The following was initially a blog post. I have refrained from editing out matters of informality etc.
Disclaimer: While I am a reasonable typist, I nonetheless cannot type at speech-speed at the best times, much less on a laptop keyboard. Consequently, these notes vary from word to word to close summary, and much of the ground in between. To be sure of precise wording, you will of course need to consult the tapes or CDs.
Dr Richard Gaffin: Limits on the Present Reality
Having introduced 2 Corinthians 4.16 in his previous lecture, Dr Gaffin went on to work with the "not yet" of the believer's participation in redemption. Our participation is both realized and unrealized, present and future, due to the overlap between the present and eschatological orders. In Paul, there is a clear "yes" and a clear "no:" the benfits of my union with Christ regard my "inner man," while such benefits are not yet possessed by my "outer man."
This is why, in the immediately following context (2 Cor 5.1-10), Paul goes on to speak of hope for the outer man. Verse 7 ("we walk by faith, not by sight") provides the fundamental perspective on the Christian life. Until Jesus comes, our union with Him and its benefits are by faith and not yet by sight. "Inner" corresponds to "by faith;" "outer" corresponds to "by sight."
Paul will explicate both forensic and transformative benefits along these lines.
Eschatology and sanctification
Gaffin reminds us that he is using the term sanctification in the broader sense of renewal.
Paul relates Christ's resurrection to that of believers; there is unity, solidarity between Christ and His people.
First Corinthians 15.20 is a good point of departure here: Christ is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. This speaks graphically to the solidarity, and stands against the Old Testament background of the firstfruits (eparche) theme, with its cultic significance (Gaffin cites Exodus 23.19 and Lev 23.10-11).
The firstfruits imagery indicates that Christ's resurrection is the first installment of the whole; there is not only temporal priority (Christ's resurrection precedes ours), but organic connection. Christ's resurrection is representative of the entire harvest. Gaffin notes that the resurrection of the unbeliever is not in view here, nor elsewhere in Paul's letters, although it is present in Paul's account before Felix. Here, the resurrection is treated entirely as a soteriological event.
Gaffin develops the thought of organic connection. It does not go far enough to say that Christ's resurrection is a guarantee of our own. That is true as far as it goes; but more than that, Christ's resurrection is a guarantee in the sense of nothing less than the actual and representative beginning of the general epochal event. Put another way: the resurrection in which all believers share has already begun, made visible in Christ. Christ's resurrection is not an isolated event in the past, but belongs to the future. In the resurrection, the new creation has begun; eschatology has been inaugurated. Thus, Christ's resurrection and ours are not two separate events, but two episodes in the same event.
This means that a denial of future bodily resurrection of believers is thus a denial of Christ's bodily resurrection. [This is what Paul implies by his logic in 1 Cor 15.12-19 - TG.]
Dr Gaffin then noted features from a few related passages. In Colossians 1, Jesus is identified as "the firstborn from the dead," a phrase which signals both His uniqueness (He alone is the firstborn) and His solidarity with believers ("from the dead").
Paul provides other statements which speak of the believer's resurrection employing the past tense. Believers have already been raised (Col 3; Eph 2; Rom 6; Gal 2.20 etc). How we to understand these statements. Gaffin focuses upon the reversal of conduct outlined in Ephesians 2: what accounts for this radical reversal? The answer: the resurrection of the believer with Christ. This resurrection is actual, existential - not just "in principle." Its primary reference has to do with the ongoing application of salvation, not its once-for-all accomplishment - with ordo salutis, not historia salutis.
Gaffin suggests three factors which pattern the resurrection of Christ and its relationship to believers: (1) Christ's own resurrection; (2) the pattern of present life in Christ; and (3) the future bodily resurrection of believers.
Resurrection thus has two episodes in the life of the believer; one has already occurred, and one is yet to come. These two episodes may be viewed through distinctions such as internal/external or secret/open. It is not, however, acceptable to view the distinction as spiritual and bodily, because in Paul "spiritual" refers to the role and activity of the Holy Spirit, and the distinction put this way would fail to differentiate between the two aspects of resurrection. The future bodily resurrection is no less - rather, even more so - spiritual, in comparison to the believer's present being raised with Christ. Gaffin notes that Paul's description of the resurrection body as "spiritual" does not refer to its makeup or composition. Rather, this terminology affirms the "transmuted but genuinely physical character of the believer's resurrection body." (Gaffin here notes Wright's term, transphysical.)
Thus, in the "inner man," the believer is already raised; in the "outer," he is yet to be raised.
Gaffin suggests therefore, "At the core of your being, you will never be more resurrected than you already are." That will not be undone, and should not be understood as mere metaphor. In terms of Paul's anthropology, the inner man resurrection is to be understood as realistically and literally as future resurrection.
The Christian life in its entirety is thus to be assumed [subsumed?] under the category of resurrection: the Christian life is resurrection life.
This has wide-ranging implications, which we can see in the hortatory element in Paul. Note particularly Colossians 3.1-4. The believer's resurrection is referred to as an already accomplished fact. You have died and been raised. Interwoven with that are two commands: seek the things above, set your mind on things above. That can only have reference to things that refer to resurrection life. "Above" is not timeless; heaven has become what it now is because the exalted Christ is there.
Paul's common notion of resurrection life is both gift and task. Seek after what you already have. If the indicative, then the imperative. Because you have resurrection life, seek resurrection life. Gaffin appeals to Galatians 5.25, Ephesians 5.8, and 1 Corinthians 5.7 along this vein. He further notes that the direction of the relationship between indicative and imperative cannot be reversed: the indicative grounds the imperative, not the reverse. Paul never writes in the imperative without first (at least implicitly) writing in the indicative. "It does no good to beat a dead horse, which is what the congregation is apart from Christ and what they have in Him."
Yet, correspondingly, Paul never writes the indicative without having the imperative in view at least implicitly. The indicative without the imperative would make Paul a mystic. Indicative and imperative are given together.
Gaffin further notes that Paul's exhortations are clear indication that new obedience does not result automatically in those who are justified. Meanwhile, the imperative no less than the indicative refers to faith - on the one hand to faith in its activity, on the other to faith in its receptivity (citing Ridderbos).
In Philippians 2.12-13, the imperative (continue working out your salvation) is grounded upon the indicative (God is at work in you, both to will and to work). The two are conjoined; Paul does not say that believers work alongside of God, or in addition to - or in spite of! Rather he employs the conjunction gar (for): believers work, just because God is at work. The synergy is not one of divine-human partnership, whether 50-50 or even 99.9% God and 0.1% ourselves. Rather, it is the mysterious math of God's covenant: 100% + 100% = 100%. It thus engages the 100% activity of the believer.
Gaffin moves on to Romans 6.12-13: Do not let sin reign. . . . Do not present your members to sin, but to God, as alive from the dead. We are alive with the resurrection life of the age to come as we continue to live in this present evil age. We walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit in the flesh. "Alive from the dead" pinpoints the present indicative already possessed in Christ; it specifies the basis and dynamic for fulfilling the imperative. It is the first thing the congregation needs to know about itself in responding to the directives given them.
Brief Thoughts
This session is largely quite straightforward for those with a bit of theological background. I do not therefore have a great deal of comment here. Perhaps the only genuinely controversial statement is Gaffin's suggestion that with respect to the "inner man" ("the core of your being"), the believer will never be more resurrected than he already is. Gaffin has guarded that statement by how he has spoken regarding the "inner man;" still, I'm not sure if I fully agree with him there or not.
Gaffin is building up toward his final session, where the points that are frequently less clear will be articulated upon the basis of what he has said earlier.