« Serenity and Sin | Main | Review: Awesome God »
The Jesus Train
N.T. Wright uniquely handles eschatology in what I understand to be a much more Pauline sense of the word. In one particular handling of the eschatological story we find ourselves in, N.T. Wright explains how Paul sees the world around us. Paul understood in a radical way on the road to Damascus that God had brought the eschatological future into the present with Jesus. Wright uses the analogy of the train.
The Jews, and hence Paul, living in the first century are on a train headed for an ultimate destination in time but suddenly they are met by another train on the same track rushing in the other direction. This train came "crashing into them", "smashing their hopes to bits" but all was made clear and they could see what God had planned all along on Easter morning. Wright says, "God's future came into the present in Jesus, and so has become part of our past."
This is a very foundational statement to Wright's understanding of the eschatological reality we live in. Eschatology is not some far off or soon-to-occur reality but rather it is the reality we live in today. God has entered with his mighty power through Jesus and is delivering His people out of Egypt and bondage to sin and into the Kingdom of God.
For Paul, even before his experience with Jesus on the road to Damascus, he was waiting and preparing in expectation that God would act on behalf of his people who were still living in bondage and had not fully occupied the land God had given them. For Paul, bring about the Kingdom was not just a spiritual reality but also a political reality. Paul knew God would act. He relied on the promises God has made in the Text. In anticipation of this he was zealous for God and was attempting in this zeal to bring others to live zealously for Torah.
As N.T. Wright puts it:
[Saul] wanted God to redeem Israel... He stood along side other Jews of various persuasions...who, longed for God to act within history on their behalf.... Jews like Saul of Tarsus were not interested in an abstract, timeless, ahistorical system of salvation. They were not even interested in, as we say today, 'going to heaven when they died'. They were interested in the salvation which, they believed, the one true God had promised to his people Israel. (What Saint Paul Really Said pp. 32-33)
As we await a final vindication of God on behalf of the people of God, may we be faithful in proclaiming the Kingdom of God. The King has entered. His cooronation looked different than most in that it involved a crucifixtion and a resurrection. But, nonetheless, the King has entered and we now hail Him as King and await for His return.
