Dying and Rising with Christ. A Study in Pauline Theology

144 Pages·1967·11.681 MB·German

by  Robert C. Tannehill

ROBERT C. TANNEHILL
DYING AND RISING WITH CHRIST
A STUDY IN PAULINE THEOLOGY
1967
VERLAG ALFRED TÖPELMANN • BERLIN
BEIHEFT ZUR ZEITSCHRIFT
FÜR DIE NEUTESTAMENTLICHE WISSENSCHAFT
UND DIE KUNDE DER ÄLTEREN KIRCHE
HERAUSGEGEBEN VON WALTER ELTESTER
BEIHEFT 32
©
1966
by Alfred Töpelmann, Berlin 30, Genthiner Straße 13
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Preface
This study of Paul's theology is a revised version of a dissertation
accepted in 1963 by the faculty of the Graduate School of Yale Uni-
versity, New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.A., in fulfillment of require-
ments for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. This version omits
some sections of the dissertation which are not essential to the main
argument, among them a section which sought to show the relevance
of gnostic material for understanding certain aspects of Paul's use
of the idea of Christ as inclusive anthropos. On the other hand, this
version brings out more clearly the significance of the topic of this
study for an understanding of Paul's theology as a whole.
Although others have helped me in the production of this study,
it is appropriate to single out the debt which I owe my teachers. In
particular, there are four men who have assisted and encouraged me
at one stage or another of my study of the New Testament. They
are Prof. Paul Schubert, Prof. Paul Minear, and Prof. Paul Meyer,
my teachers at Yale University, and Prof. Ernst Käsemann of the
University of Tübingen, with whom it was my privilege to study for
a short time. To these four men this study is dedicated, in token of
my appreciation and gratitude.
This study was essentially complete in the autumn of 1964.
Delaware, Ohio, U.S.A., November, 1966 Robert Tannehill

Contents
Page
Introduction 1
Part I. Dying with Christ as the Basis of the New Life 7
1. Romans 6 7
a. The Significance of Paul's Reference to Baptism 7
b. The Two Dominions 14
c. Romans 6 3—6 21
d. Conclusion 39
2. Romans 7 l—6 43
3. Ephesians and Colossians 47
4. Galatians 2 19—20 55
5. Galatians 6 24—25 61
6. Galatians 614—15 62
7. II Corinthians 5 14—17 65
8. Conclusion 70
Part II. Dying and Rising with Christ as the Structure of the New Life . . .. 74
A. Dying and Rising with Christ in Ethical Action 77
B. Dying and Rising with Christ in Suffering 84
1. II Corinthians 4 7—14 84
2. II Corinthians 1 3—9 and 7 3 90
3. II Corinthians 13 4 and 12 9 98
4. I Thessalonians 1 5—8 and 2 13—16 100
5. Christ's Power of Transformation as Power of Conformation 104
6. Romans 817 112
7. Philippians 3 2—11 114
8. Conclusion 123
Part III. Rising with Christ at His Coming 130
1. The Place of Rising with Christ in Paul's Thought 130
2. I Thessalonians 4 14 and 5 10 132
Bibliography 135
Abbreviations
Bauer (A—G) William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English
Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Litera-
ture, a translation and adaptation of Walter Bauer's Griechisch-
Deutsches Wörterbuch, Chicago 1957
Blass-Debrunner Friedrich Blass, Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch,
bearbeitet von Albert Debrunner, 10. Aufl. Göttingen 1959
RGG Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, herausgegeben von
Kurt Galling, 3. Aufl. Tübingen 1957—1962
ThLZ Theologische Literaturzeitung
TWNT Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, begründet von
Gerhard Kittel, Stuttgart 1933
ZNW Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
ZThK Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche
Abbreviations of the works of Philo of Alexandria follow the "Abktirzungsverzeichnis"
of TWNT.
Introduction
In using the motif of dying and rising with Christ, Paul relates
the death and resurrection of Christ much more directly to the exist-
ence of the believer than is done in much theological discussion today.
If the believer dies and rises with Christ, as Paul claims, Christ's
death and resurrection are not merely events which produce benefits
for the believer, but also are events in which the believer himself
partakes. The believer's new life is based upon his personal partici-
pation in these saving events. Furthermore, these events continue to
give their stamp to the life of the believer, for he continues to partici-
pate in Christ's death and resurrection in his daily life, especially
through suffering. This understanding of the significance of Christ's
death and resurrection is too often neglected in Christian thought
today.
If this situation is to be changed, interpreters of the New Testa-
ment must see more clearly than they have the meaning and im-
portance of this pattern of thought for Paul. This is the point at
which this study hopes to make a contribution. The task has at
least four aspects, and noting them here will make clearer the scope
of this study. 1) Detailed consideration must be given to a series
of passages from the Pauline letters. Part of the value of this study
is simply in contributions to the solution of a variety of problems
posed by these passages. 2) Such details, however, are illumined by
relating them to a wider context. A comparison of the different pas-
sages in which the motif of dying and rising with Christ occurs en-
ables us to clarify the details of the individual passages through an
understanding of the whole motif, while the whole motif is illumined
from the details of the passages. Such investigation of the motif as
a whole rather than one or two passages in isolation leads to results
which otherwise are easily overlooked. 3) This, also, is not enough,
however. To understand what Paul means by dying and rising with
Christ, it is essential to see the relation of this motif to certain other
ideas which occur together with it and show a close connection to
it in Paul's thought. 4) Finally, it is necessary to investigate the
relation of this motif to certain central ideas of Paul's theology and
thereby to determine its function in Paul's thought. This effort will
show that dying and rising with Christ is not only a motif which
might be fruitful for theological discussion today, but also is a key
which opens the way to a better understanding of important areas
of Paul's thought.
Tannehill 1
2 Introduction
Previous studies of this subject have missed important insights
because they neglected one or more of these four aspects of the task.
Attention has usually been directed to certain questions related to
this motif rather than to the study of the motif itself. For instance,
the question of historical background has attracted considerable at-
tention, particularly the question of a relation to the mystery cults
of the surrounding world. This question has recently received thor-
ough treatment by GÜNTER WAGNER1. He rejects the thesis of the
dependence of Rom. 6 1-11 on ideas from a mystery cult. His argu-
ment is not entirely convincing, partly because he interprets baptism
as dying and rising with Christ in terms of the full complex of Pauline
ideas, as if it were a pattern of thought which Paul originated. How-
ever, evidence is presented below to show that this interpretation of
baptism is pre-Pauline2. If this is so, some of WAGNER'S arguments
from the particular understanding and setting in which Paul places
this interpretation of baptism are illegitimate. The question of the
relation of this motif to the mysteries, then, is not yet settled. This
study makes no pretense of settling it. This may raise the question
of whether it is legitimate to draw conclusions concerning Paul's
understanding of dying and rising with Christ without first having
answered this question. Paul's language cannot be cut off from the
language of his world. If this motif was associated with conceptions
from the mystery cults, this undoubtedly influenced Paul's under-
standing of it in various ways. However, the relation between the
question concerning historical background and that concerning Paul's
own understanding is not one-sided, as if we could simply under-
stand the historical background first and then interpret Paul. This
study will show that a careful look at Paul's use of dying and rising
with Christ is necessary in order to pose the question of historical
background most fruitfully. This is essential because pre-Pauline
material must be separated from specifically Pauline ideas. It is also
essential because Paul's understanding of dying and rising with Christ
is influenced in significant ways by the connection of this motif with
other ideas, particularly that of Christ as inclusive anthropos. If the
results of historical inquiry are to be fruitful for the understanding
of Paul, the historian must be concerned with this idea of Christ as
inclusive anthropos as well as the motif of dying and rising with
Christ, and, in particular, must consider the interrelations of these
and other ideas which were part of the interpretation of Christian
baptism at the time of Paul. The problem is very complex, indeed,
more complex than is generally realized. This study will not solve
1 Das religionsgeschichtliche Problem von Römer 6 l-ll, Zürich 1962.
2 Cf. pp. 7—14.
Introduction 3
this problem, but it should help to sharpen the questions which the
historian is asking.
Closely related to the question of historical background is that
concerning Paul's understanding of baptism. This issue has also re-
ceived close attention, particularly in connection with the interpre-
tation of Rom. 6. A number of studies in this area are important for
our theme, both because of the importance of Rom. 6 and because
some of these studies, such as RUDOLF SCHNACKENBURG'S Das Heils-
geschehen bei der Taufe nach dem Apostel Paulus3, consider dying
and rising with Christ to be central to Paul's understanding of bap-
tism. However, any study which focuses exclusively on the question
of baptism will not be able to come to a full understanding of what
dying and rising with Christ means for Paul. While dying and rising
with Christ was connected in the tradition with baptism, it has a
broader significance in Paul's thought. Thus, while the question of
the relation of this motif to baptism will be of some importance,
this study will be distinguished from studies of baptism in Paul by
the fact that it will focus on the motif of dying and rising with Christ
for its own sake.
There are some significant older studies which do consider this
motif for its own sake. ADOLF DEISSMANN was interested in it be-
cause he understood it as "passion mysticism," and so as a part of
the mystical core of Paul's religion4. JOHANNES SCHNEIDER took up
DEISSMANN'S call for a special study of this area and published it as
Die Passionsmystik des Paulus5. Besides being very sketchy, SCHNEI-
DER'S work suffers from the influence of DEISSMANN. He recognizes
that "es handelt sich in der Passionsmystik zunächst um einen objek-
tiven Sachverhalt; erst in zweiter Linie um ein psychologisches Fak-
tum6." However, he continues to speak of mysticism, and focuses his
attention on Paul's experiences of suffering, while giving very in-
adequate treatment of the texts which refer to dying with Christ as
a past event, where the objective aspect comes out most sharply.
We will see below that the motif of dying and rising with Christ
cannot be understood in terms of mysticism. Any such attempt
blocks the way to seeing the function of dying and rising with Christ
within Paul's eschatology, and so obscures the connection of this
motif with the basic themes of Paul's thought7.
3 München 1950. The revised edition, published in translation as Baptism in the
Thought of St. Paul, New York 1964, came into my hands after this study had
been completed.
4 Cf. Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History, 2nd Ed. New York 1957, pp.
181—83. 8 Leipzig 1929. « p. 69.
7 Cf. below, pp. 70—71, 123—29. One of the problems of any attempt to under-
stand Paul in terms of "mysticism" is that the term itself is used in a number of
1*
4 Introduction
WILHELM TRAUGOTT HAHN, in Das Mitsterben und Mitauferste-
hen mit Christus bei Paulus8, gives an interpretation of dying and
rising with Christ which reacts strongly against DEISSMANN'S. He
emphasizes the objectivity, historicity, and uniqueness of the death
and resurrection of Christ. Then he asks,
Wie kann Paulus die reale, persönliche Beteiligung des konkreten Menschen,
der aus seinem geschichtlichen Ort nicht zu lösen ist, an einem Geschehen der
Vergangenheit annehmen, das ebenfalls seinen festen geschichtlichen Platz hat9 ?
This one question dominates HAHN'S whole study. He solves his prob-
lem by bringing in KIERKEGAARD'S category of "Gleichzeitigkeit"
and asserting that "die Zeitkategorie ist im Christusgeschehen auf-
gehoben10."
Paulus sieht sich durch das "mit Christus" in die Gleichzeitigkeit mit dem
Kreuz und der Auferstehung Jesu Christi versetzt, und zwar so, daß er persön-
lichen realen Anteil an diesem einmaligen Geschehen unter Ausschaltung alles
räumlich und zeitlich Trennenden gewinnt11.
Unfortunately, HAHN never gives serious exegetical study to the
texts which refer to dying and rising with Christ, and so never gets
far beyond such general theological considerations. HAHN'S concern
to come to some understanding of dying and rising with Christ which
allows the death and resurrection of Christ to remain unique, once-
for-all events of the past is a legitimate one, for dying and rising
with Christ does not mean for Paul either a subjective Vergegen-
wärtigung of these events or a repetition of what happened to Christ.
But we must seek to understand how Paul can nevertheless assert a
participation of the believer in Christ's death and resurrection on
the basis of Paul's own categories of thought, not from general theo-
logical considerations imported from modern times. This means that
HAHN'S question will also have to be reformulated, for it is a modern
conception of the problem.
different ways in theological discussion and so tends to obscure rather than illu-
minate. I understand mysticism as the doctrine that the individual can come into
immediate contact with God through subjective experiences which differ essentially
from the experiences of ordinary life. I realize that the term is also used in a
broader sense, but this definition is relatively clear and specific, while a broader
use of the term tends to obscure important distinctions. By this definition Paul
may be spoken of as, among other things, a "mystic" (cf. his visions, II Cor. 12 1-4),
but he does not have a mystical theology.
8 Gütersloh 1937.
» p. 88.
10 p. 175.
11 p. 97.