Sárospataki Füzetek 16. (2012)
2012 / 3-4. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Eberhard Busch: Az egyház értelmezése a Heidelbergi Káté tanítása szerint
Martién E. Brinkman become members of it. The covenants with Adam and Noah point to our common destiny as images of God. Later on, not only in Judaism but also in Christianity this idea of a common destiny as implication of the covenant was quickly obscured, if not obliterated, although even in the covenant with Abraham the universal annotations can be heard. God’s choice for Abraham remains an inclusive choice. It is a clear indication of the biblical rule that particularity is not the opposite of universalism but the way along which a common destiny can be reached. Even when God puts conditions to the covenants, we saw that eventually God’s grace is not conditional upon human obedience. The original meaning of the covenant is God’s own unconditional binding to the human partner and is not bound to any idea of legalism. As such, as sign of God’s reliability, the Reformed fathers were able to interpret human history in a dynamic way. They held together God’s sovereignty and human’s responsibility, God’s intention and our freedom. Provided its interpretation in the given biblical context, covenant theology represents a move in the direction of a more inclusive and universal understanding of God’s work of salvation.8 Biblically speaking, it has never an exclusive, ethnical, racial or national context, but always a moral and faithful context. It has to be interpreted in its pars pro toto character, one or some for all. And therefore, its Christological interpretation is the most adequate one. One of the indispensable corollaries of the Reformed use of the concept of covenant is that biblically speaking, all people are allowed, even expected to consider themselves as chosen people, provided that they understand their election in Christ as a calling, a vocation, to be a blessing for all according to the values of the Kingdom of God. The biblical references correct here clearly many too strict theological distinctions. In the case of the predestination, it is God’s grace that transcends our righteousness and evil. In the case of the covenant, it is God’s loyalty that transcends our un-loyalty and our self-made borders and again, also here, there turns out to be the same asymmetry: our ideas of evil resemble more God’s ideas than our ideas of righteousness. Image of God Election and covenant presume each other at the basis of our destination as image of God. In Old Testament scholarship the image of God is generally no longer situated in a certain aspect of human existence or associated with certain capacities, but connected with human existence as such coram deo, referring to a divine creator and to humans deriving their identity from Him.9 Here we touch on one of the most important, anthropological insights of theology, namely that the complete human person (totus homo) cannot be taken in by an individual human person except Jesus Christ. We are only partly the product of our own activities. Our ‘self’ is only partly self-made. Primarily our ‘self’ is the result of a divine gift, offered to us in Jesus Christ. Later on I shall return to this ‘gift’- character of our identity. What the Bible has to say about the image of God always has the character of 8 Klempa: “The Concept of the Covenant”, 106. ’ Westermann, Claus: Genesis 1-11: A Commentary. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1984. (148-158). 158.
