The Theological Death Drive

Lent 3: Romans 5:1-11
5:1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
5:2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
5:3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
5:4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
5:5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
5:6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
5:7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die.
5:8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.
5:9 Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.
5:10 For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.
5:11 But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

The Lectionary doubles back and returns to Romans 5, 2 weeks later and 11 verses earlier. The excess of grace is again (or already) given in comparative terms: “much more surely…” The limit between abundance and superabundance, between grace as gift and grace as gratuitousness is the limit between death and life. This limit is doubly significant. It is significant eschatologically: As proleptic, Christ’s death and resurrection is the possibility of our resurrection – death is already our “ownmost possibility” (according to Heidegger) – death will ultimately loose its grasp. But it is significant also in terms of historical action. Participation in the eschatological resurrection is deferred by a temporal interval and a historical demand. Death is no mere natural fact. If Christ’s death is the paradigm, then death is a political act. But, of course, death can only be understood as a political act if resurrection is considered a possibility. Further, the historical iteration of the death of Christ takes “symbolic” form. Both in terms of a certain withdrawal from the symbolic order (from the demands of the big other) and in terms of the liturgical (re)citation.