1 Introduction
Media attention on the untimely publication of the Dutch translation of the ‘Nashville-Statement’ revealed how sensitive Western culture is to pronouncements about sexuality, and how much it is polarized by them. Thoughts about sexuality do not only touch upon contemporary lifestyles, worldviews and fundamental needs, but also upon our deepest existential identity. This development coheres with changes to our authentic self. For this reason, only a few things touch and divide people, churches and societies more deeply than these issues. We see that sexual issues, much like issues about race, ethnicity, class and religion, polarize churches and societies, and thus people react by excluding identities and groups.
In this chapter, it is the existential implications related to our identity which are of most interest. Because the New Testament offers us an application of the identity in Christ to sexual life in a pre-modern context in which sexuality was also very important, perhaps the retrieval of these understandings can be made fruitful in our postmodern context. The relevance of retrieving these old interpretations of sexual life is of primary importance for the church, which may be able to act as a countermovement in contemporary society.
In this contribution, I start by investigating sexual life in our present-day culture. Next, I investigate how Paul applied finding one’s identity in Christ to sexual life in the New Testament. These two investigations lead to a retrieval of Paul’s application to the current cultural context.
The history of the development of our culture is characterized by its turn towards the human subject.1 While the pre-modern phase of our culture could be characterized by a super-personal order in which the human subject had its place, in modernity there came a clear shift. The names of Rene Descartes (1596–1650) and Immanuel Kant (1724–1894) are significant here. Descartes broke with Aristotle’s thinking about substances and put the relationship between the knowing subject and known object central.2 Immanuel Kant continued this approach, turning more to interpreting the human subject.3
With this turn to the human subject came the objectification of the human being in which the human mind was understood as the result of causal processes. Some years ago, Dick Swaab published a bestseller entitled We Are Our Brains.4 The suggestion made by this title is that human beings can be reduced to the summation of their brain cells. When the human cells die, the human existence ends.5 The touching book Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari confirmed this impression, saying human thought could be reduced to mini-electric streams and that Artificial Intelligence surpassed human intelligence.6 Words such as physicalization, mechanization, quantification and objectification were used to characterize this development.7
Nevertheless, something has changed, even in science. Philosophers of science acknowledge that science is not neutral, but works within paradigms of unproven presuppositions.9 These presuppositions are not only academic, but also moral, political, economic and cultural. This implies that strict rationalism is decreasing and that there is a new sense that there is more than what can simply be measured. In this context, spirituality, religion and meaning receive new attention and become more relevant.
While the search for objective truth drove modernity, in our postmodern culture we are unhappy with absolute claims of truth. We shudder, in particular, when we hear moral claims made on religious grounds. Meanwhile we concentrate on the small stories of the individual human being. We speak of a re-appreciation of the individual subject.10 Perhaps we can say that the emotions and the interpretations of the individual subject are a new form of truth. We have to take each other’s feelings completely seriously. In short, the shift to the human subject in postmodernity has come to a preliminary completion.11
These cultural developments interacted with our understanding of sexuality. Until the mid-nineteenth century, people spoke about homosexual behavior and Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) categorized people for the first time according to their sexual orientation.12 In the course of this century, people began to speak of homosexuality in medical and psychological terms. Carl Westphal, in 1870, was the first psychiatrist to use the word ‘nature’ to describe
While the climax of the persecution of homosexuals in the bloody twentieth century was an expression of modernity that could not tolerate exceptions,14 postmodernity led to a new interpretation of homosexuality linked to the cultural shift. Living well is no longer about living according to external moral norms and values, but about living according to our authentic selves.15
The need to be oneself expresses itself in the exercise of our sexuality, because our sexuality is a core aspect of our personality.16 While the pre-modern human being was primarily religious and wanted to know the meaning of life, in postmodernity the religious regime has been exchanged for the sexual regime. Sexuality coheres with the meaning of life; we are our sexuality and sexuality is a determining factor of our identity.17
These developments led to a revolution in sexual morality.18 Alfred Kinsey (1894–1956) can be seen as the father of sexology and, as a couple, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre were role models for free love. Herbert Marcuse promoted the motto: ‘Make love, not war.’ When the pill was introduced in the 1960s, developments quickly followed: sexuality was separated from reproduction, the laws in the Netherlands changed, adultery was no longer a crime, and pornography and prostitution became accepted in law.
Although the emancipation of homosexuals started from the beginning of the twentieth century in the church,19 in society the breakthrough occurred
At the same time, it appears that the postmodern approach to sexuality involves polarization because thinkers and opinion leaders among religious movements and conservative thinkers distance themselves from, and oppose, this approach. One of the adversaries of the postmodern approach toward sexuality is Gabrielle Kuby,23 a Roman-Catholic activist who frames the developments concerning sexuality and gender as an ideology24 and suggests there is a conspiracy; her approach is also interpreted as anti-gender ideology. Her message is that the Western world uses the concept of emancipation to deny biological diversity between man and woman, to destroy the family and to reject sexual norms.
Apart from this ideological polarization, most homosexual people are not driven by such visions; they simply want to have a peaceful life and live according to their sexual identity. Their longings cannot be identified with our pornographic culture. At the same time, there are also people with a homosexual orientation who prefer to be heterosexual. It can be difficult for these people to maintain themselves in a culture in which sexuality has become characteristic of our identity, as they may feel pressure to ‘come out’ and be themselves.
3 Paul’s Application of Identity in Christ
Over the last years, perhaps decades, in New Testament research, in systematic theology and in the historical-theological study of Calvinism, the concepts of
Several metaphors in the New Testament explain this mystical union with Christ; one of the leading ones is the union between husband and wife.26 John uses the metaphor of the branches that are united with the vine, take succor from the vine and bear its fruit.27 The strongest metaphor used is that of the union between head and body.28 These metaphors imply that we cannot think of believers in isolation from Christ or vice versa. Branches without a vine and bodies without a head cannot exist. In the early church, this unity was expressed in the theologoumenon of totus Christus which stated that Christ was only complete in his body.29
In Pauline writings, we find implications of this mystical union. The mystical union with Christ is such a reality that believers are created in Christ,30
One might ask whether we can speak of a Pauline concept, because the word ‘concept’ can give the impression that it relates to a theoretical interpretation. However, this approach misses the existential depth of the mystical union, because this union is not about an interpretation, but concerns the existential identity of the believer. For this contribution, it is important to understand the position ‘in’ Christ as the identity of a Christian.44
It is necessary to understand the existential consequence of the Christian faith. The Christian is not a ‘normal’ human being with a few morals and habits added on. He or she does not have a partial acceptance of Christian views; being a Christian is much more radical and existential.45 This means that the
Because this incorporation into Christ’s reality involves the personal identity of a Christian, it touches all aspects and dimensions of life. From this point of view, the apostle develops a radical understanding of the Christian life. Being baptized in Christ implies that the believer’s identity is neither Jewish nor Greek, neither bonded nor free, neither male nor female.46 These ‘natural’ identities are not completely denied, but they are not essential or decisive in Christ’s body. This is also true for sinful ‘nature’. While Paul acknowledges the power of sin in his body,47 he identifies believers as Christians and not as sinners.48
Belonging to Christ’s body in a spiritual sense has huge implications for the physical body. Because the believer understands his life not as his own life, he cannot use his body according to his own wishes. We can say that a Christian has no hands, because his hands are Christ’s. His ears, his tongue, his complete life is Christ’s body. The believer, therefore, does not reason from his own interests in his civil life, but interprets his interests in the perspective of Christ’s kingdom. Augustine’s expression—that the old man uses God to enjoy the earth, while the new man uses the earth to enjoy God—is telling in this regard.49
The basis for this attitude is the deep conviction that Christ paid a huge ransom for the body of the believer and the believer expects his body to be glorified with the risen Christ.50 For this reason, S. Lorenzen concluded that the resurrection of the body of the believer is implied in the image of God.51 Only if God’s grace is fulfilled in the body, is the adoption fulfilled.52 At the same time, we can say that the beginnings of this fulfilment are already present. By the power of the Spirit, believers are already drawn into this eschatological future, so that they, by the Spirit as the first fruit of the eschaton, begin to live after the order of Christ’s new world. This order of Christ’s new world is expressed
In this context, it is interesting to see how this applies to sexuality. Paul’s friend Luke refers to Jesus’ explanation of the resurrection in which marriage will be absent.55 It can be argued that this approach was related to the concept of marriage as an image of the unity between Christ and his church.56 Because of the ‘marriage’ with Christ, Christians look forward to the complete union with their spiritual bridegroom. One could expect this eschatological understanding of marriage to lead to a relativization of marriage and, in a certain sense, we see this relativism in the Paulinian letter to Ephesus.57 Paul understands the relationship of marriage as a mirror of the relationship between Christ and the church. Christians should not absolutize marriage, because it is not our brides or grooms who are all, it is Christ. Paul confirms this conviction with his own single life and persuades the congregation that a single life is good and, in a certain sense, preferable.58
This interpretation of marriage does not imply, however, a complete relativization of marriage or a disinterestedness in sexual life. Quite the opposite. Because marriage is a mirror of Christ and his church, Paul exhorts men to love their wives as Christ loves his church and sacrificed himself for the church.59 He can also write that husbands and wives are equal in their sexual lives and that the wife has exousia (power) over the body of her husband.60
1 Peter 3:1–7 offers us some remarkable interpretations.61 While the first impression about this text is that women and wives occupy a secondary position compared to men, careful exegesis teaches us that the gospel—unlike the
But Paul was also at odds with the culture of that time because of his belief that sexual intercourse should only take place within the marriage of a husband and wife. In the Greek-Roman culture of the New Testament, sexuality was expressed in several forms;64 Julius Caesar was every woman’s man and every man’s woman, a sort of bisexual, and Emperor Nero had a same-sex marriage.65 Pederasty was a well-known practice at the time and understood to be the highest form of love.66 Women were valued less than slaves; they were only necessary for having children and could be discarded on grounds of infertility. Notwithstanding this clash with the environmental culture,67 Paul pleaded his ‘new’ interpretation of sexual life with apostolic authority.
Apparently, Paul’s message had positive effects. When writing to the church of Corinth, he referred to people who had had a sexual life of the sort that was conventional at the time, but who had then denied that way of living.68 In Paul’s letters to the churches, we see the importance of the Christian interpretation of sexual life. He writes about this theme with absolute earnestness. Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers or abusers will not inherit the kingdom of God.69 Christians have to mortify fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence and covetousness.70 These texts in the Paulinian
We can conclude that finding one’s identity in Christ is essential to Paul’s understanding of the Christian identity. This identity in Christ has important consequences for understanding sexuality. Because marriage refers to our identity in Christ as the body, which is determined by Christ as the head, the holiness of marriage is central in the apostle’s treatment of sexual life.73
4 Retrieving Paul’s Identity in Christ in the Postmodern Context
After investigating the turn to the human subject in postmodernity and the interpretation of our identity in Christ in Paul’s writings, a consideration of how Paul’s approach can be applied in the present context of the church now follows.
4.1 Understanding Scripture as ‘Viva Vox’
First, Christians have many tensions when treating sexuality in a postmodern context. They also interact with several different attitudes, ranging from the most liberal to the most conservative. Orthodox Christians in the Roman-Catholic Church and in the Reformed tradition agree about the unique place that marriage between husband and wife has, but they differ in their attitudes to same-sex marriage. Some Christians even understand the present conflict as an ideological war; the Nashville Statement is a good example of this. Other Christians reject ‘Nashville’ because of its impersonal attitude and its modern approach,74 but are convinced that the Christian faith does not accept same-sex relationships and argue that gays should be celibate. This position is very
What these different interpretations of scripture all have in common is their concern about the understanding and application of scripture as a normative holy book. This approach to scripture belongs to the great Christian tradition and is expressed in detail in the protestant sola scriptura. Acknowledging this authority of scripture, we see that the Heidelberg Catechism interprets scripture as an existential interaction with Christ.79 Billings refers to this approach to scripture as a ‘Trinitarian Hermeneutic.’80
This approach implies—first—a high regard for the Bible, because the external Word relates us to the eternal Word and the real knowledge of scripture is the real spiritual knowledge of Christ. Second, this approach implies a certain functionalizing of scripture, because scripture is not an end in itself. Scripture is, as it were, the clothing of Christ, but the clothing is not the person himself. Third, this approach implies that pastors are not preaching scripture if they make an accurate exegesis without preaching Christ.81
This existential approach to scripture transcends and breaks through the subject-object divorce of modernity, because Christ as the speaking Subject is decisive. The starting point is not the individual subject, but the heavenly Subject Christ. In the heart of the reading of scripture, we hear the heart of Christ at the deepest level of our hearts. We cannot organize this existential intercourse with Christ, only experience our dependence upon the Holy Spirit.
4.2 Understanding Our Identity in Christ
This insight leads to a second consideration. While our postmodern culture takes us in a hyper-individualistic direction using our own individualistic identity is a starting point,83 being interpreted by Christ’s voice in scripture takes us in an opposite direction. Instead of our own identity being our starting point, Christ is our identity and the starting point of interpretation. We do not interpret Christ through our own individual or postmodern interpretative framework, but Christ interprets our identity. Perhaps we can speak here of being ‘overpowered’ by the Holy Spirit.
This is a paradoxical reality. We have to deny ourselves and our own identity.84 In this sense the gospel does not confirm our existence, our sexual identity, but confronts us with the reality of the old eon which has to be forsaken. For our
The confrontational power of the existential meeting with the living Christ through his Word involves everybody in the congregation. Even Paul himself, who was already a Christian and had been an apostle for many years, experienced this. Being confronted with God’s law, he estimated himself in terms of the flesh.88 He made a similar judgment when writing to his spiritual son Timothy, describing himself as the greatest of sinners.89
This confrontational interpretation of the gospel is the deepest way of understanding the gospel. The riches in Christ imply the bankruptcy of this old eon and belonging to this old eon puts us against Christ and his gospel.90 Participation in the old eon of the present world also implies that we have lost all hope of an eschatological future.91 But there’s also a paradox here. Everyone who denies this judgment will be judged, while accepting this judgment frees us from it and allows us to participate in Christ’s liberty. We are saved from being—as Luther called it—incurvatus in se (closed up in ourselves)92 and so we can flourish in a real relationship with Christ, the triune God, and our neighbors.
The denial of our present identity also involves our sexual identity. While our culture encourages us to understand ourselves as lesbians, homosexuals, bisexuals, transgender people, or heterosexuals, in the realm of God’s kingdom this identity is (relatively) denied in order to interpret ourselves as being in Christ.93 Our sexuality is no longer who we are, but how we are.94 Understanding ourselves through Christ’s identification with us means we understand the
It is helpful to consider which aspects of this eschatological framework of interpreting ourselves differ from a protological framework of interpretation; a framework of interpretation that people can use to deny the classification of Christians along gender- and sexual identity categories, because human beings cannot be reduced to their sexual identity. The abolition of this classification is also helpful for a number of gay people who do not feel comfortable and do not experience themselves as being in these categories.95 This struggle with identity makes it difficult for some homosexuals to accept themselves.
The difference between the protological and the eschatological viewpoints is the radicalism of the eschatological approach. In the protological approach our identity remains, although the burden of the struggling members of the church is somewhat relieved by the interpretation that our identity is more than our sexuality. But the protological approach will always remind us that our identities are not fully what they should be unless a solution to these burning existential issues is found. In the eschatological approach, however, our old identity, including all its defects, is crucified with Christ and undergoes a radical renewal in Christ.
Heterosexuals and homosexuals, transgender people and bisexuals are equal in their struggle with this self-denial, because the powers of the old eon that do not accept this self-denial are still present within us. The struggle with this self-denial offers an interpretative framework which we can use to account for sin and falling, for being unhappy, and for having negative emotions. We are not living in paradise yet, but are still part of the old reality. With all creation we suffer, we are in travail and we expect the revelation of God’s children in his kingdom.96
4.3 Understanding Our Sexual Identity
What do the foregoing considerations imply for our sexuality? Thinking from our identity in Christ relativises our old identities. Our work, our study, our sport, our gender, our sexual orientation, our relationships and our sinful character can all be part of our self-identity. In union with Christ, these identities
This also appears in the notion that, in God’s eschatological kingdom, marriage was fulfilled in the union and communion with Christ. This approach is nuanced. First, we do not speak about the abolishment of marriage but about its fulfilment. From the perspective in Christ, we are not primarily husband and wife, but brother and sister.98 Second, this approach implies that reproduction does not belong to the eschaton.99 In the third place, the eschaton reveals a reality in which our human need for intimacy finds its primary fulfilment in the relationship with Christ and also within his body.100 It seems that this relationship in the eschaton is more than the marriage in the proton. Therefore, from our point of view, we cannot speak about sexuality in the eschaton.101 The need and the practice of intimacy can be acknowledged, sexual differentiation as male and female will continue, but sexual intercourse according to our experience cannot be expected in the eschaton.
Because we understand the church as the first beginning of the eschatological kingdom of God, sexual orientations are not decisive. I think this understanding of our identity in Christ relieves us from the need to have our own identity performed in this life. This does not deny sexuality in this life, or the difficult struggles of believers in the congregation, but sexuality is not made absolute, and our understanding of self is not determined by our sexual identity. This can function as a starting point to reflect upon the meaning of our lives.
Understanding that the church is also the temple of the Holy Spirit leads to yet another consideration. Living in union with Christ does not only have an eschatological dimension, it has a pneumatological dimension too. In Christ’s body we experience the first fruit of the Spirit, which implies that we are renewed day by day until we inherit eternal youth. For this reason, thinking in terms of fixed positions is not supported by the Bible. This has huge implications for our sexuality. Without suggesting that sexual identities have to be
Consciousness of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit leads us to a new understanding of our bodies; our bodies are redeemed by Christ and ultimately his. This teaches us to ask for his guidance in how we use our bodies and to be dependent upon him for our acts. This reality brings us to the preliminary question: are we willing to live God’s will without conditions? In our hearts is the tendency to design our own plan, reason about the worth of our plan, and ask God’s blessing for it. Union with Christ leads to the opposite attitude. To use a metaphor: we sign a blank sheet of paper which God uses to fill in the plan of our lives.
This leads to the insight that the first issue for believers is not their opinion about sexuality ethics, but is the question: do we accept Christ as our Lord, even if he asks us to live a lifestyle which goes against our own desires?103 Our sexual behaviors, erotic desires, romantic feelings, sentimental relationships, and even all our platonic friendships must conform to Jesus Christ’s plan and nothing else.104 The primary issue concerning sexuality is about holiness. Do we want to live a holy life? Do we accept the strictness of our Lord who had compassion for the weak and the sinners and, at the same time, was very strict about our sexual lust?105 This question faces heterosexuals and homosexuals, transgender people and bisexuals alike. Heterosexuals in a faithful heterosexual marriage can live in a selfish way, using their wives to satisfy their own lust. Heterosexuals can idolize heterosexual marriage.106 To put it in an ultimately existential way: heterosexuality will not bring us to heaven, only faith in Christ can do this. Or to put it another way: both homosexuals and heterosexuals have to fight against their own selfish lust if they want to enter God’s kingdom.
These considerations put the church in a very special position in the world today. Only the church has the paradigm which enables another framework that we can use to interpret the identity of each other in the Christian congregation. We do not learn this from our culture; our culture will learn this from the church, and in the church we learn this from the gospel that is beyond our culture.110 We will need much practice in the church to understand each other as brothers and sisters primarily and essentially in this eschatological perspective. In this way, the church does not understand itself as a mediator in a polarized society, but practices its eschatological shalom in its early beginnings and lives in the hope of complete wholeness in Christ.
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For Descartes’ ego cogito, ergo sum, see his Principia Philosophiae … (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1677), 2.
For Kant’s turn to the subject, compare Cornelis van der Kooi, As in a Mirror: John Calvin and Karl Barth on Knowing God. A Diptych (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 225–248.
Dick F. Swaab, We Are Our Brains: A Neurobiography of the Brain, from the Womb to Alzheimer’s, transl. J. Hedley-Prôle (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2014), original: Wij zijn ons brein: Van baarmoeder tot Alzheimer (Amsterdam: Contact, 2010).
Therefore, Bertrand Russel concluded that human life is meaningless in his Why I Am not a Christian which is typified by New York Public Library as one of the most influential books of the 20e century.
Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (London: Penguin Random House, 2016). According to the great physicist Stephen Hawking the primitive forms of Artificial Intelligence has been useful for humanity, but “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of human race,” https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540 (accessed October 1, 2020).
Hans W. de Knijff wrote about a ‘catastrophic’ situation, Tegenwoordigheid van geest als Europese uitdaging: Over secularisatie, wetenschap en christelijk geloof (Presence of mind as a European challenge: On secularization, science and Christian faith) (Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum, 2013), 13, 15.
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Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2012, originally published 1962).
Compare for the theological consequences John Webster, “The Human Person,” in The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology, ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003), 219–234.
Brad S. Gregory speaks about ‘hyperpluralism,’ The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 369. Every individual “must be the sovereign of his or her own Cartesianized universe, determining his or her own truth, making his or her own meanings, and following his or her own desires” (385).
Christopher Yuan, Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God’s Grand Story (New York: Penguin, 2018), 10.
Compare Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 3 volumes (New York: Bloomsbury, 1986–1992), Vol. I, 43.
See also Foucault, History of Sexuality, Vol. I, 17–23, 33; Graham Robb, Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Norton, 2005), 30.
Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), 29.
Marco Derks describes how the call to be yourself is intertwined with the call for sexual freedom in our culture, Constructions of Homosexuality and Christian Religion in Contemporary Public Discourse in the Netherlands (Doctoral thesis Utrecht University, 2019), 80–85.
The autobiographical notions of Christopher Yuan confirm this, Holy Sexuality and the Gospel, 8–9.
According to Hans Boutelier, Het seculiere experiment: Hoe we van God los gingen samenleven (The secular experiment: How we lived together apart from God) (Amsterdam: Boom, 2015), 108–109. Marc Cortez gave an overview of this development in the third chapter of his Theological Anthropology: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 41–67, especially 47–57.
David Bos describes the developments in evangelical, orthodox-reformed and pietistic reformed Christians in the Netherlands, “Homo-af: De opkomst van de ex-homoseksueel in Nederland” (Gay-off: The rise of the ex-gay in the Netherlands), in Genot en gebod: Huwelijk en seksualiteit in protestants Nederland vanaf 1800, eds. David J. Bos en John Exalto (Utrecht: KokBoekencentrum, 2019), 128–155.
David J. Bos, “‘Equal Rites before the Law’: Religious Celebrations of Same-Sex Relationships in the Netherlands, 1960’s–1990’s” (accessed October 1, 2020).
Boris Dittrich, Een blauwe stoel in paars: Verhalen uit de Tweede Kamer (A blue chair in purple: Stories from the Dutch parliament) (Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 2001), 73.
Derks refers to several thinkers and organisations who interpret gay marriage in this sense, Constructions of Homosexuality and Christian Religion, 19, 34–36, 95–97, 112, 150.
Gabrielle Kuby, The Global Sexual Revolution: Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom (Kettering: Angelico Press, 2015).
“An ideology is a collection of normative beliefs and values that an individual or group holds for other than purely epistemic reasons. In other words, these rely on basic assumptions about reality that may or may not have any factual basis. The term is especially used to describe systems of ideas and ideals which form the basis of economic or political theories and resultant policies. In these there are tenuous causal links between policies and outcomes owing to the large numbers of variables available, so that many key assumptions have to be made. In political science, the term is used in a descriptive sense to refer to political belief systems” (Wikipedia, accessed June 7, 2019).
For the biblical reflection on this theme, see Michael J. Thate, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Constantine R. Campbell (eds), ‘In Christ’ in Paul (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014); for the systematic reflection, see Hans Burger, Being in Christ: A Biblical and Systematic Investigation in a Reformed Perspective (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2008). This theme provoked particular interest in reformed theology, John V. Fesko, Beyond Calvin: Union with Christ and Justification in Early Modern Reformed Theology (1517–1700) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), 53–75; Julie Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder: A Spiritual Theology of Ascent and Ascension (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010); J. Todd Billings, “United to God through Christ: Assessing Calvin on the Question of Deification,” Harvard Theological Journal 98:3 (2005), 315–334; J. Todd Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift: The Activity of Believers in Union with Christ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
Eph. 5:22–32.
John 15:1–8.
Rom. 12:4–5; 1 Cor. 12:12–31; Eph. 4:15–16.
On John 5:20–23 Augustine wrote: “Let us rejoice, then, and give thanks that we are made not only Christians, but Christ,” Homilies on the Gospel of John, NPNF1, 7:140. In the same volume we find these words: “To that flesh the Church is joined, and so there is made the whole Christ, Head and body” (462). Believers are not only Christians, but Christ. So can Christ speak through the head or through the members, Enarrationes in Psalmos 140, 3. In this way, the talk of the church is the talk of Christ and vice versa, Enarrationes in Psalmos 30.2, 4. Also Calvin could say that Christ is not complete without believers, Comm. Eph. 1:23, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom41.iv.ii.v.html (accessed June 12, 2019). This interpretation of the church means that the church is not only the work of God as creation is, but is also the body of Christ, see Robert W. Jenson, Systematic Theology, 2 Vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997–1999), Vol. 2, 167.
Eph. 2:10.
Rom. 6:6.
Gal. 2:20.
Col. 2:12.
Rom. 6:3.
Rom. 6:5, Eph. 2:4, Col. 3:1. In John 5:24 we also find the comparable reality that the Christian shares the eternal life of Christ.
Eph. 2:6.
Rom. 3:24.
Rom. 8:30.
1 Cor. 1:2.
2 Cor. 5:17.
Gal. 5:22.
2 Cor. 4:16.
Phil. 3:20. A striking example of a creative application of the spiritual union with Christ can be found in the Heidelberg Catechism. While the tradition before the Heidelberg Catechism acknowledged the threefold office of Christ (munus triplex), the Heidelberg Catechism includes the consequence and applied the offices to the Christian as well. The argument is that the Christian is ‘a member of Christ by faith’ and thus ‘a partaker of his anointing’, compare Willem van Vlastuin, “The Promise of Unio Mystica,” in Arnold Huijgen (ed.), The Spirituality of the Heidelberg Catechism: Papers of the International Conference on the Heidelberg Catechism Held in Apeldoorn 2013 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015), 168–185, here 174–176.
Compare Gal. 2:19–20 and Phil. 1:21.
Paul writes that he denies everything except Christ for Christ and his sake, Phil. 3:7–8.
Gal. 3:27–28. It is remarkable that Jesus teaches us to hate our parents, children, spouses and our lives compared to Christ, Luke 14:26, see also Matt. 10:37.
Rom. 7:14–25; Gal. 5:17; 1 Tim. 1:15.
Col. 1:2. Compare Willem van Vlastuin, Be Renewed: A Theology of Personal Renewal (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 175–177.
De Civitate 15.7.
1 Cor. 15:42–49.
Stefanie Lorenzen, Das Paulinische Eikon-Konzept: Semantische Analyse zur Sapientia Salomonis zu Philo und den Paulusbriefen (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 157–159. See also 195–198, 205, 262.
Rom. 8:23.
Gal. 5:24.
Rom. 8:3–4, 13.
Luke 20:34–36.
See Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), 364, 366. Although there is no view of marriage as an image of the unity between Christ and his church in Luke, there is no reason to presuppose a great difference in the understanding of marriage in Luke and Paul, partly because they were friends and worked together. Above all, we see that both Luke and Paul relativize marriage.
Eph. 5:32.
1 Cor. 7:25–40.
Eph. 5:25.
1 Cor. 7:3–5. Compare Matthew Rueger, Sexual Morality in a Christless World (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2016), 64–66.
Compare Arnold Huijgen, Lezen en laten lezen: Gelovig omgaan met de Bijbel (To read and to let read: Treating the Bible with faith) (Utrecht: Kokboekencentrum Uitgevers, 2019), 204–215.
Karen H. Jobes, 1 Peter (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 202–204.
Compare Rueger, Sexual Morality, 76.
Compare Thomas K. Hubbard (ed.), Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents (London: University of California Press, 2003); Rueger, Sexual Morality, 12–22, 40–41, 66–68. In an interview with John L. Allen jr. in 2004 Tom Wright acknowledged that in Paul’s times all types of sexual behavior were exhibited, “Interview with Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright of Durham, England,” http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/wright.htm (accessed October 4, 2019).
Dio Cassius, Roman History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927), Vol. 8, 159.
See also Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
The Christian denial to partake in public offerings to idols or the emperor was experienced as anti-human, as atheism and as a threat to public order, Rueger, Sexual Morality, 41, 83.
1 Cor. 6:9–11.
1 Cor. 6:9. Compare 1 Timothy 1:10.
Col. 3:5.
Rom. 12:2.
Eph. 4:22, 5:3–4; Col. 3:5, 8–9. Matt. 16:24 explains that followers of Jesus have to deny themselves.
Queer theologians argue that the image of Christ’s body in 1 Cor. 12 might be a more inspiring image for sexual equality and justice than the marriage of Christ’s body with Christ as head. In this essay about the mystical union with Christ, we see that Paul used the image of the head and the body as a metaphor for the mystical union and its sexual implications.
Jan Mudde, “Bijbel, exegese en homosexualiteit” (Bible, exegesis and homosexuality), in Homoseksualiteit en de kerk (Homosexuality and the church), eds. Maarten van Loon, Henk Medema and Jan Mudde (Amsterdam: Buijten & Schipperheijn, 2019), 22–32, here 24–25.
https://hartvanhomos.nl/vriendschap (accessed June 17, 2019).
For the unfamiliarity of the current gay in the early church, compare Gerard den Hertog, “Hoe verwijst Jezus naar het ‘in den beginne’?” (How does Jesus refer to ‘in the beginning’?), in Homoseksualiteit en de kerk, 58–68. Paul Avis calls same-sex marriage “the lesser of two evils, the greater evil being enforced celibacy and accompanying loneliness,” Eros and the Sacred (New York: Morehouse, 1989), 147.
Church order of Protestant Church in the Netherlands, ordinantie 5.4, https://www.protestantsekerk.nl/thema/kerkorde (accessed June 17, 2019).
Compare Wim Dekker, “Aanvaarding: Tot hoever gaat dat?” (Acceptance: How far does that go?), in Homoseksualiteit en de kerk, 69–78, 77–78.
Compare Willem van Vlastuin, “Heidelberg’s Relevance for a Postmodern Age: The Doctrine of Scripture in the Heidelberg Catechism Revisited,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 17:1 (2015), 26–45.
J. Todd Billings, The Word of God for the People of God: An Entryway to the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 86.
Edward Farley, “Toward a New Paradigm in Preaching,” in Preaching as a Theological Task: World, Gospel, Scripture, eds. Thomas G. Long and Edward Farley (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 165–175. Compare Fred B. Craddock, Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985), 28; Thomas G. Long, Preaching and the Literary Forms of the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989), 126.
Compare Huijgen, Lezen en laten lezen.
René van Woudenberg problematized the concept of identity and argued that our identity remains the same through time no matter how great the changes in our character and attitudes may be, “Veelheid van Identiteiten, Fundamentele Identiteit en Dualisme” (Multitude of Identities, Fundamental Identity and Dualism), Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 110:3 (2018), 315–333.
Matt. 16:24. Megan K. DeFranza also acknowledges that in Christ all our identities are put to death. In her approach this implies breaking through the binary gender order, Sex Difference in Christian Theology: Male, Female, and Intersex in the Image of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015).
Gal. 6:14.
We find a classic interpretation of this mystery in Augustine: “Restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee,” Confessiones 1.1.
Matt. 22:34–40.
Rom. 7:14.
1 Tim. 1:15.
John 15:18–25.
1 John 2:17.
Compare Luther, WA 56:304.
For this approach see also Derks, Constructions of Homosexuality, 76, 86, 89–90, 92; Hays, Moral Vision, 390–391.
Compare Yuan, Holy Sexuality, 41.
According to Joseph N. Nicolosi, Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality: A New Clinical Approach (New Jersey: Jason Aronson, 1997), 13; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Washington: American Psychiatric Association, 2000), 582. Derks pleads for other reasons for a deconstruction of identity politics, Constructions of Homosexuality, 93.
Rom. 8:22–23.
2 Cor. 3:18, 4:4.
Mark 3:31–35.
Compare Robert Song, Covenant and Calling: Towards a Theology of Same-Sex Relationships (London: SCM Press, 2014), Chapter 3.
This order is motivated by Mark 12:30–31, loving God is the first commandment and loving our neighbor the second. Here I differ from Derks, who seems to deny that the relationship with Christ can be primary, Constructions of Homosexuality, 88.
Gijsbert van den Brink and Kees van der Kooi write that we remain sexual beings in the eschaton, Christian Dogmatics: An Introduction (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), 286.
Derks proposes the concept of ‘sacramental characters’ instead of ‘being in Christ,’ Constructions of Homosexuality, 89–114. I agree with him to reject the sociological and individualistic interpretation of ‘being in Christ’, but implying the pneumatological dimension in this concept includes also the transformation of the character, the sensitiveness for the corporative dimension of Christ’s body and the unity of the external and internal aspects. Furthermore, the sacrament of baptism expresses the relationship with Christ. Therefore, the concept of ‘sacramental characters’ has no advantage over ‘being in Christ’, but the latter has a richer meaning.
Compare Matt. 8:18–22.
I took this sentence from Yuan, Holy Sexuality, 195.
For Jesus’ warm-heartedness, compare Luke 15:1, for his strictness see Matt. 5:28, for the combination see John 8:1–11.
Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters (New York: Penguin, 2016), XIX.
Matt. 4:1–11. Compare also Heb. 4:15.
1 Cor. 10:13.
Rom. 8:37.
Compare 1 Cor. 2:9.