Paul, at every point, frames his theology within scripture’s meta-narrative of salvation. Paul cannot think about Jesus cut-off from the Old Testament. Jesus changed everything about how Paul understood Adam and Eve, the Garden, Abraham, Moses, Sinai, the Torah, David, the Monarchy, the Prophets and the Writings. Being a trained Pharisee, it was natural for Paul to always be theologizing within this greater framework. Pau’s worldview was the Old Testament. Most importantly, Paul’s worldview was transcendent monotheism. This means that Paul viewed the world through what he believed to be true about Israel and her patron deity as the sole, and sovereign creator of the cosmos.
This all means that for Paul, everything that happened in history hinged on God’s great plan to redeem humanity as articulated in the holy scriptures. When Jesus comes along, then, Paul doesn’t just see a God-Man performing substitutionary atonement so we can go to heaven when we die. No! When Paul see’s the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, it all unfolds before him against the backdrop of the greater salvation narrative that begin way back in the Old Testament. This means that the work of Christ is something much more than substitutionary atonement for Paul. This means that Jesus, the cross, and the resurrection is the culmination of the World Renewal Plan. That plan: to dethrone sin and death so that God’s righteous reign through his human agents can be restored. In a word, holiness.
(This is an excerpt from the introduction to a working book manuscript titled Holiness in Fresh Perspective: Covenant, Cross, and Kingdom. All rights reserved.)
