s presence, but neither is it to confine the divine presence in the incarnation to the enfleshed Son. Rather, the Spirit is present with the enfleshed Son in the life of the Christ. This, of course, is part of Irenaeus’s doctrine of recapitulation, which is often misunderstood and badly handled by biblical scholars, who represent it simply in terms of Jesus’s recovery of what Adam lost.57 For Irenaeus, however, the incarnation is not the divine reaction to human sin, but the pattern after which humanity is made and in which human history is reprised in its redemption:

53 Adversus Haereses 5 (praef). Translation, Robert M. Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons (London: Routledge, 1997), 164. 54 AH 3.19.1. Translation, Dominic Unger, St Irenaeus of Lyons: Against the Heresies. Book 3. Translated and Annotated by Dominic J. Unger, OFM Cap, with an Introduction and Further Revisions by Irenaeus M. C. Steenberg (New York: Newman Press, 2012), 93. 55 Julie Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder: A Spiritual Theology of Ascent and Ascension (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 231–2. 56 AH 5.8.1. A similar configuration of the relationship between communion and Incarnation is found in his Proof of Apostolic Preaching, 31. 57 For example, Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 199–204. Although his outworking of this approach is rather more subtle, Wright’s account of Adamic elements in Judaism and the New Testament broadly corresponds to this. See Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 259–79, noting the use of the term ‘recapitulation’ in the index, p. 530.

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Who else is superior to . . . that man who was formed according to the likeness of God, except the Son of God, according to whose image man was created?58

In other words, when man is made ‘according to the image of God’, the image after which he is patterned is the Incarnate Christ. Second, the ‘Christ-like’ significance of Adam means that Irenaeus widely applies ‘glory’ language to humanity. Prior to Irenaeus, most of the occurrences of glory language in the Fathers are specifically found in relation to the divinity of Christ, grounded in a conviction that glory is properly a quality of God himself and that the descriptions of Christ as ‘glorious’ support claims concerning his essential divinity (see, for example, Dialogue with Trypho 65).59 With Irenaeus, in the context of his doctrine of recapitulation, the glory of man is now given due attention. Strikingly, though, it is presented in relational terms, as a property of God shared with man in communion. A quotation from Adversus haereses 4.14 will highlight this. To follow the Savior is to share in salvation (participare est salutem), just as to follow light is to receive light. Those who are in the light do not themselves illuminate the light, but are illuminated and made splendid (illustrantor) by it. They supply nothing to it but receiving benefit are illumined by the light . . . to those who follow and serve Him he provides life and imperishability and eternal glory, benefits to those who serve him because they serve him . . . He does not receive benefit from them for he is perfect and without need . . . For while God needs nothing, man needs communion with God (homo indiget Dei communione). This is the glory of man, to continue and remain permanently in God’s service.60

It is important to note the emphasis on the ‘donated’ nature of the light: this is a property given to humanity, not one innate to it. Adam may have enjoyed such glory, but he enjoyed it as a gift, and this gift was a result of fellowship with God in service, made possible by the incarnation itself. Third, Irenaeus frequently draws upon the Greek notion of ‘ascent’ in presenting the redemptive restoration of glory. In Adversus haereses 5.36.2, for example, we read: Such, say the presbyters, the disciples of the apostles, are the order and rhythm of those who are saved, as well as the degrees through which they progress: by the Spirit they will ascend to the Son, through the Son to the Father, when the Son concedes his work to the Father.61

58

AH 4.33.4. My translation. There are exceptions, of course, but most of these reflect close allusion to New Testament texts, usually in relation to eschatological glorification. 60 Translation Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons, 147. Latin annotation added. 61 Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons, 185. 59

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It is important to note the eschatological dimension to this in Irenaeus. In the very next section of Adversus haereses, Irenaeus will speak of the eschatological resurrection. The various elements of Irenaeus’s scheme are also effectively brought together with such eschatological orientation in 5.2, where he writes: Just as a cutting from the vine planted into the earth (N c ªB; in terram) bears fruit at the appointed time, or as an ear of wheat having fallen into the earth (N c ªB; in terram) and been broken down, rises with abundance by the Spirit of God, who contains all things, and then, through the wisdom of God, serves for the use of men, and having received the Word of God, becomes the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ; so also our bodies, being fed by it, and placed in the earth (N c ªB; in terram), and broken down, shall rise at the appointed time, the Word of God granting them resurrection to the glory of God, even the Father, who freely gives to this mortal immortality, and to this corruptible incorruption.62

Hence, the Greek background to the concept of ascent is thoroughly reoriented and the language itself taken into a new conceptual framework that ensures, by an emphasis on parousia, that the distinction between humanity and God is maintained. Irenaeus may use Greek terminology, with Platonic overtones, but his temporal schema and its incarnational mooring ensure that he never compromises the divine uniqueness or loses his sense that the glorification of believers proceeds not from what they are in themselves but from what God is, and will be, in Christ. At the same time, as Russell rightly notes,63 Irenaeus, like Justin, understands the eschaton to be inaugurated and the believer to know partial realization of its properties: immortality and incorruption are even now enjoyed by Christians, in their fellowship with the Incarnate God. Irenaeus also makes use of Psalm 82:6, at three points (3.6.1; 3.19.1; 4.38.4). In drawing on the language of the Psalm, he freely speaks of Christians as gods. This requires to be understood in terms of his broader emphasis on ontological monotheism: there is only one true God and Christians are gods only in a derivative sense.64 As with Justin, the controlling image is that of the sonship of believers. In the case of Irenaeus, however, filiation is developed with reference to Paul’s doctrine of adoption, the vocabulary of which he utilizes at Adversus haereses 3.19.1, and not the Johannine doctrine of sonship that Justin utilizes. The difference is significant, for it allows Irenaeus to more fully explore the analogical relationship between the Son and the sons. All of this has a bearing on how we understand the ‘exchange formula’ in Irenaeus, with which we began this section of our discussion. Mosser’s comments are worth quoting at length. 62

63 AH 5.2.3. My translation. Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 113. See Mary Ann Donovan, One Right Reading: A Guide to Irenaeus (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Pr, 1997), 68. 64

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That Irenaeus did not intend fully to press the parallelism of statements like AH 3.19.1 and 5 pref. is evident when one looks at his numerous variations of the formula (e.g. AH 3.10.2; 3.16.3; 3.17.1; 3.18.7; 3.20.2; 4.33.11; 4.38.1; 5.17.3) and his explicit contrasts between the Word and believers (e.g. AH 3.8.2; 3.8.3). These passages make clear that the exchange formula is an expression of Irenaeus’ theology of recapitulation. It is concerned with the regaining of immortality and the gift of incorruptibility brought about by the Word’s incarnation, death, and resurrection on humanity’s behalf (there is precedent for this in Justin Martyr, Dialogue 100.5–6). Scholars from across the theological spectrum agree that Irenaeus and those who followed him in using the formula (e.g. Athanasius, De Inc. 54) did not intend to press the parallelism to the point of strict identity such that humans become divine in the same sense that the Word is God.65

Clement of Alexandria It is in the Alexandrian tradition, particularly in the writings of Clement (c.150–c.215) and Origen (c.185–c.253), that we begin to find the explicit and positive use of philosophical, especially Platonic, categories and the widespread use of the technical terminology associated with the doctrine of theosis. As Russell notes, ‘The Platonizing intellectualist tradition of the Alexandrian Church was the product of its interaction with its cultural environment.’66 That environment was one in which philosophy was well established and cherished, and very much a part of public life, with an open library, which provided Clement access to the writings of Philo,67 and a number of schools in the city, including those of esoteric philosophers such as Hermetists and Gnostics.68 Clement, then, wrote and taught in a charged intellectual environment. What is striking, then, is not so much the extent to which he adopts and develops Platonic and other philosophical or religious categories, but the caution and reserve with which he does so. In his detailed analysis of Clement’s vocabulary, for example, Russell notes the careful reservation of KŒŁØÇø for pejorative purpose: only once is this used for the correct ascription of divinity to the Christ as Creator (Strom 1.52.3), in all other cases being used for the improper ascription of divinity to created things by pagans. Ł  Øø, meanwhile, when applied to humans, is only used of Christians and is otherwise used by him only of the wrong ascription of divinity to inanimate Mosser, ‘The Earliest Patristic Interpretations of Psalm 82’, 49, note 40. Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 116. 67 Clement’s debt to Philo is well established, even if the Jewish writer is seldom actually quoted. See Eric Osborn, Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 81–105. It is noteworthy that Osborn considers Clement’s use of Philo not to be mechanical. 68 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 115–19, provides an excellent survey of the Alexandrian context. 65 66

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things. Clement appears to choose this word precisely because it lacks such associations with human transformation in pagan philosophy. An interesting point, then, emerges: Clement uses the vocabulary of deification both positively and pejoratively, demonstrating a sharp awareness that deification can be a dangerous idea. At points, too, his descriptions of Christian deification are carefully worded to emphasize its analogous character: ‘such a person becomes as it were a god instead of a man’ ( x  K IŁæ ı Łe I ºEÆØ, Strom 7.95.1–2).69 For Clement, believers must become like God in their moral character. The deification of believers involves their approximation of the character of God by the active imitation of Christ. This is not a matter of moral heroism, however: Clement distinguishes between the natural human virtue of self-control (øçæ Å) and the practical wisdom (çæÅØ) that can only come from implanted divine knowledge (ªøØ ŁÆ), revealed by Christ and governed by the rule of faith (Strom 6.125.4). Only by the latter can a true imitation of Christ be realized. Baptism is a necessary part of this communication of knowledge: ‘being baptised, we are illuminated; being illuminated we become sons; being made sons, we become perfect; being perfect, we become immortal’ (Paed 1.26.1).70 This reference to filiation, by now established as a consistent theme in the patristic writings, is followed by a quotation of Psalm 82:6, thus following the pattern that we have seen in Justin and Irenaeus. Clement also quotes Psalm 82:6 in Strom 2.125.4–5 and 4.149.8, highlighting the extent to which this text influences early Christian theology of deification.71 As with his theological forerunners, Clement stresses the importance of the ontology of the incarnation for the human possibility of assimilation to God. The heavenly citizenship of the Saviour is the grounds for human deification (Paed 1.98.3) and meditation upon his embodied incorruption is vital to the imitation that leads to deification. One remarkable expression employed by Clement is that the incarnation is a ‘manifest mystery’. The significance of this little phrase is easily overlooked: that which is revealed bodily in Christ is revealed also in those for whom Christ is the teacher. It is a manifest mystery. God is in man, and man is a god, and the mediator fulfils the will of the Father. For the Logos common to both is a mediator, on one hand Son of God and on the other Saviour of men, on one hand servant [of God], and on the other our pedagogue (Paed 3.1.2.1).72 69 Translation by Fenton John Anthony Hort and Joseph B. Mayor, Clement of Alexandria: Miscellanies Book VII: The Greek Text (London; New York: Macmillan and Co., 1902), 167. 70 My translation. 71 The use of Psalm 82 is based on its own significance, and governed by exegesis of the Psalm itself, and not the use to which it is put in John 10:34. 72 Greek: ı æØ  KçÆ· Łe K IŁæø fi , ŒÆd › ¼Łæø  Ł, ŒÆd e ŁºÅÆ  F Ææe › Å KŒºE· Å ªaæ › ºª  › Œ Øe Iç E, Ł F b ıƒ, øcæ b IŁæø, ŒÆd  F b ØŒ  , H b ÆØ Æªøª. My translation.

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This is a dense and (perhaps deliberately) ambiguous statement, but it clearly associates the potential of the believer to attain to divine beauty with the union of human nature and the Logos in the incarnation.73 This takes us to the heart of Clement’s strategic development of Platonic conceptuality. The adoption of the believer is made possible by the Son’s incarnation, considered by Clement in terms drawn from the High Priestly language of Hebrews (Strom 2.134.2). This results in intimate fellowship with God: the believer (designated by Clement with the term ‘gnostic’) ‘carries and is carried by’ God (Strom 7.82.2). Such fellowship leads to imitation of God, the attainment of divine likeness. There is a limited parallel to the Platonic emphasis that such likeness (and hence participation) is located in the nous (Strom 2.106.2). But, for Clement, such likeness also involves fleshly transformation: the believer’s flesh is clothed with Christ’s incorruption. This takes up the Pauline clothing metaphor, associated with baptism (Gal 3:27) and mortification (Col 3:5–10, cf. Eph 4:24) and ultimately with the eschatological transformation of the body (1 Cor 15:53).74 Always, though, this centres on the dynamic imitation of God, made possible by the incarnation. Adamic elements are also present in Clement’s treatment of likeness, but these are carefully developed. There is, for one thing, a distinction between ‘image’ and ‘likeness’, the latter only attained in the approximation of moral and eschatological perfection (Strom 2.131.5). Second, the image ‘after’ which Adam is originally patterned is the Logos. As Russell puts it: ‘man is an image of the image’.75 This reflects what we have already seen in Irenaeus and what I will argue to be the case in the New Testament, namely that the portrayal of Christ as the image of God is precisely an identification of his embodied divinity, and not primarily his restoration of that which Adam lost.

Origen of Alexandria Like Clement, Origen is also influenced by and permeated with philosophical language, particularly that of Plato, and much modern scholarship on Origen has argued that he is so thoroughly shaped by this that his thought is irreconcilable with the New Testament itself. Mark Edwards, however, has recently challenged this assumption,76 steadily demolishing the lines of argument typically adduced and arguing that, if anything, Origen’s theology and intellectual

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See the discussion of this section of Clement’s writings in Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 127–8. 74 The range of New Testament allusion in the image is, therefore, much broader than simply to 1 Cor 15:53. The image is broadly used in Paul. 75 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 135. 76 M. J. Edwards, Origen against Plato (Aldershot; Burlington: Ashgate, 2002).

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frameworks were more Jewish than Platonic,77 with a robust emphasis on the goodness of the physical world. Even if Edwards’s arguments are not convincing at every point (although, to my knowledge, there has been no serious refutation to date), their general thrust is consistent with an emerging theme in this chapter: Hellenistic ideas are appropriated with caution by the Fathers.78 Origen’s theology has some strikingly subordinationist elements. Only the Father is ÆP Ł, with the Son’s divinity contingent on his participation in the divinity of the Father. Famously, Origen argues that the absence of the article from Ł in John 1:1 reflects this contingency: only the Father is God in himself and therefore designated by the article. Some caution needs to be exercised, though: the real issue that Origen considers here is contingency, and even as he emphasizes the contingency of the Son upon the Father, so he emphasizes the contingency of human rationality, the logos of the individual, upon the Son, who is ÆP ºª . The sharing of the specified quality makes participation possible, but contingency ensures distinction from that which is divine and hence non-contingent.79 As with Clement, Origen emphasizes the place of contemplation in deification and this leads to some of the stronger points of commonality with the Alexandrian philosophical tradition. In contemplating the divine glory, knowing and being known by God, the believer is conformed to the likeness of God.80 As Russell notes, Origen is more intellectualist than Clement in developing this, writing that ‘the nous that is purified is lifted above all material realities so as to have a clear vision of God and it is deified by its vision’ (Commentary on John 32:27). Consequently, ‘deification is more often participation in the eternal rather than the Incarnate Logos’.81 Origen offers an extensive set of reflections on the nature of participation.82 These reflections are examined in detail by Russell, whose discussion also provides the key scholarly bibliography.83 For the sake of space, I will examine just one key element of this, the fact that while maintaining some kind of kinship between participant and participated, Origen appears to distinguish between natural and dynamic participation.84 The kinship involved in natural 77

Edwards, Origen against Plato, 12. Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition from Plato to Denys (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), xii. 79 So Alois Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition. Vol. 1, from the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451) (Translated by John Bowden. 2nd revised edn. London; Atlanta: Mowbray; John Knox Press, 1975), 141. 80 See Joseph Wilson Trigg, Origen (New York : Routledge, 1998), 233–40. 81 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 144. 82 In De Principiis and Commentary on John. 83 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 147–52. 84 See footnote 55 in The Doctrine of Deification, 147. Russell notes the scholarly discussions of this distinction and the terminology used, favouring the terms ‘ontological’ and ‘dynamic’ for the two kinds of participation. 78

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participation does not compromise the distinction between participant and participated: the two must remain distinct for participation to take place (Princ. 2.6.6). This natural participation is really about the relationship of that which is contingent to that which is self-existent. ‘All creatures that exist ( ƒ Z) do so because they participate in Him who is (› þ) . . . All that are rational are logikoi because they participate in the Logos.’85 This natural participation, however, is limited: the Christian experiences a fuller dynamic participation of transformative filiation through the redemptive work of the Triune God. Such active participation is a dynamic and personal experience of the Logos made possible by the Spirit’s pneumatizing work (Comm. John 1:28. Princ. 1:3–5), following baptism. It is, then, a participatory account that is developed in Trinitarian terms, though, as noted already, with arguably less of a focus upon the incarnation than is true in the other Fathers studied in this chapter. One final point may be noted in our discussion of Origen. It is here, for the first time in the Christian tradition, that we find 2 Peter 1:4 being quoted.86 This text, then, is neither encountered as an early proof-text for deification nor as a key factor in its development. While it may reflect debates over the authenticity of 2 Peter, this late use may also prompt us to ask whether 2 Peter 1:4 exhibits the Hellenizing tendencies often ascribed to it. That the tradition said nothing about it until this stage suggests that it was regarded as neither a problem nor an opportunity for the development of Christian theology.

Athanasius of Alexandria Athanasius repeated and emphasized the maxim of Irenaeus that ‘God became man so that man might become god’,87 giving this saying its formulaic centrality to Christian soteriology and unpacking its ontological dimensions. In the context of his debates with Arius, and his engagement with heathen belief, a basic concern to maintain the distinction between God and the created world is maintained.88 In his critique of pagan thought, the ascription of divinity to that which is not God—the created order—is challenged, with

85

Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 148–9. C. Cels 3:37; Princ. 4.4.4; GCS v.355. 1–7; Hom. Lev. 4.4. 87 E.g. in De Incarnatione 16, 54.3, C. Arianos 1:38, 1.48, 2.61. 88 Connected to this is the acknowledgement that Athanasius’s use of theopoieō and theopoiēsis is not confined to his description of Christian deification. He uses the terms frequently in Contra Gentes as descriptions of the errors of paganism, the deification of people and other creatures. So, the terminology is not always encountered with positive meaning: some ‘deifications’ are wrong. 86

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the result that he speaks negatively of deification.89 His critique of Arius, meanwhile, recognizes the need to precisely differentiate notions of deification. Arius appears to have portrayed the Logos as a creature, who became God only by a divinizing participation in the Father.90 For Athanasius, however, the necessary grounds of human participation in God is God’s own assumption of humanity. This requires the true divinity of the Logos, for only God can deify.91 Emerging from this polemical agenda, Athanasius primarily emphasizes the deification of the body, through the union of human nature to God within the incarnation. This point needs careful handling, for there are subtleties in Athanasius’s account that can mislead us as we read his universalistic language, causing us to overlook the fact that, in fact, he maintains the patristic emphasis on salvation operating within the sacramentally defined church. The apparent universalism emerges from Athanasius’s thoroughgoing reflection on the significance of the union of Uncreated to created in the incarnation. This union is fundamental to the integrity of the entire created order: moored to God in Christ, the created order is kept from being pulled to nothingness. And the cause why the Word of God really came to created beings is truly wonderful, and shows that things should not have occurred otherwise than as they are. For the nature of created things, having come into being from nothing, is unstable, and is weak and mortal when considered by itself . . . . . . But being good, he governs and establishes the whole world through his Word who is himself God, in order that creation, illuminated by the leadership, providence, and ordering of the Word, may be able to remain firm, since it shares in the Word who is truly from the Father and is aided by him to exist, and lest it suffer what would happen, I mean a relapse into non-existence, if it were not protected by the Word. (C. Gentes 3.41)92

This particular dimension of the incarnation underlies the cosmic role of Christ, and Athanasius goes on to quote Colossians 1:15–18. It means that, in one sense, everything that exists partakes of the Word. But this requires us to recognize different kinds of participation in Athanasius’s thought: he surely does not equate the participation of the non-human elements of the cosmos in the Word with salvation. This is an important observation, for Athanasius also identifies the specific component of creation that the Logos unites to himself, namely human nature. Distinct from all other created being, human nature has been united to God in the incarnation and hence uniquely participates in the life of the Word. Related to this, a crucial

89

90 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 167–9. C. Ar 1.9. C. Ar 2:69. Ep. Serap. 1.24. 92 Translation, Robert Thompson, Athanasius: Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971). 91

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distinction is encountered in Athanasius between Christ as the NŒ (image) and man as made ŒÆ NŒÆ (according to the image). This is a distinction that we will note in our study of the biblical material and that is broadly paralleled in rabbinic treatments of Genesis 1:27. In Athanasius, it represents a development of Irenaeus’s treatment of the priority of the incarnation: man is made according to the image of Christ. Again, however, such universal participation is not to be equated with salvation. This highlights the fact that Athanasius has a complex understanding of participation, one that involves the Platonic element of likeness but allows this to operate only in a very general way. The deification of the individual in salvation requires the personal appropriation achieved by faith and sacrament, the grace of adoption. The distinction between the general or ontological participation of all humanity in Christ and the particular dynamic experience of deification93 is highlighted by the extent to which he uses the terminology in conjunction with other concepts. As Russell notes: Adoption, renewal, salvation, sanctification, grace, transcendence, illumination, and vivification are all presented as equivalents to deification.94

The vocabulary is clearly transformative and by using it, Athanasius sets the experience of deification by the Christian radically apart from the universal participation of humanity in Christ. Importantly, he does so in relational and communicative terms, a fact that is confirmed by the connection made between theopoiēsis and huiopoiēsis, between deification and adoption. The sacraments are a vital part of this dynamic participation. Much of the treatment of baptism occurs in the context of anti-Arian polemics, where Athanasius is concerned to defend the uncreated divinity of the Son.95 In the midst of this, however, it is clear that the rite is considered to formalize the believer’s union to the Godhead (Contra Arianos 1.34). The naming of Father, Son, and Spirit is vital in this regard, and requires that all three are acknowledged to be divine and that each plays a distinctive role in that union. By means of the Spirit, who actively unites believers to the Incarnate Logos, we are made partakers ( å Ø) of Christ and of God (Ep. Serap 1:24). Like Origen, Athanasius employs 2 Peter 1:4 in relation to this specifically personal form of participation. The Eucharist, meanwhile, is presented as an anticipatory type of the eschatological banquet in the Festal Letters (Ep. fest 40). Participation in the meal has an unavoidably eschatological dimension, therefore, but this is of an inaugurated kind. There is a real fellowship with the Logos, whose flesh nourishes the soul (Ep. fest 1:7). Again, the emphasis is 93 The terms of distinction are drawn from Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, as we have already noted. 94 Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 177. 95 C. Ar 1:34, 2:41; De Decr. 31; Ep. Ser 4:9.

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firmly upon the notion of personal presence and on the dynamic concept of ‘communication’, by which the properties of God are personally shared with humans, even as he shares himself.96 One final point must be stressed in relation to Athanasius. The place of ‘illumination’ in Russell’s list of apposed terms is important to note, reflecting a noetic or epistemic dimension of deification in Athanasius. Despite his reorientation of deification towards ‘flesh’ and not ‘mind’, as in Origen, Athanasius maintains an awareness that human fallen-ness has resulted in perceptual incapacity.97 The natural mind is incapable of seeing reality; through assimilation to God in union with the Logos, however, the human can ‘see and know realities’.98 This was true of humanity before the Fall and it is true of those re-united to the Logos in salvation. This makes possible true contemplation of God, which is morally transformative. Again, then, loosely Platonic concepts of participation based on moral likeness can be found in Athanasius, but these proceed from the underlying relational grounds for personal transformation.

Cyril of Alexandria The last of the Fathers whose work shall be studied in some detail is Cyril of Alexandria. Cyril’s theology is deeply indebted to that of Athanasius and is firmly in continuity with it. Like Athanasius, and Origen before him, Cyril’s account of participation is complex, with a general ontological dimension, by which all of creation participates in Christ, and a specific dynamic dimension, by which the believer participates in the fellowship of God. Again, his account of participation proceeds from reflection upon the ontology of the incarnation, to which he brings a further level of sophistication with his insistence that there is but one subject of the actions of the divine and human natures of the mediator, a theme that emerges widely in his responses to Nestorius and in his commentary on John (notably on 1:14). Interestingly, as Russell notes, this emphasis on the single subject is vital to an account of participation that does justice to the transformational and filiational elements of salvation 96 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, 172–3, 183–7 discusses Athanasius’s concepts of the communicatio idiomatum. We will return to this theme in our discussion of the Reformed tradition. 97 Notably in C. Gen 2–3, where the breaking of fellowship with God is presented as disrupting the personal communion with the Logos, by which we may contemplate God. Anticipating Augustine’s notion of the inward curve, Athanasius’s account presents humans as self-oriented, incapable of seeing God. 98 C. Gen 2. Note the discussion concerning the unity of Adamic accounts in Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione in Andrew Louth, ‘The Concept of the Soul in Athanasius’ Contra Gentes – De Incarnatione’, Studia Patristica Vol 13, Pt 2 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1975), 227–31; cf. his later comments in Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition, 77, note 7.

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(i.e. deification): the Nestorian alternative of an extrinsic incarnational union results in a simply moral or exemplarist soteriology.99 This raises an important set of questions about other such extrinsic accounts of the incarnation, such as the one that we have seen to be developed by Dunn and advanced in some modern Christology. While certainly not Nestorian in character, these, too, present the divinizing union as extrinsic to the person of Jesus and, consequently, as exemplary for all Christian life. Can this, however, account for the transformational emphases that we will see in the New Testament? Can it account for the Johannine or Pauline logic of filiation? Cyril’s answer, building on his theological predecessors, would be in the negative. It is noteworthy, too, that Cyril’s accounts of Christian filiation, such as in his commentary on John 1:9.92–93, devote considerable space to the relationship of continuity and fulfilment between the adoption of Israel and that of believers. This stands in a line of tradition that we have seen to stretch back to Justin Martyr. Where Cyril distinctively develops Athanasius’s account of participation is in his understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit and the function of the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, in the Christian experience of participation. On the first of these, the Spirit’s role is crucially linked to the believer’s experience of sonship, which is distinguished from (but contingent upon) that of the Word. Where his sonship inheres within his being, that of the believer is a result of participation in the Holy Spirit by grace (Thesaurus 4, PG 75.45a). Cyril links participation in the Spirit with the image of the believer as a temple in which the Spirit dwells. This may be seen in Thesaurus 13, PG, 75.225c, where the distinct character of the Word’s Sonship is again distinguished from that of the Christian, the latter only a son because he is indwelled by the Spirit. It may also be seen in Dialogues on the Trinity, where the divinity of the Spirit is defended on the grounds of biblical descriptions of Christians as ‘temples of God’ in which the Spirit dwells (1 Cor 6:19), and as ‘gods’ (Ps 82). For we are temples of the real and subsistent Spirit. And it is through him that we are called ‘gods’, since by union with him we have become partakers of the divine and ineffable nature.100 But if the spirit who deifies us by his own agency is different in kind from the divine nature and distinct from it in terms of substance, we have failed to attain our hope, having been adorned with splendours which somehow lead to nothing. For how are we gods and temples, as the Scriptures say, through the Spirit that is within us? For if he lacks being God, how can he endow others with that name (Dial. VII, 639e–640b.).101

99

100 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 199. Cf. 2 Pet. 1:4. Translation, Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 194–5. Cf Georges Matthieu De Durand, Dialogues sur la Trinité / Cyrille D’Alexandrie; Introd., Texte critique, Traduction et Notes par Georges Matthieu de Durand (Sources Chrétiennes: No. 231, 237, 246: Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1976). 101

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Cyril’s logic is simple. If Scripture refers to us as ‘temples’ because the Spirit dwells in us, that Spirit must be identified as God himself, since the temple is a place of dwelling for God. That we are called ‘gods’ confirms this, for the agent of such deification cannot himself be divine in a derivative sense. While the union of Logos and human nature that is internal to the incarnation is the grounds for all human participation in God, then, it is the indwelling presence of the Spirit that actualizes this. Interestingly, the more commonly found New Testament image of the church as a singular corporate temple is not favoured by Cyril for his argument, perhaps because his focus is on the existential transformation of the individual. Cyril also provides a further set of reflections on the significance of the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, which are linked to the attainment of moral likeness to God by grace, the restoration of the divine image. The Eucharist is a vital part of the Christian’s experience of salvation, restoring man to incorruption (In Jo. 3:6.324c) precisely because of the presence of the Logos in it. The properties of the Logos are shared with or communicated to those who participate in the sacrament and abstinence from the table results in severance from that source of life. The emphasis of his account very much falls, then, on the presence of the Logos in the sacrament, on the force of the phrase ‘this is my body’, read in terms of the Johannine treatment of the flesh of Christ. As noted at various points already in this chapter, this does not entail a specific configuration of the mode of presence in the sacrament, of the kind that would characterize the Reformation debates, but an emphasis on the reality of that presence as a personal one. Again, the key to Cyril’s theology is that the communication of the Son’s identity to the Christian is made a reality by the Spirit, by whom ‘a spiritual likeness to him’ is imprinted upon the believer (C. Nest 3:2). This likeness, dynamic and moral in quality, constitutes the restored image of God. ‘For holiness and righteousness are superior to both sin and decay. The Word of God includes us in this, for he makes us partakers of the divine nature through the Spirit’ (C. Nest. 3:2).102

Beyond the Alexandrian Tradition: The Cappadocians Had space allowed, a study of the subsequent developments of theologies of participation or deification would have been valuable. By this stage, however, the key points have emerged and we need only make some brief comments on the Cappadocian Fathers. The legacy of these men is prominent in subsequent tradition, particularly in the East, but their task was to refine and develop those elements that had already been established by their forerunners. Importantly, 102

Trans. Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 203.

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they did so in a more openly Platonic fashion but, as we have seen, by the time of the Cappadocian Fathers the use of Platonic conceptuality in Christian theology was well established, if more cautiously deployed than often assumed. The key element that is taken up in the Cappadocians is that of ‘likeness’ through kinship. Gregory of Nazianzus, for example, makes explicit use of Plato in his Oration 21, speaking of human assimilation to the divine, and Gregory of Nyssa, influenced by Origen, speaks of the necessity of kinship between the natures of participants and that in which they participate, hence the importance of the imago Dei. But the Cappadocians are careful to maintain the ontological distinction between God and the cosmos. One of the key elements of their approach is an emphasis on the giftedness of divine– human communion. This communion does not proceed inevitably from the realization of an innate human quality, but by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Such an emphasis emerges in Gregory of Nazianzus’s Five Orations103 but also quite strikingly in Basil of Caesarea104 and Gregory of Nyssa, the latter seemingly troubled by the boldness of the Nazianzen’s language and carefully modifying the Platonic dimension to Origen’s thought.105 What this means is that, when these writers speak of kinship and participation, they operate with concepts of ontological distinction that require notions of communication and communion. This is not a matter of lexical distinctions between different words for participation,106 but of thoroughgoing differences of framework and conceptuality. Recognizing this emphasis on communication allows us to see how these theologians saw the incarnation to operate in relation to union of believers with God. In uniting himself with full human nature, the Logos brings that nature into the divine fellowship, into communion with the Spirit, by means of kinship. Hence Gregory Nazianzen’s famous statement: ‘the unassumed is the unhealed’.107

CONCLUSIONS This has, by necessity, been a brief treatment of the Fathers up to and including the Cappadocians. There are, of course, important developments of their theology in subsequent centuries, notably in Maximus the Confessor, 103

104 Notably, Orations 27–31. De Spiritu Sancto, 9.23. See McGuckin, ‘The Strategic Adaptation of Deification in the Cappadocians’, in Christensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature, 104–8. 106 Much has been made of the distinction between koinōnia and methexis, but, as we will see in our study of Paul, the words are effectively used interchangeably, by the apostle at least. The adoption of metousia by the Fathers, similarly, does not by itself indicate Platonic compromise, for the use of such vocabulary is governed by context. 107 Epistle 101.7. 105

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who inherits not only a legacy of the traditions about deification but also a more developed legacy of discussion of the relationships within the Trinity, leading to a sophisticated integration of deification with concepts of perichoresis. For our purposes, however, the key material is early and we are now in a position to offer some initial conclusions, before we turn to examine theosis in its modern forms. As a general conclusion, as Kharlamov notes, deification is a peripheral theme in the Fathers.108 It is present, but diffuse, and generally emerges in connection with discussions of Christology or in debate with Judaism, on one hand, and Hellenistic culture, on the other. Each of these contexts will highlight a further important point, which we will explore in reverse order in the first three of the following set of conclusions. First, then, it is clear from the care taken to differentiate Christian participation from Hellenistic ideas of deification, whether religious or philosophical, that the representation of salvation in such terms does not reflect the surreptitious influence of Hellenism, as often assumed. If anything, in Alexandria, where that influence was strong, the Fathers were most careful to distinguish their formulations from those of the philosophers. At the same time, the fact that the Fathers did not reject entirely the vocabulary of deification was more than just an apologetic strategy: it suggests that they detected in the New Testament elements that required to be articulated in their own context in such terms. Always, though, the essential uniqueness of God is maintained. This has important implications for accounts of salvation, but also for accounts of Christology. The assumption of an unwitting assimilation to Hellenistic thought has characterized developmental theories of Christology, such as those of Bousset and, in the present, of Maurice Casey.109 While not entirely disproved by the patristic evidence, such theories are rendered more difficult by the fact that, if anything, the non-Jewish Fathers were extremely careful in their use of Hellenistic conceptuality, scrutinizing all elements in the light of Scripture. Second, Psalm 82 is the single most significant text for the development of a theology of deification, and its earliest occurrences in Justin Martyr are in the context of polemical engagement with Judaism. The theme of filiation that dominates that discussion is eschatological in character, reflecting the inclusion of Christians in the family of God following the incarnation, which is embedded by Justin in the narrative of Israel. A similar use is also encountered in Irenaeus, but oriented towards the Pauline doctrine of adoption. In both

108 Vladimir Kharlamov, ‘Rhetorical Application of Theosis in Greek Patristic Theology’, in Christensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature, 116. 109 Maurice Casey, From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God: The Origins and Development of New Testament Christology: The Edward Cadbury Lectures at the University of Birmingham, 1985–86 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991).

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cases, what is striking is that the Psalm is read in terms of the biblical narrative of the Fall and the election of Israel to sonship, with the significance of Jesus understood within this narrative as the fulfilment of God’s promises. The theme of covenant is prominent in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho in relation to the story of Israel, read through the lens of the eschatological gift of Christ. The ‘deification’ that Jesus makes possible is the intimate communion of sons with their heavenly father in the new covenant. Third, this eschatological participation is located between the two events of incarnation and parousia. The coordinated significance of these two events means that any Platonic conceptuality must be modified, as we noted in our study of Irenaeus. The reality of human deification proceeds from the adoption of flesh by the Son, meaning that Christian participation is also bodily. At the same time, the transformation of believers prior to the parousia is only partial. This allows participation to be real but imperfect for the believer in the present time and, crucially, leaves space for the moral activity by which likeness to God is pursued. The sacraments play a vital role in this inaugurated eschatological existence, identifying the believer with the dead and risen Christ (baptism) and anticipating his return, while yet enjoying his presence (Eucharist). In fact, by its eschatological orientation the Eucharist fundamentally resists any notion of a fully realized, non-corporeal participation. Fourth, the theme of ‘likeness’ that is so important to Platonism runs through the Christian traditions, but in the latter it is a complex concept, involving a general ontological participation in God’s condition of existence and in the particular humanity of the Word made Flesh which must, nevertheless, be distinguished from a dynamic participation of personal communion with the enfleshed Word in the Spirit. The latter is that experienced by the believer and is associated with the restoration of the divine image through moral likeness to God and the knowledge that comes by revelation. When we have considered the New Testament evidence, I will suggest that the emphasis on the nous in specific Fathers reflects an emphasis on revealed wisdom in the biblical material. Fifth, all of the elements that we have just outlined come together not in the individual, primarily, but in the church, as the body of Christ within which God is present. Two specific points may be highlighted within this. First, participation is sacramental, with baptism and the Eucharist demarcating the community of the God who is present in those sacraments. In addition to the social dimension of the sacraments, the consistent stress upon the sacraments means that this community is implicitly understood to be defined by the death and resurrection of Jesus, since these are clearly associated with the sacraments in the biblical accounts (we will discuss this in Chapter 8). It is vital that we recognize this, as it provides an important corrective to the assumption that the interest in the ontology of the incarnation overshadows the narrative of Jesus’s death in patristic theologies of participation. There

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were, of course, various patristic theories concerning the significance of Jesus’s death, but the centrality of the sacraments to their accounts of participation indicates that they assumed his death and resurrection, in some sense, to be events of which they were participants. Our study of the New Testament evidence in Chapter 8 will help to cast light upon this. Second, the moral likeness of the believer to God is manifest particularly in the practice of loving fellowship within the sacramentally defined church. Sixth, if we have already noted that doctrines of participation (or specifically deification) emerge in connection with reflection upon the incarnation, we must now make explicit that this entails reflection upon the ontology of the incarnation and of the Triune nature of God. This is not yet governed by the careful formulations of later confessions, and at times the language used can be troubling for those considering the Fathers through the lenses provided by these. Nevertheless, we are clearly dealing with a developing Trinitarianism. In dealing with the economy of salvation as it is represented in Scripture, and the human experience of it, the Fathers cannot avoid speaking of the One God using individuated language, just as they cannot avoid reflection upon the divine and human natures of the mediator. Seventh, given the more boldly Platonic orientation of modern Orthodox accounts of theosis, and given the diversity that exists among these, I would suggest that it is more valuable to the task of reading the New Testament to delineate those elements that are later synthesized by the Fathers than to use the word itself. A delineation of this kind offers a more fruitful implementation of Hays’s recommendation concerning the Fathers than does Gorman’s rather vague use of theosis. This conclusion does not entail a rejection of theosis as a valid construal of soteriology but, rather, a recognition that for the purposes of describing the New Testament material, the word is both ‘underdetermined’ and ‘over-determined’. It is under-determined in the sense that the terminology of theosis can be applied to a broad range of theological accounts that vary in significant ways. As such, to apply the term to the New Testament writers does not clarify anything unless a specific account of the word’s meaning (as it is deployed by the scholar) is provided. It is overdetermined in the sense that the modern doctrine, with all its varieties, has come to operate within a certain conceptual framework that may not be directly mapped onto that of the New Testament writers. That framework may be valid as a theological structure, but once terminology is taken out of that framework and applied to writings that operate within a different intellectual culture, it becomes potentially misleading. Eighth, despite its development over time, the doctrine of theosis continues to be true to the core concern of its Fathers to provide an account of divine– human communion that does not compromise the essential uniqueness of God. Gorman’s statement that ‘obedience is inherently a participation in the being—or at least the narrative identity (which implies of course the

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essence)—of God’110 would be troubling to Lossky, Zizioulas, and Meyendorff, despite his intention to develop an account of Pauline soteriology based around theosis. This, illustrates the problem: if the word is used without sufficient reference to its theological advocates and their cautionary moves, it can lead to categorical errors in describing the nature of participation. Ninth, despite these cautions concerning the word itself, the traditions of theosis can draw attention to elements that may have been overlooked in some modern theological traditions and, in part because of this, in biblical studies. Attention to other streams of historical and modern theology can attest to their persistence in the church’s doctrine, however, and can highlight other ways by which they have been configured. To these we turn in the next chapter, as we explore Reformed theologies of participation.

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3 Participation in Lutheran and Reformed Theology This chapter involves a brief examination of the participatory elements in the Protestant tradition, particularly the Reformed tradition of Calvin and those who came after him (notably Barth) but also the pioneering theology of Luther. As a general observation, these traditions are a valuable resource for the reading of the New Testament. Where modern New Testament scholarship has often neglected the context provided by the wider canon to the interpretation of particular books, the Reformers sought to be attentive to the whole, as well as to the part. Moreover, against a common assumption, they did so without discarding the legacy of the medieval theological tradition, meaning that they provide for us a theologically informed reading of Scripture. In doing so, they bridge modern and pre-modern concerns for the treatment of the Bible. This is not to overlook the potential problems associated with their reading of Scripture, including those driven by their polemical context, but to recognize that, treated with due caution, the legacy of the Reformed tradition may help us to read the New Testament. Several works in recent years have been devoted to Calvin’s account of participation, in particular, and these have drawn attention to the Scriptural interpretation behind this.1 Beyond these general observations, though, there are three reasons specific to the argument of this book that require us to examine the Lutheran and Reformed traditions. First, we noted in Chapter 1 the argument of Douglas Campbell that Protestant construals of justification by faith have skewed the reading of the New Testament in the academy, causing its participatory elements to be overlooked. The early resistance in contemporary German scholarship to the

1 J. Todd Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift: The Activity of Believers in Union with Christ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), Mark A. Garcia, Life in Christ: Union with Christ and Twofold Grace in Calvin’s Theology (Milton Keynes; Colorado Springs: Paternoster, 2008).

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New Perspective on Paul2 and to the subjective reading of pistis Christou has sometimes been taken as evidence of the interpretative control exercised by the Lutheran and Reformed traditions. In fact, we will see in this chapter that this is a misrepresentation of those traditions, which have coordinated participation with justification. Second, much of the recent interest in theosis has proceeded from the Orthodox–Lutheran dialogue that emerged in connection with the Finnish School of Luther, which has subsequently prompted further reflection on Calvin and the Reformed tradition. Locating the interest in theosis in relation to New Testament studies requires us to locate it also in relation to these discussions and to give some consideration to their merits. Third, the participatory accounts emerging from the pistis Christou debate and from the ‘apocalyptic’ readings of Paul are openly influenced by Barthian theology, although the mediating roles of Frei, on one hand, and Käsemann, on the other, result in quite some divergent outworkings of this. A sketch of Barth’s treatment of participation is necessary, then, if we are to understand these contributions and if we are to evaluate their value in the reading of Paul. A discussion of Barth needs to be set in the context of a wider study of the Reformed tradition, however, and this provides further warrant for a more detailed study of Calvin’s formative contributions, in particular. As a brief aside, the theologies of both Calvin and Barth have been criticized by advocates of the ‘Gift’ theology associated with Radical Orthodoxy, because of their allegedly deficient handling of the reciprocity of participation. Although an evaluation of such criticisms is not a major concern for our study, having been offered elsewhere by other scholars,3 some consideration of these criticisms will be important, allowing us to draw attention to the emphasis placed on the human activity of faith in the Reformed tradition. In the chapter that follows, then, we will briefly examine the participatory elements in Luther, specifically those identified by the Finnish School. While the argument that this is a species of theosis will be regarded as unconvincing, much of the value of the observations made by the Finnish School will be upheld. This will be followed by a discussion of Calvin’s doctrine of participation, particularly in relation to his commentary on Romans, and by an examination of the subsequent Reformed tradition. The covenantal dimension of Calvin’s thought will emerge strongly in this and we will note the recent shift in scholarship on Reformed Scholasticism, which now upholds a greater degree of continuity between Calvin and his successors on this core issue.

2 In fact, the response to the New Perspective in German scholarship is now more mixed. See, for example, Michael Bachmann, Lutherische und neue Paulusperspektive: Beiträge zu einem Schlüsselproblem der gegenwärtigen exegetischen Diskussion (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005). 3 Throughout his study, Billings (Calvin, Participation, and the Gift) offers a thoroughgoing response to such critiques, based on a close reading of Calvin.

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Finally, we will outline Barth’s treatment of participation, noting its continuity with the Reformed tradition and one important point of innovation.

PARTICIPATION IN LUTHER The upsurge in interest in theosis in biblical scholarship reflects, in part, the impact of revisionist readings of Luther that had their roots in ecumenical discussions between Lutheran and Russian Orthodox scholars in Finland in the 1970s. The publications that gradually emerged from these discussions led to the identification of a so-called ‘Finnish School of Luther’, associated in particular with the figure of Tuomo Mannermaa.4 The findings of the Finnish School would come to influence the writings of key North American theologians, notably Robert Jenson and Carl Braaten, and thereby play an important role in Evangelical–Orthodox dialogue in North America, particularly in the 1990s, when significant formalizations of this ecumenism occurred.5 At the heart of the distinctive claims of the Finnish School is the proposal that Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith is essentially a species of the doctrine of theosis.

Evidence for a Doctrine of Theosis in Luther The claims that there is a doctrine of theosis in Luther centre on his accounts of justifying faith and of real presence in the sacraments. Mannermaa writes: Central in Luther’s theology is that in faith the human being really participates by faith in the person of Christ and in the divine life and the victory that is in it. Or, to say it the other way around: Christ gives his person to the human being through the faith by which we grasp it. ‘Faith’ involves participation in Christ, in whom there is no sin, death, or curse.6

This participation in Christ’s ‘person’ is understood to effect an ontological transformation in the believer: ‘the self-giving of God is realized when Christ 4 Mannermaa’s own study has now been translated into English. Tuomo Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith: Luther’s View of Justification (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005). For further bibliography of the early contributions to the Finnish School, see Mannermaa’s essay, ‘Why is Luther so Fascinating?: Modern Finnish Research’, in Carl Edward Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (eds), Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 1998), 1–20. 5 Bradley Nassif, ‘Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism: The Status of an Emerging Global Dialogue’, Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 18 (2000), 21–55. 6 Mannermaa, ‘Justification and Theosis in Lutheran–Orthodox Perspective’, in Braaten and Jenson (eds), Union with Christ, 32.

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indwells the sinner through faith and thus unites himself with the sinner. This means that the Christian receives salvation per Christum only under the condition of unio cum Christo.’7 A certain set of texts tends to recur in the scholarship on theosis in Luther. One of these is the Christmas sermon of 1514, in which Luther states that ‘The Logos puts on our form and pattern, our image and likeness, so that it may clothe us with its image, its pattern, and its likeness’.8 For those in the Finnish School, this is effectively an echo of the deification maxim of Irenaeus and Athanasius. A further key text is Luther’s description of the Church’s bridal union with Christ, in ‘The Freedom of a Christian’, in which he thoroughly develops the imagery of exchange as part of the implication of the biblical imagery of the Church as bride. ‘The believing soul by means of the pledge of its faith is free in Christ, its bridegroom, free from all sins, secure against death and hell, and is endowed with the eternal righteousness, life and salvation of Christ its bridegroom.’9 Faith is, of course, key to the understanding of Luther’s account of salvation. It is important that faith itself is a gift and not a work: I assert that by my own reason or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and preserved me in true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth and preserves it in union with Jesus Christ in one faith.10

As a gift of the Spirit, faith is generated and strengthened through the sacraments, which are in turn made meaningful in faith as real experiences of divine presence. The language of ‘gift’ is used by Luther to emphasize that the activity of faith is one of receiving that which is entirely given, whether this is a matter of the faith of the one being baptized or, in the case of children, the faith of the ‘sponsors’.11 The Eucharist, of course, was an area of Luther’s theology most obviously caught up in the controversies of the day, and his emphasis on the corporeal presence would be criticized by the Reformed theologians. Whatever might be said about those issues, however, it is clear that Luther’s great concern was to emphasize the real presence of Christ in the

7 Simo Puera, ‘Christ as Favour and Gift (donum): The Challenge of Luther’s Understanding of Justification’, in Braaten and Jenson (eds), Union with Christ, 51. 8 The translation is Mannermaa’s, ‘Why is Luther so Fascinating?’, 11. 9 M. Luther and T. G. Tappert, Selected Writings of Martin Luther (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 27–8. 10 Theodore Gerhardt Tappert, The ‘Book of Concord’: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 345. 11 See the discussion in Jonathan Linman, ‘Martin Luther: “Little Christs for the World”; Faith and Sacraments as Means to Theosis’, in Christensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature, 189–99, esp. 194–5.

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sacrament and, hence, the reality of union with him in the receiving of the sacrament with faith. Perishable food is transformed into the body which eats it; this food, however, transforms the person who eats it into what it is itself and makes him like itself, spiritual, alive and eternal.12

The issue that divided the various theologians was really that of the mode of presence of Christ in the sacrament and this, in turn, was shaped by the divisions over the communicatio idiomatum. The Lutheran position saw the human nature of Christ as receiving omnipresence from its union with the divine nature,13 while the Reformed position disavowed such a communication of property as a mingling of the natures. ‘Properties of each nature may be meaningfully and rightly applied to the person, but properties of the one nature may not be applied to the other.’14 More will be said below on Calvin’s understanding of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. At this stage, the key point is that there is an important common ground between Calvin and Luther in that the Eucharist is understood to be a real experience of communion with the present Christ.

Evaluating the Case for Theosis in Luther We began our discussion of theosis in the previous chapter with a discussion of Hallonsten’s concern about the confusion of themes and doctrines. It is very specifically the Finnish School and the revisionist accounts of Luther that Hallonsten has in view and his concerns are valid. There is little in Luther that suggests a Platonic framework of participation, even of the modified kind seen in contemporary Eastern theology. His use of ‘likeness’ and ‘clothing’ imagery in the Christmas sermon is, in fact, quite at odds with this: the Logos does not facilitate the recovery of an innate divine likeness that has become warped, but clothes the believer in his likeness, which is, in effect, presented as a donated alien reality, a gift extra nos. Moreover, this is the likeness of the Logos, not the Incarnate Christ, so we are not really dealing with a concept of recapitulation as it is found in Irenaeus. This is ‘exchange’ imagery, widely found in Christian tradition and, in Luther’s case at least, grounded on a different anthropological 12 Robert H. Fischer (ed.), Word and Sacrament III (Luther’s Works 37; Philadelphia: Muhlengerg Press, 1961), 100. 13 See the summary statement in Heinrich Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Vol. 3; Minneapolis: Augsburg Pub House, 1961), 331. 14 Stephen R. Holmes, ‘Reformed Varieties of the Communicatio Idiomatum’, in Stephen Holmes and Murray Rae (eds), Person of Christ (London; New York: T & T Clark, 2005), 77, summarizing the account of the Reformed view in Turretin, Institutes of Elenchic Theology XIII, 6–8.

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account to that of theosis.15 A further problem is that this imagery is not married to a doctrine of contemplative ascent in Luther. This element is not found in all contemporary configurations of theosis, but it is a broad characteristic of the doctrine. So, instead of a ‘doctrine’ of theosis, we appear to encounter a number of themes that can be traced more broadly through the Christian traditions that influenced Luther and that are subordinated to his key emphasis on faith. To speak of Luther’s theology as a variant of theosis is quite problematic, unless we are seeking to generalize the doctrine to the point where all that is valued by contemporary Orthodox theology is sacrificed. Nevertheless, the Finnish School has drawn attention to elements in Luther’s thought that have often been neglected and, particularly, the emphasis on real presence and the connection between this and justification by faith. Caricatures of Luther’s teaching, perhaps including those developed within the Lutheran or broader Evangelical traditions, tend to present his soteriology and his understanding of faith as involving the apprehension and reception of the ‘benefits’ secured by Christ in his sacrificial death, particularly forgiveness of sins. The Finnish School has reminded us, however, that Luther did not separate those benefits from Christ himself, that faith is a matter of embrace, not acquisition, and that salvation involves union with Christ. As we will see, what this means is that the Finnish School has drawn attention to elements in Luther’s thought that are closer to Calvin’s than has sometimes been recognized and that, indeed, Calvin’s theology provides a closer parallel to Luther’s than does theosis.

CALVIN AND PARTICIPA TION It is beyond doubt that union with Christ is a prominent theme in Calvin. For some, it is the ‘central dogma’ of his theology,16 but even for those who regard 15 See Reinhard Flogaus, Theosis bei Palamas und Luther: Ein Beitrag zum ökumenischen Gespräch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997). 16 The debate concerning the centre of Calvin’s thought is a long one; some have seen divine sovereignty and (double) predestination as the centre of the theology, while others have ascribed such a place to union with Christ. See Charles Partee, ‘Calvin’s Central Dogma Again’, Sixteenth Century Journal 18 (1987), 191–9; Robert C. Doyle, ‘The Preaching of Repentance in John Calvin’, in P. T. O’Brien and D. G. Peterson (eds), God Who Is Rich in Mercy: Essays Presented to D. B. Knox (Homebush West: Anzea, 1986), 287–321. Interestingly, a number of studies in the mid-twentieth century saw the knowledge of God as the centre of Calvin’s thought; see T. H. L. Parker, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Rev. edn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959). This is suggestive of some of the themes noted already in theological discussion concerning the epistemic significance of union with Christ. We will return to this point in our study of the New Testament. It must be noted, though, that the general consensus is that there is no single central dogma for Calvin and that, rather, his thought is complex. For this point, made particularly with regard to the case for the centrality of predestination, see the various studies

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such a conclusion as overly simplistic, the doctrine stands alongside others at the heart of Calvin’s system.17 Mark Garcia, in his recent examination of the theme (see footnote 1 in Chapter 3, p. 77), avoids classifying union with Christ as the central dogma, but argues that it is ‘singularly determinative’ for Calvin’s soteriology.

The Duplex Gratia and the Unsundered Person of Christ Although union with Christ is pervasive in Calvin, there are two themes, in particular, that recur: the duplex gratia of justification and sanctification and the duplex cognitio of knowledge of God and self.18 In both of these pairings, the elements are integrated by their mutual predication on Christ, a point that will be unpacked in our discussion of Calvin’s treatment of Romans 2:13 (pp. 84–5, in this section). Most scholars see Calvin as largely successful in his coordination of justification and sanctification, with the minority view of Armstrong and others—that Calvin is marked by a fundamental dialectical tension—not generally held to be convincing.19 Key to understanding Calvin’s duplex gratia is his thoroughgoing development and outworking of Augustinian anthropology, manifested in his emphasis that justification takes place extra nos (‘outside us’) in the person of Jesus Christ, whose perfect human obedience fulfils the conditionality of the covenant; this same righteousness found in Christ is located in nobis (‘in us’) when we apprehend him by faith. An extended quotation from the 1551 version of Calvin’s commentary on Romans 3:21, reflecting his responses to Trent, highlights some of these elements and will allow us to explore them further.

in Richard A. Muller, Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Durham, N.C.: Labyrinth Press, 1986). 17 Notably Muller, Christ and the Decree; Garcia, Life in Christ. See also Dennis E. Tamburello, Union with Christ: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St. Bernard (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994). 18 See Garcia, Life in Christ, 19. Contra Edward A. Dowey, The Knowledge of God in Calvin’s Theology (New York; London: Columbia University Press, 1952), who speaks of the twofold knowledge in terms of God as Creator and Redeemer and sees this as the structuring principle of Calvin’s thought. 19 Brian Armstrong, ‘Duplex Cognitio Dei, Or? The Problem and Relation of Structure, Form and Purpose in Calvin’s Theology’, in Elsie Anne Mckee and Brian G. Armstrong (eds), Probing the Reformed Tradition: Historical Studies in Honor of Edward A. Dowey (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1989), has argued for a dialectical tension of justification and sanctifiation in Calvin, developing the work of Dowey, cited at note 18. The approach is marginal to Calvin studies, however. See Richard A. Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 39–61, for discussion and bibliography.

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It follows, therefore, that no merit of works is admitted in the righteousness of faith. It appears evident, therefore, that it is a frivolous objection to say that we are justified in Christ because we are renewed by the Spirit, in so far as we are members of Christ; and that we are justified by faith because we are inserted (inseramur) into the body of Christ; and that we are justified freely because God finds nothing in us but sin. We are instead in Christ because we are out of ourselves (extra nos); and by faith because we rest on the mercy of God alone, and on his free promises, and therefore freely, because God reconciles us to himself by burying our sins.20

Calvin’s concern here is with the concepts of justification and union as they appeared in Tridentine formulations. These had employed union with Christ as an organizing concept, though possibly in a mainly ecclesiastical sense,21 but had understood works performed in this union as meritorious. As Garcia notes, Calvin does not imply that there is an under-appreciation of union with Christ in the Tridentine theology, but rather that there is an insufficient Christocentrism in the account of justification, and that this proceeds from a failure to appreciate the totality of sin. ‘Presumably in Calvin’s view, Trent’s definition is still insufficiently Christocentric: justification is still not exclusively in Christ.’22 Calvin’s own account presents the whole of justification as taking place external to ourselves, in the person of Jesus Christ. One of the key elements within this is his handling of the conditionality of Romans 2:13 within the logic of the Epistle, which he appears to understand in terms of a thoroughgoing covenantal theology. The difficulties of accounting for this verse were as real in Calvin’s day as they are in our own, but his reading took seriously the conditionality of the divine blessings there and saw Christ as fulfilling the conditions. Christ is righteous; in Christ, there is perfect fidelity to the covenant, perfect righteousness on the part of both God and man. But this extra nos covenant fidelity is communicated to, and possessed by, us when, by the instrumentality of faith, we receive or apprehend Christ. That which is extra nos becomes in nobis. It is absolutely vital to the understanding of Calvin that we recognize that this is not simply a matter of the naked imputation of status, of a property of Christ being externally transferred to us. It is about the indwelling presence of the one who is Righteousness in himself. We do not receive the benefits of Christ apart from receiving Christ himself. Hence, Calvin’s famous statement that ‘we do not, therefore, contemplate him outside ourselves from afar in order that his righteousness may be imputed to us but

20 The translation used here and throughout this chapter is that of The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Romans and to the Thessalonians. Translated by Ross Mackenzie; editors David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1961). 21 22 Garcia, Life in Christ, 116. Garcia, Life in Christ, 117.

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because we put on Christ and are engrafted into his body—in short, because he deigns to make us one with him’.23 Precisely this emphasis on the personal presence of Christ allows Calvin to hold justification and sanctification together. Because he sees this presence as real (we will consider how the Spirit operates in relation to this in the next section: The Spirit, Ascent, and the Real Presence of Christ), it follows that ‘those who imagine that Christ bestows free justification upon us without newness of life shamefully rend Christ asunder’.24 Again, justification ‘is not a single unaccompanied gift, for since we are clothed with the righteousness of the Son, we are reconciled to God and renewed by the power of the Spirit to holiness’.25 To be ‘under grace’ involves both elements of the duplex gratia. Calvin’s language in exploring the implications of this union for sanctification emphasizes the radical transformation of the believer through ingrafting into the person of Christ, resulting in a sharing of his nature as the one who has died and is risen. In speaking of the reality of mortification and vivification in Romans 6, for example, he considers the significance of the Pauline image, which is not used in this chapter, but appears to facilitate a proper understanding of the union described by the apostle: In the grafting of trees, the graft draws its nourishment from the root, but retains its own natural quality in the fruit which is eaten. In spiritual ingrafting, however, we not only derive the strength and sap of the life which flows from Christ, but we also pass from our own nature into his.26

The image is not intended to suggest any compromise of divine essence, but the efficacy of ‘the secret union (arcanam coniunctionem) by which we grow together with him, in such a way that he revives us by his Spirit and transfuses his power to us’.27 The transfusion in view is not that of infused grace, but of the communication of the indwelling Christ himself. An overlapping account of ingrafting is found in the discussion of baptism in the Institutes,28 where he repeats his statement that a twig draws ‘substance and nourishment’ from the root to which it has been grafted and specifies that those so united to Christ, through baptism received with faith, experience the effective working of his death in their own activity of mortification and of his resurrection in the quickening of the Spirit. For this reason, Calvin specifies, an account of sanctification that simplistically emphasizes the imitation of Christ is

23 Institutes 3.11.10. The translation used here and throughout this chapter is Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeill. Translated by Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960). 24 The comments open his study of Romans 6 in the Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 121. 25 26 Commenting on Romans 6:23. Comm. Romans 6:5. 27 28 Comm. Romans 6:5. Institutes (1536 Ed.), 95, OS 1. 129.

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inadequate: the replication29 of Christ’s pattern in us is an outworking of his presence, of our participation in communion with him.

The Spirit, Ascent, and the Real Presence of Christ As hinted already, the Spirit plays a key role in this union for Calvin. This emerges throughout Calvin’s discussion of adoption, which is a primary category for his understanding of salvation, but also famously in his understanding of the sacraments. This is a difficult area to treat in summary, since it is shot through with the contemporary debates concerning the relationship between signa and res in the sacraments. Nevertheless, some key points must be noted. As highlighted above, Luther affirms the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and does so in terms of the corporeal presence of Christ, a view to which Calvin does not subscribe, in part because it confuses the sacramental signum with the res it represents and, in doing so, involves a confusion of essences.30 In addition, it is important to Calvin that the human existence of Christ, including his body, was genuine, since the total redemption of our human natures required a real human nature to be assumed by the Son in the incarnation. This, it hardly needs to be noted, also emerged in our previous chapter as a key concern in the Fathers. In the Reformed tradition, the outworking of such a two-natures Christology entails a refusal to allow the properties of one nature to be transferred to the other, but only to the singular person of the mediator. Hence, the body of Christ cannot be rendered omnipresent by his divine nature and cannot, therefore, be present in the sacramental element. Against Zwingli, however, Calvin affirms the reality of Christ’s presence in the sacraments by distinguishing the mode of presence of Christ as Spiritual: the Spirit, as truly the Spirit of Christ, makes the feeding on Christ a reality and the sacrament a true means of grace. Crucial to Calvin’s understanding is that the Spirit effectively causes us to ascend into the heavenly presence of Christ.31 This interpretation of the Supper is striking because, as we will see in Chapter 4, it mirrors much of the conceptuality of worship in Second Temple Judaism, where the boundary of the heavenly and earthly realms is fluid and where earthly worshippers are understood to be present in the sanctuary above.32 Again, then, Calvin’s outworking of a sacramental theology of 29 This term is used extensively by Garcia, Life in Christ, in an attempt to define Calvin’s theology on this point. 30 Ronald S. Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1953). 31 Institutes 4.17.30. See also Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift, 136. 32 Graham Ward, Cities of God (London: Routledge, 2000), 164, is critical of Calvin for his spatial representation of participation, but he fails to acknowledge that Calvin’s account belongs

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presence is more radical than many would expect. Against the Magdeburgians’ accusation that he did not acknowledge the justifying significance of the sacraments, Calvin wrote: ‘We are not so raw as not to know that the sacraments, inasmuch as they are the helps of faith, also offer us righteousness in Christ.’33 With such a statement, Calvin places the sacraments alongside the preached Word as means of grace, efficacious precisely because Christ is present in them by the Spirit.

Grace, Faith, and Adoption in Calvin It is, perhaps, because of his concern to synthesize the external and internal dimensions of salvation, the legal and the transformative, that Calvin so favours the image of adoption. This, of course, is a Pauline metaphor, and we have already seen its development in the Fathers, within a broader trajectory of reflection upon filiation. Calvin’s treatment of it is sensitive to the essentially legal character of the Pauline metaphor, but not at the expense of the relational and personal dimension. Through Christ’s work, believers are legally pardoned and, having been freed from their failure to meet the law’s demands, ‘hear themselves called with fatherly gentleness by God’, a call that they follow eagerly.34 Through ingrafting into Christ, the believer becomes ‘a son of God, an heir of heaven, a partaker in righteousness’.35 There is, then, no tension between the legal and the relational; righteousness is not merely imputed, it is partaken. In fact, it is noteworthy that Calvin’s account of adoption coordinates two concepts that are controversial in contemporary New Testament studies: righteousness and faith. It is because believers are ‘ingrafted into Christ through faith’36 that they are adopted and, hence, partakers in righteousness. Justification and adoption are not identical here, but they are coordinated. A number of scholars have begun to suggest that this account of adoption, attentive as it is to the Pauline metaphor, may take forward the discussions of the New Perspective on Paul.37 We will return to this point in our discussion of Paul. to a much bigger tradition of presence, one that is traceable through Judaism and that operates precisely by rendering dualisms permeable. Ward has also been rightly criticized by Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift, Chapter 4, n.121, for failing to grasp the context of Calvin’s spatial language within his doctrine of accommodation and revelation. 33 Ultima Admonitio, CO 9.182. Translation is from Garcia, Life in Christ, 159. 34 Institutes 3.19.5. 35 Institutes 3.15.6. 36 Institutes 3.15.6. 37 Kevin J. Vanhoozer, ‘Wrighting the Wrongs of the Reformation? The State of the Union with Christ in St. Paul and Protestant Soteriology’, in Richard B. Hays and Nicholas Perrin (eds), Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N. T. Wright (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2011), 235–59.

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As noted at the beginning of our chapter, a number of theologians associated with Radical Orthodoxy and Gift Theology have criticized Calvin for presenting salvation as a matter of passive reception of an imputed righteousness.38 As a result of his nominalism, they argue, Calvin has lost the truly participatory quality of previous Catholic theology, governed by Thomas’s synthesis of patristic elements.39 By emphasizing the unilateral quality of the gift of salvation, Calvin has lost the place of reciprocity that is essential to true gift-giving, the truth that gifts evoke gifts.40 The elements that we have just outlined, however, demonstrate that Calvin’s account does not represent human involvement as passive, a point demonstrated in greater detail by Todd Billings’s recent study of Calvin’s theology. Billings rightly notes that the issue of nominalism cannot be allowed to determine in itself whether Calvin’s theology has an appropriately participatory dimension and, indeed, that Thomistic theology cannot be assumed in advance to be the only valid heir of the patristic legacy.41 In fact, Calvin’s account of participation by Spirit and sacrament is redolent of that which we saw to be developed in the later Alexandrian tradition of Athanasius and Cyril, differentiating appropriately between a natural or ontological participation and a dynamic or personal one. Moreover, this Spiritual and sacramental emphasis leads him to emphasize the role of almsgiving and mercy, precisely as a negation of self-ishness.42 This negation of the natural self as necessary for the resistance of evil and for the ministry of good—a move founded upon a particular theological anthropology—is vital to Calvin’s theology: if it is demonstrated to be a valid reading of Paul, as I will later argue, then Radical Orthodoxy and Gift theology cannot deny its importance to true Christian ethics.

CALVIN AND LATER CALVINISM Calvin’s legacy to the Reformed traditions was, therefore, a rich doctrine of union with Christ inseparable from justification. Importantly, as we have seen, the forensic element within this was, essentially, a specific element of the covenantal framework that Calvin draws upon, but the covenant was read in terms of the incarnation. The covenantal element would grow to be more 38

1–14.

For a thorough review of the literature, see Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift,

See, for example Milbank, ‘Alternative Protestantism’, 27–30. Stephen H. Webb, The Gifting God: A Trinitarian Ethics of Excess (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), esp. 95–8. 41 Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift, 14. 42 See Chapter 5 of Billings. 39 40

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explicit and, indeed, more controlling in subsequent Calvinist scholarship as streams would begin to emerge. A substantial body of scholarship has argued that the Calvinism that would emerge after Calvin, particularly in the legacy of Reformed Scholasticism and the Westminster Confession, was effectively incompatible with Calvin’s own thought, with the covenantal emphasis of Calvin being mutated into a contractual federalist account that essentially locates justification as extrinsic to the person of Christ and understands imputation of righteousness in external transactional terms. This scholarly argument, often referred to as ‘Calvin against the Calvinists’, is widely represented. Among those who have sought to advance it are the brothers T. F. and J. B. Torrance, who have criticized the legacy of such views particularly, though not exclusively, in the context of Scottish theology.43 Their arguments are valuable reminders of the participatory elements in Calvin’s thought and important correctives to accounts of Calvin that over-emphasize the forensic dimension of his thought. Moreover, their contributions are particularly important to New Testament scholarship for two reasons that have already been noted in Chapter 1. First, the writings of T. F. Torrance on the faith of Christ have been part of the debate concerning objective and subjective understandings of pistis Christou and have, therefore, been more prominent in New Testament scholarship than may otherwise have been expected. Second, Douglas Campbell’s critique of justification by faith is openly and crucially indebted to J. B. Torrance’s analysis of federal Calvinism in Scottish theology.44 These two key points of contact between the Torrance theology and biblical studies centre on a single (albeit complex) issue: the role of human faith in the process of salvation, particularly as this is construed in terms of covenant theology. According to their view, Calvin broadly anticipated the later theology of Barth, locating justification within the incarnation, in the union of God and sinful humanity, and understanding this in terms of a unilateral divine covenant of salvation, in which the activity of salvation is entirely a divine one. Later federal readings, however, understood the covenant as a bilateral contract, within which human faith was required as the contractual condition of salvation, and justification made external to the incarnation, in the pact between Father and Son and the appropriation of the benefits of Christ by the believing Christian. Such shifts took place under the influence of the Reformed Scholastic movement, as the native Hebraistic theology of the Bible was pressed into the Aristotelian analytical categories of the medieval

43 Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ (Exeter: Paternoster, 1983), 57–8, but more importantly J. B. Torrance, ‘Covenant or Contract?’. For a more thorough discussion and categorization of the scholarship, see Richard A. Muller, After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 63–80. 44 Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 14–15.

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doctors, losing its attentiveness to the Hebrew categories at work in the biblical writers and hence further losing its true Christocentrism. Within this broad explanation for the emergence of a federal covenant theology, two specific elements are highlighted: the rendering of the Hebrew word berit (covenant) with the Latin word foedus, thereby confusing the notion of a unilateral covenant with a bilateral contract, and the development of the doctrine of the covenant of works, which informed the understanding of the covenant of grace. Although there was a dissenting tradition that sought to remain faithful to the true doctrines of the Reformation and rejected such elements, this was at odds with a dominant scholasticism that would leave its mark in documents such as the Westminster Confession of Faith. More recent scholarship on Calvin and post-Calvin Reformed theology has challenged this reading, however. The most notable contributions are those of Richard Muller,45 described by Donald McKim as the dominant voice in the assessment of the period after Calvin,46 but his work belongs to a broader stream of scholarship that has brought careful methodological consideration to the study of this area.47 Those who belong to this reappraisal movement resist interpretations that they see to be anachronistic, as forcing later debates back onto previous centuries, and argue that the Reformed Scholasticism that arose after Calvin’s death was ‘a single but variegated Reformed tradition, bounded by a series of fairly uniform confessional concerns but quite diverse in patterns of formulation—not two or more traditions, as is sometimes claimed’.48 In other words, the existence of a singular historiographical faultline between federal and non-federal Calvinisms cannot be maintained, and claims to the contrary simultaneously fracture a coherent tradition and gloss over more numerous and subtle distinctions. Noting further that scholasticism was a ‘method rather than a particular theological or philosophical content’,49 and that this method essentially involved the ‘institutionalization of Protestant thought in its academies and universities, not the rise of a specific doctrinal perspective’,50 Muller highlights that the Reformed Scholastics variously responded to new questions and concerns as they emerged in the process of systemization. The fact that they did so with reference to the medieval doctors does not reflect a reversion to pre-Reformation categories, but a principled commitment to the catholicity of the Church that is shared with Calvin himself and is reflected also in his writings.

45

Particularly the studies published in After Calvin. Donald K. McKim, ‘Review: After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition’, Theological Studies 66 (2005), 225–6. 47 For other contributors to this stream, see the discussions throughout Muller, After Calvin, and also the studies noted by Horton, Covenant and Salvation, p. 4, n.7. 48 49 Muller, After Calvin, 8. Muller, After Calvin, 16. 50 Muller, After Calvin, 5. 46

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Muller specifically deals with the question of covenant theology, highlighting the problems with those analyses that categorize theologians according to their use of unilateral or bilateral covenant language. It is clear that the early orthodox Reformed thinkers do not oblige the excessively neat categories of those modern historians who have claimed ‘tensions’ in Reformed theology between a covenantal and a predestinarian model or between bilateral and unilateral definitions of covenant. Indeed, early synthesizers of covenantal theology such as Fenner, Rollock and Perkins held to clearly enunciated doctrines of predestination and often were able to fold both unilateral and bilateral definitions of covenant into their theologies.51

By contrast to those who argue that federalism represents a departure, Muller offers an examination of the federal theology of Herman Witsius and Wilhelm à Brakel, both of whom advanced arguments for a pre-Fall covenant of works. In each, the covenant of works does not represent an alternative category to grace, but is itself a form of grace, with Adam and Eve resourced by God for obedience and the underlying idea of the covenant being divine presence. Set within the context of the eternal and predestining will of God, by which a Lamb was appointed from eternity, the regulations of this covenant are not a legalistic means of salvation, but a necessary framework for divine–human fellowship, the conditions of which are taken up by God himself in the covenant of grace. As Witsius writes: The covenant of grace is not [itself] the abolition, but rather the confirmation of the covenant of works, inasmuch as the Mediator has fulfilled all the conditions of that covenant.52

All of this is driven by an exegetical grappling with the text of Genesis 1–3, of Genesis 15, of Deuteronomy 29, with the presence therein of conditional language, as well as of Hosea 6:7 and Job 31:33, where possible references to Adam occur. It is also, of course, driven by Paul’s contrast of Adam and Christ in Romans 5 and by the pressure to explain the symmetry of each representative, efficacious unto death and life respectively. The covenant of works would allow the development of the idea that Adam served as covenant head (or representative) for the covenant of works, while Christ served as covenant head for the covenant of grace. Yet, even as this idea was developed, the need to coordinate the two covenants within the eternal purpose of God ensured a Christocentric telos in the accounts of the covenant of works. Importantly,

51

Muller, After Calvin, 13. Cited in Muller, After Calvin, 187. See also p. 179 for examples of reflection on Gen 15, and God’s passing between the pieces as a core biblical image of divine responsibility for covenant fulfilment. 52

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Lillback53 has traced such elements back into the writings of Calvin himself and while it would be difficult to argue that Calvin had a developed doctrine of a covenant of works, antecedents to this idea in the Reformed tradition appear to be found in his writings. What this discussion highlights is that the attempts to seal Calvin off from the later Reformed traditions is problematic and that, far from being conducted at some remove from the biblical texts and the legacy of patristic theology, the development of later Federal Calvinism was driven by the pressures of biblical texts to account for how the conditional elements of covenant relate to the unconditional, even as Calvin grappled with that question in relation to Romans 2. As a point of interest, and by contrast with the federal Calvinists, the neglect of this very element within the Bible and within later Jewish reflection is one of my chief criticisms of Douglas Campbell’s account of Pauline theology.54 The later Reformed traditions offer diverse accounts of covenantal theology and, within these, of the place of union with Christ. It is worth noting that such traditions have continued to develop up to the present time. Figures such as Herman Bavinck are finally being paid the attention that they are due, a fact that reflects the fairly recent translation of his work into English.55 John Murray’s work is also beginning to register for biblical scholars56 and Michael Horton’s more recent theological project has been developed in clear conversation with biblical scholarship.57 The significance of the reappraisal movement for the study of the Reformed traditions is that these contributions, rather than being set at odds with Calvin, are beginning to be acknowledged as standing in continuity with his thought and method, even if his own voice is quite appropriately limited in significance within the tradition of the church and next to the force of Scripture itself.

PARTICIPATION IN BARTH As we saw in Chapter 1, one of the theological contributions that has left a significant mark upon contemporary biblical studies, even if it is not always 53 Peter A. Lillback, The Binding of God: Calvin’s Role in the Development of Covenant Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001). 54 See Macaskill, ‘Review Article: The Deliverance of God’. In addition to the criticisms that I have marshalled, Muller delivers a devastating semantic critique of the ‘covenant/contract’ distinction, which highlights that the Calvinist theologians who used the word foedus used it precisely as the equivalent of covenant. Muller, After Calvin, p. 258, n.89. 55 Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics (4 volumes. Edited by John Bolt, translated by John Vriend. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003–8). 56 John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1955). See Constantine Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 40–1. 57 See especially Horton, Covenant and Salvation.

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recognized, is that of Karl Barth. The Swiss Reformed theologian left an important body of theological study in the Church Dogmatics, one of the towering contributions to theology in the modern period, as well as various smaller theological works and, famously, a commentary on Romans, the latter first published early in Barth’s career and providing a window onto a particular stage of development of his theology.58 Barth’s theology was to have an enormous impact in its own right and would influence the work of key scholars in the next generation, notably Eberhard Jüngel and T. F. Torrance. The latter, indeed, was the broker of Barth’s theology to many in the Englishspeaking world, through his involvement in the translation of the Church Dogmatics. Much of the distinctive reflection of Barth on the question of union with Christ is both echoed and developed in Torrance’s writings, and important monographs have emerged in recent years dealing with the handling of the topic in each.59 In addition to these theological scholars, though, Barth’s work was also influential on the biblical research of Brevard Childs and Hans Frei, and through these figures it has left a deep imprint in some quarters of contemporary biblical studies. It also influenced Käsemann,60 though in less thoroughgoing fashion, and with Barth’s influence synthesized with that of others.61 Union with Christ is an important topic in Barth but, as with everything in his work, it is difficult to tease the strands out of the wider complex. Webster’s comment on the development of the doctrine of reconciliation in CD IV captures in nuce the challenges facing any reader of any part of Barth’s dogmatics: [N]o section of the argument is discrete, each part simultaneously building upon and expanding the others (this is one reason why Church Dogmatics IV needs to be read as a whole).62

58 Karl Barth, Der Römerbrief (2nd edn; Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1923). Several editions of the commentary appeared, but this second edition represented a definitive development of Barth’s theology. 59 Adam Neder, Participation in Christ: An Entry into Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (Columbia Series in Reformed Theology; Louisville: Westminster John Knox 2009); Kye Won Lee, Living in Union with Christ: The Practical Theology of Thomas F. Torrance (New York: Peter Lang, 2003). See also Myk Habets, Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance (Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies; Farnham; Aldershot; Burlington: Ashgate, 2009). 60 The influenced is acknowledged in Ernst Käsemann, Commentary on Romans (2nd edn; London: SCM Press, 1982). 61 As noted in Chapter 1, it is possible that the differences between Martyn and Hays on the relationship between Old Covenant and New reflect the different brokering of Barth’s theology in each case. Martyn received Barth’s scholarship in large part via Käsemann, while Hays received it both directly and via Frei. 62 J. B. Webster, Barth (2nd edn; London; New York : Continuum, 2004), 115.

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To identify Barth’s distinctive teaching on union with Christ, then, requires us to consider his account of reconciliation as a whole. This is both challenging and liberating for the present study. In speaking of union with Christ, we must be careful not to misrepresent Barth’s overarching treatment of reconciliation and the way in which this is located within his theology as a whole, but the broad contours of that theology are so well outlined elsewhere, notably in Webster’s introduction to Barth’s thought,63 that we do not need to rehearse this in any detail. Instead, we may concentrate on the ways in which this overarching account conceptually anchors, and is anchored in, union with Christ.

Revelation and Epistemic Union As with his theological predecessors in the Reformed tradition, though at radical odds with many of his contemporaries, Barth emphasizes that true knowledge of God is possible only in divine–human union: union and knowledge, the latter involving revelation, are two sides of the same reality. His own distinctive dogmatic location, however, involves a conviction that the identity of the Word can never be ‘a predicate of man, even of the man who speaks, hears and knows it in the sphere of the Church’.64 In fact, precisely this distinction between man and the Word affirms the possibility of a true union between one and other. This emphasis extends to his representation of the incarnation, which is the key event of union between God and humanity. Despite a broad indebtedness to Luther in the way that he speaks of the divine self-disclosure in the incarnation as ‘indirect’, Barth draws more heavily upon the Reformed tradition in denying the penetration of the divine into the human in the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum. ‘The flesh of Jesus Christ has not received the Word of God as one of its predicates.’65 This is consistent with Barth’s emphasis on the distinction between Creator and creature, which is sustained in terms of his equating of being and act; what it means is that the union that is internal to the incarnation, as the event manifested in the union of human beings to God, is one of God’s free action in grace, an active personal presence.

Covenant and Election Two interwoven elements in Barth’s thought need to be understood if his distinctive account of union is to be appreciated in terms of the relationship

63

Webster, Barth.

64

CD 1/1, 127.

65

Neder, Participation in Christ, 6.

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between the incarnation and the subjective experience of other human beings: covenant and election. God’s relationship to humanity, indeed to the whole created world, is covenantal. The fellowship which originally existed between God and man, which was then disturbed and jeopardised, the purpose of which is now fulfilled in Jesus Christ and in the work of reconciliation, we describe as the covenant.66

As Webster puts it: ‘covenant offers a way of talking about the ordered mutuality of God and humanity in which God elects a people to have their being in obedient consent to their election’.67 This, as we have seen, is an element found also in the teaching of Calvin and the subsequent Reformed tradition more broadly. Even Barth’s robustly Christocentric identification of the covenant, his stress that Christ ‘is the maintaining and accomplishing and fulfilling of the divine covenant as executed by God Himself ’,68 can be traced back into Reformed thought.69 Because of his insistence on the immanence of God, the inseparability of God’s being and act, this account, in which Christ himself maintains the conditions of the covenant, allows Barth to stress the humility of God in his presence with us as Emmanuel. The more distinctive move is Barth’s development of the covenant concept of election. Here, the theologian knew that he was leaving ‘the framework of theological tradition’70 but felt himself (with a measure of anxiety) to be ‘driven irresistibly to reconstruction’.71 This pressure, for Barth, was exerted by the very doctrine of God: election is a part of this doctrine ‘because originally God’s election of man is a predestination not merely of man but of Himself ’.72 As Barth famously states, in the covenant ‘God is God in this way and not in any other’,73 and election is at the heart of this. Barth’s radical move is to understand Christ as the Elect one and all humanity to be elected in him. What happened was this, that under this name God Himself realized in time, and therefore as an object of human perception, the self-giving of himself as the Covenant-partner of the people determined by Him from and to all eternity.74

The election of Christ, then, is both the ground and result of his life history.75 Because God chooses to be God exclusively within the covenant, from eternity, so his relationship with humanity is always covenantal. In all of his activity ad extra, God is the Lord of the Covenant and, since nothing exists apart from his creative role, everything is dependent upon that covenant and nothing exists

66 69 71 74

67 68 CD IV/1, 22. Webster, Barth, 119. CD IV/1, 34. 70 Cf. our discussion of the Reformed traditions. Preface to CD II, x. 72 73 Preface to CD II, x. CD II/2, 3. CD II/2, 6. 75 CD II/2, 53. Neder, Participation in Christ, 17.

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apart from the elect mediator, Jesus. Hence, the existence and history of humanity is enclosed within Christ. He is the beginning of God before which there is no other beginning apart from that of God within Himself. Except, then, for God Himself, nothing can derive from any other source or look back to any other starting-point. He is the election of God before which and without which and beside which God cannot make any other choice. Before Him and without Him and beside Him God does not, then, elect or will anything. And He is the election (and on that account the beginning and the decree and the Word) of the free grace of God. For it is God’s grace that in Him elects to be man and to have dealings with man and to join Himself to man.76

All of God’s dealings with humanity, then, are predicated upon the election of Christ and take place within the terms of covenant. There is no dealing with humanity that is outside of this election. ‘A decision has been made concerning the being and nature of every man by the mere fact that with him and among all other men He too has become a man.’77

Twofold Participation in Christ This leads to the twofold form of participation in Barth’s theology: there is an objective de jure participation in Christ and a subjective de facto one,78 the latter guaranteed by the former. This subjective participation, founded upon the obedience of the Son in the incarnation, itself involves obedience to the divine command so that ‘the law is completely enclosed in the gospel’.79 Importantly, such subjective participation is understood teleologically. It is the purpose and inevitable goal of humanity’s election in Christ. In relation to this, Barth considers the issue of justification. Justification is the outworking of God’s righteousness, which means his ‘negating and overcoming and taking away and destroying wrong and man as the doer of wrong’.80 This involves a crisis that cuts to the root of the sinner’s existence.81 Between the old condemned creature and the new is the justifying act of God in the election of Christ, but because nothing in this is predicated on our old being ‘there can be no self-experience of this drama’.82 Justification is hence thoroughly by faith, involving ‘the apprehensio Christi or habitatio Christi in 76

CD II/2, 94–5. CD III/2, 133. Note Webster’s discussion of how this christological move governs human derivation and identity, in Webster, Barth, 102–5. 78 The theme is developed throughout CD II/2. See the discussion in Neder, Participation in Christ, 18. 79 CD II/2, 557. See the discussion in Eberhard Jüngel, Karl Barth, a Theological Legacy (trans. Garrett E. Paul. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986), 105–26. 80 81 82 CD IV/1, 535. CD IV/1, 541. CD IV/1, 546. 77

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nobis or unio hominis cum Christo that takes place in real faith according to the teaching of Gal 2:20’.83 But this reality cannot be truly perceived by the human. Barth’s emphasis on the objective election of humanity in Christ has been troubling for many, raising concerns of universalism, of a denigration of the acting subjecthood of believers and of a deficient Trinitarianism, lacking proper emphasis on the Spirit. Such fears may have been more robustly allayed had he completed the Church Dogmatics, but even as it stands, the collection contains elements, notably in his accounts of sanctification and vocation in IV/2 and 3, that highlight the evocative element of atonement and the active element of covenant.84 As Webster notes, what is key about Barth’s treatment of these is his emphasis upon Christ’s presence: the faithful activity of the believer is an outworking, a manifestation, of Christ’s own faithful presence.85 Still, it remains the case that his doctrine of election is openly acknowledged to be a departure from all that has gone before and his doctrine of justification, therefore, unprecedented. This must be taken into account when it is brought to bear on the exegesis of the New Testament, so that a modern innovation is not projected onto Scripture carelessly. Before we leave Barth, it is important to recognize that underlying all his accounts is a forceful yet subtle anthropological evaluation that emerges from Christology rather than dictating it. The image of God in man is not simply damaged or defaced by sin but utterly ‘annihilated’ (vernichtet),86 hence the impossibility of a natural theology. The true image of God, which is the point of contact for God’s Word, is ‘the rectitudo which through Christ is raised up from real death and thus restored or created anew’.87 There is, then, no possibility of speaking of the image of God in relation to divine–human participation apart from Christ, but that reality is a matter of eternal election, a matter that governed creation and dictates history. The closeness of this to New Testament anthropology will be highlighted in Part 2.

CONCLUSIONS The various accounts of participation that have been studied in this chapter, from Luther to Barth, all emerged from close readings of Scripture (particularly Paul’s letters) that were shaped in conversation with historical theology. Perhaps the most striking point of commonality that emerges is that the participatory dimension of salvation is a matter of the personal presence of Christ. Righteousness and justification are achieved in his personal narrative, 83 86

CD I/I, 240. CD I/I, 238.

84 87

See Webster, Barth, 129–30. CD I/I, 239.

85

Webster, Barth, 123.

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with irreducibly forensic dimensions, and the human experience of these is not a matter of the remote transfer or imputation of status or credit, but of the personal presence of this Righteous One within his people. Certainly, this presence is understood differently, with Calvin and Luther parting company over the mode of presence in the sacraments, in particular. All, however, agree that salvation is not a matter of receiving benefits secured by Christ, but receiving Christ himself, and with him those benefits. This conclusion is appropriately reflected in the repeated insistence of theologians in this tradition that we must speak of participation as koinonia with Christ,88 as a communion in which he remains a distinct personal presence. As with the Fathers, this requires that all consideration of participation is dependent upon consideration of incarnational ontology, and the implications that this has for divine ontology. By contrast with some of the early Fathers that we studied in the previous chapter, the theologians considered here inherit a fully developed Trinitarianism, within which the terms of individuation within the Godhead are clear. This becomes the basis for a hermeneutic of attention to the biblical texts, as they seek to identify the distinctive roles of each person of the Trinity and to comprehend (as far as possible) the humanity and divinity of the Incarnate Son. Despite the centuries that separate them from the Fathers studied in Chapter 2, Luther and those in the Reformed tradition share a preoccupation with the questions that concern the real humanity of Christ and how this relates to our experience of participation, particularly in the sacraments. To these general conclusions, we may add five specific observations. First, while there have been efforts to ascribe a doctrine of theosis to each of the principal theologians studied in this chapter, these fail to take seriously the distinctive configuration of soteriology in each around union with Christ. Such studies have certainly highlighted the presence of transformational elements in the writing of each scholar that are often overlooked, but they press those elements into a system or framework that is alien to their context. Second, and in particular, claims concerning theosis in these writers neglect the covenantally determined, representational role that they ascribe to Christ. He is the mediator of the covenant, a role that requires both a narrative and an ontology. The narrative in question is that of Israel and this is taken seriously by both Calvin and Barth: the Law is embraced within the gospel and God’s dealings with Israel are part of his redemptive electing work that is centred on the Elect One. While there are important elements of continuity with the patristic tradition, with its treatment of the story of Israel and its account of the ontology of the mediator, this emphasis on covenant adds a formal point

88

So, for example, Torrance, Persons in Communion.

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of specificity that is arguably lacking (explicitly, at least) in the Greek Fathers, but that emerges from attentiveness to the story of Israel in Scripture. Third, the mediatorial role of Christ does not involve a diminution of the Trinitarian dimension of participation, but rather a distinct configuration of the roles of Father, Son, and Spirit, with the role of the last, in particular, fundamentally determined in relation to the work of the Son. This point is rather important in relation to the theosis discussion, since one of the criticisms of Western soteriology offered by proponents of theosis is its focus on the mediatorial role of the Son. Fourth, in Luther and Calvin, despite their different conceptions of mode of presence, the sacraments are vital to participation and are regarded as efficacious precisely because Christ is present in them. What emerges clearly in these writers is a more developed reflection upon the way in which the sacraments represent Christ and, particularly, Christian participation in his death and resurrection. As noted in the previous chapter, this is not absent from the Greek Fathers, but it is not worked out to the same extent as it is in the Reformed tradition. We will note in Chapter 8 the evidence that this idea of sacramental participation in the death of Christ is prominent in the New Testament. Finally, Barth’s distinctive treatment of election, which inevitably affects his rendering of the activity of faith, is quite consciously a departure from the tradition and is generated by his outworking of Christology rather than by the reading of specific texts. Given that this is the case, some caution must be exercised in bringing to bear on the reading of the New Testament, particularly in relation to the activity of faith.

4 Exploring the Backgrounds to Union with Christ Through the course of the previous chapters, various themes, matters, and vocabularies have arisen and recurred, either as driving issues in the interpretation of the New Testament, or as key points of background. The application of glory language to believers throughout the New Testament has driven the various accounts of deification in Christian theology, while itself being interpreted according to the understanding of imago Dei and divine likeness operative within a given theology or tradition. Inevitably, the depiction of Adam in the Bible, and, in some cases, in Judaism more widely, has been a factor within this bigger complex of discussion. The word ‘mysticism’ and its cognates have also occurred repeatedly, as modern labels for the phenomena observed in the New Testament, and also in relation to the contexts of Christian theologies of deification. As we noted in Chapter 1, much of the pioneering research into mysticism in the New Testament recognized that it was quite different from the various species of Graeco-Roman mysticism,1 but these scholars lacked the resources for the study of Jewish mysticism now available to us following the discovery of the Qumran texts. We have also noted the significance attached to the concept and terminology of ‘covenant’, both in biblical studies, where alleged oppositions within ancient Judaism have driven many influential studies and where a recovery of covenantal theology has been an important element in the New Perspective on Paul, and in historical theology, particularly within the Reformed tradition, where it forms the basis for some theologies of identification. Again, the resources provided by the Qumran finds have changed the landscape somewhat, problematizing accounts of Judaism premised on the differentiation between Torah-oriented and apocalyptic/mystical Judaism. Importantly, too, some of the treatments of the theme have operated with a sharp distinction between covenant and contract, thereby challenging certain forensic understandings of justification; such distinctions have been important in the development 1

For this reason, there is little need to be detained by the limited parallels here.

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of certain participatory accounts labelled as ‘apocalyptic’. That last word, of course, has itself surfaced repeatedly. This chapter and the next will explore the key biblical and non-biblical backgrounds to these various issues: the question of the portrayal of Adam will be largely deferred until the next chapter, while the present chapter will move through the other issues that we have just noted, as well as some further matters that need to be considered before we proceed to the study of the New Testament. Our findings along the way will, in themselves, offer conclusions that are significant for the works of biblical and theological study discussed in Chapters 1–3, while also laying the necessary foundations for our study of the New Testament.

CORPORATE PERSONALITY AND IDENTITY FORMATION By way of groundclearing, something needs to be said about the notion of ‘corporate personality’. In 1936 H. Wheeler Robinson drew upon current theories concerning primitive psychology to argue that a number of key passages in the Old Testament appear to suggest a phenomenon of ‘corporate personality’ whereby ‘the whole group, including its past, present, and future members, might function as a single individual through any one of those members conceived as representative of it’.2 Robinson maintained the conception of such corporate personality to be realistic: it is more than simply the personification of a group, but rather the group is ‘a real entity actualized in its members’.3 Because the phenomenon is thoroughgoing, there can also be fluidity of reference, allowing ‘rapid and unmarked transitions from the one to the many, and from the many to the one’.4 Robinson’s article would have a significant impact on biblical scholarship and was subsequently developed into a major monograph,5 but penetrating criticisms were soon levelled against it. J. R. Porter highlighted the extent to which the individual is held responsible in the covenantal law,6 a problematic

2 H. Wheeler Robinson, ‘The Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality’, pp. 49–62 in Johannes Hempel, Friedrich Stummer, and Paul Volz, Werden und Wesen des Alten Testaments: Vorträge gehalten auf der internationalen Tagung alttestamentlicher Forscher zu Göttingen vom 4.–10. September 1935 (Berlin: Alfred Töpelmann, 1936). Quotation from p. 49. 3 Wheeler Robinson, ‘The Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality’, 50. 4 Wheeler Robinson, ‘The Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality’, 50. 5 H. Wheeler Robinson, Corporate Personality in Ancient Israel (2nd edn; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1981). 6 Joshua Roy Porter, ‘Legal Aspects of the Concept of Corporate Personality in the Old Testament’, Vetus Testamentum 15 (1965), 361–80.

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phenomenon in relation to corporate personality, and J. W. Rogerson exposed ambiguities in Robinson’s own usage that allowed imprecise slippage from notions of corporate responsibility to notions of psychical or social unity.7 Most significantly, though, the anthropological basis for Robinson’s theory lay in the work of Lévy-Bruhl,8 in which it was argued that primitives could not distinguish between objective and subjective experiences or between the individual and the group; this work is no longer deemed acceptable by anthropologists, who see it as indiscriminately conflating widely different cultures and phenomena.9 There are more modest and defensible versions of the corporate-identity approach, however. Contemporary social-scientific approaches to the Bible typically emphasize the greater social dimension of identity in the ancient Mediterranean world, not least through specific applications of social-identity theory.10 This stops some way short of confusing the individual and the group, especially at the psychological level, as Robinson’s theory did. But, while it has proven of benefit to our understanding of the social and corporate elements of the New Testament, the social-scientific approach cannot by itself account for the language of the New Testament, such as that describing the incorporation of the believer into the death of Christ (e.g. Romans 6). A more developed account of representation and identification is required to explain such language. Although not primarily directed towards this issue, Joel Kaminsky has recently argued for the fundamentally corporate nature of the covenant.11 This provides theological and conceptual traction for the social and corporate dimensions of identity in the Bible and opens important lines of enquiry for our study of the New Testament. To this we now turn.

7 John W. Rogerson, ‘Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality: A Re-Examination’, Journal of Theological Studies 21 (1970), 1–16. 8 L. Lévy-Bruhl and L. A. Clare, Primitive Mentality (Oxford: Macmillan, 1923). 9 Daniel G. Powers, Salvation through Participation: An Examination of the Notion of the Believers’ Corporate Unity with Christ in Early Christian Soteriology (Leuven; Stirling, Va.: Peeters, 2001), 15. 10 The literature is substantial, but illustrative examples include Philip F. Esler, Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul’s Letter (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003); Atsuhiro Asano, Community–Identity Construction in Galatians: Exegetical, Social–Anthropological, and Socio-Historical Studies (London; New York: T & T Clark, 2005); the collections of essays in Anselm Hagedorn et al. (eds), In Other Words: Essays on Social Science Methods and the New Testament in Honor of (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007); Bengt Holmberg and Mikael Winninge (eds), Identity Formation in the New Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008). 11 Joel S. Kaminsky, Corporate Responsibility in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995).

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THE HEBREW BIBLE AND THE COVENANT The New Perspective on Paul, and the work of Richard Hays on narrative substructure and identity, have worked together in recent decades to ensure a greater appreciation for the way in which the story of Israel influences the conceptuality of the New Testament. There continue to be faultlines within biblical scholarship over the level and significance of diversity within Second Temple Judaism, with debates over which Scriptures were held to be authoritative (and in which form), what the ascription of such authority might entail, and how the different groups within Judaism understood themselves in relation to divine covenant(s). But there is now a greater awareness in contemporary scholarship that ownership of the stories of Israel is, to a significant extent, the central point of conflict and that covenantal themes dominate the issues, however they are to be resolved. As divided as the various groups within Judaism may have been, their division revolved around the question of who could truly claim to be Israel, to be the heirs of the stories told in those Scriptures broadly acknowledged as such.12 The Scriptural background to New Testament concepts of participation, as well as the developments of these in Jewish literature, is important to our study, then.

Covenant, Story, and Participation At the heart of the Old Testament is the story of God’s dealings with a particular people, Israel. That story is embedded into the story of mankind as a whole, through the early chapters of Genesis, and has its distinctive themes of exodus and exile, narratival depictions of divine presence and absence, respectively. The dealings of God with this people, and sometimes with individuals from among that people, are typically covenantal: the divine fellowship is not unpredictable, but involves commitment and bond. But how do the covenants of Scripture relate to one another? Is each a distinct covenant in its own right or is there some kind of meta-covenant? These are profoundly 12 The point is well illustrated by the discussions that have emerged from the Enoch seminar, since it first met in 2000 to discuss Gabriele Boccaccini’s thesis concerning a distinctive ‘Enochic Judaism’. Boccaccini developed this thesis in Gabriele Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1998). The Enoch Seminar provided a forum in which the thesis could be explored, with the key papers published as Gabriele Boccaccini et al., Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light on a Forgotten Connection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005) and Gabriele Boccaccini et al., Enoch and the Mosaic Torah: The Evidence of Jubilees (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009). Further volumes have emerged, but these first two sets of proceedings highlight a wide recognition of the near-ubiquitous importance of covenant to Second Temple Jewish identity and theology, with a broad acceptance of a core body of normative ‘Scripture’, even if that core was itself fluid in text type.

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important questions for our reading of Paul, in particular, where some scholars have seen a pro-Abrahamic and anti-Mosaic covenant theology to be operative, but they also require us to consider the structural significance of covenant imagery and its relevance to the new covenant of Jesus. Since the pioneering work of David Noel Freedman, biblical scholars have recognized that the covenants of the Old Testament (those between God and humanity, at least)13 can be broadly divided into two categories, modelled on contemporary treaties of the ancient world.14 There are, first, covenants in which God imposes terms and stipulations upon the human party and requires compliance of them, as in the Sinai covenant, a breach of which leads to the enactment of curses (e.g. Deut 27–30, played out in the narratives of the Deuteronomic history). Second, there are covenants in which the roles are reversed, with God taking the conditions upon himself. The covenant with Abraham is an example of this: God himself passes between the pieces of the animals in Genesis 15 and thereby symbolically takes responsibility for the maintenance of the covenant. Although a few voices oppose this classification, arguing for the recognition of bilateral covenants,15 most acknowledge that the biblical covenants can be divided into these categories, with the singular exception of the new covenant, which requires further consideration.16 The most extensive recent research into the character of ancient covenants has highlighted that they were inescapably contractual and legal in character and, indeed, that their usage in the Bible reflects this.17 Moreover, this dimension is not diminished by the acknowledgement that the covenants between God and Israel are unilateral or, at least, asymmetrical. God is the suzerain in such covenants, whether he imposes the covenant conditions on Israel or takes them upon himself, but in no case are conditions omitted from the covenant itself, for a covenant is by nature a conditional contract. Vitally, though, such contracts are relational in character. Frank Moore Cross has highlighted the original connection between covenant and kinship18 and while 13 The word covenant is not confined to this relationship. It also covers human–human relationships. These are not in view in the discussion that follows. 14 David Noel Freedman, ‘Divine Commitment and Human Obligation, the Covenant Theme’, Interpretation 18 (1964), 419–31. 15 Notably Gary N. Knoppers, ‘Ancient near Eastern Royal Grants and the Davidic Covenant: A Parallel?’ Journal of the American Oriental Society 116 (1996), 670–97. 16 For an overview of the discussion, see the recent article by David Noel Freedman and David Miano, ‘People of the New Covenant’, in Stanley Porter and Jacqueline De Roo (eds), The Concept of the Covenant in the Second Temple Period (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 7–26. 17 See George Wesley Buchanan, Biblical and Theological Insights from Ancient and Modern Civil Law (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Pr, 1992), esp 74–82 and his more recent article, G. W. Buchanan, ‘The Covenant in Legal Context’, in Porter and De Roo (eds), Concept of the Covenant in the Second Temple Period, 27–52. 18 See his essay ‘Kinship and Covenant in Ancient Israel’, in Frank Moore Cross, From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 3–21.

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this cannot accommodate all dimensions of the covenant concept in Scripture, it is an important underlying idea that reinforces the social dimension of covenant, the extent to which it binds the human covenant partners to one another as well as to God.19 It also centralizes the specific relational concept of ‘adoption’ to covenant: chosen by Yahweh, Israel becomes God’s son (Ex 4:22–3). The language of adoption, then, which we have seen to characterize both patristic and Reformed accounts of deification, has strong ties to covenant. This is significant for the biblical and theological task. We cannot develop an account of reconciliation or participation that is premised upon a biblical (or Hebrew) distinction between ‘covenant’ and ‘contract’ or between unilateral and bilateral covenants,20 and we cannot offer a reading of Judaism that ignores the conditioned dimension of God’s covenant-framed relationship with Israel.21 This, however, does not require us to adopt a merit-based account of salvation. There are, as we will see, biblical resources that allow us to see God as the one solely responsible for salvation within the terms of this contractual framework and these have been mined in some theological traditions. The first covenant explicitly designated as such in Scripture is that between God and Noah.22 The key passage in which this covenant is developed is Genesis 9, but it is anticipated in Genesis 6:18 (‘But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you’), so that both the flood itself and the deliverance of Noah and his family from that destruction are taken into the covenantal account. The Noachic covenant is, of course, made with the sole survivors of the Flood and, therefore, with humanity as a whole, not just a particular family or tribe within a broader race (as with the Abrahamic). This has been a significant element in later discussion of the covenant in Jewish and Christian tradition, particularly as it relates to the legal expectations placed upon non-Jewish worshippers of God. In fact, the covenant is extended to all who come out of the ark, not just the humans: it is with ‘all life’ (9:9–11). Interestingly, the promise of this covenant is linked to the fact that the flood has purged the earth of the violence with which it was filled by ‘flesh’ (6:12–13). The problem of violence originates in ‘flesh’ and is resolved by the destruction 19 For an exploration of the theme and provocative consideration of its implications for New Testament study, see Scott Hahn, Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment of God’s Saving Promises (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). 20 See the discussion of this in Chapter 3. 21 As, notably, does Campbell, The Deliverance of God. 22 Although there has been much discussion in the Reformed tradition in particular about whether God’s relationship to the first couple should be understood in terms of an Adamic ‘covenant of works’, distinguished from the covenant(s) of redemption, the identification of this as a ‘derivative doctrine’ (and not an explicit element of Scripture itself) by its advocates allows us to bypass the issue here. I will, however, discuss an interesting parallel to this in the presentation of Adam in Jubilees, later in this chapter.

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of that flesh. The subsequent narrative, of course, makes clear that the problem of sin continues, but this way of understanding salvation as the destruction of evil flesh is developed in the New Testament and in Jewish traditions.23 Both, importantly, treat the Flood as the prototypical judgement. Clearly, the covenant falls into the category of covenant in which terms are imposed upon the human party (Gen 9:2–7), with the promise of a ‘reckoning’24 for those who break its stipulations. At the same time, the sign of the covenant, the rainbow, serves as a reminder to God (Gen 9:12–16) that he has made the covenant: he is the one who is to remember the covenant and his commitment to life. The second major covenant is made with Abram/Abraham. While anticipated in the promise given to Abram in Genesis 12:2–3, where the commitment of God to bless the world through him is stated, the key chapters concerning this covenant are Genesis 15 and 17. The first of these involves the covenant ceremony itself, within which Yahweh, in the form of a smoking brazier and torch, passes between the divided pieces of the animals, symbolically taking the responsibility for the covenant upon himself. The symbolism is generally understood to depict the willingness on the part of the one passing between the pieces to suffer the curses incurred by the breaking of the covenant.25 The covenant of Genesis 15 is pronounced without any conditions being placed on Abram, involving only the divine commitment to bless Abram with offspring and the family with the land. In Genesis 17, these same elements are taken up (Gen 17:6–8), but now requirements are placed on Abraham, newly designated the father of many (Gen 17:5). Specifically, Abraham is required to keep the covenant by circumcision (Gen 17:9–14). This is not an isolated requirement, for Abraham is also expected to walk blamelessly before God as his servant. Taken together, these two chapters highlight that a single covenant can be presented in terms of both categories of covenant and that the two categories can be interconnected.26 The Abrahamic covenant is, by narrative means, linked to the Sinai covenant. The covenant pronouncement of Genesis 15 anticipates the Exodus (Gen 15:13–16), and God’s dealings with his people in Israel and in the Exodus are governed by the memory of this covenant (Ex 2:24, 3:6, 3:15–16, 6:8, Deut 9:5, 29:13, 30:20, among others). The Sinai covenant is thus presented as an outworking of the Abrahamic covenant, consequential to God’s unconditional

23

Notably, The Book of the Watchers, 9–16, and 1 Peter. This is the significance attached to the verb ‫ ָדַּרשׁ‬here, as reflected in most translations. 25 Freedman, ‘Divine Commitment and Human Obligation’, 171–3; Norbert Lohfink, Die Landverheissung als Eid: Eine Studie zu Gn 15 (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1967), 11–23. See also Delbert R. Hillers, Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea (Baltimore: John Hopkins Pr, 1969), 102–3. 26 It is noteworthy that the divine promise comes first, however, a point neatly captured in Barth’s statement that ‘the law is completely enclosed in the gospel’ (CD II/2). See our discussion in Chapter 3. 24

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promises to the nation’s father. By contrast to Genesis 15 and the limited conditions of Gen 17, however, the Sinai covenant is characterized by the extensive set of laws that is imposed on Israel. Obedience or disobedience to these laws lead respectively to blessing or curse (Deuteronomy 27–8). At the centre of both covenants, though, and at the centre of the blessings attendant upon them, is the presence of God with his people: ‘I will be your God’ (Gen 17:8; Ex 20:2). The fact that there is such strong connection between the two covenants, while also such strong dissimilarity at the level of conditionality, creates an interpretative pressure for readers: how does the unconditional commitment of God to Abraham relate to the conditional character of the Sinai covenant? Does one require to be subordinated to the other? Do we see a dialectic tension between them? This is the very issue explored by Francis Watson in his study of Paul’s reading of the Pentateuch,27 and even if we do not agree with his findings—that Paul reads the covenants in tension and exploits this in his account of the centrality of faith—his recognition that Jewish reading of the Pentateuch exhibited a diversity of resolutions of this issue is an important one. Moreover, the fact that this pressure was clearly felt by others in the Second Temple period (a fact attested by Watson’s study of the pesher to Habakkuk28) reminds us that attempts to untangle the relationship between the covenants by recourse to redaction and tradition history, in the context of the developmental history of the Old Testament, do not mitigate the interpretative pressure felt by readers in the late Second Temple period. The fourth major covenant of the Old Testament is that between God and David. There is some debate over whether this should be seen as originally conditional or unconditional, with contrastive emphases in 2 Sam 7:11–16 and 1 Kings 2:4. Freedman and Miano note that ‘[t]he most prevalent view held by scholars today is that the Davidic covenant was originally seen as an unconditional covenant of divine commitment but, after the fall of the kingdom, the promise was reworked and put under condition to explain what happened to the nation’.29 From the time of the exile, then, at least, the Davidic covenant was understood to be conditional. The Davidic covenant itself has some important links back to Sinai and to the Abraham covenant. Narrativally, it is set in relation to the Exodus account (2 Sam 7:6) and recalls the blessings promised there, recapitulating those made to Abraham concerning possession of the land and peace from enemies (2 Sam 7:10–11). It is also, again, very much concerned with the presence of God with Israel, now considered in relation to the ‘dwelling’ place of God’s ‘house’ (2 Sam 7:6, 13). The play on the word ‘house’ in the passage (2 Sam 7:11,13), its dual connotation of temple and dynasty, allows for a close connection to be 27 29

28 Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith. 1QpHab. Freedman and Miano, ‘People of the New Covenant’, 13.

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established between the Davidic rule and the presence of God in the temple, with his people. Such is the centrality of this theme of presence to all of the covenants that the association between God’s house and David’s house effectively ensures that the covenants are integrated around the role of the Davidic king. This king, anointed as Messiah, is depicted as God’s son in 2 Sam 7:14, with a promise (or anticipation) of punishment for wrongdoing sitting alongside a statement of God’s unconditional commitment to love him and to establish the Davidic line forever.30 This forms part of the conceptual backdrop to messianism, a controversial issue with which we will engage later in the chapter. The adoption of the nation in covenant is focused upon a particular house and, within that house, on a particular representative. Whatever the origins and development of such royal theology, the various associations of divine presence, the blessing of the land, peace from enemies, and the global blessing or reign of God all come to be associated with David’s house and the covenant with it. This is quite strikingly played out in the Deuteronomistic history of the kings: in the time of a faithful king there is blessing, in the time of an unfaithful one, curse. The association of the faithful Davidic king with blessing comes also to represent restoration hopes. This is prominent in some of the prophetic writings, particularly through the shepherding imagery used in Ezekiel (e.g. 34:23, 37:24), the Branch imagery of Jeremiah (23:5, 33:15) and Zechariah (3:8, 6:12) and, of course, the Servant imagery of Deutero-Isaiah, which is so often Davidic in orientation. All of this leads us to the final great covenant of the Old Testament, the prophetic new covenant of Jeremiah 31:31–3 and its wider context: The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

The new covenant of Jeremiah is conceptually grounded in its antecedent, the Mosaic covenant, alluded to in verse 32. It is important that this prior covenant is understood to have been broken by Israel and Judah (judgement for such failure dominates Jeremiah’s prophecy); the new covenant is specifically differentiated from this, even as it takes up the central motif of divine presence, in verse 33.31 The difficulty in classifying the new covenant 30

Note the use of messianic language and the imagery of the Davidic covenant in Psalm 2. The relationship between old and new covenants in the context of the literary development of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible has received a good deal of attention. The discussion is nicely summarized and well explored (with sensitivity to the scholarly ideologies at play) by 31

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according to Freedman’s schema lies in the character of the new covenant visà-vis the problem of Israel’s failure: God takes upon himself the responsibility of ensuring that the law is internalized and made efficacious. The requirement to live in accordance with the law’s demands is not thereby abrogated, and neither is there (in Jeremiah, at least) an infusion of power into Israel to enable obedience. Rather the nature of the relationship of the people to the covenant is altered: the covenant (law) becomes an internal reality, inscribed upon the deepest part of their being. This is done, moreover, within the unconditional commitment of God to Israel, a commitment that refuses to be dismantled by their sin (31:37). Jeremiah’s new covenant is important to the New Testament and is taken up elsewhere in Second Temple literature. It is not, however, taken up in isolation: a number of further texts use covenant imagery in relation to restoration or parallel Jeremiah in an emphasis on the internalization of law. Covenant language is used of the Isaianic Servant in Isaiah 42:6 and 49:8 and the image of an everlasting covenant (‫ ) ְבִּרית עוָֹלם‬is used in Isaiah 55:3 and 61:8. In the former, the everlasting covenant is linked to God’s commitment to David; in the latter, the phrase is connected to the broader imagery of the jubilee, in a passage that leaves its mark on the New Testament. Isaiah also describes the future covenant as the ‘covenant of peace’ (Isaiah 54:10). This latter phrase is also found in Ezekiel 34:25, in the context of Davidic shepherding imagery, and in Ezekiel 37:26, where it is combined with ‘everlasting covenant’. Such combinations create fertile opportunities for intertextual reading, of the kind demonstrable in Jewish exegetical technique even with the biblical texts themselves.32 Shared phrases or terms of this kind allow readers to bring texts to bear interpretatively on one another. Ezekiel 37, married as it is to Ezekiel 36, contains a promise of empowerment, of the implanting of God’s Spirit with regenerative effect. In Ez 36:26–7 that Spirit is implanted into the people along with a new heart. The linking vocabularies, as well as the more general overlap of forgiveness and restoration imagery, would allow this passage to be brought to bear on the reading of Jeremiah 31, further developing the picture of transformation into covenant fidelity. J. N. Moon, Jeremiah’s New Covenant: An Augustinian Reading (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 140–79. 32 This is the phenomenon studied in approaches falling under the label ‘inner-biblical exegesis’. The classic study is Michael A. Fishbane, ‘Revelation and Tradition: Aspects of Inner-Biblical Exegesis’, Journal of Biblical Literature 99 (1980), 343–61. A host of further articles and studies have sharpened the discussion. The important studies of exegesis at Qumran by George Brooke have given strong support to such approaches. See his Exegesis at Qumran: 4QFlorilegium in its Jewish Context (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985). An invaluable study of the methodological principles that govern these approaches is to be found in William A. Tooman, Gog of Magog: Reuse of Scripture and Compositional Technique in Ezekiel 38–39 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 1–34, although his discussion is oriented towards the more difficult question of directions of dependence in the Old Testament texts.

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A survey of the treatment of covenant in Second Temple literature, such as the one recently provided by Porter et al.,33 highlights two interesting points. First, some of the literature, at least, attests a belief that there is, in fact, only one covenant. This is the observation made by Jacques van Ruiten in his study of Jubilees: that book identifies, through various strategies, the events of the patriarchal narratives with the Mosaic covenant and identifies various patriarchal figures with Moses.34 Given what we have seen of the interlinking references that bind the covenants together, this concern is perhaps unsurprising, but it is an interesting forerunner to the ‘monocovenant’ discussions that have been prominent in some Reformed circles. Second, outside of the New Testament, the phrase ‘new covenant’ is encountered in the Dead Sea Scrolls, where it underpins the identity of the community at key points in the literature.35 This may be significant for a number of reasons, but of particular interest is the fact that this clear parallel to the New Testament occurs in a corpus of writings that contains so much mystical and apocalyptic material. This has been one of the major factors in the overturning of the traditional scholarly tension between apocalyptic and covenant theology.

Glory Given the significance of the language of glory language in the discussions of participation in the New Testament, it is important at this stage of our study to consider the background provided by the Old Testament to such language. Apart from the general influence of these Scriptures on the thought of the New Testament writers, the extent of which has been a matter of debate, these Scriptures also provide quite specific textual resources, drawn on by quotation, allusion, echo, and, indeed, by more specific examples of ‘inner-biblical exegesis’. Examples of this will be seen in our study of the New Testament texts. At this stage, what is important is to identify the key associations of the language of glory. Carey Newman’s examination of ‘Glory-Christology’ in Paul provides an important analysis of the Old Testament and later Jewish backgrounds to the

33 Stanley E. Porter and Jacqueline C. R. De Roo, The Concept of the Covenant in the Second Temple Period (Leiden: Brill, 2003). 34 J. van Ruiten, Primaeval History Interpreted: The Rewriting of Genesis 1–11 in the Book of Jubilees (Leiden: Brill, 2000); ‘The Garden of Eden and Jubilees 3:1–31’, Bijdragen 57 (1996), 305; ‘The Covenant of Noah in Jubilees 6.1–38’, in Porter and De Roo (eds), Concept of the Covenant in the Second Temple Period, 167–90. 35 See the various essays collected in Porter and De Roo, The Concept of the Covenant in the Second Temple Period. Further useful comments on the presence of covenant conceptuality in the liturgical texts from Qumran may be found in James R. Davila, Liturgical Works (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 3–12, and (specifically on 4QBerakhot) 41–7.

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apostle’s thought.36 Newman’s study is subtle, drawing upon both diachronic and synchronic analysis of the word ‘glory’ (kavod) and the phrase ‘the glory of the Lord’. He notes the stability of the latter as a formula, when contrasted with the relative flexibility of the simple nominal and verbal constructions, indicating that prior to the composition of the New Testament, the concept of the ‘glory of the Lord’ was well established, with a clear set of associations. The phrase is particularly associated with the visible presence of the Lord; that is, not with a secret or internal quality of God, but rather with his being in relation to (his) people. ‫ כבוד יהוה‬does not denote, at least in the first instance, a character or attribute of ‫יהוה‬. Neither is the meaning of ‫ כבוד יהוה‬exhausted by ‘fire’ or ‘brightness’—terms used to describe the appearance of ‫כבוד‬. Rather, the collocation ‫ כבוד יהוה‬signifies the visible and mobile presence of Yahweh. ‫’כבוד יהוה‬s close association with special places (places where Yahweh is commonly depicted as being present) and special people (people who are especially close to Yahweh) confirms this conclusion.37

Crucially, of course, ‘[t]he semantic antonym for ‫ כבוד יהוה‬would then be the “absence,” “departure” or “disappearance” of Yahweh’s ‫כבוד‬.’38 The later development of the term Shekinah for the glory of God also reflects this emphasis: glory is ‘dwelling’. The close connection between divine glory and presence will have significant implications for our study of the New Testament. Newman examines the diachronic development behind this concept of glory, within the redactional history of the Old Testament. Such a history involves scholarly reconstruction, of course, and he examines the various theories for the origins of glory-theologies and for their development within the various strata of the Pentateuch, in relation to the prophetic corpus. To some extent, this discussion is less relevant to our purposes, as it is more remote from the New Testament, but several points emerge that are interesting and are significant also to Newman’s own findings regarding Paul. First, given the problems in tracing the glory motif to Canaanite religion, ‘the most plausible tradition-historical source of ‫ כבוד יהוה‬in “P” is the ExodusSinai-Wilderness tradition complexes’.39 The significance of this is obvious: we might expect to encounter a particular density of allusions to this complex in relation to glory language in the New Testament and, further, we might expect to encounter allusions to this narrative, not necessarily as constitutive of Israel, but as paradigmatic for divine presence with humanity.

36 37 38 39

Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology. Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 24. Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 21. Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 40.

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Second, ‘the glory of the Lord’ becomes associated with the specific location of the Jerusalem temple, by way of the tabernacle traditions. Again, this link has a negative partner: the association of the glory of God with the temple is paired to the dark reflection of the departed glory and the empty temple, a theme developed spectacularly in Ezekiel. This association of glory and temple is further linked to the development of monarchy and, thus, with the Davidic house.40 The centralizing of Jerusalem and the location of the temple there was, of course, closely connected with the monarchy, and specifically with David and Solomon. The association of the glory with the Jerusalem temple, therefore, has unavoidably royal significance.41 The development of ‘Royal Theology’ also linked the house of David, the divinely elected king, to the kingship of Yahweh himself (2 Sam 7), and the Davidic throne in Jerusalem to the divine throne in the temple. The place name of ‘Zion’ becomes associated with the presence and reign of God and that of his anointed king: Israel’s declarations finally blur the line between temple and city, moving back and forth between specific references to the temple and a more general reference to the city as a whole.42

As a consequence of these close associations, ‘glory’ comes to be closely associated with the Davidic (Messianic) line43 and with the place Zion. Importantly, though, the glory of the Davidic line and of Zion is not a property inherent to those things; rather it is an alien property, communicated to them and contingent upon the presence of God. Thus, Solomon must await the descent of the divine glory before he can complete the dedication of the temple in prayer and sacrifice (1 Kings 8:10–11; note the use of the conjunction ‫ָאז‬, ‘then’, at the beginning of verse 12). While, in certain regards, person and place may participate in the glory of God, the fact that this is an alien reality, communicated by presence, is constantly maintained. The fall of the Davidic monarchy and the ultimate destiny of Solomon’s temple confirm such a point: glory can be lost. At the same time, Ezekiel 37 attests the closeness of the link between the anticipated restoration of glory/presence and the restoration of the monarchy. Such expectations bring with them a further set of associated hopes: under the Davidic shepherd, the tribes of Israel will be reunited (Ez 37:19,24), an everlasting covenant of peace will be established (Ez 37:26) and blessing will flow to the world (Ez 47:7–12). Similar associations run through Isaiah44 and

40

Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 44–52. Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 47. R. E. Clements, God and Temple (London: Blackwell, 1965), 64. 42 Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 47. 43 The Royal Psalms are particularly striking in this regard. See, for example, Ps 45:3. 44 E.g. Isaiah 42:1–4 and 49:6, though the theme is encountered more widely in Isaiah 40–66. 41

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Zechariah.45 As the influence of such texts is felt in the Second Temple literature, the application of glory language to the Davidic house or throne becomes quite striking: the Greek text of Sirach 47:11 speaks of David’s throne being a ‘throne of glory’ and 4QpIsaa8–10 echoes such terminology in its interpretation of the messianic ‘horn’: when the Branch of David arises at the end of days, he will rule over all nations on such a glorious throne. 4QDibHam iv 1–9 is even more explicit in identifying the enthronement of the Davidic shepherd and the establishment of the covenant with the revelation of God’s own glory. A similar example is found in 4QFlorilegium, which identifies the ‘glorious’ Branch with the fallen tent of David, the rebuilding of which is promised in Amos 9:11. This particular example is noteworthy because of the parallel it provides to Acts 15:16–18, where the fallen tent of David is interpreted not as the Messiah but as his temple.46 Numerous other examples could be provided to attest the fact that the Davidic house and throne, and the Messiah himself, are described as glorious.47 This requires some subtlety as we approach the New Testament texts, as they describe the glory of Jesus: does the application of glory language to Jesus reflect belief in an inherent quality, in a communicated property or in a functional reality? Does one evolve into the other? Or, is the glory of Jesus categorically different from that of his messianic antecedents, so that the real significance is in allowing a re-reading of texts that link the messiah and glory? Such questions will be important for us to consider when we examine the evidence of the New Testament. In order to facilitate that discussion, we will devote a brief section at the end of this chapter to the discussion of messianism. The Sinai and Zion associations of glory also underpin a further key point: the divine glory is a dangerous presence. Moses was not permitted to see the divine face (Ex 33) and any unprescribed activity in the presence of the glory (in relation to temple, tabernacle, or ark) resulted in destruction: Nadab and Abihu are killed for their illegitimate offerings (Lev 10) and Uzzah for touching the ark without permission (2 Sam 6:6). The danger inherent in the divine presence is highlighted in Isaiah 6: the prophet, a ‘man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips’ (Is 5:5), must be purified if he is not to be undone, an action that he is incapable of performing himself, requiring divine work. 45 Zechariah 6:12–15, 9:9–17. Shepherd imagery is used in 11:4–17 and 13:7–9; the failure of shepherds to properly care for the flock leads to the striking of the shepherd (‘the man close to me’, 13:7) and the scattering of the flock, which in turn precedes the refining of a remnant and the establishment of God’s own reign over the earth (14:9). The relationship of such a prophecy to the earlier anticipation of the reign of the Messianic Branch (6:12–15) creates a fruitful exegetical space for the development of Christology in the New Testament. 46 See Chapter 6. 47 Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 116–33.

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This, of course, brings us back to the problem of sin and atonement. Isaiah’s experience represents the basic problem of the people of God: they are unclean because of sin48 and thus incapable of existing in the presence of God unless he purifies them. The covenant frames their relationship with Yahweh, but within the covenant narratives themselves it is clear that the problem of sin is deeper than can be addressed by the Torah: the sandwiching of the golden calf incident (Ex 32) with Moses’s ascent of Sinai and his vision of Yahweh (linked to the giving of the law) ensures that the reader is aware of this basic problem. The presence of Yahweh ensures the necessity of purification, but the law, taken by itself, cannot meet that need. The departure of the glory from the temple in Ezekiel represents a significant verdict on the status of the covenant: it has been broken.49 The same conclusion is encountered in Jeremiah 31:32. In both, if the glory of God’s presence is to be restored to the people, the problem of sin, of the incapacity to live in fidelity to the covenant, must be addressed. Such a task requires both cleansing and renewal. The recognition of such a need in the human participants of the covenant is outworked in various ways both in Scripture (particularly in prophetic writings such as Ezekiel 36–7) and in the writings of the Second Temple period. It is this very deficiency that underpins the theme of revealed wisdom to a special elect in the literature of the period, as I argued in a previous study.50

THE OLD TESTAMENT AND JEWISH MYSTICAL AND APOCALYPTIC TRADITIONS The roots of the Jewish mystical tradition lie in the Old Testament itself, with Ezekiel 1, in particular, serving as the fountainhead for so much that follows and the vision of Isaiah 6 feeding reflection on the local and cosmic dimensions of the divine glory. While many of the witnesses to the mystical tradition are embedded in late rabbinic texts, notably the Hekhalot, Merkavah, and Shiur Koma traditions, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls provided an important window onto the development of Jewish mysticism during the Second Temple Period, bearing witness to a number of the Pseudepigrapha and yielding further parallels to support the long-standing claim that the

It is important that Isaiah has unclean ‘lips’ in this regard: the uncleanness is tied to his activity, not just to ritual defilement. 49 The general consensus of a post-exilic date for the redaction of the Pentateuch makes such a conclusion stronger. 50 Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. 48

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rabbinic texts preserve early mystical traditions. The Scrolls, and the wider discussions of the theology of the Qumran community, have also contributed to the growing recognition that not only is mysticism closely related to apocalyptic, but the distinction often made between both of these and Torah/covenant piety is a false one.51 That distinction arose, in part, as a side-effect of a questionable construal of ‘apocalyptic eschatology’ in scholarship. Apocalyptic eschatology was understood to be distinctive, with an expectation of an imminent new age (paired to an evaluation of the present time as evil) that was set over and against a ‘this worldly’ orientation in traditional Jewish Torah-piety. Such an emphasis also resulted in a wedge being driven between apocalyptic and wisdom: the latter was seen to have no interest beyond the limits of this life and this time, while the former denied the validity of those very things. Many of the key developments in New Testament scholarship have proceeded from these dichotomies: Schweitzer’s account of Jesus was founded on such a reading of apocalyptic52 in relation to Torah and, in the present day, the work of John Dominic Crossan and John Kloppenborg have both required a sharp distinction between wisdom and apocalyptic.53

Apocalyptic, Eschatology, and Torah Such tendencies are still very much alive and well in biblical scholarship, but serious challenges to their readings have been offered and these have begun to erode their influence. The work of Christopher Rowland has been particularly important in this regard, arguing that the eschatological component is both less prominent and less distinctive than frequently claimed: ‘apart from a handful of passages, their doctrine of the future hope seems to be pretty much the same as that found in other Jewish sources’.54 As he notes further:

51

Our discussion of covenant has already provided secondary literature on this point. See also Christopher Rowland and Christopher R. A. Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God: Early Jewish Mysticism and the New Testament (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2009), 23. 52 See the discussion in Chapter 1. 53 For example, John S. Kloppenborg, The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1987); John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1991). See my discussion in Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, 1–25, and also (on Kloppenborg) Matthew Goff, ‘Discerning Trajectories: 4QInstruction and the Sapiential Background of the Sayings Source Q’, Journal of Biblical Literature 124 (2005), 657–73. 54 Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 15. The observation distils one of the key points that emerges in Rowland’s classic study, The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (London: SPCK, 1982).

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The conviction about a glorious future for the people of God is there, but it remains something hardly ever elaborated in detail—a strange phenomenon for works whose primary interest is supposed to be in the future.55

This is not to minimize the importance of the eschatological component in the apocalyptic texts, but to properly configure this in relation to other elements within them and in relation to other Jewish texts. The implications for how the apocalypses relate to Torah and covenant are significant: where some have assumed that the eschatological orientation of the apocalypses entails a rejection of all covenant/Torah thought, in fact such thought is often taken up into this new eschatological context.56 This is not to say that the apocalypses are univocal on the question of Torah or covenant, and the recent discussions of Enochic Judaism further complicate this picture, but we cannot in any simple way equate apocalyptic with their rejection. Neither can the older suggestion of a polarization between apocalypticism and Pharisaism stand; there are plenty of warnings to be found in the rabbinic writings about speculative activity, but there are also remains of such activity to be found, with evidence that this can be traced back to the period of the Tannaim.57

Apocalypse and Glory The apocalypses are strongly marked by the language of glory. In fact, Klaus Koch presented this as one of the characteristic motifs of the genre, the eschatological ‘portion’ or ‘state’ enjoyed by the saved.58 This eschatological emphasis in Koch reflects the tendency criticized above and neglects those texts that have no eschatological orientation in themselves (such as 2 Enoch 22, where the seer is transformed into a glorious state because he is in the divine presence, not the eschaton). Given what we have seen of the associations of glory in the Bible, Koch’s observation should be modified: glory language is frequent in the apocalypses as reflective of divine presence, often (but not always) enjoyed by the saved as an eschatological blessing. 55

Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 17. The work of Lars Hartman on the prologue to 1 Enoch illustrates this point effectively. Asking for a Meaning: A Study of 1 Enoch 1–5. 57 Note the evidence to this effect of m.Hag 2:1. Important discussions on the origins of Jewish mysticism are found in Ithamar Gruenwald, ‘Reflections on the Nature and Origins of Jewish Mysticism’, in Peter Schäfer and Joseph Dan (eds), Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism: 50 Years After (Tübingen: Mohr, 1993), 25–57, distilling much from his From Apocalypticism to Gnosticism: Studies in Apocalypticism, Merkavah Mysticism and Gnosticism (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1988). 58 Klaus Koch, The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic: A Polemical Work on a Neglected Area of Biblical Studies and its Damaging Effects on Theology and Philosophy (trans. Margaret Kohl. London: SCM Press, 1972), 32. 56

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The Mystical Texts and Human Encounter with Glory The rabbinic texts distinguish two branches of Jewish mysticism, noted in mHag 2:1: Ma’ase Bere’shit, which is devoted to cosmology and cosmogony and is based on Gen 1, and Ma’ase Merkavah, which is devoted to reflection on the divine throne-chariot and is based on Ezekiel 1. The principal work of cosmology is the Sefer Yezirah (‘Book of Formation’), a short work that links the creation of the world to the ten decimal numbers (the ten Sefirot) and to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The first four Sefirot are the Spirit of God and the three principal elements of air, water, and fire. Within those three elements, God ‘engraves’ and ‘hews out’ the cosmos and the heavenly world, so that these realms are located within the Sefirot. The letters of the Hebrew language are hewn from the element of air and these serve to give order to the universe, underlying and organizing its components according to their phonetic qualities. This may well be derived from the role of divine speech in the creation account of Genesis 1. It allows for a potentially magical significance to be attached to the Hebrew language, while also highlighting the possibilities for linguistic images of divine sovereignty. The physical world is hewn from the element of water, specifically, while the heavenly realm and the Merkavah are derived from the element of fire. The appearance of the Merkavah in the cosmological account highlights the inter-connectedness of the two branches of Jewish mysticism. It is in the Hekhalot literature, however, that Merkavah mysticism is principally developed. The Hekhalot literature is a motley collection of Hebrew and Aramaic documents, preserved mainly in medieval manuscripts, which purport to describe the adventures of a number of rabbis of the second century CE who were able to ascend to heaven to participate in the heavenly liturgy and to call down angels and compel them to reveal heavenly secrets.59

These texts recount journeys to the place where the throne is beheld. The seer passes through the concentric palaces of heaven, each of which is warded by angelic guardians who may be passed only by those who have special knowledge of the words of passage. The mystic prepares for the journey in fasting and spiritual exercise, and through the reciting of magical formulae can ultimately come to behold the throne and join with the angels in the Qedushah song of Isaiah 6:3. Any mistake is fatal and, as attested by the fact that the heroes of this literature are rabbis, only experts need apply. Clearly, these core works of Jewish mysticism bear the marks of syncretism, of the uptake of mystical or mystery ideas from the Hellenistic tradition. As these ideas are taken into Judaism, however, they are altered in striking ways to accommodate Jewish ways of thinking about the relationship between God 59

Davila, Liturgical Works, 11.

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and the world. Taken together, the branches of Jewish mysticism demonstrate two concerns, existing in something of a tension. The first is the need to stress God’s otherness; the second is to stress the immanence of his glory in the cosmos and the contingency of all creation upon him. By including the Spirit of God among the Sefirot, the problem of how to understand ‘the fullness of the whole earth is his glory’ (Isaiah 6:3) is addressed, while the Merkavah retains its particularity as a location of divine presence and revelation. Some experience of the divine glory is open to anyone, through God’s presence in creation, but only a few can behold the chariot. Mystical activity is both informed and controlled by Scripture, and sometimes the exegetical aspect of the mystical texts is prominent to an extent that suggests no actual visionary activity: Many have expounded upon the Merkavah without ever seeing it. (Tosefta Megilla 3[4]:28)

The point is interesting, for it highlights that mysticism can contribute imagery, language, and even generic features to exegetical activity, even when the latter involves no actual visionary or ecstatic practice.60 As we come to the New Testament, this will be an important point to bear in mind as we seek to ascertain whether we are encountering mystical phenomena, or simply language that is mystical in origin. These texts are, of course, late; they postdate the New Testament by several centuries, at least. But the writings from Qumran have provided numerous parallels to them, supporting the conclusion that the mysticism of the rabbinic texts is the heir to a long-running tradition.61 In particular, the liturgical texts from Qumran, notably the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, are suggestive of participation in the angelic liturgy, and are peppered with references to the celestial temple (or temples), possibly envisaging progression through seven distinct firmaments to the throne room of God himself.62 The connection of 60 Some have argued that key visionary texts, such as the story of the four who entered Paradise, are actually exegetical reflections or parables, rather than true mystical accounts. See Peter Schäfer, ‘New Testament and Hekhalot Literature: The Journey into Heaven in Paul and in Merkavah Mysticism’, Journal of Jewish Studies 35 (1984), 19–35; Alon Goshen Gottstein, ‘Four Entered Paradise Revisited’, Harvard Theological Review 88 (1995), 69–133. Others have challenged such an interpretation, notably James R. Davila, ‘The Hodayot Hymnist and the Four Who Entered Paradise’, Revue de Qumran 17 (1996), 457–78, but the discussion itself highlights the closeness of Scriptural exegesis and mysticism. 61 Davila, ‘The Hodayot Hymnist and the Four Who Entered Paradise’ is an excellent example. 62 Davila, Liturgical Works, 84. An impressive study of the issues is found in Judith H. Newman, ‘Priestly Prophets at Qumran: Summoning Sinai through the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice’, in George J. Brooke, Hindy Najman, and Loren T. Stuckenbruck (eds), The Significance of Sinai: Traditions About Sinai and Divine Revelation in Judaism and Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 29–72. Carol A. Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985) remains a key resource for the study of these texts.

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glory language in the apocalypses to that in the later rabbinic texts is also now well established.63 In an important but problematic study, Crispin Fletcher-Louis has explored the transformational and participational elements of these mystical texts.64 Using the phrase ‘liturgical anthropology’ to describe the phenomenon under examination, he argues that there is a widespread belief in ‘angelomorphic’65 humanity, in which individuals are understood to have been transformed into a glorious angelic state. This belief blurs the ‘absolute qualitative difference between God and man’66 often assumed in scholarship and problematizes the notion that we must not speak of an ‘inherent divinity of humanity’.67 Fletcher-Louis brings together a broad range of texts from the Second Temple period and, in detailed exegesis, highlights the ways in which human beings who participate in the worship of God are described as being transformed, usually in terms of glory and angelic likeness. This glorious human condition is connected by Fletcher-Louis to the Adamic state (reflected in the title of his study), but this is subordinated to his primary identification of angelic themes in the literature. Positively, Fletcher-Louis draws attention to the radically transformative experience of worship or liturgy, as represented in the literature. He takes seriously the extent to which humans are portrayed as participating in the heavenly world and the implications that this has for a dualistic conception of heaven and earth. I noted in my discussion of Calvin that his account of the Spirit raising believers to heaven in the sacrament mirrors the kind the language that Fletcher-Louis studies in the Jewish texts. It is not that such texts eschew dualism, but, rather, that they use dualistic categories and images in order to make permeable the boundaries between Heaven and Earth. Throughout his study, Fletcher-Louis draws attention to the human embodiment of heavenly glory and to the immediate fellowship between human worshippers and the angelic host, offering an important corrective to approaches that wrongly 63 Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 90: ‘In the throne visions of the early Jewish apocalypses, Glory forms part of the characteristic field of signifiers used to describe the heavens. That is, when a seer peers into the heavens, he sees Glory—be it associated with God, a throne, or angels. The titular use of glory signifies the (sometimes) anthropologically described presence of God, who is himself the apex of the heavenly hierarchy.’ 64 Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill, 2002). 65 This term is not original to Fletcher-Louis. He takes it from the work of Charles A. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden: Brill, 1998). Others have begun to apply it to patristic literature, notably Bogdan Gabriel Bucur, Angelomorphic Pneumatology: Clement of Alexandria and Other Early Christian Witnesses (Leiden: Brill, 2009). Mark Edwards is probably correct to describe his provocative thesis as speculative, however: see his ‘Review: Angelomorphic Pneumatology: Clement of Alexandria and Other Early Christian Witnesses’, Journal of Theological Studies 61 (2010), 779–80. 66 Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam, 1. 67 Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam, 1.

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emphasize the eschatological dimension of these texts.68 In this regard, his findings are in constructive dialogue with Carol Newsom’s classic study of the Song of the Sabbath Sacrifice,69 which highlights the human participation in heavenly liturgy, though with greater caution. Andrew Chester has also explored this motif of human transformation in worship, in engagement with Fletcher-Louis, applying it with subtlety and caution to the question of early Christology, but resisting the temptation to identify Jesus simply as a transformed man.70 Rather, it provides the conceptual and imaginative backdrop to the ways in which the glory of Jesus is represented, crucially by means of the permeability of the heaven–earth boundary. We will return to Chester’s work in our study of the New Testament. There are, though, some serious problems that require us to resist some of Fletcher-Louis’s conclusions and these can be neatly illustrated by reference to his discussion of Sirach 45, where the glory of Moses is described. First, Fletcher-Louis moves too easily to the use of the label ‘angelomorphic’ in his description of what he finds in the texts, confusing comparison to angels with a sharing in the angelic form or status. Moses, for example, is described by Sirach as made (by God) ‘like the angels in glory’ (Sir 45:2). Fletcher-Louis straightforwardly states that ‘[i]n 45:2 Moses is angelomorphic’. But Moses is compared to the angels, not identified as sharing in their form. And while Fletcher-Louis rightly considers the background to this transformation as lying in Exodus 24, he does not consider the possibility that the glory is a reflected or donated property of God, rather than a property made ‘inherent’71 to Moses. Second, Fletcher-Louis fails to distinguish between ‘angelic’ (or even ‘heavenly’) and ‘divine’.72 The description of Moses in Sirach 45 is one of his leading examples of texts that resist the assumption of a sharp distinction between Creator and creature. Matthew Goff, who describes Fletcher-Louis’s exegesis as generally ‘heavy-handed’, notes that by such moves he ‘allows for little degree of difference or the analogical use of angelic terms’.73 This leads to a slippage from his astute recognition of participation in heavenly liturgy to speaking of the angelomorphic divinity of human worshippers. While illustrated here from a single example, these problems run through the book, as Goff ’s detailed review highlights. I would suggest, instead, that what we are 68 His findings in this regard are broadly endorsed by Christopher Morray-Jones in Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 324–5, though with some criticisms. 69 Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition (Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1985). 70 Andrew Chester, Messiah and Exaltation: Jewish Messianic and Visionary Traditions and New Testament Christology (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007). 71 This is the word used by Fletcher-Louis at the outset of his study and must, therefore, be understood to govern his discussion here. 72 This point is made by Kevin P. Sullivan, ‘Review: All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 65 (2003), 256. 73 Matthew Goff, ‘Review: All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls’, Journal of Biblical Literature 122 (2003), 175.

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dealing with is a broad range of texts, appropriately clustered by FletcherLouis, that speak of a radical experience of the glorifying presence of God by a privileged elect and, in particular ways, by individuals within that elect.

M E S S I A N I S M A N D I T S PA RT I C I P A T O R Y IMPLICATIONS The last major theme to be considered in this chapter is that of messianism. Modern biblical scholarship has tended towards the view that there was no coherent ‘messianic’ expectation in the pre-Christian period. Instead, we encounter a diversity of themes and beliefs about anointed figures: royal theology, kingship ideology, and a range of mediator figures, both earthly and divine.74 In Christianity, these elements are distinctively synthesized or, even, confused. One of the key factors that lies behind such a position is the definition of ‘messianism’, which inevitably determines the range of texts and ideas that are permitted entry into the discussion. If the discussion is confined to texts that specifically employ the terminology of ‘messiah’ and its cognates, the concept will be described differently than if the embedding of that terminology into wider themes is allowed to extend the range of admissable evidence. Texts that describe an agent of deliverance or a royal figure without using messianic language will be bracketed out from the discussion of messianism. This ‘minimalist’ approach75 has been fairly criticized in recent years for neglecting a range of texts that do not employ the terminology but are widely seen as messianic because of strong parallels to texts that do.76 Even when extended definitions are adopted, however, they often limit the evidence by differentiating the more specific expectation of an eschatological deliverer from other royal imagery. Michael Knibb, for example, writes, ‘it seems to me important to distinguish between kingship ideology and messianism’,77 explicitly contrasting this distinction with the arguments of William Horbury, which we will discuss next. Knibb’s own favoured definition of messianism follows that of Lust: Messianism can tentatively be defined as 1. the expectation of a future human and yet transcendental messiah or saviour, 2. who will establish God’s kingdom on 74

George W. E. Nickelsburg, Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins: Diversity, Continuity, and Transformation (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), illustrates this tendency. 75 The designation is borrowed from Chester, Messiah and Exaltation, 193–6. 76 Chester, Messiah and Exaltation, 194–5. 77 Michael A. Knibb, ‘Introduction’, in M. A. Knibb (ed.), The Septuagint and Messianism (Leuven: Leuven University Press; Paris: Peeters, 2006), 10.

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earth, 3. in an eschatological era. In a narrower sense, the expected saviour is a descendant of David.78

Such ostensible precision can be misleading, however, for the effort to isolate such a carefully defined messianism from those concepts that may have developed into it (particularly royal ideology) can cause us to overlook the essential connection between them. Similarly, it can overlook the potential for certain related but distinct concepts to aggregate to one another. Consequently, the precision can lead to a rigidity in the handling of messianism that cannot accommodate the range of elements encountered in the texts. More subtly, it can blind us to the possibility that certain Old Testament texts were read messianically even if they lack the terminology to allow them to be located within this precise definition. It can, then, attenuate our sensitivity to the potential significance of Old Testament texts in the New. A number of scholars have deliberately resisted such an approach.79 William Horbury,80 for example, identifies a coherent messianism in the Old Testament and related literature, which he argues to be pre-exilic in origin. We have already hinted at some of the elements that Horbury brings together in his argument for the extent and coherence of messianism. He notes the volume of messianic vocabulary throughout the strata of the Old Testament, its strongly royal associations, and the parallels to such combinations of concept and vocabulary in non-Israelite/non-Jewish literature, in support of his case that the ideology is pre-exilic. In addition to these observations, he notes the evidence that messianic elements contributed to the structuring of the Old Testament and that the Septuagint was translated in such a way as to interpret certain passages messianically.81 These last points are particularly controversial.82 It is striking that the broad critical response to Horbury has focused on the issue of definitions.83 Horbury, according to his critics, has simply lumped too

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J. Lust, Messianism and the Septuagint: Collected Essays by J. Lust (edited by K. Hauspie; Leuven : Leuven University Press; Peeters, 2004), 142. 79 Matthew Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) was published too late for me to engage with the findings. It will undoubtedly prove to be a significant contribution to the discussion, however. 80 William Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ (London: SCM Press, 1998); William Horbury, Messianism among Jews and Christians: Twelve Biblical and Historical Studies (London; New York: T & T Clark, 2003). 81 Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ. Cf. Martin Hengel et al., The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its Canon. Martin Hengel, with the Assistance of Roland Deines (Introduction by Robert Hanhart, translated by Mark E. Biddle; Old Testament Studies: Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2002). 82 For the range of views on specific examples, see the collection of essays in Knibb (ed.), The Septuagint and Messianism. The editor’s own introduction highlights the issues that generate faultlines. 83 As, again, with Knibb, ‘Introduction’, 10.

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much together. Andrew Chester is sensitive to this and has developed an account of messianism that takes seriously the specific developments of the ideology in the Second Temple period, and its various permutations, but that nevertheless allows the breadth of evidence to contribute to the discussion.84 Again, crucially, he does so by highlighting the methodological inadequacy of minimalist approaches to messianism and emphasizing the underlying association between messianism and royal theologies. While the accounts of Chester and Horbury are quite different, they both recognize that messianism is a dynamic concept, demonstrable in the Second Temple period, with a connection to royal ideology that cannot be ignored. Because of this connection, it is capable of synthesizing a range of expectations about future events and royal figures and of integrating a range of texts into a distinctively messianic ‘reading’.85 Two further points may be noted as regards messianism in the Second Temple period. First, Andrew Chester and Jostein Ådna have both highlighted the evidence for the widespread belief that the messiah would rebuild the temple. Both recognize that in a number of biblical and Second Temple texts, the expectations of a future messiah and a new temple are found,86 but are not coordinated with each other. In addition, however, a number of texts do present the messiah as the builder of the new temple.87 Although they part company on the relevance of Psalms of Solomon 17, which Ådna considers to imply the building of a new temple by the messiah,88 both also point to Sibylline Oracles 5:414–33 as reflecting a thoroughly developed expectation of the messianic temple builder, synthesizing the strands of biblical expectation. In Ådna’s case, this study forms the basis for a careful examination of the temple-related sayings and actions of Jesus in the New Testament, which he argues to be self-consciously messianic. This will be important to our own study of the New Testament, for we will note the participatory significance of the representation of the church as the messianic temple and the biblical texts 84

Chester, Messiah and Exaltation. I use this word carefully. Francis Watson, throughout Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, observes the distinction between an ‘exegesis’ and a ‘reading’, the latter acknowledging the capability of the reader to create or isolate meaning from a given text or texts in a way that is governed by the textual basis, but not according to the modern concern with authorial intent. What are often referred to as ‘Jewish exegetical practices’ may be better designated as ‘reading strategies’, to acknowledge the creative role of the reader, while also recognizing the constraints under which this operates. For further bibliography, see note 32. 86 Jer. 23:5–6, 33:15–16; Ezekiel 34:23–4, 37:24, referring to a future messiah but not as temple builder; 1 Enoch 90:29, 37–8, 4Q174, 4 Ezra 13, and 2 Baruch 40:72–4 describing both messiah and new temple, but not ascribing the building of the latter to the former. 87 Informed by 2 Sam 7 and 1 Chron 17, they note the evidence of Isaiah 44–5, Zech 4:9 and 6:12–13 and the Targumic evidence of T.Jon. Zech 6:12–13, T.Jon. Isaiah 53:5 as well as that of LevR. 9. For discussion of these texts and those listed in the previous footnote, see Chester, Messiah and Exaltation, 297–9, 471–96, and Jostein Ådna, Jesu Stellung zum Tempel: Die Tempelaktion und das Tempelwort als Ausdruck seiner messiansichen Sendung (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2000), 25–89. 88 Ådna, Jesu Stellung zum Tempel, 65–70. 85

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that are used in support of such a depiction. It is also important that the building of the eschatological temple by the messiah has cosmic or creational significance. This emerges most obviously from reflection upon DeuteroIsaiah, read in relation to the return of the Glory to the temple in Ezekiel 40–8. As we will see in our study of Paul, his use of ‘new creation’ language is generally traced back to Isaiah. Second, Horbury notes the strong connection between messianism and the ruler cult, identifying a tendency to ascribe divinity to the messiah that results in his veneration. We have already noted, earlier in this chapter, the associations between the Davidic king and glory. These affirm, to an extent, Horbury’s observations and we must be aware that messianism, in its later stages at least, had a certain gravitational pull towards the notion of a divine messiah. At the same time, we noted the evidence that the glory of the Davidic king was contingent upon divine presence, suggesting that it was not an inherent property of the messiah, but rather a communicated one, reflecting the particular presence of God with this person. As with our discussion of Fletcher-Louis’s All the Glory of Adam, we must be careful to note where glory is an innate property and where it appears to be a reflection of divine presence. At this point, the observation will suffice; when we reach our study of the New Testament, the extent to which the glory of Jesus is presented as essential to his identity will be noted as quite distinctive, requiring a different account of his ontology from that of other messianic figures. It is also important to recognize, however, that Horbury’s willingness to speak of the divinity of the messiah in pre-Christian material reflects a scholarly faultline between those who consider the monotheism of the period to be ‘inclusive’ and those who consider it to be ‘exclusive’. These terms are used by Horbury himself 89 in his critique of Richard Bauckham’s God Crucified.90 ‘Inclusive’ monotheism sees God as the highest within a class of divine beings, exalted over other deities, while ‘exclusive’ monotheism stresses the absolute distinction between God and all other beings. The former requires us to think of grades of divinity, and this gradation lies behind much of the language of ‘divine mediators’ that is popular in scholarship at present.91 Bauckham has subsequently responded to Horbury with further observations on the distinct connection between the identity of God as Creator and Lord of Israel and exclusive Jewish monotheism,92 arguing 89

Horbury, Messianism among Jews and Christians, 17. Bauckham, God Crucified. 91 See Davila’s discussion of these in ‘Of Methodology, Monotheism, and Metatron: Introductory Reflections on Divine Mediators and the Origins of the Worship of Jesus’, 3–18, in Carey C. Newman, James R. Davila, and Gladys S. Lewis (eds), The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism: Papers from the St. Andrews Conference on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus (Leiden: Brill, 1999). 92 Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids; Carlisle: Eerdmans; Paternoster, 2009). 90

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that Horbury and others confuse the existence of other supernatural beings with the existence of other deities. While still a matter of debate, this discussion is relevant to our own study insofar as it frames the question of how Jesus’s divinity (or, quite differently, his divinization) is related to his designation as Messiah in the New Testament. In fact, approaching the problem from a different angle—through soteriology—may allow fresh light to be cast on the issues. In Part 2, these issues will be explored in the context of the New Testament texts; there, I will affirm that, at key points, the logic of participation requires that Jesus be identified as God, and that there is a necessarily ontological dimension to this.

THE ISAIANIC SERVANT AND MESSIANIC EXPECTATION Related to this discussion of messianism is the significance of the Isaianic Servant for the developing theology of the New Testament. Following the publication of Morna Hooker’s classic study, Jesus and the Servant,93 there has been a broad scholarly tendency to play down the potential influence of the Servant material in Deutero-Isaiah, particularly the fourth Servant song of Isaiah 53, with its rich imagery of exchange. Martin Hengel, indeed, was widely criticized for maintaining his conviction that Isaiah 53 was a significant textual influence on the New Testament accounts of atonement in the face of Hooker’s work.94 The balance of opinion has shifted somewhat in recent years, however, not least because of a growing sensitivity to allusion and narrative dynamics in the New Testament, following the publication of Richard Hays’s Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul.95 A broader range of views was represented at the 1996 Baylor conference on ‘Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins’—although Hooker herself remained, ‘by and large, unrepentant’96—and in the collection

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Morna D. Hooker, Jesus and the Servant: The Influence of the Servant Concept of DeuteroIsaiah in the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1959). Hooker’s work was not unique, but its breadth and thoroughness ensured that it would be the most influential discussion of the problem to date. 94 See my discussion in ‘The Atonement and Concepts of Participation in the New Testament’, in Jason Maston and Michael Bird (eds), Earliest Christian History: History, Literature & Theology (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 368–9. 95 Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). 96 The conference papers are published as W. H. Bellinger and W. R. Farmer, Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins (Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 1997). Hooker’s comments are offered in her contribution, ‘Did the Use of Isaiah 53 to Interpret His Mission Begin with Jesus?’, 88–103. It is noteworthy, however, that she does accept (on pages 101–3) an allusion to Isaiah 53 in Romans 4:25.

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of papers, most originally presented in Hengel’s research seminar in Tübingen, that was published in the volume The Suffering Servant.97 In the present volume, a number of points of allusion to the Servant material of Isaiah will be identified across the corpus of the New Testament and this will reflect a wider scholarly interest in the significance of the Isaianic Servant. Recent scholarship on the Servant material has taken seriously the interpretative potential of the tension between speaking of the singular ‘Servant’ (e.g. in Isaiah 42:1, 43:10, 49:3, 52:13) and the plurality of those either addressed by God (e.g. Isaiah 43:10 ‘you are my witnesses’) or themselves speaking (e.g. the ‘we’ of Isaiah 53:1).98 One resolution of this tension is to simply identify the Servant as a corporate symbol of Israel, with the shift from singular to plural reflecting this. The difficulties in maintaining this interpretation simpliciter are identified by both Reventlow and Clements,99 who note the differentiation that is made at points between the figure of the Servant and those who benefit from his work (notably between ‘him’ and ‘us’ in Isaiah 53).100 The origin and original intent of the Servant material is less important than the fact that its final form in the Isaianic narrative is susceptible to (and would have prompted) readings that take seriously both the corporate and individual nature of the Servant. This distinction allows a further important move to be made by readers, seeing the narrative of the Servant to be outworked in the narrative of his servants. He represents them, fulfilling the calling and vocation of Israel, and through him they participate in the narrative of salvation. Having noted this, it is significant that the narrative of the Servant is specifically identified with the promises to David in Isaiah 55:3, using the language of covenant.101 On the grounds of what has been studied earlier in this chapter, the covenantal framework of the Servant’s representative role

97 Bernd Janowski and Peter Stuhlmacher (eds), The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources (trans. D. P. Bailey; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004). 98 Two key New Testament studies that represent this shift are J. Ross Wagner, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul ‘in Concert’ in the Letter to the Romans (Leiden: Brill, 2002) and Mark Gignilliat, Paul and Isaiah’s Servants: Paul’s Theological Reading of Isaiah 40–66 in 2 Corinthians 5:14–6:10 (London: T & T Clark, 2007). These works provide extensive secondary literature on the currents in the study of Isaiah in relation to the New Testament. The publication of Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001) is particularly important to the development of Gignilliat’s arguments, with which we shall engage more fully in Chapter 9. 99 Henning Graf Reventlow, ‘Basic Issues in the Interpretation of Isaiah 53’, 23–38, and R. E. Clements, ‘Isaiah 53 and the Restoration of Scripture’, 39–54 (esp. 41–2), both in Bellinger and Farmer (eds), Jesus and the Suffering Servant. 100 The individuality of the Servant, and his importance as a mediatorial figure, is also recognized by Davila, ‘Of Methodology, Monotheism, and Metatron’, 11–12. 101 The potential of royal imagery to explain the representative dimension of the Servant in Isaiah 53 is explored by Clements ‘Isaiah 53 and the Restoration of Israel’, 44–5, along with other possibilities.

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emerges from passages such as this. This will be important for our identification of several points of covenant imagery in the New Testament that relate directly to theologies of participation.

CONCLUSIONS Although this chapter is primarily intended as groundwork for much that will follow, a set of important conclusions has already emerged, in some cases connecting fruitfully with our studies of the Christian theological tradition. In particular, the concept of covenant plays a significant role in the corporate dimension of the biblical and later Jewish theology. Covenant provides a framework within which the bond between God and his people can be conceived and, internal to this principal relationship, by which the identification of covenant participants can be achieved; that is, between fellow members of the covenant community and/or between those members and a covenant representative. The potential for this to account for the representative function of an individual, and for the ascription of his narrative to the many whom he represents, is significant and is witnessed in distinctive ways by Isaiah’s Servant songs. Once it is recognized that such consideration of covenant is neither rejected nor neglected in the apocalyptic and mystical literature, but actually provides much of the core imagery, then the significance for New Testament accounts of participation becomes clearer. At the same time, it is important to recognize that covenant itself frames what is arguably the more basic concept lying at its core, that of divine presence. The imagery and language of glory, enmeshed as it is with covenant, is very much the imagery of the divine presence and is deployed in relation to both the mobility and the danger of that presence. The problem of sin, then, is construed in terms of covenant and, significantly, so too are the various prophetic accounts of restoration. The restoration of the Glory to its place in the midst of the people is the realization of Yahweh’s commitment to be God to them and to be with them. Such hopes, though, inevitably involve reflection on the transformation of those whose sin is the very problem. This lies behind the various promises of the Spiritgenerated transformation of the people, while in certain cases (particularly in the Isaianic Servant songs) also being connected to the narrative of an individual who will, in himself, break the pattern of sin and failure. The question of how these two elements relate to one another in the interpretative movements of the New Testament is the question of participation.

5 Examining the Adamic Backgrounds of Union with Christ As we have seen in the opening chapters of this study, one of the key backgrounds that must be considered in relation to union with Christ in the New Testament is that provided by the traditions concerning Adam and the Fall. In Romans 5, Paul contrasts the state of being ‘in Christ’ with the state of being ‘in Adam’. For some scholars, this is the key to Paul’s soteriology and, indeed, to his Christology: the apostle’s construal of the incarnation proceeds from an ‘Adam Christology’, within which the glory language applied to Jesus is understood to refer in the first instance to the restoration of the glory lost by Adam at the Fall, as this is held to be represented in numerous Early Jewish texts that narrate a reasonably well-defined Adam myth. The subsequent ‘glorification’ of believers proceeds from this glorification of Jesus and, hence, understanding the concept of glory and how it comes to be shared between Jesus and his followers is key to understanding the nature of the union that exists between them. Others may resist this move, but nevertheless understand much of Paul’s language of ‘image’ or ‘form’ to be Adamic in background. What must be explored in this chapter is, specifically, the background to the glory concepts of the New Testament in the treatment of Adam in Second Temple Judaism. The central point that I will make is that the evidence for a widespread myth of Adam as a glorious being in Ancient Judaism has been steadily eroded in recent years and that the evidence points instead to a smaller number of Jewish writers developing distinctive and often contradictory presentations of Adam, based on their own readings of Genesis 1–3 and in keeping with their own agenda. This observation pushes us away from seeing Paul as the inheritor of a particular myth, or even as a participant in a speculative tradition, towards seeing him as a distinctive interpreter of Genesis 1–3, making original contributions to an interpretative movement. This in turn has implications for how we construe Paul’s ‘Adam Christology’, especially the issue of Adamic glory. While primarily of significance to the study of

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Paul, there are broader implications for our study as a whole, as Adamic elements are identified elsewhere in the New Testament.1 In what follows, we will begin by outlining some of the core points of Adam Christology, drawing in particular on the work of James D. G. Dunn. This focus is not intended to minimize the importance of other scholarly contributions, nor to suggest that Dunn is worthy of special criticism. We focus on Dunn because his has been arguably the most thoroughgoing and influential articulation of Adam Christology since the classic study of Scroggs2 and because he, more than any other scholar, has sought to give the theme significant explanatory power in relation to the evolution of Christology and in relation to Paul’s doctrine of participation in Christ. Once the core points of Dunn’s approach have been outlined, we will examine the putative backgrounds to this, noting some of the more important works to emerge in scholarship on Second Temple Judaism and the Pseudepigrapha, and examining the christological use of Psalm 8. Finally, we will offer some suggestions for a more nuanced approach to the use of Adam traditions in the New Testament.

ADAM CHRISTOLOGY AND ITS TEXTUAL ‘B A C K G R O U N D’ Recent decades have seen the publication of a substantial body of literature exploring Paul’s so-called ‘Adam Christology’. This, in turn, has generated a good deal of debate over the extent to which the figure or story of Adam shapes Paul’s thought and whether it is the key to understanding specific texts not usually seen as ‘Adamic’, such as Philippians 2:5–11.3 Inevitably, a range of 1

This is not to say that Adam Christology as a concept is problematic, nor that we should bracket it out of our own findings, but precisely to say that the development and deployment of it by certain modern scholars is inappropriate insofar as it ascribes explanatory power in the development of Christology to a set of ideas not necessarily demonstrable in Early Judaism. 2 See note 3. 3 The following bibliography merely provides a taster of the scholarship circulating on this theme. See Robin Scroggs, The Last Adam: A Study in Pauline Anthropology (London: Blackwell, 1966); James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making (all page numbers are taken from the 2nd edition), 98–128, and The Theology of Paul the Apostle, esp. 200–4, 241–4; Morna D. Hooker, From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). For the debate over Philippians 2:5–12, contrast the above with Markus Bockmuehl, ‘ “The Form of God” (Phil 2:6)’. See also M. Hooker’s counter article, ‘Adam Redivivus: Philippians 2 Once More’, in Steve Moyise (ed.), Old Testament in the New Testament: Essays in Honour of J. L. North (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 220–34. For contrastive readings of the evidence of Philippians 2, see also James D. G. Dunn, ‘Christ, Adam, and Preexistence’, in Ralph P. Martin and Brian J. Dodd (eds), Where Christology Began: Essays on Philippians 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 74–83, Lincoln D. Hurst, ‘Christ, Adam, and Preexistence

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Jewish texts are adduced as background, especially with regard to the idea of Adamic glory, but while important and relevant studies of the Adam traditions in Judaism and Christianity have been published over the last twenty years, these have not necessarily been drawn into the debates in New Testament scholarship, or, if they have, then often only in the context of footnotes or endnotes, where their significance is easily lost. Paul explicitly develops the significance of Christ in relation to Adam in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. Adam and Eve are also mentioned in 1 Tim 2:13–14, though here the reference is not christological but rather ethical, being made in the context of ecclesiastical guidelines. In addition to these explicit references, however, scholars have seen a range of allusions to the figure and story of Adam throughout the Pauline corpus, in Romans 1:18–25; 3:23; 7:7–11; 8:19–23, Philippians 2:6–11, and Colossians 1:15. All of these texts (each of which is well embedded into its wider context) are argued to have some kind of Adamic background, either through their allusion to a narrative of temptation and sin or through their use of ‘image of God’ or ‘form of God’ language. In the case of the Romans texts, in particular, this raises the possibility that an Adamic rationale lies in the background of the theology of chapters 1–8 as a whole and is much more basic to Paul’s thought here than might at first be realized. An important development of this is that the Pauline idea of the glory of Christ and of the glorification of believers is understood to represent a recovery of Adam’s lost glory. We will examine below some of the Pauline texts that contribute to this interpretation; at this stage of our study what is important to note is the role played in the discussion on one hand by Psalm 8 and on the other by various potentially relevant extra-canonical texts. On the latter, scholars typically point to a wide range of texts that provide some kind of context for the Adamic element in Paul’s thought: Sirach 15–18, 49:16, Community Rule 4:23; Damascus Document 3:20; Hodayot 4:15; Wisdom of Solomon 2:23, 4 Ezra 8:44, and more broadly The Life of Adam and Eve and 2 Enoch 30. Older generations of scholarship often also saw Philo’s treatment of Adam as providing a potential background to Paul’s thought, but those arguments have been solidly refuted and that evidence tends now to be seen as irrelevant.4 It is generally assumed that the other texts are early and Jewish, Revisited’, in Where Christology Began, 84–95, and Richard Bauckham, ‘The Worship of Jesus in Philippians 2:9–11’, in Where Christology Began, 128–39. Finally, note N. T. Wright’s distinctive approach to the theme in The Climax of the Covenant, 18–40, 56–98. 4 The older scholarship saw Philo’s writings as supporting a proto-Gnostic background to the argumentation of 1 Corinthians 15, a point argued by Egon Brandenburger, Adam und Christus (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1962) and Walter Schmithals, Gnosticism in Corinth: An Investigation of the Letters to the Corinthians (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1971). The approach has been thoroughly repudiated by A. J. M. Wedderburn, ‘Adam and Christ: An Investigation into the Background of 1 Corinthians XV and Romans V 15–21’, (PhD, University of

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though in some cases having passed into Christian transmission. Most scholars show considerable restraint over the question of dating and provenance, and thus a certain subtlety on the question of how they ought to be related to one another and thence to Paul. Typically, Paul is described not as drawing upon any of these texts, but rather as participating in a tradition of Adam speculation that goes significantly beyond the text of Genesis 1–3, particularly in its reflection on the pre-Fall condition of Adam as a glorious being. A second cluster of texts, this time specifically rabbinic (e.g. Gen. Rab 12:6 and Num. Rab 13:12; others are discussed in our section Adamic Glory in Later Jewish and Christian Texts), is also often mentioned, usually with an open recognition that such texts may be far too late to be of any real value in understanding Paul but that they attest the continuation of this notion of Adamic glory within Judaism. In principle, then, scholars draw upon these texts with some caution and do not give them undue place in their exegesis of Paul. In practice, however, the idea that there was a fairly widespread and somewhat coherent notion of Adamic glory, lost through sin, becomes an assumed point of background for Paul’s thought, as reflected in this quotation from Dunn: Paul understands salvation as the restoration of the believer to the glory which man now lacks as a result of his/Adam’s sin (Rom. 3:23). Here again he shares a view widely held among his Jewish contemporaries. There may have been no real idea that Adam forfeited the image of God by his fall, but there was certainly a firm conviction that he had forfeited the glory of God.5

The impact of this assumption becomes clear when we see its outworking in Dunn’s examination of the christological use of Psalm 8. Dunn devotes several pages of Christology in the Making to the christological use of Psalm 8 in the New Testament, noting the way in which it supplements the use of Psalm 110 in several texts: 1 Cor 15:25–7; Eph 1:20–2; Heb 1:13–2:8. In addition to these strong examples, Dunn also notes Mark 12:36/Matt 22:44 and 1 Pet 3:22. He writes: ‘Here then we have a text (Ps 8:6) which almost always appears in association with Psalm 110, but also an association which is reflected across a wide spectrum of NT writings’.6 The key for Dunn is that Psalm 8:6, ‘provided a ready vehicle for Adam Christology. A description of

Cambridge, 1970), James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making, 123–5, N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 32–4, and now by Stephen J. Hultgren, ‘The Origin of Paul’s Doctrine of the Two Adams in 1 Corinthians 15.45–49’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 25 (2003), 343–70. All note that Philo’s idea of the heavenly man is actually quite different from that found in Gnosticism and, in any case, does not fit with Paul’s narrative in 1 Cor 15. I will, therefore, omit Philo from this study. 5 Dunn, Christology in the Making, 106. Italics added. 6 Dunn, Christology in the Making, 109.

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Christ’s Lordship (by association with Psalm 110.1), it was also a description of God’s purpose and intention for Adam/man’.7 An examination of Hebrews 2:6–10 leads Dunn to see it as a common view within early Christianity that Jesus has fulfilled God’s plan for Adam by being crowned ‘with the glory that Adam failed to reach by virtue of his sin’.8 On the back of this, Phil 3:21 is understood, as the only allusion to Psalm 8:6 that is independent of Psalm 110, to speak of the transformation of believers into the likeness of Jesus’s glory, now construed as Adamic. An important further move is that the verses that precede Psalm 8:6 (Ps 8:4–5) are interpreted in Hebrews 2:6–9 as referring to Jesus’s earthly life, so that Psalm 8:4–6, as a unit, links Adam Christology to the totality of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.9 The christological use of Psalm 8:4–6 identified by Dunn, combined with the evidence of the extra-biblical texts noted on pages 130–1, in this section, leads him to see a coherent and consistent narrative in Paul’s Christology: Adam’s sin caused him to fall short of God’s plan for him and to lose (or to fail to attain) glory, which is instead attained by Jesus through his obedience and then shared with the saints. Such a narrative makes sense of all of the Pauline texts that Dunn and others see as having an Adamic background (Romans 1:18–25; 3:23; 5:12–21; 7:7–11; 8:19–23, 1 Cor 15 in toto; Philippians 2:6–11 and Colossians 1:15). Significantly, of course, this means that many of the references to Christ’s glory are not to be read as proto-Trinitarian, but rather as Adamic.10 As developed by Dunn, then, the case for Adam Christology in Paul is heavily reliant on both the attestation of Adam speculation (especially concerning Adamic glory) during the Second Temple Period and a clearly Adamic reading of Psalm 8:4–6 in Paul. If either or both of these areas were to be problematized, then it might be asked whether given texts really ought to be interpreted as Adamic. Moreover, it might be asked whether the appropriate background for the application of glory language, both to Christ and to the saints, is really the story of Adam, or whether other narratives, such as those of Sinai or of the temple, might be more appropriate. The importance of this to our exegesis will emerge in Chapter 9, in particular. The next two sections of the chapter, then, will be devoted to exploring some potential problems with these two areas.

7

Dunn, Christology in the Making, 109. Dunn, Christology in the Making, 109. 9 See our further discussion of this passage in Chapter 7. 10 This point is rather more characteristic of Dunn’s development of Adam Christology than either that of Hooker or of Wright, naturally reflecting his concerns in Christology in the Making. 8

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ADAMIC GLORY IN LATER JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN TEXTS It is helpful to approach the discussion of putatively Second Temple traditions having first noted some features of the later Jewish and Christian traditions, where we undoubtedly encounter numerous references to the splendour of Adam or of the robes that he and Eve wore. Such an idea is widespread in the rabbinic texts, though here the traditions are diverse and often contradictory: some depict Adam as inherently glorious,11 others depict the first couple as clothed with glorious robes lost through their sin and others present such garments as given by God at the expulsion from Eden in Genesis 3:21.12 We should not too quickly conflate these various strands: a glorious Adam is not the same as a gloriously garbed Adam. Furthermore, the specifics of each image may be governed by contextual concerns that relate to central issues of Jewish piety such as Temple and Torah. The fact that in some texts Adam’s glory is surpassed by the Shekinah,13 in others is compared to (and surpassed by) that of Moses,14 while in still others his glorious garments are priestly15 suggests not that the protoplast is a controlling motif or symbol, but rather that he is absorbed into more central themes of Jewish piety which themselves determine his representation. To phrase this differently: it is not that an Adam myth influences and affects the way in which symbols of Jewish faith and piety are construed, but rather that these symbols or motifs govern the way in which Adam is described.16 If any of these texts do embody traditions that go back to

11

Lev Rab. 20.2. The explanation for at least some of these divergent representations may lie in the confusion or deliberate punning of ʿôr (‘skin’) with ʾôr (‘light’) in certain Biblical versions of Genesis 3:21. Cf. Genesis Rabbah 20:12: ‘In the Torah of Rabbi Meir it is written, “Garments of Light”.’ There are comparable readings in the Targumim of Genesis 3:21 (Onkelos, Neophyti and Pseudo-Jonathan). See Gary A. Anderson, ‘The Garments of Skin in Apocryphal Narrative and Biblical Commentary’, Studies in Ancient Midrash (Cambridge: Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, 2001), 101–43, and The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), esp. 117–34. See also Stephen N. Lambden, ‘From Fig Leaves to Fingernails: Some Notes on the Garments of Adam and Eve in the Hebrew Bible and Select Early Postbiblical Jewish Writings’, in Paul Morris and Deborah Sawyer (eds), A Walk in the Garden (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), 74–90. 13 b.B. Bat. 58a. 14 Deut. Rab. 11:3. Note the parallel tradition in Samaritan texts, with Memar Marqah 5:4 likening Moses’s glory to that lost by Adam. In addition, note Anderson’s observation that Christian traditions of the election of Adam and his superiority over the angels, as found in The Life of Adam and Eve, find their closest Jewish parallels in rabbinic traditions concerning the election of Israel and the giving of Torah at Sinai. 15 Yal. i:34; ’Abot R. Nat. ii:46, 116. 16 One text that may seem to break this pattern is Lev. Rab. 20.2, where Adam’s heel is described as having a glory greater than that of the sun. David H. Aaron, however, argues that subtleties of rabbinic wordplay are at play here and that the text is more concerned with Adam’s beauty than with a concept of effulgence. See his article, David H. Aaron, ‘Shedding Light on 12

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the Second Temple period, then they suggest that the presentation of Adam may not drive but rather be driven by more central motifs of glory. A further examination of the Jewish mystical traditions is enlightening. As we have noted, Ezekiel 1 and Isaiah 6 are acknowledged to be the fountainhead for much of the Jewish mystical imagery. Their descriptions of prophetic visions of the divine glory in physical form have fed subsequent visionary accounts of the divine throne-chariot, the Merkavah17 described in Ezekiel 1, and the heavenly temple and palaces, the Hekhalot. Such accounts are, as noted in the previous chapter, preoccupied with the perilous holiness of the divine glory and grapple with the dangers and tensions involved in beholding the face of God. Both texts describe the ‘form’ of God, but what Ezekiel 1 brings to the tradition is, in particular, a description that is highly anthropomorphic: the kavod is described in terms of the human body and this imagery is taken up by subsequent mystical traditions. As Rowland notes: The few literary remains extant of visionary material inspired by Ezekiel 1 in ancient Judaism indicate that the climax of Ezekiel’s vision when the prophet sees God enthroned above the crystal vault was a potent stimulation to mystical speculation. ‘God in human form’ is in these verses explicitly hinted at, with whatever qualifications, thereby opening up the possibility that the visionary might dare to imagine the mysteries of the divine form. . . . Despite the warning in Exod 33:20 that humans cannot see God’s face and live, there is a restrained readiness in the apocalypses to refer to, if not to describe at length, the divine glory seated on the throne.18

In taking up the imagery of Ezekiel 1 in this way, however, these texts also took up a key set of restraining terms. Ezekiel 1:26 uses ‘likeness’ language to hedge the vision of God: ‫שׁם ְכַּמְרֵאה ֶאֶבן־ַס ִפּיר ְדּמוּת ִכּ ֵסּא ְוַעל ְדּמוּת‬ ָ ‫שׁר ַעל־ֹרא‬ ֶ ‫וִּמ ַמַּעל ָלָרִקיַע ֲא‬ ‫ַה ִכּ ֵסּא ְדּמוּת ְכַּמְרֵאה אָָדם ָעָליו ִמְלָמְעָלה‬ And above the dome over their heads there was something like a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was something that seemed like a human form.19

Such language ensures that Ezekiel’s vision does not transgress the lines around the divine holiness. But it also provides a contact point with the God’s Body in Rabbinic Midrashim: Reflections on the Theory of a Luminous Adam’, Harvard Theological Review 90 (1997), 299–314. 17 The word itself is not used in Ezekiel, but the uptake of elements from this vision is universally acknowledged in scholarship. 18 Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 67. 19 The Greek is somewhat different, but maintains the same emphasis through the use of › øÆ: ŒÆd N f çøc æøŁ  F æÆ   F Z  bæ ŒçƺB ÆPH ‰ ‹æÆØ ºŁ ı Æçæ ı › øÆ Łæ ı K ÆP F, ŒÆd Kd  F › ØÆ   F Łæ ı › øÆ ‰ r  IŁæ ı ¼øŁ (Eze 1:25–6).

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account of Genesis 1:26–7, where man is made ‘according to the likeness of God’ (ּ‫ ִכְּדמוֵּתנוּ‬, ‘in our likeness’, ŒÆŁ › øØ). This expression stands in parallel to another, in which man is ‘in our image’ (‫ ְבַּצְלֵמנו‬, ŒÆ NŒÆ). The force of the Hebrew prepositions in relationship to the nouns occasions some significant distinctions in the rabbinic literature. Notably, in b.Ket 8a, Adam is understood to have been made ‘in the image of the likeness of God’, thus ensuring that an appropriate distance is maintained between the divine and human form and avoiding any suggestion of the protoplast functioning as an idol. The Greek translation reflects a differentiation between the likeness/ image of God and man. Man is made ‘according to’ the pattern of that image and likeness (ŒÆ NŒÆ æÆ ŒÆd ŒÆŁ › øØ). As we have noted in Chapter 2, such a distinction is maintained carefully in the early Church Fathers; the fact that it is attested across Greek-speaking cultures of the time suggests that the New Testament writers, too, might have operated with such a distinction and that we must be sensitive to this in our reading of their works. The question of the patterning of man upon God is one of the key issues running through much of the mystical literature: if man is patterned on the likeness of God, and Ezekiel beholds that likeness as a vision of kavod, then the morphological aspects of the glory become a matter of speculation, fuelled by other accounts of humans beholding YHWH, such as Exodus 33. So, we encounter in the shiur koma texts20 descriptions of the size and extent of the divine form and in other mystical texts the language of the enthroned ‘form’.21 This also results in speculation on the original scale of Adam’s body and of those who behold the divine form, who are themselves transformed in scale, thus embodying in certain ways that which they behold, while never being identified with it.22 Crucially, Rowland, following Bunta,23 notes the uptake of NŒ as a loanword (‫איקונין‬/‫ )דיוקנא‬in the targumim to speak of ‘humans embodying the secrets of the merkava’.24 But Adam is not the only one to function in such a way;25 Jacob’s features are engraved on the throne of glory in Gen 28:12.26 20 For a recent thorough discussion and bibliography, see Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 501–80. The texts themselves are accessible in Martin S. Cohen, The Shi’ur Qomah: Liturgy and Theurgy in Pre-Kabbalistic Jewish Mysticism (Lanham, Md: University Press of America, 1983), and Martin S. Cohen, The Shi‘Ur Qomah: Texts and Recensions (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1985). 21 Markus Bockmuehl, ‘ “The Form of God” (Phil 2:6)’. 22 C. R. A. Morray-Jones, ‘Transformational Mysticism in the Apocalyptic-Merkabah Tradition’, Journal of Jewish Studies 43 (1992), 1–31. 23 Silviu Bunta, ‘The Likeness of the Image: Adamic Motifs and SLM Anthropology in ˙ the Study of Judaism rabbinic Traditions About Jacob’s Image Enthroned in Heaven’, Journal for 37 (2006), 55–84. 24 Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 164. 25 Rowland notes bBB58a, bMK 15b, bHul 91 b. 26 See Pseudo-Jonathan Genesis. Rowland notes that ‫ דיוקנא‬translates both ‫ ֶצֶלם‬and ‫ְדּמוּת‬ throughout this targum, unparalleled in Neofiti and Onkelos (164).

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A further example of a human associated with the divine throne of glory is Moses, in The Exagogue of Ezekiel the Tragedian. The significance of this for New Testament study cannot be overlooked: while humans can embody or represent the divine ‘likeness’, they do not constitute it, and their own being is secondary, patterned after it. When, therefore, Jesus is described as the NŒ of God, we must be prepared to consider the possibility that this is not an Adamic but a divine title, associating him with the kavod itself. The observation is simple: ‘likeness’ and ‘image’ language are used not just of Adam, but of the divine glory itself, and much of the literature is concerned to maintain the distinction between Adam’s patterning ‘according’ to the image and the image itself. The idea of Adam’s glorious clothing is also widespread in early Christian texts, notably in the Syriac tradition, where it is linked to Christ’s own glory or to the restoration of glory to believers through Christ.27 Gary Anderson makes the very interesting observation that, In Jewish sources, this theme of Adam’s glorious garments is simply one Edenic trait among many. It receives no special attention. In early Christianity, on the other hand, it becomes the dominant motif that defines life prior to the fall.28

If, as part of our study, we seek to chart Paul’s treatment of Adam on a bifurcating trajectory from early Judaism to Christianity and later Judaism, these observations give us some reference points. On one hand, they locate Paul in a Jewish tradition that will eventually speak of Adamic glory, though only as one slender theme among many, and that firmly subordinated to central concerns of Temple and Torah, and on the other they locate him as a formative influence on a Christian tradition that will eventually single out motifs of Adamic glory/glorious robes for special christological attention, but will do so as part of a soteriology within which the Fall of Adam is a key background.

THE GLORY OF ADAM IN SECOND TEMPLE JUDAISM When we turn to the Second Temple period, we actually find a relatively small amount of material devoted to Adam, with much of this showing a similar tendency to recast the story of Adam in relation to controlling motifs, notably 27 For example in the Macarian Homilies 1:3, Aphrahat’s Demonstrations 6 and 23, Liber Graduum 23, 28. See Sebastian P. Brock, ‘Clothing Metaphors as a Means of Theological Expression in Syriac Tradition’, in Carl-Friedrich Geyer (ed.), Typus, Symbol, Allegorie bei den östlichen Vätern und ihren Parallelen im Mittelalter (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1982), 11–40. 28 Anderson, The Genesis of Perfection, 129.

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that of the temple. Jubilees 3 and 4Q265 are good examples of texts in which this is seen, with Eden depicted in templar terms, subject to the same purity regulations that apply to the temple itself.29 References to Adamic glory or to his glorious garments are even more scarce, occurring only in Sirach 49:16, in four texts from Qumran (Community Rule 4:23, Damascus Document 3:20, Hodayot 4: 15 [17:15] and 4Q504 8) and in two documents of debatable origin: Life of Adam and Eve 21:2, 22:6 and 2 Enoch 30.

Sirach 49:16 John R. Levison’s Portraits of Adam in Early Judaism remains one of the most important studies of Second Temple Jewish depictions of Adam and continues to be seriously neglected in New Testament scholarship. Levison’s overarching argument is that there is no real consistency or coherence to the Early Jewish texts and that, instead, each writer distinctively utilizes the Adam story of Genesis 1–3 in service of his own agenda or Tendenz.30 In fact, the way in which each writer treats Adam might vary within a given work, according to the Tendenz of a given pericope, so that an author might offer various portraits of the figure. A good example of this is seen in the contrast between Sirach 15–18 and Sirach 49. In the former, Adam functions as the archetypal human, paradigmatic of the human experience of sin and temptation and of the importance of wisdom in dealing with this. Sirach 15:14–15 captures this paradigmatic aspect well: It was [God] who created humankind in the beginning, and he left them in the power of their own free choice. If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice.

By contrast, in Sirach 49:16 the depiction of Adam focuses on his singularity, as one of elevated status: ‘But above every other created living being was Adam’. Glory language is also used in the preceding description of Seth and Shem, who were ‘glorified’ or ‘honoured’ (K ŁÅÆ), with the result that Adam’s superiority is presented in ‘glory’ terms. This is one of the key verses adduced in support of a widespread notion of Adamic glory, but as Levison notes, the wider context of Sirach 44–50 reflects a concern with the status of 29 See Joseph M. Baumgarten, ‘Purification after Childbirth and the Sacred Garden in 4Q265 and Jubilees’, in George J. Brooke with Florentino García Martínez (eds), New Qumran Texts and Studies (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 3–10. See also J. van Ruiten, ‘Eden and the Temple: The Rewriting of Genesis 2:4–3:24 in the Book of Jubilees’, in G. P. Luttikhuizen (ed.), Paradise Interpreted: Representations of Biblical Paradise in Judaism and Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 63–95. 30 John R. Levison, Portraits of Adam in Early Judaism: From Sirach to 2 Baruch (Sheffield: JSOT, 1987). Note especially the conclusions, pages 145–62.

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Israel, with the figure of Adam being claimed as part of the national lineage. Thus he writes, ‘Not speculation about Adam but the glory of Israel leads Ben Sira to glorify Adam’.31 Broadly speaking, this is the same phenomenon as that noted in the context of the later rabbinic texts: an Adam myth does not shape other motifs, but rather the story of Adam is subordinated to the portrayal of Israel.

Qumran Texts on Adamic Glory Three of the Qumran texts (Community Rule 4:23; Damascus Document 3:20; Hodayot 4:15) refer to ‘all the glory of Adam/man’ (‫ )כל כבוד אדם‬being given to the faithful community, but beyond the fact that the phrase is consistent across these texts (and thus suggests some kind of catchphrase) there is inadequate detail for the references to offer much background to Paul’s theology. The chief difficulty concerns whether the reference is to Adam as a person or to humanity more generally. None of the texts ultimately requires us to see a reference to the glory that Adam lost through sin, even if that is a possibility; the reference could point to the kind of image that we encounter in Revelation 21:24, where ‘the kings of the earth will bring their glory’ into the New Jerusalem. In other words, the phrase may point to the idea of the future rule of God’s people over the nations of the world and the eschatological reversal of their fortunes. That said, contextually, the Community Rule and the Hodayot have a good deal of material that is Edenic in orientation and that may, therefore, be suggestive of the Adam story. Closer examination of this material, however, pushes us away from seeing the term glory as denoting a property of Adam himself and rather as denoting the blessing that he enjoyed, and particularly the presence of God. One striking phrase in the Hodayot makes this clear, where the expression ‘the Eden of glory’ is used as an image of the community of blessing in which the hymnist has been placed (1QH 16:20). The point, of course, is that the phrase suggests that Eden is regarded as a sanctuary, just as it is in Jubilees or in 4Q265. Such an interpretation is supported by the fact that lying in the background of both Community Rule and Hodayot is Ezekiel’s imagery of restoration,32 which is very much Edenic or Paradisial rather than Adamic in orientation, but which also links restoration to the Spirit. If we take ‘all the glory of A/adam’ to refer to the protoplast, to a glory that Adam (and not humanity in general) enjoyed, then the context suggests that this was the temple presence of God in Eden. 31

Levison, Portraits of Adam, 45. See John R. Levison, Filled with the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 202–21, for textual connections. 32

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Much more promising is the reference in 4Q504: . . . [ . . . Adam,] our [fat]her, you fashioned in the image of [your] glory [ . . . ] [ . . . the breath of life] you [b]lew into his nostril, and intelligence and knowledge [ . . . ] [ . . . in the gard]en of Eden, which you had planted. You made [him] govern [ . . . ] [ . . . ] and so that he would walk in a glorious land . . . [ . . . ] [ . . . ] he kept. And you imposed on him not to tu[rn away . . . ] [ . . . ] he is flesh, and to dust [ . . . ] . . . 33

Some caution needs to be applied here, however. First, the text as a whole is liturgical, with the different parts of the text convincingly demonstrated by Esther Chazon to correspond to daily prayers.34 These prayers reflect upon key events in the narratives of biblical history, with this fragment the part that corresponds to creation and Eden. Glory language runs through the text, with a predictable reference to the face of Moses as glorious35 and with Solomon’s enthronement and the building of the Temple occasioning the recognition of God’s glory by the nations.36 Again, then, context points us away from seeing an Adam myth shaping later theology. Rather, the story of Adam is read through the lens of and in relation to Israel and temple worship. Second, the reference to Adam’s glory is really to God’s glory and to Adam’s status as image-bearer. This is highly significant since, as Dunn notes, there is no evidence that Jews of the Second Temple period believed the image to have been lost through sin. The idea, then, that this refers to a glory lost to Adam through sin but recovered by faithful believers37 is problematic.

The Life of Adam and Eve and 2 Enoch Both Greek and Latin traditions of the Life of Adam and Eve (The Apocalypse of Moses or Greek Life of Adam and Eve and Vita Adam et Evae, respectively) are frequently adduced in support of the notion of Adamic glory, especially GLAE 21:2 and 22:6. Here, importantly, the notion of Adam’s glorious robes is a key feature of the narrative and appears to be governed only by the overall 33 4Q504 8 4–9. For text, see Baillet, Qumrân Grotte 4. T 3, 4Q482–4Q520, 162–3. English translation taken from Tigchelaar and García Martínez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (Leiden: Brill; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 1009. 34 Esther Chazon, ‘A Liturgical Document from Qumran and its Implications: “Words of the Luminaries,” (4QDibHaM)’, (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1991); see also Hanan Eshel, ‘Dibre Hame’orot and the Apocalypse of Weeks’, in Esther G. Chazon, David Satran, and Ruth A. Clements (eds), Things Revealed: Studies in Early Jewish and Christian Literature in Honor of Michael E. Stone (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 149–54. 35 4Q504 6 10–12. 36 4Q504 2 ii 3–12. 37 The text appears to be non-sectarian. See Esther Glickler Chazon, ‘Is Divrei Ha-Me’orot a Sectarian Prayer?’, in Devorah Dimant and Uriel Rappaport (eds), The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 3–17.

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narrative of sin and repentance. Would this provide background to Paul’s Christology? The most extensive body of text-critical discussion of the Greek and Latin Adam and Eve traditions in recent years, including both critical editions of the texts and higher-level discussion of provenance, has been provided by Johannes Magliano-Tromp and Marinus de Jonge.38 Their conclusion is essentially a negative one: we simply lack the evidence that would be required to demonstrate conclusively that The Life of Adam and Eve originated within early Judaism. To the contrary, in a recent article, de Jonge writes: Given the complex nature of the work, which incorporates many older traditions, individual parallels in other Jewish and Christian sources do not help us to determine its origin and date. But the few indications we do have suggest that it originated in Christian circles.39

Proceeding from this with a methodology similar to the one recently developed by Davila for the identification of the provenance of specific pseudepigrapha,40 de Jonge argues that highly plausible contexts for the origin of the Adam and Eve lives may be found in early Christian circles. Examining the writings of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Theophilus of Antioch, and setting the latter in the context of debate with Gnostic texts, he argues that the concern to depict Adam and Eve as saved through repentance and destined for final resurrection makes plausible sense in the context of early ‘mainstream’ Christian engagement with Gnosticism.41 Reflecting on one specific text-type, Tromp has offered further reflections on this point, arguing that the most plausible context is that of a long-running oral tradition, with no direct literary dependence on Paul, but concerned nevertheless with the theological problems raised by Gnosticism.42 This does not simply challenge the Jewishness of the work, it also pushes it temporally to a greater remove from Paul. 38 Johannes Tromp, The Life of Adam and Eve in Greek: A Critical Edition (Leiden: Brill, 2005). M. de Jonge and Johannes Tromp, The Life of Adam and Eve and Related Literature (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997). Gary A. Anderson, Michael E. Stone, and Johannes Tromp, Literature on Adam and Eve: Collected Essays (Leiden: Brill, 2000). Stone and Anderson, of course, have written extensively on other (e.g. Armenian) versions of the Adam and Eve traditions. 39 M. de Jonge, ‘The Christian Origins of the Greek Life of Adam and Eve’, in Anderson, Stone, and Tromp, Literature on Adam and Eve: Collected Essays, 350–1. The ‘few indications’ that he mentions are: 1) The mention of the Acherusian Lake as the place where Adam is washed in 37:3, pointing to 2) the suspected Christian origin of the whole story told in 33–7, further supported by 3) the use of the phrase ‘Father of Lights’ in 36:3. 40 James R. Davila, The Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha: Jewish, Christian, or Other? (Leiden: Brill, 2005). 41 De Jonge, ‘Christian Origins’, 362–3. 42 J. Tromp, ‘The Story of Our Lives: The qz-Text of the Life of Adam and Eve, the Apostle Paul, and the Jewish Christian Oral Tradition Concerning Adam and Eve’, in G. S. Oegema and J. H. Charlesworth (eds), The Pseudepigrapha and Christian Origins; Essays from the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (London: T & T Clark, 2008), 102–19.

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The significance of the work of Tromp and de Jonge is that it raises serious problems for seeing the kind of glory speculation found in Life of Adam and Eve as in any sense background or context for the New Testament. No matter how carefully one differentiates background from context and no matter how subtly one speaks of Paul participating in a speculative tradition rather than depending on given texts, the fact is that one of the key texts adduced to support widespread glory speculation probably ought to be taken out of the equation altogether.43 The same is true for the description of Adam’s glory in 2 Enoch 30, where he is described as ‘a second angel, honoured and great and glorious’ (30:11). I have written extensively on the text-critical issues surrounding this statement, which is found only in a minority of manuscripts that represent a longer recension of the creation account. My findings44 are in agreement with most of the careful philological research into 2 Enoch:45 the description of Adam’s glory is a secondary addition, probably reflecting the transmission of the book in the medieval Slavonic context. It should not be used as ‘background’ to the reading of the New Testament.

PSALM 8 IN PA UL ’S THEOLOGY We may now turn, more briefly, to consider the case for Psalm 8 having Adamic overtones in Paul’s writings. Our examination of the Second Temple material itself ought to make us rather wary of seeing specifically Adamic associations here, rather than a more generic reference to humanity, and we would require clear textual evidence to convince us that this is the case. In fact, despite the use of Psalm 8 in several New Testament texts, only one of these (1 Cor 15:25–7) does so in a wider context that makes reference to the story of Adam. Philippians 3:21 certainly draws on the passage in relation to the transformation of believers from their state of humility (e HÆ B 43 Jung Hoon Kim, The Significance of Clothing Imagery in the Pauline Corpus (London; New York: T & T Clark, 2004), 37–44. The failure to consider recent scholarship on the pseudepigrapha is also apparent in his discussion of 2 Enoch, which neglects the substantial scholarship that has questioned the origins and integrity of the book. 44 Notably Grant Macaskill, ‘The Creation of Man in 2 (Slavonic) Enoch and in Christian Tradition’, in André Lemaire (ed.), Congress Volume Ljubljana 2007 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 399– 422, and in my paper ‘2 Enoch: Manuscripts and Recensions’, in A. Orlov, G. Boccaccini, and J. Zurawski, New Perspectives on 2 Enoch: No Longer Slavonic Only (Leiden: Brill, 2012). 45 For a summary of this research, much of which is in Russian, see Liudmila Navtanovich, ‘The Provenance of 2 Enoch: A Philological Perspective. A Response to C. Böttrich’s Paper, “The Book of the Secrets of Enoch (2 En): Between Jewish Origin and Christian Transmission. An Overview” ’, in Orlov et al., New Perspectives on 2 Enoch, 69–82. The paper to which she responds is published in the same volume, 37–68.

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ÆØø H), but there is nothing clearly Adamic about this and the contrast established is between the sinful and earthly and the heavenly and pure, a distinction more naturally linked with apocalyptic symbolism, as we shall see in our closer study of these texts in Part 2. Other texts simply say nothing about Adam; in the case of 1 Peter 3:22, this is especially striking since the context draws on the stories of the Flood in relation to sin and judgement, not the story of Adam. Given the diversity of New Testament authors who draw on Psalm 8, we can be certain that it was regarded as a significant christological text in the early church, but the fact that only in 1 Cor 15:25– 7 is it contextually linked to the story of Adam suggests that its christological significance was not primarily seen as Adamic. There is, of course, the rather obvious fact that the Psalm may have taken on particular significance in early Christian circles as a consequence of its use of the phrase ‘Son of Man’, a phrase associated, of course, with the historical Jesus tradition. The psalm, with its language of coronation and honour, would naturally become a vehicle for christological reflection on account of this. There is also the important point that there is no notion of a fall or loss of glory in Psalm 8; the splendour of man is a privilege of the species and not a quality lost to the first man. While we need to be cautious with rabbinic evidence, it is interesting that those traditions associated the psalm not with Adam, but with the giving of the Torah to humans, specifically Israel, rather than to angels. The ‘glory’ in question is not a property of the human constitution, but rather a property of the Torah that has been gifted to Israel. Thus, in Pesikta Rabbati 25:4 the angels protest at the giving of the Torah to Israel by speaking the words of Psalm 8:4. Following this, the text reads, ‘Rabbi Aha said that the angels said, “It would be to your praise if you gave your glory to those of the heavenly realm. Give us your Torah!”’ While we cannot simply allow this to determine our exegesis of Paul—the texts post-date his writings and may not reflect traditions dating back to the Second Temple era—this evidence does suggest that we should be wary of assigning Adamic connotations to Psalm 8 in the mind of a Jewish reader.

CONCLUSIONS: CONSIDERING THE IMPLICATIONS FOR ADAM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT Where does this leave us with respect to the figure of Adam in relation to the glory of Christ and of the church? More detailed exegesis of the New Testament texts will follow in Part 2, but several key points emerge from the preceding discussion that may now be stated and must explicitly be factored into our subsequent exegetical work.

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First, there is limited evidence for a widespread myth of Adamic glory in Second Temple Judaism and we ought, therefore, to be wary of seeing such a myth behind Paul’s thought and in the rest of the New Testament. Only if there is clear evidence within the New Testament text itself, capable of standing without dependence on questionable background, should we consider Adamic glory as a potential interpretative possibility rather than divine glory. This will be of key significance to our study of union with Christ and the place of glory language in relation to this, for it will potentially determine whether the glory enjoyed by the church in that union is a restored native property or an alien one shared with or communicated to it. In the absence of evidence for traditions of Adamic splendour, glory may be seen as fundamentally a divine attribute that is shared relationally with humanity, rather than as a quality of a human being, be that Adam or the believer. It becomes, therefore, difficult to see Adam Christology as a building block in the evolution of Christology, as a means of explaining the ascription of glory language to Jesus. Instead, the significance is located in the area of soteriology and is much more profoundly significant in terms of the transformation of believers. The subtle point is that what Paul and the other New Testament writers depict as being realized in Christ—the experience of divine communion—Judaism typically depicts as realized through temple and Torah. Second, the figure of Adam is developed in diverse ways by the Jewish writers, sometimes having different associations within the work of a single author, and we should be prepared to encounter the same diversity in Paul and the New Testament writers. This is particularly important in the case of 1 Corinthians 15, where the temptation is to collapse the two references to Adam into a single image of Fall and loss of glory. Paul, however, uses the figure of Adam in quite different ways in the two references. In 1 Corinthians 15:22, Adam’s sin and death are contrasted to the life that has come through Christ (‘for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ’). In 1 Corinthians 15:45–9, however, Adam’s sin is not in view: rather, it is his original constitution as earthly that is contrasted with the heavenly constitution of Christ. Christ’s glory, and the glory that will be experienced by believers, is not presented here as a recovery of Adam’s splendour, but as being of a different substance altogether. What Adam ‘loses’ in 1 Corinthians 15 is life, not glory. Third, where the idea of Adamic glory does occur in Jewish texts, whether texts of the Second Temple period or later, it is never a controlling motif, but typically constitutes a re-reading of the Adam story through the lens of dominant symbols of Jewish faith. Adam’s glory is thus proto-Israelite, proto-Mosaic, or proto-priestly. We might expect, then, that if the motif does occur in the New Testament, it belongs within a wider narrative of Israel, Torah, and temple and is not itself the key element. It hardly needs to be stressed that these are dominant themes in the New Testament writings.

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Part 2 Participation and Union in the New Testament In the first part of this book, we laid the groundwork for a systematic study of theologies of participation in the New Testament. We examined some of the backgrounds pertinent to our study and evaluated their significance, challenging certain widespread assumptions along the way, particularly with regard to Jewish traditions about Adam, which are less widespread than many New Testament scholars seem to believe and are subordinated to the issues of temple and Torah. We also saw the particular value of covenant and the related category of adoption to concepts of corporate identification and discussed the problems with those approaches to apocalyptic eschatology and mysticism that consider them uninterested in covenant. From this, we saw the potential significance of messianism to our discussion, with its integration of covenant and royal theologies. In this second part of the book, we turn to the New Testament itself, seeking to identify points of commonality between the various writers and, in particular, to establish whether we can speak of an underlying and coherent theology of participation, one that unifies otherwise disparate themes and that is demonstrable even where it is not explicit. In doing so, we must pay attention to the various issues raised in Part 1: the distinctive place of Jesus and the Spirit in each text, the incarnational theology that may shape this, the nature of mystical language and imagery deployed (with the corresponding question of whether or not we are dealing with concepts best understood in Platonic terms), the use of ‘likeness’ language, the exegesis of Scripture, and, lastly, the occurrence of covenantal or filiational themes and the potential for these to have a distinctively representational significance.

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6 The Temple and the Body of the Messiah The present chapter examines the image of the church as the temple and the body of Christ. The first of these images is widely found in the New Testament and has, for a long time, been recognized to parallel the portrayal of the Qumran community in certain of the Dead Sea Scrolls.1 In addition to those texts that directly equate the church with the temple, sometimes using the language of ‘house’, there are others that equate it with the temple-city of the new Jerusalem (Rev 21–2) or with components of the temple (Rev 1:20). The second image, that of the church as the body of Christ, is more narrowly found, yet in several places, most notably in Ephesians, it merges with the first in a way that is quite striking: just as the temple is the place wherein the divine glory dwells, so too is the body. The two images convey a radical awareness of the relationship between the human members of the church and God. But the melding of the image of temple, with its potential to maintain the otherness of God from the space within which he dwells, with that of the body, which implies continuity between God and church, will constitute a particularly important focus for our reflections on participation. Although the two images can be identified in the Jewish mystical traditions, there they are never coordinated as they are in the New Testament. The point is effectively made by Christopher Morray-Jones: Despite repeated references to the recovery of Adam’s lost glory, the theme of correspondence between the temple and the body is not developed in the Qumran sources. Instead, we find an emphasis on the embodiment of the temple archetype in the structure of the community as a whole. The rabbinic writings, in contrast, posit a three-way correspondence between cosmos, temple and body, but make no reference to the correspondence between the temple and the community on earth. However, all of these themes are taken up and developed in combination by the Christian writers . . . 2

1

The classic study is Bertil Gärtner, The Temple and the Community in Qumran and the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965). 2 Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 339.

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In this chapter, then, we will consider this correspondence, why it emerges in the New Testament, and what it reveals about the concepts of participation that characterize the theology of its authors. In order to do this, of course, we must more broadly consider the deployment of the temple and body images and, within limits and with appropriate caution, the diachronic aspects of this. I note the caution that must be exercised here because we are, after all, dealing with a body of texts belonging to a fairly compact period of time, meaning that we have less justification to assume theological development than is often held to be the case; moreover, the dating of texts relative to one another is fraught with difficulties. Nevertheless, with such cautions in place, we may appropriately seek to identify early elements in the theology of the New Testament and, in fact, may be surprised by how far back the threads of the body–temple correspondence may be traced. It will not be necessary to defend specific dates for the various books that we will consider; a broad recognition of their early or late character will suffice. Nevertheless, we must be sensitive to clues that they contain or reflect traditions and ideas that predate their written form. In what follows, we will consider some of the later texts, in which the temple and body themes are most fully developed and interwoven, before seeking to trace the threads back through some of the earlier parts of the New Testament. We will examine, then, Ephesians and the Pauline corpus, the Petrine material, Luke-Acts, and the Gospels. In the next chapter, we will examine related images of the heavenly and eschatological temples in the Fourth Gospel, Revelation, and Hebrews.

EPHESIANS Whatever the truth of the matter concerning the authorship of Ephesians,3 its integration of themes found in the Pauline writings means that there is no small justification to the description of the book as the ‘quintessence of Paulinism’.4 Until recently, the temple theme has been largely neglected in studies of the book, as have the numerous connections with Jewish mystical thought. Major studies, however, have now emerged that demonstrate the widespread use of temple imagery,5 liturgical language (particularly associated

3 For classic treatments of this debate, see C. Leslie Mitton, The Epistle to the Ephesians: Its Authorship, Origin, and Purpose (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951) and A. van Roon, The Authenticity of Ephesians (Leiden: Brill, 1974). 4 F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 153, 424. 5 I am indebted in my thinking on this to the recent doctoral work of A. Mark Stirling, ‘Transformation and Growth: The Davidic Temple Builder in Ephesians’ (PhD Dissertation, University of St Andrews, 2011).

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with Shavuot),6 and some significant parallels with the Jewish apocalyptic and mystical texts, including the shiur koma mysticism, embodied in later rabbinic writings7 but arguably concretizing traditions that pre-date the New Testament. It is important here to restate a point made in Chapter 4: to recognize the overlap of language between Ephesians and the Jewish mystical traditions does not require us to regard the epistle as ‘theurgic’ in the sense that the latter often are. Mystical language and imagery could be taken up in exegetical activity, quite apart from any actual visionary experience. Moreover, in their New Testament context, such ideas may take on a distinct christological or ecclesiological valency that significantly alters their meaning.8 Nevertheless, an appreciation of their Jewish mystical associations is helpful for three reasons. First, it suggests a care to maintain the uniqueness of the being of God, the dangerous otherness that is so clear in the Merkavah texts. Second, it locates advanced theological reflection on participation in an intellectual environment shaped by Jewish traditions, not just by Hellenistic ones, such as the mystery religions or Gnosticism. Third, the parallels may lead us to identify particular configurations of biblical texts and processes of exegesis that have led to the presence of common mystical themes.

Temple and Body in Ephesians 1:21–3 and 2:15–22 Ephesians is, of course, permeated by the Pauline grammar of being ‘in Christ’, which will be discussed further in Chapter 9. We encounter the image of the church as the body (HÆ) of Christ in 1:21–3, where it is paired naturally with his designation as ‘head’ (Œçƺ ): God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.22 And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church,23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

6 John C. Kirby, Ephesians, Baptism and Pentecost: An Inquiry into the Structure and Purpose of the Epistle to the Ephesians (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1968). 7 See especially Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 173–7 and 581–610. 8 On this point, we may contrast the argument of C. Morray-Jones, in The Mystery of God, 581–610, that the author of Ephesians positively draws upon the shiur koma mysticism, with that of M. D. Goulder, ‘The Visionaries of Laodicea’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43 (1991), 15–39, who makes the case that Paul is challenging a mysticism to which he is opposed. Morray-Jones offers some telling criticisms of Goulder’s assumption of polemic, but a cautionary point remains: mystical imagery may be encountered in a text without necessarily indicating ecstatic experience on the part of the author, but rather as part of the uptake of Scriptural and symbolic language to articulate theological truths.

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The emphasis on ‘all things’ being under this head is anticipated in 1:10, in the context of a portion of the text often classified by scholars as a berakah, a blessing of distinctively Jewish character.9 Here, the headship of Christ is presented as an eschatological reality, one realized in ‘the fullness of time’. The language of ‘fullness’ (º æøÆ) is also taken up in 1:23, where it is applied to the church as ‘his body’, equated with ‘the fullness of him who fills all in all’. The noun is thus paired with a participle ( F . . . ºÅæ ı ı) that is masculine and middle in character, and that designates Jesus as the one who fills. ‘Fullness’ itself has obvious associations with the divine Glory, the kavod, which in Isaiah’s vision ‘fills’ both the temple (symbolized as the train of his robe in Is 6:1) and the world (Is 6:3).10 The conclusion that ‘fullness’ is a synonym of glory here is supported by the density of glory language throughout Ephesians 1 (e.g. in 6, 12, 17, 18).11 The cosmic overtones to these are difficult to escape, given the repetition of the ‘all things’ formula in verses 10 and 23. Such overtones, in combination with the imagery of the ‘fullness’, may parallel the shiur koma and related mystical traditions that saw the divine glory as cosmic in scale. Those traditions, though, are specific instances of a much broader trajectory in Jewish writings that sees the Glory-filled temple as the integrative point of the cosmos and that grapples with the question of the local and universal presence of the Glory. Given the abundance of evidence for this broader trajectory and the more limited and particular evidence for shiur koma mysticism, I would suggest that we should be cautious in over-specifying the background to the ‘fullness’ imagery.12 It is striking that this fullness is particularly identified with the body, with the church. A similar identification is made in 3:19, where the fullness is very specifically a property of God (e º æøÆ  F Ł F) that is transferred to the church in an act or process of filling. We will return to this passage on pages 151–2 in this section. In considering Ephesians 1:21–3, however, the mutual relevance of these texts particularly concerns the alien nature of the fullness that is ascribed to the church. It is a property of God, mediated specifically to the church by Christ (as the one who fills). Its cosmic aspects, therefore, centre on the church

9

Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 585. See our discussion of Isaiah 6, and its significance to the Jewish apocalyptic tradition in Chapter 4. 11 The ‘glory’ associations of º æøÆ throughout the passage resist approaches that seek the background to the term in Stoic thought, wisdom traditions, or Gnosticism. For details of such approaches, see Josef Ernst, Pleroma und Pleroma Christi: Geschichte und Deutung eines Begriffs der paulinischen Antilegomena (Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1970). For further reflections on the significance of the glory language, see Clinton E. Arnold, Ephesians: Power and Magic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). 12 Here I would distance myself from the conclusions of Morray-Jones, while acknowledging the quality of his analysis and the general value of his identification of Jewish mystical traditions in the text. 10

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as the body, perhaps indicating the consequent mediatorial function that the church will perform in relation to the world. Morray-Jones comments: ‘[F]ullness’ and its homonym ‘glory’ both refer to a mediated quality which originates in God, ‘the Father of (the) Glory’ and is made ‘fully’ manifest in the glorious body of the enthroned kavod. . . . Christ embodies and is ‘filled’ by the quality of divine Glory, with which he, in turn, ‘fills’ the church.13

The image of the body is taken up further in 2:15–16, where the singularity of the body is emphasized and thus the unity of its members. This theme is set against the binary opposition of Jew and Gentile: in 2:19–20 Gentiles in Christ cease to be outsiders and instead become ‘co-citizens with the holy ones’ (ı ºEÆØ H ±ªø) and members of God’s household in this one body. This shift to speaking of the ‘household’ of God is a natural bridge into the use of temple imagery,14 which is found in 2:20–2 and includes the deployment of the designation Æ –ªØ . Although this is the first point where temple imagery is used explicitly in the letter, the author has hinted at such concepts in preceding verses, with the language of ‘workmanship’ ( ÅÆ, cf. Ex 36:1, where the verb  ØE occurs in relation to the construction of the temple) in 2:10 and, particularly, with the image of the ‘wall of hostility’ in 2:14. Now the temple image is developed fully, with the building presented as a ‘dwelling’ for God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ as the chief cornerstone (2:20). If the image of Christ as the cornerstone is intended to have integrative significance, then the following statement emerges naturally from it: ‘in him the whole structure is joined together and grows (Æhø) into a holy temple in the Lord’ (2:21). The logic of the image, supported by the use of the middle form of the participle in 1:23, is that this mediatorial function of Christ involves nothing less than a giving of himself: he is what the church, and through the church ‘all things’, is and are filled with. The glorification spoken of, then, can only be understood in relational or even personal terms: it is the giving of one person to others, who are thereby glorified by his presence, while remaining distinct from him. This filling is actualized by the Spirit: the ‘building together’ of the church into a dwelling place for God is very specifically described in 2:22 as being ‘in (or by) the Spirit’ (K ÆØ). The role of the Spirit in actualizing the mediatorial work of Christ is encountered also in 2:18: ‘for through him ( Ø ÆP F) we both (i.e. Jews and Gentiles) have access in/by one Spirit (K d ÆØ) to the Father (æe e ÆæÆ)’. This Spiritual actualization of the mediatorial work of Christ is a theme that we will encounter repeatedly in what follows. 13

Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 596. The ellipsis contains his discussions of potential parallels with the ‘logos-Angel’ model and the ‘Youth’ model. 14 The connection between ‘house’ and ‘temple’ is a key element in 2 Sam 7.

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Two further points may also be noted within this. First, the image of the church as the body of Christ is not a general metaphor for interconnection; rather, the church is identified very specifically with the actual body of Jesus and its history. In 2:15–16, the writer states that Christ abolished the laws and ordinances, in order that he might create the two into a new man in himself, making peace, and in order to reconcile both in one body to God through the cross. ¥ Æ  f  Œ z K ÆPfiH N Æ ŒÆØe ¼Łæø   ØH Næ Å16 ŒÆd I ŒÆƺºz  f Iç æ ı K d ÆØ fiH ŁfiH Øa  F Æıæ F

We will see a similar association between the church and the actual body of Christ in 1 Peter and will seek to explore the issue further in later chapters, as we explore how the spatial language of being ‘in Christ’ is related to the narrative of his death and resurrection. At this point what must be stressed is that this act of reconciliation, of providing access to God for those estranged from him, is again actualized by the Spirit (2:18). It is perhaps also worth noting that the language of the ‘new man’ is not deployed in these verses with any obvious Adamic significance. Nothing in the context would suggest such an association; rather, the preceding verses develop a dichotomy of Jew and Gentile, as the basic division of humanity, so that the ‘new man’ created in Christ is best understood as a novum, a new reality that transcends this basic division. Second, the image of the church as the temple founded upon the ‘cornerstone’ of the Messiah seems to draw upon either Psalm 118:22 or Isaiah 28:16, or possibly upon an intertextual reading of both.15 Again, this is a point that we shall encounter in 1 Peter, but it is also one that we will trace to the earliest strata of the New Testament and will argue to be the key to the equation of body and temple. We will defer a thorough discussion until later in this chapter.

Temple and Body in the Rest of Ephesians Space will not allow a thorough exploration of these themes in the rest of Ephesians, but several points in the text are worthy of particular attention before we seek to trace our themes back into the indisputably Pauline corpus. First, there are obvious connections between the temple theme and the prayer in 3:14–21. In particular, a number of scholars have now noted that the dimensional language of verse 18 has obvious associations with the measuring 15

The word used is specifically IŒæ ªøØÆE . This is the word used in Isaiah 28:16, with Psalm 118:22 using only ªøÆ. The latter word, being contained within the former, could naturally pair with it in a gezera shewa reading, however.

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of the temple in Ezekiel 47–8.16 As noted (in ‘Ephesians’, pp. 149–50), while Goulder and Morray-Jones see traces of shiur koma mysticism here, there is no attempt to provide actual dimensions or proportions in Ephesians, meaning that the parallel is looser than some of their conclusions require. Interestingly, the passage again ascribes the key role of actualization to the Spirit, strengthening with power ‘from the riches of his [i.e., the Father’s] glory . . . so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith’ (3:16–17). This leads to noetic transformation: the saints are enabled to grasp (ŒÆƺÆø) the incomprehensible (3:19): the dimensions of the love of Christ. Consequently, the glory of God dwells within them and is manifest by them. Second, the themes of oneness that have been touched on in our discussion of 2:15–16 are brought to culmination in 4:3–6, where the unity of the one body constituted by the one Spirit is to be manifest in loving relationships. Echoes of the Shema abound in 4:4–6 and this emphasis leads into a passage that speaks of the diversity of the parts of the body (4:11–12) and the direction of growth of these members into unity and maturity, attaining ‘the whole measure of the fullness of Christ’. This is simply an extension of the theme of the indwelling, alien glory of God (note the parallel of 4:13 with 3:19) present in the church, but it is important to note the emphasis on the progressive actualization of this, reflected also in 4:15–16 and surely grounded on the function of the Spirit (4:4). An interesting point emerges when we appreciate this fact in relation to the quotation of Psalm 68:18, in Ephesians 4:8. This part of Psalm 68 was used specifically in connection with Shavuot (Pentecost) in Jewish circles, allowing a link between the prescribed readings of Exodus 19 and Ezekiel 1.17 Given the association of the Spirit with Pentecost, the quotation of Ps 68:18 embeds the present experience of the Spirit by the church in that event, and does so with an appreciation that this event is of cumulative covenantal significance (Ex 19), representing the recovery of the temple’s lost glory (Ez 1). The inversion of the original sense of Psalm 68:18 from the tribute received by the Messiah to the gifts poured out by him further develops the link with that particular day. It is, of course, striking that this Pentecostal experience is seen as consequential to the ascension of the Messiah, reflecting the thoroughgoing emphasis of Ephesians on the messianic figure and his role in the establishment of the new temple, an emphasis particularly derived from Zechariah 6:12–15.18 16 See, e.g., Heinrich Schlier, Der Brief an die Epheser: Ein Kommentar (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1971), 174. 17 Kirby, Ephesians, Baptism and Pentecost; David J. Halperin, The Faces of the Chariot: Early Jewish Responses to Ezekiel’s Vision (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988). 18 A. Mark Stirling, ‘Transformation and Growth’, 83–92, 125–7. Stirling observes significant overlaps of vocabulary between Ephesians 2:11–22 and Zechariah 6:12–15, along with further points of contact between Ephesians and Zechariah. For further discussion of the connection between the messiah and the building of the new temple, see Chapter 4.

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Third, the description of Christ as the ‘head’ (Œçƺ ) of the body (4:15–16) takes up the theme of unity and develops this in connection with the concept of maturity: all of the constituent parts of the body are united by their relationship to the head and growth is directed towards the deepening of that relationship. Much, of course, has been said about the use of the word Œçƺ here and in 1 Corinthians,19 but an interesting point may be noted in the present study, as we explore the melding of the body and temple images: the LXX of Psalm 118 (117):22 describes the rejected stone as becoming N Œçƺc ªøÆ. Is it possible that this has informed the image of church and Christ as body and head? While at this stage such a proposal may seem tenuous, by the time we have examined the use of Psalm 118:22 in other parts of the New Testament, the suggestion will be considerably more plausible.

F ROM EPHESIAN S TO PAUL The ideas, themes, and language that we have observed in Ephesians can be traced back into the undisputed Pauline corpus. The depiction of the church as temple is found in 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19, with further points of Pauline thought arguably best understood as reflective of this image.20 The image of the church as body emerges in 1 Cor 10:16–17, 12:12–31 and Romans 12:4–8. In each case, the images are embedded into their contexts in ways that force us to recognize that we are dealing with the surfacing of central or foundational points of thought, rather than isolated or ad hoc images.

1 Corinthians 3:16–17 In 1 Cor 3:16–17, Paul confronts his readers with the significance of their status as God’s temple: Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

Several points are worth noting. First, the language of the opening question ( PŒ Y Æ ‹Ø Æe Ł F K) and the rhetorical structure of the argument require that this is not a distinctively Pauline concept, but rather that it is a 19 See Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 812–23. 20 Albert L. A. Hogeterp, Paul and God’s Temple: A Historical Interpretation of Cultic Imagery in the Corinthian Correspondence (Leuven: Peeters, 2006).

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notion already held by his readers and thus belonging to an earlier period of Christian theology. Second, the status of the church as temple is constituted by the indwelling presence of the Spirit of God.21 Third, the contextual concern of the image is with the unity of the church, and the preceding verses (3:1–15) develop the image of a building constructed on the foundation that is Jesus. Here we must exercise a little caution in noting the similarity between this passage and the theology of Ephesians. Paul appears to move from a general image of a builder and building, in which he is the builder laying the foundation that is Christ (3:10–11), to more specific temple imagery. The general image of the builder and building in 3:10–11 parallels the general agricultural theme in 3:5–9. The image of Christ as the foundation (here: ŁºØ ) does not, therefore, directly equate to the designation of him used elsewhere, as the cornerstone. Nevertheless, we are dealing with an author concerned to emphasize the unity of the church as the holy temple and doing so by recourse to the singularity of the foundation (Christ) and of the indwelling Spirit. It is important, too, to notice that this latter emphasis on the Spirit is part of a thoroughly developed theme in 1 Corinthians, specifically addressing the disunity that marks the community because of the pursuit of status by some therein (1:10–17). Paul challenges their notions of ‘power’ and ‘wisdom’ by recourse to the ‘foolishness’ of the cross (1:18–25), stressing that the crucifixion is meaningful only to the mind enlightened by the Spirit (2:6–16). Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.13 And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual. (2:12–13)

It is significant, then, that in the context of this discussion of the church as temple, in the verses immediately following (3:18–23), Paul again makes explicit the notions of wisdom and folly. His deployment of the temple image is not an isolated move, but is part of a consistent argument that the church is Spirit-filled and led, and cannot be governed by human standards of wisdom, status, and power.

1 Corinthians 6:15–19 The use of temple imagery in 6:19 is somewhat different, since it describes the body of the individual Christian as the temple of the Holy Spirit. Closer examination of this text within its context, however, throws up some interesting

21

As noted in Chapter 2, this underlies Cyril of Alexandria’s defence of the divinity of the Spirit, although his argument is more focused on 1 Cor 6:19, where the individual Christian is in view.

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findings. First, the image of the temple is, as in Ephesians, closely linked to that of the body of Christ: Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! (6:15)

As in 1 Cor 3:16–17, Paul uses the formula ‘do you not know’ ( PŒ Y Æ) in his rhetoric, suggesting a theology that is inherited and shared and not innovated. Second, Paul uses sexual or marital imagery to articulate the union that is effected between the believer and the prostitute as a parallel to that effected between the believer and Christ: Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, ‘The two shall be one flesh.’17 But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.

This is of enormous significance to our study. The use of Genesis 2:24 is suggestive of a union within which the distinction of each party is maintained. The two do not meld or melt, their beings are not confused. They are, instead, united and any transfer of the properties of one to the other must be spoken of in terms of inter-personal communication, not hybridization. A believer united to a prostitute is made corrupt by the communication of that individual’s uncleanness to him; a believer united to Christ is made glorious by the communication of his glory.22 In connection with the temple image, particularly as we have seen it developed in Ephesians, such notions of communication and mediation make good sense. Third, Paul deploys the participle Œ ºº  to describe the union of the believer and Christ. This carries the sense of being ‘glued to’ something, suggesting an act of bonding and the intimacy of that bond. In connection with this, there is an interesting play on the use of ‘spirit’ (FÆ) in 6:17. The one who is ‘glued’ to the Lord is ‘one spirit [with him]’. This needs to be considered in detail. Those who have found the primary background to participatory concepts of salvation, in general, and union with Christ, in particular, in anthropological structures such as purity23 understand the use of FÆ to coordinate with that of H and º : these are taken to be images of corporate identity, demarcating those who belong to the Christian community (as members of the body of the Lord and thus of one mind or

22 Note, too, that this is the communication of personal, not natural, qualities. This is not, therefore, to be confused with the concept of communicatio idiomatum, whereby the properties of one nature are communicated to the other. This communication is person to person, not nature to nature. 23 Jerome H. Neyrey, Paul, in Other Words: A Cultural Reading of His Letters (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990), 102–46. Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1995) also draws on such ideas, but does so in a more exegetically and theologically sensitive fashion.

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spirit) from those who are outside of that community and who would compromise its purity. We have discussed the general problems with such social scientific approaches in Chapter 4, but to these may now be added very specifically the incapacity of such an approach to account for the melding of temple and body imagery seen here. Neither can Martin’s statement that ‘The man’s body and Christ’s body share the same pneuma . . . the pneumatic lifeforce of the larger body’,24 deal adequately with this truth. Whether intended or not, there are hints of a Spirit Christology in Martin’s statement, of a kind that is problematized by the uniqueness of Jesus within the temple architecture (3:11) and by the points in the text where the Spirit is portrayed as actualizing Christ’s own presence (by contrast to actualizing something in him that parallels our experience).25 Instead, with Fee, ‘Paul is probably referring to the work of the Spirit, whereby through the “one spirit”, the believer’s “spirit” has been joined indissolubly with Christ’.26 If this is accepted, then we are actually rather close to Calvin’s account of the believer engrafted into Christ and deriving nourishment from him.

1 Corinthians 10:16–17 and 12:12–31 The shift to speaking of the church as the body of Christ in 10:16–17 and 12:12–31 does not, then, represent the adoption of an entirely different or new metaphor. Rather, given the combination of body and temple imagery in chapter 6, it is simply a matter of a shifted focus or emphasis. Neither do these chapters represent a return to a sporadically deployed metaphor: the intervening chapters of 1 Corinthians, with their concerns with sexual purity and idolatry, emerge very specifically from the application of the temple and body image at the end of chapter 6. In fact, these are anticipated by the language of 6:11, which must now be seen to have temple associations: And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified (ªØŁÅ), you were justified (K ØŒÆØŁÅ) in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

While we can debate the precise significance of K ØŒÆØŁÅ in relation to atonement, it is clear that here it operates in apposition to (or possibly coinheres with) the purification of believers and their sanctification, the latter concept now most likely associated with the consecration of items for holy use. For the time being, I will say little on 1 Cor 10:16–17, since this will be dealt with in Chapter 8, along with the subsequent material in 1 Cor 10:18–11:34. All that I will note is that here, again, a deliberate parallel is drawn between the union or participation (Œ ØøÆ) that the believer has with Christ in the 24 26

25 Martin, The Corinthian Body, 176. E.g. 1:16, 12:13. Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 260.

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Eucharist and that which is associated with the participant in an idol feast (10:20), echoing the ideas developed in 6:16–17. The presentation of the church as the body of Christ in 12:12–31 appears at first to lack any temple associations. However, it is anticipated by a lengthy description of the Spirit’s role in constituting and gifting this body (1:1–11) that culminates in the key statement of 1:13: For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Paul’s concern in these verses is to emphasize the singularity of the Spirit and the consequent unity of the body. These, of course, are the same concerns that we observed in Ephesians and that we have seen also to govern Paul’s association of the temple and Spirit in 1 Cor 3:16–17. Similarly, we have seen the connection between the body and the temple in 1 Cor 6:15–19. So, while there may be no explicit linking of temple and body imagery in 1 Cor 12 itself, there is enough in the wider context to warrant such an association. It is significant that Paul uses sacramental language to articulate the role of the Spirit in constituting the body: the body is constituted by individuals being ‘baptized’ into it ‘by’ or ‘in’ the Spirit. This is a point to which we will return in Chapter 8, though it is worth noting at this stage the distinctive roles and functions played in the formation of this body by Christ and the Spirit, reflected subtly in the use of prepositions. Christ is the one whose identity governs and integrates the body: the church is baptized ‘into’ (N) his body, thus being located ‘in him’ and, as such, identified as the body of Christ. The Spirit is portrayed, as in Ephesians, as being in the role of the one who actualizes: the preposition K may be translated as ‘in’ or ‘by’, but the fact that it is coordinated with the action of implanting the believer ‘into Christ’ means that it must be seen as having a different significance to the use of the same preposition in Paul’s beloved K æØfiH phrase. This, too, will be explored further in a later chapter, but it is important that we grasp the distinction between the significance of the Spirit and of Christ in the constitution of the body, for this takes us beyond simply the issue of the church’s relationship to Jesus: it takes us into the ontology of the incarnation itself, as Paul considers it. If, as Dunn would contend, we are dealing with a Spirit Christology, in which the deity of Jesus is ‘no more and no less than the Holy Spirit’,27 then surely we would expect the body image to be developed in a different way, with the Spirit transforming the church into the body of God, not the body of Christ. To put this slightly differently, we would expect to find the identity of God being made manifest in the church by means of the Spirit, as it was in Christ. Instead, it is Christ’s identity that is manifest in the church.

27

Dunn, The Christ and the Spirit, 143.

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The incarnation thus remains something quite different from the church, from which the latter derives its identity. A Spirit Christology of the sort developed by Dunn cannot account for this.

Conclusions to the Study of Paul Having established a certain set of associations in 1 Corinthians between the temple and the body and the Spirit, the potential to identify a thoroughgoing temple ecclesiology in Paul is clear. The density of glory language in 2 Cor 3–5 and Romans is appropriate to this and, given what we have seen in Part 1 of this study, the potential significance of the temple for creation means that such a theology may be connected to Paul’s use of new creation language. As we turn to study that language in the next chapter, this is a possibility that we will consider in depth. For the present purposes, however, our study of 1 Corinthians has been adequate to establish the connections between Paul’s theology of the church as temple and body and the theology of Ephesians. The evidence of Paul supports the conclusions that such imagery can be traced back into the earlier history of the New Testament, with Paul’s own deployment of it reflecting still older traditions, to which we will turn in the next section. Our study of temple and body in 1 Corinthians also suggests the recognition of a distinctive significance to the incarnation, so that the divinity of Jesus is not portrayed as being of a type with our own experience of the Spirit.

THE PETRINE EPISTLES The image of the church as temple is also found in 1 Peter 2:4–8, where it is explicitly linked to quotations of Isaiah 28:16 and Psalm 118:22, supplemented by Isaiah 8:14. Clearly, these texts have been brought together by the simple practice of gezera shewa through the shared term ‘stone’. We do not encounter in 1 Peter the melding of the images of temple and body that we have seen in the Pauline literature, but we may observe a similar tendency for the depiction of the church as temple to be hybridized with other images and, crucially, for the image to serve as the basis for participatory descriptions of the church. A set of key terms is taken up from the Scriptural texts that are quoted: ‘stone’ (ºŁ ), ‘rejected/reject’ (I  ŒØÆ /I ŒØÇø), ‘chosen’ (KŒºŒ), and ‘precious’ (Ø ). These terms are applied clearly to the Messiah himself, but they are also applied to the church, members of which are ‘as living stones’ (‰ ºŁ Ø ÇH) being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood (2:5), which is itself equated with ‘a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God’. While there are

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undeniable echoes here of Exodus 19:6, these are married to the language of Isaiah and to the image of the Servant, the royal and ‘chosen’ one (Is 42:1–7, 65:9), with the terms ‘chosen’ and ‘precious’ allowing multiple points of contact between the Servant songs and the passages describing the stone. The use of ‘light’ in 2:9 confirms the Isaianic influence on Peter’s language.28 Arguably, the projection of the language used to describe the Messiah onto members of the church reflects the interplay of the singular figure of the Servant in Isaiah with the multiple servants.29 Similarly to Isaiah, the servants participate in the experience of the Servant: like him these living stones are rejected and suffer (2:21–4, 4:12–13; cf 1:6–10). The church, then, is depicted as the temple, as the house of God, and consequently as experiencing the light of the glory of God. This image itself, however, joins with others. In this case, those other images do not include that of the body, as in Paul, but they do appear to be controlled by principles of exegesis and textual association, so that, as in the case of the temple–body complex, this coordination of images is not random, but is quite precisely developed. Significantly, too, these images are participatory in nature: the church shares in both the status and privileges of the Messiah, but also in his experience of suffering. Three points now require to be made from the wider context in connection with this experience of participating in the Messiah as his temple. First, the basis of the church’s participation in the Messiah—its hope—is the resurrection: God ‘has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead’ (1:3). The adjectival deployment of ‘living’ here parallels that seen in connection with ‘stone/stones’ in 2:4–5. This serves to link these verses together and to do so in a way that centralizes the uniqueness of the resurrection as an event. As was the case in Paul, the significance of this has to be taken seriously, for it challenges any reading of Peter that fails to emphasize the uniqueness of Christ in the narrative of salvation: while there are analogies developed between the church and Christ, these are predicated on a point of absolute dis-analogy and proceed from a singularly determinative reality. Similarly, in 2:4 it is ‘as you come to him’ that the church is constituted as temple, and the context of rejection and vindication means that ‘living’ here must indicate his resurrect condition. The point also allows us to note an easily overlooked feature of 1:3, namely that the living hope is equated with Jesus himself: he is that hope, the one who lives. The resurrection, though, is inseparable in its significance from the crucifixion. The preceding verse (1:2) links the consecration of the church to ‘the 28

Cf., Isaiah 42:6, 60:3. See Patrick Egan, ‘Suffering Servants: The Interpretation of Isaiah in 1 Peter’, Doctoral Dissertation (University of St Andrews, 2011). Egan’s work has some parallels in the Pauline scholarship of Gignilliat, Paul and Isaiah’s Servants. 29

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sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood’.30 Scholars widely acknowledge an allusion to Exodus 24:3–8, so that the covenantal significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus is emphasized. Given the strength of the case, it is surely significant that Exodus 24 is followed by the lengthy description, taking up the rest of the book, of the construction of the tabernacle, a description that culminates with the glory of God settling on the tent. Covenant and temple require one another and this is true of the new covenant also. Again, though, the glory that indwells the temple and that constitutes the inheritance (1:4–5) of the church must be seen as an alien reality, a quality of God that is gifted (1:3) to God’s people, rather than being seen as an inherent property of humanity restored to them. Second, the participatory experience of the church as temple is actualized by the Spirit, within a divine economy described in remarkably developed Trinitarian language. We have already noted the allusion in 1:1–2 to Exodus 24; closer examination of this verse is now required. 1 To those chosen . . . 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the Holy Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood. 1 KŒºŒ E . . . 2 ŒÆa æªøØ Ł F Ææe K ±ªØÆfiH Æ  N ÆŒ c ŒÆd ÞÆØe Æ¥ Æ   Å F æØ F.

The wording of the verse is terse and there are a number of interpretative challenges posed, reflected in the creative renderings in most modern translations. For our purposes, the key is the significance of the phrase K ±ªØÆfiH Æ  and its relationship to ÞÆØe Æ¥ Æ   Å F æØ F. Most scholars would agree that the significance of K ±ªØÆfiH Æ  is not in describing the holiness of the Spirit in himself (though this is hardly irrelevant) but rather, given the dative construction with K, as a description of his sanctifying role, his capacity to impart holiness to others. Given that the phrase is followed by a telic N,31 it is obviously linked to ‘obedience’ and ‘sprinkling with blood’, both of which are in the accusative case. What, though, of the function of the genitive  Å F æØ F in relation to these two outcomes and the implications for how we understand the work of the Spirit? The difficulty lies in the different genitive functions required of  Å F æØ F if it is to be seen as governing both ‘obedience’ and ‘sprinkling with blood’. In the case of the former: if the obedience is ‘to’ Jesus, then the genitive would be objective. In the case of the latter: if the blood is that ‘of ’ Jesus, the genitive would be straightforwardly possessive. Given this difficulty, a number of commentators see the pairing of the two accusatives as a hendiadys, 30 For further discussion of this verse, and the translational issues, see ‘Conclusions’ (p. 171) and ‘Other Images of the Temple in the New Testament’ (p. 172). 31 Most commentators agree that this is the force of the preposition. The notable exception is Francis H. Agnew, ‘1 Peter 1:2—an Alternative Translation’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 45 (1983), 68–73, who ascribes causal force to N.

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expressing a single reality of consecration seen to be derived from the covenant ratification of Exodus 24:3–8.32 This means that obedience and sprinkling with blood are part of the same sanctified reality of the new covenant.33 The fact that Peter ties the Spirit’s activity so closely to this reality must stem from the influence of key Old Testament texts that speak of his/its role particularly in terms of obedience: Ezekiel 36 and its natural partner text of Jeremiah 31:31–3.34 Strikingly, too, the Spirit-governed inception of participation in this sanctified reality is described in terms of new birth (1:3, 23), which parallels language that we will see in John in relation to the Spirit’s eschatological work. Most importantly, though, the construction of 1:2 requires that the Spirit’s sanctifying work is an actualization in the lives of believers of that which has been accomplished by the death and resurrection of Jesus, a theme that will recur in subsequent chapters of our study. When we encounter the repeated use of the adjective ıÆØŒ, then, in 2:5, it surely conveys nothing less than the activity of the Spirit in constituting the new temple and the holy priesthood within it, and this represents a significant point of overlap with the theology that we have observed in Paul and in Ephesians. Third, there is a repeated emphasis in 1 Peter that this new temple, while itself the fulfilment of prophetic expectation, is also but the partial realization of a hope still to be brought to consummation (1:4–5; 2:12). Again, this parallels significantly what we have begun to see in the Pauline writings, but the full extent of the parallel will only be seen in subsequent chapters, as we explore in greater depth the eschatological tension present in the narratives of participation.

THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS AND ACTS The texts that have been studied up to this point have reflected a reasonably consistent ecclesiology that considers the Christian community to be the new temple, with Jesus himself a foundational part of that temple. This belief is developed by recourse to common readings of specific Scriptures, seemingly governed by principles of inner-biblical exegesis. In the case of the Pauline writings, there is some evidence in the character of the apostle’s rhetoric that 32 Paul J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter: A Commentary on First Peter (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 87–9. Karen H. Jobes, 1 Peter (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 72. 33 Note also the bringing together of purification language with obedience in 1:22. A case could be made that, in fact, the obedience expected of believers is precisely a participation in the obedience of Jesus, and this possibility, derived from recent work on Paul, will be explored in a subsequent chapter. 34 The pairing of these texts is justified by the mutual theme of internalized law.

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this theology is, to some extent, already held by his audience. Similarly, the identification of this temple with the body of Christ, found in Ephesians and also in the undisputed Pauline writings, appears to have been pre-Pauline in formulation. As we turn now to consider the Synoptic Gospels and Acts, and the historical Jesus tradition that they broker, we may begin to find, not just further evidence of such a theology, but explanations for why it is so widespread and how it may have arisen. Again, the key will lie in the readings of particular Scriptures. In order to bring this out most clearly, we will examine the book of Acts before moving back into the Synoptics.

The Book of Acts The temple plays an important structuring role in the first half of Acts. The reader moves from events centred on the Jerusalem temple in chapters 1–4, including Pentecost, through the temple- and priest-centred conflicts of Acts 5 and into the accounts of Stephen’s speech and martyrdom, which is dominated, of course, by the question of the temple and its significance in the relationship between God and Israel. In the wake of the diaspora that follows the death of Stephen, the narrative moves towards the Jerusalem council and the discussion of the significance of the Spirit’s work in Gentiles, a discussion that is resolved, as we shall see, with reference to prophetic texts that are interpreted as describing the Christian community to be the new temple.35 The landscape of the first half of the book, at least, is dominated by these two temples. Given what we have seen in this chapter so far, it is significant that the temple themes are themselves contextualized by a narrative governed by the progress of the Spirit’s presence and work. This, of course, is key to the development of chapters 1 and 2, leading up to the outpouring at Pentecost, but it also marks the account of chapter 4, as Peter speaks before the temple authorities ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ (4:8) and as the church, responding to the release of the apostles, is filled with the Holy Spirit and speaks the word with boldness (4:31). Following this, the problematic of Acts 5 is the dishonesty of Ananias and Sapphira towards the Holy Spirit (5:3), an account that is itself followed by a further conflict account, as Peter and the other apostles are interrogated by the Sanhedrin, bringing to a climax their response with a statement concerning the role of the Spirit in witnessing the vindication of Christ (5:32). The account of Stephen, himself a man ‘full of the Spirit’ (6:5), See our discussion (‘The Book of Acts’, pp. 165–7) of Richard Bauckham, ‘James and the Jerusalem Church’, in Richard Bauckham (ed.), Book of Acts in Its Palestinian Setting (Grand Rapids; Carlisle: Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 1995), 415–80. 35

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involves his lengthy speech to the Sanhedrin, which culminates with his prophetic verdict: You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. (7:51)

His subsequent vision of God’s glory and of the Son of Man is presented as a result of the Spirit’s work, filling him. The diaspora that follows his death results in the spread of the gospel into the Samaritan and then Gentile worlds, with the receiving of the Holy Spirit by those constituencies key to the narrative of Acts (8:15–17). This, of course, leads into the account of the Jerusalem council in chapter 15, as the question of the status of Spirit-filled Gentiles within the church is debated, along with the related question of the legal expectations that are to be placed upon them. As already intimated, this chapter will require particular attention, since the conviction that the church constitutes the eschatological temple is key within it. But so too does 4:1–11; both passages develop their ecclesiological statements—whether explicit or implicit—by means of creative intertextual exegesis. Acts 4:1–11 takes up the account of Peter’s healing of the lame man in the temple gate called Beautiful, where he would lie begging for alms.36 The apostles are brought before the Sanhedrin to explain the power or name by which they brought about the healing (4:7); Peter addresses the members of the council as ‘rulers’ (¼æå ), possibly a deliberate echo of Psalm 118 (117):9,37 and states in response that the man has been healed ‘by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead’ (4:10). The statement is important, for it once again identifies the resurrection as the definitive vindication of Jesus. Peter then links this vindication to Psalm 118 (117):22. Acts 4:11

y KØ › ºŁ , › K ıŁÅŁd ç H H NŒ ø, › ª  N Œçƺc ªøÆ. This [Jesus] is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.’ Psalm 118 (117):22 ºŁ , n I ŒÆÆ ƒ NŒ  F, y  Kª ŁÅ N Œçƺc ªøÆ· The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

There are a number of differences between the text of the Psalm and that of Acts 4:11 LXX. Most importantly, Peter personalizes the reference to the

36

Note the echoes of Luke 7:22; this is potentially significant given the Isaianic texts often seen to lie behind this passage. 37 ‘It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to put confidence in rulers.’

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builders by the addition of H, specifying that the term denotes his audience and linking the rejection of Jesus to his crucifixion by the leaders (‘whom you crucified’) in 4:10. Second, the verb indicating rejection has been changed from the aorist indicative active I ŒÆÆ to the aorist passive participle K ıŁÅŁd. This has occasioned a good deal of discussion, for it breaks the consistent pattern of citation of Psalm 118 (117):22 in the New Testament, which otherwise makes use of the usual LXX text form. The verb is valid as a rendering of the Hebrew of Psalm 118:22 (though it connotes ‘contempt’ rather than ‘rejection’), leading some to suggest that this is simply Peter’s adaptation of a Hebrew original,38 but some have argued that its occurrence here constitutes a deliberate conflation with Isaiah 53:3, reflecting the use of K ıŁø in some Greek manuscripts of the prophet.39 The specific uptake of Isaiah 53:3 here would be warranted by the presence of a homonym for ‘rejection’ in that text (‫בזה‬, K ıŁø) as well as by the general combination of ideas, from rejection to vindication. Regardless of this suggestion, the key point for us to note here is that Peter’s speech to the Jewish leaders reflects the basic conviction that the eschatological temple has come into existence and that the Messiah is part of its structure. With Acts 15, we arrive at one of the key New Testament passages for our understanding of the identity of the church vis-à-vis Israel. It has been common to regard the account of the Jerusalem Council as a Lukan fabrication, with the use of Scripture in 15:16–18 constituting little better than imprecise Christian proof-texting.40 The publication of Bauckham’s analysis of the passage, however, informed by a sensitivity to Jewish exegetical technique and by meticulous examination of the historical evidence for James and the Jerusalem church, has brought such casual dismissal of the historicity of Acts 15 into question.41 Bauckham’s argument is, essentially, that close examination of the prophetic quotation of 15:16–18 reveals not a poor quotation of Amos 9:11–12 but a carefully constructed conflation of prophetic texts (note the plural ‘prophets’ in 15:15), governed by Jewish exegetical principles and reflecting the multiform and fluid text-types now known to have been available in the Second Temple Period.42 This could not have been a Lukan fabrication but, instead, constitutes evidence for the authenticity of the account. 38

R. P. C. Hanson, The Acts in the Revised Standard Version (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967), 78. Jacques Dupont, Études sur les Actes des Apôtres (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1967), 261, 301. M. C. Albl, ‘And Scripture Cannot Be Broken’: The Form and Function of the Early Christian Testimonia Collections (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 271. 40 See, for example, C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994), vol. 2, 722–8. 41 Bauckham, ‘James and the Jerusalem Church’. 42 Bauckham, ‘James and the Jerusalem Church’, 455–6. Support for this may be found in George J. Brooke, ‘Biblical Interpretation at Qumran’, in J. H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Volume 1; Waco: Baylor University Press, 2006), 287–317. More extensive examinations of these principles may also be found in Brooke’s monographs, notably Exegesis at 39

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Amidst the impressive detail of his study, Bauckham makes several points that are worth isolating here. First, the addition of a ÆFÆ IÆæłø to the beginning of the prophetic statement supplements the text of Amos 9:11 with words drawn from Hosea 3:5, where the eschatological renewal of Israel in the last days is described. This locates the events that have led to the Jerusalem Council in the eschatological stage of the story of Israel and the covenant. The occurrence of IÆæłø, however, may also link Hosea 3:5 with Jeremiah 12:16, where the Gentiles are ‘built’ among the people of God. The terminological link between the two prophetic texts is slender, but in the context of Acts 15:16–18, it is less easy to dismiss. At the other end of the quotation, the words ªøa I ÆNH  have also been added, these being drawn from Isaiah 45:21, another prophetic text speaking of the turning of Gentiles to God. Thus the allusions to three other prophetic passages which frame the main quotation from Amos put the latter in a context of prophecies which associate the eschatological conversion of the Gentile nations with the restoration of the Temple in the messianic age.43

Second, in Acts 15:16, the original verb from the Greek of Amos 9:11 (IÆ ø, ‘I will raise up’) has been replaced with I ØŒ  ø (‘I will rebuild’), which has the effect of giving greater architectural specificity to the quotation, making it harder to read in terms of the renewal of the Davidic dynasty and more obviously a prophecy concerning the eschatological temple.44 Third, the omission of ‘and will rebuild its fallen parts’ is deliberate, removing the possibility of confusion with the broken walls of a town, rather than the temple; again, this is intended to ensure that the prophecy is understood to speak of the eschatological temple building. Fourth, ‘as in the days of old’ is also omitted, in order to emphasize the surpassing status of the eschatological temple. Thus, two full clauses have been omitted from the text of Amos for specific reasons of referentiality.45 All of this points to the rationale of the Acts 15 account as revolving around the conviction that the church constitutes the eschatological temple. The distinctive point that emerges in the narrative of Acts is that Gentiles have been deemed to be part of this structure, to be ‘built among my people’ (Jer 12:16), on the basis of the evidence of their experience of the Spirit (Acts 15:8–9). Crucially, for Bauckham, their inclusion in the structure of David’s

Qumran: 4QFlorilegium in Its Jewish Context and The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005). 43 Bauckham, ‘James and the Jerusalem Church’, 455. 44 Cf. the use of ŒÅ with such an eschatological sense in Tobit 13:11. 45 Bauckham notes Brooke’s evidence for such omissions being a deliberate exegetical device: Brooke, Exegesis at Qumran, 91–2.

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rebuilt tent is not predicated on their being transformed into Israelites, but rather they are incorporated qua Gentiles, which explains the limited decree of 15:19–21, based on the restrictions placed upon ‘the Gentiles living among you’ (Leviticus 17:8, 10, 12, 13, 18:26). The eschatological temple, as the symbol of the eschatological people of God, represents a new community in which there are both Jews and Gentiles, with neither a distinction made between them (Acts 15:9) nor an obliteration of their social or ethnic identity. Significantly, of course, this new temple is associated with the Messiah and, indeed, the rationale for the selection and conflation of texts is precisely a messianic one. As we have seen in Chapter 4, there were strong associations of the Messiah with traditions of the building of the eschatological temple in Judaism. Based on our study of Acts 4:11, we may now add a further point, one that will receive additional support once we have examined the Gospels: for the earliest Christian community, distinctively within Judaism, the Messiah was not simply the builder of the eschatological temple but was also part of its fabric.

The Synoptic Gospels Having observed the significance of Psalm 118 (117):22 in Acts 4:11 and the development of the identity of the church as temple in Luke’s second volume, notably in Acts 15, we are now ready to consider the more limited evidence of the Synoptic Gospels. What is crucial here is the complex link between the temple action of Jesus, his (alleged) claim to tear down and rebuild the temple in three days, the trial verdict, and, perhaps most importantly, the use of Psalm 118 (117):22 in the Parable of the Tenants. The significance of the temple action of Jesus has always been a matter of debate in scholarship: should it be understood as a protest against injustice or as some kind of prophetic sign-act of the fate awaiting the temple and its imminent replacement by a new dispensation revolving around Jesus himself?46 The latter view is obviously most easily aligned with the later New Testament portrayal of the church as an eschatological temple, but it is far from being the scholarly consensus on the temple action. As we will see in the next chapter, there is no question that by the time of John’s gospel the two approaches had been fused and that Jesus was portrayed as knowingly constituting the eschatological temple. To sustain such a case with regard to the Synoptics or the Historical Jesus tradition, however, is more controversial.

46 For a recent overview of the various interpretative options, see Nicholas Perrin, Jesus the Temple (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010), 80–113.

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Regardless of this, though, there is a wider recognition that the temple action was a key precipitating factor in the arrest and trial of Jesus.47 It is a striking feature of the Synoptics that, despite some differences in the arrangement of the material, the temple action is closely linked to (or even understood to precipitate) the debate over the source of Jesus’s authority (Matt 21:23–7; Mark 11:27–33; Luke 20:1–18), which is followed by the Parable of the Tenants.48 This parable is therefore given some significance in relation to the response to Jesus’s action in the temple. The parable, of course, describes the sending of servants to the tenants of a vineyard to receive the ‘fruit’ due to the master of the vineyard. Each is seized and beaten, prompting the owner to eventually send his own son, who is also killed. This action leads to the vineyard being taken from those tenants and rented to others, who will show the owner due respect. It is particularly noteworthy that, while the likely background of the parable lies in Isaiah 5:1–7, the resolution explicitly turns on a quotation from Psalm 118(117): 22–3, the very text that we have encountered now in several locations.49 Luke omits the second half of the quotation, from Psalm 118(117): 23 (‘the Lord has done this and it is marvellous in our eyes’), perhaps reflecting the fact that in most occurrences in the New Testament, it is only verse 22 that is cited. Why, though, should this be the portion of Scripture that is utilized in the parable? Obviously, it is relevant as a passage speaking of rejection and vindication, but might other passages not serve better? The fact that this is one of the psalms of ascent, sung while approaching Jerusalem for Passover, is of obvious relevance, since Jesus may have sung it recently and considered its themes to be important to his own ministry. In fact, Psalm 118:26 is one of the Scriptures used by the crowd during the triumphal entry of Jesus (21:9). There is, though, a further reason why this particular Scripture may have been used by Jesus in relation to the parable of the tenants. A number of scholars have recognized the possible word play of ’eben (stone) and bēn (son):50 the rejected ‘stone’ may easily be punned to the rejected ‘son’.51 That such wordplay is intentional is quite defensible: the Targum to Psalm

47 See Perrin, Jesus the Temple, 80–113. The view is particularly associated with N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (London: SPCK, 1992), Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996), and also Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (London: SCM, 1985). 48 In Matthew, the additional parable of the two sons (21:28–32) separates the accounts. 49 Matt 21:42, Mark 12:10–11; Luke 20:17. 50 George J. Brooke, ‘4Q500 1 and the Use of Scripture in the Parable of the Vineyard’, Dead Sea Discoveries, 2 (1995), 268–94, 287–8. 51 Klyne Snodgrass, Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 290 and notes, provides a comprehensive response to those who would suggest that such specifically Hebrew punning should be discounted in dealing with a parable ostensibly delivered to an Aramaic-speaking audience.

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118:22 renders ‘stone’ as ‘child’, giving a clearer messianic overtone,52 with a similar phenomenon being seen in the Targum to Zechariah 4:7. Interestingly, as Blomberg notes,53 the use of Psalm 118:22 at Qumran is not given this messianic focus, but is rather projected onto the community as a whole: in The Community Rule 8:7, the entire community is described as ‘the tested rampart, the precious cornerstone’. By contrast, the evidence of the Parable of the Talents suggests that the early Christian community (and, if the account is authentic, Jesus himself) understood Psalm 118 messianically. This also suggests, though, a conviction that the Messiah would not simply build the eschatological temple, but would himself function as its cornerstone/capstone, as part of its fabric. Given, then, the link between the fate of the Messiah’s body, its impending death and subsequent vindicating resurrection, and the establishment of the eschatological temple (a link achieved through precisely this Scripture and its distinctive handling in the New Testament), it is possible that Psalm 118(117):22 is the textual key to explaining the distinctive hybridization of temple and body imagery that we have observed throughout this chapter. Once the rejected and killed Son is seen to be the chosen cornerstone, through his bodily resurrection, the link between the body of the Messiah and the eschatological temple is made clear. Whether or not, then, the accusations brought against Jesus in the context of his trial were grounded in his own actual, explicit words (Matt 26:60, 61; Mark 14:57–8), the arrangement of material from the temple incident to the Parable of the Tenants confirms that the Gospels present Jesus as functioning as the cornerstone of a new eschatological temple. As in the other uses of Psalm 118(117):22 in the New Testament, this occurrence in the Parable of the Tenants draws in further passages that employ stone imagery, this time Isaiah 8:14–15 and possibly Daniel 2:34–5. The first of these is particularly interesting, since it speaks not of the Messiah, but of God himself; in the New Testament, that imagery is unabashedly applied to Jesus.

CONCLUSIONS We have studied in this chapter a range of passages that present the church as the eschatological temple, noting the extent to which this concept is found in the New Testament and the distinctive way in which it becomes hybridized with the idea of the church as the body of Christ. By tracing the images back to 52 This is reflected also in the Cairo Genizah Songs of David A 18, which applies this verse to David. 53 Craig Blomberg, ‘Matthew’, in D. A. Carson and G. K. Beale (eds), Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids; Nottingham: Baker; IVP, 2007), 74.

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the earliest strata of the New Testament we can, with some justification, describe them as core to the New Testament theologies of participation. I have suggested that the hybridization of temple and body may have arisen under the influence of the text of Psalm 118(117):22, which occurs a number of times in the New Testament, with sufficient frequency for us to see it as being of widespread significance in early Christian theology, and which helps to account for the conviction that the Messiah is not only builder of the temple but also part of its fabric, while also linking the fate of his body (rejected and resurrected) to the establishment of the temple. In addition to this suggestion, a number of further conclusions must now be noted. First, the imagery of the church as eschatological temple is consistently linked to the unity of church. At the heart of this is the distinctive eschatological identity of the church as a new reality containing both Jew and Gentile. The union of these with one another is founded upon their union with the Messiah and their shared experience of the Spirit. Second, the image of the church as temple is crucial to the proper understanding of the use of glory language of the church in the New Testament. Contextualized by the image of the temple, such language most obviously points to the alien presence of God in the midst of his people and not to an innate but lost property of humanity or Adam. While we must be careful not to impose this on the material that we will study in later chapters, or to unduly obscure other associations of glory in relation to the narratives of participation that we will explore there, we must also be careful not to lose sight of the significance of this important background to the glory language of the New Testament. Similarly, we must be aware of the relevance of this temple imagery to the designations of members of the church as ‘holy’ and as ‘saints’. Third, in the Pauline and Petrine material, the image of the church as temple includes elements of analogy and continuity between the Messiah and his people (the stone/stones, etc.), but it also involves radical discontinuity: he alone is the cornerstone, his resurrection uniquely brings the new temple into existence, the Spirit actualizes his reality in the lives of his people and does not simply make them ‘like him’. This, importantly, pushes us away from considering these writers to understand the incarnation in terms that are analogous to the general Christian experience of the Spirit. Fourth, the reality of the new temple, in which the church experiences the transformative presence of God, is closely linked in the books that we have studied with the experience of the Spirit, whose role is specifically developed in relation to the work of the Messiah. While linked to the experience of the Spirit, the reality of the church as temple is typically described using a range of Scriptural texts, allusions, and citations. The understanding of the church as temple is, therefore, seen to be controlled by Scriptural exegesis. Fifth, this scriptural exegesis serves to ensure that the eschatological temple is understood in the context of the covenant and the various prophetic

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writings that speak of the renewal and transformation of that covenant. Over against the ‘apocalyptic’ approaches to the New Testament that tend to deemphasize this element of continuity with the narrative of Israel, this ensures that the story of the church is taken into the story of Israel, not as a replacement theology or a supersessionism, and certainly not effacing the identities of Jew and Gentile, but as part of a messianic reality understood to fulfil the intentions of God in its globally redemptive orientation.

7 Other Images of the Temple in the New Testament The passages that we studied in Chapter 6 depicted the church as the eschatological temple. In this chapter, we turn to examine texts in which the relationship between redeemed humans and God is also presented using temple imagery, but in which the church is not itself identified as the temple. We will examine in this chapter the temple Christology of the Fourth Gospel, the heavenly temple of Hebrews and, finally, the New Jerusalem of Revelation. Recognizing the motif of divine presence, which lies at the heart of both temple and covenant imagery, allows us to differentiate the various images of the temple in the New Testament without thereby fracturing their essential unity: each, in its own way, develops the theme of God’s presence with his people and does so by means of covenantal imagery.

JOHN ’S GOSPEL: CHRIST THE DIVINE TEMPLE

The Prologue to John The prologue of John’s gospel has been described as the gateway to its christological truth, the vestibule through which the reader passes into the gospel.1 That prologue describes the enfleshment of the Word, identified as 1 This common image for John’s prologue is exploited by Martin Hengel, ‘The Prologue of the Gospel of John as the Gateway to Christological Truth’, in Richard Bauckham and Carl Mosser (eds), Gospel of John and Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 265–94, allowing an exploration of the extent to which the prologue anticipates key themes of the book. There have, of course, been a number of theories concerning the origins of the prologue, which has often been seen as a secondary addition, and these have been part of the wider discussion of the redactional history of the gospel. There is a general consensus in contemporary scholarship, however, that identification of sources is largely impossible and that the gospel is well unified. For an overview of this, see Udo Schnelle, ‘Ein neuer Blick: Tendenzen gegenwärtiger Johannesforschung’, Berliner theologische Zeitschrift 16 (1999), 21–40. A further useful inroad into the

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God in 1:1 (ŒÆd Łe q › ºª ), as the dwelling of the Word among us (1:14). The specific verb used for this dwelling is ŒÅø, occurring in aorist form. The choice of word is interesting because the verb means ‘to camp’ or ‘to pitch a tent’. It is the cognate verb to the noun ŒÅ , ‘tabernacle’. The verb occurs in the Greek of the Old Testament only once, in Genesis 13:12, but the noun is widespread, with a usage that includes the tent in which the ark of God’s presence resided. That fact, taken by itself, does not mean that we should immediately conclude that the occurrence of the verb here has templeovertones, but the proximate occurrence of ‘glory’ supports such a conclusion: the combination of ‘tabernacle’ and ‘glory’ is a natural one to make in the light of the Exodus and wilderness narratives of Israel. Still, John’s description of the Word ‘tabernacling’ with us does not identify Jesus as the temple so much as the glory within the temple, ‘the one greater than the temple’ to borrow the Matthean phrase.2 As we shall see, however, the identification of Jesus as the temple, as well as the indwelling Presence, is one that John will extrapolate from this. The glory of Jesus is specified to be that of the Only Begotten (  ª ), who is described as ‘from the Father’ and ‘full of grace and truth’. These descriptions require a little reflection. The statement that the Only Begotten is Ææa Ææ reflects a major theme in the Fourth Gospel, namely that the Father has ‘sent’ the Son. ‘[T]he Johannine Jesus describes his task around fifty times as being sent by the Father’.3 The key point that must be recognized here is that this origin functions as the premise for the glory revealed in or by the Son. It is because he is Ææa Ææ that the Son is glorious. For John, moreover, this is not a functional divinity, resulting from the sending of a chosen man to fulfil a divine purpose. The sending of the Son is equated with his coming into the world and taking flesh. It is, in other words, a pre-existent glory, which is precisely why John begins with an echo of Genesis 1:1: the Word was in the beginning. The description of the Word as ‘full of grace and truth’ (º æÅ åæØ  ŒÆd IºÅŁÆ) develops his revelatory role. There may well be shades of Wisdom imagery here, possibly combined with speculation about the pre-existent Torah,4 but in this context, such imagery is brought fundamentally into the

discussions may be found in the various essays collected in Tom Thatcher, What We Have Heard from the Beginning: The Past, Present, and Future of Johannine Studies (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007). 2 Matt 12:6. 3 Hengel, ‘The Prologue of the Gospel of John’, 268. 4 The prologue has commonly been seen as a Johannine adaptation of a Wisdom hymn. See G. Rochais, ‘La Formation du Prologue (Jn 1:1–18)’, Science et Esprit 37 (1985), 161–87, and Hengel, ‘Prologue of the Gospel of John’. Although such a conclusion may be incorrect, and the compositional unity of the Fourth Gospel defended—as it is by Richard Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John

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service of John’s Christology, which subverts any antecedents. John’s obvious comparison is between Jesus and Moses, with the ‘grace and truth’ combination setting Jesus apart from his revelatory predecessor (1:17). There has been much discussion of the significance of the phrase åæØ Id åæØ  in John 1:16, as to whether this should be seen as simply intensifying the association of grace with Jesus, piling one grace upon another, or whether I has its more normal function, meaning ‘in place of ’. The former view has tended to be reflected in the translations of the verse (so NRSV, NIV), but the latter has been advanced by a number of scholars who have seen the statement as functioning to establish continuity between the revelation that has come through Jesus and that associated with Moses. The grace that has now come in fullness through Jesus is in place (I) of the grace brought through Moses. The recent work by Gerald Wheaton (see footnote 22 in Chapter 10, p. 256) on the role of the Jewish feasts in the structure and theology of John’s gospel, which understands the Evangelist to have systematically presented Jesus as fulfilling the symbolism of the feasts, constitutes strong support for this interpretation of the phrase. John, then, brings together two key concepts in relation to grace: presence and truth. The presence of God in the world, in Christ the tabernacle, is understood as the presence of truth and, hence, as revelation. The pervasive light imagery in the passage (1:4, 9), which anticipates one of the themes of the gospel, reflects this combination of ideas. It also, however, anticipates the problem of blindness to the revelation that is in Christ. We will defer a thorough discussion of this point until Chapter 10, but we may make one key observation: this subversion means that, whatever backgrounds and parallels may be adduced for the light imagery—whether that of the Shekinah or of Plato’s true light—they are deployed quite strategically by John, within a distinctive theological schema of revelation.

Jesus and the Cleansing of the Temple The identification of Jesus with the new temple is made explicit in John 2, through the variations that are found in the temple-cleansing account, when compared to those found in the Synoptics. John brings this account to the beginning of his gospel, rather than placing it where it occurs in the Synoptics, in the build-up to Jesus’s arrest. An obvious thematic importance is therefore (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 271–84 —the argument itself is an acknowledgement of the sapiential content of the passage and its connections to Jewish Wisdom speculation. Such speculation has itself been connected to reflection on the re-existence of Torah, an idea that emerges in rabbinic writing (notably Gen. Rab. 1:1). Whether such an idea was in circulation at the time of the New Testament is a matter of speculation, but has been defended by Armin Lange, Weisheit und Prädestination: Weisheitliche Urordnung und Prädestination in den Textfunden von Qumran (Leiden: Brill, 1995).

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attached to the incident. It is also, here, juxtaposed with the first of Jesus’s public miracles, the transformation of the water to wine at Cana. The striking point of connection between the two accounts lies in the fact that the transformed water is the content of ceremonial washing jars (2:6).5 Many have rightly seen an eschatological irony6 in the master’s words to the groom—‘you have saved the best until now’ (ø ¼æØ)—by which he unwittingly comments on the superiority of the messianic age, but it should also be recognized that the miracle implies sovereignty over the cult on the part of Jesus and perhaps, too, that the significance of the rituals of purity has found its end in Jesus, who reveals that he is the presence of Glory by this miracle (2:11).7 A number of scholars have noted that the juxtaposition of this miracle with the cleansing of the temple implies replacement.8 The cleansing incident itself is described somewhat differently from the Synoptics. Only John describes the temple as a ‘market’ (2:16), placing an emphasis on the ‘selling’ (2:13) of cattle, sheep, and doves as well as the practice of moneylending; where the Synoptics describe Jesus as overturning the tables and driving those behind them out of the temple, John describes Jesus as driving out everyone and everything, both human and animal, and doing so violently, with a whip made of cords. This is a rather specific interpretation of the temple incident, presenting the problem as a corruption of the purpose of the temple by mercantile activity and the act as a restoration, rather than as a prophetic sign-act.9 The most significant difference for our purposes, however, is the placing on Jesus’s lips of the claim that he would rebuild the temple in three days and the subsequent identification of this claim with the resurrection. Such a claim is found in the Synoptics, but only on the lips of the false witnesses brought against Jesus. It is possible to argue that the claim was authentically Jesus’s own, but the Synoptics are, in that case, rather

5 Keener, The Gospel of John (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003), 492–517, provides an excellent discussion of the background and symbolic significance of this miracle and devotes several pages (509–13) to the halachic traditions that may have been at play. 6 Irony is commonly detected in the Fourth Gospel. For a broader discussion, see Paul D. Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1985). 7 In a brief note on this passage, Hugh Montefiore, ‘Position of the Cana Miracle and the Cleansing of the Temple in St John’s Gospel’, Journal of Theological Studies 50 (1949), 183–6, notes the possibility of an intertextual reading of the LXX of Isaiah 9:1–2 with Ezekiel 47, possibly in the context of an early Christian testimonium collection, suggesting that the coordination of these texts may explain the close juxtaposition of the two accounts, specifically through the mention of Cana’s location being in Galilee and the command to ‘drink this first’ ( F

æH   Ø) in the Isaianic text. He further notes patristic evidence in support of such a reading, suggesting that the Cana miracle was understood in relation to Isaiah 9:1. Regardless of whether he is correct, John has quite deliberately connected the two events. 8 Note Keener’s discussion, providing further bibliography: The Gospel of John, 517. 9 Jesus’s cleansing of the temple has been taken as such a sign-act by E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (London: SCM Press, 1985), and Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God. Such an interpretation may be valid for the original act, but it cannot be applied to the Johannine version.

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coy about this.10 Only John is willing to explicitly ascribe the saying to Jesus himself. By doing so, at the beginning of a gospel that will spend more time in Jerusalem and the temple courts than any other, John ensures that the reader is aware of the relationship between the architectural structure in Jerusalem and the person of Jesus.11

Temple Christology in John 4 The account of Jesus’s conversation with the Samaritan woman further develops this concern to depict him as the true temple. Shot through as it is with the imagery of ‘living water’, the passage is linked to others in the gospel that use such imagery to represent the reality that is associated with the mission of the Son, notably John 3:5 and 7:35. That embeddedness prohibits us from considering the passage in isolation from the wider themes of the gospel. The expression ‘living water’ (o øæ ÇH) has some specific connections with Old Testament passages. There are specific references to the fountain of living water in Jeremiah 2:13 (Kb KªŒÆºØ , Ūc o Æ  ÇøB; ‫)ָעְזבוּ ְמקוֹר ַמיִם־ַח ִיּים‬ and 17:1312; in both texts the expression identifies Yahweh and highlights the folly of Israel in forsaking the source of life. In the first passage, this forsaking is further described as the casting-off of God’s ‘yoke’, the law. The expression also occurs in Zechariah 14:8, where the flowing of living water from Jerusalem to the seas in the east and the west follows the coming of the lord and his holy ones in eschatological judgement. The passage parallels and develops the vision of Ezekiel 47, of the waters that flow eastward from the altar. As Stephen Um has recently noted, however, these are specific instances of a much wider use of water imagery in the Old Testament (taken up extensively in Second Temple literature) that uses the symbolism in connection with life and restoration.13 His own study highlights the connection between water and new creation in Isaiah (12:3; 26:19; 32:2, 20; 35:6–7; 41:17; 44:3; 49:10; 58:11). As we will note in Chapter 10, this background is all the more significant for being shared with one of John’s key strategic devices, the set of ‘I am’ sayings. Noting this, and other allusions to Isaiah, Um argues convincingly that John understands Isaiah’s new creational promises to be fulfilled in the offer of living water to the Samaritan woman, but also recognizes that the gift is particularly identified with the Holy Spirit in 7:38–9. Given that John very 10 In defence of the authenticity of this saying in John’s report, see Perrin, Jesus the Temple, 105, and Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 72–3. 11 For further discussion, see Udo Schnelle, ‘Die Tempelreinigung und die Christologie des Johannesevangeliums’, New Testament Studies 42 (1996), 359–73. 12 The word ‘water’ is missing in the latter verse, but the parallel is clear. 13 Stephen T. Um, The Theme of Temple Christology in John’s Gospel (London: T & T Clark, 2006).

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specifically uses the expression found in Jeremiah 2:13 to describe the gift as a ‘spring/fountain (Ū ) of living water’, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the gift is nothing less than the personal presence of Yahweh, who is identified as the fountain of living water in that verse.14 There is, then, a twofold identification of Son and Spirit: the Spirit is the presence of the Fount of Living Water and the Son is the one who can give this gift. The ability to ‘give’ the divine presence is contingent upon Jesus’s own divinity and it is hardly surprising that this passage culminates in one of John’s celebrated absolute ‘I am’ sayings.15 The language and logic, in fact, are rather close to what we have encountered in the later argumentation of Athanasius: Christ’s ability to divinize human beings with the presence of God necessitates his own essential and non-contingent divinity. The orientation of this Christology around the symbolism of the temple is clearest in 4:19–24. Here, the woman questions Jesus on the different locations of worship for Jews and Samaritans. His answer does not negate the historical significance of the temple, since it describes Jewish worship as according to knowledge and as core to God’s purposes for the world (4:22), but it does present the Jerusalem temple as now obsolete. ‘An hour is coming when God will be worshipped neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem’ (4:21) and ‘that hour is now’ (4:23, æåÆØ uæÆ ŒÆd F KØ). True worship is now ‘in spirit and in truth’. It is not clear whether the reference to FÆ should be understood as denoting the Holy Spirit, or as a more general reference to the non-physical. The issue, of course, has been problematized by the philosophical undercurrents of biblical scholarship through the decades, with this passage particularly affected by the tendency to understand FÆ as the universal human Geist. Contextually, however, with such an emphasis on the gift of the Spirit by the Son, it must be recognized that the true worship of God envisaged here is pneumatologically governed and enabled. Whether or not ‘in spirit’ is immediately a reference to the Holy Spirit, or to the subjective participation of the human spirit in worship, the fellowship of the human with the divine presence requires the indwelling presence of the Fount of Living Water. By further adding to this a reference to ‘truth’—directly identified with Jesus in 1:14, 17 and 14:6 and more broadly so identified (including through John’s witness) in 5:33, 8:40, 44–6—the inseparability of the Spirit from the Son is maintained (note also the description of the Spirit as e FÆ B IºÅŁÆ in 15:26 and 16:13, where the Spirit’s dependence upon the Son’s truth is specified). The presence of the Spirit, then, does not represent the

14 It is noteworthy that Um challenges the common scholarly association of water with revelation. I am in agreement with Um and regard his case as a strong one; nevertheless, as we will see in Chapter 10, there is a close connection between presence and revelation, and between the gift of the Spirit and perception. 15 These will be discussed further in Chapter 10.

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infusion of a grace distinguishable from the Son’s own presence, but the outworking of the covenant that is in the Messiah, a point that will be defended more fully in Chapter 10, when we examine the covenantal significance of the ‘I am’ sayings in John. It is noteworthy that this temple symbolism is linked very specifically to messianic expectations (4:25). However authentic the woman’s mention of the Messiah may be judged to be, it is suggestive of the theology that we saw developed in our previous chapter. The exegesis of Psalm 118 had led to a conviction that the Messiah was not just the builder of the temple but was, himself, part of that temple. John appears to reflect a particular development and extension of this. The Messiah is no longer just part of the eschatological temple: he is the temple. By recognizing the underlying, integrating concept of ‘presence’, though, we can see the essential continuity between the Johannine account and those found elsewhere in the New Testament.

Footwashing and Cleansing in John 13 Before we leave the Johannine account, we must notice one final important connection. As we noted at the beginning of this section, the portrayal of Jesus as the temple is developed in relation to themes of purity. Those same themes emerge in John 13, in the footwashing account. What is noteworthy here is that Jesus’s work of purification is presented as an example to be followed by his disciples, as they act in loving service towards one another (13:14–17). There is no suggestion that such an emphasis on imitation diminishes the uniqueness or primacy of Jesus’s person and work in the Fourth Gospel and, indeed, the account draws attention to the completeness of that unique work (13:10). Yet, it is also clear that to be brought into fellowship with the Triune God is to be transformed. Believers are to be holy even as God-in-Christ is holy, so that the life of the Incarnate Logos becomes a pattern for them. What must be stressed is that such an ethical emphasis is meaningful, in Johannine terms, only within the context of a properly configured incarnational theology.

HEB R EWS: AC C ESS TO THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE A N D D I V I N E P R E S EN C E Hebrews lacks many of the elements that we have encountered in our previous chapter and, indeed, that we will encounter in later chapters. There is, here, no theology of the church as temple or of Christ as temple and nothing resembling the locative grammar (e.g. ‘in Christ’) that we will encounter elsewhere.

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There is, however, a similar conviction that the Jerusalem temple is no longer the centre of access to the divine presence and that the death of Jesus has ensured a new kind of participation in the heavenly reality. The recent work of Christopher Rowland and Christopher Morray-Jones has drawn attention to the apocalyptic and covenantal framework of Hebrews16 (those two words no longer being opposable), and this will be important to our observations. Also significant is the fact that Hebrews has provided the church with some of its richest source material for reflection upon the incarnation and the relationship between the divine status of the Son and his true humanity. This underpins the distinctive theme in Hebrews that brings the apocalyptic and the christological together so effectively and that has been prominent in much atonement theology: the high priesthood of Christ. Because this theme is so difficult to disentangle from the underlying incarnational narrative of Hebrews, we will examine this narrative as part of our examination of the temple image, thereby bringing into this chapter material that might have been expected to be left until Chapter 11. Access to the presence of God in the heavenly temple is the primary image of participation in Hebrews. This image is covenantally governed and developed with reference to the key ‘new covenant’ texts that we have already encountered, particularly Jeremiah 31:33.17 It is important to note, though, that the new covenant and participation in the presence of God in the heavenly temple are grounded by the author in the narrative of the incarnation and, quite specifically, in the ontology of the incarnation, which determines the depiction of Jesus as the High Priest.

Hebrews 1: The Son, the Sons, and the Brothers Key to understanding the author’s incarnational theology is the term ‘son’ and its relationship to the plural ‘sons’ and ‘brothers’. Biblical scholars have typically seen the use of ‘Son’ to be driven by this relationship, so that rather than seeing an incipient Trinitarianism, governed by the categories of Father and Son, we see rather a theology that emphasizes the identification of Jesus

16 Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 167–73. An important point that emerges from the brief discussion is that any Platonic influence on the conceptuality of Hebrews has been mediated by the apocalyptic traditions of Judaism, within which it is inevitably altered by the frameworks of Jewish thought. See, too, Marie E. Isaacs, Sacred Space: An Approach to the Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992). Other approaches to Hebrews have emphasized and explored the Platonic influence. A recent and sophisticated example is Kenneth Schenck, Cosmology and Eschatology in Hebrews: The Settings of the Sacrifice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), who discusses Platonic influence specifically on pages 117–22, while being sensitive to the Jewish dimension. 17 Quoted in Hebrews 10:16.

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with other humans. The latter, in itself, is appropriate as a reading of Hebrews, but the minimizing or rejection of the former fails to deal with the rhetorical arrangement of the text.18 As Webster rightly notes, the author’s first point of emphasis is the unique relationship that exists between God and the Son and the distinctive nature of the ultimate19 revelation that has been made ‘in/by (the) Son’ (K ıƒfiH). Indeed, this locative statement, lacking the article, colours the entire subsequent account of revelation: it is ‘Sonly’ revelation.20 The Son is further specified as being the heir of all things and the one through whom all things were made. The latter certainly sounds much like the descriptions of Wisdom in Judaism,21 but the following verse employs language that is difficult to source in such traditions. The description of the Son as the ‘effulgence of God’s glory’ (n J IƪÆÆ B Å) identifies him with the kavod itself, the divine presence in visible form, and hence the ‘exact representation of his being’ (åÆæÆŒcæ B  ø). The author’s language here exceeds anything said of Wisdom, but also anything said of Adam. In fact, interestingly, the closest that we come in biblical material to this usage of åÆæÆŒ æ is in 4 Macc 15:4: In what manner might I express the emotions of parents who love their children? We impress upon the character of a small child a wondrous likeness both of mind and of form. Especially is this true of mothers, who because of their birth pangs have a deeper sympathy toward their offspring than do the fathers.22

The language, then, predicates the Son’s revelatory capacity on his essential relationship to God. Moreover, it makes this identification very specifically by using the participle ‘being’ (J). This is important for two reasons. First, the participle relates this clause circumstantially to the main verbal clause, as do the parallel participles in ‘sustaining all things by his powerful word’ and ‘having made purification’. That main verb is ‘he sat’, which is therefore seen to be resultant of his divine ontology and finished work. The enthronement, then, while here consequent to the work of the cross23 (later identified as the act of purification), is an acknowledgement of who the Son ‘is’ in himself and

18 Even David M. Moffitt, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Leiden: Brill, 2011), whose conclusions are conservative in many ways, rejects such alleged anachronism. 19 Note the occurrence of the expression K Kå ı H æH  ø in 1:2 and the contrast with the sundry ( ºıæH ŒÆd  ºıæø) previous revelations of 1:1. 20 J. B. Webster, ‘One Who Is Son: Theological Reflections on the Exordium to the Epistle to the Hebrews’, in Richard Bauckham et al. (eds), The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 69–94. 21 The parallels are well outlined by Ben Witherington, Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994), 175–82. 22 Elsewhere the word is used of a scar (Lev 13:28), as the visible representation of a burn, and in the standard sense of character in 2 Macc 4:10. 23 Though, note 2:9.

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of his cosmic reign. Second, the effulgence of the Son proceeds, again, from the Son’s ‘being’. In such a context, the use of Œæø ª  H Iªªºø (1:4) is actually quite surprising, to an extent that is often overlooked by scholars in their identification of the Christology here. Why should a figure of such ontological glory as this require to be spoken of in terms of process? The answer lies in the incarnational narrative that will be developed in subsequent chapters and that, as Moffitt rightly notes, represents the climactic resolution of the angelic contrast developed in chapters 1 and 2. The Son was ‘made a little lower than the angels’, a designation that locates him in the place of humanity. It is this second element of his ontological narrative—the addition of humanity to his being—that is the explanation for the occurrence of ª  in 1:4. It reflects an incarnational narrative of humiliation and exaltation, similar to that found in Philippians 2. Moffitt is, I think, largely correct in his treatment of the humanity of Jesus and its implications for the resurrection in Hebrews. He argues persuasively that the logic of atonement in Hebrews requires a physical resurrection and bodily presence in the heavenly temple: the author considers it vital that the blood of Jesus is sprinkled on the heavenly furniture (9:23–4) and that a real sympathetic human makes intercession for his people as high priest (2:17). The process of the incarnation was necessary to the installation of just such a high priest in heaven.24 Moffitt, however, understands this high priestly role to be a fulfilment of Adamic theology, and this may be less convincing, particularly in the light of our discussion of backgrounds in Chapter 5. Contextually, the psalms employed in relation to the author’s case are more characteristically messianic than Adamic and do not demonstrably explain the praise of the Son on the basis of Adam myths. Rather, that praise is an acknowledgement of his divine identity,25 now truly enfleshed. The psalms that are used are those in which acknowledgement of the Messiah corresponds to the acknowledgement of divine rule and glory.26 The distinctive incarnational reading of these psalms, as with Psalm 8, appears to emerge as a result of their being understood in the light of the narrative of humiliation. ‘For a time’,27 the Son is made lower than the angels, but this time is followed by exaltation.

24 To this it may be added that to assume that the heavenly temple is non-physical is to ignore the backgrounds provided by the apocalyptic literature to the Epistle and to neglect the role that such literature plays in mediating Platonic influence. 25 Note Bauckham’s discussion. Richard Bauckham, ‘The Divinity of Jesus Christ in the Epistle to the Hebrews’, in Bauckham et al., The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology, 15–36. 26 Compare our discussion of glory and its associations with the Davidic house in Chapter 4. 27 This is the significance that should probably be attached to æÆå, rather than qualifying the level of humiliation in relation to the angels (the latter being the more natural reading of ‫ְמַּעט‬ in the MT; the author, however, quotes the LXX and not the MT). See Moffitt’s excellent discussion, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection, 55, n.17.

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The Real Humanity of Jesus and his Priestly Role The following chapters of Hebrews make clear the necessity of the real humanity of Christ to his fulfilment of the high priestly role. He is a ‘brother’ to believers (2:11–13), sharing in their flesh and blood (2:14) and therefore able to act as high priest on their behalf. The author will later stress the necessity of the death of a human, and not animals, to take away sins (10:4– 7, quoting Psalm 40:6–8 in support) and thus to make people holy (10:10). He describes this purifying and sanctifying function in relation to both the heavenly sanctuary (9:21) and those who now have access to worship in it (9:11; 10:22, 29) for ‘under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins’ (9:22). There is an underlying covenant rationale to this, which we will explore further in Chapter 11, but at this stage what is important is the thoroughgoing significance attached to the blood of Jesus, as a true human being distinguished from both angel and animal. It is important to the author that the reality of Jesus’s flesh and (importantly) blood sets his relationship to other humans fundamentally apart from his relationship to the angels (2:16–17). That it is only humans who are brothers to Christ is arguably the key point of contrast that governs the comparison between the Son and the angels in chapters 1–2.28 This can easily be overlooked, however, when Middle Platonic associations are projected onto the word NŒ ıÅ in 1:6 and 2:5. Such approaches lead to this term being interpreted as a spiritual (non-corporeal) heavenly world, dualistically opposed to the physical Œ  .29 But while typically sensitive to the associations of the word NŒ ıÅ within the logic of Hebrews to the exaltation of Jesus, and not to the incarnation,30 such approaches openly reject the lexical evidence that the word denotes physical (often earthly) realms and lacks any association with such dualistic accounts.31 In two important studies, Andriessen has highlighted the Septuagintal association of the word with Canaan in Exodus 16:35, and thus with the Promised Land of the Exodus account.32 This is not unimportant, since Exodus themes run through Hebrews 2–4. Andriessen understands these to be taken up eschatologically in Hebrews. Hence, 28

Moffitt, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 45–144. As does Albert Vanhoye, ‘L’ˇNŒ ıÅ dans l’Épître aux Hébreux’, Biblica 45 (1964), 248– 53. He is followed by John P. Meier, ‘Symmetry and Theology in the Old Testament Citations of Heb. 1–5’, Biblica 66 (1985), 504–33. 30 Such approaches see NŒ ıÅ as denoting the world into which the Son comes in the Incarnation. While lexically defensible, such a reading cannot be made to cohere with the following chapter. 31 Advocates of this view are therefore required to argue that the author uses the word in a highly distinctive way. 32 P. C. B. Andriessen, ‘De Betekenis van Hebr. 1,6’, Studia Catholica 35 (1960), 2–13, and ‘Teneur Judéo-Chrétienne de He 1:6 et 2:14b–3:2’, Novum Testamentum 18 (1976), 293–313. 29

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because of its prior associations with earthly realms, he resists the dualistic significance given to NŒ ıÅ by others: the promised world to come will be a physical one. Moffitt develops a slightly different interpretation, adding his own observations concerning the occurrence of NŒ ıÅ in LXX Psalm 92, 95, and 96, where he argues that the word is used to designate the unshakeable heavenly realm (note LXX Ps 95:10), including the heavenly temple, which is contrasted with the shakeable earthly one (LXX Ps 95:9).33 His point essentially fuses the eschatological horizon of Andriessen with the vertical one: the

NŒ ıÅ into which the Son comes to be worshipped by the angels (1:6) is the physical realm of the heavenly temple, access to which is the eschatological gift of God to the church (2:5). The temple overtones detected by Moffitt comport well with the logic of Hebrews and the prominence of the heavenly temple within the book. Whether or not his arguments convince at this point, his contributions belong within a growing scholarly acknowledgement that the dualism of heaven and earth, of NŒ ıÅ and Œ  , in Hebrews does not entail a Platonic distinction. Salvation, in the logic of Hebrews, does not involve the end of flesh and blood physicality, but rather the assumption of these substances by the Son and a redemptive fraternity with human beings. Precisely this fraternity leads the author to one of his several uses of  å Ø (partakers/sharers; also in 1:9, 3:14, 6:4, 12:8). In urging his ‘brothers’ to consider this high priest whom they confess (3:1), the author describes them as partakers in the heavenly calling (Œº ø K ıæÆ ı  å Ø). This leads into an extended reflection on Psalm 95/LXX 96 (3:7–11, 15; 4:3, 7), presented as a message of the Holy Spirit (3:7), stressing the necessity of faith and condemning the wickedness of hearts that do not believe (ŒÆæ Æ  Åæa IØÆ, 3:12). The author’s logic resists any attempt to substitute groupidentity for personal faith: those who belonged to the group that came out of Egypt with Moses were the very ones who fell in the wilderness because of their unbelieving hearts (3:16–17). For the author, their failure lay in the fact that they did not combine what was preached to them with faith (4:2). This, at least, seems to be the most likely significance of c ıªŒŒæÆ ı B fi Ø  E IŒ ÆØ. There is some ambiguity as to whether  E IŒ ÆØ should be rendered as ‘by the hearers’ or ‘to/with the hearers’; the latter would suggest a horizontal union with those who ‘truly hear’. Hebrews does not seem to operate with such a distinction between good and bad hearing, however: the distinction is between faith and unbelief.34

33

Moffitt, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection, 70–9. Carl Mosser, ‘Rahab Outside the Camp’, in Bauckham et al. (eds), The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology, 383–404; see also his fuller discussion in the as yet unpublished dissertation, ‘No Lasting City: Rome, Jerusalem and the Place of Hebrews in the History of Earliest “Christianity” ’ (PhD, University of St Andrews, 2005). 34

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The flanking of the Psalm 95 paraenesis with exhortations to faith centred on the heavenly session of Christ (3:1; 4:14–16) makes clear that the faith expected of believers is the act of trusting in him, as the heavenly high priest, for salvation. This entails maintaining a confession of his high priestly status (3:1) and approaching the throne with confidence in seeking mercy (4:16), knowing that the human experience of the heavenly high priest guarantees sympathy. But these specific exhortations to confession and to boldness are particular outworkings of an underlying trust in him: it is consideration of his ontology and his completed (perfected) work—in short, consideration of him and what he has done—that defines the faith of believers. Yet, the faith and faithfulness of believers is predicated upon Christ’s own faith. This emerges in 3:2, where the exhortation to consider Jesus is grounded in his faithfulness to the one who appointed him, and in 5:7–8, where his reverence (PºØÆ) and obedience (ÆŒ

) led to his attainment of perfection, through which he became the source of eternal salvation (øÅæÆ ÆNø ı) for those who obey him ( E ÆŒ  ıØ ÆPfiH). The faith of believers in Christ is not depicted as an autonomous work, as it is often caricatured to be. Neither is it simply an imitation of his faithfulness, since he is described as the source (ÆYØ ) of salvation, as the object of believers’ faith and confession (3:1), and as the one who has definitively made sacrifice for the sinners from whom he is set apart (7:27). Rather, it is a sharing in his own faith, reflected in the use of  å Ø in 3:1. We will explore this further at the end of this section.

The Real Divinity of Jesus and his Priestly Role Clearly, then, the real humanity of Jesus is vital to his high priestly role, but so too is his divinity. The author designates Jesus as a priest in the order of Melchizedek (5:10; 6:20). This is not simply a matter of explaining how he can fulfil the priestly role when not of Aaronic lineage, for, as Neyrey has argued,35 Melchizedek is described using Hellenistic true-god language, with the author using alpha-privatives to denote his unoriginated nature (7:3).36 This language is combined with a reading of Genesis 14:17–20 that appears to dwell upon the sudden and unanticipated appearance and disappearance of Melchizedek, thereby anchoring it to Scripture. The appointment of Jesus to this Melchizedekian role is very specifically grounded in the eternal character of his divinity: his life is indestructible (7:16) and, hence, he will serve forever as high priest 35 Jerome H. Neyrey, ‘ “Without Beginning of Days or End of Life” (Hebrews 7:3): Topos for a True Deity’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 53 (1991), 439–55. 36 The Greek is: Iøæ I øæ IªƺªÅ ,   Iæåc æH   ÇøB º  åø, Içø Øø  b fiH ıƒfiH  F Ł F, Ø ƒæf N e ØÅŒ.

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(7:23–4). Interestingly, there is no reflection on the infinite worth or significance of his life and death: the emphasis falls on his perfection, his real humanity and his eternity. These threads are drawn together in 7:26–8. For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.27 Unlike the other high priests, he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for those of the people; this he did once for all when he offered himself.28 For the law appoints as high priests those who are subject to weakness, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.

It is important to note that the author brings together here the ontology and the history of Jesus, the latter specifically in terms of his death. His priestly dealing with sin involves an eternal administration of what he did once ( F

ªaæ K Å KçÆ) in offering himself up as a sacrifice (Æıe IªŒÆ, 7:27). These statements are anticipated in 1:3, where the session of the Son is denoted using the aorist KŒŁØ and is consequent upon his completed work of purification, denoted by the perfect participle  ØÅ . The author, then, does not depict the ontology of the incarnation as redemptive in itself, but as it operates in relation to the history of the Incarnate Son. The death of Jesus is specified as the act of purification, but his life of obedience is necessary to the efficacy of this and to his sympathetic priestly role. The significance of Jesus’s high priestly role lies in the access to the heavenly temple that is made possible under the new covenant. The earthly tabernacle and temple are specifically portrayed as patterned after the heavenly (8:1–5), reflecting the lesser access to God’s presence made possible by the first covenant. In 8:7–13, the author cites Jeremiah 31:31–4 as warrant for speaking of the new covenant. Interestingly, while 8:7 would seem to suggest that the problem or fault lies in the first covenant itself, in 8:8, the plural ÆP f suggests that the fault lies with those who live under that covenant, the people. We will observe a similar tendency in the narratives of participation elsewhere in the New Testament: the problem is essentially an anthropological one, with the authors sharing an essentially pessimistic understanding of humanity. The comparison of the earthly replica with its heavenly original leads to the author’s statement that ‘Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf ’ (9:24). The eternal efficacy of his sacrifice (stretching into the past and the future) is stressed (9:25–6), by which the problem of sin is taken away and both the sanctuary (9:23) and those who will worship in it (10:2–3) are cleansed. By the same act, the promise of Jeremiah that the law would be written upon the hearts and minds of God’s people (10:16) is also fulfilled. All of this leads to the remarkable statement of access found in 10:19–22.

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Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus,20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh),21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,22 let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

The reference to the curtain may allude to the Synoptic tradition of the torn veil, identifying this with his body. Regardless of whether that is the case, this is a powerful statement of access to the presence of God. It is striking that while the imagery has much in common with Jewish apocalyptic and mystical texts, with their reflections on the heavenly sanctuary, the author’s logic ensures that any notion of a privileged mystic is excluded. This access is open to any who will draw near to God in faith, with the necessity of such faith stressed in 10:37–9. Here, the author cites Habakkuk 2:3–4, a text also cited by Paul (Rom 1:17; Gal 3:10), stating, ‘we are not among those who shrink back (lit: we are not of the shrinking back, PŒ Kb   ºB) and so are lost, but among those who have faith (lit: but of faith, Iººa ø) and so are saved’.

Communion with God and the Imitation of Christ in Hebrews The author to the Hebrews, then, may lack the important image of the church as temple and he may have nothing that resembles the ‘in Christ’ language found in Paul. What he does have, however, is a thoroughgoing concept of access to the divine presence in the heavenly temple that is grounded in the ontology and history of the Incarnate Son, the heavenly High Priest. Believers are ‘worshippers’, portrayed as participating in the heavenly liturgy (12:22), under the terms of the new covenant, and this is made possible by the union of human and divine that is internal to the incarnation. It is small wonder that Hebrews, with its central emphasis on the high priesthood of Christ, has been of such significance to theologians of the incarnation in modern times, notably T. F. Torrance.37 One final point must be made, however. As we have already begun to see, there is a strong emphasis on the imitation of Christ in Hebrews, partnered with the well-known warnings against falling away (6:4–6; 10:26–31). This emerges most clearly in 12:1–3, and is developed further in the verses that

37 Notably, but not exclusively, such an emphasis emerges in Torrance, The Mediation of Christ.

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follow. It is vital to recognize that this passage emerges from the previous reflections of the author upon the high priesthood of Christ and the place of faith. The use of the conjunction  تÆæ F (‘therefore’) in 12:1 links the exhortations that follow back to the exemplars of faith described in Hebrews 11, whose relationship of faith to their God led to remarkable and often difficult acts of obedience. That account of faith itself, though, proceeds from the discussions in Hebrews 10 about the confidence of communion with God that is ensured by the high priesthood of Christ. Consequently, those listed in Hebrews 11 are not ‘heroes of faith’, conquering sin by their own determination; rather, they are those who are presented as trusting in the grace shown to them, their own faith proleptically anticipating this present age. As we have already seen, moreover, the faith of believers is represented in Hebrews as a sharing in Christ’s own faith. It is striking, then, that the author uses the ambiguous term IæåŪ to denote the relationship of Jesus to our faith. This word can be validly rendered as ‘pioneer’ or ‘author’, the multivalence allowing both dimensions of Jesus’s relationship to believers’ faith to emerge: he is its source and its pattern. Imitation, then, is an important element in participation, as the Fathers recognized, but it must be understood properly in terms of the rounded theology of redemptive communion if it is not to lapse into a naked moralism.

REVELATION 21 – 2 Revelation shares with Hebrews an account of the heavenly sanctuary (Rev 4–5), but in this case, the account does not provide a temple-governed image of human participation: John merely sees the realm in which God and the Lamb are worshipped by the heavenly beings. It is, rather, in Revelation 21–2 that we encounter such an image, in the description of the descent of the New Jerusalem, which is shaped by the temple imagery of Ezekiel 47.38 The New Jerusalem is not the place in which the righteous will dwell, but, rather, it represents the church itself, a fact that emerges in 21:9, as John’s guide says, ‘Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb’. This phrase, echoed in 21:2, where the New Jerusalem is announced as descending as a bride, fuses marital imagery with that of the temple-city. Importantly, this does not depict the church in its present condition, but the eschatological church that has attained purity:

A more extensive engagement with the passage appeared in my study, ‘Paradise in the New Testament’, in Markus Bockmuehl and Guy Stroumsa (eds), Paradise in Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 64–81. 38

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The wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints (19:7).

This symbol of the New Jerusalem as the eschatological Bride is part of the intricate system of dualities that Revelation develops and stands in opposition to Babylon the Harlot (chapters 17–18).39 This latter symbol represents the Satanic world order embodied in Rome, in her idolatrous, military, and economic aspects. The church is to ‘come out’ from this world order and to stand over against its values by following the Lamb.40 The purified bride of Revelation 21–2 stands in contrast to the still-fallible churches described in the various letters of chapters 2 and 3. Despite their moral failings, however, John still addresses them as a body united with Christ: together they share ‘the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance in Jesus’.41 This, though, is the union of a flawed church with her Saviour. What is described in Revelation 21–2 is that union reaching its consummation. It is the climax of a complex symbolic drama, intended to encourage the church in its struggle with the world. As I have noted elsewhere,42 the description itself draws together elements from Genesis 2–3, Ezekiel 47, and Zechariah 14. The Ezekiel text is central, allowing the combination of the others by the shared imagery of trees and water. From the throne of God and of the Lamb that is at the heart of the city flows ‘a river of water of life’. This draws upon the description of the river in Eden (Genesis 2:10), as it is developed in the image of the life-giving river that flows from under the altar in Ezekiel 47;43 this is further paralleled in Zechariah 14:8, where ‘living waters’ go out from Jerusalem towards the east and west. In Revelation 22, however, there is neither altar nor temple: God and the Lamb comprise the temple of the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:22). The elaborate description of the tree of life draws together the core symbol from Genesis 2:9 and 3:22 and the description of the trees that grow on either side of the river in Ezekiel 47:12.44 Tree-imagery in Ezekiel 47 deliberately 39

In this regard, Revelation departs from Ezekiel, where Jerusalem is also portrayed as a harlot (see chapters 16 and 23). 40 Rev 14:4. Cf. 7:14, 12:11. See, too, Bauckham’s argument that the saints’ act of washing their robes in the blood of the Lamb is symbolic of their participation in martyrdom. Richard J. Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993), 226–9. 41 John writes in 1:9: ’¯ ªg  øÅ, › I ºçe H ŒÆd ıªŒ Øøe K B fi ŁºłØ ŒÆd ÆغÆ fi ŒÆd   B fi K  Å F. 42 Macaskill, ‘Paradise in the New Testament’, 76–7. 43 On the equation of Eden and Zion in Ezekiel 40–8 and its relationship to other parts of the book, notably Eze 28 and 31, see Stephen Tuell, ‘The Rivers of Paradise: Ezekiel 47:1–12 and Genesis 2:10–14’, in W. P. Brown and S. D. McBride Jr. (eds), God Who Creates: Essays in Honor of W. Sibley Towner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 171–89. 44 See my discussion of the textual links in ‘Paradise in the New Testament’, 76.

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echoes Ezekiel 40 and 41, where trees are integral to the architecture of the temple.45 The description in Revelation 22:1–2 thus stands within, and draws upon, a textual tradition that makes strong associations between Eden, Zion, and the temple.46 The great emphasis in Revelation 22:1–2 is on the life-giving presence of God. Life flows as water from the throne of God and of the Lamb, irrigates the tree, and through the tree comes to nourish and heal the nations. The life that is enjoyed by the occupants of the New Jerusalem is, then, constituted by the presence of God. But it is also linked to the death of Jesus, since it proceeds from the throne of the ‘Lamb’, which is in the place of the altar in Ezekiel 47:1, emphasizing the sacrificial nature of his death. I have argued elsewhere that the proto-Trinitarian dimension of this vision is completed by the symbolic connection between the river of living water and the Holy Spirit.47 Beale provides a number of parallels from both Jewish and Christian literature that represent the Spirit as living water,48 and to his discussion we may add the work of Stephen Um, on parallel imagery in John 4.49 We must also consider the link between this description of the divine throne and those found in 1:4 and 4:5, both of which speak of ‘the seven spirits that are before the throne’. As Bauckham has argued, this reference cannot be to the seven principal angels that stand in the presence of God,50 since Revelation elsewhere refers to these simply as ‘the seven angels who stand before God’ (8:2) and does not use the term ‘spirit’ of angels. Instead, the seven spirits are the Holy Spirit, the symbolism drawn from John’s exegesis of Zechariah 4:1–14, in which the ‘seven’ represent the activity of God’s Spirit in the world.51 This parallel would lead the reader to expect in Revelation 22 some image corresponding to the Spirit. Given the connection of water imagery to the Spirit in Judaism, I would suggest that the description of the river fulfils that expectation. The account continues in verse 3 with the statement that there will be no more curse: ŒÆd A ŒÆŁÆ PŒ ÆØ Ø. ˚ÆŁÆ is essentially synonymous

45

See especially 40:16, 22, 26, 31, 34, 37 and 41:18, 20, 25, 26. These architectural details are also reflected in 1 Kings 6:29, 32, 35. 46 See William P. Brown, The Ethos of the Cosmos: The Genesis of Moral Imagination (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 73–89. Jubilees portrays Eden in specifically cultic terms. See J. van Ruiten, ‘Eden and the Temple: The Rewriting of Genesis 2:4–3:24 in the Book of Jubilees’. 47 See ‘Paradise in the New Testament’, 77–8. The Fathers also made this connection. See Jerome in his Homilies on the Psalms 1 and Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse 22:1–2. 48 G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids; Carlisle: W. B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 1999), 1105. 49 Stephen Um, The Theme of Temple Christology in the Fourth Gospel (London: T & T Clark, 2006). 50 Tobit 12:15, 1 Enoch 20, 4QShirShabb. 51 Bauckham, Climax of Prophecy, 163.

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with both ŒÆæÆ and IŁÆ and can denote either a ‘curse’ or ‘something accursed’. Although it uses IŁÆ, here John primarily draws upon Zechariah 14:11, in which Jerusalem is promised peace from the curse of destruction and war. Given the interweaving of Ezekiel 47, Zechariah 14, and Genesis 2–3, however, we should also recognize the allusion to the comprehensive cursing of Genesis 3:14–19. The Edenic curse involves estrangement from the fellowship of God, now restored and symbolized by the tree of life. The account climaxes with striking allusions to the establishment of the covenant with Moses. In verse 4, the servants of God ‘will see his face’. We will see some significant parallels to this revelatory emphasis in later chapters, as we examine the narratives of salvation in Paul and John. This allusion to Moses’s vision of the divine face—an experience now enjoyed by all of God’s servants—is developed by a reference to the eternal reign of the servants in verse 5, which is linked by the use of Æغ ıØ to 5:10 and 20:6, both of which explicitly use the covenant language of Exodus 19:6, of God’s people as a royal priesthood. Thus, John’s description of the paradisiacal New Jerusalem takes physical characteristics of the Garden, drawn from Old Testament sources, and reworks these into a symbolic representation of the fellowship of the church with God. The fact that the image speaks of an end to the curse, in terms of its agricultural significance, points to a restored world in which the blessings of peace, healing, comfort, and bounty are enjoyed. We will encounter similar imagery in Romans 8:18–23. These blessings, though, are inseparable from the core reality of unmarred fellowship with God. In Chapter 10, we will see further that this blessed fellowship is the consummation of a participatory relationship that involves sharing in the narrative of the Lamb: the followers of the Lamb imitate his sacrifice, and their own sufferings are given redemptive significance by their relationship to his death. The Bride has been cleansed and made ready for her perfect union with God, not just by the blood of Christ sprinkled upon her, but by her sharing in his martyrdom. As with the other texts studied in this chapter, then, there is a necessary link between participation in divine fellowship and the imitation of Christ, but the latter is never portrayed as an autonomous or independent act of personal heroism: rather, it is the outworking of the union between church and Saviour.

CONCLUSIONS The use of temple imagery in the New Testament is not, then, confined to the depiction of the church as the eschatological temple. In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus himself is the temple; in Hebrews, Jesus is the high priest of the heavenly

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temple to which believers have access through his work; in Revelation, a more complex symbolism is found, in which the church is not the temple but the New Jerusalem, presented in terms of the Ezekelian and Zecharian prophecies of the restoration of the temple and understood in relation to the heavenly sanctuary. While these specific temple images are quite distinct from those studied in our previous chapter, the differences should not be overstated. An underlying concept of divine presence unites all of the texts, as does an eschatological framework that will become clearer over the course of our next three chapters. A certain cluster of Old Testament texts also appears to be shared, notably the restoration prophecies of Ezekiel and Jeremiah. Perhaps most significantly, though, all of the images that we have studied in the last two chapters are developed in relation to the ontology of the incarnation, to the real humanity and real divinity of Jesus. This is perhaps more explicit in the case of the later books of the New Testament, such as those that we have examined in this chapter, but it is nevertheless true of them all. The intimate connection between (1) the relationship of the two natures that is internal to the incarnation and (2) the experience of divine communion on the part of the believer—a connection that underpins the patristic traditions studied in Chapter 2—is not simply a matter of later theological reflection; the Fathers were sensitive to a theological dynamic at work in the New Testament writings themselves and their attempts to systematize these reflect a greater coherence in the source material than is often acknowledged. In addition, the three books studied in this chapter develop a strong theology of imitation. Crucially, this theology itself proceeds from a common emphasis on incarnational reality: the Word was made flesh, the Son shared in the flesh and blood of his brothers, the one who is and was and is to come died as a sacrificial Lamb. While ascribing full divinity to Jesus, the writers take seriously his humanity and the implications that this has for the imitative activity believers, with a particular emphasis falling upon the necessity of selfsacrifice. These sacrificial elements are not depicted as a simple emulation of his example, however, but as a participation in his own redemptive work. Last, it is impossible to avoid the importance of faith as a human activity in relation to this complex of presence and salvation. While the faith of Jesus himself is emphasized, particularly in Hebrews and Revelation, and is vital to the atonement, there is a basic assumption that faith will also characterize the lives of the redeemed. Such faith is directed towards Jesus, but it is also exemplified by Jesus himself; the faith of the believer, then, is a sharing in Christ’s own life of faith. The temple, the sacred space of divine–human communion, is quintessentially a place within which faith is manifest, in the high priest and the people he represents.

8 The Sacraments and Union with Christ This chapter is devoted to a study of the participatory dimensions of the two rites universally designated as sacraments by the church—baptism and Eucharist—as they occur in the New Testament. As we saw in Chapters 2 and 3, from the patristic period onwards, the various Christian traditions have understood these sacraments to be significant in relation to union with Christ or participation, both as rites of real communion and as explications of the nature of the Church’s relationship to God. On the latter: the sacraments have been understood to demarcate the sacramental community as those whose identity is governed by the death and resurrection of Jesus. In representing the church’s union with God in such terms, the sacraments declare that participation is of a particular shape and kind. The form of baptism and Eucharist, the ways by which they represent a sharing in the death and life of Jesus, is not incidental. As with the image of the church as the eschatological temple, the traditions concerning the sacraments can be traced back to the earliest strata of the New Testament, so that they can also validly be described as ‘core’ images of the church, though, in this case, images that are enacted in ritual. As we will see, there have been scholarly debates concerning the extent to which the Eucharist, in particular, may have been altered in meaning by Paul, from a fellowship meal to a commemoration of Jesus’s death. The general consensus today, as we shall see in this chapter, is that this charge is without ground. From the beginning, the church observed a ritual meal that was understood to have participatory significance related to Jesus’s death. Our study of the sacraments will highlight their covenantal character and, specifically, the ways in which covenant conceptuality allows participants to identify themselves with one another and with a representative, whose story becomes theirs. This identification is not presented simply as an imaginative task, but as a real identification made possible by the presence of the Spirit. The role of the Spirit in actualizing the story of Jesus in the life of his people will emerge more clearly in the concluding three chapters of our study, as we study the further participatory elements of the various New Testament authors. Given the fact that the sacraments belong to the oldest strata of

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New Testament theology, however, it is worth considering that they may have significantly shaped those further elements, that sacramental participation may have influenced Paul’s account of the atonement or of the role of the Spirit, for example. Of course, the various traditions have understood the sacraments differently in key regards of their mode of operation and relationship to the reality of Christ’s presence. It is important to note at this stage that the prominent historical debates concerning the sacraments have turned on issues that cannot be simply resolved by the exegesis of key passages in the New Testament. In particular, the debates concerning the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist proceed from debates over the relationship between signum and res and from further divisions over the communicatio idiomatum and the transfer of properties between the two natures. These issues are not unimportant to the discussion that follows, since we are considering the way in which participation in the sacraments affects the humanity of believers in their union with God, but they cannot be resolved simply on the basis of our exegetical results, even if those results do have something significant to say to these debates. We will begin this chapter with an examination of baptism before moving on to study the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper. In our study of these, it will be important to maintain a sensitivity to the distinctions and overlaps between the actual practice of the sacraments and allusions to them that appear to be more symbolic. The latter should not be confused with the former, but neither should the essential connection between the two be undervalued. The (likely) symbolic use of baptism language in Romans 6, for example, is only meaningful if it corresponds to the significance ascribed to the sacrament more generally. It is also important for us, in the course of this chapter, to deal with the question of Jesus’s baptism, particularly as represented in Luke-Acts. This has been an important element in the discussions of Spirit Christology that have been influenced by the work of James Dunn. Again, a proper attentiveness to the details of the account of Jesus’s baptism and his reception of the Spirit will highlight the ways in which it is non-analogous to that of the believer.

B A P TI S M The baptismal rite practised in the early church, and particularly the question of its origins and backgrounds, has received considerable scholarly attention and a massive body of secondary literature has grown around the topic.1 In his 1 For key bibliography up to 2002, see Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R. Cross (eds), Baptism, the New Testament, and the Church: Historical and Contemporary Studies in Honour of

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influential study, Kyrios Christos,2 Bousset traced parallels with Hellenistic practices, particularly in the mystery religions, and saw the rite as originating in such contexts. Such a view has coloured much scholarship, not only on baptism, but more widely on the nature of early Christian theology. Over the course of the twentieth century, however, it has been progressively challenged,3 with a growing recognition that much of the evidence for close parallels with the rebirth imagery of mystery religions is both late and tenuous; consequently, there has been an increasing preference to see the rite as Judean in origin.4 The latter point is particularly important in terms of the biblical symbolism that is attached to the rite, especially in terms of its antecedents in John’s baptism. This must also inform our reading of the baptism of Jesus and our relating of this (and the accompanying descent of the Spirit onto Jesus) to the experience of believers. It is important from the outset to recognize the significance of the formulaic association between the baptismal rite and the name of Jesus. The most striking example of this is the formula ‘baptise(d) into (N) the name of the Lord Jesus’ (e.g. Acts 8:16, 19:5), though we also encounter the prepositions K (Acts 2:38) and K (Acts 10:48). The use of N has commonly been seen as reflecting the belief that baptism symbolizes transfer of ownership: the believer is now held in the name of Jesus having been transferred into it.5 The weaknesses of this approach were highlighted by Lars Hartman,6 who argued that instead it reflects the Semitic leshem formula and is intended categorically: that is, to distinguish a Jesus-specific baptism from other baptisms. Hartman’s findings have been generally accepted and make good sense of the neutral use of the ‘into the name’ formula in connection with John’s baptism (Acts 19:3) and its negative use by Paul (1 Corinthians 1:13–15 ‘Were you baptised into the name of Paul? . . . no one can say that you were baptised into my name’). For Hurtado, the Jesus-specific character of Christian baptism is evidence of

R. E. O. White (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 36, n.18, and Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R. Cross, Dimensions of Baptism: Biblical and Theological Studies (London; New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), p. 1, n.2. 2 Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 157–8, 191. 3 So A. J. M. Wedderburn, Baptism and Resurrection: Studies in Pauline Theology against its Graeco-Roman Background (Tübingen: Mohr, 1987) and, in an older study, Arthur Darby Nock, Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background: The Resurrection and Hellenistic Mysteries and Christian Sacraments (New York: Harper & Row, 1964). 4 See, for example, Norman Theiss, ‘The Passover Feast of the New Covenant’, Interpretation 48 (1994), 17–35. 5 The classic treatment of this is W. Heitmüller, ‘Im Namen Jesu’: Eine sprach.- u. religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum Neuen Testament, speziell zur altchristlichen Taufe (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1903). 6 Lars Hartman, ‘ “Into the Name of Jesus” ’, New Testament Studies 20 (1974), 432. See also Lars Hartman, ‘Baptism “into the Name of Jesus‚” and Early Christology’, Studia Theologica 28 (1974), 21.

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binitarian Christ-devotion,7 but we will note in our discussion of Matthew 28:18–20 that the formula is there used in proto-Trinitarian terms. Obviously, baptism has significance as a rite of initiation, positioned as it is at the beginning of the believer’s following of Jesus. What is initiated, though, is not simply a personal commitment to Jesus, but membership of the church, a fact reflected in Acts 2:41, where ‘those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added’ and in 1 Cor 12:13, where baptism is ‘into one body’. In both Paul and Luke there is a strong emphasis that this initiation-into-community is Spiritual, an emphasis that is connected in both writers to their theology that the church is the eschatological temple, indwelled by the Spirit. A participatory dimension of divine presence is, therefore, at the heart of the rite. It is clear in the use of baptism imagery in Paul, however, that the participatory dimension is not confined to the presence of the Spirit, but also involves the symbolism of the believer as being incorporated into, or included in, the death of Christ. The juxtaposing of clothing imagery is important to this. It is this point that we will focus on in our study of Paul, for if we properly understand its force in the light of what we have already seen in the apostle’s writing, it further problematizes a Spirit Christology.

Baptism in Paul Paul very specifically links baptism to the death of Jesus. This is particularly clear in Romans 6:3–4, where the symbolism of the sacrament is linked to the believer’s transformation: Rom 6:3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?4 Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

We will see in Chapter 9 that Paul understands the Spirit to conform believers to Jesus, realizing his narratival character in them as a personalized instantiation of the new creation. Although a full discussion of this must be deferred until the next chapter, we may note, for example, Romans 8:11: ‘If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.’ In bringing that theological context to the study of this passage, we must resist the polarization of seeing the sacrament as either nakedly symbolic or autonomously efficacious in itself. Both poles of interpretation are problematic in the reading of Paul’s theology. The former fails to take seriously the 7

Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 143–4.

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unqualified nature of the references to baptism in Paul and arguably imposes modern categories of symbolism onto ancient thought; the latter inadequately treats the apostle’s eschatological pneumatology and, consequently, runs the risk of ascribing a magical significance to the sacrament as a rite in itself.8 Against this, Paul appears to speak of the sacrament as functioning within the Spirit’s operation as a real event of union. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Cor 12:13)

The juxtaposition of Paul’s use of baptism imagery in Romans 6 with that of marriage in Romans 7 is, perhaps, suggestive of the significance of the rite: it is a ceremony of formalization, truly meaningful as an event within the context of the individual’s relationship of faith to Jesus. If we approach the rite with this in mind, it suggests a covenantal conceptuality that we will see elsewhere in Paul (in Chapter 9). Indeed, once this is grasped, the ceremonial or formal identification of the believer with Jesus as the covenant representative who has died under the curse of the Law and risen to new life, is more readily comprehensible. The believer, in baptism, identifies him/herself as dead and risen under the terms of the covenant on account of the representative work of Jesus. As we will explore more fully in Chapter 9, the Spirit actualizes this identity (Rom 8:1–11). This specific link between baptism and the death/resurrection of Jesus emerges also in the clothing metaphor. The description in Gal 3:27 of those baptized into Christ being ‘clothed’ with him is reflective of the extent to which the believer’s identity is now defined by the personhood of Jesus. The statement is paired with a negation of other grounds of identity or status (‘there is no Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female’, 3:28) and with a declaration of unity in Christ (‘you are all one in Christ Jesus’). This coordination of statements is paralleled elsewhere in Paul in relation to the body of Christ, requiring us to see these different images in Paul as essentially unified.9 It is also followed by a further statement (3:29) that associates baptism into Christ with filiation: ‘if you belong to Christ, you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise’. The clothing metaphor here, then, is one that is intended to present believers as sharing in the identity of Christ as sons of God. It is subordinated to the imagery of adoption, but it is vital to note that

8 This is one of the criticisms brought against Roman Catholic understandings of the sacrament, perhaps unfairly. See Martin F. Connell, ‘Clothing the Body of Christ: An Inquiry About the Letters of Paul’, Worship 85 (2011), 128–46. The criticism is more validly brought against the approach to the sacrament taken by those who have located its background in the mystery religions. 9 Note the corresponding imagery in 1 Cor 12:13: ‘For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit’.

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the grounds of this is the categorically different sonship of Jesus: believers are baptized into him, and clothe themselves with what he is as constituent of his own identity. Their identity is derivative of his; his identity is sui generis. Paul’s manner of speaking of the derivation of Christian identity from Jesus cannot be accounted for in any christological configuration that neglects the categorical uniqueness of his relationship to God. At the same time, the sonship of the believer in Christ is also derivative of his narrative identity, the eschatological role that he has played in bringing to an end the old order, including the place of the Law in God’s dealings with humanity. This is precisely the point made in Gal 4:1–7, and it turns on his death and resurrection: with the death of Jesus, the old order was brought to an end, to be replaced by a new order in his resurrection. The relationship of baptism to sonship, then, underlies the Pauline treatment of the law, as we will also see in Chapter 9. The same connection is made in Colossians 2:11–15, where baptism entails death to the flesh and the written code, and resurrection into the new reality that is ‘in Christ’ (2:17). In Colossians 3:9–10, the imagery of ‘putting off ’ (IŒ  ÆØ) the old man (e ƺÆØe ¼Łæø ) and ‘putting on the new’ (K ı Ø e  ) is a variant of the clothing image, one that also brings together the theme of renewal with that of knowledge (KªøØ) and likeness to God. Regarding the latter, it is noteworthy that the preposition used is ŒÆ, reflecting Genesis 1:27 and the Jewish resistance of a direct identification of humans with the divine image. Believers are restored ‘according to’ the image of the creator. By contrast, Jesus ‘is’ the image of the invisible God (1:15). Again, the image of clothing requires us to speak in different terms of the intrinsic identity of Christ and the derivative identity of the believer. The work of the Spirit, though, ensures that the derivative identity of the believer is a real one, outworked in that person’s life. Again, all of these elements will be further explored in our next chapter, where we explore Paul’s soteriological narratives, but it is important to recognize that those narratives are anchored in the symbolic practice of the sacraments. One last observation may be offered on Paul’s treatment of baptism. We began this section by noting that Paul links baptism specifically with the death of Jesus; it is interesting to consider the fact that Paul nowhere portrays the Spirit as uniting believers to Jesus’s own experience of baptism. Believers are baptized into solidarity with the event of Calvary and not the Jordan. This problematizes those accounts of Christology and soteriology that present Jesus’s own baptism as paradigmatic for the Christian life and requires that the entire narrative of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection has a constitutive and not paradigmatic significance. This will emerge further as we turn to consider the baptism of Jesus in Luke’s account.

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Baptism in Luke-Acts We have already noted some general features of baptism in Acts, in the context of our introductory remarks. A further specific issue in relation to Luke-Acts must now be considered, for the Lukan material has been of particular importance to the development of the various kinds of Spirit Christology, especially those that understand the ‘divinity’ of Jesus to be constituted by his reception of the Spirit at the Jordan, and this event to be archetypal for the divinization of Christians. Such a reading of Luke’s account of the baptism of Jesus was influentially developed by Hans von Baer,10 whose treatment of the matter was intended as a response to Gunkel11 and, particularly, Leisegang.12 The former had segregated the descriptions of the Spirit’s activity in Luke-Acts from the experience of ordinary Christians; the latter had argued that the Spirit material in LukeActs reflected Hellenistic influence at a late stage in the development of the New Testament. The response of von Baer was to argue that Luke’s presentation of the baptism of Jesus was part of a salvation-historical schema that was Jewish in origin and that presented the Spirit as the key factor in the redemptive history. The Old Testament prophets and John were Spirit-empowered to prepare the way for the new epoch that would be instituted in the virgin birth and Spirit baptism of Jesus,13 with Acts then describing the Spirit’s ongoing work in the church. A modified version of this account is found in Dunn,14 who excludes the virgin birth from the new age and presents Jesus’s baptism as his initiation into the new epoch of the kingdom, with the various charismatic events of Acts as parallel initiatory experiences, as believers are inducted to the new epoch. Max Turner offers an insightful (though still appreciative) critique of these readings.15 He begins by highlighting the basic error of assuming that two events of Spirit reception (that of Jesus and that of the Christian) are necessarily to be equated, noting that Jesus himself receives the Spirit twice

10

H. von Baer, Der Heilige Geist in den Lukasschriften (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1926). Hermann Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des Heiligen Geistes: Nach der populären Anschauung der Apostolischen Zeit und der Lehre des Apostels Paulus: Eine biblisch-theologische Studie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1899). 12 Hans Leisegang, Pneuma Hagion: Der Ursprung des Geistbegriffs der synoptischen Evangelien aus der griechischen Mystik (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1922). 13 He writes (Der Heilige Geist in den Lukasschriften, 48) that this new epoch was one ‘in der der Geist Gottes als Wesen des Gottessohnes in dieser Welt erscheint’. 14 James D. G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit: A Re-Examination of the New Testament Teaching on the Gift of the Spirit in Relation to Pentecostalism Today (London: SCM Press, 1970), 23–37. The case is also developed broadly through James D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit: A Study of the Religious and Charismatic Experience of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflected in the New Testament (London: SCM Press, 1975). 15 Turner, ‘Jesus and the Spirit in Lucan Perspective’. 11

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in Luke-Acts, once at the Jordan and once at Pentecost (Acts 2:33). Clearly, these dominical receptions are of a different kind from one another and the presence of both in Luke’s account makes the simple identification of Spiritreception with initiation into the new epoch problematic.16 Turner also notes that the baptism account itself, in Luke, offers little to distinguish the theology of that gospel from its (presumed) sources, Mark and Q, other than minor variations that have been pressed rather too hard by modern scholars.17 We must, then, look to the context in which the evangelist places the account if we are to understand the significance that he attaches to it. Most important here is the quotation of Isaiah 61:1–2 in Luke 4:18–19, since this explicitly interprets the Spirit’s purpose according to Scripture. As Turner notes, this is a composite quotation, bringing together Isaiah 61:1–2, from which the bulk of the material is drawn, and 58:6, from which ‘to release the oppressed’ is drawn. It also represents the LXX reading of the final clauses of Isaiah 61:1, with deliverance for both ‘prisoners’ and ‘the blind’. It is here that I will begin to depart from Turner, for while he engages with, and provides solid challenges to, those scholars who have provided various explanations for what they see as a Lukan redaction—deriving significant implications for the evangelist’s theology along the way—I would note that the conflated quotation conforms to the Jewish reading strategies that are demonstrable in the Second Temple Period.18 Isaiah 42:719 functions as a coordinate text with Isaiah 61:1 by gezera shewa, based on the overlapping reference to the ‘Spirit’ in 42:1 and to the ‘blind’ in 42:7;20 Isaiah 58:6 is coordinate through the shared use of ¼çØ.21 The three passages also share a greater volume of synonyms for imprisonment, liberation, and healing, and these reinforce the possibility of intertextual reading. The conflated Isaiah citation in Luke 4:18–19, then, has the ring of Jewish exegesis, as we have seen to be the case with Acts 15:16–18,22 and this points to pre-Lukan activity and theology. Notably, it identifies the anointed Jesus with the Isaianic Servant, a strategy that we have begun to see more broadly in the New Testament and that will continue to emerge in the next three chapters. Here, it is clearly eschatological and messianic in thrust Turner, ‘Jesus and the Spirit in Lucan Perspective’, 10–11. Turner, ‘Jesus and the Spirit in Lucan Perspective’, 11–12, challenges attempts to separate the baptism from the descent of the Spirit that misunderstand the use of the aorist to denote separable, self-enclosed events. 18 Compare our discussion of Acts 15 in Chapter 6, and the scholarship on Jewish exegesis noted there. 19 Reading: ‘To open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness’. I EÆØ OçŁÆº f ıçºH, KƪƪE KŒ H   ı ŒÆd K YŒ ı çıºÆŒB ŒÆŁÅ ı K ŒØ. 20 The terminological correspondence is direct in Greek. The ‘blind’ are not found in the MT version. The fluidity of text-type allows such combinations of versions. 21 Again, the correspondence is direct only in Greek. 22 See our discussion in Chapter 6. 16 17

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and, on the basis of our study of Acts 15:16–18 in Chapter 6, we can more appropriately understand the relationship between the anointing of Jesus and Christian experience of the Spirit: he is the Messiah, anointed to fulfil a unique role in God’s purposes and to rebuild ‘David’s fallen tent’, the temple in which the divine presence will dwell by the Spirit poured out after his ascension. It is this point that is most significantly determined within Luke’s salvationhistorical scheme by the second mention of Jesus’s reception of the Spirit, in Acts 2:33.23 The pouring out of the Spirit by Jesus follows his distinctive reception of it at his ascension, not at the Jordan, even though the Spirit is clearly at work in and through him in the events narrated in the gospel (e.g. Luke 11:20).24 The Pentecostal gift, then, is specifically distinguished in Luke’s account from the bestowing of the Spirit on Jesus at his baptism. This is clearly the same Spirit, but his eschatological location, and thus the nature of his ministry, is different. The Spirit given at Pentecost is poured out by Jesus in his exalted state, ruling at the right hand of God over an established kingdom that he now governs as enthroned Messiah.25 It is noteworthy, in the light of this, that Luke distinguishes between the baptism associated with John and that associated with Jesus (Acts 19:1–7). The fact that we are clearly dealing with the same Spirit means that we can certainly speak of analogies between his ministry towards Jesus and his ministry towards believers. In relation to what we have seen in our study up to this point, this is hardly problematic, since there are numerous points of analogy between Jesus and those united to him. What we cannot do is automatically equate the two, particularly in such a way that we allow the ministry of the Spirit towards Christians after the ascension to govern our understanding of the divinity of Jesus, even if this is qualified by an attempt to identify the Spirit with Christ after the resurrection. This clearly problematizes some configurations of Spirit Christology. Those attempts to understand the divinity of Jesus to be constituted by the Spirit and therefore of the same species as that of the Christian have simply failed to do justice to those ways by which Luke’s account distinguishes the two. More subtly, though, the more sophisticated Spirit Christology offered by Coffey and Del Colle, which maintains a Trinitarian account of the incarnation but explores the role of the Spirit in constituting the Son’s being, is called into question, since it seeks biblical warrant in Dunn’s account of Luke-Acts and, 23 On the discussions of salvation-history in Luke-Acts, see the excellent overview in François Bovon, Luke the Theologian: Fifty-Five Years of Research (1950–2005) (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2006), 515–24. 24 That the ascension is the climactic event of the kingdom in Luke has been argued by Helmut Flender, St Luke, Theologian of Redemptive History (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967), and Eric Franklin, Christ the Lord: A Study in the Purpose and Theology of Luke-Acts (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975). 25 The same complex of ideas is found in Ephesians 4:7.

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indeed, presents itself as an attempt to integrate Dunn’s findings into a dogmatic account.26 If Dunn’s reading of the New Testament is problematized, the warrant for such Christologies begins to look more questionable.

Matthew 28:18–20 A final passage that must be discussed in the present chapter is Matthew 28:18–20, although our comments on this may be brief. The significance of this passage is that it involves a fully Trinitarian baptismal formula: the disciples are commissioned to baptize ‘in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’. The preposition used is N, which we saw at the beginning of this chapter to be used in a way that corresponds with the Semitic leshem formula and, effectively, to indicate the kind of baptism in view. Given this, the fact that baptism is in the singular name (e Z Æ) of the Father, Son, and Spirit ( F Ææe ŒÆd  F ıƒ F ŒÆd  F ±ª ı Æ ) is indicative of a remarkably developed incipient Trinitarianism. This is followed by a statement of the presence of Christ (‘I am with you [Kªg Ł H NØ] all the days until the end of the age’, 28:19), which has sometimes been noted to stand in parallel to the Emmanuel saying of 1:23. The gospel is thus bookended by statements of divine presence that give to the book as a whole a covenantal tone,27 reinforced by the various allusions to the story of Moses that characterize the gospel.28 When these two observations are brought together, we are left with the impression that baptism represents initiation into the covenant presence of a God now considered Triune.

THE LORD’ S S UPPER The most extensive and significant accounts of the Lord’s Supper are found in Paul (in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11) and in the related descriptions of the Last Supper in the Synoptic Gospels, with briefer mentions of the sacrament elsewhere (e.g. Acts 2:42) and, arguably, an important extended theological allusion to it in John 6. In the study that follows, I will begin with Paul’s account of the Lord’s Supper, which must constitute the starting point for our examination of this topic in the New Testament. The Pauline discussion is the 26

Notably, Del Colle, Christ and the Spirit: Spirit-Christology in Trinitarian Perspective, 141–7. 27 For the centrality of the theme of presence to the covenant, see our discussion in Chapter 4. 28 Dale C. Allison, The New Moses: A Matthean Typology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993). It is not necessary for us to fully agree with Allison to find in his observations support for a covenantal reading of Matthew.

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earliest documentation of the Lord’s Supper in the New Testament, predating the accounts of the Last Supper found in the Synoptic Gospels. The significance of this must be recognized: by the time the accounts in the Gospels circulated in their narrative form, Paul’s theological discourse and associated Christian practice would have influenced the reading of those very narratives. What this means is that readers or hearers of the Gospels, who may well have accessed the text primarily in the context of a Eucharistic gathering, would always bring a theological framework to their interpretation and that framework would have been substantially derived from Paul. This is not to say that Paul’s theology of the Supper is innovative, although there may be some such elements. He himself refers to tradition (1 Cor 11:23, discussed in ‘1 Corinthians 11: Discerning the Body of the Lord’, pp. 209–10) and his argumentative style seems to require some prior values to be associated with the sacrament. For this reason, most regard his description of the words of institution in 1 Corinthians 11 to be essentially authentic, notwithstanding some translational variation from the versions of the institution found in Mark and Matthew.29 Today it is only a shrinking minority of scholars, whose arguments have been roundly challenged elsewhere, that supports the view that Paul’s death-oriented theology of the Supper was at odds with a prior Christian practice of celebratory fellowship meals.30 Behind this is the fairly wide agreement that the meal celebrated at the Last Supper and commemorated in the Christian sacrament was a Passover meal. 29 So Paul Neuenzeit, Das Herrenmahl: Studien zur paulinischen Eucharistieauffassung (Munich: Käsel-Verlag, 1960). 30 This view is particularly associated with Hans Lietzmann, Mass and Lord’s Supper: A Study in the History of the Liturgy, trans. Dorothea Holman Gessner Reeve (Leiden: Brill, 1979), but has been taken up by others. Lietzmann argued for a particular Jewish background to the nonPauline practice of the Supper, namely the fellowship meal of the haburoth, but his case was widely criticized for its conjectural character and overdependence on later Christian evidence. The division between non-Pauline and Pauline practices that he introduced was unfortunate, but for a time popular in scholarship. For criticisms, see the notes of translator R. D. Richardson to Lietzmann’s work, 160–71, and the comments of I. Howard Marshall, Last Supper and Lord’s Supper (Exeter: Paternoster, 1980), 20. A variation is found in J. D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1991), 360–7, among others. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 864–74, notes the key objections to this, including those advanced by the important study by Otfried Hofius, ‘Herrenmahl und Herrenmahlsparadosis: Erwägungen zu 1 Kor 11:23b–25’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, 85 (1988), 371–408, which can be found in English translation in, ‘The Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s Supper Tradition: Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:23b–25’, in Otto Knoch and Ben F. Meyer (eds), One Loaf, One Cup: Ecumenical Studies of 1 Cor. 11 and other Eucharistic Texts. The Cambridge Conference on the Eucharist, August 1988 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1993), 75–115. A number of other proposals have been set forward. Klauck, Herrenmahl und hellenistischer Kult: Eine religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum ersten Korintherbrief (Münster: Aschendorff, 1982) argues for a background to the Eucharist in Hellenistic cult meals. The formulaic language, though, reflects Jewish-Christian roots, according to Ernst Käsemann, Essays on New Testament Themes, 108, whose essay (which predated the works cited earlier in this note) pronounced the attempt to understand the Supper in terms of such Hellenistic meals to have ‘broken down’. Käsemann’s point has not been refuted by Klauck and is maintained by Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 757.

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That the Last Supper was a Passover meal is claimed in Mark 14:12–16 and parallels. John, famously, represents Jesus’s own death as taking place at the time when the Passover lambs are slaughtered, so that the final meal would have been taken the evening before Passover, and much has been done to explain the discrepancy of these two accounts. Some have suggested the observance of a different (i.e. Essene) calendar,31 others that the Synoptic account represents an early Passover meal, taken ahead of time by Jesus in the knowledge that he would die on Passover itself,32 while others have argued for a theological recasting of the events in John, with that Evangelist explicitly depicting Jesus as the Passover lamb.33 The first solution is problematic,34 but readers may be more or less persuaded by the others. In one sense, all that matters is that in the Synoptic narratives, the meal is presented as being celebrated as a Passover (whether ahead of time or not). This connection is corroborated by Paul’s expression ‘the cup of blessing that we bless’ (e   æØ  B Pº ªÆ n Pº ª F) in 1 Cor 10:16. This is generally seen to echo the practice of blessing the third cup of the seder meal, at which point God is blessed for his work of redemption, exemplified in the Exodus.35 Thiselton36 highlights the element of corporate solidarity (or ‘selfinvolvement’) in the Exodus commemoration that emerges from the use of Deuteronomy 26:5 ff in the seder:37 You shall make this response before the LORD your God: ‘A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.6 When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us,7 we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.’38 31 Classically, Annie Jaubert, La Date de la Cène: Calendrier biblique et liturgie chrétienne (Paris: J. Gabalda et Cie, 1957) and Eugen Ruckstuhl, Die Chronologie des Letzten Mahles und des Leidens Jesu (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1963). 32 R. T. France, ‘Chronological Aspects of “Gospel Harmony” ’, Vox Evangelica 16 (1986), 33–59. 33 E.g. Keener, The Gospel of John. 34 D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Leicester; Grand Rapids: Inter-Varsity Press; Eerdmans, 1991), 457. 35 The view that the cup is specifically the third cup of the seder has been argued by Jean Hering, The First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians (translated from the Second French edition by A. W. Heathcote and P. J. Allcock; London: Epworth Press, 1962), 94, and Christian Wolff, Der erste Brief des Paulus an die Korinther, 2: Auslegung der Kapitel 8–16 (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1982), 228, among others, while the minority view that it is the fourth cup is advanced by Dan Cohn-Sherbok, ‘A Jewish Note on to Potērion Tēs Eulogias’, New Testament Studies 27 (1981), 704–9. 36 Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 758. 37 In Mishnah Pesahim 10:4 this passage is specified as the reading and subject of exposition ahead of the blessing of˙ the third cup. 38 See the uptake of these verses in the Passover Haggadah provided by N. Goldberg, Passover Haggadah (New York: Ktav, 1973), 12–17.

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This personalizing of the Exodus history is required in the Mishnah, in Pesahim 10:4–5, where each person is to regard himself 39 as if he personally came˙ out of Egypt and the head of household is required to explain the significance of the elements in the meal. All, then, who partake of the seder cup identify themselves with (and by) the generation brought out of Egypt, in turn identified with the ‘wandering Aramean’. The story of one becomes the story of the other. Insofar as this is taken up into the symbolism of the Lord’s Supper, and maintained in Paul’s terminology, it has a recognizable corporate element whereby the narrative of the representative is understood to be the narrative of the partakers, constitutive of their identity. As difficult as this may be for some of us to fathom from within our own cultural context, it is a key element in the identification of the believer with the narrative of Jesus. In this connection, it is worth noting further that the terminology used of the portions of Scripture assigned by the Mishnah to be read at the seder is that of the transition from ‘disgrace’ to ‘glory’: He starts [reading] with the disgrace [section of the Bible] and ends with the glory; and he expounds [the biblical section] from ‘A wandering Aramean was my father’ (Deut 26:5) until he finishes the entire portion.40

The broad scholarly agreement over the relevance of this material is impressive and reflects an important observation. While the Mishnaic seder directives and the Passover Haggadah traditions are late, and their details should be treated with appropriate caution, they emerge from the narrative orientation of Exodus 12 itself, which anticipates the celebration of Passover, and from the use of first person pronouns in the partner passage, Deuteronomy 26, which ensure that celebrants are identified with the Exodus generation. The Mishnaic material, then, is an outworking of an emphasis on identification already found in the Old Testament accounts of the Passover.

The Lord’s Supper in Paul Shareholders in Christ 1 Corinthians 10:14–22 is characterized by the use of two participatory terms: the noun Œ ØøÆ (with the related Œ Øø) and the verb åø. The first of these is often simply translated as ‘fellowship’, but a substantial body of scholarship has demonstrated that this English translation fails to capture the

39

Reflecting the gender-specific terminology of the Mishnah. Baruch Bokser and Lawrence Schiffman Yerushalmi Pesahim (ed. Jacob Neusner; Talmud ˙ of the Land of Israel: A Preliminary Translation and Explanation, 13; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 494. 40

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significance of the term. The noun also occurs in 1:9 and that verse is seen by most scholars as key to the proper understanding of the use of the word here: God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Øe › Ł, Ø y KŒº ŁÅ N Œ ØøÆ  F ıƒ F ÆP F  Å F æØ F  F Œıæ ı H.

Contextually, this verse leads into Paul’s appeal for unity among the Corinthian believers, so that the horizontal dimensions of fellowship are surely signified by the word. We cannot, however, limit this to the kind of significance represented by the Graeco-Roman societas41 for, as Thornton notes, ‘A genitive following the word koinonia expresses . . . that which one partakes . . . the object shared’.42 What is in the genitive case is, of course, ‘his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord’ so that communion with other believers is grounded upon a mutual ‘partaking’ of Christ. The related term Œ Øø , which occurs in 1 Cor 10:18, further designates believers as ‘shareholders’ in Christ.43 The participatory overtones of these words have been thoroughly explored, with a widespread recognition that the significance of the genitive requires us to prioritize precisely this element of shareholding in Christ. Sensitive to this, much German scholarship has distinguished a subordinate social Gemeinschaft from true Theilhaben an Christus (‘participation in Christ’)44 or Anteil an Christus (‘share in Christ’).45 The horizontal communion between believers is established by their mutual vertical communion with Christ, which must have priority. The fact that this participation is explicitly linked to the sonship of Christ in 1:9 is also widely regarded as important, since Paul’s theology of adoption is thereby implicit. We must, of course, recognize that Œ ØøÆ occurs widely in Paul’s writings and that the apposed genitives vary. These apposed nouns are consistent with what we have begun to see in the previous chapters and will explore further in the remaining ones: the Spirit (2 Cor 13:13), the sufferings of Christ (Phil 3:10) and the more general ‘service’ (2 Cor 8:4). Those verses are significant in their own right as we consider the various ‘fellowships’ that are engendered by union with Christ. Here in 1 Cor 1:9, though, what is striking about Œ ØøÆ with the genitive ‘of Jesus Christ’ is that it is connected to election (KŒº ŁÅ, ‘you were called’), in the context of 41

Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 104. Lionel Spencer Thornton, The Common Life in the Body of Christ (2nd edn; London: Dacre Press, 1944), 71. Quoted in Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 104, whose ellipses I reproduce. The point is drawn from Heinrich Seesemann, Der Begriff Koinonia im Neuen Testament (Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1933), 24, 99, 193. 43 The term ‘shareholders’ is Thiselton’s preferred rendering. See Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 104. 44 This distinction was made long ago in the commentary by Carl Friedrich Georg Heinrici, Das erste Sendschreiben des Apostel Paulus an die Korinthier (Berlin: Wilhelm Hertz, 1880). 45 August Strobel, Der Erste Brief an Die Korinther (Zürich: TVZ, 1989), 274. 42

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an implicit theology of adoption. Hence, the governing concept of election or covenant makes participation in sonship through Christ the key category. 1 Cor 10:14–22. Shareholders, Supper, and Seder Certainly in the Lord’s Supper passages, it is this Christocentric shareholding that is in view, a fact made clear in 1 Cor 10:16. It is important to note two contextual features of 1 Cor 10:14–22. First, the context of 10:1–13 is essentially covenantal, with the theme of idolatry dealt with using imagery drawn from the Exodus narrative (10:1–5). We have considered these verses, in connection with baptism, but it is now important to note that Moses and Israel are, in an anticipatory sense, portrayed as participating in Christ: he is the cloud of glorious presence (that is, the kavod), the spiritual rock from which they drank. This will be further explored in Chapter 9, in relation to Paul’s logic in Galatians and 2 Corinthians: insofar as Israel lived by faith in the divine promise revealed to her, her covenantal existence was a proleptic participation in Christ. The fact that it is Moses and not Abraham that is mentioned here is important in connecting the covenant of Sinai to the divine promise,46 while also reminding Paul’s readers of the incompatibility of idolatry and the service of Yahweh, a major theme in the letter. Second, Paul addresses his exhortations to those who are ‘wise’ (‰ çæ  Ø ºªø). While some have seen this as ironic or rhetorical, by this stage in the letter Paul has strongly established his point that Christ crucified is the true wisdom and the Spirit the one who enables understanding (1:17–2:16) and so the sense may be more direct: Paul addresses those in union with Christ, the Wisdom of God, and urges them to act wisely in relation to the world. This noetic theme will be significant in the remaining chapters of our study. The elements of the Lord’s Supper appear in 1 Corinthians 10 in the reverse order to that found in the other passages in the New Testament, with the cup mentioned first. As already noted, the expression ‘cup of blessing’ has been the subject of much discussion, with most scholars seeing the expression as reflecting the connection between the Lord’s Supper and the Passover seder, and the majority specifically associating it with the third cup of the seder. Contextual support for this is found in 10:1–13, where the imagery of the Exodus—celebrated in Passover—is found. The emphasis on personal identification with a covenant representative, which we have seen to be important to the seder, is fruitful for an understanding of Paul’s teaching here. Just as the seder involves identification of the

46 I am less convinced that Paul exploited a tension between Genesis and Exodus (or between Abraham and Moses) than is Francis Watson (Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith). Watson’s own reading of Paul is sensitive and nuanced, but it seems to me that he underplays Paul’s positive portrayal of Sinai as a revelatory event subordinated to the Abrahamic promise and now exceeded by the revelation in Christ.

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participant with those taking part in the Exodus, so believers identify themselves with the death of Jesus in their taking of ‘body’ and ‘blood’. We will see further in Chapter 9 that such a personal identification with the narrative of Jesus’s death and resurrection is characteristic of Paul’s theology. There is, though, nothing nakedly symbolic or imaginative about this: the sacrament corresponds to a reality of redeemed identity, by which the Spirit works in believers to conform them to Christ. At the same time, Paul’s language and argumentation prohibits us from seeing the Supper as simply an external symbolization of this Spiritual reality: the cup is a Œ ØøÆ in the blood of Christ, the bread a Œ ØøÆ in his body. The sacrament, then, plays a constitutive role in the participation of believers in the death and identity of Jesus, although it does not do so autonomously, but in the context of the Spirit’s work within the divine economy. It is for this reason that dual participation (here denoted using the infinitive åØ)47 in both the Lord’s Table and the table of demons is inconceivable (10:20–1): those who sit at the latter are partakers or shareholders of the demons (Œ Øø f H ÆØ ø). Clearly, participation in Christ here primarily has a narrative dimension, as does participation in the Exodus in the seder: the narrative of the Cross is evoked by the symbols representing body and blood. In addition, however, the comment about demons reminds us that the table setting could have been evocative to an ancient (particularly Jewish) audience of the communication of properties, particularly purity/impurity. Much has been written on the topic of the communication of impurity in a Jewish context, with a range of conclusions reached.48 It is not necessary that we subscribe to a particular understanding of such communication, but simply that we recognize that to be in the presence of another is to be susceptible, to some extent at least, to the communication of their status and properties, particularly in a ritual sense. To be in the Lord’s presence at his table is, therefore, potentially to have his properties, such as glory, communicated to the believer.49 This, indeed, corresponds with the account of the Eucharist found in Cyril of Alexandria and, later, in Calvin.50 Of course, this requires a conviction that there is a real presence of the Lord at the table. Given what we have seen so far in Paul, it is unnecessary to rely on a theory of the transformation of the elements of the Supper to maintain such presence; for Paul, the presence is realized by the 47 One must be careful, therefore, not to over-press the distinction between the words for participation. 48 For an overview of the discussion concerning Jewish purity, see Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 182–8 and Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 72–6, 214–30. 49 Martin, The Corinthian Body, 179–97, argues that ‘pollution’ is the overarching theme of 10:14–22. While broadly in agreement with his case, his argument that the demon, like the Lord, is ingested is unnecessary. 50 See Chapters 2 and 3.

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Spirit. In the context of the table, though, the significance of this presence as a communicating one is developed. Whether this element of the table imagery is accepted or not, and it is not a primary element of my argument, the exclusivity of the covenantal claim upon those under its terms is emphasized through the concept of participation. The example provided in 10:18 further emphasizes this. It is not agreed whether Paul here, by speaking of  æÆcº ŒÆa æŒÆ, refers to current Jewish practice or to the historical narrative of Israel, perhaps in terms of Deuteronomy 32.51 The latter seems likely, given the imagery employed in 10:1–13, with the golden calf incident the primary echo.52 If so, the fundamental wrongness of idolatry, as well as its ability to manifest itself in close temporal proximity to participation in divine presence, is highlighted through the example. This point would be made less forcefully, but would still be implied, by seeing the example as pointing to current Jewish practice of considering the altar as a place of participation. Either way, the covenant is with a jealous and exclusive God (10:22) and those involved in the ritual understand themselves to be bound to him. As well as the condemnation of idolatry, Paul’s other great concern here is with the unity that is required by the sacrament and its significance: ‘Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread’ (10:17). This theme is the great preoccupation of 1 Corinthians 11, to which we now turn. 1 Corinthians 11: Discerning the Body of the Lord Paul’s principal concern in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34 is with a practice of the Supper that involves or exacerbates distinctions and divisions rather than unity. Although some have seen the divisions (åÆÆ) mentioned in 11:18 as being doctrinal and have linked them to the divisions mentioned in 1:10, the context of 1 Cor 12 (studied already in Chapter 6)—where Paul challenges status concepts on the basis of the Spirit’s work in all Christians—combined with recent archaeologically informed study of the passage suggests, instead, that the issue is one of social honour. Whether ironic,53 or the quotation of a Corinthian saying,54 Paul’s reference to divisions that show God’s favour for some over others supports this conclusion. It appears that, in keeping with meal practices in Corinth, the host-patron55 and those belonging 51

Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, 93. Paul Douglas Gardner, The Gifts of God and the Authentication of a Christian: An Exegetical Study of 1 Corinthians 8–11:1 (Lanham: University Press of America, 1994), 165. 53 Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 538. 54 Henning Paulsen, ‘Schisma und Häresie: Untersuchungen zu 1 Kor 11:18,19’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 79 (1982), 180–211. 55 That is, the owner of the house in which the congregation meets. Such a person would have been wealthy and therefore of relatively high social status. 52

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to an honoured group would be seated at the main table in the triclinium, while those of lesser social status would stand in the atrium, possibly in quite crammed conditions, depending on the numbers involved. The quality and volume of food and drink served to those in the triclinium would be superior to what was given to those in the atrium. The question of how this may relate to a banquet in connection with the specifically Eucharistic practice is less important than the almost universally acknowledged fact that the architectural space, and its use in meal contexts, embodied social distinctions.56 Since Gerd Theissen’s work on the Lord’s Supper, there has been a recognition among scholars that the humiliation of the ‘have-nots’ (c å  11:22) was an institutionalized principle.57 Paul’s response to this turns on the participatory significance of the Supper that has already been outlined in relation to 1 Cor 10. For the apostle, the institutionalized humiliation of the ‘have-nots’ is an act of contempt towards the church of God itself (11:22) and it is with this challenge that he moves into a discussion of the significance of the Eucharist as a sacrament. His account of the institution of the Supper (11:23–5) presents it as a matter of closely transmitted tradition: Paul has received and passed on this account from the Lord. The closeness of the account to what is found in the Synoptic Gospels is widely acknowledged and here, by contrast to 1 Cor 10:16, the elements are named in the same order as in the Gospels. This emphasis on tradition is rhetorically58 and theologically significant; as Thiselton notes, Paul emphasizes the ‘givenness and universality of a pre-Pauline tradition which originated with the Lord himself as a dominical institution’.59 This is not just a matter of claiming authority for the practice or for its significance, but of setting it in an entirely different category from any of its social parallels. Thiselton quite rightly uses this observation as the basis of his challenge60 to the anachronism and theological reductionism of those, such as Witherington,61 who apply the terminology of ‘democracy’ to the Supper.

56 J. Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archaeology (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1983). 57 Gerd Theissen, ‘Soziale Integration und sakramentales Handeln: Eine Analyse von I Cor 11:17–34’, Novum Testamentum 16 (1974), 179–206. It is worth noting, too, the evidence for real food shortages in this period, sharpening the significance of the terminology of ‘have-nots’. See Bradley B. Blue, ‘The House Church at Corinth and the Lord’s Supper: Famine, Food Supply, and the Present Distress’, Criswell Theological Review 5 (1991), 221–39. 58 Anders Eriksson, Traditions as Rhetorical Proof: Pauline Argumentation in 1 Corinthians (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1998), 100–34. 59 Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 866. Bold type original. Not all agree with the authenticity of the claim. See J. Meier, ‘The Eucharist at the Last Supper: Did it Happen?’, Theology Digest 42 (1995), 335–51. This is, however, very much a minority opinion. 60 Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 865. 61 Ben Witherington, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids; Carlisle, England: Eerdmans; Paternoster, 1995), 242.

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In addition, however, the use of Ææ øŒÆ for the transmission of tradition by Paul to the Corinthians may be part of a rhetorical play by the apostle as he uses the same verb to speak of the ‘handing over’ of Jesus (Ææ   , usually translated ‘he was betrayed’). Hays sees this as an echo of Isaiah 53:6, where the subject of the verb is God himself;62 rather than being solely63 a reference to his betrayal, then, the verb speaks of the divine purpose of the death of Jesus. This takes us all the way back to 1 Cor 1:18–31, where the death of Jesus is precisely for those who are weak and foolish in the eyes of the world and where ‘Christ crucified’ is the divinely appointed wisdom that nullifies human standards. By his play on the verb ÆæÆ  øØ, Paul reminds his readers that the very tradition of the Lord’s Supper that has been handed down is of the divine purpose in Jesus’s death that pronounces a verdict on the very social distinctions that they cherish and maintain. That death is what is proclaimed in the sacrament (11:26), so that ‘the logical consequence of the tradition’64 ought to be an appropriate practice of the Supper of the kind that is thoroughly contradicted by the segregations practised in Corinth. Once again, we encounter covenantal language and imagery in the words of institution, which most scholars see as authentic, notwithstanding some translational issues that Paul shares with Luke. These are most in evidence with the designation of the cup as ‘the new covenant in my blood’. Paul, like Luke, employs the specific phrase ‘new covenant’, while Mark 14:24 and Matthew 26:28 have ‘my blood of the covenant’, the latter generally seen as the original form of the saying. We will return to this in our discussion of the Synoptic accounts. At this stage, what is important for us to note is the fact that the phrase found in Paul and Luke is evocative of a theme that we have begun to encounter and will see further in the remaining chapters of this study, namely that the death of Jesus has instituted the new covenant of Jeremiah 31:31. By this covenant the significance of the law is truly realized through the ministry of the Spirit, uniting believers to Jesus and conforming them to him. The juxtaposition of this passage with 1 Cor 12, then, is not just a matter of the shared concern with the body of Christ, but also with the Spiritled character of this body; these two themes, the body of Christ and the work of the Spirit, operate in tandem in these chapters. The seder associations of the Supper, implicit in 1 Corinthians 10:16 through Paul’s phrase ‘the cup of blessing’, also mean that the ‘new covenant’ is understood in terms of the old one or, perhaps better, that the old covenant

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Richard B. Hays, First Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 198. 63 Some, such as Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 549, allow for the possibility that there is a deliberate ambiguity to the verb, allowing the betrayal aspect to remain primary, but with a certain implication of divine purpose. 64 Eriksson, Traditions as Rhetorical Proof, 186.

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is taken up into the symbolism of the new. In Barth’s memorable language, ‘the law is completely enclosed in the gospel’.65 In his own re-occupation of the Exodus event through the symbolic meal of Passover, Jesus interprets the elements of that commemorative meal to anticipate the redemptive significance of his death. Interestingly, the body of the lamb is not one of the elements that is re-interpreted, so that the identification of the cup with ‘the new covenant in my blood’ (11:25) is distinguished from the death of the Passover lamb. Instead, it is understood in terms of the blood by which ratification of the covenant was achieved in Exodus 24:6–11, which is worth quoting at length. 6

Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he dashed against the altar.7 Then he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, ‘All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.’8 Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people, and said, ‘See the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.’ 9

Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up,10 and they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.11 God did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; also they beheld God, and they ate and drank.

As we will see, the passage has an important point of correspondence to the Matthew–Mark version of the Eucharistic saying in the expression ‘blood of the covenant’. Although this close verbal parallel disappears in the Luke–Paul version, where it is replaced by an allusion to Jeremiah 31:31, Exodus 24 is nevertheless broadly evoked as a covenant ratified by blood and celebrated in a ritual feast (Ex 24:11). So, just as the Passover account in Exodus 12 deliberately looks forward to the establishment of the covenant with God’s people (12:14– 28) and lies behind a seder practice that understands Passover to evoke the whole narrative of Exodus (including the covenant), so in the New Testament the symbolism of the meal is understood to include covenant ratification. Following the covenantal identification of the cup with Jesus’s blood, similar associations are also made with Jesus’s body. In identifying the broken bread of the Passover meal with his own body, ‘which is for you’, Jesus interprets that element in terms of his own sacrificial death. We have seen that a case be made for an echo of Isaiah 53:6 in the use of ÆæÆ  øØ; Hays identifies a further echo of the fourth Servant song, this time of Isaiah 53:12, in the expression e bæ H.66 Hofius also notes that Paul’s wider use of æ (e.g. in 1 Cor 15:3 65

CD II/2, 557. See the discussion in E. Jüngel, Karl Barth: A Theological Legacy (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986), 105–26. 66 Hays, First Corinthians, 198.

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or Romans 5:6) reflects a belief in a substitutionary death specifically ‘for sins’, concluding that the formula here indicates an ‘expiatory death’,67 understood in terms of the reversal of the curses in Deuteronomy 28:23. Such a breadth of background may well be warranted by the Passover accounts, which are embedded in narratives that work towards Deuteronomy 28; even if some of the details are over-pressed by Hofius, the fact remains that this act of remembrance is one of identifying the narrative of Jesus as decisive for the believer’s own identity in the covenant, through his substitutionary death. While some allowance must be made on specific details of the seder for the late character of the textual witnesses, it is suggestive that the Haggadah Maggid, told as the bread is raised and blessed, begins ‘This is the bread of affliction that our fathers ate in the land of Egypt’.68 We can readily see how such imagery of contemporizing remembrance might have been understood, in terms of Isaiah 53, as an identification of the eater with the one afflicted on his behalf. In fact, I would suggest that such conceptuality serves to integrate the various elements of Paul’s theology of union with Christ as, in modern times, it has done in the thought of Zizioulas.69 As we have seen already, in Chapter 6, Paul’s identification of the church with the body of Christ is quite specifically with Christ’s own body. Here, that play is developed in terms of the worthy or unworthy partaking of the Supper: the one who eats without recognizing the body of the Lord does so unworthily (IÆø, 11:29), and so each participant must examine him/herself. In the context of what surrounds this expression and the logic that has been identified in Paul’s words, this can mean nothing but the recognition that participation in this meal locates each person within the body of the Lord and that status is therefore conferred upon each member, requiring love and respect. Hence, Paul’s injunction in verse 33 about appropriate preparations to avoid the humiliation of those who are impoverished and hungry. Hence, too, the natural transition into the material of 1 Corinthians 12, as it describes the Spirit-led body of Christ and the diversity of gifts within it.

The Lord’s Supper in the Performed Synoptic Tradition Having acknowledged the Pauline theology, much of it inherited tradition, that would have informed the reading of the Last Supper accounts in the Synoptic tradition, we may now turn to those accounts, dealing with them more briefly. Hofius, ‘The Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s Supper Tradition’, 98, 99. Cecil Roth, The Haggadah (London: Soncino Press, 1934), 9. 69 This was a point that we noted in our discussion of Zizioulas’s treatment of anamnesis. See Chapter 2. 67 68

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By way of introduction, it is helpful to note the recent interest in ‘performance criticism’ in the reading of the gospel accounts. This methodology, particularly associated with David Rhoads70 and now developed by a number of scholars, including Stephen Barton71 and Kelly Iverson,72 has built upon the long recognition that the Gospels would have been encountered by most readers as oral texts, read to them or ‘performed’ in the context of church gatherings. Significant to our discussion is that those gatherings would very likely have involved the observance of the Lord’s Supper. The reading or performance of the text would, then, be related in an immediate way to the praxis of the church. In broad parallel with narrative critical evaluations of time and pace in the gospel accounts, the fact that a substantial portion of the narrative of the Synoptics is given over to recounting the Last Supper, at a point in the narrative where events are moving rapidly towards the Cross, must be regarded as significant. Once this point is related to our study of the Eucharistic theology represented by Paul but held more broadly within the early Christian communities, an important conclusion emerges: while the Synoptic Gospels appear to place less of an emphasis upon a participatory account of the death of Jesus, such an emphasis is, in fact, to be found in the prominence of the Last Supper accounts in their narrative schemata and is, therefore, part of their very structure. Once this conclusion is reached, a further point can be made directly from it: the Last Supper accounts bring together the New Exodus and covenantal themes that have been identified by some scholars as lying at the heart of the Gospels and, arguably, of the historical Jesus tradition behind these. To these general observations, we may now add some specific comments on the distinctive accounts found in the various gospels. The most important point concerns the different form of the words of institution found in Mark and Matthew in contrast to Luke and Paul. In the former, Jesus speaks of the wine as ‘my blood of the covenant’ ( F KØ e Æx   ı B ØÆŁ ŒÅ, with some minor variations between the two gospels), while in the latter, as we have already seen in our study of 1 Corinthians, he speaks of the wine as ‘the new covenant in my blood’. The question of which might preserve the original form of the saying is less important than the significance of the two versions. As we have seen in our discussion of 1 Corinthians, the Luke–Paul version of 70 A more recent study by Rhoads exemplifies his work. David Rhoads, ‘Performance Criticism: An Emerging Methodology in Second Testament Studies—Part I’, Biblical Theology Bulletin 36 (2006), 118–33, and ‘Performance Criticism: An Emerging Methodology in Second Testament Studies—Part II’, Biblical Theology Bulletin 36 (2006), 164–84. 71 Stephen C. Barton, ‘New Testament Interpretation as Performance’, Scottish Journal of Theology 52 (1999), 179–208. 72 Kelly R. Iverson, ‘Orality and the Gospels: A Survey of Recent Research’, Currents in Biblical Research 8 (2009), 71–106 and ‘A Centurion’s “Confession”: A Performance-Critical Analysis of Mark 15:39’, Journal of Biblical Literature 130 (2011), 329–50.

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the saying directly links Jesus’s blood to the establishment of the new covenant, thereby evoking Jeremiah 31:31–4. Nothing more needs to be said on this at present. The Matthew–Mark version lacks the term ‘new’, although a few manuscripts have clearly been amended to bring them into line with the alternative reading. Instead, this version of the saying more obviously parallels Exodus 24:8 and the uptake of this verse in Zechariah 9:11. For Mark, whose gospel most clearly narrates the story of Jesus as a new Exodus,73 the force of such a parallel is obvious. For Matthew, the parallel may be intended not just to evoke the Exodus narrative,74 but to further develop his use of Zechariah 9 in 21:5. To be clear, ‘my blood of the covenant’ is not a Matthean coinage, but Matthew’s broader use of Zechariah inevitably colours the allusive significance of the phrase here. In Matthew, at least, the Supper has messianic associations. Both Mark and Matthew also add to this phrase that the blood has been ‘poured out’ (KŒåı ) for many (æd  ººH). There is general agreement that this is an allusion to the dual use of ‘many’ and to the ‘pouring out’ of the life of the Servant in Isaiah 53:11–12; if correct, then it stands alongside the further parallels to Isaiah 53 observed in the parallel Pauline tradition by Hays (see ‘1 Corinthians 11: Discerning the Body of the Lord’, p. 210). The Markan and Matthean version of the words of institution, then, represents a conflation of Exodus 24:8, Zechariah 9:11, and Isaiah 53:12. It is difficult to explain the use of Isaiah 53 on the basis of Jewish reading strategies, since there are no obvious points of verbal contact with either Exodus 24:8 or Zechariah 9:11. Instead here, as with the ransom saying of Mark 10:45 and Matthew 20:28, the use of Isaiah must reflect a broader tendency, possibly dominical in origin, of describing Jesus’s death in terms derived from the fourth Servant song. For our purposes, as we consider the representative solidarity of Jesus and ‘the many’ for whom he is to die, the significance lies in the fact that this solidarity is developed using the figure of the Isaianic Servant.75

The Lord’s Supper in John John lacks an account of the Last Supper and the words of institution, as these are found in the Synoptics. Instead, the final meal of Jesus is presented as 73

Rikki Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus and Mark (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997). It has been argued that Matthew is structured according to a ‘new Moses’ typology; see Allison, The New Moses: A Matthean Typology. This would fit well with such a typology. Some caution is required, however; I have noted problems elsewhere with this approach (see Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, 124) and the allusion here also connects to Matthew’s reading of Zechariah 9. 75 Matthew’s report of the words of institution contains one further detail not found in the other accounts. The pouring out of the blood of the covenant for the many is further specified to be 74

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taking place the evening prior to Passover, with Jesus’s own death taking place at the time of the Passover sacrifice. I have noted above the scholarly approaches that have been taken to this; there is no need to resolve them as part of our own argument. The absence of the institution account, however, does not mean that the Lord’s Supper is conceptually absent from John: the material in chapter 6 that presents Jesus as the Bread of Life and that speaks of the necessity of eating his flesh and drinking his blood (esp. 6:53–6) has generally been seen as having some kind of sacramental significance. Two points need to be recognized. First, ‘I am the Bread of Life’ is one of seven sayings, to be examined in Chapter 10, that identify Jesus as God and claim exclusivity for him as the way to salvation. We must, therefore, read the language of this saying in the light of the others and allow their content to inform this one. All of the sayings stress that Jesus must be acknowledged through belief, which, according to John 20:31, is a matter of believing that he is the Messiah. As we will see in Chapter 10, such belief involves a Spirit-enabled recognition of the divine revelation that has taken place in Jesus and an acceptance of him as God’s appointed way of salvation. In relation to each of the predicated images in the ‘I am’ sayings, John employs a range of verbs for the appropriate faith responses and the benefits that result: the sheep ‘know’ the voice of the Good Shepherd and follow his leading; members of the true flock ‘enter through’ the Gate; the branches ‘remain in’ the Vine, et cetera. The point is quite simply that in clarifying what faith is and entails, John employs images that describe the relationship between the believer and the one in whom they believe, images that present Jesus as being something and believers in terms related to this. The language of flesh, food, and eating that is found in John 6 must be understood within this schema, as representative of the relationship to Jesus that faith involves. From this, the second point emerges: alongside the imagery that is specific to this particular ‘I am’ saying (i.e. ‘eating’), we also find more general imagery of the faith relationship in John 6. In 6:35–7 (cf. 44), the dominant image is one of ‘coming’ to Jesus; in 6:40, it is one of ‘believing’. Properly understood, then, the passage is about the faith response to Jesus (itself portrayed as a work of the Father’s grace in the believer in 6:44) and the benefits that come to the believer as a result. Any sacramental elements in this text must be understood as subordinate to the main theme of faith. At the same time, it is hardly conceivable that associations with the Lord’s Supper would not be made in connection with the bread imagery and, particularly, with the combination of bread and blood imagery in 6:53–6. As with the Synoptics, we can imagine that the performance of this text in a Eucharistic setting would be powerfully evocative. It is important to note, in this regard, the emphasis placed on the death of Jesus, notably in 6:51. ‘for the forgiveness of sins’. This is likely to be a further outworking of the allusion to the fourth Servant song.

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The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

Not only does this ensure that the sacrificial death of Jesus is emphasized, in keeping with the emphasis seen in other ‘I am’ sayings,76 it also means that, insofar as this alludes to Eucharistic traditions, those traditions are centred on his death, providing further support (pace Lietzmann) for the view that the early church consistently related its Supper meals to the Cross. We must ask, however, how the body and blood of Jesus can be described as ‘real food’? Might this imply something that we have generally seen to be alien to the thought of the New Testament writers, namely that there is a sharing of essence between Jesus and his followers, that as they consume the elements of the sacrament, those elements are taken into their own constitution? Again, the key must be to locate this saying in the context of the ‘I am’ sayings as a whole collection and within the gospel as a whole. In each of these, the essential distinction between Jesus, the Logos, and those saved by/through him is maintained. The flock that follows the Shepherd remains a flock; those that walk in the light do not themselves become sources of light; the branches of the vine are precisely branches. The point of the images is that only in communion with Jesus are such groups constituted. The blessing that each image envisages is a sharing of Jesus himself, as a person, not the transfusion of a property. This point will emerge in our discussion of the ‘I am’ sayings, in Chapter 10. As we will see there, the theology of the Fourth Gospel is one of personal presence and this wider contextual emphasis must be allowed to speak to the sacramental imagery. That imagery, then, as with all of the ‘I am’ sayings, points to the way in which faith appropriates Jesus and to the reality of the blessings that result. The Eucharist points to a personal appropriation of all that is held out in the Son, which brings real life to the believer. It is very much the imagery of making Jesus one’s own. This is not radically unlike what we have seen in Paul, or in the Synoptics for that matter, concerning the importance of treating the Supper as an act of remembrance within which the substitutionary dimensions of the death of Jesus are recognized and personalized.

CONCLUSIONS A number of important conclusions may be drawn from the study of the sacraments in this chapter. The force of these conclusions is greatest when we recognize that the sacraments appear to be traceable back to the earliest strata of tradition in the New Testament, so that we are dealing with formative 76

See the discussion of these in Chapter 10.

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Christian theology that itself shaped and governed the development of New Testament soteriological thought. First, it is quite apparent that the sacraments operate within a covenantal framework, within which they signify the identification between the believer and Jesus. Each does this in its own way: baptism is taken to symbolize the fundamental alteration of identity that results from union with Christ, with the believer understood to have clothed him/herself with the identity of Jesus, to have passed with him through death into life. It is here that we may most clearly speak of narratival participation in Jesus, since baptism is deployed to represent the inclusion of the believer in the story of Jesus’s death and resurrection. Without a covenantal framework, this concept would remain vague, but within such a framework the concept is capable of bearing the weight placed upon it in the New Testament. Similarly, the Eucharist is shaped by the significance of the Passover meal, within which participants identify themselves with those who passed through the Exodus, ‘from disgrace to glory’. By sharing in the Eucharist, believers ‘remember’ Jesus’s death and identify themselves with it. This identification is made possible by the notion of covenant. The Passover meal evokes the ratification of that covenant as well as the Passover itself and the identification of the cup as ‘the blood of the covenant’ designates Jesus as the one whose representative death ratifies the (new) covenant between God and his people. This is more significant for the study of covenant in the New Testament than may at first be recognized. As we noted in Chapter 1, and will see further in Chapter 9, the theme of covenant in Paul’s epistles is a controversial one. But if Paul inherits a tradition of the sacraments that is essentially covenantal, and appears to maintain this significance, then (as with the image of the church as temple) this ought to push us towards seeing covenant as a wider element in his theology. Second, the symbolic dimensions of the sacraments do not operate in isolation from the divine presence. The presence and activity of the Spirit, already emphasized in our study of the temple images, ensure that the sacraments are understood as a true participation in Christ, by which his narrative becomes truly realized in believers. A ‘vertical’ communion with him maintained by the Spirit is the grounds for personal transformation. Third, this narrative participation is widely developed by allusion to the fourth Servant song of Isaiah 53. This requires sensitivity to the presence of subtle parallels and allusions to Isaiah 53 in the various texts, but the cumulative evidence for such parallels being deliberate is quite impressive. This connects with what we have already seen in Chapter 6, in relation to the influence of the Isaianic Servant songs upon the theology of the church as temple (notably in Acts 4), a textual background that is most intelligible when its messianic significance is appreciated.

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Fourth, the sacramental material of the New Testament, particularly that concerning baptism, reflects a developing reflection on the ontology of the incarnation and of the Triune God. This is less prominent than in the case of the material studied in our previous chapter, but, nevertheless, the precise way in which the relationship of the Spirit to Jesus is presented (1) in his baptism and (2) in Christian baptism requires that he is placed in a distinct category, with his Sonship being of a different order to that of the believer. The fact that baptism is associated with his death and resurrection, and not to his experience in the Jordan, further problematizes Spirit Christologies. It also requires reflection upon the ‘exchange’ theology associated with the cross and the ways in which this is constitutive of Christian identity. The fact that a Trinitarian baptism formula occurs in Matthew 28:18 suggests that such reflections were also shaping Christian belief concerning the nature of God, with a developing awareness of individuation within the Godhead, represented in language quite consistent with later Trinitarian formulations. Finally, it is important to note that the sacraments are Christocentric. This is not to diminish the role of Father and Spirit, but to recognize that the sacraments, as the key ritual enactments of participation, centre on the person of the mediator. Indeed, they centre upon the death and resurrection of the mediator. I would suggest that if we are to take this seriously, a New Testament theology of participation that is truly sacramental must primarily be labelled as ‘union with Christ’.

9 Other Participatory Elements in the Pauline Corpus We turn in this chapter to consider the broader development of participatory themes in the Pauline corpus and, more briefly, in those parts of the New Testament often described as ‘deutero-Pauline’. While we will consider the ways in which certain prepositions (‘in’, ‘to’, ‘with’, ‘through’, et cetera) and the widespread use of the prefix ı- (‘with’) are used to indicate some kind of incorporation of the church into Christ, it needs to be noted from the outset that grammar cannot be pressed in isolation for a theology of participation. Grammarians properly recognize that constructions such as K+dative do not necessarily have a spatial or participatory sense and that it is too easy for us to read ‘in Christ’ in an over-specified way.1 Instead, we must read such grammatical constructions in relation to their contexts, sensitive to the way in which they may be informed by underlying narratives. But while there has been a growing interest in the way in which the narratives of the Old Testament inform the theology of the New,2 a number of scholars maintain that there is an essential discontinuity between the story (or stories) of Israel and the story of the ‘Christ-event’. This view is prominent in the apocalyptic readings of Paul associated with Martyn, de Boer, and others, the problems of which we have already begun to highlight,3 but is more subtly developed by Francis Watson. Watson recognizes that Paul presents the story of Christ in terms of the story of Israel but argues that Paul does not incorporate the story of Christ into the temporal dimension of that story, as if it were part of the flow of events, but rather locates the gospel in terms of the vertical dimension of God’s actions.4 Hence, ‘The only “narrative 1 C. Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012). 2 See Bruce W. Longenecker (ed.), Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002). 3 See the discussion of these in Chapter 1 and Chapter 4. 4 Francis Watson, ‘Is There a Story in These Texts?’, in Bruce Longenecker (ed.), Narrative Dynamics in Paul, 231–9.

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substructure” in Paul is the scriptural narrative or narrative collection from which he draws in order to elucidate an essentially nonnarratable gospel.’5 This is a subtle configuration of the relationship of Paul’s account of the gospel to the Old Testament. The question of whether or not it is correct will run through this chapter. One of the key elements that I will stress in this chapter is the covenantal shape of Paul’s account of participation. As is clear from Chapter 1, this is a controversial matter in Pauline scholarship. In the context of a broad study of the New Testament such as this one, that controversy can be set in fresh perspective: arguably, the cumulative contextual evidence for the covenant theme in the New Testament that we have already identified supports its presence in Paul’s writings. By this stage in our study covenantal elements have surfaced repeatedly, to an extent that allows a rather bold proposal to be offered: given the covenantal significance of the new temple imagery and of the sacramental theology in Paul (and elsewhere in the New Testament), a covenant-informed theology ought to be assumed, and should only be rejected if there are explicit grounds to do so. Given that this book is not a dedicated study of Paul, but examines the doctrines of participation across the whole of the New Testament, some compromises will require to be made. We cannot examine every occurrence of participatory grammar or every relevant text or image. At the same time, it is important that we allow adequate depth of exegesis of select passages, particularly those that have provided classical loci for the discussion of Pauline theology. In what follows, then, we will examine material from Galatians, 2 Corinthians, and Romans, allowing these to establish some key frameworks for Pauline thought, before studying a set of further themes as they emerge throughout the Pauline corpus. Arguably, as does Daniel Powers,6 we might have started with 1 Thessalonians, but while there are anticipations of the theology that Paul will go on to develop, a study of this letter would add little to our findings. Instead, we begin with Galatians which, as a letter generally dated around 50ce,7 still represents an insight into the early stages of development of Paul’s theology but is, as we will see, remarkably full, and is consistent with the theology developed in later letters.

GALATIANS The most obviously participatory language in Galatians is found in 2:19–20, where Paul speaks of co-crucifixion with Christ and the transformational indwelling of the Son: 5 6

Watson, ‘Is There a Story in These Texts?’, 239. 7 Powers, Salvation through Participation. Martyn, Galatians, 20.

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I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (2:19–20) æØfiH ıÆæøÆØ· ÇH b PŒØ Kª, ÇB fi b K K d æØ· n b F ÇH K ÆæŒ, K Ø ÇH B fi  F ıƒ F  F Ł F  F IªÆ Æ  ŒÆd ÆæÆ   Æıe bæ K F.

The formulation of the second clause (literally, ‘I live, but no longer I, but Christ lives in me’) is suggestive of an absolute transformation of identity: Paul sees his own life as now constituted by the presence of Christ within him. Given what we have seen in our previous chapter, this element in Paul’s thought may well have been shaped by reflection upon the sacraments; certainly later in this chapter we will see how it is influenced by his understanding of baptism. Significantly, in the following section (3:1–5) the presence of Christ in Paul is itself linked to the presence of the Spirit. Here Paul addresses the Galatians directly concerning their own experience of the Spirit, challenging them regarding whether their reception of the Spirit was the result of their observance of the law or as a consequence of their faith. Two points may be highlighted. First, the fact that the reception of the Spirit is at the heart of Paul’s questioning indicates that this is the primary marker of the gospel. Second, the rhetorical introduction to Paul’s question is a statement concerning the Galatians’ knowledge of the crucifixion of Jesus: ‘It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified.’ This makes the twofold point that (1) their salvation proceeds from that crucifixion and that (2) the significance of the crucifixion is precisely determinative of the nature of the Spirit’s work in them. Juxtaposed as it is with the preceding section, the link between the presence of the crucified Christ in Paul and the presence of the Spirit is clear: the two are closely identified, if not equated. Hence, Paul’s experience of his own identity being transformed through his identification with Christ is an outworking of his experience of the Spirit; his sense of cocrucifixion is central to this.

Adoption in Galatians The reception of the Spirit is specifically linked by Paul to the concept of adoption (ıƒ ŁÆ, 4:5), an image developed particularly in 3:23–4:7. In 4:6–7, Paul presents the Spirit as the definitive marker of God’s ‘sons’. It is worth highlighting that this theme is the dominant element in the patristic accounts of participation that were studied in Chapter 2 and in the Reformed accounts of participation studied in Chapter 3. As we saw in Chapter 4, the covenantal significance of the expression has also received fresh attention since the

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publication of Frank Moore Cross’s essay on the connection between covenant and kinship.8 Even before considering Paul’s specific development of the theme, then, we are reminded of its broad significance as a historical and theological metaphor for salvation. Paul’s development of the concept of adoption in Galatians has a fundamentally eschatological tone: the sending of God’s son to secure the adoption of the saints occurred ‘when the fullness of time had come’ (‹ b qºŁ e º æøÆ  F åæ ı, 4:4). Interestingly, the time prior to this is portrayed in preparatory terms: it is a time of minority and guardianship (4:1–3), the significance of which is derived from that time (and the conditions existing within it) for which it is preparatory. The revelation of the gospel does not negate the significance of that which precedes it, nor is it set in basic opposition to it. Rather, it represents an eschatological realization that renders its antecedents obsolete, meaning that a continued reliance upon them is effectively a rejection of the revealed will of God (cf. 1:6). This is crucial for the consideration of the Law in Galatians and, indeed, more widely in Paul’s thought. Adoption is thus portrayed as a state of eschatological fulfilment, by which the human incapacities unresolved by the Law itself are addressed. 9 Notably, it is ‘in Christ’ that Paul’s readers are sons of God ‘through faith’ ( Øa B ø).10 Paul develops his discussion of adoption in Galatians with a statement concerning the baptism of believers into (N) Christ which has resulted in their clothing themselves with him (3:27). The pairing of the prepositions ‘in’ and ‘into’ suggests that here we are indeed dealing with a locative construal of union, with the clothing metaphor depicting the transfer of Christ’s identity onto those who are located in him: his appearance becomes theirs. The link between his identity as ‘son’ (4:4) and the adoption of believers11 is, therefore, vital.

8 ‘Kinship and Covenant in Ancient Israel’, in Frank Moore Cross, From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 3–21. 9 This is basically in keeping with my findings in Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, where I argued for a wide perception that the Torah was imperfect, in the sense that more was required to bring it to the fulfilment of its purposes. At the heart of this lies a recognition of human incapacity to keep the Law and the need for further revelation to take place, both objectively and subjectively. The point is connected to discussions of Paul’s anthropology, with a number of authors identifying his evaluation of law and flesh as governed by a pessimistic anthropology and not by a negative evaluation of the Law per se. See Timo Laato and Sigurd Grindheim, ‘Paul’s Anthropological Considerations: Two Problems’, in D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark Seifrid (eds), Justification and Variegated Nomism. Volume 2: The Paradoxes of Paul (Tübingen; Grand Rapids: Mohr Siebeck; Baker, 2004), 343–59; J. Christiaan Beker, ‘The Christologies and Anthropologies of Paul, Luke-Acts and Marcion’, in Martinus C. de Boer (ed.), From Jesus to John: Essays on Jesus and New Testament Christology in Honour of Marinus De Jonge (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 174–82. 10 This obviously touches upon the debate around the significance of Ø æØ F. I will defer a discussion of this matter until later in this chapter. 11 I use this term freely, for it is used by Paul himself without ambiguity in 3:22.

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It is important to note the following points. First, the fatherhood of God is not incidental to the argument here or to the letter as a whole: Paul’s description of God as ‘father’ in the greeting of 1:1 centralizes this term to the argument and logic of the letter.12 Second, the sonship of Jesus is the grounds for the adoption of believers, but the language of ‘adoption’ is only applied to the latter; the sonship of Jesus is presented as inherent, sui generis, constitutive of (but not identical to) the adoptive status of believers. The sonship of Jesus and the sonship of believers are, then, categorically different. Despite the link between the Spirit and the Son in 4:6, there is no suggestion there of an adoption constituted by the Spirit; rather, the Spirit is defined in relation to the Son in his activity of union. Third, Paul’s logic requires the incorporation of believers into the narrative of the Son’s passage from minority—that is, his existing in the conditions that obtain ‘under the law’ (4:4)—to majority. Covenant conceptuality allows for such a narratival identification of the one and many, but here it is developed in terms of the unique status of the Son. By inference, the vocabulary of ‘sending’ is suggestive of pre-existence, although there has been much debate over this element of Pauline theology. 13 The Son’s fulfilment of the conditions of the covenant, though, requires the reality of his humanity. At the risk of over-simplification, Paul’s account of the representative work of Christ here arguably requires that he takes seriously the distinctive ontology of the mediator, including the particular Jewishness of his humanity.14 He affirms his real humanity and his real divinity and, in affirming the latter, he forces us to speak of individuation in God.15 A further point on Paul’s logic of atonement may now be explored. The Son’s own passage from minority to majority, from living under the law to bringing the law to its end, involves his death ‘under the law’. The death of the Son brings to an end the ‘curse of the law’ by becoming that curse: 12 See Trevor J. Burke, Adopted into God’s Family: Exploring a Pauline Metaphor (Nottingham: Apollos, 2006). 13 Broadly, we may contrast Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle with Bauckham, God Crucified. 14 Despite his citation of Barth for support, Watson’s claim concerning the ‘nonnarratable’ Pauline gospel (see details in note 4) seems to me to fail to acknowledge the fact that Paul considers it important that Jesus was born under the law, that his lineage was in Israel (and not in Greece, for example). The historical particularity of the Incarnate mediator within Israel and, hence, his decision to accommodate the story of the covenant within his own being is recognized in the theology of Barth and his theological heirs, as exemplified by John Webster, ‘ “It Was the Will of the Lord to Bruise Him”: Soteriology and the Doctrine of God’, in Murray Rae and Ivor J. Davidson (eds), The God of Salvation (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2011), 15–34. 15 Two papers delivered at the recent Galatians and Christian Theology conference, University of St Andrews, 2012, highlighted these points. Engaging with Martyn, Bruce McCormack (‘Justification by Faith’) noted that the specific deficiency of his analysis lies in a failure to consider the ontology of the mediator and Ivor J. Davidson (‘ “The One Who Called You”: Paul, the Gospel and God’) noted that the force of Paul’s language requires us to speak of individuation within God. I am grateful to both men for sharing their papers with me; these will be published in due course.

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13

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’—14 in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith (Gal 3:13–14).

This is not the only place where Deut 21:23 is taken up in relation to the death of Jesus; it is also encountered in 1 Peter 2:24–5, where, as we will see in Chapter 11, it is read together with Isaiah 53. The combined evidence of the two writers further supports the conclusion that Jesus’s death was broadly understood in the early church to have secured atonement by undertaking the conditions of cursedness. Importantly, the principal background to this cannot be identified as the sacrificial system of the law, since sacrifices are ‘holy’ and not ‘cursed’.16 Elsewhere, of course, such imagery may occur, but here, given the covenantal context, the most likely association of the ‘curse’ language is with the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 27–8. Reading Deut 21:23 in the light of these, through the shared terminology of the curse, Jesus’s death is understood to be a representative experience of covenant cursedness.17 It is this very logic that we examined in the writings of the Reformed tradition, in Chapter 3. Arguably, those writers represent the most consistent and thoroughgoing reflection upon this point of Pauline theology as they sought to negotiate the unavoidably contractual dimensions of biblical thought without compromising the primacy of grace. Linking this to the passing of YHWH between the pieces of the sacrifice in the Abrahamic covenant (Gen 15), the death of Jesus was understood to constitute God’s taking upon himself the consequences of the broken covenant, in order that the blessings promised through Abraham would not be jeopardized by human sin. However defensible this may or may not be in systematic theological terms, it represents a serious effort to grapple with Paul’s thought. The state of adoption is realized in believers through the presence and ministry of the Spirit; just as God ‘sent’ his son into the world, so he ‘sent’ the Spirit of the Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba, Father’ (4:6), a cry by which our status as ‘heirs’ is revealed (4:7). The parallels between Son and Spirit are obvious and they are closely identified with each other. The logic, however, requires that they are also distinguished. The combination of identification and individuation means that the Spirit can meaningfully constitute the presence of the Son in his physical absence and can conform those in whom 16 Bradley H. McLean, ‘The Absence of an Atoning Sacrifice in Paul’s Soteriology’, New Testament Studies 38 (1992), 531–53. At the same time, note that Isaiah 53 represents the death of the Servant as an ‫שׁם‬ ָ ‫אָ‬. We will discuss this further in ‘The Atonement: All Died in One’ (p. 235), in connection with 2 Corinthians 3–5. 17 I am conscious of the boldness of such a statement in the light of the fraught discussions of Pauline atonement theology over the last century of biblical scholarship. For a good overview and discussion of these, see Powers, Salvation through Participation, 18–34. The context of the present study will, I hope, provide adequate defence for my statement.

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he dwells to the likeness of Christ. Hence, the ‘sonly’ activity of the believer, the basic act of communication with the adoptive Father, is portrayed as a Spiritual act, one in which the believer’s agency in this relationship is effectively identified with the Spirit himself and in which the believer’s communication with the Father is seen as a Spirit-generated outworking of the Son’s sonship. By retaining the language of adoption and stressing the role of the Spirit in the agency and experience of the believer, Paul never allows this to deteriorate into a collapsing of the identity of the believer and Christ. All of this, of course, connects to the great account of the Spirit-led life in 5:16–25. The use of æØÆø in the context of the binary pattern of Spirit versus flesh (5:16–17) echoes the moral imagery of walking ‘in the way/in the two ways’ in the Old Testament18 but, used with the dative of FÆ, is given eschatological as well as ethical significance. As in 2:19–20, the experience of the Spirit is linked to an identification with the narrative of Jesus’s crucifixion, resulting in a transformation of identity as believers die to the reality of the flesh and live by and under the guidance of the Spirit (5:24–5). The application of the adjective ıÆØŒ to the believer in 6:1, therefore, must be seen as indicating the full personal presence of the Spirit in the life of the believer.19

New Creation, Temple, and Spirit in Galatians This eschatological imagery comes to a climax in the language of ‘new creation’ (ŒÆØ ŒØ) in 6:15.20 Through the repetition of the h . . . Iººa . . . (‘neither . . . but . . . ’) formula and the keywords æØ  (‘circumcision’) and IŒæ ıÆ (‘uncircumcision’) this is linked to the development of Paul’s argument through 5:6: For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love. (5:6) For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything! (6:15)

That condition designated by the phrase ‘new creation’ is, then, effectively identified with that of ‘faith working through love’ and is set antithetically against a concept of justification that revolves around the marker of circumcision. Crucially, the concept of faith in 5:6 is itself informed by 5:5, where ‘by 18 See, for example, Proverbs 1:15; 2:7, 13, 20; 3:23; 4:12, 14; 6:22; 8:20; 9:6; 14:2; 20:7; 28:6, 26. The language and imagery is widespread in biblical and postbiblical writings and lies behind the use of the term halakah in relation to legal or ethical disputes. 19 Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 28–32. 20 For Galatians 6:12–18 as the rhetorical recapitulation of the themes of the letter as a whole, see Moyer V. Hubbard, New Creation in Paul’s Letters and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 190–1.

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the Spirit (ÆØ) by faith (KŒ ø) we await the hope of righteousness (Kº Æ ØŒÆØ Å)’. There are obviously a number of interpretative difficulties in this verse,21 but regardless of how these are resolved, Paul clearly associates the experience of the Spirit, linked to the conduct of the saints in waiting (‘we eagerly wait’, IŒ åŁÆ, 5:5), and the state of new creation; this complex is, moreover, contrasted with the doctrines and practices of Paul’s opponents, the circumcision group. This is effectively the outworking of Paul’s gospel, the defence of which is at the heart of the letter, and hence forms the climax of the twin references to revelation (apocalypse), in 1:12 and 1:16. The majority of scholars recognize that the language of ‘new creation’ is derived from Isaiah, where it is developed in relation to the restoration that will be brought about by God through his Servant.22 The Servant’s identification with Israel is important to this, as is the fact that his role is understood covenantally, in relation to the promises made to David and to Israel.23 The ‘new creation’ in Isaiah emerges as a theme throughout chapters 40–66, where it is interwoven with the expectation that Jerusalem/Zion will be restored and that the nations will be drawn to worship God there. These, of course, are themes that we have seen to emerge in relation to the church’s depiction as temple, the ‘rebuilt tent of David’. Paul’s language of new creation cannot but evoke this Isaianic narrative and this is in keeping with the broader influence of Isaiah upon his writings.24 In addition to this specific Isaianic background, we saw in Chapter 4 that the renewal of creation has a natural connection to the idea of the messiah’s eschatological temple in apocalyptic literature (influenced by Ezekiel 40–8). This, far from involving a negative evaluation of Torah, constitutes the true fulfilment of the order that it represents.25 Given what we have seen already concerning the close identification of the eschatological temple and the Spirit 21

Among these questions are: How does the dative of Spirit relate to the genitival phrase concerning faith? How do hope and righteousness relate to one another? What, precisely, is the concept of righteousness in view? 22 The most recent study, which provides further bibliography, is that of T. Ryan Jackson, New Creation in Paul’s Letters: A Study of the Historical and Social Setting of a Pauline Concept (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), whose findings confirm this observation. 23 See our discussion of the Servant in Chapter 4. Note, too, the reference to the ‘covenant of peace’ in Isaiah 54:10. 24 Recognized by Wagner, Heralds of the Good News; Gignilliat, Paul and Isaiah’s Servants, and, more generally, by Bauckham, God Crucified. 25 This point is important to any consideration of the relevance of 1 Cor 7:19 to the interpretation of Galatians. There, too, the ‘neither . . . but . . . ’ formula occurs in slightly modified form and there ‘what counts is the keeping of the commandments of God’. The ‘neither’ clause negates the significance of the distinction between circumcised and uncircumcised, making the parallel with Gal 6:15 a strong one. The seeming tension between a negation of legal practice and the affirmation of divine commandments vanishes when we appreciate Paul’s eschatological framework, as rightly noted by Jackson, New Creation in Paul’s Letters, 106–11.

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in Paul’s writings, the density of references to the Spirit in Galatians makes it quite likely that he thinks here of the church as the new temple, in which the cosmic order is restored, probably fulfilling the Zion expectations of Isaiah. This is further supported by the language of 2:9, where James, Peter, and John are referred to as ‘those seeming to be pillars’. Despite the possible irony indicated by Œ F, this is evidence that Paul considers the church in temple terms, not as a matter of his own theological innovation, but as a matter of tradition.26 This, too, has a bearing on the significance of the new creation language. The eschatological construal of divine presence in Jewish apocalyptic literature correlates creation and temple, a move that seems also to be visible in Galatians.

2 Corinthians The language of ‘new creation’ is also, of course, found in 2 Corinthians, linked to one of the great ‘in Christ’ statements (5:17). It is appropriate, then, to turn from our reflection on Galatians to a consideration of that rather challenging letter, before considering the evidence of Romans.

The Covenant of the Spirit The covenantal significance that Paul attaches to the new reality in Christ becomes clear in the early chapters of 2 Corinthians. In 3:6, Paul describes himself and his fellow apostles as ministers or servants of a ‘new covenant’ ( ØÆŒ ı ŒÆØB ØÆŁ ŒÅ), a covenant that is further specified as ‘not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life’. This leads into a comparison of the glory of the old and new covenants (3:7–18) that, in turn, gives way to various reflections on the significance of the new covenant. Paul’s statement concerning the new covenant emerges in the context of his argument that his apostolic credentials need no letter of support, since such a letter is constituted by the transformation of his addressees themselves:27 And you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts (3:3)

Bauckham, ‘James and the Jerusalem Church’, 441–51. The reading of the preceding verse (3:2) is debatable. The best attested reading is  KØ ºc H E K, KªªªæÆÅ K ÆE ŒÆæ ÆØ g“lHm (p46, A, B, C D, et cetera), but the more poorly supported K ÆE ŒÆæ ÆØ u“lyÐ m (‫א‬, 33, 88, 436, 1881, eth) fits the context better. An alteration to H could be explained by assimilation to 7:3, as Ralph P. Martin, 2 Corinthians (Waco: Word Books, 1986), 44, notes. 26 27

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çÆæ  Ø ‹Ø Kb KØ ºc æØ F ØÆŒ ÅŁEÆ ç H, KªªªæÆÅ P ºÆØ Iººa ÆØ Ł F ÇH , PŒ K ºÆd ºØŁÆØ Iºº K ºÆd ŒÆæ ÆØ ÆæŒÆØ.

The statement is hugely important because it reveals the combination of two key passages in Paul’s thought: Jeremiah 31:31–3 and Ezekiel 36:25–7 (in turn paired with Ezekiel 11:19). The former provides the language of the new covenant (explicitly described as unlike the one made with those brought out of Egypt, since that covenant was broken; cf. 31:32) and the imagery of the law being written on the heart; the latter provides the language of the Spirit and the contrast of heart and stone.28 The passages could naturally be brought together by a Jewish reader because they share vocabulary (‘new’29 and ‘law’30), which is in turn connected to the contextual emphasis in both on covenant relationship (‘you/they will be my people, I will be your/their God’ Jer 31:33, Ez 36:28) and the restoration of the land (Jer 31:21–5, Ez 36:28). Further, both passages speak of the internalization of God’s law in the context of a divinely initiated act of restoration, necessitated by the breaking of the old covenant.

Revelation, Knowledge, and the Glory of God Two themes from this textual backdrop will continue to reverberate through the subsequent logic of Paul’s argument, both drawn from Jer 31:34: the noetic reality of the knowledge of God and the democratization of that knowledge.31 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

These textual backgrounds further reinforce our reading of Paul’s evaluation of the old covenant in Galatians: the covenant was broken, not because of its own deficiencies, but because of a human deficiency that is addressed by the Spirit’s role in the new covenant. The old covenant brought death (2 Cor 3:7) because it did not include the key component of the new covenant that would bring life: the full ministry of the Spirit (2 Cor 3:6). In its own way, though, it

28 It should also be noted that the phrase ‘tablets of stone’ is derived from Exodus 31:18, the terminology of which is paralleled and developed in Ex 32:15–16, 19; 34:1, 4, 28–9; Deut 4:13, 5:22, 9:9–11, et cetera. In several cases it is explicitly paired with the word ‘covenant’. 29 Jer 31:31, ‘new covenant’; Ezekiel 36:26, ‘new heart and new spirit’. 30 Jer 31:33; Ez 36:27. 31 While these noetic themes are explicit in Jeremiah, they are also present in symbolic form in Ezekiel. See Dale Launderville, Spirit and Reason: The Embodied Character of Ezekiel’s Symbolic Thinking (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007).

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was glorious; Paul’s contrast is not between good and bad, but between good and better.32 Paul’s treatment of the glory of the old and new covenants in 3:7–18 and on into 4:1–6 develops the noetic theme just noted. The key to his logic is the link between glory and knowledge and the obsolete role of Moses as mediator of the original covenant, as it is described in Exodus 34, the textual basis for Paul’s argument.33 Moses is a glorified figure because he has beheld the glory of God (Exodus 34:29). His role as mediator34 of the covenant involves the communication of that knowledge to Aaron and the people. But mediated knowledge is always imperfect: the glory reflected (cf. 2 Cor 3:18) in Moses’s face, itself susceptible to fading, is veiled, so that there is never a true knowledge of God: But their minds35 were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds (2 Cor 3:14–15).

By contrast, when one turns to the Lord the veil is removed (3:16). Given Paul’s previous statement that it is ‘in Christ’ that the veil is removed, the turning to the Lord must be seen as a Christ-ward action. Yet, Paul immediately specifies that ‘the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom’ (3:17). Much has been written on this statement and whether it constitutes a modalistic identification of the Spirit with Christ.36 Simply put, any such readings of this verse must be rejected as incompatible with the rest of Paul’s writing: as closely identified and interdependent as the Son and the Spirit may be, the distinction between the two is never effaced. More convincing is Dunn’s argument that this statement identifies the Spirit as God, based on an allusion to Exodus 34:34, with a view to emphasizing the full reality of

32 There is a general acknowledgement that Paul employs arguments of a minori ad maius kind here, although we should recognize that these are wrapped up in careful play on detail. 33 It has been suggested that Paul here augments a Jewish Christian midrash on Exodus 34:29–35, classically by Hans Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1924). The term is used slackly, however, as often the case in New Testament studies, and adds little to our understanding, being more driven by source critical motivations than interpretative ones. It is more constructive to recognize the nature of the contrast intended between the covenants and the eschatological framework of this. 34 Or ‘minister’, to parallel the term used of Paul. 35 Paul’s word here is 

ÆÆ. While the phrase as a whole echoes the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in the Exodus account, the shift to speaking of ‘minds’ warrants the language that I use throughout this discussion, that union with Christ has a noetic, and not just epistemic, significance. In other words, it is not simply about how revelation is perceived, but how it is understood and processed. 36 For bibliography and development of this debate, see James D. G. Dunn, ‘2 Corinthians 3:17: The Lord Is the Spirit’, Journal of Theological Studies 21 (1970), 309–20.

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divine–human intimacy spoken of in 2 Corinthians 3:18.37 That reality is one that centres on true knowledge of God, now democratized: it is not simply that Paul and the other apostles serve as mediators with unveiled faces, but ‘we all’ (E b , placed emphatically at the head of the sentence), beholding38 the ‘face of the glory of the Lord, are being transformed from one glory into another, as from the Spirit, the Lord’.39 The noetic or epistemic thrust of Paul’s argument continues in 4:3–8, where the veil image is once again taken up, applied to those ‘who are perishing’ (K  E I ººı Ø). This time, the image of the application of the veil is juxtaposed with the statement that ‘the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God’ (4:4). › Łe  F ÆNH    ı Kçºø a 

ÆÆ H Iø N e c ÆPªÆØ e çøØe  F Pƪªº ı B Å  F æØ F, ‹ KØ NŒg  F Ł F.

Interestingly, although the infinitive purpose clause is generally translated (as in NRSV, above) as ‘to keep them from seeing’, the verb ÆPªÇø actually denotes the act of shining, so that the blinding is not seen as taking place at the point of perception but at the point of revelation. It appears from 2 Corinthians 4:6 that Paul considers this to be a futile act for the god of this age: his attempts to blind people are overcome by the divine word, ‘Let light shine’. Again, in this verse, there is a three-way identification of light, glory, and knowledge.

Christ the Image, The Glory Itself Crucially, here and in 3:18, the glorious face that reveals God is that of Christ, who is the image (NŒ) of God. As tempting as it may be to see Adamic significance in this term, the lack of Adamic material in the context pushes against this, and the narrative logic, which puts believers/ministers into the

Dunn, ‘2 Corinthians 3:17’, 310–14. The participle used for what the ‘we all’ of 3:18 do is ŒÆ æØÇ Ø, from ŒÆ æÇø. This can mean either ‘behold’ or ‘reflect’. The ambiguity may be deliberate, although the perceptive experience of viewing is required as primary by the comparison with the Jews, as argued by Norbert Hugedé, La Métaphore du Miroir dans les Épîtres de S. Paul aux Corinthiens (Neuchâtel: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1957), 17–24, 32. The word IÆŒŒÆºıø fi is the perfect participle of Iƌƺø (uncover, disclose) and is applied to the divine face, again emphasizing the need for revelation to facilitate vision. The passage, in other words, piles up revelatory terminology. While ‘beholding’ is the primary significance of ŒÆ æØÇ Ø, though, the further association with reflection coheres well with the context: true vision of divine glory is transformative. See Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 150–1. 39 This is my own rather stilted translation of 3:18, intended to highlight the mediatorial centrality of Christ, the face of the glory, and the nature of the use of glory language. 37 38

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position of Moses, and Christ into the position of God, requires that actually what we are dealing with is a word that focuses the concept of the divine face. Further, the fact that Christ is described as the one ‘who is’ (‹ KØ) the image of God, rather than the one made ‘according to the image’ (ŒÆ NŒÆ, Gen 1:27, LXX), necessitates a different understanding of Christ and Adam, one that emerges from our discussion of the relationship between ‘glory’ and ‘image’ in Jewish traditions, in Chapter 4. As we noted there, the tendency to see ‘image’ and its synonyms as typically Adamic is mistaken, failing to take into account the glorious status of other patriarchs in ancient Judaism and the care with which the human embodiment of divine glory is spoken. Adam is not the image of God, but is, rather, made ‘according to’ that image. The ‘image’ of God is ‘the Glory’.40 We noted the sensitivity to this distinction in the writings of Irenaeus and Athanasius, in Chapter 2. The question naturally arises as to whether Paul’s language here reflects his Christophanic experience on the Damascus road. A number of scholars have argued that this experience governs Paul’s Christology quite extensively, though their cases are developed in quite different ways, particularly in relation to the influence of the apostle’s Jewish background and the terms in which his ‘conversion’ should be understood.41 In particular, Carey Newman has argued that ‘Paul interpreted his Christophany in the lingua franca of mystical-apocalyptic Judaism’.42 The stages of argument that lie behind his conclusion do not need to be rehearsed here, since they have broadly emerged in our study already, notably in Chapter 4 and Chapter 6. Usefully, Newman highlights that ‘Harvesting the Christophany for a “full-blown” theology of Paul often confuses the (unrecoverable) event with its interpretation and functionally ignores any development in Paul’.43 Newman’s point here is essentially that Paul’s theology represents an interpretation of the Christophany, using language and imagery drawn from the mystical apocalyptic tradition, but explicitly configured in relation to Scripture. Paul’s theology cannot be accounted for simply on the grounds of the Christophany, but requires that

40

See our discussion of NŒ in Chapter 4, where we noted Rowland’s observation that the word occurs as a calque in the targumim for the divine glory. See also Bockmuehl, ‘ “The Form of God” (Phil 2:6)’, esp. 16–17. In the context of an analysis of Philippians 2, Bockmuehl discusses the rabbinic evidence (notably b.Ket 8a) for Jewish reflections on the ‘form’ of God and its relationship to likeness and image. The key is that there are various points of remove of the divine form and the Adamic pattern based upon it; the description of Christ as the ‘image’ of God here, then, is potentially given significantly less divine force than it ought to have by connecting it to Adam. As noted in Chapter 2, New Testament scholars often misunderstand Irenaeus at this point, citing his doctrine of recapitulation, without understanding his thoroughgoing Christocentrism. 41 Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel; Segal, Paul the Convert; Newman, Paul’s GloryChristology. 42 Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 183. 43 Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 183.

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the event is understood and communicated in a wider textual matrix to which it also speaks. This, I would suggest, takes seriously Watson’s observation, noted at the beginning of the chapter, that Paul’s gospel does not emerge from the flow of the events of Israel’s story but actually encapsulates these in the ‘pretemporal counsel of God’ which is now manifest in Christ.44 Yet, it must be stressed that this pretemporal counsel is manifest in an event that has taken place within history, that now gives meaning to its historical backdrop. This observation, I think, is overlooked by Watson, resulting in a kind of Docetism that neglects the human particularity of Jesus that is so important to Paul. The significance of NŒ is to emphasize the place of Christ as covenant mediator in a capacity that could never be realized by Moses: not as the one who reflects glory, but as the one who embodies it. Paul’s unique vision of Christ may underlie this, as Newman and others have suggested, but the covenantal associations of the Christophanic glory mean that his own visionary experience is relativized within the divine economy of the new covenant. Reflection, the kind of glorification experienced by Moses, is now the experience of ‘all’ believers, not just visionaries such as Paul.45 Intimate knowledge of God is therefore democratized. This contrasts sharply with the glorification of worshippers that we saw in the mystical traditions of Judaism in Chapter 4. That glorification was the privilege of the few who attained, through liturgy, meditation or ascesis, access to the divine presence. This, by contrast, is the hallmark of all who live under the new covenant.46

The New Creation and Noetic Transformation The association of glory and knowledge reaches its climax in the ‘new creation’ imagery of 5:17. The intervening passages have spoken about the perceptual or experiential tension that accompanies the revelatory (i.e. apocalyptic) reality: the treasure is in jars of clay (4:7–16), the tabernacles are earthly and tattered (5:1–4), the Spirit is as yet enjoyed only as a ‘deposit’ of what is to come (5:5). These expressions highlight the eschatological tension of a state that is inaugurated, but not yet consummated, with consequences for the ability of believers to perceive the truth. The physical senses are judged inadequate for this task, so that ‘we live by faith, not by sight’ (5:7). This is, essentially, an Watson, ‘Is There a Story in These Texts?’, 232. Such a reading of E b  is demanded by Paul’s logic. While he has begun with a defence of his apostolic credentials, the fact that he is now comparing the covenants themselves requires that here he is speaking of a glorification extending to all who live under this new covenant ‘of the Spirit’. 46 Again, it is worth recognizing that Paul’s logic of glory, reflected in his use of Scripture, points away from any reading of the significance of the mediatorial function of Jesus that is not premised on his essential deity. 44 45

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apocalyptic statement: truth must be revealed because it is still beyond the capacities of the physical senses. In 5:16, this apocalyptic perspective is applied to the evaluation of people: From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. ! E Ie  F F P Æ Y Æ ŒÆa æŒÆ· N ŒÆd KªŒÆ ŒÆa æŒÆ æØ, Iººa F PŒØ ªØŒ .

As so often, translations mask key terms; here, the ‘human’ or ‘wordly’ point of view is, in fact, ‘according to the flesh’. The full force of eschatological significance needs to be recognized in this phrase: the flesh denotes the powerless reality47 that has been exposed by revelation in Christ. Crucially, the latter must now be the touchstone for judgement, requiring the application of faith and not simply the limited resources of fleshly sense. Hence, there follows Paul’s great statement: So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! (5:17) u Y Ø K æØfiH, ŒÆØc ŒØ· a IæåÆEÆ ÆæBºŁ, N f ªª  ŒÆØ·

It should be noted that the first clause is deliberately non-specific (Y Ø) and verbless: ‘if anyone (is) in Christ: new creation’. Without pressing too hard the absence of the verb, this does suggest that while Paul is speaking here of the personal transformation of the individual, that transformation is located within the bigger eschatological reality of the new creation.48 There are, of course, clear allusions to Isaiah 65:17 in the language of new creation, which are reinforced by the second and third clauses in 2 Cor 5:17. Once again, this emerges naturally from the Isaianic background that many have seen to govern this entire section of 2 Corinthians.49 What is striking here is the noetic thrust of Paul’s account of new creation in 2 Cor 5:16–17: in Christ, the 47

Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 62–70, discusses the range of significance attached to ‘flesh’ by Paul, ending with a recognition of this ‘neutral’ sense of powerlessness and vulnerability. 48 This fact is masked by most translations. 49 Gignilliat, Paul and Isaiah’s Servants. More speculatively, granted the apocalyptic context and particularly the significance of Ezekiel 11/36 (and the language of Spirit and glory) to Paul’s reasoning in 2 Corinthians, it is possible that the use of new creation language here also draws upon the imagery of Ezekiel 37, further informed by that of Ezekiel 47. In the first of these passages, the divine Spirit re-vivifies the valley of dry bones, allowing the people to live in communion with the glory of God; in the second, the return of the glory to the temple leads to the rejuvenation of the wilderness to the east, a rejuvenation mediated by the river flowing from the altar. The transformation of God’s people by the Spirit, then, is located in relation to a cosmic transformation that proceeds from the place of sacrifice. This would cohere well with a narrative that involves identification with the Servant of Isaiah 53.

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old having passed and the new having come, reality is understood and evaluated differently. The strongly noetic dimension of Paul’s doctrine of revelatory union is in agreement with what we saw in the Church Fathers, particularly those of the Alexandrian tradition. To the arguments of Russell and Edwards50 that this interest in the transformation of the nous does not reflect the unwitting assimilation of biblical thought to Platonic or Gnostic ideology, we may now add this observation: the Fathers are dealing with a theme that is prominent in Paul and (as we will see) elsewhere in the New Testament.

The Atonement: All Died in One In the context of his great statement of new creation, Paul speaks of God’s means of dealing with sin. Most striking about the wider context of 5:11–21 is its use of participatory grammar to speak of the significance of the death of Jesus: One died for all and therefore all died (5:14) For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (5:21).

It is noteworthy that both occurrences of I Łfi Œø in 5:14 are identical in tense: both are aorist. The use of this tense identifies the two events with each other. For Paul, the death of Jesus on the cross was ‘one for all’ (x  bæ ø) so that ‘all’ are considered to have died in that moment.51 The statement is expanded in the following verse: And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. (5:15).

The pattern here is one we have seen already in Galatians, for there is an inference of co-crucifixion, of the end of one state of existence (living for themselves) and the beginning of a new one (living for him who died). It is noteworthy, too, that the devotion of the lives of those who have been saved in this way is precisely to the one who has died, where elsewhere Paul will speak of resurrection to a life of God-service.52 Whether we adopt the categories of Hurtado or Bauckham,53 this is surely an acknowledgement of the deity of Jesus. 50

Studied in Chapter 2. The issue of who is denoted by ‘all’ will be considered further in our examination of Hofius’s study of the influence of Isaiah 53, pp. 235–6 in this section and in 'The Place of Faith and Decision in Participation', pp. 244–5. 52 In, for example, Romans 6:11. 53 Larry Hurtado (notably in Lord Jesus Christ) has argued in a number of publications that devotion to Christ is the key evidence for an early high Christology, while Richard Bauckham 51

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The idea of a participatory co-crucifixion is grounded here on the representative or vicarious significance of Jesus’s death. The statement of 5:21, that ‘he who knew no sin was made sin for us’, further informs our understanding of Paul’s theology of the cross. The significance of this statement, of course, has been widely discussed, as it is adduced in support of a range of theories of atonement. I would not expect to be able to resolve such debates here, but one or two helpful observations can be made, as these will connect significantly with our discussion. First, the density of Isaianic allusions throughout this section54 suggests that this statement concerning the death of one for all is informed by Isaiah 53. The ‘place-taking’ envisaged is shaped by this text which we have now encountered widely in the New Testament, informed by the covenant narrative of the messianic Servant, which has eschatological, transformational, and forensic dimensions. Second, while the imagery cannot be limited to the notion of the punishment of guilt (a strictly forensic reading), such an element should not be neglected: Paul elsewhere describes the wages of sin as death (Rom 6:23) and this has to colour our reading of the language here.55 If the influence of Isaiah 53 is acknowledged, then this dimension is reinforced, since the legal or forensic (rather than cultic) significance of ‫שׁם‬ ָ ‫( אָ‬usually translated as ‘guiltoffering’ in Is 53:10), is now widely recognized.56 The fact, though, that these references to the representational nature of Jesus occur in the context of Paul’s rich statements of transformation and new creation mean that we cannot see them as merely speaking of a penal substitutionary act, nor the ‘righteousness of God’ spoken of in 5:21 as simply the imputation of status (though, again, it must include this).57 Rather, the death of Jesus is key to dealing with the problem of sin and, as we have seen in our discussion of Galatians, that problem is understood by Paul to be an anthropological one, the basic incapacity of humanity to live other than in sin, a problem that incurs guilt, but is not limited to it. In his study of the influence of Isaiah 53 upon Paul, Hofius distinguishes between ‘exclusive’ and ‘inclusive’ understandings of substitution (or (God Crucified) has argued that the presentation of Jesus in terms of divine identity constitutes such evidence. 54 Highlighted by Otfried Hofius, in his Paulusstudien (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989), 1–14. 55 The forensic dimension is recognized by Gignilliat, Paul and Isaiah’s Servants, 93–7. 56 See the various essays in B. Janowski and P. Stuhlmacher (eds), The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), especially Hermann Spieckermann, ‘The Conception and Prehistory of the Idea of Vicarious Suffering in the Old Testament’, 1–15. 57 Stanley Porter rightly notes the covenantal significance of ØŒ- words. Stanley E. Porter, ‘The Concept of Covenant in Paul’, in Stanley E. Porter and Jacqueline C. R. De Roo (eds), The Concept of the Covenant in the Second Temple Period (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 269–85. Given this, some notion of imputed status is unavoidable in such language.

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‘place-taking’)58 and his discussion is helpful in pulling the strands of this section together. In an ‘exclusive’ account, the substitute takes the place of others in such a way that they are excluded from involvement in his activity: here, the death of the Son in the place of the guilty means that they need not die. In an ‘inclusive’ account, the substitute takes the place of others in a representative sense that incorporates them into the activity as persons: here, the Son’s death includes the guilty. Hofius argues that Paul’s account of atonement is inclusive, and that, while Isaiah 53 informs his language and imagery, this inclusive dimension is not derived from the prophet, whose imagery is rather more exclusive, but rather informs (and transforms) Paul’s interpretation. A key observation that Hofius makes is that in Isaiah 53, God works salvation by means of the Servant, while in Paul, it is ‘in Christ’ that God reconciles the world to himself (2 Cor 5:19).59 This location of the work of God in the very being of Christ, for Hofius, precisely reflects the divine identity of Jesus and this is what allows his death to operate transformatively.60 This reading is supported by what we have seen throughout our study of Paul, both in this and previous chapters. Yet, Hofius’s account surely requires us to make further comment on the ontology of the incarnation. For Paul, as we have seen in our study of Galatians, the humanity that is united to God in the incarnation is under the conditions of cursedness, and the death of Jesus is the final outworking of that curse. Covenant, as the ordering framework of divine–human relations, renders the problem of sin as the curse of exile from the life-giving presence of God: hence, sin’s wages are death, not just guilt. While Paul resists any notion of sinfulness on the part of Christ (2 Cor 5:21), thereby likening him to the Servant and differentiating him from Moses,61 his account of ‘place-taking’ is bigger than one simply of the innocent taking the punishment of the guilty: it is, rather, of the Son taking the total condition of cursedness onto himself. Those whose curse has been borne for them in full know more than just forgiveness or acquittal: they know reconciliation with God (2 Cor 5:18–19), a new covenantal righteousness and the life that accompanies it. Recognizing the covenantal dimension allows us to see the complex of moral, legal, cultic, and ontological elements in the ‘great exchange’ of Christ and his people. Arguably, this recognition also lay behind the Reformed accounts of salvation, studied in Chapter 3; the point is neglected by those who caricature Reformed soteriology as lacking a proper account of participation.

58 Otfried Hofius, ‘The Fourth Servant Song in the New Testament Letters’, in Janowski and Stuhlmacher (eds), The Suffering Servant, 163–88. 59 Hofius, ‘The Fourth Servant Song’, 174. 60 Hofius, ‘The Fourth Servant Song’, 173. 61 Isaiah 53:9. Compare the complicity of Moses with the sin of the people in Deut 32:51.

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ROMANS Given what we have seen in Galatians and in 2 Corinthians concerning the place of the Law in Paul’s thought—namely, that it is a preparatory measure for the eschatological reality of adoption in Christ—the tension often seen between the forensic material of Romans 1–5 and the participatory/mystical material of Romans 6–8 may be weaker than has often been thought.62 Paul’s thought is fundamentally eschatological, but this does not mean that the experience of Israel under the law was marginal to the reality now disclosed in Christ: rather, the adoption enjoyed by Israel under the covenants (Rom 9:4) anticipated the fullness of what Paul now describes in Romans 8. The legal dimension of their experience of covenant-fellowship with God informs the Pauline account of transformative fellowship in Romans 6–8.

Law and Theological Anthropology It has been suggested that the key to understanding how the forensic and transformative parts of Romans relate to one another lies in the theological anthropology that underpins them.63 Paul describes the powerlessness of the state of flesh, as it relates to law and sin, and the necessity of the eschatological transformation obtained in Christ. The powerlessness of the flesh means that humanity is incapable of living in accordance with the will of God and is always pulled by sin’s gravity away from God towards idolatry. The story of Israel thus epitomizes the human plight. In Romans 5, Paul, quite strikingly, recognizes that the underlying problem of ‘sin-leading-to-death’ does not proceed from the failure to obey Torah, since the problem existed prior to the revealing of the Torah to Moses (5:12–14). The attempt to define salvation in terms of Torah is doomed to failure, since the condition of lost-ness (and, as with Abraham, of saved-ness) predated Moses. This passage is key to those who have seen an Adam Christology underlying Paul’s theology more broadly. As I have argued in Chapter 5, such approaches tend to project onto various parts of the Pauline corpus an Adam myth that is not necessarily demonstrable in Second Temple Judaism; in the absence of such contextual evidence, many of the Adamic echoes that are heard are questionable at least. Consequently, I think we must regard this passage as the first point in Romans where Adam is clearly alluded to, and interpret it 62 Campbell’s attempt to effectively remove the forensic material in Romans 1–3 from the equation by arguing that it is Paul’s rhetorical quotation of an opponent has been widely challenged. See Macaskill, ‘Review Article: The Deliverance of God’. 63 Laato and Grindheim, ‘Paul’s Anthropological Considerations: Two Problems’; T. Laato, ‘ “God’s Righteousness”—Once Again’, 40–73.

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accordingly. As such, the point of the Adam reference is to locate the problem of sin elsewhere than in the failure to obey Torah. The significance of Adam, then, is not as a symbol of lost glory—it is noteworthy that glory language does not occur in this chapter and that the contrast is rather between Adamic death and eternal life (5:17, 21)—but as the one whose action brought about a set of conditions that would reign over those who followed him. It is in this sense that he is a ‘pattern’ or ‘type’ ( ) of the one to come: For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous (5:19).

It is worth noting, in connection with this, the significance of the material in Romans 7 and the later material in Romans 9–11 (concerning the law and the status of Israel respectively) to the unfolding of Paul’s argument. As noted in Chapter 5, some have seen the account of the struggle with sin in 7:7–25 as an extended reflection on the temptation of Adam. In addition to the reasons already noted that ought to cause us to be cautious of such an approach, we may also note the absence of any mention of Adam and, crucially, may note the fact that the struggle is set specifically in relation to the law and its commandments (7:7–8). This contrasts with the Adamic material in Romans 5. In fact, the point of the account is, at least in part, to defend the goodness of the law and to demonstrate that the problem of the law lies not in the law itself but in the weakness of the flesh. It is, in other words, another window onto Paul’s anthropology—his evaluation of the human condition as ‘the body of death’—and the extent to which this underpins his soteriology. If there is an Adamic echo, it is the remote one of the origins of the sinful condition, not the immediate one seen by Dunn and others.

The Transformational Narrative: Death, Resurrection, Sonship, and Spirit In Romans 6, we encounter parallel ideas to those noted previously in our study of Galatians and 2 Corinthians: those who have been baptized into Jesus have shared in his death and resurrection (6:3–4), so that they have passed by death from the ownership and dominion of sin (6:6–12) and have been raised into the service of God (6:4,10,13,22). This death and resurrection pattern is restated throughout Romans 6 and 7 with some variation: ‘we’ (i.e. those baptized, 6:3) have died to the law (7:4,6) and to the flesh (7:5–6), we live for God (6:10), in the new way of the Spirit (7:6), as slaves to obedience (6:16) and righteousness (6:18). The full riches of this transformation will be further outlined in Romans 8, but even at this point we can note the similarity of the imagery to that encountered in Galatians and 2 Corinthians.

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The rich vein of material in Romans 8 represents one of the great accounts of salvation in Paul. It is noteworthy that the opening K æØfiH statement, qualifying as it does the pronominal article  E (‘those’) must be taken as having a locative sense,64 so that ‘in Christ’ effectively appears to denote the entirety of eschatological reality within which the saved exist. That reality is, as we may now expect, also characterized by the presence and work of the Spirit: ‘the law of the Spirit of life’ sets Paul free from the ‘law of sin and death’ (8:2). The basic Pauline contrast between the powerless flesh, under the superintendence of law, and the empowered life of the Spirit emerges once again in 8:3 and, interestingly, becomes focused in subsequent verses on the life of the mind, on the question of whether the mind is hostile to God or not (8:5–8). The word used is çæÅÆ, which is often more oriented towards attitudes than cognitive function,65 but it is striking that Paul again links Spirit-realized existence in Christ with the realm of thinking and understanding. This theme is taken up later, too, in Romans 12:2, where Paul urges transformation ‘by the renewing of your minds’. For Paul, this introduces a fundamental distinction between people: anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Christ (8:9). Indeed, the contrast developed in this verse is between those ‘in the Spirit’ (K ÆØ) and those ‘in the flesh’ (K ÆæŒd), paralleling the K æØfiH language and suggesting locative descriptions that are being used to denote the reality in which one participates, fleshly or spiritual. Interestingly, Paul’s development of this distinction is made relative to the inaugurated, but not consummated, stage of the eschatological reality: If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you. (8:10–11)

I will return to this point in ‘The Later “Pauline” Texts’ (p. 248), in relation to the Pauline concept of the Spirit as ‘deposit’. It is also striking that Paul’s development of the idea of the Spirit empowered life portrays the key agency in the believer as being that of the Spirit, matching what we saw in Galatians 5: the overcoming of the weakness of the flesh is ‘by the Spirit’ (ÆØ, 8:13), because those ‘led by the Spirit of God’ (ÆØ Ł F ¼ª ÆØ) are ‘sons of God’ (8:14). This last statement is specified in the following verse to describe the reality of adoption, with the C. Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 116. Campbell does not use the term ‘locative’ at this point, in order to avoid any truncation of the concept. Instead, he speaks of the ‘realm’ that the believer is now understood to occupy. The concept is locative, then, but the location encapsulates all salvation. 65 The standard lexical entries emphasize the volitional element (note, too, the use of the cognate verb in Phil 2:5), but as emerging from (not as distinct from) proper thinking. 64

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Spirit actually described as FÆ ıƒ ŁÆ. The subsequent verses are a key description of the nature of the Spirit’s ministry in believers. By the Spirit, they cry ‘Abba Father’ (8:15), an action that parallels that of the Spirit himself in Galatians 4:6. This manifestation of the Spirit’s agency and activity in the volitional activity of the believer is further described in 8:16, where ‘that very Spirit bears witness together with our spirit that we are children of God’ (ÆPee FÆ ıÆæıæE fiH ÆØ H ‹Ø Kb ŒÆ Ł F). This distinctive partnership of the Holy Spirit with the human requires some reflection. While to be led by the Spirit (8:14) may imply a passive state, ıÆæıæE (the first of many ı-compound verbs occurring from 8:16 to the end of the chapter66) implies co-agency. Clearly, the fact that the Spirit ‘leads’ ascribes to him a primary role, but the human partner is also identified as the acting subject of the verbs, through the ı- prefix. In his peerless study of the Holy Spirit in Paul, Fee understands this to be the ‘S/spiritual’ reality of the life of the believer, by which he means that in some instances both the Holy Spirit and the human spirit are identified and understood as subjects of a single verb.67 The connection between this and Calvin’s understanding of the synergy between human activity and the work of the Spirit is striking.68 The use of ı- compounds is not confined to the relationship of the believer and the Spirit, however. It also connects the believer to Christ in the very next verse (8:17): ‘since we suffer together with him in order that we will be glorified together with him’ (Yæ ıå  ¥ Æ ŒÆd ı ÆŁH). This particular statement of co-experience in 8:17 is an outworking of adoption, of sharing in the inheritance with Christ. For Paul to be adopted into God’s family is to be led in shared action by the Spirit, through the reorientation of the mind, which involves co-experience with Christ. Given this, it is surely noteworthy that in this chapter, in the context of this sudden density of ı- verbs, Paul shifts from designating believers as ‘sons of God’ to ‘children (ŒÆ) of God’. While we should be cautious of overpressing this, given the occurrence of ıƒ Ø in 8:14 and 19, it suggests a reality that surpasses the bare legal concept of adoption and emphasizes instead familial intimacy and possibly even familial likeness. This is, of course, closely tied to the Spirit’s work of conforming us to Christ. Now that Paul’s emphasis is on that transformational reality, his vocabulary shifts accordingly.69

66

Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 562. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 24–26 and, specifically on 1 Cor 14:14, 229. 68 See our discussion in Chapter 3 and, for a more extensive discussion, Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift, in toto, who examines this in relation to Calvin’s view of prayer. 69 This is also the terminology employed in John 1:12. The concepts of adoption/sonship in the two authors are different, but perhaps not to the degree sometimes assumed. Tim Trumper, ‘A Fresh Exposition of Adoption. I, an Outline’, Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology, 23 (2005), 60–80, differentiates sharply between the Pauline ‘model’ of adoption and the Johannine 67

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As the following verses make clear, the eschatological tension is never far from Paul’s mind. The glory spoken of in 8:17 is clearly still to be revealed, contrasted with the sufferings of the time that is present (a ÆŁ ÆÆ  F F ŒÆØæ F æe c ºº ıÆ Æ I ŒÆºıçŁBÆØ N A, 8:18). The cosmic dimensions of the new apocalyptic reality in Christ are made contingent to the revelation of adoption (8:19), which itself is described in a way that reflects the eschatological tension: we have the ‘firstfruits’ of the Spirit, but, like the creation, groan as we await the redemption of our bodies, which is the true realization of our adoption (8:23). Importantly, Paul resists any fully realized eschatology (8:24–5), while maintaining the reality of the ministry of the Spirit to those still in the weakness of the flesh. Again, he connects the activity of believers to the agency of the Spirit (note the use of Çø, of believers, in 8:23 and the cognate ƪ of the Spirit’s intercession in 8:26). Hence, too, the place of faith in the subjective experience of the believer is emphasized. In the light of the reality of the ministry of the Spirit and of the union with Christ that it actualizes, the struggles involved in the eschatological tension are put in perspective in 8:31–9, where the impossibility of this union being dissolved or ruptured by any agent is made clear. Interestingly, in the context of this great passage, Paul deploys another verb of which believers are subject: ‘in all these things we more than conquer (æØŒH) through him who loved us’ (8:37, my translation). The verb is noteworthy for the way in which the victory, which in context must surely be seen as Christ’s own, is ascribed to the agency of believers, indicating again the actualizing of his narrative in them through their activity. Arguably, the key to this logic lies in 8:28–30: We know that all things work70 together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. ˇY Æ b ‹Ø  E IªÆHØ e Łe Æ ıæªE 71 N IªÆŁ,  E ŒÆa æŁØ ŒºÅ E sØ. ‹Ø o æ ªø, ŒÆd æ æØ ıæç ı B NŒ   F ıƒ F ÆP F, N e r ÆØ ÆPe æø Œ  K  ºº E I ºç E· o b æ æØ,   ı ŒÆd KŒº· ŒÆd o KŒº,   ı ŒÆd K ØŒÆø· o b K ØŒÆø,   ı ŒÆd K Æ.

‘metaphor’. His distinction, though, is intended to highlight the different strategies of the writers, without rupturing the underlying theological unity. 70 As with most of my quotations, this is taken from NRSV. See note 71, however, for Fee’s understanding of the relationship of this verb to the agency of the Spirit: ‘he works all things . . . ’. 71 This verb is singular, indicative, and active. Note Fee’s argument (God’s Empowering Presence, 587–90) that the implied subject should be taken to be the Spirit himself.

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Here, the divine purpose is presented as reaching its goal in the conforming (denoted by the adjective  æç ) of the ‘called’ to the likeness (B NŒ ) of his Son. The imagery of adoption, within which Christ is presented as ‘the firstborn of many brothers’, is linked to the eternal purposes of God, described in terms of election. The occurrence of election imagery (leading into the use of the term ‘elect’ in 8:33) is important: married as it is to the use of the verb ØŒÆØø, it suggests that we are in covenant territory. The question of the ordering of the divine actions within this covenant framework is less important to us than two noteworthy and mutually informative points. The first is the equating of glorification with ‘con-formation’ to the image of the Son. The location of K Æ at the culmination of the divine activity towards the predestined in 8:30 sets it in parallel with the goal of predestination, conformity to Christ in the divine family, in the previous verse. To be glorified, then, is to be conformed to the likeness of Christ as an adopted son. The patristic connection of deification to filiation is sensitive to this connection. The second point emerges as a question from this: what is meant by the term NŒ in 8:29 and how does this relate to the concept of glorification? The term, of course, has already been encountered in our study of 2 Cor 3:18 and 4:4. The first of these is particularly interesting, for it also employs morph language, here Æ æç ŁÆ, linked to likeness and glory: ‘we are being transformed into his likeness from glory to glory’. As we have seen, contextually this is not an Adamic statement but, rather, one based on Sinai and on the mystical traditions of the face of God. Further, the glorification of believers there is not a matter of restoration of native qualities, but rather the reflection of another’s glory, in the presence of which believers exist. Glory, then, is a matter of divine presence. The description of Christ as the ‘image’ of God does not equate him with Adam, but rather with the one after whom Adam was patterned. Reading Romans in the light of 2 Corinthians, as we must, this allows us to see the true Adamic significance of 8:30 and to recognize that Adam does not dictate the terms of Christ’s glory: the opposite is true, both for the protoplast and for the redeemed. To be conformed to the image of the Son is to be (re)made ŒÆ NŒÆ (Gen 1:27). An important suggestion can be made here. Given the connection between adoption/sonship imagery and Sinai/covenant imagery in this chapter as well as the proximity of adoption imagery and the language of justification, notably in 8:29–30, it is valid to closely identify the concepts of adoption and justification in Paul’s theology.72 Both have legal and declarative aspects that in key regards define them as concepts and that describe or delineate those who have This point is also made by Vanhoozer, ‘Wrighting the Wrongs of the Reformation?’ and J. T. Billings, Union with Christ: Reframing Theology and Ministry for the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker 2011), 27, n.28. 72

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been united to Christ. This legal dimension, though, merely gives definition to a relational truth of divine presence which is unavoidably transformative and is realized both vertically and horizontally in the communion of God and his people. A proper attention to the place of adoption in Paul’s theology, and its relationship to justification and covenant, significantly addresses the points of tension in New Perspective readings of Paul,73 and allows Käsemann’s concept of righteousness as ‘saving power’ to be properly embedded into Paul’s covenantal structures. It also allows imputation of status to be better appreciated as a relational concept. What might this mean for ‘justification by faith’?

The Place of Israel Space will not allow a full exploration of the rest of Romans, particularly 9–11. It is worth noting several points, however, that tie these chapters quite clearly to the logic explored above. First, there is an affirmation of Israel in terms of her place in relation to the covenants, the law (subordinated to covenant) and the temple (9:4–5). Even here, what is stressed is the centrality of election (9:6–13), by which Israel is adopted (9:4), and of the promise (9:4,8). Both of these are given meaning by their eschatological telos, Christ (10:4), and must be ‘pursued’ (9:31–32) by faith. Once again, the rejection of Jesus is described by recourse to a conflated reading of the ‘stone’ passages in Isaiah 8:14 and 28:16. This is also oriented towards noetic issues: the gospel is a scandal, the divinely laid stone causes men to stumble because they cannot understand it. It is not by coincidence that Paul moves from this quotation to his statement that ‘their zeal is not based on knowledge’ (10:2). The theme is taken up again in 11:7–11, where the role of God as the one causing this ‘hardening’ is developed, echoing the Exodus account.74 Retrospectively—that is, from the standpoint of the revelation made in Christ—Paul is able to see the failure of Israel in terms of a resistance to what has been revealed to them, with their acknowledgement of Moses’s laws (10:5) neglecting the evidence of other Scriptures, quoted throughout 10:5–17, that speak of the centrality and necessity of faith to justification, set over against works. The core of such faith is an acknowledgement of the powerlessness of the flesh and the necessity of the divine gift, centred on the self-disclosure of God (10:20). Paul’s evaluation of

73 Such criticisms are diffusely found in Part One of Campbell, The Deliverance of God. These can be distinguished from the kinds of criticism developed in C. H. Talbert, J. A. Whitlark, and A. E. Arterbury (eds), Getting ‘Saved’: The Whole Story of Salvation in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2011), which (in contrast to Campbell’s study), are more broadly in defence of justification by faith. The latter is an important collection, drawing on key recent research into Judaism and on Pauline anthropology. 74 Exodus 8:15,32, 9:12, 10:27, 11:10.

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Israel, then, is both christological and anthropological, the specific points of negativity emerging from the significance of the revelation that is in Christ. Second, the core image of the redeemed people of God that operates in 11:11–24 is that of the olive tree. The image is used of Israel at several points in the Old Testament (Jer 11:16–17, Ps 52:8, Hos 14:6), sometimes linked to the themes of restoration and to a remnant theology (Is 17:6). What is most important here is the way in which Gentiles are described as having been ‘ingrafted’ into this tree (KªŒæÇø 11:17). This language affirms Israel within the divine purpose—it is, after all, the native tree—and significantly parallels the image encountered in Acts 15 of the place of the Gentiles in the eschatological temple; they are incorporated into the people of God without losing their own identity as Gentiles or compromising the identity of Israel.

THREE FURTHER THEMES IN PAUL Having examined some of the key texts in Paul, and seen a cluster of ideas emerging, we may now turn to examine some issues more broadly before we consider the evidence of the later (or deutero-) Pauline texts. These issues have already begun to emerge, but it is important to treat them in a little more depth.

The Place of Faith and Decision in Participation Throughout the discussion in the previous section, I have spoken of the reality in Christ being experienced by ‘the believer’. Such an emphasis does not simply arise from the prominence of ‘faith’ as a theme in Paul’s theology, set over against works. The extensive scholarly discussions of Ø æØ F and ØŒÆØ Å Ł F have highlighted the danger of anachronism that lurks around all treatments of this tension, the risk of construing ‘faith’ as another kind of work and of failing to understand the role of the fidelity of Christ in salvation. Nor does it simply arise from the various points where Paul uses the verb Øø in ways that require this to be an activity of a follower of Christ, rather than as an activity of Christ himself since, again, these are prone to be misunderstood. Rather, it arises from the combination of these factors with our reading of Paul’s christological and eschatological doctrines and by the way in which various images and verbs relate to one another. The fact is that Paul speaks of inclusion in or incorporation into Christ in ways that indicate a specific group: the ‘any’ who are in Christ (2 Cor 5:18) are distinguished from those who are not. It seems to me to be difficult to escape the strong conclusion that Paul sees entry into the eschatological reality that is

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constituted by being ‘in Christ’ as involving a particular transition from one state of being to another. As Dunn writes: Paul had no concept of the unconscious or unintentional Christian. He did not think of all men and women as willy-nilly ‘in Christ’, whether they want to be or not, whether they know it or not. The given of humankind’s condition is membership of Adam, sharing in Adam’s humanity, under the power of sin, on the way to death. But membership of the last Adam, sharing in Christ’s resurrected humanity, beyond the power of sin and death, was not a given in the same way. It had to come about.75

Dunn, I think rightly, notes the density of aorists in Paul’s argumentation, by which he points his audience back to their own beginnings, to their ‘decisive hearing’.76 Significantly, members of this audience are the subjects of certain verbs and are described using active participles: they believe (Ø ıØ) in the resurrection (Rom 4:24), and this marks them off as those to whom righteousness will be reckoned, for the gospel is ‘the power of God for salvation to all who believe’ (Rom 1:16). Other verbs indicate the activity of this, even when drawing upon different images of appropriation: those who have been baptized into Christ have ‘clothed themselves in Christ’ (Gal 3:27). Clearly, for Paul, the role of Ø in the acknowledgement of the powerlessness of the flesh and the reliance upon the divine gift, revealed in Christ, makes ‘faith’ key to this transition: by faith, apocalyptic realities are apprehended and acknowledged. Hence, ‘the Spirit is received by the hearing of faith’.77

Suffering, Resurrection, and the Believer Before we turn to consider, in broad terms, the later (or possibly ‘deutero’-) Pauline texts, one last question must be considered in relation to the demonstrably Pauline material: how does union with Christ relate to the themes of Christian suffering and death? We have seen already the fact that Paul considers his transformed identity to proceed from a participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus, but this identification is not a physical one. Yet, elsewhere, Paul speaks of the physical experience of suffering in terms that suggest that, in certain cases at least, he understands such corporeal suffering to constitute a participation in the suffering of Jesus.

75

Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 323–4. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 324. 77 Set in the wider context of Paul’s thought, then, the issue of ‘faith’ in relation to the activity of the believer or Christ, i.e. the significance of the genitive construction Ø æØ F, prevents us from limiting ‘faith’ to that which is exercised by Jesus. It must be regarded as a Godward orientation towards revealed truth on the part of the believer. 76

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This theme arises notably in the early chapters of 2 Corinthians, where Paul states of his own experience of suffering that, ‘just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ (2 Cor 1:5)’. The genitive here could indicate simply that the sufferings have been experienced on account of following Christ, but the parallel statement about consolation suggests that both have come as part of a participatory union, introduced as it is by oø followed immediately by Øa  F æØ F. The arrangement suggests that both suffering and consolation have come ‘through Christ’. Once this is recognized, what is particularly interesting is the fact that this suffering is understood to be ‘for’ (æ) the Corinthians. Thus, Paul’s perception of his sufferings is that, as with those of Christ, they have purpose ‘for’ others. Specifically, that purpose is ‘consolation and salvation’. The fact that Paul can speak of his own sufferings as bringing salvation (øÅæÆ) is remarkable in the light of his Christocentric theology and is intelligible only in terms of a theology of participation, in which his sufferings are an instantiation of the salvific reality of the cross. There appears, too, to be an interesting parallel with his theology of participation in the cross. Those who are baptized into Christ share in his death and resurrection: similarly, those who share in his cruciform sufferings share in the consolation that attends resurrection. Paul’s own experience of cosuffering and co-consolation is ministered in turn to the Corinthians, who ‘endure the same sufferings that we endure’ (2 Cor 1:6 ÆPH ÆŁÅø z ŒÆd E å ). It is unlikely that Paul speaks indiscriminately of suffering here; almost certainly, the sufferings of which he speaks are those experienced as a consequence of his faith; the parallel with Galatians 6:17 (‘From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body’) would seem to further support this. An interesting development, though, is found in Philippians 3:10: I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death.

This would seem to indicate that, while Paul understands himself to have already participated in the death and resurrection of Jesus and to have been physically affected by that participation, a further level of co-experience is still possible. In fact, quite specifically, Paul’s own bodily death is seen as a key transition into a new experience of ‘Christ and the power of his resurrection’, one that may not be different in nature from that which he experiences already, but is different in level. Hence, ‘to live is Christ and to die is gain’ (1:21). But even this has a further eschatological horizon for Paul: For our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that

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it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself (3:20–1).

The language here is interesting in that it once again uses the language of conformity to Christ, but here is specifically to ‘the body of his glory’. Read against the background of what we have seen elsewhere in this chapter, a simply Adamic approach to this language is inadequate: the ‘body of his glory’ identifies Jesus with the divine form,78 so that if there are Adamic allusions, they are again to the fact that Adam was made ‘according to the image’ (i.e. he was patterned on Christ) and that such patterning is restored in believers. But the consummation of this conforming work will not be realized until the parousia, for it is when the expected Saviour from heaven arrives that this transformation will take place. This particular element of expectation in Philippians 3:20–1 is paralleled in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–17, where the parousia is linked to bodily resurrection. It is also, of course, linked to 1 Corinthians 15, where the resurrection body is discussed in detail and its temporal place in relation to the parousia specified (15:23). As noted in Chapter 4, 1 Corinthians 15 is one of the places where we encounter an Adam–Christ association in Paul, but the links/ contrasts are very specific: Adam brings death, Christ brings life (1 Cor 15:22); Adam is earthly, Christ is heavenly (1 Cor 15:45–9), while we ‘have borne’ the likeness of the earthly man, we ‘will bear’ the likeness of the heavenly. Within this set of antitheses, there is no mention of a lost Adamic glory, despite the fact that the resurrection body is described as glorious (1 Cor 15:42–3). In fact, the lead-up to this statement speaks of different kinds of flesh (15:39) and different kinds of glory (15:40–1), allowing Paul to simultaneously reject a non-corporeal notion of resurrection and stress the ‘S/spiritual’ (ıÆØŒ) nature of the resurrection body. What is noteworthy is that the contrast portrays Adam and Christ as belonging to different realities. What is specifically transmitted by Adam is death; the glory that comes from Christ is a heavenly gift. The fact that glory is linked to the ıÆØŒ character of the resurrection body is noteworthy. In the context of this letter in particular, but quite unsurprisingly in the light of all that we have seen in Paul so far, this adjective has to refer to the relationship of the body to the Holy Spirit. It will be, in the truest sense, a Spiritual body, one fully characterized by the presence of divine life. This full realization of salvation, though, is one that requires death and parousia. ‘The trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed’ (15:52). Paul’s eschatology is inaugurated, but it is not fully realized.

78

Bockmuehl, ‘ “The Form of God” (Phil 2:6)’.

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THE LATER ‘ PAULINE ’ TEXTS In Chapter 6, we began by devoting a good deal of space to an examination of Ephesians, before returning to a briefer examination of the earlier and indisputably Pauline material. Here, we do the opposite. The reason for this is simple: while there are several interesting points that may be observed, these arising out of our discussion of Paul’s theology of union, the doctrine developed in Ephesians and Colossians is consistent with that developed in the earlier Pauline texts, and we have already examined it widely in Chapter 6. Many of the discussions of these epistles have argued that they are marked by a realized eschatology that differs significantly from the eschatology of the letters clearly written by Paul. Everything has been placed under the feet of Christ (Eph 1:22), who fills everything in every way (1:23) and believers have already been raised and seated with him in the heavenlies (2:6). This is often seen as a significantly more realized eschatology than that of Paul and, indeed, is one of the arguments adduced for the deutero-Pauline authorship of these epistles. Yet, Ephesians and Colossians are shot through with the same imagery and language, with the same eschatological connotations, as the rest of the Pauline corpus. We have noted already, in Chapter 5, the significance of the temple imagery in these epistles. This is developed in connection with an emphasis on the Spirit as an eschatological gift, but one that is presently experienced as the ‘deposit of our inheritance’ (IææÆg B ŒºÅæ  Æ H, Eph 1:14). The Spirit is a reality, then, but one not yet experienced to the fullest extent; in him, believers have been ‘sealed for the day of redemption’ (K fiz KçæƪŁÅ N æÆ I ºıæø). The present time continues to be evil (5:16, cf. 6:12–13) and the struggle with sin will continue until salvation is known in full, in the ages that are to come (K  E ÆNHØ  E Kæå  Ø 2:7). It is clear, then, that while there may be less of an emphasis on the future in Ephesians and Colossians, it is a mistake to overemphasize the realized character of the eschatology in them. It is interesting that, in these letters, the association between the Spirit’s presence, effecting union with Christ and noetic transformation, and the identification of the church as the eschatological temple is so clearly developed. This is hardly a point of discontinuity from the theology seen in Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Romans, but what is undeveloped there comes into sharp focus here. The significance of this is that it highlights that we are not dealing with two different concepts or categories of participation, so that the temple imagery and ‘in Christ’ language may be ascribed to different threads in Pauline theology; rather, the temple imagery and the grammars of participation are, ultimately, about the same thing—the presence of God, in Christ, by the Spirit, as a reality in the experience of the church that transforms its perceptions of reality and its conduct in the world.

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CONCLUSIONS A coherent theology emerges from the study of Paul’s writing, then. While the phrase ‘in Christ’ is deployed in a range of ways, it clearly has a locative sense at many strategic points, where it demarcates a sphere (or state) of existence that is eschatological and that has come to realization in, and through, the incarnational narrative of the crucified and risen Son, sent by the Father. This eschatological state is pneumatological, with the Spirit actualizing the significance of this narrative in believers, transforming their existence through coagency with their own spirit and conforming them to the likeness of the crucified and risen Son. To be ‘in Christ’, then, is also to be ‘in the Spirit’ and to be indwelled by the Spirit is to be indwelled by Christ. But despite the co-incidence of grammars at certain points, the two are not equated and a distinctive narrative is associated with each: the Spirit is not crucified, the Spirit is not raised. The Spirit is not the Son. Hence, as Fee notes, however reluctant we might be to speak of Paul’s theology as Trinitarian, we must recognize that the later development of Trinitarian theology was precisely required by Paul’s logic. The church, in formulating precise categories for the Trinity and its inner relations, was sensitive to the economic distinctions made between each person. Four more specific conclusions may now be drawn. First, throughout Paul’s writing, covenantal imagery is employed, to an extent that has been overlooked and neglected by many scholars, in large part because of the failure to grapple with the evidence of Second Temple Judaism, as discussed in Chapter 4. Paul’s narrative is governed by the relationship between the old and new covenants, particularly the role of the Spirit as configured in relation to each. Arguably, too, the identification between Jesus and his people—their corporate identity in him and his story—is made possible by a covenantal concept of representation, which is particularly developed with reference to the figure of the Isaianic Servant. Second, in recounting the participatory elements of the New Covenant, Paul uses language drawn from the mystical tradition, in part because of the extent to which that language pervaded the Judaism of the period, where it was associated with themes of divine presence, and in part because of his own encounter with the glory of Christ on the Damascus road. His emphasis on the reality of the Spirit as a basic component of Christian experience, though, means that he uses such language in ways that move beyond ecstatic or visionary limitation. His own emphasis, notably in 1 Corinthians, that particular manifestations or experiences of the Spirit cannot be privileged over others, supports this and the way in which the language is linked to noetic transformation develops this further: his own experience of visio Christi is a specific illustrative species of the cognitive transformation experienced by all believers in their union with Christ.

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Third, it is important to note the implications of this last point for the evaluation of patristic accounts of participation and deification. The prominence of the noetic dimension in these cannot be discounted as the unwitting adoption of Platonism and the hybridization of truly biblical doctrines with Greek thought. The uptake of Platonic elements in the early Eastern tradition was, as we have seen, undertaken with some care. The emphasis on the mind in these writers, far from being indicative of an underlying Platonism, is in continuity with Pauline teaching and, as we will see, with that of other New Testament writers, notably John. Fourth, it is clear that Paul considers the activity of faith, including the decision to acknowledge the truth of Jesus, to be vital to salvation. This proceeds fundamentally from the apocalyptic character of his gospel. Only by trusting in what has been revealed can one experience the transformation of union with Christ.

10 Further Participatory Elements in the Johannine Literature The Johannine literature contains some of the richest participatory language found in the New Testament. It is in the Fourth Gospel that we encounter Jesus describing the unity of the church in terms drawn from his own relationship with the Father (arguably reflecting incipient Trinitarianism) and also in terms of glorification: ‘The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me’ (17:22). Here, too, we encounter a developed pneumatology that describes the Spirit in unequivocally personal terms (14:15–27, 16:7–15), explicating his relationship to Jesus and the church. And, as we have seen in Chapter 7, all of this is developed in the context of John’s temple Christology. It is small wonder, then, that the Fourth Gospel, read in conjunction with the Johannine Epistles, has been so influential on the construction and development of Trinitarian theology and vocabulary, as well as on the development of theologies of deification. The passages noted above all fall within the range of John 14–17. The content of these chapters, though, has to be approached within the context of the gospel as a whole, and particularly in terms of the soteriological themes that develop throughout the gospel. In order to ensure proper contextualization, then, we will focus in the first instance on the prologue to the gospel (John 1:1–18) and then on the predicated ‘I am’ sayings, allowing each of these to lead us into the material found in John 14–17. Regardless of whether or not the prologue was original to the gospel,1 in its canonical location it is a wellintegrated anticipation of the theology of the book to which it is attached. In particular, it enables the reader to configure the Father–Son relationship on which the church’s union is both founded and modelled and, despite the lack of explicit mention of the Spirit in these verses, it prepares the reader for the Hengel, ‘The Prologue of the Gospel of John as the Gateway to Christological Truth’; Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John, 271–84. 1

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necessity of the role that he must play. For their part, the predicated ‘I am’ sayings are conspicuous as a literary device of central importance and, in the image of Jesus as the true vine (15:1), reach their climax in John 14–17. As we shall see, these sayings significantly inform our concept of union with Christ in the Johannine literature.2

THE PROLOGUE AND THE PARACLETES: REVELATION AND RECOGNITION The prologue, of course, begins with a statement of pre-existence and, indeed, of the identification of its central protagonist with and as God himself: ‘In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning’ (John 1:1). There has been much discussion of the use of Logos in John 1, with suggestions ranging from Stoic backgrounds and Philo3 to Wisdom4 and the pre-existent Torah.5 Discussions of the putative backgrounds highlight the difficulty in seeking to understand the use of the word as being simplistically derived from any one of these.6 Instead, regardless of the extent to which any background influences the use in the Fourth Gospel, we must recognize that the author fills the word with contextual significance that is particularly appropriate to its semantic range. Specifically, the choice of Logos as the title for Jesus emphasizes his role in disclosing or revealing something, a theme that runs throughout the chapter and throughout the book. In fact, so prominent is the theme of revelation in John that it has been widely identified as constituting the core of the soteriology of the Fourth Gospel.7 The revelatory significance of the Logos is seen in 1:3–5 where, following a statement concerning the creative role of the Logos, he is portrayed as the source of light and life: ‘In him was life, and that life was the light of men’ (1:4). The association of light with revelation is one that we have encountered already, in our study of Paul. Here, the same link is made and is reinforced 2 For the sake of space, I must bypass many of the discussions concerning the authorship and origins of the gospel and epistles. For useful coverage and debate of these, see Thatcher, What We Have Heard from the Beginning. 3 For a discussion of these backgrounds (and bibliography on them) see Carson, The Gospel According to John, 114–15. Keener, The Gospel of John, 339–46. In much of what follows, I will point to Keener’s commentary as the most extensive bibliographical resource currently available and one that offers extensive discussion of the major interpretative options. 4 See, now, Keener, The Gospel of John, 347–59. 5 Keener, The Gospel of John, 360–3. 6 Carson, The Gospel According to John, 116–17. 7 Anastasia Scrutton, ‘ “The Truth Shall Set You Free’: Salvation as Revelation’, in Bauckham and Mosser (eds), The Gospel of John and Christian Theology, 359–68.

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by a play on verbs derived from ºÆø. In 1:5, the first such verb occurs: ‘The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not understand ( P ŒÆºÆ) it’. As reflected in translations, the verb can be rendered as ‘understand’ or ‘overcome’,8 an ambiguity that is likely to be deliberate, resonating as it does with themes throughout the gospel of the mysterious victory of the cross. The cognitive association of the verb is reinforced by 1:10, where, though the world was made through the Logos, it did not ‘know him’ (ÆPe PŒ ªø). This statement is paralleled in 1:11: ‘He came to that which was his own (a Y ØÆ), but his own ( ƒ Y Ø Ø) did not receive him (ÆPe P ÆæºÆ ).’ The use of another -ºÆø verb, this time ÆæƺÆø, in apposition to a statement of recognition, highlights the cognitive associations that the verb group carries in the prologue. The shift in 1:11 from the neuter to the masculine of Y Ø  is also important to the theology of the book. The lack of an immediate neuter plural antecedent to a Y ØÆ in the immediate context pushes us back to the use of Æ in 1:3, where it is used of the ‘all things’ that came into being through the Logos, but the shift to the masculine ƒ Y Ø Ø suggests a personal usage: ‘his own people’. This anticipates a theme that is difficult to escape in the Fourth Gospel and that has occasioned much scholarship: the specific response of Jesus’s fellow Jews to him. As is the case with Paul, this issue is not a simple one and requires a range of discussions about law, covenant, feasts, et cetera, and differentiations between Judaism in general and specific Jewish leaders.9 Crucially, though, the author of the prologue renders a diagnosis of noetic incapacity and the necessity of some kind of transformation to enable the light to be comprehended. The way in which this is developed in the context of the relationship between Logos and cosmos requires that the problem within Judaism is understood to be an instantiation of the wider problem within the world, so that, like Paul, John’s theology is essentially grounded on a pessimistic theological anthropology.10 This, indeed, is the significance of NRSV: ‘overcome’; NIV: ‘understand’. See the collection of essays in R. Bieringer, Didier Pollefeyt, and Frederique VandecasteeleVanneuville (eds), Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001). See also Stephen Motyer, ‘Bridging the Gap: How Might the Fourth Gospel Help us Cope with the Legacy of Christianity’s Exclusive Claim over against Judaism?’; Judith Lieu, ‘The Jews and the Worlds of the Fourth Gospel’; Terry Griffith, ‘ “The Jews Who Had Believed in Him” (John 8:31) and the Motif of Apostasy in the Gospel of John’ and Sigve K. Tonstad ‘The Father of Lies, “the Mother of Lies”, and the Death of Jesus (John 12:20–33)’, all contained on pages 143–210 in Bauckham and Mosser, The Gospel of John and Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008). 10 This is quite different from the conclusions reached by Jeffrey A. Trumbower, Born from Above: The Anthropology of the Gospel of John (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1992). He argues that John operates with a proto-Gnostic understanding of origins, within which those ‘from above’ receive Jesus and those ‘from the world’ do not. His thesis has not found acceptance. See the early reviews by Marianne Meye Thompson, ‘Review: Born from Above: The Anthropology of the Gospel of John’, Journal of Biblical Literature 113 (1994), 157–9, and Mark W. G. Stibbe, ‘Review: 8 9

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1:12–13. These verses do not simply describe the Johannine equivalent of adoption, a point to which we will return, but, when set in context, they pose a question and imply an answer: if the world is in darkness and cannot recognize or receive the Logos (1:10–11), how then can any receive him and believe in his name (1:12)? The answer must lie in the gift, the transforming work of God in generating a new family (1:13), a theme that will be taken up in the rest of the gospel and linked to the work of the Spirit. The story of Nicodemus is illustrative of this. He, of course, comes to Jesus ‘by night’, a contextual detail seen by many as deliberate symbolism on John’s part: this teacher of Israel (3:10) comes to Jesus in a state of darkness, the nighttime setting appropriate for his own epistemic condition, as he participates in the darkness of the world (1:5).11 Despite his earthly credentials, Nicodemus does not understand (3:10) Jesus’s teaching that vision of the kingdom requires new birth (3:3) and entrance into it requires birth of both water and Spirit (3:5–8). The most plausible background to the latter statement is the vision of Ezekiel 36, with its reference to the dual reality of cleansing and Spiritual empowerment.12 As we have seen, this passage is influential also on Paul in his discussion of the new covenant in 2 Cor 3:3. Again here, the cognitive aspect is placed ahead of all else: responding to Nicodemus’s request for a sign, and surely highlighting the blindness that lies in that very request, Jesus states that only the one who is ‘born again’ or ‘born from above’ (¼øŁ) is able to see ( ÆÆØ . . . N E) the kingdom. Whichever may have come first, John 3 or the prologue, this is clearly linked to John 1:13, with its description of birth by the will of God. The ambiguity of ¼øŁ, which can mean ‘again’ or ‘from above’, serves to link the two passages, while also explaining Nicodemus’s confusion over the second birth. At the same time, the question of how the required noetic change can be effected has been answered: by the Spirit. The significance of the Spirit in such terms is taken up further in John 14:15–27 and 16:7–15. He is described in strikingly personal terms13 as ‘another paraclete’, with the use of ¼ºº  indicating a level of continuity between the ministry of the Spirit and that of Jesus himself.14 Deferring briefly a discussion of the significance of this term, the symmetry between the earthly ministry of Jesus and that of the Spirit is suggestive of a concept of ‘presence’: in his earthly ministry, Jesus is ‘with’ his disciples (14:25, cf. 14:9), but his Born from Above: The Anthropology of the Gospel of John’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament (1992), 124. 11 Craig R. Koester, Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community (2nd edn; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 46–7. 12 Keener, The Gospel of John, 551. 13 The use of masculine pronouns for the grammatically neuter Spirit is not, in itself, strong evidence for this, but when linked to the parallelism between the Spirit and Jesus and the general impression of agency throughout, it is hard to regard the Spirit as anything but a person. 14 For a balanced evaluation, see Carson, The Gospel According to John, 499–500.

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absence will not result in their being left bereft, as ‘orphans’ (14:18), for the Spirit will be in them (14:17). That Spirit, moreover, is presently known to the disciples in the fellowship of Jesus as he abides with them.15 The description of the Spirit as the Paraclete (Æ挺Š) is important both because of this emphasis on presence—by the Spirit, the ‘one called alongside’, the presence of God in and with the believer is maintained—but also because of the legal associations that the word carries,16 these linked to the ‘convicting’ role that he will play in the world.17 This emerges particularly in John 16:8, where the Spirit is described as convicting (KºŁg KŒE  KºªØ) the world ‘concerning sin (æd ±ÆæÆ) and concerning righteousness (æd ØŒÆØ Å) and concerning judgement (æd Œæø)’. This is significant not only for our understanding of the Spirit, but also for our understanding of the Paraclete with whom his role is partnered, Jesus himself. Granted what has just been noted, the role of Jesus in the prologue to the Fourth Gospel as the lux mundi, the light of the world who reveals God, is one that brings with it the exposure of sin and its conviction. It is not insignificant that the Spirit in John 15:26 and 16:13 is described as the ‘Spirit of truth’, paralleling the associations made between Jesus and truth in 1:14,17 and 14:6 and reinforcing the link between the revelatory ministry of the Paracletes and the conviction of sin. With some justification, some have seen the trial motif in the Paraclete passages as informing the gospel as a whole, on account of the forensic overtones throughout the gospel.18 The trial motif and its relation to the work of the Spirit is dramatized in the accounts of Nicodemus, whose own conviction is implied to have led him eventually to faith (7:50; 19:39), in the conflict narratives of chapters 7–9, as the problem of ‘blindness’ to God’s revelation is explored and exposed, and in the transformative solution to the human condition that is enacted in the healing of the Note the language of 14:17. ‹Ø paq u“lEm le†mei ŒÆd K E ÆØ. Keener, The Gospel of John, 955–62, notes the range of options that have been advanced for the significance of the title. Specifically forensic ones are examined on pages 956–61 (note the secondary literature, particularly in footnote 238), but the other options considered, including Wisdom, tend also to have some kind of legal association. The exception, perhaps, is the Mandean ‘helper’, now generally rejected by scholars as a background to the image. For the possibility that the title was pre-Johannine and tied to the actual forensic experience of Christians on trial, see Rudolf Schnackenburg, Das Johannesevangelium: Kommentar zu Kap. 13–21 (Freiburg: Herder, 1975). It must be recognized, though, that the Paraclete sayings employ thoroughly Johannine style and vocabulary, whatever the origins of the title. 17 See comments on the verb in Keener, The Gospel of John, 1030–1. Trial imagery is thus central to the passage. So, Felix Porsch, Pneuma und Wort (Frankfurt: Knecht, 1974), 275–89, 324, but note the possibility that the Spirit fulfils both judge and prosecuting counsel roles, as recognized by C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text (2nd edn; London: SPCK, 1978), 90. The implication of this within the gospel is that even as Jesus is about to face an earthly trial and as the disciples may face such trials, the true court is God’s and the Spirit will ensure that truth is manifested. 18 Andrew T. Lincoln, Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2000). 15 16

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blind beggar in chapter 9.19 Jesus’s own trial is the ultimate dramatization, of course, with the resurrection vindicating his truthfulness in the face of his accusers, but in a way that is recognized only by those who believe. Pilate’s question, ‘What is truth?’ (18:38), develops this theme using irony. Such sensitivity to the need for faith in recognition of the resurrection and its significance is clearly at work in John 20:26–9, with its account of Thomas’s doubt and subsequent faith and its crucial statement: ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe’.20 This means that John’s theology of participation is set firmly in a framework of revelation that involves both an objective component, the revelation that is constituted by Jesus and transmitted accurately as a result of the Spirit’s work (14:26; 16:13), and a perceptual transformation that is effected, subsequent to the period of earthly incarnation,21 by the Spirit. This parallels strongly what we have seen in Paul and does so even more impressively when we recognize the eschatological dimension of this revelation. Like Paul, John sees this as a gift anticipated by the grace of the law22 and for his part emphasizes this fulfilment motif by mapping the consummate reality of Jesus onto the Jewish festal calendar.23 Consequently, too, there is a strong emphasis on the human experience of ‘faith’ in John, as the necessary activity of acknowledgement of that which has been revealed.24 As was the case with Paul’s theology, it is a mistake to regard this activity of faith as a ‘work’ by any other name. In fact, the language of John 6:28–29 seems intended to subvert this very idea. Here, the crowds ask ‘What must we do that we might work the works of God?’ (  ØH ¥Æ KæªÆÇŁÆ a æªÆ  F Ł F).25 Their question elicits the

19 J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), used this section of the gospel as the key piece of evidence for his ‘two-level’ reading of John. For further contemporary discussion of this, and key criticisms of Martyn’s argument, see William M. I. V. Wright, Rhetoric and Theology: Figural Reading of John 9 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009). 20 The Greek is ÆŒæØ Ø ƒ c N  ŒÆd ØÆ. It is usual for the aorist participles to be translated using English perfects, but the absence of an indicative verb in the clause means that they are less temporally governed than might be assumed. The point is that there has been no event of physical sight to motivate a definitive adoption of faith. 21 Note the significance of John 16:7 in this regard. These verses must factor in to our interpretation of John 20:22, which, when read in the light of the emphasis that the Spirit will minister to the disciples in the physical absence of Jesus, after his glorification (7:39) cannot be read as a Johannine Pentecost. Rather, John 20:22 must be a proleptic representation of the coming of the Spirit at a later stage. So Keener, The Gospel of John, 1205. 22 This, at least, is the significance seen in 1:16–17 by many. See the discussions in Herman N. Ridderbos, The Gospel According to John: A Theological Commentary (trans. John Vriend; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997) and Gerald Wheaton, ‘The Role of the Jewish Feasts in John’s Gospel’ (PhD dissertation, University of St Andrews, 2010). 23 See Wheaton, ‘The Role of the Jewish Feasts’. 24 See the comments in this section, footnote 20, concerning Thomas’s response. 25 This rather forced translation is my own, intended to bring out the force of the human activity mentioned.

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reply from Jesus, ‘This is the work of God: that you might believe in that one he sent’ ( F KØ e æª   F Ł F, ¥Æ ØÅ N n Iغ KŒE ). Arguably, the singular ‘work of God’ in Jesus’s response is not what is expected of the crowds, but rather the activity of God in sending this one, an action that serves as the basis for their belief. But this does not marginalize the importance of that belief as an activity: the very purpose of the gospel, as stated in 20:30, is ‘that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing (lit: [as] believers, Ø ) you may have life in his name’.

THE PREDICATED ‘ I AM ’ SAYINGS Having recognized that John’s participatory theology of the Logos and the Spirit is noetic in significance, and provides a framework for other aspects of Johannine soteriology, we turn in the second place to the so-called ‘I am with predicate’ sayings. John deploys two sets of seven ‘I am’ sayings, those with a predicated nominal phrase (for example, ‘I am the bread of life’) and those without, the so-called ‘absolute I am’ sayings. It is beyond dispute that the two series function together as a conspicuous literary device and that the significance of each informs the other. While, therefore, our focus is on the predicated sayings, we must also pay attention to discussions of the absolute sayings. The paired sets of sayings are key to the unfolding soteriology of the Fourth Gospel and describe the centrality of Jesus to salvation through their claim that he is the exclusive way to God (14:6).26 The background to the ‘I am’ sayings has been the subject of much discussion. While parallels have been seen to lie in Hermetic and Hellenistic literature,27 the most obvious and widely accepted background to them is the Old Testament, though there is debate as to which specific passages may be of influence. One potential candidate is Exodus 3, particularly verse 14, where the divine name is revealed:28 God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM’. He said further, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “I AM has sent me to you.” ’ ŒÆd r  › Łe æe "øıB ¯ ª NØ › þ· ŒÆd r  ˇoø KæE  E ıƒ E  æÆź # ˇ J IƺŒ  æe A. ‫שָׁלַחִני ֲאֵליֶכם‬ ְ ‫שָׂרֵאל ֶאְהֶיה‬ ְ ‫שׁר ֶאְהֶיה ַו ֹיּאֶמר ֹכּה ֹתאַמר ִלְבֵני יִ‬ ֶ ‫שׁה ֶאְהֶיה ֲא‬ ֶ ‫ַו ֹיּאֶמר ֱאֹלִהים ֶאל־ֹמ‬ 26 See David Mark Ball, ‘I Am’ in John’s Gospel: Literary Fuction, Background and Theological Implications (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996). 27 Ball, ‘I Am’ in John’s Gospel, 24–45. 28 W. Manson, ‘The Ego Eimi of the Messianic Presence in the New Testament’, Journal of Theological Studies 48 (1947), 137.

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The difficulty with this text, particularly in relation to the absolute ‘I am’ sayings, is that while Kª NØ occurs in the Greek translations, it is not absolute: as a name or title, ‫ ֶאְהֶיה‬is translated as › þ. As Bauckham notes, though, this difficulty is not insuperable: while John primarily uses the LXX, he also knows the Hebrew text and alludes directly to the latter when it suits his purposes.29 To this observation may be added the fact that reflection on the divine name is widely attested in Judaism and much of this is likely to have been in circulation in New Testament times.30 The use of such language would be likely to trigger associations with Exodus 3:14, then, even if direct parallels with the Greek translations are lacking. The most widely accepted background to the ‘I am’ sayings, though, lies in the use of Kª NØ in Deuteronomy 32:39 and its repetition in Isaiah 43:10 and 46:4, where it translates ‫ ֲאִני הוּא‬or ‫ֲאִני ְיהָוה‬31 In these passages, the phrase is a clear statement of monotheism, identifying Yahweh as the one true God. It is also, though, embedded into a context of God’s saving intentions for Israel, intentions that are linked to the messianic figure of the Servant, who will serve as the earthly agent of the divine work. A quotation from Isaiah 43:10–13 illustrates this effectively. 10

You are my witnesses, says the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he (Kª NØ). Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. 11 I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior. 12 I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses, says the LORD. 13 I am God, and also henceforth I am He; there is no one who can deliver from my hand; I work and who can hinder it?

This particular Isaianic pericope overlaps with Deuteronomy 32:39, through its language of divine uniqueness and also through the imagery of the hand of deliverance; indeed, Deuteronomy 32:39 is arguably the source of the great Isaianic monotheistic statements.32 Echoes of the passage can be noted throughout John, suggesting that this wider background to the Isaiah 43:10 is indeed being

29

Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple, 246. Note the reflection of such speculation in Revelation 1. See Beale, The Book of Revelation, 187–8. 31 Isaiah 43:10, 25; 45:8, 18–19, 22; 46:4, 9; 48:12, 17; 51:12; 52:6. 32 See Sanders, The Provenance of Deuteronomy 32, 420. 30

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259

evoked. Note, for example, the parallel to Isaiah 43:11 in John 14:6, the imagery of deliverance ‘from the hand’ in Isaiah 43:13 and John 10:28, and that of the work of God (Isaiah 43:13) as the key to salvation in John 6:29. The fact that this wider background also evokes the role of the messianic Servant is important to recognize if we are to appreciate John’s theology: God enacts his saving work through a ‘sent servant’ who testifies.33 But the use of the ‘I am’ sayings, properly related to the rest of the gospel, indicates that the one who is sent is not simply ‘functionally’ divine: he ‘is’ God, and because he is God, he is able to bring salvation and life. This identification of the one who is sent underlies the predicated images in that particular series of sayings. This is important, because some of the predicate statements appear to identify Jesus in relation to messianic expectations or to the stories of Israel, and if the emphasis on divine presence is not properly recognized then the significance of such associations will be misconstrued. Associations with the story of Israel are particularly explicit in those sayings that identify Jesus as the bread of life, the light of the world, and the true vine. The first of these sayings, repeated with some variation throughout John 6, takes its significance from the importance of bread as a staple food, but it also has a notable background in the accounts of Israel’s wilderness wandering and the provision of manna for them, a background made explicit in John 6:30, 49. In part, the purpose of the saying is to contrast the reality that is now present and available in Jesus with that of Moses; in other words, to contrast the new with the old. At the heart of this is the notion of divine providence for the covenant people (see Exodus 16, especially 12, 31–5) and the heavenly origin of sustenance (see Psalm 78:24–9), but linked to these are two key further ideas. The first is that the presence of God is the true source of life and manna is only emblematic of this. Such an idea is brought to the fore in Deuteronomy 8:3: He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

From this first emphasis also emerges the second idea that manna is symbolic of divine self-disclosure, the word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. It is noteworthy that the mention of manna in Nehemiah 9:20 is paired with a reference to the Spirit as instructor: You gave your good spirit to instruct them, and did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and gave them water for their thirst.

The key point of note is that the true bread in John’s gospel is identified with the revelation constituted by the personal presence of Jesus: ‘For the bread of 33

Compare our comments on the ‘sending’ theme in John, in Chapter 7.

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Participation and Union in the New Testament

God is the one who comes down (› ŒÆÆÆø) from heaven and gives life to the world’ (6:33). His presence in the world, emphasized by the participle of descent, is therefore key. As we have seen, following the end of Jesus’s earthly ministry, that presence is maintained by the Spirit, but this is no modalistic account: the Son has a distinctive narrative and at the heart of his life-giving mission is the necessity of his death. Hence, ‘the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh’ (6:51). There are unavoidable sacramental associations to the material in John 6 (especially in 53–6), which have already been explored in Chapter 8. At this point, what must be recognized is that the redemptive importance of the death of Jesus is emphasized, as is the active appropriation of the benefits of this death, described here as both ‘believing’ (6:47) and ‘eating/drinking’ (6:53). ‘I am the light of the world’ is repeated in John 8:12 and 9:5 (Matt 5:14). The saying is obviously connected to the imagery of the prologue, but it also has a rich background in the Old Testament and its delivery at the Feast of Tabernacles in itself points to these (the older tendency to interpret the use of such language here against a Gnostic background failed to acknowledge such basic demonstrable backgrounds). Light is, of course, closely associated with glory (Ex 13:21–2, Isaiah 10:17) and serves, therefore, as an image of divine presence in salvation (cf. Psalm 27:1). The various passages that speak of God as the source of light, such as Psalm 36:9, must also be understood to require that other manifestations of light are derived from the divine presence. This is important particularly with regard to the messianic or national dimensions of the light image, particularly as it is used in Isaiah. Such a usage occurs in Isaiah 42:6, one of the great Servant songs, and in Isaiah 49:6 and 60:1, 3, 19–20 (the latter verses emphasize the communicated nature of this light: it is God’s light manifest through Israel). These passages emphasize the role of the people of Yahweh, and particularly the figure of the Servant, in mediating light to the world (the nations).34 The significance of this role is predicated on the communication of God’s glory to his people, something that emerges particularly in Isaiah 60:1: Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.

Two further points are noteworthy. First, the communication of light to God’s people, and thence to the world, is achieved through the singular figure of the Servant (Isaiah 42:6). As noted in relation to Pauline theology, much has been written in recent years on the interplay of the Servant and the servants in Isaiah.35 The identity of the latter group in Isaiah is derived from that singular 34

Carson, surprisingly, neglects this background: The Gospel According to John 337–9. Gignilliat, Paul and Isaiah’s Servants: Paul’s Theological Reading of Isaiah 40–66 in 2 Corinthians 5:14–6:10 35

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261

figure and the key to this is the concept of the covenant: the Servant of Isaiah 42:6 is called to be ‘a covenant to the people’ and thus ‘a light to the world’. Such covenant language allows the possibility of an anointed representative through whom the inclusion of the people in the covenant is achieved. Note, though, that he is not simply the covenant representative: he is the covenant itself. Hence, the covenant is presented as being enacted internally to the being of the Servant. Second, the gift of light, associated with this covenant, is an eschatological gift equated with salvation and divine presence: Isaiah 9:2 identifies this with the dawning of a new era and the various passages previously noted link the covenant established in the Servant with the prophetic hopes of the great reversal, and with cosmic salvation and renewal. What all of this means is that the inescapable background of the lux mundi saying in Isaiah points to both covenantal and eschatological aspects of participation, and just as the ontological divinity of Jesus is required by the ‘I am’ part of the saying, so the real humanity of Jesus is required by these covenantal statements. The participation of God’s people in his light requires such a mediator, according to the logic of the second ‘I am’ saying in the Fourth Gospel. The Word had to become flesh. Messianic associations are also prominent in the ‘I am the Good Shepherd’ saying. Once again, there are obvious divine connotations in Gen 48:15, 49:54, Psalm 23:1, 28:9, Isaiah 40:11, Ezekiel 34:15, etc. Yahweh is the true shepherd of Israel. But there are also strong Davidic associations in 2 Sam 5:2, 7:7, Psalm 78:71, Ezekiel 34:23, 37:24, and further texts. There are also pejorative statements about bad shepherds in (among other references) Jer 23:2, 4, Jer 50:6, Eze 34:2, Zech 11:15–17 and these must inform the use of ŒÆº contrastively. Taken together with the force of ‘I am’, these elements identify Jesus both with Yahweh himself and with the eschatological Messiah of Ezekiel 34:23 and 37:24. The latter is interesting because it flags up once more the influence of Ezekiel 36–7 (with the prominent role given therein to the Spirit, already alluded to in John 3) on New Testament soteriology. The image of the Good Shepherd here, though, also places the death of Jesus at the heart of his messianic work (10:11). We must be careful not to over-press the imagery in terms of a particular doctrine of the atonement: the image of the shepherd dying to protect the flock is determined by the shepherd image itself and not by the putative identification of the wolf (10:12). At the same time, though, the death is for (æ) the sheep and that suggests sacrifice of some kind. The image of the Good Shepherd is paired with that of the Gate (10:7 and 10:9), with which it is interwoven in 10:1–6 and which itself is linked to the image of the fold (10:16). The images are easily misunderstood by those who have not grown up shepherding. A fold does not serve as the place where sheep are sorted; it serves as the place where they are handled and marked-out before being returned to pasture. The place where they are sorted is the gate: here, the

262

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shepherd is able to identify which sheep are his and direct them into the fold. Those who enter the fold by the gate belong to the flock and the singular flock will be enlarged by the influx of sheep not presently in the fold.36 This image, though, identifies Jesus not just as the Shepherd, whose voice is recognized by the flock, but as the point or means of access into the fold and flock itself. In order to belong to the flock, one must pass through Jesus. Taken by itself, such a concept is difficult to grasp, but it becomes clearer when set in the context of what is beginning to emerge through the notions of covenant and messiah: to be in the flock is to be in the covenant. The interweaving of the Gate and Shepherd sayings further clarifies the matter: to hear and follow the voice of Jesus is to belong to the flock and one must have passed through the Gate for this to be true. Reading this in the light of John 3, we must equate such recognition of the Shepherd’s voice to proceed from the covenantal presence of the Holy Spirit and to be realized in faith. This also feeds into the corporate image of Jesus as the true vine (15:1). This metaphor has strong covenantal associations, commonly being applied to Israel in the Old Testament (Ps 80:9–16, Isa 5:1–7; 27:2–13, Jer 2:21, 12:10– 17, Eze 15:1–8, 17:1–21; 19:10–14; Hos 10:1–2), always in connection with the failure to bear fruit.37 Interestingly, in Jeremiah 12:10, the image is also linked to failed shepherds, suggesting a further connection to John 10. But the covenantal associations should not obscure the fact that the image also taps into the common experience of viticulture, of the transmission of vitality from a vine to its branches. The extent to which a rootstock determines the quality and character of the fruit growing on its engrafted branches is a detail known to anyone with even a passing acquaintance with gardening. Taking these points together, the use of this image in connection with the concept of ‘abiding’ in Jesus is striking. Given that Jesus uses this language in the context of his fellowship with his disciples, its significance in denoting interpersonal communion (rather than some kind of absorption into the divine) is clear. This builds upon the description of mutual indwelling found in 14:20, where it is tied to the reality that will follow the resurrection and, contextually, to the work of the ‘other Paraclete’ (14:25 ff). Recognizing this, the state of abiding in Jesus, which is equated with Jesus abiding in the believer or in the church (15:4), is itself equated with the presence of the Spirit. As important as the positive statement is the negative one: ‘apart from me you can do nothing’ (åøæd K F P ÆŁ  ØE P , 15:5). The presence of Christ through the Spirit, then, is the condition for positive moral capacity: by the Spirit, the rootstock gives vitality to the branches. As we saw in Chapter 3, this was an image that preoccupied Calvin in his reflections upon union with Christ. 36

This is a basic problem with the theory of unchangeable origins developed by Trumbower, Born from Above. 37 Carson, The Gospel According to John, 513.

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263

We must be careful not to pass too quickly over the emphasis on human responsibility in this. While the capacity to bear fruit is transmitted to believers by the Vine, they are nevertheless required to ‘abide in’ him. The covenant associations of this are reinforced by the reference to cleansing in 15:3. This is sometimes linked to the contextual imagery of pruning and trimming,38 but actually it more naturally connotes cultic concerns. As we have seen, cleansing imagery probably lies behind John 3:5, drawing upon Ezekiel 36. The imagery there (and here), though, is likely to have a significance governed by the purity of the temple: only those who are clean can stand in the glorious presence of the Lord. That such a clustering of themes is at work here is reinforced by the study of parallel language in 1 John.39 The covenant significance is taken up further in verses 10–11, where those who abide ‘in the love’ of Jesus keep his commandments. The paralleling of ‘abide in me’ with ‘abide in my love’ is suggestive of the relational dynamic of the verb and this is taken further in the subsequent discussion of the ‘new commandment’, to ‘love one another as I have loved you’. Those who abide in Jesus abide in his love and embody that love in their own relationships, empowered to such self-sacrifice (15:12–14) by the Spirit. To this point, we have examined five of the predicated ‘I am’ sayings. The remaining sayings—‘I am the resurrection and the life’ (11:25) and ‘I am the way and the truth and the life’ (14:6)—may be treated more briefly, not because they are any less important, but because in them the themes that we have already studied resurface. That Jesus is ‘the way and the truth and the life’ sums up many of the themes already encountered: no one comes to the Father, the source of life, except by passing through this gate into covenant fellowship and the real knowledge (truth) of God. Without such a transition, one remains in a state of death, but to come to Jesus is to ‘cross over from death to life’ (5:24), a transition symbolized in the raising of Lazarus (John 11). Here, as in the other ‘I am’ sayings, the reality mediated by Jesus is predicated on his own divinity, on the fact that he has ‘life in himself ’ (5:26) and not as a derived property.40 The salvation envisaged, then, is fundamentally participatory in character: the life of the Father, shared in the Son, communicated by the Holy Spirit, and embodied in relationship. Such rich conceptual theology can hardly be stripped down to a matter of social inclusion, but neither can it be seen as a matter of Platonic participation. It is presence, covenanted.

38

Carson, The Gospel According to John, 515. Edward Malatesta, Interiority and Covenant: A Study of ‘Einai En’ and ‘Menein En’ in the First Letter of Saint John (Analecta Biblica 69. Rome: Biblical Institute, 1978). 40 There is still a proper subordination of Son to Father, though. The Father ‘grants’ this. 39

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Participation and Union in the New Testament

THE PLACE OF OBEDIENCE AND FAITH The points outlined in the previous section allow us to isolate the emphasis on obedience and faith in the Fourth Gospel and consider it in more detail. This emphasis emerges most strikingly in John 14. Here, Jesus challenges his disciples not to allow their hearts to be troubled (14:1), commanding belief to be oriented towards him as well as God. Ø N e Łe ŒÆd N Kb Ø.

The symmetry in the phrasing of the command is quite obvious and is suggestive of a singular focus for faith: to believe in Jesus is precisely to believe in God. This is further developed in 14:6, where true knowledge of Jesus entails true knowledge of God, and in 14:10, where the rationale for this is given in the form of an incipient doctrine of perichoresis. This belief is linked, in 14:12, to the continuation of the works of Jesus in the life of the church (‘the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do’), a continuation that, in turn, is linked to the presence of Holy Spirit with the church in 14:16–18. As we have seen, the Spirit’s role is defined by John in relation to Jesus and, particularly, in noetic or cognitive terms. Here, the Spirit effects not only a recognition of Jesus, but also a moral orientation towards him: the recognition of Jesus’s relationship to the Father (14:20) leads to a love that manifests itself in obedience (14:21). Obedience, moreover, is presented quite particularly in terms of commandment (14:21) and will continue to be developed in such terms in chapter 15, as we have seen (15:10,14). Interestingly, Jesus addresses the disciples as ‘friends’ and not ‘servants’ (15:15), despite this emphasis on obedience; the shift is quite specifically explained on the grounds of their knowledge of him and his business, and not on the grounds of any diminishment of responsibility to obey. One command is singled out in chapter 15: ‘love one another’. In the light of all that we have examined so far in this chapter, the prominence of the love commandment is unsurprising; the shared union between believers and the source of their salvation is constitutive of a community that is now incorporated into the divine fellowship of love, and Jesus’s own works, as manifestations of love, have become the pattern for the believer’s life. It is noteworthy, though, that this emphasis on love is not unique to the Fourth Gospel. We have seen it emerge also in relation to other parts of the New Testament, in close connection with participatory elements.

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THE PRAYER OF JESUS: JOHN 17 Many of the themes already explored come together in the prayer of John 17 and, consequently, we can now study it more briefly. While there is a danger of repetition in examining this passage, it will reinforce and confirm our analysis, and will also bring to the surface some further key participatory language. We are, of course, dealing with a part of Scripture that has been particularly significant in the development of Trinitarian theology and of participatory theologies. The brevity of our treatment, then, reflects not the significance of the passage, but the fact that its key themes have already been anticipated, emerging as they do from the broader contours of Johannine theology. Immediately apparent is the fact that ‘eternal life’ is equated with true knowledge of God (17:3), a gift available only through the Son (17:2). That mediatorial role is firmly linked to the eternal Sonship of the Son, which pre-existed the world (17:5). The relationship of Father and Son, as well as pre-existing the world, also involves the mutual communication of glory (17:1, 5), which has now been revealed in the world (17:4) by Jesus, a glorification equated with the revelation of the ‘name’ (17:6). The ‘name’ functions here as a shorthand for true knowledge of the covenantal Yahweh,41 so that the centrality to salvation of true knowledge by revelation is emphasized yet again. The same term is taken up again, though, in verse 11 as the name given to Jesus.42 As such, there may be a deliberate allusion to the ‘I am’ sayings: the covenant name of Yahweh is revealed in Jesus, the bread, the resurrection, the life, the vine, et cetera. Regardless of whether or not this is the case, that association of identity is the basis for Jesus’s prayer for believers. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. (John 17:11–12)

The prayer is interesting in its linking of ‘the name’ with the divine power required to protect believers. This may well take us back to the association between those two concepts in Deuteronomy 32:39 and Isaiah 43:10, passages which, as we have seen, lie behind the ‘I am’ sayings. The need for such protection lies in the fact that these believers continue to occupy the world (17:11). There is a fundamental distinction between those who belong to Christ and the world, reflected in 17:9 and in 17:14.

41 So Keener, The Gospel of John, 1056. The connection between the name and the divine identity is also made by Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 247–8. 42 The parallels with Phil. 2 should not be overlooked.

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I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. (17:9) I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. (17:14)

It is interesting to note that the distinction is not between two groups of people, but between a sphere of existence (the world) and a group of people who no longer belong to, or participate in, that sphere. ‘The world’, of course, has already been discussed in relation to the prologue where, we have seen, it is effectively portrayed as blind and helpless, paralleling Paul’s use of ‘flesh’. Elsewhere in John, notably in 3:16, that powerless world is depicted as the object of God’s love and the redemption of those within it is revealed to be his purpose. Here, then, the distinction made is not between an in-group and an out-group, at odds with one another. For all that the world is hostile to those who have come to Jesus, it remains the object of God’s redemptive purposes. Consequently, the protection requested is not from the ‘world’ but from ‘the evil one’ (17:15) and the purpose of the church’s testimony is precisely the communication of the knowledge of God to the world (17:21–2). The community of believers, therefore, is portrayed as a circumscribed reality within, but distinct from, the world. That reality is, moreover, a glorious one (17:22), with the glory of God in Christ shared with believers. Undoubtedly there are echoes of temple imagery here, given the overlap of the content with that studied in Chapter 7, particularly that found in the prologue to the Fourth Gospel and the contextual use of ‘sanctification’ (17:17–19). Such language, though, serves much more radical imagery of communion and communication in the description of the intimacy of fellowship between the church and God. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (17:22–3)

The community of faith, then, is described as participating in the divine fellowship, included in the divine love, and its presence in the world is depicted as the tabernacle in which the divine glory resides. At the risk of repeating a point made already in Chapter 7, the imagery of divine dwelling in the church is in seeming tension with the image of Jesus as the tabernacle/ temple until we recognize that the underlying concept is one of presence. Once again, as in Paul, the grounds for the presence of divine glory with human beings is the relationship between the Father and the Son who mediates that presence by his Spirit.

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THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES Whatever might be concluded concerning the authorial relationship between the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles,43 there is no doubt that they share a common theology and conceptual vocabulary. For the sake of brevity, I will simply note in this section a number of points where the emphases of the Fourth Gospel are distinctively developed in the Epistles. The opening of 1 John is highly reminiscent of the prologue to the Fourth Gospel; assuming that the Epistles post-date the Gospel, the opening seven verses of 1 John read like a reprise of that prologue, with the same themes of light, life, and testimony emerging. Themes from John 14–17 are also woven into this reprise, with a particular emphasis on the believer’s fellowship with Father and Son. These vocabularies continue to run through 1 John, further combining with the noetic and cognitive elements identified in our study of the gospel: in their relationship to the Son, believers know the Father. In 1 John, more so than in the Gospel, this leads to the use of filial language. Where the Gospel makes sparing use of the image of believers as children of God, in the Epistle it is developed extensively, notably in 2:29–3:10. The Johannine image is not one of adoption, as it is in Paul, but rather one of generation: believers have been ‘born of him’ (2:29). The filial emphasis leads to a distinctive treatment of the likeness of believers to God (3:2–3). There is nothing in the context or content to suggest that this should be understood in Adamic terms. Rather, the emphasis falls on the generative relationship between child and parent. There remains an important future eschatological dimension to this: ‘now we are God’s children; what we will be has not yet been revealed’ (F ŒÆ Ł F K, ŒÆd hø KçÆæŁÅ  KŁÆ). This future dimension is linked to a perfection of knowledge that has not yet been attained: ‘When he is revealed (çÆæøŁfiB), we will be like him (‹ Ø Ø ÆPfiH KŁÆ), for we will see him as he is.’ The hope of this eschatological knowledge is further linked to the activity of selfpurification (3:3), which, premised on God’s own purity, is a matter of the realization in the believer of a quality of that which is considered. This is a dense cluster of ideas, but we can recognize in it much of what would later be developed in the Alexandrian tradition of deification. Not for the first time, we might note that the emphases on reflection and on the mind in that tradition are not simply the result of Platonic influence, but represent an attentive reading of the New Testament itself. What emerges quite clearly from these verses is that, while salvation is ascribed to the regenerative work of God, the believer is not a passive recipient of this: the use of the reflexive 43

For an overview of the discussion and key bibliography, see Keener, The Gospel of John, 122–6. I am inclined to agree with his conclusion regarding the common authorship of Gospel and Epistles, but this is unimportant to my own arguments here.

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pronoun Æı with the verb ±ªÇø requires that the believer is the active subject of the verb, the one who purifies him/herself. At the same time, it needs to be recognized that this act of self-purification is constituted by the possession of the ‘hope’ (Kº) of likeness to God. It is, in other words, constituted by trust in God’s salvific activity and by reflection on his person. The primacy of the divine act of purification has already been stressed by the author in 1:7, where it is achieved by the blood of Jesus; there, too, the recognition of one’s personal sinfulness44 is necessitated by the truth. The believer’s self-purification, then, can be nothing but the activity of receiving this grace and considering the one who gives it, in eschatological anticipation. This last point is vital: the purification of the believer is realized in part by her/his orientation towards the future, by the expectation of conformity to the character of God. Much could be said on the psychological dimensions of such positive hope; more satisfying is the awareness that the Spirit’s work in the believer is always understood teleologically and that this is inseparable from purification of forgiveness and atonement. The shared vocabulary of purification in these two chapters of 1 John, with these two senses, means that we are dealing with a duplex gratia, about which the author would surely concur with Calvin: Christ cannot be torn asunder. As with the Fourth Gospel, there is a strong emphasis on the love commandment in 1 John, particularly in 3:11–24 and 4:7–21; this is carried into 2 and 3 John where it becomes the key point of content in these brief letters. Once again, the author portrays imitation of Christ as vital: he has shown us what love looks like (1 John 3:16) and, as such, has revealed the God who is love himself. Reflection on the sacrifice of Jesus leads into specific considerations of the treatment of the poor (3:17) and the necessity of enacted mercy (3:18). The practice of love is also presented in 1 John 3:23 as a constituent element of obedience to the (singular) commandment of God, alongside belief in the name of Jesus. The pairing of love with this central act of faith, as the expected rendering of obedience to God, forcefully demonstrates the centrality of the practice of love to the community that is in fellowship with God, a point also made in 4:21, where the love of God requires the love of a brother. What emerges most forcefully in 1 John, particularly in 3:19–20, is that the exercise of love is itself one of the ways in which union with Christ is experienced and the presence of God known: 19

And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him 20whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.45

44

The noun, 񒑒, is singular in form and thus points to a sinful condition, rather than specific sins. 45 Cf. 2:3, where there is a similar link between obedience and assurance.

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As was the case in the Fourth Gospel, however, the practice of love itself proceeds from the divine presence, from the priority of divine love (4:19) and the union with Christ effected by the Holy Spirit (3:24). Once again, imitation of Christ in love is not a naked act of moral achievement, but a conscious and dynamic participation in God’s love for the world. One last point is worth observing in the Johannine Epistles. It is here that we encounter those labelled ‘antichrists’ (IåæØ Ø) and the singular figure of the ‘antichrist’ who is coming (1 John 2:18). The fact that the antichrists ‘went out from us’ has triggered a good deal of speculation about the relationship between Johannine factions.46 This need not concern us here, except to note that few today would postulate a fundamental theological opposition between the author of 1 John and the Fourth Gospel in relation to Docetism: the general tendency is now to see both works as countering early docetic views.47 This noted, it is striking that the spirit of the antichrist denies that Jesus is the Christ (2:22) and that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh (1 John 4:2–3; 2 John 7). The physicality of Jesus is clearly important to the author, not least because of the significance of his blood (1 John 5:6–7), the necessity of an atonement (ƒºÆ, 1 John 2:1, 4:10) for sin. The death of Jesus is not the only reason that his physicality is important to the author, however. The testimony against which the antichrist and the liar (1 John 5:10) stand is that this particular body of flesh, Jesus, is the Son of God, and that it is as the enfleshed Son that he operates as the source of life (1 John 5:11–12). The author’s doctrine of human participation in divine life, a doctrine that dominates these epistles, proceeds from a set of convictions about the ontology of the incarnation. As a consequence, we also find that participation in this life is not a matter of the infusion of a different essence into human nature, nor of receiving a certain set of benefits from the Son. It is a matter of receiving the Son himself (1 John 5:12—‘the one who has the Son has life’), personally, and in receiving the Son, receiving the Spirit.

CONCLUSIONS The author of the Fourth Gospel weaves a range of images together in his account of salvation, employing literary devices that involve repetition and allusion to the Old Testament. The predicates of the ‘I am’ sayings provide a set of images of what salvation entails. These images are participatory in

46

See the overview of this discussion in Keener, The Gospel of John, 123–6. Contra the classic argument of Ernst Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus: A Study of the Gospel of John in the Light of Chapter 17 (trans. Gerhard Krodel; London: SCM, 1968). 47

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character, and not in a vague way: they represent a community in the transformative presence of God. Four specific conclusions may be highlighted. First, the transformation of those in this community is grounded in the ontology of the incarnation: the full divinity of the Logos is united to real human flesh. The importance of this lies, in part, in the role of the Christ as the covenant representative, a point that emerges from the background to the ‘I am’ sayings in Isaiah, the Isaianic Servant once again emerging as a recurrent theme in our study of the New Testament. It also, however, involves the union of human flesh with the divine fellowship of Father, Son, and Spirit; the participation of believers in the communion of the triune God proceeds from this primary union. Second, this firmly underpins the distinctive Johannine treatment of filiation: sonship in John is not a matter of adoption, but of transformation into a state of intimacy with God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is inseparable from this, as part of the divine fellowship: his own ministry is presented in analogous terms to that of the Logos and constitutes the ongoing presence of Christ with his people. John’s account, then, is now widely recognized to be strikingly anti-docetic and this is important to the author’s presentation of salvation. The continuity of such emphases with the accounts of participation that we traced in the Fathers is quite striking. Third, in both the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, the communion between human believers and God just outlined involves the activity of faith. This is a gift, involving noetic transformation by the ministry of the Spirit to allow the recognition and acceptance of the truth that is in Christ, but it is not passively received. The use of reflexive pronouns with active verbal forms indicates that those in the community are the acting subjects of faith. Fourth, participation by faith in communion with God necessitates the social outworking of love within the community. It is quite significant that this practice of love is defined in terms of the community of faith, directed towards those who are brothers.

11 Grammars and Narratives of Participation in the Rest of the New Testament In this chapter, we turn to examine further participatory elements in the rest of the New Testament. Inevitably, such a study will feel more patchy than the chapters that have focused on Paul and John; certainly, each area will be covered much more briefly. What is interesting, however, is the extent to which, having identified key recurring themes and underlying concepts in those two corpora, we will see similar ideas running through the various books examined, despite the fact that in some cases they are seldom considered to be characterized by a participatory theology.

1 Peter In Chapter 6, we examined the use of the temple/body image in 1 Peter, noting its participatory significance and its connections to national imagery. While, then, 1 Peter lacks some of the striking spatial grammars found in Paul and John (e.g. ‘in Christ’, ‘in me’) it is already beyond doubt that there is a participatory theology at work. That theology emerges further in the ways in which the narrative of the cross is related to the experience of believers. Before examining these, however, it is important to recognize in 1 Peter the presence of a set of concepts, terms, and images that, while not explicitly participatory in character, establish key points of connection with the participatory theologies of Paul and John. Such concepts include the presence of covenantal language, particularly that involving reference to the Spirit, and an emphasis on salvation as involving revelation.

Covenant in 1 Peter Covenantal language and imagery is found right at the beginning of the letter, in 1:1, where Peter addresses his letter ‘to the elect ones’ (KŒºŒ E), who are

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further described as ‘foreigners of the diaspora’ (ÆæØ  Ø ØÆ æA). Such terminology evokes the scattering of the Jews under Assyria and Babylon and echoes their narrative. Given the significance of Isaiah to 1 Peter,1 such striking early use of diaspora language may be suggestive of that prophet’s narrative of exile and restoration centred on the Servant. The covenant imagery of election is further developed in verse 2, through a set of verbless clauses where the election of the saints is specified to be ‘according to the foreknowledge of God the Father’ and ‘in/by the holiness of the Spirit for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ’. My somewhat stiff translation highlights the grammatical relationships between the various nouns: believers are elect ‘according to’ (ŒÆ) the foreknowledge of God, ‘in/by’ (K) the holiness of the Spirit, ‘for’ (N) obedience and (ŒÆd) sprinkling of the blood of Christ. The fact that no verb is present means that effectively these statements are coordinated and equated as appositional statements of election: together they explicate what it is to be elect. The term ±ªØÆ is generally taken by commentators to speak of the Spirit’s sanctifying work. In covenantal context, paired as it is to the language of election, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that we are hearing an echo of Ezekiel 36–7. The pairing of this with the Father’s electing foreknowledge means that to be elect is to be set apart not just in status but in reality by the power of the Spirit. This matches well with what we have seen in Paul and John. The coordination of such ideas with the rest of verse 2 is less straightforward, however, complicated by the significance ascribed to the genitive  Å F æØ F. We have argued already that ‘obedience’ and ‘sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ’ should be taken as a hendiadys, speaking of a single reality.2 Significantly, there is general agreement that the background to the imagery of sprinkling lies in Exodus 24:3–8, where the Mosaic covenant is ratified;3 to read this as a hendiadys, then, suggests that both elements are covenantally defined. To be elect, then, is explicated covenantally along nascent Trinitarian lines: it is according to the foreknowledge of the Father, in the sanctifying power of the Spirit, for covenant fidelity that is ratified by the blood of Jesus.

1 The significance of Isaiah to 1 Peter is well established; it is noted as the book with the greatest number of quotations by D. A. Carson, ‘1 Peter’ in Beale and Carson (eds), Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, 1015. Two important recent treatments of the use of the Old Testament in 1 Peter are William L. Schutter, Hermeneutic and Composition in 1 Peter (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1989) and Egan, ‘Suffering Servants: The Interpretation of Isaiah in 1 Peter’. The latter is particularly noteworthy, as it develops the case that Peter’s use of Isaiah is as important to his ecclesiology as to his Christology. 2 See Chapter 6. 3 Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 87–9; Jobes, 1 Peter, 72; pace J. Ramsey Michaels, 1 Peter (Dallas: Word, 1989), 12.

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These covenant associations are taken further in 1 Peter 1:3–5, reinforced by the use of inheritance language (1:4). What is immediately striking is the use of ‘new birth’ language. The aorist participle Iƪ Æ is derived from the rare verb Iƪø. In meaning it can be seen to have a general correspondence to the concept of the new birth/birth from above in John which, as we have seen, parallels the concept of regeneration in Paul.4 Such parallels are potentially loose and unconvincing in themselves, but they are reinforced by the clustering around this idea of other terms and images associated with regeneration in Paul and John. The above-mentioned role of the Spirit in sanctifying the elect is one example of this, with its likely background in Ezekiel 36–7. The link between the new birth and the resurrection (1 Pet 1:3) is a second, paralleling that seen in Paul’s theology of new creation. A further significant one is found in the parallel statement of 1:23: You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God. IƪªÅ Ø PŒ KŒ  æA çŁÆæB Iººa IçŁæ ı Øa ºª ı ÇH  Ł F ŒÆd   .

The background to this lies in Isaiah 40:6–8, quoted in 1:24, where the perishability of flesh is contrasted with the imperishability of God’s word, which stands for ever because of its divine origin. This link between perishability and weakness is, as we have seen, unpacked in terms of ‘flesh’ or ‘world’ in both Paul and John and contrasted with that which is divinely empowered and thus imperishable, that which is spiritual (e.g. 1 Cor 15:42). Here, the word of God is identified as ‘the word proclaimed as good news (e ÞBÆ e PƪªºØŁb) to you’ (1:25). This does not simply identify the word with the message about Jesus, it also recalls the statement of 1:12, that this good news was revealed by the Holy Spirit and that even the pre-Christian prophets spoke by the Spirit’s empowering in anticipation of this reality, so that the word of God is indeed thoroughly divine. A three-way connection is made, then, between the word, the Spirit, and the narrative of Jesus, and this connection underlies the power and efficacy of the gospel in generating new birth. Without suggesting that Peter’s language or doctrine are identical to that which we have seen in John 3 or in Paul’s theology of new creation, its ingredients and its textual backdrop are, and a strong case can be made that these are three ways of speaking of a single reality: the Spirit empowered generation of a new reality, through the death

Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 94, distinguishes the meaning subtly, suggesting that Iƪø ‘puts emphasis rather on rebegetting or begetting anew than on being born anew’. The difference, however, is one of emphasis, not substantially of significance. 4

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and resurrection of Jesus. Interestingly, the reference to being shielded by God’s power in 1 Pet 1:5 may also be an echo of Deuteronomy 32:39 and Isaiah 43:10–13, passages that, as we have seen, lie behind the ‘I am’ sayings in John. Whether or not this is the case, the language is covenantal in its associations, speaking of Yahweh’s protection of his people.

Covenant and Revealed Wisdom in 1 Peter We are clearly, then, dealing with a covenantal account of salvation, although this is only recognized in the light of the numerous textual allusions and echoes that underlie these opening verses of Peter. These covenantal elements, though, are developed with revelatory associations. In 1:20–1, the lamb ‘elected’ before the creation ‘was revealed in these last times for your sake’ (æ ªø ı b æe ŒÆÆ ºB Œ ıçÆæøŁ  b K Kå ı H åæø Ø A) and it is specifically ‘through him’ that the audience believes in God. The close proximity of this to the description of the ‘word of God’ in 1:23–5 reinforces this link: the lamb is the object of revelation, but in a sense also is its subject. Two important points emerge from the uptake of this in 1:22. First, the use of purification language (ªØŒ, ‘you have purified’) has cultic associations and anticipates the image of the church as temple in 2:5. It is striking, though, that the verb is active and not passive and is linked to ‘obedience to the truth’ (cf. 1:2). So, despite the primacy of the divine revelation, faith and sanctification are not depicted as activities in which the elect are passive. Second, the key command delivered to those who have purified themselves is to love one another. The parallels with John 15:12 (and wider context) and Galatians 5:14 (and wider context) are noteworthy: the new covenant is characterized at the most basic level by the mutual love of those within it. One last point is worth noting in relation to the covenantal and revelatory aspects of 1 Peter. Although less explicitly developed than in Paul or John, there is nevertheless a verdict passed on the noetic aspect of the human condition. This is implicit in the stone passage of 2:4–8. The elect stone (2:6) is rejected by the builders and becomes a stumbling block (2:8) because they are incapable of recognizing it for what it is. Their response to it, a matter of disobedience, reveals that by contrast to the elect, they are in darkness (cf. 2:6). While less developed than in Paul or John, this ‘pessimistic anthropology’ undergirds the significance of the revelatory and spiritual language used throughout the epistle: humanity cannot redeem itself and can only recognize God’s way of salvation by the disclosing power of the Spirit.

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The Cross and the Isaianic Servant(s) in 1 Peter Peter’s account of the cross in 2:24 is key to understanding his theology of atonement. The verse is, of course, contextualized with a quotation from Isaiah 53:9, about the Servant’s sinlessness, in 2:22, and further points of connection to that portion of Scripture will emerge in 2:24–5. As we have already noted, Isaiah is the most prominent Scriptural source for the author and the image of the Suffering Servant is a significant one for him. There is a certain poetic structuring of the verse which deserves attention. I lay it out here (in rather awkward English) to allow the parallelism and logic to emerge: Who our sins offered up, In his body, upon the tree, So that, in sins having no part, We might live by righteousness; By whose wounds you are healed. n a ±ÆæÆ H ÆPe I ªŒ K fiH ÆØ ÆP F Kd e º , ¥ Æ ÆE ±ÆæÆØ I ª Ø fiB ØŒÆØ z Ç ø,

y fiH ºøØ NŁÅ.

The verb usually translated ‘bore’ is IÆçæø, which occurs as a technical verb for sacrifice throughout the Old Testament,5 although it is not limited to specific kinds of sacrifice and can have a non-sacrificial meaning. The same verb is also used twice in Isaiah 53:11–12, of the Servant’s bearing of the sins of the ‘many’, who will be made or declared righteous through his sacrifice ( ØŒÆØHÆØ . . .  ºº E). Here, the sins are ‘ours’, possibly representing a deliberate conflation of Isaiah 53:11 with 53:4. Although we must, perhaps, be careful not to press the allusion beyond its own terms, it is interesting that in Isaiah 53:11 the justification secured by the Servant’s sacrifice is linked to the formation of knowledge (ºÆØ fiB ıØ) and light, connecting this death with revelation. The description of the sacrifice being offered ‘in his body, on the tree’, merges this sacrificial image with the concept of ‘cursing’; the reference to the tree, as in Paul, must be derived from Deut 21:23, where it refers to the one who has been put to death for a capital crime. We must not overlook the fact that while the combination of sacrifice and curse language is unusual, it has a background in Isaiah 53, where the Servant is stricken and punished (Isaiah 53:4–5). This application of sacrificial imagery to the cursed figure in Isaiah 53 5 See, for example, Leviticus 2:16; 3:5, 11, 14, 16; 4:10, 19, 26, 31; 6:8, 19; 7:5, 31; 8:16, 20–1, 27–8; 9:10, 20; 14:20; 16:25; 17:5–6; 23:11.

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is widely recognized to be distinctive within the Old Testament and has been described as ‘a radical desacralisation of sacrifice’.6 The penal dimension of this death, however, cannot be isolated from the imagery that follows: the death of Jesus, drawing upon Isaiah 53:5, is intended to result in healing, a therapeutic image that develops the transformation described immediately prior to this, of living in/by/for7 righteousness and having no part of sin. It is quite striking that the verb used of liberation from sins (I ª ÆØ) can indicate death, but also has participatory (actually, antiparticipatory) overtones, hence my translation: to die to sins is to cease to participate in them, to be ‘out of ’ them. The arrangement of the material calls attention to the antithetical parallelism between this purpose clause and the opening statement of 1 Peter 2:24. Again, in rather awkward English: he our sins bore . . . that to sins we being dead . . .

The result is the clear association between the event of the cross and ‘our’ death to sin: in the moment of the death of Jesus, Peter considers that ‘our’ own life in sin was brought to an end. The tenses will not accommodate a theology of atonement that reduces it to merely moral example, just as the verbs of transformation will not accommodate a theology that reduces it to merely penal substitution. Yet, the penal dimension remains through the emphasis on the curse. As we saw in our discussion of Paul, this penal use of curse language may also evoke the covenant curses of Deut 27–8, so that the accursed death of Jesus is understood to have dealt with the failure of God’s people to live according to the covenant stipulations. Given what we have seen of the covenant theme in 1 Peter, this makes good sense and coheres well with the rest of the passage. Isaiah 53:6 lies behind the straying sheep imagery of 2:25, though it appears to be conflated with Isaiah 40:10–11 or Ezekiel 34, where Yahweh is presented as the shepherd of Israel. Again, without pressing the allusion beyond its own terms, it is interesting that Isaiah 53:6 speaks of ‘the iniquity of us all’ being laid upon him. Taking these elements together, we can see that Peter’s account of the atonement is clearly drawn from Isaiah 53. That passage allows him to bring together, around the idea of a suffering Messiah, ideas of sacrifice, curse, substitutionary death, and healing. The messianic dimension of Isaiah 53 is important: it allows Peter to identify the representative role of the Messiah within the covenant, but his language suggests a participation in his death that is more than formal, indicating the destruction of one reality and the beginning of another. 6

Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40–66: A Commentary (trans. David Muir Gibson Stalker. London: SCM Press, 1969), 268. 7 There is an article, but no prepositions to help decide the force of this.

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Flood Typology and Participation in 1 Peter This imagery is taken up in Peter’s christological use of the flood account in 3:18–22. This discussion is embedded into a wider section of the book in which the author speaks of the sufferings of Christians in relation to the cross. Importantly, Christ’s death ‘for sins’ (æd ±ÆæØH), designated in aorist tense (ÆŁ) as a particular event in time, is described as a hapax (–Æ), a one-off event. The ‘dying for’ language is taken further with another pairing in 3:18, ‘the righteous one for the unrighteous ones’, and its purpose is specified: ‘to bring you to God’ (¥ Æ A æ ƪªz fiH ŁfiH). There are obvious echoes of 1 Peter 2:25 here and hence the allusion to Isaiah 53 continues to be effective. Clearly, whatever Peter will go on to say about the significance of the suffering of the individual, this is grounded upon a theology that understands the death of Jesus to be the singular ground of atonement, the one death that is in exchange for sins. The link between the death of Jesus and the flood narrative is an important one to make. It is not simply a matter of the vindication of those who suffer: the link, rather, lies in the key term ‘flesh’ (æ). Jesus, in 3:18, is put to death ‘in flesh’ but made alive ‘by the Spirit’. We have seen that in Paul’s letters, baptism represents identification with the dying and rising of Jesus, a participation in his death and resurrection. In Peter, the significance of baptism is prefigured by the flood (3:21), specifically in the element of water ‘through’ which eight people were saved. The preposition is important: the salvation spoken of is not from the waters (i.e. through the ark and providence), but through the waters. In other words, the waters are saving in effect and this can only be because they are seen to be cleansing. It is in relation to this point that the key term ‘flesh’ is significant. In Genesis 6, that term is repeated (in 6:4 and 6:13) as the cause of the violence and iniquity that fill the earth, and the destruction of flesh is specified as the objective of the flood (6:18). Certainly, flesh will exist after the flood and the Noachic covenant is made with it (Gen 9:8–17), but there it is specified at key points that it is with ‘every living soul in all flesh’ (Å łıåB ÇÅ K z ÆæŒ). This is the kind of distinction that would allow a Jewish reader to differentiate the corrupt flesh before the flood with the living flesh that is left. The flood is, therefore, a cleansing destruction, purging the earth of that which is corrupt. This helps to explain why Peter sees it as an antitype of that which baptism symbolizes, particularly if we accept that his understanding of baptism may actually agree with that of Paul: the flood, as a purging judgement, prefigures the death of ‘flesh’ in Jesus and the establishment of a new order by the Spirit. It is worth mentioning that other literature of the time, notably The Book of the

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Watchers, understands the flood as a cleansing and restorative event, prefiguring the eschatological judgement.8 This requires, though, that Jesus’s identification as the sin-bearer is not simply representative but is also participatory, putting to death the old order of sins in which we used to participate and establishing a new order of righteousness in which we now participate. This is intelligible as a variant of the theology that we have already seen in Paul and John, and, like them, its ‘realism’ lies in its eschatological character: the reality of salvation in Jesus was anticipated by the prophets, and underlay their own hope (1:10–12), but only now has it been revealed in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Christian Suffering as Participation in the Death of Jesus in 1 Peter Like Paul, Peter does not segregate this participation in the death of Jesus from believers’ experience of suffering. Such suffering becomes Christoform through our participation in his death and derives its own significance from that death. An interesting example of this may be seen in 1:7–9. This section speaks of the revelation of Jesus, in the context of a subjunctive (æŁfiB) that speaks of the hope that the authenticity of the faith of the audience might be found to have been productive in the revelation of Jesus: 7

so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed (æŁfiB N ÆØ  ŒÆd Æ ŒÆd Øc K I ŒÆºłØ  Å F æØ F·). 8Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, 9for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Most translations render the subjunctive with a clear future force, suggesting that the apocalypse in view is that of the parousia. This is defensible in the context, since that future component of the church’s hope is made clear at various points through the letter and establishes the horizon that gives perspective to all else in the letter. The fact that verse 8 describes the audience as having ‘not seen’ Jesus would appear to confirm this. However, the logic of the following verses, 10–12, is that despite the absence of physical sight, the definitive revelation has been made known in the word preached. One wonders, then, whether the ‘revelation’ of Jesus in 1:7 is the future event of 8

Particularly 1 Enoch 10, where the same theme of purging is encountered.

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parousia or actually the manifestation of Jesus in and through the suffering of believers. There is nothing in the Greek to require a future sense. Perhaps this is to push Peter’s language too far, and perhaps he is simply linking Christian behaviour with eschatological vindication, but certainly in 3:17 and 4:1–2, the verses that flank the flood typology, the hapax of Jesus’s death is linked to Christian conduct in suffering in ways that seem to go beyond mere imitation. In 4:1, Peter urges his readers to arm themselves with the same attitude as that shown by Christ, who suffered in ‘flesh’ because ‘the one who suffered in the flesh has ended sin’.9 While it is tempting to read this in simply exemplarist terms, there are indications that Peter is continuing to speak of the effects of the atonement. The participle often translated as ‘whoever has suffered’ (› ÆŁg) is actually an aorist and is articular; it is not, then, unspecified as in NRSV (‘whoever’), but refers to a particular sufferer and, indeed, to an action that has been completed. Moreover, the tense is the same as that of the participle used to speak of Christ’s suffering (ÆŁ ). The main verb (ÆıÆØ) is perfect, also indicating a state of affairs now in place through the historic activity described. All of this suggests that Peter is not calling for mimesis of an exemplary suffering, but for consciousness of participation in a foundational event that gives significance and moral shape to the believer’s own experience of suffering. This, I would suggest, makes better sense of 4:13: But rejoice insofar as you are sharing (Œ ØøE) Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.

Again, as here in the NRSV, translations tend to suggest that the revelation of Christ’s glory will take place at the parousia, but there is nothing in the Greek to require this: it is literally, ‘in the revelation of his glory’, and this may well be understood in terms of the cruciform, Christiform, anastiform10 Christian life. None of this is to suggest that Peter does not expect a parousia event, or that he is operating with a realized eschatology that has excluded future elements. It is, rather, to note that the suffering-vindication typology often seen in 1 Peter is often construed in an exemplarist fashion that fails to do justice to the uniqueness of his death and to the significance of both eschatological and pneumatological elements in Peter’s account. There is much, then, in 1 Peter that is redolent of the participatory theology encountered in Paul and John: it is covenantal, eschatological, pneumatological, and noetic, with the central idea of the end of one existence and establishment of another understood in terms of the new covenant. The role of the Spirit in realizing salvation in believers is less prominent than it is in Paul or John, and is focused much more tightly on revelation, but the 9 10

My translation. I borrow this term from Finlan, ‘Can We Speak of Theosis in Paul?’.

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description of Jesus’s resurrection being achieved ‘by the Spirit’ suggests a broader pneumatology to be assumed than is actually made explicit. In other regards, Peter’s pneumatology is quite consistent with theirs. Where there is a sharper difference is in the lack of mystical imagery and language in 1 Peter. Even here, though, the emphasis that revelation has taken place apart from vision, through the Spirit in Scripture, is consistent with what we have seen in Paul and John, with their own concern to maintain that true knowledge of God is not confined to ecstatics, but to all who are sealed by the Spirit.

2 Peter The authorship of 2 Peter is a matter of debate, along with its literary relationships,11 but there are a number of theological contact points with 1 Peter, which are all the more interesting if the two epistles do not share an author. Notably, 2 Peter also employs the covenantal language of election and calling (1:10, integrating themes that run from 1:3–11), uses flood imagery in relation to eschatological judgement (3:5–7) and draws upon the story of the Watchers (2:4) in developing the promise of judgement. These are modest, but nevertheless significant, parallels. The first, in particular, reinforces our arguments to this point that covenant informs participatory theologies. 2 Peter 1:4, of course, contains one of the key participatory statements in the New Testament, with its hope that believers might be ‘participants of the divine nature’ (ªÅŁ ŁÆ Œ Øø d çø). Such is the importance of this statement that we must devote some space to it in our discussion. The crucial issue of the meaning of çØ is one that needs to be set in context and so, rather than moving straight to a discussion of this point, we will consider the broader emphases of 2 Peter 1:3–4.

Covenant Themes in 2 Peter 1:3–4 2 Peter 1:3 opens with the statement that ‘to us’ has been given everything needed for life and godliness ‘by his divine power’ (B ŁÆ ıø ÆP F). It is worth noting that the author here qualifies a noun that designates ‘power’ ( ÆØ) with the adjective ‘divine’ (ŁE ), the same adjective that will be used to qualify çØ. The antecedent that informs the designation of this power as ‘his’ (i.e. that tells us who ‘he’ is) is found in 1:2, where both God and ‘Jesus our Lord’ are named; this, in turn must be read in terms of 1:1, where 11

Generally, of course, the epistle is more closely linked to Jude than to 1 Peter. See the introductory discussions of Jerome H. Neyrey, 2 Peter, Jude (New York: Doubleday, 1993) and Richard Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (Waco: Word Books, 1983).

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Jesus appears to be unambiguously identified as God.12 This ‘power’ is a property of God, then, but it is a property that is inherently economic: the word describes God’s mighty and sovereign engagement with that which is outside of himself, as that engagement is—and has been—mediated in Jesus. Perhaps we should understand the role of the Holy Spirit to be implied; he is mentioned in 1:21 in relation to the prophets, but there is no explicit mention here. What is clear, however, is that the power that the author considers to resource the Christian life brings ‘knowledge’ (KªøØ) of ‘him who called us’ and it is through this that the believer is resourced. Given what we have seen throughout our study of the New Testament, this emphasis is hardly unusual and need not be seen as the influence of proto-Gnostic elements13 or of Graeco-Roman mystery thought. It is, rather, one example of a consistent New Testament emphasis on revealed wisdom lying at the heart of salvation. Through the glory and goodness of ‘him who called us’, believers have been given ‘his precious and very great promises’ (a ØÆ ŒÆd ªØÆ E KƪªºÆÆ  æÅÆØ) and it is through these ( Øa  ø) that they are to become (ªÅŁ) participants in the divine nature. The clustering of covenant imagery has been explored by Wolters,14 who argues that this is the key to properly understanding the reference to participation in the divine nature: like ‘divine power’ in 1:3, ‘divine nature’ designates the person of God in his covenantal economic activity and to be Œ Øø  of this is to be covenant partners with God.

2 Peter 1:4: Covenant Partners in the Divine Economy? Wolters notes, importantly, that when Œ Øø occurs with a genitive, as it does here, it typically means ‘partner’ and not ‘partaker’. Such a reading of these verses opposes the standard interpretation that understands çØ to refer to God’s nature as an abstract entity and salvation as an escape into this from the corrupt physical world.15 Wolters’s interpretation is followed by Reese, in her Two Horizons commentary on 2 Peter,16 and will receive further

12 $ıg —æ  Fº  ŒÆd I º   Å F æØ F  E NØ  E ºÆå FØ Ø K Ø-ŒÆØ z  F Ł F H ŒÆd øBæ   Å F æØ F; ‘Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have received a faith as precious as ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ’. 13 This is not to ignore the potential for such language to be assimilated into Gnostic frameworks, or the resources that texts such as this would provide for developing Gnostic thought within Christianity, but in itself this verse is no more Gnostic than other New Testament writings. 14 Albert M. Wolters, ‘ “Partners of the Deity”: A Covenantal Reading of 2 Peter 1:4’, Calvin Theological Journal 25 (1990), 28–44. 15 Käsemann, Essays on New Testament Themes, 179–80. 16 R. A. Reese, 2 Peter and Jude (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007).

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support from Scott Hafemann in his own forthcoming commentary.17 Hafemann adds to Wolters’s findings a detailed study of the word çØ, noting, in particular, that it is most commonly found as a verbal noun related to the verb çø (‘to grow’, ‘to bring forth’, ‘to put forth’, ‘to become’); the verbal dimension points to an active quality to the word, usually overlooked by interpreters, that comports well with the covenantal context and that effectively requires us to consider çØ as denoting divine activity, not abstract being. Hafemann may or may not be correct, but his study simply supports an already strong argument from Wolters that, I would suggest, is now further supported by my own arguments for the extent of covenant conceptuality in the New Testament. The cluster of ideas that we encounter in 2 Peter 1:3–4 is one that we have now found widely. What this means is that 2 Peter 1:4 portrays believers not as sharing in the divine essence—either in terms of absorption into God or in a Platonic sense—but rather as those who are in covenant with God, constituting his people and actively cooperating with his will and intentions for the world.

The Activity of the Believer in Partnership with the Divine Nature Any discussion of 2 Peter 1:4 in relationship to deification must also engage with the following verses, where the believer, ‘for this very reason’, is enjoined to: 5

make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge,6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness,7 and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love.8 For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5–8)

Not for the first time in our study, we find that a New Testament author stresses the importance of human activity in participation; there is no displacement of grace in this, since the grounds of this human effort is the prior grace of God, his resourcing of the believer by his power, through the knowledge of Jesus. Grace, however, is not experienced passively in this author’s theology: to be a covenant partner, a Œ Øø, is to share in God’s activity.

17 Hafemann also intends to publish an article (‘Fellow Participants of the “Divine Nature”: 2 Pet 1:4 within its Philosophical and Eschatological Context’, under submission) in which he elaborates the linguistic evidence. I am grateful to him for sharing this material with me ahead of publication.

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Having noted this, it is particularly striking that the first and most foundational of the virtues listed is faith—the basic trust in God and his promises— and the final climactic one is love. As well as standing in agreement with what we have seen widely in the New Testament, the emphasis on love here ensures that the conduct and character of the believer share in God’s love for his people. It is significant that ‘godliness’ (PØÆ) precedes and is the foundation for brotherly affection (çØºÆ ºçÆ) and then love (IªÅ); the order reflects the fact that loving conduct towards fellow believers18 is an outworking of likeness to God. Such likeness, though, is a dynamic emulation of God’s character, not a restored Adamic quality, the protoplast being absent from 2 Peter’s paraenetic schema.

JAMES It must be acknowledged that the Letter of James offers limited evidence of a participatory theology. The associations between this letter and a more Hebraistic form of Christianity, one much more informed by the wisdom tradition, may lead some to suggest that the relative lack of evidence for a participatory soteriology in this letter supports the conclusion that such participatory concepts grew out of contact with Hellenism, of the kind that is reflected in Paul and John. Such a conclusion, when set in the context of this study, can already be seen to be specious: we have demonstrated already that union with Christ is a participatory concept governed by covenantal concepts and the effects of Scriptural passages, not an absorption of Hellenistic conceptuality. Instead, a more natural contrastive comparison is that of the wisdom literature that is clearly of influence upon James: this literature, too, is often seen to lack covenantal features or evidence of Torah piety. At times in the past, scholarship has drawn sharp lines between wisdom and Torah and wisdom and apocalyptic, but those lines have increasingly been recognized for what they truly are: distinctions of genre and emphasis, rather than necessarily ideology. Such a recognition may allow us to see James as lacking an explicit theology of participation precisely because of its generic characteristics: it is primarily a sapiential work and, as such, is less conspicuously covenantal in content. In fact, the very lack of participatory language in the letter may support our broader case for participation being a covenantally governed concept: as a sapiential work, with less of an emphasis on covenantal imagery and language,

18 That fellow believers are the objects of love is required by the use of çØºÆ ºçÆ; the scope of IªÅ may be broader, but there is nothing in the letter to confirm this.

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the primary associations of union with Christ, it might be predicted on the basis of our thesis that it would largely lack reference to participation. Such is indeed the case. Nevertheless, there are minor points within the letter where interesting points of language and concept occur that may be consistent with an assumed theology of union. I stress, these do not constitute conclusive evidence that James has such a theology. Taken by itself, this could not, I think, be argued convincingly. But, when James is set in the context of the early Christian theology revealed elsewhere in the New Testament, and when its generic character is taken into account—in other words, when it is properly related to the canon of the New Testament—these elements are consistent with the view that James can be appropriately situated within a theological context that includes a doctrine of participatory union.

New Birth and Revelation in James 1:18 First, it is notable that in James 1:18, there is a now familiar cluster of images: In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

While the terminology is a little different from that seen in Paul, John, and Peter, the ideas are consistent: there has been the birth (IŒÅ) of a new reality, by an act of revelation described as ‘the word of truth’, so that those who have been generated in this way constitute ‘firstfruits’ (IÆæå ) of his creatures. There is an underlying eschatological thrust to this, of an inaugurated kind: the new act of revelation has inaugurated an as yet incomplete salvation.19 The previous verse is also noteworthy in its description of the gifts that come down from the Father of Lights. As the introduction to 1:18, the primary significance of ‘gift’, particularly when coordinated with the title given to God as the source of light, is a revelatory one. God reveals, and true revelation comes from above (not below, as some would understand wisdom literature to typically emphasize). In a sense, then, James happily introduces apocalyptic language to his sapiential instruction, of a kind that we have seen elsewhere to be explicitly associated with the epistemic dimensions of participation. What this means is that the whole framework of wisdom that underpins the latter, the conceptuality of being wise and manifesting that wisdom in action, is, in fact, an apocalyptic or revelatory one (3:15), something reflected in the description of Jesus as ‘glorious’ in 2:1. 19 This eschatological dimension of James has been explored by Todd C. Penner, The Epistle of James and Eschatology: Re-Reading an Ancient Christian Letter (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), who provides a full overview of the previous debates and exposes the weaknesses of those who claim a simplistic imminent eschatology.

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Divine Presence and Righteousness in James It is also noteworthy that James operates with a strong theology of ‘presence’ and that this is linked to ‘righteousness’ (2:23, 3:18). The imagery of 4:8 is specifically the image of presence supported by the language of cultic purity, given moral significance: Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. KªªÆ fiH ŁfiH ŒÆd KªªØE E. ŒÆŁÆæÆ åEæÆ, ±Ææøº , ŒÆd ±ªÆ ŒÆæ Æ, łıå Ø.

We must be careful not to over-press the significance: there is nothing in this verse to equate God’s presence with Christ. At the same time, the wider context speaks further of friendship with the world as enmity with God ( çغÆ  F Œ ı åŁæÆ  F Ł F KØ) and links this particular image of good or bad fellowship with a reference to the indwelling spirit. Whether this refers to the Holy Spirit’s jealous guarding of righteousness or to the human spirit as corrupted by envy is a matter of scholarly debate.20 It is interesting, though, that this particular ‘interior’ reality is matched by another one elsewhere: as we have seen, the ‘birth’ referred to in 1:18 is grounded in the revelatory act of the word, and that word is later described as ‘implanted’ (çı ) and powerful ( ı ) to save souls. In both Paul and John, such linking of interior presence and power is specifically tied to the Spirit of Christ. Might the coordination of such language here reflect an underlying christological pneumatology of the same kind? Whether or not this is convincing, there is enough on display in James to convince that we are dealing with a sapiential text shaped by an apocalyptic theology. Given the importance of the apocalyptic dimension to everything that we have seen thus far concerning participation, this means that at the very least, James is compatible with such theology and, if anything, the relative lack of participatory language, when compared to the similar lack of covenantal language in James, supports our findings regarding covenant and union.

REVELATION We saw in Chapter 7 that Revelation employs temple imagery in its description of the eschatological bride as the New Jerusalem. We noted, too, that this 20 Luke Timothy Johnson, The Letter of James: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 1995), rejects the possibility that it is the Holy Spirit; by contrast, Ralph P. Martin, James (Waco: Word Books, 1988), whose discussion provides extensive further bibliography, upholds this possibility.

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forms the climax of a particular narratival contrast between Babylon and Jerusalem that is participatory in character, to the extent of being developed using sexual language. In this chapter, we will note the distinctive grammar employed in the opening chapter of Revelation and link this to the titles used of Jesus, as these in turn relate to the portrayal of the believer’s participation in his martyrdom. Suffering witness (martyrdom) and victory are key themes in Revelation, treated in fundamentally apocalyptic terms: the suffering and death of the Lamb and of his followers looks like defeat when viewed in worldly terms but understood in relation to the revealed purposes of God, it is the triumph of the Lion of Judah (Rev 5:5–6, cf. 14:4).21 Importantly, there is only one Lamb, and his is the victory that gives meaning to the martyrdom of his people. Throughout Revelation, the Scriptures are used in the development of this reconfiguration, never simply quoted but always reworked. At key points, those Scriptures are used with obvious and strategic covenantal overtones, such as in Rev 1:6, where, in terms reminiscent of 1 Peter 2:9, the church is described as ‘the kingdom, priests’ (cf. Exodus 19:6).

Participatory Language in Revelation 1 and the Titles of Jesus The titles used of Jesus in 1:5 are important to the martyrological concern of the author. He is ‘the witness, the faithful one, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth’. He is further praised as the one ‘who loves us and has freed us by his blood’. It is noteworthy that even as the sovereignty of Jesus is described, and his salvific role, the first title used is ‘the witness’. This will establish a key theme that runs throughout the book. In 1:9, John begins to introduce his christological vision with a description of himself in relation to his addressees: I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.  ¯ ªg  øÅ, › I ºçe H ŒÆd ıªŒ Øøe K fiB ŁºłØ ŒÆd ÆغÆ fi ŒÆd   fiB K  Å F, KªÅ K fiB  ø fi fiB ŒÆº ız —ø fi Øa e ºª   F Ł F ŒÆd c ÆæıæÆ  Å F.

The verse appears to be deliberately ambiguous in the way by which it refers to the witness of Jesus (c ÆæıæÆ  Å F), leaving the reader with the 21 John employs a particular device at key points in the book by which a figure is introduced in speech to the prophet and then seen by him to be quite different. The depiction of the Lion– Lamb in Rev 5:5–6 is an important example: the Lion of Judah is announced as the victor, but John sees this figure as a slain lamb. The result is a subversion of expectation based on what is revealed.

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question of whether the genitive is subjective or objective. Does it refer to the witness that Jesus bears, the witness borne to him, or perhaps the coinherence of these? That ambiguity is all the more striking because of the use of ıªŒ Øø, ‘fellow-sharer’, in relation to both ‘tribulation’ and ‘Jesus’.22 John shares with his audience a tribulation that is ‘in Jesus’. In fact, this is only the first of a chain of three nouns, governed by a single article, that closes with this locative statement. Those three nouns are not synonyms: while ‘tribulation’ and ‘endurance’ could be seen as natural partners, ‘kingdom’ seems to rupture the pattern. Yet, as already suggested, this reflects the core apocalyptic strategy of John to identify the victory of God as having been realized in the suffering of the Witness. The rule of the Lion is founded on the death of the Lamb, whose followers follow wherever he goes. The use of ‘in Jesus’ tends to be overlooked as a possible parallel to Paul’s ‘in Christ’ formula. Certainly, it occurs only here. But, as we will see, it reflects John’s wider identification of the church with the narrative of Jesus. John’s introduction of himself leads into the Christ vision of 1:12–20, which is, in turn, closely linked to the letters to the churches in chapters 2–3. In each of these, elements from the vision are taken up in the designation of the one who addresses the churches, which are themselves depicted as the ‘lampstands’ among which Jesus walks. This, as we have already noted in Chapter 6, is imagery drawn from the temple and depicting divine presence. In each letter, blessings are promised to ‘the one who conquers’ (› ØŒH, 2:7, 11, 17, 26, 28; 3:5, 12, 21). This term is often placed at the head of a sentence in a grammatically striking nominative (essentially, nominative pendens), despite being the object of divine blessing. Here, as so often in Revelation, John’s grammar calls attention to what effectively becomes a technical term or title. The expectation of the churches is that they will consist of conquerors. Such conquest requires a faithfulness that mirrors that of Jesus: Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Beware, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison so that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have affliction. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. (2:10) Å b ç  F L ººØ åØ. N f ººØ ººØ › Ø º  K H N çıºÆŒc ¥ Æ ØæÆŁB ŒÆd  ŁºEłØ æH ŒÆ. ª ı Øe ¼åæØ ŁÆ ı, ŒÆd ø  Ø e çÆ  B ÇøB.

This theme of faithful witness is made central to the book with the account of the two witnesses in chapter 11, the story related when the final seal of the

22

Note that here, by contrast to 2 Peter 1:4, Œ Øø (in this case, with the prefix) is followed by datives rather than a genitive, requiring a translation that is closer to ‘fellow participant’ than ‘partner’.

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scroll is opened and thus explicitly the heart of the revelation. As Bauckham notes, it is in nuce the story of the apocalypse as a whole.23

Christian Martyrs and the Victory of the Lamb Revelation 11 opens with an image of the seer measuring the temple that is drawn from Ezekiel 40–8. This central motif means that we are dealing, again, with a temple image and that the ‘lampstands’ seen by John must be seen as temple furniture, as previously discussed. Given that the imagery has already been used of the church, in 1:12, 20 and 2:1, it must here be read as a description of the Church’s testimony, rather than as an account of specific prophetic figures. The imagery is specifically derived from Zechariah 4 (especially Rev 11:4, cf. Zech 4:2–3), but it is notable that, in Rev 11:6, the two witnesses are modelled not on Joshua and Zerubbabel (named in Zech 4) but on Moses and Elijah: They have authority (K ıÆ) to shut the sky, so that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have authority over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire. (Rev 11:6)

The power that is mentioned in these verses is provided solely that the two witnesses may complete their testimony: immediately they have finished their marturia, they are attacked and killed by the beast from the sea (11:7). Their experience of death explicitly mirrors that of Jesus, though recast using the familiar Danielic image of ‘time, times and half a time’ (Dan 7:12): they are raised after three and a half days (Rev 11:11).24 Their resurrection and ascension is accompanied by an earthquake in which 7,000 are killed and the rest of the populace—a remaining nine tenths—of the city turn to God. This inverts the figure of Isaiah 6:13 and Amos 5:3, in which only one tenth are saved, and that of 1 Kings 19:18, in which only 7,000 glorify God rather than Baal. As Bauckham notes, the witnesses’ ministry of repentance is ultimately successful, but only because of their martyrdom: The reason why the prophetic ministry of the two witnesses has an effect unparalleled by their Old Testament precedents lies in their participation in the victory of the Lamb . . . When they too maintain their witness even to death and are seen to be vindicated as true witnesses, then their witness participates in the power of his witness to convert the nation.25

23 Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 83. 24 Note, though, that the martyrs are not buried. 25 Bauckham, Climax of Prophecy, 280–1.

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The participation in the death of Jesus represented in the story of the two witnesses is mirrored also in the story of the martyrs in white robes that runs more widely through the book (esp. Rev 7 and 14).

The Agency of the Spirit in Martyrological Participation How, though, is such participation to be achieved? Is it simply through mimesis of the example left by Jesus? Does all of this point to an apocalyptic account of salvation that is essentially grounded in the performance of martyrdom? John repeatedly stresses the fact that the grounds of Christian salvation is the death of Jesus and that the key to Christian liberation is his blood (see for example 5:9–10). Here, as elsewhere in the New Testament, there is an atonement theology at work of a kind that a theology of moral example cannot accommodate. To this may be added the fact that John presents the Spirit as being the key agent in the divine purposes for the world and as the co-agent of the church’s own activity. This is seen most explicitly in Rev 22:17, where the Spirit and the Bride together say, ‘Come’. This climactic expression of the Bride’s giving of herself into the presence of her Groom is shared with the agency of the Spirit. The two, as in Paul, speak together, with one voice. This description of the Spirit’s co-agency with the church is anticipated by the description of the Spirit as ‘the Seven Spirits before the throne’ in 1:4, which is bound to the description of the church as seven lampstands in 1:12–13. We have already noted the evidence that the seven spirits represent the Holy Spirit.26 Further support for the divine identification of the seven spirits can be found in the grammar employed here. Although governed by I (‘from’) and occurring in the appropriate genitive case (H a ıø), when John further specifies the location of the spirits as ‘before the throne’ he uses the nominative form of the relative pronoun (L). This is striking because he exhibits the same grammatical defiance in his divine titles for God, ‘the one who is and was and is to come’ (› J ŒÆd › q ŒÆd › Kæå ) and Jesus, ‘the witness, the faithful one . . . ’ (Ie  Å F æØ F, › æı, › Ø . . . ). Both are qualified with terms in the nominative, rather than the expected genitive. The depiction of the Spirit as Seven Spirits is drawn, according to Bauckham, from John’s exegesis of Zechariah 4:1–14: If we wonder why he should have attached such importance to this obscure vision of Zechariah, the answer no doubt lies in the word of the Lord which he would

26

See the discussion in Chapter 7.

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have understood as the central message of the vision: ‘Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts’. (Zech 4:6)27

The fact that seven spirits represent the one Spirit proceeds from the identification of the seven-lamped lampstand (Zechariah 4:2, corresponding to the lamps that burn ‘before the Lord’ in the earthly sanctuary in Exodus 40:25) with the Spirit mentioned in Zech 4:6. This identification, though, works also in relation to the church as lampstands, meaning that its identity is, likewise, governed by the Spirit. Its own illuminating character proceeds from the Presence within. Hence, the ultimate co-agency of Spirit and Bride in saying ‘Come’ does not emerge afresh in Revelation 22:17, but rather is the climactic realization of that which is described in Revelation 1. The church does not climb to God: the New Jerusalem descends.

THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS The most important participatory material in the Synoptic Gospels is found in the accounts of the Last Supper, which have already been considered. At this point in our study, several more general issues may be noted before we focus on two interesting passages in Matthew’s gospel. Behind these general observations lies a vital methodological consideration: the Synoptic Gospels, despite representing the earliest traditions of the New Testament (and increasingly valued as witnesses to these),28 are some of the later New Testament material to have been committed to writing. As such, they would have circulated in ecclesial contexts already informed by the earlier Pauline writings (at least) and any departure from the theology of those writings would require to be made explicitly; otherwise, a common theology can be assumed and detected in otherwise minor or general details. The growth of performance criticism29 in recent years has also highlighted this ecclesiastical context and, in particular, has called attention to the Eucharistic setting in which the Gospels would have been read. The following general observations are significant in relation to what we have seen elsewhere in our study.

27

Bauckham, Climax of Prophecy, 163. Important recent studies have pushed scholarship in this direction, although they have not convinced all scholars. See Samuel Byrskog, Story as History – History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000); Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2006). 29 See the discussion of this in Chapter 8. 28

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GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON PARTICIPATION IN THE GOSPELS First, a significant volume of recent gospel scholarship has recognized the widespread presence, traceable to the Jesus traditions themselves, of a restoration theology.30 Even if particular details of the scholarly works have not convinced,31 the general thrust is more widely accepted. The importance of this lies in the covenant framework of such theology: the story of Israel is broadly evoked within the gospel narratives through various elements such as the baptism in the Jordan, the wilderness temptation, and the appointment of the Twelve, and this evocation becomes explicitly covenantal in the Last Supper accounts, as we have seen. Second, at least in Matthew and Mark there is an important emphasis on the revelation of wisdom, connected to an underlying apocalyptic theology.32 In both gospels, Jesus is both the revealer and the revealed, the subject and the object of revelation. For Matthew, Jesus is the great sage, revealing the will of God in five or six major blocks of teaching,33 with an authority that is frequently stressed by the evangelist and eventually identified as that of the Son. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. (Matt 11:27)

This remarkable statement, often described as the ‘Johannine thunderbolt’ because of its similarity to the language of the Fourth Gospel, is shared with Luke (10:22). In keeping with the tendency that we have seen in both Pauline and Johannine theology, it involves an inversion of human standards of wisdom: truth has been hidden from the wise and intelligent and revealed to infants (Matt 10:25). That truth is nothing less than knowledge of God the Father, made possible by the Son’s unique revelatory capabilities that are here 30 Most obviously Sanders, Jesus and Judaism; Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, and Jesus and the Victory of God. For a more recent treatment, see also Steven M. Bryan, Jesus and Israel’s Traditions of Judgement and Restoration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). At the level of the Gospels themselves, the discussions have often concerned the literary development of such theology, particularly in terms of the textual influence of Second Isaiah. See, for example, Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus and Mark. 31 Wright’s emphasis on the thoroughgoing motif of ‘exile and return’ has faced particular criticism. See Newman (ed.), Jesus & the Restoration of Israel. 32 On such an element in Matthew, see Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, chapter 4; on Mark, see Howard Clark Kee, ‘Mark’s Gospel in Recent Research’, Interpretation 32 (1978), 353–68; and, for a more recent specific example, Daniel M. Gurtner, ‘The Rending of the Veil and Markan Christology: “Unveiling” the %ƒ  ¨ ı (Mark 15:38–39)’, Biblical Interpretation 15 (2007), 292. 33 See Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity , 124, for comments on this.

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contingent specifically upon his Sonship, itself disclosed in the gospel. Luke’s mention of the Holy Spirit (10:22) does not displace the ‘Sonly’ nature of this revelation, but relates it to that evangelist’s pneumatological concerns. Mark lacks an explicit statement to parallel the Johannine thunderbolt, but nevertheless develops an account of salvation that centres on the disclosure of Jesus’s identity as Son. The centurion’s proclamation, ‘Surely this was the Son of God’, is set in apposition to the rending of the temple veil (Mark 15:39) and has been seen as the climactic moment of ‘apocalypse’ in the gospel narrative.34 The moment in which the divine identity of Jesus as the Son is truly recognized is the same moment in which the barrier to God’s presence in the temple is rent asunder. The same connection is found in Matthew (Matt 27:50–4), where it is also accompanied by a proleptic event of resurrection. Luke, for his part, modifies the centurion’s declaration, emphasizing instead the innocence of Jesus. There may be various reasons for this, but one is that Luke links the recognition of Jesus and his true identity to the resurrection, more than to the crucifixion, as illustrated by the story of the two on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13–52) and, of course, by the story of Paul’s own conversion with the Risen Jesus (Acts 9:1–9). Luke is also concerned, as we have already begun to note, with the connection between this revelation and the role of the Spirit: Jesus’s declaration of his Sonly revelation is made in the power of the Spirit, the enlightenment of the two in Emmaus is followed by the promise that they, and the other disciples, will be ‘clothed with power from on high’, and Paul’s encounter on the Damascus road is followed by his own reception of the Spirit at the hands of Ananias. That last detail is rather more significant than might at first appear: the Spirit is not received in isolation but in community with the church. C. Kavin Rowe has recently unpacked the significance of these elements in the Lukan accounts, arguing that Luke’s theology presents the gospel as a revelation—an apocalypse—that is not simply a matter of disclosure of intellectual content, but of the formation of a people.35 Rowe’s thesis constitutes a basic challenge to the standard view of Luke’s agenda, that it is pro-Roman polemic. Instead, he proposes that Luke presents the church as a Spiritconstituted counter-cultural reality, participating in the apocalypse of Jesus, the eschatological disclosure of God. These Synoptic emphases on covenant and revelation constitute significant points of overlap with Pauline and Johannine theologies of participation. They emerge less explicitly, and there is not the clear identification of cognitive incapacity that we find in Paul and John (though this may be implied by the

Gurtner, ‘The Rending of the Veil and Markan Christology’. C. Kavin Rowe, World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 34 35

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blindness of the disciples prior to Pentecost), but they are at least consistent with the assumption that the communities associated with the Gospels understood themselves to be participants in the eschatological apocalypse of the God of Israel.

The Easy Yoke of Matthew 11:28–30 Having noted these general points, we may now consider two suggestive images specific to Matthew’s gospel. The first is that of the yoke (Çıª), in Matt 11:28–30. I have argued elsewhere that this should not primarily be understood as an allusion to Sirach 6 (or 51) and, hence, as evidence of Matthean Wisdom Christology.36 Neither is the parallel with the interpretative strategy of a Rabbi37 sufficient to account for the terminology: the Matthean image is preceded by the ‘Johannine thunderbolt’ (discussed in ‘General Observations on Participation in the Gospels’, pp. 291–2), which presents Jesus’s revelatory capacities in entirely different terms, and is, in fact, contradicted by the fact that Jesus’s interpretations of the law are anything but easy (Matt 5:17–48). Rather, the yoke image evokes the divine covenant by means of an allusion to Jeremiah 2:20 and 5:5, where Israel is condemned for casting off God’s yoke. There may also be messianic overtones to the statement, contrasting Jesus with Rehoboam (1 Kings 12; 2 Chron 10), who made the yoke placed upon the people heavy,38 but even these overtones proceed from an underlying assumption that the Davidic king’s role is determined by the divine covenant. Given this, the primary significance of the yoke image is that it depicts the people of Jesus as bound to him as servants. This union is one that brings blessing and rest, but not because of a diminution of the law’s moral demands: Jesus, if anything, intensifies those demands in the Sermon on the Mount. Rather, the context forces us to see the restfulness of this yoke as lying in its connection to the Son’s disclosure of the Father. Those who serve Jesus will find rest because they know God; their union with him will centre on revelation. 36 See Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, 144–52. 37 Contra Hans Dieter Betz, The Sermon on the Mount: A Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, including the Sermon on the Plain (Matthew 5:3–7:27 and Luke 6:20–49) (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 215. See my comments in Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, 127. 38 There are some striking parallels, but the yoke in 1 Kings 12 and 2 Chron 10 is not qualified by ‘my’; in fact, the possessives designate it as the people’s yoke. By contrast, the yoke of Jeremiah 2:20 and 5:5 is ‘my yoke’. The shared terminology would allow the two sets of passages to lie behind Matthew 11:28–30, while the first person possessive ensures that the Jeremiah image is the controlling one.

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‘Whatever you did to the least of these, my brothers, you did to me’ (Matthew 25:31–46) The second image is that of the Son of Man on the throne of his glory and his identification with ‘the least of these, my brothers’ in Matthew 25:31–46 (esp. 40, 45). We noted briefly, in Chapters 1 and 4, that the corporate interpretation of the Son of Man title, particularly where developed in Danielic terms in the Synoptic apocalypse (Mark 13 and parallels), is highly problematic, despite being popular in many quarters of New Testament studies. Here, though, the Son of Man identifies himself with ‘the least of these, my brothers’ ( ø H I ºçH  ı H KºÆåø): whatever has been done to one of these has been done to him. How are we to understand this, if we acknowledge the problems of the corporate interpretation of the Son of Man? A proper reading of this passage requires some reflection on the way in which Matthew appears to make use here of the Parables (Similitudes) of Enoch. There have been long-running debates concerning the origin of this latter book, whether it is Jewish or Christian, and whether it predates the New Testament writings. The recent publication of Nickelsburg and VanderKam’s commentary, however, has all but established its pre-Christian Jewish provenance.39 The strong parallel between Matthew 25:31–46 and 1 Enoch 62:3, where we also read of ‘the Son of Man seated on the throne of his glory’, then, is likely to be the result of the influence of The Parables on the New Testament, and not vice versa. And one group of them will look at the other; and they will be terrified and will cast down their faces, and pain will seize them when they see that Son of Man seated on the throne of [his] glory.40

While undoubtedly influenced by Daniel 7:9–14 (which is also, of course, part of the background to Matthew 25), the Enochic figure is widely considered to be a composite, fusing Daniel’s Son of Man with the Isaianic Servant. One key title for the individual, ‘Chosen One’, is probably derived from Isaiah 42:1, and the description of the Son of Man as the ‘light of the Gentiles’ in 1 Enoch 48:4 probably reflects the influence of Is 42:6 and 49:4. Importantly, just as Isaiah is marked by an alternation between the singular figure of

39 G. W. E. Nickelsburg and J. C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 37–82 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011). 40 Translation from George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. Vanderkam, 1 Enoch: A New Translation: Based on the Hermeneia Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), 80. The possessive ‘his’ is dropped from ‘throne’ in this translation, but is well represented and is reflected in other translations such as that of Ephraim Isaac, ‘1 (Ethiopic Apocalypse of) Enoch’, in J. C. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Volume 1, Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments (New York: Doubleday, 1983), 43.

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the Servant and the plural servants,41 and by the use of the descriptive ‘chosen’ for both the Servant and God’s people,42 so the Parables speak of both the ‘Chosen One’ and the ‘chosen ones’,43 the latter term denoting the saved community, also described as ‘the righteous’.44 The overlap in terminology, then, certainly allows for some notion of solidarity existing between the Son of Man and his people,45 but, crucially, this seems to be the result of Isaianic and not Danielic influence. Interestingly, no scholar of 1 Enoch would argue that the Son of Man is a corporate figure, per se: he is rather an individual in solidarity with a people. Matthew 25:31 draws on 1 Enoch 62:3 and 5, where the figure of the Son of Man—identified as the Messiah in 1 Enoch 48:10 (under the influence of Psalm 2:2) and 52:4—is associated with the divine throne: it is, as in Matthew, the throne of ‘his glory’. It is possible that the reason for this allusion lies specifically in the solidarity between the Chosen Son of Man and the chosen ones who are his people. As we have just observed, such a relationship of solidarity is a clear feature of the Parables, where it appears to have been derived from Deutero-Isaiah. There may be little in Matthew 25:31–46, beyond the basic notion of solidarity, to lend further support to this, since there is nothing to indicate that the phrase ‘the least of these my brothers’ has been derived from the Enochic text. Nevertheless, the striking parallel with the Parables provides a strong explanation for the corporate solidarity of the Son of Man with his brothers, one that is not fraught with the same difficulties associated with the corporate interpretation of the Danielic Son.

CONCLUSIONS The purpose of this chapter has been to examine the further participatory elements that are encountered throughout the New Testament, in order to ensure that the descriptive task of biblical studies is properly fulfilled. Given the breadth of what has been covered in this chapter, there is inevitably less cohesion than has been the case in previous chapters and the material does not

41

The latter, e.g., in 54:17, 56:6, 63:17, 65:8–15, 66:14. Cf., 41:8–9 and 44:1–2 with 42:1; note particularly the combination in Isaiah 43:10: ‘you are my witnesses and my servant whom I have chosen’. 43 E.g. in 1 Enoch 45:3, where both singular and plural occur. 44 E.g. 1 Enoch 45:6, where the term occurs in connection to the ‘chosen ones’ named in the previous verses. 45 John J. Collins, ‘The Heavenly Representative: The “Son of Man” in the Similitudes of Enoch’, in John J. Collins and G. W. E. Nickelsburg (eds), Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism (Chico, Calif: Scholars Press, 1980), 111–33, 112–16. 42

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lend itself as naturally to the isolation of a set of general conclusions. Nevertheless, the following points may be noted. First, we have continued to encounter covenant imagery and language, with participatory significance. In 1 Peter, this is made clear by the opening allusion to Exodus 24:8 (also the backdrop to the Eucharistic expression ‘the blood of the covenant’). In 2 Peter 1:4, covenant language is found in a text often cited as proof for the doctrine of deification, but where we have seen believers to be portrayed as covenant-partners in the divine economy. In the Gospels, it emerges particularly in the restoration theology that must be read in the light of the sacraments. Second, we have continued to see an emphasis on the link between participation and illumination. The Elect Lamb of 1 Peter has been ‘revealed’, but his significance is incomprehensible to those outside the community of faith, for whom he is a stumbling block. James links new birth to the implanting of the word. The Apocalypse is, of course, premised upon the fact that the truth of Jesus must be revealed and appears absurd to those who have not received the power to understand that the death of the Lamb is the victory of the Lion. The Synoptic Gospels emphasize that only those with ears to hear and eyes to see recognize the truth of Jesus. Third, at least in 1 Peter and in Matthew, participatory elements are developed using the imagery of the Isaianic Servant. In Matthew, this appears to lie behind his use of the Parables of Enoch in depicting the Son of Man on his throne as being united to his brethren; in 1 Peter it emerges from a broader and more explicit allusion to the fourth Servant song. Fourth, in 1 Peter and Revelation, we have continued to see the Spirit presented as the agent of union between believers and Christ, as the one who realizes his identity in the church. This is more modestly the case in 1 Peter, where the Spirit’s role is primarily associated with the revelation of truth. In Revelation, though, it is thoroughly worked out as part of a schema that involves the co-agency of the Spirit with the activity of the Bride. Fifth, closely linked with the previous conclusion is an emphasis in all of the texts studied on the importance of the activity of believers in salvation. While the priority of grace is maintained throughout the documents studied, each also resists the notion that this is received passively. The covenant partners of God in 2 Peter 1:5–8 make every effort to add virtue to faith; the martyrs of Revelation wash themselves in the blood of the Lamb; faith without works is dead for James; those who come to Matthew’s divine Son take his yoke upon themselves. Each of these texts requires a concept of faith that recognizes the priority of grace, but does not diminish the responsibility of response or, indeed, the ultimately transformative intention of the salvation envisaged.

12 Conclusions This book has involved a broad study of participation in the New Testament, of the nature of the union between God and humanity, informed by the study of historical theology and, to a lesser extent, systematic theology. Our task was descriptive, requiring the coverage of a range of material that could not always be accommodated to a defined argument. Nevertheless, a number of key points have emerged with impressive consistency. Given the breadth of what has been covered, both biblical and theological, the present chapter is intended as a synthesis of the conclusions reached in relation to the various sources that have been examined, rather than simply as a rehearsal of the findings of each chapter.

COVENA NT It should perhaps come as no surprise, given the place of covenant language in the Last Supper and Eucharist accounts, that participation in Christ is spoken of in covenantal terms, with repeated allusion to key Scriptural texts that are covenantally oriented, such as Ezekiel 36–7 and, as impressively, the Servant songs of Isaiah. Such a finding goes against the drift of much contemporary New Testament scholarship, which has argued for a more limited spread of covenantal thought in the New Testament. Yet, we have noted that Paul’s language of the New Covenant in the revelatory account 2 Cor 3–5 is embedded into the wider themes of his writing, that John’s use of the ‘I am’ sayings and treatment of the Feasts is covenantal in shape, that Hebrews is grounded on the notion of the eternal covenant, that Peter’s account of the church proceeds from the election of the Servant and his ratification of the covenant. The widely found image of the temple is also linked to this, since the temple is the central symbol of covenant blessing. Repeatedly, too, we have stressed that the use of glory language in the New Testament signifies divine presence. This is unavoidably linked to the covenant concept, with its temple symbolism, and the key is that, set in covenant

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terms, that relational presence is formalized with binding commitments. The relationship, like a marriage, is a legal one. The formalizing of relationship that is essential to the covenant concept also underlies the theme of filiation that runs through the Bible. Israel, in the covenant, is adopted as God’s son; believers, in the new covenant, are similarly adopted. The prominence of filiation as a theme in the Fathers, notably in Justin Martyr, reflects a sensitivity to the presence of the theme in Scripture and a maintenance of covenant conceptuality, even where the word is not used. This covenantal framework must serve as the starting point for reflection on participation or union with Christ. That starting point must involve a recognition that, as the Elect One, the Messiah, Jesus is the covenant representative. His life and death are doubly significant in covenant terms. Born ‘under the law’, he fulfils the conditions and takes the curse of the old covenant, and his blood serves to ratify the new covenant. The use of the term ‘the eternal covenant’ in Hebrews 13:20 and the various passages that indicate that the election of Christ took place before the foundation of the world may suggest less the atemporal, non-narratable gospel advocated by Watson and more the (now unfashionable) Reformed concept of the pactum salutis.1 Importantly, the covenant is not an external set of conditions to which Christ conforms: he is the new covenant (cf. Isaiah 42:6, 49:8), it is in his blood. To be united to Jesus, to be in him, is to be in the covenant through his representative headship. Thus, it is to be in a condition of covenantal communion with God, with the covenant-fulfilment of Jesus serving as the grounds for our own communion. In Christ, we keep the covenant. The concept of ‘righteousness’ is linked to this. For all the contemporary unease about legal concepts of ‘righteousness’ and particularly that of the imputation of righteousness, the fact is that the concept is linked to covenant fidelity. That is not just a relational or social reality, a matter of belonging to the people of God, it is one in which the relationship is legally formalized. The ‘righteousness of God’ is a description of his character-in-covenant. To see the legal dimensions of this in relational terms dissolves the dichotomy between participatory and forensic understandings of the term, just as it dissolves the dichotomy between the objective and subjective genitive. In the covenant-in-Christ, God’s own righteousness is our righteousness. This recognition of the connection between the legal and relational dimensions of covenant is seen in the interest now beginning to be taken in the relationship between justification and adoption. The theme of covenant has been developed most thoroughly in the Reformed tradition, with some interesting reflections on how the contractual dimension that is inherent to the concept may be maintained in the context of an emphasis on the absolute primacy of grace. It is less obviously developed in 1 This has recently been positively reclaimed by Webster, ‘ “It Was the Will of the Lord to Bruise Him”: Soteriology and the Doctrine of God’.

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patristic accounts of salvation, but it is by no means absent from these. Their interest in the story of Israel broadly recognizes the status of that nation in relation to the covenant, but, more importantly, the consistent emphasis on the place of the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, means that the covenantal significance of the death of Jesus is always proclaimed.

SOLID ARITY AN D EXCHANGE Crucial to this theme of covenant participation is the notion of ‘exchange’. What has emerged throughout this study is the extent to which the New Testament develops this theme with reference to the fourth Servant song of Isaiah (Is 52:13–53:12). Such findings, while supported by a good deal of recent scholarship on specific parts of the New Testament, run contrary to a common scholarly tendency to downplay the significance of the fourth Servant song for the New Testament accounts of atonement. Our findings suggest that, in fact, this text was key to the theology of atonement and exchange in the New Testament, alluded to in the traditional accounts of the Eucharist and in the arguably pre-Pauline hymn of Philippians 2. The Servant songs are characterized by a broadly messianic emphasis, in the sense that the figure of the Servant is identified as Davidic and his role is defined in relation to the Davidic covenant. Recent scholarship has also recognized the interpretative significance of the move from singular to plural (or collective addressees) in the Isaianic material, allowing readers to consider how the singular figure of the Servant might relate to plurality of other servants. The fourth Servant song is significant because the suffering of this Servant is understood in some kind of substitutionary sense. ‘He’ suffers and, because of this, ‘we’ or ‘they’ are healed. I have suggested that covenant makes sense of this idea of representation, providing a framework within which the story of the one can be understood to be significant for the other. What must now be acknowledged is that this account of exchange or representation is inescapably forensic in tone. The suffering of the Servant is ‘punishment’ (Is 53:5) and the rationale for this is that ‘the iniquity of us all were laid on him’ (Is 53:6). At the same time, the benefits that are ensured by this substitution are not simply of pardon or imputation of status, although he will make many righteous by bearing their sin (Is 53:11): the language that is used instead emphasizes healing (Is 53:5), representing the problem of sin as disease (Is 53:4). This requires us to consider the death of the Servant as forensically or penally significant, but not to confine it to such significance. The Servant takes the punishment for sin, but he also takes its sickness into himself and allows it to be destroyed. This, as we will see, requires reflection upon the ontology of

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the one who died on Calvary. It also requires reflection on how such a ‘therapy’ is to be realized in the life of the believer and of the church. That requires an account not just of the Incarnate Son, but of the Spirit and, indeed, of divine presence.

THE SPIRIT AND FAITH The new covenant is appropriately described as the covenant of the Spirit (2 Cor 3:6). Across the New Testament, this is reflective of the fact that the Spirit is the gift given within the new covenant, who conforms our being to its terms by writing those terms on our hearts and realizing our conformity to Christ. In Paul and Peter, though, the Spirit is also involved in the constitution of the new covenant: Jesus offers himself through the Spirit at the cross and through the Spirit he is raised and declared to be the Son of God with power. This emphasis is reflected in the gospel narratives, with the involvement of the Spirit, explicitly at key points of covenant or messianic significance, such as the baptism and the subsequent temptation. As the gift of the new covenant, the Spirit makes real to (and in) believers ‘the truth as it is in Jesus’. The terms of the covenant are written in their hearts, minds are enabled to grasp the Christoform revelation, and their persons are conformed to his. What this means is that our selves are defined by and, indeed, in another. This is not simply formal but real, because of the Spirit’s presence. Faith is the inescapable characteristic of the eternal covenant and the Spirit’s presence. The contrasts established in the New Testament set faith against ‘fleshly’ or ‘worldly’ senses because it is, at heart, an acceptance of what has been revealed in Christ and is incapable of investigation or comprehension by the physical senses alone. Again, when understood in covenant (and hence relational) terms, the distinction between ‘faith’ and ‘faithfulness’ is seen to be artificial. It is clear from the totality of the New Testament evidence that faith is an active reality in the lives of those united to Christ. They are not passive as recipients of salvation, even though the very faith itself is presented as a gift and as an outworking of the Spirit’s presence. The fact that the verb ‘to believe’ is frequently encountered with Christians as the subjects and the related fact that reflexive pronouns are encountered at a number of points in the New Testament (suggesting that believers do something to themselves in their union with Christ) point together to the active quality of Christian faith. This highlights a further key point: union with Christ is by faith. As far as the writers of the New Testament are concerned, even those who offer the strongest statements of God’s universal love, such as John, union with Christ is

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limited to those who are the acting subjects of faith. In fact, in the context of all that we have seen (particularly the theme of covenant sonship), to emphasize the necessity of faith in this way is not to reduce union with Christ to a legal concept, but rather to properly acknowledge its relational dimension. Closely linked to this, of course, is the practice of prayer as the relational outworking of faith. We have touched upon this at points in the discussion, notably in relation to Paul’s account of the ministry of the Spirit in Romans 8, which is one of the great participatory passages in the New Testament. Although we did not consider the Lord’s Prayer in the course of this book, it seems likely that this, too, could be fruitfully considered in relation to participation, with its obvious points of connection to Romans 8. The same may be true of the material on prayer in James 5.

SACRAMENT AND PRESENCE The three themes just outlined come together in the sacraments. These have an important social dimension, marking the community of faith as distinct, circumscribing its boundaries. That social function is governed by their covenantal character, seen most clearly in the case of the Eucharist with its complex of associations with the Passover and the covenant ratification ceremony of Exodus 24. The symbolism of these sacraments points to the centrality of the death and resurrection of Jesus to the new covenant and to human participation in this. As we will note in the next section (Ontology, Incarnation, and Trinity), this begs ontological questions concerning his humanity and his divinity, of the kind so carefully explored in the theological reflection of the Greek Fathers. It also requires that accounts of atonement take the death and resurrection of Jesus seriously within the exchange formula. Given this, and given the consistent emphasis on the importance of the sacrament among the early Fathers, any suggestion that the Fathers did not recognize the centrality of Jesus’s death to redemption should be treated with care. In emphasizing the place of the sacrament, they ‘proclaimed his death’ repeatedly. The sacraments do not function as naked symbols, however, or simply as imaginative acts of remembrance. They are presented as acts of real communion with Christ in Scripture, and the historical debates over the nature of the divine presence in them is a legacy of a significant element in Scripture. Baptism is described as being ‘into’ the name of Christ, but is also more radically specified as a union with him (Rom 6), by which believers share in his death. This participatory identification is consistently portrayed as realized by the Spirit, by whom believers are bound to (or implanted into) Jesus, and by whose ministry the narratival character of Jesus is replicated in their lives.

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There is certainly a kind of analogy between Jesus and his followers, between his experience of the Spirit and theirs, but this is contingent upon a Spiritgenerated implanting of believers into his constitutive reality. If this is true of baptism, it is also true of Eucharist. This is portrayed as a participation in the Lord that is intelligible only as a matter of real presence. The communication of properties therein, presented by analogy with the table of the idol in 1 Cor 10, is a matter of the sharing of a person with another. Again, the presence of the Spirit is central to the reality of the presence of Christ at the table, indicated by the linking of the cup to the Spirit’s role: ‘you were all given one Spirit to drink’. This, of course, also underlies the unity of the church and the contextual emphasis on Christian love. It must be stressed that this account of the sacraments necessitates a concept of participation that is dynamic and personal, that involves the communion of one with the Other. Concern to take this element of transforming presence seriously marked the historical debates about the nature of the bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist, whatever the rights and wrongs of that debate may have been. The criticism of Reformed sacramental theology by those in the Radical Orthodoxy movement—that it is fundamentally compromised by a nominalist distinction between the world and God, between natural and supernatural—misses the point that the Reformers took seriously this biblical emphasis on the wholly other presence of God-in-Christ in the sacrament, even if it can appear to take warrant from their debates over the relationship of signum and res. They took seriously that the Eucharist is a temple meal, in which the Glory itself is present, by which we are transformed. The sacraments are also fundamentally eschatological, pointing back to the events of the death and resurrection of Jesus as the establishment of a new age of fulfilment and pointing forward to his return. They define the church in relation to these two advents and consequently govern all accounts of Christian morality. Any failure to take seriously the identity of the church in relation to the still-to-be-consummated purposes of God for the world, or to develop an account of the church and Christian ethics that leaves no room for the definitive transformation still to happen in the parousia betrays the very significance of the sacraments.

ONTOLOGY, INCARNATION, AND TRINITY Throughout this study, it has become clear that it is impossible to speak of human participation in God without speaking of the ontology of the Mediator, of the nature of the union of God and man that is internal to the incarnation. Even if Bauckham’s argument is correct, that the New Testament is more concerned to include Jesus within the divine identity than to specify the nature

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of his divinity,2 this immediately begs the ontological question. If we answer the question ‘Who is Jesus?’ with the identification ‘Yahweh, the God of Israel and Ruler of the Cosmos’, we are unavoidably faced with a range of further questions about how his divinity and his humanity are related and what implications this has for individuation within the Godhead. For my part, I do consider Bauckham to be correct in his claim that the ‘who’ question of divine identity is primary; but the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ questions cannot thereby be avoided. The incipient Christology and Trinitarianism of the New Testament cannot be reduced to the gradual compromise of a Jewish sect with Hellenistic religion, of the confusion of functional with ontological divinity. They emerge, rather, from accounts of the redemptive significance of the person of Jesus and his identity. Throughout the New Testament writings that we have examined, the real humanity and real divinity of Jesus are affirmed as necessary to the believer’s hope of participation in God’s life. In a range of ways, using diverse images, the writers consider the reason for the Word to become flesh, the Son to be made like his brothers, to lie in the rapprochement of humanity and God. This restoration is widely, but not solely, represented using the covenantal language of filiation and this prompts further reflection on the similarities and dissimilarities between the Sonship of the Logos and the sonship of the Christian. It is clear from the ways in which Christ’s Sonship is depicted that it belongs in a category of its own, making possible Christian sonship, but not identical to it. This emerges from the distinctive ways in which the Spirit’s role is described in relation to Jesus and to the believer. The nature of the Son’s dependence on the Spirit is different from that of the believer, even if there are points of analogy. What the Spirit realizes in the believer is the identity of the Son: he unites us to him, allows us to share in his cry of ‘Abba’, implants us into his death and resurrection and conforms us to his likeness. At every point, the identity of the believer is derived from that of the Son. This relationship of derivation requires that his Sonship is placed in a distinctive category. The Fathers grappled with this issue in their reflections upon contingency, and much of the confusion over whether or not their thought is Platonic stems from a failure to appreciate that this issue of contingency is often precisely what is at stake. In seeking to comprehend how human being, per se, is linked to the Incarnate Son who is the image of God, they speak of different kinds of limited or analogous participation, unpacked in terms of contingency and non-contingency, but these do not constitute the dynamic participation of union with Christ that is experienced by those whose existence is described

2

Bauckham, God Crucified.

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by the sacraments. For the sacramental community, the Spirit ensures the dynamic communication of the Son’s own presence. From this, it should be clear that the distinction made by Bousset, Schweitzer, and Deissmann between God mysticism and Christ mysticism is simply not tenable in the analysis of the New Testament. As far as the New Testament writers are concerned, there is a general consistency to the portrait: God is known in Christ by the Spirit. For these writers, then, all God mysticism is Christ mysticism and vice versa. While Bousset was correct to see the closeness of identification of being in Christ with being in the Spirit, he was wrong to see them as identical: the revelation of God is always through his image (Christ), with the Spirit making this revelation real and comprehensible to believers.

APOCALYPTIC UNION AND REVEALED WISDOM That we are dealing with a basically apocalyptic conceptuality of union is clear from the widespread motif of revealed wisdom in the New Testament. Such a motif cannot be seen as confined to the output of any one author, but is attested across the New Testament corpus, though with each writer employing different symbolism to develop this underlying theme. It is striking that Jesus is portrayed not just as revealer but as the revelation itself, so that it is precisely in knowing him, and not just what he has taught, that true knowledge of God is to be found. Union must, then, be understood in essentially personal terms, as a revelatory presence. This, in turn, problematizes any theory of Christology that does not affirm Jesus to be ‘God with us’. This emphasis on revelatory presence is developed widely in the New Testament using temple imagery, a common apocalyptic motif. The fact that we encounter different configurations of this, with some (Peter, Paul, Luke) presenting the church as temple, others (John) presenting Jesus as the temple, and still others (Hebrews) reflecting on the new right of access to the heavenly temple, ceases to be a problematic or conflictual diversity when we recognize that behind each of these images is an emphasis on divine presence as disclosed reality. In some instances (Colossians and Ephesians, Hebrews), typically in the later books of the New Testament, the authors deploy language that has close parallels in the Jewish mystical literature, in which the divine secrets of the heavenly temples and the divine form are revealed to a seer. As we have seen, however, the use of such language is in essential continuity with the wider apocalyptic themes of the New Testament, so that while distinctive, it is hardly odd.3 3 This point is convincingly developed by Chester, Messiah and Exaltation, 80–121, who traces the visionary dimension of the New Testament to Jesus himself.

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This apocalyptic foundation, particularly given its eschatological aspect, has been misunderstood by a large swathe of New Testament scholarship as representing an invasive activity of God that nullifies its antecedents, including Israel and Torah. This, though, has proceeded from a distorted understanding of apocalyptic thought and writings that has not yet been excised from New Testament scholarship. While apocalyptic may not affirm Torah simply in itself, it is a mistake to see it as rejecting Torah and, indeed, its own key categories, images, and themes are derived from it. What this means is that we must be attentive to the way in which the revelation that has taken place in Jesus is described in relation to that which has preceded it. While this issue must be examined in terms of the use of the Old Testament in the New, especially in terms of prophetic covenant imagery and the positive way in which Abraham and Moses are described, I would also suggest that the widespread references to the eternal election of Christ require us to hold that God’s plans in predestination included the incarnation, not as a fall-back or as a response to human failure, but as that which all antecedents anticipate. Such an understanding allows us to understand the emphasis on pre-Christian ‘faith’ in the New Testament, not as faithful keeping of commandments, but as trust in the saving work of God. It should be clear from this that I affirm the designation of participation as ‘apocalyptic’ but resist those accounts that dislocate this from the story of Israel and the covenant. In fact, the apocalyptic or epistemic dimension of union has a fundamental anthropological significance that is deeply significant for all Christian theology and moral reflection, and that is upheld in the patristic emphasis on the transformation of the mind. Only in union with Christ is truth properly comprehended, both the truth of God and of the cosmos. This emerges most clearly in 2 Corinthians 3–5 and in John’s gospel, but the broader emphasis on revelation throughout the New Testament reinforces the principle. All natural theology must be firmly subordinated to that which is revealed, for the natural mind is blind to the Glory of God.

PLATONIC PARTICIPATION, T H E O S I S , AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY All of the strands now highlighted allow us to return to the question of the Platonic dimension of participation in Christian theology. We noted at the beginning of Chapter 2 that some contemporary theological movements (notably Radical Orthodoxy) positively advocate a recovery of the Platonic dimension of participation and that this, indeed, is part of the modern configuration of the doctrine of theosis. Others, meanwhile, have dismissed

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the biblical and/or patristic accounts as hybridizations of the Jesus traditions with Platonic thought. Our examination of the Greek Fathers, drawing on Russell’s study and other recent patristic scholarship, highlighted the fact that the adoption of Platonic categories or language took place at a relatively late stage, in the specific context of Alexandria, and was considerably more careful than has often been assumed. The reconfiguration of Platonic elements in relation to the concerns of monotheism and the uniqueness of God is substantial, to the extent that it can even be questioned whether the Fathers in question are ‘Platonic’ in any meaningful sense of the word. The title of Mark Edwards’s recent study of Origen provocatively highlights this very point: Origen against Plato. Certainly, the Fathers consider the contingency of existence upon the being of God as a kind of participation, and the contingency of human being, specifically, upon the incarnation as another. But these are not the same as the dynamic personal communion that is understood to take place in the experience of those whose faith has united them to Christ, who partake of the sacraments. Only that dynamic and inter-personal participation can transform the mind to properly comprehend God and attain moral likeness. This dynamic participation corresponds to what we have seen to be presented in the New Testament in terms of covenant. This raises the question of whether theosis is a valid and helpful term to employ in scholarship on participation in the New Testament. For the reasons outlined in Chapter 2, I would suggest that it is not. Theosis is a complex synthesis of different strands of soteriology and philosophy. In the Alexandrian and Cappadocian context, the use of such terminology allowed the biblical teaching on filiation and subsequent reflection on the ontology of the incarnation to be explicated in contextually appropriate ways, often motivated by the polemical need to repudiate problematic syntheses of biblical thought with Greek philosophy (such as those of Basilides or Arius). This left a legacy that, in Eastern Orthodoxy, became a characteristic way of representing the divine economy. But it is a specific development of the biblical material, not simply a description of it. Moreover, it is a doctrine that has continued to develop, acquiring further internal distinctions, through the Hesychast controversy and the influence of the Palamite distinction between essence and energies. The fact that Lossky’s account of this is so different from that of Zizioulas highlights the fact that the concept is of little help to the descriptive task of biblical studies. Despite these cautions, however, and my general reluctance to use the word theosis in explicating the biblical teaching, there is much to be gained from examining the biblical material in conversation with that tradition. Not least important, in this regard, is the range of ways by which the divine essence is demarcated from compromise through participation. Even in the cherished Platonism of modern theosis the idea that the believer shares in the divine essence is (contra Gorman) inconceivable. In addition, however, the traditions

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of theosis can cast light on the range of ways in which transformation is represented and the interrelationship between these and the practices of Christian discipline, as well as upon the scope of divine economy. The growing tendency to speak of theosis in other Christian traditions is problematic, for the reasons noted in Chapters 2 and 3, but reflects real points of commonality between the traditions in relation to such ideas of transformation and personal activity.

COMMUNAL PURITY, ETHICS, AND THE LOVE COMMAND This brings us to the final necessary observation, concerning Christian ethics. The community that is united to Christ in covenant is represented as the eschatological temple in which the divine Glory abides. As such, it is required to be a place of purity (for the specific outworking of this in relation to sexual conduct, see especially 1 Cor 6:18–19) and to be a centre of blessing for the world, reflecting the cosmic expectations of Isaiah’s messianic temple. These two characteristics of the temple, operating within the framework of covenant, contribute significantly to the properly Christian configuration of ethics. They require a recognition that the church’s purity involves categorical separation from the world and its values, as the sacramental community of worship, and a simultaneous concern to bring the blessing of God to that world in its very sinfulness. For Paul and John, at least, and probably for all of the New Testament writers, this requires a negation of the natural self, since that self is blind and dead, incapable of loving God or others. Their anthropology is fundamentally negative. Only by the indwelling presence of Another can each person be brought into life and community. Hence, Paul rejoices that he lives, but only because Christ lives in him (Gal 2:20); he loves, but only because he is led by the Spirit (Gal 5:22). John, too, recognizes that only the presence of the Word can cause one to cross from death to life (John 5:24) and only by the mutual abiding of believers with him can they bear fruit (John 15:4–5). Because of the eschatological positioning of the church between advents, with the full redemption of our bodies still to be consummated, the transforming rule of Christ requires the constant refusal of the natural self, the deliberate and Spirit-empowered orientation of one’s life to God. For this reason, accounts of Christian ethics or moral theology that do not present participation in terms of dynamic koinonia with God will always struggle to accommodate the New Testament teaching, particularly on selfdenial. Similarly, imitation of Christ is an inadequate account of Christian

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ethics unless it is embedded within this broader participatory and transformative account. The social outworking of union with Christ is everywhere evident in the New Testament, and it is governed by the distinction between the church, as his body and temple, and the world. There is, therefore, a particular emphasis on the love that is to be shown within the community and on the unity and fellowship that is expected of God’s people. In the case of John, this becomes the new commandment of the new covenant: love one another. Participation in God, then, is participation in the community of God. Union with Christ demands unity in Spirit.

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Index of Selected Topics Abraham 32, 106–7, 196, 206, 224, 237, 305 Abrahamic covenant, see covenant, Abrahamic Adam 29–30, 57–60, 64, 91, 100, 119, 128–43, 170, 180–1, 231, 237–8, 242, 245, 247 glory of 12, 29, 41, 60, 119, 128–32, 133–41, 143, 147, 247 robes/garments of 133, 136, 139 Adam Christology 10, 12, 28–9, 41, 128–9, 131–2, 143, 237 adoption 51, 58–9, 61, 64, 68, 70, 73, 86, 87–8, 105, 196, 205–6, 221–5, 237–43, 254, 267, 270, 298 angelomorphic humanity 119–20 antichrist 269 apocalypse: concept 278, 288, 292–3 text 36, 116, 119, 134, 226, 294, 296 apocalyptic: literature 23, 110, 114–16, 149, 179, 181, 186, 226–7, 305 readings of Paul 23, 34–8, 78, 171, 219, 231, 250, 305 theology 22–3, 25, 40–1, 100–1, 110, 115–6, 142, 179, 231–3, 241, 283–5, 285–7, 289, 291, 304–5 ascension 153, 200, 288 ascent 52, 60–1, 82, 86–7 atonement 17, 19, 40, 97, 114, 125, 157, 179, 181, 191, 193, 223–4, 234–6, 261, 268–9, 275–9, 289, 299, 301 autologos 65 autotheos 65 baptism 21, 56–7, 63–4, 68, 74, 85, 192–201, 217–18, 222, 277, 301 Barth, theology of 7, 33, 36, 51, 78–9, 89, 92–9, 223; see also Barth, K. in Index of Modern Authors blood 57, 61, 161–2, 181–3, 186, 190, 207, 210–17, 268–9, 272, 286, 289, 296, 298 body 46–7, 57, 61, 64, 67, 81, 158, 195–6, 207–8, 238, 246–7, 275 of Christ 23, 53–4, 71, 74, 84–6, 147, 149–50, 152, 156–8, 163, 169–70, 186, 196, 208, 210–12, 216 of God 134, 150, 153 and Temple 147–60, 169–70

Calvin against the Calvinists 88–92 theology 37–8, 43, 77–8, 81–2, 82–8, 98–9, 157, 207, 240, 262 Christophany 231–2 co-crucifixion 27, 220–1, 234–5 communicatio idiomatum 69, 81, 94, 156, 193 communication 19, 63, 69, 72, 85, 156, 207, 225, 260, 265–6, 302, 304 communion 19, 42–3, 45–6, 53, 57–60, 72, 74–5, 98, 186–7, 191–2, 205, 216–17, 243, 262, 266, 270, 298, 302, 306 contingency/non-contingency 49, 65, 118, 303, 306 corporate personality 22, 53–4, 101–2 covenant 30–2, 74, 82, 84, 88–92, 98, 100, 103–6, 110, 114, 127, 196, 206, 211–13, 217, 228–9, 236, 243, 261–3, 271–4, 280–3, 293, 297–9 Abrahamic 32, 104–7, 224 and adoption/election 94–6, 105 and apocalyptic 36, 40, 110, 115–16, 179, 283, 305 and contract 100, 105 and kinship 222 and temple 161, 172 Davidic 107–8, 113, 293, 299 Mosaic 104, 106–8, 110, 190, 272 new, see new covenant Noachic 105–6, 277 partner 282, 296 crucifixion 155, 221, 225, 292 curse 104, 106–8, 189–90, 196, 212, 223–4, 236, 275–6, 298 David 107–9, 112–13, 126, 166, 200, 226, 299 Davidic covenant, see covenant, Davidic de jure/de facto participation 96–7 deification 20–2, 26, 40, 42–3, 44–5, 54–75, 80, 100, 105, 242, 250, 267, 296 duplex cognitio 83 duplex gratia 83–6, 268 Eden 133, 137–9, 188–9 election 74, 94–7, 99, 205–6, 242–3, 272, 280, 297–8, 305

338

Index of Selected Topics

en Christō ('in Christ') 19–22, 30, 128, 143, 149, 151–2, 178, 186, 197, 219, 222, 227, 229, 236, 239, 245, 248–9, 287 eschatology 23, 25, 34–6, 47, 61, 64, 68, 74, 115–16, 150, 162, 165–70, 183, 191, 196–7, 199–200, 222, 225–7, 233, 237–41, 246–7, 248, 249, 261, 267–8, 278–9, 284–5, 302 Eucharist/Lord's Supper 53–4, 56–7, 68, 70–1, 74, 80–1, 86, 192–3, 201–17, 290, 296–7, 299, 301–2 exchange 58–9, 61–2, 80–1, 125, 218, 236, 299–301 extrinsic incarnational union 70 faith 24, 31–4, 78–84, 87–9, 99, 107, 183–4, 186–7, 191, 215, 225–6, 241, 245, 256, 270, 278, 283, 296, 300–1, 305–6 and decision 244–5 and obedience 264 federal Calvinism 89–92 filiation 43, 55–63, 66, 69–70, 73, 87, 196, 242, 298, 303, 306 flesh 47, 59, 64, 68–9, 71, 74, 105–6, 172–3, 182–3, 191, 197, 215–16, 225, 233, 237–9, 241, 245, 247, 260–1, 266, 269–70, 273, 277, 279 flood 105–6, 142, 277–80 footwashing 178 gift 72, 74, 80–1, 88, 161, 176–7, 183, 243–5, 248, 254–6, 261, 270, 300 'gift theology' 78, 88 glorification 9, 45, 47, 61, 128, 130, 151, 232, 242, 251, 265 glory 60, 65, 100, 110–14, 116–20, 124, 127–8, 134–6, 139, 142, 147, 150–3, 159–61, 164, 170, 173, 180–1, 228–33, 238, 241–2, 247, 265–6, 278–9, 297, 307 of Adam, see Adam, glory of Glory Christology 110–13 headship 91, 149–50, 154, 298 Hekhalot 114, 117, 134 hope 108, 112, 115, 160, 162, 226, 261, 268, 278, 303 ‘I am’ sayings 176–8, 215–16, 251–2, 257–63, 265, 269–70, 297 illumination 68–9, 296 image 45, 60, 64, 68, 71, 74, 80, 97, 130–1, 135–6, 139, 197, 230–1, 241–2, 303–4 imitation of Christ 63, 85, 178, 184, 186–7, 190–1, 268–9, 279, 307 imitation of God 64

incarnation, ontology of 8–9, 29, 41, 45, 55, 59, 63–71, 74–5, 86, 98, 158, 179, 185, 191, 218, 236, 269–70, 302–4, 306 incorruption 61, 63–4, 71 infusion 178, 269 inner-biblical exegesis 109–10, 162 Isaianic Servant 108–9, 125–7, 160, 199, 214, 217, 226, 236, 249, 258–61, 270, 272, 275–6, 294–6, 297, 299 Israel 30, 58, 70, 74, 98, 103–5, 109–10, 142–3, 163, 206, 226, 232, 237, 259, 298–9, 305 and church 58, 165–7, 171 and identity of Jesus 33, 36, 57 place of 126, 238, 243–4, 258 Jesus: heavenly session 149, 184, 248, 294 priestly role 64, 181–5 real divinity 55, 184–5, 191, 223, 303 real humanity 46, 55, 98, 182–4, 191, 223, 261, 303 judgement 22, 106, 142, 176, 233, 255, 277–8, 280 justification 37, 78, 83–5, 88–9, 96–7, 100, 225, 242–3, 275, 298 ‘ . . . by faith’ 19, 21, 24, 32–4, 37–8, 40, 44, 77, 79, 82, 243 kavod 111, 134–6, 150–1, 180, 206 kingship ideology 121 kinship 47, 65, 72, 104, 222 koinōnia 98, 205, 307 and methexis 72 Law 25, 34–5, 96, 98, 107–9, 114, 176, 182, 185, 196–7, 210–11, 221–4, 228, 237–9, 243, 293, 298 liturgical anthropology 119–21 Logos 29, 49–52, 56, 59, 63–9, 71–2, 80–1, 216, 252–4, 257, 270, 303 Luther, theology 24, 33, 41, 77–82, 86, 94, 97–9 lux mundi 255, 261 martyr, martyrdom 163, 188, 190, 286, 288–90, 296 Merkavah 114, 117–18, 134, 149 Messiah 26, 108, 113, 121, 124–5, 152–3, 160, 170, 178, 200, 215, 257, 261–2, 276, 295, 298 and Temple 113, 123–4, 159, 165–70, 226 messianism 108, 121–5 and Septuagint 122 monotheism 28, 55–6, 61, 124, 258, 306 inclusive/exclusive 124

Index of Selected Topics moral likeness 69, 71, 74–5, 306 Mosaic covenant, see covenant, Mosaic Moses 110, 113–14, 120, 133, 136, 139, 174, 190, 201, 206, 229, 231–2, 259, 288, 305 Nestorianism 69–70 new covenant 58, 74, 104, 108–10, 161–2, 179, 185–6, 210–11, 213, 227–9, 232, 249, 254, 274, 297–8, 300–1 new creation 124, 159, 176, 195, 225–7, 232–5, 273 'New Perspective on Paul' 24–31, 37, 78, 87, 100, 103, 243 Noachic covenant, see covenant, Noachic Noah 105 noetic effects of sin, see sin, noetic (epistemic) effects noetic transformation 46, 69, 153, 228, 232–4, 248–50, 253–4, 270 nous 46, 48, 64–5, 74, 234 ontological and dynamic participation 65–6, 68, 74, 303, 306 Paraclete 252–5, 262 perichoresis 73, 264 pistis Christou (faith of/in Christ) 25–6, 31–4, 78, 89 Platonism/Platonic influence 27, 42–4, 46–7, 53, 55–6, 58, 61–5, 68–9, 72, 74–5, 174, 182–3, 234, 250, 263, 267, 282, 303, 305–6 pleroma 150, 153, 222 presence 22, 30, 51, 53–4, 57–9, 71, 79–82, 85–7, 91, 97–9, 107–8, 111–14, 116, 118, 121, 124, 127, 138, 150–1, 155, 170, 172–81, 185–6, 189, 191–3, 195, 201, 206–8, 217, 221, 224–5, 227, 232, 236, 242–3, 248–9, 254–5, 259–64, 266, 269–70, 285, 287, 290, 292, 297–8, 300, 301–2, 304

339

revealed wisdom 74, 114, 274, 281, 304–5 royal theology 108, 112, 121–3 sacraments 53, 56–7, 67–8, 70–1, 74–5, 79–81, 86–7, 98–9, 119, 192–218 salvation 24–6, 34, 38, 40, 44–5, 47, 67–71, 73, 80, 82, 86–9, 97–8, 105–6, 131, 156, 183–4, 215, 221–2, 236–7, 239, 246–8, 250, 259–61, 263–5, 267, 269–71, 274, 277–9, 281, 284, 289, 292, 296, 299 salvation history 24, 198, 200 sanctification/sanctifying 19, 52, 68, 80, 83, 85, 97, 157, 162, 266, 274 Shiur Koma 114, 135, 149–50, 153 sin 45, 71, 97, 106, 109, 114, 127, 130–3, 137, 139–40, 142–3, 185, 187, 235–9, 248, 255, 276, 299 noetic (epistemic) effects 37, 274 Sinai covenant, see covenant, Mosaic solidarity 30, 197, 203, 214, 295, 299–300 Spirit: covenant of 109, 161–2, 192, 196, 210, 227–8, 232, 249, 262, 300 filling by 151, 155, 163–4 Spirit Christology 28, 50–2, 157–9, 193, 195, 198, 200 substitution 212, 216, 235, 276, 299 inclusive/exclusive 235–6 suffering: of believers 23, 160, 190, 241, 245–6, 277–9, 286 of Christ 160, 205, 245–6, 276, 279, 286

Qumran 34, 100, 115, 118, 137–41, 147, 169

Temple: church and 71, 123, 147, 150–61, 167–70 heavenly 134, 172, 178–86, 304 theosis 24, 26–8, 41, 43–8, 53–5, 62, 75–6, 78–82, 98–9, 305–7 Throne of God 112–13, 117–19, 134–6, 188–9, 289, 294–6 Torah 23, 25, 34, 36, 100, 115–16, 133, 136, 142–3, 173, 226, 237–8, 252, 283, 305 Trinitarianism 50–2, 53, 59, 66, 75, 97–9, 132, 179, 189, 195, 200–1, 218, 249, 251, 265, 272, 303

representation 30, 98, 102, 235, 249, 299 resurrection 23, 29, 47, 53, 61, 74–5, 99, 140, 152, 160–2, 164, 169–70, 175, 181, 196–7, 207, 217–18, 238–9, 245–7, 256, 273–4, 277–8, 280, 292, 301–3

water: and baptism 254, 277; see also baptism 'living' 176–7, 188–9 wisdom 47, 56, 63, 115, 137, 155, 180, 206, 210, 274, 283–4, 291, 304

Index of Modern Authors Aaron, D. H. 133–4 Achtemeier, P. J. 162, 272–3 Ådna, J. 123 Agnew, F. H. 161 Albl, M. C. 165 Allison, D. C. 201, 214 Anderson, G. A. 133, 136, 140 Andriessen, P. C. B. 182–3 Armstrong, B. 83 Arnold, C. E. 150 Asano, A. 102 Bachmann, M. 78 Baer, H. von 198 Ball, D. M. 257 Barr, J. 32 Barrett, C. K. 165, 255 Barth, K. 7, 11, 33, 35–6, 41, 44, 51, 77–9, 89, 93–8, 106, 211, 223 Barth, M. 31 Barton, S. 213 Bauckham, R. 28, 36, 124, 130, 163, 165–6, 173, 181, 188–9, 223, 226–7, 234–5, 251, 258, 280, 288–90, 302–3 Baumgarten, J. M. 137 Bavinck, H. 92 Beale, G. K. 189, 258 Becker, A. H. 56 Beker, J. C. 222 Betz, H. D. 293 Billings, J. T. 77–8, 86–8, 242 Bird, M. F. 33 Blomberg, C. 169 Blue, B. B. 209 Boccaccini, G. 103 Bockmuehl, M. 3, 5–7, 129, 135, 231, 247 Boer, M. de 36, 219 Bousset, W. 17, 20–1, 40, 73, 194, 304 Bovon, F. 200 Bowald, M. A. 5 Boyarin, D. 43 Braaten, C. 79 Brandenburger, E. 130 Brock, S. P. 136 Brooke, G. 109, 165–6, 168 Brown, W. P. 189 Bruce, F. F. 148 Bryan, S. M. 291 Buchanan, G. W. 104

Bucur, B. G. 56, 119 Bultmann, R. 35 Bunta, S. 135 Burke, T. J. 223 Byrskog, S. 290 Caird, G. B. 18, 31 Campbell, C. 20, 38–9, 219 Campbell, D. A. 26, 34–5, 37–8, 41, 77, 89, 92, 105, 237, 239, 243 Canlis, J. 59 Carson, D. A. 203, 252, 254, 260, 262–3, 272 Casey, M. 73 Chazon, E. 139 Chester, A. 120–1, 123, 304 Childs, B. 6, 18, 36, 93, 126 Clements, R. E. 126 Coffey, D. M. 50–2, 200 Cohn-Sherbok, D. 203 Collins, J. J. 31, 295 Connell, M. F. 196 Cross, F. M. 104, 222 Crossan, J. D. 115, 202 Davidson, I. 27, 223 Davila, J. 117–18, 124, 126, 140 Deissmann, A. 17–20, 40, 304 Del Colle, R. 49, 51–2, 200–1 Donovan, M. A. 61 Dowey, E. A. 83 Doyle, R. C. 82 Duke, P. D. 175 Dunn, J. D. G. 9–10, 28–30, 33, 41, 51–2, 59, 129, 131–2, 139, 158, 193, 198, 200–1, 223, 229–30, 233, 238, 245 Dupont, J. 165 Edwards, M. 64–5, 119, 234, 306 Egan, P. 160, 272 Eriksson, A. 209–10 Ernst, J. 150 Eshel, H. 139 Esler, P. F. 102 Fee, G. D. 9, 52, 157, 208, 210, 225, 240–1, 249 Finlan, S. 28, 47, 279 Fischer, R. H. 81 Fishbane, M. A. 109

Index of Modern Authors Flender, H. 200 Fletcher-Louis, C. 119–21, 124 Flogaus, R. 82 France, R. T. 203 Franklin, E. 200 Freedman, D. N. 104, 106–7, 109 Frei, H. 33, 36, 78, 93

Jackson, T. R. 226 Jaubert, A. 203 Jenson, R. 79 Jobes, K. H. 162, 272 Johnson, L. T. 285 Jonge, M. de 140–1 Jüngel, E. 93, 96, 211

Garcia, M. A. 77, 83–4, 86 Gardner, P. D. 208 Gärtner, B. 147 Gieschen, C. A. 119 Gignilliat, M. 126, 160, 226, 233, 235, 260 Goff, M. 115, 120 Gorman, M. J. 25–8, 75–6 Gottstein, A. G. 118 Goulder, M. D. 149, 153 Griffith, T. 253 Grillmeier, A. 65 Grindheim, S. 222, 237 Gruenwald, I. 116 Gunkel, H. 198 Gurtner, D. M. 291–2

Kabisch, R. 22 Kaminksy, J. 102 Käsemann, E. 30, 34–6, 78, 93, 202, 243, 269, 281 Kasper, W. 50 Kee, H. C. 291 Keener, C. S. 175, 203, 252, 254–6, 265, 267, 269 Kerr, N. 37 Kharlamov, V. 73 Kim, J. H. 141 Kim, S. 19, 231 Kirby, J. C. 149, 153 Kittel, G. 31 Kloppenborg, J. 115 Knibb, M. 121–2 Knoppers, G. N. 104 Koch, K. 116 Koester, C. R. 254

Haacker, K. 33 Habets, M. 93 Hafemann, S. 282 Hahn, S. 105 Hallonsten, G. 44–5, 81 Hanson, R. P. C. 165 Harink, D. K. 36 Hartman, L. 36, 116, 194 Haussleiter, J. 31 Hays, R. B. 3, 10, 25–6, 31–6, 41–2, 75, 93, 103, 125, 208, 210–11 Hebert, G. 31–2 Heinrici, C. F. G. 205 Heitmüller, W. 194 Hengel, M. 172–3, 251 Hering, J. 203 Hillers, D. R. 106 Hofius, O. 202, 211–12, 234–6 Hogeterp, A. L. A. 154 Holmes, S. 81 Hooker, M. 125, 129 Horbury, W. 121–5 Horton, M. 90, 92 Hubbard, M. V. 225 Hugedé, N. 230 Hultgren, S. J. 131 Hurst, L. D. 18, 31, 129 Hurtado, L. 9, 20, 194–5, 234 Isaacs, M. E. 179 Iverson, K. 213

Laato, T. 222, 237 Lambden, S. N. 133 Lange, A. 174 Launderville, D. 228 Lee, K. W. 93 Leisegang, H. 198 Lenz, J. R. 47 Levison, J. R. 137–8 Lévy-Bruhl, L. 102 Lietzmann, H. 202, 216 Lieu, J. 253 Lillback, P. A. 92 Lincoln, A. 255 Linman, J. 80 Lohfink, N. 106 Longenecker, B. W. 219 Lossky, V. 49, 53–4, 76 Louth, A. 46, 65, 69 Lust, J. 121–2 McCormack, B. 36, 223 McGuckin 72 Mackey, J. P. 51 McKim, D. K. 90 McLean, B. H. 224 Malatesta, E. 263 Malina, B. 265

341

342

Index of Modern Authors

Mannermaa, T. 79–80 Manson, W. 257 Marshall, I. H. 202 Martin, D. B. 156–7, 207 Martin, R. P. 227, 285 Martyn, J. L. 23, 35–7, 51–3, 93, 219–20, 223, 256 Matlock, R. B. 33, 36 Meier, J. P. 182 Meyendorff, J. 53, 76 Miano, D. 104, 107 Michaels, J. R. 272 Milbank, J. 43, 88 Mitton, C. L. 148 Moberly, W. 5–7 Moffitt, D. M. 180–3 Montefiore, H. 175 Moon, J. N. 109 Morray-Jones, C. R. A. 115–16, 120, 134–5, 147, 149–51, 153, 179, 230 Mosser, C. 57–8, 61–2, 183 Motyer, S. 253 Müller, C. 35 Muller, R. A. 83, 89–91 Murphy-O'Connor, J. 209 Murray, J. 92 Nassif, B. 79 Navtanovich, L. 141 Neder, A. 93–6 Neuenzeit, P. 202 Newman, C. 19, 30, 110–13, 119, 231–2 Newman, J. H. 118 Newsom, C. 118, 120 Neyrey, J. H. 156, 184, 280 Nickelsburg, G. W. E. 121, 294 Nock, A. D. 194 Novenson, M. 122 Osborn, E. 62 Paget, J. C. 21 Papanikolaou, A. 27, 48–9, 53 Parker, T. H. L. 82 Partee, C. 82 Paulsen, H. 208 Penner, T. C. 284 Perrin, N. 167–8, 176 Porsch, F. 255 Porter, J. R. 101 Porter, S. E. 110, 194, 235 Powers, D. G. 102, 220, 224 Puera, S. 80 Rahner, K. 44 Reese, R. A. 281

Reventlow, H. G. 126 Richardson, R. D. 202 Ridderbos, H. N. 24, 256 Robinson, H. W. 101–2 Rochais, G. 173 Rogerson, J. W. 102 Rohrbaugh, R. L. 265 van Roon, A. 148 Roth, C. 212 Rowe, C. K. 292 Rowland, C. 115–16, 134–5, 147, 149–50, 179, 230–1 Ruiten, J. van 110, 137, 189 Russell, N. 10, 18, 42, 54–6, 58, 61–2, 64–70, 234, 306 Sanders, E. P. 24–5, 168, 175–6, 207, 258, 291 Sandmel, S. 44 Schäfer, P. 118 Schenck, K. 179 Schlier, H. 153 Schmid, H. 81 Schmithals, W. 130 Schnackenburg, R. 255 Schnelle, U. 172 Schutter, W. L. 272 Schweitzer, A. 17, 21–3, 25, 36, 40, 115, 304 Scroggs, R. 129 Scrutton, A. 252 Seesemann, H. 205 Segal, A. 19 Skarsaune, O. 57 Snodgrass, K. 168 Spieckermann, H. 235 Spinks, C. D. 5–6 Sprinkle, P. M. 33 Stăniloae, D. 48, 53 Stendahl, K. 24 Stenschke, C. W. 18 Stibbe, M. W. G. 253 Stirling, A. M. 148, 153 Stone, M. E. 140 Strecker, G. 17 Strobel, A. 205 Stuhlmacher, P. 17, 35 Sullivan, K. P. 120 Tappert, T. G. 80 Taylor, G. M. 32 Thatcher, T. 173, 252 Theiss, N. 194 Theissen, G. 209 Thiselton, A. C. 154, 202–3, 205, 209 Thompson, M. M. 253 Thornton, L. S. 205

Index of Modern Authors Tonstad, S. K. 253 Tooman, W. A. 109 Torrance, A. J. 43, 98 Torrance, J. B. 89, Torrance, T. F. 31–2, 89, 93, 186 Treier, D. 5, 7 Trigg, J. W. 65 Tromp, J. M. 140–1 Trumbower, J. A. 253, 262 Trumper, T. 240 Tuell, S. 188 Turner, M. 52, 198–9 Um, S. T. 176–7, 189 VanderKam, J. C. 294 Vanhoozer, K. J. 5–7, 87, 242 Vanhoye, A. 182 Wagner, J. R. 126, 226 Wallace, R. S. 86 Ward, G. 86–7

343

Watson, F. 34, 107, 123, 206, 219–20, 223, 232, 298 Watts, R. 214, 291 Webb, S. H. 88 Webster, J. B. 5, 7, 27, 93–7, 180, 223, 298 Wedderburn, A. J. M. 130, 194 Westermann, C. 276 Wheaton, G. 174, 256 Williams, A. N. 44, 48 Windisch, H. 229 Witherington, B. 180, 209 Witsius, H. 91 Wolff, C. 203 Wolters, A. M. 281–2 Wrede, W. 22–3, 40 Wright, N. T. 30–1, 43, 47, 59, 130–1, 168, 175, 291 Wright, W. M. I. V. 256 Yoshiko Reed, A. 56 Zizoulas, J. 53–4, 76, 212, 306

Index of Sources Old Testament Genesis 1 117 1–3 91, 128, 131, 137 1:1 173 1:26–7 135 1:27 68, 197, 242 2–3 188, 190 2:9–10 188 2:24 156 3:14–19 190 3:21 133 3:22 188 6 277 6:12–13 105 6:18 105 9 105 9:2–7 106 9:8–17 277 9:12–16 106 9:9–11 105 12:2–3 106 13:12 173 14:17–20 184 15 91, 104, 106–7, 224 15:13–16 106 17 106–7 17:5–14 106 17:8 107 28:12 135 48:15 261 49:54 261 Exodus 2:24 106 3 257 3:6 106 3:14 257–8 3:15–16 106 4:22–3 105 6:8 106 8:15 243 n.74 8:32 243 n.74 9:12 243 n.74 10:27 243 n.74 11:10 243 n.74 12 204, 211 12:14–28 211 13:21–2 260

16 259 16:12 259 16:31–5 259 16:35 182 19 153 19:6 160, 190, 286 20:2 107 24 120, 161, 211, 301 24:3–8 161–2, 272 24:6–11 211 24:8 214, 296 31:18 228 n.28 32 114 32:15–16 228 n.28 32:19 228 n.28 33 113, 135 34 229 34:1 228 n.28 34:4 228 n.28 34:28–9 228 n.28 34:29 229 34:34 229 36:1 151 40:25 290 Leviticus 2:16 275 n.5 3:5 275 n.5 3:11 275 n.5 3:14 275 n.5 3:16 275 n.5 4:10 275 n.5 4:19 275 n.5 4:26 275 n.5 4:31 275 n.5 6:8 275 n.5 6:19 275 n.5 7:5 275 n.5 7:31 275 n.5 8:16 275 n.5 8:20–1 275 n.5 8:27–8 275 n.5 9:10 275 n.5 9:20 275 n.5 10 113 13:28 180 n.22 14:20 275 n.5 16:25 275 n.5 17:5–6 275 n.5 17:8–13 167

Index of Sources 18:26 167 23:11 275 n.5 Deuteronomy 4:13 228 n.28 5:22 228 n.28 8:3 259 9:5 106 9:9–11 228 n.28 21:23 224, 275 26 204 26:5 203–4 27–8 107, 224, 276 27–30 104 28 212 28:23 212 29 91 29:13 106 30:20 106 32 208 32:39 258, 265, 274 32:51 236 n.61 2 Samuel 5:2 261 6:6 113 7 112, 123 n.87, 151 n.14 7:6 107 7:7 261 7:10–11 107 7:11–16 107 7:13 107 7:14 108 1 Kings 2:4 107 6:29 189 n.45 6:32 189 n.45 6:35 189 n.45 8:10–12 112 12 293 19:18 288 1 Chronicles 17 123 n.87 2 Chronicles 10 293 Nehemiah 9:20 259 Job 31:33 91 Psalms 2 108 n.30 2:2 295 8 129–31, 141–2, 181

8:4 142 8:4–6 132 8:6 131–2 23:1 261 27:1 260 28:9 261 36:9 260 40:6–8 182 45:3 112 n.43 52:8 244 68 153 68:18 153 78:24–9 259 78:71 261 80:9–16 262 82 55, 57–8, 63 n.71, 70, 73–4 82:6 57–8, 61, 63 93 183 95 183–4 96 183 96:9–10 183 97 183 110 131–2 110:1 132 118 12, 169, 178 118:9 164 118:22 152, 154, 159, 164–5, 167–70 118:23 168 118:26 168 Proverbs 1:15 225 n.18 2:7 225 n.18 2:13 225 n.18 2:20 225 n.18 3:23 225 n.18 4:12 225 n.18 4:14 225 n.18 6:22 225 n.18 8:20 225 n.18 9:6 225 n.18 14:2 225 n.18 20:7 225 n.18 28:6 225 n.18 28:26 225 n.18 Isaiah 5:1–7 168, 262 5:5 113 6 113–14, 134, 150 6:1 150 6:3 117–18, 150 6:13 288 8:14 159, 243 8:14–15 169 9:1–2 175 n.7 9:2 261

345

346

Index of Sources

Isaiah (cont.) 10:17 260 12:3 176 17:6 244 26:19 176 27:2–13 262 28:16 152, 159, 243 32:2 176 32:20 176 35:6–7 176 40–66 112 n.44, 226 40:6–8 273 40:10–11 276 40:11 261 41:17 176 42:1 126, 294 42:1–2 57 42:1–4 112 n.44 42:6 109, 160 n.28, 260–1, 294, 298 42:7 199 43:10 126, 258, 265, 295 n.42 43:10–13 258, 274 43:11 259 43:13 259 43:25 258 n.31 44–5 123 n.87 44:3 176 45:8 258 n.31 45:18–19 258 n.31 45:21 166 45:22 258 n.31 46:4 258 46:9 258 n.31 48:12 258 n.31 48:17 258 n.31 49:3 126 49:4 294 49:6 112 n.44, 260 49:8 109, 298 49:10 176 51:12 258 n.31 52:6 258 n.31 52:13 126 52:13–53:12 299 53 125–6, 212, 214, 217, 224, 233 n.49, 235–6, 275–7 53:1 126 53:3 165 53:4 275 53:5 123 n.87, 275–6 53:6 210–11, 276 53:9 236 n.61, 275 53:11–12 214, 275 53:12 211, 214 54:10 109, 226 n.23 55:3 109, 126

58:6 199 58:11 176 60:1 260 60:3 160 n.28, 260 60:19–20 260 61:1–2 199 61:8 109 65:17 233 Jeremiah 2:13 176–7 2:20 293 2:21 262 5:5 293 11:16–17 244 12:10 262 12:10–17 262 12:16 166 17:13 176 23:2 261 23:4 261 23:5 108 23:5–6 123 n.86 31 12, 109 31:21–5 228 31:31–4 108, 162, 185, 214, 228 31:31 210–11, 228 n.29 31:32 114 31:33 179, 228 31:34 228 31:37 109 33:15 108 33:15–16 123 n.86 50:6 261 Ezekiel 1 114, 117, 134, 153 1:25–6 134 n.19 1:26 134 11 233 n.49 11:19 228 15:1–8 262 17:1–21 262 19:10–14 262 28 188 n.43 31 188 n.43 34 276 34:2 261 34:15 261 34:23 108, 261 34:23–4 123 n.86 34:25 109 36 12, 109, 162, 233 n.49, 254, 263 36–7 114, 261, 272–3, 297 36:25–27 109, 228

Index of Sources 36:26 228 n.29 36:27 228 n.30 36:28 228 37 109, 112, 233 n.49 37:19 112 37:24 108, 112, 123 n.86, 261 37:26 109, 112 40–1 189 40–8 124, 188 n.43, 226, 288 47 175 n.7, 176, 187–8, 190, 233 n.49 47:1 189 47:1–12 188 n.43 47:7–12 112 47:12 188 47–8 153 Daniel 2:34–5 169 7:9–14 294 7:12 288 Hosea 3:5 166 6:7 91 10:1–2 262 14:6 244 Amos 5:3 288 9:11 113, 166 9:11–12 165 Habakkuk 2:3–4 186 2:4 34 Zechariah 3:8 108 4 288 4:1–14 189, 289 4:2 290 4:2–3 288 4:6 290 4:7 169 4:9 123 n.87 6:12 108 6:12–13 123 n.87 6:12–15 113 n.45, 153 9 214 9:9–17 113 n.45 9:11 214 11:4–17 113 n.45 11:15–17 261 13:7–9 113 n.45 14 188, 190 14:8 176, 188 14:9 113 n.45 14:11 190

New Testament Matthew 1:23 201 5:14 260 5:17–48 293 10:25 291 11:27 291 11:28–30 293 12:6 173 n.2 20:28 214 21:23–7 168 21:28–32 168 n.48 21:42 168 n.49 22:44 131 25 294 25:31–46 294–5 26:28 210 26:60–1 169 27:50–4 292 28:18 218 28:18–20 195, 201 28:19 201 Mark 10:45 214 11:27–33 168 12:10–11 168 n.49 12:36 131 13 294 13:26 31 14:12–16 203 14:24 210 14:57–8 169 15:39 292 Luke 4:18–19 199 7:22 164 n.36 10:22 291–2 11:20 200 20:1–18 168 20:17 168 n.49 24:13–52 292 John 1 252 1:1 65, 173, 252 1:1–18 251, 253 1:3 253 1:3–5 252 1:4 174, 252 1:5 253–4 1:9 56, 70, 174 1:10–11 253–4 1:12 58, 240 n.69 1:12–13 254 1:14 69, 173, 177, 255

347

348 John (cont.) 1:16 174 1:17 174, 177, 255 1:28 66 2 174 2:6 175 2:11–16 175 3 254, 261–2, 273 3:3 254 3:5 176, 263 3:5–8 254 3:10 254, 263 3:16 266 4 176, 189 4:19–24 177 4:25 178 5:24 263, 307 5:26 263 5:33 177 6 201, 215, 259–60 6:28–29 256 6:29 259 6:30 259 6:33 260 6:35–7 215 6:40 215 6:44 215 6:47 260 6:49 259 6:51 215, 260 6:53–6 215, 260 7–9 255 7:35 176 7:38–9 176 7:50 255 8:12 260 8:31 253 n.9 8:40 177 8:44–6 177 9 256 9:5 260 10 262 10:1–6 261 10:7 261 10:9 261 10:11–12 261 10:16 261 10:28 259 10:34 63 n.71 11 263 11:25 263 12:20–33 253 n.9 13 178 13:10 178 13:14–17 178 14 264

Index of Sources 14–17 251–2, 267 14:1 264 14:6 177, 255–6, 259, 263–4 14:9 254 14:10 264 14:12 264 14:15–27 254–5 14:16–18 264 14:20 262, 264 14:21 264 14:25 254, 262 14:26 256 15 264 15:1 252, 262 15:3 263 15:4–5 262, 307 15:10 264 15:12 274 15:12–14 263 15:14–15 264 15:26 177, 255 16:7 256 n.21 16:7–15 254 16:8 255 16:13 177, 255–6 17 265 17:1–6 265 17:9 265–6 17:11–12 265 17:14 265–6 17:15 266 17:17–19 266 17:21–2 266 17:22–3 266 18:38 256 19:39 255 20:22 256 n.21 20:26–9 256 20:30 257 20:31 215 32:27 65 Acts 1–4 163 2:33 199–200 2:38 194 2:41 195 2:42 201 4 217 4:1–11 164–5 4:8 163 4:11 167 4:31 163 5 163 5:3 163 5:32 163

Index of Sources 6:5 163 7:51 164 8:15–17 164 8:16 194 9:1–9 292 10:48 194 15 164–7, 199 n.18, 244 15:8–9 166–7 15:16–18 113, 165–6, 199–200 15:19–21 167 19:1–7 200 19:3 194 19:5 194 Romans 1–3 237 n.62 1–5 237 1:16 245 1:17 186 1:18–25 130, 132 1:18–3:20 37 2 92 2:13 83–4 3:21 83 3:23 130, 132 4:24 245 4:25 125 n.96 5 91, 128, 130, 237–8 5:6 212 5:12–14 237 5:12–21 132 5:17 238 5:19 238 5:21 238 6 85, 102, 193, 196, 238, 301 6–8 237 6:3–4 195, 238 6:5 85 n.26–7 6:6–12 238 6:10 238 6:11 234 n.52 6:13 238 6:16 238 6:18 238 6:22 238 6:23 85 n.25, 235 7 238 7:4–6 238 7:7–8 238 7:7–11 130, 132 7:7–25 238 8 237–9, 301 8:1–11 196 8:2 239 8:5–8 239 8:9–11 239

8:11 195 8:13–17 239–41 8:18–23 130, 132, 190, 240–1 8:24–6 241 8:28–30 241–2 8:31–9 241 8:33 242 9–11 238, 243 9:4 237 9:4–5 243 9:6–13 243 9:8 243 9:31–2 243 10:2 243 10:4 243 10:5–17 243 10:20 243 11:7–11 243 11:11–24 244 12:2 239 12:4–8 154 1 Corinthians 1:1–11 158 1:9 205 1:10 208 1:10–17 155 1:13 158 1:13–15 194 1:17–2:16 206 1:18–25 155 1:18–31 210 2:6–16 155 3:1–15 155 3:5–9 155 3:10–11 155 3:11 157 3:16 154 3:16–17 154–6, 158 3:18–23 155 6 157 6:11 157 6:15 25 n.38 6:15–19 155–6, 158 6:16–17 158 6:18–19 307 6:19 70, 154, 155 n.21 7:19 226 n.25 10 201, 206, 209, 302 10:1–13 206, 208 10:14–22 204, 206 10:16 203, 206, 209 10:16–17 154, 157–8 10:17 208 10:18 205, 208 10:18–11:34 157

349

350 1 Corinthians (cont.) 10:20 158 10:20–1 207 10:22 208 11 201–2, 208 11:17–34 208 11:22 209 11:23 202 11:23–5 209 11:25 211 11:26 210 11:29 212 12 158, 208, 210, 212 12:12–31 154, 157–8 12:13 195–6 14:14 240 n.67 15 130–2, 143, 247 15:3 211 15:22 143, 247 15:25–7 131, 141–2 15:39–41 247 15:42–43 247, 273 15:45–9 143, 247 15:52 247 15:53 64

Index of Sources 1:12 226 1:16 226 2:9 227 2:19–20 220–1, 225 2:20 97, 307 3:1–5 221 3:1–4:11 32 3:10 186 3:13–14 224 3:22 31 3:23–4:7 221 3:27 64, 196, 222, 245 3:28–29 196 4:1–3 222 4:1–7 197 4:4 222–3 4:5 221 4:6–7 221, 223–4, 240 5 239 5:5–6 225–6 5:14 274 5:16–25 225 5:22 307 6:12–18 225 n.20 6:15 225, 226 n.25 6:17 246

2 Corinthians 1:5–6 246 3–5 159, 224 n.16, 297, 305 3:3 227, 254 3:6 227–8, 300 3:7 228 3:7–18 227, 229–30 3:14–18 229 3:18 242 4:1–6 229–30 4:4 242 4:7–16 232 5:1–4 232 5:5 232 5:7 232 5:11–21 234 5:14 234 5:15 234 5:16 232–3 5:17 227, 232–3 5:18 244 5:18–19 236 5:21 234–6 8:4 205 13:13 205

Ephesians 1 150 1:6 150 1:10 150 1:12 150 1:14 248 1:17–18 150 1:20–2 131 1:21–3 149–50 1:22–3 248 1:23 150–1 2:6 248 2:10 151 2:11–12 153 n.18 2:14 151 2:15–22 149–52 3:14–21 152–3 3:19 150, 153 4:3–6 153 4:7 200 n.25 4:8 153 4:11–12 153 4:13 153 4:15–16 152–4 4:24 64

Galatians 1:1 223 1:6 222

Philippians 2 181, 231 n.40, 299 2:5 239 n.65

Index of Sources 2:5–11 129–30, 132 3:10 205, 246 3:20–1 247 3:21 132, 141 Colossians 1:15 130, 132, 197 1:15–18 67 2:11–15 197 2:17 197 3:5–10 64 3:9–10 197 1 Thessalonians 4:13–17 247 1 Timothy 2:13–14 130 Hebrews 1 179–80 1–2 181–2 1:3 185 1:4 181 1:6 182–3 1:9 183 1:13–2:8 131 2–4 182 2:5 182–3 2:6–10 132 2:9 180 n.23 2:11–13 182 2:14 182 2:16–17 182 2:17 181 3:1 183–4 3:2 184 3:7–17 183 4:2–3 183 4:7 183 4:14–16 184 5:7–8 184 5:10 184 6:4 183 6:4–6 186 6:20 184 7:3 184 7:16 184 7:23–4 185 7:26–8 185 7:27 184–5 8:1–5 185 8:7–13 185 9:11 182 9:21 182 9:22 182 9:23–4 181, 185

9:25–6 185 10 187 10:2–3 185 10:4–7 182 10:10 182 10:16 179 n.17, 185 10:19–22 185–6 10:22 182 10:26–31 186 10:29 182 10:37–9 186 11 187 12:1 187 12:1–3 186 12:8 183 12:22 186 13:20 298 James 1:18 284–5 2:1 284 2:23 285 3:15 284 3:18 285 4:8 285 5 301 1 Peter 1:1 161–2, 271–2 1:2–3 160–2, 272–3 1:4–5 161–2, 273–4 1:6–10 160 1:7–9 278 1:10–12 278 1:12 273 1:20–1 274 1:22 274 1:23–5 273–4 2:4–5 160, 162, 274 2:4–8 159, 274 2:9 160, 286 2:12 162 2:21–4 160 2:22 275 2:24–5 224, 275–7 3:17 279 3:18–22 277 3:22 131, 142 4:1–2 279 4:12–13 160, 279 2 Peter 1:1–2 280 1:3–4 280–2 1:3–11 280 1:4 66, 68, 280–2, 287 n.22, 296 1:5–8 282, 296

351

352 2 Peter (cont.) 1:10 280 1:21 281 2:4 280 3:5–7 280 1 John 1:7 268 2:1 269 2:18 269 2:22 269 2:29–3:10 267 3:1 57, 58 n.50 3:2–3 267 3:11–24 268 3:16–17 268 3:19–20 268 3:23 268 3:24 269 4:2–3 269 4:7–21 268 4:10 269 4:19 269 5:6–7 269 5:10–12 269 2 John 7 269 Revelation 1 258 n.30, 286–7, 290 1:4 189, 289 1:5 286 1:6 286 1:9 188 n.41, 286 1:12 288 1:12–13 289 1:12–20 287 1:20 147, 288 2–3 188, 287 2:1 288 2:10 287 4–5 187 4:5 189 5:5–6 286 5:9–10 289 5:10 190 7 289 7:14 188 n.40 8:2 189 11 287–8 11:4 288 11:6–7 288 11:11 288 12:11 188 n.40 14 289

Index of Sources 14:4 188 n.40, 286 17–18 188 19:7 188 20:6 190 21–2 147, 187–9 21:2 187 21:9 187 21:22 188 21:24 138 22:1–2 189 22:3 189 22:4–5 190 22:17 289–90 Apocrypha Tobit 12:15 189 n.50 13:11 166 n.44 Wisdom of Solomon 2:23 130 Sirach 6 293 15–18 130, 137 15:14–15 137 44–50 137 45 120 45:2 120 47:11 113 49 137 49:16 130, 137–8 51 293 2 Maccabees 4:10 180 n.22 Pseudepigrapha Life of Adam and Eve 21:2 137, 139 22:6 137, 139 1 Enoch 9–16 106 n.23 10 278 n.8 20 189 n.50 45:3 295 n.43 45:6 295 n.44 48:4 294 48:10 295 62:3 294 62:5 295 90:29 123 n.86 90:37–8 123 n.86 2 Enoch 22 116

Index of Sources 30 130, 137, 141 30:11 141 2 Baruch 40:72–4 123 n.86 Jubilees 3 137 4 Ezra 8:44 130 13 123 n.86 Psalms of Solomon 17 123 4 Maccabees 15:4 180 Dead Sea Scrolls 1QH (Hodayot) 4:15 130, 138 16:20 138 17:15 137

1QS (Community Rule) 4:23 130, 137–8 8:7 169 CD (Damascus Document) 3:20 130, 137–8 4Q174 123 n.86 4Q265 137–8 4Q504 2 ii 3–12 139 n.36 6 10–12 139 n.35 8 137 8 4–9 139 4QDibHam iv 1–9 113 4QpIsa 8–10 113 4QShirShabb 189 n.50

353