Journal: Conspectus
Volume: CONSPECTUS 35:2 (Sep 2023)
Article: Author’s Response: "Against Principalities and Powers: Spiritual Beings in Relation to Communal Identity and the Moral Discourse of Ephesians."
Author: Anonymous

Conspectus 35:2 (September 2023) p. 24

Author’s Response: Against Principalities and Powers: Spiritual Beings in Relation to Communal Identity and the Moral Discourse of Ephesians.

Against Principalities and Powers endeavors to fill a lacuna in modern scholarship and augment modern contributions in the study of Ephesians by drawing attention to a prominent but neglected feature in the letter, namely spirit cosmology. It critiques 1) negative posturing towards spirit beings in the European post-enlightenment framework and 2) isolating (a) theological constructs about God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ on the one hand, and (b) discourses on principalities and powers, on the other, from one another. Apart from treating God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ as separate theological categories, prevailing scholarship on the powers usually utilizes lexical and source-critical approaches in a quest to understand their origins, usage, and nature in Greek, Roman, and Jewish antiquity as the backdrop for studies on Ephesians. It becomes apparent that post-enlightenment sensibilities and post-World War II existentialist pursuits underlie portraits of the powers as socio-political structures, religious institutions/structures, hypostasized or personified abstractions, angels, even as institutions inhabited and steered by evil spirits. The author argues in favor of and concurs with, inter alia, Clint E. Arnold (1989) that in Ephesians the powers refers to personal evil spiritual beings and builds on that.

Against Principalities and Powers sets the agenda to move from isolated treatments of spirit cosmology to explore the wider function of spirit beings (God, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, and the powers) in the identity constructs and moral framework of Ephesians. The book surveys and reconstructs Greco-Roman and Second Temple Jewish spirit cosmology with particular attention to Asia Minor and sheds light on how certain parlance or argot in Ephesians may have been understood in its milieu. Two chapters demonstrate how the spirit cosmology in Asia Minor may aid our understanding of the divisionbetween the so-called (a) doctrinal/theological (chs. 1–3) and (b) paraenetic (chs. 4–6) sections of the letter. The findings lead to a better grasp and deeper appreciation of God’s salvific work through Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit in the church. The essence of salvation—deliverance from the powers and their influence—becomes apparent. It is established that spiritual activity in human affairs was assumed in the cosmological and epistemological framework of Ephesians. Believers are blessed to have God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ on their side, even as the devil and his cohort employ various strata...