The New Testament’s language of ‘gathering’ is interesting and theologically rich. At one level, it simply designates the bringing together of things in a physically common space; thus Herod ‘gathers‘ all the chief priests (note the plural!) and teachers of the law to learn from them where the Messiah was to be born in Matt 2.4. The birds of the air do not gather food, yet God feeds them (Matt 6.26), but the people gather around to hear Jesus’ teaching, crowding the shore whilst he sits in a boat (Matt 13.2).
In this physical sense, the people of God gather together on the Sabbath to hear the scriptures read, to hear from a teacher, and to do business together—and hence the place they met was called a synagogue, συναγωγή, a gathering place. If God called me to plant a new church, I think I would like to call it ‘The Gathering’, in part to reflect this meaning, and in part to avoid misleading connotations of ‘church’ associated with buildings, institutions, and old-fashioned rituals.
But when we delve a little further into the use of this word, it gains an added significance.
First, it is striking that Jesus appears to understand his ministry as involving ‘gathering’.
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters (Matt 12.30)
This is interesting in two regards. On the one hand, the language of ‘scattering’ describes Jesus’ ministry of preaching; as the sower scatters the seed upon the ground, so a good deal of Jesus’ ministry is teaching all who will listen, scattering the word of God amongst them. But of course the goal of sowing seed is that a harvest might grow, and the crop will need to be gathered. Thus, on the other hand, it is interesting to see the crowds ‘gathering’ to hear the teaching of Jesus, which he then scatters amongst them.
And this relates to the calling of the disciples. He calls them from their current vocations and occupations to ‘be with him’, and after he has scattered the seed of the word, he then gathers the disciples to teach them ‘in the house’, apart from the crowds. These processes of scattering and gathering work together, and to some extent sit in tension—in the end, the one resolves into the other.
Secondly, there is clearly what seems to be quite a different sense to this language of ‘gathering’. In Matthew’s gospel, it begins with John the Baptist’s prediction of the ministry of Jesus:
His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire (Matt 3.12).
John is clearly seeing Jesus as the long-awaited messianic figure, whose coming will signal the end of the age, the judgement of God, the purifying and gathering of his people (from either literal or theological exile), as anticipated in a range of ways by the Judaisms of his day. In Luke’s parallel account, he makes the sense of eschatological expectation more explicit:
The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them. (Luke 3.15–18)
There are several significant images of eschatological judgement here. First, the promise of the Holy Spirit being poured out (‘baptism’ means being immersed in or overwhelmed by) is connect with ‘the last days’ in Joel 2.28. Secondly, although we might naturally associate ‘fire’ with the tongues of flame at Pentecost in Acts 2, in fact it is an image of judgement, as the phrase ‘unquenchable fire’ makes clear. (Two interesting things to note here. First, the Greek term is asbestos from which we get, well, asbestos! Second, fire is primarily an image of destruction, not torment.) John seems to expect Jesus to be one who will bring the judgement of God to his people and to the wider world—but only once the people of God have been gathered.
These two senses, the pastoral and the eschatological, seem to both be present in Jesus’ longing for his people (from which we get the hen imagery in the picture above):
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate… (Matt 23.37–38)
Jesus’ coming to his people is the time of God’s (eschatological) visitation to his people (Luke 19.44)—but the failure of many to receive him will bring disaster.
We should note here that Luke records John’s message as ‘good news’, despite the language of judgement—and we need to explore a little further to understand why this is.
This eschatological dimension becomes more clear in Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom. Matthew gathers much of this into one section in Matthew 13, the third of his five blocks of Jesus’ teaching. The first and longest part of this is the parable of the sower, the meaning of parables, and its explanation. There follows a sequence of further parables about the kingdom, several of them unique to Matthew. One of these is the parable of the wheat and the tares, describing not a ‘mixed church’ as some have claimed, but a mixed world, in which good and evil co-exist until the day of judgement when they will be separated.
The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’ (Matt 13.27–30)
This makes clear that ‘gathering’ is an eschatological reality, a hope for God’s people to be saved and delivered from the evil of this world. But in Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God, and supremely in his resurrection, this future reality has broken into the present—after all, the resurrection of the dead was something that was expected to happen at the end of the age. This is a consistent feature of New Testament eschatology: the future has come forwards into the present in the ministry of Jesus and the work of the Spirit. Hence Peter can describe the Pentecost outpouring of the Spirit as happening in ‘the last days’ as prophesied by Joel (Acts 2.17); Paul describes coming to faith in Jesus as the ‘new creation’ in a person’s life (2 Cor 5.17) which is only fulfilled at the end of time (Rev 21); and repeatedly our life in Christ and the work of the Spirit is the ‘first fruits’, the beginning of the process of harvest, when the farmer would cut and offer to God the wheat that has ripened first in anticipation of the full harvest.
All this relates to the way that the New Testament sees the ministry of Jesus as fulfilling the hope of Israel to be regathered having been scattered in exile.
At the recent British New Testament Conference, in a paper in the Johannine seminar section looking at atonement in the epistles of John, Ben Castaneda noted the meaning of ‘gathering the people’ in John 11 and its relevance to eschatological and messianic hope:
2. The Problem of the World and the Problem of Exile
Having elucidated ἱλασμός in 2:2, it remains to be seen how 1 John transposes these scriptural motifs into an eschatological key. An easy entry, I think, can be found in the very next clause of 2:2: Jesus is the atonement concerning our sins, and not for ours only, but also concerning those of the whole world. Immediately we face a problem. Lev 16:34 says that the whole Yom Kippur ritual effects atonement for the sins of the children of Israel, but no one else is mentioned. How could the Johannine author say that Jesus as ἱλασμός purifies/purges/atones for the whole world?
I think a clue comes from John 11:51–52. Many scholars have noted that the construction of these verses is very similar to that of 1 John 2:2; you have a positive assertion, followed by a “not only … but also” statement. Thus, Jesus is the ἱλασμός for our sins, and not ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Likewise, John 11:51–52 states, “Jesus would die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but also to gather the children of God who are scattered into one.” That word “scattered” comes from διασκορπίζω, a word used twice in Deut 30:1–3 to refer to Israel scattered among the nations for their covenantal unfaithfulness toward God. Being cut off, exiled from the presence of God at the tabernacle was the ultimate covenant curse, and as Brant Pitre and Jason Staples have convincingly argued, a swathe of early Judaism saw the exile as an ongoing reality in the first century. The ten tribes of the northern kingdom had never returned. But Deut 30 also contains a promise that in the future—quite possibly the eschatological future—God would circumcise their hearts and gather his people back from the nations where they had been scattered.
In other words, the hope for the scattered people to be gathered back to God and the land, as in Ezekiel 37, is fulfilled in Jesus. More than that, it is specifically fulfilled in the Gentile mission, where the whole Israel of God, both Jew and Gentile, are made one in Jesus. (I wonder whether Paul’s language of ‘the two are have been made one’ in Eph 2.14 is based on the fulfilment of the hope in Ezek 37.22 that ‘There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms’.)
This vision is made particular explicit in the Book of Revelation (of course!). John sees the redemption of people from ‘every tribe and language and people and nation’ as fulfilling the hope of Exod 19.6 that God’s people will be ‘a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth’ (Rev 5.9, 10; see also Rev 1.5–6). This is a vision of the people of God before the sin of the golden calf, when the whole people were priestly, rather than the people having one priestly tribe in the Levites.
This is the dynamic of Rev 7, where John hears the people being counted out as 144,000 (a cube times a square, alluding to the cube of the Holy of Holies, the dwelling place of God’s presence in the world) from the twelve tribes of Israel—but then turns to see them as ‘a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language’ (Rev 7.9), a fulfilment of the promise to Abraham that he descendants would be as innumerable as the sand on the seashore or the stars in the sky.
In other words, the language of ‘gathering’ is both pastoral and eschatological, and is a fulfilment of the Old Testament visions of both the restoration of the covenant with Israel and the redemption of creation. It is inaugurated in the ministry of Jesus, and expressed in the Gentile mission.
Why does this matter? It shapes both our specific reading of texts like Matt 24.30, but also shapes our understanding of eschatology and the end-times in general.
As I have noted often, the problem with reading Matt 24.29–31 as a forecast of Jesus return is the definitive claim made by Jesus (which C S Lewis called ‘the most embarrassing verse in the New Testament’):
Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened (Matt 24.34).
If the events this refers to are about the end of the world and Jesus’ parousia, his return, then he is clearly a failed apocalyptic prophet, his followers were living with a false hope—and the gospels record his serious error, all of which is very unlikely.
Rather, the events of the preceding verses must describe the things that happened immediately after his ascension. His ‘coming on the clouds’ is not his return, but his ascension to the ancient of days using the language of Dan 7.13. But for many people, the main stumbling block to accepting such a reading is found in Matt 24.31:
And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
But John 11.52 tells us that this eschatological gathering did indeed happen in that first generation—in the form of the gentile mission. The ‘angels’ are the messengers who carry the good news about Jesus (see exactly the same word used of human messengers in Luke 7.27 and 9.52), and the ‘trumpet call’ is a metaphor for the announcement of the gospel.
More generally, this means that we are mistaken if we think there is still to be another ‘end-times’ ‘gathering’ of ‘Israel’, since the New Testament texts see these hopes in the Old Testament as completely fulfilled in Jesus. That is why the New Testament writers nowhere express any hope or interest in the idea of Jews returning to the land at some point in the future.
The Israel of God has already been gathered into the place of grace and obedience, centred on the temple presence of God in the world, by being incorporated into Jesus, God’s temple (John 1.14, 2.21) and so becoming part of that temple presence, inhabited by the Spirit, themselves. Rather then being one ethnic group, in one physical place, they are now from every tribe, language, people, and nation, and draw people to God in every part of the world.
For more details on these question of the kingdom of God, the ministry of Jesus, and the end of the world, see my Grove booklet, Kingdom, Hope, and the End of the World.
“In other words, the language of ‘gathering’ is both pastoral and eschatological, and is a fulfilment of the Old Testament visions of both the restoration of the covenant with Israel …”
That is very N. T. Wright — and many see this as a weakness of his theology, and a great many would disagree. And to my mind it is demolished in Chapter 3 of ‘Climbing the Wright Mountain’ in: Ben Witherington III and Jason A. Myers, Voices and Views on Paul: Exploring Scholarly Trends (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2020).
I am not sure on what grounds you say ‘This is very N T Wright’. I don’t refer to him or quote him anywhere! I am offering a reading of the data of the biblical texts.
What is the weakness in the argument I have offered here?
And what is the argument in that chapter?
Hi Ian,
I have mentioned on the blog before that Tom Wright sees that the MC is restored within the new covenant and it is via Israel and their covenant that the Gentiles are saved. ‘Covenant renewal and the Consecration of the Gentiles’ is Sarah Whittle’s PhD which assumes MC renewal and Gentile inclusion in that throughout (as it says ‘on the tin’) — I think Tom Wright supervised it, she certainly acknowledges his contribution.
The argument in the chapter in ‘Voices and Views’ is that Tom Wright is wrong about Israel:
“The creator’s plan was to call Abraham and his family, but Wright equates this with ‘the story of Israel’” (68). They are citing, in this instance, PFG, 494 (I presume this is ‘Paul and The Faithfulness of God’). But I am reasonably familar with Tom Wright’s argument myself.
I think it is a fairly fundamental mistake to conflate the Abrahamic and Mosaic Covenants – it is difficult to see how Paul could be more clear in Galatians 3:15-21.
This relates to the recent blog on the continuity of the Mosaic law. I argued there that there is no such continuity.
Thanks. But you have offered no critique here of the case that I lay out.
“And a great many would disagree” – that is a great many would disagree with N. T. Wright.
And the ‘restoration of the covenant with Israel’ is surely incompatible with this comment in the article:
“I wonder whether Paul’s language of ‘the two are have been made one’ in Eph 2.14 is based on the fulfilment of the hope in Ezek 37.22 that ‘There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms’”.
The answer is yes if you believe this includes the Gentiles. And Paul in that context continues with his repeated theme of the ‘two shall become one’ in Ephesians with his climatic point in Ephesians 5:31–32 – where that union (Jew and Gentile) is achieved via a (marital) affinity union — not via a Mosaic Covenant blood union. This is surely the point of John 1:11–13. And Romans 9:8. And Galatian 3:15–17. And so on.
In other words, the covenant ‘renewed / fulfilled’ by Christ is surely the Abrahamic covenant – via the seed of Abaraham? In that way it is ‘not like’ the MC as per Jeremiah 31:31-32.
My own view (and obviously that of others) is that MC had three key purposes:
1 to demonstrate to the nations (i.e. Gentiles) what a godly nation should be like
2 to protect and demonstrate the Genesis 3:15 Messianic seed line via Abraham
3 to typologically portray the Messiah and his work on the cross – but did not have a soteriological purpose in and of itself
Jesus offered to gather ethnic Israel to himself, but he was rejected. Matthew 23:27.
oops, never quote a verse from memory it is: Matthew 23:37
(Appears to be truncated at the moment, ending “That is why ” with an empty footnote)
I see the hen has 12 chicks. Spot on.
I could waffle on – but I will make this my last point if nobody else posts — but the nature of the new covenant is central to the gospel and this blog: ‘Why and how does Jesus ‘gather’ his people?’
His people are the elect and he gathers them to himself via a (marital) affinity union of Jew and Gentile with himself, the seed of Abraham (Gal 3:16), to fulfil the Genesis 3:15 protoevangelium.
Not by means of renewal of the conditional bilateral MC (membership of which was based on a blood union with Jacob) — as Tom Wright believes. Isn’t the termination of the MC the main point in Hebrews? For example, surely the Melchizedek illustration is that the Aaronic priesthood — a core element of the MC — has gone. Along with the land and the Temple.
And I suspect we would all be disappointed if we part exchanged our old car for a new car — but when we come to collect the new car, they had simply resprayed the old car.
In other words, in what sense can ‘new’ as in ‘new covenant’ — be a renewal of the old covenant. Surely Hebrews 8:13 is clear?
What about: ‘Why’ does Jesus gather his people? That question is hardly ever asked and certainly rarely answered. He doesn’t gather his people to forgive their sins — any more than a bridegroom marries his bride because she is a virgin. We have often lost the central love story in the Bible — which is that Jesus came for his people to take them as a bride — and to achieve that union—he forgave our sins. It was not an end in itself.
Excellent Colin, thanks.
BTW, I read Revelation as the story of the union of the Bride and the Groom.
In a nutshell:-
Her story. Ch 1 alludes to Abraham, Isaac, The Chief Steward and Rebecca. Ch 2&3 to Esther’s year of preparation.
His story.
Her difficult path.
His mission to rescue her.
The Enemy.
The Gathered witnesses.
The ceremony.
The New Home.
The invitation to be gathered, dearly beloved.
Perhaps there needs to be a series of teaching on the canonical bibilical sweep of God’ covenants, continuity and discontinuity, none of which can be done without the person of Jesus, who he is, fully man and fully God incarnate.?
But for openers, as Melchizedek has been mentioned in the comments, here is a transcribed longish talk by D.A. Carson : ‘Getting Excited about Melchizedek.’
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/conference_media/getting-excited-melchizedek/
Yes — Don Carson powerfully makes the point about Melchizedek (50 minutes) — that he typologically points to Christ and thus the obsolescence of the MC priesthood – and indeed the MC itself.
If my three key points about the MC (as above) are accepted — then the MC is by definition obsolete when the Messiah pointed to has arrived — and it became clear that the church was not going to be a restatement of national Israel but a community of people of ‘all nations’ (Genesis 17:4).
A source of confusion for some is that the MC was not based on personal faith — you were in the covenant by blood — ‘faithfulness’ refers to how faithful you were to the covenant (I accept that there is an indirect connection — if you truly believed in God you would keep his covenant).
In contrast, entry to the new covenant is based on faith (‘not of blood’, John 1:13) and it is difficult to see how we can link the MC to the new covenant in a soteriological way (as does Tom Wright) — it is like mixing oil and water. This, I suggest, is why Paul argues the gospel and thus the new covenant from Abraham (Galatians 3:6–9) – stepping back beyond the MC for its origins (Galatians 3:15–17).
Hi Geoff, I’ve been out this morning on the street. The sword of the Spirit might have left a couple of wounds, I don’t know, but it felt like I was wielding a foam stick! To quote an old hymn ‘it is not knowledge that we chiefly need…’ However, I read Carson with interest. And I agree with him.
1. Was Jesus an adherent Jew?
2. Was he an antinomian?
3. Was there continuity and discontinuity between the OT and NT?
4. Did Jesus fill full the OT?
5. Both God’s unilateral covenant with Abraham OT covenants.
Based on Michael Eaton’s, ‘The Theology of Encouragement” and Keller’s, ‘Galatians For you’ a fuller response could be made as to the unconditional/ conditional covenants, and the unconditional covenant in Genesis 15 where Abram played no part, only God moving between the split creatures. It is that covenant which is referred to in Galatians and which Jesus fulfilled on the Cross.
I was not aware of the writings of NT Wright pointed out by Colin Harmer, but from what is quoted I think he is wide of the mark, though I doubt he supports the restoration of the animal sacrificial system at a newly built Temple.
Geoff, as far as I can see Colin Hamer quotes nothing from N T Wright. If you are going to use ‘wide of the mark’ as an assessment on Ian’s blog it might be good to check what you are referring to.
Hi Bruce,
When Tom Wright speaks of the ‘Climax of the Covenant’ he is thinking of the one covenant that is seen by many to go from Abraham through the MC into the new covenant. Covenant continuity from the MC into the new covenant is standard Presbyterian doctrine (1644 Westminster Confession #7:3–5).
But Tom Wright takes it to another level by understanding rather more literally than most that salvation ‘comes from the Jew’ (John 4:22). For example, these comments below from ‘What St Paul Really Said’ all refer to the MC flowing into the new covenant:
“Jews … despite being given the [Mosaic] covenant through which God intended to redeem the world have failed in their task (106).
God intended to be faithful to his covenant — his intention was to vindicate Israel and so to save the whole world through the faithfulness of Israel; but Israel as a whole were faithless. What is God to do? (106)
God’s covenant purposes for Israel, that is, his intention to deal once and for all with the sin of the world would finally be accomplished. (106)
Paul holds firmly to the hope that the renewal of the covenant which has taken place in Jesus the Messiah will be affected not only for Gentiles but also for the Jews. (109)
Wright, N. T. What St Paul Really Said. Oxford: Lion, 1997.
Wright, N. T. The Climax of the Covenant. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991.
Bruce,
So, for Tom Wright the new covenant is not, as I think most Presbyterians would understand, a development in the salvation story built on the Mosaic Covenant — for NTW the new covenant is the Mosaic Covenant ‘renewed’ or ‘restored’ —we might say ‘fixed’ — Jesus has stood in the place of Israel and fixed what Israel messed up. Salvation was to come from Israel now it comes from a new ‘Israel’ —Jesus.
He is the only theologian I know that articulates this view. For me, it is a fundamental flaw in his theology which I think has no consistent basis. I suggest this why whenever he writes a book somebody else writes a book questioning what he has said. Having said that, he is brilliant.
Colin – well, I suppose I’m glad that you did the work of trying to get through NT Wright, thus saving me the bother. I had one experience of NT Wright (back in 2001 – just after I had moved to a new town and was trying to find a church). After a very few weeks, I discovered that the ‘serious’ church in town had adopted some really awful heresies – mostly from something called ‘Vineyard’, but also I was told that ‘New Perspective on Romans’ by NT Wright had done much to shape the thinking of the big cheeses there. I read just enough to convince me that this book actually contradicted basic things which I thought to be fundamental to Romans (for example – he starts by telling us the Romans 1:4 and not Romans 1:16-17 is the theme of the letter. I think to myself ‘OK – just as long as he doesn’t diminish the importance of Romans 1:16-17 – and then this is precisely what he does. He then goes on to spout a lot of dangerous nonsense, which seems to give the idea of belonging to a ‘community’ or church fellowship central importance to Salvation.
At this point I binned the book – because I can’t be bothered ‘interacting with the literature in order to explain why it is wrong’. I find such a process inimical to faith rather than something that builds it up. I appreciate that this has to be done – I’m not the guy to do it.
Now that I read your post, I do now recognise something that might have been the logic behind what I read there …… Thanks for doing the work of reading him – and pointing out the basic idea. That was helpful for me.
Jock, I’m not sure how you could have binned a book that doesn’t exist. Are you using irony here?
Bruce – clearly you are the one using ‘irony’, since you’re aware of the book and you have just written an essay (in reply to Colin) which could be entitled ‘What NT Wright really said; a new perspective on NT Wright’.
I didn’t give the correct title – basically because I read part of the book in translation (I picked it up from the shelf of books on sale at the church I briefly attended). More importantly, as I indicated, if the theological content of a book is objectionable to me after a superficial reading, I don’t put in effort interacting with the literature to explain why it is wrong.
(I have interacted with – and learned a lot from books that I consider to be written by non-Christians – for example, Jurgen Moltmann’s ‘The Crucified God’ and his ‘God in Creation’. He writes in a much simpler style than NT Wright – and you don’t need a degree in linguistics to understand him. He also has some very good ideas.)
If I’d had a super-duper understanding of linguistics, I may have seen ‘behind’ the superficial plain man’s reading of some sections, but the ‘plain man’s reading’ also seems to be the way that Colin understood it – and, as I indicated, was also the way that the ‘big cheeses’ running the church understood it – that belonging to some sort of ‘covenant community’ was a salvation issue (and, for them, belonging to a ‘covenant community’ was strongly related to church attendance).
As I indicated, I didn’t read much of the book – just enough to understand where they were getting their bilge from. You may well be right that all of this was based on a serious misunderstanding of what NT Wright actually said / was intending to say. If so, then I’d lay the fault entirely at his door – since I haven’t had this problem with other authors (e.g. Moltmann).
Colin, I’m not sure that your quotations from WSPRS really support your contention that Wright says that the New Covenant is a *renewal* of the Mosaic covenant. I could be completely misunderstanding, but it seems that there are pieces of WSPRS that are relevant, but ‘missing’ from your quotations.
p.106 yes Wright does ask ‘What is God to do?’ but then he says ‘Paul’s answer is that the Messiah, King Jesus, has been the true, faithful, Israelite. Underneath the dense theology of …[Rom 3:21-26] … stands Paul’s central gospel scene: the death and resurrection of Jesus, seen as the point at which, and the means by which, God’s covenant purposes… [your next quotation]’.
I wonder too about your p.109 quotation: ‘Paul holds firmly to the hope that the renewal of the covenant which has taken place in Jesus the Messiah will be affected [sic. “effective”] not only for Gentiles but also for the [sic. Wright omits “the”] Jews’ [sic. “.”] but Wright continues “who will come, as he himself [i.e. Paul] has done, to faith in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.”
Just wondering…?
Bruce,
Sorry for the typos I was on the last-minute setting out to church!
But you have already highlighted the problem — you are saying that I have misunderstood him (I do not believe I have). I only had time to quote from small sections from that one book — I have many of his books in my library — and wrote an extended essay on his understanding as part of my MTh, which was marked as a distinction.
You are also saying Witherington, Ben III, and Jason A. Myers. Voices and Views on Paul: Exploring Scholarly Trends. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2020 have misunderstood him? As far as I know NTW has not asked for a retraction.
Why can he not write more clearly? If whenever I wrote something people asked what I meant I would think I had a problem. It seems almost as if obfuscation to create controversy is his intention.
His brilliance is in making individual observations — he is like a magpie picking out bright things — but the nest he builds is indeed a magpie’s nest. He seems to have no controlling hermeneutic. And I know in a private email to an academic colleague he said he had never considered the Bible’s marital imagery — which I suggest is the central point in Ephesians 5:31–32 where Paul explains the church is Jew and Gentile in a new affinity [i.e., not blood] union with the seed of Abraham, based on volition and faith. Note the MC has a non-volitional entry —is that also to be restored?
Did that a couple of months ago. It can be both encouraging and dispiriting, even if you can get a conversation going. But what exercises contention of this site even ssm is not relevant in everyday lives.
My wife cottoned onto the idea of attempting to engage people waiting at a bus stop as they will not depart till their bus arrives.
You will know that tracts can be helpful. Who of us is an expert on the streets?
A summary of the word on the street today is: What happens when I die? I don’t care. I thought my wife was wonderful, I hope we meet again. It’s all a myth, I’m not interested. Etc.
Nobody is expressing any interest in episcopal conniptions 🙂
Steve and Geoff,
Yes, a post on SSM (which I suggest is a sideshow compared to the subject of this blog) attracts hundreds of comments, but the theology of our own salvation —even the very purpose of the incarnation and the cross, beyond that Jesus came to save us from our sins — leaves most people yawning. But ever since I first came to faith in Christ I have been interested in seeking out the ‘whole counsel of God’ (Acts 20:27).
Hi Jock,
Yes. Tom Wright’s view that the new covenant is in fact the Mosaic Covenant with ‘Israel’ swapped out and replaced by Jesus seems to be behind his understanding, as you point out:
“… [that] belonging to a ‘community’ or church fellowship [is of] central importance to Salvation”.
In the Mosaic Covenant, Israel is treated as a collective group — if you are an Israelite you are ‘in’ — personal faith is of no consequence.
And for anybody else still on this post, try asking a believer — even a quite mature Christian — to read aloud, carefully, Galatians 4:21–31 —and then ask them to explain it to you.
In my experience Galatians 4:25 comes as a surprise to most: “Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.”
— in other words, the Mosaic Covenant is not on the soteriological seed line! How do you ‘restore’ or ‘renew’ that?
You must get on the correct track —which is the seed line of Sarah — the ‘seed of the promise’.
How could Paul be clearer? Surely, he is saying that the Mosaic Covenant does not have a soteriological basis. For that we must go back to the Abrahamic promise.
As Paul does when he explains the gospel.
Colin – many thanks for this – you pointed to good Scripture to establish the point. But I think you should apply this further back – in Genesis 6, I believe that Noah found grace, by which is meant unmerited favour – and certainly not by virtue of a lineage that didn’t have ‘Elohim DNA’ as I seem to remember you suggesting in an earlier thread.
Moving forward then, genetic descent and lineage counts for nothing – and the one and only function of the lineage of Jesus was so that we could be sure that Jesus was who he said he was (fulfilling the prophecies of Scripture). Galatians 4:24 makes it completely clear that any ‘New Jerusalem’ is a reference to a heavenly Jerusalem.
I enjoyed this piece by Ian, the arguments made an awful lot of sense and I agree wholeheartedly with the conclusion ‘More generally, this means that we are mistaken if we think there is still to be another ‘end-times’ ‘gathering’ of ‘Israel’’.
Yes – the Hagar seed line concept, even within the MC, can be seen in John 8. In our church this year John 8:36 — “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” is our memory verse. It follows John 8:32, “and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
In context, it is a tense exchange with the unbelieving Jews who appeal to their ‘seed’ relationship with Abraham — but Jesus tells them ‘you are of your father the devil’ (John 8:44) — in other words, they are ‘the seed of Satan’. The Genesis 3: 15 ‘seed of Satan’ are unbelievers, beginning with Cain (1 John 3:12).
Jesus was not denying that they were Jews in the MC – but explaining nonetheless in their unbelief, they were in the wrong seed line. Restoring that covenant would not change that.
The truth that will set them free is understanding that a physical seed relationship to Abraham (the qualifcation for the MC) will not given them eternal life – only the promised seed – Jesus Christ will.
Thanks Colin,
It is what I recall of Wright on this matter.
I had started to pull together the work of Dr Michael Eaton ( on Genesis 15 and Tim Keller Galatians on this whole question, but it seems time has passed and I’m not at home.
It is years since I looked at Eaton with any degree of depths but recall his work of substance and significance ( but skimming parts yesterday) it seems that Calvin conflated Abraham and Mosaic covenants.
But from what you’ve written and I’ve understood correctly, there’s more to Genesis 15 and God’s unilateral covenant with Avram (with animal blood sacrifices).
Not only that but the question of faith, saving faith as Eaton explores with the meaning of ‘pistis’. (Of, or In)
Spoiler alert: he concludes that it is the substitutionary faith OF Christ which Genesis 15 points forward to, in contrast to Avram’s faith that sought evidential assurance and subsequently was patchy.
Yes Jesus’s faith is substitutionary in the context of the whole canon. Now that would ruffle many birds of a feather.
The whole question of holiness, sanctification, remains unexplored.
Geoff,
Yes to most of this I think – but I also leave my study now and am away from it for much of the rest of this week.
But all interesting stuff!
Colin – thanks for the exchange.
I have no basic quarrel with C H’s general analysis that “it is a fairly fundamental mistake to conflate the Abraham and Mosaic covenants”. But equally, to assert that the issue of the ‘land ‘, for example, is terminated; given that the land is first of all delineated in the *former* covenant and as an integral component of an *everlasting*, unconditional, covenant , then one is tempted to ask: is this not a case of relativizing two absolutes in order to make them conform to a preconceived model created to fit a “New Covenant” format? In a previous post, I commented on John Stott’s remarks in his Galatian’s commentary on the land: ” Paul realized that both the ‘land’ which was promised and the ‘seed’ were *ultimately spiritual*! Where is the evidence that Paul *realized* this and what exactly is meant by *spiritual* ? Much evangelical exegesis seems to have great difficulty with, for example :”he has raised up a horn of salvation in the house of his servant David ……. salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us *to remember his holy covenant which he swore to our forefather Abraham* to rescue from the hand of our enemies”[ Song of Zechariah] or the Magnificat:” He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts , he has brought down rulers from their thrones ….”. Both, of course are from Luke’s Gospel. Whatever ‘spiritual’ is, in both testaments it is not necessarily opposed to physical or even political!
CH has argued that “the termination of the MC [is]the main point of Hebrews.” It would have been helpful had he provided an analysis of what exactly is the essence of the *New Covenant*, particularly since the Writer of the Hebrews quotes the original [Jeremiah 31] virtually verbatim; and with reference to “the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” Should he (the author) not have amended this to, say, “spiritual Israel?”
Which leads me to my final point; a retort to Jock when he pontificates : “this (what?) means that we are mistaken if we think there is still to be another(? ) end -times gathering of Israel.
I didn’t know there had already been one! Moreover I suggest you read chapters. 9-11 of Romans. It affirms what has already been said in this post about the Mosaic Covenant, but it says much more in contradiction of this conclusion of yours.
Colin – briefly – I suggest you re-read Romans 9 – 11 in conjunction with the commentary by Karl Barth, which I think is right on the button for these chapters. Among other things, he points out that the ‘fulness of the Gentiles’ is Jesus Christ.
Jock – Im not surprised there are different, confusing views of Paul’s understanding of ‘Israel’ as those chapters in Romans are confusing!
Im not sure what you mean by the fullness of the Gentiles is Jesus? On rereading those chapters, Paul ‘seems’ to say the current time (unknown to Paul it has lasted 2000 years so far) is the time of the Gentiles, and until that time ends, Israel for the most part will continue to reject the Messiah, as they did in Paul’s own time and as they continue to do today (I recently watched a youtube video of young Jewish men in Jerusalem spitting at a Christian priest). Only God knows when all those Gentiles who are going to be saved will be saved, but at that time there will be, according to Paul, a mass conversion of Israelis to Jesus the Messiah. Whether that happens before He returns or at that time is debateable.
What I find particularly confusing is that Paul refers to Israel both as those physically born as Jews (if Jews is the correct term?) and an apparent remnant who have been/are being or will be saved by grace, because God chooses who he is gracious towards. But then goes on to say ‘all Israel’ will be saved. Is the ‘all’ referring to literally everyone with Israeli ancestors, or the remnant which he seems to view as the ‘real’ Israel?
All very confusing.
Peter – I have my views, which are in flat contradiction to those of Colin Cormack (also Anton and James) – but I didn’t respond to you because – yes – it is a big and confusing topic – and I was hoping that one of the theologians who contribute here could give a much better response than I am capable of.
They’ve probably moved on lol. It’s ok, whatever God’s plans are, theyre his plans.