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ZONDERVAN

Four Views on the Apostle Paul

Copyright 2012 by Michael F. Bird, Thomas R. Schreiner, Luke Timothy Johnson,

Douglas A. Campbell, Mark D. Nanos

This title is also available as a Zondervan ebook.

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bird, Michael F.

Four views on the Apostle Paul / general editor, Michael F. Bird; contributors,

Thomas R. Schreiner . . . [et al.].

p. cm.

Includes index

ISBN 978-0-310-32695-3 (softcover)

1. Paul, the Apostle, Saint. Theology. I Bird, Michael F. II. Schreiner, Thomas R.

BS2651.F68 2012

227'.06 dc23 2012012196

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New

International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by

permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture texts used in this work labeled NAB are taken from the New American Bible.

Copyright 1970, 2011 by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C., and

are used by permission of copyright owner. All rights reserved.

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offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement

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for the life of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy,

recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior

permission of the publisher.

Cover design: Tammy Johnson

Cover photography: M. TrischlerInterior design: Matthew Van Zomeren

Printed in the United States of America

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 /DCI/ 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Contents

Abbreviations 7

Introduction: Michael F. Bird 9

1 Paul: a RefoRmed Reading 19

Thomas R. schReineR

Responses

Luke TimoThy Johnso n 48 DougLas a. campbeLL 53 maRk D. nanos 59

2 the Paul of the let teRs: a CatholiC PeRsPeC tive 65

Luke TimoThy John son

Responses

Thomas R. schReineR 97

DougLas a. campbeLL 102maRk D. nanos 108

3 ChRist and the ChuRCh in Paul:

a Post-new PeRsPeCtive aCCount 113

DougLas a. campbeLL

Responses

Thomas R. schReineR 144

Luke TimoThy Johnso n 149

maRk D. nanos 153

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4 a Jewish view 159

maRk D. nanos

ResponsesThomas R. schReineR 194

Luke TimoThy Johnso n 200

DougLas a. campbeLL 204

Conclusion: Michael F. Bird 211

Scripture Index 217

Subject Index 226

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Chapter

one

19

Paul: a RefoRmed Reading

thomas R. sChReineR

in this essay I will attempt to explain the framework of Pauline thought,

his view of Jesus Christ, his theology of salvation, and his view of

the church Obviously, given the space constraints of the essay, I can

only sketch Pauls thought in these areas Therefore, my goal is to try

to show inductively from his letters what he thought; interaction with

other views will be kept to a minimum1

t p FmkWhat framework should we use for reading Pauls theology? And how

should we derive that framework? Some scholars have read Paul in

Gnostic or Hellenistic terms Both approaches, however, fail to read

Paul within his own historical context If we read Paul inductively, it

is clear that his theology was formed by the Old Testament MartinHengel has demonstrated that Judaism in the Second Temple period

was inf luenced significantly by Hellenism2 Such a judgment does not

falsify the truth that the Old Testament fundamentally shaped Pauls

understanding of his gospel I am not arguing that Paul came to the Old

Testament with a blank slate and concluded that Jesus was the Messiah

1 I am assuming in this essay that all thirteen Pauline letters are authentic The Pastorals,of course, are the first letters that have been doubted In defense of authenticity, see WilliamD Mounce, Pastoral Epistles(WBC; Nashville: Nelson, 2000), xlvi cxxix; George W KnightIII, The Pastoral Epistles(NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 21 52; Gordon D Fee,1 and 2 Timothy,Titus (NIBC; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988), 1 31

2 Martin Hengel,Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine during theEarly Hellenistic Period(London: SCM, 1974)

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20 Four Views on the apostle paul p : a rfmd rdg

He believed that Jesus was the Messiah only after encountering him

on the Damascus Road3 (Acts 9:1 19; Gal 1:11 17) Certainly Pauls

experience with Jesus provoked him to read the Old Testament in a new

way And yet Paul was also convinced that the Old Testament shouldbe read as pointing to Jesus, so that those who failed to see that Jesus

was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies were not merely intel-

lectually deficient Their sin blinded them from seeing the truth of the

fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy (2 Cor 4:4 6)

Paul believed, then, that the great events of Christs ministry, death,

and resurrection, and the pouring out of the Spirit fulfilled Old Tes-

tament prophecy Yet this truth must be held in tension with anothertruth Not only was prophecy fulfilled in the coming of Christ, but

it was also the case that a mystery was revealed4 In Pauline terms a

mystery is something previously hidden but is now revealed The full

significance and the implications of the work of Christ were not evi-

dent simply by reading the Old Testament Every reader, according

to Paul, should see that Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testa-

ment Scriptures At the same time there are dimensions of the fulfill-

ment that occurred in Christ that are only plain retrospectively Both

prophecy and fulfillment and mystery and revelation must be correlated

and held in tension when articulating Pauls understanding of the Old

Testament

If we reflect on some of the central promises in the Old Testa-

ment, Paul clearly sees them as fulfilled in his gospel For instance, theOld Testament prophesied that all nations would be blessed in Abra-

ham (Gen 12:3; 18:18, etc) Paul maintains that this promise has beenfulfilled in his gospel inasmuch as the Gentiles are justified by faith(Gal 3:6 8) The great liberation of Israel from Egypt took place in the

exodus, and Isaiah (Isa 11:11 15; 40:3 11; 42:16; 43:2, 5 7, 16 19;

48:20 21; 49:6 11; 51:10) and other prophets looked forward to a newexodus in which the Lord would liberate and free his people from their

enemies When Paul refers to the redemption accomplished by Christ,

3 Cf here Seyoon Kim, The Origin of Pauls Gospel(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982)4 For the working out of this theme in Pauline thought, see D A Carson, Mystery and

Fulfillment: Toward a More Comprehensive Paradigm of Pauls Understanding of the Oldand New, in The Paradoxes of Paul, vol 2 ofJustif ication and Variegated Nomism (eds D ACarson, Peter T OBrien, and Mark A Seifrid; WUNT 181; Grand Rapids: Baker/Tbin-gen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 393 436

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t m r. sc 21

he draws on exodus language, signifying that believers have been lib-

erated by the cross of Christ (Rom 3:24; Eph 1:7; Col 1:14) Paul

specifically ties the liberation accomplished by Christ to exodus motifs

in proclaiming that Christ as the Passover was sacrificed (1 Cor 5:7)Similarly, the Old Testament animal sacrif ices anticipate and find their

consummation in Christs sacrifice on the cross (Rom 3:25; 8:3; Gal3:13; 2 Cor 5:21) The sacrifice of the Servant of the Lord prophesied

in Isaiah (Isa 53:4, 11 12) has become a reality with the self-giving of

Jesus Christ on the cross (Rom 4:25; 1 Cor 15:1 4)The new exodus that was promised includes the promise of the

resurrection the final vindication of Gods people (Isa 26:19; Ezek37:1 14; Dan 12:1 3) The resurrection, which signif ies the arrival

of the end, has irrupted into history with the resurrection of Jesusfrom the dead (Rom 4:25; 8:11; 1 Cor 6:14; 15:1 23; 2 Cor 4:14)

That resurrection is another way of saying that the new creation has

dawned, which Isaiah prophesied (Isa 65:17; 66:22) The advent of thenew creation signifies that death and sin have been defeated And Paul

teaches that Christians now enjoy victory over sin and death since they

have died with Christ and have risen with him (cf Rom 6:1 14; Eph2:5 6; Col 2:12, 20; 3:1) Believers are now a new creation (2 Cor

5:17), and the old era of the law no longer rules over them (Gal 6:15)

The Pauline perspective on the law and the claim that believers areno longer under the law (cf Rom 6:14 15; Gal 3:10, 22, 25; 4:3 5;

5:18) show that the new creation has been inaugurated and the promised

new covenant of Jeremiah is a reality (Jer 31:31 34) Believers are no

longer under the old covenant (2 Cor 3:14), for a new covenant hasbegun with the death of Christ (1 Cor 11:25) and the gift of the Spirit

(2 Cor 3:6) Those who argue that believers must continue to subscribe

to the Mosaic law have failed to see that a new age has come, so thatthey are content to live in the present evil age (Gal 1:4)

To summarize the Pauline framework, the apostle teaches that the

new exodus, the new covenant, and the new creation have arrived in

Christ But a crucial proviso must immediately be introduced Eventhough the new age has been inaugurated in Jesus Christ, it has not

been consummated The eschatological tension in Pauls gospel returnsus to the theme of a mystery fulfilled It is not apparent in reading the

Old Testament that the promise of salvation would be fulfilled in an

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22 Four Views on the apostle paul p : a rfmd rdg

already but not yet fashion Hence, the resurrection and the new age

have entered history through Christs resurrection, and believers are

raised with Christ spiritually Nevertheless, believers still inhabit mor-

tal bodies (Rom 7:24; 8:10) Their future resurrection is certain becauseof Christs resurrection (Rom 8:11; 1 Cor 6:14; 2 Cor 4:14; 1 Thess

4:14), and yet there is an interval between Christs resurrection andthe resurrection of believers (1 Cor 15:23 28) The new creation has

dawned in Christ, but the old creation continues (Rom 8:18 25), so

that believers long for the day when God will raise them from the deadand renew the created universe

In the Old Testament the coming of the Spirit signifies the fulfill-ment of Gods promises and the advent of the new creation (Isa 32:15;

44:3; Ezek 11:18 19; 36:26 27; Joel 2:28) No wonder the apostles in

Acts correlated the baptism of the Spirit with the coming of the king-

dom in its fullness (Acts 1:6) Paul, in particular, emphasizes that believ-

ers are people of the Spirit5 If one lacks the Spirit, one is not a Christian

(Rom 8:9) Circumcision is not necessary to belong to the people of

God, for the gift of the Spirit removes any doubt about whether one is a

believer (Gal 3:2, 5) Nevertheless, the gift of the Spirit does not entail

the immediate consummation of all that God has promised The Spirit

is the seal and guarantee that God will redeem his people by raising

them from the dead (2 Cor 1:21 22; Eph 1:13 14) The Spirit is the

firstfruits, certifying that God will complete his adopting work on the

day of resurrection (Rom 8:23) The Spirit, in other words, demon-

strates that believers live between the times The blessings of the new

exodus, the new covenant, and the new creation are theirs, and yet theyawait the day when death will flee forever One of Pauls fundamental

frameworks, then, is the already but not yet character of his eschatology

t Cy f J CWe can scarcely do justice to this theme in such a short essay, for surelyJesus Christ is the heart and soul of Pauline theology Every topic dis-

cussed here is Christ-centered, whether it is the Pauline framework orhis teaching on salvation and the church My goal here is to unfold the

5 See Gordon D Fee, Gods Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994)

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48

ResPonse to thomas R. sChReineR

luke timothy Johnson

of the three essays to which I am responding, that by Professor Thomas

Schreiner is the easiest for me to engage, partly because his concep-

tion of the assigned task corresponds to my own he tries to account for

the Paul of all the letters rather than of just a few and partly because

on some points of his presentation I am in substantial agreement, while

on others I take only partial exception His account of the importance of

Christ for Paul, for example, is impressive; I especially applaud his poly-

thetic approach to the subject, as he asserts that Christs significance is

not to be weighed only by Pauls propositions, but in the many modes

through which Christ permeates Pauls experience and practice and,

to be sure, the experience and practice of Pauls readers so that onesentire Christian life is to be lived under Jesus lordship

The first issue on which I take partial exception is Professor

Schreiners locating the framework for Pauls thought in Scripture, and

specifically the fulfillment of Torah in the new creation that is life in

Christ It is, to be sure, a reasonable choice Certainly, the conviction

that the good news is according to the Scriptures is one that domi-

nates some of Pauls letters (1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians) and is vir-tually the theme of his longest (Romans) But if I were to claim that the

fulfillment of Scripture was in any comparable way present in the other

letters Philemon, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians,

Colossians I should be considerably overstating the case Scripture

is not only absent by way of citation from these Pauline compositions,

but it is difficult to see how the fulf illment of Scripture is a framework

for them Other letters that do contain scriptural citations or allusions

(such as 1 and 2 Timothy) do not display a scriptural framework in

the manner so obvious in RomansMore important, I think, is that Professor Schreiners depic-

tion of the fulfillment of Scripture misses the complexity of Pauls

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r tm r. sc lk t my J 49

engagement with Torah Please note that I am not disputing Profes-

sor Schreiners basic point; it is well supported by such passages as

Romans 15:4 and 1 Corinthians 10:11 Rather, I am suggesting that

Pauls relationship is much more tensely dialectical than Schreinerproposes He captures some of this when he notes that Paul proclaims

a mystery not fully anticipated by Scripture; but he restricts thisto the already but not yet character of eschatology In fact, Pauls

rereading of Torah in light of the crucified and exalted Messiah is

strong and at times subversive His claim in Galatians 3:1 14 thatthose who receive the Holy Spirit are in fulfillment of Gods promise

to Abraham completely reinterprets the meaning of Genesis; his alle-gory concerning the two sons of Abraham in Galatians 4:21 29 does

more than a little violence to the plain sense of the same compositionAnd his shocking twist of Exodus 34:29 35 and the veiling of Moses

face is at the least interpretively high-handed In the Pauline dialectic,

Scripture is at least as much read in light of Christ as Christ is read inlight of Scripture

The second of Professor Schreiners emphases with which I take

issue concerns sin, which he makes, without qualif ication, what believ-ers need to be saved from This is itself an odd formulation what do

believers need to be saved from? but stil l stranger statements fol-

low He says, The just judgment of God awaits all who do not repentand fail to place their trust in Jesus Christ, for all have sinned and

fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23) This collapse of Pauls

humanity (Jews and Greeks) into believers and sin into failure to

place their trust in Jesus Christ strikes one as an unusual reading ofRomans 1 3, but it appears to be no accidental reading, for Schreiner

states that Pauls declarations concerning those who kept the law (writ-

ten or not) in Romans 2 points to the work of the Holy Spirit in thosewho have confessed Jesus as the Christ (2:28 29)

Schreiner appears to contradict his recognition that Paul makes an

exception when he states in the next paragraph that the universality

of sin is also taught in Galatians 3:10, and interprets it to have as animplied premise that no one does what the law demands This state-

ment flies in the face of Pauls plain statement in Philippians 3:6, inessence, that I was above reproach when it came to justice based on the

law Schreiner avers that those who rely on the law cannot appeal to