We continue in chapter 8 of Jesus and the Victory of God (pp. 320-68) to complete the stories of the kingdom, focused on judgment and vindication. Jesus “reinterprets a standard Jewish belief (the coming judgment which would fall on the nations) in terms of a coming judgment which would fall on impenitent Israel.” (p. 323, emphasis original) This coming judgment, when it occurs, would constitute a vindication of Jesus’ claims.
For a Jew in the first century, this would be appalling. Israel is supposed to be God’s chosen people and they await a Messiah who will rescue them from the Gentile nations. Instead, Jesus says that God is going to bring in His kingdom another way, by redefining Israel (p. 327). Those who are in, especially those at the top and in leadership, will be out. Those who continue with the traditional expectations of the Messiah, and the nationalistic ambitions of Israel, will experience judgment and destruction (p. 336). The Gentile nations will once again be used by God to judge Israel as a vindication of Jesus the Messiah’s claims! This should ring various bells of the Old Testament, as God used Assyria and Babylon to judge Israel and Judea for their disobedience. It is the same pattern. A prophet warns of coming judgment if Israel does not repent, a judgment that will be carried out by—gasp!—the heathen nations (hello Habakkuk). The temple will be destroyed. The land will be desolate. But in the ultimate twist of the story, this destruction is the vindication of the Messiah. This will be a sign that God’s kingdom is being established!
Wright goes on to quote at length from the Old Testament to show that the passages in Mark 13 and Matthew 24 are not about a future ‘return’ of the Messiah, but instead the predicted vindication of the Messiah when Jerusalem and the temple are destroyed (i.e., a prediction of A.D. 70). This was a surprise to me, but the interpretation finally harmonized all of the pieces that had never made sense. How can this current generation not pass away until these things take place (Mt. 24:34) when Jesus has not yet returned? The critical element is that Jesus is speaking in apocalyptic imagery, which should not be taken literally. The prophets often used great changes in heavenly bodies (sun darkening, stars falling) as a way to convey the gravity of earthly events. The destruction of Jerusalem and its temple would be as if the sun was darkened and the stars fell. “When Jerusalem is destroyed, and Jesus’ people escape from the ruin just in time, that will be YHWH becoming king, bringing about the liberation of his true covenant people, the true return from exile, the beginning of the new world order.” (p. 364, emphasis original) Wright notes that the coming of the Son of Man (Mt. 24:30-31) is a reference to Daniel 7, where the Son of Man comes into heaven to receive his kingship—it is the beginning of God’s kingdom. In fact, the precise reason the current generation cannot pass away until these things take place is because it is the final generation: “once the father has sent the son to the vineyard, he can send nobody else. To reject the son is to reject the last chance.” (p. 365) Jesus is the final prophet.
First-century Israel expected the kingdom to be brought via the sword when the Messiah appeared. Quite the contrary, Jesus asserts to his followers that “No mistaken sense of loyalty must sway them into trying to bring the kingdom… by means of the sword.” (p. 359) When Jerusalem rebels, the true people of God must flee, because it is not the way of the Messiah.
Does this mean that the Matt/Mark passages should not be read as the second coming of Jesus? There is often a double fulfillment with prophetic passages—think of the Isaiah 7 prediction of a virgin conceiving a son—fulfilled in Isaiah 8, but also picked up by Matthew as a fulfillment in Mt. 1:23. These secondary fulfillments are obvious in retrospect. Perhaps the Matt/Mark passages will be seen as a double prophecy. But for now, it is unknown.
In the next chapter, Wright turns to a lengthy investigation on symbols and the controversy surrounding them. I’ll cover that in the next post.
Chapter 1: Jesus Then and Now
Chapter 2: Heavy Traffic on Wredebahn: The ‘New Quest’ Renewed
Chapter 3: Back to the Future: The ‘Third Quest’
Chapter 4: Prodigals and Paradigms
Chapter 5: The Praxis of a Prophet
Chapter 6: Stories of the Kingdom (1): Announcement
Chapter 7: Stories of the Kingdom (2)
Chapter 8: Stories of the Kingdom (3): Judgment and Vindication
Chapter 9: Symbol and Controversy
Chapter 10: The Questions of the Kingdom
Chapter 11: Jesus and Israel: The Meaning of Messiahship
Chapter 12: The Reasons for Jesus’ Crucifixion
Chapter 13: The Return of the King
Chapter 14: Results