Saturday, November 13, 2021

Brendan Byrne on 1 Corinthians 15:44, 49

  

Adam is “first” (πρωτος) as the ancestor of all other human beings, who will exist “in his likeness, according to his image” (Gen. 5:3). Christ is “last” (εσχατος), not in the sense of being the last human being who will ever exist, but as the proto-ancestor of a new human lineage who will live with the life of the new creation. Paul does not at this point name him “Christ” because he wants to bring out his Adamic function. As the first Adam was determinative for all his descendants in regard to a legacy of sin leading to death (Rom. 5:12a-c), though not without their ratification of him (Rom. 5:12d), so Christ, as last Adam, is determinative for a new human lineage, brought about through faith and baptism, where, again, not without their cooperation, righteousness will lead to (eternal) life (Rom. 5:17-19, 21). The first Adam, formed from the dust of the ground, became a living being when God breathed into him the breath of ordinary human life (ψυχη [LXX Gen. 2:7])—a form of life that was not immune to physical mortality when that was imposed as a penalty for sin (Gen. 3:19, 22-23). The last Adam, raised from the dead “according to the Spirit of holiness” (Rom. 1:4), because, as πνευμα ζωοποιουν, an active agent of life—the eternal life that will transcend the bonds of death.

 

Few interpreters of Paul explore further the significance of this description (πνευμα ζωοποιουν) of the ongoing Adamic role of Christ or, more precisely, ask how Christ, as agent of the Spirit, imparts life. The taut participial phrase is best seen as summing up what Paul writes concerning the life-giving role of the Spirit (“Christ in you”) in Romans 8:9-13 (9:4). As Paul’s similarly taut phrase “The Spirit means life because of righteousness” (το δε πνευμα ζωη δια δικαιοσυνην [8:10c]) makes clear, the risen Lord functions as life-giving Spirit in that, in contrast to the legacy of sin leading to death stemming from the first Adam (Rom. 5:12), he inaugurates and preserves a legacy of “righteousness leading to life” (Rom. 5:18b). As I have already argued, the highly “ethical” tone of the warning in Romans 8:12-13 ensures that the giving of resurrection life to the mortal bodies of believers (v. 11) will be on the basis of their participation in the justification (Rom 4:25) and righteousness of Christ, preserved and lived out up to the judgment.

 

Paul rounds off his argument for the risen existence by drawing to the creation story in Genesis 2:7 the earlier account in Genesis 1:26=28 that tells of human creation in the image and likeness of God. This enables him to assert (v. 49) that, as we have borne “the image of the man of dust” (την εικονα του χοικου), we will also bear “the image of the man of heaven” (την εικονα του επουρανιου). As we have inherited and so bear the moral (“dust-like” [χοικος]) likeness (εικων) of the first Adam, so, inserted through faith and baptism “into” the last Adam, we will bear the likeness (εικων) of his glorious heavenly existence.

 

It is likely, however that Paul’s use of εικων here, particularly with reference to the risen state of Christ, has something more than mere “likeness” in view. We have noted with references to 2 Corinthians 3:18 the sense of Christian life involving a continual transformation through the power of the Spirit “into” the image of God that Christ, as risen Lord, is (2 Cor. 4:4, 6). We further noted the expression of this in Romans 8:29b as the destiny intended by God for human beings from the start. These parallels suggest that, beyond mere likeness, “bearing the image of the heavenly” here in 1 Corinthians 15:49b has a similarly strong sense of participation. As “image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4, 6; see 3:18), the risen Lord is replying successfully the role that Adam muffed—that is, the role of bearing the divine image and likeness before the remainder of creation (Gen. 1:26-28; Ps. 8:5-8). Through faith and baptism believers enter into the image of God that Christ as risen Lord is. Thereby, through the power of the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17-18), they regain n the new creation the glory lost by sin (Rom. 3:23) and come to fulfill eschatologically the role God intended for human beings from the start. (Brendan Byrne, Paul and the Economy of Salvation: Reading from the Perspective of the Last Judgment [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2021], 220-22)