Excerpt from Holiness in Fresh Perspective: Covenant, Cross, and Kingdom (Wipf and Stock, expected 2016).
At the end of the previous chapter we noted that the story of Israel in the Old Testament is a tragedy. We said that it was a tragedy because of Israel’s lack of faithfulness to the Torah (i.e., Mosaic Law). This means that the Torah was unable to accomplish that which it was set out to do: reestablish the image of God in humanity and simultaneously constitute the stipulations for the Kingdom of God on earth.[1] We then detailed the elements of Israel’s great messianic expectation during and after the period of the exile. Those elements were: (1) God’s glory to return to the temple, (2) deliverance from the ongoing exile, (3) the arrival of the Messiah, (4) the Kingdom of God to come in its fullness. Number four encapsulates numbers one through three.
Once again, these elements of Israel’s great messianic hope were alive and well during second temple Judaism.[2] The second temple period was a crucial and sensitive time for Israel. It was also an awkward time for Israel. There were lots of questions needing answers. There was conviction among them that they were, indeed, members of the Abrahamic and Davidic promises, that they were characters on the stage of the great epic salvation narrative, and yet something was amiss. We get this impression from the post-exilic literature of the Old Testament. The Old Testament ends with the book of Malachi still looking forward to the great fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel; the promise that Israel would be the means through which God’s Kingdom would be manifest on earth—the promise for a messiah, the promise for God’s glorious presence to return to the temple, and the promise of a new covenant. God had once delivered his chosen people from slavery in Egypt and he could do it again. In fact, he would do it again because that is precisely what he promised.[3]
Linked to this hope for deliverance was the promise for a messiah to be born in the line of David. This messiah, in the spirit of King David, would reestablish the rule and reign of Israel over the Gentile nations. Through David’s seed, God’s World Renewal Plan would be fulfilled. Through the Messiah, God would overthrow the reign of sin and death over the creation as well as unclean, Gentile nations over Israel.
This means that the Messiah was largely an eschatological political-religious leader. He was the source of hope. He represented the dawning sun of the Day of the Lord, which meant God’s people would inherit not only the Promised Land, but also the entire earth (cf. Psalm 2 and 24:1). It also meant the restoration of the Davidic dynasty and the cutting of a new covenant promised in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36. All of these dimensions of God’s World Renewal Plan link up in the great expectation for the Davidic King.
What we have described here is the landscape for the hope and expectations of second temple Judaism—the fulfillment of God’s World Renewal Plan in the form of the reestablishment of the Kingdom of God, through Israel, over the creation. All of this sets the context for understanding the message of the Gospels. This is the backdrop against which the Gospels unfold. This is the context for Jesus’ arrival on the scene as the Davidic King who has come to put into place God’s reign over the world.
There was something, however, that they missed. There was something about the work of the messiah that they didn’t expect. There was a beautifully tragic twist in the narrative. We will get to that in the next chapter.
For now, let us turn to the Gospels with the proper background in place to see the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus as the culmination of God’s World Renewal Plan—to see Jesus as the Redeemer King.
[1]. Paul goes out of his way to point out in Romans 7 that the problem is not with the Torah, rather it is the fault of fallen humanity.
[2]. “Second temple Judaism” refers to the period of the rebuilding of the temple of Solomon that was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC, to 70AD when the temple was destroyed again by the Roman Empire. Also, it is crucial to note that history and archaeology shows first-century Judaic eschatology was anything but monolithic. However, the community at Qumran as well as the eschatological posture of believers represented in the Gospels attests to the fact that the first-century was a time of heightened anticipation for the coming of the Messiah. See Chilton and Neusner, Judaism in the New Testament: Practices and Beliefs (London: Routledge, 1995).
[3]. This is what Isaiah 40 is all about. The message of Isaiah 40 was for an exiled people who awaited God’s return. It is a call to celebrate the coming of Israel’s God to deliver his people once again from their plight. The glory days of God’s presence among his people filling the temple and reigning over the creation through Israel would come once again.