John 4 is probably my favorite story in the whole Bible. Truly, this story is (as the church fathers described the Gospel of John) a puddle that a small child can wade in, and at the same time an ocean that an elephant can swim — or drown! — in.

John 4, the story of the woman at the well, is the Gospel lesson for this morning, the third Sunday in Lent, based on the Revised Common Lectionary. (You can listen to my sermons, and those of our pastor John Ratliff, here.)

Here is my little sermon outline so far, though I do hope to preach this “narrativally,” and not so much like a bullet-point lecture.

Opening Question: “Why is this woman alone?” First, because she is excluded from her community in every possible sense (racially, gender-wise, socially, morally, theologically). Second, nobody wants to be with her (why would they, given all of that?) and she does not want to be with anyone (she feels the shame of exclusion). This is why, at “the sixth hour,” when the sun is directly overhead and there are no shadows, she is alone at the well performing a task which in that day was never done alone (drawing water).

Note: what might be viewed as evil in her life God was using for good. Just like Mary Magdelen, who was so mentally tormented and tortured that Mk 16:9 says that she had “seven demons” cast out of her. Only til you lose everything can you really find Jesus. Only then can he find you. You will never find the one thing til you lose everything.

Then I am going to look at three images which are intensely prominent in John’s Gospel, which are huge in this story as well.

I. water: we see a movement from subsistence to life-giving abundance, from well (v6) to spring (v15).

II. spirit (which is both Hebrew and Greek is the same word as “wind” and / or “breath.” (All correct pneumatology begins with this observation.) In John water is never alone: it is always coupled with spirit. If you read about water in John, look around, and you will find “spirit” nearby. This means the Holy Spirit, and in a real sense this life-giving water is precisely the Holy Spirit which Jesus gives to the church on the day of Pentecost (John’s version of Pentecost is 20:19-23 when be breathes of the disciples and says, “Receive the HS.”). Also, spirit, like water, is a fluid, and there is something about fluids which, gives them, as opposed to solids (think of a rock) a certain “sovereignty.” They flow, and seemingly of their own accord. “The wind blows where it will,” Jn 3:8. Like a branch flowing in a river, the initiative is with the fluid, not with the branch. The water initiates and does the carries. The branch in a sense is acted upon. So we see a movement here from static to fluid or dynamic.

III. Life. From tenuous to transformative. Wells can get clogged up but springs cannot be held down. They will overcome any amount of gunk you throw at them. Jesus moves this woman from a state of being interested only in physical water (like the people in chapter 6 who are interested only in filling their bellies — 6:26) to becoming a holistic sharer for others. There is a movement from physical to holistic and from self-seeking to others-sharing. At first, she just wants to avoid dying of dehydration, but by the time Jesus is finished with he she rushes back to the community to share her new-found wealth, her new found well spring of life (which is Christ). Note: she did not have to be coaxed, prodded, or externally motivated to do this (did she stop by the bookstore on the way back to her villiage to pick up a copy of Evangelism Explosion or “The Four Spiritual Laws?” No: instead she told her story. Those things would have only stifled that!

“Eternal life” (v14) is not unending life lived in the eternal state. No: it is the indestructible, uncloggable life of a spring. But not just that, it is “eonic life.” Life of the God’s new eon. It brings about a new world.

This is the point of the “sowing and reaping” part of this story. Look at what this eonic life does: it brings about the transformation of the world. We see it beginning to happen in this woman’s life and in the life of her village.

C losing Question: “How did this happen?” Where did she get that boldness? Answer: verse 16. See, why did Jesus, out of the blue, say: “Go get your husband.” Is he changing the subject? No: he saw that she was alone and immediately had the suspicion (as any case-wise counselor or pastor in that day would have) that her social isolation was the result of something having to do with … men.

How does this happen? Through liberation. She was in bondage. She was drinking from some other well, which had become her false hope, her addiction, and Jesus set her free.

He said to her, “Woman, go get your husband.”

He says to you, “Christian, go get your ….” Your what? “Christian, go get your bank account. Go get your social life where you’re in the inner circle . Go get your children. Go get your stainless reputaton.”

Go get them and do two things with them. Compare them to me (the quality of life they give you), and see that they don’t stack up to real abundant life. And then, lay them at my feet. I will raise them back up. I will give them back to you, but now in a way that is healthy, now in a way that facilitates your new divine, abundant life with me.

Jesus puts his finger right on the issue, right on the pulse of her heart, and what does she do? She repents. How do we know this? B/c look at what she does! She runs back to her villiage. What? They very people who excluded her? The very people who did not want to be with her … and with whom she did not want to be. (You see, repentance is social and public.)

How does Hooker defend church order against those who would say, for example, that the church ought not to have bishops since they are not explicitly taught in Scripture? By arguing that the social order of the church is oriented toward “the chief end of man:” society with and in God.

Hooker’s understanding of this social order is rooted in the following:

1. Thomistic teleology: the law of reason dictates that a creature incline to something “which they may be” or to their highest good. The highest good for man is society with God.
2. Reformed emphasis on the the radical “Creator / creature distinction:” the finite cannot contain the infinite. It follows from this that the flesh Christ took on or inhabited must remain fully human.
3. Putting these two together, Hooker argues that the hypostatic union, properly understood as resisting either the Nestorian or the Eutychian (read: “Lutheran,” with its articulation of the man Jesus’ omnipresence, a la Martin Chemnitz) tendencies, achieves our (humanity’s) membership in the divine society.
4. This leads to a special importance for the body of Christ, especially since it is Christ’s flesh which is the locus of his solidarity with us. Hence Scripture’s emphasis on this which is then massively developed in the history of the church (primarily in her understanding and practice of the Eucharist). It is not the case that we simply become Christ, but one may rightly speak of our “bodily consubstantiation” with his, or, better: his with ours.

I am really thankful for this opportunity to delve into Hooker at ETSS. I am starting to see his relevance for many of the things I grappling with (Federal Vision / New Perspective type issues; the social nature of the faith; the right use of Scripture; the Greek speaking church fathers; etc.). A part of me is thinking, “Why focus on so much on ancient Greek speaking Easterners when we have (English speaking) Hooker?” That’s not to say that we should not read the Greek fathers, but maybe we should, to a great extent, let Hooker interpret them for us.

His Laws is mainly an argument against the “Puritans” (in this case, names like Travers and Cartwright) who said “Scripture alone is the rule of all things which in this life may be done by men.” In the Laws he is defending a certain ecclesial — and actually cosmic — liturgical order of things, including organizational features of the church not explicitly or directly authorized in Scripture (ie, we are talking about, among other things, bishops).

He has many key themes and distinctions, but none is more important than his emphasis on society. For Hooker, the chief end of man is to enjoy — with and in the Triune God and other people — the society of God.

He presupposes a traditional view of the atonement which includes the idea (listen for overtones of NT Wright here) that Christ offered himself for the forgiveness of sins. (Let me just say that, when it comes to the atonement, that is good enough for me right there. And I have felt this way for about a decade, ever since I read something along these lines by CS Lewis about how no “one theory” about how the atonement works ought to be absolutized, and I distinctly remember disagreeing with RC Sproul on this.)

It does seem to me that Hooker, with his upfront emphasis on society (divine and human, of course), implies something that NT Wright implies: soteriology is really ecclesiology.

Atonement is not where the action is for Hooker, relying as he does on the Fathers. The action is in the divine society and our participation in it.

I want to write so much more, but Ellie Bay is starting to cry.

Suffice to say that Hooker is opposing the Puritans, who want simply to “go back to Scripture” by relying more on the Nicene and Chalcedonian orthodoxy, which, in turn, rely upon Scripture. (So Hooker is explicitly relying on both tradition and scripture.) It is a different sort of argument.

One last point: it seems to me that Hooker is a really good blend of Calvinist / Reformed thought (Creator / creature distinction: “the finite cannot contain the infinite”) and Thomism (teleology: obeying the teleological law of our nature is a necessary condition for true society).

The fourth and final “step” in Hays’ interpretive process for ethics is “living the text.”

“In the midst of a culture that worships self-gratification, and in a church that often preaches a false Jesus who panders to our desires, those who seeks the narrow way of obedience have a powerful word to speak.” (403)

Hays charts some initial trajectories for this “narrow way” by asking and answering seven questions:

1. Should the church support civil rights for homosexuals? Yes. “… Christians should not single out homosexual persons for malicious discriminatory treatment: insofar as we have done so in the past we must repent and instead seek to live out the gospel of reconciliation.” (400)

2. Can homosexual persons be members of the Christian church? This, Hays insists, is rather like asking if envious persons can be members of the church. Not only “can they be” (and hence they should be admitted), but they already are. Hays writes, “If they are not welcome, I will have to walk out the door along with them, leaving in the sanctuary only those entitled to cast the first stone.”

This means that we in the covenant community must “find ways to live to live within the church in a situation of serious moral disagreement while still respecting one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.” Further, Hays insists, there are much more important issues for the church to start drawing lines in the dirt over including violence and materialism (about which the Bible has much more to say than this issue, as we have seen).

At the same time however, the church must challenge all her members to repent and be conformed not to the world but to Christ. For the person of homosexual orientation this includes the call to resist the temptation to form personal identity over sex alone or even primarily.

Hays also points out that persons who uphold the traditional position have an obligation to continue to hold everyone to the same standard of sexual morality: chastity within heterosexual marriage, or celibacy.

3. Is it Christianly appropriate for Christians who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation to continue to participate in same-sex erotic activity? No, especially in light of the fact that “the only person who was entitled to cast the first stone said, ‘Go and sin no more.’ It is no more appropriate for homosexual Christians to persist in homosexual activity than for heterosexual Christians to persist in fornication or adultery…. Despite the smooth illusions perpetuated by mass culture in the United States, sexual gratification is not a sacred right, and celibacy is not a fate worse than death.” (401)

4. Should the church sanction and bless homosexual unions? No.

5. Does this mean that persons of homosexual orientation are subject to a blanket imposition of celibacy in a way qualitatively different from persons of heterosexual orientation? This is a penetrating and difficult question to which Hays shows great sensitivity. Homosexuals are left “in precisely the same situation as the heterosexual who would like to marry but cannot find an appropriate partner (and there are many such): summoned to a difficult, costly obedience, while “groaning” for the “redemption of our bodies” (Rom 8:32). Anyone who does not recognize this as a description of authentic Christian existence has never struggled seriously with the imperatives of the gospel, which challenge and frustrate our ‘natural’ impulses in countless ways.” Our hope, Hays goes on to show, is in the glorious future of the new heavens and new earth, and our resurrection bodies within them. Thus our hope is decidedly eschatological. (402)

I would add that, here again, the example of Gary is important.

6. Should homosexual Christians expect to change their orientation? In the new heavens and new earth, Hays suggests, “yes,” but not necessarily before then. And yet, Gary was granted a new sense of “not considering [himself] a homosexual” (his words, quoted by Hays on 403), and so we can hope and pray. But, to be sure, the ‘not yet’ of the gospel does indeed loom large, as it does with all our sins and weaknesses.

7. Should persons of homosexual orientation be ordained? In its (rather high-profile) discussion of this question, the church, sadly in Hays’ opinion, has suggested a double-standard for clergy and laity; “it would be far better to articulate a single set of moral norms which apply to all of Jesus’ followers.” And far from imposing a special requirement in this area (after all, are there such special requirements in other areas?), “such matters are left to the discernment of the bodies charged with examining candidates for ordination; these bodies must determine wither the individual candidate has the gifts and graces requisite for ministry. In any event, a person of homosexual orientation seeking to live a life of disciplined abstinence would clearly be an appropriate candidate for ordination.” (403)

Turning to a consideration of (various things he associates with) reason, Hays discusses three areas: arguments of nature (genetic predisposition) versus nurture or culture, argumentation from statistics, and argument from experience.

He points out that, even if conclusive, undisputed evidence were to emerge that there is a genetic predisposition to homosexual orientation, this would have few implications for Christian ethics. In fact, he argues, “we need not take sides in the debates of nature versus culture” since, as Hays points out earlier in his material, “actions do not necessarily have to be “voluntary” to be sinful before God” (though I would insist, along with the counselors from the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation, associated with Westminster Theological Seminary, that human brokenness which stems from sources other than “free volitional decision” such as physiological addiction, clinically diagnosable impairments such as Alzheimer’s and A.D.D., and indeed genetic predisposition, while not legitimizing behavior with the Bible describes as sin, do in fact call for a different, more compassionate and patient approach to counseling).

I would also add that a robust theological anthropology which acknowledges that sin and brokenness have wreaked havoc not just on our souls but also on our bodies might actually predict or expect sins to be deeply tied to bodily impairment. As the doctrine of total depravity teaches, there is no part, aspect, or dimension of the human person which is not marred and twisted by the fall.

Turning to statistical data, Hays is correct summarily to dismiss any argument which would seek to legitimate homosexual activity on the basis of statistics: “If Paul were shown the poll results, he would reply sadly, ‘Indeed, the power of sin is rampant in the world.’”

Hays rightly sees advocates of homosexuality in the church have by far their most formidable case “when the appeal to the authority of experience.” “There are individuals who live in stable, loving homosexual relationships and claim to experience grace – rather than the wrath – of God.” Then Hays asks several pointed questions:

How are such claims to be assessed? Was Paul wrong? Or are such experiential claims simply another manifestation of the self-deception he describes? Or, besides these irreconcilable alternatives, should we entertain the possible emergence of new realities which Paul could not have anticipated? Does the practice that Paul condemns correspond exactly to the experience of homosexual relations that exists in the present time?” (398)

I must say that I find Hays’ point here especially compelling in light of Paul’s teaching in I Cor 13 where he enjoins a new law of love on the community and instructs us to “hope all things, truust all things, believe all things.” As my wife and I have discussed countless times over the years, this “covenantal epistemology” teaches us to resist the temptation to be suspicious of (the) other(s), and instead to listen and to trust and to believe and to hope. This is true (as any couple who has been through good marriage counseling will tell you) for the covenant community of marriage, and it is true for the covenant community of the church (ie, the Eucharistic community). If there are brothers and sisters within the church who bear witness to healthy experiences of homosexual behavior, we must listen to them in a 1 Corinthians-kind-of-way.

And yet, there is much more to be said than just this, and Hays says it.

For one thing, we should allow gay experience to critique gay experience. In other words, the voices of those like Gary, “who struggle with homosexual desires and find them a hindrance to living lives committed to the service of God” (399) must be fully appreciated.

Further, Hays takes the “covenantal epistemology” of discerning what is good and true though the voices of the community seriously enough to admit that, if one day a strong consensus in the (global?) church should emerge that homosexuality is possible to practice faithfully in the covenant community, then that consensus would become normative.

(This is hugely important in my mind, and this kind of reasoning highlights the importance of the church as prerequisite for truth, 1 Tim 3:15. Sadly I find that many evangelical – and even Reformed – American Christians are lost on this point.)

Has the church ever so dramatically reversed her position on such an issue (especially one as pressing as this)? Indeed she has, and Scripture records it. And, significantly enough, it was experience which provoked the church, in grappling over the inclusion of Gentiles (qua Gentiles) in the covenant community, essentially to say, “We now see that we had previously overlooked something in the Scriptures.” Not only is this deep grappling on the part of the apostolic church recorded in Paul’s dense argumentation in texts such as Romans and Galatians, but “we see the rudiments of such a reflective process in Acts 10:34-35, where Peter begins his speech to Cornelius by alluding to Deuteronomy 10:17-18 and Psalm 15:1-2 in order to confess that ‘God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.’”

As can readily be seen, huge differences exist between the reversal of the apostolic church and the reversal which proponents of homosexual acceptance are proposing. And yet, we must admit, the experience of believers should prompt a deeper investigation into Scripture. When this occurred in the apostolic church, manifold textual indications were discerned which did in fact reveal that, now, at that present time, God was in fact doing something new, and new light was truly breaking onto the covenant community.

Especially in light of the scant and univocal Biblical material regarding homosexuality, Hays is right to argue that, until such an unlikely phenomenon occurs again in the (global) church, “we must affirm that … marriage between man and woman is the normative form for human sexual fulfillment, and homosexuality is one among many tragic signs that we are a broken people, alienated from God’s loving purpose.” (400)

Hays in this section emphasizes the lack of rules prohibiting homosexuality in the NT. Instead what we have is principles, and these principles are not enough to ground an ethics in and by themselves, and therefore they require a deeper hermeneutic rigor.

For example, from Rom 1 we can infer the principle that humans should “acknowledge and honor God as creator.” But apart from a certain (moral) “order of creation” which specifies that, say, male-plus-female sexual relations are normative, this principle is not enough to prohibit homosexual activity for members of the Christian community.

Therefore, reasons Hays, we should look for neither rules nor principles in the NT to inform our ethics. Rather, we should appreciate and (assuming that the Bible is normative for the Christian life) submit to its symbolic construal of the world. In this symbolic world which Paul and others construe in the NT, homosexuality symbolizes man’s rebellion and ignorance which have resulted from Adam’s idolatry. “If we accept the authority of the NT, we will be taught to perceive homosexuality accordingly.” (396)

When we turn to tradition (which we should do in this hermeneutical quest, Hays apparently thinks), we find this perspective confirmed. If anything tradition probably has a more hardened disapproval for homosexuality than Scripture, since Scripture would lead us to view this vice as no worse than many others which are listed alongside it (1 Cor 6; 1 Tim 1).

After commenting on tradition, Hays turns to “reason,” which I will review in a subsequent post.

Hays now applies his device of “community, cross, new creation” to this issue.

1. As for community, Hays does a masterful job of showing how Paul’s pastoral theology to the Corinthian church is an amplification of what we see in the holiness code of Lev 18, where we read in vv24-26,

Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, for by all these practices the nations I am casting out have defiled themselves. Thus the land has become defiled; and I punished it for its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you shall keep my statutes and my ordinances and commit none of these abominations, either the citizen or the alien who resides among you.

Like Leviticus (one might say, “like Moses”), Paul’s concern in his letters to the Corinthian church is primarily one for the community. The following paragraph of Hays’ is so good I must quote it in full:

… Paul’s exhortation to the Corinthians to ‘glorify God in your body’ (1 Cor 6:20) grows out of his passionate concern, expressed repeatedly in 1 Corinthians, for the unity and sanctification of the community as a whole. Fornication with a prostitute is wrong, among other reasons, because ‘your bodies are members of Christ’ (6:15). Thus, to engage in sexual immorality defiles the body of Christ. Through baptism, Christians have entered a corporate whole whose health is at stake in the conduct of all its members. Sin is like an infection in the body; thus, moral action is not merely a matter of individual freedom and preference. ‘If one member suffers, all suffer’ (1 Cor 12:26) This line of argument is not applied specifically to every offense in the vice list, but it does not require a great leap of imagination to see that for Paul the church is analogous (though not identical) to Israel as portrayed in the holiness code [of Lev 18, emphasis mine]. That is the logic behind the demand that the Corinthian church expel the man engaged in a sexual relationship with his stepmother (5:1-13). A similar logic would certainly apply, within Paul’s frame of reference, to the malakoi and arsenoikotai of 1 Cor 6:9. The community of those who have been washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ ought to have put such behaviors behind it. The NT never considers sexual conduct purely a matter of private concern between consenting adults. According to Paul, everything that we do as Christians, including our sexual practices, affects the whole body of Christ.”

Hays then rightly points out that this canonical discipline does not apply to the wider society, for which “the right to privacy may well be a useful principle for a secular political order.”

2. As for cross, there is an implicit and crucial connection between homosexuality and the cross in Romans. The human unrighteousness in Rom 1 is the condition that makes the cross (ie, the death of Christ) necessary (Rom 5:8). In addition, “[t]he human unrighteousness detailed in Rom 1 is answered by the righteousness of God, who puts forward Jesus to die for unrighteousness (Rom 3:23-25), enabling [us] to walk in newness of life.” (392)

Therefore, writes Hays, we can see the following two implications: first, “the wrath of God — manifested in God’s “giving up” of rebellious humanity to follow their own devices and desires — is not the last word.” The cross shows us that God loves us even while we are in rebellion “and the sacrificial death of his son is the depth of that love.” This is the logic of Paul’s “sting” operation in Rom 2:1ff, thinks Hays, that no one is sanctioned to condemn others for anything. “This has profound implications for how the Christian community ought to respond to persons of homosexual orientation. Even if some of their actions are contrary to God’s design, the cross models the way in which the community of faith ought to respond to them: not in condemnation, but in sacrificial service.” (393)

This is brilliant on Hays’ part, I must say. We are not to emulate the creator God in his wrathful condemnation, theologizes St. Paul, but rather, as ministers of reconciliation, we are to emulate the merciful love and welcoming invitation of Jesus, the saving, redeeming Lord.

Secondly, because the cross “marks the end of the old life under the power of sin (Rom 6:1-4) … no one is locked into the past or into a psychological or biological determinism.” Only “in light of this transforming power” the Gary’s of the world (let alone the Matt Boulter’s of the world) enter into the hope and change offered in the Christian life.

3. New Creation. The eschatological framework of Romans and the entire NT implies that Christians will still struggle with sin, struggle “to live faithfully in the present time…. Those who demand fulfillment now, as though it were a right or guarantee, are living in a state of adolescent illusion.” (393)

And then Hays makes a striking statement: “Consequently, in this time between the times, some may find disciplined abstinence the only viable alternative to disordered sexuality.”  (393) And then, “the art of eschatological moral discernment lies in working out how to live lives free from bondage to sin without presuming to be translated prematurely into a condition that is free from ‘the sufferings of the present time’ (Rom 8:18).”

“How is human sexuality portrayed in the canon as a whole, and how are the few explicit texts treating homosexuality to be read in relation to this larger canonical framework?”

Hays notes that unlike the the matter of “the subordination of women, concerning which the Bible contains internal tensions and counterposed witnesses, [t]he biblical witness against homosexual practices is univocal.” (389)

Hays then lists three major, overarching canonical considerations to keep in mind as “we place the prohibition of homosexuality in a canonical context:”

• “God’s [Creational] Intention for Human Sexuality.” “From Genesis 1 onward, Scripture affirms repeatedly that God has made man and woman for one another and that our sexual desires rightly find fulfillment within heterosexual marriage.” (390)

• The Fallen Human Condition. “The Bible’s sober anthropology rejects the apparently commonplace assumption [on the part of us who are "great-grandchildren of the Enlightenment"] that only freely chosen acts are morally culpable.” Hays sketches how, as a result of Adam’s / humanity’s fall, human beings are in a state of self-deception (he quotes Jer 17:9) and bondage (”We are ’slaves of sin’” Hays writes, referencing Rom 6:17) . “Redemption (a word that means ‘being emancipated from slavery’) is God’s act of liberation, setting us free from the power of sin and placing us within the sphere of God’s transforming power for righteousness (Rom 6:20-22; 8:1-11; cf 12:1-2).”

• The Demythologizing of Sex. Contrary to the assumptions of today’s (western) culture, the Bible undermines our obsession with sexual fulfillment. It bears witness, in fact, that we can be totally fulfilled and joyful without sexual relations. “Sex,” unlike food or drink, one would suppose, “is a matter of secondary importance…. Never within the canonical perspective does sexuality become the basis for defining a person’s identity or for finding meaning and fulfillment in life.” (At this point I must admit that it seems to me that Hays overlooks the Song of Solomon as well as the old covenant’s emphasis on childbirth, which is surely fulfilled in Christ but still somehow relevant for life in the new covenant and is probably somehow related to 1 Tim 2:15: “[a woman] will be saved through childbearing.” Given these, it does seem to me that “sexual fulfilment” might be more important than Hays allows, albeit in a way radically different from the assumptions of our culture.)

In his exposition of Rom 1:18-32, Hays notes that this is the only place in the NT (I would add “and in the whole Bible”) where homosexuality is not just mentioned or prohibited, but explicitly theologized about. (383) There is, in a sense, a “theology of homosexuality” here in Paul’s thought, and this is especially true in light of the fact that, as Hays points, out, “this is the only passage in the whole Bible that refers to lesbian sexual relations.” (384)

Situating Paul’s teaching on this particular issue within the larger context of the letter, Hays rightly stresses that Paul’s initial main point in chapter one is that “the Gospel” is God’s demonstration of righteousness, that is, his demonstration of eschatological power (it is “the instrument through which God is working out his purpose in the world … reaching out graciously to deliver humanity from bondage to sin and death”), and thus it serves in Paul’s argument as the vindication of God.

“Having sounded this keynote,” Paul not only adopts a contrasting key by contrasting God’s righteousness to humanity’s unrighteousness, but he also actually grounds God’s righteousness in his response to humanity’s unrighteousness. When it comes to man’s sin (which, note carefully, is not here any individual or specific sin including anything having to do with homosexuality, but rather the more primal sin of replacing God and the worship due him with creation and idolatry), God does something about it.

And what does he do? He “gives humanity over” to themselves and their own devices. He gives them over to the dark futility of ignorance (1:21; cf 2 Thes 2:10b – 12). He gives them over to a debased mind. And, more to the point for our purposes, he gives them over “in the lusts of their hearts to impurity” (v24), to the “dishonorable passions” which result in erotic homosexual behavior. (vv26-27)

Hays thinks that Paul’s rhetoric about homosexuality serves to make two points (I list these in reverse order): evidence and consequence. First, given the centrality (at least in Pual’s and his hearers’ minds) of the sexual difference of the creation narratives of Adam and Eve, homosexual activity in particular would have been regarded as a “particularly vivid” illustration of how God has poured out his wrath against primal human idolatry. Second, this particular sin, along with the others mentioned in the next paragraph of chapter one (slander, haughtiness, disobedience, etc.) are not the cause of God’s wrath, but, rather (much like the plagues upon Egypt) the result of it.

(Note: Hays’ point, for which he enlists John Calvin, that Paul’s audience would have unequivocally shared in his assumption that homosexual acts are “obviously” depraved raises a question in my mind. It is, perhaps, a question about Paul’s intended audience. I can totally see how a Jewish audience would share in this assumption, of course, but would a Greek / Roman audience? It don’t think so. This is particularly interesting / troubling in light of the fact that many commentators, including NT Wright, think that Romans was intended for a primarily Gentile audience.)

Hays shows how the connection between homosexuality in particular on the one hand and (the) creation (narratives) on the other runs especially deep. He points out that when Paul writes that people “exchanged natural relations for those contrary to nature” (v26) this is in fact Paul’s third use of “exchange” (and its cognates) in this context. First Paul states that rebellious humans have “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images” of created things (v23), then that “they exchanged the truth of God for a lie (v25).” Writes Hays: “The deliberate repetition of [this verb] forges a powerful rhetorical link between the rebellion against God and the ‘shameless deeds’ (v27) that are themselves both evidence and consequence of that rebellion.

Hays summarizes Paul’s teaching in this chapter by stressing that “the aim of Romans 1 is not to teach a code of sexual ethics, nor is it a warning of God’s judgment against those who are guilty of particular sins. Rather, Paul is offering a diagnosis of the disordered human condition. He adduces the fact of widespread homosexual behavior as evidence that humans are indeed in rebellion against their creator…. Homosexual activity provokes the wrath of God…. The unrighteous behavior cataloged in Romans 1:26-31 is a list of symptoms: the underlying sickness of humanity as a whole, Jews and Gentiles alike, is that they have turned away from God and fallen under the pattern of sin (cf Rom 3:9)…. Homosexual activity will not incur God’s punishment; it is its own punishment, an “antireward.” (387 – 88)

Finally, Hays points out that, since this particular sin (here as everywhere else it is mentioned in the NT) is cataloged alongside other sins, it is not an “especially reprehensible” sin. It is in principle “no worse than covetousness or gossip or disrespect for parents (338). “Consequently, for Paul, self-righteous judgment of homosexuality is just as sinful as the homosexual behavior itself” (389).

The most fully developed thought on homosexuality the entire Christian Bible is is Romans 1:18-32. Before dealing with that passage, however, Hays first looks at two other NT texts which definitely comment on homosexuality (I Cor 6:9-11; I Tim 1:10 ), and one which possibly comments on it (Acts 15:28-29).

In two NT passages, I Cor 6:9-11 and I Tim 1:10, Paul (note however that Hays and many other NT scholars see the pastoral epistles of I Tim, II Tim, and Titus as pseudonymous) uses a word which is not extant in any source prior to I Cor: the word arsenokoitai. Hays demonstrates how this term, almost certainly coined by the apostle Paul, “is a translation of the Hebrew mishkav zakur (‘lying with a male’), derived directly from Lev 18:22 and 20:13.” (See above for discussion of these OT texts.) In both texts this term appears in a list of “unrighteous deeds.”

Hays continues, speaking of the I Corinthian passage: “Thus, Paul’s use of the term presupposes and reaffirms the holiness code’s [in Leviticus] condemnation of homosexual acts. This is not a controversial point in Paul’s argument; the letter gives no evidence that anyone at Corinth was arguing for the acceptance of same-sex erotic activity.” Paul simply assumes that his readers will agree that arsenokoitai are “workers of unrighteousness” just like the other offenders named in the list (idolaters, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, robbers, etc.).

Here as elsewhere, Paul’s goes on to argue that in the lives of the Corinthians a new reality has come about, and that they no longer belong to themselves, but to God. This is the basis upon which Paul argues that they ought to “glorify God in their bodies.” (I Cor 6:20)

The first Timothy passage is quite similar to this one in that it, too, presupposes that the audience will agree that homosexual activity is rightly categorized as one sin among others including “murderers, slave traders, liars.”

The only other passage in the NT – besides Rom 1 – is Acts 15:28-29, which uses the word pornea (“sexual immorality”). Hays thinks it likely that “these stipulations” are based largely on the purity regulations of Lev 17:1 – 18:30, and therefore “probably include … homosexual intercourse.”

Next up: Hays on what Paul teaches about homosexuality in Rom 1:18-32.

Hays’ ethical project in his The Moral Vision of the NT contains four steps: Reading the Texts, Synthesis (in canonical context), Hermeneutics, and Living the Text.

1. Hays points out the paucity of texts which in any way address this matter. While I do think that there is a sense in which every page of the Bible teaches us about sexuality (for example, every time it teaches us about worship, or about the divine community which we now call “the Trinity,” etc.), nevertheless this is an important point. Hays rightly stresses that the Bible (including the NT) has much, much more to say about economic justice and possessions than it does about (homo)sexuality.

In fact, however, as Hays hints at in this section and elsewhere, for Paul sexuality and possession(s) are theologically weaved together. Twice in I Corinthians (I Cor 6:12-20 in the context of sexual immorality, and in I Cor 7:3-4, in the context of gender in the church), Paul argues from what one might call “Gospel dispossession” to a revised understanding of sexual morality. In other words, Christians (now realize that we) no longer “own” our bodies as a possession, but rather (that) God owns them (I Cor 6:19-20) and thus, for married people, our spouses have the right to control them (I Cor 7:4). So it’s not simply that the Bible talks about money and possessions more than it does about (homo)sexuality, but rather that the Bible discusses (homo)sexuality in the context of its theology of possession(s). In a sense Paul’s theology of sex is rooted in this theology of ownership.

2. Hays rightly points out, as have countless other biblical interpreters, that the story of Sodom & Gomorrah in Gen 19 has little or nothing to do with this issue. The sins of Sodom & Gomorrah are of a completely different kind. Related to the above point about money and possessions, the sins in question here are injustice and greedy selfishness (Ezek 16:49). It seems clear to me therefore, that we should either abolish the word “sodomy” from our vocabulary, or begin to define it as oppression against the poor. (I suppose that the latter scenario would make many conservative evangelicals “sodomites.”)

3. Hays rightly points out that in Lev 18:22 and 20:13 homosexual intercourse between two men is flatly and simply prohibited and condemned (though the text is silent on woman / woman relations). Thus, if we were members of the covenant community to which this law was originally addressed, there would be no need for sophisticated hermeneutics here. Directly, plainly, and simply, this activity was forbidden for these people.

As Hays points out, however, things are not so simple for Christians living in the first century and beyond, given the eschatological character of biblical theology and ethics over the span of redemptive history and indeed up to the eschaton.

Thus Christians like Hays who see the Bible as authoritatively normative for the covenant community have more work to do. The starting point for that work is to attend to how the NT applies these “old covenant” laws. This is precisely what Hays proceeds to do.

The quality Richard Hays’ treatment of this issue in his The Moral Vision of the New Testament (pp 379-406) is both rare and encouraging (though I will have some questions / criticisms later on).

First, though, I want to extol the way he opens up the discussion by talking about his relationship with his friend Gary. Gary, by Hays’ description a homosexual, was Hays’ best friend in undergrad who had over the years developed some serious, deeply held convictions about what the Bible actually teaches about being gay.

I am grateful that Hays situates his discussion of this issue in the context of his relationship with Gary. As we will see, both sides of this debate (both the conservatives who see no “grey” in the sub-issues surrounding homosexuality, and the self-styled progressives in the church who amount to little more than political activists with an ideological agenda) fall short of faithful theological reflection, and so I am not simply wanting to “slam” the conservatives here, but I must ask: among all of my friends in the PCA who have firm, settled opinions about homosexuality and the sub-issues surrounding it (some of these sub-issues will be discussed later on), how many are in actual relationships with a gay or lesbian person? Some, perhaps, but precious few. Here as elsewhere (issues such as “liberalism” or Roman Catholicism) most of us in the PCA are quite content to offer abstract critiques from a great distance.

I am grateful, then, to a couple of friends who are Christians (and in the PCA) who actually do have real relationships with gay or lesbian people, especially my friend Tessa. I am also grateful for my experience with so many Starbucks partners over the years who are in some sense homosexual, many of whom are open to exploring life as a Christian.

Unlike many would-be progressives, almost none of my G/L Starbucks friends “draw their entire identity from their sexuality,” a tendency which Gary lamented according to Hays.

A conviction of Gary’s which seems right to me: Hays writes that “he was angry at self-affirming gay Christian groups, because he regarded his own condition as more complex and tragic [emphasis mine] than their stance could acknowledge.” As I hope to discuss, this criticism cuts in both directions: the stance of many conservatives is just as simplistic, it seems to me.

After 20 years of struggling to make sense of his homosexual orientation and the Bible, Gary was planning to co-author an article with Hays about all this, but he died before that could happen.

Great news. The rich, though-provoking biblical theology of Jim Jordan, Peter Leithart, Jeff Meyers, and others is up for the world to read at biblicalhorizonsblog.wordpress.com.

In my view the theology of these men is strongest in the following areas:

- Reading the Bible in a redemptive-historical way.

- Affirming “old catholicism” without embracing Roman Catholicism specifically. In other words, there is an affirmation of “reformed catholicity.” This includes, most importantly, the centrality of liturgy (the church’s worship is based on a pattern of covenant renewal) and the sacraments.

- Articulating a vision for the Christian social order of the future, which sees the creation mandate as being progressively (albeit in a sometimes obscure way) implemented by the Church.

As an example of the kind of thinking I am talking about, see this post on the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism.

(Here, by the way is the Biblical Horizons’ “mission statement.)

In seminary (Westminster) I had the extremely helpful opportunity to do an independent study with Larry Sibley, researching the issue of “gender in the church.” The aim of the study in particular was to clarify what Scripture teaches about the role of women in the church and also the issue of homosexuality. And even though I did finally confirm my basic stance that women are not allowed to be ordained to the office of presbytery within the Presbyterian form of church government, nevertheless,

- I did discover that the NT, and Paul in particular, endorses all kinds of serious ministry opportunities for women to engage in (including the office of deacon);
- I saw a difference between the way this issue should be played out between Presbyterianism on the one hand and Episcopal forms of government on the other;
- I have continued, over the last seven years, to struggle with this issue, sensing it to be so difficult and such a source of consternation that firm settledness is simply not possible. (This, not least, because of countless conversations with people outside the church who have differing perspectives on this issue.)

In the spirit of the third point above, I have continued to study the issue over the last seven or so years in pastoral ministry. In particular I have found the works of Richard Hays quite helpful. (His Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul is one of the most paradigm-shifting books I have ever read.) Hays, like NT Wright, is in favor of the ordination of women to the presbyterate, but (again like NT Wright, and, as we will see in a later post) opposes the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals and sees chastity within marriage as the biblical norm for human sexuality. (More on Hays’ thinking on homosexuality forthcoming in an upcoming post.)

I want, here on my blog, to summarize Hays on gender in the church according to St. Paul. The relevant material can be found in his The Moral Vision of the New Testament, pages 46 – 56.

1. Hays argues that Paul, especially in I Corinthians, is at pains to oppose the false and pagan form of asceticism that was rapant in his culture as well as in the Corinthian church. Hays takes I Cor 7:1a (“It is good for a man not to touch a woman.”) as a quotation lifted from the Corinthian community / correspondence which he then seeks to counter or qualify. Paul doggedly affirms that husbands and wives are obligated to gratify one another sexually in the marriage bed, with rate and specific exceptions that he spells out later in the chapter.

Hays’ point here is that Paul here as elsewhere (Gal 3:28) shows himself to be a radically “egalitarian” thinker with respect to gender, given the patriarchal assumptions which were dominant in his day. For, as St. Paul says in the same paragraph (7:4) “the husband does not have authority over his body, but the wife does.”

2. In I Cor 11: 3-16 Paul demonstrates that “he expects women to pray and prophesy in the community’s worship.” (52) And even though in this passage Paul is making some pretty “conservative” assumptions about women covering their heads and thus visibly displaying their submission to men, he nevertheless once again breaks radically with the dominant assumptions of his day with respect to women’s roles not just in the wider culture, but also within the Jewish synagogue.

3. When we come to I Cor 14:34-35 (“Let the women keep silent in the churches….”), we are thus confronted with a problem, something that is hard to see as anything other than a contradiction. Hays ultimately opts for seeing this latter passage as a post-Pauline interpolation (an option which, I agree, does seem quite plausible), but he also notes that another possible way of reconciling the two emphases, which, at the very least, are in tension with each other, is to hold that in I Cor 11 Paul is referring to unmarried women (including widows), whereas in I Cor 14 he specifically has married women in view. (Remember that in Greek the word for “woman” and the word for “wife” are one and the same: gune.)

4. Still, a tension exists within Paul’s thought, and we need to try to reconcile it. But we also need, to test or confirm the working hypothesis of Paul’s “pro-egalitarian” posture which follows from (or perhaps presupposes) Hays’ assertion of post-Pauline interpolation. How best to do this? Hays rightly says that we should look at the actual way in which women were viewed and treated in the actual Pauline Christian communities. Four examples are prominent:

a. Phoebe (Rom 16:1) who is called a deacon, and whom Paul expects to be honored with great authority, since he commands the Roman Christians to do “whatever she requires of you.” Significantly, Paul also refers to Phoebe as a prostasis, a word which probably describes one who “leads or presides over a group.”
b. Prisca and Aquila, a wife and husband team. Paul writes that “all the Gentile churches give thanks for their ministry” and he never elevates the husband over the wife; she is a full participant in ministry. (Rom 16:3-4; cf Acts 18:18-28)
c. Junia, describes as “prominent among the apostles” (16:7) along with several other women in Acts 16 who are described as “workers in the Lord.”
d. Eudia and Synteche whom Paul says “stuggled beside me in the work of the Gospel.” (Phil 4:2-3).

Hays concludes by suggesting that Paul is pretty clearly in favor of women having no restrictions in the life of the covenant community. Other canonical voices, however (including the post-Pauline voices of Ephesians and the pastoral epistles, especially I Timothy), must be taken into account before a final view can be settled upon.

Next up: Richard Hays on what the Bible teaches about homosexuality.

In this section de Lubac rehearses yet another exhibit in his argument for the Christian faith as primarily social. Here again he argues from patristic history combined with Scripture (and the Fathers’ reading of it).

In the first several decades of the Church it was easy for Christians to conclude, on the basis of such passages as Mt 25, 2 Tim 4:8, and Heb 11:39-40, that final consummation of Christian joy and reward would take place only at the time of judgment at the end of the world. After all, the Faith was new enough that it was easy for them to recall every Christian generation which had passed before them.

What is interesting, however, is that, even when many generations had passed and the Church finally became aware that perhaps the return of Christ was not quite so imminent as it had previously seemed, Christians – more or less universally – still clung to the idea that all would experience final joy, or the beatific vision, together, as one community.

So much so that in the fourteenth century Benedict XII had to censor the view that departed saints had to wait until the final resurrection to enjoy the beatific vision. Now, the point here is not that Benedict XII was wrong to censure this view: he was in fact right to do so, correctly condemning this “transposition into the order of time a genuine causal dependence.” (123)

The point is this: why did the Church so doggedly insist that the beatific vision will be enjoyed by the community as a whole? The answer is that she understood deep in her bones the social nature of the Church and her salvation.

To this end de Lubac quotes St. Thomas:

The end of a reasonable creature is to attain to beatitude, and that can consist only in the Kingdom of God, which in turn is nothing other than the well-ordered society of those who enjoy the vision of God.” (Contra Gentes lib. 4, c. 50, quoted on 130)

John Milbank says that Henri de Lubac sees the Christian understanding of the supernatural (supernaturalis / hyperphues) as infused with “the new Christian understanding of salvation as deification.” For de Lubac (and Danielou) “it was important to show that the authentic Latin patristic understanding of the operation of grace (especially that of Augustine) was not essentially different from the Greek patristic notion of deification.” (The Suspended Middle 16)

(I might add that David Bradshaw would probably take issue with de Lubac here; see this post.)

Does the Bible teach deification? There are several places to look, but it seems to me that 2 Pet 1:3-4 comes about as close as any to an all-out statement of deification or theosis:

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”

Part of what is so intriguing about this text is the use of “divine nature” (theias physews), a use of physis with few (if any) parallels or precedents in the NT.

If, however, this passage cannot simply be read as an affirmation of the theosis, then is there some other set of texts, or some other hermeneutic reality, from which the affirmation of deification does arise? At this level, one wants to resist a simplistic version of sola scriptura.

Discussing this very passage in the context of Romans 5:5 (”God has shed is love abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit”), Gregory of Nyssa says:

Paul calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Love; it is said of God himself that he is love, and the Son is called the Son of Love. Now … if this is so we should be certain that both the Son and the Holy Spirit come from that one foundation of Godhead which is the Fatherhood of God, and that of his abundance bounteous love is infused into the very heart of the saints so as to make them partakers of the divine nature, as St. Peter the Apostle taught. And this is so, so that by this gift of the Holy Spirit there may be fulfilled the words of our Lord, ‘That they may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee. That is to say: Let them be made partakers of the divine nature in the abundance of love diffused by the Holy Spirit.”

In his essay “Merit versus Maturity: What did Christ do for Us?” James Jordan provocatively suggests that, from the very beginning in the Garden of Eden, Man (Adam) was supposed to lay down his life for his wife. Reading Scripture with Scripture, it makes a lot of sense to see the First Man (Rom 5:12ff) as called to defend his bride against evil and danger by sacrificing his own life. Had the man done this, then surely God would have raised him from the dead and ushered him, together with his wife, into a new, more real, more glorious way of life and state of existence.

Tim Keller’s understanding of the story in Genesis 32 comports interestingly with this view of the central role of death in the Christian life, albeit in a different context, that of prayer. Preaches Keller (in his sermon “Thy Kindgom; Thy Will,” preached in 1995):

[Jacob] spent most of his life lying & cheating to get what he wanted, and never being happy. Never getting the wife he wanted, the career he wanted. Never getting what he wanted. And he was always fighting with his father & with his uncle & he was always fighting and lying and cheating. And he was always unhappy. One night he was out in the desert alone, and a mysterious stranger pounced on him, and began to wrestle with him. Now, Jacob began to wrestle back. And they wrestled all night. Hours went by. And we understand from the text that Jacob suddenly realized who he was wrestling with. This was not an ordinary human being. This was God himself, come to wrestle with Jacob. And Jacob suddenly had an epiphany, a flash of recognition. Suddenly his whole life flashed before his eyes and he realized that, his whole life, he had not really been fighting with his father, or brother, or uncle. He had been fighting with God.

And right now, he was in the ultimate dream. He had the opportunity to “pin God.” “Finally I will get from God what I deserve,” he thought. “Finally, the blessings I have always wanted.”

That’s how most people see prayer. The opportunity to pin God, to come to God and say, “I have been a Christian for five years, and I have said no to all kinds of temptations all over the place and I insist that you give me this day my daily bread.” That’s pinning God. My will be done. Look what I’ve done.

Jacob says, “I’ve got the opportunity to pin God,” and he wrestles and he struggles and struggles and it seems like, gosh, he’s making some progress, but at one point in the night the mystical stranger shows how much power he really has, and that he has not really been using any of it. He reaches out and he touches Jacob’s thigh and his thigh goes absolutely dead. And Jacob is permanently crippled.

Suddenly Jacob realizes the folly of trying to wrestle God into submission to his will, but, he does not let go. A change happens in him, an ultimate change. Now, blinded with tears and absolutely lame, he’s still holding on, and you know he says now? He says, “Bless me.” And God says, “The sun is about to rise and you are not able to see my face.” Jacob says, “I want you to bless me, I want to see your face.” God says, “No, you can’t. It will kill you. But, today I give you a new name, because you have finally been changed,” showing that Jacob had just been reborn at that moment.

“I give you a new name. You used to be called “Jacob,” but now you are called “Israel,” which means ‘you have triumphed.’ You have wrestled with God, and you have triumphed.” And then he disappears.

You might be thinking, “What?! He has triumphed!? He was lame the rest of his life! Triumphed?! How could he have triumphed?”

The point is that Jacob finally figured out what life was all about. Life is not about getting things from God. It is about getting God. And he changed from saying “I’m gonna pin God. God, give me blessings.” to finally saying, “All I really need is God. All I want is you. In your face I’ll have everything.”

You see, God is saying, “I don’t want you to seek things; I want you to seek me. And I don’t want you to give me your requests until you have given me yourself. I don’t want your requests. I want you. And I don’t want you primarily to be asking for things. I want you to be asking for me.”

And until Jacob realized that, there was no freedom in his life. Don’t you see? Prayer is the victory of the lame. prayer is the victory of the losers. The ones who surrenders and says, “Thy will be done. If I can just have you. If I can just please you. If I can just have you, then all the other requests are just gravy. And when Jacob realized that, God turned around and he said, “At last. I have been waiting all your life. I’ve been waiting to hear you say that. Now you’ve triumphed.”

What it means to say, “Thy will be done” is to say “Lord if I can only have you. If I have you and nothing else, that’s enough. I mainly want you, and I mainly want to give you me, in this prayer.”

For the next few weeks I plan to blog about Henri de Lubac’s _Catholicism_, this text being so important for a proper understanding of the corporate / social / political character of salvation and the church. As we will see, de Lubac’s command of theologians who have gone before him is masterful, and the majority of the ink he spills in his books is either paraphrasing them or directly quoting from them, especially from the church fathers.

John Milbank describes this work, a “foundational” text for the ressourcement theology of the first half of the 20th century, as stressing “the social character of the church as the true universal community in embryo, rather than as a mere external machinery for the saving of individual souls.” (John Milbank, The Suspended Middle 2)

From pp. 30-32 of Catholicism:

“So when the pagan philosophers jeered at what they considered the extravagant claim put forward by Christians, those latest barbarians, of uniting all men in the same faith [as did Celsus, in Origen, Contra Celsum … or Porphyry, Ad Marsellam. It must be added that Origen himself sees very well the obstacles to such unity, to the point of conceding that it can never be fully achieved in this world. Yet he knows that there is complicity between the deepest nature of man and the law of the Logos, which is none other than the religion of Christ.], it was easy for the Fathers to answer them that this claim was not, after all, so extravagant, since all men were made in the one image of the one God…. In the language of the first centuries Adam was not generally called the “father of the human race;” he was only the “first made,” “the first begotten by God,” as is recalled by the final sentences, so solemnly in their simplicity, of the genealogy of Jesus according to Luke: “who was of Henos, who was of Seth, who was of Adam, who was of God.” To believe in this one God was, therefore, to believe at the same time in a common Father of all: unus Deus et Pater omnium [here de Lubac footnotes, among other sources, Acts 17:26-28].

Again and again Irenaeus dwells on this dual correspondence:

“There is but one God the Father, and one Logos the Son, and one Spirit, and one salvation only for all who believe in him…. There is but one salvation as there is but one God…. There is one only Son who fulfills the will of the Father, and one human race in which the mysteries of God are fulfilled.” [from Adv. Heareses]

Clement of Alexandria, in pages brimming over with poetry, after exposing the baseness of the pagan mystery cults, extols the mysteries of the Logos and displays the “divine Choregus” calling all men to him:

“Be instructed in these mysteries and you shall dance with the choir of angels before the uncreated God, whilst the Logos will sing the sacred hymns with us. This eternal Jesus, the one high priest, intercedes for men and calls on them: “Hearken,” he cries, “all you peoples, or rather all you who are endowed with reason, barbarians or Greeks! I summon the whole human race, I who am its author by the will of the Father! Come unto me and gather together as one well-ordered unity under the one God, and under the one Logos of God.” [from Protreptic]“

Over a year ago now, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson provided a critique of the so-called "New Perspective on Paul:

1. It tends to argue against "straw men." EP Sanders discounts ancient preaching (failing to realize that preaching is highly indicative of one’s thelogy), especially when it counters his thesis. Ferguson sees Chaim Potok’s novels as providing an example of how "deeply orthodox Jews" do take ergov nomou as being expressed in personal righteousness. Here grace is expressed in the first person (ie, "we") and not the third person (ie, "God"). There is a similar dynamic, Ferguson says, in the NT (and the OT) when "grace is no longer grace." The Reformers never attack the Roman church for being Pelagian ("We are saved by our works") but for being semi-Pelagian ("God’s grace has come to us because we have done our dead-level best in our attempts to be righteous.") Modern orthodox Judaism is like this, and modern orthodox Judaism is also like first century Judaism in this regard. [Weak point overall, partly b/c SF is not doing any exegesis here but drawing on a couple of highly questionable analogies (b/t modern & ancient judaism, and b/t modern Judaism & 16th century Roman Catholics).]

2. Teaching that Paul is without pre-conversion guilt is an exegetical mistake. It is perspicuous, on even a surface level reading of Phil 3 that Paul is not saying he was blameless before his conversion, but rather that he was in the same position as the rich young ruler (a self-righteous prig to whom it is impossible to imagine Jesus’ heart going out, as it does to others in the Gospel narratives) of Jesus’ parable in Lk 15. [Weak point.] In Wright’s exposition of Rom 7, it is not referring to Paul at all, but rather to Israel. In this way background becomes foreground. [Strong point.]

3. It is wrong to see Romans exclusively as a kind of theodicy as opposed to an exposition of salvation. [Weak point: NTW does not limit Romans to dealing with Israel's problem; also, there is a semantic disagreement going on here precisely on the meaning of the word "salvation:" SF is taking it to be something individual, and, again, soteriological, whereas NTW is going to see it as much bigger than that: having to do with Israel, the church, and the world. The question which SF begs is precisely: What is "salvation?" What does it mean?]

4. "Works of the law" cannot be reduced simply or in all instances to the boundary markers of kosher, circumcision, and sabbath. [Not sure what to think of this. Frankly, I don't think that NTW wants simply to reduce them down to that. Rather, for him they are telling or indicative of the redemptive-historical shift (fulfilment) that has occurred in the coming of the Messiah and the Kingdom. Also he would say that one cannot separate the vertical from the horizontal, so that boundary markers (a "horizontal" thing) are actually extremely relevant to our relationship with God (a "vertical" thing). I would add that the ability to hold the "horizontal" and the "vertical" together in the way in which an orthodox version of the new perspective holds them together does require a fundamental commitment to sacramentality, in which the "phenomenological" or material world (human bodies, wine, bread, etc.) communicates the divine.]

5. Justification cannot be "transformed into ecclesiology." In Paul’s mind the main problem is not exclusion from the community but rather exclusion from God as a result of his wrath. (See CH Dodd on the wrath of God.) [The point about God's wrath might be a strong point. Regarding justification as being about ecclesiology and not soteriology, I actually tend to see all of theology as being under ecclesiology, not just justification or even just soteriology.]

6. The new perspective is naive with respect to the history of theology. It is somehow telling that the NPP emerged from within the academy and not from within the church, "where the key issue is: ‘how are we to be saved from the wrath of God?’" [seems like he is repeating a previous point here about the wrath of God, and not really showing how NPP is naive w.r.t. the history of theology.]

As I have written on this blog, the idea of participation is huge for both the theological movement Radical Orthodoxy but also for that ecclesial tradition (some would say "that one true church") called Eastern Orthodoxy.

Now, the usual Greek word for "participation," going all the way back to Plato and Aristotle, is the word methexis. That word does not appear in the New Testament, much less in Philippians. However, I do think that concept is there in droves.

In fact if I were to summarize the book of Philippians, I would have to put Paul’s emphasis on (various forms of) participation near the top of my list of his main points.

Three words in particular make this point: kiononia, politeuma, and phronesis.

 Kiononia (cognates appear in 1:5;1:7;2:1;3:10;4:14;4:15): "fellowship, participation, an association involving close mutual relations and involvement." In these verses Paul describes Christian kiononia as a participation in "the gospel," "in grace," "in the Spirit," "in [Christ's] sufferings," "in my troubles," "with me." 

Politeuma (1:27;3:20): "state, commonwealth, place of citizenship." In these verses Paul teaches that Christians should "live as citizens" (or perhaps "conduct your political life") in a manner that is "worthy of the Gospel of Christ" (1:27) and also that our citizenship (or our political identity / rootedness) is in heaven with Christ (3:20).

Phronesis (1:7;2:2;2:5;3:15;3:19;4:2;4:10): "to be wise; to have a specific attitude toward other people." The meaning of this word is not include the explicitly participatory, but in 2:5 Paul suggests that he is thinking of it in terms of the community: "complete my joy by participating in the same "wise frame of mind," having the same love, being in full accord and of one "wise frame of mind."

As we participate in each other (in fellowship, and in the same "political city") we are also participating in Christ himself.