Category Archives: Christianity

The Messianic Mission of Jesus (The Kingdom of God, part 5)

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This is the fifth installment of an article on the Kingdom of God.

Part 1 began with Jesus’s proclamation at the start of his ministry about the kingdom of God. Part 2 looked at Jesus’s sermon at Nazareth, in which he explained the nature of the kingdom he was inaugurating.

Part 3 shifted to the biblical backstory of the kingdom, beginning with the royal calling of humanity created to image God, including how we squandered our calling through sin and violence, culminating in the tower of Babel. Part 4 traced the story of Israel from Abraham to the Babylonian exile, with a focus on the theme of “rule” (power and agency).

Against the backdrop of the kingdom of God in the Old Testament, the current installment picks up the story with the ministry and mission of Jesus, leading to his confrontation with the powers in Jerusalem at Passover.

The Rise of Messianic Expectation

Israelite prophets during and after the Babylonian exile began to articulate an expectation of renewal for God’s people, which intensified as the first century approached. God was going to bring about a new age of righteousness and justice for Israel and for the entire world.

As the Isaiah passage Jesus quoted at Nazareth made clear (see part 2 of this multi-part blog post), the prophetic vision of social and personal healing that arose in the exile remained unfulfilled even after Israel was back in the land. Isaiah 58 and 61 both addressed the moral state of the people, which had not changed; they continued to be embroiled in sin and disobedience to God. So beyond the bare fact of return to the land, the rest of the prophets’ vision of restoration had not yet come to pass.

It was this lack of fulfillment that generated messianic hope in the centuries leading up to the New Testament. The term Messiah (lit. anointed one) is derived from the fact that the kings of Israel were anointed for their leadership role (1 Samuel 9:26–10:1; 1 Samuel 16:12–13). The hope for a Messiah (a royal leader, in the lineage of David) arose out of the obvious failure of the Israelite monarchy in combination with God’s promise that the people would once again have righteous leaders.

The dominant messianic expectation was of a new Davidic king who would unify the nation and cast off Roman oppression, yet ideas about the coming Messiah were actually quite varied: would there be one or two leaders (one royal, the other priestly); would the agent of God’s coming rule be human, angelic, or divine?

Despite this variety there was a consistent expectation that one day God would establish his righteous rule both in Israel and throughout the world. The coming of this kingdom would eradicate evil and restore justice for God’s people and among all the nations. Indeed, the entire cosmos would be renewed, such that this coming age could rightly be called “a new heaven and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17–25).

Jesus’s Confrontation with the Powers of Evil

It was this expectation for a radical reorientation of the world that set the stage for the ministry of Jesus, including his proclamation that the kingdom of God was at hand, his teaching about the kingdom (often in parables), and his embodying the kingdom in his healings, his exorcisms, and his forgiving of sins. Jesus both announced and demonstrated that the powers of evil were being overthrown, that God’s rule was coming.

But the powers of evil are never easily overthrown. Jesus encountered opposition throughout his ministry, which led to his crucifixion by a coalition of Roman and Jewish leaders, who considered him a threat to the status quo. Jesus was not, however, a passive victim of his opponents. His entire life and ministry were oriented towards this deathly confrontation.

The Messiah’s Destiny of Suffering

After three years of his public ministry, Jesus asked his disciples who they thought he was. When Peter confessed that he was “the Messiah of God” (Luke 9:20), Jesus explained that his destiny (in contrast to most messianic expectation of the time) was not immediate victory over the powers of evil. His destiny was suffering and rejection at the hands of “the elders, chief priests, and scribes,” resulting in his death—followed by resurrection (Luke 9:22; this episode is recounted in Matthew 16:21–23; Mark 8:31–33; Luke 9:21–23).

Jesus understood that the Messiah’s destiny of the ultimate triumph over evil was grounded in his suffering on behalf of his people—a theme found in what are known as the servant songs of Isaiah. These prophetic poems, in that section of the book written during the Babylonian exile (Isaiah 40–55), affirm that Israel is God’s servant (Isaiah 41:8; 49:3), whose mission is to bring light to the nations and to establish justice throughout the earth (Isaiah 42:1, 4, 6). This understanding of Israel as God’s servant draws on God’s promise that through Abraham and his descendants blessing would come to all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:1–3).

Yet in Isaiah’s servant songs, Israel is said to be a blind and deaf servant who does not understand or obey God’s purposes (Isaiah 42:19–20), This leads to a distinction between the servant and Israel in some texts; there the mission of the servant of YHWH is to bring light not only to the nations, but also to Israel (Isaiah 49:5–6).

While Isaiah 50 mentions briefly that the servant will suffer before his vindication by God (Isa 50:5–8), this theme is explored in depth in Isaiah 52:13–53:12, the so-called Suffering Servant song. The New Testament understands this vivid portrayal of the servant’s suffering to be fulfilled in Jesus, understood as the representative of Israel (Matthew 8:14-17; Luke 22:35–38; John 12:37–41; Acts 8:26–35; Romans 10:11–21; 1 Peter 2:19–25).

Jesus Sets Out for Jerusalem

Soon after Jesus predicted his suffering and death, he set out to meet his destiny. Perhaps alluding to Isaiah’s servant who “set [his] face like flint” to endure opposition (Isa 50:7), Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51).

As he journeyed toward Jerusalem, stopping in other places on the way, he twice more reminded his disciples of his coming death (first in Matt 17:22–23; Mark 9:30–32; Luke 9:43–45; then in Matthew 20:17–19; Mark 10:32–34; Luke 18:31–34); this was clearly on his mind.

In each case, his disciples found this difficult to comprehend; wouldn’t this mean the defeat of the Messiah? Even after Jesus reached Jerusalem, he again reminded them of his destiny (Matthew 26:1–2).

Jesus and the New Exodus

Not only did Jesus intentionally embrace his destiny, he chose the timing of it to coincide with the festival of Passover, when pilgrims were flocking to Jerusalem to celebrate the exodus from Egyptian bondage. But no-one in Jerusalem would have focused simply on that event in the past. Isaiah 40–55 had already viewed Babylon as a new Egypt and the return from Babylonian exile as a new exodus. The city would have been rife with expectation: would God act again to free his people from the latest incarnation of Egypt and Babylon?

Some centuries before Jesus, the Persians had conquered the Babylon empire and allowed exiled Jews (inhabitants of Judah) to return to their homeland; so technically the exile was over. But after Babylon’s defeat, Judah (now known as Yehud) became a province of Persia, After that came the Greek empire, and finally the Romans—all of whom continued to subject the land and people of Israel to imperial domination. It would have been impossible for Jews in Jesus’s day to separate the message of the exodus of old from the need to be liberated from Roman oppression. A new exodus was called for.

Continuing Bondage and Exile

The idea that Israel was still in bondage—even after return to the land—is expressed in the anguished prayer of Ezra, the Jewish scribe and priest, during the early postexilic period:

“Here we are, slaves to this day, slaves in the land that you gave to our ancestors to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts. Its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins; they have power also over our bodies and over our livestock at their pleasure, and we are in great distress.” (Nehemiah 9:36–37; see also Ezra 9:8–9)

The Babylonian exile was over, but the bondage to foreign empires continued unabated.

The problem, however, was not simply the external oppression of empires. The internal problem of sin had to be dealt with. The prophets had declared that the Babylonian conquest and the ensuing exile was a consequence of Israel’s disobedience to God (Jeremiah 32:28–35; Isaiah 42:24–25; 43:27–28). This was a fundamental difference between Egyptian bondage (which was not attributed to Israel’s sin) and the Babylonian exile (which was).

Ezra himself combined recognition of continuing national bondage with the people’s ongoing sinfulness. “From the days of our ancestors to this day we have been deep in guilt, and for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been handed over to the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame, as is now the case” (Ezra 9:7).

Now, even back in the land, the moral state of the people remained unchanged; their sin still had to be dealt with.

As we shall see in the next installment, the problem of Israel’s bondage was greater than either the external oppression by empires or the internal sinfulness of the people.

How My Rewrite of The Transforming Vision Will Vary from the Original

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I am currently doing a total rewrite of the book on a Christian worldview that Brian Walsh and I coauthored, called The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian World View (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1984).

Original book cover
New book cover

The book has found a wide audience in both English and other languages (especially Korean, where it has just about outsold the English original). To date, it has been translated and published in Korean (1987), French (1988), Indonesian (2001), Spanish (2003), and Portuguese (2010); with new Korean (2013), French (2016), and Indonesian (2013, 2019) editions.

Over the years, many people who were using the book in teaching asked us for a second or revised edition, where we would update aspects of our analysis. Although the publisher did give the book a new cover, we were each too busy working on other projects to devote the time needed to a second edition.

Worldview Book and Worldview Courses

Brian and I wrote The Transforming Vision based on non-credit courses we were teaching through IVCF campus ministries at a number of Canadian universities. For a few years after the book was published, I continued teaching non-credit courses on a Christian worldview at universities in the USA and Canada as I moved around for graduate studies and university chaplaincy.

Since I began doctoral studies in 1990, and especially since I started a faculty position in the mid-nineties, I have been offering the course for credit to undergraduates and to graduate/ seminary students, while also giving papers and publishing as a biblical scholar—especially in the area of Old Testament.

Changes to the Course (and the Book)

The course has gradually changed over the years, in accordance with my expertise and context. The new version of the book will follow the content (and outline) of the course as I have been teaching it most recently (it’s a solo rewrite, since Brian hasn’t been teaching a comparable course).

Some changes have to do with Scripture, while others are aspects of what you might call contextualization, changes that reflect the cultural (and academic) contexts I have been living and teaching in.

An Expanded Exposition of the Biblical Story

First, I’ve expanded (and deepened) my understanding of biblical theology over the years, so the book will reflect that. Instead of three chapters on Scripture (in The Transforming Vision), I have eight chapters tracing the biblical story from creation to eschaton (the biblical worldview as a coherent story wasn’t explicitly addressed in the original book). Each chapter will be a theological dive into a biblical text (or set of texts) that advances the story (creation, imago Dei, fall, Israel, monarchy, prophets, Jesus, eschaton). I will draw out practical implications for Christian living from each of these “soundings” into Scripture.

An Analysis of “Postmodern” Tribalism

The second change is in my analysis of the history of western culture. I still find it helpful to begin with the otherworldly dualism that impacted the church (from the early middle ages onward) and trace the rise of the modern impulse to autonomy and conquest (over the last five hundred years). But my analysis of the crisis of modernity now includes our current “postmodern” tribalism—how modernity has devolved into the toxic “post-truth” culture we now experience.

The Contested Meaning of the “Christian/Biblical Worldview”

A third change is that I won’t start the book with much analysis of the nature of worldviews (which is how The Transforming Vision began). The new book will focus more on showing than telling. However, I plan to include an Appendix or Afterword on the problematic nature of worldview discourse among Christians. I’ll explain why I am reclaiming the terms “Christian worldview” and “biblical worldview” from those who use these terms to designate a pre-packaged absolutist system of so-called “truth,” which is often nothing more than an oppressive framework for control. In contrast, I think these terms are helpful markers for the Bible’s liberating vision, disclosed especially through its overarching narrative of God’s desire for creational flourishing and shalom.

Living between the Times

Also, I won’t have a section on the implications of Christian faith for academic disciplines. That section of The Transforming Vision came from the campus ministry context the course was developed in; that’s not been my present context. Instead, I’ll close with two chapters on “living between the times,” one addressing a Christian approach to suffering (drawing on the lament psalms) and one on the biblical pattern of discipleship (from the Gospels and Pauline epistles).

Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws

My plan is for a fourteen-chapter book (plus Appendix/ Afterword), tentatively titled Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws: The Bible’s Liberating Worldview. Those who know the music of Bruce Cockburn will recognize Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws as the title of one of his albums; it is also a line in a song on the album, describing Jesus’s victory over evil: “just beyond the range of normal sight / this glittering joker was dancing in the dragon’s Jaws.”

The title is meant to capture the sense of freedom and joy that being grounded in Scripture can bring, while realistically acknowledging that our joy comes in the face of personal brokenness and systemic evil, both of which are ultimately overcome only by God’s saving action in Christ.

I decided to keep the term Worldview in the subtitle, as a gesture towards reclaiming that term as valuable and helpful; indeed, I believe that the Bible discloses a Liberating Worldview!

The word Liberating is also a nod to my book on humanity as the image of God, called The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2005). The human calling to image God is a key component in my exposition of the unfolding biblical story.

An Accessible Read

I plan to keep the reading level of the new book close to that of The Transforming Vision, so it is accessible to early undergraduates and Christian lay people (The Transforming Vision was even used in Christian high schools in Canada and the US).

If you have used The Transforming Vision in teaching or if the book has been important to you personally, please contact me. I am looking for a few key people to read portions of the draft of the new book and give me helpful feedback.

Created in God’s Image: The Royal Calling of Humanity (The Kingdom of God, part 3)

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This is part 3 of a series of posts on the kingdom of God. Part 1 can be found here. Part 2 can be found here.

The kingdom of God in the teaching of Jesus is a distinctly Jewish idea, rooted in Israel’s Scriptures. To understand the significance of this kingdom we will need to explore some of the biblical backstory—especially the theme of “rule,” a royal metaphor for the exercise of power.

Imago Dei: The Royal Calling of Humanity

The opening chapter of the Bible recounts the creation of humanity (male and female) with the vocation or calling of being God’s “image” on earth (Gen 1:26–28). Genesis 1 here draws on (and interacts with) the royal ideology from the cultures of the ancient Near East (such as Mesopotamia and Egypt), which viewed kings (and sometimes priests) as the “image” of their gods. These human leaders were thought to have a function similar to that of the “image” (or cult statue) of the god, which was located in the temple. Just as the cult statue was thought to mediate the presence and power of the god from heaven to earth, kings (and some priests) claimed to be the gods’ unique earthly delegates, exercising power over the people on the gods’ behalf (a royal function), by which the gods’ presence was made manifest in their society (a priestly function).

Genesis 1 draws on this ancient, highly elitist notion of the “image of God,” but radically democratizes or universalizes it, applying it to all people, male and female (irrespective of their social status). This biblical vision of all people sharing the “royal” status of the “image of God” (imago Dei in Latin), with equal dignity in the sight of the Creator, helps explain a well-recognized historical fact: when the people of Israel came into existence as a nation (after their exodus from Egypt), they existed for centuries without a monarchy—something entirely unique in the ancient Near East. The idea of all humanity created to be God’s image functioned as a radical critique of—and form of resistance to—the royal ideology of the ancient societies among which Israel lived.

In Genesis 1:26–28, the image of God is manifested in the ordinary human exercise of power or agency in earthly life, involving “rule” (or “dominion” in some translations) over the animal kingdom (equivalent to animal husbandry) and “subduing” the earth or land (equivalent to agriculture). In Genesis 2, the human vocation is portrayed (without using the term “image”) as working and protecting a garden of fruit trees that God planted (Gen 2:15). Since God planted the garden, God is portrayed as the first gardener and humans implicitly image God as they continue tending God’s garden. Psalm 8 echoes the theme of animal husbandry from Genesis 1, when it describes humans as created a little less than God (similar to being God’s image in Genesis 1) and granted rule over various forms of animal life—on land, air, and water (Ps 8:5–8).

The image of God (imago Dei) is both a gift (humans are granted the status of being VIPs in God’s world) and a calling or vocation (we are commissioned as God’s ambassadors in the world). Every person is both gifted with royal dignity and also authorized to represent God’s rule in the ordinary practices of earthly life. Whereas Genesis 1 and 2 focus on caring for animals and farming the land, Genesis 4 extends this by mentioning that humans invented and developed cities, nomadic livestock herding, musical instruments, and metal tools (Gen 4:17, 20–21). This suggests that God is imaged by all forms of legitimate cultural innovation, as people develop the potentialities of earthly life.

But Genesis 3 portrays humans rebelling against their Creator (transgressing the limits God instituted) so that the gift of human agency or “rule” becomes distorted and twisted, with corrupting effects on the social order.

Life, Death, and Violence in Human History

In the Garden of Eden narrative, humans are warned that “death” is the consequence of disobedience to God (Gen 2:15–16). This death was not the introduction of mortality, as if humans had previously been immortal and only now would have an ending to their life; the idea of original immortality is an idea imported by later interpreters into the text. Rather, humans are created from “dust” (Gen 2:7), a term used throughout the Bible as a metaphor for mortality (see especially Ps 103:13–14). The “death” warned about in Genesis 2 is best understood as the constriction and diminishing of life, where “life” refers to the fullness of earthly flourishing.

Immediately upon disobedience, the original harmony in the garden begins to be distorted, as the primal couple cower in fear before God and in shame of nakedness before each other (Gen 3:7–8, 10), while ordinary human relationships, like marriage, childbirth, and farming, became disharmonious (Gen 3:16–20). Ultimately, humans are exiled from the garden, losing access to the fullness of life (symbolized by the Tree of Life in the center of the Garden) and the intimate presence of God. These consequences are various ways of describing the “death” that results from sin.

Yet humans retain the dignity of being God’s image and the call to represent God is not rescinded (see Gen 9:6). But violence (the misuse of the power or agency associated with the image of God) is introduced into human history, evident in Cain’s murder of his brother out of jealousy (Gen 4:8) and Lamech’s revenge killing of a young man who injured him, while boasting about it to his two wives (Gen 4:23). Distorted human “rule” then spirals out of control, until violence fills the earth and life becomes corrupted (Gen 6:5, 11–12), which generates the flood to cleanse the earth of this corruption.

But the respite is only temporary and human violence culminates in the story of Babel (the normal Hebrew word for Babylon), an empire that tries to dominate others and impose its will (and even language) on conquered peoples (Gen 11:1–9). The tower of Babel is likely a ziggurat, a series of giant steps for the gods to descend from heaven to their favored city, thus providing religious legitimation for the empire. With the rise of every “Babylon” in history, every imperial legitimation of violence in the name of law and order (including Rome in the time of Jesus), God’s purposes for life and flourishing are impeded. In the “Babel” of Genesis 11, God’s purposes for blessing seem to have come to a dead end.

How will God respond to this imperial violence? That is the topic of part 4 of this series (The Story of Israel from Abraham to the Exile).