Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [243]
The Spirit and the Church’s Apocalypticism
PAUL’S UNDERSTANDING of the end of time is apocalyptic. He imminently expects the end. His grasp of the resurrection is firmly mystical but in the Jewish tradition, not the Greek one.3 He describes his spiritual experiences in terms appropriate to a Jewish apocalyptic-mystagogue of the first century. Even in his earliest preaching and writing, his discussions of resurrection depended directly on the apocalyptic end:
For they themselves report concerning us what a welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. (1 Thess 1:9-10)
This is not philosophy; it is missionizing. He reminds his readers what he has told them when he was there. Having been evangelized by the Spirit himself, Paul uses the language of spiritual transformation to evangelize others, in this case gentiles. Paul’s use of kerygmatic formulas in missionary activity is evident. After turning from idols, Paul’s gentile converts learn to wait for God’s Son from heaven, who will rescue them from the coming wrath. This seems in some respects a violation of the passage in Daniel 7:13 where the role of the “Son of Man” was to bring judgment against sinners. But that is how an apocalyptic mission functions. It warns people that the only way to avoid punishment is to join the apocalyptic community. This is true in apocalyptic communities in Judaism. Here it has been transferred to the sinning of the gentiles themselves. The innocent Early Church was, conversely, part of the larger role of judgment against the mighty and the sinners; but even the new converts would be protected and rescued from the wrath which will soon overtake the whole earth.
The proof that all these things are about to happen is that Jesus, the Son, was raised from the dead. The resurrection was a sign that the end of time is upon us: “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits (aparchē) of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15:20). Paul uses two traditional Jewish metaphors at once in saying that the dead have only fallen asleep (Isa 26:19; Dan 12:2). He further suggests that Jesus was the special thank offering, the first fruits offered, following which the resurrected will soon awake and begin ripening in the fields or on the tree (Deut 26). This is not just what Paul proclaimed. It is also what the church proclaimed, as he again used the language of tradition transmission:
Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast-unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. (1 Cor 15:1-6).
A similar formula of the kerygma, the basic proclamation of the church, can be found in the salutation of Paul’s letter to the Romans where Jesus is mentioned as “seed of David” according to the flesh but, more importantly, “Son” according to spirit and power and from the resurrection of the dead, “Our Lord.” Jesus’ Lordship is inherent in his resurrection, the transformation from his earthly, fleshly, meek state to his heavenly, spiritual and powerful state as the Christ and Son from heaven. Thus, the relationship between flesh and spirit is homologous with the relationship between “son of David” and “son of God.” Though the contrast is characteristic of Pauline thought, it may well have preceded Paul’s use in his sermons and have been part of the primitive