PAUL CONFRONTS PAGANISM IN THE CHURCH: A CASE STUDY OF FIRST CORINTHIANS 15:45

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Dec 2006 by Jones, Peter

(ProQuest Information and Learning: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.)

I. INTRODUCTION: A MOST UNUSUAL TEXT

I have chosen to examine 1 Cor 15:45 because this particular verse has deep implications for Christian apologetics in our modern world which, more and more, looks like the ancient world in which Paul first wrote it. In this regard it is interesting to note that one contemporary scholar provocatively states that verse 45 is "polemical."1 It is polemical-and this is the thesis of this paper-because Paul, with prophetic-apostolic authority, makes the biblical doctrine of creation one of the non-negotiables of the "metanarrative" of the gospel's world view.2 To borrow a phrase from another scholar, we encounter here, in what is going on at Corinth, "a massive clash of world views."3

Though many have discussed verse 45, almost all deal exclusively with its last phrase-"the last Adam became a life-giving spirit"-inquiring into its implications for the whole subject of Pauline pneumatology.4 The verse as a whole, however, does not figure with any importance in the recent theologies of Paul,5 and to my knowledge, only rarely is the verse as a whole given serious exegetical study.6 This is all the more deplorable because the verse is an essential part of Paul's theology and apologetics, as he takes on the thinking of the Greco-Roman pagan world as it finds a niche in the Corinthian church. Moreover, verse 45 contains the broadest, most far-reaching perspective on God's purposes for the cosmos than any other text in the Pauline corpus, and, indeed, in my judgment, in the whole NT. In addition, it touches on most of the major topoi of Pauline theology:

* theology = God, Creator and Redeemer, is the implied author of both creation and resurrection

* protology/doctrine of creation = "the First Man"

* providence = "a living being"

* anthropology = the two Adams

* soteriology = the giving of resurrection life

* Christology = "the Last Adam"

* the resurrection as historical event = εγενετο . . . εις

* ecclesiology = those who are implicitly represented by this new federal head

* eschatology = "the Last Adam"

* pneumatology = "a life-giving spirit"

* OT scriptural revelation = "as it is written" plus the OT citation

* NT scriptural revelation = the Pauline apodosis/Midrash

* redemptive history and the relation of the two testaments7

* essential anti-pagan apologetics

All this with just seventeen words!

Below is the Greek text and the translation I propose.

...

Thus it stands written:

The first man, Adam, became a living being;

The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

The following exegetical details of verse 45 can be discerned.

1. Parallelism. The protasis and the apodosis of verse 45 form an almost perfect parallelism. The protasis has eight words, the apodosis six, but presupposes a seventh, the common verb εγενετο. The only difference in the two phrases is the noun ... of the Genesis citation. All the elements correspond perfectly: "the first [man] Adam" with "the last Adam"; "living being" with "life-giving spirit." In both phrases the same preposition, ... , occurs, whose only syntactical function is to recall the verb in the protasis of which it is a part. Both nouns, ... and ... , are modified by attributive participles, ... and ... , evoking creational and resurrectional life.

2. The verb ... . The little preposition ... has great theological significance. The verb ... which the Genesis text employs is a wooden Septuagintal translation of ... , the verb "to be" plus the preposition "to," which in Hebrew means "to become."8 The repetition of ... in the apodosis has only one function. Taken alone it is gibberish. As an ellipsis, recalling the verb of the protasis, it is perfectly good Greek style.

This inceptive verb ... , as an ingressive aorist, clearly indicates entrance into a state.9 These syntactically balanced phrases are not simply a fine linguistic achievement. They also describe the momentous events of cosmic history. The changes of state represent the two essential acts of God in creation and resurrection. Paul is here affirming the goodness of the original creation and the surpassing glory of the final, transformed creation. So this text, dense as it is, proposes two book ends on the plan of God, declaring the organic relationship between protology and eschatology. In God's plan there are two kinds of life, the protozoic and the eschatozoic, and they circumscribe the whole of human and cosmic history.10 In this sense, as Geerhardus Vos already saw, eschatology precedes soteriology.11

3. The meaning of ... . According to the logic [the ...] of Paul's argument, the Genesis citation explains the meaning ... in verses 44 and 46. In Genesis, ... is applied both to Adam and to all living creatures in the original created order.12 This is what Jesus means when he asks: "Is it lawful to save life or to destroy it?"13 Likewise, in Paul, ... generally means physical life.14 Paul is not referring to "a living person" as such but is describing two orders of existence, determined by two principles, ... and ... . They presuppose two stages in God's creative, redemptive plan. ...15 is the mode of creational life; ... that of the future, new-creational life. Obviously Adam is a person, but Paul is here not so much interested in personhood as in the two epochs of cosmic, creational existence, as represented and embodied by the two "federal heads," Adam and Christ.