fruits of interpretation [brides of christ] and us
*
whether or not
the specifics of this interpretation of rom 7
as adam mydimidrash
bear fruit & multiply
it nevertheless seems to me to be a highly plausible
if not ineluctable
line of interpretation
that sees PAUL's focus here as on sexuality
and the contrast that he is drawing between fleshly life
with its getting of children
and spiritual life
where the propagation is
of spiritual fruits
for g d
one
of the ways
of testing a new interpretation of a text is
of course
to observe that it renders clear other aspects of its context
that were otherwise
difficult to
understand
observing
the thematic
that I have hypothesized for chap 7 will help us
to solve several interpretative conundra
in chaps 6 & 8
-
the
analogies
between the nexus of law & desire in rom 7:5-6
and the similar one of 6:12-14 are obvious
and we are justified
therefore
in seeing these verses
as glossing each
other
here
however
as in the parable that opens chap 7
there seem to be the same paradoxes about who is dead
and who
alive:
we know
that our old man was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed
[6:6]
PAUL
having just argued that christians have been crucified and died
now argues that they have been brought
from death
to life:
do not let sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies
to make you obey their
passions
do not
yield your members
to sin as instruments of wickedness
but yield yourselves to g d as men who have been brought from death to life
and your members to g d as instruments of righteousness
for sin will have no dominion over you
since you are not under law
but
grace
there are two cruxes here
the first
is the apparently self-contradictory
account of the relation of life
to death
on the one hand
christians are enjoined
to die with christ
on the other
they have been brought
from death to life
in other words
they have participated in both the death
and the resurrection
of christ
but the christians to whom PAUL is speaking are still alive
and in the same bodies they were always in
Paul is speaking
in the past tense
of that which has already happened to christians
not of future expectation
second
how is the non-obedience to one's passions equivalent to
not being under Law
or even more sharply
how can sin have no dominion over you
because you are not
under Law?
-
these two interpretative cruxes
may both be solved according to the present line of interpretation
that precisely the body of sin of which paul speaks
is the sexual body
thus christians have
through the crucifixion died to a certain mode of living
and progressed to another mode of living
both of which are, however, available in this life
I interpret this as
a reference to a life which is responsible to the needs of the flesh,
a fleshly life, the life of procreation, on the one hand, and a life that is
dedicated to spiritual pursuits
on the other
christians have already
died to the life of this body
[the temple of g d]
they are no longer engaged in the getting of children together with its messy entanglements in passion, heat, jealousy
- all that later christian writers will refer to as concupiscence -
which all lead to death
rather
having been freed from "all of that,"
they have been brought from a condition of physical death to a condition of spiritual life
this answers
moreover
the second question as well
for it is the torah
the jewish law
which enjoins the procreation of children and thus directly and necessarily stirs the passions
in other words
literally by being not under the claw of the Law
that is by not being obligated to procreate
the christian is freed from the dominion of sinful passion
that is free to remove sexuality from her person
and thus able to free herself from being
under sin
-
chap 8
continues the theme of the immortality granted those who abandon the birth and death cycle from which christ
through his birth and death
has freed them
the hypothesis that I have offered
enables us to make sense of at least one passage
which has been hardly intelligible until now
verses 9 through 13:
but you are not in the flesh
you are in the Spirit
if the Spirit of g d really dwells in you
any one
who does not have the Spirit of christ does not belong to him
but if christ is in you
although your bodies are dead because of sin
your spirits are alive because
of righteousness
if
the Spirit of him
who raised YESHU from the dead
dwells within you
he who raised "christ jesus"
'yhwh'
from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit
which dwells in you
SO then
brethren
we are debtors
not to the flesh
to live according to the flesh -
for if you live according to the flesh you will die
but if by the SPIRIT you put to death the deed of the body
you will live
[8:9-13]
THESE verses
have caused interpreters
no end of trouble
now it is particularly
the last two {italicized} verses
that have caused
the trouble
WHAT
does PAUL mean
by saying that christians are under an obligation
but not one of
the flesh?
some commentators
assume an otherwise totally unknown and unalluded to gnostic sect in rome that had practiced
obligatory libertinism
according to my reading
we need assume no bizarre gnostic obligations to libertinism
behind this verse
if we
assume that
"the flesh" here means the fleshly obligations of the Law
both their literal sense and the fact
that they are concerned with
the flesh
THEN the answer
is clear
"OBLIGATED to the flesh"
in 8:12
means simply the obligation to procreate
christians have obligations
but they do not have the obligation of keeping the fleshy commandments to procreate
to which PAUL refers as "deeds of the body"
~*~
ADAM's
situation is
the situation of the jews
and as others have already pointed out,
then,
"when we were in the flesh"
must mean simply
"in our pre-christian state,"
when we considered membership in the literal Israel
according to the flesh {1 Corinthians 10:18}
as decisive for salvation
and propagation of the race
as a central value
and also when we were alive in our fleshly bodies
and subject to the Law,
before we died
to the Law
-
IF
you continue in THAT mode of existence
then you will die
"but if by the SPIRIT you put to death the deeds of the body [sex and procreation]
you will live
{8:13}
-
he
furthermore
repeats this point at the end
of his myDi-letter when he writes
"BUT PUT ON the Lord Yehoshua haMashiach,
and make no provision for the flesh
that desires be
aroused"
{13:14},
which ought,
on my hypothesis,
to be glossed:
BE BAPTIZED
into the body of christ
and the new family of the spirit
and make no provision for physical progeny,
which provision necessitates
the arousal of
desires!
Dying
to the Law in baptism
is functionally identical to the baptism of converts into Judaism
who are also understood as having died to their old existence and been reborn to a new one,
and it is precisely this understanding of baptism
that Paul is employing.
Paul
and the other (formerly Jewish) Christians
are no longer "in the flesh"
and are thus freed of the consequences
of being in the flesh.
whether or not
the specifics of this interpretation of rom 7
as adam mydimidrash
bear fruit & multiply
it nevertheless seems to me to be a highly plausible
if not ineluctable
line of interpretation
that sees PAUL's focus here as on sexuality
and the contrast that he is drawing between fleshly life
with its getting of children
and spiritual life
where the propagation is
of spiritual fruits
for g d
one
of the ways
of testing a new interpretation of a text is
of course
to observe that it renders clear other aspects of its context
that were otherwise
difficult to
understand
observing
the thematic
that I have hypothesized for chap 7 will help us
to solve several interpretative conundra
in chaps 6 & 8
-
the
analogies
between the nexus of law & desire in rom 7:5-6
and the similar one of 6:12-14 are obvious
and we are justified
therefore
in seeing these verses
as glossing each
other
here
however
as in the parable that opens chap 7
there seem to be the same paradoxes about who is dead
and who
alive:
we know
that our old man was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed
[6:6]
PAUL
having just argued that christians have been crucified and died
now argues that they have been brought
from death
to life:
do not let sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies
to make you obey their
passions
do not
yield your members
to sin as instruments of wickedness
but yield yourselves to g d as men who have been brought from death to life
and your members to g d as instruments of righteousness
for sin will have no dominion over you
since you are not under law
but
grace
there are two cruxes here
the first
is the apparently self-contradictory
account of the relation of life
to death
on the one hand
christians are enjoined
to die with christ
on the other
they have been brought
from death to life
in other words
they have participated in both the death
and the resurrection
of christ
but the christians to whom PAUL is speaking are still alive
and in the same bodies they were always in
Paul is speaking
in the past tense
of that which has already happened to christians
not of future expectation
second
how is the non-obedience to one's passions equivalent to
not being under Law
or even more sharply
how can sin have no dominion over you
because you are not
under Law?
-
these two interpretative cruxes
may both be solved according to the present line of interpretation
that precisely the body of sin of which paul speaks
is the sexual body
thus christians have
through the crucifixion died to a certain mode of living
and progressed to another mode of living
both of which are, however, available in this life
I interpret this as
a reference to a life which is responsible to the needs of the flesh,
a fleshly life, the life of procreation, on the one hand, and a life that is
dedicated to spiritual pursuits
on the other
christians have already
died to the life of this body
[the temple of g d]
they are no longer engaged in the getting of children together with its messy entanglements in passion, heat, jealousy
- all that later christian writers will refer to as concupiscence -
which all lead to death
rather
having been freed from "all of that,"
they have been brought from a condition of physical death to a condition of spiritual life
this answers
moreover
the second question as well
for it is the torah
the jewish law
which enjoins the procreation of children and thus directly and necessarily stirs the passions
in other words
literally by being not under the claw of the Law
that is by not being obligated to procreate
the christian is freed from the dominion of sinful passion
that is free to remove sexuality from her person
and thus able to free herself from being
under sin
-
chap 8
continues the theme of the immortality granted those who abandon the birth and death cycle from which christ
through his birth and death
has freed them
the hypothesis that I have offered
enables us to make sense of at least one passage
which has been hardly intelligible until now
verses 9 through 13:
but you are not in the flesh
you are in the Spirit
if the Spirit of g d really dwells in you
any one
who does not have the Spirit of christ does not belong to him
but if christ is in you
although your bodies are dead because of sin
your spirits are alive because
of righteousness
if
the Spirit of him
who raised YESHU from the dead
dwells within you
he who raised "christ jesus"
'yhwh'
from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit
which dwells in you
SO then
brethren
we are debtors
not to the flesh
to live according to the flesh -
for if you live according to the flesh you will die
but if by the SPIRIT you put to death the deed of the body
you will live
[8:9-13]
THESE verses
have caused interpreters
no end of trouble
now it is particularly
the last two {italicized} verses
that have caused
the trouble
WHAT
does PAUL mean
by saying that christians are under an obligation
but not one of
the flesh?
some commentators
assume an otherwise totally unknown and unalluded to gnostic sect in rome that had practiced
obligatory libertinism
according to my reading
we need assume no bizarre gnostic obligations to libertinism
behind this verse
if we
assume that
"the flesh" here means the fleshly obligations of the Law
both their literal sense and the fact
that they are concerned with
the flesh
THEN the answer
is clear
"OBLIGATED to the flesh"
in 8:12
means simply the obligation to procreate
christians have obligations
but they do not have the obligation of keeping the fleshy commandments to procreate
to which PAUL refers as "deeds of the body"
~*~
ADAM's
situation is
the situation of the jews
and as others have already pointed out,
then,
"when we were in the flesh"
must mean simply
"in our pre-christian state,"
when we considered membership in the literal Israel
according to the flesh {1 Corinthians 10:18}
as decisive for salvation
and propagation of the race
as a central value
and also when we were alive in our fleshly bodies
and subject to the Law,
before we died
to the Law
-
IF
you continue in THAT mode of existence
then you will die
"but if by the SPIRIT you put to death the deeds of the body [sex and procreation]
you will live
{8:13}
-
he
furthermore
repeats this point at the end
of his myDi-letter when he writes
"BUT PUT ON the Lord Yehoshua haMashiach,
and make no provision for the flesh
that desires be
aroused"
{13:14},
which ought,
on my hypothesis,
to be glossed:
BE BAPTIZED
into the body of christ
and the new family of the spirit
and make no provision for physical progeny,
which provision necessitates
the arousal of
desires!
Dying
to the Law in baptism
is functionally identical to the baptism of converts into Judaism
who are also understood as having died to their old existence and been reborn to a new one,
and it is precisely this understanding of baptism
that Paul is employing.
Paul
and the other (formerly Jewish) Christians
are no longer "in the flesh"
and are thus freed of the consequences
of being in the flesh.
26 jul 2005 - bewerkt op 14 mrt 2008
- meld ongepast verhaal
-
Asih
dinsdag 26 juli 2005 12:40
fanatisme betekent: je krachtsinspanning verdubbelen,
nadat je je doel vergeten bent ...
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