Ii Fundamental Structures

Ii Fundamental Structures

II

FUNDAMENTAL STRUCTURES

SECTION 7. THE FULLNESS OF THE TIME. THE REVELATION OF THE MYSTERY

From the history of the investigation it has become evident how easily the entrance to Paul's preaching is blocked or narrowed when one comes to place in the center and absolutize certain facets of his proclamation of salvation at the expense of others. It may undoubtedly be said to be a result of the more recent investigation that, although it has not in its own turn escaped all kinds of one-sidedness and dogmatism, it has succeeded in arriving at a broader conception of Paul's preaching. It has no longer sought the basic motif of this preaching in one particular soteriological aspect, whether in justification by faith or in victory over the flesh through the Spirit, but, transcending all these partial viewpoints and antecedent to them, in the eschatological or redemptive-historical starting point of Paul's proclamation. The whole content of this preaching can be summarized as the proclamation and explication of the eschatological time of salvation inaugurated with Christ's advent, death, and resurrection. It is from this principal point of view and under this denominator that all the separate themes of Paul's preaching can be understood and penetrated in their unity and relation to each other.¹

Naturally, only the continuation of our inquiry will throw further light on this thesis in all its implications. The extent, however, to which Paul saw the advent and work of Christ as revelation of the fulfilling activity of God in history and as the breaking through of the great time of salvation can immediately be demonstrated on the basis of a number of typical pronouncements from his epistles.

What is said in Galatians 4: 4 of "the fulness of the time" and in Ephesians 1: 10 of "the fulness of the times" is surely of special importance:

. . . but when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son . . . the mystery of his [God's] will . . . , unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon earth . . ..

What is meant by this "fulness of the time" is not only the maturation of a specific matter in the great framework of redemptive history, but the fulfillment of the time in an absolute sense. The time of the world² has come to a conclusion with Christ's advent. However much this fulfillment still bears a provisional character and the perfectum is followed yet again by a futurum,³nevertheless the plērōma of the time or of the times is here spoken of as a matter that has already taken effect⁴ and thus in principle has been settled.

This commencement of the great time of salvation is no less clearly attested in 2 Corinthians 6: 2, where the apostle as with finger extended points to its presence: "Behold, now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation!"

Here, too, what is to be understood by "the acceptable time" and "the day of salvation" is not merely a certain saving event or opportunity that one must embrace and which may perhaps presently disappear again. Nothing less is intended than that the decisive, longexpected coming of God has dawned, the hour of hours, the day of salvation in the fulfilling, eschatological sense of the word.⁵ This is apparent as well from the preceding context where Paul writes of the great change that has entered with the death and resurrection of Christ as follows: "Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, the new have come" (2 Cor. 5: 17).

When he speaks here of "new creation, " this is not meant merely in an individual sense ("a new creature"), but one is to think of the new world of the re-creation that God has made to dawn in Christ, and in which everyone who is in Christ is included. This is also evident from the neuter plural that follows: "the old things have passed away, the new have come," and from the full significance that must be ascribed here to "old" and "new." It is a matter of two worlds, not only in a spiritual, but in a redemptive-historical, eschatological sense.⁶ The "old things" stand for the unredeemed world in its distress and sin, the "new things" for the time of salvation and the re-creation that have dawned with Christ's resurrection. He who is in Christ, therefore, is new creation: he participates in, belongs to, this new world of God,⁷

The qualification of this event as the "revelation of the mystery, " or the "making known" of that which until now was "kept secret" or "hidden, " for which the apostle has a predilection, is also indicative of this eschatological character of the redemptive dispensation that has dawned in Christ and of its proclamation by Paul. What a dominant place this expression occupies throughout all of Paul's epistles may appear from the following survey:

. . . the revelation (apokalypsis) of the mystery (to mystērion) which was kept secret for long ages (sesigēmenon), but is now disclosed (phanerō thentos) (Rom. 16: 25, 26).

. . . the mystery (to mystērion) which has been hidden (apokekrymmenon) for ages and generations, but now has been revealed (ephanerōthē) to his saints (Col. 1: 26; cf. 2: 2, 3).

. . . making known (gnōrisas) unto us the mystery (to mystērion) of his [God's] will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times (Eph. 1: 9, 10).

. . . my insight into the mystery (to mystērion) of Christ, which was not made known (egnōristhē) to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed (apekalyphthē) to his holy apostles and prophets... (Eph. 3: 4, 5; cf. v. 3).

. . . but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery (en mystērio), even the wisdom that has been hidden (apokekrymmenēn), which God foreordained before the ages . . . (1 Cor. 2: 7).

. . . the grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal, but has now been manifested (phanerōtheisan) by the appearing of our Saviour (2 Tim. 1: 9, 10; cf. also Tit. 1: 2, 3).

The attempt has often been made to understand "mystery" by analogy with the significance of this word in the ancient mystery religions in the sense of a kind of secret teaching that is "revealed" to only a few intimates. In Paul, however, it has a completely different sense, as is apparent also from a comparison with the newly unlocked Jewish sources:⁸ "mystery, " that which has been "hidden, " is to be understood, as a few of the texts cited say in so many words, in connection with the hidden counsel of God in relation to his redemptive work in history. "Hiddenness, " "mystery, " etc., has, therefore, in addition to a noetic a plainly historical connotation: it is that which has not yet appeared, that which still exists in the counsel of God and has not yet been realized in history as fulfillment of that counsel.⁹

Accordingly the corresponding word "reveal" not only means the divulging of a specific truth or the giving of information as to certain events or facts, but the appearance itself, the becoming historical reality of that which until now did not exist as such, but was kept by God, hidden, held back.¹⁰ As such, namely, as the realized redemptive plan of God, this mystery is consequently the object of Paul's proclamation and of the revelation of God to his saints, and so forth.

From the way in which this expression — certainly very characteristic for Paul — is used, the eschatological nature of the content of his preaching is apparent once again. For this mystery has reference to the purpose of God with a view to the fullness of the times (Eph. 1:9, 10). Standing over against the "kept secret for long ages," "hidden for ages and generations," etc., is again and again the "now" of the revelation, the end of the waiting ages, the ultimate intervention¹¹ of God according to his counsel and promise. What is here called in various nuances the revelation of the mystery is nothing other than that which the fullness of the time brings to view; it is the fulfillment of the eschatological promise of redemption in the times appointed for it, its "own times,"¹² that is denoted in this fashion.

This revelation of the mystery is the real content of Paul's gospel (Rom. 16:26), the object of "the ministry which was entrusted to him" (Col. 1:25, 26; cf. Eph. 3:2). Therefore Paul's preaching itself is taken up into the great eschatological event;¹³ it is rightly and in the full sense kerygma of the gospel, that is, announcement, proclamation of the coming of salvation. That Paul's epistles give what is no longer the first announcement of this gospel, but rather the further exposition and application of it,¹⁴ does not detract from the fact that this gospel is the sole and constant subject of his epistles also; and that therefore, if one has to characterize their general content not only as kerygma, but also as doctrine and paraenesis, yet this doctrine, too, has no other object and this admonition no other starting point and ground than the fulfilling and redeeming activity of God in the advent of Christ.

It is plain that this general character of Paul's preaching is materially altogether in harmony with the great theme of Jesus' preaching of the coming of the kingdom of heaven. What Jesus proclaims as the "fulfillment of the time" (Mark 1: 15) is almost word for word identical with what Paul terms "the fulness of the time." And the beatitude Jesus addresses to his disciples: "To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven;... many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which you see, and saw them n o t . . . " (Matt. 13: 11, 16, 17) finds its echo in Paul's word of the revelation of the mystery that has been hidden for ages and generations. However much the preaching of Jesus and that of Paul in a formal sense (that is, in choice of words, way of representing things, type of teaching) may be distinguished, and however much the time after the resurrection of Christ represents a stage of the revelation that has advanced further than Jesus in his earthly self-revelation,¹⁵ this does not alter the fact that the coming of the kingdom as the fulfilling eschatological coming of God to the world is the great dynamic principle of Paul's preaching, even though the word "kingdom of heaven" does not occupy a central place in it.¹⁶ That this deeper unity of the New Testament kerygma is once again being recognized in a broad circle¹⁷ is among the great gains of the eschatological approach to Paul's preaching as well.

And this applies not only to the relation of Jesus and Paul. In this general character of his preaching Paul in his fashion also carries on what the apostles and the early Christian church at Jerusalem believed and proclaimed as the gospel of Christ. For them, too, the advent of Christ, his appearance, death, and resurrection, as well as the gift of the Holy Spirit, were above all the fulfillment of the promise, the dawning of the consummation of the history of redemption, eschatological event. Thus Peter at once expounded it on Pentecost in the light of the prophecy of Joel (cf. Acts 2: 17), and the church lived in the consciousness of having seen the breaking of the day of salvation and of being itself the people of God of the great end time.¹⁸ One can understand the nature and origin of this peculiar consciousness, called forth by Jesus' advent and confirmed by his resurrection, in no other way than against the background of Israel's expectation of redemption and view of history. Paul stands in the same life stream, and the fundamental motif of his preaching is not different from that of the other apostles and of the primitive Christian church. But he unfolded it in a wealth of aspects and with a depth of ideas that is unequalled in the rest of the apostolic preaching preserved to us, and therefore has repeatedly opened new perspectives in the history of investigation and for the faith of the Christian church.

SECTION 8. THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST. ESCHATOLOGY AND CHRISTOLOGY

It follows directly from what has just been said that this general eschatological character of Paul's preaching is entirely defined and explained by the advent and the revelation of Jesus Christ. Paul's "eschatology" is "Christ-eschatology," and "the Pauline approach to history is faith in Christ."¹⁹ The fundamental structure of Paul's preaching is consequently only to be approached from his Christology.

This can be seen in various ways from the already quoted eschatological pronouncements themselves. It is the advent of Christ, the sending of the Son of God, that brings to light the fullness of the time²⁰ (Gal. 4: 4); similarly, the revelation of the mystery that has now dawned consists of the fact that "the mystery of Christ" has been revealed (Eph. 3: 4). It is the "appearing of our Saviour" that is the proof of the great turning point of the times (2 Tim. 1: 9, 10). For this reason the whole content of the mystery that bas now been revealed can be qualified and summarized in the one word —Christ (Col. 2: 3), just as the gospel of the inaugurated time of salvation, of which Paul is the herald, is again and again called the gospel of Christ (Rom. 15: 19; 1 Cor. 9: 12; 2 Cor, 2:13), or the gospel of our Lord Jesus (2 Tim. 1:8), or the gospel of God's Son, whereby the words "of Christ, " etc., if not always and exclusively, then certainly for the most part, have the sense of (the gospel) concerning Christ.²¹

This interdependence between the "eschatological" and the "christological" ground motif of Paul's preaching is of the highest importance for the understanding of both.

On the one hand, it is determinative for insight into the real nature of Paul's preaching of Christ. This has in principle a redemptivehistorical, eschatological content. It is decisively defined by what has taken place in Christ, by the acts of God that he wrought in him for the fulfillment of his redemptive plan and of which the death and resurrection of Christ constitute the all-controlling center. Paul's Christology is a Christology of redemptive facts. Here lies the ground of the whole of his preaching, and it is with the historical reality of this event, in the past as well as in the future, that both the apostolic kerygma and the faith of the church stand or fall (1 Cor. 15:14, 19). This historical-eschatological character of Paul's Christology also places it in organic relationship with the revelation of the Old Testament. What has taken place in Christ forms the termination and fulfillment of the great series of divine redemptive acts in the history of Israel and the presupposition of the progress and consummation of the history of the world. Therefore the still-to-be-expected future of the Lord and the continuing activity of God in history are never to be detached from the fulfillment of God's promises to Israel, but rather must be understood in the light of them (cf. Rom. 11:15ff.; 15: 8-12). In this connection the thesis of Bultmann that Paul's eschatology is entirely determined by his anthropology, and that the history of the people of Israel and the history of the world have disappeared from his sight and been replaced by the "historicity of man, " is also to be rejected.²² It is true indeed that Paul does not develop a well-defined historical picture of the new dispensation of history that has begun with Christ.²³ In that sense Paul is no philosopher or theologian of history. But this does not mean that his eschatology may be said to be only an eschatology sub specie hominis, whereby world history would have the significance of the wings and properties of the stage on which the small history of the individual man is enacted. Paul's eschatology bears a theocentric character; that is to say, in it past, present, and future occur sub specie Dei, under the viewpoint of that God who is the Creator of heaven and earth and who conducts all things to their consummation in accordance with the prophetic revelation of the Old Testament. And this is reflected in his eschatological, redemptive-historical Christology. This Christology is not only directed to and determined by the fact that Christ brings man to his "authenticity" and destiny — here the great narrowing²⁴ of every theology that makes the knowledge and redemption of the individual man its all-controlling hermeneutical starting point becomes perceptible — but also that God in Christ has brought to fulfillment and will yet bring to fulfillment his man- and world- and history-encompassing redemptive work in a conclusive way. This all-embracing character of Paul's eschatology and Christology comes to the fore, as we shall see still further, especially in the epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians. But it forms the great presupposition of all of Paul's preaching. For the Christ in whose death and resurrection the new aeon dawns is the Messiah of Israel (Rom. 1: 2-4; 9: 5), in whom God gathers and saves his people (2 Cor. 6: 16ff. ) , and whom he has exalted and appointed Savior and Kyrios of all things (Phil. 2). However much the name Christ in the Pauline usage seems to have acquired the sense of a proper name, this does not mean that this designation has lost its official, historic-Israelitic significance.²⁵ Paul proclaims Christ as the fulfillment of the promise of God to Abraham, as the seed in which all the families of the earth shall be blessed (Gal. 3: 8, 16, 29), the eschatological bringer of salvation whose all-embracing significance must be understood in the light of prophecy (Rom. 15: 9-12), the fulfillment of God's redemptive counsel concerning the whole world and its future. This redemptivehistorical significance of Paul's Christology also comes to light in the pronouncements, so characteristic of him, concerning Christ as the revelation of the mystery. Here the past is not described only as a time of darkness and ignorance, but rather as the preparation of the work of God in the course of the centuries. The grace that has now been revealed "was given us in Christ Jesus long ages ago" (2 Tim. 1: 9), in the purpose and promise of God and in their initial realization; it was promised by God who cannot lie, before times eternal (Tit. 1: 2). Therefore the mystery that has been revealed with the advent of Christ must also be made known and understood "by means of the prophetic writings" (Rom. 16: 26). The nature of that which has taken place in Christ is rightly known only from prophecy, just as, on the other hand, it becomes clear in the light of the fulfilling action of God how much the Old Testament is the book of Christ (2 Cor. 3: 14; I Cor. 10: 4; Gal. 3: 16). For this reason one of the leading motifs of Paul's preaching is that his gospel is according to the Scriptures (Rom. 1: 17; 3: 28; cf. Rom. 4; Gal. 3:6ff.; 4: 21ff.; 1 Cor. 10: 1-10; Rom. 15: 4; 1 Cor. 9: 10; 2 Tim. 3:16, et al. ). However this use of the Old Testament by Paul is further to be judged in detail,²⁶ a most basic conception of Christ's advent and work lies at the root of this whole appeal and use, that of the divine drama being realized and fulfilled in his advent and work; this fulfillment was not only foretold by the prophets, but signifies the execution of the divine plan of salvation that he purposed to himself with respect to the course of the ages and the end of the times (Eph. 1: 9, 10; 3:11). This is the fundamental redemptive-historical and all-embracing character of Paul's preaching of Christ.

On the other hand — and this is of no less importance — Paul's eschatology is entirely determined by the realized and still-to-be-realized redemptive work of God in Christ. However much he gives expression to the significance of Christ's advent with the help of the conceptual materials of the Old Testament and Jewish eschatology, this does not mean that the eschatological "setting" in which he describes this advent and significance can simply be reduced to an Old Testament or Jewish "schema" lying ready to hand, from which Paul's Christology may be said to have borrowed its composition and from which it would thus be easy to extract this form. What is so remarkable about Paul's eschatology is that although he avails himself of all kinds of traditional terms and ideas, yet it is distinguished from all forms of the contemporaneous Jewish eschatological expectation and bears a completely independent character. Now this has its origin in the fact that Paul's eschatology is not determined by any traditional eschatological schema, but by the actual acting of God in Christ. This is the fundamental christological character of his eschatology.

This distinctive character emerges most plainly in the peculiar tension that is to be ascertained between the aspects of fulfillment and expectation in Paul's eschatology and which already finds expression in the eschatological terminology. For while, on the one hand, the apostle speaks of the fullness of the time that has taken effect and of the new creation that has begun, on the other hand he is clearly conscious of still living in the present world (ho aiön houtos) and the time corresponding with it (ho nyn kairos; cf., e. g., Rom. 8: 18; 11: 5; 12: 2, et al.). Of the new world, denoted in the Jewish usage as the world to come (ho aiōn mellōn), he makes mention exclusively in a future sense (Eph. 1: 21; cf. 2: 7). And he does speak of the present world time in which the church is living as "the end (literally, the ends) of the ages" (ta telē tōn aiōnōn; 1 Cor. 10: 11), "the last times" (en hysterois kairois; 1 Tim. 4: 1), but sometimes the expression "in the last days" (en eschatais hemerais) has reference to a period that has not yet been entered upon (2 Tim. 3: 1). Finally, to mention still another example, in one place Paul can speak of "the present evil aeon" (ek tou aiōnos ton enestōtos ponērou) as of a situation from which Christ has snatched his people (Gal. 1: 4),²⁷ and he can reproach the church for having subjected itself to all manner of commandments "as if still living in the world" (Col. 2: 21; cf. also Eph. 2: 2)²⁸ while elsewhere he speaks of the present aeon and of the world as the place where the believers must live godly lives (Tit. 2:12), and must shine as stars (Phil. 2:15). The result is that in certain contexts he qualifies the unredeemed life prior to the redemptive time as a "once, " "in that time, " etc., which has now been overcome (cf. Eph. 2: 2, 12), in contrast with the present "now" of the new creation, the time of redemption and fulfillment (2 Cor. 6: 2; Eph. 2: 13; Rom. 3: 21, et al.). Elsewhere, however, the "at present" or "now" indicates the continuance of the mode of existence defined by the world, over against the "then" or "once" of the perfection still to be expected (1 Cor. 13: 10, 12, et al.)²⁹

It is this remarkable ambivalence of the "now, " which can have the sense of the " already now" of the time of salvation that has been entered upon as well as of the " even now" of the world time that still continues, which imparts to Paul's eschatology its wholly distinctive character. The attempt has been made indeed to recover in certain Jewish eschatological notions the "fundamental schema" of this "already" and "not yet" eschatology (namely, in those writings in which the Messianic time of salvation is placed before the end of the world, as in Baruch and IV Ezra),³⁰ but in doing so one must establish that for Paul's consciousness, otherwise than is the case in these apocalypses, the eschaton in a certain sense has already dawned; and furthermore, in order even so to be able to lay this schema at the foundation of Paul's eschatological pronouncements, one must come to highly dubious and untenable exegeses of certain Pauline pronouncements.³¹

It is very striking that Paul, at least in the epistles that have been preserved to us, makes no attempt whatever to present the church with a balanced eschatological timetable. It may perhaps be said by way of conclusion that in Paul a "mingling of the two ages" takes place³² and that the advent of Christ is to be viewed as the "breaking through of the future aeon in the present."³³ For him the future has become present time, and even when he speaks of the groaning of the creation and of the church in the present world, that is for him not a reduction, but a confirmation of the coming redemption (Rom. 8:13)³⁴ But Paul himself gives no explanation of this tension between the "even now" and. the "already now" in the categories of an eschatological system. For he was not a "theologian who thought in terms of the aeons,"³⁵ but a preacher of Jesus Christ, who has come and is yet to come. Here is the reason why this eschatology is ambivalent and fits into no single schema, and why he can employ the eschatological categories at one time in a present, and at another time in a future sense, apparently without concerning himself about the "unsystematic" character of it. The revelation of Jesus Christ as the Messiah promised by God to Israel determines and creates Paul's historical consciousness and eschatological thought, and not the reverse. Who Christ is and what he does, what the relationship is between the time of salvation that has been entered upon with him and the future still to be expected, all this is not determined by eschatological-theological presuppositions, but is only gathered by the apostle from the unexpected and overwhelming manner in which God in Jesus Christ has given and will yet give the fulfillment of the redemptive promise.

SECTION 9. THE FIRSTBORN FROM THE DEAD. THE LAST ADAM

When we attempt to analyze further what we have met with in the preceding sections and ask ourselves why and in what respect, according to Paul, the fullness of the time has been entered upon and the new creation has dawned with the advent of Christ, it is clear at once that we have to do with a total vision of the whole redemptive action of God in Christ. The breakthrough of the new does not begin only at a specific point in Christ's life on earth or at his exaltation, but the fullness of the time takes effect with the sending of God's Son, born of a woman, born under the law (Gal. 4: 4). The Christ-hymn of 1 Timothy 3:16, in which "the great mystery of godliness" finds its expression, accordingly begins with the words: "who was manifested in the flesh."³⁶ This does not alter the fact that it can be said of Paul's gospel in particular that it has its starting point and center in the death and resurrection of Christ, and that only from thence does the proper light fall on the whole of the fulfilling and consummating activity of God, both "retrospectively" in the incarnation and pre-existence of Christ and "prospectively" in his continuing exaltation and anticipated parousia.

That the center of Paul's gospel may rightly be sought in Christ's death and resurrection can be confirmed in all sorts of ways from his own pronouncements. Thus, for example, in the important words of 1 Corinthians 15: 3, 4: "For I delivered to you [as tradition] as of first importance that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures."

It is, moreover, of the greatest importance to see the significance of Christ's death and resurrection, which are the center of Paul's proclamation, as an inseparable unity; and particularly to keep in view how the significance of Christ's resurrection is determined by that of his death and vice versa. On the one hand the eschatological significance Paul ascribes to Christ's resurrection is not that of a general belief in redemption or immortality that may be said to have found its firm

Paul speaks here of the apostolic tradition,³⁷as this has been laid by him and the other apostles as the foundation of the whole of their preaching and which he admonishes the church to preserve in the same words as those in which they have received it. This tradition consists above all³⁸ in that Christ has died, was buried and raised. And that: according to the Scriptures. The fulfillment of God's prior redemptive promise, the fullness of the time, has therefore become manifest above all in Christ's death and resurrection. It is thus, he emphatically adds in verse 11, that we preach and that you have come to believe. In this gospel lies the starting point and foundation both for preaching and for faith. basis in Christ's resurrection. The eschatological significance of Christ's resurrection is determined by the special character of his death, which does not merely consist in that Christ was abandoned to the transitoriness of human life as a fate or necessity or tragedy that is not to be qualified further, with his resurrection being characterized as a vanquishing of that transitoriness. For Paul Christ's death is determined primarily by its connection with the power and guilt of sin. It is characteristic of this emphasis that again and again he relates Christ's death to the cross and can therefore qualify the whole of his gospel as "the word of the cross" (1 Cor. 1: 17, 18; cf. Gal. 3:1). He declares that in the church he will know nothing other than Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor. 2: 2), and he calls the enemies of the gospel "enemies of the cross of Christ" (Phil. 3: 18). It is this special death of Christ, qualified by the cross, which further determines the significance of Christ's resurrection and the new life that has come to light with it, in its forensic, ethical, and cosmic aspects, into which we shall have to go further in what follows. As often, therefore, as Paul mentions the resurrection as the great central redemptive fact (Rom. 1: 4; 2 Cor. 4: 13, 14), calls it the content of "the word of faith, which we preach, " "that Jesus is Lord, " and "that God has raised him from the dead" (Rom. 10: 8, 9), and describes the faith itself by which man is justified as "faith in him that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead" (Rom. 4: 24; cf. v. 17),³⁹ this is only to be understood adequately if the specific significance of Christ's death, as that is developed by the apostle in a great variety of ways, is never for an instant detached from this eschatological gospel of the resurrection.

On the other hand, it is to be maintained no less vigorously that in Paul's proclamation the resurrection of Christ in fact means the breakthrough of the new aeon in the real, redemptive-historical sense of the word, and therefore cannot be understood only in forensic, ethical, or existential categories. This all-embracing significance of the resurrection of Christ is in Paul likewise not only the fruit of his profound theological reflection, but above all of divine revelation. For, as he himself expresses it, when it pleased God to reveal his Son to him (Gal. 1:15), that was first and foremost the evidence for him that Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified and had died and whom he himself had persecuted, was the Son of God and the Messiah of Israel. And it was this certainty, entirely foreign and even offensive to Jewish thinking,⁴⁰ which determined his insight into the redemptive-historical significance of Christ's death and resurrection in a decisive manner. Because Jesus was the Christ, his resurrection is not, as previous raisings of the dead, an isolated occurrence, but in it the time of salvation promised in him, the new creation, dawns in an overwhelming manner, as a decisive transition from the old to the new world (2 Cor. 5: 17; cf. v. 15). It is in this light too, that those passages are to be understood where Paul calls Christ the Firstborn, the Firstfruits, the Beginning:

. . . that he might be the Firstborn (prōtotokos) among many brethren (Rom. 8: 29).

. . . but now Christ has been raised from the dead, the Firstfruits (aparchē) of those who have fallen asleep (1 Cor. 15: 20).

. . . who is the Beginning (archē), the Firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be the First (Col. 1:18).

In connection with the name Firstborn one is not to think here merely of an order of birth but, as may appear from a comparison with certain Old Testament pronouncements (as, for example, Exod. 4: 22; Ps. 89: 22),⁴¹ of an order of rank or dignity. To be sure, this name also indicates the relationship to others who in Romans 8: 29 are called "many brethren." As the Firstborn among those many, however, Christ not only occupies a special place and dignity, but he also goes before them, he opens up the way for them, he joins their future to his own. Now, while in Romans 8: 29 the thought is of the glorification that is still to be expected, in Colossians 1: 18 this position as Firstborn is related specifically to the resurrection, and this pronouncement is amplified still further with the words "who is the Beginning." We shall have to understand both qualifications in close relationship with each other, and must thus see in "the Beginning" a denotation of the significance of Christ's resurrection as well. Our word "beginning" is no adequate translation of it. For what is intended is not merely that Christ was the First or formed a beginning in terms of chronological order; he was rather the Pioneer, the Inaugurator, who opened up the way. With him the great Resurrection became reality. And very similar is the meaning of Firstborn from the dead: he ushers in the world of the resurrection.⁴² He has brought life and incorruptibility to light (2 Tim. 1: 10). In a somewhat different way the same idea is given expression by "Firstfruits" (of those who have fallen asleep). Here the picture of the harvest is in the background. The firstfruits are not only its beginning, but its representation. In the firstfruits the whole harvest becomes visible. So Christ is the Firstfruits of them that slept. In him the resurrection of the dead dawns, his resurrection represents the commencement of the new world of God.

Nowhere is this more clearly voiced than in the passages in which Christ is set over against Adam. Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 15: 45ff. of Adam as "the first man," and of Christ as "the last (ho eschatos) Adam, " the "second man." The expression "the last Adam" is again highly typical of the eschatological character of Paul's preaching: Christ is thereby designated as the Inaugurator of the new humanity. And it is once more his resurrection from the dead that has made him this last Adam:

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Cor. 15: 21, 22).

. . . the first man, Adam, became a living soul; the last Adam a lifegiving spirit . . . . The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly (1 Cor. 15: 45ff.).

The intention of the apostle is here again not merely to point to the resurrection of Christ as the token or as the possibility of the future resurrection of all believers. Rather, Christ as second man and last Adam is the one in whose resurrection this new life of the recreation has already come to light and become reality in this dispensation. This is also the clear purport of Romans 5:12ff. As Adam is the one through whom sin entered into the world and death through sin, so Christ is the one who gives righteousness and life. Christ and Adam stand over against one another as the great representatives of the two aeons, that of life and that of death. In that sense, as representing a whole dispensation, a whole humanity, Adam can be called the type of "him who was to come" (v. 14), i. e., of the second man and of the coming aeon represented by him.⁴³ For as the proto-father brought sin and death into the world, so Christ by his obedience (that is, by his death) and his resurrection has made life to dawn for the new humanity.

In summary we can say, therefore, that Paul's kerygma of the great time of salvation that has dawned in Christ is above all determined by Christ's death and resurrection. It is in them that the present aeon has lost its power and hold on the children of Adam and that the new things have come. For this reason, too, the entire unfolding of the salvation that has dawned with Christ again and again harks back to his death and resurrection, because all the facets in which this salvation appears and all the names by which it is described are ultimately nothing other than the unfolding of what this all-important breakthrough of life in death, of the kingdom of God in this present world, contains within itself. Here all lines come together, and from hence the whole Pauline proclamation of redemption can be described in its unity and coherence. Paul's preaching, so we have seen, is "eschatology," because it is preaching of the fulfilling redemptive work of God in Christ. We might be able to delimit this further, to a certain extent schematically, by speaking of Paul's "resurrection-eschatology. " For it is in Christ's death and subsequent resurrection that the mystery of the redemptive plan of God has manifested itself in its true character and that the new creation has come to light.

SECTION 10. IN CHRIST, WITH CHRIST. THE OLD AND THE NEW MAN

Before inquiring further into the basic christological-eschatological structure of Paul's preaching, an important implication of what has been dealt with in the previous section should be pointed out separately. It relates to the highly important question of how that which once took place in Christ also concerns others (his own, the church, etc. ) and by virtue of which principle what took place in him and was accomplished by him is applicable to them and benefits them. Here is one of the most typical motifs of Paul's preaching, which has come to be seen as most closely connected with the significance he ascribes to Christ as the last Adam and Inaugurator of the new humanity.⁴⁴ For this reason we now purpose to go further into this relationship — an important link in the fundamental structure of Paul's preaching — first by way of an interlude.

Undoubtedly one cannot say that Paul derives the redemptive significance of Christ for his own exclusively from his position as the last Adam and gives expression to it only in these "Adam-categories." The apostle not infrequently speaks of this in a less pregnant fashion and adopts the usage frequently followed elsewhere in the New Testament that Christ has executed his redemptive work "for us, " i. e., in our behalf. This is so particularly when his suffering, death, and resurrection are spoken of. It is not Paul but Christ who has been crucified for his people (1 Cor. 1: 13). God made Christ to be sin for us (2 Cor. 5: 21). He has become a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). He gave himself for our sins (Gal 1: 4; cf. 1 Tim. 2: 6; Phil. 2: 14); in due season died for the ungodly (Rom. 5: 6); died for us when we were yet sinners (Rom. 5: 8); died for our sins according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15: 3). In these and other pronouncements Paul gives expression to the redemptive significance of Christ's death in a more traditional fashion, at the basis of which terminology lie various ideas that are still to be discussed more fully (e. g., of sacrifice, ransom, etc. ).⁴⁵

It is typical of Paul's preaching, however, that he joins this general formula "for us" (in the sense of "in our behalf"⁴⁶) with another, the purport of which is that Christ forms such a unity with those for whom he appears that it can be said that they are "in him" (2 Cor. 5: 17), and that on this account what once took place "in Christ" is applicable to them. While the formula "in Christ, " "in him, " etc., appears in various connections and even exhibits something of the character of a stereotype, the application to his own of what once took place and is yet to take place with Christ often occurs with the words "with Christ," "with him," etc. In connection with the latter one is to think particularly of those pronouncements so typical of Paul's preaching which speak of being crucified, dead, buried, and raised with Christ (Rom. 6: 3ff.; Gal. 2: 19; Col. 2: 12, 13, 20; 3: 1, 3), of having been made to sit with him in heaven (Eph. 2: 6), and of appearing with him in glory (Col. 3: 4).⁴⁷

In the course of the later investigation all kinds of explanations have been given as to the nature of this connection between Christ and his people which is denoted by the formulae "in Christ" and "with Christ. " For a long time scholars have proceeded from the idea that "being in Christ" denotes communion with the pneumatic Christ, out of which then the speaking of dying, rising, etc., "with Christ" is said to have developed as a description of the closest personal experiences.⁴⁸ Some choose to think here only in a general sense of influences of Hellenistic mystical thought.⁴⁹ Others have gone much further. At the root of "being in Christ," "dying, rising with him," is supposed to be the idea of an absorption with the deity, indeed of a physical unification with the divine being. Over against the religious-ethical interpretation of oneness with Christ all the emphasis was placed on the naturhaft character of this mysticism, which one must take, not in an ethical or symbolical, but in a proper and real sense as union with the deity and which is effected in particular through baptism and the Lord's Supper in a magical way as in the rites of the mystery religions.⁵⁰

It has come to be understood increasingly, however, that with this "mystical" explanation of "in Christ" and "with Christ" one is on the wrong track. This is evident even from the fact that "being in Christ, " "crucified, dead, raised, seated in heaven with him, " obviously does not have the sense of a communion that becomes reality only in certain sublime moments, but rather of an abiding reality determinative for the whole of the Christian life, to which appeal can be made at all times, in all sorts of connections, and with respect to the whole church without distinction (cf., for example, Col. 2: 20ff.; 3:1ff. ). Rather than with certain experiences, we have to do here with the church's "objective" state of salvation, for which reason an appeal is repeatedly made to baptism (Rom. 6: 4; Col. 2: 12). It is precisely this which has been seized upon in order to interpret the co-dying and rising of believers with Christ by analogy with the initiatory rites in the mystery religions. But in addition to what may be urged against this interpretation even from a purely historical-phenomenological point of view,⁵¹ the unmistakable fact is passed over that in Paul dying, being buried, etc., with Christ does not have its ultimate ground in the ceremony of incorporation⁵² into the Christian church, but rather in already having been included in the historical death and resurrection of Christ himself. Of particular significance is the pronouncement of 2 Corinthians 5: 1411., where a clear transition becomes perceptible from the "Christ for us" to the "we with [or in] Christ":

. . . we have come to the insight that one died for all. Therefore they all have died. And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. Wherefore we henceforth know no man after the f l e s h . . . . Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is new creation . . ..

From this it is to be concluded that "having died," "being in Christ," "being new creation," the fact that his own are no longer judged and "known according to the flesh" (namely, according to the worldly mode of existence), has been given and effected with the death of Christ himself. Of this determination by and involvement of his own in that which once took place with Christ the formula "in Christ" now gives the expression so typical of Paul's preaching.⁵³

Accordingly, it becomes increasingly apparent that the expression "dying and rising with Christ" does not have its origin in the sphere of the individual mysticism of experience, nor in the automatism of the initiatory rites of the Hellenistic mysteries, but is of an entirely different nature. The attempt has been made to give expression to this "objectivity" of being in Christ and with Christ in all sorts of ways.⁵⁴ It has become more and more apparent, however, that the Adam-Christ parallel not only casts a clear light on the significance that Paul ascribes to Christ himself, but also on the way in which he sees his own as involved in him and with him in his redemptive work. This is very clear, for example, from the words of 1 Corinthians 15: 22:" . . . for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive."

The concern here (as distinguished from what is intended in 2 Cor. 5) is with the resurrection of the dead at the parousia. What really matters, however, is that here "in Christ" is paralleled with "in Adam." Herewith the character of this "in" becomes plain. As the decision has fallen in Adam with respect to the "all" who pertain to him, that they should die, so in Christ that they shall live. Adam and Christ here stand over against each other as the two great figures at the entrance of two worlds, two aeons, two "creations, " the old and the new; and in their actions and fate lies the decision for all who belong to them, because these are comprehended in them and thus are reckoned either to death or to life.⁵⁵ This is now expressed by "in Adam" and "in Christ." And it is therefore in this sense that Adam can be called the type of him who was to come.⁵⁶

In Romans 5:12ff. this is explicated still further. There Paul elucidates what he has posited in verses 1-11 as the certainty of salvation for believers, that those who have already been reconciled to God by the death of Christ shall live by him in the future. For that purpose he points to the bond that joins all the descendants of Adam with their progenitor, as the pattern and type of the communion between Christ and his own. Here there is no mention of "in Adam," but (still more "realistically"!) the transgression of Adam is called the sin of all:" . . . as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for the reason that all sinned..." (Rom. 5: 12).

On what this unity rests, whether it must be viewed, for example, as "realistic" or as "federal,"⁵⁷ is not further elucidated. Adam and Christ are spoken of here as "universal personalities... construed cosmically and eschatologically," who comprehend within themselves all the members of the generations of men pertaining to them,⁵⁸ or, with a term that has found still more acceptance, as a "corporate personality,"⁵⁹ which points to the figure (which also appears in the Old Testament) of the progenitor or leader or king or spokesman who represents a whole people or societal relationship and with whom the members of this nation, etc., in virtue of the relationship in which they stand to him, can be identified. It is this corporate connection of the all-in-One that Paul applies to Christ and his people, and from which the pronouncements concerning (dying, etc.) "with Christ" must be interpreted, at least as to their origin,⁶⁰ as is plainly evident as well from the close connection between Romans 5:12-21 (Adam and Christ) and Romans 6:Iff. (being buried with Christ, etc. ).⁶¹ We have to do here with one of the fundamental motifs of Paul's preaching of redemption, which occurs again particularly in his conception of the church.⁶² In that sense Christ and believers can be spoken of as the one seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:16), and it can be said of them that they, although many, are one body in Christ (Rom. 12: 5), indeed that they are one (heis) in Christ (Gal. 3: 28).⁶³

In close connection with the above there is another point still to be indicated in which in an oblique fashion the Adam-Christ parallel comes to still further elaboration. It is the manner in which not only Christ as the second man, but also in a more general sense the old and the new man are spoken of. The following pronouncements are of particular importance here:

. . . knowing this, that our old man was also crucified, that the body of sin might be rendered powerless (Rom. 6: 6).

But they who are of Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts (Gal. 5: 24; cf. Col. 2: 11).

. . . that you put away, as concerning your former manner of life, the old m a n . . . and put on the new man, that has been created in accordance with God (Eph. 4: 22ff. ).

. . . seeing that you have put off the old man with his desires, and have put on the new man, that is being renewed... in accordance with the image of his Creator (Col. 3:9f. ).

Frequently the old man is taken in an individual sense and the crucifying and putting off of the old man as the personal breaking with and fighting against the power of sin.⁶⁴ "Old" and "new" then designate the time before and after conversion or personal regeneration, and the corresponding manner of life. But we shall have to understand "old" and 'new man, " not in the first place in the sense of the ordo salutis, but in that of the history of redemption; that is to say, it is a matter here not of a change that comes about in the way of faith and conversion in the life of the individual Christian, but of that which once took place in Christ and in which his people had part in him in the corporate sense described above. This is at least the obvious meaning of Romans 6: 6: our old man was crucified (namely, with Christ), that is, ort Golgotha. Christ's death on the cross was their own (cf. Rom. 6: 2; Col. 3: 3) and affected them in their existence. The old man, the old mode of existence of sin, was then judged and cursed. For although Christ himself was free of sin, he was nevertheless "in the likeness of sinful flesh" and united himself with them in their existence; and their sin, their old man, was condemned in his flesh (Rom. 8: 3; cf. 7: 4). Here again, therefore, "the old" stands over against "the new"; not first of all in a personal and ethical sense, but in a redemptive-historical, eschatological sense. It is not as yet a matter here, therefore, of that which must come about and be changed in the believer, but of that which was done "objectively" to the old man in Christ, of the einmalig crucifixion of the old man on Golgotha with Christ. Hence, the words can follow in Romans 6: 6: "that the body of sin might be rendered powerless." Because the old man was condemned and put to death in Christ's death on the cross, the body of sin, the flesh, the old mode of existence of sin, has lost its dominion and control over those who are in him. In Christ's death and resurrection they have been transferred to the new order of life — the life order of the new creation, the new man.⁶⁵

Undoubtedly there is also mention of the putting off of the old and the putting on of the new man by believers themselves (Eph. 4: 22ff.; Col. 3: 9ff. ), just as it is said that they have crucified the flesh (Gal. 5: 24), and that they have put off the body of sin. This refers, as will be demonstrated still further,⁶⁶ to the transition that has come about in their life by baptism. Yet even understood in this way the expression old and new man retains a supra-individual significance; this transition has been effected in their life because they have been incorporated into the body of Christ by baptism, and they may thus apply to themselves in faith that which has taken place in Christ. They have put off the old man, as crucified and buried in Christ (Col. 2: 11), and have put on the new man, the new creation of God that has come to light in Christ's resurrection. This renewal is a continuing process (Col. 3: 9), just as the mortification of the old man is a continuing process (Eph. 4: 22). But it is the redemptive-historical transition, effected in Christ's death and resurrection, that is working itself out in this process. And it all rests on their being-in-him, as the second Adam. For this reason the new man can be spoken of as being created in accordance with God (Eph. 4: 24), or being renewed in accordance with the image of his Creator (Col. 3: 9ff.). These are all Adam-categories, for they have been (re-)created in him (Christ) as in the new Adam (Eph. 2: 10), and as they have borne the image of the first (earthly) Adam, so, by virtue of this same corporate relationship, they will bear the image of the last (heavenly) Adam (1 Cor. 15). Indeed, this corporate unity with Christ dominates the idea of the new man so strongly that believers, as the body of Christ, even in their totality can be called "the one new man" (Eph. 2: 15; cf. Gal. 3: 28), and that it can be said of them that they together, in the building up of the body of Christ, will be permitted to attain to "the perfect man, " the mature man in Christ (Eph. 4:13).⁶⁷

The corporate idea of the all-in-One derived from the significance of Adam — thus we may conclude — works itself out in all sorts of ways in the Pauline explication of the redemptive event that made its appearance in Christ. It teaches us to understand the redemptive-historical character not only of that which has once occurred in Christ, but also of the way in which those who belong to Christ participate once and continuously in the salvation wrought in Christ.

SECTION 11. REVEALED IN THE FLESH.

FLESH AND SPIRIT

If in the preceding sections Christ's resurrection has rightly been shown to be the beginning of the new creation for Paul, the question naturally arises as to what significance must be ascribed to Christ's life on earth before his death and resurrection. It has frequently been observed that Paul goes into very few details in his epistles as to Jesus' life on earth, his miracles and preaching, and the meaning of all this. Now, one will have to take into full account the fact that Paul's epistles build on a foundational preaching in which he has made known the apostolic tradition to the church. This is evident from specific references to what he had already said and which the church may thus be considered to know (cf., e. g., 1 Cor. 15: 1, 2; Gal. 1: 11; 2 Thess. 2: 5; 3: 10). Only in certain connections in his epistles does he repeat fragments of this tradition because there was a particular occasion for it (1 Cor. 11:23ff.; 15: 2ff.). In the same sense he appeals only incidentally to specific pronouncements of Jesus (1 Cor. 7: 10; cf. v. 25; 9: 14; 1 Thess. 4:15), from which it appears that in general the point of departure for his instruction lay in them. If one looks more closely, it becomes apparent that his epistles contain all kinds of conscious or unconscious reminiscences of and allusions to words of Jesus (cf., e. g., Rom. 12: 14; 13: 9; Gal. 5: 14; 1 Cor. 13: 2).⁶⁸

This does not alter the fact that in Paul's epistles the significance of Jesus' advent and life on earth before his resurrection is usually not drawn from specific words or works of the Lord, but is approached more from a general redemptive-historical point of view. It is typical of this approach that the apostle prefers to characterize Jesus' life on earth before his resurrection as his existence "after the flesh, " or "in the flesh." One has only to think of the following pronouncements:

. . . who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom. 1: 3).

. . . God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom. 8: 3).

. . . of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh (Rom. 9: 5).

. . . even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him [so] no more (2 Cor. 5:16).

. . . who made both one, and . . . abolished in his flesh the enmity (Eph. 2:14ff.).

. . . but now he has reconciled you in the body of his flesh through death (Col. 1: 22).

. . . who was revealed in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16).

On the one hand, in several of these pronouncements the accent is laid on the wholly unique, eschatological character of Christ's advent and his life on earth. He was even then the Son sent by God (Rom. 8: 3), the evidence that the time was fulfilled (Gal. 4: 4). His advent was revelation (1 Tim. 3:16) of what till that moment had been hidden, fulfillment of God's counsel.⁶⁹ He was the Christ out of Israel (Rom. 9: 5), the long-expected Son of David (Rom. 1: 3). But his revelation took place "in the flesh," that is, he assumed the mode of existence of the present world. "Flesh" does not refer only to the physical, nor merely to the human as such, but to the human in its weakness, transitoriness, that which Paul elsewhere terms being "of the earth, earthy" (1 Cor. 15: 47), and what in Galatians 4 is called being "born of a woman." In Romans 8: 3 he speaks of "the likeness of sinful flesh," in which God sent his Son."Flesh" and "sinful flesh" need not coincide. But sin in the nature of the case takes place in the flesh and stamps the human mode of existence as "the sinful flesh." It is in "the likeness" of this that God sent his Son, a phrase with which Paul elsewhere expresses the difference between correspondence and identity (cf. Rom. 6: 5). Christ came, therefore, in the weak, transitory human state, without sharing in the sin of the human race. It was in that way, in that mode of existence, that he was "known" before his resurrection (2 Cor. 5: 16). In this "flesh" he lived and he died, or as it is also called: "in the body of his flesh" (Col. 1: 22), which expression likewise refers not only to the physical as material organism, but to the whole of Christ's existence as a man subject to transitoriness, dishonor, frailty (cf. I Cor. 15: 42ff). And it was also in this flesh, i. e., his human existence delivered up to the death of the cross, that the enmity was abolished, the church reconciled, and sin condemned (Eph. 2: 14, 15; Col. 1: 2; Rom. 8: 3).

It is Christ's being revealed in the flesh (to be understood in this way) that is the specific significance of Christ's life before his resurrection, and which is to be adored (cf. 1 Tim. 3: 16a). The revelation, the sending of the Son, the fullness of the time, already took effect with it. But the new creation is that of Christ's resurrection. For this reason the death of Christ is a turning point in the mode of existence of the old aeon. Christ dies to it, through death he dies to the flesh, to the old aeon (cf. Rom. 6: 7, 9ff.). It is this turning point to which Paul orients himself and to which he wants believers to orient themselves (Rom. 6: 11; 8: 10; Col. 3: 3). Not only does Christ's life in the flesh come to an end, but an all-important and all-embracing Transition takes place, namely, from the existence of the old to that of the new, from the old aeon to the new creation. By dying Christ has thus snatched his people away from the present aeon (Gal. 1: 4). From this moment on faith no longer "knows, " that is to say, judges, "after the flesh" (2 Cor. 5: 16). It regards all things from another point of view, namely, that the aeon of the sole dominion of the flesh is done away with and the mode of existence of the Spirit has been entered upon.

For in Paul it is the Spirit who stands over against the "flesh" described in this way:

. . . of the seed of David according to the flesh, designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness in virtue of his resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1: 3, 4).

. . . who was revealed in the flesh, justified by the Spirit (1 Tim. 3: 16).

. . . the body is dead,... the Spirit is life (Rom. 8: 10).

Flesh (body) and Spirit do not stand over against one another here as two "parts" in the human existence or in the existence of Christ. There is no question here (nor in Rom. 8: 10!) of a dichotomistic distinction in an anthropological sense. Nor is the contrast ethical, as is indeed the case in other contexts (Gal. 5: 13, et al.), even though there, too, on the foundation to be further indicated here. Rather, "flesh" and "Spirit" represent two modes of existence, on the one hand that of the old aeon which is characterized and determined by the flesh, on the other that of the new creation which is of the Spirit of God. It is in this sense that the difference is also to be taken between the first Adam as "living soul," i. e., flesh, and the second as life-giving Spirit. The contrast is therefore of a redemptive-historical nature: it qualifies the world and the mode of existence before Christ as flesh, that is, as the creaturely in its weakness; on the other hand, the dispensation that has taken effect with Christ as that of the Spirit, i. e., of power, imperishableness and glory (1 Cor. 15: 42, 43, 50; Phil. 3: 21). It is within this redemptive-historical contrast of flesh and Spirit as the mode of existence of the old and new creation that Paul now views the life of Christ before and after his resurrection. In virtue of his resurrection from the

dead, Christ, "according to the Spirit of holiness, "⁷⁰ is declared to be the Son of God in power (Rom. 1: 4); he is "justified" (i. e., vindicated, disclosed in his true significance) by the Spirit (1 Tim. 3: 16). It is in that new existence of the resurrection and of the Spirit that the church may now know Christ (2 Cor. 5: 16), and may also judge itself as joined with him. The body, that is to say, life, insofar as it still belongs to the old aeon, is (subject to) death because of sin, but the Spirit, the Author of the new creation, gives life because of the righteousness accomplished in Christ⁷¹ (Rom. 8: 10). For this reason the church is no longer "in the flesh, " i. e., subject to the regime of the first aeon and the evil powers reigning in it, but "in the Spirit, " brought under the dominion of freedom in Christ (Rom. 8: 2ff., 9, 13; 2 Cor. 3: 6; Gal. 3: 21). All the facets of the contrast of flesh and Spirit, which are to be treated still further in what follows,⁷² become transparent and luminous out of this basic eschatological structure of Paul's preaching and constitute a highly important element of it.

In the history of the investigation — as we have seen — the "flesh and Spirit" contrast has frequently been viewed as a proof that Paul withdrew from the original eschatological consciousness of the primitive Christian church and became dependent on Hellenistic thinking. The contrast of flesh and Spirit was, moreover, at one time interpreted in an idealistic sense, as that between the Absolute and the historical and therefore relative; at another as the "ethical" struggle between the higher and the lower in man.⁷³ Without regard, however, to the fact that one is compelled thus to come to accept all manner of mutually contradictory basic motifs in Paul's preaching, one also in this way misjudges the real nature of the work of the Spirit in Paul. For this nature is not to be understood as a Christianizing of the Greek or Hellenistic pneuma- concept, however understood, but finds its clear and "natural" background in the Old Testament thinking and speaking about the Spirit. There the Spirit appears repeatedly in the closest relationship with the acting of God in history. The Spirit represents the creating and re-creating power of God that governs the world and history and conducts them to their final goal.⁷⁴ He is the Creator and the Precursor of the great future, he equips the coming Messiah-Savior for his task, and he will pour out his gifts without measure on the eschatological people of God (cf., e. g., Isa. 32: 15; 11: 2; 59: 21; 61: 1; Joel 2: 28, 29; Zech. 4: 6; 12: 10, et al. ).⁷⁵In the New Testament the Spirit is consequently spoken of, by Paul too, in all sorts of ways in connection with and in terms of this promise (cf., e. g., Acts 2: 16; Rom. 2: 29; 5: 5; 8: 15; 2 Cor. 3: 3, 6; Gal. 3: 14; Eph. 1: 13). It has rightly been observed, therefore, that the content of the pneuma-concept in Paul admits of being most sharply defined and filled in when he is understood as the gift of the end time⁷⁶ (see further below, Section 14).

SECTION 12. CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD AND THE IMAGE OF GOD

However much Paul's Christology finds its point of departure in Christ's death and resurrection and to whatever degree he draws the lines from thence on the one hand to the incarnation and on the other to the future of the Lord, all this does not alter the fact that the whole of his preaching of the historical and future revelation of Christ is supported by the confession of Christ as the Son of God, in the supra- and prehistorical sense of the word. It can even rightly be said that the sending of the Son by the Father in the fullness of time presupposes his pre-existence with God (cf. Gal. 4: 4; Rom. 8: 3 with such passages as 2 Cor. 8: 9; Phil. 2: 6ff.; Col. l: 15ff.; Rom. 8: 32).⁷⁷ This pre-existence of Christ with the Father so emphatically declared by Paul underlies his whole. Christology and makes it impossible to conceive of all the divine attributes and power that he ascribes to Christ exclusively as the consequence of his exaltation. It is true that he often speaks in this sense of the Kyrios exalted by God, to whom he prays (2 Cor. 12: 8, 9), whose name is to be "called upon" in the church (1 Cor. 1: 2; Rom. 10: 13), from whom one may expect that which God alone has the power to grant (Rom. 1: 7; 1 Cor. 1: 3; Rom. 16: 20; 2 Cor. 13: 13), before whose judgment seat all will appear (2 Cor. 5: 10; cf. Rom. 14: 10), and whose gospel, kingdom, and Spirit are spoken of as those of God (cf. Rom. 1: 1; 15: 16; Eph. 5: 5; Rom. 8: 9, et al. ).⁷⁸ But this "exaltation Christology" is at the same time not for a moment to be divorced from the significance of Christ's person as such. This is also evident from the (few) places where Paul calls Christ himself God, to be blessed forever (Rom. 9: 5; cf. 2 Thess. 1: 12; Tit. 2: 13),⁷⁹ whereby one cannot, of course, think of a conferred or acquired dignity or mode of existence; but then further in particular from the pronouncements on his pre-existence. It is this pre-existence of Christ with the Father that we must take fully into account in the interpretation of the name frequently and continuously employed by Paul of Christ as the Son of God (Rom. 1: 3, 4, 9: 5: 10; 8: 3, 29, 32; 1 Cor. 1: 9; 2 Cor. 1: 19; Gal. 1: 16; 2: 20; 4: 4, 6; Eph. 4: 13:; Col. 1: 13; 1 Thess. 1: 10). For this reason, too, we cannot accept Cullmann's thesis that "it is only meaningful to speak of the Son in view of God's revelatory action, not in view of his being."⁸⁰ However true it is that the name Son of God again and again denotes the entirely unique relationship of Christ to the Father in the divine redemptive work revealed in him, one cannot, precisely because of this pre-existence (that: is, the existing prior to the revelation) of the Son, permit the being of the Son to be lost in his revelation as the Son of God. God sent his Son (Rom. 8: 3; Gal. 4: 4), and this sending does not create the Sonship, but presupposes it.⁸¹ For the same reason, on the other hand, where there is mention of the consummation of Christ's work of redemption, in the words of 1 Corinthians 15: 28 (when the Son has subjected all things to the Father, then will he himself be subjected to him, that God may be all in all), this cannot mean the end of the Sonship.⁸² One will rather have to judge the "post-existence" of the Son intended here in the light of what is elsewhere so clearly stated of his pre-existence.

All this does not alter the fact — and this is the element of truth in Cullmann's argument — that when he speaks of Christ's pre-existence, Paul regards and designates this not as separate from, but precisely in its bearing on Christ's revelation in redemptive history. So far as the latter is concerned, it can be said that he makes the line of redemptive history go back to Christ's pre-existence and represents his pre-temporal divine Sonship to the church from the viewpoint of Christ's revelation in redemptive history. As the Pre-existent One, too, the Son of God is the Christ, the object of God's election (Eph. 1: 4), and as such the one in whom the grace of God has been given to the church before times eternal (2 Tim. 1: 9; cf. Eph. 1: 9); likewise the one in whom the church itself had already been comprehended, chosen, and sanctified (Eph. 1: 4; 2: 10; cf. Rom. 8: 29).

In this connection those pronouncements are to be mentioned in particular which describe Christ as the Image of God:

. . . Christ, who is the Image of God (2 Cor. 4: 4).

. . . who [Christ] is the Image of the invisible God (Col. 1: 15).

. . . who, being in the form of God (Phil. 2: 6).

These formulations are so important because Paul gives expression in them to the divine glory of Christ in a way that is very significant and highly characteristic for his Christology. In the context of 2 Corinthians 4: 4 Paul speaks of his gospel as an irradiation of the divine glory. He motivates this by calling Christ, whose glory is seen in the gospel, the Image of God, and then speaks further of this glory as the light that God, who through the word of his power once brought light forth out of darkness, has made to shine in the hearts of the church by the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. We shall, as is also apparent in 2 Corinthians 3: 18, have to think in connection with this glory especially of the glory of the exalted Lord. When in this context he is called at the same time the Image of God, this is to say nothing less than that in him the glory of God, indeed God himself, becomes manifest. By calling Christ the Image of God he thus identifies Christ's glory with that of God himself.⁸³ And the same thing applies to Colossians 1: 15 and the definition of "Image of God" in Philippians 2: 6, which is to be discussed still further. There is, however, special mention of Christ's glory as the Pre-existent One in these passages. As such, by the designation Image of God he is on the one hand distinguished from God, and on the other identified with God as Bearer of the divine glory. It is evident here anew, therefore, to what extent the divine glory of Christ, even already in his pre-existence with the Father prior to his redemptive revelation, determines and underlies the Pauline Christology.

On the other hand, precisely in this description of Christ's divine glory a new indication can be seen of the redemptive-historical character of Paul's Christology. Surely this name in itself recalls the manner in which Adam is spoken of in Genesis 1: 27; 5: Iff.; 9: 6, when he is there said to be created "after" or "in the Image of God."⁸⁴ The question now is whether a connection has rightly been made between the one and the other,⁸⁵ in other words, whether the description of the glory of Christ as Image of God is derived from the manner in which the creation of man is spoken of in Genesis 1 as after God's image. And a second question is quite naturally linked with this, as to the extent to which the Pauline conception of Christ as the second Adam here again plays a definite part.

Some scholars deny any direct connection between 2 Corinthians 4: 4 and Colossians 1: 15 on the one hand, and Genesis 1: 27 on the other.⁸⁶ But it has rightly been observed that both 2 Corinthians 4: 4 and Colossians 1: 15 are in all sorts of ways directly reminiscent of the

creation story. So far as 2 Corinthians 4: 4 is concerned, Genesis 1: 3 is cited in 2 Corinthians 4: 6. Further, in this context there is repeated mention of "glory" (doxa; 3: 18; 4: 4, 6), an idea that both in later Judaism and by Paul himself is closely linked with Genesis l: 26ff. (cf. 1 Cor. 11: 7; Rom. 1: 23; 3: 23; 8: 29ff.). " Furthermore, in the context of 2 Corinthians 4: 4 the image (of God) is attributed not only to Christ, but also to the church (2 Cor. 3: 18), which is obviously reminiscent of Genesis 1: 27.⁸⁷ And with respect to Colossians 1: 15 (of Phil. 2: 6 we shall speak still further), the whole of the so-called hymn in that passage speaks of the creation. The expression Image of God is here clearly rooted in Genesis 1: 27. This is further corroborated by the fact that Christ is here likewise called the Beginning (arche) and the Firstborn (prōlotokos; 1: 15, 18), and is set forth as World Ruler, an idea to be met with as well in the late Jewish Adam-theology. The conclusion is:"We have before us [in Col. 1], therefore, a christological interpretation of Genesis l. "⁸⁸

However, everything has not herewith been said. The question remains as to whether this connection — which it is difficult to deny — also means that Christ is in this way again described by Paul as (the last) Adam (1 Cor. 15; Rom. 5). Here the paths of the interpreters diverge once more. While some do in fact conceive of the connection with Genesis 1: 27 in this sense, it is denied by others. Paul, by naming Christ here Image of God in the absolute sense (and not created "after" God's image), is said to distinguish in the manner of Philo and Gnosticism between the heavenly prototype (Urbild) and its earthly representation (Abbild). Christ represents the former, while in Genesis 1: 27 there is mention of the latter.⁸⁹ In the expression Image of God as a description of Christ we are accordingly said not to have to do with a creation of Paul's, but with an even older usage in the Hellenistic church.⁹⁰

Now the matter is indeed a complicated one. When Paul speaks of Christ as Image of God, he describes him thereby not, as is the case when he calls him the last Adam (1 Cor. 15: 45ff.), as the second or last man, but, at least in Colossians 1: 15 (and Phil. 2: 6), as the Pre-existent One in his divine glory. It can even be maintained that by the name Image of God in the passages in question Paul intended to elucidate precisely "the eternal relationship of the Father to the Son."⁹¹ On the other hand, the idea that in 2 Corinthians 4 and Colossians l: 15ff. Paul has indeed established a direct connection with Genesis 1: 27, but in so doing has not started from the image of God intended in Genesis 1: 27, but from a traditional Philonic-gnostic speculation concerning an Urbild (distinct from that of Gen. 1: 27), is certainly not very credible. If one wishes, as in our opinion is inescapable, to establish a direct relationship between Genesis 1: 27 and the Pauline pronouncements concerning Christ as the Image of God, one will not be able at the same time to rob this connection of its force by slipping in between them a gnostic speculation entirely alien to this connection. Paul himself gives no evidence of such a "re-interpretation" of Genesis 1: 27 in the relevant passages in any fashion whatever, and on the other hand can hardly be regarded as having silently applied so fundamental an operation to Genesis 1: 27. We can come to no other conclusion, therefore, than that in the above-mentioned passages Paul has denoted the divine glory of Christ both in his pre-existence and in his exaltation with a qualification that also held for the first Adam, although, of course, in another sense appropriate to the first Adam.

This conclusion is the only acceptable one for the reason that the connection to be assumed in 2 Corinthians 4 and Colossians 1 with Genesis 1: 27 on further reflection appears to rest on a much broader foundation in the Pauline epistles than on that of these two texts. It is true that the apostle, so far as the creation of man after God's image is concerned, only once explicitly refers to Genesis 1: 27, namely, in 1 Corinthians 11: 7, where he calls the man the image⁹² and glory of God. In this context he then mentions the woman, because she is of the man, the glory of the man, and the man the head of the woman. He joins to this, however, the pronouncement that Christ is the Head of the man, and God is the Head of Christ (cf. v. 3). To be Head, to shed forth glory, is therefore a consequence of being the image of God. And when God, Christ, the man, and the woman are here mentioned successively, it may be concluded that Christ, too, derives this Headship and glory from the fact that he, in a still higher sense than the man, is the Image of God. This same parallel of the headship of the man over the woman and the Headship of Christ over the church recurs in Ephesians 5: 23, even though here there is no mention of the image of God. We do, however, find the linking of the Image of God and the Headship of Christ in Colossians 1: 15 and 17. Thus there are obvious connections between the glory of Christ and that of the first man as the image of God.

Other pronouncements corroborate this. In 1 Corinthians 15: 45ff. in the comparison between the first and the last Adam this pronouncement also occurs: "And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" (v. 49).

It is true that the words "image of the earthy" (ton eikōna tou choikou) do not here allude so much to the glory of the first man as image of God, but rather to his having been taken from the earth; it first of all reflects Genesis 2: 7 (cf. 1 Cor. 15: 45) and not Genesis l: 25ff. Even so, it is difficult to think of the expression "image" here apart from the manner in which the first man is called the image (of God) in Genesis Iff.⁹³ He bore this image as the earthy man, the man taken from the earth. But he nevertheless bore this "image, " and it can be said of him as bearer of the image of God that he begot his descendants after his own likeness and his own image (Gen. 5: 1, 3⁹⁴ — the passage to which 1 Cor. 15: 49 perhaps also refers). In any case —and this is for us the most important thing — Christ's image as the Heavenly is here spoken of in the closest relationship to the image of the first man. The "image" that Christ represents and which he gives to his own is thus very clearly thought of here as parallel to the image of the first man and to that which he communicated to his descendants. In this context such passages as Ephesians 4: 24 and Colossians 3: 10 also come to stand in a clearer light.

On the basis of all these materials it is difficult to deny that the absolute use of the Image of God as a qualification of Christ must be connected with what is said in Genesis Iff. of the first Adam. In the nature of the case Christ is not herewith put on a level with the first Adam. The glory of the second Adam is incomparably greater than that of the first. But it must certainly be ascertained that Christ's divine power and glory, already in his pre-existence,⁹⁵ are defined in categories that have been derived from his significance as the second Adam (cf. further Section 13).

All this finds expression in a still more direct and pregnant way in the well-known christological passage of Philippians 2: 6ff.:⁹⁶ " . . . who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. "

In the history of the investigation the initial words (en morphē Theou hyparchōn) in particular have frequently been subjected to an abstract conceptual definition.⁹⁷ Here again, however, the Pauline conception of Christ as the Image of God on analogy with Genesis 1: 27 appears to offer the key for a clearer insight. To be sure, this has often been hidden from view because there is mention here of the "form" and not the "image" of God, as in 2 Corinthians 4: 4 and Colossians 1:15. Some have wanted indeed to oppose the interchangeableness of these two ideas.⁹⁸ However, even various church fathers understood the expression "being in the form of God" as a parallel of "Image of God" in 2 Corinthians 4: 4 and Colossians 1: 15, and Philippians 2: 6 as an interpretation of Genesis 1: 27.⁹⁹ In the more recent literature¹⁰⁰ the view that "form" (morphē) has no other meaning in this context than image (eikōn) has once again gained ground, and, along with this, the conclusion that the expressions in 2 Corinthians 4: 4; Colossians 1: 15 and that in Philippians 2: 6 are to be regarded as synonyms. In addition to the evidence that can be drawn from the usage of the Septuagint, Paul's own epistles afford more than one illustration for such an interchangeableness of morphē and eikōn. And this is of the greater importance because these examples repeatedly bring us into the sphere of thought of the first and second man.¹⁰¹ We have to do here with a combination of concepts and ideas (to which here again the concept "glory" also belongs; cf. 2 Cor. 3: 18; Phil. 3: 21) that are all closely bound up with the creation and significance of the first Adam and thus cast a clear light on the initial words in Philippians 2: 6.

Now, this interpretation is furthermore corroborated by the fact that in what immediately follows Christ is spoken of as being "equal with God," in which phrase it is easy to discover an allusion to that with which the serpent deluded the first man: "you shall be as God" (Gen. 3: 5). Likewise the idea hidden in the words "thought it not robbery" then admits of being more easily understood. While the first Adam wanted to appropriate to himself the being on an equality with God in an unlawful manner, Christ did not regard this equality, in which he already shared, as a privilege that had come to him for his own advantage,¹⁰² on the ground of which he could have refused the way of self-emptying and humiliation. Even here he manifests the disposition, which in verse 8 is called his obedience, to accept suffering, a word once again striking in this context, which apart from this passage is elsewhere applied by Paul to Christ only in Romans 5:19, where he again points out the difference between the first and second Adam. And herewith has been given the third indication of the extent to which the composition of Philippians 2: 6ff., especially where this pericope deals with the pre-existent Christ, is determined by Paul's view of Christ as the second man and the last Adam.¹⁰³

All this can only confirm our initial conviction that, when he calls Christ the Image of God, Paul once again relates Christ to the first Adam. But this must not tempt us to the conclusion drawn by some that Paul here represents Christ as the man come from heaven. So, for example, Cullmann writes that Christ is here "the pre-existent Heavenly Man, the pre-existent pure image of God, the God-man already in his pre-existence."¹⁰⁴ He then relates this to the significance of Christ as the Son of Man, a title which, to be sure, does not occur in Paul, at least in the form known to us from the Gospels, but which is said to be met with once again in Paul's pronouncements concerning Christ as Adam.¹⁰⁵ Others, as we have already seen, seek the background of this notion not in the Old Testament, but in pre-Christian Gnosticism.¹⁰⁶

So far as this last is concerned, we have already pointed out the problems with which one is faced when he has Paul at work here with gnostic materials (adopted by him from the Hellenistic church). Without regard to the fact that the whole idea of a pre-Christian primal-man redeemer appears to be encountering ever greater objections in the continuing investigation,¹⁰⁷ one is confronted with not inconsiderable difficulties when he has Paul at one time relate Christ with the Adam of the Old Testament and at another with the primal man of Gnosticism. That for his reflection on the connection between Adam and Christ Paul, at any rate in 1 Corinthians 15, appeals to explicit, pronouncements of Genesis 1-3 is undeniable. That in Philippians 2 he is working with an entirely different Adam, or with an entirely different interpretation of Genesis 1-3, would be, to say the least, very surprising. It is much more plausible, therefore, to seek the background of Philippians 2 (with Cullmann, et al.), not in the conceptuality of later Hellenistic Gnosticism, but in the Old Testament, specifically in Genesis 1-3.¹⁰⁸

When Cullmann, however, wishes to find in Philippians the representation of Christ's human pre-existence, at least that of Christ as (divine) "man from heaven," we are convinced that he is moving on the wrong track. For in Philippians it is said with great clarity that by emptying himself Christ became man and made his appearance as man in contrast to his previous "being in the form of God."¹⁰⁹ However much the description of Christ's pre-existence in Philippians occurs, therefore, in terms that relate him to the first Adam, this may not mislead us to the conclusion that according to Paul Christ was already man in heaven,¹¹⁰ or must be regarded as the pre-existent Son of Man.¹¹¹

We are thus faced here with the remarkable, in some degree paradoxical, phenomenon that Paul describes Christ's pre-human, divine mode of existence and his "disposition" shown in it (Phil. 2: 5) with features that make him known to us already in his pre-existence as the second Adam. To want to join to this the speculative idea of Christ as the pre-existent heavenly man brings us into conflict with the text itself and finds no support elsewhere in Paul's preaching. What takes place here is the extension of the redemptive-historical outlook to Christ's pre-existence. Starting from the risen Christ as second man or last Adam (1 Cor. 15), and from his glory as Image of God (2 Cor. 4), Paul regards the whole of the divine Sonship from this point of view.

There is in all this something highly characteristic of Paul's "Christology." Without any doubt Christ is for him the Son of God, not only in virtue of his revelation, but from before the foundation of the world, God, to be blessed forever. But as such he is from before the foundation of the world and to all eternity God-for-us. It is not the Godhood of Christ in itself, but that he is God and God's Son for us which is the content and foundation even of the most profound of his christological pronouncements. He is God, who became man and was to become man. He is called Image of God as the one who was predestined to become man, and as the Firstborn of many brethren to make others share in this image (Rom. 8: 29; 1 Cor. 15: 49; 2 Cor. 3: 18). He is the Son of God, who was sent (Rom. 8: 3; Gal. 4: 4), who was not spared by God (Rom. 8: 32), who was born of the seed of David (Rom. 1: 3), who died (Rom. 5:10), who by his resurrection was declared to be the Son of God in power (Rom. 1: 4). In a word, his Sonship and his Redeemership are in Paul's preaching nowhere abstracted. For this reason even in the glory of his pre-existence he can be designated by the name of the last Adam and he can already be ascribed the disposition that would characterize him as the second man.

It has often been supposed that in the manner in which Paul speaks of the destining, the sending, the glorification of the Son of God, tendencies are to be discovered that would later be called subordinationistic or adoptionistic. But this is an illusion. Paul is nowhere engaged in limiting Christ's divine glory, whether in his pre-existence or in his exaltation, with respect to that of God himself. For him Christ's being the Son of God is none other than being God himself. And if it has been thought necessary to subtract anything from that assessment on the basis of certain expressions, it is due to the transposition of redemptive-historical into ontic categories. Indeed, it is characteristic of Paul that he speaks of Christ's divine Sonship in no other way than in direct connection with his redemptive work. His whole "Christology" rests on the manner in which he has learned to understand Christ in his cross and resurrection as the Sent One of the Father. For this reason he delineates even the glory of Christ in his pre-existence and in his divine exaltation with features drawn from redemptive history, and the image of the second Adam can be clearly recognized in the pronouncements of Christ's "riches" in heaven and his "being equal with God."

SECTION 13. THE FIRST BORN OF EVERY CREATURE

It may be that what has just been said can furnish us with the key to a better understanding of a series of pronouncements that describe a still wider sphere of Christ's redemptive significance and of his corresponding glory as the Image of God: those which speak of Christ's position with respect to the whole creation. T h e following passages in particular are to b e considered here:

Yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him (1 Cor. 8: 6).

. . . according to his [God's] good pleasure which he purposed in him with regard to the dispensation of the fulness of the times, to gather together all things in Christ, the things in heaven as well as the things on earth (Eph. 1: 10).

Of special importance is the great passage of Colossians l: 15ff.:

Who [Christ] is the Image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of every creature.

For in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and unto him;

And he is before all things, and all things have their existence together in him. And he is the Head of the body, the church; who is the Beginning, the Firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might be the First.

For the whole Fulness was pleased to dwell in him, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, he [God] having made peace by the blood of his cross, through him, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens.

Scholars have attempted in a great variety of ways to clarify the backgrounds of these so-called "cosmic" dimensions of Paul's Christology or — if they think it necessary to deny such ideas to Paul — of the Epistle to the Colossians (and to the Ephesians), which are dated (much) later. One explanation that was long in vogue makes reference to the wellknown notions concerning "Wisdom" in Proverbs 8: 22 (cf. Prov. 3: 19), modified still further in the book of Wisdom (7: 21, 25ff.) and in Ecclesiasticus (1, 4). Paul is said in Colossians l: 15ff. to have invested the Messiah Jesus with the aureole of the Jewish wisdom figure.¹¹² Others are of the opinion that this explanation, although it contains much that is valuable, is not adequate and that the anthrōpos-speculations in Philo and in the Hermetic literature must also be taken into consideration.¹¹³ The most radical standpoint is occupied by those who see in Colossians 1:15-20 a pre-Christian hymn of gnostic origin that with a few slight alterations and additions has been adopted here and applied to Christ.¹¹⁴ Others suppose that this obtains only for the first part of Colossians 1: 15-20, namely, for verses 15-18a. To this first "gnostic" strophe of the song in Colossians 1 the second, Christian strophe (vv. 18b-20) is then said to have been subjoined, with the intention of malting it plain that "the first anthrōpos" (of the gnosis) is identical with Christ.¹¹⁵

To be sure, one must properly distinguish here between the terminology and the matter itself. So far as the former is concerned, one could assume that Paul found occasion in the pretension of the heresy at Colosse (that it had the true "knowledge, " "wisdom" at its disposal) to transfer certain features of the Old Testament Wisdom to Christ. Thus he says in Colossians 2: 3, in his rejection of the "philo-sophia of men" (v. 8), that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ. In the sequence of such terms as insight, knowledge, wisdom (Col. 2: 2ff.), one is surely to observe a certain reaction to the heresy. Yet on further reflection this appears to be of a very general nature. If one compares the pronouncements concerning Wisdom in the chokmatic literature with what is said of Christ in Colossians l:15ff., then only a vague similarity is to be noted here. Wisdom is indeed called the "image of God's goodness," "master builder of all things" (Sap. 7: 21fï.), and "of all things the first created" (protera pantōn ektistai sophia; Sir. 1: 4), and "the beginning of his [God's] way" (Kyrios ektisen me archēn hodōn autou eis erga autou; Prov. 8: 22); but with all that, it is and remains a creature of God, pertaining to that which is created; while Christ, precisely distinguished from all that is created, stands on the side of God (Col. 1: 15). If one remembers, moreover, that Wisdom in the passages quoted is a personification, while Christ is the divine person himself, not the means or the Mediator God employs, and that no connection between Wisdom on the one hand and the Messiah on the other can be shown either in the Jews or in Paul, then it is surely evident that Colossians l: 15ff. very definitely cannot be understood as a christological interpretation of Wisdom. There are terminological points of contact here, vague reminiscences of the Wisdom literature, but as an interpretative principle for the "cosmic" significance of Christ the pronouncements concerning Wisdom can function neither terminologically nor — a fortiori! — materially. In no respect whatever was this notion of Sophia sufficient for Paul to have arrived at these very radical pronouncements concerning Christ.¹¹⁶

As regards the materials from Philo and the Hermetic literature,¹¹⁷ the case is weaker still. Undoubtedly in the speculations of Philo about the Logos as the totality of divine ideas such terms occur as "the Son of God, " "protogonos," "beginning and name of God," "the manafter-the-image," and the like. And in the Hermetic literature, whether or not with reference to Genesis 1, it is said of the hypostatized cosmos that he is the image of God, and the divine primal man is spoken of in similar terms.¹¹⁸ One can speak here of terminologically comparable materials, which with respect to these speculations concerning creation is not particularly surprising. One must also take into consideration the fact that such words as image, firstborn, and beginning have had a wide circulation in the Jewish literature.¹¹⁹ Thus there is no necessity whatever that Paul must have been specifically dependent on the Philonic or Hermetic terminology. And this is even less the case because there is a fundamental difference materially between the speculations of Philo concerning the Logos, etc., and of the Hermetic literature concerning the primal man on the one side, and the christological pronouncements of Colossians 1:15ff: on the other. In this whole epistle Paul is speaking of the person of Jesus Christ in conformity with the gospel that has been given to the church, and he admonishes it to adhere to this and not to suffer itself to be led astray by strange doctrine, tradition of men, rudiments of the world (cf. 2: 6ff. ). He intends this Christ in Colossians l: 15ff. as well, not an abstract Logos-idea or a mythological anthrōpos. Can one nevertheless assume that, in the form of a hymn, he incorporated into his gospel and simply identified with Christ such an absolutely non-Christian speculation, as Käsemann wants to do? And if one cannot — for this reason! — regard Paul as the writer of the epistle, can one then expect this of another writer, who wrote this epistle and whom one must therefore surely term at the least a disciple of Paul? Moreover, if for verses 18b-20 such a gnostic Vorlage is regarded as unacceptable (a) because one cannot speak of a pre-Christian gnostic Redeemer upon good grounds, and (b) because verses 18b-20 are altogether too characteristic of the Pauline Christology,¹²⁰ is it then to be considered at all probable that this second, Christian strophe was simply attached to a first, non-Christian, gnostic strophe, with the theological purpose of demonstrating that this gnostic anthrōpos is identical with Christ?¹²¹ If it is here to be a matter not only of stringing together the most heterogeneous quantities, but further in some degree of explaining the background of this "cosmic" Christology, is not one permitted to make the demand that this deep and far-reaching idea concerning Christ's relationship to the whole creation be in some measure placed in organic connection with the central motifs of the early Christian preaching in general and that of Paul in particular? And this the more so because, as is evident from the passages cited above, the ideas elaborated in Colossians 1: 15ff. also appear to be present in essence elsewhere in Paul's epistles, both in Ephesians 1 and in 1 Corinthians 8: 6.

As has already been shown in the examination of the significance of the christological name "Image of God,"¹²² we undoubtedly have to do in Colossians l: 15ff. with creation categories, and therefore also with a clear reflection of Genesis 1. The crucial question now, however, is whether the connection of "Christology" and "protology" here is different from the Pauline conception, familiar from 1 Corinthians 15, of Christ as the second Adam; or whether it is organically related to it. With respect to the qualification of Christ occurring here again in the opening words," . . . who is the Image of the invisible God, " we have already attempted in the preceding section to vindicate such an organic relationship. In what follows this phrase, the conceptual material connected with the creation is much more extensive still. And therein in a certain sense the answer is to be found to the problem as to whether the explanation given earlier of the Image of God is the correct one.

What follows the pronouncement concerning the Image of God is at once of special importance: the Firstborn of every creature. That this designation in general contains an allusion to Adam is obvious. Even the fact that in the Jewish writings, although not in a conspicuous manner, Adam is called the Firstborn may argue for this.¹²³ Likewise the connection Firstborn of every creature points in this direction. It does not denote temporal order merely, but order of rank, position of rulership, in which it is easy to discover a reminiscence of the position Adam occupied among all of creation, likewise in virtue of his creation after God's Image (Gen. l: 28ff. ). It is of more importance, however, that this name functions in the Pauline conception of the second Adam. For this name recurs in Colossians 1: 18, when Christ is called the Firstborn from the dead, just as Christ is termed already in Romans 8: 29, once more in connection with the Image of God, the Firstborn among many brethren. And it is surely this function of Firstborn and Image of God in virtue of his resurrection from the dead which leads Paul in 1 Corinthians 15: 45 to place Christ over against Adam as the second over against the first man. What happens in Colossians 1: 15, therefore, is this, that Paul applies the same "Adamitic" categories (Image, Firstborn) with which he describes Christ's significance in "eschatology" to his place in "protology" as well.

The sequel to Colossians 1: 15 confirms this. It gives a further explication of Christ's glory as Image of God and Firstborn of every creature in the profound words, that in him all things were created, in the heavens and upon the e a r t h . . . , that all things have been created through him and unto him, that he is before all things, and that all things have their existence together in him. Here again it is easy even in general to discover a reminiscence of what is said in Genesis 1 of the first Adam; the summing up of what is "in heaven" and what is "upon earth" (Gen. l: 26ff), the creation of all things for the sake of man (however much the place of Christ transcends this ruling position of the first man as the Image of God). It is again the case here, however, that Paul denotes the relationship of Christ to all creation with concepts with which he elsewhere gives expression to Christ's relationship as second Adam to the church.¹²⁴ The "corporative" ideas that the apostle employs are here to be pointed out in particular: the gathering together of all things in Christ and their existing together in him, as the church in its Head. It is in that sense that one will have to interpret the statement: "in him were all things created" (Col. 1: 16). A whole series of explanations has been given of this¹²⁵" in him, "which Jervell calls "difficult to understand."¹²⁶ The difficulty lies in this, that, on the one hand, one may not conceive of this "in him" in an instrumental sense, whereby Christ himself would be the Creator; and that, on the other, one must guard against an interpretation by which Christ, too, is the object of God's creative act. The pronouncement forms an exact parallel, however, to what is elsewhere said of the church, namely, that it is God's workmanship, created in Christ for good works, etc. (Eph. 2: 10); so also 1 Corinthians 1: 30, where, likewise of the church, Paul declares that it is of God in Christ Jesus. From the analogy of the creation of the church in Christ we can more clearly understand the meaning of Colossians 1: 16a. It is a matter of such a creation as places all things, just as the church, under the dominion and at the disposal of Christ with a view to the object appointed by God.¹²⁷ Likewise the creation of all things in the heavens and on earth "through him" and "unto him" has its analogy in the fact that the church is "through him" (1 Cor. 8: 6), and that the church is directed toward him in the whole of its existence (cf. Rom. 14: 8; 2 Cor. 5: 15). All these expressions speak not so much of the mediation of Christ in the creation event,¹²⁸ as of his abiding, central place and all-embracing significance with respect to all that is in heaven and on earth. The same parallel with

Christ as the second Adam is to be found in the phrase "before all things, " which does not express merely an abstract priority, but an absolute dominion of Christ over all creation,¹²⁹ entirely in accordance with his position as the Beginning, the Inaugurator of the new creation, as is evident from the words of verse 18b: that in all things he might be the First, Finally, we may view in this light the pronouncement, which when taken by itself is difficult to understand, that all things have their existence together in him (ta panta en autō synestēken; v. 17b). Here, too, the analogy with the existing of the church together in Christ is evident (cf. Rom. 12: 5; cf. 1 Cor. 12: 12; Eph. 4: 16). From hence a clear light is also cast on the remarkable and difficult expression in Ephesians 1:10, where mention is made of the divine redemptive plan in order "to give existence to all things, those which are in heaven as well as those upon earth, by summing them up anew in Christ" (anakephalaiōsasthai).

The word anakephalaiōsasthai must be derived from kephalaion, summary, summa (not from kephalē, head). What is expressed is thus not simply that Christ will receive dominion over all things in heaven and on earth,¹³⁰ but also that everything exists together in him as in a summary, exactly the same therefore as synestēken en autō (Col. 1: 17). The anakephalaiōsasthai of Ephesians 1: 10, which is the object of God's redemptive counsel (eudokia) "with regard to the dispensation of the fulness of the times," can thus be termed the eschatological counterpart of the synestēken of Colossians 1: 17, which starts from the creation. For this reason one will certainly have to honor the ana-¹³¹ and consequently must understand it. as their having their existence anew in him. This "anew" is materially expressed in Colossians 1: 20 in the words that God through Christ has reconciled, that is to say, pacified, all things to himself.

This analogous relationship between the church and all things as both having been created and existing together in Christ, is corroborated still further by the fact that Christ is the Head both of his church and of all things. That Christ is the Head of the church is repeatedly enunciated in Ephesians and Colossians (cf. Eph. 4: 15; 5: 23; Col. 1: 18; 2: 19). In Ephesians 1: 22, however, he is also called the Head over all things (cf. Col. 2:10).¹³² This description of Christ as Head is not merely a general title of majesty or honor. It stands, as we have already seen, in the closest connection with the qualification Image of God and thus with the position of the first Adam. The difference lies in this, that while in Colossians and Ephesians the church is again and again termed the body of Christ, the same is not said of "all things." The Head-body relationship does not, as far as we can see, apply to them. At least it does not find expression in the available texts. But this does not alter the fact that there is an obvious parallel between the Headship of Christ over his church and that over all things. And we have to do here again with a category of creation, inasmuch as this "headship" is elsewhere applied by Paul to man (the husband) as the Image of God (1 Cor. 11: 3, 7; Eph. 5: 23).

In summary we can say therefore that Christ's original position of authority with respect to "all things" in Colossians 1:15 is described entirely according to an analogy with Christ's relationship to the church, as that is elsewhere given expression in Paul's epistles. In other words, from Christ's significance as second Adam all the categories are derived which further define his significance as the Firstborn of every creature. This analogy, which is discernible not only in the parallel of the two "strophes" of Colossians 1: 15-20 but in the whole of Paul's preaching of Christ as the second Adam, makes it improbable indeed that in Colossians 1: 15 we have to do with a passage that may be said to have had an entirely different origin, or that two "christological schemata" have been combined here which in essence do not belong together:¹³³ (a) the Pauline representation of Christ as eschatological last Adam, and (b) the gnostic representation of Christ as the divine anthrōpos antecedent to all things. The former is supposed then to be found in verses 18bff., the latter in verses 15-18a.

Undoubtedly what is said in Colossians 1:15ft. concerning Christ as the Image of God, Firstborn, and so forth, does not simply spring from Paul's conception of Christ as the second Adam in 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5. One can even say that a distinct difference exists between the two. Whereas in 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5 Christ is the second or last Adam, who follows after the first in the order of redemptive history, in Colossians 1:15 as the Firstborn, the Image of God, etc., he is antecedent to the first, and in this respect the first Adam cannot be regarded as his "type, " as is the case in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. Even if one were able on this ground to speak of a twofold representation of Christ as Adam, on the other hand the place of Christ in the first creation is so plainly described in Colossians 1: 15 on analogy with Christ's significance as the second Adam in the new creation that a much closer and more essential connection must exist between the two than is obvious at first glance. On further reflection there is in Paul's preaching a highly organic and structural relationship between Christ's place in the Endgeschichte and in the Urgeschichte,¹³⁴And this relationship is not only to be observed in that in Colossians1 Paul describes Christ's "original" cosmic significance on the analogy of his significance as the second Adam in the re-creation, but conversely that he can denote Christ's exaltation as the last Adam with the words of Psalm 8, words in which the position of glory occupied by the original man is expressed (1 Cor. 15: 25; Eph. 1: 22). A reciprocal agreement and mutual interdependence are to be noted here, therefore, which make it impossible to extrapolate the Christology of Colossians 1:15-18a (still less that of 1: 15-20) as an ill-fitting, alien, or added motif in the Pauline conception of Christ as the second Adam.

What we meet with in this "double" Adamitic significance of Christ (as the Firstborn of every creature and as the last Adam) is not the conjoining of two interpretations of Genesis 1-3 that do not go together, but rather Paul's vision of the all-encompassing significance of the salvation that has appeared in Christ. One is disposed to think here of the describing of ever greater circles around one center and starting point. This latter is situated in the all-controlling fact of Christ's death and resurrection. It is there that the new creation comes to light, Christ appears as the Firstborn from the dead and the Inaugurator of the new humanity. It is from thence that the redemptive significance of Christ's advent and work is made transparent, first in his human existence before and after the resurrection (flesh and Spirit); then even in his pre-existence as the Son of God sent for this task of second man; and finally in his significance as encompassing the whole of creation and history. The ultimate objective of God's redemptive work brings us back to the Beginning.¹³⁵ What was lost in the first Adam is regained in the second in a much more glorious way. For the second Adam is the Son of God. And the glory that Adam as the Image of God and Firstborn of every creature was permitted to possess was only a reflection of Christ's being in the form of God. Thus Christ's exaltation as the second Adam refers back to the beginning of all things, makes him known as the one who from the very outset, in a much more glorious sense than the first Adam, was the Image of God and the Firstborn of every creature. So the fundamental structures and implications of Paul's eschatological preaching of Christ are exposed to view. The new creation that has broken through with Christ's resurrection takes the place of the first creation of which Adam was the representative. It is, however, as much more glorious than the first as the second man, both in virtue of his origin and of his destiny, was superior to the first. In the description of this superiority of the second man in the categories that have been derived from the significance of the first man Paul comes to the full explication of the salvation that has appeared in Christ. In that sense one could call Colossians 1:15-20 the keystone of Paul's Christology; with the explicit addition, however, that it was not theological speculation, but pastoral care for the church and the warding off of what was alleged against the all-embracing significance of the salvation that has been manifested in Christ, that brought the apostle to this confession.

That which is enunciated in Colossians l:15ff. is what in the context of the prayer of Ephesians 3:18 is called "the breadth and length and height and depth" and what he terms in Colossians 2: 2, 3, likewise in the context of a very urgent paraenesis, "the riches of the fulness of knowledge, the understanding of the mystery of God, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."

SECTION 14. CHRIST THE EXALTED AND COMING KYRI OS

After all that has been said in the preceding sections concerning the redemptive-historical character of Paul's preaching of Christ, one important facet still remains to be considered from this point of view, namely, that which follows on Christ's resurrection: his ascension to heaven, his sitting at the right hand of God, and his coming parousia.

As was already apparent to us in the Introduction,¹³⁶ some have supposed, in particular on the ground of his pronouncements concerning Christ as the Kyrios exalted in heaven, that they were able to ascertain in Paul a transition from the eschatological Son-of-Man Christology of the primitive church to a mystical or cultic Christ-experience oriented to Hellenistic piety. For the center of gravity in Paul's Christology is said no longer to be situated in the expectation of the coming Son of Man or Messiah, but in communion with the pneumatic Kyrios.¹³⁷

Undoubtedly, Christ's exaltation in heaven and the communion maintained from there between the exalted Kyrios and his church by the Holy Spirit occupy a very important place in Paul's preaching. We shall have to go into this much more extensively later on.¹³⁸ One can even say that the overwhelming riches of the salvation that has already been revealed in Christ, and which has reached a certain conclusion by his exaltation, sometimes appear to thrust the viewpoint of its provisional character into the background and to place the spiritual appropriation of the gifts of Christ in the center. Moreover, it is the Holy Spirit in particular who comes to the fore as the one in whose gifts the church receives a share in the glory of its exalted Lord, indeed, who represents the presence of Christ himself within the church. The pronouncements are particularly to be mentioned here in which Christ and the Spirit are placed in a certain relationship of identity with each other:

Now the Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are diversities of ministrations, but the same Lord (1 Cor. 12: 4, 5). One body, and one Spirit . . . one Lord, one f a i t h , . . . (Eph. 4: 4, 5).

In these passages, which may be supplemented with others,¹³⁹ it is clearly apparent how much the Spirit is the one in whom the exalted Christ maintains communion with the church and that the church shares in no other way than through the Spirit in the gifts of its Lord (cf., e. g., 1 Cor. 12: 3; Rom. 8: 9; Eph. 3: 16). It is accordingly no wonder that, precisely for the dispensation that has become effective with Christ's resurrection and ascension to heaven in which the church now has its existence, the apostle again and again points to the Spirit as the one in and out from whose communion the church is to live (Gal. 5: 16, 25; Rom. 8: 4, 13ff).

Yet it is an absolute misconception to suppose that one is compelled to subtract this "pneumatic" from the redemptive-historical and eschatological character of Paul's preaching and that the characteristic significance of Christ is that of the Kyrios present in the cultus.¹⁴⁰ We must recall here what has already been said in Section 11, that for Paul, just as for the whole of the primitive Christian church, the Holy Spirit is pre-eminently the eschatological gift, the revelation of the great time of salvation, in accordance with Old Testament prophecy. For the church in the present there is in this without question an inexhaustible source of power, and Paul does not fail to point that out to the church again and again. But at the same time he constantly emphasizes that this dispensation of the Spirit is the dispensation of the Interim. One can even say that in Paul, more than occurs anywhere else, the accent is placed on this provisional character. This is surely the significance of the expression so typical of him, that the Spirit is "the first gift" (Rom. 8: 23), "the earnest" of that which God is yet to give (2 Cor. 1: 22; 5: 5), indeed "the earnest of the inheritance" (Eph. 1: 14), by whom believers are sealed unto the final redemption (2 Cor. 1: 22; Eph. 1: 13; 4: 30), and who awakens and keeps alive in them the believing longing and watching for the full revelation of the children of God (Rom. 8: 16, 23, 26). It is therefore out of the question that under the influence of the Hellenistic church Paul's pronouncements concerning the exalted Lord would no longer be supported by the historical-eschatological consciousness and that the redemptive-historical post would have passed over into a pneumatic trans. Not only would this break in two the whole structure of Paul's proclamation of redemption but it is also in conflict with his pronouncements on the Spirit himself, from which it is clearly evident that his preaching of the Spirit is governed by the expectation of Christ as the coming Lord.¹⁴¹

It is from this direction also that the close relationship that Paul establishes between Christ and the Holy Spirit must be approached. The Spirit can be identified with Christ in all sorts of ways because it is in Christ's advent and work that the work of the Spirit manifests itself, fulfilling and propelling toward the consummation. We have more than once cited to this effect the pronouncement in 1 Corinthians 15: 45, in which Christ as the Inaugurator of the new humanity is termed the life-giving Spirit. And this relationship applies no less to the wellknown words of 2 Corinthians 3:17: the Lord is the Spirit. We do not have to do here with a definition of the being of Christ as the exalted Kyrios, as though the person of Christ were entirely identified with the Spirit or perhaps even wholly dissolved in him.¹⁴² Rather, in 2 Corinthians 3: 17 Paul gives a summarizing statement of an argument in which the redemptive-historical contrast predominates.¹⁴³ Over against the ministration of death and of the letter of the Old Covenant, he places that of the righteousness and the liberty that are given by the Spirit. In that train of thought he can now call the Lord the Spirit, because in the Lord the life-giving and liberating work of the Spirit is carried into effect, the New Covenant is fulfilled, and the new creation takes place. Whatever deep mystery the relationship between Christ and the Spirit places before us as soon as we attempt to express this in ontological categories, it is unmistakable that the significance of Christ and of the Spirit in Paul's preaching define each other further in a redemptive-historical sense.¹⁴⁴ As Christ in the present and future power of his redemptive work can be known only from the all-embracing renewal and consummation of the Spirit of God, so on the other hand the promise of the Spirit and of his life-giving power receives its fulfillment, its form, and its prospect only in the person of Christ as the exalted and coming Lord. In this sense alone — that is, in the framework of the basic redemptive-historical structure of Paul's gospel — can the specific significance of this close linking of Christ and the Spirit be understood.

For the rest, the significance of Christ's exaltation is not described only in pneumatic categories, nor is it regarded only from the viewpoint of his relationship to the church. Along with this, Christ's central position with respect to all creation comes no less to the fore. For this

Paul draws from an arsenal of ideas and concepts that we also meet in part elsewhere in the New Testament. This holds even for the term "exalt" (Phil. 2: 9), which is elsewhere used in connection with the Son of Man (John 3: 14; 8: 28; 12: 34; cf. v. 32), as also for "sitting at the right hand of God" (Rom. 3: 34; Eph. 1: 20; Col. 3: 1; cf. Acts 2: 33; 5: 31; 7: 55ff.; Heb. 1: 3; 8: 1; 12: 2; 10: 2; 1 Pet. 3: 22). This expression, drawn from Psalm 110: 1, typifies the exalted Kyrios as the Messianic King. We also find Christ's exaltation expressed in Paul with the words of Psalm 8: 6 (1 Cor. 15: 27; Eph. 1: 22; cf. Heb. 2: 6-8). Here Christ is therefore the Man,¹⁴⁵ to whom God has subjected all things (cf. Phil. 3: 21).

This whole position of authority in Paul's kerygma has particular reference to the cosmic spiritual powers (1 Cor. 15: 24; Rom. 8: 38ff.; cf. v. 34; Eph. l: 21ff.; Phil. 2: 9; Col. 1: 20; 2: 10, 15; cf. also Eph. 4: 8ff. ); it is described at one time in its completion, at the parousia (1 Cor, 15: 25ft), then again as already having commenced with Christ's exaltation at the right hand of God (Eph. 1: 21ff; Phil. 2: 9; Col. 1: 20; 2: 10, 15; cf. also Rom. 8: 39). Hereby, particularly in Colossians, the analogy with Christ's original glory plays a part (cf. also Eph. 1:10),¹⁴⁶ just as elsewhere Christ's significance as the second Adam is determinative for the formation of Paul's expectation for the future (1 Cor. 15: 27ft; cf. v. 22; Eph. 1: 22 —where, in addition to the expression derived from Ps. 8, the name: Head over all things also occurs). The ideas are of various origins here, they are used promiscuously, and there is no question of a systematic terminology. Everything goes to show, however (particularly, to be sure, in Ephesians and Colossians, but also, for example, in the well-known christological "hymn" of 1 Tim. 3: 16), what an important place the cosmic significance of Christ's exaltation occupies in the whole of Paul's train of thought, altogether in accordance with the fundamental eschatological structure of his preaching.

Bultmann has posited, in his work History and Eschatology, that Paul's picture of history and of eschatology is interpreted entirely on the basis of his anthropology. The result is said to be that history and the consummation of the world vanish from his sight, and that their place is taken by "the historicity of man," even though he retains the traditional representations along with it.¹⁴⁷ It is our conviction that there is here a reversal of the real and deepest structures of Paul's preaching. However much attention the apostle devotes in his preaching to the significance the divine activity in Christ has for human existence (as will appear from what follows), the decisive viewpoint, even of his expectation for the future, is nevertheless a different one, namely, that of the theocentric significance of the divine redemptive work manifested and coming to consummation in Christ.¹⁴⁸ The whole exaltation of

Christ in the present and in the future is directed toward this, that God shall be all in all (1 Cor. 15: 28), and that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2: 10; cf. Rom. 14: 11).

This theocentric point of view is also inherent in Christ's allembracing significance for the future of creation and humanity. In him, the Beginning and the Firstborn from the dead, the Fullness was pleased to dwell, in order through him to reconcile all things to himself (Col. 1: 19, 20). And in him as the second Adam will the new humanity arise, be justified, and manifested (1 Cor. 15: 22; Rom. 5: 19, 21; Col. 3: 4). We shall have to go further into the various facets of Paul's expectation for the future, particularly as these are expressly raised in 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18; 2 Thessalonians 2: 1-12; and 1 Corinthians 15.¹⁴⁹ But this future expectation itself, of which Christ forms the central point, is the indispensable termination of the whole of his preaching; it functions there not as a traditional addition to a spiritualistic or existentialistic Christology, but stands in closest relationship with the center of his kerygma. The revelation of the mystery, the summary and the fundamental pattern of Paul's whole proclamation of Christ, will not be completed before Christ shall have been manifested in glory with all his own (Col. 3: 4), the last mystery shall have been disclosed (1 Cor. 15: 51; Rom. 11: 25), and the creation now groaning and in travail shall have been redeemed from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. It is for the revelation of that great day that the Spirit himself prays and groans and comes to the help of the church in its weakness (Rom. 8: 21ff ).

1. See, e. g., H. D. Wendland, Die Mitte der paulinischen Botschaft, 1935, pp. 5ff.; also my When the Time Had Fully Come, Studies in New Testament Theology, 1957, pp. 44-61.

2. In Gal. 4: 4 there is mention of the plērōma tou chronou, that is, the fullness of the time in its extensiveness, as world time. In Eph. 1: 10 it is plērōma ton kairōn, that is, the fulfillment of all antecedent redemptive-historical interventions and turning points in the extensiveness of the time.

3. See below, p. 52.

4. Ēlthen to plērōma (Gal. 4: 4). In Eph. 1: 10 there is mention of the oikonomia ("management of a household, "arrangement," "administration"—not "preparation," as the Dutch Bible Society translation has it) of the fullness of the times in which God sums up all things anew in Christ as under one head. Although the fullness intended here is still a matter of the future, it has already found its initial fulfillment with Christ's exaltation (Phil. 2: 10; Col. 1: 20), and it is certainly meant in that sense here as well.

5. Cf. Stählin, TDNT, IV, pp. 1118f„ s. v. nyn. He writes that the apostle believed "that the long-expected day of the Lord had come in this nyn In the NT nyn there is in fact expressed the certainty of eschatology already realized." See also Wendland, Cor., p. 37: "The great 'now' is the onset of the time of salvation,"

6. Cf., e. g., Kümmel, too, in the "Anhang" to Lietzmann, Cor., p. 205. In a sweeping manner Kümmel here corrects Lietzmann, who still wholly followed the mystical interpretation and by "from now on" (v. 16) understood, not the redemptivehistorical revolution that has dawned with Christ's resurrection, but the point of time of conversion.

7. That ktisis here does not simply mean "creature" in the sense of individual man or being, but must be understood in the full sense as the new life called forth by God's omnipotence, is clearly evident from a comparison with such passages as Eph. 2: 10, 15; 4: 24; Col. 3: 10; cf. also Foerster in TDNT, III, p. 1034, s. v. ktizō. To the same effect G. Vos, The Pauline Eschatology, 1930, pp. 46, 47: " . . . not merely individual, subjective conditions have been changed, but... there has been created a totally new environment, or, more accurately speaking: a totally new world, in which the person spoken of is an inhabitant and participator. "

8. It is a matter here of the equivalent of mystērion, namely, the Hebrew word rz, rāz, which occurs frequently in the Qumran literature; cf. E. Vogt, " 'Mysteria' in Textibus Qumran," in Biblica, 1956, pp. 247-257; J. Coppens, "Le Mystère chez Paul et à Qumran, " in Recherches Bibliques, V, I960, pp. 142-165; see also P. Benoit, "Qumran et le Nouveau Testament, " in NTS, 1961, pp. 290ff.

9. Cf., e.g., Bornkamm, TDNT, pp. 819ff., s. v. mystērion; Grosheide, 1 Cor., pp. 179ff.; on 1 Cor. 2:7, Wendland, Cor., p. 18; C. Masson, l'Épitre de Saint Paul aux Colossiens, 1950, p. 112; my Paul and Jesus, p. 58.

10. The usage is also very clear, e.g., in 1 Cor. 1:7, where "the revelation" of our Lord Jesus Christ is spoken of in the sense of his advent, his appearing (cf. Rom. 8:18ff. [twice]; 1 Cor. 3:13, et al.). Rom. 1:18 is also characteristic of the Pauline usage, where Paul speaks of the wrath of God. What is meant is not the announcement that God is wrathful, but the coming into operation of that wrath, even though this is not recognized as such. Cf. Bultmann, Theology, I, pp. 275f.

11. Oepke states that the concept of revelation has "its true locus ... in eschatology" (TDNT, IX, p. 583).

12. Thus Tit. 1:2, 3, where the hope of eternal life is spoken of, which the veracious God promised before times eternal, but revealed in its own time ( kairois idiois). The same expression is found in 1 Tim. 2:6; 6:15. One can take it as a synonym of plērōma tou chronou or tōn kairōn. The adjective idios speaks of the proper, fitting, appropriate, which, just as plērōma, finds its determination in God's counsel; cf. O. Cullmann, Christ and Time, ET 1964, pp. 40f.

13. See also J. Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind, pp. 36-80. His thesis, acceptable in itself, is diminished by dubious exegesis in several subordinate parts. See below, pp. 524f.

14. On this at greater length see my The Authority of the New Testament Scriptures, ET 1963, pp. 72ff.

15. Cf. in detail my Paul and Jesus, pp. 64ff.

16. See also H. J. Westerink, Het koninkrijk Gods bij Paulus, 1937.

17. Thus Bultmann, e. g., in the footsteps of A. Schweitzer, speaks of the eschatological preaching as "the proclamation in which Jesus and Paul are in complete accord" ("Jesus and Paul," in Existence and Faith, p. 186); see also his Faith and Understanding, I, p. 232.

18. Cf. H. D. Wendland, Geschichtsanschauung und Geschichtsbewusstsein im Neuen Testament, 1938, pp. 5fï.; W. G. Kümmel, Kirchenbegriff und Geschichtsbewusstsein in der Urkirche und bei Jesus, 1943.

19. Wendland, Geschichtsanschauung, p. 26.

20. Thus Luther, too, on Gal. 4: 4; "For the time did not cause the Son to be sent, but on the contrary the sending of the Son placed the time in the category of fullness"; quoted in Schlier, Gal., p. 188.

21. Cf. Friedrich, TDNT, II, pp. 730f., and the literature cited there.

22. Bultmann, History and Eschatology, p. 43.

23. See further below, Section 74.

24. Cf., e. g., the critique of Delling, "Zum neueren Paulusverstāndnis, " Novum Testamentum, 1960, pp. l00ff.; and N. A. Dahl's great objection against Bultmann's interpretation of Paul, which Delling quotes: that in it "the heilsgeschichtlich-eschatological setting is subordinated. " See also the rising criticism in the school of Bultmann itself, e. g., of E. Kāsemann, "On the Subject of Primitive Christian Apocalyptic," New Testament Questions of Today, ET 1969, pp. 108ff., and of his pupil C. Mūller, Gottes Gerechtigkeit und Gottes Volk, 1964.

25. See also C. Masson, Le Christ Jésus et l'ancien Testament selon saint Paul, 1941, p. 10, and especially the rich essay of N. A. Dahl, "Die Messianität Jesu bei Paulus, " in Studio Paulina, 1953, pp. 83-95.

26. See in particular O. Michel, Paulus und seine Bibel, 1929, and E. E. Ellis, Paul's Use of the Old Testament, 1960.

27. In Col. 1: 13 this is expressed as being delivered out of the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of Christ.

28. Here kosmos is used in the same sense as aiōn.

29. On this variously qualified nyn see Stählin at length in TDNT, IV, s. v. nyn.

30. In addition to A. Schweitzer see also H. J. Schoeps, who associates himself very closely with Schweitzer, Paul, The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of Jewish Religious History, ET 1961, pp. 97ff.

31. E. g., of the double doctrine of the resurrection that Paul is said to have held (ibid., p. 104). See further Chapter XII.

32. Ibid., p. 99; cf. Wendland, Geschichtsanschauung, p. 26: "Two epochs are present simultaneously"; see also his Die Mitte der paulinischen Botschaft, pp. 12ff.

33. Thus, e. g., Schlier, Gal, p. 138.

34. See also my Rom., p. 188.

35. As Schoeps wants to typify him {Paul, p. 99).

36. See further below, Section 11.

37. For this idea of tradition in more detail see my The Authority of the New Testament Scriptures, pp. 17ff., and the literature cited there.

38. En prōtois. Lietzmann translates it "als Hauptstück, " and he explains these words with the synonyms "in primis, 'hauptsāchlich, ' vom Rang" (Cor., p. 76). Robertson-Plummer translate "in the foremost place, " and annotate thereby: "Foremost in importance, not in time; the doctrine of the Resurrection is primary and cardinal, central and indispensable" (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, 2nd ed., 1929, p. 332; cf. Grosheide, 1 Cor., p. 386.

39. Cf. Dodd, Apostolic Preaching, pp. 9ff.

40. Cf., e. g., Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, II, 1924, pp. 273ff.; W. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im späthellenistischen Zeitalter, 3rd ed., 1926, p. 231.

41. Cf., e. g., Michaelis, TDNT, VI, pp. 876ff.; and also my Col., p. 137.

42. Ibid., p. 143.

43. Cf. A. Nygren, Commentary on Romans, ET 1949, pp. 20ff., 217: "When Paul speaks about the new aeon, it is not usual for him to refer to it as 'the coming aeon' (ho aion ho mellõn). But here we glimpse the idea in his characterization of Christ as He 'who was to come'; for as ho mellon He is the head of ho aion ho mellon. "

44. Cl. E. E. Ellis, Paul and His Recent Interpreters, pp. 31ff.; J. de Fraine, Adam and the Family of Man, ET 1965: see also the literature cited above, p. 38, n. 90.

45. See, e. g., below, Section 34.

46. Usually indicated by hyper with the genitive, but also by peri with the genitive (cf. 1 Cor. 1: 13; 1 Thess. 5: 10); likewise in the combination peri hamartias (Rom. 8: 3); cf. also Riesenfeld, TDNT, VI, pp. 54f.

47. See also below, Chapter VI.

48. In this sense still, e. g., K. Deissner, Paulus und die Mystik seiner Zeit, 2nd ed., 1921, in which he places the emphasis, over against the history of religions interpretation, on the "spiritual-personal character of communion with Christ" in Paul, pp. 115ff.; cf. also E. Sommerlath, Der Ursprung des neuen Lebens nach Paulus, 2nd ed., 1927, pp. 97ff.

49. So, e. g., A. Deissmann, St. Paul, p. 132: "It is justifiable, I think, to speak of Hellenistic influence here, when we remember the importance in Greek mysticism of inspired persons who are filled with their god, and gifted with power in their god. " Deissmann goes on to emphasize strongly the distinctive character of Paul's mysticism.

50. For a survey of these older religionsgeschichtliche interpretations, such as those of Heitmüller, Brückner, Wrede, Reitzenstein, et al., see, e. g., Deissner, Paulus und die Mystik seiner Zeit, pp. 1-17.

51. Cf. above, pp. 23ff

52. For the question whether baptism symbolizes dying and rising (with Christ) see below, pp. 40Iff.

53. Cf. the important essay of F. Neugebauer, "Das Paulinische 'In Christo, ' " NTS, 1958, pp. 124-138.

54. Thus Schweitzer, e. g., has pointed to the notion also occurring in the Jewish writings of the unity of the Messiah with the predestinated congregation of the saints, calling this the germ cell of Paul's "Christ-mysticism. " Materially this exegesis harks back to the old Reformation interpretation. Thus, e. g., Zanchius, in his commentary on Ephesians 2: 5, writes: "God has made us alive in the person of Christ, since through Christ's death, sin having been expiated, he liberated all the elect, howsoever many had been from the foundation of the earth and would be to the end of it, so many he considered the members of Christ in his selfsame head" (Hieron. Zanchii Comment, in epistolam sancti Pauli ad Ephesios, I, ed. A. H. de Hartogh, 1888, p. 160).

55. As a variant of the future in 1 Cor. 15: 22, the aorist is elsewhere to be found: "He has made you alive with Christ" (Col. 2: 13; cf. Eph. 2: 5). That it is evident from these aorists that these pronouncements in Ephesians and Colossians are from a later hand, as C. Masson supposes (l'Épitre de Saint Paul aux Colossiens, pp. 126, 127), is without foundation. It is a matter in 1 Cor. 15: 22, too, of an accomplished decision; cf. also E. Percy, Die Probleme der Kolosser- und Epheser-Briefe, 1946, pp. ll0ff.

56. With this the conception of K. Barth is in conflict, that "it is Christ who vouches for the authenticity of Adam, and not Adam... for Christ" (Christ and Adam, ET 1956, pp. 8ff. ). Still less acceptable is the conclusion Barth attaches to it, that Adam in Rom. 5 is only apparently as Christ a First, the Head of humanity, that in truth, however, he is "one among others" and thus represents humanity {ibid., pp. 9, 24, 44). As has been clearly shown by Bultmann, "Adam and Christ in Romans 5, " in The Old and New Man in the Letters of Paul, ET 1967, pp. 49ff., in no respect whatever is justice done to the significance Paul here ascribes to Adam. The relationship of Adam and his descendants is here not that of "one among all" but of "all in one. "

57. See in detail G. C. Berkouwer, Sin, ET 1971, pp. 436-465. On Rom. 5: 12 see further below, Section 16.

58. Thus Oepke, TDNT, II, pp. 541-542. He elucidates this as follows: "The first and the second Adam are progenitors initiating two races of men. Each implies a whole world, an order of life or death. Each includes his adherents in and under himself.

59. For this term and its applicability see above, p. 38. Further still, e. g., C. H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to "the Romans, 1947, p. 80, cf. p. 86; S. Hanson, The Unity of the Church in the N. T., 1946, pp. 68ff„ 84ff. The term was apparently introduced in the Old Testament studies of H. Wheeler Robinson. See also J. de Fraine, Adam and the Family of Man; Berkouwer, Sin, pp. 512ff.

60. On the working out of this corporate unity between Christ and believers, see further below, Section 37. With a view to this Oepke correctly writes: "On the other hand, a place must be found for the plenitude of pneumatic interconnections which are here felt by Paul and which may even be comprehended psychologically and empirically" (TDNT, I, p. 542, s. v. bapto).

61. For the rejection of the "mystical" interpretation see also the clear exposition of Nygren, Commentary on Romans, pp. 236f.

62. Cf. below, Chapter IX.

63. One should observe the masculine heis and not hen. S. Hanson, The Unity of the Church in the N. T., pp. 81f., writes: "This expression has, so to say, a personal character; it means: 'You are all one man in Christ Jesus. ' After heis we must add anthrōpos or a similar word. 'In Christ Jesus, ' in the New Aeon, all are one man. " In this connection see also the interesting views of the biblical "rootthinking" of H. Hofer, Die Rechtfertigungsverkündigung des Paulus nach neuerer Forschung, 1940, pp. 26ff. He writes: "It is not the individual that is the fundamental, the first, the original, the primary datum, but it is also not society; rather it is the ancestral father, as type and mediator of life, as the one who comprises his followers and disciples in himself.... Therefore it is the case with respect to the church that it is not to be construed in the first place as a community, but in its roots as the embodiment and unfolding of its progenitor Christ. It is not primarily congregation, community of believers, but it is, as 1 Cor. 12: 12 says, 'Christ' (ho Christos), or, as Paul, expanding, says elsewhere, 'the body of Christ. ' " See further below, Chapter IX.

64. Cf., e. g., Greijdanus ( Rom., I, p. 299) on Rom. 6: 6: " . . . the apostle means that the old man, the sinful corruption in the believer, was also struck by God's curse and underwent death, " namely, "at his connection or union with Christ"; cf. also his exegesis of apethanomen (v. 2): "speaking of that which has taken place with having been joined to and having become a believer in Christ" (p. 293).

65. Cf. N. A. Dahl, "Christ, Creation and the Church, " in The Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology, 1956, p. 436: "In a similar way, 'the new man' is not simply the converted individual, but an eschatological entity, personal, corporate and pneumatic, nearly identical with Christ himself.... "

66. See below, Chapter VI, Section 37.

67. In addition see below, Chapter XI, pp. 435ff.

68. On this and on the whole question of Paul's knowledge of the "historical" Jesus see my Paul and Jesus, pp. 50ff., and the literature referred to there.

69. Cf. above, pp. 46ff,

70. The uncommon expression "Spirit of holiness" (pneuma hagiosynes) will have to be judged simply as an equivalent, resting on Old Testament usage, of "Holy Spirit"; cf. Procksch, TDNT, I, pp. 114-115.

71. For this exegesis see also below, p. 113, n. 57.

72. Cf., e. g., Chapter VI, Section 38.

73. Cf. above, Chapter I, Sections 2, 3, 4.

74. Cf., e. g., Baumgärtel, TDNT, VI, pp. 365ff.; also Ingo Hermann, Kyrios und Pneuma, Studien zur Christologie der paulinischen Hauptbriefe, 1961, pp. 126ff.

75. Cf. Sjöberg, TDNT, VI, pp. 383S.

76. Hermann, Kyrios und Pneuma, p. 144; cf. also N. Q, Hamilton, The Holy Spirit and Eschatology in Paul, pp. 17ff.

77. Cf. G. Delling: "The assertion of the incarnation includes, for Paul, preexistence"; "Zum neueren Paulusverständnis, " Novum Testamentum, 1960, p. 102.

78. Cf. G. Sevenster, De Christologie van het Nieuwe Testament, 1946, pp. 144ff.; F. Prat, The Theology of Saint Paul, II, ET 1964, pp. 132ff.

79. Cf. also Bultmann, Theology, p. 129; for a further discussion of these passages see my Paul and Jesus, pp. 72, 73, and the literature cited there; Cullmann, Christology, pp. 312ff.

80. Christology, p. 293.

81. For that matter, in answer to the criticism brought against him at this point, Cullmann has denied that he sees the functional character of the Sonship as excluding the ontological (Scottish Journal of Theology, 1962, pp. 36ff. ); cf. also his formulations on pp. 306ff. of his Christology. For this discussion (with Roman Catholic theologians) see also G. C. Berkouwer, The Return of Christ, pp. 427-428.

82. For his conception Cullmann appeals specifically to 1 Cor. 15: 28, which he terms "the key to all New Testament Christology" (ibid., p. 293). We are brought here, so he says elsewhere, "to the very threshold of a complete eschatological absorption of the Son in the Father" (ibid., p. 248; cf. p. 268; see also below, pp. 560ff. ).

83. For this interpretation of 2 Cor. 4: 4, in addition to the commentaries, see the extensive explications of J. Jervell, Imago Dei, Gen. I. 26f. im Spätjudentum, in der Gnosis und in den paulinischen Briefen, 1960, pp. 173ff., 214ff.

84. Kat' eikōna Theou or en eikōni Theou (LXX).

85. Thus, e. g., Kittel in TDNT, II, 396, s. v. eikōn, following Schlatter. In the more recent literature increasingly greater emphasis is placed on this connection; see, e. g., the title of the work of Jervell referred to above; also N. A. Dahl, "Christ, Creation and the Church, " in The Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology, pp. 434(1.

86. E. g., by F. W. Eltester, eikōn im Neuen Testament, 1958, p. 148. He is of the opinion that one must explain eikōn in 2 Cor. 4: 4 from the notion of Sophia in later Judaism, and in Col. 1: 15 from a combination of the latter with the Urmensch idea in the gnosis ( ibid., pp. 133ff., 140, 149). It is possible, then, that later this gnostic anthrōpos, who already bore the name eikōn Theou, was connected with Gen. 1: 27. But in 2 Cor. 4: 4 and Col. 1: 15 this is said not yet to have been the case.

87. Jervell, Imago Dei, pp. 174ff.

88. Ibid., pp. 200ff.

89. Thus Jervell, ibid., pp. 217f., 219.

90. Ibid., p. 209.

91. A. Schlatter, Die Theologie des Neuen Testaments. 2. Die Lehre der Apostel, 1910, p. 299.

92. From this absolute qualification of man as "image of God" it may also appear with how little justice Jervell thinks himself able to distinguish between Christ as eikōn and man as created kat' eikōna (Imago Dei, p. 217; see above).

93. Jervell, too, acknowledges this (Imago Dei, p. 258).

94. Cf. Von Rad, TDNT, II, p. 391.

95. In any case one cannot eliminate the element of pre-existence from these pronouncements. In Col. 1: 15 this is, in our view, incontrovertible, as appears from the whole context. In 2 Cor. 4: 4 Grosheide wants to understand the expression Image of God only of Christ's mode of existence after his incarnation. Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, ET 1962, pp. 107f., writes that Paul calls Christ the Image of God in a context which goes beyond the dilemma (pre-existence or incarnation), in my opinion correctly. But even so this means that in 2 Cor. 4: 4, too, one cannot eliminate the pre-existent significance of the Image of God. See further below in connection with Phil. 2: 6ff.

96. See also already my article "Nieuwere beschouwingen over Phil. 2: 6-11, " in Eeuwfeest-AImanak F. Q. I., 1963, pp. 133ff.

97. Cf., e. g., the detailed and forceful discussion by S. Greijdanus, De brief van den apostel Paulus aan de gemeente te Philippi, 1937, p. 188.

98. See, e. g., Behm, TDNT, IV, p. 752.

99. Cf. F. Loofs, "Das altkirchliche Zeugnis gegen die herrschende Auffassung der Kenosisstelle (Phil. 2, 5-11),"' in Theol. Stud, und Kritiken, 1927-28, pp. 2811.; quoted in Jervell, Imago Dei, p. 204.

100. Cf. J. Héring, Le Royaume de Dieu et sa Venue, 1937, pp. 162ff.; and, in conjunction therewith, Cullmann, Christology, p. 176. See also M. Black, "The Pauline Doctrine of the Second Adam, " in The Scottish Journal of Theology, 1954, pp. 170ff.; E. Käsemann, Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen, I, pp. 65ff.; Eltester, eikōn im Neuen Testament, p. 10; R. P. Martin, An Early Christian Confession, 1960, pp. 17ff.; Jervell, Imago Dei, pp. 204ff,

101. Thus it is said in 2 Cor. 3: 18 that we shall be transformed ( metamorphoumetha) after the same image ( eikōna), namely, of Christ. Similarly it is said in Rom. 8: 29, once again with an obvious application to Christ's "Adamitic" significance, that God has destined us to be conformed (sym- morphous) to the image ( eikōn) of his Son; cf. also Phil. 3: 21; Gal. 4: 19, pronouncements which contain the same thought as that of 1 Cor. 15: 49, in which it is explicitly said that we shall bear the image ( ten eikōna) of the Heavenly, namely, of the last Adam (v, 45).

102. In the well-known dispute as to whether harpagmos must be taken as res rapienda or res rapta, we herewith opt, therefore, for the latter. Others, who choose the former, proceed from the idea that Christ had not yet acquired the being-equal-with-God and give this exegesis, that he, other than Adam, did not strive for the being-equal-with-God as a status of glory to be drawn (by way of "robbery") to himself; so, e. g., Cullmann, Christology, p. 180; cf. W. Michaelis, Der Brief des Paulus an die Philipper, 1935, p. 36. But we must undoubtedly start from the fact that Christ already possessed this being-equal-with-God in his pre-existence; that he did not, however, regard this as a harpagmos, in the sense of something that had fallen to him and in which he could thus have rested, res rapta. For this explanation see Martin, An Early Christian Confession, pp. 21ff., 50ff., and the literature cited there; see also E. Käsemann, Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen, I, pp. 69ff. The ground for seeing in to einai isa Theo an allusion to Gen, 3: 5 (Käsemann) does not herewith fall away. Only it becomes clear that one must not overdraw the parallel (temptation of Adam—temptation of the pre-existent Christ). The allusion extends no further than that, with respect to the being-equal-with-God, Christ acted differently from Adam. It is indeed a matter of the description of an "attitude, " not of a "decision" in a temptation situation (thus, rightly, Käsemann, ibid., p. 70).

103. For this explanation see, i. a., the writings cited above (n. 100) of Héring, Cullmann, Martin. Jervell, Imago Dei, p. 227, says that it is "quite possible, " but even so will know nothing here or in 2 Cor. 4: 4 of a connection with the Pauline thought of Christ as the second Adam (cf. p. 215). He asks how then the contrast between God and man in Phil. 2: 6 and 7 is to be explained, and points to the fact that while in Rom. 5: 12ff.; 1 Cor. 15: 20ff., 45ff. Christ is the man of the end time, the concern in Phil, is with his pre-existence (p. 228). These differences between Phil. 2 (2 Cor. 4; Col. 1) on the one hand and Rom. 5 and 1 Cor. 15 on the other, however, are denied by no one. The question, however, is this, whether the idea of the second Adam in Rom. 5 and 1 Cor. 15 does or does not receive a further application and extension. The conception of Jervell himself is that here again we have to do with a gnostic Vorlage which was altered only so far that the pronouncement now involves Christ and not an Urmensch (p. 229). We are accordingly obliged to accept a gnostic interpretation of Gen. 1: 27 of a heavenly primal-man, which was not applied by Paul himself, but with the hymn of Phil. 2 was implicitly taken over from the Christian church (cf. pp. 204ff. ). How this admits of being reconciled with the Pauline idea of Christ as the second Adam in Rom. 5 and 1 Cor. 15 is not explained. With Paul all sorts of notions concerning eikōn are said to run through each other (p. 209).

104. Christology, p. 177.

105. Ibid., p. 177; cf. pp. 166ff.

106. See, e. g., Käsemann, who thinks he is able to point out in the "hymn" of Phil. 2 the so-called Hellenistic "myth of the Urmensch-redeemer, " for which he appeals in particular to statements in the Hermetic literature (Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen, pp. 69ff. ).

107. Cf. above, pp. 34ff.

108. Christology, pp. 177f.

109. En homoiōmati anthrōpōn genomenos undoubtedly speaks of incarnation, in contrast to en morphē Theou hyparchōn. The construction with homoiōma does not in one way or another limit this incarnation, but has its explanation in the fact that Christ distinguished himself from all other men because he was and remained obedient (cf., e. g., Schneider, TDNT, V, p. 197). The kenosis (heauton ekenōsen; v. 7) does not thus mean only that from a divine man he became a slave-man (morphē doulou; v. 7). The transition is that from the divine to the human. For the rest, the expression heauton ekenōsen says no more than that Christ laid aside his divine glory, described in the preceding words (cf. 2 Cor. 8: 9). That with that he did not cease to be who he was in his pre-existence is just as much presupposed as that the human mode of existence for him began therewith and was not merely continued in another manner; see also Oepke, TDNT, III, p. 661, s. v. kenoō, and my Paul and Jesus, pp. 75ff., and the literature referred to there.

110. When in 1 Cor. 15: 47 Christ is called ho deuteros anthrōpos ex ouranou, the words ex ouranou are intended predicatively and not as an attribute of anthrōpos. They do not speak of the heavenly origin of his humanness by virtue of his preexistence, but of the spiritual, heavenly nature of his humanness by virtue of his resurrection (cf. v. 45). Therefore his own can also be called hoi epouranioi (v. 48), which, of course, alludes not to their descent, but to their new humanness in Christ; see further below, p. 544.

111. Against the whole conception, as though in Paul's parallel between the first and the second man the idea of the Son of Man also played a role, see G. Delling, Zum neueren Paulusverständnis, pp. 104ff. That is not, of course, to assert that: this qualification of Christ was unknown to Paul, nor either that the ideas that, attend it could have had no influence on his description of Christ's exaltation and parousia (cf., e. g., 1 Thess. 4: 17). But this is surely not very clearly demonstrable, and when contrasted with Adam Christ is not described with the features of the Son of Man from Dan. 7.

112. This explanation is defended in particular by H. Windisch, "Die göttliche Weisheit der Juden und die paulinische Christologie, " in Neutest. Studien für Heinrici, 1914, pp. 220-234, and he has been followed by many. For the materials see in addition my Col., p. 134.

113. Cf., e. g., Eltester, eikōn, p. 140; also Dibelius, Col., p. 16.

114. Käsemann, Essays on New Testament Themes, 1964, pp. 149ff.; cf. also Bultmann, Theology, I, p. 176.

115. Jervell, Imago Dei, p. 211. Jervell is of the opinion, other than Käsemann, et al., that the pre-Christian gnosis did know a divine Urmensch, but not an Urmensch-redeemer. He thinks then that it is in the combination of Col. 1: 15-20 (of primalman and redeemer) that the point of contact lies for the later (post-Christian) gnostic Urmensch-redeemer myth (loc. cit. ).

116. Cf. Michaelis, TDNT, VI, p. 879, s. v. prōtotokos; also H. J. Schoeps, Paul, The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of Jewish Religious History, p. 156.

117. See, e. g., Dibelius-Greeven, Eltester, Jervell.

118. See the tabular survey of the comparable materials in Eltester, eikōn, pp. 142/143.

119. See the relevant surveys in Kittel, TDNT.

120. Thus Jervell, Imago Dei, p. 211.

121. Jervell, loc. cit.

122. Cf. above, pp. 70ff.

123. Cf., e. g., Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, III, pp. 256ff., 626, and Michaelis, TDNT, VI, p. 875. Michaelis is indeed of the opinion (p. 878, n. 46) that the designation of Adam in the Jewish writings as "firstborn of the world" "is not. a close par., " because Christ, in distinction from Adam, cannot be called "first creature. " But the expression prōtotokos points, even when it is applied to Adam, not to the manner of origin—Adam was not born either—but to the position of authority; cf. also Michaelis himself, p. 875, n. 30. The genitive tēs ktiseōs is not a partitive genitive but a relative or comparative genitive.

124. See also N. A. Dahl, "Christ, Creation and the Church, " in The Background of the New Testament, pp. 432ft.

125. See my Col., pp. 139ff.

126. Jervell, Imago Dei, p. 226.

127. Cf. Eph. 2: 10: ktisthentes en Christō... epi ergois... hois proētoimasen ho Theos.... For this use of en see further my Col., p. 140.

128. Di' autou ektistai in v. 16b, a perfect in distinction from ektisthē in v. 16a, also speaks of the result.

129. Cf., e. g., B. Reicke, TDNT, VI, pp. 687f., s. v. pro.

130. The translation of the Dutch Bible Society has: "to sum up under one head, " and thus combines the thought of kephalē and kephalaion; cf. Schlier, TDNT, III, p. 682. Materially this is certainly correct (cf. Eph. 1: 22; moreover, see the text), although, in my view, it is not certain that anakephalaiōsasthaihas this connotation.

131. The translation of the Dutch Bible Society (and the RSV) omits this.

132. According to Käsemann and others the addition tes ekklesias in Col. 1: 18 is nol. original and thus the expression that Christ is the Head of the body would have a "cosmic" significance. But this is a consequence of the whole of Käsemann's view of Col. 1:15 (see above, pp. 78f. ) and in itself not at all evident. For nowhere else is the all called the body of Christ, in contradistinction to the church.

133. See Jervell, Imago Dei, p. 224. Jeremias points to the two different representations of Adam in Philo: (a) the ideal man (the Logos) created after the image of God, who is said to have been created first (Gen. 1: 27), and whom one can also call the heavenly man; (b) the earthly man created from the earth (Gen. 2: 7). With respect to Paul he puts the matter as follows: "In similar fashion [to Philo] Paul finds in Christ the divine image (Col. 1: 15; cf. Gen. 1: 27), while he refers 2: 7, like Philo, to the creation of Adam. He also agrees with Philo as to the priority of the heavenly man (Col. 1: 15: prōtotokos pases ktiseos). " Paul is said, however, to distinguish himself from Philo by the fact that he ascribes to the firstborn heavenly man in addition an eschatological role and calls him, in contradistinction to the earthly Adam (Gen. 2: 7), the eschatos Adam (TDNT, I, p. 143). What also distinguishes Paul from Philo, however, is that in addition to applying the name image of God to Christ as the prototokos, he applies it to the first Adam (1 Cor. 11: 7). And with that the agreement with the schema of Philo has in principle been broken.

134. On this point see also in detail N. A. Dahl, "Christ, Creation and the Church, " in The Background of the New Testament, pp. 432ff.

135. Cf. Dahl, ibid., p. 429: "The main idea, which is common to the different forms of combining the last things with that which was at the beginning, is the idea that the end will bring the final realisation of what from the beginning was the will of God the Creator, who is himself the first and the last (Isa. 44: 6, 48:12; Rev. 1: 8, 21: 6 etc. ). "

136. See above, pp. 25ff.

137. For the problems with respect to this title, raised especially by Bousset, see, besides the Christologies, such as those of Sevenster and Cullmann, my Paul and Jesus, pp. 80ff.; and E. Schweizer, Erniedrigung und Erhöhung, pp. 93ff. (cf. Lordship and Discipleship, pp. 57ff. ).

138. See below. Sections 38, 61ff,

139. Cf. Hamilton, The Holy Spirit and Eschatology in Paul, pp. 3ff.

140. Thus Bultmann, too. History and Eschatology, p. 52.

141. Cf. Hamilton, The Holy Spirit and Eschatology in Paul, pp. 17ff.; H. Berkhof, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, 1964, pp. 104ff.

142. For these conceptions see further Hermann, Kyrios und Pneuma, p. 123.

143. For the train of thought of 2 Cor. 3 see further below, pp. 218ff.

144. Ingo Hermann correctly argues, in his rich study Kyrios und Pneuma, that one must not wish to explain "the understanding of the relationship of the Spirit to the Lord in Paul's sense, " as that reaches its zenith in the identification pronouncement of 2 Cor. 3: 17a, on the basis of the doctrine of the Trinity (cf., e. g., p. 123; cf. also Hamilton, The Holy Spirit and Eschatology in Paul, p. 3). When Hermann attempts to prove, however (otherwise than Hamilton), that one can attribute to the Spirit no separate, personal existence, to be distinguished from that of Christ, in the sense of the doctrine of the Trinity (cf. pp. 132ff. ), his argumentation requires further testing.

145. Cf. above, p. 84.

146. Cf. above, pp. 84f.

147. Pp. 43ff.; see also above, p. SO.

148. See W. Schrage, "Die Stellung zur Welt bei Paulus, Epiktet und in der Apokalyptik, " ZTK, 1964, pp. 127ff.: "He {Paul] thought not only in anthropological categories but in dimensions that overlap human existence Just as Paul corrected apocalyptic on the basis of Christology, so he corrects, on the basis of apocalyptic, an exclusively individual- and personal-redemption-oriented—indeed, a purely anthro pologically directed—soteriology (cf. Rom. 8:18ff. ). What is at stake for Paul essentially is the eschatological dominion of God over all the world.... This dominion of God over the whole world is more than the new existence and hope of the individual. If Paul speaks of the metaschernatizein of the soma through the Lord, he immediately adds that the transformation kata ten energeian tou dynasthai auton kai hypotaxai auto ta panta ensues (Phil. 8: 21). "

149. See below, Chapter XII.

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