Chapter Six

Chapter six.

The Paschal Community and the Eschatological Marriage.

Introduction.

In chapter five we saw that Paul had a corporate dimension in mind when he used the term ‘body of Sin’. There is however one area which could undermine this conclusion. Paul refers to himself as ‘unspiritual, sold as a slave (doulos) to sin,’[1] and in 1 Corinthians he says; ‘You are not your own; you were bought at a price.’[2] Such statements are a clear challenge to the corporate claims that have been made, for these descriptions of slavery suggest individualism. However, in chapter 2 we found that Paul’s use of doulos does not relate to slavery, but to servanthood. The meaning of doulos has its roots in the LXX where it was repeatedly used of the prophets, Israel as the Lord Servant, the Messianic Servant who was anticipated at the end of the age and of the kings themselves who ruled on God’s behalf.

Marriage through the looking glass

To answer the difficulties that purchase language throws up it will be necessary to clarify the Biblical understanding of two related themes. The first is the ultimate purpose that lay behind the covenants, both old and new, and the second, since it leads from the first theme as we shall see, is the Hebraic pattern of establishing a marriage. To deal, then, with the first of our questions: What was the ultimate purpose of the old and new covenant?

It is widely accepted that Paul shared the OT perspective that the ultimate relationship between God and His people was to be likened to the marriage relationship.[3] When Israel betrayed Yahweh, it was promised that following her exile the establishing of the New Covenant would secure this relationship between God and His people.[4] It was Hosea who through the tragic failure of his marriage grasped the depth of the sinfulness of Israel’s rejection of Yahweh’s love. As his own heart brok through the faithlessness of Gomer he learnt the depth of Yahweh’s grief caused by Israel, his faithless spouse. It was not just the rejection of a moral or religious code, but of love itself - God’s love. Robinson claimed that Hosea came to see Israel’s faithlessness in a totally different way from any other of the prophets, it was; “not any accident that the most common metaphor for apostasy in this book is fornication”.[5]

Opposing lessons.

It is because the image of marriage carried two deep but opposing lessons that it became so widely used. It expressed something of the depth of the relationship Yahweh sought to establish with his people, but it also revealed the evil of rejecting the love that Yahweh sought to give them. Robinson again expressed this succinctly when he said: “Hosea has, after all, through his own bitter agony, reached deeper than any other prophet into the secrets of religion.”[6]

Both in the Old and New Testaments the marriage relationship between God and His

[1]Rom. 7:14, although note the corporate interpretation given earlier.

[3]Hos. 1:2; Ps 44; Jer. 31:3-4; Cant. 8:6; Ezek. 16; Isa.54:5-9; 62:.3-5; 2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:25-27; Rev. 19:7.

[4]Isa. 62:5; Jer. 31:3, 31-34; Ezek. 36:24-30; Hos. 2:19-20.