Even “exile” itself
was being broadened to encompass the nations. Though it had been a source
of shame for Israel, Israel could no longer keep exile to itself, as a
paradoxical badge of honor and privilege. All peoples could now
understand themselves to have stood in exile from the Creator God, in need of
reconciliation, and this recognition is what would allow them to participate in
their own exodus, thus finding yet another way to join up with Israel’s
self-defining story and to relate to the covenant God. As we have seen,
Paul understands that God has kicked down the doors and broken down the walls
that had been used to restrict entrance into the household of Abraham, now
offering His reconciliation to all peoples and folding them in to His covenant
and kingdom purposes.
In a patriarchy and
head-of- household oriented society, rooted in honor and shame constructs that
incorporated patronage and benefaction, along with a heightened sense of
connection to certain people by which one’s status could be elevated, we should
not discount this sense of inclusiveness and dynamic of lineage that seems to
be one of the apostle’s filters. With these thoughts, expressed so early
in chapter five, coming on the heels of a chapter dedicated to an exploration
of the faith and covenant standing of Abraham, and with this placed alongside a
recognition of the importance that Jews and Jewish believers attached to the
ability to lay claim to Abraham as their father, we do ourselves a tremendous
service to keep these particular cultural, historical, and sociological
underpinnings in mind.
Of course, the Jewish
covenant narrative did not include only Abraham. Indeed, the story of
Abraham only made sense because of its precursor, which was the story of
Adam. The Genesis narrative demonstrates that God’s covenant with Abraham
only becomes necessary because of the failure of Adam, the original covenant
and image bearer. Conversely, the story of Abraham, to which Gentiles are
being attached through belief in Jesus, which is the means by which they are
entering into covenant with the Creator God and doing so in the mold of
Abraham, moves along to become the story of Israel. Though the story of
Abraham moves from Isaac to Jacob, Jacob to Joseph, and Joseph to Egypt, and
though these stories are certainly important and wonderfully instructive, they
are the means by which we meet up with Israel.
The story of Israel
essentially begins with Moses, the exodus, Sinai, and the giving of the
instrument by which Israel would define itself and by which God intended them
to reflect His glory to the nations, which was the law. Naturally then,
Paul, having effectively and persuasively incorporated Gentiles into God’s
covenant family by convincingly demonstrating that justification (covenant
inclusion) comes to them through belief in Jesus as Lord (believing the
Gospel---believing in the decree of the Creator God and acting accordingly, as
did Abraham), now does business with the other major components of the story
that Israel told about itself, which would be the Adam/Creation narrative, and
the birth/election of the people of Israel. We see this as he writes “So
then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, so
death spread to all people because all sinned---for before the law was given,
sin was in the world, but there is no accounting for sin where there is no law”
(5:12-13). While in these verses we are hearing allusions to Adam and
Moses, we are forced to note Paul’s equation of sin with death, doing so in
light of his belief that Jesus (and God as and through His Messiah) conquered
sin and death by the cross and the Resurrection.
Staying focused on
Paul’s incorporation of Israel’s narrative though, we continue to read “Yet
death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin in the same
way that Adam (who is a type of the coming one) transgressed” (5:14).
Keeping in mind the possibility of Paul’s use of exilic language, we here
consider that even though Adam earned for himself a specific exile for specific
transgressions of his covenant with God, all humanity, though they do not
recognize Adam in their origin narrative and do not ideologically,
traditionally, mentally or conceptually share in his specific covenant
failures, experiences the reign of death because of their own failures to
rightly bear the divine image with which they were created (sin).
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