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  • From: "Rabbi Saul" <tim AT rabbisaul.com>
  • To: "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Second Temple Judaism and Covenant
  • Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 11:31:05 -0600

> But the Jews under the Romans seemed to have no chance, as all rebellions
> were quickly quashed. Paul finds the way out, which is the way of the
> heart, and praxis with needy people while still remaining under Roman
rule,
> that is changing the promise from restoration (to the land in prosperity)
> from the Moses covenant promise, to a new covenant not from Moses but from
> Jesus, not restoration, but the Hellenized (Greek, Zoroastrian, and
> Mithraism) idea of spirit after-life. What continually doesn't work must
be
> revised-- under a new paradigm.

But Paul does not replace the old covenant promises with a "spirit
after-life." He preaches *resurrection of the body* (1 Cor 15), which was
not a Hellenistic idea. He says that things are happening differently than
Jewish expectation, to be sure - Jesus has "come ahead" and received the
eschatological promise of resurrection before anyone else - but he has not
simply altered physical to spiritual. This is clear from Rom 8: all
creation continues to groan; there is still a renovation of the earth
anticipated. Paul has extended the promise to include the whole earth,
rather than Palestine, but even this was anticipated in the Abrahamic
promises ("in you all the nations shall be blessed").

(Nor would it do to say that Paul defers something that was not deferred
before. Already in Gen 15 God says that Abraham's offspring are going to be
in Egypt 400 years, where they will be in bondage. God's covenant has never
been about immediate deliverance.)

I'm not implying that Paul does not believe in a "bodiless" "interim state;"
certainly he does, as is clear from Phi 1.19ff. But he never presents that
as the ultimate hope of the believer. The believer's hope is grounded in
Jesus' *bodily* resurrection, which will have a consummative effect of the
renewal of all things in the future, and already has initiated renewal in
definitive senses (e.g. believers are crucified with Christ and thus made
participants in the Spirit of the new creation). (Spirit in Paul is
thoroughly rooted in Scripture, not Hellenism, as has been shown by Davies
and many others. The Spirit, after all, in Paul is not set over *against*
the physical, but over against the fallenness of the old creation. Paul's
pneumatology is thoroughly rooted in Gen 1.2, where the Spirit is active in
connection with the original unfallen creation; thus it is by the Spirit
that believers are led toward the fulfillment of the new creation throughout
Rom 8.)

tim

Tim Gallant
Pastor, Conrad Christian Reformed Church
Conrad, MT

Biblical Studies Center
http://www.timgallant.org/center.htm

Pauline studies:
http://www.rabbisaul.com

(406) 278-5846 / (406) 278-7809
Fax: (406) 278-7809
http://www.timgallant.org







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