This chapter is quite significant for the topics we've been exploring.
5:10 is especially important: "It is necessary for all of us to appear before the judgment seat of the Christ so that each may be paid back with respect to the things done through the body, whether good or bad."
This verse seems to indicate a judgment by works at the final judgment both for believers and non-believers. Interesting to me, it does not exactly say that all the dead will appear before the judgment seat of Christ, although one could take the contrast with the body to indicate that the dead are being judged. In any case, the verse plays into 1 Corinthians 3 and the idea that even the righteous might experience some purgation at the time of judgment for their works.
5:14 says that one died for all. Here Paul focuses on Christ's death rather than resurrection as that which was key. Believers accordingly live differently, namely, for Christ (5:15).
5:19 mentions transgressions (paraptoma)--we haven't seen these words for a while. Paul says that in Christ God was "not reckoning their [the world's] transgressions to them." This is presented at this point almost as a governmental decision. God decides that Christ's death will suffice.
5:21 is of course a classic text: "The one who had not known sin, for us God made sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him." N. T. Wright has argued, counterintuitively to us, that the righteousness of God here is not a reference to us becoming righteous but to God's righteousness being shown by way of Christ's death for sins.
Although I have doubts, I fall off the log with Wright. Two reasons:
1. I accept what I think is the consensus that "the righteousness of God" was a phrase with a history in Judaism (see especially middle Isaiah, but also the Dead Sea Scrolls). It particularly refered to God's propensity to save His people, but also His propensity to justice. Thus,
2. I think this verse is basically saying the same thing as Romans 3:24-25: "being declared innocent freely by His grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus, whom God offered as an atoning sacrifice, in faithfulness, by means of Christ's blood, to demonstrate His righteousness even though he passed over the sins that had previously been committed. God did this because of his forebearance to demonstrate His righteousness at this present time, so that he might be just [righteous] and the one who justifies [declares righteous] the person who has the faith that Jesus had."
So 2 Corinthians 5:21 is a metonymy. Christ became sin or rather an offering for sin, so that our salvation would demonstrate God's righteousness (cf. Rom. 1:16-17).
2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 is an odd passage. In comes out of nowhere and disappears just as suddenly. You can read straight from 6:13 to 7:2 and not miss anything. Although there is no textual evidence for it, I strongly suspect it did not originally go here, even if I have no problem believing that it comes from Paul--somewhere.
It has much relevant to our study. Unbelievers are associated with wickedness, while believers with righteousness (6:14). Unbelievers are associated with Belial. Paul divides the world into two and only two camps: in and out.
7:1 is a strong statement of the need for purity: "Let us purify ourselves from every pollution of flesh and spirit, completing holiness in the fear of God." The previous verses have spoken rather vaguely of coming out from them and being separate and of not touching any unclean thing. The most concrete referent is to temples of idols (6:16).
P.S. 5:5
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4 comments:
I think I finally "get it", therefore, I probably won't be writing as much...government is "ordained by God", but the development of individuals as far as the purpose of government is different because of maturity...
Also, Organizational structures are still "under government", if that organization is to be "moral" in its goals and purposes..Here, we get into ethics, as to "higher purposes" and is there one, etc...
Some questions:
1.) Don't you have to believe that God is "the blessed controller" of all things? That is, that even "evil comes from His hand", which is biblical, but I doubt. It is people who are to intervene in the affairs of men in "putting things right".
2.) If an individual does Not believe that governemnt is "controlled" by God, then one must believe in the type of government AND then, must Trust that governemnt's decisions, as to "justice"...? Then, where is the individual in regards to freedom of conscience? and diversity of purpose?
3.) Isn't Jesus "taking on our sin" the same as any martyr for the faith? And that means that "higher purposes" are being accomplished because of that death? That life was only important in the utility of it...there was NO innate beauty or purpose other than "the common good" as defined by "god", which is the organizational structure? There must be a commonality in vision and focus with committing one's life to an organizational structure. That is when it gets sticky, if there is a change in vision or purpose of an organization...without the individual being informed...
I wouldn't say that the entire biblical witness holds that evil comes from God. Certainly James 1 doesn't teach that. It is philosophically that we must conclude that God created the possibility of evil.
I don't think that Romans 13 is the whole story on Paul's view of government. He is speaking very broadly of obeying those in authority over you, but not absolutely, IMHO.
I do believe that one of the earliest conceptualizations of Christ's death was probably as a righteous sufferer along the lines of the Maccabean martyrs, although the word martyr per se was not used this way yet at the time.
Have you ever thought of organizing your thinking about freedom, liberty, government, etc in writing or in a blog? I only see snippets here and there of it here. It would be interesting to see how you would outline the chapters, for example.
As to the people who are in the categories of "in and out" distinction.... I believe that ordered government cannot conform conscience....It can inform conscience by encouraging "free education"...only those who have a relationship to the person has a right to inform or teach as to conscience matters....government should be set up to protect the rights of all within an orderly structure...religious conviction is not representative of a "free conscience" where one can be self-governing, instead of submitting to authorities of rules and regulations and authority structures...Children do have to be taught to respect boundaries, but must be given room to become who they are meant to become..not conformity to a certain given standard of religous form...This is why there MUST be an "I" in church...
A while back I jotted down an outline for yet another book I'll never write, "The Best of America." I do think that America is great because of the tension it holds between individual rights and the collective good. I think the social contract model is the secret to our success. Individuals (at least in the Western world) will tend to guarantee that their own interests are represented, so the key to a healthy society will have to spend more energy guaranteeing that individuals do not violate the interests of others in their own expressions of self-interest. We set up police and judicial systems and systems of law to, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, "govern least." Freedom of religion is part of this overall system.
I would say that America today has no problem recognizing its own rights and freedoms. In my opinion, it could use a healthy dose of realization that those rights are not absolute or unconditional, that the best of America in this area is the recognition that we can only have individual freedom to the extent that we live within the social contract between each other.
I don't usually talk political philosophy on this blog any more, but it is a field that interests me.
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