Jesus and the Old Testament
A Review of Christopher J.H. Wright's Book on Jesus in the OT
Christopher J.H. Wright provides a comprehensive, if sometimes meandering and difficult, look at Jesus through an Old Testament perspective.
When most twenty-first century westerners think of Jesus, they do not visualize the real Jesus who walked this earth two thousand years ago. According to Christopher J.H. Wright, Jesus has become a “photomontage composed of a random mixture of Gospel stories, topped up with whatever fashionable image of him is current….cut off from the historical Jewish context of his own day, and from his deep roots in the Hebrew scriptures.”
In Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament, Dr. Wright seeks to reconnect the modern individual with the genuine, historical Jesus. He makes a strong and convincing case that a deeper, more contextualized, picture of Jesus is essential.
An example of this problem, as Wright explains, is seen in 20th century western cinema. Through the movies, we have an image of a white-skinned, English-speaking, wise sage. Even though most viewers are consciously aware that Jesus never spoke English, this image has most assuredly worked its way into the modern psyche.
Professor Wright sees the first seventeen verses of Matthew as perhaps the most significant passage in understanding the cultural origins and identity of the historical Jesus. While many Christians breeze by, or completely ignore, Matthew’s rendition of Jesus’ genealogy, Wright argues that Matthew started his Gospel with the genealogy for a reason. “In Jewish society,” says Wright, “genealogies were an important way of establishing your right to belong within the community of God’s people.”
Accordingly, Matthew’s genealogy not only identifies Jesus as the son of Abraham and David. It is also positioning Jesus as the ultimate fulfillment of the Old Testament story.
Wright shows how Matthew’s genealogy identifies Jesus clearly as the Davidic Messiah, thus holding out promise of Jewish liberation and ascendancy.
Yet, as Wright observes, Matthew also shows Jesus as the “son of Abraham,” which positions Jesus as the ultimate fulfillment of God’s covenant with the great patriarch. This aspect of Jesus’ lineage was almost certainly lost on most first-century Jews, but was significantly relevant for succeeding generations of Christians, especially Gentile converts. “Taken together,” says Wright, “the Testaments record the history of God’s saving work for humanity.”
This “salvation history” aspect of the Old Testament opens a disturbing debate into the nature of God and the process by which He saves sinners. Wright correctly observes: “Not everyone relishes the idea of one single chosen people of God enjoying a unique history of salvation, as over against all the rest of the nations who seem to get a rather poor deal on the whole.” Is God the “universal God of humanity” or a selective Deity that practices what is essentially cosmic discrimination?
Wright’s “solution” to this is to re-focus the analysis of the Old Testament to God’s initial purpose as opposed to His methodology. Specifically, God chose Israel to be a blessing to the other nations. Thus, God’s relationship with Israel should be “seen as the pursuit of His unfinished business with the nations.” Choosing Israel was not therefore an arbitrary and exclusive invitation to Heaven, but rather a means to an end.
This is one of the main reasons why the Jews just didn’t “get” Jesus. When Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God, he wasn’t promising a renewed Davidic throne that would dominate the earth. Jesus was unveiling the promise of blessing given to Abraham centuries before. His appearance made the Kingdom of God “at hand,” making possible the fulfillment of God’s promise to not only Israel, but all the nations of the world.
Wright shows how Matthew uses even the birth of Jesus to demonstrate this universal dimension to Jesus’ ministry. Though he wrote the most “Jewish of the Gospels,” says Wright, Matthew “wastes no time at all before getting to the point that when the Messiah came he had visitors, gifts, and worship from the east, and was personally, if temporarily, resident in Egypt.”
In other words, Matthew “clearly wants us to see [Jesus] as more than merely Israel’s Messiah, but as the fulfillment of God’s saving purpose for the nations beyond Israel.”
One of the more interesting parts of the book is Wright’s explanation of Jesus’ statement that he came to “fulfill” and not “abolish” the Law. Jesus doesn’t countermand the central purpose of the Mosaic Law, which was to establish a right relationship with God in daily living. Rather, Jesus enhances this purpose with his own expanded teachings on the spirit of the Law, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount.
Christopher J.H. Wright does a masterful job in demonstrating how a proper understanding of God’s relationship with Israel in the Old Testament best illuminates Jesus’ mission and purpose. For this reason alone, the book is worth an investment of time.
Wright also deemphasizes systematic theology in favor of inductive biblical scholarship in presenting Jesus to us through the Old Testament lens. It is a commendable and effective approach.
The book, however, has one principal weakness. It meanders and wanders, taking longer than necessary to make some of its points. In addition, it seems to double-back and reiterate some points already made in previous chapters. A more methodical approach in writing would have been appreciated.
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For more information, pick up a copy of Christopher J.H. Wright's book, Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament.
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