Pauline Interpretation of Christianity: ROMANS

1. Pauline Interpretation of Christianity:ROMANS RLST 212/Div 3162 Tuesday, March 22, 2011

2. Today’s Schedule • Apocalyptic/Messianic Readings of Paul vs. Forensic/Theological vs. New Covenant/Pastoral • the evil I do not want is what I do“ • Rom 7:24-8:4 • DEREK AXELSON • Respondent: Ross Stackhouse •  JASON JONES  • Respondent: Jonathan Baynham •  MURIELLE WYMAN • Respondent: Amy Lentz

3. March 29 Steps 1 and 2a: you and your companion scholar • JEREMY SNOW (10:5-21) • Respondent: Madeleine St Marie •  ROSS STACKHOUSE (11) • Respondent: Karney Carney

4. Moving into your paper • Introduction • Part 1 • Part 2 (still dealing with ONE interpretation = YOURS + Companion Scholar) • (not yet your Diverging Scholar)

5. Romans 7:22 - 8:4 • 22 For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? • 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin. • 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

6. Romans 7:22 - 8:4 Forensic Reading • Forensic/Theological: A problem with the will (will is not strong enough; no self-discipline)… needed is strengthening of the will. Motivation. How: Threat of punishment and good news • Contextual Problem: Bad behavior (pick one: e.g., abusive behavior; unfaithful behavior, etc… Pick one. Give a concrete example • 22 For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind = will, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? = who will change my will • 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! • 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation = punishment for those who are in Christ Jesus = Christ died instead of me.

7. Romans 7:22 - 8:4 Forensic Reading • Forensic/Theological: A problem with the will (will is not strong enough; no self-discipline)… needed is strengthening of the will. Motivation. • 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus = the good news of Christ’s death from us that opens new life in the Spirit has set you free from the law of sin (the transgression resulting from wrong will) and of death (=the just punishment). • 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin (=to be a sin offering, NIV), he condemned sin in the flesh =???? He showed that sin was punishable?o` qeo.j to.n e`autou/ ui`o.n pe,myaj evn o`moiw,mati sarko.j a`marti,aj kai. peri. a`marti,aj kate,krinen th.n a`marti,an evn th/| sarki,( • 4 so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

8. Romans 7:22 - 8:4 New Covenantal • New Covenant/Pastoral: A problem of Ideology (wrong ideology) either due to a wrong vision (of God, and of God’s people) or leading to a wrong vision of God and God’s people. • Wanting to do good according to the wrong ideology [keeping the community “pure” … excluding whoever is “not right”], you end up doing the evil you hate • Examples: patriarchalism; supersessionism; racism; homophobia; etc. Give a story • 22 For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? • 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.

9. Romans 7:22 - 8:4 New Covenantal Jewett • Jewett names Romans 8:1-17 = “Thesis and Rationale Concerning the Cosmic Struggle between Flesh and Spirit.” This struggle is an ideological one taking place among the believers in “the ecclesiastical realm created and ruled by Christ, a mystical, ecstatic realm of the Spirit in which believers participate.”[480] The struggle happens because the law or Torah was distorted by sin and flesh, and “became an instrument of gaining honor for oneself and one’s group. But in Christ the law regains its proper spiritual function, which leads to genuine life (Rom 7:10-14; 8:4)” instead of condemnation. [481]

10. Romans 7:22 - 8:4 New Covenantal Jewett • Hence, Jewett views the law as inherently good. The problem is that “human arrogance and the quest for honor” have corrupted and incapacitated its ability to achieve goodness. [483] Flesh, likewise, is “‘weak’ not because of its frailty or sensuality but because of its capacity to pervert the law into an instrument of status acquisition, which is a universal human phenomenon.”[483] • The way of the flesh then is “to gain honor through performance or by virtue of allegedly superior status… [which is] shaped by the dominant culture both Greco-Roman and Jewish.” [487]

11. Romans 7:22 - 8:4 New Covenantal Jewett • Within this way of the flesh is death as competition and zeal for honor will destroy the ecclesia in the end. Hence, life can only be gained within the way of the spirit, which teaches us “to receive the gift of honor as a result of Christ’s dying for the ungodly, without making any claim of merit.”[ 487] It is because of this perverted way of gaining honor that Christ condemned sin by “fully participating in the realm of sinful flesh [i.e., in the likeness of sin] in order to replace it with a new lifestyle based on the Spirit.” [484] As a result of this new lifestyle, Christ creates unity among believers, which is essentially the requirement of the law. [485]

12. Romans 7:22 - 8:4 New Covenantal Jewett • This unity within the ecclesia that runs on the way of the spirit is then always in tension with the world which operates on the way of the flesh. [495] However, now that believers are no longer obligated to the fleshly way of lifestyle but to God and one another, they need to “live as family members of God” and “redefine those obligations so that the society no longer determined what [they] should do or be.” [493-94] Notice that for Jewett, the ecclesia communal aspect is very important to his interpretation

13. Romans 7:22 - 8:4 Apocalyptic • Apocalyptic/Messianic: A problem of wrong faith/vision [= idolatry instead of faith in the true God] • Wanting to do good according to the wrong faith/vision [=serving your idol; what ever provides security control], you end up doing the evil you hate • Context = one specific Idolatry = absolutizing a good gift of God • 22 For I delight in the law of God (which is holy just and good) in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? • 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.

14. Romans 7:22 - 8:4 Apocalyptic • Apocalyptic/Messianic: A problem of wrong faith/vision [= idolatry instead of faith in the true God] • 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation (= the effect of idolatry, in daily life, see 1:18ff) for those who are in Christ Jesus. • 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death = FREE FROM IDOLATRY and its consequences. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: o` qeo.j to.n e`autou/ ui`o.n pe,myaj evn o`moiw,mati sarko.j a`marti,aj kai. peri. a`marti,aj kate,krinen th.n a`marti,an evn th/| sarki,( by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh according to sin (=according to the definition of sin provided by sin [the idol], he condemned sin in the flesh [=he destroyed sin in the flesh, destroyed its power], 4 so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

15. Romans 7:22 - 8:4 Apocalyptic • Romans 8:1-13 “Life in the Spirit – Ethical ‘Possibility’” (= Byrne; as summarized by Meng Hun Goh) • it was/is Christ who made/makes it possible for us to live righteously according to the spirit. • “In the new Christian situation it is indeed possible to walk according to the flesh and reap the consequences, death. It is possible, but it is not necessary. That is the difference from the situation described in chap. 7. In the ‘pre-grace-of-Christ’ predicament the flesh was ‘sold under sin.’… • In the new situation Christians do indeed remain in some sense ‘in the flesh,’ but they are not ‘in the flesh’ in the sense of being wholly determined by it. They do not have to walk ‘according to the flesh.’” Brendan Byrne, “Living out the Righteousness of God,” 569

16. Romans 7:22 - 8:4 Apocalyptic • In respect to living in the sphere of flesh or spirit, [[B, 239]] Byrne argues that the flesh and spirit “do not denote separate elements in the make-up of human individuals… but rather two possibilities of human existence – the one self-enclosed, self-regarding and hostile to God [idolatry], the other open to God and to life.” These two possibilities hinge upon which law and which sphere that we live in. • Here, Byrne takes the law as a “generic nomos,”[239] which was unable to “confront the problem that was deep-seated within human nature (“sin in the flesh”).”[236] By “‘becoming sin’ in the sense of both identifying with sinful humanity and functioning as an expiatory offering for sin,” [237] Jesus condemned sin [238] in its sphere and liberated us from its bondage. [the question is: How? Expiatory sacrifice… as in my schema– on the board]

17. Romans 7:22 - 8:4 Apocalyptic • Romans 8:1-13 This action of Jesus and God then fulfilled the requirement of law on our behalf, which was good and holy but was unable to perform its function due to our sinful flesh. [that made an idol out of it] • In other words, this requirement is about “the righteousness of God revealed in the Christ-event as an on-going righteousness in some sense communicable to human beings” and “this communication is achieved solely participation in Christ.” = an on-going intervention of the justice of God breaking the idol which keeps humans in bondage [ 241.574] • “

18. Romans 7:22 - 8:4 Apocalyptic • to ‘live according to the Spirit’ is to allow one’s life to be transformed and ruled by the dynamic power of the new age, released by God’s act in Christ, and in fact, tantamount for Paul to the influence/intervention of the risen Lord (cf. 1 Cor 15:45).” [238] This eschatological hope of transformation takes place in the present and in the eschaton.

19. Today’s Schedule • Apocalyptic/Messianic Readings of Paul vs. Forensic/Theological vs. New Covenant/Pastoral • the evil I do not want is what I do“ • Rom 7:24-8:4 • DEREK AXELSON • Respondent: Ross Stackhouse •  JASON JONES  • Respondent: Jonathan Baynham •  MURIELLE WYMAN • Respondent: Amy Lentz