Conformed to the Image of His Son: Reconsidering Paul’s Theology of Glory in Romans

324 Pages·2018·5.69 MB·English

by  Haley Goranson Jacob

C O N F O R M E D
T O T H E I M A G E
O F H I S S O N
R E C O N S I D E R I N G PAU L ’ S
T H E O LO G Y O F G LO RY
I N RO M A N S
Haley Goranson Jacob
InterVarsity Press
P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515‑1426
ivpress.com
[email protected]
©2018 by Haley Goranson Jacob
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written
permission from InterVarsity Press.
InterVarsity Press® is the book‑publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a
movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges, and schools
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of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, visit intervarsity.org.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are the author’s translation.
Cover design: David Fassett
Interior design: Jeanna Wiggins
Images: crown: illustration by David Fassett
Jesus Christ: © sedmak / iStock / Getty Images Plus
ISBN 978‑0‑8308‑8577‑0 (digital)
ISBN 978‑0‑8308‑5210‑9 (print)
To my parents, Leroy and Nancy

CONTENTS
Foreword by N. T. Wright viii
Preface xiii
Abbreviations xvi
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Getting to This Point 1
1.2 A Few Notes on Methodology 11
1.3 Outline and Agenda for Each Section 14
PART 1 THE HOPE OF GLORY IN ROMANS 5–8
2 Glory and Glorification in Jewish Literature 21
2.1 A Discussion of Semiotics 22
2.2 Glory and Glorification in the LXX 29
2.3 Glory and Glorification in
Apocalyptic Literature 52
2.4 Conclusion 62
3 Humanity’s Glory and Glorification in Romans 64
3.1 Humanity’s Glory and Glorification
in Romans: Current Approaches 65
3.2 Humanity’s Glory and Glorification
in Romans: Considerations 73
3.3 Paul’s Anthropological “Narrative
of Glory” in Romans 98
3.4 Conclusion 120
4 Participation in Christ’s Glory 122
4.1 Participation as a Foundational Motif
in Pauline Literature 123
4.2 Participation Elsewhere 140
4.3 Conclusion 169
PART 2 ROMANS 8:29
5 Image of the Son 173
5.1 Son of God Backgrounds 173
5.2 Christ as Messiah—A Presupposition 176
5.3 Son of God as the Davidic Messiah 182
5.4 Son of God as the New Adam 190
5.5 Conclusion 201
6 Participation in the Firstborn Son’s Glory 202
6.1 Adoption into God’s Eschatological Family:
The Basis of Conformity 203
6.2 Participation in the Son’s Inheritance and
Glory in Romans 8:17 211
6.3 A Reglorified Humanity in Romans 8:30 223
6.4 Conclusion 227
7 Purposed for Conformity 228
7.1 God’s Eternal Decree: Called with a Purpose:
Romans 8:28-30 228
7.2 Called with a Present Purpose: Romans 8:17-30 233
7.3 Conclusion 251
8 Conclusion 252
8.1 Alternative Proposals 252
8.2 Chapter Conclusions 255
8.3 Summary of the Argument 266
Bibliography 267
Author Index 292
Subject Index 295
Scripture Index 297
Praise for Conformed to the Image of His Son 305
About the Author 307
More Titles from InterVarsity Press 308
FOREWORD
N. T. Wright
T
he letters of Paul are notoriously complex. However exciting and
stimulating the subject matter, there always seems to be more going
on than meets the eye of the casual reader, even of the Christian reader
used to hearing sermons and other expositions of well-known texts. It is
therefore always worthwhile investigating even the most familiar passages
to be sure they have yielded up their secrets. Th is is what Haley Goranson
Jacob has done in this remarkable work, and the results are striking. If she
is right—and I am convinced that she is—then the standard assumptions
about a central Pauline passage will need to be revised.
You can hardly get a more central Pauline passage than Romans 8, and
it is a measure of the author’s courage that she has dived into the heart of
this astonishing chapter, full as it is of converging and interlocking themes,
biblical allusions and echoes, powerful rhetoric, and complex literary
structure. Th e rich arguments of Romans 1–8—and, with them, some of
the major themes in all of Paul—come to their astonishing climax here,
and many generations of preachers and teachers have thrilled their hearers
with Paul’s triumphant conclusion: those whom God justifi ed he also
glorifi ed (Rom 8:30).
But wait a minute, asks Dr. Jacob: What does “glorifi ed” actually mean
here? And what, in particular, does Paul mean in the previous verse when
x Foreword
he says that God had always planned that believers would be “conformed
to the image of his son, so that he might be the firstborn among many
brothers and sisters”? It turns out that almost all exegetes (including the
present writer) have taken for granted that “glorification” is more or less
a synonym for “salvation,” with most (though not including the present
writer) seeing salvation itself in terms of “going to heaven when we die,”
with the “glory” in question being the status, and perhaps the radiance,
that believers will possess in that new location. (The past tense in “glorified,”
in verse 30, is then normally read in terms of “assurance”: because God
has promised it, it is as good as done.) Being “conformed to the image of
the son” would then be a matter of sharing Jesus’ resurrection life, and/or
his holiness, and/or the radiance of his divine glory.
But is that what Paul meant by “glorification”? And what else might
“conformed to the image of the son” be getting at? There are several clues
to the fresh answer, but perhaps the most important is found in Paul’s
echoing of Psalm 8, which in turn brings into play his sense of the vocation
of Adam, and hence of the human race. The human vocation, focused on
the “image” in Genesis 1 and spelled out in Psalm 8, was that we should
be set in authority over the created order. The psalm speaks of humans as
being “crowned with glory and honor,” with all things “put in subjection”
under their feet. Other passages in Paul, notably 1 Corinthians 15 and
Philippians 3, indicate that Paul can use this line of thought in cognate
passages. Does it make sense here?
It does indeed, but it requires quite a different focus from that normally
envisaged, and Dr. Jacob does not shrink from arguing for this significant
adjustment in our reading of the whole passage. The ultimate aim, she insists,
is not a statement of “salvation” in the sense of humans being rescued from
the world, but a statement of vocation, in which humans, redeemed from
their sinful state, are now to resume the task envisaged in Romans 5:17. There
the “reign of death” is replaced, not (as one might have expected) with the
“reign of life,” but rather with the “reign” (in life) of those who receive God’s
gracious gift. Exactly as in Revelation 5, where the victory of the Lamb results
in redeemed humans receiving back the genuinely human vocation (to be
the “royal priesthood”), so in Romans, we begin to see, the point of the
whole argument is not to rescue humans from the world but to rescue them