Journal of African Studies and Sustainable Development

Existing literature on the covenantal role of the Holy Spirit in Paul's writings seems to be asymmetrical in favour of its function as the agent of inscription of the law of the new covenant in the heart of the believer. Even a cursory look at writings on Pauline pneumatology with respect to the new covenant makes it obvious that the weight of emphasis has been on the Spirit/letter – life/death in 2 Corinthians 3, obliterating other covenantal categories of Pauline pneumatology. This is the problem that necessitated this paper. The paper attempts to accentuate the covenantal perspective of Paul's categorization of the Spirit as down payment, seal, and first fruit of the believer's salvation respectively. Synchronic analysis is the method used in order to engender proper understanding of the concepts concerned, especially since their usage in the New Testament is almost exclusive to the Pauline corpus. The finding of this paper is that beyond the Mosaic covenant which underlies the extant heavy exploration of the life-giving motif of the Spirit in Pauline reading, the other contractual terms used by Paul to denote the character of the Spirit resonate with the first covenant in the Old Testament, the Noahic covenant, in which the bow was given as a token of the suzerain's eternal fidelity to His promise. The implications of this are enormous, including the assurance of salvation in the now and guarantee of the aspect that is yet to be revealed.

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