The Last Word 3

In the second chapter of The Last Word, N.T. Wright begins discussing what is meant by God's Kingdom, particularly looking at the Old Testament and Israel as God's Kingdom people, then describing the role of scripture within God's Kingdom people.

He begins with a discussion about the presence of 'radical evil within the good creation and within the covenant people themselves' and wonders how God can be king with things as they are. He writes, 'The affirmation of God's present and future Kingdom therefore means the affirmation that God will act to deal with the problem, to rescue his people and complete his purpose for the whole of creation.' He repeatedly comes back to the interesting tension between God's calling of Israel to play an important role in setting the world right while themselves being part of the problem. To speak of God's Kingdom is to talk about God as 'the sovereign one who has the right, the duty, and the power to deal appropriately with evil in the world, in Israel and in human beings, and thereupon to remake the world, Israel and human beings.'

The question of the book then becomes, 'What was, and is, the role of scripture within this divine purpose? If this is what God's authority looks like, what part does an authoritative scripture have within it?' Wright proposes that 'Israel's sacred writings were the place where, and the means by which, Israel discovered again and again who the true God was, and how his Kingdom-purposes were being taken forward...Through scripture, Israel was given order in her national life, a structured worship, wisdom for the conduct of daily life, rebuke and promise through the prophets, and, not least, songs through which to bring every mood, every moment into God's presence as praise, lament, adoration, perplexity, despair, hope and commitment.'

Wright then returns to the idea that 'the word' in the Old Testament is not synonymous with the written scriptures but was 'a strange personal presence, creating, judging, healing, recreating.' He quotes such verses as Psalm 33:6, Jeremiah 23:29, Isaiah 40:8 and others. He writes, 'The word of YHWH is like an enormous reservoir, full of creative divine wisdom and power, into which the prophets and other writers tap by God's call and grace, so that the word may flow through them to do God's work of flooding or irrigating his people.'

For Wright, Israel was created as 'the people who heard God's word-in call, promise, liberation, guidance, judgment, forgiveness, further judgment, renewed liberation and renewed promise.' The point of telling the story of Israel was not to provide facts about what had happened in the past, but to 'generate once more the sense of Israel as the people called by YHWH for his purposes in the world, so that the writing and the telling of the story formed the further living embodiment of YHWH's call and promise. It was written to shape and direct the life of God's people.'

Wright concludes the chapter by turning briefly to the role of scripture in second temple Judaism, the 400 years before the arrival of Christ. He sees scripture's authority operating in two ways. First, 'it formed the controlling story in which Israel struggled to find its identity and destiny as the covenant people through and for whom God's justice would ultimately break upon the world.' Second, 'It formed the call to a present obedience...through which Israel could respond appropriately to God's call. Israel would thus be modeling the genuinely human existence which God willed for the whole world by living "under" scripture as controlling narrative and guide for daily life.' The different forms of Judaism that are observable in Jesus' day reflect different ways that people attempted to live under scripture as they waited for God to bring the story to its conclusion.