(avg. read time: 21–41 mins.)
My latest published article is forthcoming in JETS 67.1. As with my other published work, I want to share a version of the same here. For any of you interested in citing it, you will need to look up the updated version in JETS.
The theme of union with Christ in the NT has received extensive exploration.1 However, despite this extensive exploration of this NT landscape, one area that remains curiously underexplored is Hebrews. I say “underexplored” and not “unexplored” because some scholars have attended to this theme in Hebrews. The most recent book on the subject as of the time of writing by G. K. Beale addresses Hebrews insofar as it contributes to the presentation of Jesus as Messianic King and Priest, but he less specifically focuses on the union with Christ as such in Hebrews.2 Similarly, Grant Macaskill includes Hebrews in his survey of the NT, but he focuses more on the background for the access believers have to God thanks to the incarnational narrative of Christ than on the concepts of union as such, which are the subject of relatively brief reflection for the significance of “imitation of Christ.”3 Robert Peterson has written more than most, but his short chapter (the shortest for any text besides Philemon) addressed only Heb 3:14.4 In 2022 Benjamin J. Ribbens published an article in Pro Ecclesia that serves well as an initial foray into the subject in Hebrews.5 I wish to extend this expedition further in connection with the theological ethics of Hebrews.
Hebrews is a prime example of theological-ethical work in its interweaving of exposition and exhortation. As much of the focus of this text in both aspects is Jesus, understanding the role of Jesus in the argument is crucial for understanding the theological-ethical message of the author of Hebrews. However, while the theological role of Jesus in the argument of Hebrews has inspired robust christological studies quite apart from what one can find in the commentaries,6 the ethical role has been underexplored outside of the common view that Jesus is an exemplar to be imitated.7 This view is not so much incorrect—as there is much to support the idea of Jesus as exemplar in Hebrews—as it is incomplete. Restricting Jesus’s ethical role in Hebrews to that of an exemplar inevitably maintains a certain distance between Jesus’s ethical conduct and that of his followers. The connective link between the two is only one of imitation and conformity. This picture of Jesus’s ethical function does not adequately convey the deep connection of Jesus and his followers in participatory union indicated in the theological indicatives about Jesus and his people. As such, when the author invokes elements of Jesus’s story, it is likely that more is happening in the ethical dimension of the text than the author providing an example to imitate. Rather, the invocations of Jesus’s story point to the reality in which the faithful participate by virtue of their union with Christ.8
Indeed, what is fascinating about Hebrews in particular is how often the author invokes Jesus’s story. The author explicitly and implicitly references all the major gospel events of Jesus’s crucifixion, resurrection, and exaltation (Heb 1:3, 13; 2:8–9, 14–15; 5:5–10; 6:6; 7:23–28; 8:1; 9:26–28; 10:12–13, 29; 12:2; 13:12–13, 20), but he does not stop there.9 The author stresses how Jesus is the union of divine and human, thereby implying, even if not narrating per se, his incarnation, such as through the implications of the exalted statements about him in ch. 1 followed by the notion that he had to be made lower than the angels in ch. 2, the reference to him “partaking of” blood and flesh and “being made like” other humans (2:14–15, 17), the description of him as God’s Son even before his learning obedience through suffering (5:8), his appellation as “apostle” or “sent one” (3:1), and the reference to him “coming into the world” with the body prepared for him (10:5–7).10 Another point he references at multiple junctures is Jesus’s sinlessness (e.g., Heb 4:15; 7:26–27; 9:14; cf. 2 Cor 5:21; 1 Pet 1:19; 2:22; 3:18; 1 John 3:5), a claim about Jesus which relies on his life before his crucifixion.11 These references to Jesus’s life particularly include Jesus’s temptations and sufferings even prior to his death (2:10, 18; 4:14–16; 5:8). In context, these invocations of the gospel story stress in various ways the union of believers with Jesus Christ in terms of both the foundation of the union in these major events and the ongoing union with the living Jesus.12
More specifically, I argue that the references the author of Hebrews makes to Jesus’s narrative exemplify one type of expression of the union with Christ that I call “narrative christological solidarity,” a term of my own whereby I have attempted to integrate and encapsulate multiple theological features that are mutually informative. “Narrative christological solidarity” refers to the notion that the foundational connections and bonds (i.e., the solidarity) that community members share with one another and with their God is of a christological character, specifically because this solidarity is forged and maintained by the past and ongoing narrative of Jesus Christ, as well as, on the believers’ side of the relationship, by participation in the same narrative through faithful obedience by the empowerment of Jesus. There is a Christomorphic shape to Christian life that has as its reference point the narrative dynamics of the gospel story of Jesus Christ. I describe these references to Jesus’s story up to and including the major gospel events as exemplifying narrative christological solidarity because the story is invoked to emphasize an ongoing connection of the audience (and the author) with Jesus and to uphold ethical exhortation.13
Due to limitations of space, I cannot pursue this argument properly through all of Hebrews. I restrict my scope here specifically to chs. 2–5, as that portion of Hebrews contains a variety of appeals to the story of Jesus, particularly in 2:5–18 and 4:14–5:10. I briefly comment on how the context of each text also contributes to the presentation on union with Christ. Then, with the specific text in focus, I explore how the text exemplifies narrative christological solidarity. Finally, I supply summaries after each textual investigation to highlight the theological-ethical force of the connections to Jesus’s story.
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