Exodus in Romans 5-8

NT Wright gives a characteristically stimulating overview of Rom 5-8 as a retelling of the exodus narrative. Here are some of the key elements of his interpretation:

1) He begins with the observation that Rom 8 describes the church's future inheritance of the cosmos. The cosmos will be transformed at the revealing of the sons of God who will rule the new cosmos, the adoption or redemption that is the resurrection.

2) Earlier in Rom 8, Paul describes the gift of the Spirit in terms that recall Israel's wilderness wanderings. The church is "led" by the Spirit, and must walk by the Spirit if she is going to attain to the inheritance promised. The Spirit is described as the Spirit of adoption, in contrast to the spirit of slavery - which again recalls the transition from slavery to sonship in the exodus.

3) Not only the new humanity, but the entire creation will participate in the exodus, as the creation is "set from from its slavery to corruption, into the freedom of the glory of the sons of God" (8:21). The church is not only the new Israel here, but the new Adamic race, receiving the glory that Adam forfeited and ruling the world as Adam was supposed to.

4) The slavery/freedom contrast goes back to ch 6, where it is worked out in terms of baptism. This is the crossing of the sea that unites the baptized to Jesus as Israel was united to Moses (1 Cor 10), and initiates the progress toward one's inheritance.

5) This means that chapter 7 corresponds to Sinai, the giving of the law. And that is precisely the theme of Rom 7: The effect that the law has on people of flesh, and the reasons for the law's failure to bring the promised inheritance.

6) Rom 5:12-21 puts this exodus story in a larger context. The story of Israel is the story of humanity.

7) Rom 5:1-11 introduces the whole section by emphasizing, as noted in an earlier post, the theme of hope and the promise of glory.

A couple of additional points are suggested by this analysis:

1) This makes good sense of the transition from Rom 4 to the following section. In a sense, Paul simply continues to expound on Gen 15, which moves from the justification of Abraham, to the promise of the land, and a description of the future exodus and conquest. Paul is following precisely this narrative thread.

2) Wright interprets the "Egypt" as the realm of sin and death, which is true enough. I would, however, want to contextualize and culturize that a bit. Contextualizing first: The specific Egypt from which the church is delivered is Israel, the old Israel, Israel under the curse of the law. Old Israel is fleshly, Adamic, under the STOICHEIA, and must be abandoned. The culturizing follows: Talk about the realm of sphere of sin and death is too abstract for my tastes. What a man leaves when he crosses the Red Sea of baptism is a particular culture, a way of life with its institutions, myths, symbols, and practices. What he enters is a new culture, the civilization of God.

3) The inheritance that Paul talks about is the Spirit, and the Spirit-renewed cosmos. This fits with Paul's thought elsewhere, and again makes a nice link between Rom 4 and Rom 5-8. For Paul, the Spirit is the inheritance promised to Abraham (Gal 3). In Romans, Paul introduces the theme of the Abraham promise in ch 4, and then moves into chapters 5-8 to describe the inheritance that has been promised.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, April 17, 2004 at 05:55 PM

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