Doherty begins this section by quoting I Cor. 10:11: "For upon us the fulfilment of the ages has come. [NEB]" Ted presents this quote and then quotes the first paragraph of Doherty's commentary as if it summarized Doherty's argument: "One of the driving forces of the Christian movement was the expectation that the end of the world and the arrival of Christ to establish God's Kingdom was at hand, part of a longstanding Jewish anticipation of the Day of the Lord." But Doherty does not get to the real problem until his third paragraph:
In the orthodox picture of Christian origins, however, a radically new dimension has been added to the pattern. The Messiah had come, but not the Kingdom with him. Christ had died and been resurrected, but still the new age had not dawned. That was to be delayed until his return, this time in glory and as judge at the Parousia. Between the two comings of Christ, as brief a period as that might be, the gospel message had to be carried to as many as possible and the world had to be made ready.
And the problem is that this orthodox picture is nowhere to be found in Paul's writings or the writings of any other early Christian writer.
Ted begins by arguing from context that "Paul isn't writing about a future Parousia here." That looks to me like more of his question-begging, but let's just suppose for the sake of discussion that Doherty did totally misinterpret this particular passage. We can then move on to Ted's next observation:
Doherty makes an interesting point, however. The expectation for a Messiah was not one like Jesus in the Gospels.
Indeed, and it is a point that evangelical apologists make much of. Their argument goes like this:
Jesus did not do what Jews had been expecting the messiah to do. Nevertheless, some of them—the first Christians—came to believe he was in fact the messiah. Therefore, he must have proved it beyond any possible doubt. He could only have done that by proving he was God incarnate, and he could only have done that by rising from the dead. Therefore, the resurrection must have actually happened.
We need not critique that argument here. My point is that neither Paul's writings nor any other early Christian documents contain evidence of any effort to address any objection to Christian teachings that was based on a perceived conflict between messianic expectations and anything presumptively known about Jesus of Nazareth. That is the say, we never see anything like: "Even though you thought the messiah would do X and Jesus did not do X, you nevertheless must believe that he was the messiah—because you were mistaken to think the messiah was going to do X."
There is one and only one apparent exception: the crucifixion. Some potential converts, apparently, had a problem with that, if we are to believe Paul. But how did Paul respond? Not by saying anything like: "Yes, Jesus was crucified, but you must believe he was the messiah anyway." His argument was: "Yes, the messiah was crucified, and you must believe that." On a presumption of Jesus' historicity, such an argument would have been pointless. If Jesus of Nazareth had been real and was actually crucified, nobody would have doubted his having been crucified. What they would have doubted was any assertion that he was the messiah.
I supppose it is possible that according to Paul's idiosyncratic thinking (or something about the semantics of ancient Greek), "Jesus Christ really was crucified" meant the same thing as "Jesus who was crucified really was the Christ." But let us now return to Doherty's point.
Paul did say that the Christ had been crucified and resurrected. That is not disputed. The dispute is over whether he believed that those things had happened to a man who had recently lived in this world. If he thought they had, then he believed that the messiah had recently arrived in this world. Now, the messiah's arrival was supposed to signal the beginning of the kingdom of God. But Paul doesn't seem to think the kingdom has begun yet, and so he must not have believed that the messiah had arrived in this world. And therefore, the crucifixion and resurrection must have happened in some other world.
Ted disputes the assertion that Paul didn't think the kingdom had arrived, and he offers four proof texts. Here they are:
Rom 8:15-17 "15..you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!" 16The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him."
That does not say that the kingdom of God has arrived.
Col 1:12 "giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. 13For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."
That does not say that the kingdom of God has arrived. There is no justification for equating God's kingdom with the "kingdom of his beloved son," absent an assumption that Paul believed the same trinitarian dogma that was developed by orthodox Christianity a long time after he was gone.
1 Cor 4:19 "But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I shall find out, not the words of those who are arrogant but their power. 20For the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power. 21What do you desire? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love and a spirit of gentleness."
That seems to imply that the kingdom of God presently exists. It does not imply that Paul thought it had been recently established in this world.
1 Cor 15: "But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. 21For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. 23But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His coming, 24then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. 25For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet."
That does not say that the kingdom of God has arrived. Paul is describing what will happen when it arrives, but he is not asserting that it has arrived.
After quoting that last passage, Ted tries to argue that in Paul's mind, "the kingdom was all about eternal life," but the passage itself clearly suggests otherwise. Are we to suppose that this would be a good paraphrase of verses 24 and 25: "then comes the end, when he hands over eternal life to the God and Father, when he has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For
eternal life must endure until he has put all his enemies under his
feet"?
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This page last updated on August 4, 2010.