“Third, for a Jew (and Paul himself is the archetypal devout and zealous Jew, as he says in 1:13–14) to recognize Jesus as Israel’s Messiah and come into the Messiah’s family is to declare that “the son of God loved me and gave himself for me”: and with that the Jew too is given a radically new identity, the ultimate Israel identity, the messianic identity: “It isn’t me any longer; it’s the Messiah who lives in me.” Thus at every point the Messiah’s crucifixion, interpreted through the Messiah’s representative position vis-à-vis Israel and the divine purposes for Abraham’s family, means the creation and maintenance of a single covenantal family, the one sin-forgiven people of God, the people already celebrating the life of the “age to come.”