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in 1 Corinthians 6:127:16
A Practical Exercise in Hermeneutics1
WALTER J. BARTLING
This article is a somewhat abbreviated version of a study essay prepared for the Institute
on Church and Society held at Concordia Senior
College, Fort Wayne, Indiana, June 58, 1967.
In its original, as well as in its present form,
the essay is intended not so much as a contribution to the exegetical discussion of First Corinthians, but as a challenge to practical discussion in the hermeneutical "translation" of Biblical ethics into modern modes of experience.
Walter Battling is associate professor of New
Testament exegesis at Concordia Seminary,
St. Louis.
Acts, family greetings in the Pauline Epistles). Of crucial importance for a theological understanding of marriage are the
constant references to the typological significance of marriage as a paradigm of the
relationship of God and His Messiah with
the divine people (for example, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Hosea, the kingdom parables of
Jesus, Ephesians, Revelation).
But what is one to do with the materials
thus amassed? They are a confused conglomerate of frequently unrelated and disparate elements. Flat historical statements
jostle with fanciful poetic imagery; theological pronouncements of utmost significance on the relationship, shall we say,
of Christ to His church are juxtaposed
with rather routine observations on marriage as most men experience it most of
the time; horrible examples of marital
folly and inconstancy outnumber splendid
examples by far and easily outbid them
for sheer story value. The bewildering
nature of the data, therefore, suggests that
each reader approach the materials with
his prejudices fully exposed and his special interests eloquently pleading their
cause.
No exegete should pretend to command
the complement of specialities needed for
a comprehensive study of such complex
materials. It is his primary task to assist
other specialists by employing the classical
356
357
358
359
360
countless persons. They would not recognize their own "happy" marriages in
these statements of his and they would
probably disassociate themselves from
these texts with the sad conviction that
this was a blind man talking about color
(and with all respect to the Apostle they
perhaps would not be far wrong). 10
There is no need to ventilate the scholarly
argument about a possible marriage for
Paul in early life in order to free him from
the suspicion of a fundamental lack of
empathy for the marital relationship. He
may well have been a man not quite of the
common mold in the need for personal
fulfillment in a marriage relationship. But
Paul knows his little man, and he places
his finger on the sexual mark in that verse
which was a favorite among earlier generations of seminary students: "It is better to
marry than to burn" ( 1 Cor. 7:9). He was
too much the realist to conceive even the
possibility of racial suicide. And his advice to married partners is calculated to
keep the globe well populated (w.2-5).
He seems even to be conscious that he is
vulnerable to the charge of special pleading and expresses himself with uncommon
reserve (w.6-7, 9-10, 12, 16, 25, 40, and
throughout the chapter).
As Thielicke says, "We must interpret."
In that interpretation, however, the focus
is not on Paul and his sexual nature; it is
on the Corinthians. If "countless persons
. . . would not recognize themselves and
their own 'happy' marriages" in the statements of Paul, then it is because they could
not recognize themselves in the readers
whom Paul was addressing. We are not
first-century Corinthians any more than we
are first-century Semites!
io P. 301.
361
That Paul is motivated by personal inclinations as well as by concern for the public
good in granting a qualified "Yes" answer
is clear enough. Which unprejudiced
reader, however, if he considers the cultural and religious context, will fail to
hear the resounding "but"? Moreover, if
the charge is leveled that in stating his
"but" Paul voices an exceedingly low estimate of marriage as a mere medicine for
lust (a remedium fornicationis), is that
not precisely what the situation required?
These angels needed to have their wings
trimmed a little closer to human shape.13
Is all that remote? In some ways decidedly so. But there is much in modern
individualism and sexual freedom that is
more than vaguely reminiscent of Corinth.
An estimate of the amount and kind of
culturo-hermeneutical translation necessary
to permit Paul to speak will vary with the
observer. Among the factors that threaten
modern marriage the following are frequently mentioned: individualism, equalization of the sexes, social mobility and
uprootedness, emphasis on erotic compatibility, and the free choice of marital partners in an open society. These are frequently regarded as distinctly modern
phenomena.14 But evidence is accumulating that in all these respects the Hellenistic
362
unity of man that is stunning in its modernity.16 The soma is the person, the total
self as it enters into personal relationships
with other selves. In sexual encounter the
total self is involved at levels of commitment that are quite unique in human behavior. Sexuality, Paul can remind us, is
more than coitus, and the man who forgets
this does so at the peril of injury to his
"selfhood." And thatlet the study of
neuroses remind us, if our own self-knowledge cannot is not a bit of ancient
witchcraft. The context alone requires the
negative cast of Paul's statement. Beneath
the form of statement there is a positive
and wholesome estimation of sexuality that
rests ultimately on Paul's faith in God and
the goodness of His creative intentions.
(1 Cor. 6:16)
Other positive implications lie near the
surface of the Pauline text of First Corinthians. We shall merely list them here:
Paul does not give grudging consent to
marriage as a poor second best in some
ethical value scale. He appreciates and extols marriage as a gift (a charisma), an
opportunity granted by God for the fulfillment of life's vocation. (7:6)
Paul rises above a purely utilitarian appreciation of the sex act as necessary merely
for procreation. In this he outstrips many
of his contemporaries. Sex relations have
an inherent value in the mutuality of total
commitment to the partner and in the
ecstasy that releases life's tensions. In sexual relations there is a unique opportunity
16
Of the massive bibliography on Pauline
anthropology, we mention only the convenient
monographs in the Studies in Biblical Theology
series* J. A. T. Robinson, The Body (Chicago:
Henry Regnery, 1952), especially chapter 1;
and M. Dahl, The Resurrection of the Body
(Naperville, 111.: Allenson, 1962), especially
chap. 5.
363
PRESUPPOSITION N O . 2
364
Church, according to St. Paul, stakes her happens when a word of grace, which cenallegiance on her marriage doctrine and ters in the mystery of faith's union with
laws." 20 Note that word "laws"! It is not, Christ, is torn out of kerygmatic context
I think, a word that would have been trans- and contorted into law. With one stroke
muted by the translator in passage from of the pen the Christian wife of an unbeFrench to English. "Laws" is what Von liever, who was married perhaps by a jusAllmen means, and laws are what he wants. tice of the peace, has become a prostitute!
Once he even absolutizes the concept and
Exemplum horribile, perhaps. Sed exemspeaks of "the Christian law."21
pia sunt multa. That Von Allmen is heir
It is, of course, impossible [he regretfully to a long tradition (and that the tradition
concedes], to restore in one fell swoop, in is not composed completely of Calvinists)
view of the present state of the Church, will be apparent to anyone who consults
the conjugal discipline enjoined by the his library and the shelf entitled "Pastoral
early church: one does not employ a Theology." All questions there which deal
"militant?* discipline to a Church whose
with justifiable "grounds for divorce," with
members are for the most part Christians
the "innocent" and the "guilty parties," and
in name only. The Church is forever enwith
"permissible circumstances" for regaged in such a struggle to "get back to
marriage
are essentially legal questions.
the source" that there is no reason why
To
seek
Biblical
answers for such questions
we, too, should not invite her to reexamine
may
be
tempting,
for everyone knows that
her doctrine of marriage as well, so that
eventually she may embody it in pro- a code is more comfortable to live with
nouncements more biblical than those and more pliant to our desires than the
under which so many of the faithful word of judgment and of grace. But that
suffer today.22
word is all that we have, and it simply will
"Doctrine" embodied in "pronounce- not let itself be reduced to a code. Our
ments!" One wonders how the faithful study up to this point should have conwill suffer once that end has been achieved. vinced us that the code would, in any event,
One example must suffice. "It is essential be woefully fragmentary and inadequate.
for the Church to preside over any unions What code, for example, will the Christian
contracted by her members, for fear lest couple consult to assist them in planning
they should bring about their downfall and the size of their family? Or what code
will they consult to assist them in the
contaminate the Church. For it is only the
countless little decisions of every day?
marriage consummated within the Church,
Casuistry has little to support it in most
the making of 'one flesh* of persons who
areas of marital and family decision, but
are already 'one Spirit' (1 Cor. 6:18) with
it has more than avenged itself upon the
the Lord, that is not, for the Christian,
dominical
logia concerning divorce and on
adultery or prostitution."23 That is what
Paul's reminiscence of the Master's sayings.
20
P. 6.
2i P. 53.
22
Pp. 6 f. Emphasis in part mine.
2
3 P. 25.
365
I am indebted to Greeven for this insight, p. 114. One wonders why he could not
himself have seen the obvious.
366
^ s
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