Paul and the Hope of Glory: An Exegetical and Theological Study, by Constantine R. Campbell. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020. xxiv + 503 pp. $34.99.
Constantine Campbell is senior vice president of global content and Bible teaching at Our Daily Bread Ministries. His Paul and the Hope of Glory, following his well-received monograph Paul and Union with Christ, is the second in a planned series that will focus on “a major theme in Paul’s writings” (xxi). In this recent installment, Campbell examines texts related to the theme of Paul’s eschatology and then synthesizes the message of these texts into theological conclusions that cohere with all of Paul’s writings. In his earlier book, Campbell argued that “union with Christ” can be likened to the webbing that connects all of Paul’s theology. In this book, Campbell, along with Schweitzer, views eschatology as the frame holding that spider web in place (453). All thirteen Pauline epistles are included in the study. Campbell’s work defines eschatology as “not only a temporal concept” but, due to the overlap of the ages (i.e., inaugurated eschatology), also “inevitably spatial as well” (5). In other words, Campbell argues that Paul’s eschatology “must therefore include certain elements of contemporary existence” (ibid.). Therefore, the readers may be pleasantly surprised to find among the theological conclusions gleaned by Campbell from Paul a discussion of such topics as the believer’s view of work (“We do not work with the expectation that our labor will be useless in the age to come, but rather we work in anticipation of it,” 439), the environment (“It should not be underplayed by consigning this earth to the trash can, nor should it be overplayed by imagining that the renewed earth is at risk unless we intervene,” 443) and even cremation (“How we treat the body is a declaration of our expectation of what it will be,” 436).
After introducing his methodology and surveying the research in Pauline eschatology (pt. 1), the main body of the study is divided into two additional parts (pts. 2 and 3). The first is an exegetical study (pt. 2). Here the examined passages are reproduced in Greek and English, many of them helpfully consisting of entire paragraphs rather than mere verses. The passages have been grouped into chapters by related themes which fit under the broader theme of eschatology—two ages and two realms, the Parousia, the last day, judgment, resurrection, eternal life, inheritance, new creation, Israel, glory, and hope. The second main section, the theological study (pt. 3), seeks to synthesize the findings of the eleven chapters in Part 2 under four broad categories with a chapter each—Christocentric eschatology, apocalyptic eschatology, the age to come, and this present age.
Campbell rightly emphasizes the importance of two competing realms in Paul’s theology, and he correlates this with Paul’s references to “ages.” Campbell helpfully defines age as a “period of time,” while a realm is “a sphere of rule or influence” (65). The former is temporal, while the latter is spatial. Campbell argues that Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension established a new realm that “properly belongs to the future” but presently exists alongside the former realm (ibid.; cf. 335). Campbell assumes that the future age also exists alongside the present age. Therefore, both the future “age” and the new “realm” seem to function virtually synonymously (e.g., “The breaking into the present of the age to come has created a realm of righteousness,” 102). However, this blurring of a distinction between the present NT age and the realm of Christ does raise some questions. For example, while discussing Romans 5:19 (“the many were made sinners,” ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστά-θησαν οἱ πολλοί), Campbell argues that the more likely reading is not that Adam’s sin is imputed to members of the human race, but that “Adam’s disobedience establishes the route through which the many were made sinners…. Once Adam opened the door, as it were, to the realm of sin and death, all people became subject to its rule” (67). Believers are rescued from this realm through membership in the realm of Christ (68). Much could be debated there (and historically has been), but this discussion of Adam raises an unaddressed question regarding believers such as Abraham (Rom 4:9–12) or David (Rom 4:6–8). If they ostensibly belonged through faith to the realm where sins are forgiven and which leads to life, might this not indicate that Paul viewed the realm of Christ as something which believers entered prior to an age introduced with Christ’s ascension? Maybe it would be better to view the realm over which Christ rules and into which believers enter as existing as long as the competing realm into which Adam first plunged the human race.
How are some eschatological passages handled? Addressing Israel, Campbell focuses on Romans 9–11 and Galatians 6:15–16. In the latter, Campbell argues that “the Israel of God” (τὸν Ἰσραὴλ τοῦ θεοῦ) refers to unbelieving “ethnic, religious Israel” on which Paul wishes God’s mercy. However, does Paul expect a mass conversion of Israel at Christ’s return? Campbell would answer, “No.” Taking a minority view, Campbell argues that Romans 11:26 (“in this way all Israel will be saved,” οὕτως πᾶς Ἰσραὴλ σωθήσεται) refers to the believing remnant of Israelites saved alongside Gentiles prior to Christ’s Parousia (a physical return of Christ which Campbell repeatedly defends throughout the book). He suggests that the “until” (ἄχρι) in 11:25 “can simply look toward the second point without implying any subsequent eventuation” (250) and that Paul’s language about the wild branches being grafted back into the olive tree analogy is hypothetical. “Nowhere in this text does Paul indicate that Israelites repentance is certain to happen” (248).
The following example illustrates the challenge in reading a NT author without considering whether they based their teaching on underlying presuppositions drawn from the OT, presuppositions that they assumed their reader shares and presuppositions that may differ from ours. To cite another example, Campbell does not explore whether Paul’s reference to the “man of lawlessness” may have been drawn from OT passages such as Daniel 11:36ff or Jesus’s teaching. Instead, he is content to say that Paul’s readers “may have understood this description to point to certain pagan kings known from the Old Testament, to the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, or to the Roman emperor Caligula” (116). This still leaves the answer to what Paul meant by the “man of lawlessness” somewhat vague. To be fair, Campbell attempts to base his conclusions on Paul’s writings. For example, he suggests that Paul’s view regarding millennial positions is “irrelevant—at least for the purposes of this book” because Paul never directly addresses it. However, this does not stop Campbell from concluding that there is no reason that believers do not pray for the dead since the practice “may be regarded as an outworking of Paul’s theology of union with Christ” (448), but this seems to be an argument based on Paul’s silence on the subject. If we read Paul’s occasional letters in isolation, perhaps we could come to conclusions like his “writings could be fit to an annihilationist position” or he “was probably not a universalist” (452). However, to borrow a metaphor that Campbell applies to Paul’s eschatology, if the rest of Scripture provides the frame to which Paul’s theology is attached (think here phrases like “according to the Scriptures”) or the playing field that dictates the rules of the game than perhaps we could come to some firmer conclusions about what Paul believed and taught.
