Picturing Theology

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P i c t u r i n g T h e o l o g y

Capturing God’s Vision for His People The “Enduring Solidarity” of Our Search for the Land of Prom - ise

Heb. 11.13-16 (ESV) - These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. [14] For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. [15] If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. [16] But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. A whole galaxy of auxiliary images oscillate around the analogy of “the people of God” for Christians and the Christian church. These include in the Pauline letters the following: “God’s elect” (Rom. 8.33; Eph. 1.4; Col. 3.12), “Abraham’s descendants” (Rom. 4.16; Gal. 3.29; 4.26-28), “the true circumcision” (Phil. 3.3; Col. 2.11), and even “Israel of God” (Gal. 6.16). All of these images assert, in some manner, an enduring solidarity of the people of the church with the people of Israel, whose history provides the church with an authoritative account of the principles and actions of God’s past redemptive working. It is the task of exegesis and theology to spell out the nature of this relationship. ~ Richard Longenecker, ed. Community Formation in the Early Church and in the Church Today. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002. p. 75.