PAVIMENTO FLEXIBLE

Although Dennis Johnson’s article “Fire in God’s House: Imagery from Malachi 3 in Peter’s Theology of Suffering (1 Pet 4:12-19)” has not received much attention in 1 Peter scholarship, it is nevertheless important to engage with it given what I am proposing in this thesis.100_{Johnson has argued that the fire imagery of 1 Pet 4.12 and the judgment}

language in 1 Pet 4.17 are derived from Malachi 3, a text which, in his view, undergirds the theology of the entire passage (i.e. 1 Pet 4.12-19). His argument is founded upon two claims. First, Johnson argues that Peter (1 Pet 1.6-7) employs metallurgy imagery in order to highlight the authenticating and purifying functions of suffering.101_And

second, he contends that Peter describes his readers as God’s temple or sanctuary (οἶκος; 1 Pet 2.4-8; 4.17), rejecting the proposal put forth by Elliott in whichοἶκοςis understood to be a reference to a household or family.102_{According to Johnson, these} two themes (i.e. the purifying function of suffering and God’s temple as a metaphor for God’s people) converge in 1 Pet 4.12-19 and Malachi 3, where according to both texts God comes to his temple in order to cleanse and judge (Mal 3.2-3; 1 Pet 4.12,14,17), where fiery trials, rather than being a sign of God’s absence or punishment, are in fact an indication of his presence (Mal 3.2-3; 1 Pet 4.14), and where the process of judgment commences with ‘the house of God’ but then ‘moves out to consume the godless and disobedient’ (Mal 3.5-6;4.1; 1 Pet 4.17-18).103_{From this, Johnson concludes that 1 Pet} 4.12-19 draws on Malachi 3 in order to present the church as the new temple of God and the presence of God ‘as a refining fire’.104

100_{Johnson 1986.} 101_{Johnson 1986:287.} 102_{Johnson 1986:289; 291-293.} 103_{Johnson 1986:286-93.} 104_{Johnson 1986:293.}

In due course, I will offer an alternative reading of 4.12-19 that will challenge some of the claims that Johnson makes. Here, however, I wish to underscore four features of his argument that are problematic. First, as I have already indicated in response to the other proposals, it is questionable whether the metallurgy imagery in 1 Pet 1.6-7/4.12 is in fact principally being used to highlight the purifying virtues of suffering. If I am right, this would undercut one pillar of his argument. Second, and in a related manner, it is hard to understand why purification by fire, at least in the way that Johnson envisions it, would be a necessary and important theme in 1 Peter given the manner in which the readers are described: having returned to the shepherd (2.25), or having placed their faith and hope in God (1.21), they have been ‘ransomed from the futile ways of their forefathers’ (1.18), their souls have been purified (1.22), they have been born anew (1.3,23), they are now a ‘holy nation’, they have been healed so that they may die to sin and live for righteousness (2.24), they have clear consciences (3.16,21), they no longer join the Gentiles in licentious living (4.3), and they are a spiritualοἶκος and a holy priesthood capable (now) of offering spiritual sacrifices which are pleasing to God through Jesus Christ(2.5).105_{This description (especially 2.5)} does not concord with Mal 3.3, in which God manifests himself as a refining fire in order to purify the Levitesuntilthey are one day able to present offerings to YHWH in

righteousness. Again, I underscore that in 1 Peter the ‘priesthood’alreadyis capable of presenting acceptable offerings, and yet the ‘fire’ still remains.

Third, it is unnecessary and incorrect to defineοἶκος as exclusively either a temple/sanctuary, or a household/family. In 1 Peter 2.4-10 we see the blending of metaphors: the people that are referred to as theοἶκος are also an ἱεράτευμα which

‘offers’ spiritual sacrifices.Syntactically, it is best to understand the phraseοἶκος

πνευματικός(along withλίθοι ζῶντες) to be in apposition toαὐτοίin the main clause αὐτοὶ οἰκοδομεῖσθε, and to understand the clause εἰς ἱεράτευμα ἅγιον ἀνενέγκαι πνευματικὰς θυσίαςεὐπροσδέκτους τῷ θεῷ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ as dependent upon the main clause. With this in view, the living stones that are being built are also those that offer the sacrifices, leaving room to understandοἶκος as both a reference to a people as well as a building—but not necessarily a temple. Therefore, even if Johnson were correct in asserting that in the LXX οἶκοςnever refers to a

105_{Marius Reisner (1994:175) helpfully points out that the texts that are often put forth as standing behind 1 Pet 4.12-} 17 (e.g. Ezek 9.6; Jer 25.29) actually speak of a judgment that annihilates rather than one that purifies for the purpose of transformation.

community or household when joined with the genitiveθεοῦ, in the context of 1 Peter it is most likely being used in this way.106_{What is more, it appears that Johnson has} overlooked one significant instance in the LXX whereοἶκος θεοῦ is clearly a reference to a community—Zech 12.8, where the ὁ οἶκος Δαυιδisὡς οἶκος θεοῦ. The

significance of this will be explored in Chapter Five.

Finally, in 1 Peter fire is never equated with God’s presence. Instead, the fire is likened to the ‘various trials’, the variety of ways in which the Anatolian Christians experience suffering (cf. 1.6-7; 4.12); nowhere is God made out to be the agent of such trials. If anything, reading 1 Peter as a whole leaves the impression that the agents of the fiery trials are principally those who ridicule and ostracize the Anatolian Christians (1 Pet 2.12, 20; 3.9, 16;4.4,14).107_{That God is present in the ‘fiery’ trials to comfort and} strengthen, and that such trials are within the scope of God’s foreknowledge and will (1.2;4.19) is without question (cf. 1.5; 4.19; 5.7); but this is not to be confused with God’s presence ‘as fire’.

4.1.5 CONCLUSIONS

In § 4.1 I have analyzed several proposed sources for the fiery trials imagery of 1 Peter. In each case I have highlighted parallels with features found in 1 Peter. However, I have also indicated a number of inadequacies that make each of the proposed sources

problematic, and in some cases highly unlikely. This analysis, then, has provided added warrant for a detailed study of Zechariah 9-14 and the fiery trials of 1 Peter.