Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (The Powers : Volume One) by Walter Wink

Author:Walter Wink
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-04-12T03:48:00+00:00

The Powers Are Ignorant of God's Plan

None of the archons of this age understands "the hidden wisdom of God," "for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Cor. 2:7, 8). Not even angels are omniscient. They are told only what they must know in order to deliver the revelation necessary for a specific moment. They are seldom personified, can be spoken of interchangeably with God, and vanish when the message is received. They are as much "message" as messengers, "informations" as informers.

The hymn that bursts from the lips of the dictating author of 1 Tim. 3:16 stresses the revelation that angels themselves received when Christ, after his resurrection, was "seen by angels" and "believed in the cos MOS. 1112 We saw the same motif of the ignorance of the archons elaborated in the Ascension of Isaiah. Apparently it was important that the angels see Christ vindicated. What is the mythic point common to all these texts, with their insistence that Christ was previously unknown to the angels? How is it possible for them to be ignorant of their very own principle of systemicity (Col. 1:17, synestiken, the etymological root of our word "system"), the one in whom all things "hold together," "cohere," "find their harmonious unity"? How is it that they are ignorant of that in and through and for which they exist (Col. 1:16)? We must lay aside all systematic and logical objections and simply let the myth speak for itself. What it seems to claim is that the universe itself is blind to its own principle of cohesion. It operates cohesively, but without the parts perceiving that fact. Put in a more modern mode, the universe is late in arriving at awareness of itself as a unity, and this awareness has come into the world for the first time with humanity. We can actually date the moment of its dawning in the axiological period of the great prophets of Israel, the philosophers of Greece, and Buddha and Lao-tzu in the East." It was then that the historically unprecedented sense of the unity of all things first was effectively articulated, although it was probably intuitively sensed far earlier. On the strength of that apprehension, both Israel's conception of Yahweh's universal sovereignty and Greek science and philosophy became possible.

With Christ Jesus a new dimension was added, however. The just man is killed. The embodiment of God's will is executed by God's servants. The incarnation of the orderly principles of the universe is crucified by the guardians of order. The very nucleus of spiritual power in the universe is destroyed by the spiritual powers. The parts do not or cannot know the effect of their acts on the whole, and some, less innocently, by their worship of their own selfish short-term interests, have become detrimental to the good of the whole. The angels did not know the Lord of glory, nor did the captains and jailers and chief priests and governors. The cosmic process of reconciliation could not begin until they "saw" him.

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