"The Climax of the Covenant"

This afternoon I finished the latest book on my parade through N.T. Wright: "Climax of the Covenant." It was a great book, a collection of essays on various subjects, most within the realm of Pauline studies regarding Christ and the Jewish law. In all honesty I didn't read all of the essays (some just didn't pique my interest), but those that I read were pretty informative. Detailed, almost to a humdrum point, but informative nonetheless. I find that I enjoy studying the meta-narratives of Christianity rather than the intricate details, and sometimes I find myself burdened--perhaps a better word would be bored?--by the intricacies. Quite frankly, I'm not knowledgeable enough or determined enough to study the minute details of various Greek words in their various forms and how they relate to the overall whole of the passage. It's important, yes, but I leave that to men and women more schooled than I am. Some of the more interesting points made (in the essays I read) are as follows:

The Curse of the Law. The essay on Galatians 3.10-14 took the interpretation in a route I had only heard of but never studied, namely the idea that the curse spoken of is the curse of exile, and building on various Old Testament covenantal echoes (Deuteronomy 27-30, Leviticus 18, Habakkuk 2 and, most importantly, Genesis 15) Paul sketches a picture of exile reaching a climax on the cross and thus restoration the other side of exile being inaugurated, "proven" in a sense by the inclusion of Gentiles in the Abrahamic promise as God always envisaged and the arrival of the Spirit. 

Adam: The True Humanity. I'm going to be looking into this further, but N.T. Wright makes the claim that "Adam" signified, at least in Jewish thought from the redaction of Genesis to the days of Jesus, as evidenced in intertestamental literature, humanity. Israel was viewed as the "last Adam" in the sense that she was God's true humanity. Jesus is comparable to Adam in the sense that he was and is what Adam failed to be, namely, God's true Man. And the church, if my speculation runs the right direction, ought to be viewed as God's true humanity, albeit imperfect and failing, and that glorification--as I've suspected--involves the restoration of human beings to their true and intended place as flourishing image-bearers (true, restored human beings).

Romans 9-11. Needless to say, N.T. Wright does an excellent exegesis of Romans 9-11. I wrote about this in an earlier post, so I won't go into depth. Wright mostly tackles head-on the idea popular within some Christian theologies that Jews are saved by virtue of their ethnicity and being the people of God. Wright argues a hotheaded "NO!" and shows through Romans 9-11, with the backing-up of the rest of the New Testament, how this thought is flawed.

The Burden of the Law. One of the reasons the Law couldn't "save" was because the Law was intended to guard Israel as a child as she was on her way to the fulfillment of God's Abrahamic promises. God gave the Law to keep Israel from assimilating into the pagan nations all around her. It was given to keep her solidified up to the point where the Law would reach its climax (the Messiah). The Jews, however, embraced this law as their national charter in the sense that it was their pride: it distinguished them from all the Gentile sinners. And in this pride in the law came about the inability for the Abrahamic promises to be fulfilled; that which enclosed the Jews also kept out the Gentiles. The Messiah deals with this on the cross, and he is the "climax of the covenant," "the end of the law." He is what the Law pointed to all along and his work on the cross and subsequent resurrection is the first stage of God's fulfillment to Abraham back in Genesis 12, 15, and 18.

Now I'm going to finish "After You Believe" (I was halfway through it when I engaged in "Climax of the Covenant", and from there who knows).