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In July of 2000
Theodor M. Mauch, Th.D., Professor of Religion Emeritus at Readers may also be interested in Dr. Mauch’s essay “Sojourner” among the 50 entries he wrote for The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.
"The ethics of Jesus are part of
the 'Good News' of the victory of God over the distortions of life,
in the cross and resurrection. A man can relate himself to that
victory, and the victory to come. The ethics of Jesus is not
tailored to fit man's kingdom; it sets forth the Kingdom of God." |
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College Mourns Passing of Beloved Professor of Religion Theodor M. Mauch, Professor of Religion and Ellsworth Tracy Lecturer, Emeritus, died at his home on Cape Cod on Sunday, August 19. A graduate of Elmhurst College, he went on to study at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, from which he received three degrees: B.D., STM, and Th.D. During his graduate study, he spent a year at the University of Heidleberg, Germany. At Union he studied with James Muilenburg, one of the great biblical scholars of the 20th century. Under Muilenburg, Prof. Mauch devoted himself to Second Isaiah, writing his thesis on that section of the Old Testament and devoting much of his subsequent teaching to that subject. He began his teaching career at Wellesley College and was invited to join the Trinity faculty in 1957, where he taught until his retirement in 1987. Over three decades, he brought the biblical text alive for his undergraduate students, teaching such renowned Trinity courses as “Major Motifs of Biblical Thought” and “Major Figures of the Bible.” With more than 200 students in his classes many semesters, he enjoyed, as a Red Sox enthusiast, bringing the sports metaphor into the classroom. He was also known for his unexpected bursts of enthusiasm, as Professor of Religion, Emeritus, John Gettier recalls, “whether jumping on top of the desk to challenge the Philistines or running around the room in search of a watering hole for the wandering Israelites.” An avid gardener, he was known to go from office to office, all around campus, sharing his fresh fruits and vegetables with all members of the Trinity community. “He loved Trinity, and bringing his growings to campus was one of the ways in which he fostered the community,” explains Gettier. “He also stood outside the door of faculty meetings to give each faculty member one cherry tomato and then tracked down the cleaning staff of our building to see that each person had some goodies to take home to their families.” A memorial service for Prof. Mauch will be held in April 2008. |
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Theodor Marcus Mauch
Teacher, gardener The Cape Codder (Oct. 19, 2007) - East Orleans — Dr. Theodor M. Mauch, 87, died Aug. 18 at Orleans Convalescent and Retirement Center, where he had been a faithful volunteer for 20 years. Dr. Mauch was the son of the late Rev. Wilhelm G. Mauch and Emma M. Mauch. He majored in philosophy at Elmhurst College in Elmhurst, Ill. He earned masters' degrees in divinity and sacred theology and a Ph.D in sacred theology from Union Theological Seminary in New York. He was a popular teacher at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and from 1957 to 1987 he was a professor of religion at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. A builder of fine stone walls and an avid gardener, he grew more than 60 varieties of prize-winning irises in his East Orleans garden, as well as cherry tomatoes, rhubarb, raspberries, currants and English holly. He regularly presented gifts from the garden to visitors and friends, most often delivered in cobalt blue containers. In 1990 he preserved his beloved property on Old Duck Hole Road with its paths, stone walls and gardens by donating several acres to the Orleans Conservation Trust. His beloved old ship’s bell that he rang every morning to greet the day now hangs in a corner of the garden. An avid Red Sox fan, his proudest possessions were Red Sox memorabilia given to him over the years by his many friends. During his years at Trinity he was a one-man cheering squad at Trinity athletic events and during retirement enthusiastically supported the Orleans Cardinals. Dr. Mauch is survived by his nephews, Bruce J. Mauch Knopf of San Francisco, and Vinyasi of Los Angeles; three great-nephews; one great-niece; and one great-great nephew. A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m., Nov. 16, at Federated Church of Orleans. |
PHILIPPIANS 2: 1-18: GREEK OR HEBRAIC?
Dr.
Theodor M. Mauch
Professor of Religion,
Meeting of the Biblical
Theologians
October 26, 1968
The first part of this paper (Part I) is a demonstration of
some ways in which
the so‑called hymn in Philippians 2:6‑11 is read, ways influenced
by the seemingly Greek cast of words and ideas.
Part II contains an attempt to show how the hymn itself contains such powerful echoes of dominant Old Testament words and themes that once one sees this, it is hard to avoid reading the hymn in a new light.
The aim of this discussion is to show: the hymn to Christ Jesus does not refer to a pre‑existent "Man from Heaven" who came down. Rather, it is much more grounded in basic Old Testament words and themes.
___________________________________________________________________________
Philippians 2:1‑18
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any incentive
of love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, (2) complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love,
being in full accord and of one mind. (3) Do nothing from selfishness or
conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. (4) Let each of
you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
(5) Have this mind among yourselves, which you have
in Christ Jesus, (6) who
(first
stanza or strophe)
Being in the form of God,
Counted not as plunder
Equality with God,
(7) But stripped himself
By taking the form of a servant,
Being made in the likeness of man;
(8) And being found in shape as a man,
He humbled himself
In becoming obedient unto death
(and that, death on a cross).
(second
stanza)
(9) Therefore God also exalted him to the
highest station
And conferred upon him the Name
That is above every Name,
(10) That in the Name of Jesus
Every knee should bow
In heaven and on earth and under the
earth,
(11) And that every tongue should acclaim him:
'Jesus Christ is Lord' ‑
To the glory of God the Father.
(12) Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; (13) for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
(14) Do all things without grumbling or questioning, (15) that
you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you
shine as lights in the world, (16) holding fast the word of life, so that in the
day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. (17)
Even if I am to be poured as a libation upon the sacrificial offering of your
faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. (18) Likewise you also
should be glad and rejoice with me.
_________________________________________________________________________
In Philippians 2:1‑18, Paul
includes a hymn to Christ Jesus within statements about how to live. Weiss and Deissmann suggested that this hymn is earlier than Paul.
Ernst Lohmeyer1 has investigated the poetic structure of this hymn.
The translation of the hymn in this paper is that proposed by F. W. Beare2 except for the word “servant” in v. 7 (RSV),
and verse l0c (RSV). Let us accept as a working basis the view that Paul is
quoting a piece of current and established tradition. Paul uses the hymn to
clinch his admonitions to the Philippian Christians.
Part One: The Hymn, and Paul’s Use of It, as Greek
1.
A prevailing view is that key words
and phrases in the hymn express Greek thought. The Sophia Redeemer myth
provides the pattern of the stages in the hymn In the opening lines, Christ
Jesus is pre‑existent, a heavenly being who empties himself (kenoo) of his divine nature and descends to the
thralldom of man’s life on earth. This voluntary descent in putting off the
freedom of the divine realm and taking on the bondage and death of sinful
humanity, defeats all powers imprisoning man. God returns him to “the equality
with God which the pre‑existent One had already enjoyed before the incarnation
. ...a dignity heretofore hidden to and unacknowledged by the powers.”3
2.
Other passages in Paul are read as
asserting this Greek view.
He
is the image of the invisible God, the first‑born of all creation; for in
him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities—all things were
created through him and for him. He is before all things, and. in him all
things hold together.
Colossians 1:15‑17
________________________________________________
1His analysis, already published in an essay in 1927‑28,
is most easily found in Der Brief an die Philipper, 1956.
2
A Commentary
on the Epistle to the Philippians,
1959, pp. 73‑74.
3Reginald H Fuller, The Foundations of New Testament
Christology, 1965, p. 212,
_____________________________________________________________________________
Fuller calls this a place where Paul does what the ‑Christian
missionaries do, “they draw upon the established sophiological
vocabulary of Hellenistic Judaism in statements about the Redeemer’s pre‑
existence.” “The pre‑existent One dwelt in an
existence which ways equal to that of God.”1
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty
you might become rich.
II
Corinthians 8:9
This is read as a confirmation of the kind of incarnation
in the hymn‑ “a voluntary act of the Redeemer, as in the sophia myth.” He
surrendered the form of God, he surrendered “equality with God as a mode of
existence.”2
But when the
time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the
law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption
as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our
hearts, crying, “Abba: Father’” So through God you are no longer a slave but a
son, and if a son then an heir.
Galatians
4:4‑7
See
also Romans 8:14‑17
You who were once slaves of sin have
become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were
committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of
righteousness.
Romans
6:17‑18
The passages cited above show that the word “slave” (doulos) in the hymn is to be understood “in accordance with
the Hellenistic world‑view, (man’s) thralldom to the powers of evil,”3
“the stoicheia to whom all human life is
subject.”4
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh,
could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.
Romans
8:3a
“Likeness of men” in this statement as in verse 7 of the
hymn, “leaves room for the thought that the human likeness is not the whole
story . ...He who in pre‑existence lived in a condition of divine glory,
condescended to assume the enslaved condition of our humanity.”5
__________________________________________
1Op. cit., p. 208. 4Beare,
op. cit., p. 82.
2
Ibid., p. 209. 5Ibid.,
p. 83.
3Ibid.
____________________________________________________________________________
Cullmann
does not avoid Greek‑type thoughts, even though he disagrees with Käsemann’s reading of the hymn as Greek: “first of all
because a direct influence of that Gnostic myth cannot be proved; but
above all because the thought of Phil. 2.5ff. relates primarily to the Genesis
story and can be understood only by reference to it. The morphe
concept presupposes Gen. 1.26, and it is not necessary to appeal to
Hellenistic‑Gnostic conceptions in order to explain it. All externally
introduced parallels (Herm. 1.13f., for instance) are indeed interesting from
the standpoint of comparative religion, but exegetically they are nevertheless
far‑fetched.”1
Cullmann’s
understanding of “form of God” in the hymn and in Genesis
Thus it is written, “The first man
Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life‑giving spirit. But
it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the
spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is
from heaven.
The “first
Adam” failed to carry out the image of God, and all humanity duplicates his sin.
“The ‘second Adam’ comes from heaven, where he exists in the ‘image of God’.”2
The Heavenly Man is identified with the first man Adam at creation in Philo,
rabbinic exegesis of the creation stories, and Jewish apocalyptic writers of
the New Testament period. What Paul does differently, says Cullmann,
is to identify the Heavenly Man with the “Servant of God” and “Son of Man”
concepts, as in Romans 5:12‑19.
As one man’s trespass led to
condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal
and life for all men. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners,
so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.
(verses
18‑19)
Though the
designations do not occur in this passage, Cullmann
says, “(here) Paul united the two basic concepts Son of Man and Servant of God
exactly as
_____________________________________________
1Oscar Cullman, The
Christology of the New Testament, 1959, p. 175.
2 Ibid., p. 169.
____________________________________________________________________________
Jesus united
them . ... in Jesus’ assertion that the Son of Man who appears on the clouds of
heaven in divine majesty must suffer many things.”1 “The role of the
Heavenly Man is to redeem men by making them what he himself is, the image of
God. That is his mission. But men are sinful; the first man Adam, the
representative of all men sinned, and redemption from sin requires atonement.
The Heavenly Man, the divine prototype of humanity, must therefore himself
enter sinful humanity in order to free it from its sins. In Gnostic Hellenism
the Heavenly Man saves other men simply by descending to earth and ascending
again (Naasene hymn, Hippolytus,
Refut. V.6‑11). But this is not enough
for Jewish and Christian theology. The problem here is not redemption from
matter but redemption from sin. An ‘appearance’ on earth is not sufficient to
accomplish this. Redemption is a question of atonement by the ‘Man’.”2
A major point throughout Cullmann’s exposition is that “Paul also conceives of the Heavenly
Man as pre‑existent, of course . ... Already in Judaism the Son of Man’s
pre‑existence is presupposed everywhere.”3 Paul in Romans
____________________________________________________________________
1 Op. cit., p. 171. 4Ibid.,
p. 173.
2 Ibid., pp. 172‑173.
3
Ibid., pp.168-169. 5lbid.,
p. 180.
___________________________________________________________________________
4.
These ways of reading the Philippian hymn contain an emphasis on Jesus Christ as a divine being who previously was with God, emptied himself of his pre‑existent divinity, became a man on earth, and then went back up where he properly belonged. When people do read Philippians 2, the “heavy hand of tradition”1 keeps them reading along these lines. The Fathers countering the Arian dilution of Christ’s divinity clarified the terms “in the form of God” and “he emptied himself” to show that Christ is fully equal and co‑existent with God. This dominant theology is evident in Calvin’s explanation of Philippians 2, “For a time his Divine glory was invisible, and nothing appeared but the human form, in a mean and abject condition.2
5.
In this Christology, “the truly human” is accomplished by
someone who is pre‑existent and transcendent. Emptied he may be, but is
he truly man? If he is truly “emptied,” then why not start there instead of
constant reminders about his having the pre‑existent context?
It is difficult to have a two‑nature
theory and not re‑fabricate dualism. The impact of this kind of Christology
is that it confirms the Greek notion, and, one might add, the archaic, Ancient
Near‑Eastern view, that to be human is a negative condition.
Does a temporary orbit in the realm
of the human have to be pasted on to the transcendent, in order for the human
to become what it was intended to be?
It would be hard to say that
Philippians 2:1‑18 in its traditional interpretation is causing very many
people to become jubilant with the good news of the Gospel.
__________________________________________
1Donald G. Dawe, The Form of a Servant: A Historical Analysis of
the Kenotic Motif, 1963, p. 29. See also John Harvey, “A New Look at the
Christ Hymn in Phil. 2:6‑11, ET, LXXVI:11, August, 1965, p. 337.
2Institutes of the
Christian Religion, Westminster Press, early undated edition, II. xiii. 2.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Part Two: The Hymn, and Paul’s Use of it, as Hebraic
1.
“Form of God,” “Equality with God,” “God,” “to the glory
of God the Father” appear in the hymn. To understand the hymn it would seem
helpful to investigate first of all the God being talked about. Here are seven
“snapshots,” or better said, ‘movie reels.”
The Hebraic, covenantal name for God
is “Yahweh,” a name which employs the verb “to be, to happen.”
The Yahwist
narrative of the making of woman shows Yahweh concerned that man should not be
alone but should have a kenegdo, someone “as
in front of, opposite to, him.” The aim is personal interrelationship, community,
and elements of unlikeness strategically assist in accomplishing the intention.
Yahweh’s forming of the animals and man’s giving them names, is narrated as a
shared search for the kenegdo. A tried tactic
does not succeed. Yahweh changes the methods, to one which builds on something
of man himself. Yahweh causes a deep sleep to come upon man, not because he is cancelling out ineffective man, but because local
anesthetic had not yet been invented. Three times Adam joyfully cries “This
one, this one, this one.” Yahweh is discriminating and intentional, man also is
discriminating and intentional, they work on the enterprise together, and in
the light of results methods are modified. Yahweh does not proceed
automatically or absolutely. Yahweh is explorative.
___________________________________________
l Understanding
the Old Testament, Second
Edition, 1966, p. 39.
__________________________________________________________________
God in Genesis 1:1‑2:4a
creates space and time and matter and living things in logical sequence. The
days of creation show God building as he goes along, in keeping with what is so
far there. He does not act with authoritative snap of the fingers to haves it
all instantly. His word, attentive to sequence, initiates things and interrelationships.
God acts through the covenant with a
particular people as a beachhead for all peoples. God adapts himself to an
action‑strategy of shared effort which begins to achieve community as
that intention moves along. God calls Abraham in Genesis 12:1‑3, and
verse 4a highlights Abraham’s response, “So Abram went.” God delivers the
Hebrews from bondage through Moses and Saul (compare Exodus 3:7 and I Samuel
In Hosea 11 the wooing God speaks to
men who have imprisoned themselves in self‑defeating policies. Their
drive is to destruction; God’s drive is not to destroy but to love.
For I am God, and not
man,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come to destroy.
In Hosea, the problem persists between God’s relentless
judgment (13:16a) and God’s relentless love (11:9b). God must reject wrong,
i.e., self‑defeating action, because God loves and gives life. God has a
problem, and the Old Testament shows God working on it.
Justice and steadfast love
characterize God.
He has showed you, 0
man, what is good;
and what does Yahweh require of you
but to do justice, and to
love steadfast love,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah
6:8
To do these is
to walk with God.
Isaiah 41:1‑42:4 has the
literary form of a “trial scene” and the issue on which a verdict is asked is:
who is the Lord of history? An introductory
__________________________________________________________________________
verse leads
into nine stanzas, three groups each having three stanzas. In this triadic
progression, the whole poem carefully presents a case for Yahweh and no other
god as the sovereign of events. It would seem that the climactic ninth stanza
would culminate all statements in a mighty tribute to God. Instead, in that
strategic location Second Isaiah places the first of his detailed statements
about the servant. The full thrust of Yahweh as the Lord of history is stated
in terms of the work of the servant. The middle lines in 42:1‑4, the
ninth strophe, describe the way the servant accomplishes his work, his style in
action.
He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
a bruised read he will
not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not
quench;
he
will faithfully bring forth justice.
He
will bring forth justice “faithfully,” le‑emet,
“with the sure elements of the matter,” “with real know‑how.” The servant
will not exercise massive power; he will not force his way. The servant’s style
is to act in such a way as to increase maneuverability among those with whom
and for whom he works. His action‑style initiates already the life and
community he brings.
In these seven movie‑reels,
God’s action‑style correlates intentions and strategies. His purpose and
promise is a world of community. He discriminatingly uses restraints upon how
be could act, if he chose. He does not exercise himself in what would be
dominating weight. This makes possible interrelation, a teamwork of
achievement. Initial community of shared intentions and strategies is achieved
already in working together toward community. As Art McGill showed in his
analysis of Athanasius two years ago, “Love and not
transcendence, giving and not being superior is the quality which marks God’s
divinity.”1 God does not want conformity; he wants community.
In this, God is not like other gods. He is the
unexpected, true God. In this God is fully God, the Holy One in our midst.
___________________________________________
1Paper for the Biblical Theologians, “A Theological
Criticism of Transcendence,” p. 12.
____________________________________________________________________________
The Philippian
hymn is resonant with the servant songs in Second Isaiah, in words and themes.l In verses 7‑8, Jesus
takes the form (morphe; Isaiah 52:14 LXX) of a
servant (doulos; Isaiah 52:13
by his relation to things shall the righteous one, my
servant,
make
many to be accounted righteous;
and
he shall bear their iniquities.
Hebrew
tsedek means “straightness” (with
reference to the Arabic), “rightness,” “righteousness,” “vindication,” “victory.”
The servant acts le‑emet (42:3), “With
the sure elements of the matter,” “with real know‑how.” Thus the
servant’s da‑at, tsedek and emet,
his relation to things and action‑style, correlate intention and strategy
for community, and bring righteousness and vindication to many in their
own choices. “He poured out his soul to death” (53:12).
This description of the life‑style and action‑style
of the servant also describes Jesus in the Philippian
hymn. He did not assert overwhelming power, he did not assert external force,
did not eliminate the maneuverability of those among whom he worked. Instead,
he humbly tailored himself to humanity. He gave himself, in all his human
concerns, to others in their human concerns. He was giving, and not superior. Who
killed him and why? Those who were not giving but superior. Those who were
closed and not open. Men of Power, concerned with
___________________________________________
1See, for example, Lohmeyer, op.
cit., p. 94; Cullmann, op. cit., pp.
171f., 174ff.
2In the Philippian hymn, doulos may be preferred to pais
because of the correspondence with kyrios in
verse 11.
________________________________________________________________________
their own privileges and prerogatives. Those who rejected and killed him were the absolutizers, who profited from the status quo and feared change, who wanted conformity and not community. Those who in pride and power presume to take the place of God, whom they conceive in terms of their image of power and absolutisms.
3.
Many interpreters of the Philippian
hymn sees that the whole first stanza uses words and themes in Genesis 1‑3.
Having begun with verses 7‑8 in the hymn, let us include also verse 6 and
analyze similarities in Genesis 1‑3.
Genesis
Adam, however, read things wrong. Adam was deceptively tempted
to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and in disobedience took
of its fruit (Genesis 2:17; 3:1‑7). Gerhard von Rad
says that the pair of opposite terms “good and evil” are indeed a pair at
opposite ends of a spectrum, and mean simply “everything” (as in Genesis 24:50
and as in many pairs of opposite terms throughout
___________________________________________
1Friedrich Horst, “Face to Face: The Biblical Doctrine of
the Image of God,” Interpretation, IV :3, July, 1950, p. 259.
2Op. cit., p. 176.
Philippians 2:6 has morphe; Colossians
____________________________________________________________________________
the Old
Testament).1 Adam was deceptively tempted to take of the fruit of
the knowledge of everything. He wanted absolute knowledge. Immediately after
the prohibition against this in
Adam’s mistake. Adam’s disobedience, was his desire to
have an abolutizing life‑style. His mistake is
the mistake of those who choose self‑sufficient isolation, reject those
who work for love and giving and sharing; those who identify God with their
image of overwhelming superiority and want that action‑style.
Adam misunderstood his own true
intentions, and he misunderstood God. It was the wiggly one, the non‑straight
non‑tsedek serpent, the deceiver,
who misrepresented the true God Yahweh as a god of overwhelming wisdom, power,
superiority, and transcendence. The Old Testament does not say that Adam lost
the image of God. It does say that man imprisons himself in his sinful
inability to see God, himself, and his world rightly (tsedek).
He ought to live the explorative life‑style, and in this method see any
self‑defeating actions as mistaken strategies possibly forged in mistaken
intentions, and change (Jeremiah 2, 8).
Adam was in the form of God, the
true God whose action‑style is “love and not transcendence, giving and
not being superior.” But Adam wanted to be equal with god as absolute,
transcendent, and superior, and grasped at that as though it were plunder for
the taking.
___________________________________________
1Genesis: A
Commentary, 1961, p.79.
____________________________________________________________________________
The Philippian hymn celebrates Jesus Christ as the man, in the image of God, who accurately understands God, God’s intentions and strategies, and who accurately understands himself and his intentions and strategies. Jesus knows that it is God’s intention to share His action‑style with man in the community of creativity, the community of love and giving and sharing. Jesus understands and lives it, that God’s life‑style is not plunder to be grasped. Jesus knows this to be his heritage.
3.
“Therefore” (dio
kai; la‑ken, Isaiah 53:12) opens the
second stanza in the Philippian hymn. Therefore God
exalts the servant (Isaiah 52:13; 53:12). Everyone, everywhere, will recognize
his life‑style to be right and the way to be creative. Verse 10 showing
the extent of this recognition, “every knee ... in heaven and on earth and
under the earth” follows a description of extent in Exodus 20:4 (in the Ten
Commandments, the Old Testament statement about how to live), “Anything that is
in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under
the earth.” The recognizers are described in Isaiah 52:13‑53:12.
Behold, my servant shall
prosper,
he shall be exalted and lifted up,
and shall be very high.
As many were astonished at him –
his appearance was so marred, beyond human
semblance,
and his form beyond that of the sons of men
–
so shall he startle many
nations;
kings shall shut their mouths because of
him;
for that which has not been told them they shall see,
and
that which they have not heard they shall understand.
Yahweh exalts the
servant in Isaiah 52:13‑53:12 and in the Philippian
hymn, and men
whose life‑style is overwhelming power see and understand that they are
in the presence of the truly great life‑style.
In the climax of the Philippian hymn, everyone recognizes the servant (doulos), the man who realized God’s life‑style
and the man who realized God’s intention in
__________________________________________________________________________
making man in
His image, ‑‑ everyone acclaims this man as Lord (kyrios). In the servant God the Father is glorified,
as in Isaiah 49:3 Yahweh is glorified in the servant. In Judges 5:1‑11
the three‑stich lines in verses 1, 9, 11 in
varying order praise Yahweh and the people of
4.
This Hebraic reading of the Philippian hymn sees the themes as expressing not divine, albeit for a time veiled, ontology. Instead, the emphasis is upon activity, which indeed is the way the Old Testament speaks of God and man.
The statements within which Paul
places this hymn as a confirmation of his admonitions (Philippians 2:1‑6a,
12‑18) also characterize the way to act. In his opening statement, as in
his sentence immediately introducing the hymn, Paul speaks of the mind, the
intention, of the man Christ Jesus, the intention his readers should share. The
opening sentence has the triad: love, Spirit, affection and sympathy. The
Hebrew word for Spirit is ruach, which in
passages such as I Samuel 10‑11 and Second Isaiah 42:4, 5; 44:3 means
“energizing power for meaningful thought and action toward achieving
community.” In these opening sentences Paul exhorts the Philippians to act
looking to their own interests in correlation with the interests of others.
In his concluding statements Paul
exhorts his readers to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;
for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure”
(verses 13‑14). As in the hymn and as in the Old Testament, Paul urges
and asserts the interrelation of God’s work and man’s work, a teamwork of
intention and action‑style. Not just man and not just God, but God and
man working together.
“Do all things without grumbling or questioning”
(verse 14) is a reference to the faintheartedness of the Israelites in contrast
to the courage of Joshua and
____________________________________________________________________________
Caleb who
wanted to go forward into the Promised Land (Numbers 14).1 It looks
to the action‑style of the servant in Second Isaiah 53:7,2
He was oppressed, and he
was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led
to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb,
so he opened not his mouth.
and 42:2‑3.
He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard
in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly
burning wick he will not quench;
he will
faithfully bring forth justice.
Those who choose the life‑style
urged in the hymn and Paul’s surrounding statements, are “children of God
without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom
you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life” (verses 15‑16).
In verses 17‑18 Paul knows that his choice of how to live may result in a
death like that imposed by Men of Power on Second Isaiah’s servant and Jesus.
The joy in verses 17‑18 consists in all this being on the way to
vindication and victory.
5.
In other passages having a
connection with Philippians 2:1‑18, Paul does not have to be read as
Greek but as Hebraic.
When Paul contrasts “the flesh” and
“the Spirit,” these terms designate not two different ontological realms, but “two
different kinds of man.”3 These terms stand for two different life‑styles.
The “man from heaven” is the man obedient to God and true to himself, true man as God intended man to be. “The humanity of Christ is prior to that
____________________________________________
1Beare, op. cit., p. 92.
2Lohmeyer, op. cit., p . 106 .
3 D. 8. G. Owen, Body and Soul, 1956, p. 191.
______________________________________________________________________________
of
Adam in the sense that God’s intent for man is. prior to Adam’s rebellion.”1
Thus it is written, “The first man
Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life‑giving spirit.
But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the
spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is
from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as
is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the
image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
I
Corinthians 15:45‑49.
Cullmann
understands “man from heaven” as the Heavenly Man who leaves his preexistent
transcendence and descends. To read it instead as meaning the man Jesus Christ
who lived the life‑style God intended, is to make the progression in
verse 46 consistent: false man is first, true man is second. “The nature of
Christ’s resurrected existence is a human nature.”2 As Paul
explicitly says, “For as by a man came death, by a man came also the
resurrection of the dead” (I Corinthians
Jesus Christ is the image of God, as
the realization of what God had from the beginning intended. The original,
intended image of God in man, was active in God in his beginning work of
creation.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God.
II
Corinthians 4:3‑4
He is the image of the invisible
God, the first‑born of all creation; for in him all things were created,
in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or
principalities or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Colossians
1:15‑17
“Christ is not only eikon
tou theou, as was Adam,
but also king over creation in a way vastly different from the first man . . .
. In the opening chapter of the Bible, ideas of creation, sovereignty, and
divine image all appear, and these are
________________________________________
1Robin Scroggs, The Last Adam: A Study in Pauline Anthropology,
1966, p. 101.
2Ibid., p. 93.
3R. G. Smith, The
New Man: Christianity and Man’s Coming of Age, p. 69.
_____________________________________________________________________________
the very motifs found in the passage in Colossians.”1
“Thus he (Jesus) is the embodiment of true humanity, as he is the
embodiment of true kingship.”2
The first fruits of the Spirit, the
new creation is now (Romans 3:18‑23), and there is more to come.
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding
the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of
glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is Spirit.
11
Corinthians
Romans
8:29; Philippians 3:9‑21
For what we preach is . . . Jesus
Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For it is God
who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
II
Corinthians 4:5‑6
You have put off the old nature with
its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in
knowledge after the image of its creator.
Colossians
3:9‑10
“Doxa (glory) and eikon
(image) are practically synonymous. Man is to be changed not into an image
of Christ but rather into that image of God which is now the nature of Christ.”3
Through our taking on the life‑style of God and the life‑style he
intended for man and realized in Jesus Christ, through our life and action for
creative community, through our suffering and death and resurrection, God
furthers his intention to have us become what we are, men made in the image of
God.
For
all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. . When we cry, “Abba!
Father!” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are
children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs of
Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with
him.
Romans
8:14‑17
See
also Galatians 4:4‑7
________________________________________
1Scroggs, op. cit., p. 97.
2F. W. Beare, “Colossians
Exegesis,” The Interpreter’s Bible, XI, 1955, p. 164.
3
Scroggs, op. cit, p. 99.
______________________________________________________________________________
Israel saw Yahweh working on his
purpose in the covenant, berith, “the psychic
communion and the common purpose which united the people and its God.”1
If not in Hosea and Jeremiah, then in Second Isaiah the
true God may be succeeding in getting closer to uncovering and sharing himself,
and having man more fully respond to God’s invitation to share God’s intentions
and action‑style. Throughout his poems Second Isaiah emphasizes the glory
of God (45:25), Yahweh’s work in history done by his servant (42:1‑4;
53:11b; 44:25‑26), Yahweh glorifying himself in his servant (49:3),
Yahweh glorifying himself in “everyone who thirsts” and responds to His
invitation (55:5). In Leviticus, in the prelude to the
_______________________________________
1Johs.
2Curt Lindhagen, The Servant
Motif in the Old Testament, 1950, pp. 40‑41, 154, 159.
3 Ibid., pp. 84ff.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Ten Commandments, God says,
‘”You shall be holy, for I Yahweh your God am holy” (19:2).
Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark 2:1‑12; Matthew
9:1‑8; Luke 5:17‑26) told a man his sins were forgiven. Those whose
thinking was dominated by inequalities and superiorities, called it blasphemy.
In Matthew the crowds “glorified God, who had given such authority to men.”
Jesus identifies lordship with action for others.
He who is greatest among you shall
be your servant; whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles
himself will be exalted.
Matthew
23:11‑12
You call me Teacher and Lord; and
you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet,
you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
John
13:13‑14
Jesus narrates the King in glory
inviting the blessed of his Father to “inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world,” and saying that the action done for the
hungry, the stranger, the naked, the sick, those in prison, was action done to
him (Matthew 25:31ff.).
Jesus rejects the exercise of authority as the characteristic action‑style of those who are on the wrong track.
You know that the rulers of the Gentiles
lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall
not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant,
and whoever would be first among you must be your slave; even as the Son of man
came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Matthew
20:25‑28
Jesus explodes the subservient
connotations of “servant,” says the new term is “friends,” and says that the
aim of God is to have men know what the Father is doing.
Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No
longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is
doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father
I have made known to you.
John
15:13‑15
___________________________________________________________________________
“Friends” know
each other. In intimate personal relationship persons do more than reject
inequalities as definitive, and act on the basis of equality. They also refuse
to phrase life in such terms as “inequality,” “equality.” Instead, they live in
kenegdo, community relationship, with
differences strategically making possible inter‑relationship and
community.
Behm1 states the primary
pulse‑beat of the Old Testament, and it is true also for Jesus and Paul,
“In the Old Testament the theomorphic understanding of man is more essential
than the anthropomorphic conceptions of God.” Our task is to stop thinking and
talking and acting as if humanly conceived absolutisms, transcendences,
superiorities, inequalities, are accurate for the true God and for true glory.
A great deal of supposedly Christian theology shows only how dead the false god
is. A demonstration of this lies in the fact that my frequent tendency to be
fascinated by some arguments in classic theologians is not duplicated by many
of my friends in social work and science, by many “thinking” people. And it may
not be due to the fact that in my community with them we are children of
darkness.
To read Philippians 2:1‑18 as
Hebraic and not Greek, is to read it as an invitation to the truly glorious
life‑style., God’s life‑style and action‑style that is
intended to be ours for we are made in his image. The true God is not a power‑figure,
he is “love and not transcendence, giving and not being superior” I am not a
power‑figure, and if I or any man tries to employ an action‑style
that absolutizes, I and he “shall surely die” (moth
tamoth, Genesis
___________________________________________
1 “Morphe” Theologisches
Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, Vol. 4, 1942, p. 756. “Wesentlicher als anthropomorphe Vorstellungen von Gott ist dem
AT das theomorphe Verständnis
des Menschen.”
____________________________________________________________________________
and community in every care,
sorrow, deprivation, dream and discovery.1 This is holiness, this is
righteousness, this is vindication and victory. This is the range of God’s
glory and man’s glory. In this God glorifies himself and his servants who are
his friends.
The life‑style of God is not enticing plunder to
Jesus or to us. As heirs of God this is our heritage. That’s good news enough
to make anyone run out to have some, and share it.
____________________________________________
1Norman Bakken,, “The New Humanity: Christ and the Modern Age,” Interpretation,
XXII:l, January, 1968, p. 82.