Union With Christ in the New Testament

UNION WITH CHRIST IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

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Union with Christ in theNew Testament

GRANT MACASKILL

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© Grant Macaskill 2013Unless otherwise indicated scripture quotations are taken fromthe New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition,copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches ofChrist in the United States of America. Used by permission.

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For Prof. Ivor Davidson and Rev. Alasdair I. Macleod.

Hebrews 13:7

Acknowledgements

This book was written in a single semester of research leave, in early 2012, butgrew out of a much longer formative period of reflection. Since I began toteach at the University of St Andrews in 2005, I have been privileged to workalongside some excellent colleagues, both in theology and biblical studies, andit is difficult to identify within this group a smaller number that deserveparticular credit for their input. Nevertheless, I must mention my currentNew Testament colleagues—Tom Wright, Scott Hafemann, and ElizabethShively—for being willing to contribute their thoughts, and often wholesections of their libraries. Bill Tooman has also been a frequent conversationpartner on the Jewish backgrounds explored in the book and, particularly, onJewish reading strategies. I am also immensely grateful to my Head of School,Professor Ivor Davidson, for his support throughout this project, and for somepivotal conversations about the theological issues that I have dealt with.I am grateful, too, to a number of other young academics throughout the UK

who have been an important part of my wider fellowship during the period ofthis book’s development: Angus Paddison, Jane Heath, David Lincicum, Bran-don Gallagher, Casey Strine, and Sarah Apetrei. In the global academic com-munity, Anathea Portier-Young, Lorenzo DiTommaso, Greg Carey, and LynnHuber—fellows in the study of Jewish apocalyptic—have also contributed tomyreflections. I am also conscious of, and grateful for, the ongoing support ofLoren Stuckenbruck and others involved in the Enoch Seminar.The semester in which the book was written was disrupted by substantial

library refurbishments. I would also like to thank our librarians, Colin Bovairdand Lynda Kinloch, for help in ensuring that these did not disrupt my researchunduly and for, as always, maintaining good cheer.I would also like to thank Oxford University Press for accepting the book

for publication. I am grateful to the reviewers, who made numerous small butimportant suggestions, and to Lizzie Robottom, whose advice and guidancethroughout the submission process was invaluable.Finally, I want to thank again my immediate family, especially my wife Jane,

and my church family here in St Andrews. We have recently said farewell tothe Rev. Alasdair I. Macleod and his wife Cathie, as they retired to Lewis, andcontinue to feel their absence as a loss. This book is justly dedicated toAlasdair, in thanks for years of ministry, along with Ivor Davidson, forleadership and faith.

The version of the Bible used throughout this book is the New RevisedStandard Version. All quotes are taken from this, unless otherwise indicated.

Contents

Introduction 1

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

1. Participation and Union with Christ in New TestamentScholarship 17

2. Participation and Union with Christ in the PatristicTradition and Modern Orthodox Theology 42

3. Participation in Lutheran and Reformed Theology 77

4. Exploring the Backgrounds to Union with Christ 100

5. Examining the Adamic Backgrounds of Union with Christ 128

Part 2. Participation and Union in the New Testament

6. The Temple and the Body of the Messiah 147

7. Other Images of the Temple in the New Testament 172

8. The Sacraments and Union with Christ 192

9. Other Participatory Elements in the Pauline Corpus 219

10. Further Participatory Elements in the Johannine Literature 251

11. Grammars and Narratives of Participation in the Restof the New Testament 271

12. Conclusions 297

Bibliography 309Index of Selected Topics 337Index of Modern Authors 340Index of Sources 344

Introduction

How is the union between God and those he has redeemed represented in theNew Testament? This is an inherently complex question, given that the objectof study comprises the writings of multiple authors, each of whom may haveundergone a process of theological development reflected in the corpus oftexts associated with him. We may brace ourselves to find a dizzying range ofpotentially conflicting ways in which this union is understood: it may beconceived of in legal terms, as a bond comparable to that of the marriagecontract, in ontological terms, as a participation in divine essence or energy, orin some other form or combination of forms. Not only so, some authors mayconfine the union to a particular group of people, while others may see allhumanity as included within it.My argument in this book, however, is that, despite these possibilities, what

we encounter in the New Testament is a remarkably cohesive portrayal of theunion of human beings and God. A variety of images and narratives is indeedfound in the New Testament, but I will argue that through these the authorsdevelop a broadly consistent theology of union that can be outlined as follows:

The union between God and humans is covenantal, presented in terms of theformal union between God and Israel. The concept of the covenant underlies atheology of representation, by which the story of one man (Jesus) is understood tobe the story of his people. Their identification with him, their participation in hisnarrative, is realised by the indwelling Spirit, who constitutes the divine presencein their midst and is understood to be the eschatological gift of the new covenant.Reflecting this covenantal concept of presence, the union is commonly repre-sented using temple imagery. The use of temple imagery maintains an essentialdistinction between God and his people, so that her glorification is understood asthe inter-personal communication of a divine property, not a mingling of essence.This union is with a specific people, the members of which are depicted as therecipients of revealed wisdom, and this is the grounds of their intimacy with God.While the mystical language of vision is used to describe this knowledge, it isdemocratised to indicate that the revealed knowledge in question is possessed byall who have the Spirit, who are marked by faith, not just by a visionary elite. Thefaith that characterises this group is a real enactment of trust in what has been

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

This is, of course, something of an abstraction of what we encounter in thetexts, and although it may describe some writings fairly neatly, it is less obvioushow others (such as Hebrews or James) might be located in relation to thissummary. I have no desire to flatten the landscape of the New Testament, or topress texts into a descriptive framework that is simply inappropriate, but overthe course of the study the extent to which elements of this summary do, infact, fit these texts will emerge. Our examination of the New Testament isintended to do justice both to the diversity and the coherence of the witnesses.It must, therefore, strike a balance between the descriptive task of identifyingdiverse participatory elements across the New Testament corpus, and theanalytical task of identifying points of commonality.

It will be immediately obvious to anyone familiar with the currents of NewTestament scholarship in modern times that each of the statements in thesummary is to some extent controversial, with further debates lying in theirbackground. To make the claims that I do in relation to a single author, far lessin relation to the New Testament as a whole, may appear to simply begquestions. I am deeply conscious of this and of the challenges involved in astudy as broad as this one. But the very breadth that will preclude a detailedengagement with some of the opposing positions will allow contextual support(by which I mean the cumulative evidence of the New Testament writings) tobe adduced for my own reading. New Testament scholars are usually verygood at examining the context and backgrounds provided by Graeco-Romanand Jewish literature, but we are generally less successful at examining thatprovided by other New Testament writings and bringing these to bear on ourexegesis. There is a vast amount of literature that reads Paul in the light ofQumran; there is rather less that reads Paul in the light of Peter. The objection,of course, is that we run the risk of conflating the distinctive theology of eachand doing so without sensitivity to the time-lines on which they are located.But these texts are the products of a movement with a certain cohesion,generated within a compact period of time. It is, then, necessary to thehistorical task for us to consider how they may relate to one another and toreflect upon the ways in which even their diversity may emerge from a basicunity of thought.

This is not to downplay the importance of background study, but simply torecognize that it must not be allowed to overshadow the context provided bythe wider New Testament. In fact, I will devote two chapters of this book to anexamination of the backgrounds to the New Testament, reflecting the extent towhich my previous work on the Jewish contexts of nascent Christianity,particularly those provided by the apocalyptic literature of the Second Temple

2 Introduction

Period, has been significant to the development of this study. In a previousmonograph,1 I argued for a widespread emphasis in ancient Judaism and earlyChristianity on the eschatological revelation of wisdom to the elect, an em-phasis that allows the integration of sapiential and apocalyptic elements withinan inaugurated eschatological schema. Even in the diversity and factionalismof ancient Judaism, covenant was a dominant concept, though one contestedby the various groups that existed in tension with one another. The groupsclaiming to be recipients of revealed wisdom understood themselves to be thetrue heirs of God’s covenant with Israel, though the covenant itself wasrelativized in importance by this very move, requiring further revelation byGod to bring about its fulfilment. The emphasis on revealed wisdom as theprivilege of the true elect ensured the uptake of mystical imagery and thevocabulary of vision from the apocalyptic texts. These elements—covenantand revelation—will reverberate through the present study, too, but where theearly Christian section of my previous study focused onMatthew and the Jesustradition, here I will consider the New Testament more broadly.What some readers may find surprising is that, before engaging with this

background material, I will spend two chapters discussing the treatment of ourtopic in historical and (to a lesser extent) systematic theology. The decision todo this reflects my sense both of the distinctive historical issues that bear onNew Testament interpretation, and the unavoidably theological nature of theobject of study.In terms of the historical issues, two are particularly important in relation to

this project. First, a number of scholars recognize the distinctive potential ofthe early patristic writings, in particular, to cast light upon the New Testament.As works that emerged in cultural proximity to the New Testament, in somecases during the period of the living memory of the apostles, they provide abody of interpretation that cannot be ignored and that may inform ourunderstanding of concepts that are particularly difficult for us, as modernreaders, to grasp. One such concept is that of ‘participation’, which, as we willsee in Chapter 1, has proved to be a difficult one for modern interpreters.Richard Hays suggests that the Eastern Fathers, specifically, may providecategories that help us to explicate this concept, though he himself doesnot pursue the matter.2 I have followed through his proposal in Chapter 2 ofthis volume, finding in the Fathers a useful set of categories and distinctions bywhich participation is considered, a helpful ‘foreground’3 to inform our

1 Grant Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism andEarly Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 2007).

2 Richard B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11(2nd edn. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2002), xxxii. The comments are particular to the introduc-tion to the second edition. See our discussion in Chapter 1.

3 I borrow this word from Markus Bockmuehl, Seeing the Word: Refocusing New TestamentStudy (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006); see, especially, pages 64–5.

Introduction 3

reading of the New Testament. This will be brought to the study of the NewTestament with a measure of caution, in the hope that it will help us tounderstand the texts that they purport to interpret. Similarly, the Reformedtradition, particularly Calvin, offers a valuable account of participation, onethat is informed by theological tradition, but marked by a commitment toreading the New Testament evidence afresh, and in its entirety.

Second, as the literature survey in Chapter 1 will confirm, the interpretationof the New Testament doctrines of participation in recent years has alreadybeen shaped by theological discussion, in some cases knowingly, in some casesnot. By way of illustration, anyone who has followed the debate around the‘New Perspective on Paul’ will be aware of the prominent role that discussionsof ‘Lutheranism’ have played. But biblical scholars have all too often traded on‘received’ accounts of the theology in question: how many of the studies thathave casually dismissed ‘Lutheranism’ have actually examined the writings ofLuther or the Lutheran tradition in any depth? Are certain readings of Paulbeing disavowed because they are assumed to have been governed by atradition that is further assumed to render certain doctrines in certain ways?Are we in danger of developing readings of the New Testament that aredefined against straw men and critically skewed by their own negative agenda?Moreover, just as a negative reaction to a poorly understood theology candistort the reading of the New Testament, so, too, can a positive reaction.Again, by way of illustration, there is growing interest at present in the conceptof theosis as a means to explicate Pauline soteriology, but limited evidence thatsome of those who advocate this are aware of the fluidity of the concept or ofthe Platonic associations that it commonly has.

The demonstrable influence of theology upon biblical interpretation, then,specifically in relation to the question of union with Christ, requires someengagement with the primary theological material, to ensure that biblicalscholars are not constructing arguments upon foundations that will not bearthe weight placed upon them. This requires us to identify the particulartheological discussions that are relevant and to explore them in appropriatedepth.

This, however, is to consider only one side of the relevance of theology tothe task of biblical interpretation, that which appropriately informs the workof the biblical scholar as self-critical historian. But the object of our study—theNew Testament—is not just a historical artefact; it is also a body of theologicalliterature, of distinctive importance within the traditions of the church. An-alysis of its historical dimensions can never be deemed to fully satisfy thedemands of the study of the New Testament: consideration of its operationwithin the theological traditions is as necessary an element in its study as is theevaluation of its historical contexts and dimensions.

For my part, I do not consider the historical and theological dimensions ofthe study of the Bible to be mutually exclusive concerns, although I recognize

4 Introduction

that one’s view of this is determined by underlying philosophical and theo-logical assumptions.4 This position is at odds with the principled exclusion oftheology by many biblical scholars, but it has been robustly maintained byothers,5 and its central recognitions of Scripture’s inherently theological char-acter and of the value of interpretative traditions have been at the heart of arenewed interest in ‘theological interpretation of Scripture’ in recent decades.6

Although I am in essential agreement with those who have participated in thismovement, I do not develop here a fully synthetic approach, of the kind thatmany theological interpreters would advocate. Instead, I have maintained afunctional distinction between the theological and biblical components of thebook by allocating separate chapters to each, while, nevertheless, allowing thefindings of these chapters to interpenetrate; only in the conclusions haveI engaged in a more thoroughgoing synthesis of biblical studies and theology.Moreover, I have maintained a commitment to historical-critical examinationof the New Testament throughout.These decisions reflect a set of concerns that I share with others who

substantially agree with the aims and principles of the theological interpret-ation movement7 while being critical of certain elements of its practice. Theseconcerns have been developed in important recent works of reflection ontheological interpretation by scholars who may be considered practitionersof the approach, even if they are reluctant to consider themselves ‘insiders’.8

Three of these concerns are especially noteworthy.

4 For the record, my own view of Scripture has been influenced in particular by the variousstudies by John Webster, notably his Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2003). See also his ‘The Dogmatic Location of the Canon’, Neue Zeitschrift fürSystematische Theologie 43 (2001), 17–43. The essay is republished, along with a number ofothers pertinent to this discussion, in Webster, Word and Church: Essays in Christian Doctrine(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001).

5 For a helpful categorization of the range of positions taken on this relationship, see MarkusBockmuehl, ‘Bible versus Theology: Is “Theological Interpretation” the Answer?’, Nova et Vetera9 (2011), 27–47. I will refer to this essay throughout the following discussion, as it represents animportant body of critical reflections by a theologically sensitive New Testament scholar.

6 The scale of the literature is now significant. For a useful introduction, see KevinJ. Vanhoozer, ‘What is Theological Interpretation of the Bible?’ in Kevin J. Vanhoozer et al.,Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic Press,2005), 19–26, and Christopher D. Spinks, The Bible and the Crisis of Meaning: Debates on theTheological Interpretation of Scripture (London: T&T Clark, 2007). A helpful categorization ofthe various approaches may be found in Mark Alan Bowald, Rendering the Word in TheologicalHermeneutics: Mapping Divine and Human Agency (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007).

7 This use of the term to represent a movement, rather than just a functional approach, isfound in Daniel Treier, Introducing Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Recovering a ChurchPractice (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 9.

8 In particular, I draw upon Walter Moberly, ‘What is Theological Interpretation of Scrip-ture?’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 3 (2009), 161–78 and Markus Bockmuehl, ‘Bibleversus Theology’. The latter, in particular, is resistant to being considered an insider of themovement; see pages 35–6, note 14.

Introduction 5

First, the principled commitment of the theological interpretation move-ment ‘to do justice to the priority of God’9 and to take seriously the text itself isan important corrective to the ‘magisterially’10 diachronic and reductionistapproach of much historical-criticism, but the explicit critique of the latterfrequently entails a resistance towards the study of the historical dimensions ofthe New Testament. Against this, Bockmuehl writes:

It is not clear why concern for the priority of God should bypass an interest inwhat happened historically—or the extent to which readerly motivations mayaffect our understanding . . . Is not the biblical divine discourse, like most of itshistory of interpretation, inalienably engaged with the extratextual connectionsbetween faith and the world we inhabit?11

The biblical scholar’s distinctive object of study is a corpus of theologicalwriting that may be historically located and that positions itself in relation to(and makes claims about) the world. In truth, of course, a range of practices inthis regard is identifiable in works of theological interpretation, with figuressuch as Brevard Childs and Walter Moberly engaging robustly with thehistorical dimensions of the texts.12 Nevertheless, Bockmuehl’s commentsaffirm the need for careful historical work to be a necessary part of theologic-ally sensitive New Testament study. For this reason, I maintain a seriouscommitment to historical enquiry in this book, devoting two chapters to thestudy of background and dealing, where appropriate, with diachronic issuesthroughout the exegesis of the New Testament.

Second, some of the leading works of theological interpretation have beencriticized for devoting too much space to methodology and hermeneutics, andtoo little to actual interpretation.13 Walter Moberly’s comments on Christo-pher D. Spinks, The Bible and the Crisis of Meaning,14 illustrate this concern:

Although it seems accepted practice to write books about biblical interpretationthat do not interpret the Bible, I am increasingly doubtful about the value of theexercise. Unless I am shown how the discussions of principle help enable

9 Vanhoozer, ‘What is Theological Interpretation of the Bible?’, 22.10 Vanhoozer, ‘What is Theological Interpretation of the Bible?’, 22, comments ‘Critical tools

have a ministerial, not magisterial, function in biblical interpretation.’11 Bockmuehl, ‘Bible versus Theology’, 37.12 Childs’s output engaged explicitly with historical critical issues; there is certainly no

ducking of these in his commentary on Isaiah. See B. Childs, Isaiah: A Commentary (Louisville:Westminster John Knox, 2001). The same is true of Walter Moberly’s work, e.g. his Prophecy andDiscernment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

13 This criticism is brought by Bockmuehl, ‘Bible versus Theology’, 40, against Treier,Introducing Theological Interpretation of Scripture, one of the most prominent recent volumesof theological interpretation.

14 Christopher D. Spinks, The Bible and the Crisis of Meaning: Debates on the TheologicalInterpretation of Scripture (London: T & T Clark, 2007).

6 Introduction

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

Certainly, examples of serious extended theological treatments of Scripturecould be cited, as Bockmuehl has done elsewhere.16 These, however, do notdetract from the point, that the attempts to engage in theological exegesis haveall too often been exercises in methodological reflection (or hermeneuticalphilosophy) and have advanced neither theology nor exegesis. We mustdeliberately allocate sufficient space to the examination of Scripture itselfand this, I think, requires that we do not conflate the study of the biblicaltexts with the treatment of theology. They require to be coordinated, notconflated. For this reason, I have devoted specific chapters to the study ofeach area, rather than seeking to synthesize the study of theology with that ofthe New Testament. In doing so, each is given space to be considered on itsown terms, while also being allowed to speak to the cognate discipline.Third, as Vanhoozer and Webster note, our account of Scripture must leave

room for it to push back against sinful interpreters,17 for it to function as ‘aknife at the church’s heart’.18 For that to happen, there must be a willingness tomodify our theological accounts to accommodate the unruliness of the Word.Often, however, the theological interpretation of Scripture is married to aparticular account of doctrine19 and functionally seems to leave little space forthe Bible to challenge that account. Again, I would suggest that we take anapproach that coordinates, and that does not conflate, biblical and theologicalstudy. In order to facilitate proper evaluation of any theological account, weneed to understand it on its own terms, according to its own logic. This,I would suggest, requires a functional distinction to be maintained betweentheology and biblical studies that, nevertheless, does not obscure their inter-dependence. It is for this reason that I have devoted two chapters to thediscussion of key areas of historical and systematic theology, dealing with

15 Walter Moberly, ‘Review: Christopher D. Spinks, The Bible and the Crisis of Meaning’,Journal of Theological Studies 59 (2008), 711. See also his ‘What is Theological Interpretation ofScripture?’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 3 (2009), 169–70. His comments in the latter areillustrated with reference to John Webster, whose output contains more exegesis than Moberly,perhaps, allows. The criticisms, however, are directed towards the movement more broadly.

16 Bockmuehl, Seeing the Word, 60.17 Kevin J. Vanhoozer, ‘The Spirit of Understanding: Special Revelation and General Her-

meneutics’, in his First Theology (Downers Grove; Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press; Apollos, 2002),207–35.

18 John Webster, ‘The Dogmatic Location of the Canon’, 43.19 Notably, Barthian theology has played a key role in the development of the theological

interpretation movement: Treier, Introducing Theological Interpretation, 14, identifies Barth asthe principal stimulus for the contemporary interest in theological interpretation. Much ofVanhoozer’s work, which could not be located in this account, is nevertheless defined in relationto it and in dialogue with it.

Introduction 7

each according to its own logic, while recognizing that each ultimately consti-tutes a reading of Scripture, capable of informing our own reading.

Our examinations of ancient and modern theology will highlight that thecentral question of this study is inextricably linked to three other issues. Thefirst concerns the union of God and man that is internal to the incarnation.The orthodox doctrine of the two natures understands the incarnation assui generis, an economic reality that is unique and, hence, non-analogousin key respects to all other experience of human communion with God. Atthe same time, the true humanity of Jesus makes possible human commu-nion with God and serves as the pattern upon which the Christian life ismodelled. The tradition has always sought to take seriously these twoelements of distinction and identification. By comparison, various moderntheological approaches to the incarnation, critical of ‘two-natures’ concep-tuality, have sought to identify a much higher degree of correspondencebetween the divine–human union of Jesus and that experienced by be-lievers, modifying or even denying the uniqueness of Christ. Notably, inmodern times, Adoptionism and Spirit Christology have advanced suchaccounts of the incarnation and, correspondingly, of the union of thebeliever to God. Importantly, as we will see in Chapter 1 and at variouspoints throughout the study, such accounts are often developed with specificreference to the New Testament writings and to the work of particularbiblical scholars. Our study, then, requires us to consider the ontology ofthe incarnation. This does not require us to identify in the New Testamentthe precise configurations of that ontology that developed in the laterchristological formulations, but it does require us to pay attention to theways in which the real divinity and real humanity of Christ are depicted inrelation to human union with God.

The second issue proceeds from this and concerns the nature, work, andmode of being of the Holy Spirit, both in the incarnation and in the divine–human union experienced by other human beings. It is clear even from acursory reading of the New Testament that the experience of God is describedin terms that give prominence to the presence of the Holy Spirit in humanbeings. As a result, accounts of union may be fundamentally altered bydifferent conceptions of the Spirit, whether seen as impersonal divinepower/energy or as personal presence and agent. Attention to the way inwhich the Spirit is described, then, is a necessary part of the study of divine–human union, along with attention to the configuration of the incarnation.Our reading of the Eastern Fathers will demonstrate that this was a significantpart of their consideration of participation.

Before turning to the third issue, it is worth making explicit that these firsttwo take us into the territory of historical Trinitarian theology. The fact thatthe church considered itself compelled to speak in Trinitarian, and notBinitarian, monotheistic terms reflects the force of the New Testament itself

8 Introduction

and not later political or socio-ecclesiological pressures.20 Some New Testa-ment scholars who have focused on questions of Christology prefer to speak of‘Binitarianism’21 (or of God as ‘Binity’)22 because of the distinctive presenta-tion of Jesus as divine in the New Testament and his prominence as an objectof worship. Once the focus is shifted to the nature of the human union withGod experienced by his people, however, the necessity of Trinitarian accountsof God in the New Testament becomes clearer.The third issue to which our central question is linked is that of the nature

of the atonement. Inevitably, to speak of the union between God and humanbeings requires us to speak of the problem of sin and the way(s) in which theincarnational narrative is understood in relation to this. Quite specifically,there is the question of how the New Testament writers describe the atoningsignificance of the life and death of Jesus in relation to the human beings thatbenefit from it. Is atonement something that simply happens externally to theindividual human, making possible a set of benefits, or is there some internaldimension to the atonement, by which it is realized within a person orcommunity? How does this relate to the configuration of the incarnation itselfand to theologies of the cross? The range of images used in relation to the crossin the New Testament cautions against any simple response to these questions,but they must be kept in mind throughout our study.This begs the further question: if what we are examining in our study of the

union of God and human beings is essentially rapprochement, then are we notsimply studying the soteriology of the various authors, a common subjectmatter of biblical studies, and giving it a different label? Yes and no. This isindeed an examination of the soteriological frameworks of each writer, but it isdistinctively concerned with the nature of the relationship into which humanbeings are saved and how this relates to and transforms their modes of being.Further, it is concerned with the question of why the New Testament writersuse participatory or locative grammar, vocabulary, and imagery to articulatethat relationship and, proceeding from this, why those in this relationship aredescribed in terms that suggest that they possess or embody divine properties,such as glory.Still, to note these three related issues is to acknowledge that the study

of divine–human union in the New Testament is embedded within a furtherset of issues that have dogged the disciplines of theology and, more recently,biblical studies through the centuries. Those issues will hardly be settledin the context of a volume such as this, but a study specifically devoted to

20 Gordon D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody,Mass: Hendrickson, 1994), 827–45.

21 E.g. Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (GrandRapids: Eerdmans, 2003).

22 James D. G. Dunn, ‘Rediscovering the Spirit’, Expository Times 84 (1972), 7–12.

Introduction 9

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

THE SHAPE OF THE STUDY

The book will fall into two sections, Part 1: Preliminaries (Chapters 1–5) andPart 2: Participation in the New Testament (Chapters 6–11). My intentionthroughout the first part of the book is not to offer much by way of originalprimary research, but to survey the work of others with a view to laying thefoundations for my own study of the New Testament in the second part. Thatsaid, some important conclusions will emerge throughout these early chapters,oriented uniquely towards the question that we explore in this book.

The study will begin (Chapter 1) with a review of some of the key literatureon participation in Paul. Most of the key recent work on participation has beenconducted in Pauline scholarship and an examination of this material will helpto establish the issues with which we must deal in this study. The fact that thePauline discussion has largely been isolated from that concerning other NewTestament books will demonstrate the need for a broad study such as this one.This chapter will also draw attention to the unavoidable necessity of engage-ment with historical and systematic theology in the treatment of this topic. Inexamining one author, James D. G. Dunn, we will also highlight the place thatAdam Christology occupies in the discussion and the need for some clarity inthe treatment of this.

Chapter 2 is largely given over to an examination of the Greek patristicaccounts of deification, beginning with Justin Martyr and continuing up toand through the key writings of the Cappadocian Fathers. With such a study,we pursue Richard B. Hays’s suggestion that the Eastern Fathers, in particular,may help us to understand the concepts of participation in the New Testa-ment. These are well-trodden paths for historical theologians, though theyhave received fresh attention in recent years, notably from Russell,23 and therehas been something of a paradigm shift regarding the influence of Platonismon the tradition. However, the recent revisions in scholarly views concerningthe influence of Hellenistic philosophy and religion on the Fathers seem notyet to have found their way into biblical discussion. What emerges moststrikingly from the discussion of the Greek Fathers is precisely what they do

23 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2004).

10 Introduction

not affirm and go to some lengths to distance themselves from: a straightfor-wardly Platonic account of participation or a pagan notion of absorption intodeity. Instead a range of themes emerges that corresponds surprisingly wellwith our summary (with the qualified exception of the covenant dimension),including a strong emphasis on revelation.This chapter will begin, however, with a study of modern Eastern Orthodox

accounts of theosis. By opening with such an examination of the fully de-veloped doctrine, our study of its early development will be placed upon atrajectory and we will be sensitized to key themes in the Fathers. It will alsoallow us to highlight both continuity and development from the patristicperiod and, in particular, the significance of post-Palamite theology to modernaccounts. This discussion will serve to demonstrate the problems associatedwith the use of theosis in a descriptive account of the New Testament writings,as distinct from its validity in specific theological schemata. An excursus onSpirit Christology will also be included in this chapter, since that theologicalmovement has developed in response to modern Orthodox criticisms ofCatholic theology.Chapter 3 will be given over to an examination of Reformed accounts of

participation. In part, the warrant for this will lie in the prominence of KarlBarth’s influence on some of the key Pauline studies, which will be identifiedin Chapter 1. Barth’s work must be located in relation to his Protestantforebears, however, and this justifies a broader examination of the Reformedtradition. To this end, we will focus on Calvin and the subsequent ReformedScholastic movement. In addition to preparing the way for a discussion ofBarth, Calvin’s contribution offers real resources for the examination ofScripture. As with Luther (whose work will also be considered in this chapter,particularly in relation to the Finnish School of Luther), Calvin engagesin close reading of Scripture, in his case quite broadly, and does so steepedin the tradition of medieval theological doctors. A number of works haveappeared in recent years that focus on Calvin’s account of union with Christand that follow his legacy through into the Reformed tradition.24

In Chapter 4, we will begin to consider the backgrounds to the NewTestament presentation of participation. By necessity, this chapter will covera range of quite disparate material, ranging from the Old Testament throughvarious examples of Jewish literature. Some attention will be paid to thesociological models of corporate identity that have been used to explain theparticipatory dimension of the New Testament, but the limited value of theserequires us to identify important thematic or conceptual precursors in the OldTestament and more broadly in Judaism. In particular, we will examine thethemes of covenant and glory, considering their development through the Old

24 These are outlined in our discussion in Chapter 3.

Introduction 11

Testament and their uptake in Jewish apocalyptic. Recent developments inscholarship on both of these areas will offer important resources for our study.We will also examine the mystical tradition in Judaism, noting the particularrelevance that this may have for the understanding of the mystical imageryand vocabulary in the New Testament. Finally, the issue of messianism will beconsidered in relation to themes of participation.

Chapter 5 will involve an examination of the Adam traditions in Judaism.A detailed study of this kind is necessary to ensure that the treatment ofAdamic themes in the New Testament, particularly Paul, is properly ordered.Specifically, we will take up the observation made in Chapter 1 concerning theimportance of Adamic glory to some accounts of Christology and, from this,Christian participation. Such ‘Adam Christology’ is often developed on theassumption that much of the material preserved in Christian tradition thatdepicts Adam as glorious is originally Jewish. The problems with this view willbe highlighted, as will the fact that other figures are also presented as glorious.Taken together with the findings of Chapter 4, this will highlight that glory is aproperty of God, shared with or given to human beings in the divine presence.

Chapter 6 will begin the study of the New Testament and will focus on thepaired images of the church as temple and body of Christ. That these imagescan be traced back to the earlier stages of Christian theology will be high-lighted throughout the chapter; we can with some justification, therefore,regard them as core to New Testament theology. The pairing or fusion ofthe images is unique to the New Testament within Judaism and this must beexplained: I will argue that it reflects the messianic interpretation of Psalm 118(LXX, 117). Various specific observations will be made concerning how thispairing of images relates to participation: it maintains the distinction betweenGod and the creatures present in the temple, while allowing his glory to beshared with them; it is covenantal, and specifically related to the Spirit-promises of the new covenant; and it involves a particular union betweenbelievers and the Messiah. Among the various observations made in thischapter, these are key.

Chapter 7 will examine a further range of temple images in the NewTestament. These do not portray the church as the temple or body andmust, therefore, be treated separately from those in the previous chapter.Like them, however, they emphasize that participation is a matter of divinepresence, by which God shares himself with his people, in the heavenly oreschatological temple. This concept is developed in each using covenantimagery that, once again, is specifically related to the new covenant promiseof Jeremiah 31, read in terms of other prophetic texts, notably Ezekiel 36 and37. The connection between Christian union with God and the ontology of theincarnation will begin to emerge in this chapter, particularly in the study ofJohn and Hebrews.

12 Introduction

Chapter 8 will examine the sacraments in the New Testament. We willdiscuss the accounts of baptism and Eucharist found in the New Testamentand the symbolic references to the sacraments that may deepen our under-standing of them. We will note the evidence that the sacraments can be tracedback to the earliest stages of the development of New Testament theology and,indeed, that they may have informed and governed some of the theologicalmoves that will be studied in later chapters. In particular, their covenantalsignificance will be highlighted. Given that the sacraments can be traced backto the earliest strata of the New Testament, their significance in establishingthe broad covenantal frameworks of participation in New Testament theologywill be recognized.The next three chapters, 9–11, are given over to the study of the narratives

and grammars of participation in the New Testament. Chapter 9 is devoted tothe study of the Pauline literature, Chapter 10 to the Johannine literature, andChapter 11 to the rest of the New Testament, inevitably treated in less depth.We will note the limitations in seeking to develop an account of participationbased primarily on grammatical constructions (the use of spatial grammar, etcetera) and will instead note that such constructions must be contextualized intheir narratival contexts, by which I mean the ‘stories’ that appear to controltheir theologies and the ways in which they develop these. Again, thesechapters will highlight the importance of covenant in structuring the under-lying narratives of the various authors, to an extent that may not generally beacknowledged in New Testament studies. Throughout these chapters, we willalso note the ways in which the incarnational narrative determines the ways inwhich participation is represented and the implications these may have for theontological configuration of the incarnation. We will also encounter a numberof ways by which the eschatological revelation of wisdom is emphasized andwill note the participatory dimensions of these.The ‘Conclusions’ offered in Chapter 12 will be more than just a cursory

rehearsal of the argument. It is here that the various strands of evidence will bebrought together with a view to defending the summary claims offered at thebeginning of this chapter and to evaluating current scholarship on participa-tion in the New Testament. I will also seek to make clear why I believe ‘unionwith Christ’ to be the most appropriate description of the theology of the NewTestament. The conclusions will be more synthetic in character, consideringthe potential significance of this study of the New Testament for theologicalscholarship that intends to take seriously the biblical evidence.

Introduction 13

Part 1

Preliminaries: Foregrounds andBackgrounds to the Study of Unionwith Christ in the New Testament

1

Participation and Union with Christin New Testament Scholarship

We begin our study of participation or union with Christ in the New Testa-ment with a review of the treatment of the topic in modern New Testamentscholarship, particularly that on Paul. Within the constraints of a study suchas this, we cannot examine every contribution that has been made to scholar-ship in this area—there would be limited value to this, in any case—but we canidentify the key contributions and, from these, can recognize the issues that,rightly or wrongly, have shaped the discussion during the last century or so,including the recent resurgence of interest in participatory accounts ofatonement.Most of the studies that we will examine in this chapter are concerned with

Paul, the notable exceptions to this being the earlier contributions of Bousset,Deissmann, and Schweitzer, which were broader in scope. In part, this reflectsthe fact that the recent interest in participation has been located particularly inthe context of Pauline studies. This itself, however, reflects the increasingspecialization or, more pejoratively, fragmentation of New Testament schol-arship during the modern period and particularly during the twentieth cen-tury.1 Scholars in each area primarily talk to other scholars working in thatarea and not to those in cognate fields of biblical scholarship. This has, to someextent, been ideologically driven by the conviction that attempts to construct aNew Testament theology wrongly assume a theological consistency betweenthe various writers, itself an assumption subject to serious criticism.2 But it has

1 The early part of the twenty-first century has seen some movement towards a recovery ofintegrated readings, following trajectories that were beginning to emerge in the late twentiethcentury. There were, of course, always works that sought to be more integrative, particularly inCatholic and Evangelical biblical scholarship, but these were often treated as less central to theacademic field.

2 The scholarly discussion of this is substantial. Key works include Georg Strecker, DasProblem der Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,1975); Peter Stuhlmacher, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments. Bd. 1, Grundlegung vonJesus zu Paulus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), notably the introductory discus-sion. See also the various essays in his Biblische Theologie und Evangelium: Gesammelte Aufsätze

also reflected the nature of scholarship more widely: a growing profusion ofsecondary literature makes it ever more difficult to achieve thorough coverageof issues and literature once the scope of a given study extends beyond a singlewriter, book, or even verse. Subtly, this can alter our sense of what a scholarlyvoice must sound like, or what a scholarly page should look like, so thatattempts to think across the fields of New Testament study (far less bringingthese into conversation with fields of theology) are deemed inappropriate orimpossible.3

To some extent, those concerns are valid and forcibly remind us that biblicalscholarship will increasingly need to become collaborative if it is to be con-structive. Yet, whatever form such collaboration might take, individual scholarsneed to be prepared to relate fields to one another in their contextualization ofeven themost specific subject matter and there is something of an inconsistencyin this regard. Before we even begin our review, then, an important point hasbegun to emerge: there is an obvious need for studies that seek to relate thistheme in Pauline scholarship to the examination of other parts of the NewTestament. Other key points of enquiry will emerge in the course of our review,but this observation is the driving justification for the present study.

EARLY TREATMENTS OF PARTICIPATIONIN MODERN SCHOLARSHIP

Adolf Deissmann

The current interest in participation in Pauline scholarship is generally tracedback within modern biblical studies to the writings of Adolf Deissmann.4

(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002); Christoph W. Stenschke, ‘Strong Cases for the Unity of NewTestament Theology: A Survey of Four Recent English New Testament Theologies’, Religion &Theology 17 (2010), 133–61. More broadly dealing with the unity of New Testament theology inrelation to the Old, see Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: WestminsterPress, 1970) and Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on theChristian Bible (London: SCM Press, 1992). For an attempt to balance unity and diversitywithout allowing the voice of one biblical author to dictate the terms on which others areunderstood, see the ‘conference table’ approach of G. B. Caird and L. D. Hurst, New TestamentTheology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

3 In fact, it is interesting that those studies that have sought to engage in such analysis acrossthe New Testament have typically been the work of theologians. An interesting example is that ofRussell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, 79–89. Such works are,however, understandably light in their engagement with biblical scholarship (although Russell’sfamiliarity with recent movements in New Testament and Second Temple Judaism studiesis impressive).

4 Chiefly, Gustav Adolf Deissmann, Paulus: Eine kultur- und religionsgeschichtliche Skizze(Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1911), translated as St Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History,

18 Preliminaries: Foregrounds and Backgrounds

Deissmann recognized the prominence that the ‘in Christ’ formula appearedto have in Paul’s thinking and sought to explore this in relation to the widercontours of his thought and context. In his view, the formula reflecteda mystical concept of intimacy with Christ, which was derived fromPaul’s Damascus Road experience. The phrase ‘in Christ’ was primarily oflocative significance and, famously, Deissmann illustrated this in thefollowing terms:

Just as the air of life, which we breathe, is ‘in’ us and fills us, and yet we at the sametime live in this air and breathe it, so it is alsowith theChrist-intimacy of the ApostlePaul: Christ in him, he in Christ.5

Linked to this, Deissmann also saw Paul’s use of the genitive ‘of Christ’ asdistinctively shaped by this notion of intimacy with Christ. It was a ‘genitive offellowship’ or ‘mystical genitive’,6 basically parallel in significance to ‘inChrist’. From this, Deissmann challenged contemporary Protestant configur-ations of justification, arguing that ‘justification by faith of Christ (��ø��Å�F �æØ��F)’ should be understood as ‘justification in faith’,7 that is, atransformative condition emerging from intimate communion with Christ.In ways that would anticipate more recent scholarship, Deissmann saw

the Damascus experience as transforming Paul’s entire sense of being,8 but heunderstood this within the broader context of the influence of Hellenisticmysticism.9 This Mystik was, in turn, understood in terms of the Germanscholarship of that period to denote a range of experiences of ‘consciousnessof God’, from ego-centric mysticism, in which the self is entirely lost inGod, to theo-centric mysticism, in which a consciousness of God transformsor sanctifies the mystic without effacing the individual’s self-consciousness.Paul’s mysticism was the latter: ‘[he] was not deified nor was he transfor-med into spirit by this communion, nor did he become Christ’.10 This meantthat Deissmann understood the representative aspects of the atonementin participatory terms best described as ‘inter-personal’, that is, involvingcommunication between persons:

trans. Lionel R. M. Strachan (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1912). See also Deissmann, DieNeutestamentliche Formel ‘In Christo Jesu’ (Marburg: N. G. Elwert’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung,1892).

5 Deissmann, St Paul, 140.6 Deissmann, St Paul, 162–3.7 Deissmann, St Paul, 169–70.8 Deissmann, St Paul, 130–1. Compare the studies of Seyoon Kim, The Origin of Paul’s

Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), Alan F. Segal, Paul the Convert: The Apostolate andApostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), and Carey C. Newman,Paul’s Glory-Christology: Tradition and Rhetoric (Leiden: Brill, 1992).

9 Deissmann, St Paul, 147. 10 St Paul, 152–3.

Participation and Union with Christ in New Testament Scholarship 19

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

While understanding Paul’s mysticism in relation to Hellenistic conceptuality,Deissmann’s work carefully distinguished these, maintaining in Paul a foun-dational concern for the essential distinction between God and his creationand a key recognition of the mediatorial role of Christ.

Two criticisms can be brought to Deissmann’s work. First, recent grammat-ical and syntactical analysis of ‘in Christ’ (and its various parallel prepositionalphrases) suggests a more complex and fluid significance to the constructionthan Deissmann allowed, locally determined in each occurrence.12 Deissmann,in other words, placed too heavy a burden onto one meaning of this phrase.Second, and more importantly, Deissmann’s writings lack a clear account ofhow, precisely, ‘many souls’ are anchored ‘in the Soul of the One’. As import-ant as his agitations were, his own intellectual heritage did not provide himwith an adequate framework within which to account for this.

Wilhelm Bousset

A second work to locate Paul’s teaching on participation in relation tomysticism was Wilhelm Bousset’s hugely influential study, Kyrios Christos.13

This religionsgeschichtliche analysis would, of course, dictate the terms ofchristological study in biblical scholarship for much of the subsequent century;Larry Hurtado, in the preface of his own study of Christ-devotion, Lord JesusChrist, published ninety years later, presented his work specifically as achallenge to Bousset’s long-standing paradigms and findings.14 It is a testi-mony to the scope of Bousset’s study that we discuss it here in relation to atheology of participation, but it also highlights the fact that our subject matteris inextricably bound with that of Christology; an account of human unionwith God inevitably entails reflection upon the theology of incarnation.

Like Deissmann, Bousset recognized that Paul’s ‘mysticism’ was differentfrom its Hellenistic counterparts. In the latter, ‘the individual mystic achievesfor himself the blessed state of deification. The divine is completely absorbed

11 St Paul, 258.12 See, Constantine Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological

Study (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), especially chapters 3–6.13 Wilhelm Bousset, Kyrios Christos: Geschichte des Christusglaubens von den Anfängen des

Christentums bis Irenäus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprect, 1913); translated as KyriosChristos: A History of the Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Irenaeus, trans.John E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1970).

14 Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 13–26.


into the human’.15 In Paul, however, the gravity remains with the divine being,whose will draws humans—indeed, all reality—into itself in fellowship.16

Despite Bousset’s recognition that parallels between Paul and Hellenisticmysticism are difficult to find,17 however, he saw a certain overlap with‘mystery piety’, that is, the kind of experience associated with the Hellenisticmystery religions.18 Consequently, some of Bousset’s language concerning theexperience of union with God in baptism suggests a degree of essentialabsorption: ‘[B]aptism serves as an act of initiation in which the mystic ismerged with the deity, or is clothed with the deity’.19

Bousset identified two key points in Paul’s theology of participation. Thefirst, as reflected in the last quotation, is the role played by baptism as aninitiatory rite signifying clothing with the deity. The second is the effectiveequating of ‘in Christ’ with ‘in the Spirit’.20 These two formulae were, inBousset’s view, essentially parallel and interchangeable. That observationreflected a sensitivity to both the prominence of the Spirit in Paul’s theologyand the close association of the Spirit to the reality associated with Jesus. As wewill see in our own study, however, Bousset failed to recognize the key ways inwhich the two are distinguished in Paul.

Albert Schweitzer

As important as the contributions of Deissmann and Bousset were, however, itis the work of Albert Schweitzer that has left the most prominent legacy uponscholarship in this area.21 Schweitzer famously described Paul’s doctrine ofjustification by faith as a ‘subsidiary crater’ within the ‘main crater’ of histheology of mystical union with Christ22 and in many ways this comment hascontinued to influence Pauline studies, as scholars search for the ‘centre’ of theapostle’s thought.Like his predecessors, Schweitzer understood Paul’s theology as mystical

and sought to categorize the apostle’s thought in relation to other kindsof mysticism.23 His essential definition of mysticism was broad enough toaccommodate a range of experiences, beliefs, or phenomena:

15 Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 166. 16 Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 168–9.17 Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 164. 18 Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 170.19 Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 158. 20 Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 158.21 In particular, see Albert Schweitzer, Geschichte der paulinischen Forschung: von der Refor-

mation bis auf die Gegenwart (Tübingen: Mohr, 1911), translated as Paul and His Interpreters:A Critical History (trans. William Montgomery. London : A & C Black, 1912). Also AlbertSchweitzer, Die Mystik des Apostels Paulus (Tübingen: Mohr, 1930), translated as The Mysticismof Paul the Apostle (trans. William Montgomery. London: A & C Black, 1931).

22 Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 225.23 For the development of Schweitzer’s thought on this matter, see James Carleton Paget,

‘Schweitzer and Paul’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 33 (2011), 223–56.


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

Within this, he distinguished the Christ-mysticism of Paul from the God-mysticism of John, arguing that the former does not portray the believer asunited to God himself, but rather to Christ, with the experience of divinepresence a mediated one. As such, there is no question of Paul’s thoughtinvolving deification.

Through this alone it is clear that Hellenistic and the Pauline mysticism belong totwo different worlds. Since the Hellenistic mysticism is founded on the idea ofdeification and the Pauline on the idea of fellowship with the divine being, it isimpossible to find in the Hellenistic literature parallels for the characteristicphrases ‘with Christ’ and ‘in Christ’ which dominate the Pauline mysticism.25

This emphasis on the mediatorial function of Jesus in the union (which, paceSchweitzer, I will argue characterizes the New Testament writings broadly) is akey element of Schweitzer’s findings, and will be important to my study.

But, while careful to set Paul’s Christ-mysticism apart from Hellenisticmystical thought, as well as from much of the rest of the New Testament,Schweitzer nevertheless described the union involved as leading to a certainloss of selfhood, an absorption of the individual believer into the corporatepersonality of Jesus.

Every manifestation of the life of the baptised man is conditioned by his being inChrist. Grafted into the corporeity of Christ, he loses his creatively individualexistence and his natural personality. Henceforth he is only a form or manifest-ation of the personality of Jesus Christ, which dominates that corporeity.26

An important dimension of this was his influential argument that this must beconstrued in terms of apocalyptic theology.

Schweitzer was heavily influenced by Kabisch’s work on Pauline eschat-ology,27 which identified a straightforward ‘two-ages’ schema in Jewish apoca-lyptic that was carried into the New Testament. He saw Paul as expecting ‘theimmediate return of Jesus, of the Judgement and of the Messianic Glory’.28

Drawing into this Wrede’s arguments concerning the place of cosmic

24 Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 1.25 Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 16. For further discussion of the distinctions between

Pauline and Hellenistic mysticism identified by Schweitzer, see Campbell, Paul and Union withChrist, 37.

26 Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 125.27 Richard Kabisch, Die Eschatologie des Paulus in ihren Zusammenhängen mit dem

Gesamtbegriff des Paulinismus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1893).28 Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 52–3.


redemption in Paul,29 Schweitzer concluded that the apostle awaited aneschaton that would entail ‘the deliverance of mankind from the dominionof the powers’,30 within which the perishable world of the evil age would betransferred to the imperishable one of the new age. This transfer had begun tobe realized in the resurrection, and the sufferings of believers were a realisticparticipation in this death and regeneration.31 This involves the transform-ation of believers into a new spiritual condition: ‘[T]hese Elect are in reality nolonger natural men, but, like Christ Himself, are already supernatural beings,only . . . in them this is not yet manifest’.32

Two key points must be noted in relation to his apocalyptic mysticalscheme. First, the eschatological reality is a corporate one. The union thatexists in Christ is not with the individual, nor is the suffering of the individualthe verification of that union; rather, individuals are brought into identifica-tion with his body as the church and thus lose their individual identity,participating corporately in his death in their collective suffering.33 The‘body of Christ’ in Paul is not simply a metaphor, therefore, but a reality.Second, the apocalyptic union envisaged by Paul is at odds with traditionalJudaism, but is significantly anticipated by the Jewish apocalyptic eschatol-ogies of the period, marked by a ‘two-ages’ schema.34 Here, we encounter oneof the elements of Schweitzer’s thought that lingers most problematically incurrent New Testament scholarship. Influenced by assumptions about thenature of Spätjudentum that were characteristic of the period, Schweitzer’saccount of apocalypticism and its manifestation in Paul’s writings assumesthat it is at odds with the Torah-centred ‘legalistic’ piety of the Pharisees. To beapocalyptic is to reject Torah as belonging to the evil age. In his later revital-ization of Schweitzer’s work, Käsemann would inherit such a notion and, indoing so, would ensure that his own heirs, following J. Louis Martyn (dis-cussed in ‘ ‘Apocalyptic’ Readings of Paul’, pp. 35–6), would operate with theassumption that Paul is essentially hostile to the Torah. Yet, as we will see inChapter 4, the relationship of apocalyptic thought to Torah-piety is rathermore complex and certainly cannot be reduced to a matter of simple rejection.Neither can such a rejection be justified by recourse to a ‘two-ages’ apocalypticschema, since the evidence that we now have about Jewish apocalypticismreveals a much more complex and fluid schematization of time. Paul’s under-standing of righteousness and redemption, then, may be more positivelyinformed by Torah than is often assumed to be the case, even when it isidentified as apocalyptic in content or emphasis.

29 William Wrede, Paulus (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1906).30 Schweitzer, Paul and His Interpreters, 167.31 Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 141.32 Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 110.33 Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 101–27 and 141–59.34 Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul, 26–40.


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

FROM THE NEW PERSPECTIVE TO THEOSISAND ADAM CHRISTOLOGY

E. P. Sanders

The 1977 publication of E. P. Sanders’s Paul and Palestinian Judaism,35 andthe subsequent development of the so-called ‘New Perspective on Paul’, wasarguably the most important of the factors leading to the resurgence ofinterest in participatory accounts of salvation. Challenging the assumptionthat Judaism was significantly and widely legalistic at the time of the compos-ition of the New Testament, Sanders’s work called into question the validity of‘Lutheran’36 readings of Paul, with their emphasis on the justification of theindividual by faith, rather than by ‘works-righteousness’.

This was not entirely out of the blue: an important antecedent to Sanders’sobservations was to be found in Krister Stendahl’s seminal essay, ‘The ApostlePaul and the Introspective Conscience of the West’,37 which also challengedindividualist readings as anachronistic projections onto Paul of modern valuesand psychologizing tendencies. Stendahl’s article highlighted the deficienciesin the evidence adduced for a guilt-convicted Paul, and emphasized thefundamentally ‘salvation-historical’ character of the apostle’s notion of faith.What Sanders brought to the discussion was a detailed and thorough

examination of the Jewish texts that might have informed Paul’s thought,

35 E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (London:SCM Press, 1977).

36 This is the label typically used for theologies that uphold some model of justification byfaith. The lack of qualification with which it is used is revealing; the faultline presented bySanders reflects engagement with a particular kind of Lutheranism and, in certain respects, theentire debate has reflected a particular axis of Anglo-German scholarship, one in which Calvinistor Reformed theology and exegesis of the New Testament have scarcely featured. It is interesting,for example, how little engagement there has been with the work of Herman Nicolaas Ridderbos,Paul, an Outline of his Theology (trans. John Richard De Witt. London: SPCK, 1977) or, for thatmatter, with Calvin’s own writings.

37 Krister Stendahl, ‘The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of theWest’,HarvardTheological Review 56 (1963), 199–215.


from which he argued that the contemporary Judaism was not legalistic, in thesense that the word is generally used, but rather operated in terms of ‘coven-antal nomism’. By this, he designated a belief in the priority of divine grace inthe initiating of covenant and the place of legal observance for those graciouslyliving under its conditions. No longer opposed to a simplistically conceivedlegalism, Sanders argued that Paul’s apparent negativity towards Judaism andTorah were consequential to his belief that Jesus was now the appointed wayof eschatological salvation and that this requires to be explained by somenotion of participation in Christ,38 though he left rather open the question ofwhat precisely this might involve.

But what does this mean? How are we to understand it? We seem to lack acategory of ‘reality’—real participation in Christ, real possession of the Spirit—which lies between naive cosmological speculation and belief in magical transfer-ence on one hand and a revised self-understanding on the other. I must confessthat I do not have a new category of perception to propose here. That does notmean, however, that Paul did not have one.39

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

Richard B. Hays and Michael J. Gorman

Some scholars have developed Sanders’s language of participation in ways thatare more knowingly theological. Richard Hays, in his important contributionto the pistis Christou debate, The Faith of Jesus Christ 41 (see ‘The Faith of Jesus

38 Perhaps the most important text for Sanders was 1 Cor 6:15, in which believers are‘members of Christ’.

39 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 522–3.40 See also his discussion in E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63BCE–66CE (London:

SCM Press, 1992), 9–10.41 Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ.


Christ: Richard B. Hays Again’, pp. 31–4), takes up Sanders’s admission ofignorance and seeks to inform it in two ways. Themost important of these, andthe one with which Hays is primarily concerned, is the concept of ‘narrativeparticipation’: the story of the faithfulMessiah becomes the story ofGod’s people,with their uptake into the story made possible by his faithfulness (as an eschato-logical act) and their part in the story, their own faithfulness, a necessary conse-quence of his. This development is useful in many respects and has beeninfluential on the scholarship of others,42 but says little of the mechanisms ofparticipation. I will suggest in ‘The Faith of Jesus Christ: Richard B. Hays Again’(p. 33), when we consider the debate around pistis Christou, that this is adeliberate move on Hays’s part, reflecting a nuanced theological position.

In addition to this core contribution, though, Hays also suggests in passingthat our understanding of Paul’s categories of participation may be informedby the study of patristic theology:

My own guess is that Sanders’s insights would be supported and clarified bycareful study of participation motifs in patristic theology, particularly the thoughtof the Eastern Fathers.43

The specific identification of the Eastern Fathers likely reflects the place ofdeification—what would eventually become the technical concepts of theosisand theopoesis—in their writings. Hays simply offers this as a suggestion forfurther research, without further development, but his speculation is taken upby Michael Gorman.44

Gorman seeks to apply the theological language of theosis broadly to thewritings of Paul, arguing that the cruciform nature of the divine identity asrevealed in Christ is one in which we participate in salvation:

To be in Christ is to be in God. At the very least, this means that for Paulcruciformity—conformity to the crucifiedChrist—is really theoformity, or theosis.45

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

42 Notably, Douglas A. Campbell, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading ofJustification in Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009).

43 Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, xxxii. The comments are particular to the introduction tothe second edition.

44 Michael J. Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis inPaul’s Narrative Soteriology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009).

45 Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God, 4.46 Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God, 4–5.47 Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God, 7.


Gorman’s work represents a welcome attempt to offer a coherent account ofPauline theology broadly and to do so with a willingness to draw upontheological conceptuality and discussion. Nevertheless, there are some seriousproblems that need to be considered in relation to his adoption of termin-ology: both theosis and the further concept by which Gorman explicates this—kenosis—are theologically plastic terms, being used in different ways in differ-ent periods and often subject to searching critique and debate by systematictheologians. Even proponents of theosis in contemporary theology are oftendivided in the precise significance that they attach to the term.48 There is littleengagement in Gorman’s writings with such debates, with the dogmaticcritiques of theosis or with the discussions of how the doctrine should berelated to historical writings.49 Consequently, Gorman seems to assume boththe validity and the stability of the concept without adequate defence ordefinition. The danger of Platonic concepts of union smuggling themselvesinto the discussion without the author himself being aware of this is real,50 asis the risk of confusing patristic and Palamite theologies. This is potentiallymisleading, with the danger that the terminology of ‘participation’ is used in arange of ways by parties engaged in this scholarly conversation withoutawareness of the differences in meaning or import. A similar concern maybe raised over Gorman’s use of kenosis/kenotic, which is also un-nuanced byengagement with theological scholarship.51

A second point of concern lies in Gorman’s use of identity language.A quotation will help to illustrate the issue:

If, in fact, the human response of obedience/faith is co-crucifixion with (andindeed mutual indwelling with) the faithful and loving Jesus, who is in turn therevelation of God’s own fidelity, love and holiness, then is it not the case thatobedience is inherently a participation in the being—or at least the narrativeidentity (which implies of course the essence)—of God.52

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

48 See, for example, the differences between Lossky and Zizioulas identified by AristotlePapanikolaou, Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine–Human Communion (NotreDame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006).

49 Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God, 92–3, engages briefly with John Webster, Holiness(London: SCM Press, 2003) on the notion of ‘alien righteousness’, but there is little beyond thisby way of an acknowledgement of the concerns about theosis among Western theologians.

50 This is not to rule out the potential value of Platonism for theology, but to stress the needfor any such conceptuality to be used knowingly.

51 E.g. the recent collection of essays in C. Stephen Evans (ed.), Exploring Kenotic Christology:The Self-Emptying of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) and the critical reflections onthis provided by Ivor Davidson in his review in Ars Disputandi 7 (2007).

52 Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God, 93.


essential distinction between God and the world. Advocates of theosis aregenerally careful to safeguard the uniqueness of the divine essence. By includ-ing believers within the divine identity in the way that Gorman does, theessential uniqueness of God is fundamentally compromised, a consequenceof which the author himself appears to be unaware. As well as being problem-atic for the constructive theological account that Gorman is pursuing, thisconfusion is problematic in relation to the monotheistic dimension of Juda-ism arguably maintained in the New Testament.53 This does not mean thatGorman is wrong, of course, but he seems unaware of the potential problemsassociated with his language. It is one thing, as we will see in the next chapter,to speak of ‘likeness’; it is another to speak of incorporation into the divineidentity.

This observation allows us to distil one of the key issues that will be at stakein our reflections: if the New Testament does, indeed, have a theology ofparticipation, how does this relate to the concerns of monotheism and theuniqueness of God? Where and how, in other words, is the distinction ofCreator and creature maintained in the participatory accounts of the NewTestament, if at all? Such questions, if not entirely neglected, are at leastunderdetermined by Gorman.54

James D. G. Dunn

While the trajectory of the New Perspective has led in the direction of theosisfor some, for others it has led in the direction of a particular kind of SpiritChristology, linked in turn to an Adam Christology. James D. G. Dunn isperhaps the most notable proponent of this and his work constitutes a majorcontribution to the study of union with Christ/participation in New Testa-ment scholarship.55 One of the challenges posed by Dunn’s work is the extentto which it is diffused through a massive range of publications, covering arange of issues, from Christology and pneumatology to soteriology and ethics.Nevertheless, amidst this broad corpus of work, a set of themes and ideasrecur.

53 Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament(Grand Rapids; Carlisle: Eerdmans; Paternoster, 1999).

54 Gorman is not alone in seeking to read Paul in terms of theosis. Stephen Finlan has alsoattempted such an approach. See Stephen Finlan, ‘CanWe Speak of Theosis in Paul?’, in MichaelChristensen and Jeffrey Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature (Grand Rapids: BakerAcademic, 2008), 68–80.

55 Dunn has developed this work in a huge number of books and articles over his lengthycareer. Of distinctive importance are the following: Christology in the Making: A New TestamentInquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (2nd edn. London: SCM Press, 1989),98–128; The Theology of Paul the Apostle (2nd edn. London; New York: T & T Clark, 2003),esp. 200–4, 241–4.


In particular, it is clear that Dunn understands the ‘divinity’ of Jesus to beconstituted by the Spirit,56 and only later ascribed personal autonomy in thedevelopment of christological thought.

This naturally raises the question as to how appropriate it is to speak of a Trinityrather than a Binity. Before the incarnation Logos and Spirit were hardly to bedistinguished. After incarnation, the divinity of Jesus was a function of the Spirit.And after the resurrection the risen humanity of Jesus was a function of theSpirit.57

In speaking in such terms of the relationship between Christ and the Spirit,Dunn does not simply identify the two: he makes the Spirit that which isdivine in Christ. Following the resurrection, though, the humanity of Jesustransforms the experience of the Spirit:

Christ has become Spirit, Christ is now experienced as Spirit—that is true. But it isonly because the Spirit is now experienced as Christ that the experience of theSpirit is valid and essential for Paul.58

The experience of the Spirit enjoyed by followers of Jesus is analogous to hisown, so that just as he was divinized, so too are they. Dunn understands this inrelation to the Adamic humanity of Jesus: this glorification represents arecovery of the commission, role, and splendour of Adam, so that the earliestChristology is an Adam Christology. Paul’s soteriology is an Adamic soteri-ology and the work of the Spirit is intended to restore true humanity inAdamic terms.59 For Dunn, as we will see in greater depth in Chapter 5,much of the Pauline corpus that makes no specific reference to Adam isnevertheless saturated with Adamic symbolism, and in many regards this istrue of other parts of the New Testament.Dunn maintains his approach on the grounds not only of the examination

of specific passages, but also on the interpretation of these against a particularbackground, that of the putative ‘glorious Adam’ myth of early Judaism. It isby detecting echoes of this myth in specific passages that he maintains his casefor a thoroughgoing Adam Christology and soteriology. Granted that this isthe case, an important part of our study will be an evaluation of the evidencefor this myth and a reflection on its relevance for our understanding of theNew Testament material. My own challenges to this, however,60 should not be

56 E.g. James D. G. Dunn, The Christ and the Spirit: Collected Essays of James D. G. Dunn(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998), 126–53, esp. 143.

57 Dunn, ‘Rediscovering the Spirit’, Expository Times 84 (1972), 12.58 James D. G. Dunn, ‘1 Corinthians 15:45—Last Adam, Life-Giving Spirit’, in Barnabas

Lindars and Stephen S. Smalley (eds), Christ and Spirit in the New Testament: Edited by BarnabasLindars and Stephen S. Smalley in Honour of Charles Francis Digby Moule (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1973), 127–41. Quotation on 141.

59 See, e.g., Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 79–101, 281–92, 390–412.60 See Chapter 5.


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

N. T. Wright

One final voice must be mentioned in the context of the New Perspective, thatof N. T. Wright. Wright’s classic work on Paul, The Climax of the Covenant,61

seeks to take seriously the covenantal dimension of Paul’s thought, with thisemphasis continuing to influence his later commentary on Romans. Thenarrative substructure of the apostle’s thought is shaped by the story of Israel,centred on the covenant, and the new reality of Christ is an outworking of thatstory. Such an emphasis runs deliberately counter to the anti-covenantalemphasis of much New Testament scholarship, particularly those followingthe contributions of Ernst Käsemann.

Within Wright’s account, the Pauline concept of participation is governedby that of covenant: to be ‘in Christ’ is to be in the covenant community, thenature and status of which is determined decisively by Jesus’s representativework as the true Israel and by his faithfulness in such a capacity. The storyof Israel, moreover, is part of an overarching biblical narrative that movesfrom creation to Fall to salvation, meaning that the story of Israel is under-stood in relation to Adam and that the Adamic elements in Paul’s theologycannot be separated from the presentation of Jesus, and his people, as thetrue Israel. Participation is, then, a rather more specified concept than it is inSanders, shaped by notions of covenant representation and corporatesolidarity.

It is striking that in Wright’s subsequent contributions62 he has sought toprovide an integrated account of the Jesus movement, from its birth in Galileethrough early tradition and into the developed theology of the New Testamentwriters, that is consistent with this account of covenant participation. A keyelement within this is his claim that ‘Exile and Return’ are dominant motifs inthe New Testament, traceable to the Historical Jesus. This claim has received agood deal of criticism, with many scholars considering his arguments to pressthe evidence for the presence of these motifs too far.63 In my own discussion,I will suggest that a nuanced concept of ‘presence’ may allow a greater degree

61 N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991).

62 N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (London: S. P. C. K., 1992) andJesus and the Victory of God (London: S. P. C. K., 1996).

63 See the collection of studies in Carey C. Newman (ed.), Jesus & the Restoration of Israel:A Critical Assessment of N. T. Wright’s ‘Jesus and the Victory of God’ (Downers Grove, IL;Carlisle: InterVarsity Press; Paternoster Press, 1999).


of flexibility and may be better able to accommodate the elements of NewTestament imagery. Nevertheless, it should be noted that Wright’s identifica-tion of covenant theology in the New Testament is promising and facilitates anunderstanding of the identification of the one and the many within the story ofScripture, without losing sight of the particularity of each.One specific outworking of Wright’s covenantal account and his analysis of

the teaching of Jesus is his claim that the ‘Son of Man coming with the clouds’in Mark 13:26 (and parallels) is a corporate image for the vindicated people ofGod, following the resurrection.64 The grounds for such a claim lie in theDanielic background to this image, which, he claims, uses the Son of Man as asymbol for Israel and would have been understood in such terms by any first-century Jew. This claim is not unique to Wright65 but he has made more of itscorporate dimensions than have others. The reading of Daniel is, however,problematic and there is no evidence that Jews did indeed read it that way untilmuch later.66

THE FAITH OF JESUS CHRIST:RICHARD B. HAYS AGAIN

In 1983 Richard B. Hays published his doctoral dissertation as The Faith ofJesus Christ: The Narrative Sub-Structure of Galatians 3:1–4:11,67 in which heargued that the genitive construction that links ‘faith/faithfulness’ to the name‘(Jesus) Christ’ in several places, notably Gal 3:22, should be understood assubjective; that is, Jesus is the agent of the faith act, the one being faithful, notthe object of faith, the one in whom belief is placed. Hays was not the first toadvance such an interpretation: it had been proposed already by JohannesHaussleiter in 1891,68 and developed by Gerhard Kittel69 and, in Anglophonecircles, by Gabriel Hebert70 and then Markus Barth.71 T. F. Torrance saw the

64 Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 280–338; Jesus and the Victory of God,510–19.

65 Wright draws on Caird’s work, eventually released as Caird and Hurst, New TestamentTheology. See, esp., 377.

66 John J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Hermeneia: Minneapolis:Fortress Press, 1993), 274–324. Concerning Jewish readings, see his comments on 308.

67 Now republished with a new introduction. Subsequent references will be to the secondedition, as it contains some key new material in the introduction.

68 Johannes Haussleiter, ‘Der Glaube Jesu Christi und der christliche Glaube: Ein Beitrag zurErklärung des Römerbriefes’, Neue kirkliche Zeitschrift 2 (1891), 192–4.

69 Gerhard Kittel, ‘—Ø��Ø� � Å�ı �æØ��ı bei Paulus’, Theologische Studien und Kritiken 79(1906), 419–39.

70 Gabriel Hebert, ‘ “Faithfulness” and “Faith” ’, Theology 58 (1955), 373.71 Marcus Barth, ‘The Faith of the Messiah’, Heythrop Journal 10 (1969), 363–70.


theological significance of Hebert’s arguments, in particular, and pressed theinterpretation into the service of his anti-contractual theological schema,72

subsequently (and with some justification) falling foul of the sharp critique ofJames Barr for making dubious semantic distinctions between Greek andHebrew thought.73 But, as important as these debates were, it was withHays’s study that the subjective reading reached real prominence in biblicalstudies. The remarkable effect that his doctoral dissertation had reflects itsmethodological rigour and capacity to explain the narrative logic of Galatiansin relation to its Scriptural background.

For Hays, the key to understanding the phrase is not just lexical or gram-matical, but narratival. He marshals an impressive complex of arguments thatbrings together literary theory, philosophy, and grammatical analysis with theexegesis of Galatians 3:1–4:11, in order to argue that there is an underlyingnarrative at work, within which Jesus is presented as the ‘agent of redemp-tion’,74 whose representative activity brings about the fulfilment of the prom-ises made to Abraham. Hays seems reluctant to speak of this story in terms of‘covenant’, driven away from this by the fact that the term �ØÆŁ ŒÅ does notappear until rather late in the epistle (in 3:15), and by the fact that he elsewheredevelops the language of ��Ø� without reference to covenant.75 ‘In no casedoes Paul bring the concepts of ��Ø� and �ØÆŁ ŒÅ into explicit relation withone another.’76 While Hays makes this statement as part of a successfulrefutation of Greer M. Taylor’s claim that the argument of Galatians is juristicin character (specifically, in Graeco-Roman terms), I will suggest that there isno warrant for such a wedge to be driven between the two words. To speak ofthe Abrahamic promises is to speak of a covenant narrative.

Once it is recognized that Paul portrays Jesus as the one whose obedienceunder the law is decisive for the destiny of those who will come after him, thesubjective reading becomes the obvious sense of the phrase. Moreover, thisprompts a reconsideration of the notion of justification: is it ‘by faith in Jesus’or by participation in the ‘the faith of Jesus’? For Hays, it is the latter: the storyof Jesus’s faith absorbs the world. This, however, does not mean that thehuman activity of faith is insignificant:

It does mean, however, that ‘faith’ is not the precondition for receiving God’sblessing; instead, it is the appropriate mode of response to a blessing already given

72 Thomas F. Torrance, ‘One Aspect of the Biblical Conception of Faith’, Expository Times 68(1957), 111–14.

73 James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961),188.

74 Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, 178–80.75 Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, 184–7. He develops these arguments as part of a solid

critique of Greer M. Taylor, ‘Function of Pistis Christou in Galatians’, Journal of BiblicalLiterature 85 (1966), 58–76.

76 Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, 187.


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

Prior to the publication of Hays’s dissertation, this emphasis on narrative sub-structure (now well established in New Testament studies) had been rare.Hays has always acknowledged that his own radical adoption of a narrativeapproach was influenced by the theology of Karl Barth, mediated in part byHans Frei.78 From these scholars, Hays receives an understanding of theologythat is deeply sensitive to the importance of the story of Israel in shaping theidentity of Jesus Christ, and his configuration of the relationship of thebeliever’s faith to that of Christ is formulated in terms that reflect this.Given Hays’s own role in mediating such theology to the field of biblicalstudies, we must, in Chapter 3, consider Barth’s account of union with Christin more detail, as a preliminary to our own study of Paul and the rest of theNew Testament.A substantial debate has followed the publication of Hays’s book, proceed-

ing on lexical and syntactic grounds, as well as on broader conceptual ornarratival ones.79 Interestingly, despite the German origins of the debate inmodern times, it has largely been confined to Anglophone scholarship, a factthat Dunn sees as reflecting a continued Lutheran ‘suspicion’ of accounts thatminimize the place of justification by faith.80 The contributions of specialistlanguage scholars have been fairly uniform in their support for the traditionalobjective reading,81 though the forcefulness of their claims has varied from thecautious to the rather more strident.82 In basic agreement with such findings,

77 Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, 211.78 Hans W. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth

Century Hermeneutics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974) and The Identity of Jesus Christ:The Hermeneutical Bases of Dogmatic Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975). Hays acknow-ledges these influences in the preface to the 2nd edition of Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ,xxiv–xxv.

79 For a good overview, see the various discussions in Michael F. Bird and PrestonM. Sprinkle, The Faith of Jesus Christ: Exegetical, Biblical, and Theological Studies (Peabody,Mass; Milton Keynes: Hendrickson; Paternoster, 2009).

80 The confinement to English is also noted by Klaus Haacker, Der Brief des Paulus an dieRömer (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1999).

81 Porter and Pitts conclude: ‘The use of ��Ø� as a head term with a prepositional specifier,without an intervening article and followed by an element in the genitive, provides furtherevidence that, at least from a linguistic standpoint, when Paul used the phrase he was indicatingthat Christ was the proper object of faith.’ See Stanley E. Porter and Andrew Pitts, ‘—��Ø� with aPreposition and Genitive Modifier: Lexical, Semantic and Syntactic Considerations in the—��Ø��æØ��F Debate’, in Michael F. Bird and Preston M. Sprinkle (eds), The Faith of Jesus Christ: ThePistis Christou Debate (Milton Keynes; Peabody: Paternoster; Hendrickson, 2009), 53.

82 Porter and Pitts, ‘—��Ø� with a Preposition’, exemplify the former. The latter is exemplifiedby R. Barry Matlock, ‘Detheologizing the Pistis Christou Debate: Cautionary Remarks from aLexical Semantic Perspective’, Novum Testamentum 42 (2000), 1–23, and ‘Pistis in Galatians3.26: Neglected Evidence for “Faith in Christ”?’, New Testament Studies 49 (2003), 433–9.


Francis Watson’s detailed study of Paul’s view of faith, which also paysattention to the way in which the apostle appears to read Scripture, drawsattention to the role of Habakkuk 2:4 within a schema of antithesis between‘by (KŒ) the works of the law’ and ‘by faith in/of Jesus Christ’. Noting othercontrasts with law, and challenging a Messianic reading of Habakkuk (on thegrounds of a lack of attestation elsewhere), Watson argues that only theobjective genitive can be sustained. Interestingly, in supporting this moretraditional reading, Watson makes a rather less traditional move, arguing thatPaul reads the Torah as containing a tension between law and faith and that hisdoctrine of justification by faith emerges from this hermeneutical pressure.83

The debate continues, with Douglas Campbell, notably, marshalling furthersupport for Hays’s reading, particularly in relation to the occurrence of parallelphrases in Romans.84 We will return to this in our study of Paul, and toCampbell in greater detail in ‘ ‘Apocalyptic’ Readings of Paul’ (pp. 37–8); atthis point, what matters is that, regardless of whether or not Hays is correct,the debate has sparked a renewed interest in the range of ways by which Paulseems to present salvation as involving narratival participation in Jesus, andhis faith but has, in its own way, reinforced the perception that one mustchoose between an account of soteriology that holds to justification by faithand one built on participation.

‘APOCALYPTIC ’ READINGS OF PAUL

Alongside this, and ultimately fusing with it, is a line of scholarship on Paulgenerally traced back to the work of Ernst Käsemann. In an influential lecturedelivered in Oxford in 1961 and subsequently published in German andEnglish,85 Käsemann argued that the genitive construction �ØŒÆØ��Å Ł�F,encountered at numerous points in Romans, should be understood as sub-jective: this righteousness is a property of God, a ‘salvation-creating power’that ‘reaches out for the world’.86 Crucially, this power is an eschatologicalone associated with ‘apocalyptic’ thought. Käsemann saw parallels in theThanksgiving Hymns (Hodayot) of Qumran, which testified to the construc-tion being used in ‘apocalyptic’ literature with a technical significance thatinfluenced Paul. Importantly, Käsemann saw this apocalyptic thought as

83 Francis Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2004).84 Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 601–38.85 Published in Ernst Käsemann, ‘Gottesgerechtigkeit bei Paulus’, Zeitschrift für Theologie

und Kirche 58 (1961), 367–78. Translated as ‘ “The Righteousness of God” in Paul’, in ErnstKäsemann, New Testament Questions Today (trans. W. J. Montague. London: SCM Press, 1969),168–82.

86 Käsemann, New Testament Questions Today, 181–2.


counter-traditional, or counter-legal, representing a different view of salva-tion to that encountered elsewhere in Judaism. This view would underpin hisarguments in the commentary on Romans that he subsequently published.87

His argument is nicely captured by Campbell:

Käsemann emphasized through this set of reconstruals the sovereignty of God,the unconditional nature of the divine action within the world, the robust ethicalcommitment of God’s resulting community called into being by the Christ eventand the reality of eschatology, in relation both to God’s present divine interven-tion and to the coming consummation.88

Following the initial flurry of hostility (from Bultmann89) and support (fromMüller and Stuhlmacher,90 who argued further the apocalyptic basis of thephrase), Käsemann’s proposal became a more widely accepted understandingof this phrase in Paul, albeit one still debated.91 It is worth noting that hisargument was influenced by a concern about a particular species of liberalismin German theology—the same concern, in fact, that drove Barth. The answerto such human-oriented theologies was to emphasize the absolute priority ofunconditional divine action. For Käsemann, as a New Testament scholar, sucha theology was evident in Paul.Käsemann’s work had a major impact on Pauline scholarship, but of

particular significance was the work of J. Louis Martyn.92 Drawing on Käse-mann’s findings, Martyn spoke of Paul’s gospel as fundamentally ‘apocalyptic’:a new age has commenced with the reality that has been disclosed to Paul, theunconditional divine grace revealed in the Christ event; in the light of this, theapostle retrospectively reconstrues his heritage within Judaism. Martyn’saccount of Paul’s gospel is essentially ‘dramatic’, involving cosmic conflictbetween light and dark. Paul now sees that Christ has redeemed his followersfrom an evil dominion of spiritual powers, within which the Law operated toprovide a myth of self-worked salvation, one species of the ‘religion’ to whichthe apocalyptic truth of Jesus is opposed. The fundamental struggle is betweenfaith in what has been revealed and the temptation to retreat to that ‘strangelycomfortable’93 reality of religion.

87 Ernst Käsemann, An die Römer (Tübingen: Mohr, 1973).88 Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 189.89 Rudolf Bultmann, ‘˜ØŒÆØ��Å ¨�F’, Journal of Biblical Literature 83 (1964), 12–16.90 Christian Müller, Gottes Gerechtigkeit und Gottes Volk: eine Untersuchung zu Römer 9–11

(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964), Peter Stuhlmacher, Gerechtigkeit Gottes bei Paulus(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965).

91 See Richard B. Hays, The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’sScripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 51, note 7.

92 Primarily J. Louis Martyn, Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commen-tary (The Anchor Bible: 33a: New York; London: Doubleday, 1997), but see also TheologicalIssues in the Letters of Paul (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997).

93 I borrow here Douglas Campbell’s phrase (The Deliverance of God, 190).


Martyn’s use of the word ‘apocalyptic’ is primarily governed by Paul’s ownreferences to the revelation made known to him, rather than by the genredesignated by the term, but his basic ‘two-age’ schema and his opposing ofapocalyptic and Torah are reminiscent of Schweitzer and Käsemann. His useof the label ‘apocalyptic’ is revealing, suggesting that their assumptions havebeen carried into his theology. Indeed, one of the criticisms brought against hisapproach is the failure to relate his reading to recent scholarship on apocalyp-tic thought in Judaism.94 Martinus de Boer has sought to address this defi-ciency, arguing that Paul’s thought draws on a particular sub-category ofcosmological apocalypses that are developed without legal referent, notablythe Book of the Watchers. But his arguments fail to acknowledge the evidencethat such works are, in fact, legally and covenantally influenced and have arather more complex eschatological scenario than the ‘two ages’ schemaallows.95 This will be an important set of issues to explore further in Chapter 4.This handling of apocalyptic means that, while Martyn and de Boer agree

with Hays on the revelatory and eschatological dimension of ‘the Christ-event’, they differ fundamentally on the relationship of this to the story ofIsrael. As well as reflecting the influence of previous biblical scholarship,I would suggest that this reflects the influence of theological scholarship andthe lines by which this is brought to bear on the biblical scholarly task. Barth’sinfluence on Martyn is acknowledged,96 but is probably significantly mediatedby Käsemann; consequently, it is worked out quite differently in Martyn’sthesis than in Hays’s, where the importance of Israel to the identity of Christ ismaintained. The latter arguably reflects a more thoroughgoing understandingof Barth’s theology, particularly as brokered by Frei and Childs. Recognizingthis theological influence helps cast light on the rising popularity of the‘apocalyptic’ approach to Paul among a number of theologians, who havesought to develop apocalyptic theologies, often with explicit reference toMartyn.97 It perhaps also suggests avenues by which the validity of thesemay be explored and critiqued.

94 See R. Barry Matlock, Unveiling the Apocalyptic Paul: Paul’s Interpreters and the Rhetoric ofCriticism (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), esp. 313–15. While pre-dating Martyn’sGalatians commentary, Matlock makes observations that are significant to its evaluation.

95 Martinus de Boer, Galatians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011), 31–5. Against this,see Lars Hartman, Asking for a Meaning: A Study of 1 Enoch 1–5 (Lund: Gleerup, 1979). See alsoRichard Bauckham, ‘Apocalypses’, in D. A. Carson and Mark Seifrid (eds), Justification andVariegated Nomism Volume 1: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism (Tübingen; GrandRapids: Mohr Siebeck; Baker Academic, 2001), 135–87, and my own ‘Priestly Purity, MosaicTorah and the Emergence of Enochic Judaism’, Henoch 29 (2007), 67–89. We will discuss thismatter further in Chapter 4.

96 Bruce McCormack, ‘Justification by Faith’, Galatians and Christian Theology conference(University of St Andrews, 2012).

97 Douglas K. Harink, Paul among the Postliberals: Pauline Theology Beyond Christendom andModernity (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2003). See now, too, the collection of essays in J. B. Davisand D. Harink (eds), Apocalyptic and the Future of Theology: With and Beyond J. Louis Martyn


Within New Testament scholarship, Martyn’s work has recently left aparticular mark on the work of Douglas Campbell, whose recent massivestudy of Paul represents a sustained attack on paradigms that draw in anysense upon the model of justification by faith.98 Campbell openly draws uponMartyn’s approach, designating his own re-reading of Romans as ‘apocalyptic’and setting it against both traditional ‘justification by faith’ readings of Pauland the New Perspective. The most controversial element of this has been hisargument that much of the legal or forensic material in Romans 1:18–3:20 isnot, in fact, reflective of Paul’s own thought, but rather that of an opponent,whose teaching is quoted and mocked by Paul for rhetorical effect, using thedevice of speech-in-character (prosopopoeia). This claim has proved uncon-vincing,99 but the controversy around it has allowed the deeper theologicalissues that Campbell raises to be overlooked somewhat.Campbell devotes a significant portion of the book to exposing the basic

logic of the justification by faith model and then critiquing that logic,100 beforearguing that this underlying framework has distorted the various scholarlyinterpretations of Paul through the modern period. While space will not allowus to explore that critique in full here, two of the elements that Campbellidentifies in the logic of justification by faith may be singled out.

First, he asserts that the model ‘argues two incompatible epistemologies: ageneral, atemporal, philosophical and rational conception of knowledge . . . anda particular historical, revelatory and interpersonal conception—notably, thewitness of Scripture, but also the voice of God’.101 This leads to an observationabout the place of natural revelation in the model, the ‘objective discernmentand linkage of certain propositions within creation’.102 Second, he argues that‘the theory presupposes in humans an inherent ability to deduce and appropri-ately act on the truth of certain axioms and, at the same time, a profounduniversal sinfulness’.103 One of the difficulties here is that Campbell’s model ofjustification is developed in abstraction and isolation from any actual theologianand his model does not actually correspond to the way in which given theolo-gians deal with the issue of justification by faith. These two points are, forexample, quite at odds with Calvin who, as we will see in Chapter 3, is verysensitive to the noetic effects of sin—the inclusion of the mind in the totality of

(Eugene, Or.: Cascade Books, 2012). Although Martyn’s influence is scarcely acknowledged, it isclear also in Nathan R. Kerr, Christ, History and Apocalyptic: The Politics of Christian Mission(Eugene, Or.: Cascade Books, 2009).

98 Campbell, The Deliverance of God. For a detailed summary and review, see Grant Macaskill,‘ReviewArticle: TheDeliverance ofGod’, Journal for the Study of theNewTestament 34 (2011), 150–61.

99 See Macaskill, ‘Review Article: The Deliverance of God’, 159–60.100 Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 36–95.101 Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 168.102 Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 168.103 Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 168.


human depravity—and recognizes the need for the priority of gracious revela-tion and to the place of the Spirit in the economy of salvation. It is clear thatCampbell is overly reliant on a slender body of theological study with aparticular focus104 and, as a consequence, fails to appreciate the way in whichCalvin (followed by many in the Reformed tradition) offered an account ofsalvation that was participatory at the same time as being committed to justifi-cation by faith. The problem of this analysis colours much that follows, for itprovides the framework and context of Campbell’s reading of Pauline scholar-ship, as he argues that the legacy of the different forms of justification by faithhave determined the modern readings of Paul. Again, then, the shape of Camp-bell’s study requires us to engage with the actual theologians associated withaccounts of justification by faith.

CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL

The last study to be considered here is that of Constantine Campbell, Paul andUnion with Christ.105 We come to it last, partly because of its recent publica-tion and partly because, as the first study to be explicitly devoted to union withChrist in Paul, it should be of some significance in years to come.

Constantine Campbell’s106 study involves a detailed examination of thevarious grammatical constructions in Paul that appear to indicate some kindof participation in Christ, as well as the various participatory images. Much ofthe book is quite technical, drawing on the author’s expertise in the study ofKoinē Greek, and is consequently rather difficult to summarize here. Suchmaterial will surface in our own study of Paul, but we can note one majorfinding that emerges from it: against the findings of the German pioneersstudied at the beginning of this chapter, he argues that K� �æØ��fiH is not aformula with a fixed theological meaning but is, rather, a plastic prepositionalphrase governed locally by the usual constraints of context. In some places, forexample, the phrase must be understood as locative, while in others it isinstrumental. What this means is that the author is highly sensitive to the

104 This material will be discussed further in Chapter 3. The following works are mentionedby Campbell: James B. Torrance, ‘Covenant or Contract?: A Study of the Theological Back-ground of Worship in Seventeenth-Century Scotland’, Scottish Journal of Theology 23 (1970),51–76; James B. Torrance, ‘The Contribution of McLeod Campbell to Scottish Thelogy’, ScottishJournal of Theology 26 (1973), 295–311. There is no engagement with the critical literature onthis, listed by Michael S. Horton, Covenant and Salvation: Union with Christ (Louisville:Westminster John Knox, 2007), 3–4, note 6.

105 Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study.106 To avoid confusion with Douglas Campbell, I will use this form to designate the author

throughout this chapter.


range of associations that the phrase has and does not press these into aparticular scheme.

In fact, K� �æØ��fiH has a range of usage determined by the elasticity of thepreposition K�, and close exegesis of the phrase in context demonstrates this, aswe will see in chapter 3. Consequently, it is best to abandon the term formulawhen referring to the phrase K� �æØ��fiH; it is misleading at best. Strictly speaking,K� �æØ��fiH is a prepositional phrase, and there is no reason not to label it such.Paul’s fondness of the phrase, however, suggests that it might also be described asan idiom. Its frequency indicates that it is not an accidental combination ofpreposition and proper name, and yet it does not convey a fixed meaning everytime it occurs. Idiom usefully captures these nuances. Thus, K� �æØ��fiH is afrequent Pauline idiomatic expression with flexible usage.107

This also undergirds his major conclusions regarding the place of participationin Paul’s thought, which are worth quoting at length from the outline formthat he provides in his introductory chapter:

First, the term ‘union with Christ’ is deemed insufficient to convey all that Paulincludes in the theme. Indeed, other terms such as ‘participation’ and ‘mysticism’are likewise insufficient. To do justice to the full spectrum of Paul’s thought andlanguage, the terms union, participation, identification, incorporation areadopted, in place of previous terminology . . .

Second, certain conceptual antecedents that give rise to Paul’s meta-theme ofunion, participation, identification, incorporation can be found in Jewish theologyand the Old Testament, but most profoundly in the words of Jesus, beginningwith his words to Paul on the Damascus road. While such antecedents informPaul’s thinking, his conception remains boldly original in its language, scope, andpervasiveness.

Third, the meta-theme of union, participation, identification, incorporation isregarded to be of utmost importance to Paul, yet does not occupy the ‘centre’of his theological framework. It is, rather, the essential ingredient that binds allother elements together.108

Although the second conclusion is significant, and links Constantine Camp-bell’s findings to those of other scholars who have emphasized the place of theDamascus Road experience for Paul’s own ‘mysticism’, it is the first and thirdconclusions that are particularly important for us to consider at this point. Bydescribing union with Christ as a binding ingredient, itself internally multi-faceted, the author stresses the importance of the theme to Paul’s thoughtwhile also relating it—and in certain regards, subordinating it—to other

107 Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 26.108 Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 29–30.


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

CONCLUSIONS

A number of key observations emerge from this review of the literature onparticipatory accounts of salvation in Paul. First, apart from the early contri-butions of Deissmann, Schweitzer, Bousset, and Wrede—which themselves arenow vulnerable to criticisms in terms of their understanding of Jewish mysti-cism and Hellenistic influence—there has been little effort to relate the variouswritings of the New Testament to one another, meaning that importantcontextual discussion has been neglected. This book is intended to fill that gap.

Second, participation or union with Christ is sometimes effectively treatedas a particular alternative within atonement theory, usually set against justifi-cation by faith, rather than being treated as a topic in its own right. While thisappropriately reflects the soteriological orientation of union/participation,embedding it in a relevant theological context, it means that the focus of thediscussion and the questions brought to the study of the topic are notnecessarily dictated by the subject matter itself, but by related debates (suchas those concerning genitive constructions). These debates must inevitably bepart of our own discussion but, in our case, the focus will be firmly on thenature of the union envisaged between God and human beings.

Third, the complex vocabularies of ‘mysticism’ and ‘apocalyptic’ have beenprominent in the discussion, but in ways that are not necessarily helpful. Thesesets of vocabularies—by which I mean the words themselves and their variouscognate adjectives and nouns—relate the New Testament doctrines to culturalor conceptual parallels. But while the scholarship on those parallels may haveprogressed to new paradigms and understandings, this is not always reflectedin research on the New Testament, in which traditions concerning, forexample, the tension between apocalyptic and covenant, are handed downand institutionalized. Given the developments in scholarship on Jewish mys-ticism since the 1950s, this tendency requires to be challenged. The back-ground study of Chapter 4 will lay important foundations for our own readingof the New Testament evidence and will challenge some of the assumptionsthat operate in the field.

Fourth, most scholars have recognized the distinctive Christocentrism ofPauline mysticism. In the case of the early German research, this was con-trasted with Johannine mysticism, which was seen as ‘God-mysticism’ and,hence, much closer to Hellenistic notions of deification. This reading of John isone that will be challenged in the present study, but what is important to


recognize at this stage is the broad awareness of the role of Christ as the focusof union in Pauline scholarship.Fifth, the formal connections between being in Christ and being in the Spirit

(and having Christ and/or the Spirit indwelling the individual) are also prom-inent in the discussion. The significance of this in relation to incarnationaltheology must be recognized: whether in terms of Dunn’s Adam Christology orthe various discussions of the person of Jesus in the pioneering Germanscholarship, emerging as it did alongside the Lives of Jesus movement, thenotion that the divinity of Jesus is constituted by (or reducible to) the presenceof the Spirit is a prominent one. This will require an attentiveness throughoutour discussion of the New Testament to the identification and differentiation ofthe Spirit and Jesus and to the role played by each in the union of the Christianwith God.Sixth, some have developed their participatory accounts with reference to

Adam traditions in Judaism. In the case of Dunn, this thoroughly shapes hisChristology, which in turn underpins his treatment of Christian participation.Any evaluation of such accounts must be clear as to the extent and significanceof the pre-Christian Adam traditions, particularly those that speak of Adamicglory. Chapter 5 will be devoted to such a discussion.Finally, there is a clear and growing recognition that biblical scholars need

to engage with theological traditions. Richard Hays has noted the potential ofthe Eastern Fathers to help conceptualize participation in the New Testament.This suggestion will be followed through in the next chapter, along with anexamination of the modern theologies of theosis that bear upon Gorman’s useof the term. Others, such as Douglas Campbell, have highlighted the moderntheological influence on biblical analysis. While his own analysis of this isquestionable, the basic point highlighted is valid. As we have seen, oneprominent influence on current participatory study of the New Testament isthat of Karl Barth. Some discussion of the Lutheran and Reformed traditionscriticized by Campbell and the Barthian account that informs the apocalypticapproach more broadly must, then, be undertaken. This discussion will bedeveloped in Chapter 3.


2

Participation and Union with Christin the Patristic Tradition and Modern

Orthodox Theology

We saw in Chapter 1 that a number of biblical scholars have recognized thenecessity of systematic and historical theological discussion to the task ofunderstanding the New Testament teaching on ‘participation’. This is not amatter of secondary reflection, to be undertaken once the New Testament hasbeen properly read in its historical context, but a matter of primary analysis,contributing to the understanding of the New Testament itself. This chapterand the next will take that recognition seriously, engaging with historical and,to a lesser extent, systematic theology, with a view to laying some foundationsfor our study of the New Testament.

Primarily, in this chapter, we will pursue Richard Hays’s suggestion that anexamination of the Eastern Fathers could provide resources by which we maybetter understand the New Testament teaching on participation. While notconfined to the Eastern Fathers, our study will be primarily focused uponthem, with the intention to isolate some of the key points that have emerged inrecent scholarship, particularly the magisterial treatment of deification in theGreek patristic traditions by Russell.1 The study will highlight the care withwhich Hellenistic concepts of participation, particularly those of Platonism,are handled by the Fathers and synthesized with biblical imagery and lan-guage. This is a vital issue for us to grasp, as it significantly determines what wemean by ‘participation’: do we speak of a sharing in God’s being by some kindof analogy or idealism, or of communion with a presence that remainsradically alien? Or, are there different senses of participation that draw uponeach of these options and perhaps combine them in a given account?

The faultlines associated with these distinctions generate disputes in bothbiblical and theological scholarship. In biblical studies, for example, some have

1 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (Oxford:Oxford University Press), 2004.

argued that Paul’s thought is essentially Platonic and that this element of histheology is simply made more explicit in the patristic period;2 others vigor-ously resist such an account of Paul, often by arguing that Platonic elements inthe patristic writings are a departure from the apostle’s thought, caused byunwitting assimilation of biblical ideas to Hellenistic philosophy.3 In theo-logical scholarship, some within the Radical Orthodoxy movement havechampioned the recovery of a Platonic notion of participation, mediated byAquinas’s treatment of analogy, in an attempt to break down the sacred–secular division. While maintaining the otherness of God, these scholars arenevertheless critical of the theologies of, for example, Calvin and Barth, fortheir failure to endorse a Thomistic understanding of analogical participa-tion.4 Importantly, they see this as a betrayal of patristic tradition and, beyondthis, of the Bible itself, claiming fellowship with modern Eastern Orthodoxaccounts in support of this. Those within the Reformed tradition, meanwhile,maintain the need to distinguish true participation as ‘communion’ fromPlatonic concepts of participation.5

What our study of the Greek Fathers will highlight is that they openly rejectpagan notions of deification, broadly avoiding the language of apotheosis, andwhere they draw upon the philosophical concept of theosis, they do so inrelation to the controlling metaphor of filiation, or sonship, which is a rela-tional concept. Platonic elements are certainly encountered in the Fathers, butthey are firmly subordinated to this driving theme of filiation, which is in turnembedded in ecclesiology and sacramental theology.This is pertinent to our evaluation of the language of theosis as it has begun

to establish itself in New Testament scholarship. Such language positions thereadings of Gorman and others in relation to modern Eastern Orthodoxtheology, but does it accurately describe what we encounter in the NewTestament, or even in the early Fathers? In order to answer this question,and to frame our examination of the Fathers, it is helpful to begin our studywith a discussion of the modern treatments of theosis before turning back toexamine the patristic treatments.

2 Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1994).

3 See N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (London: SPCK, 2003), 355.4 John Milbank, ‘Alternative Protestantism: Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition’,

in James K. A. Smith and James H. Olthuis (eds), Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 25–41.

5 An example is Alan J. Torrance, Persons in Communion: An Essay on Trinitarian Descrip-tion and Human Participation: With Special Reference to Volume One of Karl Barth’s ChurchDogmatics (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996). Specifically in relation to public ethics, see his ‘OnDeriving “Ought” from “Is”: Christology, Covenant and Koinonia’, in Alan J. Torrance andMichael Banner (eds), The Doctrine of God and Theological Ethics (New York: T & T Clark,2006), 167–90.

Participation and Union with Christ in the Patristic Tradition 43

FRAMING THE DISCUSSION: THEOSISAND DEIFICATION

Recent years have seen a flourishing of interest in theosis as a doctrine mostclearly associated with Eastern Orthodox thought but arguably identifiablealso in Western theology. There has been much discussion of the presence ofsome kind of doctrine of deification in Aquinas, Anselm, Luther, Calvin,Rahner, and Barth, among others. Sometimes this is linked to the downplayingor denial of currently unfashionable doctrines, such as justification by faith,but most often it has been driven by a commendable ecumenical instinct,drawn to what is common between the various Christian traditions. We willexamine these claims in a little more detail in this chapter and the next, butprior to this some methodological reflection is required, in order to avoid akind of ‘parallelomania’6 skewing our findings.

In a recent contribution to the discussion,7 Gösta Hallonsten has high-lighted the dangers of assuming that wherever the vocabularies or ideasassociated with theosis are encountered we are necessarily dealing with thedoctrine. With his comments focused particularly upon the Finnish School ofLuther8 and on A. N. Williams’s comparative work on theosis in Aquinas andGregory Palamas,9 Hallonsten argues for the need to recognize that often whatwe are encountering is a ‘theme’ rather than a ‘doctrine’, the latter being a‘well-defined complex of thought that centers on one or more technicalterms’.10 His point is that the doctrine of theosis in Eastern Orthodox thought,particularly in its modern formulations, is a comprehensive one, embracing allaspects of the divine economy and founded on a distinctive theologicalanthropology derived from a particular construal of the relationship of Godto creation. It is also openly developed in Platonic terms. By contrast, when weencounter words or ideas in the Western tradition that appear to speak ofsalvation as involving some kind of deification or divinization, we are notnecessarily encountering such a doctrine but, rather, a cluster of themes that

6 In a classic essay, Samuel Sandmel used this term to highlight the dangers of over-enthusiastic identification of parallels between the Bible and other literature (notably the DeadSea Scrolls) based on the presence of shared words or ideas. See Samuel Sandmel, ‘Parallelomania’,Journal of Biblical Literature 81 (1962), 1–13. He notes (p. 1) ‘that extravagance among scholarswhich first overdoes the supposed similarity in passages and then proceeds to describe source andderivation as if implying literary connection flowing in an inevitable or predetermined direction’. Itseems to me that a similar tendency can be seen in theological studies at present in the attempt tofind commonality rather than isolating distinctions. While commendably ecumenical in instinct,this approach may be intellectually questionable.

7 Gösta Hallonsten, ‘Theosis in Recent Research: A Renewal of Interest and a Need forClarity’, in Christensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature, 281–93.

8 See our discussion in Chapter 3.9 A. N. Williams, The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas (New York;

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).10 Hallonsten, ‘Theosis in Recent Research’, 283.


can be traced back to Scripture, lacking the comprehensive significance andthe philosophical underpinning that they have in Orthodox theology.Hallonsten’s central observation is crucial and slices critically through

much of the recent scholarship on theosis in the Western tradition. Methodo-logically, it highlights the need for us to recognize that, in Eastern Orthodoxthought, theosis cannot be separated from a particular set of configurations ofthe relationship between God and his creation that are typically not shared byWestern theology, even when there is a substantial common ground in termsof concepts of deification. It also requires us to recognize the distinctively post-Palamite character of the contemporary Orthodox doctrine of theosis and todifferentiate this from its patristic antecedents, even if its roots lie in these.Crucially, it also requires us to appreciate that what is encountered in the earlyChristian writings should not necessarily be seen as a doctrine of theosis, evenwhen it employs terminology that we now regard as technical. Our study ofthe Greek Fathers will help to demonstrate the extent to which such languagedeveloped even within the patristic period. Before we turn to this, however, wewill examine the contemporary doctrine of theosis. By identifying the keyfeatures of the fully developed doctrine (which, actually, we will find to becharacterized by some diversity) we will prepare ourselves to recognize theway in which those elements develop in the early periods of the church. Wewill also more readily recognize those points in the early development of thedoctrine that need to be distinguished from later shifts in emphasis.

THEOSIS IN CONTEMPORARY ORTHODOXTHOUGHT

In modern Eastern Orthodox theology, theosis functions as a comprehensive andintegrative doctrine. It is not simply one important element of salvation, or evenconfined in significance to soteriology. Rather, it is concerned with the entirepurpose of God for the glorification of creation. At the heart of this comprehen-sive doctrine, the incarnation operates in an explicit and well-developed teleo-logical framework, within which it is not just the remedy for sin, but is the verypremise of creation. Humanity, as the image and likeness of God, plays a key roleas the microcosm, the focus of the communion of Creator and cosmos, and,within humanity, the incarnation is the key point of union. This cosmic dimen-sion of the divine economy of theosis in modern Orthodoxy is a theme to whichwe will return in ‘Distinguishing the Creature from God’ (pp. 49–50), for itinvolves a particular construal of the participation of the cosmos in God. At thisstage, what is important to our argument is that we understand Hallonsten’spoint concerning the ‘comprehensive’ character of theosis as a doctrine: it isconcerned with the ultimate purpose of God for the cosmos, not just redemptionfrom sin and its effects.


This spectacular economic sweep, however, touches vitally the individuallife of the believer, truly afflicted by sin, through the practices of contem-plation and asceticism. In the modern Orthodox context, the doctrine isstrongly tied to ascetic commitment, which is why Andrew Louth notes:

[T]he most important work for Orthodox theology published in modern times isnot any of the so-called ‘Symbolic Books,’ which defined the Orthodox faith inrelation to Catholicism and Protestantism in the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies, nor any of the works of the Russian émigré theologians of the lastcentury—great though many of these are—but a compilation of ascetic textsmade by St Makarios of Corinth and St Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain, calledthe Philokalia.11

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

Participation and Likeness

Underpinning this emphasis on contemplation is a conception of participa-tion that is grounded in ‘likeness’. Because humanity bears the likeness of God,humans are able to participate in him; when they do so, their humanity isrealized more fully. This takes up and develops Plato’s treatment of the nous orlogikon (mind/reason), the most godlike part of the human soul, which pre-exists and is entombed in the body.13 Plato’s treatment of the soul is varied:some passages suggest that the soul is simple, and that the passions that mustbe mastered are those of the body (Phaedo 78b–84b); others suggest that the

11 Louth, ‘The Place of Theosis in Orthodox Theology’, 37.12 Maximus Confessor, The Lord’s Prayer, lines 542–5. Translation from Philip Sherrard

G. E. H. Palmer, Kallistos Ware (ed.), The Philokalia: The Complete Text, Compiled by the St.Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth (2 vols. London: Faber and Faber,1981).

13 Reflecting the significance usually ascribed to the common phrase ‘soma sema’.


soul is complex, made up of three parts: reason, spirit, and appetite (Republic4:435 ff.), the first of which must rule the others for true happiness to beattained. The overlaps and distinctions between these schemata14 underpinthe complex treatment of the body and its passions in Middle Platonic thoughtand in the Neo-Platonic writings that would later inform patristic theology.The body is not evil in any simple sense, but its passions (or those that belongto the baser part of the soul) must be ruled by the higher parts of the soul.Crucially, this is because the soul is most alike, or has the closest ‘kinship’ to,the imperishable forms of the intelligible world, that is, the divine. Thepossibility of participation is grounded in this concept of kinship or likeness:participants share in divinity through the proper life of their rational souls. Bythe contemplation (theoria) of wisdom, the soul can escape the strictures ofthe body and participate in the divine world of ideas, the noētos topos.15 Thephilosopher’s experience of divinity, then, is not that of apotheosis, of a heroelevated to divine status, but of theosis, of the cultivation of innate divinitythrough contemplation.16

This Platonic element is confidently advocated in modern Orthodoxy.Proponents of theosis acknowledge the significance of its philosophical under-pinning and are typically critical of what they see to be a simplistic dismissal ofPlatonism by those in the Western theological tradition, while also beingcareful to stress that the uptake of Platonic ideas is selective and theologicallygoverned. Stephen Finlan’s comments on N. T. Wright’s understanding ofsalvation (which explicitly rejects Platonic notions) illustrate this well:

But Christian ‘platonizing’ has always been a Christian project, from theearliest days of Greek speaking Christianity. The whole biblical message cannotbe tucked into the bed of Sin–Exile–Return, with no loose edges and no tracesof platonizing.17

Regardless of whether his reading of Paul is upheld, the rest of Finlan’s articlemakes the case that Platonic anthropology is itself transformed by its adoptioninto a Christian eschatological framework. The process of ‘Christification’ isdirected towards the resurrection and the true glorification that will accom-pany it, the final transfiguration of our bodies into divine light. The experienceof the believer in the flesh reflects this eschatological tension, with thestruggles of asceticism being a proper acknowledgement of this, not a rejectionof the physical, as such, or the creation.

14 Even the elements of Plato’s tripartite account of the soul are linked to different parts ofthe body.

15 For example, see Plato, Phaedrus 247c.16 John R. Lenz, ‘The Deification of the Philosopher in Classical Greece’, in Christensen and

Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature, 52.17 S. Finlan, ‘Can We Speak of Theosis in Paul?’, in Christensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers

of the Divine Nature, 71.


Distinguishing the Creature from God

The distinction between Creator and cosmos is generally maintained by twointerwoven elements in modern treatments of theosis, although these aretreated in varying ways in modern Orthodox theology and we should becareful of treating them monolithically. The first is apophaticism. Althoughits significance cannot be limited to this purpose, apophatic theology, by whichdivine incomprehensibility is acknowledged through the use of negative lan-guage about God, emphasizes the essential gulf between God and those whoparticipate in him. It is precisely because the knowledge of God takes place in(and is constitutive of) union, and not in remote speculation, that such anemphasis on apophaticism is necessary. Importantly, this is traced back to theEastern Fathers themselves:

That is why the Eastern Fathers prefer the term ‘union’ to ‘knowledge’ whendealing with this approach to God. In the experience of this apophatic knowledgeGod is perceived on the one hand, but on the other, that which is perceived givesone to understand that there is something here beyond all perception.18

Because God is not a comprehensible object, the reality of encounter with himis a mystical experience that surpasses understanding. It is precisely becausethe mystical experience of true union is beyond merely the nous that someOrthodox thinkers, such as Lossky, are critical of Western scholasticism,which they see as narrowing the focus of union to a purely intellectual level.19

The second element in Orthodox configurations of theosis that maintainsthe distinction between Creator and cosmos is the differentiation between thedivine essence and energies. This distinction is commonly associated withGregory Palamas and his defences of hesychasm in the fourteenth century. Inseeking to defend the practices of the Hesychasts, who were effectively accusedof polytheism because of their descriptions of the divine Light by the Calabrianmonk Barlaam, Palamas drew upon distinctions between divine essence andenergies that he found in the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers and inpseudo-Dionysius;20 he developed this into an account of the accessible andparticipable qualities of God (energies) and his inaccessible internal essence(ousia). The mystical experience of the divine Light is defended as a participa-tion only in the divine energies, one that does not compromise the divineessence.

18 Dumitru Stăniloae, The Experience of God (trans. I. Ioniţă and R. Barringer. Brookline,Mass: Holy Orthodox Press, 1994), 101.

19 See the discussion in Papanikolaou, Being with God, 20–4.20 The actual terminology encountered in those writers varies, however. Palamas’s contribu-

tion was to give the essence/energies distinction its characteristic shape and vocabulary. It needsto be noted, however, that some of the scholarship on Palamas calls into question the promin-ence of this theme in his writing. See Williams, The Ground of Union, 148.


This has implications for the way in which the cosmos is construed.Discussing the theology of Vladimir Lossky, probably the most significantNeo-Palamite theologian, Aristotle Papanikolaou notes that the divine ener-gies ‘imply a going forth of God outside Godself towards another. The createdcosmos is the product of this activity of God and is the activity of God insofaras it participates in the proodoi of God’.21 The obvious potential of this tocollapse into emanationism or pantheism is mitigated by an emphasis on thecontingency of creation, being based on God’s freedom. But the location ofcreation, including the incarnation of the Logos, in the divine energies alsomeans that a place is retained for a positive, affirmative (cataphatic) theology.‘If creation is a product of God’s free activity and participates in the energies ofGod, then it manifests something real about God. The possibility for catapha-tic theology results from the fact that creation itself participates in the energiesof God, which are God.’22

Hence, from Palamas’s own (arguably limited) treatment of this, a broadercharacteristic of Orthodox theology was more clearly established than it hadbeen previously, a distinction between God in his economic relationship to theworld and in his inner essence, the latter subject to the essential necessity ofthe generation of the Son and the spiration of the Spirit, the former free ofthese. The believer can therefore meaningfully and really participate in thedivine energies without any compromise of the divine essence.We need to press a little harder on this issue for, once properly appreciated,

the distinction of essence and energies, and the interplay of this with apopha-ticism, ensures a radically different notion of participation in modern Easterntheology compared to that in Western theology. God’s dealing with the worldtakes place in the divine energies, but these are ‘the one operation of God’23

and not the activities of three separate agents (the persons of the Trinity).Certainly, the distinction of persons is maintained in this operation in terms ofthe patristic formula, ‘from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit’, butthe characteristic way in which Orthodox thinking distinguishes the personsby origin and not by the opposition of relations24 means that the economicencounter of the human and the divine is always an encounter with theindivisible will or attributes of the Triune God.

In this dispensation, in which the Godhead is manifested in the energies, theFather appears as the possessor of the attribute which is manifested, the Son asthe manifestation of the Father, the Holy Spirit as He who manifests.25

21 Papanikolaou, Being with God, 16. 22 Papanikolaou, Being with God, 16.23 Ralph Del Colle, Christ and the Spirit: Spirit-Christology in Trinitarian Perspective (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1994), 16.24 See Del Colle, Christ and the Spirit, 16–23, for a discussion of the distinctives of Orthodox

and Latin approaches.25 Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 82–3.


This has important implications for the way in which human participation isconstrued, leading to the conclusion among Orthodox scholars that Westernconfigurations overly devolve the human experience of God onto the person ofthe Son, to the neglect of the Spirit. In Orthodoxy, by contrast, ‘[t]he mysticalpath . . . is envisaged as a union not with the Incarnate Son but as a “union withGod in his energies,” which is participation in the divine nature by grace’.26

This specific criticism of Latin theology has been one of the key factors inthe development of Spirit Christology in the Roman Catholic tradition, asscholars have sought to respond to it by considering the inner relationships ofthe Trinity, construed according to scholastic categories, and paying dueattention to the nature of the Spirit’s relationship to the divine person of theLogos and to the human nature of Christ. We will examine this further in ourexcursus on Spirit Christology. At this point, the key point of note is theOrthodox difficulty with the concept of ‘union with Christ’.

Excursus: Spirit Christology

The Eastern critique of Latin theology, particularly as articulated by Lossky—i.e. that it inadequately treats the person of the Holy Spirit and is inherentlysubordinationist, through its avoidance of the essence/energies distinction andits reliance on the opposition of relations—has prompted modern RomanCatholic theologians, in particular, to develop Spirit Christologies of differentkinds. In most cases, these operate within the constraints of Trinitariantheology and are oriented towards theological speculation concerning theinner life of the trinity, moving from the economic experience of God to anunderstanding of the immanent Trinitarian relationships. To a large extent,this orientation means that these Christologies do not need to be dealt withhere, although it is worth noting the role played in understanding the imma-nent Trinity by the ‘assimilation of the creature into the Trinity’.27 To considerthe ways in which human beings are described as being united to Godarguably requires us to consider how this necessarily proceeds from thebeing of God himself.

Our whole thinking moves from the world to God, and can never move in theother direction . . .We never conclude from the Trinity to Christ and his Spiritgiven to us, but always the other way round.28

26 Del Colle, Christ and the Spirit, 10.27 David M. Coffey, ‘A Proper Mission of the Holy Spirit’, Theological Studies 47 (1986),

227–50, 230.28 Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ (trans. Verdant Green. London: Burns and Oates 1976),

180.


This emphasis on a theology ‘from below’, of course, is regarded as problem-atic by other modern theologians, such as Barth, and is tied to the latter’scriticism of the false distinctions introduced in Thomistic theology betweencreated and uncreated grace.There are two particular examples of Spirit Christology that do require

some attention here, however. First, one family of Spirit Christologies departsfrom Trinitarian accounts by developing what is essentially a modalist oradoptionist account of the divinity of Jesus. Abandoning a traditional LogosChristology, wherein the divinity of Jesus is constituted by the Son’s hypostaticunion with human nature, such Christologies see that divinity as constitutedby the presence of God’s Spirit, understood as a mode of divine activity andpresence, rather than as a distinct person.29 The spiritual experience ofChristians is, therefore, directly analogous to that of Jesus. As we have seenin Chapter 1, this christological approach is encountered in biblical studies inthe work of James Dunn, who argues that the earliest Christologies in the NewTestament are functional or adoptionist, requiring a modalist conception ofGod. Only later does this develop into a high Christology of ontologicaldivinity. I shall defer criticism of this reading until our study of the NewTestament, but we can note that these Christologies often make reference toDunn’s findings as supporting evidence for their own conclusions. If Dunn’sfindings are deemed to be weak, this has implications for the evaluation ofthese Spirit Christologies.Second, a particular Spirit Christology associated with David Coffey and

Ralph Del Colle seeks to uphold classical Trinitarian categories but, withinthese, to clarify the necessity of the Spirit to the Son’s identity and the nature ofthe Spirit’s ministry in and to the Incarnate Son. This is, by necessity, aquestion linked to the ministry of the Spirit to those who are sons by adoption,but the nature of the Spirit’s ministry in each case is not identical. A lengthyquote from Coffey will illustrate his position:

[T]he Holy Spirit is the Spirit precisely of Sonship (cf. Rm 8.15). As such, heconstitutes both Jesus and other men sons of God, even if divine sonship changesgreatly (though not totally) in meaning and content from the former instance tothe latter. The Father makes the man Jesus his Son, one in person with his eternalSon, by bestowing the Holy Spirit on him in a uniquely radical way. This makesJesus the very paradigm of divine sonship. The Father makes other men his sonsalso, but in a much humbler sense, viz. sons in the Son, by bestowing on them thesame Spirit, who is offered to them in the sacrament of Christ. The difference

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


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

Coffey has here altered the usual order of the graces in the Thomistic scheme(gratia unionis, habitus gratiae, and gratia capitis) by having theHoly Spirit firstcreate, then sanctify, and then unite the human nature of Jesus to the person ofthe pre-existent Son, meaning that his Christology is one of ascent (of the manJesus to God) rather than descent (of the Logos to the man Jesus). Whenconsidered from the perspective of the world—in terms of the quotation fromKasper (see ‘Excursus: Spirit Christology’, p. 50)—the hypostatic union iscontingent upon the bestowal of the Spirit on Jesus’s humanity as sanctifyinggrace, yet is so in a schema that seeks to uphold the pre-existence of the Son. AsDel Colle notes, then, the heart of Coffey’s Spirit Christology is a thoroughgoing‘pneumatization of the theology of grace’which is justified by a ‘bestowal’modelof the trinity: the Father bestows the Spirit upon the Son and the Son bestows theSpirit in return upon the Father in the bestowal of the Spirit uponChristians andtheir return to God. In adopting such language of bestowal, rather than proces-sion, for the relationship between the Spirit and Father and Son, the movementof creature to God is emphasized, the connection between grace in Jesus andgrace in Christians upheld, and theology properly developed ‘from below’.

Coffey’s approach, and Del Colle’s development of it, are important contri-butions to modern theology. Whether or not they are convincing will, to alarge extent, depend upon whether one is basically committed to a Thomisticapproach. It is important to note, though, that even these attempts to maintainTrinitarian categories proceed from the assumption that Dunn’s analysis ofthe developing Christologies of the New Testament is basically correct. Inseeking to construct a Spirit Christology from below, these authors affirmDunn’s analysis of the New Testament but resist his modalistic conclusions.What significance would it have for them, however, if that analysis werechallenged, as it is in, for example, the work of Max Turner31 and GordonFee32? In our own study of the New Testament, we shall raise concerns aboutthe viability of even these configurations of Spirit Christology.

End of Excursus

30 DavidCoffey,Grace: TheGift of theHoly Spirit (Manly: Catholic Institute of Sydney, 1979), 119.31 Max Turner, ‘Jesus and the Spirit in Lucan Perspective’, Tyndale Bulletin 32 (1981), 3–42.32 Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, Mass.:

Hendrickson, 1994).


A Different Account of Theosis: John Zizioulas

As noted already, however, we must be careful of forcing all Orthodoxtheology of participation too tightly into the neo-Palamite pattern. Lossky,Meyendorff, and Stăniloae certainly conform to this account, but John Zizioulasavoids apophaticism and is troubled by the notion of a God beyond being, anon-participable essence of God. For Zizioulas, the internal reality of God isTrinitarian relationship and this forms the ground of a relational ontology ofdivine–human communion realized in the Eucharist, which is participation inthe body of Christ.Zizioulas’s Eucharistic theology merits further consideration here as one of

the most prominent theological contributions of the twentieth century andone consciously developed with respect to the New Testament. His argumentinvolves a ‘pneumatologically conditioned Christology’,33 in which the divin-ity of the Incarnate Christ is not constituted by the Spirit (as in some SpiritChristologies), but is fundamentally shaped or conditioned by the Spirit.There is no Christ without the Spirit, no resurrection without the Spirit, forthe Son always lives in the Spirit. The presence of the same Spirit in theChurch ensures communion between the members and Christ himself so thatthey are identified with one another: Christ is present ‘with his Church if not,quite simply, as his Church’. ‘Presence’ is, therefore, a key theme for Zizioulasand this leads to a notion of corporate personality: ‘the I of the Church isChrist’.34

[B]ecause of the involvement of the Holy Spirit in the economy, Christ is not justan individual, not ‘one’ but ‘many.’ This ‘corporate personality’ of Christ isimpossible to conceive without Pneumatology.35

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

33 Papanikolaou, Being with God, 34.34 John Zizioulas, ‘Implications Ecclésiologique De Deux Types De Pneumatologie’, in

J. J. Von Allmen and B. Bobrinskoy (eds), Communio Sanctorum: Mélanges Offerts à Jean-Jacques von Allmen (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1982), 144. Quoted and translated by Papanikolaou,Being with God, 35.

35 John Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (London:Darton, Longman and Todd, 1985), 130.


‘lets the future open the past to become present’.36 The identification of thechurch as the body of Christ is with his actual body, which has been raised,and is meaningful because of the Spirit, who ensures that believers participatein his corporate personality, his I, as his very members, in his presence. Quitedeliberately, Zizioulas traces Eucharistic consciousness back into the NewTestament and sees it as governing the Church’s understanding of God andof itself from the very beginnings of Christianity.37

Zizioulas’s account of participation is quite different from the accountoffered by Lossky and other neo-Palamites. This raises a very serious questionabout whether the term theosis can be used in the examination of the NewTestament without thoroughgoing definition. The term is sufficiently pliablethat it can be used of the very different accounts of Lossky and Zizioulas andthis means that it lacks descriptive precision. Instead, it serves as a means ofintegrating a number of elements that appear broadly across the tradition.These elements are shared with other traditions, where they are integrateddifferently, using different terminology. I would suggest that an account ofparticipation should recognize the problems associated with this syntheticterminology and focus instead on the range of elements that are integratedin the patristic accounts, to which we now turn.

PARTICIPATION AND DEIFICATIONIN THE PATRISTIC PERIOD

In a single chapter such as this, we will only be able to engage with the patristicmaterial in the briefest of ways. The important recent monograph by Russellon deification in the Greek patristic tradition38 provides a more thoroughdiscussion and presently constitutes the definitive treatment of the material.39

My own discussion will be heavily indebted to Russell’s study, particularly inrelation to the earlier theologians. Despite the brevity of the discussion,however, some key points will emerge in our distillation of Russell’s findingsand these will offer important resources for our discussion of the New

36 John Zizioulas, ‘Eucharistic Prayer and Life’, Emmanuel 81 (1981).37 See, for example, his article, ‘The Early Christian Community’ in Bernard Mcginn, Jean

Leclercq, and John Meyendorff, Christian Spirituality. Vol 1. Origins to the Twelfth Century(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 23–43.

38 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition.39 Russell develops and nuances the older study of Jules Gross, La Divinisation du Chrétien

d’après les Pères grecs: Contribution historique à la Doctrine de la Grâce (Paris: Gabalda et Cie,1938), now translated as The Divinization of the Christian According to the Greek Fathers.Translated [from the French] by Paul A. Onica; Introduced by Kerry S. Robichaux & PaulA. Onica (Anaheim, Calif.: A & C Press, 2002).


Testament as well as anticipating the cautions that must be brought to the useof theosis in describing Paul’s doctrine.The technical terminology associated with deification (theosis, theopoiēsis,

et cetera) and the configuration of this vocabulary in relation to MiddlePlatonic thought do not fully emerge prior to the Alexandrian writers Clementand Origen. Participatory ideas are, however, present in the tradition prior tothis. As has been the case with New Testament study, the older assumptionthat such participatory language reflected the influence of Hellenistic mysteryreligion or the development of Gnosticism has been largely displaced, not leastthrough an awareness that much of the language once regarded in such termscan be traced back into pre-Christian Judaism.40 While there is no questionthat all such thought was affected by Hellenism, that influence was brokeredthrough a Jewish matrix that altered all such factors in accordance with its (bythen)41 monotheistic concerns.What will emerge from the study of the Fathers is that many of the elements

that we identified in modern accounts of theosis also occur in their writings,but with greater fluidity of meaning and generally subordinated to the centraltheme of filiation. Christians have the status of ‘gods’ because they belong tothe family of the One God and commune with him. This corporate participa-tion is sacramental and is linked to the ontology of the incarnation: the realhumanity and real divinity of Christ make possible Christian participation inGod. Indeed, reflection on this incarnational ontology drives careful reflectionon the ontology of God himself, requiring ever more precision in describingindividuation within the Godhead. But it is only when we reach the Alexan-drian traditions of Clement and Origen that these elements begin to beclustered around the technical terminology of theosis.For the sake of space, some limits have been set on the writers with whom

we shall engage. Our discussion will begin with Justin Martyr and movethrough the Greek patristic period up to the Alexandrian tradition, concludingwith a brief examination of the Cappadocian Fathers. While we might havefruitfully examined other writers in the period of the Apostolic Fathers, theirdiscussions of participation are more diffuse and would have required exten-sive discussion for, arguably, less reward. Justin is an important starting pointfor our discussion, however, as the first of the Fathers to expound Psalm 82,which would become a proof-text for deification. At the other end, we have leftuntapped the rich vein of post-Cappadocian reflection, but only because thekey developments were already in place by the time of Cyril of Alexandria.

40 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 53–78, outlines some of the Jewish antecedents to thedoctrine. His treatment of the early Christian tradition reflects the growing subtlety with whichthe relationship to Hellenistic elements is treated.

41 Whether older forms of Israelite religion were monotheistic or not, the Judaism that isencountered in the Second Temple period is clearly so, even if some would argue that theexistence of divine mediators compromises this. See Chapter 4.


Justin Martyr42

Justin provides a window onto the caution with which the early Fathersregarded their cultural and philosophical context, reflecting their commitmentto the monotheistic categories of the Bible, but also their complex relationshipwith Judaism.43 In the Dialogue with Trypho, for example, where he touchesupon participation, Justin explicitly discounts Platonism and his reasons fordoing so are instructive. Fundamentally, he sees the affinity of the human toGod as moral, and not ontological: God alone is unbegotten and the humansoul has no power to see him unless empowered by God.44

But pray that, above all things, the gates of light may be opened to you; for thesethings cannot be perceived or understood by all, but only by the man to whomGod and His Christ have imparted wisdom. (Dial. 7).45

Elsewhere (Dial. 4), such wisdom is associated with the Spirit. Justin’spneumatology continues to be a controversial matter,46 but it is clear that hediscounts the possibility of human vision of God, or participation in him,based on ontological identity: ‘that which participates in anything is distinctfrom that which is participated in’ (Dial. 4). The ontological gap betweenhumans and God means that vision can only be effected by the Spirit.

Nevertheless, a certain universal revelation has taken place through thelimited general experience of the Logos as Logos spermatikos (‘sowing word’),who has given seeds of wisdom to pre-Christian thinkers (see, for example, 2Apol. 13), a grace seen in the work of the poets and philosophers. This diffuseexperience of the Logos, an idea derived from John 1:9, lays the foundations forlater considerations of the way in which all humans ‘share’ in the Logos, but itmust be treated with care, for Justin does not equate it with salvation. Trueknowledge of the full Logos requires knowledge of the Incarnate Christ (1 Apol.61; 2 Apol. 10) and this requires grace. Such grace is necessarily sacramental:the soul must be cleansed in baptism in order to be illuminated (Dial. 14), andthe knowledge received nurtured by the Eucharist.

42 For space, I pass over the participatory elements in Ignatius, as well as those in Valenti-nianism, which are important in relation to Justin’s thought. For this, see Russell, The Doctrine ofDeification, 92–6.

43 On the growing awareness of the complexity of that relationship, see Adam H. Becker andAnnette Yoshiko Reed (eds), The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquityand the Early Middle Ages (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003).

44 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 97.45 Translations of Justin are taken from Thomas B. Falls, Saint Justin Martyr: The First

Apology; The Second Apology; Dialogue with Trypho; Exhortation to the Greeks; Discourse tothe Greeks; The Monarchy or the Rule Of God (Washington: Catholic University of AmericaPress, 1948).

46 For a recent overview of the discussions, see Bogdan G. Bucur, ‘The Angelic Spirit in EarlyChristianity: Justin, the Martyr and Philosopher’, Journal of Religion 88 (2008), 190–208.


This sacramental emphasis is not magical, but christological: Justin’s refer-ence to the ‘laver of repentance and knowledge of God’ in Dial. 14 depictsChrist himself as the one by which believers are cleansed and identifies the riteof baptism with him: he is the Laver in which believers are washed. In somesense, then, Christ is present in the sacrament. He also understands theelements of the Eucharist not as common, but as the very body and blood ofJesus (1 Apol. 66), nourishing human flesh and blood by transmutation (ŒÆ�Æ��Æ�ºÅ�). Predating as it does the discussions of the substance and essenceof the two natures and later accounts of the bodily presence of Christ in theEucharist, the account must be treated with care. But it demonstrates thatJustin also saw Christ to be present in some sense in the Eucharist andconsidered this to be the reason for its efficacy in nurturing knowledge ofGod. Hence, Justin’s account of participation is grounded in a concept ofpersonal knowledge based on communion, substantially mediated by thesacraments.Justin is the first of the fathers to discuss Psalm 82:6, in Dialogue 124, where

he defends the claim that Christians are children of God. There he developswhat has already been argued in his preceding chapter, namely that Jesus is thetrue Israel (a claim defended by recourse to Isaiah 42:1–2) and that those whokeep his commandments have been begotten unto God. Taking up this themeof filiation in Dialogue 124, Justin discusses Psalm 82:6, exploiting a minordifference between two textual versions, that used by the Jews and that ‘of theseventy’.47 Justin applies the text to the Fall of Adam and Eve,48 embeddingPsalm 82 in the historical schema of recapitulation recognized to be at work inthe Martyr’s thought.49 He connects Psalm 82:6 with 1 John 3:1, which is

47 It is generally assumed that the contrast is between two different Greek versions, withJustin’s preferred text coming from a testimonial collection. The scholarship on this is extensive;Oskar Skarsaune, The Proof from Prophecy: A Study in Justin Martyr’s Proof-Text Tradition.Text-Type, Provenance, Theological Profile (Leiden: Brill, 1987), identifies a ‘recapitulation’collection and a ‘kerygma’ collection. Comments on Dial. 124 are found on page 188.A briefer account of his work is found in Oskar Skarsaune, ‘Justin and His Bible’, in Sara Parvisand Paul Foster (eds), Justin Martyr and His Worlds (Minneapolis, Minn: Fortress Press, 2007),53–76. See also Carl Mosser, ‘The Earliest Patristic Interpretations of Psalm 82, Jewish Antece-dents, and the Origin of Christian Deification’, Journal of Theological Studies 56 (2005), 30–74,whose work provides extensive bibliography on the matter.In fact, there is very little distinction between the versions of the quotation in Justin, but it may

be that he plays on the difference between �� (‘but you die like men’) in the version of the Jewsand � in Justin’s preferred version. The latter can be translated with temporal force: ‘now youdie like men’. Contextually this makes sense, but it may place too much weight on one possiblesense of � .

48 In fact, while Dial. 124 clearly progresses from 123, the shift of attention to Adam and Eveestablishes the trajectory for the next block of material, which presents Christ as present in thepost-Fall history of the Old Testament. Skarsaune believes this reflects a change to a differentsource text for Justin in Dial. 124.

49 See Mosser, ‘The Earliest Patristic Interpretations of Psalm 82’, 37–41.


quoted in Dial. 123,50 through the Johannine description of believers as ‘sons’.This connection is reinforced by the conflation of John 1:12 with Psalm 82:6 inDial. 124: ‘having power to become sons of the Highest’.Two points emerge from this. First, Justin’s discussion of Psalm 82:6 is not a

tendentious justification for a doctrine of deification, but rather an exegesis ofthe text of the Psalm that conforms to Jewish exegetical practices of the time,bringing together mutually informative texts and making much of the subtledifferences between text-types.51 Second, this exegesis is not intended todefend a concept of deification such as may be found in pagan or philosophicalliterature, but simply to support claims that Christians are now to be called‘sons of God’,52 inheriting the promises made to Israel. Deification is subor-dinated to this controlling metaphor of sonship. The sonship of believers isdeveloped with reference to the status of Israel as son of God and to thetransfer of that status to believers under the new covenant (a theme developedthroughout the Dialogue with Trypho, but notably in chapters 10 and 11).Their participation in God’s family, then, is understood in terms of the storyof God’s dealings with Israel and in relation to the covenants that structurethat story.

Bringing the discussion of Psalm 82 together with Justin’s discussion ofPlatonism, it is clear that his notion of ‘deification’ is one of communion withGod, understood in terms of the story of Israel, reaching its fulfilment in thechurch, validly understood to be the body of God’s children. It is alsodeveloped in Adamic categories, but Justin’s representation of the presenceof Christ throughout the Old Testament history does not allow for a neatAdam–Israel–Jesus model of recapitulation: Christ is identified with Godhimself, present with Israel, and eventually taking her name and responsi-bilities upon himself. This treatment of recapitulation will prove significant toour study of the New Testament: along with that of Irenaeus, Justin’s accountis quite different to the concept of recapitulation often imputed to the Fathersby New Testament scholars.

Irenaeus of Lyons

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

50 That 1 John 3:1 is indeed the verse being quoted is demonstrated by Russell, The Doctrine ofDeification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, 99, andMosser, ‘The Earliest Patristic Interpretationsof Psalm 82’, 40.

51 We will discuss these further in Chapter 4.52 I use this term, rather than ‘adoption’, in recognition of the specifically Pauline character of

the latter; filiation is more broadly attested in the New Testament and early Christian traditions.


Lord . . . because of his immeasurable love became what we are in order tomake us what he is.’53 The core of this formula would become more stronglydeveloped and sharply defined by Irenaeus’s successors, as would the details ofhis soteriological account. It is worth noting several key elements within this.First, Irenaeus’s doctrine of transformation is clearly developed in Trinitarian

terms, within which the Sonship of Jesus becomes the grounds for Christianadoption:

The Word of God became man, and He who is God’s Son became the Son of manto this end, [that man,] having been united with the Word of God and receivingadoption, might become a son of God.54

This reflects what we have seen already in Justin: there is a close link betweendeification and filiation and, indeed, it is the latter that is the controllingconcept. The dominance of filiation as a concept proceeds from the fact thatIrenaeus’s primary concern is to consider the character and purpose of theincarnation of the Son. The Spirit plays a vital role in this incarnational unionand this is important to Irenaeus precisely because of his counter-Gnosticaffirmation of the reality of Jesus’s humanity.55 The incarnation represents thefulfilment of creation, as flesh is empowered to true communion with God bythe Holy Spirit.56 This is not to neglect the pre-existence of the Logos, or toreduce the divinity of Christ to the Spirit’s presence, but neither is it to confinethe divine presence in the incarnation to the enfleshed Son. Rather, the Spirit ispresent with the enfleshed Son in the life of the Christ.This, of course, is part of Irenaeus’s doctrine of recapitulation, which is

often misunderstood and badly handled by biblical scholars, who represent itsimply in terms of Jesus’s recovery of what Adam lost.57 For Irenaeus, how-ever, the incarnation is not the divine reaction to human sin, but the patternafter which humanity is made and in which human history is reprised in itsredemption:

53 Adversus Haereses 5 (praef). Translation, Robert M. Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons (London:Routledge, 1997), 164.

54 AH 3.19.1. Translation, Dominic Unger, St Irenaeus of Lyons: Against the Heresies. Book 3.Translated and Annotated by Dominic J. Unger, OFM Cap, with an Introduction and FurtherRevisions by Irenaeus M. C. Steenberg (New York: Newman Press, 2012), 93.

55 Julie Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder: A Spiritual Theology of Ascent and Ascension (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 2010), 231–2.

56 AH 5.8.1. A similar configuration of the relationship between communion and Incarnationis found in his Proof of Apostolic Preaching, 31.

57 For example, Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 199–204. Although his outworkingof this approach is rather more subtle, Wright’s account of Adamic elements in Judaism and theNew Testament broadly corresponds to this. See Wright, The New Testament and the People ofGod, 259–79, noting the use of the term ‘recapitulation’ in the index, p. 530.


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

In other words, when man is made ‘according to the image of God’, the imageafter which he is patterned is the Incarnate Christ.

Second, the ‘Christ-like’ significance of Adam means that Irenaeus widelyapplies ‘glory’ language to humanity. Prior to Irenaeus, most of the occur-rences of glory language in the Fathers are specifically found in relation to thedivinity of Christ, grounded in a conviction that glory is properly a quality ofGod himself and that the descriptions of Christ as ‘glorious’ support claimsconcerning his essential divinity (see, for example,Dialogue with Trypho 65).59

With Irenaeus, in the context of his doctrine of recapitulation, the glory ofman is now given due attention. Strikingly, though, it is presented in relationalterms, as a property of God shared with man in communion. A quotationfrom Adversus haereses 4.14 will highlight this.

To follow the Savior is to share in salvation (participare est salutem), just as tofollow light is to receive light. Those who are in the light do not themselvesilluminate the light, but are illuminated and made splendid (illustrantor) by it.They supply nothing to it but receiving benefit are illumined by the light . . . tothose who follow and serve Him he provides life and imperishability and eternalglory, benefits to those who serve him because they serve him . . .He does notreceive benefit from them for he is perfect and without need . . . For while Godneeds nothing, man needs communion with God (homo indiget Dei commu-nione). This is the glory of man, to continue and remain permanently in God’sservice.60

It is important to note the emphasis on the ‘donated’ nature of the light: this isa property given to humanity, not one innate to it. Adam may have enjoyedsuch glory, but he enjoyed it as a gift, and this gift was a result of fellowshipwith God in service, made possible by the incarnation itself.

Third, Irenaeus frequently draws upon the Greek notion of ‘ascent’ inpresenting the redemptive restoration of glory. In Adversus haereses 5.36.2,for example, we read:

Such, say the presbyters, the disciples of the apostles, are the order and rhythm ofthose who are saved, as well as the degrees through which they progress: by theSpirit they will ascend to the Son, through the Son to the Father, when the Sonconcedes his work to the Father.61

58 AH 4.33.4. My translation.59 There are exceptions, of course, but most of these reflect close allusion to New Testament

texts, usually in relation to eschatological glorification.60 Translation Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons, 147. Latin annotation added.61 Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons, 185.


It is important to note the eschatological dimension to this in Irenaeus. In thevery next section of Adversus haereses, Irenaeus will speak of the eschatologicalresurrection. The various elements of Irenaeus’s scheme are also effectivelybrought together with such eschatological orientation in 5.2, where he writes:

Just as a cutting from the vine planted into the earth (�N� �c� ªB�; in terram) bearsfruit at the appointed time, or as an ear of wheat having fallen into the earth (�N��c� ªB�; in terram) and been broken down, rises with abundance by the Spirit ofGod, who contains all things, and then, through the wisdom of God, serves for theuse of men, and having received the Word of God, becomes the Eucharist, whichis the body and blood of Christ; so also our bodies, being fed by it, and placed inthe earth (�N� �c� ªB�; in terram), and broken down, shall rise at the appointedtime, the Word of God granting them resurrection to the glory of God, even theFather, who freely gives to this mortal immortality, and to this corruptibleincorruption.62

Hence, the Greek background to the concept of ascent is thoroughly reori-ented and the language itself taken into a new conceptual framework thatensures, by an emphasis on parousia, that the distinction between humanityand God is maintained. Irenaeus may use Greek terminology, with Platonicovertones, but his temporal schema and its incarnational mooring ensure thathe never compromises the divine uniqueness or loses his sense that theglorification of believers proceeds not from what they are in themselves butfrom what God is, and will be, in Christ.At the same time, as Russell rightly notes,63 Irenaeus, like Justin, under-

stands the eschaton to be inaugurated and the believer to know partialrealization of its properties: immortality and incorruption are even nowenjoyed by Christians, in their fellowship with the Incarnate God.Irenaeus also makes use of Psalm 82:6, at three points (3.6.1; 3.19.1; 4.38.4).

In drawing on the language of the Psalm, he freely speaks of Christians asgods. This requires to be understood in terms of his broader emphasis onontological monotheism: there is only one true God and Christians are godsonly in a derivative sense.64 As with Justin, the controlling image is that of thesonship of believers. In the case of Irenaeus, however, filiation is developedwith reference to Paul’s doctrine of adoption, the vocabulary of which heutilizes at Adversus haereses 3.19.1, and not the Johannine doctrine of sonshipthat Justin utilizes. The difference is significant, for it allows Irenaeus to morefully explore the analogical relationship between the Son and the sons. All ofthis has a bearing on how we understand the ‘exchange formula’ in Irenaeus,with which we began this section of our discussion. Mosser’s comments areworth quoting at length.

62 AH 5.2.3. My translation. 63 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 113.64 See Mary Ann Donovan, One Right Reading: A Guide to Irenaeus (Collegeville, Minn.:

Liturgical Pr, 1997), 68.


That Irenaeus did not intend fully to press the parallelism of statements like AH3.19.1 and 5 pref. is evident when one looks at his numerous variations of theformula (e.g. AH 3.10.2; 3.16.3; 3.17.1; 3.18.7; 3.20.2; 4.33.11; 4.38.1; 5.17.3) andhis explicit contrasts between the Word and believers (e.g. AH 3.8.2; 3.8.3). Thesepassages make clear that the exchange formula is an expression of Irenaeus’theology of recapitulation. It is concerned with the regaining of immortalityand the gift of incorruptibility brought about by the Word’s incarnation, death,and resurrection on humanity’s behalf (there is precedent for this in JustinMartyr, Dialogue 100.5–6). Scholars from across the theological spectrum agreethat Irenaeus and those who followed him in using the formula (e.g. Athanasius,De Inc. 54) did not intend to press the parallelism to the point of strict identitysuch that humans become divine in the same sense that the Word is God.65

Clement of Alexandria

It is in the Alexandrian tradition, particularly in the writings of Clement(c.150–c.215) and Origen (c.185–c.253), that we begin to find the explicitand positive use of philosophical, especially Platonic, categories and thewidespread use of the technical terminology associated with the doctrine oftheosis. As Russell notes, ‘The Platonizing intellectualist tradition of theAlexandrian Church was the product of its interaction with its cultural envir-onment.’66 That environment was one in which philosophy was well estab-lished and cherished, and very much a part of public life, with an open library,which provided Clement access to the writings of Philo,67 and a number ofschools in the city, including those of esoteric philosophers such as Hermetistsand Gnostics.68

Clement, then, wrote and taught in a charged intellectual environment.What is striking, then, is not so much the extent to which he adopts anddevelops Platonic and other philosophical or religious categories, but thecaution and reserve with which he does so. In his detailed analysis of Clem-ent’s vocabulary, for example, Russell notes the careful reservation of KŒŁ�Ø�Çøfor pejorative purpose: only once is this used for the correct ascription ofdivinity to the Christ as Creator (Strom 1.52.3), in all other cases being used forthe improper ascription of divinity to created things by pagans. Ł��Ø�ø,meanwhile, when applied to humans, is only used of Christians and isotherwise used by him only of the wrong ascription of divinity to inanimate

65 Mosser, ‘The Earliest Patristic Interpretations of Psalm 82’, 49, note 40.66 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 116.67 Clement’s debt to Philo is well established, even if the Jewish writer is seldom actually

quoted. See Eric Osborn, Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006),81–105. It is noteworthy that Osborn considers Clement’s use of Philo not to be mechanical.

68 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 115–19, provides an excellent survey of the Alexandriancontext.


things. Clement appears to choose this word precisely because it lacks suchassociations with human transformation in pagan philosophy. An interestingpoint, then, emerges: Clement uses the vocabulary of deification both posi-tively and pejoratively, demonstrating a sharp awareness that deification canbe a dangerous idea. At points, too, his descriptions of Christian deification arecarefully worded to emphasize its analogous character: ‘such a person becomesas it were a god instead of a man’ (x� K� I�Łæ��ı Ł�e� I��º�E�ÆØ, Strom7.95.1–2).69

For Clement, believers must become like God in their moral character. Thedeification of believers involves their approximation of the character of God bythe active imitation of Christ. This is not a matter of moral heroism, however:Clement distinguishes between the natural human virtue of self-control(�øçæ��Å) and the practical wisdom (çæ��Å�Ø�) that can only come fromimplanted divine knowledge (ª�ø�Ø� Ł��Æ�), revealed by Christ and governedby the rule of faith (Strom 6.125.4). Only by the latter can a true imitation ofChrist be realized. Baptism is a necessary part of this communication ofknowledge: ‘being baptised, we are illuminated; being illuminated we becomesons; being made sons, we become perfect; being perfect, we become immortal’(Paed 1.26.1).70 This reference to filiation, by now established as a consistenttheme in the patristic writings, is followed by a quotation of Psalm 82:6, thusfollowing the pattern that we have seen in Justin and Irenaeus. Clement alsoquotes Psalm 82:6 in Strom 2.125.4–5 and 4.149.8, highlighting the extent towhich this text influences early Christian theology of deification.71

As with his theological forerunners, Clement stresses the importance of theontology of the incarnation for the human possibility of assimilation to God.The heavenly citizenship of the Saviour is the grounds for human deification(Paed 1.98.3) and meditation upon his embodied incorruption is vital to theimitation that leads to deification. One remarkable expression employed byClement is that the incarnation is a ‘manifest mystery’. The significance of thislittle phrase is easily overlooked: that which is revealed bodily in Christ isrevealed also in those for whom Christ is the teacher.

It is a manifest mystery. God is in man, and man is a god, and the mediator fulfilsthe will of the Father. For the Logos common to both is a mediator, on one handSon of God and on the other Saviour of men, on one hand servant [of God], andon the other our pedagogue (Paed 3.1.2.1).72

69 Translation by Fenton John Anthony Hort and Joseph B. Mayor, Clement of Alexandria:Miscellanies Book VII: The Greek Text (London; New York: Macmillan and Co., 1902), 167.

70 My translation.71 The use of Psalm 82 is based on its own significance, and governed by exegesis of the Psalm

itself, and not the use to which it is put in John 10:34.72 Greek: �ı�� æØ� K�çÆ��· Ł�e� K� I�Łæ��øfi , ŒÆd › ¼�Łæø�� Ł��, ŒÆd �e Ł�ºÅ�Æ �F �Æ�æe�

› ��Å� KŒ��º�E· ��Å� ªaæ › º�ª� › ŒØ�e� I�çE�, Ł�F �b� ıƒ��, �ø�cæ �b I�Łæ��ø�, ŒÆd�F �b� �Ø�Œ��, ��H� �b �ÆØ�Æªøª��. My translation.


This is a dense and (perhaps deliberately) ambiguous statement, but it clearlyassociates the potential of the believer to attain to divine beauty with the unionof human nature and the Logos in the incarnation.73

This takes us to the heart of Clement’s strategic development of Platonicconceptuality. The adoption of the believer is made possible by the Son’sincarnation, considered by Clement in terms drawn from the High Priestlylanguage of Hebrews (Strom 2.134.2). This results in intimate fellowship withGod: the believer (designated by Clement with the term ‘gnostic’) ‘carries andis carried by’ God (Strom 7.82.2). Such fellowship leads to imitation of God,the attainment of divine likeness. There is a limited parallel to the Platonicemphasis that such likeness (and hence participation) is located in the nous(Strom 2.106.2). But, for Clement, such likeness also involves fleshly trans-formation: the believer’s flesh is clothed with Christ’s incorruption. This takesup the Pauline clothing metaphor, associated with baptism (Gal 3:27) andmortification (Col 3:5–10, cf. Eph 4:24) and ultimately with the eschatologicaltransformation of the body (1 Cor 15:53).74 Always, though, this centres onthe dynamic imitation of God, made possible by the incarnation.

Adamic elements are also present in Clement’s treatment of likeness, butthese are carefully developed. There is, for one thing, a distinction between‘image’ and ‘likeness’, the latter only attained in the approximation of moraland eschatological perfection (Strom 2.131.5). Second, the image ‘after’ whichAdam is originally patterned is the Logos. As Russell puts it: ‘man is an imageof the image’.75 This reflects what we have already seen in Irenaeus and whatI will argue to be the case in the New Testament, namely that the portrayal ofChrist as the image of God is precisely an identification of his embodieddivinity, and not primarily his restoration of that which Adam lost.

Origen of Alexandria

Like Clement, Origen is also influenced by and permeated with philosophicallanguage, particularly that of Plato, and much modern scholarship on Origenhas argued that he is so thoroughly shaped by this that his thought is irreconcil-able with the New Testament itself. Mark Edwards, however, has recentlychallenged this assumption,76 steadily demolishing the lines of argument typic-ally adduced and arguing that, if anything, Origen’s theology and intellectual

73 See the discussion of this section of Clement’s writings in Russell, The Doctrine of Deifica-tion, 127–8.

74 The range of New Testament allusion in the image is, therefore, much broader than simplyto 1 Cor 15:53. The image is broadly used in Paul.

75 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 135.76 M. J. Edwards, Origen against Plato (Aldershot; Burlington: Ashgate, 2002).


frameworks were more Jewish than Platonic,77 with a robust emphasis on thegoodness of the physical world. Even if Edwards’s arguments are not convincingat every point (although, to my knowledge, there has been no serious refutationto date), their general thrust is consistent with an emerging theme in thischapter: Hellenistic ideas are appropriated with caution by the Fathers.78

Origen’s theology has some strikingly subordinationist elements. Only theFather is ÆP�Ł��, with the Son’s divinity contingent on his participation inthe divinity of the Father. Famously, Origen argues that the absence of thearticle from Ł�� in John 1:1 reflects this contingency: only the Father is God inhimself and therefore designated by the article. Some caution needs to beexercised, though: the real issue that Origen considers here is contingency, andeven as he emphasizes the contingency of the Son upon the Father, so heemphasizes the contingency of human rationality, the logos of the individual,upon the Son, who is ÆP�º�ª�. The sharing of the specified quality makesparticipation possible, but contingency ensures distinction from that which isdivine and hence non-contingent.79

As with Clement, Origen emphasizes the place of contemplation in deifica-tion and this leads to some of the stronger points of commonality with theAlexandrian philosophical tradition. In contemplating the divine glory, know-ing and being known by God, the believer is conformed to the likeness ofGod.80 As Russell notes, Origen is more intellectualist than Clement indeveloping this, writing that ‘the nous that is purified is lifted above allmaterial realities so as to have a clear vision of God and it is deified by itsvision’ (Commentary on John 32:27). Consequently, ‘deification is more oftenparticipation in the eternal rather than the Incarnate Logos’.81

Origen offers an extensive set of reflections on the nature of participation.82

These reflections are examined in detail by Russell, whose discussion alsoprovides the key scholarly bibliography.83 For the sake of space, I will examinejust one key element of this, the fact that while maintaining some kind ofkinship between participant and participated, Origen appears to distinguishbetween natural and dynamic participation.84 The kinship involved in natural

77 Edwards, Origen against Plato, 12.78 Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition from Plato to Denys

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), xii.79 So Alois Grillmeier,Christ in Christian Tradition. Vol. 1, from the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon

(451) (Translated by John Bowden. 2nd revised edn. London; Atlanta: Mowbray; John Knox Press,1975), 141.

80 See Joseph Wilson Trigg, Origen (New York : Routledge, 1998), 233–40.81 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 144.82 In De Principiis and Commentary on John.83 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 147–52.84 See footnote 55 in The Doctrine of Deification, 147. Russell notes the scholarly discussions

of this distinction and the terminology used, favouring the terms ‘ontological’ and ‘dynamic’ forthe two kinds of participation.


participation does not compromise the distinction between participant andparticipated: the two must remain distinct for participation to take place(Princ. 2.6.6). This natural participation is really about the relationship ofthat which is contingent to that which is self-existent. ‘All creatures that exist(ƒ Z��) do so because they participate in Him who is (› þ�) . . .All that arerational are logikoi because they participate in the Logos.’85 This naturalparticipation, however, is limited: the Christian experiences a fuller dynamicparticipation of transformative filiation through the redemptive work of theTriune God. Such active participation is a dynamic and personal experience ofthe Logosmade possible by the Spirit’s pneumatizing work (Comm. John 1:28.Princ. 1:3–5), following baptism. It is, then, a participatory account that isdeveloped in Trinitarian terms, though, as noted already, with arguably lessof a focus upon the incarnation than is true in the other Fathers studied inthis chapter.

One final point may be noted in our discussion of Origen. It is here, for thefirst time in the Christian tradition, that we find 2 Peter 1:4 being quoted.86

This text, then, is neither encountered as an early proof-text for deification noras a key factor in its development. While it may reflect debates over theauthenticity of 2 Peter, this late use may also prompt us to ask whether 2Peter 1:4 exhibits the Hellenizing tendencies often ascribed to it. That thetradition said nothing about it until this stage suggests that it was regarded asneither a problem nor an opportunity for the development of Christiantheology.

Athanasius of Alexandria

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

85 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 148–9.86 C. Cels 3:37; Princ. 4.4.4; GCS v.355. 1–7; Hom. Lev. 4.4.87 E.g. in De Incarnatione 16, 54.3, C. Arianos 1:38, 1.48, 2.61.88 Connected to this is the acknowledgement that Athanasius’s use of theopoieō and theopoiēsis

is not confined to his description of Christian deification. He uses the terms frequently in ContraGentes as descriptions of the errors of paganism, the deification of people and other creatures. So,the terminology is not always encountered with positive meaning: some ‘deifications’ are wrong.


the result that he speaks negatively of deification.89 His critique of Arius,meanwhile, recognizes the need to precisely differentiate notions of deifica-tion. Arius appears to have portrayed the Logos as a creature, who becameGod only by a divinizing participation in the Father.90 For Athanasius,however, the necessary grounds of human participation in God is God’sown assumption of humanity. This requires the true divinity of the Logos,for only God can deify.91

Emerging from this polemical agenda, Athanasius primarily emphasizes thedeification of the body, through the union of human nature to God within theincarnation. This point needs careful handling, for there are subtleties inAthanasius’s account that can mislead us as we read his universalistic lan-guage, causing us to overlook the fact that, in fact, he maintains the patristicemphasis on salvation operating within the sacramentally defined church. Theapparent universalism emerges from Athanasius’s thoroughgoing reflectionon the significance of the union of Uncreated to created in the incarnation.This union is fundamental to the integrity of the entire created order: mooredto God in Christ, the created order is kept from being pulled to nothingness.

And the cause why the Word of God really came to created beings is trulywonderful, and shows that things should not have occurred otherwise than asthey are. For the nature of created things, having come into being from nothing, isunstable, and is weak and mortal when considered by itself . . .

. . .But being good, he governs and establishes the whole world through his Wordwho is himself God, in order that creation, illuminated by the leadership,providence, and ordering of the Word, may be able to remain firm, since it sharesin the Word who is truly from the Father and is aided by him to exist, and lest itsuffer what would happen, I mean a relapse into non-existence, if it were notprotected by the Word. (C. Gentes 3.41)92

This particular dimension of the incarnation underlies the cosmic role ofChrist, and Athanasius goes on to quote Colossians 1:15–18. It means that,in one sense, everything that exists partakes of the Word.But this requires us to recognize different kinds of participation in Athanasius’s

thought: he surely does not equate the participation of the non-human elem-ents of the cosmos in the Word with salvation. This is an important observa-tion, for Athanasius also identifies the specific component of creation that theLogos unites to himself, namely human nature. Distinct from all other createdbeing, human nature has been united to God in the incarnation and henceuniquely participates in the life of the Word. Related to this, a crucial

89 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 167–9. 90 C. Ar 1.9.91 C. Ar 2:69. Ep. Serap. 1.24.92 Translation, Robert Thompson, Athanasius: Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1971).


distinction is encountered in Athanasius between Christ as the �NŒ�� (image)andman asmade ŒÆ�� NŒ��Æ (according to the image). This is a distinction thatwe will note in our study of the biblical material and that is broadly paralleled inrabbinic treatments of Genesis 1:27. In Athanasius, it represents a developmentof Irenaeus’s treatment of the priority of the incarnation: man is madeaccording to the image of Christ. Again, however, such universal participationis not to be equated with salvation. This highlights the fact that Athanasius hasa complex understanding of participation, one that involves the Platonicelement of likeness but allows this to operate only in a very general way. Thedeification of the individual in salvation requires the personal appropriationachieved by faith and sacrament, the grace of adoption.

The distinction between the general or ontological participation of allhumanity in Christ and the particular dynamic experience of deification93 ishighlighted by the extent to which he uses the terminology in conjunctionwith other concepts. As Russell notes:

Adoption, renewal, salvation, sanctification, grace, transcendence, illumination,and vivification are all presented as equivalents to deification.94

The vocabulary is clearly transformative and by using it, Athanasius sets theexperience of deification by the Christian radically apart from the universalparticipation of humanity in Christ. Importantly, he does so in relational andcommunicative terms, a fact that is confirmed by the connection madebetween theopoiēsis and huiopoiēsis, between deification and adoption.

The sacraments are a vital part of this dynamic participation. Much of thetreatment of baptism occurs in the context of anti-Arian polemics, whereAthanasius is concerned to defend the uncreated divinity of the Son.95 In themidst of this, however, it is clear that the rite is considered to formalize thebeliever’s union to the Godhead (Contra Arianos 1.34). The naming of Father,Son, and Spirit is vital in this regard, and requires that all three are acknow-ledged to be divine and that each plays a distinctive role in that union. Bymeans of the Spirit, who actively unites believers to the Incarnate Logos, weare made partakers (��åØ) of Christ and of God (Ep. Serap 1:24). LikeOrigen, Athanasius employs 2 Peter 1:4 in relation to this specifically personalform of participation. The Eucharist, meanwhile, is presented as an anticipa-tory type of the eschatological banquet in the Festal Letters (Ep. fest 40).Participation in the meal has an unavoidably eschatological dimension, there-fore, but this is of an inaugurated kind. There is a real fellowship with theLogos, whose flesh nourishes the soul (Ep. fest 1:7). Again, the emphasis is

93 The terms of distinction are drawn from Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, as we havealready noted.

94 Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 177.95 C. Ar 1:34, 2:41; De Decr. 31; Ep. Ser 4:9.


firmly upon the notion of personal presence and on the dynamic concept of‘communication’, by which the properties of God are personally shared withhumans, even as he shares himself.96

One final point must be stressed in relation to Athanasius. The place of‘illumination’ in Russell’s list of apposed terms is important to note, reflectinga noetic or epistemic dimension of deification in Athanasius. Despite hisreorientation of deification towards ‘flesh’ and not ‘mind’, as in Origen,Athanasius maintains an awareness that human fallen-ness has resulted inperceptual incapacity.97 The natural mind is incapable of seeing reality;through assimilation to God in union with the Logos, however, the humancan ‘see and know realities’.98 This was true of humanity before the Fall and itis true of those re-united to the Logos in salvation. This makes possible truecontemplation of God, which is morally transformative. Again, then, looselyPlatonic concepts of participation based on moral likeness can be found inAthanasius, but these proceed from the underlying relational grounds forpersonal transformation.

Cyril of Alexandria

The last of the Fathers whose work shall be studied in some detail is Cyril ofAlexandria. Cyril’s theology is deeply indebted to that of Athanasius and isfirmly in continuity with it. Like Athanasius, and Origen before him, Cyril’saccount of participation is complex, with a general ontological dimension, bywhich all of creation participates in Christ, and a specific dynamic dimension,by which the believer participates in the fellowship of God. Again, his accountof participation proceeds from reflection upon the ontology of the incarnation,to which he brings a further level of sophistication with his insistence thatthere is but one subject of the actions of the divine and human natures of themediator, a theme that emerges widely in his responses to Nestorius and in hiscommentary on John (notably on 1:14). Interestingly, as Russell notes, thisemphasis on the single subject is vital to an account of participation thatdoes justice to the transformational and filiational elements of salvation

96 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, 172–3, 183–7 discussesAthanasius’s concepts of the communicatio idiomatum. We will return to this theme in ourdiscussion of the Reformed tradition.

97 Notably in C. Gen 2–3, where the breaking of fellowship with God is presented asdisrupting the personal communion with the Logos, by which we may contemplate God.Anticipating Augustine’s notion of the inward curve, Athanasius’s account presents humans asself-oriented, incapable of seeing God.

98 C. Gen 2. Note the discussion concerning the unity of Adamic accounts in Contra Gentesand De Incarnatione in Andrew Louth, ‘The Concept of the Soul in Athanasius’ Contra Gentes –De Incarnatione’, Studia Patristica Vol 13, Pt 2 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1975), 227–31; cf. hislater comments in Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition, 77, note 7.


(i.e. deification): the Nestorian alternative of an extrinsic incarnational unionresults in a simply moral or exemplarist soteriology.99

This raises an important set of questions about other such extrinsic ac-counts of the incarnation, such as the one that we have seen to be developed byDunn and advanced in some modern Christology. While certainly not Nes-torian in character, these, too, present the divinizing union as extrinsic to theperson of Jesus and, consequently, as exemplary for all Christian life. Can this,however, account for the transformational emphases that we will see in theNew Testament? Can it account for the Johannine or Pauline logic of filiation?Cyril’s answer, building on his theological predecessors, would be in thenegative. It is noteworthy, too, that Cyril’s accounts of Christian filiation,such as in his commentary on John 1:9.92–93, devote considerable space tothe relationship of continuity and fulfilment between the adoption of Israeland that of believers. This stands in a line of tradition that we have seen tostretch back to Justin Martyr.

Where Cyril distinctively develops Athanasius’s account of participation isin his understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit and the function of thesacraments, particularly the Eucharist, in the Christian experience of partici-pation. On the first of these, the Spirit’s role is crucially linked to the believer’sexperience of sonship, which is distinguished from (but contingent upon) thatof the Word. Where his sonship inheres within his being, that of the believer isa result of participation in the Holy Spirit by grace (Thesaurus 4, PG 75.45a).Cyril links participation in the Spirit with the image of the believer as a templein which the Spirit dwells. This may be seen in Thesaurus 13, PG, 75.225c,where the distinct character of the Word’s Sonship is again distinguished fromthat of the Christian, the latter only a son because he is indwelled by the Spirit.It may also be seen in Dialogues on the Trinity, where the divinity of the Spiritis defended on the grounds of biblical descriptions of Christians as ‘temples ofGod’ in which the Spirit dwells (1 Cor 6:19), and as ‘gods’ (Ps 82).

For we are temples of the real and subsistent Spirit. And it is through him that weare called ‘gods’, since by union with him we have become partakers of the divineand ineffable nature.100 But if the spirit who deifies us by his own agency isdifferent in kind from the divine nature and distinct from it in terms of substance,we have failed to attain our hope, having been adorned with splendours whichsomehow lead to nothing. For how are we gods and temples, as the Scriptures say,through the Spirit that is within us? For if he lacks being God, how can he endowothers with that name (Dial. VII, 639e–640b.).101

99 Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 199. 100 Cf. 2 Pet. 1:4.101 Translation, Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 194–5. Cf Georges Matthieu De Durand,

Dialogues sur la Trinité / Cyrille D’Alexandrie; Introd., Texte critique, Traduction et Notes parGeorges Matthieu de Durand (Sources Chrétiennes: No. 231, 237, 246: Paris: Éditions du Cerf,1976).


Cyril’s logic is simple. If Scripture refers to us as ‘temples’ because the Spiritdwells in us, that Spirit must be identified as God himself, since the temple is aplace of dwelling for God. That we are called ‘gods’ confirms this, for the agentof such deification cannot himself be divine in a derivative sense. While theunion of Logos and human nature that is internal to the incarnation is thegrounds for all human participation in God, then, it is the indwelling presenceof the Spirit that actualizes this. Interestingly, the more commonly found NewTestament image of the church as a singular corporate temple is not favouredby Cyril for his argument, perhaps because his focus is on the existentialtransformation of the individual.Cyril also provides a further set of reflections on the significance of the

sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, which are linked to the attainment ofmoral likeness to God by grace, the restoration of the divine image. TheEucharist is a vital part of the Christian’s experience of salvation, restoringman to incorruption (In Jo. 3:6.324c) precisely because of the presence of theLogos in it. The properties of the Logos are shared with or communicated tothose who participate in the sacrament and abstinence from the table results inseverance from that source of life. The emphasis of his account very muchfalls, then, on the presence of the Logos in the sacrament, on the force of thephrase ‘this is my body’, read in terms of the Johannine treatment of the fleshof Christ. As noted at various points already in this chapter, this does notentail a specific configuration of the mode of presence in the sacrament, of thekind that would characterize the Reformation debates, but an emphasis on thereality of that presence as a personal one. Again, the key to Cyril’s theology isthat the communication of the Son’s identity to the Christian is made a realityby the Spirit, by whom ‘a spiritual likeness to him’ is imprinted upon thebeliever (C. Nest 3:2). This likeness, dynamic and moral in quality, constitutesthe restored image of God. ‘For holiness and righteousness are superior toboth sin and decay. The Word of God includes us in this, for he makes uspartakers of the divine nature through the Spirit’ (C. Nest. 3:2).102

Beyond the Alexandrian Tradition: The Cappadocians

Had space allowed, a study of the subsequent developments of theologies ofparticipation or deification would have been valuable. By this stage, however,the key points have emerged and we need only make some brief comments onthe Cappadocian Fathers. The legacy of these men is prominent in subsequenttradition, particularly in the East, but their task was to refine and develop thoseelements that had already been established by their forerunners. Importantly,

102 Trans. Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 203.


they did so in a more openly Platonic fashion but, as we have seen, by the timeof the Cappadocian Fathers the use of Platonic conceptuality in Christiantheology was well established, if more cautiously deployed than often assumed.

The key element that is taken up in the Cappadocians is that of ‘likeness’through kinship. Gregory of Nazianzus, for example, makes explicit use ofPlato in his Oration 21, speaking of human assimilation to the divine, andGregory of Nyssa, influenced by Origen, speaks of the necessity of kinshipbetween the natures of participants and that in which they participate, hencethe importance of the imago Dei. But the Cappadocians are careful to maintainthe ontological distinction between God and the cosmos. One of the keyelements of their approach is an emphasis on the giftedness of divine–human communion. This communion does not proceed inevitably from therealization of an innate human quality, but by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Suchan emphasis emerges in Gregory of Nazianzus’s Five Orations103 but also quitestrikingly in Basil of Caesarea104 and Gregory of Nyssa, the latter seeminglytroubled by the boldness of the Nazianzen’s language and carefully modifyingthe Platonic dimension to Origen’s thought.105 What this means is that, whenthese writers speak of kinship and participation, they operate with concepts ofontological distinction that require notions of communication and commu-nion. This is not a matter of lexical distinctions between different words forparticipation,106 but of thoroughgoing differences of framework and concep-tuality. Recognizing this emphasis on communication allows us to see howthese theologians saw the incarnation to operate in relation to union ofbelievers with God. In uniting himself with full human nature, the Logosbrings that nature into the divine fellowship, into communion with the Spirit,by means of kinship. Hence Gregory Nazianzen’s famous statement: ‘theunassumed is the unhealed’.107

CONCLUSIONS

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

103 Notably, Orations 27–31. 104 De Spiritu Sancto, 9.23.105 See McGuckin, ‘The Strategic Adaptation of Deification in the Cappadocians’, in

Christensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature, 104–8.106 Much has been made of the distinction between koinōnia andmethexis, but, as we will see

in our study of Paul, the words are effectively used interchangeably, by the apostle at least. Theadoption of metousia by the Fathers, similarly, does not by itself indicate Platonic compromise,for the use of such vocabulary is governed by context.

107 Epistle 101.7.


who inherits not only a legacy of the traditions about deification but also amore developed legacy of discussion of the relationships within the Trinity,leading to a sophisticated integration of deification with concepts of perichor-esis. For our purposes, however, the key material is early and we are now in aposition to offer some initial conclusions, before we turn to examine theosis inits modern forms.As a general conclusion, as Kharlamov notes, deification is a peripheral

theme in the Fathers.108 It is present, but diffuse, and generally emerges inconnection with discussions of Christology or in debate with Judaism, on onehand, and Hellenistic culture, on the other. Each of these contexts willhighlight a further important point, which we will explore in reverse orderin the first three of the following set of conclusions.First, then, it is clear from the care taken to differentiate Christian partici-

pation fromHellenistic ideas of deification, whether religious or philosophical,that the representation of salvation in such terms does not reflect the surrep-titious influence of Hellenism, as often assumed. If anything, in Alexandria,where that influence was strong, the Fathers were most careful to distinguishtheir formulations from those of the philosophers. At the same time, the factthat the Fathers did not reject entirely the vocabulary of deification was morethan just an apologetic strategy: it suggests that they detected in the NewTestament elements that required to be articulated in their own context in suchterms. Always, though, the essential uniqueness of God is maintained. Thishas important implications for accounts of salvation, but also for accounts ofChristology. The assumption of an unwitting assimilation to Hellenisticthought has characterized developmental theories of Christology, such asthose of Bousset and, in the present, of Maurice Casey.109 While not entirelydisproved by the patristic evidence, such theories are rendered more difficultby the fact that, if anything, the non-Jewish Fathers were extremely careful intheir use of Hellenistic conceptuality, scrutinizing all elements in the light ofScripture.Second, Psalm 82 is the single most significant text for the development of a

theology of deification, and its earliest occurrences in Justin Martyr are in thecontext of polemical engagement with Judaism. The theme of filiation thatdominates that discussion is eschatological in character, reflecting the inclu-sion of Christians in the family of God following the incarnation, which isembedded by Justin in the narrative of Israel. A similar use is also encounteredin Irenaeus, but oriented towards the Pauline doctrine of adoption. In both

108 Vladimir Kharlamov, ‘Rhetorical Application of Theosis in Greek Patristic Theology’, inChristensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature, 116.

109 Maurice Casey, From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God: The Origins and Development of NewTestament Christology: The Edward Cadbury Lectures at the University of Birmingham, 1985–86(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991).


cases, what is striking is that the Psalm is read in terms of the biblical narrativeof the Fall and the election of Israel to sonship, with the significance of Jesusunderstood within this narrative as the fulfilment of God’s promises. Thetheme of covenant is prominent in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho in relation tothe story of Israel, read through the lens of the eschatological gift of Christ.The ‘deification’ that Jesus makes possible is the intimate communion of sonswith their heavenly father in the new covenant.

Third, this eschatological participation is located between the two events ofincarnation and parousia. The coordinated significance of these two eventsmeans that any Platonic conceptuality must be modified, as we noted in ourstudy of Irenaeus. The reality of human deification proceeds from the adop-tion of flesh by the Son, meaning that Christian participation is also bodily. Atthe same time, the transformation of believers prior to the parousia is onlypartial. This allows participation to be real but imperfect for the believer in thepresent time and, crucially, leaves space for the moral activity by whichlikeness to God is pursued. The sacraments play a vital role in this inauguratedeschatological existence, identifying the believer with the dead and risen Christ(baptism) and anticipating his return, while yet enjoying his presence (Eu-charist). In fact, by its eschatological orientation the Eucharist fundamentallyresists any notion of a fully realized, non-corporeal participation.

Fourth, the theme of ‘likeness’ that is so important to Platonism runsthrough the Christian traditions, but in the latter it is a complex concept,involving a general ontological participation in God’s condition of existenceand in the particular humanity of theWord made Flesh which must, neverthe-less, be distinguished from a dynamic participation of personal communionwith the enfleshed Word in the Spirit. The latter is that experienced by thebeliever and is associated with the restoration of the divine image throughmoral likeness to God and the knowledge that comes by revelation. When wehave considered the New Testament evidence, I will suggest that the emphasison the nous in specific Fathers reflects an emphasis on revealed wisdom in thebiblical material.

Fifth, all of the elements that we have just outlined come together not in theindividual, primarily, but in the church, as the body of Christ within whichGod is present. Two specific points may be highlighted within this. First,participation is sacramental, with baptism and the Eucharist demarcatingthe community of the God who is present in those sacraments. In additionto the social dimension of the sacraments, the consistent stress upon thesacraments means that this community is implicitly understood to be definedby the death and resurrection of Jesus, since these are clearly associated withthe sacraments in the biblical accounts (we will discuss this in Chapter 8). It isvital that we recognize this, as it provides an important corrective to theassumption that the interest in the ontology of the incarnation overshadowsthe narrative of Jesus’s death in patristic theologies of participation. There


were, of course, various patristic theories concerning the significance of Jesus’sdeath, but the centrality of the sacraments to their accounts of participationindicates that they assumed his death and resurrection, in some sense, to beevents of which they were participants. Our study of the New Testamentevidence in Chapter 8 will help to cast light upon this. Second, the morallikeness of the believer to God is manifest particularly in the practice of lovingfellowship within the sacramentally defined church.

Sixth, if we have already noted that doctrines of participation (or specificallydeification) emerge in connection with reflection upon the incarnation, wemust now make explicit that this entails reflection upon the ontology of theincarnation and of the Triune nature of God. This is not yet governed by thecareful formulations of later confessions, and at times the language used canbe troubling for those considering the Fathers through the lenses provided bythese. Nevertheless, we are clearly dealing with a developing Trinitarianism. Indealing with the economy of salvation as it is represented in Scripture, and thehuman experience of it, the Fathers cannot avoid speaking of the One Godusing individuated language, just as they cannot avoid reflection upon thedivine and human natures of the mediator.Seventh, given the more boldly Platonic orientation of modern Orthodox

accounts of theosis, and given the diversity that exists among these, I wouldsuggest that it is more valuable to the task of reading the New Testament todelineate those elements that are later synthesized by the Fathers than to usethe word itself. A delineation of this kind offers a more fruitful implementa-tion of Hays’s recommendation concerning the Fathers than does Gorman’srather vague use of theosis. This conclusion does not entail a rejection oftheosis as a valid construal of soteriology but, rather, a recognition that for thepurposes of describing the New Testament material, the word is both ‘under-determined’ and ‘over-determined’. It is under-determined in the sense thatthe terminology of theosis can be applied to a broad range of theologicalaccounts that vary in significant ways. As such, to apply the term to theNew Testament writers does not clarify anything unless a specific account ofthe word’s meaning (as it is deployed by the scholar) is provided. It is over-determined in the sense that the modern doctrine, with all its varieties, hascome to operate within a certain conceptual framework that may not bedirectly mapped onto that of the New Testament writers. That frameworkmay be valid as a theological structure, but once terminology is taken out ofthat framework and applied to writings that operate within a different intel-lectual culture, it becomes potentially misleading.Eighth, despite its development over time, the doctrine of theosis continues

to be true to the core concern of its Fathers to provide an account of divine–human communion that does not compromise the essential uniqueness ofGod. Gorman’s statement that ‘obedience is inherently a participation in thebeing—or at least the narrative identity (which implies of course the


essence)—of God’110 would be troubling to Lossky, Zizioulas, andMeyendorff,despite his intention to develop an account of Pauline soteriology basedaround theosis. This, illustrates the problem: if the word is used withoutsufficient reference to its theological advocates and their cautionary moves,it can lead to categorical errors in describing the nature of participation.

Ninth, despite these cautions concerning the word itself, the traditions oftheosis can draw attention to elements that may have been overlooked in somemodern theological traditions and, in part because of this, in biblical studies.Attention to other streams of historical and modern theology can attest totheir persistence in the church’s doctrine, however, and can highlight otherways by which they have been configured. To these we turn in the nextchapter, as we explore Reformed theologies of participation.

110 Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God, 93.


3

Participation in Lutheran andReformed Theology

This chapter involves a brief examination of the participatory elements in theProtestant tradition, particularly the Reformed tradition of Calvin and thosewho came after him (notably Barth) but also the pioneering theology ofLuther. As a general observation, these traditions are a valuable resource forthe reading of the New Testament. Where modern New Testament scholar-ship has often neglected the context provided by the wider canon to theinterpretation of particular books, the Reformers sought to be attentive tothe whole, as well as to the part. Moreover, against a common assumption,they did so without discarding the legacy of the medieval theological tradition,meaning that they provide for us a theologically informed reading of Scripture.In doing so, they bridge modern and pre-modern concerns for the treatmentof the Bible. This is not to overlook the potential problems associated withtheir reading of Scripture, including those driven by their polemical context,but to recognize that, treated with due caution, the legacy of the Reformedtradition may help us to read the New Testament. Several works in recentyears have been devoted to Calvin’s account of participation, in particular, andthese have drawn attention to the Scriptural interpretation behind this.1

Beyond these general observations, though, there are three reasons specificto the argument of this book that require us to examine the Lutheran andReformed traditions.First, we noted in Chapter 1 the argument of Douglas Campbell that

Protestant construals of justification by faith have skewed the reading ofthe New Testament in the academy, causing its participatory elements to beoverlooked. The early resistance in contemporary German scholarship to the

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

New Perspective on Paul2 and to the subjective reading of pistis Christou hassometimes been taken as evidence of the interpretative control exercised bythe Lutheran and Reformed traditions. In fact, we will see in this chapter thatthis is a misrepresentation of those traditions, which have coordinatedparticipation with justification.

Second, much of the recent interest in theosis has proceeded from theOrthodox–Lutheran dialogue that emerged in connection with the FinnishSchool of Luther, which has subsequently prompted further reflection onCalvin and the Reformed tradition. Locating the interest in theosis in relationto New Testament studies requires us to locate it also in relation to thesediscussions and to give some consideration to their merits.

Third, the participatory accounts emerging from the pistis Christou debateand from the ‘apocalyptic’ readings of Paul are openly influenced by Barthiantheology, although the mediating roles of Frei, on one hand, and Käsemann,on the other, result in quite some divergent outworkings of this. A sketch ofBarth’s treatment of participation is necessary, then, if we are to understandthese contributions and if we are to evaluate their value in the reading of Paul.A discussion of Barth needs to be set in the context of a wider study of theReformed tradition, however, and this provides further warrant for a moredetailed study of Calvin’s formative contributions, in particular.

As a brief aside, the theologies of both Calvin and Barth have been criticizedby advocates of the ‘Gift’ theology associated with Radical Orthodoxy, becauseof their allegedly deficient handling of the reciprocity of participation. Al-though an evaluation of such criticisms is not a major concern for our study,having been offered elsewhere by other scholars,3 some consideration of thesecriticisms will be important, allowing us to draw attention to the emphasisplaced on the human activity of faith in the Reformed tradition.

In the chapter that follows, then, we will briefly examine the participatoryelements in Luther, specifically those identified by the Finnish School. Whilethe argument that this is a species of theosis will be regarded as unconvincing,much of the value of the observations made by the Finnish School will beupheld. This will be followed by a discussion of Calvin’s doctrine of participa-tion, particularly in relation to his commentary on Romans, and by anexamination of the subsequent Reformed tradition. The covenantal dimensionof Calvin’s thought will emerge strongly in this and we will note the recentshift in scholarship on Reformed Scholasticism, which now upholds a greaterdegree of continuity between Calvin and his successors on this core issue.

2 In fact, the response to the New Perspective in German scholarship is now more mixed. See,for example, Michael Bachmann, Lutherische und neue Paulusperspektive: Beiträge zu einemSchlüsselproblem der gegenwärtigen exegetischen Diskussion (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005).

3 Throughout his study, Billings (Calvin, Participation, and the Gift) offers a thoroughgoingresponse to such critiques, based on a close reading of Calvin.


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

PARTICIPATION IN LUTHER

The upsurge in interest in theosis in biblical scholarship reflects, in part, theimpact of revisionist readings of Luther that had their roots in ecumenicaldiscussions between Lutheran and Russian Orthodox scholars in Finland inthe 1970s. The publications that gradually emerged from these discussions ledto the identification of a so-called ‘Finnish School of Luther’, associated inparticular with the figure of Tuomo Mannermaa.4 The findings of the FinnishSchool would come to influence the writings of key North American theolo-gians, notably Robert Jenson and Carl Braaten, and thereby play an importantrole in Evangelical–Orthodox dialogue in North America, particularly in the1990s, when significant formalizations of this ecumenism occurred.5 At theheart of the distinctive claims of the Finnish School is the proposal thatLuther’s doctrine of justification by faith is essentially a species of the doctrineof theosis.

Evidence for a Doctrine of Theosis in Luther

The claims that there is a doctrine of theosis in Luther centre on his accountsof justifying faith and of real presence in the sacraments. Mannermaa writes:

Central in Luther’s theology is that in faith the human being really participates byfaith in the person of Christ and in the divine life and the victory that is in it. Or,to say it the other way around: Christ gives his person to the human beingthrough the faith by which we grasp it. ‘Faith’ involves participation in Christ,in whom there is no sin, death, or curse.6

This participation in Christ’s ‘person’ is understood to effect an ontologicaltransformation in the believer: ‘the self-giving of God is realized when Christ

4 Mannermaa’s own study has now been translated into English. Tuomo Mannermaa, ChristPresent in Faith: Luther’s View of Justification (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005). For further bibliog-raphy of the early contributions to the Finnish School, see Mannermaa’s essay, ‘Why is Luther soFascinating?: Modern Finnish Research’, in Carl Edward Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (eds),Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans,1998), 1–20.

5 Bradley Nassif, ‘Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism: The Status of an Emerging GlobalDialogue’, Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 18 (2000), 21–55.

6 Mannermaa, ‘Justification and Theosis in Lutheran–Orthodox Perspective’, in Braaten andJenson (eds), Union with Christ, 32.

Participation in Lutheran and Reformed Theology 79

indwells the sinner through faith and thus unites himself with the sinner. Thismeans that the Christian receives salvation per Christum only under thecondition of unio cum Christo.’7

A certain set of texts tends to recur in the scholarship on theosis in Luther.One of these is the Christmas sermon of 1514, in which Luther states that ‘TheLogos puts on our form and pattern, our image and likeness, so that it mayclothe us with its image, its pattern, and its likeness’.8 For those in the FinnishSchool, this is effectively an echo of the deification maxim of Irenaeus andAthanasius. A further key text is Luther’s description of the Church’s bridalunion with Christ, in ‘The Freedom of a Christian’, in which he thoroughlydevelops the imagery of exchange as part of the implication of the biblicalimagery of the Church as bride. ‘The believing soul by means of the pledge ofits faith is free in Christ, its bridegroom, free from all sins, secure against deathand hell, and is endowed with the eternal righteousness, life and salvation ofChrist its bridegroom.’9

Faith is, of course, key to the understanding of Luther’s account of salvation.It is important that faith itself is a gift and not a work:

I assert that by my own reason or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ, myLord or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel,enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and preserved me in true faith, just ashe calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earthand preserves it in union with Jesus Christ in one faith.10

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

7 Simo Puera, ‘Christ as Favour and Gift (donum): The Challenge of Luther’s Understandingof Justification’, in Braaten and Jenson (eds), Union with Christ, 51.

8 The translation is Mannermaa’s, ‘Why is Luther so Fascinating?’, 11.9 M. Luther and T. G. Tappert, Selected Writings of Martin Luther (Minneapolis: Fortress

Press, 2007), 27–8.10 Theodore Gerhardt Tappert, The ‘Book of Concord’: The Confessions of the Evangelical

Lutheran Church (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 345.11 See the discussion in Jonathan Linman, ‘Martin Luther: “Little Christs for the World”;

Faith and Sacraments as Means to Theosis’, in Christensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers of theDivine Nature, 189–99, esp. 194–5.


sacrament and, hence, the reality of union with him in the receiving of thesacrament with faith.

Perishable food is transformed into the body which eats it; this food, however,transforms the person who eats it into what it is itself and makes him like itself,spiritual, alive and eternal.12

The issue that divided the various theologians was really that of the mode ofpresence of Christ in the sacrament and this, in turn, was shaped by thedivisions over the communicatio idiomatum. The Lutheran position saw thehuman nature of Christ as receiving omnipresence from its union with thedivine nature,13 while the Reformed position disavowed such a communi-cation of property as a mingling of the natures. ‘Properties of each nature maybe meaningfully and rightly applied to the person, but properties of the onenature may not be applied to the other.’14 More will be said below on Calvin’sunderstanding of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. At this stage, the keypoint is that there is an important common ground between Calvin andLuther in that the Eucharist is understood to be a real experience of commu-nion with the present Christ.

Evaluating the Case for Theosis in Luther

We began our discussion of theosis in the previous chapter with a discussion ofHallonsten’s concern about the confusion of themes and doctrines. It is veryspecifically the Finnish School and the revisionist accounts of Luther thatHallonsten has in view and his concerns are valid. There is little in Luther thatsuggests a Platonic framework of participation, even of the modified kind seenin contemporary Eastern theology. His use of ‘likeness’ and ‘clothing’ imageryin the Christmas sermon is, in fact, quite at odds with this: the Logos does notfacilitate the recovery of an innate divine likeness that has become warped, butclothes the believer in his likeness, which is, in effect, presented as a donatedalien reality, a gift extra nos. Moreover, this is the likeness of the Logos, not theIncarnate Christ, so we are not really dealing with a concept of recapitulationas it is found in Irenaeus. This is ‘exchange’ imagery, widely found in Christiantradition and, in Luther’s case at least, grounded on a different anthropological

12 Robert H. Fischer (ed.), Word and Sacrament III (Luther’s Works 37; Philadelphia:Muhlengerg Press, 1961), 100.

13 See the summary statement in Heinrich Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the EvangelicalLutheran Church (Vol. 3; Minneapolis: Augsburg Pub House, 1961), 331.

14 Stephen R. Holmes, ‘Reformed Varieties of the Communicatio Idiomatum’, in StephenHolmes and Murray Rae (eds), Person of Christ (London; New York: T & T Clark, 2005), 77,summarizing the account of the Reformed view in Turretin, Institutes of Elenchic Theology XIII,6–8.


account to that of theosis.15 A further problem is that this imagery is notmarried to a doctrine of contemplative ascent in Luther. This element is notfound in all contemporary configurations of theosis, but it is a broad charac-teristic of the doctrine. So, instead of a ‘doctrine’ of theosis, we appear toencounter a number of themes that can be traced more broadly through theChristian traditions that influenced Luther and that are subordinated to hiskey emphasis on faith. To speak of Luther’s theology as a variant of theosis isquite problematic, unless we are seeking to generalize the doctrine to the pointwhere all that is valued by contemporary Orthodox theology is sacrificed.

Nevertheless, the Finnish School has drawn attention to elements inLuther’s thought that have often been neglected and, particularly, the em-phasis on real presence and the connection between this and justification byfaith. Caricatures of Luther’s teaching, perhaps including those developedwithin the Lutheran or broader Evangelical traditions, tend to present hissoteriology and his understanding of faith as involving the apprehension andreception of the ‘benefits’ secured by Christ in his sacrificial death, particularlyforgiveness of sins. The Finnish School has reminded us, however, that Lutherdid not separate those benefits from Christ himself, that faith is a matter ofembrace, not acquisition, and that salvation involves union with Christ. As wewill see, what this means is that the Finnish School has drawn attention toelements in Luther’s thought that are closer to Calvin’s than has sometimesbeen recognized and that, indeed, Calvin’s theology provides a closer parallelto Luther’s than does theosis.

CALVIN AND PARTICIPATION

It is beyond doubt that union with Christ is a prominent theme in Calvin. Forsome, it is the ‘central dogma’ of his theology,16 but even for those who regard

15 See Reinhard Flogaus, Theosis bei Palamas und Luther: Ein Beitrag zum ökumenischenGespräch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997).

16 The debate concerning the centre of Calvin’s thought is a long one; some have seen divinesovereignty and (double) predestination as the centre of the theology, while others have ascribedsuch a place to union with Christ. See Charles Partee, ‘Calvin’s Central Dogma Again’, SixteenthCentury Journal 18 (1987), 191–9; Robert C. Doyle, ‘The Preaching of Repentance in JohnCalvin’, in P. T. O’Brien and D. G. Peterson (eds), God Who Is Rich in Mercy: Essays Presented toD. B. Knox (Homebush West: Anzea, 1986), 287–321. Interestingly, a number of studies in themid-twentieth century saw the knowledge of God as the centre of Calvin’s thought; seeT. H. L. Parker, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Rev. edn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1959). This is suggestive of some of the themes noted already in theological discussion concern-ing the epistemic significance of union with Christ. We will return to this point in our study ofthe New Testament. It must be noted, though, that the general consensus is that there is no singlecentral dogma for Calvin and that, rather, his thought is complex. For this point, madeparticularly with regard to the case for the centrality of predestination, see the various studies


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

The Duplex Gratia and the Unsundered Person of Christ

Although union with Christ is pervasive in Calvin, there are two themes, inparticular, that recur: the duplex gratia of justification and sanctification andthe duplex cognitio of knowledge of God and self.18 In both of these pairings,the elements are integrated by their mutual predication on Christ, a point thatwill be unpacked in our discussion of Calvin’s treatment of Romans 2:13(pp. 84–5, in this section). Most scholars see Calvin as largely successful inhis coordination of justification and sanctification, with the minority view ofArmstrong and others—that Calvin is marked by a fundamental dialecticaltension—not generally held to be convincing.19

Key to understanding Calvin’s duplex gratia is his thoroughgoing develop-ment and outworking of Augustinian anthropology, manifested in his em-phasis that justification takes place extra nos (‘outside us’) in the person of JesusChrist, whose perfect human obedience fulfils the conditionality of the coven-ant; this same righteousness found in Christ is located in nobis (‘in us’) whenwe apprehend him by faith. An extended quotation from the 1551 version ofCalvin’s commentary on Romans 3:21, reflecting his responses to Trent,highlights some of these elements and will allow us to explore them further.

in Richard A. Muller, Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in ReformedTheology from Calvin to Perkins (Durham, N.C.: Labyrinth Press, 1986).

17 Notably Muller, Christ and the Decree; Garcia, Life in Christ. See also DennisE. Tamburello, Union with Christ: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St. Bernard (Louisville:Westminster John Knox Press, 1994).

18 See Garcia, Life in Christ, 19. Contra Edward A. Dowey, The Knowledge of God in Calvin’sTheology (New York; London: Columbia University Press, 1952), who speaks of the twofoldknowledge in terms of God as Creator and Redeemer and sees this as the structuring principle ofCalvin’s thought.

19 Brian Armstrong, ‘Duplex Cognitio Dei, Or? The Problem and Relation of Structure, Formand Purpose in Calvin’s Theology’, in Elsie Anne Mckee and Brian G. Armstrong (eds), Probingthe Reformed Tradition: Historical Studies in Honor of Edward A. Dowey (Louisville: Westmin-ster John Knox, 1989), has argued for a dialectical tension of justification and sanctifiation inCalvin, developing the work of Dowey, cited at note 18. The approach is marginal to Calvinstudies, however. See Richard A. Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundationof a Theological Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 39–61, for discussion andbibliography.


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

Calvin’s concern here is with the concepts of justification and union as theyappeared in Tridentine formulations. These had employed union with Christas an organizing concept, though possibly in a mainly ecclesiastical sense,21

but had understood works performed in this union as meritorious. As Garcianotes, Calvin does not imply that there is an under-appreciation of union withChrist in the Tridentine theology, but rather that there is an insufficientChristocentrism in the account of justification, and that this proceeds from afailure to appreciate the totality of sin. ‘Presumably in Calvin’s view, Trent’sdefinition is still insufficiently Christocentric: justification is still not exclu-sively in Christ.’22

Calvin’s own account presents the whole of justification as taking placeexternal to ourselves, in the person of Jesus Christ. One of the key elementswithin this is his handling of the conditionality of Romans 2:13 within thelogic of the Epistle, which he appears to understand in terms of a thorough-going covenantal theology. The difficulties of accounting for this verse were asreal in Calvin’s day as they are in our own, but his reading took seriouslythe conditionality of the divine blessings there and saw Christ as fulfilling theconditions. Christ is righteous; in Christ, there is perfect fidelity to thecovenant, perfect righteousness on the part of both God and man. But thisextra nos covenant fidelity is communicated to, and possessed by, us when, bythe instrumentality of faith, we receive or apprehend Christ. That which isextra nos becomes in nobis. It is absolutely vital to the understanding of Calvinthat we recognize that this is not simply a matter of the naked imputation ofstatus, of a property of Christ being externally transferred to us. It is about theindwelling presence of the one who is Righteousness in himself. We do notreceive the benefits of Christ apart from receiving Christ himself. Hence,Calvin’s famous statement that ‘we do not, therefore, contemplate him outsideourselves from afar in order that his righteousness may be imputed to us but

20 The translation used here and throughout this chapter is that of The Epistles of Paul theApostle to the Romans and to the Thessalonians. Translated by Ross Mackenzie; editors DavidW. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1961).

21 Garcia, Life in Christ, 116. 22 Garcia, Life in Christ, 117.


because we put on Christ and are engrafted into his body—in short, because hedeigns to make us one with him’.23

Precisely this emphasis on the personal presence of Christ allows Calvin tohold justification and sanctification together. Because he sees this presence asreal (we will consider how the Spirit operates in relation to this in the nextsection: The Spirit, Ascent, and the Real Presence of Christ), it follows that‘those who imagine that Christ bestows free justification upon us withoutnewness of life shamefully rend Christ asunder’.24 Again, justification ‘is not asingle unaccompanied gift, for since we are clothed with the righteousness ofthe Son, we are reconciled to God and renewed by the power of the Spirit toholiness’.25 To be ‘under grace’ involves both elements of the duplex gratia.Calvin’s language in exploring the implications of this union for sanctifica-

tion emphasizes the radical transformation of the believer through ingraftinginto the person of Christ, resulting in a sharing of his nature as the one whohas died and is risen. In speaking of the reality of mortification and vivificationin Romans 6, for example, he considers the significance of the Pauline image,which is not used in this chapter, but appears to facilitate a proper understand-ing of the union described by the apostle:

In the grafting of trees, the graft draws its nourishment from the root, but retainsits own natural quality in the fruit which is eaten. In spiritual ingrafting, however,we not only derive the strength and sap of the life which flows from Christ, but wealso pass from our own nature into his.26

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

23 Institutes 3.11.10. The translation used here and throughout this chapter is Institutes of theChristian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeill. Translated by Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia:Westminster Press, 1960).

24 The comments open his study of Romans 6 in the Commentary on the Epistle to theRomans, 121.

25 Commenting on Romans 6:23. 26 Comm. Romans 6:5.27 Comm. Romans 6:5. 28 Institutes (1536 Ed.), 95, OS 1. 129.


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

The Spirit, Ascent, and the Real Presence of Christ

As hinted already, the Spirit plays a key role in this union for Calvin. Thisemerges throughout Calvin’s discussion of adoption, which is a primarycategory for his understanding of salvation, but also famously in his under-standing of the sacraments. This is a difficult area to treat in summary, since itis shot through with the contemporary debates concerning the relationshipbetween signa and res in the sacraments. Nevertheless, some key points mustbe noted. As highlighted above, Luther affirms the real presence of Christ inthe Eucharist and does so in terms of the corporeal presence of Christ, a viewto which Calvin does not subscribe, in part because it confuses the sacramentalsignum with the res it represents and, in doing so, involves a confusion ofessences.30 In addition, it is important to Calvin that the human existence ofChrist, including his body, was genuine, since the total redemption of ourhuman natures required a real human nature to be assumed by the Son in theincarnation. This, it hardly needs to be noted, also emerged in our previouschapter as a key concern in the Fathers. In the Reformed tradition, theoutworking of such a two-natures Christology entails a refusal to allow theproperties of one nature to be transferred to the other, but only to the singularperson of the mediator. Hence, the body of Christ cannot be renderedomnipresent by his divine nature and cannot, therefore, be present in thesacramental element.

Against Zwingli, however, Calvin affirms the reality of Christ’s presence inthe sacraments by distinguishing the mode of presence of Christ as Spiritual:the Spirit, as truly the Spirit of Christ, makes the feeding on Christ a reality andthe sacrament a true means of grace. Crucial to Calvin’s understanding is thatthe Spirit effectively causes us to ascend into the heavenly presence of Christ.31

This interpretation of the Supper is striking because, as we will see inChapter 4, it mirrors much of the conceptuality of worship in Second TempleJudaism, where the boundary of the heavenly and earthly realms is fluid andwhere earthly worshippers are understood to be present in the sanctuaryabove.32 Again, then, Calvin’s outworking of a sacramental theology of

29 This term is used extensively by Garcia, Life in Christ, in an attempt to define Calvin’stheology on this point.

30 Ronald S. Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament (Edinburgh: Oliverand Boyd, 1953).

31 Institutes 4.17.30. See also Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift, 136.32 Graham Ward, Cities of God (London: Routledge, 2000), 164, is critical of Calvin for his

spatial representation of participation, but he fails to acknowledge that Calvin’s account belongs


presence is more radical than many would expect. Against the Magdeburgians’accusation that he did not acknowledge the justifying significance of the sacra-ments, Calvin wrote: ‘We are not so raw as not to know that the sacraments,inasmuch as they are the helps of faith, also offer us righteousness in Christ.’33

With such a statement, Calvin places the sacraments alongside the preachedWord as means of grace, efficacious precisely because Christ is present in themby the Spirit.

Grace, Faith, and Adoption in Calvin

It is, perhaps, because of his concern to synthesize the external and internaldimensions of salvation, the legal and the transformative, that Calvin sofavours the image of adoption. This, of course, is a Pauline metaphor, andwe have already seen its development in the Fathers, within a broader trajec-tory of reflection upon filiation. Calvin’s treatment of it is sensitive to theessentially legal character of the Pauline metaphor, but not at the expense ofthe relational and personal dimension. Through Christ’s work, believers arelegally pardoned and, having been freed from their failure to meet the law’sdemands, ‘hear themselves called with fatherly gentleness by God’, a call thatthey follow eagerly.34 Through ingrafting into Christ, the believer becomes‘a son of God, an heir of heaven, a partaker in righteousness’.35 There is, then,no tension between the legal and the relational; righteousness is not merelyimputed, it is partaken.In fact, it is noteworthy that Calvin’s account of adoption coordinates two

concepts that are controversial in contemporary New Testament studies: right-eousness and faith. It is because believers are ‘ingrafted into Christ throughfaith’36 that they are adopted and, hence, partakers in righteousness. Justifica-tion and adoption are not identical here, but they are coordinated. A number ofscholars have begun to suggest that this account of adoption, attentive as it is tothe Pauline metaphor, may take forward the discussions of the New Perspectiveon Paul.37 We will return to this point in our discussion of Paul.

to a much bigger tradition of presence, one that is traceable through Judaism and that operatesprecisely by rendering dualisms permeable. Ward has also been rightly criticized by Billings,Calvin, Participation, and the Gift, Chapter 4, n.121, for failing to grasp the context of Calvin’sspatial language within his doctrine of accommodation and revelation.

33 Ultima Admonitio, CO 9.182. Translation is from Garcia, Life in Christ, 159.34 Institutes 3.19.5.35 Institutes 3.15.6.36 Institutes 3.15.6.37 Kevin J. Vanhoozer, ‘Wrighting the Wrongs of the Reformation? The State of the Union

with Christ in St. Paul and Protestant Soteriology’, in Richard B. Hays and Nicholas Perrin (eds),Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N. T. Wright (Downers Grove:IVP Academic, 2011), 235–59.


As noted at the beginning of our chapter, a number of theologiansassociated with Radical Orthodoxy and Gift Theology have criticized Calvinfor presenting salvation as a matter of passive reception of an imputedrighteousness.38 As a result of his nominalism, they argue, Calvin has lostthe truly participatory quality of previous Catholic theology, governed byThomas’s synthesis of patristic elements.39 By emphasizing the unilateralquality of the gift of salvation, Calvin has lost the place of reciprocity that isessential to true gift-giving, the truth that gifts evoke gifts.40 The elementsthat we have just outlined, however, demonstrate that Calvin’s account doesnot represent human involvement as passive, a point demonstrated ingreater detail by Todd Billings’s recent study of Calvin’s theology. Billingsrightly notes that the issue of nominalism cannot be allowed to determinein itself whether Calvin’s theology has an appropriately participatory di-mension and, indeed, that Thomistic theology cannot be assumed in ad-vance to be the only valid heir of the patristic legacy.41 In fact, Calvin’saccount of participation by Spirit and sacrament is redolent of that whichwe saw to be developed in the later Alexandrian tradition of Athanasius andCyril, differentiating appropriately between a natural or ontological partici-pation and a dynamic or personal one. Moreover, this Spiritual and sacra-mental emphasis leads him to emphasize the role of almsgiving and mercy,precisely as a negation of self-ishness.42 This negation of the natural self asnecessary for the resistance of evil and for the ministry of good—a movefounded upon a particular theological anthropology—is vital to Calvin’stheology: if it is demonstrated to be a valid reading of Paul, as I will laterargue, then Radical Orthodoxy and Gift theology cannot deny its importanceto true Christian ethics.

CALVIN AND LATER CALVINISM

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

38 For a thorough review of the literature, see Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift,1–14.

39 See, for example Milbank, ‘Alternative Protestantism’, 27–30.40 Stephen H. Webb, The Gifting God: A Trinitarian Ethics of Excess (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1996), esp. 95–8.41 Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift, 14.42 See Chapter 5 of Billings.


explicit and, indeed, more controlling in subsequent Calvinist scholarship asstreams would begin to emerge.A substantial body of scholarship has argued that the Calvinism that would

emerge after Calvin, particularly in the legacy of Reformed Scholasticism andthe Westminster Confession, was effectively incompatible with Calvin’s ownthought, with the covenantal emphasis of Calvin being mutated into a con-tractual federalist account that essentially locates justification as extrinsic tothe person of Christ and understands imputation of righteousness in externaltransactional terms. This scholarly argument, often referred to as ‘Calvinagainst the Calvinists’, is widely represented. Among those who have soughtto advance it are the brothers T. F. and J. B. Torrance, who have criticized thelegacy of such views particularly, though not exclusively, in the context ofScottish theology.43 Their arguments are valuable reminders of the participa-tory elements in Calvin’s thought and important correctives to accounts ofCalvin that over-emphasize the forensic dimension of his thought. Moreover,their contributions are particularly important to New Testament scholarshipfor two reasons that have already been noted in Chapter 1. First, the writingsof T. F. Torrance on the faith of Christ have been part of the debate concerningobjective and subjective understandings of pistis Christou and have, therefore,been more prominent in New Testament scholarship than may otherwise havebeen expected. Second, Douglas Campbell’s critique of justification by faith isopenly and crucially indebted to J. B. Torrance’s analysis of federal Calvinismin Scottish theology.44

These two key points of contact between the Torrance theology and biblicalstudies centre on a single (albeit complex) issue: the role of human faith in theprocess of salvation, particularly as this is construed in terms of covenanttheology. According to their view, Calvin broadly anticipated the later the-ology of Barth, locating justification within the incarnation, in the union ofGod and sinful humanity, and understanding this in terms of a unilateraldivine covenant of salvation, in which the activity of salvation is entirely adivine one. Later federal readings, however, understood the covenant as abilateral contract, within which human faith was required as the contractualcondition of salvation, and justification made external to the incarnation, inthe pact between Father and Son and the appropriation of the benefits ofChrist by the believing Christian. Such shifts took place under the influence ofthe Reformed Scholastic movement, as the native Hebraistic theology of theBible was pressed into the Aristotelian analytical categories of the medieval

43 Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ (Exeter: Paternoster, 1983), 57–8, but moreimportantly J. B. Torrance, ‘Covenant or Contract?’. For a more thorough discussion andcategorization of the scholarship, see Richard A. Muller, After Calvin: Studies in the Developmentof a Theological Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 63–80.

44 Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 14–15.


doctors, losing its attentiveness to the Hebrew categories at work in the biblicalwriters and hence further losing its true Christocentrism. Within this broadexplanation for the emergence of a federal covenant theology, two specificelements are highlighted: the rendering of the Hebrew word berit (covenant)with the Latin word foedus, thereby confusing the notion of a unilateralcovenant with a bilateral contract, and the development of the doctrine ofthe covenant of works, which informed the understanding of the covenant ofgrace. Although there was a dissenting tradition that sought to remain faithfulto the true doctrines of the Reformation and rejected such elements, this was atodds with a dominant scholasticism that would leave its mark in documentssuch as the Westminster Confession of Faith.

More recent scholarship on Calvin and post-Calvin Reformed theology haschallenged this reading, however. The most notable contributions are those ofRichard Muller,45 described by Donald McKim as the dominant voice in theassessment of the period after Calvin,46 but his work belongs to a broaderstream of scholarship that has brought careful methodological considerationto the study of this area.47 Those who belong to this reappraisal movementresist interpretations that they see to be anachronistic, as forcing later debatesback onto previous centuries, and argue that the Reformed Scholasticism thatarose after Calvin’s death was ‘a single but variegated Reformed tradition,bounded by a series of fairly uniform confessional concerns but quite diversein patterns of formulation—not two or more traditions, as is sometimesclaimed’.48 In other words, the existence of a singular historiographical fault-line between federal and non-federal Calvinisms cannot be maintained, andclaims to the contrary simultaneously fracture a coherent tradition and glossover more numerous and subtle distinctions. Noting further that scholasticismwas a ‘method rather than a particular theological or philosophical content’,49

and that this method essentially involved the ‘institutionalization of Protestantthought in its academies and universities, not the rise of a specific doctrinalperspective’,50 Muller highlights that the Reformed Scholastics variously re-sponded to new questions and concerns as they emerged in the process ofsystemization. The fact that they did so with reference to the medieval doctorsdoes not reflect a reversion to pre-Reformation categories, but a principledcommitment to the catholicity of the Church that is shared with Calvinhimself and is reflected also in his writings.

45 Particularly the studies published in After Calvin.46 Donald K. McKim, ‘Review: After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological

Tradition’, Theological Studies 66 (2005), 225–6.47 For other contributors to this stream, see the discussions throughout Muller, After Calvin,

and also the studies noted by Horton, Covenant and Salvation, p. 4, n.7.48 Muller, After Calvin, 8. 49 Muller, After Calvin, 16.50 Muller, After Calvin, 5.


Muller specifically deals with the question of covenant theology, highlight-ing the problems with those analyses that categorize theologians according totheir use of unilateral or bilateral covenant language.

It is clear that the early orthodox Reformed thinkers do not oblige the excessivelyneat categories of those modern historians who have claimed ‘tensions’ inReformed theology between a covenantal and a predestinarian model or betweenbilateral and unilateral definitions of covenant. Indeed, early synthesizers ofcovenantal theology such as Fenner, Rollock and Perkins held to clearly enunci-ated doctrines of predestination and often were able to fold both unilateral andbilateral definitions of covenant into their theologies.51

By contrast to those who argue that federalism represents a departure, Mulleroffers an examination of the federal theology of HermanWitsius andWilhelmà Brakel, both of whom advanced arguments for a pre-Fall covenant of works.In each, the covenant of works does not represent an alternative category tograce, but is itself a form of grace, with Adam and Eve resourced by God forobedience and the underlying idea of the covenant being divine presence. Setwithin the context of the eternal and predestining will of God, by which aLamb was appointed from eternity, the regulations of this covenant are not alegalistic means of salvation, but a necessary framework for divine–humanfellowship, the conditions of which are taken up by God himself in thecovenant of grace. As Witsius writes:

The covenant of grace is not [itself] the abolition, but rather the confirmation ofthe covenant of works, inasmuch as the Mediator has fulfilled all the conditions ofthat covenant.52

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

51 Muller, After Calvin, 13.52 Cited in Muller, After Calvin, 187. See also p. 179 for examples of reflection on Gen 15, and

God’s passing between the pieces as a core biblical image of divine responsibility for covenantfulfilment.


Lillback53 has traced such elements back into the writings of Calvin himselfand while it would be difficult to argue that Calvin had a developed doctrine ofa covenant of works, antecedents to this idea in the Reformed tradition appearto be found in his writings.

What this discussion highlights is that the attempts to seal Calvin off from thelater Reformed traditions is problematic and that, far from being conducted atsome remove from the biblical texts and the legacy of patristic theology, thedevelopment of later Federal Calvinism was driven by the pressures of biblicaltexts to account for how the conditional elements of covenant relate to theunconditional, even as Calvin grappledwith that question in relation to Romans 2.As a point of interest, and by contrast with the federal Calvinists, the neglect ofthis very element within the Bible and within later Jewish reflection is one of mychief criticisms of Douglas Campbell’s account of Pauline theology.54

The later Reformed traditions offer diverse accounts of covenantal theologyand, within these, of the place of union with Christ. It is worth noting thatsuch traditions have continued to develop up to the present time. Figures suchas Herman Bavinck are finally being paid the attention that they are due, a factthat reflects the fairly recent translation of his work into English.55 JohnMurray’s work is also beginning to register for biblical scholars56 and MichaelHorton’s more recent theological project has been developed in clear conver-sation with biblical scholarship.57 The significance of the reappraisal move-ment for the study of the Reformed traditions is that these contributions,rather than being set at odds with Calvin, are beginning to be acknowledged asstanding in continuity with his thought and method, even if his own voice isquite appropriately limited in significance within the tradition of the churchand next to the force of Scripture itself.

PARTICIPATION IN BARTH

As we saw in Chapter 1, one of the theological contributions that has left asignificant mark upon contemporary biblical studies, even if it is not always

53 Peter A. Lillback, The Binding of God: Calvin’s Role in the Development of CovenantTheology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001).

54 See Macaskill, ‘Review Article: The Deliverance of God’. In addition to the criticisms thatI have marshalled, Muller delivers a devastating semantic critique of the ‘covenant/contract’distinction, which highlights that the Calvinist theologians who used the word foedus used itprecisely as the equivalent of covenant. Muller, After Calvin, p. 258, n.89.

55 Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics (4 volumes. Edited by John Bolt, translated by JohnVriend. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003–8).

56 John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,1955). See Constantine Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 40–1.

57 See especially Horton, Covenant and Salvation.


recognized, is that of Karl Barth. The Swiss Reformed theologian left animportant body of theological study in the Church Dogmatics, one of thetowering contributions to theology in the modern period, as well as varioussmaller theological works and, famously, a commentary on Romans, the latterfirst published early in Barth’s career and providing a window onto a particu-lar stage of development of his theology.58 Barth’s theology was to have anenormous impact in its own right and would influence the work of keyscholars in the next generation, notably Eberhard Jüngel and T. F. Torrance.The latter, indeed, was the broker of Barth’s theology to many in the English-speaking world, through his involvement in the translation of the ChurchDogmatics. Much of the distinctive reflection of Barth on the question of unionwith Christ is both echoed and developed in Torrance’s writings, and import-ant monographs have emerged in recent years dealing with the handling ofthe topic in each.59 In addition to these theological scholars, though, Barth’swork was also influential on the biblical research of Brevard Childs and HansFrei, and through these figures it has left a deep imprint in some quartersof contemporary biblical studies. It also influenced Käsemann,60 though inless thoroughgoing fashion, and with Barth’s influence synthesized with thatof others.61

Union with Christ is an important topic in Barth but, as with everything inhis work, it is difficult to tease the strands out of the wider complex. Webster’scomment on the development of the doctrine of reconciliation in CD IVcaptures in nuce the challenges facing any reader of any part of Barth’sdogmatics:

[N]o section of the argument is discrete, each part simultaneously building uponand expanding the others (this is one reason why Church Dogmatics IV needs tobe read as a whole).62

58 Karl Barth, Der Römerbrief (2nd edn; Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1923). Several editionsof the commentary appeared, but this second edition represented a definitive development ofBarth’s theology.

59 Adam Neder, Participation in Christ: An Entry into Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics(Columbia Series in Reformed Theology; Louisville: Westminster John Knox 2009); Kye WonLee, Living in Union with Christ: The Practical Theology of Thomas F. Torrance (New York: PeterLang, 2003). See also Myk Habets, Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance (Ashgate NewCritical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies; Farnham; Aldershot; Burlington:Ashgate, 2009).

60 The influenced is acknowledged in Ernst Käsemann, Commentary on Romans (2nd edn;London: SCM Press, 1982).

61 As noted in Chapter 1, it is possible that the differences between Martyn and Hays on therelationship between Old Covenant and New reflect the different brokering of Barth’s theologyin each case. Martyn received Barth’s scholarship in large part via Käsemann, while Haysreceived it both directly and via Frei.

62 J. B. Webster, Barth (2nd edn; London; New York : Continuum, 2004), 115.


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

Revelation and Epistemic Union

As with his theological predecessors in the Reformed tradition, though atradical odds with many of his contemporaries, Barth emphasizes that trueknowledge of God is possible only in divine–human union: union and know-ledge, the latter involving revelation, are two sides of the same reality. His owndistinctive dogmatic location, however, involves a conviction that the identityof the Word can never be ‘a predicate of man, even of the man who speaks,hears and knows it in the sphere of the Church’.64 In fact, precisely thisdistinction between man and the Word affirms the possibility of a trueunion between one and other.

This emphasis extends to his representation of the incarnation, which is thekey event of union between God and humanity. Despite a broad indebtednessto Luther in the way that he speaks of the divine self-disclosure in the incar-nation as ‘indirect’, Barth draws more heavily upon the Reformed tradition indenying the penetration of the divine into the human in the doctrine of thecommunicatio idiomatum. ‘The flesh of Jesus Christ has not received theWord of God as one of its predicates.’65 This is consistent with Barth’semphasis on the distinction between Creator and creature, which is sustainedin terms of his equating of being and act; what it means is that the union that isinternal to the incarnation, as the event manifested in the union of humanbeings to God, is one of God’s free action in grace, an active personal presence.

Covenant and Election

Two interwoven elements in Barth’s thought need to be understood if hisdistinctive account of union is to be appreciated in terms of the relationship

63 Webster, Barth. 64 CD 1/1, 127. 65 Neder, Participation in Christ, 6.


between the incarnation and the subjective experience of other human beings:covenant and election. God’s relationship to humanity, indeed to the wholecreated world, is covenantal.

The fellowship which originally existed between God and man, which was thendisturbed and jeopardised, the purpose of which is now fulfilled in Jesus Christand in the work of reconciliation, we describe as the covenant.66

As Webster puts it: ‘covenant offers a way of talking about the orderedmutuality of God and humanity in which God elects a people to have theirbeing in obedient consent to their election’.67 This, as we have seen, is anelement found also in the teaching of Calvin and the subsequent Reformedtradition more broadly. Even Barth’s robustly Christocentric identification ofthe covenant, his stress that Christ ‘is the maintaining and accomplishing andfulfilling of the divine covenant as executed by God Himself ’,68 can be tracedback into Reformed thought.69 Because of his insistence on the immanence ofGod, the inseparability of God’s being and act, this account, in which Christhimself maintains the conditions of the covenant, allows Barth to stress thehumility of God in his presence with us as Emmanuel.The more distinctive move is Barth’s development of the covenant concept

of election. Here, the theologian knew that he was leaving ‘the framework oftheological tradition’70 but felt himself (with a measure of anxiety) to be‘driven irresistibly to reconstruction’.71 This pressure, for Barth, was exertedby the very doctrine of God: election is a part of this doctrine ‘becauseoriginally God’s election of man is a predestination not merely of man butof Himself ’.72 As Barth famously states, in the covenant ‘God is God in thisway and not in any other’,73 and election is at the heart of this. Barth’s radicalmove is to understand Christ as the Elect one and all humanity to be electedin him.

What happened was this, that under this name God Himself realized in time, andtherefore as an object of human perception, the self-giving of himself as theCovenant-partner of the people determined by Him from and to all eternity.74

The election of Christ, then, is both the ground and result of his life history.75

Because God chooses to be God exclusively within the covenant, from eternity,so his relationship with humanity is always covenantal. In all of his activity adextra, God is the Lord of the Covenant and, since nothing exists apart from hiscreative role, everything is dependent upon that covenant and nothing exists

66 CD IV/1, 22. 67 Webster, Barth, 119. 68 CD IV/1, 34.69 Cf. our discussion of the Reformed traditions. 70 Preface to CD II, x.71 Preface to CD II, x. 72 CD II/2, 3. 73 CD II/2, 6.74 CD II/2, 53. 75 Neder, Participation in Christ, 17.


apart from the elect mediator, Jesus. Hence, the existence and history ofhumanity is enclosed within Christ.

He is the beginning of God before which there is no other beginning apart fromthat of God within Himself. Except, then, for God Himself, nothing can derivefrom any other source or look back to any other starting-point. He is the electionof God before which and without which and beside which God cannot make anyother choice. Before Him and without Him and beside Him God does not, then,elect or will anything. And He is the election (and on that account the beginningand the decree and the Word) of the free grace of God. For it is God’s grace thatin Him elects to be man and to have dealings with man and to join Himselfto man.76

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

Twofold Participation in Christ

This leads to the twofold form of participation in Barth’s theology: there is anobjective de jure participation in Christ and a subjective de facto one,78 thelatter guaranteed by the former. This subjective participation, founded uponthe obedience of the Son in the incarnation, itself involves obedience to thedivine command so that ‘the law is completely enclosed in the gospel’.79

Importantly, such subjective participation is understood teleologically. It isthe purpose and inevitable goal of humanity’s election in Christ.

In relation to this, Barth considers the issue of justification. Justification isthe outworking of God’s righteousness, which means his ‘negating and over-coming and taking away and destroying wrong and man as the doer ofwrong’.80 This involves a crisis that cuts to the root of the sinner’s existence.81

Between the old condemned creature and the new is the justifying act of Godin the election of Christ, but because nothing in this is predicated on our oldbeing ‘there can be no self-experience of this drama’.82 Justification is hencethoroughly by faith, involving ‘the apprehensio Christi or habitatio Christi in

76 CD II/2, 94–5.77 CD III/2, 133. Note Webster’s discussion of how this christological move governs human

derivation and identity, in Webster, Barth, 102–5.78 The theme is developed throughout CD II/2. See the discussion in Neder, Participation in

Christ, 18.79 CD II/2, 557. See the discussion in Eberhard Jüngel, Karl Barth, a Theological Legacy (trans.

Garrett E. Paul. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986), 105–26.80 CD IV/1, 535. 81 CD IV/1, 541. 82 CD IV/1, 546.


nobis or unio hominis cum Christo that takes place in real faith according tothe teaching of Gal 2:20’.83 But this reality cannot be truly perceived by thehuman.Barth’s emphasis on the objective election of humanity in Christ has been

troubling for many, raising concerns of universalism, of a denigration of theacting subjecthood of believers and of a deficient Trinitarianism, lackingproper emphasis on the Spirit. Such fears may have been more robustly allayedhad he completed the Church Dogmatics, but even as it stands, the collectioncontains elements, notably in his accounts of sanctification and vocation inIV/2 and 3, that highlight the evocative element of atonement and the activeelement of covenant.84 As Webster notes, what is key about Barth’s treatmentof these is his emphasis upon Christ’s presence: the faithful activity of thebeliever is an outworking, a manifestation, of Christ’s own faithful presence.85

Still, it remains the case that his doctrine of election is openly acknowledged tobe a departure from all that has gone before and his doctrine of justification,therefore, unprecedented. This must be taken into account when it is broughtto bear on the exegesis of the New Testament, so that a modern innovation isnot projected onto Scripture carelessly.Before we leave Barth, it is important to recognize that underlying all his

accounts is a forceful yet subtle anthropological evaluation that emerges fromChristology rather than dictating it. The image of God in man is not simplydamaged or defaced by sin but utterly ‘annihilated’ (vernichtet),86 hence theimpossibility of a natural theology. The true image of God, which is the pointof contact for God’s Word, is ‘the rectitudo which through Christ is raised upfrom real death and thus restored or created anew’.87 There is, then, nopossibility of speaking of the image of God in relation to divine–humanparticipation apart from Christ, but that reality is a matter of eternal election,a matter that governed creation and dictates history. The closeness of this toNew Testament anthropology will be highlighted in Part 2.

CONCLUSIONS

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

83 CD I/I, 240. 84 See Webster, Barth, 129–30. 85 Webster, Barth, 123.86 CD I/I, 238. 87 CD I/I, 239.


with irreducibly forensic dimensions, and the human experience of these is nota matter of the remote transfer or imputation of status or credit, but of thepersonal presence of this Righteous One within his people. Certainly, thispresence is understood differently, with Calvin and Luther parting companyover the mode of presence in the sacraments, in particular. All, however, agreethat salvation is not a matter of receiving benefits secured by Christ, butreceiving Christ himself, and with him those benefits. This conclusion isappropriately reflected in the repeated insistence of theologians in this trad-ition that we must speak of participation as koinonia with Christ,88 as acommunion in which he remains a distinct personal presence.

As with the Fathers, this requires that all consideration of participation isdependent upon consideration of incarnational ontology, and the implicationsthat this has for divine ontology. By contrast with some of the early Fathersthat we studied in the previous chapter, the theologians considered hereinherit a fully developed Trinitarianism, within which the terms of individu-ation within the Godhead are clear. This becomes the basis for a hermeneuticof attention to the biblical texts, as they seek to identify the distinctive roles ofeach person of the Trinity and to comprehend (as far as possible) the human-ity and divinity of the Incarnate Son. Despite the centuries that separate themfrom the Fathers studied in Chapter 2, Luther and those in the Reformedtradition share a preoccupation with the questions that concern the realhumanity of Christ and how this relates to our experience of participation,particularly in the sacraments.

To these general conclusions, we may add five specific observations.First, while there have been efforts to ascribe a doctrine of theosis to each of

the principal theologians studied in this chapter, these fail to take seriously thedistinctive configuration of soteriology in each around union with Christ.Such studies have certainly highlighted the presence of transformationalelements in the writing of each scholar that are often overlooked, but theypress those elements into a system or framework that is alien to their context.

Second, and in particular, claims concerning theosis in these writers neglectthe covenantally determined, representational role that they ascribe to Christ.He is the mediator of the covenant, a role that requires both a narrative and anontology. The narrative in question is that of Israel and this is taken seriouslyby both Calvin and Barth: the Law is embraced within the gospel and God’sdealings with Israel are part of his redemptive electing work that is centred onthe Elect One. While there are important elements of continuity with thepatristic tradition, with its treatment of the story of Israel and its account ofthe ontology of the mediator, this emphasis on covenant adds a formal point

88 So, for example, Torrance, Persons in Communion.


of specificity that is arguably lacking (explicitly, at least) in the Greek Fathers,but that emerges from attentiveness to the story of Israel in Scripture.Third, the mediatorial role of Christ does not involve a diminution of the

Trinitarian dimension of participation, but rather a distinct configuration ofthe roles of Father, Son, and Spirit, with the role of the last, in particular,fundamentally determined in relation to the work of the Son. This point israther important in relation to the theosis discussion, since one of the criti-cisms of Western soteriology offered by proponents of theosis is its focus onthe mediatorial role of the Son.Fourth, in Luther and Calvin, despite their different conceptions ofmode of

presence, the sacraments are vital to participation and are regarded as effica-cious precisely because Christ is present in them. What emerges clearly inthese writers is a more developed reflection upon the way in which thesacraments represent Christ and, particularly, Christian participation in hisdeath and resurrection. As noted in the previous chapter, this is not absentfrom the Greek Fathers, but it is not worked out to the same extent as it is inthe Reformed tradition. We will note in Chapter 8 the evidence that this ideaof sacramental participation in the death of Christ is prominent in the NewTestament.Finally, Barth’s distinctive treatment of election, which inevitably affects

his rendering of the activity of faith, is quite consciously a departure fromthe tradition and is generated by his outworking of Christology rather than bythe reading of specific texts. Given that this is the case, some caution must beexercised in bringing to bear on the reading of the New Testament, particu-larly in relation to the activity of faith.


4

Exploring the Backgrounds to Unionwith Christ

Through the course of the previous chapters, various themes, matters, andvocabularies have arisen and recurred, either as driving issues in the interpret-ation of the New Testament, or as key points of background. The applicationof glory language to believers throughout the New Testament has driven thevarious accounts of deification in Christian theology, while itself being inter-preted according to the understanding of imago Dei and divine likenessoperative within a given theology or tradition. Inevitably, the depiction ofAdam in the Bible, and, in some cases, in Judaism more widely, has been afactor within this bigger complex of discussion. The word ‘mysticism’ and itscognates have also occurred repeatedly, as modern labels for the phenomenaobserved in the New Testament, and also in relation to the contexts ofChristian theologies of deification. As we noted in Chapter 1, much of thepioneering research into mysticism in the New Testament recognized that itwas quite different from the various species of Graeco-Roman mysticism,1 butthese scholars lacked the resources for the study of Jewish mysticism nowavailable to us following the discovery of the Qumran texts. We have alsonoted the significance attached to the concept and terminology of ‘covenant’,both in biblical studies, where alleged oppositions within ancient Judaism havedriven many influential studies and where a recovery of covenantal theologyhas been an important element in the New Perspective on Paul, and inhistorical theology, particularly within the Reformed tradition, where itforms the basis for some theologies of identification. Again, the resourcesprovided by the Qumran finds have changed the landscape somewhat, prob-lematizing accounts of Judaism premised on the differentiation betweenTorah-oriented and apocalyptic/mystical Judaism. Importantly, too, some ofthe treatments of the theme have operated with a sharp distinction betweencovenant and contract, thereby challenging certain forensic understandingsof justification; such distinctions have been important in the development

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

of certain participatory accounts labelled as ‘apocalyptic’. That last word, ofcourse, has itself surfaced repeatedly.This chapter and the next will explore the key biblical and non-biblical

backgrounds to these various issues: the question of the portrayal of Adam willbe largely deferred until the next chapter, while the present chapter will movethrough the other issues that we have just noted, as well as some furthermatters that need to be considered before we proceed to the study of the NewTestament. Our findings along the way will, in themselves, offer conclusionsthat are significant for the works of biblical and theological study discussed inChapters 1–3, while also laying the necessary foundations for our study of theNew Testament.

CORPORATE PERSONALITY AND IDENTITYFORMATION

By way of groundclearing, something needs to be said about the notion of‘corporate personality’. In 1936 H. Wheeler Robinson drew upon currenttheories concerning primitive psychology to argue that a number of keypassages in the Old Testament appear to suggest a phenomenon of ‘corporatepersonality’ whereby ‘the whole group, including its past, present, and futuremembers, might function as a single individual through any one of thosemembers conceived as representative of it’.2 Robinson maintained the con-ception of such corporate personality to be realistic: it is more than simply thepersonification of a group, but rather the group is ‘a real entity actualized in itsmembers’.3 Because the phenomenon is thoroughgoing, there can also befluidity of reference, allowing ‘rapid and unmarked transitions from the oneto the many, and from the many to the one’.4

Robinson’s article would have a significant impact on biblical scholarshipand was subsequently developed into a major monograph,5 but penetratingcriticisms were soon levelled against it. J. R. Porter highlighted the extent towhich the individual is held responsible in the covenantal law,6 a problematic

2 H. Wheeler Robinson, ‘The Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality’, pp. 49–62 inJohannes Hempel, Friedrich Stummer, and Paul Volz,Werden und Wesen des Alten Testaments:Vorträge gehalten auf der internationalen Tagung alttestamentlicher Forscher zu Göttingen vom4.–10. September 1935 (Berlin: Alfred Töpelmann, 1936). Quotation from p. 49.

3 Wheeler Robinson, ‘The Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality’, 50.4 Wheeler Robinson, ‘The Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality’, 50.5 H. Wheeler Robinson, Corporate Personality in Ancient Israel (2nd edn; Edinburgh: T & T

Clark, 1981).6 Joshua Roy Porter, ‘Legal Aspects of the Concept of Corporate Personality in the Old

Testament’, Vetus Testamentum 15 (1965), 361–80.

Exploring the Backgrounds to Union with Christ 101

phenomenon in relation to corporate personality, and J. W. Rogerson exposedambiguities in Robinson’s own usage that allowed imprecise slippage fromnotions of corporate responsibility to notions of psychical or social unity.7

Most significantly, though, the anthropological basis for Robinson’s theory layin the work of Lévy-Bruhl,8 in which it was argued that primitives could notdistinguish between objective and subjective experiences or between theindividual and the group; this work is no longer deemed acceptable byanthropologists, who see it as indiscriminately conflating widely differentcultures and phenomena.9

There are more modest and defensible versions of the corporate-identityapproach, however. Contemporary social-scientific approaches to the Bibletypically emphasize the greater social dimension of identity in the ancientMediterranean world, not least through specific applications of social-identitytheory.10 This stops some way short of confusing the individual and thegroup, especially at the psychological level, as Robinson’s theory did. But,while it has proven of benefit to our understanding of the social and corporateelements of the New Testament, the social-scientific approach cannot by itselfaccount for the language of the New Testament, such as that describing theincorporation of the believer into the death of Christ (e.g. Romans 6). A moredeveloped account of representation and identification is required to explainsuch language.

Although not primarily directed towards this issue, Joel Kaminsky hasrecently argued for the fundamentally corporate nature of the covenant.11

This provides theological and conceptual traction for the social and corporatedimensions of identity in the Bible and opens important lines of enquiry forour study of the New Testament. To this we now turn.

7 John W. Rogerson, ‘Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality: A Re-Examination’,Journal of Theological Studies 21 (1970), 1–16.

8 L. Lévy-Bruhl and L. A. Clare, Primitive Mentality (Oxford: Macmillan, 1923).9 Daniel G. Powers, Salvation through Participation: An Examination of the Notion of the

Believers’ Corporate Unity with Christ in Early Christian Soteriology (Leuven; Stirling, Va.:Peeters, 2001), 15.

10 The literature is substantial, but illustrative examples include Philip F. Esler, Conflictand Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul’s Letter (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003);Atsuhiro Asano, Community–Identity Construction in Galatians: Exegetical, Social–Anthro-pological, and Socio-Historical Studies (London; New York: T & T Clark, 2005); the collectionsof essays in Anselm Hagedorn et al. (eds), In Other Words: Essays on Social Science Methodsand the New Testament in Honor of (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007); BengtHolmberg and Mikael Winninge (eds), Identity Formation in the New Testament (Tübingen:Mohr Siebeck, 2008).

11 Joel S. Kaminsky, Corporate Responsibility in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: SheffieldAcademic Press, 1995).


THE HEBREW BIBLE AND THE COVENANT

The New Perspective on Paul, and the work of Richard Hays on narrativesubstructure and identity, have worked together in recent decades to ensure agreater appreciation for the way in which the story of Israel influences theconceptuality of the New Testament. There continue to be faultlines withinbiblical scholarship over the level and significance of diversity within SecondTemple Judaism, with debates over which Scriptures were held to be authori-tative (and in which form), what the ascription of such authority might entail,and how the different groups within Judaism understood themselves in rela-tion to divine covenant(s). But there is now a greater awareness in contem-porary scholarship that ownership of the stories of Israel is, to a significantextent, the central point of conflict and that covenantal themes dominate theissues, however they are to be resolved. As divided as the various groupswithin Judaism may have been, their division revolved around the question ofwho could truly claim to be Israel, to be the heirs of the stories told in thoseScriptures broadly acknowledged as such.12 The Scriptural background toNew Testament concepts of participation, as well as the developments ofthese in Jewish literature, is important to our study, then.

Covenant, Story, and Participation

At the heart of the Old Testament is the story of God’s dealings with aparticular people, Israel. That story is embedded into the story of mankindas a whole, through the early chapters of Genesis, and has its distinctivethemes of exodus and exile, narratival depictions of divine presence andabsence, respectively. The dealings of God with this people, and sometimeswith individuals from among that people, are typically covenantal: the divinefellowship is not unpredictable, but involves commitment and bond. But howdo the covenants of Scripture relate to one another? Is each a distinct covenantin its own right or is there some kind of meta-covenant? These are profoundly

12 The point is well illustrated by the discussions that have emerged from the Enoch seminar,since it first met in 2000 to discuss Gabriele Boccaccini’s thesis concerning a distinctive ‘EnochicJudaism’. Boccaccini developed this thesis in Gabriele Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis:The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids: WilliamB. Eerdmans, 1998). The Enoch Seminar provided a forum in which the thesis could be explored,with the key papers published as Gabriele Boccaccini et al., Enoch and Qumran Origins: NewLight on a Forgotten Connection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005) and Gabriele Boccaccini et al.,Enoch and the Mosaic Torah: The Evidence of Jubilees (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009). Furthervolumes have emerged, but these first two sets of proceedings highlight a wide recognition of thenear-ubiquitous importance of covenant to Second Temple Jewish identity and theology, witha broad acceptance of a core body of normative ‘Scripture’, even if that core was itself fluid intext type.


important questions for our reading of Paul, in particular, where somescholars have seen a pro-Abrahamic and anti-Mosaic covenant theology tobe operative, but they also require us to consider the structural significance ofcovenant imagery and its relevance to the new covenant of Jesus.

Since the pioneering work of David Noel Freedman, biblical scholars haverecognized that the covenants of the Old Testament (those between God andhumanity, at least)13 can be broadly divided into two categories, modelled oncontemporary treaties of the ancient world.14 There are, first, covenants inwhich God imposes terms and stipulations upon the human party and re-quires compliance of them, as in the Sinai covenant, a breach of which leads tothe enactment of curses (e.g. Deut 27–30, played out in the narratives of theDeuteronomic history). Second, there are covenants in which the roles arereversed, with God taking the conditions upon himself. The covenant withAbraham is an example of this: God himself passes between the pieces of theanimals in Genesis 15 and thereby symbolically takes responsibility for themaintenance of the covenant. Although a few voices oppose this classification,arguing for the recognition of bilateral covenants,15 most acknowledge that thebiblical covenants can be divided into these categories, with the singularexception of the new covenant, which requires further consideration.16

The most extensive recent research into the character of ancient covenantshas highlighted that they were inescapably contractual and legal in characterand, indeed, that their usage in the Bible reflects this.17 Moreover, thisdimension is not diminished by the acknowledgement that the covenantsbetween God and Israel are unilateral or, at least, asymmetrical. God is thesuzerain in such covenants, whether he imposes the covenant conditions onIsrael or takes them upon himself, but in no case are conditions omitted fromthe covenant itself, for a covenant is by nature a conditional contract. Vitally,though, such contracts are relational in character. Frank Moore Cross hashighlighted the original connection between covenant and kinship18 and while

13 The word covenant is not confined to this relationship. It also covers human–humanrelationships. These are not in view in the discussion that follows.

14 David Noel Freedman, ‘Divine Commitment and Human Obligation, the CovenantTheme’, Interpretation 18 (1964), 419–31.

15 Notably Gary N. Knoppers, ‘Ancient near Eastern Royal Grants and the Davidic Covenant:A Parallel?’ Journal of the American Oriental Society 116 (1996), 670–97.

16 For an overview of the discussion, see the recent article by David Noel Freedman and DavidMiano, ‘People of the New Covenant’, in Stanley Porter and Jacqueline De Roo (eds), TheConcept of the Covenant in the Second Temple Period (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 7–26.

17 See George Wesley Buchanan, Biblical and Theological Insights from Ancient and ModernCivil Law (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Pr, 1992), esp 74–82 and his more recent article,G. W. Buchanan, ‘The Covenant in Legal Context’, in Porter and De Roo (eds), Concept of theCovenant in the Second Temple Period, 27–52.

18 See his essay ‘Kinship and Covenant in Ancient Israel’, in Frank Moore Cross, From Epic toCanon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,1998), 3–21.


this cannot accommodate all dimensions of the covenant concept in Scripture,it is an important underlying idea that reinforces the social dimension ofcovenant, the extent to which it binds the human covenant partners to oneanother as well as to God.19 It also centralizes the specific relational concept of‘adoption’ to covenant: chosen by Yahweh, Israel becomesGod’s son (Ex 4:22–3).The language of adoption, then, which we have seen to characterize both patristicand Reformed accounts of deification, has strong ties to covenant.

This is significant for the biblical and theological task. We cannot developan account of reconciliation or participation that is premised upon a biblical(or Hebrew) distinction between ‘covenant’ and ‘contract’ or between unilat-eral and bilateral covenants,20 and we cannot offer a reading of Judaism thatignores the conditioned dimension of God’s covenant-framed relationshipwith Israel.21 This, however, does not require us to adopt a merit-basedaccount of salvation. There are, as we will see, biblical resources that allowus to see God as the one solely responsible for salvation within the terms ofthis contractual framework and these have been mined in some theologicaltraditions.The first covenant explicitly designated as such in Scripture is that between

God and Noah.22 The key passage in which this covenant is developed isGenesis 9, but it is anticipated in Genesis 6:18 (‘But I will establish mycovenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, yourwife, and your sons’ wives with you’), so that both the flood itself and thedeliverance of Noah and his family from that destruction are taken into thecovenantal account. The Noachic covenant is, of course, made with the solesurvivors of the Flood and, therefore, with humanity as a whole, not just aparticular family or tribe within a broader race (as with the Abrahamic). Thishas been a significant element in later discussion of the covenant in Jewish andChristian tradition, particularly as it relates to the legal expectations placedupon non-Jewish worshippers of God. In fact, the covenant is extended to allwho come out of the ark, not just the humans: it is with ‘all life’ (9:9–11).Interestingly, the promise of this covenant is linked to the fact that the flood

has purged the earth of the violence with which it was filled by ‘flesh’ (6:12–13).The problem of violence originates in ‘flesh’ and is resolved by the destruction

19 For an exploration of the theme and provocative consideration of its implications for NewTestament study, see Scott Hahn, Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillmentof God’s Saving Promises (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

20 See the discussion of this in Chapter 3.21 As, notably, does Campbell, The Deliverance of God.22 Although there has been much discussion in the Reformed tradition in particular about

whether God’s relationship to the first couple should be understood in terms of an Adamic‘covenant of works’, distinguished from the covenant(s) of redemption, the identification of thisas a ‘derivative doctrine’ (and not an explicit element of Scripture itself) by its advocates allows usto bypass the issue here. I will, however, discuss an interesting parallel to this in the presentationof Adam in Jubilees, later in this chapter.


of that flesh. The subsequent narrative, of course, makes clear that the problemof sin continues, but this way of understanding salvation as the destruction ofevil flesh is developed in the New Testament and in Jewish traditions.23 Both,importantly, treat the Flood as the prototypical judgement. Clearly, the cov-enant falls into the category of covenant in which terms are imposed upon thehuman party (Gen 9:2–7), with the promise of a ‘reckoning’24 for those whobreak its stipulations. At the same time, the sign of the covenant, the rainbow,serves as a reminder to God (Gen 9:12–16) that he has made the covenant: heis the one who is to remember the covenant and his commitment to life.

The second major covenant is made with Abram/Abraham. While antici-pated in the promise given to Abram in Genesis 12:2–3, where the commit-ment of God to bless the world through him is stated, the key chaptersconcerning this covenant are Genesis 15 and 17. The first of these involvesthe covenant ceremony itself, within which Yahweh, in the form of a smokingbrazier and torch, passes between the divided pieces of the animals, symbolic-ally taking the responsibility for the covenant upon himself. The symbolism isgenerally understood to depict the willingness on the part of the one passingbetween the pieces to suffer the curses incurred by the breaking of thecovenant.25 The covenant of Genesis 15 is pronounced without any conditionsbeing placed on Abram, involving only the divine commitment to bless Abramwith offspring and the family with the land. In Genesis 17, these sameelements are taken up (Gen 17:6–8), but now requirements are placed onAbraham, newly designated the father of many (Gen 17:5). Specifically,Abraham is required to keep the covenant by circumcision (Gen 17:9–14).This is not an isolated requirement, for Abraham is also expected to walkblamelessly before God as his servant. Taken together, these two chaptershighlight that a single covenant can be presented in terms of both categories ofcovenant and that the two categories can be interconnected.26

The Abrahamic covenant is, by narrative means, linked to the Sinai coven-ant. The covenant pronouncement of Genesis 15 anticipates the Exodus (Gen15:13–16), and God’s dealings with his people in Israel and in the Exodus aregoverned by the memory of this covenant (Ex 2:24, 3:6, 3:15–16, 6:8, Deut 9:5,29:13, 30:20, among others). The Sinai covenant is thus presented as anoutworking of the Abrahamic covenant, consequential to God’s unconditional

23 Notably, The Book of the Watchers, 9–16, and 1 Peter.24 This is the significance attached to the verb שרד here, as reflected in most translations.25 Freedman, ‘Divine Commitment and Human Obligation’, 171–3; Norbert Lohfink, Die

Landverheissung als Eid: Eine Studie zu Gn 15 (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1967),11–23. See also Delbert R. Hillers, Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea (Baltimore: JohnHopkins Pr, 1969), 102–3.

26 It is noteworthy that the divine promise comes first, however, a point neatly captured inBarth’s statement that ‘the law is completely enclosed in the gospel’ (CD II/2). See our discussionin Chapter 3.


promises to the nation’s father. By contrast to Genesis 15 and the limitedconditions of Gen 17, however, the Sinai covenant is characterized by theextensive set of laws that is imposed on Israel. Obedience or disobedience tothese laws lead respectively to blessing or curse (Deuteronomy 27–8). At thecentre of both covenants, though, and at the centre of the blessings attendantupon them, is the presence of God with his people: ‘I will be your God’ (Gen17:8; Ex 20:2).The fact that there is such strong connection between the two covenants,

while also such strong dissimilarity at the level of conditionality, creates aninterpretative pressure for readers: how does the unconditional commitmentof God to Abraham relate to the conditional character of the Sinai covenant?Does one require to be subordinated to the other? Do we see a dialectic tensionbetween them? This is the very issue explored by Francis Watson in his studyof Paul’s reading of the Pentateuch,27 and even if we do not agree with hisfindings—that Paul reads the covenants in tension and exploits this in hisaccount of the centrality of faith—his recognition that Jewish reading of thePentateuch exhibited a diversity of resolutions of this issue is an importantone. Moreover, the fact that this pressure was clearly felt by others in theSecond Temple period (a fact attested by Watson’s study of the pesher toHabakkuk28) reminds us that attempts to untangle the relationship betweenthe covenants by recourse to redaction and tradition history, in the context ofthe developmental history of the Old Testament, do not mitigate the inter-pretative pressure felt by readers in the late Second Temple period.The fourth major covenant of the Old Testament is that between God and

David. There is some debate over whether this should be seen as originallyconditional or unconditional, with contrastive emphases in 2 Sam 7:11–16 and1 Kings 2:4. Freedman and Miano note that ‘[t]he most prevalent view held byscholars today is that the Davidic covenant was originally seen as an uncondi-tional covenant of divine commitment but, after the fall of the kingdom, thepromise was reworked and put under condition to explain what happened tothe nation’.29 From the time of the exile, then, at least, the Davidic covenantwas understood to be conditional.The Davidic covenant itself has some important links back to Sinai and to

the Abraham covenant. Narrativally, it is set in relation to the Exodus account(2 Sam 7:6) and recalls the blessings promised there, recapitulating those madeto Abraham concerning possession of the land and peace from enemies (2 Sam7:10–11). It is also, again, very much concerned with the presence of Godwith Israel, now considered in relation to the ‘dwelling’ place of God’s ‘house’(2 Sam 7:6, 13). The play on the word ‘house’ in the passage (2 Sam 7:11,13),its dual connotation of temple and dynasty, allows for a close connection to be

27 Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith. 28 1QpHab.29 Freedman and Miano, ‘People of the New Covenant’, 13.


established between the Davidic rule and the presence of God in the temple,with his people. Such is the centrality of this theme of presence to all of thecovenants that the association between God’s house and David’s house effect-ively ensures that the covenants are integrated around the role of the Davidicking. This king, anointed as Messiah, is depicted as God’s son in 2 Sam 7:14,with a promise (or anticipation) of punishment for wrongdoing sitting along-side a statement of God’s unconditional commitment to love him and toestablish the Davidic line forever.30

This forms part of the conceptual backdrop to messianism, a controversialissue with which we will engage later in the chapter. The adoption of thenation in covenant is focused upon a particular house and, within that house,on a particular representative. Whatever the origins and development of suchroyal theology, the various associations of divine presence, the blessing of theland, peace from enemies, and the global blessing or reign of God all come tobe associated with David’s house and the covenant with it. This is quitestrikingly played out in the Deuteronomistic history of the kings: in the timeof a faithful king there is blessing, in the time of an unfaithful one, curse. Theassociation of the faithful Davidic king with blessing comes also to representrestoration hopes. This is prominent in some of the prophetic writings,particularly through the shepherding imagery used in Ezekiel (e.g. 34:23,37:24), the Branch imagery of Jeremiah (23:5, 33:15) and Zechariah (3:8,6:12) and, of course, the Servant imagery of Deutero-Isaiah, which is sooften Davidic in orientation.

All of this leads us to the final great covenant of the Old Testament, theprophetic new covenant of Jeremiah 31:31–3 and its wider context:

The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenantwith the house of Israel and the house of Judah.32 It will not be like the covenantthat I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them outof the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband,says the LORD.33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israelafter those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write iton their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

The new covenant of Jeremiah is conceptually grounded in its antecedent, theMosaic covenant, alluded to in verse 32. It is important that this priorcovenant is understood to have been broken by Israel and Judah (judgementfor such failure dominates Jeremiah’s prophecy); the new covenant is specific-ally differentiated from this, even as it takes up the central motif of divinepresence, in verse 33.31 The difficulty in classifying the new covenant

30 Note the use of messianic language and the imagery of the Davidic covenant in Psalm 2.31 The relationship between old and new covenants in the context of the literary development

of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible has received a good deal of attention. The discussion isnicely summarized and well explored (with sensitivity to the scholarly ideologies at play) by


according to Freedman’s schema lies in the character of the new covenant vis-à-vis the problem of Israel’s failure: God takes upon himself the responsibilityof ensuring that the law is internalized and made efficacious. The requirementto live in accordance with the law’s demands is not thereby abrogated, andneither is there (in Jeremiah, at least) an infusion of power into Israel to enableobedience. Rather the nature of the relationship of the people to the covenantis altered: the covenant (law) becomes an internal reality, inscribed upon thedeepest part of their being. This is done, moreover, within the unconditionalcommitment of God to Israel, a commitment that refuses to be dismantled bytheir sin (31:37).Jeremiah’s new covenant is important to the New Testament and is taken

up elsewhere in Second Temple literature. It is not, however, taken up inisolation: a number of further texts use covenant imagery in relation torestoration or parallel Jeremiah in an emphasis on the internalization of law.Covenant language is used of the Isaianic Servant in Isaiah 42:6 and 49:8 andthe image of an everlasting covenant ( םלועתירב ) is used in Isaiah 55:3 and 61:8.In the former, the everlasting covenant is linked to God’s commitment toDavid; in the latter, the phrase is connected to the broader imagery of thejubilee, in a passage that leaves its mark on the New Testament. Isaiah alsodescribes the future covenant as the ‘covenant of peace’ (Isaiah 54:10). Thislatter phrase is also found in Ezekiel 34:25, in the context of Davidic shep-herding imagery, and in Ezekiel 37:26, where it is combined with ‘everlastingcovenant’. Such combinations create fertile opportunities for intertextualreading, of the kind demonstrable in Jewish exegetical technique even withthe biblical texts themselves.32 Shared phrases or terms of this kind allowreaders to bring texts to bear interpretatively on one another. Ezekiel 37,married as it is to Ezekiel 36, contains a promise of empowerment, of theimplanting of God’s Spirit with regenerative effect. In Ez 36:26–7 that Spirit isimplanted into the people along with a new heart. The linking vocabularies, aswell as the more general overlap of forgiveness and restoration imagery, wouldallow this passage to be brought to bear on the reading of Jeremiah 31, furtherdeveloping the picture of transformation into covenant fidelity.

J. N. Moon, Jeremiah’s New Covenant: An Augustinian Reading (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns,2011), 140–79.

32 This is the phenomenon studied in approaches falling under the label ‘inner-biblicalexegesis’. The classic study is Michael A. Fishbane, ‘Revelation and Tradition: Aspects ofInner-Biblical Exegesis’, Journal of Biblical Literature 99 (1980), 343–61. A host of furtherarticles and studies have sharpened the discussion. The important studies of exegesis at Qumranby George Brooke have given strong support to such approaches. See his Exegesis at Qumran:4QFlorilegium in its Jewish Context (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985). An invaluable study of themethodological principles that govern these approaches is to be found in William A. Tooman,Gog of Magog: Reuse of Scripture and Compositional Technique in Ezekiel 38–39 (Tübingen:Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 1–34, although his discussion is oriented towards the more difficultquestion of directions of dependence in the Old Testament texts.


A survey of the treatment of covenant in Second Temple literature, such asthe one recently provided by Porter et al.,33 highlights two interesting points.First, some of the literature, at least, attests a belief that there is, in fact, onlyone covenant. This is the observation made by Jacques van Ruiten in his studyof Jubilees: that book identifies, through various strategies, the events of thepatriarchal narratives with the Mosaic covenant and identifies various patri-archal figures with Moses.34 Given what we have seen of the interlinkingreferences that bind the covenants together, this concern is perhaps unsur-prising, but it is an interesting forerunner to the ‘monocovenant’ discussionsthat have been prominent in some Reformed circles. Second, outside of theNew Testament, the phrase ‘new covenant’ is encountered in the Dead SeaScrolls, where it underpins the identity of the community at key points in theliterature.35 This may be significant for a number of reasons, but of particularinterest is the fact that this clear parallel to the New Testament occurs in acorpus of writings that contains so much mystical and apocalyptic material.This has been one of the major factors in the overturning of the traditionalscholarly tension between apocalyptic and covenant theology.

Glory

Given the significance of the language of glory language in the discussions ofparticipation in the New Testament, it is important at this stage of our study toconsider the background provided by the Old Testament to such language.Apart from the general influence of these Scriptures on the thought of the NewTestament writers, the extent of which has been a matter of debate, theseScriptures also provide quite specific textual resources, drawn on by quotation,allusion, echo, and, indeed, by more specific examples of ‘inner-biblicalexegesis’. Examples of this will be seen in our study of the New Testamenttexts. At this stage, what is important is to identify the key associations of thelanguage of glory.

Carey Newman’s examination of ‘Glory-Christology’ in Paul provides animportant analysis of the Old Testament and later Jewish backgrounds to the

33 Stanley E. Porter and Jacqueline C. R. De Roo, The Concept of the Covenant in the SecondTemple Period (Leiden: Brill, 2003).

34 J. van Ruiten, Primaeval History Interpreted: The Rewriting of Genesis 1–11 in the Book ofJubilees (Leiden: Brill, 2000); ‘The Garden of Eden and Jubilees 3:1–31’, Bijdragen 57 (1996), 305;‘The Covenant of Noah in Jubilees 6.1–38’, in Porter and De Roo (eds), Concept of the Covenantin the Second Temple Period, 167–90.

35 See the various essays collected in Porter and De Roo, The Concept of the Covenant in theSecond Temple Period. Further useful comments on the presence of covenant conceptuality in theliturgical texts from Qumran may be found in James R. Davila, Liturgical Works (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 2000), 3–12, and (specifically on 4QBerakhot) 41–7.


apostle’s thought.36 Newman’s study is subtle, drawing upon both diachronicand synchronic analysis of the word ‘glory’ (kavod) and the phrase ‘the gloryof the Lord’. He notes the stability of the latter as a formula, when contrastedwith the relative flexibility of the simple nominal and verbal constructions,indicating that prior to the composition of the New Testament, the concept ofthe ‘glory of the Lord’ was well established, with a clear set of associations.The phrase is particularly associated with the visible presence of the Lord; thatis, not with a secret or internal quality of God, but rather with his being inrelation to (his) people.

הוהידובכ does not denote, at least in the first instance, a character or attribute ofהוהי . Neither is the meaning of הוהידובכ exhausted by ‘fire’ or ‘brightness’—terms

used to describe the appearance of דובכ . Rather, the collocation הוהידובכ signifiesthe visible and mobile presence of Yahweh. הוהידובכ ’s close association withspecial places (places where Yahweh is commonly depicted as being present) andspecial people (people who are especially close to Yahweh) confirms thisconclusion.37

Crucially, of course, ‘[t]he semantic antonym for הוהידובכ would then be the“absence,” “departure” or “disappearance” of Yahweh’s דובכ .’38 The laterdevelopment of the term Shekinah for the glory of God also reflects thisemphasis: glory is ‘dwelling’. The close connection between divine glory andpresence will have significant implications for our study of the NewTestament.Newman examines the diachronic development behind this concept of

glory, within the redactional history of the Old Testament. Such a historyinvolves scholarly reconstruction, of course, and he examines the varioustheories for the origins of glory-theologies and for their development withinthe various strata of the Pentateuch, in relation to the prophetic corpus. Tosome extent, this discussion is less relevant to our purposes, as it is moreremote from the New Testament, but several points emerge that are interest-ing and are significant also to Newman’s own findings regarding Paul.First, given the problems in tracing the glory motif to Canaanite religion,

‘the most plausible tradition-historical source of הוהידובכ in “P” is the Exodus-Sinai-Wilderness tradition complexes’.39 The significance of this is obvious:we might expect to encounter a particular density of allusions to this complexin relation to glory language in the New Testament and, further, we mightexpect to encounter allusions to this narrative, not necessarily as constitutiveof Israel, but as paradigmatic for divine presence with humanity.

36 Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology.37 Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 24.38 Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 21.39 Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 40.


Second, ‘the glory of the Lord’ becomes associated with the specific locationof the Jerusalem temple, by way of the tabernacle traditions. Again, this linkhas a negative partner: the association of the glory of God with the temple ispaired to the dark reflection of the departed glory and the empty temple, atheme developed spectacularly in Ezekiel. This association of glory and templeis further linked to the development of monarchy and, thus, with the Davidichouse.40 The centralizing of Jerusalem and the location of the temple therewas, of course, closely connected with the monarchy, and specifically withDavid and Solomon. The association of the glory with the Jerusalem temple,therefore, has unavoidably royal significance.41 The development of ‘RoyalTheology’ also linked the house of David, the divinely elected king, to thekingship of Yahweh himself (2 Sam 7), and the Davidic throne in Jerusalem tothe divine throne in the temple. The place name of ‘Zion’ becomes associatedwith the presence and reign of God and that of his anointed king:

Israel’s declarations finally blur the line between temple and city, moving backand forth between specific references to the temple and a more general referenceto the city as a whole.42

As a consequence of these close associations, ‘glory’ comes to be closelyassociated with the Davidic (Messianic) line43 and with the place Zion.Importantly, though, the glory of the Davidic line and of Zion is not a propertyinherent to those things; rather it is an alien property, communicated to themand contingent upon the presence of God. Thus, Solomon must await thedescent of the divine glory before he can complete the dedication of the templein prayer and sacrifice (1 Kings 8:10–11; note the use of the conjunction זא ,‘then’, at the beginning of verse 12). While, in certain regards, person andplace may participate in the glory of God, the fact that this is an alien reality,communicated by presence, is constantly maintained. The fall of the Davidicmonarchy and the ultimate destiny of Solomon’s temple confirm such a point:glory can be lost.

At the same time, Ezekiel 37 attests the closeness of the link between theanticipated restoration of glory/presence and the restoration of the monarchy.Such expectations bring with them a further set of associated hopes: under theDavidic shepherd, the tribes of Israel will be reunited (Ez 37:19,24), aneverlasting covenant of peace will be established (Ez 37:26) and blessing willflow to the world (Ez 47:7–12). Similar associations run through Isaiah44 and

40 Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 44–52.41 Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 47. R. E. Clements, God and Temple (London: Black-

well, 1965), 64.42 Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 47.43 The Royal Psalms are particularly striking in this regard. See, for example, Ps 45:3.44 E.g. Isaiah 42:1–4 and 49:6, though the theme is encountered more widely in Isaiah 40–66.


Zechariah.45 As the influence of such texts is felt in the Second Templeliterature, the application of glory language to the Davidic house or thronebecomes quite striking: the Greek text of Sirach 47:11 speaks of David’s thronebeing a ‘throne of glory’ and 4QpIsaa8–10 echoes such terminology in itsinterpretation of the messianic ‘horn’: when the Branch of David arises at theend of days, he will rule over all nations on such a glorious throne. 4QDibHamiv 1–9 is even more explicit in identifying the enthronement of the Davidicshepherd and the establishment of the covenant with the revelation of God’sown glory. A similar example is found in 4QFlorilegium, which identifies the‘glorious’ Branch with the fallen tent of David, the rebuilding of which ispromised in Amos 9:11. This particular example is noteworthy because of theparallel it provides to Acts 15:16–18, where the fallen tent of David is inter-preted not as the Messiah but as his temple.46

Numerous other examples could be provided to attest the fact that theDavidic house and throne, and the Messiah himself, are described as glori-ous.47 This requires some subtlety as we approach the New Testament texts, asthey describe the glory of Jesus: does the application of glory language to Jesusreflect belief in an inherent quality, in a communicated property or in afunctional reality? Does one evolve into the other? Or, is the glory of Jesuscategorically different from that of his messianic antecedents, so that the realsignificance is in allowing a re-reading of texts that link the messiah and glory?Such questions will be important for us to consider when we examine theevidence of the New Testament. In order to facilitate that discussion, we willdevote a brief section at the end of this chapter to the discussion ofmessianism.The Sinai and Zion associations of glory also underpin a further key point:

the divine glory is a dangerous presence. Moses was not permitted to see thedivine face (Ex 33) and any unprescribed activity in the presence of the glory(in relation to temple, tabernacle, or ark) resulted in destruction: Nadab andAbihu are killed for their illegitimate offerings (Lev 10) and Uzzah fortouching the ark without permission (2 Sam 6:6). The danger inherent inthe divine presence is highlighted in Isaiah 6: the prophet, a ‘man of uncleanlips among a people of unclean lips’ (Is 5:5), must be purified if he is not tobe undone, an action that he is incapable of performing himself, requiringdivine work.

45 Zechariah 6:12–15, 9:9–17. Shepherd imagery is used in 11:4–17 and 13:7–9; the failure ofshepherds to properly care for the flock leads to the striking of the shepherd (‘the man close tome’, 13:7) and the scattering of the flock, which in turn precedes the refining of a remnant andthe establishment of God’s own reign over the earth (14:9). The relationship of such a prophecyto the earlier anticipation of the reign of the Messianic Branch (6:12–15) creates a fruitfulexegetical space for the development of Christology in the New Testament.

46 See Chapter 6.47 Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 116–33.


This, of course, brings us back to the problem of sin and atonement. Isaiah’sexperience represents the basic problem of the people of God: they are uncleanbecause of sin48 and thus incapable of existing in the presence of God unless hepurifies them. The covenant frames their relationship with Yahweh, but withinthe covenant narratives themselves it is clear that the problem of sin is deeperthan can be addressed by the Torah: the sandwiching of the golden calfincident (Ex 32) with Moses’s ascent of Sinai and his vision of Yahweh (linkedto the giving of the law) ensures that the reader is aware of this basic problem.The presence of Yahweh ensures the necessity of purification, but the law,taken by itself, cannot meet that need.

The departure of the glory from the temple in Ezekiel represents a signifi-cant verdict on the status of the covenant: it has been broken.49 The sameconclusion is encountered in Jeremiah 31:32. In both, if the glory of God’spresence is to be restored to the people, the problem of sin, of the incapacity tolive in fidelity to the covenant, must be addressed. Such a task requires bothcleansing and renewal. The recognition of such a need in the human partici-pants of the covenant is outworked in various ways both in Scripture (particu-larly in prophetic writings such as Ezekiel 36–7) and in the writings of theSecond Temple period. It is this very deficiency that underpins the theme ofrevealed wisdom to a special elect in the literature of the period, as I argued ina previous study.50

THE OLD TESTAMENT AND JEWISH MYSTICALAND APOCALYPTIC TRADITIONS

The roots of the Jewish mystical tradition lie in the Old Testament itself, withEzekiel 1, in particular, serving as the fountainhead for so much that followsand the vision of Isaiah 6 feeding reflection on the local and cosmic dimen-sions of the divine glory. While many of the witnesses to the mystical traditionare embedded in late rabbinic texts, notably the Hekhalot, Merkavah, andShiur Koma traditions, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls provided animportant window onto the development of Jewish mysticism during theSecond Temple Period, bearing witness to a number of the Pseudepigraphaand yielding further parallels to support the long-standing claim that the

48 It is important that Isaiah has unclean ‘lips’ in this regard: the uncleanness is tied to hisactivity, not just to ritual defilement.

49 The general consensus of a post-exilic date for the redaction of the Pentateuch makes sucha conclusion stronger.

50 Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and EarlyChristianity.


rabbinic texts preserve early mystical traditions. The Scrolls, and the widerdiscussions of the theology of the Qumran community, have also contributedto the growing recognition that not only is mysticism closely related toapocalyptic, but the distinction often made between both of these andTorah/covenant piety is a false one.51 That distinction arose, in part, as aside-effect of a questionable construal of ‘apocalyptic eschatology’ in schol-arship. Apocalyptic eschatology was understood to be distinctive, with anexpectation of an imminent new age (paired to an evaluation of the presenttime as evil) that was set over and against a ‘this worldly’ orientation intraditional Jewish Torah-piety. Such an emphasis also resulted in a wedgebeing driven between apocalyptic and wisdom: the latter was seen to have nointerest beyond the limits of this life and this time, while the former deniedthe validity of those very things. Many of the key developments in NewTestament scholarship have proceeded from these dichotomies: Schweitzer’saccount of Jesus was founded on such a reading of apocalyptic52 in relationto Torah and, in the present day, the work of John Dominic Crossan andJohn Kloppenborg have both required a sharp distinction between wisdomand apocalyptic.53

Apocalyptic, Eschatology, and Torah

Such tendencies are still very much alive and well in biblical scholarship, butserious challenges to their readings have been offered and these have begun toerode their influence. The work of Christopher Rowland has been particularlyimportant in this regard, arguing that the eschatological component is bothless prominent and less distinctive than frequently claimed: ‘apart from ahandful of passages, their doctrine of the future hope seems to be prettymuch the same as that found in other Jewish sources’.54 As he notes further:

51 Our discussion of covenant has already provided secondary literature on this point. See alsoChristopher Rowland and Christopher R. A. Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God: Early JewishMysticism and the New Testament (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2009), 23.

52 See the discussion in Chapter 1.53 For example, John S. Kloppenborg, The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom

Collections (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1987); John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus:The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1991). See my discussionin Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and EarlyChristianity, 1–25, and also (on Kloppenborg) Matthew Goff, ‘Discerning Trajectories: 4QIn-struction and the Sapiential Background of the Sayings Source Q’, Journal of Biblical Literature124 (2005), 657–73.

54 Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 15. The observation distils one of the keypoints that emerges in Rowland’s classic study, The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic inJudaism and Early Christianity (London: SPCK, 1982).


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

This is not to minimize the importance of the eschatological component in theapocalyptic texts, but to properly configure this in relation to other elementswithin them and in relation to other Jewish texts. The implications for how theapocalypses relate to Torah and covenant are significant: where some haveassumed that the eschatological orientation of the apocalypses entails a rejec-tion of all covenant/Torah thought, in fact such thought is often taken up intothis new eschatological context.56

This is not to say that the apocalypses are univocal on the question of Torahor covenant, and the recent discussions of Enochic Judaism further complicatethis picture, but we cannot in any simple way equate apocalyptic with theirrejection. Neither can the older suggestion of a polarization between apoc-alypticism and Pharisaism stand; there are plenty of warnings to be found inthe rabbinic writings about speculative activity, but there are also remains ofsuch activity to be found, with evidence that this can be traced back to theperiod of the Tannaim.57

Apocalypse and Glory

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

55 Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 17.56 The work of Lars Hartman on the prologue to 1 Enoch illustrates this point effectively.

Asking for a Meaning: A Study of 1 Enoch 1–5.57 Note the evidence to this effect of m.Hag 2:1. Important discussions on the origins of

Jewish mysticism are found in Ithamar Gruenwald, ‘Reflections on the Nature and Origins ofJewish Mysticism’, in Peter Schäfer and Joseph Dan (eds), Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends inJewish Mysticism: 50 Years After (Tübingen: Mohr, 1993), 25–57, distilling much from his FromApocalypticism to Gnosticism: Studies in Apocalypticism, Merkavah Mysticism and Gnosticism(Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1988).

58 Klaus Koch, The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic: A Polemical Work on a Neglected Area ofBiblical Studies and its Damaging Effects on Theology and Philosophy (trans. Margaret Kohl.London: SCM Press, 1972), 32.


The Mystical Texts and Human Encounter with Glory

The rabbinic texts distinguish two branches of Jewish mysticism, noted inmHag 2:1: Ma’ase Bere’shit, which is devoted to cosmology and cosmogonyand is based on Gen 1, andMa’ase Merkavah, which is devoted to reflection onthe divine throne-chariot and is based on Ezekiel 1. The principal work ofcosmology is the Sefer Yezirah (‘Book of Formation’), a short work that linksthe creation of the world to the ten decimal numbers (the ten Sefirot) and tothe twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The first four Sefirot are theSpirit of God and the three principal elements of air, water, and fire. Withinthose three elements, God ‘engraves’ and ‘hews out’ the cosmos and theheavenly world, so that these realms are located within the Sefirot. The lettersof the Hebrew language are hewn from the element of air and these serve togive order to the universe, underlying and organizing its componentsaccording to their phonetic qualities. This may well be derived from the roleof divine speech in the creation account of Genesis 1. It allows for a potentiallymagical significance to be attached to the Hebrew language, while also high-lighting the possibilities for linguistic images of divine sovereignty. The phys-ical world is hewn from the element of water, specifically, while the heavenlyrealm and the Merkavah are derived from the element of fire.The appearance of the Merkavah in the cosmological account highlights

the inter-connectedness of the two branches of Jewish mysticism. It is in theHekhalot literature, however, thatMerkavahmysticism is principally developed.

The Hekhalot literature is a motley collection of Hebrew and Aramaic docu-ments, preserved mainly in medieval manuscripts, which purport to describe theadventures of a number of rabbis of the second century CE who were able toascend to heaven to participate in the heavenly liturgy and to call down angelsand compel them to reveal heavenly secrets.59

These texts recount journeys to the place where the throne is beheld. The seerpasses through the concentric palaces of heaven, each of which is warded byangelic guardians who may be passed only by those who have special know-ledge of the words of passage. The mystic prepares for the journey in fastingand spiritual exercise, and through the reciting of magical formulae canultimately come to behold the throne and join with the angels in the Qedushahsong of Isaiah 6:3. Any mistake is fatal and, as attested by the fact that theheroes of this literature are rabbis, only experts need apply.Clearly, these core works of Jewish mysticism bear the marks of syncretism,

of the uptake of mystical or mystery ideas from the Hellenistic tradition. Asthese ideas are taken into Judaism, however, they are altered in striking waysto accommodate Jewish ways of thinking about the relationship between God

59 Davila, Liturgical Works, 11.


and the world. Taken together, the branches of Jewish mysticism demonstratetwo concerns, existing in something of a tension. The first is the need to stressGod’s otherness; the second is to stress the immanence of his glory in thecosmos and the contingency of all creation upon him. By including the Spiritof God among the Sefirot, the problem of how to understand ‘the fullness ofthe whole earth is his glory’ (Isaiah 6:3) is addressed, while the Merkavahretains its particularity as a location of divine presence and revelation. Someexperience of the divine glory is open to anyone, through God’s presence increation, but only a few can behold the chariot.

Mystical activity is both informed and controlled by Scripture, and some-times the exegetical aspect of the mystical texts is prominent to an extent thatsuggests no actual visionary activity:

Many have expounded upon the Merkavah without ever seeing it. (Tosefta Megilla3[4]:28)

The point is interesting, for it highlights that mysticism can contributeimagery, language, and even generic features to exegetical activity, evenwhen the latter involves no actual visionary or ecstatic practice.60 As wecome to the New Testament, this will be an important point to bear in mindas we seek to ascertain whether we are encountering mystical phenomena, orsimply language that is mystical in origin.

These texts are, of course, late; they postdate the New Testament by severalcenturies, at least. But the writings from Qumran have provided numerousparallels to them, supporting the conclusion that the mysticism of the rab-binic texts is the heir to a long-running tradition.61 In particular, the liturgicaltexts from Qumran, notably the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, are suggestiveof participation in the angelic liturgy, and are peppered with references to thecelestial temple (or temples), possibly envisaging progression through sevendistinct firmaments to the throne room of God himself.62 The connection of

60 Some have argued that key visionary texts, such as the story of the four who enteredParadise, are actually exegetical reflections or parables, rather than true mystical accounts. SeePeter Schäfer, ‘New Testament and Hekhalot Literature: The Journey into Heaven in Paul and inMerkavah Mysticism’, Journal of Jewish Studies 35 (1984), 19–35; Alon Goshen Gottstein, ‘FourEntered Paradise Revisited’, Harvard Theological Review 88 (1995), 69–133. Others have chal-lenged such an interpretation, notably James R. Davila, ‘The Hodayot Hymnist and the FourWho Entered Paradise’, Revue de Qumran 17 (1996), 457–78, but the discussion itself highlightsthe closeness of Scriptural exegesis and mysticism.

61 Davila, ‘The Hodayot Hymnist and the Four Who Entered Paradise’ is an excellentexample.

62 Davila, Liturgical Works, 84. An impressive study of the issues is found in JudithH. Newman, ‘Priestly Prophets at Qumran: Summoning Sinai through the Songs of the SabbathSacrifice’, in George J. Brooke, Hindy Najman, and Loren T. Stuckenbruck (eds), The Significanceof Sinai: Traditions About Sinai and Divine Revelation in Judaism and Christianity (Leiden: Brill,2008), 29–72. Carol A. Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition (Atlanta:Scholars Press, 1985) remains a key resource for the study of these texts.


glory language in the apocalypses to that in the later rabbinic texts is also nowwell established.63

In an important but problematic study, Crispin Fletcher-Louis has exploredthe transformational and participational elements of these mystical texts.64

Using the phrase ‘liturgical anthropology’ to describe the phenomenon underexamination, he argues that there is a widespread belief in ‘angelomorphic’65

humanity, in which individuals are understood to have been transformed intoa glorious angelic state. This belief blurs the ‘absolute qualitative differencebetween God and man’66 often assumed in scholarship and problematizes thenotion that we must not speak of an ‘inherent divinity of humanity’.67

Fletcher-Louis brings together a broad range of texts from the Second Templeperiod and, in detailed exegesis, highlights the ways in which human beingswho participate in the worship of God are described as being transformed,usually in terms of glory and angelic likeness. This glorious human conditionis connected by Fletcher-Louis to the Adamic state (reflected in the title of hisstudy), but this is subordinated to his primary identification of angelic themesin the literature.Positively, Fletcher-Louis draws attention to the radically transformative

experience of worship or liturgy, as represented in the literature. He takesseriously the extent to which humans are portrayed as participating in theheavenly world and the implications that this has for a dualistic conception ofheaven and earth. I noted in my discussion of Calvin that his account of theSpirit raising believers to heaven in the sacramentmirrors the kind the languagethat Fletcher-Louis studies in the Jewish texts. It is not that such texts eschewdualism, but, rather, that they use dualistic categories and images in order tomake permeable the boundaries between Heaven and Earth. Throughout hisstudy, Fletcher-Louis draws attention to the human embodiment of heavenlyglory and to the immediate fellowship between human worshippers and theangelic host, offering an important corrective to approaches that wrongly

63 Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 90: ‘In the throne visions of the early Jewish apoca-lypses, Glory forms part of the characteristic field of signifiers used to describe the heavens. Thatis, when a seer peers into the heavens, he sees Glory—be it associated with God, a throne, orangels. The titular use of glory signifies the (sometimes) anthropologically described presence ofGod, who is himself the apex of the heavenly hierarchy.’

64 Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the DeadSea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill, 2002).

65 This term is not original to Fletcher-Louis. He takes it from the work of CharlesA. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden: Brill, 1998).Others have begun to apply it to patristic literature, notably Bogdan Gabriel Bucur, Angelo-morphic Pneumatology: Clement of Alexandria and Other Early Christian Witnesses (Leiden:Brill, 2009). Mark Edwards is probably correct to describe his provocative thesis as speculative,however: see his ‘Review: Angelomorphic Pneumatology: Clement of Alexandria and OtherEarly Christian Witnesses’, Journal of Theological Studies 61 (2010), 779–80.

66 Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam, 1.67 Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam, 1.


emphasize the eschatological dimension of these texts.68 In this regard, hisfindings are in constructive dialogue with Carol Newsom’s classic study of theSong of the Sabbath Sacrifice,69 which highlights the human participation inheavenly liturgy, though with greater caution. Andrew Chester has also ex-plored this motif of human transformation in worship, in engagement withFletcher-Louis, applying it with subtlety and caution to the question of earlyChristology, but resisting the temptation to identify Jesus simply as a trans-formed man.70 Rather, it provides the conceptual and imaginative backdrop tothe ways in which the glory of Jesus is represented, crucially by means of thepermeability of the heaven–earth boundary.We will return to Chester’s work inour study of the New Testament.

There are, though, some serious problems that require us to resist some ofFletcher-Louis’s conclusions and these can be neatly illustrated by reference tohis discussion of Sirach 45, where the glory of Moses is described. First,Fletcher-Louis moves too easily to the use of the label ‘angelomorphic’ in hisdescription of what he finds in the texts, confusing comparison to angels with asharing in the angelic form or status. Moses, for example, is described bySirach as made (by God) ‘like the angels in glory’ (Sir 45:2). Fletcher-Louisstraightforwardly states that ‘[i]n 45:2 Moses is angelomorphic’. But Moses iscompared to the angels, not identified as sharing in their form. And whileFletcher-Louis rightly considers the background to this transformation aslying in Exodus 24, he does not consider the possibility that the glory is areflected or donated property of God, rather than a property made ‘inherent’71

to Moses. Second, Fletcher-Louis fails to distinguish between ‘angelic’ (or even‘heavenly’) and ‘divine’.72 The description of Moses in Sirach 45 is one of hisleading examples of texts that resist the assumption of a sharp distinctionbetween Creator and creature. Matthew Goff, who describes Fletcher-Louis’sexegesis as generally ‘heavy-handed’, notes that by such moves he ‘allows forlittle degree of difference or the analogical use of angelic terms’.73 This leads toa slippage from his astute recognition of participation in heavenly liturgy tospeaking of the angelomorphic divinity of human worshippers. While illus-trated here from a single example, these problems run through the book, asGoff ’s detailed review highlights. I would suggest, instead, that what we are

68 His findings in this regard are broadly endorsed by Christopher Morray-Jones in Rowlandand Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 324–5, though with some criticisms.

69 Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition (Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1985).70 Andrew Chester, Messiah and Exaltation: Jewish Messianic and Visionary Traditions and

New Testament Christology (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007).71 This is the word used by Fletcher-Louis at the outset of his study and must, therefore, be

understood to govern his discussion here.72 This point is made by Kevin P. Sullivan, ‘Review: All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical

Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 65 (2003), 256.73 Matthew Goff, ‘Review: All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea

Scrolls’, Journal of Biblical Literature 122 (2003), 175.


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

MESSIANISM AND ITS PARTICIPATORYIMPLICATIONS

The last major theme to be considered in this chapter is that of messianism.Modern biblical scholarship has tended towards the view that there was nocoherent ‘messianic’ expectation in the pre-Christian period. Instead, weencounter a diversity of themes and beliefs about anointed figures: royaltheology, kingship ideology, and a range of mediator figures, both earthlyand divine.74 In Christianity, these elements are distinctively synthesized or,even, confused.One of the key factors that lies behind such a position is the definition of

‘messianism’, which inevitably determines the range of texts and ideas that arepermitted entry into the discussion. If the discussion is confined to texts thatspecifically employ the terminology of ‘messiah’ and its cognates, the conceptwill be described differently than if the embedding of that terminology intowider themes is allowed to extend the range of admissable evidence. Texts thatdescribe an agent of deliverance or a royal figure without using messianiclanguage will be bracketed out from the discussion of messianism. This‘minimalist’ approach75 has been fairly criticized in recent years for neglectinga range of texts that do not employ the terminology but are widely seen asmessianic because of strong parallels to texts that do.76

Even when extended definitions are adopted, however, they often limit theevidence by differentiating the more specific expectation of an eschatologicaldeliverer from other royal imagery. Michael Knibb, for example, writes, ‘itseems to me important to distinguish between kingship ideology and messi-anism’,77 explicitly contrasting this distinction with the arguments of WilliamHorbury, which we will discuss next. Knibb’s own favoured definition ofmessianism follows that of Lust:

Messianism can tentatively be defined as 1. the expectation of a future human andyet transcendental messiah or saviour, 2. who will establish God’s kingdom on

74 George W. E. Nickelsburg, Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins: Diversity, Continuity,and Transformation (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), illustrates this tendency.

75 The designation is borrowed from Chester, Messiah and Exaltation, 193–6.76 Chester, Messiah and Exaltation, 194–5.77 Michael A. Knibb, ‘Introduction’, in M. A. Knibb (ed.), The Septuagint and Messianism

(Leuven: Leuven University Press; Paris: Peeters, 2006), 10.


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

Such ostensible precision can be misleading, however, for the effort to isolatesuch a carefully defined messianism from those concepts that may havedeveloped into it (particularly royal ideology) can cause us to overlook theessential connection between them. Similarly, it can overlook the potential forcertain related but distinct concepts to aggregate to one another. Conse-quently, the precision can lead to a rigidity in the handling of messianismthat cannot accommodate the range of elements encountered in the texts.More subtly, it can blind us to the possibility that certain Old Testament textswere read messianically even if they lack the terminology to allow them to belocated within this precise definition. It can, then, attenuate our sensitivity tothe potential significance of Old Testament texts in the New.

A number of scholars have deliberately resisted such an approach.79 WilliamHorbury,80 for example, identifies a coherent messianism in the Old Testamentand related literature, which he argues to be pre-exilic in origin.We have alreadyhinted at some of the elements that Horbury brings together in his argument forthe extent and coherence of messianism. He notes the volume of messianicvocabulary throughout the strata of the Old Testament, its strongly royalassociations, and the parallels to such combinations of concept and vocabularyin non-Israelite/non-Jewish literature, in support of his case that the ideology ispre-exilic. In addition to these observations, he notes the evidence that messi-anic elements contributed to the structuring of the Old Testament and that theSeptuagint was translated in such a way as to interpret certain passages messia-nically.81 These last points are particularly controversial.82

It is striking that the broad critical response to Horbury has focused on theissue of definitions.83 Horbury, according to his critics, has simply lumped too

78 J. Lust, Messianism and the Septuagint: Collected Essays by J. Lust (edited by K. Hauspie;Leuven : Leuven University Press; Peeters, 2004), 142.

79 Matthew Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and MessiahLanguage in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) was published too late forme to engage with the findings. It will undoubtedly prove to be a significant contribution to thediscussion, however.

80 William Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ (London: SCM Press, 1998);William Horbury,Messianism among Jews and Christians: Twelve Biblical and Historical Studies(London; New York: T & T Clark, 2003).

81 Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ. Cf. Martin Hengel et al., The Septuagintas Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its Canon. Martin Hengel, with theAssistance of Roland Deines (Introduction by Robert Hanhart, translated by Mark E. Biddle; OldTestament Studies: Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2002).

82 For the range of views on specific examples, see the collection of essays in Knibb (ed.), TheSeptuagint and Messianism. The editor’s own introduction highlights the issues that generatefaultlines.

83 As, again, with Knibb, ‘Introduction’, 10.


much together. Andrew Chester is sensitive to this and has developed anaccount of messianism that takes seriously the specific developments of theideology in the Second Temple period, and its various permutations, but thatnevertheless allows the breadth of evidence to contribute to the discussion.84

Again, crucially, he does so by highlighting the methodological inadequacy ofminimalist approaches to messianism and emphasizing the underlying associ-ation between messianism and royal theologies. While the accounts of Chesterand Horbury are quite different, they both recognize that messianism is adynamic concept, demonstrable in the SecondTemple period, with a connectionto royal ideology that cannot be ignored. Because of this connection, it is capableof synthesizing a range of expectations about future events and royal figures andof integrating a range of texts into a distinctively messianic ‘reading’.85

Two further points may be noted as regards messianism in the SecondTemple period. First, Andrew Chester and Jostein Ådna have both highlightedthe evidence for the widespread belief that the messiah would rebuild thetemple. Both recognize that in a number of biblical and Second Temple texts,the expectations of a future messiah and a new temple are found,86 but are notcoordinated with each other. In addition, however, a number of texts dopresent the messiah as the builder of the new temple.87 Although they partcompany on the relevance of Psalms of Solomon 17, which Ådna considers toimply the building of a new temple by the messiah,88 both also point toSibylline Oracles 5:414–33 as reflecting a thoroughly developed expectationof the messianic temple builder, synthesizing the strands of biblical expect-ation. In Ådna’s case, this study forms the basis for a careful examination ofthe temple-related sayings and actions of Jesus in the New Testament, whichhe argues to be self-consciously messianic. This will be important to our ownstudy of the New Testament, for we will note the participatory significance ofthe representation of the church as the messianic temple and the biblical texts

84 Chester, Messiah and Exaltation.85 I use this word carefully. Francis Watson, throughout Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith,

observes the distinction between an ‘exegesis’ and a ‘reading’, the latter acknowledging thecapability of the reader to create or isolate meaning from a given text or texts in a way that isgoverned by the textual basis, but not according to the modern concern with authorial intent.What are often referred to as ‘Jewish exegetical practices’ may be better designated as ‘readingstrategies’, to acknowledge the creative role of the reader, while also recognizing the constraintsunder which this operates. For further bibliography, see note 32.

86 Jer. 23:5–6, 33:15–16; Ezekiel 34:23–4, 37:24, referring to a future messiah but not as templebuilder; 1 Enoch 90:29, 37–8, 4Q174, 4 Ezra 13, and 2 Baruch 40:72–4 describing both messiahand new temple, but not ascribing the building of the latter to the former.

87 Informed by 2 Sam 7 and 1 Chron 17, they note the evidence of Isaiah 44–5, Zech 4:9 and6:12–13 and the Targumic evidence of T.Jon. Zech 6:12–13, T.Jon. Isaiah 53:5 as well as that ofLevR. 9. For discussion of these texts and those listed in the previous footnote, see Chester,Messiah and Exaltation, 297–9, 471–96, and Jostein Ådna, Jesu Stellung zum Tempel: DieTempelaktion und das Tempelwort als Ausdruck seiner messiansichen Sendung (Tübingen: J. C.B. Mohr, 2000), 25–89.

88 Ådna, Jesu Stellung zum Tempel, 65–70.


that are used in support of such a depiction. It is also important that thebuilding of the eschatological temple by the messiah has cosmic or creationalsignificance. This emerges most obviously from reflection upon Deutero-Isaiah, read in relation to the return of the Glory to the temple in Ezekiel40–8. As we will see in our study of Paul, his use of ‘new creation’ language isgenerally traced back to Isaiah.

Second, Horbury notes the strong connection between messianism and theruler cult, identifying a tendency to ascribe divinity to the messiah that resultsin his veneration. We have already noted, earlier in this chapter, the associ-ations between the Davidic king and glory. These affirm, to an extent, Hor-bury’s observations and we must be aware that messianism, in its later stagesat least, had a certain gravitational pull towards the notion of a divine messiah.At the same time, we noted the evidence that the glory of the Davidic kingwas contingent upon divine presence, suggesting that it was not an inherentproperty of the messiah, but rather a communicated one, reflecting theparticular presence of God with this person. As with our discussion ofFletcher-Louis’s All the Glory of Adam, we must be careful to note whereglory is an innate property and where it appears to be a reflection of divinepresence. At this point, the observation will suffice; when we reach our studyof the New Testament, the extent to which the glory of Jesus is presented asessential to his identity will be noted as quite distinctive, requiring a differentaccount of his ontology from that of other messianic figures.

It is also important to recognize, however, that Horbury’s willingness tospeak of the divinity of the messiah in pre-Christian material reflects ascholarly faultline between those who consider the monotheism of the periodto be ‘inclusive’ and those who consider it to be ‘exclusive’. These terms areused by Horbury himself 89 in his critique of Richard Bauckham’s GodCrucified.90 ‘Inclusive’ monotheism sees God as the highest within a classof divine beings, exalted over other deities, while ‘exclusive’ monotheismstresses the absolute distinction between God and all other beings. Theformer requires us to think of grades of divinity, and this gradation liesbehind much of the language of ‘divine mediators’ that is popular in schol-arship at present.91 Bauckham has subsequently responded to Horbury withfurther observations on the distinct connection between the identity of Godas Creator and Lord of Israel and exclusive Jewish monotheism,92 arguing

89 Horbury, Messianism among Jews and Christians, 17.90 Bauckham, God Crucified.91 See Davila’s discussion of these in ‘Of Methodology, Monotheism, and Metatron: Intro-

ductory Reflections on Divine Mediators and the Origins of the Worship of Jesus’, 3–18, in CareyC. Newman, James R. Davila, and Gladys S. Lewis (eds), The Jewish Roots of ChristologicalMonotheism: Papers from the St. Andrews Conference on the Historical Origins of the Worship ofJesus (Leiden: Brill, 1999).

92 Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the NewTestament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids; Carlisle: Eerdmans; Paternoster, 2009).


that Horbury and others confuse the existence of other supernatural beingswith the existence of other deities.While still a matter of debate, this discussion is relevant to our own study

insofar as it frames the question of how Jesus’s divinity (or, quite differently,his divinization) is related to his designation as Messiah in the New Testa-ment. In fact, approaching the problem from a different angle—throughsoteriology—may allow fresh light to be cast on the issues. In Part 2, theseissues will be explored in the context of the New Testament texts; there, I willaffirm that, at key points, the logic of participation requires that Jesus beidentified as God, and that there is a necessarily ontological dimension to this.

THE ISAIANIC SERVANT AND MESSIANICEXPECTATION

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

93 Morna D. Hooker, Jesus and the Servant: The Influence of the Servant Concept of Deutero-Isaiah in the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1959). Hooker’s work was not unique, but itsbreadth and thoroughness ensured that it would be the most influential discussion of theproblem to date.

94 See my discussion in ‘The Atonement and Concepts of Participation in the New Testament’,in Jason Maston and Michael Bird (eds), Earliest Christian History: History, Literature &Theology (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 368–9.

95 Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1989).

96 The conference papers are published as W. H. Bellinger and W. R. Farmer, Jesus and theSuffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins (Harrisburg: Trinity Press, 1997). Hooker’scomments are offered in her contribution, ‘Did the Use of Isaiah 53 to Interpret His MissionBegin with Jesus?’, 88–103. It is noteworthy, however, that she does accept (on pages 101–3) anallusion to Isaiah 53 in Romans 4:25.


of papers, most originally presented in Hengel’s research seminar in Tübingen,that was published in the volumeThe Suffering Servant.97 In the present volume,a number of points of allusion to the Servant material of Isaiah will be identifiedacross the corpus of the New Testament and this will reflect a wider scholarlyinterest in the significance of the Isaianic Servant.

Recent scholarship on the Servant material has taken seriously the inter-pretative potential of the tension between speaking of the singular ‘Servant’(e.g. in Isaiah 42:1, 43:10, 49:3, 52:13) and the plurality of those eitheraddressed by God (e.g. Isaiah 43:10 ‘you are my witnesses’) or themselvesspeaking (e.g. the ‘we’ of Isaiah 53:1).98 One resolution of this tension is tosimply identify the Servant as a corporate symbol of Israel, with the shiftfrom singular to plural reflecting this. The difficulties in maintaining thisinterpretation simpliciter are identified by both Reventlow and Clements,99

who note the differentiation that is made at points between the figure of theServant and those who benefit from his work (notably between ‘him’ and ‘us’in Isaiah 53).100 The origin and original intent of the Servant material is lessimportant than the fact that its final form in the Isaianic narrative issusceptible to (and would have prompted) readings that take seriously boththe corporate and individual nature of the Servant. This distinction allows afurther important move to be made by readers, seeing the narrative of theServant to be outworked in the narrative of his servants. He represents them,fulfilling the calling and vocation of Israel, and through him they participatein the narrative of salvation.

Having noted this, it is significant that the narrative of the Servant isspecifically identified with the promises to David in Isaiah 55:3, using thelanguage of covenant.101 On the grounds of what has been studied earlier inthis chapter, the covenantal framework of the Servant’s representative role

97 Bernd Janowski and Peter Stuhlmacher (eds), The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewishand Christian Sources (trans. D. P. Bailey; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004).

98 Two key New Testament studies that represent this shift are J. Ross Wagner,Heralds of theGood News: Isaiah and Paul ‘in Concert’ in the Letter to the Romans (Leiden: Brill, 2002) andMark Gignilliat, Paul and Isaiah’s Servants: Paul’s Theological Reading of Isaiah 40–66 in 2Corinthians 5:14–6:10 (London: T & T Clark, 2007). These works provide extensive secondaryliterature on the currents in the study of Isaiah in relation to the New Testament. The publicationof Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001) is particularlyimportant to the development of Gignilliat’s arguments, with which we shall engage more fully inChapter 9.

99 Henning Graf Reventlow, ‘Basic Issues in the Interpretation of Isaiah 53’, 23–38, andR. E. Clements, ‘Isaiah 53 and the Restoration of Scripture’, 39–54 (esp. 41–2), both in Bellingerand Farmer (eds), Jesus and the Suffering Servant.

100 The individuality of the Servant, and his importance as a mediatorial figure, is alsorecognized by Davila, ‘Of Methodology, Monotheism, and Metatron’, 11–12.

101 The potential of royal imagery to explain the representative dimension of the Servant inIsaiah 53 is explored by Clements ‘Isaiah 53 and the Restoration of Israel’, 44–5, along with otherpossibilities.


emerges from passages such as this. This will be important for our identifica-tion of several points of covenant imagery in the New Testament that relatedirectly to theologies of participation.

CONCLUSIONS

Although this chapter is primarily intended as groundwork for much thatwill follow, a set of important conclusions has already emerged, in somecases connecting fruitfully with our studies of the Christian theologicaltradition. In particular, the concept of covenant plays a significant role inthe corporate dimension of the biblical and later Jewish theology. Covenantprovides a framework within which the bond between God and his peoplecan be conceived and, internal to this principal relationship, by which theidentification of covenant participants can be achieved; that is, betweenfellow members of the covenant community and/or between those membersand a covenant representative. The potential for this to account for therepresentative function of an individual, and for the ascription of hisnarrative to the many whom he represents, is significant and is witnessedin distinctive ways by Isaiah’s Servant songs. Once it is recognized that suchconsideration of covenant is neither rejected nor neglected in the apocalyp-tic and mystical literature, but actually provides much of the core imagery,then the significance for New Testament accounts of participation becomesclearer. At the same time, it is important to recognize that covenant itselfframes what is arguably the more basic concept lying at its core, that ofdivine presence. The imagery and language of glory, enmeshed as it is withcovenant, is very much the imagery of the divine presence and is deployedin relation to both the mobility and the danger of that presence.The problem of sin, then, is construed in terms of covenant and, signifi-

cantly, so too are the various prophetic accounts of restoration. The restor-ation of the Glory to its place in the midst of the people is the realization ofYahweh’s commitment to be God to them and to be with them. Such hopes,though, inevitably involve reflection on the transformation of those whose sinis the very problem. This lies behind the various promises of the Spirit-generated transformation of the people, while in certain cases (particularlyin the Isaianic Servant songs) also being connected to the narrative of anindividual who will, in himself, break the pattern of sin and failure. Thequestion of how these two elements relate to one another in the interpretativemovements of the New Testament is the question of participation.


5

Examining the Adamic Backgroundsof Union with Christ

As we have seen in the opening chapters of this study, one of the keybackgrounds that must be considered in relation to union with Christ in theNew Testament is that provided by the traditions concerning Adam and theFall. In Romans 5, Paul contrasts the state of being ‘in Christ’ with the state ofbeing ‘in Adam’. For some scholars, this is the key to Paul’s soteriology and,indeed, to his Christology: the apostle’s construal of the incarnation proceedsfrom an ‘Adam Christology’, within which the glory language applied to Jesusis understood to refer in the first instance to the restoration of the glory lost byAdam at the Fall, as this is held to be represented in numerous Early Jewishtexts that narrate a reasonably well-defined Adam myth. The subsequent‘glorification’ of believers proceeds from this glorification of Jesus and,hence, understanding the concept of glory and how it comes to be sharedbetween Jesus and his followers is key to understanding the nature of theunion that exists between them. Others may resist this move, but neverthelessunderstand much of Paul’s language of ‘image’ or ‘form’ to be Adamic inbackground.

What must be explored in this chapter is, specifically, the background to theglory concepts of the New Testament in the treatment of Adam in SecondTemple Judaism. The central point that I will make is that the evidence for awidespread myth of Adam as a glorious being in Ancient Judaism has beensteadily eroded in recent years and that the evidence points instead to asmaller number of Jewish writers developing distinctive and often contradict-ory presentations of Adam, based on their own readings of Genesis 1–3 and inkeeping with their own agenda. This observation pushes us away from seeingPaul as the inheritor of a particular myth, or even as a participant in aspeculative tradition, towards seeing him as a distinctive interpreter of Genesis1–3, making original contributions to an interpretative movement. This inturn has implications for how we construe Paul’s ‘Adam Christology’, espe-cially the issue of Adamic glory. While primarily of significance to the study of

Paul, there are broader implications for our study as a whole, as Adamicelements are identified elsewhere in the New Testament.1

In what follows, we will begin by outlining some of the core points of AdamChristology, drawing in particular on the work of James D. G. Dunn. Thisfocus is not intended to minimize the importance of other scholarly contribu-tions, nor to suggest that Dunn is worthy of special criticism. We focus onDunn because his has been arguably the most thoroughgoing and influentialarticulation of Adam Christology since the classic study of Scroggs2 andbecause he, more than any other scholar, has sought to give the themesignificant explanatory power in relation to the evolution of Christology andin relation to Paul’s doctrine of participation in Christ. Once the core points ofDunn’s approach have been outlined, we will examine the putative back-grounds to this, noting some of the more important works to emerge inscholarship on Second Temple Judaism and the Pseudepigrapha, and exam-ining the christological use of Psalm 8. Finally, we will offer some suggestionsfor a more nuanced approach to the use of Adam traditions in the NewTestament.

ADAM CHRISTOLOGY AND ITS TEXTUAL‘BACKGROUND ’

Recent decades have seen the publication of a substantial body of literatureexploring Paul’s so-called ‘Adam Christology’. This, in turn, has generated agood deal of debate over the extent to which the figure or story of Adamshapes Paul’s thought and whether it is the key to understanding specific textsnot usually seen as ‘Adamic’, such as Philippians 2:5–11.3 Inevitably, a range of

1 This is not to say that Adam Christology as a concept is problematic, nor that we shouldbracket it out of our own findings, but precisely to say that the development and deployment of itby certain modern scholars is inappropriate insofar as it ascribes explanatory power in thedevelopment of Christology to a set of ideas not necessarily demonstrable in Early Judaism.

2 See note 3.3 The following bibliography merely provides a taster of the scholarship circulating on this

theme. See Robin Scroggs, The Last Adam: A Study in Pauline Anthropology (London: Blackwell,1966); James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making (all page numbers are taken from the 2ndedition), 98–128, and The Theology of Paul the Apostle, esp. 200–4, 241–4; Morna D. Hooker,From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). For thedebate over Philippians 2:5–12, contrast the above with Markus Bockmuehl, ‘ “The Form of God”(Phil 2:6)’. See also M. Hooker’s counter article, ‘Adam Redivivus: Philippians 2 Once More’, inSteve Moyise (ed.), Old Testament in the New Testament: Essays in Honour of J. L. North(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 220–34. For contrastive readings of the evidence ofPhilippians 2, see also James D. G. Dunn, ‘Christ, Adam, and Preexistence’, in Ralph P. Martinand Brian J. Dodd (eds),Where Christology Began: Essays on Philippians 2 (Louisville: Westmin-ster John Knox Press, 1998), 74–83, Lincoln D. Hurst, ‘Christ, Adam, and Preexistence

Examining the Adamic Backgrounds of Union with Christ 129

Jewish texts are adduced as background, especially with regard to the idea ofAdamic glory, but while important and relevant studies of the Adam traditionsin Judaism and Christianity have been published over the last twenty years,these have not necessarily been drawn into the debates in New Testamentscholarship, or, if they have, then often only in the context of footnotes orendnotes, where their significance is easily lost.

Paul explicitly develops the significance of Christ in relation to Adam inRomans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. Adam and Eve are also mentioned in 1 Tim2:13–14, though here the reference is not christological but rather ethical,being made in the context of ecclesiastical guidelines. In addition to theseexplicit references, however, scholars have seen a range of allusions to thefigure and story of Adam throughout the Pauline corpus, in Romans 1:18–25;3:23; 7:7–11; 8:19–23, Philippians 2:6–11, and Colossians 1:15. All of thesetexts (each of which is well embedded into its wider context) are argued tohave some kind of Adamic background, either through their allusion to anarrative of temptation and sin or through their use of ‘image of God’ or ‘formof God’ language. In the case of the Romans texts, in particular, this raises thepossibility that an Adamic rationale lies in the background of the theology ofchapters 1–8 as a whole and is much more basic to Paul’s thought here thanmight at first be realized.

An important development of this is that the Pauline idea of the glory ofChrist and of the glorification of believers is understood to represent a recov-ery of Adam’s lost glory. We will examine below some of the Pauline texts thatcontribute to this interpretation; at this stage of our study what is important tonote is the role played in the discussion on one hand by Psalm 8 and on theother by various potentially relevant extra-canonical texts. On the latter,scholars typically point to a wide range of texts that provide some kind ofcontext for the Adamic element in Paul’s thought: Sirach 15–18, 49:16,Community Rule 4:23; Damascus Document 3:20; Hodayot 4:15; Wisdom ofSolomon 2:23, 4 Ezra 8:44, and more broadly The Life of Adam and Eve and 2Enoch 30. Older generations of scholarship often also saw Philo’s treatment ofAdam as providing a potential background to Paul’s thought, but thosearguments have been solidly refuted and that evidence tends now to be seenas irrelevant.4 It is generally assumed that the other texts are early and Jewish,

Revisited’, inWhere Christology Began, 84–95, and Richard Bauckham, ‘The Worship of Jesus inPhilippians 2:9–11’, inWhere Christology Began, 128–39. Finally, note N. T. Wright’s distinctiveapproach to the theme in The Climax of the Covenant, 18–40, 56–98.

4 The older scholarship saw Philo’s writings as supporting a proto-Gnostic background to theargumentation of 1 Corinthians 15, a point argued by Egon Brandenburger, Adam und Christus(Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1962) and Walter Schmithals, Gnosticism in Corinth: AnInvestigation of the Letters to the Corinthians (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1971). The approachhas been thoroughly repudiated by A. J. M. Wedderburn, ‘Adam and Christ: An Investigationinto the Background of 1 Corinthians XV and Romans V 15–21’, (PhD, University of


though in some cases having passed into Christian transmission. Mostscholars show considerable restraint over the question of dating and proven-ance, and thus a certain subtlety on the question of how they ought to berelated to one another and thence to Paul. Typically, Paul is described not asdrawing upon any of these texts, but rather as participating in a tradition ofAdam speculation that goes significantly beyond the text of Genesis 1–3,particularly in its reflection on the pre-Fall condition of Adam as a gloriousbeing. A second cluster of texts, this time specifically rabbinic (e.g. Gen. Rab12:6 and Num. Rab 13:12; others are discussed in our section Adamic Glory inLater Jewish and Christian Texts), is also often mentioned, usually with anopen recognition that such texts may be far too late to be of any real value inunderstanding Paul but that they attest the continuation of this notion ofAdamic glory within Judaism.In principle, then, scholars draw upon these texts with some caution and do

not give them undue place in their exegesis of Paul. In practice, however, theidea that there was a fairly widespread and somewhat coherent notion ofAdamic glory, lost through sin, becomes an assumed point of background forPaul’s thought, as reflected in this quotation from Dunn:

Paul understands salvation as the restoration of the believer to the glory whichman now lacks as a result of his/Adam’s sin (Rom. 3:23). Here again he shares aview widely held among his Jewish contemporaries. There may have been no realidea that Adam forfeited the image of God by his fall, but there was certainly afirm conviction that he had forfeited the glory of God.5

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

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

5 Dunn, Christology in the Making, 106. Italics added.6 Dunn, Christology in the Making, 109.


Christ’s Lordship (by association with Psalm 110.1), it was also a descriptionof God’s purpose and intention for Adam/man’.7

An examination of Hebrews 2:6–10 leads Dunn to see it as a commonview within early Christianity that Jesus has fulfilled God’s plan for Adam bybeing crowned ‘with the glory that Adam failed to reach by virtue of hissin’.8 On the back of this, Phil 3:21 is understood, as the only allusion toPsalm 8:6 that is independent of Psalm 110, to speak of the transformationof believers into the likeness of Jesus’s glory, now construed as Adamic. Animportant further move is that the verses that precede Psalm 8:6 (Ps 8:4–5)are interpreted in Hebrews 2:6–9 as referring to Jesus’s earthly life, so thatPsalm 8:4–6, as a unit, links Adam Christology to the totality of Jesus’s life,death, and resurrection.9

The christological use of Psalm 8:4–6 identified by Dunn, combined withthe evidence of the extra-biblical texts noted on pages 130–1, in this section,leads him to see a coherent and consistent narrative in Paul’s Christology:Adam’s sin caused him to fall short of God’s plan for him and to lose (or tofail to attain) glory, which is instead attained by Jesus through his obedienceand then shared with the saints. Such a narrative makes sense of all of thePauline texts that Dunn and others see as having an Adamic background(Romans 1:18–25; 3:23; 5:12–21; 7:7–11; 8:19–23, 1 Cor 15 in toto; Philip-pians 2:6–11 and Colossians 1:15). Significantly, of course, this means thatmany of the references to Christ’s glory are not to be read as proto-Trinitar-ian, but rather as Adamic.10

As developed by Dunn, then, the case for Adam Christology in Paul isheavily reliant on both the attestation of Adam speculation (especially con-cerning Adamic glory) during the Second Temple Period and a clearly Adamicreading of Psalm 8:4–6 in Paul. If either or both of these areas were tobe problematized, then it might be asked whether given texts really ought tobe interpreted as Adamic. Moreover, it might be asked whether the appropri-ate background for the application of glory language, both to Christ and to thesaints, is really the story of Adam, or whether other narratives, such as those ofSinai or of the temple, might be more appropriate. The importance of this toour exegesis will emerge in Chapter 9, in particular. The next two sections ofthe chapter, then, will be devoted to exploring some potential problems withthese two areas.

7 Dunn, Christology in the Making, 109.8 Dunn, Christology in the Making, 109.9 See our further discussion of this passage in Chapter 7.10 This point is rather more characteristic of Dunn’s development of Adam Christology

than either that of Hooker or of Wright, naturally reflecting his concerns in Christology in theMaking.


ADAMIC GLORY IN LATER JEWISHAND CHRISTIAN TEXTS

It is helpful to approach the discussion of putatively Second Temple traditionshaving first noted some features of the later Jewish and Christian traditions,where we undoubtedly encounter numerous references to the splendour ofAdam or of the robes that he and Eve wore. Such an idea is widespread in therabbinic texts, though here the traditions are diverse and often contradictory:some depict Adam as inherently glorious,11 others depict the first couple asclothed with glorious robes lost through their sin and others present suchgarments as given by God at the expulsion from Eden in Genesis 3:21.12 Weshould not too quickly conflate these various strands: a glorious Adam is notthe same as a gloriously garbed Adam. Furthermore, the specifics of eachimage may be governed by contextual concerns that relate to central issues ofJewish piety such as Temple and Torah. The fact that in some texts Adam’sglory is surpassed by the Shekinah,13 in others is compared to (and surpassedby) that of Moses,14 while in still others his glorious garments are priestly15

suggests not that the protoplast is a controlling motif or symbol, but ratherthat he is absorbed into more central themes of Jewish piety which themselvesdetermine his representation. To phrase this differently: it is not that an Adammyth influences and affects the way in which symbols of Jewish faith and pietyare construed, but rather that these symbols or motifs govern the way in whichAdam is described.16 If any of these texts do embody traditions that go back to

11 Lev Rab. 20.2.12 The explanation for at least some of these divergent representations may lie in the

confusion or deliberate punning of ʿôr (‘skin’) with ʾôr (‘light’) in certain Biblical versions ofGenesis 3:21. Cf. Genesis Rabbah 20:12: ‘In the Torah of Rabbi Meir it is written, “Garments ofLight”.’ There are comparable readings in the Targumim of Genesis 3:21 (Onkelos, Neophyti andPseudo-Jonathan). See Gary A. Anderson, ‘The Garments of Skin in Apocryphal Narrative andBiblical Commentary’, Studies in Ancient Midrash (Cambridge: Harvard University Center forJewish Studies, 2001), 101–43, and The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish andChristian Imagination (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), esp. 117–34. See alsoStephen N. Lambden, ‘From Fig Leaves to Fingernails: Some Notes on the Garments of Adamand Eve in the Hebrew Bible and Select Early Postbiblical Jewish Writings’, in Paul Morris andDeborah Sawyer (eds), A Walk in the Garden (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), 74–90.

13 b.B. Bat. 58a.14 Deut. Rab. 11:3. Note the parallel tradition in Samaritan texts, with Memar Marqah 5:4

likening Moses’s glory to that lost by Adam. In addition, note Anderson’s observation thatChristian traditions of the election of Adam and his superiority over the angels, as found in TheLife of Adam and Eve, find their closest Jewish parallels in rabbinic traditions concerning theelection of Israel and the giving of Torah at Sinai.

15 Yal. i:34; ’Abot R. Nat. ii:46, 116.16 One text that may seem to break this pattern is Lev. Rab. 20.2, where Adam’s heel is

described as having a glory greater than that of the sun. David H. Aaron, however, argues thatsubtleties of rabbinic wordplay are at play here and that the text is more concerned with Adam’sbeauty than with a concept of effulgence. See his article, David H. Aaron, ‘Shedding Light on


the Second Temple period, then they suggest that the presentation of Adammay not drive but rather be driven by more central motifs of glory.

A further examination of the Jewish mystical traditions is enlightening. Aswe have noted, Ezekiel 1 and Isaiah 6 are acknowledged to be the fountainheadfor much of the Jewish mystical imagery. Their descriptions of propheticvisions of the divine glory in physical form have fed subsequent visionaryaccounts of the divine throne-chariot, the Merkavah17 described in Ezekiel 1,and the heavenly temple and palaces, the Hekhalot. Such accounts are, asnoted in the previous chapter, preoccupied with the perilous holiness of thedivine glory and grapple with the dangers and tensions involved in beholdingthe face of God. Both texts describe the ‘form’ of God, but what Ezekiel 1brings to the tradition is, in particular, a description that is highly anthropo-morphic: the kavod is described in terms of the human body and this imageryis taken up by subsequent mystical traditions. As Rowland notes:

The few literary remains extant of visionary material inspired by Ezekiel 1 inancient Judaism indicate that the climax of Ezekiel’s vision when the prophet seesGod enthroned above the crystal vault was a potent stimulation to mysticalspeculation. ‘God in human form’ is in these verses explicitly hinted at, withwhatever qualifications, thereby opening up the possibility that the visionarymight dare to imagine the mysteries of the divine form.

. . .Despite the warning in Exod 33:20 that humans cannot see God’s face andlive, there is a restrained readiness in the apocalypses to refer to, if not to describeat length, the divine glory seated on the throne.18

In taking up the imagery of Ezekiel 1 in this way, however, these texts also tookup a key set of restraining terms. Ezekiel 1:26 uses ‘likeness’ language to hedgethe vision of God:

תומדלעואסכתומדריפס־ןבאהארמכםשאר־לערשאעיקרללעממוהלעמלמוילעםדאהארמכתומדאסכה

And above the dome over their heads there was something like a throne, inappearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was somethingthat seemed like a human form.19

Such language ensures that Ezekiel’s vision does not transgress the linesaround the divine holiness. But it also provides a contact point with the

God’s Body in Rabbinic Midrashim: Reflections on the Theory of a Luminous Adam’, HarvardTheological Review 90 (1997), 299–314.

17 The word itself is not used in Ezekiel, but the uptake of elements from this vision isuniversally acknowledged in scholarship.

18 Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 67.19 The Greek is somewhat different, but maintains the same emphasis through the use of

›��ø�Æ: ŒÆd N�f çø�c ��æ��øŁ�� F ��æ��Æ�� F Z�� bæ Œ�çÆºB� ÆP�H� ‰� ‹æÆ�Ø�º�Łı �Æ�ç��æı ›��ø�Æ Łæ��ı K�� ÆP�F, ŒÆd K�d �F ›�Ø��Æ�� F Łæ��ı ›��ø�Æ ‰� �r��I�Łæ��ı ¼�øŁ�� (Eze 1:25–6).


account of Genesis 1:26–7, where man is made ‘according to the likeness ofGod’ ( ונתומדכ , ‘in our likeness’, ŒÆŁ� ›��ø�Ø�). This expression stands inparallel to another, in which man is ‘in our image’ ( ונמלצב , ŒÆ�� NŒ��Æ). Theforce of the Hebrew prepositions in relationship to the nouns occasions somesignificant distinctions in the rabbinic literature. Notably, in b.Ket 8a, Adam isunderstood to have been made ‘in the image of the likeness of God’, thusensuring that an appropriate distance is maintained between the divine andhuman form and avoiding any suggestion of the protoplast functioning as anidol. The Greek translation reflects a differentiation between the likeness/image of God and man. Man is made ‘according to’ the pattern of thatimage and likeness (ŒÆ�� NŒ��Æ ��æÆ� ŒÆd ŒÆŁ� ›��ø�Ø�). As we havenoted in Chapter 2, such a distinction is maintained carefully in the earlyChurch Fathers; the fact that it is attested across Greek-speaking cultures ofthe time suggests that the New Testament writers, too, might have operatedwith such a distinction and that we must be sensitive to this in our reading oftheir works.The question of the patterning of man upon God is one of the key issues

running through much of the mystical literature: if man is patterned on thelikeness of God, and Ezekiel beholds that likeness as a vision of kavod, then themorphological aspects of the glory become a matter of speculation, fuelled byother accounts of humans beholding YHWH, such as Exodus 33. So, weencounter in the shiur koma texts20 descriptions of the size and extent of thedivine form and in other mystical texts the language of the enthroned ‘form’.21

This also results in speculation on the original scale of Adam’s body and ofthose who behold the divine form, who are themselves transformed in scale,thus embodying in certain ways that which they behold, while never beingidentified with it.22

Crucially, Rowland, following Bunta,23 notes the uptake of �NŒ�� as aloanword ( ןינוקיא/אנקויד ) in the targumim to speak of ‘humans embodyingthe secrets of themerkava’.24 But Adam is not the only one to function in sucha way;25 Jacob’s features are engraved on the throne of glory in Gen 28:12.26

20 For a recent thorough discussion and bibliography, see Rowland and Morray-Jones, TheMystery of God, 501–80. The texts themselves are accessible in Martin S. Cohen, The Shi’urQomah: Liturgy and Theurgy in Pre-Kabbalistic Jewish Mysticism (Lanham, Md: University Pressof America, 1983), and Martin S. Cohen, The Shi‘Ur Qomah: Texts and Recensions (Tübingen:J. C. B. Mohr, 1985).

21 Markus Bockmuehl, ‘ “The Form of God” (Phil 2:6)’.22 C. R. A. Morray-Jones, ‘Transformational Mysticism in the Apocalyptic-Merkabah Trad-

ition’, Journal of Jewish Studies 43 (1992), 1–31.23 Silviu Bunta, ‘The Likeness of the Image: Adamic Motifs and S

˙LM Anthropology in

rabbinic Traditions About Jacob’s Image Enthroned in Heaven’, Journal for the Study of Judaism37 (2006), 55–84.

24 Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 164.25 Rowland notes bBB58a, bMK 15b, bHul 91 b.26 See Pseudo-Jonathan Genesis. Rowland notes that אנקויד translates both םלצ and תומד

throughout this targum, unparalleled in Neofiti and Onkelos (164).


A further example of a human associated with the divine throne of glory isMoses, in The Exagogue of Ezekiel the Tragedian. The significance of this forNew Testament study cannot be overlooked: while humans can embody orrepresent the divine ‘likeness’, they do not constitute it, and their own being issecondary, patterned after it. When, therefore, Jesus is described as the �NŒ��of God, we must be prepared to consider the possibility that this is not anAdamic but a divine title, associating him with the kavod itself. The observa-tion is simple: ‘likeness’ and ‘image’ language are used not just of Adam, but ofthe divine glory itself, and much of the literature is concerned to maintain thedistinction between Adam’s patterning ‘according’ to the image and the imageitself.

The idea of Adam’s glorious clothing is also widespread in early Christiantexts, notably in the Syriac tradition, where it is linked to Christ’s own glory orto the restoration of glory to believers through Christ.27 Gary Anderson makesthe very interesting observation that,

In Jewish sources, this theme of Adam’s glorious garments is simply one Edenictrait among many. It receives no special attention. In early Christianity, on theother hand, it becomes the dominant motif that defines life prior to the fall.28

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

THE GLORY OF ADAM IN SECONDTEMPLE JUDAISM

When we turn to the Second Temple period, we actually find a relatively smallamount of material devoted to Adam, with much of this showing a similartendency to recast the story of Adam in relation to controlling motifs, notably

27 For example in the Macarian Homilies 1:3, Aphrahat’s Demonstrations 6 and 23, LiberGraduum 23, 28. See Sebastian P. Brock, ‘Clothing Metaphors as a Means of TheologicalExpression in Syriac Tradition’, in Carl-Friedrich Geyer (ed.), Typus, Symbol, Allegorie bei denöstlichen Vätern und ihren Parallelen im Mittelalter (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1982), 11–40.

28 Anderson, The Genesis of Perfection, 129.


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

Sirach 49:16

John R. Levison’s Portraits of Adam in Early Judaism remains one of the mostimportant studies of Second Temple Jewish depictions of Adam and continuesto be seriously neglected in New Testament scholarship. Levison’s over-arching argument is that there is no real consistency or coherence to theEarly Jewish texts and that, instead, each writer distinctively utilizes the Adamstory of Genesis 1–3 in service of his own agenda or Tendenz.30 In fact, theway in which each writer treats Adam might vary within a given work,according to the Tendenz of a given pericope, so that an author might offervarious portraits of the figure. A good example of this is seen in the contrastbetween Sirach 15–18 and Sirach 49. In the former, Adam functions as thearchetypal human, paradigmatic of the human experience of sin and tempta-tion and of the importance of wisdom in dealing with this. Sirach 15:14–15captures this paradigmatic aspect well:

It was [God] who created humankind in the beginning,and he left them in the power of their own free choice.

If you choose, you can keep the commandments,and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice.

By contrast, in Sirach 49:16 the depiction of Adam focuses on his singularity,as one of elevated status: ‘But above every other created living being wasAdam’. Glory language is also used in the preceding description of Seth andShem, who were ‘glorified’ or ‘honoured’ (K��ŁÅ�Æ�), with the result thatAdam’s superiority is presented in ‘glory’ terms. This is one of the key versesadduced in support of a widespread notion of Adamic glory, but as Levisonnotes, the wider context of Sirach 44–50 reflects a concern with the status of

29 See Joseph M. Baumgarten, ‘Purification after Childbirth and the Sacred Garden in 4Q265and Jubilees’, in George J. Brooke with Florentino García Martínez (eds), New Qumran Texts andStudies (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 3–10. See also J. van Ruiten, ‘Eden and the Temple: The Rewriting ofGenesis 2:4–3:24 in the Book of Jubilees’, in G. P. Luttikhuizen (ed.), Paradise Interpreted:Representations of Biblical Paradise in Judaism and Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 63–95.

30 John R. Levison, Portraits of Adam in Early Judaism: From Sirach to 2 Baruch (Sheffield:JSOT, 1987). Note especially the conclusions, pages 145–62.


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

Qumran Texts on Adamic Glory

Three of the Qumran texts (Community Rule 4:23; Damascus Document 3:20;Hodayot 4:15) refer to ‘all the glory of Adam/man’ ( םדאדובכלכ ) being given tothe faithful community, but beyond the fact that the phrase is consistent acrossthese texts (and thus suggests some kind of catchphrase) there is inadequatedetail for the references to offer much background to Paul’s theology. Thechief difficulty concerns whether the reference is to Adam as a person or tohumanity more generally. None of the texts ultimately requires us to see areference to the glory that Adam lost through sin, even if that is a possibility;the reference could point to the kind of image that we encounter in Revelation21:24, where ‘the kings of the earth will bring their glory’ into the NewJerusalem. In other words, the phrase may point to the idea of the futurerule of God’s people over the nations of the world and the eschatologicalreversal of their fortunes.

That said, contextually, the Community Rule and the Hodayot have a gooddeal of material that is Edenic in orientation and that may, therefore, besuggestive of the Adam story. Closer examination of this material, however,pushes us away from seeing the term glory as denoting a property of Adamhimself and rather as denoting the blessing that he enjoyed, and particularlythe presence of God. One striking phrase in the Hodayot makes this clear,where the expression ‘the Eden of glory’ is used as an image of the communityof blessing in which the hymnist has been placed (1QH 16:20). The point, ofcourse, is that the phrase suggests that Eden is regarded as a sanctuary, just asit is in Jubilees or in 4Q265. Such an interpretation is supported by the factthat lying in the background of both Community Rule andHodayot is Ezekiel’simagery of restoration,32 which is very much Edenic or Paradisial rather thanAdamic in orientation, but which also links restoration to the Spirit. If we take‘all the glory of A/adam’ to refer to the protoplast, to a glory that Adam (andnot humanity in general) enjoyed, then the context suggests that this was thetemple presence of God in Eden.

31 Levison, Portraits of Adam, 45.32 See John R. Levison, Filled with the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 202–21, for

textual connections.


Much more promising is the reference in 4Q504:

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

Some caution needs to be applied here, however. First, the text as a whole isliturgical, with the different parts of the text convincingly demonstrated byEsther Chazon to correspond to daily prayers.34 These prayers reflect uponkey events in the narratives of biblical history, with this fragment the part thatcorresponds to creation and Eden. Glory language runs through the text, witha predictable reference to the face of Moses as glorious35 and with Solomon’senthronement and the building of the Temple occasioning the recognition ofGod’s glory by the nations.36 Again, then, context points us away from seeingan Adam myth shaping later theology. Rather, the story of Adam is readthrough the lens of and in relation to Israel and temple worship. Second, thereference to Adam’s glory is really to God’s glory and to Adam’s status asimage-bearer. This is highly significant since, as Dunn notes, there is noevidence that Jews of the Second Temple period believed the image to havebeen lost through sin. The idea, then, that this refers to a glory lost to Adamthrough sin but recovered by faithful believers37 is problematic.

The Life of Adam and Eve and 2 Enoch

Both Greek and Latin traditions of the Life of Adam and Eve (The Apocalypseof Moses or Greek Life of Adam and Eve and Vita Adam et Evae, respectively)are frequently adduced in support of the notion of Adamic glory, especiallyGLAE 21:2 and 22:6. Here, importantly, the notion of Adam’s glorious robes isa key feature of the narrative and appears to be governed only by the overall

33 4Q504 8 4–9. For text, see Baillet, Qumrân Grotte 4. T 3, 4Q482–4Q520, 162–3. Englishtranslation taken from Tigchelaar and García Martínez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition(Leiden: Brill; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 1009.

34 Esther Chazon, ‘A Liturgical Document from Qumran and its Implications: “Words of theLuminaries,” (4QDibHaM)’, (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1991); see also Hanan Eshel, ‘DibreHame’orot and the Apocalypse of Weeks’, in Esther G. Chazon, David Satran, and RuthA. Clements (eds), Things Revealed: Studies in Early Jewish and Christian Literature in Honorof Michael E. Stone (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 149–54.

35 4Q504 6 10–12.36 4Q504 2 ii 3–12.37 The text appears to be non-sectarian. See Esther Glickler Chazon, ‘Is Divrei Ha-Me’orot a

Sectarian Prayer?’, in Devorah Dimant and Uriel Rappaport (eds), The Dead Sea Scrolls: FortyYears of Research (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 3–17.


narrative of sin and repentance. Would this provide background to Paul’sChristology?

The most extensive body of text-critical discussion of the Greek and LatinAdam and Eve traditions in recent years, including both critical editions ofthe texts and higher-level discussion of provenance, has been provided byJohannes Magliano-Tromp and Marinus de Jonge.38 Their conclusion isessentially a negative one: we simply lack the evidence that would be requiredto demonstrate conclusively that The Life of Adam and Eve originated withinearly Judaism. To the contrary, in a recent article, de Jonge writes:

Given the complex nature of the work, which incorporates many older traditions,individual parallels in other Jewish and Christian sources do not help us todetermine its origin and date. But the few indications we do have suggest that itoriginated in Christian circles.39

Proceeding from this with a methodology similar to the one recently de-veloped by Davila for the identification of the provenance of specific pseud-epigrapha,40 de Jonge argues that highly plausible contexts for the origin of theAdam and Eve lives may be found in early Christian circles. Examining thewritings of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Theophilus of Antioch, and setting thelatter in the context of debate with Gnostic texts, he argues that the concern todepict Adam and Eve as saved through repentance and destined for finalresurrection makes plausible sense in the context of early ‘mainstream’ Chris-tian engagement with Gnosticism.41 Reflecting on one specific text-type,Tromp has offered further reflections on this point, arguing that the mostplausible context is that of a long-running oral tradition, with no direct literarydependence on Paul, but concerned nevertheless with the theological prob-lems raised by Gnosticism.42 This does not simply challenge the Jewishness ofthe work, it also pushes it temporally to a greater remove from Paul.

38 Johannes Tromp, The Life of Adam and Eve in Greek: A Critical Edition (Leiden: Brill,2005). M. de Jonge and Johannes Tromp, The Life of Adam and Eve and Related Literature(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997). Gary A. Anderson, Michael E. Stone, and JohannesTromp, Literature on Adam and Eve: Collected Essays (Leiden: Brill, 2000). Stone and Anderson,of course, have written extensively on other (e.g. Armenian) versions of the Adam and Evetraditions.

39 M. de Jonge, ‘The Christian Origins of the Greek Life of Adam and Eve’, in Anderson,Stone, and Tromp, Literature on Adam and Eve: Collected Essays, 350–1. The ‘few indications’that he mentions are: 1) The mention of the Acherusian Lake as the place where Adam is washedin 37:3, pointing to 2) the suspected Christian origin of the whole story told in 33–7, furthersupported by 3) the use of the phrase ‘Father of Lights’ in 36:3.

40 James R. Davila, The Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha: Jewish, Christian, or Other?(Leiden: Brill, 2005).

41 De Jonge, ‘Christian Origins’, 362–3.42 J. Tromp, ‘The Story of Our Lives: The qz-Text of the Life of Adam and Eve, the Apostle

Paul, and the Jewish Christian Oral Tradition Concerning Adam and Eve’, in G. S. Oegema andJ. H. Charlesworth (eds), The Pseudepigrapha and Christian Origins; Essays from the StudiorumNovi Testamenti Societas (London: T & T Clark, 2008), 102–19.


The significance of the work of Tromp and de Jonge is that it raises seriousproblems for seeing the kind of glory speculation found in Life of Adam andEve as in any sense background or context for the New Testament. No matterhow carefully one differentiates background from context and no matter howsubtly one speaks of Paul participating in a speculative tradition rather thandepending on given texts, the fact is that one of the key texts adduced tosupport widespread glory speculation probably ought to be taken out of theequation altogether.43

The same is true for the description of Adam’s glory in 2 Enoch 30, where heis described as ‘a second angel, honoured and great and glorious’ (30:11).I have written extensively on the text-critical issues surrounding this state-ment, which is found only in a minority of manuscripts that represent a longerrecension of the creation account. My findings44 are in agreement with most ofthe careful philological research into 2 Enoch:45 the description of Adam’sglory is a secondary addition, probably reflecting the transmission of the bookin the medieval Slavonic context. It should not be used as ‘background’ to thereading of the New Testament.

PSALM 8 IN PAUL ’S THEOLOGY

We may now turn, more briefly, to consider the case for Psalm 8 havingAdamic overtones in Paul’s writings. Our examination of the Second Templematerial itself ought to make us rather wary of seeing specifically Adamicassociations here, rather than a more generic reference to humanity, and wewould require clear textual evidence to convince us that this is the case. Infact, despite the use of Psalm 8 in several New Testament texts, only one ofthese (1 Cor 15:25–7) does so in a wider context that makes reference tothe story of Adam. Philippians 3:21 certainly draws on the passage in relationto the transformation of believers from their state of humility (�e �H�Æ �B�

43 Jung Hoon Kim, The Significance of Clothing Imagery in the Pauline Corpus (London; NewYork: T & T Clark, 2004), 37–44. The failure to consider recent scholarship on the pseudepig-rapha is also apparent in his discussion of 2 Enoch, which neglects the substantial scholarshipthat has questioned the origins and integrity of the book.

44 Notably Grant Macaskill, ‘The Creation of Man in 2 (Slavonic) Enoch and in ChristianTradition’, in André Lemaire (ed.), Congress Volume Ljubljana 2007 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 399–422, and in my paper ‘2 Enoch: Manuscripts and Recensions’, in A. Orlov, G. Boccaccini, andJ. Zurawski, New Perspectives on 2 Enoch: No Longer Slavonic Only (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

45 For a summary of this research, much of which is in Russian, see Liudmila Navtanovich,‘The Provenance of 2 Enoch: A Philological Perspective. A Response to C. Böttrich’s Paper, “TheBook of the Secrets of Enoch (2 En): Between Jewish Origin and Christian Transmission. AnOverview” ’, in Orlov et al.,New Perspectives on 2 Enoch, 69–82. The paper to which she respondsis published in the same volume, 37–68.


�Æ��Ø��ø� ��H�), but there is nothing clearly Adamic about this and thecontrast established is between the sinful and earthly and the heavenly andpure, a distinction more naturally linked with apocalyptic symbolism, as weshall see in our closer study of these texts in Part 2. Other texts simply saynothing about Adam; in the case of 1 Peter 3:22, this is especially striking sincethe context draws on the stories of the Flood in relation to sin and judgement,not the story of Adam. Given the diversity of New Testament authors whodraw on Psalm 8, we can be certain that it was regarded as a significantchristological text in the early church, but the fact that only in 1 Cor 15:25–7 is it contextually linked to the story of Adam suggests that its christologicalsignificance was not primarily seen as Adamic. There is, of course, the ratherobvious fact that the Psalm may have taken on particular significance in earlyChristian circles as a consequence of its use of the phrase ‘Son of Man’, aphrase associated, of course, with the historical Jesus tradition. The psalm,with its language of coronation and honour, would naturally become a vehiclefor christological reflection on account of this. There is also the importantpoint that there is no notion of a fall or loss of glory in Psalm 8; the splendourof man is a privilege of the species and not a quality lost to the first man.

While we need to be cautious with rabbinic evidence, it is interesting thatthose traditions associated the psalm not with Adam, but with the giving of theTorah to humans, specifically Israel, rather than to angels. The ‘glory’ inquestion is not a property of the human constitution, but rather a propertyof the Torah that has been gifted to Israel. Thus, in Pesikta Rabbati 25:4 theangels protest at the giving of the Torah to Israel by speaking the words ofPsalm 8:4. Following this, the text reads, ‘Rabbi Aha said that the angels said,“It would be to your praise if you gave your glory to those of the heavenlyrealm. Give us your Torah!” ’ While we cannot simply allow this to determineour exegesis of Paul—the texts post-date his writings and may not reflecttraditions dating back to the Second Temple era—this evidence does suggestthat we should be wary of assigning Adamic connotations to Psalm 8 in themind of a Jewish reader.

CONCLUSIONS: CONSIDERING THE IMPLICATIONSFOR ADAM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

Where does this leave us with respect to the figure of Adam in relation to theglory of Christ and of the church? More detailed exegesis of the New Testa-ment texts will follow in Part 2, but several key points emerge from thepreceding discussion that may now be stated and must explicitly be factoredinto our subsequent exegetical work.


First, there is limited evidence for a widespread myth of Adamic glory inSecond Temple Judaism and we ought, therefore, to be wary of seeing such amyth behind Paul’s thought and in the rest of the New Testament. Only ifthere is clear evidence within the New Testament text itself, capable ofstanding without dependence on questionable background, should we con-sider Adamic glory as a potential interpretative possibility rather than divineglory. This will be of key significance to our study of union with Christ and theplace of glory language in relation to this, for it will potentially determinewhether the glory enjoyed by the church in that union is a restored nativeproperty or an alien one shared with or communicated to it. In the absence ofevidence for traditions of Adamic splendour, glory may be seen as fundamen-tally a divine attribute that is shared relationally with humanity, rather than asa quality of a human being, be that Adam or the believer. It becomes,therefore, difficult to see Adam Christology as a building block in the evolu-tion of Christology, as a means of explaining the ascription of glory languageto Jesus. Instead, the significance is located in the area of soteriology and ismuch more profoundly significant in terms of the transformation of believers.The subtle point is that what Paul and the other New Testament writers depictas being realized in Christ—the experience of divine communion—Judaismtypically depicts as realized through temple and Torah.Second, the figure of Adam is developed in diverse ways by the Jewish

writers, sometimes having different associations within the work of a singleauthor, and we should be prepared to encounter the same diversity in Paul andthe New Testament writers. This is particularly important in the case of 1Corinthians 15, where the temptation is to collapse the two references toAdam into a single image of Fall and loss of glory. Paul, however, uses thefigure of Adam in quite different ways in the two references. In 1 Corinthians15:22, Adam’s sin and death are contrasted to the life that has come throughChrist (‘for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ’). In 1Corinthians 15:45–9, however, Adam’s sin is not in view: rather, it is hisoriginal constitution as earthly that is contrasted with the heavenly consti-tution of Christ. Christ’s glory, and the glory that will be experienced bybelievers, is not presented here as a recovery of Adam’s splendour, but asbeing of a different substance altogether. What Adam ‘loses’ in 1 Corinthians15 is life, not glory.Third, where the idea of Adamic glory does occur in Jewish texts, whether

texts of the Second Temple period or later, it is never a controlling motif, buttypically constitutes a re-reading of the Adam story through the lens ofdominant symbols of Jewish faith. Adam’s glory is thus proto-Israelite,proto-Mosaic, or proto-priestly. We might expect, then, that if the motifdoes occur in the New Testament, it belongs within a wider narrative of Israel,Torah, and temple and is not itself the key element. It hardly needs to bestressed that these are dominant themes in the New Testament writings.


Part 2

Participation and Unionin the New Testament

In the first part of this book, we laid the groundwork for a systematic study oftheologies of participation in the New Testament. We examined some of thebackgrounds pertinent to our study and evaluated their significance, challen-ging certain widespread assumptions along the way, particularly with regardto Jewish traditions about Adam, which are less widespread than many NewTestament scholars seem to believe and are subordinated to the issues oftemple and Torah. We also saw the particular value of covenant and therelated category of adoption to concepts of corporate identification anddiscussed the problems with those approaches to apocalyptic eschatologyand mysticism that consider them uninterested in covenant. From this, wesaw the potential significance of messianism to our discussion, with its inte-gration of covenant and royal theologies.In this second part of the book, we turn to the New Testament itself, seeking

to identify points of commonality between the various writers and, in particu-lar, to establish whether we can speak of an underlying and coherent theologyof participation, one that unifies otherwise disparate themes and that isdemonstrable even where it is not explicit. In doing so, we must pay attentionto the various issues raised in Part 1: the distinctive place of Jesus and the Spiritin each text, the incarnational theology that may shape this, the nature ofmystical language and imagery deployed (with the corresponding question ofwhether or not we are dealing with concepts best understood in Platonicterms), the use of ‘likeness’ language, the exegesis of Scripture, and, lastly,the occurrence of covenantal or filiational themes and the potential for these tohave a distinctively representational significance.

6

The Temple and the Body of the Messiah

The present chapter examines the image of the church as the temple and thebody of Christ. The first of these images is widely found in the New Testamentand has, for a long time, been recognized to parallel the portrayal of theQumran community in certain of the Dead Sea Scrolls.1 In addition to thosetexts that directly equate the church with the temple, sometimes using thelanguage of ‘house’, there are others that equate it with the temple-city ofthe new Jerusalem (Rev 21–2) or with components of the temple (Rev 1:20).The second image, that of the church as the body of Christ, is more narrowlyfound, yet in several places, most notably in Ephesians, it merges with the firstin a way that is quite striking: just as the temple is the place wherein the divineglory dwells, so too is the body. The two images convey a radical awareness ofthe relationship between the human members of the church and God. But themelding of the image of temple, with its potential to maintain the otherness ofGod from the space within which he dwells, with that of the body, whichimplies continuity between God and church, will constitute a particularlyimportant focus for our reflections on participation. Although the two imagescan be identified in the Jewish mystical traditions, there they are nevercoordinated as they are in the New Testament. The point is effectively madeby Christopher Morray-Jones:

Despite repeated references to the recovery of Adam’s lost glory, the theme ofcorrespondence between the temple and the body is not developed in theQumran sources. Instead, we find an emphasis on the embodiment of the templearchetype in the structure of the community as a whole. The rabbinic writings, incontrast, posit a three-way correspondence between cosmos, temple and body,but make no reference to the correspondence between the temple and thecommunity on earth. However, all of these themes are taken up and developedin combination by the Christian writers . . .2

1 The classic study is Bertil Gärtner, The Temple and the Community in Qumran and the NewTestament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965).

2 Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 339.

In this chapter, then, we will consider this correspondence, why it emerges inthe New Testament, and what it reveals about the concepts of participationthat characterize the theology of its authors. In order to do this, of course, wemust more broadly consider the deployment of the temple and body imagesand, within limits and with appropriate caution, the diachronic aspects of this.I note the caution that must be exercised here because we are, after all, dealingwith a body of texts belonging to a fairly compact period of time, meaning thatwe have less justification to assume theological development than is often heldto be the case; moreover, the dating of texts relative to one another is fraughtwith difficulties. Nevertheless, with such cautions in place, we may appropri-ately seek to identify early elements in the theology of the New Testament and,in fact, may be surprised by how far back the threads of the body–templecorrespondence may be traced. It will not be necessary to defend specific datesfor the various books that we will consider; a broad recognition of their earlyor late character will suffice. Nevertheless, we must be sensitive to clues thatthey contain or reflect traditions and ideas that predate their written form.

In what follows, we will consider some of the later texts, in which the templeand body themes are most fully developed and interwoven, before seeking totrace the threads back through some of the earlier parts of the New Testament.We will examine, then, Ephesians and the Pauline corpus, the Petrine material,Luke-Acts, and the Gospels. In the next chapter, we will examine relatedimages of the heavenly and eschatological temples in the Fourth Gospel,Revelation, and Hebrews.

EPHESIANS

Whatever the truth of the matter concerning the authorship of Ephesians,3 itsintegration of themes found in the Pauline writings means that there is nosmall justification to the description of the book as the ‘quintessence ofPaulinism’.4 Until recently, the temple theme has been largely neglected instudies of the book, as have the numerous connections with Jewish mysticalthought. Major studies, however, have now emerged that demonstrate thewidespread use of temple imagery,5 liturgical language (particularly associated

3 For classic treatments of this debate, see C. Leslie Mitton, The Epistle to the Ephesians: ItsAuthorship, Origin, and Purpose (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951) and A. van Roon, TheAuthenticity of Ephesians (Leiden: Brill, 1974).

4 F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 153, 424.5 I am indebted in my thinking on this to the recent doctoral work of A. Mark Stirling,

‘Transformation and Growth: The Davidic Temple Builder in Ephesians’ (PhD Dissertation,University of St Andrews, 2011).

148 Participation and Union in the New Testament

with Shavuot),6 and some significant parallels with the Jewish apocalyptic andmystical texts, including the shiur komamysticism, embodied in later rabbinicwritings7 but arguably concretizing traditions that pre-date the New Testa-ment. It is important here to restate a point made in Chapter 4: to recognizethe overlap of language between Ephesians and the Jewish mystical traditionsdoes not require us to regard the epistle as ‘theurgic’ in the sense that the latteroften are. Mystical language and imagery could be taken up in exegeticalactivity, quite apart from any actual visionary experience. Moreover, in theirNew Testament context, such ideas may take on a distinct christological orecclesiological valency that significantly alters their meaning.8 Nevertheless, anappreciation of their Jewish mystical associations is helpful for three reasons.First, it suggests a care to maintain the uniqueness of the being of God, thedangerous otherness that is so clear in the Merkavah texts. Second, it locatesadvanced theological reflection on participation in an intellectual environ-ment shaped by Jewish traditions, not just by Hellenistic ones, such as themystery religions or Gnosticism. Third, the parallels may lead us to identifyparticular configurations of biblical texts and processes of exegesis that haveled to the presence of common mystical themes.

Temple and Body in Ephesians 1:21–3 and 2:15–22

Ephesians is, of course, permeated by the Pauline grammar of being ‘in Christ’,which will be discussed further in Chapter 9. We encounter the image of thechurch as the body (�H�Æ) of Christ in 1:21–3, where it is paired naturallywith his designation as ‘head’ (Œ�çÆº ):

God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead andseated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,21 far above all rule andauthority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, notonly in this age but also in the age to come.22 And he has put all things under hisfeet and has made him the head over all things for the church,23 which is his body,the fullness of him who fills all in all.

6 John C. Kirby, Ephesians, Baptism and Pentecost: An Inquiry into the Structure and Purposeof the Epistle to the Ephesians (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1968).

7 See especially Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 173–7 and 581–610.8 On this point, we may contrast the argument of C. Morray-Jones, in The Mystery of God,

581–610, that the author of Ephesians positively draws upon the shiur komamysticism, with thatof M. D. Goulder, ‘The Visionaries of Laodicea’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43(1991), 15–39, who makes the case that Paul is challenging a mysticism to which he is opposed.Morray-Jones offers some telling criticisms of Goulder’s assumption of polemic, but a cautionarypoint remains: mystical imagery may be encountered in a text without necessarily indicatingecstatic experience on the part of the author, but rather as part of the uptake of Scriptural andsymbolic language to articulate theological truths.

The Temple and the Body of the Messiah 149

The emphasis on ‘all things’ being under this head is anticipated in 1:10, in thecontext of a portion of the text often classified by scholars as a berakah, ablessing of distinctively Jewish character.9 Here, the headship of Christ ispresented as an eschatological reality, one realized in ‘the fullness of time’.The language of ‘fullness’ (�º æø�Æ) is also taken up in 1:23, where it isapplied to the church as ‘his body’, equated with ‘the fullness of him who fillsall in all’. The noun is thus paired with a participle (�F . . . �ºÅæı��ı) thatis masculine and middle in character, and that designates Jesus as the one whofills. ‘Fullness’ itself has obvious associations with the divine Glory, the kavod,which in Isaiah’s vision ‘fills’ both the temple (symbolized as the train of hisrobe in Is 6:1) and the world (Is 6:3).10 The conclusion that ‘fullness’ is asynonym of glory here is supported by the density of glory language through-out Ephesians 1 (e.g. in 6, 12, 17, 18).11 The cosmic overtones to these aredifficult to escape, given the repetition of the ‘all things’ formula in verses 10and 23. Such overtones, in combination with the imagery of the ‘fullness’, mayparallel the shiur koma and related mystical traditions that saw the divineglory as cosmic in scale. Those traditions, though, are specific instances of amuch broader trajectory in Jewish writings that sees the Glory-filled temple asthe integrative point of the cosmos and that grapples with the question of thelocal and universal presence of the Glory. Given the abundance of evidence forthis broader trajectory and the more limited and particular evidence for shiurkomamysticism, I would suggest that we should be cautious in over-specifyingthe background to the ‘fullness’ imagery.12

It is striking that this fullness is particularly identified with the body, withthe church. A similar identification is made in 3:19, where the fullness is veryspecifically a property of God (�e �º æø�Æ �F Ł�F) that is transferred to thechurch in an act or process of filling. We will return to this passage on pages151–2 in this section. In considering Ephesians 1:21–3, however, the mutualrelevance of these texts particularly concerns the alien nature of the fullness that isascribed to the church. It is a property of God, mediated specifically to the churchby Christ (as the one who fills). Its cosmic aspects, therefore, centre on the church

9 Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 585.10 See our discussion of Isaiah 6, and its significance to the Jewish apocalyptic tradition

in Chapter 4.11 The ‘glory’ associations of �º æø�Æ throughout the passage resist approaches that seek

the background to the term in Stoic thought, wisdom traditions, or Gnosticism. For details ofsuch approaches, see Josef Ernst, Pleroma und Pleroma Christi: Geschichte und Deutung einesBegriffs der paulinischen Antilegomena (Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1970). For further reflectionson the significance of the glory language, see Clinton E. Arnold, Ephesians: Power and Magic(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

12 Here I would distance myself from the conclusions of Morray-Jones, while acknowledgingthe quality of his analysis and the general value of his identification of Jewish mystical traditionsin the text.


as the body, perhaps indicating the consequent mediatorial function that thechurch will perform in relation to the world. Morray-Jones comments:

‘[F]ullness’ and its homonym ‘glory’ both refer to a mediated quality whichoriginates in God, ‘the Father of (the) Glory’ and is made ‘fully’ manifest in theglorious body of the enthroned kavod. . . .Christ embodies and is ‘filled’ by thequality of divine Glory, with which he, in turn, ‘fills’ the church.13

The image of the body is taken up further in 2:15–16, where the singularity ofthe body is emphasized and thus the unity of its members. This theme is setagainst the binary opposition of Jew and Gentile: in 2:19–20 Gentiles in Christcease to be outsiders and instead become ‘co-citizens with the holy ones’(�ı��ºE�ÆØ �H� ±ª�ø�) and members of God’s household in this one body.This shift to speaking of the ‘household’ of God is a natural bridge into the useof temple imagery,14 which is found in 2:20–2 and includes the deployment ofthe designation �Æ�� –ªØ�. Although this is the first point where templeimagery is used explicitly in the letter, the author has hinted at such conceptsin preceding verses, with the language of ‘workmanship’ (��Å�Æ, cf. Ex 36:1,where the verb �Ø�E� occurs in relation to the construction of the temple) in2:10 and, particularly, with the image of the ‘wall of hostility’ in 2:14. Now thetemple image is developed fully, with the building presented as a ‘dwelling’ forGod, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ as thechief cornerstone (2:20). If the image of Christ as the cornerstone is intendedto have integrative significance, then the following statement emerges natur-ally from it: ‘in him the whole structure is joined together and grows (Æh�ø)into a holy temple in the Lord’ (2:21).The logic of the image, supported by the use of the middle form of the

participle in 1:23, is that this mediatorial function of Christ involves nothingless than a giving of himself: he is what the church, and through the church ‘allthings’, is and are filled with. The glorification spoken of, then, can only beunderstood in relational or even personal terms: it is the giving of one personto others, who are thereby glorified by his presence, while remaining distinctfrom him. This filling is actualized by the Spirit: the ‘building together’ of thechurch into a dwelling place for God is very specifically described in 2:22 asbeing ‘in (or by) the Spirit’ (K� ��Æ�Ø). The role of the Spirit in actualizingthe mediatorial work of Christ is encountered also in 2:18: ‘for through him(�Ø� ÆP�F) we both (i.e. Jews and Gentiles) have access in/by one Spirit (K� ��d��Æ�Ø) to the Father (�æe� �e� �Æ��æÆ)’. This Spiritual actualization of themediatorial work of Christ is a theme that we will encounter repeatedly inwhat follows.

13 Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 596. The ellipsis contains his discussionsof potential parallels with the ‘logos-Angel’ model and the ‘Youth’ model.

14 The connection between ‘house’ and ‘temple’ is a key element in 2 Sam 7.


Two further points may also be noted within this. First, the image of thechurch as the body of Christ is not a general metaphor for interconnection;rather, the church is identified very specifically with the actual body of Jesusand its history. In 2:15–16, the writer states that Christ abolished the laws andordinances,

in order that he might create the two into a new man in himself, making peace,and in order to reconcile both in one body to God through the cross.

¥ �Æ �f� �� Œ��z K� ÆP�fiH �N� ��Æ ŒÆØ�e� ¼�Łæø�� ØH� �Næ �Å�16 ŒÆd

I�ŒÆ�Æºº��z �f� I�ç��æı� K� ��d ��Æ�Ø �fiH Ł�fiH �Øa �F ��ÆıæF

We will see a similar association between the church and the actual body ofChrist in 1 Peter and will seek to explore the issue further in later chapters, aswe explore how the spatial language of being ‘in Christ’ is related to thenarrative of his death and resurrection. At this point what must be stressedis that this act of reconciliation, of providing access to God for those estrangedfrom him, is again actualized by the Spirit (2:18). It is perhaps also worthnoting that the language of the ‘new man’ is not deployed in these verses withany obvious Adamic significance. Nothing in the context would suggest suchan association; rather, the preceding verses develop a dichotomy of Jew andGentile, as the basic division of humanity, so that the ‘new man’ created inChrist is best understood as a novum, a new reality that transcends this basicdivision.

Second, the image of the church as the temple founded upon the ‘corner-stone’ of the Messiah seems to draw upon either Psalm 118:22 or Isaiah 28:16,or possibly upon an intertextual reading of both.15 Again, this is a point thatwe shall encounter in 1 Peter, but it is also one that we will trace to the earlieststrata of the New Testament and will argue to be the key to the equation ofbody and temple. We will defer a thorough discussion until later in thischapter.

Temple and Body in the Rest of Ephesians

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

15 The word used is specifically IŒæªø�ØÆE�. This is the word used in Isaiah 28:16, withPsalm 118:22 using only ªø��Æ. The latter word, being contained within the former, couldnaturally pair with it in a gezera shewa reading, however.


of the temple in Ezekiel 47–8.16 As noted (in ‘Ephesians’, pp. 149–50), whileGoulder and Morray-Jones see traces of shiur koma mysticism here, there isno attempt to provide actual dimensions or proportions in Ephesians, mean-ing that the parallel is looser than some of their conclusions require. Interest-ingly, the passage again ascribes the key role of actualization to the Spirit,strengthening with power ‘from the riches of his [i.e., the Father’s] glory . . . sothat Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith’ (3:16–17). This leads tonoetic transformation: the saints are enabled to grasp (ŒÆ�ÆºÆ��ø) theincomprehensible (3:19): the dimensions of the love of Christ. Consequently,the glory of God dwells within them and is manifest by them.Second, the themes of oneness that have been touched on in our discussion

of 2:15–16 are brought to culmination in 4:3–6, where the unity of the onebody constituted by the one Spirit is to be manifest in loving relationships.Echoes of the Shema abound in 4:4–6 and this emphasis leads into a passagethat speaks of the diversity of the parts of the body (4:11–12) and the directionof growth of these members into unity and maturity, attaining ‘the wholemeasure of the fullness of Christ’. This is simply an extension of the theme ofthe indwelling, alien glory of God (note the parallel of 4:13 with 3:19) presentin the church, but it is important to note the emphasis on the progressiveactualization of this, reflected also in 4:15–16 and surely grounded on thefunction of the Spirit (4:4). An interesting point emerges when we appreciatethis fact in relation to the quotation of Psalm 68:18, in Ephesians 4:8. This partof Psalm 68 was used specifically in connection with Shavuot (Pentecost) inJewish circles, allowing a link between the prescribed readings of Exodus 19and Ezekiel 1.17 Given the association of the Spirit with Pentecost, the quota-tion of Ps 68:18 embeds the present experience of the Spirit by the church inthat event, and does so with an appreciation that this event is of cumulativecovenantal significance (Ex 19), representing the recovery of the temple’s lostglory (Ez 1). The inversion of the original sense of Psalm 68:18 from thetribute received by the Messiah to the gifts poured out by him further developsthe link with that particular day. It is, of course, striking that this Pentecostalexperience is seen as consequential to the ascension of the Messiah, reflectingthe thoroughgoing emphasis of Ephesians on the messianic figure and his rolein the establishment of the new temple, an emphasis particularly derived fromZechariah 6:12–15.18

16 See, e.g., Heinrich Schlier, Der Brief an die Epheser: Ein Kommentar (Düsseldorf: Patmos,1971), 174.

17 Kirby, Ephesians, Baptism and Pentecost; David J. Halperin, The Faces of the Chariot: EarlyJewish Responses to Ezekiel’s Vision (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988).

18 A. Mark Stirling, ‘Transformation and Growth’, 83–92, 125–7. Stirling observes significantoverlaps of vocabulary between Ephesians 2:11–22 and Zechariah 6:12–15, along with furtherpoints of contact between Ephesians and Zechariah. For further discussion of the connectionbetween the messiah and the building of the new temple, see Chapter 4.


Third, the description of Christ as the ‘head’ (Œ�çÆº ) of the body (4:15–16)takes up the theme of unity and develops this in connection with the conceptof maturity: all of the constituent parts of the body are united by theirrelationship to the head and growth is directed towards the deepening ofthat relationship. Much, of course, has been said about the use of the wordŒ�çÆº here and in 1 Corinthians,19 but an interesting point may be noted inthe present study, as we explore the melding of the body and temple images:the LXX of Psalm 118 (117):22 describes the rejected stone as becoming �N�

Œ�çÆºc� ªø��Æ�. Is it possible that this has informed the image of church andChrist as body and head? While at this stage such a proposal may seemtenuous, by the time we have examined the use of Psalm 118:22 in otherparts of the New Testament, the suggestion will be considerably moreplausible.

FROM EPHESIANS TO PAUL

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

1 Corinthians 3:16–17

In 1 Cor 3:16–17, Paul confronts his readers with the significance of theirstatus as God’s temple:

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?17

If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s templeis holy, and you are that temple.

Several points are worth noting. First, the language of the opening question(PŒ Y�Æ�� ‹�Ø �Æe� Ł�F K��) and the rhetorical structure of the argumentrequire that this is not a distinctively Pauline concept, but rather that it is a

19 See Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the GreekText (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 812–23.

20 Albert L. A. Hogeterp, Paul and God’s Temple: A Historical Interpretation of Cultic Imageryin the Corinthian Correspondence (Leuven: Peeters, 2006).


notion already held by his readers and thus belonging to an earlier period ofChristian theology. Second, the status of the church as temple is constituted bythe indwelling presence of the Spirit of God.21 Third, the contextual concern ofthe image is with the unity of the church, and the preceding verses (3:1–15)develop the image of a building constructed on the foundation that is Jesus.Here we must exercise a little caution in noting the similarity between thispassage and the theology of Ephesians. Paul appears to move from a generalimage of a builder and building, in which he is the builder laying the founda-tion that is Christ (3:10–11), to more specific temple imagery. The generalimage of the builder and building in 3:10–11 parallels the general agriculturaltheme in 3:5–9. The image of Christ as the foundation (here: Ł��ºØ�) doesnot, therefore, directly equate to the designation of him used elsewhere, as thecornerstone. Nevertheless, we are dealing with an author concerned to em-phasize the unity of the church as the holy temple and doing so by recourse tothe singularity of the foundation (Christ) and of the indwelling Spirit.It is important, too, to notice that this latter emphasis on the Spirit is part of

a thoroughly developed theme in 1 Corinthians, specifically addressing thedisunity that marks the community because of the pursuit of status by sometherein (1:10–17). Paul challenges their notions of ‘power’ and ‘wisdom’ byrecourse to the ‘foolishness’ of the cross (1:18–25), stressing that the crucifix-ion is meaningful only to the mind enlightened by the Spirit (2:6–16).

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God,so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.13 And we speak ofthese things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit,interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual. (2:12–13)

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

1 Corinthians 6:15–19

The use of temple imagery in 6:19 is somewhat different, since it describes thebody of the individual Christian as the temple of the Holy Spirit. Closerexamination of this text within its context, however, throws up some interesting

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


findings. First, the image of the temple is, as in Ephesians, closely linked to thatof the body of Christ:

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore takethe members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! (6:15)

As in 1 Cor 3:16–17, Paul uses the formula ‘do you not know’ (PŒ Y�Æ��) inhis rhetoric, suggesting a theology that is inherited and shared and notinnovated. Second, Paul uses sexual or marital imagery to articulate theunion that is effected between the believer and the prostitute as a parallel tothat effected between the believer and Christ:

Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body withher? For it is said, ‘The two shall be one flesh.’17 But anyone united to the Lordbecomes one spirit with him.

This is of enormous significance to our study. The use of Genesis 2:24 issuggestive of a union within which the distinction of each party is maintained.The two do not meld or melt, their beings are not confused. They are, instead,united and any transfer of the properties of one to the other must be spoken ofin terms of inter-personal communication, not hybridization. A believerunited to a prostitute is made corrupt by the communication of that individ-ual’s uncleanness to him; a believer united to Christ is made glorious by thecommunication of his glory.22 In connection with the temple image, particu-larly as we have seen it developed in Ephesians, such notions of communi-cation and mediation make good sense.

Third, Paul deploys the participle Œºº�� to describe the union of thebeliever and Christ. This carries the sense of being ‘glued to’ something,suggesting an act of bonding and the intimacy of that bond. In connectionwith this, there is an interesting play on the use of ‘spirit’ (��F�Æ) in 6:17. Theone who is ‘glued’ to the Lord is ‘one spirit [with him]’. This needs to beconsidered in detail. Those who have found the primary background toparticipatory concepts of salvation, in general, and union with Christ, inparticular, in anthropological structures such as purity23 understand the useof ��F�Æ to coordinate with that of �H�� and ��º�: these are taken to beimages of corporate identity, demarcating those who belong to the Christiancommunity (as members of the body of the Lord and thus of one mind or

22 Note, too, that this is the communication of personal, not natural, qualities. This is not,therefore, to be confused with the concept of communicatio idiomatum, whereby the propertiesof one nature are communicated to the other. This communication is person to person, notnature to nature.

23 Jerome H. Neyrey, Paul, in Other Words: A Cultural Reading of His Letters (Louisville:Westminster John Knox Press, 1990), 102–46. Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (NewHaven; London: Yale University Press, 1995) also draws on such ideas, but does so in a moreexegetically and theologically sensitive fashion.


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

1 Corinthians 10:16–17 and 12:12–31

The shift to speaking of the church as the body of Christ in 10:16–17 and12:12–31 does not, then, represent the adoption of an entirely different or newmetaphor. Rather, given the combination of body and temple imagery inchapter 6, it is simply a matter of a shifted focus or emphasis. Neither dothese chapters represent a return to a sporadically deployed metaphor: theintervening chapters of 1 Corinthians, with their concerns with sexual purityand idolatry, emerge very specifically from the application of the temple andbody image at the end of chapter 6. In fact, these are anticipated by thelanguage of 6:11, which must now be seen to have temple associations:

And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you weresanctified (�ªØ��ŁÅ��), you were justified (K�ØŒÆØ�ŁÅ��) in the name of the LordJesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

While we can debate the precise significance of K�ØŒÆØ�ŁÅ�� in relation toatonement, it is clear that here it operates in apposition to (or possiblycoinheres with) the purification of believers and their sanctification, the latterconcept nowmost likely associated with the consecration of items for holy use.For the time being, I will say little on 1 Cor 10:16–17, since this will be dealt

with in Chapter 8, along with the subsequent material in 1 Cor 10:18–11:34.All that I will note is that here, again, a deliberate parallel is drawn between theunion or participation (ŒØ�ø��Æ) that the believer has with Christ in the

24 Martin, The Corinthian Body, 176. 25 E.g. 1:16, 12:13.26 Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 260.


Eucharist and that which is associated with the participant in an idol feast(10:20), echoing the ideas developed in 6:16–17.The presentation of the church as the body of Christ in 12:12–31 appears at

first to lack any temple associations. However, it is anticipated by a lengthydescription of the Spirit’s role in constituting and gifting this body (1:1–11)that culminates in the key statement of 1:13:

For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves orfree—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Paul’s concern in these verses is to emphasize the singularity of the Spirit andthe consequent unity of the body. These, of course, are the same concerns thatwe observed in Ephesians and that we have seen also to govern Paul’sassociation of the temple and Spirit in 1 Cor 3:16–17. Similarly, we haveseen the connection between the body and the temple in 1 Cor 6:15–19. So,while there may be no explicit linking of temple and body imagery in 1 Cor 12itself, there is enough in the wider context to warrant such an association.

It is significant that Paul uses sacramental language to articulate the role ofthe Spirit in constituting the body: the body is constituted by individuals being‘baptized’ into it ‘by’ or ‘in’ the Spirit. This is a point to which we will return inChapter 8, though it is worth noting at this stage the distinctive roles andfunctions played in the formation of this body by Christ and the Spirit,reflected subtly in the use of prepositions. Christ is the one whose identitygoverns and integrates the body: the church is baptized ‘into’ (�N�) his body,thus being located ‘in him’ and, as such, identified as the body of Christ. TheSpirit is portrayed, as in Ephesians, as being in the role of the one whoactualizes: the preposition K� may be translated as ‘in’ or ‘by’, but the factthat it is coordinated with the action of implanting the believer ‘into Christ’means that it must be seen as having a different significance to the use of thesame preposition in Paul’s beloved K� �æØ��fiH phrase. This, too, will beexplored further in a later chapter, but it is important that we grasp thedistinction between the significance of the Spirit and of Christ in the consti-tution of the body, for this takes us beyond simply the issue of the church’srelationship to Jesus: it takes us into the ontology of the incarnation itself, asPaul considers it. If, as Dunn would contend, we are dealing with a SpiritChristology, in which the deity of Jesus is ‘no more and no less than the HolySpirit’,27 then surely we would expect the body image to be developed in adifferent way, with the Spirit transforming the church into the body of God,not the body of Christ. To put this slightly differently, we would expect to findthe identity of God being made manifest in the church by means of the Spirit,as it was in Christ. Instead, it is Christ’s identity that is manifest in the church.

27 Dunn, The Christ and the Spirit, 143.


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

Conclusions to the Study of Paul

Having established a certain set of associations in 1 Corinthians between thetemple and the body and the Spirit, the potential to identify a thoroughgoingtemple ecclesiology in Paul is clear. The density of glory language in 2 Cor 3–5and Romans is appropriate to this and, given what we have seen in Part 1 ofthis study, the potential significance of the temple for creation means that sucha theology may be connected to Paul’s use of new creation language. As weturn to study that language in the next chapter, this is a possibility that we willconsider in depth. For the present purposes, however, our study of 1 Corinth-ians has been adequate to establish the connections between Paul’s theology ofthe church as temple and body and the theology of Ephesians. The evidence ofPaul supports the conclusions that such imagery can be traced back into theearlier history of the New Testament, with Paul’s own deployment of itreflecting still older traditions, to which we will turn in the next section. Ourstudy of temple and body in 1 Corinthians also suggests the recognition of adistinctive significance to the incarnation, so that the divinity of Jesus is notportrayed as being of a type with our own experience of the Spirit.

THE PETRINE EPISTLES

The image of the church as temple is also found in 1 Peter 2:4–8, where it isexplicitly linked to quotations of Isaiah 28:16 and Psalm 118:22, supplementedby Isaiah 8:14. Clearly, these texts have been brought together by the simplepractice of gezera shewa through the shared term ‘stone’. We do not encounterin 1 Peter the melding of the images of temple and body that we have seen inthe Pauline literature, but we may observe a similar tendency for the depictionof the church as temple to be hybridized with other images and, crucially, forthe image to serve as the basis for participatory descriptions of the church.A set of key terms is taken up from the Scriptural texts that are quoted:

‘stone’ (º�Ł�), ‘rejected/reject’ (I��ŒØ�Æ��/I��ŒØ��Çø), ‘chosen’(KŒº�Œ��), and ‘precious’ (��Ø��). These terms are applied clearly to theMessiah himself, but they are also applied to the church, members of whichare ‘as living stones’ (‰� º�ŁØ ÇH��) being built into a spiritual house to be aholy priesthood (2:5), which is itself equated with ‘a chosen people, a royalpriesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God’. While there are


undeniable echoes here of Exodus 19:6, these are married to the language ofIsaiah and to the image of the Servant, the royal and ‘chosen’ one (Is 42:1–7,65:9), with the terms ‘chosen’ and ‘precious’ allowing multiple points ofcontact between the Servant songs and the passages describing the stone.The use of ‘light’ in 2:9 confirms the Isaianic influence on Peter’s language.28

Arguably, the projection of the language used to describe the Messiah ontomembers of the church reflects the interplay of the singular figure of theServant in Isaiah with the multiple servants.29 Similarly to Isaiah, the servantsparticipate in the experience of the Servant: like him these living stones arerejected and suffer (2:21–4, 4:12–13; cf 1:6–10).

The church, then, is depicted as the temple, as the house of God, andconsequently as experiencing the light of the glory of God. This image itself,however, joins with others. In this case, those other images do not include thatof the body, as in Paul, but they do appear to be controlled by principles ofexegesis and textual association, so that, as in the case of the temple–bodycomplex, this coordination of images is not random, but is quite preciselydeveloped. Significantly, too, these images are participatory in nature: thechurch shares in both the status and privileges of the Messiah, but also inhis experience of suffering.

Three points now require to be made from the wider context in connectionwith this experience of participating in the Messiah as his temple. First, thebasis of the church’s participation in the Messiah—its hope—is the resurrec-tion: God ‘has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrectionof Jesus Christ from the dead’ (1:3). The adjectival deployment of ‘living’ hereparallels that seen in connection with ‘stone/stones’ in 2:4–5. This serves tolink these verses together and to do so in a way that centralizes the uniquenessof the resurrection as an event. As was the case in Paul, the significance of thishas to be taken seriously, for it challenges any reading of Peter that fails toemphasize the uniqueness of Christ in the narrative of salvation: while thereare analogies developed between the church and Christ, these are predicatedon a point of absolute dis-analogy and proceed from a singularly determina-tive reality. Similarly, in 2:4 it is ‘as you come to him’ that the church isconstituted as temple, and the context of rejection and vindication means that‘living’ here must indicate his resurrect condition. The point also allows us tonote an easily overlooked feature of 1:3, namely that the living hope is equatedwith Jesus himself: he is that hope, the one who lives.

The resurrection, though, is inseparable in its significance from the cruci-fixion. The preceding verse (1:2) links the consecration of the church to ‘the

28 Cf., Isaiah 42:6, 60:3.29 See Patrick Egan, ‘Suffering Servants: The Interpretation of Isaiah in 1 Peter’, Doctoral

Dissertation (University of St Andrews, 2011). Egan’s work has some parallels in the Paulinescholarship of Gignilliat, Paul and Isaiah’s Servants.


sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling byhis blood’.30 Scholars widely acknowledge an allusion to Exodus 24:3–8, sothat the covenantal significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus isemphasized. Given the strength of the case, it is surely significant that Exodus24 is followed by the lengthy description, taking up the rest of the book, of theconstruction of the tabernacle, a description that culminates with the glory ofGod settling on the tent. Covenant and temple require one another and this istrue of the new covenant also. Again, though, the glory that indwells thetemple and that constitutes the inheritance (1:4–5) of the church must beseen as an alien reality, a quality of God that is gifted (1:3) to God’s people,rather than being seen as an inherent property of humanity restored to them.Second, the participatory experience of the church as temple is actualized by

the Spirit, within a divine economy described in remarkably developed Trini-tarian language. We have already noted the allusion in 1:1–2 to Exodus 24;closer examination of this verse is now required.

1To those chosen . . . 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by theHoly Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood.

1 KŒº�Œ�E� . . . 2 ŒÆ�a �æ�ª�ø�Ø� Ł�F �Æ�æe� K� ±ªØÆ��fiH ��Æ�� N� ��ÆŒc�

ŒÆd ÞÆ��Ø��e� Æ¥�Æ�� Å�F �æØ��F.

The wording of the verse is terse and there are a number of interpretativechallenges posed, reflected in the creative renderings in most modern transla-tions. For our purposes, the key is the significance of the phrase K� ±ªØÆ��fiH��Æ�� and its relationship to ÞÆ��Ø��e� Æ¥�Æ�� Å�F �æØ��F. Mostscholars would agree that the significance of K� ±ªØÆ��fiH ��Æ�� is not indescribing the holiness of the Spirit in himself (though this is hardly irrele-vant) but rather, given the dative construction with K�, as a description of hissanctifying role, his capacity to impart holiness to others. Given that thephrase is followed by a telic �N�,31 it is obviously linked to ‘obedience’ and‘sprinkling with blood’, both of which are in the accusative case. What, though,of the function of the genitive �Å�F �æØ��F in relation to these two outcomesand the implications for how we understand the work of the Spirit?The difficulty lies in the different genitive functions required of �Å�F

�æØ��F if it is to be seen as governing both ‘obedience’ and ‘sprinkling withblood’. In the case of the former: if the obedience is ‘to’ Jesus, then the genitivewould be objective. In the case of the latter: if the blood is that ‘of ’ Jesus, thegenitive would be straightforwardly possessive. Given this difficulty, a numberof commentators see the pairing of the two accusatives as a hendiadys,

30 For further discussion of this verse, and the translational issues, see ‘Conclusions’ (p. 171)and ‘Other Images of the Temple in the New Testament’ (p. 172).

31 Most commentators agree that this is the force of the preposition. The notable exception isFrancis H. Agnew, ‘1 Peter 1:2—an Alternative Translation’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 45(1983), 68–73, who ascribes causal force to �N�.


expressing a single reality of consecration seen to be derived from the coven-ant ratification of Exodus 24:3–8.32 This means that obedience and sprinklingwith blood are part of the same sanctified reality of the new covenant.33 Thefact that Peter ties the Spirit’s activity so closely to this reality must stem fromthe influence of key Old Testament texts that speak of his/its role particularlyin terms of obedience: Ezekiel 36 and its natural partner text of Jeremiah31:31–3.34 Strikingly, too, the Spirit-governed inception of participation in thissanctified reality is described in terms of new birth (1:3, 23), which parallelslanguage that we will see in John in relation to the Spirit’s eschatological work.Most importantly, though, the construction of 1:2 requires that the Spirit’ssanctifying work is an actualization in the lives of believers of that which hasbeen accomplished by the death and resurrection of Jesus, a theme that willrecur in subsequent chapters of our study.

When we encounter the repeated use of the adjective ��ı�Æ�ØŒ��, then, in2:5, it surely conveys nothing less than the activity of the Spirit in constitutingthe new temple and the holy priesthood within it, and this represents asignificant point of overlap with the theology that we have observed in Pauland in Ephesians.

Third, there is a repeated emphasis in 1 Peter that this new temple, whileitself the fulfilment of prophetic expectation, is also but the partial realizationof a hope still to be brought to consummation (1:4–5; 2:12). Again, thisparallels significantly what we have begun to see in the Pauline writings, butthe full extent of the parallel will only be seen in subsequent chapters, as weexplore in greater depth the eschatological tension present in the narratives ofparticipation.

THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS AND ACTS

The texts that have been studied up to this point have reflected a reasonablyconsistent ecclesiology that considers the Christian community to be the newtemple, with Jesus himself a foundational part of that temple. This belief isdeveloped by recourse to common readings of specific Scriptures, seeminglygoverned by principles of inner-biblical exegesis. In the case of the Paulinewritings, there is some evidence in the character of the apostle’s rhetoric that

32 Paul J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter: A Commentary on First Peter (Hermeneia; Minneapolis:Fortress Press, 1996), 87–9. Karen H. Jobes, 1 Peter (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 72.

33 Note also the bringing together of purification language with obedience in 1:22. A casecould be made that, in fact, the obedience expected of believers is precisely a participation in theobedience of Jesus, and this possibility, derived from recent work on Paul, will be explored in asubsequent chapter.

34 The pairing of these texts is justified by the mutual theme of internalized law.


this theology is, to some extent, already held by his audience. Similarly, theidentification of this temple with the body of Christ, found in Ephesians andalso in the undisputed Pauline writings, appears to have been pre-Pauline informulation.As we turn now to consider the Synoptic Gospels and Acts, and the

historical Jesus tradition that they broker, we may begin to find, not justfurther evidence of such a theology, but explanations for why it is so wide-spread and how it may have arisen. Again, the key will lie in the readings ofparticular Scriptures. In order to bring this out most clearly, we will examinethe book of Acts before moving back into the Synoptics.

The Book of Acts

The temple plays an important structuring role in the first half of Acts. Thereader moves from events centred on the Jerusalem temple in chapters 1–4,including Pentecost, through the temple- and priest-centred conflicts of Acts 5and into the accounts of Stephen’s speech and martyrdom, which is domin-ated, of course, by the question of the temple and its significance in therelationship between God and Israel. In the wake of the diaspora that followsthe death of Stephen, the narrative moves towards the Jerusalem council andthe discussion of the significance of the Spirit’s work in Gentiles, a discussionthat is resolved, as we shall see, with reference to prophetic texts that areinterpreted as describing the Christian community to be the new temple.35

The landscape of the first half of the book, at least, is dominated by these twotemples.Given what we have seen in this chapter so far, it is significant that the

temple themes are themselves contextualized by a narrative governed by theprogress of the Spirit’s presence and work. This, of course, is key to thedevelopment of chapters 1 and 2, leading up to the outpouring at Pentecost,but it also marks the account of chapter 4, as Peter speaks before the templeauthorities ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ (4:8) and as the church, responding tothe release of the apostles, is filled with the Holy Spirit and speaks the wordwith boldness (4:31). Following this, the problematic of Acts 5 is the dishon-esty of Ananias and Sapphira towards the Holy Spirit (5:3), an account that isitself followed by a further conflict account, as Peter and the other apostles areinterrogated by the Sanhedrin, bringing to a climax their response with astatement concerning the role of the Spirit in witnessing the vindication ofChrist (5:32). The account of Stephen, himself a man ‘full of the Spirit’ (6:5),

35 See our discussion (‘The Book of Acts’, pp. 165–7) of Richard Bauckham, ‘James and theJerusalem Church’, in Richard Bauckham (ed.), Book of Acts in Its Palestinian Setting (GrandRapids; Carlisle: Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 1995), 415–80.


involves his lengthy speech to the Sanhedrin, which culminates with hisprophetic verdict:

You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever oppos-ing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. (7:51)

His subsequent vision of God’s glory and of the Son of Man is presented as aresult of the Spirit’s work, filling him. The diaspora that follows his deathresults in the spread of the gospel into the Samaritan and then Gentile worlds,with the receiving of the Holy Spirit by those constituencies key to thenarrative of Acts (8:15–17). This, of course, leads into the account of theJerusalem council in chapter 15, as the question of the status of Spirit-filledGentiles within the church is debated, along with the related question of thelegal expectations that are to be placed upon them. As already intimated, thischapter will require particular attention, since the conviction that the churchconstitutes the eschatological temple is key within it. But so too does 4:1–11;both passages develop their ecclesiological statements—whether explicit orimplicit—by means of creative intertextual exegesis.

Acts 4:1–11 takes up the account of Peter’s healing of the lame man in thetemple gate called Beautiful, where he would lie begging for alms.36 Theapostles are brought before the Sanhedrin to explain the power or name bywhich they brought about the healing (4:7); Peter addresses the members ofthe council as ‘rulers’ (¼æå��), possibly a deliberate echo of Psalm 118(117):9,37 and states in response that the man has been healed ‘by the nameof Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from thedead’ (4:10). The statement is important, for it once again identifies theresurrection as the definitive vindication of Jesus. Peter then links this vindi-cation to Psalm 118 (117):22.

Acts 4:11y�� K��Ø� › º�Ł�, › K�ıŁ��ÅŁ�d� �ç� ��H� �H� NŒ��ø�, › ª�� N�

Œ�çÆºc� ªø��Æ�.

This [Jesus] is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become thecornerstone.’

Psalm 118 (117):22º�Ł�, n� I��Œ��Æ�Æ� ƒ NŒ��F��, y�� Kª�� ŁÅ �N� Œ�çÆºc� ªø��Æ�·

The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

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

36 Note the echoes of Luke 7:22; this is potentially significant given the Isaianic texts oftenseen to lie behind this passage.

37 ‘It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to put confidence in rulers.’


builders by the addition of ��H�, specifying that the term denotes his audienceand linking the rejection of Jesus to his crucifixion by the leaders (‘whom youcrucified’) in 4:10. Second, the verb indicating rejection has been changedfrom the aorist indicative active I��Œ��Æ�Æ� to the aorist passive participleK�ıŁ��ÅŁ�d�. This has occasioned a good deal of discussion, for it breaks theconsistent pattern of citation of Psalm 118 (117):22 in the New Testament,which otherwise makes use of the usual LXX text form. The verb is valid as arendering of the Hebrew of Psalm 118:22 (though it connotes ‘contempt’rather than ‘rejection’), leading some to suggest that this is simply Peter’sadaptation of a Hebrew original,38 but some have argued that its occurrencehere constitutes a deliberate conflation with Isaiah 53:3, reflecting the use ofK�ıŁ��ø in some Greek manuscripts of the prophet.39 The specific uptake ofIsaiah 53:3 here would be warranted by the presence of a homonym for‘rejection’ in that text ( הזב , K�ıŁ��ø) as well as by the general combinationof ideas, from rejection to vindication. Regardless of this suggestion, the keypoint for us to note here is that Peter’s speech to the Jewish leaders reflects thebasic conviction that the eschatological temple has come into existence andthat the Messiah is part of its structure.With Acts 15, we arrive at one of the key New Testament passages for our

understanding of the identity of the church vis-à-vis Israel. It has been commonto regard the account of the Jerusalem Council as a Lukan fabrication, with theuse of Scripture in 15:16–18 constituting little better than imprecise Christianproof-texting.40 The publication of Bauckham’s analysis of the passage, how-ever, informed by a sensitivity to Jewish exegetical technique and bymeticulousexamination of the historical evidence for James and the Jerusalem church, hasbrought such casual dismissal of the historicity of Acts 15 into question.41

Bauckham’s argument is, essentially, that close examination of the propheticquotation of 15:16–18 reveals not a poor quotation of Amos 9:11–12 but acarefully constructed conflation of prophetic texts (note the plural ‘prophets’ in15:15), governed by Jewish exegetical principles and reflecting the multiformand fluid text-types now known to have been available in the Second TemplePeriod.42 This could not have been a Lukan fabrication but, instead, constitutesevidence for the authenticity of the account.

38 R. P. C. Hanson, The Acts in the Revised Standard Version (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967), 78.39 Jacques Dupont, Études sur les Actes des Apôtres (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1967), 261, 301.

M. C. Albl, ‘And Scripture Cannot Be Broken’: The Form and Function of the Early ChristianTestimonia Collections (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 271.

40 See, for example, C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of theApostles (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994), vol. 2, 722–8.

41 Bauckham, ‘James and the Jerusalem Church’.42 Bauckham, ‘James and the Jerusalem Church’, 455–6. Support for this may be found in

George J. Brooke, ‘Biblical Interpretation at Qumran’, in J. H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Bible andthe Dead Sea Scrolls (Volume 1; Waco: Baylor University Press, 2006), 287–317. More extensiveexaminations of these principles may also be found in Brooke’s monographs, notably Exegesis at


Amidst the impressive detail of his study, Bauckham makes several pointsthat are worth isolating here. First, the addition of ��a �ÆF�Æ I�Æ��æ�łø tothe beginning of the prophetic statement supplements the text of Amos 9:11with words drawn from Hosea 3:5, where the eschatological renewal of Israelin the last days is described. This locates the events that have led to theJerusalem Council in the eschatological stage of the story of Israel and thecovenant. The occurrence of I�Æ��æ�łø, however, may also link Hosea 3:5with Jeremiah 12:16, where the Gentiles are ‘built’ among the people of God.The terminological link between the two prophetic texts is slender, but in thecontext of Acts 15:16–18, it is less easy to dismiss. At the other end of thequotation, the words ª�ø��a I�� ÆNH�� have also been added, these beingdrawn from Isaiah 45:21, another prophetic text speaking of the turning ofGentiles to God.

Thus the allusions to three other prophetic passages which frame the mainquotation from Amos put the latter in a context of prophecies which associatethe eschatological conversion of the Gentile nations with the restoration of theTemple in the messianic age.43

Second, in Acts 15:16, the original verb from the Greek of Amos 9:11(I�Æ�� ø, ‘I will raise up’) has been replaced with I�ØŒ�� ø (‘I willrebuild’), which has the effect of giving greater architectural specificity to thequotation, making it harder to read in terms of the renewal of the Davidicdynasty and more obviously a prophecy concerning the eschatologicaltemple.44 Third, the omission of ‘and will rebuild its fallen parts’ is deliberate,removing the possibility of confusion with the broken walls of a town, ratherthan the temple; again, this is intended to ensure that the prophecy isunderstood to speak of the eschatological temple building. Fourth, ‘as in thedays of old’ is also omitted, in order to emphasize the surpassing status of theeschatological temple. Thus, two full clauses have been omitted from the textof Amos for specific reasons of referentiality.45

All of this points to the rationale of the Acts 15 account as revolvingaround the conviction that the church constitutes the eschatological temple.The distinctive point that emerges in the narrative of Acts is that Gentileshave been deemed to be part of this structure, to be ‘built among my people’(Jer 12:16), on the basis of the evidence of their experience of the Spirit (Acts15:8–9). Crucially, for Bauckham, their inclusion in the structure of David’s

Qumran: 4QFlorilegium in Its Jewish Context and The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005).

43 Bauckham, ‘James and the Jerusalem Church’, 455.44 Cf. the use of �ŒÅ� with such an eschatological sense in Tobit 13:11.45 Bauckham notes Brooke’s evidence for such omissions being a deliberate exegetical device:

Brooke, Exegesis at Qumran, 91–2.


rebuilt tent is not predicated on their being transformed into Israelites, butrather they are incorporated qua Gentiles, which explains the limited decreeof 15:19–21, based on the restrictions placed upon ‘the Gentiles living amongyou’ (Leviticus 17:8, 10, 12, 13, 18:26). The eschatological temple, as the symbolof the eschatological people of God, represents a new community in whichthere are both Jews and Gentiles, with neither a distinction made between them(Acts 15:9) nor an obliteration of their social or ethnic identity.Significantly, of course, this new temple is associated with the Messiah and,

indeed, the rationale for the selection and conflation of texts is precisely amessianic one. As we have seen in Chapter 4, there were strong associations ofthe Messiah with traditions of the building of the eschatological temple inJudaism. Based on our study of Acts 4:11, we may now add a further point, onethat will receive additional support once we have examined the Gospels: forthe earliest Christian community, distinctively within Judaism, the Messiahwas not simply the builder of the eschatological temple but was also part ofits fabric.

The Synoptic Gospels

Having observed the significance of Psalm 118 (117):22 in Acts 4:11 and thedevelopment of the identity of the church as temple in Luke’s second volume,notably in Acts 15, we are now ready to consider the more limited evidence ofthe Synoptic Gospels. What is crucial here is the complex link between thetemple action of Jesus, his (alleged) claim to tear down and rebuild the templein three days, the trial verdict, and, perhaps most importantly, the use of Psalm118 (117):22 in the Parable of the Tenants.The significance of the temple action of Jesus has always been a matter of

debate in scholarship: should it be understood as a protest against injustice oras some kind of prophetic sign-act of the fate awaiting the temple and itsimminent replacement by a new dispensation revolving around Jesus him-self?46 The latter view is obviously most easily aligned with the later NewTestament portrayal of the church as an eschatological temple, but it is farfrom being the scholarly consensus on the temple action. As we will see in thenext chapter, there is no question that by the time of John’s gospel the twoapproaches had been fused and that Jesus was portrayed as knowingly consti-tuting the eschatological temple. To sustain such a case with regard to theSynoptics or the Historical Jesus tradition, however, is more controversial.

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


Regardless of this, though, there is a wider recognition that the temple actionwas a key precipitating factor in the arrest and trial of Jesus.47

It is a striking feature of the Synoptics that, despite some differences in thearrangement of the material, the temple action is closely linked to (or evenunderstood to precipitate) the debate over the source of Jesus’s authority(Matt 21:23–7; Mark 11:27–33; Luke 20:1–18), which is followed by theParable of the Tenants.48 This parable is therefore given some significance inrelation to the response to Jesus’s action in the temple. The parable, ofcourse, describes the sending of servants to the tenants of a vineyard toreceive the ‘fruit’ due to the master of the vineyard. Each is seized andbeaten, prompting the owner to eventually send his own son, who is alsokilled. This action leads to the vineyard being taken from those tenants andrented to others, who will show the owner due respect. It is particularlynoteworthy that, while the likely background of the parable lies in Isaiah5:1–7, the resolution explicitly turns on a quotation from Psalm 118(117):22–3, the very text that we have encountered now in several locations.49

Luke omits the second half of the quotation, from Psalm 118(117): 23 (‘theLord has done this and it is marvellous in our eyes’), perhaps reflectingthe fact that in most occurrences in the New Testament, it is only verse 22that is cited.

Why, though, should this be the portion of Scripture that is utilized in theparable? Obviously, it is relevant as a passage speaking of rejection andvindication, but might other passages not serve better? The fact that this isone of the psalms of ascent, sung while approaching Jerusalem for Passover, isof obvious relevance, since Jesus may have sung it recently and considered itsthemes to be important to his own ministry. In fact, Psalm 118:26 is one of theScriptures used by the crowd during the triumphal entry of Jesus (21:9).

There is, though, a further reason why this particular Scripture may havebeen used by Jesus in relation to the parable of the tenants. A number ofscholars have recognized the possible word play of ’eben (stone) and bēn(son):50 the rejected ‘stone’ may easily be punned to the rejected ‘son’.51

That such wordplay is intentional is quite defensible: the Targum to Psalm

47 See Perrin, Jesus the Temple, 80–113. The view is particularly associated with N. T. Wright,The New Testament and the People of God (London: SPCK, 1992), Jesus and the Victory of God(London: SPCK, 1996), and also Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (London: SCM, 1985).

48 In Matthew, the additional parable of the two sons (21:28–32) separates the accounts.49 Matt 21:42, Mark 12:10–11; Luke 20:17.50 George J. Brooke, ‘4Q500 1 and the Use of Scripture in the Parable of the Vineyard’, Dead

Sea Discoveries, 2 (1995), 268–94, 287–8.51 Klyne Snodgrass, Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus

(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 290 and notes, provides a comprehensive response to thosewho would suggest that such specifically Hebrew punning should be discounted in dealing with aparable ostensibly delivered to an Aramaic-speaking audience.


118:22 renders ‘stone’ as ‘child’, giving a clearer messianic overtone,52 with asimilar phenomenon being seen in the Targum to Zechariah 4:7. Interestingly,as Blomberg notes,53 the use of Psalm 118:22 at Qumran is not given thismessianic focus, but is rather projected onto the community as a whole: in TheCommunity Rule 8:7, the entire community is described as ‘the tested rampart,the precious cornerstone’. By contrast, the evidence of the Parable of theTalents suggests that the early Christian community (and, if the account isauthentic, Jesus himself) understood Psalm 118 messianically. This also sug-gests, though, a conviction that the Messiah would not simply build theeschatological temple, but would himself function as its cornerstone/capstone,as part of its fabric. Given, then, the link between the fate of the Messiah’sbody, its impending death and subsequent vindicating resurrection, and theestablishment of the eschatological temple (a link achieved through preciselythis Scripture and its distinctive handling in the New Testament), it is possiblethat Psalm 118(117):22 is the textual key to explaining the distinctive hybrid-ization of temple and body imagery that we have observed throughout thischapter. Once the rejected and killed Son is seen to be the chosen cornerstone,through his bodily resurrection, the link between the body of the Messiah andthe eschatological temple is made clear.Whether or not, then, the accusations brought against Jesus in the context

of his trial were grounded in his own actual, explicit words (Matt 26:60, 61;Mark 14:57–8), the arrangement of material from the temple incident to theParable of the Tenants confirms that the Gospels present Jesus as functioningas the cornerstone of a new eschatological temple. As in the other uses ofPsalm 118(117):22 in the New Testament, this occurrence in the Parable of theTenants draws in further passages that employ stone imagery, this time Isaiah8:14–15 and possibly Daniel 2:34–5. The first of these is particularly interest-ing, since it speaks not of the Messiah, but of God himself; in the NewTestament, that imagery is unabashedly applied to Jesus.

CONCLUSIONS

We have studied in this chapter a range of passages that present the church asthe eschatological temple, noting the extent to which this concept is found inthe New Testament and the distinctive way in which it becomes hybridizedwith the idea of the church as the body of Christ. By tracing the images back to

52 This is reflected also in the Cairo Genizah Songs of David A 18, which applies this verse toDavid.

53 Craig Blomberg, ‘Matthew’, in D. A. Carson and G. K. Beale (eds), Commentary on the NewTestament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids; Nottingham: Baker; IVP, 2007), 74.


the earliest strata of the New Testament we can, with some justification,describe them as core to the New Testament theologies of participation.I have suggested that the hybridization of temple and body may have arisenunder the influence of the text of Psalm 118(117):22, which occurs a numberof times in the New Testament, with sufficient frequency for us to see it asbeing of widespread significance in early Christian theology, and which helpsto account for the conviction that the Messiah is not only builder of the templebut also part of its fabric, while also linking the fate of his body (rejected andresurrected) to the establishment of the temple. In addition to this suggestion,a number of further conclusions must now be noted.

First, the imagery of the church as eschatological temple is consistentlylinked to the unity of church. At the heart of this is the distinctive eschato-logical identity of the church as a new reality containing both Jew and Gentile.The union of these with one another is founded upon their union with theMessiah and their shared experience of the Spirit.

Second, the image of the church as temple is crucial to the proper under-standing of the use of glory language of the church in the New Testament.Contextualized by the image of the temple, such language most obviouslypoints to the alien presence of God in the midst of his people and not to aninnate but lost property of humanity or Adam. While we must be careful notto impose this on the material that we will study in later chapters, or to undulyobscure other associations of glory in relation to the narratives of participationthat we will explore there, we must also be careful not to lose sight of thesignificance of this important background to the glory language of the NewTestament. Similarly, we must be aware of the relevance of this templeimagery to the designations of members of the church as ‘holy’ and as ‘saints’.

Third, in the Pauline and Petrine material, the image of the church astemple includes elements of analogy and continuity between the Messiahand his people (the stone/stones, etc.), but it also involves radical discontinu-ity: he alone is the cornerstone, his resurrection uniquely brings the newtemple into existence, the Spirit actualizes his reality in the lives of his peopleand does not simply make them ‘like him’. This, importantly, pushes us awayfrom considering these writers to understand the incarnation in terms that areanalogous to the general Christian experience of the Spirit.

Fourth, the reality of the new temple, in which the church experiences thetransformative presence of God, is closely linked in the books that we havestudied with the experience of the Spirit, whose role is specifically developed inrelation to the work of the Messiah. While linked to the experience of theSpirit, the reality of the church as temple is typically described using a range ofScriptural texts, allusions, and citations. The understanding of the church astemple is, therefore, seen to be controlled by Scriptural exegesis.

Fifth, this scriptural exegesis serves to ensure that the eschatological templeis understood in the context of the covenant and the various prophetic


writings that speak of the renewal and transformation of that covenant. Overagainst the ‘apocalyptic’ approaches to the New Testament that tend to de-emphasize this element of continuity with the narrative of Israel, this ensuresthat the story of the church is taken into the story of Israel, not as a replacementtheology or a supersessionism, and certainly not effacing the identities of Jewand Gentile, but as part of a messianic reality understood to fulfil the intentionsof God in its globally redemptive orientation.


7

Other Images of the Templein the New Testament

The passages that we studied in Chapter 6 depicted the church as the eschato-logical temple. In this chapter, we turn to examine texts in which the relation-ship between redeemed humans and God is also presented using templeimagery, but in which the church is not itself identified as the temple. Wewill examine in this chapter the temple Christology of the Fourth Gospel, theheavenly temple of Hebrews and, finally, the New Jerusalem of Revelation.Recognizing the motif of divine presence, which lies at the heart of bothtemple and covenant imagery, allows us to differentiate the various imagesof the temple in the New Testament without thereby fracturing their essentialunity: each, in its own way, develops the theme of God’s presence with hispeople and does so by means of covenantal imagery.

JOHN ’S GOSPEL: CHRIST THE DIVINE TEMPLE

The Prologue to John

The prologue of John’s gospel has been described as the gateway to itschristological truth, the vestibule through which the reader passes into thegospel.1 That prologue describes the enfleshment of the Word, identified as

1 This common image for John’s prologue is exploited by Martin Hengel, ‘The Prologue of theGospel of John as the Gateway to Christological Truth’, in Richard Bauckham and Carl Mosser(eds), Gospel of John and Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 265–94, allowingan exploration of the extent to which the prologue anticipates key themes of the book. Therehave, of course, been a number of theories concerning the origins of the prologue, which hasoften been seen as a secondary addition, and these have been part of the wider discussion of theredactional history of the gospel. There is a general consensus in contemporary scholarship,however, that identification of sources is largely impossible and that the gospel is well unified.For an overview of this, see Udo Schnelle, ‘Ein neuer Blick: Tendenzen gegenwärtiger Johan-nesforschung’, Berliner theologische Zeitschrift 16 (1999), 21–40. A further useful inroad into the

God in 1:1 (ŒÆd Ł�e� q� › º�ª�), as the dwelling of the Word among us (1:14).The specific verb used for this dwelling is �ŒÅ��ø, occurring in aorist form.The choice of word is interesting because the verb means ‘to camp’ or ‘to pitcha tent’. It is the cognate verb to the noun �ŒÅ� , ‘tabernacle’. The verb occursin the Greek of the Old Testament only once, in Genesis 13:12, but the noun iswidespread, with a usage that includes the tent in which the ark of God’spresence resided. That fact, taken by itself, does not mean that we shouldimmediately conclude that the occurrence of the verb here has temple-overtones, but the proximate occurrence of ‘glory’ supports such a conclusion:the combination of ‘tabernacle’ and ‘glory’ is a natural one to make in the lightof the Exodus and wilderness narratives of Israel. Still, John’s description ofthe Word ‘tabernacling’ with us does not identify Jesus as the temple so muchas the glory within the temple, ‘the one greater than the temple’ to borrow theMatthean phrase.2 As we shall see, however, the identification of Jesus as thetemple, as well as the indwelling Presence, is one that John will extrapolatefrom this.The glory of Jesus is specified to be that of the Only Begotten (��ª�� ),

who is described as ‘from the Father’ and ‘full of grace and truth’. Thesedescriptions require a little reflection. The statement that the Only Begotten is�Ææa �Æ�æ�� reflects a major theme in the Fourth Gospel, namely that theFather has ‘sent’ the Son. ‘[T]he Johannine Jesus describes his task around fiftytimes as being sent by the Father’.3 The key point that must be recognized hereis that this origin functions as the premise for the glory revealed in or by theSon. It is because he is �Ææa �Æ�æ�� that the Son is glorious. For John,moreover, this is not a functional divinity, resulting from the sending of achosen man to fulfil a divine purpose. The sending of the Son is equated withhis coming into the world and taking flesh. It is, in other words, a pre-existentglory, which is precisely why John begins with an echo of Genesis 1:1: theWord was in the beginning.The description of the Word as ‘full of grace and truth’ (�º æÅ� å�æØ�� ŒÆd

IºÅŁ��Æ�) develops his revelatory role. There may well be shades of Wisdomimagery here, possibly combined with speculation about the pre-existentTorah,4 but in this context, such imagery is brought fundamentally into the

discussions may be found in the various essays collected in Tom Thatcher,WhatWe Have Heardfrom the Beginning: The Past, Present, and Future of Johannine Studies (Waco: Baylor UniversityPress, 2007).

2 Matt 12:6.3 Hengel, ‘The Prologue of the Gospel of John’, 268.4 The prologue has commonly been seen as a Johannine adaptation of a Wisdom hymn. See

G. Rochais, ‘La Formation du Prologue (Jn 1:1–18)’, Science et Esprit 37 (1985), 161–87, andHengel, ‘Prologue of the Gospel of John’. Although such a conclusion may be incorrect, and thecompositional unity of the Fourth Gospel defended—as it is by Richard Bauckham, TheTestimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John

Other Images of the Temple in the New Testament 173

service of John’s Christology, which subverts any antecedents. John’s obviouscomparison is between Jesus and Moses, with the ‘grace and truth’ combin-ation setting Jesus apart from his revelatory predecessor (1:17). There has beenmuch discussion of the significance of the phrase å�æØ� I��d å�æØ�� in John1:16, as to whether this should be seen as simply intensifying the association ofgrace with Jesus, piling one grace upon another, or whether I�� has its morenormal function, meaning ‘in place of ’. The former view has tended to bereflected in the translations of the verse (so NRSV, NIV), but the latter hasbeen advanced by a number of scholars who have seen the statement asfunctioning to establish continuity between the revelation that has come throughJesus and that associated with Moses. The grace that has now come in fullnessthrough Jesus is in place (I��) of the grace brought through Moses. The recentwork byGeraldWheaton (see footnote 22 inChapter 10, p. 256) on the role of theJewish feasts in the structure and theology of John’s gospel, which understandsthe Evangelist to have systematically presented Jesus as fulfilling the symbolismof the feasts, constitutes strong support for this interpretation of the phrase.

John, then, brings together two key concepts in relation to grace: presenceand truth. The presence of God in the world, in Christ the tabernacle, isunderstood as the presence of truth and, hence, as revelation. The pervasivelight imagery in the passage (1:4, 9), which anticipates one of the themes of thegospel, reflects this combination of ideas. It also, however, anticipates theproblem of blindness to the revelation that is in Christ. We will defer athorough discussion of this point until Chapter 10, but we may make onekey observation: this subversion means that, whatever backgrounds and par-allels may be adduced for the light imagery—whether that of the Shekinah orof Plato’s true light—they are deployed quite strategically by John, within adistinctive theological schema of revelation.

Jesus and the Cleansing of the Temple

The identification of Jesus with the new temple is made explicit in John 2,through the variations that are found in the temple-cleansing account, whencompared to those found in the Synoptics. John brings this account to thebeginning of his gospel, rather than placing it where it occurs in the Synoptics,in the build-up to Jesus’s arrest. An obvious thematic importance is therefore

(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 271–84—the argument itself is an acknowledgement ofthe sapiential content of the passage and its connections to Jewish Wisdom speculation. Suchspeculation has itself been connected to reflection on the re-existence of Torah, an idea thatemerges in rabbinic writing (notably Gen. Rab. 1:1). Whether such an idea was in circulation atthe time of the New Testament is a matter of speculation, but has been defended by ArminLange, Weisheit und Prädestination: Weisheitliche Urordnung und Prädestination in den Text-funden von Qumran (Leiden: Brill, 1995).


attached to the incident. It is also, here, juxtaposed with the first of Jesus’spublic miracles, the transformation of the water to wine at Cana. The strikingpoint of connection between the two accounts lies in the fact that the trans-formed water is the content of ceremonial washing jars (2:6).5 Many haverightly seen an eschatological irony6 in the master’s words to the groom—‘youhave saved the best until now’ (�ø� ¼æ�Ø)—by which he unwittingly commentson the superiority of the messianic age, but it should also be recognized thatthe miracle implies sovereignty over the cult on the part of Jesus and perhaps,too, that the significance of the rituals of purity has found its end in Jesus, whoreveals that he is the presence of Glory by this miracle (2:11).7 A number ofscholars have noted that the juxtaposition of this miracle with the cleansing ofthe temple implies replacement.8

The cleansing incident itself is described somewhat differently from theSynoptics. Only John describes the temple as a ‘market’ (2:16), placing anemphasis on the ‘selling’ (2:13) of cattle, sheep, and doves as well as thepractice of moneylending; where the Synoptics describe Jesus as overturningthe tables and driving those behind them out of the temple, John describesJesus as driving out everyone and everything, both human and animal, anddoing so violently, with a whip made of cords. This is a rather specificinterpretation of the temple incident, presenting the problem as a corruptionof the purpose of the temple by mercantile activity and the act as a restoration,rather than as a prophetic sign-act.9 The most significant difference for ourpurposes, however, is the placing on Jesus’s lips of the claim that he wouldrebuild the temple in three days and the subsequent identification of this claimwith the resurrection. Such a claim is found in the Synoptics, but only on thelips of the false witnesses brought against Jesus. It is possible to argue that theclaim was authentically Jesus’s own, but the Synoptics are, in that case, rather

5 Keener, The Gospel of John (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003), 492–517, provides an excellentdiscussion of the background and symbolic significance of this miracle and devotes several pages(509–13) to the halachic traditions that may have been at play.

6 Irony is commonly detected in the Fourth Gospel. For a broader discussion, see PaulD. Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1985).

7 In a brief note on this passage, Hugh Montefiore, ‘Position of the Cana Miracle and theCleansing of the Temple in St John’s Gospel’, Journal of Theological Studies 50 (1949), 183–6,notes the possibility of an intertextual reading of the LXX of Isaiah 9:1–2 with Ezekiel 47,possibly in the context of an early Christian testimonium collection, suggesting that the coordin-ation of these texts may explain the close juxtaposition of the two accounts, specifically throughthe mention of Cana’s location being in Galilee and the command to ‘drink this first’ (�F��æH�� Ø) in the Isaianic text. He further notes patristic evidence in support of such areading, suggesting that the Cana miracle was understood in relation to Isaiah 9:1. Regardless ofwhether he is correct, John has quite deliberately connected the two events.

8 Note Keener’s discussion, providing further bibliography: The Gospel of John, 517.9 Jesus’s cleansing of the temple has been taken as such a sign-act by E. P. Sanders, Jesus and

Judaism (London: SCM Press, 1985), and Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God. Such aninterpretation may be valid for the original act, but it cannot be applied to the Johannine version.


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

Temple Christology in John 4

The account of Jesus’s conversation with the Samaritan woman furtherdevelops this concern to depict him as the true temple. Shot through as it iswith the imagery of ‘living water’, the passage is linked to others in the gospelthat use such imagery to represent the reality that is associated with themissionof the Son, notably John 3:5 and 7:35. That embeddedness prohibits us fromconsidering the passage in isolation from the wider themes of the gospel.

The expression ‘living water’ (o�øæ ÇH�) has some specific connections withOld Testament passages. There are specific references to the fountain of livingwater in Jeremiah 2:13 (K�b KªŒÆ��ºØ��, �Åªc� o�Æ�� ÇøB�; םייח־םימרוקמובזע )and 17:1312; in both texts the expression identifies Yahweh and highlights thefolly of Israel in forsaking the source of life. In the first passage, this forsaking isfurther described as the casting-off of God’s ‘yoke’, the law. The expression alsooccurs in Zechariah 14:8, where the flowing of living water from Jerusalem tothe seas in the east and the west follows the coming of the lord and his holyones in eschatological judgement. The passage parallels and develops the visionof Ezekiel 47, of the waters that flow eastward from the altar.

As Stephen Um has recently noted, however, these are specific instances of amuch wider use of water imagery in the Old Testament (taken up extensivelyin Second Temple literature) that uses the symbolism in connection with lifeand restoration.13 His own study highlights the connection between water andnew creation in Isaiah (12:3; 26:19; 32:2, 20; 35:6–7; 41:17; 44:3; 49:10; 58:11).As we will note in Chapter 10, this background is all the more significant forbeing shared with one of John’s key strategic devices, the set of ‘I am’ sayings.Noting this, and other allusions to Isaiah, Um argues convincingly that Johnunderstands Isaiah’s new creational promises to be fulfilled in the offer ofliving water to the Samaritan woman, but also recognizes that the gift isparticularly identified with the Holy Spirit in 7:38–9. Given that John very

10 In defence of the authenticity of this saying in John’s report, see Perrin, Jesus the Temple,105, and Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 72–3.

11 For further discussion, see Udo Schnelle, ‘Die Tempelreinigung und die Christologie desJohannesevangeliums’, New Testament Studies 42 (1996), 359–73.

12 The word ‘water’ is missing in the latter verse, but the parallel is clear.13 Stephen T. Um, The Theme of Temple Christology in John’s Gospel (London: T & T Clark,

2006).


specifically uses the expression found in Jeremiah 2:13 to describe the gift as a‘spring/fountain (�Åª ) of living water’, it is difficult to resist the conclusionthat the gift is nothing less than the personal presence of Yahweh, who isidentified as the fountain of living water in that verse.14 There is, then, atwofold identification of Son and Spirit: the Spirit is the presence of the Fountof Living Water and the Son is the one who can give this gift. The ability to‘give’ the divine presence is contingent upon Jesus’s own divinity and it ishardly surprising that this passage culminates in one of John’s celebratedabsolute ‘I am’ sayings.15 The language and logic, in fact, are rather close towhat we have encountered in the later argumentation of Athanasius: Christ’sability to divinize human beings with the presence of God necessitates his ownessential and non-contingent divinity.The orientation of this Christology around the symbolism of the temple is

clearest in 4:19–24. Here, the woman questions Jesus on the different locationsof worship for Jews and Samaritans. His answer does not negate the historicalsignificance of the temple, since it describes Jewish worship as according toknowledge and as core to God’s purposes for the world (4:22), but it doespresent the Jerusalem temple as now obsolete. ‘An hour is coming when Godwill be worshipped neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem’ (4:21) and ‘thathour is now’ (4:23, �æå��ÆØ uæÆ ŒÆd �F� K��Ø�). True worship is now ‘in spiritand in truth’. It is not clear whether the reference to ��F�Æ should beunderstood as denoting the Holy Spirit, or as a more general reference tothe non-physical. The issue, of course, has been problematized by the philo-sophical undercurrents of biblical scholarship through the decades, with thispassage particularly affected by the tendency to understand ��F�Æ as theuniversal human Geist. Contextually, however, with such an emphasis on thegift of the Spirit by the Son, it must be recognized that the true worship of Godenvisaged here is pneumatologically governed and enabled. Whether or not ‘inspirit’ is immediately a reference to the Holy Spirit, or to the subjectiveparticipation of the human spirit in worship, the fellowship of the humanwith the divine presence requires the indwelling presence of the Fount ofLiving Water. By further adding to this a reference to ‘truth’—directly identi-fied with Jesus in 1:14, 17 and 14:6 and more broadly so identified (includingthrough John’s witness) in 5:33, 8:40, 44–6—the inseparability of the Spiritfrom the Son is maintained (note also the description of the Spirit as �e ��F�Æ�B� IºÅŁ��Æ� in 15:26 and 16:13, where the Spirit’s dependence upon the Son’struth is specified). The presence of the Spirit, then, does not represent the

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

15 These will be discussed further in Chapter 10.


infusion of a grace distinguishable from the Son’s own presence, but theoutworking of the covenant that is in the Messiah, a point that will bedefended more fully in Chapter 10, when we examine the covenantal signifi-cance of the ‘I am’ sayings in John.

It is noteworthy that this temple symbolism is linked very specifically tomessianic expectations (4:25). However authentic the woman’s mention of theMessiah may be judged to be, it is suggestive of the theology that we sawdeveloped in our previous chapter. The exegesis of Psalm 118 had led to aconviction that the Messiah was not just the builder of the temple but was,himself, part of that temple. John appears to reflect a particular developmentand extension of this. The Messiah is no longer just part of the eschatologicaltemple: he is the temple. By recognizing the underlying, integrating concept of‘presence’, though, we can see the essential continuity between the Johannineaccount and those found elsewhere in the New Testament.

Footwashing and Cleansing in John 13

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

HEBREWS: ACCESS TO THE HEAVENLY TEMPLEAND DIVINE PRESENCE

Hebrews lacks many of the elements that we have encountered in our previouschapter and, indeed, that we will encounter in later chapters. There is, here, notheology of the church as temple or of Christ as temple and nothing resem-bling the locative grammar (e.g. ‘in Christ’) that we will encounter elsewhere.


There is, however, a similar conviction that the Jerusalem temple is no longerthe centre of access to the divine presence and that the death of Jesus hasensured a new kind of participation in the heavenly reality. The recent work ofChristopher Rowland and Christopher Morray-Jones has drawn attention tothe apocalyptic and covenantal framework of Hebrews16 (those two words nolonger being opposable), and this will be important to our observations. Alsosignificant is the fact that Hebrews has provided the church with some of itsrichest source material for reflection upon the incarnation and the relationshipbetween the divine status of the Son and his true humanity. This underpins thedistinctive theme in Hebrews that brings the apocalyptic and the christo-logical together so effectively and that has been prominent in much atonementtheology: the high priesthood of Christ. Because this theme is so difficult todisentangle from the underlying incarnational narrative of Hebrews, we willexamine this narrative as part of our examination of the temple image, therebybringing into this chapter material that might have been expected to be leftuntil Chapter 11.Access to the presence of God in the heavenly temple is the primary image

of participation in Hebrews. This image is covenantally governed anddeveloped with reference to the key ‘new covenant’ texts that we have alreadyencountered, particularly Jeremiah 31:33.17 It is important to note, though,that the new covenant and participation in the presence of God in theheavenly temple are grounded by the author in the narrative of the incarnationand, quite specifically, in the ontology of the incarnation, which determinesthe depiction of Jesus as the High Priest.

Hebrews 1: The Son, the Sons, and the Brothers

Key to understanding the author’s incarnational theology is the term ‘son’ andits relationship to the plural ‘sons’ and ‘brothers’. Biblical scholars havetypically seen the use of ‘Son’ to be driven by this relationship, so that ratherthan seeing an incipient Trinitarianism, governed by the categories of Fatherand Son, we see rather a theology that emphasizes the identification of Jesus

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

17 Quoted in Hebrews 10:16.


with other humans. The latter, in itself, is appropriate as a reading of Hebrews,but the minimizing or rejection of the former fails to deal with the rhetoricalarrangement of the text.18 As Webster rightly notes, the author’s first point ofemphasis is the unique relationship that exists between God and the Son andthe distinctive nature of the ultimate19 revelation that has been made ‘in/by(the) Son’ (K� ıƒfiH). Indeed, this locative statement, lacking the article, coloursthe entire subsequent account of revelation: it is ‘Sonly’ revelation.20 The Sonis further specified as being the heir of all things and the one through whom allthings were made. The latter certainly sounds much like the descriptions ofWisdom in Judaism,21 but the following verse employs language that isdifficult to source in such traditions. The description of the Son as the‘effulgence of God’s glory’ (n� J� I�Æ�ªÆ��Æ �B� ��Å�) identifies him withthe kavod itself, the divine presence in visible form, and hence the ‘exactrepresentation of his being’ (åÆæÆŒ�cæ �B� ��ø�). The author’s lan-guage here exceeds anything said of Wisdom, but also anything said of Adam.In fact, interestingly, the closest that we come in biblical material to this usageof åÆæÆŒ� æ is in 4 Macc 15:4:

In what manner might I express the emotions of parents who love their children?We impress upon the character of a small child a wondrous likeness both of mindand of form. Especially is this true of mothers, who because of their birth pangshave a deeper sympathy toward their offspring than do the fathers.22

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

18 Even David M. Moffitt, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to theHebrews (Leiden: Brill, 2011), whose conclusions are conservative in many ways, rejects suchalleged anachronism.

19 Note the occurrence of the expression K�� K�å��ı �H� ��æH� ��ø� in 1:2 and thecontrast with the sundry (�ºı��æH� ŒÆd �ºı�æ��ø�) previous revelations of 1:1.

20 J. B. Webster, ‘One Who Is Son: Theological Reflections on the Exordium to the Epistle tothe Hebrews’, in Richard Bauckham et al. (eds), The Epistle to the Hebrews and ChristianTheology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 69–94.

21 The parallels are well outlined by Ben Witherington, Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage ofWisdom (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994), 175–82.

22 Elsewhere the word is used of a scar (Lev 13:28), as the visible representation of a burn, andin the standard sense of character in 2 Macc 4:10.

23 Though, note 2:9.


of his cosmic reign. Second, the effulgence of the Son proceeds, again, from theSon’s ‘being’.In such a context, the use of Œæ��ø� ª�� H� Iªª�ºø� (1:4) is

actually quite surprising, to an extent that is often overlooked by scholars intheir identification of the Christology here. Why should a figure of suchontological glory as this require to be spoken of in terms of process? Theanswer lies in the incarnational narrative that will be developed in subsequentchapters and that, as Moffitt rightly notes, represents the climactic resolutionof the angelic contrast developed in chapters 1 and 2. The Son was ‘made alittle lower than the angels’, a designation that locates him in the place ofhumanity. It is this second element of his ontological narrative—the additionof humanity to his being—that is the explanation for the occurrence ofª�� in 1:4. It reflects an incarnational narrative of humiliation andexaltation, similar to that found in Philippians 2.Moffitt is, I think, largely correct in his treatment of the humanity of Jesus

and its implications for the resurrection in Hebrews. He argues persuasivelythat the logic of atonement in Hebrews requires a physical resurrection andbodily presence in the heavenly temple: the author considers it vital that theblood of Jesus is sprinkled on the heavenly furniture (9:23–4) and that a realsympathetic human makes intercession for his people as high priest (2:17).The process of the incarnation was necessary to the installation of just such ahigh priest in heaven.24 Moffitt, however, understands this high priestly role tobe a fulfilment of Adamic theology, and this may be less convincing, particu-larly in the light of our discussion of backgrounds in Chapter 5. Contextually,the psalms employed in relation to the author’s case are more characteristic-ally messianic than Adamic and do not demonstrably explain the praise of theSon on the basis of Adammyths. Rather, that praise is an acknowledgement ofhis divine identity,25 now truly enfleshed. The psalms that are used are those inwhich acknowledgement of the Messiah corresponds to the acknowledgementof divine rule and glory.26 The distinctive incarnational reading of thesepsalms, as with Psalm 8, appears to emerge as a result of their being under-stood in the light of the narrative of humiliation. ‘For a time’,27 the Son ismade lower than the angels, but this time is followed by exaltation.

24 To this it may be added that to assume that the heavenly temple is non-physical is to ignorethe backgrounds provided by the apocalyptic literature to the Epistle and to neglect the role thatsuch literature plays in mediating Platonic influence.

25 Note Bauckham’s discussion. Richard Bauckham, ‘The Divinity of Jesus Christ in the Epistleto the Hebrews’, in Bauckham et al., The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology, 15–36.

26 Compare our discussion of glory and its associations with the Davidic house in Chapter 4.27 This is the significance that should probably be attached to �æÆå�, rather than qualifying

the level of humiliation in relation to the angels (the latter being the more natural reading of טעמin the MT; the author, however, quotes the LXX and not the MT). See Moffitt’s excellentdiscussion, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection, 55, n.17.


The Real Humanity of Jesus and his Priestly Role

The following chapters of Hebrews make clear the necessity of the realhumanity of Christ to his fulfilment of the high priestly role. He is a ‘brother’to believers (2:11–13), sharing in their flesh and blood (2:14) and thereforeable to act as high priest on their behalf. The author will later stress thenecessity of the death of a human, and not animals, to take away sins (10:4–7, quoting Psalm 40:6–8 in support) and thus to make people holy (10:10). Hedescribes this purifying and sanctifying function in relation to both theheavenly sanctuary (9:21) and those who now have access to worship in it(9:11; 10:22, 29) for ‘under the law almost everything is purified with blood,and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins’ (9:22). Thereis an underlying covenant rationale to this, which we will explore further inChapter 11, but at this stage what is important is the thoroughgoing signifi-cance attached to the blood of Jesus, as a true human being distinguished fromboth angel and animal.

It is important to the author that the reality of Jesus’s flesh and (import-antly) blood sets his relationship to other humans fundamentally apart fromhis relationship to the angels (2:16–17). That it is only humans who arebrothers to Christ is arguably the key point of contrast that governs thecomparison between the Son and the angels in chapters 1–2.28 This can easilybe overlooked, however, when Middle Platonic associations are projected ontothe word NŒı��Å in 1:6 and 2:5. Such approaches lead to this term beinginterpreted as a spiritual (non-corporeal) heavenly world, dualistically op-posed to the physical Œ��.29 But while typically sensitive to the associationsof the word NŒı��Å within the logic of Hebrews to the exaltation of Jesus,and not to the incarnation,30 such approaches openly reject the lexical evi-dence that the word denotes physical (often earthly) realms and lacks anyassociation with such dualistic accounts.31 In two important studies, Andries-sen has highlighted the Septuagintal association of the word with Canaan inExodus 16:35, and thus with the Promised Land of the Exodus account.32 Thisis not unimportant, since Exodus themes run through Hebrews 2–4. Andries-sen understands these to be taken up eschatologically in Hebrews. Hence,

28 Moffitt, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 45–144.29 As does Albert Vanhoye, ‘L’ˇNŒı��Å dans l’Épître aux Hébreux’, Biblica 45 (1964), 248–

53. He is followed by John P. Meier, ‘Symmetry and Theology in the Old Testament Citations ofHeb. 1–5’, Biblica 66 (1985), 504–33.

30 Such approaches see NŒı��Å as denoting the world into which the Son comes in theIncarnation. While lexically defensible, such a reading cannot be made to cohere with thefollowing chapter.

31 Advocates of this view are therefore required to argue that the author uses the word in ahighly distinctive way.

32 P. C. B. Andriessen, ‘De Betekenis van Hebr. 1,6’, Studia Catholica 35 (1960), 2–13, and‘Teneur Judéo-Chrétienne de He 1:6 et 2:14b–3:2’, Novum Testamentum 18 (1976), 293–313.


because of its prior associations with earthly realms, he resists the dualisticsignificance given to NŒı��Å by others: the promised world to come will be aphysical one. Moffitt develops a slightly different interpretation, adding hisown observations concerning the occurrence of NŒı��Å in LXX Psalm 92,95, and 96, where he argues that the word is used to designate the unshakeableheavenly realm (note LXX Ps 95:10), including the heavenly temple, which iscontrasted with the shakeable earthly one (LXX Ps 95:9).33 His point essen-tially fuses the eschatological horizon of Andriessen with the vertical one: theNŒı��Å into which the Son comes to be worshipped by the angels (1:6) is thephysical realm of the heavenly temple, access to which is the eschatological giftof God to the church (2:5). The temple overtones detected by Moffitt comportwell with the logic of Hebrews and the prominence of the heavenly templewithin the book. Whether or not his arguments convince at this point, hiscontributions belong within a growing scholarly acknowledgement that thedualism of heaven and earth, of NŒı��Å and Œ��, in Hebrews does notentail a Platonic distinction. Salvation, in the logic of Hebrews, does notinvolve the end of flesh and blood physicality, but rather the assumption ofthese substances by the Son and a redemptive fraternity with human beings.Precisely this fraternity leads the author to one of his several uses of ��åØ

(partakers/sharers; also in 1:9, 3:14, 6:4, 12:8). In urging his ‘brothers’ toconsider this high priest whom they confess (3:1), the author describes themas partakers in the heavenly calling (Œº ��ø� K�ıæÆ��ı ��åØ). This leadsinto an extended reflection on Psalm 95/LXX 96 (3:7–11, 15; 4:3, 7), presentedas a message of the Holy Spirit (3:7), stressing the necessity of faith andcondemning the wickedness of hearts that do not believe (ŒÆæ��Æ ��Åæa

I�Ø��Æ�, 3:12). The author’s logic resists any attempt to substitute group-identity for personal faith: those who belonged to the group that came out ofEgypt with Moses were the very ones who fell in the wilderness because oftheir unbelieving hearts (3:16–17). For the author, their failure lay in the factthat they did not combine what was preached to them with faith (4:2). This, atleast, seems to be the most likely significance of �c �ıªŒ�Œ�æÆ��ı� �Bfi

��Ø �E� IŒ��Æ�Ø�. There is some ambiguity as to whether �E� IŒ��Æ�Ø�should be rendered as ‘by the hearers’ or ‘to/with the hearers’; the latter wouldsuggest a horizontal union with those who ‘truly hear’. Hebrews does not seemto operate with such a distinction between good and bad hearing, however: thedistinction is between faith and unbelief.34

33 Moffitt, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection, 70–9.34 Carl Mosser, ‘Rahab Outside the Camp’, in Bauckham et al. (eds), The Epistle to the

Hebrews and Christian Theology, 383–404; see also his fuller discussion in the as yet unpublisheddissertation, ‘No Lasting City: Rome, Jerusalem and the Place of Hebrews in the History ofEarliest “Christianity” ’ (PhD, University of St Andrews, 2005).


The flanking of the Psalm 95 paraenesis with exhortations to faith centredon the heavenly session of Christ (3:1; 4:14–16) makes clear that the faithexpected of believers is the act of trusting in him, as the heavenly high priest,for salvation. This entails maintaining a confession of his high priestly status(3:1) and approaching the throne with confidence in seeking mercy (4:16),knowing that the human experience of the heavenly high priest guaranteessympathy. But these specific exhortations to confession and to boldness areparticular outworkings of an underlying trust in him: it is consideration of hisontology and his completed (perfected) work—in short, consideration of himand what he has done—that defines the faith of believers.

Yet, the faith and faithfulness of believers is predicated upon Christ’s ownfaith. This emerges in 3:2, where the exhortation to consider Jesus is groundedin his faithfulness to the one who appointed him, and in 5:7–8, where hisreverence (�Pº��ØÆ) and obedience (��ÆŒ ) led to his attainment of perfec-tion, through which he became the source of eternal salvation (�ø�Åæ�Æ�ÆNø��ı) for those who obey him (�E� ��ÆŒ�ı�Ø� ÆP�fiH). The faith ofbelievers in Christ is not depicted as an autonomous work, as it is oftencaricatured to be. Neither is it simply an imitation of his faithfulness, sincehe is described as the source (ÆY�Ø�) of salvation, as the object of believers’faith and confession (3:1), and as the one who has definitively made sacrificefor the sinners from whom he is set apart (7:27). Rather, it is a sharing in hisown faith, reflected in the use of ��åØ in 3:1. We will explore this further atthe end of this section.

The Real Divinity of Jesus and his Priestly Role

Clearly, then, the real humanity of Jesus is vital to his high priestly role, but sotoo is his divinity. The author designates Jesus as a priest in the order ofMelchizedek (5:10; 6:20). This is not simply a matter of explaining how he canfulfil the priestly role when not of Aaronic lineage, for, as Neyrey has argued,35

Melchizedek is described using Hellenistic true-god language, with the authorusing alpha-privatives to denote his unoriginated nature (7:3).36 This languageis combined with a reading of Genesis 14:17–20 that appears to dwell upon thesudden and unanticipated appearance and disappearance of Melchizedek,thereby anchoring it to Scripture. The appointment of Jesus to this Melchize-dekian role is very specifically grounded in the eternal character of his divinity:his life is indestructible (7:16) and, hence, he will serve forever as high priest

35 Jerome H. Neyrey, ‘ “Without Beginning of Days or End of Life” (Hebrews 7:3): Topos for aTrue Deity’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 53 (1991), 439–55.

36 The Greek is: I��øæ I� �øæ Iª��Æº�ªÅ��, � �� Iæåc� ��æH� � �� ÇøB� ��º� �åø�,Içø�Øø�� b �fiH ıƒfiH �F Ł�F, ��Ø ƒ�æ�f� �N� �e �ØÅ��Œ��.


(7:23–4). Interestingly, there is no reflection on the infinite worth or signifi-cance of his life and death: the emphasis falls on his perfection, his realhumanity and his eternity. These threads are drawn together in 7:26–8.

For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled,separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.27 Unlike the other highpriests, he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, andthen for those of the people; this he did once for all when he offered himself.28 Forthe law appoints as high priests those who are subject to weakness, but the wordof the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been madeperfect forever.

It is important to note that the author brings together here the ontology andthe history of Jesus, the latter specifically in terms of his death. His priestlydealing with sin involves an eternal administration of what he did once (�F�ªaæ K��Å�� Kç��Æ�) in offering himself up as a sacrifice (�Æı�e� I��ªŒÆ�,7:27). These statements are anticipated in 1:3, where the session of the Son isdenoted using the aorist KŒ�ŁØ�� and is consequent upon his completed workof purification, denoted by the perfect participle �ØÅ��. The author,then, does not depict the ontology of the incarnation as redemptive in itself,but as it operates in relation to the history of the Incarnate Son. The death ofJesus is specified as the act of purification, but his life of obedience is necessaryto the efficacy of this and to his sympathetic priestly role.The significance of Jesus’s high priestly role lies in the access to the heavenly

temple that is made possible under the new covenant. The earthly tabernacleand temple are specifically portrayed as patterned after the heavenly (8:1–5),reflecting the lesser access to God’s presence made possible by the firstcovenant. In 8:7–13, the author cites Jeremiah 31:31–4 as warrant for speakingof the new covenant. Interestingly, while 8:7 would seem to suggest that theproblem or fault lies in the first covenant itself, in 8:8, the plural ÆP�f�suggests that the fault lies with those who live under that covenant, the people.We will observe a similar tendency in the narratives of participation elsewherein the New Testament: the problem is essentially an anthropological one, withthe authors sharing an essentially pessimistic understanding of humanity.The comparison of the earthly replica with its heavenly original leads to the

author’s statement that ‘Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by humanhands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now toappear in the presence of God on our behalf ’ (9:24). The eternal efficacy of hissacrifice (stretching into the past and the future) is stressed (9:25–6), by whichthe problem of sin is taken away and both the sanctuary (9:23) and those whowill worship in it (10:2–3) are cleansed. By the same act, the promise ofJeremiah that the law would be written upon the hearts and minds of God’speople (10:16) is also fulfilled. All of this leads to the remarkable statement ofaccess found in 10:19–22.


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

The reference to the curtain may allude to the Synoptic tradition of the tornveil, identifying this with his body. Regardless of whether that is the case, thisis a powerful statement of access to the presence of God. It is striking thatwhile the imagery has much in common with Jewish apocalyptic and mysticaltexts, with their reflections on the heavenly sanctuary, the author’s logicensures that any notion of a privileged mystic is excluded. This access isopen to any who will draw near to God in faith, with the necessity of suchfaith stressed in 10:37–9. Here, the author cites Habakkuk 2:3–4, a text alsocited by Paul (Rom 1:17; Gal 3:10), stating, ‘we are not among those whoshrink back (lit: we are not of the shrinking back, PŒ K��b� ��ºB�) andso are lost, but among those who have faith (lit: but of faith, Iººa ��ø�) andso are saved’.

Communion with God and the Imitationof Christ in Hebrews

The author to the Hebrews, then, may lack the important image of the churchas temple and he may have nothing that resembles the ‘in Christ’ languagefound in Paul. What he does have, however, is a thoroughgoing concept ofaccess to the divine presence in the heavenly temple that is grounded in theontology and history of the Incarnate Son, the heavenly High Priest. Believersare ‘worshippers’, portrayed as participating in the heavenly liturgy (12:22),under the terms of the new covenant, and this is made possible by the union ofhuman and divine that is internal to the incarnation. It is small wonder thatHebrews, with its central emphasis on the high priesthood of Christ, has beenof such significance to theologians of the incarnation in modern times, notablyT. F. Torrance.37

One final point must be made, however. As we have already begun to see,there is a strong emphasis on the imitation of Christ in Hebrews, partneredwith the well-known warnings against falling away (6:4–6; 10:26–31). Thisemerges most clearly in 12:1–3, and is developed further in the verses that

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


follow. It is vital to recognize that this passage emerges from the previousreflections of the author upon the high priesthood of Christ and the place offaith. The use of the conjunction �ØªÆæF� (‘therefore’) in 12:1 links theexhortations that follow back to the exemplars of faith described in Hebrews11, whose relationship of faith to their God led to remarkable and oftendifficult acts of obedience. That account of faith itself, though, proceedsfrom the discussions in Hebrews 10 about the confidence of communionwith God that is ensured by the high priesthood of Christ. Consequently,those listed in Hebrews 11 are not ‘heroes of faith’, conquering sin by theirown determination; rather, they are those who are presented as trusting in thegrace shown to them, their own faith proleptically anticipating this presentage. As we have already seen, moreover, the faith of believers is represented inHebrews as a sharing in Christ’s own faith. It is striking, then, that the authoruses the ambiguous term IæåÅª�� to denote the relationship of Jesus to ourfaith. This word can be validly rendered as ‘pioneer’ or ‘author’, the multi-valence allowing both dimensions of Jesus’s relationship to believers’ faith toemerge: he is its source and its pattern. Imitation, then, is an importantelement in participation, as the Fathers recognized, but it must be understoodproperly in terms of the rounded theology of redemptive communion if it isnot to lapse into a naked moralism.

REVELATION 21–2

Revelation shares with Hebrews an account of the heavenly sanctuary(Rev 4–5), but in this case, the account does not provide a temple-governedimage of human participation: John merely sees the realm in which God andthe Lamb are worshipped by the heavenly beings. It is, rather, in Revelation21–2 that we encounter such an image, in the description of the descent of theNew Jerusalem, which is shaped by the temple imagery of Ezekiel 47.38

The New Jerusalem is not the place in which the righteous will dwell, but,rather, it represents the church itself, a fact that emerges in 21:9, as John’sguide says, ‘Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb’. Thisphrase, echoed in 21:2, where the New Jerusalem is announced as descendingas a bride, fuses marital imagery with that of the temple-city. Importantly, thisdoes not depict the church in its present condition, but the eschatologicalchurch that has attained purity:

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


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

This symbol of the New Jerusalem as the eschatological Bride is part of theintricate system of dualities that Revelation develops and stands in oppositionto Babylon the Harlot (chapters 17–18).39 This latter symbol represents theSatanic world order embodied in Rome, in her idolatrous, military, andeconomic aspects. The church is to ‘come out’ from this world order and tostand over against its values by following the Lamb.40

The purified bride of Revelation 21–2 stands in contrast to the still-falliblechurches described in the various letters of chapters 2 and 3. Despite theirmoral failings, however, John still addresses them as a body united with Christ:together they share ‘the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endur-ance in Jesus’.41 This, though, is the union of a flawed church with her Saviour.What is described in Revelation 21–2 is that union reaching its consumma-tion. It is the climax of a complex symbolic drama, intended to encourage thechurch in its struggle with the world.

As I have noted elsewhere,42 the description itself draws together elementsfrom Genesis 2–3, Ezekiel 47, and Zechariah 14. The Ezekiel text is central,allowing the combination of the others by the shared imagery of trees andwater. From the throne of God and of the Lamb that is at the heart of the cityflows ‘a river of water of life’. This draws upon the description of the river inEden (Genesis 2:10), as it is developed in the image of the life-giving river thatflows from under the altar in Ezekiel 47;43 this is further paralleled in Zechar-iah 14:8, where ‘living waters’ go out from Jerusalem towards the east andwest. In Revelation 22, however, there is neither altar nor temple: God and theLamb comprise the temple of the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:22).

The elaborate description of the tree of life draws together the core symbolfrom Genesis 2:9 and 3:22 and the description of the trees that grow on eitherside of the river in Ezekiel 47:12.44 Tree-imagery in Ezekiel 47 deliberately

39 In this regard, Revelation departs from Ezekiel, where Jerusalem is also portrayed as aharlot (see chapters 16 and 23).

40 Rev 14:4. Cf. 7:14, 12:11. See, too, Bauckham’s argument that the saints’ act of washing theirrobes in the blood of the Lamb is symbolic of their participation in martyrdom. RichardJ. Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation (Edinburgh: T &T Clark, 1993), 226–9.

41 John writes in 1:9: ’ ªg �ø��Å�, › I��ºçe� ��H� ŒÆd �ıªŒØ�ø�e� K� �Bfi Łº�ł�Ø ŒÆd �Æ�Øº��ÆfiŒÆd ��Bfi K� �Å�F.

42 Macaskill, ‘Paradise in the New Testament’, 76–7.43 On the equation of Eden and Zion in Ezekiel 40–8 and its relationship to other parts of the

book, notably Eze 28 and 31, see Stephen Tuell, ‘The Rivers of Paradise: Ezekiel 47:1–12 andGenesis 2:10–14’, in W. P. Brown and S. D. McBride Jr. (eds), God Who Creates: Essays in Honorof W. Sibley Towner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 171–89.

44 See my discussion of the textual links in ‘Paradise in the New Testament’, 76.


echoes Ezekiel 40 and 41, where trees are integral to the architecture of thetemple.45 The description in Revelation 22:1–2 thus stands within, and drawsupon, a textual tradition that makes strong associations between Eden, Zion,and the temple.46

The great emphasis in Revelation 22:1–2 is on the life-giving presence ofGod. Life flows as water from the throne of God and of the Lamb, irrigates thetree, and through the tree comes to nourish and heal the nations. The life thatis enjoyed by the occupants of the New Jerusalem is, then, constituted by thepresence of God. But it is also linked to the death of Jesus, since it proceedsfrom the throne of the ‘Lamb’, which is in the place of the altar in Ezekiel 47:1,emphasizing the sacrificial nature of his death.I have argued elsewhere that the proto-Trinitarian dimension of this vision

is completed by the symbolic connection between the river of living water andthe Holy Spirit.47 Beale provides a number of parallels from both Jewish andChristian literature that represent the Spirit as living water,48 and to hisdiscussion we may add the work of Stephen Um, on parallel imagery inJohn 4.49 We must also consider the link between this description of thedivine throne and those found in 1:4 and 4:5, both of which speak of ‘theseven spirits that are before the throne’. As Bauckham has argued, thisreference cannot be to the seven principal angels that stand in the presenceof God,50 since Revelation elsewhere refers to these simply as ‘the seven angelswho stand before God’ (8:2) and does not use the term ‘spirit’ of angels.Instead, the seven spirits are the Holy Spirit, the symbolism drawn fromJohn’s exegesis of Zechariah 4:1–14, in which the ‘seven’ represent the activityof God’s Spirit in the world.51 This parallel would lead the reader to expect inRevelation 22 some image corresponding to the Spirit. Given the connectionof water imagery to the Spirit in Judaism, I would suggest that the descriptionof the river fulfils that expectation.The account continues in verse 3 with the statement that there will be nomore

curse: ŒÆd �A� ŒÆ��Ł��Æ PŒ ��ÆØ ��Ø. ˚Æ��Ł��Æ is essentially synonymous

45 See especially 40:16, 22, 26, 31, 34, 37 and 41:18, 20, 25, 26. These architectural details arealso reflected in 1 Kings 6:29, 32, 35.

46 See William P. Brown, The Ethos of the Cosmos: The Genesis of Moral Imagination (GrandRapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 73–89. Jubilees portrays Eden in specifically cultic terms. See J. vanRuiten, ‘Eden and the Temple: The Rewriting of Genesis 2:4–3:24 in the Book of Jubilees’.

47 See ‘Paradise in the New Testament’, 77–8. The Fathers also made this connection. SeeJerome in his Homilies on the Psalms 1 and Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse22:1–2.

48 G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids;Carlisle: W. B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 1999), 1105.

49 Stephen Um, The Theme of Temple Christology in the Fourth Gospel (London: T & T Clark,2006).

50 Tobit 12:15, 1 Enoch 20, 4QShirShabb.51 Bauckham, Climax of Prophecy, 163.


with both ŒÆ��æÆ and I��Ł��Æ and can denote either a ‘curse’ or ‘somethingaccursed’. Although it uses I��Ł��Æ, here John primarily draws upon Zechariah14:11, in which Jerusalem is promised peace from the curse of destruction andwar. Given the interweaving of Ezekiel 47, Zechariah 14, and Genesis 2–3,however, we should also recognize the allusion to the comprehensive cursingof Genesis 3:14–19. The Edenic curse involves estrangement from the fellowshipof God, now restored and symbolized by the tree of life.

The account climaxes with striking allusions to the establishment of thecovenant with Moses. In verse 4, the servants of God ‘will see his face’. We willsee some significant parallels to this revelatory emphasis in later chapters, aswe examine the narratives of salvation in Paul and John. This allusion toMoses’s vision of the divine face—an experience now enjoyed by all of God’sservants—is developed by a reference to the eternal reign of the servants inverse 5, which is linked by the use of �Æ�Øº��ı�Ø� to 5:10 and 20:6, both ofwhich explicitly use the covenant language of Exodus 19:6, of God’s people as aroyal priesthood.

Thus, John’s description of the paradisiacal New Jerusalem takes physicalcharacteristics of the Garden, drawn from Old Testament sources, andreworks these into a symbolic representation of the fellowship of the churchwith God. The fact that the image speaks of an end to the curse, in terms of itsagricultural significance, points to a restored world in which the blessings ofpeace, healing, comfort, and bounty are enjoyed. We will encounter similarimagery in Romans 8:18–23. These blessings, though, are inseparable from thecore reality of unmarred fellowship with God.

In Chapter 10, we will see further that this blessed fellowship is the con-summation of a participatory relationship that involves sharing in the narra-tive of the Lamb: the followers of the Lamb imitate his sacrifice, and their ownsufferings are given redemptive significance by their relationship to his death.The Bride has been cleansed and made ready for her perfect union with God,not just by the blood of Christ sprinkled upon her, but by her sharing in hismartyrdom. As with the other texts studied in this chapter, then, there is anecessary link between participation in divine fellowship and the imitation ofChrist, but the latter is never portrayed as an autonomous or independent actof personal heroism: rather, it is the outworking of the union between churchand Saviour.

CONCLUSIONS

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


temple to which believers have access through his work; in Revelation, a morecomplex symbolism is found, in which the church is not the temple but theNew Jerusalem, presented in terms of the Ezekelian and Zecharian propheciesof the restoration of the temple and understood in relation to the heavenlysanctuary. While these specific temple images are quite distinct from thosestudied in our previous chapter, the differences should not be overstated. Anunderlying concept of divine presence unites all of the texts, as does aneschatological framework that will become clearer over the course of ournext three chapters. A certain cluster of Old Testament texts also appears tobe shared, notably the restoration prophecies of Ezekiel and Jeremiah.Perhaps most significantly, though, all of the images that we have studied in

the last two chapters are developed in relation to the ontology of the incar-nation, to the real humanity and real divinity of Jesus. This is perhaps moreexplicit in the case of the later books of the New Testament, such as those thatwe have examined in this chapter, but it is nevertheless true of them all. Theintimate connection between (1) the relationship of the two natures that isinternal to the incarnation and (2) the experience of divine communion on thepart of the believer—a connection that underpins the patristic traditionsstudied in Chapter 2—is not simply a matter of later theological reflection;the Fathers were sensitive to a theological dynamic at work in the NewTestament writings themselves and their attempts to systematize these reflecta greater coherence in the source material than is often acknowledged.In addition, the three books studied in this chapter develop a strong

theology of imitation. Crucially, this theology itself proceeds from a commonemphasis on incarnational reality: the Word was made flesh, the Son shared inthe flesh and blood of his brothers, the one who is and was and is to come diedas a sacrificial Lamb. While ascribing full divinity to Jesus, the writers takeseriously his humanity and the implications that this has for the imitativeactivity believers, with a particular emphasis falling upon the necessity of self-sacrifice. These sacrificial elements are not depicted as a simple emulation ofhis example, however, but as a participation in his own redemptive work.Last, it is impossible to avoid the importance of faith as a human activity in

relation to this complex of presence and salvation. While the faith of Jesushimself is emphasized, particularly in Hebrews and Revelation, and is vital tothe atonement, there is a basic assumption that faith will also characterize thelives of the redeemed. Such faith is directed towards Jesus, but it is alsoexemplified by Jesus himself; the faith of the believer, then, is a sharing inChrist’s own life of faith. The temple, the sacred space of divine–humancommunion, is quintessentially a place within which faith is manifest, in thehigh priest and the people he represents.


8

The Sacraments and Union with Christ

This chapter is devoted to a study of the participatory dimensions of thetwo rites universally designated as sacraments by the church—baptism andEucharist—as they occur in the New Testament. As we saw in Chapters 2 and3, from the patristic period onwards, the various Christian traditions haveunderstood these sacraments to be significant in relation to union with Christor participation, both as rites of real communion and as explications of thenature of the Church’s relationship to God. On the latter: the sacramentshave been understood to demarcate the sacramental community as thosewhose identity is governed by the death and resurrection of Jesus. In repre-senting the church’s union with God in such terms, the sacraments declarethat participation is of a particular shape and kind. The form of baptism andEucharist, the ways by which they represent a sharing in the death and life ofJesus, is not incidental.

As with the image of the church as the eschatological temple, the traditionsconcerning the sacraments can be traced back to the earliest strata of the NewTestament, so that they can also validly be described as ‘core’ images of thechurch, though, in this case, images that are enacted in ritual. As we will see,there have been scholarly debates concerning the extent to which the Euchar-ist, in particular, may have been altered in meaning by Paul, from a fellowshipmeal to a commemoration of Jesus’s death. The general consensus today, as weshall see in this chapter, is that this charge is without ground. From thebeginning, the church observed a ritual meal that was understood to haveparticipatory significance related to Jesus’s death.

Our study of the sacraments will highlight their covenantal character and,specifically, the ways in which covenant conceptuality allows participants toidentify themselves with one another and with a representative, whose storybecomes theirs. This identification is not presented simply as an imaginativetask, but as a real identification made possible by the presence of the Spirit.The role of the Spirit in actualizing the story of Jesus in the life of his peoplewill emerge more clearly in the concluding three chapters of our study, as westudy the further participatory elements of the various New Testamentauthors. Given the fact that the sacraments belong to the oldest strata of

New Testament theology, however, it is worth considering that they may havesignificantly shaped those further elements, that sacramental participationmay have influenced Paul’s account of the atonement or of the role of theSpirit, for example.Of course, the various traditions have understood the sacraments differently

in key regards of their mode of operation and relationship to the reality ofChrist’s presence. It is important to note at this stage that the prominenthistorical debates concerning the sacraments have turned on issues thatcannot be simply resolved by the exegesis of key passages in the New Testa-ment. In particular, the debates concerning the real presence of Christ in theEucharist proceed from debates over the relationship between signum and resand from further divisions over the communicatio idiomatum and the transferof properties between the two natures. These issues are not unimportant to thediscussion that follows, since we are considering the way in which participa-tion in the sacraments affects the humanity of believers in their union withGod, but they cannot be resolved simply on the basis of our exegetical results,even if those results do have something significant to say to these debates.

We will begin this chapter with an examination of baptism before movingon to study the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper. In our study of these, it will beimportant to maintain a sensitivity to the distinctions and overlaps betweenthe actual practice of the sacraments and allusions to them that appear to bemore symbolic. The latter should not be confused with the former, but neithershould the essential connection between the two be undervalued. The (likely)symbolic use of baptism language in Romans 6, for example, is only meaning-ful if it corresponds to the significance ascribed to the sacrament moregenerally.It is also important for us, in the course of this chapter, to deal with the

question of Jesus’s baptism, particularly as represented in Luke-Acts. This hasbeen an important element in the discussions of Spirit Christology that havebeen influenced by the work of James Dunn. Again, a proper attentiveness tothe details of the account of Jesus’s baptism and his reception of the Spirit willhighlight the ways in which it is non-analogous to that of the believer.

BAPTISM

The baptismal rite practised in the early church, and particularly the questionof its origins and backgrounds, has received considerable scholarly attentionand a massive body of secondary literature has grown around the topic.1 In his

1 For key bibliography up to 2002, see Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R. Cross (eds), Baptism,the New Testament, and the Church: Historical and Contemporary Studies in Honour of

The Sacraments and Union with Christ 193

influential study, Kyrios Christos,2 Bousset traced parallels with Hellenisticpractices, particularly in the mystery religions, and saw the rite as originatingin such contexts. Such a view has coloured much scholarship, not only onbaptism, but more widely on the nature of early Christian theology. Over thecourse of the twentieth century, however, it has been progressively chal-lenged,3 with a growing recognition that much of the evidence for closeparallels with the rebirth imagery of mystery religions is both late and tenuous;consequently, there has been an increasing preference to see the rite as Judeanin origin.4 The latter point is particularly important in terms of the biblicalsymbolism that is attached to the rite, especially in terms of its antecedents inJohn’s baptism. This must also inform our reading of the baptism of Jesus andour relating of this (and the accompanying descent of the Spirit onto Jesus) tothe experience of believers.

It is important from the outset to recognize the significance of the formulaicassociation between the baptismal rite and the name of Jesus. The moststriking example of this is the formula ‘baptise(d) into (�N�) the name of theLord Jesus’ (e.g. Acts 8:16, 19:5), though we also encounter the prepositionsK�� (Acts 2:38) and K� (Acts 10:48). The use of �N� has commonly been seen asreflecting the belief that baptism symbolizes transfer of ownership: the believeris now held in the name of Jesus having been transferred into it.5 Theweaknesses of this approach were highlighted by Lars Hartman,6 who arguedthat instead it reflects the Semitic leshem formula and is intended categorically:that is, to distinguish a Jesus-specific baptism from other baptisms. Hartman’sfindings have been generally accepted and make good sense of the neutral useof the ‘into the name’ formula in connection with John’s baptism (Acts 19:3)and its negative use by Paul (1 Corinthians 1:13–15 ‘Were you baptised intothe name of Paul? . . . no one can say that you were baptised into my name’).For Hurtado, the Jesus-specific character of Christian baptism is evidence of

R. E. O. White (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 36, n.18, and Stanley E. Porter andAnthony R. Cross, Dimensions of Baptism: Biblical and Theological Studies (London; New York:Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), p. 1, n.2.

2 Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 157–8, 191.3 So A. J. M. Wedderburn, Baptism and Resurrection: Studies in Pauline Theology against its

Graeco-Roman Background (Tübingen: Mohr, 1987) and, in an older study, Arthur Darby Nock,Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background: The Resurrection and HellenisticMysteries and Christian Sacraments (New York: Harper & Row, 1964).

4 See, for example, Norman Theiss, ‘The Passover Feast of the New Covenant’, Interpretation48 (1994), 17–35.

5 The classic treatment of this is W. Heitmüller, ‘Im Namen Jesu’: Eine sprach.- u. religions-geschichtliche Untersuchung zum Neuen Testament, speziell zur altchristlichen Taufe (Göttingen:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1903).

6 Lars Hartman, ‘ “Into the Name of Jesus” ’, New Testament Studies 20 (1974), 432. See alsoLars Hartman, ‘Baptism “into the Name of Jesus‚” and Early Christology’, Studia Theologica28 (1974), 21.


binitarian Christ-devotion,7 but we will note in our discussion of Matthew28:18–20 that the formula is there used in proto-Trinitarian terms.Obviously, baptism has significance as a rite of initiation, positioned as it is

at the beginning of the believer’s following of Jesus. What is initiated, though,is not simply a personal commitment to Jesus, but membership of the church,a fact reflected in Acts 2:41, where ‘those who welcomed his message werebaptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added’ and in 1 Cor12:13, where baptism is ‘into one body’. In both Paul and Luke there is a strongemphasis that this initiation-into-community is Spiritual, an emphasis that isconnected in both writers to their theology that the church is the eschato-logical temple, indwelled by the Spirit. A participatory dimension of divinepresence is, therefore, at the heart of the rite.It is clear in the use of baptism imagery in Paul, however, that the partici-

patory dimension is not confined to the presence of the Spirit, but alsoinvolves the symbolism of the believer as being incorporated into, or includedin, the death of Christ. The juxtaposing of clothing imagery is important tothis. It is this point that we will focus on in our study of Paul, for if we properlyunderstand its force in the light of what we have already seen in the apostle’swriting, it further problematizes a Spirit Christology.

Baptism in Paul

Paul very specifically links baptism to the death of Jesus. This is particularlyclear in Romans 6:3–4, where the symbolism of the sacrament is linked to thebeliever’s transformation:

Rom 6:3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesuswere baptized into his death?4 Therefore we have been buried with him bybaptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the gloryof the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

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

7 Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 143–4.


unqualified nature of the references to baptism in Paul and arguably imposesmodern categories of symbolism onto ancient thought; the latter inadequatelytreats the apostle’s eschatological pneumatology and, consequently, runs therisk of ascribing a magical significance to the sacrament as a rite in itself.8

Against this, Paul appears to speak of the sacrament as functioning within theSpirit’s operation as a real event of union.

For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves orfree—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Cor 12:13)

The juxtaposition of Paul’s use of baptism imagery in Romans 6 with that ofmarriage in Romans 7 is, perhaps, suggestive of the significance of the rite: it isa ceremony of formalization, truly meaningful as an event within the contextof the individual’s relationship of faith to Jesus. If we approach the rite withthis in mind, it suggests a covenantal conceptuality that we will see elsewherein Paul (in Chapter 9). Indeed, once this is grasped, the ceremonial or formalidentification of the believer with Jesus as the covenant representative who hasdied under the curse of the Law and risen to new life, is more readilycomprehensible. The believer, in baptism, identifies him/herself as dead andrisen under the terms of the covenant on account of the representative work ofJesus. As we will explore more fully in Chapter 9, the Spirit actualizes thisidentity (Rom 8:1–11).

This specific link between baptism and the death/resurrection of Jesusemerges also in the clothing metaphor. The description in Gal 3:27 of thosebaptized into Christ being ‘clothed’ with him is reflective of the extent towhich the believer’s identity is now defined by the personhood of Jesus. Thestatement is paired with a negation of other grounds of identity or status(‘there is no Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female’, 3:28) and with adeclaration of unity in Christ (‘you are all one in Christ Jesus’). This coordin-ation of statements is paralleled elsewhere in Paul in relation to the body ofChrist, requiring us to see these different images in Paul as essentially unified.9

It is also followed by a further statement (3:29) that associates baptism intoChrist with filiation: ‘if you belong to Christ, you are Abraham’s offspring,heirs according to the promise’. The clothing metaphor here, then, is one thatis intended to present believers as sharing in the identity of Christ as sons ofGod. It is subordinated to the imagery of adoption, but it is vital to note that

8 This is one of the criticisms brought against Roman Catholic understandings of thesacrament, perhaps unfairly. See Martin F. Connell, ‘Clothing the Body of Christ: An InquiryAbout the Letters of Paul’, Worship 85 (2011), 128–46. The criticism is more validly broughtagainst the approach to the sacrament taken by those who have located its background in themystery religions.

9 Note the corresponding imagery in 1 Cor 12:13: ‘For in the one Spirit we were all baptizedinto one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit’.


the grounds of this is the categorically different sonship of Jesus: believers arebaptized into him, and clothe themselves with what he is as constituent of hisown identity. Their identity is derivative of his; his identity is sui generis. Paul’smanner of speaking of the derivation of Christian identity from Jesus cannotbe accounted for in any christological configuration that neglects the categor-ical uniqueness of his relationship to God.At the same time, the sonship of the believer in Christ is also derivative of

his narrative identity, the eschatological role that he has played in bringing toan end the old order, including the place of the Law in God’s dealings withhumanity. This is precisely the point made in Gal 4:1–7, and it turns on hisdeath and resurrection: with the death of Jesus, the old order was brought toan end, to be replaced by a new order in his resurrection. The relationship ofbaptism to sonship, then, underlies the Pauline treatment of the law, as wewill also see in Chapter 9. The same connection is made in Colossians 2:11–15,where baptism entails death to the flesh and the written code, and resurrec-tion into the new reality that is ‘in Christ’ (2:17). In Colossians 3:9–10, theimagery of ‘putting off ’ (I��Œ��ÆØ) the old man (�e� �ÆºÆØe� ¼�Łæø��)and ‘putting on the new’ (K��ı��Ø �e� ��) is a variant of the clothingimage, one that also brings together the theme of renewal with that ofknowledge (K��ª�ø�Ø�) and likeness to God. Regarding the latter, it is note-worthy that the preposition used is ŒÆ��, reflecting Genesis 1:27 and theJewish resistance of a direct identification of humans with the divine image.Believers are restored ‘according to’ the image of the creator. By contrast,Jesus ‘is’ the image of the invisible God (1:15). Again, the image of clothingrequires us to speak in different terms of the intrinsic identity of Christ andthe derivative identity of the believer. The work of the Spirit, though, ensuresthat the derivative identity of the believer is a real one, outworked in thatperson’s life. Again, all of these elements will be further explored in our nextchapter, where we explore Paul’s soteriological narratives, but it is importantto recognize that those narratives are anchored in the symbolic practice of thesacraments.One last observation may be offered on Paul’s treatment of baptism. We

began this section by noting that Paul links baptism specifically with the deathof Jesus; it is interesting to consider the fact that Paul nowhere portrays theSpirit as uniting believers to Jesus’s own experience of baptism. Believers arebaptized into solidarity with the event of Calvary and not the Jordan. Thisproblematizes those accounts of Christology and soteriology that presentJesus’s own baptism as paradigmatic for the Christian life and requires thatthe entire narrative of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection has a constitutiveand not paradigmatic significance. This will emerge further as we turn toconsider the baptism of Jesus in Luke’s account.


Baptism in Luke-Acts

We have already noted some general features of baptism in Acts, in the contextof our introductory remarks. A further specific issue in relation to Luke-Actsmust now be considered, for the Lukan material has been of particularimportance to the development of the various kinds of Spirit Christology,especially those that understand the ‘divinity’ of Jesus to be constituted by hisreception of the Spirit at the Jordan, and this event to be archetypal for thedivinization of Christians.

Such a reading of Luke’s account of the baptism of Jesus was influentiallydeveloped by Hans von Baer,10 whose treatment of the matter was intended asa response to Gunkel11 and, particularly, Leisegang.12 The former had segre-gated the descriptions of the Spirit’s activity in Luke-Acts from the experienceof ordinary Christians; the latter had argued that the Spirit material in Luke-Acts reflected Hellenistic influence at a late stage in the development of theNew Testament. The response of von Baer was to argue that Luke’s presenta-tion of the baptism of Jesus was part of a salvation-historical schema that wasJewish in origin and that presented the Spirit as the key factor in the redemp-tive history. The Old Testament prophets and John were Spirit-empowered toprepare the way for the new epoch that would be instituted in the virgin birthand Spirit baptism of Jesus,13 with Acts then describing the Spirit’s ongoingwork in the church. A modified version of this account is found in Dunn,14

who excludes the virgin birth from the new age and presents Jesus’s baptism ashis initiation into the new epoch of the kingdom, with the various charismaticevents of Acts as parallel initiatory experiences, as believers are inducted to thenew epoch.

Max Turner offers an insightful (though still appreciative) critique of thesereadings.15 He begins by highlighting the basic error of assuming that twoevents of Spirit reception (that of Jesus and that of the Christian) arenecessarily to be equated, noting that Jesus himself receives the Spirit twice

10 H. von Baer, Der Heilige Geist in den Lukasschriften (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1926).11 Hermann Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des Heiligen Geistes: Nach der populären Anschauung

der Apostolischen Zeit und der Lehre des Apostels Paulus: Eine biblisch-theologische Studie(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1899).

12 Hans Leisegang, Pneuma Hagion: Der Ursprung des Geistbegriffs der synoptischen Evange-lien aus der griechischen Mystik (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1922).

13 He writes (Der Heilige Geist in den Lukasschriften, 48) that this new epoch was one ‘in derder Geist Gottes als Wesen des Gottessohnes in dieser Welt erscheint’.

14 James D. G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit: A Re-Examination of the New TestamentTeaching on the Gift of the Spirit in Relation to Pentecostalism Today (London: SCM Press, 1970),23–37. The case is also developed broadly through James D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit:A Study of the Religious and Charismatic Experience of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflectedin the New Testament (London: SCM Press, 1975).

15 Turner, ‘Jesus and the Spirit in Lucan Perspective’.


in Luke-Acts, once at the Jordan and once at Pentecost (Acts 2:33). Clearly,these dominical receptions are of a different kind from one another and thepresence of both in Luke’s account makes the simple identification of Spirit-reception with initiation into the new epoch problematic.16 Turner also notesthat the baptism account itself, in Luke, offers little to distinguish the theologyof that gospel from its (presumed) sources, Mark and Q, other than minorvariations that have been pressed rather too hard by modern scholars.17

We must, then, look to the context in which the evangelist places theaccount if we are to understand the significance that he attaches to it. Mostimportant here is the quotation of Isaiah 61:1–2 in Luke 4:18–19, since thisexplicitly interprets the Spirit’s purpose according to Scripture. As Turnernotes, this is a composite quotation, bringing together Isaiah 61:1–2, fromwhich the bulk of the material is drawn, and 58:6, from which ‘to release theoppressed’ is drawn. It also represents the LXX reading of the final clauses ofIsaiah 61:1, with deliverance for both ‘prisoners’ and ‘the blind’. It is here thatI will begin to depart from Turner, for while he engages with, and providessolid challenges to, those scholars who have provided various explanations forwhat they see as a Lukan redaction—deriving significant implications for theevangelist’s theology along the way—I would note that the conflated quotationconforms to the Jewish reading strategies that are demonstrable in the SecondTemple Period.18 Isaiah 42:719 functions as a coordinate text with Isaiah 61:1by gezera shewa, based on the overlapping reference to the ‘Spirit’ in 42:1 andto the ‘blind’ in 42:7;20 Isaiah 58:6 is coordinate through the shared use of¼ç��Ø�.21 The three passages also share a greater volume of synonyms forimprisonment, liberation, and healing, and these reinforce the possibility ofintertextual reading. The conflated Isaiah citation in Luke 4:18–19, then, hasthe ring of Jewish exegesis, as we have seen to be the case with Acts 15:16–18,22

and this points to pre-Lukan activity and theology. Notably, it identifies theanointed Jesus with the Isaianic Servant, a strategy that we have begun to seemore broadly in the New Testament and that will continue to emerge in thenext three chapters. Here, it is clearly eschatological and messianic in thrust

16 Turner, ‘Jesus and the Spirit in Lucan Perspective’, 10–11.17 Turner, ‘Jesus and the Spirit in Lucan Perspective’, 11–12, challenges attempts to separate

the baptism from the descent of the Spirit that misunderstand the use of the aorist to denoteseparable, self-enclosed events.

18 Compare our discussion of Acts 15 in Chapter 6, and the scholarship on Jewish exegesisnoted there.

19 Reading: ‘To open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,from the prison those who sit in darkness’. I�E�ÆØ OçŁÆº�f� �ıçºH�, K�ÆªÆª�E� KŒ ��H��ı� ŒÆd K� YŒı çıºÆŒB� ŒÆŁÅ��ı� K� �Œ��Ø.

20 The terminological correspondence is direct in Greek. The ‘blind’ are not found in the MTversion. The fluidity of text-type allows such combinations of versions.

21 Again, the correspondence is direct only in Greek.22 See our discussion in Chapter 6.


and, on the basis of our study of Acts 15:16–18 in Chapter 6, we can moreappropriately understand the relationship between the anointing of Jesus andChristian experience of the Spirit: he is the Messiah, anointed to fulfil a uniquerole in God’s purposes and to rebuild ‘David’s fallen tent’, the temple in whichthe divine presence will dwell by the Spirit poured out after his ascension.

It is this point that is most significantly determined within Luke’s salvation-historical scheme by the second mention of Jesus’s reception of the Spirit, inActs 2:33.23 The pouring out of the Spirit by Jesus follows his distinctivereception of it at his ascension, not at the Jordan, even though the Spirit isclearly at work in and through him in the events narrated in the gospel (e.g.Luke 11:20).24 The Pentecostal gift, then, is specifically distinguished in Luke’saccount from the bestowing of the Spirit on Jesus at his baptism. This is clearlythe same Spirit, but his eschatological location, and thus the nature of hisministry, is different. The Spirit given at Pentecost is poured out by Jesus in hisexalted state, ruling at the right hand of God over an established kingdom thathe now governs as enthroned Messiah.25 It is noteworthy, in the light of this,that Luke distinguishes between the baptism associated with John and thatassociated with Jesus (Acts 19:1–7).The fact that we are clearly dealing with the same Spirit means that we can

certainly speak of analogies between his ministry towards Jesus and hisministry towards believers. In relation to what we have seen in our study upto this point, this is hardly problematic, since there are numerous points ofanalogy between Jesus and those united to him. What we cannot do isautomatically equate the two, particularly in such a way that we allow theministry of the Spirit towards Christians after the ascension to govern ourunderstanding of the divinity of Jesus, even if this is qualified by an attempt toidentify the Spirit with Christ after the resurrection.

This clearly problematizes some configurations of Spirit Christology. Thoseattempts to understand the divinity of Jesus to be constituted by the Spirit andtherefore of the same species as that of the Christian have simply failed to dojustice to those ways by which Luke’s account distinguishes the two. Moresubtly, though, the more sophisticated Spirit Christology offered by Coffeyand Del Colle, which maintains a Trinitarian account of the incarnation butexplores the role of the Spirit in constituting the Son’s being, is called intoquestion, since it seeks biblical warrant in Dunn’s account of Luke-Acts and,

23 On the discussions of salvation-history in Luke-Acts, see the excellent overview in FrançoisBovon, Luke the Theologian: Fifty-Five Years of Research (1950–2005) (Waco: Baylor UniversityPress, 2006), 515–24.

24 That the ascension is the climactic event of the kingdom in Luke has been argued byHelmut Flender, St Luke, Theologian of Redemptive History (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967),and Eric Franklin, Christ the Lord: A Study in the Purpose and Theology of Luke-Acts (Phila-delphia: Westminster Press, 1975).

25 The same complex of ideas is found in Ephesians 4:7.


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

Matthew 28:18–20

A final passage that must be discussed in the present chapter is Matthew28:18–20, although our comments on this may be brief. The significance ofthis passage is that it involves a fully Trinitarian baptismal formula: thedisciples are commissioned to baptize ‘in the name of the Father, of the Sonand of the Holy Spirit’. The preposition used is �N�, which we saw at thebeginning of this chapter to be used in a way that corresponds with the Semiticleshem formula and, effectively, to indicate the kind of baptism in view. Giventhis, the fact that baptism is in the singular name (�e Z��Æ) of the Father, Son,and Spirit (�F �Æ�æe� ŒÆd �F ıƒF ŒÆd �F ±ª�ı ��Æ��) is indicative of aremarkably developed incipient Trinitarianism. This is followed by a state-ment of the presence of Christ (‘I am with you [Kªg ��Ł� ��H� �N�Ø] all the daysuntil the end of the age’, 28:19), which has sometimes been noted to stand inparallel to the Emmanuel saying of 1:23. The gospel is thus bookended bystatements of divine presence that give to the book as a whole a covenantaltone,27 reinforced by the various allusions to the story of Moses that charac-terize the gospel.28 When these two observations are brought together, we areleft with the impression that baptism represents initiation into the covenantpresence of a God now considered Triune.

THE LORD ’S SUPPER

The most extensive and significant accounts of the Lord’s Supper are found inPaul (in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11) and in the related descriptions of the LastSupper in the Synoptic Gospels, with briefer mentions of the sacramentelsewhere (e.g. Acts 2:42) and, arguably, an important extended theologicalallusion to it in John 6. In the study that follows, I will begin with Paul’saccount of the Lord’s Supper, which must constitute the starting point for ourexamination of this topic in the New Testament. The Pauline discussion is the

26 Notably, Del Colle, Christ and the Spirit: Spirit-Christology in Trinitarian Perspective,141–7.

27 For the centrality of the theme of presence to the covenant, see our discussion in Chapter 4.28 Dale C. Allison, The NewMoses: AMatthean Typology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993). It is

not necessary for us to fully agree with Allison to find in his observations support for acovenantal reading of Matthew.


earliest documentation of the Lord’s Supper in the New Testament, predatingthe accounts of the Last Supper found in the Synoptic Gospels. The signifi-cance of this must be recognized: by the time the accounts in the Gospelscirculated in their narrative form, Paul’s theological discourse and associatedChristian practice would have influenced the reading of those very narratives.What this means is that readers or hearers of the Gospels, who may well haveaccessed the text primarily in the context of a Eucharistic gathering, wouldalways bring a theological framework to their interpretation and that frame-work would have been substantially derived from Paul.

This is not to say that Paul’s theology of the Supper is innovative, althoughthere may be some such elements. He himself refers to tradition (1 Cor 11:23,discussed in ‘1 Corinthians 11: Discerning the Body of the Lord’, pp. 209–10)and his argumentative style seems to require some prior values to be associatedwith the sacrament. For this reason, most regard his description of the words ofinstitution in 1Corinthians 11 to be essentially authentic, notwithstanding sometranslational variation from the versions of the institution found in Mark andMatthew.29 Today it is only a shrinking minority of scholars, whose argumentshave been roundly challenged elsewhere, that supports the view that Paul’sdeath-oriented theology of the Supper was at odds with a prior Christianpractice of celebratory fellowship meals.30

Behind this is the fairly wide agreement that the meal celebrated at the LastSupper and commemorated in the Christian sacrament was a Passover meal.

29 So Paul Neuenzeit, Das Herrenmahl: Studien zur paulinischen Eucharistieauffassung(Munich: Käsel-Verlag, 1960).

30 This view is particularly associated with Hans Lietzmann,Mass and Lord’s Supper: A Studyin the History of the Liturgy, trans. Dorothea Holman Gessner Reeve (Leiden: Brill, 1979), but hasbeen taken up by others. Lietzmann argued for a particular Jewish background to the non-Pauline practice of the Supper, namely the fellowship meal of the haburoth, but his case waswidely criticized for its conjectural character and overdependence on later Christian evidence.The division between non-Pauline and Pauline practices that he introduced was unfortunate, butfor a time popular in scholarship. For criticisms, see the notes of translator R. D. Richardson toLietzmann’s work, 160–71, and the comments of I. Howard Marshall, Last Supper and Lord’sSupper (Exeter: Paternoster, 1980), 20. A variation is found in J. D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus:The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1991), 360–7, amongothers. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 864–74, notes the key objections to this,including those advanced by the important study by Otfried Hofius, ‘Herrenmahl und Herren-mahlsparadosis: Erwägungen zu 1 Kor 11:23b–25’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, 85(1988), 371–408, which can be found in English translation in, ‘The Lord’s Supper and theLord’s Supper Tradition: Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:23b–25’, in Otto Knoch and BenF. Meyer (eds), One Loaf, One Cup: Ecumenical Studies of 1 Cor. 11 and other EucharisticTexts. The Cambridge Conference on the Eucharist, August 1988 (Macon, GA: Mercer UniversityPress, 1993), 75–115. A number of other proposals have been set forward. Klauck, Herrenmahlund hellenistischer Kult: Eine religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum ersten Korintherbrief(Münster: Aschendorff, 1982) argues for a background to the Eucharist in Hellenistic cultmeals. The formulaic language, though, reflects Jewish-Christian roots, according to ErnstKäsemann, Essays on New Testament Themes, 108, whose essay (which predated the workscited earlier in this note) pronounced the attempt to understand the Supper in terms of suchHellenistic meals to have ‘broken down’. Käsemann’s point has not been refuted by Klauck and ismaintained by Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 757.


That the Last Supper was a Passover meal is claimed in Mark 14:12–16 andparallels. John, famously, represents Jesus’s own death as taking place at thetime when the Passover lambs are slaughtered, so that the final meal wouldhave been taken the evening before Passover, and much has been done toexplain the discrepancy of these two accounts. Some have suggested theobservance of a different (i.e. Essene) calendar,31 others that the Synopticaccount represents an early Passover meal, taken ahead of time by Jesus in theknowledge that he would die on Passover itself,32 while others have argued fora theological recasting of the events in John, with that Evangelist explicitlydepicting Jesus as the Passover lamb.33 The first solution is problematic,34 butreaders may be more or less persuaded by the others. In one sense, all thatmatters is that in the Synoptic narratives, the meal is presented as beingcelebrated as a Passover (whether ahead of time or not). This connection iscorroborated by Paul’s expression ‘the cup of blessing that we bless’ (�e�� æØ� �B� �Pºª�Æ� n �PºªF��) in 1 Cor 10:16. This is generally seen toecho the practice of blessing the third cup of the seder meal, at which pointGod is blessed for his work of redemption, exemplified in the Exodus.35

Thiselton36 highlights the element of corporate solidarity (or ‘self-involvement’) in the Exodus commemoration that emerges from the use ofDeuteronomy 26:5 ff in the seder:37

You shall make this response before the LORD your God: ‘A wandering Arameanwas my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few innumber, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.6 When theEgyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us,7 wecried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and sawour affliction, our toil, and our oppression.’38

31 Classically, Annie Jaubert, La Date de la Cène: Calendrier biblique et liturgie chrétienne(Paris: J. Gabalda et Cie, 1957) and Eugen Ruckstuhl,Die Chronologie des Letzten Mahles und desLeidens Jesu (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1963).

32 R. T. France, ‘Chronological Aspects of “Gospel Harmony” ’, Vox Evangelica 16 (1986),33–59.

33 E.g. Keener, The Gospel of John.34 D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Leicester; Grand Rapids: Inter-Varsity Press;

Eerdmans, 1991), 457.35 The view that the cup is specifically the third cup of the seder has been argued by Jean

Hering, The First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians (translated from the Second Frenchedition by A. W. Heathcote and P. J. Allcock; London: Epworth Press, 1962), 94, and ChristianWolff, Der erste Brief des Paulus an die Korinther, 2: Auslegung der Kapitel 8–16 (Berlin:Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1982), 228, among others, while the minority view that it is thefourth cup is advanced by Dan Cohn-Sherbok, ‘A Jewish Note on to Potērion Tēs Eulogias’, NewTestament Studies 27 (1981), 704–9.

36 Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 758.37 In Mishnah Pesah

˙im 10:4 this passage is specified as the reading and subject of exposition

ahead of the blessing of the third cup.38 See the uptake of these verses in the Passover Haggadah provided by N. Goldberg, Passover

Haggadah (New York: Ktav, 1973), 12–17.


This personalizing of the Exodus history is required in the Mishnah, inPesah

˙im 10:4–5, where each person is to regard himself 39 as if he personally

came out of Egypt and the head of household is required to explain thesignificance of the elements in the meal. All, then, who partake of the sedercup identify themselves with (and by) the generation brought out of Egypt, inturn identified with the ‘wandering Aramean’. The story of one becomes thestory of the other. Insofar as this is taken up into the symbolism of the Lord’sSupper, and maintained in Paul’s terminology, it has a recognizable corporateelement whereby the narrative of the representative is understood to be thenarrative of the partakers, constitutive of their identity. As difficult as this maybe for some of us to fathom from within our own cultural context, it is a keyelement in the identification of the believer with the narrative of Jesus. In thisconnection, it is worth noting further that the terminology used of theportions of Scripture assigned by the Mishnah to be read at the seder is thatof the transition from ‘disgrace’ to ‘glory’:

He starts [reading] with the disgrace [section of the Bible] and ends with theglory; and he expounds [the biblical section] from ‘Awandering Aramean was myfather’ (Deut 26:5) until he finishes the entire portion.40

The broad scholarly agreement over the relevance of this material is impres-sive and reflects an important observation. While the Mishnaic seder directivesand the Passover Haggadah traditions are late, and their details should betreated with appropriate caution, they emerge from the narrative orientationof Exodus 12 itself, which anticipates the celebration of Passover, and from theuse of first person pronouns in the partner passage, Deuteronomy 26, whichensure that celebrants are identified with the Exodus generation. TheMishnaicmaterial, then, is an outworking of an emphasis on identification alreadyfound in the Old Testament accounts of the Passover.

The Lord’s Supper in Paul

Shareholders in Christ

1 Corinthians 10:14–22 is characterized by the use of two participatory terms:the noun ŒØ�ø��Æ (with the related ŒØ�ø��) and the verb ��åø. The firstof these is often simply translated as ‘fellowship’, but a substantial body ofscholarship has demonstrated that this English translation fails to capture the

39 Reflecting the gender-specific terminology of the Mishnah.40 Baruch Bokser and Lawrence Schiffman Yerushalmi Pesah

˙im (ed. Jacob Neusner; Talmud

of the Land of Israel: A Preliminary Translation and Explanation, 13; Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1994), 494.


significance of the term. The noun also occurs in 1:9 and that verse is seen bymost scholars as key to the proper understanding of the use of the word here:

God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christour Lord.

�Ø��e� › Ł��, �Ø� y KŒº ŁÅ�� N� ŒØ�ø��Æ� �F ıƒF ÆP�F �Å�F �æØ��F �F

Œıæ�ı ��H�.

Contextually, this verse leads into Paul’s appeal for unity among the Corinth-ian believers, so that the horizontal dimensions of fellowship are surelysignified by the word. We cannot, however, limit this to the kind of signifi-cance represented by the Graeco-Roman societas41 for, as Thornton notes,‘A genitive following the word koinonia expresses . . . that which one parta-kes . . . the object shared’.42 What is in the genitive case is, of course, ‘his son,Jesus Christ, our Lord’ so that communion with other believers is groundedupon a mutual ‘partaking’ of Christ. The related term ŒØ�ø�� , which occursin 1 Cor 10:18, further designates believers as ‘shareholders’ in Christ.43

The participatory overtones of these words have been thoroughly explored,with a widespread recognition that the significance of the genitive requires usto prioritize precisely this element of shareholding in Christ. Sensitive to this,much German scholarship has distinguished a subordinate social Gemein-schaft from true Theilhaben an Christus (‘participation in Christ’)44 or Anteilan Christus (‘share in Christ’).45 The horizontal communion between believersis established by their mutual vertical communion with Christ, which musthave priority. The fact that this participation is explicitly linked to the sonshipof Christ in 1:9 is also widely regarded as important, since Paul’s theology ofadoption is thereby implicit. We must, of course, recognize that ŒØ�ø��Æoccurs widely in Paul’s writings and that the apposed genitives vary. Theseapposed nouns are consistent with what we have begun to see in the previouschapters and will explore further in the remaining ones: the Spirit (2 Cor13:13), the sufferings of Christ (Phil 3:10) and the more general ‘service’ (2 Cor8:4). Those verses are significant in their own right as we consider the various‘fellowships’ that are engendered by union with Christ. Here in 1 Cor 1:9,though, what is striking about ŒØ�ø��Æ with the genitive ‘of Jesus Christ’ isthat it is connected to election (KŒº ŁÅ��, ‘you were called’), in the context of

41 Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 104.42 Lionel Spencer Thornton, The Common Life in the Body of Christ (2nd edn; London: Dacre

Press, 1944), 71. Quoted in Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 104, whose ellipsesI reproduce. The point is drawn from Heinrich Seesemann, Der Begriff Koinonia im NeuenTestament (Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1933), 24, 99, 193.

43 The term ‘shareholders’ is Thiselton’s preferred rendering. See Thiselton, The First Epistleto the Corinthians, 104.

44 This distinction was made long ago in the commentary by Carl Friedrich Georg Heinrici,Das erste Sendschreiben des Apostel Paulus an die Korinthier (Berlin: Wilhelm Hertz, 1880).

45 August Strobel, Der Erste Brief an Die Korinther (Zürich: TVZ, 1989), 274.


an implicit theology of adoption. Hence, the governing concept of election orcovenant makes participation in sonship through Christ the key category.

1 Cor 10:14–22. Shareholders, Supper, and Seder

Certainly in the Lord’s Supper passages, it is this Christocentric shareholdingthat is in view, a fact made clear in 1 Cor 10:16. It is important to note twocontextual features of 1 Cor 10:14–22. First, the context of 10:1–13 is essen-tially covenantal, with the theme of idolatry dealt with using imagery drawnfrom the Exodus narrative (10:1–5). We have considered these verses, inconnection with baptism, but it is now important to note that Moses andIsrael are, in an anticipatory sense, portrayed as participating in Christ: he isthe cloud of glorious presence (that is, the kavod), the spiritual rock fromwhich they drank. This will be further explored in Chapter 9, in relation toPaul’s logic in Galatians and 2 Corinthians: insofar as Israel lived by faith inthe divine promise revealed to her, her covenantal existence was a prolepticparticipation in Christ. The fact that it is Moses and not Abraham that ismentioned here is important in connecting the covenant of Sinai to the divinepromise,46 while also reminding Paul’s readers of the incompatibility ofidolatry and the service of Yahweh, a major theme in the letter. Second, Pauladdresses his exhortations to those who are ‘wise’ (‰� çæ��Ø� º�ªø). Whilesome have seen this as ironic or rhetorical, by this stage in the letter Paul hasstrongly established his point that Christ crucified is the true wisdom and theSpirit the one who enables understanding (1:17–2:16) and so the sense may bemore direct: Paul addresses those in union with Christ, the Wisdom of God,and urges them to act wisely in relation to the world. This noetic theme will besignificant in the remaining chapters of our study.

The elements of the Lord’s Supper appear in 1 Corinthians 10 in the reverseorder to that found in the other passages in the New Testament, with the cupmentioned first. As already noted, the expression ‘cup of blessing’ has been thesubject of much discussion, with most scholars seeing the expression asreflecting the connection between the Lord’s Supper and the Passover seder,and the majority specifically associating it with the third cup of the seder.Contextual support for this is found in 10:1–13, where the imagery of theExodus—celebrated in Passover—is found.

The emphasis on personal identification with a covenant representative,which we have seen to be important to the seder, is fruitful for an understand-ing of Paul’s teaching here. Just as the seder involves identification of the

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


participant with those taking part in the Exodus, so believers identify them-selves with the death of Jesus in their taking of ‘body’ and ‘blood’. We will seefurther in Chapter 9 that such a personal identification with the narrative ofJesus’s death and resurrection is characteristic of Paul’s theology. There is,though, nothing nakedly symbolic or imaginative about this: the sacramentcorresponds to a reality of redeemed identity, by which the Spirit works inbelievers to conform them to Christ.At the same time, Paul’s language and argumentation prohibits us from

seeing the Supper as simply an external symbolization of this Spiritual reality:the cup is a ŒØ�ø��Æ in the blood of Christ, the bread a ŒØ�ø��Æ in his body.The sacrament, then, plays a constitutive role in the participation of believersin the death and identity of Jesus, although it does not do so autonomously,but in the context of the Spirit’s work within the divine economy. It is for thisreason that dual participation (here denoted using the infinitive ��å�Ø�)47 inboth the Lord’s Table and the table of demons is inconceivable (10:20–1):those who sit at the latter are partakers or shareholders of the demons(ŒØ�ø�f� �H� �ÆØ��ø�).Clearly, participation in Christ here primarily has a narrative dimension, as

does participation in the Exodus in the seder: the narrative of the Cross isevoked by the symbols representing body and blood. In addition, however, thecomment about demons reminds us that the table setting could have beenevocative to an ancient (particularly Jewish) audience of the communicationof properties, particularly purity/impurity. Much has been written on the topicof the communication of impurity in a Jewish context, with a range ofconclusions reached.48 It is not necessary that we subscribe to a particularunderstanding of such communication, but simply that we recognize that tobe in the presence of another is to be susceptible, to some extent at least, to thecommunication of their status and properties, particularly in a ritual sense. Tobe in the Lord’s presence at his table is, therefore, potentially to have hisproperties, such as glory, communicated to the believer.49 This, indeed, cor-responds with the account of the Eucharist found in Cyril of Alexandria and,later, in Calvin.50 Of course, this requires a conviction that there is a realpresence of the Lord at the table. Given what we have seen so far in Paul, it isunnecessary to rely on a theory of the transformation of the elements of theSupper to maintain such presence; for Paul, the presence is realized by the

47 One must be careful, therefore, not to over-press the distinction between the words forparticipation.

48 For an overview of the discussion concerning Jewish purity, see Sanders, Jesus and Judaism,182–8 and Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 72–6, 214–30.

49 Martin, The Corinthian Body, 179–97, argues that ‘pollution’ is the overarching theme of10:14–22. While broadly in agreement with his case, his argument that the demon, like the Lord,is ingested is unnecessary.

50 See Chapters 2 and 3.


Spirit. In the context of the table, though, the significance of this presence as acommunicating one is developed.

Whether this element of the table imagery is accepted or not, and it is not aprimary element of my argument, the exclusivity of the covenantal claim uponthose under its terms is emphasized through the concept of participation. Theexample provided in 10:18 further emphasizes this. It is not agreed whetherPaul here, by speaking of ��æÆcº ŒÆ�a ��æŒÆ, refers to current Jewish practiceor to the historical narrative of Israel, perhaps in terms of Deuteronomy 32.51

The latter seems likely, given the imagery employed in 10:1–13, with thegolden calf incident the primary echo.52 If so, the fundamental wrongness ofidolatry, as well as its ability to manifest itself in close temporal proximity toparticipation in divine presence, is highlighted through the example. Thispoint would be made less forcefully, but would still be implied, by seeing theexample as pointing to current Jewish practice of considering the altar as aplace of participation. Either way, the covenant is with a jealous and exclusiveGod (10:22) and those involved in the ritual understand themselves to bebound to him.

As well as the condemnation of idolatry, Paul’s other great concern here iswith the unity that is required by the sacrament and its significance: ‘Becausethere is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the onebread’ (10:17). This theme is the great preoccupation of 1 Corinthians 11, towhich we now turn.

1 Corinthians 11: Discerning the Body of the Lord

Paul’s principal concern in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34 is with a practice of theSupper that involves or exacerbates distinctions and divisions rather thanunity. Although some have seen the divisions (�å��Æ�Æ) mentioned in11:18 as being doctrinal and have linked them to the divisions mentioned in1:10, the context of 1 Cor 12 (studied already in Chapter 6)—where Paulchallenges status concepts on the basis of the Spirit’s work in all Chris-tians—combined with recent archaeologically informed study of the passagesuggests, instead, that the issue is one of social honour. Whether ironic,53 orthe quotation of a Corinthian saying,54 Paul’s reference to divisions that showGod’s favour for some over others supports this conclusion. It appears that, inkeeping with meal practices in Corinth, the host-patron55 and those belonging

51 Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, 93.52 Paul Douglas Gardner, The Gifts of God and the Authentication of a Christian: An Exegetical

Study of 1 Corinthians 8–11:1 (Lanham: University Press of America, 1994), 165.53 Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 538.54 Henning Paulsen, ‘Schisma und Häresie: Untersuchungen zu 1 Kor 11:18,19’, Zeitschrift für

Theologie und Kirche 79 (1982), 180–211.55 That is, the owner of the house in which the congregation meets. Such a person would have

been wealthy and therefore of relatively high social status.


to an honoured group would be seated at the main table in the triclinium,while those of lesser social status would stand in the atrium, possibly in quitecrammed conditions, depending on the numbers involved. The quality andvolume of food and drink served to those in the triclinium would be superiorto what was given to those in the atrium. The question of how this may relateto a banquet in connection with the specifically Eucharistic practice is lessimportant than the almost universally acknowledged fact that the architecturalspace, and its use in meal contexts, embodied social distinctions.56 Since GerdTheissen’s work on the Lord’s Supper, there has been a recognition amongscholars that the humiliation of the ‘have-nots’ (�c �å�� 11:22) was aninstitutionalized principle.57

Paul’s response to this turns on the participatory significance of the Supperthat has already been outlined in relation to 1 Cor 10. For the apostle, theinstitutionalized humiliation of the ‘have-nots’ is an act of contempt towardsthe church of God itself (11:22) and it is with this challenge that he moves intoa discussion of the significance of the Eucharist as a sacrament.His account of the institution of the Supper (11:23–5) presents it as a matter

of closely transmitted tradition: Paul has received and passed on this accountfrom the Lord. The closeness of the account to what is found in the SynopticGospels is widely acknowledged and here, by contrast to 1 Cor 10:16, theelements are named in the same order as in the Gospels. This emphasis ontradition is rhetorically58 and theologically significant; as Thiselton notes, Paulemphasizes the ‘givenness and universality of a pre-Pauline tradition whichoriginated with the Lord himself as a dominical institution’.59 This is not just amatter of claiming authority for the practice or for its significance, but of settingit in an entirely different category from any of its social parallels. Thiselton quiterightly uses this observation as the basis of his challenge60 to the anachronismand theological reductionism of those, such as Witherington,61 who apply theterminology of ‘democracy’ to the Supper.

56 J. Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archaeology (Wilmington: MichaelGlazier, 1983).

57 Gerd Theissen, ‘Soziale Integration und sakramentales Handeln: Eine Analyse von I Cor11:17–34’, Novum Testamentum 16 (1974), 179–206. It is worth noting, too, the evidence for realfood shortages in this period, sharpening the significance of the terminology of ‘have-nots’. SeeBradley B. Blue, ‘The House Church at Corinth and the Lord’s Supper: Famine, Food Supply, andthe Present Distress’, Criswell Theological Review 5 (1991), 221–39.

58 Anders Eriksson, Traditions as Rhetorical Proof: Pauline Argumentation in 1 Corinthians(Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1998), 100–34.

59 Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 866. Bold type original. Not all agree with theauthenticity of the claim. See J. Meier, ‘The Eucharist at the Last Supper: Did it Happen?’,Theology Digest 42 (1995), 335–51. This is, however, very much a minority opinion.

60 Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 865.61 BenWitherington, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on

1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids; Carlisle, England: Eerdmans; Paternoster, 1995), 242.


In addition, however, the use of �Ææ��øŒÆ for the transmission of traditionby Paul to the Corinthians may be part of a rhetorical play by the apostle as heuses the same verb to speak of the ‘handing over’ of Jesus (�Ææ��, usuallytranslated ‘he was betrayed’). Hays sees this as an echo of Isaiah 53:6, wherethe subject of the verb is God himself;62 rather than being solely63 a referenceto his betrayal, then, the verb speaks of the divine purpose of the death ofJesus. This takes us all the way back to 1 Cor 1:18–31, where the death of Jesusis precisely for those who are weak and foolish in the eyes of the world andwhere ‘Christ crucified’ is the divinely appointed wisdom that nullifies humanstandards. By his play on the verb �ÆæÆ��ø�Ø, Paul reminds his readers thatthe very tradition of the Lord’s Supper that has been handed down is of thedivine purpose in Jesus’s death that pronounces a verdict on the very socialdistinctions that they cherish and maintain. That death is what is proclaimedin the sacrament (11:26), so that ‘the logical consequence of the tradition’64

ought to be an appropriate practice of the Supper of the kind that is thor-oughly contradicted by the segregations practised in Corinth.

Once again, we encounter covenantal language and imagery in the words ofinstitution, which most scholars see as authentic, notwithstanding sometranslational issues that Paul shares with Luke. These are most in evidencewith the designation of the cup as ‘the new covenant in my blood’. Paul, likeLuke, employs the specific phrase ‘new covenant’, while Mark 14:24 andMatthew 26:28 have ‘my blood of the covenant’, the latter generally seen asthe original form of the saying. We will return to this in our discussion of theSynoptic accounts. At this stage, what is important for us to note is the factthat the phrase found in Paul and Luke is evocative of a theme that we havebegun to encounter and will see further in the remaining chapters of thisstudy, namely that the death of Jesus has instituted the new covenant ofJeremiah 31:31. By this covenant the significance of the law is truly realizedthrough the ministry of the Spirit, uniting believers to Jesus and conformingthem to him. The juxtaposition of this passage with 1 Cor 12, then, is not just amatter of the shared concern with the body of Christ, but also with the Spirit-led character of this body; these two themes, the body of Christ and the workof the Spirit, operate in tandem in these chapters.

The seder associations of the Supper, implicit in 1 Corinthians 10:16through Paul’s phrase ‘the cup of blessing’, also mean that the ‘new covenant’is understood in terms of the old one or, perhaps better, that the old covenant

62 Richard B. Hays, First Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press,1997), 198.

63 Some, such as Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 549, allow for the possibility thatthere is a deliberate ambiguity to the verb, allowing the betrayal aspect to remain primary, butwith a certain implication of divine purpose.

64 Eriksson, Traditions as Rhetorical Proof, 186.


is taken up into the symbolism of the new. In Barth’s memorable language,‘the law is completely enclosed in the gospel’.65

In his own re-occupation of the Exodus event through the symbolic meal ofPassover, Jesus interprets the elements of that commemorative meal to antici-pate the redemptive significance of his death. Interestingly, the body of thelamb is not one of the elements that is re-interpreted, so that the identificationof the cup with ‘the new covenant in my blood’ (11:25) is distinguished fromthe death of the Passover lamb. Instead, it is understood in terms of the bloodby which ratification of the covenant was achieved in Exodus 24:6–11, which isworth quoting at length.

6Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he dashedagainst the altar.7 Then he took the book of the covenant, and read it in thehearing of the people; and they said, ‘All that the LORD has spoken we will do,and we will be obedient.’8 Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people, andsaid, ‘See the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you inaccordance with all these words.’

9Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israelwent up,10 and they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there was something likea pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.11 God did not layhis hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; also they beheld God, and theyate and drank.

As we will see, the passage has an important point of correspondence to theMatthew–Mark version of the Eucharistic saying in the expression ‘blood of thecovenant’. Although this close verbal parallel disappears in the Luke–Paulversion, where it is replaced by an allusion to Jeremiah 31:31, Exodus 24 isnevertheless broadly evoked as a covenant ratified by blood and celebrated in aritual feast (Ex 24:11). So, just as the Passover account in Exodus 12 deliberatelylooks forward to the establishment of the covenant with God’s people (12:14–28) and lies behind a seder practice that understands Passover to evoke thewhole narrative of Exodus (including the covenant), so in the New Testamentthe symbolism of the meal is understood to include covenant ratification.

Following the covenantal identification of the cup with Jesus’s blood, similarassociations are also made with Jesus’s body. In identifying the broken breadof the Passover meal with his own body, ‘which is for you’, Jesus interprets thatelement in terms of his own sacrificial death. We have seen that a case be madefor an echo of Isaiah 53:6 in the use of �ÆæÆ��ø�Ø; Hays identifies a furtherecho of the fourth Servant song, this time of Isaiah 53:12, in the expression �e

��bæ ��H�.66 Hofius also notes that Paul’s wider use of ��æ (e.g. in 1 Cor 15:3

65 CD II/2, 557. See the discussion in E. Jüngel, Karl Barth: A Theological Legacy (Phila-delphia: Westminster Press, 1986), 105–26.

66 Hays, First Corinthians, 198.


or Romans 5:6) reflects a belief in a substitutionary death specifically ‘for sins’,concluding that the formula here indicates an ‘expiatory death’,67 understoodin terms of the reversal of the curses in Deuteronomy 28:23. Such a breadth ofbackground may well be warranted by the Passover accounts, which areembedded in narratives that work towards Deuteronomy 28; even if some ofthe details are over-pressed by Hofius, the fact remains that this act ofremembrance is one of identifying the narrative of Jesus as decisive for thebeliever’s own identity in the covenant, through his substitutionary death.While some allowance must be made on specific details of the seder for the latecharacter of the textual witnesses, it is suggestive that the Haggadah Maggid,told as the bread is raised and blessed, begins ‘This is the bread of afflictionthat our fathers ate in the land of Egypt’.68 We can readily see how suchimagery of contemporizing remembrance might have been understood, interms of Isaiah 53, as an identification of the eater with the one afflicted on hisbehalf. In fact, I would suggest that such conceptuality serves to integrate thevarious elements of Paul’s theology of union with Christ as, in modern times,it has done in the thought of Zizioulas.69

As we have seen already, in Chapter 6, Paul’s identification of the churchwith the body of Christ is quite specifically with Christ’s own body. Here, thatplay is developed in terms of the worthy or unworthy partaking of the Supper:the one who eats without recognizing the body of the Lord does so unworthily(I�Æ��ø�, 11:29), and so each participant must examine him/herself. In thecontext of what surrounds this expression and the logic that has been identi-fied in Paul’s words, this can mean nothing but the recognition that participa-tion in this meal locates each person within the body of the Lord and thatstatus is therefore conferred upon each member, requiring love and respect.Hence, Paul’s injunction in verse 33 about appropriate preparations to avoidthe humiliation of those who are impoverished and hungry. Hence, too, thenatural transition into the material of 1 Corinthians 12, as it describes theSpirit-led body of Christ and the diversity of gifts within it.

The Lord’s Supper in the Performed Synoptic Tradition

Having acknowledged the Pauline theology, much of it inherited tradition,that would have informed the reading of the Last Supper accounts in theSynoptic tradition, we may now turn to those accounts, dealing with themmore briefly.

67 Hofius, ‘The Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s Supper Tradition’, 98, 99.68 Cecil Roth, The Haggadah (London: Soncino Press, 1934), 9.69 This was a point that we noted in our discussion of Zizioulas’s treatment of anamnesis. See

Chapter 2.


By way of introduction, it is helpful to note the recent interest in ‘perform-ance criticism’ in the reading of the gospel accounts. This methodology,particularly associated with David Rhoads70 and now developed by a numberof scholars, including Stephen Barton71 and Kelly Iverson,72 has built upon thelong recognition that the Gospels would have been encountered by mostreaders as oral texts, read to them or ‘performed’ in the context of churchgatherings. Significant to our discussion is that those gatherings would verylikely have involved the observance of the Lord’s Supper. The reading orperformance of the text would, then, be related in an immediate way to thepraxis of the church. In broad parallel with narrative critical evaluations oftime and pace in the gospel accounts, the fact that a substantial portion of thenarrative of the Synoptics is given over to recounting the Last Supper, at apoint in the narrative where events are moving rapidly towards the Cross,must be regarded as significant. Once this point is related to our study ofthe Eucharistic theology represented by Paul but held more broadly within theearly Christian communities, an important conclusion emerges: while theSynoptic Gospels appear to place less of an emphasis upon a participatoryaccount of the death of Jesus, such an emphasis is, in fact, to be found in theprominence of the Last Supper accounts in their narrative schemata and is,therefore, part of their very structure. Once this conclusion is reached, afurther point can be made directly from it: the Last Supper accounts bringtogether the New Exodus and covenantal themes that have been identified bysome scholars as lying at the heart of the Gospels and, arguably, of thehistorical Jesus tradition behind these.To these general observations, we may now add some specific comments on

the distinctive accounts found in the various gospels. The most importantpoint concerns the different form of the words of institution found in Markand Matthew in contrast to Luke and Paul. In the former, Jesus speaks of thewine as ‘my blood of the covenant’ (�F�� K��Ø� �e Æx�� ı �B� �ØÆŁ ŒÅ�, withsome minor variations between the two gospels), while in the latter, as we havealready seen in our study of 1 Corinthians, he speaks of the wine as ‘the newcovenant in my blood’. The question of which might preserve the originalform of the saying is less important than the significance of the two versions.As we have seen in our discussion of 1 Corinthians, the Luke–Paul version of

70 A more recent study by Rhoads exemplifies his work. David Rhoads, ‘PerformanceCriticism: An Emerging Methodology in Second Testament Studies—Part I’, Biblical TheologyBulletin 36 (2006), 118–33, and ‘Performance Criticism: An Emerging Methodology in SecondTestament Studies—Part II’, Biblical Theology Bulletin 36 (2006), 164–84.

71 Stephen C. Barton, ‘New Testament Interpretation as Performance’, Scottish Journal ofTheology 52 (1999), 179–208.

72 Kelly R. Iverson, ‘Orality and the Gospels: A Survey of Recent Research’, Currents inBiblical Research 8 (2009), 71–106 and ‘A Centurion’s “Confession”: A Performance-CriticalAnalysis of Mark 15:39’, Journal of Biblical Literature 130 (2011), 329–50.


the saying directly links Jesus’s blood to the establishment of the new coven-ant, thereby evoking Jeremiah 31:31–4. Nothing more needs to be said on thisat present.

The Matthew–Mark version lacks the term ‘new’, although a few manu-scripts have clearly been amended to bring them into line with the alternativereading. Instead, this version of the saying more obviously parallels Exodus24:8 and the uptake of this verse in Zechariah 9:11. For Mark, whose gospelmost clearly narrates the story of Jesus as a new Exodus,73 the force of such aparallel is obvious. For Matthew, the parallel may be intended not just to evokethe Exodus narrative,74 but to further develop his use of Zechariah 9 in 21:5.To be clear, ‘my blood of the covenant’ is not a Matthean coinage, butMatthew’s broader use of Zechariah inevitably colours the allusive significanceof the phrase here. In Matthew, at least, the Supper has messianic associations.

Both Mark and Matthew also add to this phrase that the blood has been‘poured out’ (KŒåı��) for many (��æd �ººH�). There is general agree-ment that this is an allusion to the dual use of ‘many’ and to the ‘pouring out’of the life of the Servant in Isaiah 53:11–12; if correct, then it stands alongsidethe further parallels to Isaiah 53 observed in the parallel Pauline tradition byHays (see ‘1 Corinthians 11: Discerning the Body of the Lord’, p. 210). TheMarkan and Matthean version of the words of institution, then, represents aconflation of Exodus 24:8, Zechariah 9:11, and Isaiah 53:12. It is difficult toexplain the use of Isaiah 53 on the basis of Jewish reading strategies, since thereare no obvious points of verbal contact with either Exodus 24:8 or Zechariah9:11. Instead here, as with the ransom saying of Mark 10:45 and Matthew20:28, the use of Isaiah must reflect a broader tendency, possibly dominical inorigin, of describing Jesus’s death in terms derived from the fourth Servantsong. For our purposes, as we consider the representative solidarity of Jesusand ‘the many’ for whom he is to die, the significance lies in the fact that thissolidarity is developed using the figure of the Isaianic Servant.75

The Lord’s Supper in John

John lacks an account of the Last Supper and the words of institution, as theseare found in the Synoptics. Instead, the final meal of Jesus is presented as

73 Rikki Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus and Mark (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997).74 It has been argued that Matthew is structured according to a ‘new Moses’ typology; see

Allison, The New Moses: A Matthean Typology. This would fit well with such a typology. Somecaution is required, however; I have noted problems elsewhere with this approach (see Macaskill,Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, 124)and the allusion here also connects to Matthew’s reading of Zechariah 9.

75 Matthew’s report of the words of institution contains one further detail not found in theother accounts. The pouring out of the blood of the covenant for the many is further specified to be


taking place the evening prior to Passover, with Jesus’s own death taking placeat the time of the Passover sacrifice. I have noted above the scholarly ap-proaches that have been taken to this; there is no need to resolve them as partof our own argument.The absence of the institution account, however, does not mean that the

Lord’s Supper is conceptually absent from John: the material in chapter 6 thatpresents Jesus as the Bread of Life and that speaks of the necessity of eating hisflesh and drinking his blood (esp. 6:53–6) has generally been seen as havingsome kind of sacramental significance.

Two points need to be recognized. First, ‘I am the Bread of Life’ is one of sevensayings, to be examined in Chapter 10, that identify Jesus as God and claimexclusivity for him as the way to salvation.Wemust, therefore, read the languageof this saying in the light of the others and allow their content to inform this one.All of the sayings stress that Jesus must be acknowledged through belief, which,according to John 20:31, is a matter of believing that he is theMessiah. As we willsee in Chapter 10, such belief involves a Spirit-enabled recognition of the divinerevelation that has taken place in Jesus and an acceptance of him as God’sappointed way of salvation. In relation to each of the predicated images in the‘I am’ sayings, John employs a range of verbs for the appropriate faith responsesand the benefits that result: the sheep ‘know’ the voice of the Good Shepherd andfollow his leading; members of the true flock ‘enter through’ the Gate; thebranches ‘remain in’ theVine, et cetera. The point is quite simply that in clarifyingwhat faith is and entails, John employs images that describe the relationshipbetween the believer and the one in whom they believe, images that present Jesusas being something and believers in terms related to this. The language of flesh,food, and eating that is found in John 6 must be understood within this schema,as representative of the relationship to Jesus that faith involves.From this, the second point emerges: alongside the imagery that is specific

to this particular ‘I am’ saying (i.e. ‘eating’), we also find more general imageryof the faith relationship in John 6. In 6:35–7 (cf. 44), the dominant image isone of ‘coming’ to Jesus; in 6:40, it is one of ‘believing’. Properly understood,then, the passage is about the faith response to Jesus (itself portrayed as a workof the Father’s grace in the believer in 6:44) and the benefits that come to thebeliever as a result. Any sacramental elements in this text must be understoodas subordinate to the main theme of faith.At the same time, it is hardly conceivable that associations with the Lord’s

Supper would not be made in connection with the bread imagery and,particularly, with the combination of bread and blood imagery in 6:53–6. Aswith the Synoptics, we can imagine that the performance of this text in aEucharistic setting would be powerfully evocative. It is important to note, inthis regard, the emphasis placed on the death of Jesus, notably in 6:51.

‘for the forgiveness of sins’. This is likely to be a further outworking of the allusion to the fourthServant song.


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

Not only does this ensure that the sacrificial death of Jesus is emphasized, inkeeping with the emphasis seen in other ‘I am’ sayings,76 it also means that,insofar as this alludes to Eucharistic traditions, those traditions are centred onhis death, providing further support (pace Lietzmann) for the view that theearly church consistently related its Supper meals to the Cross.

We must ask, however, how the body and blood of Jesus can be described as‘real food’? Might this imply something that we have generally seen to be aliento the thought of the New Testament writers, namely that there is a sharing ofessence between Jesus and his followers, that as they consume the elements ofthe sacrament, those elements are taken into their own constitution? Again,the key must be to locate this saying in the context of the ‘I am’ sayings as awhole collection and within the gospel as a whole. In each of these, theessential distinction between Jesus, the Logos, and those saved by/throughhim is maintained. The flock that follows the Shepherd remains a flock; thosethat walk in the light do not themselves become sources of light; the branchesof the vine are precisely branches. The point of the images is that only incommunion with Jesus are such groups constituted. The blessing that eachimage envisages is a sharing of Jesus himself, as a person, not the transfusion ofa property. This point will emerge in our discussion of the ‘I am’ sayings, inChapter 10. As we will see there, the theology of the Fourth Gospel is one ofpersonal presence and this wider contextual emphasis must be allowed tospeak to the sacramental imagery.

That imagery, then, as with all of the ‘I am’ sayings, points to the way inwhich faith appropriates Jesus and to the reality of the blessings that result.The Eucharist points to a personal appropriation of all that is held out in theSon, which brings real life to the believer. It is very much the imagery ofmaking Jesus one’s own. This is not radically unlike what we have seen in Paul,or in the Synoptics for that matter, concerning the importance of treating theSupper as an act of remembrance within which the substitutionary dimensionsof the death of Jesus are recognized and personalized.

CONCLUSIONS

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

76 See the discussion of these in Chapter 10.


Christian theology that itself shaped and governed the development of NewTestament soteriological thought.First, it is quite apparent that the sacraments operate within a covenantal

framework, within which they signify the identification between the believerand Jesus. Each does this in its own way: baptism is taken to symbolize thefundamental alteration of identity that results from union with Christ, withthe believer understood to have clothed him/herself with the identity of Jesus,to have passed with him through death into life. It is here that we may mostclearly speak of narratival participation in Jesus, since baptism is deployed torepresent the inclusion of the believer in the story of Jesus’s death andresurrection. Without a covenantal framework, this concept would remainvague, but within such a framework the concept is capable of bearing theweight placed upon it in the New Testament. Similarly, the Eucharist is shapedby the significance of the Passover meal, within which participants identifythemselves with those who passed through the Exodus, ‘from disgrace toglory’. By sharing in the Eucharist, believers ‘remember’ Jesus’s death andidentify themselves with it. This identification is made possible by the notionof covenant. The Passover meal evokes the ratification of that covenant as wellas the Passover itself and the identification of the cup as ‘the blood of thecovenant’ designates Jesus as the one whose representative death ratifies the(new) covenant between God and his people.This is more significant for the study of covenant in the New Testament

than may at first be recognized. As we noted in Chapter 1, and will see furtherin Chapter 9, the theme of covenant in Paul’s epistles is a controversial one.But if Paul inherits a tradition of the sacraments that is essentially covenantal,and appears to maintain this significance, then (as with the image of thechurch as temple) this ought to push us towards seeing covenant as a widerelement in his theology.Second, the symbolic dimensions of the sacraments do not operate in

isolation from the divine presence. The presence and activity of the Spirit,already emphasized in our study of the temple images, ensure that thesacraments are understood as a true participation in Christ, by which hisnarrative becomes truly realized in believers. A ‘vertical’ communion with himmaintained by the Spirit is the grounds for personal transformation.Third, this narrative participation is widely developed by allusion to the

fourth Servant song of Isaiah 53. This requires sensitivity to the presence ofsubtle parallels and allusions to Isaiah 53 in the various texts, but the cumula-tive evidence for such parallels being deliberate is quite impressive. Thisconnects with what we have already seen in Chapter 6, in relation to theinfluence of the Isaianic Servant songs upon the theology of the church astemple (notably in Acts 4), a textual background that is most intelligible whenits messianic significance is appreciated.


Fourth, the sacramental material of the New Testament, particularly thatconcerning baptism, reflects a developing reflection on the ontology of theincarnation and of the Triune God. This is less prominent than in the case ofthe material studied in our previous chapter, but, nevertheless, the precise wayin which the relationship of the Spirit to Jesus is presented (1) in his baptismand (2) in Christian baptism requires that he is placed in a distinct category,with his Sonship being of a different order to that of the believer. The fact thatbaptism is associated with his death and resurrection, and not to his experi-ence in the Jordan, further problematizes Spirit Christologies. It also requiresreflection upon the ‘exchange’ theology associated with the cross and the waysin which this is constitutive of Christian identity. The fact that a Trinitarianbaptism formula occurs in Matthew 28:18 suggests that such reflections werealso shaping Christian belief concerning the nature of God, with a developingawareness of individuation within the Godhead, represented in language quiteconsistent with later Trinitarian formulations.

Finally, it is important to note that the sacraments are Christocentric. Thisis not to diminish the role of Father and Spirit, but to recognize that thesacraments, as the key ritual enactments of participation, centre on the personof the mediator. Indeed, they centre upon the death and resurrection of themediator. I would suggest that if we are to take this seriously, a New Testamenttheology of participation that is truly sacramental must primarily be labelledas ‘union with Christ’.


9

Other Participatory Elementsin the Pauline Corpus

We turn in this chapter to consider the broader development of participatorythemes in the Pauline corpus and, more briefly, in those parts of the NewTestament often described as ‘deutero-Pauline’. While we will consider theways in which certain prepositions (‘in’, ‘to’, ‘with’, ‘through’, et cetera) andthe widespread use of the prefix �ı�- (‘with’) are used to indicate some kind ofincorporation of the church into Christ, it needs to be noted from the outsetthat grammar cannot be pressed in isolation for a theology of participation.Grammarians properly recognize that constructions such as K�+dative do notnecessarily have a spatial or participatory sense and that it is too easy for us toread ‘in Christ’ in an over-specified way.1 Instead, we must read such gram-matical constructions in relation to their contexts, sensitive to the way inwhich they may be informed by underlying narratives.But while there has been a growing interest in the way in which the

narratives of the Old Testament inform the theology of the New,2 a numberof scholars maintain that there is an essential discontinuity between the story(or stories) of Israel and the story of the ‘Christ-event’. This view is prominentin the apocalyptic readings of Paul associated with Martyn, de Boer, andothers, the problems of which we have already begun to highlight,3 but ismore subtly developed by Francis Watson. Watson recognizes that Paulpresents the story of Christ in terms of the story of Israel but argues thatPaul does not incorporate the story of Christ into the temporal dimension ofthat story, as if it were part of the flow of events, but rather locates the gospel interms of the vertical dimension of God’s actions.4 Hence, ‘The only “narrative

1 C. Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study (Grand Rapids:Zondervan, 2012).

2 See Bruce W. Longenecker (ed.), Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002).

3 See the discussion of these in Chapter 1 and Chapter 4.4 Francis Watson, ‘Is There a Story in These Texts?’, in Bruce Longenecker (ed.), Narrative

Dynamics in Paul, 231–9.

substructure” in Paul is the scriptural narrative or narrative collection fromwhich he draws in order to elucidate an essentially nonnarratable gospel.’5

This is a subtle configuration of the relationship of Paul’s account of the gospelto the Old Testament. The question of whether or not it is correct will runthrough this chapter.

One of the key elements that I will stress in this chapter is the covenantalshape of Paul’s account of participation. As is clear from Chapter 1, this is acontroversial matter in Pauline scholarship. In the context of a broad study ofthe New Testament such as this one, that controversy can be set in freshperspective: arguably, the cumulative contextual evidence for the covenanttheme in the New Testament that we have already identified supports itspresence in Paul’s writings. By this stage in our study covenantal elementshave surfaced repeatedly, to an extent that allows a rather bold proposal to beoffered: given the covenantal significance of the new temple imagery and ofthe sacramental theology in Paul (and elsewhere in the New Testament), acovenant-informed theology ought to be assumed, and should only be rejectedif there are explicit grounds to do so.

Given that this book is not a dedicated study of Paul, but examines thedoctrines of participation across the whole of the New Testament, somecompromises will require to be made. We cannot examine every occurrenceof participatory grammar or every relevant text or image. At the same time, itis important that we allow adequate depth of exegesis of select passages,particularly those that have provided classical loci for the discussion of Paulinetheology. In what follows, then, we will examine material from Galatians, 2Corinthians, and Romans, allowing these to establish some key frameworksfor Pauline thought, before studying a set of further themes as they emergethroughout the Pauline corpus. Arguably, as does Daniel Powers,6 we mighthave started with 1 Thessalonians, but while there are anticipations of thetheology that Paul will go on to develop, a study of this letter would add littleto our findings. Instead, we begin with Galatians which, as a letter generallydated around 50ce,7 still represents an insight into the early stages of devel-opment of Paul’s theology but is, as we will see, remarkably full, and isconsistent with the theology developed in later letters.

GALATIANS

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

5 Watson, ‘Is There a Story in These Texts?’, 239.6 Powers, Salvation through Participation. 7 Martyn, Galatians, 20.


I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christwho lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son ofGod, who loved me and gave himself for me. (2:19–20)

�æØ��fiH �ı��Æ�æø�ÆØ· ÇH �b PŒ��Ø Kª�, ÇBfi �b K� K�d �æØ��· n �b �F� ÇH K�

�ÆæŒ� , K� ��Ø ÇH �Bfi �F ıƒF �F Ł�F �F IªÆ� �Æ�� ŒÆd �ÆæÆ��

�Æı�e� ��bæ K�F.

The formulation of the second clause (literally, ‘I live, but no longer I, butChrist lives in me’) is suggestive of an absolute transformation of identity: Paulsees his own life as now constituted by the presence of Christ within him.Given what we have seen in our previous chapter, this element in Paul’sthought may well have been shaped by reflection upon the sacraments;certainly later in this chapter we will see how it is influenced by his under-standing of baptism.Significantly, in the following section (3:1–5) the presence of Christ in Paul

is itself linked to the presence of the Spirit. Here Paul addresses the Galatiansdirectly concerning their own experience of the Spirit, challenging themregarding whether their reception of the Spirit was the result of their obser-vance of the law or as a consequence of their faith. Two points may behighlighted. First, the fact that the reception of the Spirit is at the heart ofPaul’s questioning indicates that this is the primary marker of the gospel.Second, the rhetorical introduction to Paul’s question is a statement concern-ing the Galatians’ knowledge of the crucifixion of Jesus: ‘It was before youreyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified.’ This makes the two-fold point that (1) their salvation proceeds from that crucifixion and that (2)the significance of the crucifixion is precisely determinative of the nature ofthe Spirit’s work in them. Juxtaposed as it is with the preceding section, thelink between the presence of the crucified Christ in Paul and the presence ofthe Spirit is clear: the two are closely identified, if not equated. Hence, Paul’sexperience of his own identity being transformed through his identificationwith Christ is an outworking of his experience of the Spirit; his sense of co-crucifixion is central to this.

Adoption in Galatians

The reception of the Spirit is specifically linked by Paul to the concept ofadoption (ıƒŁ��Æ, 4:5), an image developed particularly in 3:23–4:7. In 4:6–7,Paul presents the Spirit as the definitive marker of God’s ‘sons’. It is worthhighlighting that this theme is the dominant element in the patristic accountsof participation that were studied in Chapter 2 and in the Reformed accountsof participation studied in Chapter 3. As we saw in Chapter 4, the covenantalsignificance of the expression has also received fresh attention since the

Other Participatory Elements in the Pauline Corpus 221

publication of Frank Moore Cross’s essay on the connection between covenantand kinship.8 Even before considering Paul’s specific development of thetheme, then, we are reminded of its broad significance as a historical andtheological metaphor for salvation.

Paul’s development of the concept of adoption in Galatians has a funda-mentally eschatological tone: the sending of God’s son to secure the adoptionof the saints occurred ‘when the fullness of time had come’ (‹�� b qºŁ�� e�º æø�Æ �F åæ��ı, 4:4). Interestingly, the time prior to this is portrayed inpreparatory terms: it is a time of minority and guardianship (4:1–3), thesignificance of which is derived from that time (and the conditions existingwithin it) for which it is preparatory. The revelation of the gospel does notnegate the significance of that which precedes it, nor is it set in basic oppos-ition to it. Rather, it represents an eschatological realization that renders itsantecedents obsolete, meaning that a continued reliance upon them is effect-ively a rejection of the revealed will of God (cf. 1:6). This is crucial for theconsideration of the Law in Galatians and, indeed, more widely in Paul’sthought. Adoption is thus portrayed as a state of eschatological fulfilment,by which the human incapacities unresolved by the Law itself are addressed.9

Notably, it is ‘in Christ’ that Paul’s readers are sons of God ‘through faith’(�Øa �B� ��ø�).10 Paul develops his discussion of adoption in Galatianswith a statement concerning the baptism of believers into (�N�) Christ whichhas resulted in their clothing themselves with him (3:27). The pairing of theprepositions ‘in’ and ‘into’ suggests that here we are indeed dealing with alocative construal of union, with the clothing metaphor depicting the transferof Christ’s identity onto those who are located in him: his appearancebecomes theirs. The link between his identity as ‘son’ (4:4) and the adoptionof believers11 is, therefore, vital.

8 ‘Kinship and Covenant in Ancient Israel’, in Frank Moore Cross, From Epic to Canon:History and Literature in Ancient Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 3–21.

9 This is basically in keeping with my findings in Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and Inaugur-ated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, where I argued for a wide perceptionthat the Torah was imperfect, in the sense that more was required to bring it to the fulfilment ofits purposes. At the heart of this lies a recognition of human incapacity to keep the Law and theneed for further revelation to take place, both objectively and subjectively. The point is connectedto discussions of Paul’s anthropology, with a number of authors identifying his evaluation of lawand flesh as governed by a pessimistic anthropology and not by a negative evaluation of the Lawper se. See Timo Laato and Sigurd Grindheim, ‘Paul’s Anthropological Considerations: TwoProblems’, in D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark Seifrid (eds), Justification and VariegatedNomism. Volume 2: The Paradoxes of Paul (Tübingen; Grand Rapids: Mohr Siebeck; Baker,2004), 343–59; J. Christiaan Beker, ‘The Christologies and Anthropologies of Paul, Luke-Actsand Marcion’, in Martinus C. de Boer (ed.), From Jesus to John: Essays on Jesus and NewTestament Christology in Honour of Marinus De Jonge (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 174–82.

10 This obviously touches upon the debate around the significance of ��Ø� �æØ��F. I willdefer a discussion of this matter until later in this chapter.

11 I use this term freely, for it is used by Paul himself without ambiguity in 3:22.


It is important to note the following points. First, the fatherhood of God isnot incidental to the argument here or to the letter as a whole: Paul’s descrip-tion of God as ‘father’ in the greeting of 1:1 centralizes this term to theargument and logic of the letter.12 Second, the sonship of Jesus is the groundsfor the adoption of believers, but the language of ‘adoption’ is only applied tothe latter; the sonship of Jesus is presented as inherent, sui generis, constitutiveof (but not identical to) the adoptive status of believers. The sonship of Jesusand the sonship of believers are, then, categorically different. Despite the linkbetween the Spirit and the Son in 4:6, there is no suggestion there of anadoption constituted by the Spirit; rather, the Spirit is defined in relation tothe Son in his activity of union. Third, Paul’s logic requires the incorporationof believers into the narrative of the Son’s passage from minority—that is, hisexisting in the conditions that obtain ‘under the law’ (4:4)—to majority.Covenant conceptuality allows for such a narratival identification of the oneand many, but here it is developed in terms of the unique status of the Son. Byinference, the vocabulary of ‘sending’ is suggestive of pre-existence, althoughthere has been much debate over this element of Pauline theology.13 The Son’sfulfilment of the conditions of the covenant, though, requires the reality of hishumanity. At the risk of over-simplification, Paul’s account of the representa-tive work of Christ here arguably requires that he takes seriously the distinct-ive ontology of the mediator, including the particular Jewishness of hishumanity.14 He affirms his real humanity and his real divinity and, inaffirming the latter, he forces us to speak of individuation in God.15

A further point on Paul’s logic of atonement may now be explored. TheSon’s own passage from minority to majority, from living under the law tobringing the law to its end, involves his death ‘under the law’. The death of theSon brings to an end the ‘curse of the law’ by becoming that curse:

12 See Trevor J. Burke, Adopted into God’s Family: Exploring a Pauline Metaphor (Notting-ham: Apollos, 2006).

13 Broadly, we may contrast Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle with Bauckham, GodCrucified.

14 Despite his citation of Barth for support, Watson’s claim concerning the ‘nonnarratable’Pauline gospel (see details in note 4) seems to me to fail to acknowledge the fact that Paulconsiders it important that Jesus was born under the law, that his lineage was in Israel (and not inGreece, for example). The historical particularity of the Incarnate mediator within Israel and,hence, his decision to accommodate the story of the covenant within his own being is recognizedin the theology of Barth and his theological heirs, as exemplified by John Webster, ‘ “It Was theWill of the Lord to Bruise Him”: Soteriology and the Doctrine of God’, in Murray Rae and IvorJ. Davidson (eds), The God of Salvation (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2011), 15–34.

15 Two papers delivered at the recent Galatians and Christian Theology conference, Univer-sity of St Andrews, 2012, highlighted these points. Engaging with Martyn, Bruce McCormack(‘Justification by Faith’) noted that the specific deficiency of his analysis lies in a failure toconsider the ontology of the mediator and Ivor J. Davidson (‘ “The One Who Called You”: Paul,the Gospel and God’) noted that the force of Paul’s language requires us to speak of individuationwithin God. I am grateful to both men for sharing their papers with me; these will be published indue course.


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

This is not the only place where Deut 21:23 is taken up in relation to the death ofJesus; it is also encountered in 1 Peter 2:24–5, where, as wewill see inChapter 11,it is read together with Isaiah 53. The combined evidence of the two writersfurther supports the conclusion that Jesus’s deathwas broadly understood in theearly church to have secured atonement by undertaking the conditions ofcursedness. Importantly, the principal background to this cannot be identifiedas the sacrificial system of the law, since sacrifices are ‘holy’ and not ‘cursed’.16

Elsewhere, of course, such imagery may occur, but here, given the covenantalcontext, the most likely association of the ‘curse’ language is with the covenantcurses of Deuteronomy 27–8. Reading Deut 21:23 in the light of these, throughthe shared terminology of the curse, Jesus’s death is understood to be a repre-sentative experience of covenant cursedness.17

It is this very logic that we examined in the writings of the Reformedtradition, in Chapter 3. Arguably, those writers represent the most consistentand thoroughgoing reflection upon this point of Pauline theology as theysought to negotiate the unavoidably contractual dimensions of biblicalthought without compromising the primacy of grace. Linking this to thepassing of YHWH between the pieces of the sacrifice in the Abrahamiccovenant (Gen 15), the death of Jesus was understood to constitute God’staking upon himself the consequences of the broken covenant, in order thatthe blessings promised through Abraham would not be jeopardized by humansin. However defensible this may or may not be in systematic theologicalterms, it represents a serious effort to grapple with Paul’s thought.The state of adoption is realized in believers through the presence and

ministry of the Spirit; just as God ‘sent’ his son into the world, so he ‘sent’the Spirit of the Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba, Father’ (4:6), a cry by whichour status as ‘heirs’ is revealed (4:7). The parallels between Son and Spirit areobvious and they are closely identified with each other. The logic, however,requires that they are also distinguished. The combination of identificationand individuation means that the Spirit can meaningfully constitute thepresence of the Son in his physical absence and can conform those in whom

16 Bradley H. McLean, ‘The Absence of an Atoning Sacrifice in Paul’s Soteriology’, NewTestament Studies 38 (1992), 531–53. At the same time, note that Isaiah 53 represents the deathof the Servant as an םשא . We will discuss this further in ‘The Atonement: All Died in One’(p. 235), in connection with 2 Corinthians 3–5.

17 I am conscious of the boldness of such a statement in the light of the fraught discussions ofPauline atonement theology over the last century of biblical scholarship. For a good overviewand discussion of these, see Powers, Salvation through Participation, 18–34. The context of thepresent study will, I hope, provide adequate defence for my statement.


he dwells to the likeness of Christ. Hence, the ‘sonly’ activity of the believer,the basic act of communication with the adoptive Father, is portrayed as aSpiritual act, one in which the believer’s agency in this relationship is effect-ively identified with the Spirit himself and in which the believer’s communi-cation with the Father is seen as a Spirit-generated outworking of the Son’ssonship. By retaining the language of adoption and stressing the role of theSpirit in the agency and experience of the believer, Paul never allows this todeteriorate into a collapsing of the identity of the believer and Christ.All of this, of course, connects to the great account of the Spirit-led life in

5:16–25. The use of ��æØ�Æ��ø in the context of the binary pattern of Spiritversus flesh (5:16–17) echoes the moral imagery of walking ‘in the way/in thetwo ways’ in the Old Testament18 but, used with the dative of ��F�Æ, is giveneschatological as well as ethical significance. As in 2:19–20, the experience ofthe Spirit is linked to an identification with the narrative of Jesus’s crucifixion,resulting in a transformation of identity as believers die to the reality of theflesh and live by and under the guidance of the Spirit (5:24–5). The applicationof the adjective ��ı�Æ�ØŒ�� to the believer in 6:1, therefore, must be seen asindicating the full personal presence of the Spirit in the life of the believer.19

New Creation, Temple, and Spirit in Galatians

This eschatological imagery comes to a climax in the language of ‘new creation’(ŒÆØ� Œ��Ø�) in 6:15.20 Through the repetition of the h�� . . . Iººa . . .(‘neither . . . but . . . ’) formula and the keywords ��æØ�� (‘circumcision’) andIŒæ�ı��Æ (‘uncircumcision’) this is linked to the development of Paul’sargument through 5:6:

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything;the only thing that counts is faith working through love. (5:6)

For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation iseverything! (6:15)

That condition designated by the phrase ‘new creation’ is, then, effectivelyidentified with that of ‘faith working through love’ and is set antitheticallyagainst a concept of justification that revolves around the marker of circumci-sion. Crucially, the concept of faith in 5:6 is itself informed by 5:5, where ‘by

18 See, for example, Proverbs 1:15; 2:7, 13, 20; 3:23; 4:12, 14; 6:22; 8:20; 9:6; 14:2; 20:7; 28:6, 26.The language and imagery is widespread in biblical and postbiblical writings and lies behind theuse of the term halakah in relation to legal or ethical disputes.

19 Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 28–32.20 For Galatians 6:12–18 as the rhetorical recapitulation of the themes of the letter as a whole,

see Moyer V. Hubbard, New Creation in Paul’s Letters and Thought (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2002), 190–1.


the Spirit (��Æ�Ø) by faith (KŒ ��ø�) we await the hope of righteousness(Kº��Æ �ØŒÆØ��Å�)’.

There are obviously a number of interpretative difficulties in this verse,21

but regardless of how these are resolved, Paul clearly associates the experienceof the Spirit, linked to the conduct of the saints in waiting (‘we eagerly wait’,I��Œ��å��ŁÆ, 5:5), and the state of new creation; this complex is, moreover,contrasted with the doctrines and practices of Paul’s opponents, the circumci-sion group. This is effectively the outworking of Paul’s gospel, the defence ofwhich is at the heart of the letter, and hence forms the climax of the twinreferences to revelation (apocalypse), in 1:12 and 1:16.

The majority of scholars recognize that the language of ‘new creation’ isderived from Isaiah, where it is developed in relation to the restoration thatwill be brought about by God through his Servant.22 The Servant’s identifica-tion with Israel is important to this, as is the fact that his role is understoodcovenantally, in relation to the promises made to David and to Israel.23 The‘new creation’ in Isaiah emerges as a theme throughout chapters 40–66, whereit is interwoven with the expectation that Jerusalem/Zion will be restored andthat the nations will be drawn to worship God there. These, of course, arethemes that we have seen to emerge in relation to the church’s depiction astemple, the ‘rebuilt tent of David’. Paul’s language of new creation cannot butevoke this Isaianic narrative and this is in keeping with the broader influenceof Isaiah upon his writings.24

In addition to this specific Isaianic background, we saw in Chapter 4 thatthe renewal of creation has a natural connection to the idea of the messiah’seschatological temple in apocalyptic literature (influenced by Ezekiel 40–8).This, far from involving a negative evaluation of Torah, constitutes the truefulfilment of the order that it represents.25 Given what we have seen alreadyconcerning the close identification of the eschatological temple and the Spirit

21 Among these questions are: How does the dative of Spirit relate to the genitival phraseconcerning faith? How do hope and righteousness relate to one another? What, precisely, is theconcept of righteousness in view?

22 The most recent study, which provides further bibliography, is that of T. Ryan Jackson,New Creation in Paul’s Letters: A Study of the Historical and Social Setting of a Pauline Concept(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), whose findings confirm this observation.

23 See our discussion of the Servant in Chapter 4. Note, too, the reference to the ‘covenant ofpeace’ in Isaiah 54:10.

24 Recognized by Wagner, Heralds of the Good News; Gignilliat, Paul and Isaiah’s Servants,and, more generally, by Bauckham, God Crucified.

25 This point is important to any consideration of the relevance of 1 Cor 7:19 to theinterpretation of Galatians. There, too, the ‘neither . . . but . . . ’ formula occurs in slightly modi-fied form and there ‘what counts is the keeping of the commandments of God’. The ‘neither’clause negates the significance of the distinction between circumcised and uncircumcised,making the parallel with Gal 6:15 a strong one. The seeming tension between a negation oflegal practice and the affirmation of divine commandments vanishes when we appreciate Paul’seschatological framework, as rightly noted by Jackson, New Creation in Paul’s Letters, 106–11.


in Paul’s writings, the density of references to the Spirit in Galatians makes itquite likely that he thinks here of the church as the new temple, in which thecosmic order is restored, probably fulfilling the Zion expectations of Isaiah.This is further supported by the language of 2:9, where James, Peter, and Johnare referred to as ‘those seeming to be pillars’. Despite the possible ironyindicated by �ŒF��, this is evidence that Paul considers the church intemple terms, not as a matter of his own theological innovation, but as amatter of tradition.26 This, too, has a bearing on the significance of the newcreation language. The eschatological construal of divine presence in Jewishapocalyptic literature correlates creation and temple, a move that seems also tobe visible in Galatians.

2 Corinthians

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

The Covenant of the Spirit

The covenantal significance that Paul attaches to the new reality in Christbecomes clear in the early chapters of 2 Corinthians. In 3:6, Paul describeshimself and his fellow apostles as ministers or servants of a ‘new covenant’(�ØÆŒ��ı� ŒÆØ�B� �ØÆŁ ŒÅ�), a covenant that is further specified as ‘not of theletter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life’. This leadsinto a comparison of the glory of the old and new covenants (3:7–18) that, inturn, gives way to various reflections on the significance of the new covenant.Paul’s statement concerning the new covenant emerges in the context of his

argument that his apostolic credentials need no letter of support, since such aletter is constituted by the transformation of his addressees themselves:27

And you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with inkbut with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets ofhuman hearts (3:3)

26 Bauckham, ‘James and the Jerusalem Church’, 441–51.27 The reading of the preceding verse (3:2) is debatable. The best attested reading is �

K�Ø��ºc ��H� ��E� K��, Kªª�ªæÆ��Å K� �ÆE� ŒÆæ��ÆØ� g“ lHm (p46, A, B, C D, et cetera), butthe more poorly supported K� �ÆE� ŒÆæ��ÆØ� u“ lyÐ m ,א) 33, 88, 436, 1881, eth) fits the context better.An alteration to ��H� could be explained by assimilation to 7:3, as Ralph P. Martin, 2Corinthians (Waco: Word Books, 1986), 44, notes.


çÆ��æ��Ø ‹�Ø K��b K�Ø��ºc �æØ��F �ØÆŒ�ÅŁ�E�Æ �ç� ��H�, Kªª�ªæÆ��Å P��ºÆ�Ø Iººa ��Æ�Ø Ł�F ÇH��, PŒ K� �ºÆ�d� ºØŁ��ÆØ� Iºº� K� �ºÆ�d� ŒÆæ��ÆØ�

�ÆæŒ��ÆØ�.

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

Revelation, Knowledge, and the Glory of God

Two themes from this textual backdrop will continue to reverberate throughthe subsequent logic of Paul’s argument, both drawn from Jer 31:34: the noeticreality of the knowledge of God and the democratization of that knowledge.31

No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the lord’, forthey shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the lord; forI will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

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

28 It should also be noted that the phrase ‘tablets of stone’ is derived from Exodus 31:18, theterminology of which is paralleled and developed in Ex 32:15–16, 19; 34:1, 4, 28–9; Deut 4:13,5:22, 9:9–11, et cetera. In several cases it is explicitly paired with the word ‘covenant’.

29 Jer 31:31, ‘new covenant’; Ezekiel 36:26, ‘new heart and new spirit’.30 Jer 31:33; Ez 36:27.31 While these noetic themes are explicit in Jeremiah, they are also present in symbolic form

in Ezekiel. See Dale Launderville, Spirit and Reason: The Embodied Character of Ezekiel’sSymbolic Thinking (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007).


was glorious; Paul’s contrast is not between good and bad, but between goodand better.32

Paul’s treatment of the glory of the old and new covenants in 3:7–18 and oninto 4:1–6 develops the noetic theme just noted. The key to his logic is the linkbetween glory and knowledge and the obsolete role of Moses as mediator ofthe original covenant, as it is described in Exodus 34, the textual basis forPaul’s argument.33 Moses is a glorified figure because he has beheld theglory of God (Exodus 34:29). His role as mediator34 of the covenant involvesthe communication of that knowledge to Aaron and the people. But mediatedknowledge is always imperfect: the glory reflected (cf. 2 Cor 3:18) in Moses’sface, itself susceptible to fading, is veiled, so that there is never a trueknowledge of God:

But their minds35 were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear thereading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is itset aside. Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over theirminds (2 Cor 3:14–15).

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

32 There is a general acknowledgement that Paul employs arguments of a minori ad maiuskind here, although we should recognize that these are wrapped up in careful play on detail.

33 It has been suggested that Paul here augments a Jewish Christian midrash on Exodus34:29–35, classically by Hans Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht, 1924). The term is used slackly, however, as often the case in New Testament studies,and adds little to our understanding, being more driven by source critical motivations thaninterpretative ones. It is more constructive to recognize the nature of the contrast intendedbetween the covenants and the eschatological framework of this.

34 Or ‘minister’, to parallel the term used of Paul.35 Paul’s word here is � �Æ�Æ. While the phrase as a whole echoes the hardening of Pharaoh’s

heart in the Exodus account, the shift to speaking of ‘minds’ warrants the language that I usethroughout this discussion, that union with Christ has a noetic, and not just epistemic, significance.In other words, it is not simply about how revelation is perceived, but how it is understood andprocessed.

36 For bibliography and development of this debate, see James D. G. Dunn, ‘2 Corinthians3:17: The Lord Is the Spirit’, Journal of Theological Studies 21 (1970), 309–20.


divine–human intimacy spoken of in 2 Corinthians 3:18.37 That reality is onethat centres on true knowledge of God, now democratized: it is not simply thatPaul and the other apostles serve as mediators with unveiled faces, but ‘we all’(��E� �b ��, placed emphatically at the head of the sentence), beholding38

the ‘face of the glory of the Lord, are being transformed from one glory intoanother, as from the Spirit, the Lord’.39

The noetic or epistemic thrust of Paul’s argument continues in 4:3–8, wherethe veil image is once again taken up, applied to those ‘who are perishing’ (K��E� I�ººı��Ø�). This time, the image of the application of the veil isjuxtaposed with the statement that ‘the god of this age has blinded theminds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of theglory of Christ, who is the image of God’ (4:4).

› Ł�e� �F ÆNH�� ı K��çºø�� a � �Æ�Æ �H� I��ø� �N� �e �c ÆPª��ÆØ

�e� çø�Ø��e� �F �PÆªª�º�ı �B� ��Å� �F �æØ��F, ‹� K��Ø� �NŒg� �F Ł�F.

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

Christ the Image, The Glory Itself

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

37 Dunn, ‘2 Corinthians 3:17’, 310–14.38 The participle used for what the ‘we all’ of 3:18 do is ŒÆ��æØÇ��Ø, from ŒÆ��æ�Çø.

This can mean either ‘behold’ or ‘reflect’. The ambiguity may be deliberate, although theperceptive experience of viewing is required as primary by the comparison with the Jews, asargued by Norbert Hugedé, La Métaphore du Miroir dans les Épîtres de S. Paul aux Corinthiens(Neuchâtel: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1957), 17–24, 32. The word I�ÆŒ�ŒÆºı��øfi is the perfectparticiple of I�ÆŒÆº��ø (uncover, disclose) and is applied to the divine face, again emphasizingthe need for revelation to facilitate vision. The passage, in other words, piles up revelatoryterminology. While ‘beholding’ is the primary significance of ŒÆ��æØÇ��Ø, though, thefurther association with reflection coheres well with the context: true vision of divine glory istransformative. See Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 150–1.

39 This is my own rather stilted translation of 3:18, intended to highlight the mediatorialcentrality of Christ, the face of the glory, and the nature of the use of glory language.


position of Moses, and Christ into the position of God, requires that actuallywhat we are dealing with is a word that focuses the concept of the divine face.Further, the fact that Christ is described as the one ‘who is’ (‹� K��Ø�) the imageof God, rather than the one made ‘according to the image’ (ŒÆ�� NŒ��Æ, Gen1:27, LXX), necessitates a different understanding of Christ and Adam, onethat emerges from our discussion of the relationship between ‘glory’ and‘image’ in Jewish traditions, in Chapter 4. As we noted there, the tendencyto see ‘image’ and its synonyms as typically Adamic is mistaken, failing to takeinto account the glorious status of other patriarchs in ancient Judaism and thecare with which the human embodiment of divine glory is spoken. Adam isnot the image of God, but is, rather, made ‘according to’ that image. The‘image’ of God is ‘the Glory’.40 We noted the sensitivity to this distinction inthe writings of Irenaeus and Athanasius, in Chapter 2.The question naturally arises as to whether Paul’s language here reflects his

Christophanic experience on the Damascus road. A number of scholars haveargued that this experience governs Paul’s Christology quite extensively,though their cases are developed in quite different ways, particularly inrelation to the influence of the apostle’s Jewish background and the termsin which his ‘conversion’ should be understood.41 In particular, Carey New-man has argued that ‘Paul interpreted his Christophany in the lingua franca ofmystical-apocalyptic Judaism’.42 The stages of argument that lie behind hisconclusion do not need to be rehearsed here, since they have broadly emergedin our study already, notably in Chapter 4 and Chapter 6. Usefully, Newmanhighlights that ‘Harvesting the Christophany for a “full-blown” theology ofPaul often confuses the (unrecoverable) event with its interpretation andfunctionally ignores any development in Paul’.43 Newman’s point here isessentially that Paul’s theology represents an interpretation of the Christoph-any, using language and imagery drawn from the mystical apocalyptic trad-ition, but explicitly configured in relation to Scripture. Paul’s theology cannotbe accounted for simply on the grounds of the Christophany, but requires that

40 See our discussion of �NŒ�� in Chapter 4, where we noted Rowland’s observation that theword occurs as a calque in the targumim for the divine glory. See also Bockmuehl, ‘ “The Form ofGod” (Phil 2:6)’, esp. 16–17. In the context of an analysis of Philippians 2, Bockmuehl discussesthe rabbinic evidence (notably b.Ket 8a) for Jewish reflections on the ‘form’ of God and itsrelationship to likeness and image. The key is that there are various points of remove of thedivine form and the Adamic pattern based upon it; the description of Christ as the ‘image’ of Godhere, then, is potentially given significantly less divine force than it ought to have by connecting itto Adam. As noted in Chapter 2, New Testament scholars often misunderstand Irenaeus at thispoint, citing his doctrine of recapitulation, without understanding his thoroughgoingChristocentrism.

41 Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel; Segal, Paul the Convert; Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology.

42 Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 183.43 Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 183.


the event is understood and communicated in a wider textual matrix to whichit also speaks. This, I would suggest, takes seriously Watson’s observation,noted at the beginning of the chapter, that Paul’s gospel does not emerge fromthe flow of the events of Israel’s story but actually encapsulates these in the‘pretemporal counsel of God’ which is now manifest in Christ.44 Yet, it mustbe stressed that this pretemporal counsel is manifest in an event that has takenplace within history, that now gives meaning to its historical backdrop. Thisobservation, I think, is overlooked by Watson, resulting in a kind of Docetismthat neglects the human particularity of Jesus that is so important to Paul.

The significance of �NŒ�� is to emphasize the place of Christ as covenantmediator in a capacity that could never be realized by Moses: not as the onewho reflects glory, but as the one who embodies it. Paul’s unique vision ofChrist may underlie this, as Newman and others have suggested, but thecovenantal associations of the Christophanic glory mean that his own vision-ary experience is relativized within the divine economy of the new covenant.Reflection, the kind of glorification experienced by Moses, is now the experi-ence of ‘all’ believers, not just visionaries such as Paul.45 Intimate knowledge ofGod is therefore democratized. This contrasts sharply with the glorification ofworshippers that we saw in the mystical traditions of Judaism in Chapter 4.That glorification was the privilege of the few who attained, through liturgy,meditation or ascesis, access to the divine presence. This, by contrast, is thehallmark of all who live under the new covenant.46

The New Creation and Noetic Transformation

The association of glory and knowledge reaches its climax in the ‘new creation’imagery of 5:17. The intervening passages have spoken about the perceptual orexperiential tension that accompanies the revelatory (i.e. apocalyptic) reality:the treasure is in jars of clay (4:7–16), the tabernacles are earthly and tattered(5:1–4), the Spirit is as yet enjoyed only as a ‘deposit’ of what is to come (5:5).These expressions highlight the eschatological tension of a state that is inaug-urated, but not yet consummated, with consequences for the ability ofbelievers to perceive the truth. The physical senses are judged inadequate forthis task, so that ‘we live by faith, not by sight’ (5:7). This is, essentially, an

44 Watson, ‘Is There a Story in These Texts?’, 232.45 Such a reading of ��E� �b �� is demanded by Paul’s logic. While he has begun with a

defence of his apostolic credentials, the fact that he is now comparing the covenants themselvesrequires that here he is speaking of a glorification extending to all who live under this newcovenant ‘of the Spirit’.

46 Again, it is worth recognizing that Paul’s logic of glory, reflected in his use of Scripture,points away from any reading of the significance of the mediatorial function of Jesus that is notpremised on his essential deity.


apocalyptic statement: truth must be revealed because it is still beyond thecapacities of the physical senses. In 5:16, this apocalyptic perspective is appliedto the evaluation of people:

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; eventhough we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longerin that way.

!�� E� I�e �F �F� P��Æ Y�Æ�� ŒÆ�a ��æŒÆ· �N ŒÆd Kª��ŒÆ�� ŒÆ�a ��æŒÆ�æØ��, Iººa �F� PŒ��Ø ªØ��Œ��.

As so often, translations mask key terms; here, the ‘human’ or ‘wordly’ point ofview is, in fact, ‘according to the flesh’. The full force of eschatologicalsignificance needs to be recognized in this phrase: the flesh denotes thepowerless reality47 that has been exposed by revelation in Christ. Crucially,the latter must now be the touchstone for judgement, requiring the applicationof faith and not simply the limited resources of fleshly sense. Hence, therefollows Paul’s great statement:

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away;see, everything has become new! (5:17)

u�� Y �Ø� K� �æØ��fiH, ŒÆØ�c Œ��Ø�· �a IæåÆEÆ �ÆæBºŁ��, N�f ª�ª�� ŒÆØ��·

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

47 Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 62–70, discusses the range of significance attachedto ‘flesh’ by Paul, ending with a recognition of this ‘neutral’ sense of powerlessness andvulnerability.

48 This fact is masked by most translations.49 Gignilliat, Paul and Isaiah’s Servants. More speculatively, granted the apocalyptic context

and particularly the significance of Ezekiel 11/36 (and the language of Spirit and glory) to Paul’sreasoning in 2 Corinthians, it is possible that the use of new creation language here also drawsupon the imagery of Ezekiel 37, further informed by that of Ezekiel 47. In the first of thesepassages, the divine Spirit re-vivifies the valley of dry bones, allowing the people to live incommunion with the glory of God; in the second, the return of the glory to the temple leads tothe rejuvenation of the wilderness to the east, a rejuvenation mediated by the river flowing fromthe altar. The transformation of God’s people by the Spirit, then, is located in relation to a cosmictransformation that proceeds from the place of sacrifice. This would cohere well with a narrativethat involves identification with the Servant of Isaiah 53.


old having passed and the new having come, reality is understood andevaluated differently.

The strongly noetic dimension of Paul’s doctrine of revelatory union is inagreement with what we saw in the Church Fathers, particularly those of theAlexandrian tradition. To the arguments of Russell and Edwards50 that thisinterest in the transformation of the nous does not reflect the unwittingassimilation of biblical thought to Platonic or Gnostic ideology, we may nowadd this observation: the Fathers are dealing with a theme that is prominent inPaul and (as we will see) elsewhere in the New Testament.

The Atonement: All Died in One

In the context of his great statement of new creation, Paul speaks of God’smeans of dealing with sin. Most striking about the wider context of 5:11–21 isits use of participatory grammar to speak of the significance of the death ofJesus:

One died for all and therefore all died (5:14)

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we mightbecome the righteousness of God (5:21).

It is noteworthy that both occurrences of I�Ł�fi �Œø in 5:14 are identical intense: both are aorist. The use of this tense identifies the two events with eachother. For Paul, the death of Jesus on the cross was ‘one for all’ (�x� ��bæ

��ø�) so that ‘all’ are considered to have died in that moment.51 Thestatement is expanded in the following verse:

And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, butfor him who died and was raised for them. (5:15).

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

50 Studied in Chapter 2.51 The issue of who is denoted by ‘all’ will be considered further in our examination of

Hofius’s study of the influence of Isaiah 53, pp. 235–6 in this section and in 'The Place of Faithand Decision in Participation', pp. 244–5.

52 In, for example, Romans 6:11.53 Larry Hurtado (notably in Lord Jesus Christ) has argued in a number of publications that

devotion to Christ is the key evidence for an early high Christology, while Richard Bauckham


The idea of a participatory co-crucifixion is grounded here on the represen-tative or vicarious significance of Jesus’s death. The statement of 5:21, that ‘hewho knew no sin was made sin for us’, further informs our understanding ofPaul’s theology of the cross. The significance of this statement, of course, hasbeen widely discussed, as it is adduced in support of a range of theories ofatonement. I would not expect to be able to resolve such debates here, but oneor two helpful observations can be made, as these will connect significantlywith our discussion.First, the density of Isaianic allusions throughout this section54 suggests that

this statement concerning the death of one for all is informed by Isaiah 53. The‘place-taking’ envisaged is shaped by this text which we have now encounteredwidely in the New Testament, informed by the covenant narrative of themessianic Servant, which has eschatological, transformational, and forensicdimensions.Second, while the imagery cannot be limited to the notion of the punish-

ment of guilt (a strictly forensic reading), such an element should not beneglected: Paul elsewhere describes the wages of sin as death (Rom 6:23) andthis has to colour our reading of the language here.55 If the influence of Isaiah53 is acknowledged, then this dimension is reinforced, since the legal orforensic (rather than cultic) significance of םשא (usually translated as ‘guilt-offering’ in Is 53:10), is now widely recognized.56 The fact, though, that thesereferences to the representational nature of Jesus occur in the context of Paul’srich statements of transformation and new creation mean that we cannot seethem as merely speaking of a penal substitutionary act, nor the ‘righteousnessof God’ spoken of in 5:21 as simply the imputation of status (though, again, itmust include this).57 Rather, the death of Jesus is key to dealing with theproblem of sin and, as we have seen in our discussion of Galatians, thatproblem is understood by Paul to be an anthropological one, the basic incap-acity of humanity to live other than in sin, a problem that incurs guilt, but isnot limited to it.In his study of the influence of Isaiah 53 upon Paul, Hofius distin-

guishes between ‘exclusive’ and ‘inclusive’ understandings of substitution (or

(God Crucified) has argued that the presentation of Jesus in terms of divine identity constitutessuch evidence.

54 Highlighted by Otfried Hofius, in his Paulusstudien (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989), 1–14.55 The forensic dimension is recognized by Gignilliat, Paul and Isaiah’s Servants, 93–7.56 See the various essays in B. Janowski and P. Stuhlmacher (eds), The Suffering Servant:

Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), especially HermannSpieckermann, ‘The Conception and Prehistory of the Idea of Vicarious Suffering in the OldTestament’, 1–15.

57 Stanley Porter rightly notes the covenantal significance of �ØŒ- words. Stanley E. Porter,‘The Concept of Covenant in Paul’, in Stanley E. Porter and Jacqueline C. R. De Roo (eds), TheConcept of the Covenant in the Second Temple Period (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 269–85. Given this,some notion of imputed status is unavoidable in such language.


‘place-taking’)58 and his discussion is helpful in pulling the strands of thissection together. In an ‘exclusive’ account, the substitute takes the place ofothers in such a way that they are excluded from involvement in his activity:here, the death of the Son in the place of the guilty means that they need notdie. In an ‘inclusive’ account, the substitute takes the place of others in arepresentative sense that incorporates them into the activity as persons: here,the Son’s death includes the guilty. Hofius argues that Paul’s account ofatonement is inclusive, and that, while Isaiah 53 informs his language andimagery, this inclusive dimension is not derived from the prophet, whoseimagery is rather more exclusive, but rather informs (and transforms) Paul’sinterpretation. A key observation that Hofius makes is that in Isaiah 53, Godworks salvation by means of the Servant, while in Paul, it is ‘in Christ’ that Godreconciles the world to himself (2 Cor 5:19).59 This location of the work ofGod in the very being of Christ, for Hofius, precisely reflects the divine identityof Jesus and this is what allows his death to operate transformatively.60 Thisreading is supported by what we have seen throughout our study of Paul, bothin this and previous chapters.

Yet, Hofius’s account surely requires us to make further comment on theontology of the incarnation. For Paul, as we have seen in our study ofGalatians, the humanity that is united to God in the incarnation is underthe conditions of cursedness, and the death of Jesus is the final outworking ofthat curse. Covenant, as the ordering framework of divine–human relations,renders the problem of sin as the curse of exile from the life-giving presence ofGod: hence, sin’s wages are death, not just guilt. While Paul resists any notionof sinfulness on the part of Christ (2 Cor 5:21), thereby likening him to theServant and differentiating him from Moses,61 his account of ‘place-taking’ isbigger than one simply of the innocent taking the punishment of the guilty: itis, rather, of the Son taking the total condition of cursedness onto himself.Those whose curse has been borne for them in full know more than justforgiveness or acquittal: they know reconciliation with God (2 Cor 5:18–19), anew covenantal righteousness and the life that accompanies it. Recognizingthe covenantal dimension allows us to see the complex of moral, legal, cultic,and ontological elements in the ‘great exchange’ of Christ and his people.Arguably, this recognition also lay behind the Reformed accounts of salvation,studied in Chapter 3; the point is neglected by those who caricature Reformedsoteriology as lacking a proper account of participation.

58 Otfried Hofius, ‘The Fourth Servant Song in the New Testament Letters’, in Janowski andStuhlmacher (eds), The Suffering Servant, 163–88.

59 Hofius, ‘The Fourth Servant Song’, 174.60 Hofius, ‘The Fourth Servant Song’, 173.61 Isaiah 53:9. Compare the complicity of Moses with the sin of the people in Deut 32:51.


ROMANS

Given what we have seen in Galatians and in 2 Corinthians concerning theplace of the Law in Paul’s thought—namely, that it is a preparatory measurefor the eschatological reality of adoption in Christ—the tension often seenbetween the forensic material of Romans 1–5 and the participatory/mysticalmaterial of Romans 6–8 may be weaker than has often been thought.62 Paul’sthought is fundamentally eschatological, but this does not mean that theexperience of Israel under the law was marginal to the reality now disclosedin Christ: rather, the adoption enjoyed by Israel under the covenants (Rom9:4) anticipated the fullness of what Paul now describes in Romans 8. The legaldimension of their experience of covenant-fellowship with God informs thePauline account of transformative fellowship in Romans 6–8.

Law and Theological Anthropology

It has been suggested that the key to understanding how the forensic andtransformative parts of Romans relate to one another lies in the theologicalanthropology that underpins them.63 Paul describes the powerlessness of thestate of flesh, as it relates to law and sin, and the necessity of the eschatologicaltransformation obtained in Christ. The powerlessness of the flesh means thathumanity is incapable of living in accordance with the will of God and isalways pulled by sin’s gravity away from God towards idolatry. The story ofIsrael thus epitomizes the human plight.In Romans 5, Paul, quite strikingly, recognizes that the underlying problem

of ‘sin-leading-to-death’ does not proceed from the failure to obey Torah,since the problem existed prior to the revealing of the Torah toMoses (5:12–14).The attempt to define salvation in terms of Torah is doomed to failure, since thecondition of lost-ness (and, as with Abraham, of saved-ness) predated Moses.This passage is key to those who have seen an Adam Christology underlying

Paul’s theology more broadly. As I have argued in Chapter 5, such approachestend to project onto various parts of the Pauline corpus an Adam myth that isnot necessarily demonstrable in Second Temple Judaism; in the absence ofsuch contextual evidence, many of the Adamic echoes that are heard arequestionable at least. Consequently, I think we must regard this passage asthe first point in Romans where Adam is clearly alluded to, and interpret it

62 Campbell’s attempt to effectively remove the forensic material in Romans 1–3 from theequation by arguing that it is Paul’s rhetorical quotation of an opponent has been widelychallenged. See Macaskill, ‘Review Article: The Deliverance of God’.

63 Laato and Grindheim, ‘Paul’s Anthropological Considerations: Two Problems’; T. Laato,‘ “God’s Righteousness”—Once Again’, 40–73.


accordingly. As such, the point of the Adam reference is to locate the problemof sin elsewhere than in the failure to obey Torah.

The significance of Adam, then, is not as a symbol of lost glory—it isnoteworthy that glory language does not occur in this chapter and that thecontrast is rather between Adamic death and eternal life (5:17, 21)—but as theone whose action brought about a set of conditions that would reign overthose who followed him. It is in this sense that he is a ‘pattern’ or ‘type’ (��)of the one to come:

For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by theone man’s obedience the many will be made righteous (5:19).

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

The Transformational Narrative: Death, Resurrection,Sonship, and Spirit

In Romans 6, we encounter parallel ideas to those noted previously in ourstudy of Galatians and 2 Corinthians: those who have been baptized into Jesushave shared in his death and resurrection (6:3–4), so that they have passed bydeath from the ownership and dominion of sin (6:6–12) and have been raisedinto the service of God (6:4,10,13,22). This death and resurrection pattern isrestated throughout Romans 6 and 7 with some variation: ‘we’ (i.e. thosebaptized, 6:3) have died to the law (7:4,6) and to the flesh (7:5–6), we livefor God (6:10), in the new way of the Spirit (7:6), as slaves to obedience (6:16)and righteousness (6:18). The full riches of this transformation will be furtheroutlined in Romans 8, but even at this point we can note the similarity of theimagery to that encountered in Galatians and 2 Corinthians.


The rich vein of material in Romans 8 represents one of the great accountsof salvation in Paul. It is noteworthy that the opening K� �æØ��fiH statement,qualifying as it does the pronominal article �E� (‘those’) must be taken ashaving a locative sense,64 so that ‘in Christ’ effectively appears to denote theentirety of eschatological reality within which the saved exist. That reality is, aswe may now expect, also characterized by the presence and work of the Spirit:‘the law of the Spirit of life’ sets Paul free from the ‘law of sin and death’ (8:2).The basic Pauline contrast between the powerless flesh, under the superin-tendence of law, and the empowered life of the Spirit emerges once again in 8:3and, interestingly, becomes focused in subsequent verses on the life of themind, on the question of whether the mind is hostile to God or not (8:5–8).The word used is çæ��Å�Æ, which is often more oriented towards attitudesthan cognitive function,65 but it is striking that Paul again links Spirit-realizedexistence in Christ with the realm of thinking and understanding. This themeis taken up later, too, in Romans 12:2, where Paul urges transformation ‘by therenewing of your minds’.For Paul, this introduces a fundamental distinction between people: anyone

who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Christ (8:9). Indeed,the contrast developed in this verse is between those ‘in the Spirit’ (K��Æ�Ø) and those ‘in the flesh’ (K� �ÆæŒd), paralleling the K� �æØ��fiH lan-guage and suggesting locative descriptions that are being used to denote thereality in which one participates, fleshly or spiritual. Interestingly, Paul’sdevelopment of this distinction is made relative to the inaugurated, but notconsummated, stage of the eschatological reality:

If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life becauseof righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies alsothrough his Spirit that dwells in you. (8:10–11)

I will return to this point in ‘The Later “Pauline” Texts’ (p. 248), in relation tothe Pauline concept of the Spirit as ‘deposit’.It is also striking that Paul’s development of the idea of the Spirit em-

powered life portrays the key agency in the believer as being that of the Spirit,matching what we saw in Galatians 5: the overcoming of the weakness of theflesh is ‘by the Spirit’ (��Æ�Ø, 8:13), because those ‘led by the Spirit of God’(��Æ�Ø Ł�F ¼ª��ÆØ) are ‘sons of God’ (8:14). This last statement isspecified in the following verse to describe the reality of adoption, with the

64 C. Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 116. Campbell does not use the term ‘locative’ atthis point, in order to avoid any truncation of the concept. Instead, he speaks of the ‘realm’ thatthe believer is now understood to occupy. The concept is locative, then, but the locationencapsulates all salvation.

65 The standard lexical entries emphasize the volitional element (note, too, the use of thecognate verb in Phil 2:5), but as emerging from (not as distinct from) proper thinking.


Spirit actually described as ��F�Æ ıƒŁ��Æ�. The subsequent verses are a keydescription of the nature of the Spirit’s ministry in believers. By the Spirit, theycry ‘Abba Father’ (8:15), an action that parallels that of the Spirit himself inGalatians 4:6. This manifestation of the Spirit’s agency and activity in thevolitional activity of the believer is further described in 8:16, where ‘that verySpirit bears witness together with our spirit that we are children of God’(ÆP�e�e ��F�Æ �ı��Ææ�ıæ�E �fiH ��Æ�Ø ��H� ‹�Ø K��b� ��Œ�Æ Ł�F).

This distinctive partnership of the Holy Spirit with the human requiressome reflection. While to be led by the Spirit (8:14) may imply a passive state,�ı��Ææ�ıæ�E (the first of many �ı�-compound verbs occurring from 8:16 tothe end of the chapter66) implies co-agency. Clearly, the fact that the Spirit‘leads’ ascribes to him a primary role, but the human partner is also identifiedas the acting subject of the verbs, through the �ı�- prefix. In his peerless studyof the Holy Spirit in Paul, Fee understands this to be the ‘S/spiritual’ reality ofthe life of the believer, by which he means that in some instances both the HolySpirit and the human spirit are identified and understood as subjects of asingle verb.67 The connection between this and Calvin’s understanding of thesynergy between human activity and the work of the Spirit is striking.68

The use of �ı�- compounds is not confined to the relationship of thebeliever and the Spirit, however. It also connects the believer to Christ in thevery next verse (8:17): ‘since we suffer together with him in order that we willbe glorified together with him’ (�Y��æ �ı��å�� ¥ �Æ ŒÆd �ı��Æ�ŁH��).This particular statement of co-experience in 8:17 is an outworking of adop-tion, of sharing in the inheritance with Christ. For Paul to be adopted intoGod’s family is to be led in shared action by the Spirit, through the re-orientation of the mind, which involves co-experience with Christ.

Given this, it is surely noteworthy that in this chapter, in the context of thissudden density of �ı�- verbs, Paul shifts from designating believers as ‘sons ofGod’ to ‘children (��Œ�Æ) of God’. While we should be cautious of over-pressing this, given the occurrence of ıƒØ in 8:14 and 19, it suggests a realitythat surpasses the bare legal concept of adoption and emphasizes insteadfamilial intimacy and possibly even familial likeness. This is, of course, closelytied to the Spirit’s work of conforming us to Christ. Now that Paul’s emphasisis on that transformational reality, his vocabulary shifts accordingly.69

66 Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 562.67 Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 24–26 and, specifically on 1 Cor 14:14, 229.68 See our discussion in Chapter 3 and, for a more extensive discussion, Billings, Calvin,

Participation, and the Gift, in toto, who examines this in relation to Calvin’s view of prayer.69 This is also the terminology employed in John 1:12. The concepts of adoption/sonship in

the two authors are different, but perhaps not to the degree sometimes assumed. Tim Trumper,‘A Fresh Exposition of Adoption. I, an Outline’, Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology, 23(2005), 60–80, differentiates sharply between the Pauline ‘model’ of adoption and the Johannine


As the following verses make clear, the eschatological tension is never farfrom Paul’s mind. The glory spoken of in 8:17 is clearly still to be revealed,contrasted with the sufferings of the time that is present (�a �ÆŁ �Æ�Æ �F �F�ŒÆØæF �æe� �c� ��ººı�Æ� ��Æ� I�ŒÆºıçŁB�ÆØ �N� ��A�, 8:18). The cosmicdimensions of the new apocalyptic reality in Christ are made contingent to therevelation of adoption (8:19), which itself is described in a way that reflectsthe eschatological tension: we have the ‘firstfruits’ of the Spirit, but, like thecreation, groan as we await the redemption of our bodies, which is the truerealization of our adoption (8:23). Importantly, Paul resists any fully realizedeschatology (8:24–5), while maintaining the reality of the ministry of the Spiritto those still in the weakness of the flesh. Again, he connects the activity ofbelievers to the agency of the Spirit (note the use of ��Çø, of believers, in8:23 and the cognate ��Æª�� of the Spirit’s intercession in 8:26). Hence, too,the place of faith in the subjective experience of the believer is emphasized. Inthe light of the reality of the ministry of the Spirit and of the union with Christthat it actualizes, the struggles involved in the eschatological tension are put inperspective in 8:31–9, where the impossibility of this union being dissolved orruptured by any agent is made clear.Interestingly, in the context of this great passage, Paul deploys another verb

of which believers are subject: ‘in all these things we more than conquer(��æ�ØŒH��) through him who loved us’ (8:37, my translation). The verb isnoteworthy for the way in which the victory, which in context must surely beseen as Christ’s own, is ascribed to the agency of believers, indicating again theactualizing of his narrative in them through their activity. Arguably, the key tothis logic lies in 8:28–30:

We know that all things work70 together for good for those who love God, whoare called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he alsopredestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might bethe firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called;and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he alsoglorified.

ˇY�Æ�� b ‹�Ø �E� IªÆ�H�Ø� �e� Ł�e� ��Æ �ı��æª�E71 �N� IªÆŁ��, �E� ŒÆ�a�æ�Ł��Ø� ŒºÅ�E� s�Ø�. ‹�Ø o� �æ�ª�ø, ŒÆd �æ�æØ�� ı��æçı� �B� �NŒ��F ıƒF ÆP�F, �N� �e �r�ÆØ ÆP�e� �æø��Œ� K� �ººE� I��ºçE�· o� �b

�æ�æØ��, ��ı� ŒÆd KŒ�º��· ŒÆd o� KŒ�º��, ��ı� ŒÆd K�ØŒÆ�ø��· o��b K�ØŒÆ�ø��, ��ı� ŒÆd K��Æ��.

‘metaphor’. His distinction, though, is intended to highlight the different strategies of the writers,without rupturing the underlying theological unity.

70 As with most of my quotations, this is taken from NRSV. See note 71, however, for Fee’sunderstanding of the relationship of this verb to the agency of the Spirit: ‘he works all things . . . ’.

71 This verb is singular, indicative, and active. Note Fee’s argument (God’s EmpoweringPresence, 587–90) that the implied subject should be taken to be the Spirit himself.


Here, the divine purpose is presented as reaching its goal in the conforming(denoted by the adjective ��æç�) of the ‘called’ to the likeness (�B��NŒ��) of his Son. The imagery of adoption, within which Christ is presentedas ‘the firstborn of many brothers’, is linked to the eternal purposes of God,described in terms of election. The occurrence of election imagery (leadinginto the use of the term ‘elect’ in 8:33) is important: married as it is to the useof the verb �ØŒÆØ�ø, it suggests that we are in covenant territory.

The question of the ordering of the divine actions within this covenantframework is less important to us than two noteworthy and mutually informa-tive points. The first is the equating of glorification with ‘con-formation’ to theimage of the Son. The location of K��Æ�� at the culmination of the divineactivity towards the predestined in 8:30 sets it in parallel with the goal ofpredestination, conformity to Christ in the divine family, in the previous verse.To be glorified, then, is to be conformed to the likeness of Christ as an adoptedson. The patristic connection of deification to filiation is sensitive to thisconnection.

The second point emerges as a question from this: what is meant by theterm �NŒ�� in 8:29 and how does this relate to the concept of glorification? Theterm, of course, has already been encountered in our study of 2 Cor 3:18 and4:4. The first of these is particularly interesting, for it also employs morphlanguage, here ��Æ�æç��ŁÆ, linked to likeness and glory: ‘we are beingtransformed into his likeness from glory to glory’. As we have seen, context-ually this is not an Adamic statement but, rather, one based on Sinai and onthe mystical traditions of the face of God. Further, the glorification of believersthere is not a matter of restoration of native qualities, but rather the reflectionof another’s glory, in the presence of which believers exist. Glory, then, is amatter of divine presence. The description of Christ as the ‘image’ of God doesnot equate him with Adam, but rather with the one after whom Adam waspatterned. Reading Romans in the light of 2 Corinthians, as we must, thisallows us to see the true Adamic significance of 8:30 and to recognize thatAdam does not dictate the terms of Christ’s glory: the opposite is true, both forthe protoplast and for the redeemed. To be conformed to the image of the Sonis to be (re)made ŒÆ�� NŒ��Æ (Gen 1:27).

An important suggestion can be made here. Given the connection betweenadoption/sonship imagery and Sinai/covenant imagery in this chapter as wellas the proximity of adoption imagery and the language of justification, notablyin 8:29–30, it is valid to closely identify the concepts of adoption and justifica-tion in Paul’s theology.72 Both have legal and declarative aspects that in keyregards define them as concepts and that describe or delineate those who have

72 This point is also made by Vanhoozer, ‘Wrighting the Wrongs of the Reformation?’ andJ. T. Billings, Union with Christ: Reframing Theology and Ministry for the Church (Grand Rapids:Baker 2011), 27, n.28.


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

The Place of Israel

Space will not allow a full exploration of the rest of Romans, particularly 9–11.It is worth noting several points, however, that tie these chapters quite clearlyto the logic explored above. First, there is an affirmation of Israel in termsof her place in relation to the covenants, the law (subordinated to covenant)and the temple (9:4–5). Even here, what is stressed is the centrality of election(9:6–13), by which Israel is adopted (9:4), and of the promise (9:4,8). Both ofthese are given meaning by their eschatological telos, Christ (10:4), and mustbe ‘pursued’ (9:31–32) by faith. Once again, the rejection of Jesus is describedby recourse to a conflated reading of the ‘stone’ passages in Isaiah 8:14 and28:16. This is also oriented towards noetic issues: the gospel is a scandal, thedivinely laid stone causes men to stumble because they cannot understand it.It is not by coincidence that Paul moves from this quotation to his statementthat ‘their zeal is not based on knowledge’ (10:2). The theme is taken up againin 11:7–11, where the role of God as the one causing this ‘hardening’ isdeveloped, echoing the Exodus account.74 Retrospectively—that is, from thestandpoint of the revelation made in Christ—Paul is able to see the failure ofIsrael in terms of a resistance to what has been revealed to them, with theiracknowledgement of Moses’s laws (10:5) neglecting the evidence of otherScriptures, quoted throughout 10:5–17, that speak of the centrality and neces-sity of faith to justification, set over against works. The core of such faith is anacknowledgement of the powerlessness of the flesh and the necessity of thedivine gift, centred on the self-disclosure of God (10:20). Paul’s evaluation of

73 Such criticisms are diffusely found in Part One of Campbell, The Deliverance of God. Thesecan be distinguished from the kinds of criticism developed in C. H. Talbert, J. A. Whitlark, andA. E. Arterbury (eds), Getting ‘Saved’: The Whole Story of Salvation in the New Testament (GrandRapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2011), which (in contrast to Campbell’s study), are more broadlyin defence of justification by faith. The latter is an important collection, drawing on key recentresearch into Judaism and on Pauline anthropology.

74 Exodus 8:15,32, 9:12, 10:27, 11:10.


Israel, then, is both christological and anthropological, the specific points ofnegativity emerging from the significance of the revelation that is in Christ.

Second, the core image of the redeemed people of God that operates in11:11–24 is that of the olive tree. The image is used of Israel at several points inthe Old Testament (Jer 11:16–17, Ps 52:8, Hos 14:6), sometimes linked to thethemes of restoration and to a remnant theology (Is 17:6). What is mostimportant here is the way in which Gentiles are described as having been‘ingrafted’ into this tree (KªŒ��æ�Çø 11:17). This language affirms Israelwithin the divine purpose—it is, after all, the native tree—and significantlyparallels the image encountered in Acts 15 of the place of the Gentiles in theeschatological temple; they are incorporated into the people of God withoutlosing their own identity as Gentiles or compromising the identity of Israel.

THREE FURTHER THEMES IN PAUL

Having examined some of the key texts in Paul, and seen a cluster of ideasemerging, we may now turn to examine some issues more broadly beforewe consider the evidence of the later (or deutero-) Pauline texts. These issueshave already begun to emerge, but it is important to treat them in a littlemore depth.

The Place of Faith and Decision in Participation

Throughout the discussion in the previous section, I have spoken of the realityin Christ being experienced by ‘the believer’. Such an emphasis does notsimply arise from the prominence of ‘faith’ as a theme in Paul’s theology, setover against works. The extensive scholarly discussions of ��Ø� �æØ��F and�ØŒÆØ��Å� Ł�F have highlighted the danger of anachronism that lurksaround all treatments of this tension, the risk of construing ‘faith’ as anotherkind of work and of failing to understand the role of the fidelity of Christ insalvation. Nor does it simply arise from the various points where Paul usesthe verb �Ø��ø in ways that require this to be an activity of a follower ofChrist, rather than as an activity of Christ himself since, again, these are proneto be misunderstood. Rather, it arises from the combination of these factorswith our reading of Paul’s christological and eschatological doctrines and bythe way in which various images and verbs relate to one another. The fact isthat Paul speaks of inclusion in or incorporation into Christ in ways thatindicate a specific group: the ‘any’ who are in Christ (2 Cor 5:18) are distin-guished from those who are not. It seems to me to be difficult to escape thestrong conclusion that Paul sees entry into the eschatological reality that is


constituted by being ‘in Christ’ as involving a particular transition from onestate of being to another. As Dunn writes:

Paul had no concept of the unconscious or unintentional Christian. He did notthink of all men and women as willy-nilly ‘in Christ’, whether they want to be ornot, whether they know it or not. The given of humankind’s condition ismembership of Adam, sharing in Adam’s humanity, under the power of sin, onthe way to death. But membership of the last Adam, sharing in Christ’s resur-rected humanity, beyond the power of sin and death, was not a given in the sameway. It had to come about.75

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

Suffering, Resurrection, and the Believer

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

75 Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 323–4.76 Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 324.77 Set in the wider context of Paul’s thought, then, the issue of ‘faith’ in relation to the activity

of the believer or Christ, i.e. the significance of the genitive construction ��Ø� �æØ��F,prevents us from limiting ‘faith’ to that which is exercised by Jesus. It must be regarded as aGodward orientation towards revealed truth on the part of the believer.


This theme arises notably in the early chapters of 2 Corinthians, where Paulstates of his own experience of suffering that, ‘just as the sufferings of Christare abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ (2 Cor1:5)’. The genitive here could indicate simply that the sufferings have beenexperienced on account of following Christ, but the parallel statement aboutconsolation suggests that both have come as part of a participatory union,introduced as it is by o�ø� followed immediately by �Øa �F �æØ��F. Thearrangement suggests that both suffering and consolation have come ‘throughChrist’. Once this is recognized, what is particularly interesting is the fact thatthis suffering is understood to be ‘for’ (��æ) the Corinthians. Thus, Paul’sperception of his sufferings is that, as with those of Christ, they have purpose‘for’ others. Specifically, that purpose is ‘consolation and salvation’. The factthat Paul can speak of his own sufferings as bringing salvation (�ø�Åæ�Æ) isremarkable in the light of his Christocentric theology and is intelligible only interms of a theology of participation, in which his sufferings are an instanti-ation of the salvific reality of the cross.

There appears, too, to be an interesting parallel with his theology ofparticipation in the cross. Those who are baptized into Christ share in hisdeath and resurrection: similarly, those who share in his cruciform sufferingsshare in the consolation that attends resurrection. Paul’s own experience of co-suffering and co-consolation is ministered in turn to the Corinthians, who‘endure the same sufferings that we endure’ (2 Cor 1:6 ÆP�H� �ÆŁÅ��ø� z�

ŒÆd ��E� ��å��).It is unlikely that Paul speaks indiscriminately of suffering here; almost

certainly, the sufferings of which he speaks are those experienced as a conse-quence of his faith; the parallel with Galatians 6:17 (‘From now on, let no onemake trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body’)would seem to further support this. An interesting development, though, isfound in Philippians 3:10:

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of hissufferings by becoming like him in his death.

This would seem to indicate that, while Paul understands himself to havealready participated in the death and resurrection of Jesus and to have beenphysically affected by that participation, a further level of co-experience is stillpossible. In fact, quite specifically, Paul’s own bodily death is seen as a keytransition into a new experience of ‘Christ and the power of his resurrection’,one that may not be different in nature from that which he experiencesalready, but is different in level. Hence, ‘to live is Christ and to die is gain’(1:21). But even this has a further eschatological horizon for Paul:

For our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting aSavior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that


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

The language here is interesting in that it once again uses the language ofconformity to Christ, but here is specifically to ‘the body of his glory’. Readagainst the background of what we have seen elsewhere in this chapter, asimply Adamic approach to this language is inadequate: the ‘body of his glory’identifies Jesus with the divine form,78 so that if there are Adamic allusions,they are again to the fact that Adam was made ‘according to the image’ (i.e. hewas patterned on Christ) and that such patterning is restored in believers. Butthe consummation of this conforming work will not be realized until theparousia, for it is when the expected Saviour from heaven arrives that thistransformation will take place.This particular element of expectation in Philippians 3:20–1 is paralleled

in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–17, where the parousia is linked to bodily resurrec-tion. It is also, of course, linked to 1 Corinthians 15, where the resurrectionbody is discussed in detail and its temporal place in relation to the parousiaspecified (15:23). As noted in Chapter 4, 1 Corinthians 15 is one of the placeswhere we encounter an Adam–Christ association in Paul, but the links/contrasts are very specific: Adam brings death, Christ brings life (1 Cor15:22); Adam is earthly, Christ is heavenly (1 Cor 15:45–9), while we‘have borne’ the likeness of the earthly man, we ‘will bear’ the likeness ofthe heavenly. Within this set of antitheses, there is no mention of a lostAdamic glory, despite the fact that the resurrection body is described asglorious (1 Cor 15:42–3). In fact, the lead-up to this statement speaks ofdifferent kinds of flesh (15:39) and different kinds of glory (15:40–1),allowing Paul to simultaneously reject a non-corporeal notion of resurrectionand stress the ‘S/spiritual’ (��ı�Æ�ØŒ��) nature of the resurrection body.What is noteworthy is that the contrast portrays Adam and Christ asbelonging to different realities. What is specifically transmitted by Adam isdeath; the glory that comes from Christ is a heavenly gift.The fact that glory is linked to the ��ı�Æ�ØŒ�� character of the resurrection

body is noteworthy. In the context of this letter in particular, but quiteunsurprisingly in the light of all that we have seen in Paul so far, this adjectivehas to refer to the relationship of the body to the Holy Spirit. It will be, in thetruest sense, a Spiritual body, one fully characterized by the presence of divinelife. This full realization of salvation, though, is one that requires death andparousia. ‘The trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, andwe will be changed’ (15:52). Paul’s eschatology is inaugurated, but it is not fullyrealized.

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


THE LATER ‘PAULINE ’ TEXTS

In Chapter 6, we began by devoting a good deal of space to an examination ofEphesians, before returning to a briefer examination of the earlier and indis-putably Pauline material. Here, we do the opposite. The reason for this issimple: while there are several interesting points that may be observed, thesearising out of our discussion of Paul’s theology of union, the doctrine de-veloped in Ephesians and Colossians is consistent with that developed in theearlier Pauline texts, and we have already examined it widely in Chapter 6.

Many of the discussions of these epistles have argued that they are markedby a realized eschatology that differs significantly from the eschatology of theletters clearly written by Paul. Everything has been placed under the feet ofChrist (Eph 1:22), who fills everything in every way (1:23) and believers havealready been raised and seated with him in the heavenlies (2:6). This is oftenseen as a significantly more realized eschatology than that of Paul and, indeed,is one of the arguments adduced for the deutero-Pauline authorship of theseepistles.

Yet, Ephesians and Colossians are shot through with the same imagery andlanguage, with the same eschatological connotations, as the rest of the Paulinecorpus. We have noted already, in Chapter 5, the significance of the templeimagery in these epistles. This is developed in connection with an emphasis onthe Spirit as an eschatological gift, but one that is presently experienced as the‘deposit of our inheritance’ (IææÆ�g� �B� ŒºÅæ��Æ� ��H�, Eph 1:14).The Spirit is a reality, then, but one not yet experienced to the fullest extent;in him, believers have been ‘sealed for the day of redemption’ (K� fiz

K�çæÆª��ŁÅ�� N� ��æÆ� I�ºı�æ��ø�). The present time continues to beevil (5:16, cf. 6:12–13) and the struggle with sin will continue until salvation isknown in full, in the ages that are to come (K� �E� ÆNH�Ø� �E� K��æå��Ø�2:7). It is clear, then, that while there may be less of an emphasis on the futurein Ephesians and Colossians, it is a mistake to overemphasize the realizedcharacter of the eschatology in them.

It is interesting that, in these letters, the association between the Spirit’spresence, effecting union with Christ and noetic transformation, and theidentification of the church as the eschatological temple is so clearly de-veloped. This is hardly a point of discontinuity from the theology seen inGalatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Romans, but what is undeveloped therecomes into sharp focus here. The significance of this is that it highlights thatwe are not dealing with two different concepts or categories of participation, sothat the temple imagery and ‘in Christ’ language may be ascribed to differentthreads in Pauline theology; rather, the temple imagery and the grammars ofparticipation are, ultimately, about the same thing—the presence of God, inChrist, by the Spirit, as a reality in the experience of the church that transformsits perceptions of reality and its conduct in the world.


CONCLUSIONS

A coherent theology emerges from the study of Paul’s writing, then. While thephrase ‘in Christ’ is deployed in a range of ways, it clearly has a locative senseat many strategic points, where it demarcates a sphere (or state) of existencethat is eschatological and that has come to realization in, and through, theincarnational narrative of the crucified and risen Son, sent by the Father. Thiseschatological state is pneumatological, with the Spirit actualizing the signifi-cance of this narrative in believers, transforming their existence through co-agency with their own spirit and conforming them to the likeness of thecrucified and risen Son. To be ‘in Christ’, then, is also to be ‘in the Spirit’and to be indwelled by the Spirit is to be indwelled by Christ. But despite theco-incidence of grammars at certain points, the two are not equated and adistinctive narrative is associated with each: the Spirit is not crucified, theSpirit is not raised. The Spirit is not the Son. Hence, as Fee notes, howeverreluctant we might be to speak of Paul’s theology as Trinitarian, we mustrecognize that the later development of Trinitarian theology was preciselyrequired by Paul’s logic. The church, in formulating precise categories for theTrinity and its inner relations, was sensitive to the economic distinctions madebetween each person. Four more specific conclusions may now be drawn.First, throughout Paul’s writing, covenantal imagery is employed, to an

extent that has been overlooked and neglected by many scholars, in large partbecause of the failure to grapple with the evidence of Second Temple Judaism,as discussed in Chapter 4. Paul’s narrative is governed by the relationshipbetween the old and new covenants, particularly the role of the Spirit asconfigured in relation to each. Arguably, too, the identification betweenJesus and his people—their corporate identity in him and his story—is madepossible by a covenantal concept of representation, which is particularlydeveloped with reference to the figure of the Isaianic Servant.

Second, in recounting the participatory elements of the New Covenant, Pauluses language drawn from the mystical tradition, in part because of the extentto which that language pervaded the Judaism of the period, where it wasassociated with themes of divine presence, and in part because of his ownencounter with the glory of Christ on the Damascus road. His emphasis on thereality of the Spirit as a basic component of Christian experience, though,means that he uses such language in ways that move beyond ecstatic orvisionary limitation. His own emphasis, notably in 1 Corinthians, that par-ticular manifestations or experiences of the Spirit cannot be privileged overothers, supports this and the way in which the language is linked to noetictransformation develops this further: his own experience of visio Christi is aspecific illustrative species of the cognitive transformation experienced by allbelievers in their union with Christ.


Third, it is important to note the implications of this last point for theevaluation of patristic accounts of participation and deification. The promin-ence of the noetic dimension in these cannot be discounted as the unwittingadoption of Platonism and the hybridization of truly biblical doctrines withGreek thought. The uptake of Platonic elements in the early Eastern traditionwas, as we have seen, undertaken with some care. The emphasis on the mindin these writers, far from being indicative of an underlying Platonism, is incontinuity with Pauline teaching and, as we will see, with that of other NewTestament writers, notably John.

Fourth, it is clear that Paul considers the activity of faith, including thedecision to acknowledge the truth of Jesus, to be vital to salvation. Thisproceeds fundamentally from the apocalyptic character of his gospel. Onlyby trusting in what has been revealed can one experience the transformation ofunion with Christ.


10

Further Participatory Elementsin the Johannine Literature

The Johannine literature contains some of the richest participatory languagefound in the New Testament. It is in the Fourth Gospel that we encounterJesus describing the unity of the church in terms drawn from his ownrelationship with the Father (arguably reflecting incipient Trinitarianism)and also in terms of glorification: ‘The glory that you have given me I havegiven them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me’(17:22). Here, too, we encounter a developed pneumatology that describes theSpirit in unequivocally personal terms (14:15–27, 16:7–15), explicating hisrelationship to Jesus and the church. And, as we have seen in Chapter 7, all ofthis is developed in the context of John’s temple Christology. It is smallwonder, then, that the Fourth Gospel, read in conjunction with the JohannineEpistles, has been so influential on the construction and development ofTrinitarian theology and vocabulary, as well as on the development of theolo-gies of deification.The passages noted above all fall within the range of John 14–17. The

content of these chapters, though, has to be approached within the contextof the gospel as a whole, and particularly in terms of the soteriological themesthat develop throughout the gospel. In order to ensure proper contextual-ization, then, we will focus in the first instance on the prologue to the gospel(John 1:1–18) and then on the predicated ‘I am’ sayings, allowing each of theseto lead us into the material found in John 14–17. Regardless of whether or notthe prologue was original to the gospel,1 in its canonical location it is a well-integrated anticipation of the theology of the book to which it is attached. Inparticular, it enables the reader to configure the Father–Son relationship onwhich the church’s union is both founded and modelled and, despite the lackof explicit mention of the Spirit in these verses, it prepares the reader for the

1 Hengel, ‘The Prologue of the Gospel of John as the Gateway to Christological Truth’;Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospelof John, 271–84.

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

THE PROLOGUE AND THE PARACLETES: REVELATIONAND RECOGNITION

The prologue, of course, begins with a statement of pre-existence and, indeed,of the identification of its central protagonist with and as God himself: ‘In thebeginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God. Hewas with God in the beginning’ (John 1:1). There has been much discussion ofthe use of Logos in John 1, with suggestions ranging from Stoic backgroundsand Philo3 to Wisdom4 and the pre-existent Torah.5 Discussions of theputative backgrounds highlight the difficulty in seeking to understand the useof the word as being simplistically derived from any one of these.6 Instead,regardless of the extent to which any background influences the use in theFourth Gospel, we must recognize that the author fills the word with contextualsignificance that is particularly appropriate to its semantic range. Specifically,the choice of Logos as the title for Jesus emphasizes his role in disclosing orrevealing something, a theme that runs throughout the chapter and throughoutthe book. In fact, so prominent is the theme of revelation in John that it has beenwidely identified as constituting the core of the soteriology of the FourthGospel.7

The revelatory significance of the Logos is seen in 1:3–5 where, following astatement concerning the creative role of the Logos, he is portrayed as thesource of light and life: ‘In him was life, and that life was the light of men’ (1:4).The association of light with revelation is one that we have encounteredalready, in our study of Paul. Here, the same link is made and is reinforced

2 For the sake of space, I must bypass many of the discussions concerning the authorship andorigins of the gospel and epistles. For useful coverage and debate of these, see Thatcher,WhatWeHave Heard from the Beginning.

3 For a discussion of these backgrounds (and bibliography on them) see Carson, The GospelAccording to John, 114–15. Keener, The Gospel of John, 339–46. In much of what follows, I willpoint to Keener’s commentary as the most extensive bibliographical resource currently availableand one that offers extensive discussion of the major interpretative options.

4 See, now, Keener, The Gospel of John, 347–59.5 Keener, The Gospel of John, 360–3.6 Carson, The Gospel According to John, 116–17.7 Anastasia Scrutton, ‘ “The Truth Shall Set You Free’: Salvation as Revelation’, in Bauckham

and Mosser (eds), The Gospel of John and Christian Theology, 359–68.


by a play on verbs derived from ºÆ��ø. In 1:5, the first such verb occurs:‘The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not understand (PŒÆ��ºÆ��) it’. As reflected in translations, the verb can be rendered as‘understand’ or ‘overcome’,8 an ambiguity that is likely to be deliberate,resonating as it does with themes throughout the gospel of the mysteriousvictory of the cross. The cognitive association of the verb is reinforced by 1:10,where, though the world was made through the Logos, it did not ‘know him’(ÆP�e� PŒ �ª�ø). This statement is paralleled in 1:11: ‘He came to that whichwas his own (�a Y�ØÆ), but his own (ƒ Y�ØØ) did not receive him (ÆP�e� P�Ææ�ºÆ��).’ The use of another -ºÆ��ø verb, this time �ÆæÆºÆ��ø, inapposition to a statement of recognition, highlights the cognitive associationsthat the verb group carries in the prologue. The shift in 1:11 from the neuter tothe masculine of Y�Ø� is also important to the theology of the book. The lack ofan immediate neuter plural antecedent to �a Y�ØÆ in the immediate contextpushes us back to the use of ��Æ in 1:3, where it is used of the ‘all things’ thatcame into being through the Logos, but the shift to the masculine ƒ Y�ØØ

suggests a personal usage: ‘his own people’.This anticipates a theme that is difficult to escape in the Fourth Gospel and

that has occasioned much scholarship: the specific response of Jesus’s fellowJews to him. As is the case with Paul, this issue is not a simple one and requiresa range of discussions about law, covenant, feasts, et cetera, and differenti-ations between Judaism in general and specific Jewish leaders.9 Crucially,though, the author of the prologue renders a diagnosis of noetic incapacityand the necessity of some kind of transformation to enable the light to becomprehended. The way in which this is developed in the context of therelationship between Logos and cosmos requires that the problem withinJudaism is understood to be an instantiation of the wider problem withinthe world, so that, like Paul, John’s theology is essentially grounded on apessimistic theological anthropology.10 This, indeed, is the significance of

8 NRSV: ‘overcome’; NIV: ‘understand’.9 See the collection of essays in R. Bieringer, Didier Pollefeyt, and Frederique Vandecasteele-

Vanneuville (eds), Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John KnoxPress, 2001). See also Stephen Motyer, ‘Bridging the Gap: How Might the Fourth Gospel Help usCope with the Legacy of Christianity’s Exclusive Claim over against Judaism?’; Judith Lieu, ‘TheJews and the Worlds of the Fourth Gospel’; Terry Griffith, ‘ “The Jews Who Had Believed inHim” (John 8:31) and the Motif of Apostasy in the Gospel of John’ and Sigve K. Tonstad ‘TheFather of Lies, “the Mother of Lies”, and the Death of Jesus (John 12:20–33)’, all contained onpages 143–210 in Bauckham and Mosser, The Gospel of John and Christian Theology (GrandRapids: Eerdmans, 2008).

10 This is quite different from the conclusions reached by Jeffrey A. Trumbower, Born fromAbove: The Anthropology of the Gospel of John (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1992). He argues thatJohn operates with a proto-Gnostic understanding of origins, within which those ‘from above’receive Jesus and those ‘from the world’ do not. His thesis has not found acceptance. See the earlyreviews by Marianne Meye Thompson, ‘Review: Born from Above: The Anthropology of theGospel of John’, Journal of Biblical Literature 113 (1994), 157–9, and MarkW. G. Stibbe, ‘Review:

Further Participatory Elements in the Johannine Literature 253

1:12–13. These verses do not simply describe the Johannine equivalent ofadoption, a point to which we will return, but, when set in context, they pose aquestion and imply an answer: if the world is in darkness and cannot recog-nize or receive the Logos (1:10–11), how then can any receive him and believein his name (1:12)? The answer must lie in the gift, the transforming work ofGod in generating a new family (1:13), a theme that will be taken up in the restof the gospel and linked to the work of the Spirit.

The story of Nicodemus is illustrative of this. He, of course, comes to Jesus‘by night’, a contextual detail seen by many as deliberate symbolism on John’spart: this teacher of Israel (3:10) comes to Jesus in a state of darkness, the night-time setting appropriate for his own epistemic condition, as he participates inthe darkness of the world (1:5).11 Despite his earthly credentials, Nicodemusdoes not understand (3:10) Jesus’s teaching that vision of the kingdom requiresnew birth (3:3) and entrance into it requires birth of both water and Spirit(3:5–8). The most plausible background to the latter statement is the vision ofEzekiel 36, with its reference to the dual reality of cleansing and Spiritualempowerment.12 As we have seen, this passage is influential also on Paul inhis discussion of the new covenant in 2 Cor 3:3. Again here, the cognitive aspectis placed ahead of all else: responding to Nicodemus’s request for a sign, andsurely highlighting the blindness that lies in that very request, Jesus states thatonly the one who is ‘born again’ or ‘born from above’ (¼�øŁ��) is able to see(��Æ�ÆØ . . . N��E�) the kingdom. Whichever may have come first, John 3 or theprologue, this is clearly linked to John 1:13, with its description of birth by thewill of God. The ambiguity of ¼�øŁ��, which can mean ‘again’ or ‘from above’,serves to link the two passages, while also explaining Nicodemus’s confusionover the second birth. At the same time, the question of how the required noeticchange can be effected has been answered: by the Spirit.

The significance of the Spirit in such terms is taken up further in John14:15–27 and 16:7–15. He is described in strikingly personal terms13 as‘another paraclete’, with the use of ¼ºº� indicating a level of continuitybetween the ministry of the Spirit and that of Jesus himself.14 Deferring brieflya discussion of the significance of this term, the symmetry between the earthlyministry of Jesus and that of the Spirit is suggestive of a concept of ‘presence’:in his earthly ministry, Jesus is ‘with’ his disciples (14:25, cf. 14:9), but his

Born from Above: The Anthropology of the Gospel of John’, Journal for the Study of the NewTestament (1992), 124.

11 Craig R. Koester, Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community (2nd edn;Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 46–7.

12 Keener, The Gospel of John, 551.13 The use of masculine pronouns for the grammatically neuter Spirit is not, in itself, strong

evidence for this, but when linked to the parallelism between the Spirit and Jesus and the generalimpression of agency throughout, it is hard to regard the Spirit as anything but a person.

14 For a balanced evaluation, see Carson, The Gospel According to John, 499–500.


absence will not result in their being left bereft, as ‘orphans’ (14:18), for theSpirit will be in them (14:17). That Spirit, moreover, is presently known to thedisciples in the fellowship of Jesus as he abides with them.15

The description of the Spirit as the Paraclete (�Ææ�ŒºÅ��) is importantboth because of this emphasis on presence—by the Spirit, the ‘one calledalongside’, the presence of God in and with the believer is maintained—butalso because of the legal associations that the word carries,16 these linked to the‘convicting’ role that he will play in the world.17 This emerges particularly inJohn 16:8, where the Spirit is described as convicting (KºŁg� KŒ�E�� Kº�ª��Ø)the world ‘concerning sin (��æd ±�Ææ��Æ�) and concerning righteousness (��æd�ØŒÆØ��Å�) and concerning judgement (��æd Œæ��ø�)’.This is significant not only for our understanding of the Spirit, but also for

our understanding of the Paraclete with whom his role is partnered, Jesushimself. Granted what has just been noted, the role of Jesus in the prologue tothe Fourth Gospel as the lux mundi, the light of the world who reveals God, isone that brings with it the exposure of sin and its conviction. It is notinsignificant that the Spirit in John 15:26 and 16:13 is described as the ‘Spiritof truth’, paralleling the associations made between Jesus and truth in 1:14,17and 14:6 and reinforcing the link between the revelatory ministry of theParacletes and the conviction of sin. With some justification, some haveseen the trial motif in the Paraclete passages as informing the gospel as awhole, on account of the forensic overtones throughout the gospel.18 The trialmotif and its relation to the work of the Spirit is dramatized in the accounts ofNicodemus, whose own conviction is implied to have led him eventuallyto faith (7:50; 19:39), in the conflict narratives of chapters 7–9, as the problemof ‘blindness’ to God’s revelation is explored and exposed, and in the trans-formative solution to the human condition that is enacted in the healing of the

15 Note the language of 14:17. ‹�Ø paq � u“ lEm le† mei ŒÆd K� ��E� ��ÆØ.16 Keener, The Gospel of John, 955–62, notes the range of options that have been advanced for

the significance of the title. Specifically forensic ones are examined on pages 956–61 (note thesecondary literature, particularly in footnote 238), but the other options considered, includingWisdom, tend also to have some kind of legal association. The exception, perhaps, is theMandean ‘helper’, now generally rejected by scholars as a background to the image. For thepossibility that the title was pre-Johannine and tied to the actual forensic experience of Chris-tians on trial, see Rudolf Schnackenburg, Das Johannesevangelium: Kommentar zu Kap. 13–21(Freiburg: Herder, 1975). It must be recognized, though, that the Paraclete sayings employthoroughly Johannine style and vocabulary, whatever the origins of the title.

17 See comments on the verb in Keener, The Gospel of John, 1030–1. Trial imagery is thuscentral to the passage. So, Felix Porsch, Pneuma und Wort (Frankfurt: Knecht, 1974), 275–89,324, but note the possibility that the Spirit fulfils both judge and prosecuting counsel roles, asrecognized by C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St John: An Introduction with Commentaryand Notes on the Greek Text (2nd edn; London: SPCK, 1978), 90. The implication of this withinthe gospel is that even as Jesus is about to face an earthly trial and as the disciples may face suchtrials, the true court is God’s and the Spirit will ensure that truth is manifested.

18 Andrew T. Lincoln, Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel (Peabody:Hendrickson, 2000).


blind beggar in chapter 9.19 Jesus’s own trial is the ultimate dramatization, ofcourse, with the resurrection vindicating his truthfulness in the face of hisaccusers, but in a way that is recognized only by those who believe. Pilate’squestion, ‘What is truth?’ (18:38), develops this theme using irony. Suchsensitivity to the need for faith in recognition of the resurrection and itssignificance is clearly at work in John 20:26–9, with its account of Thomas’sdoubt and subsequent faith and its crucial statement: ‘Blessed are those whohave not seen and yet have come to believe’.20

This means that John’s theology of participation is set firmly in a frameworkof revelation that involves both an objective component, the revelation that isconstituted by Jesus and transmitted accurately as a result of the Spirit’s work(14:26; 16:13), and a perceptual transformation that is effected, subsequent tothe period of earthly incarnation,21 by the Spirit. This parallels strongly whatwe have seen in Paul and does so even more impressively when we recognizethe eschatological dimension of this revelation. Like Paul, John sees this as agift anticipated by the grace of the law22 and for his part emphasizes thisfulfilment motif by mapping the consummate reality of Jesus onto the Jewishfestal calendar.23 Consequently, too, there is a strong emphasis on the humanexperience of ‘faith’ in John, as the necessary activity of acknowledgement ofthat which has been revealed.24 As was the case with Paul’s theology, it is amistake to regard this activity of faith as a ‘work’ by any other name. In fact,the language of John 6:28–29 seems intended to subvert this very idea. Here,the crowds ask ‘What must we do that we might work the works of God?’(�� ØH�� ¥�Æ KæªÆÇ��ŁÆ �a �æªÆ �F Ł�F).25 Their question elicits the

19 J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (New York: Harper & Row,1968), used this section of the gospel as the key piece of evidence for his ‘two-level’ reading ofJohn. For further contemporary discussion of this, and key criticisms of Martyn’s argument, seeWilliam M. I. V. Wright, Rhetoric and Theology: Figural Reading of John 9 (Berlin: Walter deGruyter, 2009).

20 The Greek is �ÆŒ�æØØ ƒ �c N�� ŒÆd �Ø��Æ��. It is usual for the aorist participles tobe translated using English perfects, but the absence of an indicative verb in the clause meansthat they are less temporally governed than might be assumed. The point is that there has beenno event of physical sight to motivate a definitive adoption of faith.

21 Note the significance of John 16:7 in this regard. These verses must factor in to ourinterpretation of John 20:22, which, when read in the light of the emphasis that the Spirit willminister to the disciples in the physical absence of Jesus, after his glorification (7:39) cannot beread as a Johannine Pentecost. Rather, John 20:22 must be a proleptic representation of thecoming of the Spirit at a later stage. So Keener, The Gospel of John, 1205.

22 This, at least, is the significance seen in 1:16–17 by many. See the discussions in HermanN. Ridderbos, The Gospel According to John: A Theological Commentary (trans. John Vriend;Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997) and Gerald Wheaton, ‘The Role of the Jewish Feasts in John’sGospel’ (PhD dissertation, University of St Andrews, 2010).

23 See Wheaton, ‘The Role of the Jewish Feasts’.24 See the comments in this section, footnote 20, concerning Thomas’s response.25 This rather forced translation is my own, intended to bring out the force of the human

activity mentioned.


reply from Jesus, ‘This is the work of God: that you might believe in that onehe sent’ (�F�� K��Ø� �e �æª� �F Ł�F, ¥�Æ �Ø��Å�� N� n� I��Øº��

KŒ�E��). Arguably, the singular ‘work of God’ in Jesus’s response is not what isexpected of the crowds, but rather the activity of God in sending this one, an actionthat serves as the basis for their belief. But this does notmarginalize the importanceof that belief as an activity: the very purpose of the gospel, as stated in 20:30, is ‘thatyou may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and thatthrough believing (lit: [as] believers, �Ø��) you may have life in his name’.

THE PREDICATED ‘ I AM ’ SAYINGS

Having recognized that John’s participatory theology of the Logos and theSpirit is noetic in significance, and provides a framework for other aspects ofJohannine soteriology, we turn in the second place to the so-called ‘I am withpredicate’ sayings. John deploys two sets of seven ‘I am’ sayings, those with apredicated nominal phrase (for example, ‘I am the bread of life’) and thosewithout, the so-called ‘absolute I am’ sayings. It is beyond dispute that the twoseries function together as a conspicuous literary device and that the signifi-cance of each informs the other. While, therefore, our focus is on the predi-cated sayings, we must also pay attention to discussions of the absolutesayings. The paired sets of sayings are key to the unfolding soteriology ofthe Fourth Gospel and describe the centrality of Jesus to salvation throughtheir claim that he is the exclusive way to God (14:6).26

The background to the ‘I am’ sayings has been the subject of much discus-sion. While parallels have been seen to lie in Hermetic and Hellenisticliterature,27 the most obvious and widely accepted background to them isthe Old Testament, though there is debate as to which specific passages may beof influence. One potential candidate is Exodus 3, particularly verse 14, wherethe divine name is revealed:28

God said to Moses, ‘I AMWHO I AM’. He said further, ‘Thus you shall say to theIsraelites, “I AM has sent me to you.” ’

ŒÆd �r�� › Ł�e� �æe� "øı�B� �¯ª� �N�Ø › þ�· ŒÆd �r�� ˇo�ø� Kæ�E� �E� ıƒE�� æÆÅº #ˇ J� I��ÆºŒ�� æe� ��A�.

םכילאינחלשהיהאלארשיינבלרמאתהכרמאיוהיהארשאהיהאהשמ־לאםיהלארמאיו

26 See David Mark Ball, ‘I Am’ in John’s Gospel: Literary Fuction, Background and TheologicalImplications (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996).

27 Ball, ‘I Am’ in John’s Gospel, 24–45.28 W. Manson, ‘The Ego Eimi of the Messianic Presence in the New Testament’, Journal of

Theological Studies 48 (1947), 137.


The difficulty with this text, particularly in relation to the absolute ‘I am’sayings, is that while Kª� �N�Ø occurs in the Greek translations, it is notabsolute: as a name or title, היהא is translated as › þ�. As Bauckham notes,though, this difficulty is not insuperable: while John primarily uses the LXX,he also knows the Hebrew text and alludes directly to the latter when it suitshis purposes.29 To this observation may be added the fact that reflection on thedivine name is widely attested in Judaism and much of this is likely to havebeen in circulation in New Testament times.30 The use of such language wouldbe likely to trigger associations with Exodus 3:14, then, even if direct parallelswith the Greek translations are lacking.

The most widely accepted background to the ‘I am’ sayings, though, lies inthe use of Kª� �N�Ø in Deuteronomy 32:39 and its repetition in Isaiah 43:10 and46:4, where it translates אוהינא or הוהיינא 31 In these passages, the phrase is aclear statement of monotheism, identifying Yahweh as the one true God. It isalso, though, embedded into a context of God’s saving intentions for Israel,intentions that are linked to the messianic figure of the Servant, who will serveas the earthly agent of the divine work. A quotation from Isaiah 43:10–13illustrates this effectively.

10You are my witnesses, says the LORD,and my servant whom I have chosen,so that you may know and believe meand understand that I am he (Kª� �N�Ø).Before me no god was formed,nor shall there be any after me.

11I, I am the LORD,and besides me there is no savior.

12I declared and saved and proclaimed,when there was no strange god among you;and you are my witnesses, says the LORD.

13I am God, and also henceforth I am He;there is no one who can deliver from my hand;I work and who can hinder it?

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

29 Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple, 246.30 Note the reflection of such speculation in Revelation 1. See Beale, The Book of Revelation,

187–8.31 Isaiah 43:10, 25; 45:8, 18–19, 22; 46:4, 9; 48:12, 17; 51:12; 52:6.32 See Sanders, The Provenance of Deuteronomy 32, 420.


evoked. Note, for example, the parallel to Isaiah 43:11 in John 14:6, theimagery of deliverance ‘from the hand’ in Isaiah 43:13 and John 10:28, andthat of the work of God (Isaiah 43:13) as the key to salvation in John 6:29. Thefact that this wider background also evokes the role of the messianic Servant isimportant to recognize if we are to appreciate John’s theology: God enacts hissaving work through a ‘sent servant’ who testifies.33 But the use of the ‘I am’sayings, properly related to the rest of the gospel, indicates that the one who issent is not simply ‘functionally’ divine: he ‘is’God, and because he is God, he isable to bring salvation and life. This identification of the one who is sentunderlies the predicated images in that particular series of sayings.This is important, because some of the predicate statements appear to

identify Jesus in relation to messianic expectations or to the stories of Israel,and if the emphasis on divine presence is not properly recognized then thesignificance of such associations will be misconstrued. Associations with thestory of Israel are particularly explicit in those sayings that identify Jesus asthe bread of life, the light of the world, and the true vine.The first of these sayings, repeated with some variation throughout John 6,

takes its significance from the importance of bread as a staple food, but it alsohas a notable background in the accounts of Israel’s wilderness wandering andthe provision of manna for them, a background made explicit in John 6:30, 49.In part, the purpose of the saying is to contrast the reality that is nowpresent andavailable in Jesuswith that ofMoses; in other words, to contrast the newwith theold. At the heart of this is the notion of divine providence for the covenantpeople (see Exodus 16, especially 12, 31–5) and the heavenly origin of susten-ance (see Psalm 78:24–9), but linked to these are two key further ideas. The firstis that the presence of God is the true source of life and manna is onlyemblematic of this. Such an idea is brought to the fore in Deuteronomy 8:3:

He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, withwhich neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make youunderstand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comesfrom the mouth of the LORD.

From this first emphasis also emerges the second idea that manna is symbolicof divine self-disclosure, the word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Itis noteworthy that the mention of manna in Nehemiah 9:20 is paired with areference to the Spirit as instructor:

You gave your good spirit to instruct them, and did not withhold your mannafrom their mouths, and gave them water for their thirst.

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

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


God is the one who comes down (› ŒÆ�Æ�Æ��ø�) from heaven and gives life tothe world’ (6:33). His presence in the world, emphasized by the participle ofdescent, is therefore key. As we have seen, following the end of Jesus’s earthlyministry, that presence is maintained by the Spirit, but this is no modalisticaccount: the Son has a distinctive narrative and at the heart of his life-givingmission is the necessity of his death. Hence, ‘the bread that I will give for thelife of the world is my flesh’ (6:51). There are unavoidable sacramentalassociations to the material in John 6 (especially in 53–6), which have alreadybeen explored in Chapter 8. At this point, what must be recognized is that theredemptive importance of the death of Jesus is emphasized, as is the activeappropriation of the benefits of this death, described here as both ‘believing’(6:47) and ‘eating/drinking’ (6:53).‘I am the light of the world’ is repeated in John 8:12 and 9:5 (Matt 5:14). The

saying is obviously connected to the imagery of the prologue, but it also has arich background in the Old Testament and its delivery at the Feast of Taber-nacles in itself points to these (the older tendency to interpret the use of suchlanguage here against a Gnostic background failed to acknowledge such basicdemonstrable backgrounds). Light is, of course, closely associated with glory(Ex 13:21–2, Isaiah 10:17) and serves, therefore, as an image of divine presencein salvation (cf. Psalm 27:1). The various passages that speak of God as thesource of light, such as Psalm 36:9, must also be understood to require thatother manifestations of light are derived from the divine presence.

This is important particularly with regard to the messianic or nationaldimensions of the light image, particularly as it is used in Isaiah. Such ausage occurs in Isaiah 42:6, one of the great Servant songs, and in Isaiah49:6 and 60:1, 3, 19–20 (the latter verses emphasize the communicated natureof this light: it is God’s light manifest through Israel). These passages empha-size the role of the people of Yahweh, and particularly the figure of the Servant,in mediating light to the world (the nations).34 The significance of this role ispredicated on the communication of God’s glory to his people, something thatemerges particularly in Isaiah 60:1:

Arise, shine; for your light has come,and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.

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

34 Carson, surprisingly, neglects this background: The Gospel According to John 337–9.35 Gignilliat, Paul and Isaiah’s Servants: Paul’s Theological Reading of Isaiah 40–66 in

2 Corinthians 5:14–6:10


figure and the key to this is the concept of the covenant: the Servant of Isaiah42:6 is called to be ‘a covenant to the people’ and thus ‘a light to the world’.Such covenant language allows the possibility of an anointed representativethrough whom the inclusion of the people in the covenant is achieved. Note,though, that he is not simply the covenant representative: he is the covenantitself. Hence, the covenant is presented as being enacted internally to the beingof the Servant. Second, the gift of light, associated with this covenant, is aneschatological gift equated with salvation and divine presence: Isaiah 9:2identifies this with the dawning of a new era and the various passagespreviously noted link the covenant established in the Servant with the proph-etic hopes of the great reversal, and with cosmic salvation and renewal.What all of this means is that the inescapable background of the lux mundi

saying in Isaiah points to both covenantal and eschatological aspects ofparticipation, and just as the ontological divinity of Jesus is required by the‘I am’ part of the saying, so the real humanity of Jesus is required by thesecovenantal statements. The participation of God’s people in his light requiressuch a mediator, according to the logic of the second ‘I am’ saying in theFourth Gospel. The Word had to become flesh.

Messianic associations are also prominent in the ‘I am the Good Shep-herd’ saying. Once again, there are obvious divine connotations in Gen48:15, 49:54, Psalm 23:1, 28:9, Isaiah 40:11, Ezekiel 34:15, etc. Yahweh is thetrue shepherd of Israel. But there are also strong Davidic associations in 2Sam 5:2, 7:7, Psalm 78:71, Ezekiel 34:23, 37:24, and further texts. There arealso pejorative statements about bad shepherds in (among other references)Jer 23:2, 4, Jer 50:6, Eze 34:2, Zech 11:15–17 and these must inform the useof ŒÆº�� contrastively. Taken together with the force of ‘I am’, theseelements identify Jesus both with Yahweh himself and with the eschato-logical Messiah of Ezekiel 34:23 and 37:24. The latter is interesting becauseit flags up once more the influence of Ezekiel 36–7 (with the prominent rolegiven therein to the Spirit, already alluded to in John 3) on New Testamentsoteriology. The image of the Good Shepherd here, though, also places thedeath of Jesus at the heart of his messianic work (10:11). We must becareful not to over-press the imagery in terms of a particular doctrine of theatonement: the image of the shepherd dying to protect the flock is deter-mined by the shepherd image itself and not by the putative identification ofthe wolf (10:12). At the same time, though, the death is for (��æ) the sheepand that suggests sacrifice of some kind.The image of the Good Shepherd is paired with that of the Gate (10:7 and

10:9), with which it is interwoven in 10:1–6 and which itself is linked to theimage of the fold (10:16). The images are easily misunderstood by those whohave not grown up shepherding. A fold does not serve as the place where sheepare sorted; it serves as the place where they are handled and marked-out beforebeing returned to pasture. The place where they are sorted is the gate: here, the


shepherd is able to identify which sheep are his and direct them into the fold.Those who enter the fold by the gate belong to the flock and the singular flockwill be enlarged by the influx of sheep not presently in the fold.36 This image,though, identifies Jesus not just as the Shepherd, whose voice is recognized bythe flock, but as the point or means of access into the fold and flock itself. Inorder to belong to the flock, one must pass through Jesus. Taken by itself, sucha concept is difficult to grasp, but it becomes clearer when set in the context ofwhat is beginning to emerge through the notions of covenant and messiah: tobe in the flock is to be in the covenant. The interweaving of the Gate andShepherd sayings further clarifies the matter: to hear and follow the voice ofJesus is to belong to the flock and one must have passed through the Gate forthis to be true. Reading this in the light of John 3, we must equate suchrecognition of the Shepherd’s voice to proceed from the covenantal presenceof the Holy Spirit and to be realized in faith.

This also feeds into the corporate image of Jesus as the true vine (15:1). Thismetaphor has strong covenantal associations, commonly being applied toIsrael in the Old Testament (Ps 80:9–16, Isa 5:1–7; 27:2–13, Jer 2:21, 12:10–17, Eze 15:1–8, 17:1–21; 19:10–14; Hos 10:1–2), always in connection with thefailure to bear fruit.37 Interestingly, in Jeremiah 12:10, the image is also linkedto failed shepherds, suggesting a further connection to John 10. But thecovenantal associations should not obscure the fact that the image also tapsinto the common experience of viticulture, of the transmission of vitality froma vine to its branches. The extent to which a rootstock determines the qualityand character of the fruit growing on its engrafted branches is a detail knownto anyone with even a passing acquaintance with gardening.

Taking these points together, the use of this image in connection with theconcept of ‘abiding’ in Jesus is striking. Given that Jesus uses this language in thecontext of his fellowship with his disciples, its significance in denoting inter-personal communion (rather than some kind of absorption into the divine) isclear. This builds upon the description of mutual indwelling found in 14:20,where it is tied to the reality that will follow the resurrection and, contextually,to the work of the ‘other Paraclete’ (14:25 ff). Recognizing this, the state ofabiding in Jesus, which is equated with Jesus abiding in the believer or in thechurch (15:4), is itself equated with the presence of the Spirit. As important asthe positive statement is the negative one: ‘apart from me you can do nothing’(åøæd� K�F P ��Æ�Ł� �Ø�E� P��, 15:5). The presence of Christ through theSpirit, then, is the condition for positive moral capacity: by the Spirit, therootstock gives vitality to the branches. As we saw in Chapter 3, this was animage that preoccupied Calvin in his reflections upon union with Christ.

36 This is a basic problem with the theory of unchangeable origins developed by Trumbower,Born from Above.

37 Carson, The Gospel According to John, 513.


We must be careful not to pass too quickly over the emphasis on humanresponsibility in this. While the capacity to bear fruit is transmitted tobelievers by the Vine, they are nevertheless required to ‘abide in’ him. Thecovenant associations of this are reinforced by the reference to cleansing in15:3. This is sometimes linked to the contextual imagery of pruning andtrimming,38 but actually it more naturally connotes cultic concerns. As wehave seen, cleansing imagery probably lies behind John 3:5, drawing uponEzekiel 36. The imagery there (and here), though, is likely to have a signifi-cance governed by the purity of the temple: only those who are clean can standin the glorious presence of the Lord. That such a clustering of themes is atwork here is reinforced by the study of parallel language in 1 John.39 Thecovenant significance is taken up further in verses 10–11, where those whoabide ‘in the love’ of Jesus keep his commandments. The paralleling of ‘abidein me’ with ‘abide in my love’ is suggestive of the relational dynamic of theverb and this is taken further in the subsequent discussion of the ‘newcommandment’, to ‘love one another as I have loved you’. Those who abidein Jesus abide in his love and embody that love in their own relationships,empowered to such self-sacrifice (15:12–14) by the Spirit.To this point, we have examined five of the predicated ‘I am’ sayings. The

remaining sayings—‘I am the resurrection and the life’ (11:25) and ‘I am theway and the truth and the life’ (14:6)—may be treated more briefly, notbecause they are any less important, but because in them the themes that wehave already studied resurface. That Jesus is ‘the way and the truth and thelife’ sums up many of the themes already encountered: no one comes to theFather, the source of life, except by passing through this gate into covenantfellowship and the real knowledge (truth) of God. Without such a transition,one remains in a state of death, but to come to Jesus is to ‘cross over fromdeath to life’ (5:24), a transition symbolized in the raising of Lazarus (John11). Here, as in the other ‘I am’ sayings, the reality mediated by Jesus ispredicated on his own divinity, on the fact that he has ‘life in himself ’ (5:26)and not as a derived property.40 The salvation envisaged, then, is fundamen-tally participatory in character: the life of the Father, shared in the Son,communicated by the Holy Spirit, and embodied in relationship. Such richconceptual theology can hardly be stripped down to a matter of socialinclusion, but neither can it be seen as a matter of Platonic participation. Itis presence, covenanted.

38 Carson, The Gospel According to John, 515.39 Edward Malatesta, Interiority and Covenant: A Study of ‘Einai En’ and ‘Menein En’ in the

First Letter of Saint John (Analecta Biblica 69. Rome: Biblical Institute, 1978).40 There is still a proper subordination of Son to Father, though. The Father ‘grants’ this.


THE PLACE OF OBEDIENCE AND FAITH

The points outlined in the previous section allow us to isolate the emphasis onobedience and faith in the Fourth Gospel and consider it in more detail. Thisemphasis emerges most strikingly in John 14. Here, Jesus challenges hisdisciples not to allow their hearts to be troubled (14:1), commanding beliefto be oriented towards him as well as God.

�Ø�� N� �e� Ł�e� ŒÆd �N� K�b �Ø��.

The symmetry in the phrasing of the command is quite obvious and issuggestive of a singular focus for faith: to believe in Jesus is precisely to believein God. This is further developed in 14:6, where true knowledge of Jesus entailstrue knowledge of God, and in 14:10, where the rationale for this is given in theform of an incipient doctrine of perichoresis.

This belief is linked, in 14:12, to the continuation of the works of Jesus inthe life of the church (‘the one who believes in me will also do the works thatI do’), a continuation that, in turn, is linked to the presence of Holy Spiritwith the church in 14:16–18. As we have seen, the Spirit’s role is defined byJohn in relation to Jesus and, particularly, in noetic or cognitive terms. Here,the Spirit effects not only a recognition of Jesus, but also a moral orientationtowards him: the recognition of Jesus’s relationship to the Father (14:20)leads to a love that manifests itself in obedience (14:21). Obedience, more-over, is presented quite particularly in terms of commandment (14:21) andwill continue to be developed in such terms in chapter 15, as we have seen(15:10,14). Interestingly, Jesus addresses the disciples as ‘friends’ and not‘servants’ (15:15), despite this emphasis on obedience; the shift is quitespecifically explained on the grounds of their knowledge of him and hisbusiness, and not on the grounds of any diminishment of responsibility toobey.

One command is singled out in chapter 15: ‘love one another’. In the lightof all that we have examined so far in this chapter, the prominence of the lovecommandment is unsurprising; the shared union between believers and thesource of their salvation is constitutive of a community that is now incorpor-ated into the divine fellowship of love, and Jesus’s own works, as manifest-ations of love, have become the pattern for the believer’s life. It is noteworthy,though, that this emphasis on love is not unique to the Fourth Gospel. Wehave seen it emerge also in relation to other parts of the New Testament, inclose connection with participatory elements.


THE PRAYER OF JESUS: JOHN 17

Many of the themes already explored come together in the prayer of John 17and, consequently, we can now study it more briefly. While there is a danger ofrepetition in examining this passage, it will reinforce and confirm our analysis,and will also bring to the surface some further key participatory language. Weare, of course, dealing with a part of Scripture that has been particularlysignificant in the development of Trinitarian theology and of participatorytheologies. The brevity of our treatment, then, reflects not the significance ofthe passage, but the fact that its key themes have already been anticipated,emerging as they do from the broader contours of Johannine theology.Immediately apparent is the fact that ‘eternal life’ is equated with true

knowledge of God (17:3), a gift available only through the Son (17:2). Thatmediatorial role is firmly linked to the eternal Sonship of the Son, whichpre-existed the world (17:5). The relationship of Father and Son, as well aspre-existing the world, also involves the mutual communication of glory(17:1, 5), which has now been revealed in the world (17:4) by Jesus, a glorifica-tion equated with the revelation of the ‘name’ (17:6). The ‘name’ functions hereas a shorthand for true knowledge of the covenantal Yahweh,41 so that thecentrality to salvation of true knowledge by revelation is emphasized yet again.The same term is taken up again, though, in verse 11 as the name given toJesus.42 As such, there may be a deliberate allusion to the ‘I am’ sayings: thecovenant name of Yahweh is revealed in Jesus, the bread, the resurrection, thelife, the vine, et cetera. Regardless of whether or not this is the case, thatassociation of identity is the basis for Jesus’s prayer for believers.

Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they maybe one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name thatyou have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the onedestined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. (John 17:11–12)

The prayer is interesting in its linking of ‘the name’ with the divine powerrequired to protect believers. This may well take us back to the associationbetween those two concepts in Deuteronomy 32:39 and Isaiah 43:10, passageswhich, as we have seen, lie behind the ‘I am’ sayings.The need for such protection lies in the fact that these believers continue to

occupy the world (17:11). There is a fundamental distinction between thosewho belong to Christ and the world, reflected in 17:9 and in 17:14.

41 So Keener, The Gospel of John, 1056. The connection between the name and the divineidentity is also made by Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentaryon the Gospel of John (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 247–8.

42 The parallels with Phil. 2 should not be overlooked.


I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me,because they are yours. (17:9)

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do notbelong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. (17:14)

It is interesting to note that the distinction is not between two groups ofpeople, but between a sphere of existence (the world) and a group of peoplewho no longer belong to, or participate in, that sphere. ‘The world’, ofcourse, has already been discussed in relation to the prologue where, wehave seen, it is effectively portrayed as blind and helpless, paralleling Paul’suse of ‘flesh’. Elsewhere in John, notably in 3:16, that powerless world isdepicted as the object of God’s love and the redemption of those within it isrevealed to be his purpose. Here, then, the distinction made is not betweenan in-group and an out-group, at odds with one another. For all that theworld is hostile to those who have come to Jesus, it remains the object ofGod’s redemptive purposes. Consequently, the protection requested is notfrom the ‘world’ but from ‘the evil one’ (17:15) and the purpose of thechurch’s testimony is precisely the communication of the knowledge of Godto the world (17:21–2).

The community of believers, therefore, is portrayed as a circumscribedreality within, but distinct from, the world. That reality is, moreover, a gloriousone (17:22), with the glory of God in Christ shared with believers. Undoubt-edly there are echoes of temple imagery here, given the overlap of the contentwith that studied in Chapter 7, particularly that found in the prologue to theFourth Gospel and the contextual use of ‘sanctification’ (17:17–19). Suchlanguage, though, serves much more radical imagery of communion andcommunication in the description of the intimacy of fellowship between thechurch and God.

The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, aswe are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, sothat the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as youhave loved me. (17:22–3)

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


THE JOHANNINE EPISTLES

Whatever might be concluded concerning the authorial relationship betweenthe Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles,43 there is no doubt that theyshare a common theology and conceptual vocabulary. For the sake of brevity,I will simply note in this section a number of points where the emphases of theFourth Gospel are distinctively developed in the Epistles.The opening of 1 John is highly reminiscent of the prologue to the Fourth

Gospel; assuming that the Epistles post-date the Gospel, the opening sevenverses of 1 John read like a reprise of that prologue, with the same themes oflight, life, and testimony emerging. Themes from John 14–17 are also woveninto this reprise, with a particular emphasis on the believer’s fellowship withFather and Son. These vocabularies continue to run through 1 John, furthercombining with the noetic and cognitive elements identified in our study ofthe gospel: in their relationship to the Son, believers know the Father. In 1John, more so than in the Gospel, this leads to the use of filial language. Wherethe Gospel makes sparing use of the image of believers as children of God, inthe Epistle it is developed extensively, notably in 2:29–3:10. The Johannineimage is not one of adoption, as it is in Paul, but rather one of generation:believers have been ‘born of him’ (2:29).

The filial emphasis leads to a distinctive treatment of the likeness ofbelievers to God (3:2–3). There is nothing in the context or content to suggestthat this should be understood in Adamic terms. Rather, the emphasis falls onthe generative relationship between child and parent. There remains animportant future eschatological dimension to this: ‘now we are God’s children;what we will be has not yet been revealed’ (�F� ��Œ�Æ Ł�F K��, ŒÆd h�øKçÆ��æ�ŁÅ �� K��ŁÆ). This future dimension is linked to a perfection ofknowledge that has not yet been attained: ‘When he is revealed (çÆ��æøŁfi B), wewill be like him (‹�ØØ ÆP�fiH K��ŁÆ), for we will see him as he is.’ The hopeof this eschatological knowledge is further linked to the activity of self-purification (3:3), which, premised on God’s own purity, is a matter of therealization in the believer of a quality of that which is considered.This is a dense cluster of ideas, but we can recognize in it much of what

would later be developed in the Alexandrian tradition of deification. Not forthe first time, we might note that the emphases on reflection and on the mindin that tradition are not simply the result of Platonic influence, but representan attentive reading of the New Testament itself. What emerges quite clearlyfrom these verses is that, while salvation is ascribed to the regenerative work ofGod, the believer is not a passive recipient of this: the use of the reflexive

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


pronoun �Æı�� with the verb ±ª��Çø requires that the believer is the activesubject of the verb, the one who purifies him/herself. At the same time, it needsto be recognized that this act of self-purification is constituted by the posses-sion of the ‘hope’ (Kº��) of likeness to God. It is, in other words, constitutedby trust in God’s salvific activity and by reflection on his person. The primacyof the divine act of purification has already been stressed by the author in 1:7,where it is achieved by the blood of Jesus; there, too, the recognition of one’spersonal sinfulness44 is necessitated by the truth. The believer’s self-purification,then, can be nothing but the activity of receiving this grace and consideringthe one who gives it, in eschatological anticipation. This last point is vital: thepurification of the believer is realized in part by her/his orientation towardsthe future, by the expectation of conformity to the character of God. Muchcould be said on the psychological dimensions of such positive hope; moresatisfying is the awareness that the Spirit’s work in the believer is alwaysunderstood teleologically and that this is inseparable from purification offorgiveness and atonement. The shared vocabulary of purification in thesetwo chapters of 1 John, with these two senses, means that we are dealing with aduplex gratia, about which the author would surely concur with Calvin: Christcannot be torn asunder.

As with the Fourth Gospel, there is a strong emphasis on the love com-mandment in 1 John, particularly in 3:11–24 and 4:7–21; this is carried into 2and 3 John where it becomes the key point of content in these brief letters.Once again, the author portrays imitation of Christ as vital: he has shown uswhat love looks like (1 John 3:16) and, as such, has revealed the God who islove himself. Reflection on the sacrifice of Jesus leads into specific consider-ations of the treatment of the poor (3:17) and the necessity of enacted mercy(3:18). The practice of love is also presented in 1 John 3:23 as a constituentelement of obedience to the (singular) commandment of God, alongside beliefin the name of Jesus. The pairing of love with this central act of faith, as theexpected rendering of obedience to God, forcefully demonstrates the centralityof the practice of love to the community that is in fellowship with God, a pointalso made in 4:21, where the love of God requires the love of a brother. Whatemerges most forcefully in 1 John, particularly in 3:19–20, is that the exerciseof love is itself one of the ways in which union with Christ is experienced andthe presence of God known:

19And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our heartsbefore him 20whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts,and he knows everything.45

44 The noun, ±�Ææ��Æ�, is singular in form and thus points to a sinful condition, rather thanspecific sins.

45 Cf. 2:3, where there is a similar link between obedience and assurance.


As was the case in the Fourth Gospel, however, the practice of love itselfproceeds from the divine presence, from the priority of divine love (4:19) andthe union with Christ effected by the Holy Spirit (3:24). Once again, imitationof Christ in love is not a naked act of moral achievement, but a conscious anddynamic participation in God’s love for the world.One last point is worth observing in the Johannine Epistles. It is here that

we encounter those labelled ‘antichrists’ (I��åæØ��Ø) and the singular figureof the ‘antichrist’ who is coming (1 John 2:18). The fact that the antichrists‘went out from us’ has triggered a good deal of speculation about the relation-ship between Johannine factions.46 This need not concern us here, except tonote that few today would postulate a fundamental theological oppositionbetween the author of 1 John and the Fourth Gospel in relation to Docetism:the general tendency is now to see both works as countering early doceticviews.47 This noted, it is striking that the spirit of the antichrist denies thatJesus is the Christ (2:22) and that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh (1 John4:2–3; 2 John 7). The physicality of Jesus is clearly important to the author, notleast because of the significance of his blood (1 John 5:6–7), the necessity of anatonement (ƒºÆ��, 1 John 2:1, 4:10) for sin.The death of Jesus is not the only reason that his physicality is important to

the author, however. The testimony against which the antichrist and the liar (1John 5:10) stand is that this particular body of flesh, Jesus, is the Son of God,and that it is as the enfleshed Son that he operates as the source of life (1 John5:11–12). The author’s doctrine of human participation in divine life, adoctrine that dominates these epistles, proceeds from a set of convictionsabout the ontology of the incarnation. As a consequence, we also find thatparticipation in this life is not a matter of the infusion of a different essenceinto human nature, nor of receiving a certain set of benefits from the Son. It isa matter of receiving the Son himself (1 John 5:12—‘the one who has the Sonhas life’), personally, and in receiving the Son, receiving the Spirit.

CONCLUSIONS

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

46 See the overview of this discussion in Keener, The Gospel of John, 123–6.47 Contra the classic argument of Ernst Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus: A Study of the

Gospel of John in the Light of Chapter 17 (trans. Gerhard Krodel; London: SCM, 1968).


character, and not in a vague way: they represent a community in thetransformative presence of God. Four specific conclusions may be highlighted.

First, the transformation of those in this community is grounded in theontology of the incarnation: the full divinity of the Logos is united to realhuman flesh. The importance of this lies, in part, in the role of the Christ as thecovenant representative, a point that emerges from the background to the ‘Iam’ sayings in Isaiah, the Isaianic Servant once again emerging as a recurrenttheme in our study of the New Testament. It also, however, involves the unionof human flesh with the divine fellowship of Father, Son, and Spirit; theparticipation of believers in the communion of the triune God proceedsfrom this primary union.

Second, this firmly underpins the distinctive Johannine treatment of fili-ation: sonship in John is not a matter of adoption, but of transformation into astate of intimacy with God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is inseparable fromthis, as part of the divine fellowship: his own ministry is presented in analo-gous terms to that of the Logos and constitutes the ongoing presence of Christwith his people. John’s account, then, is now widely recognized to be strikinglyanti-docetic and this is important to the author’s presentation of salvation.The continuity of such emphases with the accounts of participation that wetraced in the Fathers is quite striking.

Third, in both the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, the commu-nion between human believers and God just outlined involves the activity offaith. This is a gift, involving noetic transformation by the ministry of theSpirit to allow the recognition and acceptance of the truth that is in Christ, butit is not passively received. The use of reflexive pronouns with active verbalforms indicates that those in the community are the acting subjects of faith.

Fourth, participation by faith in communion with God necessitates thesocial outworking of love within the community. It is quite significant thatthis practice of love is defined in terms of the community of faith, directedtowards those who are brothers.


11

Grammars and Narratives of Participationin the Rest of the New Testament

In this chapter, we turn to examine further participatory elements in the rest ofthe New Testament. Inevitably, such a study will feel more patchy than thechapters that have focused on Paul and John; certainly, each area will becovered much more briefly. What is interesting, however, is the extent towhich, having identified key recurring themes and underlying concepts inthose two corpora, we will see similar ideas running through the various booksexamined, despite the fact that in some cases they are seldom considered to becharacterized by a participatory theology.

1 Peter

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

Covenant in 1 Peter

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

further described as ‘foreigners of the diaspora’ (�Ææ��Ø� �Ø� �ØÆ��æA�).Such terminology evokes the scattering of the Jews under Assyria and Babylonand echoes their narrative. Given the significance of Isaiah to 1 Peter,1 suchstriking early use of diaspora language may be suggestive of that prophet’snarrative of exile and restoration centred on the Servant. The covenantimagery of election is further developed in verse 2, through a set of verblessclauses where the election of the saints is specified to be ‘according to theforeknowledge of God the Father’ and ‘in/by the holiness of the Spirit forobedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ’. My somewhat stifftranslation highlights the grammatical relationships between the variousnouns: believers are elect ‘according to’ (ŒÆ��) the foreknowledge of God,‘in/by’ (K�) the holiness of the Spirit, ‘for’ (�N�) obedience and (ŒÆd) sprinklingof the blood of Christ. The fact that no verb is present means that effectivelythese statements are coordinated and equated as appositional statements ofelection: together they explicate what it is to be elect.

The term ±ªØÆ�� is generally taken by commentators to speak of theSpirit’s sanctifying work. In covenantal context, paired as it is to the languageof election, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that we are hearing an echo ofEzekiel 36–7. The pairing of this with the Father’s electing foreknowledgemeans that to be elect is to be set apart not just in status but in reality by thepower of the Spirit. This matches well with what we have seen in Paul andJohn. The coordination of such ideas with the rest of verse 2 is less straight-forward, however, complicated by the significance ascribed to the genitive� Å�F �æØ��F. We have argued already that ‘obedience’ and ‘sprinkling withthe blood of Jesus Christ’ should be taken as a hendiadys, speaking of a singlereality.2 Significantly, there is general agreement that the background to theimagery of sprinkling lies in Exodus 24:3–8, where the Mosaic covenant isratified;3 to read this as a hendiadys, then, suggests that both elements arecovenantally defined. To be elect, then, is explicated covenantally alongnascent Trinitarian lines: it is according to the foreknowledge of the Father,in the sanctifying power of the Spirit, for covenant fidelity that is ratified by theblood of Jesus.

1 The significance of Isaiah to 1 Peter is well established; it is noted as the book with thegreatest number of quotations by D. A. Carson, ‘1 Peter’ in Beale and Carson (eds), Commentaryon the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, 1015. Two important recent treatments of theuse of the Old Testament in 1 Peter are William L. Schutter, Hermeneutic and Composition in1 Peter (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1989) and Egan, ‘Suffering Servants: The Interpretation ofIsaiah in 1 Peter’. The latter is particularly noteworthy, as it develops the case that Peter’s use ofIsaiah is as important to his ecclesiology as to his Christology.

2 See Chapter 6.3 Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 87–9; Jobes, 1 Peter, 72; pace J. Ramsey Michaels, 1 Peter (Dallas: Word,

1989), 12.


These covenant associations are taken further in 1 Peter 1:3–5, reinforcedby the use of inheritance language (1:4). What is immediately striking is theuse of ‘new birth’ language. The aorist participle I�Æª�� Æ� is derivedfrom the rare verb I�Æª��ø. In meaning it can be seen to have a generalcorrespondence to the concept of the new birth/birth from above in Johnwhich, as we have seen, parallels the concept of regeneration in Paul.4 Suchparallels are potentially loose and unconvincing in themselves, but they arereinforced by the clustering around this idea of other terms and imagesassociated with regeneration in Paul and John. The above-mentioned role ofthe Spirit in sanctifying the elect is one example of this, with its likelybackground in Ezekiel 36–7. The link between the new birth and theresurrection (1 Pet 1:3) is a second, paralleling that seen in Paul’s theologyof new creation. A further significant one is found in the parallel statementof 1:23:

You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through theliving and enduring word of God.

I�Æª�ª��Å��Ø PŒ KŒ ��æA� çŁÆæ�B� Iººa IçŁ�æ�ı �Øa º�ªı ÇH�� Ł�F ŒÆd

��.

The background to this lies in Isaiah 40:6–8, quoted in 1:24, where theperishability of flesh is contrasted with the imperishability of God’s word,which stands for ever because of its divine origin. This link between perish-ability and weakness is, as we have seen, unpacked in terms of ‘flesh’ or ‘world’in both Paul and John and contrasted with that which is divinely empoweredand thus imperishable, that which is spiritual (e.g. 1 Cor 15:42). Here, theword of God is identified as ‘the word proclaimed as good news (�e ÞB�Æ �e

�PÆªª�ºØ�Łb�) to you’ (1:25). This does not simply identify the word with themessage about Jesus, it also recalls the statement of 1:12, that this good newswas revealed by the Holy Spirit and that even the pre-Christian prophets spokeby the Spirit’s empowering in anticipation of this reality, so that the word ofGod is indeed thoroughly divine.A three-way connection is made, then, between the word, the Spirit, and the

narrative of Jesus, and this connection underlies the power and efficacy of thegospel in generating new birth. Without suggesting that Peter’s language ordoctrine are identical to that which we have seen in John 3 or in Paul’stheology of new creation, its ingredients and its textual backdrop are, and astrong case can be made that these are three ways of speaking of a singlereality: the Spirit empowered generation of a new reality, through the death

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

Further Grammars and Narratives of Participation 273

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

Covenant and Revealed Wisdom in 1 Peter

We are clearly, then, dealing with a covenantal account of salvation, althoughthis is only recognized in the light of the numerous textual allusions andechoes that underlie these opening verses of Peter. These covenantal elements,though, are developed with revelatory associations. In 1:20–1, the lamb‘elected’ before the creation ‘was revealed in these last times for your sake’(�æ�ª�ø��ı �b� �æe ŒÆ�Æ�ºB� Œ��ıçÆ��æøŁ�� b K�� K�å��ı �H�

åæ��ø��Ø� ��A�) and it is specifically ‘through him’ that the audience believes inGod. The close proximity of this to the description of the ‘word of God’ in1:23–5 reinforces this link: the lamb is the object of revelation, but in a sensealso is its subject. Two important points emerge from the uptake of this in1:22. First, the use of purification language (�ª�ØŒ��, ‘you have purified’) hascultic associations and anticipates the image of the church as temple in 2:5. Itis striking, though, that the verb is active and not passive and is linked to‘obedience to the truth’ (cf. 1:2). So, despite the primacy of the divine revela-tion, faith and sanctification are not depicted as activities in which the elect arepassive. Second, the key command delivered to those who have purifiedthemselves is to love one another. The parallels with John 15:12 (and widercontext) and Galatians 5:14 (and wider context) are noteworthy: the newcovenant is characterized at the most basic level by the mutual love of thosewithin it.

One last point is worth noting in relation to the covenantal and revelatoryaspects of 1 Peter. Although less explicitly developed than in Paul or John,there is nevertheless a verdict passed on the noetic aspect of the humancondition. This is implicit in the stone passage of 2:4–8. The elect stone(2:6) is rejected by the builders and becomes a stumbling block (2:8) becausethey are incapable of recognizing it for what it is. Their response to it, a matterof disobedience, reveals that by contrast to the elect, they are in darkness(cf. 2:6). While less developed than in Paul or John, this ‘pessimistic anthro-pology’ undergirds the significance of the revelatory and spiritual languageused throughout the epistle: humanity cannot redeem itself and can onlyrecognize God’s way of salvation by the disclosing power of the Spirit.


The Cross and the Isaianic Servant(s) in 1 Peter

Peter’s account of the cross in 2:24 is key to understanding his theology ofatonement. The verse is, of course, contextualized with a quotation fromIsaiah 53:9, about the Servant’s sinlessness, in 2:22, and further points ofconnection to that portion of Scripture will emerge in 2:24–5. As we havealready noted, Isaiah is the most prominent Scriptural source for the authorand the image of the Suffering Servant is a significant one for him. There is acertain poetic structuring of the verse which deserves attention. I lay it outhere (in rather awkward English) to allow the parallelism and logic to emerge:

Who our sins offered up,In his body, upon the tree,So that, in sins having no part,We might live by righteousness;

By whose wounds you are healed.

n� �a� ±�Ææ��Æ� ��H� ÆP�e� I� ��ªŒ��

K� �fiH ��Æ�Ø ÆP�F K�d �e ��º�,¥ �Æ �ÆE� ±�Ææ��ÆØ� I�ª��Ø

�fi B �ØŒÆØ��z Ç �ø��,y �fiH ��ºø�Ø N�ŁÅ��.

The verb usually translated ‘bore’ is I�Æç�æø, which occurs as a technical verbfor sacrifice throughout the Old Testament,5 although it is not limited tospecific kinds of sacrifice and can have a non-sacrificial meaning. The sameverb is also used twice in Isaiah 53:11–12, of the Servant’s bearing of the sins ofthe ‘many’, who will be made or declared righteous through his sacrifice(�ØŒÆØH�ÆØ . . . �ººE�). Here, the sins are ‘ours’, possibly representing adeliberate conflation of Isaiah 53:11 with 53:4. Although we must, perhaps,be careful not to press the allusion beyond its own terms, it is interesting thatin Isaiah 53:11 the justification secured by the Servant’s sacrifice is linked tothe formation of knowledge (�º��ÆØ �fi B �ı��Ø) and light, connecting thisdeath with revelation.The description of the sacrifice being offered ‘in his body, on the tree’,

merges this sacrificial image with the concept of ‘cursing’; the reference to thetree, as in Paul, must be derived from Deut 21:23, where it refers to the onewho has been put to death for a capital crime. We must not overlook the factthat while the combination of sacrifice and curse language is unusual, it has abackground in Isaiah 53, where the Servant is stricken and punished (Isaiah53:4–5). This application of sacrificial imagery to the cursed figure in Isaiah 53

5 See, for example, Leviticus 2:16; 3:5, 11, 14, 16; 4:10, 19, 26, 31; 6:8, 19; 7:5, 31; 8:16, 20–1,27–8; 9:10, 20; 14:20; 16:25; 17:5–6; 23:11.


is widely recognized to be distinctive within the Old Testament and has beendescribed as ‘a radical desacralisation of sacrifice’.6

The penal dimension of this death, however, cannot be isolated from theimagery that follows: the death of Jesus, drawing upon Isaiah 53:5, is intendedto result in healing, a therapeutic image that develops the transformationdescribed immediately prior to this, of living in/by/for7 righteousness andhaving no part of sin. It is quite striking that the verb used of liberation fromsins (I�ª��ÆØ) can indicate death, but also has participatory (actually, anti-participatory) overtones, hence my translation: to die to sins is to cease toparticipate in them, to be ‘out of ’ them. The arrangement of the material callsattention to the antithetical parallelism between this purpose clause and theopening statement of 1 Peter 2:24. Again, in rather awkward English:

he our sins bore . . .that to sins we being dead . . .

The result is the clear association between the event of the cross and ‘our’death to sin: in the moment of the death of Jesus, Peter considers that ‘our’own life in sin was brought to an end. The tenses will not accommodate atheology of atonement that reduces it to merely moral example, just as theverbs of transformation will not accommodate a theology that reduces it tomerely penal substitution. Yet, the penal dimension remains through theemphasis on the curse. As we saw in our discussion of Paul, this penal useof curse language may also evoke the covenant curses of Deut 27–8, so that theaccursed death of Jesus is understood to have dealt with the failure of God’speople to live according to the covenant stipulations. Given what we have seenof the covenant theme in 1 Peter, this makes good sense and coheres well withthe rest of the passage. Isaiah 53:6 lies behind the straying sheep imagery of2:25, though it appears to be conflated with Isaiah 40:10–11 or Ezekiel 34,where Yahweh is presented as the shepherd of Israel. Again, without pressingthe allusion beyond its own terms, it is interesting that Isaiah 53:6 speaks of‘the iniquity of us all’ being laid upon him.

Taking these elements together, we can see that Peter’s account of theatonement is clearly drawn from Isaiah 53. That passage allows him to bringtogether, around the idea of a suffering Messiah, ideas of sacrifice, curse,substitutionary death, and healing. The messianic dimension of Isaiah 53 isimportant: it allows Peter to identify the representative role of the Messiahwithin the covenant, but his language suggests a participation in his death thatis more than formal, indicating the destruction of one reality and the begin-ning of another.

6 Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40–66: A Commentary (trans. David Muir Gibson Stalker.London: SCM Press, 1969), 268.

7 There is an article, but no prepositions to help decide the force of this.


Flood Typology and Participation in 1 Peter

This imagery is taken up in Peter’s christological use of the flood account in3:18–22. This discussion is embedded into a wider section of the book inwhich the author speaks of the sufferings of Christians in relation to the cross.Importantly, Christ’s death ‘for sins’ (��æd ±�Ææ�ØH�), designated in aoristtense (��ÆŁ��) as a particular event in time, is described as a hapax (–�Æ�), aone-off event. The ‘dying for’ language is taken further with another pairing in3:18, ‘the righteous one for the unrighteous ones’, and its purpose is specified:‘to bring you to God’ (¥ �Æ ��A� �æ�Æª�ªz �fiH Ł�fiH). There are obvious echoesof 1 Peter 2:25 here and hence the allusion to Isaiah 53 continues to beeffective. Clearly, whatever Peter will go on to say about the significance ofthe suffering of the individual, this is grounded upon a theology that under-stands the death of Jesus to be the singular ground of atonement, the one deaththat is in exchange for sins.The link between the death of Jesus and the flood narrative is an important

one to make. It is not simply a matter of the vindication of those who suffer:the link, rather, lies in the key term ‘flesh’ (��æ�). Jesus, in 3:18, is put to death‘in flesh’ but made alive ‘by the Spirit’. We have seen that in Paul’s letters,baptism represents identification with the dying and rising of Jesus, a partici-pation in his death and resurrection. In Peter, the significance of baptism isprefigured by the flood (3:21), specifically in the element of water ‘through’which eight people were saved. The preposition is important: the salvationspoken of is not from the waters (i.e. through the ark and providence), butthrough the waters. In other words, the waters are saving in effect and this canonly be because they are seen to be cleansing.It is in relation to this point that the key term ‘flesh’ is significant. In

Genesis 6, that term is repeated (in 6:4 and 6:13) as the cause of theviolence and iniquity that fill the earth, and the destruction of flesh isspecified as the objective of the flood (6:18). Certainly, flesh will existafter the flood and the Noachic covenant is made with it (Gen 9:8–17),but there it is specified at key points that it is with ‘every living soul in allflesh’ (��Å� łıåB� Ç��Å� K� ��z �ÆæŒ�). This is the kind of distinctionthat would allow a Jewish reader to differentiate the corrupt flesh before theflood with the living flesh that is left. The flood is, therefore, a cleansingdestruction, purging the earth of that which is corrupt. This helps to explainwhy Peter sees it as an antitype of that which baptism symbolizes, particu-larly if we accept that his understanding of baptism may actually agree withthat of Paul: the flood, as a purging judgement, prefigures the death of‘flesh’ in Jesus and the establishment of a new order by the Spirit. It isworth mentioning that other literature of the time, notably The Book of the


Watchers, understands the flood as a cleansing and restorative event,prefiguring the eschatological judgement.8

This requires, though, that Jesus’s identification as the sin-bearer is notsimply representative but is also participatory, putting to death the old order ofsins in which we used to participate and establishing a new order of right-eousness in which we now participate. This is intelligible as a variant of thetheology that we have already seen in Paul and John, and, like them, its‘realism’ lies in its eschatological character: the reality of salvation in Jesuswas anticipated by the prophets, and underlay their own hope (1:10–12),but only now has it been revealed in the incarnation, death, and resurrectionof Jesus.

Christian Suffering as Participation in the Deathof Jesus in 1 Peter

Like Paul, Peter does not segregate this participation in the death of Jesusfrom believers’ experience of suffering. Such suffering becomes Christoformthrough our participation in his death and derives its own significance fromthat death.

An interesting example of this may be seen in 1:7–9. This section speaksof the revelation of Jesus, in the context of a subjunctive (��æ�Łfi B) that speaks ofthe hope that the authenticity of the faith of the audience might be found tohave been productive in the revelation of Jesus:

7so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that,though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and gloryand honor when Jesus Christ is revealed (��æ�Łfi B �N� ��ÆØ�� ŒÆd ��Æ� ŒÆd �Ø�c� K�I�ŒÆº�ł�Ø �Å�F �æØ��F·). 8Although you have not seen him, you love him;and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with anindescribable and glorious joy, 9for you are receiving the outcome of your faith,the salvation of your souls.

Most translations render the subjunctive with a clear future force, suggestingthat the apocalypse in view is that of the parousia. This is defensible in thecontext, since that future component of the church’s hope is made clear atvarious points through the letter and establishes the horizon that gives pers-pective to all else in the letter. The fact that verse 8 describes the audience ashaving ‘not seen’ Jesus would appear to confirm this. However, the logic of thefollowing verses, 10–12, is that despite the absence of physical sight, thedefinitive revelation has been made known in the word preached. Onewonders, then, whether the ‘revelation’ of Jesus in 1:7 is the future event of

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


parousia or actually the manifestation of Jesus in and through the suffering ofbelievers. There is nothing in the Greek to require a future sense.Perhaps this is to push Peter’s language too far, and perhaps he is simply

linking Christian behaviour with eschatological vindication, but certainly in3:17 and 4:1–2, the verses that flank the flood typology, the hapax of Jesus’sdeath is linked to Christian conduct in suffering in ways that seem to gobeyond mere imitation. In 4:1, Peter urges his readers to arm themselves withthe same attitude as that shown by Christ, who suffered in ‘flesh’ because ‘theone who suffered in the flesh has ended sin’.9 While it is tempting to read thisin simply exemplarist terms, there are indications that Peter is continuing tospeak of the effects of the atonement. The participle often translated as‘whoever has suffered’ (› �ÆŁg�) is actually an aorist and is articular; it isnot, then, unspecified as in NRSV (‘whoever’), but refers to a particularsufferer and, indeed, to an action that has been completed. Moreover, thetense is the same as that of the participle used to speak of Christ’s suffering(�ÆŁ��). The main verb (��Æı�ÆØ) is perfect, also indicating a state ofaffairs now in place through the historic activity described. All of this suggeststhat Peter is not calling for mimesis of an exemplary suffering, but forconsciousness of participation in a foundational event that gives significanceand moral shape to the believer’s own experience of suffering. This, I wouldsuggest, makes better sense of 4:13:

But rejoice insofar as you are sharing (ŒØ�ø��E��) Christ’s sufferings, so that youmay also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.

Again, as here in the NRSV, translations tend to suggest that the revelation ofChrist’s glory will take place at the parousia, but there is nothing in the Greekto require this: it is literally, ‘in the revelation of his glory’, and this may well beunderstood in terms of the cruciform, Christiform, anastiform10 Christian life.

None of this is to suggest that Peter does not expect a parousia event, or thathe is operating with a realized eschatology that has excluded future elements.It is, rather, to note that the suffering-vindication typology often seen in1 Peter is often construed in an exemplarist fashion that fails to do justice tothe uniqueness of his death and to the significance of both eschatological andpneumatological elements in Peter’s account.There is much, then, in 1 Peter that is redolent of the participatory theology

encountered in Paul and John: it is covenantal, eschatological, pneumato-logical, and noetic, with the central idea of the end of one existence andestablishment of another understood in terms of the new covenant. The roleof the Spirit in realizing salvation in believers is less prominent than it is inPaul or John, and is focused much more tightly on revelation, but the

9 My translation.10 I borrow this term from Finlan, ‘Can We Speak of Theosis in Paul?’.


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

2 Peter

The authorship of 2 Peter is a matter of debate, along with its literaryrelationships,11 but there are a number of theological contact points with1 Peter, which are all the more interesting if the two epistles do not share anauthor. Notably, 2 Peter also employs the covenantal language of election andcalling (1:10, integrating themes that run from 1:3–11), uses flood imagery inrelation to eschatological judgement (3:5–7) and draws upon the story of theWatchers (2:4) in developing the promise of judgement. These are modest, butnevertheless significant, parallels. The first, in particular, reinforces our argu-ments to this point that covenant informs participatory theologies.

2 Peter 1:4, of course, contains one of the key participatory statements in theNew Testament, with its hope that believers might be ‘participants of the divinenature’ (ª��Å�Ł� Ł��Æ� ŒØ�ø�d ç��ø�). Such is the importance of this state-ment that wemust devote some space to it in our discussion. The crucial issue ofthe meaning of ç��Ø� is one that needs to be set in context and so, rather thanmoving straight to a discussion of this point, we will consider the broaderemphases of 2 Peter 1:3–4.

Covenant Themes in 2 Peter 1:3–4

2 Peter 1:3 opens with the statement that ‘to us’ has been given everythingneeded for life and godliness ‘by his divine power’ (�B� Ł��Æ� �ı��ø� ÆP�F).It is worth noting that the author here qualifies a noun that designates ‘power’(��Æ�Ø�) with the adjective ‘divine’ (Ł�E�), the same adjective that will beused to qualify ç��Ø�. The antecedent that informs the designation of thispower as ‘his’ (i.e. that tells us who ‘he’ is) is found in 1:2, where both God and‘Jesus our Lord’ are named; this, in turn must be read in terms of 1:1, where

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


Jesus appears to be unambiguously identified as God.12 This ‘power’ is aproperty of God, then, but it is a property that is inherently economic: theword describes God’s mighty and sovereign engagement with that which isoutside of himself, as that engagement is—and has been—mediated in Jesus.Perhaps we should understand the role of the Holy Spirit to be implied; he ismentioned in 1:21 in relation to the prophets, but there is no explicit mentionhere. What is clear, however, is that the power that the author considers toresource the Christian life brings ‘knowledge’ (K��ª�ø�Ø�) of ‘him who calledus’ and it is through this that the believer is resourced. Given what we haveseen throughout our study of the New Testament, this emphasis is hardlyunusual and need not be seen as the influence of proto-Gnostic elements13 orof Graeco-Roman mystery thought. It is, rather, one example of a consistentNew Testament emphasis on revealed wisdom lying at the heart of salvation.Through the glory and goodness of ‘him who called us’, believers have been

given ‘his precious and very great promises’ (�a ��ØÆ ŒÆd ��ªØ��Æ ��E�

K�Æªª�º�Æ�Æ ��æÅ�ÆØ) and it is through these (�Øa ��ø�) that they areto become (ª��Å�Ł�) participants in the divine nature. The clustering ofcovenant imagery has been explored by Wolters,14 who argues that this isthe key to properly understanding the reference to participation in the divinenature: like ‘divine power’ in 1:3, ‘divine nature’ designates the person of Godin his covenantal economic activity and to be ŒØ�ø�� of this is to be covenantpartners with God.

2 Peter 1:4: Covenant Partners in the Divine Economy?

Wolters notes, importantly, that when ŒØ�ø�� occurs with a genitive, as itdoes here, it typically means ‘partner’ and not ‘partaker’. Such a reading ofthese verses opposes the standard interpretation that understands ç��Ø� torefer to God’s nature as an abstract entity and salvation as an escape into thisfrom the corrupt physical world.15 Wolters’s interpretation is followed byReese, in her Two Horizons commentary on 2 Peter,16 and will receive further

12 $ı��g� —��æ� �Fº� ŒÆd I��º� �Å�F �æØ��F �E� N��Ø�� E� ºÆåF�Ø� ��Ø�K��Ø-ŒÆØ��z �F Ł�F ��H� ŒÆd �ø�Bæ� �Å�F �æØ��F; ‘Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle ofJesus Christ, To those who have received a faith as precious as ours through the righteousness ofour God and Savior Jesus Christ’.

13 This is not to ignore the potential for such language to be assimilated into Gnosticframeworks, or the resources that texts such as this would provide for developing Gnosticthought within Christianity, but in itself this verse is no more Gnostic than other New Testamentwritings.

14 Albert M. Wolters, ‘ “Partners of the Deity”: A Covenantal Reading of 2 Peter 1:4’, CalvinTheological Journal 25 (1990), 28–44.

15 Käsemann, Essays on New Testament Themes, 179–80.16 R. A. Reese, 2 Peter and Jude (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007).


support from Scott Hafemann in his own forthcoming commentary.17 Hafe-mann adds to Wolters’s findings a detailed study of the word ç��Ø�, noting, inparticular, that it is most commonly found as a verbal noun related to the verbç�ø (‘to grow’, ‘to bring forth’, ‘to put forth’, ‘to become’); the verbal dimen-sion points to an active quality to the word, usually overlooked by interpreters,that comports well with the covenantal context and that effectively requires usto consider ç��Ø� as denoting divine activity, not abstract being. Hafemannmay or may not be correct, but his study simply supports an already strongargument fromWolters that, I would suggest, is now further supported by myown arguments for the extent of covenant conceptuality in the New Testa-ment. The cluster of ideas that we encounter in 2 Peter 1:3–4 is one that wehave now found widely. What this means is that 2 Peter 1:4 portrays believersnot as sharing in the divine essence—either in terms of absorption into God orin a Platonic sense—but rather as those who are in covenant with God,constituting his people and actively cooperating with his will and intentionsfor the world.

The Activity of the Believer in Partnershipwith the Divine Nature

Any discussion of 2 Peter 1:4 in relationship to deification must also engagewith the following verses, where the believer, ‘for this very reason’, is enjoinedto:

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

Not for the first time in our study, we find that a New Testament authorstresses the importance of human activity in participation; there is no dis-placement of grace in this, since the grounds of this human effort is the priorgrace of God, his resourcing of the believer by his power, through theknowledge of Jesus. Grace, however, is not experienced passively in thisauthor’s theology: to be a covenant partner, a ŒØ�ø��, is to share inGod’s activity.

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


Having noted this, it is particularly striking that the first and most founda-tional of the virtues listed is faith—the basic trust in God and his promises—and the final climactic one is love. As well as standing in agreement with whatwe have seen widely in the New Testament, the emphasis on love here ensuresthat the conduct and character of the believer share in God’s love for hispeople. It is significant that ‘godliness’ (�P��ØÆ) precedes and is the founda-tion for brotherly affection (çØºÆ��ºç�Æ) and then love (Iª��Å); the orderreflects the fact that loving conduct towards fellow believers18 is an outwork-ing of likeness to God. Such likeness, though, is a dynamic emulation of God’scharacter, not a restored Adamic quality, the protoplast being absent from2 Peter’s paraenetic schema.

JAMES

It must be acknowledged that the Letter of James offers limited evidence of aparticipatory theology. The associations between this letter and a more Heb-raistic form of Christianity, one much more informed by the wisdom tradi-tion, may lead some to suggest that the relative lack of evidence for aparticipatory soteriology in this letter supports the conclusion that suchparticipatory concepts grew out of contact with Hellenism, of the kind thatis reflected in Paul and John. Such a conclusion, when set in the context of thisstudy, can already be seen to be specious: we have demonstrated already thatunion with Christ is a participatory concept governed by covenantal conceptsand the effects of Scriptural passages, not an absorption of Hellenistic con-ceptuality. Instead, a more natural contrastive comparison is that of thewisdom literature that is clearly of influence upon James: this literature, too,is often seen to lack covenantal features or evidence of Torah piety. At times inthe past, scholarship has drawn sharp lines between wisdom and Torah andwisdom and apocalyptic, but those lines have increasingly been recognized forwhat they truly are: distinctions of genre and emphasis, rather than necessarilyideology.Such a recognition may allow us to see James as lacking an explicit theology

of participation precisely because of its generic characteristics: it is primarily asapiential work and, as such, is less conspicuously covenantal in content. Infact, the very lack of participatory language in the letter may support ourbroader case for participation being a covenantally governed concept: as asapiential work, with less of an emphasis on covenantal imagery and language,

18 That fellow believers are the objects of love is required by the use of çØºÆ��ºç�Æ; the scopeof Iª��Å may be broader, but there is nothing in the letter to confirm this.


the primary associations of union with Christ, it might be predicted on thebasis of our thesis that it would largely lack reference to participation.

Such is indeed the case. Nevertheless, there are minor points within theletter where interesting points of language and concept occur that may beconsistent with an assumed theology of union. I stress, these do not constituteconclusive evidence that James has such a theology. Taken by itself, this couldnot, I think, be argued convincingly. But, when James is set in the context ofthe early Christian theology revealed elsewhere in the New Testament, andwhen its generic character is taken into account—in other words, when it isproperly related to the canon of the New Testament—these elements areconsistent with the view that James can be appropriately situated within atheological context that includes a doctrine of participatory union.

New Birth and Revelation in James 1:18

First, it is notable that in James 1:18, there is a now familiar cluster of images:

In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that wewould become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

While the terminology is a little different from that seen in Paul, John, andPeter, the ideas are consistent: there has been the birth (I��Œ�Å��) of a newreality, by an act of revelation described as ‘the word of truth’, so that thosewho have been generated in this way constitute ‘firstfruits’ (I�Ææå �) of hiscreatures. There is an underlying eschatological thrust to this, of an inaugur-ated kind: the new act of revelation has inaugurated an as yet incompletesalvation.19 The previous verse is also noteworthy in its description of the giftsthat come down from the Father of Lights. As the introduction to 1:18, theprimary significance of ‘gift’, particularly when coordinated with the title givento God as the source of light, is a revelatory one. God reveals, and truerevelation comes from above (not below, as some would understand wisdomliterature to typically emphasize). In a sense, then, James happily introducesapocalyptic language to his sapiential instruction, of a kind that we have seenelsewhere to be explicitly associated with the epistemic dimensions of partici-pation. What this means is that the whole framework of wisdom that under-pins the latter, the conceptuality of being wise and manifesting that wisdom inaction, is, in fact, an apocalyptic or revelatory one (3:15), something reflectedin the description of Jesus as ‘glorious’ in 2:1.

19 This eschatological dimension of James has been explored by Todd C. Penner, The Epistleof James and Eschatology: Re-Reading an Ancient Christian Letter (Sheffield: Sheffield AcademicPress, 1996), who provides a full overview of the previous debates and exposes the weaknesses ofthose who claim a simplistic imminent eschatology.


Divine Presence and Righteousness in James

It is also noteworthy that James operates with a strong theology of ‘presence’and that this is linked to ‘righteousness’ (2:23, 3:18). The imagery of 4:8 isspecifically the image of presence supported by the language of cultic purity,given moral significance:

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners,and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Kªª��Æ�� fiH Ł�fiH ŒÆd KªªØ�E ��E�. ŒÆŁÆæ��Æ�� å�EæÆ�, ±�Ææ�øº� , ŒÆd ±ª��Æ��ŒÆæ��Æ�, ��łıåØ.

We must be careful not to over-press the significance: there is nothing in thisverse to equate God’s presence with Christ. At the same time, the wider contextspeaks further of friendship with the world as enmity with God (� çØº�Æ �F

Œ��ı �åŁæÆ �F Ł�F K��Ø�) and links this particular image of good or badfellowship with a reference to the indwelling spirit. Whether this refers to theHoly Spirit’s jealous guarding of righteousness or to the human spirit as cor-rupted by envy is amatter of scholarly debate.20 It is interesting, though, that thisparticular ‘interior’ reality is matched by another one elsewhere: as we have seen,the ‘birth’ referred to in 1:18 is grounded in the revelatory act of the word, andthat word is later described as ‘implanted’ (��çı��) and powerful (�ı��)to save souls. In both Paul and John, such linking of interior presence and poweris specifically tied to the Spirit of Christ.Might the coordination of such languagehere reflect an underlying christological pneumatology of the same kind?Whether or not this is convincing, there is enough on display in James to

convince that we are dealing with a sapiential text shaped by an apocalyptictheology. Given the importance of the apocalyptic dimension to everythingthat we have seen thus far concerning participation, this means that at the veryleast, James is compatible with such theology and, if anything, the relative lackof participatory language, when compared to the similar lack of covenantallanguage in James, supports our findings regarding covenant and union.

REVELATION

We saw in Chapter 7 that Revelation employs temple imagery in its descrip-tion of the eschatological bride as the New Jerusalem. We noted, too, that this

20 Luke Timothy Johnson, The Letter of James: A New Translation with Introduction andCommentary (New York: Doubleday, 1995), rejects the possibility that it is the Holy Spirit; bycontrast, Ralph P. Martin, James (Waco: Word Books, 1988), whose discussion providesextensive further bibliography, upholds this possibility.


forms the climax of a particular narratival contrast between Babylon andJerusalem that is participatory in character, to the extent of being developedusing sexual language. In this chapter, we will note the distinctive grammaremployed in the opening chapter of Revelation and link this to the titles usedof Jesus, as these in turn relate to the portrayal of the believer’s participation inhis martyrdom.

Suffering witness (martyrdom) and victory are key themes in Revelation,treated in fundamentally apocalyptic terms: the suffering and death of theLamb and of his followers looks like defeat when viewed in worldly terms butunderstood in relation to the revealed purposes of God, it is the triumph of theLion of Judah (Rev 5:5–6, cf. 14:4).21 Importantly, there is only one Lamb, andhis is the victory that gives meaning to the martyrdom of his people. Through-out Revelation, the Scriptures are used in the development of this reconfigur-ation, never simply quoted but always reworked. At key points, thoseScriptures are used with obvious and strategic covenantal overtones, such asin Rev 1:6, where, in terms reminiscent of 1 Peter 2:9, the church is describedas ‘the kingdom, priests’ (cf. Exodus 19:6).

Participatory Language in Revelation 1 and the Titles of Jesus

The titles used of Jesus in 1:5 are important to the martyrological concern ofthe author. He is ‘the witness, the faithful one, the firstborn from the dead andthe ruler of the kings of the earth’. He is further praised as the one ‘who lovesus and has freed us by his blood’. It is noteworthy that even as the sovereigntyof Jesus is described, and his salvific role, the first title used is ‘the witness’.This will establish a key theme that runs throughout the book.

In 1:9, John begins to introduce his christological vision with a descriptionof himself in relation to his addressees:

I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution and thekingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos becauseof the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

�¯ªg �ø��Å�, › I��ºçe� ��H� ŒÆd �ıªŒØ�ø�e� K� �fi B Łº�ł�Ø ŒÆd �Æ�Øº��Æfi ŒÆd

��fi B K� �Å�F, Kª��Å� K� �fi B � �øfi �fi B ŒÆºı��z —��øfi �Øa �e� º�ª� �F

Ł�F ŒÆd �c� �Ææ�ıæ�Æ� �Å�F.

The verse appears to be deliberately ambiguous in the way by which it refers tothe witness of Jesus (�c� �Ææ�ıæ�Æ� �Å�F), leaving the reader with the

21 John employs a particular device at key points in the book by which a figure is introducedin speech to the prophet and then seen by him to be quite different. The depiction of the Lion–Lamb in Rev 5:5–6 is an important example: the Lion of Judah is announced as the victor, butJohn sees this figure as a slain lamb. The result is a subversion of expectation based on what isrevealed.


question of whether the genitive is subjective or objective. Does it refer to thewitness that Jesus bears, the witness borne to him, or perhaps the coinherenceof these? That ambiguity is all the more striking because of the use of�ıªŒØ�ø��, ‘fellow-sharer’, in relation to both ‘tribulation’ and ‘Jesus’.22

John shares with his audience a tribulation that is ‘in Jesus’. In fact, this isonly the first of a chain of three nouns, governed by a single article, that closeswith this locative statement. Those three nouns are not synonyms: while‘tribulation’ and ‘endurance’ could be seen as natural partners, ‘kingdom’seems to rupture the pattern. Yet, as already suggested, this reflects the coreapocalyptic strategy of John to identify the victory of God as having beenrealized in the suffering of the Witness. The rule of the Lion is founded on thedeath of the Lamb, whose followers follow wherever he goes. The use of ‘inJesus’ tends to be overlooked as a possible parallel to Paul’s ‘in Christ’ formula.Certainly, it occurs only here. But, as we will see, it reflects John’s wideridentification of the church with the narrative of Jesus.John’s introduction of himself leads into the Christ vision of 1:12–20,

which is, in turn, closely linked to the letters to the churches in chapters2–3. In each of these, elements from the vision are taken up in the designa-tion of the one who addresses the churches, which are themselves depictedas the ‘lampstands’ among which Jesus walks. This, as we have already notedin Chapter 6, is imagery drawn from the temple and depicting divinepresence. In each letter, blessings are promised to ‘the one who conquers’(› �ØŒH�, 2:7, 11, 17, 26, 28; 3:5, 12, 21). This term is often placed at the headof a sentence in a grammatically striking nominative (essentially, nominativependens), despite being the object of divine blessing. Here, as so often inRevelation, John’s grammar calls attention to what effectively becomes atechnical term or title. The expectation of the churches is that they willconsist of conquerors. Such conquest requires a faithfulness that mirrorsthat of Jesus:

Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Beware, the devil is about to throw someof you into prison so that you may be tested, and for ten days you will haveaffliction. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. (2:10)

�Å�b� ç�F L ��ºº�Ø� ��å�Ø�. N�f ��ºº�Ø ��ºº�Ø� › �Ø��º� K� ��H� �N�

çıºÆŒc� ¥ �Æ ��ØæÆ�ŁB�� ŒÆd �� ŁºEłØ� ��æH� ��ŒÆ. ª��ı �Ø��e� ¼åæØ ŁÆ��ı,ŒÆd ��ø �Ø �e� ��çÆ�� B� ÇøB�.

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

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


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

Christian Martyrs and the Victory of the Lamb

Revelation 11 opens with an image of the seer measuring the temple that isdrawn from Ezekiel 40–8. This central motif means that we are dealing, again,with a temple image and that the ‘lampstands’ seen by John must be seen astemple furniture, as previously discussed. Given that the imagery has alreadybeen used of the church, in 1:12, 20 and 2:1, it must here be read as adescription of the Church’s testimony, rather than as an account of specificprophetic figures. The imagery is specifically derived from Zechariah 4 (espe-cially Rev 11:4, cf. Zech 4:2–3), but it is notable that, in Rev 11:6, the twowitnesses are modelled not on Joshua and Zerubbabel (named in Zech 4) buton Moses and Elijah:

They have authority (K�ı��Æ�) to shut the sky, so that no rain may fall during thedays of their prophesying, and they have authority over the waters to turn theminto blood, and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as theydesire. (Rev 11:6)

The power that is mentioned in these verses is provided solely that the twowitnesses may complete their testimony: immediately they have finished theirmarturia, they are attacked and killed by the beast from the sea (11:7). Theirexperience of death explicitly mirrors that of Jesus, though recast using thefamiliar Danielic image of ‘time, times and half a time’ (Dan 7:12): they areraised after three and a half days (Rev 11:11).24 Their resurrection andascension is accompanied by an earthquake in which 7,000 are killed andthe rest of the populace—a remaining nine tenths—of the city turn to God.This inverts the figure of Isaiah 6:13 and Amos 5:3, in which only one tenth aresaved, and that of 1 Kings 19:18, in which only 7,000 glorify God rather thanBaal. As Bauckham notes, the witnesses’ ministry of repentance is ultimatelysuccessful, but only because of their martyrdom:

The reason why the prophetic ministry of the two witnesses has an effectunparalleled by their Old Testament precedents lies in their participation in thevictory of the Lamb . . .When they too maintain their witness even to death andare seen to be vindicated as true witnesses, then their witness participates in thepower of his witness to convert the nation.25

23 Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1993), 83.

24 Note, though, that the martyrs are not buried.25 Bauckham, Climax of Prophecy, 280–1.


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

The Agency of the Spirit in Martyrological Participation

How, though, is such participation to be achieved? Is it simply throughmimesis of the example left by Jesus? Does all of this point to an apocalypticaccount of salvation that is essentially grounded in the performance of mar-tyrdom? John repeatedly stresses the fact that the grounds of Christian salva-tion is the death of Jesus and that the key to Christian liberation is his blood(see for example 5:9–10). Here, as elsewhere in the New Testament, there is anatonement theology at work of a kind that a theology of moral example cannotaccommodate.To this may be added the fact that John presents the Spirit as being the key

agent in the divine purposes for the world and as the co-agent of the church’sown activity. This is seen most explicitly in Rev 22:17, where the Spirit and theBride together say, ‘Come’. This climactic expression of the Bride’s giving ofherself into the presence of her Groom is shared with the agency of the Spirit.The two, as in Paul, speak together, with one voice.This description of the Spirit’s co-agency with the church is anticipated by

the description of the Spirit as ‘the Seven Spirits before the throne’ in 1:4,which is bound to the description of the church as seven lampstands in1:12–13. We have already noted the evidence that the seven spirits representthe Holy Spirit.26 Further support for the divine identification of the sevenspirits can be found in the grammar employed here. Although governed byI�� (‘from’) and occurring in the appropriate genitive case (�H� ��a

��ı��ø�), when John further specifies the location of the spirits as ‘beforethe throne’ he uses the nominative form of the relative pronoun (L). This isstriking because he exhibits the same grammatical defiance in his divine titlesfor God, ‘the one who is and was and is to come’ (› J� ŒÆd › q� ŒÆd ›

Kæå��) and Jesus, ‘the witness, the faithful one . . . ’ (I�e �Å�F �æØ��F,› ��æ�ı�, › �Ø�� . . . ). Both are qualified with terms in the nominative,rather than the expected genitive.The depiction of the Spirit as Seven Spirits is drawn, according to Bauck-

ham, from John’s exegesis of Zechariah 4:1–14:

If we wonder why he should have attached such importance to this obscure visionof Zechariah, the answer no doubt lies in the word of the Lord which he would

26 See the discussion in Chapter 7.


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

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

THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS

The most important participatory material in the Synoptic Gospels is foundin the accounts of the Last Supper, which have already been considered. Atthis point in our study, several more general issues may be noted before wefocus on two interesting passages in Matthew’s gospel. Behind these generalobservations lies a vital methodological consideration: the Synoptic Gospels,despite representing the earliest traditions of the New Testament (andincreasingly valued as witnesses to these),28 are some of the later NewTestament material to have been committed to writing. As such, theywould have circulated in ecclesial contexts already informed by the earlierPauline writings (at least) and any departure from the theology of thosewritings would require to be made explicitly; otherwise, a common theologycan be assumed and detected in otherwise minor or general details. Thegrowth of performance criticism29 in recent years has also highlighted thisecclesiastical context and, in particular, has called attention to the Eucharisticsetting in which the Gospels would have been read. The following generalobservations are significant in relation to what we have seen elsewhere inour study.

27 Bauckham, Climax of Prophecy, 163.28 Important recent studies have pushed scholarship in this direction, although they have not

convinced all scholars. See Samuel Byrskog, Story as History – History as Story: The GospelTradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000); RichardBauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans 2006).

29 See the discussion of this in Chapter 8.


GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON PARTICIPATIONIN THE GOSPELS

First, a significant volume of recent gospel scholarship has recognized thewidespread presence, traceable to the Jesus traditions themselves, of a restora-tion theology.30 Even if particular details of the scholarly works have notconvinced,31 the general thrust is more widely accepted. The importance ofthis lies in the covenant framework of such theology: the story of Israel isbroadly evoked within the gospel narratives through various elements such asthe baptism in the Jordan, the wilderness temptation, and the appointment ofthe Twelve, and this evocation becomes explicitly covenantal in the LastSupper accounts, as we have seen.Second, at least in Matthew and Mark there is an important emphasis on

the revelation of wisdom, connected to an underlying apocalyptic theology.32

In both gospels, Jesus is both the revealer and the revealed, the subject and theobject of revelation. For Matthew, Jesus is the great sage, revealing the will ofGod in five or six major blocks of teaching,33 with an authority that isfrequently stressed by the evangelist and eventually identified as that of theSon.

All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Sonexcept the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone towhom the Son chooses to reveal him. (Matt 11:27)

This remarkable statement, often described as the ‘Johannine thunderbolt’because of its similarity to the language of the Fourth Gospel, is shared withLuke (10:22). In keeping with the tendency that we have seen in both Paulineand Johannine theology, it involves an inversion of human standards ofwisdom: truth has been hidden from the wise and intelligent and revealed toinfants (Matt 10:25). That truth is nothing less than knowledge of God theFather, made possible by the Son’s unique revelatory capabilities that are here

30 Most obviously Sanders, Jesus and Judaism; Wright, The New Testament and the People ofGod, and Jesus and the Victory of God. For a more recent treatment, see also Steven M. Bryan,Jesus and Israel’s Traditions of Judgement and Restoration (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2002). At the level of the Gospels themselves, the discussions have often concerned theliterary development of such theology, particularly in terms of the textual influence of SecondIsaiah. See, for example, Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus and Mark.

31 Wright’s emphasis on the thoroughgoing motif of ‘exile and return’ has faced particularcriticism. See Newman (ed.), Jesus & the Restoration of Israel.

32 On such an element in Matthew, see Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and InauguratedEschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, chapter 4; on Mark, see Howard ClarkKee, ‘Mark’s Gospel in Recent Research’, Interpretation 32 (1978), 353–68; and, for a more recentspecific example, Daniel M. Gurtner, ‘The Rending of the Veil and Markan Christology:“Unveiling” the %ƒ� ¨�ı (Mark 15:38–39)’, Biblical Interpretation 15 (2007), 292.

33 See Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism andEarly Christianity , 124, for comments on this.


contingent specifically upon his Sonship, itself disclosed in the gospel. Luke’smention of the Holy Spirit (10:22) does not displace the ‘Sonly’ nature of thisrevelation, but relates it to that evangelist’s pneumatological concerns.Mark lacks an explicit statement to parallel the Johannine thunderbolt, but

nevertheless develops an account of salvation that centres on the disclosure ofJesus’s identity as Son. The centurion’s proclamation, ‘Surely this was the Sonof God’, is set in apposition to the rending of the temple veil (Mark 15:39) andhas been seen as the climactic moment of ‘apocalypse’ in the gospel narra-tive.34 The moment in which the divine identity of Jesus as the Son is trulyrecognized is the same moment in which the barrier to God’s presence in thetemple is rent asunder. The same connection is found in Matthew (Matt27:50–4), where it is also accompanied by a proleptic event of resurrection.

Luke, for his part, modifies the centurion’s declaration, emphasizing insteadthe innocence of Jesus. There may be various reasons for this, but one is thatLuke links the recognition of Jesus and his true identity to the resurrection,more than to the crucifixion, as illustrated by the story of the two on the roadto Emmaus (Luke 24:13–52) and, of course, by the story of Paul’s ownconversion with the Risen Jesus (Acts 9:1–9). Luke is also concerned, as wehave already begun to note, with the connection between this revelation andthe role of the Spirit: Jesus’s declaration of his Sonly revelation is made in thepower of the Spirit, the enlightenment of the two in Emmaus is followed by thepromise that they, and the other disciples, will be ‘clothed with power from onhigh’, and Paul’s encounter on the Damascus road is followed by his ownreception of the Spirit at the hands of Ananias. That last detail is rather moresignificant than might at first appear: the Spirit is not received in isolation butin community with the church.

C. Kavin Rowe has recently unpacked the significance of these elements inthe Lukan accounts, arguing that Luke’s theology presents the gospel as arevelation—an apocalypse—that is not simply a matter of disclosure of intel-lectual content, but of the formation of a people.35 Rowe’s thesis constitutes abasic challenge to the standard view of Luke’s agenda, that it is pro-Romanpolemic. Instead, he proposes that Luke presents the church as a Spirit-constituted counter-cultural reality, participating in the apocalypse of Jesus,the eschatological disclosure of God.

These Synoptic emphases on covenant and revelation constitute significantpoints of overlap with Pauline and Johannine theologies of participation. Theyemerge less explicitly, and there is not the clear identification of cognitiveincapacity that we find in Paul and John (though this may be implied by the

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

Oxford University Press, 2009).


blindness of the disciples prior to Pentecost), but they are at least consistentwith the assumption that the communities associated with the Gospels under-stood themselves to be participants in the eschatological apocalypse of the Godof Israel.

The Easy Yoke of Matthew 11:28–30

Having noted these general points, we may now consider two suggestiveimages specific to Matthew’s gospel. The first is that of the yoke (Çıª��), inMatt 11:28–30. I have argued elsewhere that this should not primarily beunderstood as an allusion to Sirach 6 (or 51) and, hence, as evidence ofMattheanWisdom Christology.36 Neither is the parallel with the interpretativestrategy of a Rabbi37 sufficient to account for the terminology: the Mattheanimage is preceded by the ‘Johannine thunderbolt’ (discussed in ‘GeneralObservations on Participation in the Gospels’, pp. 291–2), which presentsJesus’s revelatory capacities in entirely different terms, and is, in fact, contra-dicted by the fact that Jesus’s interpretations of the law are anything but easy(Matt 5:17–48). Rather, the yoke image evokes the divine covenant by meansof an allusion to Jeremiah 2:20 and 5:5, where Israel is condemned for castingoff God’s yoke. There may also be messianic overtones to the statement,contrasting Jesus with Rehoboam (1 Kings 12; 2 Chron 10), who made theyoke placed upon the people heavy,38 but even these overtones proceed froman underlying assumption that the Davidic king’s role is determined by thedivine covenant.Given this, the primary significance of the yoke image is that it depicts the

people of Jesus as bound to him as servants. This union is one that bringsblessing and rest, but not because of a diminution of the law’s moral demands:Jesus, if anything, intensifies those demands in the Sermon on the Mount.Rather, the context forces us to see the restfulness of this yoke as lying inits connection to the Son’s disclosure of the Father. Those who serve Jesuswill find rest because they know God; their union with him will centre onrevelation.

36 See Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism andEarly Christianity, 144–52.

37 Contra Hans Dieter Betz, The Sermon on the Mount: A Commentary on the Sermon on theMount, including the Sermon on the Plain (Matthew 5:3–7:27 and Luke 6:20–49) (Minneapolis:Fortress Press, 1995), 215. See my comments in Macaskill, Revealed Wisdom and InauguratedEschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, 127.

38 There are some striking parallels, but the yoke in 1 Kings 12 and 2 Chron 10 is not qualifiedby ‘my’; in fact, the possessives designate it as the people’s yoke. By contrast, the yoke of Jeremiah2:20 and 5:5 is ‘my yoke’. The shared terminology would allow the two sets of passages to liebehind Matthew 11:28–30, while the first person possessive ensures that the Jeremiah image isthe controlling one.


‘Whatever you did to the least of these, my brothers, youdid to me’ (Matthew 25:31–46)

The second image is that of the Son of Man on the throne of his glory and hisidentification with ‘the least of these, my brothers’ in Matthew 25:31–46(esp. 40, 45). We noted briefly, in Chapters 1 and 4, that the corporateinterpretation of the Son of Man title, particularly where developed in Danielicterms in the Synoptic apocalypse (Mark 13 and parallels), is highly problem-atic, despite being popular in many quarters of New Testament studies. Here,though, the Son of Man identifies himself with ‘the least of these, my brothers’(��ø� �H� I��ºçH� �ı �H� KºÆå��ø�): whatever has been done to one ofthese has been done to him. How are we to understand this, if we acknowledgethe problems of the corporate interpretation of the Son of Man?

A proper reading of this passage requires some reflection on the way inwhich Matthew appears to make use here of the Parables (Similitudes) ofEnoch. There have been long-running debates concerning the origin of thislatter book, whether it is Jewish or Christian, and whether it predates the NewTestament writings. The recent publication of Nickelsburg and VanderKam’scommentary, however, has all but established its pre-Christian Jewish proven-ance.39 The strong parallel between Matthew 25:31–46 and 1 Enoch 62:3,where we also read of ‘the Son of Man seated on the throne of his glory’,then, is likely to be the result of the influence of The Parables on the NewTestament, and not vice versa.

And one group of them will look at the other; and they will be terrified and willcast down their faces, and pain will seize them when they see that Son of Manseated on the throne of [his] glory.40

While undoubtedly influenced by Daniel 7:9–14 (which is also, of course, partof the background to Matthew 25), the Enochic figure is widely consideredto be a composite, fusing Daniel’s Son of Man with the Isaianic Servant. Onekey title for the individual, ‘Chosen One’, is probably derived from Isaiah42:1, and the description of the Son of Man as the ‘light of the Gentiles’ in 1Enoch 48:4 probably reflects the influence of Is 42:6 and 49:4. Importantly,just as Isaiah is marked by an alternation between the singular figure of

39 G. W. E. Nickelsburg and J. C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of1 Enoch, Chapters 37–82 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011).

40 Translation from George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. Vanderkam, 1 Enoch: A NewTranslation: Based on the Hermeneia Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), 80. Thepossessive ‘his’ is dropped from ‘throne’ in this translation, but is well represented and isreflected in other translations such as that of Ephraim Isaac, ‘1 (Ethiopic Apocalypse of)Enoch’, in J. C. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Volume 1, ApocalypticLiterature and Testaments (New York: Doubleday, 1983), 43.


the Servant and the plural servants,41 and by the use of the descriptive ‘chosen’for both the Servant and God’s people,42 so the Parables speak of both the‘Chosen One’ and the ‘chosen ones’,43 the latter term denoting the savedcommunity, also described as ‘the righteous’.44 The overlap in terminology,then, certainly allows for some notion of solidarity existing between the Son ofMan and his people,45 but, crucially, this seems to be the result of Isaianic andnot Danielic influence. Interestingly, no scholar of 1 Enoch would argue thatthe Son of Man is a corporate figure, per se: he is rather an individual insolidarity with a people.Matthew 25:31 draws on 1 Enoch 62:3 and 5, where the figure of the Son

of Man—identified as the Messiah in 1 Enoch 48:10 (under the influence ofPsalm 2:2) and 52:4—is associated with the divine throne: it is, as in Matthew,the throne of ‘his glory’. It is possible that the reason for this allusion liesspecifically in the solidarity between the Chosen Son of Man and the chosenones who are his people. As we have just observed, such a relationship ofsolidarity is a clear feature of the Parables, where it appears to have beenderived from Deutero-Isaiah. There may be little in Matthew 25:31–46,beyond the basic notion of solidarity, to lend further support to this, sincethere is nothing to indicate that the phrase ‘the least of these my brothers’ hasbeen derived from the Enochic text. Nevertheless, the striking parallel with theParables provides a strong explanation for the corporate solidarity of the Sonof Man with his brothers, one that is not fraught with the same difficultiesassociated with the corporate interpretation of the Danielic Son.

CONCLUSIONS

The purpose of this chapter has been to examine the further participatoryelements that are encountered throughout the New Testament, in order toensure that the descriptive task of biblical studies is properly fulfilled. Giventhe breadth of what has been covered in this chapter, there is inevitably lesscohesion than has been the case in previous chapters and the material does not

41 The latter, e.g., in 54:17, 56:6, 63:17, 65:8–15, 66:14.42 Cf., 41:8–9 and 44:1–2 with 42:1; note particularly the combination in Isaiah 43:10: ‘you are

my witnesses and my servant whom I have chosen’.43 E.g. in 1 Enoch 45:3, where both singular and plural occur.44 E.g. 1 Enoch 45:6, where the term occurs in connection to the ‘chosen ones’ named in the

previous verses.45 John J. Collins, ‘The Heavenly Representative: The “Son of Man” in the Similitudes of

Enoch’, in John J. Collins and G. W. E. Nickelsburg (eds), Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism(Chico, Calif: Scholars Press, 1980), 111–33, 112–16.


lend itself as naturally to the isolation of a set of general conclusions. Never-theless, the following points may be noted.

First, we have continued to encounter covenant imagery and language, withparticipatory significance. In 1 Peter, this is made clear by the opening allusionto Exodus 24:8 (also the backdrop to the Eucharistic expression ‘the blood ofthe covenant’). In 2 Peter 1:4, covenant language is found in a text often citedas proof for the doctrine of deification, but where we have seen believers to beportrayed as covenant-partners in the divine economy. In the Gospels, itemerges particularly in the restoration theology that must be read in thelight of the sacraments.

Second, we have continued to see an emphasis on the link between partici-pation and illumination. The Elect Lamb of 1 Peter has been ‘revealed’, but hissignificance is incomprehensible to those outside the community of faith, forwhom he is a stumbling block. James links new birth to the implanting of theword. The Apocalypse is, of course, premised upon the fact that the truth ofJesus must be revealed and appears absurd to those who have not received thepower to understand that the death of the Lamb is the victory of the Lion. TheSynoptic Gospels emphasize that only those with ears to hear and eyes to seerecognize the truth of Jesus.

Third, at least in 1 Peter and in Matthew, participatory elements aredeveloped using the imagery of the Isaianic Servant. In Matthew, this appearsto lie behind his use of the Parables of Enoch in depicting the Son of Man onhis throne as being united to his brethren; in 1 Peter it emerges from a broaderand more explicit allusion to the fourth Servant song.

Fourth, in 1 Peter and Revelation, we have continued to see the Spiritpresented as the agent of union between believers and Christ, as the onewho realizes his identity in the church. This is more modestly the case in1 Peter, where the Spirit’s role is primarily associated with the revelation oftruth. In Revelation, though, it is thoroughly worked out as part of a schemathat involves the co-agency of the Spirit with the activity of the Bride.

Fifth, closely linked with the previous conclusion is an emphasis in all of thetexts studied on the importance of the activity of believers in salvation. Whilethe priority of grace is maintained throughout the documents studied, eachalso resists the notion that this is received passively. The covenant partners ofGod in 2 Peter 1:5–8 make every effort to add virtue to faith; the martyrs ofRevelation wash themselves in the blood of the Lamb; faith without works isdead for James; those who come to Matthew’s divine Son take his yoke uponthemselves. Each of these texts requires a concept of faith that recognizes thepriority of grace, but does not diminish the responsibility of response or,indeed, the ultimately transformative intention of the salvation envisaged.


12

Conclusions

This book has involved a broad study of participation in the New Testament,of the nature of the union between God and humanity, informed by the studyof historical theology and, to a lesser extent, systematic theology. Our task wasdescriptive, requiring the coverage of a range of material that could not alwaysbe accommodated to a defined argument. Nevertheless, a number of keypoints have emerged with impressive consistency. Given the breadth of whathas been covered, both biblical and theological, the present chapter is intendedas a synthesis of the conclusions reached in relation to the various sourcesthat have been examined, rather than simply as a rehearsal of the findings ofeach chapter.

COVENANT

It should perhaps come as no surprise, given the place of covenant language inthe Last Supper and Eucharist accounts, that participation in Christ is spokenof in covenantal terms, with repeated allusion to key Scriptural texts that arecovenantally oriented, such as Ezekiel 36–7 and, as impressively, the Servantsongs of Isaiah. Such a finding goes against the drift of much contemporaryNew Testament scholarship, which has argued for a more limited spread ofcovenantal thought in the New Testament. Yet, we have noted that Paul’slanguage of the New Covenant in the revelatory account 2 Cor 3–5 is embed-ded into the wider themes of his writing, that John’s use of the ‘I am’ sayingsand treatment of the Feasts is covenantal in shape, that Hebrews is groundedon the notion of the eternal covenant, that Peter’s account of the churchproceeds from the election of the Servant and his ratification of the covenant.The widely found image of the temple is also linked to this, since the temple isthe central symbol of covenant blessing.Repeatedly, too, we have stressed that the use of glory language in the New

Testament signifies divine presence. This is unavoidably linked to the coven-ant concept, with its temple symbolism, and the key is that, set in covenant

terms, that relational presence is formalized with binding commitments. Therelationship, like a marriage, is a legal one. The formalizing of relationship thatis essential to the covenant concept also underlies the theme of filiation thatruns through the Bible. Israel, in the covenant, is adopted as God’s son;believers, in the new covenant, are similarly adopted. The prominence offiliation as a theme in the Fathers, notably in Justin Martyr, reflects a sensitiv-ity to the presence of the theme in Scripture and a maintenance of covenantconceptuality, even where the word is not used.

This covenantal framework must serve as the starting point for reflection onparticipation or union with Christ. That starting point must involve a recog-nition that, as the Elect One, the Messiah, Jesus is the covenant representative.His life and death are doubly significant in covenant terms. Born ‘under thelaw’, he fulfils the conditions and takes the curse of the old covenant, and hisblood serves to ratify the new covenant. The use of the term ‘the eternalcovenant’ in Hebrews 13:20 and the various passages that indicate that theelection of Christ took place before the foundation of the world may suggestless the atemporal, non-narratable gospel advocated by Watson and more the(now unfashionable) Reformed concept of the pactum salutis.1 Importantly,the covenant is not an external set of conditions to which Christ conforms: heis the new covenant (cf. Isaiah 42:6, 49:8), it is in his blood.

To be united to Jesus, to be in him, is to be in the covenant through hisrepresentative headship. Thus, it is to be in a condition of covenantal commu-nion with God, with the covenant-fulfilment of Jesus serving as the groundsfor our own communion. In Christ, we keep the covenant. The concept of‘righteousness’ is linked to this. For all the contemporary unease about legalconcepts of ‘righteousness’ and particularly that of the imputation of right-eousness, the fact is that the concept is linked to covenant fidelity. That is notjust a relational or social reality, a matter of belonging to the people of God, itis one in which the relationship is legally formalized. The ‘righteousness ofGod’ is a description of his character-in-covenant. To see the legal dimensionsof this in relational terms dissolves the dichotomy between participatory andforensic understandings of the term, just as it dissolves the dichotomy betweenthe objective and subjective genitive. In the covenant-in-Christ, God’s ownrighteousness is our righteousness. This recognition of the connection betweenthe legal and relational dimensions of covenant is seen in the interest nowbeginning to be taken in the relationship between justification and adoption.

The theme of covenant has been developed most thoroughly in theReformed tradition, with some interesting reflections on how the contractualdimension that is inherent to the concept may be maintained in the context ofan emphasis on the absolute primacy of grace. It is less obviously developed in

1 This has recently been positively reclaimed by Webster, ‘ “It Was the Will of the Lord toBruise Him”: Soteriology and the Doctrine of God’.


patristic accounts of salvation, but it is by no means absent from these. Theirinterest in the story of Israel broadly recognizes the status of that nation inrelation to the covenant, but, more importantly, the consistent emphasis onthe place of the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, means that the coven-antal significance of the death of Jesus is always proclaimed.

SOLIDARITY AND EXCHANGE

Crucial to this theme of covenant participation is the notion of ‘exchange’.What has emerged throughout this study is the extent to which the NewTestament develops this theme with reference to the fourth Servant songof Isaiah (Is 52:13–53:12). Such findings, while supported by a good deal ofrecent scholarship on specific parts of the New Testament, run contrary to acommon scholarly tendency to downplay the significance of the fourth Ser-vant song for the New Testament accounts of atonement. Our findings suggestthat, in fact, this text was key to the theology of atonement and exchange in theNew Testament, alluded to in the traditional accounts of the Eucharist and inthe arguably pre-Pauline hymn of Philippians 2.The Servant songs are characterized by a broadly messianic emphasis, in the

sense that the figure of the Servant is identified as Davidic and his role isdefined in relation to the Davidic covenant. Recent scholarship has alsorecognized the interpretative significance of the move from singular to plural(or collective addressees) in the Isaianic material, allowing readers to considerhow the singular figure of the Servant might relate to plurality of otherservants.The fourth Servant song is significant because the suffering of this Servant is

understood in some kind of substitutionary sense. ‘He’ suffers and, becauseof this, ‘we’ or ‘they’ are healed. I have suggested that covenant makes sense ofthis idea of representation, providing a framework within which the storyof the one can be understood to be significant for the other. What must now beacknowledged is that this account of exchange or representation is inescapablyforensic in tone. The suffering of the Servant is ‘punishment’ (Is 53:5) and therationale for this is that ‘the iniquity of us all were laid on him’ (Is 53:6). At thesame time, the benefits that are ensured by this substitution are not simply ofpardon or imputation of status, although he will make many righteous bybearing their sin (Is 53:11): the language that is used instead emphasizeshealing (Is 53:5), representing the problem of sin as disease (Is 53:4).This requires us to consider the death of the Servant as forensically or

penally significant, but not to confine it to such significance. The Servant takesthe punishment for sin, but he also takes its sickness into himself and allows itto be destroyed. This, as we will see, requires reflection upon the ontology of

Conclusions 299

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

THE SPIRIT AND FAITH

The new covenant is appropriately described as the covenant of the Spirit(2 Cor 3:6). Across the New Testament, this is reflective of the fact that theSpirit is the gift given within the new covenant, who conforms our being to itsterms by writing those terms on our hearts and realizing our conformity toChrist. In Paul and Peter, though, the Spirit is also involved in the constitutionof the new covenant: Jesus offers himself through the Spirit at the cross andthrough the Spirit he is raised and declared to be the Son of God with power.This emphasis is reflected in the gospel narratives, with the involvement of theSpirit, explicitly at key points of covenant or messianic significance, such asthe baptism and the subsequent temptation.

As the gift of the new covenant, the Spirit makes real to (and in) believers‘the truth as it is in Jesus’. The terms of the covenant are written in their hearts,minds are enabled to grasp the Christoform revelation, and their persons areconformed to his. What this means is that our selves are defined by and,indeed, in another. This is not simply formal but real, because of the Spirit’spresence.

Faith is the inescapable characteristic of the eternal covenant and the Spirit’spresence. The contrasts established in the New Testament set faith against‘fleshly’ or ‘worldly’ senses because it is, at heart, an acceptance of what hasbeen revealed in Christ and is incapable of investigation or comprehension bythe physical senses alone. Again, when understood in covenant (and hencerelational) terms, the distinction between ‘faith’ and ‘faithfulness’ is seen tobe artificial.

It is clear from the totality of the New Testament evidence that faith is anactive reality in the lives of those united to Christ. They are not passive asrecipients of salvation, even though the very faith itself is presented as a giftand as an outworking of the Spirit’s presence. The fact that the verb ‘to believe’is frequently encountered with Christians as the subjects and the related factthat reflexive pronouns are encountered at a number of points in the NewTestament (suggesting that believers do something to themselves in their unionwith Christ) point together to the active quality of Christian faith.

This highlights a further key point: union with Christ is by faith. As far asthe writers of the New Testament are concerned, even those who offer thestrongest statements of God’s universal love, such as John, union with Christ is


limited to those who are the acting subjects of faith. In fact, in the context of allthat we have seen (particularly the theme of covenant sonship), to emphasizethe necessity of faith in this way is not to reduce union with Christ to a legalconcept, but rather to properly acknowledge its relational dimension.Closely linked to this, of course, is the practice of prayer as the relational

outworking of faith. We have touched upon this at points in the discussion,notably in relation to Paul’s account of the ministry of the Spirit in Romans 8,which is one of the great participatory passages in the New Testament.Although we did not consider the Lord’s Prayer in the course of this book, itseems likely that this, too, could be fruitfully considered in relation to partici-pation, with its obvious points of connection to Romans 8. The same may betrue of the material on prayer in James 5.

SACRAMENT AND PRESENCE

The three themes just outlined come together in the sacraments. These havean important social dimension, marking the community of faith as distinct,circumscribing its boundaries. That social function is governed by theircovenantal character, seen most clearly in the case of the Eucharist with itscomplex of associations with the Passover and the covenant ratificationceremony of Exodus 24.The symbolism of these sacraments points to the centrality of the death and

resurrection of Jesus to the new covenant and to human participation in this.As we will note in the next section (Ontology, Incarnation, and Trinity), thisbegs ontological questions concerning his humanity and his divinity, of thekind so carefully explored in the theological reflection of the Greek Fathers. Italso requires that accounts of atonement take the death and resurrection ofJesus seriously within the exchange formula. Given this, and given the con-sistent emphasis on the importance of the sacrament among the early Fathers,any suggestion that the Fathers did not recognize the centrality of Jesus’s deathto redemption should be treated with care. In emphasizing the place of thesacrament, they ‘proclaimed his death’ repeatedly.The sacraments do not function as naked symbols, however, or simply as

imaginative acts of remembrance. They are presented as acts of real commu-nion with Christ in Scripture, and the historical debates over the nature of thedivine presence in them is a legacy of a significant element in Scripture.Baptism is described as being ‘into’ the name of Christ, but is also moreradically specified as a union with him (Rom 6), by which believers share inhis death. This participatory identification is consistently portrayed as realizedby the Spirit, by whom believers are bound to (or implanted into) Jesus, and bywhose ministry the narratival character of Jesus is replicated in their lives.

Conclusions 301

There is certainly a kind of analogy between Jesus and his followers, betweenhis experience of the Spirit and theirs, but this is contingent upon a Spirit-generated implanting of believers into his constitutive reality.

If this is true of baptism, it is also true of Eucharist. This is portrayed as aparticipation in the Lord that is intelligible only as a matter of real presence.The communication of properties therein, presented by analogy with the tableof the idol in 1 Cor 10, is a matter of the sharing of a person with another.Again, the presence of the Spirit is central to the reality of the presence ofChrist at the table, indicated by the linking of the cup to the Spirit’s role: ‘youwere all given one Spirit to drink’. This, of course, also underlies the unity ofthe church and the contextual emphasis on Christian love.

It must be stressed that this account of the sacraments necessitates aconcept of participation that is dynamic and personal, that involves thecommunion of one with the Other. Concern to take this element of trans-forming presence seriously marked the historical debates about the nature ofthe bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist, whatever the rights and wrongsof that debate may have been. The criticism of Reformed sacramental theologyby those in the Radical Orthodoxy movement—that it is fundamentallycompromised by a nominalist distinction between the world and God, be-tween natural and supernatural—misses the point that the Reformers tookseriously this biblical emphasis on the wholly other presence of God-in-Christin the sacrament, even if it can appear to take warrant from their debates overthe relationship of signum and res. They took seriously that the Eucharist is atemple meal, in which the Glory itself is present, by which we are transformed.

The sacraments are also fundamentally eschatological, pointing back to theevents of the death and resurrection of Jesus as the establishment of a new ageof fulfilment and pointing forward to his return. They define the church inrelation to these two advents and consequently govern all accounts of Chris-tian morality. Any failure to take seriously the identity of the church inrelation to the still-to-be-consummated purposes of God for the world, or todevelop an account of the church and Christian ethics that leaves no room forthe definitive transformation still to happen in the parousia betrays the verysignificance of the sacraments.

ONTOLOGY, INCARNATION, AND TRINITY

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


of his divinity,2 this immediately begs the ontological question. If we answerthe question ‘Who is Jesus?’ with the identification ‘Yahweh, the God of Israeland Ruler of the Cosmos’, we are unavoidably faced with a range of furtherquestions about how his divinity and his humanity are related and whatimplications this has for individuation within the Godhead. For my part,I do consider Bauckham to be correct in his claim that the ‘who’ question ofdivine identity is primary; but the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ questions cannotthereby be avoided.The incipient Christology and Trinitarianism of the New Testament cannot

be reduced to the gradual compromise of a Jewish sect with Hellenisticreligion, of the confusion of functional with ontological divinity. They emerge,rather, from accounts of the redemptive significance of the person of Jesus andhis identity. Throughout the New Testament writings that we have examined,the real humanity and real divinity of Jesus are affirmed as necessary to thebeliever’s hope of participation in God’s life. In a range of ways, using diverseimages, the writers consider the reason for the Word to become flesh, the Sonto be made like his brothers, to lie in the rapprochement of humanity and God.This restoration is widely, but not solely, represented using the covenantallanguage of filiation and this prompts further reflection on the similarities anddissimilarities between the Sonship of the Logos and the sonship of theChristian. It is clear from the ways in which Christ’s Sonship is depictedthat it belongs in a category of its own, making possible Christian sonship,but not identical to it.This emerges from the distinctive ways in which the Spirit’s role is described

in relation to Jesus and to the believer. The nature of the Son’s dependence onthe Spirit is different from that of the believer, even if there are points ofanalogy. What the Spirit realizes in the believer is the identity of the Son: heunites us to him, allows us to share in his cry of ‘Abba’, implants us into hisdeath and resurrection and conforms us to his likeness. At every point, theidentity of the believer is derived from that of the Son. This relationship ofderivation requires that his Sonship is placed in a distinctive category.The Fathers grappled with this issue in their reflections upon contingency,

and much of the confusion over whether or not their thought is Platonic stemsfrom a failure to appreciate that this issue of contingency is often preciselywhat is at stake. In seeking to comprehend how human being, per se, is linkedto the Incarnate Son who is the image of God, they speak of different kinds oflimited or analogous participation, unpacked in terms of contingency andnon-contingency, but these do not constitute the dynamic participation ofunion with Christ that is experienced by those whose existence is described

2 Bauckham, God Crucified.

Conclusions 303

by the sacraments. For the sacramental community, the Spirit ensures thedynamic communication of the Son’s own presence.From this, it should be clear that the distinction made by Bousset, Schweit-

zer, and Deissmann between God mysticism and Christ mysticism is simplynot tenable in the analysis of the New Testament. As far as the New Testamentwriters are concerned, there is a general consistency to the portrait: God isknown in Christ by the Spirit. For these writers, then, all God mysticism isChrist mysticism and vice versa. While Bousset was correct to see the closenessof identification of being in Christ with being in the Spirit, he was wrong to seethem as identical: the revelation of God is always through his image (Christ),with the Spirit making this revelation real and comprehensible to believers.

APOCALYPTIC UNION AND REVEALED WISDOM

That we are dealing with a basically apocalyptic conceptuality of union is clearfrom the widespread motif of revealed wisdom in the New Testament. Such amotif cannot be seen as confined to the output of any one author, but isattested across the New Testament corpus, though with each writer employingdifferent symbolism to develop this underlying theme. It is striking that Jesusis portrayed not just as revealer but as the revelation itself, so that it is preciselyin knowing him, and not just what he has taught, that true knowledge of Godis to be found. Union must, then, be understood in essentially personal terms,as a revelatory presence. This, in turn, problematizes any theory of Christologythat does not affirm Jesus to be ‘God with us’.

This emphasis on revelatory presence is developed widely in the NewTestament using temple imagery, a common apocalyptic motif. The fact thatwe encounter different configurations of this, with some (Peter, Paul, Luke)presenting the church as temple, others (John) presenting Jesus as the temple,and still others (Hebrews) reflecting on the new right of access to the heavenlytemple, ceases to be a problematic or conflictual diversity when we recognizethat behind each of these images is an emphasis on divine presence asdisclosed reality. In some instances (Colossians and Ephesians, Hebrews),typically in the later books of the New Testament, the authors deploy languagethat has close parallels in the Jewish mystical literature, in which the divinesecrets of the heavenly temples and the divine form are revealed to a seer. Aswe have seen, however, the use of such language is in essential continuity withthe wider apocalyptic themes of the New Testament, so that while distinctive,it is hardly odd.3

3 This point is convincingly developed by Chester, Messiah and Exaltation, 80–121, whotraces the visionary dimension of the New Testament to Jesus himself.


This apocalyptic foundation, particularly given its eschatological aspect, hasbeen misunderstood by a large swathe of New Testament scholarship asrepresenting an invasive activity of God that nullifies its antecedents, includingIsrael and Torah. This, though, has proceeded from a distorted understandingof apocalyptic thought and writings that has not yet been excised from NewTestament scholarship. While apocalyptic may not affirm Torah simply initself, it is a mistake to see it as rejecting Torah and, indeed, its own keycategories, images, and themes are derived from it.What this means is that we must be attentive to the way in which the

revelation that has taken place in Jesus is described in relation to that whichhas preceded it. While this issue must be examined in terms of the use of theOld Testament in the New, especially in terms of prophetic covenant imageryand the positive way in which Abraham and Moses are described, I would alsosuggest that the widespread references to the eternal election of Christ requireus to hold that God’s plans in predestination included the incarnation, not as afall-back or as a response to human failure, but as that which all antecedentsanticipate. Such an understanding allows us to understand the emphasis onpre-Christian ‘faith’ in the New Testament, not as faithful keeping of com-mandments, but as trust in the saving work of God.It should be clear from this that I affirm the designation of participation as

‘apocalyptic’ but resist those accounts that dislocate this from the story ofIsrael and the covenant. In fact, the apocalyptic or epistemic dimension ofunion has a fundamental anthropological significance that is deeply significantfor all Christian theology and moral reflection, and that is upheld in thepatristic emphasis on the transformation of the mind. Only in union withChrist is truth properly comprehended, both the truth of God and of thecosmos. This emerges most clearly in 2 Corinthians 3–5 and in John’s gospel,but the broader emphasis on revelation throughout the New Testamentreinforces the principle. All natural theology must be firmly subordinated tothat which is revealed, for the natural mind is blind to the Glory of God.

PLATONIC PARTICIPATION, THEOSIS ,AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

All of the strands now highlighted allow us to return to the question of thePlatonic dimension of participation in Christian theology. We noted at thebeginning of Chapter 2 that some contemporary theological movements(notably Radical Orthodoxy) positively advocate a recovery of the Platonicdimension of participation and that this, indeed, is part of the modernconfiguration of the doctrine of theosis. Others, meanwhile, have dismissed

Conclusions 305

the biblical and/or patristic accounts as hybridizations of the Jesus traditionswith Platonic thought.

Our examination of the Greek Fathers, drawing on Russell’s study and otherrecent patristic scholarship, highlighted the fact that the adoption of Platoniccategories or language took place at a relatively late stage, in the specificcontext of Alexandria, and was considerably more careful than has oftenbeen assumed. The reconfiguration of Platonic elements in relation to theconcerns of monotheism and the uniqueness of God is substantial, to theextent that it can even be questioned whether the Fathers in question are‘Platonic’ in any meaningful sense of the word. The title of Mark Edwards’srecent study of Origen provocatively highlights this very point: Origen againstPlato. Certainly, the Fathers consider the contingency of existence upon thebeing of God as a kind of participation, and the contingency of human being,specifically, upon the incarnation as another. But these are not the same as thedynamic personal communion that is understood to take place in the experi-ence of those whose faith has united them to Christ, who partake of thesacraments. Only that dynamic and inter-personal participation can trans-form the mind to properly comprehend God and attain moral likeness.

This dynamic participation corresponds to what we have seen to be pre-sented in the New Testament in terms of covenant. This raises the question ofwhether theosis is a valid and helpful term to employ in scholarship onparticipation in the New Testament. For the reasons outlined in Chapter 2,I would suggest that it is not. Theosis is a complex synthesis of different strandsof soteriology and philosophy. In the Alexandrian and Cappadocian context,the use of such terminology allowed the biblical teaching on filiation andsubsequent reflection on the ontology of the incarnation to be explicated incontextually appropriate ways, often motivated by the polemical need torepudiate problematic syntheses of biblical thought with Greek philosophy(such as those of Basilides or Arius). This left a legacy that, in EasternOrthodoxy, became a characteristic way of representing the divine economy.But it is a specific development of the biblical material, not simply a descrip-tion of it. Moreover, it is a doctrine that has continued to develop, acquiringfurther internal distinctions, through the Hesychast controversy and the influ-ence of the Palamite distinction between essence and energies. The fact thatLossky’s account of this is so different from that of Zizioulas highlights the factthat the concept is of little help to the descriptive task of biblical studies.

Despite these cautions, however, and my general reluctance to use the wordtheosis in explicating the biblical teaching, there is much to be gained fromexamining the biblical material in conversation with that tradition. Not leastimportant, in this regard, is the range of ways by which the divine essence isdemarcated from compromise through participation. Even in the cherishedPlatonism of modern theosis the idea that the believer shares in the divineessence is (contra Gorman) inconceivable. In addition, however, the traditions


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

COMMUNAL PURITY, ETHICS, AND THELOVE COMMAND

This brings us to the final necessary observation, concerning Christian ethics.The community that is united to Christ in covenant is represented as theeschatological temple in which the divine Glory abides. As such, it is requiredto be a place of purity (for the specific outworking of this in relation to sexualconduct, see especially 1 Cor 6:18–19) and to be a centre of blessing for theworld, reflecting the cosmic expectations of Isaiah’s messianic temple. Thesetwo characteristics of the temple, operating within the framework of covenant,contribute significantly to the properly Christian configuration of ethics. Theyrequire a recognition that the church’s purity involves categorical separationfrom the world and its values, as the sacramental community of worship, and asimultaneous concern to bring the blessing of God to that world in its verysinfulness.For Paul and John, at least, and probably for all of the New Testament

writers, this requires a negation of the natural self, since that self is blind anddead, incapable of loving God or others. Their anthropology is fundamentallynegative. Only by the indwelling presence of Another can each person bebrought into life and community. Hence, Paul rejoices that he lives, but onlybecause Christ lives in him (Gal 2:20); he loves, but only because he is led bythe Spirit (Gal 5:22). John, too, recognizes that only the presence of the Wordcan cause one to cross from death to life (John 5:24) and only by the mutualabiding of believers with him can they bear fruit (John 15:4–5). Because ofthe eschatological positioning of the church between advents, with the fullredemption of our bodies still to be consummated, the transforming rule ofChrist requires the constant refusal of the natural self, the deliberate andSpirit-empowered orientation of one’s life to God.For this reason, accounts of Christian ethics or moral theology that do not

present participation in terms of dynamic koinonia with God will alwaysstruggle to accommodate the New Testament teaching, particularly on self-denial. Similarly, imitation of Christ is an inadequate account of Christian

Conclusions 307

ethics unless it is embedded within this broader participatory and transforma-tive account.

The social outworking of union with Christ is everywhere evident in theNew Testament, and it is governed by the distinction between the church, ashis body and temple, and the world. There is, therefore, a particular emphasison the love that is to be shown within the community and on the unity andfellowship that is expected of God’s people. In the case of John, this becomesthe new commandment of the new covenant: love one another. Participationin God, then, is participation in the community of God. Union with Christdemands unity in Spirit.


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Index of Selected Topics

Abraham 32, 106–7, 196, 206, 224, 237, 305Abrahamic covenant, see covenant,

AbrahamicAdam 29–30, 57–60, 64, 91, 100, 119, 128–43,

170, 180–1, 231, 237–8, 242, 245, 247glory of 12, 29, 41, 60, 119, 128–32, 133–41,

143, 147, 247robes/garments of 133, 136, 139

Adam Christology 10, 12, 28–9, 41, 128–9,131–2, 143, 237

adoption 51, 58–9, 61, 64, 68, 70, 73, 86, 87–8,105, 196, 205–6, 221–5, 237–43, 254, 267,270, 298

angelomorphic humanity 119–20antichrist 269apocalypse:concept 278, 288, 292–3text 36, 116, 119, 134, 226, 294, 296

apocalyptic:literature 23, 110, 114–16, 149, 179, 181,

186, 226–7, 305readings of Paul 23, 34–8, 78, 171, 219, 231,

250, 305theology 22–3, 25, 40–1, 100–1, 110,

115–6, 142, 179, 231–3, 241, 283–5,285–7, 289, 291, 304–5

ascension 153, 200, 288ascent 52, 60–1, 82, 86–7atonement 17, 19, 40, 97, 114, 125, 157, 179,

181, 191, 193, 223–4, 234–6, 261, 268–9,275–9, 289, 299, 301

autologos 65autotheos 65

baptism 21, 56–7, 63–4, 68, 74, 85, 192–201,217–18, 222, 277, 301

Barth, theology of 7, 33, 36, 51, 78–9, 89,92–9, 223; see also Barth, K. in Index ofModern Authors

blood 57, 61, 161–2, 181–3, 186, 190, 207,210–17, 268–9, 272, 286, 289, 296, 298

body 46–7, 57, 61, 64, 67, 81, 158, 195–6,207–8, 238, 246–7, 275

of Christ 23, 53–4, 71, 74, 84–6, 147,149–50, 152, 156–8, 163, 169–70, 186,196, 208, 210–12, 216

of God 134, 150, 153and Temple 147–60, 169–70

Calvinagainst the Calvinists 88–92theology 37–8, 43, 77–8, 81–2, 82–8, 98–9,

157, 207, 240, 262Christophany 231–2co-crucifixion 27, 220–1, 234–5communicatio idiomatum 69, 81, 94,

156, 193communication 19, 63, 69, 72, 85, 156, 207,

225, 260, 265–6, 302, 304communion 19, 42–3, 45–6, 53, 57–60, 72,

74–5, 98, 186–7, 191–2, 205, 216–17, 243,262, 266, 270, 298, 302, 306

contingency/non-contingency 49, 65, 118,303, 306

corporate personality 22, 53–4, 101–2covenant 30–2, 74, 82, 84, 88–92, 98, 100,

103–6, 110, 114, 127, 196, 206, 211–13,217, 228–9, 236, 243, 261–3, 271–4,280–3, 293, 297–9

Abrahamic 32, 104–7, 224and adoption/election 94–6, 105and apocalyptic 36, 40, 110, 115–16, 179,283, 305

and contract 100, 105and kinship 222and temple 161, 172Davidic 107–8, 113, 293, 299Mosaic 104, 106–8, 110, 190, 272new, see new covenantNoachic 105–6, 277partner 282, 296

crucifixion 155, 221, 225, 292curse 104, 106–8, 189–90, 196, 212, 223–4,

236, 275–6, 298

David 107–9, 112–13, 126, 166, 200,226, 299

Davidic covenant, see covenant, Davidicde jure/de facto participation 96–7deification 20–2, 26, 40, 42–3, 44–5, 54–75,

80, 100, 105, 242, 250, 267, 296duplex cognitio 83duplex gratia 83–6, 268

Eden 133, 137–9, 188–9election 74, 94–7, 99, 205–6, 242–3, 272, 280,

297–8, 305

en Christō ('in Christ') 19–22, 30, 128, 143,149, 151–2, 178, 186, 197, 219, 222, 227,229, 236, 239, 245, 248–9, 287

eschatology 23, 25, 34–6, 47, 61, 64, 68, 74,115–16, 150, 162, 165–70, 183, 191,196–7, 199–200, 222, 225–7, 233, 237–41,246–7, 248, 249, 261, 267–8, 278–9,284–5, 302

Eucharist/Lord's Supper 53–4, 56–7, 68, 70–1,74, 80–1, 86, 192–3, 201–17, 290, 296–7,299, 301–2

exchange 58–9, 61–2, 80–1, 125, 218, 236,299–301

extrinsic incarnational union 70

faith 24, 31–4, 78–84, 87–9, 99, 107, 183–4,186–7, 191, 215, 225–6, 241, 245, 256,270, 278, 283, 296, 300–1, 305–6

and decision 244–5and obedience 264

federal Calvinism 89–92filiation 43, 55–63, 66, 69–70, 73, 87, 196, 242,

298, 303, 306flesh 47, 59, 64, 68–9, 71, 74, 105–6, 172–3,

182–3, 191, 197, 215–16, 225, 233, 237–9,241, 245, 247, 260–1, 266, 269–70, 273,277, 279

flood 105–6, 142, 277–80footwashing 178

gift 72, 74, 80–1, 88, 161, 176–7, 183, 243–5,248, 254–6, 261, 270, 300

'gift theology' 78, 88glorification 9, 45, 47, 61, 128, 130, 151, 232,

242, 251, 265glory 60, 65, 100, 110–14, 116–20, 124, 127–8,

134–6, 139, 142, 147, 150–3, 159–61, 164,170, 173, 180–1, 228–33, 238, 241–2, 247,265–6, 278–9, 297, 307

of Adam, see Adam, glory ofGlory Christology 110–13

headship 91, 149–50, 154, 298Hekhalot 114, 117, 134hope 108, 112, 115, 160, 162, 226, 261, 268,

278, 303

‘I am’ sayings 176–8, 215–16, 251–2, 257–63,265, 269–70, 297

illumination 68–9, 296image 45, 60, 64, 68, 71, 74, 80, 97, 130–1,

135–6, 139, 197, 230–1, 241–2, 303–4imitation of Christ 63, 85, 178, 184, 186–7,

190–1, 268–9, 279, 307imitation of God 64

incarnation, ontology of 8–9, 29, 41, 45, 55,59, 63–71, 74–5, 86, 98, 158, 179, 185,191, 218, 236, 269–70, 302–4, 306

incorruption 61, 63–4, 71infusion 178, 269inner-biblical exegesis 109–10, 162Isaianic Servant 108–9, 125–7, 160, 199, 214,

217, 226, 236, 249, 258–61, 270, 272,275–6, 294–6, 297, 299

Israel 30, 58, 70, 74, 98, 103–5, 109–10,142–3, 163, 206, 226, 232, 237, 259,298–9, 305

and church 58, 165–7, 171and identity of Jesus 33, 36, 57place of 126, 238, 243–4, 258

Jesus:heavenly session 149, 184, 248, 294priestly role 64, 181–5real divinity 55, 184–5, 191, 223, 303real humanity 46, 55, 98, 182–4, 191, 223,261, 303

judgement 22, 106, 142, 176, 233, 255,277–8, 280

justification 37, 78, 83–5, 88–9, 96–7, 100,225, 242–3, 275, 298

‘ . . . by faith’ 19, 21, 24, 32–4, 37–8, 40, 44,77, 79, 82, 243

kavod 111, 134–6, 150–1, 180, 206kingship ideology 121kinship 47, 65, 72, 104, 222koinōnia 98, 205, 307

and methexis 72

Law 25, 34–5, 96, 98, 107–9, 114, 176, 182,185, 196–7, 210–11, 221–4, 228, 237–9,243, 293, 298

liturgical anthropology 119–21Logos 29, 49–52, 56, 59, 63–9, 71–2, 80–1,

216, 252–4, 257, 270, 303Luther, theology 24, 33, 41, 77–82, 86, 94, 97–9lux mundi 255, 261

martyr, martyrdom 163, 188, 190, 286,288–90, 296

Merkavah 114, 117–18, 134, 149Messiah 26, 108, 113, 121, 124–5, 152–3,

160, 170, 178, 200, 215, 257, 261–2, 276,295, 298

and Temple 113, 123–4, 159, 165–70, 226messianism 108, 121–5

and Septuagint 122monotheism 28, 55–6, 61, 124, 258, 306

inclusive/exclusive 124

338 Index of Selected Topics

moral likeness 69, 71, 74–5, 306Mosaic covenant, see covenant, MosaicMoses 110, 113–14, 120, 133, 136, 139,

174, 190, 201, 206, 229, 231–2, 259,288, 305

Nestorianism 69–70new covenant 58, 74, 104, 108–10, 161–2,

179, 185–6, 210–11, 213, 227–9, 232, 249,254, 274, 297–8, 300–1

new creation 124, 159, 176, 195, 225–7,232–5, 273

'New Perspective on Paul' 24–31, 37, 78, 87,100, 103, 243

Noachic covenant, see covenant, NoachicNoah 105noetic effects of sin, see sin, noetic (epistemic)

effectsnoetic transformation 46, 69, 153, 228, 232–4,

248–50, 253–4, 270nous 46, 48, 64–5, 74, 234

ontological and dynamic participation 65–6,68, 74, 303, 306

Paraclete 252–5, 262perichoresis 73, 264pistis Christou (faith of/in Christ) 25–6, 31–4,

78, 89Platonism/Platonic influence 27, 42–4, 46–7,

53, 55–6, 58, 61–5, 68–9, 72, 74–5, 174,182–3, 234, 250, 263, 267, 282, 303,305–6

pleroma 150, 153, 222presence 22, 30, 51, 53–4, 57–9, 71, 79–82,

85–7, 91, 97–9, 107–8, 111–14, 116, 118,121, 124, 127, 138, 150–1, 155, 170,172–81, 185–6, 189, 191–3, 195, 201,206–8, 217, 221, 224–5, 227, 232, 236,242–3, 248–9, 254–5, 259–64, 266,269–70, 285, 287, 290, 292, 297–8, 300,301–2, 304

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

representation 30, 98, 102, 235, 249, 299resurrection 23, 29, 47, 53, 61, 74–5, 99, 140,

152, 160–2, 164, 169–70, 175, 181, 196–7,207, 217–18, 238–9, 245–7, 256, 273–4,277–8, 280, 292, 301–3

revealed wisdom 74, 114, 274, 281, 304–5royal theology 108, 112, 121–3

sacraments 53, 56–7, 67–8, 70–1, 74–5,79–81, 86–7, 98–9, 119, 192–218

salvation 24–6, 34, 38, 40, 44–5, 47, 67–71, 73,80, 82, 86–9, 97–8, 105–6, 131, 156,183–4, 215, 221–2, 236–7, 239, 246–8,250, 259–61, 263–5, 267, 269–71, 274,277–9, 281, 284, 289, 292, 296, 299

salvation history 24, 198, 200sanctification/sanctifying 19, 52, 68, 80, 83,

85, 97, 157, 162, 266, 274Shiur Koma 114, 135, 149–50, 153sin 45, 71, 97, 106, 109, 114, 127, 130–3, 137,

139–40, 142–3, 185, 187, 235–9, 248, 255,276, 299

noetic (epistemic) effects 37, 274Sinai covenant, see covenant, Mosaicsolidarity 30, 197, 203, 214, 295, 299–300Spirit:

covenant of 109, 161–2, 192, 196, 210,227–8, 232, 249, 262, 300

filling by 151, 155, 163–4Spirit Christology 28, 50–2, 157–9, 193, 195,

198, 200substitution 212, 216, 235, 276, 299

inclusive/exclusive 235–6suffering:

of believers 23, 160, 190, 241, 245–6,277–9, 286

of Christ 160, 205, 245–6, 276, 279, 286

Temple:church and 71, 123, 147, 150–61, 167–70heavenly 134, 172, 178–86, 304theosis 24, 26–8, 41, 43–8, 53–5, 62, 75–6,78–82, 98–9, 305–7

Throne of God 112–13, 117–19, 134–6,188–9, 289, 294–6

Torah 23, 25, 34, 36, 100, 115–16, 133, 136,142–3, 173, 226, 237–8, 252, 283, 305

Trinitarianism 50–2, 53, 59, 66, 75, 97–9,132, 179, 189, 195, 200–1, 218, 249, 251,265, 272, 303

water:and baptism 254, 277; see also baptism'living' 176–7, 188–9

wisdom 47, 56, 63, 115, 137, 155, 180, 206,210, 274, 283–4, 291, 304

Index of Selected Topics 339

Index of Modern Authors

Aaron, D. H. 133–4Achtemeier, P. J. 162, 272–3Ådna, J. 123Agnew, F. H. 161Albl, M. C. 165Allison, D. C. 201, 214Anderson, G. A. 133, 136, 140Andriessen, P. C. B. 182–3Armstrong, B. 83Arnold, C. E. 150Asano, A. 102

Bachmann, M. 78Baer, H. von 198Ball, D. M. 257Barr, J. 32Barrett, C. K. 165, 255Barth, K. 7, 11, 33, 35–6, 41, 44, 51, 77–9, 89,

93–8, 106, 211, 223Barth, M. 31Barton, S. 213Bauckham, R. 28, 36, 124, 130, 163, 165–6,

173, 181, 188–9, 223, 226–7, 234–5, 251,258, 280, 288–90, 302–3

Baumgarten, J. M. 137Bavinck, H. 92Beale, G. K. 189, 258Becker, A. H. 56Beker, J. C. 222Betz, H. D. 293Billings, J. T. 77–8, 86–8, 242Bird, M. F. 33Blomberg, C. 169Blue, B. B. 209Boccaccini, G. 103Bockmuehl, M. 3, 5–7, 129, 135, 231, 247Boer, M. de 36, 219Bousset, W. 17, 20–1, 40, 73, 194, 304Bovon, F. 200Bowald, M. A. 5Boyarin, D. 43Braaten, C. 79Brandenburger, E. 130Brock, S. P. 136Brooke, G. 109, 165–6, 168Brown, W. P. 189Bruce, F. F. 148Bryan, S. M. 291Buchanan, G. W. 104

Bucur, B. G. 56, 119Bultmann, R. 35Bunta, S. 135Burke, T. J. 223Byrskog, S. 290

Caird, G. B. 18, 31Campbell, C. 20, 38–9, 219Campbell, D. A. 26, 34–5, 37–8, 41, 77, 89, 92,105, 237, 239, 243

Canlis, J. 59Carson, D. A. 203, 252, 254, 260, 262–3, 272Casey, M. 73Chazon, E. 139Chester, A. 120–1, 123, 304Childs, B. 6, 18, 36, 93, 126Clements, R. E. 126Coffey, D. M. 50–2, 200Cohn-Sherbok, D. 203Collins, J. J. 31, 295Connell, M. F. 196Cross, F. M. 104, 222Crossan, J. D. 115, 202

Davidson, I. 27, 223Davila, J. 117–18, 124, 126, 140Deissmann, A. 17–20, 40, 304Del Colle, R. 49, 51–2, 200–1Donovan, M. A. 61Dowey, E. A. 83Doyle, R. C. 82Duke, P. D. 175Dunn, J. D. G. 9–10, 28–30, 33, 41, 51–2, 59,

129, 131–2, 139, 158, 193, 198, 200–1, 223,229–30, 233, 238, 245

Dupont, J. 165

Edwards, M. 64–5, 119, 234, 306Egan, P. 160, 272Eriksson, A. 209–10Ernst, J. 150Eshel, H. 139Esler, P. F. 102

Fee, G. D. 9, 52, 157, 208, 210, 225,240–1, 249

Finlan, S. 28, 47, 279Fischer, R. H. 81Fishbane, M. A. 109

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

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

Haacker, K. 33Habets, M. 93Hafemann, S. 282Hahn, S. 105Hallonsten, G. 44–5, 81Hanson, R. P. C. 165Harink, D. K. 36Hartman, L. 36, 116, 194Haussleiter, J. 31Hays, R. B. 3, 10, 25–6, 31–6, 41–2, 75, 93,

103, 125, 208, 210–11Hebert, G. 31–2Heinrici, C. F. G. 205Heitmüller, W. 194Hengel, M. 172–3, 251Hering, J. 203Hillers, D. R. 106Hofius, O. 202, 211–12, 234–6Hogeterp, A. L. A. 154Holmes, S. 81Hooker, M. 125, 129Horbury, W. 121–5Horton, M. 90, 92Hubbard, M. V. 225Hugedé, N. 230Hultgren, S. J. 131Hurst, L. D. 18, 31, 129Hurtado, L. 9, 20, 194–5, 234

Isaacs, M. E. 179Iverson, K. 213

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

Kabisch, R. 22Kaminksy, J. 102Käsemann, E. 30, 34–6, 78, 93, 202, 243,269, 281

Kasper, W. 50Kee, H. C. 291Keener, C. S. 175, 203, 252, 254–6, 265,267, 269

Kerr, N. 37Kharlamov, V. 73Kim, J. H. 141Kim, S. 19, 231Kirby, J. C. 149, 153Kittel, G. 31Kloppenborg, J. 115Knibb, M. 121–2Knoppers, G. N. 104Koch, K. 116Koester, C. R. 254

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

McCormack, B. 36, 223McGuckin 72Mackey, J. P. 51McKim, D. K. 90McLean, B. H. 224Malatesta, E. 263Malina, B. 265

Index of Modern Authors 341

Mannermaa, T. 79–80Manson, W. 257Marshall, I. H. 202Martin, D. B. 156–7, 207Martin, R. P. 227, 285Martyn, J. L. 23, 35–7, 51–3, 93, 219–20,

223, 256Matlock, R. B. 33, 36Meier, J. P. 182Meyendorff, J. 53, 76Miano, D. 104, 107Michaels, J. R. 272Milbank, J. 43, 88Mitton, C. L. 148Moberly, W. 5–7Moffitt, D. M. 180–3Montefiore, H. 175Moon, J. N. 109Morray-Jones, C. R. A. 115–16, 120, 134–5,

147, 149–51, 153, 179, 230Mosser, C. 57–8, 61–2, 183Motyer, S. 253Müller, C. 35Muller, R. A. 83, 89–91Murphy-O'Connor, J. 209Murray, J. 92

Nassif, B. 79Navtanovich, L. 141Neder, A. 93–6Neuenzeit, P. 202Newman, C. 19, 30, 110–13, 119, 231–2Newman, J. H. 118Newsom, C. 118, 120Neyrey, J. H. 156, 184, 280Nickelsburg, G. W. E. 121, 294Nock, A. D. 194Novenson, M. 122

Osborn, E. 62

Paget, J. C. 21Papanikolaou, A. 27, 48–9, 53Parker, T. H. L. 82Partee, C. 82Paulsen, H. 208Penner, T. C. 284Perrin, N. 167–8, 176Porsch, F. 255Porter, J. R. 101Porter, S. E. 110, 194, 235Powers, D. G. 102, 220, 224Puera, S. 80

Rahner, K. 44Reese, R. A. 281

Reventlow, H. G. 126Richardson, R. D. 202Ridderbos, H. N. 24, 256Robinson, H. W. 101–2Rochais, G. 173Rogerson, J. W. 102Rohrbaugh, R. L. 265van Roon, A. 148Roth, C. 212Rowe, C. K. 292Rowland, C. 115–16, 134–5, 147, 149–50,

179, 230–1Ruiten, J. van 110, 137, 189Russell, N. 10, 18, 42, 54–6, 58, 61–2, 64–70,

234, 306

Sanders, E. P. 24–5, 168, 175–6, 207,258, 291

Sandmel, S. 44Schäfer, P. 118Schenck, K. 179Schlier, H. 153Schmid, H. 81Schmithals, W. 130Schnackenburg, R. 255Schnelle, U. 172Schutter, W. L. 272Schweitzer, A. 17, 21–3, 25, 36, 40, 115, 304Scroggs, R. 129Scrutton, A. 252Seesemann, H. 205Segal, A. 19Skarsaune, O. 57Snodgrass, K. 168Spieckermann, H. 235Spinks, C. D. 5–6Sprinkle, P. M. 33Stăniloae, D. 48, 53Stendahl, K. 24Stenschke, C. W. 18Stibbe, M. W. G. 253Stirling, A. M. 148, 153Stone, M. E. 140Strecker, G. 17Strobel, A. 205Stuhlmacher, P. 17, 35Sullivan, K. P. 120

Tappert, T. G. 80Taylor, G. M. 32Thatcher, T. 173, 252Theiss, N. 194Theissen, G. 209Thiselton, A. C. 154, 202–3, 205, 209Thompson, M. M. 253Thornton, L. S. 205

342 Index of Modern Authors

Tonstad, S. K. 253Tooman, W. A. 109Torrance, A. J. 43, 98Torrance, J. B. 89,Torrance, T. F. 31–2, 89, 93, 186Treier, D. 5, 7Trigg, J. W. 65Tromp, J. M. 140–1Trumbower, J. A. 253, 262Trumper, T. 240Tuell, S. 188Turner, M. 52, 198–9

Um, S. T. 176–7, 189

VanderKam, J. C. 294Vanhoozer, K. J. 5–7, 87, 242Vanhoye, A. 182

Wagner, J. R. 126, 226Wallace, R. S. 86Ward, G. 86–7

Watson, F. 34, 107, 123, 206, 219–20, 223,232, 298

Watts, R. 214, 291Webb, S. H. 88Webster, J. B. 5, 7, 27, 93–7, 180, 223, 298Wedderburn, A. J. M. 130, 194Westermann, C. 276Wheaton, G. 174, 256Williams, A. N. 44, 48Windisch, H. 229Witherington, B. 180, 209Witsius, H. 91Wolff, C. 203Wolters, A. M. 281–2Wrede, W. 22–3, 40Wright, N. T. 30–1, 43, 47, 59, 130–1, 168,

175, 291Wright, W. M. I. V. 256

Yoshiko Reed, A. 56

Zizoulas, J. 53–4, 76, 212, 306

Index of Modern Authors 343

Index of Sources

Old Testament

Genesis1 1171–3 91, 128, 131, 1371:1 1731:26–7 1351:27 68, 197, 2422–3 188, 1902:9–10 1882:24 1563:14–19 1903:21 1333:22 1886 2776:12–13 1056:18 1059 1059:2–7 1069:8–17 2779:12–16 1069:9–11 10512:2–3 10613:12 17314:17–20 18415 91, 104, 106–7, 22415:13–16 10617 106–717:5–14 10617:8 10728:12 13548:15 26149:54 261

Exodus2:24 1063 2573:6 1063:14 257–83:15–16 1064:22–3 1056:8 1068:15 243 n.748:32 243 n.749:12 243 n.7410:27 243 n.7411:10 243 n.7412 204, 21112:14–28 21113:21–2 260

16 25916:12 25916:31–5 25916:35 18219 15319:6 160, 190, 28620:2 10724 120, 161, 211, 30124:3–8 161–2, 27224:6–11 21124:8 214, 29631:18 228 n.2832 11432:15–16 228 n.2832:19 228 n.2833 113, 13534 22934:1 228 n.2834:4 228 n.2834:28–9 228 n.2834:29 22934:34 22936:1 15140:25 290

Leviticus2:16 275 n.53:5 275 n.53:11 275 n.53:14 275 n.53:16 275 n.54:10 275 n.54:19 275 n.54:26 275 n.54:31 275 n.56:8 275 n.56:19 275 n.57:5 275 n.57:31 275 n.58:16 275 n.58:20–1 275 n.58:27–8 275 n.59:10 275 n.59:20 275 n.510 11313:28 180 n.2214:20 275 n.516:25 275 n.517:5–6 275 n.517:8–13 167

18:26 16723:11 275 n.5

Deuteronomy4:13 228 n.285:22 228 n.288:3 2599:5 1069:9–11 228 n.2821:23 224, 27526 20426:5 203–427–8 107, 224, 27627–30 10428 21228:23 21229 9129:13 10630:20 10632 20832:39 258, 265, 27432:51 236 n.61

2 Samuel5:2 2616:6 1137 112, 123 n.87, 151 n.147:6 1077:7 2617:10–11 1077:11–16 1077:13 1077:14 108

1 Kings2:4 1076:29 189 n.456:32 189 n.456:35 189 n.458:10–12 11212 29319:18 288

1 Chronicles17 123 n.87

2 Chronicles10 293

Nehemiah9:20 259

Job31:33 91

Psalms2 108 n.302:2 2958 129–31, 141–2, 181

8:4 1428:4–6 1328:6 131–223:1 26127:1 26028:9 26136:9 26040:6–8 18245:3 112 n.4352:8 24468 15368:18 15378:24–9 25978:71 26180:9–16 26282 55, 57–8, 63 n.71, 70, 73–482:6 57–8, 61, 6393 18395 183–496 18396:9–10 18397 183110 131–2110:1 132118 12, 169, 178118:9 164118:22 152, 154, 159, 164–5, 167–70118:23 168118:26 168

Proverbs1:15 225 n.182:7 225 n.182:13 225 n.182:20 225 n.183:23 225 n.184:12 225 n.184:14 225 n.186:22 225 n.188:20 225 n.189:6 225 n.1814:2 225 n.1820:7 225 n.1828:6 225 n.1828:26 225 n.18

Isaiah5:1–7 168, 2625:5 1136 113–14, 134, 1506:1 1506:3 117–18, 1506:13 2888:14 159, 2438:14–15 1699:1–2 175 n.79:2 261

Index of Sources 345

Isaiah (cont.)10:17 26012:3 17617:6 24426:19 17627:2–13 26228:16 152, 159, 24332:2 17632:20 17635:6–7 17640–66 112 n.44, 22640:6–8 27340:10–11 27640:11 26141:17 17642:1 126, 29442:1–2 5742:1–4 112 n.4442:6 109, 160 n.28, 260–1, 294, 29842:7 19943:10 126, 258, 265, 295 n.4243:10–13 258, 27443:11 25943:13 25943:25 258 n.3144–5 123 n.8744:3 17645:8 258 n.3145:18–19 258 n.3145:21 16645:22 258 n.3146:4 25846:9 258 n.3148:12 258 n.3148:17 258 n.3149:3 12649:4 29449:6 112 n.44, 26049:8 109, 29849:10 17651:12 258 n.3152:6 258 n.3152:13 12652:13–53:12 29953 125–6, 212, 214, 217, 224, 233 n.49, 235–6,

275–753:1 12653:3 16553:4 27553:5 123 n.87, 275–653:6 210–11, 27653:9 236 n.61, 27553:11–12 214, 27553:12 211, 21454:10 109, 226 n.2355:3 109, 126

58:6 19958:11 17660:1 26060:3 160 n.28, 26060:19–20 26061:1–2 19961:8 10965:17 233

Jeremiah2:13 176–72:20 2932:21 2625:5 29311:16–17 24412:10 26212:10–17 26212:16 16617:13 17623:2 26123:4 26123:5 10823:5–6 123 n.8631 12, 10931:21–5 22831:31–4 108, 162, 185,

214, 22831:31 210–11, 228 n.2931:32 11431:33 179, 22831:34 22831:37 10933:15 10833:15–16 123 n.8650:6 261

Ezekiel1 114, 117, 134, 1531:25–6 134 n.191:26 13411 233 n.4911:19 22815:1–8 26217:1–21 26219:10–14 26228 188 n.4331 188 n.4334 27634:2 26134:15 26134:23 108, 26134:23–4 123 n.8634:25 10936 12, 109, 162, 233 n.49,

254, 26336–7 114, 261, 272–3, 29736:25–27 109, 228

346 Index of Sources

36:26 228 n.2936:27 228 n.3036:28 22837 109, 112, 233 n.4937:19 11237:24 108, 112, 123 n.86, 26137:26 109, 11240–1 18940–8 124, 188 n.43, 226, 28847 175 n.7, 176, 187–8, 190, 233 n.4947:1 18947:1–12 188 n.4347:7–12 11247:12 18847–8 153

Daniel2:34–5 1697:9–14 2947:12 288

Hosea3:5 1666:7 9110:1–2 26214:6 244

Amos5:3 2889:11 113, 1669:11–12 165

Habakkuk2:3–4 1862:4 34

Zechariah3:8 1084 2884:1–14 189, 2894:2 2904:2–3 2884:6 2904:7 1694:9 123 n.876:12 1086:12–13 123 n.876:12–15 113 n.45, 1539 2149:9–17 113 n.459:11 21411:4–17 113 n.4511:15–17 26113:7–9 113 n.4514 188, 19014:8 176, 18814:9 113 n.4514:11 190

New TestamentMatthew1:23 2015:14 2605:17–48 29310:25 29111:27 29111:28–30 29312:6 173 n.220:28 21421:23–7 16821:28–32 168 n.4821:42 168 n.4922:44 13125 29425:31–46 294–526:28 21026:60–1 16927:50–4 29228:18 21828:18–20 195, 20128:19 201

Mark10:45 21411:27–33 16812:10–11 168 n.4912:36 13113 29413:26 3114:12–16 20314:24 21014:57–8 16915:39 292

Luke4:18–19 1997:22 164 n.3610:22 291–211:20 20020:1–18 16820:17 168 n.4924:13–52 292

John1 2521:1 65, 173, 2521:1–18 251, 2531:3 2531:3–5 2521:4 174, 2521:5 253–41:9 56, 70, 1741:10–11 253–41:12 58, 240 n.691:12–13 2541:14 69, 173, 177, 255


John (cont.)1:16 1741:17 174, 177, 2551:28 662 1742:6 1752:11–16 1753 254, 261–2, 2733:3 2543:5 176, 2633:5–8 2543:10 254, 2633:16 2664 176, 1894:19–24 1774:25 1785:24 263, 3075:26 2635:33 1776 201, 215, 259–606:28–29 2566:29 2596:30 2596:33 2606:35–7 2156:40 2156:44 2156:47 2606:49 2596:51 215, 2606:53–6 215, 2607–9 2557:35 1767:38–9 1767:50 2558:12 2608:31 253 n.98:40 1778:44–6 1779 2569:5 26010 26210:1–6 26110:7 26110:9 26110:11–12 26110:16 26110:28 25910:34 63 n.7111 26311:25 26312:20–33 253 n.913 17813:10 17813:14–17 17814 264

14–17 251–2, 26714:1 26414:6 177, 255–6, 259, 263–414:9 25414:10 26414:12 26414:15–27 254–514:16–18 26414:20 262, 26414:21 26414:25 254, 26214:26 25615 26415:1 252, 26215:3 26315:4–5 262, 30715:10 26415:12 27415:12–14 26315:14–15 26415:26 177, 25516:7 256 n.2116:7–15 25416:8 25516:13 177, 255–617 26517:1–6 26517:9 265–617:11–12 26517:14 265–617:15 26617:17–19 26617:21–2 26617:22–3 26618:38 25619:39 25520:22 256 n.2120:26–9 25620:30 25720:31 21532:27 65

Acts1–4 1632:33 199–2002:38 1942:41 1952:42 2014 2174:1–11 164–54:8 1634:11 1674:31 1635 1635:3 1635:32 163


6:5 1637:51 1648:15–17 1648:16 1949:1–9 29210:48 19415 164–7, 199 n.18, 24415:8–9 166–715:16–18 113, 165–6, 199–20015:19–21 16719:1–7 20019:3 19419:5 194

Romans1–3 237 n.621–5 2371:16 2451:17 1861:18–25 130, 1321:18–3:20 372 922:13 83–43:21 833:23 130, 1324:24 2454:25 125 n.965 91, 128, 130, 237–85:6 2125:12–14 2375:12–21 1325:17 2385:19 2385:21 2386 85, 102, 193, 196, 238, 3016–8 2376:3–4 195, 2386:5 85 n.26–76:6–12 2386:10 2386:11 234 n.526:13 2386:16 2386:18 2386:22 2386:23 85 n.25, 2357 2387:4–6 2387:7–8 2387:7–11 130, 1327:7–25 2388 237–9, 3018:1–11 1968:2 2398:5–8 2398:9–11 239

8:11 1958:13–17 239–418:18–23 130, 132, 190, 240–18:24–6 2418:28–30 241–28:31–9 2418:33 2429–11 238, 2439:4 2379:4–5 2439:6–13 2439:8 2439:31–2 24310:2 24310:4 24310:5–17 24310:20 24311:7–11 24311:11–24 24412:2 23912:4–8 154

1 Corinthians1:1–11 1581:9 2051:10 2081:10–17 1551:13 1581:13–15 1941:17–2:16 2061:18–25 1551:18–31 2102:6–16 1553:1–15 1553:5–9 1553:10–11 1553:11 1573:16 1543:16–17 154–6, 1583:18–23 1556 1576:11 1576:15 25 n.386:15–19 155–6, 1586:16–17 1586:18–19 3076:19 70, 154, 155 n.217:19 226 n.2510 201, 206, 209, 30210:1–13 206, 20810:14–22 204, 20610:16 203, 206, 20910:16–17 154, 157–810:17 20810:18 205, 20810:18–11:34 157


1 Corinthians (cont.)10:20 15810:20–1 20710:22 20811 201–2, 20811:17–34 20811:22 20911:23 20211:23–5 20911:25 21111:26 21011:29 21212 158, 208, 210, 21212:12–31 154, 157–812:13 195–614:14 240 n.6715 130–2, 143, 24715:3 21115:22 143, 24715:25–7 131, 141–215:39–41 24715:42–43 247, 27315:45–9 143, 24715:52 24715:53 64

2 Corinthians1:5–6 2463–5 159, 224 n.16,

297, 3053:3 227, 2543:6 227–8, 3003:7 2283:7–18 227, 229–303:14–18 2293:18 2424:1–6 229–304:4 2424:7–16 2325:1–4 2325:5 2325:7 2325:11–21 2345:14 2345:15 2345:16 232–35:17 227, 232–35:18 2445:18–19 2365:21 234–68:4 20513:13 205

Galatians1:1 2231:6 222

1:12 2261:16 2262:9 2272:19–20 220–1, 2252:20 97, 3073:1–5 2213:1–4:11 323:10 1863:13–14 2243:22 313:23–4:7 2213:27 64, 196, 222, 2453:28–29 1964:1–3 2224:1–7 1974:4 222–34:5 2214:6–7 221, 223–4, 2405 2395:5–6 225–65:14 2745:16–25 2255:22 3076:12–18 225 n.206:15 225, 226 n.256:17 246

Ephesians1 1501:6 1501:10 1501:12 1501:14 2481:17–18 1501:20–2 1311:21–3 149–501:22–3 2481:23 150–12:6 2482:10 1512:11–12 153 n.182:14 1512:15–22 149–523:14–21 152–33:19 150, 1534:3–6 1534:7 200 n.254:8 1534:11–12 1534:13 1534:15–16 152–44:24 64

Philippians2 181, 231 n.40, 2992:5 239 n.65


2:5–11 129–30, 1323:10 205, 2463:20–1 2473:21 132, 141

Colossians1:15 130, 132, 1971:15–18 672:11–15 1972:17 1973:5–10 643:9–10 197

1 Thessalonians4:13–17 247

1 Timothy2:13–14 130

Hebrews1 179–801–2 181–21:3 1851:4 1811:6 182–31:9 1831:13–2:8 1312–4 1822:5 182–32:6–10 1322:9 180 n.232:11–13 1822:14 1822:16–17 1822:17 1813:1 183–43:2 1843:7–17 1834:2–3 1834:7 1834:14–16 1845:7–8 1845:10 1846:4 1836:4–6 1866:20 1847:3 1847:16 1847:23–4 1857:26–8 1857:27 184–58:1–5 1858:7–13 1859:11 1829:21 1829:22 1829:23–4 181, 185

9:25–6 18510 18710:2–3 18510:4–7 18210:10 18210:16 179 n.17, 18510:19–22 185–610:22 18210:26–31 18610:29 18210:37–9 18611 18712:1 18712:1–3 18612:8 18312:22 18613:20 298

James1:18 284–52:1 2842:23 2853:15 2843:18 2854:8 2855 301

1 Peter1:1 161–2, 271–21:2–3 160–2, 272–31:4–5 161–2, 273–41:6–10 1601:7–9 2781:10–12 2781:12 2731:20–1 2741:22 2741:23–5 273–42:4–5 160, 162, 2742:4–8 159, 2742:9 160, 2862:12 1622:21–4 1602:22 2752:24–5 224, 275–73:17 2793:18–22 2773:22 131, 1424:1–2 2794:12–13 160, 279

2 Peter1:1–2 2801:3–4 280–21:3–11 2801:4 66, 68, 280–2, 287 n.22, 2961:5–8 282, 296


2 Peter (cont.)1:10 2801:21 2812:4 2803:5–7 280

1 John1:7 2682:1 2692:18 2692:22 2692:29–3:10 2673:1 57, 58 n.503:2–3 2673:11–24 2683:16–17 2683:19–20 2683:23 2683:24 2694:2–3 2694:7–21 2684:10 2694:19 2695:6–7 2695:10–12 269

2 John7 269

Revelation1 258 n.30, 286–7, 2901:4 189, 2891:5 2861:6 2861:9 188 n.41, 2861:12 2881:12–13 2891:12–20 2871:20 147, 2882–3 188, 2872:1 2882:10 2874–5 1874:5 1895:5–6 2865:9–10 2895:10 1907 2897:14 188 n.408:2 18911 287–811:4 28811:6–7 28811:11 28812:11 188 n.4014 289

14:4 188 n.40, 28617–18 18819:7 18820:6 19021–2 147, 187–921:2 18721:9 18721:22 18821:24 13822:1–2 18922:3 18922:4–5 19022:17 289–90

ApocryphaTobit12:15 189 n.5013:11 166 n.44

Wisdom of Solomon2:23 130

Sirach6 29315–18 130, 13715:14–15 13744–50 13745 12045:2 12047:11 11349 13749:16 130, 137–851 293

2 Maccabees4:10 180 n.22

PseudepigraphaLife of Adam and Eve21:2 137, 13922:6 137, 139

1 Enoch9–16 106 n.2310 278 n.820 189 n.5045:3 295 n.4345:6 295 n.4448:4 29448:10 29562:3 29462:5 29590:29 123 n.8690:37–8 123 n.86

2 Enoch22 116


30 130, 137, 14130:11 141

2 Baruch40:72–4 123 n.86

Jubilees3 137

4 Ezra8:44 13013 123 n.86

Psalms of Solomon17 123

4 Maccabees15:4 180

Dead Sea Scrolls1QH (Hodayot)4:15 130, 13816:20 13817:15 137

1QS (Community Rule)4:23 130, 137–88:7 169

CD (Damascus Document)3:20 130, 137–84Q174 123 n.864Q265 137–84Q5042 ii 3–12 139 n.366 10–12 139 n.358 1378 4–9 139

4QDibHamiv 1–9 113

4QpIsa8–10 113

4QShirShabb 189 n.50


Union With Christ in the New Testament

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Transcript of Union With Christ in the New Testament