A study of KAINH KTIEIE and its ethical implications in Pauline theology

Abstract

The conception of xaivη, (2Cor 5.17; Gal 6,15) has often been regarded as one of the most significant ideas within Pauline theology. Yet, it is not of Pauline origin. Paul derived the term from early Jewish eschatology (rooted in Deutero- Isaiah) and introduced it into early Christian theology in order to defend and to clarify his own position against Jewish Christian opponents. Thereby xaivη received its specific Pauline anthropological (individual and ecclesiological) and present eschatological meaning which is without analogy in early Judaism: God's new creation, the great exodus from the slavery of sin and death, must no longer be expected from the future, but in the atoning Christ event at the cross it has already become a present reality. In Christ's death as inclusive representative for all a new order of soteriological equality of all mankind has been established. What counts is neither to belong to the Jewish nation nor to the Gentiles but to participate - by faith and baptism and through the Spirit - in the new humanity of the xaivη in Christ. This new reality will be made visible in the eschatological future in which also the whole non-human cosmos will be transformed. The xaivη is a creation of Christ's love for all humanity (2Cor 5.14f). This love continues to be the driving and directing force of the participants in the xaivη evoking their love for Christ and for one another. So, love is the in evitable ethical implication for those who live in the xaivη. The new reality necessarily calls forth a new life, a new conduct according to the xaivη in which the old classifications of superiority and inferiority, Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female have lost their validity.