James D.G. Dunn

Making the World Right

~ Chad Chambers ~ 1 Comment

In light of the events of this week, a few quotes on God’s making the world right.* I hope this vision captures the church, myself included, and we become God’s people – a people working to make what is wrong right.

 

In Galatians, the cross is interpreted not primarily as an atoning sacrifice for forgiveness of sins, but as a cataclysmic event that has broken the power of forces that hold humanity captive, brought the old world to an end, and inaugurated a new creation.

Richard Hays

 

Paul takes his bearings from the good news that in Christ – and thus in the act of new creation – God has invaded the cosmos. Paul does not argue, then, on the basis of a cosmos that remains undisturbed but on the emergence of the new cosmos with its new elements.

J. Louis Martyn

 

In Christ’s death the whole world has been put to death and a new world of possibilities come to birth.

James D. G. Dunn

 

God’s gracious will is to create life, to call into existence things that do not exist…Far from repairing the old cosmos, God is in the process of replacing it. 

J. Louis Martyn (partial summary, partial quote)

 

The new creation is not, however, merely a dream or a vision it takes on empirical reality in the community of God’s people.

Richard Hays

 

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10)

 

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*All quotes from commentaries on Galatians.

 

Paul and συν-compounds: Con Campbell

~ Chad Chambers ~ 2 Comments

In studying συν Χριστω, I was intrigued by Paul’s use of συν-compounds. Most of these compounds only appear in Paul in the New Testament but they seem to incorporate so much of Paul’s theology – engaging past, present, and future realities for those ‘in Christ. It turns out I am not the only one who finds these terms significant…

Also see James Dunn and Murray Harris.

Con Campbell — Paul and Union with Christ (219-220):

As for our theme of union with Christ, Dunn states that the συν-compounds are even more significant in Paul’s usage than the phrase συν Χριστω:

For the real force of the ‘with Christ’ motif is carried by the remarkable sequence of about forty ‘with’ compounds which constitute yet another distinctive feature of Paul’s writing. He uses them both to describe the common privilege, experience, and task of believers and to describe a sharing in Christ’s death and life.

Indeed, McGrath goes so far as to say that ‘the quintessence of Saint Paul’s doctrine of the solidarity of the body of Christians with Christ is contained in the concepts embodied in the words which we have been considering’. Believers suffer with him (Rom 8:17), are crucified with him (Rom 6:6), are nailed to the cross with Christ (Gal 2:19), are united with him in his death (Rom 6:5), are fellow members of the same body (Eph 3:6), are built together in him (Eph 2:2), die with Christ (2 Tim 2:11), and are buried with him (Rom 6:4; Col 2:12). God brings believers to life in Christ (Eph 2:5; Col 2:13), who are raised up with him (Eph 2:6; Col 2:12; 3:1) and live together with him (Rom 6:8; 2 Tim 2:11). They become like Christ (Phil 3:10), are conformed to him (Rom 8:29; Phil 3:21), are joint-heirs with him (Rom 8:17; Eph 3:6), are joint-partakers of the promise (Eph 3:6), and are seated together with Christ (Eph 2:6) so that they may reign with him (2 Tim 2:12) and be glorified with him (Rom 8:17).

Paul and συν-compounds: James Dunn

~ Chad Chambers ~ 2 Comments

In studying συν Χριστω, I was intrigued by Paul’s use of συν-compounds. Most of these compounds only appear in Paul in the New Testament but they seem to incorporate so much of Paul’s theology – engaging past, present, and future realities for those ‘in Christ. It turns out I am not the only one who finds these terms significant…

Also see Con Campbell and Murray Harris.

James Dunn — The Theology of Paul the Apostle (403-404, list of all usages in footnotes on 402-403)

Particularly notable are the clustering of the compounds in several passages. Rom 6.4-8 and 8.16-29 deserve particular attention…

The prominence of the death-resurrection motif in the compounds uniting the believer to Christ underlines the distinctively Christian, that is, Pauline, character of the teaching. Paul appeals not simply to the wider sense of the appropriateness of death imagery when describing the beginning of the process of salvation. Fundamental is the eschatological claim that with Christ’s death a whole epoch has passed and a new age begun. Moreover, this new age is characterized by the steady reclaiming of individuals for an ever closer conformity to the risen Christ. In some sense the event of Christ’s passion and resurrection has to be reenacted in believers until the renewal of the new age is complete. Not only so, but the process cannot, almost by definition, be something merely individual and individualistic. Rather, by its very nature it is a shared experience which involves creation as well. The ‘with Christ’ cannot be fully enacted except as a ‘with others’ and ‘with creation.’