Ministry in the New Realm E-Book

Dane Ortlund

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: New Testament Theology
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

An Introduction to the Theology and Themes of 2 Corinthians by Dane C. Ortlund Best known for its interpersonal, emotionally raw, and pastorally distressed tone, 2 Corinthians is one of Paul's most distinctive epistles. In this letter to his complicated church in Corinth, Paul aims to expand on the deeply paradoxical nature of the Christian life. The importance of understanding this key doctrine makes 2 Corinthians an ideal study for believers today. In this volume of the New Testament Theology series, bestselling author Dane Ortlund explores 2 Corinthians to reveal the core arguments presented by Paul. Through clear and engaging theological examinations, Ortlund expounds two predominant themes—inaugurated eschatology and strength through weakness—and connects various other motifs traced throughout this epistle. Readers will learn how Christ's resurrection ushered in the new realm—one where life and ministry are flipped upside down, and God's power is intertwined with human weakness.  - Part of the New Testament Theology Series: Other volumes include The Joy of Hearing; United to Christ, Walking in the Spirit; The Beginning of the Gospel; and more  - Ideal for Anyone Wanting to Study the Bible More Deeply: Perfect for pastors, seminarians, college students, and laypeople - Written by Dane C. Ortlund: Pastor and bestselling author of Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers and Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners

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“I have twice worked through 2 Corinthians with Dane Ortlund’s marvelous commentary and benefited enormously. Now this volume distills the insights of that exegetical work. Weakness, deprivation, loss, exclusion—things the world sees as curses—will, if met with faith in Christ, turn out to be blessings. God’s power generally comes to us through our weakness. Ortlund unfolds the implications of this radical, counterintuitive, and countercultural message in ways that are deeply provocative but also profoundly comforting.”

Tim Keller, Founding Pastor, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City; Cofounder, Redeemer City to City

“Most Christians think they know the theology of the apostle Paul. But few, I fear, know Paul himself. I have always believed that the best way to discover the heart of this man is by reading and reflecting on 2 Corinthians and the way in which the dawning of the new age transformed this formerly angry Pharisee into the apostle of Jesus Christ. This epistle, to the surprise of many, is my favorite New Testament book. Dane Ortlund’s excellent unpacking of its theology only confirms my esteem. If you’ve never immersed yourself in 2 Corinthians, this short treatment of its primary focus is the place to begin. I trust it will lead you to take a deep dive into the way in which the gospel enabled Paul to find strength in the midst of weakness, peace in the midst of conflict, and hope in the face of constant opposition.”

Sam Storms, Founder and President, Enjoying God Ministries

“A theological commentary on this surprisingly neglected New Testament epistle is long overdue. This volume gives us a systematic overview of Christian teaching as found in 2 Corinthians that will be of immense value to students and teachers alike.”

Gerald Bray, Research Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School; author, Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present

“Dane Ortlund has done us a great service in writing this book: no one should preach through 2 Corinthians without reading it! Writing on 2 Corinthians is often complex and even confused, but this reliable guide is succinct, crystal clear, profound, and, like the letter itself, immeasurably rich. Short enough to serve the preacher well, it manages to handle all the key points of debate deftly. The chapters ‘Inaugurated Eschatology’ and ‘Strength through Weakness’ alone are worth the purchase price. I cannot commend this book highly enough.”

Gary Millar, Principal, Queensland Theological College; author, 2 Corinthians for You

Ministry in the New Realm

New Testament Theology

Edited by Thomas R. Schreiner and Brian S. Rosner

The Beginning of the Gospel: A Theology of Mark, Peter Orr

From the Manger to the Throne: A Theology of Luke, Benjamin L. Gladd

The Mission of the Triune God: A Theology of Acts, Patrick Schreiner

Ministry in the New Realm: A Theology of 2 Corinthians, Dane C. Ortlund

United to Christ, Walking in the Spirit: A Theology of Ephesians, Benjamin L. Merkle

Hidden with Christ in God: A Theology of Colossians and Philemon, Kevin W. McFadden

The God Who Judges and Saves: A Theology of 2 Peter and Jude, Matthew S. Harmon

The Joy of Hearing: A Theology of the Book of Revelation, Thomas R. Schreiner

Ministry in the New Realm

A Theology of 2 Corinthians

Dane C. Ortlund

Ministry in the New Realm: A Theology of 2 Corinthians

Copyright © 2023 by Dane C. Ortlund

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

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Series design: Kevin Lipp

First printing 2023

Printed in the United States of America

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Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-7415-3 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-7418-4 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-7416-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ortlund, Dane Calvin, author. 

Title: Ministry in the new realm : a theology of 2 Corinthians / Dane C. Ortlund. 

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2023. | Series: New Testament theology | Includes bibliographical references and index. 

Identifiers: LCCN 2022049378 (print) | LCCN 2022049379 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433574153 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433574153 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433574184 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Corinthians, 2nd—Theology. 

Classification: LCC BS2675.52 .O78 2023 (print) | LCC BS2675.52 (ebook) | DDC 227/.306—dc23/eng/20230517

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022049378

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022049379

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2023-10-04 10:36:07 AM

To Dr. Hans Bayer,

teacher, discipler, encourager, friend

“This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.”

Elrond, at the Council of Elrond, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Contents

Series Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction

A Letter Like No Other

1  Inaugurated Eschatology

The Framework for New Realm Ministry

2  Jesus Christ

The Launcher of New Realm Ministry

3  The Spirit

The Sign of New Realm Ministry

4  Satan

The Enemy of New Realm Ministry

5  Friendship

The Method of New Realm Ministry

6  Heaven

The Hope of New Realm Ministry

7  Strength through Weakness

The Secret to New Realm Ministry

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

General Index

Scripture Index

Series Preface

There are remarkably few treatments of the big ideas of single books of the New Testament. Readers can find brief coverage in Bible dictionaries, in some commentaries, and in New Testament theologies, but such books are filled with other information and are not devoted to unpacking the theology of each New Testament book in its own right. Technical works concentrating on various themes of New Testament theology often have a narrow focus, treating some aspect of the teaching of, say, Matthew or Hebrews in isolation from the rest of the book’s theology.

The New Testament Theology series seeks to fill this gap by providing students of Scripture with readable book-length treatments of the distinctive teaching of each New Testament book or collection of books. The volumes approach the text from the perspective of biblical theology. They pay due attention to the historical and literary dimensions of the text, but their main focus is on presenting the teaching of particular New Testament books about God and his relations to the world on their own terms, maintaining sight of the Bible’s overarching narrative and Christocentric focus. Such biblical theology is of fundamental importance to biblical and expository preaching and informs exegesis, systematic theology, and Christian ethics.

The twenty volumes in the series supply comprehensive, scholarly, and accessible treatments of theological themes from an evangelical perspective. We envision them being of value to students, preachers, and interested laypeople. When preparing an expository sermon series, for example, pastors can find a healthy supply of informative commentaries, but there are few options for coming to terms with the overall teaching of each book of the New Testament. As well as being useful in sermon and Bible study preparation, the volumes will also be of value as textbooks in college and seminary exegesis classes. Our prayer is that they contribute to a deeper understanding of and commitment to the kingdom and glory of God in Christ.

Sometimes regarded as Paul’s impassioned, heartfelt, but disjointed response to disparate problems in the church, 2 Corinthians presents distinctive challenges for readers wishing to learn from its teaching on a range of topics. The letter covers everything from the new covenant and the signs of an apostle to reconciliation and generous giving. Dane Ortlund’s Ministry in the New Realm locates the common thread throughout 2 Corinthians in the inauguration of the kingdom of God, which reveals God’s power through human weakness. Read with this framework in mind, Ortlund’s volume unpacks the letter’s remarkably comprehensive vision for Christlike ministry that is both profoundly theological as well as thoroughly practical.

Thomas R. Schreiner and Brian S. Rosner

Abbreviations

BDAG

Frederick W. Danker, Walter Bauer, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000

BNTC

Black’s New Testament Commentaries

BTNT

Biblical Theology of the New Testament

CTJ

Calvin Theological Journal

ETL

Ephemerides Theologicae Louvanienses

HTR

Harvard Theological Review

JETS

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

JSNT

Journal for the Study of the New Testament

JTS

Journal of Theological Studies

LCL

Loeb Classical Library

LNTS

Library of New Testament Studies

LXX

Septuagint

Neot

Neotestamentica

NICNT

New International Commentary on the New Testament

NIGTC

New International Greek Testament Commentary

NSBT

New Studies in Biblical Theology

NTS

New Testament Studies

SNTSMS

Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series

SSBT

Short Studies in Biblical Theology

Them

Themelios

TynBul

Tyndale Bulletin

WBC

Word Biblical Commentary

WUNT

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

Introduction

A Letter Like No Other

The overarching theological message of 2 Corinthians is this: in the new realm that was inaugurated when Jesus ascended and the Spirit descended, life and ministry are flipped upside down such that God’s strength interlocks not with human strength and sufficiency but with human weakness and pain.

That summary has two basic parts: (1) we today live in the dawning new realm that the Old Testament anticipated, the new creation that was expected to come at the end of history; and (2) the basic pattern for joy and growth in this new realm is paradoxical, as life comes through death, strength through weakness, comfort through affliction, and so on—as was the pattern of Christ himself. These two points will form the first and last chapters of this book, with the intervening chapters exploring other key themes of 2 Corinthians, all flowing out of the new creational age in which believers find themselves between the first and second comings of Christ. But before we get into the heart of this study and the theology of 2 Corinthians, let’s pause to consider this epistle from a broader perspective.

There is nothing in the Bible quite like 2 Corinthians. The present volume explores and synthesizes the theology of this letter. That is appropriate, as the message of the Bible and of each of its sixty-six books is centrally theological—that is, revealing of God and his ways with humanity. The Bible also has rich historical and literary qualities, but these serve the more basic theological message. This is particularly noticeable in the letters of Paul. “The preaching and teaching of Paul,” Geerhardus Vos says in his opening sentence of an essay outlining Paul’s theology, “possess more than any other New Testament body of truth a theological character.”1

So we will reflect in this volume on the theology of 2 Corinthians. And in the first sentence of this introduction I have given a summary of what that theology is. But before focusing on this, we should note the distinctiveness of 2 Corinthians from a broader angle. In at least four ways, this letter of Paul’s stands apart from the other letters we have in the New Testament: this letter is more autobiographical, more raw, more interpersonal, and more defensive. These four qualities overlap to varying degrees, but they are still worth considering independently, given how distinctive each is throughout 2 Corinthians. These features are not so much the content of the letter’s theology as much as they are what shape its theology, so it is worth beginning our study by getting these elements before us.

Autobiographical

Every reader of Paul’s letters faces the unique challenge of hearing only one side of a conversation. Like hearing someone speaking on the phone on the other side of the room, we do not know the exact situation to which the apostles are responding in their letters. It would be easy to make too much of this challenge; God has given us precisely what we need for life and salvation in the sixty-six books of Scripture, including the letters. Yet the challenge, while ordered by God’s wisdom, remains.

In 2 Corinthians, however, this difficulty is lessened through the pervasive autobiographical details Paul divulges. Throughout this epistle we hear him explicitly identifying events of his own life and ministry to the church at Corinth. No letter in the New Testament is pure systematic theology, of course. Every letter bears the marks of personal context between apostle and recipient church. And yet opening to 2 Corinthians immediately after a reading of, say, Romans or Ephesians, we are quickly struck by the autobiographical transparency with which Paul writes.

Paul speaks of his near-death experience in Asia (1:8–11), his travel plans (1:15–24; 2:12–13), his interaction with an offending sinner (2:5–11), his friendship with Titus (7:6–7, 13–15), a letter he previously wrote to the Corinthians and the damaging effect it had on their relationship (7:8–9), his fruitful fundraising in Macedonia (8:1–5), and his own sufferings throughout chapters 10–13.

The Bible is not a sort of pure doctrine that has floated down from heaven from the very throne of God, giving us divine truth in the form of timeless abstraction. No, the Bible is mediated to us through fellow fallen human beings, such as the apostle Paul. And the personal circumstances of each biblical author form an evident part of their writing. God speaks to us today through the earthy and painful lives and minds of ordinary men and women. In 2 Corinthians, perhaps more than in any other book of the Bible, we see this.

Raw

It’s difficult to know exactly what word to use, but I think you know what I mean by the word raw—Paul’s emotions are right on the surface of the letter, and he isn’t trying to hide them. The letter is pervasively and unashamedly impassioned.

Paul never views his churches as mere converts or numbers. He views them as his sheep, his disciples, his spiritual charge—even his own children. And while it is not clear precisely what all the dysfunctions in the church at Corinth were, it is evident that Paul’s concern is not ultimately with his own reputation or with what the Corinthians think of him. He is concerned centrally with the way that a worldly pattern of thinking is infecting the church and eroding their own soul health.

One could hardly blame a young Christian for turning to 2 Corinthians for the first time and thinking: “Am I reading the Bible here?” Perhaps in our own early journey with Scripture we had read the soaring creation narrative of Genesis, the thundering Sinai episode as the law is given in Exodus, the dancing poetry of the Psalms, the earthy wisdom of Proverbs, the enrapturing teachings of the Lord Jesus in the Gospels, or the piercing gospel logic of Romans, and then we read Holy Scripture saying:

I call God to witness against me—it was to spare you that I refrained from coming again to Corinth. (2 Cor. 1:23)

I am acting with great boldness toward you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with comfort. (2 Cor. 7:4)

Accept me as a fool, so that I too may boast. (2 Cor. 11:16)

Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. (2 Cor. 11:23)

Is this really Holy Scripture? Indeed. To be sure, the epistle of 2 Corinthians is unapologetically impassioned—but what else would we expect of a document that is the very word of God? God himself is impassioned. He is not the deity of a Platonic worldview, distant and cold and detached. He is not a calculating chessmaster, moving pieces on the chessboard of the world in a dispassionate way. No, this is the God who speaks of his people as his own bride and of their faithlessness as unspeakable harlotry. This is the God whose heart churns within him as he considers their wickedness:

How can I give you up, O Ephraim?

How can I hand you over, O Israel?

How can I make you like Admah?

How can I treat you like Zeboiim?

My heart recoils within me;

my compassion grows warm and tender. (Hos. 11:8)

And ultimately this is the God who rolls up his sleeves and enters into the muck and mess of this desperately fallen world in the incarnation of his own Son.

God is impassible, unable to be pained or swayed by any outside influence, but that is not to say he is not impassioned. So when we come to 2 Corinthians and find the word of this God mediated to us through the raw passion of an anguished apostle, we ought not be overly surprised.

As we explore the theology of 2 Corinthians, then, we should not bracket out or skip over the parts of this letter where Paul is pleading, longing, frustrated, or indignant. All of it is God’s word to us, and all of it informs the overall theological message of the book.

Interpersonal

Third, 2 Corinthians is uniquely interpersonal, or relational, in nature. By this I mean that throughout the letter we see Paul referring to his own colleagues and also speaking to the Corinthians about his relationship with them.

Right from the start Paul identifies his letter as coming from him “and Timothy our brother” (1:1). It is not unusual for Paul to pull in a colleague or two as he greets a recipient church. What is unusual is that he would loop back to interpersonal realities so pervasively throughout the letter. Perhaps only Galatians offers a comparable level of interpersonal reflection. In both letters, reflection on the vertical (how God and people relate) is strongly complemented by reflection on the horizontal (how people relate with other people). This dual dynamic is captured representatively in the final few verses of 2 Corinthians:

Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. (13:11–13) (horizontal)

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (13:14) (vertical)

But it isn’t just the opening few verses and the closing few verses that surface Paul’s horizontal concerns. Paul spends the bulk of the first two chapters of the letter seeking to salvage his apparently fragile relationship with the Corinthian church, going to some length to justify his change of travel plans that led him to write the Corinthians a letter instead of visiting them in person. As we arrive in 2 Corinthians 7 we once more find ourselves in an extended interpersonal reflection as Paul speaks of the comforting presence of Titus, who reassured Paul and Timothy of the Corinthians’ good will.

Chapters 8 and 9 are rightly thought of as having to do with money and financial generosity, but both chapters are filled with interpersonal considerations—the sending of the brother famous for preaching (8:18–19), for example, or the commendation of Titus (8:16–24). As Paul himself says, through these actions Paul and his companions “aim at what is honorable not only in the Lord’s sight but also in the sight of man” (8:21)—in other words, not only that which has to do with the vertical but also that which has to do with the horizontal.

And of course chapters 10–13 transition from positive interpersonal realities in Paul’s life to negative ones, though the chapters maintain a strong horizontal focus, as Paul castigates the spiritual fraudulence of the “super-apostles” (11:5) and defends his own apostolic credentials. And we also continue to see the depths to which Paul’s heart and welfare are lovingly bound up with that of the Corinthians. In 12:21, for example, Paul reflects on his impending visit to Corinth and speaks of himself being humbled by God if the Corinthians have remained in sin—not how many Christian leaders today view their relationship to their people. In 13:5, similarly, Paul expresses hope that the Corinthians will pass the test of spiritual maturity—but then turns around in 13:6 and says that if the Corinthians fail, it is also Paul’s own failure. In texts such as these, unique in the Pauline corpus, the apostle binds his own welfare with that of the Corinthians in a most striking way.

Paul’s defense of his ministry in these closing chapters to the epistle leads us into the fourth and final distinctive mark of 2 Corinthians.

Defensive

In no other letter is Paul so manifestly eager for his ministry to be validated.

This may raise questions for some: Is Paul being petty? Is he overly concerned for his good name? Is he violating Proverbs 27:2: “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth”? Is Paul falling prey to the common fallen impulse to self-justify rather than collapsing into the freedom of letting God be the one to defend him?

On the one hand, Paul is, like all of us, a fallen human being. He is not any less in need of God’s saving mercy than we are. On the other hand, 2 Corinthians is inspired and inerrant, and we must be careful not to impugn Scripture as tainted in any way that would be out of accord with our conviction about Scripture.

The answer is that apparently there is a third option beyond (1) unhealthy defensiveness and (2) modestly and quietly avoiding any defense of oneself whatsoever. That third option is healthy defending of oneself—a defense that is ruthlessly objective with regard to oneself because the ultimate purpose is not self-concern but concern for something outside of you—for example, the truth of the gospel or (in the case of 2 Corinthians) the nature of truly apostolic ministry in the new age, in which weakness and rejection are legitimate badges of divinely sanctioned authenticity.

If Paul does not defend himself but allows the Corinthians to be beguiled by the super-apostles’ fleshly “theology of glory” as opposed to the “theology of the cross” (to use Luther’s phrases2), then these believers whom he loves will continue their slide into the enticing stupor of a Christianity that is outwardly impressive. The Corinthians’ spiritual welfare, not Paul’s name, is what drives Paul’s defense of his ministry. This is an important model for us in Christian ministry today. While we must be appropriately self-suspicious and vigilant not to seek to justify ourselves before God or men (that is the gospel’s job, not ours), it is not only permissible but imperative that we defend ourselves when the attacks on us, if victorious, will result in the spiritual impoverishing of those under our care.

Summarizing the Theology of 2 Corinthians

These, then, are some of the distinctive elements of 2 Corinthians—not the theology itself but features that shape the way the theology of this book comes to us. Let us now briefly consider the theology of this book, then, mindful of the above characteristics of the letter. The rest of the chapters of this book will explore the various prominent theological themes that make up this summary.

Above I identified the theology of 2 Corinthians:

In the new realm that was inaugurated when Jesus ascended and the Spirit descended, life and ministry are flipped upside down such that God’s strength interlocks not with human strength and sufficiency but with human weakness and pain.

The two primary emphases are inaugurated eschatology and strength through weakness. Inaugurated eschatology is, we could say, the stage on which 2 Corinthians is played out, and strength through weakness the costume. The former (inaugurated eschatology) is the broader context or framing, and the latter (strength through weakness) the specific individual and existential experience of those who belong to that broader context.

But beyond these two macro-themes to 2 Corinthians are other vital building blocks, without which these two themes disintegrate. Some of these are explicit in the above theological summary (Jesus, the Spirit, pain), while others are more implicit but remain important themes for 2 Corinthians as a whole (Satan, friendship, heaven). And all these together make up the chapters of the present study.

Throughout this project, I am seeking to be ruthlessly focused on 2 Corinthians itself, letting it stand forth in all its distinctiveness. Themes that are important to Paul’s theology broadly understood but minimally on display in 2 Corinthians will be accordingly treated lightly or not at all. For example, right at the heart of Paul’s theology, taking Acts and his thirteen epistles all into view with a wide-angle lens, is the notion of grace, rightly put front and center in John Barclay’s groundbreaking 2015 monograph,3 as well as in other studies.4 Yet grace as “incongruous” gift (to use Barclay’s adjective) is virtually nowhere in sight in 2 Corinthians—at least as it is popularly understood, as God’s gratuitous goodness to people. Paul certainly uses the word charis, the standard Pauline term for “grace,” but in this letter it normally denotes some kind of gracious human activity (horizontally), not divine gift (vertically).5 Thus Frank Thielman’s proposal of the “center” of Paul’s theology as “God’s graciousness toward his weak and sinful creatures,”6 while about as good as any, does not sit particularly comfortably with 2 Corinthians. I take Richard Gaffin’s proposal for a center to Paul’s theology as more broadly encompassing of the particular message of 2 Corinthians: “The center of his theology is the death and resurrection of Christ in their eschatological significance.”7

A second example of an otherwise major Pauline concept that does not figure prominently in 2 Corinthians is the notorious matter of the “law” in Paul and how he understands the Mosaic code to function in the life of the believer in the new covenant era. While any treatment of Paul’s theology as a whole must grapple with Paul and the law (the two editors of the present series having provided two of the best8), not a single instance of nomos occurs in 2 Corinthians. Paul does reflect at length on the distinctive differences between the old covenant and the new covenant in 2 Corinthians 3, but even there the focus is not on the “law” specifically (i.e., Mosaic code) but rather the passing glory of the old realm and the inaugurated glory of the new realm. Questions of the ongoing relevance of the Mosaic code for today’s Christians, then, while pressing in terms of Pauline theology generally, do not naturally present themselves from a study of 2 Corinthians specifically.

These two otherwise central Pauline themes of “grace” and “law” are but two examples of the way we must allow 2 Corinthians to speak on its own terms and not read broader Pauline concerns into it, if we are to let the distinctive contribution of this unique epistle shine forth clearly.

If otherwise vital Pauline notions such as “grace” and “law” are nowhere near the heart of Paul’s concerns in 2 Corinthians, what is the heart or center or core burden of this letter? There is more than one equally valid perspective on this, so we should avoid any forced or narrowly dogmatic answer to this question. But we must right away note the pervasive presence in 2 Corinthians of notions associated with the dawning of the latter-day eschaton. One way to make this point is in Douglas Moo’s comprehensive treatment of Paul’s theology. He identifies “five basic ‘umbrella’ blessings”9 of this new aeon: new covenant, the Spirit, new creation, salvation, and life.10 Strikingly, as we will see in the pages of this study, all five are conspicuously present in 2 Corinthians. Indeed, 2 Corinthians is probably the best option for the Pauline letter that most robustly brings together these five new realm blessings most consistently.

With the inaugurated new realm as the controlling context of 2 Corinthians, I will retain this context in mind as I proceed through each chapter, unfolding the primary theological topics of this letter as follows:

1. Inaugurated Eschatology: The Framework for New Realm Ministry

2. Jesus Christ: The Launcher of New Realm Ministry

3. The Spirit: The Sign of New Realm Ministry

4. Satan: The Enemy of New Realm Ministry

5. Friendship: The Method of New Realm Ministry

6. Heaven: The Hope of New Realm Ministry

7. Strength through Weakness: The Secret to New Realm Ministry

We begin, then, by setting out in more detail the framing of the whole letter: inaugurated eschatology.

1  Geerhardus Vos, “The Theology of Paul,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Collected Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos, ed. R. B. Gaffin Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1980), 355.

2  See especially Luther’s “Heidelberg Disputation (1518),” in Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, ed. Timothy F. Lull and William R. Russell, 3rd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 14–25.

3  John M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015).

4  E.g., Jonathan A. Linebaugh, The Word of the Cross: Reading Paul (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2022), though the focus throughout is more narrowly Romans and Galatians. Moo begins his synthesizing discussion of Paul’s theology with an exploration of “grace.” Douglas J. Moo, A Theology of Paul and His Letters: The Gift of the New Realm in Christ, BTNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2021), 377–78.

5  E.g., 2 Cor. 1:15; 8:4, 6, 7, 19.

6  Frank Thielman, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 232.

7  Richard B. Gaffin Jr., By Faith, Not by Sight: Paul and the Order of Salvation, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2013), 29.

8  Thomas R. Schreiner, The Law and Its Fulfillment: A Pauline Theology of Law (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998); Brian Rosner, Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God, NSBT 31 (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013).

9  Moo, Theology of Paul, 464.

10  Moo, Theology of Paul, 464–69.

1

Inaugurated Eschatology

The Framework for New Realm Ministry

Inaugurated Eschatology in the New Testament Generally

The central message of the New Testament is soteriological—a message of saving grace in Jesus Christ for undeserving sinners, both Jew and Gentile. But this salvation does not appear in a historical vacuum. The coming of Jesus and the salvation he brings is a point of historical culmination; he arrived “when the fullness of time had come” (Gal. 4:4). But this historical culminating point in Jesus is not simply a particularly decisive event in history. It is a new beginning.1 Specifically, it is the beginning of the new creational age that the Old Testament longed for.2 Two thousand years ago the latter days dawned. The eschaton (lit. “last time”) arrived. It has yet to be completed—a point that must not be lost sight of (and which is clear in 2 Corinthians, such as when Paul anticipates the future “day of our Lord Jesus” in 1:14). But the present evangelical consciousness tends to focus on what we await, not what we already have, so in the present study I am going to push hard in the direction of what we already have. And so I say with force and clarity that while the central message of the New Testament is soteriological, the overarching context of that salvation is eschatological. Running just under the surface throughout 2 Corinthians and the entire New Testament and surfacing at times explicitly is the framework of inaugurated eschatology from which all of Paul’s thinking and writing flow.

It is worth clarifying exactly what we’re talking about from the perspective of the New Testament as a whole before going specifically to 2 Corinthians. Some contemporary New Testament scholars have held inaugurated eschatology front and center in their theologies of the New Testament—G. K. Beale (influenced by Geerhardus Vos), for example, and Thomas Schreiner (influenced by George Ladd).3 But I am not aware of any treatment of 2 Corinthians in a focused way that self-consciously maintains the lens of inaugurated eschatology.

In a standard systematic theology text, “eschatology” refers to matters pertaining purely to the future and comprises the last chapter of the book. “Eschatology” as I will be using it in this book refers not to the future but to the future-as-having-been-launched-back-into-the-present. And so we call it inaugurated eschatology—the last things have been inaugurated, decisively begun, already.4 What was expected