No. 8 on Doherty's top 20 is not, I think, as obvious as he seems to think. It is nevertheless a point well taken, especially when seen as part of the pattern that he is establishing. In the historicist view, the "day of salvation" was Jesus' day. It dawned when he was born, and prophecies that it was coming referred to his life, his earthly ministry, and his death and resurrection. But you wouldn't know any of that from reading Paul. Doherty quotes from the opening verses of II Corinthians 6:
God's own words are: "In the hour of my favour I gave heed to you, On the day of deliverance I came to your aid." The hour of favour has now come; now, I say, has the day of deliverance dawned. [NEB]
It is not plausible that by "now," Paul meant "a few decades ago." But what else could he have thought, if he was under the impression that salvation had been effected with the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth? Given a historical Jesus, Paul's words are like those of someone who had written, sometime in the 1970s, "Now, I say, the day of the cold war has dawned."
According to Ted, Paul's phrasing is explained by his occasion for writing:
Paul is writing to Corinthians who are beginning to question Paul's ministry. This reflects shaky faith, which to Paul threatens their own salvation.
It does seem to have been true that to Paul's way of thinking, if you didn't believe in Paul, then you might as well not believe in God. Therefore, as Paul saw it, in daring to question his authority, the Corinthians were endangering their souls. To ensure their salvation, the Corinthians had to believe what Paul was telling them. His gospel was God's gospel. Salvation was in Paul's message, and it became available to whoever heard his message, whenever they heard his message. No matter what was in the message of salvation, then, in a sense the day of salvation dawned for any given person only when the message came to them. Indeed, as Ted notes, "The Corinthians weren't saved when Jesus was on earth."
The problem with this interpretation is that given historicity, it does not work as a fulfillment of prophecy. But that is exactly how Paul is presenting it. Paul is clearly suggesting that his own ministry is the fulfillment of a prophecy that a day of salvation would come. As Doherty notes, according to Luke's gospel (4:19), Jesus himself made essentially the same claim for himself, in contradiction to Paul's claim.
It is true, as Ted observes, that evangelical preachers even today say "Now is the day of repentance," but in saying it they aren't claiming, as Paul was, to be enlightening anyone about the meaning of scripture. They instead are warning against procrastination. When today's evangelicals say "now," they mean "not tomorrow." But when Paul said "now," he meant "not before today."
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This page last updated on August 4, 2010.