Excerpt from Holiness in Fresh Perspective: Covenant, Cross, and Kingdom (Wipf and Sock, expected 2015).
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature... Hebrews 1:3a
In this chapter we will go a bit further by analyzing how the life of Jesus fits into God’s World Renewal Plan. We will answer the question, “Why did Jesus live?” The New Perspective refreshes the memory of interpreters of the fact that Jesus is first and foremost the Jewish Messiah through whom God’s World Renewal Plan is fulfilled. From this perspective we will find that the answer to this question is that Jesus’ life ultimately reveals God’s holy nature as well as his intended standard for human life. In other words, we will establish that Jesus is the Living Torah and the True Israel. We said in the previous chapter that the written Torah reveals the nature of God as well as God’s standards for human life. Jesus’ life does the same. Jesus is the walking, living, breathing Torah that testifies to God’s holy nature and his standards for the posture of the human heart. Where Israel failed in revealing the holiness of God, Jesus is faithful. Jesus’ faithfulness is the key to the faithfulness of God in his covenant fulfillment to Israel and to the world. The priority concept of Jesus as the Jewish Messianic King goes hand-in-hand with Jesus as the Living Torah. In particular, it is his chosenness, his “messiahship” that authorizes him as the imprint of the very nature of God.
In this sense, then, our fresh perspective on holiness in correspondence to the life of Jesus is that the life of Jesus not only serves as an example of holiness, but also testifies to the nature of the King as well as his Kingdom. Jesus’ ministry, on the one hand, is one of compassion and poured out love (i.e. holiness), and on the other hand, the fulfillment of the mission of God. In addition to this we will take a special look at the concept of power in the Kingdom of God as an example of Kingdom holiness. Let us move forward, then, to explore the life of Jesus as presented in the Gospels in light of this first-century Jewish eschatological framework that bring these dimensions to front.