Morphemics

Abraham's Women

Rummaging through the archives at rabbisaul weblog, I came across the following:
Does it bother anyone else that we say that Jesus earned our inheritance for us by keeping the law on our behalf - and meanwhile, Paul says that if the inheritance comes through the law, then the promise is made void (Gal 3.17-18)?

I well enough know the standard response to this, namely, that if we receive the inheritance by law, the promise is void, but that it is given to us precisely by Christ's law-keeping.

But there is a wee problem with this solution: in the very preceding verse (3.16), Paul has just identified Jesus as the recipient of the promise.

Am I missing something here? Doesn't this mean that Paul is saying that Jesus Himself did not receive the promise by law-keeping, but by inheritance?

The "we" here, at least that part where Christ had to keep the law on our behalf, includes the bulk of confessionally reformed Christianity and, while I am perfectly willing to disagree with this tradition on the basis of a text proving it to have been in error, I would first rather investigate the possibility that this simple reading is not what Paul had in mind. I submit that, within the text, there is an implicit reference to the historia salutis that allows Christ both to receive the promise by inheritance and to be justified by keeping the law (they are not the same thing); that, in the language of inheritance apart from the law, Paul is considering Christ in his resurrected state.

The central question to the churches of Galatia is one of timing. "But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?" (4:9) The point of inheritance, which Paul is explicitly addressing in 3:16-18, has to do with one's status as a son. The point of keeping the law, dying under its curse, and being raised into the life of the Spirit has to do with how one obtains the status of a son in the first place. Note how this is accomplished for the Galatians (and us): "But when the fulness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!' So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God" (4:4-7). The question is not over the function of the law for our final justification; rather, it is whether we have moved from being slaves under the law to being heirs according to the promise. And if so, then, "Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (3:3)

In Romans 1:3,4, Paul writes about the gospel of God "concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord..." Geerhardus Vos, in his The Eschatological Aspect of the Pauline Conception of the Spirit, notes a paradigm shift between sarkic and pneumatic existence that plays out in the person of Christ when he is raised from the dead. He writes, "The reference is not to two coexisting sides in the constitution of the Saviour, but to two successive stages in His life: there was first a genesthai kata sarka, then a horisthenai kata pneuma. The two prepositional phrases have adverbial force: they descibe the mode of the process, yet so as to throw emphasis on the result than on the initial act: Christ came into being as to His sarkic existence, and he was introduced by horismos into his pneumatic existence."

It is as a man according to the flesh who has been raised according to the Spirit, and not according to his eternal existence as the second person of the Trinity, (which is not denied) that Christ is declared to be the Son of God. Paul also connects Christ's resurrection to the initiation of his status as the Son of God in his sermon at the synogogue of Antioch of Pisidia. "And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the Second Psalm, 'You are my Son, today I have begotten you.'" (Acts 13:32, 33) The same verse is quoted by the author of Hebrews. In the context, he is demonstrating that Christ is better than the angels because he has inherited a more excellent name. This inheritance, however, is not due to his divine status from eternity past. In that case, he would be represented as always better than the angels. But in chapter 2:6-8, the author again quotes from Psalms (8:4-6) and applies it to Christ: "It has been testified somewhere, 'What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.'" Christ's inheritance moves him from being lower than the angels to being superior to angels. There is an historical event in which he is declared to be the Son of God and, therefore, worthy of inheritance. "For to which of the angels did God ever say, 'You are my Son, today I have begotten you?" (1:5) Be sure to note the sequence in the verses immediately preceding: "After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs." The ability to inherit takes place "after making purification for sins," which purification, in turn, falls under the scope of the law.

This paradigm shift, from sarkic to pneumatic, also takes place in the lives of individual believers as a result of their union with Christ. Paul uses himself as an example of this in Galatians 2:19, 20, "For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." When Paul follows this with, "I do not nullify the grace of God, for if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose," it needs to be kept in context. He is not making a blanket statement against the possibility of the law ever to justify, i.e., to be the grounds whereupon one is declared righteous. In fact, in chapter 3:12, quoting from Leviticus 18:5, he writes, "But the law is not of faith, rather 'The one who does them shall live by them.'" The perfect fulfilling of the law counts, by definition, as righteousness. If one actually is righteous, by whatever means, justice requires that he be declared righteous, which is what 'justification' means. No, Paul is saying that, having been united with Christ, "who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification" (Romans 4:25), it would be absurd to go back to the law to obtain what he already had. Moreover, it would be dangerous, since this would imply a lack of saving faith on his part.

Not only does this paradigm shift exist in the life of the individual, but it also exists in the redemptive history of Israel, which history both points to Christ and recapitulates itself in his person. The story of slavery and exodus, of exile and return, of law and gospel, is the story of Christ. Furthermore, this same prophetic shift is seen in the smaller histories contained in the Israeli narrative. Specific to the context of Galatians, it is seen in the story of Abraham. Paul also mentions or alludes to four other main characters: Hagar, Sarah, Isaac, and Ishmael. Without a doubt, the part of Christ as the seed of promise is played by Isaac. We cannot, however, leave it at this and assume that Isaac's part portrays the completeness of Christ's person and work. On the contrary, Isaac is Christ as to his pneumatic existence. Concerning the role of the law in the larger history of redemption, Paul writes, "It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise has been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary" (3:19).

Whose role the law is in the smaller history is identified in chapter 4:25, "Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children." Paul had just said, "For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar." Keeping all of this in mind- the part that Hagar is playing, the fact that she bears Abraham a son, and the fact that Paul explicity identifies her as a woman (he is not being superfluous)- reread 4:4. "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.." Certainly this is Jesus born of Mary, but in the smaller history, it is Ishmael born of Hagar. Ishmael is Christ as to his sarkic existence.

In like manner, the smaller history's portrayal of Isaac born of Sarah is the declaration at his resurrection that Jesus is the Son of God. Paul speaks of this birth in terms of life from death when he writes of Abraham's faith in Romans 4:18,19, "In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, 'So shall your seed be.' He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the deadness of Sarah's womb." The vindication of Abraham's faith in the birth of Isaac accounts for his faith during the sacrifice of Isaac: he expected God to raise him from the dead. Hebrews 11:17-19, "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, 'Through Isaac shall your seed be named.' He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back." Isaac, as portrayed in this passage is the pneumatic Christ. And this is also the case in the passage in question (Galatians 3:16-18). Paul is talking about Christ the one who "was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead;" the one who, by virtue of this declaration is now entitled to the inheritance, not by law-keeping, but by a promise.

Furthermore, the promise to Abraham and his seed made after the sacrifice of Isaac is the only one in which 'seed' can be taken in a singular sense, it is this event to which Paul refers. He is not playing loose with the text by distinguishing 'seed' from 'seeds.' In Genesis 12:1-3, the promise is made to Abram, in whom all families of the earth are to be blessed; there is no mention of a seed. In 15:5, the promise is again made only to Abram; his seed will be as the number of the stars. In 17:19, God tells Abraham that after Isaac has been born he will make a covenant with him (Isaac) and with his seed after him. So far then: no seed, Abrams's plural seed, Isaac's plural seed. We need a place in which the seed is a singular referent to Isaac and, prophetically, to Christ. This record of the promise takes place in Genesis 22:17,18 immediatley following the sacrifice of Isaac, "I will surely bless you , and I will surely multilpy your seed as the stars of the heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. [Plural, but keep reading.] And your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice."

The connection of this event with Paul's emphasis on the singular seed is further established in God's command to have Isaac sacrificed, "Take your son, your only son Isaac" It is just in the preceding chapter (21:10) that Sarah has said of Abraham's other son, "Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman will not be heir with my son Isaac." Precisely the verse quoted by Paul in his allegory of the two women/covenants when he wants to establish our union with the resurrected Christ. "But what does the Scripture say? 'Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.' So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman" (Galatians 4:30,31). We, along with the pneumatic Christ, are children of the resurrection, of the Jerusalem that is above. As her children, we receive the promise, not because of what we do, but because we are heirs. How can we even think of returning to our previous existence? Yet, that there was such an existence, both for Christ and for ourselves, cannot be disputed. Christ was born under the law and endeavored to fulfill the law, for "the one who does them shall live by them." And, as to his own person, he was the only man who ever kept the law. However, union with Christ is not limited to our mutual pneumatic existence. He was also united to us in sarkic history and so, sharing in the guilt of our law-breaking, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us" (3:13).

It is on the basis of his perfect obedience to the law that Christ, upon bearing the curse of the law in our behalf, is declared righteous. This justification is that, without which, the resurrection cannot take place. It is at his resurrection that God declares of Jesus, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you." Once Christ has entered into this state of being a son, he does not need to keep the law to earn what is his due. It is simply his by inheritance. And what is Christ's belongs to the churches of Galatia by inheritance and to us by inheritance. This much is true, "if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise." Nevertheless, justification, which belongs to Christ as a result of keeping the law and to us by faith in his person and work, is not the same thing as the promised inheritance, which belongs both to Christ and to us by virtue of our mutaul status as sons. We cannot afford to lose sight of the historia salutis.

Posted by kcourter at janeiro 15, 2005 2:12 AM