We cannot miss how Paul, in the overall structure of the Epistle to the Romans, juxtaposes the contrast between Holy Spirit and the Torah as two different, but related means for sealing the covenants, both old and new. The Holy Spirit as the new, internal witness to adoption of believers and inheritance of the Abrahamic promise is set in direct contrast to the external nature of the Mosaic Law (circumcision, dietary laws, purity laws, etc.) that defined people as sons of Abraham prior to Jesus’ work on the Cross. Now that Jesus has put to death the old covenant by fulfilling its stipulations, and now that he has created a new covenant through the shedding of his own blood, there are new stipulations in place that make witness to sonship: the Holy Spirit.
It is no longer superficial obedience to an external law that makes the people of God the people of God. It is now the image of God restored in humanity through faith in Jesus; it is now the fruit of the Spirit, the love of God shed abroad in the hearts of men. In this sense, now that the people of God have the capacity to take on the very nature of God through the intimate tabernacling of the Holy Spirit in their lives, the World Renewal Plan has come to a climax and the people of God become truly adopted sons of God through Jesus. Prior to the work of Jesus Jews would,
“probably think particularly of those hailed as “sons of God” because of their firm adherence to the laws of clean and unclean feed (Deut 14) or because of their loyalty to the covenant (Wisd Sol 2:12–13; etc.). So they would have no difficulty in taking the point of Paul’s implied contrast. In defining “sons of God” in terms of the Spirit of God Paul has redefined the terms of God’s fatherhood to embrace a potentially much wider circle than Israel “according to the flesh,” the covenant promise extended to all the seed of Abraham (chap. 4; Gal 3).”[1]
At this point, let’s summarize a bit for clarity sake. In this passage in Romans (8:14–30), Paul is clearly making a connection between the work of the Holy Spirit in the New Covenant established by Jesus and the Exodus tradition from the Old Testament. The connection occurs on several levels. First, there is a connection in the sense that when the people fulfill the stipulations of the covenant they become “sons of God”. In the Old Covenant one became a member of the covenant people of God through faith.[2] Evidence for covenant membership then was obedience to the Torah (what Paul sums up so often in his writing with “circumcision”, especially in Galatians) In the new covenant, entry into the covenant is the same: faith.
The witness to covenant membership, however, is no longer obedience to external law and regulations (“circumcision”) but indwelling of the Holy Spirit. When covenant membership is attested to and confirmed by the witness of the Holy Spirit, believers take on the status of “children of God”. Through adoption, then, believers become beneficiaries of the Abrahamic inheritance, which is eternal salvation.
[1] Dunn, Romans, 459.
[2] There is a great deal of scholarly debate about this, however, for the sake of accessibility, I have (reluctantly) reduced the idea here.
(This is an excerpt from Holiness in Fresh Perspective: Covenant, Cross, and Kingdom. Wipf and Stock, 2014. All Rights Reserved)
