The following was initially a blog post. I have refrained from editing out matters of informality etc.
Disclaimer: While I am a reasonable typist, I nonetheless cannot type at speech-speed at the best times, much less on a laptop keyboard. Consequently, these notes vary from word to word to close summary, and much of the ground in between. To be sure of precise wording, you will of course need to consult the tapes or CDs.
N. T. Wright: "Reimagining God's Future"
Wright speaks of eschatology - not only God's future for the world, but "God's own future."
In terms of the prophets, when God acts for Israel, it will constitute a new creation ("Second Isaiah," for example). Some prophets, however turn it around as a warning (Amos: the day of Yahweh is darkness, not light).
For the majority of Jews of this period, theirs was a long story in search of an ending. The story has somehow "got stuck" - they are still enslaved to the pagans; they are still in exile.
Daniel 9 suggests that notwithstanding the passing of the requisite 70 years, there is going to be much more: 70x7 (a Jubilee theme). Forgiveness of sins will mean the end of exile, but Israel will need to wait for it. Many Jews made calculations on the basis of this text.
The end of slavery was seen in terms of a new exodus: God would again rescue Israel; this was a warning to the pagans and comfort for Israel. This is to be God's future. God will "come into His own:" "In that day Yahweh will be king of all the earth" (Zech 13.1).
For Paul, all this had now come to pass in Messiah Jesus. Paul's eschatology remains deeply Jewish, with a retelling of the same key texts. Through his high Christology, Paul details how God's own future has burst in; through his incorporative Christology, he describes how Israel's future has burst in. The complex event for which Israel had hoped had already happened in the events concerning Jesus of Nazareth. These constituted the breaking in of the ultimate end; this is one of the most central and characteristic notes of Paul's whole theology.
Reimagining eschatology around Jesus
But the Messiah has a future role as well. He will be the Judge on the last day, receiving the homage from the whole creation, and handing over the kingdom to God the Father, so that God will be all in all. The Spirit is also active in the inaugural events as well as the future; He is the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead.
The main thrust here is that what Israel expected God to do for all His people at the end of time, He has done for His Messiah in the middle of time.
The bodily resurrection of Jesus is foundational to all of this.
In Paul, the arrival of God's kingdom is taken for granted, although the term is not frequent. (It appears in 1 Cor 15: Jesus already reigns, and then finally, He hands the kingdom over to God the Father).
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul goes back to the psalms (e.g. Ps 110): Jesus has already won the victory over the powers (cf 1 Cor 2). The result: a new exodus has been launched. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul envisages Jesus' death as the moment of a new exodus. Wright draws attention to the idea of the Passover lamb (cf 1 Cor 5).
Paul's writing is "exuberant," and "exuberant writing requires exuberant exegesis." Wright suggests that if you are minimalist in your approach to interpretation, "guaranteed," you are missing two-thirds of Paul's content. He notes the exodus motifs in the middle portion of Romans: Romans 6 (through water); Romans 7 (problems with the law; cf Sinai); Romans 8: God's people are launched on a wilderness journey, led by the Spirit to the renewal of all creation. All of this "new exodus" material is in turn based on a fresh retelling of the stories of Adam and Abraham.
Wright turns to Galatians 3.10-14. The punchline of the section tells you what is going on; however, it is frequently "rewritten" by interpreters - they end with 3.13. But no, it ends with 3.14: so that the blessing might come upon the Gentiles. God promised Abraham a worldwide family; the promise-bearers failed to keep the law and came under a curse - how then will God fulfill the promises? The curse needs to be borne; Christ has taken it upon Himself. What can be more exilic than the King of the Jews being crucified by the pagans outside the capital city?
Paul is working with, and reimagining around Jesus, all the themes of the traditional Jewish eschatology. What then of the still-future issues? Wright notes that some have accused him of not believing in the Second Coming. "That's absurd!" He will not apologize for exegesis: the Son of Man passages refer to ascent, not descent - but "that doesn't mean I don't believe in the Second Coming. Of course I believe in the Second Coming."
Still, Wright insists that we need to understand what Paul means by it, and that the "rapture" or "Left Behind" scheme is dualistic: the world stews without redemption while the saints are snatched to heaven.
Wright draws attention to 1 Thessalonians 4, particularly four themes: (1) the day of the Lord - in Paul this becomes a reference to the Messiah; (2) royal presence/appearing; (3) judgment/justice; (4) the renewal of all creation.
(1) The Day of the Lord. In Scripture, this term did not necessarily mean "the end of the world." Wright notes 2 Thessalonians 2, where Paul tells the church not to be alarmed if they get a letter purporting to be from him, saying that the day of the Lord had come. "If it was the end of the space-time universe, you'd think his hearers would have noticed," observes Wright wryly.
The destruction of Jerusalem too was a "day of the Lord." Of course, there would be others. Not everything happened in AD 70; there will be other Days of the Lord; but this is the one that happened within a generation (alluding to the language of the Synoptics).
(2) Parousia. This is not an Old Testament word, but rather is borrowed from the language of the court. It was particularly used to refer to State visits, and is one of the way in which Paul keeps the anti-pagan polemic in play. Wright notes the "peace and security" which Paul derides was an imperial slogan. This language allows Paul to pull in the theme of the return of Yahweh to Zion - Caesar is upstaged.
A related term is epiphaneia - "manifestation." This also has the idea of "appearing," rather than an arrival from a great distance. Paul's Jewish cosmology, suggests Wright, is no doubt redrawn around Messiah and the Spirit. Part of this entails the close and intimate presence of Jesus, who is constantly interceding with the Father on our behalf.
It is not to be thought, then, that the return entails a coming from afar off. The two sphere overlap. Here Wright draws attention to the Jewish view of the temple: there, you were in heaven. Jesus replaces the temple. Heaven and earth are not miles apart; rather, they are separated only by an invisible curtain. The return of Christ will be like an arrival, or the appearing, of one who is always with us, even until the end of the world.
Philippians 3.20 says that our citizenship is in heaven, and from there we await the Savior. What is the logic of citizenship? Rome did not plant colonies so that the citizens who lived there would some day return to the mother city; the logic of citizenship is that Roman culture is extended to the colony. Heavenly citizenship likewise means that you are placed on earth in order to be colonials for heaven. The text does not say we will go back to heaven; it says that He will come to earth. (Notice also the Caesaronic themes in the context in Philippians 3.) It is Gnosticism which says we must quit this earth and go off to a "spiritual place" somewhere. The New Jerusalem, however, comes down from heaven to earth. "North America has a great deal of Gnosticism, and you need all the New Testament's weapons against it."
(3) Future judgment. This will be in accordance with the entirety of the life that has been led. All alike must stand before Messiah and His judgment. This stands against pagan thought - which had plenty of judgment in the present by Caesar and his henchmen. The coming just judgment of the Messiah is the answer to the Jewish hope and prayer, and the final statement that the Lord Most High rules over the kingdoms of mortals. The thought includes saints sitting in judgment of angels (1 Cor 6).
Wright then interacts briefly with Gaffin's thoughts on Philippians 2.12 and following. He does not dissent with Gaffin's view regarding the logic of the indicative and the imperative. But what is the meaning of salvation in that context? Throughout the context, Paul is saying that Jesus is the reality of which Caesar or Alexander were parodies. The "gods" who give themselves airs: Jesus has done it the opposite way. Caesar offered soteria ("salvation"); that is what Rome claimed to give. But Paul says: If you worship the God revealed in Jesus, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling - in place of Caesar's. You're going to have to hammer out in practice what it means. It is a deeply political challenge.
(4) The renewal of all creation through the Messiah. Wright nods to Colossians 1, Ephesians 1, Romans 8 and so on. Every aspect of Jewish eschatology is reimagined around Jesus.
Reimagining eschatology around the Spirit
Wright observes that so much of the "Spirit" language of the last generation has been about "my spiritual experiences." Wright says he has nothing against such experiences; the Spirit works in myriads of ways. But the Spirit in Paul repeatedly has to do with the initiation of a new world, a new creation. Covenant renewal has been inaugurated by the Spirit in the present. The Jews are renewed from within; the Gentiles are brought in from without. (Wright comments regarding a popular Pentecostal view: "Only in late secularism could it be supposed that tongues proved the one true God was at work.")
The Spirit will enable ex-pagans to live in accordance with the new age. First Corinthians 1-14 is all about teaching people how to live in a world where God's new age has been inaugurated through the resurrection.
Second Corinthians refers to the Spirit as the arrabon (2 Cor 1.22; 5.5; the word loosely means "down payment" or "earnest"). The new covenant work of the Spirit entails transforming the heart to keep Torah in a strange new sense; this is the sign that God's new age has broken in. Justification and justice go together. God will one day put the whole kosmos to rights; He wants to anticipate that in the lives of men and women by putting them to rights. That is justification too; it is not just about "how I get saved."
This Spirit-new creation idea is also made known in what we may call Paul's understanding of ethics. Galatians 5 is not merely "rules for Christian living." The main point is that if you are walking by the Spirit, you are already part of God's new age. You are invited to live by the way of the new age; you have been delivered from the present evil age. (And therefore, you are not under Torah, which belongs to that age.)
The point is: It is not simply that Paul saw Christianity as a religion of grace and Judaism as one of works [as much traditional theology implies]. Nor did Sanders get it right. [I think I am missing something in my notes here; I think Wright is referring to Sanders's notion that the only thing Paul objected to in Judaism was that it was "not Christianity."] Rather, the point is that the new age has come in Christ, planting the seeds of new creation. And the work of the gospel by the Spirit in the individual Christian is the putting to rights in advance against the Day when God puts the whole world to rights.
This is why Paul has a critique of Israel: she is still living as if the old age is still ongoing.
Thus Christian ethics is much more than "keeping a new law." And Paul can say that the good work will be brought to completion (Phi 1).
Paul does not say that you earn vindication at the final judgment, but that you patiently seek it in good works. You cannot understand justification in the present in Romans 3-4, unless you see it flanked by the judgment according to works in Romans 2 and the development later.
It is not the case that you begin with faith and end with works. Even circumcision was not a "good work;" neither is faith.
The point in Romans 8 is that the justification laid out anticipates the verdict on a life that is led, because you are led by the Spirit. The path from initial faith to final resurrection (which is rescue, salvation from death itself) lies through the path of faithful Spirit-led suffering. In Romans 8.12-30, we find that the Spirit has redefined Jewish eschatology. The Spirit takes the place of the Shekinah here, in an exodus story. The eschatological expectation will not be fulfilled only in the Messiah, but also in His people. The Spirit enables this people to endure suffering without illusion or despair. One's own body is the little bit of creation over which one practices exercising sovereignty, over against the Day of new creation.
And the whole thing is rushing toward the point when God will be all in all.
Brief Thoughts
For those who have a robust view of creation and new creation, paired with some form of partial preterism, much of this lecture will be very familiar ground. Wright's constant stress upon the cosmological significance of God's story is crucially important in a North American ecclesiastical situation dominated by dispensationalism.
In this connection, it is good to hear Wright's accent upon the Spirit as the Spirit of new creation, rather than of mere private experience. While Wright does have a great deal of sympathy for the charismatic movement (as witness his Bringing the Church to the World), he properly focuses the Spirit's work in the great goal of God. The Spirit works in individuals, not simply for themselves, but so that they may become agents of God's new creation.