I continue The Resurrection of the Son of God in Chapter 12, pp. 553-83. This chapter finishes Part 3 on the non-Gospel and non-Pauline writings on resurrection in the first couple of centuries. This chapter emphasizes that early Christian hope was grounded in the resurrection of Jesus—it is this reality that provided the foundation from which early Christians began to expand their understanding of the Old Testament.
Wright opens the chapter by quoting Peter in Acts 2:36: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah. (p. 553)
We read past Peter’s statement almost without thinking—taking it for granted. But for a first-century Jew living in Roman times, this is an impossible statement. A crucified person is both Lord and Messiah?! What kind of nonsense is this!? This is precisely the point Wright is trying to press throughout this book and brings home in this chapter. Something had to occur in order for this statement to make sense.
As we have seen from the early parts of this book, bodily resurrection is a thoroughly Jewish belief—but, the belief was in the one-time general resurrection at the end of the age. What was unexpected—not even remotely imagined—is an ‘early’ resurrection of a single individual, even less that this individual would be the Messiah! But here is Peter making this very outlandish claim!
So the real question is how? How did the earliest Christians come to a belief that Jesus was the Messiah? Why would any Jew consider a crucified person to be the Messiah? How can Peter say this? Crucifixion indicated failure—that one was in fact not the Messiah. The Messiah was to defeat the oppressors, cleanse or rebuild the temple, and establish the kingdom (p. 557). At least a dozen other messiah figures in two centuries around Jesus had died, and with them, their movements. A dead messiah was no messiah. What could possibly have caused the early Christians to believe so strongly that Jesus was, despite his death, the Messiah?
It is the resurrection, Wright argues (p. 563). The resurrection of Jesus makes the Messiah claim coherent.
How does an early Christian get to the belief that Jesus is Lord? Wright notes just a few of the passages from Ps. 2, 72, 89, Is. 11, 42, and Da. 7 (pp. 564-5)—passages that the New Testament quotes in various places in reference to Jesus. But, if Jesus is Lord, then how was it that Caesar was able to crucify Him? Quite the contrary, being crucified leads to serious questions about one’s lordship! Again, the resurrection provides the answer. While both the Jewish and Roman leadership pronounced Jesus ‘guilty’ and put him to death, God the Father declared him innocent by the resurrection (Ro. 1:3).
The attentive reader may notice the text of Ro. 1:3 actually says that God declared Jesus ‘the son of God.’ If we take an events-as-they-happen historical approach to how the disciples would have thought about Jesus (pp. 571-8), the first meaning for a first-century Jew of ‘son of god’ is that of Israel. God calls Israel his son (Ex. 4:22). Then, it is the king who is ‘adopted’ by God as son (2 Sam. 7:14; Ps. 2:7-8). Likewise, for Rome, the emperor was considered to be the ‘son of the divine.’ As the apostles reflect on what Jesus said and did and read the Old Testament further, they became aware that not only was Jesus the son of god (king), but He is the Son of God (divine)! The mystery is uncovered and revealed with much greater depth.
Some prophecies work this way; for example, Isaiah foretells that a woman (his wife) will conceive and before his son is old enough to judge good and evil, the enemies of the king of Israel will be defeated (Is. 7:14-16). This is fulfilled in 8:3ff. But Matthew picks this up in Mt. 1:22-23 as a prophecy of the Messiah. In other words, the prophecy has a larger scope.
Wright finishes the chapter by applying his worldview model of praxis, symbol, stories, and questions. The early Christians lived differently, with new symbols, stories, and answers to the questions (Who are we, Where are we, What’s wrong, What’s the solution?). He will now move to reading the Gospel stories of the resurrection in the next part of the book.