By Zachary Tan
Perhaps the most jarring invitation in Henri Nouwen’s “The Return of the Prodigal Son ” is the invitation to ‘become the Father’. It is not enough to just identify with the lustful younger prodigal son or the resentful elder son, and return to the father in reconciliation. The fullness of reconciliation is to claim the fullness of our sonship in God. As children of God (Luke 22:29), we are heirs and have an inheritance to God’s Kingdom. We are called to be “perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is.” (Matt 5:48).
What then are we to make of this? How is it that we who are tainted by original sin and blinded by concupiscence are able to claim this divine sonship? To answer this, we examine the covenantal relationship established in the Old Testament between the patriarchs of Israel, which have been fulfilled in the new covenant established by Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Covenants: A Brief History
Covenants are contractual agreements formed between two parties.The covenants of the old testament were established against the blueprint of Hittite and Assyrian contracts between states, where the more powerful country would impose its law on the weaker state. At first glance, establishing a covenant between man and God would seem to contradict having a relationship of mutual benefit between two parties involved.
Man has nothing to offer to God as everything that man has, even down to his life and existence, is being held by God! It is an asymmetrical relationship of infinite proportions, between finite humanity and infinite God. This form of divine covenant is then a covenant which is born out of the total magnanimity of an infinitely loving God, who out of love for his people desired to reveal his law to them to lead them into the path of life. Even then, it was a fallible relationship between lord and vassal whose provisionality gave room for human brokenness to taint and break.
Scholars recognise that there are five major covenants present in the canon of Scripture:
- Noahide covenant
- Abrahamic covenant
- Mosaic covenant
- Davidic covenant
- Finally, the new covenant of Jesus Christ in the New Testament
A Covenant that Transcends
It was only in the incarnation of Jesus Christ that the new and eternal covenant could be established and where we find our sonship through God and hence in God. In the incarnation, “The Son has taken humanity into himself and now brings it home to God”. By virtue of Jesus uniting the whole of humanity with His divinity through his incarnation, the covenant established during the last supper by Jesus Christ (Luke 22:20) now takes on a divine form. It is no longer an asymmetrical relationship of a contract made between God and man, but a symmetrical relationship of a contract between God the Father and God the Son, in whom humanity is united to and shares in the fruits of this covenant.
The new covenant is not a contract in its strict judicial sense, but is now a spiritual relationship between God and man which shares in the sonship of Jesus Christ. This new covenant goes beyond the judicial nature of the old covenants, but transcends the law into a spiritual plane in the way of being, where the soul of man can now share in the life of the Trinitarian God. If we are to truly be brothers and sisters in Christ as in the new covenant, then let us also take on the mantle of heirs to the kingdom of God; In which the inheritance of the kingdom of God calls us to a conversion of our hearts and lives – to be perfect, as the Father is.
