Theology and Ethics in Paul

Victor Paul Furnish

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780664233365
• eBook ISBN: 9781611645972
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

First published in 1968--and out of print since the 1980s--Victor Paul Furnish's treatment of Paul's theology and ethics has long been regarded as the key scholarly statement and most useful textbook on Paul's thought. Now, Theology and Ethics in Paul is available once again as part of the Westminster John Knox Press New Testament Library. Featuring a new introduction from Richard Hays, this timeless volume is as relevant in this century as it was in the last.

The New Testament Library offers authoritative commentary on every book and major aspect of the New Testament, as well as classic volumes of scholarship. The commentaries in this series provide fresh translations based on the best available ancient manuscripts, offer critical portrayals of the historical world in which the books were created, pay careful attention to their literary design, and present a theologically perceptive exposition of the text.

III

The Themes of
Paul’s Preaching

INTRODUCTION

It has been shown that Paul’s concrete exhortations and moral instruction cannot rightly be assessed without attention to the theological context in which they stand. It is also possible to demonstrate, working from the “theological” side of Paul’s preaching, that the relationship between proclamation and exhortation is not just formal, or only accidental, but thoroughly integral and vital to the apostle’s whole understanding of the gospel. Just as his ethical teaching has significant theological dimensions, so do the major themes of his preaching have significant ethical dimensions.

Some preliminary matters, however, deserve consideration. Paul’s “preaching” as such, the content of his oral proclamation of the gospel in such places as Ephesus, Philippi, Athens, and Corinth is not directly available for examination. The “Pauline speeches” of Acts are certainly not verbatim reports of that preaching, but creations of the Third Evangelist. They serve as a source for Lukan, not Pauline, themes and perspectives.¹ Nor should Paul’s own letters be regarded as “sermon transcripts” or “notes” in any sense. They are addressed to already established Christian congregations, occasioned by specific historical situations and, although they were undoubtedly orally dictated by Paul and read aloud for the hearing of the addressees, belong more to the category of written than oral communication.

It is, however, both reasonable and necessary to presume that Paul’s letters in general reflect the themes and perspectives of his “preaching” as such. One important function of his letters is to remind his congregations of the gospel he had preached to them and to reaffirm its essential points. This purpose he quite explicitly states in I Cor. 15:1-3 (“Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel,” RSV), and there makes use of an apparently fixed creedal formulation (vss. 3 ff.). Moreover, in I Cor. 2:1 ff. he refers directly to his original mission in Corinth and the content of his preaching there: “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (vs. 2 RSV). It has already been shown that a clear-cut distinction between the Pauline “kerygma” and “didache” cannot be sustained,² and now it must be added that a sharp distinction between Paul’s missionary preaching (kerygma) and his subsequent pastoral letters (didache) is equally misleading. Not only do the letters serve to reaffirm, defend, and clarify the preaching, but—as the apostle himself specifically says in I Thess. 2:11-12 and 4:2—his original evangelizing activity already included exhortation, encouragement, and instruction. Therefore, while the preaching of Paul does not lie immediately at hand, its scope and content may be validly inferred from his letters.

There have been various suggestions as to the controlling motif or central concept of Pauline theology. If Romans is taken as a guide, then the righteousness of God (1:16-17) would seem to be the correct starting point, as Peter Stuhlmacher, on the grounds of an investigation of all the major passages relevant to this theme, has argued.³ Other exegetes, to cite a second example, have been impressed with the possibility of understanding the whole of Pauline theology as an “interpretation” of baptism.⁴ Or again, one could note that the apostle himself singles out Jesus Christ crucified as the heart of his gospel (I Cor. 2:1-2), or, the corollary to this, “Christ Jesus as Lord” (II Cor. 4:5). None of these by itself, of course, nor any number of others which could also be mentioned (justification by faith, love, the Spirit, the church, the law), can be understood in isolation from the remaining ones, so fully and subtly do the themes of the Pauline preaching interpenetrate one another. Whiteley goes so far as to say that Paul’s theology is so “closely integrated” that it could “be made to center equally well” upon almost any individual theme.⁵ Yet even this would not justify Whiteley’s own decision to fall back upon a traditional dogmatic organization of Pauline theology, and to discuss it under such completely artificial headings as “creation,” “fall,” “morality,” and—of course saved for the last—“eschatology.” Such a method utilizes too many categories with which Paul himself was unfamiliar and thus distorts his own distinctive theological profile. Moreover, it particularly obscures the feature of Pauline theology which Whiteley himself has clearly recognized, the interrelatedness of its several themes.

In the discussion of Paul’s preaching which follows, the traditional “chronological-dogmatic” approach has been abandoned altogether. Instead, it is suggested, at least as a working hypothesis, that the heuristic key to Pauline theology as a whole, the point in which his major themes are rooted and to which they are ultimately oriented, is the apostle’s eschatological perspective. Eschatology, therefore, is properly the first, not the last, section in an exposition of Paul’s theology.⁶

1. THIS AGE AND THE AGE TO COME

a. The powers of this age

Characteristic of the writings of apocalyptic Judaism, as it had not been of the Old Testament, is the distinction between the present age (“aeon”) and that which is to come (see especially II Esd. 4:2; 6:9; 7:13, 47, 122-23; 8:1; 9:19).⁷ Although Nygren’s attempt to schematize the whole of Pauline theology in accord with these categories must often force the evidence,⁸ there is no question but that this doctrine of apocalyptic Judaism has exerted its influence in Paul’s thought. Repeatedly he speaks of “this age” (Rom. 12:2; I Cor. 1:20; 2:6 [twice], 8; 3:18; II Cor. 4:4), and while the corresponding phrase “the coming age” is never used by Paul himself (but see Eph. 1:21), the contrast between “this age” and “the age to come” is nevertheless implicit, particularly when he contrasts “things present” with the “things to come” (Rom. 8:38; I Cor. 3:22). “This age” may also be described as “this world,” as shown by I Cor. 3:18, 19 where the two phrases are used interchangeably. Also synonymous is the expression “the present time,” employed in the New Testament only by Paul (Rom. 3:26; 8:18; 11:5; II Cor. 8:14), but later also in Barn. 4:1.

The present “age,” “world,” or “time” is characterized by its transitoriness (“the form of this world is passing away,” I Cor. 7:31 RSV), by tribulation and suffering (“For it is my view that the sufferings of the present time are in no way comparable with the coming glory to be revealed to us,” Rom. 8:18), and by its pervasively evil aspect (“the present evil age,” Gal. 1:4 RSV). In this same connection one may note Paul’s use, in Phil. 2:15, of the phrase “wicked and perverse generation” which in Deut. 32:5 had referred to Israel, but is now applied by the apostle to the world in which the church must live, a “world” filled with immorality of all kinds (I Cor. 5:10).

In particular, the present age is viewed as being held captive by powers which are alien to God and hostile to his purpose. The apostle does not deny that God himself has created “this world” (see Rom. 1:20), and he would certainly have subscribed to the apocalypticist’s judgment that “the Most High has not made one age but two” (II Esd. 7:50). Yet, as the apocalypticists also held, the present age had fallen victim to “evil cosmic forces . . . bent on the destruction of mankind and of the world itself.”⁹ Thus, Paul speaks of the rulers of this age who are “doomed to pass away” (I Cor. 2:6 RSV), the god of this world (II Cor. 4:4), and the elemental spirits of the cosmos (Gal. 4:3). While these rulers and powers cannot finally frustrate the purposes of God (Rom. 8:38) and will at last be destroyed by him (I Cor. 15:24), their power still has its effect in the present world. The hostility of these alien powers is expressed not only in their attempt to enslave man to their own purposes (Gal. 4:3), but also in their blinding him to the gospel of Christ and thus to the true God himself (II Cor. 4:4) and, ultimately, in their crucifixion of “the Lord of glory” (I Cor. 2:8).

Man’s “possession” by the evil powers of this age,¹⁰ and his own alienation from and hostility to God, is further described by reference to his bondage to the powers of sin and death. On occasion—and this is also characteristic of apocalyptic thought¹¹—Paul speaks of these powers as if they were personal forces exercising their dominion over men. Man stands “under sin’s power” (ὑϕ’ ἁμαρτίαν, Rom. 3:9; cf. Gal. 3:22); he has been “sold” as a slave is sold to a new master and thus is “under sin” (ὑπò τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, Rom. 7:14). Sin is not an original part of the world but “infiltrates” itself into the world (εἰσέρχεσθαι, Rom. 5:12) to take it captive and subject men to its reign (βασιλεύειν, Rom. 5:21; 6:12; κυριεύειν, Rom. 6:14). Sin “deceives” man (Rom. 7:11); it demands his obedience and then enslaves him (Rom. 6:16-17, 20; 7:14, 25), and it finally “kills” him (Rom. 7:11; 8:10).

Paul’s view that death is the inevitable consequence and punishment of sin is held in common with Judaism.¹² The concept of “death,” when it is applied by the apostle to the total annihilation of man’s self by sin’s power (Rom. 7:11), becomes a designation for the ultimate extent of man’s alienation of himself from God. Death, like sin, is a demonic power which “reigns” in this age (βασιλεύειν, Rom. 5:14, 17) and is in fact the manifestation of sin’s reign (Rom. 5:21), the “enemy” power which still holds out when all others have been conquered (I Cor. 15:26).

Associated with the powers of this age, but not strictly identified with them by Paul, is man’s flesh (σάρξ) with its passions and desires (G...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Series Preface
• Author’s Preface to the New Edition
• Author’s 1968 Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction to Victor Paul Furnish, Theology and Ethics in Paul, by Richard B. Hays
• I. The Sources of Paul’s Ethical Teaching
• II. The Pauline Exhortations
• III. The Themes of Paul’s Preaching
• IV. The Character of the Pauline Ethic
• Appendix: A Survey of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Interpretations of Paul’s Ethic
• Bibliography of Major Works Cited
• Index of Biblical References
• Index of Subjects and Authors