That’s a mouthful: “chrisoteriocclesiology.” As might be rather obvious, this term (that I have just now coined) combines three central aspects of Paul’s, but really any NT writer’s, theology: Christology, i.e. the study of the nature of Christ; soteriology, i.e. the study of salvation; and ecclesiology, i.e. the study of the nature, makeup, and identity of the people of God. These three, while rightly separated as individual aspects, are so connected within Paul’s theology that we may as well regard them as making up the trinitarian articulation of the apostle’s view of how one is saved, or rather in Whom and where they saved. In this article I’d like to take a brief look at how Paul conjoins these three as finding their form and function in Christ, namely, through a framework of participatory soteriology (or, “union with Christ”), a “doctrine” well established throughout the history of interpretation but most recently expounded upon by the likes of Constantine R. Campbell,[1] Grant Macaskill,[2] and others.[3]
While the scholarly world has generally moved into a deeper and closer appreciation of Paul’s notions of participationism, the topic-at-large remains undeveloped in some regards, particularly with more exegetical approaches with one of my favorite aspects: linguistic spatiality. We won’t venture down that rabbit hole (for now, or here, at least), but it should be noted that one of—if not the—most important, nuanced, and illuminating elements of Paul’s theology is how he views the believer coming to participate ἐν Χριστῷ (“in Christ”). Whether we are to understand this as relational, locational, or referential—or all three in some ambiguous metaphysical way (as in ontological, i.e. mystical)—there seems a consistent and ostensible spatiotemporal understanding latent in the apostle’s writings. And indeed, it seems central to his theology. Campbell puts it well, against the endless pursuits of a “center” of Paul’s theology, that
[t]he metatheme of union, participation, identification, incorporation is regarded to be of utmost importance to Paul, yet does not occupy the ‘centre’ of his theological framework. It is, rather, the essential ingredient that binds all other elements together.[4]
It is paradoxical, however, as the apostle never really elucidates for the reader what he exactly means. Rather, he seems to leave it intentionally ambiguous, perhaps allowing the reader to “figure it out for themselves?” Campbell adds,
Its prevalence on every page of his writings demonstrates his proclivity for the concept, and yet nowhere does he directly explain what he means by it…[it] is both important yet obtuse.[5]
Campbell’s work remains as likely the most comprehensive treatment on the notion of participation with Christ and the idiom of ἐν Χριστῷ, and provides a lengthy and (in 2012, of course) contemporary survey of the scholarship on the topic.[6] Unfortunately he missed Macaskill’s publication by a year-and-some-change, and other works have been set forth since both publications that have expanded the horizon. One example is J. Thomas Hewitt’s recent publication Messiah and Scripture: Paul’s “In Christ” Idiom in Its Ancient Jewish Context (WUNT 2/522. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020) where Hewitt analyzes ἐν Χριστῷ against ἐν τῷ σπέρματί σου (“in your seed”) in reference to Abraham. Hewitt’s work is interesting as it gathers together the NT ideas of participation in Christ as set against an OT background, and stands as a rather welcomed contribution to the discussion. Moreover, Hewitt spends a significant amount of time drawing out participatory nuances within Paul’s epistles, thus standing as another witness to the phenomenon we call “union with Christ.”
Returning to Campbell’s first quote above, he uses four descriptions: (1) union, (2) participation, (3) identification, and (4) incorporation. These overlap at various points, but what we can at least tentatively suggest is that (1) and (2) are Christological in essence, whereas (3) and (4) are ecclesiological in essence. That is, to say, (1) and (2) describe the believer’s individual participation with Christ, and (3) and (4) have in view more corporate aspects of the believer’s status and state specifically amongst other believers sharing in Christ. This is where, needfully, the ideas of Chrisoteriocclesiology come about: conjoined is an individualistic (atomistic) idea of one’s own participation with Christ and that of the Church as a whole. Such details are worth to note. The theme which prevails all throughout the Scriptures—God’s grand story of salvation—is too often ignored: God saves a nation, a people, and not necessarily an individual, per se. Now, this is not to say that a believer isn’t individually saved on a personal and intimate relational level with God (“have a close, personal relationship with God” is one of the most explicitly implicit ideas one can draw from Scripture) but that God is ultimately saving the entire cosmos, and not just you or me. Intimately tied together to Christology (the study of the nature, deity, and role of Christ) and ecclesiology (who defines, or is defined by, the people of God) is soteriology: it is between these two pillars which the path of salvation is carved. God creates a nation and saves that nation. One is saved by being a part of God’s people. This was the theme of Israel, and is the theme of the Church. But we won’t get too far into that.
What we want to center on here, instead, is this trifold makeup of salvation within participation. Taking a step back and “looking at the big picture,” or to put it another way, entreating individual believers as the trees and the Church as the forest, “not missing the forest for the trees,” we can begin to see how Paul continues familial and patrilineal-descent motifs to articulate corporate salvation, but centered exclusively on the Person and “sphere” of Christ. Such a view, and rather unexpectedly, is to be found in Galatians where Paul seems to center mostly on the figure of Abraham as the grounds upon which Gentiles—and, in different form now, Jews as well—find salvation in Christ. Indeed, in Galatians 3:16 Paul writes:
τῷ δὲ ᾿Αβραὰμ ἐρρέθησαν αἱ ἐπαγγελίαι καὶ τῷ σπέρματι αὐτοῦ. οὐ λέγει, καὶ τοῖς σπέρμασιν, ὡς ἐπὶ πολλῶν, ἀλλ᾿ ὡς ἐφ᾿ ἑνός, καὶ τῷ σπέρματί σου, ὅς ἐστι Χριστός
But now, the promises were made to Abraham and to his seed. It does not say, “And to seeds,” as if concerning many, but rather “And to your seed,” as concerning one, which is Christ (my trans.).
Paul links the patrilineal-descent of Abraham to the “now”, in viewing Christ as the sole seed,[7] and thus the conduit in which the promise to Abraham was made and through which the promise will become materialized. Even from this approach, which is but just one of many, Paul chooses to describe—not by choice, but by its reality demonstrated to him—the inheritance of sonship in (Abrahamic) familial terms. God always has corporate ideas in mind. Johnathan M. Harris puts it well, in that “Rather than beginning with the individual, salvation is conceived of as a cosmic, age-altering event in which the old world is brought to a decisive end and new creation is made a—or better the—reality in Christ.”[8] These words by Harris must be set against the canvas of his argument both on Pistis Christou, which he (like me) sees as taking the “third option”, seeing the coming, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ as establishing both an ‘event’ and a ‘realm’ of which the believer participates in, as well as his argument for Paul fashioning his argument in Galatians that believers receive the Spirit which enables them to become children of promise like Isaac. This is indeed the argument Paul makes in Gal. 4:21-29, but that is not our exact focus. Rather, our focus here is the corporate dimensions of Paul’s soteriology.
A side note may be helpful, however, in echoing the fact that much of his epistles are primarily concerned with corporate identity whereby Jew and Gentile become one. Arguably so, this is the theme of Galatians, Romans, 2 Corinthians 3, Ephesians, and Philippians in various areas and passages. For the first two, this may be rather obvious. For Ephesians, perhaps less so. But we can trace such a theme throughout the first two chapters which ultimately arrives at chapter three, where Paul claims that the mystery of Christ is (presumably, in part) the inclusion of the Gentiles into the people of God (echoing 2:11-13). We are getting a little left-field here, but let us simply read Eph. 4:4-6 from the NET:
There is one Body and one Spirit, just as you too were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, Who is over all and through all and in all.
The consistent repetition of inflected forms of εἷς (“one”) are certainly intentional and clearly emphasize the unified (and corporate!) ecclesiological entity and means by which to enter, all of this drawing from chapter two’s dense apologia for Gentilic inclusion over against Jewish covenantal exclusivity.
Two key themes are found in the beginning: ἕν σῶμα καὶ ἕν Πνεῦμα, “one Body and one Spirit.” Paul invokes two concepts central to his argument of a unified, corporate (eschatological) group, and adjectivally describes these as central to the “one hope of your calling,” following this by “one Lord” (Who we would likely take as Christ), “one faith” (which is certainly the faith in Christ specifically), “one baptism” (which is a conversion-entrance, but may have the Spirit—the second concept mentioned—closely in mind), and ultimately not only “one God,” clarifying that it is one God over all peoples,[9] but also “one Father,” continuing this familial theme that God is indeed Father not just to Abraham’s literal lineage—i.e., Israelites/Jews—but to those who are of Abraham’s “spiritually-inherited” lineage.
Working in reverse order, that Paul evokes mention of the Spirit is likely due to his elaborate pneumatology, whereby the Spirit is the Person Who “saves” believers, and is the evidence of one being a son of God (e.g., Gal. 4:6-7). “Union with Christ” studies have blossomed numerous treatments on Paul’s pneumatology and the Spirit’s role in a believer’s sanctification and salvation,[10] of which I believe that Grant Buchanan’s recent work (of which a review is forthcoming) champions such an approach,[11] and serendipitously does so with a focus almost exclusively on Galatians. Not only does Buchanan spend ample and insightful time drawing out notions of Paul’s participationist soteriology in the work, but he masterfully covers the ideas of identity and participation with Christ and the Spirit all while seeing both, but in particular the latter, commensurate with the “new creations,” an idea which has been fleshed out well by some[12] and particular with the “body summary” that is Gal. 6:15 and its surrounding passages.[13] The Spirit is always in close proximity not only to individual salvation (Gal. 4:6-7; Rom. 8:2) but also to more cosmic and universal restoration notions (Rom. 8:18-30; cf. 2 Cor. 5). Moreover, in a corporate sense with Israel’s teleology in Christ the Spirit is found mentioned to denote much more than it may seem on the surface (e.g., 2 Cor. 3:17). While there is reasonable and persuasive debate over whether Paul always means “Spirit” as the Person or as a spiritual state in various occasions,[14] there remains ample evidence of the Spirit’s role in soteriology. And indeed, much like His being sent and given in Acts 2, the purpose, function, role, and intended goal of the Spirit seems to always be wrapped in more corporate matters and pursuits. Centrifugal, too, if we could.
Though not “more important,” of more central importance is the mention of the Body. While the use of the Body can be either the corporate entity of the Church or the pre- or post-ascension Body of Christ, the two are actually directly connected, and this very fact speaks to the reality that while Paul certainly has the Body of Christ in mind, the Body is “ontologically,” if we can, able to accommodate people in “it”: it is not (just?) His physical, pre- or post-ascension Body, as in the fleshly body He inhabited, but it is a vestibule in and through which believers actively assimilate into and participate in. One could argue that whenever Paul has simply ἐν Χριστῷ it naturally connotes and takes for granted the reference specifically to the “Body” of Christ. Even if implicit, or even if not exactly in Paul’s mind it could be argued, Paul sees ἐν Χριστῷ as a spiritually existential entity the believer actively and ontologically participates in. Moreover, Paul seems to regard ἐν Χριστῷ—and, thus, the Body—as a conduit through which one may enter into the new creations, or, simply, be saved. Delving fully into this sub-topic would result in a treatment far beyond the presently intended scope, but we can see that for Paul, the Body of Christ is not just analogous to the Person of Christ but also to the Church, being the entity by which the collected mass of believers are identified by/as, joined together in, and function collectively as. That Paul simultaneously and complementarily likens the Church as unto a Temple (1 Cor. 3:16, 6:19; Eph. 2:15-22; et al.), which Christ (or, His Body) is likened unto Himself (e.g., John 2:19-22), only furthers both the corporal overtones and the salvation-historical nuances. By linking Christ, Temple, and Body, the apostle continues Israel’s religious and ecclesiological heritage into the new covenant, where believers are no longer identified and qualified as those who are descended from Abraham, but those who identify with, by, and in Christ.
We may take for instance a matrix of passages. In Rom. 7:4 Paul seems to be speaking of source-origin or means when he writes “So therefore, my brothers, you similarly have died to law through the Body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, into Him Who is raised from the dead, so that we may bear fruit for God” (my trans.). Antecedent to the “belonging,” which is ambiguously translated given, lit., it would read “into became” (εἰς τὸ γενέσθαι ὑμᾶς ἑτέρῳ), is the nuptial language above whereby Paul analogizes one being bound to the Law as one being married. Here marital language exists for our union with Christ, but it contains latent spatiotemporality: it is through (διὰ) the articular genitive body (τοῦ σώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ) that we have died to the Law, and we have become jointed into (εἰς τὸ γενέσθαι) into another. This implicit participation, likened unto a marital relationship, is dynamic: it results in our bearing fruit with the demonstrative purpose clause ἵνα καρποφορήσωμεν τῷ Θεῷ. Just a few chapters later Paul turns to making the body corporal, writing “For, as in one body, it has many members, but every member does not have the same function. Similarly we, though many members, are one body in Christ, and belong to one another” (Rom. 12:4-5; my trans.). Paul continues in the verses to follow explaining a select few ministerial functions of different believers. The apostle simultaneously upholds individual and corporate ideas.
An individual focus comes in 1 Corinthians 6, where Paul admonishes those in Corinth for sexual immorality, writing that not only is the body meant not for such devious acts “but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body (v. 13), but that one becomes one with another in, or through, sexual relations (v. 16), and that such sins are uniquely against one’s own body (v. 18). Perhaps going unaddressed, however, is the immense participatory notions here. We may do well by simply looking at the passage as a whole with the NET:
“All things are lawful for me” – but not everything is beneficial. “All things are lawful for me” – but I will not be controlled by anything. “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both.” The body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Now God indeed raised the Lord and he will raise us by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that anyone who is united with a prostitute is one body with her? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But the one united with the Lord is one spirit with him. Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin a person commits is outside of the body” – but the immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body (1 Cor. 6:12-20)
Though Conzelmann, for instance, sees “no thought of mystical identity” here in light of the counterpart reference to the prostitute,[15] he does see eschatological hope and ethics as a general thrust of Paul’s ideas here ultimately culminating in chapter fifteen.[16] Conzelmann clarifies what he exactly means:
What was said in 3:16 of the community, that it is the temple of God, that the Spirit of God dwells in it, is here transferred to the individual. The pneumatological grounding of the paraenesis links up with v 17, but in doing so strongly modifies the thought. In v 17 it is a question of the pneumatic body of Christ; in v 19 it is a case of the earthly body as the dwelling place of the Spirit. The point, as in 3:16, is holiness, which includes also sexual purity.
The nonmystical sense of the idea of the Spirit is plain. The Spirit does not lead us away from the body, but defines existence in the body as existence before God. As one who has bodily existence, I belong to God; or to put it otherwise, the body is the place of divine service.[17]
Essentially, Paul does not have antisomatic ideas at play but sees the integral link between the temple and body in that the believer’s body is a sacred and committed space (or it must be!) to God. Obviously this does little to detract from participatory notions. The nuptial significance is potentially illuminated further by looking to sacred prostitution in Corinth which was practiced specifically in the vicinity of pagan temples, adding even further significance to Paul’s temple language, though not being his immediate inspiration for the metaphor, as he applies it elsewhere implicitly and explicitly. Ciampa and Rosner cover the sacred prostitution succinctly, pointing out that “Paul’s opposition in 6:12-20 is couched in terms of religious allegiance using sacral language”[18] and that by the link of idolatry, though the OT regarded such as adultery and not specifically sacred prostitution, and that all sexual sin was deplorable to God, the link here may be, as they put it, Paul saying “‘Don’t go to the temple (to use prostitutes); you are the temple!’”[19] and they defend that temple prostitution is still a likely historically accurate alternative if the data fails to point to sacred prostitution per se. These points, and such focus, only serve to clarify Paul’s more clear participatory notes. He illustrates how one in sexual sin is joining themselves to that prostitute, ripping away members of Christ’s Body and making them members of a prostitute. Can we say that Paul is subsequently illustrating our union with Christ as a sexual relationship? Undermatured minds may balk at the idea, but it seems to be a powerful rhetorical strategy Paul is using, which ultimately attempts to explain what, to the apostle, is a very real reality. Yes, the apostle is concerned with the gravity of the sin of sexual immorality, but there is a built-in teaching of our union with Christ. Ciampa and Rosner explain, which deserves to be quoted at length:
[The citation of] Genesis 2:24 draws attention to the spiritual marriage of the believer to Christ, a union that Paul assumes calls for faithfulness and purity. Paul presents two mutually exclusive alternatives in 6:16-17: cleaving to a prostitute and cleaving to the Lord. Thus the Genesis text is used not only to prove the seriousness of sexual union with a prostitute, but to introduce the notion of the believer’s nuptial union with Christ. Several features of the text, and its place in 1 Corinthians, point in this direction.” Paul is concerned about the union of believers with the “Lord” (Jesus Christ) in v. 17, a good fit with nuptial imagery, and not simply with “God.” He could also have used a word other than “to unite” in vv. v. 16 and 17, which did not recall the Genesis marriage text. Back in 13, as Talbert notes, “to be for” language (“the body for the Lord; the Lord for the body”) appears with reference to marriage in the Song of Songs 2:16 and Romans 7:2-3.74 The idea of spiritual marriage is also implicit in 1 Corinthians 7:32-35, where pleasing the Lord and pleasing one’s marriage partner are compared. The Corinthians’ marriage to Christ is made plain in 2 Corinthians 11:2, where Paul states: “I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.” Ephesians 5:32, commenting on the same phrase from Genesis 2:24 (“the two shall become one flesh”), also makes the connection to the marriage of Christ and the church. Thus, with the image of spiritual marriage in view, some of the disconnected elements of 6:12-20 harmoniously converge. Verses 13b and 19b protest the Lord’s right over the believer’s body, a right given additional credence in the light of their nuptial union. The implication of ownership of the body of one’s partner in a physical marriage is taught in 1 Corinthians 7:4. The same implication carries for spiritual marriage, as Ezekiel 16:8b attests with reference to God’s marriage to Israel: “you became mine.”[20]
These two impressive scholars point out numerous elements of Paul’s arguments here, but our focus is particularly the carrying over of nuptial language directly from the first testament and into the second, and drawing from our earlier thoughts surrounding the idea of corporate salvation through God’s creating of a nation—a group, specifically. The forceful “ripping away from” of v. 15 gives way to the flesh/spirit comparisons of vv. 16 and 17, with the mysterious but awe-inspiring v. 17, which we may translate more specifically “But he that is cleaved unto the Lord is one spirit with Him.” We may only speculate as to what this means, and what it connotes and/or describes in the spiritual realm. If we are fair and honest, there is no promise of fruit in pursuing further meaning, but it is fun and fascinating to look at from afar. Paul’s primary and principal focus is the temple language to follow, which connects immediately pneumatology and God’s presence as well as somatic language in Christ. Garland adds some clarifying and interesting details:
The union between believers and Christ is of an altogether different kind than that created by a sexual relationship and can be expressed only in terms of the Spirit (Fee 1994: 134). The consequence of Christians cleaving exclusively to Christ is that they become one spirit with him (Rom 8:9-11; cf. 1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17). Paul does not intend to suggest that Christ unites only with the human spirit or soul. The Spirit creates the union with Christ and makes the body its temple. Christ’s Spirit becomes the command center for the body, which would rule out all contact with prostitutes, because the body is to be given over in service only to its Lord.[21]
We could say that Paul attempts to utilize the situation-at-hand to illustrate deeper union, which is difficult to compare exactly with nuptial union or connection directly to a temple, but these two things serve as practical and narratological, respectively, types to outline the mysterious type of union we share with Christ via the Spirit. In his turn to temple language Paul, I argue, situates not only the individual as the axis mundi of relationship with God via Christ by the Spirit, but it turns, from a thematic-narratological perspective (invoking themes prevalent around the temple and God dwelling in Israel’s midst) to corporeal notions. In v. 19, he asks—after stating that sexual sin is against one’s body which is to be committed solely and wholly to the Lord—them ἢ οὐκ οἴδατε, “or do you not know?” Continuing, ὅτι τὸ σῶμα ὑμῶν ναὸς τοῦ ἐν ὑμῖν ῾Αγίου Πνεύματός ἐστιν, “that your body is the temple, in which is the Holy Spirit” (my trans.). The translation adds better locative and pragmatic emphasis. The articular nominative τὸ σῶμα would seem to concretize “the body,” complimented by the nominative ναὸς. Here the two are conjoined as the mutual subject. The placement of the genitive article for ῾Αγίου Πνεύματός prior to ἐν ὑμῖν may be grounds to translate “in which” frontally, drawing attention to this temple-body with the qualification and description of the Holy Spirit being in it: “your body is a temple, in which dwells the Holy Spirit.” Expectedly the ἐν + dative ὑμῖν is locative which adds to this.
What follows is even more interesting: οὗ ἔχετε ἀπὸ Θεοῦ, καὶ οὐκ ἐστὲ ἑαυτῶν, “Who you have been given from God, and you are not your own.” We may see here internal-external notions, in that the focus is specifically on the believers’ body (again, second-person plural pronouns: “ya’ll are the temple”) as being the location where the Spirit comes and dwells, being sent by God. However, that this is followed up immediately by the blunt “and you are not your own” seems to be saying that the Spirit has taken up residence in us, and therefore dominion over our bodies, rendering them as no longer ours, but purchased in the distribution of the Spirit. It would seem best to look to Israel’s Temple as the source domain for the illustration, in that just as the Shekinah Presence was provided to and dwelt among Israel, marking them as God’s chosen and treasured possession, so have believers now had this. The Spirit, however, seems separate from the temple itself: the temple accommodates the Spirit’s Presence, but it is not itself the structure. That is, rather, Christ. We have another instance in Paul’s letters where assumed knowledge is present, that is, the Corinthians are expected to understand the link between Christ, Temple, Body, and collective believers. One also wonders how much temple-based sacrificial language is at play here, too, particularly with v. 20’s redemption-purchase saying.
Nevertheless, there is the implicit linking of individual and corporeal ideas surrounding the temple and the body. The temple belonged to no one individual, yet was a systematic endeavor with multiple people at work in various capacities, i.e. with different functions for the worship service of the Temple. So while “The corporate aspect of the community as the Spirit’s temple in 3:16 receives a more individual application here, which arises in the context of the personal lifestyle at issue in this chapter,”[22] the corporate canvas of which the individual is superimposed onto is not difficult to maintain in the reader’s mind. Ciampa and Rosner point out that “Jewish history had been marked, and would continue to be so, by appropriate and inappropriate behavior in the temple of God,” adding that “The purpose of the temple was to bring glory to God and to sanctify his name.”[23] They are indeed right in that the Spirit’s possession would further the responsibility to not sin in their body, but can we say that it would also be motivation for the sake of glorifying God to those without? In other words, to represent God properly? There may be some rhetorical thrust here under the surface of sexual sin misrepresenting the true God amongst the nations, and if there is a comparison between sacred/temple prostitution, where these women would service and represent the gods and their nature, then the Corinthians, as believers, must be representing God properly, demonstrating their holy union and nuptial relations with Christ. This may be supported in v. 20, and the section, ending “So glorify God in your body.”
Later in the epistle Paul, when discussing the community’s participation in the Eucharist, writes that breaking of the bread is “participation in the Body of Christ” (10:16) and immediately follows “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, because we all share the same one bread” (10:17). There is certainly temple language present, as v. 18 instructs the Corinthians to look at the example of Israel who participate in the sacrifices on the altar when eating the meat from them. An interesting parallel here is potentially Hebrews 10:5, where Christ’s Body is regarded specifically as not antithetical but replacing sacrifices and offerings. Often going unnoticed is certainly the ritualistic ecclesiology, or ecclesiological ritualism, in which both the Lord’s Supper and the community’s gathering would encapsulate significant meaning in identifying the Church and corroborating their mystical and ritualistic union with Christ. These ideas have been spelled out by others significantly[24] and need not be invested in here, but serve to further describe a temple-language rich illustration from the apostle.
Much like Romans 12 (and Ephesians 4, too), Paul provides a lengthy discussion on the Body and its various members in 1 Corinthians 12. Here in 12:12 Paul clearly connects the Body as the Church, with its multiple members, and Christ. He moves on to say that in one Spirit all have been baptized into one Body, which certainly has Path and Goal-Oriented nuances with the εἰς + accusative in ἓν σῶμα. All are, by the Spirit, baptized into one Body. So again, as per our discussion above, the Body and Spirit cooperate but of central concern and importance is actually the Body: in a way, the Spirit seems to be the means and encompassing agent of the enclosure of the Body, i.e. Christ, i.e. the Temple we dwell in. The “drink of one Spirit” in v. 13 is allusive but insightful. Continuing in 12:14-31 Paul embarks on explaining, in detail, the various functions of different members of the Body, using an analogy from a human body and its parts and organs, which moves his perfection of the Body, the Church, in explicitly corporeal language. Indeed, “you (plural) are the Body of Christ and individually members of it” (v. 27) has both singular and plural descriptions. It may be a paradox, but not difficult to understand.
Particular focus ought to be paid to 12:13 where “we were all baptized into one body” is followed by “Jews or Greeks.” This mention—the dichotomy of Jews and Greeks/Gentiles which permeates through every epistle of Paul—within the context of the Body is found everywhere. This is the mystery of the gospel, that Gentiles are “members of the same body,” (Eph. 3:6), and that the whole Body is to be “joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes [it] grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Eph. 4:6 ESV). In nuptial language with human marriage Paul again describes Christ as “the head of the Church, His Body, and is Himself its Savior” (Eph. 5:23 ESV). Though Ephesians and Colossians belong to the disputed Pauline epistles,[25] taking these two as authoritative, or from a similar scribal tradition, this idea is almost directly echoed in more cosmic tones in that Christ is “the head of the Body, the Church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent” (Col. 1:18). Similarly in Col. 2:19 he echoes Eph. 4:6 when we read “the Head, from Whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.”
What we can draw from this matrix is what others have: Paul combines multiple metaphors and analogies—field,[26] body, temple, marriage—to both (a) present a spatial representation of the Church and (b) combine both individual and corporate presentations of the Church. On the matter of temple language, which is my own touchstone and the topic I perhaps admire the most but we must leave to the side, Kris Song’s recent work One Spirit[27] stands out as revolutionary and elucidatory in his ideas of Christ standing as the new temple incorporating both Jew and Gentile (remaining as distinct but unified groups) as well as seeing Paul’s nuances of the sacrificial system at play in his epistles, at least in Corinthians. When we combine the two frontals of Christ as Temple and the Church as Temple, while simultaneously seeing significant and substantive overlap between “temple” and “body,” we can—even if such an endeavor requires much more room than we have here—begin to stitch together these corroborating themes and metaphors into, ultimately, participationist soteriology emerging immediately and explicitly.
Speculations may thrive in such an environment, and there is certainly a lacuna in scholarship of these two areas whereby Song’s work in Corinthian literature ought to inspire the same framework and methodology being applied across the entire Pauline, and even the NT, corpus. But here, we are drawing out two themes: individual and corporate ecclesiology signaled by the simplicity of corporate language. In another way, “temple” and “body” both depict corporate locations in their central and public status but depict individual-within-the-corporate collectiveness in having many “priests” operating and “members” at work, respectively. So, what do we have here? I suggest that we have Christology clear as day, given that Christ is consistently placed as the object of interest—the “direct object” of Paul’s participatory and ecclesiological discourse. The vocabulary is “temple” and “body,” but the grammar is Christ. So, Christology is established: Christ is the center, means, conduit, agent, and focus. Now, what about ecclesiology? Such seems obvious: this vocabulary oscillates around both (a) who is defined as and by the Church and (b) the structure and function of the Church, which finds itself consistently looking to participatory (amongst each other) ethics and models looking to Christ’s own example. Finally, what about soteriology? Soteriology is a discipline itself, being too wide and deep to be explained by only one corner of it. And such is the nature of this topic, of which this article is just a conversational piece towards the view. Yet what we can conclude ultimately is that (a) in Christ is salvation and (b) because being “in Christ” marks salvation by the Presence and possession of the Spirit, Christological soteriology is intimately wrapped up with ecclesiology. In sum, Paul has a Chrisoteriocclesiology.
And what is soteriology, if not the study of every aspect and corner of salvation? Can this not include God’s story sketched across the landscape of Scripture? Can soteriology not intimately contain an aspect of narratology? In another way, is our studying of salvation equally so a study of Scripture’s narrative? I would argue that it is, and that just as the biblical (meta)narrative(s) outline a progressive and teleological revelation of soteriological truth in Christ, it simultaneously outlines an ecclesiology that is defined by this Christology. Paul maps out the first testament’s truths onto his epistolary discourse, coloring in the typological lines of the past by the revelatory and eschatological reality found in Christ. Indeed in 1 Corinthians he does this, likening not only the passing through of the Reed Sea unto being “baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea” (1 Cor. 10:2), and eating of spiritual food (v. 3) and drinking of spiritual drink (v. 4), but also comparing Christ with the spiritual Rock. Paul compares the journey of those delivered through Exodus to modern believers, even if this is implicitly presented by him amidst ethical instructions drawn from the Israelites’ examples (v. 6). Paul is either presented or presents himself as within the heritage of the prophets, gathering and instructing the people of God. He applies the first testament’s hiddenness to the second testament’s revelations, and at the center is Christ.
On this Richard B. Hays wrote that “Paul does not read the Old Testament with a ‘christocentric’ hermeneutic but rather an ‘ecclesiocentric’ one,”[28] which aligns well with our ideas here. However, Daniel M. I. Cole has recently added a clarifying note to this, responding to Hays’ points. He writes, firstly regarding Hays’ comments, “In this he argues that he does not devalue the place of Jesus within Paul’s hermeneutical project but rather sees him as ‘the essential theological presupposition’ that should be kept distinct from Paul’s actual hermeneutical strategy.”[29] Essentially, Christ is the assumption to Paul’s, ultimately, ecclesiological focus. This accords with what we have seen, but I believe Cole nuances it better: “It may be more helpful in understanding the way in which Paul reads Isaiah’s servant prophecy…to speak of salvation-historical hermeneutic culminating in the union of Christ with his people than to conclude that Paul functions with an ecclesiocentric hermeneutic.”[30] The very idea of ‘union with Christ,’ the doctrine Paul spends significant time spelling out, is that which defines his ecclesiological framework from and injected into history. We may, I argue, be better of combining three seemingly separate categories of Christology, ecclesiology, and soteriology and see Paul deeply and consistently involved in articulating the mysterious nature of his Chrisoteriocclesiology. It is within the people of God—the ekklesia; the called out assembly of believers—that salvation is to be found, and this ekklesia is defined by all those who are in Christ, the telos and climax of the covenantal and narratological protology set forth in the first and revealed in the second testament.
Though such things speak to mysteries we may never understand, such a framework allows us to give due permission for Paul’s gospel to be mysterious, and takes him at his word. Such a framework, additionally, may prove helpful in ideas of supersessionism and election, mapping Paul’s soteriology onto a corporate and participatory foundation. The present article is, again, just a conversational contribution to this discussion, and intentionally foregoing a deep and extensive treatment on the matter, but nonetheless an intended contribution. In my eyes, Paul seeks to uncover a mystical mystery of metaphysical realities found in the cosmic Christ, and he “spiritualizes” our salvation in particularly participatory ways. Indeed, the idiom that is “in Christ” naturally piques our curiosity to incorporating our ecclesiology and soteriology into it, and it might just stand as the single representative motto of the faith. Moreover, such views may support ideas which draw together the very corporate tenor of salvation. It is not just an individualistic salvation we come to in Christ, but one which intimately involves every fellow believer, and ultimately culminates in and includes the entire cosmos altogether. Paul’s soteriology is, much in every way, corporate. And just as participation is individualistic, it is ultimately corporate as well.
[1] Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2012).
[2] Union with Christ in the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
[3] Of which there are too many to list. See in particular Susan Grove Eastman, Oneself in Another: Participation and Personhood in Pauline Theology (CLPS. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023) where Eastman interacts with contemporary scholarship.
[4] Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 30.
[5] Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ, 1.
[6] Paul and Union with Christ, 31-58.
[7] For this discussion, see the succinct treatment in Brian A. Verrett, The Serpent in Samuel: A Messianic Motif (Searcy, AR: Resource Publications, 2020), 10-12.
[8] Christ-Faith and Abraham in Galatians 3—4: Paul’s Tale of Two Sons. Biblical Interpretation Series 214 (Leiden: Brill, 2023), 231.
[9] Which Paul consistently finds himself having to do. The topic and bibliography is extensive here. We might just pay attention to the insightful ideas on the Galatian Judaizers presented by George Howard in Paul: Crisis in Galatia: A Study in Early Christian Theology (2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Howard writes that “Paul looked upon that version [Judaizing] of Christianity propagated by the judaizers as synonymous with paganism since it made Yahweh into the national God of Israel only” (66). He adds and clarifies that the Judaizers were essentially “[changing] the universal nature of Yahweh into that of a national god. For the judaizers to insist that the Gentiles could not be saved without becoming Jewish proselytes, in Paul’s mind, was the same as turning Christianity into a local cult” (78). It is critical, from a polemic and a religious-ecclesial perspective, for Paul to always combat Judaizing, which was likely his biggest challenge.
[10] For example, Mark J. Keown, Pneumaformity: Transformation by the Spirit in Paul (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2024).
[11] Spirit, New Creation, and Christian Identity in Galatians: Towards a Pneumatological Reading of Galatians 3:1-6:17 (LNTS 681. New York: T&T Clark, 2023).
[12] In particular, T. Ryan Jackson, New Creation in Paul’s Letters: A Study of the Historical and Social Setting of a Pauline Concept. WUNT 272 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010)
[13] Jeff Hubing, Crucifixion and New Creation: The Strategic Purpose of Galatians 6.11-17 (LNTS 508. New York: T&T Clark, 2015).
[14] John Sunday Adimula, Pneuma: From the Spiritual Condition of Christ to the Holy Spirit-Agent: A Dialectic of Flesh-Spirit at the Root of New Testament Pneumatology (Etudes Bibliques 85. Leuven: Peeters, 2021). Adimula contends that ‘spirit’ should often be regarded not as the Spirit, but as a spiritual state—namely, the spiritual state that Christ exists in post-Ascension and draws believers into. A study that has not seemed to receive any feedback or interaction with.
[15] 1 Corinthians: A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1988), 112 n. 30.
[16] 1 Corinthians, 111. See also Timothy J. Christian, Paul and the Rhetoric of Resurrection: 1 Corinthians 15 as Insinuatio. (BIS 205. Leiden: Brill, 2023), who argues that Paul’s entire focus in 1 Corinthians is resurrection via the means of rhetorical insinuatio.
[17] 1 Corinthians, 111-112.
[18] Roy E. Ciampa, Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians (PNTC. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 247.
[19] 1 Corinthians, 248.
[20] 1 Corinthians, 259-260. See also their intertextual discussion on fleeing sexual sin and Joseph, especially 262-263. Also Rosner, “A Possible Quotation of Test. Reuben 5:5 in 1 Corinthians 6:18a.” Journal of Theological Studies 43.1 (1992): 123-127.
[21] David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians (BECNT. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 235.
[22] Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 474.
[23] 1 Corinthians, 264,
[24] Stephen Richard Turley, The Ritualized Revelation of the Messianic Age: Washings and Meals in Galatians and 1 Corinthians (LNTS 544. London: T&T Clark, 2015); Yu Chen, The Ritual Dimension of Union With Christ in Paul’s Thought (WUNT 2/568. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022).
[25] Highly recommended for this topic and the connectivity within the Pauline corpus is Benjamin J. Petroelje, The Pauline Book and the Dilemma of Ephesians (LNTS 665. London: T&T Clark, 2022).
[26] David Anthony Basham (Paul, the Temple, and Building a Metaphor [PhD diss., McGill University, 2022], 51) sees Paul’s use of a “cultivated field” as perhaps reminiscent of garden imagery found in Genesis’s Eden and in the temple architecture. See Basham’s work for a contemporary and fascinating treatment of temple metaphor in Paul, and particularly here in Corinthians.
[27] One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2024).
[28] The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 48.
[29] Isaiah’s Servant in Paul: The Hermeneutics and Ethics of Paul’s Use of Isaiah 49-54 (WUNT 2/553. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021), 294-295; cf. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, 121. Cole’s work is highly recommended.
[30] Isaiah’s Servant in Paul, 295.