One In Jesus

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.

Romans 7:1 -4

(Rom. 7:1-4 NET) Or do you not know, brothers and sisters (for I am speaking to those who know the law [Torah]), that the law [Torah] is lord over a person as long as he lives?  2 For a married woman is bound by law [Torah] to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of the marriage.  3 So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is alive, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she is joined to another man, she is not an adulteress.  4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law [Torah] through the body of Christ [by joining in his death through baptism], so that you could be joined to another [that is, Jesus], to the one who was raised from the dead, to bear fruit to God.

Paul is continuing the discussion begun in chapter 6. That is, he’s still answering why we shouldn’t sin so that grace may abound. In 7:1, however, he changes metaphors. He was talking about Christians as slaves to God. Now, he speaks of the “law of marriage” and freedom from this law through death.

Now, Paul is not teaching a lesson about divorce and remarriage. Rather, he is using marriage as an example to reason from — and he is making no effort to lay out a complete doctrine of marriage and divorce. His point is simply that death ends a marriage — which no one disagrees with. His point is not that only death can end a marriage. He simply doesn’t address that question at all in this passage, and we should not read more into the passage than is really there. In fact, the Torah allows divorce. Deu 24 is quite clear on the point.  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.

Romans 6:19

(Rom. 6:19 NET) 19 (I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.) For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

Paul begins next to back away from the slave market analogy. He is speaking in “human terms” because of our fallen natures. We’ve been justified and reconciled to God, but we are still broken eikons — images of God. We’re still prone to sin, and our comprehension of spiritual truths is still difficult for us. 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.

Romans 6:15-18

Paul next shifts gears, only slightly, to speak in terms of the slave market. This fits well, of course, with the Exodus metaphor Paul works within.

(Rom. 6:15 NET)  15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! 

Notice that Paul is now speaking of law (Torah) as though it were Sin and Death. Up to this point, he’d only argued that baptism moves us from the rule of Sin and Death to the rule of Jesus. But now his argument assumes that being under the Torah is to be under Sin and Death. 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.

Romans 6:8-10

(Rom. 6:8-10 NET)  8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.  9 We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he is never going to die again; death no longer has mastery over him.  10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.

Verse 9 is, of course, central to the Christian message. Jesus was not merely resuscitated to die again. Rather, a resurrection defeats death. Jesus, by being resurrected, has overcome the “mastery” of Death and Sin. “Mastery” could also be translated “dominion” (as in the NIV, ESV, and NASB), which likely is closer to Paul’s thought. Although, if we were to think in terms of “master” and slave, the “mastery” would work very well. It’s just that that word has lost most of its slavemaster flavor in contemporary English. 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.

Romans 6:1-7

In his commentary on Romans, Wright argues that “continue in sin” is, in the Greek, “continue under the domination of Sin.” Hence,

(Rom. 6:1-2 NET)  What shall we say then? Are we to remain [under Sin’s rule] so that grace may increase?  2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to [the reign of Sin] still live in it? 

Obviously, Paul intends that his readers not sin, but his first point is that returning to Sin would be to return to the part of the cosmos ruled by Sin. It would be like Israel returning to Egypt to be slaves of Pharaoh, despite having been freed from slavery. 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.

A Re-translation

In most of the previous posts, I’ve offered a revised or annotated translation of the text. I thought it would be interesting — and perhaps even helpful — to accumulate these into a single text.

Unlike the earlier translations, I’ll not show the changes in brackets except where I’m not just translating but also explaining outside the text.

And I hasten to add that this is my own translation, based on my understanding of Wright but not at all the same as his own translation The Kingdom New Testament (which can be bought at Amazon).

Romans chapter 6, modified from the NET Bible translation

1 What shall we say then? Are we to remain under Sin’s dominion so that grace may increase?  2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to the dominion of Sin still live in it?

3 Or do you not know that as many as were immersed into King Jesus were immersed into his death on the cross?  4 Therefore we Christians have been buried with him through immersion into his death, so that just as our King was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new, immortal life.  5 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection.  6 We know that our old Adamic nature — a nature controlled by Sin and merely mortal — was crucified with our King so that Sin would no longer reign over us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to Sin.  7 (For someone who has died has been freed from the reign of Sin.)

8 Now if we died with the King, we have faith/trust that we will also live with him.  9 We know that since the King has been raised from the dead, he is never going to die again; Death no longer has mastery over him.  10 For the death he died, he died to Sin once for all time and all with faith, but the life he lives, he lives to God.

11 So you too consider yourselves dead to Sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.  12 Therefore do not let Sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires,  13 and do not present your members to Sin as instruments to be used contrary to our covenants with God, but present yourselves to God as those who are promised immortality, and your members to God as instruments to be used for covenant faithfulness.  14 For Sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under the Torah but under grace.

15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under Torah but under grace? Absolutely not!  16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, either of Sin resulting in Death, that is, having no hope of immortality, or obedience to King Jesus resulting in not only being considered faithful to the covenant but growing in actual faithfulness 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to Sin, you obeyed King Jesus from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to when you were baptized, that is, your commitment to live as Jesus lived,  18 and having been freed from Sin, you became enslaved to God’s faithfulness to the covenant and to your obligation to respond to God’s faithfulness with your own faithfulness. 19 (I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.)

For just as you once presented the parts of your body as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your body and its members as slaves to faithfulness to the covenants, leading to being holy and clean so that you may one day live in God’s presence.

20 For when you were slaves of Sin, you were free with regard to having obey the covenants.  21 So what benefit did you then reap from your former life of sin that you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death with no hope of immortality.  22 But now, freed from Sin’s dominion and enslaved to God, you have your benefit leading to being made clean and holy, and the end is eternal life.  23 For the payoff of sin is death,that is, the loss of any hope of immortality, but the gift of God is eternal life in King Jesus our Lord.