Jesus Christ in the Monotheistic Godhead

Approaching the doctrine of the Trinity as something that developed to its formal understanding as stated in the Nicene Creed, I approach the text of scripture seeking understanding for how the authors of what has been canonized as our Holy Bible conceived of God. Approaching one of my muses, the Apostle Paul, I will employ the help of "New Paul" scholars James Dunn and N.T. Wright[1] in offering an interpretation of Paul's Christology within his Israelite conception of God. Many writers have credited Paul with the "invention" of Christian theology to both his credit and condemnation, as he was the first to verbalize a Christology that evolved into the full-scale consideration of Jesus as the second person of the Godhead in Christian thought. Assuming with Dunn and Wright that Paul truly was an Israelite, a "Hebrew of Hebrews"[2] as Paul describes himself, the Apostle would have been faced with a great challenge to his monotheistic faith upon Jesus Christ's revelation to him. Or would he have been? Dunn and Wright aid me in presenting the context in which Pauline Christology would have remained decisively Jewish, without challenge to the Oneness of God. Arguing that Paul is not compromising Jewish monotheism through his Christology, I hope the considerations in my essay will depict for my reader a possible interpretation of Christianity in continuity with Judaism in its early forms, as well as illustrating the amount of distance in which contemporary Christology has departed from that of Paul in our conceptions of the Trinity

Denials of Contemporary Christian Christological Study

Before launching into a re-examination of Paul's Christology in light of his Jewish beliefs, N.T. Wright challenges the Christian to review our two basic assumptions which overshadow our understanding of the early development of Christology: (1) "no same human being could think of himself in any way as 'divine'" and (2) "No first century Jew... could think of himself in the way that Jesus, according to traditional readings of the NT, thought of himself."[3] In light of the development of a hermeneutic of suspicion, Wright also notes that he frequently finds Christians believing "a high christology is really a political power play, as you can see by what happened under Constantine."[4] Such assumptions, rampant within the established Church, serve to condemn the text of the New Testament as compromised from its original message. Yet it is "possible to conceive of a first century Jew credibly coming to believe he was called to die for the sins of Israel, and perhaps the whole world,"[5] as I intend to prove through demonstrating Paul's continuity with the Jewish traditions of interpretation of his day, along with the consistency of Pauline discussion of Christ's lordship within the monotheism of Judaism.

How Shocking Jesus as Christ was Not to Second-Temple Jewish Theologians

The obvious place to begin with examining Paul's consideration of Jesus with relation to God's monotheism is "with the classic shape of Jewish theology."[6] Rethinking Jewish theology from the second temple period of history is one of the primary distinguishing marks of new-Paulists from the "old" Pauline perspective. As a new-Paulist, Wright characteristically distinguishes Jewish theology from the systematic approach of Christians by lifting up the three subjects most frequently and inter-relatedly discussed by Jewish theologians: monotheism, election, and eschatology.[7]

A Jewish Theology Ripe for Interpretation

Recognizing a plurality of "Judaisms" within the ancient Jewish world, Wright notes that some characteristics of the Jewish worldview would have been common to every perspective we would characterize as "Jewish." The element of this theology upon which this essay focuses is a particular type of monotheism which Wright and other scholars describe as "creational and covenantal monotheism."[8] This perspective, upon which the early Christian drew, professed belief that "there was on God, the creator who had remained passionately and compassionately involved with the world, and had expressed that in the call of Israel;"[9] and this very understanding of God defines both the ancient Jewish concept of covenant and election. Distinctively, this conception of God clings to the belief that evil "matters desperately to God, and that he will one day not only put the world to rights but somehow deal retrospectively with the horror...which has so radically....infected creation, not least human beings including Israel."[10] Such a belief manifested itself in immediate hopes for relief via messianic liberation, as well as God's eschatological vindication of Himself by a judgment in the last days.

Since Jewish monotheism always opposed itself to the idolatry of paganism, viewing the nation of Israel as called to reflect the image of their maker that was discarded by pagans who failed "to live as they were made to live,"[11] to be held in exile by pagan nations or ruled over by the nations from whom they had been distinguished demonstrated an imbalance in Israel's covenant with God. Monotheism in the Hebrew Scriptures was never theoretical, but served as both a criticism to Israel when she compromised with pagan idolaters, as well as sharply distinguishing Israel from the nations around her by the worship of the one true God.[12] Under Roman occupation in the first century, monotheism was "developed in the apocalyptic traditions, where it comes under considerable strain...putting God's credibility quite drastically on the line"[13] due to Israel's estranged existential relation to her distinctive monotheism. Wisdom traditions also emerged, proposing that God supplies all wisdom for reigning to rulers, "and that this God will judge those who forget this and, going their own way oppress his people."[14] While these are only a few of the rabbinic traditions in which monotheism was interpreted, Wright characterizes the remainder of these vastly varying interpretations as not only understanding God Judge and provider of wisdom, but "of God and only God becoming king."[15]

Wright finds it significant to root an interpretation of Paul's monotheistic Christology in these traditions in addition to the scriptures, in order to understand what the Apostle perceived himself to be doing. By Paul's time, Jewish monotheism "had developed ways of speaking of the action of one God within Israel in the world"[16], language similar to that which Paul himself employed in his epistles. God's action was described through his Word and Spirit, as instruments by which God accomplished his purposes: "God spoke and things happened, showing his creative Word at work. God breathed his Spirit into human nostrils, and had promised to pour out his Spirit in fresh ways on Israel and the world."[17] Emphasizing the understandings that God had created through his Wisdom, guided his people by the Torah, and promised to indwell the Temple through his presence, Shekinah, Wright notes that despite the ambiguity as to how "these expressions of the activity and purpose of the one true God had developed by Paul's day into an ontological statement"[18], the apparent plurality did not threaten God's monotheism. Even while placing supremacy of God's self-revelation in the Torah, second-temple Jewish interpretive traditions remained staunchly monotheistic. From this theological development, there is ample possibility for Paul to interpret the Messianic figure of Jesus Christ within God's power, but without threat to monotheism.

Christ as Paul's Hermeneutical Lens for Jewish Monotheism

Having established that second-temple Jewish interpretive traditions used language of "Word" and "Spirit" as ontological signifiers to demonstrate God's activity and purpose in the world, we can see these terms directly appropriated in Paul's explanation of Christ and Christ's promise to send his Spirit. By using these categories for the development of "his view of Jesus and the Spirit in dialogue, sometimes polemical dialogue" with specifically Jewish traditions, Paul defines himself as a "Jewish-style monotheist" in his redefinition of Messiah as "both the goal and the end of Torah."[19] This allowed Paul to see Jesus the Messiah as the full manifestation of God, the fullness of all God's previous ontological self-disclosures while maintaining a monotheistic theology. While our focus is on monotheism, the foundation upon which the other two subjects characteristically discussed in second-temple Jewish theology are based, it is important to recognize how Paul's consideration of Jesus in relation to Jewish monotheism also affects how he interprets the election of God's people as well as God's eschatological reign.

For Paul, the one God of Israel, sole creator and sustainer of the universe was personally self-revealed in the action of Jesus the Messiah.[20] Changing the focus of Israelite conception of election, Paul perceived the revelation of Jesus as binding "the story of God and the story of Israel together and in doing so also gives eschatology its characteristically Christian shape."[21] Wright insists that the new Christological connections Paul draws within Jewish theology are in fact redefinitions of the traditional conceptions of identity and practice within Judaism, each of which "is rooted in a re-reading of Israel's scriptures"[22] allowing his to interpret Christ as fulfillment of God's covenant with Israel. In re-interpreting from Hebrew Scriptures, Paul remains "a typical Jew, understand paganism in terms of....corruption of God's good creation and of image-bearing humankind"[23], polemicizing against this pagan degradation of God's image rather than Judaism itself. What Paul ends up presenting in his evangelizing and preaching of the gospel are his Jewish redefinitions of God, election and eschatology, resulting in a commission to preach redemption for all human beings, who are called to know and love God "through sharing the mind of the Messiah and the fresh insight of the Spirit."[24] Yet how does Paul explain this relationship between the monotheist God of Judaism and Jesus Christ in a way that does not depart into a dualism or polytheism?

Jesus' Relationship to God in Paul

How does Paul apply his hermeneutical lens of Christ to monotheism, allowing Jesus to become understood as an ontological way God became active and present among his people for the purposes of election and justification in an eschatological sense? Turning to James Dunn's consideration of "Jesus as God" in his The Theology of the Apostle Paul, we will uncover many useful indications of how Paul understood Jesus without compromising the monotheism of God. Following Dunn's questions, I will address the connections between Jesus' lordship within the monotheistic framework of Paul's writing addressing three issues: (1) how the lordship language of Paul to describe Jesus does not contradict monotheism, (2) whether Paul directly discusses Jesus as God/god and (3) how Christian language of worship in the Pauline epistles indicates supports the primacy of God through Jesus.

Christ's Lordship A Challenge to Monotheistic Power of God?

While the typical Christian tendency of understanding the title "Lord" comes from our post-biblical conception of Jesus as a member of the Trinitarian Godhead, Dunn immediate implies that the term "lord" does not necessarily signify divinity. Expanding upon Jewish traditions which imply the supremacy of the One God, Dunn notes that Jewish literature contains a wide variety of speculative considerations about exalted heroes such as Moses, Elijah and Enoch. Pointing out that it was a thoroughly Jewish idea that non-divine Elijah and Enoch were taken directly to heaven without passing through death, it is likely that Paul's Jewish context allowed him to interpret such highly exalted human figures "as sharing in divine functions not least in judgment."[25] Exemplifying how some of Paul's contemporaries viewed Adam and Abel as judging all creation from a throne, Dunn's examples "indicate that Jewish monotheistic faith could accommodate the idea of one highly exalted, without (apparently) any thought that Jewish monotheism was compromised or would have to be rethought."[26] Thus, it follows that Paul would have had no qualm about discussing the lordship of Christ as a participation into the ultimate, universal power of God.

From Paul's Schema-like language in 1 Corinthian 8.5-6 attributing "the lordship of the one God to Jesus Christ" which does not compromise the oneness of God to "the universal confession of Jesus' lordship" as glorifying to God the Father in Philippians 2.10-11, the Apostle does not seem to consider Christ's lordship in any way to usurp or replace God's authority, but rather to express it.[27] Discussing the common formulation in Paul's epistles "in which God is spoken of as 'the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ'", Dunn points out that despite his lordship, even Jesus acknowledges God as Father.[28] It seems from this formulation, Paul is using the lordship of Jesus "not so much as a way of identifying Jesus with God, but if anything more of distinguishing Jesus from God."[29] Paul specifically states in 1 Corinthians 15.24-28 and Romans 10.12 that the Christ's lordship is given to him by God the Father. Since "Jesus' lordship is a status granted by God," sharing his authority with Jesus rather than allowing Jesus to take over his authority, God has "shared his lordship with Christ without it ceasing to be God's alone."[30]

From the examples of Able and Adam taking part in the final judgment, Dunn demonstrates that Paul remains perfectly Jewish to understand Christ as having a judgment seat, since this does not replace the judgment seat of God.[31] Suggesting that Paul's eschatological focus of Christ is modeled on traditional expectations, Dunn notes that for Paul, "it is in Christ that God's purpose reaches its climax," fulfilling the role of final deliverer "though the focus in the remaining verses is solely on God."[32] Dunn sees this "'christologizing' of traditional theistic eschatology" as "the best example of a more diffuse phenomenon in which 'God-language' becomes implicitly christological, without the christology ceasing to be theocentric."[33] Another way of putting this would be to say that while Paul interprets Christ in language that would otherwise apply only to God, this language does not cease to describe God, but brings about a fuller manifestation of God through Christ. So while "Paul's understanding of God's purpose and of God's revelation has been radically altered," he continues to understand God as one and sovereign, only now he conceives of Jesus Christ having some part in that sovereignty. This is by no means developed to the point the Nicene council understood, but the ambiguity as to what Christ's participation actually amounts to leaves room for such development. However, recognizing Paul's interpretation of Jesus' lordship as dependent upon and encompassed in the supremacy of the Father, is it possible to understand Jesus as God/god for Paul?

Jesus in the Absence of God-language

Dunn specifies that the debate about Paul's deifying of Jesus centers on one particular text, Romans 9.5, since all other potential inferences are too weak to draw a conclusion affirmatively. Speaking in the context of God's blessings to Israel, Paul notes the Christ as their climactic blessing. The interpretation of this text's inference of Christ as God has to do the placing of punctuation in the sentence, causing it to read this passage either as a benediction to Christ as God, or to God most highly recognized in Christ. Dunn suggests that "to infer that Paul intended Romans 9.5 as a benediction to Christ as 'God' would imply that he had abandoned the reserve which is such a mark of his talk of the exalted Christ elsewhere."[34] Dunn argues that this would be a significant inconsistency in Paul's writing, since in all other instances, Jesus' designation of lordship or title the Christ as "not to be equated simplicitur with 'God.'"[35] At the same time, "Paul's formulation is certainly loose, and a construal of the text as a benediction to Christ can hardly be disallowed as a reading legitimated by the wording."[36] Thus, the entire weight of Paul's theology concerning Jesus Christ's divinity hangs on this one verse of Romans 9.5, and Dunn cautions that "in terms of reconstructing Paul's theology, we would be wiser to hear the benediction as a moment of high exultation (for Israel's blessings) and not as a considered expression of his theology."[37] Dunn seems to imply that from the text, it is unclear, though unlikely that in his Christology Paul deified Christ, though it is very clear Christ has the most exalted place within all creation, even as means of that creation's existence.

Language of Veneration of Christ as Subordinate to Worship of God in Pauline Epistles

Examing the very title of Kyrios given to Jesus, Dunn finds evidence of veneration "offered to the exalted Lord in earliest Christian worship" as well as indication "that Jesus was invoked or besought in Christian worship and prayer."[38] This is most clearly presented in 1 Corinthians 1.2 and Romans 10.13, which "indicate that from very early on believers identified themselves as 'those who call upon the name of the Lord (Jesus Christ)."[39] Yet, while Jesus as exalted Lord seems to have effected "an alteration of Paul's personal circumstances," Paul's praise and thanks "are always addressed to God and never to Christ or 'the Lord.'"[40] With additional consideration of Paul's frequent formulations of prayer through Jesus, Dunn determines that "Christ is neither simply the content of the thanksgiving, nor its recipient" but "somehow mediating the praise to God" in his exalted state.[41]

Moving into a specification of terms, Dunn notes that "for Paul, properly speaking, only God is to be glorified."[42] Since Paul seems to uniformly omit Christ from passages speaking about worship, Dunn cautions readers from necessarily drawing the conclusion "that Paul 'worshipped' Christ, since the evidence more clearly indicates otherwise."[43] Noting the complexity of Paul's language when he does speak of Christ in the context of worship, the evidence "suggests that we need a more carefully nuanced formulation in speaking about the cultic veneration of Jesus in earliest Christianity,"[44] though we can safely conclude that Paul deemed Christ to be worthy of at least veneration "meaning by that something short of full-scale worship."[45] Yet if one would rather apply the term worship to Christ, Dunn says that "adoration" could be applied to God, showing some special, greater consideration for God than Jesus.[46] Yet either way one chooses to look at the issue of Christ in God, someway beneath God, "hindsight shows us that Paul's reserve was soon lost"[47] and Christians began drawing distinctions between the Father and Jesus differently, equalizing them in worship.

Conclusion: Construal of How Paul's Christology Could be Developed into Early Trinitarian Considerations of God

Having outlined the framework of ancient Jewish monotheistic themes within the multiplicity of Jewish practices and identities, N.T. Wright has enabled us to interpret Paul as a thoroughly Jewish scholar concerned with the preservation of monotheism, and using his experience of Christ as a hermeneutical lens through which the Apostle re-defines the identity of the people of God and the Jewish image of the eschaton. James Dunn's detailed consideration of language from the Pauline epistles indicated that in no way was Jesus Christ seen as superseding God the Father, but always seen manifesting God's power and glory rather than that of Christ. While this calls into question the contemporary understanding of Jesus as God, a final consideration of Jesus as Word in relation to the Spirit of God as Breath indicates Paul's exclusive allocation of divine power to Christ above all other creatures, leading to a final conclusion of this monotheistic understanding of Jesus in Christian worship as creating room for early Trinitarian ruminations.

Pauline Christology in the Giving of the Spirit of Life

Having seen Dunn's distinction of Paul's Christology as explicitly Jewish, elevating Jesus to a level higher than the heroes of the faith, to a position of one who participates in a great number of the divine powers, Paul does not seem to give strong indication of equating Jesus with God, but is more ambiguous as to what it means for God to be the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Having discussed the primary relationship of Father and Son in Paul's monotheistic theology, conclusion onto the relationship between Son and Spirit in Paul's theology will provide further indication that Paul did not depart from a Jewish model of Monotheism, but rather interpreted the active Word of God as Jesus the Christ, which had relation also the Spirit proceeding from God. Thus the Breath of God and Word of God come together in Paul's consideration in 1 Corinthians 15.45, comparing Christ as the "last Adam" to the first Adam of Genesis 2.7.

Paul describes the risen Christ as becoming a "life-giving spirit," which does not directly correlate to the Genesis Adam, who became a "living soul."[48] Dunn interprets Paul's usage of "life-giving spirit" here to refer Paul's reader to "the life-giving power of God himself," exclusively depicted in the Bible as an activity of God directly or his Spirit.[49] What Paul has in mind here, Dunn says, is "the last Adam as the progenitor of a new kind of humanity-resurrected humanity," depicting Christ in the unique role as life-giver.[50] For a Jewish audience, the Spirit of God would be implicitly understood in any life-giving situation, since in Jewish scriptures the very words ruach (Hebrew) and pneuma (Greek) indicate both breath and spirit which God imparts in bestowing life. From this, Paul implies that the risen Christ is "in some sense taking over the role of or even somehow becoming identified with the life-giving Spirit of God."[51]

Presuming that "Paul saw all of God's purpose for humankind, and the means to effecting it, as focused in the resurrection of the crucified and given its definition by the resurrection of the crucified," it is possible to legitimately interpret a unity between the resurrected Christ and the activity of the Spirit of God in Paul's theology.[52] Thus Christ becomes "the Adam of God's purpose" and is enabled to also focus "the life-giving power of the Spirit, by which that purpose is to be extended to embrace those represented by the last Adam."[53] From this, Dunn concludes "Christ is experienced in and through, even as the life-giving Spirit," in the same way that "the Spirit experienced other than the Spirit of Christ is for Paul not the Spirit of God."[54] This theology allows Paul to understand the "believer and Lord in the union of commitment" as one in Spirit, seeing the Spirit as "the medium of Christ's union with his own."[55] Here the conversation of unity between Christ and Father, Christ and Spirit begins to transition to a fuller picture of Trinity as we understand today.

Early Development of Trinitarian Conception of God

Having traced a unity for understanding Christ's lordship within the Monotheism of God, not fully encompassing all roles of God, but being imparted by the Father, while recognizing tensions for the full deity of Jesus within Paul's theology, noting only God powers through Christ's relationship to the Spirit, a final consideration towards Paul's monotheistic Christology suggests hints of an "early Christian experience which may have played a significant part in the development of a Trinitarian conception of God."[56] Dunn describes the experience of early Christian worship "as a double relationship-to God as Father and to Jesus as Lord-and attributed this experience to the Spirit."[57] The description of this experience evidences at least some "conceptuality in worship" which "found its most lasting expression in a Trinitarian understanding of God."[58]

Bibliography:

Dunn, James. The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006.

Wright, N.T. "Jesus and the Identity of God," Ex Auditu, 1998, 14, 42-56; accessed 28 April 2010; available from http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_JIG.html; Internet.

---.Paul: In Fresh Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005.

[1] From this point on I will refer to "New Paul" scholars as new-Paulists, for the sake of phraseological convenience.

[2] Philippians 3.5.

[3] N.T. Wright, "Jesus and the Identity of God," Ex Auditu, 1998, 14, 42-56; accessed 28 April 2010); available from http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_JIG.html; Internet.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] N.T. Wright, Paul: In Fresh Perspective, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 83.

[7] Ibid., 84.

[8]Ibid., 86.

[9] Ibid., 87.

[10] Ibid., 87-88.

[11] Ibid., 89.

[12] Ibid., 89.

[13] Ibid., 89.

[14] Ibid., 89.

[15] Ibid., 90.

[16] Ibid., 90.

[17] Ibid., 90.

[18] Ibid., 90.

[19] Ibid., 90.

[20] Ibid., 84.

[21] Ibid., 84.

[22] Ibid., 84.

[23] Ibid., 85.

[24] Ibid., 85.

[25] James Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006), 252.

[26] Ibid., 253.

[27] Ibid., 253.

[28] Ibid., 254.

[29] Ibid., 254.

[30] Ibid., 254.

[31] Ibid., 254.

[32] Ibid., 254-5.

[33] Ibid., 255.

[34] Ibid., 256.

[35] Ibid., 256.

[36] Ibid., 257.

[37] Ibid., 257.

[38] Ibid., 257.

[39] Ibid., 257-8.

[40] Ibid., 258.

[41] Ibid., 258.

[42] Ibid., 259.

[43] Ibid., 259.

[44] Ibid., 260.

[45] Ibid., 260.

[46] Ibid., 260.

[47] Ibid., 260.

[48] Ibid., 260.

[49] Ibid., 261.

[50] Ibid., 261.

[51] Ibid., 262.

[52] Ibid., 263.

[53] Ibid., 263-4.

[54] Ibid., 264.

[55] Ibid., 264.

[56] Ibid., 264.

[57] Ibid., 264. Also Romans 8.15 and 1 Corinthians 12.3.

[58] Ibid., 264.