This week I continue in The New Testament and the People of God with chapter 9 (pp. 244-79) as Wright discusses the beliefs of Israel. One’s worldview is often evident in the beliefs one holds, and it is to the common first-century beliefs that Wright turns the discussion.
Wright has three categories under which he will discuss a number of subjects and these are introduced here: monotheism, election, and eschatology. This framework will be repeated throughout his works as he describes Judaism, then shows what Jesus does with each, and then what Paul does on top of that.
The primary belief of Israel was monotheism, which Wright divides into creational, providential, and covenantal. Israel believed in one God (think of the great Shema of Dt 6:4-5). This God was the creator and originator of all things. He was actively involved in, and wisely in control of, his creation. And God was covenantal, He had made a covenant with Israel and He is faithful to his covenant. To let Wright provide the details, “If creational monotheism entails an eschatology (the creator must restore that which he had made), covenantal monotheism intensifies this eschatological entailment: the creator remains committed to giving order and peace to his world, and as the covenant god he remains committed to doing so through Israel.” (p 252, emphasis original) It is in the covenant with Abraham that we arrive at election.
It cannot come as a surprise that Israel considered herself to be the chosen people of God. Adam failed and Noah was chosen. Things didn’t work out so well (think of the tower of Babel) and God makes a covenant with Abraham, through Abraham and his descendants all the nations will be blessed (Gen 12:1-3). Israel as seen as God’s ‘solution’ to the Adamic fall. But of course Israel is a mess. Most of the Old Testament describes the failures of this chosen people. But throughout the prophets God continues to repeat his promise that he will redeem his people and restore them (think of Jer 31). But when would this happen? When would God’s covenant faithfulness be expressed, or, to put it in more prophetic and Biblical language, when would God’s righteousness be demonstrated? (p 272) The question of when brings us to eschatology.
In order for Israel to be restored, God would forgive her sins—it was believed by a first-century Jew that they were in exile because they had sinned. There is a distinction to be made here, “The most natural meaning of the phrase ‘the forgiveness of sins’ to a first-century Jew is not in the first instance the remission of individual sins, but the putting away of the whole nation’s sins. And, since the exile was the punishment for those sins, the only sure sign that the sins had been forgiven would be the clear and certain liberation from exile.” (p 273, emphasis original) Previous discussions have covered how the multiple groups within Judaism believed this was to be accomplished. But that was the hope, the expectation. And Wright will spend the next chapter entirely focused on the hope of Israel.
The beliefs of Israel at this time is best summed up by Wright, “There is one creator god, who has chosen Israel to be his people, giving her his Torah and establishing her in his holy land. He will act for her and through her to re-establish his judgment and justice, his wisdom and his shalom, throughout the world.” (p 279, emphasis original)
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