Continuing on through N.T. Wright’s “Paul”
we reach chapter two where Wright outlines the first two themes governing his central thesis with regards to
Paul’s overarching narrative perspective: Creation and
Covenant.
For Wright, the entire biblical story, and
Paul’s robust understanding of it and his place within it is governed by
humanity’s relationship to God who is both creator and law-giver; both powerful
and holy; a God who is equally concerned with redemption and justice. He begins
by a quick survey of two Psalms that speak of the balanced nature of this
creation-covenant duality, Psalm 19 and Psalm 74. Both of these Psalms
specifically speak of God in two movements, one as the great creator and
sustainer of the cosmos, and the other as the chief justice of creation – the
one who will eventually right all the wrongs of the world and bring to fruition
the great promises given to his covenant people. Interestingly enough, even
though they share a cosmological outlook that resonantes between them, the two
psalms extol their truth through dissonant voices – 19 being a psalm of praise
made extra famous by the great work’s of Hayden, and psalm 74 speaking the
language of lament. (p. 22) According to Wright, and after extoling Isaiah
40-55 as another example of the movement; “Paul
constantly goes back to the Old Testament , not least to Genesis, Deuteronomy,
the Psalms and Isaiah, not to find proof-texts for abstract ideas but in order
to reground the controlling narrative, the historical story, of God, the world,
humankind and Israel.” (p. 25)
But this is not a book about the
overarching narrative of Scripture it is a book about what Paul saw as the
overarching narrative of Scripture and his place within it (For a more thorough
examination of Wright’s thoughts on the Scriptures as a whole I’d encourage you
to check out his excellent book “Scripture
and the Authority of God” which I have reviewed here
in the past) so he now turns his attention to he writings of Paul to look for
clues as to what Paul believed about creation and covenant. Here Wright looks
to three key passages to govern our interpretation of how Paul saw himself, and
his flock as actors upon the stage of history and participants in the unfolding
drama of creation, covenant and redemption. He begins with the great Christ
Hymn of Colossians 1:15-20, moves from there into Paul’s manifesto on
Resurrection from 1 Corinthians 15 and then spends the bulk of the chapter on
the last passage (which hardly qualifies as a simple passage!), Romans 1-11.
In the section on Colossians, Wright makes
the assertion that Paul plays around with the word "beginning" in a
way that only someone who had the account of Genesis 1 in mind could do when he
talks about the Messiah. He evokes multiple flavours of the phrase "in the
beginning" to talk about Messiah as the beginning, the head, the sum
total, and the first fruits. He then connects these dots to create a picture
being painted by Paul of a Jesus who is the true
image of God. Take a step back from this picture and it becomes apparent that
the claim being asserted here by Paul is that Jesus is the true fulfilment of
Genesis 1:26! (p. 27)
Consequently, "if Jesus is the point at which creation and covenant come together, one
of the most striking innovations, completely consistent with all of Paul's
thought, is that this coming together has taken the form of an actual event,
and event which has already happened, an event which consisted, surprisingly
and shockingly, of the shameful and cruel death by crucifixion of the one who
has thus fulfilled the double divine purpose." (p. 27)
When looking to 1 Corinthians 15 Wright
makes the point that Paul was not advocating for an abandonment of the fallen
and failed creation experiment but rather that Paul is explaining how the
resurrection of Christ demanded the creation’s renewal through the covenant
faithfulness of its creator - the Messiah.
And then Wright turns, in great detail, to
the book of Romans where he asserts that the entirety of the first movement of
the letter (chapters 1-11) is one long explanation of this movement from
creation to covenant to redemption to new creation. For Wright the overarching
theme of the entire book of Romans lies in what Paul describes as dikaiosyne theou - The faithful covenant
justice of God. (p. 30) The general flow of the argument is as follows:
1:18-4:25 is an exposition of God's
goodness and power in creation. "God
has called Israel to be the light to the nations, the teacher of the foolish,
the guide to the blind" but, "the
covenant people have become part of the problem, not the agents of the
solution. Israel is no better than the nations, as is proved by biblical texts
which speak of exile." (p. 29)
The idea of creation and covenant come
together in force in Romans 4, which has the whole of Genesis 15 in mind while
Romans 5 "densely, but deftly"
speaks to the ideas held in 1 Corinthians 15. Where the obedience of one man
(Messiah) has reversed (and then some!) the effects of one man (Adam). Messiah
did what the covenant was designed to do. (p. 31)
Romans 7 has Paul expounding on the
question of Law and Torah; its limitations and insufficiencies, which are then
answered in Romans 8. Romans 8 is Paul's fresh reading of Genesis 1-3 and his
great declaration that in Messiah God has done what the covenant and the
covenant people were unable to do because of the inherent sinfulness of the
covenant people themselves.
Despite the triumphant news of chapter 8
and the finished world of the Messiah extoled with poetic power, Romans 9 begins
a turn to lament as it opens the question of Israel and what is their place in
this new work. And continuing into chapter 10 Paul makes the argument
(according to Wright) that Israel's destiny is no longer a return to the Holy
land for ethnic Israel but the word of God going out to all peoples, because
according to the creation/covenant dynamic as expressed in chapter 8 - the
whole of creation is being made into the holy land! (p. 32) This becomes an
echo and fulfilment of Genesis 1-3 with the original humans' mandate to fill
and subdue all creation!
This claim is no small statement
theologically. Wright, in reading the ‘remnant’ passages of Romans 9-11 in this
way has set himself at odds with much of evangelical theology – particularly
the dispensationalists. But he doesn’t simply leave it there, he instead leans
into his conclusions and pushes more of Paul’s writings through the worldview
he sees governing that writing. His conclusions reveal further correlation
between his reading of Romans and the rest of Pauline thought. For Wright, God's
response to the fall (to create a family and promise them a land) shows that
the essence of the human predicament is the fracturing of the relationships
between people and between humanity and creation! (p.34-5) Jesus truly is
reconciling “all things” to himself and Paul is the man who has been charged to
deliver that message to the world.
"When
God fulfills the covenant through the death and resurrection of Jesus and the
gift of the Spirit, thereby revealing his faithful covenant justice and his
ultimate purpose of new creation, this has the effect both of fulfilling the
original covenant purpose (thus dealing with sin and procuring forgiveness) and
of enabling Abraham's family to be the worldwide Jew-plus-Gentile people it was
always intended to be." (p. 37)
In the next post we will examine the third
chapter where Wright highlights what exactly it means for Jesus to be Messiah
and what is an appropriate definition of Apocalyptic when dealing with the
Pauline writings.
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