One In Jesus

I’m long past due in explaining how all Wright’s New Perspective thinking matters to a typical Church of Christ. I apologize for that — but there’s no good place in Romans to stop. I mean, the Churches desperately need the lesson of Rom 5 we just covered, but they just as desperately need to hear from Paul’s chapter 8. And chapters 12-15. I mean, it’s almost as though Romans was written as a corrective to the 20th Century Churches of Christ.

I say “20th Century Churches of Christ” because during most of the 19th Century, the Churches had a much healthier theology and practice — and things are trending toward the better now in the 21st Century. The Churches with the biggest doctrinal problems are those who insist on clinging to the teachings of the 20th Century Churches.

So what does the New Perspective change? Why does it matter? Continue reading →

N. T. “Tom” Wright has just released another paradigm-shifting book suggesting a new, more scriptural way of understanding the atonement, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion. Wright delves deeply into how the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus accomplish our salvation.

Rom 5:6-10, Part 1 [JFG]

(Rom. 5:6-10 ESV)  6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die — 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ [our King] died for us.  9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.  10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 

When I was in law school, back in the late 1970s, I was invited by friends to join them at the beach for spring break — each of all three years. But my wife is a CPA, and for her, this was the middle of tax season. And it was made very clear to me that I was not to go to the beach while she was slaving away until 10 o’clock each evening to put me through school.

So I was at home, with all my friends at the beach, and bored. I used the free time to catch up on some projects — including trying to understand the NT’s teachings on grace and the Holy Spirit. I didn’t have nearly the Bible study resources I have today, and the literature available in the Bible bookstores was not nearly as helpful as what can be found today.

But somewhere in there, it started to come together for me — and among the most important passages I stumbled across was this one. It revolutionized my thinking. I mean, it turned my world upside down. In fact, it turned me into a Change Agent. Continue reading →

N. T. “Tom” Wright has just released another paradigm-shifting book suggesting a new, more scriptural way of understanding the atonement, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion. Wright delves deeply into how the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus accomplish our salvation.

Rom 5:3-5, Part 2

(Rom. 5:3-5 ESV)  3 Not only that, but we rejoice [Greek: “boast”] in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,  4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope [confident expectation of redemption],  5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

“God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”

As we’ve seen in earlier posts, the language of the Spirit being “poured” is a reference to several OT prophecies of the coming of the Spirit at the end of the Exile and the coming of the Kingdom. And it’s specifically promised to not only the first generation to receive it, but successive generations. We need not repeat those many passages here.

The Greek is ambiguous as to whether “God’s love” is “God’s love for us” or “our love for God.” Some translations, such as the ESV, prefer to think in terms of God’s love for us, likely because traditional readings of Romans so emphasize what God does for the sinner. But Wright disagrees, and I think for good reason — Continue reading →

N. T. “Tom” Wright has just released another paradigm-shifting book suggesting a new, more scriptural way of understanding the atonement, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion. Wright delves deeply into how the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus accomplish our salvation.

Rom 5:1-2

At last we get to my favorite (or second or third favorite) chapter in Romans — and it’s a chapter that’s ignored by the Churches of Christ — and the one we need to hear perhaps more than any other.

(Rom. 5:1-2 NRS) Therefore, since we are justified [declared covenant faithful and so a part of the covenant community] by faith [in Jesus or the faithfulness of Jesus], we have peace [shalom or right relationship, a Kingdom promise: the Exile is over!] with God through our Lord Jesus Christ [Messiah/King],  2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace [unmerited generosity] in which we stand; and we boast in our hope [confident expectation] of sharing the glory of God [by being in God’s very presence in the NHNE]. 

Continue reading →

N. T. “Tom” Wright has just released another paradigm-shifting book suggesting a new, more scriptural way of understanding the atonement, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion. Wright delves deeply into how the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus accomplish our salvation.

Rom 4:23-25

(Rom. 4:23-25 ESV)  23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone,  24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in[/trust/are faithful to] him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,  25 who was delivered up [sacrificed on the cross] for our trespasses [sins] and raised for our justification [so that we would be declared members of the covenant community].

Wright explains,

Christian faith is thus, for Paul, irrevocably resurrection-shaped. Like Abraham’s faith, it is by no means simply a general religious awareness or trust in a remote or distant supernatural being, but gains its form, as well as its content, from the revelation of God’s covenant faithfulness in the events concerning Jesus … . “Faith,” for Paul, is never a thing in itself, but is always defined, as Rom 4:16–22 makes clear, in relation to the God in whom trust is placed. The purpose of a window is not to cover one wall of the house with glass, but to let light in and to let the inhabitants see out.

N.T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans,” in The Acts of the Apostles-The First Letter to the Corinthians, vol. 10 of NIB, Accordance electronic ed. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), 502.

In the popular mind and among some academics, salvation is found in having “faith” in something — but not necessarily in the resurrected Jesus. It’s the act of believing in something bigger than yourself that “saves,” they argue. Paul disagrees. You have to believe in YHWH, the God of the Jews, and not God in the abstract, but the God who raised Jesus from the dead. “Faith” under the new covenant includes faith in the resurrected Jesus or else it is not adequate — because if you don’t recognize God in Jesus, you’re not worshiping the true God. Continue reading →