Pre-Existence or Adam Christology? An Evaluation of James Dunn's Exegesis of Philippians 2.6-11
In the middle of
the first volume of his five-volume work on the history of Christian theology,
Jaroslav Pelikan writes "The
truth, even the truth of the Gospels, is never pure and clear, and rarely
simple."[1] How much more so, we might say, must this
axiom apply to the Pauline epistles—Paul having the seemingly singular ability
to make a relatively clear point by utilizing a glissando of many obscure ones. Hence when we affirm that Christianity has
always been a faith in the Incarnation—in one form or another—we can be sure as
we come to Philippians 2 and the famous “Kenosis Poem” things are perhaps not
as straightforward or uncontested as we originally thought them to be.
Though traditionally thought to be an image of the
pre-existent Christ descending into the form of a slave to redeem us—much as in
the prologue to John’s Gospel—James Dunn has recently and powerfully argued
otherwise, noting “the common belief that Phil. 2.6-11 starts by speaking of
Christ’s pre-existent state and status and then of his incarnation is, in
almost every case, a presupposition rather than a conclusion, a presupposition
which again and again proves decisive in determining how disputed terms within
the Philippian hymn should be understood.”[2] Rather than an image of the descending
preexistent redeemer, Dunn argues that this is a case rather of Paul’s Second
Adam Christology.[3] It will thus be the burden of this essay to
investigate Dunn’s claims in relation to the passage and to see whether or not
it constitutes a viable reading and hermeneutical strategy for approaching the
text. We shall end this essay with our
own brief analysis, utilizing the research of Larry Hurtado, Richard Bauckham,
and Wolfhart Pannenberg in relation to Philippians and Christ’s pre-existence.
I.
Over and Dunn With Pre-Existence: The Background of
James Dunn’s Analysis of Phil 2.6-11
It would behoove us at the outset to set the stakes of
Dunn’s exegesis which we are going to cover.
While in no way denying a theology of the Incarnation, Dunn believes the
only actual example of pre-existence Christology resides in the Gospel of John.[4] Dunn is fairly critical of the tradition
which shifted its primary focus to the theme of Incarnation, as opposed to what
he views as the more authentic eschatological Adam Christology: “Incarnation
became steadily more central as the decisive act of redemption—a tendency
already evident in Irenaeus who can speak of Christ ‘attaching man to God by
his own incarnation’ (Adv. Haer.
V.1.1) so that later theology had to look for meaning in Christ’s death more as
the paying of a ransom to the devil than as the ending of the first Adam that
last Adam might come to be.”[5] Hence in Dunn’s opinion most of the
tradition, if not a complete aberration, is indeed a misreading of a majority
of Pauline and New Testament texts, and a misplacement of certain
soteriological emphases. If true this
would certainly, to say the least, call for drastic revisions of long cherished
ideas and their texts.
Dunn’s argument, like most of his work, is a very
intricate and sophisticated gestalt
and one can easily get lost in the forest and forget the trees. Before we get to his reading of Phil. 2.6-11
we must first establish some background of where he is coming from, and what
presuppositions are driving his thought.
The first and major one is his working presupposition (or perhaps
anti-presupposition) that incarnational texts cannot be assumed, they must be
proven,[6]
and this proof, argues Dunn, comes from literature which would have framed and
given context to any New Testament writing—such as Paul’s—which we have. The second major premise we must understand,
is that up to the point of his analysis of Philippians Dunn is not convinced
that any viable concept of pre-existence or Incarnation yet exists to give
context to the hymn under contention.
Thus, without assuming incarnation, and finding scant evidence for
pre-existence traditions, up to the point just before he turns to Phil. 2.6-11
Dunn has elaborated what he sees as the absolute presupposition of Pauline
Christology: the Adamic narrative. Lets
briefly turn to this in order to build up to Philippians.
Going through a bit of the history of interpretation,[7]
Dunn follows recent scholarship in rejecting Bultmann and others famous thesis
that Incarnational patterns of Christology were based in part on a nascent
Gnostic redeemer myth of a descending and ascending savior. As with most scholars now, Dunn says these
Gnostic accounts have no pre-2nd century evidence, and it is far
more likely they have taken their own pattern from Biblical literature, rather
than vice versa.[8] Hence “while there is no clear talk in
pre-Christian sources of a redeemer being sent from heaven, we do have some indications that speculation on the
heavenly man/earthly man contrast was already current at the time of Paul.” He goes on to cite, for example, Philo (Leg. All. 1.31, 1.53f; Opif. 134; Qu. Gen. 1.4) and says
“Paul himself seems to be aware of some such distinction—‘the first man is of the earth, the second man is from heaven (1 Cor.
15:45-7)—his denial that the
spiritual (= heavenly) man precedes
the earthly in his own interpretation of Gen. 2.7 being possibly directed against
something like Philo’s heavenly man/earthly man interpretation.”[9]
Though we cannot linger too long here, Dunn then turns
to Romans in order to gain an initial elaboration on the Adamic soteriology he
sees in Paul. At Romans 1.18-25 he sees
a retelling of the entire Genesis 1-3 story.
For example “lying behind vv.19ff is almost certainly the picture story
of Gen. 2—Adam as man enjoying knowledge of God plainly revealed to him (1.19,
21)…enjoying the full benefits of God’s power manifest in creation (1.20),
enjoying the truth of God unclouded by sin (1.25).” And he goes on “But as Gen. 3 goes on to
relate Adam did not honour God as God…(1.21), he did not acknowledge God (1.28)
instead he believed the serpents distortion of God’s command, exchanged the
truth of God for a lie (1.25—Gen. 3.4f).”[10] In Romans 3.3 “All have sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God,” Dunn translates hysterountai
not as “fallen short” but as “fail to reach” as in “All have sinned and failed
to reach the glory of God.” In other
words Dunn is attempting to say “they lack the glory of God in the sense that
they fail to reach the eschatological glory in which only the righteous will
share…there is a growing consensus among recent commentators that the primary
allusion is to the glory once enjoyed by Adam.”[11] Dunn goes through three more passages in
Romans—of course 5.12-19 which he does not spend much time on due to its
specific allusion to Adam—7.7-11 and 8.19-22 where “the creation was subjected
to futility” is interpreted that creation itself was caught up in Adam’s
fall—recalling Gen. 3.17 “cursed is the ground because of you.”
At this point we can summarize three statements made
by Dunn before we move on to the Kenosis hymn.
The first is that Dunn wants to argue that for Paul “Salvation is the
reversal of Adam’s fall.” In other words
salvation is the fashioning or reshaping of the believer into the image of
God. Thus also “salvation is the restoration
of the believer to glory which man now lacks as a result of his/Adam’s sin. Thus being transformed back into the renewed
image of Adam, says Dunn is described as “being transformed into God’s image
‘from one degree of glory to another’ (II Cor. 3.18; 4.17).” And “it is Paul’s conviction that Jesus is
the indispensable model or pattern for this process.”[12] One final note should be added, Dunn contends
“when Paul uses Adam language explicitly of Christ he is referring primarily to
Christ risen and exalted.” This last
point is key to remember when Dunn argues against pre-existence
interpretations, as what he sees is something more of a “post-existence” in
exaltation, the eschatological Adam.
With this background context of Dunn’s insightful observations of Adam
Christology in Paul, we are ready to turn to Phillippians.
II.
Phillippians 2:5-11 Re-Dunn
To help us along we
would do well to go over Phillippians 2:5-11 ourselves, in order to better
manifest the differences of Dunn’s exegesis.
Here is the passage at length in the Greek[13]:
τοῦτο φρονεῖτε ἐν
ὑμῖν ὃ καὶ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, 6ὃς ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων οὐχ ἁρπαγμὸν ἡγήσατο τὸ εἶναι
ἴσα θεῷ,
7ἀλλὰ ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν μορφὴν δούλου λαβών, ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων
γενόμενος: καὶ σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος 8ἐταπείνωσεν ἑαυτὸν γενόμενος ὑπήκοος μέχρι
θανάτου, θανάτου δὲ σταυροῦ.
9διὸ καὶ ὁ θεὸς αὐτὸν ὑπερύψωσεν καὶ ἐχαρίσατο αὐτῷ τὸ
ὄνομα τὸ ὑπὲρ πᾶν ὄνομα, 10ἵνα ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ πᾶν γόνυ κάμψῃ ἐπουρανίων καὶ
ἐπιγείων καὶ καταχθονίων, 11καὶ πᾶσα γλῶσσα ἐξομολογήσηται ὅτι κύριος Ἰησοῦς
Χριστὸς εἰς δόξαν θεοῦ πατρός.
[Maintain this attitude among yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus:
who, being in the form of God, did not consider His equality with God something
to be exploited.
Rather, he emptied
himself, taking on the form of a servant, making himself in the likeness of
man; and having been found to be in appearance like a man, he humbled himself,
becoming subordinate to the point of death, even death (upon) a cross.
Therefore God highly-exalted (beyond-exalted)
him and gave to him the name beyond every name, in order that by the name Jesus
every knee of those who are in the heavens, and upon the earth, and under the
earth might bow, and (so that) every tongue might confess that Jesus Christ
(is) Lord, to the glory of God the Father.]
There are several
interpretive difficulties in this passage (for example, the exact meaning of ἁρπαγμὸν) but Dunn’s
interpretation is not necessarily based upon translation differences.
What is important is the background context of Adam Christology which we
just briefly outlined, and so the hermeneutical question of control-context:
what is the overall puzzle into which this piece fits? At this point already we notice something
interesting: much of Dunn’s interpretation comes based upon the presupposition
of the Adam Christology context. There
is, of course, no lead in or explanation linking the hymn to Adam
Christology. Rather what Dunn had wanted
to do up to the point where we now turn to Phillippians is build up the argument
that Adam Christology, and not Incarnation or pre-existence, would have been
the immediately relevant and recognizable context which readers of his time
would be familiar with and discern. As
Dunn says “In brief, the most informative and probable background in my
judgment is the one we have been sketching throughout the chapter—that of the
Adam Christology which was widely current in the Christianity of the 40’s and
50’s. It seems to me that Phil. 2.6-11
is best understood as an expression of Adam Christology, one of the fullest
expressions that we still possess.”[14]
Going
line by line through his analysis, we can see how he constructs his
argument. Dunn sees a clear movement of
thought running from 6a to 7c, and thus from “who being in the form of
God…becoming in the likeness of man.”
Dunn notes that 7c “provides the bridge” to the next movement, as it
seems to indicate the end result of the first stage of Christ’s odyssey. Thus the contrast of ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων [being
in the form of God] and μορφὴν δούλου λαβών [taking the form of a slave] the
former, of course, being what οὐχ ἁρπαγμὸν ἡγήσατο τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ [he did not
consider being equal to God a thing to be exploited] and the latter was what he
became. The traditional exegesis sees
this as a transition from the pre-incarnate and pre-existent state into
flesh—here the movement of incarnation being equated to “receiving the form of
a slave” and pre-existence being indicated by a prior state “being in the form
of God.” Yet this is not so, argues
Dunn. “The best way to understand this double
contrast is an allusion to Gen. 1-3,” an allusion to the creation and fall of
man.
To
make this major transition from traditional interpretation to what Dunn sees as
more acceptable Jewish meaning which would have existed at the time of Paul and
before, is Dunn’s identification of μορφῇ θεοῦ not with the logos asarkos but as a reference to Adam
being made in the image (eikon) of
God. He argues that “it has long been
recognized that morphe and eikon are near synonyms, and that in
Hebrew thought the visible ‘form of God’ is
His Glory.”[15] Following this line he thus says μορφὴν δούλου
[form of a slave] “probably refers therefore to what Adam became as a result of
his fall: he lost his share in god’s glory and became a slave.” As to the second contrast, Dunn notes the οὐχ
ἁρπαγμὸν ἡγήσατο [did not consider it something to exploit] phrase is an easy
parallel to Adam’s original temptation to be like God, which Christ has
overcome. At this point Dunn wants us to
recall Romans 1.21 where Paul says “they changed the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of the image of mortal man.” Here the obvious parallel that Dunn is trying
to draw is that Christ is now found ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος [to be in
the likeness of man]. Hence the parallel
with “form of a slave” and “likeness of man” in contrast to “form of God” and
“did not consider equality with God a thing to be exploited” are not, for Dunn,
intimations of a difference between pre and post-incarnate states, but within
the one state of the human
being—namely the new Adam. “Not content
with being like God, what God had intended, he [the first Adam] became like
men, what men now are. The contrast in
other words is between what Adam was
and what he became, and it is this Adam language which is used of Christ. It is quite probable therefore that the
author of the Philippian hymn was conscious of this ambiguity in the Adam
narrative and intended to reflect it in his own formulation.”[16]
Hence,
turning to the ἐκένωσεν [he emptied] and ἐταπείνωσεν [he humbled] movement,
Dunn maintains a similar soteriological picture to the models taken by those
espousing Incarnation, just now completely within the context of Adam: “Christ
faced the same archetypal choice that confronted Adam, but chose not as Adam had chosen (to grasp
equality with God). Instead he chose to empty himself of Adam’s glory and to embrace
Adam’s lot, the fate which Adam had suffered by way of punishment.”[17] To strengthen his case he turns our attention
momentarily to Hebrews 2.6-8 in order to demonstrate similarities. The parallel between Philippians and Hebrews
and their relation to Adam Christology is strengthened in that both indicate
the fulfillment of man in Ps. 8.6 “you have put all things under his feet,” is
at last fulfilled in Christ.
Thus
Dunn notes μορφὴν δούλου [form of a slave], ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων [in the
likeness of man], and σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος [was found in appearance as
a man] are all more or less synonymous, and have their meaning as variant ways
of describing the character of fallen Adam.
This is not too far off from the Incarnational interpretations, again
simply without Incarnation. The form of
fallen man, as contrasted with the μορφῇ θεοῦ is between two Adamic states, pre and post fall. “Notice,” says Dunn “not as a man, but as man—that is, as
representative man, as one with fallen man, as Adam.”[18] Yet not merely Adam, but the eschatological
second Adam whose “super-exaltation” (ὑπερύψωσεν) “attains a far higher glory
than the first Adam lost.” At this point
Dunn summarizes his findings and makes a statement regarding pre-existence in
this passage, to which it benefits us to quote at length:
This means that the initial stage of Christ’s odyssey
is depicted as equivalent to Adam’s status and choice in the garden. Now Adam was certainly not thought of as
pre-existent—though perhaps strictly speaking as pre-historical, or, being the
first man on earth, as transhistorical/typical.
So no implication that Christ was pre-existent may be intended. If Christ walks in Adam’s footsteps then
Christ need be no more than pre-existent than Adam. Nor indeed is there any implication that
Christ was contemporaneous with Adam, acting in a similarly transhistorical
situation. In point of fact, in earliest
Christian Adam theology Christ always presupposes Adam, Christ’s odyssey
presupposes the plight of Adam, of Adam’s offspring. As I Cor. 15.45ff insists, the temporal order
is clear: Adam first, Christ second—Christ is last Adam, Adam precedes
Christ. Adam was not a copy of a
pre-existent Christ, but ‘a type of him
who was to come’ (Rom. 5.14) It would
seem therefore that the point of parallel between Adam and Christ is not
dependent on any particular time-scale—pre-existence, pre-history, or
whatever. The point focuses rather on the choice confronting Adam and Christ. The Philippian hymn does not intend to affirm
that Jesus was as historical or as prehistorical as Adam, but that the choice confronting Christ was as archetypal and determinative for mankind as was
Adam’s; whether the choice was made by the pre-existent Christ or the
historical Jesus is immaterial to the Philippian hymn.[19]
III. Dunn and Dunner:
Has the Tradition Simply Misunderstood? An Appraisal of Dunn’s Reading.
What
are we to make of all this? Dunn has
made a very convincing case, it seems.
But we have to remember the edge that comes along with it: it is only
when Adam Christology is forgotten as the control-context that theologies of
the Incarnation creep in as the proper interpretation of passages such as this:
“It is quite true,” says Dunn “that once the context of the original Adam
theology faded from the immediate perspective the language which derived from
that theology lent itself to a pre-existence-incarnation interpretation,
particularly in the case of Phil. 2.6-11.”[20] This is, as we saw briefly at the beginning
of our essay, something that Dunn feels is a misappropriation of texts. We of course have to remember that Dunn is
not denying the divinity of Christ, rather he wants to resituate our exegesis
in order to bring out what he feels to be the missed richness of Adam
Christology, overwhelmed as it has been until now by the supernal light of
incarnation. Dunn, rather, sees
incarnational doctrines as emerging (albeit legitimately) in second-generation
Christianity and only finding pure exemplification in the Bible in the writing
of John.[21]
In
order to evaluate Dunn’s claims I want to turn to three other scholars and
their works, who provide an important corrective to Dunn’s hyper-focus on Adam
Christology as against Incarnational
ideas in the same passage. These three
are Larry Hurtado,[22]
Richard Bauckham,[23]
and Wolfhart Pannenberg.[24] Each in their own way are, or would be,
skeptical of Dunn’s analysis.
First
and foremost I should say what I find most unconvincing about Dunn’s reading is
his turning of Adamic Christology against
Incarnational Christology. He is certain
he has found no evidence for credible antecedents which would provide a
plausible, evolutionary reading
without, we might say, a sudden and staggering chronological paradigm shift in
development. I mentioned it briefly in a
footnote above it seems Dunn keeps expanding his definition of Adam Christology
in order that old wineskins resist bursting.
Certainly Adam Christology is
a profound background context to understand the Philippians hymn, and certainly Dunn has fruitfully engaged in
Paul’s thought through this lens as a whole.
Yet to isolate this as the sole context, and then when Philippians exceeds and breaks the mold, to call
this “the fullest form of Adam Christology,” seems to me to die the death of
qualification and perhaps even circularity.
For if Dunn has found no antecedent forms of pre-existence against which
to judge what most scholars take to be a pre-Pauline hymn which Paul utilizes,
for Dunn can only mean that Adam
Christology, despite whatever further qualifications, is the lens whereby we
read kenosis. Thus despite whatever novelty or exception
this passage takes, it merely in Dunn’s mind appears to become a more robust
form of Adam speculation.
Thus
for example we need to notice a subtle shift in Dunn’s analysis. He considers 6ὃς ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων οὐχ ἁρπαγμὸν
ἡγήσατο τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ, 7ἀλλὰ ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν μορφὴν δούλου λαβών [who, being
in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be exploited,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave/servant] to be analogous to
Christ refusing Adam’s temptation to “eat the fruit” as it were, accepting
instead the path of obedience to God.
Yet immediately we need to recall that Adam attempted to become equal to God. “Being equal to God” is a difficult to accept
stretch and really bears no identifiable allusion to Adam or his sin. It would appear more likely, we might say,
that Philippians is precisely contrasting
Christ’s status which was already his, as opposed to man who attempted to become such.[25]
To
bring in some heavier hitters at this point, we can fruitfully at this stage
point out Hurtado’s main thesis: his analysis of texts like Phil. 2.6-11
and others are seen by him as evidence that at an incredibly early period Jesus
was accounted as divine through worship, an act, of course, reserved only for
God (in antithesis to Dunn’s own slower, more evolutionary view). Hurtado asks “how can we account for such a
significant innovation in a religious tradition in historical terms?”[26]
and that “I argue that the remarkable nature of earliest devotion to Jesus is
more clearly appreciated when we see it in the context of ancient Jewish
concerns about the uniqueness of the one God.”[27]
In
fact in the first chapter of his book he spends a lot of time debunking other
theories on the rise of Christ worship, and criticizes previous attempts that
deal with Christology but dismiss worship as a late addition or antithetical to
the original Jesus.[28] In fact this is not merely an anecdotal
account, but given its early nature and the intensity with which worship
fomented and even became proto-creedalized: “devotion to Jesus as divine was
such a novel and significant step, and appeared so early as well, that it can
only be accounted for as a response to the strong conviction in early Christian
circles that the one God of biblical tradition willed that Jesus be so
reverenced.”[29] And again: “to gain a full appreciation of
the historical significance of this devotion to Jesus it is important to
remember that earliest Christians, both Jewish and Gentile believers, seem
characteristically to have practiced otherwise a rather strict ‘monotheistic’
worship, rejecting all deities of the wider religious environment as bogus and
even demonic forces unworthy of reverence (e.g. 1 Cor 10:14-22) and worshipping
only the one God of the Jewish scriptures.”[30]
But how does Hurtado
back this up? Clearly we are dealing
with the same text—but what is at variance between Dunn and Hurtado—and
Bauckham and Pannenberg—is that Dunn believes a strict Adam Christology is the
only option because of another important presupposition we briefly outlined,
namely his hesitance to ascribe any radical discontinuity in tradition. Incarnational Christology to Dunn could have
only arisen gradually. Hurtado argues
otherwise. He believes that the
Philippians hymn is also drawing on OT imagery, but differs in how he
interprets it. When “every knee shall
bow and every tongue confess,” to Christ, Hurtado points out that this is a direct
parallel to the LXX version of Is. 45.18-25 which reads:
Turn to me and be saved, those from
the farthest part of the earth. I am
God, and there is no other. By myself I
have sworn; righteousness shall go forth from my mouth; my words will not be turned
aside. To me every knee shall bow and
every tongue shall confess saying righteousness and glory shall be brought to
him, and all who separate themselves shall be ashamed; from the LORD shall be
vindicated, and in God shall be glorified, all the seed of the sons of Israel.
Hurtado rightly points out this is an
“unexcelled…ringing declaration of the uniqueness of the God of biblical
Israel. Three times we have the refrain
that there is no other deity…and in 45.22-25 all the earth is summoned to join
a universal submission to this one true God.”
He notes therefore “it is nothing short of astonishing…to find phrasing
from this passage appropriated to describe the acknowledgment of Jesus’
universal supremacy.”[31]
Two other very
important points arise which mitigate Dunn’s thesis. First is the exaltation of Christ’s names
“above all names,” in Philippians.
“[This] reference to Jesus…practically requires us to think of the traditional,
devout Jewish estimation of the sacred name of God.” Moreover Hurtado mentions that this
exaltation of the name is probably another call to remember Is. 45.18-25. Richard Bauckham puts it quite explicitly:
“the exalted Jesus is given the divine name, the Tetragrammaton (YHWH), the
name which names the unique identity of the one God, the name which is
exclusive to the one God in a way that the sometimes ambiguous word ‘god’ is
not…though most commentators do not think so, this can only refer to the divine name…”[32] Significant in this regard too is the
corresponding universality of worship, [33]says
Bauckham, “in this way [Paul] can only wish precisely to include Jesus Christ
in the unique divine identity.”[34]
Second, and a very
important corrective to Dunn’s analysis where he says (without argument) that morphe and eikon are synonymous and in the same semantic field. David Steenburg has cogently argued
otherwise.[35] “What we need to know is not whether the
Greek words morphe and eikon have some sort of general
conceptual linkage, but whether the two words were used interchangeably, particularly in this sort of
expression.” Hurtado notes, following
Steenburg, that the answer is clearly negative.
On top of this it will hardly do, as Dunn has, to compare morphe and eikon in the abstract; even if they display significant semantic overlap
what is at issue is morphe theou and eikon theou, not morphe and eikon
alone. The relevant LXX translations of
the Genesis passage use the expression eikon
theou, and furthermore the NT writers are consistent in utilizing eikon when they appropriate the idea of
divine image as a way of indicating Jesus’ significance.[36] Hurtado says “by contrast morphe is never used elsewhere in any
allusion to Adam in the NT, and morphe
theou is not used at all in the Greek Tanach/Old Testament or in any other
Jewish or Christian text where we can identify an allusion to Adam. So [Dunn’s] alleged use of morphe theou to link Jesus with Adam in
Philippians 2:6 would be a singular case
without any analogy or precedent.”[37] A much different picture all of a sudden than
Dunn’s singular insistence that Adam Christology is the only option! To encapsulate
this particular point Hurtado notes
remember from our preceding analysis of [Phil.]
vv.9-11 that we have there rather clear appropriation of, and allusion to,
biblical and Jewish traditions. We can
judge these to be so because they are signaled by the use of phrasing that can
easily be identified with a biblical passage (as in Is. 45.23)…or phrasing that
connotes a traditional concept (“the name above every name”). So we must ask why an author…who readily knew how to make allusions by use of such
verbal devices would have failed so completely in vv.6-7, if in fact he sought
there to make an allusion to and contrast with Adam…the more likely conclusion is that no allusion or direct contrast with
Adam [in Phil.] was intended.[38]
One
final nail in Dunn’s thesis is that part of his link depends upon the soteriological context of Adam
Christology. Recall that for Dunn a key
aspect of the Adam-Christ link is soteriology: for Paul Christ is the reversal
of the Adamic fall.[39] True enough in itself. Yet we should observe in Philippians, as
Hurtado thoughtfully does, “the redemptive
efficacy of [Christ’s] actions are not in view in these verses.”[40] In this case there is no mention of benefits
to others, and the apex of the entire hymn is the incomparable exaltation. The possible warrant of a link to Adam
Christology via a soteriological context is absent, in other words. Far from
losing sight of the Adam-Christ parallel as a control context as Dunn claimed,
it seems quite the opposite: ironically Dunn has located an artificial control
context and so forgotten about incarnation.[41]
Can
we locate the reason for this? In other
words whereas Dunn posits a gradual, Religiongeschichtlichschule
type thesis of the gradual evolution of understanding, Hurtado, Bauckham, and
as we shall see in a moment, Pannenberg, all posit an almost immediate
recognition of Christ’s divinity—Hurtado by stressing the worship paid to
Christ, and Bauckham by stressing Christ’s exaltation was seen as his becoming
one with the Divine identity. Can we
locate the mechanism of this difference?
The answer for all three, of whom we shall deem Pannenberg’s extensive
analysis representative—is resurrection.
To
use Bauckham’s term, Jesus’ identity was
at stake on the cross—his entire life and claims to be the unique
representative of the Father, the inaugurator of the kingdom—seemed forfeit and
the lies of a criminal. Yet Easter
changed all of that—Christ was seen as justified
by the Father. That Jesus has been
raised could to a Jew only mean God has acted to validate this one, including
his entire pre-Easter message.[42]
Indeed “from the perspective of his resurrection [this] points back to
the pre-Easter Jesus insofar as it has confirmed his pre-Easter claim to
authority. Jesus’ unity with God,
established [verified] in the Easter event, does not begin only with this
event—it comes into force retroactively from the perspective of this event for
the claim to authority in the activity of the earthly Jesus.”[43]
We
can see in Philippians too, that the resurrection appears presupposed.[44] This appears not only in the exaltation
language at the end of the hymn but also that, in general in the New Testament
Jesus’ resurrection was not just seen as a revivification: it involved God’s
exaltation of him to a unique status “at the right hand of God.” (Ps.110:1).[45] Dunn agrees with the importance of the
resurrection,[46] yet is
concerned to show this represents a forward-looking eschatological contrast to the “first” Adam—in other words Christ
in this sense is after Adam, not
before in pre-existence. Yet Pannenberg,
while fully acknowledging the eschatological nature of Christ’s victory, notes
also how this necessarily includes a retroactive or “backwards looking” logic
to it. Jewish Apocalyptic, as Pannenberg
notes, expected God’s full revelation as an event at the end of time. Insofar as the raising of Christ was both an
apocalyptic event and a confirmation by God of Christ’s claim, Christ was God’s
own and (proleptically) final self-revelation.
“In this process in the history of traditions the recognition of the
fact that Jesus belongs to the sphere of God, which is established through the
revelatory character of his resurrection, expresses itself.” He goes on an elaborates “viewed from the
confirmation of Jesus’ claim by his resurrection, the inner logic of the matter
dictates that Jesus was always one
with God, not just after a certain date…and in view of God’s eternity the
character of Christ’s resurrection must mean that God was always one with Jesus.”[47] And perhaps most fully at the end of his
book:
The transition
from Jesus' announcement of the imminent Kingdom of God to the confession by
his community of Jesus' own kingly rule is to be understood as a materially
established step in the primitive Christian history of traditions, not to be
judged as an arbitrary leap or even as falling away from Jesus' proclamation.
Because Jesus' resurrection confirmed his earthly claim to authority by the
fulfillment of the eschatological future in his own person, he no longer just
anticipated the judgment of Him with whom the eschatological reality begins as
he did in his earthly activity, but he himself has now become in person the
reality of the future eschatological salvation...Differently expressed, through
the resurrection, the revealer of God's eschatological will became the
incarnation of the eschatological reality itself; the ultimate realization of
God's will for humanity and for the whole of creation could therefore be
expected from Him. Moreover, because Jesus' claim was eschatological in
character, no other could be conceived alongside Him to bring in the
eschatological consummation...[48]
Indeed this is why
Pannenberg earlier notes “worship [of Christ] is an Easter event,”[49]
because either we worship one who was always
one with God, or we worship a divinized creature. Hence we see an echo of Hurtado’s claim
regarding how “startling” it is to see a pure attribution of OT worship to
Christ in the Philippian’s hymn, in a manner that is unhesitant, unashamed, and
early—probably predating Paul’s
letter itself. In Bauckhams words again,
Christ in the resurrection is seen as identified with the Divine identity. As a
corollary, with the preceding analysis in place, it seems the question of
pre-existence in Philippians 2.6-11 comes to the fore again to be heartily
affirmed. These are not concepts
superfluous or alien—added theological constructs to Philippians, as Dunn
contends, but brings out the very logic of the hymn itself. Without preinscribing it within a limited use
of Adam typology and a slow “uniformitarianism” type view of evolving
Christologies, the more inductive approaches of Hurtado, Pannenberg, and
Bauckham open the way again to see preexistence as a very real, and not
exegetically and historically misplaced, hermeneutical option for the
Philippians passage.
Conclusion
Thus
from all of this we can see that despite the prima facie accuracy that Dunn’s
analysis appears to have, on a deeper look his Adam parallelism with Phil.
2.6-11 maybe be a case of mistaken identity.
Far from not affirming
Christ’s divinity, it seems hermeneutically it could be affirming little else. Its explicit
parallels with Isaiah, its embodiment of exaltation logic contained in
resurrection, its identification of Christ with morphe theou—decidely not merely the pre-lapsarian Adamic state,
but pre-incarnate existence—the Philippians hymn is, as Hurtado, Pannenberg,
and Bauckham each in their own way proclaim: a shocking identity statement,
made through the form of worship, radically attributing to Christ what is the
prerogative of YWHW, and summarizing the entire pre-existence, descent, life,
and re-ascent of Christ.
[1] Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic
Tradition vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971) p.266
[2] James D. G. Dunn Christology in the Making: A New Testament
Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation 2nd
ed (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s Publishing Co, 1989) p.114.
[5] Ibid
p.128. It is notable that this hardly
approaches a fair summary of either the tradition or Irenaeus, whose
incarnational theology is intimately related to the theme of recapitulation in
Christ as the Last Adam. Dunn’s polemical turning of Adam Christology
against Incarnational pre-existence Christology is overdrawn and indeed
misplaced. This will be important for
our brief critique at the end.
[13] Unless otherwise noted all
translations are mine.
[14] Ibid
p.114. Though I don’t want to make too
much of it at this point, it seems odd to me that on the one hand Dunn is
taking great pains to argue for the
Adam Christology background of the hymn, yet here in passing he says its
actually one of the fullest forms of
Adam Christology we currently possess. I
do not want to accuse Dunn of circularity but obviously the modifier “fullest
form” indicates the Phillipians version has unique components over and against
other Adam Christologies—which means indeed that it exceeds prior models. Thus to calls this Adam Christology in this
sense and simply modify it as “the fullest form” of it we’ve seen, seems to be
shifting the definition of Adam Christology as we go along.
[21] Ibid
p.256ff; C.f. p.261 where Dunn says it is through searching for increasingly
varied and powerful ways to express Christ’s significance that eventually the
community came to “real pre-existence.”
[22] Larry Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?
Historical Questions About Earliest Devotion to Jesus (Grand Rapids:
Eerdman’s Publishing, 2005).
[23] Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified
and Other Studies on the New Testaments Theology of Divine Identity (Grand
Rapids: Eerdman’s Publiushing, 2008).
[24] Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man 2nd Ed.
trans. Lewis L. Wilkens and Duane A. Priebe (Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1977)
[25] Hurtado How on Earth p.100, agrees.
[32] Bauckham Jesus and the God of Israel pp.24-25.
[35] David Steenburg, “The Case
Against Synonymity of Morphe and Eikon,” in Journal for Study of the New
Testament 34 (1988): 77-86.
[36] Hurtado How On Earth p.99.
[39] Dunn, Christology in the Making p.105.
[40] Hurtado How on Earth p.104.
[41] I should note of course that
I do not mean to intend Adam or Incarnational Christologies are opposed. I am merely wanting to show how Dunn’s
monolithic use of the Adam typology as against Incarnation is perhaps not the
best choice.
[42] Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man p.67
[43] Ibid p.137.
[44] Hurtado How on Earth p.93
[46] Dunn Christology in the Making pp.254ff.
[47] Pannenberg Jesus: God and Man p.153.
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