Abstract
One answer is to read a collection of essays on the various perspectives, or perhaps take one of the perspectives and explore it in depth. The latter option can be pursued with profit by reading Apocalyptic Paul. The fruit of a conference on Romans 5–8 held at Princeton Seminary in May 2012 as part of the seminary’s bicentennial celebration, this scholarly but readable volume is a fascinating mix of various perspectives on what “the” apocalyptic perspective is—and on what the theological significance of Romans 5–8 is, too.
The book’s contributors include several well-known proponents of an apocalyptic interpretation of Paul: Gaventa, de Boer, Susan Eastman, and Martyn, who provides the afterword. But other contributors are associated with different emphases in Pauline theology. For example, we find in these pages Stephen Westerholm, critic of the new perspective; John Barclay, proponent of social-science readings of Pauline theology; and Neil Elliott, advocate of liberative and counter-imperial readings. Even Eastman’s apocalyptic interpretations of Paul are thoroughly participationist.
This was and is, I’m quite sure, deliberate on the part of Gaventa, the conference convener and editor. It rightly suggests that there is no one agreed-upon understanding of what an “apocalyptic” Paul is. Does “apocalyptic” refer to a theology focused on the unexpected in-breaking of God in Christ? On cosmic powers such as sin and death? On the already-but-not-yet character of the new age? On future human and cosmic liberation? On Paul’s own experience of visions and revelations? All of these are legitimate understandings of “apocalyptic” with reference to Paul.
For this reason, the unifying theme in this book is perhaps better preserved in the subtitle than in the title: Cosmos and Anthropos in Romans 5–8. This is not to say that the book fails to be about apocalyptic, but simply that apocalyptic, even in Romans, is to some degree in the eye of the beholder, once one moves past the common acknowledgment of the powers of sin and death. The beholders—the contributors to this volume—are skilled and perceptive, but their use of the term “apocalyptic” and their specific visions are, to mix metaphors, somewhat fluid. I have selected some of the essays to summarize and to comment on their theological and pastoral significance.
In the opening chapter, “Paul’s Mythologizing Program in Romans 5–8,” Martin de Boer takes on Bultmann, the existential demythologizer focused on the individual. De Boer argues that Paul reveals a program of mythologization, of describing God’s action in Christ in terms of cosmic realities and powers, especially sin, death, and, most importantly, grace. Following Ernst Käsemann, de Boer sees Paul as moving from an individual focus (especially in Rom 5:1–11) to a cosmic focus (beginning in Rom 5:12, but already indicated earlier in Romans), and as arguing against the law’s power to justify because the cosmic powers of sin and death are so great, rendering it ineffective. The answer? The “miracle of God’s grace that has invaded the human cosmos” in Christ (p. 20). For pastors and theologians, this placing of the question of individuals’ sins and salvation within a cosmic context is a reminder that both sin and grace are more powerful than we often imagine—with grace, thank God, the mightier by far.
Stephen Westerholm deals with a similar dynamic concerning the individual and the cosmic in a chapter entitled “Righteousness, Cosmic and Microcosmic.” He begins by suggesting that, like Jesus, Paul announced cosmic events and demanded individual responses to them. He then proceeds, somewhat like de Boer, to look at both individual response (Rom 5:1) and cosmic divine activity (5:19), both of which have to do with righteousness. His discussion of 5:1 is a brief defense of a rather traditional, yet also distinctive, understanding of justification against the new perspective. I was pleased with his insistence that Paul’s justification and righteousness language is the idiom of morality and actual righteousness, but disappointed—as one who thinks that for Paul justification is inherently participatory and transformative—that the full consequences of that correct claim were not brought out. Westerholm’s briefer discussion of Rom 5:19 does not focus on cosmic powers but on the question of universality, concluding that Paul’s writings, taken as a whole, support participation in the new creation only for those who believe the gospel. One strength of this essay is its frequent comparison of Paul’s message to that of Jesus, including their common offer of grace to all sinners.
John Barclay has published widely and insightfully in recent years on the topic of grace, with particular emphasis on its significance for Paul within the Roman culture of benefaction. In this piece, “Under Grace: The Christ-Gift and the Construction of a Christian Habitus,” Barclay speaks of the two antithetical “power structures” at work in the cosmos: sin, leading to death; and grace, a “counter-momentum” leading to life. One reign is matched, indeed over-matched, by a “counter-reign,” the reign of grace (p. 59). But Romans 6 makes clear, says Barclay, that this grace is an “imperatival” grace—a power that both creates and demands allegiance (p. 60). He is absolutely right, but rightly expects pushback. Barclay does not deny that grace is a gift, indeed a shockingly incongruous gift offered without prior conditions or worth, but he reminds us that in antiquity gifts often implied obligations. Barclay calls this grace/gift unconditioned but not unconditional (p. 64). Like Bonhoeffer, who countered cheap grace, Barclay contends in part with Luther and in part with unofficial and official statements about “grace without price” that are found in contemporary pulpits as well as pews. Barclay’s—no, Paul’s—solution is a focus on the body-ness, the concreteness, of life under grace and the creation of a Christian habitus, or communal matrix of attitudes and practices, in which obedience is possible. Of all the discussions of grace in this book, this may be the most important one of all for the contemporary church to hear. The old cliché about one essay being worth the price of the book may be tired, but in this case it is true.
Beverly Gaventa tackles the notorious “I” of Romans 7 in “The Shape of the ‘I’: The Psalter, the Gospel, and the Speaker in Romans 7.” She finds the “I” of Romans 7 to have been at least partially shaped by the “I” of many of the psalms, an “I” who knows and loves God’s law but does not always perform it. Thus the “I” of Romans 7, especially in the present tense, is one with whom even the most devout can identify as they despair over their noncompliance with the rightful demands of the law. Though I am not persuaded that Paul intended this kind of reading of Romans 7 (I still think he was describing non-believers), Gaventa helps us understand better how and why even believers, who are no longer slaves to sin, identify with the sentiments of the notorious “I.”
Space permits only a few words about two of the remaining essays. Susan Eastman, in “Double Participation and the Responsible Self in Romans 5–8,” writes powerfully about the tensions between individual and communal identity, highlighting the reality of no condemnation offered to each and to all in Christ. Neil Elliott, in “Creation, Cosmos, and Conflict in Romans 8–9,” creatively merges theology, ideology, and politics while bridging the hermeneutical gap between Romans 8 and 9. As always, he challenges imperial ideology and its consequences in both the first and the twenty-first centuries. And finally, in an elegant afterword, Louis Martyn reflects briefly on the conference, the papers, and the new perspectives and issues that have surfaced from reading Paul apocalyptically.
This book is a fine introduction to the apocalyptic Paul. The voices are not unified, but they are individually and corporately significant for exegesis, for theology, and for the life of the church.