"Life-giving spirit": Probing the center of Paul's pneumatology

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Dec 1998 by Gaffin, Richard B Jr

What must also be recalled here-by now, after nearly a century, a virtual consensus across the broad front of NT scholarship-is the eschatological dimension or context of this Christocentric focus. Paul (and the other NT writers), faithful to the kingdom proclamation of Jesus, have a broadened, already/not-yet understanding of eschatology. For them eschatology is defined in terms of his first as well as his second coming. Specifically Christ's resurrection is an innately eschatological event-in fact, the key inaugurating event of eschatology. His resurrection is not an isolated event in the past but, in having occurred in the past, belongs to the future consummation and from that future has entered history.

That is perhaps clearest in 1 Cor 15:20, 23, in context: Christ's resurrection is the "firstfruits." In his resurrection the resurrection harvest that belongs to the end of history is already visible. His resurrection is the guarantee of the future bodily resurrection of believers not simply as a bare sign but as "the actual beginning of th[e] general epochal event."7 Pressed-if present, say, at a modern-day prophecy conference-as to when the event of bodily resurrection for believers will take place, the first thing the apostle would likely want to say is that it has already begun.

We should anticipate, then, given the overall coherence of his teaching, that Paul's understanding of the Spirit will prove to be "eschatological in nature and Christocentric in quality."s Without denying the presence of other determining factors, Christology and eschatology especially shape the matrix of his pneumatology. The death and resurrection of Christ in their eschatological significance control Paul's teaching on the work of the Spirit.

The preceding comments provide a framework for focusing on the final clause of 1 Cor 15:45: "The last Adam became life-giving Spirit." I do so primarily for two reasons. (1) In all of Paul, as far as I can see, there is no assertion about the Spirit's activity as pivotal, even momentous, as this. (2) On the other hand it does not appear to me to have received the attention it deserves, especially among interpreters with an evangelical commitment. A couple of more general observations about the immediate context (w. 42-49) are in order. First, just one remarkable feature of this passage is what at first glance can appear to be a kind of theological or didactic overkill. Asked an apparently limited question about the believer's resurrection body (v. 35), Paul's reply opens up a perspective that, as far as I can see, is without parallel in his writings in terms of its cosmic and history-encompassing scope. In vv. 44b-49, in the light of the account of Adam's creation in Gen 2:7,9 Paul contrasts Adam before the fall-that is, by virtue of creationwith Christ. Moreover it is quite plain that they are both in view not as random individuals but as representatives not only of contrasting bodies, the preresurrection and the resurrected (they are certainly at least that). Along with those they represent they stand for antithetical orders of existence or, we might even say, contrasting environments. The shift in vv. 47-49 to explicitly cosmological language and the contrast between "earth" and "heaven" dispose us to put it that way.