The Church as Spiritual Israel (3): Israel kata sarka, Spiritual Circumcision, and Inward Jewishness

The previous article looked at Paul's Letter to the Galatians, which deals with the interface between the Church and Judaism as its primary focus. By contrast, Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth does not deal with matters pertaining to the Jews or the Jewish laws at any length. Nevertheless, there is a passage within the letter that uses a phrase—albeit only in passing—that is highly significant for the subject of "The Church as Spiritual Israel."

1 Corinthians 10:18: Israel kata sarka

In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul alludes to some of the events that befell ancient Israel as recorded in the Pentateuch, citing them as moral examples: "These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come" (v. 11).¹ In verse 18, having moved on from the historical examples to the subject of idolatry, Paul poses a question: "Consider Israel according to the flesh (kata sarka); are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar?"² That Paul uses the present tense here (in contrast to past tense in the biblical allusions in the preceding verses) suggests that he may be referring to the current sacrificial system practiced in Jerusalem.³ What then does he mean by "Israel according to the flesh"? 

The Greek expression kata sarka occurs twenty times in the New Testament, all in the Pauline corpus.⁴ In some instances the phrase has a negative moral connotation, as in Romans 8:4-13, where Paul warns his readers not to live kata sarka. In other cases, the phrase has no negative connotation, as in Romans 1:3, where Paul declares that God's Son is of David's seed kata sarka. However, in virtually every case, there is an explicit or implicit contrast between that which is kata sarka and that which is kata pneuma ("according to the S/spirit").⁵ The common denominator of meaning is that kata sarka refers to carnal, earthly ways of being and acting, while kata sarka refers to spiritual, heavenly ways of being and acting.⁶ Thus, "Israel according to the flesh" in 1 Corinthians 10:18 denotes those who belong to Israel merely in a carnal, earthly sense. Paul's implication—albeit unstated—is that there is also an "Israel according to the S/spirit," consisting of those who belong to Israel in a spiritual, heavenly sense—namely, believers in Christ.

Just as Paul considers Israelites to be his "kin according to the flesh" (Rom. 9:5), so believers in Christ—whether Jewish or Gentile—are his spiritual kin. In Christ they are all, as we saw in the previous article, spiritual children of Abraham. As Jewish scholar Daniel Boyarin writes, "Paul at one stroke was saying that the genealogical Israel, ‘according to the flesh,’ is not the ultimate Israel; there is an ‘Israel in the spirit.’"⁷

While Paul never explicitly refers to the Church as Israel in the Corinthian letters, there are hints that he understands the predominantly Gentile church at Corinth to be part of Israel in some sense.⁸ For instance, in 1 Corinthians 12:2, Paul reminds the readers of "when [they] were Gentiles" (ethnē). Some translations render the word as "pagans" here, but while the idolatry and unbelief of the nations is certainly in view, "Gentiles" is still the literal sense. In 1 Corinthians 10:1, Paul introduces the discussion of Israelite history as concerning "our ancestors," implicitly including the Corinthians among the Israelite progeny. In 1 Corinthians 5:1, Paul describes the immorality "among you" as of a kind "not even found among the Gentiles (ethnē)." It appears, then, that in Paul's thought, Gentile believers are no longer ontologically Gentile except "according to the flesh." At a higher ontological level—kata pneuma—they are Israelites.⁹ 

Philippians 3:3: "We are the Circumcision"

The ancient rite of circumcision is so integral to Jewish identity that Paul can use the terms "the circumcision" and "the uncircumcision" to denote Jews and Gentiles respectively (see, e.g., Romans 3:30; 4:9-12; 15:8; Gal. 2:7-12; Eph. 2:11; Col. 4:11). In Philippians 3:2-3, however, Paul writes the following bold words:

2 Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh! 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh (NRSV)

It appears that Paul is taking this identifying label for Jews, "the circumcision," and applying it to believers in Christ, including Gentiles. If so, there is little doubt that Paul thinks of Gentile believers as spiritual Jews. Circumcision is spiritualised in Romans 2:28-29 (to be discussed below) as well as in Colossians 2:11-12, where baptism is described as "the circumcision of Christ." Moreover, some Pauline references to physical circumcision seem to be pejorative about the practice seen as an end in itself, such as Galatians 5:11-12 (where Paul suggests that circumcision advocates ought to castrate themselves) and Ephesians 2:11 (where the writer emphasises that circumcision "is done in the flesh with hands").¹⁰ In Philippians, too, circumcision is described in terms of "mutilation" of the flesh and putting confidence in the flesh, in contrast to "worship in the Spirit of God" (note, once again, the sarka/pneuma contrast).

While most scholars take the "we" in the expression "We are the circumcision" (hēmeis... esmen hē peritomē) to be the Church,¹¹ there are exceptions. Lionel J. Windsor, for instance, argues that "we" refers not to "Paul along with all of his Philippian addressees," but to "Paul and Timothy, as Jewish teachers of Gentiles."¹² In support of Windsor's interpretation, a first-person plural pronoun does occur in Philippians 3:17 that appears to refer to Paul and Timothy ("the example you have in us"). However, a collective noun like hē peritomē is unlikely to be used of just two people. Timothy is a co-addressor of the letter (Phil. 1:1) and is favourably described in 2:19-24. However, between 2:19-24 and 3:2-3, Paul discusses another minister, Epaphroditus, who was probably a Gentile (given that his name derives from the Greek goddess Aphrodite). Thus, the immediate context gives no indication that the words "We are the circumcision" are confined to Paul and Timothy. Like the first-person plural constructions later in the chapter (3:15-16, 3:20), Paul uses "we" in v. 3 to bring his audience onto equal footing with himself, despite his own impressive Jewish pedigree (3:5-6).

Since Paul's fairly harsh words in Philippians 3:2-3 could easily be misapplied in an anti-Semitic way, Stephen E. Fowl offers an important reminder:

Paul’s claim, ‘we are the circumcision,’ is not designed to contrast a true circumcision, associated with Christianity, with a now superseded Judaism, a false circumcision. Rather, Paul’s claim situates the Philippian believers already within the Abrahamic covenant apart from physical circumcision… In a sense, then, Paul’s claim might be recast as ‘we are already the circumcision – there is nothing else we need to do.’¹³

Romans 2:28-29: The Inward Jew

The third text to be discussed in this article in connection with Paul's spiritualisation of Israel is Romans 2:28-29. Whereas 1 Corinthians 10:18 (implicitly) spiritualises the term "Israel," and Philippians 3:3 spiritualises the term "the Circumcision," Romans 2:28-29 spiritualises the term "Jew." As in Philippians 3, Paul does so by spiritualising circumcision, that fundamental identity marker of Jewish males. 

The paragraph from Romans 2:17-29 opens with Paul addressing one who calls himself a Jew. Most commentators believe that Paul is interacting with a hypothetical Jewish interlocutor to demonstrate that physical circumcision and instruction in Torah cannot save him and that true Jewishness is defined in terms of the heart, not the foreskin.¹⁴ This interpretation is reflected in most translations of Romans 2:28-29, such as the NRSV:

28 For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. 29 Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart—it is spiritual and not literal. Such a person receives praise not from others but from God.

The consensus view has been challenged, however, by scholars such as Matthew Thiessen and Rafael Rodriguez. Thiessen argues that Paul's interlocutor in this passage is not a Jew but a proselyte, a "so-called Jew,"¹⁵ and that Paul disagrees with him "not because he has redefined Jewishness, but because he does not believe that a gentile can actually become a Jew."¹⁶ He notes that the usual translation requires one to add important words that are not present in the Greek and, following Arneson, he offers the following alternative translation:

28 For it is not the outward Jew, nor the outward circumcision in the flesh, 29 but the hidden Jew, and the circumcision of the heart in spirit and not in letter, whose praise [is] not from humans but from God.¹⁷ 

If this translation is correct, the focus of the text shifts from Jewishness and circumcision to divine approval. One point in favour of the latter reading is that in Paul's questions that immediately follow, "What advantage is there then in being a Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision?" he appears to revert back to the standard ethnic definition of "Jew," which would be odd if he has just redefined the term so as to deny the label "Jew" to the physically circumcised who do not obey God from the heart. Thus, I think that Arneson's translation is preferable to the NRSV.¹⁸ Paul is not saying that a circumcised, Torah-observant Israelite is not a Jew; he is introducing a new kind of Jewishness, an internal, spiritual kind, that he contrasts with a (merely) external Jewishness.¹⁹ This then coincides with the Abraham's children kata pneuma vs. kata sarka and the Jerusalem above vs. the present Jerusalem in Galatians 3-4, and with the implied Israel kata pneuma vs. "Israel kata sarka" in 1 Corinthians 10. Contra Thiessen, Paul clearly does assert in Romans 2:29 that a Gentile can become a Jew, albeit a "hidden" or "inward" one.

Conclusion

In the previous article and the present one, we have seen abundant evidence from four of Paul's letters (Galatians, 1 Corinthians, Philippians, and Romans) that Paul spiritualised the concept of Israel, the elect people of God, and so understood the Church—Gentiles included—to be Israel according to the Spirit (though he never explicitly uses this term). Importantly, in spiritualising Israel, Paul was not abandoning or denigrating Israel according to the flesh, the ethnic group to which he himself belonged. The spiritualisation of Israel does, however, raise the question of where ethnic Israel, the children of Abraham kata sarka, the outward Jews, fit into the purpose of God. This is a question to which Paul turns in one long and rich passage—Romans 9-11—that will be the subject of the fourth and final article in this series.

• 1 Bible translations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the NRSV.
• 2 This translation follows the NRSV except that the words Israēl kata sarka are translated literally here as "Israel according to the flesh," whereas the NRSV translates "the people of Israel." The NRSV translators are seeking dynamic rather than formal equivalence here, but as Bruce Hansen points out, the NRSV translation "obscures Paul’s rhetorical move in calling [the Corinthian believers] ‘Israel according to the flesh’, a move that implicitly interjects the question of whether there might be another way of viewing Israel" ('All of You are One': The Social Vision of Gal 3.28, 1 Cor 12.13 and Col 3.11 [London: T&T Clark, 2010], 116 n. 26).
• 3 1 Corinthians was certainly written well before the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D., probably in the late 50s.
• 4 Rom. 1:3, 4:1, 8:4, 8:5, 8:12, 8:13, 9:3, 9:5, 1 Cor. 1:26, 10:18, 2 Cor. 1:17, 5:16 (twice), 10:2, 10:3, 11:18, Gal. 4:23, 4:29, Eph. 6:5, Col. 3:22.
• 5 This contrast is explicit in Romans 1:3-4, 8:4-5, 12-13, and Galatians 4:29 (the latter of which was discussed in the previous article).
• 6 An interesting observation can be made about the occurrence of kata sarka in Romans 4:1. Most translations render this verse along the lines of the NRSV ("What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh?"). Richard B. Hays, however, offers a persuasive argument that this text would be better understood as, "What shall we say then? Have we found Abraham to be our forefather according to the flesh?" ('"Have we found Abraham to be our forefather according to the flesh?" A Reconsideration of Rom 4:1,' Novum Testamentum 27 (1985): 76-98.) It would then be understood as a rhetorical question that expects the answer "No!" Abraham is the father of all who are faithful, including the uncircumcised, according to promise (Rom. 4:11-18).
• 7 'Paul and the Genealogy of Gender,' Representations 41 (1993): 8.
• 8 For evidence that the Corinthian church was largely Gentile in composition, see Paul Kariuki Njiru, Charisms and the Holy Spirit's Activity in the Body of Christ: An Exegetical-Theological Study of 1 Corinthians 12,4-11 and Romans 12,6-8 (Roma: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 2002), 27-28.
• 9 Andy Cheung asserts that "There does not seem to be any linguistic or exegetical reason for inferring the existence of an 'Israel according to the Spirit'" from 1 Corinthians 10:18 ('Who is the "Israel" of Romans 11:26?' in The Jews, Modern Israel and the New Supersessionism, ed. Calvin L. Smith [rev. ed.; Broadstairs: King's Divinity Press, 2013], 129). However, Cheung's brief analysis of this passage does not take into account the broader "Israelisation" of the Corinthian believers in 1 Corinthians, or the wider use of the phrase kata sarka and its contrast with kata pneuma, particularly in Galatians 4:23-29.
• 10 Of course, I am not suggesting that Paul was against physical circumcision; he was against regarding it as an end in itself, or something that should be imposed on Gentiles.
• 11 For example, Mikael Tellbe, 'The Sociological Factors behind Philippians 3.1-11 and the Conflict at Philippi,' Journal for the Study of the New Testament 55 (1994): 101; Darrell J. Doughty, 'Citizens of Heaven: Philippians 3.2-21,' New Testament Studies 41 (1995): 109-110; Andries H. Snyman, 'A Rhetorical Analysis of Philippians 3:1-11,' Neotestamentica 40 (2006): 270; and most commentators
• 12 Paul and the Vocation of Israel: How Paul's Jewish Identity Informs his Apostolic Ministry, with Special Reference to Romans (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), 53-55; italics original.
• 13 Philippians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 147-48.
• 14 "It is clear that in these verses Paul is in some sense denying the name of Jew to those who are only outwardly Jews and not also secretly and inwardly... Paul is using 'Jew' in a special limited sense to denote the man who in his concrete human existence stands by virtue of his faith in a positive relation to the on-going purpose of God in history... [but this] should not be taken as implying that those who are Jews only outwardly are excluded from the promises" (C. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [2 vols.; London: T&T Clark, 1975], 1:175-76); Romans 2 "emerges as a continual diatribal accusation against the Jew who defines himself or herself in terms of possession of the law and (falsely in Paul's eyes) rests confidence therein. By the end of the passage (v 29), Paul will have totally redefined the 'true Jew'" (Brendan Byrne, Romans [Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1996], 96); "The chapter climaxes with the assertion that being an ethnic Jew and physically circumcised is insignificant (2:28-29). What matters is being a Jew internally and experiencing the circumcision of the heart" (Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998], 148); "Paul here redefines membership in God's people in terms of religious commitment and not in terms of physical descent or ethnic ethos... It follows from this that Gentiles who keep the law (even unwittingly) are inwardly true Jews (2:26). Paul locates membership in the people not in external ritual but in the orientation of the heart and the actions that flow from that orientation" (Luke Timothy Johnson, Reading Romans: A Literary and Theological Commentary [Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2001], 43).
• 15 Rodriguez states that "The choice between an actually Jewish interlocutor in Rom 2:17-29 and an ethnically-gentile-religiously-Jewish interlocutor will prove to be the fork in the road for our reading of Romans as a whole" (If You Call Yourself a Jew: Reappraising Paul's Letter to the Romans [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2014], 51. He summarises Romans 1:18-2:29 as "Paul's comments for (or to) three types of gentiles: (i) the depraved immoral pagan (1:18-32); (ii) the elitist moralizing pagan (2:1-16); and (iii) the gentile proselyte to Judaism (2:17-29)... In contrast to these stock gentile personae, Paul will instruct his Roman readers to be gentiles who worship the Creator God of Israel without assuming Israel's obligations under Torah. To this point, Paul has not said anything negative about Jews" (If You Call Yourself a Jew, 61). I am not persuaded that Paul's interlocutor in 2:17-29 is a proselyte rather than an actual Jew. For instance, in Romans 2:24, Paul paraphrases Isaiah 52:5 as, "Because of you the name of God is reviled among the Gentiles"; but Isaiah 52:4-5 is clearly talking about Israel, so this source would not apply to a proselyte who (according to this interpretation of Paul's argument) merely calls himself a Jew and is not really one. Moreover, in Romans 3:9, Paul asserts, "we have already brought the charge against Jews and Greeks alike that they are all under the domination of sin." Yet, if (as Rodriguez claims) the addressee in 2:17-29 is a Gentile proselyte, then Paul has not yet brought any charge against Jews placing them under the domination of sin. Another problem is that Rodriguez's interpretation hinges on the assumption (unstated in the text) that the clincher in Paul's argument against the proselyte is that he has violated the Torah by not being circumcised on the eighth day, as the Torah prescribes, and thus—like Ishmael—his circumcision is of no benefit. However, this argument overlooks that Abraham himself was not circumcised on the eighth day, but at age 99 (Gen. 17:23-24)! Moreover, if Paul regarded adult circumcision as a transgression of Torah, why would he have circumcised Timothy, as Acts 16:3 states he did?
• 16 'Paul's Argument against Gentile Circumcision in Romans 2:17-29,' Novum Testamentum 56 (2014): 390.
• 17 Quoted in Thiessen, 'Paul's Argument,' 377.
• 18 A literal rendering of the Greek text (following NA28) would be: "Not for the one outwardly a Jew is nor outwardly-in-the-flesh circumcision, but the one secretly a Jew, and circumcision of heart in spirit not letter, of whom the praise is not of men but of God." A key syntactic question is what the verb estin ("is") modifies in v. 28. According to the NRSV translation, it modifies Ioudaios; thus something like "For the outward one is not a Jew..." However, the alternate translation understands estin to modify the last part of v. 29: "For it is not the one outwardly a Jew... of whom the praise is not of men but of God." The word order of the Greek is not determinative; this syntactic ambiguity can only be resolved by close attention to the context.
• 19 Andy Cheung argues that it is erroneous to infer from Romans 2:28-29 that "anybody, Gentile or Jew, who finds faith in Christ is therefore a Jew inwardly"; rather, Paul "is restricting the traditional definition of a Jew to an ethnic Israelite who has faith in Christ" ('Who is the "Israel" of Romans 11:26?', 132). However, the notion that Romans 2:28-29 is exclusively concerned with ethnic Israelites runs afoul of the context. In the preceding verses, Paul is clearly concerned with the physically uncircumcised, i.e. Gentiles (vv. 26-27). It follows that the category of inward Jews, whose circumcision is of the heart, includes Gentiles.

The Burke-Buzzard Devil Debate

I watched with interest the recent online debate on the topic, Are Satan & Demons Personal Beings? between Sir Anthony Buzzard (Restoration Fellowship) and Jonathan Burke (Christadelphian). The topic has been a primary interest of mine over the past two decades—largely due to my Christadelphian background—and the question itself is one on which I have changed my mind (from 'No' to 'Yes') during that period. Sir Anthony (henceforth AB) has been an important influence, as it was his essay, Satan, the Personal Devil that led me to first think critically about the Christadelphian view that I had hitherto been taught. Jonathan (henceforth JB) has been an interlocutor of mine over the years, mainly in online correspondence, Facebook discussions, and blog articles, but also in a published exchange in the journal Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok.¹

In this article I am not going to give an exhaustive commentary on the debate, but offer some impressions based on notes I jotted down while watching the debate live. First, I must heartily commend the participants—the moderator, Tracy (whose surname is unfortunately unknown to me), and the two debaters—for a civil and amicable discussion. It was, in fact, a model of decorum: no interrupting, talking over each other, snide remarks, bickering, etc. Both debaters expressed their personal respect for the other and emphasised the common ground they hold on other theological topics (being both unitarian restorationists).

The format of the debate consisted of a brief opening statement from each side, followed by a 40-minute discussion where the two debaters would ask each other questions, followed by a brief closing statement from each side, and lastly a Q&A session where the moderator pulled up audience questions from the chat. Before getting into the content, a comment on the big picture. The question, "Are Satan & Demons Personal Beings?" is a theological one; it was not phrased at a purely exegetical level (such as, "Does the Bible Portray Satan & Demons as Personal Beings?") Nevertheless, the content of the debate was largely exegetical. AB had almost nothing to say about the theological significance of his "Yes" answer, even when pressed by JB. For his part, JB commented briefly on what he sees as some theological and ethical problems with the "Yes" view. Given that personhood is a complex philosophical concept, and that the term "personal beings" (as we moderns understand it) does not occur in Scripture, one might have expected both sides to offer, or better yet agree on, a definition of "personal beings" up front.² Otherwise, how do we know both sides are answering the same question?

Opening Statements

In JB's opening statement, he begins by appealing for "hermeneutical consistency." What he means is that, given the unitarian belief system shared by both sides, biblical texts about Satan and demons should be interpreted in a way consistent with how unitarians interpret challenging texts on other topics, such as Christology and hell. (This is, of course, problematic for audience members who do not share the unitarian belief system, but perhaps I was the only viewer who faced that problem.) JB poses the rhetorical question whether a unitarian belief system is compatible with an "autonomously powerful evil Satan," or whether such a being would be tantamount to a second god. This challenge extends equally to Christian orthodoxy, in that an "autonomously powerful evil Satan" would equally undermine classical Trinitarian monotheism. The answer to the conundrum, of course, is that the Church does not teach, and has never taught, that Satan is "autonomously powerful." The Church has always taught that Satan is a mere creature, specifically an angel, who therefore exercises no more power than God allows him.³ Since this is also AB's well-known position, JB's opening salvo amounts to a strawman. To his credit, toward the end of the debate, JB batted down another caricature of classical Christian doctrine on the Devil, when he objected to a Q&A question suggesting that belief in the Devil could be used to excuse any sin, per "the Devil made me do it."

The rest of JB's opening statement focused on issues of "socio-cultural context," "scholarly literature," and "New Testament satan & demons." He asserted the need for consistency of interpretation across both testaments, and stated that in the Old Testament and Second Temple Jewish literature, terms like satanas/satan are used of the inclination to sin, an obedient angel, and as a common noun, while diabolos is used as a common noun and of humans, and other terms such as 'the evil one' and 'the tempter' do not occur at all. He makes the factually incorrect assertion that diabolos always occurs with the article.⁴

Turning to scholarship, JB claims that scholars have abandoned the idea that Satan and demons appear in the OT, claims that scholars propose various perspectives on Jesus' wilderness temptation (whether a visionary experience, symbolic description, dramatisation, or personal temptation), and claims that scholars say Jesus didn't share his contemporaries' belief in demons. This is not the place to engage at length with JB's citations; interested readers can refer to some of my writings for comprehensive engagement with scholarly literature on this subject. However, given that the scholarly literature is an area where much of the audience probably had little knowledge, it was JB's duty to mention the weight of scholarly opinion both for and against his own positions. Instead, he cited only literature that agreed with him, leaving the audience with a skewed idea of scholarly opinion. I will just comment on one instance. On a slide on "Jesus' Views," JB cites only one source (in contrast to the previous slide, which had cited about a dozen). The slide leaves the audience with the impression that JB's ideas about Jesus' views on demonology are well-supported in scholarship. In fact, not only is the opposite true,⁵ but the source JB cites here (Ferngren) disagrees markedly with his position.⁶

JB concludes his opening statement with a brief survey of New Testament passages on the Satan and demons. He focuses on a few texts that he believes are problematic for a personal view of the Satan, such as Matthew 16:23, Acts 5:3-4, 1 Corinthians 5:5, 1 Timothy 1:20, and 2 Corinthians 12:7. In fact, none of these texts are inconsistent with a personal view of the Satan.⁷ JB makes much of the absence of exorcisms in the Gospel of John,⁸ offering an argument from silence.

In AB's opening statement, he emphasises that JB concedes that satan in the OT is external, not internal, which he regards as an important concession. He stresses the significance of the definite article in New Testament usage of the terms diabolos and satanas (the Devil and the Satan, not merely a devil or a satan). He argues that proserchomai ("to come to") is an "astonishingly clear" word in Matthew 4:3, indicating the externality of the encounter between Jesus and the Devil. He helpfully draws a contrast between this narrative and Luke 12:19, where the rich fool really does have a conversation with himself, and this is clear from the text. He also contrasts the Satan and demons, which are consistently addressed as persons, with biblical usage of personification, such as for Wisdom. He asserts that Satan/Devil is the personal name of a personal evil being. AB—rightly in my view—criticises JB's claim that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written for uninformed novice Christians and John for more mature believers who could handle the full truth that demons do not exist.⁹ AB also criticises JB for adducing a lot of extra-biblical quotations. On this point, I would side with JB, as the latter is not quoting these texts as authoritative but in order to describe the historical context, the thought-world, from which the New Testament emanates, which is very helpful for correctly interpreting the meaning of New Testament terminology. The problem is that I do not think JB paints an accurate picture of Second Temple Jewish thought from the texts he quotes.¹⁰

Direct Discussion

The direct discussion proceeded. It was not entirely clear to me whether the format was that the two debaters would take turn asking each other questions, or each had a certain time allocation to ask the other a battery of questions. Either way, it seemed to me as though AB asked a lot more questions of JB than the other way around. The first questions concerned the presence or absence of the yetzer hara ("evil inclination") concept in the Old and New Testaments (since JB identifies the Devil in the wilderness temptation narratives as the yetzer hara operating within Jesus). AB pressed JB for an explicit equation of the Devil/Satan with the yetzer hara in Scripture; JB argued that the equation is implicit. AB asked JB how he understood the term "demons" in James 2:19; JB replied that it is an ironic reference to foreign gods.¹¹ There was some discussion of whether demons and their victims are distinguished in the Gospel exorcism narratives (which they are).¹² AB offered another grammatical argument, namely that one who is addressed in the vocative is a person.¹³ JB responded that his argument does not hinge on the grammatical details, but on whether the text is to be taken literally or figuratively. As evidence of the latter, he cited a Talmudic interpretation of a text from 2 Samuel in which the yetzer hara was inferred to be a character in the story.¹⁴ AB noted that the Christadelphians' founders (John Thomas and Robert Roberts) understood Jesus' tempter to be external; JB countered that other Christadelphians of the time disagreed with them, and that their opinions are not sacrosanct. AB asked whether there is any leading commentator on Matthew who takes an internal view of the temptation. JB responded that some scholars read it as a visionary experience, dramatisation, etc.¹⁵

JB asked of AB why the New Testament does not use terminology for the Devil such as Mastema and Sammael that were used in other contemporaneous literature. AB countered that other such terms, such as Belial (2 Cor. 6:15) and Beelzebul (Matt. 10:25; 12:24-27 and parallels) are used.¹⁶ AB emphasised that there is no disagreement between the debaters on the evil in human nature; the difference is in whether the evil in human nature is the Devil. AB asked JB about the meaning of the verb proserchomai, used in Matthew 4:3 ("The tempter came and said to him," NRSV). JB was prepared with a slide showing that the verb can be used in a figurative sense, as in "a shudder came over me" (Shepherd of Hermas, Visions 3.1.5). AB insisted that it is biblical usage of the word that matters; JB responded that the Bible doesn't use a different Greek from non-canonical literature of the time. On this point, I side with JB; however, AB was right to insist on the importance of Matthew's use of the verb, especially as Matthew uses it again within the same pericope in an obviously literal fashion ("Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him," 4:11). In fact, JB's insistence on a figurative sense for proserchomai here reflects an inconsistency in his overall argument on the temptation narrative.¹⁷

JB asked whether teaching on Satan and demons is consistent throughout Scripture. AB responded that there is development in the concept, but that by the time we get to Revelation, we have a being who is "called" (indicative of a proper name) Devil and Satan. JB pressed AB on whether the NT understanding of Satan and demons (as he sees it) is in the OT; AB responded, "No, it is not."¹⁸ JB then cited commentators on Revelation who identify the language about the dragon/Satan as referring symbolically to the actions of Rome. In effect, then, the devil is Rome; Rome is the pre-eminent manifestation of that evil power. AB disagreed that the dragon is Rome, and asked what the beast is, if we make that identification? JB noted that the Evangelical scholar Beale concedes that, in Revelation, Satan is behind Rome. There seems to be a lack of precision here about the relationship between the dragon and Rome.¹⁹

In what were probably JB's best moments of the debate, he pressed AB on the contemporary, practical significance of Satan and demons. He asked AB how he would distinguish Satanic temptation from internal temptation today, and AB responded that he had no idea, but it does not matter.²⁰ JB asked whether first-century Jews could tell if anyone was demon-possessed; AB replied that it doesn't matter, but Jesus could. JB then observed that Jesus never diagnosed anyone with demon-possession; AB responded that if "Come out of him" is not a diagnosis, what is?²¹ JB asked whether there is exorcism today; AB was unsure.²²

Closing Statements

In JB's closing statement, he focused strongly on empirical and ethical arguments. For instance, he asked, "When you are tempted, does Satan come up to you?"²³ And, "Have you ever seen people demonically possessed?"²⁴ Working from Jesus' teaching on good and bad fruit in Matthew 7, JB points out that belief in Satan and demons has produced plenty of bad fruit (e.g., witch hunts, injuries incurred in botched exorcisms, failure to seek medical care due to belief in a supernatural cause),²⁵ but is unaware of any good fruit produced by these ideas.²⁶ JB concludes that temptation is fundamentally a matter of the human heart.²⁷

AB's closing statement quoted at length from a scholar who observed that, given the clarity and emphasis with which the Synoptic Gospels affirm the reality of demon-possession and Jesus' exorcisms, the truth of these Gospels—and thus the truth of Christianity—are jeopardised if their testimony on this subject is false.²⁸ AB then reiterated his central claim, that if one pays close attention to the language and grammar of the biblical text, it speaks clearly about the reality of Satan and demons.

Q&A

For sake of space, I will not say much about the audience questions and debaters' answers, most of which pertained to the meaning of particular biblical passages about Satan or demons. Let me just comment briefly on my question, which was directed to JB:

Septuagint translation of Job 1-2 and Zech 3 renders hassatan as ho diabolos. Is this the main source of the technical term ho diabolos that occurs dozens of times in the New Testament?

The moderator and both debaters spoke as though this question had largely been addressed by JB's observation—which AB conceded—that there is no single Satan or diabolos figure in the Old Testament. However, the point I was driving at was the following:

(1) hassatan in Job 1-2 and Zechariah 3 (Hebrew Bible) is an external adversary (admitted by both sides). 

(2) hassatan in Job 1-2 and Zechariah 3 is translated in the Greek Septuagint (LXX) version with ho diabolos. 

(3) The Greek Septuagint was the version of Scripture used in most early Christian churches outside the Holy Land, including the earliest readers of the New Testament (which was also written in Greek). 

(4) Therefore, when the earliest readers of the New Testament documents encountered the term ho diabolos in the text, they were encountering a term familiar to them from Job 1-2 and Zechariah 3 LXX, and would accordingly have interpreted the figure as an external adversary.²⁹

In post-debate correspondence, AB has acknowledged the force of this argument. Thus, I think the question still needs to be answered, because JB's view—for all his claims of consistency between the Testaments—posits a disconnect on the diabolos/Satan between Old and New Testaments, when in fact there is striking continuity.³⁰

Overall Analysis

I have no interest in adjudicating who "won" the debate on a personal level, and probably neither do the debaters. From my own studies of the topic, I have become convinced that the Scriptures testify clearly to the "personal" reality of the Satan and demons³¹ (notwithstanding that belief in transcendent beings—and transcendent causes—is out of favour in the post-Enlightenment West). I believe that AB brought that clarity across successfully. 

As far as the exegetical part of the argument, I found AB's arguments to be simple yet forceful, and JB's to be convoluted and unconvincing. What stood out for me was that AB argued directly from the details of the text, from lexical meaning and from syntax. By contrast, JB's arguments tended to focus more on broader issues such as genre and alleged extra-biblical parallels from the "socio-cultural context," and less on what the biblical text actually says. JB's hermeneutical method features a willingness to infer figurative or ironic meanings when there is little or no warrant within the text for doing so. Consequently, his arguments run afoul of Ockham's Razor. For me, one of the most telling statements in the debate from JB was the following (beginning c. 43:27 in the YouTube video). After AB offered syntactic arguments for interpreting the demons as persons in the text (e.g., masculine participles), JB responded,

Well the point is of course I'm not making my argument from grammar; I believe that it means what it says, that people actually understood that to be, for example, a demon being addressed...

Thus, when demons are depicted in the Gospels as though persons, this apparently is the authors' meaning, and it is how their readers understood them. Yet, it is not the meaning we should draw, because the writers did not actually believe their own meaning, but merely accommodated their readers' ignorance. This is a startlingly bold claim to make, and it needs to be backed by compelling positive evidence, but it is not. 

The same is true of JB's interpretation of the wilderness temptation accounts. I did not actually hear any point in the debate when JB defended his view exegetically. He asserted that the Devil here is the yetzer hara, the evil inclination, and that the genre of these accounts is not narrative, but something else that is figurative. Since the genre within the Synoptic Gospels as a whole is narrative, and since all three transition into and out of this pericope just as they do so many other episodes in the life of Jesus, and since they use the same kind of language that they use elsewhere to describe actual interpersonal encounters and dialogue, why should we conclude that these particular accounts follow a completely different genre? Something much more weighty is needed than centuries-later rabbinic parallels in which the yetzer hara is mentioned explicitly (rather than needing to be introduced as a gloss for ho diabolos). What is needed is positive evidence from the text itself. Yet not only is this evidence not forthcoming, but in my own experience, when JB is presented with evidence from the text that contradicts his position, he dismisses it as irrelevant, because his argument is not about what the text says.³²

Perhaps not all Christadelphians will agree with JB's interpretations of key passages about the Devil and demons. However, Christadelphians should take note that JB has probably studied this topic more, and written about it more, than any other Christadelphian. He is an intelligent man, an able logician, and he has plumbed the depths for the best possible defence of the Christadelphian position. This has led him to move away from what the text actually says; and that should be concerning to any "Berean"-minded student of Scripture.

JB's strongest point in the debate was pressing AB on the contemporary significance and value of belief in Satan and demons. AB effectively shrugged off all such questions, and they are valid questions. The other important take-away from this debate was that both debaters were a model of decorum, setting a fine example for the rest of us on how Christians ought to conduct themselves when arguing matters of the faith.

• 1 Jonathan Burke, 'Satan and Demons in the Apostolic Fathers: A Minority Report,' Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok 81 (2016): 127-68; Thomas J. Farrar, 'Satanology and Demonology in the Apostolic Fathers: A Response to Jonathan Burke,' Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok 83 (2018): 156-91.
• 2 This is true of other theological subjects, too. I am always amazed at how lengthy theological debates on the Trinity or the ontology of the Holy Spirit can run their course without either side ever giving a philosophically precise definition of the term "person."
• 3 For scriptural passages showing that the Satan requires God's permission to act, and is aware of this, see, e.g., Job 1-2, Luke 4:6, Luke 22:31.
• 4 JB states that the word always occurs in the form the diabolos. In fact, diabolos is anarthrous in 1 Chr. 21:1 LXX, Ps. 108:6 LXX, 1 Macc. 1:36, and Wis. 2:24. Within the LXX corpus, it occurs with the article only in Esther 7:4, 8:1, Job 1-2, and Zech. 3:1-2. All of these latter instances refer to the personal transcendent being that eventually became "the Devil," with the exception of those in Esther, where it refers to Haman. In grammatical terms, the uses of the article with diabolos in Esther 7:4, 8:1 LXX are cataphoric and anaphoric, respectively. Esther tells the king that her people are to be destroyed, but that she has hitherto kept silent, "For the slanderer (ho diabolos) is not worthy of the court of the king" (7:4). This creates dramatic effect, for the reader immediately wants to know who she is referring to, and this is precisely what the king asks in 7:5 ("Who is this who dared to do this deed?") Esther then identifies Haman as "this wicked one"; hence the article in 7:4 is cataphoric, with "the" slanderer referring to the specific slanderer that is to be identified in 7:6. Similarly, the article in 8:1 ("King Artaxerxes granted to Esther all that belonged to Haman the slanderer [ho diabolos]") is anaphoric, referring back to the slanderer introduced in 7:4 and identified in 7:6. Thus, far from being a precedent for applying ho diabolos to various referents in the NT despite the use of the article, this text represents a contrast. The occurrence of ho diabolos in the NT never elicits the question, "Who?" because it is assumed that the reader knows who is meant. By this time, ho diabolos had become a technical term for a specific personal being, probably by reading Job 1-2 LXX and Zech. 3:1-2 LXX together and inferring that the same being is in view.
• 5 There is a scholarly consensus that Jesus and the Synoptic Evangelists believed in demons and in the efficacy of exorcism. For numerous quotations from scholarly literature, see pp. 11-16 of my online article, 'When an unclean spirit goes out of a person': An Assessment of the Accommodation Theory of Demon Possession and Exorcism in the Synoptic Gospels.
• 6 JB summarises as Ferngren stating that "Jesus didn't share first century Palestinian demonology" and that "Gospels don't record either Jesus' or the gospel writers' explanation of demon possession." The level of support for JB's position conveyed by these statements is unremarkable. Ferngren does state, "The evidence...does not suggest that Jesus shared the demonology of his Palestinian contemporaries" (Gary B. Ferngren, Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009], 45), but this is very different from stating that Jesus had no demonology. In fact, the main differences that Ferngren highlights between Jesus and his contemporaries are (i) his method of exorcism, (ii) his personal authority over demons, and (iii) the careful distinction that Jesus and the Evangelists make between healings and exorcisms, and thus between disease and demon-possession. That the Gospels do not record Jesus' or the gospel writers' explanation of demon-possession in no way favours the view that Jesus or the gospel writers disbelieved in demon-possession. The Gospels tell the story of Jesus, not of demons. We would therefore not expect the Evangelists to explain the phenomenon of demon-possession, unless they believed that their readers needed such an explanation. Thus, the absence of such an explanation actually suggests that the Evangelists assumed that their readers knew what demon-possession was, and saw no need to correct or supplement their readers' understanding. Finally, Ferngren clearly affirms that the Evangelists believed in Satan and demons: "The frequency with which demons appear on the pages of the Gospels reflects the Evangelists' belief that the advent of Jesus's kingdom brought about a spiritual conflict with the forces of Satan. Jesus' exorcism of demons was one dimension of this conflict, which they viewed as 'a cosmic struggle in history to inaugurate the eschatological reign of God.'" (Medicine and Health Care, 45). Again, "Chapters 1 through 8 [of Mark] picture Jesus as a powerful miracle worker, through whom God, the Great Warrior, is undoing the evil brought about by Satan's control of the world. Hence in his frequent confrontations with demons Jesus repeatedly challenges the powers of darkness... there are several indications that neither Jesus nor the Evangelists believed that disease was ordinarily caused by demons... while the Gospel writers speak of Jesus's healing and exorcism as related aspects of his messiahship, they routinely distingiush between them... Exorcism and healing denoted different aspects of Jesus's messianic ministry, not a single act." (Medicine and Health Care, 45-46). Thus, Ferngren's view is broadly consistent with the scholarly consensus that Jesus and the Evangelists believed in demons.
• 7 On Mark 8:33 (parallel to Matt. 16:23), see Thomas J. Farrar and Guy J. Williams, 'Diabolical Data: A Critical Inventory of New Testament Satanology,' Journal for the Study of the New Testament 39(1) (2016): 49-50 (preprint accessible here). On 2 Corinthians 12:7 (where the phrase in question should be translated, 'angel of Satan'), see sources cited in Farrar and Williams, 'Diabolical Data,' 48 n. 35. On 1 Corinthians 5:5 and 1 Timothy 1:20, there is no difficulty once we appreciate that punishment is one of the Satan's God-given roles. Indeed, in 1 Corinthians 5:5, given the Passover allusion, Paul is probably identifying the Satan with "the Destroyer" from the Passover narrative (Ex. 12:23; cf. 1 Cor. 10:10; further discussion in Farrar and Williams, 'Diabolical Data,' 54-56). On Acts 5:3-4, JB makes much in the debate on the parallelism between vv. 3 and 4. There is indeed a parallelism, whereby Ananias' act is described in v. 3 as "Why has the Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?" and restated in v. 4 as "Why did you contrive this deed in your heart?" Both statements identify Ananias' heart as the locus of the temptation. One says that the Satan filled his heart, the other that Ananias contrived the deed in his heart. JB's inference is that "the Satan" = "contrived"; thus, the Satan is an internal impulse. However, it is equally plausible that the two statements are describing the same event from two different angles and at two different levels of causality. Ananias allowed the Satan to infiltrate his heart, and Ananias contrived the plan to lie about his donation. Not only is this latter explanation plausible, but it is much more consistent with the wider context of Luke-Acts, in which the Satan is depicted as an external being who converses with Jesus and departs from him (Luke 4:1-13), "falls from heaven" (Luke 10:18), "comes" and takes away God's Word from people's hearts (Luke 8:12), "enters into" Judas so as to tempt him (Luke 22:3), and "demands" (of God) to sift the disciples (Luke 22:31).
• 8 On this, see Thomas J. Farrar, 'New Testament Satanology and Leading Suprahuman Opponents in Second Temple Jewish Literature: A Religio-Historical Analysis,' Journal of Theological Studies 70(1) (2019): 66-67. Preprint can be accessed here.
• 9 On this point, see my ‘When an unclean spirit goes out of a person,’ 25-28.
• 10 For a detailed alternative account, see Farrar, 'New Testament Satanology and Leading Suprahuman Opponents,' 31-57. Preprint can be accessed here.
• 11 For a detailed analysis of this text, including a refutation of JB's view, see my article, Even the Demons Believe and Shudder: Demonology in the Epistle of James.
• 12 See ‘When an unclean spirit goes out of a person,’ 19-20.
• 13 The vocative case indicates direct, second-person address. In modern English it does not come through in translation, but in the KJV is often conveyed by the word "O." Since it requires intelligence to understand speech, being addressed in the vocative is ordinarily an indication that the one addressed is a person. However, this is not universally the case. For instance, in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), impersonal objects such as mountains and hills are often addressed poetically in the vocative in the psalms and prophets (e.g., 2 Kingdoms [2 Samuel] 1:21; Ps. 67:16-17[68:15-16]).
• 14 As a contextual argument, citing rabbinic literature is not particularly weighty. The Talmuds date from several centuries after Christ, so citing the Talmud in New Testament exegesis is roughly the chronological equivalent of citing Augustine of Hippo or other Church Fathers. Moreover, while the Talmuds contain many attributions to earlier rabbis, eminent Jewish scholars like Jacob Neusner have warned that it is methodologically invalid to accept these attributions uncritically.
• 15 Reading the temptation story as a visionary experience is no help to the "internal yetzer hara" view of the Devil. Matthew describes the Transfiguration event as a "vision" (horama, 17:9), but this does not mean that Moses and Elijah were projections of the apostles' inner psyches! Similarly, Luke refers to encounters with angels as visions (1:22; 24:23), and Acts describes "visions" in which people engage in dialogue with supernatural persons (angels or the Lord, e.g., Acts 9:10-16, 10:3-7, 10:10-17). "Dramatisation" is an unclear term; what is clear is that Matthew, Mark, and Luke all weave this incident into their narrative like any other pericope, using similar transitions, pronouns, and verbs. They give the reader no indication whatsoever that this incident is of an entirely different genre and nature than all of the other incidents they record about Jesus.
• 16 The broader point is that terminological parallels are less important than conceptual parallels. The NT writers show a clear consolidation toward using ho diabolos and ho satanas as the normative names or designations of the transcendent opponent, but there are striking conceptual parallels with other Second Temple Jewish texts that use other terminology. This is a central thesis of my JTS article, 'New Testament Satanology and Leading Suprahuman Opponents' (see esp. pp. 57-62). Preprint can be accessed here.
• 17 JB's overall argument seems to be that the temptation story is figurative as a whole, at the level of genre—hence his insistence, when confronted by the argument from the vocative, that his argument is not a grammatical one. In fact, when I made the argument from Matthew's use of proserchomai previously on my blog, JB insisted in his response that this argument was irrelevant because of the genre of the passage ("such arguments hold no weight with the consensus of scholars who believe the temptation accounts are not historical narrative, and that the temptation itself was indeed figurative, symbolic, or visionary"). Yet now, in the debate, JB appears to be hedging his bets by insisting that the passage is figurative at the level of individual words—even if this means ignoring a consistent pattern of Matthean usage.
• 18 I would agree, and it should come as no surprise, given the development from Old to New Testaments on so many other doctrines (Messiah, resurrection, Holy Spirit, angelology, etc.) The pithy saying attributed to St. Augustine is à propos here: "The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New revealed."
• 19 Most commentators, ancient and modern, would agree that "the beast" in Revelation is Rome, given the precedent in Daniel whereby beasts represent earthly kingdoms (Dan. 7:23), and the political reality of Rome's ascendancy at the time Revelation was written. However, the beast and the dragon are clearly distinguished in Revelation, and their relationship is indicated in 13:2: "To [the beast] the dragon gave its own power and throne, along with great authority." Thus, the dragon—explicitly identified as the Devil and Satan in 12:9 and 20:2—is an entity that empowers Rome, and not Rome itself. Further evidence that we cannot make the equation Satan = Rome in Revelation is found in 2:9 and 3:9, where we find the expression "the synagogue of Satan." The synagogue of Rome? Obviously not; thus Satan is a power behind both Roman and Jewish opposition to the faithful. The best indication of the dragon's literal identity in Revelation (besides the names "Devil" and "Satan," which would already have been plenty clear to the original audience) is the description of war in heaven between "Michael and his angels" and "the dragon and its angels." Michael is not a symbol, but the name of an archangel (Jude 9), and thus his angels are also not symbols, but are actual angels. This implies that the dragon's angels are also actual angels, and that the dragon/serpent/Devil/Satan is also an angel.
• 20 I would basically agree, and an analogy could be made to divine providence. How do we distinguish between providential vs. natural causes of events in our lives? If I asked God for wisdom, and I subsequently became wiser, how would I differentiate between my own efforts (e.g., study and meditation) vs. divine help? Clearly, we humans cannot—under ordinary circumstances—recognize and differentiate supernatural causes from natural ones.
• 21 In fact, it is the narrators who diagnose individuals in the narrative as demon-possessed, just as they diagnose other individuals with leprosy, blindness, etc. Yet AB is correct, in that by performing exorcisms on persons identified by the narrator as demon-possessed, Jesus is clearly depicted as agreeing with the diagnosis.
• 22 In fact, there is well-documented evidence of exorcisms today, and the Catholic Church to this day has priests who perform exorcisms, just as the apostles did. However, demon-possession is relatively rare, and the Church resorts to exorcism only when there is strong evidence of demonic possession and all ordinary psychiatric treatment methods have been exhausted.
• 23 One might as well ask, "When you were baptized, did the Holy Spirit descend on you like a dove and a voice speak from heaven?" or, "When the Lord answers your prayers, does he do so by sending an angel to visit you?" If the answers are "No," does this imply that baptism is of no benefit, that the Lord does not answer prayer, or that his angels no longer minister to his people?
• 24 Since when has having personally seen something been a valid precondition for belief? Christianity is a religion of faith! Moreover, there is ample evidence that spirit-possession is a real phenomenon even today, though many of the anthropologists and psychologists who document it do not regard it as actual spirit-possession, due to their materialistic assumptions precluding this possibility.
• 25 Witch hunts do not follow from belief in Satan and demons, but from other false and superstitious ideas. No well-informed ecclesiastical tradition or individual Christian today condones witch hunts. It is technically true that witch hunts would never have happened without belief in supernatural evil. However, it does not therefore follow that non-belief in supernatural evil is correct. If that argument were valid, then atrocities committed by people who believed they were doing God's will would be sufficient to justify atheism. Similarly, if one refrained from seeking medical care due to a belief in demons, this would reflect a false belief that medical care and exorcism are competing, mutually exclusive alternatives. In fact, the Church has always been at the forefront of medical care, and (as was mentioned in a previous footnote) resorts to exorcism only as a last resort. As for a severe injury received during an exorcism, I believe this is very rare. I would add that there are plenty of phony exorcists. I would further add that demon-possession is a dangerous phenomenon, as the biblical testimony itself describes spirits inducing their victims to injure or destroy themselves (Mark 5:5; 9:22). There is, consequently, some risk associated with an exorcism. There is also some risk associated with most medical treatments, so this is not exceptional.
• 26 If people really do suffer from demon-possession and can be helped by exorcism, this is a clear and substantial "good fruit." For JB to dismiss this good fruit, he must first show that demon-possession is not real and thus that exorcism has no efficacy. But this is the very point under debate. Looking more broadly, most Christians would agree that having a sound theology of evil is helpful in the spiritual life, even if one cannot point to obvious instances where correctly believing in the Devil's existence brings concrete, practical benefit. However, this is true of many other theological ideas. What are the good fruit of belief in angels, for instance? It is not obvious; but we trust in God that every truth that he has revealed is beneficial to know. JB's "fruit" argument seems to be a misapplication of Jesus' message in Matthew 7:15-20 (which is actually about prophets, not their teachings). One might add that a "bad fruit" of non-belief in supernatural evil is that it requires very shoddy exegesis and hermeneutics to sustain, and once one begins to practice such, it may lead to errors in more fundamental areas of theology.
• 27 Absolutely; and the human heart is by nature morally compromised. However, it can also be infiltrated by the Devil (e.g., Luke 8:12; Acts 5:3-4), which is not the same thing.
• 28 This, I think, indirectly answers JB's question by identifying a "good fruit" of belief in Satan and demons: it reflects fidelity to the testimony of Scripture in an age where belief in the supernatural is dismissed by the dominant culture.
• 29 Adding weight to this argument is the testimony of Justin Martyr. Writing around the 150s, Justin is the earliest extant Christian writer to quote directly from Job 1-2 and Zech. 3:1-2. When he does, he makes it clear that these passages are key source texts for the Christian idea of the devil (Dialogue with Trypho 79.4, 103.5, 115-116). For further discussion of Justin's views, see Thomas J. Farrar, 'The Intimate and Ultimate Adversary: Satanology in Early Second-Century Christian Literature,' Journal of Early Christian Studies 26 (2018): 543-44 (preprint accessible here).
• 30 This continuity is not removed by the concession that, from a grammatical-historical point of view, "the satan" in Job and Zechariah is not yet understood as a wicked being. Christian theological interpretation of the Old Testament moves beyond the grammatical-historical sense in light of the fuller revelation received through Christ.
• 31 I put "personal" in quotation marks to defer to the terminology of the debate question while acknowledging the complexity of "personhood." I would say that Satan and demons are as personal as angels, except for the extent to which "personhood," being a good attribute, is compromised by evil.
• 32 For an example of this, see his response to my ten-point argument concerning the wilderness temptation accounts. After arguing that the genre of the accounts is "haggadic midrash, not narrative," he summarily dismisses most of my other arguments on that basis, without even interacting with what the text says.

The Church as Spiritual Israel (2): Abraham's Seed, Jerusalem Above, and the Israel of God in Galatians

Paul the Apostle was the first great Christian theologian. A Jew schooled in his ancestral traditions (Gal. 1:14; Phil. 3:5) and "the apostle to the Gentiles" (Rom. 11:13), his work played a crucial role in defining Christian identity in relation to its Jewish roots. Unsurprisingly, therefore, most of the key New Testament texts relevant to the question raised in the first part of this series—whether the Church can be thought of as "spiritual Israel"—occur in his letters. In this article, we begin our study of these texts with the Letter to the Galatians. This is generally regarded as the second earliest of Paul's letters and thus one of the earliest extant Christian texts.¹ The letter seeks to combat an idea that certain "disturbers" were spreading in the Galatian churches (Gal. 1:7), according to which Gentile Christians needed to live according to the Jewish law (including circumcision) to gain the full status in the elect community of Israel, the seed of Abraham. Although Paul clearly presupposes the ethnic distinction between the "Jews"/"circumcised" and the "Gentiles"/"uncircumcised" (Gal. 2:7-8, 12-15), and describes himself and Cephas (Simon Peter) as "by nature Jews" (phusei Ioudaioi), he asserts that in Christ, "There is neither Jew nor Greek"(Gal. 3:28). 

The Seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:6-29)

Paul begins his main argument by asking the Galatians on what basis they had received the Spirit from God: on the basis of "works of the law," or faith (Gal. 3:2-5)? At this point Paul introduces Abraham into the argument, quoting Genesis 15:6 and inferring that "those who believe are the descendants of Abraham" (3:7 NRSV). He adduces Genesis 12:3 ("All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you") as direct evidence for the extension of the "blessing of Abraham" to the Gentiles (Gal. 3:8-9, 14). However, his claim is not merely that Gentile believers are blessed alongside Abraham's children or seed, but that they are blessed as Abraham's children or seed: "And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring [sperma, literally "seed"], heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3:29). This is a very bold assertion, since "seed of Abraham" is, in the Jewish Scriptures, a term synonymous with Israel's status as God's chosen people.² We do not have space here to analyse the elaborate biblical argument by which Paul defends this claim, which is primarily Christological.³ However, we have in this chapter a clear spiritualisation of the term "seed of Abraham" to include all Gentile believers in Christ.⁴ Thus, while the term "Israel" does not occur, there does seem to be an implicit spiritualisation of the concept.

Running parallel to "seed of Abraham" is the notion that Christ-followers (Gentiles included) are "sons of God" (Gal. 3:26; 4:4-7).⁵ This term is not used frequently of humans in the Jewish Scriptures, but what is fascinating is that two passages where the term "sons" is used conspicuously of God's people—Isaiah 54 and Hosea 2—are quoted by Paul precisely in connection with the spiritualisation of "Israel."⁶

The Two Jerusalems (Galatians 4:21-31)

A second passage within Galatians that demands our attention is Paul's allegorical commentary on Sarah and Hagar (cf. Genesis 16, 21) in 4:21-31. This passage is deeply interesting for its approach to biblical interpretation, given that such allegorical readings would become a mainstay of patristic exegesis. However, our concern here is with the the further spiritualisation of "Abraham's sons" that occurs here. It is possible that Paul's opponents had used this passage allegorically to paint non-Torah observing Gentile Christians as children of Hagar the slave woman rather than of Sarah (and thus as second-class citizens in the divine economy).⁷ If so, Paul turns the argument on its head. In any case, he does assert that the story of Abraham's two sons is an allegory. One (Ishmael) was born of a slave woman, Hagar, "according to the flesh" (kata sarka), while the other (Isaac) was born of a free woman, Sarah, "through a promise." The flesh/promise contrast is not strictly antithetical, of course, since Isaac—though his birth required divine intervention—was a natural born son of Abraham and Sarah. Paul asserts that "These woman are two covenants" (4:24). Hagar corresponds to the covenant from Mount Sinai, and furthermore "corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children" (4:25). By contrast, "the other woman [i.e. Sarah] corresponds to the Jerusalem above; she is free, and she is our mother." Paul continues,

28 Now you, my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac. 29 But just as at that time the child who was born according to the flesh [Greek: kata sarka] persecuted the child who was born according to the Spirit [Greek: kata pneuma], so it is now also. 30 But what does the scripture say? “Drive out the slave and her child; for the child of the slave will not share the inheritance with the child of the free woman.” 31 So then, friends, we are children, not of the slave but of the free woman. 1 For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Gal. 4:28-5:1, NRSV)

Paul's allegorical interpretation does not merely entail the two women as two covenants, but also as two Jerusalems. There is a combined temporal/spatial contrast between them: "the present Jerusalem" (a temporal term) is contrasted with "the Jerusalem above" (a spatial term).⁸ The point is that the first Jerusalem belongs merely to the "present evil age" (Gal. 1:4). The second Jerusalem is not called "the Jerusalem to come," because it already exists ("she is free and is our mother"); it is instead called "the Jerusalem above" to emphasise its transcendence. Commentators note that, in antiquity, to call a city one's mother was to describe oneself as a citizen of that city; thus Paul describes himself as a citizen of Jerusalem above (compare Phil. 3:20: "But our citizenship is in heaven").⁹ The allegory has thus progressed beyond "two covenants" to encompass two orders of things. The present Jerusalem, where the Temple still stood in Paul's lifetime, was the locus of the Sinaitic covenant, one of "slavery," while the new covenant of promise, of the Spirit, of freedom, had heaven itself as its locus.

The allegory is not limited to the two women, however, but extends to their respective children. Paul makes it clear that he and his predominantly Gentile addressees are the allegorical equivalent of Isaac: "children of promise," "[the son] according to the Spirit," "children of the freeborn woman," in contrast to another group that are the allegorical equivalent of Ishmael: "the son of the slave woman...according to the flesh," children of "the present Jerusalem." If the first group refers to those whose identity comes from the faith of Christ and not from Torah-observance, who are the second group? Their association with "the present Jerusalem" makes clear that they are Torah-observant Jews. But are they Paul's Jewish Christian opponents specifically, or (non-Christ-believing) Jews more generally? The decisive clue to their identity is given in v. 29, which indicates that the second group "now" persecutes the Church.¹⁰ While it is conceivable that Paul might have thought of the disturbance his Galatian charges faced from Torahizing Jewish Christians as "persecution," he never says as much. By contrast, the letter's two prior references to persecution of the Church are to Paul's own persecuting activity before he came to Christ (1:13, 23). Moreover, near the end of the letter Paul insinuates that the false teachers' motive in compelling Gentile believers to be circumcised is to avoid persecution "for the cross of Christ" (6:12; cf. 5:11). Thus, the children according to the flesh who now persecute the children according to the Spirit are Jewish adherents of the Mosaic covenant in general.¹¹ This assertion runs parallel to that in 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16, which states that "the Jews" have persecuted the churches in Judaea.¹²

We have, then, in Galatians the idea that the Christian faithful—Gentiles included—are Abraham's seed "according to the Spirit" or "through the promise" in Christ, adopted children of God, and free citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. This is a "spiritual Israel" concept in all but name. Not only that, but there is a foil standing in contrast to this group, Abraham's seed "according to the flesh," living in slavery and belonging only to "the present Jerusalem." Paul therefore not only moves to include Gentiles in his concept of the true Israel, but also demotes Jews who put their trust in Torah rather than Christ to a secondary status.

The Israel of God (Galatians 6:16)

There remains one more passage in Galatians to discuss: the only occurrence of the word "Israel" in the letter.

15 For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything! 16 As for those who will follow this rule—peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. (Galatians 6:15-16 NRSV)

What Paul means by "the Israel of God" here has been a subject of intense debate among biblical scholars, and there are three main views.¹³ The most popular view is that "the Israel of God" refers to the Church.¹⁴ In this case the passage provides ample basis for viewing the Church as "spiritual Israel," with the qualifier of God meaning something similar to "according to the Spirit." The second view understands "the Israel of God" to refer to Jewish Christians. In this case, of God identifies a subset of Israel who belong to God, because they have believed in his Son. The third view identifies "the Israel of God" as ethnic Israel—in other words, "the Israel of God" is simply Israel in the ordinary use of the term.¹⁵ The qualifier of God then merely emphasises Israel's special elect status.

 

Arguments for the second and/or third meanings include the following: (i) the conjunction kai usually has a copulative meaning ("and") and only rarely has an explicative meaning ("even"). The statistically more likely reading "and upon the Israel of God" would thus suggest that "the Israel of God" is a different entity than "those who follow this rule" (i.e., those obedient to Paul's gospel). (ii) "Israel" consistently refers to the ethnic/national entity, throughout the Jewish Scriptures and the rest of the New Testament. (iii) A blessing upon Israel parallel to this one occurs in the Babylonian recension of the Shemoneh Esreh (the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy). (iv) The appeal to divine mercy, which is unparalleled in other Pauline benedictions, makes sense if "the Israel of God" is an entity currently under divine displeasure for disobedience. (v) This interpretation fits the wider Galatian context, which highlights that Christianity has a Jewish nucleus before ever broaching the issue of the Gentiles inclusion (Gal. 2:9-10).

These arguments are, however, not convincing. (i) The conjunction kai may have a copulative sense most frequently, but it can also have an explicative sense, and it is context rather than a general appeal to statistical frequency that must be decisive. Beale points out a close parallel to this text in Psalm 84:9(85:8) LXX:¹⁶

I will hear what the Lord God will speak with me,
because he will speak peace to his people
and to his devout
and to those who turn to him their heart. (NETS)

In this text, "his people," "his devout," and "those who turn to him their heart" are separated by the conjunction kai but are obviously three ways of describing the same group. Thus, "the Israel of God" may be an additional way that Paul wants to describe those who follow his rule.

Argument (ii) is also not persuasive, because we have seen striking cases earlier in the letter where Paul takes terminology normally reserved for ethnic Israel—"seed of Abraham" and citizenship of Jerusalem—and applies it to the Church, inclusive of uncircumcised Gentiles. It would be consistent with this earlier exceptional usage of terms for Paul to apply the term "Israel" to the Church inclusive of Gentiles here. (In subsequent installments in this series, we will look at other passages where Paul implies that the term "Israel" conveys more than ethnicity, such as 1 Corinthians 10:18 and Romans 9:6). Moreover, the exact term "Israel of God" never occurs in the Jewish Scriptures, which may signal that Paul means something different than what the term "Israel" ordinarily means. (iii) The Palestinian recension of the Shemoneh Esreh, which is regarded as earlier than the Babylonian, lacks the crucial word "mercy," which ruins the parallel with Galatians 6:16.¹⁷ (iv) The call for mercy on the Church would be unique in Paul's letters,¹⁸ but Paul's tone toward his addressees is also more severe than in any other letter. He believes the Galatians are "foolish[ly]" "deserting the one who called you" (1:6; 3:1), so a prayer for mercy is warranted. (v) The thrust of Paul's argument in Galatians has been that Gentiles who believe in Christ enjoy the same privileged status before God as Jewish believers. To make this point, he has included them among "the seed of Abraham," "the sons of God," and [citizens of] "the Jerusalem above." It would be very odd, therefore, at the conclusion of the letter for Paul to use the lofty term "Israel of God" to refer to a group that excludes his Gentile addressees.

One final point is that, elsewhere in Paul's letters, when the genitive theou ("of God") is attached to a noun referring to a group of people, it is always an ecclesiological term that explicitly or implicitly includes Gentile believers ("church of God," 1 Cor. 1:12, etc.; "elect of God," Rom. 8:33; "sons/heirs/children of God," Gal. 3:26, Rom. 8:14-21; "temple of God," 1 Cor. 3:16-17, 2 Cor. 6:16; "field/building of God," 1 Cor. 3:9). Thus, the theou attached to "Israel" in Galatians 6:16 implies that this too is an ecclesiological term inclusive of Gentile believers. All things considered, the arguments for the "Israel of God = Church" reading are decisive.

Conclusion

Already in one of his earliest letters, Paul lays the foundation for an ecclesiology that identifies the Church with "spiritual Israel." If the Church can legitimately be called "spiritual Israel," however, where does that leave the Jews, particularly non-Christian Jews? Paul's contrast between the Abraham's children kata sarka and Abraham's children kata pneuma seems to paint ethnic Israel in an unfavourable light, as related to Abraham merely by carnal descent and "enslaved" by a devotion to law-observance rather than to Christ. It might appear, therefore, from Galatians that Paul is proposing a doctrine of supersessionism (as that term was defined in the previous article). However, we must bear in mind that in Galatians Paul is reacting against a "Judaizing" heresy and defending the status of uncircumcised Gentile believers in Christ. It would suit his rhetorical purposes to emphasise the privileged status of the Church (inclusive of Gentiles) vis-à-vis Israel. If we want to gain a fuller, more nuanced picture of how the Church and ethnic Israel relate to God and to each other, we will need to look at Paul's other writings that have a less polemical purpose. Above all, this will take us to Romans 9-11. However, before we go there, the next article will look at some other passages in Paul's letters that suggest a "spiritual Israel" concept—namely, 1 Corinthians 10:18, Philippians 3:3, and Romans 2:28-29.

• 1 "[T]he consensus view of Pauline chronology places 1 Thessalonians as Paul's first letter written in the late 40s and Galatians as the second written around 49 or 50" (Robert James Mason, "Galatians 3:28: An Aspect of Eschatological Asceticism in Paul," in David Lertis Matson & K.C. Richardson (eds.), One in Christ Jesus: Essays on Early Christianity and "All That Jazz," in Honor of S. Scott Bartchy [Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2014], 234). This would make these two letters the earliest extant Christian texts unless, as some scholars believe, the Letter of James was written earlier.
• 2 "Remember the wonderful things which he did, his miracles and the judgments of his mouth, O offspring [sperma] of Abraam, his slaves, sons of Iakob, his chosen" (Ps. 104[105]:6 LXX); "Are you not the Lord who utterly destroyed the inhabitants of this land from before your people Israel and gave it forever to the seed [sperma] of Abraham, your beloved?" (2 Chr. 20:7 LXX); "But you, Israel, my servant, Iakob, whom I have chosen, the offspring [sperma] of Abraam, whom I have loved... do not fear, for I am with you; do not wander off, for I am your God who has strengthened you, and I have helped you, and I have made you secure with my righteous right hand." (Isa. 41:8-10 LXX); cf. Ex. 3:15-16. Translations from the LXX herein are, unless otherwise indicated, taken from the New English Translation of the Septuagint.
• 3 Paul asserts that the singular word "seed" referred to in the promises to Abraham (e.g., Gen. 12:7) is not a collective noun (as it appears to be) but is a literal singular noun referring to Christ personally. Those who become associated with "faith of Christ Jesus" in baptism (Gal. 3:22, 26-27) become heirs, sharers in the promise made to him (Gal. 3:29-4:7).
• 4 Of course, Jews in Paul's day also had a proselytisation process by which Gentiles could enter the covenant and become part of Abraham's seed, and a similar process (including circumcision and Torah observance) seems to be what Paul's opponents had in mind. Thus, it is not the extension of "seed of Abraham" to include non-physical descendants that makes Pauline Christianity distinctive. It is the Christocentric rather than Torah-centric focus of the procedure, its relative ease (no physical pain required for males), and its eventual popularity such that the Church became predominantly Gentile.
• 5 I am translating the Greek term literally, while recognising that it should be interpreted as gender-inclusive in contemporary application.
• 6 Isaiah 54:1 (which, admittedly, does not use the term "sons of God") is quoted by Paul in Galatians 4:27 within the Sarah-Hagar allegory to be discussed below. Hosea 2:1 (1:10 LXX) foretells that the sons of Israel would be called "sons of a living God." This text is quoted by Paul in Romans 9:25-26, to be discussed in a subsequent article. The same passage (albeit without the "sons of the living God" part) is quoted in 1 Peter 2:10. Both writers appear to apply Hosea's oracle at least partly to Gentile believers. Other places where God's people Israel are referred to as God's son(s) include Psalm 28(29):1 LXX and Hosea 11:1, the latter of which is cited Christologically in Matthew 2:15.
• 7 So Frank J. Matera, Galatians (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992), 177.
• 8 "What [Paul] has actually done, however, is to mingle the two forms, the temporal and the spatial, in such a way as to indicate that the Jerusalem that is to come has already arrived (note the twice-repeated 'is') in the form of a heavenly, spiritual Jerusalem" (Ronald Y. K. Fung, The Epistle to the Galatians [2nd edn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988], 210).
• 9 "Claiming a city as a mother is a declaration of citizenship, as Paul expresses more explicitly in Philippians: 'Our citizenship is in heaven' (Phil 3:20). This is the land that the spiritual descendants of Abraham will inherit (cf. Gal 5:21) in line with God's promise that he would provide them with territory" (David A. deSilva, The Letter to the Galatians [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018], 400).
• 10 The verse also implies that Ishmael persecuted Isaac. This is not explicitly stated in Genesis, but the idea arose in later Jewish tradition that is here assumed by Paul.
• 11 "L'apôtre fait-il allusion à une persécution des chrétiens par les légalistes (Sieffert, Zahn, Burton, Lagrange) ou par les juifs (Schlier, Oepke, etc)? Il faut peut-être préférer cette seconde interprétation" (Pierre Bonard, L'Épître de Saint Paul aux Galates [2nd edn; Neuchâtel: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1972], 99); "Paul regards certain Jewish-Christian parties as particularly hostile to himself (Gal 2:3-5) and might even have begun to regard their activity as persecution. However, the other four explicit references to persecution in Galatians point more directly toward non-Christian Jewish opposition to the Christian movement. Paul twice refers to his own former activity as persecuting the church while still 'in bondage' himself (Gal 1:13, 23). He also refers to the persecution that he alleges the rival teachers to be avoiding by promoting circumcision, which Paul could have hoped to avoid were he to do likewise, but does not (Gal 5:11). Such persecution is more likely to be coming from the moderately empowered non-Christian Jewish community, which had a certain authority over its own and used this authority to restrain deviance (see Acts 9:1-2; 2 Cor 11:24; 1 Thess 2:13-16). This persecution targets most directly the Jewish Christians who appear to go beyond the pale of Torah or speak against the central pillars of the Mosaic covenant, but makes itself felt among gentile Christians as well" (deSilva, Letter to the Galatians, 403).
• 12 "For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved" (NRSV). Incidentally, the anti-Jewish rhetoric of this passage is so strong that some scholars have proposed that it is a non-Pauline interpolation! See Markus Bockmuehl, "1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 and the Church in Jerusalem," Tyndale Bulletin, 52(1) (2001): 1-31. Frank D. Gilliard describes the comma used after "Jews" in most translations of v. 14 as anti-Semitic: note the difference between "the Jews, who killed" and "the Jews who killed." ("The Problem of the Antisemitic Comma between 1 Thessalonians 2.14 and 15," New Testament Studies, 35(4) [1989]: 481-502).
• 13 For a description of these three interpretations, see S. Lewis Johnson, Jr., "Paul and ‘The Israel of God’: An Exegetical and Eschatological Case-Study," The Master’s Seminary Journal, 20(1) (2009): 44-47.
• 14 "in Gal 6.16, Israel, qualified importantly as ‘the Israel of God’, usually is identified as the church as a whole, or as some portion thereof" (Susan Grove Eastman, "Israel and the Mercy of God: A Re-reading of Galatians 6.16 and Romans 9-11," New Testament Studies 56(3) [2010]: 367-95, here 369). For arguments in favour of the ecclesiological interpretation, see G. K. Beale, "Peace and Mercy upon the Israel of God: The Old Testament Background of Galatians 6,16b," Biblica 80(2) (1999): 204-223; Andreas J. Köstenberger, "The Identity of the ἸΣΡΑΗΛ ΤΟΥ ΘΕΟΥ (Israel of God) in Galatians 6:16," Faith and Mission 19(1) (2001): 1-16; Matera, Galatians; Richard H. Bell, The Irrevocable Call of God: An Inquiry into Paul’s Theology of Israel (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005); Christopher W. Cowan, "Context is everything: ‘The Israel of God’ in Galatians 6.16," Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, 14(3) (2010): 78-85; G. Walter Hansen, Abraham in Galatians: Epistolary and Rhetorical Contexts (London: Bloomsbury, 2015).
• 15 For arguments in support of the second and/or third views (which have some overlap), see Peter Richardson, Israel in the Apostolic Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969); Johnson, "Paul and 'The Israel of God'"; Michael Bachmann, Anti-Judaism in Galatians? Exegetical Studies on a Polemical Letter and on Paul’s Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009); Eastman, "Israel and the Mercy of God"; Andy Cheung, "Who is the ‘Israel’ of Romans 11:26?" in The Jews, Modern Israel and the New Supersessionism, ed. Calvin L. Smith (rev. ed.; Broadstairs: King's Divinity Press, 2013), 119-138; Lionel J. Windsor, Paul and the Vocation of Israel: How Paul's Jewish Identity Informs his Apostolic Ministry, with Special Reference to Romans (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014).
• 16 Beale, "Peace and Mercy upon the Israel of God," 209-210.
• 17 So Beale, "Peace and Mercy upon the Israel of God," 207-208.
• 18 The only other occurrences of the word eleos ("mercy") in the letters undisputedly attributed to Paul are in Romans 9:23, 11:30-31, and 15:9. In 9:23, those whom God has called, both Jews and Gentiles, are referred to as "the vessels of mercy." In 11:30-31, Paul relates how both Gentiles and Jews disobeyed in turn, "For God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all." In 15:9, Paul describes Christ as a "minister of the circumcised" to the end "that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy."