Nielsen’s Nook

Pictured: I and Professor Elliott Greene
Assistant Professor of Biblical Languages

There are moments when God demonstrates his grace in ways that are more perceivable than other times for me, which tells you more about my perception than it does about the ever-present nature of his grace. My graduation is one of these moments for me for many reasons I won’t post here. Yesterday at 2:00 I graduated with a Masters of Divinity from Westminster Theological Seminary and will begin an internship at Park Cities Presbyterian Church in the Presbyterian Church in America on July 3, 2006.

Pictured: Dr. Peter Enns and I
Professor of Old Testament

Pictured: I and Dr. William Edgar
Professor of Apologetics

Pictured: I and Susan Logan
Encourager Extraordinaire

Greek Text

³⁵ Ἀλλὰ ἐρεῖ τις· πῶς ἐγείρονται οἱ νεκροί; ποίῳ δὲ σώματι ἔρχονται; ⁴⁴ σπείρεται σῶμα ψυχικόν, ἐγείρεται σῶμα πνευματικόν. Εἰ ἔστιν σῶμα ψυχικόν, ἔστιν καὶ πνευματικόν. ⁴⁵ οὕτως καὶ γέγραπται· ἐγένετο ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος Ἀδὰμ εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν, ὁ ἔσχατος Ἀδὰμ εἰς πνεῦμα ζῳοποιοῦν. ⁴⁶ ἀλλ̓ οὐ πρῶτον τὸ πνευματικὸν ἀλλὰ τὸ ψυχικόν, ἔπειτα τὸ πνευματικόν. ⁴⁷ ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος ἐκ γῆς χοϊκός, ὁ δεύτερος ἄνθρωπος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ. ⁴⁸ οἷος ὁ χοϊκός, τοιοῦτοι καὶ οἱ χοϊκοί, καὶ οἷος ὁ ἐπουράνιος, τοιοῦτοι καὶ οἱ ἐπουράνιοι· ⁴⁹ καὶ καθὼς ἐφορέσαμεν τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ χοϊκοῦ, φορέσομεν καὶ τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ ἐπουρανίου.

Translation

³⁵ But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? In what type of body do they come?”… ⁴⁴ It is sown a natural (ψυχικόν, psychikon) body, it is raised a spiritual (πνευματικόν, pneumaticon) body. If there is a natural body then there is also a spiritual. ⁴⁵ Just as it is written, “The first human, Adam, became a living nature (ψυχὴν ζῶσαν, psychan zoosan), the eschatological Adam became a life giving spirit (πνεῦμα ζῳοποιοῦν, pneuma zooopoioun). ⁴⁶ But the spiritual (πνευματικόν) is not first; rather, the natural (ψυχικόν) comes first, then the spiritual (πνευματικόν). ⁴⁷ The first man was from the dust of the earth; the second man is from heaven. ⁴⁸ As the man from the dust, so also those of the dust, and as the man from heaven, so also those of heaven. ⁴⁹ Just as we bore the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.

Commentary

I should alert you to the fact that much of this analysis is from lecture notes I took while in Dr. Richard B. Gaffin’s Christology class at Westminster Theological Seminary and this post is being used as exam preparation for the final I take tomorrow.

Context and Structure

While the NIV includes a paragraph break in the middle of verse 44, other versions do not. It will be the contention of this exegesis that there is a shift in Paul’s argument that would warrant a paragraph break in the middle of v 44.

It is at this point that we must also realize that the Apostle is answering a question in v 44 that he initially asked in v 35, viz., How are the dead raised? He makes a contrast between two bodies, which are connected by the resurrection. On the one hand, there is the body of corruptibility and death; on the other hand, there is the body of incorruptibility and life.

In v 45 Paul cites Genesis 2:7 and in so doing he expands the analogy that he had been making between Adam and Christ. The contrast he makes between them is not simply between individuals but between Adam and Christ as covenant heads, exemplifying the two bodies that are clearly in view in vv 47-49. In these verses Adam’s progeny is identified as οἱ χοϊκοί and Christ’s as οἱ ἐπουράνιοι.

The Scope and Contrast in View

In Paul’s citation of Genesis 2:7 (LXX) he underscores the point that Adam is a living person (ψυχὴν ζῶσαν). This marks a significant shift in Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 15. Here Paul expands the scope of reference regarding Adam to include his pre-Fall state (i.e., Adam as he was created, prior to sin).

BHS Hebrew

⁷ וַיִּיצֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָאָדָם עָפָר מִן־הָאֲדָמָה וַיִּפַּח בְּאַפָּיו � ִשְׁמַת חַיִּים וַיְהִי הָאָדָם לְ� ֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה׃

Septuagint (LXX)

⁷ καὶ ἔπλασεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς καὶ ἐνεφύσησεν εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ πνοὴν ζωῆς, καὶ ἐγένετο ὁ ἄνθρωπος εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν.

Paul’s Argument

1 Corinthians 15:45c is an ellipsis which assumes the ἐγένετο of Genesis 2:7 (LXX). He identifies for us two bodies that are connected by way of the resurrection of the incarnate Christ. On the one hand is the pre-resurrection body (σῶμα ψυχικόν) and on the other the resurrection body (σῶμα πνευματικόν), referring to the Holy Spirit (πνεῦμα ἁγίου). It is the reference to ψυχικόν regarding Adam that indicates the hinge on which Paul’s argument swings.

So in v 44b we see the antithetical parallelism that has been flowing throughout the passage moves to an “if…then” argumentative form, moving from the ψυχικόν body to that of the πνευματικόν. It is important to note that this shift in argumentation does not fit within the antithesis that has characterized the larger passage up to this point in 1 Corinthians 15. We see relation between his argument here and in places like Romans 5:12-21 where we find the “if Adam…how much more Christ” pattern (c.f., Hebrews).

Paul argues from the pre-resurrection body to that of the resurrection without the disjunction that he had employed in the verses prior to 44b. This means that the body of 44b is not the same as that of 44a. The body of 44a is characterized by perishability, dishonor and weakness, predicates resulting from the Fall. Paul could not argue directly from this body to the eschatological body of the resurrection; one cannot be inferred from the other, just as life cannot be inferred from death in the biblical worldview. It is for this reason that the NIV makes the paragraph break at 44b, demonstrating that the σῶμα ψυχικόν (something like “natural body”) of 44a is not the same as that of 44b.

So what is the σῶμα ψυχικόν of 44b? The body of 44b has been broadened conceptually to include not only the pre-eschatological but also the pre-Lapsarian (i.e., pre-Fall). In this we see that the post-Fall ψυχικόν is the result of the unnatural entrance of sin into the human race. Generally, it is quite difficult to convey the relationship of the Greek ψυχικόν and πνευματικόν in the English language. Thus, suffice to know that the relationship is looking at Creation on the one hand and the New Creation on the other, and Paul is arguing from the one to the other.

The Importance of Paul’s Philosophy of History

When Paul is asked about his resurrection hope, he responds by giving his philosophy of history. The apostle argues for a higher sort of existence than even Adam possessed prior to the Fall. We see this in the way Paul concludes this paragraph drawing our attention to the image of the man of heaven and that of the man of the dust. The image that Adam has is eschatologically oriented, having a view towards its fulfillment in Christ, the man of heaven.

In this way we see how Paul’s philosophy of History is dramatically different than that of his Hellenistic contemporaries who viewed history as cyclical. Consider Plato’s telling statement:

And if a person lived a good life throughout the due course of his time, he would at the end return to his dwelling place in his companion star, to live a life of happiness that agreed with his character. But if he failed in this, he would be born a second time, now as a woman.[1]

Aside from the very annoying chauvinism, Plato’s comment reveals to us that in his view human history was doomed to repeat itself over and over again. Paul’s notion of history is as a bright companion star over against the blackness of Platonic history. The Apostle in harmony with the scriptures is arguing for a history that is not simply linear, but that starts with its goal in mind. In other words, the goal of history is providentially and logically considered before its means in God’s decree.

In this history, Adam is first and in his federal position is head of an order characterized by corruption, dishonor, and weakness. By contrast, the order of Christ is second and last, being the order of fidelity, honor, and strength – the eschatological order. It is the paradigm of Creation and New Creation, each beginning with an Adam of its own. Thus, redemption is not a matter of Paradise Regained. It is an altogether better order, an “over-plus” as Dr. Gaffin put it.
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[1] Plato, “Timaeus,” in Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), §42b-c.

O the deep, deep love of Jesus!
Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free;
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me.
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of thy love;
leading onward, leading homeward, to thy glorious rest above.

O the deep, deep love of Jesus!
Spread his praise from shore to shore;
How he loveth, ever loveth, changeth never, nevermore;
How he watches o’re his loved ones, died to call them all his own;
How for them he intercedeth, watcheth o’er them from the throne.

O the deep, deep love of Jesus!
Love of ev’ry love the best: ’tis an ocean vast
Of blessing, ’tis a haven sweet of rest.
O the deep, deep love of Jesus! ‘Tis a heav’n of heav’ns to me;
And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to thee.

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My pastor, Skip Ryan, preached today on Luke 7:36-50. We closed with the above hymn. Dr. Ryan reminded me of the relationship that my view of sin has to my view of the Savior. If I would see Jesus in a fuller capacity, I must also be willing to take a sober look at my sinfulness in a fuller capacity. Christ has not come to save, nor does he work diligently to sanctify, the healthy but the sick, those in whom the very fabric of their souls lies tattered.This deep love of Jesus is certainly seen in the marvelous tapestry that he does and is in fact weaving from the tattered fabric that we call the Church. But what is more is that his love is not first seen in the finished product, but in his willingness to submerge himself deeply into my context, my life, even into my hidden cesspools. Not only has Christ come and met me at these very points, but he has bound himself to me at this very point of death, that in his death and resurrected life I might also participate. In this way the Christian’s old man is shed, like a snake sheds its old scales to put on newer better ones.Yes, it is true, my faithful pastor, that the Savior is undervalued when our sin is understated. I wonder if this is not because we have been all too willing to leave Christianity in the systematic and abstract, being fearful to remember that Christ has made himself known in the mess of the Historical, in the raucous of the concrete. O the deep, deep love of Jesus!

Luke 7:36-50 (ESV)
36 One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. 37 And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, 38 and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” 40 And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.” 41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” 44 Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” 48 And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 49 Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” 50 And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

This passage comes to my mind today as one who is feeling quite worn out by life and who faces the weight of my present situation with basically two options. On the one hand I can try and cope with my situation. I can do things that will help me get through the day - one day at a time. I can seek to ease the frustration level by splurging a little here or there. That’s coping. There is no glory in its endless monotonous cycle.

On the other hand, passages like Romans 8:37-39 are fundamental and foundational. Here we find that Paul (after alerting us to his own frustrations in the process of sanctification in chapter 7) directs us back to the lens or paradigmatic icon of the Bible and our lives, the Lord Jesus. He concludes the chapter with thoughts that describe for us something of our identity.

He tells us that we who are in Christ are winning a most glorious victory (ὑπερνικάω). Then, he explains what he sees the basis for such a statement is. It is primarily the person and work of the incarnate, crucified and risen Christ. He is the one who loved us such that he became a human being, was humiliated on the cross and vindicated in his resurrection. Not even death could conqueror this man. It is that same love that compelled the Father to send the Son, and the Son to fulfill the will of the Father, that has bound the Incarnate God to his people. Consequently, Paul tells us that we too share in the same victory as we proceed with the King in his royal procession.

Thus, coping could not be further from the Christian’s calling. Just getting through suffering is not that to which we have been called. Squeaking by does not resonate with the magnitude of this royal procession. Christ, our Divine Warrior, has fought and continues to fight for us, along with us and in us. So it is that we must know that the pain is there to be conquered, to make us stronger. Even if suffering were to waste away our bodies, the most glorious victory to which we are proceeding is sure to produce a greater nearness to Christ, the Suffering Servant, if we will not short circuit the process by methods of coping.

And so we land back in the Beatitudes where we find Christ reminding us that we are poor indeed, but that in Him we have been made rich. O God, may we hunger and thirst for righteousness, always knowing that the righteousness we need, true righteousness, is alone found in Christ. May he be the object of our appetites. Amen.

I have always found it fascinating how much Calvin interacted with St. Augustine; however, did you know that he interacted tremendously with the Early Church Fathers? What is even more fascinating to me is how many Reformed people these days have forgotten that they come from a long meandering church tradition that stems from the Roman Catholic tradition and is influenced significantly from the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Luther simply wasn’t the first Christian. :-)

So let me share some statistics from Calvin’s work that I hope shows the girth of his interaction with the Fathers and other Saints of the Church:

• Name: (Commentaries # of references), (Institutes # of references)
• Irenaeus: (12), (12)
• Justin Martyr: (6), (1)
• Tertullian (35), (25)
• Origen (63), (2)
• Athanasius (3), (6)
• Gregory Nazianzen (1), (1)
• Bernard (5), (70)
• Augustine (275), (393)
• Ambrose (55), (51)
• Basil the Great (0), (1)
• Clement of Alexandria (2), (0)
• Clement of Rome (1), (0)
• Cyprian of Carthage (16), (50)
• Cyril of Jerusalem (2), (0)
• Pseudo-Dionysius¹ (1), (0)
• Eusebius (61), (4)
• Hilary (8), (11)
• Jerome (522), (37)
• Hipolytus (19), (0)
• Ignatius (1), (3)
• John Chrysostom (227), (56)

These are only a handful for which I had time to electronically search tonight. The numbers may be off a little because I did not have the time to read through every citation that my software showed as a hit. Nevertheless, I think this demonstrates that Calvin was very self-consciously standing on the shoulders of those who came before him, those with whom he agreed and those with whom he did not.

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¹ Pseudo-Dionysius was known to Calvin as Dionysius the Areopagite, referenced in his commentary on 2 Cor 12:1-5.

Two dangers became evident in Dionysian thought that stemmed from the notions of unions and distinctions in God:

1. Pantheism
2. Platonic Emanationism

These dangers are indigenous to any form of Platonism. Pseudo-Dionysius (PD) avoided the problem of emanationism, in which each emanation of the divine implied a fragmentation of God having lost its fullness of the divine being as it emanated. He did avoids this writing:

It is common, synthetic, and unique for the whole Diety to be participated in fully and entirely by all the participants, and never by any of them in a partial way, as the central point of a circle is participated in by all the radii … without being in any way fragmented. As for the unpartakableness of the Diety, universal cause, it also transcends [these participations], for there is with it no sort of contact, no sort of community, nor any synthesis between it and its participants. (p 97)

In other places PD distinctly divorces himself from neo-Platonism and articulates a Christian knowledge of God that accommodates neo-Platonist categories. Nevertheless, PD “cleverly avoids” explicit reference to the personalist concept of hypostasis. In a well-known passage from On the Divine Names, PD speaks of God being at once Trinity and Monad.

Two Great Dionysian Victories
In trying to use “against the Greeks the Greeks’ own goods”, PD accomplishes two great victories in essential areas. First, he successfully demonstrates that the knowledge of God is not discursive or identifiable with any natural process. Rather, it transcends our natural faculties and represents a mode of knowledge sui generis. Second, PD goes beyond Origen emanationism and pantheism in showing that the divine manifestations (i.e., “names”) in the world do not interfere with his essential transcendence. (p 99)

It would seem almost certain that PD’s intent was to protect (advance?) the Christian tradition in the context of the neo-Platonic intellectual culture in which he participated. Specifically, he was seeking a method which would allow for a deductive rediscovery of the proper order of things in the world, incorporating Christian religious forms into the intelligible structures of late neo-Platonism.

Philosophically Christian
PD remains fundamentally Christian. He maintains that God is still “above” the “Platonic One”, not belonging to the lower hierarchical orders. Further, he demonstrates that the hierarchical procession is not a diminution of the divine being but God’s presence was fully in each being. Dionysius is the source of the classical classification of the angels into nine orders, subdivided into three triads, which has no foundation in Scripture. (p 102) He remains trapped in the sense-mind dichotomy and lacked the philosophical means to express the realities linked with the incarnation.

His ecclesiastical hierarchy sought to follow as much as possible that of the angels or celestial hierarchy. The ecclesiastical hierarchy, being essentially arbitrary, seems to have twisted the perspective followed by the ecclesiology of the Church of the first few centuries. The Dionysian hierarch, designating not only bishops but great figures like Melchizedek, is essentially a Gnostic who transmits esoteric knowledge to those below him in the hierarchy. This notion reduces the idea of a sacrament down to a transmission of personal illumination. For example, the Eucharist is for PD only an ethical lesson for the “imperfect” and not a participation in the body and blood of Christ.

Theologically Christian
In terms of theologia PD was in the tradition of the Cappadocians, overcoming the antinomy between God’s immanence and his transcendence. The different interpretation that the West has given On the Divine Names, has caused many misunderstandings between East and West on the “real sense” of Dionysian thought. (p 107)

Contributions to Christian Spirituality
Some lesser known areas of Dionysian influence are seen in ecclesiology and liturgical piety, essential elements of Christian spirituality. PD’s cosmic hierarchy sought to relate that all beings were created in view of their union with God and the universal tendency to draw closer to God (imitation). This was a view that had been central to patristic anthropology since St. Irenaeus and later developed by St. Maximus. Strangely, PD asserts this in “complete separation” from the mystery of the Incarnation. (p 108)

For PD there are two distinct modes of union with God. On the one hand, there is theologia referring to the mystical, individual and direct; on the other hand, theurgy, describing the intermediary activity of the hierarchy. Dionysian theologia belongs to the realm of piety; however, theurgia is not so simply classified. Theurgia rests on the same neo-Platonic ontology as theologia; however, its aim was to transmit gnosis (knowledge), and the sacraments themselves are reduced to initiating symbols.

Christian liturgy, in trying to satisfy the needs of the masses, underwent a transformation. Preaching insisted on the sanctity of the sacramental action. The idea of esoteric initiation borrowed from Corpus Hermeticum, was used to communicate to the faithful the sense of the sacred and to remind them of how difficult it is to approach it. In the absence of such initiation, one possesses only indirect knowledge through hierarchical intermediaries and symbols. To penetrate these mysteries requires that one initiated.