FOR ZION

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Salt Lake City, 2014
Greg Kofford Books
FOR ZION
A Mormon Theology of Hope
Joseph M. Spencer
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Copyright 2014 Joseph M. Spencer
Cover design copyright 2014 Greg Koford Books, Inc.
Cover design by Jenny Webb.
Published in the USA.
All rights reserved. No part of this volume may be reproduced in any form without
written permission from the publisher, Greg Koford Books. Te views expressed
herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the
position of Greg Koford Books.
Greg Koford Books
P.O. Box 1362
Draper, UT 84020
www. kofordbooks.com
Also available in ebook.
2018 17 16 15 14 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Spencer, Joseph M., author.
For Zion : a Mormon theology of hope / by Joseph M. Spencer.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: Spencer provides an outline of a Mormon theology of hope, drawing
on the writings of Saint Paul, the Book of Mormon, the Book of Job, and the
Doctrine and Covenants, and explores the inseparability of hope in contempo-
rary Mormonism from the law of consecration and stewardship.
ISBN 978-1-58958-568-3 (pbk.)
1. Hope--Religious aspects--Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 2.
Zion (Mormon Church) I. Title.
BX8643.H67S64 2014
230.9332--dc23
2014015699
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Contents
Introduction, ix
I. Hope
1. Epistle of Hope, 3
2. Faith and Hope, 15
3. Hope and Love, 25
4. Te Time of Hope, 35
5. Te Space of Hope, 47
6. Israels Hope, 57
Interlude
7. Romans Rewritten, 71
II. Zion
8. Zion in Prophecy, 81
9. Zion as Project, 95
10. Zion in Transition, 107
11. Zion Revised, 121
12. Stewards in Zion, 133
13. Zions Hope, 147
Bibliography, 159
Index, XXX
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Hope hopes for everything, except that which it could possess.
Jean-Luc Marion
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Introduction
In the frst of his Letters to a Young Mormon, Adam Miller writes,
Youve promised to give God everythingyour time, your talents, your
moneybut youll spend a lifetime learning how to consecrate even a part.
You cannot forfeit responsibility for this how. You cannot wait for some-
one else to do [it] for you. If you do not work things out for yourself, they
will never be done.
1
Te law of consecration is now, as it has always been,
the great stumbling block.
2
It is a rock of ofense and therefore a stone
that we, the builders of Zion, are as likely to reject or ignore as we are to
utilize. And yet, scripture assures us, this same stone willor at any rate,
mustbecome the head of the corner, the only sure foundation on which
Zion can be built. We thus spend too much of our time building promising
but ultimately foundationless edifces, only again and again to watch them
crumble. Until we fnally roll the stone of consecration into its rightful
place, we can only expect more of the same.
But, as Miller suggests, rolling that stone into place is the task of a life-
time. If our current building eforts feel like a Sisyphean laborinevitably
failing at every efortwe can be assured that giving ourselves to rolling
the stone of consecration into place will only feel all the more Sisyphean.
And yet, at least on one potentially dangerous reading, one must imagine
Sisyphus happy.
3
Perhaps in giving up one Sisyphean labor for another, we
shall fnd that we have given up the futile and hopeless
4
for the happy.
Miller describes this in the following in beautiful words:
You will fnd as you work out your own salvation that it is God who is
at work in you, enabling you both to will and work for his good pleasure
(Philippians 2:1213). But this discovery, this heart-starting revelation that
you are not alone, comes only in doing the work itself. Working, you will fnd
that you are not your own and that God is at work in you. You will fnd that
God, in both rough and subtle ways, is working in and through you to do
1. Adam Miller, Letters to a Young Mormon, 10.
2. Hugh Nibley, Eloquent Witness: Nibley on Himself, Others and the Temple, 417.
3. Albert Camus, Te Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, 91.
4. Ibid., 88.
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For Zion x
things you cant do and create things you dont entirely understand. Working,
youll fnd grace.
5
Whether getting serious about the law of consecration and stewardship is
actually the slow but happy work of rolling a foundation stone into place
(and hence is a work in which God and grace will be found), or whether it
is a maddening task appointed by the gods that are no gods (the futile labor
one undertakes only to honor ever-silent but imposing idols),
6
I believe it
is worth the efort. For my own part, in any event, I have covenanted to
undertake that efort.
It is far too weak to state that living the law of consecration is worth
the efort. Consecration is our only hope. Indeed, as I aim to show over
the course of this book, consecration is inseparable from hope. Consecration
is the hope of the Restoration, the singular task of the last days in which
Christian hope is perfectly embodied. To become quite clear about the nature
of hope is to begin to see that the Restoration is the law of consecration. In a
crucial sense, there is nothing else that needs doing, nothing else on which to
focus. Everything else that makes up the movement that began with Joseph
Smith is meant to serve as an instrument for the fulfllment of this one law.
As Hugh Nibley has put it, the midpoint and focus of the whole operation is
Zion. Zion is the great moment of transition, the bridge between the world
as it is and the world as God designed it and meant it to be.
7
Te work of building Zion is, of course, eminently practical. Te poor
must have their needs and wants met, real stewardships must be appointed
and received, and the full redemption of Israel must become a relentless
pursuit. What I undertake in the following pages, however, is theological
refection. I have no practical advice, no program for moving forward, no
suggestions for application. I stand with Miller: You cannot forfeit respon-
sibility for this how. You cannot wait for someone else to do [it] for you.
If you do not work things out for yourself, they will never be done. Te
task I have appointed myself in writing this book is not to determine the
way forward; instead, it is simply and solely to clarify the stakes of moving
forward. In other words, it is to break down and make clear the context and
importance of consecrationZions real and only hope.
To do so, I have divided this study into two parts, separated by a tran-
sitional interlude. Te frst half of the book is dedicated to a theological
investigation of hope, drawn from the Apostle Pauls letter to the Romans.
5. Miller, Letters to a Young Mormon, 12, emphasis in original. Miller takes Pauls
words here from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.
6. See Camus, Te Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, 8891.
7. Hugh Nibley, Approaching Zion, 4.
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Introduction xi
His letter in particular demonstrates that hope is entirely inseparable from
what we too simply call economic concerns. And it brings into stark re-
lief the fact that hope and consecration absolutely cannot be disentangled
from the fulfllment of what Latter-day Saints call the Abrahamic covenant.
Zions hope has always been, still is, and will always be the redemption of
Israel through the consecration of the Gentiles riches. Te second half of
the book is in turn dedicated to a close theological reading of the revela-
tions concerning consecration in the Doctrine and Covenantsin particu-
lar the revelation that introduced consecration to the Saints (Section 42).
Tat revelation, both in its original and the revised form it assumed when
it became canon, tells us more about the nature of hope in the Restoration
than any other document. Te revelation is just as clear as Pauls letter: the
focus of consecration and stewardship is still the fulfllment of Gods most
ancient promises to Israel. To make the connection between Pauls letter
and Joseph Smiths revelation perfectly clear, however, I provide a transi-
tional interlude between the two halves of the book. Tere I look, however
briefy, at the Book of Mormon. Tat book, in addition to everything else
it accomplishes, serves to refocus Pauls hopewhich he fully believed
would be fulflled in his own dayon the prophesied latter day of the Book
of Mormons emergence among the Gentiles. It thus paves the way from
the ancient letter to the Romans to the modern revelation on consecration.
As for the details, they will have to be encountered on the way.
A couple of technical details must be mentioned. Except where noted,
I have ofered my own translations of biblical texts. When quoting the
Book of Mormon, I invariably use Royal Skousens Te Book of Mormon:
Te Earliest Text, if only out of what has become a kind of habit for me.
8
My
use of the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants is more complicated,
however. Because so much of the second half of this study is focused on
tracing the history of consecration between 1831 and 1835, I begin by cit-
ing manuscript sources rather than the canonical text. Only when I come
to the fully revised text of Doctrine and Covenants 42 do I draw on the
canonical text found in current editions of the Latter-day Saint scriptures,
which has not changed since 1835 (except in punctuation and apparatus).
Quotations from the Pearl of Great Price are taken from the current ofcial
edition (albeit with occasional revisions in punctuation).
I might mention just a few names of people who have helped me along
the way in this project. As always, thanks are due frst and foremost to
Karen, my best interlocutor and eternal companion, and to our children,
8. See Royal Skousen, ed., Te Book of Mormon: Te Earliest Text (New Haven:
Princeton University Press, 2009).
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For Zion xii
whose support and patience are deeply encouraging. In addition, I should
mention my appreciation for conversations about the nature of hope,
which I have had most obsessively with Adam Miller, but also with James
Faulconer, Kim and Mike Berkey, Keith Lane, and a number of my col-
leagues at the University of New Mexico. I have also benefted immensely
from discussions on the nature of consecration, most obsessively with
Robert Couch, but also with Nate Oman, Russell Fox, Kristine Haglund,
and Jeremy John (Karen, mentioned above, consistently participated in
these discussions). I owe a great debt of gratitude to Jenny Webb for her
work on the cover of this book. Loyd Ericson at Greg Koford Books de-
serves mention for his gracious encouragement of the project. And there
are others, I am sure, whom I am forgetting to mention, but I hope they
know of my appreciation nonetheless.
Finally, I would like to dedicate this work to the memory of Hugh
Nibley. I had precious little opportunity to get to know Brother Nibley
while he was alive, but I have benefted greatly from his exemplary ap-
proach to the Restoration. Although my approach to consecration difers
in certain ways from hisways I have not spelled out in this book, but
ways that should be obvious to anyone looking for themI could not agree
more with him that consecration deserves our unrelenting attention. If we
were all as serious about consecration as Nibley was, I do not doubt that
there would be no poor among us today.
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I
Hope
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1
Epistle of Hope
Less than a decade afer his work with the Gentiles had been ofcially
acknowledged by the authorities in Jerusalem,
1
Paul was already fnding
that his always-stronger conviction about the theological implications
of Christs resurrection was making him many enemies among Jewish
Christians. Tis had become particularly clear in the course of a crisis in the
city of Corinth, where Paul had established a congregation just before at-
tending the Jerusalem council in which his work was acknowledged. Afer
Paul attempted, in parts of what is now the frst letter to the Corinthians, to
clarify the gospel he had originally preached in Corinth, he received word
that manyperhaps a majorityof the Christians in that city had joined
in a kind of opposition to his vision of Christianity. Although a series of
letters and visits from Paul quelled the crisis,
2
and although this happy end-
ing seems to have made Paul feel that his work in Asia and Greece was
coming to a close,
3
he knew that he could not really begin to turn his atten-
tion to Western Europe (his plan was to preach in Spain) without frst try-
1. Te meeting seems to have taken place in 51 ad. An account of it appears in
Acts 15, though it is important to note that Luke seems to have had relatively little
and relatively unreliable information about the event. A frsthand, but very brief,
account appears also in Galatians 2. For a good overview of these events and the
issues surrounding them, see Jerome Murphy-OConnor, Paul: A Critical Life, 130
57. For LDS perspectives on the Jerusalem council, see Richard Lloyd Anderson,
Understanding Paul, 5153; Sidney B. Sperry, Pauls Life and Letters, 5465; Tomas
A. Wayment, From Persecutor to Apostle: A Biography of Paul, 93110.
2. On the Corinthian crisis more generally, see Murphy-OConnor, Paul,
252322. Te various letters Paul wrote to quell the crisis have been gathered, in
haphazard order, into what is known as the second letter to the Corinthians.
3. Pauls last visit to Corinth took place in an atmosphere of harmony; the
congregation was fully on its founders side again. On the basis of this positive
time with the Corinthians, Paul felt that he might well consider his mission in
the eastern half of the empire as frmly anchored and start preparations for a
new phase of mission in the west. See Dieter Georgi, Remembering the Poor: Te
History of Pauls Collection for Jerusalem, 110.
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For Zion 4
ing to keep what had happened in Corinth from happening again among
his converts more generally.
4
Opposition to Paul was centered, naturally, in Jerusalem, where the
largest contingency of Jewish Christians (as opposed to Gentile Christians)
was to be found. Paul accordingly made plans to visit Jerusalem before
heading west, hoping to restore confdence in his work before leaving his
eastern congregations to fare for themselves. He knew that such a visit
would be complicated. He fretted openly about whether his service to
Jerusalem would be acceptable to the saints there, and he even wrote
of his worry that he would need to be rescued from the unbelievers in
Judea (Rom. 15:31). Despite these worries, however, he seems to have seen
the visit as necessary to the larger success of his mission. If he could not
smooth things over with the so-called Judaizers (those who understood
Christianity to be a Jewish sect and therefore loudly complained that Pauls
gospel was at odds with true Christianity),
5
his departure for Spain would
likely result in an unraveling of all he had worked for two decades to build.
Paul had another, related reason for making a visit to Jerusalem before
leaving for the West. For several years, in accordance with the ofcial agree-
ment struck during the Jerusalem council already mentioned, Paul had
been collecting funds for the support of the poor in Jerusalem.
6
Having
apparently had remarkable success in gathering these funds,
7
Paul thought
it best that he deliver them in person to the Christians in Jerusalem. In
part, this gesture would demonstrate Pauls fdelity to the council that had
ofcially acknowledged his work some years earlier. Perhaps more impor-
4. Tomas Wayment is still more pessimistic: Te new frontier for Paul was
in the west; he sensed that the opposition in the east had efectively ended his
chances there. Wayment, From Persecutor to Apostle, 187.
5. Te most direct of Pauls responses to the Judaizers is found in his letter to the
Galatians. See Murphy-OConnor, Paul, 19398.
6. Paul himself mentions this part of the agreement in Galatians 2:910. Also
of major signifcance is Romans 15:2529. Te most detailed discussions of the
collection in Pauls writings, however, are found in 2 Corinthians 89. On the
latter, see especially Hans Dieter Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9: A Commentary on
Two Administrative Letters of the Apostle Paul; and David J. Downs, Te Ofering of
the Gentiles: Pauls Collection for Jerusalem in Its Chronological, Cultural, and Cultic
Contexts, 13146. (Also relevant, though more distantly. is Philippians 4:1020.) See
Dieter Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 6267. It should be noted that many scholars
regard the phrase the poor as a title that referred to Israel and not to the actually
impoverished. See the discussion in Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 3335. For LDS
perspectives on the collection, both more practical than theological, see Anderson,
Understanding Paul, 13941 and Wayment, From Persecutor to Apostle, 18889.
7. See Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 123.
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Epistle of Hope 5
tantly, it would give Paul an opportunity to make clear that his gospel was
anything but a rejection of historical IsraelIsrael according to the fesh
because it was, rather, a profound afrmation of the fact that (as he would
put it in his letter to the Romans) God grants salvation to the Jew frst, and
also to the Gentile (Rom. 1:16). As Mark Nanos has explained,
Even though Paul is bringing the gospel to gentiles it is in the service of Israels
eventual restoration, which will be incomparably superior to the present cir-
cumstances that have been benefting the gentiles, even as life is incomparably
superior to death. He expects his stumbling brethren to recognize in his
ministry to the gentiles that the eschatological promises [of the prophets] are
being fulflled; but they [the Israelites] are missing out on their prophesied
privilege of serving as restored Israels light to all the nations.
8
If one takes the Jewish background of Pauls activities into account, it could
not be clearer that he understood the eschatological miracle of the pil-
grimage of the [Gentile nations] to Jerusalem, repeatedly prophesied in
the Hebrew Bible, to coincide with the collection of [funds by the] Pauline
congregations (consisting in the majority of Gentiles) taken up for the
Jesus-believing congregation at Jerusalem.
9
It is in this sense that, as Dieter
Georgi says, the story of Pauls collection for the poor in Jerusalem can
be viewed truly as a mirror of the apostles missionary efort as a whole.
10
I will be coming back to the collection later. (Indeed, it will prove to
be absolutely central to this book.) For the moment it is enough to recog-
nize that it played a signifcant role in Pauls visit to Jerusalem as he made
preparations to head west.
Having decided he would visit Jerusalem, but recognizing the difcul-
ties such a visit would pose, Paul decided to undertake one further pre-
cautionary move. Before setting out from Asia for Judea, he produced a
8. Mark D. Nanos, Te Mystery of Romans: Te Jewish Context of Pauls Letter,
248; emphasis in original. Krister Stendahl goes further: Te end of [Pauls]
refections on Israel consists of his tearing into the Gentile church and Gentile
Christians, accusing them of contempt toward the people of Israel. Paul perceived
the frst signs of Christian anti-Semitism. He was the frst theologian who saw the
specter of gruesome things to come. Krister Stendahl, Final Account: Pauls Letter
to the Romans, 6.
9. Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 101. Te most familiar Old Testament
prophecy of these events to Latter-day Saints is, of course, Isaiah 49:2223, largely
because it appears with some frequency in the Book of Mormon. See 1 Nephi
21:2223, 22:69; 2 Nephi 6:67, 10:79. It might be noted that at least one recent
scholar, David Downs, has called this approach to the collection into question,
though in my view unconvincingly. See Downs, Te Ofering of the Gentiles, 39.
10. Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 15.
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For Zion 6
letter that outlined in the starkest terms the implications of the gospel as he
understood it, dealing most carefully with the complicated question of the
relations between Jews and Gentiles in light of the Messiahs triumph over
death. He addressed it, importantly, to the saints in Rome, in part because
he hoped that it would thus serve to introduce his gospel to the most im-
portant city in the West (through which he would be traveling on his way
to Spain), but also in part because he hoped that it would have the widest
possible circulationso that it would be read by his critics and enemies in
Jerusalem before he arrived there. Gnther Bornkamm explains,
What [the letter to the Romans] in fact turns on are the questions connected
with the apostles theology and its aims, which he was shortly to have to justify
and stand up for in Jerusalem, and which were also to continue as the basis
of his coming mission to the Gentiles: justifcation by faith alone, for Gentiles
as well as Jews (chaps. 14), deliverance through Christ and his Spirit from
the destructive powers of sin, death, and the Law (chaps. 58), the destiny
of Israel, Gods chosen people, the hardening of its heart and eventual salva-
tion (chaps. 911), and, fnally, the apostles further mission to the ends of the
earth and the praise of God on the lips of all the nations (chap. 15).
11
Te context of Pauls writing the letter to the Romans efectively demanded
that it contain the most systematic, careful theological expression yet pro-
duced of Christianitys central claims and messageat least as Paul un-
derstood these. And at the heart of this most important of early Christian
documents is a lengthy investigation of the nature of Christian hope.
12
Of course, Paul had had things to say about hope before. It had in fact
appeared as part of the theological triad of faith, hope, and love already in
the earliest of Pauls extant writings, his frst letter to the Tessalonians,
13

and it had been a relatively constant focus in Pauls several exchanges with
the saints in Corinth.
14
Moreover, disciples who would soon be writing in
his name would have more to say about hope afer him.
15
Hope would thus
play an important role in the letters to the Ephesians and the Colossians,
16
a
11. Gnther Bornkamm, Paul, 93. See also, E. P. Sanders, Paul, 13.
12. Some have even called the letter to the Romans Pauls letter of hope. See John
Paul Heil, RomansPauls Letter of Hope (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1987).
13. See 1 Tessalonians 1:3; see also 2:19, 4:13, 5:8.
14. See 1 Corinthians 9:10; 13:7, 13; 15:9; 2 Corinthians 1:7; 3:12; 8:5; 10:15.
15. Tis is perhaps ironic, since Pauls letter to the Romans did not forestall
what he feared in Jerusalem. His mission efectively ended afer he produced the
letter on hope. On Pauls actual visit to Jerusalem and its afermath, see Murphy-
OConnor, Paul, 34171.
16. See Ephesians 1:18, 2:12, 4:4; Colossians 1:5, 23, 27.
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Epistle of Hope 7
somewhat lesser role in the pastoral epistles,
17
and a theologically central role
in the letter to the Hebrews.
18
For my purposes here, however, I will be ignor-
ing both what Paul had to say about hope before he wrote his letter to the
Romans and what Pauls disciples would say about hope afer him.
19
It is to
the singular letter to the Romans that I will give my exclusive attention here.
Tere are three crucial discussions of hope in Pauls letter to the Romans.
20

Te frst is found in Romans 4:1822, in the thick of Pauls analysis of Abrahams
faith. Te second is found in Romans 5:15, in which Paul addresses the con-
cerns of the Roman congregation. Te third is found in Romans 8:1825, at
the theological climax of the letter. I want to analyze each of these passages in
some detail (the next four chapters will be given to close readings of these pas-
sages). Before that, however, it seems necessary to say a few things about the
theology of the letter to the Romans more generally. Tis will prove crucial to
the interpretation of Pauls several discussions of hope.
Paul rather constantly had to battle against a central misunderstanding
of the gospel he preached. If the Law was deactivated or rendered inop-
erative by the messianic event,
21
as he claimed, is the Christian free to do
whatever she wants? Tis somewhat general concern became a full-blown
crisis in Corinth during the year or two before Paul wrote his letter to the
Romans. Te problems that arose there, and the strategy Paul employed in
his correspondence with those involved, are most helpful for understand-
ing the concerns that drove Paul to write to the Romans the way he did.
Put in a nutshell, the people Paul hoped to assuage with his letter to the
Romans may well have been pointing to the Corinthian crisis as they criti-
cized Pauls gospel. If Pauls preaching could precipitate that kind of thing,
then obviously, his critics likely thought, there was something wrong with
his version of Christianity. Te letter to the Romans therefore seems to
have been an attempt to explain how Corinth could happen while nonethe-
less defending the gospel as Paul had been preaching it.
All things are lawful, some of the Corinthian saints had written to
Paul (1 Cor. 6:12; 10:23), and they seem to have meant it. From Pauls
17. See 1 Timothy 1:1; Titus 1:2, 2:13, 3:7.
18. See Hebrews 3:6; 6:11, 1819; 7:19; 11:1.
19. I will also ignore, incidentally, discussions of hope by other apostles in the
New Testament. Tis deserves to be mentioned since the frst of Peters general
letters is ofen, as is the letter to the Romans, called the epistle of hope.
20. Tere are several untheological references to hope in Romans 15 (see verses
4 and 13), as well as a more passing reference to hope in Romans 12 (see verse 12),
but I will leave study of these passages for another occasion.
21. I follow here the interpretation of Giorgio Agamben, Te Time that Remains:
A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans, 95108.
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For Zion 8
frst letter to the Corinthians, one learns that the efect of Pauls preach-
ing among them had been in part to convince them that the deactivation
of the Law meant that they were free, fnally, to give uninhibited sway to
their selfsh, private, and ofen perverse fantasies. (Te list of corruptions
in Corinth Paul writes to correct begins, in fact, with incest!) Te inevitable
result of this misappropriation of Pauls message was confict. From the
beginning to the end of Pauls correspondence with the Corinthian saints,
his concern was to overcome the petty divisions that had upset the con-
gregation. With every member of the local congregation pursuing her own
private desires, clashes were inevitable.
22
Paul identifes two rather telling
symptoms. First, disagreements among Christians in Corinth were severe
enough to need arbitration, and the saints were appealing to non-Chris-
tian authorities to settle their diferences (see 6:18). Second, meetings in
which the Lords Supper was celebrated had become an entirely private af-
fair, with each member of the congregation attending only to her own meal
(see 11:1734). Tere was in Corinth anything but a corporate efort to
pursue faithfulness to the Christ event. Te coming of the Messiah meant
for them only that they were selfshly free from constraint.
In Corinth, then, the preaching of Christ had led to an essential dis-
orientation. Te Law had prohibited selfsh and perverse actions, but if
the Law had been rendered inoperative, then selfsh and perverse actions
seemed to be the order of the day. Te saints in Corinth saw themselves as
without a guiding principle to determine what should be done and what
should not be done. Addressing those who thus believed they were free
to do whatever came into their heads, Paul found he had to make clear
that the deactivation of the Law did not in fact leave Christians without
a guiding principle for action. In place of the Law that had been fulflled
was now what Paul called the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2): love.
23
In Pauls
terse formulation, in which he quotes the Corinthians own formulation
in order to mark its limit: All things are lawful, you say, but not all things
are benefcial. All things are lawful, yes, but not all things build up. Dont
seek your own advantage, but one anothers (1 Cor. 10:2324). Or, as he
put it also: Knowledge, particularly concerning the deactivation of the
Law, pufs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something
doesnt yet know as he ought to know; but anyone who loves God is known
by him (8:13). Knowledge, in fact, as Paul also explained, would eventu-
22. Te Latter-day Saint is reminded of Doctrine and Covenants 1:16: every
man walketh in his own way, and afer the image of his own god, whose image is
in the likeness of the world.
23. See the beautiful commentary on the Pauline law beyond the law in Teodore W.
Jennings, Reading Derrida/Tinking Paul (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006).
Spencer_Zion.indb 8 5/5/2014 11:49:10 AM
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Epistle of Hope 9
ally come to an end while love never ends (13:8). Te loss of the Law
does not make way for selfsh pursuits; rather, it fnally frees the Christian
from the self-centered project of working for her own salvation so that she
can focus on lovingly building a Christian community worth living in.
24
Tis was the response Paul made to the Corinthians in their misun-
derstanding, and it was arguably enoughor the beginning of what would
be enoughto solve the problems in Corinth.
25
More, however, was need-
ed to waylay the concerns of those who worried that Pauls approach to
Christianity would inevitably lead to the kinds of problems Corinth experi-
enced. It would not be enough simply to explain that the deactivation of one
guiding principle (the Law) gave way to another (love). It would be necessary
to explain how the Christ event itself could be misinterpreted in the way
the Corinthians misinterpreted it, and to show how that problem might be
avoided. It was to this double task that the letter to the Romans was, on my
interpretation, dedicated. More generally, the frst half of the letter provided
a kind of anthropology that aimed to adequately explain how Corinth could
have happened. More narrowly, the several discussions of hope in the frst
half of the letter aimed to show how Corinth could have been avoided.
What needs to be said about the basic anthropology worked out over
the course of the letter to the Romans? Its most salient features are worked
out in the very frst chapter:
Its immediately
26
within preaching, within the transfer of faith, that divine
righteousness is revealedas its written: the one whos righteous will live
by faithwhile divine wrath is revealed from heaven against all lack of di-
vinity, against all human unrighteousness, against all those who suppress the
truth in unrighteousness.
27
Whats known of God is manifest among them,
24. Interestingly, parallel to Pauls theological solution to the problems in Corinth
was his practical solutionthe attempt to begin to gather funds for the poor in
Jerusalem from them. See Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 50.
25. On the difculties in Corinth more generally, see Murphy-OConnor, Paul, 252322.
26. I add immediately to Pauls words to emphasize the contrast he draws
between the revelation of Gods righteousness within preaching and the revelation
of Gods wrath from afar. I similarly add while to the text a few lines later in order
to make the contrast starker.
27. John Murray claims that the usage of the New Testament in respect of this
term does not provide any support for the notion of holding down or suppressing.
Most frequently it means to hold fast, possess, retain. If this meaning is not
suitable in this case, then the only other meaning which the usage would warrant
is that of restraining or holding back. John Murray, Te Epistle to the Romans:
Te English Text with Introduction, Exposition, and Notes, 1:37. I grant Murrays
clarifcation, but I fail to see how restraining or holding back difers strongly
from holding down or suppressing when it comes to the transfer of faith.
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For Zion 10
because God has made it manifest to them: his eternal power and divine na-
turethings indiscernible since the creation of the worldhave been under-
stood and discerned through the things hes made. So theyre without excuse.
Although they knew God, they didnt glorify him as God or give thanks to
him; rather, they grew vain in their thinking, and their senseless hearts were
darkened. In a word, professing wisdom, they became fools. And they have
economized
28
Gods glory by making of it so many static imagesthings re-
sembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.
Terefore God handed them over to the impurity they fantasize about,
29
leav-
ing them to dishonor their bodies among themselvesthose who in the lusts
of their heart replaced Gods truth with the lie and worshiped and served the
creation in the place of the creator. (Rom. 1:1725)
Obviously, there is much to be said about this passage.
30
To begin, it should be noted that the passage opens by contrasting two
distinct revelations. On the one hand, divine righteousness is immanently
revealed in the work of preaching; on the other, divine wrath is transcen-
dently revealed from heaven against human unrighteousness. With Adam
Miller, I think it best to assert that these two revelations are, in fact, one.
. . . Te diference between them is a question of appearance. Whether the
revelation is seen as good news or as wrath depends on the disposition of
the person to whom it appears.
31
Tere is, in other words, only one revela-
tion, but it is experienced in two drastically distinct waysas immanent or
as transcendent, as Gods righteousness or as Gods angerdepending on
ones relationship to truth. Where truth is preached, where the transfer of
faith takes place, the revelation is one of Gods righteousness. Where truth
is suppressed in unrighteousness, the revelation isor at least will eventu-
ally beone of Gods anger.
What is the truth that human beings suppress in unrighteousness? In
a word, truth is whats known of God, what God has made . . . manifest,
namely, his eternal power and divine nature. It is Gods very nature that
human beings suppress in their unrighteousness, obscuring his grace and
his nearness by regarding him only as a distant and wrathful deityas a
violent sovereign who, from afar, wills only to punish and to make misera-
28. Tis word is usually rendered changed. I use economized to draw out the
economic resonances of the Greek word, which has reference as much to economic
exchange as to transformation.
29. I add the note about fantasizing in order to highlight Pauls emphasis on the
perverse desires of the unrighteous.
30. I have ofered a preliminary reading of these verses in Joseph M. Spencer,
Towards a Pauline Teory of Gender: Rereading Romans 1:26-27, 24.
31. Adam Miller, Badiou, Marion and St Paul: Immanent Grace, 24.
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Epistle of Hope 11
ble.
32
Why do human beings feel a need to suppress this truth? Because, as
Paul explains, the truth is something clearly understood and discerned
through the things Gods made. Te createdness of the world is itself in-
discernible, but it can nonetheless be readily discerned if one attends with
care to what makes up the world. Indeed, the truth is so readily available
according to Paul, that human beings are without excuse. Every failure to
glorify . . . God or give thanks to him is rooted in willful refusal because
they know God. Te consequence is that the wicked grow vain in their
thinking, and their senseless hearts are darkened. Tose who pretend to
be wise turn out to be foolsfools because they refuse to see what is right
under their noses.
Te truth, then, is immanent to the world, although the very structure
of the world as human beings experience it veils the truth, rendering it in-
discernible except as a kind of vague threat of an eventual cataclysm to come
at the end of time. Tanks to human unrighteousnessand remember that
Paul will go on to claim that theres no one whos righteous, not even one
(Rom. 3:10)the truth is displaced into a beyond, being transformed in the
process.
33
Divine righteousness manifested in the nearness of the kingdom of
God becomes divine wrath eventually to be made manifest from the mean-
while-silent heavens. Human beings in all their unrighteousness construct
their world in a way that will leave no room for God, at least until He fnally
decides to plunge the world into apocalyptic disaster.
34
People need God to
dwell in transcendence so that he does not get in the way of their desires, the
lusts of their heart. As C. S. Lewis nicely puts it, We want, in fact, not so
much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heavena senile benevolence
who, as they say, liked to see young people enjoying themselves, and whose
plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each
day, a good time was had by all.
35
Te truth of Gods love and grace is too
much to bear because it might impose limits on ones pursuit of pleasure,
because it might speak ill of ones impure fantasies.
Ironically, though, the world that human beings assemble in order to
keep God out as long as possible can be constructed only of materials God
32. See James E. Faulconer, Romans 1: Notes and Refections, 7375.
33. Incidentally, Paul here criticizes unbelievers precisely for what Friedrich
Nietzsche famously criticized believers: the displacement of goodness into the beyond.
See Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols/Te Anti-Christ, 133. Alain Badiou,
incidentally, argues that Nietzsches hatred of Paul is symptomatic of an essential rivalry
between them. See Alain Badiou, Saint Paul: Te Foundation of Universalism, 6062.
34. Tis is, incidentally, the thesis of the Gospel of John: Te world is precisely what
excludes God, but the Christ event marks the rupture of that worldfor a moment.
35. C. S. Lewis, Te Problem of Pain, 31.
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For Zion 12
has given to them. Hence, the fully secularized human world is a pastiche of
created things, a weave of gifs that severally witness Gods love and grace
but that collectively pretend that He is elsewhere and uninterested. Paul puts
it this way: they have economized Gods glory. To make sense of this, it
is worth again drawing briefy on C. S. Lewis, who portrays an Intelligent
Man who journeys from hell to heaven only with the hope of bringing back
something solid enough to make a fortune: Im not going on this trip for
my health. As far as that goes I dont think it would suit me up there. But if I
can come back with some real commoditiesanything at all that you could
really bite or drink or sit onwhy, at once youd get a demand down in our
town. Id start a little business. Id have something to sell.
36
Tis is the very
structure of the world, of the world as economy. Everything on the market
is a gif from God, but it has been transformed into a commodity so that
profts accrued can be employed to pursue ones private desires. In the place
of Gods infnite and immanent glorywhich has been displaced into the
beyondone fnds only so many static images, so many idols.
Te idol trade human beings thus establish, desperately hoping that
the supposedly wrathful heavens remain silent for another generation to
allow them to continue in their beloved fantasies, amounts to what Paul
calls the lie, which replaces Gods truth as human beings worship the
creation in the place of the creator. But the lie does not persist and the
wrath of God, it turns out, does not wait. God has, according to Paul, al-
ready handed [the unrighteous] over to the impurity they fantasize about,
leaving them to dishonor their bodies among themselves. Te event in
which divine wrath is revealed from heaven . . . against all human un-
righteousness thus happens when the prohibitions that give strength to
perverse desires are lifed in response to popular demand. And the ironic
result is, afer a brief period of ecstatic enjoyment, disillusionment and
depression. Human beings need prohibitions to enjoy their transgression.
Te No! of the taboo engenders the fantasies that make transgression
genuinely enjoyable.
37
Paul himself explains this point later in the letter to
the Romans: I wouldnt have known what it is to lust if the law hadnt said,
Tou shalt not lust! (Rom. 7:7). Or as one reader of Paul puts it, the law
is what gives life to desire.
38
Desire stripped of its force at the moment of its fulfllment, fantasies
realized but only as utter boredom, transgression deprived of its trans-
36. C. S. Lewis, Te Great Divorce, 13; emphasis in original.
37. See Georges Bataille, Erotism:Death and Senusality, trans. Mary Dalwood
(San Francisco: City Lights, 1986).
38. Badiou, Saint Paul, 79.
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Epistle of Hope 13
gressiveness as the banal order of the daysuch is the wrathful revela-
tion the unrighteous see in the messianic deactivation of the Law. Such is
what the saints in Corinth largely saw in the announcement of the gospel.
Recognizing that all things are lawful, they were overwhelmed by the
possibility of pursuing every perverse fantasy they had ever entertained.
But the consequent explosion of perverse activity and frenetic selfshness
gave wayor would soon have given way, had Paul not intervenedto en-
nui, which turns out to be the most torturous form of Gods wrath.
39
So goes the basic anthropology Paul lays out in his letter to the Romans.
Obviously, I have ofered here a thumbnail sketch, focusing only on the frst
chapter of Pauls long discussion. But I believe I have said enough to make
the picture relatively clear. Tere is a perfect reciprocity between human
unrighteousness (fallen humans being little more than bundles of trans-
gressive fantasies and impure desires) and the economic order of the world
(that order being little more than a market for trading idols). Every idol on
ofer is a polished mirror in which a transgressive human fantasy adores it-
self, enjoying the image of transgression much more than the act. Te idol,
in the words of Jean-Luc Marion, freezes in a fgure that which vision aims
at in a glance and only thus close[s] the horizon to keep Gods suppos-
edly wrathful transcendence out of the picture.
40
Stabilizing the economy
of the idol trade, and therefore automatizing the life of transgressive desire,
is a set of prohibitions: the Law. But the Law has been rendered inoperative
by the messianic event of Jesus Christs death and resurrection, and the
result is that human beings, trapped in unrighteousness, founder in ever
more deeply afecting boredom. Tey do so, that is, unless they become
righteous: unless they are made righteous (justifed, as the word is usu-
ally translated) by faith, delivered (saved, as the word is usually trans-
lated) by love, andthis is the crucial pointanchored by hope.
41
But what has Paul to say about hope?
39. As Adam Miller says: Fantasy, fear, and boredom: the hallmarks of sin.
Boredom: the hallmark of sin? Miller, Rube Goldberg Machines, 12. When Slavoj
iek argues that Pauline life beyond the law has to be regarded as the life of the
undead, utter monstrosity, it seems to me that he refuses to regard the possibility
that Paul genuinely distinguishes between two forms of being without law. See
iek, Te Ticklish Subject, 17690.
40. Jean-Luc Marion, God Without Being, 26.
41. Te profound connection between hope (Pauls interest in Romans 4, 5, and
8) and human createdness (Pauls interest in Romans 1) is outlined by Josef Pieper,
Faith, Hope, Love, 9198.
Spencer_Zion.indb 13 5/5/2014 11:49:10 AM
Uncorrected Proof
Spencer_Zion.indb 14 5/5/2014 11:49:10 AM
Uncorrected Proof
Available May 2014
from Greg Kofford Books