The Body: A Study in Pauline Theology
Overview
This comprehensive study of Paul’s language of “the body” knits together all of his great themes: the body of sin and death, in which man has fallen; the body of Christ on the cross, through which we are saved; Christ’s body, the Church; and the resurrection of the body. Nearly all of the main tenets of the Christian faith are represented here—the doctrines of man, sin, the incarnation and atonement, the church, the sacraments, sanctification, and eschatology. This study presents Paul’s conception of the body as the key to understanding his entire theology.
Top Highlights
“The resurrection of the body starts at baptism,2 when a Christian becomes ‘one Spirit’ (i.e., one spiritual body) with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17), and ‘puts on (the body of) Christ’ (Gal. 3:27), ‘the new man’, which ‘hath been created’ (Eph. 4:24) and ‘is being renewed … after the image of him that created him’ (Col. 3:10). Baptism begins the substitution of the solidarity of one body by that of another (cf. Rom. 6:3, 6, 12). Each time this act takes place1 the redemption of the old mortality is extended. A new part of the σῶμα of creation, which is made ‘for the Lord’, begins its release from ‘the bondage of corruption’” (Pages 79–80)
“The most important term that it represents, and the only one of theological significance, is the word basar. It is here if anywhere that one must look for the Old Testament determination of the Pauline use of σῶμα. Yet basar is essentially not ‘body’ but ‘flesh’, and is in fact in the great majority of instances translated in the Septuagint by σάρξ (sarx). This means that both the most decisive words in Pauline anthropology, ‘flesh’ and ‘body’, represent a common Hebrew original.” (Page 12)
“Now, in 1 Cor. 15, and indeed everywhere else in Paul, including the rest of this passage, the final transformation of our existing body and the receiving of the new one is an event that must wait upon the Parousia. Until that time even those who possess the firstfruits of the Spirit have to endure in groaning expectation (Rom. 8:23). To suggest that we have a resurrection body ready-made to enter at the moment of death is to render unintelligible the inevitable prospect of ‘nakedness’ which Paul holds out for those dying before the Parousia.” (Page 77)
- Title: The Body: A Study in Pauline Theology
- Author: John A.T. Robinson
- Series: Studies in Biblical Theology
- Publisher: SCM Press
- Print Publication Date: 1952
- Logos Release Date: 2016
- Pages: 94
- Era: era:modern
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Bible. N.T. Epistles of Paul › Theology; Bible; Bible. N.T. Epistles of Paul
- Resource ID: LLS:SCMBDYSTPLNTH
- Resource Type: text.monograph.biblical-theology
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-08-29T20:18:58Z