Christ Is King: Paul’s royal ideology 9781506402925, 1506402925

Table of contents :
1. Paul's Christ-discourse as ancient kingship discourse --
2. King and law : Christ the king as living law --
3. King and praise : hymns as royal encomia to Christ the king --
4. King and kingdom : sharing in the rule of Christ the king --
5. King and justice : God's righteousness and the righteous king in Romans --
6. Conclusion.

Citation preview

Until recently, many scholars have read Paul’s use of the word Christos as more of a proper name (“Jesus Christ”) than a title, Jesus the Messiah. Joshua W. Jipp broadens the discussion by surveying Greco-Roman and Jewish depictions of the ideal king and argues for the influence of these traditions on several aspects of Paul’s thought, including Paul’s language of participation “in Christ.” Jipp finds that Paul’s use of royal tropes is indeed significant, and concludes that Christos is a royal title, an honorific, within Paul’s letters. Praise for

Jipp

The Messiah and the ideology of kingship

KING

Christ Is King

“. . . a carefully researched, lucidly written, and compelling case for the influence of ancient ideologies about good kingship on Paul’s Christology. . . . Jipp demonstrates that royal motifs permeate Paul’s letters. An important book.” Michael J. Gorman St. Mary’s Seminary & University “Combining an impressive command of both Greco-Roman and Jewish literature with close analysis of Paul’s letters, Joshua W. Jipp convincingly argues that the designation ‘Christ’ should be taken, not as an empty marker, but as a pointer to ancient discourse about kings. By placing key passages in Romans, 1 Corinthians, Philippians, and Colossians in conversation with what was expected of the ideal king, Jipp throws new light on Paul’s language and provides significant insight into Paul’s understanding of Jesus.” Luke Timothy Johnson Candler School of Theology, Emory University “. . . a very impressive book. . . . Scholars of Paul and of early Christology, take note.”  Matthew Novenson The University of Edinburgh

Christ Is KING

“[Jipp offers] significant new interpretative angles on almost all the key questions in current Pauline analysis, coupled with the advocacy of a bold new proposal for the center of Paul’s thought as a whole. This is an important book, creative, comprehensively researched, and thoroughly argued, by a New Testament scholar of rapidly increasing stature.” Douglas Campbell Duke Divinity School

Christ Is Paul’s Royal Ideology

Joshua W. Jipp is assistant professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. His recent publications include Divine Visitations and Hospitality to Strangers in Luke–Acts: An Interpretation of the Malta Episode in Acts 28:1-10 (2013). Jipp also received the Paul J. Achtemeier Award for New Testament Scholarship for an earlier version of the second chapter from Christ Is King.

Religion / New Testament

Joshua W. Jipp

Christ Is King

Christ Is King Paul's Royal Ideology

Joshua W. Jipp

Fortress Press Minneapolis

CHRIST IS KING Paul’s Royal Ideology

Copyright © 2015 Fortress Press. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Visit http://www.augsburgfortress.org/copyrights/ or write to Permissions, Augsburg Fortress, Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440.

Cover image: Thinkstock 2015; Crown Of Thorns Represents Jesus Crucifixion on Good Friday by Ricardo Reitmeyer Cover design: Alisha Lofgren

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Print ISBN: 978-1-4514-8210-2 eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-0292-5

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Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

1.

Paul’s Christ-Discourse as Ancient Kingship Discourse

2.

King and Law: Christ the King as Living Law

43

3.

King and Praise: Hymns as Royal Encomia to Christ the King

77

4.

King and Kingdom: Sharing in the Rule of Christ the King

139

5.

King and Justice: God’s Righteousness and the Righteous King in Romans

211

6.

Conclusion

273

Bibliography

283

Index of Names

331

Index of Subjects

341

Index of Ancient Sources

345

1

Acknowledgments

The seeds for the idea of this book originated out of two seminars during my Th.M. studies at Duke Divinity School in 2006-2007. It was in a course taught by C. Kavin Rowe and Douglas Campbell where I discovered the incredible amount of attention devoted to reflections upon the good king in Greek and Roman writings. Richard Hays’s seminar on 1 Corinthians also gave me the opportunity to explore 1 Corinthians 15:20-28 as kingship discourse, and I benefited greatly from his advice regarding the further exploration of this project. Both Douglas and Richard were remarkably generous with their time and helpful to me in my own scholarly development. I am grateful to these Duke New Testament professors as well as many of the former students (now almost all of whom are professors) who have dialogued with me and offered helpful feedback about the project. All of the writing of this book, and most of the research, has taken place during my time teaching at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I am thankful to the faculty and administration for allowing me the opportunity to finish the book while on research leave. Special thanks to David Pao who read the entire manuscript and gave valuable feedback, allowed me to design and teach a course related to my research for the book, and is just an all around wonderful and interesting mentor. Thanks also, David, for not moving my office to the lightless basement of ATO as of yet. I would also like to offer special thanks for the extraordinary graduate assistants at Trinity who facilitated my research and writing – John Moon, David Bryan, David vii

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Moser (despite his resignation to pursue what he referred to as a “better opportunity than working for you”), Chuck Cruise, and Julia Lindenlaub. All of them are fine budding scholars in their own right, and I’m thankful they took the time to hunt down articles and offer feedback on my arguments amidst their own busy work. Thanks also to all those who read portions of the book and made helpful comments, some more helpful than others, including Matthew Bates, Matthew Thiessen, Michael Gorman, Andy Johnson, Matthew Novenson, Drew Strait, John Anthony Dunne, Alec Lucas, Jordan Green, Con Campbell, Eric Tully, Michael Bird, and some other friends and scholars (you know who you are!). The second chapter of this book received the Paul J. Achtemeier award (2013) through the Society of Biblical Literature. I would like to express gratitude to the Achtemeier family and the Society of Biblical Literature for the award and also to David Horrell, Julien Smith, and Marianne Meye Thompson for their feedback on the essay. Special thanks to Justin Jeffcoat-Schedtler and Michael Thate for valuable input into this book. The book is not only better because of you, but I am better because of your loyal and life-giving friendship. As always, I am deeply thankful for my wife, Amber, who is not only a gifted teacher and communicator of the Scriptures in her own right but has also taken the time to listen, discuss, and question the ideas found in this book. She deserves a lot more thanks than I can offer here. As always, all my love Little One. I am grateful for my parents, Randy and Kay Jipp, who have always provided constant support, encouragement, affection, and lots of humor. My parents have supported me in every way imaginable. Their love, burden-bearing, and generosity – not just for me – but for all those they come into contact with is my living example of those who have fulfilled the law of Christ (Read chapter 2, Dad! You can skip the stuff about the neo-Pythagorean philosophers and go straight to Paul). Speaking of humor, how can I forget the laughter and fun that my sister, Emily, has brought into my life! I dedicate this book to Randy, Kay, and Emily Jipp.

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Despite the fact that, as Francis Oakley has reminded us, “[F]or several millennia at least, it has been kingship and not more consensual governmental forms that has dominated the institutional landscape of what we today would call political life,” the ancient institution of kingship has not seemed to most to be a particularly relevant resource for understanding Paul’s depiction of Christ.1 Whatever one’s views regarding the historical value of the canonical Gospels, we can agree that Jesus was clearly remembered with royal hues: he proclaimed God’s kingdom (Mark 1:14-15), his ancestry was traced to the lineage of the royal family of David (Matt. 1:18-25; Luke 1:31-35, 68-69; 2:1-8; cf. Mark 12:35-37), he was supposed by his followers to be God’s anointed 1. Francis Oakley, Kingship: The Politics of Enchantment (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), 4. There are, however, as I will soon indicate, some notable exceptions. Christ is not named as βασιλεύς, and yet it is important here to heed Marc Zvi Brettler’s methodological caution (God Is King: Understanding an Israelite Metaphor [JSOTSup 76; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989], 23). He notes the same dynamic in the Psalter, where the word for king, rule, and kingdom are often absent and yet this does not mean that the motifs or metaphors associated with kingship are also absent, as long as the biblical text uses language typical of kings in its description of God.

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Messiah (Mark 8:34-38), he was crucified by the Romans as a messianic pretender (Mark 14:55-64; 15:1-38; John 18:33–19:22), and he was one whose death and resurrection from the dead were seen as corresponding to the pattern set forth in the Davidic Psalms (Ps. 22:19 in Luke 23:34; Ps. 69:2 in Luke 23:36; Ps. 31:6 in Luke 23:46).2 Paul himself also had spoken of Christ in relationship to “the kingdom of God” (Rom. 14:17; 1 Cor. 6:9-11; 15:50; Gal. 5:21; 1 Thess. 2:12) and as the agent through whom God will establish an eschatological kingdom through the defeat of evil authorities and powers (1 Cor. 15:24-28). Christ is the agent through whom God mediates judgment (Rom. 2:16; 2 Cor. 5:10; 1 Thess. 5:2). Though most have not seen Paul as stressing the messianic aspect of the title, his favorite designation for Christ is Χριστός and, based in part on the fact that he does speak of Christ as “born from the seed of David” (Rom. 1:3) and the one who comes “from the root of Jesse” (Rom. 15:12a), some have made powerful arguments that Messiah in Paul retains its royal connotations. Even if it was not written by Paul, the exhortation to “Remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead, from the seed of David according to my gospel” (2 Tim. 2:8) suggests that the royal, messianic identity of Jesus was seen, at least by some early Christians, to be critically important for rightly understanding Jesus. Given the preservation of these influential remembrances of a royal Messiah, it is not surprising that numerous figures from the early 2. The point stands regardless of whether one views these accounts as largely historically reliable or as providing testimony for the beliefs of some of the early Christians. Regarding the historical likelihood that Jesus was crucified for his royal-messianic claims, see Nils A. Dahl, “The Crucified Messiah,” in Jesus the Christ: The Historical Origins of Christological Doctrine (ed. Donald H. Juel; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 27-47, esp. 39-40; see also Martin Hengel, “Jesus, the Messiah of Israel,” in Studies in Early Christology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995), 1-72; James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (vol. 1 of Christianity in the Making,; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 627-47. On Mark’s Passion Narrative and its ironic depiction of Christ as a king, see Frank J. Matera, The Kingship of Jesus: Composition and Theology in Mark 15 (SBLDS 66; Chico, CA: Scholars, 1982); Joel Marcus, “Crucifixion as Parodic Exaltation,” JBL 125 (2006): 73-87. On the Davidic Psalms as the lens through which the early Christians interpreted the death of Jesus, see Joshua W. Jipp, “Luke’s Scriptural Suffering Messiah: A Search for Precedent, a Search for Identity,” CBQ 72 (2010): 255-74; Peter Doble, “Luke 24.26, 44—Songs of God’s Servant: David and His Psalms in Luke–Acts,” JSNT 28 (2006): 267-83; Joel Marcus, The Way of the Lord: Christological Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Gospel of Mark (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992); Stephen P. Ahearne-Kroll, The Psalms of Lament in Mark’s Passion: Jesus’ Davidic Suffering (SNTSMS 142; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

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church also exploited royal categories, titles, and functions as a means of explaining the significance of Jesus.3 In the Ascension of Isaiah the pre-existent Christ is repeatedly referred to as “the Lord” over the entire cosmos (8:9; 9:32-39), is enthroned to rule at God’s right hand (10:7-15), and is the cosmic and eschatological judge (4:14-18; 10:12-15). One even begins to find the explicit application of Hellenistic kingship metaphors being applied to Jesus, as in, for example, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, where Christ is referred to as Lord, Savior, pilot, and shepherd (19:2). Clement of Alexandria also speaks of Christ as the divine shepherd, charioteer, royal living law, and pilot—standard titles for a Hellenistic king (Strom. 1.158-168).4 For Clement, Christ was the supremely wise and just lawgiver who, as shepherd and king, leads his people in the path of royal wisdom (Strom. 1.158-159; 168.4; 169.1-2; 7.42.7; Protr. 116.1-4).5 Eusebius of Caesarea’s writings Oration in Praise of the Emperor Constantine and The Life of the Blessed Emperor Constantine are well known for their exploitation of biblical and Hellenistic notions of kingship, in that they depict Constantine’s kingship as deriving from the rule and authority of Christ’s kingship.6 My simple and largely anecdotal point here is that one of the ways early worshippers of Christ made sense of the significance of Jesus and their experience of him was through using royal tropes and motifs to depict Christ as king.7 And yet, apart from a few notable exceptions, Paul’s Christ-discourse—by which I simply mean the specific words and patterns of speech used to talk about the Christ-figure—has not been thought to be particularly illuminated by ancient kingship discourse or royal messianism.8 The roots of this neglect are likely due in part to 3. I have been guided here by Oakley, Kingship, 69-76; Per Beskow, Rex Gloriae: The Kingship of Christ in the Early Church (trans. Eric J. Sharpe; Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014; reprinted from Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1962). 4. Beskow, Rex Gloriae, 213-19. 5. Ibid., 218. 6. Ibid., 313-30. See also Clifford Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 43-44. 7. The point holds even if one supposes that a messianic Jesus stems from the early church and not Jesus himself. E.g., William Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien: Zugleich ein Beitra zum Verständnis des Markusevangeliums (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1901); idem, The Messianic Secret (trans. J. C. G. Greig; Library of Theological Translations; Cambridge: James Clarke, 1971). 8. A notable exception regarding the positive relationship between royal messianism and kingship

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the longstanding scholarly consensus that within Paul’s letters Χριστός was a proper name that had lost its titular connotations.9 It can be stated with little exaggeration that Wilhelm Bousset’s influential Kyrios Christos and its positing of a division between Palestinian and Hellenistic Christianity, with the latter valuing the title “Lord” but devaluing Jewish Davidic traditions, has provided the historical foundations for Paul’s supposed disinterest in Jesus’ Davidic descent.10 This consensus shows signs, however, of being overturned, as many voices have marshaled evidence that indicates that the term means “Messiah” and retains its royal connotations.11 Thus, while Paul does not refer to Christ as king, his abundant use of the honorific “Messiah” may indicate that he thinks of Jesus as the ideal king or ruler. Especially significant in this regard is Matthew V. Novenson’s recent monograph Christ among the Messiahs, in which he demonstrates that Paul’s use of Χριστός actually conforms quite closely to common uses of honorifics in the ancient world.12 Thus, for Paul Χριστός is not a proper name but rather an honorific such as Seleucus the Victor or Judah Maccabee that can be used in combination with an individual’s proper name or can stand in for a proper name. In this view, such honorifics are honorable names granted to individuals to signify their discourse and the rise of early Christian Christology is William Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ (London: SCM, 1998). 9. See Nils A. Dahl. “The Messiahship of Jesus in Paul,” in Jesus the Christ: The Historical Origins of Christological Doctrine (ed. Donald H. Juel; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 15-25; Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (2 vols.; New York: Scribners, 1951), 1:49-50, 237; Magnus Zetterholm, “Paul and the Missing Messiah,” in The Messiah in Early Judaism and Christianity (ed. Magnus Zetterholm; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 33-55. 10. Wilhelm Bousset, Kyrios Christos: A History of the Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Irenaeus (trans. John E. Steely; Nashville: Abingdon, 1970). Preceding Bousset, however, in the division between Palestinian and Hellenistic Christianity was Wilhelm Heitmüller, “Zum Problem Paulus und Jesus,” ZNW 13 (1912): 320-37. On the role of Bousset on historical investigations of the origins of Paul’s Christology, see Leander E. Keck, “Christology of the New Testament: What, Then, Is New Testament Christology?” in Who Do You Say that I Am? Essays on New Testament Christology (ed. Mark Allan Powell and David R. Bauer; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999), 185-200, here 187-91. 11. N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991); idem., Paul and the Faithfulness of God (vol. 4 of Christian Origins and the Question of God,; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), 815-36; Giorgio Agamben, The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans (trans. Patricia Dailey; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), 16-18; Adela Yarbro Collins and John J. Collins, King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 101-22. 12. Matthew V. Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

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unique identity and significance, often as a result of a military victory, accession to power, or benefaction.13 In sum, Paul’s variegated usage of “Christ,” “Jesus Christ,” and “Christ Jesus” makes sense, Novenson argues, within the conventions of Greek honorifics. He examines a handful of Pauline texts and concludes that “Paul does all that we normally expect any ancient Jewish or Christian text to do to count as a messiah text and that in no case does he ever disclaim the category of messiahship.”14 Paul’s Christ-language is messiah language not as a result of its conformity to a Jewish messianic ideal or to the possible psychological messianic expectation of Paul’s hearers, but rather because the language “could be used meaningfully in antiquity because it was deployed in the context of a linguistic community whose members shared a stock of common linguistic resources.”15 In other words, Israel’s Scriptures provided the linguistic and conceptual resources whereby Paul, as an example of one Jewish writer, could use scriptural messiah language with the expectation of communicating successfully with those who shared the same Scriptures. Some scholars have prepared the way for Novenson’s argument by recognizing the importance of Jesus’ Davidic Messiahship in Paul’s letters and especially his argument in Romans.16 Romans contains an inclusio that affirms Jesus’ Davidic lineage (1:3-4; 15:7-12), and it is against this scriptural Davidic-sonship framework that Paul makes sense of Jesus’ resurrection and enthronement (see 2 Sam. 7:12-14; Pss. 2:7; 89:26-27).17 Adela Yarbro Collins provides a brief but convincing case that Paul’s abundant use of the honorific “indicates that the proclamation of Jesus as the messiah of Israel was a fundamental part 13. Ibid., 64-97. 14. Ibid., 138. 15. Ibid., 47. 16. Most helpful here is Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, 137-73; Christopher G. Whitsett, “Son of God, Seed of David: Paul’s Messianic Exegesis in Romans 2[sic]:3-4,” JBL 119 (2000): 661-81. See also my “Ancient, Modern, and Future Interpretations of Romans 1:3-4: Reception History and Biblical Interpretation,” Journal of Theological Interpretation 3 (2009): 241-59, here 258-59. 17. On Paul’s messianic exegesis, see Lidija Novakovic, Raised from the Dead according to Scripture: The Role of Israel’s Scripture in the Early Christian Interpretations of Jesus’ Resurrection (Jewish and Christian Texts in Contexts and Related Studies Series; London: T & T Clark, 2012); Donald Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988).

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of his announcement of the good news to those who formed the core membership of the communities that he founded.”18 Further, as emphasized by Richard B. Hays, Paul’s appropriation of royal Psalms to Jesus, seen in Rom. 11:9 (Ps. 68:23-24), 15:3 (Ps. 68:10), 15:9 (Ps. 17:50), 15:11 (Ps. 117:1), and 2 Cor. 4:13-14 (Ps. 115:1), is intelligible only because of Paul’s belief that Jesus was the messianic descendent of the Davidic king.19 Moreover, Douglas A. Campbell has argued persuasively that Paul’s argument in Romans 8 is indebted to “a story of ascent through resurrection to glorification and heavenly enthronement” and that this story is “explained by royal messianic theology, and in particular by the Old Testament’s enthronement texts, among which Psalm 89 is outstanding.”20 Furthermore, numerous continental philosophers have seen Paul’s apocalyptic messianism as displaying a politics of an alternative sovereignty based on the crucified Messiah.21 But perhaps most important here is William Horbury’s Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ.22 Horbury argues for the centrality of (Greek, Roman, and Jewish) kingship for understanding Jewish messianism, as Second Temple Jewish texts refashion both GrecoRoman and Israelite notions of the good king in their portrait of messianic figures.23 Significant components of Jewish messianism, then, provide the context for the origination of the Christ cult, evidenced particularly in the similarities with which Christ receives acclamations, hymns, and titles.24 The similarities between my 18. Collins and Collins, King and Messiah as Son of God, 122. See also Stefan Schreiber, Gesalbter und König: Titel and Konzeptionen der königlichen Gesalbtenerwartung in früjüdischen und urchristlichen Schriften (BZNW 105; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000), 405-24. 19. Richard B. Hays, “Paul’s Use of an Early Christian Convention,” in The Future of Christology: Essays in Honor of Leander E. Keck (ed. Abraham J. Malherbe and Wayne A. Meeks; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 122-36; Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, 151-56. 20. Douglas A. Campbell, “The Story of Jesus in Romans and Galatians,” in Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment (ed. Bruce W. Longenecker; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 97-124, here 116. 21. See, for example, Jacob Taubes, The Political Theology of Paul (trans. Dana Hollander; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004); Giorgio Agamben, The Time that Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans (trans. Patricia Dailey; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005); Alain Badiou, Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003). On the philosophical turn to Paul for contemporary matters, see Ward Blanton and Hent de Vries, eds., Paul and the Philosophers (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013). 22. William Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ (London: SCM, 1998). 23. Ibid., 64-77. 24. Ibid., 109-52.

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argument and Horbury’s will be evident in what follows (particularly in chapter 3, “King and Praise”), and I suggest that his important work has probably not received the attention it deserves from Pauline interpreters due to his controversial claims regarding the “coherence” and “prevalence” of messianism, claims that need not be accepted for my argument to stand.25 In other words, my argument front-grounds how Paul reinterpreted and reworked notions of kingship discourse. 26 Novenson’s argument is particularly illuminating for discerning the sources of Paul’s christological language, and in the present study I intend to extend his argument in new directions. I suggest, however, that Israel’s Scriptures form only one significant strand, albeit a highly privileged one, of Paul’s linguistic and conceptual resources for understanding the good king. That is to say, if Paul does speak of Χριστός as Israel’s royal king, then his use of Jewish, Hellenistic, and Roman political topoi related to the ideal king would be unsurprising. In this study, then, I argue that significant portions of Paul’s Christdiscourse is kingship discourse in which Paul creatively transforms the responsibilities, traits, and titles commonly understood to belong to kings and applies them to Jesus.27 I am interested, then, in what Nils A. Dahl has referred to as the sources of Paul’s christological language.28 In his 1977 presidential address to the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, Dahl argued that whereas scholars had produced many works on christological titles, “only sporadic attention has been paid to the syntax of christological language,” particularly concerning “what roles 25. Ibid., 36-108. 26. Again, see my discussion of Novenson’s important methodological statement above. See also Kenneth Pomykala, The Davidic Dynasty in Early Judaism: Its History and Significance for Messianism (SBLEJL 7; Atlanta: Scholars, 1995), who challenges Horbury’s points regarding both the coherence (arguing, instead, for diversity) and prevalence (arguing that “there never existed a continuous, widespread, dominant, or uniform expectation for a Davidic messiah in early Judaism,” p. 271) of messianism. To be clear, my argument depends upon Paul’s reading and interaction with notions of monarchy and kingship. Pomykala’s criticisms of Horbury (of which Pomykala is only one representative of other similar voices), however, do not call into question Horbury’s thesis that the Christ cult originated in Jewish messianism. For a balanced and somewhat mediating position between Horbury and Pomykala, see Schreiber, Gesalbter und König. 27. Though my research was completed before I had read his work and though the subject matter is different, my approach is similar to M. David Litwa, IESUS DEUS: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014). 28. Nils A. Dahl, “Sources of Christological Language,” in Jesus the Christ: The Historical Origins of Christological Doctrine (ed. Donald H. Juel; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 113-36.

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various designations of Jesus play in Greek sentences and concerning semantic transformations of these sentences.”29 A more appropriate methodology for discerning the sources of Paul’s christology, Dahl suggested, may be one that attends to Paul’s “linguistic resources—words, phrases, forms and patterns of composition that existed prior to their use in talking about Jesus.”30 The question is this: “To what extent did Christian speech about Jesus have analogies and precedents in what was said about different types of persons and beings?”31 The present study, then, pursues the linguistic systems within which Paul’s christological discourse makes sense.32 It is less concerned with investigating religious- or tradition-historical questions than it is with the metaphorical character of Paul’s ascription of royal significance to the person and work of Jesus. Jens Schröter rightly notes: “If … ascriptions of meaning . . . often possess metaphorical character, then the starting point for a metaphorical Christology lies here: as a constituent element of language, metaphor possesses realitystructuring and reality-disclosing power.”33 So with respect to Paul’s Christ-discourse, there is no fixed semantic or conceptual content. Rather, the application of royal motifs and metaphors to Jesus “represents a special case of their reception, in which certain semantic features were actualized and connected with his activity and fate.”34 So for Paul to make the basic claim that “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and was buried, and was raised on the third

29. Ibid., 116. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid., 117. 32. On the methodological primacy of reading early Christian texts as literary productions, see Elizabeth A. Clark, History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 156-85. 33. Jens Schröter, “Metaphorical Christology in Paul,” in From Jesus to the New Testament: Early Christian Theology and the Origin of the New Testament Canon (trans. Wayne Coppins; Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Studies in Early Christianity; Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2013), 185-204, here 186. 34. Ibid., 187. Regarding the development of Pauline Christology through the use of metaphorical concepts, Schröter says that “it can thus be stated that the contribution of a metaphorical Christology can consist in understanding the fields of interpretation with which early Christianity surrounded the person of Jesus, beyond the question of their historical and tradition-historical presuppositions, as—to express it with a metaphor—the building stones of the structure of the Christian interpretation of reality” (pp. 202-3).

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day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3b-4) is “a use—intelligible only in light of the fate of Jesus—of the Jewish idea of the Anointed One, which represents an innovation and which expands, in turn, the semantic spectrum of this term.”35 One significant, yet underdeveloped, set of conceptual and metaphorical resources for understanding Paul’s christological language is ancient kingship discourse and the many texts devoted to reflections upon the ideal king.36 Paul’s Christ-discourse is heavily indebted to his own creative reflection upon ancient royal ideology, as activated through the fate of Jesus and the early Christians’ continued experience of him.37 My basic argument, then, is that Paul used, reworked, and applied ancient conceptions of the good king—both Greco-Roman and Jewish—to Christ in order to structure reality or the symbolic universe of his congregations. In each chapter I will examine the relevant aspects of kingship discourse in order to provide a context that will illumine Paul’s Christ-discourse. Except in those instances where Paul quotes or alludes to the Greek Old Testament, my argument is that Paul adopts and adapts the cultural scripts, generic conventions, and topoi popularly associated with the good king—not that he derives it from a specific textual source per se.38 In other words, given Paul’s 35. Ibid., 187. I do not, however, follow Schröter in his unsubstantiated claim, despite its longstanding scholarly pedigree, that “the designation of Jesus as Χριστός, for example, is a christological metaphor that Paul takes over without developing it further. For him this is an established designation for Jesus that has already faded in the pre-Pauline tradition from being a title to being part of Jesus’ name, and it is not used by Paul to enrich with additional metaphorical statements the image field of being anointed or being the kingly Anointed One” (p. 192). 36. See, however, Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 64-77; with respect to Ephesians, see Julien Smith, Christ the Ideal King: Cultural Context, Rhetorical Strategy, and the Power of Divine Monarchy in Ephesians (WUNT 2.313; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011). 37. Again Schröter, “Metaphorical Christology in Paul,” 188: “Rather, one must inquire into the ascriptions through which the activity and fate of Jesus became the center of a specific interpretation of reality. If one considers the early Christian writings from this perspective, then numerous images and image fields come into view, which show a broad spectrum in which the person of Jesus refracts.” On the importance of Paul’s own experience of Christ as generative for his christological statements, see throughout Hendrikus Boers, Christ in the Letters of Paul: In Place of a Christology (BZNW 140; Berlin; de Gruyter, 2006); Dieter Georgi, Theocracy: In Paul’s Praxis and Theology (trans. David E. Green; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 17-25; more broadly, see Luke Timothy Johnson, Religious Experience in Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998). 38. My method is different, then, from Samuel Sandmel’s description of “parallelomania . . . which first overdoes the supposed similarity in passages and then proceeds to describe source and derivation as if implying literary connection flowing in an inevitable or predetermined direction” (italics mine). See Samuel Sandmel, “Parallelomania,” JBL 81 (1962): 1-13, here, 1.

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ethnic and religious background within ancient Judaism, his explicit citations of the Greek Old Testament, and the historical-religious derivation of Paul’s churches, I generally emphasize and give pride of place to the Greek Old Testament as providing the sources for Paul’s language.39 Nevertheless, if anything has been learned about Judaism in the past half-century, it is that Judaism was situated within the Hellenized ancient Mediterranean world.40 As M. David Litwa has stated clearly: “Ancient Judaism was a living Mediterranean religion engaged in active conversation and negotiation with larger religious currents of its time.”41 Thus, despite the obvious rejection of certain aspects of Greco-Roman religions and culture, the Jewish and Greco-Roman depictions of the ideal king share numerous points of overlap and contact with one another, especially with respect to their cultural understanding of “the good king.”42 Finally, I should emphasize that it would be a mistake to suppose that Paul simply derived his Christdiscourse wholesale from either the Greek Old Testament or GrecoRoman kingship discourse. Paul clearly portrays Christ as absolutely set apart from and superior to any other ruler. After all, Paul supposes that Christ not only defeats but also even created these rulers (Col. 1:16; 2:14-15)! Further, ancient kingship discourse is refracted through the fate of Jesus and the early Christians’ experience of the resurrected Messiah.43 39. See especially T. Michael Law, When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 85-116; Michael L. Satlow, How the Bible Became Holy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 153-70, 210-23. 40. Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism (2 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974); Erich S. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 41. Litwa, IESUS DEUS, 19. 42. Though I did not emphasize the point, my study on the cultural script of hospitality to strangers demonstrates numerous points of overlap between Jews and non-Jews when it comes to the practice of hospitality; see Joshua W. Jipp, Divine Visitations and Hospitality to Strangers in Luke–Acts: An Interpretation of the Malta Episode in Acts 28:1-10 (NovTSup 153; Leiden: Brill, 2013). See also the perceptive analysis of Jonathan Z. Smith, who notes that scholars have often used Judaism as a background for Christianity as an “insulation for early Christianity, guarding it against ‘influence’ from its environment’”. (Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990], 83. 43. Thus, to compare Paul’s Christ-discourse with ancient kingship discourse, or to argue that Paul reworks and applies notions of the good king to Christ, is obviously not to suggest identity or sameness between Christ and that with which he is compared. See here Smith, Drudgery Divine, 36-53. See also Litwa, who rightly notes: “If Paul . . . opposed imperial ideology, he also reinscribed it in an attempt to exalt Jesus over the imperial gods of his day. . . . Christians compete

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The cumulative effect of my argument is that Paul’s language about Christ cannot be fully appreciated apart from recognizing that quite frequently Paul is setting forth a vision of Christ as the king. Paul’s use of kingship discourse as a source for his christological language has explanatory power for resolving some classic scholarly conundrums: Given Paul’s seemingly negative statements regarding the Torah and its inability to grant justification and life, is Paul simply being playful or haphazard in his command to the Galatians to fulfill “the law of Christ”? How was it possible for a Jewish monotheist to conceptualize and articulate the worship and cultic veneration of a second divine figure next to Yahweh? What conceptual resources, in other words, make the rise of early Christology possible? What does Paul mean when he uses participatory language to speak of Christ’s people sharing in Christ’s identity and narrative? And how did he even begin to develop this participatory soteriology that dominates his discourse and conceptualizing of salvation? Is it possible to more precisely identify the meaning of Paul’s justice/righteousness language in Romans? And what did Paul hope that this construction of Christ the king would accomplish in the lives, rituals, social existence, and communal ordering of his churches? The following study will take up these questions in an attempt to illustrate the value for discerning this significant resource for Paul’s christological language, one that can provide important insights into exegesis of Paul’s letters and his attempt to order the lives of his churches. Paul’s Invention of an Alternative Royal Ideology What was Paul doing in his reworking of these cultural scripts of the good king? I suggest that the evidence we will see is strong enough to hazard that Paul was attempting to rework the symbolic universe or social imaginary of his churches in order to reorder the allegiances and practices around the reign of Christ the King.44 One of Paul’s agendas, in with perceived cultural rivals, but in the very thick of that competition they assimilate and appropriate cultural ideas to promote the unique deity of their lord” (IESUS DEUS, 213-14). 44. See here the classic work of Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (New York: Anchor Books Doubleday, 1967).

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other words, was to create a new royal ideology, out of the conceptual and linguistic resources at his disposal, and thereby to proclaim the rule of Christ over Paul’s churches.45 Paul, in other words, legitimates the people around Christ the king by upstaging every other royal competitor as he adapts and reworks aspects of ancient kingship discourse to portray the total sovereignty and power of the Messiah.46 Just as kings and emperors relied upon propaganda and spectacles to (re)fashion the legitimacy of their rule, so Paul constructs a portrait of Christ as the perfect king whose actions, qualities, body politick, and institution of rituals show him to be the singular embodiment of the ideal king. Given that the king’s body, namely the body of Messiah Jesus, is absent for Paul and his communities, Paul relieves any anxiety over the king’s absence by replacing the king’s absent body with the body of Christ the ideal king.47 The physical body of the king may be absent, but in its place Paul uses kingship ideology to transform, reorder, and stabilize the world of the king’s subjects by relating them to the resurrected and living body of the enthroned king.48 This new Pauline royal ideology plays a crucial role in what Jacob Taubes has referred to as “the establishment and legitimation of a new people of God.”49 We will see an abundance of evidence that will demonstrate that the king or ruler played an enormous role in the social imaginary of those who lived under something akin to kingship, such that it was often believed that the king stabilized the body politic and even, in some 45. With respect to the Roman Empire, see throughout, Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, 19-48. 46. With respect to Paul outbidding Moses, see Taubes, The Political Theology of Paul, 38-40. 47. On the king’s two bodies, see Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981); Eric L. Santner, The Royal Remains: The People’s Two Bodies and the Endgames of Sovereignty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 1-62; with respect to Paul and the body of Christ, see Devin P. Singh, “Until We Are One?” Biopolitics and the United Body,” in “In Christ” in Paul: Explorations in Paul’s Theology of Union and Participation (ed. Michael J. Thate et al.; WUNT 2.384; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2014), 529-55, here 549-50. 48. Santner argues that when the king disappears “the complex symbolic structures and dynamics of sovereignty” (p. 33) do not simply disappear with the king but, rather, migrate into a new location that was previously occupied by the king (The Royal Remains, 33-39). On the Roman imperial cults as structuring, defining, and stabilizing the world, see S. R. F. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Singh, “Until We Are One?” 552: “The loss of Christ’s fleshly body initiates a tradition of thinking about how to preserve and maintain the body of Christ . . . ” 49. Taubes, Political Theology of Paul, 71 (italics original).

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instances, the entire universe. Paul inhabits these royal scripts.50 They are, for him, stitched as one important thread within the interwoven fabric of his social imaginary.51 And yet, I suggest that the evidence presented in the following chapters, combined with the possibilities for further research I will signal, indicate that Paul strategically reworks and applies these royal scripts to Christ such that this king now stabilizes their assemblies and is the focal point for their symbolic world. Paul can thus be seen as an “ideologue” or as one engaging in “world construction” as he attempts to restructure how the early Christians imagine their existence through the creation of an ideology, an ideology that allows for alternative imaginative scenarios for conceptualizing their own social existence based on this ideal king.52 This is not to imply that Christ becomes simply an idea or pure construct, since Christ the king is, for Paul, the living, ruling, and enthroned Lord of the universe who relates to his people precisely through his beneficent rule.53 Wayne A. Meeks concludes his important The First Urban Christians with the suggestive claim that Paul and his churches “were engaged . . . in constructing a new world. In time . . . their ideas, their images of God, their ways of organizing life, their rituals, would become part of a massive transformation, in ways they could not have foreseen, of the culture of the Mediterranean basis and of Europe.”54 One of the ways in which Paul constructs this new world is through his invention of an authoritative language for his communities that (re)orders the ultimate allegiances and social relations of the subjects of Christ the king.55 50. One role of religion in the ancient Mediterranean world as “stabilizing the world,” see Luke Timothy Johnson, Among the Gentiles: Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity (Anchor Yale Library; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 93-110. 51. Charles Taylor states regarding the meaning of a social imaginary: “I am thinking rather of the ways in which they imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations which are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images which underlies these expectations” (A Secular Age [Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2007], 171). 52. See also John Barclay, “Paul, Roman Religion and the Emperor: Mapping the Point of Conflict,” in Pauline Churches and Diaspora Jews (WUNT 275; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011), 345-62, esp. 361-62. 53. See the sage cautions by Keck, “New Testament Christology,” 197-98. 54. Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 192.

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Paul’s creation of the construct of Christ the perfect king is totalizing in that its supremacy, power, benefactions, and justice brook no competitors.56 He is, for Paul, the only game in town. Michael J. Thate has referred to Paul’s failure to mention the Roman Emperor as a “politics of neglect” whereby for Paul “it is not that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not; it is that Jesus is Lord [punkt!].”57 And John B. Barclay has similarly claimed that Paul’s refusal to name Rome stems from his belief that “Rome did not rule the world, or write the script of history, or constitute anything unique.”58 Thus, it seems likely that Paul intentionally refrains from any kind of direct antithetical interaction or competition with Roman imperial ideology, and rather, to use the language of Karl Galinsky, draws upon the resources of kingship discourse to “create a more perfect version of the same concept” in his portrait of Christ’s kingship.59 Barclay rightly points out 55. See here Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (trans. R. Nice; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 21. 56. Though he is speaking more broadly about early Christianity, this is stated well by John B. Rives, “Christian Expansion and Christian Ideology,” in The Spread of Christianity in the First Four Centuries: Essays in Explanation (ed. W. V. Harris; Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 27; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 15-41. Rives argues: “In most early Christian texts we can see a totalizing view of the cosmos, a sort of master narrative that ordered all the different modes of interaction with the divine, rapidly taking shape. This totalizing world-view left no room for myth, philosophy, and cult as separate theologies, since anything that concerned the relationship of humans to the divine had, in order to be true, to flow from and reflect that basic understanding of the cosmos” (pp. 32-33). 57. Michael J. Thate, “Paul and the Anxieties of (Imperial?) Succession: Galatians and the Politics of Neglect,” in “In Christ” in Paul: Explorations in Paul’s Theology of Union and Participation (ed. Michael J. Thate et al.; WUNT 2.384; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2014), 209-50, here 241. Preceding the aforementioned quote, Thate states: “Paul was not sitting upon the ground telling sad tales of the death of kings. He was telling the world of a king who died, rose, and not only re-mapped the cosmos but brought a new creation (Gal. 6:14-15; cf. 1 Cor. 1:18–2:16). Paul’s Christological cartography of this new cosmos, of this new creation, does not merely flip the script on empire in terms of shifting center and periphery. Rather, Paul’s inoperative political theology develops in such a way that empire is neglected altogether as it is reduced to irrelevance.” See also Thate’s penetrating critique of N. T. Wright (“Politics and Paul: Reviewing N. T. Wright’s Political Apostle,” in The Marginalia Review of Books [January 6, 2015], http://marginalia.lareview ofbooks.org/politics-paul-reviewing-n-t-wrights-political-apostle-michael-thate/). A similar point is argued with respect to the relationship between Acts and its relationship to Greco-Roman religion by C. Kavin Rowe, World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 58. Barclay, “Why the Roman Empire Was Insignificant to Paul,” in Pauline Churches and Diaspora Jews, 363-87, here 386. 59. Karl Galinsky, “The Cult of the Roman Emperor: Uniter or Divider?” in Rome and Religion: A CrossDisciplinary Dialogue on the Imperial Cult (ed. Jeffrey Brodd and Jonathan L. Reed; Writings from the Greco-Roman World Supplement Series 5; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 1-21, here 12. Litwa, shows how early Christians “consistently played the game of apologetic oneupmanship” in their depiction of Christ as similar and superior to other Mediterranean deities

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that the use of common language, themes, and ideas “does not in itself entail a competitive, or antithetical, relationship between the entities using the same terms.”60 Thus, the nature of the relationship between “Christ the king” and all other rulers is not one of direct antithesis but is, rather, much more totalizing and all-encompassing.61 As Christoph Heilig has stated: “Maybe it was not Paul’s primary intention to say something about Caesar, but rather to say something about the Messiah and God, although he was perfectly aware of the critical implications these statements had for other competing worldviews.”62 In other words, Paul’s reworking of kingship discourse to create the concept of “Christ the king” has as its primary purpose the creation of a new mythic worldview, a new locus of absolute power that subsumes all other alternative possibilities or scenarios.63 Thus, when Paul’s words, phrases, and motifs are seen as resonating with Roman imperial ideology, this is probably due to the fact this is the standard and recognizable patterns of speech for speaking of a royal figure. Rather than seeing Paul as engaging in conscious antithetical subversion of a single individual, I understand Paul’s “Christ the king” construct to provide evidence that he has assimilated the ideals of the good king (IESUS DEUS, 222-23). This is clearly different from those who tend to view Paul’s letters as apolitical and as having no subversive elements to the Roman Empire; e.g., see Seyoon Kim, Christ and Caesar: The Gospel and the Roman Empire in the Writings of Paul and Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008). 60. Barclay, “Why the Roman Empire Was Insignificant to Paul,” 376. Also helpful is Thomas Phillips, “Why Did Mary Wrap the Newborn Jesus in ‘Swaddling Clothes’? Luke 2.7 and 2.12 in the Context of Luke–Acts and First-Century Jewish Literature,” in Reading Acts Today: Essays in Honour of Loveday C. A. Alexander (ed. Steve Walton et al.; LNTS 427; London: T & T Clark, 2011), 29-41. 61. Despite my not seeing Paul’s Christ-discourse as engaging his Roman imperial context directly or as antithetical in his criticism, one will soon see that I have profited from the careful studies of Neil Elliott, The Arrogance of the Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008); cf. idem, Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1994); James R. Harrison, Paul and the Imperial Authorities at Thessalonica and Rome: A Study in the Conflict of Ideology (WUNT 273; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011). 62. Christoph Heilig, “Methodological Considerations for the Search of Counter-Imperial ‘Echoes’ in Pauline Literature,” in Reactions to Empire: Proceedings of Sacred Texts in Their Socio-Political Contexts (ed. John Anthony Dunne and Dan Batovici; WUNT 2.372; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2014), 73-92, here 90. Also valuable in the same volume is Matthew V. Novenson, “What the Apostles Did Not See,” who argues, from a social-historical vantage point, that Paul was not concerned with Rome (and vice versa!) due, in part, to the fact that the rulers with which he and most of his churches often had to negotiate were provincial (pp. 55-72). 63. Not unlike Augustus’s achievement through his cultural program and creation of a new Roman mythology. With respect to how the visual imagery was used to create this ideology, see Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (trans. Alan Shapiro; Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1990).

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as a means of remapping, reordering, and stabilizing the world for the early Christian communities.64 This new royal ideology, complete with its myths, rituals, and topoi, functions as a totalizing alternative scenario to any other competing claim to supreme rule and power. 65 Real Kings and Ideal Kings: Kingship Discourses Oakley has noted that “The roots of the institution of kingship reach so deeply into the past that they are lost to us in the shadows of prehistory.”66 It would take many volumes to attempt something like a comprehensive treatment of this ancient institution and its divergent forms, along with the literature, coins, temples, statues, political reflection, and inscriptions it spawned. The sheer prevalence and widespread dissemination of “good king” motifs and topoi, whether literary or nonliterary, means that kingship discourse “can be invoked with the briefest allusion or used as the foundation for further argumentation.”67 Fortunately, there is an abundance of rich scholarship upon which I am able to draw in the chapters that follow, and thus the various aspects of kingship discourse that will frame our understanding of Paul’s christological language are presented in the following chapters. My more limited goal in what immediately follows is to present a select, brief, and anecdotal account of some of the literature, material remains, and tropes and motifs that functioned to propagate a stereotype of the good king.68 One important 64. See here also Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse (Sather Classical Lectures 55; Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991). Cameron masterfully demonstrates how early Christian literature built a symbolic universe and thereby stabilized society through exploiting the prevailing stories their audiences believed to be true. 65. See Heilig, “Methodological Considerations for the Search of Counter-Imperial ‘Echoes’ in Pauline Literature” : “Narrative structures are formative for worldviews, and echoes are able to evoke alternative scenarios in the imagination, which can have persuading power. Stories are able to challenge other stories an the worldview they represent much more effectively than purely factual criticism” (pp. 90-91). 66. Oakley, Kingship, 10. 67. Donald Dale Walker, Paul’s Offer of Leniency (2 Cor 10:1): Populist Ideology and Rhetoric in a Pauline Letter Fragment (WUNT 2.152; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2002), 93. 68. Particularly valuable are F. W. Walbank, “Monarchies and Monarchic Ideas,” in The Cambridge Ancient History (vol. 7.1; ed. F. W. Walbank, A. E. Astin, M. W. Frederiksen, and R. M. Ogilvie; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 62-100; The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (ed. Christopher Rowe and Malcolm Schofield; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Oakley, Kingship; Smith, Christ the Ideal King, 19-173; Walker, Paul’s Offer of Leniency (2

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methodological caveat is necessary: the following survey of kingship discourse may give the impression that there was a homogenous conception of “the good king,” but of course nothing could be further from the truth. There was a diversity of conceptions simply within the ancient Near Eastern context of the kinds of kingship in Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Israelite sources.69 The monarchy in Persia, the development of the institution of kingship after Alexander the Great’s conquests, and the enigma of the controversial rise of the Roman principate all give the lie to any purely homogenous conception of the ideal king. My own admittedly selective construal of what constitutes the good king is obviously a scholarly abstraction, and I do not pretend to suggest that one could even begin to disentangle certain motifs as “Jewish” or alternatively “Greco-Roman.”70 Nevertheless, there is a recognizable discourse for discussing kings in antiquity that gives room for competing viewpoints, and given that Paul is my primary object of study, I will focus on his reworking and fashioning of this discourse in what follows. The following survey of kingship discourse is, for this reason, heavier on synthesis than it is analysis. The reader will almost certainly find the survey denser than my engagement with Paul’s texts, and yet I beg for the reader’s patience as an understanding of the themes, topics, and languages applied to ancient kings is essential for our understanding of Paul’s own kingship discourse.

Cor 10:1), 92-140; Oswyn Murray, “Philosophy and Monarchy in the Hellenistic World,” in Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers (ed. Tessa Rajak et al.; Berkeley, CA: California University Press, 2007), 13-28. 69. On the king in ancient Near Eastern royal ideology, see Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature (Chicago: University of Chicago, Press, 1948); Shirley Lucass, The Concept of the Messiah in the Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity (Library of Second Temple Studies 78; New York: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2011), 37-65; Ivan Engnell, Divine Kingship: Studies in Divine Kingship in the Ancient Near East (2nd ed.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1967); Dale Launderville, Piety and Politics: The Dynamics of Royal Authority in Homeric Greece, Biblical Israel, and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003). 70. This limitation, though not debilitating for this study, is exemplified in the difficulty of speaking of Israel’s royal ideology in separation from other ancient Near Eastern ideologies. See, for example, John Day, “The Canaanite Inheritance of the Israelite Monarchy,” in King and Messiah in Israel and the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar (ed. John Day; JSOTSup 270; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 72-90.

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Kingship Discourse in Greek and Hellenistic Writings Even before the Hellenistic kings of the fourth century BCE, the Greeks were acquainted with the institution of kingship as it pervaded Epic poetry and the Athenian tragedy.71 Kingship discourse continued into the late Hellenistic and early Roman periods. Philodemus, a first century Epicurean, wrote a treatise filled with royal topoi discovered in Homer (On the Good King according to Homer).72 Dio Chrysostom’s Second Discourse on Kingship portrays Alexander and his father Philip engaged in a “courageous and lofty conversation” regarding Homer and kingship (περὶ βασιλείας ἦσαν, 2.1). And somewhat famously, Plutarch indicates that Homer’s Iliad was used by Alexander as a guide to kings for military warfare (Plutarch, Alex. 668d; 679d-e). Isocrates gave orations in praise of rulers such as the Evagoras, the Cyprian ruler, as well as Ad Nicolem and Nicocles. The latter essays, along with Xenophon’s Hiero written to extol the ruler of Syracuse, function as mirrors for princes in their exhortations to the rulers to become good kings. Xenophon wrote an idealizing and romantic novel of the good king Cyrus in his Cyropaideia and an encomium for the Spartan king Agesilaus.73 Both Plato and Aristotle reflected upon kingship, with significant provisos, as an ideal form of government in the former’s Republic and the latter’s Politics. Throughout these writings the good king is almost certainly somehow related to or elected by the gods,74 successful in military warfare,75 protector of his people,76 benefactor

71. E.g., see Aeschylus, The Persians, 56–58, 634–54, 760–86. 72. See here Oswyn Murray, “Philodemus on the Good King according to Homer,” JRS 55 (1965): 161-82. 73. See especially, J. Joel Farber, “The Cyropaideia and Hellenistic Kingship,” The American Journal of Philology 100 (1979): 497-514; J. Rufus Fears, “Cyrus as a Stoic Example of the Just Monarch,” The American Journal of Philology 95 (1974): 265-77. On the mythic popularity of Cyrus as the preeminent good king, see Cicero, Quintus fratrem Epistulae 1.1.23. 74. Homer, Il. 1.279; 2.203-6; 9.96; Isocrates, Evag.12–19; 25; Nic. 13. 75. Xenophon, Cyr. 8.1.37. 76. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill [“The Emperor and His Virtues,” Historia 30 (1981): 298-323, here 316] has demonstrated that the king’s “power to conquer, to save, to bring harmony and stability, and to distribute benefits” is what legitimates the rule of Hellenistic kings and particularly Roman emperors. We will see this further in the frequent association between kings and peace.

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of the people,77 powerful,78 superior in virtue,79 supremely wise,80 selfcontrolled,81 just,82 observant of the laws,83 and pious.84 After the conquests of Alexander the Great, monarchy and imperial power came to affect every aspect of life—whether it be that of religion, philosophy, political theory, or day-to-day life.85 Thus, as F. W. Walbank has noted, “when the Greek world found itself facing a crop of kings, there was already a body of doctrine in existence ready to interpret, account for, justify and, it might be hoped, contain this disconcerting phenomenon.”86 Notable in this period are characterizations of the military aggression of the Hellenistic kings and their so-called spear won territory;87 an emphasis on the kings as saviors, shepherds, and benefactors;88 the development of ruler cults and the bestowal of divine honors and cultic veneration for these kings;89 the assimilation and 77. Isocrates, Evag. 51–57; 70–72; Xenophon, Cyr. 8.1.39. 78. Isocrates, Evag.44; Xenophon, Cyr. 8.3.1-20. 79. Plato, Resp. 473D; 484A–502C; Aristotle, Pol. 1284a; 1288a8-10, 15-19, 28-29; Xenophon, Cyr. 8.1.21-22. 80. Plato, Pol. 294A; Resp. 473D; Isocrates, Evag. 33, 77–78, 81; Xenophon, Ages. 6.4-8. 81. Plato, Leg. 712A; Resp. 590D; Isocrates, Nic. 41; Xenophon, Ages. 5. 82. Isocrates, Evag. 43; Xenophon, Cyr. 1.3.16-18; 8.3.20; Ages. 4; Aalders, Political Thought in Hellenistic Times, 21. 83. Xenophon, Cyr.1.3.18; 8.1.22; Ages. 7. 84. Xenophon, Cyr. 8.1.23ff; Ages. 3. 85. See A. B. Bosworth: Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 86. Walbank, “Monarchies and Monarchic Ideas,” 75. See David E. Hahm, “Kings and Constitutions: Hellenistic Theories,” in The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (ed. Christopher Rowe and Malcolm Schofield; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 457-76, here 457: “By the second century BC even the traditional kingship of mainland Greece, such as the Macedonian elected kingship and the limited dual kingship of Sparta, had been transformed into the autocratic Hellenistic type.” 87. M. M. Austin, “Hellenistic Kings, War and the Economy,” CQ 36 (1986): 450-66; Rufus Fears, “The Theology of Victory,” ANRW 2.17.2 (1981): 736-826; Walbank, “Monarchies and Monarchic Ideas,” 73-74; see the summary of the Hellenistic kings and their rule by conquest in 1 Macc. 1:1-9. 88. Philip de Souza [“Parta Victoriis Pax: Roman Emperors as Peacemakers,” in War and Peace in Ancient and Medieval History (ed. Philip de Souza and John France; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 76-106; Francis Dvornik, Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy: Origins and Background (2 vols.; Dumbarton Oaks Studies 9; Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, 1966), 1:278. For the king as shepherd, see Xenophon, Mem. 1.2.32; Cyr. 1.1.2; 8.2.14; Aristotle, Eth.nic. 1161A. On benefactions, see Aristotle, Pol. 1286b.9-12; Klaus Bringmann, “The King as Benefactor: Some Remarks on Ideal Kingship in the Age of Hellenism,” in Images and Ideologies: Self-definition in the Hellenistic World (ed. Anthony Bulloch et al., Hellenistic Culture and Society 12; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 7-24; Angelos Chaniotis, War in the Hellenistic World: A Social and Cultural History (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 30-37. On the use of “shepherd” as a royal title, see Xenophon, Cyr. 1.1.2; Plato, Pol. 265d; and throughout the NeoPythagorean essays “On Kingship.” 89. Walbank, “Monarchies and Monarchic Ideas,” 84-93; Price, Rituals and Power, 23-52.

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identification of the kings with deities;90 and an increasing emphasis on their wealth, beauty, and public displays.91 Also characteristic of this period is the kings’ adoption of royal honorifics and titles after their military victories, the most popular of which were “Savior,” “Divine Manifestation,” and “Benefactor.”92 With the rise of the Hellenistic monarchs there was little point in debating the superior form of governance; rather, legitimating kingship and providing a good ideology of kingship now became the task of the philosophers.93 This led to an increasingly enormous amount of philosophical and political reflection upon “the good king”—written from many and diverse viewpoints. Diogenes Laertius testifies to numerous philosophers who penned essays, no longer extant, “On Kingship,” or discussed kingship within essays “On Constitutions/Polities.”94 The prevalence of the Hellenistic monarchies likely also resulted in the Neo-Pythagorean essays by Sthenidas, Diotogenes, and Ecphantus “On Kingship.”95 Julien Smith summarizes the content of the extant essays “On Kingship” under four headings: 96

90. Angelos Chaniotis, “The Divinity of Hellenistic Rulers,” in A Companion to the Hellenistic World (ed. Andrew Erskine; Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003), 431-45; Aalders, Political Thought in Hellenistic Times, 26-27; R. A. Hadley, “Royal Propaganda of Selecus I and Lysimachus,” JHS 94 (1974): 50-65. Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus uses many of the standard elements of the good king to describe the work of Zeus in his rule of the universe. See John C. Thom, Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus (Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity 33; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2005). 91. On the importance of wealth, beauty, and public display, see Walbank, “Monarchies and Monarchic Ideas,” 84. 92. Walbank, “Monarchies and Monarchic Ideas,” 81-82; Ludwig Koenen, “The Ptolemaic King as a Religious Figure,” in Images and Ideologies (ed. Anthony Bulloch et al.), 81-113. 93. Walbank, “Monarchies and Monarchic Ideas,” 76. 94. Those who wrote essays “On Kingship” include Aristotle (Diogenes Laertius, 5.22), Theophrastus (Diogenes Laertius, 5.42-49), Antisthenes (Diogenes Laertius, 6.16-18), Zeno, Cleanthes (Diogenes Laertius, 7.175), and Epicurus. See Walker, Paul’s Offer of Leniency (2 Cor 10:1), 92-95; Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” 58-59; Walbank, “Monarchies and Monarchic Ideas,” 77. 95. These essays have been preserved in Johannes Stobaeus, Anthologium (5 vols.; ed. C. Wachsmuth and O. Hense; Berlin: Weidmann, 1958). For translation and comment, see Erwin R. Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” YCS 1 (1928): 55-102. For helpful commentary, see Bruno Centrone, “Platonism and Pythagoreanism in the Early Empire,” in The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought, 567-75. Also helpful is Smith, Christ the Ideal King, 34-47; Bruno Blumenfeld, The Political Paul: Justice, Democracy and Kingship in a Hellenistic Framework (JSNTSup 201; London: Sheffield Academic, 2001), 189-274. 96. Smith, Christ the Ideal King, 37-47. See also the helpful discussion in Francis Cairns, Virgil’s Augustan Epic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 21-24.

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1. “The Divinity of the Ideal King”—The king is consistently spoken of as one who bears the same relationship to his earthly kingdom as does Zeus to his heavenly kingdom. The king is, then, the divine image on earth. One of his primary tasks in which he imitates God is in the dispensation of justice. 2. “The Ideal King as Benefactor”—The good king uses his wealth and resources to provide gifts and benefactions for his subjects. Royal benefactions created the necessary legitimation for the subjects to give loyalty and obedience to the king. These benefactions may include the provision of food and games, protection from enemies, and the funding public and civic buildings. Royal benefactions create obligations upon those who receive the gifts and this is often turned in the form of honors and praise to the king.97 3. “The Ideal King Transforms His Subjects by His Presence”—Often the king is seen as providing so glorious and virtuous a model that, through the subjects’ imitation of the king, it would produce harmony and virtue in the king’s people. 4. “The Ideal King Effects Harmony Through the Living Law within Him”—Given the king’s superior virtue and wisdom, and due to his manifestation of divine traits, the king is able to procure unity for his people by embodying the laws. This royal incarnated law provided a model for people to imitate and it was imagined to be a more effective means for procuring the obedience of the subjects than written laws.98 The depiction of the king in these essays is so idealized that it almost undoubtedly functions to exhort the king to conform himself to these images of the ideal ruler.99 It is worth noting Plutarch’s recounting of Demetrius Phaleron’s exhortation to Ptolemy Soter: “Demetrius of Phaleron exhorted king Ptolemy to acquire and read the book 97. Walker, Paul’s Offer of Leniency (2 Cor 10:1), 129-30. 98. Walbank, “Monarchies and Monarchic Ideas,” 80. 99. Walbank states that: “Though an ideal, up to a point it was able to influence reality and prevent some of the worst excesses characteristic of absolute power. It is the king’s personal qualities which form the justification of his rule; and the absolutism of his rule itself provides the field within which those qualities find their fulfillment” (“Monarchies and Monarchic Ideas,” 76).

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concerning kingship and rule: ‘For the things the king’s friends do not have the courage to tell kings are written in these books’” (Mor. 189D). Kingship Discourse in Roman Writings Roman emperors assiduously avoided the title of “king” (rex), though they most certainly portrayed themselves as continuing the legacy of Alexander and the Hellenistic kings.100 Suetonius notes that Julius Caesar was distressed that Alexander had already conquered the world at an age before Caesar had done anything of significance (Jul. 7), and he indicates Augustus’ deep admiration for the Hellenistic monarch (Aug. 18; 50; 98).101 The simple point I wish to make here is that in the Imperial period emperors continued political, philosophical, and propagandistic reflection upon the good king, and they appropriated Hellenistic motifs and topoi associated with kingship discourse. Even before the transition from the republic to the empire, Cicero’s Pro lege Manilia, a panegyric praising the military might and valor of Pompey, demonstrates Cicero’s and the Roman public’s familiarity with the virtues of the good king.102 Cicero praises Pompey as the ideal general due to his military knowledge, talent, prestige, fortune, courage, moderation, trustworthiness, political wisdom, and godlike powers. Such royal propaganda is clearly seen in Augustus’ Res gestae divi Augusti,103 in which Augustus is said to provide royal benefactions in the form of distribution from the spoils of war (15), establish colonies 100. See Elizabeth Rawson, “Caesar’s Heritage: Hellenistic Kings and Their Roman Equals,” JRS 65 (1975): 148-59; Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “Civilis Princeps: Between Citizen and King,” JRS 72 (1982): 32-48; Michael Koortbojian, The Divinization of Caesar and Augustus: Precedents, Consequences, Implications (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 15-49. On Augustus’s rejection of the title, see Fergus Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World (31 BC–AD 337) (London: Duckworth, 1997), 613-14. 101. Though the matter is highly disputed, it seems likely that Julius Caesar received divine honors while he was still alive in a way that was similar to the Hellenistic kings. See Cicero, Phil. 2.43.110; Cassius Dio 44.4-8; Appian, Bell. civ. 2.107; Suetonius, Jul. 76.1; 84.2. Rawson argues that Julius Caesar rejected the title of king but portrayed himself as having its essence and as a descendent of the ancient Roman kings. His claims and actions thus both “evoked and outdid kingship” (“Caesar’s Heritage,” 149). 102. See Sabine MacCormack, “Latin Prose Panegyrics,” in Empire and Aftermath: Silver Latin II (ed. T. A. Dorety; London: Routledge & Kegan, 1975), 142-205, here 148. 103. Alison E. Cooley, Res Gestae Divi Augusti: Text, Translation, and Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

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for his soldiers (16), support the royal treasury and public revenues (17–18), build public and religious monuments and temples (19–21), and put on shows and spectacles (22–23). Augustus emphasizes his success in military battles and the ensuing peace this has brought to his empire (1; 13; 25–33). His superior virtue results in his receiving the golden shield that “bore witness through its inscription to my valour and clemency and justice and piety” (34.2). Augustus never claims the title king, but he is granted the honorifics of “Augustus” (34.2) and “Father of the Fatherland” (35.1).104 His superiority in benefactions, his military success and the production of peace, and his outstanding virtue demonstrate clearly his self-portrait as a Hellenistic king. 105 Virgil’s Aeneid is filled with kingship motifs as it foretells the coming of a new Golden Age that will be inaugurated by one named Julius “the Trojan Caesar” (1.287-89) who is “Augustus Caesar, son of a god” (6.792).106 Jupiter has chosen him to rule over this great empire and to shut “the gates of war” (1.296-97). He will extend Rome’s empire and establish his people in peace (6.850-54).107 He will eradicate the sin and guilt that have marked the civil wars and carnage that characterized the wars of the triumvirate (Ecl. 4.11-52). So too is Aeneas, the purported ancestor of the Julian dynasty, repeatedly portrayed as king and ruler (Aen. 1.38, 265, 544, 553, 574). Aeneas is explicitly designated a “king” (rex), and is characterized as pious, just, god-like, savior, and unparalleled in military warfare (1.544-58, 589-91). This royal portrait, Francis Cairns suggests, may undergird the view that the princeps was responsible for the safety and well-being of the empire. 108 Seneca’s essay On Clemency addresses the young Nero and exhorts him to practice clemency by showing mercy to his enemies.109 In the

104. On the political imperial ideology of the use of “father,” see Thate, “Paul and the Anxieties of (Imperial?) Succession,” 209-50, here 217-24. 105. See here especially Karl Galinsky, Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 42-57. 106. Cairns argues that “Virgil and his readers had a more sophisticated attitude to kingship than is sometimes realised, and that the concept was a living and vital one in imperial Rome” (Virgil’s Augustan Epic, 2-3). 107. On Augustus as ruling over the earthly empire in behalf of and imitation of Jupiter, see J. Rufus Fears, “The Cult of Jupiter and Roman Imperial Ideology,” ANRW 2.17.1 (1981): 3-141. 108. See throughout Cairns, Virgil’s Augustan Epic, 1-2, 31-38.

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address, the Roman people are conceived of as a rowdy, riotous, sinful group who are ever creating faction (1.1.1). Everyone has sinned and done wrong (1.6.3; 1.22.1).110 But the emperor is the chosen vicegerent of the gods to bring about life and harmony (1.1.2).111 If the empire did not have Nero: “Such a calamity would be the destruction of the Roman peace, . . . this unity and this fabric of mightiest empire will fly into many parts, and the end of this city’s rule will be one with the end of her disobedience” (1.4.2). As we will soon see in more detail, Seneca repeatedly uses the head (emperor)/body (empire) metaphor in order to stress the connection between the ruler and the ruled such that Nero will care for and not harm his own body. Musonius Rufus’s That Kings Also Should Study Philosophy further offers advice on how the Syrian client king should engage in his royal duties, and his essay is one example of the frequent Stoic-Cynic refrain that the wise man is the true king.112 The exhortations are fairly conventional: benefactions foremost of which are safety for his people (60.8-12), superior virtue and wisdom (60.14-28; 62.8-34), justice through wisdom in philosophy (60.19-28), and embodiment of the laws that results in harmony for his people (64.10-15). Further examinations of poets and satirists (such as Horace’s Odes, Virgil’s Eclogues, Calpurnius Siculus’s Eclogues, Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Fasti, and Martial’s Epigrams),113 biographies of emperors and Hellenistic rulers (such as Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars and Plutarch’s biographies of rulers and statesmen), political and philosophical reflection upon the good king (such as Plutarch’s Moralia and especially 109. See here Smith, Christ the Ideal King, 56-59; Miriam T. Griffin, Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), 129-71. 110. On the role of the emperor as eradicating the sin of the people and bringing peace and unity to the empire, see Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “The Golden Age and Sin in Augustan Ideology,” Past and Present 95 (1982): 19-36, here 30-32. 111. That the gods elect the Roman emperors to rule is a commonplace and another significance point of continuity between Hellenistic and Roman kingship discourse. See Rufus Fears, PRINCEPS A DIIS ELECTUS: The Divine Election of the Emperor as Political Concept at Rome (Rome: American Academy at Rome, 1977), 121-29; idem., “Nero as the Vicegerent of the Gods in Seneca’s De Clementia,” Hermes 103 (1975): 486-96. 112. Walker, Paul’s Offer of Leniency (2 Cor 10:1), 100; Smith, Christ the Ideal King, 61-63. 113. On the poets in the Augustan period, see Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 244-87. On Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue and the Augustan Golden Age, see Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “The Golden Age and Sin in Augustan Ideology,” 19-36, here 19-22.

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his To an Uneducated Ruler, Dio Chrysostom’s four Kingship Orations,114 and Pliny’s Panegyricus for Trajan) further amplify the popularity and wide dissemination of kingship discourse. Again, within these writings the following elements are consistently associated with the good king: justice,115 wisdom,116 temperance,117 courage and success in war,118 relation to or election by the gods,119 piety,120 observance of the laws,121 mercy and gentleness,122 benefaction to his people,123 establisher of peace and harmony,124 and establisher of agricultural fertility and abundance.125 Significant titles and honorifics were granted to the emperors, including shepherd, father, benefactor, savior, lord, and son of a god.126 Again the description of royal virtues and functions is not 114. Included here should also be Cynic kingship theory insofar as it can be reconstructed. See John Moles, “The Cynics,” in The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (ed. Christopher Rowe and Malcolm Schofield; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 415-34, here 423-32. On the collected material on Cynic kingship theory, see Ragnar Höistad, Cynic Hero and Cynic King: Studies in the Cynic Conception of Man (Uppsala: Gleerup, 1984); on the god-king link in Cynic and Stoic philosophy, see Cairns, Virgil’s Augustan Epic, 24-25. 115. Dio Chrysostom, Or. 1.35; 1.45-46; 2.54; 3.7, 10, 39, 60; 4.24; Plutarch, Mor. 780E, 781A-C; Demetr. 4.4; Ovid, Ex Ponto 3.6.23-29; Horace, Carm. 1.12.6; Pliny, Pan. 77–80; Suetonius, Galb. 7.1; Virgil, Ecl.4.5-6. 116. Plutarch, Num. 20.1-4; Mor. 789E; Alex. 27.6; Dio Chrysostom, Or.2.26; 3.9-10. 117. Plutarch, Num. 20.8; Mor. 780B-C; Alex. 21.4; 21.11; 22.7; 23.9; Pliny, Pan. 10.1-3; 55.1-5; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 1.13-14; 3.58; Suetonius, Aug. 77; Vesp. 11. 118. Virgil, Aen., 8.678-713; Horace, Carm. 3.5.1-4; Ovid, Fast. 1.639-50 See James R. Harrison, Paul and the Imperial Authorities at Thessalonica and Rome: A Study in the Conflict of Ideology (WUNT 2.273; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011), 133-38. 119. Pliny, Pan. 1.3-6; 5.2-3; 56.3; Seneca, Clem. 1.1.2; Horace, Carm. 1.12.5-6; 3.5.1-4; Carm. 1.12.50-60; Ovid, Metam.15.855-70; Dio Chrysostom, Or.1.12; 1.37-38; 2.75-76; Plutarch, Mor. 329C; 780D; Alex. 2–3; Thes. 2; Suetonius, Jul. 88. 120. Plutarch, Alex. 23.2; Mor. 70A; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 1.15-16; Horace, Carm. 3.1-6; Virgil, Aen.7.203-4. 121. Plutarch, Mor.780C; Demetr.42; Horace, Ep. 2.1; Carm.4.5. 122. Pliny, Pan. 50; Seneca, Clem. 2.1.3-2.2.1; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 1.17-20; 2.74; 3.5; Suetonius, Jul. 73–75; Aug.51; Nero 10; Vesp.14–15. See Walker, Paul’s Offer of Leniency (2 Cor 10:1), 140-45; on Suetonius’s valorization of clemency, see Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Suetonius (London: Bristol Classical, 1995), 154-62. On Suetonius’s account of the imperial virtues, see Keith R. Bradley, “Imperial Virtues in Suetonius’ Caesares,” Journal of Indo-European Studies 4 (1976): 245-53. 123. Pliny, Pan. 2.8; 6.3-4; 28-31; 37; 50; 52.6-7; 74.5; Dio Chrysostom, Or.1.23-25; 2.26; see the Priene inscription in Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, collected by Victor Ehrenberg and A. H. M. Jones (2nd ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1955), 98a, lines 4-17. 124. Pliny, Pan. 5.6-9; 12.1; 16; 80.3; Ovid, Fast.1.709-22; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 1.41-45; Horace, Carm. 4.15; Calpurnius Siculus, Eclogue 1.37-88; Suetonius, Aug. 22; Virgil, Ecl.1.6-8. 125. Virgil, Ecl. 4.11-14, 21-25; Horace, Carm. 29-32; Philo, Leg. 144-45; Pliny, Pan. 31-32. On this motif applied to Paul, see Robert Jewett, “The Corruption and Redemption of Creation: Reading Rom 8:18-23 within the Imperial Context,” in Paul and the Roman Imperial Order (ed. Richard A. Horsley; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity International, 2004), 25-46. 126. Shepherd: Dio Chrysostom, Or. 2.6; 2.72; Pliny, Pan. 2.3; 7.4. Lord: See Joseph D. Fantin, The Lord of the Entire World: Lord Jesus, a Challenge to Lord Caesar (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2011). Son of God: Horace, Carm. 1.12.5-6; Virgil, Aeneid 6.791-95. See Michael Peppard, The Son of God in the Roman World: Divine Sonship in Its Social and Political Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Father: Ovid, Tristia 2.157, 181; Seneca, Clem. 1.11-16.

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intended to be comprehensive, but it does accurately depict some of the most frequent aspects of kingship discourse. Kingship Discourse in the Material Remains The propagation of these royal topoi took place not only through literature but also through ruler cults and their temples, monuments and statues, coins, encomia, reliefs, and inscriptions.127 The cultic veneration of these rulers, often accompanied by parades, public processions, and games and festivals, were public, popular, and pervasive.128 The inclusion of Hellenistic kings and Roman emperors within the cultic veneration of the gods put the power and supremacy, virtues, benefactions and achievements, and visual appearance through monuments of these rulers on display for all to see.129 Thus, familiarity with kingship discourse was not limited to the high-class and cultured but would have been familiar to every person in the ancient Mediterranean world. We have already seen Augustus’s Res gestae, placed in numerous temples throughout the empire, as material evidence that publicized the virtues, military exploits, and benefactions of the emperor. Augustus’s pacification, conquest, and rule over the nations, numerous of which are mentioned in Res gestae 25–32, perpetuate his ideology of world rule and domination.130 It also testifies to the golden shield (clipeus virtutis) given to Augustus by the senate as a memorial to his royal virtues and his eradication of the civil wars (34.1-2).131 Likewise, the Res gestae and Suetonius’s Life of Augustus indicate the incredible amount of building projects undertaken by 127. There is a wealth of excellent studies on matters related to the Roman imperial cults. I have benefited most from Keith Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves: Sociological Studies in Roman History: Volume 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 197-242; J. E. Lendon, Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 107-175; Peppard, Son of God in the Roman World, 31-49. 128. Suetonius notes the public nature of the sacrifices and vows made by the people in the Forum to Caesar and in his name (Caesar, 85). The language is that of Johnson, Among the Gentiles, 32-49. 129. On the statues of Caesar and Augustus, including their evocation of military, civic and religious aspects of life, see Koortbojian, The Divinization of Caesar and Augustus, 94-128. 130. Especially helpful here is Davina C. Lopez, Apostle to the Conquered: Reimagining Paul’s Mission (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), 88-100. 131. For a thorough discussion (and a portrait) of the use of the Golden Shield to advertise the virtues of Augustus, see Cooley, Res Gestae Divi Augusti, 266-71; Brigitte Kahl, Galatians Re-Imagined: Reading with the Eyes of the Vanquished (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), 130-38.

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Augustus, and given that many of these buildings were temples and sanctuaries, these building projects advertise simultaneously Augustus’s piety and benefaction.132 A recovered sense of Roman pietas toward the gods with the princeps taking the lead permeates Augustus’s building projects, his portraits, and coins.133 Also mentioned in the Res gestae (12.2) is the Ara Pacis Augustae (“The Altar of Augustan Peace”), an altar bestowed upon Augustus by the senate in 13 BCE “once the affairs in these provinces [i.e., Hispania and Gaul] had been auspiciously completed” (12.2).134 Directly following his mention of the altar is, of course, his recounting of his closing the gate of war (13.1; cf. Livy 1.19.1-3; Dio Cassius 53.27.2-3).135 Thus, the portrait depicts Augustus’s return to Rome from the provinces as the procurement of peace, and the representation of Augustus, along with his ancestor Aeneas, as a priest engaging in sacrifice further emphasizes the piety of the princeps.136 Ovid’s celebratory words provide one perspective on the altar (Fast. 1.709-22): The song now has brought us to the very altar of Peace. Its day will be the penultimate day of the month. Your ribboned hair crowned with laurels from Actium, O Peace, be near and stay gentle in the whole world. So now may there be no enemies and no occasion for victory parade; may you be for our princes a higher prize than war. Let the soldier arm himself only to restrain armed threats and let the war bugle be blown only in parade. Let those near and far in the world dread Aeneas’ scions and if some land fears Rome too little, let it love Rome instead. O priests, join incense to the peace-flames, and may a white sacrifice fall, pierced in the head, that this 132. In particular, the temple of Mars, Apollo, and the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill, and the Augustan Forum (Suetonius, Aug. 29, 56; Ovid, Fast. 5.549-98). See, for example, Horace, Carm. 3.6: “You will remain sullied with the guilt of your fathers, Roman, until you have rebuilt the temples and restored all the ruined sanctuaries with their dark images of the gods, befouled with smoke.” Or Res Gestae 20: “During my sixth consulate, by order of the Senate, I restored 82 temples of the gods in Rome and did not omit a single one which was at that time in need of renewal.” See Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 295-96; Ittai Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford Classical Monographs; Oxford: Clarendon, 2002). On the way in which Augustus successfully and simultaneously preserved Rome’s sacred traditions and transformed it into an enduring and incredible monument to the imperial family through his renovation of the Roman Forum, see Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Augustan Rome (London: Bristol Classical, 1993), 50-62. 133. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. 134. For commentary, see again Cooley, Res Gestate Divi Augusti, 152-57. 135. See Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 141; also see Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, 101-166; Stefan Weinstock, “Pax and the ‘Ara Pacis,’” JRS 50 (1960): 44-58. 136. Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 142; Wallace-Hadrill, Augustan Rome 83.

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country, which guarantees peace, may endure in peace, ask the favorable gods with devout prayers.

Similar discourse relating to Augustus’ preeminence is found in other media. The multitude of reliefs at the Sebasteion (in Aphrodisias) containing portraits of the imperial family and particularly the dominance of Augustus, Claudius, and Nero subjugating the barbarian (often feminized) nations through superior military dominance, along with the advertisement of the imperial family’s relationship to the gods, made an obvious claim for the emperor’s world dominance. 137 The so-called Cup 1 of the Boscoreale Silver presents a group of barbarian nations that have been defeated by Augustus, who sits with a globe of the world in his hand, thereby indicating world domination.138 The cup portrays Augustus as simultaneously pious (dressed in toga), militarily successful, showing clemency (as he extends right hand to those has conquered), and as an agent of the gods (as Venus is to Augustus’s left and Mars to his right). In the Gemma Augustea Augustus is dressed as Jupiter and is seated next to the gods. The scene, again, emphasizes that as an agent of the gods he has brought peace to Rome through his subjugation of the foreign nations.139 Augustus minted some coins that depicted his enthronement as son of the deified Julius and others that portrayed him as the agent of Jupiter and advertised his military exploits as the “bringer of victory.”140 Triumphal processions provided displays of the emperor’s god-like power and virtus.141 We will see in a following the chapter that ideas and 137. Particularly helpful here are the articles by R. R. Smith, “The Imperial Reliefs from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias,” JRS 77 (1987): 88-138; idem, “Simulacra Gentium: The Ethne from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias,” JRS 78 (1988): 50-77. See also Laura Salah Nasrallah, Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture: The Second-Century Church amid the Spaces of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 76-83; Lopez, Apostle to the Conquered, 42-49. On the broader relationship between Jupiter and the emperors, see J. Rufus Fears, “The Cult of Jupiter and Roman Imperial Ideology,” ANRW 2.17.1 (1981): 3-141. 138. See here Walker, Paul’s Offer of Leniency (2 Cor 10:1), 104-5; Lopez, Apostle to the Conquered, 48-49; Ann L. Kuttner, Dynasty and the Empire in the Age of Augustus: The Case of the Boscoreale Cups (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). Also see Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, 287-88. 139. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, 230-35. 140. See Harold Mattingly, ed., Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum (3 vols; London: British Museum, 1965); Koortbojian, The Divinization of Caesar and Augustus, 138-42; Andrew WallaceHadrill, “The Emperor and His Virtues,” Historia 30 (1981): 298-323; idem., Augustan Rome, 86-88. 141. See Mary Beard, The Roman Triumph (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2007). On the use of the Roman

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propaganda related to the good ruler or emperor could be spread through royal encomia and hymns, and the orations of Dio Chrysostom, Pliny, and possibly Seneca appear to have been publicly presented to the emperors. Festivals, games, and the imperial cults provided occasions and opportunities to deliver these encomia and allowed the public to hear of the virtues, military exploits, wisdom, and benefactions of their ruler.142 One might also mention the very founding and renovation of cities, such as Sebaste, Caesarea Philippi, Pisidian Antioch, and Tiberias as advertising the authority and dominion of the emperor.143 In conclusion, the dissemination of the scripts, motifs, and topoi of the good king were publicized in an incredibly pervasive manner to all sectors of society. As Clifford Ando has demonstrated, “the diffusion of such symbols [i.e., the coins, portraits, statues, and military standards, etc.] throughout the empire gave to its inhabitants a universal symbolic language that operated across linguistic boundaries . . .”144 Kingship Discourse in Ancient Israel and Jewish Writings Again, it is worth remembering that I am interested in the conceptual and lexical sources for Paul’s christological language. Paul, then, was probably not given to reflection upon our contemporary distinction between Messiah and idealistic royal ideology. Thus, although “Messiah” and “Messianism” are generally understood to refer to those texts that speak of an idealized, transcendent, eschatological ruler in distinction from royal ideology and propaganda or discussions of the ideal king,145 I maintain that Paul’s belief that God’s anointed Messiah triumph to display images of the conquered barbarian nations, see Lopez, Apostle to the Conquered, 113-17. 142. Walker, Paul’s Offer of Leniency (2 Cor 10:1), 114-115. 143. On the history of Pisidian Antioch, see Stephen Mitchell and Marc Waelkens, Pisidian Antioch: the Site and its Monuments (London: Duckworth, 1998). 144. Ando, Imperial Ideology and the Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, 9-10; so Lopez, Apostle to the Conquered, 28: “Visual communication made the naturalization of ideas about institutions, cultural configurations, and hierarchies intelligible to a wider range of people than just textually literate elite: all who could see and walk past a victory monument would probably be able to ‘read’ it. Public art in public space proclaimed the corporeality, coherence, and universality of the Roman state.” 145. On this notion of the Messiah, see John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea

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has come thereby enables him to rework royal motifs and topoi and apply them to the Christ regardless of their original use.146 In what follows I briefly indicate and discuss the sources and ideas for the good king in ancient Israel and Second Temple Judaism upon which I will draw in the following chapters as potential sources for Paul’s christological language. We have already witnessed the conspicuous place of kingship discourse within Hellenistic and Imperial traditions. The same holds true for ancient Israel. As Keith W. Whitelam has rightly argued: [A] heavy investment was made by the state in specialists who were primarily responsible for propagating a view of the world which emphasized the king’s central role in the cosmic order. . . . A central feature of the royal world-view was that the cosmos was divinely ordered and that monarchic government and society were the mundane counterparts of this heavenly ideal. The earthly reality might well be one of political upheaval through factional disputes over the throne, but the ideological picture, the world-view propagated by the royal bureaucracy on behalf of the occupant of the throne, was one of delicate cosmic harmony in which the king played the central earthly role. Royal ideology and rituals were designed to stress the complex and dependent cosmological and earthly relationships.147 Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature (New York: Doubleday, 1995). See also the minimalist argument of Martin Karrer, who sees the act of anointing as the sole basis for determining whether a figure is messianic: Der Gesalbte: Die Grundlagen des Christustitels (FRLANT 151; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1990). 146. I speak of royal messianism as a lexical and conceptual way of expressing hope for an eschatological royal human agent of God who would deliver God’s people and establish God’s rule. So although speculation about messianic agents often involved conceptions of their kingly rule, it is not the same thing as ancient reflections about the ideal king. Deuteronomy 17:14-20, for example, depicts the Deuteronomist’s conception of Israel’s ideal king, but there are no explicitly eschatological and therefore messianic signals in the text. The depiction of Josiah as Torahobservant and the statement that no king has arisen like him (2 Kgs. 23:25) presents an ideal depiction of Israel’s king, but it is not messianic or eschatological. Nevertheless, whether certain Hebrew scriptural passages that reflect upon an ideal king (Gen. 49:8-12; Isa. 9; e.g., Pss. 2, 110) are messianic or not, once the belief that the Messiah has come is present, these passages easily lend themselves to retrospective messianic interpretations. The royal messiah has come, and this now makes almost any reflection upon the ideal king susceptible to a messianic interpretation. On the distinction between “Messiah” and idealistic royal ideology, see Sigmund Mowinckel, He That Cometh: The Messiah Concept in the Old Testament and Later Judaism (trans. G. W. Anderson; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005); Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The One Who Is to Come (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007). 147. Keith W. Whitelam, “Israelite Kingship: The Royal Ideology and Its Opponents,” in The World of Ancient Israel: Sociological, Anthropological, and Political Perspectives (ed. Ronald E. Clements; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 119-40, here 128-29. This point is further bolstered by the fact that writing was often an exercise of kingly power in the ancient world, and thus

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Despite the possible ambivalence and even opposition to monarchy by some of the (ostensible) sources now contained in 1 Samuel 7–15, Israel’s Scriptures provide a wealth of reflection upon the good king and Israel’s royal ideology.148 Kingship Discourse in Torah and Writings In the Torah, the king’s primary role, as we will see in much more detail, is to take the lead in observing the Torah and upholding God’s covenant with the people. Thus, Deut. 17:14-20 indicates that the king is not to be exalted above the people; rather, his sole task is to write out, read, and obey the Torah.149 The Deuteronomistic historian evaluates Israel’s leaders and kings according to this standard (Josh. 1:1-9; 8:35; 2 Kgs. 22:2-20; 23:2-3, 25).150 It is even possible that the editing of the Pentateuch bears a royal shape, in that it contains poetic praises of a coming king who will rule Israel and the nations (LXX Gen. 49:8-12; Num. 23–24; Deut. 33:1-5).151 The poems are of one piece with a broader royal ideology that moves from Genesis to 1–2 Kings and centers upon God’s agenda being worked out through a coming king from the line of Judah (cf. Gen. 3:14-15; 4:25; 17:6-7; 38:27-29).152 Both writing could be a means for asserting and legitimating the rule of the king. See William Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 148. On the formation of the Israelite monarchy and the opposition it encountered, see Whitelam, “Israelite Kingship,” 119-40; Antti Laato, A Star is Rising: The Historical Development of the Old Testament Royal Ideology and the Rise of the Jewish Messianic Expectations (Atlanta: Scholars, 1997), 57-80. 149. See especially Gerald Eddie Gerbrandt, Kingship according to the Deuteronomistic History (SBLDS 87; Atlanta: Scholars, 1986). 150. On the Deuteronomist’s portrait of the Torah-observant king and the mitigation of his authority and power when compared to other ancient Near Eastern monarchs, see J. G. McConville, “King and Messiah in Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History,” in King and Messiah in Israel and the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar (ed. John Day; JSOTSup 270; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 271-95. 151. Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 46-51; idem, “Monarchy and Messianism in the Greek Pentateuch,” in The Septuagint and Messianism (ed. M. A. Knibb; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2006), 79-128. See also Gerbern S. Oegema, The Anointed and His People: Messianic Expectations from the Maccabees to Bar Kochba (JSPSSup 27; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 43-47. It is possible that Gen. 49:8-12 and Num. 24:15-19 may have been linked to the reigns of David and Solomon. More cautiously, however, see Laato, A Star is Rising, 81-84; Raija Sollamo, “Messianism and the ‘Branch of David’: Isaiah 11,1-5 and Genesis 49,8-12,” in The Septuagint and Messianism, 357-70; Albert Pietersma, “Messianism and the Greek Psalter: In Search of the Messiah,” in The Septuagint and Messianism, 49-75; Fitzmyer, The One Who Is to Come, 29-32. 152. See T. Desmond Alexander, “Royal Expectations in Genesis to Kings: Their Importance for Biblical Theology,” TynB 49 (1998): 191-212. Some have seen in the stories of Adam in Genesis 1–3 an

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Gen. 49:10 and Num. 24:17 are literarily dependent upon God’s promise that “kings would come from Abraham” (Gen. 17:6, 16). This promise is again picked up in Hannah’s prayer and praise to God, for God “will give strength to his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed” (1 Sam. 2:10). This prayer forms an inclusio with the ending of 2 Samuel, which ends with David’s hymn (22:1-51) and David’s last words (23:1-7).153 Not unlike Hannah, David praises God who is “my shield and the horn of my salvation” (22:3) and refers to himself as “the man whom God exalted, the anointed of the God of Jacob” (23:1). Throughout 1–2 Samuel, then David is: elected by God to rule on God’s behalf,154 endowed with God’s Spirit,155 promised to have God’s presence with him,156 and designated as God’s son.157 So too he is said to rule the people as God’s shepherd,158 represent God’s people,159 and fight God’s battles. Kingship Discourse in Israel’s Psalter Israel’s Psalter, including but not limited to the so-called Royal Psalms, contains a wealth of information regarding Israel’s ideal king.160 The attempt to legitimate the Davidic monarchy in Jerusalem. See, for example, W. Brueggemann, “David and His Theologian,” CBQ 30 (1968): 156-81; idem, “From Dust to Kingship,” ZAW 84 (1972): 1-18; W. Wifall, “David—Prototype of Israel’s Future?” BTB 4 (1974): 94-107; idem, “The Breath of His Nostrils,” CBQ 36 (1974): 237-40. Both Adam and David are created for kingship. Adam’s rise from the dust (Gen 2:7) in the ancient Near Eastern environment means to be “enthroned” or “exalted” as king, and “to return to dust” (Gen. 3:19) means to be deposed as king (e.g., Isa. 41:2; Mic. 7:16-17; Jer. 49:22-24). For example, in the royal language of the OT one frequently finds the exaltation of a king to be described in terms of a creation from dust (e.g., 1 Kgs. 16:2; cf. 1 Sam. 2:6-8; Ps. 113:7). 153. Philip E. Satterthwaite, “David in the Books of Samuel: A Messianic Hope,” in The Lord’s Anointed: Interpretation of Old Testament Messianic Texts (ed. Philip E. Satterthwaite, Richard S. Hess, and Gordon J. Wenham; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 41-65, argues, primarily on the basis of these three hymns and prayers, that David did not live up to the royal ideal set forth in 1–2 Samuel and that this, therefore, creates an expectation for a king who will do so. 154. 1 Sam. 2:10, 35; 24:7-11; 26:9-16; 2 Sam. 1:14, 16; 19:22. 155. 1 Sam. 10:1-13; 16:1-13; 24:6. 156. 1 Sam. 16:17-18; 18:12, 14, 28; 2 Sam. 5:10; 7:6, 11, 13. 157. 2 Sam. 7:14. 158. 2 Sam. 5:2; 7:7. 159. 1 Sam. 18:3; 2 Sam. 21:17. 160. The following paragraphs on the Psalms are lightly revised from my “Sharing in the Heavenly Rule of Christ the King: Paul’s Royal Participatory Language in Ephesians,” in “In Christ” in Paul: Explorations in Paul’s Theology of Union and Participation (ed. Michael J. Thate et al.; WUNT 2.384; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2014), 251-79, here 254-55, 258-60. The classic studies here are Hermann Gunkel, Einleitung in die Psalmen (2nd ed., Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1966); Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship (rev. ed.; trans. D. R. Ap-Thomas; 2 vols.; Grand Rapids:

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early Christians’ appropriation of the Psalter (evidenced by numerous citations) and the fact that the editors of the Psalter kept its royal shape even after the downfall of the Davidic monarchy witness that at least some read the Psalter as testifying to the coming of a Davidic/ messianic ruler.161 Both Joachim Schaper (in the Greek Psalter) and David C. Mitchell (in Zechariah 9–14), among others, have demonstrated the eschatological appropriation of the Psalter.162 In ancient Israel the king was installed by means of anointing such that he received the title and office of “Messiah,” an office that marked him out “not merely [as] ‘the Messiah’ but ‘the Messiah of Yahweh’ ” (see Pss. 2:2; 18:50; 20:6; 28:8; 89:39, 51; 132:10).163 Tryggve N. D. Mettinger notes that the term “‘Messiah’ denotes the king as very definitely set apart from the rest of the people, since it signifies his status as linked with God and thus inviolable” (italics mine).164 As God’s own son, the messiah was viewed as invested with God’s authority and power to rule, and this privilege was granted specifically, of course, to David and his offspring (Pss. 2:6-9; 89:26-28; 110:1-4; cf. 2 Sam. 7:12-14; 1 Chronicles 17).165 It was this relationship between king and God that enabled the anointed Messiah to operate as a channel for God’s spirit (1 Sam. 16:13; Isa. 11:1-2; 61:1-3; Pss. Sol. 17:22, 37; 18:5-7), to share in Eerdmans, 2004). Whitelam refers to the Psalter as providing the “vast bulk of our information on various aspects of royal ideology . . . ”(“Israelite Kingship,” 129). 161. On the royal shape and editing of the Psalter, see Gerald H. Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter (SBLDS 76; Chico, CA: Scholars, 1985); idem, “The Use of Royal Psalms at the ‘Seams’ of the Hebrew Psalter,” JSOT 35 (1986): 85-94. 162. Joachim Schaper, Eschatology in the Greek Psalter (WUNT 2.76; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1995); David C. Mitchell, The Message of the Psalter: An Eschatological Programme in the Book of Psalms (JSOTSup 252; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997). 163. Aubrey R. Johnson points to such texts as Judg. 9:7-21; 1 Sam. 16:1-13; 2 Sam. 2:1-7; 5:15; 1 Kgs. 1:28-40; 2 Kgs. 9:1-13; 11:4-20 (Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel [Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1967], 14-15). 164. Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, King and Messiah: The Civil and Sacral Legitimation of the Israelite Kings (Coniectanea Biblica Old Testament 8; Lund: Gleerup, 1976), 199; Roland de Vaux, “The King of Israel, Vassal of Yahweh,” in The Bible and the Ancient Near East (trans. Damian McHugh; London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1971), 152-66; Laato, A Star is Rising, 3-4. 165. See Collins and Collins, Son of God, 25-30. John H. Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms (SBT 32; London: SCM, 1976), 146-49. Mowinckel, who, speaking of Israelite kingship within the context of its ancient Near Eastern counterparts, states: “The king is thus the representative of the gods on earth, the steward of the god or the gods. Through him they exercise their power and sovereignty, and he is the channel through which blessing and happiness and fertility flow from the gods to me” (The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 1:51). On the Davidic covenant there is a wealth of literature, but see especially Scott W. Hahn, Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment of God’s Saving Promises (AYBRL; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 176-213.

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and represent God’s rule (e.g., Ps. 89:20-37), and to shepherd God’s people with righteousness and peace (Ps. 72:1-3; Ezekiel 34; Pss. Sol. 17:32).166 The king was thought to stabilize the cosmos by creating and establishing harmony and order that mirrored God’s own royal rule in heaven.167 The king’s participation in God’s rule was thought to result in the bestowal of God’s gifts to the people, foremost of which included righteousness, rule over one’s enemies, and internal peace and prosperity.168 The investiture of Israel’s anointed king with God’s authority and rule was not unique to Israel but is an element of royal ideology that characterizes ancient Near Eastern and HellenisticRoman notions of kingship. The important point here, for our purposes, is that the royal figure is the subordinated vicegerent of God, whose job it is to rule and act on God’s behalf by bestowing divine benefits to God’s subjects.169 He is the royal agent who shares in God’s rule and acts as the channel through whom God acts. One of the central hopes of the royal psalms is that God will establish God’s kingdom by extending worldwide dominion over the people through God’s “chosen,” elected king (Pss. 89:3, 20; 132:11)—often depicted as Χριστός.170 These royal psalms frequently portray intense opposition to the king and his rule, with God’s and the king’s enemies often described in cosmic-mythical language (e.g., Pss. 2:1-3; 45:5; 69:9-10; 72:9; cf. Pss. 46:3-6; 48:4-8).171 The king’s enemies are further described as political rulers themselves, as those “kings of the earth” 166. On the Messiah as receiving God’s Spirit, see Johnson, Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel, 15-19. 167. See Whitelman, “Israelite Kingship,” 129-30. 168. For justice and righteousness, see Ps. 72:1-4a; Isa. 11:4-5; Pss. Sol. 17:32. For defeat over one’s enemies, see Gen. 49:10-12; Num. 24:17-19; Ps. 72:4b, 8-11; 2 Bar. 39-40, 70-72. For peace and prosperity, see Pss. 72:15-16; 132:15; 144:11-14; Isa. 11:6-9. 169. “The ideal state of humanity is to be ruled by God, the supreme sovereign. This ideal state of peace, harmony, and virtue is enjoyed when God rules through his human agent, the king. That is to say, sharing in God’s rule places the king in the position of distributing to humanity the benefits of God’s rule” (Smith, Christ the Ideal King, 175). 170. On the generic categorization of royal psalms, see Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms, 1-86; Mowinckel, Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 1:42-80. On the Davidic king as God’s elected chosen one, see HansJoachim Kraus, Theology of the Psalms (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 109. Scott R. A. Starbuck argues that the royal psalms are united by the simple fact that they use the term Mashiah and center upon him (The Court Oracles in the Psalms: The So-Called Royal Psalms in Their Ancient Near Eastern Context [SBLDS 172; Atlanta: SBL, 1999], 121). 171. J. J. M. Roberts, “The Enthronement of Yhwh and David: The Abiding Theological Significance of the Kingship Language of the Psalms,” CBQ 64 (2002): 675-86; Jerome F. D. Creach, The Destiny of the Righteous in the Psalms (St. Louis: Chalice, 2008), 54-69. Eaton states: “The impression we gain is of

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(οἱ βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς) and “rulers” (οἱ ἄρχοντες) who try to destroy “the Lord and his anointed” (κατὰ τοῦ κυρίου καὶ κατὰ τοῦ χριστοῦ, Ps. 2:2-3).172 God’s response to these rebels is to rescue the king out of his persecutions (Pss. 18:4-6, 43-48; 20–21),173 and to enthrone the king by giving him a share in God’s own royal rule.174 So in Psalm 110 God exalts the king over his enemies by inviting the king to share God’s throne: The Lord says to my lord, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool under your feet.” The Lord sends out from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies (110:1-2).175

Again, in Psalm 2 God’s response to the political rebels is the enthronement of God’s son: “I have set my king on Zion my holy hill,” and “You are my son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession” (2:6, 7b-8).

As a result of the king’s enthronement, at least three elements are made to characterize God’s anointed king: (a) The king is elected as God’s earthly representative such that he shares God’s throne and is installed as God’s son (Pss. 2:7; 89:26-27 cf. 2 Sam. 7:12-14); (b) the king is rescued out of a situation of distress, is exalted over his enemies (Pss. 2:8-9; 110:2; cf. Dan. 7:14), and is invited to rule over them; and (c) the enthroned king ushers in a time of righteous rule characterized the king as the unique representative of God and of God’s people, and hence the target for all the evil forces which assault earthly society” (Kingship and Psalms, 137). 172. Speaking of Ps. 2:1-3, James L. Mays states: “The question [of v. 3] gathers up the entire scene of governments and rulers, grasping and consolidating power, working out their destiny in terms of force; and it interprets the machinations of the whole thing theologically as rebellion against the Lord and his Anointed” (The Lord Reigns: A Theological Handbook to the Psalms [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994], 109). 173. On the king’s sufferings and his persecution by his enemies, see Johnson, Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel, 22-26. 174. On God’s enthronement of the king, see Kraus, Theology of the Psalms, 112-13. 175. For detailed analyses of the Septuagintal context, tradition-history, and use in the NT of Ps 110:1, see David M. Hay, Glory at the Right Hand: Psalm 110 in Early Christianity (SBLMS 18; Nashville: Abingdon, 1973); Martin Hengel, “‘Sit at My Right Hand!’: The Enthronement of Christ at the Right Hand of God and Psalm 110:1,” in Studies in Early Christology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), 119-225; W. R. G. Loader, Sohn und Hoherpriester: Eine traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zur Christologie des Hebräerbriefes (WMANT 53; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1981); idem, “Christ at the Right Hand: Ps cx.1 in the New Testament,” NTS 24 (1978): 199-217; Juel, Messianic Exegesis, 135-50; Klaus Homburg, “Psalm 110,1 im Rahmen des judäischen Krönungszeremoniells,” ZAW 84 (1972): 243-46.

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by peace and prosperity for his people.176 One of the more remarkable elements of God’s rule through this royal figure is the fact that the king suffers and experiences incredible persecution from his enemies. King David is characterized throughout the Psalter as the righteous, royal sufferer par excellence (Pss. 7:4; 69:4; 109:3). The king’s sufferings frequently bring him to despair as he laments God’s apparent abandonment of him to his enemies and to death (Pss. 22:14-18; 38:5-8). Nevertheless, the king is consistently portrayed as righteous in that he refuses to turn away from God but rather maintains his hope and trust that God will rescue him.177 There is an inextricable relationship between the rule of God’s royal son and the good of the people. The king’s rule over his people and his concomitant defeat of his enemies, it was believed, would usher in a period of peace and prosperity for his subjects.178 In Psalm 72, for instance, it was hoped that the life and rule of the king (vv. 5-6, 15) would result in “prosperity for the people” (v. 3), “peace abounding” (v. 7), and an “abundance of grain in the land” (v. 16). Thus, the psalmist prays that the king would “have dominion from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. May his foes bow down before him and his enemies lick the dust” (v. 8; cf. Gen. 49:8-12; Num. 24:17-19; Zech. 9:10). God’s establishment of the king’s throne enables the king to “crush his foes before him and strike down those who hate him” (Ps. 89:23). The rule of this righteous king will result in “all nations [being] blessed in him” (Ps. 72:17). The end of Psalm 2 declares that those who “take refuge in him,” (v. 11), that is, those who submit to the king’s rule, will find blessing and will not perish (vv. 9-10). The 176. It should be clear here that I am referring to the setting of the king’s enthronement in ancient Israel and not early Christian appropriations of the royal Psalms. On which, see Matthew W. Bates, The Birth of the Trinity: Jesus, God, and Spirit in New Testament and Early Christian Interpretations of the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 62-79. 177. On the relevance of the king’s suffering for Luke–Acts, see my “Luke’s Scriptural Suffering Messiah,” 255-74. In the Psalms, see Lucass, The Concept of the Messiah in the Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity, 73-91. 178. “God’s gift of life to his king brings life also to his people” (Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms, 156). On the saints sharing in God’s rule in pre-Christian Judaism, see M. David Litwa, We are Being Transformed: Deification in Paul’s Soteriology (BZNW 187; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), 179-82. See also Franz Mussner, who points to Jewish apocalypticism to explain the conceptual precedent for the ruled sharing in the rule of a transcendent figure (Christus das All und die Kirche: Studien zur Theologie des Epheserbriefes [Trier: Paulinus, 1955], 91-97).

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king will protect and defend the righteous from evildoers (Ps. 101:5-8). The king defends his people and delivers them from their enemies (Ps. 72:1-4, 12-14). The king’s rule over his people is characterized by God’s own “faithfulness and steadfast love” (Ps. 89:24). In Psalm 144, the king prays for his deliverance from his enemies so that his people may enjoy protection, peace, and fertility in the land (vv. 11-14).179 In Psalm 22, God’s granting of life and deliverance to the king (vv. 20-25) will result in food for the poor (v. 26) and service and worship of God (vv. 27-31). The king even stabilizes and rules the cosmos as God sets “his hand on the sea and his right hand on the rivers” (Ps. 89:25). Kingship Discourse in Israel’s Prophets Despite coming from different periods of Israel’s history and stemming from diverse geographical locales and historical situations, throughout Israel’s prophetic writings there is also a wealth of information regarding an expectation for a righteous Davidic king who will establish God’s beneficent rule over the people.180 In fact, just as with the royal editing of Israel’s Psalter, so do many of Israel’s prophets anticipate a reversal of their exilic fortunes and a return to a peaceful golden age under the rule of a righteous Davidic king.181 The Davidic ancestry of the coming ruler is obvious in that “there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom” (Isa. 9:7), and the king will come “out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots” (Isa. 11:1; cf. 11:10).182 Jeremiah looks to the day when God will “raise up for David a righteous branch” (23:5; cf. 33:15, 17, 21-22 MT). The Davidic ruler will displace the law-observant Judean kings (Jer. 179. See Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms, 166. 180. On which, see Lucass, The Concept of the Messiah in the Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity, 94-121; Daniel I. Block, “My Servant David: Ancient Israel’s Vision of the Messiah,” in Israel’s Messiah in the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. Richard S. Hess and M. Daniel Carroll R.; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 17-56, here 41-49; Schreiber, Gesalbter und König, 49-59. 181. See here especially Joseph Blenkinsopp, David Remembered: Kingship and National Identity in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013). 182. H. G. M. Williamson, “The Messianic Texts in Isaiah 1–39,” in King and Messiah in Israel and the Ancient Near East, 239-70; P. D. Wegner, An Examination of Kingship and Messianic Expectation in Isaiah 1–35 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1992). Blenkinsopp, David Remembered, 134-37; Fitzmyer, The One Who Is to Come, 33-39.

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17:19-25; 22:4).183 Ezekiel looks forward to a new Davidic ruler referred to as “one shepherd, my servant David” (34:23-24; cf. 17:22).184 Micah prophesies of a king who will come from Judah to rule and shepherd God’s flock in peace (5:2-5) with language that recalls Balaam’s prophetic oracle looking forward to “a star [that] will come out of Jacob” (Num. 24:17).185 Haggai declares that when Israel returns to God, they will also seek “David their king” (3:5), and Amos speaks of Israel’s restoration as the time when God will “raise up the booth of David that is fallen” (9:11). This results in a renewal of creation and an era marked by “security, fertility, and abundance” that has reminded some of the prevalent relationship between good kings and the return to a Golden Age.186 Zechariah refers to the king as “my servant the Branch” (3:6; cf. 6:12; Isa. 4:2; 53:2). Zechariah’s coming king will, through his victorious battles, bring peace to the nations (9:9-10).187 The Davidic ruler will bring justice and righteousness for his people (Isa. 9:7; 11:3-5; 32:1; Jer. 23:5-6; Ezek. 34:16, 23-24). Ezekiel looks forward to an eternal rule of David the king, who will shepherd God’s people in the land with peace and security (Ezek. 37:24-27). In Ezekiel 40–48, the ruler is primarily tasked with caring for the temple cult (44:3; 45:13-25; 46:2-15). The king is closely related to God and perhaps even shares in divinity, as he is referred to in Isaiah as “Mighty God, Eternal Father” (9:6b) and “Immanuel” (7:14)—names that belong to Yahweh.188 Kingship Discourse in Second Temple Texts The past half-century or so has witnessed an abundance of scholarship devoted to the question of messianic expectation in Second Temple/ 183. This may have given rise to the royal coming of the Davidic ruler in Zech. 9:9-10; see Blenkinsopp, David Remembered, 118-19. 184. On Ezekiel’s reworking of earlier royal ideology, see especially Daniel I. Block, Beyond the River Chebar: Studies in Kingship and Eschatology in the Book of Ezekiel (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2013). On the shepherding imagery, see Lucass, The Concept of the Messiah in the Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity, 98-99. 185. Blenkinsopp, David Remembered, 129. 186. Ibid., 137. 187. On Zechariah and messianism, see Wolter H. Rose, Zemah and Zerubbabel: Messianic Expectations in the Early Postexilic Period (JSOTSup 304; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000); Blenkinsopp, David Remembered, 71-103. 188. On the close relationship between Yahweh and the king, see Litwa, IESUS DEUS, 188-91.

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Early Judaism, with questions arising as to its coherence or diversity, the definition of what constitutes a Messiah, the content or function of the Messiah, and the prevalence or lack of messianic expectation.189 Some early Jewish texts continue to look forward to a coming royal figure and some reflect upon the ideal king. The way in which they do so is through creative reworking and transformation of earlier Jewish and Hellenistic kingship texts. The Psalms of Solomon, for example, look forward to a righteous king from the line of David who will enact the messianic judgment seen in Psalm 2, where God’s son “smashes the arrogance of sinners like a potter’s jar; [and] shatters all their substance with an iron rod” (Ps. Sol. 17:23b-24; cf. Ps. 2:9). The prayer that God would “raise up for them their king, a son from David, to rule your servant Israel in the time you know, O God” (Ps. Sol. 17:21) alludes to 2 Sam. 7:12-14; Amos 9:11; and Jer. 23:5. Throughout Psalms of Solomon 17–18 the author “formulates a messiah concept, in which something that by then already no longer existed is expected and idealized: a Davidic and righteous king messiah.”190 Numerous texts from this period provide evidence that Gen. 49:10; Num. 24:17; and Isa. 11:1-10 were reworked and transformed into royal expectations for a king and judge who would bring justice.191 Whether they are Jewish or 189. Arguing that the term “Messiah” has no fixed content and reacting against a so-called Christian agenda that too highly elevates Jewish messianism are most of the essays in Jacob Neusner, William. S. Green, and Ernest Frerichs, ed., Judaisms and Their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). In reaction against scholars’ broad use of the term messianic to classify texts that do not actually contain the term, see James H. Charlesworth, “The Concept of the Messiah in the Pseudepigrapha,” ANRW 2.19.1, 188-218; M. de Jonge, “The Use of the Word ‘Anointed’ in the Time of Jesus,” NovT (1966): 132-48; Schreiber, Gesalbter und König. Kenneth Pomykala has questioned the significance or presence of a relationship between the biblical Davidic texts and Jewish Messianism (The Davidic Dynasty in Early Judaism). See, however, Laato, A Star is Rising. Oegema demonstrates, as seen below, both the way in which Jewish messiah texts rework scriptural precursors and their response to contemporary political situations (The Anointed and His People). Andrew Chester argues that the term “Messiah” should not be the only criteria for determining whether a text is messianic (Messiah and Exaltation: Jewish Messianic and Visionary Traditions and New Testament Christology [WUNT 207; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2007]). For a sophisticated maximalist view of the evidence, and one that argues for the coherence and prevalence of messianic expectation, see Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ. 190. Oegema, The Anointed and His People, 107. 191. See, for example, Sib. Or. 3.767-808; T. of Levi 17.2-11 and 18.2-9; T. Jud. 24 1Q28b; 1QM 11:6-7; 4Q252; 4QFlor; 4Q161; Philo, Moses 1.290; Josephus, War 6.310-12 (cf. Tacitus, Hist. 5.13; Suetonius, Vesp. 4); 1 En. 49:1-4. See here Oegema, The Anointed and His People, 294-99; Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, 57-58. Use of the NT evidence, which there is no good reason to exclude as evidence for royal/kingship expectation and reflection, would enrich the list.

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Jewish-Christian, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs expect God to raise up a king from the line of Judah and a priest from the line of Levi to usher in God’s peaceful rule over the people (T. Sim. 7:1-2; T. Levi 2:11; T. Naph. 8:1-3; T. Gad 8:1). Novenson, with some dependence upon the important work of Gerbern S. Oegema, rightly notes that in Second Temple Judaism, “Every messiah text . . . is a product of the process of Konzeptualisierung, in which scriptural tradition is reinterpreted by analogy to contemporary political reality, so that each messiah figure bears the image of the dominant power structure with which his author was familiar.”192 This reconceptualization also takes place in some Jewish texts through the reworking of Hellenistic kingship discourse. Philo’s Life of Joseph, for example, constructs a portrait of the biblical figure as the ideal statesman who embodies wisdom, virtue, temperance, law observance, and is god-like (80–87; 157–174). Here Moses is portrayed as the ideal ruler and embodies almost all of the Hellenistic royal virtues and functions, but none so clearly as the embodiment of law and who, therefore, functions as a living law (2.4-11, 36-48).193 Similarly, in Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities, Smith has shown that Solomon “possesses the four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice” (8.34).194 Solomon is a philosopherking and perfectly temperate (8.42-44); he is pious, a temple builder, and propagator of the laws (7.338-56; 8.51-52); he procures peace and freedom for his people (7.337, 372; 8.21).195 He is, in short, as good as, and probably better than, any Hellenistic monarch.196 The Letter of Aristeas is an excellent Jewish source for Hellenistic kingship.197 In it, Ptolemy invites the Jewish elders, who are present to translate the Jewish Scriptures into Greek, to a week-long banquet. Here he asks 192. Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, 61. 193. Philo’s portrait of Moses as a king is not without some significant exegetical insight into the actual biblical narratives. See here J. R. Porter, Moses and Monarchy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963). 194. Smith, Christ the Ideal King, 157. 195. See here especially Louis H. Feldman, Josephus’s Interpretation of the Bible (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 509-629. 196. For more detail on Josephus, see ibid., 155-62. Josephus does not, however, speak so kindly of popular messianic expectation (e.g., J. W. 2.57-62; Ant. 17.273-278). 197. On Aristeas, see ibid, 133-42; Oswyn Murray, “Aristeas and Ptolemaic Kingship,” JTS 18 (1967): 337-71; Erich S. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998), 202-22.

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them seventy-two questions, most of which center upon kingship discourse. The answers from the Jewish elders indicate that the king must possess piety (210, 229, 234), justice (209, 291–92), temperance (277–78), and a generous spirit resulting in god-like benefactions (205, 210, 259). The preceding sketch of kingship discourse in both the HellenisticRoman and Israelite-Jewish writings is more anecdotal than comprehensive, but the prevalence of kingship discourse exemplifies a significant point for my project, namely, the incredible amount of primary source material (both literary and material) devoted to reflection—whether political, philosophical, propagandistic, or other—upon the good king. Whereas each of the chapters to follow will argue for, rather than assume, the presence of kingship discourse in portions of Paul’s letters, the sketch does indicate that Paul could expect his audiences to be familiar with kingship ideology. But to be clear, in my argument I do not appeal to what must have been the case due to the ubiquity of kingship discourse, nor does my argument depend upon the impossible task of reconstructing what Paul’s audience might have heard (an obviously impossible task), nor does it appeal to Paul’s supposed use of hidden transcripts.198 Rather, my argument depends upon a close reading of Paul’s texts and demonstrating that Paul’s linguistic and conceptual resources for these Pauline texts are notions of the good king. Finally, I should also alert the reader to the fact that I do include Ephesians and Colossians in my argument, though I do not here present a case for or against Pauline authorship.199 Likewise, I do 198. See for example, James Harrison’s frequent references to what Paul’s auditors would likely have heard (Paul and the Imperial Authorities at Thessalonica and Rome, 86, 100-101, 104, 110, 138). This is often the case with N. T. Wright’s earlier articulation of his argument that Paul’s use of words shared with Roman imperial propaganda (e.g., gospel, lord, justice) show that Paul’s mission “could not but be construed as deeply counterimperial, as subversive to the whole edifice of the Roman empire . . . ” (“Paul’s Gospel and Caesar’s Empire,” in Paul and Politics: Ekklesia, Israel, Imperium, Interpretation [ed. Richard A. Horsley; Harrisburg PA: Trinity International Press, 2000], 160-83, here 162). Much of this, of course, goes back to Adolf Deissmann, Light from the Ancient Near East (trans. L.R.M. Strachan; 4th rev. German ed.; London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1927), 338-78. See also Dieter Georgi, Theocracy: In Paul’s Praxis and Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991); Richard A. Horsley, ed., Paul and Politics: Ekklesia, Israel, Imperium, Interpretation (Harrisburg PA: Trinity International, 2000). For a devastating critique of those who appeal to Paul’s use of “hidden transcripts,” see Barclay, “Why the Roman Empire Was Insignificant to Paul,” 381-82. 199. See the recent challenge to the critical scholarly orthodoxy that Ephesians and Colossians are

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not intend to contribute to the ongoing discussion as to whether the hymns in Phil. 2:6-11 and Col. 1:15-20 are pre-Pauline compositions. Whatever the reader’s take on these important matters, one can affirm that these texts were either written by Paul or that they came into existence within the orbit of Pauline assemblies. In what follows I argue that kingship discourse functions as one source for Paul’s christological language and provides the most helpful framework within which to understand Paul’s positive statements about law, the Christ-hymns of Colossians and Philippians, Paul’s participatory soteriology, and Paul’s justice language in Romans. That is to say, Paul reflects upon the political ideology of “King and Law” (chapter 2), “King and Praise” (chapter 3), “King and Kingdom” (chapter 4), and “King and Justice” (chapter 5), and he reworks and adapts the political ideology through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and the early Christians’ continued experiences of Christ. The following four chapters will exemplify some of the most important ways in which Paul created a new royal ideology that could remap the symbolic universe and the social existence of his churches.

deutero-Pauline compositions from Douglas A. Campbell, Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014).

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King and Law: Christ the King as Living Law

“Whenever it happens . . . that some one individual among the rest, whose virtue is so superior as to exceed that of all the others, it is just . . . for this one individual to be king.”1 “How can one fit monarchy into any sound system of ethics, when it allows a man to do whatever he likes without any responsibility or control?”2 “Law is King.”3

What is the best constitution? Should written laws rule supreme, and if so, who legislates those laws? Or is it better that a supremely virtuous person rule as a monarch? How can we insure that the people obey the laws, or alternatively, how can we insure the virtues of the king?

1. Aristotle, Pol. 1288a. 2. Otanes’s speech on democracy as the best form of government (Herodotus, Hist. 3.80). 3. Pindar, as reported by Herodotus in Hist. 3.38. On which, see Erich S. Gruen, Rethinking the Other in Antiquity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 23-25. Note the speech of the defected Spartan Demaratus to king Xerxes on the way of life of the Spartans: “They are free—yes—but not entirely free, for they have a master, and that master is Law, which they fear much more than your subjects fear you” (Herodotus, Hist. 7.104).

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And what are the best political measures for insuring the harmony, unity, and friendship of a civic body? These standard ancient political questions were often debated by the philosophers and moralists in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, but rarely have they been seen as relevant for seeking to understand the early Christians’, and specifically Paul’s, understanding of law.4 In fact, if Paul has anything meaningful to say about law, some would suggest that it is only decidedly negative or, at best, that new revelation surpasses and relativizes law.5 It has not helped matters that, at least according to Todd A. Wilson, Paul’s most positive statement regarding law—the opaque phrase “the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2 and 1 Cor. 9:22)—has perplexed interpreters and remains without a convincing linguistic or conceptual background.6 Unable to find a meaningful background for the phrase, scholars thereby often describe it as ironic, playful, or haphazard. The confusion is evident in that some see it as referring to a new Torah for the messianic age,7 some to an eschatological “ZionTorah” (cf. Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-28; Isa. 2:2-4),8 some to the Law of Moses,9 some to the simple principle or standard for Christian ethical conduct,10 and some to the teachings of Jesus.11 Further, many are 4. The relevance of royal discourse with respect to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has now been demonstrated in a most convincing manner by Julien Smith, Christ the Ideal King: Cultural Context, Rhetorical Strategy, and the Power of Divine Monarchy in Ephesians (WUNT 2.313; Tübingen: MohrSiebeck, 2011). 5. For an interesting discussion of the role of the law in early Christianity and its distinctiveness from Judaism and Rome, both of which were also concerned with law, see Luke Timothy Johnson, “Law in Early Christianity,” in Contested Issues in Christian Origins and the New Testament: Collected Essays (NovTSup 146; Leiden: Brill, 2013), 643-58. 6. Todd A. Wilson, “The Law of Christ and the Law of Moses: Reflections on a Recent Trend in Interpretation,” CBR 5 (2006): 123-44, here 131. See also the helpful review of scholarly discussion on this phrase in David G. Horrell, Solidarity and Difference: A Contemporary Reading of Paul’s Ethics (London/New York: T & T Clark, 2005), 222-31; also see Andrew Chester, “The ‘Law of Christ’ and the ‘Law of the Spirit,’ in Messiah and Exaltation: Jewish Messianic and Visionary Traditions and New Testament Christology (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2007), 537-601, here 537-69. 7. W. D. Davies, Torah in the Messianic Age and/or the Age to Come (SBLMS; Philadelphia: Society of Biblical Literature, 1952), 90-91; idem, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology (rev. ed.; New York/Evanston: Harper & Row, 1948), 147-76. Similarly, see H. J. Schoeps, Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of Jewish Religious History (trans. Harold Knight; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961), 171-75. 8. Peter Stuhlmacher, “The Law as a Topic of Biblical Theology,” in Reconciliation, Law, and Righteousness: Essays in Biblical Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 110-33, here 126. 9. Wilson, “The Law of Christ and the Law of Moses,” 123-44. 10. Stephen Westerholm, Israel’s Law and the Church’s Faith: Paul and His Recent Interpreters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 214.

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surprised to find Paul speaking positively of Christ in relation to Israel’s law, especially in epistles where he constructs an antithesis between Christ and law and emphasizes humanity’s inability to submit to it (e.g., Gal. 2:16; 3:13; Rom. 6:14; 8:7). What, then, accounts for Paul’s coining the phrase “the law of Christ,” (Gal. 6:2), his depiction of Christ bringing Israel’s law to completion (Gal. 5:14; Rom. 8:3-4; 13:8b), and his exhortation to followers of Christ to imitate him in fulfilling the law (Rom. 13:8-10; Gal. 6:2)? Pauline scholars have not, so far as my research has been able to ascertain, seen the relevance of the standard political topics related to ideal constitutions, whether laws or kings should rule supreme, and how to procure harmony for the civic body. After all, a royal honorific (Christ) in tandem with the language of law would, at least on the face of it, suggest the possibility that Paul may be tapping into a political debate that his readers would have recognized. I suggest that it is within the context of ancient kingship discourse, particularly discussions devoted to the relationship between king and law, that these questions, and Paul’s opaque phrase “the law of Christ,” should be understood. One role of the ideal king in antiquity is to embody the law internally and to produce good legislation that transforms the people and leads them in obedience to the law. This ancient discourse suggests that the best governance is not one in which the laws rule supreme, but one in which the virtuous king submits himself to the laws and thereby internalizes them such that he himself becomes an embodiment of law—a “living law.” It is only through this royal “living law,” whereby the king’s subjects imitate the king who provides the perfect pattern for their own character, that they are able to fulfill the demands of the law. The results of the peoples’ imitation of the royal living law are harmony, friendship, and the eradication of dissension among the king’s subjects. Thus, Paul is neither inconsistent nor contradictory in these positive statements regarding Christ and law, but rather he appropriates this linguistic resource of kingship discourse. 11. So C. H. Dodd, “Ennomos Christou,” in More New Testament Studies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1968), 134-48.

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My argument unfolds in three sections. First, I discuss how GrecoRoman texts often depict the ideal ruler as a “living law” whose very nature is akin to divine law. By imitating the king, the subjects are ethically transformed and attain internal harmony. Second, I demonstrate that in Jewish literature it was understood that the good king submitted himself to the Torah, obeyed it, and functioned as a model of obedience for the people. Finally, I situate Paul’s phrase “the law of Christ” within the context of kingship discourse and demonstrate how he presents Christ as a royal living law. The Ideal King as Living Law in Greek and Hellenistic Kingship Discourse The proper relationship between law and kingship is broached frequently in philosophical discussions of the ideal constitution or governance.12 For both Plato and Aristotle, the ideal constitution is one in which the philosopher-king or superior man rules.13 Though the king by no means flouts the laws of the city, his embodied wisdom, reason, and virtue are often portrayed as superior to written laws. In Plato’s Statesman, one of Socrates’s dialogue partners argues that “lawmaking belongs to the science of kingship . . . but the best thing is not the laws be in power, but that the man who is of wise and a kingly nature be ruler” (294A; cf. 267C; 293C). The rule and legislation of the best man offers flexibility for individual situations that the written laws do not (294B-C; 297A-B).14 This requires that only the best man should rule, meaning that the ruler must be a philosopher-king (Republic 473D; 6.484A-502C), that is, a ruler who possesses “expert 12. F. W. Walbank, “Monarchies and Monarchic Ideas,” in The Cambridge Ancient History (vol. 7.1; ed. F. W. Walbank, A. E. Astin, M. W. Frederiksen, and R.M. Ogilvie; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 62-100, here 75-81. 13. A constant trope throughout the texts examined here is that the ideal ruler is to be supremely virtuous and to take the lead in modeling virtue and piety before the people. 14. On king and law in The Statesman, see Christopher Rowe, “The Politicus and Other Dialogues,” in The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (ed. Christopher Rowe and Malcolm Schofield; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 254-61. See also Angela Standhartinger, “Eintracht in Philippi: Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Funktion von Phil 2,6-11 im Kontext,” in Paulus—Werk und Wirkung: Festschrift für Andreas Lindemann zum 70. Geburtstag (ed. Paul-Gerhard Klumbies and David S. du Toit; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2013), 149-75, here 153.

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knowledge” (Statesman 293C).15 Thus, the best constitution is the one in which “the supreme power in man coincides with the greatest wisdom and temperance” (Laws 712A). This good king will produce harmony for the city-state and draw people “together by friendship and community of sentiment into a common life” (Statesman 311B-C). Though the ideal constitution consists in the singular rule of the virtuous king, necessity will likely dictate that, at best, one may hope that rulers are simply obedient to “royal laws” (νόμοις βασιλικοῖς; Epistle 8.354C). Though Aristotle is ambivalent about its likelihood (Politics 1286a-1288a), he claims that if there is one who “is so outstanding by reason of his superior virtue,” then such people “themselves are law” (Politics 1284a), like the good judge who “is so to speak justice embodied” (εἶναι οἷον δίκαιον ἔμψυχον; Nicomachean Ethics 1132a).16 If such a person exists, it is right that “this one individual be king” and that “everyone obey such a person” (Politics 1288a; cf. 1310b).17 In that written laws only speak of universals, the virtuous king can legislate “with a view to actual circumstances” (1286a).18 It is not a far step from the views of Plato and Aristotle, for whom the ideal form of governance is rule by the philosopher-king or the virtuous man, to the belief that the king is a “living law.”19 In Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, Cyrus is a virtuous ruler who “thought that it was not possible for him to incite others to good and noble deeds, if he were not himself such as he ought to be” (8.1.12).20 Through his 15. See further C. D. C. Reeve, Philosopher-Kings: The Argument of Plato’s Republic (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988). 16. So Christopher Rowe, “Aristotelian Constitutions,” in The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought,” 375. Reminiscent of Plato’s and Aristotle’s concept that the best man should rule is the recounting of Anaxarchus of Abdera’s statement to Alexander the Great that he was “the law and the definition of justice” for his people (Arrian 4.97-8; Plutarch, Alex. 52.3-7). See here David E. Hahm, “Kings and Constitutions: Hellenistic Theories,” in The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought, 457-76, here 459. 17. On these texts, see Francis Dvornik, Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy: Origins and Background (2 vols.; Dumbarton Oaks Studies 9; Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, 1966), 184-86; Rowe, “Aristotelian Constitutions,” 371-78. 18. Aristotle’s statement is a clear manifestation of the ancient discourse of the inadequacy of human law. See further Christine Hayes, What’s Divine About Divine Law? Early Perspectives (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), 62-66. 19. The concept of the king as “living law” can be traced to the “justification of monarchic rule . . . in the virtues of the monarch.” See Oswyn Murray, “Philosophy and Monarchy in the Hellenistic World,” in Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers (ed. Tessa Rajak et al.; Berkeley, CA: California University Press, 2007), 13-28, here 21.

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example of virtue and obedience to the laws, Cyrus transforms and molds his subjects in virtue and obedience: [H]e believed that he could in no way more effectively inspire a desire for the beautiful and the good than by endeavoring, as their sovereign, to set before his subjects a perfect model of virtue in his own person. For he thought he perceived that men are made better through even the written law, while the good ruler he regarded as a law with eyes for men (τὸν δὲ ἀγαθὸν ἄρχοντα βλέποντα νόμον ἀνθρώποις ἐνόμισεν) because he is able not only to give commandments but also to see the transgressor and punish him (8.1.21-22).

Thus Cyrus, the good king, effects the ethical transformation of his subjects through his internalizing of the laws. The king’s internalization of the laws results in “correctness of conduct on the part of his subordinates” (8.1.33). The statement that Cyrus regarded “the good ruler as a law with eyes” expresses the notion of the king as a living law who can legislate and apply the law justly. Identifying the king with the law does not, however, result in the abuse of the laws, for the king’s standard “is not his will but the law” (οὐκ ἡ ψυχὴ ἀλλ᾽ ὁ νόμος ἐστίν, 1.3.18) and his task is to “be at the same time the most righteous and law-abiding man in the world” (1.6.27).21 The most explicit texts that reflect upon the relationship between the king and law are the Neo-Pythagorean essays “On Kingship” (Περὶ Βασιλείας).22 Although the function and dating of these essays are

20. On the role of “virtue” in the Cyropaedia, see J. Joel Farber, “The Cyropaideia and Hellenistic Kingship,” The American Journal of Philology 100 (1979): 497-514, here 499-501. Cicero speaks of Xenophon’s work as an ideal portrait of the just ruler (Ad Q. Fr. 1.1.23). On the novelistic techniques of the Cyropaedia, see James Tatum, Xenophon’s Imperial Fiction: On the Education of Cyrus (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989). 21. Farber sees a contradiction between the portrayal of Cyrus as a living law and the notion (mentioned in 1.3.18) that true kingship consists in obedience to the laws (“The Cyropaideia and Hellenistic Kingship,” 502-5). Xenophon, however, never portrays Cyrus as transgressing or ignoring the laws. It is precisely his subservience to and embodiment of the laws that allows him, in fact, to function as a living law. With respect to this text and the Hellenistic notion of the king as a living law, Walbank rightly states: “Being the living mouthpiece of the law does not free [the king] from the obligation to observe the law” (“Monarchies and Monarchic Ideas,” 81). 22. These essays have been preserved in Johannes Stobaeus, Anthologium (5 vols.; ed. C. Wachsmuth and O. Hense; Berlin: Weidmann, 1958). For translation and comment, see Erwin R. Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” Yale Classical Studies 1 (1928): 55-102. For helpful commentary, see Bruno Centrone, “Platonism and Pythagoreanism in the Early Empire,” in The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought, 567-75. Also helpful is Smith, Christ the

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shrouded in mystery,23 significant for our purpose is the presentation of the good king as an animate law that produces harmony for the subjects who imitate the king.24 Thus, Archytas in his Περὶ νόμου καὶ δικαιοσύνης (“Concerning Law and Justice”) states: Laws are of two kinds, the animate law, which is the king (ἔμψυχος βασιλεύς), and the inanimate, the written law. So law is primary; for with reference to it the king is lawful (βασιλεὺς νόμιμος), the rulership is fitting, the ruled are free, and the whole community happy . . . . So it is proper for the better to rule, for the worse to be ruled, but for both to have efficiency . . . . The best ruler would be the one who is closest to the law; but he would do nothing in his own interest, but only for the sake of his subjects. 25

The claims can be viewed as a development of the ideas of Plato and Aristotle. The good king is the best man who rules in accordance with the laws, and his superior virtue enables him to function as an animate law to be imitated by his subjects. Similarly, in his On Kingship, Diotogenes notes: The most just man would be king, and the most lawful would be most just. For without justice no one would be king, and without law [there would be no] justice. For justice is in the law, and the law is the source of justice. But the king is Animate Law (νόμος ἔμψυχος), or is a legal ruler. So for this reason he is most just and most lawful.26

Therefore, since the ideal king is the most virtuous—in this case the most “just” and “lawful”—he is the actual embodiment of law. Through his internalization of the laws, the king reflects the gods’ harmony and thereby procures harmony for his subjects.27 Ideal King, 34-47; Bruno Blumenfeld, The Political Paul: Justice, Democracy and Kingship in a Hellenistic Framework (JSNTSup 201; London: Sheffield Academic, 2001), 189-274. 23. On the problems in dating, see Glenn F. Chesnut, “The Ruler and the Logos in Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Late Stoic Political Philosophy,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 2.16.2 (1978), 1310-32, here 1313-15. 24. The Greek text is derived from Holger Thesleff, The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period (Acta Academiae Aboensis 30.1; Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1965). I follow the translation of Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship”; but also see Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library: An Anthology of Ancient Writings Which Relate to Pythagoras and Pythagorean Philosophy (Grand Rapids: Phanes, 1987). 25. Thesleff, The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period, 33.8-18; Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” 59-60. 26. Thesleff, The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period, 71.18-23; Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” 65.

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Again, Diotogenes: Now the king bears the same relation to the state as God to the world; and the state is in the same ratio to the world as the king is to God. For the state, made as it is by a harmonizing together of many different elements, is an imitation of the order and harmony of the world, while the king who has an absolute rulership, and is himself Animate Law (αὐτὸς ὤν νόμος ἔμψυχος), has been metamorphosed into a deity among men.28

As the perfect embodiment of law, and as the one who functions as God to the state, the good king effects harmony for his subjects. The king establishes law and justice within himself through his imitation of the gods, and those who are ruled thereby imitate the king’s obedience to the laws, which results in the state’s harmony.29 In another fragment, Ecphantus states with respect to the lawobservant king and his subjects: “there is produced a common good . . . a sort of fine harmony and tuning of the mass together which results from their concordant obedience.”30 The sentiment is found in the Stoic Musonius Rufus: [I]t is of the greatest importance for the good king to be faultless and perfect in word and action, if indeed he is to be a living law (νόμον ἔμψυχον) as he seemed to the ancients, effecting good government and harmony, suppressing lawlessness and dissension, a true imitator of Zeus, and like him, father of his people (That Kings Also Should Study Philosophy 64.10-15).31

The virtuous king imitates Zeus, is an animate law, and thereby produces harmony for his subjects.32 The fact that Musonius refers to 27. Chesnut states this nicely: “The ruler’s task was to be in his own life the ensoulment of cosmic order, and thereby bring it down to earth, so that the earthly state might mirror the cosmic harmony” (“The Ruler and the Logos in Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Late Stoic Political Philosophy,” 1312). On Diotogenes, see Dvornik, Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy, 248-50. 28. Thesleff, The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period, 72.19-23; Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” 68. 29. Similarly, see Sthenidas: “The king must be a wise man, for so he will be a copy and imitator of the first God . . . . Without wisdom and understanding it is impossible to be either a king or ruler. Indeed he who is both king and wise will be a lawful imitator and servant of God” (Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” pp. 73-74). 30. Thesleff, The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period, 81.25-26; Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” 84. 31. For translation and text, see Cora E. Lutz, “M. Rufus, ‘The Roman Socrates,’” YCS 10 (1947): 3-147.

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the concept of the king as a “living law” as one used by “the ancients” which suggests the prevalence of the concept. Though I will discuss Jewish writings in the next section, it makes sense to treat here Philo’s depiction of Israel’s patriarchs as “living laws.”33 In his introduction to On Abraham, Philo divides the Torah into the particular written laws and the original unwritten laws (3-4). The latter are Israel’s patriarchs: “for in these men we have laws endowed with life and reason” (ἔμψυχοι καὶ λογικοὶ νόμοι; 5). The patriarchs are incarnated laws, and they thereby have a mimetic pedagogical function to show that “those who wish to live in accordance with the laws . . . have no difficult task” (5). Philo narrates Abraham’s life as one who was “himself a law and an unwritten statute” (275-76). It is no surprise, then, to find Philo narrating the lives of the patriarchs as ideal rulers who embody law for the purpose of transforming their subjects.34 In Philo’s On Joseph, the patriarch is the ideal statesman. Even in prison Joseph demonstrates his kingly nature by displaying “a wealth of virtue” that transforms the prison into “a house of correction” (80). Philo describes the ethical transformation of the prisoners: By setting before them his life of temperance and every virtue, like an original picture of skilled workmanship, he converted even those who seemed to be quite incurable, who as the long-standing distempers of their soul abated reproached themselves for their past and repented with such utterances as these: ‘Ah, where in old days was this great blessing which at first we failed to find? See, when it shines on us we behold as in a mirror our misbehavior and are ashamed’ (87).

Joseph serves a pedagogical function as his virtue creates “order in 32. See William Klassen, “The King as ‘Living Law’ with Particular Reference to Musonius Rufus,” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 14 (1985): 63-71. G. J. D. Aalders speculates that many Stoic authors also saw the ideal king, because of his superior virtue, as the embodiment of law (Political Thought in Hellenistic Times [Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1975], 27). 33. See W. Richardson, “The Philonic Patriarchs as Νόμος Ἔμψυχος,” in Studia Patristica: Papers Presented to the Second International Conference on Patristic Studies Held at Christ Church, Oxford, 1955 (ed. Kurt Aland and Frank L. Cross; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1957), 515-25; John Martens, “Nomos Empsychos in Philo and Clement of Alexandria,” in Hellenization Revisited: Shaping a Christian Response within the Greco-Roman World (ed. Wendy F. Helleman; Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994), 323-38. 34. See further Hayes, What’s Divine about Divine Law?, 121-24.

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disorder and concord where all was naturally discordant” (269). It is no surprise that after his brothers have observed him, they remark that he is not a man, but “God or the word or law of God” (ἀλλ᾽ ἢ θεὸς ἢ λόγος ἢ νόμος θεῖος; 174). But for Philo it is Moses who is the ideal king, indeed, the perfect example of the philosopher-king and “truly perfect ruler” (Life of Moses 2.2-3, 187).35 It is a king’s duty to command what is right and forbid what is wrong. But to command what should be done and to forbid what should not be done is the peculiar function of law; so that it follows at once that the king is a living law and the law is a just king (εἶναι τὸν μὲν βασιλέα νόμον ἔμψυχον, τὸν δὲ βασιλέα δίκαιον) (2.4-5).

It is Moses’ embodiment of the law—“the reasonable and living impersonation of the law” (νόμος ἔμψυχός τε καὶ λογικός)—that enables him to function as God’s legislator through the giving of written laws to Israel (1.162; cf. 2.10-11).36 Thus, the king as living law must be able to perform the main function of the law through righteous legislation.37 Again, Moses is a living law precisely so that others may imitate him and implant his image in their souls (1.158-59). Through imitating and obeying Moses, the living law, humanity is “led to a better life” (2.36) and attains internal harmony and order (2.48). Likewise for Plutarch (50–120 CE), in his To an Uneducated Ruler [Moralia 779D-782F], the good king is similar to animate law due to “reason endowed (ἔμψυχος) with life within him, always abiding with him and watching over him and never leaving his soul without its leadership” (780C).38 Plutarch states that the king shapes his character by the laws, so that “his subjects fit his pattern” (780B). The just king who obeys the laws becomes “an image which the blessed and the wise copy . . . modeling themselves after the most beautiful of all 35. On which, see Wayne A. Meeks, “Moses as God and King,” in Religions in Antiquity (ed. Jacob Neusner; Leiden: Brill, 1968), 354-71. 36. See Richardson, “The Philonic Patriarchs as Νόμος Ἔμψυχος,” 520. 37. So Centrone, “Platonism and Pythagoreanism in the Early Empire,” 566. 38. On Plutarch and kingship discourse, see Chesnut, “The Ruler and the Logos in Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Late Stoic Political Philosophy,” 1321-24; W. Jeffrey Tatum, “The Regal Image in Plutarch’s Lives,” JHS 116 (1996): 135-51; Hayes, What’s Divine about Divine Law?, 66-70.

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things” (781F-782A). This accomplishes the very purpose of the king, the subjects’ inculcation of virtue and obedience to the laws. The kings are the gods’ agents “for the care and preservation of humans” (780D), and these “gifts and blessings” are mediated through “the ruler whose work is the law” (νόμος δ᾽ ἄρχοντος ἔργον; 780E). The good king is equated with law, due not to his military might but as a result of his modeling the laws before his subjects. When the question is raised, “Who, then, shall rule the ruler?” the response is, “Law, the king of all (νόμος ὁ πάντων βασιλεύς), both mortals and immortals” (780C).39 The king is animate law only through his subservience and obedience to the law.40 Though the mention of law is absent, Plutarch describes the Golden Age of Numa’s reign as a period when his subjects saw: [A] shining example of virtue in the life of their ruler [and] they will of their own accord walk in wisdom’s ways, and unite with him in conforming themselves to a blameless and blessed life of friendship and mutual concord, attended by righteousness and temperance . . . he is most a king who can inculcate such a life and disposition in his subjects” (Life of Numa 20.8; cf. Virgil, Aeneid 6.809-35).

Dionysus of Halicarnassus praises the legislation of Romulus that produced peace and secured the “Romans’ harmony” (ἡ Ῥωμαίων ὁμόνοια; Roman Antiquities 2.11.2). The author of 1 Maccabees idealizes the Romans and their republican institutions (even if he misunderstands them slightly) as he admires how their rulers (consuls) procure harmony and unity: “They trust one man to rule over them (πιστεύουσιν ἑνὶ ἀνθρώπῳ ἄρχειν αὐτῶν) every year and to rule over the land; they all obey the one man, and there is no envy or jealousy 39. That the king as a “living law” was susceptible to abuse if the king did not submit himself to the laws is exemplified in Plutarch’s Alex. 52.3-4, where the sycophantic Anaxarchus cheers Alexander and ingratiates himself with the king through these words: “Here is Alexander, to whom the whole world is now looking; but he lies on the floor weeping like a slave, in fear of the law and the censure of men, unto whom he himself should be a law and a measure of justice, since he has conquered the right to rule and mastery, instead of submitting like a slave to the mastery of a vain opinion. Do you not know . . . that Zeus has Justice and Law seated beside him, in order that everything that is done by the master of the world may be lawful and just?” 40. See Chesnut, “The Ruler and the Logos in Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Late Stoic Political Philosophy,” 1323.

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(φθόνος οὐδὲ ζῆλος) among them” (1 Macc. 8:16). Virgil, in his Aeneid, praises Augustus as one who restores humanity back to the Golden Age of Saturn, a time when Saturn gave them laws that produced perfect peace and harmony (8.319-28).41 We have now examined enough texts to make some synthetic conclusions regarding the relationship between the good king and the law in Greek-Hellenistic kingship discourse.42 First, the sources agree that the ground for the ideal king’s rule is his superior virtue and obedience to the laws. His obedience to the laws results, second, in the king’s internalization of law such that he is law and in his very nature can be thought of as incarnate law. The ideal constitution is one in which the supremely virtuous ruler governs the people. Third, the king’s subjects are ethically transformed and made law-observant through their imitation of the royal living law. The king functions as a pattern for his subjects to imitate and as the means whereby their lawobedience is secured as they imitate their law-observant ruler. Fourth, the law-abiding king bestows benefits upon his subjects, foremost of which is harmony among the citizens. Israel’s Ideal King as a Living Law in the Old Testament The OT writings do not use the language of “living law” to describe Israel’s ideal king. Nevertheless, numerous texts speak of the good ruler as central to God’s purposes for Israel and as one who submits himself to the law, takes the lead in administering the covenant, and functions as the model Israelite for the people to imitate.43 Thus, the 41. Alan J. Thompson provides a helpful collection of primary sources that associate the ideal ruler with harmony and concord (though not necessarily by means of obedience to the laws!) (One Lord, One People: The Unity of the Church in Acts in Its Literary Setting [LNTS 359; London: T & T Clark, 2008], 19-29). 42. In Latin texts, one might also examine Cicero’s Republic, where the concept of the king as living law is also found (e.g., 1.12; 1.52; 2.51; 3.2). See Lester Kruger Born, “Animate Law in the Republic and the Laws of Cicero,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 64 (1933): 128-37; Chesnut, “The Ruler and the Logos in Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Late Stoic Political Philosophy,” 1326. See also Livy’s recounting of Romulus’ unification of the people through law: “When Romulus had duly attended to the worship of the gods, he called the multitude together and gave them the rules of the law, since nothing else but law could unite them into a single body politic. But these, he was persuaded, would only appear binding in the eyes of a rustic people in case he should invest his own person with majesty, by adopting emblems of authority” (Livy 1:8).

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concept of Israel’s king functioning like a living law is present in the OT writings.44 This aspect of Israel’s ideal king is expressed most clearly in Deuteronomy’s “Law of the King” (17:14-20),45 the OT’s only law concerning kingship, where the task for Israel’s ruler is that he write out, read, and obey the Torah: When he has taken the throne of his kingdom, he shall write out a copy of this law for himself, from the priests who are Levites, into a book. It shall remain with him and he shall read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, diligently observing all the words of this law and these statutes, neither exalting himself above other members of the community nor turning aside from the commandment, either to the right or to the left so that he and his descendants may reign over his kingdom in Israel (17:18-20).

The Septuagint offers these stipulations not as case law but as a specific commandment to Israel to “appoint over yourself a ruler” (καθιστῶν καταστήσεις ἐπὶ σεαυτὸν ἄρχοντα) whom the Lord God has chosen for them.46 Whereas the king is chosen by God, must be an Israelite, and must not acquire many horses, wives, silver and gold (vv. 15-17), the only proactive stipulation laid upon the king is diligent reading and observing of the law.47 The tasks of writing out the law and daily 43. Helpful here is Gerald Eddie Gerbrandt, Kingship according to the Deuteronomistic History (SBLDS 87; Atlanta: Scholars, 1986), esp. 108-13. Gerbrandt argues that the OT is primarily pro-monarchic and that Israel’s fault is not in asking for a king but in asking for a king like the nations (1 Sam. 8:7). On the controverted nature of God’s purposes and monarchy in Israel, see especially Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Berlin: Georg Reimer; 1883), 259-68; Martin Noth, The Deuteronomistic History (trans. H. G. M. Williamson; JSOTSup 15; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1981); Franz Crüsemann, Der Widerstand gegen das Königtum: Die antiköniglichen Texte des Alten Testaments und der Kampf um den frühen israelitischen Staat (WMANT 49; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978). 44. See Erwin R. Goodenough, “Kingship in Early Israel,” JBL 48 (1929): 169-205. 45. On the relationship between the “law of the king” and the Deuteronomistic history as well as its ancient Near Eastern context, see J. G. McConville, “King and Messiah in Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History,” in King and Messiah in Israel and the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar (ed. John Day; JSOTSup 270; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 271-95. 46. Horbury suggests that Deut. 17:14-20 should be added to the poetic seams in the Pentateuch that encourage an eschatological anticipation of a Davidic king (Gen. 49:1-12; Num. 23:21-23; Deut. 33:4-5) (Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 48-49). 47. For detailed analyses of Deuteronomy’s “law of the king,” see Gerbrandt, Kingship according to the Deuteronomistic History, 103-16; Jamie A. Grant, The King as Exemplar: The Function of Deuteronomy’s Kingship Law in the Shaping of the Book of Psalms (Academia Biblica 17; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), 189-222. In the “Statutes of the King” in the Temple Scroll (11QTemple

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reading of it function as a means for the king’s internalization of the Torah. This results in the king becoming “fully identified with God’s law.”48 In commenting on the text, Philo has the king exclaim: Why did I write [the Law] out? For no other reason but that by writing these things out I might copy them over into my soul and stamp their divine and indelible characters upon my mind. Other kings indeed have staves for their scepters, but my scepter is the book of Deuteronomy, unrivalled for its glory and fame, a symbol of the irreproachable rulership which is copied after the archetype, the kingly rule of God (Spec. 4.160ff).49

The king is not exalted above the law but is, rather, an intensified version of the Torah-obedience expected of all Israelites (e.g., Deut. 6:4-9; 31:11-12).50 The king takes the lead in modeling and internalizing the Torah-obedience God demands from the people, a notion not far off from the concept of the king as a living law.51 The OT writings often evaluate Israel’s kings and rulers according to Deuteronomy’s standard of internalization of the Torah. For example, Joshua’s task is the same as that in Deut. 17:18-20, namely to meditate upon and observe the Torah.52 In Josh. 1:1-9, God promises to be with Joshua and to give the land to the people, provided that he “not turn from [the law] to the right or the left” (1:7; cf. Deut. 17:20) and that he “meditate on it day and night” (1:8).53 As Joshua obeys the Torah, so he is worthy of Israel’s obedience, such that whoever disobeys him is worthy of death (1:16-18).54 In the covenant renewal ceremony, in 56:12–59:21), the king is severely subordinated to the priests, so much so that the priests are the ones who write out a copy of the law instead of the king. See Kenneth E. Pomykala, The Davidic Dynasty Tradition in Early Judaism: Its History and Significance for Messianism (Society of Biblical Literature Early Judaism and its Literature 7; Atlanta: Scholars, 1995), 233-37. 48. Goodenough, “Kingship in Early Israel,” 202. 49. Grant, The King as Exemplar, 207. 50. Nowhere does Deuteronomy speak of the people as writing out the Torah. 51. See Patrick D. Miller, “Kingship, Torah Obedience and Prayer,” in Neue Wege der Psalmenforschung (ed. K. Seybold and E. Zenger; Freiburg: Herder, 1995), 127-42, here 130; S. Dean McBride, “Polity of the Covenant People: The Book of Deuteronomy,” Int 41 (1987): 229-44, here 241. On the king as the representative of the people before God, see Sigmund Mowinckel, He That Cometh (trans. G. W. Anderson; New York/Nashville: Abingdon, 1951), 69-71. 52. On Joshua as a prototype of Israel’s ideal king, see Richard D. Nelson, “Josiah in the Book of Joshua,” JBL 100 (1981): 531-40; J. R. Porter, “The Succession of Joshua,” in Proclamation and Presence (ed. J. R. Porter and J. I. Durham; London: SCM, 1970), 102-32; Geo Widengren, “King and Covenant,” Journal of Semitic Studies 2 (1957): 1-32, here 13-16. 53. Widengren, “King and Covenant,” 14. 54. Nelson, “Josiah in the Book of Joshua,” 532.

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the presence of everyone, “Joshua wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses” (8:32).55 He reads the entirety of the law before all Israel (8:35), demonstrating that his primary royal function is to lead them in Torah-obedience.56 Some of his final words are taken from Deuteronomy 17 as he calls Israel to “observe and do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right nor the left” (23:6; cf. Deut. 17:20). The only king who is described, like Joshua, as not “turning aside to the right or the left” from the law is Josiah. For this reason, it is difficult to deny that Josiah is Israel’s paradigmatic ideal king. The statement that Josiah “walked in all the ways of his father David” (2 Kgs. 22:2) indicates that King David is associated with obedience to the law.57 That Josiah’s positive evaluation is due to his regard for the law is evident in that it occurs within the context of his discovery and implementation of the law (2 Kgs. 22:3-20).58 The primary task of the king is demonstrated in Josiah’s renewal of the covenant as he assembles Israel’s elders and implements obedience to the law: He read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord. The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord, keeping his commandments, his decrees, and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. All the people joined in the covenant (2 Kgs. 23:2b-3).

In his assembling the people, reading the law, and leading the people in making the covenant, Josiah implements the Torah among his subjects.59 For this reason, the narrator declares that “before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him” (2 Kgs. 23:25; cf. 1 Kgs. 2:3; 3:6; 8:58; 55. Gerbrandt, Kingship according to the Deuteronomistic History, 120. 56. Porter argues that the portrait of a royal Joshua coheres with the Deuteronomist’s “central preoccupation with the responsibility of the Israelite king for the maintenance of the Covenant and thus for the whole religious and social wellbeing of the nation” (“The Succession of Joshua,” 132). 57. Nelson, “Josiah in the Book of Joshua,” 534. 58. So Gerbrandt, Kingship according to the Deuteronomistic History, 49-50. 59. Widengren, “King and Covenant,” 3-4.

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9:4-5).60 This description of Josiah obeying the law of Moses “with all his heart and all his soul and all his might” derives from Deut. 6:5, where all of Israel is instructed how to love the Lord.61 Josiah is, then, the model Israelite as demonstrated through his obedience to the law. The Chronicler does not depart from this model of evaluating Israel’s kings according to their taking the lead in obedience to the Torah (1 Chron. 22:13; 28:7; 2 Chron. 6:16; 14:4; 33:8). David is held up as the model king who walked before the Lord and did all that the Lord commanded through his laws and ordinances (2 Chron. 7:17-18).62 The depiction of the Torah-observant kings is inextricably related to the harmonious and unified people of God.63 The depiction of Israel’s king as one who loves the Torah and has established it within himself is set forth in the Psalter, where Torah psalms follow Kingship psalms (Pss. 1–2; 18–21; 118–119).64 The editorial placement of the Torah psalms after Kingship psalms has the effect of portraying the king as the exemplary follower of Torah.65 The links between Psalms 1 and 2 and their function as an introduction to the Psalter are well known.66 The combination of Psalm 1, which speaks of God’s blessing upon those whose “delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law they meditate day and night” (Ps. 1:2), and Psalm 2, which speaks of God’s anointed (2:2, 6-7), is reminiscent of the king in Deuteronomy 17, whose task is to mediate upon the Torah. It is no 60. This is stated simply by Gerbrandt, Kingship according to the Deuteronomistic History, 194: “In Israel the king was expected to lead the people in covenant obedience and loyalty to Yahweh. Then the king and the people could trust Yahweh and rely upon him to bless them and deliver them from their enemies as they lived in the land of milk and honey.” 61. Gerbrandt, Kingship according to the Deuteronomistic History, 54-55. Aubrey R. Johnson also states: “In the ultimate, therefore, the righteousness of the nation is dependent upon the righteousness of the king. . . . Thus the king is in a very real sense the ‘shield’ of his people; and his first care must be the administration of justice, ensuring obedience to the formal definitions of righteousness which are enshrined in Yahweh’s laws” (Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel [Cardiff: University of Wales, 1967], 137). 62. Scott W. Hahn, The Kingdom of God as Liturgical Empire: A Theological Commentary on 1–2 Chronicles (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), 72. 63. The phrase “all Israel” occurs close to forty times throughout the two-volume work. See also the unity of the people of God in their support of the Davidic monarchy (1 Chron. 11–13). 64. Grant, The King as Exemplar; Miller, “Kingship, Torah Obedience and Prayer,” 127-42. 65. Grant, The King as Exemplar, 190. 66. Gerald H. Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter (SBLDS 76; Chico, CA: Scholars, 1985), 204-7; James L. Mays, The Lord Reigns: A Theological Handbook to the Psalms (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 132-34.

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surprise, then, that the king is the speaker of the Torah psalms, the model of the Psalm 1 figure who delights in the law.67 The king is the model Israelite who delights in, teaches, and internalizes the Torah.68 Thus, the king of Psalm 118 gives voice in Psalm 119 (LXX Psalm 118) to his “delight” in the law (vv. 35, 47), his “meditation” upon the law (vv. 15, 23, 27), and his Torah blamelessness (vv. 1, 80).69 The king’s declarations of love for the law show how he has internalized the law within himself (vv. 47-48, 97, 113, 119, 127).70 King David declares: “I delight to do your will, O my God, your law is within my heart” (Ps. 40:8 [LXX 39:9]; cf. Ps. 1:2).71 The statement speaks of one who has internalized the law within his very person. The speaker of Psalm 18, a royal psalm of David, exclaims: “I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his ordinances were before me, and his statutes I did not put away from me” (vv. 21-22 [LXX 17:22-23]). The king’s delight in the Torah is emphatic in Psalm 19 (another Davidic psalm) and reminiscent of Psalm 1’s blessing upon the one who delights in the Torah: “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul, the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple . . . more to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb” (vv. 7, 10 [LXX 18:8, 11]).72 The king embodies the Torah-obedience demanded of every Israelite. In Psalms 15 and 24 the king is portrayed as the embodiment of Psalm 1’s righteous one as he delights in the Torah and pronounces access to God’s presence for those who “walk blamelessly” (15:2 [LXX 14:2]).73 Throughout the Psalter, this combination of kingship with Torah-obedience testifies to 67. Patrick D. Miller, “The Beginning of the Psalter,” in The Shape and Shaping of the Psalter (ed. J. Clinton McCann; JSOTSup 159; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 83-92, here 91. 68. So Miller, “The Beginning of the Psalter,” 86-88. 69. On Psalm 118 as a royal psalm, see John H. Eaton, Kingship and Psalms (Studies in Biblical Theology 32; London: SCM, 1976), 61-63. 70. Mays, The Lord Reigns, 125. 71. The importance of the psalms’ titles lies not least in their witness to how they were interpreted. See Brevard S. Childs, “Psalm Titles and Midrashic Exegesis,” JSS 16 (1971): 137-50. 72. On the relationship between Psalms 1 and 19 and the ramifications of their editorial placement for the depiction of Israel’s king as Torah-observant, see Miller, “Kingship, Torah Obedience and Prayer,” 127-28; Grant, The King as Exemplar, 101. 73. Miller, “Kingship, Torah Obedience and Prayer,” 128-32.

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God’s intent to rule the people through a righteous lover and observer of God’s law, through one who has, as Israel’s representative, internalized the Torah within himself.74 Christ the Living Law in Paul The preceding foray into ancient kingship discourse prepares us for Paul’s royal messianic figure, who: (a) functions as Israel’s ideal king and like a “living law” embodies the Torah, reconfigured around Lev. 19:18, within his own life and self-giving death on the cross and thereby brings the law to its surprising completion; (b) implements and interprets the Torah for his subjects through his authoritative teaching; and (c) secures the internal harmony of the community through providing a royal pattern for his subjects to imitate. For Paul, the Torah is refracted through the lens of the Jesus-tradition and the narrative configuration of the king who embodied Lev. 19:18—“you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no doubt that Leviticus 19 exerted enormous influence upon the ethical reflection of both Second Temple Jews and early Christians.75 The fact that the author of Pseudo-Phocylides viewed Leviticus 19 as something of a summary of the entire Torah, that Jesus’ teaching in the Lukan Sermon on the Plain (6:27-42) frequently interprets and interacts with Leviticus 19, and that it is prevalent in other early Christian compositions such as James (e.g., 2:8) and the Didache (e.g., 1:2), among other factors, suggests that Leviticus 19 could be seen as epitomizing the entire Torah.76 There is, then, as we will see, both continuity and discontinuity between “the law of Christ” and “the law of Moses.”77 Paul sees the Messiah’s 74. Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms, 141-42. 75. Dale B. Allison Jr., Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010), 352-53. 76. Allison Jr., Constructing Jesus, 351-74. 77. As will be obvious in my exegetical treatment of the phrase “the law of Christ,” there is continuity with the law of Moses, and I often get at this by stressing how Christ embodies and brings the Torah to completion through his love of neighbor. But there is also discontinuity in that Christ’s embodiment of Torah has come through his surprising self-giving death on the cross, such that Christ reconfigured the Torah and now becomes the primary authoritative focal point for the Christian. For a nuanced discussion of “the law of Christ” that suggests that Paul sees the phrase as continuous with the law of Moses, in part due to the relationship between Gal. 6:2 and 5:13-14

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loving, sacrificial death on the cross as supremely embodying the love of neighbor called for by Torah, and thereby bringing Torah to its completion. But the Messiah does so in a surprising cruciform manner that both reconfigures the Torah and sets forth Christ now as the supreme focal point of imitation for Christians. Galatians 5:14 and 6:2 Paul’s messianic interpretation of Scripture in Gal. 3:10-18, which trades upon Paul’s assumption that Jesus is the Davidic Messiah and the recipient of the promises made to Abraham’s seed, lends some plausibility to his activation of kingship discourse when he combines “law” and “Christ” in his command: “bear one another’s burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ” (ἀναπληρώσετε τὸν νόμον τοῦ Χριστοῦ; Gal. 6:2).78 But to what does this “law of Christ” refer? Many have supposed that, due to the antithetical opposition between “Christ” and “Torah” that permeates Galatians, the phrase must either exclude a reference to the Mosaic Law or that it was coined in an ironic, polemical manner and can have little importance for Paul’s theology.79 But the reader who is familiar with the OT script of Israel’s ideal king as the preeminent Torah lover, or the notion in Hellenistic writings of the king as a living law, may question whether the combination of “law” and “Christ” is so strange. Crucial to understanding “the law of Christ” is Gal. 5:14: “for the but with some significant qualifications and distinctions, see E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law and the Jewish People (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1983), 93-105. 78. See, for example, Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, 138-42; N. T. Wright, “Messiahship in Galatians?” in Galatians and Christian Theology (ed. Mark W. Elliott; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 3-23; Donald Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 85-87. 79. Sam K. Williams refers to the expression as “an ironic Pauline formulation” (Galatians [ANTC; Nashville: Abingdon, 1997], 155). Hans Dieter Betz says that it is “probable that Paul took over the notion from the opponents” and that “if the concept . . . were fundamental to Paul’s theology, Paul would have introduced it at the beginning of the letter and the concept would play a more prominent role in his other letters” (Galatians [Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979], 300-301). E. Bammel states that the expression was “coined in an almost playful manner” (“Νόμος Χριστοῦ,” in Studia Evangelica Vol. III [ed. F. L. Cross; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1964], 120-28, here 128). Michael Winger says the phrase is “more likely to mislead than to instruct” (“The Law of Christ,” NTS 46 [2000]: 537-46, here 545). Heikki Räisänen refers to the phrase as “an afterthought” (Paul and the Law [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986], 79).

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entire law has been fulfilled in this one word, ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (ὁ γὰρ πᾶς νόμος ἐν ἑνὶ λόγῳ πεπλήρωται, ἐν τῷ ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον σου ὡς σεαυτόν). The similarities between Gal. 5:14 and 6:2 are readily discernible and establish that the referent of τὸν νόμον τοῦ Χριστοῦ cannot entirely exclude the Torah, even if Christ reconfigures Torah and the love-commandment through his cruciform death.80 Rarely noted, and key to understanding both verses, however, is the relationship between the perfect passive πληρόω in 5:14 and the future active compound ἀναπληρόω in 6:2. Paul’s claim that the whole law “has been fulfilled” or “brought to completion” (πεπλήρωται) is routinely assimilated to his statement in Rom. 13:9 that all the commandments “are summed up” (ανακεφαλαιοῦται) in Lev. 19:18.81 Scholars often assume, then, that 5:14 functions gnomically as a timeless maxim for the Galatians’ behavior.82 This is certainly possible, but I suggest certain factors suggest another interpretation. The semantic weight of πληρόω in Paul, for example, is decidedly filled with concepts of “fulfilling completely” or “bringing to completion,”83 and Paul often has eschatological overtones of carrying out God’s covenantal purposes (see Gal. 4:4).84 Further, in Paul’s most explicit comment on the law’s fulfillment, where he speaks positively of “the law of the Spirit of life in Messiah Jesus” (Rom. 8:2), he declares that the law is brought to completion through the agency of “his own 80. See John Barclay, Obeying the Truth, 131-32; E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 96-98; James W. Thompson, Moral Formation according to Paul: The Context and Coherence of Pauline Ethics (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), 126-27; Wilson, “The Law of Christ and the Law of Moses,” 123-24. See the sage comments of Horrell, however, who offers a nuanced warning against too closely identifying the law of Christ with the law of Moses and suggests that there are “good reasons to think that the phrase ‘the law of Christ’ may be employed by Paul to refer to something distinctive, to refer to a principle or law grounded or originating in Christ” (Solidarity and Difference, 227-32, here 228). 81. There is, in fact, no parallel in Paul for the verb πληρόω meaning “to summarize” or “to sum up.” So rightly Michael Thompson, Clothed with Christ: The Example and Teaching of Jesus in Romans 12.1–15.13 (JSNTSup 59; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 128. On v.18 as restating and summarizing the preceding prohibitions in Leviticus 19, see Thompson, Moral Formation according to Paul, 160. 82. So Betz, Galatians, 275; Victor Paul Furnish, The Love Command in the New Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972), 96-97. 83. E.g., Rom. 15:19; 2 Cor. 10:6; Phil. 2:2; 4:19. 84. With respect to Gal. 5:14, Barclay states that πεπλήρωται bears the sense of “the total realization of God’s will in line with the eschatological fullness of time in the coming of Christ” (Obeying the Truth, 140). More broadly, see C. F. D. Moule, “Fulfilment Words in the New Testament: Use and Abuse,” NTS 14 (1967-68): 293-320; Chester, “The ‘Law of Christ’ and the ‘Law of the Spirit’,” 596-97.

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son” (8:3): “so that the requirement of the law might be brought to completion in us” (ἵνα τὸ δικαίωμα τοῦ νόμου πληρωθῇ ἐν ἡμῖν; 8:4a; cf. 13:9, 11; Gal. 6:2). In other words, in Rom. 8:2-4 the law is brought to completion for humanity through the agency and activity of the Son precisely because humanity could not fulfill it as both humanity and Torah were implicated in the flesh.85 It may also be that here Paul is referring to what Christ did to bring the Torah to completion through his embodiment of the Torah’s demand to love neighbor as oneself, and that this act of bringing the Torah to completion is the foundation for the Galatians to “through love, serve one another” (5:13b).86 If this is the case, then Paul depicts Christ as conforming his character in the closest possible manner to the law and thereby transforming himself into a “living law.” It is for this reason, I suggest, that Paul uses the genitive qualifier τοῦ Χριστοῦ with τὸν νόμον in order to draw attention to Christ as the focal point of Torah, in that he embodies Israel’s law even as he reconfigures it through his cruciform pattern of love for neighbor.87 Paul uses, then, in Gal. 5:14 the perfect passive form of πληρόω in order to front-ground a past event, namely, an event that has occurred with respect to the law. One observes, for example, that Paul’s statement regarding the fulfillment of the law in 5:14 functions as the ground for the exhortation to the Galatians to “serve one another through love” (5:13b).88 Paul’s typical method is to ground the church’s 85. On the importance of Rom. 8:3-4 for understanding Gal. 5:14 and 6:2, see Ben Witherington III, Grace in Galatia: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 382-83; Chester, “The ‘Law of Christ’ and the ‘Law of the Spirit,’” 582-89. 86. See also Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians (WBC 41; Dallas: Word, 1990), 243; J. Louis Martyn, Galatians (AB 33A; New York: Doubleday, 1997), 486-91. James D. G. Dunn, “‘The Law of Faith,’ ‘The Law of the Spirit,’ and ‘The Law of Christ’” in Theology and Ethics in Paul and His Interpreters: Essays in Honor of Victor Paul Furnish (ed. Eugene H. Levering Jr. and Jerry L. Sumney; Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 62-82, here 76. Chester states: “It is, then, a law that is characterized and controlled by Christ. It is equally a law that is characterized and controlled by the Spirit. Thus it is a law to be lived out in Christ, and in the freedom and through the power of the Spirit. It belongs integrally, therefore, to Paul’s vision of what is altogether new and distinctive about the messianic age now set in motion” (“The ‘Law of Christ’ and the ‘Law of the Spirit,’” 601). 87. I grant that my explanation does not fit neatly into a clean particular “category” of the genitive case, yet I remind my readers that the genitive modifier functions simply to draw some type of restrictive, adjectival relationship with its head noun and that Paul can employ the genitive in a wide variety of manners. 88. For the importance of this theme for understanding the entire letter, see Brigitte Kahl, Galatians Re-Imagined: Reading with the Eyes of the Vanquished (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), 269-72.

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ethical capacity, including loving one another, in the eschatological work of Christ and the Spirit.89 We see this directly in that Paul’s statement that the Galatians “have been called for freedom” (5:13a) is the prior result of the liberating act of Christ: “Christ has set us free for freedom” (5:1a).90 Christ’s liberation of his people functions as the ground, then, for his peoples’ loving service of each other. Thus, in 5:14 Paul refers to what Christ has done to fulfill the law, namely, to provide the perfect pattern and embodiment of love for neighbor as demanded by Lev. 19:18. This is borne out through the epistle where Paul characterizes Christ as the paradigmatic exemplar and embodiment of the Torah, specifically the “one word” of Lev. 19:18: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Christ is portrayed as a living law whose very nature is a reflection of Lev. 19:18. In Gal. 2:19-20 Paul refers to the Christ as “the Son of God, the one who loved me and handed himself over on my behalf.”.91 Paul indicates the prominence of this theme of the Messiah’s self-giving love for his entire epistle in his initial statement about Christ “who gave himself for our sins, so that he might rescue us from this present evil age” (1:4a). Both statements refer to Christ’s self-giving death on the cross for the rescue of humanity. The primary activity of Christ in Galatians, in fact, is this obedience to God expressed in his vicarious giving of himself over to death for the redemption and liberation of humanity (see also 3:1, 13-14; 4:4-5; 5:1).92 If Paul thinks of Christ as the embodiment of the love called for by Lev. 19:18, then the implied subject of the perfect passive πεπλήρωται is almost certainly Christ. Through his life and self-giving death, Christ functions like a living law by perfectly embodying the one word of Lev. 19:18, and thereby bringing to completion the entirety of the Torah.93 Thus, it is now the pattern of this Messiah that functions as 89. So Phil. 2:1-13; 1 Cor. 11:1; 2 Cor. 8:9; Rom. 15:1-9; 1 Thess. 1:6. 90. See Martyn, Galatians, 489-90. 91. Christ’s redemptive love for his people and its relationship to ethics in Galatians is nicely set out by Richard B. Hays, “Christology and Ethics in Galatians: The Law of Christ,” CBQ 49 (1987): 268-90. 92. See Hays, “Christology and Ethics in Galatians,” 277; idem, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11 (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 163-83. More broadly in Paul, see Michael J. Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 57-63.

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the authoritative, focal point for Christians such that they conform themselves to and imitate his character and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. Like an ideal king whose law-observance secures the lawful obedience of his subjects, Christ’s bringing the Torah to completion through the embodiment of love for neighbor is the foundation, then, for his command to “bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill (ἀναπληρώσετε) the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). In other words, Christ’s act of embodying the Torah provides the empowerment for the Galatians to fulfill the law of Christ. As Christ has brought the law to fulfillment in his self-giving death, so the Galatians are to recapitulate Christ’s act through neighbor-love and bearing other’s burdens. The construction τὸν νόμον τοῦ Χριστοῦ may, then, be a rhetorical shorthand way of saying “the Torah as it has been embodied by Christ,” and this interpretation fits nicely with the notion of the king as an animate law.94 But if Christ is a living law who conforms his character to the law and internalizes it, we are still left to ask: how does the royal living law enable the peoples’ obedience and law-observance? Israel’s prophets had looked forward to a time when it would be God who would plant God’s law within the heart of the people, thereby enabling the people to obey the Torah (e.g., Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:24-28; cf. Deut. 30:6, 8). What is needed is the very presence of God to effect a transformation of the people so that they can obey the law. Thus, as we have seen, the task of Israel’s ideal king, who is related to Yahweh as God’s son and God’s anointed one (e.g., 1 Sam. 16:13; 2 Sam. 7:12-14; Pss. 2:6-8; 89:20-38 [LXX 88:21-29]) is to internalize Torah within himself as the ideal Israelite, and thus the king’s presence somehow stimulates and enables the peoples’ obedience. Likewise, in the Greco-Roman texts examined above it is the virtuous king’s very presence that enables the 93. Similar here is Martyn, Galatians, 489. 94. Barclay defines it as “the law as redefined and fulfilled by Christ in love” (Obeying the Truth, 134). On Paul’s use of short formulas to evoke larger concepts, see Margaret M. Mitchell, “Rhetorical Shorthand in Pauline Argumentation: The Functions of ‘the Gospel’ in the Corinthian Correspondence,” in Gospel in Paul: Studies on Corinthians, Galatians and Romans for Richard N. Longenecker (ed. L. Ann Jervis and Peter Richardson; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), 63-88.

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people to obey the laws. It is the “shining example” of King Numa’s life that stimulates the people to virtue (Plutarch, Life of Numa 20.1-8); Philo portrays Joseph’s virtuous life as “an original picture of skilled workmanship” that when “it shines on us we behold as in a mirror our misbehavior and are ashamed” (Life of Joseph 87); and Xenophon speaks of the good leader who shapes the will of his people by his presence: “But if at the sight of him they bestir themselves, and a spirit of determination and rivalry and eagerness to excel falls on every workman, then I should say: this man has a touch of the kingly nature in him” (Oecemenicus 21.9-10).95 Thus, it was the very presence of the virtuous, law-observant king that was thought to inculcate lawobservance within his subjects.96 And here we immediately note how Paul speaks of the Galatians’ transformed behavior, including love for others, as deriving from their union with Christ, whose very presence, now shared intrinsically and internally with his people, transforms the behavior of his subjects and enables them to obey the law of Christ. For those who are “in Christ Jesus” (ἐν γὰρ Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ) it is “faith empowered (ἐνεργουμένη) through love” that “has strength” (ἰσχύει) to empower the Galatians’ behavior (5:6).97 The language of power in this statement draws attention to their ethical transformation to love by virtue of their incorporation “in Christ Jesus.” The Galatians are to use the freedom bestowed upon them by Christ (5:1) not for their own benefit but to “serve one another through love” (5:13b). Love (5:22) is the first “fruit of the Spirit” listed that characterizes “those who belong to Christ” (οἱ δὲ τοῦ Χριστοῦ; 5:24a). Paul declares that they have been “clothed with Christ” (Χριστὸν ἐνεδύσασθε; 3:27), “are one in Christ Jesus” (ὑμεῖς εἷς ἐστε ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ; 3:28b), “belong to Christ” (ὑμεῖς Χριστοῦ; 3:29a), and that they saw “Jesus Christ publicly portrayed as crucified before 95. I am indebted to Julien C. H. Smith’s response to my presentation of an earlier version of this chapter at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting (Baltimore, 2013) for the Paul J. Achtemeier Award, in which he pointed me to this text. 96. For further expansion of this point and more texts that depict the king transforming his people by his presence, see the excellent discussion provided by Smith, Christ the Ideal King, 19-89. 97. On the discourse of power present in Gal. 5:5-6, see Hung-Sik Choi, “PISTIS in Galatians 5:5-6: Neglected Evidence for the Faithfulness of Christ,” JBL 124 (2005): 467-90, here 482-89.

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their eyes” (οἷς κατ᾽ ὀφθαλμοὺς Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς προεγράφη ἐσταυρωμένος; 3:1b). Paul states that he is in labor “until Christ be formed in you” (μέχρις οὗ μορφωθῇ Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν; 4:19b).98 He speaks of himself as “crucified with Christ” (Χριστῷ συνεσταύρωμαι; 2:19) and that “Christ lives in me” (ζῇ δὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ Χριστός; 2:20). Participation in the person and pattern of Christ supports the notion that to “fulfill the law of Christ” (6:2) is to reenact the same pattern of Christ’s fulfillment of Torah in his self-giving love for others (5:14), and that the empowerment to do so derives not only from Christ’s providing the perfect paradigm and embodiment of neighbor-love but also by means of uniting his people to himself and sharing his transformative presence with them such that they are incorporated into his cruciform pattern of love for the other.99 Thus, in 1 Cor. 9:22, the only other instance in which a similar phrase is used, Paul refers to himself as “not being without God’s law but in the law of Christ” (ἔννομος Χριστοῦ),100 so that the preposition ἐν may be seen as speaking to incorporation into Christ’s self-giving pattern of cruciform love for neighbor.101 Although Paul does not define or expand upon the meaning of “in the law of Christ” in 1 Cor. 9:21,102 several brief observations about his characterization of Christ and his ethical significance for Christians 98. Gordon D. Fee rightly states that “the christological dimension of this phrase [the law of Christ] is considerable indeed and is related in concept to Christ’s being ‘formed’ in them (4:19)” (Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007], 231-32). 99. Further, it is striking that in 2 Corinthians 3–4, we find: (a) Paul articulating a distinction between the Mosaic covenant as written on stone tables and the Corinthians who are an ἐπιστολὴ Χριστοῦ, a letter that has been written by the Spirit of the living God on fleshly hearts (πνεύματι θεοῦ ζῶντος; 2 Cor. 3:3); (b) an emphasis on seeing “the Lord who is the spirit” (ὁ δὲ κύριος τὸ πνεῦμα ἐστιν; 3:17) and “the glory of the Lord” (τὴν δόξαν κυρίου; 3:18) that results in the ontological and noetic transformation of the Corinthians, an action that is further described as beholding “the glory of the Messiah who is the image of God” and looking upon “the face of Messiah Jesus” (ἐν προσώπῳ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ; 4:4, 6); (c) Paul speaking of the way in which the vision takes place is by the Corinthians gazing upon the ministry of Paul and his companions, who carry about the death, life, and faithfulness of Jesus (4:7-15). 100. C. H. Dodd pointed to the distinction between “the law of Christ” and “the law of God” to suggest that the two could not be entirely equated (Gospel and Law: The Relation of Faith and Ethics in Early Christianity [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951], 64-83). 101. A point emphasized by David G. Horrell in his response to my presentation of an earlier version of this chapter at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting (Baltimore, 2013) for the Paul J. Achtemeier Award. See also Horrell, Solidarity and Difference, 229-30. 102. Chester even states: “There is no indication, however, of what the content of this ‘law of Christ’ is here in 1 Corinthians 9” (“The ‘Law of Christ’ and the ‘Law of the Spirit,’” 592).

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will help confirm the argument that he views Christ as a living law whose embodiment of Lev. 19:18 brings the Torah to completion even as Paul reconfigures it around Christ’s self-giving death. First, the selfgiving character of Jesus, particularly his death on the cross, functions throughout 1 Corinthians 8–10 as the primary ethical exemplar that shapes, or should shape, the behavior of the Corinthians.103 The Corinthians must restrict their authority for the so-called weaker brother “for whom the Messiah died” (δι᾽ ὃν Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν; 8:11). Christ so identifies with the weak that to sin against a weaker brother is to “sin against Christ” (εἰς Χριστὸν ἁμαρτάνετε; 8:12). Paul’s apostolic exemplum in 1 Corinthians 9, as interpreters have emphasized, centers upon his refusal to make use of his rights, thereby embracing social shame (and perhaps even poverty through economic self-abasement) so that he might offer the gospel free of charge (9:18; cf. 4:8-13).104 This self-lowering and embrace of social shame holds up to the Corinthians a model of imitating Christ, who did not seek to please himself (10:33–11:1) and thereby calls them to restrict their freedom and rights for the good of their weaker brothers and sisters. This is of one accord with the context within which one finds the phrase “in the law of Christ” (9:22) as Paul declares, “even though I am free from all, I enslave myself to all (πᾶσιν ἐμαυτὸν ἐδούλωσα) so that I may win many” (9:19). Seyoon Kim, among others, has rightly noted the resonances with Jesus’ own teaching about his impending death: “whoever desires to be first among you, let him become slave of all” (ἔσται πάντων δοῦλος; Mark 10:44).105 Paul’s missionary adaptability, then, most likely refers to Paul as an ideal guest who refuses his rights in order to share open commensality with all people—in imitation of Christ’s table fellowship.106 Just as he gives up his rights for financial recompense from the Corinthians so that he might offer the gospel free of charge, 103. David G. Horrell, “Theological Principle or Christological Praxis? Pauline Ethics in 1 Corinthians 8:1–11:1,” JSNT 67 (1997): 83-114. 104. See here especially Dale B. Martin, Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990); Ronald F. Hock, The Social Context of Paul’s Ministry: Tentmaking and Apostleship (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980). 105. Seyoon Kim, “Imitatio Christi (1 Corinthians 11:1): How Paul Imitates Jesus Christ in Dealing with Idol Food,” BBR 13 (2003): 193-226, here 197. 106. David Rudolph, A Jew to the Jews: Jewish Contours of Pauline Flexibility in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (WUNT

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so Paul adapts himself to his hosts, foregoing his rights and preferences, so that he might win all people to the gospel even if this means lowering himself on the social status scale: “I have become weak to the weak so that I might win the weak” (1 Cor. 9:22a).107 That Lev. 19:18 as it has been embodied in the loving cruciform character of Jesus stands behind Paul’s exhortations can be seen in the echoes of Leviticus 19 throughout 1 Corinthians 8–10, many of which echo sayings of Jesus. Thus, Paul’s language of not causing any weaker brother to stumble (πρόσκομμα; 8:9; σκανδαλίζει, σκανδαλίσω; 8:13; ἀπρόσκοποι; 10:32) implements and adapts Jesus’ own understanding of the call of Leviticus 19 to not “place a stumblingblock” (οὐ προσθήσεις σκάνδαλον; Lev. 19:14) before a blind or mute person (Mark 9:42-50).108 Most significantly, however, are those statements that resonate with Lev. 19:18 and Jesus’ teaching to love neighbor (Mark 12:28-31): “let no one seek his own but rather let him seek the good of the other” (1 Cor. 10:24); “just as I also please all people in all things, not seeking my own things but rather the edification of the many so that they might be saved” (10:33). Standing behind these statements, as well as behind 1 Cor. 9:19-23, are almost certainly Jesus’ legislations to love neighbor, itself derived from Lev. 19:18. Finally, Paul sets himself as one who imitates Christ and thereby provides a pattern for the Corinthians to imitate. Just as imitating the character of virtuous kings as living laws was thought to result in harmony and the eradication of strife and dissension, so does Paul’s discourse have as its goal the creation of a unified community that has inculcated “the mind of Christ” (ἡμεῖς δὲ νοῦν Χριστοῦ; 1 Cor. 2:16) among its members and thereby serves, sacrifices for, and loves each individual member of the community (1:10-11; cf. Phil. 2:1-11).109 Thus, while the reference to the law of Christ in 1 Cor. 9:22 is even more 2.304; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011), 173-208. Also Kim, “Imitatio Christi (1 Corinthians 11:1),” 202-7. 107. Note the resonances with Christ’s pattern of interchange in Phil. 2:5-8; 2 Cor. 5:21; 8:9; Rom. 8:3-4. 108. Kim, “Imitatio Christi (1 Corinthians 11:1),” 198-99. 109. See here Luke Timothy Johnson, “Transformation of the Mind and Moral Discernment in Paul,” in Contested Issues in Christian Origins and the New Testament: Collected Essays (NovTSup 146; Leiden: Brill, 2013), 255-75.

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opaque than Gal. 6:2, I find nothing that calls into question my observations on Gal. 6:2. The significant overlap between the two texts suggests that Paul sees the law of Christ as that royal and living law brought into existence by Israel’s Messiah who both demanded love for neighbor in his teachings and conformed his own character to Lev. 19:18. And in this way the Messiah has brought Israel’s Torah to completion even as he reconfigures it around his loving and self-giving death. I suggest, then, that one of the sources for Paul’s construction of the phrase “the law of Christ” is ancient kingship discourse and the notion of the ideal king as an animate law whose life is an imprint of the law. Christ is portrayed as more than Torah-observant as he fulfills the Torah, incarnates it in his paradigmatic exemplification of Lev. 19:18, and secures the transformation of his subjects through empowering them to love another and “so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). Romans 13:8–15:13 The phrase “the law of Christ” does not occur in Romans, but the depiction of Christ as a royal figure who brings the Torah to completion through his perfect embodiment of Lev. 19:18 and thereby functions as a pattern to be imitated by his subjects so as to produce internal communal harmony is evident in Rom. 13:8–15:13. First, Paul portrays Christ as the messianic king by placing portions of two Davidic psalms on the lips of Jesus. In order to justify his claim that the Roman Christians should seek to please their neighbors, Paul writes: “for even the Christ (ὁ Χριστός) did not please himself, but as it has been written, ‘the insults of those insulting you have fallen upon me’” (Rom. 15:3).110 The quotation derives from Ps. 69:9 (LXX 68:10), a royal psalm of David.111 The speaker of Psalm 69, however, is not David but the subject of the previous sentence—“the Christ.”112 And again in 110. Matthew W. Bates argues that this is a case of prosopological exegesis in that Paul portrays Christ as speaking the words of David from the standpoint of Christ’s heavenly enthronement and reflection upon the event of the passion (The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation: The Center of Paul’s Method of Scriptural Interpretation [Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012], 240-55). 111. On Psalms 69 and 18 as royal psalms, see Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms, 51-53, 113-16.

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Rom. 15:9, the subject, the one speaking the words of the Davidic Psalm 18—“I will confess you among the gentiles, and I will praise your name” (Ps. 18 [LXX 17]:50)—is “the Christ” of the preceding verses (Rom. 15:7, 8). This identification of “the Christ” with the anointed king of biblical tradition is no surprise for an epistle whose body begins by identifying Christ Jesus as God’s “son . . . who was born from the seed of David according to the flesh” (1:3) and concludes by identifying him, in the words of Isa. 11:10, as “the root of Jesse and the one who has been raised up to rule over the gentiles” (15:12).113 These descriptions of a ruler who is referred to as “the Christ” (15:3, 7, 8), who speaks David’s psalms (15:3, 9), and who is described as “Jesse’s son” (15:12) who rules over the nations (15:7-12) justifies the claim that within the stretch of Rom. 13:8–15:13, Paul characterizes Christ as Israel’s messianic king. 114 Second, Paul portrays Christ the king as executing his royal responsibility to embody the Torah and function as living law through enacting the love for neighbor called for by Lev. 19:18. Christ is, then, very much like a royal living law through his establishment of the law within himself. The primary activity of Christ is indicated in 15:3, where Paul’s statement “even the Christ did not please himself” (καὶ γὰρ ὁ Χριστὸς οὐκ ἑαυτῷ ἤρεσεν) is set forth as the self-giving, cruciform model to imitate for the Romans, specifically for the strong (15:1). Christ’s not pleasing himself, undoubtedly a reference to his sufferings and death (in light of the quote from Psalm 69),115 justifies the appeal to the strong: “we who are strong ought to bear the weakness of the weak

112. On Christ as the speaker of the psalm (in Rom. 15:3, 9), see Richard B. Hays, “Christ Prays the Psalms: Paul’s Use of an Early Christian Convention,” in The Future of Christology: Essays in Honor of Leander E. Keck (ed. Abraham J. Malherbe and Wayne A. Meeks; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 122-36. On a narrative of Christ grounding Paul’s exhortations in Rom. 15:1-7, see Douglas A. Campbell, “Participation and Faith in Paul,” in “In Christ in Paul: Explorations in Paul’s Theology of Union and Participation (ed. Michael J. Thate et. al.; WUNT 384; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2014), 37-60, here 49-50. 113. On this inclusio, see Christopher G. Whitsett, “Son of God, Seed of David: Paul’s Messianic Exegesis in Rom. 2 (sic):3-4,” JBL 119 (2000): 661-81; Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, 156-60; Joshua W. Jipp, “Ancient, Modern, and Future Interpretations of Romans 1:3-4: Reception History and Biblical Interpretation,” JTI 3 (2009): 241-59, here 258. 114. Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 142-43. 115. Psalm 69 is quoted and alluded to in the passion narrative of all four Gospels (see Matt. 27:34; Mark 15:32, 36; Luke 23:36; John 2:17; 15:25; 19:28-29). On the relationship between Paul’s use of Psalm 69 in Romans 15 and the Jesus-tradition, see Allison, Constructing Jesus, 406-11.

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and to not please ourselves (μὴ ἑαυτοῖς ἀρέσκειν). Let each of us please one’s neighbor (ἕκαστος ἡμῶν τῷ πλησίον ἀρεσκέτω) for the good of building up the neighbor” (15:1b-2). The reference here to “neighbor” suggests that Paul is paraphrasing Lev. 19:18.116 Christ functions as the supreme example of the one who bore his neighbors’ burdens, as called for by Lev. 19:18, and pursued his neighbor’s good even at the cost of pleasing himself (Rom. 15:3b). Earlier in the epistle Paul has spoken of Christ as the one who even died for “we who were weak” (5:6; cf. 15:1). This constellation of themes is reminiscent of Galatians, where “the law of Christ” (6:2) is fulfilled through bearing another’s burdens by imitating Christ who brought the Torah to completion and reconfigured it through his love for neighbor (5:14).117 In light of Paul’s depiction of Christ refusing to please himself for the sake of benefiting his neighbor (Rom. 15:2-3), it is even likely that Christ may be, in the first instance, the subject of Paul’s participle in 13:8b: ὁ γὰρ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἕτερον νόμον πεπλήρωκεν (“the one loving the other has fulfilled the law”). Paul frequently uses articular substantives to refer to Jesus (e.g., Rom. 1:3, 4, 9; 5:10, 15, 17, 18, 19; 8:3, 23, 32; 9:3, 5; 15:3, 7, 19), and he also uses substantival participles to do the same (e.g., Rom. 8:34, 37; cf. 6:7).118 The parallel between “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον σου ὡς σεαυτόν; 13:9b; cf. Lev. 19:18) as the fulfillment of the Torah and Christ as the one who pleased “the neighbor (τῷ πλησίον)” (Rom. 15:2-3) suggests that the Torah has been brought to completion by Christ in his enactment of the love for neighbor demanded by Lev. 19:18.119 This reading would allow the perfect tense πεπλήρωκεν (Rom. 13:8b), as in Gal. 5:14, to be foregrounded as it calls attention to what Christ has done to the Torah (cf. Rom. 8:3). Such a depiction, furthermore, of a royal figure embodying the law in his nature is not surprising in a text that claims “Christ is the goal of the Torah” (τέλος γὰρ νόμου Χριστός; 10:4a) and “God’s 116. Thompson, Moral Formation according to Paul, 125. 117. See Barclay, Obeying the Truth, 133; Dunn, “‘The Law of Faith,’ ‘The Law of the Spirit,’ and ‘The Law of Christ,’” 75-78. 118. See Douglas A. Campbell, The Rhetoric of Righteousness in Romans 3.21–26 (JSNTSup; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1992), 210-11. 119. Dunn, “‘The Law of Faith,’ ‘The Law of the Spirit,’ and ‘The Law of Christ,’” 76.

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righteousness has been revealed apart from the Torah . . . but through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ”—statements that set forth Israel’s Messiah as “the embodiment of the righteousness promised by the law.”120 That Christ, in his self-giving death, is the enactment of God’s love for humanity is also frequently repeated throughout Romans, making Christ the embodiment of Lev. 19:18. Thus, Christ’s death “while we were still weak” (Rom. 5:6) and “still sinners” (5:8) has revealed “God’s love” (5:5, 8). Because of the Messiah’s death and resurrection, nothing is powerful enough to separate one “from the love of the Messiah” (τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦ Χριστοῦ; 8:35). Christ is troped as “the one who loved us” (τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντος ἡμᾶς), thereby enabling his subjects to “conquer in all things” (8:37). The vicarious death of Christ for the weak is connected with the principle of walking κατὰ ἀγάπην (Rom. 14:15). In light of these descriptions of Christ, it makes sense to see him as the referent of “the one who loves the other,” and who thereby enables others to “owe nothing to anyone except to love one another” (τὸ ἀλλήλους ἀγαπᾶν; 13:8).121 Thus, it is Christ’s own act that enables the law to be “fulfilled among us” (Rom. 8:3-4). Furthermore, one cannot avoid the likelihood that Paul is following the example of Jesus himself, who also used Lev. 19:18 to summarize the Torah (Matt. 22:40; Mark 12:30-31).122 This is supported by the fact that the larger context contains allusions to sayings of Jesus, sayings that manifest a concern for loving and serving one another. Thus, Paul’s plea to the church not to place “a stumbling block or hindrance before a brother” (πρόσκομμα τῷ ἀδελφῷ ἢ σκάνδαλον; Rom. 14:13) and his exhortation to not eat or drink anything that will cause “your brother to stumble” (ὁ ἀδελφός σου προσκόπτει; 14:21; cf. τῷ διὰ προσκόμματος ἐσθίοντι; 14:20) have reminded many of Jesus’ warning

120. See Thompson, Clothed with Christ, 126; cf. Robert Badenas, Christ the End of the Law: Romans 10.4 in Pauline Perspective (JSNTSS 10; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985). On the king as living law in Rom. 3:21-22, see Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (trans. Kevin Attell; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 70-71. 121. The article τό indicates that Paul is referring to a well-known command promulgated by Jesus (Matt. 22:40; Mark 12:30-31; cf. John 13:34-35; 15:12-13, 17; 1 John 3:11). So Thompson, Clothed with Christ, 123. 122. Thompson, Clothed with Christ, 121-40.

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against causing “any of these little ones who believe to stumble” (ὃς ἂν σκανδαλίσῃ ἕνα τῶν μικρῶν τούτων τῶν πιστευόντων; Mark 9:42; cf. 9:43, 45, 46; cf. Matt. 18:6-9).123 Paul here is echoing Lev. 19:14—“you shall not put a stumbling block (οὐ προσθήσεις σκάνδαλον) before the blind.”124 Further echoes of the Jesus tradition are found in Paul’s plea to refrain from judging one’s brother (Rom. 14:13, 22; cf. Matt. 17:27; Luke 6:37-38), and his allusion to Jesus’ pronouncement of the cleansings of food (Rom. 14:14, 20; cf. Mark 7:14-23).125 Christ functions, then, as a living law who both embodies the Torah in his love for others and implements it through his teaching. Paul draws upon this royal pattern of a burden-bearing, neighbor-loving king throughout his exhortations. In its imitation of, and obedience to, Christ, the church is transformed into an internally harmonious community who embodies Christ-like love for each other, especially the weak. Thus, Paul’s depiction of Christ as a living law bookends (Rom. 13:8-10; 15:1-7) his exhortations to imitate Christ’s example through loving the weak (14:1-23).126 Prefacing these exhortations is Paul’s command to “clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ” (13:14). Therefore, they are commanded to “welcome (προσλαμβάνεσθε) the one who is weak in faith” (14:1) and to “welcome one another” (προσλαμβάνεσθε ἀλλήλους; 15:7a), in imitation of the Christ who has welcomed them (ὁ Χριστὸς προσελάβετο ὑμᾶς; 15:7b; cf. 14:3). We have seen that Paul’s command to protect one’s brother from stumbling echoes Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel tradition (compare Rom. 14:13, 20-21 with Mark 9:42-45). As Christ embodied love for neighbor in fulfillment of Lev. 19:18, so the church is called upon to “walk according to love” (Rom. 14:15a). Most explicitly, by bearing the burdens of the weak and not pleasing themselves, they follow the pattern of the messianic king who “did not even please himself” (15:3; 123. Kim, “Imitatio Christi (1 Corinthians 11:1),” 198-99. 124. So Thompson, Moral Formation according to Paul, 179. Many of Paul’s exhortations in Romans 12–14 appear to derive from reflection on Leviticus 19 (or Luke 6:27-42). 125. Compare Rom. 12:14 with Matt. 5:44; Rom. 12:17 with Matt. 5:39; and Rom. 12:19-21 with Matt. 5:38-39. 126. Thompson suggests that Rom. 14:1-23 is an articulation of the love for neighbor called for by Rom. 12:9 and 13:8 (Moral Formation according to Paul, 169).

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cf. 15:1-2). The result of the subjects’ imitation of their king as a living law should result in the harmony of the community. Having sought “the things which make for peace and the edification of one another” (14:19), and having been given by God the ability to “have the same mind with one another according to the standard of Christ Jesus” (τὸ αὐτὸ φρονεῖν ἐν ἀλλήλοις κατὰ Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν; 15:5), they will be able to “give glory to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ together with one voice” (ὁμοθυμαδὸν ἐν ἑνὶ στόματι; 15:6). Conclusion Paul’s construction of “the law of Christ” and his statements regarding Christ’s fulfillment of the law are best understood within the context of ancient political discussions of the king as a living enactment of the law. In both Galatians 5–6 and Romans 13:8–15:13, Paul depicts Christ as a royal figure who brings the Torah to completion by providing the preeminent example of the love for neighbor demanded by Lev. 19:18. Christ functions as a “living law” in that, as exemplified in his selfgiving death and in his implementation of the Torah in his teachings, love for neighbor is personified within his very nature. Paul sets forth the example of Christ’s love for neighbor as a pattern to be imitated by the churches. Through walking in love, welcoming one another, and bearing one another’s burdens, the church imitates the pattern of their king with the result that their communities are internally harmonious. The political discourse of king as living law has the benefit of not only providing a conceptual background for understanding the perplexing phrase “the law of Christ,” but it also has the added benefit of bringing together some of the scholarly proposals for the phrase’s meaning that have been posed as competing alternatives.127 That is to say, the law of Christ encapsulates: (1) the Law of Moses, particularly as it is refracted through Lev. 19:18; (2) the paradigmatic embodiment of the Torah in 127. This point was made clearly by David G. Horrell in his response to my presentation of an earlier version of this chapter at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting (Baltimore, 2013) for the Paul J. Achtemeier Award. See also Chester, “The ‘Law of Christ’ and the ‘Law of the Spirit,’” 571-77, who notes some of the compatible points of common emphases between these approaches.

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the person of Jesus and specifically in his loving and self-giving death; and (3) Jesus’ teachings that, in part, function as his application of the heart of the Torah to particular situations.

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King and Praise: Hymns as Royal Encomia to Christ the King

“From Zeus come kings; for nothing is diviner than the kings of Zeus.” 1 “I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” 2 “Let the word of the Messiah dwell richly among you, by teaching and instructing each other through singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”3

According to Pliny’s report to Trajan, the early Christians “were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god” (carmenque Christi quasi deo).4 Pliny’s statement coheres well with early Christian texts 1. Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo, 78-79. 2. Psalm 88:28 (LXX). 3. Col. 3:16. 4. Ep. 10.96; cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.33.1. On singing to Christ in early Christianity, see Martin Hengel, “The Song about Christ in Earliest Worship,” in Studies in Early Christology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), 227-291; Hermut Löhr, “What Can We Know about the Beginnings of Christian Hymnody?” in Literature or Liturgy? Early Christian Hymns and Prayers in their Literary and Liturgical Context in Antiquity (ed. Clemens Leonhard and Hermut Löhr; WUNT 2.363; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2014), 157-74.

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that testify that it was common practice in the worship gathering of Christian assemblies to “sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord” (Eph. 5:19; cf. 1 Cor. 14:26; Acts 16:25; James 5:13). The hymns of Revelation 4 and 5 ascribe divine attributes to Christ, the messianic king or ruler (and also, see 3:21; 5:5-6; 7:17), that elsewhere belong to God alone, thus providing further evidence for the early Christian practice of composing hymns to Christ as to a god (compare Rev. 5:8-14 with 4:8-11).5 In Rev. 15:3 the seer indicates that the martyrs sing both the “song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb.” In Col. 3:16, it appears that Paul intended for “the word of the Messiah” (ὁ λόγος τοῦ Χριστοῦ) to inhabit the assembly through singing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” And Paul’s corpus contains recognizable acclamations to the Messiah, most notably “Jesus is Lord” (e.g., 1 Cor. 12:2-3; Phil. 2:10-11).6 The implication is obvious, as Adela Yarbro Collins notes: “Paul clearly alludes to the practice of composing religious songs and presenting them in communal worship.”7 That the early Christians engaged in writing hymns and singing to Christ has been confirmed by form-critical work that has discovered hymnic elements in Phil. 2:6-11; Col. 1:15-20; 1 Tim. 3:16; and Rev. 5:9-14.8 The

5. On this, see Steven J. Friesen, Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 197-201; Martin Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul: Studies in the Earliest History of Christianity (trans. John Bowden; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 78-96, here 81-86; Justin Jeffcoat Schedtler, A Heavenly Chorus: The Dramatic Function of Revelation’s Hymns (WUNT 2.381; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2014), 10-11, 35-36, 42. 6. William Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ (London: SCM, 1998), 109. 7. Adela Yarbro Collins, “The Psalms and the Origins of Christology,” in Psalms in Community: Jewish and Christian Textual, Liturgical, and Artistic Traditions (ed. Harold W. Attridge and Margot E. Fassler; SBLSymS 25; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 113-23, here 113. On the early Christians as composing new psalms and songs on the basis of their continuing practice of singing the Hebrew Psalter, see Hughes Oliphant Old, “The Psalms of Praise in the Worship of the New Testament Church,” Int 39 (1985): 20-33. See also Leonard Thompson, “Hymns in Early Christian Worship,” ATR 55 (1973): 458-72. 8. The scholarship is voluminous. See Jack T. Sanders, The New Testament Christological Hymns: Their Historical Religious Background (SNTSMS 15; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971); Johannes Schattenmann, Studien zum neutestamentlichen Prosahymnus (München: C. H. Beck, 1965); Klaus Wengst, Christologische Formeln und Lieder des Urchristentums (SNT 7; Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1972); Ralph P. Martin, A Hymn of Christ: Philippians 2:5–11 in Recent Interpretation and in the Setting of Early Christian Worship (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1997); more recently, see Matthew E. Gordley, The Colossian Hymn in Context: An Exegesis in Light of Jewish and Greco-Roman Hymnic and Epistolary Conventions (WUNT 2.228; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2007).

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NT evidence, therefore, corresponds nicely with Pliny’s statement that the Christians sang hymns to Christ.9 What has not been adequately recognized, however, is that the early Christian practice of composing hymns to Christ “as to a god,” that is, of taking divine predicates and ascribing them to Christ, conforms closely with how ancient Greeks, Romans, and Jews treated their own rulers.10 Kings were often assimilated to, and even identified with, gods and thereby were treated as worthy of divine praises. Likewise, at least some Jews praised past kings and the hoped-for coming king through hymns—most notably in poetic seams in the Pentateuch and in the Psalms. In the hymnic praises to the kings we often find the following three reasons for praising the king: (a) the king is the vicegerent of a god; (b) the king is God’s representative who rules over and sustains the created universe and/or empire; (c) the king is a benefactor who has bestowed gifts of peace upon his subjects. It is my primary contention in this chapter that the conceptual and linguistic resources for understanding the Christ-hymn of Col. 1:15-20 should be situated within the widespread practice of praise of kings, emperors, and rulers.11 All three reasons for praise are paralleled in the Colossian Christ-hymn. That is to say, Paul takes over the linguistic and 9. Cf. Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 109-10. See the fine study by Margaret DalyDenton, “Singing Hymns to Christ as to a God (Cf. Pliny EP. X, 96),” in The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism: Papers from the St. Andrews Conference on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus (ed. Carey C. Newman et al.; Supplements to the Study for the Journal of Judaism 63; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 277-92. 10. Most scholars have instead insisted that Hellenistic-Jewish speculation about personified Wisdom or Middle Platonic speculation about the Logos provides the context for understanding the lofty claims made in Col. 1:15-20. This is surprising for three reasons: (a) the referent of the hymn within its literary context is not Wisdom but God’s “beloved son” (an honorific that resonates with the institution of Israelite kingship; 1:13), (b) numerous elements of the hymn have no linguistic or conceptual parallel with descriptions of personified Wisdom or a Logos intermediary, and (c) the six occurrences in Colossians where Paul does refer to σοφία (1:9, 28; 2:3, 23; 3:16; 4:5) are nondescript character attributes associated with moral formation and have nothing to do with personified Wisdom. See rightly, however, Gordon D. Fee, who after a thorough and convincing critique of Paul’s supposed Wisdom-Christology, states regarding Col. 1:15-20: “What Paul’s sentences point to instead is a Son of God Christology in which he uses biblical images from Genesis and the Davidic kingship” (Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007], 325). Also see Sean M. McDonough, Christ as Creator: Origins of a New Testament Doctrine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 175-76, 180. 11. Thus my goal is to show that Paul’s language and images are illuminated by an ancient discourse that would have been easily recognizable to his audience. While most of the linguistic resonances proceed from the LXX, there is significant overlap among so-called Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Israelite ways of speaking about kings and rulers.

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conceptual resources of ancient royal discourse in order to portray Christ as the unique and supreme ruler of the universe. One ubiquitous component of ancient royal discourse is the notion that the king is the supremely wise ruler who makes wise and just decisions and bestows his wisdom to and for the benefit of his people. One implication of my argument is the necessary subordination, not to say rejection (!), of wisdom as one significant component of the portrait of Christ as the supreme and ideal ruler—rather than personified Wisdom as the meaning-making lens for all of Paul’s claims in 1:13-20. 12 The Colossian Christ-hymn is somewhat conventional in terms of ancient kingship discourse, in that it utilizes typical royal language to describe Christ as king—though, of course, it does so to make the point that Christ alone is ruler. Yet Paul transforms and develops the ancient kingship discourse such that Paul’s royal claims about Christ go beyond and even subvert claims made by or on behalf of all other rulers. The hymn is most radical, for instance, in: (a) its emphatic assertion that Christ not only rules the cosmos but is the preexistent creator of the entirety of the cosmos, (b) its claim that Christ is the first to have undergone resurrection from the dead and subsequent exaltation to God’s right hand, and (c) its subversion of the royal trope of peace and reconciliation through military pacification by alternatively depicting reconciliation and peace-making through the bloody death of the king at the hands of his opponents. Paul’s hymn to Christ the King uses the tools of royal propaganda precisely to counter any other competing claim to rule and power over the Colossian assembly. The royal hymn functions to counter the church’s preoccupation with other powers, seen now as lesser and insignificant authorities created by Christ the King, as it enables them to participate in the true king’s rule. Paul’s hymn draws the audience into joining their voices with Paul such that they bestow divine honors, namely worship, upon the sole king and ruler of the universe and are thereby socialized into a symbolic world where they share in the reign of the king who is lord 12. Therefore the relationship is rightly conceptualized as one in which wisdom is found in the Messiah (Col. 2:3) rather than the identification of the Messiah with personified Wisdom.

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over every power and authority.13 Paul is able, subsequently, to use the language of the hymn throughout the rest of the epistle to show the Colossians that they already participate in the true king’s rule, thereby countering every other competing claim to rulership to whom the Colossians might be enticed to give honors and worship. While the bulk of this chapter is devoted to a historical-religious examination of Colossians 1:13-20, I will conclude by also examining how the hymn in Phil. 2:6-11 and Paul’s christological exegesis of the LXX contribute to my broader argument that Paul developed his christological discourse, in part, through creative reflection upon the linguistic and conceptual resources of royal ideology. I will suggest that this study merits the likelihood that it was ancient reflections upon the relationship between the king and God that offer the most promise for providing a convincing historical-religious framework for Paul’s christology. The exalted claims made about Jesus of Nazareth by the early Christians are explicable when they are rightly seen within the context of the king as sharing in God’s kingship. Hymns and Encomia to Rulers and Kings Gods and humans alike were frequently the recipients of honors and praises through the composition of what the rhetorical teachers of prose composition call encomia.14 Kings, rulers, and other heroes were given honors for their virtues, relation to the gods, gifts and inventions, and military victories.15 Aelius Theon states, “the praise of the gods [is called] a hymn,” but “whether one praises the living or the dead or heroes or gods, the method of speaking is one and the same.”16 13. Wayne A. Meeks rightly notes the important role of the hymns in Colossians 1 and Philippians 2 in “shaping the comunities’ Christology and shaping the communities themselves” (The Origins of Christian Morality: The First Two Centuries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 98-99). 14. On the use of hymns in cults to the gods, see William D. Furley and Jan Maarten Bremer, Greek Hymns: Selected Cult Songs from the Archaic to the Hellenistic Period (2 vols., Studies in Antiquity and Christianity 9/10; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2001/2002); Ramsay MacMullen and Eugene N. Lane, ed., Paganism and Christianity: A Sourcebook (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 50-63. 15. Despite the late dating of the encomia, one can assume a certain level of familiarity with their techniques for composing conventional literary forms. On the use of the progymnasmata in NT studies, see Ronald F. Hock and Edward N. O’Neil, ed., The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric: The “Progymnasmata” (vol. 1; SBLTT 27/SBLGRS 9; Atlanta: Scholars, 1986). 16. The translation is from George A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition

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Aphthonius says, “encomion is language expressive of inherent excellences” and “differs from hymn . . . in that a hymn is a celebration of gods, an encomion of mortals.”17 The specific content of the panegyric varies depending upon whom is praised, but “the greatest heading of the encomion,” according to Aphthonius, are “deeds.”18 Likewise, Nicolaus the Sophist states: “Encomion is speaking well of some specified person or thing in a discursive way on the basis of acknowledged merits.”19 How to Praise Rulers: Orators and the Progymnasmata In his ΠΕΡΙ ΕΠΙΔΕΙΚΤΙΚΩΝ, a handbook given to all topics pertaining to epideictic orations, Menander devotes a lengthy section to a “kingly speech,” that is, “an encomium of the emperor” (ὁ βασιλικὸς λόγος ἐγκώμιόν ἐστι βασιλέως). The royal speech, in his view, amplifies “the good things attached to the emporer” (ἀγαθῶν βασιλεῖ; 368.3).20 Since praise of the gods and the emperor are the best things in life, orators “should honor and hymn (ὑμνεῖν) to the best of our ability” (368.19-21). Menander testifies to the similarity between hymning to the gods and to kings: “We thus propitiate the emperor with words (βασιλέα λόγοις) as we do the divine power with hymns and praises” (369.5-7). The longest section of the encomium should praise the king’s accomplishments, divided into his acts during times of peace and war (372.1–374.33). The orator should conclude by thanking the gods, since the emperor upholds creation by ensuring “rains in season, abundance from the sea, [and] unstinting harvests” (377.21-24). In return for the king’s gifts, “cities, nations, races, and tribes, all of us, garland him, sing

and Rhetoric (SBL Writings from the Greco-Roman World; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 50; for helpful discussion of the Progymnasmata on hymns and encomia, see Edgar Krentz, “Epideiktik and Hymnody: The New Testament and Its World,” BR 40 (1995): 50-97, here 59-71. 17. Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 108. See Plato’s differentiation between hymns as praises of deities and encomia as the praise of great men in Republic 10.607A. 18. Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 108. 19. Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 155. 20. For text and translation, see D. A. Russell and N. G. Wilson, Menander Rhetor (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981). Also see Krentz, “Epideiktik and Hymnody,” 62-71.

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of him, write of him. Full of his images are the cities (πλήρεις εἰκόνων αἱ πόλεις)” (377.24-28). Quintilian also suggests that hymns can be composed for gods and for men: With gods . . . the first thing will be to show veneration of the majesty of their nature; next, to expound the power of each and discoveries of his which have benefitted humanity. “Power” will be displayed: for example, in Jupiter, the power of universal rule; in Mars, the power of war; and in Neptune, control of the sea. Inventions will be shown too: the arts for Minerva, letters for Mercury, medicine for Apollo, crops for Ceres, wine for Bacchus. Next we must mention any exploits of theirs known to history. Even gods derive honor from parents—a son of Jupiter for example—and from age for example, those descended from Chaos, and also from their offspring, Apollo and Diana do credit to Latona. Some should be praised because they were born immortal, others because they earned immortality by virtue” (3.7.7-9).21

The order of Quintilian’s topics, which applies to both gods and great men, proceeds as follows: their majestic nature, their benefits and gifts, their rule over nature and humanity, their great deeds, their honorable ancestors and descendants, and their immortal nature.22 From this discussion of the rhetorical techniques used to compose praises to great men, we can conclude that there was a considerable degree of overlap between composing hymns to gods and encomia to heroic humans, and though the content of praise varies based on the individual, there is an emphasis upon the powerful deeds of the hero, particularly upon those benefactions that benefit humanity. 23 21. For text and translation, see Quintilian, The Orator’s Education: Books 3–5 (trans. D. A. Russell; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001). 22. Krentz, “Epideiktik and Hymnody,” 57. 23. These rhetorical techniques can be compared with the one of the earliest known encomiastic orations for a rule—Isocrates’s Evagoras. Isocrates praises the Cyprian ruler because he is “one of the sons of Zeus” (12–14) and so Zeus upholds Evagoras’s kingship (25). The bulk of the oration is devoted to the king’s actions (33–39, 47–64), particularly his benefactions (54–57, 65). Evagoras is, therefore, worthy of being declared “a god among men, or a mortal divinity” (ὡς ἦν θεὸς ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἣ δαίμων θνητός; 72). For text and translation, see LaRue Van Hook, Isocrates: In Three Volumes (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968). For a discussion of Isocrates’s Cyprian Orations, see Julien Smith, Christ the Ideal King: Cultural Context, Rhetorical Strategy, and the Power of Divine Monarchy in Ephesians (WUNT 2.313; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011), 30-33; also see Matthew E. Gordley, Teaching through Song in Antiquity: Didactic Hymnody among Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians (WUNT 2.302; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011), 111-15. On the prevalence of praising

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Divine Honors in Response to Kingly Benefactions To understand why kings are hymned to as if they were gods, it is necessary to examine the reasons for which kings began to be identified with gods under the auspices of the ruler cult in the Hellenistic and Roman age.24 Ancient Mediterraneans agree that deity is manifested in “a display of power, and particularly power to bestow benefits (e.g., to liberate from oppression, to protect against danger, or to heal disease.”).25 Hellenistic kings and later Roman emperors are seen as the vicegerent of the gods who have bestowed their power upon the earthly king to act in their place.26 The bestowal of divine honors upon kings and emperors functioned as an appropriately grateful return for powerful benefactions.27 The relationship between powerful benefactions and divine honors is exemplified in the first lines of Augustus’s Res Gestae:28 rulers through hymns and encomia in the fourth century, see Laurent Pernot, La rhétorique de l'éloge dans le monde gréco-romain (2 vols.; Paris: Institut d'études augustiniennes, 1993), 1:23. 24. The receiving of honors by kings originally reserved for the gods becomes prevalent after Alexander the Great. Arrian recounts the words of Callisthenes, who notes the earlier distinction between honors reserved for gods and honors for humans: “Humans greet one another with a kiss, but divinity, I suppose because it is seated on high and must not be touched, is honored with obeisance, and choruses are established for the gods, and paeans are sung to them” (4.11). 25. Litwa, IESUS DEUS: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), 88. He quotes Prodicus of Ceos in Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods: “those things that benefit (ea quae prodessent) human life are held to be in the number of the gods” (1.118). 26. F. W. Walbank, “Monarchies and Monarchic Ideas,” in The Cambridge Ancient History (vol. 7.1; ed. F. W. Walbank, A. E. Astin, M. W. Frederiksen, and R.M. Ogilvie; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 62-100, here 84-96; Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 70. See, for example, Virgil, Aen. 1.286-291; Ovid, Metam., 858–870. On divine honors for the benefactions of Egyptian monarchs, see Diodorus 1.90.1-3. 27. It has been the contribution of S. R. F. Price to demonstrate that the emperor cult was based upon and intertwined together with the cults of the gods (Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984], 29-30, 32; also Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 69. On the imperial cults arising out of the cults that gave honors to Hellenistic rulers, see Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (trans. Alan Shapiro; Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 297-302. Fergus Millar has demonstrated that one of the primary responsibilities of the Roman emperor was hearing requests and then bestowing gifts and benefits on his subjects. See his The Emperor in the Roman World (31 BC–AD 337) (London: Duckworth, 1977). See also Clifford Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000), 175-90; Paul Veyne, Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism (ed. Oswyn Murray and Brian Pearce; London, Penguin, 1990). 28. Ittai Gradel refers to this as “the honours-for-benefactions structure found in all relationships between parties of vastly unequal power and social standing in Roman society, such as in the interplay between subjects and ruler, cities and benefactors, dependants and patrons, slaves and masters” (Emperor Worship and Roman Religion [Oxford Classical Monographs; Oxford: Clarendon, 2002], 26). Price, Rituals and Power, 23: “Ruler cults established by the Hellenistic cities are just

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Translated and inscribed below are the achievements and gifts of the god Augustus (πράξεις τε καὶ δωρεαὶ Σεβαστοῦ θεοῦ). . . . When I was nineteen years old, I got ready on my own initiative and at my own expense the army by means of which I set the state free from the slavery (δουλήας [ἡλευ]θέ[ρωσα) imposed by the conspirators. On account of these things the senate passed decrees in praise of me (ἐπαινέσασά με).29

Epictetus indicated that “we perform obeisance before the emperors as before gods, because we consider that which has the power to confer the greatest advantage to be divine” (4.1.60).30 In his Embassy to Gaius, Philo notes that Augustus was awarded divine honors due to his benefaction to Rome of ending the civil wars (149–151). Philo eulogizes Augustus through an encomium for his benefactions whereby Augustus became “the source of veneration” (ἀρχὴ σεβασμοῦ, 143) and ruler of the cosmos (144–148).31 Through his excellent rule of the world, he is “the first and the greatest (πρῶτος καὶ μέγιστος), the common benefactor of all” (149). There is, then, an explicit relationship between Augustus’s benefactions and his divine praiseworthy status.32 Divinity is less a matter of essence and more a matter of a conferred status that elicits honors as the result of frequent, powerful gifts.33 In other words, to paraphrase an ancient maxim—if gods are those who exercise power, then a king is god-like.34 If kings do what their subjects honours granted in gratitude for political benefactions.” This explains why emperors (generally) avoided getting involved in establishing their own cults and why it was instead initiated voluntarily by the emperor’s subjects. See further Duncan Fishwick, “Dio and Maecenas: The Emperor and the Ruler Cult,” Phoenix 44 (1990): 267-75. 29. Alison E. Cooley, Res Gestae Divi Augusti: Text, Translation, and Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). See further Zvi Yavetz, “The Res Gestae and Augustus’ Public Image,” in Caesar Augustus: Seven Aspects (ed. Fergus Millar and Erich Segal; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 1-36. 30. Ando, Imperial Ideology and the Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, 389-90. 31. Augustus is described as the one who, when “the whole human race was on the verge of destruction,” “calmed the torrential storms” (Philo, Embassy to Gaius 144, 145). 32. I am not claiming that there is no distinction between the earlier Hellenistic ruler cults and the Roman emperor cults. There was certainly an incredible heightening of the honors bestowed upon Augustus, who was now seen as the benefactor to the entire world. What is significant for my purposes, however, is that both ruler cult and Roman emperor cult share the similar honorfor-benefaction system as well as the assimilation and identification of rulers with gods. See Price, “Rituals and Power,” 52-55. Cf. Karl Galinsky, Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 322-31. 33. See Michael Peppard, The Son of God in the Roman World: Divine Sonship in Its Social and Political Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 35. 34. See the Greek maxim: “What is a god? The exercise of power. What is a king? God-like.” Quoted in Simon R. F. Price, “Gods and Emperors: The Greek Language of the Roman Imperial Cult,” JHS

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expect the gods to do, they are thereby worthy of divine honors.35 In the words of Dio Cassius to Octavian: It is excellence that raises many men to the level of gods (ἰσοθέους) . . . if you are good as a man and honorable as a ruler (ἔστε σοὶ μὲν ἀγαθῷ τε ὄντι καὶ καλῶς ἄρχοντι), the whole earth will be your sacred precinct, all cities your temples, and all men your statues, since within their thoughts you will ever be enshrined and glorified (52.35.5).36

Augustus’s rule is the result of “good works” (διὰ τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἔργῶν) and “benefactions” (ἐξ εὐεργεσιῶν; 52.35.3). Nicolaus of Damascus states: “Because humanity addresses him as [Sebastos], in accordance with their estimation of his honor, they revere him with temples and sacrifices . . . matching the greatness of his virtue and repaying his benefactions towards them.”37 Hymns to Rulers in the Hellenistic and Roman Age In addition to the temples, festivals, sacrifices, libations, honorary inscriptions, and prayers devoted to the king/emperor,38 one of the consistent ways that kings received divine honors was through praises and hymns reserved for the gods.39 Throughout the following survey 104 (1984): 79-95, here 95. Also see Artemidorus, The Interpretation of Dreams, 2.36; 2.69. Gradel states: “What mattered was power, again relative divinity, and Caesar’s power was at this stage unquestioned, as was Jupiter’s. Absolute power entailed divinity and vice versa” (Emperor Worship and Roman Religion, 72). On Greek and Hellenistic rulers taking the term “god” as an honorific, see Christian Habicht, Gottmenschentum und griechische Städte (2nd ed.; Munich: C. H. Beck, 1970), 99-105. 35. So Walbank, “Monarchies and Monarchic Ideas,” 93-94. 36. For text and translation, see Earnest Cary, Dio’s Roman History: In Nine Volumes (LCL; Cambridge: MA: Harvard University Press, 1980). 37. Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum 90 F 125; also see S. R. F. Price, “Rituals and Power,” in Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society (ed. Richard A. Horsley; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997), 47-71, here 47. On the relationship between prayers to kings, see Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 72: “The ruler, then, like other divinities, could be asked for those benefits which lay within his particular power, and in the nature of the cult it would be stressed that his power was extensive and effectual—more effectual . . . than that of the gods above.” 38. On the celebration of festivals for the emperor, see Price, Rituals and Power, 101-32. 39. Price states: “Praising both kings and emperors was calqued on the cult of the gods” (“Gods and Emperors,” 90). See also Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 68-77; David E. Aune, “The Influence of Roman Imperial Court Ceremonial on the Apocalypse of John,” Papers of the Chicago Society for Biblical Research 28 (1983): 5-26, here 16; Erik Peterson, ΕΙΣ ΘΕΟΣ: Epigraphische, formgeschichtliche und religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (FRLANT 41; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1926), 176-79; J. Daryl Charles, “Imperial Pretensions and the Throne-Vision of the

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of hymns to rulers, the reader should pay attention to the relationship between divine honors for powerful benefactions, the assimilation of rulers to deities, and the divine election of rulers. Plutarch states that the Spartan general Lysander was “more powerful than any Greek before him,” and for this reason “the first Greek . . . to whom the cities erected altars and made sacrifices as to a god (ὡς θεῷ), the first also to whom songs of triumph were sung” (Lys. 18.2-3). Within his retinue at all times was Choerilus to “adorn his achievements with verse (ὡς κοσμήσαντα τὰς πράξεις διὰ ποιητικῆς),” and Antilochus who “composed some verses in his honor” (Lys. 18.4).40 The Athenians are said to have greeted Demetrius Poliorcetes by singing paeans to him, and when he enters their city, they are reported to have “sang and danced, repeating the refrain that he was the only true god, while all the others were asleep, or making a journey, or non-existent; he, however, was sprung from Poseidon and Aphrodite, preeminent in beauty and embracing all in his benevolence” (Athenaeus, Deipn. 6.253c).41 We find two hymns penned for Ptolemy II Philadelphus, one by Callimachus and another by Theocritus.42 Callimachus’s praise of Ptolemy is situated in his Hymn to Zeus and is in fact centered upon the great god.43 The poet praises Zeus for his wise election of king Ptolemy: Lamb: Observations on the Function of Revelation 5,” CTR 7 (1993): 85-97. See Jeffcoat-Schedtler, A Heavenly Chorus, 24: “Whatever the precise means by which the deity was praised . . . it seems to have served ultimately as a kind of gift to the god, conferring honor so as to please the deity and, in this sense not unlike a sacrifice, to generate χάρις on behalf of the petitioners.” 40. On Plutarch’s depiction of Lysander as the first Greek to receive divine honors, see Lily Ross Taylor, The Divinity of the Roman Emperor (American Philological Association Monograph Series 1; Middletown, CT: 1931), 11. 41. A few lines later the Athenians again flatter the king: “For other gods are either far away or have not ears, or are not, or heed us not at all; but you we can see in very presence, not in wood and not in stone, but in truth. And so we pray to you. First, bring peace!” (Athenaeus, Deipn. 6.253de). For text and translation, see Charles Burton Gulick, Athenaeus: The Deipnosophists (7 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957). 42. The praise reflected in these hymns is representative of the worship that stems from a dynastic cult. Though these cults had more of a top-down structure, divinity and benefaction were essential components of Ptolemaic and Seleucid kingship, as is evident in the fact that many of the kings adopted the honorific “Benefactor” (e.g., Ptolemy III, Antigonus III Doson, Mithridates V, Ptolemy VIII). See Klaus Bringmann, “The King as Benefactor: Some Remarks on Ideal Kingship in the Age of Hellenism,” in Images and Ideologies: Self-definition in the Hellenistic World (ed. Anthony Bulloch et al., Hellenistic Culture and Society 12; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 7-24; Duncan Fishwick, The Imperial Cult in the Latin West: Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire (2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1987), 1:1-20.

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“you did choose that which is most excellent among men” and “you did choose the rulers of cities themselves” (69–70, 72).44 The close relationship between Zeus and the king is indicated in the statement: “But from Zeus come kings; for nothing is diviner than the kings of Zeus” (ἐκ δὲ Διὸς βασιλῆες, ἐπεὶ Διὸς οὐδὲν ἀνάκτων θειότερον, 78–79).45 Thus, the praise of Zeus legitimates Ptolemy’s kingship, given that he rules as Zeus’s representative.46 Those who rule well receive prosperity, and “one may well judge by our Ruler, for he has entirely outstripped all others” as demonstrated by his great accomplishments” (84–89). Theocritus’s panegyric for Ptolemy (17th Idyll) also speaks of the relationship between the king and Zeus.47 With Zeus let us begin, Muses, and with Zeus I pray you end when the greatest of Immortals is exalted in our song: but for me first (πρώτοισι), midst and last by the name of Ptolemy; for he is of men the chiefest. (1–4)48

The god legitimates the reign of Ptolemy as the two are brought in the closest relationship whereby Ptolemy rules humans as Zeus rules the immortals. Theocritus says, “he will hymn to Ptolemy, seeing that hymns are a reward for even the gods above” (7–8). In singing of Ptolemy’s birth, he sings of Zeus’s sending a mighty eagle, for Zeus 43. Callimachus was a client of Ptolemy II who composed numerous hymns, epigrams, and court poetry. Further, see Peter Green, Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990), 179-86. On Callimachus’ kingship ideology, see Ludwig Koenen, “The Ptolemaic King as a Religious Figure,” in Images and Ideologies: Self-definition in the Hellenistic World, 81-113. 44. For text and translation, see G. R. Mair, Callimachus, Hymns and Epigrams. Lycophoron. Aratus (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969). Both Hellenistic and Roman kingship ideology repeatedly speak of the king as elected by the gods to rule on the god’s behalf. This is interconnected with the king’s identification and/or assimilation to a particular god, usually Zeus. On this, see the excellent and comprehensive study of J. Rufus Fears, PRINCEPS A DIIS ELECTUS: The Divine Election of the Emperor as Political Concept at Rome (Rome: American Academy at Rome, 1977). See also Christian Habicht, Gottmenschentum und griechische Städt (Zetemata 14; München: Beck, 1956). 45. Cf. Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo: “He who fights with the Blessed Ones would fight with my King; he who fights with my King, would fight even with Apollo” (26–27). 46. Similarly, see Fears, PRINCEPS A DIIS ELECTUS, 75-76; Gordley, Teaching through Song in Antiquity, 116. 47. Theocritus was most well known for his pioneer as a pastoral poet; his work was similar to the later Vergil’s Eclogues, and he was a contemporary of Callimachus. For the historical context of Theocritus, see Green, Alexander to Actium, 233-47. 48. For the Greek text, see R. L. Cholmeley, The Idylls of Theocritus (London: George Bell & Sons, 1901).

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“cares for kings that he has loved from his earliest hour” and such a king is the recipient of “great good fortune and wins for himself the mastery of both land and sea” (73–76). Not surprisingly, the king uses this fortune to bestow benefactions upon his subjects (85–134).49 The hymn concludes with the promise: “I shall continue to speak of you [Ptolemy] as other demi-gods” (135). Evidence for the composition and singing of hymns increases in the age of imperial Rome, as hymns form a major component of emperor worship—so much so that these duties were given to a professional hymn writer for emperors, referred to as a θεολόγος or σεβαστολόγος.50 One of the responsibilities of the θεολόγος was to publicize the emperor’s benefactions, powers, and achievements by composing hymns that would then be sung by choirs at provincial imperial cults.51 This is exemplified in an inscription containing a decree that “the choir of all Asia, gathering at Pergamum on the most holy birthday of Sebastos Tiberius Caesar god, performs a task that contributes greatly to the glory of Sebastos in hymning the imperial house and performing sacrifices to the Sebastan gods.”52 Augustus declares: “my name was incorporated into the hymns of the Salii by decree of the Senate” (Res Gestae 10.1). Dio Cassius also lists as one of the many honors bestowed upon Augustus “that his name should be included in their hymns equally with those of the gods” (τοὺς ὕμνους αὐτὸν ἐξ ἴσου τοῖς θεοῖς; 51.20.1).” Suetonius recounts the story of the crew of an Alexandrian ship, who, when Augustus sailed by, “put on white robes and garlands, 49. The propaganda that legitimates kingship through descent from Zeus, military exploits, piety, and benefactions to his subjects stems from the ideology of Alexander the Great. See Alan A. Samuel, “The Ptolemies and the Ideology of Kingship,” in Hellenistic History and Culture (ed. Peter Green; Hellenistic Culture and Society 9; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 168-210, here 181. 50. At Pergammum there is an inscription that refers to P. Aelius Pompeianus, who is a “composer and rhapsodist (in the cult of) divine Hadrian, theologos of the temples in Pergamon.” Another inscription describing the task of the θεολόγος states that in the celebration of the deceased Augustus’ birthday, the hymn-conductor must “crown with garlands the hymn-singers and the mysteries in the choir hall.” Quoted from Allen Brent, “John as Theologos: The Imperial Mysteries and the Apocalypse,” JSNT 75 (1999): 75-92, here 90, 96. 51. Encomiastic competitions for kings were frequent and functioned to publicize the honors of the ruler. See Price, “Gods and Emperors,” 95; Brent, “John as Theologos,” 91-92; Collins, “The Psalms and the Origin of Christology,” 113-23. 52. See R. Cognat et al., Inscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas Pertinentes. Quoted from Price, “Rituals and Power,” 59.

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burned incense, wished him all good fortune, and sang praises” (Aug. 98). Simon R. F. Price mentions that a certain Coan distinguished himself by winning contests for writing encomia “to the founder of the city Sebastos Caesar and the benefactors Tiberius Caesar and Germanicus Caesar and all their house and to all the other gods in each city.”53 Dio says the senate gathered around his throne and “wasted the day in singing laudations and prayers in his presence” (59.24.5). Tacitus says that Nero had 5,000 knights who followed him and “day and night kept up a thunder of applause, and applied to the emperor’s person the voice and epithets of deities” (Ann. 14.15).54 Antony is said to have “hymned [Caesar] as a heavenly god” (ὡς θεὸν οὐρανίον ὓμνει) because of his exploits (Appian, Bell. civ. 2.146).55 Steven J. Friesen notes the decree from the provincial council of Asia: Since it is appropriate to provide a public display of reverence and of pious consideration toward the imperial household during the year, the hymnodes from all Asia—coming together in Pergamon on the most holy birthday of Sebastos Tiberius Caesar God—complete a great work to the glory of the assembly, making hymns to the imperial house and completing sacrifices to the gods Sebastoi.56

Although the content of most of these encomia have not survived, testimony to their frequent occurrence is widespread, and the ideological content of the hymns can be discerned from the numerous honors and praises found in inscriptions.57 One frequently occurring motif is the praise of the ruler for creating or re-creating a peaceful new world order. For example, in the Priene Letter of the Roman proconsul, Augustus is spoken of with cosmological language as the creator of a new world: It is hard to tell whether the birthday of the most divine Caesar is a matter of greater pleasure or benefit. We could justly hold it to be equivalent to the beginning of all things (τῶν πάντων ἀρχῆι), and he has restored 53. Price, “Gods and Emperors,” 95-96. 54. See Aune, “The Influence of Roman Imperial Court Ceremonial on the Apocalypse of John,” 16. 55. On Julius Caesar’s acceptance of divine honors and particularly his identification with Jupiter, see Stefan Weinstock, Divus Julius (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), 300-305. 56. Quoted from Friesen, Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John, 105. 57. Price, “Gods and Emperors,” 95.

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at least to serviceability, if not to its natural state, every form that had become imperfect and fallen into misfortune; and he has given a different aspect to the whole world, which blithely would have embraced its own destruction if Caesar had not been born for the common benefit of all. Therefore people would be right to consider this to have been the beginning of the breath of life (ἀρχὴν τοῦ βίου καὶ τῆς ζωῆς) . . . and since it is difficult to render thanks in due measure for his great benefactions unless in each case we should devise some new method of repayment. 58

The birthday of Augustus clearly signals the creation, or better, a creation of a new world.59 The praise that speaks of Augustus’s appearance as the “beginning of all things” and the “beginning of the breath of life” for the people refers to his powerful benefactions “who brought war to an end and set everything in peaceful order” (τὸν παύσαντα μὲν πόλεμον, κοσμήσοντα [δὲ] εἰρήνην).60 Augustus has “surpassed the benefactors born before him, but not even leaving those to come any hope of surpassing him; and whereas the birthday of the god marked for the world the beginning of good tidings through his coming.”61 Nero is also praised as “the lord of the whole world” (παντὸς κόσμου κύριος) for being “a benefactor of Greece.”62 The ideology of divine honors bestowed upon rulers who have performed benefactions for humanity, particularly bringing peace by ending war, is evident and frequently blends into praise of the ruler as creator or re-creator. 63 We can observe this motif in the hymns to Augustus penned by the poet Horace. The interweaving of cosmological motifs with military victories is particularly striking. Thus, Horace praises Augustus because his reign has “brought back abundant crops to our fields and restored to our Jove the standards stripped from the proud portals of the Parthians. And freed from wars, has closed the sanctuary of Janus Quirinus” (Carm. 4.15.5-10).64 In his Carmen Saeculare, Horace situates 58. Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, collected by Victor Ehrenberg and A. H. M. Jones (2nd ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1955), 98a, lines 4-17. 59. On the religious strategy of depicting the emperors as creators of a new world order, see Friesen, Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John, 122-42. 60. Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, 98b, lines 35-36. 61. Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, 98b, lines 39-41. 62. W. Dittenberger, ed., Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, 814, lines 30-35. 63. On this, see James R. Harrison, Paul and the Imperial Authorities at Thessalonica and Rome: A Study in the Conflict of Ideology (WUNT 2.273; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011), 63-65.

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praise of Augustus within praise of the gods (1–4).65 Augustus’s dominion is so great that “sea and land acknowledge his hand of power” (53–54), and “Plenty comes too and brings her horn of abundance” (59–60). The image of peaceful, fertile abundance and complete rule over land and sea magnifies the extent of Augustus’s cosmological dominion over the entire world.66 In another hymn, Horace praises Augustus’s reign, for the emperor has given peace to his subjects (4.5.33-36) and agricultural productivity (4.5.37-41). Throughout his hymns we see the frequent refrain that Augustus is the earthly ruler who rules in behalf of Zeus (1.12.50-60). Jupiter reigns in heaven, and so similarly Augustus reigns over the empire (3.5.1-6). 67 Many of the preceding motifs coalesce in Pliny’s Panegyricus, a threeday performance praising Trajan as an ideal ruler (Ep. 3.18).68 First, Pliny praises Trajan because, although he is a man (2.3-7), he was elected by Jupiter, is equal with the gods in virtue, and rules on behalf of the gods (1.3-6; 5.2-3; 56.3).69 The gods insure his health and safety as long as the emperor does the same for his subjects (67.5; 68.1-3). Second, the ruler’s primary task and the reason for bestowing praise upon him are his gifts to his subjects (2.8; 6.3-4; 50; 52.6-7).70 In addition to securing peace for the empire, his rule ushers in a season of agricultural fertility (31–32). Third, Trajan powerfully rules over the entire world. His very “word or gesture of command [can] rule land and 64. I am using Sidney Alexander, The Complete Odes and Satires of Horace (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990). 65. See Thomas Habinek, The World of Roman Song: From Ritualized Speech to Social Order (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), 152-157; Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 102-5. 66. On this as part of Augustus’s propaganda strategy, see Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, 172-83. 67. On the association between Augustus and the gods, see Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, 230-38. In the odes of Horace, see Gordley, Teaching through Song in Antiquity, 126-33. 68. For text and translation, see Betty Radice, Pliny: Letters and Panegyricus (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969). Also see Habinek, The World of Roman Song, 214-15. For further helpful detail on the kingship ideology of Pliny’s Panegyricus, see Smith, Christ the King, 81-83; Gordley, Teaching through Song in Antiquity, 139-45; Lester K. Born, “The Perfect Prince according to the Latin Panegyrists,” AJP 55 (1934): 20-35. 69. On the relationship between Trajan and the gods, see Daniel N. Schowalter, The Emperor and the Gods: Images from the Time of Trajan (HDR; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 75-80. “Meanwhile when I have tried to fashion and form in my mind a princeps to whom a power equal to the immortal gods is appropriate, I never, not even in prayer, thought to express anything like this one whom we see now” (Pan. 4.4). 70. Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 324.

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sea and determine peace or war” (4.4). He brings an end to wars and dissension, thereby ushering in a time of peace (5.6-9; 80.3). Hymns and Prophetic Praises to the Davidic King in Israel’s Scriptures For my argument it is also necessary to examine the role of the hymns and poems composed in honor of King David or a coming ruler, for the Colossian Christ-hymn evidences some of the same vocabulary.71 The LXX Psalms in particular testify to the practice of singing praises, uttering prayers, and composing oracles in honor of Israel’s kings.72 Throughout the psalms the king is praised with language reserved for God, given that the king has been promised to share in God’s rule (e.g., “I have been established by him as king on Zion his holy mountain”; “Ask me and I will give the nations as your heritage, and the ends of the earth as your possession,” Ps. 2:6, 8).73 The king is God’s vicegerent who rules on God’s behalf and provides deliverance for the people, and whose worldwide dominion is gifted to him from God. The king is thereby worthy of exalted honorifics and hymnic honors. As was the case with Hellenistic/Roman royal propaganda, a central component of Israelite royal ideology is the godlike depiction and status of the king. For example, LXX Psalm 44, the only hymn in the Psalter that directly addresses the king, begins: “out of my heart erupts a good song (λόγον ἀγαθόν), I speak my works to the king (τῷ βασιλεῖ)” (v. 2a). It is remarkable that the psalmist addresses the king as God: “your throne, O God, is forever and ever” (ὁ θρόνος σου, ὁ θεός, εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ αἰῶνος; v. 7; cf. Heb. 1:8).74 The king is addressed as God by virtue of his sharing 71. On Jewish praise of rulers, see especially Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 127-40. 72. Many of the psalms likely began as royal oracles and petitions on behalf of the king. See Scott R. A. Starbuck, Court Oracles in the Psalms: The So-Called Royal Psalms in Their Ancient Near Eastern Context (SBLDS 172; Atlanta: Scholars, 1999). 73. Erhard S. Gerstenberger refers to Psalm 2 as a messianic hymn. See his Psalms: Part One: With an Introduction to Cultic Poetry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 48. 74. This statement has troubled interpreters because the king appears to be addressed as God. On this concern, see Aubrey R. Johnson, Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1967), 30 n.1. Mark W. Hamilton, in commenting on Psalm 45 (MT), rightly states: “A central feature of the royal propaganda is thus the extraordinary, godlike status of the king” (The Body Royal: The Social Poetic of Kingship in Ancient Israel [Biblical Interpretation Series 78; Leiden: Brill, 2008], 49).

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God’s throne.75 The king is thereby the representative of divine kingship in a way reminiscent of the ruler cults.76 As a result of the king’s love of righteousness, “God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions” (v. 8). The psalmist concludes: “I will make your name be celebrated in all generations; therefore the peoples will praise you forever” (v. 18). The depiction of the king as God’s representative, through the sharing of his throne, is reminiscent of the royal coronation hymn of LXX Psalm 109: The Lord said to my Lord (εἰπεν ὁ κύριος τῷ κυρίῳ μου), “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” The Lord sends out from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your foes (κατακυρίευε ἐν μέσῳ τῶν ἐχθρῶν σου). With you is rule (μετὰ σοῦ ἡ άρχή) on the day of your power, in the radiance of the saints, from the womb I have begotten you before the morning star (vv. 1-3). 77 The psalm appears to assume (or at least makes the interpretation plausible) the king’s preexistence with the statement: “from the womb, I have begotten you before the morning star” (ἐκ γαστρὸς πρὸ ἑωσφόρου ἐξεγέννησά σε; v 3b).78 Furthermore, David speaks here not only of God as Lord but of a coming king as Lord, whose δύναμις is derived from God and whose dominion will outstrip David’s.79 One day, the psalmist 75. Hamilton, The Body Royal, 52-53. 76. This is also briefly noted by Adela Yarbro Collins, who suggests that royal statements like this may have been the soil out of which the early church affirmed the divine identity of Jesus. See her “The Worship of Jesus and the Imperial Cult,” in The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism, 234-57, here 239-40. 77. On how LXX Psalm 109 as a liturgical royal coronation hymn may have been used to publicly address the king, see S. E. Gillingham, The Poems and Psalms of the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 225-26. Also see Gunkel, Einleitung, 141; Mowinckel, Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 2:153; Klaus Homburg, “Psalm 110:1 im Rahmen des judäischen Krönungszeremoniells,” ZAW 84 (1972): 243-46. 78. See especially Matthew W. Bates, The Birth of the Trinity: Jesus, God, and Spirit in New Testament and Early Christian Interpretations of the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 50-56. See also Adela Yarbro Collins and John J. Collins, King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 57-58. The MT is incredibly opaque (literally,“in sacred splendors from the womb of the dawn, to you the dew of the earth” [Ps. 110:3]). See Aquila H. I. Lee, who states: “we admit that the final rendering of v. 3 [LXX Ps. 109:3] becomes capable of being understood by later readers (e.g., early Christians?) as implying the preexistence of the messiah” (From Messiah to Preexistent Son: Jesus’ Self-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis of Messianic Psalms [WUNT 2.192; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2005], 113). Similarly but more broadly, see Horbury, Jewish Messianism, 96-97. 79. Schaper, Eschatology in the Greek Psalter, 106-7.

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says, every hostile rule will be overthrown by the king’s rule.80 In both Psalms 44 and 109, then, the king is God’s agent who shares God’s throne, rules on his behalf, and is worthy of hymnic honors. 81 The worldwide dominion of the king is celebrated in LXX Psalm 88, where the psalmist situates God’s promises to have a Davidic king rule creation within God’s own rule over the seas and heavens (vv. 10-12): I will set his hand on the sea and his right hand on the rivers. He shall cry to me, “You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation!” I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of earth (κἀγὼ πρωτότοκον θήσομαι αὐτόν, ὑψηλὸν παρὰ τοῖς βασιλεῦσιν τῆς γῆς) (vv. 26-28).82

The king’s dominion over the seas and rivers is a gift from God, who rules “the raging of the sea” (v. 10), and to whose rule belongs “the heavens, the earth is also yours, the world and all that is in it – you have founded them” (v. 12).83 God’s destruction of cosmic enemies (vv. 10-11) is the basis for the king’s defeat of his earthly opponents (vv. 21-25).84 Just as God rules from the heavenly throne (vv. 6-9), so one day will God establish the king’s “throne as long as the heavens endure” (v. 30). Just as the throne of God is characterized by righteousness,

80. See James L. Mays, The Lord Reigns: A Theological Handbook to the Psalms (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 105. 81. Eaton, Kingship and Psalms (Studies in Biblical Theology 32; London: SCM, 1976), 142-46. Eaton points to numerous texts that associate the king incredibly closely with Yahweh (e.g., Pss. 18:20; 41:13; 61:5; 62:8; 63:8-10; 91:1, 4). 82. Verses 1-19 are a hymnic composition celebrating the righteous reign of God; vv. 20-38 are a poetic expansion of the covenant made to David in 2 Samuel 7; and vv. 39-53 are a lament that accuses God of breaking God’s covenant with David. See Knut M. Heim, “The (God-)Forsaken King of Psalm 89: A Historical and Intertextual Inquiry,” in King and Messiah in Israel and the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar (ed. John Day; JSOTSS 270; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic,1998), 296-322, here 296-99. 83. Jon D. Levenson perceptively articulates how God’s defeat of God’s enemies and his ensuing rule is the basis for King David’s governance of creation. The interconnection between the rule of God and the rule of David is the reason for the great lament in LXX Psalm 88. See his Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 116-17; Bernard F. Batto, “The Divine Sovereign: The Image of God in the Priestly Creation Account,” in David and Zion: Biblical Studies in Honor of J. J. M. Roberts (ed. Bernard Batto and Kathryn L. Roberts; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004), 143-86, esp. 179-85. 84. J. J. M. Roberts states: “God puts David’s hand on the Sea and his right hand on the Rivers, God’s two cosmogonic enemies (v. 26). Thus, the victories of the Davidic king are simply a participation in and reinstatement of God’s primeval victories” (“The Enthronement of Yhwh and David: The Abiding Theological Significance of the Kingship Language of the Psalms,” CBQ 64 [2002]: 675-86, here 679). Also see Jerome F. Creach, The Destiny of the Righteous in the Psalms (St. Louis: Chalice, 2008), 91-93.

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justice, mercy, and truth (v. 15), so is the king’s throne secured by God’s mercy and fidelity (vv. 29-30). The Davidic king’s rule thereby reflects and enacts God’s heavenly dominion. There is an incredible correspondence between God’s heavenly throne and the earthly king’s reign.85 Richard J. Clifford notes that the apparent “excess of royal claims” made on behalf of the king derive from the fact that the king shares in every aspect of Yahweh’s rule.86 Finally, LXX Psalm 71 is a prayer for the son of the king (v. 1b). It envisions his reign as one where “righteousness flourishes and peace abounds” (v. 7). Again, however, the king’s righteous and peaceful reign would appear to be a participation in God’s own just and righteous rule (vv. 1-2).87 The scope of his “dominion (κατακυριεύσει) [is] from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the world” (περάτων τῆς οἰκουμένης; v. 8). All of the “kings will give obeisance before him (προσκυνήσουσιν αὐτῷ πάντες οἱ βασιλεῖς), all nations serve him” (v. 11). The king’s rule ensures abundant Eden-like agricultural fertility (v. 16; cf. v. 3; Joel 2:24; Isa. 25:6-9), and so he prays for “his name to endure forever, his fame to continue as long as the sun. May all nations be blessed in him; may they pronounce him happy” (v. 17). Repeatedly, the king is spoken of as worthy of praise as a result of his deliverance, mercy, and saving acts for the needy (vv. 4, 12-14). Though they are not hymns, the bestowal of praise and honors upon Israel’s kings also takes the form of prophecy throughout poetic seams in the Pentateuch (LXX Gen. 49:8-12; Numbers 23–24; Deut. 33:1-5).88 These poetic compositions confirm what we have seen in the Psalms 85. Mays, The Lord Reigns, 104. 86. Richard J. Clifford, “Psalm 89: A Lament over the Davidic Ruler’s Continued Failure,” HTR 73 (1980): 35-47, here 44-45; idem., “Creation in the Psalms,” in Creation in the Biblical Traditions (ed. Richard J. Clifford and John J. Collins; CBQMS 24; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1992), 57-69; Heim, “The (God-)Forsaken King of Psalm 89,” 314-15. Both are influenced by J. B. Dumortier, “Un Rituel D’intronisation: Le Ps. lxxxxix 2-38,” VT 22 (1972): 176-96. See also J. Richard Middleton, The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2005), 247-49. On the god-like character of the king, see Hamilton, who says that “the royal psalms make the king out to be a superhuman, almost divine figure” (The Body Royal, 91-92). 87. So also, Roberts, “The Enthronement of Yhwh and David,” 682-83. 88. On royal praise taking the form of prophecy, see Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 127-32. On the frequency of the use of Gen. 49:8-12 and Numbers 23–24 in Second-Temple Jewish messianic texts, see Matthew V. Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 56-58.

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as they depict through their praise a coming king who is worthy of royal honors for his worldwide dominion.89 Thus, in LXX Gen. 49:8-12, a prophecy that pertains to “the end of the days” (ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάτων τῶν ἡμερῶν; 49:1b), we read that a royal descendant of Judah will receive worship: “your brothers will praise you” (σὲ αἰνέσαισαν οἱ ἀδελφοί σου; v. 8a) and “the sons of your father will worship you” (προσκυνήσουσίν σοι; v. 8c).90 The poem looks forward to a “ruler from Judah” (ἄρχων ἐξ Ιουδα) who alone “is the expectation of the nations” (αὐτὸς προσδοκία ἐθνῶν) (v. 10; cf. Isa. 11:10; Rom. 15:12). This royal figure will receive praise for his victories over the enemies of God’s people that results in the deliverance of Israel and Eden-like fertility in the land (vv. 8, 9b, 11-12).91 Or in LXX Numbers 24, Balaam prophesies of a coming king who “will rule over many nations (κυριεύσει ἐθνῶν πολλῶν), and his kingdom (βασιλεία αὐτοῦ) shall be exalted (ὑψωθήσεται) above Gog, and his kingdom shall be increased (αὐξηθήσεται ἡ βασιλεία αὐτοῦ)” (v. 7). This royal figure will “destroy the rulers of Moab, will plunder all the sons of Seth, and Edom will be his inheritance, and his enemy Esau will be his inheritance, for Israel has acted with strength” (vv. 17b-18).92 In short, the king’s dominion will be all-encompassing. For this reason, royal honors are befitting for him: “the glories of rulers are in him” (τὰ ἔνδοξα ἀρχόντων ἐν αὐτῷ; 23:21). And in the Song of Moses in LXX Deuteronomy 33, Moses prophesies of a time when there “will be a 89. The oracle of Judah was understood by both Christians and Jews as looking forward to an ideal king. See Joseph Blenkinsopp, “The Oracle of Judah and the Messianic Entry,” JBL 80 (1961): 55-64, here 56-57. John H. Sailhamer argues that these poems (including Exod. 15:1-22) are part of a deliberate editorial strategy of giving the Pentateuch a royal shape (The Meaning of the Pentateuch: Revelation, Composition and Interpretation (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 324). On the royal and potentially messianic focus of Gen. 49:8-12, see T. Desmond Alexander, “Messianic Ideology in Genesis,” in The Lord’s Anointed: Interpretation of Old Testament Messianic Texts (ed. Philip E. Satterthwaite et al., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 19-39, here 32-37. 90. The coming eschatological focus of the poems is indicated by the phrase “in the last days.” See Sailhamer, The Meaning of the Pentateuch, 468. 91. On which, see Sailhamer, The Meaning of the Pentateuch, 325-30. 92. The dominion of the king is explicitly an eschatological reign, as indicated by the note that it concerns “the end of the days” (ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν; LXX Num. 24:14b). The coming king of Numbers 23–24 appears to be the same figure anticipated in Gen. 49:8-12. Compare Num. 24:9 (“He crouched, he lay down like a lion, and like a lioness; who will arouse him?”) with Gen. 49:9 (“He crouches down, he lays down like a lion, and like a lioness; who will arouse him?”). The text is reminiscent of the messianic oracle of LXX Isa. 11:1 (“a bloom shall rise up from the root”). Genesis 49 and Isaiah 11 have certainly been taken in a messianic sense in Rev. 5:5. See Sailhamer, The Meaning of the Pentateuch, 331, 335; Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 50.

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ruler in the beloved one” (ἔσται ἐν τῷ ἠγαπημένῳ ἄρχων; v. 5a).93 The “ruler” likely refers to a coming Israelite king in the midst of Israel. 94 From the Psalms and Pentateuch, we have seen Israel’s king praised through the address of a hymn (Psalm 44), the promise of sharing God’s throne and worldwide dominion (Psalms 89; 109; Num. 24:7, 17-18), the promise of worship and obeisance (Ps. 71:11; Gen. 49:8; Num. 23:21), and the acclamations of “God” (Ps. 44:7) and “Lord” (Ps. 109:1). Most remarkable is the extensive overlap between God’s dominion and the king’s dominion over creation, resulting in an almost God-like depiction of Israel’s ruler. God’s royal rule over the entirety of creation is the basis for the king’s participation in ruling and sustaining the cosmos. The relationship between God and king illuminates the Chronicler’s surprising depiction of the Lord and King David both receiving worship: Then David said to the whole assembly, “Bless the Lord your God (Εὐλογήσατε κύριον τὸν θεόν).” And all the assembly blessed the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and bowed their heads and prostrated themselves before the Lord and the king (καὶ εὐλόγησεν πᾶσα ἡ ἐκκλησία κύριον τὸν θεὸν τῶν πατέρων αὐτῶν καὶ κάμψαντες τὰ γόνατα προσεκύνησαν τῷ κυρίῳ καὶ τῷ βασιλεῖ). . . . The Lord highly exalted (ἐμεγάλυνεν κύριος) Solomon in the sight of all Israel, and bestowed upon him such royal majesty (ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ δόξαν βασιλέως) as had not been on any king before him in Israel (1 Chron. 29:20, 25).

The Chronicler’s depiction, not unlike what has been observed with Hellenistic and Roman rulers, indicates that because of God’s investiture of glory and dominion to the Davidic king, the earthly king is able to receive divine honors.95 So closely identified with God is the king that he is able to receive the worship reserved for God.96 The 93. All three prophetic poems use the language of ἄρχων to refer to a coming king. 94. Horbury nicely summarizes these three poetic texts of praise from the LXX: “These LXX passages point to a consistent set of messianic hopes, constituting an expectation centred on a royal messiah which was sufficiently central and widespread among Jews of the third century to be included in the interpretation of the Pentateuch” (Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 51). 95. Similarly Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 132; cf. Scott W. Hahn, The Kingdom of God as Liturgical Empire: A Theological Commentary on 12 Chronicles (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 97. 96. See Matthew Lynch, Monotheism and Institutions in the Books of Chronicles: Temple, Priesthood, and Kingship in Post-Exilic Perspective (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2014), 209-43.

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author, like the psalmists (e.g., Pss. 44:7; 109), notes that the son of David shares God’s throne: “Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord, succeeding his father David as king; he prospered, and all Israel obeyed him” (1 Chron. 29:23).97 Earlier the Chronicler had David declare that God “has chosen my son Solomon to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel” (καθίσαι αὐτὸν ἐπὶ θρόνου βασιλείας κυρίου ἐπὶ τὸν Ισραηλ; 1 Chron. 28:5b).98 It is this sharing of God’s throne that enables the king to share in God’s reign and to receive worship and obedience as God’s ruler (29:20, 23).99 Praising Kings and Rulers From the preceding examination we have seen that hymns for kings and rulers were widespread throughout the ancient world as a way of bestowing honors upon kings. These hymnic honors are bestowed in response to the belief that the king is the visible representation of God, who rules and sustains the cosmos and who has benefited human subjects through great benefactions. The praise, then, is a way of giving divine honors to a king who has granted gifts to his subjects. Given that ancient kingship ideology stressed the close relationship between the god(s) and the king, and in light of the benefactions-forhonor system, the praises often speak of the king with language usually

97. A connection between LXX Ps. 44:7 and 1 Chron. 29:23 is, in fact, argued by Joachim Schaper, Eschatology in the Greek Psalter (WUNT 2.76; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1995), 80-81. 98. See Mark A. Throntveit, “The Idealization of Solomon as the Glorification of God in the Chronicler’s Royal Speeches and Royal Prayers,” in The Age of Solomon: Scholarship at the Turn of the Millennium (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East 11; ed. Lowell K. Handy; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 411-27, here 421-23. 99. On the notion of the ideal king as sharing in God’s rule over creation such that the king is worthy of divine honorifics, one could also examine Philo’s Life of Moses, in which Philo depicts Moses as the ideal king who was deemed worthy of the honor of sharing the title “with the Father and Maker” and “who was named god and king (θεὸς καὶ βασιλεύς) of the whole nation” (158). Moses’s kingship consists in his “sharing God’s possessions” such that he rules over “the wealth of the whole earth and sea and rivers, and of all the other elements and the combinations which they form. . . . Therefore, each element obeyed him as its master, changed its natural properties and submitted to his command” (155-157). On Moses as ideal king in Philo, see Erwin R. Goodenough, By Light, Light: The Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1935), 171-77; Ray Barraclough, “Philo’s Politics: Roman Rule and Hellenistic Judaism,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, 2.1 (1984): 418-553, here 487-91. More broadly, see Wayne A. Meeks, “Moses as God and King,” in Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough (ed. Jacob Neusner; Studies in the History of Religions; Leiden: Brill, 1968), 354-71.

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reserved for the god(s). The king, then, is often portrayed as God’s earthly representative who shares the divine throne, shares divine honorifics and titles, and perhaps most importantly rules over all of creation on behalf of the god(s). The king establishes and maintains divine cosmic stability in his rule. Colossians 1:15-20 as a Panegyric to Christ the King My argument regarding Col. 1:15-20 is that the text is a royal encomium (ὁ βασιλικὸς λόγος)—perhaps best classified as a prose hymn100—written to bestow praise upon the messianic king who, in broad accordance with ancient kingship ideology: (a) is God’s elected royal (Davidic) vicegerent, who (b) creates, sustains and rules over creation, and (c) rules over his people and establishes peace between them and God by reconciling the entire cosmos to God.101 These motifs are ubiquitous in ancient kingship ideology, and we have had occasion to witness them in the preceding discussion of hymns to rulers. What remains now, then, is to establish the presence and function of these royal motifs within the encomium. Christ the King is God’s Son and God’s Image “He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the son of his love” (1:13) The hymns examined above have afforded the opportunity to see the 100. So much has been written on the hymnic features of Col. 1:15-20 that it would be cumbersome to justify this generic convention here in detail. I simply note the following linguistic and thematic parallels: “firstborn of creation,” 1:15 // “firstborn from the dead,” 1:18; “all things have been created through him and for him,” 1:16 // “to reconcile all things through him to himself,” 1:20; “he is before all things,” 1:17 // “so that he might be first in all things,” 1:18; “who is the image of the invisible God,” 1:15 // “who is the beginning,” 1:18. For a convincing definition of ancient hymns, see Gordley, The Colossian Hymn in Context, 32-33. That Col. 1:15-20 fulfills the criteria for classification as a hymn and for an argument that hymn (rather than encomion) is a better classification for Col. 1:15-20, see Samuel Vollenweider, “Hymnus, Enkomion oder Psalm? Schattengefechte in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft,” NTS 56 (2010): 208-31, here 225-27. 101. With respect to Phil. 2:5-11, Collins has suggested, though without reference to any examination of kingship ideology, that “Paul adapted the form of the Greek prose hymn in order to instruct the Philippians in cultural terms familiar to them” (“The Psalms and the Origins of Christology,” 123).

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frequent relationship between Zeus and his elected kings (Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus 78–79) as well as that between Israel’s God and the Davidic ruler (e.g., LXX Psalms 2; 71; 88; 109). Likewise, Paul’s encomium to the Messiah in Colossians uses royal honorifics to describe the hymn’s subject as God’s unique king who participates in God’s rule as the sole royal representative. The antecedent of ὅς (Col. 1:15a), and all the pronouns that follow, is not “Wisdom,” nor is it left unspecified, but rather it is clearly stated as τοῦ υἱοῦ τῆς ἀγάπης αὐτοῦ (“the son of his love”; v. 13b).102 This son is unambiguously troped as a royal figure, for he has his own βασιλείαν where his rescued subjects reside as ones who have been “delivered from the dominion of darkness” (ἐρρύσατο ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ σκότους; v. 13).103 Like a good king, the royal son has liberated his subjects from evil—“the dominion of darkness” (1:13) and “sins” (1:14). The relationship between “the Father” (τῷ πατρί; v. 12) and “the son of his love” echoes Israel’s royal ideology whereby the king is God’s son.104 More specifically, the language echoes Nathan’s oracle to the house of David: “I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me” (ἐγὼ ἔσομαι αὐτῷ εἰς πατέρα, καὶ αὐτὸς ἔσται μοι εἰς υἱόν; 2 Sam. 7:14a).105 Increasing the resonances of the echo of 2 Samuel 7 in Paul’s honorific τοῦ υἱοῦ τῆς ἀγάπης αὐτοῦ is the reverberation of David’s statement: “what is my house that you have loved me in this way” (ἠγάπηκάς με ἕως τούτων; 2 Sam. 7:18)? As is well known, numerous later Israelite texts continue to set forth 102. The reference of the hymn as “the son of his love” is frequently missed when the hymn is isolated from its literary context. This allows for the mistaken insertion of personified “Wisdom” as the subject of the hymn. See also James D. G. Dunn, The Epistle to the Colossians and to Philemon (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: 1996), 87; Schweizer, The Letter to the Colossians: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1982), 63-69. 103. It should not escape the reader’s notice that one of the primary responsibilities of the good king was to deliver and rescue his people from their enemies; see chapter 5, “King and Justice.” See the suggestive comments by Stefan Schreiber, Gesalbter und König: Titel and Konzeptionen der königlichen Gesalbtenerwartung in früjüdischen und urchristlichen Schriften (BZNW 105; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000), 421-22. 104. Gerald Cooke, “The Israelite King as Son of God,” ZAW 73 (1961): 202-25; Trygve N. D. Mettinger, King and Messiah: The Civil and Sacral Legitimation of the Israelite Kings (ConBot 8; Lund: Gleerup, 1976), 259-68; Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms, 146-49. 105. For more detail, see Christopher A. Beetham, Echoes of Scripture in the Letter to the Colossians (Biblical Interpretation Series 96; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 97-112; David W. Pao, Colossians and Philemon (ZECNT; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 76-77.

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Israel’s king as God’s son who rules in God’s stead.106 Thus, in Psalm 2, in response to “the kings of the earth and the rulers” (οἱ βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς καὶ οἱ ἄρχοντες; 2:2a) who plot “against the lord and against his anointed one” (κατὰ τοῦ κυρίου καὶ κατὰ τοῦ χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ; 2:2b), God institutes the king to rule: “the Lord said to me, ‘You are my son (Υἱός μου εἶ σύ), today I have begotten you’” (2:7). The portrait is of a rebellious group of rulers and authorities who are pacified by God’s royal son, who is enthroned to reign over them.107 The enthronement decree (2:7) unpacks the Davidic figure’s status as one who has been established as “king by him” (βασιλεὺς ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ; 2:6a).108 God promises to give the king “the nations as your inheritance” (ἔθνη τὴν κληρονομίαν σου; 2:8).109 The Davidic king thereby participates as gift in the rule of God his father and is commissioned to rule on God’s behalf.110 And again, in Psalm 88 the king is “exalted above all the kings of the earth” (v. 29) as a result of his divine sonship (v. 28). The motif of the Israelite king as God’s son who rules in God’s stead as a gift fits nicely with Paul’s language in which “the beloved Son” is the authorized agent through whom God accomplishes deliverance, redemption, and release from sins (Col. 1:13-14).111 Thus Paul sets the encomium in an explicitly royal messianic context and prepares the 106. E.g., 1 Chronicles 17; Jer. 33:14-22; Zech. 6:12-13; Psalms of Solomon 17. See William M. Schniedewind, Society and the Promise to David: The Reception History of 2 Samuel 7:1–17 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Sam Janse, “You are my Son”: The Reception History of Psalm 2 in Early Judaism and the Early Church (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), 51-75; Fee, Pauline Christology, 540-42. 107. Speaking of Ps. 2:1-3, James L. Mays [The Lord Reigns: A Theological Handbook to the Psalms (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, 109] states: “The question [of v. 3] gathers up the entire scene of governments and rulers, grasping and consolidating power, working out their destiny in terms of force; and it interprets the machinations of the whole thing theologically as rebellion against the Lord and his Anointed.” 108. On Psalm 2 as reflecting an enthronement liturgy, see Mowinckel, He That Cometh, 67; Hamilton, The Body Royal, 60. On the reception history of Psalm 2, see 1 En. 48:4, 10; Acts 4:26. Also, see Paul Maiberger, “Das Verständnis von Psalm 2 in der Septuaginta, im Targum, in Qumran, im frühen Judentum und im Neuen Testament,” in Beiträge zur Psalmenforschung. Psalm 2 und 22 (ed. Josef Schreiner; Forschung zur Bibel; Würzburg; Echter, 1988), 85-151. 109. Compare with Paul’s statement regarding the saints who have been qualified “for a share of the inheritance” (εἰς τὴν μερίδα τοῦ κλήρου, 1:12). 110. So Collins and Collins, King and Messiah as Son of God, 22-24. Mays says that when “the king was named ‘son of God,’ the title was a confession of faith that the king was the representative and agent of the deity in such unity and coherence that only the term ‘son’ could display the correspondence and claims between the two” (The Lord Reigns, 112). 111. That the royal son of God is entirely dependent upon God in Psalm 2 is rightly emphasized by Jamie A. Grant, The King as Exemplar: The Function of Deuteronomy’s Kingship Law in the Shaping of the Book of Psalms (SBL 17; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), 58-60.

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audience for the hymn’s expansion on the nature of the king’s dominion and rule. “He is the image of the invisible God” (1:15a) Just as ancient rhetorical handbooks recommend that an encomium begin with the ruler’s honorable ancestry, so Paul also uses a royal honorific to describe the son of God as “the image of the invisible God” (ὅς ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ ἀοράτου; 1:15a). In both Jewish and pagan contexts, rulers are spoken of as images of the gods.112 As living images of the gods, the kings rule and maintain cosmic harmony in the god’s stead. Plato remarks that the wise king reproduces the divine image within himself in his rule (Resp. 500B–502A). The Ptolemaic king Philopator is referred to as εἰκών τοῦ Διός, while Ptolemy V is spoken of as εἰκὼν ζῶσα τοῦ Διός.113 In To an Uneducated Ruler, Plutarch says, “the ruler is the image of God who orders all things” (ἄρχων δ᾽ εἰκὼν θεοῦ τοῦ πάντα κοσμοῦντος; 780d). The ruler’s divine image is due to the fact that “rulers serve god for the care and preservation of men” (780d-e). The king is responsible for maintaining cosmic harmony and distributing the gifts of the gods to humans (780f). Similarly, when Themistocles meets with the Persian king, he is told that “it is the fairest of all to honor the king, and to pay obeisance to him as the image of the god (ὡς εἰκόνα θεοῦ) who is the preserver of all things” (Themistocles 125). And Diotogenes says that “the royal office is an imitation of god” (Stob. 4.7.62). But the primary context for understanding the son as “the image of the invisible God” is the figure of Adam, who was made “according to the image of God” (κατ᾽ εἰκόνα θεοῦ; Gen. 1:27).114 Without entering 112. The religious context most often proposed for understanding 1:15a is Hellenistic Jewish speculation on personified Wisdom, mediated through Middle Platonic speculation on the Logos. See Ronald Cox, By the Same Word: Creation and Salvation in Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity (BZNW 145; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007), 172-73; Eduard Lohse, Colossians and Philemon (trans. William R. Poehlmann and Robert J. Karris; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), 46-47. E.g., “She [i.e., Wisdom] is . . . an image of his goodness” (εἰκὼν τῆς ἀγαθότητος αὐτοῦ; Wis. 7:26). Philo says that the Logos is “the man after God’s image” (ὁ κατ ᾽εἰκόνα ἄνθρωπος’ Conf. 146). Against this, however, stands the fact that Paul says that Christ is the image of God and not made according to, or after, God’s image. 113. See BDAG, “εἰκών,” 282.

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into a detailed discussion of what this entails, one would not go astray by noting Adam’s commission to rule and have dominion. As God’s image, Adam is created to “rule” over all of creation (1:26). All of creation is to be the dominion for God’s image as it is commanded to “increase and multiply and fill the earth, and have dominion over it and rule over” (Αὐξάνεσθε καὶ πληθύνεσθε καὶ πληρώσατε τὴν γῆν καὶ κατακυριεύσατε αὐτῆς καὶ ἄρχετε) all creation (1:28). Royal motifs are evident as the author uses the language of dominion, rule, lordship, and even commands “the image of God” to expand the dominion over all creation. Psalm 8 confirms this, for here humanity is created to have dominion over God’s creation (vv. 4-8). Whatever, then, the “image of God,” might mean, it is clearly related in a representative way to the God it reflects and to the creation over which it rules and has dominion.115 Most have discerned in Gen. 1:26-28 and Psalm 8 a royal ideology akin to what is found in other ancient Near Eastern cultures in which the king is the representative or even the incarnation of the god, often with the king establishing his image in the temple of conquered territories as a sign of his rule.116 One example, I think, will suffice.117 In the Tukulti-Ninurta epic, the Assyrian king is described within a hymn 114. Seyoon Kim, Paul and the New Perspective: Second Thoughts on the Origin of Paul’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 166-67; Nils A. Dahl, “Christ, Creation and the Church,” in The Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology: In Honour of Charles Harold Dodd (ed. W. D. Davies and D. Daube; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), 422-33, here 432. 115. Phyllis A. Bird, “ ‘Male and Female He Created Them’: Gen 1:27b in the Context of the Priestly Account of Creation,” HTR 74 (1981): 129-59, here 137-38. Middleton draws attention to the language of royal coronation and the comparison between humanity’s rule and God’s rule for a royal interpretation of the language of “image of God” in Psalm 8 (The Liberating Image, 57-59). 116. Bird, “ ‘Male and Female He Created Them’,” 139-41; Peter Machinist, “Kingship and Divinity in Imperial Assyria,” in Text, Artifact, and Image: Revealing Ancient Israelite Religion (ed. Gary Beckman and Theodore J. Lewis; Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2006), 152-87, here 153-59; Mark G. Brett, “Earthing the Human in Genesis 1–3,” in The Earth Story in Genesis (ed. Norman C. Habel and Shirley Wurst; The Earth Bible, Vol. 2; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000), 77; David J. A. Clines, “The Image of God in Man,” TynBul 19 (1968): 55-103, here 95-99; John van Seters, “The Creation of Man and the Creation of the King,” ZAW 101 (2009): 333-41; Batto, “The Divine Sovereign: The Image of God in the Priestly Creation Account,” 143-86; Jeffrey H. Tigay, “The Image of God and the Flood: Some New Developments,” in Studies in Jewish Education and Judaica in Honor of Louis Newman (ed. Alexander M. Shapiro and Burton I. Cohen; New York: Ktav, 1984), 169-82; Benjamin D. Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 69-70. 117. For more examples, see Clines, “The Image of God in Man,” 83-85; G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God (NSBT 17; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 82-84; John Anthony Dunne, “The Regal Status of Christ in the Colossian

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as “alone the eternal image of Enlil” (line 18) and the “firstborn son” of the god who is his father (line 20). The relationship between Enlil and the king is one in which the king participates in the god’s rule and produces global harmony through his military prowess.118 David J. A. Clines notes that Assyrian kings were consistently spoken of as the image of God, and he provides the example of King Esarhaddon, who is addressed by his official: “The father of the king, my lord, was the very image of Bel, and the king, my lord, is likewise the very image of Bel.”119 Returning to Gen. 1:26-28, Gerhard von Rad rightly states, “God set man in the world as the sign of his own sovereign authority, in order that man should uphold and enforce his—God’s claims as lord.”120 Adam is commissioned to “subdue” (κατακυριεύσατε) and to “rule” (ἄρχετε) over the earth as God’s sovereign representative (1:28), maintaining and expanding the divine order of God’s creation.121 These words are consistently used throughout the Hebrew Scriptures to denote the authority and power of royal figures.122 Significantly, the words frequently occur in eschatological contexts that look forward to an ideal messianic king who will rule God’s kingdom.123 It is hard to escape the conclusion that Adam, as God’s image, is the context for some later messianic praises where similar commands of “rule” are given to a coming Israelite king (Num. 24:17-19; Ps. 72:8-11). For example, in Psalm 110 the king at the right hand of God is commanded —“Rule!” (‫ ;)רדה‬with linguistic echoes of Genesis 1.124 Adam is God’s royal ruler,

‘Christ-Hymn’: A Re-evaluation of the Influence of Wisdom Traditions,” TrinJ 32 (2011): 3-18, here 11-13. 118. Machinist, “Kingship and Divinity in Imperial Assyria,” 160. 119. Clines, “The Image of God in Man,” 83. Cited from R. H. Pfeiffer, State Letters of Assyria (American Oriental Society 6: New Haven (1935) 9f. (no. 161). 120. Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology. Volume I. The Theology of Israel’s Historical Traditions (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 146. 121. On God’s establishment of order in creation as a distinct concern and pattern of Gen. 1:1-2:3, see Bird, “‘Male and Female He Created Them,’” 136-37. 122. E.g., see 1 Kgs. 5:4, 5:30; 9:23; 2 Chron. 8:10. 123. Note the insightful discussion of Stephen G. Dempster, Dominion and Dynasty: A Theology of the Hebrew Bible (New Studies in Biblical Theology 15; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003), 59-60. 124. Compare Ps. 110:2 (“Rule [‫ ]רדה‬in the midst of your enemies”) with Gen. 1:28 (“and rule [‫ ]ורדו‬over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” See Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil, 112-13.

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imbued as God’s chosen kingly son, who is commissioned to act as God’s sovereign, subduing and ruling the earth for God. 125 There is one more important aspect of “the image of God” in Gen. 1:26-28, namely, the statement that Adam was created “male and female” and was given a blessing to reproduce and procreate (1:28).126 One of the ways, then, in which humanity exercises its rule and dominion over creation is through the procreation of more imagebearers. So it is no accident that the second time the author refers to God’s creation of Adam “according to the image of God” (κατ᾽ εἰκόνα θεοῦ; Gen. 5:1), what then follows is a genealogy consisting in Adam’s procreative activity.127 Situating εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ ἀοράτου in a royal context should occasion no surprise to the student of Paul, given that when Adam is named in his epistles he appears in explicitly royal contexts (cf. Rom. 5:12-21; 1 Cor. 15:20-28).128 In Rom. 5:12-21 the language of “rule” and “dominion” are spoken of in relation to Adam and Christ. And in 1 Cor. 15:20-28 Adam is spoken of in antithesis to Christ, who “hands the kingdom over to God the Father” (v. 24), pacifies God’s enemies (vv. 24b-27), and who is the subject of the royal Psalms 8 and 110. And as Sean M. McDonough has noted, when Paul uses the word εἰκών it almost always echoes Adam and the creation narrative of Genesis 1 (e.g., Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 11:7; 15:49; 2 Cor. 3:18; 4:4; Col. 3:10).129 The simple point here, then, is that when Paul names “the beloved son” as εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ ἀοράτου, he taps into royal language, language that emphasizes God’s election of the Messiah to rule as God’s kingly representative over all of creation and 125. That Adam was believed to have been God’s prototypical king is also a theme in Jewish traditions (Sir. 49:16; Jub. 2:14; 4 Ezra 6:53ff; 2 En. 30:12; Philo, Opif. 136-50). Cf. Robin Scroggs, The Last Adam: A Study in Pauline Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966), 25. 126. This is nicely stated by Paul Niskanen: “The context of Gen 1:26-28 speaks quite clearly of dominion; it also speaks quite clearly of the ADAM as male and female and the blessing of fertility” (“The Poetics of Adam: The Creation of ‫ אדם‬in the Image of ‫אלהים‬,” JBL 128 (2009): 417-36, here 432). See also, Clines, “The Image of God in Man,” 95. 127. Niskanen, “The Poetics of Adam,” 433. 128. I will expand on this point with much more detail in chapters 4 (“King and Kingdom”) and 5 (“King and Justice”). 129. McDonough, Christ as Creator, 90. The study by Stephanie Lorenzen rightly emphasizes that Paul’s use of “image” is primarily somatic, thus making an allusion to Wisdom unlikely (Das paulinische Eikon-Konzept: Semantische Analysen zur Sapientia Salomonis, zu Philo und den Paulusbriefen [WUNT 2.250; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2008]).

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thereby produce cosmic harmony.130 A second point worth considering, however, is that if reproduction and procreation are components of the Genesis depiction of the image of God, then it may be that one of Christ’s tasks is to extend his royal dominion over his people. Christ the King Creates and Rules “the firstborn over all creation” (1:15b) To that of “his beloved son” and “the image of the invisible God,” Paul adds a third royal honorific: he is “the firstborn over all creation” (πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως; 1:15b).131 In Israel the firstborn son held a special place within the family, as he was endowed with his father’s inheritance, entrusted with his father’s authority, and given a royal and priestly role within the family.132 For instance, Jacob declares to Reuben: “you are my firstborn, my strength and the beginning of my children” (πρωτότοκος μου σύ ἰσχύς καὶ ἀρχή τέκνων μου; LXX Gen. 49:3).133 The Deuteronomist’s statute protecting the inheritance of the firstborn, likewise, refers to him as the beginning of his father’s children (οὗτός ἐστιν ἀρχὴ τέκνων αὐτοῦ; Deut. 21:17b).134 Given its associations with representation of one’s father, royal privilege, and inheritance, πρωτότοκος is often used as more than a literal description of birth 130. The royal representative function of Christ as the image of God accounts for the fact that he “reveals the invisible God” (italics mine). See Stephen E. Fowl, The Story of Christ in the Ethics of Paul: An Analysis of the Function of the Hymnic Material in the Pauline Corpus (JSNTSup; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1990), 107. 131. Philo does not refer to Wisdom or Logos as πρωτότοκος but rather as πρωτόγονος (Somn. 1.215; Conf. 146). I am aware of no specific linguistic parallel to Col. 1:15a in Hellenistic Jewish or Middle Platonic literature. So Fee, Pauline Christology, 320-21. 132. See especially Gen. 25:25-34; 49:3; Deut. 21:15-17. 133. The Targum’s expansion on the meaning: “Reuben, you are my first-born, my might, and the beginning of my strength. For you it would have been fitting to take three parts—the birthright, the priesthood, and royalty” (Gen. 49:3, T. Onq.). “Reuben, you are my first-born . . . you would have been worthy of the birthright, the dignity of the priesthood and the kingship. But because you sinned, my son, the birthright was given to Joseph, the kingship to Judah, and the priesthood to Levi” (Gen. 49:3, T. Ps.-Jon.); quoted from Scott W. Hahn, Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment of God’s Saving Promises (AYBRL; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 137. 134. On which, see Jon D. Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 59-60. J. R. Porter says that the description of the firstborn as his father’s strength is “almost a technical expression and which means that the son in question was endowed with the fullness of the father’s authority and power” (The Extended Family in the Old Testament [London: Edutext, 1967], 10).

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order and rather as an honorific as it is, for example, with Israel (Ex. 4:22; Jer. 38:9).135 But of most importance for understanding Paul’s description of Christ as “firstborn over all creation” is the psalmist, who refers to God’s covenant with David: “I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth” (κἀγὼ πρωτότοκον θήσομαι αὐτόν, ὑψηλὸν παρὰ τοῖς βασιλεῦσιν τῆς γῆς; LXX Ps. 88:28). That this royal psalm provides an important context for Paul’s statement is confirmed by the psalm’s preceding verse, which refers to the relationship between God and the king as that of Father and son: “He will cry to me, ‘You are my Father (αὐτὸς ἐπικαλέσεταί με Πατήρ μου εἶ σύ), my God, and the Rock of my salvation!’” (Ps. 88:27; cf. Col. 1:13b).136 We have seen that as the most exalted of the kings of the earth, as God’s own firstborn son, the Davidic ruler is given the gift of sharing in God’s cosmic rule over all of creation. The Father’s throne and the king’s throne are both founded upon God’s steadfast love (Ps. 88:15, 29-30; cf. 44:5-7). The Father thus sets the king’s “hand on the sea, and his right hand on the rivers” (Ps. 88:24; cf. vv. 10-12). And as the most exalted of the kings of the earth, Yahweh promises to defeat the enemies of the king (ὡφελήσει ἐχθρὸς ἐν αὐτῷ; Ps. 88:23a; συγκόψω τοὺς ἐχθροὺς αὐτοῦ, 88:24a; cf. Ps. 2:1-8).

135. Some see an allusion to the royal figure of Adam. Hermann Ridderbos comments on the possible connection: “It [i.e., the term “firstborn”] does not denote temporal order merely, but order of rank, position of rulership, in which it is easy to discover a reminiscence of the position Adam occupied among all of creation, likewise in virtue of his creation after God’s Image (Gen. 1:28ff)” (Paul: An Outline of His Theology [trans. John Richard de Witt; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975], 81). 136. Many include LXX Ps. 88:28 as one text among many for understanding Col. 1:15, but very few unpack its meaning. See, however, McDonough, Christ as Creator, 89-92; Dunne, “The Regal Status of Christ in the Colossian ‘Christ-Hymn,’” 13-14. It is surprising that after his fine insights into the regal nature of Col. 1:13, Beetham opts for Prov. 8:22-31 as the context for understanding Col. 1:15b (Echoes of Scripture in the Letter to the Colossians, 113-41). McDonough understands Paul to have reasoned backward from Christ’s redemptive work in new creation to his work in creation: “If eschatology forms the basis for protology, one could argue that the protological πρωτότοκος is derived from the eschatological πρωτότοκος: because Jesus has become the firstborn of the new creation, it stands to reason he was πρωτότοκος of the first creation, with all the rights and privileges appertaining thereto” (p. 178).

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“For in him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or lords, or rulers, or dominions; all things have been created through him and for him” (1:16) Paul radicalizes the royal-messianic ideology by extending Christ’s dominion over creation into an assertion that the firstborn son actually is the one “in whom all things have been created” (ἐν αὐτῷ ἐκτίσθη τὰ πάντα; 1:16a) and the one “through whom and for whom all things have been created” (τὰ πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν ἔκτισται; 1:16c). That is, as the most “exalted of all the kings of the earth” (Ps. 88:28), God’s royal son not only rules but even creates the lesser rulers, that is, the “thrones and lords and rulers and dominions” (εἴτε θρόνοι εἴτε κυριότητες εἴτε ἀρχαὶ εἴτε ἐξουσίαι; Col. 1:16).137 Regardless of the exact identity of the lesser rulers, the language used to describe them is political (cf. Eph. 1:21).138 That Christ’s creative activity derives from his royal rule is again seen through the fact that the lesser rulers in Col. 1:16 are the same “rulers and authorities” (τὰς ἀρχὰς καὶ τὰς ἐξουσίας) who are publicly shamed and led in an imperial triumph in Christ (2:15b).139 We have seen that the relationship between God and the divinely elected king results in some incredibly exalted language, such that the king shares God’s throne, is referred to as God or divine, and receives divine honors and acclamations. And if LXX Psalm 88 is the context for Col. 1:15b-16, then Paul can be seen as making the claim that God’s anointed Son not only rules creation but has been given from his Father the cosmic inheritance of creating all things. The act of creation is the preeminent kingly task in the ancient Near East.140 If God delegates all earthly rule and authority to God’s anointed one, who is to maintain cosmic harmony and order, as “the strength of his father,” 137. See also the royal use of πρωτότοκος for Christ in Rev. 1:5 (ὁ πρωτότοκος τῶν νεκρῶν καὶ ἄρχῶν τῶν βασιλέων τῆς γῆς). Also, the term is employed in Heb. 1:6 in a context where Davidic messianism abounds (e.g., Ps. 2:8 in 1:2; Ps. 2:7 in 1:5; 2 Sam. 7:14 in 1:5b; Ps. 44:7 in 1:8; Ps. 109:1 in 1:13). See further Joshua W. Jipp, “The Son’s Entrance into the Heavenly World: The Soteriological Necessity of the Scriptural Catena in Hebrews 1.5-14,” NTS 56 (2010): 557-75. 138. Cf. Rev. 2:13; 13:2. 139. On the ritualization of shame in the Roman imperial celebration, see Peter Marshall, “A Metaphor of Social Shame: THRIAMBEUEIN in 2 Cor 2:14,” NovT 25 (1983): 302-17. 140. Middleton, The Liberating Image, 65-74.

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as the royal psalms indicate (Pss. 2:6-8; 44; 72; 110:1-3), then it may be that Paul is simply, yet breathtakingly, extending “the purview of the Messiah’s authority to include primal creation.”141 “And he is before all things” (1:17a) Paul’s claim that the royal subject of his encomia “is before all things” (αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων; Col. 1:17a), a statement that may refer to both the preexistence and preeminence of the son, can again be situated within honors bestowed upon Israel’s kings. There are at least two royal psalms that allow for the possibility of an early interpretation of the figure as a preexistent, coming, messianic king.142 In LXX Psalm 109, Yahweh speaks of the king as: “from the womb, before the morning star I begat you” (ἐκ γαστρὸς πρὸ ἑωσφόρου ἐξεγέννησά σε, 109:3b). Similarly, in LXX Psalm 71, the translator translates 71:17, “his name endures before the sun” (‫)שמש ניפל‬, with πρὸ τοῦ ἡλίου and thereby creates the possibility for a temporal reading: “his name endures before [the creation of] the sun.”143 Whereas the context does not demand an interpretation that results in a preexistent Messiah, the use of the pronoun πρό makes it possible. The preexistence of the messiah’s name is further attested in 1 En. 48:2-3: “the Son of Man was named in the presence of the Lord of Spirits, and his name before the Chief of Days; and before the sun and the signs were created, before the stars of the heavens were made, his name was named before the Lord of the Spirits.”144 Following on the heels, then, of Paul’s claim that Christ rules and creates the cosmos is the assertion that even the king’s existence precedes, and is supreme over, the cosmos.

141. McDonough, Christ as Creator, 67. 142. Justin Martyr read both Pss. 72:17 and 109:3 as witnessing to a preexistent messiah (see Dial. 45.4 and 76.7). On the preexistence of the messianic king, see Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 94-99. 143. Schaper, Eschatology in the Greek Psalter, 93-107. See also Collins and Collins, King and Messiah as Son of God, 58. 144. See the discussion in Lee, From Messiah to Preexistent Son, 109.

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“And all things are held together in him” (1:17b) The statement that “all things are held together in him” (τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν; Col. 1:17b)—with αὐτῷ standing in for the one termed son of God, image of God, and firstborn over all creation respectively—reflects the notion of the king as stabilizer of the cosmos.145 The theme that the king stabilizes the cosmos by establishing divine heavenly harmony on earth is a common topos in the Davidic psalms and imperial panegyrics. As seen above, Psalms 2, 45, 72, 89, and 110 depict the Davidic king as Yahweh’s authorized, deputized ruler who stabilizes the created order on God’s behalf. Commenting on Psalm 89, Jon D. Levenson speaks of God’s gift of mastery over creation to the king: “It is now the Davidic throne that guarantees cosmic stability . . . David is YHWH’s vicar on Earth.” 146 To give a few examples, in his Panegyricus for Trajan, Pliny declares the “Father of the universe rules all with a nod of his head” and can now devote himself to heaven’s concerns, “since he has given you to us to fill his role with regard to the entire human race” (80.5). And the Pseudo-Pythagorean treatises on kingship consistently uphold the king as the guarantor of cosmic harmony and order: as the king is a reflection of the gods, so by his imitation and reflection of the harmony of the heavenly realm he procures order and stability on the earth.147 So, for example, Diotogenes: “the king is to bring the whole kingdom into harmony with his single rule and leadership;” the king is “overseer and fashioner of the organization of which he is the dictator.”148 As God/the gods were seen as “holding and shaping 145. Paul’s statements in 1:17 do indeed bear some general resemblance to Hellenistic philosophical speculation upon the logos. Nevertheless, there are no specific linguistic parallels to 1:17b of which I am aware. Those advanced by Cox—Sir. 43:26; Wis. 8:1; Philo, Her. 23; Fug. 108–112—are general and unconvincing (By the Same Word, 171). McDonough is right to insist: “a terse formula such as ‘in him all things hold together’ only makes sense when it is read within the larger philosophical or religious system within which it is embedded” (Christ as Creator, 187). And the broader framework or “religious system” that Paul has established is royal-messianic. 146. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil, 22-23. McDonough also discusses the broader relationship between cosmic order and earthly order and how a king is often depicted as the intermediate bridge between heavenly and earthly harmony (Christ as Creator, 46-64). 147. Many of these texts have been discussed in chapter 2, “King and Law.” 148. Erwin R. Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” YCS 1 (1928): 55-102, here 66-67.

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matter into the cosmos,” so “that is what the king . . . had to do for his kingdom.”149 Plutarch, as we have seen, says, “the ruler is the image of God who orders all things” (780e). That the king effects harmony for his kingdom and thereby establishes cosmic order is ubiquitous throughout ancient kingship texts.150 We have seen above that praise of Augustus’ rule often centered on his production of cosmic stability and order. To give two more examples, Augustus “restored stability, when everything was collapsing and falling into disarray, and gave a new look to the entire world.”151 Philo refers to Augustus as “the Caesar who calmed the torrential storms on every side, who healed the pestilences common to Greeks and barbarians . . . who led disorder into order and brought gentle manners and harmony to all unsociable and brutish nations” (Embassy to Gaius 145–147).152 And finally, Ovid’s Metamorphoses states that “Jupiter controls the heights of heaven and the kingdoms of the tri-formed universe; but the earth is under Augustus’ sway. Each is both father and ruler” (858–860). The poetic depictions of Augustus’s reign as ushering in a period of cosmic fertility and abundance contribute to the notion of the cosmos as dependence upon the king. Paul’s assertion that all creation is “held together in him” may be seen as shedding light on his own messianic use of agricultural images of abundance: “the message of the truth of the gospel (τῷ λόγῳ τῆς ἀληθείας τοῦ εὐαγγελίου) . . . is bearing fruit and increasing in the entire world (ἐν παντὶ τῷ κόσμῳ ἐστὶν καρποφορούμενον καὶ αὐξανόμενον)” (Col. 1:5b-6a; cf. ἐν παντὶ ἔργῳ ἀγαθῷ καρποφοροῦντες καὶ αὐξανόμενοι τῇ ἐπιγνώσει τοῦ θεοῦ; 1:10b; Gen. 1:28).153 Thus, the

149. Ibid, 69. 150. See also Musonius Rufus, That Kings Also Should Study Philosophy, 64.10-15 [in Cora E Lutz, “M Rufus, ‘The Roman Socrates,’” YCS 10 (1947): 3-147]; Harrison, Paul and the Imperial Authorities at Thessalonica and Rome, 289-90. 151. Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius 98a, lines 4-9. 152. See further Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, 389. 153. The royal connotations of “gospel” are well known, whether one emphasizes an Isaianic (see Isaiah 40; 52; 61) or a Roman imperial context. See N. T. Wright, “Paul’s Gospel and Caesar’s Empire,” in Paul and Politics: Ekklesia, Israel, Imperium, Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Krister Stendahl (ed. Richard A. Horsley; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000), 160-84, here 164-65.

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fertile increase and abundant growth of the gospel extend throughout the entire world as a result of Christ’s orderly reign (Col. 1:6). 154 Christ the King Rules over His People and Establishes Cosmic Peace “he is the head of the body of the assembly” (1:18a) Paul’s statement that Christ “is the head of the body—the assembly” (αὐτός ἐστιν ἡ κεφαλὴ τοῦ σώματος τῆς ἐκκλησίας; Col. 1:18a) portrays Christ as the heavenly enthroned ruler over his body politick much as Caesar or David was spoken of as the head of the empire/Israel. Paul’s use of ἡ κεφαλή has spawned an enormous amount of literature, with some scholars seeing connotations of authority and preeminence and others connotations of source and origin. But for my purposes it is enough to demonstrate how “the head” can be, and here is, language that stresses Christ’s regal authority over his assembly.155 And this should not be an entirely surprising claim, given that Greco-Roman moralists and orators consistently refer to the commonwealth or the empire as the body or body-politick.156 First, though I have emphasized this point repeatedly, it is incumbent upon the interpreter to read Paul’s metaphor within its own literary context before turning to other sources, and, as we have seen, that context is one replete with messianic, kingly metaphors: 154. Numerous interpreters have noted the echo of Gen. 1:28 in Col. 1:6, 10, including Beetham, Echoes of Scripture in the Letter to the Colossians, 41-59; McDonough, Christ as Creator, 180-82. Fewer have seen its resonance with Roman imperial propaganda. See, however, Brian J. Walsh and Sylvia C. Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004). 155. My emphasis on the metaphor as royal does not exclude the helpfulness of ancient medical physiological understandings of “head,” which often employed the metaphor of “head” to represent both ruler and source of health. For 1 Cor. 11:2-16, see Clinton E. Arnold, “Jesus Christ: ‘Head of the Church’ (Colossians and Ephesians),” in Jesus of Nazareth: Lord and Christ: Essays on the Historical Jesus and New Testament Christology (ed. Joel B. Green and Max Turner; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 346-66. 156. See, for example, Plato, Resp. 8.556e; Livy 2.32.12-33.1; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom. 6.83.2; Aristotle, Pol. 3.6.4; Dio Chrysostom, 1 Tars. 16; 2 Tars. 10-20; Aelius Aristides, Oration 24.38-39. Also see Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), 38-47; and Margaret M. Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991), 157-64; Matthias Klinghardt, Gemeinschaftsmahl und Mahlgemeinschaft: Soziologie und Liturgie frühchristlicher Mahlfeiern (Tübingen: Francke, 1996), 308-15.

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divine son-ship (1:13), the image of God (1:15a), the firstborn over all creation (1:15b), and so forth.157 Second, the regal nature of the metaphor cannot be doubted in the parallel text of Eph. 1:20-23, where Paul refers to Christ as “head over all things with respect to the church” (κεφαλὴν ὑπὲρ πάντα τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ; 1:22b). Here the context is one in which God, through raising the Messiah from the dead and “seating him at his right hand in the heavenly realm” (καθίσας ἐν δεξιᾷ αὐτοῦ ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις; 1:20; cf. LXX Ps. 109:1), places Christ “above every rule, authority, power, and lord” (ὑπεράνω πάσης ἀρχῆς καὶ ἐξουσίας καὶ δυνάμεως καὶ κυριότητος; Eph. 1:21a). Through his royal enthronement of the Messiah, God “has placed all things underneath his feet” (πάντα ὑπέταξεν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ; 1:22a; cf. LXX Ps. 8:7).158 Paul’s reliance upon the language of the royal LXX Psalm 8 and Psalm 109 to speak of Christ as the heavenly κεφαλή indicates that the metaphor stresses the king’s authority and rule over his commonwealth.159 The same is true for the metaphor in Col. 2:10, where Paul speaks again of Christ as “the head over every rule and authority” (ἡ κεφαλὴ πάσης ἀρχῆς καὶ ἐξουσίας) in a context that emphasizes these rulers’ subjection to Christ and those in Christ. 160 Third, though the Hebrew term for “ruler” (‫ )שר‬is not usually rendered by the LXX translators as κεφαλή, there are plenty of instances where its occurrence does have royal, preeminent connotations.161 The 157. Thus, a political and royal reading of the metaphor is inherently more likely than a philosophicalcosmological reading (such as one finds in Plato’s Timaeus) that sees the world as a cosmic body controlled by a ruling heavenly head. E.g., see Lohse, Colossians and Philemon, 44-45; Schweizer, The Letter to the Colossians, 58-59; James D. G. Dunn, “The ‘Body’ in Colossians,” in To Tell the Mystery: Essays on New Testament Eschatology in Honor of Robert H. Gundry (JSNTSup; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997), 163-81, here 173-75. This interpretation also has the major problem that Paul does not speak of “the body” as a cosmic body, given his addition of the appositional genitive τῆς ἐκκλησίας, which modifies τοῦ σώματος. See Arnold, “Jesus Christ,” 348-50. There is, then, no need to posit τῆς ἐκκλησίας as Pauline redaction to the original hymn. 158. Rightly noted by Dunne, “The Regal Status of Christ in the Colossian ‘Christ-Hymn,’” 14. 159. On the use of the Psalms in Eph. 1:20-23, see Andrew T. Lincoln, “The Use of the OT in Ephesians,” JSNT 14 (1982): 16-57, here 40-42. That Col. 2:10 and Eph. 1:20-23 use the term “head” in the sense of enthroned ruler is rightly recognized by Gottfried Nebe, “Christ, the Body of Christ and Cosmic Powers in Paul’s Letters and the New Testament as a Whole,” in Politics and Theopolitics in the Bible and Postbiblical Literature (ed. Henning Graf Reventlow et al; JSOTSup 171; Sheffield: JSOT, 1994), 100-118, here 114-16. 160. So Arnold, “Jesus Christ,” 364-65. 161. See, for example, Judg. 10:18; 11:11; LXX 1 Kgs. 20:12; Isa. 7:8-9; 11:10-11; LXX Jer. 38:7.

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most important example is David’s hymn, where he celebrates God’s “salvation for his king and steadfast love for his anointed” (μεγαλύνων σωτηρίας βασιλέως αὐτοῦ καὶ ποιῶν ἔλος τῷ χριστῷ αὐτοῦ; LXX 2 Sam. 22:51a). David sings: “you kept me as the head of the nations (φυλάξεις με εἰς κεφαλὴν ἐθνῶν); people whom I had not known served me” (22:44). Similarly, Philo says of Ptolemy II Philadelphus that “as the head takes the ruling part in a living body, so [the king] may be said to be head over the kings” (ἐν ζῴῳ τὸ ἡγεμονεῦον κεφαλὴ τρόπον τινὰ τῶν βασιλέων; Life of Moses 2.30). Fourth, Paul’s statement finds an obvious parallel with imperial panegyrists who exalt Caesar as head and ruler of his imperial body.162 In his De Clementia, Seneca repeatedly refers to the young Nero as the “head” and “mind” over the body of the empire and as the one who stabilizes the empire and unites his people together: “the whole body (corpus) is the servant of the mind” and “the vast multitude of men surrounds one man as though he were its mind, ruled by his spirit, guided by his reason” (1.3.5); the emperor is “the bond by which the commonwealth is united, the breath of life which these many thousands draw,” for the empire would be prey were the “mind of the empire to be withdrawn” (1.4.1); the emperor stabilizes the body politic, and for this reason “the commonwealth needs the head” (1.4.2-3); “the gentleness of your mind will be transmitted to others . . . it will be diffused over the whole body of the empire, and all will be formed in your likeness for health springs from the head (2.2.1).”163 For Seneca, the function of the head (emperor)//body (empire) metaphor is to stress the remarkable and real connection between the ruler and the ruled such that Nero will care for and not harm his own body.164 Just as the “church” is the body of the head (Col. 1:18a), so Seneca speaks of “the commonwealth as though it were a part of himself” (i.e., the king; 162. On the head as the ruling part of the body, see Plato, Tim. 44d. 163. Cf. Harry Maier, “A Sly Civility: Colossians and Empire,” JSNT 27 (205): 323-49, here 335 n. 29. See also Michelle V. Lee, Paul, the Stoics, and the Body of Christ (SNTSMS 37; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 35-39. 164. In fact, as Matthew Thiessen has indicated to me, “metaphor” may not be the appropriate term here given that both Seneca and Paul speak of the Emperor/Christ as the real head of the body politic, that is, the actual location where decisions are made and guidance is given to the body.

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1.13.4). It may be of relevance to note here that the king as “mind” and “head” has connotations of both ruler and source of the body’s health, which illuminates Paul’s application of κεφαλή to Christ who both rules the church (Col. 1:18a; 2:10) and provides health and nourishment to the body (2:19). One can state the implications for Col. 1:18 no better than Harry Maier: Like Nero, who imperial poets acclaimed as an embodied deity, and Seneca celebrated as the head of the body, the Roman empire, on whom all rests and depends for its health and vigour, the incarnate Son, the enthroned Jesus, heads the cosmos by which all things hold together (1.17) and from whom, in “empire of his beloved son” (1.13), comes growth and renewal (2.9-10, 19; 1.6).165

“he is the ruler/beginning” (Col. 1:18b) Paul’s statement that Christ is the ἀρχή may either indicate that he is supreme in terms of rank and hence “ruler,” or indicate that he is supreme in temporal terms as “the beginning” of creation.166 Both readings can find plausible justification in the hymn. Paul has just stressed Christ’s preeminence and rule over creation in vv. 15b-17, where Christ has been depicted not only as ruler but even creator of all things. And in the next line Paul will celebrate Christ as the first to rise from the dead (1:18c). What needs to be appreciated, however, is that the semantic range of ἀρχή includes both temporal primacy (“beginning”) and status/rank primacy (“ruler”).167 We have seen, for example, the Priene Letter refer to the birthday of Augustus as “equivalent to the beginning of all things” (τῶν πάντων ἀρχῆι) and “the beginning of the breath of life” (ἀρχὴν τοῦ βίου καὶ τῆς ζωῆς). For this reason, we find this language applied to rulers to stress their preeminence—sometimes in terms of rank and status and sometimes in terms of source, origin, and temporal priority. Thus, each of the poetic 165. Maier, “Sly Civility,” 338. 166. On ἀρχή as “beginning,” see Gordley, The Colossian Hymn in Context, 222. [On ἀρχή as referring to Christ’s status as “ruler,” see Dunne,] “The Regal Status of Christ in the Colossian ‘Christ-Hymn,’” 15. 167. So Clinton E. Arnold, The Colossian Syncretism: The Interface between Christianity and Folk Belief at Colossae (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1996), 260-61.

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praises placed at the seams of the LXX Pentateuch refer to the coming king as ἀρχή (Gen. 49:10; Num. 23:21; Deut. 33:5).168 See, for example, the royal use of ἀρχή to refer to Israel’s coming king in LXX Isa. 9:5-6a: Because a child was born for us, a son was given to us, whose sovereignty (ἡ ἀρχή) was upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called “messenger of great counsel,” for I will bring peace upon the rulers (τοὺς ἄρχοντας), peace and health to him. His sovereignty (ἡ ἀρχή αὐτοῦ) is great, and his peace has no boundary upon the throne of David and his kingdom.

That ἀρχή can emphasize both temporal and status preeminence is also seen in the linkage between Israel’s firstborn son as temporally first (hence, “the beginning of my sons”) and as the ruler to whom the rights, privileges, and bulk of inheritance belongs (e.g., Gen. 49:3; Deut. 21:17; cf. above on Col. 1:15b). Thus, given that Paul’s next statement refers to Christ as “the firstborn from the dead” (1:18c), one may justifiably conclude that as the resurrected and enthroned Messiah, Christ is both preeminent as ruler and the beginning of the resurrection from the dead.169 “the firstborn from the dead” (1:18c) In Paul’s description of Christ as πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν, the messianic context of Col. 1:12-13 strongly suggests an activation of LXX Ps. 88:28 as an echo in which the royal Davidic “firstborn” is promised to be “exalted above the kings of the earth” (κἀγὼ πρωτότοκον θήσομαι αὐτόν, ὑψηλὸν παρὰ τοῖς βασιλεῦσιν τῆς γῆς).170 Here the Father’s enthronement of his royal firstborn will secure eternally both his offspring and his throne as the firstborn’s inheritance from his father (καὶ θήσομαι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ αἰῶνος τὸ σπέρμα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸν θρόνον αὐτοῦ ὡς τὰς ἡμέρας τοῦ οὐρανοῦ; Ps. 88:30). Yet all of the promises made to the Davidic king in Ps. 88:20-38 are undone in vv. 39-51, where the psalmist 168. For other instances in the LXX where ἀρχή refers to a king or ruler, see Deut. 17:20; Dan. 2:37; 7:27; Amos 6:7. 169. Cf. Rev. 1:5. Dunne opts for “ruler” based on the associations with royal enthronement in the phrase “the firstborn from the dead” (“The Regal Status of Christ in the Colossian ‘Christ-Hymn,’” 15-16). 170. Note the repeated use of the future tense throughout Ps. 88:20-38.

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accuses the Father of reneging on his promises and abandoning the Davidic King to death and defeat (vv. 39-44): “you have exalted the right hand of his foes” (v.42a) and “you have cut short the days of his youth” (v. 45a).171 Thus, the firstborn son promised enthronement over all the kings of the earth faces the situation of death and an end to his offspring. I suggest that for Paul it is the resurrection of the firstborn son from the realm of death that enables the Davidic son to take his rightful place as exalted and enthroned king and secures the continuing offspring of the Messiah. The Father’s royal enthronement of his firstborn over “the kings of the earth” fits nicely with Paul’s description of Christ as “the head of every ruler and dominion” (ὅς ἐστιν ἡ κεφαλὴ πάσης ἀρχῆς καὶ ἐξουσίας; Col. 2:10b).172 And given the repeated association between the resurrection and enthronement of the Messiah found throughout various NT compositions (e.g., Acts 2:22-36; 13:33ff; Rom. 1:3-4; Eph. 1:20-23; Heb. 1:5-13)—an association made possible not least by the Psalter (e.g., Ps. 2:7 in Rom. 1:4; Psalms 8 and 109 in 1 Cor. 15:23-28)—it seems likely that Paul speaks of Jesus as “firstborn from the dead” in order to refer to his messianic enthronement.173 Thus, being “firstborn from the dead” results in the Davidic Messiah’s kingship over (new) creation, just as it does in Heb. 1:6 and Rev. 1:5.174 But it is not only the exalted throne that the firstborn receives in his resurrection; rather, as the firstborn son he has the royal rights of primogeniture with respect to his church and, as the first to be raised from the dead, he thereby secures the resurrection of his offspring—thus fulfilling God’s promise to secure the anointed one’s offspring forever (LXX Ps. 88:30; cf. 1 Cor. 15:20-23; Rom. 8:29).175 The messianic king is the first one to 171. Hamilton, The Body Royal, 92-94. 172. McDonough suggests that it is precisely this “messianic triumph over the nations [that has] been read back into the original creation and been given cosmic scope” (Christ as Creator, 184). 173. On the Messiah’s resurrection as royal enthronement in 1 Cor. 15:23-28, see N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 3; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 333-38; Dunne, “The Regal Status of Christ in the Colossian ‘Christ-Hymn,’” 13; on Rom. 1:3-4, see Joshua W. Jipp, “Ancient, Modern, and Future Interpretations of Romans 1:3-4: Reception History and Biblical Interpretation,” JTI 3 (2009): 241-59. 174. Though his discussion treats the royal depiction of “the firstborn from the dead” who is “the ruler over the kings of the earth” in Rev. 1:5, see the comments by G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 335-36.

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experience resurrection, but his enthronement secures the certainty that his offspring will follow his path.176 “in order that he might be first in all things” (1:18d) Christ’s status as “firstborn from the dead” results in his preeminence over everything, hence Paul’s use of the purpose clause ἵνα γένηται ἐν πᾶσιν αὐτὸς πρωτεύων to interpret his title as πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν and thereby further confirming it as a royal honorific. He is “firstborn from the dead” so that he might be preeminent over everything, or, in other words, resurrection qualifies him to be the universal ruler of creation and new creation. The language of preeminence and first-ness is conventional for epideictic speeches, including hymns and prayers (especially to gods), and marked off heroic humans or gods as unique and their actions as unparalleled.177 In the OT, in addition to Yahweh, the kings of Israel are the ones who most frequently receive acclamations of uniqueness and incomparability: “no other king shall compare to you” (Solomon: 1 Kgs. 3:13; 10:23); “there was no one like him among the kings of Judah, either after him nor those who were before him” (Hezekiah: 2 Kgs. 18:5); “before him there was no king like him . . . nor did any like him arise after him” (Josiah: 2 Kgs. 23:25). 178 Thus it is no surprise to find that forms of πρωτευ- are often attached to prominent Romans seeking to establish themselves as first and unique. For example, in Plutarch’s Life of Caesar, the general is presented in constant pursuit of first-ness, motivated by φιλοτιμία. Plutarch notes that Caesar’s admirers tell him that everyone desires “to have him as first man” (πρωτεύσειν; 6.4). Caesar is reported to 175. Similarly Fee, Pauline Christology, 307. 176. See Lidija Novakovic, Raised from the Dead according to Scripture: The Role of Israel’s Scripture in the Early Christian Interpretations of Jesus’ Resurrection (Jewish and Christian Texts in Contexts and Related Studies Series; New York/London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 152-53. 177. For example, Aristotle states: “one should also use many kinds of amplification, for example if the subject is the only one, or the first (πρῶτος), or one of a few, or the one who most has done something” (Rhet. 2.7.2). Cf. Quintilian, Inst. 3.7.16; Aelius Theon, Progymnasmata, 9.35-38. See further Jerome H. Neyrey, “‘First,’ ‘Only,’ ‘One of a Few,’ and ‘No one else’: The Rhetoric of Uniqueness and the Doxologies in 1 Timothy,” Bib 86 (2005): 59-87. 178. See Gary N. Knoppers, “‘There Was None Like Him’: Incomparability in the Book of Kings,” CBQ 54 (1992): 411-31.

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have said in response to “struggles for preeminence” (περὶ πρωτείων; 11.2) witnessed in a barbarian village: “I would rather be first here (εἶναι μᾶλλον πρῶτος) than second in Rome” (11.3). Above we saw Philo speak of Augustus as “the first and the greatest” (πρῶτος καὶ μέγιστος) (Embassy to Gaius, 149). “because all the fullness was pleased to dwell in him” (1:19) In Col. 1:19, πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα is likely the subject of εὐδόκησεν . . . κατοικῆσαι and this statement,179 I suggest, explains both why Christ has preeminence in everything (v. 18d) and gives the ground (ὅτι) for Christ’s reconciling work in v. 20: that is, Christ the king can provide cosmic reconciliation precisely because God has invested him with “all the fullness.” Though the noun τὸ πλήρωμα is significant in Colossians, its precise function and religious context is difficult to determine. I simply offer the following two observations. First, the LXX frequently uses the language of τὸ πλήρωμα in contexts emphasizing God’s dominion and authority over all of creation. To give just two examples: “the earth and its fullness (τὸ πλήρωμα αὐτῆς) is the Lord’s, the world and all those who live in it” (LXX Ps. 23:1); and “to you are the heavens, and to you is the earth, the world and its fullness (τὸ πλήρωμα αὐτῆς) you founded” (LXX Ps. 88:12).180 We remember from discussions of LXX Psalm 88 that the Father gifts the royal Son with his dominion over creation. So to speak of Christ as embodying “all the fullness” of the Father marks him out as God’s deputized agent who rules over the cosmos (Col. 1:20).181 But second, in Israel’s royal traditions the language of “fullness” often has semantic overlap with divine “glory.” So, to give just one example, in Isaiah’s vision of God, he sees the Lord’s temple 179. So P. T. O’Brien, The Epistle to the Philippians: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 51; Schweizer, The Letter to the Colossians, 66-67; Stanley E. Porter, Καταλάσσω in Ancient Greek Literature, with Reference to the Pauline Writings (Estudios de Filología Neotestamentaria; Cordoba: Ediciones El Almendro, 1994), 172-74. 180. For two more examples, see LXX Ps. 49:12; Jer. 23:24. 181. Similarly, Suzanne Watts Henderson notes: “When the hymn speaks of ‘all the fullness that dwells in him’ (Col 1:19), the term confers upon Christ the full extent of authority over ‘things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers’ (Col 1:16).” (“God’s Fullness in Bodily Form: Christ and Church in Colossians,” ExT 118 [2007]: 169-73, here 172).

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“full of his glory” (πλήρης ὁ οἶκος τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ; Isa. 6:1) and all of “the earth filled with his glory” (πλήρης πᾶσα ἡ γῆ τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ; 6:3; cf. 2 Chron. 7:1-6).182 Israel’s traditions often present God, God’s royal representative, and the temple as marked by “fullness” and “glory” (e.g., Sir. 47:11; 49:12; 3 Macc. 2:9; 1QM xii 6-11; 4QFlor 1-7, 10-13; Pss. Sol. 17:30-32).183 This semantic overlap between “fullness” and “glory” continues in Colossians, where Christ is spoken of as related to both the divine fullness (Col. 1:19; 2:9) and the divine glory (1:27; 3:4). So for Paul to declare that all of God’s fullness inhabits the Messiah would resonate with these royal traditions that speak of the both the Messiah and temple as sharing in God’s divine fullness and glory. And here it is worth remembering that creation and temple building are distinctly related to one another as royal tasks.184 Third, if Col. 1:19 functions, at least in part, as the ground for Paul’s acclamation of Christ as the royal agent who accomplishes cosmic peace and reconciliation of all things (1:20), then it may be worthwhile to note that εὐδοκέω is frequently used in the LXX to describe God’s election.185 For example, 1 Macc. 14:41 narrates the Jews’ “choice (εὐδόκησαν) of Simon to be their ruler and priest forever until a trustworthy prophet should arise.” In LXX Ps. 67:17, God elects (εὐδόκησεν ὁ θεός) Zion as the exalted mountain in opposition to all other mountains (cf. 2 Macc. 14:35). In LXX Psalm 151, the text speaks in the voice of David: “My brothers were handsome and tall, but the Lord did not choose them” (οὐκ εὐδόκησεν ἐν αὐτοῖς; 151:5). God’s rescue of David is the result of God’s election of the king (ὅτι εὐδόκησεν ἐν ἐμοί; 2 Sam. 22:20). Thus, a plausible interpretation of Col. 1:19 would be one that stresses God’s election of the Messiah as God’s supreme vicegerent and God’s decision to share all of the divine fullness with the anointed 182. See also Grant Macaskill, Union with Christ in the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 149-52. 183. On the use of “glory” in Israel’s royal traditions, see Carey C. Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology: Tradition and Rhetoric (NovTSup 69; Leiden: Brill, 1992), 113-26. 184. Middleton, The Liberating Image, 77-88; Joseph Blenkinsopp, “The Structure of P,” CBQ 38 (1976): 275-92; Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1998), 66-99. 185. Here I follow Peppard, The Son of God in the Roman World, 106-12; cf. Collins, “The Worship of Jesus and the Imperial Cult,” 249-51.

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one.186 It is precisely the gods’ election of their imperial ruler as well as Yahweh’s election of his Davidic king that lead to the most exalted claims on behalf of the king. As we have seen above, the election of David results in his receiving worship (1 Chron. 29:16-26). LXX Psalm 44 refers to God’s anointed as God (44:7). And LXX Psalm 109 depicts another royal agent sharing YHWH’s throne (109:1-3). We have also seen how Hellenistic ruler cults and Roman imperial cults spoke of the king as the elected, vicegerent of the gods in whom all divine authority and power was invested.187 Thus, the incredible claim that God elected to share all of God’s fullness ἐν αὐτῷ (the antecedent still being τοῦ υἱοῦ τῆς ἀγάπης αὐτοῦ in Col. 1:13b) naturally arises out of royal ideology. “And through him to reconcile all things to himself, by making peace through the blood of his cross, whether the things on earth or the things in heaven” (1:20) In Col. 1:20 Paul celebrates God’s accomplishment of reconciliation of all things to himself (ἀποκαταλλάξαι τὰ πάντα εἰς αὐτόν) through his royal viceregent (δι᾽ αὐτοῦ).188 We have seen that the rhetorical handbooks detailing how to praise kings suggest that emphasis should be placed upon the ruler’s great deeds or benefactions for his people.189 Here Paul finally draws attention to Christ’s great work of accomplishing universal reconciliation by means of “making peace through the blood of the cross” (εἰρηνοποιήσας διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ σταυροῦ αὐτοῦ). Paul again emphasizes that this reconciling peace is accomplished “through

186. Further support that Paul is using εὐδόκησεν to speak of God’s choice or election can be found in Eph. 1:4-5, where God’s “election (ἐξελέξατο) of us in him before the foundation of the world” and his “destining (προορίσας) us for adoption” takes place κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ. 187. For one more example, see the first lines of the speech placed by Seneca in Nero’s mouth in De Clementia: “Have I, of all mortals, found favor with the gods and been chosen to act on earth in their stead?” (1.1.2). See J. Rufus Fears, “Nero as the Vicegerent of the Gods in Seneca’s De Clementia,” Hermes 103 (1975): 486-96. 188. Given my understanding of πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα as the subject of the main verb in 1:19, it makes most sense to retain “God” as the subject of ἀποκαταλλάξαι who accomplishes reconciliation through the agency of God’s son (δι᾽ αὐτοῦ). 189. See Gordley, who notes the emphasis in 1:20 on Christ’s benefactions for his people but does not draw the connection with praiseworthy kings and rulers (The Colossian Hymn in Context, 226-27).

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him” (δι᾽ αὐτοῦ),190 and is cosmic in scope, for it encompasses “things on earth and things in heaven” (εἴτε τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς εἴτε τὰ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς). Whereas there are a host of ancient royal virtues and traits of the good king, the single most significant component of a king’s legitimacy was military victory (i.e., conquest and expansion or pacification and defeat of one’s enemies), which thereby resulted in peace and concord.191 Arguably the single most important trait of the good king was this production of peace and harmony through defeat and pacification of the empire’s enemies. J. Rufus Fears refers to this aspect of royal ideology as “the theology of victory”: “Conquest and expansion of his kingdom’s frontiers were the duty of the true king, and the gods of the commonwealth aided his martial enterprises, leading his armed host into battle.”192 Peace through pacification or reconciliation of one’s enemies was often situated in a cosmic context and spoken of as something that brought peace and harmony to the cosmos (or “land and sea”) and was given as a gift of the gods.193 Thus, forms of καταλάσσω and διαλάσσω are frequently used in royal and/or diplomatic contexts to indicate a leader’s reconciliation or pacification of enemies, thereby resulting in peace and cosmic harmony.194 Periander, for example, brings harmony between Mytilene and Athens through acting as a reconciler (κατήλλαξε; Herodotus, Hist. 5.95).195 Plato says that the tyrant is always ready to make more wars “after he 190. The manuscript evidence is strongly split between the presence of the prepositional phrase (P46, Sinaiaticus, A, C, D1, K, P, Ψ) and its omission (e.g., B, D*, F, G, I, L). 191. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill has demonstrated that there was no such established canon of royal virtues (as found on the shield presented to Augustus—virtus, clementia, iustitia, and pietas), but rather what demonstrates his legitimacy to rule is “the power to conquer, to save, to bring harmony and stability, and to distribute benefits” (“The Emperor and His Virtues,” Historia 30 [1981]: 298-323, here 316). I am dependent here, in part, upon the fine essay by Philip de Souza, who states: “One of the most prominent political and cultural features of the ancient world is the extent to which the authority and power of rulers was directly derived from their success in war” (“Parta Victoriis Pax: Roman Emperors as Peacemakers,” in War and Peace in Ancient and Medieval History [ed. Philip de Souza and John France; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008], 76-106, here 76). 192. Fears, PRINCEPS A DIIS ELECTUS, 45-46. With repsect to Rome’s creation of a consensus that it was justified to rule in combination with its continued military success, see Ando, Imperial Ideology and the Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, 49-70. 193. E.g., see Pliny, Panegyricus; Calpurnius Siculus, Eclogue 4.142-146. 194. E.g., see Anthony Bash, Ambassadors for Christ: An Exploration of Ambassadorial Language in the New Testament (WUNT 2.92; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 29-32. 195. See further, Herodotus, Hist. 6.108.5; 7.154.3.

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has begun to reconcile/pacify his enemies” (πρὸς τοὺς ἔξω ἐχθροὺς τοῖς μὲν καταλλαγῇ; Rep. 8.566E). Plutarch states of Alexander the Great’s ideology of peace and harmony through pacification: But, as he believed that he came as a heaven-sent governor to all, and as a reconciler for the whole world (διαλλακτὴς τῶν ὅλων), those whom he could not persuade to unite with him, he conquered by force of arms, and he brought together into one body all men everywhere, uniting and mixing in one great loving-cup, as it were, men’s lives, their characters, their marriages, their very habits of life (On the Fortune of Alexander 329C).196

Pliny gives voice to the same Roman imperial ideology when he speaks of “the immeasurable majesty of the Roman peace” as a gift of the gods mediated through his emperors (Nat. 27.3).197 And we saw Pliny celebrate Trajan precisely for the peace that the emperor is able to bring across land and sea for the sake of his subjects (Pan. 4.4; 5.6-9). Military victory was both the source and the ground for the kingship of Alexander the Great and his Hellenistic successors, and this played an enormous role in legitimating the rule of Julius Caesar and Augustus.198 The author of 1 Maccabees begins his work by characterizing Alexander’s kingship as the result of his military exploits and conquests into new territories (1:3-9).199 The first paragraphs of Augustus’s Res Gestae boast of his command of the army “by means of which I set the state free from the slavery imposed by the conspirators” (1.1). Military exploits (2.1; 3.1; 21:1-3; 30.1), triumphs celebrating Augustus’s victories (ἐθριάμβευσα; 4.1), and the “making of peace on land and sea” (εἰρηνευομένης . . . πάσης γῆς τε καὶ θαλάσσης; 13.1; cf. θάλασσα[ν] [εἰ]ρήνευσα-; 25.1; εἰρήνη κατέστησα; 26.2; θαλάσσης εἰρηνεύεσθαι πεπόηκα; 26.3) litter the list of his accomplishments.200 196. On Alexander’s strategy, see Erich. S. Gruen, Rethinking the Other in Antiquity (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2011), 65-75. On Roman rule as producing an “orderly and and single cycle of peace,” see Plutarch, Fort. Rom. 317B-C. 197. De Souza, “Parta Victoriis Pax,” 98-99. 198. For Alexander and his successors, see M. M. Austin, “Hellenistic Kings, War and the Economy,” CQ 36 (1986): 450-66. 199. See Anathea E. Portier-Young, Apocalypse against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 49-55. 200. De Souza, “Parta Victoriis Pax,” 80-81.

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Through Augustus’s ending of the civil war and his victories over foreign powers, “peace has been brought back again” and his entire reign can be characterized as “the pacification of the world through his victories” (Velleius Paterculus, Roman History 2.89).201 Even Epictetus speaks of Caesar as having “provided us with a great peace, so that there are no longer any wars or battles” (Dietr 3.13.9). Tacitus, with critical irony, suggests that Augustus was able to increase his royal powers precisely through his provision of “the blandishments of peace” (Ann. 1.2).202 Cicero says that “peace with honor” (cum dignitate otium) is imperative for any who would lead the Romans (Sest. 98). And we have seen above how Horace, Pliny, and Seneca celebrate the emperor as an agent of peace.203 Even Philo of Alexandria witnesses to the Roman royal theology of victory: This is he who exterminated wars both of the open kind and of the covert which are brought about by the raids of brigands. This is he who cleared the sea of pirate ships and filled it with merchant vessels. This is he who reclaimed every state to liberty, who led disorder into order (ὁ τὴν ἀταξίαν εἰς τάξιν ἀγαγών) and brought gentle manners and harmony to all unsociable and brutish nations, who enlarged Hellas by many a new Hellas and Hellenized the outside world, in its most important regions—the guardian of peace (ὁ εἰρηνοφύλαξ) (Embassy to Gaius 145–47).

Peace and harmony through pacification led to the poets’ consistent depiction of the emperors’ reigns as resulting in fertility and abundance, that is, as symbolizing the “divinely ordained product of the natural order of the universe.”204 The ruler’s kingship was celebrated and legitimized through royal iconography. For example, as an honor for his pacification of Spain and Gaul, a military expedition that lasted over three years, “the senate decreed that an altar of the Augustan Peace should be consecrated next to the Campus Martius 201. Ibid., 82-83. 202. See Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, 187. See also Tacitus’s scathing critique of imperial “peace”: “They ransack the world, and afterwards, when all the land has been laid waste by their pillaging, they scour the sea. . . . They plunder, they murder, they rape, in the name of their so-called empire. And where they have made a dessert, they call it peace” (Agr. 30). 203. With particular attention to Neronian imperial iconography, see Maier, “Sly Civility,” 329-40. 204. J. Rufus Fears, “The Theology of Victory,” ANRW 2.17.2 (1981): 736-826, here 810. With respect to Augustus and victory, see Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, 278-92.

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in honor of my [Augustus’] return” (Res Gestae 12.2). The Ara Pacis is related to the decision to shut the gates of the Temple of Janus, a symbolic act celebrating peace and the absence of war, and thereby the altar is “linked with the concept that peace is the result of military victories which secure the imperium Romanum on land and sea.”205 Similarly, the Sebasteion in Aphrodisias celebrates peace through pacification as it personifies foreign nations as subjugated women underneath the rule of the Roman emperor.206 Thus, the statement that Christ has produced cosmic harmony (“the things on earth and the things in heaven”) through his act of reconciling “all things” and bringing peace is of one accord with ancient royal notions of a theology of victory.207 That Paul portrays Christ according to this element of kingship ideology is confirmed by Paul’s fuller depiction of Christ’s pacification of the “rulers and authorities” in Col. 2:15. Christ, like a Roman general or emperor, first pacifies his enemies by “stripping” (ἀπεκδυσάμενος) them of their authority and then celebrates a triumph over the rebellious rulers (θριαμβεύσας αὐτούς).208 The celebration of a triumph was a hotly pursued honor by generals and emperors, and it is well documented that those victors who celebrated the triumph were seen as receiving divine honors and in some manner a manifestation of Jupiter (e.g., Livy 10.7.10; 5.23.25; Suetonius, Aug. 94; Pliny, Nat. 33.111; 35.157; Plutarch, Cam. 7).209 Again, powerful benefactions elicited divine honors, and so, 205. Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 141. 206. See Laura Salah Nasrallah, Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture: The Second-Century Church amid the Spaces of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 76-83; Stefan Weinstock, “Pax and the ‘Ara Pacis’,” JRS 50 (1960): 44-58; Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 141-64. 207. This point is established convincingly and in detail by Maier, “Sly Civility,” 329-40. 208. For arguments that the participles should be read sequentially rather than synonymously, see Scott J. Hafemann, Suffering and the Spirit: An Exegetical Study of 2 Corinthians 2:14-3:3 within the Context of the Corinthian Correspondence (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1986), 33-34. On the Roman triumph, see Mary Beard, The Roman Triumph (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007). On Paul’s appeal to the the ritual of the Roman triumph in 2:15, see Lamar Williamson, “Led in Triumph,” Int 22 (1968): 317-32; Roy Yates, “Colossians 2.15: Christ Triumphant,” NTS 37 (1991): 573-91; Wesley Carr, Angels and Principalities: The Background, Meaning and Development of the Pauline Phrase hai archai kai hai exousiai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 47-86. 209. Roman scholars are not in full agreement, but Beard notes: “what we do know is that there were strong links between the triumphing general and those contested ideas of deity and deification that were so high on the cultural and political agenda of the late Republic and early Empire. . . . Human success and its accompanying glory could push a mortal toward and even across the permeable boundary which, for the Romans, separated men from gods. . . . Nonetheless,

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by portraying Christ as celebrating a triumph for his mighty victory over the powers, Paul indicates that Christ the King is worthy of receiving divine glory. This imperial pacification of the rebellious rulers (Col. 2:15) is, in fact, presupposed by the celebration of the cosmic harmony in the hymn (1:20).210 All of creation, then, is a state of cosmic peace and harmony through the work of God’s king, who has pacified every rebellious authority. That the harmony on earth now mimics and matches the heavenly harmony of God through the elected king’s pacification of the rebels is an imperial commonplace. What cannot be paralleled in any ancient kingship document is the means whereby Christ enacted this pacification—“through the blood of his cross” (διὰ τοῦ αἵματος σταυροῦ αὐτοῦ; 1:20; cf. ἐν αὐτῷ, 2:15). The royal victory and conquest of the evil powers occurs, then, not through violent wars but through the king’s death. Reconciliation and peacemaking through a king who surrenders himself to give his own body to a shameful and bloody death is precisely the royal act that results in the ultimate defeat and disgrace of the royal pretenders (2:14-15). Philippians 2:6-11 as a Panegyric to Christ the King The Christ-hymn of Phil. 2:6-11 confirms rather than calls into question the general likelihood of my argument regarding the hymn in Colossians 1 because Philippians 2 also depicts the Messiah as a royal figure who, through his refusal to exploit his equality with God, redefines royal power and is thereby worthy to rule the universe and receive divine honors.211 Whether Paul composed the hymn I do not divine power and status were a measure against which to judge its human equivalents, and a potential goal and ambition for the super-successful” (The Roman Triumph, 233-34). Also see H. S. Versnel, Triumphus: An Inquiry into the Origin, Development and Meaning of the Roman Triumph (Leiden: Brill,1970), 1: “In no other Roman ceremony do god and man approach each other as closely as they do in the triumph.” 210. Maier, “Sly Civility,” 332. 211. As with Col. 1:15-20, the authorship and genre of Phil. 2:6-11 is disputed. John Reuman refers to it as an encomium (Philippians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 33B; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008], 361). Collins sees it as a prose hymn (“The Psalms and the Origins of Christology”). Given the text’s hapax legomena, its obvious elevated language, the early Christian penchant for singing hymns to Christ as if he were a god (Pliny, Ep. 10.96.7), and the presence of kingship motifs, I am persuaded that the text should be classified as a hymn. See, however, Ralph Brucker, ‘Christushymnen’ oder ‘epideiktische Passagen’? Studien zum Stilwechsel im Neuen Testament und seiner Umwelt (FRLANT; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997).

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pretend to know, but it is clear that the hymn is tightly integrated within the letter’s broader argument and should thereby be seen as representative of his Christological discourse (esp. Phil. 1:27–2:4 and 3:20-21).212 The hymn describes “Messiah Jesus” (v. 5) as separate and distinguishable from God, but also as simultaneously sharing in “God’s form” (v. 6a), worthy of honors equal to God (v. 6c), exalted by God over everything else (v. 9), as bearing the title of the divine κύριος (v. 11), and as the eschatological agent who will receive the worship of the entire world (vv. 10-11). Numerous scholars have discerned an echo of Isa. 45:23, where Yahweh claims that he alone is worthy to receive worship, in Paul’s declaration that every tongue will confess “Lord Jesus Messiah to the glory of God the Father” (v. 11b). The implication, for Richard Bauckham (and many others), is “that Jesus is not added alongside the one God of Israel but included in the unique identity of that God.” 213 But how is it even possible that a monotheistic Jew could make these exalted claims about a recently crucified human?214 What religioushistorical discourses would allow Paul to, as Bauckham suggests, include this crucified Messiah in God’s unique identity? The linguistic and conceptual resources that provide Paul with the discourse to set forth Christ as simultaneously distinguishable from God as his agent and as sharing in God’s status and functions are ancient royal ideologies of the good king/emperor.215 This insight has been confirmed by many studies, and yet it often goes unrecognized due to the fact that many proposals have attempted to find too precise or specific precedents.216 212. So much so, in fact, that some NT scholars see it as Paul’s “Master Story.” E.g., Michael J. Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 9-39. On Paul as the author of the hymn, see O’Brien, The Epistle to the Philippians, 202. 213. Bauckham, “Paul’s Christology of Divine Identity,” 209. See, however, the criticism of Bauckham’s use of identity language by Bates (The Birth of the Trinity, 22-26) who argues for the primacy of the metaphor of persons. 214. Similarly, see Litwa, IESUS DEUS, 210. 215. This is not to insist upon this ideology to the exclusion of all other linguistic and conceptual resources, such as the Servant Songs of Isaiah, Jewish throne mysticism, and Maccabean martyr traditions. 216. E.g., K. Bornhäuser, “Zum Verständnis von Philipper 2,5-11.” NKZ 44 (1033): 428-34, 453-62; Elsewhere Bornhäuser suggests that the hymn was written in order to counter Caligula’s grasping after divine honors (Jesus Imperator Mundi [Phil 3,17-1 und 2,5-12] [Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1938]). Similarly, see David Seeley, “The Background of the Philippians Hymn (2:6-11),” Journal of Higher Criticism 1 (1994): 49-72. Ernst Lohmeyer argued that the claims in Phil. 3:20-21 pit Christ the Lord

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Throughout Philippians, and in the hymn in particular, the Messiah is portrayed as a royal, imperial figure who is simultaneously worthy of divine honors and worship and one who redefines royal authority and rule. Thus Paul is probably not attempting to draw a parallel between Christ and one specific ruler or emperor, but rather he provides, as Mikael Tellbe has argued, “a general contrast between Christ’s exaltation and the pursuit of power among earthly rulers.” 217 In Phil. 2:6 Paul speaks of the Messiah as existing in “God’s form” (ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ), a claim that is clarified by the articular infinitival expression τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ (“to be equal with God”) and, understanding ἁρπαγμόν as “something to be exploited” rather than “something to be grasped,”218 portrays the preexistent Christ as equal with God.219 I have already presented numerous pieces of evidence that associate rulers, kings, and emperors with deities in the closest possible manner; they are seen to function as the earthly representatives of the gods.220 Here I simply add to my earlier comments some of the many references to kings and emperor as god-equal and appearing in the same visible appearance/form of a god.221 As mentioned previously, a second century CE papyrus provides an incredible parallel: “What is a god? The use of power. What is a king? One who is equal with a god” (τὶ θεός; over and against the Roman Emperor as Lord of the imperial cult (Kyrios Jesus: Eine Untersuchung zu Phil 2,5-11 [Heidelberg: Winters, 1928]). Wilfred L. Knox argued almost seventy years ago that Phil. 2:6-11 bears a close resemblance to encomia to kings and emperors, as it contained the common elements of divine exaltation for a heroic deed, a declaration of the king as worthy of equal honors with the deity, and acclamations by the people (“The ‘Divine Hero’ Christology in the New Testament,” HTR 41 [1948]: 229-49). Cf. Collins, “The Worship of Jesus and the Imperial Cult,” 247. 217. Mikael Tellbe, Paul between Synagogue and State: Christians, Jews, and Civic Authorities in 1 Thessalonians, Romans, and Philippians (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2001), 256; Peter Oakes, Philippians: From People to Letter (SNTSMS 110; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 129-74. See also Schreiber, Gesalbter und König, 412-14. 218. There would appear to be something close to a consensus on this point. See especially N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 56-98; Roy Hoover, “The HARPAGMOS Enigma: A Philological Solution,” HTR 64 (1971): 95-119. 219. See here Fee, Pauline Christology, 376-83. 220. So Collins, “The Worship of Jesus and the Imperial Cult,” 249-50. There is also impressive evidence for the king’s association with God, resulting in the divine attributes and names being combined in the king. See Litwa, IESUS DEUS, 187-210. 221. One cannot escape the fact that μορφή signifies visible appearance. See here Markus Bockmuehl, “‘The Form of God’ (Phil. 2:6): Variations on a Theme of Jewish Mysticism,” JTS 48 (1997): 1-23. On the propaganda war between Octavian and Mark Antony and their appropriating the divine garb of Apollo and Dionysus, see Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, 33-77.

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τὸ κρατοῦν. τὶ βασιλεύς; ἰσόθεος).222 Philo refers to Caligula as attempting to clothe himself with “the form of a god” (θεοῦ μορφή; Leg. 110; cf. Josephus Ant. 18.257-309). According to Suetonius, Caligula established a temple for his numen and then wore the same clothes with which his divine statue was garbed. As argued above, the bestowal of godlike honors was typically reserved for those royal figures who provided the most exceptional benefactions to their subjects.223 Erik M. Heen points to Diodorus Siculus, who declares that great men and demigods, “because of the benefits they conferred which have been shared by all men, have been honored by succeeding generations with sacrifices which in some cases are like those offered to the gods” (4.1.4). I have already noted how Dio declares of Augustus “that his name should be included in their hymns equally with those of the gods” (τοὺς ὕμνους αὐτὸν ἐξ ἴσου τοῖς θεοῖς; 51.20.1). Nicolaus of Damascus says that after the divinization and public funeral of Julius Caesar, everyone wept as they “saw him who had recently been honored equal to a god.” Augustus’s official granting of divine honors for his adoptive father thereby sets the precedent, says Appian, for following Roman emperors to receive honors “equal to the gods” (ἰσόθεοι; Bell. civ. 2.148). Not everyone saw this process of bestowing divine honors to rulers as rewards for great benefactions as appropriate. For example, Heen points to an edict of Germanicus in 19 CE in which he rejects these divine honors: “your acclamations, which are for me invidious and such as are addressed to gods (isotheous), I altogether deprecate.”224 Jewish texts frequently refer to the desire of rulers to attain god-like status as an act of hubris that seeks to usurp something that belongs only to God.225 For example, the author of 2 Maccabees places these 222. See the section above on “Divine Honors in Response to Kingly Benefactions.” 223. Helpful here is Erik M. Heen, “Phil 2:6-11 and Resistance to Local Timocratic Rule: Isa theo and the Cult of the Emperor in the East,” in Paul and the Roman Imperial Order (ed. Richard A. Horsley; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2004), 125-53; Price,” Between Man and God,” 28-30. 224. Quoted from Heen, “Phil 2:6-11 and Resistance to Local Timocratic Rule,” 145. 225. See here Samuel Vollenweider, “Der ‘Raub’ Der Gottgleichheit: Ein religionsgeschichtlicher Vorschlag zu Phil 2.6(-11),” NTS 45 (1999): 413-33. One of Vollenweider’s contributions has been to demonstrate the relevance of the biblical texts’ depiction of God’s kingship challenging the hubris of earthly rulers for the background of Phil. 2:5-11. E.g., “Unser Christuslob kommt von biblischen und Jüdischen Traditionen her, worin Gottes Königtum zu den Weltmächten einen scharfen Kontrast bildet” (p. 425).

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words in the mouth of the Hellenistic monarch Antiochus IV: “It is right to submit oneself to God and not to think that one who is mortal is equal to God” (Δἰκαιον ὑποτάσσεσθαι τῷ θεῷ καὶ μὴ θνητὸν ὄντα ἰσόθεα φρονεῖν; 9:12). Antiochus IV is brought to this realization as a result of God’s punishment for the king’s hubristic attempt to usurp power and authority reserved only for God (see 2 Macc. 9:8-11).226 When Jesus declares that both he and his Father are working, the Fourth Gospel has the Jews attempt to kill him because “he was calling God his own father and thereby making himself equal to God” (ἴσον ἑαυτὸν ποιῶν τῷ θεῷ; John 5:18). Samuel Vollenweider has shown that it was a common trope to criticize the hubris of rulers for seeking after divine honors and attempting to exploit their supposed equality with the deity.227 The restored remnant of Israel will mock “the king of Babylon” (Isa. 14:4) who boasted: “I will ascend to heaven (Εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀναβήσομαι); I will set my throne (τὸν θρόνον μου) above the stars of God; I will sit on an exalted mountain (ἐν ὄρει ὑψηλῷ), upon the exalted mountains (ἐπὶ τὰ ὄρη τὰ ὑψηλά) toward the north; I will ascend to the tops of the clouds, I will be like the Most High (ἔσομαι ὅμοιος τῷ ὑψίστῳ)” (Isa. 14:13-14). Similarly, the prophet Ezekiel declares judgment upon the “prince of Tyre” for his hubristic attempt to make himself like god: “Because your heart is proud and you have said, ‘I am a god (θεός εἰμι ἐγώ). I have inhabited the dwelling place of a god in the heart of the seas’” (28:1-2). The author of Acts preserves an account of Agrippa I, who received God’s judgment for his acceptance of the crowds’ divine acclamation: “the voice of a God and not a mortal” (θεοῦ φωνὴ καὶ οὐκ ἀνθρώπου; 12:22).228 Tyrants and wicked kings are often described as greedy, hubristic, and arrogant. Thus, Dio Chrysostom declares that “not every king derives his scepter or his royal office from Zeus, but only the good king,” and this means that he will not become filled

226. Heen, “Phil 2:6-11 and Resistance to Local Timocratic Rule,” 146; Joseph H. Hellerman, “ΜΟΡΦΗ ΘΕΟΥ as a Signifier of Social Status in Philippians 2:6,” JETS 52 (2009): 779-97, here 789. 227. Vollenweider, “Der ‘Raub’ der Gottgleichheit,” 420-25; Tellbe, Paul between Synagogue and State, 255-57. Frequently cited here is Dio Chrysostom’s Fourth Oration on the ideal king (4 Regn. 95), in which the wicked king is described as “snatching up” whatever his greedy self desires. 228. See also Heen, “Phil. 2:6-11 and Resistance to Local Timocratic Rule,” 147n81.

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“with hubris and arrogance” (ὕβρεως καὶ ὑπερηφανίας; 1 Regn. 1.12-13; cf. 1.84). The king who is “overbearing and insolent” and who “makes a show of his strength” upon his subjects is unworthy “to be king or to participate in [Zeus’s] own honor and titles” (2 Regn. 2.75-76; 3.40). Plutarch gives a negative evaluation of Demetrius’s receipt of divine honors: “And now that Demetrius had shown himself great and splendid in his benefactions, the Athenians rendered him odious and obnoxious by the extravange of honors they voted to him” (Plutarch, Demetr. 10.2-3). This goes even as far as Demetrius receiving the divine “honors paid to Demeter and Dionysus” when Demetrius would visit Athens (12.1-2). The ancient royal ideology that would link rulers with gods and that would often present the former as deserving of god-like honors due to their shared power is easily observable in many of these examples. The claims by these kings (often tyrants), however, are contested and shown to be acts of hubris by the fact that their thrones, kingdoms, and very lives are subject to mortality and, in the examples from the biblical texts, are subject to God’s judgment. Paul taps into similar royal discourse as Phil. 2:6 presents the Messiah as a royal ruler who exists alongside the God of Israel as he shares God’s form and is worthy of equal honors. But as Vollenweider has shown: “Christus gehört nicht zum Typ der Gewaltherrscher, welche Gottes Würde usurpieren.”229 Unlike the other rulers, however, the Messiah neither exploits nor takes advantage of his divine status (2:7-8), but rather, by means of taking the form of a slave and submitting to death on the cross, embraces “the most dishonorable public status and the most dishonorable public humiliation imaginable in the world of Roman antiquity.”230 True divine rule and power is revealed, then, in the Messiah’s refusal to exploit equality with God. Instead, in a total reversal of the pattern of those usurping kings who seek to ascend to the heavens, he obeys Yahweh and refuses to make use of divine honors and preogatives.231 229. Vollenweider, “Der ‘Raub’ der Gottgleichheit,” 432. 230. Joseph H. Hellerman, Reconstructing Honor in Roman Philippi: Carmen Christi as Cursus Pudorum (SNTSMS 132; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 131.

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It is precisely as a result of the Messiah’s refusal to exploit his divine status that God exalts him as Lord of the universe. Peter Oakes, among others, has made a convincing case that Paul draws a comparison between Christ and the Roman emperor in Phil. 2:9-11. Both Christ and the emperor are spoken of as receiving authority over the entire world.232 Just as Christ receives the highest name and worship from all creation, so the emperor is spoken of as ruling the land, sea, and the entire cosmos.233 The name that Jesus receives from God, namely, “the name that is above every name” (ἐχαρίσατο αὐτῷ τὸ ὄνομα τὸ ὑπὲρ πᾶν ὄνομα; v. 9b), resonates with the depiction of the king in LXX Psalm 117, whose identity and actions embody “the name of the Lord” (vv.10, 11, 26). The Messiah is, therefore, promised the universal confession of κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστός (Phil. 2:11),234 since both honorifics bracketing his proper name have distinctly royal connotations.235 The honorific κύριος alongside God’s exaltation (ὁ θεὸς αὐτὸν ὑπερύψωσεν; Phil. 2:9a; cf. Acts 2:33; 5:31) of the Messiah resonates with LXX Ps. 109:1, in which Yahweh enthrones and shares his divine name with another royal figure.236 Given that the Messiah receives the divine name, he also shares in God’s rule; as his vicegerent, as he rules over the cosmos (2:10-11). Christ’s receiving the royal acclamation in 2:10-11 fits perfectly in the 231. Ibid., 135. Hellerman states this point clearly: “In stark contrast to Roman rulers who claimed divine status and utilized their status to further enhance their own glory and honor—and in stark contrast to Philippi’s local elite who replicated Rome’s values in their own social world—Christ, who genuinely possessed divine status, . . . viewed his status as something to be willingly surrendered for the benefit of others.” 232. For primary source documentation, see my comments above on Col. 1:15-20. 233. Oakes, Philippians, 149. 234. The Messiah is revealed to be the supreme Lord, but he still awaits the public revelation of his royal rule and dominion to the entire cosmos. See Otfried Hofius, Der Christushymnus Philipper 2.6-11 (WUNT 17; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1991). 235. On the royal connotations of κύριος, see, Joseph D. Fantin, The Lord of the Entire World: Lord Jesus, a Challenge to Lord Caesar (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2011); Hellerman, Reconstructing Honor in Roman Philippi, 152-53; Litwa, IESUS DEUS, 200n88. For Χριστός, see Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs. 236. See Martin Hengel: “The τὸ ὄνομα τὸ ὑπὲρ πᾶν ὄνομα is the tetragramm YHWH, for which κύριος was already being substituted in the reading of the LXX: God gave his unspeakable name to the Crucified and Exalted One” (“‘Sit at My Right Hand!’ The Enthronement of Christ at the Right Hand of God and Psalm 110:1,” in Studies in Early Christology [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995], 119-25, here 155-56). Cf. Fee, Pauline Christology, 396-98; Richard Bauckham, “The Worship of Jesus in Philippians 2:9-11,” in Where Christology Began (ed. Ralph P. Martin and Brian Dodd; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 128-39, here 131; N. T. Wright, Jesus Christ Is Lord: Philippians 2.5-11,” in The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 56-98, here 94.

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context of divine honors bestowed upon kings and great figures who performed noble tasks and distributed great benefactions.237 The royal notions of this acclamation is seen already in the context of Philippians, as the precise parallel in 3:20 (κύριον Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν) is situated with a context using the language of citizenship, imperial power, and royal enthronement (esp. 3:21).238 It is precisely due to the Messiah’s refusal to exploit his relationship with Yahweh, his willingness to accept the form of a slave, and his humiliation on the cross that results in his exaltation to a public status where he receives divine honors co-equal with God (διὸ καὶ ὁ θεὸς αὐτὸν ὑπερύψωσεν; 2:9).239 Rulers were seen as having god-like status precisely due to the benefactions they provided their subjects, and here in Phil. 2:6-11 the logic would seem to be that, while the preexistent Christ already shared in God’s status, his obedience to God and willing humiliation on the cross—the greatest of all benefactions to humanity—is the act that legitimates his rule, grants him universal authority, and qualifies him to receive divine worship.240 Again, worship of rulers and emperors on the basis of divine-like benefactions provides a strikingly close parallel for the rise of the worship of Jesus alongside the God of Israel, and the biblical-Jewish notion of a God who appoints a king/messiah to share in his divine rule can be seen as part of this royal stream of traditions.241 Paul employs this broad pattern of worship for royal benefactions in his comparison between Christ and other rulers, but he exploits it 237. For royal acclamations in the NT, see Matt. 21:9; Mark 11:9-10; Luke 19:37; John 12:13; Acts 19:34. On royal acclamations, see Charlotte Roueche, “Acclamations in the Later Roman Empire: New Evidence from Aphrodisias,” JRS 74 (1984): 181-99; on acclamations and benefactions in the Roman Empire, see Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, 199-205. See also Litwa, commenting on Phil. 2:6-11, who states: “there remains a common meaning underlying the two traditions of theonymy. In the first century CE, Hellenized peoples around the Mediterranean employed theonymy as a way to deify their emperor—that is, to integrate the emperor into the larger cult of Greco-Roman Gods. . . . I believe that a similar function underlies the use of theonymy in Phil. 2:9-11” (IESUS DEUS, 211). 238. Peter Oakes, “Re-mapping the Universe: Paul and the Emperor in 1 Thessalonians and Philippians,” JSNT 27 (2005): 301-22, here, 318-19. 239. Wright translates the inferential conjunction as “that is why” (The Climax of the Covenant, 86). 240. For expansion of these claims and for the specific acts and virtues of emperors that were seen as qualifying them to rule, see Oakes, Philippians, 151-60; Donald Dale Walker, Paul’s Offer of Leniency (2 Cor 10:1): Populist Ideology and Rhetoric in a Pauline Letter Fragment (WUNT 2.152; Tübingen: MohrSiebeck, 2002), 147. 241. Collins, “The Worship of Jesus and the Imperial Cult,” 248-49.

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in order to redefine true royal rule as exemplified through Christ’s pattern of refusal to grasp/exploit power, obedience to God, and sacrificial service even to the point of death.242 The royal ideology and tropes of Phil. 2:6-11, the public acclamations of Jesus as Lord (2:11), combined with its hymnic and poetic features, again suggests that the hymn was constructed as a panegyric for Christ the King and thereby affords another window into the development of early Christology. 243 The Development of Pauline Christology If my main argument is broadly correct, that in Col. 1:15-20 Paul constructs a ὁ βασιλικὸς λόγος that uses the linguistic resources of both Jewish-Davidic and Hellenistic kingship ideology, then this would suggest that ancient reflections upon the king played a significant role in Paul’s development and articulation of a divine Christology. The hymn in Phil. 2:6-11 would only appear to confirm my thesis, since it is rife with royal and imperial ideology in its portrait of Christ. Both hymns provide a remarkable window into how the worship of another human figure alongside God arose.244 In Paul’s christology there is, as is well known, an incredible overlap between the identities, titles, and functions of God and Jesus.245 Granted that answering this question is more complex than simply pointing to conceptual precedents, and granted that Paul’s christological statements are incredibly innovatory, it is ancient reflections upon the relationship between the king and God that offer the most promise for providing a convincing historical-religious framework for Paul’s christology. The frequent assimilation of kings and emperors to gods in the ruler/emperor cults that allowed the rulers to receive divine honors and worship, as well as the way in which the Greek OT and later Jewish interpretations of it portray the Davidic King/Messiah as sharing in God’s kingship, are 242. Similarly, see Tellbe, Paul between Synagogue and State, 257-58. 243. Collins, “The Psalms and the Origins of Christology”; Seeley, “The Background of the Philippians Hymn (2:6-11).” 244. See also the brief but suggestive comments regarding the role of hymns to Christ and the rise of so-called Christological Monotheism in Vollenweider, “Hymnus, Enkomion oder Psalm?” 229-31. 245. See here especially the important work of Chris Tilling, Paul’s Divine Christology (WUNT 2.323; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2012).

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remarkably similar to what we find in Col. 1:15-20 and Phil. 2:6-11—two hymns that set forth the Messiah as God’s vicegerent who shares in God’s rule and authority and reveals true rule and power by laying down his life on the cross. The resonances of the Septuagintal royal psalms in these hymns suggest that the Christ-hymns may have developed in the early assemblies where worshippers of Jesus sang both biblical psalms and new hymnic compositions in honor of Christ the King, the royal figure who liberates and saves God’s people, shares God’s throne, and receives divine honors and worship.246 These biblical psalms, echoed throughout the Christ-hymns, depict God sharing the divine throne and divine authority over creation with the anointed firstborn son (LXX Psalm 88; Col. 1:15, 18), inviting another lord to share his throne and sit at his right hand (LXX Ps. 109:1; Phil. 2:9-11), and giving the anointed Son the rule over the nations (Psalm 2; Col. 1:13).247 What could be more historically plausible than the early Christians reflecting upon the identity, resurrection from the dead, and powerful redemptive work of Messiah Jesus in light of the claims made for Israel’s kings in the psalms, many of which resonate with HellenisticRoman kingship ideology? My argument, then, can be viewed as extending some of the insights of William Horbury, who has argued that: Jews before the rise of Christianity had customarily praised their kings and their expected future king in vocabulary which was biblically-derived but shared with that of gentile courts and sanctuaries, and Christians will have developed this Jewish usage against the background of the Herodian and Roman ruler-cult with which they were contemporary. 248

The claims that Christ is the creator of all things (Col. 1:16), temporally before all things (1:17a), was chosen to have all the divine fullness 246. See Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul, 92; Daly-Denton, “Singing Hymns to Christ as to a God.” 247. The plausibility of this argument could be enhanced by examining the scriptural catena in Heb. 1:4-13. See Jipp, “The Son’s Entrance into the Heavenly World.” 248. Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 112. Also: “Homage to the messiah was important in a Jewish messianism which formed a counterpart to gentile ruler-cult. Recognition of Christ as messianic king beginning in the period of the ministry and becoming pervasive in the earliest Christian community, led directly to the scenes of acclamation and obeisance, the hymns and the titles preserved in the New Testament” (p. 150).

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dwell within him (1:19), and the agent who has produced cosmic peace and harmony (1:20) are indeed remarkable, complicated, innovative, and cannot be accounted for by simply pointing toward one religious context or background. Yet these incredible claims about Jesus of Nazareth are explicable within the royal notions of the king as the one who is both human and who shares the throne of God (LXX Pss. 44:7; 109:1-3), a son of God (Ps. 2:6-8) or son of Zeus (Isocrates, Evag. 13–14; 72; Callimachus, Hymn. Jov. 69–79; Theocritus, Id. 17.1-4), elected by God to stabilize and rule earth on God’s behalf (LXX Pss. 71:8-11; 88:25-30; Pliny, Pan. 4.4-9; 5.6; 80.3), the giver of god-like benefactions of peace and harmony (Athenaeus, Deipn. 6.253C; Plutarch, Lys.18.2-4; Augustus, Res Gestae 1; Philo, Embassy to Gaius 149–151; Horace, Carm. 4.5.33-36), the gods’ victorious general who subjugates rebellious enemies (Appian, Bell. civ. 2.146; Horace, Carm. 4.15.5-10), and worthy of receiving divine honors and worship in the form of acclamations, hymns and encomia (Plutarch, Lys. 18.2-4; LXX Genesis 49:8-12; Num. 23:21; 1 Chron. 29:20, 25; Psalm 44). The practice of praising and hymning kings, namely, giving them divine honors for divine benefactions, may provide a window into the development of the earliest Christian christology. To state it baldly, the journey to Nicaea where Jesus is confessed as one substance with God and yet fully human must traverse through kingship discourse—the most plausible, so I suggest, historical-religious framework for the simultaneous affirmation of Jesus as both human and divine. But what is the significance of this for Paul’s churches? What purposes did this presentation of the Messiah as King and Lord serve for those who confessed Christ as supreme ruler of the universe? What was the rhetorical function of these hymns, and, presuming that Paul was not simply engaging in some form of abstract christological reflection, how did they persuade Paul’s churches to adopt a certain course of action? In the next chapter I will examine not only the way in which Paul’s Christological discourse set forth an exalted depiction of the true ruler of the cosmos, but also the way in which those who belong to this true ruler are enabled to share and participate in his rule.

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“Remember Messiah Jesus, raised from the dead, from the seed of David, according to my gospel. . . . The saying is faithful—for if we have died with him, we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall also rule together with him.”1 “[A]n empire remains powerful so long as its subjects rejoice in it.” 2

If the primary message of Jesus was the kingdom of God, the same statement cannot be made for Paul.3 While Paul is clearly familiar with the early Christian tradition of the kingdom of God, he does not develop or integrate the concept into his letters in a creative or rigorous way.4 Thus, most of Paul’s statements regarding the kingdom of God appear to stem simply from early Christian tradition rather than 1. 2 Tim. 2:8, 11-12a. 2. Livy 8.13.16. 3. This should not be taken, however, to indicate that there is no continuity between Jesus and Paul on this matter. See, for example, Richard J. Bauckham, “Kingdom and Church according to Jesus and Paul,” HBT 18 (1996): 1-26. 4. See Rom. 14:17; 1 Cor. 4:20; 6:9-11; 15:24, 50; Gal. 5:21; 1 Thess. 2:12. In Paul’s disputed letters, see Eph. 5:5; Col. 1:13; 4:11; 2 Thess. 1:4-5; 2 Tim. 4:1, 8.

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Paul’s own creative adaptation and use.5 Yet this may be due to the fact that, as I will argue in this chapter, Paul does consistently speak instead of Christ’s people as sharing in the rule and royal benefits of the king. In Paul’s Christ-discourse, then, the kingdom of God is seen, so to speak, in Christ’s sharing of his own rule with his subjects. Given that in kingship discourse, the king or emperor is often conflated with the empire or body politic, Paul creates a discourse that makes the closest possible connection between king and subjects.6 In defense of his decision to change his travel plans to make a double visit to the Corinthian church, Paul roots his apostolic ministry in God’s faithfulness and makes this intriguing claim: “God is the one establishing us with you into the Anointed one and has anointed us (εἰς Χριστὸν καὶ χρίσας ἡμᾶς) by placing his seal on us and giving us his Spirit (τοῦ πνεύματος) in our hearts as a pledge” (2 Cor. 1:21-22). Paul provides no interpretation of the statement, but it seems likely that Paul is punning on the meaning of God’s consecration of the Messiah as king and the church’s consecration into the same royal identity. God’s consecration or anointing of the Messiah by God’s Spirit is shared with the Corinthians who, by virtue of their own anointing (χρίσας), participate in the Messiah’s royal consecration.7 Margaret Thrall states this well: “The Christ whom God consecrates as messianic king has with him his own community to reign with him. Believers are themselves ‘christed’ to share in the messianic kingdom.”8 Thus it would seem to be the case that the Corinthian church shares in the Messiah’s royal 5. See Karl P. Donfried, “The Kingdom of God in Paul,” in The Kingdom of God in 20th Century Interpretation (ed. Wendell Willis; Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987), 175-90. 6. Stanley K. Stowers rightly states: “We need a discourse or discourses that provide the conditions of intelligibility for the language of participation” (“What Is ‘Pauline Participation in Christ’?” in Redefining First-Century Jewish and Christian Identities: Essays in Honor of Ed Parish Sanders (ed. Fabian E. Udoh; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), 352-71, here 353). I think that Stowers has convincingly demonstrated one discourse, namely, that Christ shares his own pneuma (understood here as a materialist conception of pneuma as Christ’s stuff or substance) with his people. This allows gentiles to inherit the promises made to Abraham and to be grafted into Abraham’s lineage (e.g., 1 Cor. 6:12-20; 15:35-50; Rom. 8:29; Gal. 3:26-29). See here also the work of Caroline Johnson Hodge, If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 7. See Matthew V. Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 147. 8. Margaret Thrall, 2 Corinthians 1–7 (ICC; London/New York: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 1994), 155. See also, Martin Hengel, Studies in Early Christology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995), 5-6.

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rule and kingdom, and as Paul goes on to say, this takes place by sharing the Spirit of the resurrected Messiah. That the Corinthians would have heard 2 Cor. 1:21-22 as indicating their incorporation into Christ’s royal identity and the promise that they would reign with the Messiah in his kingdom by virtue of sharing the Spirit of the resurrected Messiah gains plausibility when we remember that Paul had already, in a previous letter to the church, conceptualized their salvation as sharing in Christ’s sovereign rule (1 Cor. 3:21-23; 4:8-9; 6:2-3, 9-11; 15:20-28, 50-58). Therefore, 2 Cor. 1:21-22 may provide a useful point of entry into the royal and messianic roots of Paul’s participatory soteriology. Participating in the King’s Rule: The Rhetorical Function of the Christ-Hymns In the previous chapter I explored the significant role that hymnic praise to Christ the King played in Paul’s churches. The actual hymns themselves (Col. 1:15-20 and Phil. 2:6-11), the evidence that singing hymns and songs characterized the Pauline churches (e.g., Eph. 5:19; 1 Cor. 14:26), and the frequent allusions to the Psalter in Paul’s letters suggest that Paul’s churches composed and sang hymns in honor of Christ. Further, in light of the incredibly close relationship between king and god (in both Israel’s Scriptures and ancient Mediterranean ideology), it can be seen that the hymnic praises take over and transform the cultural scripts of praise to rulers and emperors as a means of portraying Christ as supreme in authority, as uniquely related to God, and as having provided divine gifts and saving benefits to his people. These hymns provide a window into Paul’s work to construct a symbolic universe for his churches, a symbolic universe that presents an alternative ruler as singularly invested with cosmic rule, divine authority, the power to provide the kingly benefactions of liberation from one’s enemies, peace and prosperity, and who is thereby worthy of receiving their obedience and worship. Paul’s hymns draw the audience into joining their voices with Paul such that they bestow divine honors, namely worship, upon the sole king and ruler of the 141

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universe and are thereby socialized into a symbolic world where they share in the reign of the King who is lord over every power. Paul is able to then use the language and themes of these two hymns throughout the rest of the epistle to provide the basis for the churches’ participation in the true king’s rule and to thereby counter every other competing claim to rule. To state this differently, the language of Paul’s christological discourse, his presentation of the narrative and identity of Christ as king, is applied to Christ’s people such that they share in Christ’s royal narrative and identity by way of participation.9 I want to expand on this primarily by way of an examination of Paul’s christological discourse in Romans, given that this epistle provides the most expansive presentation of Paul’s participatory soteriology. In Romans we will see that Paul charts a royal-Davidic trajectory for the Messiah and then applies this royal trajectory to Christ’s people such that they share in the Messiah’s rule by virtue of receiving Christ’s πνεῦμα and thereby are brought into his royal family. But first, a brief look at Paul’s use of the language of the hymns of Colossians and Philippians to portray believers as sharing in Christ’s rule will provide some closure to the previous chapter and will nicely alert us to how Paul conceptualizes participation as royal discourse, that is, sharing in the rule, narrative, and identity of Christ as King. Colossians The author of Colossians draws upon the claims of 1:15-20 throughout the rest of the epistle in order to construct a distinct symbolic universe for the audience to inhabit,10 one that counters any fascination with 9. On the indebtedness of Paul’s christological statements to underlying narratives, see Richard B. Hays, “Is Paul’s Gospel Narratable?” JSNT 27 (2004): 217-39; idem, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11 (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 210-15. 10. E.g., Walter T. Wilson, The Hope of Glory: Education and Exhortation in the Epistle to the Colossians (NovTSup 88; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 183-218; Wayne A. Meeks, “‘To Walk Worthily of the Lord’: Moral Formation in the Pauline School Exemplified by the Letter to the Colossians,” in Hermes and Athena: Biblical Exegesis and Philosophical Theology (ed. Eleanore Stump and Thomas P. Flint; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993), 37-58, esp. 42-43; Stephen E. Fowl, The Story of Christ in the Ethics of Paul: An Analysis of the Function of the Hymnic Material in the Pauline Corpus (JSNTSup; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990), 123-54; Adam Copenhaver, “Echoes of a Hymn in a Letter of Paul: The Rhetorical Function of the Christ-Hymn in the Letter to the Colossians,” JSPL 4 (2014): 235-55.

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lesser powers and authorities (e.g., 2:6-8, 16-23).11 That Paul’s hymn in honor of Christ is given a central place in the construction of the church’s symbolic universe seems undeniable, and it is possibly even supported by Paul’s command to have “the word about the Messiah” (ὁ λόγος τοῦ Χριστοῦ) dwell within them (ἐνοικείτω ἐν ὑμῖν) by means of teaching and instructing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (3:16).12 Given that Paul has echoed the Christ-hymn throughout the epistle, it seems highly plausible that Paul here exhorts the Colossians to sing the royal encomium, an act that thereby functions to socialize them into a symbolic universe where Christ the King reigns supremely as creator, ruler, and restorer of the entire cosmos.13 The socialization into this worldview where Christ the King reigns supreme will make any concern with other spiritual powers or addition of ritual and practice entirely unnecessary (see 2:16-19). But Paul presents the Colossians not only as benefiting from Christ’s rule but also as sharing in numerous aspects of Christ’s rule. That is to say, Paul’s claim that the Colossians were “transferred into the kingdom of [God’s] beloved Son” (1:13b) is conceptualized through enabling the church to share in the royal rule depicted in 1:15-20. In what follows, I simply list the relationship between the King and his people in order to draw attention to their participation in the King’s reign. 1:15a. As Christ is “the image of the invisible God” (ὅς ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου; 1:15a), so is the new humanity in the process of being renewed “according to the image of the one creating it [i.e., the new humanity]” (κατ᾽ εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος αὐτόν; 3:10b). 1:16. Since Christ is the “firstborn over all creation” (1:15b) and the creator of everything in heaven and on the earth (1:16), Paul can also 11. On the situation in Colossae and its relationship to the church’s concern with cosmic powers and authorities, see Ian Smith, Heavenly Perspective: A Study of the Apostle Paul’s Response to a Jewish Mystical Movement at Colossae (LNTS 326; London: T & T Clark, 2006); Clinton E. Arnold, The Colossian Syncretism: The Interface between Christianity and Folk Belief at Colossae (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996). 12. While I think that Paul is the author of Colossians, my primary concern is simply to demonstrate the use of kingship discourse in writings that came into existence within the orbit of Pauline assemblies. 13. See also Leonard Thompson, “Hymns in Early Christian Worship,” ATR 55 (1973): 458-72, who notes that the act of singing hymns to gods functioned to make the god present within the community.

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posit that the Messiah “is the head over every ruler and dominion” (ὅς ἐστιν ἡ κεφαλὴ πάσης ἀρχῆς καὶ ἐξουσίας; 2:10b). But given that the Colossians “have been filled in him” (2:10a), they are able to share in Christ’s victory over the rebellious cosmic powers (cf. 2:14-15). 1:17. Given that “all things” (τὰ πάντα; 1:17) are stabilized and held together in Christ (ἐν αὐτῷ; 1:17), and given that Christ is supreme in all things (καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων; 1:17), Paul can apply Christ’s cosmic rule to stabilize and unify his people: “Christ is all things and in all [people]” (ἀλλὰ τὰ πάντα καὶ ἐν πᾶσιν Χριστός; 3:11b). Thus, the foundation for a unified new humanity undivided by ethnic, socioeconomic, or religious distinctions is one component of Christ’s stabilization and unification of the cosmos (3:10-11). 1:18a. The “head of the body,” that is, Christ’s reign over his people, rules not for his own benefit but for the nourishment, growth, and good of his body (2:19). Paul’s conceptualization of the relationship between Christ and his people as the head functions with respect to its body functions to stress the remarkable connection between the ruler and the ruled and suggests that Christ will care, nourish, and do no harm to his own body. 1:18b (and 1:15b). Christ is exalted as supreme as “the firstborn over all creation” (1:15b; cf. LXX Ps. 88:28: κἀγὼ πρωτότοκον θήσομαι αὐτόν, ὑψηλὸν παρὰ τοῖς βασιλεῦσιν τῆς γῆς) and is “the firstborn from the dead” (πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν; 1:18b). The Colossians share in Christ’s supremacy by way of sharing in his resurrection and heavenly exaltation: “you have been raised together in him” (ἐν ᾧ καὶ συνηγέρθητε; 2:12); “he gave you life together with him” (συνεζωοποίησεν ὑμᾶς σὺν αὐτῷ; 2:13b); “if you have been raised together with the Messiah (συνηγέρθητε τῷ Χριστῷ), seek the things above, where the Messiah is, seated at God’s right hand” (ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ θεοῦ καθήμενος; 3:1b; cf. LXX Ps. 109:1). Their participation in the Messiah’s resurrection and enthronement is the basis for the assurance that they will share in the Messiah’s glory when he returns (3:4).14 1:19 Just as “all the fullness chose to dwell in him” (ἐν αὐτῷ εὐδόκησεν

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πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα κατοικῆσαι; 1:19), so the subjects of the king participate in the life of God as Paul makes the remarkable claim that “you are being filled up in him” (ἐστὲ ἐν αὐτῷ πεπληρωμένοι; 2:10a), where the prepositional phrase refers to the one in whom “all the fullness of deity dwells bodily” (κατοικεῖ πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τῆς θεότητος σωματικῶς; 2:9). Furthermore, if it is correct that the language of εὐδόκησεν . . . κατοικῆσαι refers to God’s election of Christ as his royal vicegerent, then this may function as the basis for God’s electing and choosing the Colossians as God’s people (ἐκλεκτοὶ τοῦ θεοῦ; 3:12; cf. 3:15b). 1:20. Paul situates God’s reconciliation of the Colossians to God through Christ (1:21-22) within the cosmic work of Christ’s reconciling activity (1:20). The Colossians constitute those “who were formerly alienated and enemies” (ὑμᾶς ποτε ὄντας ἀπηλλοτριωμένους καὶ ἐχθρούς; 1:21) in need of God’s reconciliation through the self-giving death of the Messiah (νυνὶ δὲ ἀποκατήλλαξεν ἐν τῷ σώματι τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ διὰ τοῦ θανάτου; 1:22). As a result of Christ’s accomplishment of divine reconciliation (δι᾿ αὐτοῦ ἀποκαταλλάξαι) and his “making peace” (εἰρηνοποιήσας; 1:20) and cosmic harmony, the Colossians can share in the peace of the Messiah (ἡ εἰρήνη τοῦ Χριστοῦ βραβευέτω ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ὑμῶν; 3:15a). Paul’s conceptualizing of the Colossians as sharing in the cosmic work of Christ’s rule could be expanded in much more detail, but these links between 1:15-20 and the rest of the letter prove the point that one of the functions of the encomium to Christ is to socialize the church into a realm where Christ is supreme over every competitor. By singing “the word about the Messiah” (3:16) and by reflecting upon their own participation in every aspect of the beneficent King, the church is thereby grounded into a reality that makes all competitors of Christ’s rule simply irrelevant.

14. On which, see Christopher Rowland, “Apocalyptic Visions and the Exaltation of Christ in the Letter to the Colossians,” JSNT 19 (1983): 73-83.

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Philippians Just as in Col. 1:15-20 Paul develops a portrait of the cosmic Christ as sovereign over every other rule and authority, so the hymn in Phil. 2:6-11 presents the Messiah as entering into divine power and lordship not by exploiting his divine honors but by embracing a posture of self-abnegation and regard for others—a disposition Paul intends to inculcate, through the Christ-hymn, in the church at Philippi in order to produce internal harmony (Phil. 2:1-4). Much has been written on Phil. 2:6-11 and its role in the letter, but for my purposes it is enough to note that one of its rhetorical functions is to set forth the royal pattern that all of Christ’s people will follow if they would benefit from and share in his rule. The logic of Philippians trades on the notion that Christ’s subjects benefit from his rule if they manifest the same royal virtues Christ himself displayed.15 The church confesses Christ alone as their ruler, for he is “Lord Jesus the Messiah” (2:11). He has entered into his cosmic lordship, received the divine name, and been exalted above every other power (2:9-11), but not through any lust for power or divine honors and benefits. Christ has, rather, redefined true power, authority, and rule through his obedient acceptance of public humiliation in service to God and to others. Thus, to “walk worthily of the gospel of Christ” (1:27a) will involve taking on the same royal virtues Christ exemplified on his way to entering into universal sovereignty over the world (e.g., the links between 2:1-5 and 2:5-11). Given Christ’s royal pattern of obedience to God even in the face of lost status, suffering, and a humiliating death, Christ’s people must also be willing to embrace the key virtues exemplified by their king—suffering (1:29-30; 2:17, 30), humiliation, other-regard, and loss of status (2:1-4; 2:20-21)—if they hope to share in the benefits of his rule. Paul’s rejection of conferred high status (3:2-7) is of one piece with his desire to “participate in [Christ’s] sufferings [and] to be conformed to his death” (3:10; cf. 2:6-8), for this embrace of suffering and humiliation

15. Peter Oakes, Philippians: From People to Letter (SNTSMS 110; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 201-2.

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is the necessary prerequisite for sharing in Christ’s resurrection life (3:10a, 11).16 The political vocabulary and echoes of the Christ-hymn in Phil. 3:20-21 show the salvific and beneficial consequences of Christ’s rule. Christ is characterized in specifically royal terms as “savior” (σωτῆρα; 3:20) and “Lord Jesus the Messiah” (κύριον Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν; 3:20; cf. 2:11).17 His exaltation to a position of glory has brought into existence “a heavenly citizenship” (τὸ πολίτευμα ἐν οὐρανοῖς; 3:20; cf. 1:27) and “his body of glory” (3:21).18 Paul’s depiction of a heavenly citizenship, his use of the titles “Christ,” “Lord,” and “Savior,” and his allusion to Ps. 8:7 and the subjection of all things to his rule portray Christ as holding supreme power and authority. When Christ returns, an event for which the church anxiously awaits, his people will experience a “transformation” (μετασχηματίσει) of “our body of humiliation” (τὸ σῶμα τῆς ταπεινώσεως; 3:21a), language that echoes Christ’s own bodily experience of death (σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος ἐταπείνωσεν ἑαυτόν; 2:7-8).19 This transformation will result in sharing in Christ’s resurrection, that is, “conformation to [Christ’s] glorious body” (σύμμορφον τῷ σώματι τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ; 3:21b; 3:10-11). Christ effects this transformation for those who belong to this heavenly citizenship “by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself” (κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν τοῦ δύνασθαι αὐτὸν καὶ ὑποτάξαι αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα; 3:21c). Paul’s allusion to Ps. 8:7 (which echoes Gen. 1:26-28) depicts Christ as exercising by his own agency the royal dominion over creation and the glory and honor intended for Adam.20 Christ’s 16. On the relationship between Phil. 3:10 and Phil. 2:6-11, see Morna D. Hooker, From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 21. On the relationship between Phil. 2:6-11 and Phil. 3:20-21, see Ben C. Blackwell, Christosis: Pauline Soteriology in Light of Deification in Irenaeus and Cyril of Alexandria (WUNT 2.314; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011), 208. 17. On “Savior” as a term for Hellenistic kings and Roman emperors, see Gordon D. Fee, Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), 402. 18. On which, see A. T. Lincoln, Paradise Now and Not Yet: Studies in the Role of the Heavenly Dimension in Paul’s Thought with Special Reference to His Eschatology (SNTSMS 43; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 97-100; Pheme Perkins, “Philippians: Theology for the Heavenly Politeuma,” in Pauline Theology: Volume I: Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon (ed. Jouette M. Bassler; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 89-104. 19. Fee, Pauline Christology, 403. 20. On the allusion to Ps. 8:7 in Phil. 3:21b, see N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, vol. 4; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 1292-1294.

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entrance into a position of cosmic supremacy and universal sovereignty over “all things” is the event depicted in Phil. 2:9, where God “highly exalts” (ὑπερύψωσεν) him and gives him the name above “every name” (τὸ ὑπὲρ πᾶν ὄνομα). It is that event that enables Christ to share his resurrection life with his people (3:21b). As Morna Hooker states, “In these verses, then, the meaning of Christ’s exaltation is worked out for the believer: in Christ the Christian shares in the reversal of status which took place when God raised him.”21 The way in which Christ effects this bodily transformation for his people is by the power and lordship that was conferred upon him at his own exaltation. In other words, the subjection of “all things” to the powerful lordship of Messiah Jesus (2:9-11; 3:21b) enables Christ to have the power to share his glorious resurrection body with his people so that they will be fit for participating in this heavenly citizenship. Two significant, yet basic, points are necessary here for my argument: (a) Paul uses the christological panegyrics of Col. 1:15-20 and Phil. 2:6-11 to socialize his churches into a realm where Christ alone is supremely sovereign and invested with divine lordship over the cosmos; (b) Paul uses and expands upon the claims made in these hymns throughout the rest of these letters in order to show his churches that they not only benefit from but are even participants in Christ’s sovereign rule. Kingship Discourse and Participation in Paul But what logic or conceptual resources enable Paul not simply to present Christ as supreme ruler but to speak of his sovereign rule as something in which his people actually participate? It has always been something of an oddity that Paul’s participatory soteriology, those statements found everywhere throughout his epistles that those “in Christ” are now incorporated into the narrative and identity of Messiah Jesus and thereby into the life of God and the Spirit, has defied scholarly attempts to locate its historical-religious antecedents.22 21. Hooker, From Adam to Christ, 21. 22. For histories of interpretation of union with Christ in Paul, see Constantine R. Campbell, Paul

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Whereas Paul’s participatory language is undoubtedly innovative, and due recognition must of course be given to Paul’s creative reflections upon his experience of the resurrected Messiah, a more robust and textured description of humanity’s union with Israel’s Messiah might be found should we be able to locate its historical-religious antecedents and thereby reflect upon Paul’s reshaping and reformulation of them, assuming that Paul did not invent the discourse de novo.23 The King Shares in God’s Kingship; the King Represents God’s People In what follows I argue that the primary root for understanding Paul’s participatory discourse is the notion of Israel’s king as simultaneously both the son of God who shares God’s throne, participates in divine kingship, and shares God’s πνεῦμα, and the embodied representative of his people who enables the people to share in the rule of the divine king. This provides the grammar and logic for Paul’s ability to conceptualize his church’s participation in the royal narrative and identity of Christ the Messiah (e.g., Col. 1:15-20; Phil. 2:6-11; Rom. 1:3-4; 1 Cor. 15:3-4). The king functions as something of a bridge figure between God and God’s people, such that the king mediates God’s rule and presence, sharing God’s πνεῦμα with the people, and is simultaneously the embodied representative of his people, in whose life, destiny, and rule the people participate. Paul charts for Jesus a clear and recognizable identity and narrative as Israel’s royal Messiah, then he maps this royal trajectory onto the Messiah’s people. We will see that Paul presents Christ as a divine and royal figure who rules his people by means of enabling his subjects to participate in the rule and benefits of the resurrected-enthroned Messiah, royal benefits that include: sharing in the Son’s sonship, sharing in the πνεῦμα of Christ, sharing in the Messiah’s resurrection and glorified state, sharing in the Messiah’s and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012); Grant Macaskill, Union with Christ in the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 17-41. 23. Throughout this chapter I use the language of participation, union, and incorporation interchangeably. See, however, the distinctions made by Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 406-20.

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worldwide inheritance, and reigning with the Messiah over God’s enemies by sharing in his lordship. These are not simply gifts that are conferred upon the people by their king; rather, they are the constitutive components of the king’s rule that are shared with his people. Before we look at the relevant Pauline texts, foremost of which is Paul’s letter to the Romans, it is necessary to examine the way in which the king, especially Israel’s idealized portraits of its Davidic ruler, was often depicted both as divine vicegerent of God and as the representative of his people. The King Shares in Divine Kingship I have already noted numerous Hellenistic and Roman texts that portray the king as the earthly representative of the gods who rule on their behalf, so only a brief reminder is needed here.24 The phenomenon of the divine election of the Hellenistic kings and Roman emperors has been documented by J. Rufus Fears, who has demonstrated the incredible prevalence of the motif of the divine election of the king as a way to legitimate claims to kingship. Fears has shown how this motif extends as far back as Homer,25 and in fact, the notion that the “human king ruled on earth in the name of the gods, and more specifically, in the name of the divine sovereign” is typical of ancient Near Eastern notions of kingship as well.26 Divine election of the kings is often conveyed by statements such as we finds in Isocrates’s Evagoras, a panegyric to the Cyprian ruler, who is described as “one of the sons of Zeus” (12–14), who is worthy of being declared “a god among men, or a mortal divinity” (72). Or again, the lines from Callimachus: “But from Zeus come kings; for nothing is diviner than the kings of Zeus” (78–79).27 We have seen that kings, most 24. See throughout chapter 3, “King and Praise.” 25. J. Rufus Fears, PRINCEPS A DIIS ELECTUS: The Divine Election of the Emperor as Political Concept at Rome (Rome: American Academy at Rome, 1977). 26. Bernard F. Batto, “The Divine Sovereign: The Image of God in the Priestly Creation Account,” in David and Zion: Biblical Studies in Honor of J. J. M. Roberts (ed. Bernard F. Batto and Kathryn L. Roberts; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004), 143-86, here 149; Dale Launderville, Piety and Politics: The Dynamics of Royal Authority in Homeric Greece, Biblical Israel, and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 43-47.

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frequently in the neo-Pythagorean treatises on kingship, are often referred to as God’s image and representation, since they secure earthly harmony and order in service of an imitation of the order in the divine realm. Zeus does not rule creation directly, but rather rules by his appointed king who, as the “image” of the divine ruler, establishes order, peace, and justice on the earth in service to the divine king. 28 M. David Litwa has also shown the prevalence of the Jewish and Jewish-Christian theme of the saints sharing in God’s rule.29 As most have recognized, humanity’s creation in the image of God and their gift of ruling the earth (Gen. 1:26-28; Ps. 8:4-8) grants to humanity a share in God’s own rule.30 The “dominion, glory, and kingship” that is granted to the one like a son of man in Dan. 7:13-14 is, for example, granted to “the people of the holy ones of the Most High” (Dan. 7:27). Throughout John’s Apocalypse, Christ’s people participate in the Messiah’s battle, victory, and ensuing enthronement (e.g., Rev. 3:20-21; 19:11-21).31 But even more important for understanding Paul’s participatory language are Israel’s royal traditions, which speak of Yahweh as the divine sovereign ruler (e.g., LXX Pss. 23; 28; 92; 94–98), the great king, who elects David and his household to rule Israel and thereby share in Yahweh’s divine kingship (esp. 2 Samuel 7; 1 Chronicles 17).32 God is the sovereign king in Israel: “Who is he, this king of glory? The Lord Almighty—he is the king of glory” (LXX Ps. 23:10); “The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord is enthroned as King forever” (LXX Ps. 28:10); “God himself is our shield, the Holy One of Israel is our king” (LXX Ps. 88:19); “The Lord is king, he is robed in majesty . . . your throne is established from of old” (LXX Ps. 92:1a, 2a).33 God’s 27. Cf. Callimachus, Hymn to Apollo 26–27: “He who fights with the Blessed Ones would fight with my King; he who fights with my King, would fight even with Apollo.” 28. Julien Smith, Christ the Ideal King: Cultural Context, Rhetorical Strategy, and the Power of Divine Monarchy in Ephesians (WUNT 2.313; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011), 37-40. 29. M. David Litwa, We Are Being Transformed: Deification in Paul’s Soteriology (BZNW 187; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), 172-92. 30. See esp. J. Richard Middleton, The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2005). 31. Litwa also points to Isa. 60:1-15; Zech. 10:10; T. Job 33:2-9; Wis. 3:7-8; 5:15-16 (We Are Being Transformed, 179-82). 32. On God’s covenant with David, see Scott W. Hahn, Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment of God’s Saving Promises (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 176-213. 33. On God as king, see Pss. 5:2; 9:9-13; 10:16-18; 24:7-10; 29:10; 44:4; 47:7; 59:14; 68:24; 74:12; 84:3;

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kingship and kingdom include his sovereign rule over the gods, over his enemies, over all the peoples of the earth, and especially over Israel.34 Within this framework of God as divine king, David and his dynasty are subordinated to Yahweh’s sovereign kingship, but they nevertheless participate in this divine kingship by Yahweh’s election. In ancient Israel the king was installed by means of anointing such that he received the title and office of “Messiah,” an office that marked him out “not merely [as] ‘the Messiah’ but ‘the Messiah of Yahweh.’” 35 Tryggve N. D. Mettinger notes that the term “‘Messiah’ denotes the king as very definitely set apart from the rest of the people, since it signifies his status as linked with God and thus inviolable,” and this can be seen by the fact that the term Messiah is most frequently used as rhetorical shorthand for the Lord’s Messiah (e.g., 1 Sam. 2:10, 35; 24:7-11; 26:9-16; 2 Sam. 1:14, 16; 19:22; Lam. 4:20).36 Likewise, Roland de Vaux notes that the act of anointing the king as the Lord’s anointed “was a religious act which established a special relationship between the king and God.”37 As the bearer of God’s Spirit, the king is, as such, holy and sacrosanct (cf. 1 Sam. 24:6; LXX Pss. 88:21-29; 104:15; Isa. 11:1-2). God’s anointing of David is, therefore, often coupled with divine election of the king and the impartation of God’s presence and holiness (cf. 1 Sam. 16:1-13).38 Thus, in LXX Ps. 88:21b God anoints David with “my oil of 89:18; 93:1; 94:9-10; 96:10; 99:1; 144:15. On God’s reign, see Pss. 47:8; 93:1; 97:1; 99:1; 146:10. James L. Mays argues that God’s kingship is the “organizing center for the theology of the psalms” (The Lord Reigns: A Theological Handbook to the Psalms [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994], 12-22, here 13); Marc Z. Brettler, God Is King: Understanding an Israelite Metaphor (JSOTSup 76; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1989); Marty E. Stevens, Leadership Roles of the Old Testament: King, Prophet, Priest, and Sage (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2012), 2-10. 34. Mays, The Lord Reigns, 14-15. 35. Aubrey R. Johnson points to such texts as Judg. 9:7-21; 1 Sam. 16:1-13; 2 Sam. 2:1-7; 5:1-5; 1 Kgs. 1:28-40; 2 Kgs. 9:1-13; 11:4-20 (Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel [Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1967], 14-15). 36. Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, King and Messiah: The Civil and Sacral Legitimation of the Israelite Kings (Coniectanea Biblica Old Testament 8; Lund: Gleerup, 1976), 199. See also J. J. M. Roberts,who says that the phrase “The Lord’s [his] anointed” functions “to underscore the very close relationship between Yahweh and the king whom he has chosen and installed” (“The Old Testament’s Contribution to Messianic Expectations,” in The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity [ed. James H. Charlesworth; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1987], 39-51, here 39). 37. Roland de Vaux, “The King of Israel, Vassal of Yahweh,” in The Bible and the Ancient Near East (trans. Damian McHugh; London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1971), 152-66, here 152. Cf. A. R. Johnson, “Hebrew Conceptions of Kingship,” in Myth, Ritual, and Kingship: Essays on the Theory and Practice of Kingship in the Ancient Near East and in Israel (ed. S. H. Hooke; Oxford: Clarendon, 1958), 204-35, here 207-8.

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holiness,” and earlier in the psalm God declares: “I have established a covenant with my elect (τοῖς ἐκλεκτοῖς μου), I have sworn an oath to my servant David” (88:4; cf. ὕψωσα ἐκλεκτὸν ἐκ τοῦ λαοῦ μου; 88:20). In LXX Ps. 77:70, God “chose David his servant” (ἐξελέξατο Δαυιδ τὸν δοῦλον αὐτοῦ).39 Furthermore, it was this relationship between king and God that enabled the anointed Messiah to operate as a channel for God’s Spirit (1 Sam. 10:1-13; 16:13; Isa 11:1-2; 61:1-3; Pss. Sol. 17:22, 37; 18:5-7).40 The king is intimately connected, then, with the very presence of the divine king.41 Running throughout 1 Samuel 16–2 Samuel 7 is the promise to David that God would be with the king (1 Sam. 16:17-18; 18:12, 14, 28; 2 Sam. 5:10).42 The account of the Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel 7 is very much focused upon relating God’s presence to Israel through the Davidic “house” (7:6, 11, 13).43 In the Davidic psalms, the king participates in God’s royal glory (Pss. 3:4; LXX 20:7-8; LXX 44:4; LXX 61:9; LXX 62:4), receives his victories from the strength of the Lord (LXX Pss. 20:2; 143:1, 10), is established by God’s “right hand” (LXX Ps. 62:9), and is sheltered by God (LXX Pss. 16:8; 60:5). The Davidic king and his throne are frequently spoken of as participating in God’s glory.44 The “glory” is the weighty splendor associated with God’s presence and kingship, as seen, for example, in Psalm 24 and its praise of Yahweh the exalted “King of Glory” (esp. LXX Ps. 23:7-10).45 But God shares “glory” 38. Cf. T. Levi 18:6-7: “The heavens will be opened, and from the temple of the glory there will come on him holiness by a voice of a father as from Abraham, Isaac’s father. And the glory of the Most High will be uttered over him, and the spirit of understanding and sanctification will result upon him in the water.” The similarities with the Synoptic Gospels’ presentation of Jesus’ baptism (e.g., Mark 1:9-11) are obvious, but the fact that Testament of Levi has probably undergone Jewish-Christian editing does not invalidate the fact that it testifies to the belief that the Messiah’s election by God is coupled with an impartation of God’s Spirit and holiness (cf. Rom. 1:4). 39. The Chronicler refers to God choosing Solomon as the royal temple builder in 1 Chron. 28:6, 10; 29:1; 2 Chron. 2:11). 40. Johnson, Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel, 114-15. 41. Mays, The Lord Reigns, 19: “Yhwh’s purpose is to have a king whose kingship corresponds to and represents Yhwh’s dominion in the midst of the kingdoms of the world.” Thus, it is clear that, despite the popularity of this view, the affirmation of God as king does not conflict with the belief in a messianic ruler. See here especially the sage comments of William Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ (London: SCM, 1998), 13-21. 42. P. K. McCarter, Jr., “The Apology of David,” JBL 99 (1980): 489-504. 43. Macaskill, Union with Christ in the New Testament, 108: “Such is the centrality of this theme of presence to all of the covenants that the association between God’s house and David’s house effectively ensures that the covenants are integrated around the role of the Davidic king.” 44. On the Davidic king in the Psalter and his association with God’s glory, see C. Carey Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology: Tradition and Rhetoric (NovTSup 69; Leiden: Brill, 1992), 44-52.

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and “majesty” with the king (Pss. 3:3; 44:4) such that the throne of David is often spoken of as a throne of glory (e.g., LXX Sir. 47:11; Pss. Sol. 17:30-32; 4QFlor 1-13). This would seem to be one more means of indicating that the Davidic king participates in God’s divine kingship as a gift.46 John H. Eaton speaks of this relationship between the presence of God and the king: “Drawn into God’s aura, the king is enveloped and penetrated by God’s holiness and glory. The king’s glory is hence a holy splendor derived from God, a manifestation of the same sovereignty.”47 As God’s sacred and anointed ruler over his people Israel, the king, while not divine, was divinely gifted with the responsibility of participating in God’s own kingship.48 During his public accession to the throne, the king underwent an enthronement ceremony in which he was designated as God’s son: “I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me” (2 Sam. 7:14a); “You are my son, today I have begotten you” (Ps. 2:7; cf. LXX Ps. 109:3).49 In LXX Psalm 88 the Davidic king 45. Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology, 116: “As in a Royal theology, the presence of God’s glory signifies God’s rule. God rules through his choice servant, the human king, who shares the divine glory.” 46. Macaskill states this well: “Importantly, though, the glory of the Davidic line and of Zion is not a property inherent to those things; rather it is an alien property, communicated to them and contingent upon the presence of God. . . . While, in certain regards, person and place may participate in the glory of God, the fact that this is an alien reality, communicated by presence, is constantly maintained” (Union with Christ in the New Testament, 112). 47. John H. Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms (SBT 32; London: SCM, 1976), 144. On the priestly role of the king as one who mediates between God and people, see Deborah W. Rooke, “Kingship as Priesthood: The Relationship between the High Priesthood and the Monarchy,” in King and Messiah in Israel and the Ancient Near East (ed. John Day; JSOTSup 270; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 187-208. 48. If I may be forgiven for borrowing the language of the church fathers that was used to maintain the distinction between Christ’s relation to God and humanity’s relation to God, the king participates in God’s kingship not by nature but by grace. Thus, the Israelite king is not god incarnate. So, broadly speaking, see the so-called myth and ritual school, e.g., S. H. Hooke, ed., Myth, Ritual, and Kingship: Essays on the Theory and Practice of Kingship in the Ancient Near East and in Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1958). But neither is Israelite kingship simply a secular institution with no implications for the relationship between God and people, hence my use of participation to describe the king’s relationship to the divine is intentional. With respect to how the church fathers conceptualize humanity’s participation by grace in what Christ is by nature, see Kathryn Tanner, Christ the Key (Current Issues in Theology; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 1-57. For a general appreciation of the myth and ritual school’s understanding of divine kingship, see Shirley Lucass, The Concept of the Messiah in the Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity (LSTS 78; London: T & T Clark, 2011), 73-91. 49. Without endorsing all of the specific proposals for the Sitz im Leben of the enthronement psalms, see the helpful discussions of the royal enthronement ceremony in G. Cooke, “The Israelite King as Son of God,” ZAW 73 (1961): 202-25; Johnson, Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel, 24-25; Sigmund Mowinckel, He That Cometh: The Messiah Concept in the Old Testament and Later Judaism (trans. G. W. Anderson; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 96-98; Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms, 111-13; Mark W. Hamilton, The Body Royal: The Social Poetics of Kingship in Ancient Israel (Biblical Interpretation

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is referred to as God’s firstborn son (πρωτότοκον; 88:28) who, during his royal coronation, cries out to Yahweh: “you are my father” (αὐτὸς ἐπικαλέσεταὶ με Πατήρ μου εἶ σύ; 88:27). Israelite royal ideology viewed the Lord’s anointed, as God’s own son, to be invested with God’s authority and power to rule (Ps 2:6-9; LXX 88:27-29; 109:1-4; cf. 2 Sam 7:12-14).50 I noted in chapter 3 how LXX Psalm 88 presents Yahweh as gifting the divine throne and rule over creation to a royal vicegerent, such that the characteristics of Yahweh’s rule, including righteousness, justice, steadfast love, destruction of the cosmic enemies (88:10-17), also characterize the rule of the king (88:20-38).51 The anointed king’s rule over creation, including the sea and rivers (88:26), his rule over his enemies (88:23-24), his sharing in God’s faithfulness and steadfast love (88:25, 29), and his eternal throne (88:29-30) depict the king as divinelike and one who shares in God’s rule.52 The divine king establishes the Davidic dynasty in order to secure the cosmic order, and therefore, the king’s “functions mirror those of Yahweh in his heavenly role.”53 One sees this dynamic also in Psalm 72, in which the king’s right and peaceful ordering of Israel depends upon the king’s sharing in God’s righteousness.54 J. J. M. Roberts notes that the king’s declaration in LXX Psalm 100 to set his eyes on the faithful and to reject the deceitful is almost interchangeable with divine speech “and simply underscores

Series 78; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), 60-82; J. J. M. Roberts, “The Old Testament’s Contribution to Messianic Expectations.” 50. See Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms, 146-49; Baruch Halpern, The Constitution of the Monarchy in Israel (Harvard Semitic Monographs 25; Chico, CA: Scholars, 1981), 13-19. Sigmund Mowinckel, speaking of Israelite kingship within the context of its ancient Near Eastern context, states: “The king is thus the representative of the gods on earth, the steward of the god or the gods. Through him they exercise their power and sovereignty, and he is the channel through which blessing and happiness and fertility flow from the gods to me” (The Psalms in Israel’s Worship [Biblical Resource Series; 2 vols.; trans. D. R. Ap-Thomas; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004], 1:51). 51. See J. J. M. Roberts, “The Enthronement of Yhwh and David: The Abiding Theological Significance of the Kingship Language of the Psalms,” CBQ 64 (2002): 675-86, here 679; Richard J. Clifford, “Psalm 89: A Lament over the Davidic Ruler’s Continued Failure,” HTR 73 (1980): 35-47, here 44-45. 52. Hamilton, The Body Royal, 91-92. 53. K. W. Whitelam, “Israelite Kingship. The Royal Ideology and its Opponents,” in The World of Ancient Israel: Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives (ed. R. E. Clements; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 119-39, here 129; cf. Mays, The Lord Reigns, 105: “The Messiah’s rule actualizes in the world what is reality in heaven and cosmos. David’s kingship is the agency through which the Lord’s rule is extended from heaven to earth, and the divine dominion over cosmic chaos is expanded to include historical disorder.” 54. Roberts, “The Enthronement of Yhwh and David,” 683.

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the degree to which the king participates in the divine rule.”55 The (ideal Davidic) king upholds the cosmic and social order by ruling righteously over God’s people, protecting the poor and weak, and repelling the chaos and violence caused by the enemies of the king (see throughout LXX Psalms 2, 71, 88, 100, and 103).56 The Psalms of Solomon, penned in response to Pompey’s invasion of Jerusalem in the mid-first century BCE, manifest a similar conception of royal rule. Psalms of Solomon 17 begins and ends with a declaration of God’s kingship (vv. 1, 46) and the eternal “kingdom of God” (17:3b).57 God’s kingship and kingdom, however, are mediated through the election of God’s anointed king to rule (17:4). The anointed king’s kingship is derivative of God’s kingship. Thus, while Israel’s “king shall be the Lord Messiah” (βασιλεὺς αὐτῶν χριστὸς κυρίου; 17:32), for the Messiah “the Lord himself is his king” (Κύριος αὐτὸς βασιλεὺς αὐτοῦ; 17:34a). The acts, then, of the anointed king—to purify his people, to judge the wicked nations, to make his people holy and shepherd them in righteousness—are enactments of God’s kingdom on earth. 58 The Chronicler has one of the most exalted depictions of the Davidic king who participates in Yahweh’s kingdom and shares Yahweh’s throne: “[Yahweh] chose (ἐξελέξατο) my son Solomon to sit on the throne of Yahweh’s kingdom (καθίσαι αὐτὸν ἐπὶ θρόνου βασιλείας κυρίου) over Israel” (1 Chron. 28:5);59 “Solomon sat on the throne of Yahweh as king in place of David his father” (1 Chron. 29:23); “Blessed be Yahweh your God, who showed you favor by placing you upon his throne as 55. Ibid. 56. Whitelam states: “A central feature of the royal world-view was that the cosmos was divinely ordered and that monarchic government and society were the mundane counterparts of this heavenly ideal. The earthly reality might well be one of political upheaval through factional disputes over the throne, but the ideological picture, the world-view propagated by the royal bureaucracy on behalf of the occupant of the throne, was one of delicate cosmic harmony in which the king played the central earthly role” (“Israelite Kingship,” 128-29). 57. See Robert B. Wright (trans.), Psalms of Solomon in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (vol. 2; ed. James H. Charlesworth; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), 639-70. 58. Further, see Smith, Christ the Ideal King, 99-107; Gene L. Davenport, “The ‘Anointed of the Lord’ in Psalms of Solomon 17,” in Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism: Profiles and Paradigms (ed. John J. Collins and George W. E. Nickelsburg; SBLSCS 12; Chico, CA: Scholars, 1980), 67-92. 59. The language of divine election of the human king is frequent throughout 1 Chronicles 28. See also Scott W. Hahn, The Kingdom of God as Liturgical Empire: A Theological Commentary on 1–2 Chronicles (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 96.

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king for Yahweh your God” (ἐπὶ θρόνον αὐτοῦ εἰς βασιλέα τῷ κυρίῳ θεῷ σου; 2 Chron. 9:8). The Davidic king is portrayed as sharing God’s throne, ruling over God’s kingdom, and thereby as embodying divine kingship by virtue of election and participation.60 Throughout Chronicles, Yahweh reveals absolute supremacy and uniqueness precisely by means of the Davidic dynasty, which, by virtue of God’s gracious and electing choice, allows David to share in God’s kingdom, throne, and rule. Thus, even as David declares the uniqueness and supremacy of God’s kingship (1 Chron. 17:20-21), David also points to God’s gracious exaltation of him to a high rank and honor: “You exalt me as someone of high rank, O Lord God (ὕψωσάς με, κύριε ὁ θεός)! And what more can David say to you for glorifying (τοῦ δοξάσαι) your servant?” (17:17b-18).61 The relationship between the Davidic king and the divine kingdom can be seen in the Chronicler’s rendering of the promise to David, in which there is a clear mutuality or interrelationship between the two: “I will establish his kingdom” (17:11), “I will establish his throne forever” (17:12), and “I will confirm him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever” (17:14).62 The Davidic king’s participation in Yahweh’s rule comes to a surprising climax when the people of Israel “bowed down to worship Yahweh and the king” (1 Chron. 29:20).63 The king, by virtue of participation in God’s own kingship, is the exalted one (cf. 1 Chron. 14:2) who thereby sits on “the throne of Yahweh in the place of his father David” (29:23) as the visible manifestation of God’s rule.64 It is probably a similar idea of royal participation in divine kingship that accounts for the remarkable predication of the deity to 60. Matthew J. Lynch, Monotheism and Institutions in the Book of Chronicles: Temple, Priesthood, and Kingship in Post-Exilic Perspective (FAT 2.64; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2014), 209-60. See also Gary N. Knoppers, “David’s Relation to Moses: The Contexts, Content and Conditions of the Davidic Promises,” in King and Messiah in Israel and the Ancient Near East (ed. John Day; JSOTSup 270; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 91-118, here 102; Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 45-46. 61. Lynch, Monotheism and Institutions in the Book of Chronicles, 229-30. 62. Similarly, Hahn, The Kingdom of God as Liturgical Empire, 75-77. 63. Ibid., 97. Hahn comments: “This is an extraordinary and unprecedented acknowledgment of the remarkable closeness between God and his earthly representative, the king.” 64. On this scene, see Lynch, Monotheism and Institutions in the Book of Chronicles, 232-34. Lynch refers to this aspect of the king’s rule as Yahweh’s “participatory exaltation of David.”

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the king in LXX Ps. 44:7: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever” (ὁ θρόνος σου, ὁ θεός, εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ αἰῶνος).65 Mark W. Hamilton has shown, in fact, that in light of the depiction of the king as a divine-like archer (e.g., Num. 24:8; LXX Pss. 7:14; 17:15) and as one clothed in “glory and majesty” (LXX Ps. 44:4; cf. LXX Pss. 95:6; 103:1; 110:3; 144:5), Psalm 45 (LXX 44) “describes the king’s body in terms otherwise appropriate to the body of Yahweh” and that this “choice of language otherwise characteristic of the deity indicates that the king is no mere mortal, but a being approaching deity.”66 In another remarkable ascription of deity to a coming Israelite king, the prophet Isaiah speaks of the royal Davidic figure as “Mighty God” and “Everlasting Father (Isa. 9:6).67 But despite Yahweh’s election of the king to share in his divine kingship, the king is frequently portrayed as opposed by hostile opponents who seek to overthrow the Davidic ruler. The king’s enemies are further described as political rulers themselves, as those “kings of the earth” (οἱ βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς) and “rulers” (οἱ ἄρχοντες) who try to destroy “the Lord and his anointed” (κατὰ τοῦ κυρίου καὶ κατὰ τοῦ χριστοῦ; Ps. 2:2-3).68 God’s response to these rebels, as reported by the king, is to rescue the king out of his persecutions (LXX Pss. 18:5-7, 44–49; 19–20),69 and to enthrone the king by giving him a share in God’s own 65. Whether Psalm 45 (LXX 44) receives a messianic translation from its Greek translator has been a matter of debate. Regardless of one’s view on this matter, once the Davidic Messiah was seen as having come, this verse became susceptible to messianic interpretations (e.g., Heb. 1:8-9). See Hans Ausloos, “Psalm 45, Messianism and the Septuagint,” in The Septuagint and Messianism (ed. M. A. Knibb; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2006), 239-51. See further, Adela Yarbro Collins and John Collins, King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 14. 66. Hamilton, The Body Royal, 48-49. Also see Othmar Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms (trans. Timothy J. Hallett, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 256-68. 67. Many interpreters are quick to deny that the king was viewed as divine and, therefore, find Ps. 45:7 and Isa. 9:6 to be aberrations. Hamilton, commenting on Psalm 45, correctly notes: “The psalm’s divinization of the king is not mere ‘flattery,’ but neither is it a case of ontological speculation. Rather, it is a statement about a relationship between king and God, on one side, and the king and his subjects, on the other” (italics mine) (The Body Royal, 52-53). On Isa. 9:6-7, see Roberts, “The Old Testament’s Contribution to Messianic Expectations,” 43. 68. Speaking of Ps. 2:1-3, Mays states: “The question [of v. 3] gathers up the entire scene of governments and rulers, grasping and consolidating power, working out their destiny in terms of force; and it interprets the machinations of the whole thing theologically as rebellion against the Lord and his Anointed” (The Lord Reigns, 109). 69. On the king’s sufferings and his persecution by his enemies, see Johnson, Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel, 22-26.

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royal rule.70 So in LXX Psalm 109, God exalts the king over his enemies by inviting the king to share his throne: The Lord says to my lord, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool under your feet (Κάθου ἐκ δεξιῶν μου, ἕως ἂν θῶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς σου ὑποπόδιον τῶν ποδῶν σου).” The Lord sends out from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies ” (109:1-2). 71 This scene describes an act of enthronement where the divine sovereign Lord invites the Davidic ruler to sit at his right hand (cf. LXX Ps. 79:18), shares his divine kingship as “the most exalted of the kings of the earth” (LXX Ps. 88:28), and promises to stand behind and support his royal rule.72 God’s enthronement of the king and granting of the command to rule is not unlike the task given to Adam, who as one created in God’s image and likeness, was tasked with ruling creation and extending God’s dominion (Gen. 1:26-28).73 Like Adam, the king thereby participates in God’s task of ruling the world: “The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all” (LXX Ps. 102:19 [MT 103:19]); “Dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules all the nations” (LXX Ps. 21:29 [MT 22:28]). Litwa rightly notes: “It is Yahweh who rules and judges the nations, and Yahweh donates that sovereignty to the Israelite king.”74 Again, in Psalm 2 God’s response to the political rebels is the enthronement of God’s son: I have set my king on Zion my holy hill. . . . You are my son; today I have

70. On God’s enthronement of the king, see Hans-Joachim Kraus, Theology of the Psalms (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 112-13. 71. For detailed analyses of the Septuagintal context, tradition-history, and use of Ps. 110:1 in the NT, see David M. Hay, Glory at the Right Hand: Psalm 110 in Early Christianity (SBLMS 18; Nashville: Abingdon, 1973); Martin Hengel, “‘Sit at My Right Hand!’: The Enthronement of Christ at the Right Hand of God and Psalm 110:1,” Studies in Early Christology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), 119-225; W. R. G. Loader, Sohn und Hoherpriester: Eine traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zur Christologie des Hebräerbriefes (WMANT 53; Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1981); Loader, “Christ at the Right Hand: Ps cx.1 in the New Testament,” NTS 24 (1978): 199-217; Donald Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 135-50. 72. Kraus, Theology of the Psalms, 109-11. 73. See the use of the term to describe the king’s direct rule or his rule through intermediaries in, for example, 1 Kgs. 5:4; 5:30; 9:23; 2 Chron. 8:10. 74. Litwa, We Are Being Transformed, 113-15.

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begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. (2:6, 7b-8)

As a result of his enthronement, the king is invited to share God’s throne, rule over God’s enemies, and thereby usher in a time of righteous rule characterized by peace and prosperity for God’s people.75 Thus, based on LXX Psalms 2 and 109, the enthronement ceremony: (a) sets the Davidic king as “the son of God” (2:7; 109:3; cf. 2 Sam. 7:12-14), (b) establishes the king’s authority as he shares the throne of God (2:6-8; 109:1), and (c) establishes that God will secure the king’s defeat of his enemies and have an inheritance that encompasses all the nations. Again, the primary point of this section is to establish the claim that Israel’s Scriptures portray God electing, anointing, and exalting David (and his house) to participate in God’s kingship as his earthly ruler. The king is, then, simply a human who has, through God’s election, been called to participate in God’s divine kingship.76 One more time I note the exalted language Israel’s Scriptures use to designate the king as sharing in God’s kingship: the king sits on Yahweh’s throne (1 Chron. 29:23; LXX Ps. 44:6), shares in Yahweh’s rule (LXX Pss. 2; 88), receives divine honors (1 Chron. 29:20), is enthroned to God’s right hand (LXX Ps. 109; cf. Ps. 2:6-8), and receives the honorifics of “Yahweh’s anointed” (1 Sam. 16:6; 24:7, 11; 26:9, 11; 2 Sam. 19:22; LXX Pss. 17:51; 88:39, 52; 131:10), “Lord” (LXX Ps. 109:1), “Son of God” (LXX Pss. 2:7; 109:3; cf. 2 Sam. 7:12-14), and God’s “firstborn son” (LXX Ps. 88:27).77 The King as the Representative of God’s People The Davidic king not only participates in divine kingship, he also 75. Whitelam, “Israelite Kingship,” 132. 76. Thus, any sense of “identity between the king and the god so that the king holds the position of deus incarnates on earth” [Mettinger, King and Messiah, 259] needs to be qualified. The king is not divine, but rather shares in God’s divine kingship through covenantal election, participation, and receipt of God’s Spirit. 77. Thus, by virtue of God’s election of the king, the king’s body functions as something of an avatar for God, given that God’s presence uniquely inhabits the king’s body. On the broader question of conceptualizing divinity and its manifestations in the ancient Near East, see Benjamin D. Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

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functions as a representative of the entire nation of Israel.78 Oliver O’Donovan succinctly states the double relationship of the king: “he represented Yhwh’s rule to the people, ensuring their obedience, and he represented the people to Yhwh, ensuring his constant favour.”79 God’s election of Israel as the chosen people and God’s covenantal promises to Abraham of divine presence, fertility of the land, protection from enemies, and blessing of the nations now come to be focused, through the Davidic covenant, upon the royal house of David.80 Whereas God had gifted the people Israel collectively with the kinship status of “my firstborn son” (Exod. 4:22), now God creates a covenantal Father-Son relationship with his Davidic ruler (2 Sam. 7:13a; 1 Chronicles 17; LXX Pss. 2:7; 88:28; 4QFlor; 4 Ezra 7:28-29; 13:32, 37). Through David and his dynasty, the promise to Abraham that he will have a “great name” (Gen. 12:2; cf. 17:6, 16), that through him all nations will be blessed (Gen. 12:3; 22:18), and that Israel will have peace from their enemies in the land (Gen. 22:17), will come to fruition (e.g., 2 Sam. 7:19; LXX Pss. 21:28-32; 71:8-11, 15-17).81 As the elected bearer of God’s promises, the health and success of the entire nation is wrapped up with the life and destiny of their Davidic king.82 The history of Israel’s kings, especially in the books of Samuel and Kings, bears this out, for Israel receives the covenantal blessings from God when the king obeys God but receives curses when the king disobeys.83 The representative nature of the Davidic king is seen in the frequent metaphorical depiction of the king as God’s shepherd over

78. The representative function of kings in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean societies is typical. See Launderville, Piety and Politics; for the king as covenantal mediator between Yahweh and the people, see Geo Widengren, “King and Covenant,” JSS 2 (1957): 1-32. 79. Oliver O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 61. 80. Compare Gen. 12:2 and 15:16-17 with 2 Sam. 7:9; LXX Pss. 2:7-12; 71:8-11; 88:28-30. Cf. Hahn, Kinship by Covenant, 196-213; Macaskill, Union with Christ and the New Testament, 108-9; Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 44. 81. On the relationship between the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants, see Ronald Clements, Abraham and David: Genesis 15 and Its Meaning for Israelite Tradition (SBT 2.5; London: SCM, 1967). 82. Newman refers to the Davidic king as “something of a metaphor for the whole nation” (Paul’s Glory-Christology, 46). 83. Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 61. See Iain W. Provan, “The Messiah in the Books of Kings,” in The Lord’s Anointed: Interpretation of Old Testament Messianic Texts (ed. Philip E. Satterthwaite, Richard S. Hess, and Gordon J. Wenham; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 67-85.

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the people Israel (e.g., 2 Sam. 5:2; 7:7; LXX Pss. 77:70-72; 79:2-3). Israel’s royal representative is tasked with “the responsibility . . . to guard, feed, nurture and protect the flock: that is, the community over which he presides.”84 That the king represents the nation can be seen in such statements as: “You [i.e., King David] are worth ten thousand of us” (1 Sam. 18:3); David is “the lamp of Israel” (2 Sam. 21:17); “The Lord’s Messiah, the breath of our life . . . the one of whom we said, ‘Under his shadow we shall live among the nations’” (Lam. 4:20).85 N. T. Wright has suggested that the representative function of Israel’s Davidic king can be seen in the statements in which the people of Israel claim that they are in the king, or, alternatively for the rebels, not in the king: “The king is near of kin to us . . . We have ten shares in the king, and in David we also have more than you” (2 Sam. 19:42a, 43a); “We have no portion in David, no share in the son of Jesse!” (Οὐκ ἔστιν ἡμῖν μερὶς ἐν Δαυιδ ούδὲ κληρονομία ἡμῖν ἐν τῷ υἱῷ Ιεσσαι; 2 Sam. 20:1; cf. 1 Kgs. 12:16).86 In these statements the people of Israel stake their destiny and success in battle upon a relational identification (or rejection) with David. 87 The king’s representative function can also be seen in those royal psalms where the destiny of the king is intertwined with that of the people, and where the speaker of the psalms moves interchangeably between king (the “I”) and people (the “we”).88 So, for example, in LXX Psalms 19 and 20 the people pray for health, victory, and life for “his anointed” (LXX Ps. 19:7) and “king” (LXX Ps. 20:8), while the king functions as the peoples’ representative who safeguards their 84. John T. Willis, “David and Zion in the Theology of the Deuteronomistic History,” in David and Zion, 125-40, here 135. 85. On Lam. 4:20 and its depiction of Israel’s king, see Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ, 91-92. 86. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 828-29; cf. Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, 123-24. 87. Wright has frequently emphasized the representative role of Israel’s Davidic king: “there is a sense that the king represents his people, or alternatively (as with the young David) that the one who successfully fights the nation’s battle all by himself is thereby qualifying himself as king. His fate becomes theirs, his inheritance becomes theirs, his life becomes theirs” (Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 829-30). 88. Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 43: “[The king] is the ‘representative’ because the ‘soul’, the history, the honour, the vigour and the blessing of the whole are concentrated in him. And, the other way round, all the others participate dynamically in what he represents.” That the “I’ is, in the first instance, a reference to the king is argued by Steven J. L. Croft, The Identity of the Individual in the Psalms (JSOTSS 44; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1987).

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security.89 The inextricable relationship between king and people is seen in LXX Ps. 19:6: “May we shout for joy over your victory, and in the name of our God set up our banners. May the Lord fulfill all your petitions.” Thus, Israel’s victory, joy, and experience of God’s presence are fused with that of the Lord’s anointed.90 The interdependence of king and people is seen in LXX Psalm 27, where the king’s prayer suggests that his salvation will result in the peoples’ salvation: “The Lord is the strength of his people; he is the saving refuge of his anointed. O save your people, and bless your heritage, be their shepherd, and carry them forever” (LXX Ps. 27:8-9). Throughout the Psalter the peoples’ prayers for the king demonstrate their belief that God’s presence, peace from their enemies, prosperity and fertility of the land, and national unity were fused with the life and destiny of their king. So in LXX Psalm 71, justice for the needy (vv. 1-4, 12-14), dominion over the nations (vv. 8-11), the fertility of the land (vv. 16-17; cf. LXX Ps. 143:12-14), and the blessing of all nations (v.17) are dependent upon the very “life” of the king (vv. 5-6, 15, 17b). Thus, the psalmist prays that the king would “have dominion from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. May his foes bow down before him and his enemies lick the dust” (v. 8; cf. Gen. 49:8-12; Num. 24:17-19; Zech. 9:10). God’s establishment of the king’s throne enables the king to “crush his foes before him and strike down those who hate him” (LXX Ps. 88:24). The rule of this righteous king will result in a future reality in which “all the tribes of the earth will be blessed in him, all the nations will bless him” (εὐλογηθήσονται ἐν αὐτῷ πᾶσαι αἱ φυλαὶ τῆς γῆς, πάντα τὰ ἔθην μακαριοῦσιν αὐτόν; LXX Ps. 71:17; cf. Gen. 12:1-3). The prayers of the king and the people to give life to the king are

89. See Jamie A. Grant, who notes that Psalms 20 and 21 “confuse the role of king and people” (The King as Exemplar: The Function of Deuteronomy’s Kingship Law in the Shaping of the Book of Psalms [Academia Biblica 17; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004], 117). Roberts suggests that texts like Isa. 55:3 and Psalm 21 evidence a postexilic situation in which “God’s promises to the Davidic king were democratized and applied to the people as a whole (Isa 55:3)” (“The Enthronement of Yhwh and David,” 684). 90. Mowinckel explains the alternation of the “I” and the “we” as found in “the fact that there is, in the ancient meaning of the word, a representative person in the cult speaking on behalf of the congregation. Because he embodies it in himself, he is the congregation, and the congregation is he himself” (The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 46).

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often seen in contexts where the anointed one suffers at the hands of his enemies, but commits his cause to God and trusts in God for rescue (see esp. LXX Psalms 21; 30; 68; 117).91 We have seen that God’s response to the political rebels and enemies of God and the king is to exalt the Davidic ruler as God’s divine son (Ps. 2:6-8). The end of Psalm 2 declares that those who “take refuge in him” (v.11), that is, those who submit to the king’s rule, will find blessing and will not perish (vv. 9-10). In LXX Psalm 21, God’s granting of life and deliverance to the king (vv. 20-25) out of a situation marked by intense suffering and persecution (vv. 2-3, 7-19) will result in food for the poor (v. 27) and worship of God (vv. 28-32). This is why the people pray for “the life of the king,” so that he may “be enthroned forever before God” (LXX Ps. 60:7-8). In LXX Psalm 18, the king’s faith in God to deliver him out of his suffering (vv. 2-7) and his concomitant rescue and restoration (vv. 17-20, 44-49) is a demonstration of God’s “steadfast love to his anointed, to David” and “his seed forever” (vv. 51), thereby intimately associating the welfare of king and people and calling Israel, like the king, to cry to God for deliverance (note vv. 26-28).92 Many of the psalms written in the preexilic period for the king are, as Scott R. A. Starbuck has argued, reinterpreted as communal promises, laments, and exhortations.93 The lament of God’s abandonment of the anointed one in MT Psalm 89 is almost certainly “reappropriated and remembered as if it were placed on the lips of the community itself.”94 Whereas the Davidic king or anointed one is the ostensive referent of the lament (vv. 3, 20, 35, 38, 49, 51), the plural “faithful ones” (v. 19) and “your servants” (v. 50) suggest that the destruction of the Davidic monarchy raises “in the most pointed way that God’s faithfulness to David is wrapped up in God’s care for Israel, 91. See my discussion of the sufferings of David in the Psalter in Joshua W. Jipp, “Luke’s Scriptural Suffering Messiah: A Search for Precedent, A Search for Identity,” CBQ 72 (2010): 255-74. 92. Mays states: “The predicament of the Messiah when he was in the toils of death and cried out to the Lord was answered by a deliverance that established the Messiah as ‘head of the nations,’ and brought a people unknown to him into his service (vv. 31-45). The victory given the Messiah in God’s salvation brings about the kingdom of God” (The Lord Reigns, 103). 93. Scott R. A. Starbuck, Court Oracles in the Psalms: The So-Called Royal Psalms in Their Ancient Near Eastern Context (SBLDS 172; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999), 211-12. 94. Ibid., 130.

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the righteous people.”95 Further, the fate of David in Psalm 89 is seen to be the fate of all Israel in exile in Psalms 90–106: both are turned to dust (Ps. 89:39; 10:3), both cry out “how long?” (89:46; 90:13), both are objects of God’s wrath (89:38; 90:7-8).96 Thus, the sterility, sufferings, mortality, and apparent rejection of David as king are intertwined with the exact same realities experienced by corporate Israel. The representative function of the king is also evidenced by his calling to take the lead in embodying the virtues and obedience to Torah demanded by all the people.97 I have already noted that the literary placement of “Torah Psalms” next to “Kingship Psalms” works to portray Israel’s king as the paradigmatic exemplar of the Torah obedience demanded of all the people. The placement of Psalm 1, which pronounces a blessing upon the righteous, before Psalm 2, which offers the Lord’s anointed as a righteous example of Torah obedience, makes it clear that the king is a representative example for the people.98 The king, then, functions as an example of Torah obedience for the entire people (cf. MT Pss. 18–19 and Pss. 118–119). I will summarize, then, my findings as follows: the Davidic king is uniquely positioned as one who simultaneously participates in divine kingship as God’s elected firstborn son whose rule is an earthly manifestation and extension of God’s royal rule and as Israel’s royal representative who is tasked with bestowing God’s righteous and peaceful rule over God’s people. This royal identity allows the king to mediate God’s presence, rule, and benefits to God’s people. Through the faithful and righteous king, the people are able to receive the glorious inheritance of the land, peace and prosperity, protection from their enemies, and divine sonship and an encounter with God’s presence. In short, Israel’s king mediates and manifests the kingdom of God.

95. Jerome F. D. Creach, The Destiny of the Righteous in the Psalms (St. Louis: Chalice, 2008), 68. 96. Ibid., 100. 97. See throughout chapter 2, “King and Law.” 98. See throughout Grant, The King as Exemplar; cf. Patrick D. Miller, “The Beginning of the Psalter,” in The Shape and Shaping of the Psalter (ed. J. Clinton McCann; JSOTSup 159; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 83-92; Creach, The Destiny of the Righteous in the Psalms, 56-59.

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Sharing in the Rule of Israel’s King as Context for Participation in Paul In what follows we will see that Paul’s participatory soteriology is royal discourse, and that it originates from Paul’s creative transformation of notions of the king as one who is uniquely positioned to simultaneously share in divine kingship as the locus of God’s πνεῦμα and the embodied human representative of his people. As simultaneously sharing in God’s divine rule and as Israel’s human representative, Christ’s life and rule mediate divine realities and divine kingship to his people. In Rom. 1:3-4, and throughout the epistle, Paul characterizes Christ as God’s singular anointed Davidic-like figure who is marked by God’s Spirit and enacts God’s rule through his royal career. He is, as such, spoken of as the Christ, God’s Son, and God’s image; he is the righteous royal sufferer who obeys and defers to the divine sovereign even amidst sufferings and persecutions from his (and God’s) enemies; he is thereby resurrected from the dead and given eschatological life by the power of God’s Spirit; he is marked out publicly as God’s Son; he receives his glorious inheritance whereby he is granted eschatological lordship over his enemies and receives the confession of his lordship among the nations. He simultaneously shares in God’s royal status and πνεῦμα and is Israel’s regal representative who mediates God’s rule to his people. Paul takes the Messiah’s royal narrative and identity and maps it, by virtue of the Spirit’s powerful work, onto those who are “in Christ.” Thus Paul presents the Messiah’s people as participating in each aspect of the rule of Christ the King. Romans: Sharing in the Royal Narrative of the Resurrected Son’s Lordship God’s presence and saving kingship is mediated to God’s people by means of Israel’s resurrected and enthroned Davidic Messiah, who, as their human and divine representative, establishes his messianic and saving rule by means of incorporating his people into his rule. Christ’s people are incorporated into his saving rule and family by sharing in 166

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the same πνεῦμα that Christ received when he was raised from the dead. The Christological Foundation for Participation: Romans 1:3-4 Paul begins his letter to the Romans by reminding his auditors that he is an apostle “set apart” for “God’s gospel” (εὐαγγέλιον θεοῦ; 1:1b), a phrase that, whether it is situated in a Roman imperial, an early Christian, or a Jewish-biblical context has regal connotations of divine kingship and rule.99 The imperial connotations of εὐαγγέλιον, a term often used to celebrate significant events in the lives of the Roman emperors, frame Paul’s depiction of the Messiah in 1:3-4 with a decidedly royal hue. Given that Paul will go on to cite Isa. 52:7 in his reflections upon the relation of Israel to God’s gospel (see Rom. 10:14-16), and provided that Paul directly indicates that God’s gospel should be understood as “promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures” (ὃ προεπηγγείλατο διὰ τῶν προφητῶν αὐτοῦ ἐν γραφαῖς ἁγίαις; 1:2), the reader should probably hear Isaianic overtones of the good news that God will come to be with the people.100 God will secure peace from their enemies; bring salvation, comfort, restoration, and liberation; and shepherd (i.e., rule) the people (see Isa. 40:1-11; 52:7-12; 61:1-4).101 The gospel is, one might say, the way in which God actively comes to be present with God’s people and to establish God’s saving divine kingship over them. God’s divine and saving kingship is established, according to Paul, by means of the royal identity and narrative of Israel’s Davidic, 99. On the Roman imperial connotations of “gospel,” see chapter 3, “King and Praise”. Also see Neil Elliott, “Paul and the Politics of Empire,” in Paul and Politics: Ekklesia, Israel, Imperium, Interpretation (Harrisburg PA: Trinity International, 2000), 17-39, here 24. 100. On gospel and God’s presence: “prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isa. 40:3); “then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed” (Isa. 40:5); “See, the Lord God comes with might and his arm rules for him” (Isa. 40:10a); “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns’!” (Isa. 52:7). 101. Wright says that the gospel is “that the covenant God has fulfilled his ancient promises and is now rescuing his people from the slavery caused by their own sin, defeating the pagan empire that has held them captive and sending them home to their promised land—and, in so doing, is revealing himself, his sovereign kingship, his righteousness, his salvation and above all his glory” (Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 915).

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resurrected, and enthroned Messiah (Rom. 1:3-4), and in light of his claim in Rom. 1:2, this narrative of God’s resurrection and enthronement of the Davidic Messiah by the Spirit is the content of the holy scriptures.102 The compactness of the christological confession of Rom. 1:3-4 is out of all proportion to its programmatic significance for the characterization of Christ throughout Romans and particularly for providing the christological pattern and identity into which believers are incorporated.103 Slowly but surely, in distinction from scholarly preoccupation with whether the verses are pre-Pauline tradition, Pauline scholars have recognized the paradigmatic nature of Rom. 1:3-4 for Paul’s christological discourse in Romans. The intertextual and allusive echoes of 2 Sam. 7:12-14; Ps. 2:7-8; and LXX Ps.109:1, along with the themes of God’s gospel, Davidic Messiahship and seed, divine sonship, resurrection, enthronement, the Spirit of consecration, power, and lordship, set forth a narrative of Messiah Jesus as God’s royal son and kingly representative of God’s people.104 Romans 1:3-4 states: [The gospel] about his son who was born from the seed of David according to the flesh, who was installed as God’s Son in power according to the Spirit of holiness by means of the resurrection of the dead, Jesus Messiah our Lord (περὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ τοῦ γενομένου ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυὶδ κατὰ σάρκα τοῦ ὁρισθέντος υἱου θεοῦ ἐν δυνάμει κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν, Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν).

Paul uses this confession to establish the identity of Christ as the Davidic Messiah spoken of by Israel’s royal ideology as God’s son who 102. Rightly J. R. Daniel Kirk, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 44-45. 103. The history of scholarship on Rom. 1:3-4 is dominated by questions related to whether these verses contain a pre-Pauline, potentially adoptionist, christological confession. E.g, Robert Jewett, “The Redaction and Use of an Early Christian Confession in Romans 1:3-4,” in The Living Text: Essays in Honor of Ernest W. Saunders (ed. Dennis E. Groh and Robert Jewett; New York: University Press of America, 1985), 99-122, here 100-102; James D. G. Dunn, “Jesus—Flesh and Spirit: An Exposition of Romans 1:3-4,” JTS 24 (1973): 40-68; see my methodological comments on this approach in Joshua W. Jipp, “Ancient, Modern, and Future Interpretations of Romans 1:3-4: Reception History and Biblical Interpretation,” JTI 3 (2009): 241-59, here 243-48. 104. So Douglas A. Campbell, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 696: “This is an essentially narrative account—a story—rich with theological import that links Jesus’ Messiahship, resurrection, and lordship. And clearly, numerous Old Testament texts that speak of divine and human kingship will resonate with it.”

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participates in God’s kingship and is the embodied representative of God’s people. This christological confession is programmatic for Paul’s entire letter, for it establishes a royal trajectory for Christ’s identity and narrative, a royal trajectory that Paul reinterprets in Romans 5–8 in a cosmic manner as he applies that christological narrative to Christ’s people. Although there are multiple components and sub-plots to the story, this christological narrative about God’s son has two primary trajectories that correspond to the two attributive participles that modify τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ:105 (a) the Son’s necessary participation in fleshly human existence as the promised one “who was born” (τοῦ γενομένου) from the seed of David (ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυίδ;106 Rom. 1:3), and (b) the Son’s participation in God’s kingship by means of his “installation” (τοῦ ὁρισθέντος) by the Spirit as the powerful, resurrected, and enthroned Lord (1:4).107 Both of these events in the life of the Son—his (pre-resurrection) sharing in human flesh from the seed of David and his installation as the resurrected and powerful Son of God—make up the content of God’s gospel (1:1) and the promise of Israel’s Scriptures (1:2). Paul thereby reshapes and transforms Israel’s royal ideology from the perspective of his particular understanding of Christ’s death and resurrection and from his own specific rhetorical needs. As just mentioned, Rom. 1:3-4 describes two events or trajectories in the life of the preexistent Son of God. Though Paul does not dwell on Christ’s preexistence, the figure in 1:3-4 is spoken of as “God’s Son” 105. Thus Rom. 1:3-4, within the literary context of Romans, provides no evidence for an adoptionist Christology as preceding a high Christology. Rightly, Timo Eskola, Messiah and Throne: Jewish Merkabah Mysticism and Early Christian Exaltation Discourse (WUNT 2.142; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2001), 225-26. Against, Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (trans. Kendrick Grobel; 2 vols; New York: Scribners and Sons, 1951/1955), 1:50. 106. I take the prepositional phrase here as indicating the source or origin of his birth (so also in 1:4 and ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν with respect to his resurrection from the dead as the source of the installation of his powerful divine sonship). 107. Thus, both the claims of 1:3 (Jesus’ Davidic descent and human existence) and 1:4 (his powerful and spirit-empowered sonship as the resurrected-enthroned Lord) are crucial for Paul’s depiction of Christ. To the contrary, unfortunately, many have assumed that Paul had no (or little) interest in Jesus’ Davidic descent, e. g., Per Beskow, Rex Gloriae: The Kingship of Christ in the Early Church (trans. Eric J. Sharpe; reprint; Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014): “The Church did not attach a great deal of significance to the Davidic descent, and the Kingship derived therefrom. The Kingship of Christ was instead traced back to his Divine Sonship.”

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(τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ; 1:3a) before his birth (cf. 8:3; Gal. 4:4-5).108 The first stage of the Son’s trajectory is described in 1:3, where Paul declares that God’s Son “was born from the seed of David according to the flesh” (τοῦ γενομένου ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυὶδ κατὰ σάρκα). The emphasis on Jesus’ Davidic descent alludes to God’s covenant with David wherein God promises to secure David’s seed after him (ἀναστήσω τὸ σπέρμα σου μετὰ σέ, ὃς ἔσται ἐκ τῆς κοιλίας; 2 Sam. 7:12), ensures that David’s seed will have an eternal kingdom (ἀνορθώσω τὸν θρόνον αὐτοῦ ἕως εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα; 7:13), and enters into a Father-Son relationship with David and his dynasty (ἐγὼ ἔσομαι αὐτῷ εἰς πατέρα, καὶ αὐτὸς ἔσται μοι εἰς ὑιόν; 7:14; cf. 1 Chron. 17:11-14).109 As Matthew V. Novenson has pointed out, Rom. 1:3 draws from the pattern of speech seen in 2 Kgdms. 22:51/LXX Ps. 17:51, the one place in the LXX where “Christ,” “David,” and “seed” occur in close proximity.110 The psalm sets forth David’s praise to God for faithfulness to David’s dynasty by saving him from his enemies (see esp. 17:43-49).111 This promise that God would secure perpetual seed in the line of the royal Davidic family stands behind biblical and Second Temple Jewish expectations for an eschatological Davidic king (e.g., LXX Ps. 88:2-5, 20-21; Isa. 11:1-10; Jer. 23:5; 33:14-26; Ezek. 33:14-18; 34:23-24; 37:24-25; Zech. 6:12; Pss. Sol. 17–18; 4QpIsa a; 4QFlor), such that God’s scriptural promises to rule the world through a Davidic monarch could in no way fail to come about except through a descendent of David.112 108. On Paul’s presupposition that God’s Son is the preexistent one who becomes human, see Matthew W. Bates, The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation: The Center of Paul’s Method of Scriptural Interpretation (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012), 80-94. C. E. B. Cranfield rightly notes that the position of “his son” at the beginning of the confession controls both the participial clauses in 1:3 and 1:4 and “would seem to imply that the One who was born of the seed of David was already Son of God before, and independently of, the action denoted by the second participle” (Romans 1–8 [ICC; London/New York: T & T Clark, 2004], 58). 109. Dennis Duling, “The Promises to David and Their Entrance into Christianity: Nailing Down a Likely Hypothesis,” NTS 20 (1973): 55-77. 110. Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, 168. 111. LXX Ps. 17:51: μεγαλύνων τὰς σωτηρίας τοῦ βασιλέως αὐτοῦ καὶ ποιῶν ἔλεος τῷ χριστῷ αὐτοῦ τῷ Δαυιδ καὶ τῷ σπέρματι αὐτοῦ ἕως αἰῶνος. 112. Cranfield, Romans 1–8, 58-59; Donald Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 61-77; Lidija Novakovic, Raised from the Dead according to Scripture: The Role of Israel’s Scripture in the Early Christian Interpretations of Jesus’ Resurrection (Jewish and Christian Texts in Context and Related Studies; London: T & T Clark, 2012), 138; James M. Scott, Adoption as Sons of God: An Exegetical Investigation into the Background of ΥΙΟΘΕΣΙΑ in the Pauline Corpus (WUNT 48; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 237-39; Christopher G.

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Thus, Paul’s description of the Son as the seed of David born “according to the flesh” (κατὰ σάρκα; Rom. 1:3) does not function to devalue the Davidic descent of Jesus’ ancestry,113 but rather marks out Jesus the Messiah as the fulfillment of God’s covenant promises to the seed of David (cf. 15:8).114 For the early Christians familiar with Israel’s Davidic royal ideology and specifically the promise for a messianic king from the line of David, Rom. 1:3 would almost certainly activate rereadings of the Davidic royal tradition around Messiah Jesus and would suggest that God had fulfilled God’s promises for a messianic-Davidic ruler for Israel.115 In order to function as Israel’s royal representative as the true seed of David, it is necessary that God’s son share in human, Davidic flesh.116 Adolf Schlatter states this clearly: “He would not be the promised Son of God if he did not share in the flesh and thus belong to Israel and to the family of David.”117 Thus Paul’s description of the Son’s birth κατὰ σάρκα qualifies “the Son” to truly participate in humanity’s fleshly existence (cf. Ἀβραὰμ τὸν προπάτορα ἡμῶν κατὰ σάρκα; Rom. 4:1; ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀδελφῶν μου τῶν συγγενων μου κατὰ σάρκα; 9:3; ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα; 9:5; cf. 9:8; 11:14).118 Paul’s use of the noun σάρξ is, of course, incredibly flexible, but here it primarily speaks of the son, the seed of Whitsett, “Son of God, Seed of David: Paul’s Messianic Exegesis in Romans 1:3-4,” JBL 119 (2000): 661-81, here 675-76. 113. For interpreters who think the prepositional phrases function to devalue Jesus’ Davidic ancestry, see Jipp, “Ancient, Modern, and Future Interpretations of Romans 1:3-4,” 243-45. Better here is Matthew W. Bates, “A Christology of Incarnation and Enthronement: Romans 1:3-4 as Unified, Nonadoptionist, and Nonconciliatory,” CBQ 77 (2015): 107-127, here, 121-23. 114. Whitsett, “Son of God, Seed of David,” 671: “For Paul, the messianic tradition that developed in biblical and later Judaism based on the oracle of 2 Sam 7 was a promise, a promise which, like that to Abraham, was spoken to a seed—the seed of David (2 Sam 7:12; cf. Pss 89:4; 18:50).” 115. See Whitsett, “Son of God, Seed of David,” 676. 116. The necessity of describing Jesus as “from the seed of David according to the flesh” derives more from Paul’s understanding of Jesus enacting the Psalms’ depiction of the king as a righteous sufferer, and it has less to do with Paul’s supposed need to win favor with a community of Jewish Christians who thought of Jesus as a so-called nationalistic Messiah. E.g., Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 1:49-50. 117. Adolf Schlatter, Romans: The Righteousness of God (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 9. 118. The phrase “according to the flesh” must be read in the first instance as simply indicative of physical descent and not representing the Flesh/Spirit contrast found in Romans 5–8. See my comments on Rom. 4:1 in Joshua W. Jipp, “Rereading the Story of Abraham, Isaac, and ‘Us’ in Romans 4,” JSNT 32 (2009): 217-42, here 227-28; so Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, 169. Contra Dunn, “Jesus—Flesh and Spirit”; Eduard Schweizer, “Römer 1,3f. und der Gegensatz von Fleisch und Geist vor und bei Paulus,” EvT 15 (1955): 563-71.

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David, as an actual man who shares in human existence and all the trappings that go with it.119 The Son’s identification with fleshly human existence accords with Paul’s claims elsewhere:120 “God sent his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh” (ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἑαυτοῦ υἱὸν πέμψας ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας). (Rom. 8:3) “He took the form of a slave; he became the likeness of humanity; he was found in the appearance of a man” (μορφὴν δούλου λαβών, ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος, καὶ σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος). (Phil. 2:7) “God sent his son, born from a woman” (ἐξαπέστειλεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ, γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικός). (Gal. 4:4)

In these depictions of the Son taking human flesh for himself, Paul does emphasize, however, fleshly human existence as marked by weakness, suffering, and death (cf. 1 Cor. 15:42-43).121 Human existence in the sphere of the flesh, throughout Paul’s letters, “is associated with physically oriented human existence, especially human fragility, bodily appetites, and material decay.”122 Given that the Davidic king served as an embodied representative of his people, Paul’s inclusion of the qualification “according to the flesh” serves as an indication that God’s son enters into the very anthropological, fleshly existence of Israel, taking to himself all of the physical weakness and decay that goes along with corporal existence (cf. Rom. 7:17-25).123 119. On the semantic flexibility of σάρξ, see Robert Jewett, Paul’s Anthropological Terms (Leiden: Brill, 1971), 49-166. 120. Mehrdad Fatehi, The Spirit’s Relation to the Risen Lord in Paul: An Examination of Its Christological Implications (WUNT 2.128; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2000), 258; Aquila H. I. Lee, From Messiah to Preexistent Son: Jesus’ Self-Consciousness and Early Christian Exegesis of Messianic Psalms (WUNT 2.192; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2005), 311-13. 121. On the preexistent Christ’s identification with human flesh, see Fee, Pauline Christology, 500-512; Vincent P. Branick, “The Sinful Flesh of the Son of God (Rom 8:3): A Key Image of Pauline Theology,” CBQ 47 (1985): 246-62. Richard B. Gaffin comments on the phrase “according to the flesh”: “The phrase brings into view not only Christ’s human nature but also and pointedly the order into which the assumption of humanity brought him, the environment with which this humanity is necessarily associated and from which it cannot be abstracted. The full thought of verse 3 is that by incarnation (by being born of the seed of David) the Son of God entered the sphere of σάρξ, the old aeon, the present evil age” (Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology [2nd ed.; Philipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1987], 109). 122. Bates, The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation, 91; N. T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes (vol. 10; Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), 417-18. 123. This is stated nicely by Bates, The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation, 92: “In summary,

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Paul does not speak directly of the Son’s sufferings here, but nevertheless, his humiliation and death are implied at this stage of the Son’s career, namely, the experience common to all fleshly humanity of being among “the corpses” (νεκρῶν; Rom. 1:4a). The resurrection and heavenly enthronement described in 1:4 presumes that the situation of fleshly human existence has given way to a situation of existence among the dead ones. Mehrdad Fatehi states this well, “Paul’s emphasis on the Son’s condition of power after his resurrection in 1:4 implies a condition of weakness in his existence κατὰ σάρκα, and thus makes it highly probable that in 1:3 too Christ’s suffering and death is also in Paul’s mind.”124 That Paul implies the Messiah’s death here is also likely for the following reasons: (a) the death of the Messiah was a standard component of the early Christian kerygma (cf. 1 Cor. 11:23-26; 15:3);125 (b) relatedly, when Paul speaks of the significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection, he repeatedly uses the title Χριστός to do so (e.g., Rom. 5:5-6; 14:9, 15; 1 Cor. 5:7; 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:20; Gal. 2:21; 3:13):126 (c) in Rom. 15:3 Paul speaks of the Messiah’s death (“for even the Messiah [ὁ Χριστός] did not please himself”) in relation to the Messiah’s voicing the words of the royal sufferer in Psalm 68 LXX, thereby suggesting that the sufferings and death of the Messiah were understood within the framework of the sufferings of the king in Israel’s Psalter (see above on the sufferings of David);127 (d) outside of 2 Sam. 7:12-14, the biblical text most likely echoed by Rom. 1:3 is, as seen above, LXX Psalm 17, a the first clause of the protocreed [Rom. 1:3] assumes the preexistence of the son of God, but does not dwell on this, focusing instead on the son’s transition to the weak, frail state of human physical existence within the messianic line of David.” Cf. Jipp, “Ancient, Modern, and Future Interpretations of Romans 1:3-4,” 256. 124. Fatehi, The Spirit’s Relation to the Risen Lord in Paul, 258. 125. See especially C. H. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments (New York: Harper & Row, 1964). With respect to Rom. 1:1-6 and 1 Cor. 15:1-11, see Bates, The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation, 59-106. 126. So Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 100-101. Hurtado cites the seminal work of Werner Kramer, Christ, Lord, Son of God (SBT 50; London: SCM, 1966), 26-28. With respect to Luke’s depiction of Jesus’ death as having Davidic/Messianic significance, see Jipp, “Luke’s Scriptural Suffering Messiah.” 127. See especially Richard B. Hays, “Christ Prays the Psalms: Paul’s Use of an Early Christian Exegetical Convention,” in The Future of Christology (ed. Abraham J. Malherbe and Wayne A. Meeks; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 122-36. On Rom. 15:3 as an example of the ancient rhetorical technique of prosopological exegesis, see Bates, The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation, 244-55. Paul, furthermore, ascribes the psalms of the royal sufferer to Messiah Jesus in Rom. 15:9 (LXX Ps. 17:50). Joel Marcus has argued that Psalm 2 stands behind Paul’s description of the rulers’

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psalm that celebrates God’s salvation and deliverance of the king from his violent enemies who seek his death (esp. vv. 42, 46-47).128 It is worth noting that Paul does often enough draw upon the language of the Davidic psalms and its depiction of a righteous royal sufferer as setting a pattern for God’s resurrection and deliverance of Messiah Jesus out of his sufferings and death (LXX Ps. 43:23 in Rom. 8:36; LXX Ps. 68:10 in Rom. 15:3; LXX Ps. 68:23 in Rom. 11:9-10; LXX Ps. 115:1 in 2 Cor. 4:13; Ps. 2:1-3 in Eph. 1:20–2:3).129 I suggest, therefore, that while Paul does not speak directly of the Messiah’s humiliation and subsequent death, it is implied in his depiction of the Messiah’s existence κατὰ σάρκα (Rom. 1:3b), his resurrection from “the dead ones” (1:4), and Paul’s larger pattern of reading Israel’s royal psalms as speaking of the Messiah’s sufferings at the hands of his enemies and God’s subsequent rescue of God’s anointed one. The second stage of the Messiah’s trajectory is marked by the second attributive participle that Paul uses to describe the christological trajectory of the Son: here the Son is “installed” (τοῦ ὁρισθέντος) as “Son of God in power” (1:4a).130 Whereas the first stage of the Son’s narrative is marked by sharing in human flesh, as Israel’s royal representative (1:3), the second stage is marked by participation in God’s kingship by means of his royal enthronement and sharing in God’s Spirit. The depiction of Jesus as “appointed” as “the son of God” has rightly reminded readers of Israel’s royal enthronement discourse, particularly Ps. 2:7: “I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to me, ‘You are my son; today I have begotten you’” (διαγγέλλων τὸ πρόσταγμα κυρίου131 Κύριος εἶπεν πρός με Υἱὸς μου εἶ σύ, ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε).132 As we have seen, in the context of Psalm 2 God’s adoption of crucifixion of the Lord of Glory in 1 Cor. 2:6-8 (The Way of the Lord: Christological Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Gospel of Mark [Louisville: Westminster, 1992], 63). 128. Again, see Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, 168. 129. On this pattern, see Hays, “Christ Prays the Psalms,” 125-31. 130. I understand ὁρισθέντος as a divine passive that has the meaning of “install” or “appoint.” See also Cranfield, who notes that this is its meaning in the following occurrences: Luke 22:22; Acts 2:23; 10:42; 11:29; 17:26, 31; Heb. 4:7 (Romans 1–8, 61n2). 131. On the possible link between ὁρισθέντος and “the decree of the Lord” (τὸ πρόσταγμα κυρίου, Ps. 2:7), see Leslie C. Allen, “The Old Testament Background of (προ)ὁριζειν in the New Testament,” NTS 17 (1970): 104-8.

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the Davidide as God’s son and enthronement to share in God’s rule is in response to the violent raging of the enemies of God and the king (2:1-3). Part of the Son’s rule, according to 2:8, includes God’s granting to the king “the nations as an inheritance” (δώσω σοι ἔθνη τὴν κληρονομίαν σου). Four components of the Son’s enthronement, difficult to neatly separate, are significant for understanding Paul’s depiction of the ascent-trajectory of the Messiah’s existence in Rom. 1:4. First, given the early Christian association between the royal enthronement described in Psalm 2 and the Messiah’s sonship and resurrection (e.g., Acts 2:22-36; 13:33; 1 Cor. 15:23-26; Heb. 1:5; 5:5), it is understandable that Paul sees Jesus’s installation as “God’s Son” taking place “from the resurrection from the dead” (ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν; Rom. 1:4a).133 The promise that God would “raise up your seed after you” (ἀναστήσω τὸ σπέρμα σου; 2 Sam. 7:12) is, for Paul and many of the earliest Christians, seen as a reality in God’s resurrection of Christ, born of the seed of David, from the dead. Thus, the claims made in Rom. 1:3 and 1:4 are inextricably related to one another. Just as God responded to the machinations of the Davidic king’s enemies by rescuing him and enthroning him to a position of rule, so God’s resurrection of his son from the dead functions as the means by which he installs the “Son-of-God-in-power” in a position of rule. Based on Paul’s christological statements elsewhere (e.g., Rom. 8:3; Phil. 2:6-11) and other occurrences in the NT—where they refer to God enthroning the Messiah in power to rule and judge (e.g., 1 Cor. 2:7; Acts 10:42; 17:31)—ὁρισθέντος almost certainly means “installs” or “designates” to a position of rule. The generalized plural ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν further

132. Whitsett, “Son of God, Seed of David,” 676; Kirk, Unlocking Romans, 41-42; Juel, Messianic Exegesis, 80-81. 133. Kirk says it well: “Read together with v. 3, the establishment of Jesus in the position of son in Rom 1:4 corresponds to the ascension of a king who is the rightful heir: though born of David’s seed, he is not enthroned, that is, designated son of God, until his resurrection” (Unlocking Romans, 42). On 2 Sam. 7:12 and Rom. 1:3-4, see Eskola, Messiah and Throne, 244-45. On the similar christological traditions between Rom. 1:2-4 and Luke–Acts, see Jens Schröter, From Jesus to the New Testament: Early Christian Theology and the Origin of the New Testament Canon (trans. Wayne Coppins; BaylorMohr Siebeck Studies in Early Christianity; Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2013), 232-33.

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emphasizes that God’s enthroned Son has entered into resurrection life and glory ahead of the final eschatological denouement. 134 Second, his installation as God’s Son, a status that we know from Israel’s royal ideology sets him apart as sharing in God’s rule, is a divine sonship characterized by power (ἐν δυνάμει).135 Paul frequently speaks of “power” as an attribute of God that is on display particularly in God’s act of raising Jesus from the dead (1 Cor. 6:14; 15:24, 43; 2 Cor. 13:4; Phil. 3:10, 21). So, for example, in Ephesians 1 Paul prays that the church may know: the surpassing greatness of [God’s] power (μέγεθος τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ) for us who believe, which is according to the mighty power of his strength (κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν τοῦ κράτους τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ) which he worked (ἐνήργησεν) when he raised the Messiah from the dead and seated him at his right hand (1:19-20).

The allusions to LXX Psalm 109 in Eph. 1:19-23; 1 Cor. 15:24-25; and Phil. 3:21 indicate that the Son’s resurrection is indeed a royal enthronement that entails the Messiah’s deliverance from death and entrance into eschatological and incorruptible life, a resurrection life that entails power and rule over his and God’s enemies. 136 Third, the Son of God’s resurrection and participation in divine δυνάμις is the result of the “the Spirit of holiness” now marking his new resurrection existence.137 Just as Yahweh elected the anointed one by consecrating him with the Spirit, so the Son-of-God-in-power is 134. Wright, “Romans,” 419: “What had happened to Jesus, Paul believed, was the bringing forward into the present of this general resurrection, in one particular case, which still belonged organically to, and anticipated, the total ‘resurrection of the dead.’” Cf. Cranfield, Romans 1–8, 62; Novakovic, Raised from the Dead according to Scripture, 135-36. 135. The prepositional phrase ἐν δυνάμει makes most sense as qualifying “son of God,” since the emphasis is on the divine son’s new form of Spirit-empowered existence. See esp. 1 Cor. 15:43, where the same prepositional phrase characterizes the actual resurrected body. See also Trevor J. Burke, Adopted into God’s Family: Exploring a Pauline Metaphor (NSBT 22; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006), 104. 136. More broadly, see John H. Hayes, “The Resurrection as Enthronement and the Earliest Church Christology,” Int 22 (1968): 333-45; Duling, “The Promises to David and Their Entrance into Christianity,” 70; Novakovic, Raised from the Dead according to Scripture, 144-45; Eskola, Messiah and Throne, 217-50. 137. Fatehi says of the phrase “according to the spirit of holiness” that it defines “the power that distinctively characterises Christ’s condition of existence and operation originating from his resurrection” (The Spirit’s Relation to the Risen Lord in Paul, 254).

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installed as God’s resurrected-enthroned-son by the life-giving activity of the Spirit.138 The expectation that Israel’s ideal messianic king would have the Spirit of God in full to empower his mission and rule over his people (e.g., Isa. 11:1-4; 61:1-4) also provides an important context for understanding the resurrected Christ as now marked by God’s powerful Spirit. The Jewish Scriptures frequently associate God’s Spirit with life and with the power to create an intimate relationship with God (e.g., Ezek. 36:26-28; Jub. 1:23-24; T. Jud. 24:3).139 Thus we can see that Jesus’s messianic status κατὰ σάρκα (Rom. 1:3) stands in parallel with the κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης qualifying his divine sonship (1:4). Relevant here is the contrast Paul establishes between the body that shares in human flesh and the power-filled resurrection body: “It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power” (σπείρεται ἐν ἀσθενείᾳ, ἐγείρεται ἐν δυνάμει; 1 Cor. 15:43b). The enthroned Son of God is the locus for God’s power precisely because he is now the locus of God’s Spirit: “the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit” (ὁ ἔσχατος Ἀδὰμ εἰς πνεῦμα ζῳοποιοῦν; 15:45b).140 To describe the risen Christ as “life-giving” is to predicate functions that singularly belong to God. As Luke Timothy Johnson says, “But in the case of Christ, resurrection means exaltation into the presence and power of God, since God alone is the giver of life.”141 Thus the resurrected-enthroned Son of God’s existence is now marked by the qualities and attributes of the Spirit, foremost of which, as we will see shortly, are the power to bring the eschatological life associated with resurrection (Rom. 8:9-11), familial relation to God (8:14-17), and liberation from hostile lords that allows for the ability to please and worship God (7:5-6; 8:5-8). Fourth, the Son participates in God’s rule by virtue of his sharing in divine lordship. Paul further describes “Messiah Jesus” as “our Lord”

138. Kirk, Unlocking Romans, 42-43. On the Spirit’s association with life, see Ezek. 37:1-14; Rom. 8:9-11. Further, see John R. Levison, Filled with the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009). 139. Rightly noted by Johnson Hodge, If Sons, Then Heirs, 73-74. 140. On 1 Cor. 15:20-28, 45-49 as an expansion of Rom. 1:3-4, see Novakovic, Raised from the Dead according to Scripture, 146. 141. Luke Timothy Johnson, “Life-Giving Spirit: The Ontological Implications of Resurrection in 1 Corinthians,” in Contested Issues in Christians Origins and the New Testament: Collected Essays (NovTSup 146; Leiden: Brill, 2013), 277-93, here 286.

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(1:4b). Paul’s application of this honorific to the Messiah makes sense in light of his (and the early Christians’) application of LXX Ps. 109:1 to describe the relationship between God and the resurrected Messiah Jesus: “The Lord said to my lord (Εἶπεν ὁ κύριος τῷ κυρίῳ μου), ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool under your feet.’”142 Later, Paul draws upon LXX Psalm 109 to describe the enthroned Son as seated at God’s right hand and interceding for his people (Rom. 8:33-34). Paul’s understanding of the Messiah’s resurrection and his enthronement to lordship is indicated by the association he makes elsewhere in Romans between resurrection and Jesus’s divine lordship and his forensic and judicial powers (2:16; 8:33-34; 10:5-13; 14:8-12). 143 Finally, Paul situates his apostolic task within this royal christological narrative in his statement that “we have received grace and apostleship for the obedience of faith among the nations (ἐν πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν) in behalf of his name” (Rom. 1:5; cf. 15:7-12). Remembering that God’s decree in Psalm 2, echoed in Rom. 1:4, has promised the “nations as an inheritance for you” (ἔθνη τὴν κληρονομίαν σου; Ps. 2:8) to the enthroned Son, it seems likely that Paul views his apostolic task as securing the inheritance of God’s Son through his apostolic ministry.144 Two further elements point in this direction. The exalted Messiah’s speech in Rom. 15:9-12, functioning as something of a Davidic messianic inclusio for Romans, concludes with words of Isa. 11:10 in Romans 15:12: The root of Jesse will come [cf. the seed of David in Rom. 1:3], the one who rises to rule the nations” (ὁ ἀνιστάμενος ἄρχειν ἐθνῶν)145 [installed as God’s Son by the resurrection from the dead, Rom. 1:4a], the nations will hope in him [the obedience of faith to the nations, Rom. 1:5].

The resurrected and enthroned Lord is exalted to a position of rule 142. See Beskow, Rex Gloriae, 47-55; Eskola, Messiah and Throne, 247-48. 143. Bates, The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation, 94. 144. Similarly, see Marie Emile Boismard, “Constitué Fils de Dieu (Rom. 1.4),” RB 60 (1953): 5-17, here 15. 145. While inconclusive, the remarkable parallels with Rom. 1:3-5, the fact that Rom. 15:9-12 sets forth the speech of the enthroned and resurrected Messiah, and the frequent association of “hope” with resurrection and eschatological realities suggests that ὁ ἀνιστάμενος should be read as a reference to the Messiah’s resurrected rule over the nations. See Kirk, Unlocking Romans, 51-53.

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over the nations, and Paul “himself is the unnamed executor of the inheritance granted to God’s Christ in Ps 2:7b-8//Rom 1:4-6.”146 Sharing in Christ’s Kingship: Romans 5:12–8:39 Romans 5–8 is the fullest expression of Paul’s participatory soteriology that can be found in his letters, and by almost every scholar’s reckoning it is central to Paul’s understanding of the saving significance of Christ.147 The section of Romans is filled with kingship discourse played out in a cosmic manner: for example, Adam and Christ both share in dominions (5:12-21), Sin and Death are overlords (6:9, 12, 14), humanity awaits either judgment or vindication (8:1, 33-34), humanity is liberated through sharing in Christ’s regal-filial status (8:15, 29), and echoes of enthronement to lordship through resurrection abound (8:9-17, 33-34).148 As Ernst Käsemann has said: “[Humanity’s] life is from the beginning a stake in the confrontation between God and the principalities of the world. In other words, it mirrors the cosmic contention for the lordship of the world and is its concretion.”149 Humanity either shares in the identity and resulting consequences of Adam or Christ—both of whom are portrayed as kings who represent dominions that exert lordship over humanity (5:12-21). 146. Whittsett, “Son of God, Seed of David,” 677. On the relationship between Rom. 1:3-4 and 15:12, see also Donald Dale Walker, Paul’s Offer of Leniency (2 Cor 10:1): Populist Ideology and Rhetoric in a Pauline Letter Fragment (WUNT 2.152; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2002), 172-73. 147. Romans 5–8 is given a privileged position for understanding Paul’s theology in Campbell, The Deliverance of God; William Wrede, Paul (trans. E. Lummis: London: Green & Hull, Elson, 1907), 74-154; Albert Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (trans. William Montgomery; Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1998 [original 1931], esp. 101-140. See the essays throughout Beverly Roberts Gaventa, ed., Apocalyptic Paul: Cosmos and Anthropos in Romans 5–8 (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2013). Richard Longenecker has argued that Romans 5–8 is the spiritual gift (mentioned in Rom. 1:11) Paul wants to give the Roman church (“The Focus of Romans: The Central Role of 5:1–8:39 in the Argument of the Letter,” in Romans and the People of God: Essays in Honor of Gordon D. Fee on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday [ed. Sven K. Soderlund and N. T. Wright; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], 49-70). 148. See here the helpful reflections by Douglas A. Campbell, who has shown that underlying Romans 8 is “a story of ascent through resurrection to glorification and heavenly enthronement” and that this story is “explained by royal messianic theology, and in particular by the Old Testament’s enthronement texts, among which Psalm 89 is outstanding” (“The Story of Jesus in Romans and Galatians,” in Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment [ed. Bruce W. Longenecker; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002], 97-124, here 116). 149. Ernst Käsemann, “On the Subject of Primitive Christian Apocalyptic,” in New Testament Questions of Today (trans. W. J. Montague; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969), 108-137, here 136.

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Paul sees these figures and their actions as having cosmic and eschatological consequences for humanity: humankind either shares in sin, ethically incapacitated human flesh, death, and judgment or righteousness, moral transformation, resurrection, and eschatological life.150 I suggest here, however, that Paul has taken the compact confession of Rom. 1:3-4 and reworked it in such a way that the christological narrative is programmatic for the identity of the Messiah throughout the letter and provides the christological foundation for humanity’s union with Christ as articulated in chapters 5–8. That is to say, Romans 5–8 is essentially a cosmic and apocalyptic development and application of the soteriological significance of Christ’s regal identity as set forth in 1:3-4.151 Thus, Christ’s messianic identity as seed of David who shares in human flesh, his installation as God’s powerful Son, resurrection from the dead, his resurrected state as marked by God’s Spirit, and enthronement to a position of lordship over the nations are cosmically reworked by Paul as royal events in which humanity participates. In order for humanity to be saved out of the situation of death, sin, and enslavement to hostile cosmic powers and to share in divine sonship, resurrection, and the Spirit, it is necessary that Israel’s Messiah share in these realities and, so to speak, thereby open up the way for humanity to experience them by virtue of participating in his own royal identity and narrative. As simultaneously sharing in God’s kingship as God’s son and as representing Israel and sharing in its fleshly existence, Christ is uniquely positioned as the only one who can extend and share God’s rule and its benefits with humanity. 152 150. By “cosmic” I mean that the consequences of these figures’ actions are universally determinative of all of human and worldly existence. And by “apocalyptic” I refer to Paul’s mythicizing of the world as under the rule of cosmic lords and powers from which God’s invasive rescue is the only act that can provide liberation. For more on these matters, see Martinus C. de Boer, “Paul’s Mythologizing Program in Romans 5–8,” in Apocalyptic Paul, 1-20. 151. That the christological statements in Rom. 1:3-4 are soteriologically oriented is hinted at by the fact that the figure is already God’s Son (1:3a) before his sharing in David’s lineage and his resurrection and enthronement, and by the fact that significant vocabulary is shared between 1:3-4 and 1:16-17, where the gospel is connected with salvation. See also Fatehi, The Spirit’s Relation to the Risen Lord in Paul, 256-57. 152. Hence the necessity of the first section of this chapter, which examines the king’s relation to God and to humanity. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 1012: “The Messiah himself is one of the main themes of 5–8 as a whole, whose every section ends with a refrain, like a great bell: through

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Romans 5:1-11 functions as a transition between 1:18–4:25 and 5:12–8:39 and thereby provides an introduction to chapters 5–8.153 Here Paul speaks in distinctly political and royal terms of the Messiah’s deliverance of humanity from evil powers: Messiah Jesus provides “peace with God” (5:1); Messiah Jesus gives “access” to this grace (5:2); and the Son’s death reconciles humanity to God even while it is still at enmity with God (5:10-11).154 The way in which God’s Son, Messiah Jesus, reconciles and rescues humanity is spelled out in 5:12–8:39 where Paul maps the saving and liberating realities of 1:3-4 onto Christ’s people. Paul’s depiction of humanity’s participation in Christ’s soteriological narrative corresponds nicely to the two trajectories set forth in 1:3-4. 1. The Dominion of Adam Humanity’s situation, including that of Israel, is marked by enslavement to hostile cosmic powers, and all of these cosmic powers are introduced in the Adam-Christ antithesis in Rom. 5:12-21.155 This is the negative counterpoint to participation in Christ, and it is important to recognize that it too is conceptualized with explicitly kingly language as humanity shares in Adam’s dominion.156 Adam, like Israel’s kings, was seen as sharing God’s dominion over creation precisely as humanity’s representative.157 Thus it is no surprise that Paul

our lord Jesus the Messiah; in the Messiah Jesus. The achievement of Jesus, who is the Messiah, and the incorporative life of the Messiah, who is Jesus, are central to both form and content.” 153. On the function of Rom. 5:1-11 as marking a transition into the themes of Rom. 5:12–8:39, see especially Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 292-95. Also see Nils A. Dahl, “Two Notes on Romans 5,” ST 5 (1952): 37-48. 154. On reconciliation as political language used to describe the cessation of hostilities between those at war, see chapter 3, “King and Praise.” Also see Cilliers Breytenbach, Versöhnung: Eine Studie zur paulinische Soteriologie (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1989). 155. As is well known, explicit citations of Israel’s Scriptures in Romans 5–8 are remarkably sparse. That Paul is, however, still concerned here with interpreting God’s covenantal relations with Israel, see Frank Thielman, “The Story of Israel and the Theology of Romans 5–8,” in Pauline Theology III: Romans (ed. D. M. Hay and E. E. Johnson; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 169-95. 156. Numerous Jewish texts portray Adam as a ruler, e.g., 2 En. 30:12; 31:3; Wis. 9:1-3; 10:1-2; Sir. 17:1-4; Jub. 2:13-15. See further, John R. Levison, Portraits of Adam in Early Judaism: From Sirach to 2 Baruch (JSPSup 1; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988). James R. Harrison argues that Paul takes the notions of sin and death as reigning powers from the two ages in Jewish apocalyptic thought (Paul and the Imperial Authorities at Thessalonica and Rome [WUNT 2.273; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011], 108-9). 157. Batto, “The Divine Sovereign,”; also, Richard Middleton, The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2005), 93-184; Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology. Volume I. The Theology of Israel’s Historical Traditions (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 146; G.K. Beale, The

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characterizes Adam in two complementary ways: first, Adam is the prototypical human (e.g., δι ᾽ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου; 5:12); second, he is a royal figure who, by virtue of his act of disobedience, participates in a tyrannical dominion of death and sin (e.g., ἐβασίλευσεν ὁ θάνατος; 5:14; ὁ θάνατος ἐβασίλευσεν διὰ τοῦ ἑνός; 5:17; ἐβασίλευσεν ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ; 5:21).158 Adam’s humanity and primal kingship allow Paul to invoke “Adam as the one who unleashed a worldwide reign of sin and death.”159 Apart from Christ’s liberating work, these evil overlords exert their dominion by taking root in the very body and flesh of unredeemed humanity and thereby bringing death and judgment: e.g., “do not let sin rule in your mortal body” (Μὴ οὖν βασιλευέτω ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐν τῷ θνητῷ ὑμῶν σώματι; 6:12). Paul repeatedly uses regal and military language, more specifically the language used to describe a powerful enslaving tyrant, to speak of the “kingly reign” (βασιλευέω; 5:13, 17, 21; 6:12), “lordship” (κυριεύω; 6:6, 9, 14), “enslavement” (δοῦλος and δουλόω; 6:15-22) and “waging of war and imprisonment” (7:23) of the powers of Sin and Death.160 The “I” of Romans 7 witnesses to the incapacitated state of the fleshly human body as it is, even in spite of its best intentions and desires, enslaved and imprisoned by the Sin that has taken residence within and which produces death (esp. 7:17-24).161 Sin, in fact, took Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God (NBST 17; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 66-80. 158. Interpreters often rightly recognize the importance of Adam here for understanding Paul’s anthropology, but concerns over whether Paul has something like an “Adam-Christology” often, so it seems to me, prevent many from recognizing the royal language of 5:12-21. E.g., Macaskill, who rightly wants to caution a projection of an Adam myth onto Romans 5, but who in so doing fails to see the significance of the royal imagery used to describe Adam’s dominion (Union with Christ, 237-38). Similarly Fee, Pauline Christology, 271-72. See, however, Robert C. Tannehill, who reads Romans 5–6 as “a contrast between two dominions and their lords” (Dying and Rising with Christ: A Study in Pauline Theology [BZNW; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967], 14). 159. Kirk, Unlocking Romans, 105; also Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 345. 160. The regal imagery is noted and pressed by David Southall, Rediscovering Righteousness in Romans: Personified Dikaiosyne within Metaphoric and Narratorial Settings (WUNT 2.240; Tübingen: MohrSiebeck, 2008). Also sensitive to Paul’s military language of conflict is Beverly Roberts Gaventa, “Neither Height nor Depth: Discerning the Cosmology of Romans,” SJT 64 (2011): 265-78, esp. 270-73. 161. On Rom. 7:7-25 and its retrospective (from the standpoint of the Christ-event) depiction of one under the Sinai covenant, see Joshua W. Jipp, “Educating the Divided Soul in Paul and Plato: Reading Romans 7:7-25 and Plato’s Republic,” in Paul: Jew, Greek, and Roman (ed. Stanley E. Porter; Pauline Studies 5; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 231-57; see also D. J. Moo, “Israel and Paul in Romans 7.7-12,” NTS 32 (1986): 122-35; Emma Wasserman, “The Death of the Soul in Romans 7: Revisiting Paul’s

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God’s good commandment and used it as “a base of operations” (ἀφορμήν) to wage its war (7:8, 11).162 Here the power of sin successfully and strategically wages battle against humanity by taking advantage of the weakness of human flesh: I see another law in my members that is waging war against the law of my mind and is imprisoning me by the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched human that I am, who will rescue me from this body of death? (βλέπω δὲ ἕτερον νόμον ἐν τοῖς μέλεσίν μου ἀντιστρατευόμενον τῷ νόμῳ τοῦ νοός μου καὶ αἰχμαλωτίζοντά με ἐν τῷ νόμῳ τῆς ἁμαρτίας τῷ ὄντι ἐν τοῖς μέλεσίν μου. Ταλαίπωρος ἐγὼ ἄνθρωπος, τίς με ῥύσεται ἐκ τοῦ σοματος τοῦ θανάτου τούτου). (7:23-24)

It is precisely humanity’s Adamic embodied existence that allows the dominion of Sin and Death to exercise their tyrannical power in a manner that is internal to the body: “I am fleshly and I have been sold to the power of Sin” (ἐγὼ δὲ σάρκινός εἰμι πεπραμένος ὑπὸ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν; 7:14b).163 And this accounts for the flurry of references to Adamic bodily existence as intrinsically morally incapacitated (ἡ οἰκοῦσα ἐν ἐμοὶ ἁμαρτία; 7:17; Οἶδα γὰρ ὅτι οὐκ οἰκεῖ ἐν ἐμοί, τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν ἐν τῇ σαρκί μου; 7:18; ἡ οἰκοῦσα ἐν ἐμοὶ ἁμαρτία; 7:20; ὅτι ἐμοὶ τὸ κακὸν παράκειται; 7:21). Sin’s dwelling in human flesh results in a situation in which humanity is enslaved to Sin, a situation that inevitably results in death—and for this reason Paul describes unredeemed humanity with the politicalmilitary language of “enemies” of God (ἐχθροί; 5:10; 8:8).164 In order to participate in Christ’s glorious resurrection and sonship, Anthropology in Light of Hellenistic Moral Psychology,” JBL 126 (2007): 793-816; Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 1016-17. 162. The term is often used in contexts of making war. See Gaventa, who points to Polybius 3.69; Philo, Flacc. 47; Dionysius of Halicarnassus 5.5.3; 6.25.3 (“Neither Height nor Depth,” 272). 163. It is worth noting that Plato uses the figure of the tyrant as a way of dramatizing internal conflict in his Republic, and Plato’s “divided soul” resonates with the internal conflict of the divided “I” in Romans 7. E.g., “Then will you say that such a soul is enslaved or free? ‘Enslaved, I should suppose.’ Again, does not the enslaved and tyrannized city least of all do what it really wishes? ‘Decidedly so.’ Then the tyrannized soul—to speak of the soul as a whole—also will least of all do what it wishes, but being always perforce driven and drawn by the gadfly of desire it will be full of confusion and repentance. ‘Of course.’ And must the tyrannized city be rich or poor? ‘Poor.’ Then the tyrant soul also must of necessity always be needy and suffer from unfulfilled desires. ... And do you not think you will find more lamentations and groans and wailing and anguish in any other city?” (Resp. 577d8-311). On the tyrant and weakness of the will in Plato’s Republic, see my “Educating the Divided Soul in Paul and Plato,” 245-48. 164. Tannehill, Dying and Rising with Christ, 15-16.

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clearly humanity will have to first be rescued from Adam’s dominion and the powers that exert their lordship during his rule. Further, this rescue must render ineffective the power of these overlords by confronting their ability to make allies with weak, incapacitated, fleshly existence. At this point it bears remembering that God’s own Son, as we have seen, has shared in this situation by virtue of his having human flesh (κατὰ σάρκα; Rom. 1:3).165 As descendant from the seed of David and as Israel’s royal representative, Paul portrays the Messiah’s participation in the human plight as absolutely necessary to fulfill his royal task. And we have seen that this sharing in human flesh results in the predictable consequence of God’s Son being found among “the corpses” (1:4). Paul unpacks the soteriological significance of this messianic confession (1:3) in Rom. 8:3 when he speaks of “God sending his own Son (τὸν ἑαυτοῦ υἱόν) in the likeness of sinful flesh” (ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας), namely, the very anthropological condition of humanity that Paul has so negatively detailed in 7:14-25 (cf. ἐγὼ δὲ σάρκινός εἰμι πεπραμένος ὑπὸ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν; 7:14b).166 As Richard H. Bell suggests, Paul is concerned here with “the sending of Christ into the area of human existence, and part of the very structure of existence is sin.”167 The similarities between 1:3 and 8:3 are clear enough (e.g., God’s messianic son, the sharing of flesh), but now, in light of Paul’s depiction of fleshly and bodily humanity in chapters 5–8, the reader can see that the way in which God rescues humanity from the cosmic overlords is precisely through this bodily flesh of his messianic son. The messianic son shares in “sinful flesh” so that he can identify with the bodily existence of enslaved humanity and present himself as “a sin offering” (περὶ ἁμαρτίας),168 so that he could “execute Sin in his 165. I have made a similar argument to that which follows in Jipp, “Ancient, Modern, and Future Interpretations of Romans 1:3-4,” 256-57. 166. Those who recognize the similarity between Paul’s language for the son in Rom. 1:3 and 8:3 include Campbell, “The Story of Jesus in Romans and Galatians,” 104; Fatehi, The Spirit’s Relation to the Risen Lord in Paul, 258-59. On the echo of 7:14 in 8:3, see Fee, Pauline Christology, 247. 167. Richard H. Bell, “Sacrifice and Christology in Paul,” JTS 53 (2002): 1-27, here 6. Again, see Branick, “The Sinful Flesh of the Son of God (Rom 8:3).” 168. The prepositional phrase περὶ ἁμαρτίας is frequently used to refer to the sin offering in the LXX (e.g., throughout Leviticus 17). See N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 200-225; Burke, Adopted into God’s Family, 109. Paul also uses cultic imagery in Rom. 3:25; 12:1; and 15:16. On Paul’s use of cultic metaphors, see

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flesh” (κατέκρινεν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἐν τῇ σαρκί; 8:3b).169 As a sin offering the Son is humanity’s representative who identifies completely with human existence and whose body undergoes the judgment and sentence of death.170 As humanity’s representative, Christ thereby destroys humanity’s sinful existence through his sin offering. 171 A similar set of ideas is presented in Rom. 6:3-11, where Paul continues from 5:12-21 the contrast between two dominions. Here humanity is liberated from death and sin, by virtue of being “conformed to the likeness of his death” (σύμφυτοι γεγόναμεν τῷ ὁμοιώματι τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ; 6:5a; cf. 6:3, 4).172 What does it mean to say that humanity shares in Christ’s death, and how does sharing in Christ’s death liberate humanity from Sin and Death? Paul allusively answers these questions when he refers to “the crucifixion of our old humanity” (ὁ παλαιὸς ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπος συνεσταυρώθη) and the “destruction of the body of sin” (τὸ σῶμα τῆς ἁμαρτίας; 6:6). This body of sin is the same “body of death” (7:24) and the same “sinful flesh” (8:3) shared by the first human Adam (5:12), and all of humanity that belongs to his dominion. The “old humanity” and “the body of sin” are crucified and done away with by Christ’s crucifixion, suggesting that the Messiah takes the cosmic powers of Adam’s dominion onto himself in his crucified body.173 Thus, through his sharing in Adamic humanity Stephen Finlan, The Background and Content of Paul’s Cultic Atonement Metaphors (SBLAB 19; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004); David Hill, Greek Words and Hebrew Meanings: Studies in the Semantics of Soteriological Terms (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 169. The phrase “in his flesh” is almost certainly a reference to the Messiah’s human flesh that has absorbed Sin and its attendant condemnation. So also Bell, “Sacrifice and Christology in Paul,” 8: “The key idea is that sin is condemned in the place where it rules, i.e. in the flesh.” 170. On the significance of the one making the sacrifice identifying with (rather than purely substitutionary) the fate of the sacrifice in the OT cult, see Hartmut Gese, Essays on Biblical Theology (trans. Keith Crim; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1981), 93-116. With respect to Paul, see Richard H. Bell, “Sacrifice and Christology in Paul,” 1-27; Grant Macaskill, “The Atonement and Concepts of Participation in the New Testament,” in Earliest Christian History: History, Literature & Theology (ed. Michael F. Bird and Jason Matson; WUNT 2.320; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011), 363-80. 171. Bell is thereby right to note that Romans 8:3 provides the answer and solution to the problem articulated in Romans 7:7-25 (“Sacrifice and Christology in Paul,” 5). Jean-Noël Aletti rightly notes: “For it is precisely in taking our impotent flesh, marked by sin, suffering, temptation, and death, that the Son of God has been able to condemn sin in the very place of its domination, the flesh” (“Romans 8: The Incarnation and its Redemptive Impact,” in The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God (ed. Stephen T. Davids; Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002], 93-115, here 97). 172. Tannehill suggests that Paul uses the language of “likeness” (Rom. 6:5; 8:3; Phil. 3:21) in order to distinguish between the two forms of Christ’s existence (Dying and Rising with Christ, 34-39).

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and through submission to crucifixion, Paul can speak of death having exerted lordship over Christ (θάνατος αὐτοῦ οὐκέτι κυριεύει; 6:9). These considerations further suggest that the identity of the one mentioned in 6:7 (“for the one who has died has been justified from sin,” ὁ γὰρ ἀποθανὼν δεδικαίωται ἀπὸ τῆς ἁμαρτίας) is, in the first instance, Christ whose death brings freedom and release from Sin for all who share in his death.174 Christ is subjected to everything that characterizes the old dominion, including death (6:9; 7:4; 8:3), the law (7:4), sin (6:10; 8:3), and sufferings (8:17). Again, humanity’s weak fleshly bodily existence is “crucified” (6:6a), “destroyed” (6:6b), and “condemned” (8:3) by the only one who can function as humanity’s representative, namely, God’s Son “born according to David’s seed from the flesh” (1:3).175 As a result, Paul describes the ethical consequences of Christ’s liberation in decidedly cosmic-political terms: “do not let sin rule in your mortal bodies” (6:12); “sin does not exert its lordship over you” (6:14a); “do not present your bodily members as weapons of unrighteousness to sin . . . but present your members as weapons of righteousness to God” (6:13); “you have been enslaved to righteousness” (6:18; cf. 6:20).176 2. Participating in the Royal Narrative of the Messiah Christ’s crucifixion not only enables humanity to be freed from the tyrannical reign of Sin and Death, but his installation as God’s resurrected Son who now has God’s πνεῦμα functions as the catalyst for inaugurating his messianic reign over his people. The soteriological logic and grammar of Romans 5–8 depends upon: (a) the confession of Rom. 1:4, that is the narrative of the Messiah’s resurrection and enthronement to a position of lordship over his people, the cosmos, 173. This is stated nicely by Kirk: “In 6:6, Paul asserts a death to the old aeon, the world-order brought about in Adam, through participation in the event on which the change of the aeons hinged—the crucifixion of Christ” (Unlocking Romans, 111). So also, Tannehill, Dying and Rising with Christ, 27-28. 174. Paul’s emphasis on participation in Christ’s narrative suggests that one need not play a christological reading over and against a generic/anthropological reading (as I have also suggested is the case with Rom. 13:8 in chapter 2, “King and Law”). Those emphasizing a christological reading (but sensitive to humanity’s sharing in Christ’s death to sin) include Kirk, Unlocking Romans, 111-14. 175. Thus, Campbell’s questions (“Why is all humanity outside Christ encompassed by Adam? Why is humanity incorporated into him? Why should Adam’s actions be ‘imputed’ to all’?”) should be answered through an appeal to their regal identity as God’s kingly representatives for humanity (Paul and Union with Christ, 344). 176. See Gaventa, “Neither Height nor Depth,” 271.

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and his enemies;177 and (b) the way in which Jesus’s messianic-royal identity uniquely enables him, as the one sharing in God’s rule and πνεῦμα, to extend divine realities to humanity as their royal representative. Every aspect of the Son’s royal enthronement in 1:4 has participatory consequences, as Paul conceptualizes humanity’s salvation as participation in the constituent events of Christ’s rule, namely, his sonship, resurrection life, receipt of the Spirit, and cosmic inheritance. Paul’s claim in Romans 8 that those who belong to Christ are now “God’s sons” (υἱοὶ θεοῦ; 8:14; cf. 8:15-17, 19, 21, 23, 29-30) is the result of their participation in the messianic sonship of the one who was “installed as God’s Son in power” in 1:4.178 Again, Paul’s ability to make this argument depends, in part, upon the Israelite royal ideology that sets forth the Davidic king as simultaneously sharing in God’s kingship and Spirit and as the one who uniquely represented Israel. The king, as we have seen, thereby receives the divine promise: “I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me” (2 Sam. 7:14), and the appropriateness of activating this royal ideology is confirmed by Paul’s allusions to LXX Psalm 88 in Rom. 8:15 and 8:29. In LXX Psalm 88, the Davidic king is referred to as God’s firstborn son (πρωτότοκον; v. 28) who, during his royal enthronement, cries out to Yahweh: “you are my father (αὐτὸς ἐπικαλέσεταὶ με Πατήρ μου εἶ σύ), my God, and the Rock of my salvation” (v. 27).179 The king’s acclamation “encapsulates the powerful covenantal relationship now established between the new king and the God of the nation that is expressed in terms of immediate kinship.”180 In Rom. 8:15 Paul roots humanity’s divine sonship in the Messiah’s enthronement as depicted in LXX Psalm 88: “you have not received a spirit of slavery leading again to fear, but you have received a Spirit of adoption, by which we are crying out, ‘Abba Father!’” (ἀλλ᾽ 177. I am persuaded by Campbell’s argument that underlying Romans 8 is a narrative about the Son (“The Story of Jesus in Romans and Galatians,” 97-124). 178. Rightly Scott, Adoption as Sons of God, 244-45; Michael Peppard, The Son of God in the Roman World: Divine Sonship in Its Social and Political Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 138-40; Blackwell, Christosis, 162; Johnson Hodge, If Sons, Then Heirs, 70: “Like Christ in Romans 1:4, the gentiles are made sons by the spirit, and so they become heirs, ‘joint heirs’ with Christ.” 179. Similarly, see Scott, Adoption as Sons of God, 259-62. 180. Campbell, “The Story of Jesus in Romans and Galatians,” 116.

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ἐλάβετε πνεῦμα υἱοθεσίας ἐν ᾧ κράζομεν, αββα ὁ πατήρ)181 The following factors indicate that humanity’s crying out “Abba, Father!” is a participation in the Messiah’s sonship: the cry “Abba Father” calls to mind Jesus’ sonship from his earthly ministry (Mark 14:36),182 the allusion to the king’s cry of filial relationship to God during his enthronement in LXX Psalm 88, and the fact that Christ is portrayed as humanity’s elder brother and prototype (esp. Rom. 8:29).183 Paul makes the relationship between the Messiah’s sonship and humanity’s adoptive sonship explicit in Gal. 4:6, where it is “the Spirit of his Son” (τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ) that inspires one to cry Abba Father.184 Christ’s people belong to him and his royal family, then, precisely because they have the same πνεῦμα as Christ.185 And this Spirit works within God’s Son and God’s sons, as Lucien Cerfaux notes, to stir up “son-like feelings which are the feelings of the Son of God for his Father.”186 The intimately relational covenantal cry of God’s Fatherhood forms a contrast between the benevolent and loving rule of Christ (see esp. Rom. 8:35, 37, 38-39) and the “fear” and “slavery” that mark the tyrannical rule of Sin and Death over Adamic humanity.187 Thus, 181. Statements such as “receive the Spirit” function as something like a formula to describe initiation into the Christian movement (e.g., 2 Cor. 11:4; Gal. 3:2, 14). 182. Despite overreaching at points, Joachim Jeremias has shown that the term “Abba” demonstrates Jesus’s filial relationship with God and that the early church saw Jesus’s address of God as “Abba” as memorable and distinctive (The Prayers of Jesus [London: SCM, 1967], 11-65). See also Fee, Pauline Christology, 217-20. 183. Nicely stated by Moo: “In crying out ‘Abba, Father,’ the believer not only gives voice to his or her consciousness of belonging to God as his child but also to having a status comparable to that of Jesus himself” (italics mine) (The Epistle to the Romans, 502). Volker Rabens argues that the cry of Abba “does not designate isolated experiences but a continuous loving relationship, which, like every active relationship, has an experiential side” (The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul: Transformation and Empowering for Religious-Ethical Life [2nd ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014], 226-27). James D. G. Dunn agrees that Rom. 8:15 and Gal. 4:6 contain “widely recognized and used language—in which case the regular usage elsewhere in the NT to denote an intense or loud cry is more relevant” (Romans 1–8 [WBC 38a; Dallas: Thomas Nelson, 1988], 453). 184. Fatehi argues that “by ‘the Spirit of his Son’ Paul means the Spirit in its capacity of mediating the risen Son’s active presence and power” (italics his) (The Spirit and the Risen Lord in Paul, 216). 185. Johnson Hodge, If Sons, Then Heirs, 75: “That is, the gentiles join Christ by taking his pneuma into their hearts, incorporating his substance into theirs. In this way, this procreative pneuma creates new kinship, and does so materially.” Similarly, see Stowers, “What Is ‘Pauline Participation in Christ’?” 352-71. With respect, however, to Paul’s material conceptualization of the pneuma, see Rabens, The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul, 25-120. 186. Lucien Cerfaux, Christ in the Theology of St. Paul (New York: Herder and Herder, 1966), 453. 187. The enslavement of humanity to these powers in Romans 5–8 has already been noted and is highlighted most dramatically in Rom. 7:14-25, where Paul speaks of bondage and imprisonment to sin (esp. 7:14, 23), but the prospect of “fear” should likely be connected to the fact that these

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whereas adoption in the ancient world may or may not be marked by deep familial affection, Paul’s emphasis on “the Messiah’s love” (τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦ Χριστοῦ; 8:35; τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντος ἡμᾶς; 8:37) and “God’s love which is in Messiah Jesus our Lord” (τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦ θεοῦ τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ κυρίῳ ἡμῶν; 8:39b; cf. 5:5), among numerous other factors, suggests that covenantal love and intimacy are key components of humanity’s adoptive sonship.188 The transition from υἱοί (8:14) to τέκνα (8:16-17), Grant Macaskill thinks, may even suggest “a reality that surpasses the bare legal concept of adoption and emphasizes instead familial intimacy and possibly even familial likeness.” 189 Further tightening the link between humanity’s divine sonship as participation in the Son of God’s sonship is Rom. 8:29, where Paul speaks of God’s action with respect to believers as προώρισεν συμμόρφους τῆς εἰκόνος τοῦ υἱου αὐτοῦ, εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν πρωτότοκον ἐν πολλοῖς ἀδελφοῖς (“he predestined [them] to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers”).190 The language of election, image, son, and firstborn son are at home in ancient royal discourse, and especially in light of LXX Psalm 88, function, in part, to designate Christ as highly exalted by God and elected by God to share in his sovereign rule.191 But Christ’s sovereign rule and sonship is shared with his family, and the lexical similarity between προόριζω (believers’ predestination to sonship; 8:29, 30) and ὁρίζω (the installation of God’s Son; 1:4) further indicates that God’s election of humanity to sonship is derivative from God’s installation of Christ as God’s Son in 1:4.192 Further, Christ’s exalted status as God’s powers have held forth the prospect of eschatological death and judgment for those outside of Christ’s reign (cf. Rom. 8:2, 34-39). Similarly, see Volker Rabens, The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul, 216; Dunn, Romans 1–8, 451-52. Campbell argues that Paul is concerned here “with assuring Christians in the face of struggle and suffering that God’s love is unshakeable and will eventually conquer all on their behalf” (“The Story of Jesus in Romans and Galatians,” 115). 188. That the Spirit plays an active role in communicating this intimacy in order to inspire ethical action is a key contention in Rabens, The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul, 203-37. Rabens rightly points to OT and Jewish depictions of Yahweh’s relationship with Israel as one of covenantal love and adoptive sonship (e.g., Exod. 4:22; Deut. 7:7-8; Isa. 63:8-10, 16; Hosea 11). 189. Macaskill, Union with Christ in the New Testament, 240. 190. See further, Reidar Aasgaard, ‘My Beloved Brothers and Sisters!’: Christian Siblingship in Paul (JSNTSup 265; London: T&T Clark, 2004). 191. See especially chapter 3 (“King and Praise”) and my discussion of Col. 1:15-20. 192. See Jipp, “Ancient, Modern, and Future Interpretations of Romans 1:3-4,” 257. Macaskill suggests

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firstborn son, where he is placed above all other kings (Rom. 8:29; LXX Ps. 88:26), assures Christ’s “many brothers and sisters” that his royal identity and narrative are being (and will be) shared with them.193 And this makes good sense of the statement that believers are being συμμόρφους τῆς εἰκόνος τοῦ υἱου αὐτοῦ as well as the σύν-prefixes throughout Romans 5–8 that describe the shared destiny between the Son and his siblings (e.g., 8:16, 17).194 We have seen that humanity’s adoption and participation in the Messiah’s own sonship is due to receiving “the Spirit of adoption” (πνεῦμα υἱοθεσίας, 8:15). Just as God installed God’s Son to a position of rule by the “Spirit of holiness” (1:4), so also believers receive their adoptive sonship through the agency of the same Spirit who creates the Father-son relation between God and Christ’s people (cf. Gal. 4:6). Paul thereby implies that Israel’s promises of sonship for God’s installed king (2 Sam. 7:12-14; Ps. 2:7; LXX 88:26-27) are extended to the Messiah’s people by virtue of the Spirit. Whereas Israel’s Scriptures portrayed God’s gift of the Spirit as establishing the king as holy, sacrosanct, and the locus of God’s presence, so now Messiah Jesus shares the royal gift of the Spirit to all his people. Thus, those who share in the Messiah’s sonship receive the same Spirit and are described as “in the Spirit” (Rom. 8:9a), and this is why Paul, even within the same breath, refers to the “Spirit of God (πνεῦμα θεοῦ; 8:9a) as “the Spirit of the Messiah” (πνεῦμα Χριστοῦ; 8:9b).195 Just as the Spirit enabled the Son to move from a state marked by weak corruptible and dead flesh into resurrection existence (1:3-4), so now by virtue of sharing Christ’s πνεῦμα (8:9) believers move from the dominion of flesh (Ὑμεῖς δὲ οὐκ that the election language in Romans 8 indicates “that we are in covenant territory” (Union with Christ, 242). Kirk rightly notes that “In being raised from the dead (and glorified), Christ was set apart as son of God (1:4), thereby introducing him into a state of image-bearing that is his as the first member of a new humanity which rules over the creation on God’s behalf—as was the purpose of original humanity, created as it was in the image and glory of God” (Unlocking Romans, 143). 193. See Mark Forman, The Politics of Inheritance in Romans (SNTSMS 148; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 118-19; Aasgard, ‘My Beloved Brothers and Sisters!’ 142-43. 194. Campbell, “The Story of Jesus in Romans and Galatians,” 106: “What the Son has done, and where he has been, is what Christians are currently being ‘mapped onto’ by the activity of the Spirit.” 195. On the risen Christ’s presence and activity among his people through indwelling of the Spirit, see Fatehi, The Spirit and the Risen Lord in Paul, 213-15. See further, Fee, Pauline Christology, 269-70.

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ἐστὲ ἐν σαρκί) to that of the Spirit (ἀλλ᾽ ἐν πνεύματι).196 By virtue of his resurrection from the dead, the powerful Messiah is marked out as the locus for the Spirit, that is, the resurrected Messiah has become a “lifegiving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45; cf. Rom. 1:4). Again, it is the Spirit that raises the Messiah from the dead, and it is this same Spirit “that raised the Messiah from the dead who will give life to your mortal bodies” (ὁ ἐγείρας Χριστὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν ζῳοποιήσει καὶ τὰ θνητὰ σώματα ὑμῶν; 8:11b; cf. 1:4; 4:24-25).197 Sharing the Messiah’s πνεῦμα is the defining marker that one belongs to, or even is part of, the Messiah’s people (8:9b; cf. 1 Cor. 15:23). “If the Messiah is in you” (Rom. 8:10a), then one can be assured that just as the Spirit gave resurrection life to the Messiah’s dead body, a body which had taken on sinful human flesh (1:3; 7:4-5; 8:3), so too will the same Spirit give life to the dead sin-ridden bodies that have the Messiah’s Spirit dwelling within them (8:10-11). Paul conceptualizes this reality as a transition from the dominion marked by “the death of the body because of sin” (τὸ μὲν σῶμα νεκρὸν διὰ ἁμαρτίαν; 8:10a) to the Messiah’s dominion that is marked by “the Spirit of life because of righteousness” (τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα ζωὴ διὰ δικαιοσύνην; 8:10b). Whereas the Messiah has already experienced the Spirit’s work of resurrection to life (1:4; 4:24-25; 5:17-18; 8:11), humanity waits for the revelation of the glory of God (5:5; 8:18b), anticipates the “revelation of the sons of God” (8:19), and looks forward to the “freedom of glory for God’s children” (8:21). The Spirit’s present work, however, testifies and assures believers of their sonship (8:15-16) and inspires a vocal “groaning” for the manifestation of this adoption, which is “the redemption of our bodies” (8:23b).198 196. Though operating with a materialist conception of “Spirit,” Stowers rightly notes: “The particular shape of God’s pneuma that Jesus received in the resurrection is shared by believers; Christ can be said to be in them. But since they merely share what belongs first of all to Christ, they can also be said to be ‘of him’ or ‘in him’ just as Christ shared the stuff of Abraham and was in him. One simply cannot understand Paul’s idea of participation without recognizing that those who are in or of Christ actually possess as part of them the stuff of Christ, a portion of his pneuma” (“What Is ‘Pauline Participation in Christ’?,” 362). 197. On the connection between Rom. 1:4 and 8:11 and the Spirit’s work in humanity “to replicate the same pattern of dying and rising as Jesus,” see Luke Timothy Johnson, “Transformation of the Mind and Moral Discernment in Paul,” in Contested Issues in Christians Origins and the New Testament: Collected Essays (NovTSup 146; Leiden: Brill, 2013), 255-75, here 270. 198. On the eschatological aspect of adoption, see Blackwell, Christosis, 147-48; Macaskill, Union with Christ in the New Testament, 241.

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The Spirit’s role in resurrecting the Messiah from the dead results in the frequent refrain that the Spirit produces “life” (Rom. 8:2, 6, 10, 11, 13). And this is in marked contrast to Adam’s dominion in 5:12-21, a situation where death rules humanity by means of sin and the attendant judgment resulting from sin (see esp. 5:14-17; 6:23). Returning to 5:12-21, we can see that Paul sees the Spirit’s life-giving resurrection of the Messiah as the event that has brought into existence a messianic dominion where Christ’s people share in his reign, namely, in his resurrected life. So, Christ’s people “will reign in life” (ἐν ζωῇ βασιλεύσουσιν; 5:17); in contrast to the judgment (εἰς κατάρκιμα; 5:16, 18) that results from Adam’s sin, those in Christ’s domain experience “the justification which is life” (εἰς δικαίωσιν ζωῆς; 5:18), and the reign of grace “through righteousness for eternal life” (διὰ δικαιοσύνης εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον; 5:21; cf. 6:9).199 3. Paul’s echo of Ps. 2:7-8 in Rom. 1:3-4, in which God promises his Davidic king the nations for his inheritance and his reference to the Messiah as “our Lord” (τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν; Rom. 1:4b), a title indebted to LXX Ps. 109:1 and its promise of authority over the Lord’s enemies, are the linguistic resources Paul uses to depict the enthroned Lord’s rule over the entire cosmos and includes Jews and the nations. I have already noted that Paul conceives of his apostolic task as securing the Messiah’s Psalm 2 “inheritance” through bringing about “the obedience of faith among all the nations” (Rom. 1:5), and this is further confirmed by the allusion to Gen. 49:8-12—a royal oracle that looks forward to a king from Judah who will receive “the obedience of the nations” (MT Gen. 49:10b; cf. Num. 24:17-19; Isa. 11:10).200 That Paul sees his task 199. On the semantic overlap between “righteousness” and “life” in Romans, see Morna Hooker, “Raised for Our Acquittal,” in Resurrection in the New Testament (ed. R. Bieringer et al.: Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002), 323-41. On the context for Paul’s notion that believers participate in Christ’s rule, see Litwa, We Are Being Transformed, 172-82. Tannehill rightly notes that these statements prepare the reader for Romans 6 (and I would add all of Romans 5–8) for Paul’s contrast between two reigns (Dying and Rising with Christ). Harrison sees Paul’s depiction of humanity as under sin as challenging the god-like pretensions of the Roman emperor (Paul and the Imperial Authorities at Thessalonica and Rome, 114-15). Although it is certainly possible the text might have been read this way by some, this seems to me to be a case of frontgrounding what should be (if anywhere) in the background. 200. The LXX has “he is the expectation of the nations” (προσδοκία ἐθνῶν). The only interpreter I have found who argues similarly is Don Garlington, who states that the setting of Rom. 1:5 “is provided by a number of passages from Tanakh that anticipate a king/son who would take the peoples in

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as situated within the fulfillment of the scriptural promises that look forward to a coming Davidic king who would receive the obedience of the nations is further indicated by the catena of scriptural quotations in Rom. 15:9-12, quotations that are best taken as the enthroned Lord’s celebration of his eschatological receipt of his royal inheritance and entrance into his rule over the nations.201 In both Rom. 1:3-4 and 15:9-12, Paul “interprets the Davidic heritage and kingship of Jesus on the basis of Jesus’ resurrection and with reference to Christ’s reign over Gentiles.”202 Paul has also indicated earlier that Abraham and his seed (ἢ τῷ σπέρματι αὐτοῦ) would receive the entire world as an inheritance (τὸ κληρονόμον αὐτὸν εἶναι κόσμου; 4:13), and it is significant here that this echoes God’s gift of cosmic rule to the son “from the seed of David” (1:3-4) and that this inheritance comes to Abraham and his seed through an act of “God giving life to the dead” (4:17b).203 Thus, corresponding to humanity’s eschatological adoptive sonship (8:19, 21, 23) is the restoration of the entire world. The renewed creation will experience the reversal of God’s curses (Gen. 3:17-19) and it will be marked by glory (Rom. 8:18, 21), freedom (8:21), incorruption (8:21), the presence of the Spirit (now anticipated, 8:23), redeemedglory-filled-human-bodies (8:18, 23), and the fulfillment of humanity’s hopeful longings for its inheritance (8:18-19, 23-25).204 That the Messiah’s dominion would be marked by something like a return to the Garden of Eden and its peaceful and fertile conditions is frequently captive obedience to himself.” See Don Garlington, “Israel’s Triumphant King: Romans 1:5 and the Scriptures of Israel,” in Jesus and Paul: Global Perspectives in Honor of Jams D. G. Dunn for his 70th Birthday (ed. B. J. Oropeza, C. K. Robertson, Douglas C. Mohrmann; LNTS 414; London: T & T Clark, 2010), 173-83. On the messianic interpretive trajectory of Gen. 49:10, see 4QpGen a-d; 4QBer; T. Jud. 22:2-3. 201. Each of the four Septuagintal quotations in Rom. 15:9-12 shares the language of τὰ ἔθνη. 202. Whitsett, “Son of God, Seed of David,” 673. 203. On the significance of Christ’s resurrection from the dead for understanding Romans 4 and Paul’s righteousness language, see my “Rereading the Story of Abraham, Isaac, and ‘Us’ in Romans 4,” JSNT 32 (2009): 217-42. See also Forman, The Politics of Inheritance in Romans, 58-101. 204. There are numerous interesting and complex matters raised in Rom. 8:18-30 that, due to my limited purposes, cannot be entered into here. See, however, Harry Alan Hahne, The Corruption and Redemption of Creation: Nature in Romans 8.19-22 and Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (LNTS 336; London: T & T Clark, 2006); Edward Adams, “Paul’s Story of God and Creation,” in Narrative Dynamics in Paul, 19-43; “Christology and Identity in an Intertextual Perspective: The Glory of Adam in the Narrative Substructure of Paul’s Letter to the Romans,” in Identity Formation in the New Testament (ed. Bengt Holmberg and Mikael Winninge; WUNT 227; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2008), 1-18.

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attested, as we have seen, as one of Israel’s messianic expectations (e.g., LXX Ps. 71; Isa. 11).205 Paul’s citation of Isa. 11:10 (“the root of Jesse will come, and one will rise to rule the nations, the nations will hope in him,” Rom. 15:12) thereby explicitly connects the resurrected Messiah’s rule with the oracle’s expectation for a Spirit-empowered ruler who brings peace to all of creation.206 Just as David and his seed are recipients of the promises to Abraham for worldwide dominion and rule/blessing of the nations (e.g., Gen. 15:18; LXX Ps. 71:21-22; Jer. 33:14-26), so Paul sees the Messiah as the marked-out heir of God’s promise for globalized sovereignty over creation and all the nations.207 It is likely, then, that the Messiah’s inheritance (Ps. 2:7-8; Rom. 4:13; 8:17) is his rule over the entire world and its eschatological renewal (Rom. 8:18-25).208 The eschatological expectation of the revelation of the Messiah’s dominion over creation in 8:18-25, further, would almost certainly be heard as calling into question Rome’s imperial poets who celebrated Augustus’s rule as having inaugurated a new peaceful world order marked by peace, agricultural fertility, and abundance. 209 But Paul also conceptualizes the Lord’s enthroned rule and inheritance as something that is shared with his people. Paul conceptualizes this shared inheritance as the Messiah’s enablement of his people to participate in his cosmic rule over a restored creation. God’s intention for humanity to reign over creation as God’s vicegerents (Gen. 1:26-28; Ps. 8:4-6), an intention that was corrupted 205. On the relevance of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 1–3 and the promise of the land in Genesis’s Abrahamic narratives for Rom. 8:18-25, see Kirk, Unlocking Romans, 145-47. 206. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 820. 207. Most explicitly seen in the prayer for the king: “May all nations be blessed in him, all the nations will bless him” (εὐλογηθήσονται ἐν αὐτῷ πᾶσαι αἱ φυλαὶ τῆς γῆς, πάντα τὰ ἔθην μακαριοῦσιν αὐτόν; Ps. 71[72]:17). Compare with Gen. 22:18: “all the nations of the earth will be blessed by/in your seed” (καὶ ἐνευλογηθήσονται ἐν τῷ σπέρματί σου πάντα τὰ ἔθην τῆς γῆς). See also the promise to the seed in Gen. 13:15; 17:8; 24:7. See Juel, Messianic Exegesis, 87; Whitsett, “Son of God, Son of David,” 671-72. With some plausibility, it has been suggested that Gen. 22:18 provides the precedent for Paul’s formula “in Christ.” See Nils A. Dahl, “The Missionary Theology in the Epistle to the Romans,” in Studies in Paul: Theology for the Early Christian Mission (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1977), 131. Both Galatians 3 and Romans 4 provide significant evidence that Paul sees the Abrahamic promises through the lens of the Davidic covenant. Similarly, Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, 138-42; Scott, Adoption as Sons of God, 254-56. 208. So Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 819. 209. See chapter 3: “King and Praise.” See further the helpful discussion in Neil Elliott, “Creation, Cosmos, and Conflict in Romans 8–9,” in Apocalyptic Paul, 131-56, here 141-44.

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by Adam’s unleashing of a dominion of sin, death, and corruption of the cosmos (Rom. 5:12-21), is brought to fruition through the Messiah’s cosmic rule and his extension of this rule to his people.210 Paul’s reasoning stems from Christ’s sharing his Spirit-empoweredresurrected-sonship with his people; thus, if humanity shares in this sonship, then they too must be “heirs of God, that is co-heirs with the Messiah, if indeed we suffer together with him so that we may also be glorified together with him” (κληρονόμοι μὲν θεοῦ, συγκληρονόμοι δὲ Χριστοῦ, εἴπερ συμπάσχομεν ἵνα καὶ συνδοξασθῶμεν; 8:17b).211 Given that the Messiah suffered and died before his resurrection and glorification (4:24; 5:6-8; 6:3-4, 8-9; 7:4; 8:11, 34; 10:9; 14:9, 15; 15:3), Christians follow the same narrative pattern as they share in the sufferings (8:17-18) and creational bondage (8:20-23) that mark Adam’s dominion.212 The references to believers’ future “glorification” (8:17), the coming “glory that will be revealed for us” (8:18), and “the freedom of glory for God’s children” (8:21b) is precisely “the pristine glory meant for Adam, eschatologically restored to redeemed humanity” by virtue of the resurrected-enthroned Messiah’s new bodily existence (cf. “the image of his son”; 8:29).213 This inheritance is universal in scope and is something that is shared with the Son (cf. 8:17): how will God not also “freely give to us with him all things” (σὺν αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα ἡμῖν χαρίσεται; 8:32b). Paul makes a similar statement in 1 Cor. 3:21-23, where he tells the Corinthians “all things are yours” (πάντα γὰρ ὑμῶν ἐστιν; 3:21b). The Corinthians’ sovereign rule provides a fitting parallel to Rom. 8:32b, given that: (a) their rule is explicitly connected to their sharing in Christ’s rule 210. See also Forman, The Politics of Inheritance in Romans, 117-18. Adam is almost certainly behind Paul’s statement that creation was not willing subjected to futility, but rather “because of the one who subjected it [to corruption]” (Rom. 8:20). See Trevor J. Burke, “Adopted as Sons (ΥΙΟΘΕΣΙΑ): The Missing Piece in Pauline Soteriology,” in Paul: Jew, Greek, and Roman (ed. Stanley E. Porter; Pauline Studies 5; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 259-86, here 284-86. 211. We have seen above that God shares God’s glory (a circumlocution for divine presence) with the Davidic king. Here the “glory” language functions to denote that the resurrection life will be marked by honor, incorruption, and divine presence (see also 1 Cor. 15:39-45; Rom. 1:23; 3:23; 5:1-2; 8:19, 21). On this, see Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology. 212. On the overlap of the ages in Rom. 8:18-30, see Blackwell, Christosis, 152-57. 213. Adams, “Paul’s Story of God and Creation,” 29. See also Ben C. Blackwell, “Immortal Glory and the Problem of Death in Romans 3:23,” JSNT 32 (2010); 285-308. Though Paul speaks of Adam as “a type of the coming one” (Rom. 5:14b), Christ is the image of God after which Adam is patterned.

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(ὑμεῖς δὲ Χριστοῦ, Χριστὸς δὲ θεοῦ; 1 Cor. 3:23), and (b) their rule is cosmic and eschatological in scope (εἴτε κόσμος εἴτε ζωὴ εἴτε θάνατος, εἴτε ἐνεστῶτα εἴτε μέλλοντα, πάντα ὑμῶν; 1 Cor. 3:22b).214 Thus, God’s “giving us all things with him” in Rom. 8:32 is almost certainly expanded upon by all of 8:31-39 as the cosmic powers that threaten to “separate” (8:35, 39) Christ’s people from his loving rule over them. Since Christ’s people share in Christ’s cosmic rule, these powers are impotent to “stand against us” (8:31b), to “bring a charge against us” (8:33), to “condemn” (8:34), or to “separate us from Christ’s love” (8:35, 39).215 Paul’s allusions to Christ’s cosmic and universal sovereignty with the term πρωτότοκον in Rom. 8:29 (LXX Ps. 88:26; “I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth”) and to LXX Ps. 109:1 in Rom. 8:34 (where the resurrected Messiah is seated at God’s right hand and interceding for humanity) suggest that the “all things” in 8:32 and the “inheritance together with Christ” include a share in Christ’s reign over the cosmic enemies of the old dominion.216 In fact, 8:33-34 presents the resurrected and enthroned Messiah as granting judicial protection over his people from his and their enemies.217 The Messiah’s enthronement to a position of divine power (8:34; cf. 1:4) insures that there is simply no aspect of creation, no cosmic power belonging to Adam’s dominion, that can return Christ’s people to their former enslavement to the reign of sin and death.218 Paul’s promise that the “God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (ὁ θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης συντρίψει τὸν σατανᾶν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας ὑμῶν ἐν τάχει; 16:20; cf. Ps. 8:7; Gen. 3:15) is relevant, in that God enables humanity to participate in his eschatological triumph over evil.219 The believers’ cosmic rule over these enemies is, again, dependent upon 214. Paul speaks of the Corinthians’ eschatological rule in 1 Cor. 4:8 sarcastically, but the sarcasm falls not on the Corinthians’ rule but rather on their supposed rule apart from Paul. Likewise, in 1 Cor. 6:3 Paul appeals to the Corinthians’ future standing in judgment over the angels. See also Litwa, We Are Being Transformed, 185-86. 215. For a powerful theological reflection on how Christ’s kingship assures humanity of its eschatological victory, see Philip G. Ziegler, “The Love of God Is a Sovereign Thing: The Witness of Romans 8:31-39 and the Royal Office of Jesus Christ,” in Apocalyptic Paul,111-30. 216. Scott, Adoption as Sons of God, 249-54. 217. On Rom. 8:33-34 as judicial discourse, see Eskola, Messiah and Throne, 186; cf. Kirk, Unlocking Romans, 153-54. 218. See Ziegler, “The Love of God Is a Sovereign Thing,” 122-26.

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the christological narrative of the resurrected Messiah, for to have lordship over suffering (Rom. 8:35), the rulers and powers of the old age (8:38), death (8:36, 38), and Satan (16:20) depends upon sharing the destiny and inheritance of the resurrected-enthroned Lord (8:34; cf. 8:29).220 Thus, over all of these markers and powers of the old age, “we abundantly conquer through the one who has loved us” (ὑπερνικῶμεν διὰ τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντος ἡμᾶς; 8:37). Christ’s people are the ones who conquer, but this victory takes place by means of their participation in the Messiah’s triumph.221 Sharing in Christ’s Rule in Ephesians and 1 Corinthians That Paul develops his participatory soteriology through an innovative rereading of Israel’s royal traditions around Jesus is confirmed by his deployment of this discourse in significant portions of his other letters. And while a full exegetical treatment of these letters cannot be entered into here, I suggest that charting the broad lines of this argument nicely confirms what we have already seen, even as it shows Paul’s creative use of royal participatory soteriology to meet the exigent needs of different epistolary situations. Ephesians Paul develops his participatory soteriology in Ephesians by rereading Israel’s royal-messianic ideology, particularly LXX Psalm 109, such that the Messiah’s people not only benefit from, but also participate in, the Messiah’s resurrection, enthronement, rule over his enemies, and heavenly-cosmic blessings.222 Paul’s participatory metaphors declare 219. Michael J. Thate, “Paul at the Ball: Ecclesia Victor and the Cosmic Defeat of Personified Evil in Romans 16:20,” in Paul’s World (ed. Stanley Porter; Pauline Studies 4; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 151-69. 220. Forman, in commenting on Rom. 8:29 and Christ’s status as firstborn among a large family, states: “This suggests that in the process of being conformed to Christ believers become ‘brothers and sisters’ of God’s Son, a relationship which means the people of God participate in Christ’s reign over creation” (The Politics of Inheritance in Romans, 119). 221. Commenting on “we more than conquer” in 8:37, Macaskill states this idea nicely: “The verb is noteworthy for the way in which the victory, which in context must surely be seen as Christ’s own, is ascribed to the agency of believers, indicating again the actualizing of his narrative in them through their activity” (Union with Christ in the New Testament, 241). 222. I have made this argument with respect to Ephesians in much more detail in Joshua W. Jipp,

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that what has happened to the Messiah in his resurrection and enthronement is true, by participation, of the Messiah’s people. In Ephesians, when Paul speaks of God as the acting subject, he does so by having God act through the channel of the Messiah.223 God’s acting through the Messiah is often indicated by the use of the phrase ἐν Χριστῷ and related prepositional constructions; so we frequently find the pattern of God as the subject of a verbal idea that is put into effect “in/by Christ.”224 The syntactical sense of many of these “in Christ” prepositional phrases is, on first blush, instrumental,225 though, I suggest, a locative or participatory sense is also likely for most of these phrases. So, for example, “God has forgiven you in/by the Messiah” (ὁ θεὸς ἐν Χριστῷ ἐχαρίσατο ὑμῖν; Eph. 4:32).226 God has blessed “us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in/by the Messiah (ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίος ἐν Χριστῷ; 1:3; cf. 1:4).227 God demonstrated his great power “in/by the Messiah” (Ἣν ἐνέργησεν ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ) by seating him at God’s right hand (1:20). The Messiah is, then, as John A. Allan has argued, God’s agent “through whom God works his will, elects, redeems, forgives, blesses, imparts new life, builds up his church.”228 Thus Paul uses ἐν Χριστῷ

“Sharing in the Heavenly Rule of Christ the King: Paul’s Royal Participatory Language in Ephesians,” in “In Christ’ in Paul: Explorations in Paul’s Theology of Union and Participation (ed. Michael J. Thate, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, and Constantine R. Campbell; WUNT 2.384; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck. 2014), 251-79. 223. This has been argued by Smith, who concludes by suggesting that God’s consistent activity in the Messiah “coheres well with the concept of the ideal king in antiquity, who served as the vicegerent of the High God” (Christ the Ideal King, 185-95, here 195). 224. Scholars frequently describe this as “God does or gives X for God’s people in/by the Messiah.” See Smith, Christ the Ideal King, 183. Campbell says that the phrase is frequently used to indicate that “God’s acts towards believers are performed through Christ or are in some way conditioned or associated with Christ” (Paul and Union with Christ, 94). Cf. Te-Li Lau, The Politics of Peace: Ephesians, Dio Chrysostom, the Confucian Four Books (NovTSup 133; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 53-54. 225. John A. Allan, “The ‘In Christ’ Formula in Ephesians,” NTS 5 (1958): 54-62. 226. For an example of trying to convey the instrumental and locative force of the preposition in 4:32, see Lau, The Politics of Peace, 53-54: “God forgave you through Christ and brought you into Christ.” 227. While not wishing to deny an instrumental sense of ἐν Χριστῷ, the preceding ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίος, which is certainly locative, suggests here that the in-Christ formula refers to the location or position of those in-Christ. They are “in Christ,” namely, with him “in the heavens.” This is further bolstered by the fact that Paul portrays Christ as raised and enthroned in heaven, and those in Christ as sharing in this heavenly enthronement (1:20-23 and 2:5-6). For an interpretation that argues for a primarily instrumental sense of the prepositional phrase, see Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 82-84. 228. Allan, “The ‘In Christ’ Formula in Ephesians,” 59.

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and its correlates as shorthand in order to mark out the Messiah as God’s agent who accomplishes his purposes. The “in Messiah” formula also, however, often has a locative sense, and thereby participatory connotations, in many of these constructions, for Paul clearly uses the formula to refer to believers as sharing in the identity of the Messiah.229 The Messiah’s exaltation (1:20-23), for example, is the basis for the church’s co-resurrection and co-exaltation “in the heavenly places in Messiah Jesus” (ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ; 2:6b).230 The Messiah’s resurrection is the foundation, then, for God’s “making [the church] alive together with him” (συνεζωοποίησεν τῷ Χριστῷ; 2:5b). So when Paul begins his epistle by blessing God for granting the church “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in/by the Messiah (ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις ἐν Χριστῷ, 1:3),” it is likely that ἐν Χριστῷ has both an instrumental sense (i.e., the Messiah as the agent) and local sense (i.e., the church shares in the identity of the Messiah). The σύν- prefixes, which indicate association between the Messiah and his people, further suggest that the ἐν prepositional phrases do not exclude a locative force.231 Believers, then, are not only the recipients of God’s actions by means of the Messiah, but they are also said to share with the Messiah in his identity and in his rule. May it be that the formula retains both connotations precisely because when God acts by means of the Messiah, God acts to incorporate the people into the identity and rule of the Messiah (cf. 5:5)? That is, the way in which God rules, saves, and forgives is by the agency of the Messiah in whose rule they participate. 229. Ibid.: “It should now be clear that there is an entire absence in Ephesians of the deeper and more striking features of Paul’s use of the formula, and little or no trace of the intense personal emotion it expresses in Paul. The epistle is marked by a very extensive use of the formula, but its use is predominantly, if not exclusively, in the instrumental sense. . . . ‘In Christ’ is no longer for this Writer the formula of incorporation into Christ, but has become the formula of God’s activity through Christ.” Lau is nearer to the mark in arguing that “in Christ” is “not a formula with a single meaning” and that the prepositional phrase often carries both instrumental and locative connotations (The Politics of Peace, 52-57, here 52). Similarly, with respect to Ephesians, see Moule, The Origin of Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 62-63. 230. See here Thomas G. Allen, “Exaltation and Solidarity with Christ: Ephesians 1:20 and 2:6,” JSNT 28 (1986): 103-20. 231. Campbell states with respect to the σύν-prefixed verbs in Eph. 2:5-6 that they “express accompaniment and association, including participation with Christ in his being made alive, his ascension, and his being seated in the heavens” (Paul and Union with Christ, 233). Further locative senses of the formula can be found in Eph. 1:1, 4, 13; 2:15; 3:11; 4:21.

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Since the Messiah is the agent of salvation and the location where salvation is found, I suggest that we retain both instrumental and locative senses of ἐν Χριστῷ.232 So, if the ἐν Χριστῷ formula has both connotations, then God, for example, gives resurrection life to the people by means of the Messiah, that is, by means of enabling them to share in the Messiah’s resurrection life (2:5-6).233 LXX Psalm 109 supplies the narrative movement and categories for God’s resurrection and enthronement of the Messiah in Eph. 1:20-23. Though Paul is focused on resurrection, the presupposition for this triumphant event is that the Messiah is under opposition from hostile political-cosmic powers (1:21) not unlike the anointed figure in Psalm 2, and they have managed to bring about the Messiah’s death (cf. ἐκ νεκρῶν; 1:20a). So too the Messiah’s people were formerly in a state of death as they were beholden to their transgressions and sins (ὑμᾶς ὄντας νεκρούς; 2:1 ὄντας ἡμᾶς νεκρούς; 2:5). Those responsible for humanity’s state of “death” are the same enemies of the Messiah (cf. 1:21); namely, the hostile rulers of “the age of this world” (τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου; 2:2), and “the ruler of the authority of the air” (τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος; 2:2).234 Given Paul’s direct citation of LXX Pss. 109:1 (Eph. 1:20) and 8:7 (Eph. 1:22), it is likely that the enemies of God and his anointed are understood by Paul through the lens of the Psalms’ portrait of opposition to the anointed (Pss. 2:2-3; 109:2-3; cf. Dan. 7:27).235 God responds, however, to the enemies of the Messiah by demonstrating great power “at work in the Messiah by raising him from the dead” (Ἣν ἐνήργησεν ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ ἐγείρας αὐτόν ἐκ νεκρῶν; Eph. 1:20a). God not only raises the Messiah but also, “seats him at his right hand, that is, in the heavenly places” (καθίσας ἐν δεξιᾷ αὐτοῦ ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις; Eph. 1:20b; LXX Ps. 109:1).236 The opposition against the 232. Similarly, see Ernest Best, One Body in Christ: A Study in the Relationship of the Church to Christ in the Epistles of the Apostle Paul (London: SPCK, 1955), 5. Cf. Moule, The Origin of Christology, 54-56, 62. 233. Best, One Body in Christ, 29. 234. On the connections between 1:20-23 and 2:1-6, see Allen, “Exaltation and Solidarity with Christ,” 103-4. 235. See also Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, 144-45. 236. Timothy G. Gombis argues that Paul “echoes the movement of the entire psalm, especially the

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Messiah is thereby overcome, as it is in Psalm 2, by God’s act of giving resurrection life to God’s anointed and sharing the heavenly throne with God’s vicegerent. The resurrected-enthroned Messiah, having taken his royal seat at God’s right hand, now receives the subjection of all things underneath his feet (Eph. 1:22a; cf. Ps. 8:7).237 God’s enthronement of God’s king is cosmic in scope, in that the Messiah is exalted over every imaginable heavenly power, that is, “above all rule, authority, power, lord, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the coming age” (ὑπεράνω πάσης ἀρχῆς καὶ ἐξουσίας καὶ δυνάμεως καὶ κυριότητος καὶ παντὸς ὀνόματος ὀνομαζομένου οὐ μόνον ἐν τῷ αἰῶνι τούτῳ ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν τῷ μέλλοντι; Eph. 1:21). These rulers over which the Messiah now reigns are the same hostile rulers of “the age of this world” (τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου; 2:2), namely, “the ruler of the authority of the air” (τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος; 2:2) that have held humanity in a state of death and bondage to sin (2:1, 5). The Messiah’s enthronement over the evil powers results in the salvation and rescue of the king’s subjects (χάριτί ἐστε σεσῳμένοι; 2:5; Τῇ γὰρ χάριτί ἐστε σεσῳμένοι; 2:8; αὐτὸς σωτὴρ τοῦ σώματος; 5:23).238 But Paul sees the resurrection and enthronement of the Messiah as having more than positive implications for the Messiah’s subjects; those who are “in Messiah Jesus” (ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ; Eph. 2:6b, 7b) actually participate in the Messiah’s resurrection and enthronement. Thus, God has “made them alive together with the Messiah” (συνεζωοποίησεν τῷ Χριστῷ; 2:5), “raised them together,” (συνήγειρεν) and “seated them together in the heavenly places in Messiah Jesus” manner in which the conquering activity of God and Christ in Eph. 2 reflects the subjecting activity of Yahweh and his appointed king in Ps. 110” (“Ephesians 2 as a Narrative of Divine Warfare,” JSNT 26 [2004]: 403-18, here 408-9). See also Fee, Pauline Christology, 353. 237. The link between Ps. 110:1 and Ps. 8:7 appears to have developed at the very beginning stages of early Christian Christology (see 1 Cor. 15:23-28; Heb. 2:5-18; 1 Pet. 3:22). See Lee, From Messiah to Preexistent Son, 216-23. 238. On the good king as the savior of his people and “Savior” as a typical honorific for many of the Hellenistic kings, see Donald Dale Walker, Paul’s Offer of Leniency (2 Cor 10:1): Populist Ideology and Rhetoric in a Pauline Letter Fragment (WUNT 2.152; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2002), 127-28 n. 138. The good king was frequently portrayed as rescuing his subjects and fighting their battles out of his love or φιλανθρωπία for his subjects (Let. Aris. 289–290; Plutarch, Alex. 21.3; Dio Chrysostom, 1 Regn. 20). See further Celsus Spicq, “La philanthropie hellénistique, vertu divine et royale (à propos de Tit 3:4)” ST 12 (1958): 169-91.

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(συνεκάθισεν ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ; 2:6).239 The three σύνprefixed compound verbs in 2:5-6 recall Paul’s use of LXX Psalm 109 in Eph. 1:20-23,240 but here he applies the royal notion of resurrection and enthronement to all who are in Messiah Jesus, thereby royal-izing the king’s subjects.241 As God rescued the Messiah “from the dead” (Eph. 1:20a) and “seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places” (1:20b), so God has rescued the Messiah’s subjects from “death” (2:1, 5) and seated them with God “in the heavenly places; namely, in Messiah Jesus” (ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ; 2:5b). The locative force of the preceding prepositional phrases should not be missed, for they indicate the messianic-royal realm where believers now rule—in the heavenly realm with the Messiah himself.242 The Messiah’s resurrection life and heavenly rule are now realities that the Messiah’s people participate in by virtue of their incorporation into Messiah Jesus and his rule. That is, the royal promises made to the king in Israel’s Psalter, particularly the promises of resurrection and enthronement, now belong both to the Messiah and his people. The peoples’ sharing in the Messiah’s resurrection and enthronement is the foundation for their active participation in the Messiah’s triumph over the evil powers as they do battle against the powers of evil (6:10-20). When Paul says “be empowered in the Lord and by the might of his strength” (ἐνδuναμοῦσθε ἐν κυρίῳ καὶ ἐν τῷ κράτει τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ; 6:10), it is difficult to determine whether the prepositional phrases “in the Lord” and “in the strength of his might” refer to God’s strength or the Messiah’s strength.243 Yet based on Paul’s previous mention of power language, I suggest that Paul is referring to God’s powerful agency that has been climactically displayed in God’s resurrection of the Messiah. So in 1:19-20 he has prayed that the saints 239. See Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 84-86. 240. The three σύν- prefixed verbs stress the relational solidarity between the Messiah and his people. So Allen, “Exaltation and Solidarity with Christ,” 105; Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 232-33. On the significance of the relationship between 1:20-23 and 2:5-6, see A. T. Lincoln, “A ReExamination of ‘the Heavenlies’ in Ephesians,” NTS 19 (1973): 468-83, here 472-74. 241. Gombis, “Ephesians 2 as a Narrative of Divine Warfare,” 410-11; Markus Barth, Ephesians 1–3: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 34; New York: Doubleday, 1974), 164-65. 242. Allen, “Exaltation and Solidarity with Christ,” 106. 243. Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 151-54.

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might know “the surpassing greatness of [God’s] power for us who believe, which is according to the mighty power of his strength (κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν τοῦ κράτους τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ), which he worked (Ἣν ἐνήργησεν) when he raised the Messiah from the dead and seated him at his right hand.” Thus, Paul’s language of divine power is inextricably tied to God’s mighty act of raising and enthroning the Son to God’s right hand. When Paul prays to this powerful God (Τῷ δὲ δυναμένῳ; 3:20a) as the one who works about the divine will for the people according to the power which is at work within us” (κατὰ τὴν δύναμιν τὴν ἐνεργουμένην ἐν ἡμῖν; 3:20b), based on the parallel with 1:19-20, Paul is declaring that God’s resurrection power is intrinsic to the life of the church. Thus, by virtue of its union with the resurrected-enthroned Messiah (1:20-23; 2:5-6), the church is strengthened with God’s resurrection power to do battle against its enemies. There is no need, however, for the church to triumph over its enemies, but rather simply a need to resist them (6:11, 13), given that they are the same enemies the Messiah has already defeated (6:12). They are the same “rulers” (τὰς ἀρχάς; 6:12; cf. πάσης ἀρχῆς; 1:21), “authorities” (τὰς ἐξουσίας; 6:12; cf. πάσης . . . ἐξουσίας; 1:21; τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος; 2:2b), and “cosmic powers of this darkness” (τοὺς κοσμοκράτορας τοῦ σκότους τούτου; 6:12; τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου; 2:1) that the Messiah subjected to his rule when he was enthroned “in the heavenly places” (ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις; 1:20b), thereby ending their evil dominion “in the heavenly places” (ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις; 6:12b). 1 Corinthians 15:20-28 In 1 Cor. 1:9 Paul states that God has called the Corinthian church into existence “for the purpose of fellowship with his son Jesus Christ our Lord” (εἰς κοινωνίαν τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν), and one of the ways Paul conceptualizes the church’s fellowship with the Son is through sharing in the Messiah’s sovereign lordship over all things by virtue of sharing Christ’s Spirit. Paul reminds them of this when he chastises the Corinthians for losing sight of their cosmic

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inheritance when they boast about their favorite apostle, for “all things” belong to them (3:21), and this includes not merely Christian leaders like Paul and Apollos, but even “the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come—all things are yours” (εἴτε κόσμος εἴτε ζωὴ εἴτε θάνατος, εἴτε ἐνεστῶτα εἴτε μέλλοντα, πάντα ὑμῶν; 3:22; cf. Rom. 8:32).244 The submission of these cosmic powers to the Corinthians stems, however, from their belonging to the Messiah: “you belong to the Messiah, and the Messiah to God” (1 Cor. 3:23). The weight of Paul’s sarcasm, then, in 1 Cor. 4:8-9 is not on the Corinthian expectation that they will be kings, but that they are already kings apart from and without Paul (χωρὶς ἡμῶν ἐβασιλεύσατε). Paul’s hope, in fact, is that the Corinthians “might reign, so that we might reign with you” (ἐβασιλεύσατε, ἵνα καὶ ἡμεῖς ὑμῖν συμβασιλεύσωμεν; 4:8b; cf. Rom. 5:17-19; 2 Tim. 2:8-11a).245 In 1 Cor. 6:1-11 Paul twice appeals to the Corinthians’ hope of sharing in Christ’s sovereignty as the foundation for appropriate moral behavior: (a) The Corinthians must not take their brothers and sisters to court, since “they will judge the world” (6:2) and “will judge angels” (6:3); and (b) the saving realities mediated to them by virtue of their incorporation “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (6:11) insures that they will not be among those who do not inherit God’s kingdom (θεοῦ βασιλείαν οὐ κληρονομήσουσιν; 6:9; οὐκ . . . βασιλείαν θεοῦ κληρονομήσουσιν; 6:10).246 The close relationship between Messiah and Spirit (ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ ἐν τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν; 6:11) enables the Corinthians to inherit God’s kingdom, given that they have been joined to the resurrected Messiah’s πνεῦμα. Without entering into the complexities of 1 Cor. 6:12-20 and 15:35-49, it can be seen that Paul’s participatory discourse depends upon the premise that the Corinthians 244. Many of the disagreements between Paul and the Corinthians appear to stem from an ideological conflict between Paul’s Jewish apocalyptic and eschatological thinking and the Corinthians’ influence by Hellenistic philosophy and rhetoric. See Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995); Bruce W. Winter, After Paul Left Corinth: The Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001). On Paul’s attempt to get the Corinthians to think eschatologically, see Richard B. Hays, “The Conversion of the Imagination: Scripture and Eschatologically in 1 Corinthians,” NTS 45 (1999): 391-412. 245. See Litwa, We Are Being Transformed, 186-87. 246. On which, see Forman, The Politics of Inheritance in Romans, 208-9.

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participate in Christ because they share the same πνεῦμα, the same Spirit that the Messiah received when he was raised from the dead (esp. 6:13; 15:45).247 By virtue of sharing in Christ’s πνεῦμα, the Corinthians are joined to the Lord and assured of sharing in Christ’s resurrection (6:14, 17). This is the logic again in 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul argues that the Corinthian church is “the Messiah’s body” (σῶμα τῷ Χριστοῦ; 12:27), since it shares in the one and same πνεῦμα that belongs to the Messiah (12:3, 11, 12-13). We have already had occasion to see how Greco-Roman authors conceptualize the relationship between king and people as a relationship in which the king is the mind or spirit of the people, who are the king’s body.248 Thus, whereas Seneca (and others) spoke of the king as the mind or the spirit that directs the body, here Paul sees the Messiah’s sharing of his own πνεῦμα as the bond that enables Christ’s subjects to share in the king’s rule. 249 Thus Paul’s conceptualization of the Corinthians’ inheritance of God’s kingdom (15:50) and participation in Christ’s cosmic rule depends upon having Christ’s πνεῦμα (6:9-11, 12-20; 12:1-31; 15:35-49). Paul’s promises to the Corinthians that they will share in God’s kingdom and sovereignty are predicated on the apocalyptic scenario of 15:20-28, a schema that has been reworked around the resurrection of the Messiah and his return.250 Paul portrays the Messiah and his battle here in cosmic-political language: (a) the Messiah’s return is referred to as a παρούσια, a term that echoes imperial visitations251; (b) the term τάγμα, used in 15:23a to describe the distinction between Christ’s resurrection and the future resurrection from the dead, was often used to describe the division of troops in an army and it suggests that Paul depicts Christ and his people as a messianic army prepared to do battle;252 (c) that concept of a victorious Messiah accompanied by his subjects, namely “those who belong to Christ” (οἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ; 15:23), 247. ὁ δὲ κολλώμενος τῷ κυρίῳ ἓν πνεῦμά ἐστιν (6:17). See here I, The Corinthian Body, 174-79; Stowers, “What Is ‘Pauline Participation in Christ’?,” 357-59. 248. See chapter 3, “King and Praise.” See esp. Seneca, Clem. 1.3.5; 1.4.1-3; 2.2.1. 249. Though they do not connect the concept with Christ’s kingship/messiahship, see Johnson Hodge, If Sons, Then Heirs; Stowers, “What Is ‘Pauline Participation in Christ’?” 250. Richard B. Hays, 1 Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 264. 251. BAGD, 629-30; Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 1230.

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was a well known topos in early Judaism and the New Testament;253 and (d) The Messiah’s primary activity is one of triumph by means of destruction of his cosmic-political powers (καταργήσῃ πᾶσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ πᾶσαν ἐξουσίαν καὶ δύναμιν; 15:24).254 Paul’s description of Christ’s victory resonates strongly with Daniel’s Son of Man figure, who receives from God a kingdom, a rule, and an authority that results in the subjection of God’s enemies (cf. Dan. 7:13-14, esp. 7:27).255 The Messiah’s defeat of these enemies coincides with his “handing over the kingdom to the God and father” (παραδιδῷ τὴν βασιλείαν τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρί; 1 Cor. 15:24a), and this is ultimately for the purpose “that God might be all in all” (ἵνα ᾖ ὁ θεὸς πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν; 15:28b)—statements that resonate with Israel’s royal depictions of the Messiah who rules for God on his behalf.256 While 1 Cor. 15:20-28 is suffused with echoes of Genesis 1–3, military vocabulary, and Daniel’s Son of Man figure, the logic that underwrites Christ’s entrance into cosmic and universal lordship over his enemies is Jesus’s Davidic Messiahship. Christ is the one who shares in divine kingship as the enthroned Lord who rules and defeats God’s enemies (δεῖ γὰρ αὐτὸν βασιλεύειν ἄχρι οὗ θῇ πάντας τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ; LXX Ps. 109:1 in 1 Cor. 15:25), and the one who subdues these political-cosmic enemies, foremost of which is “Death” (15:24, 26). He shares in and embodies Adam’s vocation to have universal dominion over creation (πάντα γὰρ ὑπέταξεν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ; Ps. 8:7 in 1 Cor. 15:27a).257 Given that Jesus is the Davidic Messiah, Novenson notes, 252. See, for only a few examples, Let. Aris. 26; Josephus, Ant. 20, 122; 1 Clem. 37:1-3; 40:1. See also Hays, 1 Corinthians, 264-65; Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 1229; BAGD, 802-03. 253. Martinus C. de Boer, The Defeat of Death: Apocalyptic Eschatology in 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5 (JSNTSup 22; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988), 200-202; J. Christian Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980). 254. On the political resonances of 1 Cor. 15:23-25, see Forman, The Politics of Inheritance in Romans, 210-12. 255. See Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, 143-44; cf. James A. Waddell, The Messiah: A Comparative Study of the Enochic Son of Man and the Pauline Kyrios (T & T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts Series 10; London: T & T Clark, 2011), 154-56. 256. Novenson rightly notes that Christ here serves the purposes “of the ultimate kingship of God” and that “Christ is God’s delegate, whose job it is to subdue all of the hostile powers that oppose God in the present evil age” (Christ among the Messiahs, 144). 257. On Jesus’ Davidic Messiahship as standing behind the apocalyptic scenario of 1 Cor. 15:20-28, see Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, 143-46. On Paul’s use of Psalms 109 and 8 to portray Christ’s enthronement, see Eskola, Messiah and Throne, 182-84. See also Jan Lambrecht, “Paul’s

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“Paul appeals to psalms of David as if they are straightforwardly about Christ, as for him they are.”258 This allows Paul to weave together, as Wright has suggested, “the theme of kingship, of messianic rule, from Psalm 110 and Daniel, in order to emphasize that the future bodily resurrection of all the Messiah’s people is guaranteed because Jesus fulfills the roles through which, according to the promises, the world is to be brought under the saving rule of its creator God.” 259 Paul’s statements that “through a man came death” (1 Cor. 15:21b) and “in Adam all die” (15:22a) speak to Adam’s failure to extend God’s righteous dominion over creation and, instead, to his unleashing of a death-dealing rule over creation by God’s enemies.260 The hope that someone from Adam’s seed would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15) is reworked in Israel’s royal traditions into an expectation for a Davidic deliverer who would conquer Israel’s cosmic-mythical enemies by crushing them underneath the king’s feet.261 The enemies will bow down and “lick the dust” (LXX Ps. 71:9); they will be subjected “under feet” (LXX Ps. 109:1; cf. Ps. 8:6; 2 Sam. 23:39). Likewise, the head of the dragon will be “crushed” (LXX Ps. 73:13-14), and the serpent will be “trampled under foot” (LXX Ps. 90:13).262 Significantly, the two texts that appear to have been the most strongly influenced by Gen. 3:15 are Psalm 8 and LXX Psalm 109. In the former, God is described as having placed “all things under his feet” (Ps. 8:6). And in LXX Psalm 109:1, God declares to the one sharing the throne: “I will make your enemies a stool for your feet.” As we have seen, Paul’s promise to Christological Use of Scripture on 1 Cor. 15:20-28,” NovT 28 (1982): 502-27. The echoes of Israel’s Scriptures are set out clearly by N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, vol. 3; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 333-38. 258. Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, 146. 259. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 335. 260. Oscar Cullmann has suggested that Paul may have some awareness of the Gospel tradition’s employment of “the Son of Man” honorific. While the evidence for Paul’s use of this tradition is slender and difficult to prove, the relationship between Adam and the Son of Man in Jewish tradition would count in its favor (The Christology of the New Testament [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963], 172,). See Joel Marcus, “Son of Man as Son of Adam,” RB 110 (2003): 38-61. 261. On the role of Genesis 3:15 in the royal ideology of the psalmist, see Alexander, “Royal Expectations in Genesis to Kings,” 204-5; W. Wifall, “Gen 3:15—A Protevangelium?” CBQ 36 (1974): 361-65. 262. It is not unlikely that the widespread hope in later Jewish texts for Israel’s enemies to be crushed underfoot is also dependent upon speculation on Gen. 3:15. For example, see 1 En. 10:4, 11-12; 13:1-2; T. Mos. 10:1; 1QS 3:18; 4:18-23.

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the Romans that God will “crush Satan under your feet” (ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας ὑμῶν) grants humanity a share in defeating God’s enemies by deploying Israel’s messianic traditions of the defeat of evil through God’s Messiah (Rom. 16:20; Gen. 3:15; Ps. 8:7; LXX Ps. 109:1).263 And here in 1 Cor. 15:27-28 the five occurrences of words related to ὑποτάσσω show that Christ’s messianic identity is enacted in his ability to bring all of creation into submission to the rule of God.264 The six occurrences of forms of ὑποτάσσω, which is derived from the word τάγμα (15:23), suggest that the subjection of the Son to the Father restores the order of creation that was lost in Adam. Thus Paul insists on the priority of the Father over the Son in the eschatological drama.265 The Son is the Father’s agent, who works for the Father’s ultimate exaltation and glory (15:28).266 Paul’s statement that the last enemy who will be defeated is death explicitly calls the reader back, both conceptually and linguistically, to Adam, the one through whom death attained its dominion (δι᾽ ἀνθρώπου θάνατος; 15:21). Death is portrayed as the cosmic enemy of the Messiah and his people, a sign of Adam’s corruption of creation. Death is also portrayed as exercising a cosmic dominion over humanity (15:24-26), and this suggests that Paul’s (negative) participatory statement that “in Adam all die” (15:22a) speaks to Adam’s kingly role as humanity’s (failed) representative. The destruction of Adam’s deathdealing dominion takes place through the Messiah’s resurrection from the dead (15:20-21), an event that inaugurates the Messiah’s royal 263. Note the messianic reading, which is certainly a Christian interpolation, of Genesis 3:15 in T. Sim. 6:5. “Then Shem shall be glorified because God the Lord, the Great One in Israel, will be manifest upon the earth. By himself he will save Adam. Then all the spirits of error shall be given over to being trampled underfoot. And men will have mastery over the evil spirits.” See, further, Max Wilcox, “The Promise of the ‘Seed’ in the New Testament and the Targumim,” JSNT 5 (1979): 2-20. 264. πάντα γὰρ ὑπέταξεν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ. ὅταν δὲ εἴπῃ ὅτι πάντα ὑποτέτακται, δῆλον ὅτι ἐκτὸς τοῦ ὑποτάξαντος αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα. ὄταν δὲ ὑποταγῇ αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα, τότε καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ υἱὸς ὑποταγήσεται τῷ ὑποτάξαντι αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα, ἵνα ᾖ ὁ θεὸς τὰ πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν. 265. Wayne Meeks suggests that the Son’s submission may be highlighted by Paul in order to counter the “competition for status and distinction, which seems to have plagued the Corinthian household congregations.” See Wayne A. Meeks, “The Temporary Reign of the Son: 1 Cor 15:23-28,” in Texts and Contexts: Biblical Texts in Their Textual and Situational Contexts (ed. Tord Fornberg and David Hellholm; Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1995), 801-11, here 807. 266. Robin Scroggs, “Paul: Myth Remaker. The Refashioning of Early Ecclesial Traditions,” in Pauline Conversations in Context: Essays in Honor of Calvin J. Roetzel (ed. Janice Capel Anderson, Philip Sellew, and Claudia Setzer; JSNTSup 221; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2002), 87-103, here 98.

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enthronement and position to a place of divine power (15:25-27). This suggests that Paul’s christological participatory statements, “through a man is the resurrection from the dead” (δι᾽ ἀνθρώπου ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν; 15:21b) and “in the Messiah all will be made alive” (ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ πάντες ζῳοποιηθήσονται; 15:22b), and the earlier promises to share in Christ’s sovereignty (3:21-23; 4:8-9; 6:2-3, 9-11) should be understood as conceptualizing union with Christ as participation in his royal narrative and identity, particularly in his cosmic triumph over his enemies, his establishment of God’s kingdom, and his resurrection life and victory over death. Those who are in Christ and participate in his resurrection life (15:21-22) are also those who inherit the kingdom of God (σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα βασιλείαν θεοῦ κληρονομῆσαι οὐ δύναται οὐδὲ ἡ φθορὰ τὴν ἀφθαρσίαν κληρονομεῖ; 15:50).267 As rulers over “all things” (3:21-23) and who “inherit the kingdom of God” (6:9-11; 15:50), Paul conceptualizes union with Christ as participating in the Davidic Messiah’s cosmic rule, triumph, and judgment. Conclusion In this chapter I have not presented a framework or context for understanding all of Paul’s participatory soteriology. For example, Paul uses meals (1 Cor. 10:14-22; 11:23-26), marriage and sexual intercourse (Rom. 7:4-6; Eph. 5:21-33; 1 Cor. 6:12-20), and baptism (Rom. 6:3-6; Col. 2:12) to conceptualize union with Christ, and these images and practices are not directly related to kingship ideology. Along with others, I maintain, however, that Paul’s understanding of Jesus as a kingly figure, predicated upon Jesus’ Davidic Messiahship, that is, his sharing in God’s own kingship and his representation and embodiment of his people in his person, provides the logic for Paul’s participatory discourse even where explicit royal motifs are absent. The king alone is uniquely situated as the only one who can mediate God’s life and salvation to the people. The abundance of royal discourse used to conceptualize Paul’s grammar of union with Christ confirms, in my 267. On the relationship between 1 Cor. 15:50 and 15:23-25, see Forman, The Politics of Inheritance in Romans, 209.

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opinion, the likelihood that Jesus’ identity as Israel’s Davidic Messiah, as seen in relation to his particular narrative as one who suffered and died in obedience to God, was raised to life, and enthroned at God’s right hand by the Spirit, contributed to Paul’s creative conceptualizing of Christ’s people inhabiting and sharing in the identity and narrative of Jesus the Messiah. Paul’s innovation and creativity is on display, it seems to me, in his taking (possibly pre-Pauline) christological confessions (e.g., Rom. 1:3-4; 1 Cor. 15:1-5) and hymns (Col 1:15-20; Phil. 2:6-11) and developing and expanding them into the pattern for Christ’s sharing of his saving rule with his people.

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King and Justice: God’s Righteousness and the Righteous King in Romans

“The duties of the king are threefold, military leadership, the dispensation of justice, and the cult of the gods.”1 “He delivered me, because he delighted in me. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness.”2 “There is no one who is righteous, not one.”3

Paul’s frequent use of δικ- words, particularly in Romans, has been a source of consternation for every interpreter of the book.4 What is the meaning, for example, of the phrase “God’s righteousness” (Rom. 1:17; 3:5, 21, 22, 25, 26; 10:3)? Does Paul intend the reader to make a distinction between “God’s righteousness” and “righteousness,” the 1. Diotogenes, quoted in Erwin R. Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” YCS 1 (1928): 55-102, here 66. 2. LXX Ps. 17:19b-20a. 3. Rom. 3:10. 4. On my count, there are sixty-three occurrences of this word group. As all who write on Paul’s righteousness language admit, there is no English word or word group that is able to reflect the semantic nuances of Paul’s δικ- words. This is, in part, due to the fact that these words have a wide semantic range and are used in an incredible variety of (forensic and non-forensic) contexts.

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noun without the genitive qualifier? What is the relationship between “God’s righteousness” and the semantically related verb “to justify” (2:13; 3:24, 30; 4:2, 5)? What is the difference between God’s righteousness and the Messiah’s association with righteousness (5:15-21)? How is it that Paul can speak of God’s righteousness as something revealed in Christ’s death (e.g., 3:24-25) and in Christ’s resurrection (e.g., 4:24-25)? And what is the relationship between God’s righteousness and the current state of God’s people Israel (Romans 9–11)? Given the incredibly broad semantic range of δικ- language and the diverse contexts within which the terms are employed, to say nothing of the diverse contemporary notions of “justice,” determining the meaning of Paul’s righteousness language is an incredibly complicated endeavor.5 Interpretations of Paul’s righteousness-language often rightly emphasize the relationship between justification and atonement, and one of the clear functions of Rom. 3:21-26 is to indicate that the death of Jesus reveals God’s righteousness (e.g., 3:24-26; 5:9-11). But the attention paid to Paul’s employment of sacrificial language sometimes has the effect of neglecting the close connection Paul makes between righteousness/justification and resurrection. 6 In this chapter I suggest a reading of Paul’s righteousness-language in Romans that takes seriously his initial claim that God’s gospel is revealed in the events of the resurrected and enthroned son (1:1-4). This provides the initial justification for my claim that ancient kingship discourse, particularly the association between kings and justice, may facilitate a more coherent interpretation of Paul’s righteousness language. We have seen that, in antiquity, kings were thought to stabilize the world and thereby maintain cosmic order in service of the deity. One of their primary royal tasks in service of this goal was 5. And of course the exegetical and semantic complexities of Rom. 1:16-17 and 3:21-26 are notorious. On which, see Douglas A. Campbell, The Rhetoric of Righteousness in Romans 3:21-26 (JSNTSup 65; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), 22-69. 6. On the relationship between justification/righteousness and Christ’s atoning work, see Campbell, The Rhetoric of Righteousness in Romans 3:21-26, 102-37; D. A. Carson, “Atonement in Romans 3:21-26: ‘God Presented Him as a Propitiation’,” in The Glory of the Atonement: Biblical, Historical, and Practical Perspectives: Essays in Honor of Roger P. Nicole (ed. Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 119-39.

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executing judgment upon the unjust. Executing judgment upon the unrighteous often has as its result the redressing of the wrongs done to the righteous, since the wicked often engage in violence against the righteous. Both the king’s judgment of the wicked as well as his vindication of his righteous subjects preserve the cosmic order and are often seen as maintaining divine justice. It is the right thing, then, for the deity to rescue the righteous and insure that they receive justice. Paul’s depiction of the Messiah as the good king is on display in Romans in his presentation of a messianic king who, as God’s royal vicegerent, mediates God’s judgment upon the wicked and, alternatively, vindicates and rescues his own people and thereby establishes them in justice.7 Paul’s righteousness discourse in Romans is dominated by reflection upon biblical texts, foremost of which are the Psalms and Isaiah—the portions of the LXX most susceptible to a royal-messianic interpretation given their depiction of righteous royal figures who suffer and are vindicated by God. In Romans, God is the divine king who reveals and enacts his justice through the righteous Messiah. Given Paul’s claim that “God’s justice” (δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ) is unveiled in the gospel (1:16-17), a gospel he has defined in 1:1-4 as centering upon a resurrected, royal Son of God, this divine justice must be understood

7. That Christ’s role in God’s judgment should be situated as an aspect of the Messiah’s regal nature is suggested by Donald Dale Walker, Paul’s Offer of Leniency (2 Cor 10:1): Populist Ideology and Rhetoric in a Pauline Letter Fragment (WUNT 2.152; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2002), 148-49. Also illuminating is the comparison between the Messiah in Paul and the Messiah figure in 1 Enoch provided by James A. Waddell, The Messiah: A Comparative Study of the Enochic Son of Man and the Pauline Kyrios (T & T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts Series; London: T & T Clark, 2011), 163-66. Though we get to the conclusion in very different ways, Ernst Käsemann was, in my opinion, correct in his affirmation that God’s righteousness “demonstrates this: God’s power reaches out for the world, and the world’s salvation lies in its being recaptured for the sovereignty of God.” See his “‘The Righteousness of God’ in Paul,” in New Testament Questions of Today (trans. W. J. Montague; Philadelphia; Fortress, 1969), 168-82; ibid., Commentary on Romans (trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 79-80, 145-50. Similarly, see Adolf Schlatter, Gottes Gerechtigkeit: Ein Kommentar zum Römerbrief (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1935), 35-38. See also Peter Stuhlmacher, Revisiting Paul’s Doctrine of Justification: A Challenge to the New Perspective (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2001), 28: “This apocalyptic breadth of the doctrine of justification must not be diminished by limiting the gospel of God’s righteousness to the message of the forgiveness of sins for individual sinners who confess Jesus as Lord and Savior. What is involved in the demonstration of God’s righteousness through the atoning death of Christ and in his resurrection for the justification of many and in his ongoing activity as Lord, Advocate, Savior and Judge of the world is nothing less than the establishment of the right of God over the whole cosmos.”

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as an outworking of God’s resurrection of his Messiah from the dead and subsequent enthronement. That is to say, the relationship between these two texts suggests that the reader see divine justice as instantiated in the royal narrative set forth in 1:3-4. The audience was situated in imperial Rome, listening to a letter whose introduction is about a royal son of God who rules the world (1:3-4), and in which the first movement of the letter employs the language of divine justice, judgment, divine wrath, and righteousness mediated by the Messiah. It would not seem implausible to suggest that Paul expected these auditors of his letter to associate the Messiah with justice. Paul’s δικ- words have been examined quite frequently, and I have no intention of providing a review of either the primary evidence or the many detailed reviews of the evidence.8 This study will refrain from searching for a “master concept” that would try to explain the meaning of all righteousness passages.9 I will also attempt to avoid a common problem, noted by Mark Seifrid, that continues to plague many interpreters when trying to understand Paul’s righteousnesslanguage, by consistently keeping in mind “the semantic insight that any proper definition of a word or word-group must describe the contexts which call forth the various meanings of the terms.”10 Although investigations of previous δικ- words help establish possible meanings for Paul’s righteousness-language, it is Paul’s immediate context that determines which meanings are in play.11 For my 8. Still foundational is the work of Hermann Cremer, who helped show the relational connotations of Paul’s “righteousness”-language. See Cremer, Die paulinische Rechtfertigungslehre im Zusammenhänge ihrer geschichtlichen Vorausetzungen (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1900). I have been helped in my research by reviews of the primary evidence, esp. Mark Seifrid, “Righteousness Language in the Hebrew Scriptures and Early Judaism,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism (vol. 1; ed. D. A. Carson et al.; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 415-42. See further John Ziesler, The Meaning of Righteousness in Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972); M. T. Brauch, “‘God’s Righteousness’ in Recent German Discussion,” in E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 523-42. 9. See here John Reumann, “Righteousness in the New Testament”: “Justification” in the United States Lutheran–Roman Catholic Dialogue (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 13. 10. Seifrid, “Righteousness Language in the Hebrew Scriptures and Early Judaism,” 422. See also Stanley K. Stowers, who notes: “The interpreter must begin by realizing that Galatians and Romans consist of narratives, arguments, and figures constructed from webs of intertextual connection. The meaning of each instance of the word ‘righteousness’ is to be determined by the way these narratives, arguments, and figures impinge on the word and its immediate context” (A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994], 306). 11. So also Campbell, The Rhetoric of Righteousness in Romans, 155-56.

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purposes, this insight means that a right action is entirely dependent upon the context or discourse within which the righteousnesslanguage is situated. Divine righteousness, for example, generally means something like God’s right action, but the concrete right action is dependent upon the discourse within which the language is used.12 The meaning of Paul’s δικ–language, therefore, must be discovered through attention to the context, and this context is one that I will argue has decidedly royal connotations based upon Paul’s particular understanding of the Christ-event. In what follows I will argue that Paul’s justice and judgment discourse in Romans is best illumined when it is considered within the context of ancient discussions of king and justice. More specifically, I will argue that in Romans, God establishes a just rule over the cosmos through God’s messianic king, who rescues his people and judges his enemies (Rom. 1:16-17; 3:21-22). God’s righteousness is revealed and established over the people by means of resurrecting from the dead his righteous, faithful, and obedient Messiah, whose death had been an apocalyptic revelation of injustice.13 God’s righteousness is on display, then, in this divine powerful activity to justify the one who is righteous, and this results in the formerly oppressed but now vindicated one having a status of righteousness, a status that is accompanied by God’s actual rescue of the righteous one. For Paul, the Messiah is the only one who is righteous, faithful, and obedient. The rest of humanity is wicked, unjust, violent, and confined to a situation characterized by divine wrath (1:18-19, 32; 2:5; 3:9-20). And, as we will see, it is precisely this unjust and wicked humanity that is responsible for the miscarriage of justice that has resulted in the violent death of God’s righteous Messiah (3:9-20). God’s righteous verdict is on display, then, in God’s retributive judgment against unjust and unrepentant 12. So Stephen Westerholm, “Righteousness, Cosmic and Microcosmic,” in Apocalyptic Paul: Cosmos and Anthropos in Romans 5–8 (ed. Beverly Roberts Gaventa; Waco, TX: Baylor, 2013), 21-38, here 29; Christopher D. Marshall, Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime, and Punishment (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 45-47. 13. See Marshall, Beyond Retribution, 50: “The king is righteous when he acts to bring about justice and equity in the covenant community, by remitting debts, releasing lands, protecting the weak, and so on. The Divine King is righteous because he intervenes to save those who cannot save themselves, thus proving his faithfulness to covenant commitments.”

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humanity. Conversely, God’s revelation of God’s righteousness in resurrecting the Messiah has salvific consequences for those who belong to the Messiah, given the inextricable relationship between the Messiah and his people. In other words, justification, redemption, and atonement are contingent upon God’s prior act of rightly rescuing his Messiah from death. The King and Justice Before I turn to Paul’s righteousness-language in Romans, I need to discuss in some detail the relationship between king and justice in both Greco-Roman literature and Israel’s Scriptures. Beyond simply establishing the frequency of the relationship between king and justice, four components of the topoi are significant and are interwoven throughout the following discussion. First, one of the standard responsibilities of ancient kings was the task of enacting justice for his people.14 One of the goals of the king is to create and facilitate a just and peaceful rule over his people. Second, related to procuring justice for the king’s subjects is the task of executing judgment upon the wicked and those who seek to threaten the king’s just rule over his people. Just verdicts and their execution is standard fare for ancient kings. Third, if the king is responsible for establishing justice for his people, then it is not surprising to find numerous texts emphasizing that the king himself must work to establish himself as the most just figure in society. Finally, in the Septuagint and Jewish writings, one often finds the king in a life-threatening situation due to the afflictions from the unjust, whereby the king appeals to

14. The relationship between king and justice appears to be rooted in the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian ideologies of the king, which stressed the ruler’s “protective function and his responsibility for justice and order” in service to the gods. Kurt A. Raaflaub, “Poets, Lawgivers, and the Beginnings of Political Reflection in Archaic Greece,” in The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 23-59, here 52. On the role of the kings in securing cosmic order through social justice in the ancient Near Eastern context, see Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), 51-52, 277-81; Dale Launderville, Piety and Politics: The Dynamics of Royal Authority in Homeric Greece, Biblical Israel, and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 234-36.

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righteousness, both his own and God’s, as the basis to rescue him from shame and death. The King and Justice in Greco-Roman Texts The just king is expected to have, in the first instance, established the virtue of justice within himself, and often the king’s justice is a reflection of divine justice. The king’s devotion to justice is necessary because his vocation is to mirror the deity as an agent of the divine; since the gods love justice, so is the king to mirror divine justice. The king’s enactment of justice is always to be fair, and this will often result in punitive justice for the wrongdoer. For the subjects of the king, however, the king’s justice frequently entails salvation, liberation from evil, peace, and freedom.15 The fountainhead from which Hellenistic and Roman reflections upon royal justice flow are the Homeric epics, for here one finds society’s norms, including that of justice, predicated upon the rule of Zeus. Nestor, for example, addresses king Agamemnon: “you are lord over many people, and Zeus has given into your hand the scepter and rights of judgment, to be king over the people” (Il. 9.98-99).16 Earlier in the poem, Achilles has referred to the scepter as that which the Achaeans “carry in their hands in state when they administer the justice of Zeus” (Il.234-239). Odysseus’s rebuke of the soldiers trades on the relationship between divine election of kings and the kings’ responsibility to procure justice: “Let there be one ruler, one king, to whom the son of devious-devising Kronos gives the scepter and right of judgment, to watch over his people” (Il. 2.204-206). Zeus unleashes his wrath against the injustice of the Trojans, “because in violent assembly they pass decrees that are crooked, and drive righteousness from among them and care nothing for what the gods think” (Il.16.385-388).17 Isocrates’s Evagoras exemplifies how royal justice benefits the citizens but enacts punishment on the wicked: 15. Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” 71. 16. See Meira Z. Kensky, Trying Man, Trying God: The Divine Courtroom in Early Jewish and Christian Literature (WUNT 2.289; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2010), 68-80. 17. William Allan, “Divine Justice and Cosmic Order in Early Greek Epic,” JHS 126 (2006): 1-35, here 10.

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“Throughout his whole life he never acted unjustly (ἀδικῶν) toward anyone but ever honored the good; and while he ruled all his subjects diligently, yet he punished wrongdoers (ἐξαμαρτόντας κολάζων) according to the laws” (Evag. 43). In his Nicocles, Isocrates holds up “the works of temperance and justice” as necessary for procuring harmony and order in the commonwealth (Nic. 41). Xenophon’s depiction of King Cyrus contains his portrait of the ruler, who at a very early age is “thoroughly versed in justice to decide cases for others” (Cyr. 1.3.16; cf. 1.3.17-18; Mem. 4.2.11).18 Cyrus’s father teaches the future ruler that Cyrus must “be the most righteous (δικαιότατός) and law-abiding man in the world” (Cyr. 1.6.27). Cyrus seems to learn this lesson, for later Xenophon presents the ruler as showing no “injustice” (ἀδικεῖν) against friends and allies (8.1.26) and dispensing justice to “whoever asks for justice” (δικαίων) (8.3.20).19 Dio Chrysostom’s kingship orations depict the ideal king as just: “What is more profitable than an equitable and just (ἴσου καὶ δικαίου) king?” (Or. 1.35). Dio notes that Homer assumed that “the two pre-eminently kingly virtues are courage and justice” (ἀνδρείαν καὶ δικαιοσύνην; Or. 2.54). When Alexander asks Diogenes how one could be the best king, the philosopher responds: “the king is the best one among men, since he is most brave and righteous (δικαιότατος) and humane, and cannot be overcome by any toil or by any appetite” (4.24; cf. 3.7, 10, 69; 4.24). According to Diotogenes, “the dispensation of justice” is one of three primary duties of the king.20 For the king, “injustice is the uttermost sin,” since justice “is the only basis for harmony with one’s 18. On Xenophon’s and Isocrates’s reflections on the good king, see Julien Smith, Christ the Ideal King: Cultural Context, Rhetorical Strategy, and the Power of Divine Monarchy in Ephesians (WUNT 2.313; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011), 25-33. 19. See J. Joel Farber, “The Cyropaideia and Hellenistic Kingship,” AJP 100 (1979): 497-514, here 503. 20. The Greek text is derived from Holger Thesleff, The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period (Acta Academiae Aboensis 30.1; Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1965). I follow the translation of Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship”; but see also Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library: An Anthology of Ancient Writings Which Relate to Pythagoras and Pythagorean Philosophy (Grand Rapids: Phanes, 1987). See also Bruno Blumenfeld, The Political Paul: Justice, Democracy, and Kingship in a Hellenistic Framework (JSNTSup 201; London: Sheffield Academic, 2001), 189-274; Thesleff, The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period, 72.3-5; Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” 66.

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neighbors.”21 The king must work hard to learn justice, for according to Ecphantus in his treatise περὶ νόμου καὶ δικαιοσύνης (“Concerning Law and Justice,”) it is by knowledge and conformity to the laws “he will be able to judge correctly [and] by his power to punish.”22 The king, then, establishes justice within himself in service to the deity. This justice, which itself is a reflection of the divine justice, enables him to extend divine justice to his people. Plutarch associates human flourishing with the just ruler’s granting of divine gifts to his people: “Justice is the aim of the ruler, and the ruler is the image of God who orders all things” (Mor. 780E). Since “Zeus . . . is himself Justice and Right” (Διὶ τὴν Δίκην εἶναι καὶ τὴν Θέμιν; 781B) and “without Justice not even Zeus can rule well” (781B), the ruler’s creation of a just state depends upon his sharing in divine “equity, justice (δίκης), truth, and gentleness” (781A).23 The premier example of this just king is the Roman hero Numa, whose righteous rule established a peaceful golden age of justice: Not only was the Roman people softened and charmed by the righteousness and mildness of their king (τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ πρᾳότητι τοῦ βασιλέως), but also the cities round about, as if some cooling breeze or salubrious wind were wafted upon them from Rome, began to experience a change of temper, and all of them were filled with longing desire to have good government, to be at peace, to till the earth, to rear their children in quiet, and to worship the gods . . . honor and justice (δικαίων) flowed into every heart from Numa’s wisdom. (Num. 20.1-4)

Numa’s just rule extends to the people as they imitate their ruler and are “united with him in conforming themselves to a blameless and blessed life of friendship and mutual concord, attended by righteousness (δικαιοσύνης) and temperance” (Num. 20.8).24 It is no surprise that one important aspect of imperial propaganda legitimating Augustus’s rule was the presentation of him as the 21. Thesleff, The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period, 74.20-23; Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” 72. 22. Thesleff, The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period, 33.4-10; Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” 59-60. 23. See the helpful discussion in Smith, Christ the Ideal King, 76-77. 24. Cf. the justice of Agesilaus in Plutarch, Mor. 545a.

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supremely just ruler.25 Augustus’s display of virtue is set forth in the Res Gestae Divi Augusti,26 and in it he recalls the senate’s granting him a golden shield (the clupeus virtutis in 27 BCE that “bore witness through its inscription to my valor and clemency and justice and piety” (διὰ τῆς ἐπιγραφῆς ἀρετὴν καὶ ἐπείκειαν κα[ὶ δ]ικαιοσύνην καὶ εὐσέβειαν ἐμοὶ μαρτυρεῖ) (34.2; cf. 26.3). Augustus’s embodiment of justice is connected to his claims to have returned the government to the senate and his observation of appropriate legalities as princeps.27 Roman poets and orators often find the emperor’s embodiment of justice to be worthy of celebration. Augustus’s establishment of a temple to the goddess Iustitia in 13 CE. closely links divine justice to the virtue of the emperor, and gave Ovid the opportunity to declare that Justice was already “enshrined in the temple of [Augustus’s] mind” (Ex Ponto 3.6.23-29).28 Virgil foretells Augustus’s reign as leading to Rome’s destiny of “imposed peace with justice, to pardon the defeated and to war down the proud” (Aen. 6.852-855). Horace praises Saturn and his imperial vicegerent, since “second to you [Saturn] alone shall he with justice rule the broad earth” (Odes 1.12.6). Pliny’s Panegyricus devotes a significant amount of space to praising Trajan for his devotion to justice (77–80), since his only goal in his judicial responsibilities is to have the satisfaction of knowing “that justice had been done” (80.2-3).29 We find a similar relationship between king and justice in Hellenistic Jewish writings. Josephus exalts Solomon’s attainment of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice (Ant. 8.34ff). Philo sets forth Moses as 25. On the emperor and the rise of the cult of virtues in imperial ideology, see J. Rufus Fears, “The Cult of Virtues and Roman Imperial Ideology,” ANRW II 17.2 (1981): 827-948; Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “The Emperor and His Virtues,” Historia 30 (1981): 298-323; James R. Harrison, Paul and the Imperial Authorities at Thessalonica and Rome: A Study in the Conflict of Ideology (WUNT 2.273; Tübingen: MohrSiebeck, 2011), 138-44. 26. Alison E. Cooley, Res Gestae Divi Augusti: Text, Translation, and Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Karl Galinsky says that these virtues represent “the usual Augustan combination of tradition and individual innovation” (Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996], 81). 27. See Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 85. 28. See Neil Elliott, Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1994), 190-92. 29. Fergus Millar has shown that the Roman Emperor functioned as something of an embodiment of justice, as he, in his journeys, consistently received requests for justice from litigants, petitioners, and embassies. See his The Emperor in the Roman World (31 BC–AD 337) (London: Duckworth, 1997), esp. 28-40.

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the good ruler and assigns to him every imaginable virtue, including justice (Mos. 1.154). In Letter of Aristeas Ptolemy II questions the Jewish translators regarding good rule. Repeated throughout their replies is that the good king must love justice, since God loves justice (209, 189, 212, 232, 267). The most important feature of any kingdom is that the citizens have peace by the king’s procurement of justice in his verdicts, and this means the king must “hate evil and love good and hold in high esteem the saving of human life” (292). The Israelite King and Justice and Righteousness “Justice and righteousness became the first and organizing responsibility of the king upon which all else depended.”30 But even before Israel receives a king, the Scriptures speak of Israel’s mission as the performance of justice and righteousness in service to God, and this is often worked out in social obligations to the poor and oppressed (Gen. 18:19-20; Isa. 5:7, 16; 59:8-9; Jer. 4:2-4; Amos 5:24; Mic. 6:8; cf. Ezek. 16:49).31 Thus the language of righteousness and justice is often used to refer to appropriate and right actions within a relationship, and Israel’s performance of justice and righteousness is intended to reflect God’s own righteous rule over the world.32 So, for example, Israel must show impartial justice for all people, since God “executes justice for the orphan and the widow and loves the stranger and provides them with food and clothing” (Deut. 10:18; cf. Zech. 7:9-10). God is frequently shown as one who loves justice, who rules the world with justice and righteousness, and who, therefore, liberates the people, bestows freedom, and renders just verdicts for the oppressed (e.g., LXX Pss. 32:4-5; 88:15-16; 96:1-2; 98:4; 102:6; Prov. 20:28; 25:5).33 God’s righteousness is displayed in mercy for the oppressed, and it is also revealed in judgment upon the unjust and the unrighteous (Pss. 7:10, 30. James L. Mays, Psalms (Interpretation; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011), 287. 31. See here the important work of Moshe Weinfeld, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 7-12; Sun Myung Lyu, Righteousness in the Book of Proverbs (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2012), 38-45. 32. See throughout Christopher J. H. Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 253-80. 33. Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God, 268.

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12; 11:4-7; Isa. 5:5-7).34 It should be clear that God’s justice is not only a pronouncement of a status; rather, as Seifrid has noted in his study of righteousness in the Hebrew Bible, “we do not find bare verdicts, but verdicts expressed in vindicating acts.”35 God’s righteousness, or the king’s enactment of justice, often entails salvation, deliverance, and freedom, or alternatively, shame, destruction, and dishonor. The Israelite king is entrusted with the responsibility of procuring righteousness, and this is derivative “from God, the divine king, who has determined to secure the good and beneficial order of creation.”36 Given that God elects David in order to have “a king whose kingship corresponds to and represents Yhwh’s dominion in the midst of the kingdoms of the world,” the king’s righteousness reflects God’s righteousness.37 The king’s execution of justice for his people often takes the form of administering equitable verdicts for the oppressed, saving and defending his people from their enemies, and securing their protection and freedom.38 Thus the king’s righteousness or accomplishment of justice depends upon the particular context within which the king is acting. David rules Israel by “administering justice and righteousness (κρίμα καὶ δικαιοσύνην) to all his people” (2 Sam. 8:15). Queen Sheba blesses God for giving the kingship to Solomon, whom God “made king to execute justice with righteousness” (τοῦ ποιεῖν κρίμα ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ) (1 Kgs. 10:9; 1 Chron. 18:14; 2 Chron. 9:8). Solomon’s justice is displayed 34. That God’s righteousness may involve retributive judgment as an aspect of God’s rule, see Herman Cremer, Die paulinische Rechtfertigungslehre im Zusammenhange ihrer geschichtlichen Voraussetzungen (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1988). That God’s righteousness involves retributive justice against the wicked is undeniable. See also Neh. 9:33; Isa. 10:22; 28:17; Dan. 9:7-16. 35. Mark A. Seifrid, “Paul’s Use of Righteousness Language against Its Hellenistic Background,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism: II. The Paradoxes of Paul (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 39-74, here 41. 36. Seifrid, “Righteousness Language in the Hebrew Scriptures and Early Judaism,” 426. 37. See James L. Mays, The Lord Reigns: A Theological Handbook to the Psalms (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 19. On the relationship between God as King and his establishment of righteousness, see Weinfeld, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East, 195-208. 38. Seifrid rightly emphasizes the frequent association between the language of righteousness and the language of power, authority, and battle. He points to (MT) Judg. 5:11; Isa. 9:6-7; 41:10; 50:8-9; 51:6-8; 54:11-17; Prov. 31:9; LXX Ps. 45:3-5. But see also 1 Sam. 12:7; Isa. 59:16-17; 63:1 (“Righteousness Language in the Hebrew Scriptures and Early Judaism,” 427). So Weinfeld, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East, 189-90; Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God, 270-72.

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through his judgments for the two prostitutes, and it is through this act that Israel “perceived that the wisdom of God was in him [i.e., the king] to execute justice” (1 Kgs. 3:16-28; cf. 2 Kgs. 6:24-31).39 Proverbs holds out righteousness and justice as God’s way for the good life (11:30-31; 12:26-28; 16:8), but it is particularly the responsibility of the king (8:15-16; 16:10, 12-13; 20:28; 25:5; 29:4).40 The royal responsibility of doing justice and righteousness has, as can be seen from these examples, to do not only with virtue but also with creating social justice and vindicating the righteous.41 God promises to establish Judah’s kingdom (Jer. 22:4) but threatens to destroy it (22:5) depending upon whether the king listens to God’s command to “act with justice and righteousness (Ποιεῖτε κρίσιν καὶ δικαιοσύνην), and deliver from the hand of the oppressor (ἀδικοῦντος) anyone who has been robbed” (Jer. 22:3; cf. 22:13-17). Israel’s kings typically fail, in the view of Israel’s prophets, to manifest the righteousness that would create a just society; Israel and its kings are, thereby, frequently implicated in acts that result in injustice for the righteous (e.g., Isa. 58:1-9; Ezek. 18:5-9; 45:9; Mic. 3:9-12), and this results in divine wrath and death due to the king’s injustice (Isa. 59:14-18; Ezek. 18:4, 19-21; Mic. 3:12; Zech. 7:8-14; cf. LXX Ps. 81:8). This lack of justice often gives rise to expectations for a coming king who will fully embody divine righteousness.42 This association between a righteous king whose relationship with God’s righteousness enables him to establish his people as righteous is the critical context for Paul’s righteousness discourse in Romans.43 Jeremiah looks forward to the day when God 39. On the administration of justice by Israel’s kings, see also 2 Sam. 15:1-6; 2 Chron. 19:4-11. On the Israelite king’s responsibility to provide justice for his people, see Marc Zvi Brettler, God Is King: Understanding an Israelite Metaphor (JSOTSup 76; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1989), 109-13; Weinfeld, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East, 45-50; Keith W. Whitelam, The Just King: Monarchical Judicial Authority in Ancient Israel (JSOTSup 12; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1979); A. R. Johnson, “Hebrew Conceptions of Kingship,” in Myth, Ritual, and Kingship: Essays on the Theory and Practice of Kingship in the Ancient Near East and in Israel (ed. S. H. Hooke, Oxford: Clarendon, 1958), 204-35, here 207-8. 40. Weinfeld, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and In the Ancient Near East, 59. 41. Seifrid, “Righteousness Language in the Hebrew Scriptures and Early Judaism,” 427. 42. Jerome F. D. Creach, The Destiny of the Righteous in the Psalms (St. Louis: Chalice, 2008), 88. 43. This point is rarely noted by readers of Romans. See, however, Arland J. Hultgren, Paul’s Gospel and Mission: The Outlook from His Letter to the Romans (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 21-26.

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[W]ill raise up for David a righteous Branch (ἀνατολὴν δικαίαν), and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and he shall execute justice and righteousness (ποιήσει κρίμα καὶ δικαιοσύνην) in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called. The Lord is our righteousness (ὃ καλέσει αὐτὸν κύριος Ιωσεδεκ). (Jer. 23:5-6; cf. MT Jer. 33:14-16)

The king’s execution of righteousness and justice results in his accomplishment of salvation for his people.44 Isaiah 9 speaks of how this Davidic king will “establish and uphold [his kingdom] with justice and righteousness” (κατορθῶσαι αὐτὴν καὶ ἀντιλαβέσθαι αὐτῆς ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ ἐν κρίματι; 9:7b), and the specifics of his righteous rule entail the liberation of God’s people through destruction of their violent oppressors (9:4-6). The association between the Davidic ruler and righteousness is intensified in Isaiah 11: A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. . . . He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness (δικαιοσύνῃ) shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. (11:1, 3b-5)

Again, one sees the two side of justice, as the king enacts retribution against the violent oppressors and enacts justice for the liberation of the oppressed.45 The king’s justice flows from his relationship to God (11:2-3). Thus, the king’s justice is in service of establishing God’s righteous rule, and one finds this association between king (or the messianic age) and justice throughout Isaiah’s oracles (e.g., 16:5; 32:1; 45:1; 45:8, 22-25; 59:14-21; 61:1-11).46 The association between the

44. On the king’s responsibility to save his people from their enemies, see 1 Sam. 9:16; 10:1. Also see Sigmund Mowinckel, He That Cometh: The Messiah Concept in the Old Testament and Later Judaism (trans. G. W. Anderson; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005). 45. Weinfeld shows that the royal task of executing justice was usually aimed at securing rights and freedom for the poor and oppressed (Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East, 25-44). 46. The king’s establishment of his people in righteousness is often related to granting liberation and freedom from debt. See Weinfeld, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East, 75-96.

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messianic age and righteousness extends through Isaiah (45:8, 22-25; 59:14-21; 61:1-11; cf. Isa. 2:1-4; Mal. 4:1-4).47 Closely associated with God’s kingship in the Psalter is God’s righteousness as seen in divine power to exact justice: “You have a mighty arm; strong is your hand, high your right hand. Righteousness and justice (δικαιοσύνη καὶ κρίμα) are the foundation of your throne” (LXX Ps. 88:14-15a; cf. 9:5, 8; 32:4-5; 102:6).48 The association between God’s rule and God’s justice is evident in Psalms 93 and 95–99, where God’s kingship is manifested in righteousness. Psalms 96 and 98 begin by praising the divine king’s rule (96:1; 98:1) as one where “righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne” (96:2) and as one who is a “lover of justice” who “executes justice and righteousness in Jacob” (98:4b). God’s righteousness is seen in ruling over creation (Ps. 96:1-5), power to save (Ps. 97:1-3), provision of fair verdicts (Pss. 95:10, 13; 96:8; 97:9; cf. Pss. 66:5; 74:6-10), and it is the reason the nations praise God as King (Pss. 95:1-3; 96:3-7; 98:1-3). 49 God’s righteousness is appealed to by the psalmist as the basis for the enactment of salvation for the righteous and oppressed.50 God’s kingship is manifested in the promise “to do justice for the orphan and the oppressed, so that those from earth may strike terror no more” (Ps. 9:37-39). God’s enactment of justice for the righteous also results in the judgment of the wicked (9:22-36).51 The Psalms are striking for the way they portray the unrighteous as violently persecuting the righteous.52 Significant here is that the exemplar of the oppressed righteous one who appeals to God’s salvation is the righteous king.53 The coupling 47. On the Israelite expectation for an eschatological king who would perform justice and righteousness, see Weinfeld, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East, 57-74. 48. On God’s perfect justice and righteousness as an aspect of God’s divine kingship, see Brettler, God Is King, 113-16; Weinfeld, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East, 181-83. 49. God’s kingly rule often has a universal element and is connected to God’s establishment of justice for all peoples. See Seifrid, “Righteousness Language in the Hebrew Scriptures and Early Judaism,” 425. 50. Campbell has drawn attention to the relationship between kingship discourse and righteousness in the Psalter and Paul. He maintains that the Psalter’s righteousness discourse, when it occurs within a kingship setting, is liberative and denotes God’s rescue or deliverance (The Deliverance of God, 692-94). 51. For a sketch of the wicked in the Psalms, see Creach, The Destiny of the Righteous in the Psalms, 38-40. 52. Sun Myung Lyu, Righteousness in the Book of Proverbs (FAT 2.55; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2012), 117. 53. In addition to Psalms 1 and 2, which together function as a prologue to the Psalter, every

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together of Psalm 1 with Psalm 2 fuses the motif of the righteous person with the Davidic king such that David is the model righteous one (see esp. 1:5-6; 2:7-8, 12).54 The king is portrayed as the righteous one who identifies with the righteous and bears the violence of the wicked.55 Given the king’s identification with his people, and their dependence upon his righteousness and ability to deliver them, God’s revelation of God’s righteousness for the king is tied up with the peoples’ salvation.56 Wake up! Pay attention, Lord, to my trial, my God and my Lord, to my just cause. Judge me according to your righteousness (κρῖνόν με κατὰ τὴν δικαιοσύνην σου), Lord my God. . . . Let all those who delight in my afflictions be put to shame and dishonor (αἰσχυνθείησαν καὶ ἐντραπείησαν), let those who act with hubris against me be clothed with shame and dishonor (αἰσχύνην καὶ ἐντροπήν). Let those who desire my vindication (τὴν δικαιοσύνην μου) rejoice and be glad. . . . Then my tongue will speak of your righteousness (τὴν δικαιοσύνην σου) and your praise all day long. (LXX Ps. 34:23-24, 26-28)

The speaker is in a situation of duress and pleads with God to show justice against the unrighteous oppressors (Δίκασον, κύριε, τοὺς ἀδικοῦντας με, 34:1a).57 The king’s petition appeals to God’s righteousness as his basis for vindication and ensuing salvation. This dynamic of Israel’s righteous king calling upon God’s righteousness to deliver him from unrighteous oppressors is played out in numerous psalms. The king’s prayer for God’s righteousness is a request that God act to rescue him and to bring shame upon the wicked. The unrighteous are noted for their violent attacks upon the righteous (e.g., LXX Pss. 3:1-2; 5:8; 17:1-4; 53:2-4; 68:1-4).58 So, for example, in Psalm subsequent psalm in Book I has a Davidic superscription. With respect to Psalm 3, Creach notes that “the identification of the David as speaker of Psalm 3 connects the destiny of the righteous with the future of David in his role as the Lord’s anointed” (The Destiny of the Righteous in the Psalms, 61). 54. On Psalms 1–2 as an introduction to the Psalter, see Jamie A. Grant, The King as Exemplar: The Function of Deuteronomy’s Kingship Law in the Shaping of the Book of Psalms (SBLAB 17; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), 227-34; Daniel C. Owens, Portraits of the Righteous in the Psalms: An Exploration of the Ethics of Book I (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014), 175. 55. See Creach, The Destiny of the Righteous in the Psalms, 89. 56. See Creach, The Destiny of the Righteous in the Psalms, 54-69, 86-98. 57. Patrick D. Miller, They Cried to the Lord: The Form and Theology of Biblical Prayer (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 108-9.

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70 the king repeatedly appeals to God’s righteousness (vv. 1-2, 4, 15, 24) to be made manifest by rescuing the righteous and bringing shame upon the wicked (vv. 13, 24a). God’s rescue of his king is the right thing for the God to do precisely because the Davidic king is righteous and trusts God for deliverance. In other words, there is a significant interplay between God’s righteousness and the king’s righteousness. When the king acts with righteousness and finds himself in a situation of oppression, it is simply the right thing for a just God to respond to the king’s righteousness by vindicating him. Within the Psalter, the king is the paradigmatic exemplar of the righteous one, given that he trusts in God for deliverance, takes refuge in God, obeys God, and hates the wicked.59 The primary feature of righteous ones is their trust and hope in God for deliverance, and the king is the premier model of the one who takes refuge in God (LXX Pss. 2:12; 117:8-9). There is a dynamic interplay throughout many of the royal psalms between God, the Davidic righteous king, and the wicked, whereby the righteous king’s salvation from his enemies is at stake.60 Thus David appeals to his righteousness as the basis for God’s deliverance: “The Lord judges the peoples; judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness (κρῖνον με, κύριε, κατὰ τὴν δικαιοσύνην μου) and according to the integrity that is in me” (LXX Ps. 7:8). And again, “Judge me, O God, and justify my just cause (Κρῖνον με, ὁ θεός, καὶ δίκασον τὴν δίκην μου) before the nations who are not holy, rescue me from an unjust (ἀδίκου) and deceitful person” (LXX Ps. 42:1; cf. 53:3-4). When God delivers the king from his enemies, he declares: [H]e delivered me because he delighted in me. He rescued me from my powerful enemies and from those hating me. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness (κατὰ τὴν δικαιοσύνην μου). . . . I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt. Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness (κατὰ τὴν δικαιοσύνην μου), 58. Gordon J. Wenham, Psalms as Torah: Reading Biblical Songs Ethically (Studies in Theological Interpretation; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 152-54. 59. Regarding those psalms in which the speakers declare their righteousness, see Lyu, Righteousness in the Book of Proverbs, 120-29; Wenham, Psalms as Torah, 154-56; Miller, They Cried to the Lord, 109. 60. On salvation language in the royal psalms where the king’s salvation is at stake, see Owens, Portraits of the Righteous in the Psalms, 188-90. See, for example, LXX Pss. 17:1-3, 35-36, 50; 19:5; 20:1-2, 5-6.

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according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight. (LXX Ps. 17:20b-21, 24-25; cf. 2 Sam. 22:21-25)

God’s response to the king’s righteousness is, again, manifested in God’s rescue of the king and his bringing shame and defeat upon the king’s enemies (e.g., Ps. 17:32-51).61 In Psalm 16 the king begs for God to pay attention to “my righteousness” (v. 1). In Psalm 117 the king cries to God out of distress (v. 5) and appeals to God’s righteousness as foundational in God’s deliverance of him from death (vv. 17-20). In Psalm 7 the petitioner prays: “The Lord judges the nations; judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me” (v. 9). The speaker, by the end of the psalm, “gives thanks to the Lord for his righteousness” (τὴν δικαιοσύνην αὐτοῦ) that has been shown, presumably, in the psalmist’s deliverance (vv. 1-2, 12-16). The king’s appeal to his righteousness is no empty boast, for the Psalter portrays the king as lover of righteousness and justice.62 This is seen, for example, in LXX Psalm 71 where the bestowal of God’s righteousness upon the king results in justice for the poor: Give the king your judgment, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son. May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice. May the mountains restore peace for your people, and the hills in righteousness. May he defend the cause of the poor of the people and will give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor. . . . Because he delivered the poor from the hand of the powerful, and the needy who have no helper. He will spare the weak and the needy, and will save the lives of the needy. From oppression and unrighteousness he redeems their lives; and precious is their blood in his sight. (71:1-4, 11-14)

Here the king’s righteousness is the basis for the righteousness and salvation of his people.63 The people, especially the poor who are 61. Aubrey R. Johnson refers to this as the Messiah’s “resultant justification or, better perhaps, the consequent vindication of his righteousness” (Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel [Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1967], 116-17). 62. On the king’s appeal to his righteousness as an affirmation of commitment to God’s covenant, see Grant, The King as Exemplar, 81-83. See also Gert Kwakkel, According to My Righteousness: Upright Behaviour as Grounds for Deliverance in Psalms 7, 17, 18, 26 and 44 (OtSt 46; Leiden: Brill, 2002). Lyu, Righteousness in the Book of Proverbs, 124; Mays, The Lord Reigns, 136-45. 63. Johnson, Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel, 137: “In the ultimate, therefore, the righteousness of the nation is dependent upon the righteousness of the king. . . . Thus the king is in a very real sense the ‘shield’ of his people; and his first care must be the administration of justice.” Also see

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persecuted by the unrighteous, depend upon God’s bestowal of righteousness to the king as the basis for their own righteousness, prosperity, and agricultural abundance.64 Again, the king’s righteousness is demonstrated when he does the right thing for his people, namely, save, protect, and defend them from the oppressor.65 In LXX Psalm 100 the king sings a song praising loyalty and justice (v.1) and commits himself to rule justly, and on this basis he can “look confidently for Yahweh to come to him in his hour of need.”66 The king’s pledge to justice, however, is for the sake of his righteous rule for the people.67 In LXX Psalm 44 God’s establishment of the king’s throne (v. 7) and his anointing him to kingship (v. 8b) is connected to the king’s love of righteousness (v. 8a). The psalmist expects that God’s righteousness will vindicate and save the king based on his commitment to righteousness and justice.68 The king can expect, then, that his relational fidelity and righteousness will result in God’s display of righteousness as demonstrated in his vindication of God’s king. One can justifiably speak of a pattern in the Psalter whereby the king (a) is violently oppressed by the unrighteous, (b) asks God to look favorably upon the king’s righteousness,69 (c) appeals to God’s righteousness as the basis for God’s commitment to deliver the king,70 and (d) expects God’s righteousness to result in bringing shame upon the unrighteous.71 James L. Mays has argued persuasively that God’s reign is the central metaphor of the Psalter, and God’s rule over the world provides the broad framework for the depiction of the roles of

Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship (rev. ed.; trans. D. R. Ap-Thomas; 2 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 67-70. 64. See Whitelam, The Just King, 29-37; Creach, The Destiny of the Righteous in the Psalms, 94-95. 65. Weinfeld, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East, 48-50. 66. Johnson, Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel, 114-15. 67. Ibid., 115-16. LXX Psalm 100 functions as the counterpart to LXX Psalm 71, as Mowinckel has argued, in that here the king commits himself to establish God’s justice and righteousness in his rule. See Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 67. 68. Lyu, Righteousness in the Book of Proverbs, 122-23. 69. The king’s prayer and belief that God has regard for and will deliver the righteous—Pss. 7:9-11; 25:1-2. 70. The king’s prayer to God for vindication, salvation, and deliverance—Pss. 42:1; 43:5. The king’s appeal to God’s righteousness as the basis for his provision of salvation and rescue of the righteous—Pss. 5:9; 7:18; 9:7-9; 30:1, 15-19; 44:5. 71. The king’s prayer that God would judge and shame his enemies—Ps. 43:11-16.

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God and the Davidic king.72 Central to God’s reign is this vindication of the righteous. God’s righteous identity is shown through liberating the righteous king who embodies the fate of the righteous, such that God’s deliverance of the king is a vindication of all those who belong to the king. A similar dynamic can be seen in Isaiah’s Servant Songs. Though there is no consensus regarding the identity of the Servant, there are good reasons for seeing the Servant as a royal Davidic figure.73 Here I note the relationship between the Servant and righteousness language. The first Servant Song sets forth the expectation that the Servant will bring justice for all the nations, a task that is close to the king’s responsibilities in Ps. 71:1-4 (cf. Isa. 42:1-4).74 His accomplishment of justice is shown in providing just verdicts and deliverance for the oppressed (Ps. 42:2-3, 7). Like the psalmist, the Servant experiences violent oppression from his enemies and asks God to enter into judgment with him and his adversaries. The Servant expects God to deliver him from shame and appeals to divine help as the basis for his justification (Isa. 50:7-9). The third Servant Song is similar to the depictions of the suffering king in the Psalter; the one whom God has commissioned to provide justice for the nations now experiences the shameful reproach of shame from his adversaries.75 Yet the Servant is not disobedient but entrusts his cause to God (50:4-5). His plea that God would enter into judgment with him and thereby vindicate him presumes that the Servant is righteous and that God’s righteousness insures he will be justified. The language is demonstrably forensic, yet 72. See esp. Mays, The Lord Reigns, 12-22. 73. See here Daniel I. Block, “My Servant David: Ancient Israel’s Vision of the Messiah,” in Israel’s Messiah in the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. Richard S. Hess and M. Daniel Carroll R.; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 17-56, here 43-49; Richard Schultz, “The King in the Book of Isaiah,” in The Lord’s Anointed: Interpretation of Old Testament Messianic Texts (ed. Philip E. Satterthwaite, Richard S. Hess, and Gordon J. Wenham; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 141-65. Shirley Lucass rightly notes that while the Servant is not called king, “the role attributed to the Servant closely resonates with elements of the kings’ role in the surrounding cultures and in the Psalms” (The Concept of the Messiah in the Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity [LSTS 78; New York: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2011], 108). The Isaiah Targum also speaks of the Isaianic Servant as the Messiah in commenting on Isa. 52:13. See Bruce D. Chilton, The Isaiah Targum: Introduction, Translation, Apparatus and Notes (The Aramaic Bible 11; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1987). 74. So Lucass, The Concept of the Messiah in the Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity, 108-9. 75. See here Mowinckel, He That Cometh, 193-96.

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it must be noted that the Servant expects that God’s vindication will result in his actual deliverance from shame. In Isaiah 53 the Servant takes upon himself the transgressions of the wicked in his own suffering. The parallels between the suffering Servant and the persecuted king of the Psalms are extensive: (a) he is despised, rejected, and suffers greatly (53:1-3); (b) he is innocent and righteous (53:8-9, 11), and his death is a miscarriage of justice (53:8); (c) God promises to vindicate and exalt him (52:13; 53:11-12); and (d) God will “justify the righteous one (δικαιῶσαι δίκαιον) who has enslaved himself to many” (53:11b).76 God’s vindication of the righteous Servant enables the Servant to save others.77 Sandwiched between the third and fourth Servant Songs, both of which speak of God’s justification of the righteous suffering servant, is Isaiah 51, an oracle that repeatedly refers to God’s promise to send God’s righteousness to save and deliver the people. Listen to me, my people and my kings. Pay attention to me, for a law will go out from me, and my justice for a light to the peoples. My righteousness approaches quickly and my salvation will go forth as the light (ἐγγίζει ταχὺ ἡ δικαιοσύνη μου, καὶ ἐξελεύσεται ὡς φῶς τὸ σωτήριόν μου), and the nations will hope in my strong right hand. . . . My salvation will be forever and my righteousness (ἡ δὲ δικαιοσύνη μου) will not draw back. . . . My righteousness (ἡ δὲ δικαιοσύνη μου) will be forever and my salvation to generations of generations. (51:4-5a, 6b, 8b)

God’s righteousness is something that is salvific, for it is paired three times with “my salvation.” Furthermore, God’s righteousness has liberative overtones, as the appearance of God’s righteousness occurs within the context of Israel’s hope that God would rescue them from exile through an Exodus-like experience (51:9-11). God’s manifestation of saving righteousness, sandwiched as it is between the third (50:4-11) and fourth (52:13–53:12) songs appears to be related to God’s justification and rescue of the righteous royal servant from shame, death, and the violence of the wicked. 76. For more detail on the similarities between the Psalms and the Suffering Servant, see Lucass, The Concept of the Messiah in the Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity, 110-11. 77. Mowinckel, He That Cometh, 204-5.

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The expectation that God would raise up a righteous Davidic king to establish the people in righteousness is continued in the Second Temple period most notably in Psalms of Solomon, where, in the author’s view, the injustice of the Hasmoneans has resulted in God judgment upon Jerusalem through the Romans.78 In Psalms of Solomon 17 the author laments that in Israel “there was no one among them who practiced righteousness or justice” (v. 19b). God responds by establishing “a righteous king (βασιλεὺς δίκαιος) over them,” who will see to it that there “will be no unrighteousness in his days in their midst, for all will be holy, and their king shall be the Lord the Messiah” (v. 32; cf. 18:7).79 He will lead Israel “in righteousness (ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ) and will judge the people that have been made holy by the Lord their God” (v. 26); again, the king “will judge peoples and nations in the wisdom of his righteousness” (v. 29a).80 This judgment involves enacting the royal judgment of Ps. 2:9, in which God’s son “smashes the arrogance of sinners like a potter’s jar; [and] shatters all their substance with an iron rod” (17:23b-24). Those who experience the king’s reign will be blessed, for they will be established in “righteousness and strength” and directed “in righteous acts, and in the fear of God” (Pss. Sol. 18:7-8). Though the Similitudes, contained in 1 Enoch, are distinguished from the previously mentioned texts by their apocalyptic and wisdom framework and their lack of a Davidic Messiah, they contain the familiar depiction of a righteous king establishing his righteous people in righteousness through judgment of the wicked.81 This work is 78. The Psalms of Solomon were written sometime after Pompey’s invasion of Jerusalem in 63 BCE and the overthrow of the Hasmonean dynasty. The poetic compositions are critical of both the Hasmonean dynasty as well as the foreign invaders (see Pss. Sol. 2:1-14 and 8:1-22). For discussions of the Messiah in Psalms of Solomon, see Smith, Christ the Ideal King, 99-106; Gene L. Davenport, “The ‘Anointed of the Lord’ in Psalms of Solomon 17,” in Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism: Profiles and Paradigms (ed. John J. Collins and George W. E. Nickelsburg; SBLSCS 12; Chico, CA: Scholars, 1980), 67-92. 79. Smith states that “the king is the paragon of righteousness” (Christ the Ideal King, 104-5). The author is clear that the righteous king is a descendant of David (see Ps. Sol. 17:4, 6, 21, 32). That this is the case is also indicated by the numerous allusions to scriptural expectations for a coming Davidic king, foremost of which are Pss. 2:9; 72:1-4; Isa. 11:1-5. See also Loren T. Stuckenbruck, “Messianic Ideas in Apocalyptic and Related Literature of Early Judaism,” in The Messiah in the Old and New Testaments (ed. Stanley E. Porter; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 90-112, here 94. 80. Stuckenbruck, “Messianic Ideas in Apocalyptic and Related Literature of Early Judaism,” 94. 81. Ibid., 100. Stuckenbruck notes that it is surprising that the work makes no attempt to link the Messiah to David. For a helpful discussion of the dating of the Similitudes and whether they are

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focused on God’s judgment of the wicked and righteous (1 En. 1:8), and the Similitudes grant a central role in meting out judgment to a figure described as “Messiah” (48:10; 52:4), “Son of Man” (62:5-16), “Chosen/Elect One” (45:3-5; 49:2), and significantly for our purposes, “the Righteous One” (38:2-3; cf. 39:6).82 The task of the Righteous One centers upon the judgment of the wicked and the establishment of salvation and revelation for the righteous (50:4-5). When the congregation of the righteous shall appear, sinners shall be judged for their sins, they shall be driven from the face of the earth, and when the Righteous One shall appear before the face of the righteous, those elect ones, their deeds are hung upon the Lord of the Spirits, he shall reveal light to the righteous and the elect who dwell upon the earth. . . . When the secrets of the Righteous One are revealed, he shall judge the sinners; and the wicked will be driven from the presence of the righteous and the elect. (38:1-3a)

The Righteous One, who shares the throne of “the Lord of the Spirits” (45:3; 47:3; 51:3-5; 60:2), appears as the representative of the righteous assembly who overturns the power of the unrighteous (45:3-6; 46:4-7; 50:4-5; 53:5-7). He is also referred to as “the Elect One of righteousness and of faith” (38:6a), and his task is to produce righteousness and establish those who are righteous in the eschatological age (38:5-8). He is the one “to whom belongs righteousness, and with whom righteousness dwells” (46:3), and he is thereby able to deliver the righteous from the oppression of the wicked (46:4-8). Human Injustice and Divine Judgment in Romans 1:18–3:20 This foray into ancient reflections upon king and justice prepares us for Paul’s claim that God’s righteousness is revealed in the death and resurrection of God’s righteous king who, as the agent of judgment, pre-Christian, see Waddell, The Messiah, 22-27. For the text, see Michael A. Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1978). For the translation, see Ephraim Isaac, “1 (Ethiopic Apocalypse of) Enoch,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. James H. Charlesworth; 2 vols.; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983/1985), 1:5-89. 82. These honorifics likely speak of only one ruling figure. See, for example, James C. VanderKam, “Righteous One, Messiah, Chosen One, and Son of Man in 1 Enoch 37–71,” in From Revelation to Canon: Studies in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 413-38.

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establishes his people in righteousness. Humanity’s salvation depends upon the revelation of God’s righteousness, namely, God’s deliverance of the righteous king, for their fate is wrapped up in the destiny of their king. But the revelation of God’s righteousness is the simultaneous act of divine judgment and wrath against the unjust. The section of Rom. 1:18–3:20 contains some of the most notorious scholarly cruxes in all of Paul’s letters, but here I seek to show how the revelation of God’s righteousness has manifested itself as God’s just judgment against human injustice—thereby making a righteous king humanity’s only hope for rescue.83 Just as many of the texts surveyed above associated the rescue of the righteous king with ensuing judgment against the unjust, so the revelation of God’s righteousness through the Messiah results in judgment for the unjust and wicked. Given Paul’s declaration that God’s righteousness has been revealed in the Messiah (1:16-17; 3:21-26), this section is remarkable for its lack of references to Christ. The only reference to Christ in this section is telling, for Paul interrupts the dialogue with his interlocutor to speak of the final judgment as “the day when God will judge the secrets of humans according to my gospel through Jesus Christ” (κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιόν μου διὰ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ 2:16; cf. 2:5).84 Given Paul’s description of God’s gospel in 1:1-4, Paul’s interjection in 2:16 indicates his belief that God’s judgment will be mediated through their relationship to this royal figure. Throughout this section of Romans Paul portrays God as the righteous judge who brings God’s just contention against all of humanity for its injustice, thereby resulting in a situation in which humanity is under divine wrath. Paul sets up a contrast between two 83. The section of Rom. 1:18–3:20 is dominated by the depiction of God as judge and the impending eschatological judgment. See Kensky, Trying Man, Trying God, 182-90. God’s wrath “from heaven” emphasizes that judgment is at hand (Rom. 1:18a; cf. 1 Thess. 1:10; 2 Thess. 1:7). Humanity is said to be “without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). See Markus Barth, Justification: Pauline Texts Interpreted in the Light of the Old and New Testaments (trans. A. M. Woodruff III; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), 25-34; Mark A. Seifrid, Christ, Our Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of Justification (NSBT 9; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000), 48-51. 84. I understand διὰ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ as modifying “will judge” (κρίνει) and thereby indicating that the Messiah is the agent through whom God will judge the world (cf. 1 Cor. 4:4; 2 Cor. 5:10). See here Stefan Schreiber, Gesalbter und König: Titel and Konzeptionen der königlichen Gesalbtenerwartung in früjüdischen und urchristlichen Schriften (BZNW 105; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000), 416-17.

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antithetical realms—one marked by divine justice (1:17; cf. 3:3-5; 3:21-26) and another marked by human injustice (1:18-32).85 The parallel construction between 1:17 (δικαιοσύνη γὰρ θεοῦ . . . ἀποκαλύπτεται) and 1:18 (Ἀποκαλύπτεται γὰρ ὀργὴ θεοῦ ἀπ᾽ οὐρανοῦ) as well as the γάρ in 1:18, which links the revelation of divine wrath with the manifestation of God’s righteousness (1:16-17), suggests that God’s revelation of wrath is not antithetical to God’s righteousness but is an apocalyptic manifestation of it.86 In other words, the revelation of God’s righteousness has as its counterpart the revelation of God’s wrath against human injustice—a common theme throughout Israel’s Scriptures (e.g., Psalms 9; 34; Isaiah 11), as we have just seen. Paul’s argument that God’s righteousness has been revealed in the gospel (Rom. 1:16-17), a gospel that is centered upon God’s son (1:1-4), makes his transition to an unrelenting focus upon human injustice all the more striking in 1:18–3:20. If God’s righteousness is manifested in the gospel (1:17a),87 and Paul has defined the gospel as centering upon the resurrection of his Son (1:1-4), then God’s vindication of his son is also the manifestation of his righteous judgment against the injustice of humanity, who crucified God’s son. Paul does not seem to be thinking here of the historical agents involved in Jesus’s death, but, as the context makes clear with its use of ἀποκαλύπτω and emphasis on God’s activity, Paul construes the situation in an apocalyptic manner such that the death of God’s son and God’s resurrection of his son exposes all of humanity as wicked, unjust, and liars.88 His interjection a bit later 85. See here Neil Elliott, The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), 73. 86. A variety of proposals has been advanced for how to understand the γάρ in Rom. 1:18 and its relationship to 1:16-17. See Richard H. Bell, No One Seeks for God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 1:18–3:20 (WUNT 106; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1998), 12-17; Steve Finamore, “The Gospel and the Wrath of God in Romans 1,” in Understanding, Studying and Reading: New Testament Essays in Honour of John Ashton (ed. Christopher Rowland and Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis; JSNTSup 153; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 137-54, here 140-45. This suggests the error of claiming that the revelation of God’s wrath somehow precedes and occurs before (1:18–3:20) the revelation of God’s righteousness (3:21-26). Pace Jonathan A. Linebaugh, “Debating Diagonal Δικαιοσύνη: The Epistle of Enoch and Paul in Theological Conversation,” EC 1 (2010): 107-28, here 118. 87. The prepositional phrase ἐν αὐτῷ refers back to τὸ εὐαγγέλιον in 1:16. 88. Those who see God’s wrath (1:18) as a manifestation of God’s righteousness against humanity for the crucifixion of Jesus include C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans (ICC; 2 vols, London: T & T Clark, 1975), 1:110; Robert Jewett, Romans (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 150: “The cross of Christ reveals the unacknowledged tendency to stamp out the truth and to wage

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on that “all of humanity is liars” (3:4a) is patently true for Paul, given humanity’s complicity and use of false speech in the killing of God’s Messiah.89 Furthermore, we have seen that God’s justice, especially in the LXX, is often manifested in the salvation of the righteous precisely through God’s judging of the wicked.90 It can be seen as logical, then, that if God’s righteousness has been shown in the resurrection of God’s killed son, the revelation of this righteousness will also result in divine wrath against those culpable for this abuse of justice.91 The apocalyptic cues in 1:18 (“revelation,” “wrath,” “from heaven”) suggest that the present revelation of God’s wrath against injustice is a foretaste of God’s eschatological judgment.92 Just as God punished the wicked and unrighteous for their abuse of justice in Israel’s Scriptures, so here we see that “God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all the impiety and injustice of humans (ἀδικίαν ἀνθρώπων) who suppress the truth in unrighteousness (ἐν ἀδικίᾳ)” (1:18). The repetition of ἀδικία (twice in 1:18) makes for a pointed contrast with God’s justice and draws attention to humanity’s implacable opposition to God.93 This statement in 1:18 starts an inclusio with 1:32, where Paul notes humanity’s refusal to take heed of “God’s righteous verdict” (τὸ δικαίωμα τοῦ θεοῦ) that the unjust and wicked are “worthy of death.” It has been noted that Rom. 1:18-32 bears the marks of a decline-of-civilization story as God’s wrath against injustice results in the Gentile world further sinking into vice and impiety.94 The decline of civilization into idolatry and evil desire is marked by every war against God so that humans and institutions can maintain their guise of superior virtue and honor. The resurrection of Christ exposed this vicious secret at the heart of the human endeavor, and reveals the shocking truth about the nature of the attempted reversal in the roles of humans and God.” 89. Jewett, Romans, 151: “Following the premises laid down in the confession of 1:3-4, the resurrection ‘designated’ Jesus as ‘Son of God,’ thus revealing the ‘impiety and wickedness’ (1:18) of those who crucified him.” 90. See the many texts treated above that depict God’s righteousness as rescuing God’s anointed one through judgment upon the wicked and unrighteous persecutors of the righteous. 91. Romans 1:18-3:20 should, then, not “be understood as giving the grounds for the revelation of the righteousness of God” (Bell, No One Seeks for God, 17). God’s eschatological judgment, described in this stretch of Romans, is rather a manifestation of God’s justice against an unjust humanity. 92. Ibid., 14-15. 93. Jewett, Romans, 153. 94. E.g., Stowers, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles, 85-100.

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imaginable vice, but none is highlighted as strenuously as injustice or the refusal to honor God’s righteousness (twice in 1:18, 29, 32). Impiety, injustice, immorality, antisocial behavior, sin, and divine wrath are exactly the characteristics one would not find in either Augustus’s Golden Age or in God’s rule over creation and God’s people through God’s righteous king, as seen in the Prophets and Psalms. 95 In Romans 2, Paul now contends with his interlocutor that God’s judgment is universal, impartial, and strictly in accordance with human behavior.96 Paul’s rhetorical shift here to the diatribe style beginning in 2:1 as well as the lexical and thematic links between 1:18-32 and 2:1-11 suggest that Paul is extending the points made in 1:18-32 to a new audience, namely, Paul’s dialogue partner who approves of God’s condemnation of pagan idolatry but hypocritically practices those same things.97 Those who judge the wicked behavior described in 1:18-32 but engage in the very evil deeds they condemn will find that they too are “without excuse” before God’s judgment (2:1; cf. 1:20). Though the identity of Paul’s interlocutor remains a significant point of scholarly contention, Paul’s diatribe appears to engage someone who supposes that God’s election of Israel, possession of Torah, and salvation-historical privileges for Israel will provide an 95. See above for the numerous biblical texts that speak of a utopian Golden Age for God’s people as the result of a righteous ruler over God’s people. For Augustus’s Golden Age and its resonances with Pauline texts, see Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “The Golden Age and Sin in Augustan Ideology,” Past and Present 95 (1982): 19-36; Stowers, A Rereading of Romans, 52-58; Harrison, Paul and the Imperial Authorities at Thessalonica and Rome, 146-53. 96. But for an argument that emphasizes the universal implications of Paul’s statements (e.g., Rom. 2:1-3, 3:9-10, 20), see Andrew T. Lincoln, “From Wrath to Justification: Tradition, Gospel, and Audience in the Theology of Romans 1:18–4:25,” in Pauline Theology, vol. 3, Romans (ed. David M. Hay and E. Elizabeth Johnson; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 130-59, here 135-46; Francis Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (London: T & T Clark, 2004), 54-55. See, however, the important work reopening the question of the ethnic identity of Paul’s interlocutor as a Gentile Judaizer in Matthew Thiessen and Rafael Rodríguez, ed., The So-Called Jew In Paul’s Letter to the Romans (forthcoming; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016). My evaluation can be seen in my response essay: “What are the Implications of the Ethnic Identity of Paul’s Interlocutor? Extending the Conversation.” 97. On the links between Rom. 1:18-32 and 2:1-11, see Jewett, Romans, 196; Jouette M. Bassler, Divine Impartiality: Paul and a Theological Axiom (SBLDS 59; Chico, CA: Scholars, 1982), 124-31. Campbell now somewhat famously argues that 1:18-32 contains the opening salvo of Paul’s rhetorical opponent (The Deliverance of God, 547-48). On the diatribe, see Stanley K. Stowers, The Diatribe and Paul’s Letter to the Romans (SBLDS 57; Chico, CA: Scholars, 1981); Runar M. Thorsteinsson, Paul’s Interlocutor in Romans 2: Function and Identity in the Context of Ancient Epistolography (ConBNT 40; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2003).

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advantage for the Jew (or gentile proselyte) at the final judgment that will not belong to the Gentile proselyte (cf. 2:10b; 2:17-24; 3:1-2).98 But for Paul, these admitted privileges of God’s election of Israel will not enable anyone who hypocritically judges to “escape God’s judgment” (2:3b), and the privileges will provide no help for the unrepentant against “the revelation of God’s righteous judgment” (ἀποκαλύψεως δικαιοκρισίας τοῦ θεοῦ; 2:5b). God’s judgment is absolutely impartial (2:10b-11), such that God “will pay back to each one according to his deeds” (2:6; cf. LXX Ps. 61:13b).99 According to this principle, life will be granted to those who pursue the good (Rom. 2:7), but tribulation will come to those pursuing “injustice (τῇ ἀδικίᾳ), wrath, and passion” (2:9). Still, in response to the suppositions of his interlocutor, Paul argues that only those who adhere to the Torah will be justified at God’s judgment (οἱ ποιηταὶ νόμου δικαιωθήσονται; 2:13b). This leads to the surprising, but logical according to the terms of the dialogue, possibility that uncircumcised Gentiles who perform the Torah’s requirements may find their righteous behavior vindicated by God (2:12-16) at God’s final judgment (2:25-29). But if God’s justice is strictly impartial, then does not Paul’s argument invalidate God’s election of Israel? Thus, it is understandable that Paul’s interlocutor asks: “What then is the advantage of the Jew or what is the profit of circumcision?” (3:1). At issue is whether God’s impartiality overrides Israel’s election and thereby calls into question God’s integrity. Even though Israel has been entrusted with “the oracles of God” (3:2; cf. 1:2), Paul does not loosen his grip on the priority of God’s impartial justice against human infidelity and unrighteousness (3:3, 5). Israel was entrusted with God’s oracles but 98. Douglas Campbell argues that the interlocutor is a Jewish-Christian (The Deliverance of God, 547-87). Stowers argues that 2:1-16 is addressed to a gentile who ignorantly and hypocritically does the same wicked deeds condemned in 1:18-32, whereas beginning in 2:17 and continuing through chap. 4 Paul engages a dialogue with a Jewish teacher of gentiles (Rereading Romans, 126-42). But see the recent surge of scholarship arguing that the interlocutor is a proselytizing Gentile: Thorsteinsson, Paul’s Interlocutor in Romans 2; Rafael Rodríguez, If You Call Yourself a Jew: Reappraising Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2014); Matthew Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). 99. God’s impartial judgment is a well-known motif in biblical and Jewish texts (e.g., Deut. 10:16-19; Prov. 24:12; Sir. 35:12). See Lincoln, “From Wrath to Justification,” 141-42.

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Israel has not believed (εἰ ἠπίστησάν τινες, μὴ ἡ ἀπιστία αὐτῶν τὴν πίστιν τοῦ θεοῦ; 3:3).100 Every one is a liar (πᾶς δὲ ἄνθρωπος ψεύστη; 3:4) and unrighteous (εἰ δὲ ἡ ἀδικία ἡμῶν; 3:5a). God will not, then, allow Israel’s lack of faith and unrighteousness to override God’s faithfulness—either in terms of failing to prove faithful to the divine promises or in allowing the divine righteous integrity to be compromised. In support of these claims, Paul alludes to LXX Ps. 115:2 and cites LXX Psalm 50:6: “but let God be true and every human a liar, as it has been written: so that you may be vindicated in your words and you may triumph in your judgment” (ὅπως ἂν δικαιωθῇς ἐν τοῖς λόγοις σου καὶ νικήσεις ἐν τῷ κρίνεσθαί σε; Rom. 3:4b). The larger context of LXX Psalm 50 fits Paul’s argument nicely, as it contrasts God’s righteousness and blamelessness with human injustice.101 The psalm works well to prove that God is justified in carrying out judgment against human injustice.102 Paul sees Israel’s lack of faith in the Messiah (Rom. 3:2-3) as “unrighteousness” (3:5), and, since God has revealed God’s righteousness in the Messiah (1:16-17; 3:21-26; cf. 1:1-4), God is right to enter into judgment with the people.103 God, then, will not prove to be unjust to inflict wrath (μὴ ἄδικος ὁ θεὸς ὁ ἐπιφέρων τὴν ὀργήν; 3:5b) and enter into contention with the entire world for its refusal to submit to God’s righteousness (3:6-7). Again, the similar language used to describe “the Jew” (3:1) in Paul’s condemnation of idolatry in 1:18-32—lying, injustice, wrath, judgment—suggests that all humanity is in the same predicament and deserving of wrath. In Rom. 3:9, Paul again suggests that he and his interlocutor have established God’s judgment to be impartial, but here he introduces 100. On “lack of faith” as a failure to trust in Jesus as God’s demonstration of righteousness, see Mark Seifrid, “Unrighteous by Faith: Apostolic Proclamation in Romans 1:18–3:20,” 136-37; Charles H. Cosgrove, “What if Some Have Not Believed? The Occasion and Thrust of Romans 3:1-8,” ZNW 78 (1987): 90-105. 101. So Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 48. 102. So Sylvia C. Keesmaat, “The Psalms in Romans and Galatians,” in The Psalms in the New Testament (ed. Maarten J. J. Menken and Steve Moyise; New Testament and the Scriptures of Israel; London: T & T Clark, 2004), 139-61, here 144-45. Jewett notes that Paul and his interlocutor share the view that “human injustice falls under divine wrath and thus demonstrates God’s righteousness” (Romans, 247). 103. Cosgrove, “What if Some Have Not Believed?”

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sin as the agent that has kept everyone in a state of unrighteousness: “we have charged that everyone, both Jew and Greek, is under sin (ὑφ᾽ ἀμαρτίαν εἶναι).”104 Paul further establishes this point in 3:10-18 by overwhelming the reader with a catena of scriptural quotations, taken mostly from the Psalter, that present God’s indictment of humanity for its use of its body to perpetrate wickedness and injustice.105 The catena’s establishment of human unrighteousness is evident by the fact that the language of “righteousness” occurs, as Martin C. Albl has noted, “at least once in the wider content of every Psalm and several times in Isaiah 59.”106 Paul’s concern to demonstrate humanity’s injustice is indicated by the heading of the catena, “just as it has been written, ‘there is not one righteous person’” (οὐκ ἔστιν δίκαιος οὐδε εἷς; 3:10), a text that has apparently been redacted from “there is no one who does good, there is not one” (LXX Ps. 13:3b; cf. Eccl. 7:20a).107 The heading of the catena functions, then, to demonstrate that these biblical texts testify that there is no human righteousness to be found anywhere. But Paul’s claim that these scriptural texts demonstrate universal human injustice is surprising, as the texts drawn upon actually make a distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous.108 That is, as Francis Watson has noted, they “refer not only to David and his enemies but also the congregation of the righteous, who share his danger and who give thanks for deliverance.”109 For example, the same psalm that Paul draws upon to testify to human injustice (LXX Ps. 13:1-3) also promises 104. The formula Τί οὖν functions to conclude the argument in 3:1-8 and transition to the new section of Paul’s speech in 3:10-20. On Paul’s use of the prepositional phrase “under sin” to indicate the powerful ability of an agent to control people, see J. Louis Martyn, Galatians (AB 33A; New York: Doubleday, 1997), 370-71; Ernst Käsemann, Romans, 86; Dunn, Romans 1–8, 148. 105. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, 50; Keesmaat, “The Psalms in Romans and Galatians,” 145. Martin C. Albl, notes that the passage is unified by the “image of the entire body engaged in sin” (‘And Scripture Cannot Be Broken’: The Form and Function of the Early Christian Testimonia Collections [NovTSup 96; Leiden: Brill, 1999], 172). 106. Albl, ‘And Scripture Cannot Be Broken,; 172. 107. Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, 58-59; Steve Moyise, “The Catena of Romans 3:10-18,” ExpT 106 (1995): 367-70. 108. The problem is recognized but not solved by Keesmaat: “In contrast to the wicked, these psalms describe the just (δίκαιος) as those who hope in God (Pss 5:13; 140:14), the poor and the oppressed (Pss 9:9, 12, 18; 10:12, 14, 18; 14:6; 140:12), for whom God will act” (“The Psalms in Romans and Galatians,” 146). See also Bell, No One Seeks for God, 220-22. 109. Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, 62.

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help “for the righteous generation” (ὁ θεὸς ἐν γενεᾷ δικαίᾳ; LXXPs. 13:5b; cf. Rom. 3:10b-12). The same psalm Paul draws upon to speak of the violent speech of the wicked (Ps. 5:9-10; Rom. 3:13) also promises God’s protection and blessing upon the righteous (ὅτι σὺ εὐλογήσεις δίκαιον; Ps. 5:13a; cf. 5:9). While Ps. 139:4 declares that the speech of the wicked against the righteous is like the poison of a deadly snake, the psalm concludes with the promise of God’s justice for the righteous (LXX Ps. 139:13-14).110 In LXX Ps. 35:1-2 we see that the wicked “have no fear of God before their eyes,” but the psalmist also trusts God to bestow “your righteousness to the upright in heart” (τὴν δικαιοσύνην σου τοῖς εὐθέσι τῇ καρδίᾳ; 35:11). The passages have common to them the establishment of a distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous as well as the use of violence and false speech by the unrighteous to persecute the righteous.111 The throat of the wicked is “an open grave” (Rom. 3:13a; Ps. 5:10), poison is on their lips (Rom. 3:13c; LXX Ps. 139:4), cursing and bitterness comes from their mouth (Rom. 3:14; LXX Ps. 10:7), and they use their feet to shed blood (Rom. 3:15; Isa. 59:7). Thus, within the context of the scriptural texts cited by Paul, the righteous are in danger of death from the wicked who use their speech and body to inflict violence upon the righteous, and the righteous look to God to vindicate and rescue them from the wicked.112 But Paul does not read these psalms as establishing a distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous; rather, as the heading to the catena makes clear, all of humanity is unrighteous and this, for Paul, calls into question whether any of the “righteous ones”—testified to by the Psalter—actually exist (Rom. 3:10).113 Paul’s surprising reading 110. See also LXX Ps. 35:7, 11 and Isa. 59:4, 9, 14, and 17. 111. Beverly Roberts Gaventa, “From Toxic Speech to the Redemption of Doxology in Paul’s Letter to the Romans,” in The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays (ed. J. Ross Wagner, C. Kavin Rowe, and A. Katherine Grieb; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 392-408, here 398-99. 112. It is plausible that Paul is drawing upon another source in his use of Rom. 3:10-18, and if so, the setting for this source would fit nicely with a group considering themselves as righteous and as unjustly being violently persecuted by the wicked (cf. Ps. Sol. 17:15-20). See Albl, ‘And Scripture Cannot Be Broken,’ 176-77; also A. T. Hanson, “The Reproach and Vindication of the Messiah,” in Studies in Paul’s Technique and Theology (London: SPCK, 1974), 23. 113. The possibility that there might be righteous gentiles who intuitively do the demands of the Torah is shown to be impossible. See Gaventa, “From Toxic Speech to the Redemption of Doxology in Paul’s Letter to the Romans,” 403: “In 3:10-18, the audience, having heard 2:12-16 and 25-29, and

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of the Psalter to testify to universal human injustice is indebted, I suggest, to his prior christological assumptions. Paul reads the scriptural texts from the standpoint of his apocalyptically construed understanding of the Christ-event such that Christ alone is the “righteous one” and all of humanity plays the role of the “unrighteous” in the Psalms.114 The powerful dominion of Sin, under which all humanity is subject, undercuts any possibility of the existence of righteous Jews or non-Jews (2:12-15, 25-29; 3:1-20).115 Paul would almost certainly not have come to this conclusion, nor would he have found the catena’s attestation to universal human unrighteousness convincing, apart from his prior conviction that humanity’s killing of God’s Messiah had shown all of humanity to be playing the part of the Psalter’s unrighteous, lying, and violent persecutors of God’s righteous one.116 God’s resurrection and vindication of his messianic king from death is the event that unveils God’s wrath and judgment against humanity and exposes humanity’s violence against the righteous (1:3-4, 16-17). This reading of the catena can make good sense of its unrelenting focus on the violence and false speech of the wicked, for if Paul sees the Messiah playing the role of the righteous one and humanity the role of the unrighteous, then the violence and false speech of the wicked finds their most meaningful context within the events surrounding the death of Jesus.117 Stowers is right, then, attuned to the conventional movement of the Psalms and the conventional content of Wisdom literature, is again led to expect a conclusion that does not follow. Rather than the anticipated assurance that God will punish the wicked and rescue the innocent, Paul asserts that there are no innocent, that every mouth is stopped.” 114. Similar here is Bell, who comments on Paul’s surprising use of the catena in Rom. 3:10-18: “Another possible explanation is that for Paul there was only one righteous person, Jesus Christ. Paul, I believe, had the view that only Jesus Christ is righteous and it is interesting that he, like other New Testament writers, saw Jesus as the righteous sufferer of Ps. 69 (68 LXX)” (No One Seeks for God, 221). 115. So Bell, No One Seeks for God, 216; Lincoln, “From Wrath to Justification,” 145. See also Stephen Westerholm, “Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in Its Jewish Context,” in Divine and Human Agency in Paul and His Cultural Environment (ed. John M. G. Barclay and Simon Gathercole; LNTS 335; London: T & T Clark, 2006), 71-98, here 74-77; idem, “Righteousness, Cosmic and Microcosmic,” 31-32. 116. See Hanson, who sees the scriptural catena in Rom. 3:10-18 as fitting the event of Christ’s passion (“The Reproach and Vindication of the Messiah,” 18-27). 117. On the structure and possible pre-Pauline composition of the catena, see Leander E. Keck, “The Function of Rom 3:10-18: Observations and Suggestions,” in God’s Christ and His People: Studies in Honour of Nils Alstrup Dahl (ed. Jacob Jervell and Wayne A. Meeks; Oslo: University of Oslo, 1977),

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to note that the catena in 3:10-18 “accord[s] . . . with the killers of Jesus.”118 This reading gains further plausibility in light of the early Christian convention of reading the psalms of the royal sufferer as testifying to Jesus’s passion, and Paul also sets forth Christ as the righteous royal sufferer of LXX Ps. 68:10 who receives the violent and shameful speech of the wicked upon himself—“for even the Messiah did not please himself, but as it has been written, ‘the reproaches of those reproaching you have fallen upon me’” (Rom. 15:3; cf. LXX Ps. 68:23 in Rom. 11:9-10).119 Christ is not portrayed as the speaker of the catena in 3:10-18,120 but I am suggesting that it is the death of Christ that enables Paul to see all of humanity as aligned with the unrighteous and wicked, whereas Christ alone is God’s righteous one. This event, then, is what leads Paul to the belief that “whatever the law says to those who are in the law” (3:19), namely, the proclamation of the scriptural texts in 3:10-18, it has as its aim the silencing of the speech of the wicked and showing the entire world to be accountable before God (ἵνα πᾶν στόμα φραγῇ καὶ ὑπόδικος γένηται πᾶς ὁ κόσμος τῶ θεῷ; 3:19b).121 Here too Paul draws upon the language of the Psalter, namely LXX Ps. 62:12, which establishes a contrast between the king and the righteous congregation who use their speech to worship God and the “stopping up of those who speak unrighteous things” (ἐνεφράγη στόμα λαλούντων ἄδικα). But for Paul there is no contrast between the righteous and those speaking 141-57. Christopher Stanley argues that the catena was composed by Paul earlier than its use in Romans (Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary Literature [SNTSMS 69; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990], 87-99). See, however, Bell, No One Seeks for God, 219-20. The parallel between Rom. 3:10-18 and Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 27.3 has played a large role in convincing interpreters that the catena was authored by someone other than Paul. See, however, Dietrich-Alex Koch, Die Schrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums: Untersuchungen zur Verwendung und zum Verständnis der Schrift be Paulus (BHT 9; Tübingen: MohrSiebeck, 1986), 184. 118. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans, 184-85. 119. Again, see Richard B. Hays, “Christ Prays the Psalms: Paul’s Use of an Early Christian Exegetical Convention,” in The Future of Christology: Essays in Honor of Leander E. Keck (ed. Abraham J. Malherbe and Wayne A. Meeks; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 122-36. For the use of the Psalms in Luke–Acts, see Joshua W. Jipp, “Luke’s Scriptural Suffering Messiah: A Search for Precedent, a Search for Identity,” CBQ 72 (2010): 255-74. 120. As does Hanson, “The Reproach and Vindication of the Messiah.” 121. Jewett, Romans, 265; Bell, No One Seeks for God, 222-23. For a rejection of a Christological interpretation of Rom. 3:10-18, see Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, 64-65.

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unrighteous words; rather, the law testifies, using the language of the Psalter, that “by works of the law no flesh will be justified before him” (διότι ἐξ ἔργων νόμου οὐ δικαιωθήσεται πᾶσα σὰρξ ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ; Rom. 3:20; ὅτι οὐ δικαιωθήσεται ἐνώπιόν σου πᾶς ζῶν; LXX Ps. 142:2b).122 Sylvia C. Keesmaat states it well: “The underlying question of God’s justice, raised by Paul in Rom. 3:5-6, appears . . . to be answered definitively here, in the face of the overwhelming evidence of human injustice.”123 Whereas the psalm declares the impossibility of justification should God “enter into judgment with his servant” (LXX Ps. 142:2a), the rest of the psalm appeals to God’s δικαιοσύνη as the basis for safety from judgment (vv. 1-2), rescue from enemies (vv. 9-10), and the granting of life (v. 11).124 Paul’s echo of Psalm 142 nicely concludes his argument that human righteousness is an illusion and provides no ground for divine help. But it also hints at the hope that God’s saving righteousness will manifest itself through another means. God’s Justice and the Justification of the Righteous Messiah Paul has established that justice is universally lacking in humanity (cf. Rom. 1:18-19, 29-32). Any cries, like those from the psalmist, that God would vindicate the righteous and judge the wicked would appear to fall on deaf ears, given that there are none righteous for God to vindicate. There is no one who is just (Rom. 3:9), and this has resulted in a situation where “the entire world” is held accountable before God’s wrath and judgment (3:5-6, 19-20). But this, of course, stands in an antithetical relationship to Paul’s assertion in 1:17 that “the righteous [one] will have life by faith” as well as 3:21-26, where the revelation of God’s righteousness results in the justification of sinful humanity. What enables unjust humanity to escape this terrible situation of sin,

122. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, 51-52; Keesmaat, “The Psalms in Romans and Galatians,” 147; Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, 67-68. 123. Keesmaat, “The Psalms in Romans and Galatians,” 147. 124. See Richard B. Hays, “Psalm 143 and the Logic of Romans 3,” JBL 99 (1980): 107-115, here 114-15; N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, vol. 4; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 995.

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injustice, and divine wrath and to transition into a dominion marked by divine saving justice? The heart of my proposal is that Paul answers this question within the broad discourse of ancient notions of God’s Messiah as the righteous king who, in service to the divine king, rescues his people and establishes them in justice and righteousness. God’s righteousness is revealed when he resurrects and thereby vindicates his righteous Messiah—the only human figure who is righteous and thereby can expect God to justify him. God’s right response to acquit and rescue the righteous Messiah, however, has as its goal the justification of the Messiah’s people. Just as good kings delivered and protected their people, so does God reveal God’s righteousness by setting forth the messianic king to rescue the people by both atoning for their sin in his death and sharing his own righteousness (i.e., resurrection) with his people. God’s righteousness is revealed, then, in the atoning death of the Messiah and in his justification of his righteous Messiah and the extension of the Messiah’s righteous acquittal to those who belong to the Messiah. To state this more simply, I suggest that: (a) God’s righteousness is revealed in his resurrection and granting of eschatological life to the Messiah; (b) the Messiah’s vindication from death is due to the fact that, as a good king, he has established himself as righteous before God; and (c) as a result of God’s justification of the Messiah, Christ is able to deliver his people by sharing his justification/ resurrection with Christ’s people. Paul’s justification-language is laden with allusions to those Septuagintal texts (see above) that associate God’s righteousness with God’s righteous but persecuted Messiah whose task is to establish justice for his people. God’s Righteousness Revealed in God’s Resurrection of the Messiah The revelation of “God’s righteousness” (δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ) in Rom. 1:17 and 3:21-26 is God’s right response to resurrect and hence justify God’s oppressed but righteous anointed one.125 Most recent scholarship on Romans has rightly emphasized that δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ refers to some 245

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divine activity or conduct rather than an attribute or a divine demand for a human righteousness before God.126 The case for understanding “God’s righteousness” as the life-giving vindication of God’s Messiah from the dead is quite strong, especially when Paul’s discourse is read, as it should be, within the context of the ancient topos of king and justice.127 Furthermore, this view is able to provide a strong explanation for how God establishes an unrighteous people in justice and righteousness through the work of the messianic king. In Rom. 1:16-17, Paul states: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it [i.e., the gospel] is God’s power for salvation for every person who has faith, first the Jew and then the Greek. For God’s righteousness has been revealed in it by faith and for faith, just as it has been written: “the righteous one will live by faith.” Οὐ γὰρ ἐπαισχύνομαι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, δύναμις γὰρ θεοῦ ἐστιν εἰς σωτηρίαν παντὶ τῷ πιστεύοντι, Ἰουδαίῳ τε πρῶτον καὶ Ἕλληνι. δικαιοσύνη γὰρ θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ ἀποκαλύπτεται ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν, καθὼς γέγραπται, ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται.

Due in large part to the pioneering work of Richard B. Hays, most interpreters now recognize that Rom. 1:16-17 contains clear allusions to Ps. 97:2: The Lord has made known his salvation, he has revealed his righteousness before the nations. He has remembered his mercies to Jacob and his truth to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen his salvation. ἐγνώρισεν κύριος τὸ σωτήριον αὐτοῦ, ἐναντίον τῶν ἐθνῶν ἀπεκάλυψεν τὴν 125. Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 677-711. On the relationship between God’s righteousness and life in Paul, see Brendan Byrne, Romans (SP 6; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996), 52-53. 126. See here the important work of Sam K. Williams, “The ‘Righteousness of God’ in Romans,” JBL 99 (1980): 241-90. 127. It has become quite fashionable to refer to God’s righteousness as God’s covenant faithfulness for Israel. See, for example, A. Katherine Grieb, The Story of Romans: A Narrative Defense of God’s Righteousness (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 12-13. Hays provides the strongest reading of these interpreters that God’s righteousness concerns theodicy rather than soteriology (Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, 46-57). While I do not disagree that one of Paul’s rhetorical agendas in Romans is to demonstrate God’s righteousness and faithfulness to God’s promises to the people, those who advocate reading δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ as referring to God’s covenant faithfulness to Israel often import something that is not in the text. Rather, Paul is explicit (assuming the subjective reading of the genitive modifier as referring to Christ’s faithfulness) that God’s righteousness is revealed in the Messiah.

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δικαιοσύνην αὐτοῦ. ἐμνήσθη τοῦ ἐλέους αὐτοῦ τῷ Ιακωβ καὶ τῆς ἀληθείας αὐτοῦ τῷ οἴκῳ Ισραηλ, εἴδοσαν πάντα τὰ πέρατα τῆς γῆς τὸ σωτήριον τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν.128

We have seen that Psalm 97 occurs in the larger collection of hymns celebrating God’s kingship over all creation (LXX Psalms 92; 94–98). God’s kingly rule—manifested in creative power, ruling over the other gods, judgment upon enemies, and salvation for the people—is of one piece with the revelation of God’s justice, a justice that results in salvation for the people and judgment for their enemies. God’s justice, then, is rooted in the establishment of divine kingship over all peoples. Thus, throughout these kingship hymns, God is spoken of as one who will come “to judge the earth, [he] will judge the world with righteousness (ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ) and the peoples with equity” (LXX Ps. 97:9). God is “the King of honor, lover of justice, you have established equity, you have done justice and righteousness (κρίσιν καὶ δικαιοσύνην) in Jacob” (LXX Ps. 98:4). The psalmist declares that “righteousness and justice (δικαιοσύνη καὶ κρίμα) are the foundation of his throne” (LXX Ps. 96:2b), and this divine righteousness is revealed in God’s righteous judgments—judgments that result in salvation for God’s people but shame for the idolatrous (vv. 7-12). Thus, if Paul is echoing the divine kingship psalm of Psalm 97 in Rom. 1:16-17, which seems certain in light of the thematic and lexical similarities, then δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ would seem to refer to God’s establishing God’s cosmic rule over all creation by means of the enactment of divine justice—a justice that results in the salvation of the people, including Israel and the nations (e.g., LXX Ps. 97:2-3)—and the judgment of God’s enemies.129 128. Both texts contain references: (a) to God’s righteousness, (b) that is revealed, (c) for Jews/the house of Jacob and Israel and the nations, (d) and results in salvation. Hays, who in speaking of Rom. 1:16-17, states: “All the crucial theological terms of this programmatic declaration echo the language of the LXX; indeed, in certain LXX passages these terms converge in ways that prefigure Paul’s formulation strikingly” (Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, 36) Also see Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 688-89; Keesmaat, “The Psalms in Romans and Galatians,” 142-43; Seifrid, Christ Our Righteousness, 38-40; Jewett, Romans, 143; T. L. Carter, Paul and the Power of Sin: Redefining ‘Beyond the Pale’ (SNTSMS 115; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 138. 129. Mark A. Seifrid rightly argues for the significance of LXX Ps. 97:1-3 and LXX Isa. 51:4-8 for interpreting δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ in Rom. 1:16-17, but surprisingly is inclined toward understanding it “either as a divine requirement or as a gift” (Justification by Faith: The Origin and Development of a Central Pauline Theme [NovTSup 68; Leiden: Brill, 1992], 215-17, quotation from p. 215). Denny

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But how is God’s righteousness revealed? Just as deities were seen as establishing their rule through their royal representatives, so Paul situates the revelation of God’s righteousness within a specifically messianic setting, for Rom. 1:16-17 (while rarely pressed by commentators) is an expansion upon Paul’s description of “God’s gospel” in Rom. 1:1-5.130 That is to say, God establishes divine kingship—as seen in Psalm 97—by means of the gospel as set forth in Rom. 1:3-4. Many of the words and phrases in this so-called thesis statement of Rom. 1:16-17 would be opaque apart from Paul’s contextualization of the statement in Rom. 1:1-5, and yet it must be said that 1:16-17 is frequently interpreted almost entirely apart from any considerations of 1:1-5.131 In addition to sharing the common word εὐαγγέλιον (1:1b, 16a; cf. 1:9),132 the confession speaks of the Messiah as “son of God in power” (υἱοῦ θεοῦ ἐν δυνάμει; 1:4), whereas Paul refers to the gospel as “God’s power (δύναμις . . . θεοῦ) for salvation” (1:16). This divine power for salvation is related to the Messiah’s resurrection in 1:4 and is of one piece with Paul’s frequent deployment of δύναμις to describe resurrection elsewhere in his letters.133 Thus “the power of God for salvation” (1:16a) would appear to be dependent upon God’s installation of his son to a position of power.134 God’s resurrected and Burk argues that God’s righteousness is a metonym for God’s saving and redemptive activity. In other words, righteousness is an attribute of God that functions as the ground or motivation for his saving activity (“The Righteousness of God (Dikaiosune Theou) and Verbal Genitives: A Grammatical Clarification,” JSNT 34 [2012]: 346-60). 130. For a list of some major commentators who take Rom. 1:16-17 as “the theme or thesis of Romans,” see Jewett, Romans, 135n1. See also Rikki E. Watts, “‘For I Am Not Ashamed of the Gospel’: Romans 1:16-17 and Habakkuk 2:4,” in Romans and the People of God (ed. Sven K. Soderlun and N. T. Wright; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 3-25. However, see the helpful comments of Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, 36-37; J. R. Daniel Kirk notes some significant connections between 1:2-4 and 1:16-17 and suggests that “The ‘thesis’ [i.e., of Rom. 1:16-17] that Paul takes up in 1:16-17 is none other than the ‘topic enumerated’ in the expansion of the letter opening” (Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008], 49). 131. See the insightful comments here by Stephen L. Young, “Romans 1.1-5 and Paul’s Christological Use of Hab. 2.4 in Rom. 1.17: An Underutilized Consideration in the Debate,” JSNT 34 (2012): 277-85, here 279. So also, J. R. Daniel Kirk, who notes that in 1:16-17 “Paul works out some further descriptions and implications of his gospel message [of Rom. 1:2-4]—a message whose content he has already parsed in terms of Jesus’ resurrection-kingship” (Unlocking Romans, 46). 132. Some significant Greek manuscripts read τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ Χριστοῦ in Rom. 1:16, and this would seem to draw Rom. 1:16-17 back to Rom. 1:1-4 even more explicitly. 133. For a few examples, see 1 Cor. 6:14; 15:43; 2 Cor. 4:7; 12:9; 13:4; Eph. 1:19, 21; 3:16; Phil. 3:10. For the verbal form related to resurrection, see Phil. 3:21. See further Dunn, Romans 1–8, 39. 134. The relationship between “the power of God” (1:16b) and “Son of God in power” (1:4), among other factors, has led Desta Heliso to suggest that Paul may have intended to connote δύναμις γὰρ

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enthroned Son is invested with divine power, and therefore the association in 1:16 between gospel and God’s power further attests to the closest connection between Christ’s resurrection and God’s righteousness in 1:17.135 Furthermore, Paul’s claim that the scope of the gospel extends “to the Jew first and also the Greek” (1:16b) has been prepared for earlier in Paul’s remark that his apostleship is “for the obedience of faith among all the nations” (ἐν πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν; 1:5). Most important, however, the prepositional phrase ἐν αὐτῷ in 1:17 almost certainly refers back to τὸ εὐαγγέλιον and thereby indicates that “God’s righteousness” is revealed in “the gospel”136—the content of which has been defined in 1:3-4.137 Seifrid states this dynamic well: “The gospel is bound up with God’s saving work in a human being for human beings, namely, in the Son of God who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh and who was marked out as the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead (Rom 1:3-4).”138 In interpretations of Rom. 1:16-17, scholars too frequently ignore the fact that Paul has already defined God’s gospel: (a) as promised in Israel’s Scriptures (Rom. 1:2); (b) as centered upon God’s Son who, in fulfillment of the royal-messianic traditions, is born from the seed of David (1:3); and (c) who by virtue of his resurrection from the dead is enthroned to a position of powerful rule as God’s Spirit-anointed Son (1:4). These contextual features indicate, then, that the δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ that has been revealed in the gospel has as its content God’s resurrection of his royal son from the dead and the enthronement of this son to a position of powerful lordship over the nations.139 θεοῦ as “something that is embodied in Jesus” (Pistis and the Righteous One: A Study of Romans 1:17 against the Background of Scripture and Second Temple Jewish Literature [WUNT 2.235; Tübingen: MohrSiebeck, 2007], 80-83). On “God’s righteousness” and resurrecting power, see Käsemann, “‘The Righteousness of God’ in Paul,” 173-74. 135. Heliso, Pistis and the Righteous One, 82-83. 136. So also Dunn, Romans 1–8, 47. 137. Thus, the prepositional phrase should be understood in a locative manner as indicating the place where God’s righteousness is revealed. 138. Seifrid, “Unrighteous by Faith,” 111; Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 997-98. 139. Similarly, see Young, “Romans 1.1-5 and Paul’s Christological Use of Hab. 2.4 in Rom. 1.17,” 27980. Seifrid comments on Rom. 1:16: “It is ‘in the gospel’ that the ‘righteousness of God’ is revealed. Paul’s localization declaration suggests that he refers to the resurrection of the crucified Christ, employing biblical language in order to convey its saving significance. ‘God’s righteousness’ is his ‘vindicating act’ of raising Christ from the dead for us” (Christ Our Righteousness, 46). Watson

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Paul’s deployment of significant royal messianic scriptural texts to define God’s gospel and righteousness suggests that the revelation of God’s righteousness is, in the first instance, directly related to God’s resurrection of the Messiah. We have already seen, for example, that in Rom. 1:3-4 Paul uses Ps. 2:7 and 2 Sam. 7:12-14 to refer to Jesus’s resurrection and enthronement (cf. Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:5; 5:5; Rev. 3:21-22). God’s promise to David to “raise up seed from you” (2 Sam. 7:12b) as well as “the decree of the Lord: He said to me, ‘you are my son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession’” (Ps. 2:7-8) are made good when God resurrects the anointed one from the dead and installs him as his Son-of-God-in-power (Rom. 1:4).140 Significant for my purposes is the simple observation that Paul’s claim that “God’s righteousness has been revealed in [the gospel]” (1:17a) draws into its orbit these royal texts that refer to the resurrection and vindication of the Messiah, thereby lending more support to the claim that God’s righteousness is revealed in God’s right action to raise from the dead and enthrone God’s son. But Paul’s claim “I am not ashamed (Οὐ γὰρ ἐπαισχύνομαι) of the gospel” (Rom. 1:16a) also alludes to numerous prophetic texts and psalms that appeal to God to send forth his righteousness and thereby bring shame upon the wicked and vindicate the righteous.141 And here I am simply following the cues Paul has established in Rom. 1:2 as well as 3:21, where God’s righteousness is said to be “witnessed to by the law and the prophets” (μαρτυρουμένη ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν). Two texts from the LXX in particular would seem to provide Paul with a significant amount of his vocabulary in 1:16-17 and 3:21-22. overlooks the relationship between 1:16-17//3:21-22 and 1:1-5 when he states: “If [Paul] did understand the citation [Hab. 2:4 in Rom. 1:17] christologically, then he should have already made this clear in Romans 1.17” (Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, 75). Watson seems to undermine his own argument when he states: “In a two-way movement from Christ’s death and back to it again, God’s saving act in Christ seeks to elicit the answering faith that acknowledges it as what it truly is. Faith, then is ‘faith of Jesus Christ’ in the dual sense that Jesus Christ, the embodiment of God’s saving action, is as such both the origin and object of faith” (italics mine, pp. 75-76). With this statement, I heartily agree! 140. More detailed interaction with Rom. 1:1-4 as well as interaction with the relevant secondary scholarship can be found in chapter 4, “King and Kingdom.” 141. But see also LXX Pss. 24:2; 43:10; Isa. 28:16.

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O God, I hope in you, never let me be put to shame (μὴ κατασχυνθείην). Deliver me and rescue me in your righteousness (ἐν τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ ῥῦσαί με καὶ ἐξελοῦ με); turn your ear to me and save me (σῶσόν με). . . . Rescue me, O God, from the hand of the sinner, from the hand of the lawless and unrighteous (ἀδικοῦντος). . . . Let my accusers be put to shame (αἰσχυνθήτωσαν) and consumed; let those who seek to hurt me be covered with scorn and disgrace (αἰσχύνην καὶ ἐντροπήν). . . . My mouth will tell of your righteousness (τὴν δικαιοσύνην σου), of your salvation (τὴν σωτηρίαν σου) every day. . . . Every day my tongue will speak of your righteousness (τὴν δικαιοσύνην σου), for those seeking to do evil to me have been shamed and disgraced (αἰσχυνθῶσιν καὶ ἐντραπῶσιν). (LXX Ps. 70:1-2, 4, 13, 15a, 24)

An accumulation of thematic and lexical similarities between Psalm 70 and Paul’s righteousness language in Romans suggests that Paul is drawing upon this (and other) Septuagintal text(s) to explain the meaning of δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ.142 When God acts to reveal divine righteousness, the Davidic figure expects that this will result in his salvation, his protection from shame, his rescue from the wicked and, alternatively, the shaming of the wicked. Thus, God’s righteousness is revealed in the rescue of God’s righteous Davidic son, and this makes perfect sense of Paul’s situating the revelation of God’s righteousness (Rom. 1:17) within the gospel of his resurrected and enthroned Davidic Son (1:3-4). Paul’s lack of shame (Οὐ . . . ἐπαισχύνομαι), then, derives from his belief that the powerful revelation of God’s righteousness has vindicated the righteous one and brought divine wrath and judgment upon the wicked.143 Paul is not ashamed of God’s gospel precisely because he has seen its power unveiled in the Messiah’s deliverance from shame and disgrace—an event that carries that same power for those who belong to the Messiah. The third Isaianic Servant Song contains a similar dynamic whereby the Servant experiences violence from his enemies and asks God to

142. These include references to shame (Rom. 1:16), God’s righteousness (1:17; 3:21-22), salvation (1:16), and judgment upon the wicked (1:18ff). One of the few who has emphasized the Psalms as the context for understanding Paul’s righteousness language is Geoffrey Turner, “The Righteousness of God in Psalms and Romans,” SJT 63 (2010): 285-301. 143. This is frequently missed by many commentators who instead focus on Paul’s missionary zeal or situate Paul’s lack of shame within a reversal of an honor–shame dynamic. See, for example, Jewett, Romans, 136-37. See, however, Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, 38-39.

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judge between him and the wicked. Like the psalmist, the Servant trusts God to justify and rescue him from shame: I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from the shame (ἀπὸ αἰσχύνης) of spitting. The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced (οὐκ ἐνετράπην); therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame (οὐ μὴ αἰσχυνθῶ); he who justifies me (ὁ δικαιώσας) is near. Who will contend with me (τίς ὁ κρινόμενός μοι)? Let us stand together. Who will contend with me (τίς ὁ κρινόμενός μοι)? Let them confront me. It is the Lord who helps me; who will declare me guilty? All of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up. (Isa. 50:7-9)

We have already seen that it is precisely through the royal Servant that God enacts justice and deliverance from shame for all of God’s people. Thus, standing behind Paul’s claim that he is “not ashamed of the gospel” (Rom. 1:16) is the conviction that the revelation of God’s powerful righteousness has already been enacted in the event whereby the righteous Messiah has been justified and resurrected from the dead—an event that brings (eschatological) shame and wrath upon the wicked but justification and rescue for the righteous. It is precisely the event of God’s revelation of God’s righteousness that provides the foundation for Paul’s claims that humanity “has been freely justified (δικαιούμενοι δωρεάν) by his grace through the redemption that is in Messiah Jesus” (3:24) or “he was handed over for our transgressions and was raised for our justification” (διὰ τὴν δικαίωσιν ἡμῶν) (4:25).144 In other words, God’s justification of humanity is contingent upon the prior act of rightly responding to justify and thereby resurrect God’s unjustly executed Messiah, and this accords closely with what we have seen regarding God’s relationship to God’s king in the Psalter and Isaiah.

144. That “justified freely by his grace” is connected with Paul’s claims in 3:21-23 (instead of with what follows 3:24a), see Douglas A. Campbell, The Rhetoric of Righteousness, 90-95.

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The Messiah Is Righteous Given Paul’s claim “there is none who is righteous” (Rom. 3:10a), who exactly can expect to be delivered from shame? How is it that God’s righteousness can bring salvation for Jew and gentile, in other words, when all are in bondage to injustice, idolatry, and sin (1:18-19; 3:9, 19-20)? For Paul the answer to these questions is that the Messiah is the good and righteous king and the only one who has established himself in justice, obedience, and faithfulness. As the righteous one, he is, thereby, rightly justified by God and granted eschatological life out of death—in other words, God resurrects the righteous Messiah.145 Not unlike the psalmists who on occasion appeal to their own righteousness as the basis for God to vindicate them, so the Messiah’s righteousness elicits God’s vindication of the Messiah from death. God’s righteousness is revealed in the right action to resurrect God’s righteous messianic son, an action that is foundational, as we will see, for the Messiah’s bestowal of life upon humanity. It should occasion no surprise that Paul would see the Messiah as the righteous one, given the incredible relationship we have observed between king and righteousness (e.g., Isa. 53:10-12; Jer. 23:5-6; 33:15; Zech. 9:9; Ps. Sol. 17:35). Whereas I suggest that Paul assumes the association between king/messiah and justice as necessary for the logic of his argumentation, there are some important signals that indicate that Paul sees the Messiah as the singular righteous one who is, thereby, able to justify his people. The Messiah Is the Righteous One in the Habakkuk 2:4 Citation (Rom. 1:17b) Paul’s unrelenting focus on complete and universal human injustice in Rom. 1:18–3:20 suggests the possibility that, for Paul, the identity of ὁ δίκαιος in 1:17b (ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται) may be, in the first instance, the Messiah.146 That is to say, Paul’s claim that “there is none who 145. Heliso states it well: “Christ is depicted as the righteousness of God, because he was vindicated as righteous through his resurrection” (Pistis and the Righteous One, 101). 146. I take it as established that the prepositional phrase modifies the verb (“the righteous one will live by faith”). See the penetrating arguments for this reading in D. Moody Smith, “Ο ΔΕ ΔΙΚΑΙΟΣ

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is righteous, not one person” (3:10b) places all humanity under the imprisoning sentence of death apart from a righteous figure who might rescue humanity and, therefore, makes the Messiah a more logical candidate for the designation “the righteous one.”147 And though there is strong resistance by some to a Christological reading of Paul’s citation of Hab. 2:4 in Rom. 1:17b, there are powerful arguments for the likelihood that Paul sees the prophetic prooftext as witnessing to God’s granting of life to the Messiah due to the righteous one’s faith.148 In Romans, “life” often has an eschatological orientation, and thus Paul’s reference to ζήσεται here may refer to Christ’s resurrection (e.g., 5:10, 17, 18, 21; 6:4, 10, 11, 23; 8:2, 11; 14:9).149 In other words, Rom. 1:17b states that the righteous Messiah is given life because of his faith, though we will see that this is a reality in which Christ’s people participate by virtue of sharing in his righteousness. As we have seen, the unveiling of God’s righteousness (1:17)—understood as God’s resurrection of the righteous Messiah—is also simultaneously the revelation of God’s wrath upon human injustice (1:18) as God’s justifying verdict exposes the wickedness and injustice of the enemies of the Messiah. Just as within its original context Hab. 2:4b functioned as God’s response to Habakkuk’s complaint of injustice (1:2-4; 2:1),150 so ΕΚ ΠΙΣΤΕΩΣ ΖΗΣΕΤΑΙ,” in Studies in the History and Text of the New Testament in Honor of Kenneth Willis Clark (ed. Boyd L. Daniels and M. Jack Suggs; Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1967), 13-25. 147. Similarly, see Douglas A. Campbell, “Romans 1:17—A Crux Interpretum for the ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ Debate,” JBL 113 (1994): 265-85, here 282. 148. Advocates of this view include C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures (London: Nisbet, 1952), 51; A. T. Hanson, Studies in Paul’s Technique and Theology, 39-45; Campbell, “Romans 1:17—A Crux Interpretum for the ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ Debate,” 265-85; Richard B. Hays, “‘The Righteous One’ as Eschatological Deliverer,” in Apocalyptic and the New Testament: Essays in Honor of J. Louis Martyn (ed. Joel Marcus and Marion Soards; JSNTS 24; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989), 191-215; Kirk, Unlocking Romans, 46-49; Young, “Romans 1.1-5 and Paul’s Christological Use of Hab. 2.4 in Rom. 1.17,” 277-85; Stowers, A Rereading of Romans, 198-202. 149. Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 613; Young, “Romans 1.1-5 and Paul’s Christological Use of Hab. 2.4 in Rom. 1.17,” 280; Heliso, Pistis and the Righteous One, 150-51. 150. The majority of the LXX manuscripts differ from the MT in the presence of the personal pronoun: “The righteous one will live by my faithfulness (ἐκ πίστεώς μου).” Here the italicized pronoun undoubtedly refers to God’s faithfulness to give life to the righteous. Two Greek manuscripts, however, do not contain the personal pronoun, and this is the tradition the author of Hebrews appears to be following where the statement “the righteous will live by faithfulness” does not take “the righteous” as a messianic title, although the embodiment of faith is clearly Jesus (see Heb. 12:1-2). See Smith, who argues that Paul used the LXX for the Habakkuk citation but omitted the personal pronoun (“Ο ΔΕ ΔΙΚΑΙΟΣ ΕΚ ΠΙΣΤΕΩΣ ΖΗΣΕΤΑΙ,” 15-16).

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here Paul draws upon the voice of the prophet to demonstrate God’s justice in the face of human injustice. In other words, God will judge the wicked and give life to the righteous, and God’s saving and vindicating activity will come by God’s judgment of the wicked (Hab. 2:4-5).151 Just as in Habakkuk 1–2, the revelation of God’s righteousness whereby God justifies the righteous (Rom. 1:16-17) is inextricably related to the revelation of divine judgment upon the unjust (Rom. 1:18-32; 3:10-18).152 God’s justification of the righteous Messiah simultaneously reveals both God’s saving justice for the people and God’s judgment upon the wicked and unjust.153 That ὁ δίκαιος refers to the Messiah is highly likely for the following reasons. First, Paul has a penchant for describing Christ with articular substantives. He is “the son” (τοῦ υἱοῦ; 1:3; cf. 1:4, 9; 5:10; 8:3, 29, 32), “the Messiah” (τοῦ Χριστοῦ; 9:3; cf. 9:5; 14:18; 15:3, 7, 9), “the one who died” (ὁ ἀποθανών; 8:34; cf. 6:7), and so it is at least worth considering that he may also be “the Righteous One.”154 Second, in Romans Paul generally uses δίκαιος in an absolute sense of that which is godly, whether it is God (3:26b), the law (7:12), or a good individual (2:13; 5:7).155 Third, we have seen that in Rom. 1:2 Paul establishes a christological hermeneutic for his reading of Israel’s Scriptures whereby “God’s gospel” (1:1b) is pre-promised “through his prophets in the holy scriptures” (1:2). God’s gospel has as its content God’s resurrection and installation of the Davidic Son in power (1:3-4). God’s gospel, as defined by Paul, is the unpacking of the narrative of God’s messianic son. So when in Rom. 1:16-17 Paul quotes from Habakkuk, namely, one of the prophets (cf. 1:2!), to substantiate his claims about “the gospel” (1:16; cf. 1:1), it would seem much more likely that he is drawing upon the prophet to say something about God’s Son, and particularly about his resurrection.156 Whereas Paul certainly employs 151. Kensky, Trying Man, Trying God, 192-93; Seifrid, “Unrighteous by Faith,” 112-13. 152. So Andrew T. Lincoln, “From Wrath to Justification: Tradition, Gospel and Audience in the Theology of Romans 1:18–4:25,” in Pauline Theology, vol. 3, Romans, 130-59, here 136. 153. Similarly Michael Bird, The Saving Righteousness of God: Studies on Paul, Justification, and the New Perspective (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2007), 173-74. 154. See Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 613. 155. Campbell, The Rhetoric of Righteousness in Romans 3:21-26, 166-67. 156. Young, “Romans 1.1-5 and Paul’s Christological Use of Hab. 2.4 in Rom. 1.17,” 280; Campbell, The

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Israel’s Scriptures in a variety of ways, for him to draw upon Hab. 2:4 to attest to humanity’s justification by faith would fail to conform to the christological hermeneutical cues he has provided the reader in Rom. 1:2.157 Fourth, Hays and others have drawn attention to a variety of Jewish and Christian texts that speak of the Messiah as “the Righteous One,” and while Paul does not use this title for Christ elsewhere (apart from the possibility in Gal. 3:11), the prevalence of this designation for the Messiah does not appear to have been uncommon.158 The “Righteous One” is one of the primary titles, for example, along with Elect One, Son of Man, and Messiah, used to identify the messianic agent in 1 Enoch. Here the Righteous One is the representative of “the congregation of the righteous,” as his appearance will result in the vindication of the righteous and the destruction of the unrighteous (e.g., 1 En. 38:1-6; 53:1-6). The appearance of “the Elect One of righteousness and of faith” results in the establishment of righteousness for all the righteous (39:6). The Righteous One is, quite simply, the mediator and agent through whom God executes justice.159 In the NT writings the designation “Righteous One” often functions to portray the Messiah as someone who, in spite of his righteousness, has suffered at the hands of the unrighteous (Matt. 27:19; Acts 3:14-15; 7:52; James 5:6; 1 Pet. 3:18; 1 John 2:1-2; cf. Acts 22:14; 1 John 1:9; 2:29; 3:7). Luke’s passion narrative has the Roman centurion proclaim “truly this man was δίκαιος” (23:47) at the moment of Jesus’s last breath and Davidic-like entrusting of himself to God (23:46; cf. Ps. 31:6).160 The presence of the Servant in Isaiah 53 appears to exert some influence on some of these texts as well. So, for example, in Acts 3:13-15 the description of Jesus “the Deliverance of God, 615. Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, is representative for those who expect that if Paul had intended a Christological interpretation of Hab. 2:4 in Rom. 1:17b, he would have given the reader more explicit clues. Also, Watts, “‘For I Am Not Ashamed of the Gospel’,” 16. Yet this argument fails to account for the fact that Paul does provide these cues in Rom. 1:1-4, where he establishes a christological hermeneutic for reading Israel’s Scriptures. 157. For Paul’s christological citation of Israel’s Scriptures, see Isa. 8:14 and 28:16 in Rom. 9:33; Deut. 9:4 and 30:12-14 in Rom. 10:6-7; Ps. 68:10 in Rom. 15:3; and Isa. 11:10 in Rom. 15:12. 158. Hays, “‘The Righteous One’ as Eschatological Deliverer,” 191-215. 159. Ibid, 194. 160. On Luke’s shaping of this scene according to the sufferings and righteous behavior of the royal figure in the Davidic psalms, see Jipp, “Luke’s Scriptural Suffering Messiah,” 260-64.

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holy and righteous one” (τὸν ἅγιον καὶ δίκαιον) as God’s “servant” (τὸν παῖδα αὐτοῦ) who was “handed over” (παρεδώκατε) has reminded many of Isaiah’s servant who is also spoken of as God’s righteous one who is unjustly handed over for humanity’s sin (Isa. 53:6, 11-12).161 Likewise, the statement that “Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous one for the unrighteous (1 Pet. 3:18b), along with the hymn in 1 Pet. 2:21-25, is almost certainly an adaptation of Isaiah 53.162 Furthermore, and perhaps most important, we have already spent a good amount of time setting forth the depiction of the good king in Greco-Roman texts as establishing himself in the virtue of righteousness and the Davidic king in biblical texts as the just ruler and righteous sufferer who calls upon God to see his righteousness and vindicate him. And in a letter that centers upon a messianic figure, and opens and concludes with direct references to the Messiah’s Davidic heritage (Rom. 1:3-4; 15:7-12), including his role as innocently suffering at the hands of his enemies (Rom. 15:3), it would not be surprising that Paul would intend ὁ δίκαιος to refer to the Messiah in Rom. 1:17b.163 The Messiah Is the Righteous One of the Isaiah 53:11 Allusion (Rom. 4:24-25) A second piece of evidence suggesting that Paul sees the Messiah as the Righteous One is the fact that Isaiah refers to the Servant, particularly in his act as an innocent sufferer, as the righteous one and that Paul draws upon Isaiah 53 to recount humanity’s justification.164 In Rom. 161. Hays, “‘The Righteous One’ as Eschatological Deliverer,” 195; Donald Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 127-31; Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 998-1000. 162. Otfried Hofius, “The Fourth Servant Song in the New Testament Letters,” in The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources (ed. Bernd Janowski and Peter Stuhlmacher; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 163-88, here 185-88; Hays, “‘The Righteous One’ as Eschatological Deliverer,” 199. 163. The same insight would hold for the story of the righteous royal sufferer/son of God in Wisdom of Solomon 2–5 which is almost certainly derivative, in part from reflection upon Isaiah 53 and the Davidic psalms of lament. 164. My attention to Rom. 3:27–4:25 is sparse in this chapter, but I have articulated my thoughts on Paul’s righteousness language already in Joshua W. Jipp, “Rereading the Story of Abraham, Isaac, and ‘Us’ in Romans 4,” JSNT 32 (2009): 217-42. Similarly, see Stephen L. Young, “Paul’s Ethnic Discourse on ‘Faith’: Christ’s Faithfulness and Gentile Access to the Judean God in Romans 3:21–5:1,” HTR 108 (2015): 30-51.

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4:25 Paul speaks of the salvific consequences of Christ’s death and resurrection: “he was handed over for our sins and he was raised for our justification” (ὃς παρεδόθη διὰ τὰ παραπτώματα ἡμῶν καὶ ἠγέρθη διὰ τὴν δικαίωσιν ἡμῶν). The verse provides a terse summary of the two stages of Jesus’s career—death then resurrection—and neatly encapsulates the interchange between the Messiah and his people: the righteous one shares in the sin and death that rightly belongs to humanity and the Messiah shares his righteousness and resurrection with his people.165 The statement almost certainly alludes to Isaiah 53, where the Servant is “handed over because of their sins” (διὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν παρεδόθη; 53:12; cf. 53:6b), and due to his righteousness is justified (δικαιῶσαι δίκαιον; 53:11).166 This Servant is a representative figure whose suffering is repeatedly said to be “for us” (53:4, 5, 6), and the “justification of the righteous one” has salvific consequences for “the many” (53:11).167 Beyond providing more evidence, however, that Paul sees the Messiah as God’s Righteous One, Rom. 4:23-25 is significant for the explicit connection it makes between righteousness-language and resurrection.168 In Rom. 4:23-24a, Paul promises a future crediting of righteousness (οἷς μέλλει λογίζεσθαι; 4:24a),169 and there are good reasons 165. For the language of “interchange,” see Morna D. Hooker, From Adam to Christ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 166. Jipp, “Rereading the Story of Abraham, Isaac, and ‘Us’ in Romans 4,” 229-31; Morna D. Hooker, “Did the Use of Isaiah 53 to Interpret His Mission Begin with Jesus?” in Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins (ed. W. H. Bellinger and W. R. Farmer; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998), 88-103, here 101-3; Hofius, “The Fourth Servant Song in the New Testament Letters,” 180-82; Shiu-Lun Shum, Paul’s Use of Isaiah in Romans: A Comparative Study of Paul’s Letter to the Romans and the Sibylline and Qumran Sectarian Texts (WUNT 2.156; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2002), 189-92; Stuhlmacher, Revisiting Paul’s Doctrine of Justification, 21-22, 58. First Clement provides testimony that Isaiah 53:11 was seen as testifying to the resurrection of the Messiah as his justification: “And the Lord desires to take away the torment of his soul, to show him light and to form him with understanding, to justify a Just One (δικαιῶσαι δίκαιον) who is a good servant to many” (1 Clem. 16:12). 167. See here Bernd Janowski, “He Bore Our Sins: Isaiah 53 and the Drama of Taking Another’s Place,” in The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources, 48-74. 168. The relationship between justification/righteousness and resurrection is rightly highlighted by Seifrid, Christ Our Righteousness, 46-47; Michael F. Bird, “Justified by Christ’s Resurrection: A Neglected Aspect of Paul’s Doctrine of Justification,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 22 (2004): 72-91; Markus Barth, Justification, 51-60; Morna D. Hooker, “‘Raised for Our Acquittal [Rom. 4,25],’” in Resurrection in the New Testament (ed. R. Bieringer, V. Koperski, and B. Lataire; Leuven: Peeters, 2002), 323-41; more tentatively, see C. F. D. Moule, “From Defendant to Judge—And Deliverer: An Inquiry into the Use and Limitation of the Theme of Vindication in the New Testament,” in The Phenomenon of the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Implications of Certain Features of the New Testament (Studies in Biblical Theology 1; London: SCM, 1967), 82-99, here 94.

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to believe that this righteousness is a participation in Christ’s resurrection, given: (a) the crediting of this righteousness is a futureoriented reality for “those who trust in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead” (Rom. 4:24b; cf. 1:4), (b) Jesus’s own resurrection is said to be “for our justification” (4:25b), thereby making a clear link between resurrection and acquittal/justification, and (c) Paul’s association of righteousness language with eschatological life and resurrection in Romans 5–8 (e.g., 5:18; 6:7; 8:10-11; 29-38). Thus, if Isa. 53:11—a text that refers to God’s justification of the righteous one—stands behind Rom. 4:24-25, then the likelihood increases that Paul sees Christ as “the Righteous One” who receives life as a result of his righteousness. The Messiah’s Righteous Act Results in Righteousness for All (Rom. 5:15-21) We have already seen that Paul uses kingship language to portray the respective reign of each ruler in his Adam–Messiah contrast in 5:12-21. Five times Paul uses the verb βασιλεύω to contrast the dominion of death and sin that was operant through Adam with the dominion of life, righteousness, and grace that works through the Messiah (5:14, twice in 5:17; twice in 5:21).170 The passage functions programmatically to introduce the contrast of life and righteousness with death and condemnation that will run through chapters 5–8.171 Paul’s use of kingship/dominion language is significant, for it is here that Paul unambiguously refers to the Messiah’s act of righteousness—an act that results in righteousness and life for his people. Paul speaks of a contrast between Adam’s “judgment” (κρίμα) that “resulted in the sentence of condemnation” (εἰς κατάκριμα) and “the 169. The subject of μέλλει is clearly δικαιοσύνη from 4:22-23. See Jipp, “Rereading the Story of Abraham, Isaac, and ‘Us’ in Romans 4,” 230-31. 170. Regarding Adam’s function in the argument as “one whose action brought about a set of conditions that would reign over those who had followed him,” see Grant Macaskill, Union with Christ in the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 238. Also see Jewett, Romans, 377; Kirk, Unlocking Romans, 100-102; Constantine R. Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 344-45. 171. See here C. Clifton Black, “Pauline Perspectives on Death in Romans 5–8,” JBL 103 (1984): 413-33.

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gift” (τὸ δὲ χάρισμα) that “resulted in acquittal/justification” (εἰς δικαίωμα;172 5:16).173 Given that κατάκριμα refers to the condemnation and ensuing death for all who are under Adam’s dominion (cf. Rom. 5:12, 14-15),174 the δικαίωμα is likely to refer to the acquittal and justification that belongs to those who share in the Messiah’s reign.175 Though δικαίωμα is probably best taken as God’s righteous verdict (cf. Rom. 1:32; 8:4), what this verdict actually means is explained in 5:17-18. Whereas death reigned through Adam’s trespass (5:17a), God’s “righteous decree” (5:16b) insures that “those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life (τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς δικαιοσύνης . . . ἐν ζωῇ βασιλεύσουσιν) through the one man Jesus Christ” (5:17b). The language of “righteousness/justification” is brought here, once again, into a close relationship with the language of life, and this is almost certainly because Paul sees God’s righteousness as an event that is revealed in the resurrection of the righteous Messiah, a resurrection that is God’s justification of God’s son. Thus humanity’s acquittal (δικαίωμα; 5:16), “gift of righteousness” (5:17), and promise of reigning in life (5:17) is a participation in the righteous verdict of acquittal that resulted in life for the Messiah.176 The pronouncement of justification now will result in the reigning in life with Christ (βασιλεύσουσιν; 5:17). In 5:18-19 Paul indicates why God justifies and grants life to both the Messiah and his people. In 5:18b Paul states that “through the one man’s righteous act there is acquittal, namely life, for all people” 172. The longer reading εἰς δικαίωμα ζωῆς in D* is the result of assimilation to 5:18b. Nevertheless, the genitive modifier probably provides an accurate interpretation of the result of God’s righteous verdict/justification, namely, eschatological life. 173. See further Nils A. Dahl, “Two Notes on Romans 5,” ST (1951): 37-48, here 45-46. On the limits of Paul’s analogy between Adam and the Messiah, see Stowers, A Rereading of Romans, 254-55; Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans, 1:284. 174. Jewett suggests that κρίμα refers to the verdict whereas κατάκριμα refers to the punishment that results from the verdict (Romans, 382). 175. Paul uses the rarer δικαίωμα here in all likelihood due to its ability to function as a clear contrast to κατάκριμα. So Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans. 1:287n2; Byrne, Romans, 179. 176. See Hooker, who, in commenting on Rom. 5:16, says that “we are presumably sharing the verdict pronounced on Christ, just as we share the verdict pronounced on Adam” (“‘Raised for Our Acquittal (Rom. 4:25),’” 326). Barth states: “Justification by God means . . . not acquittal instead of condemnation, but raising up to new life those who have been condemned and delivered to death. Righteousness and life, justification and resurrection are therefore synonymous” (Justification, 59). Cf. Jewett, Romans, 384; Byrne, Romans, 180; Reumann, Righteousness in the New Testament, 79-80.

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(δι᾽ ἑνὸς δικαιώματος εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους εἰς δικαίωσιν ζωῆς). Here the emphasis is on Christ’s righteous act, and this seems evident given that the statement forms a contrast with Adam’s trespass (παραπτώματος; 5:18a).177 In the next verse Paul restates his point by referring to Christ’s obedience as the means whereby his people are made righteous (5:19b). The semantic relationship between Christ’s righteous act and Christ’s obedience, both of which result in his peoples’ justification and life, is clear. δι᾿ ἑνὸς δικαιώματος εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους εἰς δικαίωσιν ζωῆς [5:18b] διὰ τῆς ὑπακοῆς τοῦ ἑνὸς δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται οἱ πολλοί [5:19b]

Paul thus establishes a relationship between Christ’s righteousness and obedience, and this almost certainly refers to the Messiah’s obedience to God to face death on the cross (cf. Phil. 2:6-8; Heb. 5:7-8).178 Christ’s righteous act (i.e., his obedience) has the consequence of establishing his people in righteousness, namely, their “acquittal that results in life” (Rom. 5:18b).179 The relationship between righteousness and life where Christ’s act of righteousness results in life is seen further in 5:21: “so also grace reigns through righteousness (διὰ δικαιοσύνης) resulting in eternal life (εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον) through Messiah Jesus our Lord.” The eschatological aspect of justification is again evident in the future “will be established (κατασταθήσονται) as righteous” (5:19a).180 Although δικαίωσις is a difficult and rare term, Paul has provided the reader with enough cues to determine its meaning. We have already seen in 4:25 that Christ’s resurrection is foundational for humanity’s justification, 177. See Jewett, Romans, 385; Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans, 1:289; Peter Stuhlmacher, Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Commentary (trans. Scott J. Hafemann; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 87-88; Westerholm, “Righteousness, Cosmic and Microcosmic,” 34. See, however, Hooker, who thinks that δικαίωμα should be translated as “acquittal” or “vindication” as a result of its meaning in Rom. 5:16 (“‘Raised for Our Acquittal (Rom. 4,25),’” 327). 178. Luke Timothy Johnson, “Romans 3:21-26 and the Faith of Jesus,” CBQ 44 (1982): 77-90, here 87-88; Jewett, Romans, 385; Dunn, Romans 1–8, 283; Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans, 1:291; Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 890. 179. The genitive ζωῆς indicates the result of δικαίωσιν. To paraphrase: “The righteous verdict of acquittal that results in eschatological life.” See Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans, 1:289; Hooker, “‘Raised for Our Acquittal (Rom. 4,25),’” 328. 180. Dunn, Romans 1–8, 285; Seifrid, Christ, Our Righteousness, 71; Johnson, “Romans 3:21-26 and the Faith of Jesus,” 89.

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and in 5:10 Paul speaks of humanity as reconciled and saved “by means of his life” (ἐν τῇ ζωῇ αὐτοῦ).181 And so here in 5:18-19 Paul establishes that Christ’s death and resurrection life is the foundation of God’s righteous pronouncement of the verdict of life for those who share in Christ’s dominion.182 Romans 5:18b provides more evidence that Paul sees Hab. 2:4b in Rom. 1:17b as witnessing to God’s granting of life to the Righteous One because of his faithfulness. On this reading, in both texts Christ is righteous (ὁ δίκαιος; 1:17; δι᾽ ἑνὸς δικαιώματος; 5:18b) and his righteousness results in life (ζήσεται; 1:17; εἰς δικαίωσιν ζωῆς; 5:18b).183 The semantic relationship Paul has established throughout Romans between “faith” and “obedience” (e.g., Rom. 1:5; 6:16-18; 15:18; 16:26), and the fact that Paul connects πίστις and δικαιοσύνη in chapters 1–4 but ὑπακοή and δικαιοσύνη in chapters 5–6 suggest the likelihood that just as it is Christ’s obedience that results in justification in 5:18-19, so it is Christ’s faithfulness (ἐκ πίστεως) that justifies those who have faith (εἰς πίστιν) in 1:17b.184 And this would confirm that in Rom. 3:21-22 the revelation of δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ takes place through “the faithfulness of Messiah Jesus” (διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ).185 If one takes the genitive

181. Jipp, “Rereading the Story of Abraham, Isaac, and ‘Us’ in Romans 4,” 231; Bird, “Justified by Christ’s Resurrection,” 84-85; D. B. Garlington, “The Obedience of Faith in the Letter to the Romans: Part III: The Obedience of Christ and the Obedience of the Christian,” WTJ 55 (1993): 87-112, here 94n20. 182. Seifrid rightly comments on the δικ- terminology in Rom. 5:15-21 that “Paul is not thinking merely of a verdict here, but of the enactment of that verdict in our resurrection” (Christ, Our Righteousness, 71). 183. On the relationship between “life” in Romans 5–8 and Hab. 2:4 in 1:17b, see Garlington, “The Obedience of Faith in the Letter to the Romans: Part III,” 88. 184. Johnson, “Romans 3:21-26 and the Faith of Jesus,” 86-87; Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 611-12; Kirk, Unlocking Romans, 103. On the relationship between faith and obedience, see D. B. Garlington, “The Obedience of Faith in the Letter to the Romans: Part I: The Meaning of ὑπακοὴ πίστεως (Rom 1:5; 16:26),” WTJ 52 (1990): 201-24. 185. See here Douglas A. Campbell, “The Faithfulness of Jesus Christ in Romans 3:22,” in The Faith of Jesus Christ: Exegetical, Biblical, and Theological Studies (ed. Michael F. Bird and Preston M. Sprinkle; Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2009), 57-71; Richard B. Hays, “Πίστις and Pauline Christology: What Is at Stake?” in The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11 (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002), 272-97. The strongest arguments for the objective genitive include: R. Barry Matlock, “Detheologizing the ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ Debate: Cautionary Remarks from a Lexical-Semantic Perspective,” NovT 42 (2000): 1-23; idem, “Even the Demons Believe;” idem, “ΠΙΣΤΙΣ in Galatians 3:26: Neglected Evidence for ‘Faith in Christ?’” NTS 49 (2003): 433-39; Francis Watson, “By Faith (of Christ): An Exegetical Dilemma and Its Scriptural Solution,” in The Faith of Jesus Christ, 147-63; idem, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith, 71-77.

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construction to be a metonymy that alludes to Jesus’s faithfulness to God in the face of death and, along with God’s subsequent resurrection, discloses God’s righteousness, then this would fit neatly with Paul’s claim that Christ’s righteousness and obedience results in humanity’s justification (5:18-19).186 It is worth considering, in fact, whether Paul refers to God’s justification of Jesus in 3:26b. The context emphasizes Christ’s atoning activity—sacrifice of atonement, his blood, and faithfulness—as the proof of God’s righteousness (εἰς ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ; 3:25b; πρὸς τὴν ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ; 3:26a). Paul says in 3:26b that the result of this is: εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν δίκαιον καὶ δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ[ν]. This matter is worthy of a longer discussion, but significant witnesses (D, L, Ψ, 33, 614, 945, 1506, 1881, 2464, and Clement of Alexandria) testify that some read 3:26b as “in order that God might be just and the one who justifies Jesus by means of his faithfulness.” And this would make perfect sense with its description of God as “righteous”—God does what is right in justifying the faithful and righteous Messiah.187 Finally, it is worth noting that, as with Rom. 4:25, it may be that Isa. 53:11, where God “justifies the righteous one who has enslaved himself for many,” stands behind Rom. 5:18-19 in order to describe Jesus as the righteous one “whose righteousness is vicariously efficacious for ‘many.’”188 The preceding arguments for Paul’s depiction of the Messiah as the singular righteous one make good sense within the broader discourse of the righteous king who establishes his people in righteousness. Just as the psalmist and the Isaianic Servant pleaded their case before God, asking the divine king to look upon the king’s righteousness and vindicate and rescue him, so Paul sees God’s righteousness as responding to the righteousness of his messianic son, justifying him, and granting him resurrection life. The Messiah’s 186. See Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, 161-62. 187. This reading is plausible and, I suggest, even likely for the following reasons: (1) it has significant textual support; (2) it allows for the context to remain upon God’s accomplishment of salvation through Christ and does not introduce the subjective response of the individual; (3) it coheres with other places where Paul speaks indirectly and directly of Christ’s justification/act of righteousness (Rom. 4:25; 5:18-19; 6:7). See also Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 673-76. 188. Hays, “‘The Righteous One’ as Eschatological Deliverer,” 209; Jewett, Romans, 387; Byrne, Romans, 185; Stuhlmacher, Paul’s Letter to the Romans, 85.

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righteousness—exemplified in his obedience and faithfulness—plays the crucial role in saving the Messiah’s people, for the Messiah saves his people only by sharing his righteousness and life with them. The Messiah Establishes His People in Righteousness In the motif of king and justice we have seen that the purpose of the king’s righteousness is to establish his people in justice and righteousness. Whether it is the pagan moralists, the Hebrew prophets, or the psalmists, the good king’s pursuit of justice should result in the salvation of his people, protection from wicked, and vindication from the attacks of the unrighteous. So within his particular apocalyptic horizon, Paul speaks of the righteous vindicated Messiah as a good king who, by virtue of the people’s participation in his justification, establishes them within a dominion of righteousness and life.189 We have already previewed this theme in the previous section, where the Messiah’s resurrection is the basis for his peoples’ participation in righteousness and resurrection (Rom. 4:25) and where Christ’s righteousness releases humanity from Adam’s dominion of sin and death—a royal righteousness that enables them to escape condemnation, receive acquittal, and share in eschatological life (5:16-19). Thus, throughout Romans 5–8 Paul unpacks the soteriological significance of the Messiah’s righteousness for his subjects. As interpreters have long recognized despite disagreeing on its exact function, Rom. 5:1-11 marks a transition in Paul’s letter, for it both summarizes chapters 1–4 and previews elements of chapters 5–8, a section of Romans that, as I have argued, highlights humanity’s participation in the rule and dominion of the Messiah.190 Royal motifs are signaled by Paul as he speaks of the royal access (τὴν προσαγωγήν) that results from humanity’s justification (5:1-2), reconciliation as the 189. Similarly, Garlington: “Therefore the eschatological revelation of the righteousness of God (1:17; 3:21) can hardly be divorced from the formation of a righteous community modeled on the obedience of Jesus Christ, the Last Adam (5:12f.)” (“The Obedience of Faith in the Letter to the Romans: Part I,” 211). 190. On the function of Rom. 5:1-11, see Jewett, Romans, 346, who demonstrates how the passage both “develops and extends the preceding argument while answering questions and objections.” See again the classic study by Dahl, “Two Notes on Romans 5.”

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overcoming of hostilities between warring parties through Christ (5:10-11), and the allusions to the shame-language of Isaiah and the psalmist where the king’s vindication results in shame for his persecutors and vindication for the king.191 Thus, in 5:1 Paul’s linkage of humanity’s “justification” (Δικαιωθέντες) with “peace with God” (εἰρήνη . . . πρὸς τὸν θεόν) has rightly reminded interpreters of Isa. 32:17, where the rule of the righteous king (cf. v. 1) leads to a situation where “the deeds of righteousness will result in peace” (τὰ ἔργα τῆς δικαιοσύνης εἰρήνη; v. 17a; cf. king and justice/peace in Isa. 9:6-7; Ezek. 37:26; Plutarch, Num. 20.1-4; Aen. 6.852-855).192 This characteristic of peace with God as the absence of anxiety and fear at the judgment runs throughout Romans 5–8 and is the result of the Messiah’s extension of his righteousness to his people.193 I have argued that Christ is almost certainly, in the first instance, the subject of δίκαιοω in Rom. 6:7, where Paul states: “the one who has died has been justified [acquitted] from sin” (ὁ γὰρ ἀποθανὼν δεδικαίωται ἀπὸ τῆς ἁμαρτίας). If this is the case, then we have one more example of Christ functioning as the subject of δικ-language. The statement declares compactly that the crucified Christ, who has taken on Adam’s body of sin (6:6), is justified from the dominion of sin and death.194 Thus, δεδικαίωται here almost certainly refers to God’s act of resurrecting the Messiah from the dead, and this event has apocalyptic ramifications as it delivers the Messiah from (ἀπό) the dominon of sin 191. On Rom. 5:10-11 as using imperial rhetoric, see James R. Harrison, Paul and the Imperial Authorities at Thessalonica and Rome, 195-97. 192. On Isa. 32:17-18 in Rom. 5:1, see Garlington, “The Obedience of Faith: Part III,” 90-91. The presence of the allusion to the righteous king’s rule in Isaiah 32 is strengthened if Paul has just alluded to God’s “justification of the righteous one” from Isa. 53:11 in Rom. 4:25. 193. The theme of hope in the face of suffering, tribulation, and in view of the final judgment plays a key throughout Romans 5–8 and is strongly emphasized in 5:1-11 and 8:31-39. 194. Interpretations that reject the view that “the one who has died” refers to Christ invariably fail to convince in their inability to explain the γάρ in v. 7 and the way in which v. 7 syntactically proves Paul’s statement in v. 6. But if Christ is the subject of “the one who has died has been justified from sin,” then this explains neatly the claims made in v. 6. Further, that Christ’s death is the foundational act for humanity’s release from sin is a cornerstone of his argumentation. See also Kirk, Unlocking Romans, 111-12. For a convincing reading of Rom. 6:7 that rightly attends to the way in which “the one who died” refers both to Christ’s death/resurrection/justification and that of the Christian by virtue of union with Christ, see Conleth Kearnes, “The Interpretation of Romans 6,7,” Studiorum paulinorum congressus internationalis catholicus 1961 (AnBib 17-18; Rome: Biblical Institute, 1961), 1:301-7, here 307.

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(cf. ἐλευθερωθέντες δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς ἁμαρτίας; 6:18; also see 6:22).195 Within the preceding context, Paul has just spoken of humanity’s crucifixion with the Messiah and will proceed to speak of Christ’s death to sin and ensuing life (6:8, 10). The problem Paul addresses is that humanity participates bodily in Adam’s dominion of sin, death, and unrighteousness. Christ rescues his people through sharing in the desperate bodily condition of Adamic humanity (cf. 7:24; 8:3), especially in death (6:9-10; 7:4), and through his resurrection and gift of life destroys death and unrighteousness. Thus, the one who shares in Christ’s death also shares in justification and deliverance “from sin” (6:7b), and is thereby promised to “live with him” (συζήσομεν αὐτῷ; 6:8) by sharing in Christ’s resurrection (6:10). The point here is that Christ’s “justification” from sin—which is his acquittal resulting in resurrection and the creation of a new dominion of life and righteousness—is foundational for his peoples’ justification and future resurrection. Paul’s Adam–Christ contrast in 5:12-21 continues in 6:12-23, as it now centers upon two Lords who rule over humanity, but here the two Lords are “Sin” and “Righteousness.” If in Romans Paul presents Christ as the righteous king who reveals God’s righteousness, then Paul’s use of the language of “righteousness” to speak of the sphere within which humanity-in-Christ now participates fits nicely with how kings were tasked with establishing a righteous and peaceful dominion for their people. We have seen that righteous kings create lands that are filled with justice and righteousness for their people, and so Christ, as a good ruler, creates and establishes a dominion of righteousness for his people. The predominant conceptual metaphor employed by Paul in 6:12-23 is that of enslavement to royal masters, and the use of “kingship-ruling language of sin and death and powers” is continued from 5:12-21.196 Thus, as we have seen in chapter four (“King and 195. See here Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 826; Schreiner, Romans, 319. Jewett rejects this interpretation because it “decontextualizes v. 7 and results in the odd notion that the process of making righteous pertains to Christ rather than to believers” (Romans, 404 n. 147). Jewett’s first claim is patently false, as the context is filled with claims about the Messiah’s death and particularly his death to sin as the foundational event that liberates Christ’s people. His second criticism rests upon a particular reading of Rom. 1:17b as well as an overlooking of many statements treated in this chapter, including Rom. 4:25 and 5:18-19.

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Kingdom”), “Sin” and “Righteousness” are the subjects of the verbal forms of the political language of βασιλεύω (6:12), κυριεύω (6:14), and ἐλευθερέω (6:18, 20, 22), and this provides the major argument for seeing Sin and Righteousness as personified entities with their own dominion that exert power over humanity.197 Paul uses the language of δικαιοσύνη here to speak of Christ’s rule on behalf of God, and this seems evident, not only due to the personification of righteousness and the continuation of the themes in 5:12-21, but also since Christ is spoken of as the Lord in 5:21 and 6:23 (cf. 6:14).198 Righteousness is, therefore, tightly connected with the powerful lordship of Christ.199 The personification of δικαιοσύνη in 6:18-23 is clear: Christ’s people are liberated from the dominion of Sin and “enslaved to righteousness” (ἐδουλώθητε τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ, 6:18b); this results in the ability to offer their bodies as “slaves to righteousness resulting in holiness” (δοῦλα τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ εἰς ἁγιασμόν; 6:19b); when humanity was enslaved to Sin they were “free with respect to righteousness” (ἐλεύθεροι ἦτε τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ; 6:20b).200 The language of righteousness here is again closely associated with resurrection and life (cf. 5:17, 21; 6:4, 11).201 If in Rom. 5:12-21 and 6:6-7 Paul has spoken of Christ’s righteousness and acquittal as the foundation for humanity’s justification and life, here in 6:12-23 he calls them to behave in a way that is congruent with Christ’s dominion of righteousness. Paul associates righteousness with resurrection as he conceptualizes the church’s obedience to righteousness as a present participation in Christ’s resurrection.202 Thus, bodily enslavement to 196. Kirk, Unlocking Romans, 117. On the slavery metaphor in Romans 6, see Dale B. Martin, Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). 197. See Dunn who speaks of righteousness as a variation of God and Christ, since it is a power “which determine[s] life in a particular direction” (Romans 1–8, 345). See also Seifrid, Christ, Our Righteousness, 73. 198. Many interpreters have noted that Paul personifies righteousness or speaks of it as a power, but see especially David J. Southall, Rediscovering Righteousness in Romans: Personified dikaiosyne within Metaphoric and Narratorial Settings (WUNT 2.240; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2008), 83-112. 199. Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 387; Reumann, Righteousness in the New Testament, 82. 200. Southall, Rediscovering Righteousness in Romans, 118-19. 201. Jewett, Romans, 411. 202. Brendan Byrne states regarding the relationship between 6:1-11 and 6:12-23: “Thus Paul reintroduces the ‘righteousness’ terminology in a context where he has just established the

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δικαιοσύνη is living out one’s identity “as those who are alive from the dead” (ὡσεὶ ἐκ νεκρῶν ζῶντας) instead of using one’s body as “weapons of unrighteousness” (ὅπλα ἀδικίας; 6:13).203 Living in obedience and enslavement to Unrighteousness and Sin results in death (6:16, 21, 23), whereas those who share in the realm of “Christ Jesus our Lord” have “eternal life” (6:23; cf. 6:22b).204 Paul’s claim that “you are slaves of the one you obey—either sin resulting in death or obedience resulting in righteousness (ὑπακοῆς εἰς δικαιοσύνην)” (6:16b) is similar to 5:18-19, where Christ’s obedience and righteousness lead to righteousness and life for his people.205 Christ’s people follow the trajectory he has set, in that their obedience (6:16) follows Christ’s obedience (5:19) and thereby results in righteousness. Thus, righteousness is associated with Christ’s trajectory of obedience that leads to resurrection life, and Christ’s people follow this same pattern of obedience and then righteousness.206 After Paul’s exposé in Romans 7 of how the Torah’s goal of life has tragically, through its having been co-opted by sin, led to death instead of life, Paul moves in Romans 8 to show how Christ both protects his people from condemnation and, alternatively, grants them righteousness and resurrection life. I have argued that Romans 8 is an expansion and application of the royal-messianic confession in 1:1-5, so I will not rehearse those arguments here.207 Here I simply note that christological basis of the new moral life” (“Living Out the Righteousness of God: The Contribution of Rom 6:1–8:13 to an Understanding of Paul’s Ethical Presuppositions,” CBQ 43 [1981]: 557-81, here 563). 203. Hooker comments on the association of righteousness with resurrection in Romans 6: “Even though resurrection remains a future hope, however, the resurrection of Christ can be experienced in the present, where the ‘indicative’ of what God has done forms the basis of the ‘imperative’ of appropriate living” (“‘Raised for Our Acquittal (Rom. 4,25),’” 334). See also Kirk, Unlocking Romans, 117. On Paul’s use of cosmic conflict language both here and throughout Romans 5–8, see Beverly Roberts Gaventa, “Neither Height nor Depth: Discerning the Cosmology of Romans,” SJT 64 (2011): 265-78, here 270-72. 204. On righteousness as overlapping with life, see Reumann, Righteousness in the New Testament, 83-84. 205. Wright rightly notes that behind Rom. 6:16 “stands the obedience of Christ in 5:19” (Romans, 544). Many commentators express puzzlement that Paul did not write of “the righteousness that leads to life,” but this problem is alleviated when the connection with 5:19 is recognized. Jewett even suggests that Paul’s reference to “obedience” may be a case of dittography (Romans, 417). 206. Southall rightly emphasizes the christological and narratival determination of the meaning of righteousness: “At this point it is apposite to mention that the antinomic, narratorial dimension of Rom 6 is specifically directed along the lines of the story of Christ; particularly in terms of his Lordship (5:21; 6:23; 7:25; 8:39)” (Rediscovering Righteousness in Romans, 123).

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Christ executes his royal and judicial responsibilities with complete benevolence as he keeps them from “condemnation” (κατάκριμα; 8:1) or accusations of judgment (τίς ἐγκαλέσει; 8:33)—an enacted verdict that would result in death (8:2b; cf. 5:16, 18).208 But Christ’s absorption and execution of sin and death allow the “righteous verdict of the Torah” (τὸ δικαίωμα τοῦ νόμου, 8:4a)—namely life—to flow to those who have the Spirit (8:3-4). Those who belong to Christ and have his Spirit share in “life because of righteousness” (τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα ζωὴ διὰ δικαιοσύνην; 8:10b).209 This relationship between life and righteousness is rooted in God’s resurrection of Jesus from the dead (8:11), through the agency of the Spirit (cf. 1:4), and this further supports the close association between righteousness and life as stemming from the fact that Paul sees God’s resurrection of Christ as the justification of the righteous Messiah. 210 Since those who are in Christ are being conformed to the image of God’s firstborn son, their elder brother, they are assured that their justification will also lead to future glorification, namely, resurrection (οὓς δὲ ἐδικαίωσεν, τούτους καὶ ἐδόξασεν; 8:30b; cf. 5:2; 8:17-25).211 The impossibility of any enemy of Christ’s people enacting a verdict of condemnation (τίς ὁ κατακρινῶν; 8:34a) is rooted in God’s own enactment of acquittal and rescue for the people: “God is the one who justifies” (θεὸς ὁ δικαιῶν, 8:33b).212 Because God has justified and resurrected the Messiah out of the dominion of death, this very

207. See “Sharing in the Rule of Christ the King.” 208. The verb ἐγκαλέω is legal language that evokes the process of bringing accusations against someone (e.g., Prov. 19:5; Sir. 46:19; Acts 19:38; 23:28), but here the context is one of the final judgment. See Dunn, Romans 1–8, 502; Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, 541. 209. The reference to “the body is dead because of sin” (τὸ μὲν σῶμα νεκρὸν διὰ ἁμαρτίαν; 8:10) most likely alludes to Christ’s death as the means whereby “the body of sin” is destroyed, as explained in Rom. 6:5-11 (cf. 7:24-8:3). Similarly, see Jewett, Romans, 491-92. 210. The similarities between Rom. 8:9-11 and 4:23-25 are clear. 211. Seifrid rightly states that glorification that follows justification is not a different act but is rather “the vindication which accompanies the divine verdict. It consists in the resurrection from the dead, in which the children of God are glorified with Christ (verses 17, 18, 23)” (Christ, Our Righteousness, 75). On glory and glorification language as eschatological resurrection life in Romans, see Ben C. Blackwell, Christosis: Pauline Soteriology in Light of Deification in Irenaeus and Cyril of Alexandria (WUNT 2.314; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011), 157-63. 212. Kirk states: “In a way that seems to be wholly unique against its Jewish background, the resurrected Christ casts his shadow across the judgment scene. The Christ whom God delivered up for believers sits at the right hand of God in judgment, speaking in favor of those who are untied to himself (v. 34)” (Unlocking Romans, 153).

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Messiah—“Christ Jesus who died and even more has been raised” (Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς ὁ ἀποθανών, μᾶλλον δὲ ἐγερθείς; 8:34b)—in whom Christ’s people participate, stands as definitive proof that God is the justifier.213 And the echo of LXX Ps. 109:1 in Rom. 8:34 functions to portray Christ clearly as one invested with royal and judicial power.214 As Morna D. Hooker states: “We can be confident of future vindication, since Christ who has been raised, intercedes for us at God’s right hand.”215 Christ is the powerful eschatological judge whose resurrection and enthronement enables him to protect his people from every other power (8:38-39; cf. 1:4; 2:16; 14:10).216 While the focus is on the security and life that belongs to those who are in Christ, it is the resurrected Messiah’s justification that secures life, resurrection, and no condemnation for the people. Christ stands in the role of eschatological judge and vindicator as a result of his acquittal and enthronement.217 This is indicated not only by Paul’s reference to Christ as “the one who died, but even more has been raised” as the answer to “who will condemn?” (8:34), but also by the fact that, as C. F. D. Moule has stated, the passage is essentially “Isa. 59.8, 9 transposed into a Christian key.”218 The third Isaianic Servant song, as we have seen, sets forth God’s righteous servant as one who, despite his sufferings, is delivered from shame. God’s justification (ὁ δικαιώσας) of the righteous Servant gives rise to the boast: Who will contend with me (τίς ὁ κρινόμενός μοι)? Let us stand together. Who will contend with me (τίς ὁ κρινόμενός μοι)? Let them confront me” (Isa. 50:8-9). The themes are readily discernible throughout Romans 5–8 and especially 8:29-34: God’s justification of the Messiah is the granting of life, resurrection, and deliverance from 213. The allusion here to LXX Ps. 109:1, a text that is consistently associated with Jesus’s resurrection as his vindication and enthronement, further suggests that Christ’s justification/acquittal is the means through which God justifies the people. On the allusion to LXX Ps. 109:1 in Rom. 8:34, see Martin Hengel, “‘Sit at My Right Hand!’: The Enthronement of Christ at the Right Hand of God and Psalm 110:1,” Studies in Early Christology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), 119-225, here 137-43; Keesmaat, “The Psalms in Romans and Galatians,” 151-52. 214. Gaventa, “Neither Height nor Depth,” 274; Campbell, The Deliverance of God, 696-97. 215. Hooker, “‘Raised for Our Acquittal (Rom. 4,25),’” 336. 216. Dunn, Romans 1–8, 503. 217. Seifrid, Christ, Our Righteousness, 75. 218. Moule, “From Defendant to Judge—And Deliverer,” 94; Dunn, Romans 18, 503; also, see Hengel, ‘“Sit at My Right Hand!’” 144-45. Jewett thinks that the echo of Isaiah 50 is present but faint (Romans, 540-41).

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shame for the Messiah. And so it is humanity’s participation in this Messiah’s destiny that insures that they share in the same realities: hope in protection from eschatological shame (5:5; cf. 1:16), life that comes from justification (8:10-11), and protection from condemnation at the final judgment (8:37-39). Some Conclusions Allow me to conclude with a few suggestions. In Romans, Paul’s righteousness-justice language is best understood within the broad context of ancient kings and their association with justice. Kings were frequently seen as agents of divine justice who were tasked with establishing themselves as righteous so that they might extend divine righteousness to their people. Paul appears to allude to portions of the Isaiah Servant Songs and Davidic psalms whereby God’s righteousness is revealed in God’s right response to deliver the king, and this is a right response of God for the simple reason that the king is righteous. Thus God’s righteousness is revealed, for Paul, in God’s justification and rescue of the Messiah. God rightly resurrects the messianic king because the Messiah alone is righteous. Only Christ is righteous, obedient, and faithful, and this establishes him as rightly related to God and as the only righteous one who is able to appeal or lay claim to God’s righteousness. The close association in Romans between righteousness and life further suggests that God’s righteousness is manifested in God’s resurrection and enthronement of the righteous Messiah. He is, for Paul, quite simply the only one who is righteous, as the rest of humanity participates in Adam’s unrighteous dominion that is ruled by sin and death. Instead of justly enacting the verdict of condemnation and death, the Messiah rescues his people by incorporating them into his rule through destroying sin and death and sharing his righteousness with them. God’s justice is on display, then, in God’s extension of the Messiah’s righteousness, namely, the Messiah’s justification and deliverance from death, to those who belong to the Messiah.

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In this book I have argued that Paul’s Christ-discourse is indebted to his creative adaptation of ancient Mediterranean kingship discourse through the fate of Jesus of Nazareth and the continued experience of him by his worshippers. Paul’s inherited belief that Jesus of Nazareth is Israel’s Messiah is the presupposition that allows him to construct his own innovative royal script and apply it to Jesus through his reworking of particular elements of ancient kingship discourse. I have argued that when one pays close attention to the particular speech patterns used by Paul in his portrait of Christ, one can discern that ancient notions of the good king are a particularly rich source for understanding the sources of Paul’s christological language. Like a good king, Christ embodies the Torah through his supreme act of love for neighbor. This act both fulfills the Torah—read through Lev. 19:18—and creates a royal pattern that is able to procure the peoples’ obedience to the laws. Just as the good king’s superior law-observance resulted in the stabilizing of the body politick, so Christ’s people are to be a unified community as a result of the king’s law (chap. 2, “King and Law”). Christ receives royal acclamations and honors through the royal encomia that praise him for his benefactions of peace and 273

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reconciliation, his cosmic rule over creation, and his enthronement to a position of cosmic lordship (chap. 3, “King and Praise”). Paul does not emphasize Christ’s kingdom in his Christ-discourse, but as one who simultaneously shares in God’s kingship and is the embodied representative of his people, Paul does frequently speak of Christ’s people as participating in the rule and benefits of Christ’s kingship. Paul’s participatory soteriology is frequently conceptualized as a participation in Christ’s royal rule (chap. 4, “King and Kingdom”). Finally, God’s justice is displayed in God’s right response to resurrect the righteous messianic king. It is through this act that Christ is able to save his people by extending his own righteousness, namely, his justification and deliverance from death, to those who belong to the Messiah (chap. 5, “King and Justice”). Paul does not simply take over, borrow, or directly apply these royal scripts and motifs apart from his own reworking and adaptation of them in light of his distinctive understanding of the identity and fate of Jesus of Nazareth. That is to say, Paul’s Christ-discourse can be simultaneously conventional and innovative in its use of kingship discourse. For example, Christ’s provision of royal benefactions of reconciliation and peace is a standard aspect of kingship discourse, but to claim that these gifts come about through “the blood of the cross” and that it is this event that enables Christ to lead his enemies in a triumphal procession (Col. 1:20; 2:14-15) demonstrates the transformation of kingship discourse through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. A particularly striking example of this was seen in chapter 4 (“King and Kingdom”), where I argued that the logic for the relationship between king and people can be seen in Paul’s belief that Jesus is the Davidic Messiah who shares in God’s divine kingship and embodies the destiny of his people in his own person. But the relationship between king and subjects takes a particular shape as Paul takes the church’s christological creeds, confessions, and hymns and uses them to set the pattern for the church’s participation in Christ’s narrative and identity. Paul’s understanding of Christ’s narrative as one who suffered and died in obedience to God, was raised to life,

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and enthroned at God’s right hand, contributed to his creative conceptualizing of Christ’s people sharing in the identity and rule of Jesus the Messiah. Thus, ancient kingship discourse is refracted through: (a) the early Christian kerygma of Christ’s death and resurrection (e.g., Rom. 1:3-4; 1 Cor. 15:3-4; Phil. 2:6-11; Col. 1:15-20); (b) explicit interpretation of Israel’s Scriptures (e.g., Rom. 1:3-4; 15:3, 7-12; Gal. 5:13-14; 6:2; 1 Cor. 15:20-28); (c) Jesus’s teachings and legislation, especially his demand to love neighbor (Gal. 5:13–6:10; 1 Cor. 9:19-23; Romans 14); and (d) the early Christian experiences of the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8). Given that my study has been more illustrative than comprehensive, further studies might examine with profit Paul’s use of priestly metaphors (Rom. 12:1-2; 15:14-29) and his depiction of the church as sacred temple (1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:14–7:1; Eph. 2:19-22) in light of the notion of the king as priestly figure and temple builder. Paul’s repeated connection between Christ and the language of gift might also be explored in connection with the king as benefactor and giftgiver (e.g., Rom. 5:2, 5, 15-21; 12:3-8; 1 Cor. 12:3-31; Eph. 4:7-12). And the frequent trope that the king is the supremely wise figure may shed light on Paul’s claim that the Corinthians have “the mind of the Messiah” (1 Cor. 2:16) and that it is in Christ that “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden” (Col. 2:3). If my study demonstrates that kingship discourse played a role as a source for Paul’s christological language, further studies may extend and improve my argument.1 1. Not to mention those who have already demonstrated Paul’s reworking of royal ideologies in his depiction of Christ as a royal figure. Julien Smith, for example, has argued that in Ephesians “Christ is characterized as a type of ideal king” who unifies “the fractured cosmos” and “establishes on earth the harmony that is understood to exist in the cosmos” (Christ the Ideal King: Cultural Context, Rhetorical Strategy, and the Power of Divine Monarchy in Ephesians [WUNT 2.313; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011], 3). Christ is the king who brings divine peace and harmony to earth through his reconciling activity (Eph. 2:1-22), the supreme benefactor and gift-giver to his subjects (4:1-16), and triumphant ruler whose defeat of his enemies enables his people to share in his victory (6:10-20). Te-Li Lau has shown that Paul’s ethical reasoning in Ephesians reworks political topoi, particularly in its portrayal of the church as a peaceful body politic that has eradicated ethnic strife and dissension due to the Messiah’s reconciliation of formerly hostile peoples (The Politics of Peace: Ephesians, Dio Chrysostom, the Confucian Four Books [NovTSup 133; Leiden: Brill, 2010]). Donald Dale Walker demonstrates that Paul’s appeal to the Corinthians through the “leniency and clemency of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:1) uses a recognizable political trope

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We have seen four broad examples of Paul taking over and transforming the scripts, topoi, and motifs of the royal ideologies that he inhabits in order to invent a new royal ideology of Christ the King. His construction of “Christ the King” lays the groundwork, then, that will begin to reorder the symbolic universe of the early Christian communities and function to undergird their practices.2 Paul’s creative invention of this new royal ideology helps to establish the internal stability of the church and is the invisible web that helps sustain the existence of Paul’s churches in the midst of competing religious alternatives in the ancient Mediterranean world.3 This totalizing and hegemonic ideology of Christ the King works to justify the obedience and allegiance of Paul’s churches to the resurrected and enthroned ruler of the world. Given Christ’s royal rule over his subjects, Paul frequently speaks of his churches as political communities and their social existence and practices as deriving from the rule of their resurrected king. This could be explored in more detail as well, for example, in 1 Corinthians, where the church is the body of the king by virtue of their receiving the resurrected king’s own pneuma (1 Cor. 12:12-13, 28; cf. 1 Cor. 15:20-28). Ephesians conceptualizes the church’s participation in the Messiah’s heavenly rule through the royal imagery of “head” and “body.” This relationship is one between king and subjects as the church participates in the king’s lordship, given that God makes the Messiah “head over all things” by means of his royal enthronement (Eph. 1:20–2:10). The church’s participation in the king’s enthronement results in the creation of a new peaceful reconciled people (Eph. 2:11-22).4 The rule of the resurrected and enthroned “Lord to portray Christ as a good king who, through Paul’s appeal, is seeking to show clemency to the rebels in the church by allowing them time to repent (Paul’s Offer of Leniency (2 Cor 10:1): Populist Ideology and Rhetoric in a Pauline Letter Fragment [WUNT 2.152; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2002], 189-257). 2. On the church as a political community whose identity derives from the rule of Christ, see Oliver O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 158-60, 181-84. 3. Not unlike what one sees with the justification of the Roman principate. See Clifford Ando, Imperial Ideology and the Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 1-15. 4. I have argued this point much more fully in “Sharing in the Heavenly Rule of Christ the King: Paul’s Royal Participatory Language in Ephesians,” in ‘In Christ’ in Paul: Explorations in Paul’s

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Jesus Messiah” results in the Philippian church having a heavenly constitution (τὸ πολίτευμα) that provides the ground for their communal harmony and renunciation of this-worldly status (Phil. 3:20-21). The Colossian household code claims that all of the church’s relationships are “in the Lord” (Col. 3:18, 20, 23-24; 4:1) and that everyone is a “slave” due to their sharing a common “Lord in heaven” (4:1). This sharing of a common Lord and King is the means whereby the “peace of the Messiah rules” in the community (3:15). Just as ancient kings were tasked with stabilizing the world and often (especially Alexander and Augustus) sought to produce a unified empire out of distinct ethnic groups and socio-economic classes, so does Christ eradicate ethnic dissension through the creation of a new political union (3:11; Eph. 2:11-22). More could be said, but the point should be clear, namely, that Paul conceptualizes the church as a political community whose practices derive from its relationship to Christ the King. Paul’s reworking of kingship discourse as a source for his christological language may allow us, should my arguments prove convincing, to approach some long-standing scholarly cruxes with new insights and questions.5 For example, and more briefly, if the religioushistorical context for Paul’s phrase “the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2; 1 Cor. 9:22) is the notion of the good and virtuous king who embodies the law and establishes a law-observant model within himself (i.e., the king as living law/law incarnate), then Paul’s positive language about law need not be seen as ironic, playful, haphazard, or contradictory (chap. 2, “King and Law”). If this proposal is on mark, it has the added advantage of providing explanatory power for the multiple scholarly proposals for the meaning of the phrase—most of which need not be seen as competing alternatives when situated within the context of political-philosophical disputes over king and law. Also, if Paul’s justice language in Romans is to be situated within ancient notions of the Theology of Union and Participation (ed. Michael J. Thate, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, and Constantine R. Campbell; WUNT 2.384; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck. 2014), 251-79. 5. For the following argument and an extended reflection on this matter with respect to Ephesians, see my “Sharing in the Heavenly Rule of Christ the King,” 251-53.

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king as supremely just and responsible for establishing his subjects in divine righteousness, then this may allow for a more nuanced account of Paul’s righteousness language that distinguishes between “God’s righteousness” as the singular act whereby God, as the divine king, rescues and resurrects God’s “righteous” messianic son whose righteousness eradicates human injustice and establishes his people in righteousness and life (chap. 5, “King and Justice”). But let me also make an extended gesture toward two particularly difficult matters within Pauline scholarship. One of the most intractable debates concerns the rise of early Christian Christology and Jesus’ relationship to the God of Israel. Richard Bauckham and Larry W. Hurtado, among others, have advanced impressive proposals that early Christian belief about Jesus was high Christology, meaning that Jesus was, from very early on, seen as fully divine and thereby worthy of receiving worship, devotion, and honors.6 Both agree that this high Christology developed within the context of Jewish monotheism, so that Hurtado refers to devotion to Christ as a binitarian mutation or reshaping of Jewish monotheism, while Bauckham speaks of Paul attempting to deliberately “reformulate Jewish monotheism as Christological monotheism.”7 Both also set themselves in opposition to Wilhelm Bousset’s influential evolutionary hypothesis of the gradual and continuous development of a higher and more fully developed version of early Christian Christology.8 Instead, the early and high Christology of the early Christians is innovative, unique, novel, and

6. Richard Bauckham, “Paul’s Christology of Divine Identity,” in Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 183-232; Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003); idem, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Historical Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005). See also the important works of Chris Tilling, Paul’s Divine Christology (WUNT 2.323. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2012); Martin Hengel, Studies in Early Christology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995); idem, The Son of God: The Origin of Christology and the History of Jewish-Hellenistic Religion (trans. John Bowden; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976). 7. Bauckham, “Paul’s Christology of Divine Identity,” 185. 8. They are rejecting here the evolutionary model as seen in its classic form in Wilhelm Bousset, Kyrios Christos: A History of the Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Irenaeus (trans. J. E. Steely; Nashville: Abingdon, 1970). More recently, see Maurice Casey, From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God: The Origins and Development of New Testament Christology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991). See here Hurtado’s response to Bousset in his “New Testament Christology: A Critique of Bousset’s Influence,” TS 40 (1979): 306-17.

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marked by a dramatic and abrupt change from everything that came before it.9 The proposals of Bauckham and Hurtado impress because they are internally consistent, demonstrate that belief in Jesus’ deity developed within, and not in spite of, Jewish monotheism, and succeed in providing strong readings of portions of Paul’s letters. It is not a surprise that their proposals, along with others, have convinced many that “earliest Christology was already the highest Christology.”10 Yet their understandable concern to stress the unique, novel innovation of early Christian belief, their (sometimes implicit) denial that conceptual precedents can help explain early Christian belief about Jesus, and the frequent reification of the dichotomy between “Jewish” and “Greek” beliefs about the divine fail to provide an explanation for either how one gets from Jesus of Nazareth to belief in Jesus as human and divine or how the early Christians developed a reasonable and sensible historical-religious discourse about Jesus’s divine identity. 11 Andrew Chester, for example, makes the reasonable suggestion: Thus I would want to argue . . . that the point is not that the New Testament writers fit Christ into an existing category of ‘semi-divine intermediary figures’, but that the way that some of these figures are portrayed in Jewish tradition . . . helps these early Christian authors towards expressing and articulating what they want to say about Christ. 12

In chapter 3 (“King and Praise”) I suggested something similar, namely, that Paul’s construction (or use) of ὁ βασιλικὸς λόγος in Col. 1:15-20 and Phil. 2:6-11, which uses the linguistic resources of Jewish-Davidic and Hellenistic kingship ideology, may indicate that reflections upon the good king played a significant role in Paul’s development and articulation of a divine Christology. Both hymns provide a remarkable 9. Hurtado claims that worship of Jesus “was exhibited in unparalleled intensity and diversity of expression, for which we have no true analogy in the religious environment of the time. There is simply no precedent or parallel for the level of energy invested by early Christians in expressing the significance of Jesus for them in their religious thought and practice” (Lord Jesus Christ, 2-3). 10. Bauckham, “Paul’s Christology of Divine Identity,” 184. 11. See here especially the critique of Hurtado’s separation of “Judaism” from Hellenistic and Roman forms of thought by M. David Litwa, IESUS DEUS: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), 11-18. 12. Andrew Chester, Messiah and Exaltation: Jewish Messianic Visionary Traditions and New Testament Christology (WUNT 207; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2007), 25-26.

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window into how the worship of another human figure alongside God arose.13 In other words, it would appear that early Christian Christology developed, in part, through the interplay between the distinctive experiences of the early Christians with Jesus of Nazareth and reflections upon his messianic and royal identity. This royal-messianic discourse provided the most significant conceptual tool for reflecting upon and explaining Christ’s divine identity. Second, scholars continue to be perplexed by how a theme that dominates Paul’s letters, namely the participation of Christians in the narrative and identity of Messiah Jesus, defies attempts to locate its religious-historical antecedent(s).14 A search for precedents and analogous speech patterns has simply not been met with much success in terms of providing anything close to a scholarly consensus. Richard B. Hays makes an important attempt to rectify this lack by identifying four complementary models for conceptualizing what Paul means by his participatory discourse: “participation as belonging to a family,” “participation as political or military solidarity with Christ,” “participation in the ekklēsia,” and “participation as living within the Christ story.”15 Hays’s four models are not only helpful for enabling 13. On the role of God’s sharing of God’s name with Jesus as a context for the rise of the Trinity, see R. Kendall Soulen, The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity: Distinguishing the Voices (vol. 1; Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 193-212. 14. For recent explications of Paul’s participatory soteriology, see Michael J. Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009); Douglas A. Campbell, The Quest for Paul’s Gospel: A Suggested Strategy (London: T & T Clark, 2005); Constantine R. Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012). On conceptual precedents for Paul’s participatory soteriology, Rudolf Bultmann describes Paul’s participatory language as deriving from the mystery religions wherein “participating in the fate of the mystery-divinity through baptism and sacramental communion grants the mystes (initiate) participation in both the dying and the reviving of the divinity; such participation, that is, by leading the mystes into death delivers him from death. ” (Theology of the New Testament [trans. Kendrick Grobel; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951–1955], 298). Albert Schweitzer argued, to the contrary, that Paul’s “eschatological doctrine of redemption” remained untouched by Hellenistic influence (pp. 139-40) and was rather the result of Paul’s “conception of the predestined solidarity of the Elect with one another and with the Messiah” that gave birth to “Paul’s resurrection mysticism the conception of the common possession of a corporeity” (p. 117) (The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle [trans. William Montgomery; Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998]). See Matthew V. Novenson, who argues that Paul’s “in-Christ” language should be understood as analogous to the many biblical phrases along the lines of “in your seed,” as seen particularly in God’s promises to fulfill God’s purposes in the seed of Abraham (cf. LXX Gen. 12:3; 18:18; 22:18; Gal. 3:8-9, 14). (Christ among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012], 124-26). 15. Richard B. Hays, “What Is ‘Real Participation in Christ’?: A Dialogue with E. P. Sanders on Pauline

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us to think about contemporary categories of perception, but they also enable us to see the predominant conceptual resource that Paul employs to develop his participatory soteriology—kingship discourse. I have argued, however, that royal messianism as well as the broader notion of the participation of the subjects in the rule of their king goes a long way in terms of explaining Paul’s articulation of the narrative of Messiah Jesus and his mapping of the same narrative identity onto the Messiah’s people. Paul conceptualizes the relationship between Christ and his people as the relationship between king and subjects, with the Messiah’s people sharing in the rule and the benefits of the resurrected-enthroned Messiah’s rule (chap. 4, “King and Kingdom”). Whereas this does not explain all of Paul’s participatory soteriology, as I have already noted, it makes good sense of a broad swath of Paul’s letters (especially Romans 5–8; 1 Cor. 15:20-58; Ephesians; Phil. 3:19-21; Colossians) and may, therefore, provide both the logic and the grammar for Paul’s participatory soteriology. Although the precise historical and religious development of Paul’s christological beliefs are incredibly difficult to determine, I have argued that Paul’s christological discourse cannot be fully understand apart from Paul’s innovative reflection and reworking of ancient royal topoi. For Paul, Jesus of Nazareth is Israel’s Messiah, and it is precisely this belief that enables Paul to draw upon and rework both the cultural scripts of the good king as seen in Israel’s Scriptures and in GrecoRoman kingship ideology. Paul’s reworking of the linguistic and conceptual resources of ancient kingship discourse functions to create a new royal ideology that reorients Paul’s churches to Christ as the singular supreme ruler whose rule establishes and stabilizes Paul’s churches. This new Pauline ideological construct of “Christ the king” has resulted in a new worldview, a new locus of absolute power that subsumes all other alternative possibilities for Paul’s churches.

Soteriology,” in Redefining First-Century Jewish and Christian Identities: Essays in Honor of Ed Parish Sanders (ed. Fabian E. Udoh et al.; Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity 16; Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), 336-51.

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330

Index of Names

Aalders, G. J. D., 19, 20, 51 Aasgaard, Reidar, 189

Barclay, John B., 13, 14, 15, 41, 62, 65, 72

Adams, Edward, 194–95

Barraclough, Ray, 99

Agamben, Giorgio, 4, 6, 73

Barth, Markus, 202, 234, 259, 261

Ahearne-Kroll, Stephen P., 2

Bash, Anthony, 123

Albl, Martin C., 240, 241

Bassler, Jouette M., 237

Aletti, Jean-Noël, 185

Bates, Matthew W., 36, 70, 94, 128,

Alexander, Sidney, 92

170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 178

Alexander, T. Desmond, 31, 97, 207

Batto, Bernard F., 95, 105, 150, 182

Allan, John A., 198, 199

Bauckham, Richard, 128, 133, 139,

Allan, William, 217

278–79

Allen, Leslie C., 175

Beale, G. K., 105, 118, 182

Allen, Thomas G., 199, 200, 202

Beard, Mary, 28, 126

Allison, Dale B., Jr., 60, 72

Beetham, Christopher A., 101, 108,

Ando, Clifford, 3, 12, 28, 29, 84, 85, 112, 123, 125, 134, 276 Arnold, Clinton E., 113, 114, 116, 143 Aune, David E., 86, 90

113 Beker, J. Christian, 206 Bell, Richard H., 184, 185, 235, 236, 241, 242, 243

Ausloos, Hans, 158

Berger, Peter L., 11

Austin, M. M., 19, 124

Beskow, Per, 3, 169, 178 Best, Ernest, 200

Badenas, Robert, 73

Betz, Hans Dieter, 61, 62

Badiou, Alain, 6

Bird, Michael F., 255, 259, 262

Bammel, E., 61

Bird, Phyllis A., 104, 105

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Black, C. Clifton, 260

Cairns, Francis, 20, 23, 25

Blackwell, Ben C., 147, 187, 192, 195,

Cameron, Averil, 16

270

Campbell, Constantine R., 148, 149,

Blanton, Ward, 6

182, 186, 198–99, 202, 203, 260,

Blenkinsopp, Joseph, 37, 38, 97, 121

280

Block, Daniel I., 37, 38, 230

Campbell, Douglas A., 6, 42, 71, 72,

Blumenfeld, Bruno, 20, 49, 218

168, 179, 184, 187, 188, 189, 190,

Bockmuehl, Markus, 129

212, 214, 222, 225, 237, 238, 246,

Boer, Martinus C. de, 180, 206

247, 252, 254, 255, 256, 262, 263,

Boers, Hendrikus, 9

266, 270, 280

Boismard, Marie Emile, 178

Carr, Wesley, 126

Born, Lester K., 54, 92

Carter, T. L., 247

Bornhäuser, K., 128

Casey, Maurice, 278

Bosworth, A. B., 19

Centrone, Bruno, 20, 48, 52

Bourdieu, Pierre, 14

Cerfaux, Lucien, 188

Bousset, Wilhelm, 4, 278

Chaniotis, Angelos, 19, 20

Bradley, Keith R., 25

Charles, J. Daryl, 86

Branick, Vincent P., 172, 184

Charlesworth, James H., 39

Brauch, M. T., 214

Chesnut, Glenn F., 49, 50, 52, 53, 54

Bremer, Jan Maarten, 81

Chester, Andrew, 39, 44, 62, 63, 68,

Brent, Allen, 89

75, 279

Brett, Mark G., 104

Childs, Brevard S., 59

Brettler, Marc Z., 1, 152, 223, 225

Chilton, Bruce D., 230

Breytenbach, Cilliers, 181

Choi, Hung-Sik, 66

Bringmann, Klaus, 19, 87

Cholmeley, R. L., 88

Brueggemann, Walter, 32

Clark, Elizabeth A., 8

Bultmann, Rudolf, 4, 169, 171, 280

Clements, Ronald, 161

Burk, Denny, 248

Clifford, Richard J., 96, 155

Burke, Trevor J., 176, 185, 195

Clines, D. J. A., 104, 105, 106

Byrne, Brendan, 246, 260, 261, 264,

Cognat, R., 89

268 Byrskog, S., 194

Collins, Adela Yarbro, 4, 5–6, 33, 78, 89, 94, 100, 102, 110, 121, 127, 129, 134, 135, 158

332

INDEX OF NAMES

Collins, John J., 4, 6, 29, 33, 94, 102, 110, 158 Cooke, Gerald, 101, 154

Dunne, John Anthony, 105, 108, 114, 116, 117, 118 Dvornik, Francis, 19, 47, 50

Cooley, Alison E., 22, 26, 27, 85, 220 Copenhaver, Adam, 142 Cosgrove, Charles H., 239

Eaton, John H., 33, 34, 36, 37, 59, 60, 71, 95, 101, 154-55

Cox, Ronald, 103, 111

Ehrenberg, Victor, 25, 91

Cranfield, C. E. B., 170, 171, 174, 176,

Elliott, Neil, 15, 167, 220, 235

235, 260, 261, 262 Creach, Jerome F. D., 34, 96, 165, 223, 225–26, 229

Engnell, Ivan, 17 Eskola, Timo, 169, 175, 176, 178, 196, 207

Cremer, Herman, 214, 221 Croft, Steven J. L., 162

Fantin, Joseph D., 25, 133

Crüsemann, Franz, 55

Farber, J. Joel, 18, 48, 218

Cullmann, Oscar, 207

Fatehi, Mehrdad, 172, 173, 177, 180, 184, 188, 191

Dahl, Nils A., 2, 4, 7, 8, 104, 181, 194, 260, 265

Fears, J. Rufus, 18, 19, 23, 24, 28, 88, 122, 123, 125, 150, 219

Daly-Denton, Margaret, 136

Fee, Gordon D. 67, 79, 102, 107, 119,

Davenport, Gene L., 156, 232

129, 133, 147, 172, 182, 184, 188,

Davies, W. D., 44

191, 201

Day, John, 17

Finamore, Steve, 235

Dempster, Stephen G., 105

Finlan, Stephen, 185

Deissmann, Adolf, 41

Fishwick, Duncan, 85, 87

Dittenberger, W., 91

Fitzmyer, Joseph A., 30, 31, 37, 238

Doble, Peter, 2

Forman, Mark, 190, 193, 195, 197,

Dodd, C. H., 45, 67, 173, 254

205, 206, 209

Donfried, Karl P., 140

Fowl, Stephen E., 107, 142

Duling, Dennis, 170, 176

Frankfort, Henri, 17, 216

Dumortier, J. B., 96

Frerichs, Ernest, 39

Dunn, James D. G., 2, 63, 72, 101,

Friesen, Steven J., 78, 90, 91

114, 168, 172, 188, 189, 238, 240,

Furley, William D., 81

249, 261, 262, 267, 269, 270, 271

Furnish, Victor Paul, 62, 63

333

CHRIST IS KING

Gaffin, Richard B., 172

Hafemann, Scott J., 126

Galinsky, Karl, 14, 23, 24, 27, 85, 92,

Hahm, David E., 19, 47

126, 220 Garlington, Don, 193, 262–63, 264, 265 Gaventa, Beverly Roberts, 179, 182, 183, 186, 241, 242, 268, 270 Georgi, Dieter, 9, 41 Gerbrandt, Gerald Eddie, 31, 55, 56, 57, 58 Gerstenberger Erhard S., 93

Hahn, Scott W., 33, 58, 98, 107, 151, 156, 157, 161 Hahne, Harry Alan, 194 Halpern, Baruch, 155 Hamilton, Mark W., 93–94, 96, 102, 118, 155, 158 Hanson, A. T., 241, 242, 243, 254 Harrison, James R., 15, 25, 41, 91, 112, 181, 192, 220, 237, 265

Gese, Hartmut, 185

Hay, David M., 35, 159

Gillingham, S. E., 94

Hayes, Christine, 47, 51, 52

Gombis, Timothy G., 201, 202

Hayes, John H., 176

Goodenough, Erwin R., 20, 48, 49,

Hays, Richard B., 6, 64, 71, 142, 174,

50, 55, 56, 99, 111, 211, 217, 218,

204, 205, 206, 239, 240, 243, 244,

219

246–47, 248, 252, 254, 256, 257,

Gordley, Matthew E., 78, 83, 88, 92, 100, 116, 122

263–64, 280 Heen, Erik M., 130–31

Gorman, Michael J., 64, 128, 280

Heilig, Christoph, 15, 16

Gradel, Ittai, 27, 84, 86

Heim, Knut M., 95, 96

Grant, Jamie A., 56, 58, 59, 103, 163,

Heitmüller, Wilhelm, 4

165, 226, 228

Heliso, Desta, 249, 253, 254

Green, Peter, 88

Hellerman, Joseph H., 131, 132–33

Green, William S., 39

Henderson, Susan Watts, 120

Grieb, A. Katherine, 241, 246

Hengel, Martin, 2, 10, 35, 77, 78,

Griffin, Miriam T., 24

133, 136, 140, 158, 270, 271, 278

Gruen, Erich S., 10, 40, 43, 124

Hill, David, 185

Gunkel, Hermann, 32, 94

Hock, Ronald F., 68, 81

Guthrie, Kenneth Sylvan, 49, 218

Hodge, Caroline Johnson, 140, 177, 187, 188, 205

Habicht, Christian, 86, 88

Hofius, Otfried, 133, 157, 158

Habinek, Thomas, 92

Höistad, Ragnar, 25

Hadley, R. A., 20

Homburg, Klaus, 35, 94

334

INDEX OF NAMES

Hooke, S. H., 154 Hooker, Morna D., 147, 148, 192, 258, 259, 261–62, 268, 270 Hoover, Roy, 129 Hopkins, Keith, 26 Horbury, William, 4, 6–7, 9, 31, 39,

Kantorowicz, Ernst, 12 Karrer, Martin, 30 Käsemann, Ernst, 179–80, 213, 240, 249 Keck, Leander E., 4, 13, 243

55, 71, 78, 79, 84, 86, 93, 94, 96,

Keel, Othmar, 158

97, 98, 110, 136, 153, 157, 162

Keesmaat, Sylvia C., 113, 239, 240,

Horrell, David G., 44, 62, 67, 68, 75

244, 247, 270

Horsley, Richard A., 41

Kennedy, George A., 81–82

Hultgren, Arland J., 223

Kensky, Meira Z., 217, 234, 255

Hurtado, Larry W., 173, 278–79

Kim, Seyoon, 15, 68–69, 74, 104 Kirk, J. R. Daniel, 168, 175, 177, 179,

Isaac, Ephraim, 233

182, 186, 190, 194, 196, 248, 254, 260, 263, 266, 267, 268, 270

Janowski, Bernd, 258

Klassen, William, 51

Janse, Sam, 102

Klinghardt, Matthias, 113

Jeremias, Joachim, 188

Knibb, Michael A., 233

Jewett, Robert, 25, 168, 172, 235–36,

Knoppers, Gary N., 119, 157

237, 239, 243, 247, 248, 252, 260,

Knox, Wilfred L., 129

261, 264, 265, 266, 268, 269, 271

Koch, Dietrich-Alex, 243

Jipp, Joshua W., 2, 10, 71, 109, 118,

Koenen, Ludwig, 20, 88

136, 164, 168, 171, 172, 173, 183,

Koortbojian, Michael, 22, 26, 28

184, 190, 198, 243, 257, 258, 259,

Kramer, Werner, 173

262

Kraus, Hans-Joachim, 34, 35, 159

Johnson, Aubrey. R., 33, 58, 93, 152, 223, 228 Johnson, Luke Timothy, 9, 13, 26,

Krentz, Edgar, 82, 83 Kuttner, Ann L., 28 Kwakkel, Gert, 228

34, 35, 44, 69, 154, 159, 177, 191, 228, 229, 261, 262

Laato, Antti, 31, 33, 39

Jones, A. H. M., 25, 91

Lambrecht, Jan, 207

Jonge, M. de, 39

Lane, Eugene N., 81

Juel, Donald, 5, 35, 61, 159, 171, 175,

Launderville, Dale, 17, 150, 161, 216

194, 257

Lau, Te-Li, 198, 199, 275

335

CHRIST IS KING

Law, T. Michael, 10

Maier, Harry, 115, 116, 125, 126, 127

Lee, Aquila H. I., 94, 110, 172, 201

Marcus, Joel, 2, 174, 207

Lee, Michelle V., 115

Marshall, Christopher D., 215

Lendon, J. E., 26

Marshall, Peter, 109

Levenson, Jon D., 95, 106, 108, 111,

Martens, John, 51

121

Martin, Dale B., 68, 113, 204, 267

Levison, John R., 177, 181

Martin, Ralph P., 78

Lincoln, Andrew T., 114, 147, 202,

Martyn, J. Louis, 63, 64, 65, 240

237, 238, 242, 255

Matera, Frank J., 2

Linebaugh, Jonathan A., 235

Matlock, R. Barry, 263

Litwa, M. David, 7, 10, 15, 36, 38, 84,

Mattingly, Harold, 28

128, 129, 133, 134, 151, 159, 192, 196, 204, 279 Loader, W. R. G., 35, 159

Mays, James L., 35, 58, 59, 95, 96, 102, 152, 153, 155, 158, 221, 222, 228, 229, 230

Lohmeyer, Ernst, 128

McBride, S. Dean, 56

Löhr, Hermut, 77

McCarter, Jr., P. K., 153

Lohse, Eduard, 103, 114

McConville, J. G., 31, 55

Longenecker, Richard N., 63, 179

McDonough, Sean M., 79, 106, 108,

Lopez, Davina C., 26, 28–29 Lorenzen, Stephanie, 106 Lucass, Shirley, 17, 36, 37, 38, 154, 130, 131 Lutz, Cora E., 50, 112 Lynch, Matthew J., 99, 157, 158 Lyu, Sun Myung, 221, 225, 227, 228, 229

110, 110, 113, 118 Meeks, Wayne A., 6, 13, 52, 71, 81, 99, 142, 174, 208, 243 Mettinger, Tryggve N. D., 33, 101, 152, 160 Middleton, J. Richard, 96, 104, 110, 121, 151, 182 Millar, Fergus, 22, 84, 220 Miller, Patrick D., 56, 58, 59, 60, 165,

Macaskill, Grant, 121, 149, 153, 154,

226, 227

161, 182, 185, 189, 190, 192, 197,

Mitchell, David C., 33

260

Mitchell, Margaret M., 65, 113

MacCormack, Sabine, 22

Mitchell, Stephen, 29

Machinist, Peter, 104, 105

Moles, John, 25

MacMullen, Ramsay, 81

Moo, Douglas J., 181, 183, 188, 267,

Maiberger, Paul, 102

336

269

INDEX OF NAMES

Moule, C. F. D., 62, 199, 200, 259, 271 Mowinckel, Sigmund, 30, 32, 33, 34,

Peppard, Michael, 25, 26, 85, 121, 187

56, 94, 102, 155, 161–62, 163, 224,

Perkins, Pheme, 147

229, 230, 231

Pernot, Laurent, 84

Moyise, Steve, 240

Peterson, Erik, 86

Murray, Oswyn,17, 18, 40, 47

Pfeiffer, R. H., 105

Mussner, Franz, 36

Phillips, Thomas, 15 Pietersma, Albert, 31

Nasrallah, Laura Salah, 28, 126

Pomykala, Kenneth, 7, 39, 56

Nebe, Gottfried, 114

Porter, J. R., 40, 56, 57, 108

Nelson, Richard D., 56, 57

Porter, Stanley E., 120

Neusner, Jacob, 39

Portier-Young, Anathea E., 124

Newman, Carey C., 121, 153, 154,

Price, Simon R. F., 12, 19, 84, 85, 86,

161, 195 Neyrey, Jerome H., 119

89, 90, 130 Provan, Iain W., 161

Niskanen, Paul, 106 Noth, Martin, 55

Raaflaub, Kurt A., 216

Novakovic, Lidija, 5, 119, 171, 176,

Rabens, Volker, 188, 189

177 Novenson, Matthew V., 4–5, 6, 7, 15,

Rad, Gerhard von, 105, 182 Räisänen, Heikki, 61

39, 40, 61, 71, 97, 133, 140, 162,

Rawson, Elizabeth, 22

170, 172, 174, 194, 200, 206, 207,

Reeve, C. D. C., 47

280

Reumann, John, 214, 261, 267, 268 Richardson, W., 51, 52

Oakes, Peter, 129, 133, 134, 146

Ridderbos, Hermann, 108

Oakley, Francis, 1, 3, 16, 17

Rives, John B., 14

O’Brien, P. T., 120, 128

Roberts, J. J. M., 34, 95, 96, 152, 155,

O’Donovan, Oliver, 161, 276

158, 163

Oegema, Gerbern S., 31, 39, 40

Rodríguez, Rafael, 237

Old, Hughes Oliphant, 78

Rooke, Deborah W., 154

Owens, Daniel C., 226, 227

Rose, Wolter H., 38 Roueche, Charlotte, 134

Pao, David W., 102

Rowe, C. Kavin, 14 Rowe, Christopher, 46, 47

337

CHRIST IS KING

Rowland, Christopher, 145

Seters, John van, 104

Rudolph, David, 69

Shum, Shiu-Lun, 258

Russell, D. A., 82

Singh, Devin P., 12 Smith, D. Moody, 254, 255

Sailhamer, John H., 97

Smith, Ian, 143

Samuel, Alan E., 89

Smith, Jonathan Z., 10

Sanders, E. P., 61, 62

Smith, Julien, 17, 20, 24, 34, 40, 44,

Sanders, Jack T., 78

66, 83, 156, 198, 218, 219, 232,

Sandmel, Samuel, 9

275

Santner, Eric L., 12

Smith, R. R., 28

Satlow, Michael L., 10

Sollamo, Raija, 31

Satterthwaite, Philip E., 32

Sommer, Benjamin D., 105, 160

Schaper, Joachim, 33, 95, 99, 110

Soulen, R. Kendall, 280

Schattenmann, Johannes, 78

Southall, David, 182, 267, 268, 269

Schedtler, Justin Jeffcoat, 78, 87

Souza, Philip de, 19, 123, 124

Schlatter, Adolf, 171, 213

Spicq, Celsus, 201

Schniedewind, William M., 31, 102

Standhartinger, Angela, 46

Schoeps, H. J., 44

Stanley, Christopher, 243

Schofield, Malcolm, 46, 47

Starbuck, Scott R. A., 34, 93, 164

Schowalter, Daniel N., 92

Stevens, Marty E., 152

Schreiber, Stefan, 6, 7, 37, 39, 101,

Stobaeus, Johannes, 20, 48

129, 234

Stowers, Stanley K., 140, 188, 191,

Schreiner, Thomas R., 266

205, 214, 236, 237, 238, 243, 254,

Schröter, Jens, 8, 9, 175

260

Schultz, Richard, 230

Stuckenbruck, Loren T., 232

Schweitzer, Albert, 179, 280

Stuhlmacher, Peter, 44, 213, 257,

Schweizer, Eduard, 101, 114, 120,

258, 261, 264

172 Scott, James M., 171, 187, 194, 196 Scroggs, Robin, 106, 208

Tannehill, Robert C., 182, 184, 185, 186, 192

Seeley, David, 128, 135

Tanner, Kathryn, 154

Seifrid, Mark A., 214, 22, 223, 225,

Tatum, James, 48

234, 239, 247, 248, 249, 250, 255,

Tatum, W. Jeffrey, 52

259, 262, 267, 270

Taubes, Jacob, 6, 12

338

INDEX OF NAMES

Taylor, Charles, 13

Walker, Donald Dale, 16, 17, 20, 21,

Taylor, Lily Ross, 87

24, 25, 28, 29, 134, 179, 201, 213,

Tellbe, Mikael, 129, 131, 135

175

Thate, Michael J., 14, 23, 197 Thesleff, Holger, 49, 50, 218, 219

Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 123, 219, 237

Thielman, Frank, 181

Walsh, Brian J., 113

Thiessen, Matthew, 115, 237, 238

Wasserman, Emma, 183

Thiselton, Anthony C., 206

Watson, Francis, 237, 240, 241, 243,

Thom, John C., 20

244, 250, 256, 263

Thompson, Alan J., 54

Watts, Rikki E., 120, 248, 256

Thompson, James W., 62, 72, 74

Wegner, P. D., 37

Thompson, Leonard, 78, 143

Weinfeld, Moshe, 221, 222, 223, 224,

Thompson, Michael, 62, 73

225, 229

Thorsteinsson, Runar M., 237, 238

Weinstock, Stefan, 27, 90, 126

Thrall, Margaret, 140

Wellhausen, Julius, 55

Throntveit, Mark A., 99

Wengst, Klaus, 78

Tigay, Jeffrey H., 105

Wenham, Gordon J., 32, 162, 227,

Tilling, Chris, 135, 278 Turner, Geoffrey, 251

230 Westerholm, Stephen, 44, 215, 242, 261

VanderKam, James C., 233 Vaux, Roland de, 33, 152 Versnel, H. S., 127 Veyne, Paul, 84 Vollenweider, Samuel, 100, 130,

Whitelam, Keith W., 30, 31, 33, 155, 156, 160, 223, 229 Whitsett, Christopher G., 5, 71, 171, 175, 193, 194 Widengren, Geo, 56, 57, 161

131, 132, 135

Wifall, W., 32, 207

Vries, Hent de, 6

Wilcox, Max, 208 Williams, Sam K., 61, 246

Waddell, James A., 206, 213, 233

Williamson, H. G. M., 37

Waelkens, Marc, 29

Williamson, Lamar, 126

Walbank, F. W., 16, 19, 20, 21, 46, 48,

Willis, John T., 162

84, 86

Wilson, Gerald H., 33, 58 Wilson, N. G., 82 Wilson, Todd A., 44, 62

339

CHRIST IS KING

Wilson, Walter T., 142

Yavetz, Zvi, 85

Winger, Michael, 61

Young, Stephen L., 248, 250, 254,

Winter, Bruce W., 204

256, 258

Witherington III, Ben, 63 Wrede, William, 3, 179 Wright, Christopher J. H., 221, 222 Wright, N. T., 4, 14, 41, 61, 112, 118,

Zanker, Paul, 15, 27, 28, 84, 92, 125, 129 Zetterholm, Magnus, 4

129, 133, 134, 147, 162, 167, 172,

Ziegler, Philip G., 196, 197

176, 179, 181, 183, 185, 194, 207,

Ziesler, John, 214

244, 248, 249, 257, 261, 268 Wright, Robert B., 156 Yates, Roy, 126

340

Index of Subjects

Adam; Dominion of, 181–86, 207–8

Construction; of the world, 13–14, 91

Benefactions, 84–86, 91 Body; Of the king, 12, 24, 113–16

David. See King(ship): Davidic

Christ; as son of God, 101–3, 168–79,

Emperor; worship, 89–93

187–90; Dominion of, 109–10,

Encomium, 82–83, 90, 100

116–17, 119–20, 133, 179, 186–97;

Enthronement, 35–36

Enthronement of, 114, 118–19, 200–203, 248–50; Imitation of,

Harmony. See Peace

69–70; Union with, 66–67; the

Hymn(s); to ancient rulers, 79,

king, 15–16, 101; Worship of,

81–82, 86–93; to Davidic king,

77–81. See also Messiah

93–96; to gods, 82–83; to great

Christ–discourse, 3, 7–11, 274;

men, 83

Sources of, 7–11 Christology; Divine, 135–37, 278–80 Colossian Christ–hymn, 79–81, 100–127, 142–45; and firstborn, 107–9, 117–19, 143–44; and

Ideology; Royal, 11–12. See also Kingship: Ideal Image of God, 104–7. See also King(ship): as images of God

preexistence, 110; God’s son in, 101–3; Reconciliation in, 122–27,

Jesus; Participation in. See Christ:

145; Wisdom and, 101. See also

Union with; Worship of, 11. See

King(ship): as images of God

also Christ: Worship of

Constitution, Ideal, 46–47

Joshua, 56–57

341

CHRIST IS KING

Josiah, 57–58

Deuteronomy, 55–57; Politics

Judaism, 10

and, 43–44; Paul and, 44–45;

Judgment. See Justice

People as, 47; Union with Christ

Justice, 211–72, 277–78

and, 66–67

Justification, 11, 244–45, 252–53, 261–72

Messiah, 4, 12, 29–30, 33–34, 39 n.189, 60–61, 152, 253–71. See also Christ

Kingdom; of God, 34, 105, 138–39

Moses, 52

King(ship); as provider of peace/ order. See Peace; as images of

Order, Cosmic. See Peace

God, 103–7, 129–34. See also Participation: of kings in divine

Participation; of Christ as son of

rule; Authority and, 105; Ideal,

God, 166–79; of kings in divine

9, 46n13, 49; Davidic, 32, 36–38,

rule, 81, 93–99, 102, 105, 133–34,

93–96, 108–9; Divine honors

149–60; of people in the rule of

received by, 84–93; Hellenistic,

the king, 33–34, 36n178, 81,

18–22; Israelite, 29–38; Justice

140–42, 149–60, 186–97, 264–71;

and, 216–33; Legitimation of,

in the Christ–hymns, 141–48;

11–12; Living law and. See Law

Soteriology of, 11, 141, 148, 166, 179–210, 274, 280–81

Living; Material remains of, 26–29;

Peace, 36, 49–51, 90–93, 96, 103, 105,

Praise to. See Encomium;

111–13, 123–27, 151, 193–94, 219.

Roman, 22–26; Second Temple

See also Colossian Christ–hymn:

Jewish, 38–41; Wisdom of, 80;

Reconciliation in

Worship of. See also Hymns: to ancient rulers Law; Embodiment of. See Law:

Philippian Christ–hymn, 127–35, 146–48 Philosopher–king, 46–47, 52

Internalization of;

Politics, 1, 6, 205–6, 276–77

Internalization of, 48–49, 56, 59,

Psalms; as praise of Davidic king.

63–65, 68–69, 71–74; Living, 45,

See Hymns: to Davidic king;

47–76; of Christ, 44–45, 60–63,

Royal, 32–37, 70–71; Torah,

65–70, 75–76, 277; of

58–59

Moses, 60–61; of the king in

342

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

Representative; King as, 88, 93–96,

Suffering; Of king, 36

99–100, 104–7, 161–66 Righteousness, 211–16, 221–72,

Transformation; Ethical, 66–68, 74

277–78 Victory, 126–27. See also Peace Salvation, 225–34. See also Participation: Soteriology of Sharing, See Participation

343

Index of Ancient Sources

Old Testament

18:19–20……221

Genesis

22:17……161

1……106

22:18……161, 194, 280

1–3……206

24:7……194

1:26……104, 106

25:25–34……107

1:26–28……104, 106, 151, 159, 195

38:27–29……31

1:27……104

49……97

1:28……104, 106, 108, 112, 113

49:1……97

3:14–15……31

49:1–12……55

3:15……197, 207, 208

49:3……107, 117

3:17–19……193

49:8……97, 98

4:25……31

49:8–12……30, 31, 36, 96–97, 137,

5:1……106

163, 193

12:1–3……164

49:9……97

12:2……161

49:10……32, 39, 193

12:3……161, 280

49:10–12……34

13:15……194 15:16–17……161

Exodus

15:18……194

4:22……108, 161, 189

17:6……32, 161 17:6–7……31

Leviticus

17:8……194

19……60, 69, 74

17:16……32, 161

19:14……69, 74

18:18……280

19:18……60, 62, 64–65, 68–76, 273

345

CHRIST IS KING

Numbers

33……98

14:17……32

33:1–5……31, 96

14:15–19……31

33:4–5……55

23–24……31, 96–97

33:5……98

23:21……98, 137 23:21–23……55

Joshua

24……97

1:1–9……56

24:7……97, 98

1:7……56

24:8……158

1:8……56

24:9……97

1:16–18……57

24:14……97

1:19……31

24:17……38, 39

8:32……57

24:17–18……97, 98

8:35……31, 57

24:17–19……34, 36, 106, 163, 193

23:6……57

Deuteronomy

Judges

6:4–9……56

5:11……222

6:5……58

9:7–21……33, 152

7:7–8……189

10:18……114

9:4……256

11:11……114

10:8……221 10:16–19……238

1 Samuel

17……57, 59

2:6–8……32

17:14–20……30, 31, 55

2:10……32, 152

17:18–20……56

2:35……32, 152

17:15–17……55

9:16……224

17:18–20……55

10:1……224

17:20……56, 57, 117

10:1–13……32, 153

21:15–17……107

12:7……222

21:17……108, 117

16:1–13……32, 33, 152, 153

30:6……65

16:6……160

30:8……65

16:13……65, 153

30:12–14……256

16:17–18……32, 153

31:11–12……56

18:3……32, 162

346

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

18:12……32, 153

7:19……161

18:14……32, 153

8:15……222

18:28……32, 153

15:1–6……223

21:17……32

16:13……33

24:6……32, 152

19:22……32, 152, 160

24:7……160

19:42……162

24:7–11……32, 152

19:42……162

24:11……160

10:1……162

26:9……160

21:17……162

26:9–16……32, 152

22:1–51……32

26:11……160

22:3……32 22:20……121

2 Samuel

22:21–25……228

1:14……32, 152

22:44……115

1:16……32, 152

23:1……32

2:1–7……33, 152

23:1–7……32

5:1–5……152

23:39……208

5:2……32, 162 5:10……32, 153

1 Kings

5:15……33

1:28–40……33, 152

7……95, 151, 153, 171

2:3……58

7:12……175

3:6……58

7:12–14……35, 39, 65, 190, 250

3:13……119

7-15……31

3:16–28……223

7:6……32, 153

5:4……105, 159

7:7……32, 162

5:30……105, 159

7:9……161

8:58……58

7:11……32, 153

9:4–5……58

7:12……170, 171, 175, 250

9:23……105, 159

7:12–14……33, 155, 168

10:9……222

7:13……32, 153, 161, 170

10:23……119

7:12–14……5, 160, 173

12:16……162

7:14……32, 101, 109, 154, 170, 187

16:2……32

7:18……102

20:12……114

347

CHRIST IS KING

2 Kings

2 Chronicles

6:24–31……223

2:11……153

9:1–13……33, 152

6:16……58

11:4–20……33, 152

7:1–6……121

18:5……119

7:17–18……58

22:2……57

8:10……105, 159

22:2–20……31

9:8……157, 222

23:2–3……31, 57

14:4……58

23:3–20……57

19:4–11……223

23:25……30, 31, 58, 119

33:8……58

1 Chronicles

Nehemiah

11–13……58

9:33……222

14:2……157 17……33, 102, 151, 161

Psalms

17:11……157

1……59, 226

17:11–14……170

1–2……58

17:12……157

1:2……59, 226

17:14……157

1:5–6……226

17:17–18……157

2……30, 59, 93, 101, 102, 111, 136,

17:20–21……157

155, 160, 14–75, 178, 193, 201

18:14……222

2:1–3……34, 35, 102, 158, 174, 175

22:13……58

2:1–8……109

28……156

2:2……33, 59, 102

28:5……99, 156

2:2–3……35, 158, 200

28:6……153

2:6……35, 93, 160

28:7……58

2:6–7……59

28:10……153

2:6–8……65, 110, 137, 160

29:1……153

2:6–9……33, 155

29:16–26……122

2:7……5, 35, 93, 109, 118, 154, 160,

29:20……98, 99, 137, 157, 160 29:23……99, 157, 160 29:25……98, 137

348

161, 174, 175, 190, 250 2:7–8……35, 160, 168, 179, 192, 194, 226, 250

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

2:7–12……161

9……235

2:9……232

9:5……225

2:12……226, 227

9:7–9……229

2:8……93, 109, 175, 178

9:8……225

2:8–9……35

9:9……241

2:9……39

9:9–13……152

2:9–10……36

9:12……241

2:11……36

9:18……241

3:1–2……226

9:22–36……225

3:3……154

9:37–39……225

3:4……153

10:3……165

5:2……152

10:7……241

5:8……226

10:12……241

5:9……229, 241

10:14……241

5:9–10……241

10:16–18……152

5:10……241

10:18……241

5:13……241

11:4–7……221

7:1–2……228

13:1–3……241

7:4……36

13:3……240

7:8……227

13:5……241

7:9……228

14:6……241

7:9–11……229

15……59

7:10……221

15:2……60

7:12……221

16:1……228

7:12–16……228

16:8……153

7:14……158

17……174

7:18……229

17:1–3……227

8……114

17:1–4……226

8……104, 106, 118, 207, 208

17:15……158

8:4–6……195

17:19–20……211

8:4–8……104, 151

17:20–21……227–28

8:6……208

17:24–25……227–28

8:7……114, 147, 197, 200, 201, 207,

17:32–51……228

208

17:35–36……227

349

CHRIST IS KING

17:42……174

21:7–19……164

17:43–49……170

21:19……159

17:46–47……174

21:20–25……164

17:50……6, 174, 227

21:27……164

17:51……160, 170

21:28–32……161, 164

18……71

22:14–18……36

18–21……58

22:19……2

18:2–7……164

22:20–25……37

18:4–6……35

22:26……37

18:5–7……159

22:27–31……37

18:17–20……164

23……151

18:20……95

23:1……120

18:21–22……59

23:7–10……154

18:26–28……164

23:10……151

18:42–48……35

24……59, 154

18:44–49……159, 164

24:2……251

18:50……33, 71, 171

24:7–10……152

18:51……164

25:1–2……229

19……59

27……163

19–20……159

27:8–9……163

19:5……227

28……151

19:6……163

28:8……33

19:7……59, 163

28:10……151

19:10……59

29:10……152

20……163

30:1……229

20–21……35

30:15–19……229

20:1–2……227

31:6……1, 257

20:2……153

32:4–5……221, 225

20:5–6……227

34……235

20:6……33

34:1……226

20:8……163

34:23–24……226

20:7–8……153

34:26–28……226

21……163, 164

35:1–2……241

21:2–3……164

35:7……241

350

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

35:11……241

61:9……153

38:5–8……36

61:13……238

40:8……59

62:4……153

41:13……95

62:8……95

42:1……227, 229

62:9……153

43:5……229

62:12……244

43:10……251

63:8–10……95

43:11–16……229

66:5……225

43:23……174

67:17……121

44……94–95, 98, 110, 122, 137, 158

68……173

44:2……93

68:1–4……226

44:4……152, 153, 154, 158

68:10……6, 174, 243, 256

44:5……229

68:23……174, 243

44:5–7……108

68:23–24……6

44:6……160

68:24……152

44:7……93, 98, 99, 109, 122, 137, 152,

69……71–72

158, 229

69:2……2

44:8……94, 229

69:4……36

44:18……94

69:9……70

45……111, 158

69:9–10……34

45:3–5……222

70:1–2……227, 251

45:5……34

70:4……227, 251

45:7……158

70:13……227, 251

46:3–6……34

70:15……227, 251

47:8……152

70:24……227, 251

48:4–8……34

71……101, 110, 155, 163, 194, 229

50:6……239

71:1……96

53:2–4……226

71:1–2……96

53:3–4……227

71:1–4……163, 228, 230

59:7……241

71:3……96

59:14……152

71:4……96

60:5……153

71:7……96

60:7–8……164

71:8……96

61:5……95

71:8–11……137, 161, 163

351

CHRIST IS KING

71:9……207

88……101, 109, 136, 154, 155, 160,

71:11……96, 98

187-89

71:11–14……228

88:2–5……170

71:12–14……96, 163

88:4……153

71:15–17……161

88:6–9……95

71:16……96

88:10……95

71:16–17……163

88:10–11……95

71:17……96, 110, 164, 194

88:10–12……95, 108

71:21–22……194

88:10–17……155

72……110, 111, 155

88:12……95, 120

72:1–3……34

88:14–15……225

72:1–4……34, 37, 232

88:15……96, 108

72:3……36

88:15–16……221

72:4b……34

88:19……151

72:5–6……36

88:20……153

72:7……36

88:20–21……170

72:8……36

88:20–38……155

72:8–11……34, 106

88:21……153

72:9……34

88:21–25……95

72:12–14……37

88:21–29……152

72:15……36

88:23–24……155

72:15–16……34

88:24……108, 109, 163

72:16……36

88:25……155

72:17……36, 110

88:25–30……137

73:13–14……208

88:26……117, 155, 190, 196

74:6–10……225

88:26–27……190

74:12……152

88:26–28……95

77:70……153

88:27……108, 155, 160, 187

77:70–72……162

88:27–29……155

79:2–3……162

88:28……77, 102, 108, 109, 144, 155,

79:18……159

159, 161, 187

81:8……223

88:28–30……161

84:3……152

88:29……155 88:29–30……96, 108, 155

352

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

88:30……96, 117, 118

95-99……225

88:39……160, 165

95:1–3……225

88:52……160

95:6……158

89……111, 164, 165, 179

95:10……225

89:3……34, 164

95:13……225

89:4……171

96……225

89:18……152

96:1……225

89:19……165

96:1–2……221

89:20……34, 164

96:1–5……225

89:20–37……34

96:2……225, 247

89:20–38……65

96:3–7……225

89:23……36

96:7–12……247

89:24……37

96:8……225

89:25……37

96:10……152

89:26–27……5, 35

97……247, 248

89:26–28……33

97:1……152

89:35……164

97:1–3……225, 248

89:38……164, 165

97:2……247

89:39……33

97:2–3……248

89:46……165

97:9……225, 247

89:49……164

98……225

89:50……165

98:1……225

89:51……33, 164

98:1–3……225

90:7–9……165

98:4……221, 225, 247

90:13……165, 208

99:1……152

91:1……95

100……155

91:4……95

100:1……229

92……151, 247

101:5–8……37

92:1……152

102:6……221, 225

92:2……152

102:19……159

93……225

103……155

93:1……152

103:1……158

94-98……151, 247

104:15……152

94:9–10……152

109……94–95, 98, 99, 101, 110, 114,

353

CHRIST IS KING

118, 122, 159, 160, 176, 178, 198,

119:27……59

200, 202, 207, 208

119:35……59

109:1……98, 109, 114, 133, 136, 144,

119:47……59

160, 168, 178, 192, 196, 200-201,

119:47–48……59

207, 208, 270

119:80……59

109:1–2……159

119:97……59

109:1–3……94, 122, 137

119:114……59

109:1–4……155

119:119……59

109:2–3……200

119:127……59

109:3……94, 110

131:10……160

109:3……36, 154, 160

132:10……33

110……30, 106, 111, 207

132:11……34

110:1……201

132:15……34

110:1–2……35

139:4……241

110:1–3……110

139:13–14……241

110:1–4……33

140:12……241

110:2……35, 106

142:1–2……244

146:10……152

142:2……244

110:3……94, 158

142:9–10……244

113:7……32

142:11……244

115:1……6, 174

143:1……153

115:2……239

143:5–6……163

117……133

143:8……163

117:1……6

143:10……153

117:5……228

143:12–14……163

117:8–9……227

143:15……163

117:10……133

143:17……163

117:11……133

144:5……158

117:17–20……228

144:11–14……34, 37

117:26……133

144:15……152

118–19……58, 59

151……121

119:1……59

151:5……121

119:15……59 119:23……59

354

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

Proverbs

10:22……222

8:15–16……223

11……97, 194, 224, 235

8:22–31……108

11:1……37, 97, 224

11:30–31……223

11:1–2……33, 152, 153

12:26–28……223

11:1–4……177

16:8……223

11:1–5……232

16:10……223

11:1–10……39, 170

16:12–13……223

11:2–3……224

17:20……238

11:3–5……38, 224

20:28……221, 223

11:4–5……34

24:12……238

11:6–9……34

25:5……221, 223

11:10……37, 71, 97, 193, 256

19:4……223

11:10–11……114

19:5……269

14:4……131

31:9……222

14:13–14……131 16:5……224

Ecclesiastes

23:5……37

7:20……240

28:16……251, 256 28:17……222

Isaiah

32:1……38, 224, 265

2:1–4……225

32:17……265

2:2–4……44

32:17–18……265

4:2……38

33:15……37

5:5–7……221

33:17……37

5:7……221

33:21–22……37

5:16……221

40……112

6:1……121

40:1–11……167

7:8–9……114

40:3……167

8:14……256

40:5……167

9……30, 224

40:10……167

9:4–6……224

41:2……32

9:6……158

41:10……222

9:6–7……222, 265

42:1–4……230

9:7……37, 38, 224

42:2–3……230

355

CHRIST IS KING

42:7……230

57:2……167

45:1……224

58:1–9……223

45:8……224–25

59:4……241

45:22–25……224–25

59:8–9……221

45:23……128

59:9……241

50:4–5……230

59:14……241

50:4–11……231

59:14–18……223

50:7–9……230, 252

59:14–21……224–25

50:8–9……222, 271

59:16–17……222

51:4–5……231

59:17……241

51:4–8……248

60:1–15……151

51:6……231

61:1–3……33, 153

51:6–8……222

61:1–4……167, 177

51:8……231

61:1–11……224–25

51:9–11……231

63:1……222

52:7……167

63:8–10……189

52:7–12……167

63:16……189

52:13……231 52:13–53:12……231

Jeremiah

52:61……112

4:2–4……221

53……257, 258

4:4……238

53:1–3……231

17:19–15……38

53:2……38

22:3……223

53:4……258

22:13–17……223

53:5……258

22:4……38, 223

53:6……257, 258

22:5……223

53:8……231

23:5……39, 170

53:8–9……231

23:5–6……38, 224, 253

53:10–12……253

31:31–34……44, 65

53:11……231, 258–59, 263, 265

33:14–22……102

53:11–12……231, 257

33:14–26……170, 194

53:12……258

33:15……253

54:11–17……222

38:7……114

55:3……163

38:9……108

356

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

49:22–24……32

Daniel 2:37……117

Lamentations

7:13–14……151, 206

4:20……152, 162

7:14……35 7:27……117, 151, 200, 206

Ezekiel

9:7–16……222

3:7……238 7:14……38

Hosea

9:6……38

11……189

12:22……131 16:49……221

Amos

17:22……38

5:24……221

18:4……223

6:7……117

18:5–9……223

9:11……39

18:19–21……223 28:1–2……131

Micah

33:14–18……170

3:9–12……223

34……34

3:12……223

34:16……38

5:2–5……38

34:23–24……38, 170

6:8……221

36:22–28……44

7:16–17……32

36:24–28……65 36:26–28……177

Habakkuk

37:1–14……177

1–2……255

37:24–25……170

1:2–4……255

37:24–27……38

2:1……255

37:26……265

2:4……254–57, 262

40–48……38

2:4–5……255

44:3……38 45:13–25……38

Haggai

45:9……223

3:5……38

46:2–15……38

9:11……38

357

CHRIST IS KING

Zechariah

10:44……68

3:6……38

12:28–31……69

6:12……38, 170

12:30–31……73

6:12–13……102

12:35–37……1

7:8–14……223

14:36……188

7:9–10……221

14:55–64……2

9–14……33

15:1–38……2

9:9……253

15:32……71–72

9:9–10……38 9:10……36, 163

Luke

10:10……151

1:31–35……1 1:68–69……1

Malachi

2:11–8……1

4:1–4……225

6:27–42……60, 74 6:37–38……74

New Testament

22:22……174

Matthew

23:34……2

1:18–25……1

23:36……2, 2

5:38–39……74

23:46……2, 257

5:39……74

23:47……257

5:44……74 17:27……74

John

18:6–9……74

2:17……72

22:40……73

5:18……131

27:19……257

13:34–35……73

27:34……71

15:12–13……73 15:17……73

Mark

15:25……72

1:9–11……153

18:33–19:22……2

1:14–15……1

19:28–29……72

7:14–23……74 8:34–38……2

Acts

9:42–45……74

2:22–36……118, 175

9:42–50……69

2:23……174

358

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

2:33……133

177–79, 184, 187, 190–92, 196,

3:13–15……257

248, 249–50, 255, 259, 269, 270

3:14–15……257

1:4–6……179

4:26……102

1:5……178–79, 193, 249, 262

5:31……133

1:9……72, 248, 255

7:52……257

1:11……179

10:42……174, 176

1:16……248–49, 250, 251, 252, 256,

11:29……174 13:33……118, 175, 250

271 1:16–17……180, 212, 213, 215, 234,

16:25……78

235, 239, 242, 246–49, 250, 251,

17:26……174

255–56

17:31……174, 176

1:17……211, 235, 245, 246, 249, 250,

19:38……269

251, 254–57, 262, 264, 266

22:14……257

1:18……234, 235, 236, 137, 251, 254

23:28……269

1:18–19……215, 244, 253 1:18–32……235, 236, 237, 238–39, 255

Romans

1:18–3:20……234, 235, 236, 254

1:1……167, 169, 248, 255, 256

1:18–4:25……181

1:1–4……212, 213, 234, 235, 239, 248,

1:20……237

256

1:23……195

1:1–5……248, 250, 269

1:29……237

1:1–6……173

1:29–32……244

1:2……167–69, 239, 249, 251, 255–56

1:32……215, 236, 237, 260

1:2–4……248

2:1……237

1:3……2, 71, 72, 169, 170, 171,

2:1–3……237

173–74, 177–78, 180, 184, 186,

2:1–5……238

249, 255

2:1–11……237

1:3–4……5, 118, 149, 167–70, 175,

2:1–16……238

177, 180–81, 184, 190–93, 210,

2:3……238

214, 236, 242, 248–49, 250, 251,

2:4……238

256, 257, 275

2:5……215, 234, 238

1:3–5……178

2:6……238

1:4……72, 118, 153, 169, 173–74, 175,

2:7……238 2:9……238

359

CHRIST IS KING

2:10……238

3:21–22……215, 250, 251, 262

2:12–15……24

3:21–23……252

2:12–16……238

3:21–26……212, 234, 235, 239, 245,

2:13……212, 238, 255

246

2:16……2, 178, 234, 270

3:22……211

2:17……238

3:23……195

2:17–24……238

3:24……212, 252

2:25–29……238, 242

3:24–25……212

3:1……238, 239

3:25……185, 211, 263

3:1–2……238

3:26……211, 255, 263

3:1–8……240

3:27–4:25……258

3:1–20……242

3:30……212

3:2……239

4……193

3:2–3……239

4:1……171, 172

3:3–5……235, 239

4:2……212

3:4……236

4:5……212

3:5……211, 239

4:13……193–94

3:5–6……244

4:17……193

3:6–7……239

4:22–23……259

3:9……240, 244, 253

4:23–24……259

3:9–10……237

4:23–25……259, 269

3:9–20……215

4:24……195, 259

3:10……211, 242, 253, 254

4:24–25……191, 212, 258–59

3:10–11……238

4:25……252, 258, 259, 262, 263, 264,

3:10–12……241 3:10–18……240, 241, 242–43, 255 3:10–20……240

265, 266 5–8……169, 180–81, 184, 187, 189, 259–60, 265, 271, 281

3:13……241

5:1……181, 265

3:14……241

5:1–2……195, 265

3:15……241

5:1–11……181, 265

3:19……243

5:2……181, 270, 275

3:19–20……244, 253

5:5……73, 189, 191, 271, 275

3:20……237, 244

5:5–56……173

3:21……211, 251, 264

5:6……72, 73

360

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

5:6–8……195

6:5–11……269

5:7……255

6:6……182, 185–86, 266

5:8……73

6:6–7……268

5:9–11……212

6:7……72, 186, 255, 259, 263, 265, 266

5:10……72, 184, 254, 255, 262

6:8……266

5:10–11……181, 265

6:8–9……195

5:12……182, 186, 260, 264

6:9……179, 182, 186, 192

5:12–21……106, 179–81, 185, 192,

6:9–10……266

195, 212, 259, 266–67, 268

6:10……254, 266

5:13……182

6:11……254, 268

5:14……182, 195, 259

6:12……179, 182, 186, 267

5:14–15……260

6:12–23……266–67, 268

5:14–17……192

6:13……186, 268

5:15–21……259, 275

6:14……45, 179, 182, 186, 267

5:16……192, 260, 261, 269

6:15–22……182

5:16–19……265

6:16……268

5:17……72, 182, 192, 254, 259,

6:16–18……262

260–61, 268

6:18……186, 266, 267

5:17–18……191, 260

6:18–23……267

5:17–19……204

6:19……267

5:18……72, 192, 254, 259, 260, 261,

6:20……186, 267–68

262, 269

6:21……268

5:18–19……261, 262, 263, 266, 268

6:22……266, 267, 268

5:19……72, 261, 262, 268

6:23……192, 254, 267, 268, 269

5:21……182, 192, 254, 259, 262, 267,

7……183, 269

268, 269

7–12……275

6……268, 269

7:4……186, 195, 266

6:1–11……268

7:4–6……209

6:3……185

7:5–6……178

6:3–4……195

7:7–25……185

6:3–6……209

7:8……183

6:3–11……185

7:11……183

6:4……185, 254, 268

7:12……255

6:5……185

7:14……183–84, 189

361

CHRIST IS KING

7:14–25……184, 189

8:15–16……192

7:17……183

8:15–17……187

7:17–24……183

8:16–17……189–90

7:17–25……173

8:17……186, 194–96

7:18……183

8:17–18……195

7:20……183

8:17–25……270

7:21……182

8:18……191, 193, 195

7:23……182, 189

8:18–19……193

7:23–24……183

8:18–25……194

7:24……185, 266

8:18–30……194–95

7:24–8:3……269

8:19……187, 192–93, 195

7:25……269

8:20……195

8……179, 187, 269, 275

8:20–23……195

8:1……179, 269

8:21……187, 192–93, 195

8:2……62, 189, 192, 254, 269

8:23……72, 187, 192–93

8:2–4……63

8:23–25……193

8:3……63, 72, 170, 171, 175, 184–86,

8:29……106, 119, 140, 179, 187–88,

255, 266

189, 195–97, 255

8:3–4……45, 63, 73, 269

8:29–30……187, 190

8:4……63, 260, 269

8:29–34……271

8:5–8……178

8:29–38……259

8:6……192

8:30……270

8:7……45

8:31……196

8:8……184

8:31–39……196, 265

8:9……190–91

8:32……72, 196, 255

8:9–11……177, 269

8:33……196, 269, 270

8:9–17……179

8:33–34……178–79, 196

8:10……192, 269

8:34……72, 195–96, 255, 270, 271

8:10–11……191, 259, 271

8:34–39……189

8:11……192, 195, 254, 269

8:35……73, 189, 196–97

8:13……192

8:36……174, 197

8:14……187, 189

8:37……72, 73, 189, 197

8:14–17……178

8:37–39……271

8:15……179, 187–88, 190

8:38……197

362

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

8:38–39……189, 270

14……275

8:39……189, 196, 269

14:1……74

9–11……212

14:1–23……74

9:3……72, 171, 255

14:8–12……178

9:5……72, 171, 255

14:9……173, 195, 254

9:8……171

14:10……270

9:33……256

14:13……73, 74

9:42……74

14:14……74

9:43……74

14:15……73, 74, 173, 195

9:45……74

14:17……139

9:46……74

14:18……255

10:3……211

14:19……75

10:4……73

14:20……74

10:5–13……178

14:20–21……74

10:6–7……256

14:21……74

10:9……195

14:22……74

10:14–16……167

15……72

11:14……171

15:1……71, 72

11:9……6

15:1–2……72, 75

11:9–10……174, 243

15:1–7……71, 74

12–14……74

15:1–9……64

12:1……185

15:2–3……72

12:1–2……275

15:3……6, 70–72, 75, 174, 195, 243,

12:3–8……275

255, 256, 257, 275

12:9……74

15:5……75

12:14……74

15:6……75

12:17……2, 74

15:7……71, 72, 74, 255

12:19–21……74

15:7-12……5, 71, 178, 257

13:8……45, 72, 73, 74, 186

15:8……71, 171

13:8–10……45, 74

15:9……6, 62, 71, 255

13:8–15:13……70–76

15:9–12……178, 193

13:9……62, 63, 72

15:11……6

13:11……63

15:12……2, 71, 97, 178, 194, 256

13:14……74

15:14–29……275

363

CHRIST IS KING

15:16……185

6:13……205

15:18……262

6:14……176, 205, 249

15:19……72

6:17……205

16:20……197, 208

6:19……275

16:26……262

8–10……68, 69 8:11……68, 69

1 Corinthians

8:12……68, 173

1:9……204

8:13……69

1:10–11……69

8:32……204

1:18–2:16……14

9……68

2:6–8……174

9:18……68

2:7……176

9:19……68

2:16……69, 275

9:19–23……69, 275

3–4……67

9:21……67

3:16……275

9:22……44, 67, 68, 69–70, 277

3:21……204

10:14–22……209

3:21–23……141, 196, 209

10:24……69

3:22……196, 204

10:32……69

3:23……196, 204

10:33……69

4:4……234

10:33–11:1……68

4:8……196, 204

11:1……64

4:8–9……141, 204, 209

11:2–16……113

4:8–13……68

11:7……106

4:20……139

11:23–26……173, 209

5:7……173

12……205

6:1–11……204

12:1–31……205

6:2……204

12:2–3……78

6:2–3……141, 209

12:3……205

6:3……196, 204

12:3–31……275

6:9……205

12:11……205

6:9–11……2, 139, 141, 205, 209

12:12–13……205, 276

6:10……205

12:27……205

6:11……204–5

12:28……276

6:12–20……140, 205, 209

14:26……78, 141

364

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

15:1–5……210

15:45……177, 191, 205

15:1–11……173

15:45–49……177

15:3……173, 174

15:49……106

15:3–4……9, 149, 275

15:50……2, 139, 205, 209

15:9……174

15:50–58……141

15:20……173 15:20–21……209

2 Corinthians

15:20–23……119

1:21–22……140–41

15:20–28……106, 141, 177, 204–7,

3–4……67

275, 276

3:3……67

15:20–58……281

3:17……67

15:21……207, 209

3:18……67, 106

15:21–22……209

4:4……67, 106

15:22……207, 209

4:6……67

15:23……191, 206, 208

4:7……249

15:23–25……206, 209

4:7–15……67

15:23–26……175

4:13……174

15:23–28……118, 201

4:13–14……6

15:24……106, 139, 176, 206, 207

5:10……234

15:24–25……176

6:14–7:1……275

15:24–26……209

8:9……64

15:24–27……106

10:1……275

15:24–28……2

10:6……62

15:25……207

11:4……188

15:25–27……209

12:9……249

15:26……207

13:4……176, 249

15:27……207 15:27–28……208

Galatians

15:28……206, 208

1:4……64

15:35–49……205

1:18……115

15:35–50……140

2:16……45

15:39–45……195

2:19–20……64, 67

15:42–43……172

3:1……64, 67

15:43……176, 177, 249

3:2……188

365

CHRIST IS KING

3:8–9……280

1:19–20……176, 203

3:10–18……61

1:19–23……176

3:11……256

1:20……114, 199–201, 202, 203

3:13……45

1:20–23……114, 118, 198–200, 202,

3:13–14……64

203

3:14……188, 280

1:20–2:3……174

3:26–29……140

1:20–2:10……276

3:27……66

1:21……109, 114, 200, 201, 203, 249

3:28……67

1:22……114, 200, 201

3:29……67

2……201

4:4……62, 172

2:1……201, 202, 203

4:4–5……64, 170

2:1–6……200

4:6……188, 190

2:1–22……275

4:19……67

2:2……200, 201, 203

5–6……75

2:5……199–201, 202

5:1……64, 66

2:5–6……198–99, 200, 202, 203

5:5–6……66

2:6……199, 202

5:6……66

2:7……202

5:13……63, 64, 66

2:8……201

5:13–14……61, 275

2:11–22……276, 277

5:13–6:10……275

2:19–22……275

5:14……45, 61–70, 72

2:15……200

5:21……2, 139

3:11……200

5:22……66

3:16……249

5:24……66

3:20……203

6:2……44, 45, 61–70, 72, 275, 277

4:1–16……275

6:14–15……14

4:7–12……275 4:21……200

Ephesians

4:32……198

1:1……200

5:5……139, 200

1:3……198–99

5:19……78, 141

1:4……198, 200

5:21–33……209

1:4–5……122

5:23……201

1:19……249

6:10……203

366

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

6:10–20……202, 275

3:10–11……147

6:11……203

3:11……147

6:12……203

3:19–21……281

6:13……203

3:20……134, 147 3:20–21……128, 147, 277

Philippians

3:21……134, 147, 148, 176, 185

1:26–28……147

4:19……62

1:27……146, 147 1:27–2:4……128

Colossians

1:29–30……146

1……127

2……127

1:5–6……112

2:1–4……146

1:6……113

2:1–5……146

1:10……112, 113

2:1–11……69

1:12……101, 102

2:1–13……64

1:12–13……117

2:2……62

1:13……101, 108, 114, 122, 136, 139,

2:5……128

143

2:5–11……100, 130, 146

1:13–14……103

2:6……128, 129, 132

1:14……101

2:6–8……146, 261

1:13–20……80–81

2:6–11……42, 78, 81, 127–37, 141,

1:15……103, 107, 108, 114, 117, 136,

146, 147, 148, 149, 175, 210, 275,

143

279

1:15–16……109

2:7……172

1:15–17……116

2:7–8……132, 147

1:15–20……42, 78, 79, 100–127, 133,

2:9……128, 133, 134, 148

135–36, 141, 142, 143, 145, 146,

2:9–11……133, 146, 148

148, 149, 189, 210, 275, 279

2:10–11……78, 128, 133

1:16……10, 109, 136, 143

2:11……128, 133, 135, 146, 147

1:17……110, 111, 136, 144

2:17……146

1:18……113, 116, 117, 119, 120, 136,

2:20–21……146

144

2:30……146

1:19……120, 121, 122, 136, 144

3:2–7……146

1:20……120, 121, 122, 127, 136, 145,

3:10……146, 147, 176, 249

274

367

CHRIST IS KING

1:21……145

2:12……2, 139

1:22……145

5:2……2

1:27……121 2:3……80, 275

2 Thessalonians

2:6–8……143

1:7……234

2:9……121, 145 2:10……114, 116, 118, 144, 145

1 Timothy

2:12……144, 210

3:16……78

2:13……144 2:14–15……10, 127, 144, 274

2 Timothy

2:15……109, 126, 127

2:8……2, 139

2:16–19……143

2:8–11……204

2:16–23……143

2:11–12……139

2:19……116, 144

4:1……139

2:21……173

4:8……139

3:1……144 3:4……121, 144

Hebrews

3:10……106, 143

1:2……109

3:10–11……144

1:5……109, 175, 250

3:11……144, 277

1:5–13……118

3:12……145

1:6……109, 118

3:13……173

1:8……93, 109

3:15……145, 277

1:8–9……158

3:16……77, 78, 143, 145

1:13……109

3:18……277

2:5–18……201

3:20……277

4:7……174

3:23–24……277

5:5……175, 250

4:1……277

5:7–8……261

4:11……139

12:1–2……255

1 Thessalonians

James

1:4–5……139

2:8……60

1:6……64

5:6……257

1:10……234

5:13……78

368

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

1 Peter

Dead Sea Scrolls

2:21–25……257

1Q28b……39

3:18……257

1QM xii 6–11……121

3:22……201

1QM 11:6–7……39 1QS 3:18……208

1 John

1QS 4:18–23……208

1:9……257

4Q161……39

2:1–2……257

4Q252……39

2:29……257

4QBer……193

3:7……257

4QFlor……39, 161, 170

3:11……73

4QFlor 1–7, 10–13……121 4QFlor 1–13……154

Revelation

4QpGen a-d……193

1:5……109, 117, 118

4QpIsa a……170

2:13……109

11QTemple 56:12–59:21……56

3:20–21……151 3:21–22……250

1 Enoch

4-5……78

1:8……232–33

3:21……78

10:4……208

4:8–11……78

11–12……208

5:5……97

13:1–2……208

5:5–6……78

38:1–3……233

5:8–14……78

38:1–6……256

5:9–14……78

38:2–3……233

7:17……78

38:5–8……233

13:2……109

38:6……233

15:3……78

39:6……233, 256

19:11–21……151

45:3……233 45:3–5……233

Other Ancient Sources

45:3–6……233

Jewish Sources

46:3……233

2 Baruch

46:4–7……233

39–40……34

46:4–8……233

70–72……34

47:3……233

369

CHRIST IS KING

48:2–3……110

292……221

48:4……102 48:10……102, 233

1 Maccabees

49:1–4……39

1:3–9……124

49:2……233

8:16……53–54

50:4–5……233

14:41……121

51:3–5……233 52:4……233

2 Maccabees

53:1–6……256

9:8–11……131

53:5–7……233

9:12……130–31

60:2……233

14:35……121

62:5–16……233 3 Maccabees 2 Enoch

2:9……121

30:12……106, 181 Psalms of Solomon 4 Ezra

2:1–14……232

6:53ff. ……106

8:1–22……232

7:28–29……161

17……102

13:32, 37……161

17–18……170 17:22, 37……33, 153

Jubilees

17:32……34

1:23–24……177

18:5–7……33, 153

2:13–15……181

18:7–8……232

2:14……106 Sirach Letter of Aristeas

17:1–4……181

26……206

43:26……111

189……221

46:19……269

209……221

47:11……121, 154

212……221

49:12……121

232……221

49:16……106

267……221 289–90……201

370

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

Targums

Ant. 7.372……40

Onq. Gen. 49:3……107

Ant. 8.2……40

Ps.-Jon Gen. 49:3……107

Ant. 8.34……40, 220 Ant. 8.42–44……40

Testament of Job

Ant. 8.51–52……40

33:2–9……151

Ant. 17.273–78……40 Ant. 18.257–309……130

Testament of Moses

Ant. 20, 122……206

10:1……208

W. 2.57–62……40 W. 6.310–12……39

Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs Gad 8:1……40

Philo

Lev. 2:11……40

Conf. 146……103, 107

Lev. 17.2–11……39

Embassy to Gaius 143……85

Lev. 18.2–9……39

Embassy to Gaius 144……85

Lev. 18:6–7……153

Embassy to Gaius 144–148……85

Jud. 22:2–3……193

Embassy to Gaius 145……85

Jud. 24……39

Embassy to Gaius 145–147……112, 125

Jud. 24:3……177

Embassy to Gaius 149……85, 120

Naph. 8:1–3……40

Embassy to Gaius 149–151……85, 137

Sim. 6:5……208

Flacc. 47……183

Sim. 7:1–2……40

Fug. 108–12……111 Her. 23……111

Wisdom of Solomon

Leg. 110……

130

2–5……257

Leg. 144–45……25

3:7–8……151

Life of Joseph 2.4–11……40

5:15–16……151

Life of Joseph 36–48……40

7:26……103

Life of Joseph 80–87……40

8:1……111

Life of Joseph 157–74……40 Life of Moses 1.154……220

Josephus and Philo

Life of Moses 1.155–57……99

Josephus

Life of Moses 1.158……99

Ant. 7.337……40

Life of Moses 1.158–59……52

Ant. 7.338–56……40

Life of Moses 1.162……52

371

CHRIST IS KING

Life of Moses 1.290……39

Bell. civ. 2.148……130

Life of Moses 2.2–3……52 Life of Moses 2.4–5……52

Aristotle

Life of Moses 2.10–11……52

Ethnic. 1161A……19

Life of Moses 2.30……115

Pol. 3.6.4……113

Life of Moses 2.36……52

Pol. 1284a……19, 47

Life of Moses 2.48……52

Pol. 1286a……47

Life of Moses 2.187……52

Pol. 1286a–1288a……47

On Abraham 3–4……51

Pol. 1286b.9–12……19

On Abraham 5……51

Pol. 1288a……43

On Abraham 275–76……51

Pol. 1288a8–10, 15–19, 28–29……19

On Joseph 80……51

Pol. 1310b……47

On Joseph 87……51, 66

Nicomachean Ethics 1132a

On Joseph 174……52

Rhet. 2.7.2……119

On Joseph 269……52 Opif. 136¥150……106

Arrian

Somn. 1.215……107

4.11……84

Spec. 4.160ff……56

4.97–98……47

Greco-Roman Sources

Artemidorus

Aelius Aristides

The Interpretation of Dreams

Oration 24.38–39……113

2.36……86 The Interpretation of Dreams

Aelius Theon……81

2.69……86

Progymnasmata 9.35–38……119 Athenaeus Aeschylus

Deipn. 6.253c……87, 137

The Persians 56–58……18

Deipn. 6.253d-e……87

The Persians 634–54……18 The Persians 760–86……18

Callimachus, Hymn to Apollo 26–27……88, 151

Appian

Hymn to Apollo 78–79……77

Bell. civ. 2.107……22

Hymn to Zeus 69–70……88, 137

Bell..civ. 2.146……90, 137

Hymn to Zeus 72……88

372

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

Hymn to Zeus 78–79……88, 101, 150

1 Regn. 20……201

Hymn to Zeus 84–89……88

2 Regn. 2.75–76……132 2 Regn. 3.40……132

Calpurnius Siculus

4 Regn. 95……131

Eclogue 1.37–88……25

1 Tars. 16……113

Eclogue 4.142–46……123

2 Tars. 10–20……113 Kingship Orations……25

Cicero

Or. 1.12……25

Ad Q. Fr. 1.1.23……48

Or. 1.13–14……25

On the Nature of the Gods 1.118……84

Or. 1.15–16……25

Phil. 2.43.110……22

Or. 1.17–20……25

Pro lege Manilia……22

Or. 1.23–25……25

Quintus fratrem Epistulae 1.1.23……18

Or. 1.35……25, 218

Republic 1.12……54

Or. 1.37–38……25

Republic 1.52……54

Or. 1.41–45……25

Republic 2.51……54

Or. 1.45–46……25

Republic 3.2……54

Or. 2.26……25

Sest. 98……125

Or. 2.54……25, 218 Or. 2.6……25

Cleanthes

Or. 2.72……25

Hymn to Zeus……20, 87

Or. 2.74……25

Hymn to Zeus 78–79……101

Or. 2.75–76……25 Or. 3.5……25

Dio Cassius

Or. 3.58……25

44.4–8……22

Or. 3.7……25, 218

51.20.1……89, 130

Or. 3.10……25, 218

52.35.3……86

Or. 3.39……25

52.35.5……86

Or. 3.60……25

53.27.2–3……27

Or. 3.69……218

59.24.5……90

Or. 3.9–10……25 Or. 4.24……25, 218

Dio Chrysostom

Second Discourse on

1 Regn. 1.12–13……131–32

Kingship 2.1……8

1 Regn. 1.84……131–32

373

CHRIST IS KING

Diodorus Siculus

Il. 9.96……18

1.90.1–3……84

Il. 9.98–99……217

4.1.4……130

Il. 234–39……217 Il. 2.204–6……217

Diogenes Laertius

Il. 16.385–88……217

5.22……20 5.42–49……20

Horace

6.16–18……20

Carm. 1.12.5–6……25

7.175……20

Carm. 1.12.6……25, 220 Carm. 1.12.50–60……25, 92

Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Carm. 3.1-6……25

Ant. Rom. 6.83.2……113

Carm. 3.5.1–4……25

Ant. Rom. 5.5.3……183

Carm. 3.5.1–6……92

Ant. Rom. 6.25.3……183

Carm. 3.6……27 Carm. 4.5……25

Diotogenes……111, 211, 218

Carm. 4.5.33–36……92, 137

On Kingship……20, 49–50

Carm. 4.5.37–41……92

Stob. 4.7.62……104

Carm. 4.15……25 Carm. 4.15.5–10……91–92, 137

Epictetus

Carm. 29–32……25

4.1.60……85

Carmen Saeculare 1–4……92

Dietr 3.13.9……125

Carmen Saeculare 53–54……92 Carmen Saeculare 59–60……92

Herodotus

Ep. 2.1……25

Hist. 3.38……43 Hist. 3.80……43

Isocrates

Hist. 5.95……123

Evag. 12–14……83, 150

Hist. 6.108.5……123

Evag. 12–19……18

Hist. 7.104……43

Evag. 13–14……137

Hist. 7.154.3……123

Evag. 25……18, 83 Evag. 33……19

Homer

Evag. 33–39……83

Il. 1.279……18

Evag. 43……19, 217–18

Il. 2.203–6……18

Evag. 44……19

374

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

Evag. 47–64……83

60.14–28……24

Evag. 51–57……19

60.19–28……24

Evag. 54–57……83

62.8–34……24

Evag. 65……83

64.10–15……24, 50–51, 112

Evag. 70–72……19 Evag. 72……83, 137, 150

Ovid

Evag. 77–78……19

Ex Ponto 3.6.23–29……25, 220

Evag. 78–79……150

Fast. 1.639–50……25

Evag. 81……19

Fast. 1.709–22……25, 27–28

Nic. 13……18

Fast. 5.549–98……27

Nic. 41……19, 218

Metam. 15.855–70……25 Metam. 858–60……112

Livy

Metam. 858–70……84

1.8……54

Tristia 2.157……25

1.19.1–3……27

Tristia 2.181……25

2.32.12–33.1……113 5.23.25……126

Philodemus

8.13.16……139

On the Good King according to

10.7.10……126

Homer……18

Martial

Plato

Epigrams……24

Epistle 8.354C……47 Leg. 712A……19, 47

Menander

Pol. 265D……19

368.3……82

Pol. 294A……19

368.19–21……82

Republic 473D……46

369.5–7……82

Republic 6.484A–502C……46

372.1–374.33……82

Republic 10.607A……82

377.21–24……82

Resp. 8.556E……113, 123–24

377.24–28……83

Resp. 473D……19 Resp. 484A–502C……19

Musonius Rufus

Resp. 500B–502A……103

That Kings Also Should Study

Resp. 577d8–311……183

Philosophy 60.8–12……24

Resp. 590D……19

375

CHRIST IS KING

Statesman 267C……46

Pan. 5.2–3……25

Statesman 293C……46–47

Pan. 5.6……137

Statesman 294A……46

Pan. 5.6–9……25, 124

Statesman 294B–C……46

Pan. 6.3–4……25

Statesman 297A–B……46

Pan. 7.4……25

Statesman 311B–C……47

Pan. 10.1–3……25

Tim. 44d……115

Pan. 12.1……25 Pan. 16……25

Pliny

Pan. 28–31……25

Ep. 1.3–6……92

Pan. 31–32……25

Ep. 2.3–7……92

Pan. 37……25

Ep. 2.8……92

Pan. 50……25

Ep. 3.18……92

Pan. 52.6–7……25

Ep. 4.4……93

Pan. 55.1–5……25

Ep. 5.2–3……92

Pan. 56.3……25

Ep. 5.6–9……93

Pan. 74.5……25

Ep. 6.3–4……92

Pan. 77–80……25, 220

Ep. 10.96……77

Pan. 80.2–3……220

Ep. 10.96.7……127

Pan. 80.3……25, 137

Ep. 31–32……92

Pan. 80.5……111

Ep. 50……92 Ep. 52.6–7……92

Plutarch

Ep. 56.3……92

Aen. 6.852–55……265

Ep. 67.5……92

Alex. 2–3……25

Ep. 68.1–3……92

Alex. 21.3……201

Ep. 80.3……93

Alex. 21.4……25

Nat. 27.3……124

Alex. 21.11……25

Nat. 33.111……126

Alex. 22.7……25

Nat. 35.157……126

Alex. 23.2……25

Pan. 1.3–6……25

Alex. 23.9……25

Pan. 2.3……25

Alex. 27.6……25

Pan. 2.8……25

Alex. 52.3–4……53

Pan. 4.4……124

Alex. 52.3–7……47

Pan. 4.4–9……137

Alex. 668d……18

376

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

Alex. 679d–e……18

Thes. 2……25

Cam. 7……126 Demetr. 10.2–3……132

Polybius

Demetr. 12.1–2……132

3.69……183

Demetr. 42……25 Fort. Rom. 317B–C……124

Quintilian

Life of Caesar 6.4……119–20

The Orator’s Education 3.7.7–9……83

Life of Caesar 11.2……120

Inst. 3.7.16……119

Life of Caesar 11.3……120 Lys. 18.2–3……87

Res Gestate Divi Augusti……84–85

Lys. 18.2–4……137

1……23, 137

Lys. 18.4……87

1.1……124

Mor. 70A……25

2.1……124

Mor. 189D……21–22

3.1……124

Mor. 329C……25

4.1……124

Mor. 779D–782F……52

10.1……89

Mor. 780B……25, 52

12.2……27, 126

Mor. 780B–C……25

13……23

Mor. 780C……25, 52, 53

13.1……27, 124

Mor. 780D……25, 53

15……22

Mor. 780D–E……103

16……23

Mor. 780E……25, 53, 112, 219

17–18……23

Mor. 780F……103

19–21……23

Mor. 781A……219

20……27

Mor. 781A–C……25

21.1–3……124

Mor. 781B……219

22–23……23

Mor. 781F–782A……53

25–32……26

Mor. 789E……25

25–33……23

Num. 20.1–4……25, 219, 265

25.1……124

Num. 20.1–8……66

26.2……124

Num. 20.8……25, 53, 219

26.3……124, 220

On the Fortune of Alexander

30.1……124

329C……124

34.1–2……26

Themistocles 125……104

34.2……23, 220

377

CHRIST IS KING

35.1……23

Galb. 7……25 Jul. 7……22

Seneca

Jul. 73–75……25

Clem. 1.1.1……24

Jul. 76.1……22

Clem. 1.1.2……24, 25, 122

Jul. 84.2……22

Clem. 1.3.5……115, 205

Jul. 88……25

Clem. 1.4.1……115

Vesp. 11……25

Clem. 1.4.1–3……205

Vesp. 4……39

Clem. 1.4.2……24 Clem. 1.4.2–3……115

Tacitus

Clem. 1.6.3……24

Agr. 30……125

Clem. 1.11–16……25

Ann. 1.2……125

Clem. 1.13.4……116

Ann. 14.15……90

Clem. 1.22.1……24

Hist. 5.13……39

Clem. 2.1.3–2.2.1……25 Clem. 2.2.1……115, 205

Theocritus

Clem. 60.8–12……24

Id. 17.1–4……88, 137

Clem. 60.14–28……24

Id. 17.7–8……88

Clem. 60.19–28……24

Velleius Paterculus

Clem. 62.8–34……24

Roman History 2.89……125

Clem. 64.10–15……24 Virgil Sibylline Oracles

Aen. 1.38……23

3.767–808……39

Aen. 1.265……23 Aen. 1.286–91……84

Suetonius

Aen. 1.287–89……23

Aug. 18……22

Aen. 1.296–97……23

Aug. 22……25

Aen. 1.544……23

Aug. 29……27

Aen. 1.544–58……23

Aug. 50……22

Aen. 1.553……23

Aug. 56……27

Aen. 1.574……23

Aug. 77……25

Aen. 1.589–91……23

Aug. 94……126

Aen. 6.791–95……25

Aug. 98……22, 89–90

Aen. 6.792……23

378

INDEX OF ANCIENT SOURCES

Aen. 6.809–35……53

Oecemenicus 21.9–10……66

Aen. 6.850–54……23 Aen. 6.852–855……220

Christian Sources

Aen. 8.319–28……54

Ascension of Isaiah

Aen. 7.203–4……25

8:9……3

Aen. 8.678–713……25

9:32–39……3

Ecl. 1.6–8……25

10:7–15……3

Ecl. 4.5–6……25

4:14–18……3

Ecl. 4.11–14……25

10:12–15……3

Ecl. 4.21–25……25 Ecl. 4.11–52……23

Clement of Alexandria, 1 Clem. 16:12……258

Xenophon

1 Clem. 37:1–3……206

Ages. 3……19

1 Clem. 40:1……206

Ages. 4……19

Protr. 116.1–4……3

Ages. 5……19

Strom. 1.158–59……3

Ages. 6.4–8……19

Strom. 1.158–168……3

Ages. 7……19

Strom. 7.42.7……3

Cyr. 1.1.2……19

Strom. 168.4……3

Cyr. 1.3.16–18……19, 218

Strom. 169.1–2……3

Cyr. 1.3.18……48 Cyr. 1.6.27……48, 218

Didache

Cyr. 4.2.11……218

1:2……60

Cyr. 8.1.12……47 Cyr. 8.1.21–22……19, 48

Eusebius

Cyr. 8.1.23ff……19

Oration in Praise of the Emperor

Cyr. 8.1.26……218 Cyr. 8.1.33……48 Cyr. 8.1.37……18 Cyr. 8.1.39……19

Constantine……3 The Life of the Blessed Emperor Constantine……3 Hist.eccl. 3.33.1……77

Cyr. 8.2.14……19 Cyr. 8.3.1–20……19

Justin Martyr

Cyr. 8.3.20……218

Dial. 45.4……110

Mem. 1.2.32……19

Dial. 76.7……110

379

CHRIST IS KING

Dialogue with Trypho 27.3……243

Martyrdom of Polycarp 19:2……3

380

Until recently, many scholars have read Paul’s use of the word Christos as more of a proper name (“Jesus Christ”) than a title, Jesus the Messiah. Joshua W. Jipp broadens the discussion by surveying Greco-Roman and Jewish depictions of the ideal king and argues for the influence of these traditions on several aspects of Paul’s thought, including Paul’s language of participation “in Christ.” Jipp finds that Paul’s use of royal tropes is indeed significant, and concludes that Christos is a royal title, an honorific, within Paul’s letters. Praise for

Jipp

The Messiah and the ideology of kingship

KING

Christ Is King

“. . . a carefully researched, lucidly written, and compelling case for the influence of ancient ideologies about good kingship on Paul’s Christology. . . . Jipp demonstrates that royal motifs permeate Paul’s letters. An important book.” Michael J. Gorman St. Mary’s Seminary & University “Combining an impressive command of both Greco-Roman and Jewish literature with close analysis of Paul’s letters, Joshua W. Jipp convincingly argues that the designation ‘Christ’ should be taken, not as an empty marker, but as a pointer to ancient discourse about kings. By placing key passages in Romans, 1 Corinthians, Philippians, and Colossians in conversation with what was expected of the ideal king, Jipp throws new light on Paul’s language and provides significant insight into Paul’s understanding of Jesus.” Luke Timothy Johnson Candler School of Theology, Emory University “. . . a very impressive book. . . . Scholars of Paul and of early Christology, take note.”  Matthew Novenson The University of Edinburgh

Christ Is KING

“[Jipp offers] significant new interpretative angles on almost all the key questions in current Pauline analysis, coupled with the advocacy of a bold new proposal for the center of Paul’s thought as a whole. This is an important book, creative, comprehensively researched, and thoroughly argued, by a New Testament scholar of rapidly increasing stature.” Douglas Campbell Duke Divinity School

Christ Is Paul’s Royal Ideology

Joshua W. Jipp is assistant professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. His recent publications include Divine Visitations and Hospitality to Strangers in Luke–Acts: An Interpretation of the Malta Episode in Acts 28:1-10 (2013). Jipp also received the Paul J. Achtemeier Award for New Testament Scholarship for an earlier version of the second chapter from Christ Is King.

Religion / New Testament

Joshua W. Jipp