Full, revised text published as The Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ (Brill 2016). Available at brill.com and www.pentecostalpublishing.com. MONOTHEISTIC DISCOURSE AND DEIFICATION OF JESUS IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY AS EXEMPLIFIED IN 2 CORINTHIANS 3:16–4:6 by DAVID KANE BERNARD submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY in the subject of NEW TESTAMENT at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA PROMOTER: DR G VAN DEN HEEVER DECEMBER 2014 Conclusions To summarize our discussion, let us return to Nicholson’s options as presented in ch. 1: (1) The early Christians did not deify Jesus at first because of their Jewish monotheistic beliefs. (2) The early Christians deified Jesus by intentionally moving away from traditional Jewish monotheism. (3) The early Christians deified Jesus but in doing so came to understand Jewish monotheism in a new way while simultaneously believing they remained faithful to it. The best way to account for the evidence is by a fourth option Nicholson did not consider: (4) The early Christians deified Jesus not by defining monotheism in a new way but by concluding that God was revealed in a new way, namely, by manifestation in human identity. In other words, Jesus Christ is not a second actor or second participant in the divine identity but the human personification or embodiment of Yahweh himself. The dual references in the NT to Father/Son and God/Lord make a conceptual distinction between God as transcendent and God as immanent, participating in the human condition. The worship of early Christians was classically monotheistic. They worshiped the one God revealed in or as Jesus. They simultaneously confessed the one God of their historic faith and the eschatological revelation of the one God in or as Jesus for the redemption of humanity. They prayed to God in the name of Jesus and prayed to Jesus as God. They viewed Jesus as the incarnation of God, in essence God acting as God’s own agent by coming in an unprecedented way, in humanness. They believed Jesus to be “God on earth” so that “faith in the one God of Israel has become centred on Jesus”; instead of describing this belief as a “Christology,” perhaps it is more accurate to call it “Theology in a human environment.”1 In this way, early Christians considered themselves to be completely faithful to OT monotheism, although from a traditional Jewish perspective the concept of incarnation was something new. The debate between first-century Jews and Christians was not about whether multiple, distinct entities could be “included” in an abstract Godhead but whether the one, personal God could become manifested in flesh in all God’s fullness and whether God had actually done so in Jesus. Since this formulation does not require the development of an explicit binitarian or trinitarian model in terms of Greek philosophical categories, the explanation for its historical Wendy E. S. North, “Monotheism and the Gospel of John: Jesus, Moses, and the Law,” in Stuckenbruck and North, Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism, 155, 166. While she attributed this view to John, we see essentially the same phenomenon earlier in Paul. 1 origin is not as complex. As Dunn and Wright have explained, and as exemplified in part by 2 Cor 3:16–4:6, the Jewish categories of Spirit, Lord, Word, Presence/Glory, Image, Torah, Messiah/Son, Wisdom, and personified divine attributes all prepared the way for the monotheistic deification of Jesus. Categories such as divine agents, angels, exalted patriarchs, and divine hypostases do not appear to have played a major role, although they may have had some suggestive or allusive influence. As Hurtado has rightly noted, the process of deification was not merely or even primarily doctrinal; the spiritual experiences of the early Christians were crucial. In whatever way we might interpret the post-resurrection appearances, outpourings of the Holy Spirit, and visions described in Acts, they caused first-century Jewish believers to take a fresh look at their belief in God through the lens of Jesus. Despite Christian attempts to maintain continuity with their Jewish heritage, their concept of incarnation ultimately caused a break with Judaism. Yet the early Christians persevered in the deification of Jesus even though it meant conflict. “They said it within a single generation. And they said it even though it was shocking to the religious sensibilities of both Jews and pagans. Moreover, they said it even though it meant a direct political confrontation with the claims of Rome.”2 Clearly, the early Christians had powerful reasons for deifying Jesus. This innovative discourse involved some creative tension within the monotheistic tradition, necessitating some extension or reinterpretation of Jewish thought. It was not a gradual development toward a more abstract, philosophical concept of God or a development from a low to a high Christology. Instead, it was a simultaneous affirmation of the transcendence of God and the immanence of God in the most profound way possible, by presenting God as identifying fully with the human race. Early Christians, prior to and including Paul, worshiped Jesus as divine; their worship occurred within a Jewish monotheistic context; and it did not result primarily from Hellenization. They viewed Jesus as the revelation of the one God of the Hebrew Scriptures, not as a second deity or personage. Although they reinterpreted their core beliefs in light of Jesus Christ, they did not see their worship of Jesus as violating their core beliefs. The evidence from Paul’s Corinthian correspondence is subject to various interpretations, but it does not require an explicit secondcentury binitarian or third-century trinitarian model. It does reveal that many early Christians 2 Wright, Simply Christian, 117. viewed God as both transcendent and immanent and worshiped Jesus as God manifested in human identity. This conclusion best explains the discourse about Jesus in 2 Cor 3:16–4:6 in its historical, literary, and rhetorical context. Although our redescription differs somewhat from the explanations of Bauckham, Hurtado, and Dunn, and while they certainly would not agree with it, in essential respects our analysis of Paul’s discourse, especially in 2 Cor 3:16–4:6, supports their core contention that the early Christians understood Jesus to be the revelation of the God of Israel. For Bauckham, “Jesus reveals the divine identity—who God truly is.”3 For Hurtado, “Paul’s God-talk was Christoriented. . . . The particularity of God remains but is relocated in Jesus. . . . ‘God’ must now be understood and engaged devotionally in light of Jesus.” Hurtado also acknowledged the significance of Christ’s humanity for Paul’s discussion of God: “From Jesus’ resurrection onward, ‘God’ in some profound way now includes a glorified human.”4 Dunn similarly asserted, “For Paul, God was now to be known definitively by reference to Christ. . . . The revelation of Christ was the revelation of God,” so that “Christ became the definition of God.”5 To relate this discussion to Oneness Pentecostalism, we read Bauckham, Hurtado, and Dunn as ultimately supporting the development of classical trinitarianism while Oneness Pentecostalism distinguishes itself from classical trinitarianism. Yet there is a convergence of interests. To a great extent Oneness Pentecostalism emerged as a distinct movement within twentieth-century Pentecostalism as an attempt to recapture and underscore the revelation of the one God of Israel in Jesus Christ. Despite the differences, our investigation reveals that there is much to gain by Oneness Pentecostals entering into this scholarly discourse. Returning to our central question of why the early Christians deified Jesus, the four socio-rhetorical factors we have identified—universalization of Hebrew monotheism in a diverse society, group integrity, soteriology, and missiology—all have relevance for Oneness Pentecostalism and for Christianity generally in the twenty-first century. As Western culture becomes increasingly secular and as Christianity’s center of gravity shifts to the Majority World, today’s Christians encounter many cultures and ideologies and must appropriate biblical texts for this diverse world. As we have seen, first-century Christians used Hebraic thought as 3 Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, ix. Hurtado, God in NT Theology, 11, 23, 72, 113-14. 5 Dunn, Theology of Paul, 722-23. 4 transformed by a universalizing Hellenistic impulse. In the second through fourth centuries Christian thinkers formulated, interpreted, and expanded their Christology in terms of Hellenistic thought, working with two horizons. Now, global Christians increasingly face the challenges of group integrity, soteriology, and missiology in non-Hellenistic, non-Western contexts as well as in postmodern Western contexts. In some cases, they see a collapse of horizons as they encounter Majority World people who embrace the first-century biblical worldview of divine immanence, miracles, extra-normal occurrences, and experiential faith. These people tend to read biblical texts with a sense of immediacy and direct appropriation without the distance caused by centuries of Western philosophical and theological development. While the result may be theological views that seem “naïve” and “untutored,”6 it is a reality for millions of people today, and therefore theological resources should be brought to bear. Global Christians must consider how to preserve and transmit the central core of Christian faith in new expressions appropriate to new contexts. Majority World Christians in general and Oneness Pentecostals in particular seek to maintain group integrity in a pluralistic world in which rival ideologies such as humanism, secularism, paganism, and Islam are becoming increasingly prominent. They also face the need to explain their soteriological experiences and to direct their missiological impulses. In many ways, they face a situation similar to that of first-century Christians. Talbert explained how first-century Christians borrowed contemporary cultural concepts to develop several complementary models of Christology in order to meet certain needs. Something similar seems to be occurring in contemporary Christianity, as exemplified by the emergence of Pentecostalism in its diverse and culturally adapted forms. In this historical and cultural situation, our study of Paul’s discourse has attempted to make a small contribution to the redescription and revisioning of Christology by going back to Christian origins. Our hope is that this study will assist Oneness Pentecostals in reflecting on their Christology in light of their own present socio-rhetorical location and also provide categories of thought whereby they can engage others and others can engage them. To summarize our findings, Paul and other early Christians were convinced that the OT taught and supported their beliefs. They also had religious experiences that they understood to be divine, revelatory, authoritative, and determinative.7 As we have seen, Paul’s own conversion 6 7 Pelikan, Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, 179; Hurtado, God in NT Theology, 49-50. Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth, 61; Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 70-74. experience was fundamental to his understanding of Jesus.8 His vision of the glorified Jesus was apparently the source of his identification of Jesus as the image and glory of God in 2 Cor 4:4-6. In short, regardless of how we may evaluate them today, we should not discount the role of these experiences and the perceptions of them in the development of early beliefs about Jesus. At the same time, without minimizing the beliefs and experiences of early Christians, we can identify sociological factors in the formation of a new Christian identity. The monotheistic deification of Jesus accomplished four significant socio-rhetorical purposes: 1. In a context of rapid social change and dislocation as well as cultural diversity and pressure, early Christians combined “Hebrew monotheism and Greek longing for universals.”9 Their understanding of the deity of Jesus enabled them to claim both traditional heritage (Jewish monotheism) and distinctiveness (Christocentrism). 2. The monotheistic deification of Jesus gave early Christians a unique social identity and cohesiveness. 3. The monotheistic deification of Jesus affirmed the soteriological experiences, beliefs, and outreach of early Christians. 4. The combination of continuity and discontinuity positioned the movement to attract all people, both Jews and Gentiles. The monotheistic deification of Jesus moved the new faith beyond Jewish ethnicity and traditional boundary markers so that it became a universal monotheism with a missiological focus. The socio-rhetorically constructed identity of Jesus Christ defined the identity of the early Christians. The result was a distinctively Christian faith. Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 182-83; Thrall, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 1:317-18; Hurtado, How on Earth?, 34; Kim, Origin of Paul’s Gospel, 100-268. 9 Boyarin, A Radical Jew, 122. 8