We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Rom 6:4)Jesus' death on the cross is not the whole story. His death and resurrection is one complete act of God - not two. It has a purpose, with a view to something further.
In Rom 6:4, as a call to Christians to live a new life, Paul uses aorist verbs - συνεταφημεν, were buried and ηγερθη, was raised - that give a note of decisiveness to the rising to new live.
(More on aorist verbs later - I have forgotten most of my Greek!)
Maeghan
Picture by Bhaskar Vijay Singh
My Latin is better than my Greek (which isn't saying a whole lot).
ReplyDeleteCorrect me if I am wrong, but these two words are passive aorist verbs. I think that Paul (the master of clauses and sentences that seem to run on forever and ever) uses this as a tool to emphasize some points. That we (our flesh) died with Crist's. He then flips the subject on us to point out the we are a new creation that was resurected out of our death. He really was clever.
This idea that the death and ressurection are one complete act is also reminding me of the fact that this was God's plan all along.
We have segregated the bible into and Old and New Testiment. For God, there is only a Testiment. The old and new lead us to Gnostic thinking: old-angry-bitter God replaced by new-happy-joy-joy Jesus.
I think this why John hammered this home in his Gospel. The God of the OT is the God of the NT and Christ's birth, death, AND resurrection were all a part of His master plan formed before the first molecule of this universe came into being.
Man I ramble! Thanks for letting me 'hammer' out my theology.
God Bless and have a great day.
-Doug
Yes, Paul is very clever with words. But sometimes too clever! (like the looong complicated sentence in Eph 1). There is quite some nuance in aorist passive (and all other tenses for that matter!!) - I will check it out when I find the time. I am doing too much at the moment! Will keep you in the loop.
ReplyDeleteYes, I too disagree with those who take it that God is the angry jealous God in the OT and lovey-dovey in the NT. There is much anger and judgment in the NT as well - God is the same yesterday, today and forevermore anyway, both a God of love and wrath.
I will follow on to say that the God of the NT is the God of the OT as well, because Christ fulfils the OT.
Haha - good - we both can get to ramble our hearts out and "hammer" our theology (at least the little that I know!)
Where and when did you learn Latin? What do you usually use it for?
Maeghan
Meghan,
ReplyDeleteI must have hit the wrong button. I will try to comment again.
you said:
I will follow on to say that the God of the NT is the God of the OT as well, because Christ fulfils the OT.
yes, but also because the God of the OT IS the Christ of NT.
Where did I learn Latin? From public High School. I took 4 years of it. Why... i don't know. I had a great teacher who taught me way more about English than anything else. In the 4th year we also learned some Greek.
By trade, I am an aerospace engineer/computer programmer so I don't really use the Latin except to hash out a strange word that I come across from time to time. It was neet to finally understand some of the Liturgy I use to recite as a child in a Catholic school. We had 2 latin services a week. It would have been nice for them to tell us what they were saying back then.
Ahhh, add it to my list of why I am no longer Catholic. ;)
Anyway, when I was in college, I took a bunch of Theology classes for my social electives. They let me clep the language requirement. Now I really regret it, because I would have loved to have taken Greek and Tivrit (Hebrew).
-Doug
I absolutelu hate it when I hit the wrong button! therefore, I make it a practice to do a Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C before I hit anything. Saved me from pulling out my hair several times already.
ReplyDeleteI took my Greek in 2 modules (14 weeks x 2) in 2004. So it is still very new to me. I am so having problems with my current Greek Exegesis on Romans!
Maeghan
Meaghan,
ReplyDeleteIt may be hard, but man it sound fun! Good luck with it!
God Bless
Doug