[15 Διὰ τοῦτο κἀγὼ, ἀκούσας τὴν καθ’ ὑμᾶς πίστιν ἐν τῷ κυρίῳ Ἰησοῦ καὶ τὴν ἀγάπην τὴν εἰς πάντας τοὺς ἁγίους, 16 οὐ παύομαι εὐχαριστῶν ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν μνείαν ποιούμενος ἐπὶ τῶν προσευχῶν μου, 17 ἵνα ὁ θεὸς τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὁ πατὴρ τῆς δόξης, δώῃ ὑμῖν πνεῦμα σοφίας καὶ ἀποκαλύψεως ἐν ἐπιγνώσει αὐτοῦ, 18 πεφωτισμένους τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς τῆς καρδίας ὑμῶν, εἰς τὸ εἰδέναι ὑμᾶς τίς ἐστιν ἡ ἐλπὶς τῆς κλήσεως αὐτοῦ, τίς ὁ πλοῦτος τῆς δόξης τῆς κληρονομίας αὐτοῦ ἐν τοῖς ἁγίοις, 19 καὶ τί τὸ ὑπερβάλλον μέγεθος τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ εἰς ἡμᾶς τοὺς πιστεύοντας κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν τοῦ κράτους τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ 20 ἣν ἐνήργηκεν ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ ἐγείρας αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν, καὶ καθίσας ἐν δεξιᾷ αὐτοῦ ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις 21 ὑπεράνω πάσης ἀρχῆς καὶ ἐξουσίας καὶ δυνάμεως καὶ κυριότητος καὶ παντὸς ὀνόματος ὀνομαζομένου οὐ μόνον ἐν τῷ αἰῶνι τούτῳ ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν τῷ μέλλοντι· 22 καὶ πάντα ὑπέταξεν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ, καὶ αὐτὸν ἔδωκεν κεφαλὴν ὑπὲρ πάντα τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ, 23 ἥτις ἐστὶν τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ, τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ τὰ πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν πληρουμένου.]
15 Therefore, since I learned about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers—17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation to know him, 18 the illumination of the eyes of your heart so that you know what is the hope that is given to you through his call, what is the abundance of the glory of his inheritance for his saints, 19 and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe in the exercise of the power of his strength.
20 He exercised this in Christ when he raised him from the dead and placed him at his right hand in the heavenly world: 21 over all origins and authorities and powers and dominions and over everything that can be named, not only in this world but also in the world to come; 22 and he placed everything at his feet and made him the head of everything in the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
With the reminder of what has been given to Christians, Paul ends by letting his readers know that he prays for them, that what has already been given might be given to them afresh and even more abundantly. Because of God’s blessing upon them, which he knows about from reports about them, he and they are bound together in community through God. For this reason, he prays for them continuously. The solidarity that unites them is not fortuitous but essential, not temporary but permanent. Once you have discovered the apex of life, which is εἰς ἔπαινον τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ, you are reckoning with the bond that truly unites people, regardless of how tight or loose it may be in other respects.163 Paul gives thanks for his readers—for all that they are and all that they have received—then immediately segues from thanksgiving to intercession (εὐχαριστῶν and μνείαν ποιούμενος occur in parallel!). If we look carefully at how he prays for them, it is striking that he does not pray for an increase of what they already have and already are. No, he goes right back to the beginning164 and prays that they may have the Spirit and knowledge, as if he had not already explained at length they are Christians by virtue of how they have already been blessed. He does not take back or qualify anything he has said. It is not as if the blessing is incomplete. No, it is complete. It is given by God. Not a single thing is lacking. But as soon as he turns his attention to his readers and to himself, he reminds himself and them that he has been speaking about the blessing of God. As the blessing of God, it is completely new each new moment; its existence is not static. Indeed, nothing exists in and of itself165—“spiritualium bonorum satietate nihil periculosius” (Calvin).166 There [where it is a matter of receiving God’s blessing], the human creature stands before God empty-handed, poor, needy, and completely dependent upon God. There, he must pray. In the natural world, things simply grow. In the human realm, projects develop. In both cases, prayer does not come into consideration. Prayer does come into consideration, however, when the subject is our relation to God and to the εὐλογία πνευματική. For this blessing and this relation, we must return continually to the source and origin. This origin does not exist in the world or within time. Rather, the world, including time, is the veil, which conceals it. This veil must be rent repeatedly. The human creature must repeatedly call upon God as God.167 Any truth that is not new does not qualify as God’s truth. Likewise, when redemption ceases to be an object of hope and becomes something we possess or consume, it is no longer redemption. When the Spirit ceases to be the Spirit of promise and becomes something that we possess, even if it is our greatest possession, then it is no longer the Holy Spirit. That is the reason for this transition to intercession. Paul, the warrior for God,168 emerges here. A new day has dawned. Yesterday’s discovery must be sought anew today. Yesterday’s rich are today’s poor, and only as the poor will they become rich again. We have not reached the end of the pilgrimage; no goal or stage of an ordo salutis169 has already happened; no presupposition for human existence is automatically predetermined. Here, we must confront the unvarnished truth anew in all of its complexity. Therefore, his prayer is: ἵνα ὁ θεὸς . . . δώῃ ὑμῖν. God must give all! The presupposition of the prayer and the prayer itself is that what is true may become true; that God’s name, which is truly holy in itself, may be hallowed; that his eternal unchanging will may be done; that his kingdom, which is above all kingdoms, may come [cf. Matt. 6:9; Luke 11:2]. If we consider it redundant to pray for the hallowing of his name, the coming of his kingdom, and doing of his will—if we regard his name, kingdom, and will as no more than the evolution, extension, or continuation of what already exists—then obviously we do not know what we are saying when we say “God.” And to know what we are saying when we say “God” can only be learned. Apart from this knowledge, we cannot pray. And we must pray in order to receive this knowledge.
This insight evokes Paul’s prayer, and he prays that he and his readers may have this insight. Yesterday and today, riches and poverty, gaining or losing the one thing needful [cf. Luke 10:42] join as one in a dynamic movement that encompasses170 the person when he discovers how he is related to God. And Paul prays for the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation to know him. He could not pray for them to receive the Spirit of wisdom and revelation if they did not already have it. But precisely because he does already have it and has complete confidence that his readers have it as well, he prays as if he did not have such a Spirit of wisdom and revelation. Σοφία refers to the divine dimension of the Spirit of wisdom and revelation; ἀποκάλυψις refers to same reality made accessible to us. Together, they constitute the knowledge of God.
“The enlightening of your eyes” is what he hopes for his readers. Apparently, Paul is using an expression that his readers would recognize from the mysticism of the period. And why not? The subject matter itself precludes any suggestion of new form of mysticism, even though he uses such vocabulary. Luther also traded on the mysticism of his time. Mystical thinking pervades Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece. There is no reason why God’s truth could not be the focal point of mysticism, pagan or Christian. In any event, the mystic’s vocabulary expresses exactly what Paul has in mind here: their inner eyes must be opened; they must be given eyes for what no eye has seen; they must perceive the imperceptible. By means of their God-given faith and love, which he praised earlier, they must look beyond what they already have in order to catch sight of the object of their faith.171 Paul says this not as if they lack these eyes, this insight, and this capacity but equally not as if this possibility were somehow already realized. The realization of this possibility must always be the subject of prayer. Paul prays that they may know “the hope that is given to you through his call.” They have received God’s call. It constitutes their situation, their status, and their post—no more and no less. God’s blessing is the great opportunity that has been given to them. Because of this opportunity, a new day has dawned. Presently, it remains an opportunity. They must grasp the ἐλπὶς τῆς κλήσεως, which comes with their position and recognizes their situation for what it is so that their opportunity may become a fruitful reality.
In the second half of verse 18 and in verse 19, Paul develops this idea on two fronts. He says, first, that they need to fully appreciate what they may hope for: the riches of the glory of his inheritance among his saints. In other words, it is essential to learn the full extent of what they can expect from God. Second, it is essential to notice how they truly are permitted to hope for it (v. 19), in other words, how fully they can expect what is promised. Paul uses such a profusion of phrases to express this hope that he nearly becomes tongue-tied: to hope in God is a mighty act, an act ordained by God. “When God creates faith in a person, it is a work that rivals the re-creation of heaven and earth. . . . Wherever God brings about faith, there is necessarily a new birth and a new creation” (Luther). That is the magnitude of the ἐνέργεια, the action of God that appears on the scene. Is that something that we already know? We know it on the basis of Christ’s resurrection and ascent into heaven.
Feb. 16, 1922
Verses 20–21 are best understood as the answers to each of the questions that Paul poses in verses 18–19: What is the hope which you have been given (v. 18)? This first question is further developed in two subsequent questions in verses 18–19: What are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints? What is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe? Paul prays that his readers will have revelation and knowledge so that the eyes of their hearts will be opened that they will be able to understand and to hope and thereby to have an answer to this question: What? This for Paul is the heart of the matter and the enigma of their existence as Christians. What does it mean that we are blessed by God? What do we mean when we invoke God’s name upon our existence as Paul does? What is given to those who have faith in the Lord Jesus and love for all the saints (v. 15)? What kind of power exerts its influence on Christians?
I have already pointed out how the same question appears at the end of 1 Corinthians, the well-known chapter on the resurrection, at the culmination of Paul’s critically important controversy with the congregation in Corinth. The question of faith or doubt concerning the resurrection is not simply one religious or dogmatic question among others—that becomes clear in my opinion by the way Paul treats the matter in 1 Corinthians 15—rather, it is the question about the “essence of Christianity,” to use the modern expression. This question about the essence of Christianity arises out of the question about the meaning of a believer’s Christian existence. If we answer this question glibly or haphazardly, without proper regard for the historical distance, then we consider the essence of Christianity as amounting to its essential insignificance, to use Overbeck’s expression.172 Paul answers this question here, as in 1 Corinthians, by appealing to the resurrection. Indeed, he answers it by posing a new question—in fact, the new question. The more we emphasize the singularity of the question, the more accurately we represent what Paul is trying to say here. Glib or garrulous he certainly is not. Mouth-stopping would be more accurate—in the sense that he does not give what we consider to be an answer (any answer we can give to this question would definitely be glib). Rather, in the place of our penultimate question, he poses the ultimate question about the enigma of our existence in relation to God. If we see the answer there—in the resurrection!—in the new question, which is truly the final, ultimate question for us, then we understand the meaning of our Christian existence and the essence of Christianity as a historic phenomenon, according to Paul. In our passage, Paul gives the answer, or poses this new question, by means of three statements: (1) God raised Christ from the dead; (2) God has established him at his right hand; (3) God has made him head of the church. Such is the ἐνέργεια, the action of God and by analogy (κατά, v. 19) our own Christian existence. That is the meaning of the hope given to Christians by virtue of their calling. Paul prays that they may comprehend the meaning of their hope—as if comprehending it for the first time—because who is in a position to say that he already knows it?
When Paul speaks, first, of the resurrection of Christ from the dead, he means an event, but an event that is more nearly impossible and unhistorical than historical. He means the impossible event κατ’ ἐξοχήν.173 Let me put this even more precisely. Undoubtedly, Paul means an event, an occurrence. For Paul, the resurrection of Christ from the dead is an event occurring within history. It makes contact with what is possible, historic, and temporal; to that extent it is itself a historically possible and temporal event. He means an event that takes place precisely at the boundary between what is possible and what is impossible, what is historical and what is unhistorical, time and eternity. Eternity is related to time the way that the present exists between past and future because only the present is part of both time past and time in the future. And eternity is not in time, as present is not in time between past and future, because this time-constitutive point is never between past and future.174 The resurrection of Christ from the dead is eternity. Eternity is God’s present moment in time. Here, the answer is the question, and the question the answer.175 Paul directs his readers’ attention to this point in time as the basis of their Christian existence. Moreover, this point constitutes the essence of Christianity. Paul regards it as given in Jesus Christ. It is given in history, therefore not as something other than history, removed from history, in addition to history, or beyond history—not as a Platonic idea, as popularly conceived. It is given as an idea in the fullest sense, that is, as the idea or conception of God, therefore as the origin of all origins, the inaccessible in the immediate, the wholly other in the human, the beyond in this life. But note: it is given as an event in history, as the other side of this world, as an event that is in history but not of it—not a mere object of history but history’s fundamental origin and absolute boundary. This boundary and origin are of a different order than anything that can be explained on the basis of history or examined within the established order of knowledge, even the most extraordinary and unprecedented event. For Paul and all of early Christianity, this point occurs beyond Jesus Christ’s own history as well—namely, after his death.
The categories of life and death that Paul uses to describe this point in space and time are absolute categories, and I shall follow his lead. If Christ is in fact raised from the dead, then resurrection life is the new life of God himself, absolutely and categorically different from any other kind of life. If we think we understand it on the basis of human categories of knowledge, we can be sure that we have mistaken something else for the resurrection. To interpret it by human standards is to misinterpret it. Understandably, even early Christianity could only stutter when attempting to describe it. How could anyone find words for this event? Obviously, their attempts to describe it are contradictory and mutually exclusive. What human standard is adequate to measure this event? Subsequent attempts to conceive of this inconceivable occurrence have only proved how fundamentally inconceivable it is. The idea of finding the most plausible or convincing version from this welter of reconstructions is vain, in my estimation. Suppose we estimate the degree of accuracy of the most accurate reconstruction of the event, say the Pauline account, compared to others to be 1,000 to 1. Well then the degree of accuracy of even this most accurate reconstruction of the event, compared to the event itself, is 1,000 to infinity.176 The reality is that the resurrected one appeared. The disciples found an answer to the forbidden [?] question on the other side of Good Friday. They encountered life where human eyes could detect only death. This is the absolutely implausible, improbable reality that must be reckoned with and that Paul did reckon with before its implausibility and improbability had been explained away and trivialized by appeal to experience. For Paul, there is no other plausibility and credibility than the plausibility and credibility of God.
The moment you speak about the revivifying of a body that was crucified and placed in a grave or about the appearance of the transfigured Lord, about a miracle and about a vision, you necessarily speak about God; and when you speak about God, the meaning of “miracle” and of “vision” are dissolved and reconstituted because the miracle that witnesses to God’s reality is not one miracle among many but the miracle, nonpareil. The vision or perception of God is not one among others but the unique, incomparable vision. In any event, anyone who wants to account for this reality by appeal to experience should proceed with caution. The reality that Paul describes here is not experienced the way we experience anything else. It would be far more faithful to Paul to say that we do not experience it at all.
We should welcome the fact that historical-critical research reveals the contradictions among the various accounts and interpretations of the resurrection and the fact that they are mutually exclusive and set us on a collision course with our modern worldview and with every conceivable worldview, offending even those who seek wonders, love visions, and crave experience. Historical research reveals just how improbable, implausible, and historically impossible the event is. We would be more grateful if historical-critical research were more aware—and made us more aware—that even the most plausible reconstruction is only the most probable account of the improbable. It would be better if critical research did not make a last-minute treaty that overlooks these contradictions, enabling pastors to speak glibly about the resurrection as if they somehow knew what the word means. Here, the less we rely on historically plausible reconstructions, the better and more appropriate. Here, everything that is historically certain makes for uncertainty and leads away from revelation and faith, not toward them. Such an approach suggests that God’s word fails at the very point where he intends to vouch for himself. Whoever thinks that he knows is precisely the person who does not know.177 Whoever tries to explain the resurrection by appeal to analogies—whether from the history of religions, nature, the occult, or personal experience—only proves that he does not understand what Paul means by the resurrection. Paul is more liberal than the liberals and more trusting than the faithful. When he says “death,” he means death. When he says “life,” he means life. And in both cases, he means the whole—he means God. Everything that we consider to be “life” expires at death, and everything we consider to be “death” expires in the face of life. The step from one to the other, this unheard of step, which we could never take, the step that is the death of our life and the life of our death, is what Paul means by “resurrection.” Clearly, he means a bodily resurrection because death is the death of the body, and the life that vanquishes death is also the life of the body. To speak of time is to speak of the body, and to speak of eternity in time is to speak about the resurrection of the body. Physical existence is material existence. Without material existence, there is no individual; without an individual, without a subject, there is no relation to God. Here, everything depends on interpreting the individual’s relationship with God and God’s relationship with the individual in strictly realistic terms. This applies equally to the reality of God’s present moment in time.
Consequently, everything depends on recognizing the divergence between our interpretation of God’s present moment and the reality itself. Everything depends on recognizing the final, comprehensive, radical answer and realizing that for us the answer is a question and no more. Paul regarded the resurrection as the point in history that assured his readers of the extent of the hope granted to them through God’s call and the nature of their Christian existence. Above all, it is for him the true meaning of the historic appearance of Jesus Christ; it is the absolute and unique meaning. For him, everything in Christ’s appearance is understood on the basis of the crucifixion. Therefore he preaches Christ crucified and him alone; everything else that needs to be said about Christ can be summed up and included in this single event. If we ask what the crucifixion signifies, Paul would say (from God’s point of view): resurrection, eternity, God’s absolute present, the coexistence of the living and the dead, the eternal in the temporal, the imperishable with the perishable. And if we ask how we access this point, we are driven back to the unanswerable question, which could never be our question if it were not an answer in the form of a question, as is the case in Christ. It can be our question only as we perceive it in the light of Christ.
Second, Paul refers to Christ’s session at the right hand of God. This is a second iteration of the resurrection event. It is the riddle of his rising from the dead, but viewed positively from God’s realm. Christ is risen and now is seated at God’s right hand. Is this “only a picture”? Certainly not! For Paul, God’s right hand, meaning God’s power, is as real and as vivid as anything he could envision. The movement from death to God’s right hand occurs through the resurrection so that Christ now stands facing us as the transcendent and wholly other. The point that he occupies is transcendent, eternal, divine, and therefore ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις, in heaven. But this must be formulated precisely. There is a conception of the beyond or of heaven that is merely a superior version of life in this world. That is the only way that we can conceive of the heavenly realm apart from the reality of Christ. Absent Christ’s reality, we can conceive of the heavenly only as the antithesis of human reality. By this account, he would be the elevated man. Our relationship with him would not be absolute. Our hope in him would not be total. The ground of our faith would not be unassailable. Therefore ὑπεράνω πάσης . . . means above everything that we can name, over every particular. The one who determines all things is not determined by them. The origin is not bound by cause and effect [causa]. His name is above all names [Phil. 2:9]. His rule is above every rule [v. 21]. Οὐ μόνον . . . , even the new aeon is a second-order reality; it transcends this world but is not ultimate reality. The point to which Paul witnesses stands beyond all transcendent realities. It is the absolutely transcendent. And for precisely this reason, it is God’s immanence: πάντα ὑπέταξεν . . . In Christ, the world is a unity. Therein lies our hope. This unity overcomes the antitheses that presently determine our thinking and existence; it is the unity of heaven and earth. The point where Paul directs our attention is the power of God. It is the positive meaning of the resurrection: death is swallowed up in life just as life as we know it is swallowed up by death. But notice carefully: the world here is understood as a conquered realm. Divine sovereignty is predicated upon the resurrection. Unity depends on dissolution. The answer depends on the question. Paul reminds his readers that God accomplishes it all, and that in Christ God accomplishes it. This is the hope of their calling. To remember God’s sovereignty is to remember the cross. The reality of God is the pathway—which is no pathway—to understanding what is disclosed here.
Third, Paul refers to Christ’s enthronement: God established Christ as the head of the church. The extraordinary distinguishing mark of the Christian existence of believers is that the one who is risen and seated at God’s right hand is their head. The “head over all” is their head. God in his majesty is their God. The eternal origin is their beginning. The mystery of the incarnation is their mystery. (1) They are his σῶμα, which means that in their diversity they are one in him. He is the divine meaning of their various individual identities, the unity in their diversity, the one unique individual who constitutes their individuality as Christians. (2) They are his πλήρωμα, the filling up of the empty form, which he signifies, in contrast to all that is human and the true fulfillment of all that is human. Their life is hidden with him in God (Col. 3:3). Paul reminds them of this hiddenness-with-Christ-in-God. That is the hope of their calling. Because they are in Christ, because they are the ἐκκλησία, called together by him, they are truly the object of God’s blessing. Will they become what they truly are?178
A great divine Forward! into time, history, and humanity is announced and resounds here. That Forward! is Christ. But what does “Christ” mean? It means that God alone truly lives. Life as we know it is swallowed up by death (v. 20); it is one thing after another (vv. 20–21); it is our life in isolation (v. 23). Life itself must be found. And in Christ it has been found. But finding it in Christ is the issue for us. So let us be at peace with this Forward! which is no peace. To desire the unity of peace and unrest simply indicates that we do not understand either.179