The people of Israel, while defeated and sent to exile, maintained hope for restoration. The catalyst for hope came through both the prophets (the exilic and post-exilic Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Obadiah, and Joel), and the political-religious leaders of the time (Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah). These voices proclaimed the coming of a brighter day. These voices of hope were also rooted in a heritage of an unconditional patriarchal and Davidic promise. They knew that their story was Abraham’s story and that God claimed governing authority over all of the creation (not just Israel) through David’s family.
The Davidic promise meant that a messianic figure was intrinsically linked to the second-temple eschatology and apocalyptic. There was a hope for a messianic figure from the line of David who would re-establish the dominance of the people of God over the gentile world. Through David’s seed, God’s World Renewal Plan would be fulfilled. Through the messiah God would overthrow the ruthless reign of sin and death over creation. This meant that the messiah was largely an eschatological political-religious leader. He was their source of hope. He represented the dawning sun of the long prophesied Day of the Lord, which meant God’s people would inherit the earth, not only the promised land. It also meant the restoration of the Davidic dynasty, and cutting of a new covenant. This set the landscape for the hope and expectations of second-temple Judaism–the fulfillment of God’s World Renewal Plan.
But what happened? Why did Jesus die? The gospels make it clear that even though the Hebrew Bible prepared for the fulfillment of God’s World Renewal Plan something had to of gone wrong if Jesus ended up on a Roman cross, right? You see, what people didn’t expect, however, was for the Kingdom to be launched through the suffering, death, and resurrection of the King. This dimension of the Kingdom and the King only made sense after Pentecost. It was once believers had the illumination of the Holy Spirit that they understood what the Kingdom was all about and how it was through the Cross alone that the Kingdom could come in its fullness. They also understood that it was through Jesus’ weakness and submission that his power and authority over the earth as the rightful King was established. Finally, through the witness of the resurrected body of Christ, they understood that the Kingdom would be more than a kingdom; it would be a new creation. In Jesus, God became king, launched his Kingdom on earth, as well as the new creation. The end of God’s World Renewal Plan had begun.
Too often we read the gospels against an empty backdrop. As modern readers who tend to be largely Old Testament illiterate and unaware of features of first-century Judaism we miss so much of what the gospels are telling us about Jesus. With the greater landscape now set as the background against which we can read the gospels, we can now understand where Paul was coming from. When we consider all of these various dimensions of jewish eschatology we begin enter into Paul’s interpretive context not only for understanding Christology, eschatology, ecclesiology, and soteriology, but understanding how they all fit together. Most importantly for this context, we can also begin to see with fresh perspective what sanctification means for Paul. It is when we turn to the gospels with the proper background in place that we 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.
(This is an excerpt from Holiness in Fresh Perspective: Covenant, Cross, and Kingdom (Wipf & Stock); expected release: end of 2014)
