Corinth's Communion (part 13)

It is extremely valuable to remember and to reiterate that Paul’s letters, though thoroughly dissected and broken into smaller pieces, with theological, ecclesiastical, soteriological, and Christological premises drawn from fragments that are really not meant to be fragments at all, are intended to be viewed as a whole.  Things written and dealt with early in the letters will tend to have a bearing on what comes later, and ideas and issues presented later in the letters will generally spring from a foundation laid earlier in the letter. 

One must take all necessary precautions to avoid isolating passages and interpreting passages in isolation, without taking great pains to provide a contextual construct before doing so, especially if doing so fails to take into account the necessary historical considerations (social, political, cultural, economic, linguistic, religious, etc…).  So in proposing what appears to be a rather novel idea (to the modern observer---not so much to the original audience) of considering “the body” of verse twenty-nine of chapter eleven as a reference to the church rather than to the bread, it is possible to recognize what Paul has done earlier in the letter.     

In the sixth chapter, Paul offers a glimpse of what it is that he just might be getting at in the eleventh chapter.  There, in the midst of exhortations that are focused on the way the community of the church should ideally function (6:1-8), reflections on a primary focus of Jesus’ ministry by some always important mentions of the kingdom of God (6:8,10), and then a short digression on food, Paul writes about “the body.”  With a stunning demonstration of linguistic creativity and dexterity, Paul weaves an elaborate web of individualism and community, doing so in the context of the proper behavior of believers functioning as part of the church, as its members live and act within the world as representatives of the kingdom of Creator God. 

He writes: “The body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.  Now God indeed raise the Lord and He will raise us by His power” (6:13b-14).  Here, though there is a tendency to make a merely personal application of the words concerning the body and sexual immorality, and though there is, without a doubt, a personal ethical and moral dimension to the statement, one should not dwell on the individual application to the exclusion of the corporate vision, as Paul goes on to speak about the Lord raising “us.”  With that mindset created, it is not at all difficult (though one may not yet understand how or why) to hear a reference to the body of believers in that thirteenth verse.  Continuing on in that stream of thought, Paul writes “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?” (6:15)  Here, some translations of the passage will complete what appears to be implied in the statement, reading “members of Christ’s body,” thus continuing to intertwine the personal with the communal, as this intertwining hangs upon the ever-present thread of the presence of the kingdom of Creator God. 

Building on the question that begins the fifteenth verse, Paul goes on to ask “Should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?  Never!” (6:15b)  In all honesty, this seems like a strange turn, unless, that is, the larger movement of Paul’s letter is kept in mind, along with the fact that this letter from Paul was designed to be read to the gathered community, who may have been able to look around at each other and at themselves in such a way as to cause the full and stinging weight of the Apostle’s words to come crashing down upon them.  Presumably, this is what Paul may have expected. 

Only Son (part 12)

Not only would these things be foreign concepts, but they also represent something of an inward, anthropocentric focus, whereas Israel, and especially Jesus, had a theo-centric focus, being fully concerned with what their Creator God had done, was doing, and was going to do for His people and for the world that He had created and that they understood He had promised to redeem and renew (beginning with their own land). 

Though it’s often difficult for the contemporary, western, individualistic mind to grasp, their eyes were cast upon their God and His plans and purposes, rather than upon themselves.  A “personal relationship with God” would have been an odd thought, and the notion that “God has a special plan for my life” would likely not have been on the table.  The covenant people were defined by, and defined themselves by the community, the role of the covenant people, and what their God was doing to do for and through the covenant people.  Naturally, the presence and operation of an honor and shame culture, in which one’s status was defined by the community, did not lend itself to isolated individualism. 

So even though Israel as a generalized whole thought about their God from inside the context of a separation from the nations, they certainly did not think about their God inside a counter-intuitive isolated individualism that was extremely personal in scope.  Now this is not to say that personal improvement, achievement, reflection, and excellence is not something that should be encouraged, or that it should not be valued, or that it is unbecoming for a believer (as individuals do indeed comprise a community), but it should be recognized that such thinking would not serve the purposes of their God that loved the world and sent His Son into the world because of that love. 

So if Adam is the son of God, how is one to think about him in light of Jesus’ statement which is so routinely thought of as nothing more than a self-referential evidentiary proposition that Jesus thought of Himself as the Son of God, and merely used this meeting with Nicodemus to inform him (with the author also informing his readers) that He was indeed the second person of the divine trinity?  Well, the answer lies in Genesis.  Israel’s God created the world. 

Regardless of what it was that was happening and is recorded in the first two chapters of Genesis, the fact of the matter, which was well-accepted by Israel and obviously by Jesus, was that Israel understood and insisted that their God was the Creator of this world, and that He was a providential God that held all things together by His power.  To them, He evidenced His presence by dramatic and powerful interventions in the affairs of the world, doing so primarily because He was a covenant-making-and-keeping God.  To that way of thinking, the very first verse of Genesis show forth a God that created the heavens and the earth (i.e. everything).  Together with that, the narrative goes on to present, over and over again, a God of restoration.  There is a consistent pronouncement, throughout the Genesis account and beyond (if one is attentive to it), that the Creator God saw His work as being good. 

In addition to that, from the very beginning one finds a God that speaks in the language of covenant.  In the first chapter, when God repeatedly says “Let there be,” this can be understood as an approximation of covenant language.  To get one’s mind around that, it is possible to think of the Creator God’s covenant with Abraham and hear Him saying “Let it be so,” as He declares the covenant that sets forth His purpose for Abraham, for His descendants, and for the world.