The late Richard Hays’ book The Moral Vision of the New Testament was a landmark work that offered a serious, structured approach to the question of how the New Testament should shape Christian ethical thinking.
To mark 30 years since its publication, Cherryl Hunt, Nick Moore, and Tim Murray have edited a new volume New Testament Ethics: Revisiting The Moral Vision of the New Testament (Eerdmans, 2026). I had a chance to ask them about the volume, and the importance of Hay’s book.
IP: The book you have co-edited marks 30 years since the publication of Richard Hays’ The Moral Vision of the New Testament. Why was that such an important book? What did it both contribute to and challenge in New Testament studies, and what did it contribute to and challenge in Christian ethical thinking?
Cherryl, Nick, and Tim: Hays’ book is a single-volume offering by a single scholar which aims to provide a blueprint for moving from Scripture to ethics. It is more about method than it is about specific issues, and its scope is impressive. Hays breaks the task of biblical ethics down into four components. The ‘descriptive task’ involves careful exegesis – what do the biblical texts say about how we should live. Secondly, the ‘synthetic task’ moves from the various texts in the Bible to discerning shared, coherent themes. For Hays, there are three key focal images: the community of God’s people, the cross as the means of redemption, and the new creation as the goal of all things.
The third task is ‘hermeneutical’, moving from what Scripture said to how this is to be interpreted and applied authoritatively today. Here Hays differentiates between rules, principles, narrative paradigms, and symbolic worlds. He argues that whereas Christians often look for clear rules and principles, in fact the greatest thing the Bible has to offer us is paradigms of the good life and symbolic worlds within which we can faithfully imagine how God is calling us to live. The fourth and final task is the ‘pragmatic task’, reaching specific positions on how Christians and the church should live in obedience to the witness of Scripture.
Along the way, Hays evaluates the ethical approaches of five theologians, gives space to the quadrilateral of Scripture, reason, tradition, and experience (the latter three only ever functioning in a supplementary fashion), provides ten proposals on reasoning scripturally about ethics, and offers a concise discussion of five live ethical issues. He chooses the five issues not on the basis of their importance in Scripture, but because they cover the full range of kinds of ethical treatment in the New Testament (from extensive to minimal, and from explicit rules to limited or no instruction). Hays does all this in about 400 readable pages. You can perhaps see why his book was included by Christianity Today among the top 100 Christian books of the twentieth century!
Hays challenged biblical scholars to do synthetic and ethical work (how does it all join up, and why and how does it matter?), and he challenged ethicists to take Scripture and biblical exegesis and hermeneutics seriously within their work.
IP: What aspects of Moral Vision does this book seek to affirm? Are there aspects that it seeks to challenge?
C, N & T: In the spirit of Hays’ book, we encouraged all contributors to write self-consciously for the church and to make sure their contributions addressed the ‘pragmatic task’. This can be uncomfortable ground for trained biblical scholars in our scholarly writing, so we are grateful to our contributors for accepting the challenge!
More specifically our volume has three sections: 1. Hermeneutics – which primarily engages with Hays’ methodology; 2. Exegesis – where contributions are orientated around particular texts; 3. Themes – where the essays are primarily shaped by ethical issues (sex and celibacy, loneliness and social isolation, ethnicity and race, the ecological crisis, and wealth).
Throughout we tried to prioritise texts and issues that received relatively little attention in Hays’ book and so both to critique but also develop and supplement his work. Some of the chapters work with Hays’ method, showing how it remains fruitful (for example, in thinking about issues that have come to the fore much more pressingly in recent years, such as loneliness or the climate crisis).
Some push further than Hays did, or point out areas that he may have missed (for example, he makes a lot of ‘metaphor-making’ in doing ethics but doesn’t engage at all with Conceptual Metaphor Theory; he prioritizes narrative but in doing so risks overlooking the contribution of letters and other reasoned, didactic texts). Others push back a little harder (for example, suggesting that Hays missed important themes such as creation, justification, or love). Many of the contributions offer both appreciation and critique.
IP: The first main section of the book is focussed on the question of hermeneutics, and chapter headings include reference to the imagination and to metaphor. Why are these so critical in thinking about the use of the New Testament in ethics? What does that tell us about the nature of the New Testament?
C, N & T: The New Testament doesn’t envisage every single ethical dilemma. Indeed, as a collection of texts inspired by God in and through human authors and human history, it cannot function as a comprehensive directory of ethical issues – nor is it supposed to. Instead, it offers a combination of clear rules (some of which may or may not apply directly, depending on the context in which they are expressed in Scripture), principles which guide decision making, and then lived paradigms of moral behaviour (in Jesus supremely; but also in other biblical characters – though as they are sinful, they are not always good examples!), and in the moral universe which it envisages and to some extent constructs for us and invites us to inhabit.
The hard work of interpretation – and with it a healthy dose of well-trained imagination – is therefore required to get from Scripture to how we live. Imagination and metaphor-making are therefore absolutely fundamental to faithful living. This is not to undermine or ignore the authority of Scripture, but it is to recognize that ethics is wider than deontology (rules) and authority is broader than a classic ‘commandment-only’ model allows.
IP: The second section is shaped by the New Testament’s own ethical priorities. Can we treat ‘love’ and ‘resurrection’ as elements of this—or should we think of them as controlling? And why is ‘endurance’ so important in NT ethics?
C, N & T: One major criticism of Hays’ book was the fact he didn’t choose ‘love’ as one of his focal images. He defended this decision in the book, and in a chapter written not long before he died. His argument centred on two main points: love is not in fact consistently emphasized across all of the New Testament (this doesn’t mean some texts oppose love, simply that they don’t focus on it in their ethical themes); and perhaps more significantly, that the concept of ‘love’ in and of itself runs the danger of being a wax nose – able to be twisted this way or that, unless it is given fixed form by other ethical focal images. Yet love is such a hugely important theme for John’s Gospel that Elizabeth Corsar’s chapter argues it does have a place, and is integrally linked with mission for John. One could integrate love into Hays’ model by recognizing that it drives redemption and new creation, and that it shapes community.
The theme of ‘resurrection’ is closely linked to Hays’ focal image of ‘new creation’, but it emphasizes an important point: God’s work of new creation has begun and will reach its completion in the person of Christ; it is not merely a creational or cosmological image but fundamentally a christological one. Andy Boakye further argues that this personal aspect of new creation implies a radical equality amongst humanity – so it has implications for community as well.
As for endurance, this surfaces particularly in Amy Peeler’s chapter on Hebrews, a text which Hays largely sidelines in his book. Endurance or perseverance is a virtue which is closely linked to both faith and hope. It is a call to courage and to patience. Like love it cuts across the focal images Hays chooses, reminding us that mutual encouragement to keep going is fundamental to community, suffering is part of carrying our cross as we follow Jesus, and the new creation is still some way off thus necessitating patient endurance in the present.
IP: The third section is more focussed on five ethical questions that dominate current discussion. Why did you pick these five? How well do they match NT concerns?
C, N & T: Hays chose five issues in order to demonstrate how to handle a range of issues where the biblical material differs in extent and clarity. We wanted to cover issues that Hays had not treated extensively, with two criteria: issues that had become more pressing in the decades since Hays wrote (sexual ethics in the church, loneliness, ethnicity, the ecological crisis), or issues on which the New Testament has a lot to say (wealth and again ethnicity).
The New Testament has very little indeed to say about care for the environment, and its authors knew nothing of the human-caused damage to our world that we have inflicted in the past couple of hundred years and are just waking up to. Much Christian reflection starts (and sometimes ends!) with the command to steward creation in Genesis 1–2. Yet Cherryl Hunt argues for the cosmic scope of community and of Christ’s redemption, and points to the positive eschatological destiny of non-human creation.
On the issue of wealth, by contrast, the New Testament has a lot to say, and it is not comfortable reading! John Barclay makes a strong case for a consistent ‘deep challenge’ throughout the New Testament: to those who have more than they need to live on (i.e., more than subsistence level, which is the vast majority of us in the modern West), wealth is a spiritual danger. It is entangled with injustice, it is an encumbrance, and the best thing to do with it is to share in God’s gift-giving by distributing it. Now, much has been written on wealth ethics and there are positive things that can be said about wealth as well as different perspectives from Barclay’s. But any reading that entirely defuses the clear challenge that recurs throughout the New Testament runs the risk of explaining away rather than explaining and faithfully applying it.
IP: There are two chapters on the question of sexual ethics, and this was clearly key given what appeared to be Hay’s own change in his position. The first chapter on this seems to view Hay’s change of mind as compatible with his earlier position—though others (including a contributor to the book in another chapter!) see a marked discontinuity here. Has Hays left us a mixed legacy on this question?
C, N & T: Originally we hadn’t planned to address these questions in this volume. But Hays’ publication of The Widening of God’s Mercy with his son (and Old Testament scholar) Christopher B. Hays in 2024 changed that. In the new book, Hays Sr does not change his view on what the key biblical texts mean, but he does change his mind to argue for the acceptance of faithful same-sex relationships as compatible with biblical ethics.
In the light of this new book, we gave all contributors the chance to engage with it and a few did so, where it was relevant to their topics. We also invited Walter Moberly to contribute a chapter comparing the hermeneutical moves in the original Moral Vision chapter and the new Widening Mercy book. That chapter is a tour de force which discerns the very different contexts, tones, and approaches of Hays Sr and Hays Jr within the later book.
It would also be fair to say that Widening Mercy poses quite a stark question to Hays’ methodology: if it can deliver opposite results on one of the touchstone ethical debates of our day, is it in fact a serviceable method at all? We would suggest that the differences remain instructive. As noted, Hays does not change his opinion on the meaning of the biblical texts which remain clear and consistent in his view. The change therefore lies in other parts of his method, namely the role of experience (he met and got to know Christians in same-sex relationships in his church) and the role of analogy and metaphor-making (Hays came to think gentile inclusion does work as an analogy, whereas he considered and rejected it in Moral Vision).
So has Hays left a mixed legacy on sexuality? In his own views, absolutely; but in his model, one can go back and evaluate the role of exegesis, experience, and analogy, and come to a reasoned conclusion as to how effectively he navigates those in the earlier chapter and in the later book.
IP: In the final analysis, can we still make good use of Moral Vision? Or do we need to qualify its status in contemporary discussion?
C, N & T: Moral Vision is still a key point of reference, and rightly features in the bibliographies of ethics and biblical ethics courses. Indeed, our book New Testament Ethics shows and contributes to its ongoing importance. Moral Vision was not the final word in biblical ethics, but Hays never intended that it should be. (Though—as Luke Timothy Johnson notes in his foreword—Hays never really changed his mind on the basic structure of his ethical approach even when challenged or responding to critical interactions!) It was rather intended, in Hays’ words, ‘to start a conversation rather than end one’. In that respect, it should not be wheeled out as a perfect method or blueprint for doing ethics, nor should the five chapters on specific issues be taken as definitive statements. Instead, it should be used and engaged with appropriate critical care.
In the final analysis, the point of doing ethics is not to talk about it but to live it. It seems fitting to end with the final words of our introductory chapter:
The task of biblical scholarship is always hard work; yet it pales in comparison to the challenge presented by the contents of these essays. As the project of publishing this volume draws near to its end with our writing of this introductory chapter, we are deeply aware that we have only just begun the more important task of learning to live lives that faithfully reflect the moral vision of the New Testament.
IP: Thank you for this fascinating volume—and for this discussion!
Cherryl Hunt (PhD, theology, University of Exeter) teaches at Spiritus Theological College (formerly South West Ministry Training Course), which offers theological education and ministerial training programs validated by Durham University.
Nicholas J Moore (DPhil, New Testament, University of Oxford) serves as the warden of Cranmer Hall, an evangelical Anglican theological college within St John’s College, Durham University.
Timothy J Murray (PhD, New Testament, University of Nottingham) serves as pastor of Amblecote Community Church.
I haven’t read Hays, but surely you get ethics/morality from those parts of the written laws of Moses that govern interpersonal relations? Christ was sent from heaven to help believers obey those laws better, and that is why the NT is about grace rather than law. For this I recommend the law lecturer (and Christian) Jonathan Burnside’s book “God, Justice and Society”, and Christopher Wright’s book “Old Testament Ethics for the People of God”.
Anthony,
You declare that “Christ was sent from heaven to help believers obey these laws (Mosaic) better.”
Could you please elaborate what you mean by this?And secondly: by declaring that “the NT is about grace rather than law”, are you implying by this that the reverse is true in the OT?
Chris Wright in the treatise quoted begins with a*theological*analysis . In this, he asserts that (a) God did not reveal his law to Moses at the burning bush. He goes on to say that God first redeemed Israel from slavery, then made his redemptive covenant with them. The law was to be their response of “grateful obedience”.
No and No, Colin. I think it’s sufficiently clear what I mean. And I’m well aware of grace in eg Genesis 15:6.
Based on your regular contributions to this blogsite Anthony, I am well aware of your covenantal insights and am highly supportive of your theological stances.
However, I’m puzzled by the general drift of your second sentence; in particular to “Christ being sent to help believers obey these laws -better”.
OK, delete the word ‘better’. Is that clearer? All I meant by better is ‘more often’ since these laws relate to situations we find ourselves in regularly.
I think that just considering ethical issues in interpersonal relations is too restrictive. There are broader arenas for ethical issues.
Then there is the important point made in the article that the Scriptures, let alone the Mosaic Law, cannot provide an answer for every ethical dilemma. Therefore, the hard work of exegesis and hermeneutics etc. needs to be done.
Interestingly, Jonathan Sachs in his “Covenant and Conversation” volume about Genesis speaks of this first book of the Pentateuch as being about “how to live”. Genesis is entirely narrative.
Unbelievable. Christian ethics can safely ignore the New Testament and just stick to Leviticus and Deuteronomy?
Why do you think Jewish and Christian ethics can have such sharp differences? Dennis Prager is quite good at explaining this: pointing out that in Jewish ethics, choosing celibacy is actually a sin (obviously not true at all in Christian ethics), and Jewish ethics is concerned with actions rather than thoughts (e.g. there is no adultery of the heart – it is not the thought that is the essence, but the deed). Do Prager and other modern Jews just not understand the laws of Moses properly?
As far as I am aware, Judaism does not accept the theology of the ‘Fall’, though I stand to be corrected.
But what about the ethics of the Decalogue as it spans both testaments and follows on from the theology and integral ethics of the Exodus, which again continues through the New, a constituent of sanctification, holiness?
Neither does Orthodox Christianity in the Augustinian sense.
If you want to distort what I said and take issue with the result, that has nothing to do with me.
If choosing celibacy is a sin in Judaism, (1) where is that in the Pentateuch (distinct from extrabiblical tradition); and (2) what does that make Jesus?
Prager also thinks that pornography isn’t sinful. This has appalled many Christians who are otherwise his political and cultural allies. If he doesn’t understand what ‘thou shalt not covet’ means, his grasp of Mosaic ethics is pretty shaky. There are many condemnations of sinful thoughts in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. If modern Jewish ethics doesn’t recognise this, so much the worse. But I think the flaw lies with Prager, not modern Jewish ethics,
If nothing else, Prager ought to consider how pornography gets made and what the revenue stream fuels.
Yes, exactly, though why offer him an option of ‘nothing else’, especially in such circumstances?
I am glad (but not surprised) to read that Denny Burk in ‘Word’ April 25, 2023 demolishes Prager’s completely mistaken grasp of the Ten Commandments (against coveting your neighbour’s wife) as well as amplifying Anthony’s point, that pornography is created by encouraging immoral, self-destructive behaviour. Surprised that Adam thinks Prager is “quite good” at expounding Jewish ethics. He isn’t- he’s poor at it. Of course Prager wants to contradict Jesus on adultery (and all other sins) in the heart. That is the worst kind of externalistic legalism, that thoughtful Jews would repudiate.
He sounds like the most extraordinary person to be citing at all, given that the world is full of wise and moral academics.
Cut him some slack, chaps. Prager wrote this excellent essay about what he called Judaism’s sexual revolution:
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/judaisms-sexual-revolution-judaism-christianity-rejected-homosexuality
It opens as follows:
When Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage [between man and woman], it changed the world. The Torah’s prohibition of non-marital sex quite simply made the creation of Western civilization possible. Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity. This revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of love and eroticism within marriage), and began the arduous task of elevating the status of women. It is probably impossible for us, who live thousands of years after Judaism began this process, to perceive the extent to which undisciplined sex can dominate man’s life and the life of society…
It’s easier today after 60 years of the disastrous sexual revolution. If only feminists understood whence came the freedom that they abuse! The essay has a good deal to say about homosexuality.
Indeed. Gentiles have never been bound by the Mosaic covenant and nor are Xians, cf. Acts 15.
Not as simple as that, methinks. Consider how Paul frequently refers to the Ten Commandments in his letters to Gentile and Jewish Christians. The primary question (which is more an argument from silence) is whether the sabbath commandment is binding on Christians.
Of course not. Some of the laws are moral precepts which we, as Christians (and probably most atheists), follow. But we are not bound by a whole Mosaic code, as Paul states in Galatians (essentially agreeing with Acts 15).
I have no idea what followers of Elon Musk believe.
Or people in Shaanxi province.
Mosaic Law was a constitution given to ancient Israel. It contains the only code of law given by God to humanity, and its laws governing interpersonal relations show how God intends man (and woman) to behave. What do you understand by ‘precedent’, Penelope?
Sorry, I didn’t understand your question.
Do New Testament ethics stand alone?
While I’ve not read Hays book that is reviewed, I have his, Reading Backwards which seems to identify numerous OT allusions.
So where is the continuity and discontinuity to be found.
And, I, for one, do not find an ethical equivalence of Gentile inclusion (which is predicated on the transformative change brought about by and in the Gospel of Jesus within the Trinity of God) with sexual ethics inclusion.
Is there any discussion about the Christological, ethics of Cross on the both vertical and horizontal levels, in its all encompassing aspects, of sin, substitution, justice, judgement, redemptive, relational, legal and supremely, love, jointly and severally?
And here is an article, abstract considering the ethics of sin, sin as power; O’Donovan is mentioned in contrast:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09539468241235048
As another poster observed, “scriptures…cannot provide an answer for every ethical dilemma. Therefore, the hard work of exegesis and hermeneutics etc. needs to be done.”
I guess. But that hard work of analysis and interpretation (in jargon-free English) is whence mischief has often, and provably, come. The article admits that even the original author changed his own views over the years, meaning that at one point he was possibly correct but at another point logically wrong. Which view was, if not absolutely right, less wrong, the earlier one or the later one? What has happened within biblical criticism over the past century should be a cautionary tale.
Interesting version of Matt 5.11 in your spurious AI-Bible picture!
I am intrigued.
How does one acquire a “well trained imagination“ ?
That the authors posited.
“The hard work of interpretation – and with it a healthy dose of well-trained imagination – is therefore required to get from Scripture to how we live”.
Imagination spreads its wings
And soars where none have flown;
It pictures worlds and fashions dreams,
And claims them for its own.
But faith must find a firmer ground
Than fancy can provide;
It hears the Word, and, trusting Him,
Steps out where He shall guide.
Imagination helps us see
What promises may mean;
But faith trusts in the One who speaks,
Though nothing yet is seen.
So let imagination soar,
But let God’s Word be true;
For faith is not the dream we make,
But trust in Him who makes it new.
A.I.
I am intrigued.
How does one acquire a “well trained imagination“ ?
That the authors posited.
“The hard work of interpretation – and with it a healthy dose of well-trained imagination – is therefore required to get from Scripture to how we live”.
A decade ago the term “Moral Compass” was flavour of the month, resulting in many authors delving into the subject.
One such book was by Kenan Malik “The Quest For A Moral Compass” [A Global History of Ethics ] perhaps prompting religious Academics
to explore morals and ethics, principally in the New Testament.
Why restricted to just the NT?
God from the beginning shows Himself to be a Moral and ethical God. He chose a nation and gave them a moral compass to live by so that they may be a “Light to the Nations” [ See Solomon and the visit of the Queen of Sheba]
Subsequently they “forgot God and refused to retain him in their minds [imaginations?]
Along came Jesus who lived and endorsed the moral compass and enlarged on it in the sermon on the Mount to
emphasis how we think precedes how we act as of greater import
.[As a man thinks so he is]
The authors quote Hays as saying –
“It was rather intended, in Hays’ words, ‘to start a conversation rather than end one’. In that respect, it should not be wheeled out as a perfect method or blueprint for doing ethics, nor should the five chapters on specific issues be taken as definitive statements. Instead, it should be used and engaged with appropriate critical care…..
“we are deeply aware that we have only just begun the more important task of learning to live lives that faithfully reflect the moral vision of the New Testament.
As James pointed out Hays flipped his “moral compass” to “Love is God” which is the correct compass? Is Hays thereby an
“author of confusion” ?
Sufficient for now. Shalom.
What or who constitutes our Moral Compass? A compass is a means of detecting magnetic North the Lode – Stone the known, known, reliable and from which all else can be determined.
Christ urges us to “Follow Him”. Paul exhorts “Follow me for I follow Christ. The overcomers of the 144,000 “Follow the Lamb wheresoever He goes”, who loved not their lives unto death”.
Following the Lamb, what might that mean?
John’s “Behold the Lamb of God”.
Jesus is primarily God’s Lamb prepared and slain before even the cosmos was established, before He became our slain lamb.
To cut this post short;
What does Following the Lamb mean practically ?
Tom Austin-Sparks in his book “ Followers of the Lamb”Chapter 3 – The Pathway of the Lamb has ;-
[ The Lamb] be – seeing that it belongs to God, seeing that it came from God, seeing that it was conceived in the heart of God. He associated certain ideas and ideals, standards and ways, a certain nature, with His creation, and He has a right to all that, and His rights have been taken from Him. He is not having His rights in man’s nature and in man’s life, in the world and in the creation, since that interference, since that terrible diversion from God.
The Lamb of God, God’s Lamb, as the very first thing in His work, recovers and establishes the rights of God.
God has the right to absolute, unquestioning submission.
That right has been taken from Him, and we know – oh, we know so well; it is the very plague of our hearts – how in our very constitution there is that lack of submission to God.
What difficulties, what battles, what agonies, we go through in coming into absolute submission to God. It is our nature – it is not our deliberate, conscious insubordination, rebellion or will against God, but it is there in spite of ourselves, in spite of all our desires; it is there, this unmanageable something that is in the very nature of the creation which does not submit to God.
Utter and immediate obedience to God – that is His right; and disobedience is the very nature of man, it is shot through this universe. Selfhood – we call it selfishness; it is selfhood. It would take a long time to try to compass the whole round of self-aspects.
The Lamb – the very designation, the very word, the very idea, is the opposite of all that – it is the very picture of submission, obedience, selflessness.
God gets His rights of submission, obedience, selflessness, in the One known as the Lamb.
The Lamb Laying Down His Soul
In Him as the Lamb, as we have previously said, we can so clearly see the complete reversal of the whole course of fallen nature, the thought of God for man recovered, humanity reconstituted on another principle – that of the Lamb; a changed nature. It is not our nature to lay down our lives. Remember that that very phrase about laying down the life can equally well be translated “we ought to lay down our souls for the brethren” (1 John 3:16).
We sometimes use the word “life” in that connection so that it means what, of course, it is meaning for many today on this earth – just dying a martyr’s death, laying down our life for the gospel of Christ in a single act.
But laying down our soul is a lifelong act, an everyday act, a thing which challenges our very disposition, yes, our constitution, for we are immediately affected and influenced by how men of this world will think.
They will say it is meek, weak, namby-pamby – you ought to stand up for your rights, you ought to fight for your ends; that is the way of the world. Take a view of the world today and see what that is producing.
But the Lamb laid down His soul.
When He was reviled, He suffered it, He endured it, He answered nothing. “As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth” (Is. 53:7).
That takes some doing, that represents a strength that is not in you and in me naturally.
We have another nature. You say that is weak? I say there is no strength like it. You do not know what strength is until you can stand right up against the whole nature of this world and its judgments and standards and take the opposite view and the opposite course. He did that.
That is the Lamb, laying down His soul.
To say to these feelings of ours, these uprisings of our souls, these strong hot feelings, these resentful feelings – to say to them, now then, you get down, you stay under – that sometimes means a real battle when you are taking everything into account, as to what it is going to involve of cost for the time being, until God vindicates that attitude.
“Behold the Lamb”; follow the Lamb. The way of the Lamb may be the way of the Cross and the crucifixion of the natural life continually, but the end of that way is the throne, and the throne is not some merely geographical scene or spot.
Do not interpret thrones in the Bible literally. It may not interest you at all to sit upon a literal throne – it does not interest me – but to come to a place of spiritual ascendency where there are values, where there is wealth, where there are riches, dignity, strength, honour { One might add power and authority over the Nations }
and glory to be dispensed to others, that is something,
that is the throne – the end of the course of the Lamb, the way of the Cross”. that is the role,direction of New Testament ethics… Shalom.
I think there is an unfolding revelation of the moral vision of Scripture, but it is aligned with what was before. There is much more continuity than discontinuity in Scripture. Jesus claims to and does correctly interpret Torah/Tanakh contra his opponents in the debates recorded in the Gospels. Paul, Peter, etc. claim to follow Jesus and do so, as I understand them, but the point is that they are aligned with Jesus in his way of understanding their Scriptures. It seems to me the question assumes more discontinuity than I think is the case. Thoughts?
The whole discussion is centred around ethical living, how to live as a good Christian. But this is, to a large extent already written on the human heart and mind, which our sinful nature is well able to obscure. There is nothing at all about (a) making people aware of their sinnerhood and leading people to repentance and (b) the joy and humility characteristic of the repentant heart that come (simultaneously) from understanding what Christ did for us on the cross at Calvary (i.e. the bit that links ‘do not worry …’ in the Sermon on the Mount with an ethical teaching that is too high and too hard for anyone other than Jesus).
Ah, Jock, you have just hit on the nature of the game we are playing, a sort of Spiritual SuperTetris. We all appear here as different shaped entities drifting down the screen, trying to fit in by rotating our points of view. You come along and fill in the last vacant square, and… POOF. The line is complete and disappears. We all do this in fellowship. As soon as Jesus is mentioned… poof… we start a new discussion. This is only natural, unless we all met in person, for some real reason.
You are absolutely right Steve, and I for one admit complicity. At this stage, and as an act of worship beckons, I would make three brief point regarding the topic : Christian ethics has its origins in the OT, Christian ethics is rooted in the historical process and finally, Christian ethics is relational; insights which Jock has highlighted above.
Blessings,
CMcC