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.

  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:

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Believers in Romans 2?

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. 

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

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!"

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On "Literal Interpretation" and on "Symbolic Interpretation"

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 front 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 focuses 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

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.

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[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 bringing 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).