ἐξήγησις

A Re-Posted Note from Six Years Ago from My Private Blog

2012-01-18T12:55:00.000-06:00

Recently, as I was teaching a classroom of college students on the transfiguration and the following narrative in Mark 9:14ff, the words of the text caught my attention and stirred my imagination. Immediately upon returning down from the Mount of Transfiguration, the narrative says, "And when they [Jesus, Peter, James & John] came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him" (Mark 9:15-15; ESV). I posed a question to the students. Why do you suppose the text says that when the crowd saw Jesus they were greatly amazed? It is noteworthy to point out that elsewhere in Mark's Gospel the same verb ekthambeō occurs three times, once in 14:33 and once in 16:5 and 16:6, respectively. In 14:33, ekthambeō is used of Jesus in tandem with adēmoneō. The sense is that Jesus "began to be distressed and troubled." In 16:5 and 16:6, ekthambeō is used first of the women who came to the tomb and found it empty and were amazed, and then of the young man who had been seated at the right side of the tomb who cautions, "Do not be amazed!" The verb speaks of deep movement of emotions, particularly of trembling astonishment. Thus, in Mark 9:14, the verb ekthambeō bursts upon the reader with unexpectedness. Given the fact that Mark's other uses of the verb ekthambeō denote intense emotion, we would be amiss to devalue the verb's intensity in 9:14.

The unexpectedness of this verb at this juncture of the story is underscored by the fact that throughout Mark's narrative, verbs that speak of astonishment, such as ekplēssō in 1:22 signal the crowd's reaction to some remarkable teaching or miracle done by Jesus. In Mark 9:14, the crowd had not just seen any miracle nor had they just heard any extraordinary teach from Jesus. Nevertheless, the narrative expressly states that the crowd's astonishment came when they saw Jesus. This surely indicates that there is something about Jesus' personage that incited the crowd's astonishment.

It seems much too weak to take Mark's verb that signals intense emotion as does James Edwards who says,

On the other hand, if Jesus' countenance still radiates the glory of the transfiguration, the command "not to tell anyone" (v. 9) seems rather pointless. Moreover, if Jesus' countenance is substantially affected, we might expect the crowd to retreat in fear (Exod 34:30) rather than advance in avid pursuit. . . . On balance, the astonishment of the crowd appears to owe to Jesus' unexpected appearance and the hopes it raised (Mark 276-277).

Likewise, the comment by R. T. France seems too weak to satisfy the narrative when he explains, "More likely Mark uses the verb rather extravagantly to denote the powerful impression which Jesus' personal presence by now created: 'this authority emanates from him even before he speaks or acts'" (Mark, NIGTC, 364).

It seems more likely that my imagination, activated by the text of Mark that day in class recently, was intuitively right to direct the students to consider a recapitulation of Moses' descent from the mountain as recorded in Exodus 34:29-35.

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. Afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded them all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.

Whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil, until he came out. And when he came out and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face was shining. And Moses would put the veil over his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

Jesus has just come down the mountain after being transfigured in the cloud along with Elijah and with Moses. Echoes, in the tranfiguration account, of Moses' experience of the theophany on Mount Sinai (Exodus 33:17-23) are too strong to ignore. This is all the more so when we find Mark using ekthambeō to describe the crowd's response to Jesus.

Thus, it seems right that Morna Hooker says, "[Mark] must mean that there was something about Jesus' appearance which gave them good reason to be astonished. The only possible explanation seems to be that Mark means us to understand that Jesus' appearance is still in some way affected by the transfiguration. If Moses, coming down the mountain after speaking with God, reflected the glory of God from his face without knowing it, and so caused all the people to be afraid (Exod. 34:29f.), it is not surprising if Jesus also, coming down the mountain from a similar experience, caused astonishment among the crowd (The Gospel according to Mark, 222-224).

Robert Gundry also seems to get it right when he adds, "And something so striking as the heavenly whiteness of Jesus' garments seems required to account for a word so strong as exethambēthēsan. The extremity of the circumstances leading to later use of this word support this judgment" (Mark, 488).

What about James Edwards' objections to this understanding of the passage? What about his objection that this interpretation makes Jesus' command to the three apostles on the mountain "not to tell anyone" (v. 9) seem "rather pointless"? What about Edwards' objection that this interpretation should cause one to expect that the crowd would "retreat in fear (Exod 34:30) rather than advance in avid pursuit"?

It seems to me that any proper understanding of the interplay between Jesus' revealing and concealing his identity throughout Mark's narrative (the Secrecy Motif) has to acknowledge that Jesus' prohibition announced to his disciples on the mountain can hardly be taken the way Edwards does. In each of Jesus' acts, in each of his parables, in each of his miracles he both reveals and conceals. This is the nature of revelation. Jesus forbade the three disciples to speak of what they had seen on the mountain, but this prohibition hardly prevented him from carrying hints of his transfigured glory with him for his other disciples and for the crowd below to glimpse and to be astonished.

If the crowd got a glimpse of the glory with which Jesus had been clothed when the heavenly cloud descended upon him on the mountain, then why did the crowd not "retreat in fear" as the children of Israel did when Moses approached them after he came down from the mountain? Is it not reasonable for us to suppose that Mark tells us that the crowd was astonished but ran to him and greeted him because he wants us to realize that, even though the crowd likely acted better than they understood, their reception of Jesus who came down from the mountain with apparent glory yet shining from his clothing signals that Jesus truly is the one greater than Moses of whom Moses prophesied when he said,"The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him" (Deut 18:15; NIV). The heavenly voice on the mountain quotes this passage with the command, "Listen to him!" (Mark 9:7), signifying that Jesus is the True Moses, the one greater than Moses, the one of whom Moses prophesied.

So, as I reflect upon the recent day when I was teaching on Mark 9, I marvel at how many times I have read the words of Mark 9:14-15 and have read numerous commentaries on the passage and yet the text struck me as though it were the first time. The words leaped off the page and struck my imagination, prompting me to raise questions for my students, questions that I also needed to search out. I never cease to marvel that, if my students learn nothing when I teach, that I always learn, no matter how many times I have taught the same portions of the text before. Even though we who teach the text of Scripture repeatedly, year in and year out, there is something about the richness and fullness of the landscape of biblical narrative that we never take it all in at once. Even for us who teach there is much for us yet to learn.

I like the imagery probably originating from Gregory the Great but sometimes attributed to Chrysostom concerning the Gospel of John, that it is like a river--shallow enough for children to wade in it but deep enough for elephants to swim in it. Regardless the source, such is the nature of biblical narrative.

Why Did God Create All Things in Six Days and Not Simultaneously?

2012-01-16T14:24:00.001-06:00

I have been working on a presentation I am to make in February. My work constrains me to engage Calvin quite fully. Even though I've read the whole of Calvin's Institutes and portions numerous times, the following had not stood out to me as it has today. Among the various things to notice, one stands out. Calvin, before famous Bishop James Ussher, already believed that creation was about six thousand years old. This is so despite the fact that many appeal to Calvin to provide support to their theory that the six days of the creation account in Genesis are actually extended periods of time. Calvin believed that the six days were just that, six days, and that the universe is quite young. In terms of categories thrown around these days, John Calvin was a "young earth creationist."

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion,1.14.1.

Isaiah rightly charges the worshipers of false gods withobtuseness,because they have not learned from the foundations of the earth and the circle of theheavens who is the true God [Isa. 40:21; cf. v. 22; see Comm.]. Despite this,such is the slowness and dullness of our wit that, to prevent believers fromdeserting to the fabrications of the heathen, we must depict the true God moredistinctly than they do. Since the notion of God as the mind of the universe(in the philosophers’ eyes, a most acceptable description) is ephemeral, it isimportant for us to know him more intimately, lest we always waver in doubt.Therefore it was his will that the history of Creation be made manifest, inorder that the faith of the church, resting upon this, might seek no other Godbut him who was put forth by Moses as the Maker and Founder of the universe.Therein time was first marked so that by a continuingsuccession of years believers might arriveat the primal source of the human race and of all things. This knowledgeis especially useful not only to resist the monstrous fables that formerly werein vogue in Egypt and in other regions of the earth, but also that, once thebeginning of the universe is known, God’s eternity may shine forth moreclearly, and we may be more rapt in wonder at it. And indeed, that impiousscoff ought not to move us: that it is a wonder how it did not enter God’s mindsooner to found heaven and earth, but that he idly permitted an immeasurable time to pass away, since he could have made it very manymillenniums earlier, albeit

the duration of the world, now declining toits ultimate end, has not yet attained six thousand years. For it is neitherlawful nor expedient for us to inquire why God delayed so long, because if thehuman mind strives to penetrate thus far, it will fail a hundred times on theway. And it would not even be useful for us to know what God himself, to testour moderation of faith, on purpose willed to be hidden. When a certain shamelessfellow mockingly asked a pious old man what God had done before the creation ofthe world, the latter aptly countered that he had been building hell for the curious.

Later within the same section Calvin addresses anyone who would "raise questions concerning immeaursable stretches of time" as with "space." He states,

Now if anyone should expostulate with God that the void exceeds the heavens a hundredfold, would not this impudence be detestable to all the godly? Into such madness leap those who carp at God's idleness because he did not in accord with their judgment establish the universe innumerable ages before. To gratify their curiosity, they strive to go forth outside the world. As if in the vast circle of heaven and earth enough things do not present themselves to engross all our senses with their incomprehensible brightness! As if within six thousand years God has not shown evidences enough on which to exercise our minds in earnest meditation! Therefore let us willingly remain enclosed within these bounds to which God has willed to confine us, and as it were, to pen up our minds that they may not, through their very freedom to wander, go astray.

Faith Comes by Hearing

2012-01-10T14:59:00.003-06:00

Here is my most recent contribution at Credo Magazine and Credo Blog--"Faith Comes by Hearing: The Inclusivists' Abuse of Romans 10:9-17."

Open to read.

ETS Paper Available

2011-11-29T10:30:00.001-06:00

The following is from Credo blog.

To start off this week we would like to highlight the ETS paper of A. B. Caneday, who is also a weekly contributor to the Credo blog as well as a contributor to the January issue of Credo Magazine, “In Christ Alone.” Caneday’s paper is titled: “The Advent of God’s Son as Judgment in John’s Gospel-Justification and Condemnation Already.” Ardel Caneday (Ph.D., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is Professor of New Testament Studies and Biblical Studies at Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has served churches in various pastoral roles, including senior pastor. He has authored numerous journal articles, many essays in books, and has co-authored with Thomas Schreiner the book The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance and Assurance (Inter-Varsity, 2001).

Caneday begins his paper:

Despite mistakenly construing John’s Gospel against the backdrop of second-century Gnosticism, skewing his interpretation of the Gospel, Rudolf Bultmann correctly identifies divine judgment as an important aspect of Johannine theology. He observes that Jesus’ activity as “Revealer of God,” whose unitary advent (John 3:19; 9:39) and departure (12:31), is the eschatological event, “the judgment of the world.” According to Bultmann, Jesus’ coming cast the whole κόσμος into κρίσις. Yet, this eschatological judgment “is no dramatic cosmic event, but takes place in the response of men to the word of Jesus.” He contends, “Thus the judgement is not a specially contrived sequel to the coming and the departure of the Son. It is not a dramatic cosmic event which is yet to come and which we must still await. Rather the mission of the Son, complete as it is in his descent and exaltation, is the judgement.”
Despite holding significant disagreements with Bultmann, New Testament exegetes do not miss the fact that divine judgment figures prominently in John’s Gospel. So, for example, Köstenberger observes, “in an important sense, God’s judgment was already brought about by the light’s coming into the world in the incarnation of the Son (1:14). This coming of the light into the world, in turn, confronts people everywhere with the decision of whether to embrace the light or to go into hiding and persist in darkness.” All who reject God’s Son incur divine judgment, but all who believe in him “escape judgment already in the here and now (5:24), though the final judgment awaits the end of time (5:28-29).”
True as this is, arguments to counter or to qualify Bultmann’s insistence that John’s Gospel contends for a “realized eschatology” versus the traditional Jewish end-time eschatology tend to overlook important ramifications of the Last Day’s advance arrival with the advent of the Son of God. The exclusive claim of Peter’s proclamation that “there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12) finds expanded expression in the Fourth Gospel.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their works were evil.
The life of the Age to Come is resident in and mediated through God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Hence, eternal life, which properly belongs to the coming age, is already present with the incarnation of the Word and is now being imparted to all who believe in God’s Son. Noteworthy as is the advance installment of eternal life, signaling resurrection’s encroachment into the present age, of equal significance is the announcement beforehand of God’s Last Day verdict of judgment, all who believe “are not condemned,” but whoever does not believe “is condemned already.”
With his advent, God’s Son already brings forward two correlated acts of God—resurrection and judgment—that belong to the Last Day which consummates the present age and ushers in the Age to Come. The mission of God’s incarnate Son sweeps forward both the wrath of God’s coming judgment now revealed in Christ’s sacrificial death and the gift of God’s resurrection life disclosed in Christ’s glorious resurrection from the dead. Because Jesus is the incarnate Son of God, the Father authorized him to have “life in himself” to bestow this life of the coming age to whomever he desires in advance of the day of resurrection and to set in motion execution of the coming judgment upon both those who believe and those who do not (John 3:16-19; 5:21-29). Johannine scholars affirm these emphases. Yet, lacking within discussions of the Fourth Gospel’s emphasis upon the present arrival of future resurrection and judgment in the person of Jesus Christ is development of John’s doctrine of justification, expressed with neither the verb δικαιόω nor the noun δικαίωσις but through less direct but no less emphatic expressions. In these expressions the affirmative is emphatically stated by negating its opposite so that “are not condemned” and “do not come into condemnation” bear the sense, “most assuredly justified.”

Read Ardel Caneday’s entire ETS paper.

Conclusion from my Paper Presentation at ETS

2011-11-15T11:23:00.001-06:00

For anyone who may be interested, here is the conclusion from my paper at the Evangelical Theological Society Conference which I present tomorrow, November 16, at 3:00 PM in San Francisco.

_______________________

Absenceof διακιόω and δικαίωσις from John’s Gospel inclines Johanninescholars to say little, except in passing, concerning the Gospel’scontributions to the New Testament teaching on the doctrine of justification. Thefact that John frames his expressions concerning justification as negatedunderstatements doubtless contributes to this. Nevertheless, two of John’snarratives provide fertile discourse that bears much fruit concerning a rich understandingof his teaching with regard to justification.

John’scontributions concerning justification come by way of recognizing Jesus’ use oflitotes in his sayings of John 3:18 and 5:24. When he announces “the one whobelieves in him is not condemned” (3:18) and “the one who hears . . . andbelieves . . . does not come into condemnation” (5:24), Jesus is actuallysaying quite emphatically, “the one who believes is assuredly justified.” Forby way of litotes, the emphatic us of understatement to affirm the positivetruth by negating its opposite, Jesus is emphatically affirming that his comingbrings forward the verdict of the Last Day so that already the verdict is beingrevealed in how people respond to him, either in belief or unbelief.

Jesusunderscores the fact that his presence in this world establishes the presenceof the future Last Day judgment when with performative words he announces “anhour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of Godand those who hear will live” (5:25). Thus, the paradoxical saying indicatesthat the Son of Man who will call forth the dead on the Last Day is alreadygiving resurrection life to all who believe in God’s Son. Yet, additionally, God’swrath remains upon all who disobey the Son. Thus, the two antithetical verdictsof judgment in the Last Day—“resurrection of life” and “resurrection ofcondemnation”—already are being revealed wherever the voice of God’s Son isheard in this present age.

Indeed,resurrection and judgment properly belong to the Last Day. God’s Son came notto condemn the world, yet because the Light has come into the world judgment issuesfrom his presence. His presence brings the Last Day verdict of justification toall who believe but the same Last Day verdict of condemnation to everyone whodisobeys by unbelief. Thus, just as Jesus Christ already gives life tothe dead who hear his voice ahead of the Day of Resurrection, so also, ahead ofthe Day of Judgment Jesus announces the verdict of the Last Day, that those whodo not believe in the Son already stand condemned while those whobelieve in him already stand not condemned, which is to say, they arealready assuredly justified (3:18).

Abstract of ETS Paper to Be Presented November 16

2011-10-30T17:45:00.001-05:00

The Advent of God’s Son as Judgment in John’s Gospel:
Justification and Condemnation Already

Scripture’s announcement that salvation is found in “no other name” than in Christ Jesus necessarily entails an exclusive claim that apart from belief in him, no one will be saved. According to John’s Gospel, Jesus presents this exclusive claim in a familiar passage.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their works were evil.

With his advent, God’s Son brought forward two correlated acts of God—resurrection and judgment—that belong to the last day that consummates the present age and ushers in the age to come. The mission of God’s incarnate Son sweeps forward both the wrath of God’s coming judgment revealed in his sacrificial death and the gift of God’s resurrection life disclosed in his glorious resurrection from the dead. Because Jesus is the incarnate Son of God, the Father authorized him to have “life in himself” to bestow this life of the coming age to whomever he desires and to set in motion his execution of the coming judgment (John 5:21-29).

Thus, even though John’s Gospel never uses the verb δικαιόω or the noun δικαίωσις, the Gospel contributes much to the biblically coherent teaching concerning justification and condemnation as the divine verdicts of judgment on the last day brought forward in incarnate coming of God’s Son. Throughout his Gospel John portrays Jesus as God’s Son who has already brought forward and set in motion things that properly belong to the coming age including judgment, salvation, eternal life, resurrection, justification, and condemnation. Everyone who hears the gospel and believes the Father already has eternal life and will not be condemned, which is the inverse way of saying “will be justified.” So, for example, Jesus assures, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into condemnation, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24). When Jesus says “does not come into condemnation,” this is a figure of speech (litotes) that uses understatement that emphatically expresses the affirmative by negating its opposite. Thus, to say “does not come into condemnation” is an emphatic way of affirming “is most assuredly justified” by way of negating its opposite. If litotes does not sufficiently emphasize the correlation between eternal life and justification, Jesus underscores his announcement by asserting that everyone who believes the Father already experiences a phase of the resurrection life of the age to come because they have already crossed over from death to life.

Resurrection unto life which stands opposite resurrection unto condemnation (5:29), both verdicts of the Day of Judgment, are already manifesting themselves in responses to the Word of God’s Son, the gospel. God’s Son did not come to condemn the world but that through him the world might be saved (3:17). Nevertheless, the arrival of God’s Son brings the Day of Judgment forward in that the gospel announces the verdict of judgment: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned [is most assuredly justified], but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (3:18). Justification and condemnation take place in two phases; belief and unbelief in Jesus Christ already signal the verdicts not yet issued on the last day.

Ponder This!

2011-10-30T12:34:00.001-05:00

Think about the literary significance of John's account concerning Nicodemus. He reports, "This man came to Jesus by night" (John 3:2). It may not be evident upon one's first reading of this that "by night" is not just a time indicator concerning when Nicodemus came to Jesus. Given the prominence of the "light"/"darkness" motif in John's Gospel, surely the mention of "night" also describes Nicodemus's spiritual condition--at that time he was in spiritual darkness.

Yet, there surely is more that John is suggesting by telling readers that Nicodemus came to Jesus "by night." The darkness of night is often the cover evil people use to conceal their evil deeds. Yet, here, Nicodemus, a man who is yet in spiritual darkness uses the darkness of night to conceal not an evil act but a good act, his coming to Jesus.

Trace the other accounts of Nicodemus in John's Gospel to discover that he finally emerges into the light. He begins to move from darkness to light, daring to raise his voice in dissent within the Sanhedrin (John 7:50) and later, in the end, he even does a good act in daylight not at night by assisting Joseph of Arimathea to receive and to bury the corpse of the Christ (John 7:50; 19:39).

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should proclaim to you a gospel other than the gospel we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed.

2011-09-20T11:03:00.000-05:00

Perhaps you have never wondered why Paul tells the Galatians, "But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel other than the gospel we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed" (Gal. 1:8). Nevertheless, maybe you have wondered what may have prompted Paul to make the statement. I would suggest that it was not simply his brilliance nor fanciful desperation that conjured up the specter of an angelic visitor that would subvert his gospel by proclaiming "a gospel other than the one we proclaimed to you." Instead, I would propose that Paul is alluding to an Old Testament precedence, an account in which an old prophet from Bethel deceived the man of God who came from Judah to prophesy against Jeroboam that a son born to the house of David, Josiah by name, would sacrifice the priests of the high places upon the altar Jeroboam had erected (1 Kings 13:1-10). The portion to which I am persuaded that Paul alludes follows:

Read more.

Manuscripts & Textual Criticism Videos Available, Free

2011-09-03T10:29:00.000-05:00

New from Dan Wallace, PhD, Director of The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. It is all free.

The Basics of New Testament Textual Criticism

Famous Manuscripts & the Stories Behind Them

Pioneers of the Trade: Famous Text-Critical Scholars

Scribal Methods & Materials

Disputed New Testament Passages: Textual Criticism Put Into Practice

Believers in Romans 2?

2011-07-20T08:54:00.005-05:00

I have joined the team of writers at Credo blog which will also feature Credo, an on-line magazine, beginning in October. Here is my first entry at Credo. "Gentiles in Paul's Argument in Romans 2: Their Praise is not from Man but from God."

That Romans 2 should figure prominently within disagreements among contemporary Christian scholars about how to understand Paul’s reasoning concerning the gospel in relation to the law of Moses is no surprise, for this chapter has always posed exegetical difficulties, especially since the Reformation. Two contrasting interpretations of the passage dominate discussions. The one that dominated until the past twenty years is that Paul, in portions if not the whole of Romans 2, argues against his presumptuous and censorious but rhetorical or imaginary Jewish dialog partner by positing equally imaginary Gentiles whose salvation by keeping the law is only theoretical because sin renders every human helpless and incapable of doing good. The second interpretation, which has gained much greater acceptance in recent years, is that Paul is depicting Christians generally in 2:7 and 10 but particularly Christian Gentiles in 2:12ff and 2:25-29, by their conduct, the obedience of faith, in contrast to others whose evil deeds manifest unbelief.

Read more.

Litotes in John 8:51-52. "If anyone keeps My word, he will never see death--ever!"

2011-05-28T13:03:00.003-05:00

Two weeks in a row I had occasions to reflect carefully upon the starkness of Jesus' assertion in John 8:51. The first occasion was during a sermon at our church. The second was during a class that I was teaching at our church when a man made the claim that Christians do not die. He, of course, heard the same sermon as I did one week earlier. He took a central aspect of that sermon to a radicalized conclusion. Why did he do this? You may want to review the sermon for yourself to determine your own response to the question before I offer my own suggestion.

Jesus says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death" (8:51; ESV; emphasis added). The Jews who heard Jesus make this claim quote him with slight variation, "Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, 'If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death'" (8:52; ESV; emphasis added).

I would like to suggest that the ESV and most other English translations of John 8:51-52 do not adequately capture the proper sense of Jesus' assertion, and therefore, the translations do not sufficiently signal to English readers that Jesus deliberately uses a figure of speech that startles in order to emphasize the opposite positive.

Here is the Greek text of the two verses under consideration.

ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐάν τις τὸν ἐμὸν λόγον τηρήσῃ, θάνατον οὐ μὴ θεωρήσῃ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα (8:51).
νῦν ἐγνώκαμεν ὅτι δαιμόνιον ἔχεις. Ἀβραὰμ ἀπέθανεν καὶ οἱ προφῆται, καὶ σὺ λέγεις· ἐάν τις τὸν λόγον μου τηρήσῃ, οὐ μὴ γεύσηται θανάτου εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα (8:52).

First, most English translations do not adequately account for the words εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα in either 8:51 or 8:52. The ESV "shall never see death" (8:51) and shall never taste death" (8:52) captures well the double negation of the verbs in the following: θάνατον οὐ μὴ θεωρήσῃ (8:51) and οὐ μὴ γεύσηται θανάτου (8:52). However, the ESV does not adequately account for the added words εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα in both verses. Of the various English translations that I have consulted, the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) captures the two verses best: "If anyone keeps My word, he will never see death--ever!" (8:51), and "If anyone keeps My word, he will never taste death--ever!" (8:52). The addition of "ever" is crucial, for it accounts for the words εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, unlike other translations.

Second, clearly, the gentleman who was in the class that I was teaching who also made that claim that Christians will never die took Jesus' claim literally. I asked him, "Do you mean that Christians will never die, that Christians will never depart this life? What happened to all our departed loved ones? Were they not Christians? Do you really mean that Christians will never die?" He insisted, "Christians will never die." Obviously, by taking Jesus' assertion literally he set Jesus' claim in opposition to reality, that Christians do die.

This is precisely where the sermon that both he and I had heard the week earlier would have been significantly benefited if it had included a clarification concerning the figure of speech that Jesus uses when he states, "If anyone keeps My word, he will never see death--ever!" (ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐάν τις τὸν ἐμὸν λόγον τηρήσῃ, θάνατον οὐ μὴ θεωρήσῃ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, 8:51).

What is the figure of speech Jesus uses? It is litotes. Litotes is a figure of speech in which one generally makes an understatement to express the affirmative by negating its opposite, or uses a double negation to affirm the positive. For example, to say, "This is no small problem" means, "This is a huge problem." "His efforts were not unsuccessful."

John's Gospel uses litotes several times. For example, litotes occurs when Jesus says, "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out" (6:37). "I will never cast out" is litotes, for it expresses the affirmative by negating its opposite. It means, "Whoever comes to me I will most assuredly preserve" (cf. D. A. Carson, Gospel of John, 290; and here).

Likewise, then, when Jesus asserts, "If anyone keeps My word, he will never see death--ever!", he means, "If anyone keeps My word, he will most assuredly see life forever!" Likewise, even though the Jews failed to grasp properly Jesus' meaning, they essentially restate it correctly, If anyone keeps My word, he will never taste death--ever!" As such, given the use of litotes, it means, "If anyone keeps My word, he will most certainly taste life forever!"

Students. Win Logos Software + $1,000.00 for Seminary or Bible College

2011-05-06T12:29:00.002-05:00

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On "Literal Interpretation" and on "Symbolic Interpretation"

2011-03-31T09:54:00.004-05:00

Some may ask, "Can any good thing come from BioLogos?" Well, at least one short video has. I actually agree with what Os Guinness has to say on this video. It comes the closest to what I have been saying, teaching, and writing for years. Evangelicals are wrong to squabble over whether the Bible should be "read literally" or "read symbolically or figuratively." A plague upon both approaches.

To speak of "symbolic interpretation" or "literal interpretation," using an adjective to modify "interpretation," creates confusion by focusing upon the act of interpretation rather than upon the act of revelation. For greater explanation see A. B. Caneday’s response to the question, “Can you discuss the significance of typology to biblical theology?” in “The SBJT Forum: Biblical Theology for the Church,” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 10, no. 2 (2006): 96-98. There I address a focused application of so-called "symbolic interpretation" that many call "typological interpretation."

To speak of “typological interpretation” is to confound interpretation and revelation. We rightly say that God’s revelation is typological, but to speak of “typological interpretation” is to admit to a form of “reader response hermeneutics.” Interpreters of the Bible do not cast biblical types. God, who reveals himself and his deeds in Scripture, casts the Bible’s types. God invested things with foreshadowing significance—institutions (e.g., the Levitical priesthood), places (e.g., Eden, the tabernacle), things (e.g., the ark, sacrifices, kingship), events (e.g., creation, the flood, the exodus, events in the wilderness, entry into the land), and individuals (e.g., Adam, Abraham, Melchizedek, Moses, David). God invested these with significance to prefigure corresponding features of the coming age.

My concern is that Evangelicals have greatly confounded the matter by placing adjectives in fron of the words "reading" and "interpretation." Regularly, Evangelicals, whether lay folks or scholars prefix "reading" and "interpretation" with adjectives such as "literal," "figurative," "symbolic," "typological," or "allegorical" in front of the words "reading" and "interpretation."

Listen to Os Guinness on the video. He makes the same point I make, but focused upon those who talk of "literal interpretation." Here is a summation of what he says.

In this video, Os Guinness continues the dialogue regarding how Christians read scripture, and points out the common misconception that a choice must be made between reading scripture literally or faithfully.

Guinness suggests that the trend toward literalism can be illustrated by contemporary pollsters who query evangelicals as to how they read the Bible, that is, whether they believe it to be “literally” true.

Many respond in the affirmative—but what they likely mean is that they read the Bible faithfully, as opposed to literally. Guinness offers an example from Psalms that reads “The mountains skipped like rams” and points out that no one interprets this passage in a literal, wooden way. Instead, readers recognize it as metaphor––figurative language used to paint a picture, not language intended to transmit a literal history of events.

One of the advances in hermeneutics during the Reformation was the understanding that the Bible should be read in accordance with its collected genres. That is, history should be read historically; law should be read legally; and poetry should be read poetically. Christians today know this, but in an effort to remain faithful to their faith and the Bible, they have boxed themselves in by trying to defend a literal reading—even when this is not in keeping with Christian tradition.

A Portion Excised from an Already Too Long Essay

2011-02-25T07:19:00.005-06:00

Christ’s first advent sweeps forward two correlated acts of God from the Last Day—resurrection and judgment.[1] Paul’s gospel orients everyone to Christ’s cross, as the display of God’s wrath against sin (Rom. 3:21-31), and his resurrection, as God’s vindication of his Son (Rom. 1:4; 4:25; 1 Tim. 3:16), both indivisibly as the advance visitation of God’s courtroom of the Great Assize at the end of the age. The gospel message does not transport humans into the future courtroom of heaven to hear God’s verdict of condemnation or justification. Rather, the gospel announces that with the coming of Christ, God has revealed the verdict of his Last Day courtroom in advance in the crucifixion and resurrection of his Son: wrath and justification. So, believers, in union with Christ in his death and resurrection, enter the new creation, ahead of time, by way of mutual crucifixion in Christ—the world to believers and believers to the world (Gal. 6:14-15). In the gospel, God announces that he has already thrust his verdict—condemned or justified—forward from the Day of Judgment, which has not yet come, into the present with the advent of his Son (cf. John 3:16-21).[2]

So, according to Paul’s gospel, each of the diverse and rich imageries he employs—whether salvation or eternal life or resurrection or justification—portrays God’s saving power in Christ as piercing the darkness of this present evil age as revealed light emanating from the Last Day back into time, featuring Christ Jesus whose crucifixion is God’s demonstration of his righteousness by subjecting him to wrath in order to judge sin in advance of the final judgment and in order that all who are in him might be justified (Rom. 3:21-31). His death is God’s judgment of sin for all who believe. His resurrection is life for the same ones (Rom. 4:25), for his resurrection is God’s justifying declaration of Jesus Christ to be the Powerful Son of God (Rom. 1:4; cf. 1 Tim. 3:16; Acts 13:33), securing God’s justifying verdict for his people, already being proclaimed in the gospel in advance of the Last Day.

For Paul, justification is singular with discernible but indivisible aspects or phases, both now and not yet. He agrees with other New Testament writers that salvation, the kingdom of God, redemption, eternal life, resurrection, adoption, forgiveness of sins, justification, et al., are terms that depict two inseparable but distinguishable phases of both already and not yet. No more division exists between present and future aspects of justification than between first quarter and last quarter phases of the moon. It is the same and singular moon with distinguishable and discernible phases or aspects. Likewise, whether Paul speaks of justification now or not yet, it is the same and singular justification with distinguishable aspects, one present, the other future.

[1] See especially Vos, The Pauline Eschatology, 73ff, 261ff.

[2] N. T. Wright is at his best when he makes this same argument: “The bringing of the future verdict forward into the present world is rooted, grounded, rock-bottom established on the brining of the Messiah forward into the-present, more specifically, on the extraordinary, unprecedented and unimagined fact of the resurrection itself coming forward into the present. The Messiah is not simply a figure who will emerge at the very end. Resurrection is no longer simply a last-day event in which God will raise all his people. Messiah and resurrection are middle-of-history events in which God has come to inaugurate his kingdom, his sovereign, saving rule of all creation. In and through the Messiah, God has dealt with the whole problematic fact of idolatry, sin and death and so has begun, in the Messiah’s resurrection, the new creation which is the great new Fact standing in the middle of time, space and human culture” (Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision [Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2009], , 215).

Original Thinking, Indebtedness to Teachers, and Current NT Discussions

2010-12-15T08:33:00.004-06:00

Recently I posted an entry I titled “Harmony between Rom. 2:6-11 and Rom. 4:1-9.” At the time I posted it I had not read the following since I had digested it, marked it up, and highlighted portions in my copy of the book many years ago when I worked my way through the entire book, Paul, An Outline of His Theology by Herman Ridderbos. As I have discovered repeatedly and have commented upon on my blogs several times, once again it was revealed to me that I owe so very much to all who have taught me, whether in the classroom or by some other means, especially by way of their books. My thinking is not original in the sense that I am the first to think individual thoughts. After all, as someone once said, "Originality does not consist of thinking new things but of thinking for ourselves." Thus, my earlier blog entry, noted above, indicates that those who have taught me, have taught me well, for they have compelled me to think for myself. Lo and behold! In thinking for myself, I find myself thinking thoughts after those who have gone before.

How pertinent are the following words, then, for current issues and discussions in New Testament studies!

“When it is said therefore in Romans 4 that to the one who does not ‘work’ but who believes in him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness, this is not in any way to be brought to bear against the ‘working’ character of faith itself and likewise not against the judgment of the believer according to his works. For just as absolutely as faith is involved in justification by the grace of God and by nothing else, even so work emanates from this same faith; as faith it cannot remain empty and work-less, but becomes known as faith precisely in works. Indeed, in the pronouncements on the justification of the ungodly and the imputation of faith for righteousness and those concerning the just judgment of God according to every man’s work, we have to do with the two poles of the same matter. For the first expresses as pregnantly as possible that the ground or cause of divine justification does not lie in human work as merit, but only in the grace of God. And in the second all the emphasis is placed on the work of faith, in the sense of its indispensable fruit. Yet this does not mean that justification by faith may be said to be the initial judicial act of God, which takes place in the present, and which is then to be followed in the final judgment by a justification on the ground of works. For it is true of the latter as well that it is a justification of the ungodly, an imputation of faith for righteousness, so long as what is at issue is the ground for justification. . . . To be sure, works are indispensable as the demonstration of the true nature of faith and as the evidence of having died and been raised together with Christ. In that sense one could also speak of the reckoning of works for righteousness, although the apostle does not so express himself. For works, too, only find their acceptableness before God in the fact that they are from Christ, wrought in the believer on account of his death and resurrection. . .” (Ridderbos, Paul, 179-180).

Harmony between Rom. 2:6-11 and Rom. 4:1-9

2010-12-07T09:18:00.001-06:00

Since I presented my essay, “Justification, Judgment & Behavior: Judgment Day’s Coming Verdict Now Announced in the Gospel,” during the recent ETS meetings in Atlanta, I have been working almost daily at recasting it with a view to publishing it. (It will bear a different title when published.) In preparation for writing today, I awoke early, around 4:45 am. Prior to rising a half-hour later, I resumed my thoughts from yesterday and composed the following paragraphs which constitute a footnote, a rather significant footnote, so important that I may find that I need to promote it out of the notes field and into the text field.

I welcome your comments, insights, and criticisms of my reasoning.

________________________

In Rom. 4, to argue his case that Abraham was justified not from works (ἐξ ἔργων ἐδικαιώθη) but that his faith was reckoned to him for righteousness (ἐλογίσθη . . . ἡ πίστις εἰς δικαιοσύνην), Paul plays the imageries of bookkeeping (ὁ μισθός οὐ λογίζεται κατὰ χάριν κτλ.) and the courtroom (πιστεύοντι ἐπὶ τὸν δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἀσεβῆ λογίσεται κτλ.) off one another. Yet, is it not excessive to reason that Paul’s claim here, “to the one who works, the reward is not reckoned κατὰ χάριν ἀλλὰ κατὰ ὀφείλημα,” renders theoretical his positive assertion, “God will recompense each one κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ” in 2:6? That “God will recompense each one in accordance with one’s works” does not mean that God’s reward will be “in accordance with debt” instead of “in accordance with grace.”

In Romans 2 and 4 Paul comes at the issues from very different angles. As Paul reasons in Rom. 4, there is a kind of “worker” (τῷ ἐργαζομένῳ) who regards God to be the debtor versus another who, by implication, is in debt to God and thus is the “non-worker” (τῷ μὴ ἐργαζομένῳ) who believes (πιστεύοντι) upon God as “the one who justifies the ungodly.” Accordingly, in Rom. 4 his argument concerns the sinner’s posture before God. The sinner “who works,” by implication to be set right with God, regards him as an employer who makes good on a debt (κατὰ ὀφείλημα) rather than one who is gracious (οὐ . . . κατὰ χάριν). To the sinner, like Abraham, “who does not work but believes upon the One who justifies the ungodly, this faith is reckoned for righteousness” (4:4-5).

Prior to his use of the participle in 4:4 (τῷ ἐργαζομένῳ), Paul uses it in Rom. 2:10 to depict a kind of “worker” whom God impartially will reward with eternal life, which is to say he will bequeath the reward κατὰ τὰ ἔργων αὐτοῦ but not κατὰ ὀφείλημα. In 2:6-11 his argument concerns God’s “righteous judgment,” which is to say, the impartiality and inviolability of the correlation between God’s recompense and human behavior truthfully assessed (κατὰ ἀλήθειαν). In 2:6-11, Paul’s insistence that God will recompense each human κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ hardly is to argue that humans obligate God by putting him in their debt, either actually or theoretically. On the contrary, the apostle’s argument is that precisely because God will recompense everyone “in accordance with one’s works” (κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ) is essential to establish his thesis that “in the gospel God’s righteousness is revealed” (1:17). Since God’s judgment is integral to his gospel (2:16), Paul punctuates his argument in Rom. 2:1-11 with the following distinct assertions to make it clear that his concern is to advance his thesis concerning God’s righteousness (δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ): (1) τὸ κρίμα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν κατὰ ἀλήθειαν (2:2), (2) δικαιοκρισίας τοῦ θεοῦ (2:5, (3) ἀποδώσει ἑκάστῳ κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ (2:6), and (4) οὐ ἐστιν προσωποληψία παρὰ θεῷ (2:11).

For What It Is Worth

2010-11-30T09:52:00.004-06:00

I believe that I ought to return to the comments N. T. Wright made during his lecture at the Evangelical Theological Society’s recent conference in Atlanta that have attracted so much attention among bloggers. I do so to point out something that I had forgotten when reading John Piper’s The Future of Justification. I do this so as to be entirely fair to both N. T. Wright and John Piper.

Piper observes,

Wright repeatedly refers to works—the entirety of out lives—as the “basis” of justification in the last day. However, Wright also uses the language of judgment and justification “according to works” in a way that inclines one to think that the terms “according to” and “on the basis of” may be interchangeable for him. For example, he refers to Romans 2:13 and says, “Here is the first statement about justification in Romans, and lo and behold it affirms justification according to works.” “Paul, in company with mainstream second Temple Judaism, affirms that God’s final judgment will be in accordance with the entirety of a life led – in accordance, in other words, with works.”

But in these contexts where he is discussing justification on the basis of works or according to works, he does not discuss the finer distinction between “based on” and “according to.” I suspect his view of how works really function in relation to final justification would become a good bit clearer if Wright discussed this difference.

Find Piper’s comments on pages 117-118. These quotations suffice to show that Piper is aware that Wright uses the expressions—on the basis of and in accordance with—interchangeably, even though he finds fault with Wright for failing to explain his appeal to 1 Corinthians 3:10-17 and to address “the fact that Paul threatens baptized professing Christians not just with barely being saved, but with not being save at all at the last judgment (Gal. 5:21; 6:7-9; 1 Cor. 6:9). The whole question of how Paul can speak this way and how our works actually function at the last day. . .” (p. 118).

N. T. Wright Quotes, “in accordance with works”

2010-11-25T06:50:00.003-06:00

Since the annual meetings of the ETS in Atlanta have ended many words have been written concerning N. T. Wright’s comments made during the final day of the conference. I have contributed my own comments commending Tom Wright for making more clear what I believe he always meant even though his phraseology has tended to confuse readers.

It is fitting, therefore, for me to point out that Tom Wright’s expression of surprise over the confusion of what he meant has evident warrant. Consider his lecture at Rutherford House title “New Perspectives on Paul.” He makes the following statements.

The third point is remarkably controversial, seeing how well founded it is at several points in Paul. Indeed, listening to yesterday’s papers, it seems that there has been a massive conspiracy of silence on something which was quite clear for Paul (as indeed for Jesus). Paul, in company with mainstream second-Temple Judaism, affirms that God’s final judgment will be in accordance with the entirety of a life led – in accordance, in other words, with works. He says this clearly and unambiguously in Romans 14.10–12 and 2 Corinthians 5.10. He affirms it in that terrifying passage about church-builders in 1 Corinthians 3. But the main passage in question is of course Romans 2.1–16.

The ‘works’ in accordance with which the Christian will be vindicated on the last day are not the unaided works of the self-help moralist. Nor are they the performance of the ethnically distinctive Jewish boundary-markers (sabbath, food-laws and circumcision). They are the things which show, rather, that one is in Christ; the things which are produced in one’s life as a result of the Spirit’s indwelling and operation.

And we now discover that this declaration, this vindication, occurs twice. It occurs in the future, as we have seen, on the basis of the entire life a person has led in the power of the Spirit – that is, it occurs on the basis of ‘works’ in Paul’s redefined sense. And, near the heart of Paul’s theology, it occurs in the present as an anticipation of that future verdict, when someone, responding in believing obedience to the ‘call’ of the gospel, believes that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead. This is the point about justification by faith – to revert to the familiar terminology: it is the anticipation in the present of the verdict which will be reaffirmed in the future.

I am fascinated by the way in which some of those most conscious of their reformation heritage shy away from Paul’s clear statements about future judgment according to works. It is not often enough remarked upon, for instance, that in the Thessalonian letters, and in Philippians, he looks ahead to the coming day of judgment and sees God’s favourable verdict not on the basis of the merits and death of Christ, not because like Lord Hailsham he simply casts himself on the mercy of the judge, but on the basis of his apostolic work. ‘What is our hope and joy and crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus Christ at his royal appearing? Is it not you? For you are our glory and our joy.’ (1 Thess. 3.19f.; cp. Phil. 2.16f.) I suspect that if you or I were to say such a thing, we could expect a swift rebuke of ‘nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling’. The fact that Paul does not feel obliged at every point to say this shows, I think, that he is not as concerned as we are about the danger of speaking of the things he himself has done – though sometimes, to be sure, he adds a rider, which proves my point, that it is not his own energy but that which God gives and inspires within him (1 Cor. 15.10; Col. 1.29). But he is still clear that the things he does in the present, by moral and physical effort, will count to his credit on the last day, precisely because they are the effective signs that the Spirit of the living Christ has been at work in him. We are embarrassed about saying this kind of thing; Paul clearly is not. What on earth can have happened to a sola scriptura theology that it should find itself forced to screen out such emphatic, indeed celebratory, statements?

Given the clear fact that Tom Wright uses the expressions “in accordance with” and “on the basis of” interchangeably, as demonstrated above, does it not behoove us all to grant him the benefit of the doubt that he really does mean what he explained during his ETS presentation? My hope is that Tom Wright will employ the clearer expression and avoid the expression that introduces confusion. But I also hope that American evangelicals will be more generous readers and hearers as they continue to engage Tom Wright’s always thought-provoking presentations and essays.

*I have purposely not highlighted the crucial phrasing so as to constrain all to read the entirety of the citations to get the point.

Tom Schreiner’s Response to N. T. Wright’s Presentation at ETS, Atlanta

2010-11-24T15:00:00.003-06:00

Tom Schreiner’s responses to both Frank Thielman and N. T. Wright which he presented at the ETS conference in Atlanta last week are now available on the Internet, thanks to Patrick Schreiner.

Schreiner responds to Frank Thielman.

Schreiner responds to N. T. Wright.

Of special note in Tom Schreiner’s response to Wright is his happy acknowledgment of Tom Wright’s terminology clarification or adjustment from “on the basis of the whole life” to “in accordance with our works.” Tom Schreiner states,

I am delighted that Tom now speaks of the final judgment as one that will be in accordance with our works instead of on the basis of our works. I think this adjustment and clarification is exactly right and does not contradict the idea that our righteousness is in Christ. I resonate with Tom when he says that we too quickly drown out what is said about the role of good works in the final judgment because of our tradition. And I am in full agreement with his formulation: we are judged according to our works, but not on the basis of our works.

Since I commented on the terminology clarification or adjustment that Tom Wright offered during his plenary presentation, “Justification Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,” on the final day of the ETS conference in Atlanta, I believe that it is proper for me to underscore the point I made in my earlier entry on this matter. I have always granted Tom Wright the benefit of the doubt when he has repeatedly made the following statements in numerous essays and books.

“Present justification declares, on the basis of faith, what future justification will affirm publicly (according to [Rom.] 2:14-16 and 8:9-11) on the basis of the entire life.”[1]
The whole point about “justification by faith” is that it is something which happens in the present time (Romans 3.26) as a proper anticipation of the eventual judgment which will be announced, on the basis of the whole life led, in the future (Romans 2.1-16). Until justification is set firmly within this eschatological, as well as covenantal and apocalyptic, framework, we shall never be able to understand what Paul is talking about.[2]
And we now discover that this declaration, this vindication, occurs twice. It occurs in the future, as we have seen, on the basis of the entire life a person has led in the power of the Spirit—that is, it occurs on the basis of “works” in Paul’s redefined sense. And near the heart of Paul’s theology, it occurs in the present as an anticipation of that future verdict, when someone, responding in believing obedience to the “call” of the gospel, believes that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead.[3]
Along with lawcourt and covenant goes eschatology. Paul has set up a further question which will take him until Romans 8 to address fully. The new note he strikes in Romans 3:21-31 (justified in the present on the basis of nothing but faith!) sounds initially all wrong in terms of the tune he was playing in Romans 2:1-16 (justified in the future on the basis of the entire life!). He has set himself the challenge of filling in the intervening harmony and showing how, in fact, it is exactly what was required.[4]

I have always accepted Tom Wright’s phrasing, “on the basis of,” as his attempt to mean what I think is the much more accurate way to translate κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ (Romans 2:6), namely, “according to their deeds” or “in accordance with their works.” In fact, it seems to me that Tom Wright’s third statement cited above requires that we readers grant him the benefit of the doubt that I have consistently granted him. For he explains what he means when he clarifies “that is, it occurs on the basis of ‘works’ in Paul’s redefined sense” (emphasis added). Nevertheless, precisely because other readers have consistently found it difficult to grant him the benefit of the doubt and because readers (I included) have pointed out the unnecessary confusion created by using the phrase “on the basis of ‘works’,” it seems quite reasonable that we might have expected Tom Wright to have taken more ownership of the confusion and frustration caused by his choice of words when he seemingly resolved the matter by his clarification last week at the ETS conference. Yet, his effort to clarify fell short of taking ownership and set the blame upon readers instead. Keep in mind that John Piper did not hide his concern over Tom Wright’s phrasing in some obscure footnote in The Future of Justification. Piper devotes a whole chapter, chapter 7, spanning pages 103 through 116 to the issue. Yet, Tom Wright’s published response, Justification, does not offer the clarification of terminology that he offered at the ETS conference when he responded to Tom Schreiner’s presentation in which he points out the same confusing terminology. As I state in my own paper which I presented at the ETS conference, in Justification, his response to Piper,

Wright remains unbowed as he claims that future justification is on the basis of the whole life while simultaneously insisting that even though he differs from Piper on the idea of imputation, he agrees that justification by faith is “on the basis of Jesus’ death and triumphant resurrection.”[5] Earlier in his response Wright acknowledges the tension his statements pose, but he believes these statements, that incite others to charge him with “synergism,” accurately reflect Paul’s “paradoxes.”[6] Wright rejects the charge of “synergism” and explains: “I am not saying for one moment that ‘God does part of it and we do part of it’ (one classic form of ‘synergism,’ but not Paul’s). Paul’s regular paradoxes . . . remain the best way of putting it: ‘I struggle with all the energy that he powerfully inspires within me’ (Colossians 1:29); ‘I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me’ (1 Corinthians 15:10).” [7]

Clearly, Wright’s statements disallow generous readers to suppose that when he uses the expression “on the basis of” that he intends what many take the words to mean, that they require some kind of synergism. I have always happily and eagerly granted him the benefit of the doubt that he is no synergist, that he is no semi-Pelagian nor a Pelagian. I know what it is like to be so charged, for Tom Schreiner and I have been accused of such by individuals who fail to read The Race Set Before Us correctly. Both Tom and I have patiently responded by explaining how and why we are not synergists. I have posted extensive responses on my blog (TRSBU), and Tom has published a small book in which he responds to such criticisms (Run To Win The Prize). If being understood properly by others is what we surely all want for ourselves, should we not avoid terminology and phrasing that introduces confusion, especially when we are addressing such crucial issues as the gospel?

[1] N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 129. Cf. Wright’s definition in the glossary of terms in his popular commentary series as, “God’s declaration, from his position as judge of all the world, that someone is in the right, despite universal sin. This declaration will be made on the last day on the basis of an entire life (Romans 2:1-6), but is brought forward into the present on the basis of Jesus’ achievement, because sin has been dealt with through his cross (Romans 3:21-4:25); the means of this present justification is simply faith. This means, particularly, that Jews and Gentiles alike are full members of the family promised by God to Abraham (Galatians 3; Romans 4)” (Paul for Everyone—Romans: Part One [London: SPCK; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004], 169-170; emphasis original).

[2] N. T. Wright, Paul: In Fresh Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 57-58.

[3] N. T. Wright, “New Perspective on Paul,” in Justification in Perspective: Historical Developments and Contemporary Challenges, ed. Bruce L. McCormack (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006): 260.

[4] N. T. Wright, Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2009), 214.

[5] The full statement is, “Justification by faith on the basis of Jesus’ faithful death and triumphant resurrection, revealing the ‘righteousness’ of the Creator God, his faithfulness to the covenant-through-Israel-for-the-world—this justification means that God now declares circumcised and uncircumcised alike ‘in the right,’ ‘members of the covenant family,’ the former ‘on the basis of faith’ and the latter ‘through’ faith—a small but perhaps important distinction” (Wright, Justification, 216; emphasis added). Consideration of the latter portion of this statement follows shortly.

[6] N. T. Wright states, “As long as theologians, hearing this kind of proposal, shout ‘synergism’ and rush back to the spurious either-or which grows out of a doctrine that has attempted to construct the entire soteriological jigsaw puzzle on the basis of a medieval view of ‘justice’ and with some of the crucial bits (the Spirit, eschatology, not to mention Abraham and the covenant) still in the box, or on the floor, or in the fire, we shall never get anywhere” (Justification, 192).

[7] Wright, Justification, 192 (emphasis added).

Wright Sets Right A Wrong

2010-11-22T09:10:00.005-06:00

During N. T. Wright’s presentation, “Justification Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,” at the Evangelical Theological Society’s conference in Atlanta, Georgia on Friday, November 19, he made a crucial statement which I cannot quote exactly from memory but the portion I will include in quotation marks is almost exact. At a significant point in his lecture Wright made a statement concerning the apostle Paul's phrase in Romans 2:6 (κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ) that sounded quite different from what he has written many times in his books. Instead of saying that humans will be judged “on the basis of their deeds” or that they will be judged “on the basis of their whole life lived,” he stated that humans will be judged “in accordance with their deeds.” Then he paused and went off script, or at least gave the impression that he went off script, and stated that he has been wrongly charged with claiming that Paul states that God will judge humans “on the basis of deeds.” He also stated that if anyone could locate where he stated that judgment will be “on the basis of deeds,” he would like to be shown the place so that he could correct it.

During the panel discussion that followed Wright’s lecture, attended by an overflowing large ballroom, Tom Schreiner indicated that he had located Wright’s statement that God will judge “on the basis of the whole life lived.,” which is not difficult to find in many of his writings. However, Tom was unable to locate anywhere that Wright expressly states that God will judge “on the basis of deeds.” Because I have been reading Wright’s works extensively in preparation for one of my own presentations at the ETS conference, I had at least one quote in my paper, but I did not have my paper with me during the Wright lecture. Wright does use the expression “on the basis of works” in the following quotation.

And we now discover that this declaration, this vindication, occurs twice. It occurs in the future, as we have seen, on the basis of the entire life a person has led in the power of the Spirit—that is, it occurs on the basis of “works” in Paul’s redefined sense. And near the heart of Paul’s theology, it occurs in the present as an anticipation of that future verdict, when someone, responding in believing obedience to the “call” of the gospel, believes that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead.[1]

As indicated in this quotation, it is evident that N. T. Wright, himself, explains that his phrase “on the basis of the entire life a person has led in the power of the Spirit” means “on the basis of ‘works’ in Paul’s redefined sense.” Since this is what he means, I read his statement generously. Nevertheless, even though he uses the phrase and explains that it is in a “redefined sense,” it is understandable that readers have understood Wright to be saying that Paul claims that God will judge humans “on the basis of deeds.”

Nevertheless, my readers will remember that I have been generous toward N. T. Wright as I have offered a couple of plausible explanations for the origin of his statements: (1) hyperbole, as Wright often exaggerates his assertions to make a point (something plainly evident many times during his presentations at both the ETS and IBR meetings in Atlanta, from which I just returned), and (2) Wright’s somewhat “sloppy” translation of his exegesis at times or at least his less than careful and precise exegetical commentary on the biblical text at crucial junctures. For my comments on Wright’s statements see TRSBU.

On Friday, following Wright’s lecture and the panel discussion I heard many attending the conference offer happy commentary upon the correction of his previous insistence that judgment will be “on the basis of deeds/the whole life lived.” Yet, one disappointment that I heard many times was that attendees wished that Wright had presented the needed correction as a full and clear acknowledgment of his error of writing rather than present it as a needed correction of his readers’ failure to read his written words correctly or of his hearer’s failure to hear his spoken words correctly. Alas! How difficult it is to acknowledge wrong, to do so publicly and especially to do so when the wrong is so widely published in one’s own words. Is it unreasonable to think that N. T. Wright owes all his readers a brief published statement to acknowledge and to correct his error? Such a correction would surely have a salutary effect.

Young scholars, may I paraphrase James’ admonition, “Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19)? “Be quick to listen and to learn.” “Be slow to speak, to present, and to publish.” For, if you do these things, then obedience of the third imperative will come more readily, “Be slow to give way to anger,” especially to defend yourself when others point out your misstatements.

* * *

Denny Burk, Academic Dean of Boyce College, has posted N.T. Wright on Justification at ETS on his blog. Even N. T. Wright engages in adding a couple of comments. It seems that N. T. Wright’s comment on Denny Burke’s blog comes off as a kind of retraction of his correction. Instead of candidly acknowledging that his phrase (on the basis of ‘works’), even though he qualifies it, invites the understanding it has widely received, it seems that Wright wants to stick with what he has written and blame readers for imputing a wrong meaning to his phrase “on the basis of ‘works’”.

Denny Burk has posted a follow-up piece, Wrong about Wright?

Also find Collin Hansen’s report on the Gospel Coalition blog at A Justification Debate Long Overdue.

[1] N. T. Wright, “New Perspective on Paul,” in Justification in Perspective: Historical Developments and Contemporary Challenges, ed. Bruce L. McCormack (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006): 260.

New Journal Announcement

2010-11-13T16:46:00.001-06:00

Check out the newly announced Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters.

Introducing the Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters

The Apostle Paul stands as an incredibly important figure within the religious and intellectual history of Christianity and Judaism in the first century. The study of Paul (the historical person, author, tradition, and legend) and the Pauline letters (content, context, authenticity, theology, and reception) continue to capture the fascination of scholars, students, religious communities, and even the media. A number of journals geared toward New Testament studies in general often contain a disproportionate number of articles dedicated to the study of the Pauline corpus. There is a never-ending avalanche of Ph.D. theses written about Paul and about the countless approaches and methods used to analyze the Pauline materials. Indeed, the study of Paul and the Pauline letters appears to be an almost inexhaustible field of investigation. Therefore, we think it time that Pauline research should have its own dedicated journal as a specific conduit for Pauline research as it is broadly practiced. In light of these considerations, it is my pleasure to present to you the Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters (JSPL).

The JSPL will present cutting-edge research for scholars, teachers, postgraduate students, and advanced undergraduates related specifically to study of the Apostle Paul and cognate areas. It is proposed that the many and diverse aspects of Pauline studies be represented and promoted by the journal (see below, "Contribute"). The purpose of the journal is to advance discussion on these areas of Pauline research. As such we invite submissions on the above mentioned topics that make a significant and original contribution to the field of Pauline studies.

The inaugural issue of JSPL includes a contribution by one of its editorial board members, Dr. Susan Eastman of Duke Divinity School (USA) on “Philippians 2:6–11: Incarnation as Mimetic Participation.” Delving into the Christ-Hymn, Eastman argues for a close link between imitation and participation in Paul’s explication of his gospel to the Philippian audience. The first regular issue of JSPL will include studies such as Paul Foster, “Eschatology in the Thessalonian Correspondence”; Michael Gorman, “Justification and Justice”; Richard Bell, “Paul’s Theology of Mind”; and a review of Douglas A. Campbell’s The Deliverance of God by Christopher Tilling and Michael Gorman, with a further response from Douglas Campbell.

For more details look here.

A Glorious Random Act of Culture

2010-11-13T14:36:00.003-06:00

The Philadelphia Opera Company is known for its “random acts of culture.” On October 30 they gathered with crowds at the Macy’s store in Philadelphia. As the clock struck noon, the singers, accompanied by the Wanamaker Organ – the world’s largest pipe organ – burst out with Handel’s Hallelujah chorus. Watch! Listen! Enjoy! Worship!

As you listen, imagine what such a chorus would be if all singers were to know the Lord.

ETS Presentation on Πίστις Χριστοῦ

2010-11-12T11:49:00.011-06:00

Update Note (11/15/10): I uploaded a slightly modified version of my presentation, in the event that you have downloaded and printed a copy.

If you plan to attend the Pistis Christou Discussion Panel listed on pages 20-21 of the Evangelical Theological Society 62nd Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia on November 17, 2010 in Room 305 at 2:50-6:00 PM, you may want to print out my presentation and bring it with you to the session. Here is a copy of what I will be presenting.

You may also want to check out Bible Gateway's blog on translating Galatians 2:16. Look here. For older entries on the same question, look here.

The presentation below is also available here, at Google Docs.

The Faithfulness of Christ as a Theme in Paul's Theology Presentation Copy >

English Translations Sanitize the Bible And Muddle Biting Imagery

2010-10-25T10:32:00.007-05:00

When I first began to translate the Greek New Testament as a student, I was puzzled why English translations always seemed to translate the Greek word ἡ ἀκροβυστία with “the uncircumcised” when the word actually means “the foreskin” and when there is a Greek word that actually does mean “the uncircumcised.” The Greek word is ἀπερίτμητος, an adjective which, when used with the article, ἡ ἀπερίτμητος, may function as a noun. Paul never uses the adjective ἀπερίτμητος. In fact, it occurs only one time in the whole New Testament. It occurs in Stephen’s speech when he, like the prophets earlier, indicts Israel for “uncircumcised hearts and ears” (Acts 7:51).

The word that Paul consistently uses when he juxtaposes Jews as “the circumcised” (ἡ περιτομή) with Gentiles who are not circumcised, is not ἡ ἀπερίτμητος, “the uncircumcised,” a term used repeatedly in the LXX to depict Israel. Rather, Paul’s word of choice seems to be the contemptuous, even scornful term by which Jews of his day commonly referred to Gentiles. Paul uses ἡ ἀκροβυστία, “the foreskin,” the term of contempt, not to express scorn or disdain, but rather to feature the grace of God in the gospel which saves not only Jews who are circumcised, but also Gentiles who are “the foreskin,” a sure manifestation that they stand outside the covenant.

That English translators mollify the unpleasantry is understandable. However, lost is something of the richness and sting that Paul’s imagery evokes for Gentles as intended by Jews, which is captured well in the accusation put to Peter when he returned from being with Cornelius, “You went to men who have the foreskin and you ate with them” (εἰση̂λθες πρὸς ἄνδρας ἀκροβυστίαν ἔχοντας καὶ συνέφαγες αὐτοι̂ς; Acts 11:2). Paul's objective is not to be vulgar as course jokers are. His point is not even to be offensive to Gentiles, as he undoubtedly was as a Pharisee. Rather, as a Jew who formerly held contempt for the Gentiles as "the foreskin," now as Christ's apostle to the Gentiles, he purposely tweaks the sensibilities of fellow Jews who are loath to accept Gentiles believers as Abraham's seed.

Other portions within Paul’s letters that English translations tend to soften are Galatians 5:11 and Philippians 3:8.

The Havoc of Exegetical Misconstrual, Unintentional, of Course

2010-10-22T13:30:00.013-05:00

On Wednesday I posted a paragraph from the essay I am preparing for the ETS conference in Atlanta. Here is another paragraph to pique your curiosity and interest.

Worthy of passing comment is the havoc done to Paul’s argument by stating that “the doers of the law” (οἱ ποιηταὶ νόμου; 2:13), which is a statement characterizing who will be justified, “are no more and no less than those who ‘do the works of the law’; and ‘works of the law,’ Paul claims cannot justify.”[1] This is flawed and tortuous reasoning. Paul designs his statements in 2:12-13 to sustain his argument that Jewish possession of the law does nothing to insulate them from the coming wrath of God’s righteous judgment. So, a Jew, who possesses the law and hears it but does not do what the law requires, and a Gentile, who sins while neither possessing the law nor hearing what the law requires, equally will be condemned when God passes judgment. Possession of the law does not advantage Jews. Hearers of the law will not be set right with God (2:13a). Only doers of the law will be justified (2:13b). To negate Paul’s affirmative statement that concerns who will be justified, “the doers of the law” (2:13), with his much later negative assertion that concerns how justification will not occur before God, “all humanity will not be justified from the works required by the law” (3:20), amounts to hermeneutical “illegal procedure,” for it adjusts the apostle’s argument to fit a theological system.

[1] The expression, “works of the law,” has become infamously slippery with a “tendency to slide between two definitions of ἔργα νόμου (‘works commanded by the law’ and ‘actions performed in obedience to the law’ [cf. NIV as in Rom. 3:20])” (A. B. Caneday, “The Curse of the Law and the Cross of Christ: Works of the Law and Faith in Galatians 3:1-14,” [PhD diss., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1992], 151-152; on ἔργα νόμου, see pp. 150-155). See also, Stephen Westerholm, who agrees that Paul’s phrase means, “the deeds demanded by the Sinaitic law code” (Israel’s Law and the Church’s Faith, [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988], 121). Cf. also Douglas J. Moo, “‘Law,’ ‘Works of the Law,’ and Legalism in Paul,” Westminster Theological Journal 40 (1987): 92.

Justification, Judgment & Behavior: Judgment Day’s Coming Verdict Now Announced in the Gospel

2010-10-20T15:07:00.014-05:00

For those of you who plan to attend the Evangelical Theological Society’s annual meetings in Atlanta (Nov. 17-19), here is a paragraph from my essay that is scheduled to be presented for the Hermeneutics Study Group on Wednesday morning, November 17 according to the schedule below. Download Program PDF.

ROOM 213
Hermeneutics
Other Perspectives on the New Perspectives on Paul and the Law
Section Moderator: W. Edward Glenny (Northwestern College)

8:30-9:10 am

A. B. Caneday (Northwestern College, Saint Paul, MN)
Justification, Judgment & Behavior: Judgment Day’s Coming Verdict Now Announced in the Gospel

9:20-10:00 am

James B. De Young (Western Seminary)
Do the Apostolic Fathers Support the Premises of the New Perspectives on Paul and the Law?

10:10-10:50 am

Respondent: Lyn Nixon (London School of Theology)
Respondent: Matthew S. Harmon (Grace College & Theological Seminary)

In Romans 2:6-11Paul’s argument is not concerned with how or on what basis God will recompense people with eternal life or with wrath. Paul’s argument concerns to whom God will recompense eternal life and to whom God will recompense wrath.[1] This is evident in that the verb, “God will recompense” (ὃς ἀποδώσει ἑκάστῳ) finds its dual indirect objects stated within the four inner clauses of the chiasm: (B) τοῖς . . . ζητοῦσιν (v. 7), (C) τοῖς ἐξ ἐριθείας καὶ ἀπειθοῦσι . . . πειθομένοις (v. 8), (C’) ἐπὶ πᾶσαν ψυχὴν ἀνθρώπου κτλ. (v. 9), and (B’) παντὶ τῷ ἐργαζομένῳ κτλ. (v. 10).[2] Each of the substantive participles, though characterizing people by their behavior, accents character. The fact that each clause characterizes by behavior the respective recipients of God’s recompense does not mean that these antipodal characterizations indicate the cause or basis of God’s reward—eternal life or wrath. Rather, lest anyone, Jews in particular, presume that the wealth of God’s kindness, forbearance, and patience exempts them from God’s wrath that will fall upon Gentile sinners (2:4), Paul emphasizes both the impartiality and the inviolability of God’s recompense. The outer matched chiastic pair, stated in 2:6 and 11, accents the impartiality of God’s righteous judgment, while the inner corresponding pairs feature the inviolability of God’s justice.[3] Paul expresses the inviolability of God’s righteous judgment in another place: “God is not mocked. For what one sows, this also one reaps. The one who sows unto the flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction, but the one who sows unto the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life” (Gal. 6:7). Here, the imagery of sowing and reaping accents the inviolability of God’s justice concerning behavior that characterizes and recompense, just as Romans 2:6-11 stresses the inviolable relationship God’s righteous judgment establishes between character and recompense.

[1] In The Race Set Before Us (Schreiner and Caneday) we make the case that in Rom. 2:6-11 “Paul does not answer the question ‘On what basis will one be justified?” The question is not how but “Who will be justified?” (165ff). Upon reading these pages again, we could have expressed our thoughts even more crisply, as I endeavor to do in this essay.

[2] See note below for the chiasm.

[3] For the sake of convenience, here is the chiasm presented earlier.

A. God will judge everyone equitably v. 6
     B. Those who do good will attain eternal life v. 7
          C. Those who do evil will suffer wrath v. 8
          C.’ Wrath for those who do evil v. 9
     B.’ Glory for those who do good v. 10
A.’ God judges impartially v. 11

Thoughts on Mark 9:14--The crowd was astonished when they saw him

2010-09-05T07:53:00.004-05:00

I am sorry that my blog has disappointed so many for so long because of no fresh exegetical entries. Since July, I have been otherwise occupied with house projects.

A comment from a reader of one of my other blogs prompted me to re-post here an entry from more than four years ago. I trust that it will be fresh for most of you. I shall resume my blogging here as time permits and as I resume a more daily schedule in my study.

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On the other hand, if Jesus' countenance still radiates the glory of the transfiguration, the command "not to tell anyone" (v. 9) seems rather pointless. Moreover, if Jesus' countenance is substantially affected, we might expect the crowd to retreat in fear (Exod 34:30) rather than advance in avid pursuit. . . . On balance, the astonishment of the crowd appears to owe to Jesus' unexpected appearance and the hopes it raised (Mark 276-277).

It seems more likely that my imagination, activated by the text of Mark that day in class recently, was intuitively right to direct the students to consider a recapitulation of Moses' descent from the mountain as recorded in Exodus 34:29-35.

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. Afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded them all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.
Whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil, until he came out. And when he came out and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face was shining. And Moses would put the veil over his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

Jesus has just come down the mountain after being transfigured in the cloud along with Elijah and with Moses. Echoes, in the transfiguration account, of Moses' experience of the theophany on Mount Sinai (Exodus 33:17-23) are too strong to ignore. This is all the more so when we find Mark using ekthambeō to describe the crowd's response to Jesus. Thus, it seems right that Morna Hooker says,

[Mark] must mean that there was something about Jesus' appearance which gave them good reason to be astonished. The only possible explanation seems to be that Mark means us to understand that Jesus' appearance is still in some way affected by the transfiguration. If Moses, coming down the mountain after speaking with God, reflected the glory of God from his face without knowing it, and so caused all the people to be afraid (Exod. 34:29f.), it is not surprising if Jesus also, coming down the mountain from a similar experience, caused astonishment among the crowd (The Gospel according to Mark, 222-224).

Robert Gundry also seems to get it right when he adds, "And something so striking as the heavenly whiteness of Jesus' garments seems required to account for a word so strong as exethambēthēsan. The extremity of the circumstances leading to later use of this word support this judgment" (Mark, 488).

What about James Edwards' objections to this understanding of the passage? What about his objection that this interpretation makes Jesus' command to the three apostles on the mountain "not to tell anyone" (v. 9) seem "rather pointless"? What about Edwards' objection that this interpretation should cause one to expect that the crowd would "retreat in fear (Exod 34:30) rather than advance in avid pursuit"?

It seems to me that any proper understanding of the interplay between Jesus' revealing and concealing his identity throughout Mark's narrative (the Secrecy Motif) has to acknowledge that Jesus' prohibition announced to his disciples on the mountain can hardly be taken the way Edwards does. In each of Jesus' acts, in each of his parables, in each of his miracles he both reveals and conceals. This is the nature of revelation. Jesus forbade the three disciples to speak of what they had seen on the mountain, but this prohibition hardly prevented him from carrying an afterglow of his transfigured glory with him for his other disciples and for the crowd below to glimpse and to be astonished.

If the crowd got a glimpse of the glory with which Jesus had been clothed when the heavenly cloud descended upon him on the mountain, then why did the crowd not "retreat in fear" as the children of Israel did when Moses approached them after he came down from the mountain? Is it not reasonable for us to suppose that Mark tells us that the crowd was astonished but ran to him and greeted him because he wants us to realize that, even though the crowd likely acted better than they understood, their reception of Jesus who came down from the mountain with apparent glory yet shining from his clothing signals that Jesus truly is the one greater than Moses of whom Moses prophesied when he said,"The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him" (Deut 18:15; NIV). The heavenly voice on the mountain quotes this passage with the command, "Listen to him!" (Mark 9:7), signifying that Jesus is the True Moses, the one greater than Moses, the one of whom Moses prophesied.

So, as I reflect upon the recent day when I was teaching on Mark 9, I marvel at how many times I have read the words of Mark 9:14-15 and have read numerous commentaries on the passage and yet the text struck me as though it were the first time. The words leaped off the page and struck my imagination, prompting me to raise questions for my students, questions that I also needed to search out. I never cease to marvel that, if my students learn nothing when I teach, that I always learn, no matter how many times I have taught the same portions of the text before. Even though we who teach the text of Scripture repeatedly, year in and year out, there is something about the richness and fullness of the landscape of biblical narrative that we never take it all in at once. Even for us who teach there is much for us yet to learn.

I like the imagery sometimes attributed to Chrysostom (and Gregory the Great), used to describe the Gospel of John, that it is like a river--shallow enough for children to wade in it but deep enough for elephants to swim in it. Such is the nature of biblical narrative.

Barrenness, Uncommon Conceptions, and the Virgin Conception

2010-07-22T14:03:00.007-05:00

I'm sorry that I've been occupied with task that keep me from blogging. Here is an entry, however, that emerges from an essay I am writing on Paul's uses of Scripture in Galatians 4:21-31. I realize that it is only a brief and tantalizing paragraph. It is not at all core to my essay's thesis. I belive that it does, however, raise a matter that NT students could readily take up as an intriguing and engaging thesis for an essay or monograph.

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True as it is that Paul’s citation of Scripture to warrant this conclusion is evident, appealing to the Abraham narrative of Genesis and to Isaiah 54:1 as he does, what warrants Paul to use these portions of Scripture as he does? As one begins to search for answers to these questions, given Paul’s use of Isaiah 54:1, it becomes apparent that Paul does not originate the allegory. Isaiah’s use, which goes beyond the bare storyline of Genesis, predates Paul’s, thus pushing questions concerning the apostle’s use of the Abraham narrative back at least to the prophet, if not to the text of Genesis itself. For both the apostle Paul and the prophet Isaiah, essential to the Abraham narrative of Genesis is the plotted obstacle expressed in Genesis 11:30, “Now Sarah was barren, and she had no child.” The entire story of Abraham in Genesis emerges from and proceeds upon the premise that Abraham’s wife, Sarah, is incapable of bearing children. Thus, from the outset, the writer of Genesis signals that the story entailing Sarah, Abraham, and God’s promise of seed to them is larger than life, larger than any of the individual personages within the story, thus infusing significances into the story that reach beyond the characters and events themselves, even if the one who inscribes the story does not fully grasp these significances in anticipation of the promise’s fulfillment. The import of the story’s premise promptly becomes evident in Genesis 12. Given Sarah’s sterility as the already stated obstacle, how will God surmount this impediment in order to keep his promise to Abraham that “in you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (12:3) and “to your seed I will give this land” (12:7)? The obstacle to God’s promise that Sarah’s barrenness poses, with which the narrative begins, is the first of two further iterations within the Genesis narrative, both entailing covenant couples, direct descendents of Abraham and Sarah, in the cases of Isaac and Rebekah (Gen 25:21) and of Jacob and Rachel (Gen 30:1).[2]

[1] Cf. the LXX of Gen 11:30 (καὶ ἦν Σαρα σπεῖρα καὶ οὐκ ἐτεκνοποίει) and of Isa 54:1 (εὐφράνθητι σπεῖρα ἡ οὐ τίκτουσα).

[2] Find the barrenness theme elsewhere in the case of Manoah and his wife with the birth of Samson (Jdgs 13:1-24), concerning Hannah and the birth of Samuel (1 Sam 1:2, 6), and implied in the story of the Shunammite woman and the birth of her son (2 Kgs 4:14). Except in the case of the Shunammite’s son, barrenness plays the purposeful role of displaying the extraordinary power and glory of the Lord who, in displays of uncommon grace to bring about conception and birth against nature’s impediment, and the sons born became Israel’s deliverers. Is it unreasonable to infer that this barrenness theme with such displays of God’s power, from the beginning, foreshadows the greatest uncommon conception of the greatest deliverer of all, not just from a barren womb but from a virgin’s womb? After all, this greatest uncommon conception of all fulfilled the promise of the Seed made to Abraham whose wife, Sarah, was the barren one.

Μυστήριον, Not So Great a Mystery

2010-06-25T08:46:00.007-05:00

It has been awhile since I have posted an entry because I have been quite preoccupied with many activities, including writing an essay on Galatians 4:21-31 to be published in a journal in the fall. My study has brought me to a crucial moment in which I am constrained to address the role of mystery as it relates to the passage, which is the only place where any New Testament writer uses the word ἀλληγορέω (cf. ἀλληγορία), the word from which we derive our English words allegorize and allegory. I may post an entry on that later. For now, I offer a brief entry on μυστήριον, the Greek word from which we derive our English, mystery.

Mystery, as biblically conceived, is akin to how a mystery novel is written to be read following the storyline’s development and progression, building toward its dramatic climax when the mystery is finally revealed. Embedded within characters, events, settings, and plotted conflict throughout the storyline of a mystery novel are hints, foreshadows, and harbingers written in such a manner as to incite expectation. Yet, at the same time, woven into this storyline are puzzling enigmas, riddles, and conundrums that tantalize and add to anticipation that builds and escalates toward the plotline’s climax so that when the mystery finally reaches its climactic point of revelation, with its multifaceted culmination, the reader smacks the forehead with the palm of the hand and says, “But, of course! There it was all along. It was right before my very eyes from the beginning. How could I have missed it? How could I not have seen it until it was made obvious to me?” Such is the way the Old Testament was written. Such is the way Scripture bears witness to Christ Jesus. Such is what dawned upon Paul during his encounter with the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus. Thus, Paul writes, “Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery concealed for long ages, but is now disclosed through the prophetic scriptures, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known for the obedience of faith unto all the Gentiles–to the only wise God through Jesus Christ, to him be glory forever” (Rom 16:25-27). The same Scriptures which concealed the mystery for long ages are the media through which the mystery is now revealed.

Ephesians 5:18--Be filled with the Spirit?

2010-05-25T16:25:00.061-05:00

Long ago, when I was a young MDiv student, I needed to resolve for myself a theological question concerning Ephesians 5:18. My theological question arose out of the popular appeal to Ephesians 5:18 by a major Christian campus evangelistic group as its key biblical passage concerning living the Christian life. Appeal to Ephesians 5:18 called for Christians to become "filled with the Holy Spirit," one of numerous versions of teachings concerning the need for a "second blessing" leading to sanctification.

Since I had received two years of instruction in biblical Greek in college I puzzled over whether Ephesians 5:18 actually provided support for the "second blessing" teaching because the Greek grammar simply did not seem to support the usual translation of the verse. So, during my middler MDiv year I decided to write an essay for the second semester Christian Theology course, Salvation and the Christian Life, on Ephesians 5:18 to see if I could resolve my questions.

Crucial to my study was whether Paul's command of Ephesians 5:18 and Luke's narrative descriptions of "filling with the Holy Spirit" and "fullness of the Holy Spirit" throughout Luke-Acts correlate and concern the same phenomenon. At the time that I researched for my essay I found no published work that had tabulated the lexical work that was necessary for me to do. Because I was not so well skilled in linguistic research I essentially did all the ground-work research for myself only to discover after the fact that various grammarians and linguists who long-predated me did have brief helpful and instructive notes that confirmed my own discoveries. What were those discoveries? The following table shows what I discovered. True to form, Greek words of filling and fullness take the genitive case to indicate the content or the thing with which something is filled or full.

Consistently Luke-Acts uses the genitive case (πνεύματος ἁγίου; Holy Spirit) following verbs of filling and adjectives of fullness. Ephesians 5:18, as shown, not only does not use the genitive case as one should expect, if Paul is speaking of the same phenomenon as does Luke-Acts (πνεύματος ἁγίου; Holy Spirit), but Paul uses the dative case with the preposition (en pneumati; ἐν πνεύματι).

Reference	Verb or Adjective	Noun Case
Luke 1:15	πλησθήσεται (he will be filled)	πνεύματος ἁγίου (with the Holy Spirit)
Luke 1:41	ἐπλήσθη (she was filled)	πνεύματος ἁγίου (see above)
Luke 1:67	ἐπλήσθη (he was filled)	πνεύματος ἁγίου (see above)
Luke 4:1	πλήρης (full)	πνεύματος ἁγίου (of the Holy Spirit)
Acts 2:4	ἐπλήσθησαν (they were filled)	πνεύματος ἁγίου (with the Holy Spirit)
Acts 4:8	πλησθείς (filled)	πνεύματος ἁγίου (with the Holy Spirit)
Acts 4:31	ἐπλήσθησαν (they were filled)	πνεύματος ἁγίου (with the Holy Spirit)
Acts 6:3	πλήρεις (full)	πνεύματος (of the Spirit)
Acts 6:5	πλήρης (full)	πνεύματος ἁγίου (of the Holy Spirit)
Acts 7:55	πλήρης (full)	πνεύματος ἁγίου (of the Holy Spirit)
Acts 9:17	πλησθῇ (filled)	πνεύματος ἁγίου (with the Holy Spirit)
Acts 11:24	πλήρης (full)	πνεύματος ἁγίου (of the Holy Spirit)
Acts 13:9	πλησθείς (filled)	πνεύματος ἁγίου (with the Holy Spirit)
Acts 13:52	ἐπληροῦντο (they were being filled)	πνεύματος ἁγίου (with the Holy Spirit)

Ephesians 5:18	πληροῦσθε (be filled)	ἐν πνεύματι (in the Spirit)

Consequently, it became readily evident that what Luke-Acts has in view with its grammatical constructions, Paul has something different in view. Since I did my research I have discovered that many others have confirmed my findings on Ephesians 5:18. I refer to published studies, including commentaries. In fact, unbeknown to me I initiated a series of studies on the passage that built upon my essay, an essay that was supposed to be twelve pages but turned out to be sixty-five pages. A doctoral dissertation used my essay and from that dissertation several other studies were birthed at various theological schools.

Paul's admonition should not be taken as it is routinely translated even to this day as "be filled with the Spirit" (NIV, NRSV, ESV). Clearly, Paul is not commanding the Ephesians to be filled with the Spirit in the sense that Luke describes various individuals as "filled with the Holy Spirit" such as in Luke 1:15, 41, 67; Acts 2:4; 4:31. Not everyone who challenges the mistranslation of Ephesians 5:18 agrees with me concerning how I translate the passage. Nevertheless, I offer the following as my translation of the verse tied inextricably with the following verses. Given Paul's uses of the various words for filling and for fullness throughout Ephesians, I translate the verb not as "be filled" but as "be brought to completion."

And do not become intoxicated with wine, in which is debauchery, but be brought to completion in the Spirit by speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, by singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord, by giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, to God and the Father, by submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.

I take the imperative verb of 5:18 (πληροῦσθε; plērousthe) as the main verb upon which the sequence of participles hangs. I translate the verb as "be brought to completion." Hence, I translate each of the five present participles in the series as instrumental participles, expressing the instrumental means by which the being brought to completion is to be accomplished, by speaking . . . (λαλοῦντες), by singing and making melody . . . (ᾅδοντες . . . ψάλλοντες), by giving thanks . . . (εὐχαριστοῦντες), and by submitting (ὑποστασσόμενοι). It is rather apparent that the thing commanded in 5:18 is accomplished neither privately nor independently but corporately, as members of the church, within the congregation of believers. This is no "Lone Ranger" activity. This is true no matter how one syntactically connects the series of five participles to the imperative verb of 5:18, even if one takes the participles as expressing results rather than instrumental means.

You will also notice that many modern translations disconnect verse 21 from verses 18-20 and make it the head verse of a new paragraph connected with verse 22. This has been a modern and recent adjustment to the text after the third United Bible Societies' third edition of the Greek New Testament. This adjustment coincides with the modern feminist movement and its impact upon all things Christian. Not only is there no textual warrant for this; there are textual reasons to read verse 21 as the final verse of the paragraph.

As to all the theological implications and ramifications of my study, I leave that for now. Likewise, I lay discussion aside concerning other exegetical, syntactical, and text-critical decisions reflected in my translation. One this should be evident: Ephesians 5:18 is not commanding us to be "filled with the Holy Spirit" in the sense that early believers were "filled with the Holy Spirit." Rather, Paul's admonition entails the normative Christian experience of life and fellowship within the body of Christ, the church. The "being brought to completion in the Spirit" is none other than being filled with the fullness of God (cf. Ephesians 3:14-19).

Additional Note: Andy Naselli's book, Let Go and Let God? is a superb critique of the theology that my long essay on Ephesians 5:18 critiqued. From my earlier reading of Andy's material I am fully confident that his book will be superb. Read Andy's blog entry on his book, Let Go and Let God? here. Read Tom Schreiner's foreword to the book here.

Purchase Andy's book here at pre-publication special price. I ordered my copy today (6/11/10).

You may access significant elements of Andy's book by listening to his series of lectures based upon his dissertation here.

Additional Note #2: I just stumbled on to Andy Naselli's article, "Being Filled By the Spirit." Andy takes the five participles following the imperative πληροῦσθε in Ephesians 5:18 as expressing the results of "being filled by the Spirit." The expression "by the Spirit," of course, does not indicate the content. In fact, as Andy states and as my own study shows, the content with which we are to be filled is not expressly stated in the passage. As I suggest, the content is "the fulness of God," as inferred from the remainder of the letter to the Ephesians. I notice that Andy agrees with this.

Postscript: As I have indicated in my entry above, I have no substantial quibble with those, like Andy, who take the participles as expressing results of being filled by the Spirit. I take the participles as expressing instrumentality by which the command (πληροῦσθε ἐν πνεύματι) is carried out. The reason I take the participles as instrumental rather than as resultant is that I take the command (πληροῦσθε ἐν πνεύματι) to mean "be brought to completion in the Spirit." I take it this way for a variety of reasons. I will offer only two, here. One is that I take ἐν πνεύματι (en pneumati) as a locative, meaning, in the Spirit. This is influenced by the frequent use of multiple uses of ἐν πνεύματι (en pneumati) in Ephesians, including some slight variations. Second is that I take πληρόω (plēroō [I fill, fulfill, complete]) in 5:18 in the sense "be fulfilled, be made complete" in conjuction with its other uses in Ephesians (1:23; 3:19; 4:10) and with use of πλήρωμα (plērōma [fullness]) in Ephesians (1:10;, 23; 3:19; 4:13). Ephesians 3:19 is decisive for me with the combination of the two words in the purpose clause, ἵνα πληρωθῆτε εἰς πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ θεοῦ (in order that you might be made complete unto all the completeness of God or in order that you might be fulfilled unto all the fullness of God).

Irony in 1 John

2010-05-24T16:57:00.021-05:00

A couple of notable points of irony in the rhetoric of 1 John may be found in 1:7 and in 2:11. Irony entails a twist, in these cases an unexpected twist.

The irony in 1:7, of course, is in the statement, "and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from every sin." Who among us would ever think to use blood as a cleansing agent? Instead, we think of blood as causing stains, nearly indelible stains, difficult to remove. One hardly thinks of blood as a cleansing agent. John, however, does. Of course, blood in 1 John 1:7 does not refer principally to the red substance that courses through our arteries and veins but rather blood is used by synecdoche for Messiah's bloody self-sacrifice, blood shed, the giving of his life on behalf of others..

The irony of 2:11 is in the statement "because the darkness has blinded his eyes." Ordinarily we think of bright light as blinding our eyes, at least momentarily (cf. Acts 9:1-9). John, however, expresses the unexpected, that "the darkness has blinded his eyes." Of course, John employs darkness, absence of light, metaphorically for being devoid of truth, of righteousness, of belief, of knowledge of God, of understanding the gospel. So accustomed is the person to absence of the light of truth and of righteousness that this person not only hates others but has no moral compass to discern proper direction but instead stumbles about, blinded by darkness.

Perhaps the irony of these two passages misses us because we have become so accustomed to reading the text without sufficient care and attentiveness or perhaps we have so frequently read the passage that it has little impact upon us because we assume that we know it. The ironies, however, are worth pondering, especially given themes in 1 John.

Does John use ἡ ἀγάπη (the love) as Personification for Christ Jesus?

2010-05-06T17:26:00.225-05:00

See significant update below (05/11/2010).

During the last few weeks of the first-year koiné Greek course I have been teaching this semester we have been reading and translating 1 John. Earlier this week we read through 1 John 4:11-16. As we read, I offer a few basic exegetical observations for first-year Greek students. In particular, I focus attention upon the highlighted portion in verse 16. As many times as I have read through 1 John in the Greek text, the text remains fresh, so that this week I saw something for the first time in the following passage.

1 John 4:11-16 (Greek Text)

11 Ἀγαπητοί, εἰ οὕτως ὁ θεὸς ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς, καὶ ἡμεῖς ὀφείλομεν ἀλλήλους ἀγαπᾶν. 12 θεὸν οὐδεὶς πώποτε τεθέαται. ἐὰν ἀγαπῶμεν ἀλλήλους, ὁ θεὸς ἐν ἡμῖν μένει καὶ ἡ ἀγάπη αὐτοῦ ἐν ἡμῖν τετελειωμένη ἐστίν. 13 Ἐν τούτῳ γινώσκομεν ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ μένομεν καὶ αὐτὸς ἐν ἡμῖν, ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος αὐτοῦ δέδωκεν ἡμῖν. 14 καὶ ἡμεῖς τεθεάμεθα καὶ μαρτυροῦμεν ὅτι ὁ πατὴρ ἀπέσταλκεν τὸν υἱὸν σωτῆρα τοῦ κόσμου. 15 Ὃς ἐὰν ὁμολογήσῃ ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, ὁ θεὸς ἐν αὐτῷ μένει καὶ αὐτὸς ἐν τῷ θεῷ. 16 καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐγνώκαμεν καὶ πεπιστεύκαμεν τὴν ἀγάπην ἣν ἔχει ὁ θεὸς ἐν ἡμῖν.

Ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν, καὶ ὁ μένων ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ ἐν τῷ θεῷ μένει καὶ ὁ θεὸς ἐν αὐτῷ μένει.

1 John 4:11-16 (English Translation)

11 Beloved, if God loved us in this manner, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God resides among us and his love is made complete among us. 13 By this we know that we reside in him and he among us because he has given to us from his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and are bearing testimony that the Father sent the Son, savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses, "The Son of God is Jesus," God resides in him and he in God. 16 And we have come to know and have come to believe this love which God has among us.

God is love, and the one who resides in this love resides in God and God resides in him.

As we were reading the passage something leaped off the page to grab my attention relative to an essay that I discontinued researching and writing that I intended to present during a professional conference in November 2008. I discontinued my work on the essay when I was injured and could not sit without considerable discomfort. I have been intending to return to the essay on "the love of God" (ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ) in 1 John and complete it. Getting injured stymied completion of the essay. After abandoning the project I lost interest in completing it. However, this week, as we were reading the above passage in class I may have stumbled upon an important element that re-energizes my interest to complete the essay.

Verse 16 is the portion that caught my attention. What struck me as unusual is the expression καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐγνώκαμεν καὶ πεπιστεύκαμεν τὴν ἀγάπην (and we have come to know and we have come to believe the love. . . ). It is not strange to find love (τὴν ἀγάπην) as the direct object of the verb "I know" (γινώσκω). In fact, 1 John 3:16 places the love (τὴν ἀγάπην) as the direct object of the verb "I know" (γινώσκω) by stating, ἐν τούτω̣ ἐγνώκαμεν τὴν ἀγάπην, ὅτι ἐκεῖνος ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἔθηκεν (by this we have come to know this love that this one laid down his life on behalf of us).

However, after consulting a Greek concordance and doing an electronic search with Bible software, I discovered what I suspected. It would be not only unusual but unexpected to find love (τὴν ἀγάπην) as the object of the verb "I believe" (πιστεύω). In fact, this occurrence in 1 John 4:16 is the only one in the Greek Old Testament and New Testament. By writing we have come to believe love John seems to give objectivity to love. It seems that John objectifies ἡ ἀγάπη (the love). If this is so, then by objectifying ἡ ἀγάπη (the love), John represents the abstract concept of love as an object that we both come to know and to believe. Yet, to suggest that he represents love as an object is altogether too inadequate, because John's unexpected objectifying turn of phrase seems to require us to understand ἡ ἀγάπη (the love) to be invested with a figurative function. This figurative function seems to be personification of the love of God (ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ) by substituting ἡ ἀγάπη (the love) for Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Ἰησοῦς ὁ Χριστὸς, ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ; Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God), who is the personification of God's love made visible among us through his incarnation and sacrificial death, in particular. If this is so, perhaps I am onto the turn of phrase that opens up John's use of the phrase ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ (the love of God) which he seems to employ with deliberate equivocation. This concurs with my exegetical instincts when I was working on my essay that the incarnation of Christ is the key that enables John's seeming deliberate equivocation. Thus, it appears that John may use ἡ ἀγάπη (the love) as a substitute for Jesus Christ in whose sacrificial death divine love is personified. If reading the passage this way is correct, then John is making the point that Christ's incarnation brings the abiding presence of God's love among us.

It is noteworthy that the expression that caught my eye occurs within John's climaxing presentation of the love of God (ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ; 4:7-21). Keep in mind that my essay aimed at seeking to determine whether the genitive (τοῦ θεοῦ) in John's expression the love of God (ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ) should be understood as expressing (1) subjectively, God's love for believers; or (2) objectively, beleivers' love for God; or whether the expression (3) signals that love has its origin in God and is manifest through believers to one another; or that the expression is (4) a purposefully equivocating expression that plausibly bears all three previous senses depending upon its use in context.

Now, I trust you will recognize why 1 John 4:16 caught my eye in relation to my suspended essay on ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ (the love of God). One finds John's repeated and varied expressions concerning the love of God in the following passages.

1 John 2:5 ἐν τούτω̣ ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ τετελείωται (in this the love of God is perfected)
1 John 2:15 οὐκ ἔστιν ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ πατρὸς ἐν αὐτῷ (the love of the Father is not in him)
1 John 3:17 πῶς ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ μένει ἐν αὐτῷ; (how dwells the love of God in him?)
1 John 4:9 ἐν τούτω̣ ἐφανερώθη ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν ἡμῖν (by this the love of God is made visible among us)
1 John 4:12 καὶ ἡ ἀγάπη αὐτοῦ ἐν ἡμῖν τετελειωμένη ἐστίν (and his love is made perfect among us)
1 John 5:3 αὕτη γάρ ἐστιν ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ (for this is the love of God)

In 1 John 4:9 "the love of God" (ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ) seems unambiguously God's love: “Herein God’s love was disclosed among us, that God sent his unique Son into the world in order that we might live through him” (ἐν τούτῳ ἐφανερώθη ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν ἡμῖν κ.τ.λ.). Here, the the verb "is disclosed" or "is made visible" (ἐφανερώθη) renders it difficult not to take the expression as "God's love" rather than "love for God." Again, John emphasizes that God is the source of love when he writes, “Herein is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son, propitiation concerning our sins” (4:10). John offers another emphatic punch when he grounds his admonition: “Beloved, if God loved us in this manner, we also ought to love one another” (4:11). Then, as though to make the point that the incarnation of God’s love made visible by his sending the Son continues to reside among us even though Christ in the flesh is no longer present, John writes, “No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God resides among us and his love is made complete among us” (ἡ ἀγάπη αὐτοῦ ἐν ἡμῖν τετελειωμένη ἐστίν, 4:12). So, in this way not only does John underscore the priority of God’s love, that all Christian love derives from God, but also that God's love, by virtue of the Son's incarnation and self-sacrifice, persistently resides among us (ἐν ἡμῖν). John emphasizes the priority of God's love again in 4:19, “We love because he first love us.”

______________________________________

Update (05/11/2010): Because when I posted the above note I had not consulted commentaries on 1 John 4:16 until today, I failed to point out a rather crucial interpretive decision that makes a rather large difference in whether one reads the verse as I have proposed or how most translations take the verse. Because of how they take en hēmin (ἐν ἡμῖν), as for us rather than among us or in us, it is understandable why commentators do not take note of what I have addressed above.

According to 1 John 4:16, the direct object of knowing and believing is love (τὴν ἀγάπην), not just any love, of course, but "the love which God has en hēmin [ἐν ἡμῖν]." At issue is whether en hēmin (ἐν ἡμῖν) means "among us," "in us," or "for us," as read in the ESV, NRSV, and NIV.

Greek text: καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐγνώκαμεν καὶ πεπιστεύκαμεν τὴν ἀγάπην ἣν ἔχει ὁ θεὸς ἐν ἡμῖν.

English translation: and we have come to know and have come to believe the love which God has among us.

ESV: So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.

NRSV: So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.

NIV: And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

Exegetes acknowledge that the expression under question is curious because, if John intended the sense "for us" one would have expected him to write eis hēmas (εἰς ἡμᾶς). If the sense is "for us," this is the construction we would expect to find just as we do in 2 Corinthians 2:4 where Paul uses the phrase eis humas (for you; εἰς ὑμᾶς). See also Colossians 1:4 and Philemon 5. Each occurs following the verb love.

While love or a pronoun referring to love is often the object of the verb echō (to have; ἔχω), rarely does one find the expression "to have love" followed by the preposition en (ἐν). Two exceptions exist in the New Testament. Both are in John's Gospel: (1) John 5:42 (because you do not have the love of God in/among yourselves; ὅτι τὴν ἀγάπην τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ἔχετε ἐν ἑαυτοῖς [en heautois]); and (2) John 13:35 (you are my disciples, if you have love for/among one another; ἐμοὶ μαθηταί ἐστε, ἐὰν ἀγάπην ἔχητε ἐν ἀλλήλοις [en allēlois]). Whether these two exceptions provide any support for the ESV, NRSV, or NIV of 1 John 4:16 is the question. In fact, it is questionable whether these two exceptions even use the preposition en (ἐν) followed by the datives (ἑαθτοῖς and ἀλλήλοις) with the sense of "for" as if the expressions were written eis heatous (εἰς ἑαυτοῦς) and eis allēlous (εἰς ἀλλήλους) respectively.

John uses the Greek preposition en (ἐν) no fewer than 80 times in 1 John. Among these, one finds that 1 John uses the prepositional phrase en hēmin (ἐν ἡμῖν) eight times. Nowhere else in 1 John does one find en hēmin (ἐν ἡμῖν) or en followed by any other noun or pronoun with the sense of "for us" as translators tend to take the phrase. So, why would one take the phrase in 4:16 as the above translations do?

To support their interpretive decision, translators and exegetes tend to appeal to John 13:35. It is dubious whether this passage provides any support for taking the prepositional phrase, en hēmin (ἐν ἡμῖν), in the sense "for us." This is so because there is no need to take the prepositional phrase en allēlois (ἐν ἀλλήλοις) in John 13:35 in the sense "for one another," except to accommodate English idiom which prefers "for one another" instead of "among one another." But to impose the preferred English idiom back onto the Greek idiom, of course, would be an anachronistic fallacy. Nothing in the Greek idiom requires that we allow the typical English translation of John 13:35--"you are my disciples, if you have love for one another"--to insist that the Greek en allēlois (ἐν ἀλλήλοις) bears exactly the same sense as eis allēlous (εἰς ἀλλήλους).

Upon reviewing several commentaries on 1 John that I have in my library, I discovered that even though a couple observe that it is unusual that John would follow "to believe" (pisteuō; πιστεύω) with the plain accusative case "the love" (tēn agapēn; τὴν ἀγαπήν), none show curiosity to inquire further, especially given John's double verb (we have come to know and we have come to believe) followed by the simple accusative case (tēn agapēn; τὴν ἀγαπήν), and the prepositional phrase en hēmin (ἐν ἡμῖν). All three elements, bound together as they are, should incite curiosity, at least. My curiosity surely is piqued. Hence, my proposal above as I have translated 1 John 4:16--"And we have come to know and have come to believe this love which God has among us."

χάρις ἀντὶ χάριτος in John 1:16

2010-05-02T12:19:00.005-05:00

χάρις ἀντὶ χάριτος in John 1:16; grace instead of grace in John 1:16.

A verse in John's Gospel that entails a puzzling expression is John 1:16. See below the highlighted portion in the Greek and in the English translations.

John 1:16--ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ πληρώματος αὐτοῦ ἡμεῖς πάντες ἐλάβομεν καὶ χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος·

KJV--And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.

NASB--For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.

NIV--From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.

ESV--And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

TNIV--Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.

At issue is the force of the preposition ἀντί. As the translations indicate, some want to take ἀντί with senses that the preposition does not elsewhere convey. Thus, so many translations are quite improbable.

I was surprised, however, when I read the TNIV on John 1:16. It seems that this translation comes the closest to getting the preposition correct. Of the several commentaries that I have in my library, it seems to me that one alone gets the passage right. It is D. A. Carson's The Gospel according to John. As Carson observes, "The most convincing view takes anti in one of its most common uses (and by far the most common in the LXX) to mean 'instead of': from Christ's fulness we have all received grace instead of grace" (132).

How should we understand this? Carson offers the following: "On the face of it, then, it appears that the grace and truth that came through Jesus Christ is what replaces the law; the law itself is understood to be an earlier display of grace."

I think that Carson gets it right.

οἱ ἐκ πίστεως = οἱ πιστεύοντες in Galatians 3?

2010-04-27T11:01:00.008-05:00

οἱ ἐκ πίστεως = οἱ πιστεύοντες in Galatians 3? those of faith(fulness) = those who believe in Galatians 3?

Given the two previous entries it comes as no surprise that I would eventually post an entry concerning pistis Christou (πίστις Χριστοῦ). This is such an exegetical note, but it comes at the issue a little more obliquely than readers might anticipate. Instead of directly addressing the genitive constructions in Galatians 2:16 (dia pisteos Iesou Christou; διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ and ek pisteos Christou; ἐκ πίστεως Χριστοῦ) and 3:22 (ek pistos Iesou Christou; ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) and their implications for translating expressions that clearly refer to these debated phrases in 2:16 and 3:22, let's ponder whether hoi ek pisteos = hoi pisteuontes (οἱ ἐκ πίστεως = οἱ πιστεύοντες) in Galatians 3.

In both 3:7 and 3:9 Paul uses the expression hoi ek pisteos (οἱ ἐκ πίστεως) set over against hosoi ex ergon nomou eisin (ὅσοι ἐξ ἔργων νόμου εἰσίν). At issue is whether the apostle intends hoi ek pistos (οἱ ἐκ πίστεως) to be equivalent to hoi pisteuontes (οἱ πιστεύοντες), the the substantival participle which means "the ones who believe" or "the believers." Stated in English, the issue is whether Paul intends "those from faith(fulness)" is to be read as equivalent to "those who believe."

The NIV translates the identical expressions in 3:7 and 3:9 respectively "those who believe" and "those who have faith." Similarly the NRSV translates these expressions respectively "those who believe" and "those who believe." The NRSV and NIV respectively translate 3:10 "all who rely on the works of the law" and "all who rely on observing the law." It is clear that both translations translate all three expressions with verbs. Both the NIV and NRSV translate hoi ek pisteos (οἱ ἐκ πίστεως) as if the expression were equivalent to hoi pisteuontes (οἱ πιστεύοντες), the substantival participle. Both translate hosoi ex ergon nomou eisin (ὅσοι ἐξ ἔργων νόμου εἰσίν) of 3:10 verbally also, as though it were equivalent to hosoi epanapauomenoi nomo (ὅσοι ἐπαναπαυόμενοι νόμῳ) ("as many as rely upon the law"; cf. Romans 2:17). Indeed, the verb eimi [eisin] (εἰμί [εἰσίν]) does occur in the expression in 3:10, but does it warrant the translation regularly given (cf. ESV)?

Are these expressions (οἱ ἐκ πίστεως and ὅσοι ἐξ ἔργων νόμου) equivalent to substantival participles? Or are these expressions idiomatically expressing something different? Should they be translated verbally, as reflected in modern translations, or should they be translated differently? The ESV translates the expression in 3:7 and 3:9 "those of faith" and "those who are of faith" respectively. This is surely right and greatly improves upon the NIV and NRSV. Given the ESV's translation of 2:16, the reader would infer that "those of faith" should be filled out as "those of faith in Christ."

No one doubts that Paul's identical expressions in both Galatians 3:7 and 3:9 may be read as hoi ek pisteos Christou (οἱ ἐκ πίστεως Χριστοῦ) or even hoi ek pisteos Iesou Christou (οἱ ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ). This is so because of Paul's formulation of the expressions in 2:16 from which those of 3:7 and 3:9 derive, namely, dia pisteos Idsou Christou (διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) and ek pistos Christou (ἐκ πίστεως Χριστοῦ). At issue, however, is whether one should read the expression as "those of faith in Christ" or "those of the faithfulness of Christ."

One could ask the same questions concerning Romans 3. Is the expression ὁ ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ in 3:26 equivalent to ho pisteon [eis Christon Iesoun] (ὁ πιστεύων [εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν])? If so, why does Paul not use the substantival participle instead as he does in Romans 3:22 where he uses two distinguishable expressions: (1) dia pisteos Iesou Christou (διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ); and (2) eis pantas pisteuontas (εἰς πάντας τοὺς πιστεύοντας)? Are these two distinguishable expressions simply interchangeable?

ἄνθρωπος ἐξ ἔργων νόμου in Galatians 2:16

2010-04-24T17:56:00.009-05:00

ἄνθρωπος ἐξ ἔργων νόμου in Galatians 2:16; a man from the works of the law in Galatians 2:16?

Why did I raise the question concerning how we should read logizometha gar dikaiousthai pistei anthropon choris ergon nomou (λογιζόμεθα γὰρ δικαιοῦσθαι πίστει ἄνθρωπον χωρὶς ἔργων νόμου) in Romans 3:28? What prompted me to consider seeing Paul's word connections differently from the way translations and exegetes tend? What incited me to suppose that we should read choris (χωρίς) as connected to anthropon (ἄνθρωπον) as a modifier, retaining the word order anthropon choris ergon nomou (ἄνθρωπον χωρὶς ἔργων νόμου), rather than take choris (χωρίς) adverbially connected to dikaiousthai (δικαιοῦσθαι)?

In another crucial passage Paul states, eidotes hoti ou dikaioutai anthropos ex ergon nomou (εἰδότες ὅτι οὐ δικαιοῦται ἄνθρωπος ἐξ ἔργων νόμου, Galatians 2:16). Despite the word order of the text, most exegetes and translations do not accept the word connections found in the text. Without adequate explanation they tend to disconnect ex ergon nomou (ἐξ ἔργων νόμου) from anthropos (ἄνθρωπος) and connect the prepositional phrase to the negated verb ou dikaioutai (οὐ δικαιοῦται) instead. Some, such as the NRSV, even disconnect the negation (ou, οὐ) from the verb (dikaioutai, δικαιοῦται) and instead connect it to ex ergon nomou (ἐξ ἔργων νόμου) as in "we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ." Most translations, however, read something like the following: "we know that a man is not justified by the works of the Law" (e.g., ESV). Because of this translation decision exegetes and translations tend to take ean me (ἐὰν μή) not with exceptive force, as always elsewhere in Paul's letters, but with an adversative force. The ESV represents these decisions: "we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. . . ."

Accepting the word order as represented in the text has the advantage of preserving Paul's otherwise universal use of ἐὰν μή as except and has the added advantage of taking the prepositional phrase, ex ergon nomou (ἐξ ἔργων νόμου), as descriptive of anthropos (ἄνθρωπος), the word to which it is actually attached, rather than disconnecting the phrase's grammatical linkage and reconnecting it adverbially to the negated verb ou dikaioutai (οὐ δικαιοῦται). Other disconnections usually happen in 2:16 also, such as disconnecting the negation (ou, οὐ) from the third dik- (δικ-) verb (dikaiothesetai; δικαιωθήσεται) and reconnecting the negative to pasa sarx (πᾶσα σάρξ) as the ESV does: "because by works of the law no one will be justified."

So, what am I proposing should be our translation of Galatians 2:15-16? "We, by nature Jews and not sinners from the Gentiles, now know that a man-from-the-deeds-required-by-the-law is not justified except through πίστεως 'Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ and we believed in Christ Jesus in order that we might be justified from pisteos Christou (πίστεως Χριστοῦ) and not from the deeds required by the law because all flesh shall not be justified from the deeds required by the law." Who is this anthropos ex ergon nomou (ἄνθωπος ἐξ ἔργων νόμου)? This is Paul's circumlocutionary reference to a Jew, but not just a Jew. Why so circumlocutionary? It seems that Paul's principal concern is to set up his whole argument concerning contrasting covenantal origin or pedigree.

Galatians 2:16 seems rather clearly to draw upon Psalm 142:3--hoti ou dikaiothesetai enopion sou pas zon (ὅτι οὐ δικαιωθήσεται ἐνώπιόν σου πᾶς ζῶν, LXX). Of course, the same is true of Romans 3:20--dioti ex ergon nomou ou dikaiothesetai pasa sarx enopion autou . . . (διότι ἐξ ἔργων νόμου οὐ δικαωθήσεται πᾶσα σὰρξ ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ. . . .) Part of the difficulty in translating this use of Psalm 142:3 is likely due to English idiom. As one attempts to translate the Greek into acceptable English idiom, it becomes apparent that English idiom prefers to negate the person rather than the verb. But by doing so, does one not alter the sense of the verse?

So, what is my point in all of this? It seems to me that if we take Paul's word connections, then we will receive the added advantage of recognizing that his argument does not antithetically set deeds versus faith but it sets the new covenant in Christ over against the old covenant in the law. Thus, his argument focuses upon Christ Jesus as the one who has rendered the former covenant old and passé by superceding that covenant as earthly copy and foreshadow gives way to heavenly original and reality.

For fuller discussion see my essay "The Faithfulness of Jesus Christ as a Theme in Paul's Theology in Galatians" from The Faith of Jesus Christ: Exegetical, Biblical, and Theological Studies, edited by Michael F. Bird & Preston M. Sprinkle, (Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2009), 193-194.

Mark Seifrid takes Galatians 2:16 the same way that I do. See my essay for references.

χωρὶς in Romans 3:28

2010-04-22T09:18:00.008-05:00

χωρὶς in Romans 3:28; apart from in Romans 3:28

I would like some insight from readers concerning use of the Greek word choris (χωρίς) in Romans 3:28. At the various levels of my learning of Greek grammars and grammarians have reinforced the point that in the Greek New Testament χωρίς normally follows the word to which it is grammatically attached. Once in the GNT choris (χωρίς) follows the word it governs (Hebrews 12:14). Also, in the New Testament, choris (χωρίς) functions principally as an improper preposition. A. T. Robertson observes, "In the N.T. we have only one pure adverbial use (Jo. 20:7), while as a preposition with the ablative we find it 40 times" (A Grammar of the Greek New Testament, 648).

My question concerns the placement and use of choris (χωρίς) in Romans 3:28 because of the way English translations connect the improper prepositional phrase (choris ergon nomou; χωρίς ἔργων νόμου) to the verb dikaiousthai (δικαιοῦσθαι), essentially rendering choris (χωρίς) as an adverb, rather than maintaining the syntactical connection that the Greek text itself actually shows, anthropon choris (ἄνθρωπον χωρίς), with choris (χωρίς) functioning as an improper preposition introducing the prepositional phrase choris errgon nomou (χωρὶς ἔργων νόμου) modifying anthropon (ἄνθρωπον) adjectivally.

Here is Romans 3:28 in the Greek New Testament.

λογιζόμεθα γὰρ δικαιοῦσθαι πίστει ἄνθρωπον χωρὶς ἔργων νόμου.

Here are a few English translations of the passage under question.

(NIV) For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.

(NRSV) For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.

(ESV) For we hold that one is justified by faith papart from works of the law.

(NASB 1995) For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.

(RSV) For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law.

(KJV) Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

All the translations follow the lead of the KJV. Why? Are the translations reflecting an exegetical predisposition rather than the syntax of the sentence? Are the translations showing how an exegetical-theological predilection governs how one translates a passage? Or, is there something about the text that I am missing, that I do not see, or that I do not understand?

So, here is my question. Given the placement of χωρίς following the noun anthropon (ἄνθωπον) rather than the verb dikaiousthai (δικαιοῦσθαι) or the noun pistei (πίστει), why do our English translations not translate Romans 3:28 as follows? "For we reckon a man apart from the deeds required by the law to be justified by faith (by faithfulness)."

I have consulted several major commentaries on Romans (Cranfield, Dunn, Godet, Moo, Schreiner). Not one mentions anything about the syntax. All proceed as if there were nothing to address. Is this an example of a glaring exegetical issue in plain sight that receives no commentary attention? Or, is this an example of my seeing an exegetical phantom, an syntactical issue that does not exist?

Your exegetical insights and comments will be welcomed.

For quite a different understanding of Romans 3:28 see Dan Wallace's "Romans 3:28 and Jas 2:24: A Comparison."

ἐξήγησις: A New Blog

2010-04-22T09:00:00.003-05:00

I am announcing today that I am beginning a new blog. What? Starting a new blog, another blog? Well, yes, but it may be that this new blog will become the focus of all my blogging. For far too many reasons to enumerate or even to begin to express, I am finding that I need to concentrate my energies on fewer matters but especially concerning those things wherein my own skills and abilities will make the most difference.

So, today, I am beginning a new blog titled ἐξήγησις, exegesis for Greek readers. I will endeavor to make it understandable to non-Greek readers, too, especially by way of transliteration. The banner indicates that the blog will feature exegetical inquiry concerning the Greek New Testament. It will offer exegetical insights from my own labors in the GNT, but it will also raise concerns, issues, and questions about passages within the GNT over which I puzzle.