Paul’s Argumentation for Future Transformation

The relationship between 1 Cor 15:35–57 and 2 Cor 5:1–5 has been a classic site to theorize Paul’s development, ever since the developmental theories proposed by Otto Pfleiderer and Ernst G. G. Teichmann.Footnote ⁴ John Gillman, however, has convincingly argued for a “similar style of argumentation” in the two passages and a consistent Pauline perspective on resurrection and future transformation.Footnote ⁵ As he shows, in both passages, Paul’s arguments unfold from the opposition between earthly and heavenly bodies (1 Cor 15:39–41, 50; 2 Cor 5:1) to bodily transformation as the resolution of this opposition (1 Cor 15:52; 2 Cor 5:2a). Also, in both passages, Paul employs the clothing metaphor in order to further describe bodily transformation in the future (1 Cor 15:53; 2 Cor 5:2b) and to proclaim that it is the fulfilment of Isa 25:8 (1 Cor 15:54; 2 Cor 5:4).Footnote ⁶ It seems that 1 Cor 15:50–57 “provides the pattern for the progression in thought” in 2 Cor 5.Footnote ⁷ These parallels suggest that in 2 Cor 5, which is right after the topic of the ongoing transformation of the inner person in 4:16–18, Paul is recalling his previous teaching in 1 Cor 15:35–57 about the future transformation. Agreeing with Gillman, Richard N. Longenecker also indicates that the sequence of events in the descriptions in 1 Cor 15 and 2 Cor 5 are both death, resurrection, transformation, and immortality.Footnote ⁸ Thus, Longenecker believes that Paul shows no “discernable shifts” in 2 Cor 5. Paul’s differences in 1 Cor 15 and 2 Cor 5 are “subsidiary” and only about how he expects himself to fit into the same scenario of the future transformation—whether he will die before the events or not.Footnote ⁹

Nevertheless, as Gillman also notices, there are some other important differences between 1 Cor 15 and 2 Cor 5, and I believe that the most crucial difference is about the conceptual structures behind the two passages. First, in 1 Cor 15, the seed-sowing metaphor provides the fundamental V-shaped pattern to conceptualize future transformation (15:35–50), and the clothing metaphor is not used to express bodily transformation itself but the victory over “death” (15:53–54). In 2 Cor 5:1–5, however, Paul elaborates on the clothing metaphor and consistently uses it to describe the transition from the earthly body to the heavenly body. The bodily transformation itself is articulated through the clothing metaphor as happening from the outside to overcome “what is subject to death” (i.e., the mortal body) which is located in the inside (5:4).Footnote ¹⁰ Second, in 2 Cor 5, Paul further strengthens this inside-outside distinction by combining the clothing metaphor with the housing metaphor (5:1–2, 4). What is going to be transformed in the future is the outer, in a way like a change of our dwellings. Third, the contexts are also different. Paul’s argument in 2 Cor 5:1–5 is an integral part of his apologia for his sufferings that seem incompatible with his apostolic status (2 Cor 2:14–7:4). The immediate context of 2 Cor 5:1–5, then, is Paul’s clarification of the ongoing transformation (the idea that first appears in 3:18) as only for the “inner” (ὁ ἔσω), while the “outer person” (ὁ ἔξω ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπος) is still mortal and subject to suffering (4:16–18).Footnote ¹¹ Thus, the prominent role of the inside-outside distinction in 2 Cor 5:1–5 is in line with the preceding topic of ongoing transformation in 2 Cor 3:18–4:18, where Paul carefully distinguishes the inner from the outer.

It is my argument that the two significant features in 2 Cor 3:18–4:18—the topic of ongoing transformation and the conceptual structure that Paul uses to discuss this very topic—are both related to 1 Cor 12:13. A comparison of 1 Cor 12:13 and 2 Cor 4 shows that Paul’s use of the treasure metaphor (2 Cor 4:7–12) reveals not only a clear inside-outside distinction but also an assumed image schema of the body of Christ as a body-container, both of which are prominent in 1 Cor 12:13. As explained below, in light of ancient conceptions of the body, it seems that the structure as reflected in 1 Cor 12:13 could allow for the emergence of Paul’s new idea of ongoing transformation. Thus, while 1 Cor 15:50–57 “provides the pattern for the progression in thought” in 2 Cor 5 for Paul to reaffirm the idea of future transformation, the expressions in 1 Cor 12:13 can set the stage for the new idea of ongoing transformation as seen in 2 Cor 3:18 and provide the conceptual structure in 2 Cor 4 for Paul to elaborate this new idea, especially to clarify its relationship with the idea of future transformation.Footnote ¹²

Ancient Concepts of the Body and Ongoing Transformation

The idea of ongoing transformation was not inconceivable in ancient time. As Dale B. Martin notes, the body was considered in Greco-Roman culture as a “microcosm” that was “malleable” because it was subject to both influence from the cosmic environment and molding from social activities.Footnote ¹³ In other words, according to its cosmic and social correlation, the body was conceptualized and even experienced to some extent as moldable or transformable.

First, the body was usually conceptualized as a small version of its environment. Examining both elite philosophical teachings and popular ideas accessed from magical papyri, Greek tragedy, and medical works, Martin indicates that human beings were considered to be constituted by exactly the same material elements as the universe around them.Footnote ¹⁴ These elements of the human person imitatively corresponded to the hierarchical arrangement of the universe. Thus, the natural principles that one could observe functioning in the external cosmos “could be read onto and into the human body.”Footnote ¹⁵ For example, according to Galen’s report, Diogenes the Babylonian believed that the soul functioned in an integrated way with the body and was fed by vapors evaporating from the blood in the same way that stars were fed by vapors evaporating from water on the earth. Working with this view, Galen and other physicians believed that it was necessary to control the “weather inside the body” in order to maintain the balance of the body like maintaining the ecological balance of the cosmos.Footnote ¹⁶ Such cosmos-soma correlation is also seen in popular texts such as magical papyri. For example, some magical papyri refer to a belief that the human body consists of 365 members and that these members reflect the body’s structure, corresponding to the cosmic structure.Footnote ¹⁷ As Martin concludes, “the human body was not like a microcosm; it was a microcosm—a small version of the universe at large.”Footnote ¹⁸

Moreover, the body is related to society in a similar way that it is related to the cosmos. That is, the vertical hierarchy of both the cosmos and society was mapped onto the body. With the body, the hierarchy might still be expressed in a vertical schema in which, for example, the head represents a father in a family and the foot represents a slave. It might also be expressed in a horizontal schema in which, for example, the right hand represents men in a family and the left women. Another common expression of the bodily hierarchy is articulated through the inside-outside distinction of a container schema. The mind or soul was considered the interior of the body-container and related to what was above in the cosmos, while the body was the exterior and related to what was below in the cosmos. Thus, the mind or soul was regarded as the highest-status component of a human being and functions as the command center (cf. Plato, Phaed., 80A). For example, Hellenistic philosophers such as Cicero considered the soul as composed of heavenly material and, consequently, located the afterlife abode of the blessed souls in the heavenly realms, while the outer body would decompose into ashes since it was made of earthly stuff and belonged to the lower strata of the hierarchy.Footnote ¹⁹ As Martin indicates, the hierarchical construction of the body in Greco-Roman society clearly illustrates a close body-society correlation.Footnote ²⁰ This correlation is also evident in the common body metaphor in the Greco-Roman political texts, in which various body parts represent various hierarchical classes or social roles in a social unit. In this way, while those texts typically argue for the common good for the whole political organism as a body, different body parts are assigned with different statuses according to the hierarchy.

Second, and more to our point, the body can be transformed according to its cosmic and social correlations. Martin indicates that the body is not only an isolated, imitated version of the cosmos or society. Rather, the functions of the whole microcosmic body are really embedded in the cosmos at large and constantly influenced by one’s surroundings through the surface of the body.Footnote ²¹ The concept of poroi was an important way to conceptualize this intense cosmos-soma relation. As Martin summarizes, poroi are channels, both on the body to allow external matters to enter and go around the whole body, and within the body to enable psychic and nutritive processes. Thus, the body is “of a piece with the elements surrounding it and pervading it” because “the surface of the body is not a sealed boundary” but is “porous.”Footnote ²² Resorting to poroi that allow the soul to move through the body, the Hippocratics explain the various characteristics of human souls (such as “quarrelsome” or “benevolent”) as affected by either the nature of the body or the nature of the environmental objects that the soul “meets and with which it mixes.” This might happen through breathing and sweating.Footnote ²³ With a similar logic, madness (mania) is considered a symptom of the soul that requires treatment of the body. Galen, following Aristotle, also considers the quality of blood as reflecting the state of the soul and as depending on the appearance and surface of the body.Footnote ²⁴

In short, the “inner” of a person is constantly influenced by the “outer,” including the outer surface of the body itself and its social or cosmic environment. Giovanni B. Bazzana also emphasizes the porous nature of a person when he demonstrates the interactive way in which “the construction of individual subjectivities and the cosmic or political orders” shape each other.Footnote ²⁵ Moreover, as Martin argues, the constant influence of the outer on the inner would suggests that the body is “malleable.” The body is not only constituted by the same elements as the cosmos but also able to be pervaded and continually shaped by environmental elements and forces. Based on the malleable understanding of the body, for example, the upper class in Greco-Roman society paid much attention to the massaging procedures by which young male bodies might be shaped into beautiful, balanced, and “masculine” bodies that conform to their social class.Footnote ²⁶ The perfectly balanced body that is nearest to divine beauty, then, was located at the highest end of the vertical social spectrum.Footnote ²⁷

According to the ancient concept of soma-cosmos correlation introduced above, it seems that the conceptual structure in 1 Cor 12:13 could imply the notion of bodily transformation. A comparison of 1 Cor 12:13 and 2 Cor 4:7–12 in terms of conceptual structure will help to clarify the emergence of Paul’s innovation in 2 Cor 3:18 and its rhetorical function in 2 Cor 4.

The Context and Conceptual Structure of 1 Cor 12:13

The reception of the Spirit is the issue Paul addresses in the context of 1 Cor 12:13, and, in addressing it, Paul creates a peculiar conceptual structure that I call “double body-containers.” This conceptual structure allows for the idea of ongoing transformation. Paul’s goal in this verse, however, is not to do with ongoing transformation. His purpose here is to construct his ideal image of “the body of Christ” and to lead the Corinthians to re-picture the reception of the Spirit according to this image. For Paul, the reception of the Spirit is not only to intake the Spirit into one’s own body, but also to be immersed into another body, the body of Christ, and to be molded by this larger body. Thus, the body-container schema and its clear inside-outside distinction are crucial to Paul’s argumentation.

As many have indicated, although the reception and experience of the Spirit has a founding role in the Pauline communities, it has also ironically become an important reason for divisions among the Corinthians.Footnote ²⁸ According to the context, Paul is addressing the variety of pneumatic experiences manifested by the community members. To these members, Paul claims, God has given different spiritual gifts: some can heal, some give prophecies, and some speak in tongues (12:1–12). In fact, speaking in tongues, which is a dramatic and overwhelming manifestation of the Spirit, seems to have a prominent role in this division crisis (14:1–33). Some Corinthian members appear to boast about their ability to speak in tongues and for this reason consider themselves as superior.

Faced with the doubt of the reception of the Spirit, the Corinthian community is invited by Paul to re-conceptualize the reception of the Spirit and its manifestations according to a peculiar conceptual structure regarding both the inner and the outer realms of the body. Paul enacts this reconceptualization by metaphorically articulating the reception of the Spirit in relation to two common experiences in the community: a ritual experience that is conceptually related to the outer portion of a believer’s body (being “baptized” in one Spirit) and a daily experience that is related to the inner (“drinking” of one Spirit).Footnote ²⁹ A key concept that made Paul’s metaphorical conceptualization of the experience of the Spirit reasonable for ancient people was the material understanding of πνεῦμα. Indeed, Troels Engberg-Pedersen points out that Paul’s metaphors, particularly those referring to πνεῦμα, could not be divorced from their material sense.Footnote ³⁰ By examining related ideas in Stoicism, he determines that it was common in Paul’s time to consider πνεῦμα as a material entity that made up the gods and the heavenly bodies, and that Paul also considered πνεῦμα as a physical entity that could enter a person’s body and generate understanding in the mind.Footnote ³¹ Also, Stanley K. Stowers argues that it is precisely on the basis of possessing the material Spirit in their bodies that Paul claims that non-Jews in Christ are included in Abraham’s seed: non-Jews become coheirs because they literally share the “same stuff” with Christ.Footnote ³² Thus, for Paul and his audiences, πνεῦμα could physically surround a person’s body (as in the baptism metaphor) or be taken into the body (as in the drinking metaphor).

Paul’s purpose in delivering the two metaphors in 12:13, then, is to assure every believer that despite demonstrating different external pneumatic phenomena, they have all received the same indwelling Spirit internally (12:3, 11). Specifically, Paul emphasizes that the conversion to Jesus and the confession of Jesus’s lordship are credible outer effects of the indwelling Spirit (12:2–3). This emphasis on conversion was the reason for needing to metaphorically use the experience of baptism in 1 Cor 12:13 before the drinking metaphor, which would directly address the issue itself (the reception of the Spirit). The baptism metaphor helps to connect the receiving experience with their conversion to Jesus. In fact, the way in which a baptismal rite is performed with water provides a strong connection with the drinking metaphor. The basic meaning of the verb βαπτίζω is “to dip” or “to immerse,” usually through submerging in liquid. In addition to the action itself, this word can also refer to a state or condition of being surrounded by something (usually liquid, such as water, wine, or blood).Footnote ³³ Thus, as with the subsequent metaphor of drinking, Paul’s use of baptismal language in 12:13 also likens the Spirit to water: a believer is baptized “in one Spirit” (ἐν ἑνὶ πνεύματι) as in water. As Gordon D. Fee indicates, when Paul elsewhere uses ἐν with the verb βαπτίζω, he refers to the element in which one is immersed/baptized (see “all were baptized in the cloud and in the sea” in 1 Cor 10:2).Footnote ³⁴ The experience of baptism, then, is articulated through an inside-outside distinction mapped on the idea of body. First, a believer’s own body is immersed in water that surrounds the body from the outer. Second, and more importantly, Paul considers a believer as being immersed “into one body” (εἰς ἓν σῶμα), the body of Christ (12:27). Believers are supposed to enter this body in baptism.

On the basis of the baptism metaphor, the drinking metaphor, then, strategically addresses the issue: the experience of drinking implies effects on the believers, induced by what is taken into their bodies. Clearly, an inside-outside distinction mapped on the body is also prominent in this metaphor. Linguist John Newman further indicates that drinking is an ordinary human act and experience and is widely used for metaphorical expressions in English and various languages, and the effect caused by the liquid is one central component of this metaphor.Footnote ³⁵As Åshild Næss describes from observing different languages, although the verb “drink” is often taken as transitive, it is characterized by having an “affected agent”: drinking is an act “performed by an agent in order to achieve an effect on [the agent].”Footnote ³⁶ John 7:37–39 provides another example from the New Testament that likens the Spirit to water and its reception to drinking (cf. Eph 5:18), and the effect is the elimination of thirst. Here in 1 Corinthians, Paul includes all the spiritual gifts as the effects induced by the Spirit that a person intakes into their body.

Based on the shared elements of the inside-outside distinction mapped on the body and the water imagery, Paul is able to conceptually “integrate” the baptism metaphor and the drinking metaphor in 12:13. This is a general cognitive operation called conceptual integration in cognitive linguistics.Footnote ³⁷ By integrating the two metaphors, Paul constructs a peculiar conceptual structure of “double body-containers” for understanding the reception of the Spirit. In the integrated conceptual structure, both the body of a believer and the body of Christ are understood as a schematic body-container mapped with a clear inside-outside distinction.

Thus, when an individual receives the Spirit into the body as stated in the drinking metaphor, the person (or, the person’s body) is simultaneously baptized in the Spirit as in water and so “into one body,” which is the body of Christ (12:12–13, 27). In other words, while one’s own body is still a container into which the Spirit enters to dwell, one is immersed into another larger body-container (Christ’s body) in which the Spirit also dwells (cf. 2:16; 6:17–19; 15:45). Thus, Paul’s expression in 12:13 not only emphasizes a believer’s conversion but also endows it with a communal sense. When a person has faith in Jesus and is baptized, the person simultaneously receives the Spirit and participates in one social body. In this social sense, Paul justifies the variety of spiritual gifts and redefines the legitimate outer proofs of the indwelling Spirit. According to the integrated image of the body of Christ, the conversion to Jesus not only becomes a reasonable and necessary outer proof, but the variety of pneumatic phenomena also becomes analogous for the various “members” that are all indispensable for the body (12:7–12, 14–27).

In sum, faced with a doubt about the inner (the indwelling Sprit) based on the outer (different manifestations), Paul also relies on the outer to argue for the inner. Through conceptual integration, Paul constructs a peculiar conceptual structure of “double body-containers” to point out that there are credible outer proofs for the indwelling Spirit in every Corinthian member. He argues that conversion is an effect induced by the indwelling Spirt in a believer’s body, and that the participation in an outer social body is a crucial dimension of receiving the Spirit. Thus, all the manifestations of the Spirit are meant to build up the body of Christ. As Bazzana notes, the edification of the community is an important criterion for the performance of receiving the Spirit.Footnote ³⁸ According to Paul’s conceptual structure, the effect of the indwelling Spirit on an individual believer is supposed to be in line with the communal shaping from the social body since the believer is also immersed in the Spirit.

In this context, Paul then continues to argue that, in this ideal social body, the body of Christ, “God gives greater honor to the lesser member” so that the whole body can “rejoice with it” (12:24–26). As Martin notices, in these few verses, Paul uses a variety of terms that connote the significance of social class, such as “the esteemed” (τὰ δοκοῦντα), “weaker” (ἀσθενέστερα), “not honorable” (ἀτιμότερα), “lacking” (ὑστερουμένῳ), and “necessary” (ἀναγκαῖά). Thus, Paul’s ideal image of a social body, in which the weaker is to be honored, questions the common hierarchy in Roman society.Footnote ³⁹ Margaret M. Mitchell also indicates that, in texts of Greco-Roman political literature, the body analogy is typically used to defend the social hierarchy. That is, just like the human body, a social body is also hierarchically constituted of different members (representing social classes) assigned naturally to different positions in the body.Footnote ⁴⁰ With this concept of body-society correlation, we have seen that the upper class in Roman society would try to shape their physical bodies into an honorable form that conforms to their social class. However, while Paul also assigns members (representing spiritual gifts) to different positions in the body, this body-society correlation has a distinctive meaning in the body of Christ. For Paul, God glorifies the weaker members (12:22–23). As we will see, when Paul again talks about God’s grace on his own weak and inglorious body in 2 Cor 3:18–4:18, he formulates a distinctive idea of ongoing transformation that is also incompatible with the way in which the upper class would try to shape their bodies.

The Context and Conceptual Structure in 2 Cor 4:7–12

Paul’s metaphor of “treasure in clay jars” in 2 Cor 4:7–12 reflects a conceptual structure very similar to the structure of “double body-containers” in 1 Cor 12:13. In the treasure metaphor, Paul also describes himself and his body as a container, a clay jar (see 4:7, 10–12), and argues for the existence of the treasure in the container on the basis of some outer proofs—his own survival in sufferings (4:8–11) and the life-giving effects of his evangelizing ministry on other community members (4:12). It seems that the image of Paul (and Paul’s body) belonging to the body of Christ is also used when Paul associates the community members with the manifestation of the treasure in Paul’s own body-container.

In the context of this metaphor, Paul’s mortality and physical frailty in his usually humiliating sufferings (esp. 4:8–10) are the issues that he has to deal with. As Victor Paul Furnish indicates, Paul’s point in the metaphor is the correlation between his mortality and his suitability as an agent of the glorious gospel (4:1–6).Footnote ⁴¹ Indeed, in first-century Roman society, it was commonly believed that one’s physical characteristics were reliable indicators of one’s moral character.Footnote ⁴² Thus, physical degradation implied moral degradation.Footnote ⁴³ In fact, the doubt of Paul’s apostleship on the basis of his physical weakness seems to be a consistent issue throughout 2 Corinthians. His opponents argue that “the presence of his body is weak (ἀσθενὴς)” (10:10). Jennifer A. Glancy notices that the adjective ἀσθενὴς refers “ultimately to low social status, a lack of honor, or simply a weak claim to apostolic authority.”Footnote ⁴⁴ Specifically, she indicates that it is shameful of Paul that his body has been beaten in his sufferings. While scars on a man’s front in the first century may tell an honorable story of war, Paul’s description of his own body as “whipped” (11:23–24) tells a story of dishonor, abasement, and servility. In Paul’s time, only people from lower social classes, mostly slaves, would be whipped, and they were whipped repeatedly to the extent that the physical consequence became permanently visible on their bodies. Those were “weak bodies” that were associated with poverty, misfortune, and even suspect character.Footnote ⁴⁵ In fact, those were bodies that did not have their own voice. According to Elaine Scarry, the tortured body in general embodied the rights, power, and honor of the upper class and spoke their words instead of the voice of the tortured.Footnote ⁴⁶ Thus, as in 1 Cor 12:13, Paul in 2 Cor 10–13 is also facing a challenge arising from outer appearance (outer weakness in the latter passage). In the context of the treasure metaphor in 2 Cor 4, Paul most likely faces a similar challenge since his response through this metaphor corresponds to what he says in 12:9. In both places, Paul claims that it is exactly through his weakness that God’s power would be manifested.

The idea of ongoing transformation could make Paul’s situation caused by mortality even worse. In 3:18, Paul explicitly claims that “we all are being transformed.” What he describes is a progressive process of transformation that starts when one “turns to the Lord” (3:16) and participates “in Christ” (3:14), and it proceeds from one stage of glory to a higher one.Footnote ⁴⁷ This idea is not compatible with Paul’s physical appearance which is considered dishonorable. In fact, this idea can go further—it is not compatible with human experience in general. People are mortal. They age and die, and this progress shows on their bodies. Why would Paul mention this idea of glorious transformation in the present in a context in which he is defending his apostleship against the fact that his body is weak? On the one hand, this idea may help Paul to refer to the fact that every person’s body is mortal in nature (as he does in 4:14–5:4) and so to lead the Corinthians to focus on the part that Paul claims as transforming, namely, his inner (4:16). In so doing, Paul tries to undermine the distinctiveness of his own weak appearance. On the other hand, in expounding the idea of ongoing transformation, Paul distinguishes the inside and the outside of his body. As he clarifies in 2 Cor 4, what is being transformed in the present is only the inner (2 Cor 4:16), while the glorious transformation of the outer will happen in the future (5:1–4). This distinction also allows him to redefine the weakness of his outer as paradoxically showing God’s power in his inner.

Clearly, the image schema of body-container and its inside-outside distinction are crucial for Paul’s argumentation, which is aimed to assure the importance of the inner in spite of the incompatible outer appearance. Paul constructs these conceptual structures by using the metaphor of “treasure in clay jars.” Margaret E. Thrall indicates that the contrasting imagery of valuable or appealing commodities carried in valueless or unprepossessing containers was a common metaphor in both Jewish and Hellenistic traditions.Footnote ⁴⁸ As clearly stated in a rabbinic saying (Gen. Rab. 14:7), pottery vessels cannot be repaired once they are broken.Footnote ⁴⁹ Thus, unlike more valuable vessels that are made of glass or metal, pottery vessels are fragile and cheap. They are temporary and have no enduring value.Footnote ⁵⁰ In the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, pottery vessels are metaphorically used as symbols of a lack of value (Lam 4:2) and mortality or disposability (Isa 30:14; Jer 19:11; 1QS xi 22; 1QH iii 20–21). They are also associated with human frailty and sinful nature in contrast to the heavenly beings (1QH^a xxvi 35). As Furnish indicates, the description in Gen 2:7 that God “formed” Adam from “dust” seems to lead to the metaphorical picture of God as a potter and human beings as pottery vessels, found in Jewish traditions (Isa 64:8).Footnote ⁵¹ Similarly, Paul describes himself and his co-workers (and their bodies) as clay jars in 2 Cor 4:7–12.

Nevertheless, valuable and enduring commodities, such as coinage, might be carried in earthenware containers.Footnote ⁵² This contrast between the inner and the outer is emphasized in the story in Sipre Deut. 48, where the Roman emperor’s daughter mocks a wise but physically unappealing rabbi by referring to him as “glorious wisdom in a repulsive earthen vessel.”Footnote ⁵³ In the text, a rabbinic saying then explains the story: “as it is not possible for wine to be stored in golden or silver vessels, but only in one that is least among the vessels, an earthenware one, so also the words of Torah can be kept only with one who is humble in his own eyes.”Footnote ⁵⁴ In this rabbinic message, the contrasting relationship between the ugly rabbi and the glorious words of Torah is analogous to that between the clay vessel and the wine in it. The worthlessness of the rabbi/container is defended against the mockery, not only as compatible with the valuable treasure/Torah but as a necessary character for carrying it.

Like the rabbinic saying, Paul uses traditional imagery in 2 Cor 4:7–9 to argue that his frailty and worthlessness are in fact constructive for the purpose of (ἵνα) manifesting the true value of God’s power in him. He claims this paradoxical manifestation on the basis of the fact that he survives. As seen in 4:8–9, Paul explains how “God’s power” is shown in “our” weakness by describing the events in which Paul and his co-workers suffered ingloriously but were never totally destroyed. Paul depicts these experiences with antithetical pairs of participles: afflicted but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not abandoned, and struck down but not destroyed/killed (ἀπολλύμενοι). In other words, Paul’s life is sustained despite all of the suffering that could have killed him. Thus, although he appears weak and frail in his suffering, God’s power is manifested exactly through the weakness of his body because his fragile life is preserved (4:8–9), and so his glorious mission continues to give life (4:12–15).

More importantly, in addition to his own body, Paul further applies the logic of paradoxical manifestation in 4:10–12 to a narrative about the death and resurrection of Jesus and, consequently, to the social body of the Corinthians. It is indeed an effective way to defend Paul’s inglorious sufferings by associating them with Jesus’s story, and Paul cues this story with his deliberate wording. The term νέκρωσις, which is only found twice in Paul’s letters, is not Paul’s usual term for Jesus’s “death” on the cross (θάνατος; forty-six times). This term is used in texts of physicians to describe the “withering or mortification of the body or of a sick member.”Footnote ⁵⁵ Ralph Martin indicates that this term refers to “a process or a state of dying” rather than the act itself when death happens (cf. Rom 4:19).Footnote ⁵⁶ On Paul’s use of this term in 2 Cor 4:10, the majority of commentators regard Paul as portraying an extended process, “the course of events leading up to Jesus’s death.”Footnote ⁵⁷ As for “the life of Jesus,” as Furnish notes, the context (specifically 4:14) shows that in 4:10 Paul is not referring to Jesus’s earthly life but the resurrection life of Jesus.Footnote ⁵⁸ Thus, with the contrast of “the dying of Jesus” and “the life of Jesus,” Paul refers to a familiar narrative in which Jesus appeared weak and frail in his dying process, but God’s power raised him up into eternal life (4:14; cf. Rom 1:4). This model narrative is very similar to Paul’s description of his suffering experiences despite the fact that Jesus’s life was not sustained, but resurrected.Footnote ⁵⁹ In both cases, God’s power is manifested through weak appearance. Indeed, the grammatical parallelisms between 4:10 and 4:11 indicate that Paul bears in mind “the dying of Jesus” when he is “constantly handed over to death” on account of Jesus.

I argue that, by associating his sufferings with Jesus’s model narrative, Paul extends the logic of paradoxical manifestation offered in the treasure metaphor from just applying to his own body further to the body of Christ. In 4:8–9, Paul has said that God’s power is shown in his survival. Here in 4:10–12, Paul again claims that his frailty is in fact constructive, and the reason this time is that his weakness in suffering, like the dying of Jesus, can also produce evangelizing effects on the Corinthian community. As Paul explains, the purpose of his constant suffering, which is analagous to Jesus’s dying, is to manifest the life of Jesus. As a result, while death affects him (and his co-workers), life affects the Corinthians. In this way, the undeniable fact of the Corinthians’ evangelization becomes the visible outer proof for the life of Jesus; the statement in 4:12 that death is at work on him while life is at work on the Corinthians is exactly how the life of Jesus might be manifested in Paul’s body (4:10–11).

Therefore, Paul’s statement in 2 Cor 4:7–12 reflects a conceptual structure similar to what we have seen in 1 Cor 12:13. Frederick S. Tappenden points out that there are three somatic referents in 2 Cor 4: “the external body, the internal body, and the communal body.”Footnote ⁶⁰ On the one hand, the in-out contrast of the treasure metaphor is applied to Paul’s body to vividly describe how God’s power in the inner can be shown through the dying of the outer. On the other hand, the dying of Paul can produce outer effects of the life of Jesus on the communal body. As Tappenden notes, Paul’s ideals regarding the manifestation of God’s power “are both individually and socially embodied.”Footnote ⁶¹ What happens to each individual body also influences other “members” in one social body.Footnote ⁶² Thus, the whole logic is built upon a conceptual structure of “double body-containers” in which Paul’s body belongs to the body of Christ.

In sum, we have found significant parallels between 1 Cor 12:13 and 2 Cor 4:7–12 in terms of conceptual structure. Thus, on the conceptual level, I propose that the former text allowed for an important innovation in the latter text. As explained below, the idea of ongoing transformation could be implied in the conceptual structure that Paul constructed in 1 Cor 12:13—the double body-containers schema. Later, using the same conceptual structure, Paul strategically formulated the new idea of ongoing transformation in 2 Cor 3:18 for the first time and expounded it in 2 Cor 4. In so doing, Paul ended up redefining human mortality as a constructive part of a believer’s ongoing transformation into a glorious form.

Ongoing Transformation and Transforming Mortality

It is my argument that Paul’s exposition of ongoing transformation in 2 Cor 3:18–4:18 indicates a crucial development in his thought. In fact, the notion of transformation is usually inherent in the ecstatic experience of receiving the Spirit—the issue that Paul has to deal with in 1 Cor 12:13 by enacting a “conceptual integration” of two metaphorical expressions (being immersed in the Spirit and drinking it).Footnote ⁶³ As we have seen, the variety of pneumatic manifestations is an important reason for divisions in the Corinthian community, and some members appear to boast about their dramatic experience of glossolalia. Indeed, Paul’s metaphor of being baptized/immersed in the Spirit seems to be a way to describe some Corinthians’ overwhelming experience of the Spirit strategically in relation to their common experience of entering the community. Moreover, to conceptualize the reception experience as drinking liquid into one’s body further suggests an effect of the reception on the physical body.

The conceptual structure constructed in 1 Cor 12:13 can further encourage the notion of transformation. In the integration of the metaphors of drinking and baptism, the individual body has the indwelling Spirit inside of it and is simultaneously immersed in the Spirit in a special society, the body of Christ. Thus, this integrated conceptual structure in 12:13 would suggest that the body might be continually shaped according to what is in it and what is surrounding it—the Spirit. In other words, according to the ancient concept of the “malleable” body, an individual body conceptualized according to the “double body-containers” structure is supposed to be transforming into a form corresponding to the Spirit. This idea is actually very similar to the idea of σῶμα πνευματικόν in 1 Cor 15:44 where Paul talks about transformation in the eschatological future. However, what is implied in 12:13 would be an ongoing transformation that can be experienced in the present, an idea that Paul later explicitly formulated in 2 Cor 3:18: “And we all, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord, the Spirit.”Footnote ⁶⁴ The present tense of the verb μεταμορφούμεθα and the context unmistakably refer to an ongoing transformation that is inaugurated when one “turns to the Lord” and so “the veil is removed” (3:16).

Moreover, Paul’s articulation of the transformation in 3:18 emphasizes the work of the Spirit and suggests an ultimate form of the Spirit. This pneumatological emphasis goes hand in hand with Paul’s reinforcement of the contrast that he makes in the context between the old covenant of the letter and the new covenant of the Spirit (esp. 3:3–6), and the contrast may shed some light on the exegetical knot of 3:18, the participle κατοπτριζόμενοι. As Murry J. Harris summarizes, linguistic evidence favors the meaning “behold as in a mirror” rather than “reflect in a mirror” for this word, and this understanding is in line with the contrast of the Christians with the Jews who cannot see because of their veil.Footnote ⁶⁵ As Ralph P. Martin argues, the meaning “reflect” would remove the contrast that is consistent in the context.Footnote ⁶⁶ Indeed, the participle κατοπτριζόμενοι in 3:18 seems to modify the verb μεταμορφούμεθα by describing “seeing” as the manner in or the way by which the Christians are being transformed—they are being transformed into the same image, that is, the same image that they behold as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord. However, while proclaiming that the Christians are being transformed into the same image as the Lord that they behold, Paul emphasizes that it is the Spirit who grants them access to the Lord. For Paul, the new covenant is not what came from Moses who was veiled. Rather, it is characterized by freedom because the Lord to whom people should turn (3:16) is the Spirit and is now present (3:17).Footnote ⁶⁷ Thus, what Paul states in 3:18 appears to be ultimately an ongoing transformation into the same image of the Lord who is present as the Spirit.Footnote ⁶⁸ It is more so since the words κυρίου and πνεύματος in the end of the verse are most likely in apposition.Footnote ⁶⁹ Paul’s statement in 3:18 therefore reflects the emergence of an idea that is conceptually allowed and comprehensible in the conceptual structure provided in 1 Cor 12:13, in which the Spirit is fully present both indwelling and surrounding a person. It is also noteworthy that Paul later uses the same conceptual structure in his further exposition of ongoing transformation in 2 Cor 4.

This same conceptual structure leads to an important parallel between 1 Cor 12:13 and 2 Cor 4: the inside-outside distinction. When the new idea of ongoing transformation that might be inherent in 1 Cor 12:13 is later realized in 2 Cor 3:18 and within the context of 2 Cor 4, Paul carefully distinguishes the inner and the outer to face the issue of his own mortality in suffering. As we have seen, the idea of ongoing transformation can exacerbate the issue of mortality that Paul tries to deal with in 2 Cor 4, and he indeed has to clarify in 4:16 that what is being transformed is only the “inner person” before he reaffirms the idea of future transformation of the outer in 5:1–5. He has to admit that the outer appearance of his body is wasting away (4:16). Therefore, by distinguishing the inner from the outer, he argues for a constructive role of the decay of the outer. He considers his outer mortality as actually contributing to the social body (4:11–15) and, furthermore, his own outer transformation in the future (4:16–5:5).

In addition to the parallels of conceptual structures and the inside-outside distinction, Paul also picks up his teaching, in the context of 1 Cor 12:13, that God glorifies the weak member and so the whole body can rejoice together (12:24–26). We have seen that the logic in this teaching challenges the social hierarchy common in the Greco-Roman world. With a similar counter-cultural logic, in 2 Cor 4, Paul again relies on the “double body-containers” structure to argue that God’s glory and power are paradoxically manifested in human weakness. Therefore, while, as Gillman argues, 1 Cor 15:50–57 provides the pattern of argumentation in 2 Cor 5 on the topic of future transformation, 1 Cor 12:13 anticipates the idea of ongoing transformation in 2 Cor 3:18–4:18 and provides the conceptual structure to formulate this idea and expound it.Footnote ⁷⁰

It is noteworthy that Paul describes the constructive value of his mortality with apocalyptic language and martial imagery. Gillman, who argues for parallelisms of argumentation between 1 Cor 15:50–57 and 2 Cor 5:1–5, nevertheless notices that the end-time language prominent in the former is absent in the latter.Footnote ⁷¹ Indeed, in 1 Cor 15, Paul describes an eschatological war in which Christ will destroy “every ruler and every authority and power” (15:24), and death is “the last enemy to be destroyed” (15:26). As a consequence of this war, believers will no longer be ruled by death but by Christ, and so they will surely participate in the future resurrection (15:20–23, 44–45). However, in 2 Corinthians, Paul is not trying to assure resurrection in the future but deals with mortality in the present. Therefore, with a similar strategy, he applies warfare language to the present experience in 2 Cor 4 instead of to the future events in 2 Cor 5.

Lisa M. Bowens demonstrates the way in which Paul presents his bodily sufferings as something “he endures on the battlefield” in an apocalyptic conflict between cosmic powers.Footnote ⁷² It is a conflict between the god of this age who blinds people’s mind (4:4) and God who shines light into believers’ hearts (4:6). Paul then describes this light as the treasure in clay jars (4:7). With this light in his interior, Paul’s frailty in 4:8–9 manifests God’s power and reveals his involvement in God’s war. As we have seen, Paul associates his sufferings with Jesus’s dying. According to Bowens’s survey, the terms Paul uses for his suffering in these two verses, such as θλιβόμενοι, στενοχωρούμενοι, διωκόμενοι, and καταβαλλόμενοι, occur elsewhere in contemporaneous literature in military contexts.Footnote ⁷³ The articulation in 4:11 that Paul is constantly “handed over” (παραδιδόμεθα) to death for the sake of Jesus further confirms a martial imagery. Thus, as in 1 Cor 15, here in 2 Cor 4 Paul understands the event of Jesus’s dying and resurrection as an apocalyptic conflict. However, Paul’s emphasis in 1 Cor 15 is Jesus’s own victory in the past battle that has secured all believers’ resurrection in the future. In 2 Cor 4, Paul’s point is rather concerning his participation in Jesus’s battle here and now. This participation shows that Paul’s mortality and weakness are not shameful. They are part of God’s cosmic war and are constructive to the social body that God is building through his glorious victory in the war.

Paul does not confine this kind of participation to himself. After Paul finishes explaining how his sufferings can contribute to the manifestation of the life of Jesus in the community (4:12–15), he extends the same paradoxical logic in 4:16–18 to human mortality in general. The destruction of the outer, paradoxically, is “producing” (κατεργάζεται) the eternal glory (4:16–17) that is still invisible in the present (4:18). There are two aspects in this producing effect. On the one hand, the glory that is being produced is invisible probably because only the inner person is being renewed (4:16). On the other hand, the invisible glory clearly anticipates the description of an “eternal building” in heaven in 5:1–5, which represents the future body of all believers after their transformation (5:2–3). This future body/building is still invisible, and people have to long for it by faith (5:2; cf. 5:5, 7). The connection between 4:16–18 and 5:1–5 shows that Paul is no longer talking about his apostolic sufferings in the former text but human mortality in general. Indeed, general mortality is also a necessary topic that Paul needs to address in this context. Ultimately, he has to clarify the relationship between the new idea of ongoing transformation generated in 1 Cor 12:13 and delineated in 2 Cor 3:18–4:18, and his old teaching about future transformation elaborated in 2 Cor 5. Again, Paul’s solution relies on a distinction between the transforming inner and the decaying outer (4:16). His whole logic is that the destruction of the outer is producing both the inner transformation in the present and the outer transformation in the future, and that the future transformation of the outer will surely happen because God has placed the Spirit in our inner as the proof (5:5) that is currently transforming our inner.Footnote ⁷⁴

Thus, I propose that there is a crucial development in Paul’s thought as reflected in 2 Cor 3:18–4:18. In light of the Greco-Roman understandings of the body, the conceptual structure that Paul carefully constructs in 1 Cor 12:13 might in time suggest that the whole person could be somehow molded according to the Spirit. However, when Paul actually creates the idea of ongoing transformation in 2 Cor 3:18, he distinguishes the inner and the outer, and in so doing, he reconceptualizes mortality. In 2 Cor 4, the outer body is perishing, but this physical phenomenon common to all people is contributing to the ongoing transformation of the inner and the future complete transformation. The perishing outer body in general, then, is also analogous to the clay jar in 4:7 in which the treasure is placed and can be manifested. Thus, not only Paul and his coworkers but all believers are experiencing the inglorious sufferings similar to what Paul describes in 4:8–9 with martial language. In other words, Paul develops the idea of ongoing transformation implied in 1 Cor 12:13 partly by transforming human mortality in 2 Cor 4. He gives mortality a transcendent meaning. For Paul, the decaying of our outer body, like his apostolic sufferings, is what all people carry with them when they participate in God’s cosmic war and are led to eternal glory. Mortality becomes a constructive part of a believer’s glorious transformation.Footnote ⁷⁵