pharoah

The above passage is awkward for many Christians, especially evangelicals, because it clearly shows that Paul didn't think that God and Jesus were co-equal parts of a Trinity. It also places a time limit on the reign of Jesus.

The Mormons are correct concerning their interpretation of this passage and Christians are wrong. If it's taken to mean what it says, then clearly Paul believed in baptism for the dead. I've seen attempts to explain this passage away, but they all seem forced and unpersuasive to me.

Clivedurdle

Why is it so difficult to take verses like this at face value? They are describing a very strange to us world with this god in charge sending out this jesus to abolish death but rituals like baptism are part of it. Alchemic, magical thinking. We are not fluent in this "thought language" with gods and spirits and powers and life is blood or is it breath and transformations from wine to blood and bread to flesh and sacrificial lambs and all this wonderful and utterly alien stuff!

Historical anthropology?

Merzbow42

Include all of Paul's passages that seem to directly endorse universal salvation.

Clivedurdle

Is there a summary of them anywhere? Are you saying Paul preached a different gospel to that I was taught in church?

Helpmabob

Christ performed miracles and perfectly avoided sin throughout His whole life then rose from the grave, and promises to return in glory once more. He only can offer forgiveness to those who turn to Him in the meantime. He is essentially the 'author and perfector' of the faith.

Paul was first a persecutor and subsequently a devoted follower of Christ. A man allowed himself to be used by God in building His kingdom on earth. He also lived in a different time to Jesus.

Both also taught, but given their vast differences, there is no need to expect Paul to repeat exactly the same thing as Jesus. Rather the two are entirely complementary, both from God.

pharoah

Huh? No one was contrasting the teachings of Paul and Jesus. This is about the beliefs and teachings of Paul that present-day Christians by and large tend to ignore. Care to comment on why that is?

Merzbow42

Yup.

And that's just a small selection out of the dozens of verses in the NT (and some in the OT) that seem to imply universal salvation. The case for eternal hell is actually quite weak.

mikem

It is awkward for those who regard the Bible as a theological compendium without due regard to the historical development of doctrine. Paul clearly considered that the Son was subordinate to the Father. The gospel of John also portrays Jesus as subordinate to the Father, but it also has a very high Christology.
"In the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and God was the word" (John 1:1).

Paul also has a high view of Christ, who he calls "the Lord", a title usually usedof God by Jews instead of the divine name "Yahweh", out of respect.

In Phillipians 2:11 Paul quotes a passage from Isaiah, that in Isaiah refers to Yawheh, but Paul applies it to Jesus.

Clearly neither Paul nor the writer of John's gospel had a problem with subordinating Jesus to the Father. Having said that, of course neither writer appeared to be interested in developing an ontology of the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Their main interest was in promoting Jesus as Saviour. In the light of later controversies of course, it became a matter of some urgency to try and define the divine relationships, an exercise that was not much helped by the political necessity of having diverse Christian groups all singing from the same hymn sheet, so to speak.

Clivedurdle

You are reminding me of how I was taught to get out of this predicament that there are contradictions - you are meant to also use the verses that say something else to get the whole picture - thus confessing jesus is lord is key there must be people who don't confess this cos of free will therefore they send themselves to hell or if you are a libral you just die.

Gamera

I fail to see the theologic problem except to the extent that it is of the fundamentalists own making.

First the chapter is about resurrection, which apparently was disputed by some Corinthians. So Paul is arguing that Christ was resurrected and if he wasn't then Christianity is useless.

Second, the resurrection means a different kind of life for Paul (and all Christians). Call it heaven, call it bliss, call it the transformation of the body, but the point is resurrection is a mystical event that involves a new identity and existence beyond what we now have and what we can understand.

Third, Paul goes on to explore the meaning of that mystical life at the end of time, and says ultimately the role of Christ (i.e., as the Son to the Father, which is central to the gospel message, which is about sacrificing what one loves most for another), will be no longer necessary. That makes perfect sense since the whole Father, Son, Spirit dichotomy is involved in imparting the gospel message of God's transforming love. But after the resurrection, there will be no need for the gospel message. It's work is done.

Finally, Paul can't even express what this ultimately means, except as a mystical unity in which we and Christ and everything become one with God (whatever that means).

So again, I don't see the theological problem except for those who fixate on the role of the Son in history, as opposed to the ultimate oneness of God in eternity.