A Missional Reading of 2 Corinthians 5:11–6:2;especially 5:21

Wright’s Neglected Article

The article on 2 Cor. 5:21 was only published in 1993 and it is therefore unfair to point out that the most thorough commentary since then, published only shortly afterwards in 1994, does not mention it. ⁴ But since then, Belleville (1996), Garland (1999), Hafemann (2000), Harvey (1996), Lambrecht (1999), Matera (2003), Sampley (2000) and Shillington (1997) have written on 2 Corinthians without mentioning it. Scott (1998) mentions it but rejects it without discussion. ⁵ At the risk of oversimplifying the article, its main thesis is that the claim in 2 Cor 5:21 that ‘we become the righteousness of God’ refers to Paul himself becoming the ‘covenant faithfulness’ of God, rather than a statement of the imputation or impartation of God’s righteous character. ⁶

A Challengeable Assumption

At the beginning of any worthwhile commentary is an introduction, giving historical background and dealing with various issues that the author feels will assist the reader to read the text of the Bible (and the commentary?) intelligently. This introduction provides, as it were, spectacles to assist the reading task. One common issue is that of author’s aim in writing, the task that he set himself. When commentators address 2 Corinthians, where can (s)he find the material to answer such a question? The obvious place to look is the text itself. Thus, the commentator examines the text, determines the genre and then gives his opinion as to the author’s aim. In a complex work, such as one of Paul’s longer letters, a series of purposes may be discerned, to reflect the changing styles and literary methods employed by Paul. In the case of 2 Corinthians 2:14–7:4, the section can be seen as either an outburst against opponents or as a defence of himself or his ministry. ⁷ Most commentators on the reason for this section tie it very closely to the character of the section (which can seem very proper as it can be determined through rigorous scholarly technique). Thus, commentators then assert that the purpose of the piece is either as a justification of Paul or as a defence of his ministry either to establish his own position (the cruel view – Murphy-O’Connor (1997) refers to Paul’s ‘wounded vanity’) or to reaffirm the gospel that he taught when with the Corinthians (the charitable view). Thus, Hafemann sees the purpose as the defence of Paul’s ministry. ⁸ Garland sees it as both a defence of Paul’s ministry and as clarifying some implications of the gospel, such as the ministry for the poor in Jerusalem, that the Corinthians seem to be missing. ⁹ Wright is not an exception in this respect. He, in just the same way, asserts in ‘Becoming’ that:

Paul’s argument, in a nutshell, is that he, as an apostle, is a minister of the new covenant (3:6) and that this ministry [i.e. this apostolic ministry] is not impugned by the fact that he suffers but is rather thereby enhanced (4:7–18), since Christ is in this way revealed the more clearly. ¹⁰

By so doing, he effectively suggests that Paul’s purposes are restricted to a justification of his own ministry and lifestyle (and possibly that of other apostles).

There is a danger, however, that the question why something is written is reduced to what is written. Merely determining the character of Paul’s writing does not close the question of why he wrote, what he was trying to achieve in what he wrote. It is surely a commonplace that any communication can have a purpose over and above (or should that be behind – the spatial metaphors get confusing) that which is explicitly expressed. It seems excessively reductionistic to exclude any hidden or at least non-surface motives. Such a background purpose is, by definition, visible only in some shadowy and ambiguous way, not the way that scholarship has traditionally valued. Such a background purpose cannot be determined and then subsequently used to view the text, as is the wont of commentators. We have to assume the purpose and then use it to see if it is productive. ¹¹ That the text speaks of a defence of Paul’s ministry, whether of content or style, seems plain but does this go as far as exhausting why Paul defends his ministry? I realize of course that what I am doing is in danger of seeming very unscholarly. I seek an answer to the question ‘why’ not in the text but in some nebulous world behind the text in the mists of Paul’s concealed motivations; I seek a motivation that is not there on the surface of the text. Objectors will argue that perhaps the concealed motivation is not there at all. ¹²

I wish to assume that in 2 Corinthians 1–6, Paul is not so much defending himself as seeking an imitation of himself, which is not the normal assumption of commentators. ¹³ How well this assumption works will be tested by what follows. Ultimately, my assumption cannot be justified by an appeal to the text but only by an appeal to the fruitfulness of the assumption.

A Preliminary Defence of my Assumption

So I assume that this passage has a hortatory intent. Although the proof of the pudding will be in the illumination that this assumption will hopefully assist in bringing, perhaps some kind of plausibility defence is appropriate at this stage, to defer disbelief until the assumption has been tested for fruitfulness. If you prefer, you may proceed immediately to the next section.

The probity of making such assumptions can be defended. That communication is often the result of unstated and sometimes even hidden motivations is surely an everyday experience. Surely it is imposing an unnecessary reduction on communication to eschew any underlying motivations in a communication simply because of methodological difficulties in establishing them.

The normal claim, that Paul is concerned to vindicate his own ministry against the criticisms of visiting missionaries, runs the risk of implying that Paul is concerned for himself. We know from Philippians 1:15–18 that Paul was capable of rejoicing in the preaching of Christ that was calculated to cause himself trouble because his only concern was that Christ is preached. Therefore, it is dangerous to assume that Paul is concerned for personal vindication; he is concerned, or claims to be, more for the vindication of the gospel that he preached.

Why should Paul need to vindicate his own ministry? It might be that Paul is concerned lest the Corinthians turn aside from the gospel Paul presented, when Paul was utterly convinced that the gospel he preached was the only saving gospel. This appears to be the theme in Galatians where he opposes those throwing the Galatians into confusion by preaching a gospel other than the one preached by Paul (1:7, 9) with a possible consequence that Christ would be rendered of no value to the Galatians (5:2). But this concern does not seem to me to be expressed in 2 Corinthians. Paul, except in some (remarkably numerous) interpretations of 5:20, does not seem to be exercised about the salvation of the Corinthians. ¹⁴

It might be that his ministry had been misrepresented. This certainly is part of it as he seems to have been represented by some as unreliable (2 Cor. 1:12–2:5) and dictatorial (2 Cor. 2:6–11). And Paul does seek to refute that but not, I aver, in 2 Cor. 2:14–7:4. It might be that opponents have arisen who must be refuted, clearly an emphasis in 2 Corinthians 10–13 and an issue possibly visible in 2 Cor. 3:1–3. ¹⁵ Nonetheless, we are still entitled to ask why Paul is so concerned to describe and defend the style of his ministry. So we might turn to a further possibility, that Paul is concerned to vindicate his ministry because it represented the model of living that he saw as appropriate for Christians, including those at Corinth. Paul may be concerned more at the possibility that the Corinthians start to view suffering and hardship as inappropriate for the lives of Christians and thus beneath their expectations than that their faith in Christ be undermined. Perhaps the later letter (whether Pauline or not), 2 Timothy, addresses the same issue when it says that ‘In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted’ (3:12). If this is the case, then Paul is concerned to portray his ministry in order to draw his correspondents into sharing that ministry that involved so much suffering and weakness.

Comfort, too, may be sought in Speech Acts Theory, which has demonstrated that the meaning of a passage is not exhausted by its ostensible reference. The apparently referential meaning of ‘You are standing on my foot’ is highly likely to be attached to an implied request to get off it. ¹⁶ Speech Acts Theory goes on to suggest that in addition to illocutionary aspects (to get off one’s foot) a statement may have perlocutionary aspects. In the same way, Paul may be defending his style of ministry not simply to refute others or vindicate himself or even to vindicate the gospel by which the Corinthians were saved but to vindicate and so commend the lifestyle and life ambitions to which the gospel calls its followers.

2 Corinthians 5:21

Hafemann’s account of the text is brief. He says ‘As a result of Christ’s death, not only does Christ take on our sin, we take on his righteousness. When God sees us in Christ, he sees the perfection of Christ having already been granted to us as a gift’. Thrall cites approvingly ‘“becoming God’s righteousness” . . . means “being justified by God”. Sinners “are given a righteous status before God”, they are “acquitted in his court”’. ¹⁸

This is very much in line with traditional Protestant teaching on substitutionary atonement. It links with Hafemann’s idea as to the purpose of Paul’s defence of his ministry. If Paul’s ministry is that of the transfer of Christ’s righteous status before to the undeserving believer, or the proclamation of justification by faith, then to finish the section with a climactic statement of that good news seems appropriate. But there are difficulties. That in this verse there is an exchange going on is certain; the question is whether this exchange is of a status or an attribute, or of something else.

The most obvious problem is that the verse does not say we take Christ’s righteousness but God’s righteousness.

In addition, as Wright points out, there are problems of the context:

there seems to be no good reason why he suddenly inserts this statement into a discussion whose thrust is quite different, namely, a consideration of the paradoxical ministry in which Christ is portrayed in and through the humiliating weakness of the apostle (4:7–6:13); . . . the verse read in this way, seems to fall off the end of the preceding argument so much so that some commentators have suggested that the real break in the thought comes not between 5:21 and 6:1 but between 5:19 and 5:20. ¹⁹

As Wright comments in another context,

Exegetes of course have ways of making things fit. A puzzling verse can be labeled as a pre-Pauline fragment or an interpolation, or perhaps a mere ‘topos’ in which a well-worn phrase, whose history-of-religions ancestry can be shown with an impressive footnote, should not be pressed for precise or powerful meaning. ²⁰

But if we could find an interpretation that fitted the verse into the context and made sense of the exchange we might find this more acceptable than these scholarly devices. The intrusion of the gospel, as in the understanding of e.g. Hafemann and others, reveals that when they see Paul defending his ministry they really think that Paul is defending his gospel.

Wright’s Solution

Wright starts with the meaning of dikaiosúnj qeoü, about which Wright has firm opinions which virtually rule out the traditional reading represented by Hafemann. Rather than it signifying a righteousness that God conveys in some way, the phrase dikaiosúnj qeoü means God’s own righteousness. This he finds clear in the other uses of the phrase, all in Romans, and tackles this example because it might be seen as the supreme example where the so-called Lutheran interpretation of double imputation might hold. But what is dikaiosúnj? Wright argues in various places that it means covenant faithfulness. ²¹ For instance, the people of God had committed themselves under the covenant to behave in a certain way and to behave in this way constituted covenant faithfulness. When predicated of God’s people it implies their faithful behaviour in accordance with the covenant and therefore of their vindication under the terms of the covenant in which God was committed to save His people (e.g. Deut. 30:1–10). When covenant faithfulness was predicated of God, as in dikaiosúnj qeoü, it meant God’s behaving in accordance with his commitment under the covenant (which, as just noted, included the vindication of His people). But this covenant had wider, cosmic, implications. ²² So Wright describes this commitment thus:

In biblical thought, sin and evil are seen in terms of injustice–that is, of a fracturing of the social and human fabric. What is required, therefore, is that justice be done, not so much in the punitive sense that phrase often carries (though punishment comes into it), but in the fuller sense of setting to rights that which is out of joint, restoring things as they should be. Insofar, then as God’s covenant with Israel was designed, at the large scale, to address the problem of human sin and the failure of creation as a whole to be what its creator had intended it to be, the covenant was the means of bringing God’s justice to the whole world. . . . [Therefore] we discover that God’s righteousness, seen in terms of covenant faithfulness and through the image of the lawcourt, was to be the instrument of putting the world to rights–of what we might call cosmic restorative justice. ²³

This suggests that God’s righteousness is that righting of the obvious dysfunctionality of the current cosmic order, seen most vividly in the behaviour of the nations. The chosen vessel for this saving action was Israel but the same dysfunctionality was all too evident in Israel as well. The ‘new’ chosen vessel turns out to be Christ, in whom all the requirements of the Covenant were met and who conquered not only sin but death itself, the ultimate expression of creation’s dysfunctionality.

In view of Thrall’s discomfort with the apparent restriction covenant might place on Paul’s understanding of the scope of the cross in 5:21, this point can usefully be expanded. For Wright, the Jewish metanarrative is that Adam sinned and condemned the world to futility; Abraham emerges as God’s ‘answer to the plight of all mankind’. ²⁴ This can be in two ways; Abraham and his descendants may be the new Adam, replacing the old Adam (as described in 4 Ezra ²⁵ ), or as the means by which all creation (including Adam outside Israel) is to be restored. Whichever is the case, covenant is key, for it is with Abraham that saving covenant essentially starts. For Wright, the approach of Israel as the answer to the plight of all mankind finds expression in the way the nation of Israel ‘is to be the nation of priests [under the covenant] (Exodus 19), the people through whom the creator will bless his creation once more’. ²⁶ This cosmic perspective is typical of Paul who ‘insists that the covenant promises to Abraham held out to him not just the land of Israel but the entire kosmos, the world’. ²⁷ So in affirming a covenant background to the terminology of righteousness, Wright is still giving it a cosmic scope.

A more general criticism of Wright’s claim for a strictly covenantal background to righteousness language is made by MacLeod. ²⁸ He makes two powerful points. First, he questions the dualism between Hellenistic and Hebraic thought ²⁹ and the need to locate Paul’s language strictly within one of these. ³⁰ Secondly, he argues that the idea of righteousness in the Old Testament is a creational rather than a covenantal or redemptive one. ³¹ Even in a redemptive context, such as that of Noah or Abraham, their righteousness is pre-covenantal. ³² What is common to classical (Hellenistic) and Hebraic (as seen in the Old Testament) is the link of righteousness with conformity to norms. ³³ However, MacLeod qualifies these objections to Wright quite significantly when he says that ‘What the Torah did was not to replace old norms, far less to contradict them, but to clarify them’. ³⁴ So the basic point that Wright wishes to make concerning the character of the righteousness of God, that it is His faithfulness to the Covenant, is not affected by the realization that the Covenant itself is a faithful (if perhaps incomplete) reflection of the character of God and the norms that He sets.

It is my contention that the key contribution of Wright’s understanding of the righteousness of God does not lie so much in his tying it to the Covenant as in his insistence that God’s righteousness rests in his behaving appropriately as God. Under the Covenant, that appropriate behaviour receives some definition. But even before the Covenant at Sinai, perceptions of the right behaviour of God existed. How else could Abraham challenge God, ‘Will not the judge of all the earth do right?’ (Gen. 18:25)? The righteousness of God would appear to rest in his fulfillment of the right behaviour of God as judge of all the earth, in the fulfillment of his role as God. As such, it is not a transferable righteousness, for God’s godness is not transferable. Or to put is another way, the imputation/impartation debate depends on seeing the righteousness of God as a pure and godly character, reflecting God’s own purity and thus of which God would approve. Wright is arguing that the righteousness of God in this sense as reflecting God’s own character or of reflecting the character of Jesus, and thus something which can be imputed or imparted, is not what Paul means when he uses the phrase the righteousness of God. Rather Paul means the fulfillment by God of His role as God. Wright ties this closely to the Covenant but it need not be so tied.

To give examples from outside the OT (thereby meeting perhaps some of MacLeod’s reservations at seeing a sharp divide between Greek and Jewish thought), MacIntyre argues that in heroic society, as in Homeric society, ‘Every individual has a given role and status within a well-defined and highly determinative system of roles and statuses’. ³⁵ What someone should do reflects his role and status. When Greek society changed from the heroic (if it ever existed ³⁶ ) to the Athenian, there are changes in social context which change the responsibilities. ‘To be a good man will on every Greek view be at least closely allied to being a good citizen’. ³⁷ This effective democratization of what it means to be virtuous (the virtues apply to all citizens equally as all citizens are equal) disguises the extent to which the virtues are still role dependent. The virtues of the slave were of necessity different.

Tolkien argues similarly that in ancient Nordic ethics, the role determines the appropriate behaviour, what counts as righteous behaviour. So the heroism/chivalry of the youthful independent Beowulf seeking personal honour is inappropriate for the older king Beowulf, who must, if he is to fulfil his role as king, put the welfare of the kingdom before personal honour. ³⁸

I therefore propose that it is not so much the issue of Hebraic versus Hellenist thought, nor of Covenant versus Creation but of seeing the righteousness as tied to the fulfillment of the role of the one who is to be righteous, rather than of a moral character. Wright sees this in unashamedly Covenant terms; God’s righteousness is his fulfillment of his Covenant role. If he switched to more creational terms his argument would be substantially unaltered. God would be required to act as appropriate as God of all creation. ³⁹

Wright is able to apply his understanding of dikaiosúnj qeoü as covenant faithfulness, at least to his satisfaction, in its occurrences in Romans (1:17; 3:5, 21, 22; 10:3). For 1:17, Wright sees the gospel as the unveiling of dikaiosúnj qeoü, that is the revealing of God’s gracious righting of the cosmic disorder. ⁴⁰ 3:5 sees Paul as correcting the impression that God’s righteousness is seen in his vindication in court as if he were in dispute with Israel, whereas ‘God is not actually at law with Israel; God is the cosmic judge, who must bring justice to the whole world’. ⁴¹ In 3:21–22, it is again the unveiling of ‘the covenant plan’ ⁴² of the righting of the world through Jesus Christ. Wright even says, ‘Though it would not be strictly accurate, it would not be very great hyperbole to say that, for Paul, “the righteousness of God” was one of the titles of Jesus the Messiah himself’. ⁴³

The most complicated place is 10:3 where it is embedded in a passage (9:30–10:13) that also speaks of the dikaiosúnj of men, which suggests that, at least for these examples, a status of men is implied. But Wright insists that should not imply that when Paul speaks of dikaiosúnj qeoü, as he does twice in 10:3, that he alters the meaning from that used earlier in the letter. ⁴⁴ So, Wright translates 10:3 as ‘For, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish a righteousness of their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness,’ with ‘God’s righteousness’ referring to ‘God’s own covenant faithfulness’ and ‘is a shorthand, here, for the entire sweep of covenantly loyal actions God has undertaken from Abraham to the Messiah’. ⁴⁵ So Israel attempted to establish their own status under the covenant ⁴⁶ and did not pay attention to what God was doing to fulfil his role. In so doing they radically misunderstood the covenant as they understood it as vindicating themselves at the expense of the nations, whereas God intended the covenant to be his way of bringing blessing to nations as well. It cries out for the identification of this righteousness of God with Jesus Christ who is the one who brings the blessing to Israel and to the nations. Wright flirts with this identification in his remarks on 3:21–22 as we have seen, but he ultimately resists it.

But how can this understanding of dikaiosúnj qeoü as ‘covenant faithfulness’, not as a status bestowed on the believer, be true for 2 Corinthians 5:21? Here, the sense of exchange that Wright had so skilfully resisted in Romans is clearly implied but Wright remains undaunted. What Wright suggests is that since ‘covenant faithfulness’ implies God’s righting of cosmic dysfunctionality, seen vividly in the need for reconciliation between God and Man, Paul is actually describing his apostolic ministry as God ‘reaching out with the offer of reconciliation to all who hear his bold preaching’. ⁴⁷ He eloquently summarizes this by saying that Paul ‘becomes the living embodiment of his sovereign–or perhaps, in the light of 4:7–18 and 6:1–10, we should equally say the dying embodiment’. ⁴⁸ What concerns me is that Wright seems to see this as applying specifically to Paul (and perhaps the apostolic band).

Two Suggestions

The first suggestion is implied, if only in the last resort to be rejected or at least heavily qualified, by Wright himself. In Romans, Paul is by no means adverse to personifying things we might think of impersonally. For instance, sin and death and the law appear to be so personified, and such personifications were common in Judaism of the time. Seeing Christ as a personification of aspects of God is a frequent topic in NT Christology (hence Wisdom Christology, Adam Christology and so on). Paul himself strings together personifications; ‘Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God–that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption’ (1 Cor. 1:30). Wright, as we noted above, in his discussion of Rom. 3:21–22, toys with the idea that the righteousness of God, the covenant faithfulness of God, might be equated with Christ. ⁴⁹

This is faithfully reflected by Wright in his description of Paul’s ministry as one in which Paul ‘becomes the living embodiment of his sovereign–or perhaps, in the light of 4:7–18 and 6:1–10, we should equally say the dying embodiment’. ⁵⁰

The second suggestion is simply to apply the basic premise that in 2 Cor. 1–5 Paul is describing his apostolic ministry not only to validate the gospel that he had preached to the Corinthians and by which they were saved but to draw the Corinthians into faithful imitation of Paul in ministry. What Wright seems to resist is an intended extension by Paul of such an embodiment to the Corinthians. Paul’s use of the first person plural is complex but the possibility that in this verse the ‘we’ does mean ‘we all’ should be entertained. ⁵¹

To an extent, we might have expected this. If we recall the idea that Israel was to be a nation of priests, ‘the people through whom the creator will bless his creation once more’, one might expect the effect of making a people of God in Christ to include being the means by which God blesses his creation once more.

V. 11–13

The houn in v. 11 drives us back to v. 10 where it is said that all appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive good or ill. This suggests that those who know the fear of the Lord are all those who appreciate this fact but certainly include Paul. The result of this godly fear is that we persuade men, most clearly seen in the life of Paul but since all appear before the judgement seat of Christ and therefore should know the fear of the Lord, capable of being extended to all. The use of hanqr’ wpouß as the object of this persuasion suggests all men ⁵⁵ and not just Paul’s critics or Jews or Gentiles or Corinthians. V. 12–13 do focus back more directly to Paul but this can be seen to imply that Paul is trying to commend the manner of his ministry to the Corinthians, with a view to their imitation.

V. 14–15

Here the personal commitment of Paul to his vision of ministry is clear but the reason for his commitment is one which clearly relates to all (pántwn…pánteß…pántwn). The verses represent not merely a call to recognize the ministry of Paul but a call to join him in it.

V. 16–17

The ‘we’, Hjmeïß, certainly applies primarily to Paul but through this there is an implicit call to all who hear him to share his ‘epistemological’ revolution. This becomes even clearer in the next verse where Paul fades from view and it is ‘anyone’ who is in view. V. 17 also serves to recall that the revolution is not only epistemological but also ontological; there is new creation just as had been implied by Paul’s allusion to Jeremiah and Ezekiel in Chapter 3.

V. 18–21

When we reach this section and read that ‘we’ are reconciled to God and have received the ministry of reconciliation (v. 18) it is quite as natural to see this as referring to Paul and the Corinthians as Paul is not really arguing that they are still unreconciled to God. As Wright affirms:

Verse 20 then follows from this as a dramatic double statement of his conception of the task: ‘So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.’ That is to say, when Paul preaches, his hearers ought to hear a voice from God, a voice which speaks on behalf of the Christ in whom God was reconciling the world. Astonishingly, the voice of the suffering apostle is to be regarded as the voice of God himself, the God who in Christ has established the new covenant, and who now desires to extend its reconciling work into all the world. The second half of the verse should not, I think, be taken as an address to the Corinthians specifically, but as a short and pithy statement of Paul’s whole vocation: ‘On behalf of Christ, we make this appeal: “Be reconciled to God!”’

But if this is true, then the role of ambassadorship should be seen as applying to all who (i) appear before the judgment seat of Christ, (ii) know the fear of the Lord, (iii) are ones for whom the Lord died, who recognize this fact and therefore live for Christ, (iv) who is in Christ, and (v) have been reconciled to God through Christ. This is clearly meant to include those to whom Paul is writing. Those to whom they are going are all who need reconciliation to God, the all for whom one had died but who were not yet in Christ (v. 14 and 17).

What Wright describes as ‘a dramatic double statement of his conception of the task’ actually follows from a double statement of the task, one that not only states the task but also predicates the task upon a statement of the gospel. So in v. 18, there is a statement of the gospel ‘God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ’ which is then immediately followed by the task, ‘and gave us the ministry of reconciliation’. Then in v. 19, there is the same: a statement of the gospel, ‘God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them’, followed by the task, ‘And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation’.

Then we come to our verse 21. As in vv. 18–19 the verse splits into two halves. The first half of the verse is clearly a statement of the gospel. Then this is followed by a description of something that happens to us. We becomes the righteousness of God. If he were talking about the gospel, he would be describing the remarkable thing that happened through the gospel but up to this point he has been talking about the ministry. Therefore the remarkable thing that happens is best understood as something to do with the ministry of the gospel. In him we assume the role under the Covenant of bringing redemption to people, a role that is in the first place that of God but which is assumed by Christ (for he is the expression of the ‘Covenant Faithfulness’ of God if we are to use Wright’s definition) and which becomes ours though us being in him. ⁵⁶