The Upper Register

Paul's Theology of Israel's Future (Romans 11)

My article, Paul's Theology of Israel's Future: A Nonmillennial Interpretation of Romans 11, published in Reformation & Revival in 1997, has been scanned and uploaded by Rob Bradshaw.  

Harnack on the Death and Resurrection of Jesus

In the second half of What is Christianity, Harnack examines the historical development of the Christian religion in five phases. I'm not going to go through his survey of each of the five phases, the bulk of which is a critique of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. The exercise would not shed much light on Harnack's understanding of Christianity beyond what we have already come to see. However, he offers his liberal interpretation of the death and resurrection of Jesus in lecture IX (the first lecture in this second part) that I would like to summarize.

Harnack on the Death of Jesus

Harnack does not approach the meaning of Christ's death from the point of view of theology, i.e., a theory of the atonement, but from the point of view of religious psychology. Harnack takes a psychological approach to the death of Christ "for us" because he begins with a rationalistic assumption that God would never really require sacrifices, animal or human, to atone for sins. Among the pagans, blood sacrifice was practiced out of a emotional/religious instinct that is not subject to rational analysis but which, by virtue of its universality, clearly corresponds to a deep human need. The death of Jesus was regarded by the early Christians as the ultimate satisfaction of this religio-psychological need. The fact that they soon stopped offering blood sacrifices proves this. The sacrifice of Jesus put an end to blood sacrifice because it tapped into that deep, dark sub-rational need for sacrifice found in almost all cultures. Harnack therefore cannot say that the death of Jesus was an expiatory sacrifice for sins. Rather, "His death had the value of an expiatory sacrifice, for otherwise it would not have had strength to penetrate into that inner world in which blood-sacrifices originated" (pp. 157-8, emphasis mine).

Harnack on the Resurrection of Jesus

If Harnack's interpretation of the death of Jesus falls short of the church's historic understanding of the atonement, his interpretation of the resurrection amounts to a denial of this essential article of the faith (1 Cor. 15:14). I mentioned this in an earlier post, but it is worth noting again that Harnack makes a fatal distinction between "the Easter message of the empty grave" on the one hand and "the Easter faith" on the other. "We must hold to the Easter faith even without the Easter message" (p. 160). The Easter message is what happened empirically to the body of Christ in the tomb. The accounts of the women at the grave and the various post-resurrection appearances are so confused and contradictory that we can never know what happened empirically. But all that is irrelevant. Our faith does not hang on resolving such details.

Whatever may have happened at the grave and in the matter of the appearances, one thing is certain:  This grave was the birthplace of the indestructible belief that death is vanquished, that there is a life eternal. (p. 162)

As with his interpretation of the death of Christ, the focus is not on the objective fact of the atonement and the resurrection, but on what these events meant to the early Christians. The death of Christ "had the value of an expiatory sacrifice." The strange stories told by the women and the post-resurrection appearances gave rise to "the indestructible belief that death is vanquished." The empirical details of these events are not important. What is important are the beliefs and religious feelings that were somehow engendered by them. 

No wonder Harnack's own father said to him:

Our difference is not a theological, but a profound, directly Christian difference. I would deny Christ were I to gloss over it. For whoever regards the fact of the resurrection as you do -- to mention only the all-important and main issue -- is, in my view, no longer a Christian theologian.

[Quoted by Martin Rumscheid, Adolf von Harnack: Liberal Theology at its Height, p. 15.] 

Harnack: (6) The Question of Creed

The sixth (and last) question is "the Gospel and doctrine, or the question of creed." I touched on Harnack's disjunction between doctrine and life/experience in one of my early posts. He expands on that theme here.

Harnack starts right off by rejecting doctrine in favor of ethics:

The Gospel is no theoretical system of doctrine or philosophy of the universe; it is doctrine only in so far as it proclaims the reality of God the Father. It is a glad message assuring us of life eternal ... By treating of life eternal it teaches us how to lead our lives aright. (p. 146)

Now it might seem that doctrinal confession of some sort is very important. After all, Jesus said, "Everyone who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven" (Matt 10:32 NASB). But, according to Harnack, Jesus here means ... 

the confession which shows itself in feeling and action ... It is religion and the moral element that are concerned ... An experience--it is only the religion which a man has himself experienced that is to be confessed; every other creed or confession is in Jesus' view hypocritical and fatal ... Creed is to be nothing but faith reduced to practice. (p. 147-48)

Harnack's reduction of creed to practice/ethics/life is crucial to his whole understanding of Christianity. It is what enables him to sweep aside the doctrinal disputes of church history and to seek to return to the "simple" religion of Jesus, which focused on the Fatherhood of God and the infinite value of the human soul, as well as the law of love.

So I have finished going through Harnack's six objections to Christianity. This brings us to the half-way point of his lectures. The remaining lectures survey the development of the Christian religion in history in five stages:

(1) In the Apostolic Age
(2) In its Development into Catholicism
(3) In Greek Catholicism
(4) In Roman Catholicism
(5) In Protestantism

Harnack: (5) The Christological Question

We finally arrive at the burning question of Christology. As much as we may be appreciative of some of the things Harnack has said (particularly his critique of asceticism and Tolstoy's anarchism), as much as we may acknowledge the depth of his sense of filial relationship with God as Father, at the end of the day, Harnack is without question outside the bounds of historic orthodoxy when it comes to Christology.

He begins with a general disdain for what he calls "the gruesome story" of the church's debates over Christology (p. 125). The very concept of "heresy" was forged in the fires of the Christological and Trinitarian debates of the first four centuries of the church and its battles with Docetism, Arianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, and other views.  

In the course of this controversy men put an end to brotherly fellowship for the sake of a nuance; and thousands were cast out, condemned, loaded with chains and done to death. It is a gruesome story. On the question of "Christology" men beat their religious doctrines into terrible weapons, and spread fear and intimidation everywhere. (p. 125)

You can almost sense the anger in Harnack's voice. He views these Christological fine points as so much theological hair-splitting, the equivalent of debating how many angels can fit on the point of a needle. Worse still, Christians condemned, excluded, and even killed one another over such differences.  

After these highly prejudicial remarks, Harnack proceeds to lay down two leading points as the basis for his Christology:

First, Jesus only demanded obedience to his commandments, not exalted metaphysical speculations about his deity:

He desired no other belief in his person and no other attachment to it than is contained in the keeping of his commandments. (p. 125) ... His message is simpler than the churches would like to think it. (p. 143)

Second, Jesus regarded God as his Father in such a submissive manner that it precludes any notion of Jesus being equal with God:

He described the Lord of heaven and earth as his God and his Father; as the Greater, and as Him who is alone good. He is certain that everything which he has and everything which he is to accomplish comes from his Father. He prays to Him; he subjects himself to His will; he struggles hard to find out what it is and to fulfill it. (p. 126)

The point is, Jesus could not have regarded himself as in some sense divine or equal with God, if he was in complete submission to God. 

Taking his cue from these two starting points, Harnack then attempts to explain the meaning of the two Christological titles, "Son of God" and "Messiah."

"Son of God"

Harnack appeals to Matt 11:27: "All things have been handed over ot me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (ESV). This seems to suggest that the sonship of Jesus in relation to the Father has something to do with the knowledge of God.

The name of Son means nothing but the knowledge of God ... Jesus is convinced that he knows God in a way in which no one ever knew Him before, and he knows that it is his vocation to communicate this knowledge of God to others by word and by deed--and with it the knowledge that men are God's children. (p. 128)

In other words, Jesus' relationship to the Father, his sonship, is not absolutely unique and ontologically distinct from our relationship as children of God. It is different in degree only--no one knew God and related to him as Father with the same perfection and intensity that Jesus did. His vocation is to bring others into the same relationship that he enjoyed.

"Messiah"

The concept of "Messiah" was rooted in a long history of Israel's promises, prophecies, and hopes. It was also tied to Israel's national hopes in which the God-sent Messiah would destroy Israel's enemies and be established as the ruler of the nations.

But for Jesus, these ideas were but husk to be discarded. For Jesus, his Messianic consciousness had to do with his dawning awareness, culminating in his baptism, when he realized that his vocation was to lead men to God.

He is the way to the Father, and as he is the appointed of the Father, so he is the judge as well. Was he mistaken? Neither his immediate posterity, nor the course of subsequent history, has decided against him. It is not as a mere factor that he is connected with the Gospel; he was its personal realization and its strength, and this he is felt to be still. Fire is kindled only by fire; personal life only by personal forces. Let us rid ourselves of all dogmatic sophistry, and leave others to pass verdicts of exclusion. (p. 145) 

Does Harnack affirm the deity of Christ? Clearly not in any orthodox sense. But he does affirm the deity of Christ in a highly attenuated form. For Harnack, Jesus is "divine" only in the sense that this is what he means to us:

No one who accepts the Gospel, and tries to understand him who gave it to us, can fail to affirm that here the divine appeared in as pure a form as it can appear on earth. (p. 146)

To say that Jesus is divine is therefore merely a value judgment (Kant), an expression of the significance that the man Jesus has for us as the living fire that kindles the same religious fires in us, for as we get to know Jesus we are brought closer to the Father whom he proclaimed. 

Perhaps the best way to summarize Harnack's Christology is by quoting the following slogan:

The Gospel, as Jesus proclaimed it, has to do with the Father only and not with the Son. (p. 144)

This was the statement at which orthodox Christians in Harnack's day took greatest offense, and rightly so. It is not only offensive; it is contrary to the Gospels themselves, which everywhere present Jesus as calling people to personal faith in his own person. Contrary to Harnack's unitarianism, the Gospel, as Jesus proclaimed it, certainly does have to do with the Son.

Harnack: (4) The Question of Civilization

The fourth objection to Christianity is that Jesus had no interest in the progress of civilization, whether through the arts and sciences, or through the individual laboring hard in the fulfillment of his or her vocation. It is said to be a defect in the Gospel that it shows so little interest in philosophy, politics, the humanities, and, in short, the whole course and progress of civilization.

Harnack's reply is three-fold.

(1) If Jesus had laid down rules for engaging in these fields, he would have made the Gospel quickly out-dated. We can get a glimpse of what might have happened if Jesus had made the Gospel more culturally relevant by considering the case of the Roman Catholic Church. To this day, that church is burdened by being too wedded to the language, culture, philosophy, and political theory of the Middle Ages (p. 119). Jesus, by contrast, focused on the timeless truths of religion, and let his followers work out the cultural implications on their own.

(2) Engaging in labor and working for the progress of civilization are good, but are not capable of satisfying the deepest longing of our souls.

Gentlemen, when a man grows older and sees more deeply into life, he does not find, if he possesses any inner world at all, that he is advanced by the external march of things, by "the progress of civilisation." Nay, he feels himself, rather, where he was before, and forced to seek the sources of strength which his forefathers also sought. He is forced to make himself a native of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of the Eternal, the kingdom of Love; and he comes to understand that it was only of this kingdom that Jesus Christ desired to speak and to testify, and he is grateful to him for it. (p. 121)

(3) Nevertheless, Jesus did have a strong sense of the aggressive and forward character of his message. He believed that he was initiating the creation of a new humanity (p. 122). What was taking place in Palestine in the small circle of his disciples was but a foretaste of the great transformation of humanity in which a kingdom of justice, love, and peace would reign on earth. (Here we see Harnack's sunny postmillennial optimism again.) The Gospel does have cultural implications, and indeed a cultural future, but the emphasis is on the religious and moral aspects of the message.

A day's work, labour, increase, progress -- [Jesus] sees it all, but placed at the service of God and neighbour, encircled by the light of the Eternal, and removed from the service of transient things. (p. 123)

Harnack: (3) The Question of Public Order

The third issue Harnack addresses is "The Gospel and the law, or the question of public order." By "the law" he does not mean "the moral law" but properly constituted civil authority.

Harnack argues that Jesus recognized the validity of civil authority, but at the same time called it into question by rejecting the concept that authority rests on power and coercion. He recognized the validity of it when he taught, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's." But he also called it into question:  "the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you" (Matt 20:25-26 ESV). By attacking the very foundation of civil government, namely, force and coercion, Jesus engaged in a "transvaluation of values," that is, he reversed the usual order of things -- it is the one who gives up his rights and serves others who is the true leader.

Next observe the opinion which he has of authority as it was then constituted. Their functions are based on force, and this is the very reason which, in Jesus' view, puts them outside the moral sphere; nay, there is a fundamental opposition between it and them: "Thus do the earthly rulers." Jesus tells his disciples to act differently. Law and legal ordinance, as resting on force only, on actual power and its exercise, have no moral value. Nevertheless Jesus did not command men not to subject themselves to these authorities; they were to rate them according to their value, that is, according to their non-value, and they were to arrange their own lives on other principles, namely, on the opposite; they were not to use force, but to serve. (pp. 106-7).

Harnack sees all civil authority as inherently based on force and therefore of no moral value. Nevertheless, it is not for this reason to be rejected or discarded. It is valid in its own sphere, at least for the time being.

What about the arguments of the Christian anarchists like Tolstoy? Tolstoy claimed that, according to Jesus, all civil power must absolutely cease. This is a logical implication of his literalistic appeal to Jesus' teaching about turning the other cheek and not resisting the one who is evil (Matt 5:39). Tolstoy as a pacifist took Jesus as literally saying that we should never defend our rights or our lives. But this is more than pacifism. It is essentially anarchism. For the implication would be that even nation-states could never take up arms to defend themselves, even when wantonly and unjustly attacked. Police and other civil magistrates would not be able to use force to restrain crime or punish criminals. And that would spell the end of civil authority. Does Jesus' teaching about non-resistance then imply the demolition of civil government? Was Jesus an anarchist?

In response to Tolstoy's anarchism, Harnack has this to say:

I venture to maintain that, when Jesus spoke the words which I have quoted, he was not thinking of such cases, and that to interpret them in this direction involves a clumsy and dangerous misconception of their meaning. Jesus never had anyone but the individual in mind, and the abiding disposition of the heart in love. To say that this disposition cannot coexist with the pursuit of one's own rights, with the conscientious administration of justice, and with the stern punishment of crime, is a piece of prejudice ... (p. 111)

To rightly understand Jesus' teaching on non-retaliation we must recognize that its intended application is to the individual disciple, not to the civil government or state. Harnack sharply disagrees with the Christian anarchism of Tolstoy, calling his interpretation of Jesus "a clumsy and dangerous misconception."

Nevertheless, he sympathizes with Tolstoy's central concern that the law of love be expanded into the social and political arena. Harnack himself seems to have cherished a quasi-postmillennial vision in which society as a whole will become progressively Christianized, and then law and legal authority will melt away or become so benign that the use of force would be unnecessary:

Jesus' disciple ought to be able to renounce the pursuit of his rights, and ought to co-operate in forming a nation of brothers, in which justice is done, no longer by the aid of force, but by free obedience to the good, and which is united not by legal regulations but by the ministry of love ... Jesus opens up to us the prospect of a union among men, which is held together not by any legal ordinance, but by the rule of love ... It ought to float before our eyes as the goal and guiding star of our historical development. Whether mankind will ever attain to it, who can say? but we can and ought to approximate to it (pp. 112-14)

I say "quasi-postmillennial," because Harnack does not pronounce it a certainty but merely a realistic but distant hope that is worth striving for.

Furthermore, Harnack is careful to avoid translating his quasi-postmillennial optimism into a concrete political agenda. For examaple, he raises the hotly debated issue of socialism, specifically the struggles of the working classes for their rights going on at this time in Europe. He asks whether this class struggle is compatible with the Christian temper, the Christian demand that one not strive for one's own rights. It's not clear where Harnack stands. He seems to warn against taking the social struggle too far. Harnack's advice to those fomenting revolution among the working class is to caution restraint and the need to exercise love:

Whoever you may be, and whatever your position, whether bondman or free, whether fighting or at rest--your real task in life is always the same. There is only one relation and one idea which you must not violate, and in the face of which all others are only transient wrappings and vain show:  to be a child of God and a citizen of His kingdom, and to exercise love. (pp. 115-16)

Yet how one does this, how one applies it in the social and political arena, is left to each man's conscience. This is the liberty of the Gospel as taught by Paul. Let each individual Christian seek justice for the oppressed in the manner that they think will best benefit their neighbor.

But do not let us expect the Gospel to afford us any direct help; let us make no selfish demands for ourselves; and let us not forget that the world passes away, not only with the lusts thereof, but also with its regulations and its goods! ... The Gospel is above all questions of mundane development; it is concerned not with material things but with the souls of men. (p. 116)

Harnack: (2) The Social Question

The second problem or question that Harnack deals with is "the Gospel and the poor, or the social question."

Harnack begins by rejecting two extremes. On the one extreme are those who say that Jesus' whole message can be reduced to a social gospel that teaches nothing more than equality of all people and relief from economic distress. At the other extreme are the conservatives who claim that Jesus had no interest in improving economic and social conditions and brought a purely religious teaching that had to do exclusively with the salvation of the soul.

Of course, Harnack is going to argue for a middle course. But what is interesting is how moderate his "social gospel" is in comparison with other advocates that held that view (e.g., Walter Rauschenbusch) and certainly in comparison with the liberation theology that would come later. Harnack's position is that the Gospel has social implications, but the Gospel itself does not lay down a social program. 

The following points may help to summarize his thinking:

(1) When we read of "the poor" in the Gospels (e.g., "blessed are the poor") we must not define this expression in purely economic terms. It denotes those whose "hearts were opened to God and ready to receive him" (p. 92). It is true that poverty in the economic sense often went hand in hand with poverty in the spiritual sense, so that "the poor" were often indeed literally poor. But its primary focus was on those who "with fervent and steadfast hope, were hanging upon the promises and consoling words of their God, waiting in humility and patience for the day when their deliverance was to come" (p. 91). Thus, in the Beatitudes, Jesus was not saying that all who are economically poor are blessed but "the poor whose hearts were inwardly open towards God" (p. 93). 

(2) Jesus did not think that economic poverty was the ultimate evil. "He knows of a power which he thinks still worse than want and misery, namely, sin" (p. 94).

(3) "Jesus laid down no social programme for the suppression of poverty and distress" (p. 97). Not only did he not lay down a program for poverty-relief, but he seemed to accept the the reality of poverty. "For ye have the poor always with you" (Matt 26:11 KJV). He refused to judge between two brothers fighting over their inheritance (Lk 12:13-14).

(4) And yet there is something in the Gospel that energizes its adherents to act with social concern:

No religion, not even Buddhism, ever went to work with such an energetic social message, and so strongly identified itself with that message as we see to be the case in the Gospel. How so? Because the words "Love thy neighbor as thyself" were spoken in deep earnest; because with these words Jesus turned a light upon all the concrete relations of life, upon the world of hunger, poverty and misery; because, lastly, he uttered them as a religious, nay, as the religious maxim. (p. 98)

(5) The Gospel is both individualistic and communitarian. It is profoundly individualistic because it establishes the infinite value of every human soul. It is profoundly communitarian because it creates a tendency to union and brotherly love.

The Gospel aims at founding a community among men as wide as human life itself and as deep as human need. As has been truly said, its object is to transform the socialism which rests on the basis of conflicting interests into the socialism which rests on the consciousness of a spiritual unity. In this sense its social message can never be outbid. (p. 100)

(6) This means that the Gospel has social implications without setting forth a social program.

The Gospel is a social message, solemn and overpowering in its force; it is the proclamation of solidarity and brotherliness, in favour of the poor. But the message is bound up with the recognition of the infinite value of the human soul, and is contained in what Jesus said about the kingdom of God. We may also asssert that it is an essential part of what he there said. But laws or ordinances or injunctions bidding us forcibly [to] alter the conditions of the age in which we may happen to be living are not to be found in the Gospel. (p. 101)

As we saw in the previous point (the question of asceticism), for Jesus the issue is not being for or against money or wealth, but the heart attitude. So here, in regard to the poor, "it is the disposition which Jesus kindled in his disciples towards poverty and want that is all-important" (p. 101). In other words, Jesus wants us to have the attitude that "our riches do not belong to us alone." The Gospel does not spell out a social program that we must follow down to the letter, "but it leaves us in no doubt that we are to regard ourselves not as owners but as administrators in the service of our neighbor" (p. 101).

Harnack: (1) The Question of Asceticism

We turn now to the six problems or questions that Harnack raises as possible objections to Christianity. The first question that Harnack addresses is the question of asceticism. He notes that many people think the Christian religion is inherently world-shunning and world-denying. This is most clearly taught by the Roman Catholic Church, when they stratify believers into two categories:  priests and monks, who are really following Christ, and the laity, who are permitted to marry and pursue normal life as a kind of concession to human weakness.

But asceticism is not only taught by the Roman Church; it also seems (at first) to have been taught by Jesus himself. He said, "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away" (Matt 5:29 ESV). He told the rich young ruler, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor" (Matt 19:21 ESV). And then there is the harsh saying, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple" (Lk 14:26 ESV). 

So how do we deal with the apparent world-shunning character of the Christian religion? It is important to have an answer; otherwise people

at the bottom of their hearts are pleased and relieved to know that Christianity means the denial of the world; for then they know very well that it does not concern them ... for such natures are certain that our faculties are given us to be employed, and that the earth is assigned to us to be cultivated and subdued. (pp. 80-81)

Harnack answers by pointing out that saying of Jesus: "John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'" (Matt 11:18-19 ESV). So although John the Baptist may have led an ascetic lifestyle, Jesus' manner of life clearly left a very different impression. Jesus eats and drinks in the houses of the rich. He even attends a wedding at Cana. Jesus did not tell all of his disciples to sell all they had and follow him, but was even ministered to by those who had means (Lk 8:3).

We should also note the disciples' own way of life in the period described in the book of Acts. The disciples taught that "the laborer is worthy of his hire," some (like Peter) even had wives, and they did not form a band of ascetic monks. The disciples clearly did not understand their master to be a world-denying ascetic.

What, then, did Jesus mean by the above-quoted statements? Harnack argues that Jesus was warning against three enemies -- mammon, care, and selfishness -- that is, three sinful attitudes of the heart.

(1) The first enemy is Mammon.

Wherever anything belonging to the domain of mammon is of such value to a man that he sets his heart upon it, that he trembles at the thought of losing it, that he is no longer willing to give it up, such a man is already in bondage. Hence, when the Christian feels that this danger confronts him, he is not to treat with the enemy, but to fight, and not fight only but also destroy the mammon. Were Christ to preach among us today, he would certainly not talk in general terms, and say to everyone, "give away everything you have"; but there are thousands among us to whom he would so speak, and that there is scarcely anyone who feels compelled to apply these sayings of the Gospel to himself is a fact that ought to make us suspicious. (p. 85)

(2) The second enemy is care.

The care which [Jesus] means is that which makes us timorous slaves of the day and of material things; the care through which bit by bit we fall a prey to the world. Care is to him an outrage on God, who preserves the very sparrows on the housetop; it destroys the fundamental relation with the Father in heaven, the childlilke trust, and thus ruins our inmost soul ... A man is not really free, strong, and invincible, until he has put aside all his cares and cast them on God. (pp. 85-86)

(3) The third enemy is selfishness.

It is self-denial, not asceticism, which Jesus requires; self-denial to the point of self-renunciation ... Wherever some desire of the sense gains the upper hand of you, so that you become coarse and vulgar, or in your selfishness a new master arises in you, you must destroy it; not because God has any pleasure in mutilation, but because you cannot otherwise preserve your better part. It is a hard demand. But it is not met by any act of general renunciation, such as monks perform--the act may leave things just as they were before--but only by a struggle and a resolute renunciation at the critical point. (p. 86)

In the end, asceticism has no place in the Gospel. The Gospel goes much deeper, to the idols of our heart. What the Gospel demands is love, the kind of love that enables us to sacrificially serve others. As Paul said, "If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing" (1 Cor 13:3 ESV).

Okay, now I'm returning to my voice. Pretty good stuff, huh? I know, I know, Harnack denies the deity of Christ, etc. But I think you have to admit the above quotes are good. I think it may be said that the problem with Harnack is not so much in what he affirms, but in what he fails to affirm. And of course the whole thing sinks into a burdensome moralism since it is not undergirded by the (true) Gospel of Christ's righteousness. Harnack keeps referring to "the Gospel," but he means only the ethical precepts of the Gospel, and misses the grand indicative that makes the imperative an easy yoke and a light burden in Christ. Still, I think we can benefit from what he says to the extent that it is true, even if it is not the whole truth.

Dissertation update

I was originally hoping to finish my dissertation by the end of this year, but things got really busy for me at work. So I have had to recalibrate. Now I'm aiming to finish by the end of next year, 2010. However, I have managed to write the first four chapters.

The fourth chapter is critical, because here I examine all occurrences of the two nouns for "righteousness" in the Hebrew OT (276 occurrences), as well as the translational equivalent in the Septuagint. I just submitted chapter 4 to Professor Seyoon Kim (my second reader) and he had some encouraging things to say. Although I need to beef up my argument in a couple of sections, he said, "You have put the needle to the balloon of the relational theory of righteousness." 

Next up are chapters on the use of righteousness in Jewish literature, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, but especially Jewish Greek literature like the Letter of Aristeas, the Wisdom of Solomon, and Philo. My focus in these chapters will be to show that "righteousness" in Greek-speaking Judaism was not fundamentally different from its usage in the Hebrew OT or in extra-biblical Greek. In all three cases, it is fundamentally a norm concept rather than a relational concept.

Having critiqued the the NPP's interpretation of "the righteousness of God" as "God's covenant faithfulness," I will then make the positive case for the traditional Reformation interpretation of "the righteousness of God" in terms of the gift of righteousness (judicial status) from God, with a secondary meaning in Rom 3:25-26, namely, God's attribute of justice demonstrated via the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ.

Static UR site back up

My static Upper Register site with papers and MP3s has been down since Wednesday. Hackers had inserted malicious code, so my webhosting company suspended my account. But I deleted the bad files and thankfully it's back up again.