Embalaje de madera / NIMF nº

In the previous chapter (3.4.) we saw how Paul uses doxa in 1 Corinthians 15:35-49 in two ways: first, doxa denotes “brightness” in the comparative sense; second, the first Adam is described to be clothed with the body of doxa. Building on this, here I discuss the superiority of the eschatological body of doxa of the Second Adam and the believers, compared to both the pre-fallen image and glory of Adam and to the fallen Adam.

The final Adam figure, after the first pre-fallen Adam and after the fallen Adam, is the Second Adam. Paul depicts the resurrected Christ as the superior eschatological Adamic doxa figure. Paul gives ten descriptions of the eschatological Adam figure, who has the glory from

heavens (ἡ τῶν ἐπουρανίων δόξα; 1 Cor 15:40). This eschatological Adamic doxa figure is the

physically resurrected Christ, who also functions as the firstfruit of believers (1 Cor 2:11-15; 3:1- 3; 15:21-28; 38-44). The eschatological body is described as something to be raised as imperishable (ἐγείρεται ἐν ἀφθαρσίᾳ; 1 Cor 15:42), in glory (ἐγείρεται ἐν δόξῃ; 1 Cor 15:43), in power (ἐγείρεται ἐν δυνάμει; 1 Cor 15:44), and as a spiritual body (ἐγείρεται σῶμα πνευματικόν; 1 Cor 15:44). These terms thus function as descriptions of the doxa of Christ.

Moreover, I Corinthians 15:45-49 provides four more descriptions of Christ. Christ is the life-giving Spirit, referring to God’s Spirit420 _{(ὁ ἔσχατος Ἀδὰμ εἰς πνεῦμα ζῳοποιοῦν; 1 Cor 15:45),} a spiritual being (πνευματικόν; 1 Cor 15:46), the second man from heaven (or the second man, the one from heaven; δεύτερος ἄνθρωπος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ; 1 Cor 15:47), and the image from the heavens

420 _{For a discussion regarding whether this refers to the divine Spirit or to another spirit, see J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus and}

the Spirit (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), 325 and J. D. G. Dunn, “Rediscovering the Spirit (2),” ExpTim 94 (1982):

9-18. Gordon Fee has demonstrated that the presence or the absence of the article is not the determining factor in this discussion. Gordon Fee, “Christology and Pneumatology in Romans 8:9-11 and Elsewhere: Some Reflections on Paul as a Trinitarian,” in Jesus of Nazareth: Lord and Christ, ed. J. B. Green and M. Turner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 320-323. See also Fee, God’s Empowering Presence.

(τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ ἐπουρανίου; 1 Cor 15:49). These terms give a description of what Paul means by Christ’s doxa.421 _{First, Paul twice asserts that the doxa is from heaven (1 Cor 15:40, 49) and is the} image from heaven (1 Cor 15:49). Second, the doxa of Christ is the last Adam and the second man (1 Cor 15:45, 47). Third, he is a spiritual body (1 Cor 15:44, 46) and a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor 15:45). Furthermore, Christ’s Adam-glory is not merely an identical reflection of the first Adam’s glory, rather it is a qualitatively and substantially superior body compared to it. Finally, Paul seems to identify Christ with both the intrinsic doxa of God (who comes from heaven) and the derivative

doxa of God’s image in the likeness of the first pre-fallen Adam.

Analogies can be seen in Paul’s treatment of the creation story. Benjamin Gladd considers Paul’s typological use of Genesis 2:7 regarding Christ as the second Adam to be an analogy of Adam and Seth. As Sandelin before him, Gladd maintains, quite compellingly, that “Adam was created in God’s image (1:27-28), and he passed that divine image on to his son, Seth (Gen 5:3).”422 Paul also alludes to Genesis 5:3 in 1 Corinthians 15:49, so Adam’s passing his image to Seth functions as a type of how Christ is passing on his image to believers.

Scholars have seen a variable degree of similarity between Paul and his contemporary, Philo of Alexendria (c. 20 BCE-50CE), in light of the treatment of Genesis 1:27 and 2:7 and the two- Adam model. Sandelin contends (correctly, as I argue throughout this study) that Paul draws from the Jewish rather than Gnostic background in 1 Corinthians.423 _{According to Sandelin, Paul} specifically pulls from the same wisdom tradition as Philo.424 _{Gerhard Sellin and Sandelin have} noted, however, that Philo does not use a Pauline ἀτιμία - δόξα contrast in his writings.425 Moreover, Sellin finds Philo’s understanding of δόξα as the philosophical terms “opinion” and “honor” rather than the Pauline terms argued in this dissertation.426 _{Furthermore, according to}

421 _{This does not mean that the terms should be taken synonymously. Rather, the image (εἰκών) from heaven, the last}

Adam, the spiritual body, and the life-giving Spirit describe the δόξα of Christ.

422 _{Benjamin Gladd, “The Last Adam as the ‘Life-giving Spirit’ Revisited: A Possible Old Testament Background of}

One of Paul’s Most Perplexing Phrases,” WTJ 71 (2009), 307. See also Sandelin, who states: “Nach Gen. 5,3 der LXX- Fassung ist Adam Vorbild für Seth.” Sandelin, Die Auseinandersetzung mit der Weisheit in 1. Korinther 15, 115.

423 _{Karl-Gustav Sandelin, “Gnosis i 1 Kor. 15. Kritisk analys av en forskningstradition” Licentiatavhandling, Otryckt}

(Åbo: Akademi, 1973); Karl-Gustav Sandelin, “Spiritus Vivificans,” in Opiscula exegetica Aboensia in honorem

Rafael Gyllenberg, ed. Gösta Lindeskog (Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1973), 59-75; Karl-Gustav Sandelin, Die Auseinandersetzung mit der Weisheit in 1. Korinther 15. Meddelanden från Stiftelsens för Åbo Akademi

forskningsinstitut, 12 (Åbo: Åbo Akedemi, 1976), 44-47; Sandelin, Sophia och hennes värld: exegetiska uppsatser

från fyra årtionden, 28-29.

424 _{Sandelin, Die Auseinandersetzung mit der Weisheit in 1. Korinther 15, 26-48, 123-127.}

425 _{Ibid., 123; Gerhard Sellin, Der Streit um die Auferstehung der Toten: eine religionsgeschichtliche und exegetische}

Untersuchung von 1 Korinther 15, FRLANT 138 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 221-222.

Hultgren, a “study of Philo… makes it unlikely that Paul is reacting either to Philo, to Alexandrian traditions, or even to a misrepresentation of Philo.”427

As Sandelin and Sellin428 _{had earlier noted, there are, however, some noticeable similarities} between Philo and Paul. They argue that Paul is following Philonic tradition when comparing the first and Second Adam. Jonathan Worthington in his recent excellent comparison shows how Philo has both a positive and a negative view of the corporeal man, Adam, in reference to Genesis 1:27 and 2:7. On the one hand, “When viewing Gen. 2:7 in itself, Philo interprets both humans positively. When reading 2:7 in comparison with an outside source, in Philo’s case Gen. 1:27 and human therein, he reads 2:7 negatively. . . .Paul shows the similar trend.”429 _{Indeed, Paul’s} argument is similar to that of Philo: the description of Adam as God’s image and doxa referred to in Genesis 1:27 and 2:7 is positive, yet when compared to the eschatological Adam, the original Adam, even before the fall, the portrayal is less ideal.

There is, however, a significant difference between Philo and Paul. Philo considered humanity in Genesis 1:27 (resembling the Before reading of creation in Genesis 1:1-5) to be

invisible, bodyless, incorporeal, and noetic.430 _{But the humanity of 2:7 is physical and bodily and}

therefore mortal and inferior to the humanity in Genesis 1:27. For Paul, however, as we will see,

physicality itself is not the problem. Rather, the first Adam is not yet complete in his humanity. Paul hardly considers the resurrected body of the Second Adam to be without physical form. Indeed, the entire section of 1 Corinthians 15 argues for the physical resurrection of Christ as the

427 _{Hultgren summarizes: “The Origin of Paul’s Doctrine of the Two Adams in 1 Cor. 15.45-49 has been the subject}

of much discussion. The most commonly argued background is Philo or Alexandrian traditions. Study of Philo, however, makes it unlikely that Paul is reacting either to Philo, to Alexandrian traditions, or even to a misrepresentation of Philo.” Hultgren, “The Origin of Paul’s Doctrine of the Two Adams in 1 Corinthians 15.45-49,” 343; cf. Fee, The

First Epistle to the Corinthians, 791; Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 1284.

428 _{Sandelin, Die Auseinandersetzung mit der Weisheit in 1. Korinther, 37, 44. Sellin, Der Streit um die Auferstehung}

der Toten, 90-174.

429 _{Worthington, Creation in Paul and Philo, 166, 172 [emphasis original].According to Philo, “becoming a living}

soul” meant that God breathed a corruptible and earthlike mind into Adam. Philo states, “‘And God created man, taking a lump of clay from the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life: and man became a living soul.’ The races of men are twofold; for one is the heavenly man, and the other the earthly man. Now the heavenly man, as being born in the image of God, has no participation in any corruptible or earthlike essence. But the earthly man is made of loose material, which he calls a lump of clay. On which account he says, not that the heavenly man was made, but that he was fashioned according to the image of God; but the earthly man he calls a thing made, and not begotten by the maker. And we must consider that the man who was formed of earth, means the mind which is to be infused into the body, but which has not yet been so infused. And this mind would be really earthly and corruptible, if it were not that God had breathed into it the spirit of genuine life; for then it ‘exists,’ and is no longer made into a soul; and its soul is not inactive, and incapable of proper formation, but a really intellectual and living one. ‘For man,’ says Moses, ‘became a living soul.’” Philo, Allegorical Interpretation, I 31-32. See also Sandelin’s discussion in Die Auseinandersetzung

mit der Weisheit in 1. Korinther 15, 31-38, 45-46, 119ff. Cf. Wisd 15:11: “Forasmuch as he knew not his Maker, and

him that inspired into him an active soul, and breathed in a living spirit.”

firstfruit of believers’ resurrection. What then does the spiritual and heavenly body mean? If following the Philonic interpretation, corporeal Adam itself was mortal. That is not Paul’s point. The spiritual body should be considered something that is guided by the Spirit, rather than being immaterial.431 _{In verses 44 and 46 πνευματικός refers to a person who is controlled by the Spirit} (cf. 1 Cor 2:14) as compared to the person who is unable to discern the things of the Spirit of God. The comparison is not, following the language of Wright, what a person is “composed of,” but what he or she is “animated by.”432 _{Thus, the spiritual body should not be considered a non-material} body composed of the immaterial spirit, but as a body directed or animated by the Spirit,433 _{or “a} physical body renovated by the Spirit.”434

Thus, Paul is emphasizing the superiority of the eschatological resurrection body of doxa to the pre-fallen body of doxa. According to Paul, there seems already to be a movement in creation towards eschatological consummation: the pre-fallen Adam as doxa is a pre-figure to the Last Adam as doxa.435 _{Richard Gaffin states this understanding well:}

Adam. . .is in view as he is by virtue of creation, not as fallen but as he was before the fall. This expansion has the effect of providing, in nuce, a “philosophy” of history, Paul’s outlook on history from its beginning up to and including its consummation…for Paul protology (first things), apart from soteriology (matters pertaining to salvation), anticipates an eschatology (last things); there is an eschatology in view for the creation even before the

fall [my emphasis].436

431 _{See also Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 262-269.}

432 _{Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 1400. See also Sandelin, Die Auseinandersetzung mit der Weisheit in 1.}

Korinther 15, 132.

433 _{Thiselton, The First Epistle to Corinthians, 1276-1281; Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 786. Dunn also}

points out that Paul’s understanding of “‘body’ means rather the wholeness of existence in the particularity of that existence in a particular context.” James D. Dunn, “How Are the Dead Raised? With What Body Do They Come? Reflections on 1 Corinthians 15,” Southwestern Journal of Theology 45 no 1 (Fall 2002), 15. Moreover, Dunn argued earlier, “Paul is combating the Gnostics on their ground, but in his terms.” James Dunn, “1 Corinthians 15:45 - Last Adam, Life-giving Spirit,” in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament: in Honour of Charles Francis Digby Moule, ed. Barnabas Lindars and Stephen S. Smalley (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1973), 129.

434 _{Robert H. Gundry, ‘Soma’ in Biblical Theology with Emphasis on Pauline Anthropology, SNTSMS 29 (Cambridge:}

Cambridge University, 1976). Cf. Sandelin, who states “Der Mench besteht sowohl hinsichtlich seines Körpers als auch hinsichtlich seiner Seele aus Erde. Hier muss man wohl von Substanz sprechen. Im Hinblick auf den Auferstehungsleib ist Paulus dagegen sehr zurückhaltend. Er bezeitchnet die Substanz weder als δόξα noch als πνεῦμα. Sandelin, Die Auseinandersetzung mit der Weisheit in 1. Korinther 15, 133. Cf. Basil Augustine Stegmann, Christ, the

“Man from Heaven”; A Study of 1 Cor 15, 45-47 in the Light of the Anthropology of Philo Judaeus, New Testament

Studies no. 6 (Washington: The Catholic University of America, 1927). He states: “if πνεῦμα or δόξα were meant by St. Paul to be the material substance of the heavenly body the contrast (sc. in V.47) would call for ἐκ πνεῦματος or ἐκ δόξης.”

435 _{Geerhardus Vos, The Pauline Eschatology (Phillipsburg: P & R Publishing, 1979), 169.}

436 _{Gaffin, “The Glory of God in Paul’s Epistles,” 136-137, fn. 18. Witherington articulates a similar view: “Paul}

considers the first Adam to have been created perfect (i.e., flawless), but Paul does not consider Adam to have been the perfect (i.e., full) human, even at this creation.” “Adam was the true and faultless realization of God’s ‘purpose’ for the beginning while he was not the full realization of God’s ‘purpose’ for the end.” Witherington, Creation in Paul

In other words, Paul is transitioning from the fallen Adam to the pre-fallen Adam by using the term ψυχικός. This term, therefore, primarily refers to the first pre-fallen Adam, capable of the fall, and also an already fallen first Adam’s body. Paul considers it an antitype to the eschatological Adamic body. The substance of the heavenly body is doxa, but so is the essence of the earthly body. Thus, Paul’s point is to show both the continuity of the physical body from the origin (natural) to the superior and greater form (spiritual and heavenly) and the discontinuity of the fallen, imperishable, dishonoring, and (morally) weak body compared to the imperishable, glorious, powerful, heavenly, and Spirit-guided body.437

Paul considers Christ to be the resurrected eschatological Adamic doxa figure who also functions as the firstfruit of believers (1 Cor 2:11-15; 3:1-3; 15:21-28; 38-44). 438 _{The descriptions} about Christ’s doxa are also eschatological realities for those who will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 15:50). The transformation of believers will be into the likeness of the image of the last Adam: “We shall also bear the image of the heavenly one [τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ ἐπουρανίου]” (1 Cor 15:49). Furthermore, the eschatological hope of believers is transformation into the likeness of the image (εἰκών) and the glory of Christ that is described with the following expressions: clothed imperishable (ἄφθαρτοι; 1 Cor 15:52; ἐνδύσασθαι ἀφθαρσίαν; 1 Cor 15:53; cf. 2 Cor 5:3-4), changed (ἀλλαγησόμεθα; 1 Cor 15:52), and immortal (ἀθανασίαν; 1 Cor 15:53). Again, a believer’s change into the the likeness of Christ’s glory is not merely a process of restoration, but transformation into the even better and superior glory that the first Adam possessed.

To summarize, built on my discussion on chapter 2, in 1 Corinthians 15:39-49, Paul refers to two Adamic figures: the pre-fallen and fallen Adam, and the eschatological Second Adam. Two of the figures, the pre-fallen Adam and the eschatological resurrected Second Adam (Christ) are

437 _{Meyer seems to indicate a similar kind of movement, stating: “creation contains within itself signs of the eschaton”}

[emphasis original]. Meyer, “Adam’s Dust and Adam’s Glory,” 146. While Sandelin does not deny the continuity of humanity, according to him σῶμα does not have continuity. He states: “Das vergängliche σῶμα geht nicht in ein unvergängliches über, sondern wird von einem unvergänglichen überkleidet. Die Kontinuität liegt somit nicht im σῶμα.” Moreover, according to Sandelin, Paul is not interested in the nature of the substance of the risen humanity. “Paulus zeigt aber kein Interesse dafür, in welcher Beschaffenheit der auferstandene Mensch sich befindet. Er spekuliert nicht über die Substanz der Auferstehungskörpers. Er stellt aber fest: dieser Körper ist ein Abbild des Christus.” Sandelin, Die Auseinandersetzung mit der Weisheit in 1. Korinther 15, 128, 136. Cf. Hans Conzelmann,

Der erste Brief an die Korinther. Übersetzt und erklärt (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1969), 334 Conzelmann, H. Der erste Brief an die Korinther. Übersetzt und erklärt (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1969), 334

438 _{Luke Timothy Johnson states, “The resurrection is, for Paul (and those who preach as he did) more than a historical}

event of the past concerning Jesus. It is an eschatological reality that affects believers in the present and anticipates the character of their future existence in which God will be ‘all things in all things.’” Luke Timothy Johnson, “Life-Giving Spirit: The Ontological Implications of Resurrection in 1 Corinthians,” in Contested Issues in Christian Origins and

the New Testament: Collected Essays by Luke Timothy Johnson (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 277-293. Also published in Luke

Timothy Johnson, “Life-Giving Spirit: The Ontological Implications of Resurrection in 1 Corinthians,” Stone-

associated with doxa. Our study revealed how Paul considered the first Adamic body to be the body of doxa functioning as God’s representative and a type of the eschatological greater Adam-glory figure. Doxa links to both, the first and the second Adam, with certain continuities and discontinuities, the second Adam’s glory being superior to the first one. Paul’s point is not to deny the physical eschatological body of the Second Adam. Indeed, he intentionally connects the doxa motif to show the continuity of the first Adam to the Second Adam as God’s representatives. Paul argues against his contemporary opponents by affirming that resurrection bodies are indeed more than a restoration of (physical) humanity, not a step away from it. Even though the eschatological Adam has some characteristics that the First Adam has, Paul clearly emphasizes the superiority of the last Adam.

Paul seems to employ a “from the lesser to the greater” (light to heavy) hermeneutic. Not only are his similarities with the Jewish practice of qal wahomer,439 _{but Paul also seems to have a} parallel view with the Hodayot’s understanding of anthropogony discussed in the background chapter: the first Adam is yet to be completed by the eschatological Adam. Philo’s two-Adam model has certain correspondences, with the exception that the material body itself is not mortal. For Paul, the second Adam is the physically resurrected Christ, who also functions as the firstfruit of believers’ eschatological model and hope.

4.4.
The Doxa of God Revealed in the Identity of Moses, Christ, and