A NEW HUMANITY
According to the Apostle Paul, God in
Christ is creating a new humanity. The present mankind, marked by sin, violence
and death, was established after the Adamic decision not to follow the divine
guidelines (Gn 2, 16, 17). However, this world system, in which we live, will
not last forever, because it is reserved for destruction (2 Peter 3: 7). This
new humanity is composed of those who, as they awaken to life with God, are as
if begotten again. Sin and death have no more power over them, for faith in the
risen Christ justifies them (Romans 5: 1).
This theme of the "new
creation" (καινη κτισις), or also of the "new man" (καινος
ανθρωπος), of the "new humanity" is found in several texts of the
extensive Pauline literature. According to the Apostle, it is the re-creation
of "all things" (τα παντα): man by himself, humanity, and the natural
world itself. For him, the work of Christ produced a radical disjunction
between "the old and the new", that is, between the old and the new
world order (2 Corinthians 5.17, 18).
Concerning the converted man, Paul,
writing to the Ephesians, affirmed that he is "the creation of God
fulfilled in Christ Jesus." Christ is the model, the substance in which
this "new man" is created. The Apostle used a word which can be
translated as poem to designate "creation": "αυτου γαρ εσμεν
ποιημα" - because we are God's creation - (Ephesians 2.10). It is as if he
meant that the "new man is a poem of God." Poem for a new life, in
holiness with Christ.
As for the whole new humanity, this
is made up of Jewish and Gentile Christians "of all tongues and
nations". The Jews boasted that they had received the Law of God and
considered themselves to be their only people. Paul, however, showed that the
Gentiles, as a "wild olive tree", were grafted onto the "olive
tree cultivated" by God "- Israel (Rom 11.17). To the Ephesians, the
Apostle said that God in Christ ended the separation between Gentile and Jew
and made both of them a "new man" (2.15). For him, "neither
circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything", that is, Jew or Gentile
(non-Jew). What matters is to be a “new creation" and this is the Church
of Christ, the new “Israel of God"(Gal 6.15, 16; Rm9.1-9; Fl3.3).
Finally, for the Apostle of the
Gentiles, this new humanity constitutes the purpose that God has established to
gather "all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even
Christ” in the dispensation of the fulness of times (Ephesians 1: 9,10). For
"the creation waits in eager expectation" this moment, when it will
then be "liberated from its bondage to decay" to which it was
subjected in the Fall (Romans 8: 18-25). The Apostle John, in accordance with
Pauline theology, observed in his vision: "He who was seated on the throne
said, I am making everything new" (Rev 21: 5).
Antônio Maia – M.Div.
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