N.T. Wright - The Cross and Tomorrow's Church and World

yeah I was going to refer to handle as well but that's that's been done so maybe I won't I could talk about Philippines too a great deal Philippians 2 has the poem that he that Christ was in the in Christ did not regard his equality with God as something to take advantage of but emptied himself and became that took the form of a servant was born in the likeness of humans and died the death of the cross that poem is worth studying in great detail and Philippians 2 verse 8 fana to do sorrow even the death of the cross is it's a wonderful piece of poetry because that line the death of the cross sits right in the middle the poem builds up with with stanzas three stanzas either side three lines each time and then the death of the Cross sits in the middle so the poem itself is in a sense cruciform and I have sometimes speculated that whereas I think most readers of Paul have assumed that there was a theology of the Cross worked out and that somebody then put it into poetic form I sometimes wonder if it's actually the other way around that somebody trying to say something about the Cross tried this poem it might be Paul himself it might be somebody he's quoting and that actually theologies of the Cross may be a way of rationalizing what that poetic moment of genius had already glimpsed I think we academics like to assume that a thought-out version of something must be prior and then if somebody turns it into poetry or indeed music that's a kind of a secondary activity I'm not sure about that I think it may well be the other way around that's one thing that I'm not going to talk more about the other thing that I wasn't going to talk more about was was it just lawsuit about Colossians um Colossians 2 verses 13 to 15 which is about Christ disarming the principalities and powers and making a public example of them celebrating a triumph over them and that this happens through the forgiveness of sins and so again in Colossians you have this same combination it seems to permeate all of Christianity as at the Last Supper the victory over the powers the Passover movement the exodus movement the defeat of Pharaoh and his hordes all of that is accomplished through the forgiveness of sins the two must not be played off against one another and so many bits of Christianity have done that because that the whole picture is hard to keep in your head but so with that by way of preliminary I turn to Romans and you have two bits of Romans one longer one shorter on the handout that you have because as I say I knew that it be difficult for you to handle a Bible and a notebook and so on but in order to get to this let me say a couple of words by way of introduction in many quarters in both North America and Europe people when they're doing evangelism people when they're teaching new converts they take them through Romans chapters 1 to 4 and they call it something like the Romans Road you will be familiar with this phrase some of you will be the Romans Road is a way of reading Romans in which you get basically what I have called the works contract that is to say God expected us to be perfect we all failed so we were all going to die Jesus died in our place so now we're okay and we're going to heaven and then Romans 5 to 8 tells you what follows from that Romans 9 to 11 you will scratch your head and perhaps skip over and 12 to 16 tells you some I mean I've seen some extraordinary non expositions of Romans like that but the main thing is Romans one to four and how that works and as I say it is routinely said that in Romans chapter 1 verse 18 through to chapter 3 verse 20 Paul is basically saying all humans have sinned then in 3 21 to 26 he says Jesus suffered the wrath of God in our place and then thereafter it's so we're all right aren't we or words to that effect and I'm here to tell you Romans is more complicated than that I'm sorry and I know life has already got quite complicated in the last few days I was I was recalling last night talking to a group not totally unlike this one some years ago in America and after one session I said how you all doing and the lady said I'm still confused but now at a much higher level I kind of like that but I you know this is the illustration I use with my students when they say that kind of thing is that it's like doing a jigsaw puzzle if you have a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle and somebody says this looks so scary let's just throw 20 pieces out on the table and start with that and see how we go on no you are not going to solve the puzzle unless you've got all the pieces on the table and it's daunting to be faced with a thousand pieces but you're actually closer to the solution if you've got all thousand pieces on the table than if you cheat by only having twenty-five or fifty or hundred and so what I'm trying to do is give you more pieces of the puzzle my friends I'm sorry about that but I'm not sorry about it because so we need to do so there's another problem about reading Romans which is that the New International Version gets it totally wrong I noticed that n IVs are still to be found in the pews of Wickliffe Hall it's a real problem because and I've written about this and so I'm not saying anything that I haven't said in print and I haven't said to the to the people who did the newer the new NIV there's a t NIV and various different things they've got and it's to do with righteousness and justification that they insist on taking the language of righteousness within the normal works contract sense that righteousness means our moral status that we turn out not to have any of this moral status fortunately God or Christ has a lot of it and as we heard it gets imputed to us if we're in Christ or if we believe or whatever their different ways of saying it but that's basically how it works the biggest problem with that is that the phrase the righteousness of God simply doesn't me that and it comes the phrase itself the righteousness of God doesn't occur in the Old Testament but constantly in the Psalms and in Isaiah either God talks about I bring near my righteousness or something like that or other people say deliver me in your righteousness and so on and so on and so on if you do a word study on that in the Old Testament you'll see that it's God's righteousness which again and again is God's faithfulness to the Covenant and the Covenant is there I remind you what God is doing with Abraham and his family with Israel the Covenant is there to deal with the problem of Adam which is not just sin but also idolatry and not just sin and idolatry but the fact that because Adam and Eve have gone wrong God's purposes for creation aren't going forward so it isn't and people have sometimes said oh you're so fixated on the Covenant and I think what matters is were saved from sin no that's not the point the Covenant was there to deal with sin and the reason God wants to deal with our sin is not just so that we can be pals again yeah reconciliation that's important but so that we can be genuine humans taking forward his purpose for the world so you have to see that whole continuum and that's hard to hold all that in your head because we flick back into default mode and I again I've heard this with students where a student will say to me after class while I was listening to you it all made sense and as soon as I came out of the door my brain went straight back to the way I normally think yeah that's a problem we need to work on it just have to go on around the tracks until it becomes less unnatural at least so that's that's one major problem is that the phrase God's righteousness actually or the righteousness of God actually refers to the fact that God is in the right and that God is faithful to the Covenant and I will explain when we get to 3:21 in a minute how that works but before we even get there Romans chapter 1 verse 18 and following as I hinted yesterday is not simply about sin it is about idolatry the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth and idolatry remains important people are worshipping that which is not God and that is why they're humanists deconstructs that's why their image bearing this deconstructs that's why all sorts of things about what it means to be made male and female in the image of God deconstruct and so on but then there's another problem with the way that Romans is normally read and it comes at chapter 2 verse 17 you haven't got that on your sheet I was winging this because I only realized as I think about it last night it'd be very unkind if I tried to do a detailed exegesis of Romans and you none of you had it in front of you so the office very kindly put on a skirt and did this for me this morning but I'm just going to tell you what 2:17 following says because this is routinely read as Paul saying yeah the Jews may think they're an exception to this rule that all are sinned or all are sinners but in fact they're not and Jews are just as sinful as everybody else what Paul actually says goes like this 2:17 if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast of your relation to God and know his will and determine what is best because you are instructed in the law and if you're sure that you are a guide to the blind a light to those in darkness a corrector of the foolish a teacher of children having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth you then who teach others will you not teach yourself if you preach against stealing do you steal and so on and so on and so on you who boast in the law you dishonor God by breaking the law now as I say that is normally read as Paul addressing a boastful Jew who says well yeah the pagan world is full of wickedness and immorality but we Jews are not like that at all I'm certain in life and so one recent commentator Robert Jewett one of the biggest commentaries that's been written on Romans in recent times in the Herman air series he describes the Jew that Paul is addressing here as the bigot the person who thinks there's somebody special in fact they're not that is not what 2:17 is about when Paul says you're sure you're a guide to the blind a corrective for the foolish a teacher of children etc he's not saying that's wrong he's saying that's right he is echoing Isaiah 49 and other passages where the Jew isn't saying I'm an exception to the moral decline of humanity the Jew is saying Israel is the answer to the problem Paul is absolutely agreeing with that yes Israel is God called Abraham to reverse and undo the sin of Adam and its effects Paul affirms that but here's the problem the people who are bearing the message of salvation need salvation themselves so he is saying yes Jews are themselves sinful but he's not saying that all Israel steals all Israel commits adultery all Israel Rob's temples etc he's saying if when you look at Israel you can see stuff like this going on then clearly this national boast that we Israel are the solution to the problem isn't going to work run like we were saying before about the Abraham story if you just look at Abraham on his own as it were then excuse me Abraham's not such a great solution after all he may be bearing the promise but he's also instantiating the problem and here is the thing which makes the question of the righteousness of God so important when it turns out that Israel has failed which is what Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel etc etc etc also this is not Christian hindsight this is not Christians looking at the Jews and say no no no stupid you got it wrong this is Israel's own prophets saying we are in really bad shape what is God going to do is God gonna say oh well that was a kind of a plan a but since that's gone wrong we'll scrap that one and do something different and as I said yesterday substituting incarnation for election in other words God says no Israel's failed and I'll send my son instead he'll do the job no Jesus comes as Israel's Messiah to do in Israel's place what God said he would do through Israel and now you're ready to read Romans three verses 1 and 2 which is often marginalized in exegesis of Romans for the same reason as Romans 9 to 11 is marginalized it's the same set of questions what advantage has the Jew what is the value of circumcision much in every way verse 2 of chapter 3 to begin with the Jews were entrusted with the Oracles of God you see he is reaffirming Israel's vocation if I entrust you with a letter the letter isn't for you it's for the person to you to whom you're going to take it I entrust it to you so Israel has been entrusted with the Oracles of God that is the message of God for the world the good news of that the the love and grace and purposes of the creator and covenant god but what is Israel done Israel has been untrustworthy faithless in that sense not just that not that they haven't believed in God they have believed in God they believed in their God all right but they've been faithless to their Commission and the question is what will God do with that and the answer is God will be faithful even if Israel is faithless what is therefore needed is a faithful Israel who will carry forward God's covenant purposes and the question of the righteousness of God is how is God going to be faithful to his promises granted the failure of Israel in Romans 3:21 following on your sheet addresses this though even the NRSV which has got this here needs to be modified again you will see that there's a footnote verse 22 apart from the law the righteousness of God has been disclosed attested by the law and the prophets the righteousness God through faith in Jesus Christ footnote a or through the faith of Jesus Christ huge debate in the last generation about that phrase I would read it through the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah the Greek word pista s' means faith faithfulness loyalty trustworthiness all of those things the whole continuum and the point is this Jesus as Israel's Messiah the word Christ isn't a proper name it means Messiah Jesus as Israel's Messiah has been faithful to God's Israel purposes what were those Israel purposes look at Isaiah 42 55 the Psalms and you'll see the Messianic purpose which also becomes the suffering purpose the purpose that through Israel somehow that word again the evil of all the world will be brought to a point where it is finally dealt with come back to that in a moment so there is a problem about seeing 118 following as all have sinned because it's actually idolatry it's about worshipping the wrong guards there is a problem about ignoring 217 following and thinking that it's just about Jews are just as bad as everybody else Paul does say in 3:19 following yes all have sinned II repeats it in 3:23 all sinned and fall short of the glory of God but we've ignored the specific point that God's purpose was to save the world through Israel and that's what God has done in the Messiah we've also ignored what happens in Romans for I was looking in the Greek Testaments in the pews in Wickliffe this morning and that's the UBS Edition and I hate it when people put headings I've put headings in my own translation of the New Testament it's very difficult thing to do because the Bible isn't the sort of book where you can just say this bit is about this and that bit is about that in the UBS edition of the Greek New Testament it heads Romans for the example of Abraham I'm sorry Romans 4 is not about Abraham as an example of somebody who's justified by faith he is but that's trivial the point is that in Romans 4 Paul is going back to the covenant Genesis 15 God makes the covenant with Abraham which begins with him saying with Abraham saying okay what's what's my reward I believed you I followed you and said I don't have a son and an heir and God says look up at the stars and that's what your seed will be like abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness we have heard that within the works contract where we need righteousness and we don't have any and so God has a lot of it and so now that we've had faith God says okay I will account you as righteous it's not what that phrase means it means something to do with God establishing his covenant with Abraham and his seed how do I know that that's what that phrase in Genesis 15:6 means because in Psalm 106 the only other place in the whole Old Testament where that phrase occurs something reckoned to somebody as righteousness it's about Phineas do you remember Phineas Phineas is the son of Aaron who when the children of Israel and the sons of Israel are committing adultery with the daughters of Moab in the wilderness Phineas is the one who grabs a spear and goes to the tent and kills two of them the man and the woman with one spear thrust and at the time in the Book of Numbers it says therefore I am making my covenant of perpetual priesthood with Phineas and his descendants now it's a very violent and dramatic incident and Phineas is the example of zeal and I actually sometimes think that saul of tarsus the young boy had been excited by that story I thought this is zeal this is what you have to do when Israel is compromised you've got to get your spear and go and do stuff which is why he goes trotting off on the road to Damascus and if that's a whole other story but in Psalm 106 it tells the story of Israel in the wilderness it gets to that point and it says Phineas stood up and it says it rather delicately interposed he got in the way and then it says and that was reckoned to him as righteousness to all generations forever and every other time Phineas has mentioned that story is told what it says is God establishes his covenant with Phineas that's what that phrase seems to mean reckoned as righteousness means establishing a covenant righteousness sadaqa in the Old Testament is the covenant relationship between God and His people so Abraham below and we have translated that into moralism morals matter behavior matters but what this is about is belonging to the good because romans 4 isn't about oh here's somebody in the Old Testament who justified by faith Romans 4 is about who are the children of Abraham and how does that work and so the bit before Romans 3 and the bit after Romans 3 are all about how God is faithful to the Covenant with Abraham when we then this is how to do exegesis if you have a difficult passage sort out the bit before sort out the bit afterwards and then cautiously move into the bit in between because the chances are the bit in between is actually the bridge between the one and the other and if you make it mean something that's completely out of step with those passages something has gone badly wrong so the problem which Paul is addressing is the problem of human idolatry and sin and the problem that if God has made a covenant with Abraham to give him descendants around the world somehow God is going to have to deal with this problem and will do so through Israel through Israel in the person of the Messiah and the Messiah's faithfulness here means pretty much the same as the Messiah's obedience in Romans five where in the light of Philippians two again we see that his obedience is his obedience unto death even the death of the cross and the faithfulness of the Messiah to the Israel shaped purpose seems to be a way in which Paul is talking about Jesus death simultaneously as his personal act of being the Royal priest who is doing God's will worshiping the one true God his father and also the act whereby Israel's destiny as in Isaiah 53 comes about so chapter three verses 21 to 26 it's about the righteousness of God that is God's covenant faithfulness has been disclosed God's plan to rescue the world through Abraham's family has now been unveiled this is a brand-new thing it's not something you could have imagined nevertheless when you see it you realize this is what the law and the prophets what this is very like Luke 24 you know where they say we had hoped he was going to redeem Israel and Jesus says don't you realize what the law and the prophets have been saying all along but it's the righteousness of God revealed through the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah for the benefit of all who believe it isn't that Jesus has faith so we don't need to it's that when you have faith pista' s-- when you believe that Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead that pista' s-- is the badge which is the messiah badge because it's the thing which corresponds to the Messiah's own faithfulness justification by faith doesn't mean oh God just likes people who believe instead of people who do moralism and no it's much more organic than that it's to do with the Messiah's faithfulness and our answering faithfulness because verse 23 all sinned and came short of the what is the glory of God the glory of God is the divine glory that came to dwell in the tabernacle and then came to dwell in the temple it's the divine glory but then because of Israel's sin left the temple according to Ezekiel 9 and 10 and has never been seen since all sinned and fell short of the glory of God this is idolatry as well as sin but now God has dealt with that because they are justified that is put in the right not simply in moralistic terms but in covenantal terms they are made covenant members by His grace as a gift and here's the really really dense bit through the redemption that is in Messiah Jesus Redemption is an exodus word it's the slave market word Paul is here invoking two things exactly as we saw in the last supper traditions the Passover narrative and the day of atonement narrative the redemption which is in the Messiah Jesus whom God put forward as in this translation a sacrifice of atonement well the Greek is Hillis Tyrion you see in the little footnote you have there or a place of atonement the helis Tyrion is the cover on the Ark of the Covenant and the cover on the Ark of the Covenant with the cherubim either end is the place where God meets with his people and meets with them in grace what I think is going on here primarily is Jesus is put forth as the answer to idolatry because now we see who God is he is the faithful covenant-keeping loving God and having that vision of God dispels in all directions all the idols that we have otherwise worshipped and Hillis Tyrion is not itself a sacrifice of atonement it is the place where God meets with his people it's sometimes translated the mercy seat or the meeting place something like that as I said yesterday the Old Testament notion of sacrifice cannot be equated with penal substitution that's not how the sacrificial system worked rather this is Temple theology when God and his people meet together which has to be a fresh act of grace God granted the golden calf and all of that stuff when that happens then even the temple furniture let alone the people have to be purified from their sin from everything that smells of death about them everything that feels like it's turning away from God and turning to corruption and the means by which that happens in the Old Testament is the blood the blood of the sacrifice not because the animal has been killed as a punishment but because the blood is the god-given gift of life which then is the purifying disinfecting if you like agent I fear that the post-medieval debates which have gone on the last four or five hundred years particularly about words like propitiation and expiation have forced us into either ORS which probably weren't in Paul's mind somebody asked me before could I say something more about this I do think that the way we've done atonement and justification in the last four or five hundred years has been the attempt to give biblical answers to medieval questions and it's been my lifetime vocation if you like to try to find out what the actual biblical questions were and to give them the biblical answers and to express that in today's language rather than simply allow the debate to go on rumbling to and fro between different varieties of what I think are misunderstandings so what I think we have here is Jesus embodying the servant vocation at the end of romans 4 paul quotes isaiah 53 he was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification and that's an allusion to that whole servant poem and yes the servant does bear the sins of the many the servant is wounded for our trespasses and bruised for our iniquity but this is not because paul is telling that story of the romans road with a works contract where we just messed up and God punished Jesus oh that's all right isn't it rather this is a fresh revelation of the divine love exactly as in Isaiah 42 55 it's a renewal of the Covenant exactly as in as I and many other passages it's the new covenant in his blood exactly as Jesus himself said on the night he was betrayed and so verses 25 and 26 God put Jesus forward as the place and means of atonement as the mercy seat the place where God meets with his people by his blood effective through faith he did this to show his righteousness Paul emphasizes it and actually even those commentators who don't want to say that the righteousness of God in verse 21 is God's own righteousness they still want to say that here at the end in verse 25 and 26 it must be God's own righteousness but this is not simply God's own moral status this is God's faithfulness to the Covenant through which humans are rescued and so creation is restored because in His divine forbearance he'd passed over the sins previously committed proving that in the present time he himself is in the right he has done what he said he's done what he promised and that he justifies and here again we have the problem about the faith question is it faith in Jesus or who is who they are is who is on the basis of the faithfulness of Jesus that's not so much my topic now just to note that wherever you enter this just whether it's in Romans three here or in Galatians three what you have is Messianic faithfulness evoking the answering faith of God's people I realize this is a big mental jump transition for many of us who were brought up to think differently about it I put it before you as other bits of the jigsaw puzzle that may just need to be worked with until they fit better in place than the normal scheme another thing I didn't say by the way is that those who read this passage is saying that somehow it's about God punishing Jesus so he doesn't have to punish us and who make verse 25 mean that they then have a problem when you get to chapter 5 verses verses 8 & 9 9 particularly because in 9 Paul says much more surely then now that we have been justified by his blood will we be saved by him from the wrath of God now justified by his blood is obviously a summary of 3:21 226 and so if 321 226 is a way of saying we are rescued from the wrath because the raw Thurs fallen on Jesus instead then 5 9 is to autologous it's simply saying now that we've been rescued from the wrath we shall be rescued from the wrath it looks as though here Paul is not saying this is how the wrath is dealt with that's coming up in 5 9 and actually as we'll see in Romans 5 through 8 as a whole rather he is saying this is God putting Jesus forth as the answer to idolatry as well as the cure for sin so that in Jesus we see who the true God is just as you might have thought Paul have been reading John's Gospel very similar stuff about the the vision of the glory of God at last I want to move rapidly to Romans 5 to 8 because I think if I had to choose one verse which says exactly what the cross is about in Paul I would go to Romans 8 verses 3 and 4 but to get there we have to go the long way a which involves going through Romans seventh bad luck that's a tough passage the whole thing is tough but it's one of the most extraordinary passages Romans five to eight as a whole is a very carefully constructed total statement it belongs exactly where it is within Romans it does the job it does on the basis of one to four and preparing for nine to eleven and twelve to sixteen but it has a feel of a literary whole this is why I've often said Romans is like a symphony in four movements and each of the movements one two four five to eight nine to eleven twelve to sixteen has its own integrity and then there is cross over between and themes that are picked up but they're developed in a way appropriate to the movement we're now in and chapter five through two eight has this constant refrain that God has done what he's done either through Jesus the Messiah or in the Messiah who is Jesus that comes again and again and again until the final climactic statement nothing in all creation shall separate us from the love of God which is in the Messiah Jesus our Lord and Paul is here developing a particular narrative line which when we recognize it is remarkably familiar again it is the story of the Exodus and like the mountain outside your back door which is so huge that you've even forgotten it's there and don't even notice it anymore the Exodus theme in this passage is so massive that most commentators simply don't see it because biblical commentators are trained to look at this verse then at this verse that this verse to analyze them microscopically and we all love doing that and getting our lexicons and concordances and we often forget or were just too tired at the end of a long exegetical day to stand back and say wait a minute what is this whole picture but here it is romans 6 we come through the water which means that we are no longer slaves but are set free what does that sound like simple it is acted as 14 and 15 romans 7 where do they go after they've come through the water they go to Mount Sinai I and what are they given on Mount Sinai they're given the Torah and what does the Torah say to them the first word the Torah says to them is you're sinners and what do they then do despite that God forgives them and they build the tabernacle and God comes to dwell in the tabernacle and the pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night lead them to the promised land Romans 8 is about the leading of the Spirit to the inheritance and what is all this based on in genesis exodus leviticus numbers and deuteronomy it is based on the fact that god is faithful to his covenant and what is the one syllable shorthand way of talking about covenant faithfulness love our trouble is when we see the love of God we think quite rightly wow that's amazing God loves me and you can live forever on that literally but we often fail to realize that this is a direct retrieval of the covenantal language of the Old Testament that when Paul talks about the unveiled love of God he's saying this is what all that covenant stuff was about all along I'm going to skip over omens 5 because that's huge in itself except to note one thing just put it in your notes and go and look it up later Romans 5 verse 20 the law came in alongside so that the trespass might abound as very odd why did God give the law if it was just going to make the trespass worse well read on that's what Romans 7 and 8 are all about so Romans 6 we have this baptism picture which as I said before is about the imputation of the death and resurrection of the Messiah to all those who are in him if you are in the Messiah by baptism and by faith then you have died with a messiah his death has become your death his life is your life you stand on Resurrection ground as I said before the thing that double imputation in reformed theology was trying to get at is actually given you there in Romans 6 that you have the security of knowing that the death and resurrection of Jesus as the Messiah is yours but what then happens Romans seven does 19 preliminary remarks Tremaine about Romans 7 I'm not going to make any of them I'm going to straight for the heart of it look at verse 13 which is at the bottom of the first page in your sheet there Paul is talking about the arrival of the law and he's talking of verses 7 to 12 about the arrival of the law on Mount Sinai and the fact that when that happened Israel recapitulated the sin of Adam remember what we said Adam and Eve they're given a vocation they blow it as not as they break a law they're given a vocation which they turn away from so they're put out of the garden Israel is given a vocation to be the light of the world the servant people they blow it they commit idolatry they're put out of the promised land and they're sent into exile there is this parallelism which is all the way through and Paul is tracking with that so he tells the story of the Torah arriving on Mount Sinai in such a way as to echo Adam and Eve being kicked out of the Garden of Eden sin finding its opportunity in the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetousness the commandment came sin revived and I died and the commandment the promise life do this you will live proved to be death to me so the law is exonerated first 12 so verse 13 did what is good then bring death to me by no means it was sin working death in me through what is good in order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure again we look at God we say what on earth were you up to as one's teaching a class on Galatians many years ago and we got a Galatians 3 verse 18 and 19 where it seems that the law is simply producing more and more sin and one of the students said why then did God give the law let's turn over the page and you'll find exactly that question Paul faces that that question and here's the extraordinary thing which again I think is regularly missed look at the little words in order that did what-what-what is good then bring death of me by no means it was sin working death of authority in order that sin might be shown to be sin and actually the NRSV doesn't have the second one but he says it again in order that in Greek Hinna there are two hinners in this in this in this verse this is the purpose of God in giving the Torah that sin might grow to its full height why remember what we said about the Gospels the Gospels are not only the story of how Israel's destiny came to its climax they are also the story of how evil that the dark powers seem to be drawn onto one place remember Luke 23 this is your hour and the power of darkness I think this is Paul's exposition of the same point evil is drawn onto one place so that it can do its worst and be exhausted and defeated and in this passage condemned because we turn over and we get that very difficult passage about the very difficult life the law is spiritual behind of the flesh sold under slavery into slavery under sin I don't understand my own actions etc etc etc we all know this bit the good that I would I don't do the evil that I don't want is what I do and all of us if are honest as Christians we say yeah this is true of me as well but that isn't what this passage is about it isn't written to be a transcript of Christian experience and it isn't written to be a transcript of half Christian experience to say for goodness sake get out of Romans 7 as soon as you can and try living in Romans 8 instead many many sermons have been preached down those lines many spiritual readers have wrestled with this and said yeah Romans seven is when we try and be Christians in our own strength and we have to give that up and let the spirit do it in us then no doubt there is much truth down that line this isn't what Paul is talking about he is talking about the vocation of Israel that's why he uses the eye because when he's talking about his fellow Jews he won't say they because that would be dismissive that they this and they that and they the other he is talking about his own status as a Jew this is who we are we are the people who have been given the law and blow me the law has meant that sin hamartia has done its worst in Israel itself like that passage in acts 4 again wretched man that I am who will rescue me from this body of death and then the advance shout of triumph thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord and then so then I have myself with my mind I'm a slave to the Lord see imagine Paul as a young man reading psalm 119 knowing many other devout Jews who prayed the Psalms day by day Oh Lord how I love thy law it is my meditation day and night your law is more precious to me than thousands of gold and silver yes he says yes this is the will of God this is the most amazing and then he discovers and he discovers in himself as he is persecuting the church that his zeal for the law has not been according to knowledge because his zeal for Torah itself has led him into the worst sin possible when Jesus says Saul Saul why are you persecuting me and we find then later on Paul saying I am the chief of sinners because I persecuted the Church of God but how does this then work out Romans 8 verse 1 there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus we talked about George Roderick Handel and I mentioned Johann Sebastian Bach do you know yes a minor Freud a wonderful bark motet as this dog nicht there is now no condemnation for those who are in Messiah Jesus why first to the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the Lord sin death why how see what Paul does is teasing verses 1 and 2 are telling the conclusion before he's given you the argument pointing to where we're going verse 3 tells you God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as a sin offering see the footnote he condemned sin in the flesh do you get the point no I saw somebody say no okay the point is this the law has drawn sin on to one place Romans 5:20 the law came in so that the trespass might abound why in order that sin could gather together and do its worst the worst thing that sin could do was to put Jesus of Nazareth on the cross and just as Paul says in 1st Corinthians 2 if the powers had known what they were doing they wouldn't have done it they were signing their own death warrant because on the cross verse 3 God condemned sin in the flesh here is the heart of the New Testaments truth of substitutionary atonement there is no condemnation for those who are in the Messiah because God condemned sin in the flesh of the Messiah please note he does not say God condemned Jesus he says God condemned sin in the flesh of Jesus all the difference in the world this is not about a bullying God who wants to kill somebody and then his own son happens to get in the way so it kills him instead which is sadly even though no preacher will own up to preaching it like that that is sadly what many many people have heard and what many people who have left the church say oh that's that bloodthirsty butcher shock theology I'm not into that no this is about God doing this utterly horrible dangerous thing of allowing sin to do its worst so that it could be condemned on the cross there is no condemnation because God condemned sin this is penal language this is substitutionary language but it takes place not within the works contract narrative but between the covenant but within the covenantal narrative of God and Israel and the result is the new temple chapter eight verses nine ten and eleven you are not in the flesh you are in the spirit since the Spirit of God dwells in you the language of indwelling n Iko in the Greek I cost the house the ni Keo one who dwells in the house this is temple language Paul is still tracking with the exodus narrative that once Israel has been rescued from the power of Pharaoh then God comes to dwell with his people by the spirit and what will the spirit do the spirit will give life to your mortal bodies also verse 11 the resurrection of the Dead is like the ultimate rebuilding of the temple that's how it works so that then in chapter 8 verses 12 to 30 we are to be which you haven't got on your sheet but it's a well-known passage we are to be a cross-shaped people revealing the glory of God in Psalm 8 remember what are humans that you're mindful of him the Son of man that you take thought for him you made them little lower than the angels to crown them with glory and honor what is glory here when we hear in Romans 8 those he justified them he also glorified I think we normally imagine that that means now that you've been justified by faith you're going to heaven we translate out glory in terms of celestial glory or heavenly splendor or shining like an electric light bulb in them in the kingdom upstairs or something actually the echoes of Psalm 8 are very strong here God rescues us from our sins in order to make us genuine human beings ultimately the kingdom of priests to serve our God in the new creation already in the present to be people of this strange dark glory which we see in the Gospel story of Jesus if you read Romans 8 verses 18 to 27 you will see how it works out the sufferings of this present time are not welcome pairing with the gloriousness to be revealed because the creation the whole creation is groaning in travel waiting for its own release its own Exodus God is going to do for the whole creation at the end what he did for Jesus on Easter morning that's the promise and we are caught up in the middle of that we ourselves Paul says we are groaning as we await our resurrection that's the place for the tension of the Christian life in Romans five through eight the tension of knowing what we are made for now and redeemed for in Christ the tension with the drag of our still sinful and tired and corrupting and decaying whole human personalities but at the heart of it we have the passage which helps me maybe not to understand but at least to wrestle a little bit further with the cry of dereliction on the cross which I mentioned at the end yesterday because Paul says likewise the spirit helps us in our weakness because we don't know what to pray for as we ought to look out on a world full of hatred and corruption and murdered MPs and Syrian refugees and people drowning in the sea and we say Lord I don't even know what to say anymore and Paul says at that very moment the Spirit is groaning within us within articulate groanings and the one who searches the hearts that's a wonderful title for God God the heart searcher he knows what is the mind of the Spirit because the spirit intercedes for God's people according to God's will there we have the inner Trinitarian tension if you like between the Spirit who has come to dwell in our hearts as we are dwelling in the midst of a world in chaos and tension and corruption and God knows what is the mind of the Spirit and that's why Paul then says we are called in order to be shaped according to the pattern of his son that he might be the firstborn among a large family the Trinitarian pattern in which we are invited which is the cross shaped pattern of the spirit groaning in travel within the church within the world and of God the heart searcher hearing and knowing and loving and ultimately that intercession becomes part of the cross-shaped messianic intercession Father forgive them they don't know what they're doing which then is taken up in Romans 8:31 239 when he says who will condemn us it is Jesus who died yes who was raised from the dead who is at the right hand of God who indeed intercedes for us this is the hole of atonement atonement isn't just what Jesus did on the cross that's the vital beginning of it but it continues right through to Jesus right now interceding for us and right now by the Spirit we are given that cross shaped life to live and as we are given that we discover that that is the beginning of our glorification when paul uses the era's tense at the end of verse 30 he means it those who justified them he also glorified we are already called not to wait until one day we'll get a new job to do but to start doing it right now in our groaning in prayer in our witness to the crucified and risen Messiah we are to be a cross-shaped people revealing the glory of God and that is why chapter 8 verses 31 to 39 love again wins the victory again this is about the victory of God over all the powers through the representative substitution of the Messiah it's not an either/or and that is the foundation of the church's mission it's what Paul was talking about in 2 Corinthians it's what acts is all about when acts gets underway yes they're hugely excited and then they get beaten up and thrown into jail yes God then does new things and then disasters appear to happen Herod decides he's going to take on the church so he has James the brother of John killed with the sword and then later on in the same chapter he's going to do the same to Peter and Peter gets out of jail free now if I was James's wife or his mother or his daughter I would be pretty miffed with acts 12 actually how does but actually that is how the church has always been it is a mystery we do not understand why there are Christians being shot and beheaded in the Shawn the shores of North Africa possibly as we're speaking here while we are sitting in our comfort and going off to have a nice rest of day and then if you can manage to play Michaels thing right you get to cream teas and you don't need to bother with visiting the church on the way and why did I think that that might have been in your might in your mind it is always a mystery in 177 the martyrs of Leo in southern France are killed because they're announcing that Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead and the pagan people in southern France say we're not having any of this resurrection so we're going to kill you we're going to burn your bodies we're going to throw the ashes into the river Rhone and then we'll see what will become of your resurrection and the new bishop is appointed to his heir Aeneas one of the greatest theologians the church has ever known and he teaches resurrection and new creation somehow the two go together it has always been thus the greatest persecution of the early church under Diocletian was followed then by the Roman Empire turning around and saying seems like there are more Christians than ever maybe we better make you an official religion and by the way that's not a cop-out the Constantinian settlement has the potential for cop-out but if the Roman Empire comes to you and says there is so many of you we better make you the official religion you don't then say oh no please go on persecuting this because we feel so much more authentic to be a beleaguered minority no no you say okay this is going to be tough we've not worked out how to do this we may have to make some difficult decisions but we'll go with it and so we in the modern post enlightenment West have tended to see the Constantinian thing as our well that's that's then but happily we've got out of Christendom and we're now doing it differently it's not so easy as I think you in America have discovered and certainly we in Britain have discovered because actually the vocation of the church is to be the people of new creation and you don't get to do new creation by going and living in a little tent away from the rest of the world you do it by being risky out there doing what Paul was talking about in 2 corinthians 4 and 2 corinthians 6 and yes it will mean experiments which go wrong it'll mean disasters that mean personal suffering it'll mean tension it'll be all that groaning in travail stuff this is what it means to be shaped and formed by the cross and whenever the church has done that and has accepted that think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer think of Desmond Tutu and all that he's gone through whenever the church I think of Martin Luther King whenever the church has been prepared to take on that role of being the royal priesthood then radical transformation can and does happen the post-enlightenment world has picked up a lot of our agendas about medicine about education about caring for the poor to know you church you go and teach people to pray we'll do all that now and then they distort it and they make it in their own image and we have to reclaim it just like the journalists have taken our vocation to speak the truth to power and they say no you stop doing that we we the press are now going to do that instead and we have to take that back and we have to say no because we believe in the Creator God and we believe in the Redeemer God and we believe in the God who groans in the midst of his people's travel and we believe in doing that ourselves and in holding the world to account not by standing on a high pedestal and pontificating but by sharing and bearing the pain and suffering of the world Paul in first men in Colossians one talks about rejoicing in my sufferings and filling up in my flesh that which is lacking in the Messiah's sufferings for the sake of his body which is it's a very dangerous daring phrase but he means it that somehow our vocation is to be the people of the crucified Christ in the midst of a world in pain so that we will be the presence of the love of God in the midst of that world and if sometimes that means saying in the spear it my God why did you abandon me then maybe we just like Paul have to grip onto that as best we can and follow the psalm through to its end so that nothing in all creation will separate us from the love of God in Christ now I've gone on long enough I haven't done 2/3 of what I wanted but I hope I've given you enough pieces of the jigsaw to be going on with anyway let's just buzz for a bit and then we'll have quarter an hour of questions before we go to lunch

Channel: Wycliffe Hall

Views: 24,268

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Keywords: theology, N.T. Wright

Id: fLqj-9NegpQ

Length: 56min 5sec (3365 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 24 2016