Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 49:4 (Dec 2006)
Article: Paul Confronts Paganism In The Church: A Case Study Of First Corinthians 15:45
Author: Peter R. Jones

JETS 49:4 (December 2006) p. 713

Paul Confronts Paganism In The Church:
A Case Study Of First Corinthians 15:45

Peter Jones*

I. Introduction: A Most Unusual Text

I have chosen to examine 1 Cor 15:45 because this particular verse has deep implications for Christian apologetics in our modern world which, more and more, looks like the ancient world in which Paul first wrote it. In this regard it is interesting to note that one contemporary scholar provocatively states that verse 45 is “polemical.”1 It is polemical—and this is the thesis of this paper—because Paul, with prophetic-apostolic authority, makes the biblical doctrine of creation one of the non-negotiables of the “metanarrative” of the gospel’s world view.2 To borrow a phrase from another scholar, we encounter here, in what is going on at Corinth, “a massive clash of world views.”3

Though many have discussed verse 45, almost all deal exclusively with its last phrase—“the last Adam became a life-giving spirit”—inquiring into its implications for the whole subject of Pauline pneumatology.4 The verse as a whole, however, does not figure with any importance in the recent theologies of Paul,5 and to my knowledge, only rarely is the verse as a whole

* Peter Jones is scholar in residence at Westminster Seminary California, 1725 Bear Valley Parkway, Escondido, CA 92027. This paper was first given at the Evangelical Theological Society’s annual meeting, Toronto, November 20, 2002.

JETS 49:4 (December 2006) p. 714

given serious exegetical study.6 This is all the more deplorable because the verse is an essential part of Paul’s theology and apologetics, as he takes on the thinking of the Greco-Roman pagan world as it finds a niche in the Corinthian church. Moreover, verse 45 contains the broadest, most far-reaching perspective on God’s purposes for the cosmos than any other text in the Pauline corpus, and, indeed, in my judgment, in the whole NT. In addition, it touches on most of the major topoi of Pauline theology:

• theology = God, Creator and Redeemer, is the implied author of both creation and resurrection
• protology/doctrine of creation = “the First Man”
• providence = “a living bein...
  
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