The primary doctrine in this chapter remains consistent with the rest of the whole letter. Once again, Paul paints an image of Christian unity borrowing from bits and pieces of what his readers had experienced in human politics.
First is the very subtle paradox of his position as a prisoner of Roman justice. On the one hand, Rome recognized by treaty the limited jurisdiction of various conquered kingdoms over their own people, wherever those people were throughout the Roman Empire. Rome was not yet willing to entertain a fresh treaty recognizing Christ’s jurisdiction over His people, since the same people were already claimed by other treaty partners. This conflicting claim of jurisdiction was why Paul was under house arrest in Rome; Paul had promoted a competing claim over some Judeans.
Whether or not Rome was willing to play ball was not the point. Paul had spread the gospel of a new identity that transcended human ethnic and national identities. The claims of Christ did not wait for human governments to play along; they were in force regardless because they rested on the authority of the Creator of all things. The Elohim Council couldn’t argue about it, either.
So, Paul calls for his readers to act according to the laws and justice of the Covenant realm of Christ: humble, merciful to the downtrodden, patiently putting up with those who hadn’t yet figured it out. This is your family, your true spiritual inheritance. We do not have the trouble most human kingdoms have with competing heirs trying to claim the throne. There is only one: Christ. He is our feudal Lord; there is no Jewish Messiah separate from the Gentile Christ.
And then we come to a passage that has stirred an awful lot of debate, about whether Paul refers to some alleged time Christ spent in Hell while His body lay in the grave. I’ve always taken the position that this is a bogus concept rooted in Greek mythology and read back into the New Testament, not in ancient Hebrew teaching. Paul halfway quotes from Psalm 68:18 but apparently modifies the image just a little so that it better matches the contemporary Roman parades when some general returns to the imperial capital with plunder and captives (the quintessential Roman civic ritual). These triumphal parades often heavily changed the local economy in the city because of the influx of plundered wealth.
Christ also rode home to His Father as a conquering hero, dragging behind Him the plunder He seized from the Devil’s domain. But His plundered wealth was not stuff, but people. Christ gave to His own domain souls rescued from slavery. Thus, says Paul, we now have excellent leaders from all backgrounds, not just Jews, but Gentiles, too. And they have all been given for one purpose: to help us come together and love each other as one nation under Him.
The Devil cannot play head games any more. We have our own bright souls to help us understand the divine truth. The whole image of growing up to be mature rests on one thing: loving each other the way mature people do within their community. The Jews should be eager to welcome the Gentiles home from their wandering in foreign places among pagan idols and sin. The people who messed around with that stuff are all dead; the people in the church are new creatures. The chapter ends with a lot of non-doctrinal advice and encouragement to do the one and only job church has: become a single family.
