Andrew Meredith’s Reviews > Delivered from the Elements of the World: Atonement, Justification, Mission > Status Update

"John's message of judgment was urgent: the winnowing fork is already in the hand of the winnower. So was Jesus': the kingdom of God is at hand. Judgment is coming, and it is coming now. Jesus predicted a dire catastrophe, which he labeled "the end," that would happen within "this generation" (Mt 24; Mk 13; Lk 21), and this prophetic warning was integral to his entire mission to Israel. John writes that it is the "last hour" when "the world is passing away" (1 Jn 2:17-18). Peter warns that the "end of all things is near" (1 Pet 4:7); James adds that "the Lord is near," a Judge who is standing right at the door (Jas 5:8-9); and Hebrews warns about the "day drawing near" (Heb 10:25). Revelation begins with an assurance that the "time is near" (Rev 1:3) and ends with the words of Jesus, "I am coming quickly" (Rev 22:20). There is a final judgment yet to come, but the emphasis of the New Testament is on imminent judgment. Wrath is coming against Israel, but not just Israel. Wrath is revealed from heaven against all the unrighteousness and ungodliness of humanity. God is preparing to judge the world, so that the "end of all things" is just around the corner."

"When faced with this significant evidence that the earliest Christians believed there was a great catastrophe imminent, one that would end the world as they knew it, we have several options. We can, with much scholarship of the past two centuries, conclude that their expectations were mistaken, and that Jesus too was wrong about the future. The early Christians formed communities agitated by apocalyptic expectation. Jesus had promised to end it all, and they believed Jesus. When it did not happen, they adjusted their expectations, along with their theology and church practice, to conform to the longer time perspective. Disappointed apocalyptic is the motivation behind the church's decision to settle for "early Catholicism," one of many mythical constructs of modern New Testament scholarship. We can, with some conservative scholarship, attempt to explain away the temporal indicators as atemporal propositions or as rhetorical devices. Or we can say that the temporal statements are indeed temporal, and that the expectations of the early Christians were fulfilled. That last option, though, requires us to understand "the end" quite differently."

"In the Olivet Discourse, Jesus uses standard prophetic imagery to describe the collapse of a political universe. Stars, sun and moon were created to "govern" the day and night (Gen 1:14), and so they naturally become created symbols of rulers. When a prophet predicts that a star falls from heaven, or that the sun goes black and the moon turns to blood, he is not claiming that giant balls of burning gas will fall to earth (where would they even go?). He is saying that rulers will be "eclipsed" they will "fall" from their high positions, their time will be up. Jesus means the same thing. Whether we focus on the oikoumenẽ of the empire or the world of Judaism, Jesus means that the world order as it presently exists will come to an end. When Paul says, "the Lord is near" and "salvation is nearer than when we bellieved" he refers to an event in the near future that involved the Lord's advent, brought judgment on an old world and inaugurated something that can be described as "salvation" and the fulfllment of the "hope of righteousness" (Gal 5:5). That event was a necessary conclusion to the sequence of actions that brought an end to a world under sin and death, a humanity living kata sarka. It was the final completion of the project of delivering humanity from the curses of Eden and Babel, and the final dismantling of the stoicheic order that governed Gentiles and Israel through the Torah. That judgment put an end to the old world, and the old humanity, in order to bring a renewed humanity into being."

"In his advent, the Word assumed Israel's condition and operated under the conditions of Edenic and Babelic curse (he came in the "likeness of sinful flesh"). Jesus was truly human, and he came so fully under the conditions of weakness, mortality and vulnerability that John can say, "The Word became flesh." But he was not controlled by the fear of death and loss, by the desire for pleasure and protection, by the reactive and violent dynamics of flesh. Jesus' life was the embodiment of Torah-keeping that is not overwhelmed by flesh. He did not trade insult for insult, wound for wound. He neither attacked enemies nor recoiled from them, but loved them. He did not seek retribution, and he did not fear the suffering that others imposed on him."

"In Jesus, Yahweh has stepped from behind the veil of the temple to live in the flesh among fleshly people. Jesus' ministry was a ministry of welcome, purifcation, access, communion, covenant festivity and delight, all that Torah was designed to do. There is, in this sense, complete continuity between Torah and Jesus: Jesus came not to destroy but to fulfill, to bring Torah's aims to their utmost completion. The one change—the single shift so massive that it changes everything—is that Yahweh is no longer hidden. At Sinai, Yahweh established his home in the midst of Israel, but with Jesus, Yahweh takes a further step into the world of flesh, beyond the tabernacle of curtains at Sinai. And then it becomes clear that the whole sanctuary apparatus, all the purity rules and rites of purification, all the sacrifices, the whole system was a complex type and shadow of Jesus' life and ministry."

"In Jesus, Yahweh himself sat at human tables and ate food with them. This was what Torah aimed at from the outset. The table fellowship of Jesus is the sacrificial system under poststoicheic conditions."

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus upholds the lex talionis (an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth), but in a surprising way. His followers were to take the just penalty for the hurt done to them upon themselves:

"Jesus' first example—the slapping example—illustrates his point. The situation is about honor and dishonor, insult and shame. If I receive a slap on the right cheek, either the slapper has slapped me with his left hand or he is slapping me with his backhand. Either way, it is insulting. A slap on the right cheek with the right hand is probably a backhanded slap, an insulting slap rather than a danger to life and limb. The person who slaps you with the back of his hand is treating you as a slave, as an underling. He is sweeping you away like a flea. Instead of returning evil for evil, a slap for a slap, insult for insult, Jesus called his disciples to bear the burden of retribution themselves and offer to receive a second slap. Disciples of Jesus are to receive double harm rather than impose a harm on another. Jesus told his disciples to accept the second slap rather than give it. The double restitution comes back on the disciple, who not only bears the original insult but also bears the punishment on behalf of the one who assaults him. That fulfills Torah because it brings into concrete realization what Torah was aiming at from the outset. Instead of a series of slaps and counterslaps, there are at most two slaps, both on the cheeks of the disciple, and then the contest is over." Justice is done.

"We might say that Jesus required resistance not to the enemy but to the flesh that motivates the enemy, and his instructions were designed to target the flesh in a way that permits the enemy to be reconciled as a friend. By following Jesus' instructions, disciples are caught up in Yahweh's war against flesh, but in a way that targets flesh and redeems rather than destroys the enemy."