Wright's Paul Really 3: Paul's Christology

Discussion of Wright's chapter 4

Chapter 4: Paul's Christology and Jewish Monotheism
In chapter 3, Wright has already shared a couple of key paradigm shifts in relation to what Paul is thinking when he refers to Jesus as Messiah and as Lord.

a. When the Jews thought of a coming Messiah (and it is not clear that all Jews did), they were not looking for a divine being to come to earth (51). The "anointed one" would be a king to rule over a renewed and victorious Israel.

b. I want to go a little beyond what Wright says about the the title "Lord" in Paul, Hebrews, and Acts (drawing chiefly here on James Dunn's Christology in the Making). A number of texts in these writings indicate that many if not most early Christians saw the exaltation as the time when titles like "Lord," "Christ," and "Son of God" most fully applied to Jesus (e.g., Acts 2:36; 13:33; Rom. 1:3; 10:9; Phil. 2:9-10; Heb. 1:5; 5:5). This makes a lot of sense when we realize that all these titles are royal in nature, so we should think of Christ's exaltation to God's right hand as a kind of ethronement as cosmic king over the universe.

Now in chapter 4, Wright explores how Paul might have combined his belief in one God with his belief that Jesus was the Son of God. Here Wright has this claim: "Paul has taken the word "God" itself and has filled it with new content" (67).

Wright broadly falls into the camp of scholars like Richard Bauckham and Larry Hurtado who believe that Paul has placed Christ within the one God in some way. Wright suggests that the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4 forms the basis for Paul's affirmation in 1 Corinthians 8:6 that we have "one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things." The Shema says, "The Lord our God; the Lord is one" Wright suggests Paul thought of the first half in relation to God the Father and the second half in relation to Jesus Christ (66).

I have not yet been able to figure out exactly what they mean, though, when they suggest that Paul incorporates Jesus into God now in some way, as if OT monotheism is about God externally in relation to the world rather than what God looks like "on the inside." There are of course OT models that refer to kings in divine terms, using God language in some extended sense. Since this is the milieu out of which the NT comes, the OT's use of such language in royal terms just seems to me a more likely place to begin understanding Paul's understanding of the relationship between Jesus and God the Father.

I want to be very clear here: I hold to the orthodox belief in the Trinity, that Jesus was fully God, that God exists in three persons despite the fact that He is one substance. However, I wonder if the relationship between what Paul was thinking and what church fathers like Athanasius were thinking is similar to the relationship between how the NT sometimes understands OT passages and the original meaning of those same OT passages.

So as Wright observes, the title "Son of God," which I believe is alluded to in Philippians 2's phrase "form of God," refers in the OT to a human king like David or Solomon. Psalm 45, a wedding psalm, actually shocks our system by referring to the king about to be married flat out as "God" (45:6). Similarly, Isaiah 9:6 in its original train of thought likely referred to the same child mentioned in 7:14, likely some son of king Ahaz (he's the one the sign is for). The implication is that a human king could be referred to in some extended sense as "the mighty God."

Again, to be clear, I have no problem with the use to which the NT puts these verses. But it makes me wonder if Paul's meaning is more subtle than Wright supposes. Their Christian theology is right, but it is not clear to me that their understanding of Paul's original meaning is.

For example, I am willing with Bauckham to see YHWH as the "name above all names" to which Paul refers in Philippians 2:9. But notice the timing. Jesus had been in the form of God earlier. Now, after becoming obedient to death, he becomes "superexalted" with the name above all names. Whatever exactly Paul was thinking, Jesus seems to achieve a status now higher than the form of God he had before, and it is at his resurrection/exaltation that he assumes the name YHWH. In other words, Paul himself seems to be thinking more in terms of an "office" of some sort rather than Christ's inner divine nature. Paul does not contradict the creeds, but he is not discussing the same topic they are.

So it would seem that God used Paul to move the early Christians further along toward the Trinity, but that Paul himself largely thought of Christ as subordinate to God the Father, using God language of him in a highly extended, royal sense. I have no problem believing that, like the anonymous Greek translator of Isaiah 7:26, God was setting up the text for later Christian belief. But we are reminded again that the NT does not yet get us to orthodox Christianity. For that we need the arbitration of the later Christological controversies.

Wright also mentions some quasi-trinitarian formulations Paul uses. For example, 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 mentions in succession the Spirit, Christ the Lord, and God the Father. The Spirit is given responsibility for the gifts experienced by the community. The thought of leadership leads Paul to think of Jesus as Lord. Meanwhile God is seen as the ultimate cause behind everything.

Paul's exact conception of the Holy Spirit seems difficult to discern to me. For example, did he distinguish between the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ as something different, or the Holy Spirit as a completely third thing? 2 Corinthians 13:13 again speaks of three, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all." I have not seriously studied the concept of the Holy Spirit in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but it may just be that many Jews already at this time spoke of the Holy Spirit in quasi-personal terms that were distinguished from God himself. If so, then we should probably conclude that the Holy Spirit was distinct for Paul from God the Father and Jesus the Lord.

These are in my opinion very difficult issues in the study of Paul, and this chapter in Wright does not seem to provide as much potential light as the other chapters thus far. We might, however, mention one helpful thing he does say in closing. He points out that to call Jesus "Lord" in the middle of the Roman Empire had subversive connotations. Caesar wasn't too fond of people giving their allegiance to other kings. This is an important factor in our understanding of Paul that we often don't take into account.

One completely unsubstantiable thought, but enjoyable, is that the phrase, "being in the form of God" is meant to mimic Caligula's attempt to set up an image of himself in the Jerusalem temple. Philo remarks, knowing the outcome of Caligula's life (assassination) that "the form of God is not so easily counterfeited." :-) So the Philippian hymn would be saying, "Jesus, who [actually] was in the form of God, did not exploit that authority..." Just a fun unlikelihood...