In answer to Peter’s comments about my post on the “The logic of salvation for Jews and Gentiles in Paul” here’s another broad-brush attempt to clarify the thesis.

His basic point is that there is no real difference in the logic: “it seems that Paul’s argument was that Jews and Gentiles were in the same boat regarding sin and its consequences, but both Jews and Gentiles could be reconciled to God through faith as a result of Jesus’ death.”

What follows won’t address all the issues that Peter raises, and maybe we can continue the conversation here. But I think that what’s missing from his analysis is the narrative or eschatological dimension. Arguably, this is a consistent and defining flaw in modern theological thought: we try to make sense of the theological content of the New Testament without taking account of the undergirding diachronic structure—the story told about historical experience culminating in realistic eschatological outcomes.

I’ve just finished reading a book on the church and same-sex attraction that has an appendix setting out the “Bible’s meta-narrative in its four great acts: creation, rebellion, redemption and perfection”. This grossly reductionist storyline is how evangelical thought has typically reconciled itself to a narrative hermeneutic. It serves the limited interests of modern evangelicalism, but it misses the whole point of the biblical narrative, as I’ve argued on numerous occasions.

Is the main story that the Bible tells bigger than human history or smaller than human history? The biblical story is certainly bookended with creation and new creation, but it’s what happens in between that I’m concerned about—the sequence of events from the rise of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9), say, to the fall of Babylon the great (Rev. 18).

Does that sequence of events somehow—prophetically, apocalyptically—embrace the whole of human history? Or does it constitute a limited and localised storyline within human history? If the former, then we have basically a deterministic theology that precludes significant change and development—a theology that already, in principle, answers all the questions. If the latter, we have to consider the possibility that events and transformations of biblical proportions will happen after the main biblical narrative has reached its dénouement.

There were two parts to the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples.

Our Father in the heavens, sanctified be (hagiasthētō) your name; may your kingdom come; may your will become as in heaven also on earth. (Matt 6:9–10)

First, they were to pray that by intervening as king in Israel’s history YHWH would gain great renown among the nations. The first petition echoes Ezekiel 36:23 LXX:

I will sanctify (hagiasō) my great name, which was profaned among the nations, which you profaned in their midst, and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, when I am hallowed (hagiasthēnai) among you before their eyes.

Someone suggested on Facebook that Ephesians 1:7 contradicts my argument about the narrative logic of salvation:

In him we have redemption (tēn apolutrōsin) through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses… (Eph. 1:7)

This is the ESV translation. It seems to suggest that Paul regarded Jesus’ “blood” as effective for “redemption” not only for Israel but for the mostly Gentile “saints who are in Ephesus”, to whom he is writing.

This is a response to a couple of questions raised about the conclusions to the preceding post on the logic of the salvation of Jews and Gentiles. First, what did I mean when I said: “As a response to the fall of Christendom, modern evangelicalism has reinvigorated the universal model to keep the numbers up…”? Secondly, how are we to envision the “new faithfulness to the biblical narrative”? It’s a sketchy piece, really just an outline of my working assumptions; and it has much more to say to the first question than to the second.

The theologies that dominate the thought and practice of the modern church distribute their truths as flattened user-friendly doctrines. The Bible, however, gives us theological truth in the form of extended narratives mapped against the landscape of ancient history, as seen from the perspective of the covenant people. The overlap between these two modes of representation is actually quite small. That is the central issue that I have tried to address on this site.

In the New Testament it is the relation between Israel and Hellenism as a cultural force, on the one hand, and Rome as a political force, on the other, that determines the lie of the land. The Jewish scriptures provide the explicit narrative material for the interpretation of events, though we may perhaps also assume the influence of apocalyptic currents within second temple Judaism. Perspective gives rise to two dominant historical horizons—the fate of Israel as a subjugated people and the fate of Rome as an overweening pagan force opposed to the God of Israel. The theological content of the New Testament gets its meaning from this narrative-historical frame, not from more abstract, universal schemes.