NT Wright for Dummies – a ten point bluffer’s guide (seriously)

… well, almost completely seriously. Yesterday I posted a quick flippant comment (which I accidentally deleted when I went to edit it!) on Nijay Gupta’s idea of producing an Idiot’s Guide to NT Wright. The speed with which a number of readers took a look at it made me think it might be worth doing a more-or-less pithy summary along the lines of those “Part of Tens” appendices that come at the end the “For Dummies” books.

So here it is, ten words to help you bluff your way through any Tom Wright orientated conversation.

1. Jewish. Christianity is a reboot of Jewish monotheism. The New Testament is a Jewish book. Christianity is Jewish. Jesus is Jewish and Paul is Jewish. It isn’t a new story but is the continuation of the old story that goes back to creation and fall.
2. Election. Israel is called to be God’s answer to the problem of Adam, a new beginning in the world. Israel has a vocation from God at which she repeatedly fails, until, in the person of her true King, Messiah Jesus, she is finally able to recapitulate the life of humanity in obedience instead of failure.
3. Exile. Israel in Jesus’ day is still in exile, despite being back in the land. The land is not fairly and justly ruled in freedom by God’s kingly ruler. There is oppression and injustice. There is exile on every page of the New Testament however hard you have to look for it, and the announcement by John and Jesus of God’s forgiveness is the proclamation of Second Isaiah that the exile has ended.
4. Curse. The most important verses in the Old Testament for understanding the Gospel are the closing chapters of Deuteronomy, and especially the fact the covenant comes with blessings and curses. Israel needs to accept that she is in exile, that only God can set her free, and that the law’s curses must be accepted in penitence. Messiah Jesus, precisely because he is God’s anointed, can do this on her behalf, and because Israel is meant to represent humanity, he can also do so on behalf of all people. He fulfils this vocation by a death which also proclaims him cursed.
5. Nationalism. One of the ways in which Israel has failed to live up to the calling to be a renewed humanity is her national pride, wanting to see herself as top dog among the nations rather than God’s means of blessing all of them. So her leaders cannot recognise Jesus as God’s Messiah because he won’t overthrow the Romans, and instead they embark on the disastrous course of choosing human means to try to do the same. The same level of national pride means that Jews use the Law as badge to keep themselves apart and different, and seek to claim its blessing for themselves rather than to share them. The Law as a national boundary marker prevents them from fulfilling their vocation.
6. Vindication. God reveals himself as the one who is just and merciful by rescuing the oppressed, vindicating the victim of injustice, and bringing life where there was death and nothingness, so he raises Jesus from the dead. In that moment God’s proclamation declares the law is fulfilled, its curses emptied, and its blessings now focussed on Jesus, the one who has put Adam and Israel back on the track of obedience.
7. Justification. All the language of the Bible about justification has to be understood in the light of this one single act of vindication. Talk of imputation and impartation are equally nonsense. God is putting right what is wrong in people and in the world. We need to accept his judgement on ourselves and others, Jews and Gentiles alike, and learn to live with each other as one new family made by God.
8. Gospel. God’s new world has started because the crucified Christ has been proclaimed king, and those who look to the vindicated Jesus as the focus of God’s saving justice can begin to receive the same vindication and blessing, and live the same life of obedience. The experience of God’s Spirit confirms to them that they belong to God’s new world, and they must live as agents of change in this one.
9. Metaphor. None of the language of the end of the world in the Bible is meant to describe a real end of the world, only the cosmic scope of what God is doing in restoring Israel, and bringing her back from the exile of injustice to the inheritance of a freed and redeemed creation.
10. Resurrection. Because all the end of the world language is a metaphor for cosmic renewal of the one and the same creation as the one we’re living in, resurrection doesn’t mean an escape from this world. That’s why the tomb is empty, because it’s a transformation of this world. Any existence as a disembodied spirit is a temporary state, and bodies is what it’s all about. That’s why social action is as much a mark of the redeemed as evangelism. It’s not about disembodied life after death; it’s about embodied life after “life after death”.

Here ends the bluffer’s guide to NT Wright. Now, all the experts will come and tear it apart, but if all else fails, then a random muttering of the words or phrases “Election”, “Exile”, “Curse” and “Life after life after death” should allow you to sound as though you know what you’re talking about.

Tagged as: Tom Wright