Theology in the Raw - 846: The Gospel as Political Protest and Why Rom 7 Isn’t Talking About Christians

Episode Date: March 1, 2021

We discuss three issues in this podcast: (1) Imperial critical readings of the New Testament (i.e. how the NT critiques the Roman empire in its language), (2) the benefit of studying first-century philosophy for understanding the New Testament, and (3) why Romans 7:9-25 is not talking about a Christian or Christians.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I am here with my very good best friend, Dr. Joey Dodson. Joey and I go way back. We talk about our history together in the show, but Joey has been a professor for a number of years, and he's currently a professor of New Testament at Denver Theological Seminary. He is the author of several books and he's also edited several books. All of them are very academic in nature. Joey is a youth pastor in scholarly clothes, or maybe he's a scholar in youth pastor clothes. He's just a down to earth dude. As you will see, he kind of like breaks out in song and dance halfway through his sentences.

And he's very, he's just an amazing teacher. He's been a great friend of mine. But in this episode, I wanted to have him on to talk about various things related to some of his expertise in the New Testament. So we talk about imperial critical readings of the New Testament, how the New Testament and the message of the New Testament is sometimes a sort of protest against the empire. We also talk about why understanding first century philosophy has helped him understand Paul and Paul in particular, but the New Testament as a whole. And we also talk about, okay, this might be offensive, but why Romans 7 is absolutely not talking about the life of a believer. There, I said it. Okay. So if you want to support the

show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw and become part of the theology in the raw Patreon only community. If you miss the Q&A episodes that I used to do on this show, I'm still doing those once a month. I record two different Patreon-only podcasts that are all just Q&A where I respond to questions from my Patreon supporters. So again, if you want to support the show, I would really appreciate it. All right, let's get to know, again, the one and only Dr. Joey Dodson. All right. Hey, friends.

I'm here with my best friend, Joey Dodson. He's been on before, and I'm not going to give too much background on Joey. But yeah, we go back to our Aberdeen days when we're both doing PhDs at Aberdeen University. We met there 2005, I want to say. 2004? 2004, the summer of 2004. That's right, man. So Joey is a professor of New Testament or biblical studies or New Testament, Joey, at Denver Seminary? New Testament at Denver Seminary. I do want to give a shameless plug to a little shout out to Denver Seminary. It is one of my favorite seminaries. I have not, I did not go there, nor have I taught there. But if I did get a teaching job at a seminary, that would definitely be one of my top picks. So yeah. And the coolest thing is they don't, they're not paying me to say

that at all. They don't even know I'm saying that. It's a total free plug. But if Denver Seminary is listening, you want to kick me down a bottle of whiskey or something, I'll go for that. But, um, yeah, Joey, let's, I, I said, I told Joey, uh, Oh no, it was actually on the podcast, Joey. I had a podcast that came out on January 1st. And in the moment I was like, I'm going to have Joey on, I'm going to have Joey on. We're going to talk about just raw, hardcore biblical studies stuff. And he doesn't even know it yet. And I forgot to tell you about that. I think somebody maybe said, Hey Joey, you should probably listen to theology in a raw. So anyway, thanks for coming on the show again, bro. Yeah. It's always a pleasure. Thanks for having me. And so what I heard from what you said about Denver seminary is that you're telling us there's a chance.

So what I heard from what you said about Denver Seminary is that you're telling us there's a chance. So you're saying there's a chance. Professor Preston, sounds good. There's a lot of things about teaching that I miss. Mainly just that classroom environment, man, where you can just talk about ideas, talk freely. You can dive deep and you have time to do so and space to do so with people that are wanting to go into ministry. And is it, is it, yeah. How is your experience there?

I mean, you probably can't say anything negative, I'm sure. But from what we've talked offline, I mean, you love it there. Yeah, I do. And I may have said this last time. I don't remember what we talked about last time, but I learned the secret ofment what's coming to Denver Seminary I love it uh here at the seminary I love my students and I love colorful Colorado yeah but it's a like it's a just a main line or mainstream evangelical school it's not too far to the left not too far to the right whatever you have seems like you have healthy evangelical diversity there with a ministry focus would that be accurate yeah for sure and generous orthodoxy is one of the things that we

pursue and we don't just compromise, but we radically try to hold on to that, making the main things, the main things and not getting caught up in the weeds of the others. And what would be your kind of model student or not model student, but like, if you can wrap your whole student body into one person, who is that person? Press and sprinkle. That's scary. I take back everything I said about the school. The mind of the scholar and the heart of the pastor who desires mishpat. Yeah. So, but we're so diverse. It's really hard to do that, to bring that down to one student. So in my class, I'll have Presbyterians, Anglicans, Baptists, non-denomination, male, female, Americans, international students.

before as well. My desire is for, to produce these students that have that mind of the pastor, but also that heart, sorry, the mind of a scholar and the heart of the pastor. And so that's what I'm trying to produce here. So your reputation though, man, I mean, you have this kind of like, you know, you're young, you're funny, you're an amazing teacher. You got the youth pastor vibe going on and then students go to your classroom and then they just get hammered because you're known as being, at least back at Ouachita, one of the hardest professors, at least in the Christian ministries department. Do you have that reputation at Denver as well? I'm not sure. I'm still trying to find my groove here because like an MDiv program is more of a professional program, whereas in university setting, it's more academic. And so I'm trying to

feel how I can keep my students' feet to the fire academically, while at the same time training them for ministry. And so finding that balance is still what I'm looking for, that sweet spot. Okay, cool. Well, hey, let's jump in. You threw out a bunch of stuff that you've been thinking through that live at the intersection of the biblical studies and the biblical world. And one big one that caught my eye that you threw out was the imperial cult or imperial cults critical. How did you say it? Imperial critical readings. Imperial critical readings of the New Testament.

All right. And I've dabbled in that. I think it's fascinating. I think it's incredibly relevant for today because it does conjure, I mean, it just kind of like kicks up questions about Christianity and nationalism and the intersection between faith and politics and so on. So yeah, give us the quick summary of what this is, imperial critical readings, and then I'm sure that I'll open up all kinds of questions. Yeah, well, I would say that they're imperial critical readings. So there's not just one type of scholar that's doing this. I'm coming into the empirical reading from more of an apocalyptic Paul guy.

So I don't know if you want me to unpack that. Yeah, yeah. What's the elevator pitch for apocalyptic Paul? Yeah. So putting Paul back in his Jewish underwear, if you will, that Paul was a first century Jew and probably looked more like an apocalyptic figure rather than what we want to make him out to be. And with the apocalyptic Paul, like Revelation, John, that we would see, there's something behind. Maybe the example of the Wizard of Oz. Do you remember when Toto comes and grabs a curtain and pulls it back? And the wizard's like, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

That's kind of what apocalyptic is, where the gospel has revealed that there's something behind the curtain. And so little bitty sin, little bitty death are really these cosmological powers that are ruling over us. Salvation includes justification and righteousness, but for the most part, it's more about redemption and ransom being set free from this present evil age, the powers of sin and death. And so to put it in Romans terms, for those of your audience that are familiar with the book of Romans, it's more like Romans 5 through 8 than Romans 1 through

4. Righteousness is not just a status, it's this power that God has given us to live a holy life. So yeah, and part and parcel of apocalyptic is this imperial critical. We see this in Revelation, for example. It's this full-throated, go home Rome, where it's just assaulting Rome, giving Rome the finger. Rome is this nasty, dirty, fat floor of Babylon. And that's part of that apocalyptic. But it's not just Rome. Behind Rome, you have the Antichrist, you have the beast, and the false prophet. And so there's the cosmological powers that's behind the Roman Empire. And so where that would be the extreme in Revelation, there is that continuum that's there. And so some would see Paul as being anti-imperial. So for example, when

Paul says, Jesus Christ is Lord, it's Paul giving the finger to Nero saying, Nero, you're not. And so that would be kind of the anti-imperial, even anti-Rome, that there's a new king in town and you're not him. And so kicking Caesar in the crotch, since we're theology in the raw. And so that would be one extreme of it. Another extreme in that continuum, moving a little bit over would be imperial critical, where it has some bad things to say about Rome, but it's not necessarily anti-Roman. And so if we unpack that, there may be more of like the supra-imperial, where, yeah, Caesar is

Lord, but Jesus is Lord of Lords and King of Kings, or in the idea that the church is not even thinking about Caesar because Caesar is so insignificant to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I've heard you say before that you're not interested in – or how do you put it? Something about not really caring so much about the politics of Babylon. Yeah, yeah. Do you have like a specific line that you say? Well, yeah, I often said, you know, I'm an exile living in Babylon and I find Babylonian politics kind of entertaining a little bit. Like I kind of, I'm sitting back as a spectator

watching yet another empire try to rule the world and doing so horrifically. And they think they're, you know, anyway, yeah, they think they're doing a good job, you know, and the whole thing crumbles, another empire comes up. And right now we're just America. America is not Babylon. Like it's, you can't map one on the other or it's not Rome, but man, there's a lot of similarities, especially with Rome. And it is as close to an empire as we have today. Maybe China would be, I don't know, maybe closer to the mark. But yeah, I think that our political identity should be very separate from Babylonian politics. The critique I often get, and you threw it back on me and here I go, but the critique

I get is like, well, it must be nice. You're a white male with privilege and it must be nice to just sit back in your privilege and not have to care about how Babylon is trying to rule the world. And I'm like, well, I'm not saying I don't care. I'm just saying that's not where my, I'm not saying I don't care. I'm just saying that's not where my, I'm not investing a lot of my sort of ethical or political energy there. And yeah, I think there's a lot of things that Babylon's trying to do that the church should be doing, you know, so, you know, race. Okay, so there's a massive race conversation problem in America. And absolutely, it's not, I'm not like, oh, let's just remove ourselves in the race conversation. I'm saying, let's show the world how to do it. God has given us the power. He's breaking down the ethnic barriers. The church should be on the front lines of modeling what it is to pursue ethnic

reconciliation and so on. So, so yeah, it's not, it's not, I'm not, I'm not denying, I'm not at all like not pursuing these political categories. I'm just, I think Babylon is a pretty terrible means by which to, to pursue that. So anyway, that's, that's a long answer to it. Yeah. Yeah. But if, if one were to say I'm disinterested in the politics of Babylon, that doesn't – it's not full-throated. It's not staying down with Babylon, but it's still imperial critical to say that it's not as important as the kingdom of God or even to call it Babylon. And so you kind of see that there's a mixture there. Yeah. CNN, I listen to NPR, listen to the New York Times, the Daily, and I listen to Ben Shapiro. And Shapiro, he's interesting because he'll say some critical things about Trump. Yeah.

But at the end of the day, he seems to be more pro-Trump than anti-Trump. Yeah. And so he'll pick out some bad things about Trump. But at the end of the day, he's more Trump than he is a Republican. And so kind of taking that and looking at it in the first century, you would have some that my critique, this aspect of oppression in Rome, or something that the king is doing. But on the whole, they're pro-Roman. The other end of that, from Revelation, the other end of the spectrum would be,

you know, there's no place like Rome. There's no place like Rome, because I'm proud to be a Roman, or at least I'm not a Greek. And you have like Josephus, that would be an example of that, who seemed to be very pro-Rome, that Rome is God's country and we need that. And so you have that entire spectrum. And I see the entire spectrum surrounding the first century of that also in the New Testament. And so Matthew's, in my opinion, going to be much more imperial critical than Matthew, for example.

Wait, wait, Matthew's more imperial critical than who? Than Mark? I think Mark. I think Mark is the most imperial critical of the four gospels. You know, he even begins by, this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. And the word gospel, I mean, one thing you need to understand is that the specter of Rome's shadow was everywhere. And the propaganda was here, it was there. You turn this way, it's wrong. You turn that way, it's on theer of Rome's shadow was everywhere. And the propaganda was here.

It was there. You turn this way, it's wrong. You turn that way, it's on the statues. It's on the coins. They see the imperial cult going. I mean, so it's all over the place. And especially if you're like a Jew writing at this point, you've seen this. But sorry, I lost my train of thought. But Mark, the word euangelion, we do see this in the prophets, but it was also, and if Mark is writing to Rome, this word euangelion was associated with the Caesars. You know, Augustus Caesar, when he begins his reign, the propaganda spread the good news of the gospel of Augustus. Augustus at that point is anointed with the eagle that God sends down upon him to begin his reign. And so even at the very beginning of Mark's gospel that jumps right into the baptism of Jesus, there's this terminology that sounds very much like Augustus. Augustus is the one who was the son of God.

It was all on their coins that you would have there. And then Jesus' first message is repent and believe for the kingdom of God is at hand. And that word kingdom of God is going to be, for some, they're like, yeah, yeah, there's God's kingdom. And then there's this kingdom. But one thing that we'll see in the New Testament is we have no king but Caesar, or like in Acts 17, they're preaching a different king other than Caesar. And so that would be a threat. And so for those who say, well, the early Christians are kind of not really disinterested or not really worried about Caesar. That's not how Caesar and a lot of the audience would have taken it. But the word repent has an idea of allegiance, moving from one allegiance to another, as is the word pistis in that context, as Matthew

Bates has pointed out. And so anyway, there was a... Pistis means faith. Yeah. Yeah. Well, or has a... Yeah, very good. That's right. Mental assent. Yeah.

Trust. Or this idea of allegiance, which makes sense in that context. But in Matthew Bates' book, Faith by Allegiance, is going to unpack that. But there was a Caesar during this time who was known for healing a man with spit. He had a spittle, and with it he makes him a Vespasian. He also heals a man who's a withered hand. And so this is maybe around the same time of the destruction of Jerusalem that this story was there. There was one king, emperor, who was betrayed by one of his cohorts. And in the darkness, they came to get him when a German soldier pulled out his sword and cuts off the ear of the guy who had betrayed and was arresting the emperor.

Really? I did not know that. So very strong parallels to the gospel portrait of Jesus. Wow. Exactly. Yeah. And so even the Legion in that area of the garrison, if you remember, we're called Legion because we're many and Jesus sends them into the pigs. There was a Roman Legion in garrison during that time. And Legion, by the way, is 5,000.

And they had a standard, and their standard was actually pigs, razorbacks. And so those types of things. And we see, you know, Jesus comes in at the triumphal procession, not on a royal steed, a noble steed to sit on an iron throne, but instead he comes in on a donkey to be crucified on the cross. And remember, what does Jesus killed for in Mark's gospel? It's not that he was healing people. It's not that he was preaching forgiveness or everlasting life. It was posted.

He is the king of the Jews and so on and so forth. And so I see Mark as much more imperial critical than like Matthew, for example. Although our friend Joel Willits has a chapter where he talks about Matthew being anti-Rome, but not anti-imperial, I think is how Joel... Oh, interesting. So you gave kind of a spectrum of different kind of postures that various biblical books, Christian writers, or maybe even parts of the early church had towards Rome on the extreme. And well, I don't think you'd probably find any of the, we celebrate Rome in the New Testament. You might have a bit of indifference, which is its own kind of a critique,

kind of like, you know, if you just, you know, say November, whatever, 4th came around here and the election came and you kind of shrugged your shoulders and said, another day, another Caesar, you know, kind of indifferent. Like that has its own kind of protest. Like I'm not seeing any value in whoever gets elected. They're still a Babylonian ruler. Or so you have kind of like indifference or celebratory, which you don't find in the New Testament. You have more of an indifference, then more of a directly. Maybe the other two categories would be like subtly, implicitly critical

and explicitly critical. Would that be right? So like when Paul says, you know, Jesus is the son of God, the savior, and he is the gospel or whatever, his kingdom. He's using these same categories. And by not filling those categories with Caesar and Nero and Rome and all these things, but with Jesus, that's a kind of an implicit critique. Whereas the book of revelation seems to be not Babylon's a whore, you know,

like get out, get out of Babylon, you know, very explicitly critical. Would that be everything I've said? Would that be? Yeah, for sure. I would say that the closest that we get to pro-Roman would be Romans 13. Right. Yeah. I was going to ask you about that. How does that fit in? Yeah. And it does come across as pro-Rome, but he says that Rome is a servant of God. And if Nero were to hear this or Domitian, that I am a servant of the Jewish God who was crucified on a cross, it would be considered anti-imperial. It would be considered treasonous.

And, of course, we also know in light of what Paul is going to go on to say in Romans 13 that the night is passing away and the daylight is shining. The daylight is shining. And so, yeah, so Romans 13 seems to be more pro-Rome, but I don't think Seneca and the Roman emperors would consider that as pro-Roman as we might like to think. Maybe another one would be praying for the emperor, honoring the emperor like what we see in Peter where you have this idea of the emperor uh, kind of restoring order. And it may be in second Thessalonians, depending how you take the restrainer. Uh, some take that as a Roman government being removed and going into chaos. But yeah, those would be more of the, the positive ends. Uh, Luke and Acts seems to be more pro Roman or at least, uh,

understand, uh, the gospel is not being anti-Rome, depending on how we deal with it. He doesn't give us a tidy answer because the regular people are like, no, Christianity is a threat to the Roman Empire. But the Roman emperor is like, I mean, the Roman ruler is like, yeah, we can't find anything worthy of death or the rest of these. And so you even see that tension in Acts, which Kevin Rowe's book, World um, uh, World Upside Down deals with that type of tension where, go ahead. He was going to say in Acts, I just read through it recently. And, and I think, I think I've never finished Kevin's book, unfortunately, but, um, I, uh, yeah, I, I kind of have, have understood it through, through hanging out with you, but it, it does

seem clear that Luke is showing that the Christian movement is not a, it's not a legal threat to Rome. Like every time they're brought up on charges, the Romans are like, we don't have anything to convict these guys. They're not actually doing anything wrong. And yet the gospel does have a very counter-cultural world turn, you know, turn the world upside down kind of impact. And we even see this in, is it Acts 18 or 19, with the preaching of the gospel. Now so many people are getting saved that the idol makers are out of business.

So they're not doing anything illegal, but there's like economic catastrophe happening and riots breaking out. And that's that. And yeah, I look at that. I'm like, man, do we have that today? Is the movement of the gospel in America in particular, so counter-cultural that it's just, are the political leaders saying, you guys are turning this whole thing upside down or are they thanking us for our allegiance? You know, like, I don't think Rome would ever say, thank the Christian movement for

how the, for their support, you know, and their donations or thank you for your votes. Like if, if we're going to ask Jesus, cause I know this is a debate in Rome, like, are you for the Republic or the Empire? What's the way? It was a Republic before it became an Empire, right? Correct. And wasn't that a live debate? Kind of like, should it be run by an emperor, run by the people or whatever?

Yeah. Like if you're, I don't know, this goes back to my exile kind of theology. I think if you ask, if somebody came up and said like, which side are you on? Which party are you for? The Republic or the, you know, the empire kind of side? I think you would kind of like shrug your shoulders. Like, I don't care.

They're both, right? I mean, they're both whores, you know? I mean, or do you think, I mean, do you think you would side with one or the other? I think an empire would be worse, but I don't know if Jesus would even, I think he would probably change the conversation around. Yeah, maybe the render unto Caesar what is Caesar. There you go. Yeah. Yeah.

Which, again, could be taken as pro-Rome or as anti-Rome in the sense that it doesn't matter what you need to focus on as God, or this is what Caesar requires to give that to him. So it depends on the tone that Jesus is making there. What's your take on that? Yeah. Can you unpack that passage for us, rendering it? Because I think it's often misunderstood, but I've never heard it explained very well. Yeah.

Well, I'm not a gospel scholar, but as you know, on the coins, it had the image of the Caesar, and this was violating the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. And so I think that the main gist that Jesus is trying to say is that we are the image of God, and so we need to give him our image. And so they're worried about what's on a coin rather than worrying about their own life being conformed to the image of Christ to bring in Paul. So it's kind of a protest, indifferent protest kind of thing, or was it? Yeah, I think so. I feel like it's, sure. And you will know that Jesus made use of temple tax later,

but it's almost an idea for us in the sense that it doesn't really matter to me. So this is easier, but your focus is on the wrong thing. Your focus needs to be on rendering your image, walking and being an imitator of God and giving what he deserves. Yeah. Man, there's so much more we could do. One more question on this and then we'll move to another topic. Yeah. So where would you put Paul in that kind of spectrum?

Do you think he's subtly critical or indifferent? Yeah. Well, again, we only have Paul's letters. so it's hard to say where Paul would be. And different letters are going to be in different areas, I think. But even like in Romans 13, you also have Romans 8, where Paul's going to talk about how all creation has been subjected to futility against her will, but had done so in hope. This seems to be subversive because Augustus was known for setting creation free from futility. And they had almost like their version of Olympic games where they celebrated this. She had been set free from the barbarians. She was now on the side of

Rome. And so Lady Earth, Lady Gaia was on their coins with this corn copia. So Gaia's Earth is the personification of earth, but she had been set free from the futility by the Roman king. And here Paul comes and says, no, that's not the truth. Creation is still under futility and she will be set free at the revelation of the sons and daughters of God. But those are not the Romans, but instead those are the Roman Christians. And so even in Romans 13, you're going to have, in Romans, you're going to have a Romans 13 and a Romans 8. And so I would see Paul as being imperial critical. There's some things about Rome that he's going to address, but overall, he is more concerned, maybe the super imperial idea. And so, yeah, I think he's probably more subversive in that. So maybe even a position

between Mark and Revelation. Okay. Okay. Well, all right, let's change topics slightly to Paul and philosophy. So you've spent the last, gosh, well, more than a decade. I mean, started with your PhD, really starting to read like Roman philosophers, right? And seeing a lot of parallels with Paul. And since then, I mean, I think you read more Seneca than you do the Bible these days, but your devotions and wait, wait, you come back and say, what's the difference? So yeah. Why have you taken such an interest in first century-ish philosophy, secular philosophy, and how has that informed your understanding of Paul in particular? Yeah, well, even looking at Pauline studies, there was a time where we looked at Paul and focused on Paul in light of the philosophers, because philosophy was just everywhere, just as we talked about how Roman propaganda was there, so also was philosophy. And we need to understand philosophy different from our world of philosophy, where it's the ivory tower. In the world of philosophy in the

first century surrounding Paul, it was more about moral formation. It was about how to get rid of your lust and your anger. And it involved God. So whereas our philosophy often is going to rule God out or going to be more post-enlightenment, their philosophy included almost religion and our relationship with God and relationship with each other's relationship with the states. And so ancient philosophy was theology and psychology, if you will, to mix those together. But then we realized that, wait a second, we neglected Paul as a Jew. And so E.P. Sanders and company, new perspective on Paul, started saying, wait, we need to understand Paul in light of his Judaism. But what we've learned since is that actually,

we don't separate those two. Philosophy and Judaism was part and parcel. It wasn't like, is Paul a rabbi or is Paul a philosopher? But in the first century, philosophy had influenced so much of Judaism. And it wasn't like philosophy watered down Judaism. It wasn't like Judaism with philosophy was diet Judaism, or Judaism light, or Budweiser zero. It wasn't like that. But instead, the use of philosophy was to buttress and to strengthen their understanding of Judaism. And so Philo would be a great example of that, one of the most prolific Jews surrounding the time of Paul. And so I'm a Pauline guy. And so reading Paul in philosophy makes me realize that Paul was raised in that world.

And Tennyson says that, and Ulysses says Ulysses was a part of all that he met. And so also I felt like Paul was like that when he says, I become all things, all men. This is a very philosophical statement, by the way, when he says that. But Paul was raised in Tarsus. Tarsus was an Ivy League town. It was kind of like a Harvard of the day. Yeah. So when Athens gets sacked by the Romans, the philosophers disperse. Some land in Rome, some land in Alexandria, and the others land in Tarsus, which Paul actually quotes a philosopher from Tarsus in Acts 17 on the area of Gopik at Mars Hill. And so Paul grew up in that world. And it wasn't just that Paul grew up in this Gentile world that's surrounded by philosophy,

but the Judaism that he inherits has that as well. And so it works like four Maccabees, for example, or the Wisdom of Solomon, which is what I studied in Aberdeen with you. These were greatly philosophical. And so Paul had it coming on both sides and his audience being Gentiles are going to be more familiar with philosophy. So that was kind of my first step into it, wanting to see the gospel in full color. And to see it more fully orbed includes looking at the philosophers that had impacted. Can you give me a couple quick examples of kind of maybe insights or parallels or stuff you've read from Roman, Greco-Roman philosophy that have helped you understand

the New Testament better? Yeah, sure. I'll give you two. We'll look at Plato. Plato was kind of like the, who was it? Wordsworth maybe that said, Plato's philosophy and philosophy is Plato.

And the Republic, you can burn all the other books in the world because everything is found in the Republic. And so Plato was kind of like the New Testament of the Greeks during that time. But if you notice in Luke, who's most likely a Gentile author, the centurion doesn't look at Jesus as he dies and says, surely this one was the son of God, like what we see in Matthew and Mark. What does Luke say? Do you remember? Surely this one was... I thought he's son of God, no? No, not in Luke. Oh, not in Luke. Oh, I don't know.

A righteous man. Oh, yeah. So does Luke deny the high Christology? Does he not think that Jesus is the son of God? No, not at all. We see that Luke has a very high Christology. But in Plato, Republic, if Romans is the best letter of Paul, Republic would be the magnum opus of Plato. But in it, Socrates talks about what does righteousness mean and what is just and who would be the righteous man. And it would be one who would be betrayed by his closest friends. He would be handed over to a shameful death, flogged, scourged, and impaled. He would be handed over to a shameful death, flogged, scourged, and impaled. And even while he's doing this, having done nothing wrong, he forgives those who had offended him.

And in Luke, we have two things in particular. One is that rather than centurion saying this was the Son of God, he says this was a righteous man. But two, only in Luke, Jesus looks out and says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And so for Luke, writing to a Gentile audience would be most likely familiar with Plato. This is the one that Plato had prophesied about. And so, yeah, and I think there's layers. I don't think that Luke is just specifically drawing only on Plato. I think there's some Psalms that he's drawing on there as well. But that maybe helped us understand how an audience who grew up during their quiet times in the Republic would have heard this. This is that Phoenix, that one who comes once in a thousand years, who is purely, truly righteous.

You've referenced a couple of times, and I wonder if my audience has questions about this, you know, Luke's version and Matthew's version and stuff. about this, you know, Luke's version and Matthew's version and stuff. I'm in, within biblical scholarship for my audience, you know, there's, we make a distinction between kind of the author's representation of a historical person or event, and then the, you know, what actually happened in history. You know, the Jesus of history is the one who walked 2,000 years ago, then you have the Jesus of faith, and that's the representation of Jesus through inspired scripture. And yeah, so if somebody were to ask, you know, wait, wait a minute. Okay, Luke's version says this and Matthew's version says that. Well, what did the thief on the cross actually,

or what did the soldier actually say? How would you answer that question? I know that's not, for both of us, it's not, I think both of us are more, we like to look at the diversity of scripture, scriptural representation of Christ on a literary level, but what did the soldier actually say? Yeah, just to say that at the very beginning, Luke acknowledges that there's been many who have made reports there. And I think that includes Matthew and Mark. There may be include some oral traditions that are there, but it's not like a secret that there were different versions. And Luke acknowledges those versions and says, I'm coming to give you one more better. It's not that he thinks that those are false either.

He's just building upon those. It's not that he thinks that those are false either. He's just building upon those. And so he's going to give that acrobos, the Greek word that's being used there, that more excellent, more orderly account. So he's basically said, I've read those others, but I've got more to say. And so I think we have one or two different problems with the differences. So like in Mark's gospel, it's not an angel that's at the tomb. It's a, it's a man dressed in white. And then, you know, in one gospel, they come at dark, the other one, they're coming in the day and one gospel, there's like angels all over the place, you know? And so

we see these differences and as evangelicals, for those in your audience that are evangelicals, either we just kind of put them all together. So yeah, there was a man there, and there were angels there, and it was day and it was night. And we had to just kind of compile those into one story. So we don't even know the differences between Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and our early church fathers, they knew these differences, but they didn't shy away from them. They didn't burn the differences. Instead, they embraced that because they realized that the way that these guys were doing history is not the same way that we do history today, post-David Hume and company. So either we just make a

compilation of those and make it into our passion story, or we try to iron out those wrinkles. So it was the centurion said, Jesus Christ, surely this one was a righteous man and the son of God. So he said both of those. And it's possible that that is the case. One of the biggest differences is Judas. In Matthew's gospel, if you remember, he has remorse and he hangs himself. But in Luke's version, when Peter's recounting it in Acts, he's just walking across the field and falls over and his bowels split out. It's like walking dead or something.

And so maybe he hung himself and then he bloated up and fell down in the field of blood. And so that may be a way to bring those together. And I'm not against that necessarily. But I don't think that I think that does an injustice of what each author is trying to present and show us and underline maybe a different facet about the gospel that we miss when we neglect those. Yeah, this is a bigger discussion. I don't mind lingering here because I think it's important. But clearly, the Holy Spirit, who had a hand on in compiling scripture, was very well aware of these kind of differences. And I hesitate, I don't, the word contradiction is a little too strong for me. You know, son of God, right? You know, did the soldiers say son of God? Did he say righteous man? Is it a both and, either or? To me, it's like, those are differences, but contradiction, clearly we know he was both from the, both of those gospels. And so I don't know, that's a are differences, but contradiction, clearly we know he was both from the,

both of those gospels. And so I don't know, that's a little strong, but even the differences though, I mean, the Holy Spirit could have ironed those out. You know, he could have given us one gospel. He could have harmonized everything, you know, and he chose not to. And that's so hard for our, well, you already said it. I mean, our post-Enlightenment, post-David Hume kind of way of looking at history, looking at the facts, you know, that's just not what they did back then. So I'm hearing you saying, at least this is where I'm at. I think we're at the same place. Like, I'm not, you know, what actually happened? It's like, I'm not, we can ask that.

But I think that is a secondary question to how has God chosen to tell us about what happened and he chose to reveal to us these events through diverse representation. And we need to celebrate that diversity and not be scared of it. And I don't think I'm dodging the question. I don't know. I mean, all I know is what the text says and it says both, you know, and I don't know how to reconcile that. Uh, the Judas one's tough. I don't know if you heard, um, Bart Ehrman, um, and Pete Williams. I did hear that one. Yeah. And by the way, congrats on just having on, I listened to your podcast, uh, that on, uh, what is Unbreak No,

what's, what's the word? What's the podcast called? Unbelievable. Oh, unbelievable. Yeah. Oh yeah. That's M. Unbelievable. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's M. Night Shyamalan movie. But yeah, you did a great job on that one. But I did hear Bart and Pete go after it. Yeah, Bart was – I would not want to debate that guy. I mean, Pete's one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. And Bart won some points there, man. Even that one, he was – I actually agree with pete on that like it's

he's kind of saying what we're saying like there are theoretical explanations that could work he did hang himself the rope broke he whatever and bart airman was just riding him though he's like come on yeah he's like that doesn't sound like you're just trying to reconcile this thing out of your theological presupposition. But anyway. And that's it. We've made it about apologetics rather than evangelism. And so the early church, the Holy Spirit was like, oh, no, there's a difference between these two.

But it was an invitation that show us a different facet about the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so when we make it about apologetics rather than about our understanding of Jesus Christ, then we've already lost the battle. Yeah. No, that's good. That's good. All right. Romans 7. When we first met that summer of 2004 in Aberdeen, you were all over Romans 7. I was your, I, I don't know if you read anything else besides Romans seven. That's all you can talk. And I was actually excited because everything you're saying is kind of, you've done way more research than I had at that point. But just from my kind of surface reading of it, I was like, yeah, I think that's what's

going on there too. So is Paul in Romans 7 talking about a believer, like him as a believer or him as an unbeliever, or is that even the right question to ask? Yeah, I am wholly passionately against Paul looking at Romans 7 as the normative Christian life. I'm talking about his post-conversion life. I think, let me say that. As passionate as I am that Paul is not talking about the normative Christian life, I do believe that Christians struggle with sin.

But what Paul is talking about in Romans 7 is not that struggle. I know the flesh goes against the spirit and the spirit goes against the flesh. So you don't give in to the flesh like you would like. I know, as Peter says, as aliens and strangers in this world, we have to fight against the simple desires that wage war against us. And so there is a battle that goes on, but that's not what Romans 7 is talking about.

And so it brings us back to that apocalyptic versus kind of the Reformation reading of Romans as well, whereas in the apocalyptic idea that the grace of God doesn't just forgive us of sin, but the grace of God is God's power to help us overcome our sin. And what we see in Romans 7 is not a struggle with sin, but instead a total defeat by sin. I'm a slave to sin. The things I want to do, I cannot do. I'm a wretch. There's nothing good in me. And we know in Romans 7 that there's nothing about – you don't see the word Holy Spirit in Romans 7. And so really Romans 8 is the picture of what we

see the normative Christian life is. Now for us, there's no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of spirit and life of Christ Jesus has set me free from what we saw in Romans chapter 7. And so, yeah, I think there's just so much implications. If we think that we're going to be defeated by sin, then we're already defeated by sin. And it's just remarkable to me that as for evangelicals, we can do all things through Christ, except the very thing that he's come to make us do, to live in freedom from that. And so it's like, but yeah, I mean, I can go into the weeds and argue all of that. But Romans 7.1 is really key to me. He says, now I'm speaking to those of you who know the law.

And so we have to put Romans 7 in context, and we put it in context. It's about the law, those under the law, not about Gentile Christians living according to the Spirit. Well, that's where I think people, and no offense to those of you who believe in the wrong interpretation of Romans 7, that it is talking about a believer. No offense. I'm just messing with you guys. I just lost some supporters with that one. No, I mean, the question, we can look at a couple of weeds. I mean, the question comes up where this Roman 7 figure, Paul says, well, the law is good and holy and just, and I want to do what's right. And people say, well, what non-believer would say that? I'm like,

every single first century Jew would say the law is good and holy and just. That's why they existed. Their raison d'etre was the law and to try to do what was good. But Paul's whole theology is built around this idea that you cannot do that without the power of the Holy Spirit. theology is built around this idea that you cannot do that without the power of the Holy Spirit. That would be my one thing. Number two, if you read Romans, what is it? 7, 16 is what we're talking about. 16 to 25, right? Yeah. I would start at nine. Oh, no. Right, right. Okay. With the, okay. Romans 7, 9, if you read all the way through chapter eight, verse 11, and don't separate those chapters clearly, clearly, clearly. We're not supposed to say that, right? Like it's so clear. It's like clear to you.

No, it's just clear that the Christian figure in Romans eight, what he says about the Christian in Romans eight, which is not, that's not disputed, is directly contrasting with what he said about the person in the latter half of Romans 7. The person, the problem with the Roman 7 person is he doesn't have the Holy Spirit. And that's why, you know, the Spirit had to come. The first person, you know, in first person, the present tense, you know, I'm trying to do this, I'm trying to do that. Is it valid to say, cause that's a major argument for saying that Paul's speaking of his current state as a believer, um, first person, present tense, but that is it valid to say that that's just a literary device. I mean, is that what it totally valid as we get back to

philosophy, the prosopopoia, the impersonation was very common, especially to show grief and anxiety. And so we look at that from the philosophical background, but also all of the early church fathers took this as an impersonation. And so even at the end, which is one of the biggest arguments where Paul seems to come out of the mask and say, but thanks be to God through Jesus Christ who's rescued me from this. And so, yeah, it wasn't until Augustine that we begin to have this idea that maybe this is Paul talking about himself. But even Augustine, so I went back, I got a grant to go to SMU, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and got to go back and look at Augustine's original writings from his original text. I got to go back and look at Augustine's original writings from his original text. And Augustine still follows on the same – he still falls on the same line as John Wesley with respect to – so Augustine is actually reading the Latin rather than the Greek. And so for him, it's that we just can't live perfectly, not that we are defeated by sin. And so the I, according to Augustine, is Paul saying, ah, I just can't be perfect, but I still don't give in to my sin, Augustine says.

I face the temptation of the sin. And so it's really interesting. But Augustine's the one who kind of rings that bell to say that this is Paul talking about himself. Okay, interesting. Christianity today, would it be accurate to say that most actual biblical scholars would agree with everything we're saying? But in pop Christianity in America, at least I can't speak to the global church, in pop Christianity, it's just so common to assume that Paul's talking about his current experience as a Christian. But would it be accurate? I mean, is it like 50%, 70%, 90% in your estimate of biblical scholars who have written comment, like who have really dug in this passage would say, Paul is not talking about a believer here.

Would that be accurate? Yeah, off the cuff. And I'm a Baptist, I'm really bad at counting, but I would say 90% of Pauline scholars are going to take Romans 7 as not Paul talking about his current Christian life. Some are going to say that this is Paul looking back on his pre-Christian experience like Douglas Moo. And a lot of them are going to say that this is kind of that impersonation.

Paul's just giving us a picture of a first century Jew who's still kind of struggling with that. Some are going to say, like if I remember Jason Mastin's volume, that it's not even talking about the eye. We were all about who is the eye, who is the eye, and really it's this exoneration of the law. And so Paul's not – he doesn't have anyone behind the eye in mind, but instead he's walking us through the understanding why God gave the law in the first place. And so, yeah. That makes, yeah. 90% maybe, maybe too much, but a vast majority of modern,

contemporary New Testament scholars, I think are going to see this as not post-conversion Paul, but then what they argue beyond that is going to be more diverse. What would you say is the best argument for seeing Romans 7 as talking about Paul as a believer or a believer? You don't see any good arguments? Maybe. Well, it's interesting. So we've gotten into synoptic problem. Now we get into textual criticism. But there at Romans 1, 8, 1 and 2, textual criticism. But there at Romans 1, 8, 1 and 2, therefore, there's no condemnation for those who have been Christ Jesus, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set, there's

a textual variant there, has set me free or has set you free. And the you is not the great Arkansas, Texas word y'all, but it's you singular. And so whichever one of those we go to is important, singular. And so whichever one of those we go to is important, because it could be Paul saying, has set me free. And there you have continuity between him and Romans 7. Or it could be set, se, if you remember the Greek, you individual free, where there's that distinction of that. But yeah, I don't know that. Again, I don't know the best argument for it. Maybe go on in Romans 8 where he's going to say that the believer is no longer obligated to fulfill the desires of the sinful nature. But he will talk about how the body is still dead to sin, but the life is righteous. So maybe there is that Romans 8 versus that like 11, maybe that he kind of goes back and says that the body is dead to sin. And so that seems to resonate back to what we have in Romans 7.

But Bruce Langenegger has a book on chain link link transitions, a really sexy title. Right. And he actually shows how you're going to have a, what he calls a big A, little A, little B, big B. And so it'd be like, big A would be the Yankees. And then you would say something really small about the Dodgers. You'd come back and say something small about the Yankees again. And then from there, it'd be something big about the Dodgers. This is a common way to write, to transition. And he shows it not to Romans 7. He shows it all throughout the New Testament. And he sees that's what's happening. Romans 7 is the big A, the Yankees. And then he's going to come and say, but thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, a little bitty A, I'm sorry, a little bitty B. And then he's going to come back and say, but I'm a slave at the end of Romans 725.

And then we get the big A, sorry, the big B, which is life according to the spirit. And so even that even helps with that transition. But that's a scholarly monograph ivory tower that hasn't been disseminated to us yet. You know, the only time I had an online exchange of john piper was over this issue i remember yeah i remember that dude i was so stoked so yeah i was at a conference and he was talking about romans it wasn't even a main point he was making but he kind of went into it a little bit and gave three reasons why it's talking about a believer and i was like oh come on like how can you not see this man you're a bible scholar or used to be or whatever. But, um, so I wrote a blog and then

he responded to it. I was so tickled that he responded to it. I forgot that I was actually disagreeing with him. So I responded to his response. And anyway, yeah. Not that I love John Piper less. I love Preston Sprinkle more. You know, Piper's going to follow the Reformed reading of that. And Luther and Calvin are going to follow Augustine with this. And so that is predominant among the pulpit, especially in Reformed circles. So is that what happened? Since Calvin and Luther took this as a believer?

I mean, pretty much that's going to lay the foundation for Protestantism in the wake of that. It's interesting that Luther had such a beautiful view of grace, but the grace of God doesn't have the power to help us overcome sin. And so despite Luther's underlining grace alone, he doesn't extend it. And so grace and righteousness become just the status that we have received rather than actually helping us fulfill the righteous requirement of the law. Do you think it's a clear case of people assuming a certain lived experience and taking that back to the text? Because again, who hasn't read it as a believer at one? You look at it, I'm like, yep, I feel that. one, you know, that's just a now you look at it. I'm like, yep, I feel that. Um, but just textually,

when you start looking at what Paul does, even the way he sets up the passage, I don't have a Bible in front of me in Romans seven, is it five and six where it's like, verse five is basically a summary of the rest of seven. And the verse six is a summary of Romans eight, one to 11 or one to 13. So he's even setting it up like here's this one, you know, trying to gain freedom and righteousness through the law apart from the spirit and then trying to do it with the spirit, believer, non-believer. So, yeah, I don't know. I don't have textual love, but yeah, I mean, it just seems that when I hear people talk about it as a believer,

it's their first main argument is usually like, well, I feel like I'm looking into a mirror, you know? Yeah. But I don't know. Which I think Augustine, who originally rings his bell, I think he has some eisegesis there, but he's also using this in a debate against Pelagius. So it's not like he's methodically sitting

and trying to exegete this passage. He is using it polemically against Pelagius. And so we need to take that into account as well. But one thing that I'd like to say with this is that I don't want to come across as having the swagger and I've got it all figured out. I don't want to make light of our struggle with sin and that temptation. That is there, that is in Scripture. But I do want to give more hope. I feel like we often identify more with the first Adam than we do our second Adam. And we look at verses like Romans 7, and we make those that are controversial. We put those at the center of what defines us, rather than like what we see in Titus, where Paul says, the grace of God showed up to teach us to say, oh, heck no. Or as we would

say in Arkansas, where I grew up, heck to the no, no, to the no, no, no. Say no to sin and its desires, but yeah, to righteousness and self-control. And so it's interesting that I don't want to move away from the fruits of spirit being love, joy, and peace and patience and kindness and goodness. But sometimes we do all those, and then when it comes to self-control, we're like, it's self-control. kindness and goodness, but sometimes we do all those. And then when it comes to self-control, we're like, self-control. And so, yeah, self-control, maybe even be the climax of the fruits of the spirit, the fruit of the spirit. I still have a hard time. And I even heard going back to Piper, Piper say,

I think somebody asked him like, what's the one thing, the main thing that causes you to kind of question the veracity of scripture? It's a great question. And I think he said really quickly and confidently, he said, it's that the Bible consistently talks about the transformative work of the Spirit. And yet when I look around at the church or even my own life, you know, I don't see that, that kind of like radical transfer, kind of like you said, like it empowers us to obey and this, that, then you look at how

many percentage of Christians are just battling an addiction to porn or substance or greed or wealth addiction, just so much stuff that just seems like, man, the find that Christian who's just living in complete freedom and victory and transformation just seems like it's more the more rarity than the norm you know and and yeah that's been one of my biggest struggles too when i read verses on the transforming power of the spirit like man what i've gone through seasons where i felt like dude i'm rocking it you know but mostly it's like, dude, if I can make it through the day and still be a Christian, just, um, you know, yeah, I don't know. That's wisdom on that pastor. Yeah. Well, I mean, again, I don't, I don't have it all together. Um, you know, forgetting what is behind that press on. So don't make it sound like I've got a swagger when I come through here.

My, my tone needs to be humble with this, but it's interesting that in Romans 7, it's I, I, I, I, I. And we get to Romans 8, it's we, we, we, we, we. And so I don't think transformation is individual. R-S-S-S-S. I think it has to be corporate. And so to bring John Wesley back, we have to have that accountability. We have to have that community. And even in the church, you know, formation wasn't

individual. It was corporal. And so I think one reason we don't have the transformation power is that we're still trying to do it on I, I, I, rather than the we, we, we, having that accountability, that fellowship, the Galatians 6, restoring the person who's caught in the trespasses. I think we're missing out on that community aspect and what the church is doing. So we preach a great gospel. We have the great theology, but we don't really have the checks and balances. So even in Galatians where Paul, I would send people to Galatians 5 more than Romans 7 with respect to the struggle of sin. So walk by the power of the spirit and you will not ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever fulfill desires of a sinful nature. And then he goes on, he acknowledges that there's a struggle. But he ends up saying, those who belong to Christ

have crucified their flesh along with its passions and desires. And I can't crucify myself. I need you, Preston, to come and put the other nail in the hand, even if I did have the power to do one of these. And going back to Centurion, to bring it all together, in the Roman Empire, they would always put a soldier at the bottom of the cross. And the job of that soldier was to make sure that whoever was on that cross didn't come down until they were dead. And we crawl up on the cross all the time. But who do you have stationed at the bottom of your cross and say, no, Preston, you're not coming down until that pride is dead? Who do you have stationed at your bottom of your cross to make sure that that anger or

selfish ambition or vainglory or lust has been rooted out? And we don't have that in our churches as much today. So I don't blame you. I don't blame the power of the Spirit. I blame the lack of unity. So many people in our churches today, we have friends, but we don't have friendship. And we don't have that person at the bottom of our cross. So we're relying on kind of individual devotions, once a week, sermons, some, maybe some level of fellowship, but that robust, authentic, deep, nitty gritty, messy community, life on life that you see all over the place in the new testament where you

literally are calling people brother and sister and meaning it um it's not just a phrase like that that's an ecclesiological problem but that also plays into our problem with sanctification i mean that's we're trying to it's like we're putting um really bad gasoline in a car and expecting it to drive like a wait i started that analogy is that gonna yeah i guess it'll work you get the point you ever do that you start one off the top of your head you think it's gonna be just a game changer and you're like um yeah but yeah you put really old bad you know octane i don know, 80 or something in your engine. And, you know, and we just tell, yeah, we, yeah, man, that's good. That's power. It's sad.

It's what the hard thing is, is as an individual, I can create individual stuff. I could read more, pray more, whatever. But like, I can't create authentic community. Right. I mean, by definition, that's other people pouring into you and and being part of a group or whatever network that or a church that, you know, is also doing that. That's that's tough, man. You got a sweet church. You want to give a shout out to your church? Yeah, I actually go to two churches. I have sweet churches. So I go to a charismatic Anglican church called Wellspring in Englewood.

And the liturgy is amazing. And the spirit of God is just palpable. It's fantastic. But there's no ethnic diversity. And so, as you know, I really have a passion that the gospel is not just vertical, but it's also to tear down the walls of racism. And so we go to Colorado Community Church as well on Saturday nights where it's multi-ethnic, multicultural,

and just a beautiful event. And so I kind of have both of those worlds. Having a son that's African-American, we want him to look up and see people in leadership on the stage that look like him as well. And so, yeah, but both of them are fantastic, amazing preachers and amazing services. And so, yeah, we have an embarrassment of riches right now with respect to church. Maybe that's what we need to do, go to several churches to kind of piece together the kind of rich, authentic community that... You're not advocating that. Yeah, so...

Well, dude, thanks so much for being on Theology Unraw again. I got to have you on again periodically. So best of luck to you, bro. And yeah, man, we'll be in touch. Thanks for your insight on all the stuff we talked about, uh, best of luck to you, bro. And yeah, man, we'll be in touch. Thanks for your insight on all the stuff we talked about. All right, man. Love you, dude. Peace. you