Committed Critic

Some of my favorite theological texts are those that exhibit a phenomenon called “intertextuality”: the use of one story or text within another, often with the result of tweaking (or outright changing) the older text’s meaning to make a theological point. Intertextuality can consist of quotations, allusions, or both.

The interesting task, as Richard B. Hays argues, is digging into how the one text uses the other as a part of a sort of stream of ideas, which often includes so-called “echoes” of meaning that lie in the interation between the two (or more) texts. The world’s best literature, in my opinion, uses intertextual references to other stories or ideas that are obvious enough for us to recognize but subtle enough to delight us when we unravel all their implications.

A good example of intertextuality in Scripture is Romans 7, which I described under my previous post (10/18/06). Paul seems to use the story of the temptation of the man and the woman in the garden to demonstrate how Sin uses the Law to lead us to death. That interpretation is rather subtle as these things go, and in fact we may even have conjured up a meaning for it not intended by Paul. However, there are far more obvious passages, especially those that include direct quotes from OT texts. In the case of Romans 7, my argument has in its favor that Paul has already brought up the story of Adam’s transgression (in Romans 5), which makes it far more likely that he had that story in mind in Romans 7 as well.

In any event, some of the scriptural and theological texts that I find most striking are those that refer intertextually to the creation story in Genesis 1, especially to the creative proclamation “Let there be light.” Today I want to begin a series of posts reflecting on some of these, how they fit together, and why I find them interesting or even moving.

I’ll begin with the best-known example of Christian theological reflection on the creation story. The allusion is almost unmistakable because the book begins with same two words (3 words in English) as the Greek Old Testament:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was god. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, everything came about––indeed, without him not one thing which has come about came about. In him was life, and the life was the light of humanity. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has no hold of it.There was a human, sent from God, named John. He came for testimony, in order to testify about the light, so that all would believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify about the light.

The true light, which enlightens all humanity, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world had come about through him, and yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and yet his own did not receive him. But for whoever did receive him, he gave to them––to those who believed in his name––authority to become children of God: those born not of blood or of the will of flesh or of the will of a man, but born of God.

And the word became flesh and dwelled among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the only son of a Father, full of grace and truth. (John testifies concerning him, and he has cried out saying, “This was the one of whom I said, ‘The one coming after me is ahead of me, because he existed before me.’”) Indeed, all of us have received from his fullness, grace upon grace. Because while the law was given through Moses, grace and truth have come about through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the Only Son, who is at the side of the Father, has made him known.

[A note in explanation of my translation “the Word was god” (with a little “g”) in light of Greek grammar: I know most translations read, “the Word was God” (with a capital “G”), but that’s a little misleading with respect to the syntax of the Greek sentence. The placement of the word “god” does not reflect the proper name “God,” but rather what is usually called a “qualitative” sense of the word. It’s like saying, “Abraham was father to a great multitude;” calling him “a father” or “the father” wouldn’t mean quite the same thing. Some have suggested translating the phrase in John 1 as, “the Word was divine;” that would be accurate but would miss out on the repetition of the word “god,” which I think is important for the rhythm of the sentence. This grammatical subtlety of the passage is actually an excellent parallel to the subtlety of Christian reflection on what it means for Jesus to be divine.]

John turns the prologue to his story of Jesus into a retelling of the creation of the world by playing off the ambiguity of the Greek word logos. Among its many meanings, logos can mean both “word” and “reason” (i.e., logic); Greek philosophers often used it with the latter meaning. Philo of Alexandria (20 B.C. – A.D. 40), a Jew who was heavily influenced by Greek thought, portrayed the logos in personified form as an angel of wisdom who was responsible for directing humanity toward paths of righteous reason, lest they incur the wrath of God through their unreasoned wickedness. The OT book of Proverbs personifies “Wisdom” (closely related to the logos in Philo’s hellenistic Jewish thought world) as a (female) figure who participated in creation (Prov 8:27f).

It wouldn’t have been much of a stretch for early Christians to identify this apparently divine figure with Christ, and John 1 is a great example of just such an identification.

The beauty of the word “Word” as employed in John’s retelling of creation is that a spoken word, “Let there be light” (actually two words in both Hebrew and Greek), was the very means by which God created the world. God did not need to use a tool or an assistant or even his hand to bring light to the darkness, but only a word. For John, that word was the Word, Christ.

As beautiful as that reference is on its own, John weaves it into a far more complex picture by playing on the dual meaning of logos as both “word” and “reason.” While it is obvious that darkness and light in John 1:5 function figuratively (referring to the proclamation of righteous knowledge in a world of wicked ignorance), the passage is far richer when we bear in mind that the creation imagery is still in view. In the incarnation, God has repeated his first act of creation, brining light into darkness once again through his Word.

This is not just incidental or sentimental for John. Rather, his entire portrait of Christ is based on the notion that Jesus is the revelation of God. All of his words and all of his deeds reveal God to the world (thus John 1:18, he “has made him known”). What better way for humanity to learn true reason than for Reason (= Light = Truth = Only Son) himself to become a human and meet them in person? To find out what is true about the father, one must watch and listen for what the Son (who is at the Side of the Father) reveals.

We can probably take this one step further, if we push a bit. Gnostics (whose ideology many argue grew up alongside Christianity) tended to separate knowledge from the created world, arguing that the former was good and the latter bad. As a result, they tended to play off the God of Jesus Christ (who revealed knowledge) against the God of Israel (who created the world), thus turning the Creator into a wicked sub-deity who defied what Wisdom, the supreme deity, wanted.

The way John describes Christ in chapter 1, however, undermines what the Gnostics claimed by refusing to see two forces at work. John will not allow his reader to assume that the “Truth” which Jesus reveals is something one must break free from the created world to see. Instead, the logos is the very word God used to create the world––which means the world has to be a good thing. You can’t set up reason in opposition to the created world if the world was created through reason.

So, to put it in modern theological terms, in case anyone wanted to misinterpret Jesus as belonging to another world and somehow condemning created matter, John insists that both “special revelation” (what God tells us in words) and “natural revelation” (what we can learn by looking at creation) come from the same source: the logos who brought light into darkness both in the creation of Genesis 1 and in the incarnation described by John.

I’m not saying anything here that hasn’t been argued by any number of commentators, but I want to posit that reading Romans 7 (”I do not do what I want to do”) as a comforting passage reflecting Paul’s ongoing struggle with sin, with which we should identify, is simply wrong.

It’s very enticing to identify with its struggle, because we’ve all had a common experience: trying to do what we know is right, sometimes succeeding but perhaps more often failing.

Problem is, as far as I can tell, in Romans 7 there’s no sometimes. There is indeed a struggle based on an inner desire to do what is good, but there’s no mixed bag of success and failure. The speaker is simply, frankly, unable to do good. Not sometimes, but ever.

Try to find where the passage leaves open the possibility of success (I’m using my translation, which at some points is more idiomatic than NIV, at others more literal; note the NIV butchers the passage as a whole):

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am fleshly, sold under sin. I don’t understand what I do. For it’s not what I want that I do, but what I hate––that’s what I do. Now if what I don’t want to do is what I actually do, I agree with the law that it’s good [i.e., I have to admit the law had it right, even though I can’t do it]. But at that point, it’s no longer I who am doing the deed, but sin dwelling within me.For good certainly isn’t dwelling within me––in my flesh, I mean. For the wanting to do what’s good is right beside me, but the actual doing of good is not. For it’s not what I want to do (good) that I do, but what I don’t want to do (bad), that’s what I do. But if I do what I don’t want to do, again, it’s no longer I who am doing the deed, but the sin dwelling within me.

So I find a certain “law” at work: When what I want is to do something good, the bad is right beside me. I agree with God’s law as far as my inner self in concerned, but I see another “law” among my members, warring against the “law” of my mind and taking me captive by the “law” of sin which is within my members.

I am a wretched mortal––who will rescue me from this deathly body? Thank be to God, through Jesus Christ our lord.

So then, I am in my mind a slave to the law of God, but in my flesh a slave to the “law” of sin.

Typically, protestants like to read this and say, “Ah, we are indeed depraved––but thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, for forgiving all our sins so that we aren’t condemned even though we sin all the time.”

And yet:

• Romans 6:2: “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”
• Romans 6:6: “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin…”
• Romans 6:11: “Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
• Romans 6:17: “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were handed over. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”
• Romans 6:22: “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.”

I’m not one to insist that Paul never contradicts himself, but none of these is compatible with reading 7:14 (quoted above: “I am fleshly, sold under sin”) as describing the life of a Christian. “Sold,” following the dicussion of chapter 6, implies slavery, which Paul has said more than once is abolished at baptism.

Instead, the struggle of chapter 7 sounds more like what Paul describes as a pre-Christian state (6:20): “When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.”

Chapter 7, then, is not at all about any ongoing struggle within the believer. (We may experience such a struggle, but it is only because we go against the work of the spirit and Paul’s good advice and choose to do bad, not because we are unable to do good.) Rather, the desperate situation that Paul describes is before you’re a believer, when you’re still a slave to sin. Everything within you might want to do what is good, but you can’t.

I should note, we can debate how to apply this last point practically. I assume most of us wouldn’t claim that an unbeliever never does a good deed, but I don’t think that’s the point. Paul’s theological focus is on every person, apart from Christ, standing condemned as a sinner before God, unable to justify himself or herself (Rom 3:19).

Some people don’t like this interpretation of Romans 7 because they prefer the one that seems to match their experience. However, the result of the Gospel as Paul envisions it is not merely a sort of back-handed good news, such that we’ll feel wretched our entire lives but take comfort in our forgiveness by Jesus. That may correspond to our experience, but it’s not what Paul was saying.

But that would be a poor comfort anyway. Instead, we receive a word that is far better. God has assured us that he’s set us free from our old bond through baptism, and the gift of the Holy Spirit which accompanies our conversion gives us good news on several counts: it lives within us (8:9), it teaches us how to live (8:4), it helps us put to death the deeds of the body (8:13), it gives us life and peace (8:6), it testifies that we are God’s children (8:16), it helps us pray (8:26), it intercedes for us before God (8:27), and it will accomplish the resurrection of our mortal bodies after we die (8:11).

It turns out Romans isn’t really much of a comfort to a neurotic like Martin Luther: Paul makes abundantly clear that God is not content for us to go on sinning (6:1, 15), but then he won’t go to the other extreme and say God is harsh so we can admit our condemnation and go about our business.

But if we do have any doubts as to where we stand, Paul hits us with perhaps the most wildly celebratory passage of his corpus. Read it as a blessing (NRSV):

“What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword (as it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered”)?No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Amen.

My good friend [note correction] Matthew over at liberaljesus often raises questions of Christian conduct and how it relates to our interpretation of Scripture. Though I can’t usually do much to resolve those questions, here is my take on one Scriptural voice (1 Peter), which I think has a unique, if limited, perspective to offer. (I’ll refer to the author as Peter.)

THE MAIN IDEAS

Three key word families from 1 Peter point at almost everything the author wants to say:

First, 1 Peter identifies Christians as separate from those in the world around them; they are sojourners (1:1; 2:11) and aliens (1:17; 2:11) –– both negative terms indicating they are not home, not inhabitants. Furthermore they have been reborn (1:3, 23; cf. 2:2) into a new life, and they are concerned not with the perishable things that the rest of the world cares about, but with what is imperishable. What they value is not valuable in the world’s eyes, and thus “the stone the builders rejected has become the capstone” (2:7).

Second, a word we’ll translate “way of life” (1:15, 18; 2:12; 3:1, 2, 16) occurs almost as many times in 1 Peter (6) as in the rest of the NT (7), and the verbal form occurs once in 1 Peter as well. The term reflects the moral exhortation that permeates the letter, and it also points toward the occasion of the letter, suggesting not a call to specific action but a more general mode of behavior or living. This tone is reflected throughout the letter’s moral exhortation, and it suggests not an urgent mission but a community trying to live faithful, hopeful lives under difficult circumstances.

Third, the theme of suffering recurs throughout the letter. 1 Peter uses both the verb and the noun for suffering more times than any other NT book. Often it is the letter’s recipients who are described as suffering (2:19; 3:14, 17; 4:1, 13, 15, 19; 5:10); at times they are being mistreated or insulted because of their faith (2:12, 15; 3:16; 4:14, 14ff), and much of the letter’s exhortation, as we will see, is in response to this mistreatment. In other circumstances, suffering is unrelated to faith, whether at the hands of a cruel slave-owner (2:18) or at the hands of the devil himself (5:8f). However, whatever the cause of the believer’s suffering, Peter links it to that of Christ (e.g., 2:21; 4:1, 13).

THE MOVES

It is not entirely clear whether Peter has a fixed outline in mind, as many themes recycle throughout the letter. I can discern three apparently deliberate moves, but we must acknowledge that Peter inserted illustrations and applications freely in the course of his argument. Some such comments are brief and fit their context reasonably well (e.g., 3:6; though note that in Genesis Sarah is hardly submissive!), while others seem to bear no connection to their context whatsoever (e.g., Noah as prefiguring baptism in 3:19-22). It seems that Peter offers a sort of sermon, in which he pursues a central argument but freely includes other reflections as they occur to him.

Happily (and not accidentally, I think), the three moves I’ll suggest correspond to the three word families I’ve identified above.

1. Hope in an inheritance (1:3-12): “He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, into an imperishable inheritance…” (1:3b-4a).

2. Consequent exhortation to appropriate behavior (1:13 –– 4:11): “Let your behavior among the nations be good, so that when they denounce you as evildoers, nevertheless when they see your good deeds they will glorify God on the day of visitation” (2:12).

3. Concluding exhortation to steadfastness and caution (4:12 –– 5:12): “Those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful creator in doing good” (4:19).

The overall structure and the major motifs dovetail rather nicely. Thus (1) we are strangers because we have hope of an inheritance elsewhere, (2) our lifestyle is grounded in that hope, and (3) we must remain steadfast because our lifestyle as strangers will cause us suffering in a world that doesn’t understand us. That these three points explain one another suggests that we’re identifying them correctly.

1 Peter’s primary purpose appears to be his exhortation to a moral lifestyle. While he does not present a linear argument in favor of his moral code, he repeatedly offers rationales in the course of his exhortation. A number of different points are mentioned multiple times as reasons for the Christians’ behavior:

• God has called them to the behavior (1:15; 2:9, 21; 3:9; 5:2).
• They have been redeemed by Christ (1:18f; 2:24; 3:18; 4:1).
• They are to follow Christ’s example (2:21; 4:1).
• Scripture commands certain behavior or attitudes (3:10f, 5:5).
• Behavior serves as testimony to nonbelievers (2:15; 3:1; 3:16).
• They will face judgment for their deeds (1:17; 4:17).

THE LENGTHY COMMENTARY

The behavior that is taught is grounded in the believers’ identity, as Peter establishes primarily in the early portion of the letter. The believers are a priesthood (2:4, 9) and simultaneously a sort of temple (2:4). They are a people/nation (2:9f). They are free, yet at the same time they are slaves of God (2:16f). And perhaps most importantly, as mentioned above, they are aliens or strangers in the world (1:1, 17; 2:11).

The Christian’s behavior encompasses all of life. Believers set aside desires that lead them astray (2:11, 4:3ff). They are holy, as God is holy (1:15). They fear God (1:17; 2:17; 3:2) but never suffering (3:14; cf. 3:6). They avoid debauched living (2:11; 4:3) and hateful relations (2:1); instead, they live with moderation (3:4; 4:7) and show love and respect toward the community and outsiders (3:8, 15; 4:8, 5). In short they do good, (2:14, 15, 20; 3:6, 17; 4:19), not bad (2:12, 14; 3:17; 4:15).

A major portion of the moral exhortation in 1 Peter is the household code prescribing submission, obedience, and Christlike behavior for people in various positions. While groups that were traditionally subjugated (slaves and women) receive the most rigorous commands, all believers are urged to submit to human authorities (2:13), and Peter addresses specific exhortations also to elders and young men (5:1-5). It is important to note that, while the codes support forms of behavior that appear to reflect cultural norms for propriety, the rationales Peter gives for such behavior are not cultural but in each case theological (2:15, 21, 3:4, 7; 5:2, 5).

Along with the rationales mentioned above for their behavior, Peter’s audience is reminded continually that their identity and behavior are based on a hope (1:3, 13, 21; 3:5, 15) of what God will do when Christ is revealed in glory (1:7, 13; 4:13). They are living in the last days (1:20) and await the last time (1:5) or the end of all things (4:7). Therefore their lives are situated between the gift of hope given through Christ’s resurrection (1:3) and the ultimate salvation they are receiving (1:9) and will receive (1:5).

The Christians’ separateness is a key to their situation. It encompasses their different behavior which allows them to be holy (1:15) rather than embrace evil desires (1:14). It is what allows them to serve as priests, and indeed to be a temple. And it is what earns them their neighbors’ scorn (2:12, 15; 3:16) and causes them suffering (3:14; 4:14). Yet it also is what allows them to glorify God.

This final point, the glory of God, is a natural outgrowth of the Christian life. Trials help build up the believers’ faith (1:7) so that there may be praise, glory and honor (perhaps for both the believer and God) when Christ is revealed (1:7). The believers’ good lives will cause the pagans to glorify God in the day of visitation (2:12). And when the believers live according to the gifts of God, it will result in praise for God through Christ (4:11).

The church’s separateness also relates to the inheritance it awaits, which is not of this world. We are not aliens for the sake of opposing the world, but because we have a homeland that is elsewhere. Therefore our conduct is grounded in the hope we have, a hope which both warns us against squandering God’s good graces and encourages us when our lives of nonconformity become wearisome.

QUESTIONS & GAPS

Interestingly, 1 Peter contributes both to what is right and to what is wrong with conservative Christianity: it emphasizes holiness and other-worldliness to the complete neglect of social justice. Its exhortations to submission clearly lack concern with achieving justice for the oppressed, but rather encourage, e.g., slaves to endure under harsh masters. If you didn’t think “doing good” included caring for the poor, 1 Peter wouldn’t do anything to change your mind. It is perhaps appropriate that this letter is located in the Christian canon immedidately after James, which also presupposes other-worldliness and suffering but applies them over and over again to care for the poor. It would be fascinating, I think, to examine how these two theologies, so similar at certain points, could find such different applications.

But 1 Peter’s deficiency at this point can direct us toward a key contribution it makes to Christian spirituality: our relationship with God (perhaps against James 1:27) is not simply based on our dealings with other people in this world.

Though it is hardly a complete guide to the Christian life (such would require blatant disregard for Jesus’ teachings concerning money, the poor, and the marginalized), we must allow 1 Peter to confront us with the fact that Christian ethics cannot be based entirely on the impact of our behavior on other people. God can demand things of us that we cannot rationalize according to whether they improve the world around us. And to turn it around, we cannot use God as an excuse to accomplish what we think is right in the world.

1 Peter’s message concerning holiness is that Christian ethics is also between us and God, based on the holiness he expects for those who presume to belong to the world above. This is not the entirety of the Christian life, but it is indispensible.