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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 15:34:15 GMT -5
3. Paul made it clear to the Corinthians that no resurrection of the dead means no gospel of Jesus Christ, and therefore no Jesus Christ as He is proclaimed in the gospel. If there’s no resurrection, then Jesus wasn’t resurrected. And if Jesus wasn’t resurrected, then the Savior-Messiah of the gospel is an imaginary figure. So also the good news of new creation is a cruel hoax; death remains unconquered, which means the creation remains under the curse and every human being remains in his sin. Resurrection is the essential truth of the gospel; without it there is nothing to be proclaimed, believed or hoped in. Thus Paul underscored the significance and critical importance of resurrection by considering the implications of it not being true. At least some at Corinth had failed to grasp just how crucial resurrection is to the gospel and the Christ it proclaims, and Paul enlightened them in clever fashion by showing them where their premise of no resurrection left them. He assumed their position, but in order to dismantle and discredit it; the Corinthians were to make no mistake about it: Resurrection from the dead is a fact, demonstrated in Jesus Himself: “But now Christ has been raised…” (15:20a).
a. Paul could insist upon this fact because he was an eyewitness of the risen Christ. He knew the truth of Jesus’ resurrection, but, more importantly, he understood its significance: Jesus was raised from the dead, but as the “first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (15:20b). This statement is the centerpiece of Paul’s argument and it deserves careful attention. The first thing to consider is the meaning of “first fruits.” As Paul was employing it here, this expression refers to the Israelite law by which the first portion of the earth’s produce was to be offered to the Lord (cf. Exodus 23:16 and 34:22 with Leviticus 23:10-20; Numbers 18:8-13). This practice served two purposes. First, it provided a constant reminder to Israel that their provision and prosperity came from Yahweh and not from their own labors (cf. Deuteronomy 8:1-18 with Hosea 2:1-9), but it secondly highlighted the nature and obligation of faith. The “first fruit” was the first part of the land’s yield, and offering it to the Lord wasn’t so much about giving Him the first and the best as it was about demonstrating faith in Him for the fullness of that yield. By giving to Yahweh the beginning of the harvest, the sons of Israel were testifying to Him – and more importantly to themselves – that they believed and trusted Him for the rest of the harvest. The first fruits represented both the beginning of the harvest and the assurance of the fullness to come. Thus it embodies three fundamental aspects:
1) First of all, the first fruit shares the same substance with that which follows after. It is the beginning of the one and same harvest.
2) Second, the first fruit is distinct in time. It is one with the whole harvest, but separated from it by some time interval.
3) Finally, the notion of first fruits implies promise and therefore faith – it implies and calls for confident assurance regarding what is promised.
As it applies to Jesus’ resurrection, the concept of “first fruits” shows that His resurrection cannot be considered as unique to Him – either with respect to its substance or its extent. By designating it a “first fruits,” Paul was indicating that Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of the reality that is “resurrection.” That is to say, resurrection is a singular reality which has a manifold manifestation: Resurrection was realized in Jesus, but not completed in Him. Just as it is with the first fruits of a harvest, so it is with Jesus’ resurrection: Resurrection is one and is true in Jesus, but so as to begin with Him as the promise of the fullness to come. A second thing to note is that Paul designated Jesus the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. He insisted that Jesus was indeed raised from the dead, but then immediately explained that His resurrection established Him as the first fruits of those who sleep. Though many commentators make “dead” and “sleeping” effective synonyms, Paul’s decision to change terms in the same sentence was clearly intentional and so must have had a purpose. Three observations are helpful in determining that purpose:
1) First, Paul used the same terminology of “sleep” throughout the context (ref. 15:6, 18, 51), and in every other instance it refers to the state of those who have died in Christ (cf. also 11:30 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).
2) Second, it’s important to recognize that Paul’s statement applies the term “sleep” to Jesus’ death, but as His death culminated with His resurrection (cf. again 1 Thessalonians 4:13ff). Though Jesus’ status as “first fruits” focuses on His resurrection, it equally applies to His death; He, too, “slept” in death, but so as to await His “awakening” in resurrection.
3) Jesus’ “sleep” of death anticipated and yielded to His resurrection, but this pattern only began in Him. It was to be repeated in the experience of every human being found in Him. Jesus’ sleep of death and awakening to the life of resurrection is the paradigm for all of His saints. It seems, then, that Paul employed the term “sleep” to refer to the death state of Jesus Himself and, by extension, to every person who dies sharing in His life. “Sleep” thus characterizes Christians who have died in distinction from deceased human beings in general. This topic will be discussed further, but at this point it’s important to recognize why the concept of sleep is such an apt descriptor for deceased Christians (and Jesus Himself in His death). Two reasons make the case:
1) First, sleep involves a living state, but one which transcends the natural, “waking” existential dynamics of consciousness, time, space, interaction, etc. The sleeping person’s consciousness is a dream state which has him still functioning in space and time, but in a way which isn’t bound by the definitions and limitations of waking consciousness and the laws of the natural world. For instance, in the consciousness of the sleep state, a person is able to fly and move from one place to another instantaneously.
2) Secondly, and of great importance to Paul’s argument here, the sleep state is non-ultimate and inferior to the waking state. For, although the sleep state transcends the waking state in that it liberates the sleeper from the boundaries and limitations of physical laws and physical existence, it is unreal and untrue. This being so, if a person is to live authentically in conformity to the truth, his sleep state must yield to waking existence as the human state which is true – the state which conforms to existential reality as it actually is. Thus, while the sleep state is transcendent, it is also unreal and therefore transitory; the ultimacy of truth demands that sleep must finally yield to the waking state as true and ultimate. So it is with the dynamics of Christian death and its goal in resurrection: - At death, Christians enter into a state of existence which transcends the existence they knew while living (at the very least in the fact of their disembodiment). They are “alive,” but in a way that is less than true – a way that necessarily anticipates emergence into fully authentic existence. - Thus Paul wanted the Corinthians to understand that Jesus was raised from the dead, not as an animated corpse or even as a person returning from the dead to his previous form of existence. Jesus was raised as One who “awakened” from a surreal, less-than-true human state into the “waking” state of true and ultimate human existence which His “sleep” of death anticipated and, at the appointed time, eagerly yielded to. - Jesus’ resurrection was, in this manner of speaking, His waking from the sleep of death into the “conscious state” of consummate humanness. But He was raised in this way as the first fruits of the faithful dead, and therefore as the pledge of their awakening. Their “sleep,” like His, is an imperfect state of anticipation – a time of longing for the day of waking when death will be forever swallowed up in life (15:42ff; Romans 8:18ff).
b. The concept of first fruits depicts the relationship between Jesus’ death and resurrection and the death and resurrection of His saints. It highlights the crucial truth that believers participate in His resurrection rather than experience their own separate and unique resurrection; quoting again from Torrance, the resurrection of Christians proceeds from Jesus’ resurrection “more by way of manifestation of what has already taken place [in Him], than as new effect resulting from it.” The concept of first fruits shows that Jesus and His people share in one and the same resurrection, but it doesn’t explain why that is the case. The answer is that Christians share in their Lord’s resurrection precisely because they share in Him: Their resurrection is His resurrection because their life – which is to say their resurrection life – is His resurrection life lived out and perfected in them (cf. John 6:52-58, 7:37-39, 10:7-10, 11:20-26 and 14:15-20 with Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 2:1-6; Colossians 3:1-4; etc.).
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 15:37:14 GMT -5
The fact that Christians’ resurrection is their participation in Jesus’ resurrection life helps to explain how their resurrection can be a present reality – especially in the context of their mortality and corruption. If a person’s resurrection were a unique event localized in himself, it would be hard to imagine how one could be raised from the dead while still mortal and so advancing toward death and the grave. Existence beset by physical corruption and decay is hardly the context for considering oneself “raised to newness of life.” Thus many Christians conclude that Paul was speaking proleptically (i.e., representing future realities as if they exist in the present) when he described believers’ present share in Jesus’ resurrection (ref. again Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 2:1-6; Colossians 3:1-4). (So John Murray used the expression, projected eschatology, to describe the present state of believers.) Indeed, an argument can be made that one reason so many Christians don’t think in terms of their present resurrection life is that they view their resurrection as a uniquely personal event related to Jesus’ resurrection only in the sense that their resurrection is grounded in the atonement for sin which His resurrection attested. But if resurrection life is sharing in Christ’s own life by His indwelling Spirit, then it becomes entirely comprehensible that one’s spirit can be raised to newness of life – life which is incorruptible and imperishable – while one’s body remains dead in its corruption, awaiting its own resurrection as the fullness of participation in Jesus’ resurrection (Romans 8:9-23; Ephesians 1:13-14; 2 Corinthians 5:1-5). Given the Jewish eschatology of his day, this understanding of resurrection was a radical departure for Paul. As a Pharisee, Paul upheld the doctrine of resurrection – specifically, a resurrection of the righteous (i.e., faithful Jews) occurring at the end of the age in connection with the coming of the messianic kingdom (cf. John 11:21-24). These particular points of doctrinal conviction weren’t wrong in and of themselves; the problem was the way in which they were understood. - Paul was right to expect the resurrection of Yahweh’s people and His restorative work at the end of the age; the Scriptures taught as much. - At the same time, Paul didn’t understand (prior to his encounter with the risen Christ) the exact nature and ground of this resurrection and the relationship it has with the biblical concept of the end of the age. Paul was awaiting the resurrection and renewal promised in the Old Testament, but he couldn’t know – because those Scriptures don’t reveal – that the resurrection of the righteous was to be a sharing in the Messiah’s own resurrection life. True, they speak of the messianic Servant’s vicarious atonement as the basis for men’s restoration to God, but they don’t clarify the nature of that restoration or how it was to be effected. They speak of renewal and restoration because of Him, but don’t make clear that they result from being in Him. This was a mystery yet to be revealed (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:14-21; Philippians 3:1-12).
So also the Scriptures promised the elimination of the curse and the renewal of the creation (ref. Isaiah 11, 35, 65-66; Hosea 1-2; Zechariah 14), with the human creature being the centerpiece of that recovery; what they don’t make clear is that this was to involve the creation of a new humanity – in Paul’s words, the creating of one new man in Messiah Jesus. This revelation awaited the christological fulfillment accompanying the fullness of the times (Ephesians 2:1-3:11).
c. Christians presently share in Jesus’ resurrection because they participate in His life. But what exactly is the nature and extent of their “sharing” in Him? Paul’s answer to that question is that they share in Him as a new Adam (15:21-22; cf. 15:45-49 and Romans 5:12-21). This “Adamic” relationship between Jesus and those belonging to Him has been debated for centuries and the Church has never been able to arrive at a complete consensus regarding it. Entering fully into that debate at this time would distract from the matter at hand and so be counterproductive; however, there are matters pertaining to Jesus as a new Adam which are critical to Paul’s argument here and so need to be examined. The first thing to consider is that the Corinthians must have been familiar with the Adam account recorded in Genesis 1-3. This is important to note because it indicates that Paul had preached Christ to them from the biblical storyline: Adhering to the pattern established by the Lord Himself, Paul followed the apostolic practice of testifying to Jesus – whether in oral proclamation or written record – by demonstrating that He is the Messiah revealed and promised in all the Scriptures of the Old Testament (cf. Luke 24:24-27, 44-48 and John 5:36-47 with Matthew 1:18-23, 2:1-18, 3:1-15, 4:1-17, 5:1-48, 8:1-17, 11:1-15, 13:34-35, 21:1-5, 26:45-56, 27:1-10; Luke 18:31-33; John 19:31-36; cf. also Acts 2:14-36, 7:1-52, 13:14-41, 17:1-3). Paul’s mention of Adam affirms that the Corinthians had an understanding of the opening chapters of Genesis. But his statement also shows that their knowledge of Adam went beyond the account of his life recorded in Genesis 1-3. Paul would not have said what he did about Adam if he wasn’t confident the Corinthians had some grasp of Adam’s role and significance in the salvation history. And he had this confidence because of what he had taught them. The account of Adam’s life is recorded in the first three chapters of Genesis. Those chapters recount his creation, nature, role and fall, but say nothing about the impact of his sin on the human race. The obvious reason is that there was, at that time, no human race to be impacted; Adam and Eve were yet childless at the time of their disobedience and expulsion from Eden (ref. Genesis 4:1-2). But Paul’s statement speaks to Adam, not merely as a fallen individual, but as the source and basis for the death that plagues all of his descendents: “since by a man came death” and “in Adam all die.” Adam’s transgression incurred the penalty of death (that is, alienation from God together with all of the consequences that proceed from it) (cf. Genesis 2:15-17, 3:8-10, 14-24), but not merely for himself, but for all his offspring – all those who share in him.
It’s not until the fourth chapter of Genesis that offspring enter the story, but the moment they do the text highlights the fact that Adam’s estrangement – his death – had indeed passed to his descendents. The fear, self-centeredness and corruption which are intrinsic to man’s estrangement had become the hallmark of human existence; from the point of Cain’s murder of his brother, the human story – chronicled in the scriptural storyline – remains entirely consistent and unaltered: Corruption, defilement, disintegration and death are the uniform lot of the human race; all men recognize this to be true, but Paul understood the reason for it and preached it as part of his gospel proclamation: “In Adam, all die.” Paul’s assertion is that all men die “in Adam,” but why, and in what sense, is that the case? In general, this question is answered with some form or variation of the following three views:
1) The first is that all men die like Adam did because all men sin. Personal sin is the reason for personal death, and every person commits sin. Some attribute the universality of sin to the inheritance of a sinful nature (i.e., “original sin,” with this inherent corruption variously defined along the spectrum ranging from the total depraving of man’s nature at the one extreme to the mere weakening of it at the other). Others attribute sin’s universality to the power of bad example and the susceptibility of human beings to it. Either way, this view holds that a person’s guilt and death don’t result from Adam’s sin; Adam’s violation was his own and there is no imputation of his sin, guilt or death to his descendents.
2) The second view stands upon the natural, biological relation between Adam and his progeny. It holds that all men die in Adam because every human being was bound up in him when he sinned and incurred the penalty of death. The critical issue here is that all men are implicated in Adam’s sin and the guilt and death it incurred because they participated in his sin by virtue of being “in” him (cf. Hebrews 7:4-9). This doesn’t deny that they themselves sin and incur their own personal guilt and condemnation; it only affirms that, in the first instance, all of Adam’s descendents are guilty of his transgression and so share in his death, even if they were to live sinless lives in their own right.
3) The third view arrives at the same conclusion of imputed sin and guilt (that is, all men sharing in Adam’s transgression and its consequence), but it arrives at it through a purported representative relation between Adam and his progeny. This view doesn’t deny the natural relation between Adam and the rest of humanity and it, too, acknowledges the fact of personal sin and transgression. But it argues that human guilt – and thus death – passes from Adam to men specifically because he represented the human race as its “federal head.” Divinely-ordained representation, not biological descent, determined that Adam’s sin was the sin of his progeny.
This is the view which predominates in Reformed Theology, and it derives from the correspondence the Scripture draws between Adam and Christ with respect to sin and righteousness (ref. esp. Romans 5:12-21). The contention is that, in this arena, Jesus’ relationship with men is one of representation, and therefore the same must be true of Adam. Jesus’ righteousness is imputed to men (and their sin was imputed to Him) because He represents them before His Father, not because they are His offspring. So it must be with Adam: Though all men are descended from Adam, his sin and guilt, along with the sentence of death, pass to them, not because of that descent, but because he is their representative head. The Reformed premise is correct that, whatever arguments might be made in support of a given view, the matter must finally be settled on the basis of the biblical relationship between Adam and Christ and the way each relates to the human race. Paul’s statements here make that clear (15:21-22). Moreover, the correctness of this approach is further substantiated by his later discussion in vv. 45-49 (cf. also Romans 5:12-21). Understanding what Paul meant by his assertion that “in Christ all shall be made alive” depends upon understanding the counterpart, “in Adam all die.” The two assertions are mutually dependent. Taken together, these passages show that Paul perceived a typological relationship between Adam and Jesus. This is most evident in the title, Last Adam, which he assigned to Jesus (15:45). Paul saw Adam as a “type” of Christ, which means that he was a prophetic prototype of Jesus. Though an actual person, Adam (“man” as taken from the earth) served a prophetic purpose in God’s design: His “meaning” in God’s design (and so in the biblical text) is bound up in the Man to come from him – the man promised to Eve as the One who would restore life. Thus the most obvious (and fundamental) point of correspondence between Adam and Jesus is the fact of their common humanity (15:21). Jesus is man as fully as Adam was; hence His self-given title, Son of Man (“Son of Adam”). This title identifies Jesus as truly and fully human, but in the sense that He was born as a bona-fide descendent of Adam, and therefore a son of Adam as fallen: Jesus was conceived into the intrinsic corruption of the Adamic human race, having derived His humanness from Mary, a daughter of Adam through Seth (Luke 4:23-38). Should anyone question that Jesus was conceived and lived as Adamic man under the curse, the fact of His mortality and death ought to dispel all objection. Many Christians are ignorant of this truth and others deny it out of concern that it implies Jesus’ sinfulness. But recognizing Jesus’ Adamic humanity is critically important for understanding His relationship with the human race – and specifically with His people – as the Last Adam. Jesus was truly one with the human race in bearing in Himself the reality of fallen flesh. He didn’t “float above the fray” of the calamity of human fallenness with its corruption, ills, suffering and pain (cf. Romans 8:3 with Hebrews 2:14ff, 4:15).
Jesus is a new “Adam,” not in the sense of being an entirely new kind of man, but in the sense of being a bona fide son of Adam (“Son of Man”) in whom man would at last become truly and fully human. Jesus is a new Adam in that He is Adam’s destiny and fulfillment: the Man in whom man becomes man indeed. And precisely because Jesus is man’s destiny and truth, He is the Last Adam. In Him the creature man has attained to the truth of his created identity and role as divine image-son. Jesus is the consummate, everlasting truth of man in Himself, but not unto Himself: As the first Adam was the progenitor of a human race in his own image – a race defined by death (15:21), so it is with the last Adam: - Jesus is the progenitor of a new humanity – a humanity that is “in” Him just as Adam’s descendents were “in” him. - But whereas Adam’s relation to his progeny was natural and “earthy,” Jesus’ relation to His “progeny” is spiritual, defined by life in the Spirit. In both cases, the descendents of the two “Adams” are identified by sharing in the substance and life of their respective progenitors – in their bodies as well as their spirits. The difference – which is monumental and profoundly important – is that the first Adam was “earthy” and natural – of the “flesh,” and so, therefore, are those who are of him and in him. In contrast, the Last Adam is “heavenly” and spiritual – of the Spirit, and so also are those who are His “progeny” – those who are of Him and in Him (cf. John 3:1-8; Romans 8:1-9; Philippians 3:1-11). This subject will be examined in greater depth and detail in the subsequent section (15:35-50), but it’s important to take note of it at this point because it shows how Paul understood the relation between the two “Adams” and their “descendents,” and therefore between the two “Adams” themselves. The first outcome of this understanding is that it answers the “federal representation” view which rightly seeks a relationship between Christ and men that doesn’t depend on natural relations. The problem is evident: Adam is the natural (biological) head of the human race, whereas Jesus is not. However, the above treatment shows that Jesus is the natural head of the human race in the sense that He bound up human nature – Adamic nature – in Himself and transformed it so that He is the origin and originator of a new, true human race just as Adam was of the original human race. This new humanity is “in” Jesus and shares in His nature and substance just as thoroughly as the first humanity does with Adam. Recognizing this ontological relation between Jesus and His “progeny” eliminates the need for a representative, “federal” relation. These relationships also show why Paul’s statement – “in Christ all shall be made alive” – cannot be construed in terms of universal salvation. Oftentimes this dilemma is resolved by simply reading the parallel prepositional phrases, “in Adam” and “in Christ” a particular way. By having them modify the adjective “all,” it follows that all those in Christ, rather than all men, will be made alive.
This reading is perfectly allowable, but unconvincing in itself because Paul’s statement doesn’t have to be treated this way; it can be interpreted universally as indicating that all men – every human being – will be made alive in Christ. The statement is inherently ambiguous and so looks to other considerations to determine the way it ought to be understood. Those considerations obviously include the immediate context, but must also extend to Paul’s overall teaching as well as the witness of the New Testament. The immediate context argues against universalism in a couple of different ways. First of all, it’s clear that the “all” who are made alive in Christ at His coming are those who share in His bodily resurrection. For Paul wasn’t here talking about the new birth (regeneration), but the resurrection of the body; he was referring to a person’s physical body sharing in the resurrection life of Jesus’ own body. This is what he meant by the expression, “made alive.” Those who share in Jesus’ bodily resurrection are the “fullness of the harvest” of which He is the first fruits. Moreover, their resurrection is His resurrection because they are His (15:23), having been joined to Him by His Spirit such that the Spirit is perfecting His life in them (Romans 6:1ff; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Galatians 2:20; Colossians 3:1-4). Jesus’ resurrection life – which Christians now possess in the inner man – is thus destined for completion in their physical bodies. This is why Paul referred to the present life in the Spirit as itself a “first fruit” (Romans 8:23; note especially the surrounding context). The believer’s present experience of Jesus’ resurrection life is the first fruit of his “spiritual” life (life in the Spirit) to be consummated in fullness with his resurrection to share in Christ's “spiritual” body (15:42ff; cf. Romans 8:9-11; 2 Corinthians 5:5; Ephesians 1:13-14; Philippians 3:18ff). The obvious implication of these truths is that an assertion of universalism in Paul’s statement is the assertion of universal participation in Christ’s bodily resurrection at the Parousia. But those who share in that resurrection are those who already participate in Jesus’ resurrection life in the present: The resurrection of their bodies is only the fullness of the resurrection they presently experience. In other words, those who are “made alive at Jesus’ coming” are those who have already been made alive in their spirits. Thus the only way to argue for a universal bodily resurrection at the Parousia is to argue for universal participation in Jesus’ resurrection life in the here and now. Aside from the present context, Paul’s overall instruction (and that of the New Testament) will not permit that assertion. Paul was clear in his writings that some men will indeed die in their unbelief; they die as men “in the flesh,” governed by the flesh and the principle of “death.” This is true of those who reject Christ, but it’s also true of some who associate themselves with Christ and His Church (cf. Philippians 3:17-19; 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10; 2 Timothy 2:8-19; also Matthew 25:31ff; John 5:28-29; Hebrews 6:1-8; Jude 5-13). And dying in this way devoid of the first fruits of resurrection life, there can be no completion of resurrection for them. The fullness of a harvest necessarily follows upon the first fruits.
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 15:40:05 GMT -5
d. Jesus’ relationship with His own is not merely representative; Christians participate in Him as a new Adam just as truly as they have participated in the first Adam. They share in His nature as True Man – man of the Spirit – and the life that defines Him even as they have shared in Adam’s nature – man of the flesh – and the death that defined him. As Christians were once “of Adam,” so they are now “of Christ.” But, consistent with every other dimension of the new creation and their participation in it, believers are of the Last Adam and no longer of the first Adam in accordance with the dynamic of already-but-not-yet: - They are now part of the new, true humanity which has Jesus, the new Adam, as its first fruits and progenitor. And yet, in a certain sense and to a certain extent, they still bear the likeness and nature of the first Adam. - Christians have been raised up in Christ Jesus and share in His life such they have “passed out of death into life” (cf. John 5:24, 6:47-54 and 11:25 with Ephesians 2:1-6; Colossians 3:1-4). And yet, death continues its hold on them: In one critical respect, they have yet to “bear the image of the Last Adam” (15:49) and be united with Him “in the likeness of His resurrection” and so “live with Him” (Romans 6:5-8). Though Christians are of the Last of Adam in the inner man – their spirits are raised up in Him and are being transformed into His likeness (2 Corinthians 3:18), their bodies continue to be of the first Adam – given over to death even as he was (cf. Romans 8:10; 2 Corinthians 4:16). But because man is spirit and body, it is not enough that a man’s spirit shares in God’s life; estrangement, dissolution and death continue so long as they inhere in any part of a person’s being. - So Jesus Himself could not be True Man if His resurrection life – the life which defines God Himself and therefore makes man authentic as divine image-son – was limited to His Spirit. To be man in truth, Jesus needed to share in the divine life in His body as well as His Spirit. - And precisely because Jesus possesses this life as first fruits and Last Adam, what is true of Him as True Man must be true of those who are in Him and of Him. The progeny of the New Man must share in His life as fully as He does; they must share in His resurrection life in their bodies and spirits even as His body and spirit do. The life of the Last Adam is life indeed – life characterized comprehensively and absolutely by incorruptibility and imperishability which is intrinsic to God and therefore characterizes His creatures who share in Him. The truth of man as image-son demands that he share in God’s life in every aspect of his being; otherwise man is not truly man, but continues to be a corrupt and dissolute caricature of the creature God created him to be. So also Jesus cannot be either first fruits or Last Adam unless His life – in all its fullness – finds expression in a harvest of spiritual offspring who are true men as He is True Man.
Thus the resurrection of the body isn’t merely a biblical doctrine to be embraced as “orthodox”; it is fundamental to all truth as revealed in the Scripture. For the Scripture testifies to the One who is the living embodiment of truth: Jesus is the truth of God and the truth of man, and both of those truths depend upon Him being the Living One (so Jesus’ self-description in Revelation 1:9-18). - Unless He possesses a human body which shares in God’s life, Jesus is neither the creature man nor man as image-son. And if Jesus isn’t True Man, then His status as Last Adam is meaningless; His “progeny” cannot be what He is not. - If Jesus is not True Man, than mankind cannot be true in Him and therefore cannot be true at all. And if man falls short of his created design, then the creation is unable to realize its own identity and role. For God made man to be His vice-regent: the creature in whom He manifests and executes His rule over His creation (cf. Genesis 1:26-28, 3:17-18 with Romans 8:18-21). What this means is that the resurrection of the body is also fundamental to the truth of the creation and God’s purpose for it. These things explain why the Scripture treats human destiny in terms of the resurrection of the body and not “dying and going to be with Jesus.” The believer’s present resurrection of the inner man is truly “life from the dead,” and that life does not – and indeed cannot – cease with physical death. The body yields to death, but the spirit already shares in incorruptible and imperishable life. Thus, for Paul, it is axiomatic that, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” Christians already and truly share in eternal life, but not to the ultimate extent: Their life in and by the “Spirit of life” is but the “first fruits of the Spirit” – the foretaste and promise of the fullness of life in the Spirit to come. And so believers experience resurrection life in two stages: in the inner man when they are joined to Jesus by the Spirit and in the outer man when He receives them to Himself, body and spirit, at His Parousia (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). Even now He is with His saints (cf. Matthew 28:18-20; John 14:16-19; Revelation 1:9-20), but then tangibly, face-to-face. This staging of resurrection applies to Christians and not to Christ Himself for the simple reason that resurrection life is in Him. Because Jesus is life, He cannot be the “living One” in a partial way – alive in His Spirit while His body remains under the power of death. But because Jesus communicates His own life to men, they can become sharers in His life in a staged manner, awaiting their resurrection while experiencing resurrection life. Thus Paul reaffirmed to the Corinthians what he’d surely taught them: They had entered into Jesus’ resurrection life when He came to them in His Spirit, but that wasn’t the end of the matter. His life would be fully realized in them when He came to them in His person. Jesus’ resurrection was the first fruits of the harvest that is life out of death; the rest of the harvest is gathered in at His Parousia at the end of the age (15:23).
e. This truth of a two-fold resurrection was part of Paul’s gospel, but as something that had been revealed to him by the Spirit. The Old Testament scriptures speak to the christological dynamics of creational renewal in prophetic shadows and portions, and so it is with their treatment of the timing and staging of the events associated with the coming of the eschatological kingdom (cf. Matthew 11:2-15, 13:36-49, 24:1-3; also Romans 9-11, 16:25-27). Only the playing out of Christ’s coming in the fullness of the times brought this scheme to light. In this context, Paul highlighted the key components of the “already-but-not-yet” scheme of the kingdom’s coming in Christ: the staging of resurrection and new creation, and therefore the same staging of the new-creational kingdom itself. Resurrection conforms to the dynamic of “already-but-not-yet,” and so shows how it works: The resurrection of the body is the “not yet” of resurrection, but this is not a separate, disconnected event, but the consummation of the resurrection believers already enjoy. Thus the “not yet” aspect of the “already-but-not-yet” dynamic consists of the presently unrealized fullness of the “already,” not a distinct or different fulfillment. And because resurrection – the life of new creation – functions according to this principle, so does the kingdom of the new creation which Jesus’ resurrection inaugurated: The kingdom of God and the messianic age have come (hence the expressions, “fullness of the times,” “end of the ages,” and “last days”), and yet they await their consummate fullness, to be realized at Jesus’ Parousia in conjunction with the resurrection of the dead and the new heavens and new earth. Jesus’ treatment of the kingdom makes this clear: - On the one hand, He declared that His presence meant the in-breaking of the kingdom; the presence of the messianic Servant-King is itself sure proof of the presence of the messianic kingdom. - And yet, Jesus also spoke of the kingdom as a future reality (cf. Matthew 12:22-28, 19:24, 21:31 with 25:31-34; cf. also Mark 1:14-15, 10:14-15, 11:1-10 with 14:22-25). (Not surprisingly, Jesus’ emphasis shifted to the kingdom’s future consummation as He approached the time of His death.) This two-stage kingdom dynamic poses a challenge for those of a dispensational persuasion. For all dispensationalists, irrespective of their differences, embrace the notion of a millennial kingdom which commences with Jesus’ return (the doctrine of premillennialism). This doctrine draws on Revelation 20:1-10 (specifically as it follows chapter 19), but has its origin in the Old Testament and Dispensationalism’s “literal hermeneutic” applied to scriptural content regarding the kingdom of God. Because the Scriptures depict this coming kingdom in the language and forms of the Israelite theocracy, dispensationalists conclude that it is to be an earthly, Israel-centric kingdom in which Jesus – in conjunction with the recovered and converted Israelite nation – rules over the world from His throne in Jerusalem. The Old Testament scriptures provide the dispensationalist with his general conception of the kingdom of God; he uses the Revelation passage to show when this kingdom will commence and how long it will last.
Because of how they define it and assign its timing, dispensationalists have historically viewed the kingdom in purely futurist terms. Thus they deny its present existence and so also Jesus’ present reign. (So the familiar expression: Jesus came the first time as the sacrificial lamb; He’ll come the second time as the triumphal lion.) Some “progressive” dispensationalists have softened this futurist view of the kingdom, allowing for a present “spiritual” foretaste of it. But, consistent with their classical counterparts, most still insist that the substance of the kingdom – because it was promised to Israel and thus depends on the nation’s spiritual restoration – consists in Jesus’ future millennial reign. And holding to a future millennial kingdom, dispensationalists are compelled to find it embedded between v. 23 (the Parousia) and v. 24 (the “end”) in the present context. A common explanation for Paul’s silence regarding this kingdom is that his concern here was with the events which culminate the millennial age, not the millennium itself. Thus the millennial kingdom is implied, though not specifically mentioned. But behind this contention is the assumption that the doctrine of the millennial kingdom was well-known and well-established in the early Church. Thus Paul could take for granted that the Corinthians would factor the millennium into their consideration of his instruction; he didn’t need to state the obvious. But if the doctrine of a millennial kingdom was in fact axiomatic in Paul’s instruction, it’s amazing that it nowhere appears – implicitly or explicitly – in any of his epistles. Indeed, this context would have been the perfect place for Paul to address it, but here, as well, his silence is telling. Another thing to note about this passage is that Paul made no mention of unbelievers. This has led some to conclude that the unsaved are resurrected at a different time (or not at all). Dispensationalists, in particular, believe in multiple resurrections, and this passage is one they cite to support their view. There isn’t unanimity among dispensationalists regarding the number of resurrections, but the general consensus is that there are at least four: Church-age believers are resurrected at the rapture and then the so-called “tribulation saints” at Jesus’ second coming at the end of the tribulation. Some dispensationalists believe that this second resurrection also includes all of the pre-Christian faithful (the so called “Old Testament saints”); others assign this group their own separate resurrection. Then there is the resurrection of millennial believers and, lastly, the resurrection of all unbelievers at the end of the millennium in connection with the Great White Throne judgment. Dispensational eschatology aside, Jesus, Paul, and the scriptural witnesses seem clear in teaching one general resurrection of all human beings at the end of the age. The reason, then, that Paul didn’t mention unbelievers in the present context was that he was speaking to the matter of resurrection as life out of death: resurrection as the entire person – body and spirit – sharing in the life of Jesus, and this doesn’t pertain to unbelievers. Believers and unbelievers alike share in the present corruption and mortality of the body, but only the saints will be “raised imperishable” so as to “bear the image of the heavenly man” (15:42-52).
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 15:42:04 GMT -5
e. As Jesus’ Parousia will bring the fullness of resurrection, so it will usher in the fullness of the kingdom of God: “Then the end comes, when He delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father” (15:24a). By the “end,” Paul was referring to the end of the present age, but in a way that looks forward rather than backward. That is, his language highlights the end of the age as a transition point: It brings to a close the present order of things, not as a cessation, but a metamorphosis. As a chrysalis must undergo a kind of death in order to bring forth the consummate life that is the butterfly, so the present age must “die” in order for the creation to attain its consummate perfection and glory alongside the fully revealed glory of the children of God (Romans 8:18-22). The “end” is thus not the twilight of a closing night for the creation, but the dawn of its eternal day. Perhaps most notable about Paul’s description of this creational metamorphosis into the consummate kingdom is that he framed it in terms of God’s climactic and complete triumph of over all enemies – enemies of Himself and therefore enemies of His kingdom and its citizens (15:24b-26). By speaking in this way, Paul was careful to follow the scriptural pattern which presents the eschatological kingdom as the outcome of the Day of the Lord which Yahweh promised through His prophets. This “day” was to be a theophany like no other, a time when Yahweh Himself would arise and act in order to accomplish a two-fold mission:
1) His first mission was to conquer and destroy all of the enemies of His kingdom and its inhabitants – the enemies that, through guile or tyranny, led His people away and enslaved them, thereby defiling and desolating His kingdom. What is most notable is that, in every instance involving this theme, the sons of the kingdom were themselves primary enemies to be dealt with: It was Israel’s waywardness and adultery which provoked judgment, exile and desolation; other nations and forces were merely co conspirators with them against the Lord (cf. Joel 1:15-2:17; Amos 5:1-27, 7:7-8:10; Zephaniah 1:1-13; cf. Jeremiah 1-3; Ezekiel 4-7, 12, 23-24; etc.).
2) The second mission is the ultimate goal for the Day of Yahweh, which is ending all subjugation and captivity and restoring His kingdom and people to Himself. God revealed to His prophets that His purpose for His coming theophany was restorative, not destructive. True, He would arise and destroy His enemies – most importantly, the enmity in the hearts of His image-sons, but in order to liberate and regather the exiled captives and restore the “desolate heritages” (cf. Isaiah 45:1-19; Ezekiel 36:16-38; Joel 1-3; Amos 9:1-15; Obadiah 1-21; Zephaniah 1-3; Zechariah 2:1-13; etc.). The Day of Yahweh was the divine pledge of theophany for the purpose of retribution unto restoration, and this theme saw various prototypical fulfillments during the Old Testament salvation history. The most important of those involved the exile, captivity, and restoration of Judah (cf. Isaiah 13, 44:24-28). For the Day of Yahweh was grounded in His commitment to establish the kingdom promised to David, and Judah was the manifestation of David’s kingdom at that time.
The Lord did indeed visit His unfaithful people and the covenant kingdom with the punishment of exile and desolation, only to soon liberate and restore them. But that divine act didn’t fulfill the prophetic promise of the Day of the Lord; it simply gave tangible expression to it, demonstrating that God had the power and will to accomplish what He had pledged. The “day” the prophets spoke of would come when Yahweh arose to judge His enemies and recover, not a Judean remnant, but the whole created order (Isaiah 40-66). The Day of the Lord would see the liberation and restoration of the exiled and enslaved creation, just as the Lord promised in the very beginning with His oath in Eden. Then the promise to David would be realized; then the kingdom of God would be established forever. “The coming kingdom of God will be inaugurated by the great day of the Lord, the day of judgment for the apostate part of Israel, as well as for the nations in general, and at the same time, however, by the day of deliverance and salvation for the oppressed people of the Lord.” (Ridderbos, The Coming of the Kingdom) Given its emphasis on God rising up to destroy His enemies in order to liberate and restore His people and their inhabitation, it’s not surprising that the prophet Isaiah treated the Day of the Lord as a second Exodus (cf. 51:1-11 with 35:1-10, 63:7-17). This imagery didn’t originate with Isaiah, but had its origin in Moses’ promise to the generation who experienced the first Exodus (Deuteronomy 30). But if the Day of the Lord was prophesied as the cataclysmic theophany through which Yahweh would establish His kingdom, and if the kingdom conforms to the scheme of “already but not yet,” it would seem that this same scheme ought to apply to the Day itself. In fact, this is exactly the case. Though many Christians reserve the Day of Yahweh for the end of the age and Jesus’ Parousia, the New Testament indicates that this Day had its essential fulfillment in Jesus’ first coming (which accomplished the “end times” judgment and restoration which the prophets attributed to the Day of Yahweh). So, for instance, the prophets described the Day of the Lord as a cosmic cataclysm, marked by signs in the heavens and on the earth (darkness, earthquake, etc.), and such phenomena accompanied Jesus’ crucifixion. Moreover, the cross culminated Yahweh’s triumph over the true enemies of spiritual powers and death itself (cf. 15:24; Colossians 2:13-15; Revelation 12:1-11). So also His defeat of His enemies was followed by liberation and renewal, first in the Last Adam Himself and then in other men (cf. Luke 1:67-79, 4:14-21; John 8:31ff; Romans 8:1-2; Galatians 5:1). By defeating the enemies that had taken Adam’s race (and the creation) captive, Jesus secured their release and regathering to His Father (cf. Isaiah 11:1-12, 49:1- 13 with Matthew 11:27-30; John 12:31-32). And as the first Exodus had its goal in the Abrahamic kingdom (cf. Genesis 15:12-21 with Exodus 6:1-8, 15:1-18, 19:1-6), so it was with the second Exodus: Jesus’ triumph culminated in His exaltation to the right hand of God and installation as King over Yahweh’s everlasting kingdom – the kingdom of the new creation (cf. Psalm 2, 110; Daniel 2:1-44, 7:1-27 with Acts 2:22-36; Ephesians 1:18-23; Hebrews 1:1-3).
At the same time, the Day of the Lord has its consummation in Jesus’ Parousia and the resurrection, final judgment, and liberation and renewal of the creation in the new heavens and new earth. Yahweh established His everlasting kingdom of the new creation through His triumphal coming in His Son, and the kingdom will attain its fullness through the Son’s glorious Parousia and His destruction of the final enemy of death and restoration of the material creation. And so, by describing Jesus’ coming and the “end” in this way, Paul made it clear that the kingdom he was referring to is the same kingdom the prophets promised. His description corresponds to the prophetic depiction of the eschatological kingdom, but it also transcends it. This is not at all surprising given the Old Testament’s shadowy treatment of the kingdom. There was a mystery to the kingdom and its coming, so that its exact nature, form and outworking could not be discerned until they were realized and interpreted in Jesus Christ. Only with the Christ event could it be seen that all things related to the kingdom have their fulfillment, substance, and meaning in Him. The kingdom of God is the kingdom of new creation, and therefore it is grounded in the reality of resurrection. But this means that the kingdom is bound up in Jesus Himself, for He is the essence and beginning of new creation as the Living One, first fruits and Last Adam. The kingdom of God is the reality of new creation, but because it is all embracing, it is a kingdom which must bring all things into subjection to itself. For God’s kingdom to be the kingdom He purposed – and which He disclosed and promised in the salvation history recorded in the Scriptures, it can have no adversaries, principle of contradiction or power of opposition arrayed against it or standing in antithesis to it. - The kingdom of new creation in Jesus must extend to the whole creation or it is not the kingdom of God promised in the Scriptures and He is not the messianic Servant and Son of David (cf. Isaiah 11:1-16, 65:1-66-24; Daniel 2:27-45, 7:1-27; Hosea 2; Micah 4:1-4 and Zechariah 14:1-11 with Ephesians 1:9-10 and Revelation 21:1-8). - The Scriptures insisted that the Davidic Son-King’s conquest and subjugation would be absolute (cf. Psalm 2, 110), and indeed this must be the case if this King is to be a new Adam: man in truth – that is, the divine image-son to whom all created things are subjected by the Creator-Father (cf. Genesis 1:26-28 with Psalm 8). - And because the kingdom over which this King rules as True Man is the all-encompassing kingdom of life in new creation, it follows that He must conquer the archenemy that is death. He conquered this destroying enemy first with respect to Himself as man, but ultimately on behalf of the subjugated creation (including mankind) so that it can be liberated from death’s bonds and brought under the life-giving rule of the Living One.
Paul understood these things and regarded Jesus’ final conquest of death as the last step in His fulfillment of the truth of man on behalf of mankind and the created order. This is evident from his reference to Psalm 8: “He has put all things in subjection under His feet” (15:26-27a). - The glory and majesty of man consist in the fact that man is image-son: the creature created in the image and likeness of God to exercise His rule over the works of His hands. This means that all things must be in subjection to man’s rule if they are to be in subjection to God’s rule. - And God’s rule over His creation is contradicted and compromised by all creational enmity and alienation. The fall and curse subjected the creation to these, and thus all things must be reconciled to God if His rule is to be effected in the love, harmony and peace that are shalom and shabbat. - And the greatest enemy and most formidable point of contradiction, alienation and opposition is death itself. Death contradicts and opposes God and His creation because He is the Living One; therefore, it must be abolished for the creation to realize its destiny as God’s shalomic kingdom under the lordship of man, the image-son. This is God’s goal and it will be fulfilled. For Jesus is the first fruits of new creation, and therefore the substance and pledge of the fullness to come. And as life and new creation are true in Him, so is the kingdom of new creation. Even now in the Last Adam, man has been restored to his Creator-Father to assume his lordship over the creation. Even now True Man reigns (“He must continue to reign”) with all enemies conquered and put in subjection under His feet – even the archenemy of death (cf. Acts 2:22-31; Ephesians 1:18-22; Revelation 1:9-18). That Jesus is True Man is evident in the fact that death has been destroyed in Him and with respect to Him; His resurrection from the dead affirmed Him to be the true Image-Son (cf. Psalm 2; Romans 1:1-4). But because He is the Last Adam, His conquest of death must extend to His progeny; and because He is first fruits from the dead, they must share in His resurrection life as truly and fully as He does (John 5:24, 8:51-52, 11:20-26, 14:16-20; cf. Romans 6:1-11; 1 Peter 1:3-4). Jesus’ conquest of death is absolute and constitutes man’s conquest of death, but this victory is enjoyed by other men (and the creation) in two stages. Believers’ resurrection exists as an “already-but-not-yet” reality, and so it is with their victory over death: Their spirits have overcome death and been liberated from it, but their bodies have not. Thus Paul could affirm that the enemy of death remains unconquered even while insisting that all things have been put in subjection under Jesus’ feet (cf. Acts 2:22-36; cf. also Revelation 20:1-4 with vv. 13-14). Man has become man indeed in Him (Psalm 8:3-8), and mankind will attain to that true and full humanity in the day of His glorious appearing. In that day death – the last and greatest enemy of God and His creation – will be destroyed and the truth of man will be fully realized: “You have put all things in subjection under his feet.” In addressing the challenge and responsibility the Church has to live out its “new creational” life and existence in the context of the present time/space “old creation” characterized by alienation, corruption, and death, Torrance says the following: “Although the Church is already one body with Christ through the Spirit, it is yet to become one body [in the fullness of physical resurrection] with him, but meantime in the world and history the church is a mixed body, with good and evil, true and false, wheat and tares in its midst. It is still characterized by sin and evil and partakes of the decay and corruption of the world of which it is a part, so that it is not yet what it shall be, and not yet wholly in itself what it is already in Christ. In this eschatological reserve and deep teleological ambiguity the church lives and works under judgment as well as grace, so that it must constantly put off ‘the image of the old man’ that passes away and put on ‘the image of the new man’ who is renewed in the likeness of Christ. The New Testament expresses this relation of union and distance between the church and Christ in terms of the twofold figure of the bride of Christ and the body of Christ – the church waits for the consummation of the mystery of its union with the saviour who, when he comes again, will present the church to himself, no longer spotted and wrinkled like an ageing lady but ‘without spot or wrinkle as a chaste virgin.’ This means that the church is constantly summoned to look beyond its historical [that is, present time/space, this-worldly] forms to the fullness and perfection that will be disclosed at the Parousia and must never identify the structures [forms, features, aspects, etc.] it acquires and must acquire in the nomistic forms of this-worldly historical existence [by ‘nomistic forms’ Torrance is referring to the forms and structures by which God orders and governs the present unrenewed creation in its present state of alienation, corruption and death preceding the new heavens and new earth] with the essential forms of its new being in Christ himself.” (T.F. Torrance, Atonement
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 15:44:15 GMT -5
f. The principle of “already but not yet” was fundamental to Paul’s understanding of the fulfillment of the salvation history that has come in Christ. The coming of the messianic King meant the coming of Yahweh’s long-awaited kingdom (cf. Matthew 2:1-6; Mark 1:14-15; Luke 1:26-33), and the inauguration of the kingdom meant the conquest and overthrow of Yahweh’s enemies – the earthly and spiritual realms and forms of dominion which contradict and oppose Him. All such enemies and enmity have been condemned and conquered in the person and work of Jesus Christ, but in the manner of “already but not yet”: They are conquered and even fully destroyed with respect to Jesus Himself, but the same is not true for the created order, including the remainder of the human race. The present age is characterized by kingdoms in conflict, and yet, in a very real and important way, this conflict is only apparent. - The world’s kings and kingdoms – and the spiritual powers behind them – do indeed operate in opposition to Messiah’s kingdom and kingship, and do so with the seeming capacity, power, and authority to resist His rule. - But the truth is that earthly powers are subject to His rule just as is every form and expression of “rule, authority, power and dominion” (cf. Psalm 2 with Revelation 12:1-17). Jesus’ enthronement at the right hand of the Majesty on High means that “all things are in subjection under His feet” (Ephesians 1:20-22); nevertheless, we do not presently see all things functioning in subjection to Him. In terms of conquest and triumph, “the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ” (Revelation 11:15), and yet the day has not yet come in which “every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:9-11; cf. Isaiah 45:22ff). This “now, not yet” dynamic of opposing entities and forces is evident in the instance of Satan’s rule (cf. Luke 10:17-19 with Revelation 2:8-11; cf. also Luke 11:14-22; John 12:23-33 and Colossians 2:8-15 with Romans 16:17-20; 1 John 4:1-4 and Hebrews 2:14-15), and so it is with the archenemy that is death. Jesus’ resurrection constitutes His own personal triumph over death, but the rest of the material creation is still subject to this enemy. Nevertheless, the creation is subject to death as a vanquished foe. Death still has its effect, but its ultimate power has been broken; it no longer holds the creation in an invincible grip. The already of death’s defeat and abolition in Jesus Christ is the substance of – and so insures the realization of – the not yet of death’s final destruction in the lake of fire. As noted previously, this principle explains why Paul could speak of all things being in subjection under Jesus’ feet while also insisting that enemies remain to be destroyed (cf. again vv. 25, 27 with Ephesians 1:20-22). His triumph over all enmity and opposition is complete and absolute; only the full fruitfulness of that triumph remains to be realized. Even now, all things are in subjection to Jesus – all things, that is, with the exception of God Himself (15:27b).
Why Paul felt the need to even mention this exception has puzzled scholars, for it’s patently obvious and goes without saying that Christ is not lord over the God and Father who sent Him and whose work He accomplished. - It is certainly true that Jesus was enthroned in the heavenlies and exalted “far above all rule, authority, power and dominion and every name that is named in this age and the age to come,” so that all things are now subject to Him and His lordship (Ephesians 1:19-22). - Paul’s gospel proclaimed the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ and the Corinthians no doubt were well familiar with this proclamation. As the King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus has taken His seat on the divine throne (Hebrews 1:8), but not so as to usurp the authority or lordship of His God and Father (v. 24). Jesus has been exalted to the throne of God, but at the right hand of the Father, not over the Father (cf. Acts 7:46-56 with Hebrews 8:1, 12:1-2; Revelation 3:21, 12:1-5, 22:1-3). Some have speculated that perhaps there were those at Corinth who believed Jesus’ ascension and enthronement meant that He had assumed the place of absolute supremacy – supremacy even with respect to His Father. Certainly the apostolic teaching regarding the kingdom and its King and even some of Jesus’ own statements (cf. Matthew 25:31-46, 28:18; John 5:22; etc.) could be wrongly construed in that way. Whatever provoked Paul’s qualification, he obviously felt it important to specify that Jesus’ lordship has not supplanted that of His Father. Paul was adamant here that the Son forever remains in subjection to the Father (vv. 27-28), and this has made this passage a classic proof-text of those who hold to some form of subordinationism. Strictly speaking, this term refers to the view which emerged early in Church history that the Son (and Spirit) is subordinate to the Father in His being and nature (ontological subordination). Those who hold this view necessarily deny the doctrine of the Trinity. But there is another version of subordinationism which is Trinitarian, but which emphasizes the Son’s inherent functional (relational) subordination to the Father. - The first position was held by the ancient Arians (and others) and today by Jehovah’s Witnesses who believe that the preincarnate Logos was the first and greatest creation of Jehovah, the one true God. In that sense the Logos was a god (and continues to be so in Jesus Christ), but in distinction from the God. Christ is thus homoiousios – of a similar substance – with God. - The second view upholds the Nicene homoousian doctrine that the Son and Father share the same substance, but also insists that the Son maintains a subordinate place relative to the Father. Though in some sense correct, this view commonly involves a hierarchical conception of the Trinity – a conception suited to human relations, but which doesn’t do justice to the scriptural revelation of the triune God.
As with every biblical truth, the truth of the Son’s subjection to the Father must be considered and understood in terms of the full scope and structure of scriptural revelation and not human notions and conventions (which often underlie and influence theological formulations). The latter approach cannot help but result in a hierarchical conception of the Father/Son relationship, for man in his natural state knows nothing of relationship that isn’t hierarchical; to the natural mind which is self-referential and self-oriented, distinction between oneself and others is always a matter of comparison resulting in ranking. Human beings instinctively view the intertrinitarian relationship through the lens of human relationships, and this means that they conceive of the Father/Son/Spirit relationship as hierarchical. But as noted in the treatment of 11:1-3, the relationship among the members of the Godhead is best expressed in terms of perichoresis. Again, this term refers to the dynamic of mutual interpenetration – mutual indwelling and mutual sharing in the one divine substance – of the Father, Son and Spirit. Robert Letham’s comment is worth repeating: “It [perichoresis] follows from the homoousial [sharing in the same substance] identity of the three and the undivided divine being. Since all three persons are fully God and the whole God is in each of the three, if follows that the three mutually contain one another.” (The Holy Trinity) The relationship between the Father and Son (and Spirit) is one of complete equality of essence and divine substance; the divine persons are homoousial. The implication is that any distinction between them must be functional, not ontological. Indeed, the Scripture is clear that functional (role) distinctions do exist among the divine persons; the problem is that these distinctions are misconceived whenever the perichoretic nature of God is not kept in the forefront as the fundamental reality which determines and governs all divine distinctions. The mutual interpenetration of the Father and Son highlights the exhaustive intimacy between them – intimacy expressive of one divine being in contrast to the human “intimacy” of relational affinity between distinct beings. Again, it’s absolutely critical to understand that the Father and Son are one in the sense that they fully indwell one another as one essence rather than being two persons who merely accord with one another in perspective, purpose and will (cf. John 10:22- 38, 14:1-11, 17:20-23). Each one is Himself fully God; the Father and Son are not two beings who, together with the Spirit, comprise the composite deity “God.” Three things, then, are key to understanding the way in which the Son submits to the Father: Their mutual interpenetration, the full deity which each possesses, and the nature of God as love. And these three truths demand that the intertrinitarian relationship be one of mutual submission. First of all, submissiveness and selfgiving are the very essence of love, so that the mutual love of Father and Son implies their submission to one another. To deny this mutual submission is to deny either the essential character of love or the truth that God is love.
Second, mutual submission is also necessitated by the fact that God is one while the fullness of deity exists in each divine person. For the Son to be in submission to the Father means that God as God is in submission to Himself. Indeed, it cannot be otherwise without setting God against Himself, thereby denying both His essential oneness and His integrity. Because God is one, the Son’s submission to the Father is His submission to Himself and to the Spirit who, as the Spirit of God, is both the Spirit of the Father and of Christ (cf. Matthew 3:16-17, 12:22-28; Acts 16:6-8; Romans 8:9-11; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 1 Peter 1:10-11; etc.). The very nature of the triune God demands that mutual submission be the fundamental quality of the intertrinitarian relationship. This doesn’t, however, mean that no distinctions exist in the relationships between the three persons of the Godhead. The fact that Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct hypostases implies that each relationship within the Godhead is unique: The Father/Son relationship isn’t the Father/Spirit relationship or Son/Spirit relationship; moreover, because the Son isn’t the Father, the Father/Son relationship has distinct qualities when considered from the perspective of the Father toward the Son and vice versa. So, for instance, the Father sent the Son into the world; the Son didn’t send the Father. Likewise the Son became incarnate, not the Father. God as God has entered this world and taken up our humanness, but in the person of the Son, not the Father or the Spirit. So also, implied in the designations Father and Son is the fact that the Son serves the Father’s purpose and will. But because the Son is as fully God as the Father is, He equally shares that same purpose and will. When the Son submits to and fulfills the will of the Father He is doing His own will. In all things and in every respect, the Son is in full subjection to the Father. But this subjection is determined, defined and exercised in terms of the essential oneness of the Godhead. This means that the Son’s subjection to the Father is His subjection to the one God and so to Himself as being fully God in Himself. Conversely, the Father’s commission and direction of the Son is the triune God’s commission and direction of Himself; it is God accomplishing His own design in the person of the divine Son (and in the Spirit sent by the Father and Son). These considerations clarify how Jesus could insist that all authority belongs to Him while also affirming His submission to His Father. The Son’s authority is God’s authority which also belongs to the Father. When the Son exercises His authority, He is exercising God’s authority, and so the authority of each person of the Godhead. Thus the Son’s submission to the Father’s authority amounts to His exercise of His own authority: “The Son’s obedience to the Father’s charge does not compromise the Son’s authority to act but rather establishes it… The Father commands; the Son obeys. But the Son does not obey the Father because he is inferior to the Father or ‘under compulsion’ to do so. He obeys the Father because the Father’s will is his will and because obedience to the Father is the truest personal expression of his filial unity with the Father. In this sense, the Son is equal in authority to the Father as the Son of the Father.” (Kostenberger)
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 15:46:23 GMT -5
g. The Old Testament prophets spoke of the coming kingdom as the glorious result of the Day of Yahweh – the day when He would arise and, once and for all, destroy His enemies, liberate His captive people and restore them and their desolate habitation to Himself. Many times in Israel’s history the Lord had intervened in this fashion on behalf of His covenant people, but each time His hand of deliverance and ingathering had not resolved the real issue: Each episode had left Israel in its state of alienation and enmity. The people may have been restored to the kingdom land and they might have experienced some degree of contrition and repentance, but their hearts remained estranged from their God. The scriptural portrait of God’s triumph over His enemies was depicted primarily in terms of Israel’s national enemies – the human enemies of the theocratic kingdom. But a careful, consistent reading of the Old Testament prophets shows that Yahweh’s promise of conquest, liberation and ingathering looked beyond a national, geographical restoration for exiled Israel to the liberation and renewal of the whole created order (cf. Isaiah 7-12, 34:1-35:10, 42:1-45:25, 54:1-17, 65:13- 66:24; cf. also Daniel 2 and 7; Hosea 1-3; Joel 2-3; Amos 9:11-15; Micah 4:1-5:6; Zephaniah 3; Zechariah 14). In the end, Yahweh would have to arise and exercise His conquering and liberating power so as to deliver Abraham’s children from themselves and their own self-enslavement. He would “circumcise their hearts to love the Lord their God with all their heart and soul in order that they would truly live” (Deuteronomy 30:6; cf. Isaiah 44:1-23; Ezekiel 37; etc.). The Day of Yahweh would involve His conquest of the enemies of His people and His creation, the greatest of which is death itself. Thus the triumph of God’s kingdom is His triumph over the creational curse. God’s true enemies – all of which the Son conquered – are all entities, structures and powers which contradict and oppose the shalomic design and order of His creation and His relationship with it. The promise of the kingdom was the pledge of creational renewal. Most importantly, this was not to be the repair of the existing order, but the transformation of the creation that it should at last and forever attain to and experience the design for which God brought it into existence. Thus the prophets spoke of the kingdom in terms of the destruction of the curse and the ushering in of a creational order unknown in the present scheme of things. And at the heart of this new creational paradigm would be a Creator-creature intimacy and harmony utterly foreign to the present order – an intimacy centered in the Servant Messiah (cf. Isaiah 2:1-4, 11:1-12, 42:1-13, 49:1-13, 61:1-62:12 with 64:8-65:25; cf. also Hosea 2:14-3:5; Joel 3:9-21; Amos 9:11-15; Micah 4:1-5:5; Zechariah 3:1-10; etc.). The intimacy and harmony of the coming kingdom would be pervasive, defining every relationship within the created order and every creature’s relationship with its Creator. And as this relationship was to be secured by the Servant in His coming, so also it was to be bound up in Him: He would be the peace – the shalom – of Adam’s race and the whole creation over which man presides as image-son (Isaiah 9:1-7, 52:1-55:13; Jeremiah 33:1-16; Micah 5:1ff).
For all the diverse perspectives and imagery in the Scripture’s depiction of the coming kingdom of God, the promise of the kingdom was, at bottom, the promise of shalom, with all this concept entails and implies. And this being the case, the reality of shalom is the backdrop for Paul’s summary declaration that the consummate kingdom is the state of the created order in which God is “all in all.” Some have interpreted Paul’s final clause (“in order that God may be all in all”) as modifying only the participial phrase immediately preceding it. In this case, Paul’s meaning is that God subjected all things to Christ in order that He (God) would be all in all. Though grammatically possible (and true in some sense), the context better supports connecting this final clause with the main clause and thus the sentence as a whole. Treated this way, Paul’s point was that God’s ultimate design for His relationship with His creation is that He should be “all in all,” and this consummate state is attained when Christ – with the whole creation in subjection to Him – subjects Himself to the Father. In this way the entire created order will be “summed up” in God by being summed up in Christ (ref. Ephesians 1:9-10); every created thing will be related to God in and through Jesus Christ. The Scripture employs the concept of shalom to express this all-encompassing relationship, thus highlighting that shalom vastly transcends the human notion of “peace.” It connotes integrity or wholeness, and when considered in relation to the created order, it refers to the perfection and blessedness of complete creational harmony – harmony at every level and in every respect. - Inasmuch as it connotes wholeness, shalom implies first that a thing finds itself in perfect conformity to its true self and its true function. - In turn, this perfect self-conformity expresses itself in inter-creational harmony. The relational and comprehensively interdependent nature of God’s creation means that a given thing can only conform to its own nature and function when it exists in perfect harmony with everything else. - Finally, inter-creational harmony presupposes Creator-creature harmony. There can be no shalom within the created order except as shalom exists between the creation and the God for whom it was created. “The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight is what the Hebrew prophets call shalom… In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight… In a shalomic state each entity would have its own integrity or structured wholeness, and each would also possess many edifying relations to other entities.” (Cornelius Plantinga) Shalom speaks to flourishing and blessedness and has relationship as its fundamental premise, whether relationship with oneself or with other entities. So it is with the triune God, who finds His blessedness and felicity in the intimacy and joy of mutual love and delight among the Father, Son and Spirit.
And so it is with the universe God created to reflect and express the truth of Himself as a relational being. The God who is love – who exists as perfect relationship – brought forth a created order which glorifies Him by testifying to Him – that is, by conforming in itself to the truth of who He is in Himself. God is a shalomic being and shalom encompasses His ordained destiny for the creation. And because of what it represents, shalom is grounded in and depends upon subjection. This is true of the triune God and therefore it must be true of the creation which reflects, attests, and communes with Him in truth; subjection is the essence of all authentic relationship as the exercise of love. - Again, true subjection – subjection as it exists in the intertrinitarian relationships – has nothing to do with hierarchical distinctions or gradations of superiority or inferiority. So it is within the created order. Indeed, precisely because everything God created is very good (cf. Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, and 25 and 1:31) – which is to say, everything as created expresses the perfection of God’s purpose and design, there can be no such thing as superiority or inferiority within His creation (just as there is no superiority/inferiority among Father, Son and Spirit). - But as Father, Son and Spirit are distinct hypostases, so there are countless distinctions within the created order. But each created entity and each distinction shares equal perfection, value and necessity in the creational scheme and its order and functioning (as is the case within the Godhead). Because of its relational nature, shalom utterly depends upon distinctions among entities – but distinctions perceived and functioning in a certain way: As it pertains to the created order (and mirroring its divine counterpart in the relationship of Father, Son and Spirit), shalom refers to the harmonious ordering of the vast diversity of God’s creation, with each entity fulfilling its created design and role in relation to God and the whole of creation. This arrangement utterly depends upon diversity; there can be no interdependence or mutual ministration where there is only the unity of absolute sameness. Indeed, the exercise of love demands that there be an “other,” even if, as in the case of God, it is only the otherness of distinct hypostases within the one divine being. At the same time, interdependence and mutuality preclude hierarchicalism and the notion of superiority/inferiority. One need only examine an untouched ecosystem to glimpse the principle of shalom: a myriad of widely diverse plants and animals all flourishing in a dynamic relationship of mutual interdependence and service. Each, in its own way, serves the good of the others and of the whole; each perfectly fulfills its own unique identity and role in relation to the whole without usurpation, domination, abdication, or denigration. The curse has compromised the creation’s shalomic perfection, but it is still detectable; things are not the way they ought to be, but the truth of what they ought to be – and will be – is still discernable in the distorted image (cf. Psalm 19:1-4; Romans 1:18-20).
Shalom is God’s design for His creation and His relationship with it, and Paul here described that consummate outcome in terms of God being “all in all.” Moreover, Paul emphasized that this shalomic outcome is grounded in subjection: all things being in subjection to Christ with Christ then in subjection to His Father. Two things, then, come to the forefront in seeking to understand what it means that, in the consummation, God will be all in all. The first is how the concept of God being “all in all” implicates Jesus’ subjection to the Father. If shalom defines the Creator/creation relationship in its consummative state, and if this state involves Jesus’ subjection to His Father, it follows that His subjection must be understood in relation to the realization of shalom. As noted before, the consummation of the creation’s relationship with God is in and through Jesus Christ: The creation is subject to God in the Son, which is to say that it is in the context of its subjection to Christ that the created order is subject to God and His lordship. Thus the created order realizes its consummate, shalomic subjection to God precisely by the Son subjecting Himself to God, His Father (cf. again v. 28 with v. 24). Jesus’ subjecting of Himself to the Father is the creation’s subjection to God. This understanding provides critical insight into how (and why) Jesus is yet to become subject to His Father. Paul insisted that the Son’s subjection to God awaits the time when all things will have been made subject to Him, which will not occur until the Parousia with the destruction of death. This seems to suggest that, in some sense at least, Jesus is not presently in subjection to the Father. But this apparent problem evaporates when one recognizes that Paul was speaking of Jesus in terms of His being the Last Adam: the true Image-Son and the first fruits of true man (cf. vv. 20-22, 45-49). Thus Paul was not suggesting that Jesus now (or ever) usurped, contradicted, opposed, or in any way came short of perfect subjection to God. Jesus Himself insisted that He was fully subject to the One who sent Him, such that to see Him is to see His Father. The Son has eternally been one with the Father, a fact which Paul well understood. But that is not the issue here: Paul wasn’t referring to the Father/Son relationship as such, but to the consummate realization of God’s purpose for His creation. In speaking of Jesus’ future subjection to the Father – which subjection has its purpose in the realization of God’s design to be “all in all,” Paul was referring to the consummation of Jesus’ role as Last Adam, whereby, in His own subjection to the Father as true Image-Son, He realizes, in Himself and on behalf of man and the creation, the entire creation’s subjection to God. Man was created to administer God’s rule as King over His creation, but he instead alienated the creation from its Creator-King. But the Last Adam – the New Man – has restored and reconciled the creation and, when all enemies are destroyed and all things fully subjected to Him, He will commit the new creational kingdom to His Father (v. 24). In that way, Adam’s race will, in Him, at last attain its ordained destiny as image-son: man as ruler over God’s creation, ruling in His name and authority as His submissive, devoted son (Psalm 8).
The second issue – and one which flows out of the previous one – is the way God being “all in all” implicates the creation’s subjection. Because Jesus is the Last Adam, His subjection to the Father constitutes man’s subjection. (Note that this is not to imply that, in the consummation, individual human beings will not be personally in subjection to God. But because their life is their share in Jesus’ life (John 6:53; Romans 8:9-11; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Galatians 2:20; Colossians 3:1-4; etc.), their personal subjection is, in a very real way, only the fullness of Jesus’ subjection.) But human beings aren’t the only created things that will be in perfect subjection to God in the consummation; the entire created order will join them in this. And the non-human (and even the inanimate) creation will be subject to God in the same way that men are: by virtue of being in subjection to the Son who is Himself subject to the Father (v. 28). God’s expressed goal is that all things will be subject to Him by being summed up in His Son. As the whole creation shared in and suffered under man’s estrangement and curse, so the whole creation will share in man’s full restoration and perfect communion with God in Christ. Shalom is man’s destiny, but also the destiny of the created order. Shalom speaks to relational harmony and blessedness, and so it’s not difficult to understand how it applies to human beings. Created in the divine image and likeness, man is uniquely suited to (and indeed created for) the deepest intimacy with God. Man can know and experience shalom because he is a personal being – because he is person unto Person. But what about the non-human creation? How can the rest of the created order – and especially the inanimate creation – experience shalom as relational harmony? And if it can’t, does this mean that the prophets went too far by portraying shalomic existence as a cosmic, creation-wide phenomenon? The answer is that the whole creation is indeed destined for shalom. While human beings can experience the blessedness of relational wholeness and harmony in ways the non-human and inanimate creation can’t, every created thing has a rightful share in shalom simply because it stands in relation to all other things. Everything God created has a place and function in His purpose, and that place and function are in relation to everything else. God has created a relational universe in which nothing exists independently; comprehensive interdependence characterizes the created order just as it does the Creator. But as it is with man, so it is with the rest of the creation: The creation’s experience of shalom depends upon and proceeds out of its communion with God. And the non-human creation experiences this communion as man does – by being God’s dwelling place. God will realize His goal to be “all in all” with respect to His creation when all things are summed up in His Son and Jesus the Son consummates His role as True Image – True Man – by committing the cosmic kingdom under His lordship to His Father. In that day God will be “all in all” in that all things will be as He created them to be: All things will share in the blessedness of perfect conformity to their identity and function – in relation to God, themselves, and all other things. In that day all things will be shalomic as God Himself is shalomic; in that day the whole creation will exult in its effulgent glory as sacred space (Revelation 21-22).
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 15:48:41 GMT -5
4. After tracing out the eschatological nature and function of resurrection as it is true in Jesus Christ, Paul returned to the Corinthian denial of resurrection from the dead. Previously he considered the christological and soteriological implications of this claim (15:13-19); here he noted two practical proofs of the truth of resurrection: a particular practice among the Corinthians and his life as an apostle of Jesus Christ (15:29-32).
a. Paul’s first proof (v. 29) involves a practice that has perplexed scholars and commentators for centuries. In fact, this verse is notorious as posing one of the greatest interpretive challenges in the entire Scripture. Several factors contribute to its difficulty, the most obvious of which is the obscurity of this ritual Paul identified as baptism for the dead. It’s impossible to determine with certainty what Paul was referring to since he provided no explanation and never mentioned this rite anywhere else in his writings. Neither does it come up in any other New Testament document. Gordon Clark’s observation on this verse is illuminating: “It may not be absolutely necessary to acknowledge here that commentators are less than omniscient, but it is certainly appropriate. Meyer has five full pages of fine print on this verse, most of which can be summarized in a conclusion that no one has any idea of what the verse means. The Mormons can quote it with glee, but nobody else can.” Whatever may be discerned about this practice must be discerned from this context. In that regard, several things may be noted: - The first is that the Corinthians obviously knew what Paul was referring to. He didn’t explain himself which implies that he didn’t have to; whether because of his personal ministry at Corinth or because of information brought to him, Paul was clearly aware that this baptismal rite was well familiar to the Corinthians.
- Secondly, the fact that this rite is nowhere else spoken of in the New Testament suggests one of two things. Either Paul was using a peculiar expression to refer to Christian baptism or this was a different sort of baptism that was not commonplace in the early Church. History does record that some pseudo-Christian sects – notably the second-century Marcionites and Cerinthians (an early Gnostic group) – practiced vicarious baptism for the dead (which some argue Paul was here referring to); where and how this practice arose in Christian circles and whether it existed in first-century Corinth is not clear.
- Thirdly, whatever this baptism was, Paul was clearly familiar with it and, most importantly, does not appear to condemn it. Some reason that Paul’s silence about the practice doesn’t indicate his approval, but only that he was concerned with a different point. However, Paul was not one to pass over errors in doctrine or practice – even if his primary concern lay elsewhere, and so his silence here is an important consideration.
Many take Paul’s lack of comment as proof that he was referring to Christian baptism, but this isn’t entirely certain. This “baptism for the dead” may have been a departure from normal baptism, but that doesn’t necessarily obligate Paul to confront it here or indict him for not doing so. He may have felt it best to focus on the matter at hand; it’s even possible that he’d already addressed this baptismal practice at an earlier time. One thing is certain, and that is that Paul’s silence does not in any way imply his agreement with the notion that a living person can be baptized vicariously for the dead for the sake of their salvation. (Contemporary Christians are especially sensitive to this idea since it’s held by Mormons.) At bottom, Paul’s acknowledgement of this (or any) practice doesn’t imply his endorsement of it. But neither can one assume that this was a baptism-by-proxy ritual intended to save the deceased. Those who follow that line of reasoning find themselves compelled to manipulate Paul’s words in order to save his reputation. - A fourth consideration is the relation of this statement to the preceding passage and the larger context as a whole. One of the important factors in determining that relation is Paul’s transitional conjunction. This conjunction most often has a causal sense which, in English, tends to be rendered by such words as since or because or phrases such as seeing that or in that case (cf. Matthew 18:32, 21:46, 27:6; 1 Corinthians 5:10, 14:12). But the conjunction can also carry the sense of else or otherwise and Paul frequently employs it with this meaning (cf. Romans 3:6, 11:6, 22; 1 Corinthians 7:14, 14:16). The latter sense applies in this context and is adopted by all of the major English versions. Thus, whatever the nature and intent of this “baptism for the dead,” Paul saw the practice effectively negated if resurrection from the dead – which he just insisted is the very heart of eschatological realization – is untrue. The obvious implication is that this ritual had some purpose and value with respect to the hope of resurrection. Were that not the case, it would have made no sense for Paul to bring it up in the present discussion. But we need not speculate about this; Paul’s own question shows that he perceived – and he expected the Corinthians to recognize – the intimate connection between this baptism and the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead (15:29b). (The fact that some at Corinth were denying bodily resurrection doesn’t preclude the congregation as a whole from engaging in a baptismal rite grounded in the hope of resurrection.) This much is clear; what cannot be determined with certainty is what this baptism involved and exactly what the practitioners believed about it. Given the obscurity and difficulty of the issue, it’s not surprising that interpreters are widely divided in their conclusions. However, all of the views fall into one of two possible groups: Either Paul was referring to Christian baptism (in some form) or to a different kind of baptism outside of the apostolic prescription. If the latter, then the further question arises as to Paul’s failure to speak against it.
The following views give a hint of the broad diversity of interpretations:
1) The most obvious one is also the most resisted and contested, which is that Paul was referring to vicarious (proxy) baptism: the baptism of a living person on behalf of another who has died. This practice did exist in certain pagan cultures and, as noted, it found its way into the Christian Church by at least the second century. But there’s no evidence of it at Corinth.
2) A second view interprets “baptism for the dead” as baptism influenced by the example of the dead. That is, Paul was referring to the fact that the poignant testimony of Christians who faced the time of their death with faith, hope and joy was moving others to faith (and so baptism). Thus his meaning: If there is no resurrection of the dead, the confident hope and joy of dying Christians is baseless, and so also it is absurd for others to follow their example and place their own faith and hope in Christ.
3) Another interpretation views “the dead” as referring to the persons who are baptized. The claim is that the context calls for supplying the word resurrection to Paul’s reference to the dead. This draws upon the literary feature known as ellipsis in which a word is contextually implied though absent from the text. This view, then, has Paul asking: What will those do who are baptized in view of their future resurrection from the dead?
4) A fourth view was promoted by John Calvin, which is that Paul was referring to the practice of dying individuals who’d newly come to faith seeking to be baptized before they expired. Thus Paul’s meaning: If there is no resurrection, then what do we say concerning those who’ve received baptism on their deathbed in the hope of life beyond the grave? Many other interpretations exist (as well as variations of those summarized here), but these are sufficient to make the point that there isn’t anything close to a consensus regarding this ritual of baptism for the dead. Clark is exactly right; at the end of the day, no one knows exactly what it was or why it was performed. But this doesn’t obscure or render inaccessible Paul’s overall meaning. One doesn’t need to solve the riddle of this baptism rite in order to discern Paul’s point, which can be summarized as follows: - Whatever the nature or purpose of this baptism, the truth of resurrection was intrinsically implicated in it. The Corinthians may not have realized it or thought through the issues, but Paul recognized that this baptism made no sense and served no purpose if the dead are not raised at all (15:29b). - The Corinthians understood (because Paul taught) that Christian baptism signifies one’s union with Christ in His death and resurrection (Romans 6:1-11). And so even if this “baptism for the dead” had a distinct motive or emphasis, it, too, would have spoken to the truth of resurrection.
- Paul’s designation itself highlights that this baptism pertained to the matter of death and the Christian’s relation to it. This is true whether his meaning was baptism in view of one’s own death or baptism in view of the death of another. This rite was concerned with death but it clearly didn’t terminate with it; in some fashion, it must have spoken to Christ’s triumph over death. Whatever their error, immaturity and foolishness, the fact that the Corinthians had heard, received and believed Paul’s gospel – the gospel of resurrection (15:1-4) – shows that any baptism they’d administer in view of death would have its ultimate referent in life out of death. Paul certainly believed this of the Corinthians; otherwise, his question makes no sense.
b. Paul next shifted from the Corinthians’ life and practice in Christ to his own and that of his fellow apostles (vv. 30-32). In a very real way, this was a movement from the lesser to the greater: If no resurrection of the dead rendered a baptismal rite meaningless and futile, how much more was that the case in the instance of a life utterly devoted to the cause and proclamation of resurrection? - If the dead aren’t raised, the Corinthians had been wasting their time; Paul, on the other hand, had been wasting his life. - But it was worse than that; Paul wasn’t merely squandering his days in an empty cause; he was daily risking his life for that cause (15:30-31). In this case, Paul – and those who labored alongside him and elsewhere in common cause with him – was guilty of the spectacular folly of subjecting himself to the constant threat of death in the cause of a supposed triumph over death that is really only an illusion. In the richest of all ironies, Paul was meeting each day triumphantly staring death in the face when in fact death has the last word. No person would knowingly do such a foolish thing; to the contrary, those who see death as the ultimate victor typically do all they can to forestall its victory. Some do indeed yield to death willingly, but they do so out of resignation, not triumph. They relate to death as conquered subjects, not triumphant conquerors. Those who recognize death as victor can and sometimes do approach it with bold resolve, but they do so with the vain confidence of natural human notions and convictions. In the end, all such notions and motivations are of no profit to the one who sacrifices himself (15:32a); if there is no resurrection – no victory over death, then even altruistic convictions and motives mean nothing. Death has its victory over noble men just as it does over the ignoble (ref. Ecclesiastes 9:1-6). But Paul wasn’t “dying daily” for the sake of a religious myth or human notions of virtue or righteous cause; he had encountered the resurrected Christ and knew that death is a conquered foe. Paul was giving himself over to death for the sake of the gospel of resurrection; he knew that he was a sharer in Jesus’ resurrection life and thus he “died daily” with the goal of seeing Jesus’ life perfected in himself and produced and perfected in others (ref. 2 Corinthians 4:5-15).
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 15:51:09 GMT -5
5. Paul supported the truth of resurrection with a couple of practical considerations and then summed up with a sober rebuke and exhortation (vv. 33-34). Paul’s words are sharp and to the point; in themselves, they are not the least bit vague or ambiguous. However, they must be kept within the larger context if they are to be properly understood; treating them in isolation virtually insures that Paul’s meaning will be missed. - The reason this deserves early mention is that, probably more often than not, Christians are guilty of this very error. In particular, the maxim of 15:33 is commonly treated as a generic truism to be applied to any and every instance of immoral or unholy associations or relationships. - Pastors often cite this verse when instructing their congregations about their personal associations and being “unequally yoked” with unbelievers and parents use it to warn their children about the dangers of careless choices in friends. But, while it’s demonstrably true that bad associations and friendships tend toward one’s corruption, Paul wasn’t speaking to that; his meaning is something else altogether – something that is hugely important to the matter at hand.
a. Paul began his rebuke/exhortation with a maxim – “bad company corrupts good morals” – drawn from Greek culture rather than the Scripture. Specifically, it comes from the dramatic comedy Thais written by the well-known Greek dramatist Menander (circa 341-290 B.C.). Menander was known for his moral maxims, many of which found their way into Greco-Roman popular culture as proverbial sayings. This is likely the source of Paul’s knowledge of this saying. It may at first appear strange that Paul would cite from a pagan source in rebuking the Corinthians, but it’s not the only time he used truths from outside the Scripture to make a point – a point that became inscripturated. Indeed, Paul did not regard such citations and allusions as inappropriate or unholy. He recognized that men’s fallen condition doesn’t alter the fact that they are the image and likeness of God (ref. Genesis 9:5-6). - Even people with no conscious knowledge of the living God – people who are living in rebellion against Him – are still able to discern existential, philosophical, moral and ethical truths consistent with the person and character of God (and authentic humanness). - Righteousness – that is, the truths and features of human “rightness” – is graven on man’s very being. Thus it’s not unknown to him; rather, he suppresses the truth as a feature of his unrighteousness (Romans 1:18-19). So it is that men in their natural state instinctively sense that they are more than mere animals; though they often seek to suppress and deny it, human beings have an inherent awareness that they are “offspring of deity” such that “in God they live and move and have their existence” (Acts 17:26-29).
Unregenerate men are capable of recognizing, articulating and promoting truth, and so it was with Menander. And so it was with classical Greek culture which appropriated his maxim and made it a general proverb. Paul had likely heard it in that context, but he here employed it for a particular reason and with a particular meaning. Two things are especially important to note in that regard: - First, Paul was applying it to the Corinthians, but with respect to the matter of resurrection and their understanding of it and relation to it. - More specifically, Paul perceived the Corinthians’ relationship to the truth of resurrection to be a matter of deception. Hence his preface to his citation of Menander’s maxim: “Do not be deceived” (v. 33a). Importantly, what appears here to be a warning is actually a rebuke: Paul wasn’t urging the Corinthians to be on their guard against deception; his grammar indicates that they were already deceived. Paul was insisting that they stop being deceived. Persons and/or ideas had been leading them astray and it needed to end.
b. Paul perceived that the Corinthians were deceived and their deception involved the way they understood and related to the truth of resurrection. This is the framework for interpreting his citation of Menander’s maxim. (Neither Menander’s meaning in his comedy nor popular usage is relevant; what matters is Paul’s meaning and that is determined in context.) And framed by the context, a more appropriate rendering would be something as follows: Spurious associations deceive and ultimately ruin a sound and well disposed ethic. - The noun often rendered “company” (homilia) connotes the assembling of separate entities into a close association. These entities can be people, but they can also be ideas or words – thus the transliteration homily to refer to a sermon or lecture. It’s also notable that Paul used this noun in the plural: he spoke of bad associations rather than one such association. Treating these considerations in context, it’s quite likely Paul was referring to the assembly of various ideas and notions – i.e., to a mindset – rather than a company of people (though human associations are implicated in this). - This understanding also fits well with the fact that this homilia results in deception which corrupts. Moreover, Paul characterized this corruption as pernicious, leading ultimately to the ruination of the entity subject to it (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 4:20-22; Jude 10; Revelation 19:2). - And what is ruined by this destructive homilia is a person’s ethic: his disposition of mind which governs his habit – his pattern of life. And not any ethic but a person’s good ethic, where “good” denotes that which conforms to what is right and true in both its essential character (goodness – cf. 1 Peter 2:3 with Luke 5:39; also Matthew 11:30) and in its active disposition (kindness – cf. Luke 6:35; Romans 2:4; Ephesians 4:32).
Paul’s concern, then, seems to be that spurious notions among the Corinthians regarding the truth of resurrection were adversely affecting their understanding of their present lives and future destiny in Christ. And the result of their corrupted thinking was corrupted conduct – perhaps not so much in terms of flagrant ungodliness as in lives conformed to natural interests and desires.
c. Paul’s rebuke in view of this deception is stunning: “Become sober-minded as you ought and stop sinning” (15:34a.) Indeed, given that the matter of concern was a flawed understanding of resurrection, it might appear at first glance that Paul was overreacting. Some at Corinth were struggling with the truth and dynamics of the dead being raised, but did this amount to sin? Why would Paul treat this matter with such severity? The answer is evident in the larger context: Resurrection isn’t merely an intriguing concept or a secondary Christian doctrine; Paul recognized that it is the marrow of the gospel because it is the very essence of God’s purpose and accomplishment in Christ. God’s design is the summing up of everything in His Son, and this “summation” is the creation’s participation in Christ’s resurrection as He is the beginning and first fruits of new creation. Therefore the Corinthian situation wasn’t at all insignificant and Paul made sure they understood that by the way he characterized their error. His expression, “become sober-minded” (NASB), is most literally rendered wake up from your stupor – as is both needful and right. What makes this rebuke all the more stinging is that this Greek verb connotes recovering from the senseless stupor induced by drunkenness. Paul saw the Corinthian error regarding resurrection as a matter of culpable carelessness and folly, not conscientious misjudgment. And he was in the position to make this judgment because he had been the Corinthians’ teacher. Paul knew full well that their error wasn’t born of ignorance of the truth of resurrection (ref. again 15:1-3); it was the result of careless, fleshly thinking. For this reason the Corinthians were indeed guilty of sin, and thus it was perfectly appropriate for Paul to demand that they stop sinning.
d. Paul regarded the Corinthians’ questioning of resurrection to be evidence that they were deceived. But they weren’t innocent in this; they were culpable in their deception because it was grounded in their own careless and undisciplined thinking. They had become like men in the throes of a drunken stupor, out of touch with what is real and unable to think with a clear mind. Perhaps most stinging was Paul’s summary assessment: This situation proved to him that there were those at Corinth who were sinfully ignorant of God (15:34b). Paul wasn’t speaking absolutely; he wasn’t saying that these individuals had absolutely no knowledge of God, but that their error regarding resurrection implies error respecting God Himself. To the extent they misjudged resurrection they revealed their ignorance of God. To a congregation which prided itself on its mature knowledge (cf. 1:4-31, 3:18-4:21, 5:1-6, 8:1-13), Paul could not have given a more stinging rebuke. And he intended it so, for he spoke to their shame.
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 15:54:00 GMT -5
6. Some at Corinth were doubting the truth of resurrection, but on natural and practical grounds rather than theological ones. That is, their primary objection was apparently the seeming impossibility of resurrection: The whole notion of a reanimated corpse made no sense to them. These Corinthian believers objected to the idea of a body rising from the dead (15:12) because they couldn’t imagine how such a thing could happen; how can a corpse be raised, and even if it were, what sort of body would it possess? - What Paul had taught them regarding Jesus’ resurrection should have indicated to them that a Christian’s resurrected body must be something other than the reanimation of the decomposing fleshly body which the grave is consuming. - But then again, Jesus was only in the grave three days; to the naked eye, his body was not yet decomposing and so it was plausible that it could be reanimated. - Moreover, Jesus’ case was unique. Paul’s doctrine of the resurrection meant that the bodies of dead believers would be grossly decomposed by the time of their raising (even given the early Church’s expectation that Jesus’ Parousia was to come in short order). How could such corpses be raised? Wouldn’t God have to somehow reverse their decomposition, and how can such a thing occur? And so, after demonstrating the necessity of resurrection as the marrow of the gospel (vv. 12-19) and elaborating on the meaning and outcome of Jesus’ resurrection as first fruits (vv. 20-28), Paul turned to the issue implied in the Corinthians’ objection, namely the way in which the resurrection phenomenon works (15:35-50). The Corinthians were apparently most concerned with the how of resurrection; Paul recognized that he first needed to address the more fundamental questions of the what and why of resurrection. Only then was it appropriate to speak to the Corinthians’ concern. Paul began his treatment of the how of resurrection by articulating the substance of the Corinthian objection: “How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come back from the dead?” (15:35). These two questions, together with Paul’s answer, highlight the fact that the Corinthians were struggling with the concept of resurrection because of the way they were thinking about it. Consistent with the way they interacted with so many issues, the Corinthians were approaching the matter of the resurrection of the dead with natural minds. From that vantage point, it’s not at all difficult to understand why these Christians were struggling with bodily resurrection; it defies natural reasoning and the natural order of things. Paul discerned that natural thinking was behind the Corinthian quandary, as is evident in his opening rebuke, “You fool…” The doubters at Corinth likely commended themselves as rational, empirical thinkers; Paul rebuffed that notion, insisting that they were fools. But they were foolish, not because they were misreading and misjudging the natural order and empirical evidence available to the senses. These individuals were right that the notion of bodily resurrection is problematic (if not absurd) when considered in terms of natural phenomena and considerations. Their foolishness resided in the fact that they were seeking to apply natural definitions and parameters to that which transcends them.
In a word, these Corinthian doubters were guilty of the foolishness of category confusion and applying the wrong criteria to the issue of resurrection. They were looking at it through the wrong set of eyes and asking the wrong questions, which insured that they arrived at wrong conclusions. But the Corinthians weren’t unique in this; as easy as it is to find fault with them, such natural thinking is the unconscious propensity of every Christian, evident in the way we tend to formulate and regard the doctrine of resurrection.
a. Paul understood that the topic of resurrection must be approached in spiritual rather than natural terms. That is, it must be approached according to the principles of new creation and life in the Spirit rather than the principles and features which define the old (“natural”) creation. And this means that the how of bodily resurrection must be answered in terms of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is so not only because Jesus is the beginning of the new creation as the first born from the dead (15:20-21; cf. Colossians 1:18), but also because the resurrection of believers is their participation in His resurrection. The how of their resurrection is the how of His resurrection. The answer to the Corinthians’ questions (v. 35) is found in the resurrection of Jesus, the first fruits. Thus Paul began by insisting that resurrection life is grounded in death (15:36): Whereas some at Corinth were foolishly reasoning that bodily death precludes bodily resurrection, Paul insisted that resurrection presupposes death as its necessary precursor. Jesus’ resurrection – body and spirit – didn’t merely follow upon His death; His death – and all it represented and effected – was the necessary, foundational basis for His resurrection. And so it is for all those who share in His resurrection. The Corinthians needed only to recall the truth of their participation in Jesus’ resurrection to recognize the essential connection between death and resurrection. But Paul reinforced the point by providing the example of a seed: It is only by the seed dying – by its entering the ground, splitting open and perishing – that it enters into the life of its true self. The illustration of a seed makes the point of life proceeding out of death, but Paul had a larger reason for using it: The illustration highlights the greater truth that the life which comes forth out of death is a different sort of life. The seed dies, not to be “raised” as the seed, but into the ultimacy of life which was bound up in the seed but not physically manifest in it. - The death of the seed is the necessary, ordained precursor to the emergence of the plant it embodies in germinal form and with which it shares an essential relationship. So the death of a seed of corn yields a corn plant, not a wheat or tomato plant. - An essential relationship exists between a seed and the plant which springs forth from it, but not a physical one (15:37). The plant shares genetic identity with the seed, but nothing else. The plant is distinct outwardly in its physical form, but it is also entirely distinct inwardly in terms of its cellular structure and function.
Every seed has a “body” which differs greatly from the “body” of the plant which the seed yields in its death. Who would ever think to connect the tiny mustard seed with the expansive mustard plant (Matthew 13:31-32)? Moreover, every kind of seed has its own unique physical form and gives birth to a plant which itself is physically unique: In Paul’s words, God gives to each seed and each plant its own individually unique “body” (15:38; cf. Genesis 1:11-12).
b. Paul elaborated on these principles by citing further examples of distinctions within the created order (15:39-41). These examples highlight the real and profound differences among created things – yet differences which exist in the context of an essential, elemental sameness. - Paul turned first to basic classifications of living organisms. Birds, fish, land animals and even humans all possess the same elemental biological and biochemical makeup. They are all creatures whose “flesh” consists of the same basic structures and organs made up of the same elements and molecular compounds. Even at the genetic level, there is a great deal of sameness between living organisms when it comes to genetic material that governs biological processes. And yet for all that, it is quite clear that “all flesh is not the same flesh”; the basic correspondence between “fleshly” creatures manifests itself in vast and significant differences. - Paul next drew upon the inanimate creation. Similar to living creatures, physical structures in the universe are composed of the same basic elements represented by the table of elements. Not all objects have exactly the same material composition, but all are limited to the same elemental “reservoir” from which to draw. And yet, here too there is vast and fundamental distinction, not only in composition but in manifest “glory” – i.e., a particular body’s apparent radiance or splendor (vv. 40-41).
c. The natural creation makes it abundantly clear that material existence – here expressed by Paul’s term body – is characterized by fundamental and profound distinctions set within an essential or elemental sameness. But Paul’s concern wasn’t natural science, but the resurrection of the dead. His reason for citing these examples from the created order was to make the point that the same distinction/sameness dynamic applies in the case of bodily resurrection (15:42ff). With respect to the resurrection of the dead, this creational quality of elemental sameness speaks to the fact that the resurrected body is not something entirely other than the physical body which went into the grave. Paul has emphasized the truth that God gives to each created thing a body – material substance and form – which is uniquely its own (ref. again 15:37-38). And what is true of seeds, plants, animals and astronomical bodies is true of human beings: While all people without exception share the same biological substance and human form as a species or kind (Genesis 1:11-12, 20-25), each individual human being has his own unique “body,” even to the level of genetic and biochemical uniqueness.
Every person’s body is uniquely his, but in a way that many people don’t consider and perhaps even refuse to acknowledge. Everyone recognizes that each human being has a unique physical form and makeup, but many regard the body as incidental rather than essential: They fail to recognize what the Scripture insists upon, which is that each person’s body is part of his unique, individual hypostases (his essential, personal substance which distinguishes him as a unique being). Simply put, a person’s physical body is as essential an aspect of his being as is his spirit. Man, the divine image-bearer, is body and spirit; his body is not a transient container which houses his actual being for a season or a vehicle which grants physical presence and mobility to his immaterial “self.” This can be demonstrated scripturally in numerous ways, but the great and singular proof is Jesus Christ Himself: He is man in truth – man as God created him to be – and He is man as spirit and body, both in His incarnation and, most especially, in His resurrection. As Paul will show (15:45ff), if one would understand the significance of the human body and its place and nature in resurrection, he must look to the resurrected Last Adam. But if it’s true that a person’s body is an essential component of his individual hypostases, two implications necessarily follow:
1) The first is that a person’s participation in Jesus’ resurrection must include the participation of his physical body. If the body isn’t raised, neither is the person. Indeed, resurrection of the spirit without the body only perpetuates and exacerbates the alienation, disintegration and dissolution which define the creational curse.
2) The second implication is that the resurrection body must have an essential continuity with the body which died. If the body that is raised is entirely different from the mortal body which is part of a person’s individual hypostases, the person has not been resurrected. Once again, this truth is manifest in Jesus’ resurrection: The body that was raised from the dead was Jesus’ body, physically recognizable as Him (cf. Matthew 28:1-10; Luke 24:13-39; John 20:1-29). In the first instance, if there is no resurrection of the body then the person ceases to exist at death because only his spirit is raised to share in the immortality of eternal life (the life which characterizes God Himself; cf. 1 Timothy 1:17, 6:13-16 and 2 Timothy 1:8-10 with Romans 2:5-7 and 1 Corinthians 15:51-54). So also the same outcome results if a wholly different body is resurrected from the dead; in this instance, both body and spirit are raised to immortality, but so as to constitute a different person than existed prior to the grave. Sharing in Jesus’ resurrection means the participation of both body and spirit. Moreover, the body that is raised must have an essential continuity with the body that died. At the same time, the two bodies are not identical (vv. 42-44).
This was precisely the point of stumbling for the Corinthians who were objecting to the notion of bodily resurrection. Viewing the issue through natural minds, they were working from the premise that the body which dies and enters the grave is the body which is raised. This is obvious from the way Paul framed their objection (15:12, 35) and the way he answered it, even in his initial summary (15:36-37). The Corinthians were struggling with the idea of a reanimated corpse; Paul exposed the foolishness of this thinking by pointing to the example of a seed: The seed which goes into the ground and dies comes forth, not as the revived seed “body,” but as the ultimate “body” which the seed contained elementally in promise: the “body” ordained by God (v. 38) in which the seed finds its own destiny and fulfillment. So it is with the resurrection of the dead (15:42a), and Paul described the distinction between the body that dies (that is sown into the ground) and the body that is raised in four sets of contrasting qualities (15:42-44):
1) The first contrast speaks to the principle of immortality. The body that is sown is subject to corruption and final destruction. The NAS employs the adjective perishable, but this doesn’t do justice to Paul’s language; in fact, it is arguably somewhat misleading. For perishability connotes a thing’s capacity or tendency to degrade or decay; Paul’s noun emphasizes the fact and process of decay, not merely the potential of it. (Hence the better English rendering: It is sown in corruption.) Thiselton observes: “It denotes decreasing capacities, increasing weakness, ready exhaustion, and that which finally closes in upon itself as stagnation. Anyone who is even beginning to experience symptoms of being well past middle age will know only too well what this contrast of processes (not simply states) signifies. Our earthly bodies begin to ‘die’ quite early on in life.” Antithetical to the body which dies, the body that is raised is incorruptible. Here, too, “imperishable” doesn’t capture Paul’s meaning, for the issue isn’t merely that the resurrection body lives forever. Paul’s point is that this body is not subject to any sort or degree of corruption; it is liberated from subjection to the curse and its destroying power. The resurrected body is immortal, but in the sense that it shares in the immortality which God alone possesses and which He bestows upon His children (note again 1 Timothy 1:17, 6:13-16; 2 Timothy 1:8-10; Romans 2:5-7; 1 Corinthians 15:51-54). And the issue in God’s immortality is not endless days of existence, but life that is eternal: life that is defined by God’s own being and nature as infinite, perfect, personal subsistence. This kind of life is immortality, and the bodies of the saints are destined to possess it. 2) The second point of distinction builds on the first, and that is the relative glory and honor of the two bodies. With regard to the body that is given over to decay and dissolution, Paul insisted that it is disgraceful and deserving of shame. The reason is that it exists and functions in contradiction of the truth of what God created man’s body to be.
The body that is sown into the ground is characterized and determined by death, and death is the great enemy of God and His creation because it embodies all antithesis to the God who is the Living One and who imparted life to His creation (Genesis 1:20-28, 2:1-7, 6:17). Death is more than the cessation of biological life; it is the creational state under the curse. Death is the state of the creation in its alienation from God in which it is given over to enmity, desolation, decay and destruction. Thus the mortal body’s shame resides, not just in what it engages in (the “deeds of the flesh”), but, in the first instance, in what it is in itself. Conversely, the body that is raised is determined and characterized by life – not mere animate existence, but participation in the life of God Himself. Sharing in the divine life is the meaning of “eternal life” (John 17:1-3). Thus the resurrected body participates in the divine glory – the glory of God which is fully manifest in the resurrected Christ and shared by all who share in Him as the true Image-Son (cf. John 17:1-24; Romans 8:14- 23; 1 Corinthians 2:1-7; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:6; Ephesians 1:15-23, 5:25- 27; Philippians 3:20-21; Colossians 1:24-27, 3:1-4; Hebrews 2:1-13; etc.). 3) Thirdly, because the mortal body is given over to corruption and ruin, it is characterized by profound weakness. This weakness is due to infirmity, but not the infirmity of a particular illness. It is due to the disease that is death, and so is inherent to the body and not the result of abuse or neglect. On the other hand, the resurrection body is raised in power. This phrase refers both to the power exercised in raising the body and the power which then inheres in the body in its resurrected state. Furthermore, this power is to be understood, not in general terms, but as the antithesis of its counterpart (just as is the case with the other three contrasting pairs). Thus this power is the power of uncompromised and indestructible life; it is the power manifested in Jesus’ resurrection – in the act of His raising and in His resurrected state – and which is shared in by all who participate in His resurrection (cf. Romans 1:4; Ephesians 1:19-20; 1 Corinthians 6:13-14; 2 Corinthians 13:1-4; Philippians 3:8-10; cf. also Hebrews 7:15-17).
4) Paul’s final point of contrast encompasses the other three: The body that is sown is natural whereas the body that is raised is spiritual. Paul will clarify his meaning in the balance of the context, but a couple of things are worth noting here. First, “natural” and “spiritual” represent antitheses. They are the only options for a body and each negates the other: A human body can be – and must be – either natural or spiritual, but cannot be both. Secondly, “spiritual” doesn’t mean non-physical, but that which is of the Spirit. Thus the “natural” body must refer to a body which, in some sense, is not of the Spirit. Viewed within Paul’s broader teaching, it’s clear that the natural body is to be associated with the concept of flesh, where “flesh” refers to human existence in the state of spiritual death.
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 15:56:35 GMT -5
d. “Natural” and “spiritual’ are Paul’s most general descriptors for the present human body and the resurrection body. Thus the natural body is characterized by corruption, disgrace and weakness whereas the spiritual body is marked by incorruption, glory and power. But the most fundamental distinction between these two bodies is their relation to the two archetypal men – the two “Adams” (15:44-49). Specifically, the natural body corresponds to the nature and physicality of the first Adam and belongs to all who bear his image; conversely, the spiritual body corresponds to the nature and physicality of the Last Adam and belongs to all who bear His image. This passage, then, advances Paul’s discussion of how it is that the resurrection body must be understood as differing profoundly from the present, natural body while also maintaining a very real continuity with it. The Corinthians were stumbling over the notion of bodily resurrection because they were conceiving it in terms of natural categories, principles and processes. That is, they were seeking to comprehend the resurrection body in terms of their present Adamic bodies. Paul wanted them to understand that the body which is raised is not the body that dies; the resurrection body must be defined and understood in terms of the resurrected body of Jesus Christ, the Last Adam. God’s design in resurrection is not the reconstitution and reanimation of the body that goes into the grave. The body that will be raised at the Parousia is a different sort of body – a body that corresponds to Jesus’ resurrection body. Indeed, it cannot be otherwise given that a person’s resurrection is his participation in Jesus’ resurrection. Resurrection – new creation – has been realized in the man, Christ Jesus, and men share in resurrection by sharing in Him. The Spirit is the One who effects this participation, and He does so by producing and perfecting Jesus’ life in human beings. This is true of men’s spirits and it is true of their bodies: The resurrection body is men’s participation in Jesus’ physicality, which involves them possessing a body which, in every regard, conforms to Jesus’ resurrected body. This body is their unique body – it is the body which God assigned to their own individual hypostases (ref. again 15:38), but it is a consummately human body which, in its nature, is indistinguishable from the body of the True Man and therefore from the bodies of all of their fellow saints (Philippians 3:20-21). Thus the marrow of Paul’s argumentation in this passage: - There are two kinds of human bodies: one associated with Adam and one associated with the Last Adam – the resurrected Christ (15:44-45). - Moreover, the bodies associated with these “Adams” correspond to their respective natures, even as God created man to be spirit and body (15:47). - Each of these “Adams” has a progeny which shares in his nature; so also those progeny possess a body according to the nature of their progenitor. Those who are of the first Adam have a body which conforms to his body and the same is true of those who are of the Last Adam (15:48-49).
- But the two groups of men are not exclusive of one another; all who are of the Last Adam were first of the original Adam. Such men are thus ordained to possess two bodies: first the body which conforms to the first Adam and then the body which conforms to the Last Adam (15:46, 49). The above are the main points in Paul’s argument, but they are set within his treatment of what he designated the natural and spiritual bodies. And in that regard, the first thing he insisted is that there is a spiritual body just as surely as there is a natural body (15:44b). All men – the Corinthians included – recognize the existence of a natural body; it is the body they are born with, possess throughout their lives and share with every human being. Thus it is the only body they know. This is precisely why the Corinthians were viewing the idea of bodily resurrection in terms of their present bodies. But Paul wanted them to understand that there is another sort of body – a spiritual body – and this is the body implicated in resurrection. As noted earlier, “spiritual” doesn’t mean nonphysical, but non-natural; it is a body which is of the Spirit in a way that the present natural body is not. Hays’ comments are helpful: “By far the most graceful translation of verse 44, and the one that best conveys the meaning of Paul’s sentence, is found in the Jerusalem Bible: ‘When it is sown it embodies the soul, when it is raised it embodies the spirit. If the soul has its own embodiment, so does the spirit have its own embodiment.’ That is Paul’s point: our mortal bodies embody the psyche (‘soul’), the animating force of our present existence, but the resurrection body will embody the divinely given pneuma (‘spirit’). It is to be a ‘spiritual body’ not in the sense that it is somehow made out of spirit and vapors, but in the sense that it is determined by the spirit and gives the spirit form and local habitation.” (emphasis added) The natural body is that which is inherited from Adam, while the spiritual body is that which is inherited from the resurrected Christ who is the Last Adam (Philippians 3:20-21). Both “Adams” are the progenitors of a race of men who share their image and likeness (cf. Genesis 5:3 with 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; cf. also Ephesians 4:20-24 with Colossians 1:18, 3:9-11). Each of these individuals is the fountainhead of a humanity derived from him; each of them is “Adam.” But they are not progenitors of their respective progeny in the same way: Each has “offspring,” but in a different manner and through a different generative mechanism. Paul summarized that difference in terms of the first Adam becoming a “living soul” and the Last Adam becoming a “life-giving spirit” (15:45). The first thing to note about these descriptors is that they correlate with the two categories of natural and spiritual. Paul described Adam and Jesus in this way to help the Corinthians understand the fundamental difference between their natural body and the body that will be raised at the Parousia. Specifically, human beings derive their present, natural bodies from Adam whom God made a “living soul.” So also they will derive their spiritual bodies from the Last Adam, Jesus Christ, whom God made a “life-giving spirit.”
Whatever Paul meant by these two descriptors, it’s clear that he saw them as clarifying the difference between the natural and spiritual body and the way those bodies relate to the two “Adams” from whom they derive. - With respect to the first Adam, Paul alluded to the creation account in Genesis. In the specific passage he drew from, Adam is shown to have been created from the “dust of the ground” (Genesis 2:7; cf. 3:17-19). (The name Adam highlights that he is of the ground – adamah in Hebrew.) This passage also emphasizes that Adam, as all living creatures, derived his life from God. But he did so in a unique way: God didn’t merely make Adam alive; He imparted His own life to him consistent with the fact that Adam was created as divine image-bearer: God breathed into Adam the breath of His own life and thus he became a “living soul.” Adam was given life in a unique manner to be a unique being, but he was yet a “living soul” not entirely unlike the other animate creatures God created. Though it is not said of them that God breathed His life into them, the Scripture grants such creatures the same designation of “living soul” (Genesis 1:20, 24, 30, 2:19, 9:12, 15-16). In fact, this solidarity of Adam with other living creatures seems to be central to Paul’s point: Although Adam was uniquely God’s image-bearer, he was also a natural creature; he was man determined by and conformed to the natural order and natural existence just as are other living (soulish) creatures. In Paul’s language, Adam was dust from the ground (v. 47a): formed from the earth and thus possessing an earthy, natural physicality animated by the same life principle as the other animate creatures in whom was the “breath of life.” - In contrast, the Last Adam doesn’t have his origin in the earth and the natural order, but in the heavenly realm (15:47b). By identifying Jesus in this way Paul wasn’t denying His true and full humanity as a son of Adam, but was emphasizing that He is more than Adamic man: Jesus is the incarnate Son who bore Adamic flesh, but in order to destroy it and bring man to his foreordained destiny as image-son. Jesus has His origin in heaven and has entered man’s humanness as Man of the Spirit – man as enlivened, empowered and led by the Spirit; man as Man indeed. Jesus transcended Adam by being man in consummate realization. Thus He both condemned Adam and fulfilled him. He is the Last (consummate) Adam, but also the Last Adam: Like his prototype, Jesus is the fountainhead of a humanity that shares in His image and likeness. He is Man of the Spirit on behalf of mankind. These observations help to illumine Paul’s meaning in identifying Adam as “living soul” and Jesus as “life-giving spirit.” Adam was a “soulish” being – man as taken from the earth and conforming to the natural order of existence; Jesus is a “spiritual” being – man according to the Spirit and conforming to the heavenly order. Three things about this distinction ought to be noted:
1) First, it’s clear that Paul regarded Jesus as possessing a relationship with the Spirit which wasn’t shared by Adam. Adam was “of the Spirit” in that he was created by the agency of the Creator-Spirit (Genesis 1:1-27). So also man’s nature as divine image-bearer afforded Adam a unique relation to the Spirit among God’s creatures: Man was created for intimate spirit to-Spirit communion with God and the Spirit is the agent and mediator of that relationship. However, this relationship wasn’t realized in Adam – even in his original unfallen state. Adam was the first man; he was the introduction of man, but as the prototypical promise of the Man to come – the Last Adam in whom man would become man indeed. Jesus is True Man and therefore Man of the Spirit in full conformity to the divine design. Again, man is uniquely a spiritual being, but his spirituality has been fully realized in Jesus Christ. For in Jesus we see man as God intended – man as the dwelling of God in the Spirit. In every respect and extent, Jesus is man according to the life, power, and leading of the Spirit.
2) Jesus is Man of the Spirit in a way that Adam wasn’t, but on behalf of Adam’s race; the goal of His person and work is that mankind should be transformed into His image and likeness. But it was the Spirit who made Jesus of Nazareth True Man, and so it is with those who share in Him. Men are christified (transformed into Christ-likeness) by their union with the resurrected Lord, but this transformation is the work of the Spirit. He was the Spirit of creation and He is the Spirit of re-creation. He was the “life-giving Spirit” in the case of Jesus of Nazareth – with respect to His resurrection as well as His incarnation, and He is the same Spirit in relation to all those who share in Jesus. The Spirit mediates Christ to men and perfects His resurrection life and likeness in them; in that way, the Spirit has become the Spirit of Christ and, functionally, even Christ Himself (cf. Romans 8:9-11 with 1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19; Ephesians 2:19-22, 3:14-17; Philippians 1:19; Colossians 1:25-27; 1 Peter 1:10-11).
3) The above observations highlight the Spirit’s critical role in relation to Jesus’ resurrection life and men’s participation in it. They substantiate the contention that Paul’s expression, “life-giving spirit,” ought to be rendered “life-giving Spirit.” Translators and commentators have often avoided this rendering because it seems to create the problem of confusing – and perhaps even collapsing into one – the two divine persons of the Son and Spirit. Paul was certainly not denying the individual hypostases of Son and Spirit or in any way confusing them. However, his argument is moved in the wrong direction and his point is compromised (if not missed) when his expression isn’t treated as referring to the Holy Spirit. Paul wasn’t saying that, in His resurrection, Jesus has become some sort of “spirit” who is able to impart life to men. Rather, he was pressing the intimate connection between the resurrected Son and the Spirit in regard to the work of creational renewal and christiformity. Understood properly, it is not at all inaccurate to say that Jesus has become “life-giving Spirit.”
“This taking possession of the Holy Spirit by Christ is so absolute an appropriation that the apostle Paul can say of it in 2 Corinthians 3:17 that the Lord (that is, Christ as the exalted Lord) is the Spirit… the Holy Spirit has become entirely the property of Christ, and was, so to speak, absorbed into Christ or assimilated by Him. By the resurrection and ascension Christ has become the quickening Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). He is now in possession of the seven Spirits (that is, the Spirit in His fullness), even as He is in possession of the seven stars (Rev. 3:1). (Herman Bavinck) The Spirit has, in the fullness of the times, become the Spirit of Christ. Jesus was made alive in the Spirit (1 Peter 3:18) and, by His Spirit, joins men to Himself to become men of the Spirit in Him. Sinclair Ferguson comments: “Christ has become ‘life-giving Spirit.’ Having the Spirit is the equivalent, indeed the very mode, of having the incarnate, obedient, crucified, resurrected and exalted Christ indwelling us so that we are united to him as he is united to the Father.” Even now, though they possess natural Adamic bodies according to the “image of the earthy,” Christians are “of the Spirit” in that Jesus’ life-giving Spirit has made their spirits alive so as to share in His life. Already they are raised up in Christ, seated in the heavenlies in Him as their lives – which is to say, Jesus’ life in them – are hidden in God Himself (cf. Ephesians 1:18-23 with 2:1-6; also Colossians 3:1-4). Christians are now sharers in Jesus’ resurrection life (or they are not Christians at all – Romans 8:9-10; cf. John 6:48ff) and their present resurrection in Him is the first fruits; it is the earnest and surety of the bodily resurrection to come. Man is spirit and body; how is it possible that men could share in the True Man only in part? Christians are those who are “in Christ”: sharers in His life as those in whom He lives out and perfects His own consummate humanness. And Jesus is True Man – spiritual Man – in body and spirit, and so it must be with those who are in Him. As surely as Christ’s people now bear the bodily likeness of the first man, they will bear the bodily likeness of the Last Man (14:49). And implied by this is the crucial truth that the resurrection body will not in any way or to any extent involve the rejuvenation of the natural body. As thoroughly as a plant differs from its seed, so the spiritual body will differ from the natural body. Indeed, as a seed must die and be destroyed in order for the plant to come forth, so the natural body must die and utterly perish as the necessary precursor to the emergence of the spiritual body. In Paul’s words, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (15:50). That which is of the present natural order – the old creation – has no place in the new creation – not because it’s disallowed or disqualified, but because the new creation stands upon and proceeds out of the demise of the old creation. That which exists in corruption must perish and be done away in order for incorruption to come. This was true of Jesus Himself and it is true of His people (Romans 6:1-11; Galatians 2:20). In terms of this context, the presence of the spiritual – the incorrupt and incorruptible – implies the demise of the natural. So it is with men’s spirits, and so it is with their bodies. That which is born of flesh is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:1-6).
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 16:11:17 GMT -5
7. Paul concluded his treatment of the resurrection of the body by affirming its necessity. God has brought it about in Christ and determined that men should share in it in Him. This glorious truth is a matter of praise and thanksgiving, and one which ought to encourage and strengthen the saints in their faith, constancy and labor of love (15:51-58).
a. The reason for the Corinthians’ concern with bodily resurrection is unclear; what is clear is that those who were objecting to it were doing so on the basis of wrong thinking. For Paul’s treatment indicates that they thought physical death argues against – and perhaps even precludes – resurrection. It made no rational sense to them that a decomposed body could be brought back to life; and even if God could do such a thing, why would He and why would any Christian want his corpse to be raised from the dead? Paul countered this thinking by insisting that the body that is raised is not the body that goes into the ground and decays. - There is a fundamental ontological connection between the two bodies in that a person’s resurrection body corresponds to the physical identity God has assigned to him or her. God formed each human being as a unique person in his body as well as his spirit, and He has appointed the whole person to be conformed to the consummate humanness of the resurrected Christ. The body that is raised is not the body that dies, but it is the consummate form of the physical identity God assigned to that person. - There is ontological continuity between the natural and spiritual (resurrection) bodies, but no physical connection between them. Indeed, they are of entirely different sorts (15:42-49). This is so much the case that the resurrection body utterly depends upon the demise and destruction of the physical body which precedes and anticipates it; the ultimate life bound up in the plant cannot come forth unless the seed is destroyed. And so, while some at Corinth were concerned that death is contrary to bodily resurrection, Paul assured them that death is the necessary precursor to resurrection. But if this is so, then an entirely different quandary emerges. - The Corinthians had thought that death argues against resurrection; now, based on Paul’s instruction, the opposite appears to be true: Life – which is to say, the absence of physical death – seems to preclude resurrection. - And, if this is the case, then it is those Christians who are alive at the Parousia who will not be able to partake in resurrection. Ironically, the Corinthians had been focusing on death in their consideration of the truth of resurrection; now it seemed that life might be the actual impediment to the resurrection of the body. Paul anticipated this conclusion and addressed himself to it. There will indeed be living believers at Christ’s Parousia; the only way it could otherwise is if people had long-since stopped coming to faith or all Christians had somehow been killed.
But in fact at least some Christians will be alive at Jesus’ appearing, and Paul acknowledged this to be the case. But this doesn’t argue against his contention that the destruction of the natural body must precede the emergence of the spiritual body. The Corinthians needed to understand that “not all will sleep, but all will be changed” (15:51). The first thing to note about Paul’s assertion is that he was again employing the noun sleep as a euphemism for physical death (ref. 15:6, 18, 20; cf. also 11:30 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-15). The second thing is the nature of the change Paul referred to. In context, it’s obvious that he was speaking of the replacement of the Christian’s natural body with his spiritual one. This is all the more evident from the verb Paul used: It denotes an exchange or transition from one entity to another, either through radical alteration or replacement. At the same time, it connotes some sort of essential or functional correspondence between the two entities (cf. Acts 6:14; Romans 1:23; Galatians 4:20; Hebrews 1:12). Paul’s point, then, was two-fold: On the one hand, he acknowledged that some believers will be alive at Christ’s appearing; on the other, these living saints will not fall short of the resurrection of the body which Paul assigned to the Parousia event (ref. again 15:20-23). The living and dead will be raised. This parallels the message he had for the Thessalonians. In their case, they weren’t struggling with the truth and particulars of bodily resurrection, but were concerned that those saints who died prior to Christ’s Parousia would be left out of the resurrection altogether (ref. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). Though for a different reason than the Corinthians, the Thessalonians, too, needed to be reassured that the dead in Christ will not – indeed, cannot – miss out on the resurrection of the body at Jesus’ appearing. Taken together, these two passages highlight three important truths:
1) First, they show that the bodily resurrection of all saints, living and dead, will occur as a miraculous and instantaneous metamorphosis – a complete transformation occurring in the time it takes for an eye to blink.
2) Second, this bodily resurrection occurs at the same time for all of the saints. Not only are the living and dead saints equally appointed to share in resurrection bodies, this resurrection occurs for all of them at the time of Jesus’ Parousia at the end of the age (ref. again 15:23).
3) Third, this simultaneous bodily resurrection of all who belong to Christ corresponds to what is commonly referred to as the Rapture. This points to the corollary truth that the rapture event corresponds to the “end” in which death is destroyed, evidenced in the saints’ bodily resurrection and the renewal of the material creation. And having thus abolished death and restored all things to God, the Son delivers up the kingdom to His Father that God should be “all in all” (cf. 15:23-28 with Romans 8:18-25). Nowhere does Paul’s scenario suggest – or even allow for – a “catching away” of Christians to await a later return and millennial kingdom.
Christians who are alive at Jesus’ appearing will also experience the resurrection of their bodies. And, as suggested above, this doesn’t at all argue against the truth that the natural body must perish and be done away in order for the spiritual body to be raised. In the case of the living saints, there is an instantaneous “putting off” of the natural body and “putting on” of the spiritual body, but this deathless event is no less the natural body’s demise and destruction. Paul’s commentary on this event makes this abundantly clear (15:52-53). - At Jesus’ appearing, the trump will sound (as an assembly signal; cf. Isaiah 27:12f; Matthew 24:29ff) and “the dead will be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed.” Some see Paul here distinguishing between the living and dead saints, but, even so, he has both undergoing the same transformation. All must put off corruption and mortality (v. 53); all must be liberated from their Adamic physical self, whether or not their bodies have died (v. 51). They must “put off” their natural physicality, but in order to be clothed with their true physicality: the truly human physicality of the new creation which characterizes Jesus’ own resurrection body. - This “putting off” and “putting on” is an instantaneous transformation. It is a creative fiat performed by the Creator-Spirit, and by this divine miracle all of the saints – living and dead – are fully and forever changed. - All Christians must participate in this work of re-creation, for all are still characterized by death. It makes no difference whether the natural body is still animated or has perished and been consumed by decay; in terms of their physicality, death still defines every believer. Until they are made to share in Jesus’ glorified physicality, Christians’ resurrection – their life out of death – remains incomplete. In that respect, they are yet given over to corruption and mortality, whatever the state of their natural bodies. They must yet put on incorruption and immortality; they must yet bear the image of the heavenly Adam, the Second Man (15:53; cf. vv. 48-49). This dynamic of resurrection was fundamental to Paul’s gospel which he preached in all the churches of the saints, and yet he recognized it to be a profound mystery (15:51). And it is mysterious, not merely because it is strange, but because it transcends human understanding and is beyond human discovery. The resurrection of the body – as also the resurrection of the spirit (John 3:1-8) – is a divine work which transcends natural laws and processes and human experience. It is not subject to empirical scrutiny and analysis; it is a miracle in the true sense. Not unlike Nicodemus’ error respecting the new birth, the Corinthians were seeking to understand the matter of resurrection on the basis of natural categories and considerations. Even the concepts of incorruption and immortality cannot be understood in this way; they speak to qualities that inhere in God Himself and which He grants to His creatures as they are made to share in His own life. They speak to existence in the realm of the divine; existence in a form and manner beyond man’s present ability to discern (1 Corinthians 2:6-10).
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 16:22:57 GMT -5
Shalom in the true and comprehensive sense is God’s design for His creation. A thing is “shalomic” when it conforms perfectly and exhaustively to its divinely ordained design, nature and function. The triune God created a universe characterized by virtually limitless diversity of form and function, and yet all of the myriad created entities share one critically important thing in common: They are all defined and determined by the principle of relatedness. That is, every created thing has its identity, function and ultimate purpose, not in and of itself, but in relation to all other things. God didn’t merely create things; He brought forth a created order – an order that reflects and gives expression to His own trinitarian nature, order and relationship. Thus shalom is preeminently a relational concept and reality; it speaks to a thing’s flourishing and blessedness as that thing finds itself in a relationship of perfect harmony with all other things in the delightful interdependence of mutual endowment and support. And because the created order’s shalomic inter-relatedness is itself subsumed in the creation’s relationship with God, shalom is ultimately a Creator-creature reality. This evident in the account of the first creation (Genesis 1-2), and it is evident in the portrayal of the new creation (Revelation 21-22). In terms of Paul’s present discussion of resurrection, shalom implicates the concepts of life and death. From the scriptural perspective, these concepts don’t refer to the presence or cessation of animate existence (a thing being “alive” or “dead”), but to a thing’s existence in conformity to the truth of what it is in itself. Thus God declared to Adam that death would instantaneously result from his disobedience respecting the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:15-17). This act of disobedience amounted to man’s insistence upon defining himself and determining his own existence independently of God. But because man is divine image-bearer and image-son, he cannot adopt this course without losing himself – without dying to the truth of who he is and therefore to authentic human existence. God embodies the truth of man, so that human autonomy is death for man. Stated differently, man cannot know and experience life except as he knows himself and orders his existence in terms of his essential relationship with the One whose image and likeness he bears. Any sort, manner, or degree of separation between man and God amounts to the separation of man from himself; it amounts to his death. Thus the Scripture shows that death did indeed come upon Adam and Eve as the immediate, inherent outcome of their yielding to the seduction of independence (ref. Genesis 3:6-8). And God affirmed and sealed them in their death by expelling them from His garden-sanctuary, thereby cutting them off from the life that is their full, unblemished and unhindered communion with Him (Genesis 3:22-24). Estrangement from God meant man’s estrangement from himself, and so also his estrangement from all other human beings and every other created thing. Thus the death of man was the death of the created order in that all things are related to God in and through man, the image-son and viceregent (cf. Genesis 1:26-28 with 3:8-19). Adam and Eve’s insistence upon autonomy had brought the curse of alienation – the curse of death – upon the whole creation (ref. Romans 8:18-22). God’s created order was now defined by the disorder and disintegration of estrangement; His “very good” creation had been vandalized and shalom had been destroyed. Death had gained the victory and ruled over God’s works.
b. Death defines the outcome of the Edenic seduction, and man’s identity and role as mediator between the Creator and His creation meant that death wasn’t confined to Adam and Eve and their offspring; the whole creation was brought under its sway. Thus, beginning with the protoevangelium, God’s promise to restore His creation was His promise to recover life out of death and do so invincibly. Eve was the instrument of death, but she would also be the source of restored life. By God’s design, Eve was to be the “mother of all the living” (Genesis 3:15, 20). God’s primeval oath in Eden was the promise of life out of death and He never deviated from this message from that point forward. In a myriad of ways – from visionary disclosures and providential actions to direct pronouncements, God continued to insist throughout the long salvation history that He would most assuredly fulfill His oath to conquer and destroy death and restore all things to Himself, thereby recovering the creation’s life and establishing it in its shalomic existence. Indeed, this ever-present theme is a key aspect of the Christ centeredness of the Old Testament scriptures. - The uniform witness of Jesus and His heralds is that all of the Scriptures (that is, the writings of the Old Testament) speak of Him and have found their fulfillment in Him (cf. Luke 24:13-48; John 5:39-47; etc. with the common fulfillment formula recurring throughout the gospel accounts: “This was to fulfill…”). - All of the Scriptures proclaimed the Messiah in that they all proclaimed that God would prove faithful in fulfilling His pledge to restore His creation to Himself in the Seed of Eve. The promise and expectation of the coming messianic Deliverer was the promise and expectation of the creation’s liberation from the curse of death. Paul understood this and recognized that resurrection – life out of death – constitutes the fulfillment of God’s ancient oath. Thus he concluded his treatment of the resurrection of the body as he ought: by showing it to be the focal point in the consummation of the creational restoration God pledged He’d accomplish in Eve’s offspring – the Second Man and Last Adam. Paul has throughout insisted upon the fact and necessity of the resurrection of the body (and, by implication, the accompanying renewal of the entire material creation – 15:24), and he here underscores the fact that it is more than a phenomenon experienced by Jesus and later by His saints; the resurrection of the last day punctuates and consummates the faithfulness of the triune God in His accomplishment of His eternal design to sum up all things in the heavens and earth in the Son. The resurrection of the body indicates the day of the material creation’s renewal and thus the fulfillment of God’s word spoken through His prophets. All of the Scriptures attest that day, and therefore so do all of God’s prophets. This means that Paul could have drawn from any of them in summing up his discussion, but he chose to cite from a particular pair: Isaiah and Hosea (15:54-55).
Paul’s first citation is from the twenty-fifth chapter of Isaiah (25:8), which is a hugely important passage in the flow of Isaiah’s overall prophecy. - The first thing to note is that this chapter forms the transition between two larger sections. These two sections, in turn, comprise the first of two prophetic sets (13:1-27:13, 28:1-34:17), both of which emphasize the twin themes of judgment/punishment and subsequent restoration. Thus in each of the two sets, the first section focuses on impending judgment (ref. 13:1- 24:23 and 28:1-34:17) while the second focuses on the restoration to follow (ref. 25:1-27:13 and 35:1-10). Also, the first set has its primary concern in the Gentile nations while the second emphasizes the two Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Thus chapter 25 forms the hinge between the judgment/restoration sections of the first prophetic set. More precisely, it is a doxology – a song of praise and thanksgiving – which serves to introduce in triumphal fashion the second section spotlighting the theme of restoration. In context, this restoration amounts to Yahweh’s establishing of His eschatological kingdom which he will accomplish by destroying the imperial city and its desolating dominion. (The absence of a clear referent for this “city” suggests the notion of the “city of man” as raised up against Yahweh and His kingdom and rule; ref. 24:1-25:3, esp. 24:10). - In this way this passage serves at least three critical roles in its own wider context: First, it highlights the truth that God’s judgment/condemnation is not the last word, but has its goal in restoration. Secondly, as the immediate context focuses broadly on the world of men outside Israel, this passage also emphasizes the universal nature of God’s restorative work. This work has its object in the whole world and not merely the Israelite people (ref. 25:6-7). Finally, it shows that this restorative work speaks to Yahweh’s establishment of His everlasting kingdom. Paul certainly recognized this, and John’s Apocalypse shows that this was indeed God’s meaning in the prophecy (cf. 25:8; Revelation 7:9-17, 21:1-4). - And serving this function within the larger context, it’s not at all surprising that chapter 25 highlights Yahweh’s pledge to destroy death, situating this pronouncement as the centerpiece of the chapter (v. 8). The destruction of death is the very marrow of the divine saving work, for death is the great antithesis to God Himself and His creation as He intended it. Victory over death means victory over the curse; it means liberation of the exiled and captive creation and restoration to the Creator. Paul’s citing of this passage in support of his summary observations concerning resurrection, then, indicates two things. First of all, it shows that he recognized, as Isaiah did, that God’s restoration of Adam’s race (and so the whole creation) has its great and determinative work in the final destruction of death.
But it also shows that Paul understood Isaiah’s prophetic promise to have been fulfilled in Jesus’ resurrection and the creation’s deliverance from death in Him. A few further things about Paul’s use of this passage are worth noting: - First, Paul drew upon the Hebrew text of Isaiah 25:8 rather than the Greek Septuagint. At the same time, he adopted a reading which has death swallowed up in complete victory rather than forever. (The difference in meaning results from the way the vowel sounds are articulated in Hebrew. Hebrew has no vowel letters, so that oral tradition, not written form, determines meaning.) The two ideas are not mutually exclusive and both fit the context well. Nevertheless, Paul chose to adopt the reading, victory. - It is possible that Paul made this decision because the idea of victory better suited his intention in using this citation. This reading does better suit Paul’s intent (ref. 15:56-57), but he wouldn’t have employed it if it didn’t accord with the Isaianic text and its meaning. Thus it’s also likely that this reading of Isaiah reflected the rabbinical interpretation that Paul was familiar with. (Interestingly, most English versions have chosen to adopt the alternate reading: He has swallowed up death forever.) In the end, what’s clear is that Paul wanted to emphasize the great truth that the resurrection of the last day consummates God’s absolute triumph over death – the triumph that was secured in Jesus’ resurrection as the first fruits from the dead. - Critically important in Paul’s use of this passage is the way it expresses Yahweh’s victory over death. That is, it doesn’t merely promise death’s destruction, but also implies the reversal of its disastrous effects. For God to go no further than abolishing death would be for Him to leave His creation in ruins. Death must indeed be destroyed, but unless its work and effects are undone, it may fairly be argued that death continues to have its way; though abolished, death would yet hold the creation under its sway. Thus the prophet insisted that Yahweh’s swallowing up of death would see the reversal of its consequences. All tears will be wiped away from all faces as the reproach of Yahweh’s people is removed. In the place of sorrow, alienation and blindness there will be the lifting of the veil which is draped over all people together with great joy and rejoicing (25:6-8). - And finally, Paul’s use of Isaiah’s prophecy shows that he saw its fulfillment in relation to Jesus Christ and resurrection. Set in the context of Yahweh’s judgment of the whole world (24:1-23), Isaiah’s promise looked to a coming day when He was going to swallow up death in victory: when He would restore the desolate heritages – not just Israel’s desolation, but that of the whole earth and all its peoples. Paul observed that He has now done so in substance in Jesus’ resurrection and will have done so comprehensively in the resurrection and renewal at the last day (15:54).
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 17:38:48 GMT -5
Israel’s prophets were unified in insisting that Yahweh’s kingdom would see the destruction of death and corruption and the renewal of all things. The coming of the kingdom meant the abolition and reversal of the curse (cf. Genesis 3:17-19 with Isaiah 53-55; Amos 9:11-15; Micah 4:1-4; Zechariah 14; etc.) and Paul recognized the fulfillment of this promise in the resurrection of the dead (and the attendant renewal of the non-human created order; ref. again Roman 8:18ff). Paul drew his second citation from Hosea’s prophecy (15:55; ref. Hosea 13:14). Hosea was a contemporary of Isaiah and Micah (8th century B.C.) and so prophesied in the decades leading up to the Assyrian conquest and captivity of the northern kingdom of Israel. His prophetic ministry was largely directed toward Israel, but also implicated Judah in the south since his prophecies spoke to Yahweh’s purpose to reconcile Israel and Judah in connection with Messiah’s coming. This reunification is a common theme in the prophets and draws on David’s role as the great prototype of the coming messianic King.
- David was the prototypical fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham of a royal seed (cf. Genesis 17:1-16, 49:8-10; Deuteronomy 17:14-20) and, as such, was the Judahite in whom Yahweh established the Abrahamic kingdom (cf. Genesis 15:1-21 with 1 Kings 4:1-21). (Saul was Israel’s first human king, but not authentically, first because he was not Yahweh’s king – that is, he didn’t rule on Yahweh’s behalf – but also because he was not of the tribe of Judah to which the royal scepter had been assigned.)
- David secured the covenant land, but he also unified as one people the twelve tribes of Israel, thereby establishing the Abrahamic covenant community. Land, seed, and blessing came together in David, so that his kingdom represented the temporal fulfillment of Yahweh’s covenant promise to Abraham (cf. Genesis 12:1-3, 13:14-18, 15:1-21, 17:1-16).
- David unified Yahweh’s covenant people – by securing their love and devotion, not through military conquest (2 Samuel 4:1-5:5), but his failure as king resulted in the fracture of that unity. He incurred Yahweh’s judgment upon the Abrahamic covenant house and the result was the two sub-kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the latter constituting the remnant of David’s kingdom and consisting of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin (ref. 2 Samuel 11:1-12:12; 1 Kings 11:1-12:24).
- David’s failure fractured the Abrahamic kingdom and served as the foundation for apostasy and judgment in exile and captivity. David had failed to fulfill the role of King of Israel, but God’s covenant with him promised to him a son who would succeed in that calling (2 Samuel 7). That son would reunify the twelve tribes, restore the desolate kingdom and rule faithfully as Yahweh’s Son-King. David’s identity and calling were to be fulfilled in him, and thus the prophet Ezekiel went so far as to refer to that descendent under the name of David (ref. Ezekiel 34, 37:15-28).
This same theme is also present in Hosea’s prophecy (3:1-5). This prophet, too, emphasized that a day of restoration and reunification was coming for Israel and Judah (cf. also Jeremiah 30-33; Isaiah 11:1-13, 49:1-7). And as David had unified the Abrahamic tribes under his rule (along with many nations of the Gentiles), so David’s covenant son – the true “David” – would secure this future reunification of Israel and Judah (cf. Hosea 1:1-11, 3:1-5) and broaden His rule to extend to the nations (ref. again Isaiah 11:1-13 and 49:1-7; also Amos 9:11-12). The passage Paul drew from is part of a larger context (chapters 11-14) in which Yahweh was affirming His undying love and restorative intention for the kingdom of Israel (“Ephraim”). Unlike the kingdom of Judah (which, again, was the remnant of David’s kingdom), Israel had been appointed for destruction and enduring dispersion among the nations. Judah would also experience conquest and captivity in exile, but after seven decades Yahweh was going to begin to restore the Judean exiles back to Canaan (recorded in Ezra and Nehemiah). And yet, God wasn’t done with Ephraim (the ten tribes of Israel); that portion of the Israelite nation would also see restoration, but as they were gathered in and reunified with their Judean brethren in the last days when they repented and returned to Yahweh by subjecting themselves to His messianic King (Hosea 1-3). Thus Hosea’s prophecy follows the predominant pattern in the prophets of coming judgment, desolation, exile and captivity followed by liberation and restoration. (Note again that judgment and restoration form the substance of the theme of the Day of the Lord.) Even Israel (Ephraim) – whose entire history as a separate kingdom was defined by disobedience and apostasy – was to see its justly deserved desolation and exile end in forgiveness and ingathering. Yahweh would yet restore Israel together with Judah, for it is impossible that He should renounce His faithfulness to Abraham (11:1-12; cf. again chaps. 1-3). Israel’s apostasy and unapologetic idolatry had incurred the sentence of death (12:1-13:16; note especially 13:1): They had departed from Yahweh in their affections and practice (2:1-13; 11:1-2) and their alienation from Him amounted to their death; they gave themselves to Baal and died. And yet, death was not to be the last word; Yahweh would yet give “life” to His wayward covenant son by healing his apostasy in the free exercise of His love. The withered vine that was Israel would yet sprout new shoots and blossom like the lily (14:1-6). This is the larger context of 13:14 and the framework within which this verse must be interpreted, first as part of Hosea’s overall prophecy and then in terms of Paul’s use of it in his instruction to the Corinthians. In its own context, Hosea’s statement was referring to Ephraim (again, the ten tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel; cf. 11:1, 8, 12, 12:1, 8, 14, 13:1, 9, 12) and its relationship with God. Because of Israel’s arrogant and unrepentant apostasy, Yahweh was going to bring death, destruction, exile and captivity upon them through the Assyrians (11:1–7; also 12:1-13:11; cf. 2 Kings 17-18).
In an ironic use of imagery, the prophet derided Israel’s foolishness and self destructiveness by likening the nation to a baby that doesn’t recognize the time of its birth (13:13b). Like that baby which tenaciously clings to its place in the womb, refusing to be born into the world, Israel had long clung to the iniquity of its stubborn rebellion, refusing to be delivered and “born” into the new life of reconciliation with Yahweh (13:12-13a). C. F. Keil comments: “Ephraim is an unwise son, inasmuch as even under the chastening judgment [of Yahweh] he still delays his conversion and will not let himself be new-born, like a child that, at the time of the labour-pains, will not enter the opening of the womb and so come to the birth.” Ephraim refused to be born anew into a restored relationship with the Lord, but this wasn’t to be the last word. Yahweh regarded Ephraim as a beloved son and would not give up on him. Like a father who refuses to let his infant son die in the womb and so extracts him from his complacent refuge into the pains of delivery that he would be born, so Yahweh would intervene to bring Ephraim through the fires of judgment in order to deliver him from sure death and bring him into the new life of reconciliation: “From the power of Sheol [the grave] I shall ransom them; from death I shall redeem them” (13:14a). Four observations follow:
1) The first thing to note is the parallelism of these two statements. Parallelism is a common device in Hebrew literature, this instance being an example of synonymous parallelism. By essentially repeating the same statement twice, the prophet emphasized it and its importance.
2) A second observation pertains to the two verbs rendered ransom and redeem. They reflect the synonymity of the two statements, being closely similar in meaning: Both refer to the principle of redemption in which a ransom is paid for another’s release. But the verbs differ in their emphasis: each highlights a different aspect of redemption as a scriptural motif having its ultimate meaning in God’s work in Jesus Christ: The first verb (ransom) associated with Sheol highlights the actual redemptive act and specifically the ransom itself – the price of redemption – which secures the captive’s release. This aspect of redemption was in the forefront in the Exodus event in which Israel’s liberation from Egyptian bondage was secured by the blood of the firstborn (Exodus 11:1-12:36). The second verb (redeem) associated with death places the emphasis on the individual – the person of the redeemer – who accomplishes the work of redemption. This aspect of redemption is most closely associated with the redeemer-kinsman principle. In this way Yahweh took to Himself both aspects of redemption: He is the redeemer-kinsman who, in a second Exodus, pays the ransom for His own.
3) Third, it’s important to note that some commentators (and English versions) have treated these parallel statements as a compound question: Shall I ransom them…? Shall I redeem them…? But the context – and especially what immediately follows – argues against this and the uncertainty it connotes. For, after Yahweh spoke about delivering Israel from death and the grave, the prophet addressed these two entities directly. And he did so with two rhetorical questions (13:14b) that correspond in chiastic fashion with the preceding parallel statements. (Chiasm takes the form A B B’ A’.) The connection, then, is as follows: “From the hand of Sheol I shall ransom them. O Sheol, where, then, is your destruction?” “From death I shall redeem them. O death, where, then, are your plagues? It’s precisely in view of Yahweh’s pronouncement to redeem Ephraim from death that the prophet can triumphantly ask of death, “Where are your plagues?” and of the grave (as death’s repository), “Where is your destruction?” If, on the other hand, God were simply pondering this redemption or expressing it as uncertain (Shall I ransom…? Shall I redeem…?), Hosea’s triumphal interrogation of death and Sheol would be premature and unfounded.
4) Finally, the closing statement of 13:14 must be considered. At bottom, this statement can be viewed negatively or positively, and how it is interpreted weighs heavily on the overall meaning of the passage. If treated as a negative statement, the meaning is that God will not show pity or compassion toward Ephraim (at least for a season). This is the apparent meaning based on various English renderings (NKJ, NAS, ESV, etc.). The problem with this interpretation, however, is that it seems to nullify everything said to this point. In fact, it supports the view that regards the first two parallel statements as questions: Thus, after raising the question of whether or not to redeem Ephraim (Israel) from death, Yahweh declares that He has determined not to have compassion on him. This interpretation is possible, but contradicts the message of the larger context, which is that Yahweh will punish His wayward son Israel by the hand of Assyria, but that will not be the last word. For the Lord’s goal is restoration, not destruction; at the ordained time He will indeed arise and redeem and restore Ephraim who is beloved (cf. 11:1-11, 14:1-8). Thus the context argues for a positive meaning to Yahweh’s statement, but can it be interpreted in this way? The answer is that it can, and the key is the noun (compassion – NAS) and its interpretation. For this term, too, can carry either a positive or negative connotation, depending on the context.
The verbal cognate has a wide semantic range, embracing such ideas as sorrow, pity, comfort, repentance, regret, and relenting. But in all of its biblical uses, the general connotation is that of a shift in the subject’s attitude or action. The particular noun form here in Hosea occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament, and so its meaning must be determined from its usage within this context, but such that that meaning falls within the cognate’s overall semantic range. When all considerations are taken into account, the statement is arguably best captured by something along this line: “Relenting will be hidden from my eyes.” Thus, after declaring His intent to redeem Ephraim from death, Yahweh affirmed that He will not change His mind or even consider a different course: The very possibility of relenting from His declared purpose is beyond His consideration. Thus Hosea’s meaning in context: Though destruction, exile and captivity were appointed for Israel at the hand of the Assyrians (which punishment was only a generation away), Yahweh would yet deliver them from the “death” of their waywardness and desolation and restore them to Himself; He would heal their apostasy and love them freely, causing them to blossom like the lily (14:4ff). This was Hosea’s meaning, but how does this contextual meaning accord with Paul’s use of this verse? The answer lies in understanding the nature of Israel’s restoration and how it plays into God’s overall purpose in Jesus Christ. - First and most importantly, Israel’s restoration was to involve its reconciliation to its “sister” Judah. Israel (Ephraim) was to remain in exile from Yahweh until such time as He reconciled both Israel and Judah to Himself, thereby reconciling them to one another. And this great and final reconciling work was to occur in connection with the coming and redemptive work of Messiah – Yahweh’s Servant and the Son of David (ref. again Hosea 1-3 and Jeremiah 30-33; Ezekiel 34, 37). - Israel’s redemption was to be shared by Judah; Yahweh was going to redeem both from death and the grave (i.e., from their estrangement and exile from Him). But even more, this reconciliation and healing – this “life out of death” – for the two houses of Israel was to include all the earth’s peoples (cf. Isaiah 11:1-13, 49:1-6, 53:1-55:13; also Amos 9:11-15). (This is precisely why Paul could cite Hosea 1-2 in support of his contention concerning God’s salvation of Gentiles and Jews alike; Romans 9:22-26). Thus Paul recognized that Yahweh’s promise to Israel of its future redemption from death was His promise of resurrection in Christ. Life out of death – reconciliation and restoration to God – is actual and true in Him, and it is His triumph over death and the grave that secures the same triumph for His people. In view of resurrection – realized in Jesus, now true of the saints’ spirits and pledged to them respecting their bodies, those in Christ can confront death and the grave with Yahweh’s own triumphal assertion: O death, where is your victory?
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 17:42:06 GMT -5
c. The prophets proclaimed the day of death’s destruction, and that day has come in substance with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He entered the world as mortal, Adamic man and therefore under the sentence of death. But He embraced death, not to succumb to it and the decay of the grave, but to conquer them (ref. Acts 2:22-32). Jesus died in order to put death to death and secure for mankind the life and immortality that characterize God Himself (cf. 1 Timothy 6:13-16; 2 Timothy 1:8-10) and His resurrection attests that He succeeded in His mission. Jesus has triumphed over death so that its sting is removed (15:55). Death still exists in the creation but it has lost its power to destroy; it is a conquered foe and in the last day it will be destroyed utterly and forever. And so, while death still wields a sting, that sting has no venom for those who share in Jesus’ triumph and life. Christians still die and their bodies decay in the grave, but not as the final word; death’s power has been broken in the Living One. The saints can affirm with Paul that death has no victory and therefore no real sting. Christ has conquered death, and Paul recognized that this truth has profound implications, not least of all with respect to sin and the law with which death has enjoyed an intimate relationship. And though the relationship between these three entities is multifaceted and complex, Paul summarized it in this way: “The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law” (15:56). These declarations are terse and to the point, and Paul made them all the more so but omitting a verb in both statements and by joining them with a conjunction that sets them in sharp relief relative to one another. Rendered literally, his declarations are: “Sin – the sting of death; so also, the law – the power of sin.” Again, the relationship between sin, death, and law is not a simple one, and even these two statements require some unpacking in order to really get at Paul’s meaning. 1) Though it still exists and does its work, death has lost its victory over the creation and therefore the power of its sting (ref. again v. 55). And if sin is death’s sting, it follows that sin, too, has lost its victory and power – an implication which Paul doubtless intended the Corinthians to grasp. Sin, like death, continues to exist and function, but it has been judged and destroyed in principle in Jesus Christ such that it has lost its invincible stranglehold over God’s creation (cf. Romans 5:1-6:23, 7:14-24, 8:1-4; cf. Hebrews 9:24-26, 10:8-18; also 1 Peter 2:20-25; 1 John 3:1-9). Christ’s triumph over death is His triumph over sin and its power; indeed, the truth of the one is the truth of the other. Sin had to be conquered for death to be destroyed: The latter presupposes the former and the former is the ground and guarantee of the latter. The power of the one is the power of the other and the destruction of the one is the destruction of the other. But, in itself, this intimate connection between sin and death doesn’t explain the nature of the relationship between them, but the scriptural record shows it to be one of cause and effect. Death is the effect of sin, but such that death is, in the first instance, intrinsic rather than judicial.
This is evident from the third chapter of Genesis, and the preceding chapters show why this is the case. Man was created in the divine image and likeness, but for the sake of his role as image-son (function determines form). Man was created as image-bearer for the purpose of fulfilling his divinely-ordained role as God’s royal son: the creature in whom God would administer His lordship over His creation. Man was created for the sake of relationship – relationship first with the Creator as image-son and consequently relationship with the rest of the creation as vice-regent (lord over the creation; Genesis 1:26-28). Thus man’s righteousness is his conformity to his relational identity and function; accordingly, his sin is his deviation from that conformity. So death, as the consequence of sin (Genesis 2:15-17), must be understood in these terms: Sin – man’s deviation from the truth of himself through relational violation – issues in the “death” that is man’s alienation (separation) from the truth of himself. When man deviates from who he is, he dies to himself. Thus God told Adam that he would die at the moment he determined to define himself and order his existence independently of the One whose image he bears. (This is the meaning of “eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”) This is why death is first and foremost the inherent consequence of sin. This is not to deny that death has a judicial and punitive aspect, but death is punitive in the sense of being “just recompense.” Death isn’t an arbitrary punishment for sin, but one which accords with sin and its effects. So also the fact that death is inherent to sin doesn’t argue against eventual physical death. Adam died at the moment he sinned, but his body did eventually follow (Genesis 5:5). Death has a physical component, but this is only the final manifestation of the death in which the sinner exists as a human being – indeed, the death into which he is conceived in his mother’s womb. As every person is conceived in sin, so everyone is conceived in death (cf. Psalm 51:5, 58:3 with Romans 5:12-14). Interpreted, then, in terms of this cause and effect dynamic, Paul’s meaning is either that sin brings the sting that is death or sin is the sting which incurs death. But his statement can also be legitimately interpreted in a different way, namely that death has a sting because of sin. Given the larger context in which Paul was speaking to the matter of the death and resurrection of the body, this latter interpretation seems the best fit. Thus Paul was saying that the death of the body carries the sting of condemnation and destruction when it comes upon men in the context of their estrangement from God. But for Christians who’ve died to sin’s power and share in Christ’s life, the death of the body no longer has a sting; it is merely the necessary step for the body’s eventual consummate glorification in incorruption and immortality (ref. again 15:51-55).
2) Sin is the reason that death has a fatal sting, but Paul secondly insisted that sin has its own power in the law. This statement, too, is liable to different interpretations and nuances of meaning. The most obvious sense in which sin has its power in law is that law informs and inflames sin. So Paul could confess to the Romans that he “would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet’” (Romans 7:7; cf. 3:20). The commandment forbidding coveting informed this particular sin by giving definition to it. This law took an intrinsic orientation of fallen man – and therefore one that he naturally takes no note of – and identified and defined it. And by giving coveting a name and identity, the commandment also gave it life: It both exposed man as inherently covetous and incited him to greater degrees and expressions of covetousness (Romans 7:8). In this sense, then, law (whether directive or definition) gives life to sin that it wouldn’t otherwise have. In Paul’s words, “when the commandment came, sin became alive” (Romans 7:9). It’s important here to recognize that Paul wasn’t saying that sin has no existence apart from law; to the contrary, he already acknowledged to the Romans that sin was in the world before the Law was given to Israel. The proof of this is that death reigned from the point of Adam’s transgression. But precisely because sin is informed and inflamed by law, sin is not reckoned in the same way in the absence of law. Law (definition and prescription of righteousness), heightens and enlarges sin and guilt, both by provoking more sin and by introducing the concept of transgression, which is violation of a stated directive or obligation. Where there is no law, there can be sin but there cannot be transgression – which is its own form of sin (Romans 5:12-14). But there is another more subtle sense in which law is the power of sin. This sense, though less obvious, is actually the most important because it is primary. That is, the aforementioned way in which law empowers sin is really only an expression of this latter, more fundamental way. The basis for this assertion is the salvation-historical role of law. In this context, Paul’s use of the definite article (the Law) indicates that he was specifically referring to the Law of Moses. In whatever form or expression, divine “law” is torah: It is God’s revelation and instruction to men. This is true of the Law of Moses which defined and prescribed Israel’s relationship with Yahweh – Yahweh as the covenant God of Abraham and his “seed” and Israel as the Abrahamic people. Contrary to the common conception of law as a collection of impersonal moral and ethical statutes and directives (as in state and federal laws), law in the biblical sense – that is, law as torah – is preeminently relational: It pertains to the relationship which exists between God and human beings, and then, by extension, to the relationship between individual human beings (and between the creature man and the rest of the creation).
Law is torah and torah is God’s instruction and prescription to men for the purpose of defining, establishing and upholding the righteousness of true relationship, not for the sake of “rule-keeping” or mere conformity to a moral or ethical standard. The Law of Moses as Israel’s torah was no exception: It defined for Israel its identity as “son of God” (Exodus 4:22- 23; Hosea 11:1) and showed the nation how it was to live out its identity and calling authentically and faithfully. The Law of Moses was the covenant which defined and prescribed the Father-son relationship between Yahweh and His people (as that relationship had first been established and obtained its germinal definition in God’s covenant with Abraham – cf. Genesis 15 with Exodus 3:1-10) and this is precisely why rebellion and disobedience to the Law were treated as relational violation. The Law revealed to Israel and obligated them to the truth of sonship (and thus the truth of authentic humanness), and this is key to understanding how the Law was the power of sin. Israel was Yahweh’s covenant son for the sake of the world; Israel was son, servant, disciple and witness. Thus, at bottom, the Law disclosed and obligated Israel to the truth of man: man existing in perfect intimacy with God in conformity to the truth of who God is and who He created man to be. But that revelation and obligation came to a people who were “son of God” in name only; Israel was not truly “Israel,” but a people estranged from God just as truly and completely as the nations around them. (This failure and inability of Israel to be Israel was the ground of God’s promise of another Israel in whom Israel’s identity and role would be fulfilled – another Israel in whom Israel would become Israel in truth; Isaiah 49:1-6). Israel’s condition resulted in two critical outcomes: The people could not be what the Law defined and prescribed, but they also were incapable of perceiving the Law as it truly was. Alienated from God and locked within broken minds, they were consigned to regard the Law – and the God behind the Law – through the lens of their brokenness. The result was that even their obedience was disobedience and their conformity was rebellion (cf. Isaiah 1:10-14, 66:1-3; also Philippians 3:4-6 and 1 Timothy 1:12-13). “The great problem here is that the law does not really deal with the root of sin, but on the contrary helps to maintain sin in being before the law. From the sinner’s angle, it suits them well that God should deal with them in terms of law, because law is planted between them and God and keeps God at a distance from them. That is why the dialectic of law always yields the legal outlook, for under the pressure of God the sinner falls back upon formal observance of the law in which as much of the responsibility is thrown upon the law for the rightness or wrongness of action as upon the human person. It is thus that the sinner can yield obedience formally to the law without actually surrendering the citadel of the soul, without committing themselves in really responsible action.”
“Likewise, the dialectic of sin produces an impersonal and abstract outlook, for sin refracts the immediacy of truth and exchanges the Spirit for the deadness of the letter, exchanges God for an ideal. Humanity as sinful always seeks to put abstract law and thought in place of God and the truth.” (Torrance, Atonement) Torrance here put his finger on the critical issue in regard to law being the power of sin: While it’s true that “law” in the sense of an explicit directive both defines and creates violation (defining something as a violation makes the doing of that thing a transgression) and also incites further violation (forbidding a thing makes it all the more attractive), there is a more fundamental way in which law empowers sin. And that is that law both strengthens and disguises the alienation between men and God that is the very essence of sin. Law facilitates men believing that they know, love and serve God when they are in reality estranged from Him and hostile in their hearts and minds. Law allows fallen man to “honor” and “obey” God with his actions and words while his heart remains far from Him. Thus the irony of law as both necessary and insufficient in the purpose of God: - On the one hand, law (again, as providing definition and prescription) is the only way God could maintain and administer His relationship with His image-son (and thus His creation) in the context of man’s estrangement from Him. Law (torah) communicates to man the truth of who he is in himself, in relation to God, and in relation to other creatures. In a manner of speaking, torah provides insight for those who have lost their faculty of sight. - Torah discloses to men what they cannot see, but it doesn’t enable or restore their sight. Law tells them who they are, but it cannot make them grasp that definition in truth or conform to it. Indeed, men can only perceive and interact with the definition and prescription torah provides through the grid of their own minds. By way of illustration, a person can accurately and clearly explain the color red to a person born blind, but that person has no capacity to arrive at the truth of “redness” since he’s never known or experienced it. The blind person has no choice but to imagine and relate to “redness” through the grid of his own mind which knows nothing of it. So it is with law: It defines and explains the truth of man, but man in his falseness can only interact with that definition through the lens, capacity and orientation of his falseness. The outcome is that his interest in and conformity to the truth is itself falseness, no matter how sincere and strenuous his effort. Thus law doesn’t solve the human problem and bring men to God; it only provides them with what they seek, namely a point of interface with God that allows them to maintain their distance and independence.
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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2024 17:44:26 GMT -5
d. Paul emphasized this dynamic in a slightly different way in his epistle to the Romans. There he lamented that man, having only law (instruction) and will (desire and intent to comply), is wretched and hopeless; only divine intervention can deliver him (Romans 7:24-25). But this is precisely what God has done in the resurrected Christ: In Him, God has brought forth the True Man – the true imageson, servant, disciple and witness – the Law defined and prescribed and thus satisfied the Law’s “righteous requirement” for man (Romans 8:1-4). Jesus is True Man and thus the fulfillment of the Law. But He is True Man as Last Adam: He is the beginning and fountainhead of a true human race which shares in His true and consummate humanness. Thus the righteousness set forth in God’s torah to man – that is, the rightness of man as image-son with all that entails and implies – is fulfilled in the resurrected Jesus Christ, but, for that very reason, also in all who share in Him as True Man. So Paul proclaimed that men become participants in the new creation by participating in Him (2 Corinthians 5:17). In union with Jesus Christ, the Righteous One and Living One, men attain to both the authenticity and consummate life for which God created them (15:57). When it comes to the triumph of Jesus’ resurrection, Christians generally have no problem recognizing it as victory over sin and death (even if they don’t know exactly what that means or implies). But the same is not true with respect to law (whether conceived in terms of the Mosaic Law or some other formulation); many believers fail to grasp (or even acknowledge) Jesus’ triumph respecting law. - For its part, Dispensationalism teaches that “law” has been, in some sense, affected by Jesus’ death and resurrection, but characteristically from the vantage point of law as the governing principle of God’s relationship with men in a given era (“dispensation”). Thus Israel was governed by the Law of Moses during the “law dispensation” of the Old Testament Israelite kingdom, and this same fundamental relational structure between Israel and God will be revived in the alleged millennial kingdom. The present church age, however, is said to be a “dispensation” governed by grace. - Within historical Reformed Theology, the relevance of the Christ event to “law” is most often conceived in terms of a tripartite formulation of law. That is, God’s law is partitioned into moral, civil and ceremonial components, with the contention being that Jesus’ death and resurrection fulfilled – and so brought to an end – the law’s civil and ceremonial parts, but the so-called moral law remains intact (and is even heightened as Jesus is said to have purged the law of its corruption as He reestablished it.) Both of these two theological schemes acknowledge, in some sense, Jesus’ victory with respect to law. At the very least, both recognize Jesus’ satisfaction of the Law’s righteous demands (though they define and interact with the concept of law differently). And both also acknowledge that Jesus’ fulfillment of God’s law (however defined) grants Christians deliverance from condemnation.
At the same time, certain fundamental premises of Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology tend to obscure Paul’s point in this passage respecting Jesus’ victory in relation to law. His statements (15:56-57) make it clear that he recognized such a victory: If law empowers and strengthens sin and sin gives death its fatal sting, it follows that Jesus’ victory over sin and death must be, in some sense, His victory over law. The key, again, is to interpret Jesus’ death and resurrection the way Paul did: in terms of the salvation history and its role in God’s accomplishment of His purpose for His creation. Paul’s Galatian epistle arguably contains his most thorough treatment of his view of the law’s role in salvation history (ref. 2:11-4:31), and this passage must be considered alongside the close counterpart of Romans 2:1-4:25. The core components of Paul’s understanding of law are as follows: - First and foremost, Paul recognized law as torah: God’s revelation and instruction to men. The Law of Moses was but one expression of torah; ultimately, the entire Scripture is torah. - And because all the Scripture testified to Jesus Christ, He, as True God, incarnate Word and True Man, is the living embodiment of torah. Thus Jesus fulfilled the law, not by flawlessly complying with a collection of directives, but by embodying the fullness of God’s revealed truth regarding Himself, His creature man, and His purpose for His creation. Paul certainly grasped the significance and gravity of Jesus’ insistence that He is the truth (cf. John 1:14-17, 14:6, 16:13-15 with Ephesians 4:17-21).
- Thus God intended law (torah) to serve a prophetic and preparatory role (Matthew 11:13). It represented His real and ongoing interaction with His creation – and specifically His creature man – in the context of creational estrangement. Torah was God speaking the light of truth, meaning, and purpose into a world shuttered in the darkness of alienation and death. Torah not only revealed what ought to be, but also promised and explained how this “oughtness” – namely, all things restored to a right relationship with their Creator – was to be accomplished in the coming One. Law (in whatever form) had its goal in Jesus Christ and the new creation in Him.
- Torah revealed and developed the portrait of a messianic figure who was to be the focal point and effective agent of God’s work of creational restoration. This Deliverer-Restorer was to be a man – a “seed” of Eve and then of Seth, Shem, and Abraham. God’s covenant with Abraham made this explicit: The blessing that is restoration to God was to come to all the earth’s peoples through Abraham; by covenant election and oath, Abraham and his “seed” were the instrument of the divine work and the conduit of divine blessing. From the point of the Abrahamic Covenant, righteousness, life, and blessing were bound up in Abraham and his “seed” (cf. Genesis 12:1-3, 26:1-4, 28:1-14 with Isaiah 51:1-2; Micah 7:14-20).
- Yahweh bound up in Abraham and his offspring His design to restore His creation to Himself, and the Israelite nation represented the corporatizing of the Abrahamic “seed.” The concept Israel (meaning “he prevails with God” or “God prevails” – both of which properly defined Israel in its relationship with God) originated with Jacob (Genesis 32:24-30) and then was extended to the twelve tribes descended from Jacob’s twelve sons. Israel was the Abrahamic “seed” and so the heir of the covenant God made with Abraham to bless the whole world through him.
- The Law of Moses, then, was simply Yahweh’s formal affirmation of His covenant commitment to Abraham to be the God and Father of Abraham’s descendents (cf. Genesis 15 and 17:1-8 with Exodus 3:1-8, 6:1-8). And as the Abrahamic “seed,” Israel was Yahweh’s chosen instrument to mediate His restorative blessing to all the earth’s families. Israel was son, servant, disciple and witness on behalf of the world (cf. Exodus 4:21-23; Isaiah 41:1-9, 43:1-12, 44:1-8), and the covenant at Sinai (the Law of Moses) stipulated and formalized Israel’s Abrahamic identity and calling. In a word, the Law expressed, defined and mandated Israel’s sonship: Israel was obligated to live out its identity as Yahweh’s beloved, elect “son,” and, as authentic sonship manifests the son’s father, so Israel’s covenant faithfulness in the sight of the nations would result in the world of men coming to know the living and true God.
- And so the Law of Moses was God’s covenant with the Abrahamic people by which He ratified their participation in the Abrahamic Covenant and their obligation in view of it. The Sinai Covenant merely affirmed and advanced Yahweh’s commitment and faithfulness to His covenant with Abraham. Thus the Law wasn’t a departure from the Abrahamic Covenant and its promise (either as a modification or alternate approach to solving the creation’s problem); rather the Law served the promise and its realization by serving as a pedagogue: an overseer and custodian that instructs, nurtures and protects until the time of maturity comes. This is the marrow of Paul’s argument in the third chapter of Galatians. And so the Law was never intended to effect “righteousness” (which is to say, effect the “rightness” of all things being restored to right relation with their Creator, themselves, and the rest of the created order); indeed, the Law could not do so since it provided the light of revelation and instruction to estranged, blinded eyes. The Law explained to the nation of Israel its identity and role and so obligated them accordingly, but it could not give them eyes to see or hearts and power to conform. The Law explained and demanded that Israel be Israel (and thus highlighted the truth that the whole of God’s purpose for His creation depended upon Israel fulfilling its Abrahamic identity and calling), but it could not enable Israel to be Israel. Something other than the Law was needed if God’s promise to Abraham and purpose for His creation were to be realized.
- Neither the Law nor Israel could see Yahweh’s purpose and promise through to fulfillment. Thus He had only three choices: He could have His purpose thwarted and ultimately unrealized; He could set aside the Abrahamic promise and defer to another “plan”; or He could bring forth another Abrahamic seed from within Israel – a seed in whom Israel would become Israel indeed. The Scriptures show that the latter was Yahweh’s course of action – the course He intended all along (Isaiah 49:1-13). Understanding the Law of Moses in terms of its salvation-historical role as torah is key to seeing how Jesus’ resurrection and triumph over sin and death constitutes His triumph over law. Law must be understood as christocentric and christotelic; it must be understood as having its meaning and destiny in Christ Himself and the truth of man in Him rather than in moral or ethical conformity as such. Law holds forth and insists upon a human “oughtness,” but as that “oughtness” is both defined and realized in Jesus Christ. Thus law doesn’t point to Jesus as the moral/ethical example for men to follow, but as the substance of authentic humanness such that all people must find their righteousness – their authentic and unblemished humanity – by sharing in Him through His Spirit. And because law’s manifest truth and realization have come in Jesus, law has faithfully and fully carried out its role in God’s purposes. Torah – including the Law of Moses – was appointed by Yahweh to serve as His witness and herald: It disclosed, proclaimed, exposed, condemned, chastened and promised, and thus served as the Lord’s pedagogue until the coming of the promised Seed. But now the Seed has come, and thus the Law as witness proclaims, “There He is – the One I’ve been speaking of and promising”; and as pedagogue the Law says, “The time of maturity has come and the sons of the Father have become sons indeed; I have served the Father well and now my work is done” (Galatians 3:19-4:7). Thus Jesus’ victory respecting law is not that of conquest, destruction or abrogation, but of fulfillment. Law (including the Law of Moses) is done away, not because it was flawed or failed in its work, but precisely for the opposite reason: Torah has faithfully and fully accomplished its purpose, and, having done so, it yields to the One whom it portrayed and promised all along. A pedagogue doesn’t feel slighted or rejected when the one under his charge comes to maturity and he is discharged; rather he rejoices that the righteous goal he affirmed and labored for – here, the full flower of man as divine image-son – has at last been attained. Far from failing, Torah has triumphed as the Lord’s faithful servant. The critical issue, then, in discerning Jesus’ victory over law is recognizing that it is a matter of fulfillment and not abrogation. To men who want to make torah ultimate, any notion of “fulfillment” must mean affirmation and establishment: Law’s fulfillment means its “coming into its own” in receiving its proper glory. Jesus thereby becomes the servant of law rather than the One law serves as witness, advocate and pedagogue. Thus the Jews stumbled over Jesus’ interaction with the Law; thus His need to qualify His interaction with it (Matthew 5:17-19).
e. Finally, then, Paul concluded his consideration of the resurrection of the body where he ought: with a practical exhortation in view of resurrection for those who are sharers in it, both as a present reality and as a future inheritance (15:58). Paul’s exhortation is multifaceted, but in all of its aspects it draws upon the truth that resurrection is an already-but-not-yet phenomenon, real and true in Christ. In a word, his exhortation called the Corinthians – and, by extension, all Christians – to regard and order their present lives as those who are already raised up in Christ and yet moving inexorably toward the day of resurrection. In terms of the present, the saints’ participation in Christ’s resurrection should cause them to be steadfast and immovable. These two qualities are similar and related but not identical. The first is actually the ground of the second, even as the second is the effect of the first. - Steadfastness here connotes a firmness of conviction as well as resolve. It is the fruit of a disciplined mind that is governed by an unchanging truth or reality. Such a truth or reality serves as an anchor that secures the mind and heart bound over to it regardless of temporal circumstances and the vicissitudes and uncertainties of life. - And the one who is steadfast will prove immovable. Because he is governed by something that is unchanging, the steadfast person’s attitudes, affections and actions will be undaunted and unmoved by the everchanging circumstances and storms of life. This firmness and immovability are grounded in the fact of the believer’s present resurrection (cf. Colossians 2:6-3:4): He has already passed out of death into life; he is no longer a slave to sin and death; he shares in Jesus’ triumph and is enthroned with Him in the heavenlies; he has already triumphed over this world. But the present is also the truth and substance of the future: The saints’ present triumph is but the first fruits of the fullness to come. The glory of their present resurrection is the promise of the resurrection glory to come. Thus Christians steadfastly await Christ’s Parousia with the expectation of a sure hope – not merely because they will at last behold Him face-to-face in all His glory, but also because, in beholding His glory, they will also behold their own glory. The truth of resurrection, then, does not terminate with the person of Jesus. Neither does it pertain only to His atonement as the proof of His satisfaction for sin. Resurrection is true in Jesus, but as He is the beginning and firstborn from the dead. The creation’s destiny in Him (15:20-28; Ephesians 1:9-10) is its participation in His resurrection life as He is the substance and fountainhead of the new, true creation. Already the creation shares in His life in the case of the saints. But their present resurrection is but the promise of the fullness to come – the day when all creation will be summed up in the Living One. Grounded in this truth, the saints will be steadfast and immovable, confident that their labors, struggles, suffering and sorrow in this life are not in vain (cf. Isaiah 25:1-9 and John 16:33 with Revelation 7:9-17, 21:1-7, 22:1-5, 13-21).
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