The Coming of the Son of Man

Posted 18 January, 2006 - 02:25 by peter wilkinson

Well, I got my copy of The Coming of the Son of Man from Guildford Cathedral bookshop on Monday. Today is Tuesday, and I have done a whistle-stop read-through; it will take me much longer to read the book looking up all the references and footnotes thoroughly. So this is a preliminary response, and like many of my responses, it is subject to change through further reflection.

My first reaction to the book concerns the density of reference and detail. Andrew gives no quarter to the casual reader, and makes no concessions. This book requires serious study. There are no easy paths through the theological undergrowth. It is also hard to see the theological wood for the trees: I thought I knew what Andrew was wanting to say before I started reading, but the book does not make it easy, and I wondered whether this profusion and prolixity of biblical cross-reference and quoting of the LXX and Theodotian translation in English transliteration was partly a defensive effort to deflect any off-the-cuff criticism of the book’s main thesis - the idea maybe being to leave the academic reviewer somewhat confused, puzzling over the map, or even left gasping at the wealth and depth of detail invoked to support the case.

So it’s not an easy or comfortable bedtime read. But the argument is, in fact, laid out logically and systematically, chapter by chapter, section by section, and anyone taking the time to climb to the top of the trees in this forest will get a fine glimpse above the foliage of an orderly panorama laid out in far-reaching vistas. The reader might do well to take the book a few pages at a time, alternating between this and looking at the overall plan and layout.

For myself, the book draws together many of the scattered conversations that have taken place on the OST website over the last two years or so that I have been visiting it, and puts them all in one place. I am now able to see why Andrew holds the views he has expressed on various topics which have arisen on this site, and why they have been defended so vigorously: they all appear in the book. The millennium? It’s the brave new world we have been thrust into following the parousia of AD 70. Condemnation of homosexuality? Possibly an interim judgement which applied prior to AD 70, but not necessarily beyond.

A number of telling comments are made somewhat early on in the book, which provide striking metaphors as lenses through which to view Andrew’s project. One is the idea of the New Testament text being inscribed on glass doors - the glass doors of history. From our standpoint, the text is reversed, and we have already made hermeneutical commitments by which we interpret the text. Andrew invites us on the imaginative exercise of placing ourselves on the other side of the glass doors - where the 1st century church would have been - and reading the text from, as it were, their viewpoint. A great deal of the groundwork for this exercise has been provided by N.T.Wright, especially in his ‘Christian Origins’ series, and ‘The coming’ pushes some of these ideas further. This is an indisputably valuable exercise - provided the context we create thereby is actually approximate to a 1st century context, and that we are then able to make the journey back to our side of the glass doors, with a better way of understanding and applying the text in today’s circumstances. 

Another metaphor is provided in the opening sentence - the biblical text being seen as the inner core of a Russian doll - the outer layers being the surrounding historical circumstances of the narrative of the Jews from 166 BC to 135 AD. Already I sense a problem, not for the first time, with the approach. Why should the outer layer begin in 166 BC? Why not go back all the way to the Genesis story of origins? Using this as our contextual starting point, we get a clearer idea of the history of Jesus being the completion of a project, in which the story of the Jews was central, whose relevance was for the whole world. The brief reference that Andrew makes to the atonement on p.228 locates that event in the immediate and local difficulties of the Jewish nation - not making any connection with its significance for the rest of the wider story.

A third crucial metaphor used in the book is the destruction of the temple as the fulcrum which ‘levers’ the narrative. Admittedly, the narrative in question here is the surrounding narrative of the Olivet discourse - drawing attention to which is one of the book’s valuable services (although not a service unique to this book). But it might also be said that the destruction of the temple, and the events of AD 70, are indeed the fulcrum which levers Andrew’s whole approach. For this is not a study of Matthew 24 and the supporting synoptic accounts in isolated detail, but a whole theological package which attempts to determine our understanding of the faith and our relationship to it today. The scope of the project is the entire New Testament. Systematically, gospels, epistles and Revelation are defined in relation to the AD 70 events (and the ultimate destruction of Rome). We are given few if any guidelines as to how these documents might have any application today. (To be fair, this was not the project’s purpose, but it does become a huge overshadowing question).

The theological package leaves, for me, some yawning gaps: the place of the life, ministry, death, resurrection, ascension and outpoured Spirit of Jesus in the life of the believer today. These phenomena, central to the history of Jesus, are no longer central. The teaching of Jesus was to prepare the disciples for the crisis of AD 70; likewise the epistles. Revelation provides an account of events leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem and eventually Babylon/Rome. All exegesis has as its task the interpretation of how text in a historical context can be interpreted with application in a very different culture and  context today. There is now a doubly difficult exercise of interpretation to be undertaken - and it may not even be a relevant exercise - by this approach the NT texts may not have been intended to apply beyond their immediate historical contexts. The NT could be entirely a historical exercise.

Again, early on in the book, where Andrew pays tribute to N.T.Wright for opening up the territory which the book explores, the suggestion is made that the new bearings provided in the subsequent remapping of theology will open up a better direction for an emerging theology to serve the needs of an emerging church. The book does not give a clear sense of how this new direction will be so helpful - other than by-passing the above-mentioned events relating to the history of Jesus, which have served not only evangelical theology but the theology of the entire church for the last 2000 years. It remains to be seen whether attaching ourselves to the narrative of a people radically distant in geography, culture and time will provide a fresh impetus for a church freed from the shackles of outdated theological assumptions. The question is whether, in a brand new playground in which all the old toys which we used to play with have been consigned to history, we can imaginatively invent some new ones, which will be the best way of aiding the motor developmental ability of the children of the emerging church. 

Meanwhile I intend to return to a more detailed reading of the book, probably aided by helpful interventions and suggestions which arise as a result of this strictly interim comment. I’m grateful to Andrew and congratulate him on writing a book which will challenge everybody to look at the New Testament in a fresh way, and if it challenges our theological assumptions, will require us to provide good reasons why we should hold onto them for a moment longer.

I’d also like to pick some detail from the book for discussion in future comments - maybe not chapter by chapter as John suggests in his review - though I’d be happy to do that also if that’s how others want to make contributions.

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Comments

Re: The Coming of the Son of Man

by Andrew - 20/01/2006 - 13:53

Peter, thank you for your thoughtful comments - I have always appreciated the interaction we have had over issues relating to the thesis of this book. I’m not sure you’re expecting a response from me at this stage, but here goes anyway.

This book requires serious study. There are no easy paths through the theological undergrowth.

It seemed to me important to demonstrate that the line of interpretation I was advocating arose from a close and consistent reading of the texts. I am conscious of the fact that interpreters can easily get carried away on flights of fancy that perhaps originate in some biblical insight but then take on a life of their own - like a balloon that we blow up but let go of before we succeed in tying a knot in its neck. There is a fair bit of transliterated Greek, I admit. The reason is that the argument relies quite heavily on drawing out the literary and linguistic links between the New Testament texts and Old Testament precedents. My hope, however, was that this more technical detail would not interrupt the flow of the narrative that emerges. Plus, of course, if there is any more far-reaching value in this reading of New Testament eschatology, it’s better to establish the thesis rather carefully in the first place and allow others to assimilate and restate it.

Why should the outer layer begin in 166 BC? Why not go back all the way to the Genesis story of origins?

We could certainly add layers to the narrative Russian doll, but the book is centrally about the motif of the coming of the Son of man, the most important background to which is the story of oppression and rebellion that emerges from the Maccabean period onwards. But of course the Maccabean revolt presupposes the exile, which presupposes kingdom and covenant, which presupposes slavery and exodus, and so on.

The brief reference that Andrew makes to the atonement on p.228 locates that event in the immediate and local difficulties of the Jewish nation - not making any connection with its significance for the rest of the wider story.

Is this really fair? What I said was that ‘salvation’ is in the first instance to be understood in terms of the survival of Israel, but that secondly the manner of this salvation opened up the possibility of Gentiles becoming part of this redeemed people, which naturally has universal implications (228-230). This is really only the effect of a narrative theology - we place greater emphasis on ‘salvation’ as the historical experience of a community, and we play down the a-historical, existentialist notion of salvation as saving individuals from their sins so that they can go to heaven when they die. I thought, actually, that the more contentious point here was the argument that ‘salvation’ for the Gentiles consists precisely in the possibility of inclusion in the restored people of God.

We are given few if any guidelines as to how these documents might have any application today. (To be fair, this was not the project’s purpose, but it does become a huge overshadowing question).

No this was not the purpose, and it ought to be an overshadowing question - that was the whole point of the book. I hope people will ask how this sort of retelling might guide, reinvigorate, correct, refocus our sense of calling as God’s people. Again, this raises the question of how we consistently develop a narrative approach to theology. It’s rather like Tom Wright’s five act hermeneutic: the narrative establishes a plot line, a trajectory, and only to a limited degree a set of rules or principles for living through the fifth act. It requires a degree of imagination to follow this through.

The theological package leaves, for me, some yawning gaps: the place of the life, ministry, death, resurrection, ascension and outpoured Spirit of Jesus in the life of the believer today.

This surprises me. The ‘death, resurrection, ascension’ and ‘outpoured Spirit of Jesus’ (as definitive and constitutive for the ‘age which has come’) are central to the argument about the (individual and corporate) Son of man who suffers and is vindicated - they have hardly been by-passed. The life of Jesus is the story of the Son of man who, in Ezekiel’s sense, confronts the wickedness and disloyalty of Israel (COSM 51-52), and who in Daniel’s sense, gathers around himself and embodies in himself the nucleus of a new community that will suffer and be vindicated and receive from God ‘dominion and glory and a kingdom’ (Dan. 7:14). Of course, I could be overstating it, but I am impressed by how much of the Gospel story can be understood within this prophetic-apocalyptic framework.

But isn’t your concern not really that these things are omitted but that they have been subsumed into the eschatological narrative about the Son of man? If that’s correct, then I would suggest that you have hit the nail on the head. But I would also stress that the eschatological narrative shapes, or reshapes, the covenant people - so we still ask the basic questions: Why did God choose a people for his own possession? How has that people been redefined as a result of the historical-eschatological process that is described in the New Testament? In other words, we have to take into account both the story that preceded the eschatological narrative of the New Testament, and the fact that the story is expected to continue after it. This is my argument about 1 Corinthians 3:12-15: the church must be built well so that it may survive the fire of the ‘day’ of eschatological crisis and then continue to be an effective people of God in the world (COSM 235).

Re: The Coming of the Son of Man

by peter wilkinson - 20/01/2006 - 17:15

Thanks, Andrew, for your comments and explanations. The fact that you back up your interpretations in COSM with very detailed and closely argued references is of course not a criticism but a commendation. And I should also have added to this comment the wealth of cross reference to commentators and exegetes throughout the book.

I do think the context which forms the setting of a reading makes a great deal of difference to its interpretation. 166 BC - 135 AD provides quite a localised interpretation - in keeping with your approach. The drama under consideration takes, to my mind, a much broader and more universal shape, which is that provided by the context of the entire story of the Hebrew scriptures, and its interpretation by the NT authors.

Also, perhaps crucially for me, the innermost layer of the story as you are considering it is the fourth doll, the narrative of Daniel. This seems entirely reasonable, from your point of view, in unwrapping an eschatological narrative which forms and shapes the story of Jews and Christians in the 1st century. But at this point, we are moving into a narrative which determines an entire theology of the people of God, and governs our understanding of much, if not all, of the New Testament. At this point, my theological compasses tell me that the death/resurrection of Jesus is the centre of the story - rather than a somewhat subsequent 1st century coming of the Son of Man.

In my version of the story, the inseparable consequence of the death/resurrection of Jesus is the outpouring of the Spirit, and that is the crucial eschatological reality in the 1st century as in the present. It is this which guarantees the survival and future of the people of God ("a deposit guaranteeing our unheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession" - Ephesians 1:14, redemption here being future, of course, not AD 70), rather than an action taking place over the downfall of Jerusalem and Rome.

Also in my version, the election of Israel in relation to her calling to the world, the means whereby the blessing of Abraham was to be disseminated to the world, is accomplished, through the faithful Israelite Jesus, acting on unfaithful Israel’s behalf, through his death on the cross, resurrection and outpoured Spirit. So there is a reconstituted Israel, which consists of those gathered around Jesus, but the continuation of the story seems to me to be much more than a reconciliation which was an internal matter of Israel’s history, through which gentiles were included only, as it were, as a by-product, or an afterthought. The very meaning and purpose of Jesus’s death and resurrection was to include the gentiles. Salvation was much more than rescue from the destruction of Jerusalem and Rome - it included the eschatological blessings of the Spirit, which was the prophetic witness to the world and to the people of God as they were now to be - the guarantee of their future, including new creation to come.

I don’t think you are denying any of this, but the effect of a narrative theology (at least as you develop it) is to make these events far from central. You refer to an emphasis on the ‘historical experience of a community’ in the way salvation is defined, and this should indeed include a greater emphasis on ‘salvation’ as survival through physical, historical circumstances which the community experienced at that time. But the historical experience of that community would have led them, I believe to place far greater emphasis on the blessings ensuing from the death and resurrection of Jesus as the fulfilment of God’s purpose of the ages, rather than protection and survival through the onslaughts of Judaism and Rome. This seems to be Paul’s emphasis in the epistles - where barely a sentence goes by without reference in one way or another to the death of Jesus on the cross as the central phenomenon which defines Christian identity and experience.

I don’t think I’m saying that there shouldn’t be an eschatological narrative into which Jesus fits, and from which we derive our sense of identity. I think I’m wondering whether the narrative places the emphasis where it needs to be. To argue this in the light of your book will require more detailed study.

The South African theologian Adrio Koenig wrote a book entitled ‘The eclipse of Christ in eschatology’. His whole approach admirably illustrates and criticises conventional eschatological models for shifting the centre of gravity from Jesus’s death and resurrection, indeed from Jesus himself, to a far distant future in which Jesus barely seems involved. So far this is in agrement with your approach. Bringing eschatology back into 1st century realities, and also into the now, seems to me to be necessary and healthy. But, like Koenig, I would like to see an eschatology which focuses on the Jesus of the cross and resurrection as the gateway to an entirely new order of creation to come, from which we benefit in part in the present. The cross was the end of the old creation in this eschatological telling of the story, the resurrection the beginning of the new creation, the Spirit the bridge between the beginning and the completion  of the new creation through whom God’s purposes were to be broadcast across the world - beyond AD 70.

Maybe something like this is the post-script, or follow-up which needs to be added to COSM. The second volume - or something of the like.

In the meantime I am rereading COSM slowly - so give me time for more detailed thoughts and responses!

Cross and parousia

by Andrew - 21/01/2006 - 13:36

At this point, my theological compasses tell me that the death/resurrection of Jesus is the centre of the story - rather than a somewhat subsequent 1st century coming of the Son of Man….

Why set these two narrative moments, the cross and the parousia, at odds with each other? Why not see them as intimately related? So the death and resurrection of Jesus anticipates the dying and renewal of Israel, the suffering and vindication of his disciples. Conversely, the coming of the Son of man is the vindication of the one who suffered at the hands of his enemies. The antithetical formulation seems unnecessary - stories don’t work that way, plot connects things together. To repeat what I said in the previous comment with emphasis: “The ‘death, resurrection, ascension’ and ‘outpoured Spirit of Jesus’… are central to the argument about the (individual and corporate) Son of man who suffers and is vindicated…”?

What I want to draw out is that the eschatological narrative frames the death - resurrection - Pentecost event and integrates it into the historical narrative about Israel and Rome. It is a story - pre-enacted in Jesus’ own story - about the experience of the people of God in the period of transition from second temple Judaism to a Spirit-filled community no longer oppressed by Rome. This framing means that you cannot disconnect Jesus’ death and resurrection from the eschatological narrative that is encapsulated in the vision of one like a Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven, which is what theology has tended to do - and to which Koenig rightly objected.

Certainly it is the cross and resurrection which ‘guarantees the survival and future of the people of God’. New Testament eschatology - the prophetic narrative extended into the future - is simply how Jesus and his followers imagined this guarantee would work itself out through the faithful perseverence of the early church. The cross and the parousia are narratively distinct, but they are intimately connected and require each other.

The book does not aim to set out an all-embracing New Testament theology - though I may give that impression at times! It aims to understand how the foreseeable future appeared to Jesus and his followers and why they used the language that they did in speaking about it. This view of the future is of great significance, however, for how we understand the outcome of Jesus’ death - if he died to set the historical people of God free from satanic oppression and the consequences of their sins so that YHWH might be king and not Caesar, we should expect this freedom to be manifested historically, concretely, politically - it is not merely a spiritual matter. Daniel 7 is precisely a vision of that sort of outcome, which is why it became so important to the early church.

With regard to Ephesians 1, my argument would be that the blessings and assurances given here are important to Paul and his communities precisely because they were risking everything, perhaps even their lives, for the sake of Christ during the ‘tribulation’ that would accompany the end of the age. A phrase such as ‘the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints’, I think specifically evokes the participation of believers in the suffering, vindication, and glorification of the Son of man. Their hope was to be part of that parousia community that would participate in the ‘first resurrection’, reign with Christ at the right hand of the Father throughout the coming age.

Re: Cross and parousia

by peter wilkinson - 21/01/2006 - 17:17

I suppose it’s more a question of weighting and emphasis - I don’t want to set any aspect of the NT against another. If the death and resurrection of Jesus anticipates the dying and renewal of Israel through the AD 70 (and beyond) occurrences, it also facilitates a dying and renewal as an existential experience to the players in the 1st century narrative as well as today.

Likewise, I see a transfer of sovereignty having taken place at Pentecost - well before the destruction of Jerusalem or the downfall of Rome. It all depends what kind of sovereignty we are talking about. The way Jesus came ‘to rule’ was quite different from the way Israel saw itself as ruling, or the way in which Rome practised rule, or nations superseded nations through one judgement after another in their relation to Israel in the OT.

I don’t really see Rome as having been a threat to the church’s survival - didn’t the church grow as a result of the persecutions (just as it has in China), especially when people saw how the Christians went to their deaths? Also I’m less certain than you that Rome was actually judged and extinguished as a result of its destruction of Jerusalem. In many ways, Rome has continued to be a reality to the present day - not least as a spirit which got transferred to the church after Constantine.

I am nevertheless enjoying COSM immensely second time round - it improves with the re-reading, and is a good bedtime book after all. More stimulating than - caffeine! I was swimming through the first two chapters - despite a minor hiccup over Luke 21:24 "until the times of the gentiles are fulfilled" (more on this anon, and Romans 11:26). But in chapter 3 the questions started coming thick and fast - and this is where the foundations for the ‘coming of the son of man’ are laid.

Rather than give anybody exegetical indigestion, I’ll hold back the questions for another post. Meanwhile it would be nice to have others in on the conversation - though you do have to be fairly committed to the issues to wade in. There are two years of discussions on the website and quite a long time before that which have formed the background to this contribution, and many others previously on the issues which form the substance of COSM.

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