Book Review Series: 'The God of Israel and Christian Theology' - Detailed Review: Chapter Two
The Logic and Limitations of the Standard Canonical Narrative
Recap of Part One
In the previous post, we explored the foundational concepts of "The God of Israel and Christian Theology" by R. Kendall Soulen. Soulen critiques supersessionism, the belief that the Christian Church has replaced Israel in God's plan, and argues for a theological framework that recognizes the ongoing covenant between God and the Jewish people. The introduction highlighted Soulen's emphasis on the canonical narrative, which integrates both the Old and New Testaments without diminishing the former. He proposes a Trinitarian theology that supports a non-supersessionist view, reconfiguring key Christian doctrines to reflect the continuous significance of Israel. This approach aims to foster respectful Christian-Jewish relations and a deeper understanding of God's redemptive plan. Soulen's work invites Christians to reconsider traditional beliefs in light of the enduring covenant with Israel, setting the stage for a more inclusive and theologically sound perspective.
Building on this foundation, this post will delve into the logic and limitations of the standard canonical narrative, which traditionally organized the Bible's story around creation, fall, redemption in Christ, and final consummation. This narrative has often led to a neglect of Israel's significance and an inherent supersessionist bias. By reexamining this framework, we can better understand how to integrate the Hebrew Scriptures and the history of Israel into a cohesive and respectful theological approach, moving beyond the flaws identified by Soulen and addressing the deeper issues within Christian theology.
The Standard Canonical Narrative
During the latter half of the second century, the church's original canon of Jewish Scriptures was expanded to include a second collection of Jewish writings that later became known as the New Testament. With the expanded canon came the need for an interpretive framework or canonical narrative that would enable Christians to read their twofold canon as a theological unity. By the beginning of the third century at the latest, such a canonical narrative was securely in place.
The canonical narrative that prevailed is a story that, at least until quite recently, was familiar to virtually every Christian. The story recounts God's history with human creation in four crucial episodes: God's intention to consummate the human pair whom God has created, the first parents' disobedience and fall, the redemption of lost humanity in Christ, and final consummation. The story is found in abbreviated form in the church's creeds and provides the basic outline for most works of Christian theology.
The story's plot turns on two different ways in which the Creator engages human creation: as Consummator and as Redeemer.
When the church calls God a "consummator," it means that God is seen as the one who brings everything to its perfect and complete end. This title emphasizes God's role in fulfilling His purposes for creation, bringing history to its ultimate conclusion, and achieving the final and perfect state of all things. God, as the consummator, ensures that everything reaches its intended goal and ultimate fulfillment according to His divine plan.
As the Consummator of creation, God appoints a supreme goal for humankind and draws it toward that goal through God's own constant consummating activity. God's work as Consummator establishes an initial axis of narrative tension that determines the canonical narrative's overarching sweep. The story line of consummation is not dependent on the calamity of sin or indeed on any other narrative complication. The tension arises solely through the final end that God appoints for human creation and is resolved when God brings humanity to the goal for which it was created.
In addition to God's work as Consummator, God also engages human creation as Redeemer. By its nature, God's work as Redeemer presupposes a further narrative complication in addition to the initial story line established by God's work as Consummator.
The additional complication is the brute fact of sin and evil. Sin radically threatens God's initial work as Consummator and unleashes destructive powers that corrupt the good inherent in creation itself.
As Redeemer, God delivers the human creature from the destructive powers of sin, evil, oppression, and death. Furthermore, God restores the redeemed creature to the hope of final consummation.
Now, what gives the standard canonical narrative its characteristic logic is the way these two modes of God's engagement with creation are employed to organize the church's twofold canon into a narrative unity. The standard model coordinates God's work as Consummator with the opening chapters of Genesis and the story of Adam and Eve (Gen 1-2). God appoints for the first parents the supreme goal of eternal life with God, a goal that they can eventually attain through reliance upon God's consummating grace and obedience to God's command. Frequently, God's work as Consummator is coordinated even more specifically with Gen 1:26-27, according to which God created humankind in God's "image" and "likeness." While interpretations of the image of God vary, it is commonly understood as a capacity for eternal communion with God that belongs to humankind by virtue of its specific nature as a spiritual or rational creature. On this view, the goal that God appoints as Consummator is the fulfillment of humanity's specific nature through eternal fellowship with God.
God's work as the Consummator of Adam and Eve gives the standard canonical narrative an initial axis of narrative tension that is antecedent to sin and to the fall. The tension arises through God's appointment of eternal life as the goal of human nature and is resolved when humankind attains the end for which God created it. The initial story line of consummation, however, swiftly undergoes a catastrophic complication in the event commonly known as the fall. The standard model coordinates the idea of the fall with the events recounted in Genesis 3. By disobeying God's command, the first parents rupture God's work as Consummator in a way that is beyond human power to mend. They despoil the image of God in which they were created and forfeit the ultimate goal of eternal life. What is more, they bring themselves and their progeny under the threat of divine judgment and the powers of sin, corruption, and death.
God's frustrated intention to consummate the first parents establishes the soteriological context of God's work as Redeemer in Jesus Christ. The standard model conceives of God's redemptive work in Christ as the center and turning point of God's single overarching plan to save humanity, a plan that spans the ages from the fall to the day of judgment. God's overarching redemptive work is also known as the economy of redemption, a term that refers to God's saving management of the household of creation. God adapts the economy of redemption to the needs of fallen humanity by ordering it in two chief dispensations.
The first dispensation, called the Old Covenant or Old Testament, prepares humanity for redemption by pointing forward to Christ in a carnal and prophetic way. The second chief dispensation, called the New Covenant or the New Testament, testifies to redemption in Christ in a definitive and spiritual way. According to the standard model, therefore, Jesus Christ is the center and substance of both the Old and the New Covenants. The Old Covenant points forward to Christ, the New Covenant points back. Accordingly, the standard model also regards Jesus Christ as the hermeneutical focal point or scopus of the Christian canon as a literary entity. The Scriptures testify to Christ prophetically, while the Apostolic Witness does so historically. Eventually, these two parts of the canon come to be called the Old and New Testaments.
Under the dispensation of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ is made known by the law and the prophets in the context of God's covenant with Israel, from whom Jesus Christ himself is descended according to the flesh. The Old Testament dispensation has redemptive power solely by virtue of its reference to the future coming of Christ. Circumcision, promises, law, temple, Israel's history, and so forth all point in various ways toward Christ and the church, and thereby make faith possible in the time before Christ. Those Israelites who grasped the Mosaic dispensation according to its inward, christological substance were saved, while those who took the Old Covenant according to its outer, carnal form alone remained under Adam's curse.
Under the dispensation of the New Testament, God's work as Redeemer is actually enacted in Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and made available to the world through the preaching and sacraments of the church. Now for the first time God administers the economy of redemption in an outer form that corresponds directly to its inward, christological substance. The prophecies, types, and figures of the Old Testament are fulfilled and superseded by their New Testament equivalents. So baptism replaces circumcision, the Eucharist replaces Passover, and so forth.
Christ's advent therefore marks the point at which God's one overarching economy of redemption changes from its prefigurative to its definitive form. As a result, the visible community of salvation also undergoes a transformation from its prefigurative to its definitive form. Before Christ's coming, the visible community of salvation was defined by carnal descent from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. After Christ's coming, the visible community is defined by baptism and confession of faith in Jesus Christ, which is open to all without distinction. Accordingly, the carnal distinction between Jew and Gentile loses whatever theological significance it previously possessed. While some Jews receive the gospel and join the church, most do not. As a result, God punishes the unbelieving Jews and scatters them over the earth, where they will remain until the day of judgment.
The standard canonical narrative concludes by pointing forward to Christ's second advent at the end of time. Christ's second coming inaugurates a series of end-time events, especially the general resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, and the separation of the saved and the damned. These events resolve both axes of tension in the plot of the canonical narrative by completing God's redemptive work in Christ and by fulfilling God's original consummating intention to bring humanity to eternal life.
Problematic Aspects of the Canonical Narrative
The canonical narrative just outlined has provided an enormously influential solution to the problem of how the Bible hangs together as a unified witness to the central confession that "the God of Israel has acted in Jesus Christ for the sake of all." The model gives classic definition to two relationships that, as we have noted, are of the utmost importance to Christian theology: the relation of God's work as Consummator and as Redeemer, and the relation of the Scriptures and the Apostolic Witness. The model defines the first relationship by means of the story of creation-for-consummation in Adam, Adam's fall, redemption in Christ, and final consummation.
And it defines the second relationship in terms of the unity-in-difference of the Old and New Testaments as complementary parts of God's one economy of redemption in Christ. Yet its familiarity notwithstanding, the standard canonical narrative has been rendered problematic by the church's contemporary rejection of super-sessionism. For, as Soulen argues in the rest of this chapter, the standard model is deeply implicated in the problem of supersessionism. This is so for obvious narrative reasons and for less apparent structural reasons as well.
To begin with the obvious narrative problem, the standard model is supersessionist simply by virtue of the story that it tells. According to the standard model, Israel and the church both depend exclusively upon Christ for their soteriological significance.
But Israel corresponds to Christ in a merely prefigurative and carnal way, whereas the church corresponds to Jesus Christ in a definitive and spiritual way. Hence Christ's advent brings about the completion of carnal Israel and inaugurates the age of the spiritual church. Everything that characterized the economy of salvation in its Israelite form becomes obsolete and is replaced by its ecclesial equivalent. The written law of Moses is replaced by the spiritual law of Christ, circumcision by baptism, natural descent by faith as criterion of membership in the people of God, and so forth. As a result, carnal Israel becomes obsolete. This understanding of supersessionism can be called economic because the ultimate obsolescence of carnal Israel is an essential feature of God's one overarching economy of redemption for the world. Economic supersessionism is epitomized in the following passage by the second-century writer Melito of Sardis:
The people [Israel] was precious before the church arose, and the law was marvelous before the gospel was elucidated. But when the church arose and the gospel took precedence the model was made void, conceding its power to the reality, the people was made void when the church arose.
According to economic supersessionism, Israel is transient not because it happens to be sinful but because Israel's essential role in the economy of redemption is to prepare for salvation in its spiritual and universal form.
Economic supersessionism is often accompanied by a complementary narrative viewpoint that can be called punitive supersessionism. According to punitive supersessionism, God abrogates God's covenant with Israel (which is already in principle outmoded) on account of Israel's rejection of Christ and the gospel. Once again, the viewpoint is summed up by Melito:
Therefore, O Israel, you did not quake in the presence of the Lord, so you quaked at the assault of foes. you did not lament over the Lord, so you lamented over your firstborn; you did not tear your clothes when the Lord was hung, so you tore them over those who were slain, you did not accept the Lord, you were not pitied by him…
Because the Jews obstinately reject God's action in Christ, God in turn angrily rejects and punishes the Jews. Punitive supersessionism might seem more problematic than economic supersessionism because it is more openly hostile towards Israel. In fact, however, economic supersessionism poses a far more difficult problem for Christian theology today. While economic supersessionism need not be overtly hostile toward the Jewish people, it logically Israel's role and significance have become outdated or unnecessary after the coming of Christ. Even though economic supersessionism isn't openly hostile to Jews, it still shouldn't be acceptable to churches that reject the idea of Christians being superior to Jews. This perspective affects how Christians understand large parts of the Bible's story, from Abraham to Jesus and Pentecost, and is deeply connected to the overall way the Bible is interpreted.
In contrast, punitive supersessionism forms little more than an appendix to the standard model's main story line, since it concerns God's rejection and punishment of unbelieving Israel after Christ. All of this suggests that while Christian theology today can reject punitive supersessionism with relative ease, doing so does not guarantee that the theology of displacement has been overcome. The logic of economic supersessionism may remain. This is the case, for example, whenever Christians hold that Israel's existence has been rendered obsolete in principle but that God nevertheless remains faithful to Israel in fact despite its unbelief.
Yet the problem of supersessionism in the standard model extends deeper than either economic or punitive supersessionism. In addition to these two explicit doctrinal perspectives, the standard model is also supersessionist in a structural sense, that is, by virtue of the manner in which it construes the narrative unity of the Christian Bible as a whole. The standard model embodies and demonstrates structural supersessionism because it unifies the Christian canon in a manner that renders the Hebrew Scriptures largely indecisive for shaping conclusions about how God's purposes engage creation in universal and enduring ways.
Whereas economic and punitive supersessionism designate discrete problems within the standard model, structural supersessionism designates a problem that pervades the standard model as a whole.
To grasp supersessionism as a structural problem, consider the following. The standard canonical narrative turns on four key episodes: God's intention to consummate the first parents whom God has created, the fall, Christ's incarnation and the inauguration of the church, and final consummation. These four episodes play a uniquely important role in the standard model because together they constitute the model's basic plot or story line. They relate how God's works as Consummator and as Redeemer engage human creation in ways that have universal and lasting significance. In this way, the four episodes determine the basic narrative and conceptual structure of the standard model as a whole. For convenience's sake, I will call this fourfold plot structure the standard model's foreground. The four episodes constitute a foreground of sorts because they stand in direct dramatic relation to one another and thereby determine the dramatic context of the rest of the canonical text. Like the synopsis of a play or opera, they establish the storied context in which every other character, incident, or plot development is conceived.
Now, if one considers the narrative content of the standard model's foreground, two facts stand out. First, the foreground portrays God's engagement with human creation in cosmic and universal terms. Christ figures in the story as the incarnation of the eternal Logos, humankind appears as descendants of the first parents and as possessors of a common human nature, and so on. Second, the foreground completely neglects the Hebrew Scriptures, with the exception of Genesis 1-3! The story tells how God engaged Adam and Eve as Consummator and how God's initial consummating plan was almost immediately disrupted by the fall. The foreground story then leaps immediately to the Apostolic Witness interpreted as God's deliverance of humankind from the fall through Jesus Christ. So conceived, God's purposes as Consummator and Redeemer engage human creation in a manner that simply outflank the greater part of the Hebrew Scriptures and, above all, their witness to God's history with the people Israel.
What then becomes of the center of the Hebrew Scriptures, namely, the God of Israel's history with the Israel of God? Not surprisingly, it recedes into what Soulen will call the background of the standard canonical narrative. The term background is not intended to suggest that God's way with Israel necessarily receives a quantitatively small amount of exegetical and theological attention in comparison with the foreground. That is sometimes but by no means always the case. The point is rather a qualitative one. The term background points to the fact that God's history with Israel plays a role that is ultimately indecisive for shaping the canonical narrative's overarching plot. God's history with Israel does not form an indispensable narrative element of either God's initial work as Consummator or God's work as Redeemer in its definitive form. Bracketed between these two decisive modes of God's engagement with creation, Israel's history is portrayed as nothing more than the economy of redemption in prefigurative form. So construed, Israel's story contributes little or nothing to understanding how God's consummating and redemptive purposes engage human creation in universal and enduring ways. Indeed, the background can be completely omitted from an account of Christian faith without thereby disturbing the overarching logic of salvation history. This omission is reflected in virtually every historic confession of Christian faith from the Creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople to the Augsburg Confession and beyond.
As the example of the creeds suggests, the structural supersessionism of the standard model has profound significance for the doctrinal and theological conclusions that Christians draw about every aspect of their faith. The standard model incorporates God's history with Israel into the Christian story only as it simultaneously renders it largely indecisive for grasping the story's overarching plot. Insofar as theology formulates its dogmatic or systematic conclusions with reference to the Bible's overarching plot, the standard model effectively renders God's history with Israel mute for the purposes of theological reflection.
To sum up, the standard way of understanding the Christian Bible combines it into a single, unified story but does so by putting more emphasis on a universal view of God's work and less on the story of Israel. This universal view highlights God's actions as Redeemer and Consummator in ways that largely overlook much of the Hebrew Scriptures and the story of Israel. The story of Israel is acknowledged but is seen as less important for understanding God's overall plans for creation. As a result, God's identity as the God of Israel and God's history with the Jewish people become largely indecisive for the Christian conception of God. The conclusion that these considerations point to is simply this: the problem of supersessionism in Christian theology goes beyond the explicit teaching that the church has displaced Israel as God's people in the economy of salvation. At a deeper level, the problem of supersessionism coincides with the way in which Christians have traditionally understood the theological and narrative unity of the Christian canon as a whole.
The Origins of the Standard Canonical Narrative
The canonical narrative sketched above originated in part as a response to the apologetic situation of the second-century church. The church was then an overwhelmingly gentile community engaged in a protracted struggle to define its theological identity against three sets of opponents: Jews, pagans, and Gnostics. In each case, the church found it necessary to defend its central confession at a different point. Against the Jews, the church had to defend the claim that the God of Hebrew Scriptures had acted for all the world in Jesus Christ. Against the pagans, the church had to defend the claim that God had acted in Jesus Christ for all the world, that is, with saving significance for everyone. And finally, against the gnostics, the church had to defend the claim that One who acted for all the world in Jesus Christ was the God of Hebrew scriptures. The genius of the standard canonical narrative was to provide a synoptic construal of the Bible that allowed the church to expound its basic confession in a consistent and comprehensive fashion along each of these three hostile fronts.
The creation of a framework for reading the Christian Bible was to a considerable degree the accomplishment of Justin Martyr and especially Irenaeus of Lyon. Justin wrote when the Hebrew Scriptures still constituted the sole Bible of the Christian church, and on that basis he championed Christian faith against pagans and Jews.
Irenaeus wrote one generation later when the Apostolic Witness was an accepted part of the Christian Bible, and on that basis he defended Christian faith against the threat of gnosticism. While Justin is generally reckoned to be the first Christian theologian to provide a comprehensive "salvation-historical" framework for interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures, Irenaeus deserves credit for being the first to propose a comprehensive framework for reading the church's twofold canon. Irenaeus' achievement provided the basic design for what would become the church's standard canonical narrative.
To be sure, both Justin and Irenaeus drew on previous traditions of Christian exegesis, including traditions found in the Apostolic Witness itself. Nevertheless, Justin and Irenaeus created a framework for reading the Bible that was much more than a mechanical reproduction of previous tradition. It was an original and imaginative statement about how the Christian canon hangs together as a whole and in its parts. Unfortunately, it was also a statement that made supersessionism central to the logic of Christian theology for centuries to come.
Justin Martyr: A Framework for the Scriptures of Israel
Justin Martyr was an important early Christian figure who bridged the gap between the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Bible. He was one of the last theologians to view the church's Bible as identical to the Hebrew Scriptures but also one of the first to defend and explain the Christian faith to non-believers. His well-known works, "First and Second Apologies," explain Christian teachings to non-Christians, while "Dialogue with Trypho" records his conversation with a learned Jew about the benefits of Christianity. In these works, Justin created a comprehensive framework for reading the Hebrew Scriptures, shaping how Christians would understand their Bible.
Justin's framework blends two main aspects: a foreground and a background of salvation history. The foreground includes the story of God’s interactions with humanity, culminating in Jesus' life, the creation of the Christian community, and His return. The background involves God’s history with the Jewish people. Justin believed both were crucial for Christian faith. The foreground shows how God engages with each person’s nature and destiny, while the background proves the foreground's truth through prophecy and signs, although Justin didn't see it as having independent religious significance.
Justin emphasizes the cosmic dimension of salvation history, making it relevant to everyone, including non-Jews. He highlights four key episodes: God’s creation of humanity for blessedness, human freedom to choose between good and evil, the incarnation of Jesus, and the final judgment and completion of God’s plan. He also notes that these ideas have parallels in pagan beliefs.
For Justin, the central concept is the Logos, a divine principle of reason present from creation and fully revealed in Jesus Christ. This Logos mediates between God and the world, especially humans, who share in the divine Logos by their rational nature. Before Jesus, people who lived by reason had a partial knowledge of God. The Logos became fully human in Jesus, liberating humanity from ignorance by showing what is eternally right. Jesus' death forgives sins, and his followers adhere to a universal moral law present at all times and places.
Justin Martyr emphasized Jesus' role in cosmic history to show his pagan audience that God's actions through Jesus Christ are important for everyone. However, this approach often bypassed God's identity as the God of Israel and His history with the Jewish people as told in the Hebrew Scriptures. This doesn't mean Justin ignored Israel's history; in fact, he spent a large part of his "First Apology" discussing passages from the Hebrew Scriptures. The purpose of this section was to provide evidence that Christian beliefs are true by highlighting how Jewish prophets predicted events that happened in Jesus Christ, the church, and the end times. Justin explained that these predictions prove the truth of Christian beliefs because they were foretold long before they happened.
For his pagan audience, Justin divided Christian beliefs into two parts. One part, involving creation, the fall, redemption in Christ, and final judgment, is significant to everyone because it concerns the destiny of all people. The other part, involving God's history with the Jews and prophecy about Christ, is also important but more for its ability to validate Christian beliefs.
In addition to his writings for pagans, Justin wrote a dialogue defending Christian faith against objections from a Jew named Trypho. In "Dialogue with Trypho," Justin recorded a two-day conversation where he aimed to show that the God of Israel, who led the Jews out of Egypt, is the same God who acted through Jesus Christ. Justin's goal was to demonstrate that God's presence and actions are now found in the church through Jesus, rather than solely among the Jewish people.
Justin addresses this task by taking what had been a subordinate theme in the First Apology and making it the center of the Dialogue: the Hebrew Scriptures point beyond themselves at every point to Christ and the church, the new spiritual Israel. To establish this claim, Justin employs a variety of exegetical methods, including proof from prophecy, allegory, and typology. Once again, however, Justin's solution depends less on the details of his exegesis than on his larger grasp of the narrative unity of the Scriptures. For Justin, God's history with the carnal community of the Jews is merely a passing episode within God's more encompassing purposes for creation, which are universal and spiritual in nature. As the Hebrew Scriptures themselves testify, Christ is the climax of God's spiritual purposes for creation. Christ therefore ends God's transient relationship with Abraham's physical descendants and initiates God's enduring relationship with the church, the spiritual community of salvation. Henceforth, the God of Israel is to be found with "the true, spiritual Israel."
In his writings, Justin Martyr explains salvation history by focusing on four key events: the creation of Adam, Adam’s fall, redemption through Christ, and the final completion of God’s plan. He describes how God's initial plan for humanity was for people to live in a way that pleased God and earned them the title of His children, free from suffering and death. However, Adam disobeyed God, leading to sin and death for all humanity.
Justin believes that Christ's role in redeeming humanity is driven by the failure of God's initial plan. Jesus did not have to come to earth and die because he needed to, but solely for the sake of humanity, which had fallen into sin and death since Adam. God wanted Jesus to take on the curses of humanity, knowing He would rise again after death. As humanity's savior, Christ established a new and final law and covenant for everyone's salvation, which corresponds to eternal and universal moral truths.
Justin emphasizes that salvation history will end with Christ's second coming, where He will judge everyone based on their faith and actions. Those who followed Christ's teachings will be saved, while others will suffer eternally. This culmination of salvation history fulfills God's original plan for Adam.
In this context, Justin interprets the Hebrew Scriptures and God's relationship with the Jewish people. He treats this part of the Bible historically, not just as symbolic. Justin argues that God's interactions with the Jews were not meant to provide ultimate salvation but to either control their specific wrongdoings or foreshadow Christ's coming.
Justin Martyr's view on God's dealings with the Jews is evident in his interpretation of the Mosaic law. Justin is the first Christian theologian to introduce a tripartite division into the law. He divides the law into three parts: commandments pointing to Christ, laws given because of the Jews' hardness of heart, and moral laws that are universally applicable.
The first part includes precepts that symbolize Christ and the salvation community, like the Passover lamb representing Christ and physical circumcision representing spiritual circumcision for believers. Justin believes that many things Moses commanded can be seen as types, symbols, and prophecies of Christ and the church.
The second part of the Mosaic law, according to Justin, was given to restrain and punish the Jews due to their unique wickedness. For example, he controversially argues that circumcision was given so that Jews would suffer because they crucified Christ. This view was influenced by the aftermath of the Bar Kochba revolt, where Romans used circumcision to identify and kill Jews.
The third part of the law contains ethical precepts that have universal and eternal significance and are naturally known to all people. This is the part of the law that Christ upholds and perfects. In contrast, CChrist brings the other portions of the Jewish law to an end. Christ's law is superior to the ceremonial law of the Jews in every respect. It is eternal rather than temporal (Dial. 40), universal rather than particular (Dial. 11). Above all, it is spiritual and inward rather than merely physical and outward as the abolition of carnal circumcision indicates (Dial. 41). Justin begs Trypho to recognize the obsolescence of the Old Law and the nullity of physical descent from Abraham and to join the spiritual church.
Justin's approach combines the Scriptures into a unified story that supports the belief that God's enduring will can only be fulfilled in a spiritual community like the church. This idea, known as economic supersessionism, suggests that God's saving purpose is only temporarily concerned with the Jewish people. Because the Jews rejected Christ, Justin believes God rejected and punished them. This aligns with his view that salvation for the world was always meant to come through Christ and the spiritual church, not directly through the Jews.
In both "Apologies" and "Dialogue," Justin uses the same interpretive framework for the Hebrew Scriptures, emphasizing a cosmic drama of creation, fall, redemption in Christ, and final completion. This framework helps Justin address both pagan and Jewish audiences. For pagans, it shows the universal relevance of God's actions in Christ, and for Jews, it explains why the true spiritual Israel is found among Christians. By defining God's purposes in universal terms, Justin makes it seem obvious that the true Israel of God is a spiritual community. This approach significantly influenced early Christian thought and the interpretation of the Old Testament.
Iraneus: A Framework for the Two-Fold Canon
In his significant work "Against Heresies," Irenaeus of Lyon created the first detailed framework for reading the church's Bible, which included both the Old and New Testaments. Although Irenaeus lived only a generation after Justin, he operated in a different context. Unlike Justin, who used the ancient Jewish Scriptures, Irenaeus used a version of the Bible similar to today's Christian Bible. His main task was to show the unity of the Bible and defend the Christian faith against gnosticism, a major challenge alongside paganism and Judaism.
Irenaeus and the gnostics both believed that God acted to save humanity through Jesus Christ. However, they disagreed on the nature of God. The gnostics thought that the God of Jesus was completely separate from and opposed to the God of Israel. They saw the God of the Hebrew Scriptures as a lesser deity (demiurge) responsible only for creation and the material world, while the God of Jesus ruled the higher, spiritual realm. They believed Jesus' God saved the chosen people by freeing them from the Creator-God of the Jews and the material world.
Irenaeus countered the gnostics by asserting that the God of Jesus is the same as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and there is no other God. He built on Justin's interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures, showing that the God of Israel and the God of Jesus are one and the same. This approach provided a framework for understanding the Bible as a unified story of God's relationship with humanity.
Irenaeus built on Justin's work in two main ways. Like Justin, he organized the Bible around four key events: creation through the Logos (Word) for the purpose of completion, Adam's fall, redemption through Jesus (the incarnate Logos), and the final completion of God's plan. Irenaeus also saw God's covenant with the Jews as a preview of God's ultimate act of redemption in Christ and the church. However, Irenaeus adapted Justin's ideas to better address the threat of gnosticism. He emphasized the continuity of God's plan, linking God's initial purpose for Adam with His redemptive work in Christ, and he portrayed Israel's role in salvation history more positively, as part of God's education of humanity leading to Christ and the church. Ironically, these changes reinforced the idea that Israel's role was temporary, fitting into the broader Christian story as the prehistory of the church.
For Irenaeus, the key to understanding the Bible and salvation history is the church's "rule of faith" (regula fidei), a summary of Christian belief that he believed came from the apostles. This rule of faith provided a framework for interpreting the Scriptures. Irenaeus compared those who interpret the Bible without this rule of faith to people who take a beautiful mosaic of a king and reassemble it into a poorly made image of a dog.
He begins "Against Heresies" with a statement of this rule of faith, which includes belief in one God, the Father Almighty, who made everything; in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became human for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who spoke through the prophets. This rule of faith summarizes the key events of Jesus' life and mission and the future judgment by Christ.
Irenaeus talks about the dispensations of God. Irenaeus' reference to "the dispensations" hints at God's history with the Jewish people, which we'll discuss later. For now, it's important to note that the rule of faith gives a framework for understanding the Scriptures. It identifies God as the Creator and almost ignores the central part of the Hebrew Scriptures. Following the rule of faith, Irenaeus outlines God's plan for humanity in a way that overlooks God's history with the Jews.
Irenaeus was the first Christian theologian to put God's role as Consummator, the one who completes everything, at the center of the Christian story. This means that God's work as Consummator focuses on achieving the fulfillment of humanity's purpose before sin came into the picture. Irenaeus' interest in God as Consummator does not ignore God's role as Redeemer who brings universal redemption. Instead, it highlights how God's work in Christ reverses the consequences of Adam's fall.
Irenaeus ties God's work as Consummator with the "image and likeness of God" in humans. He suggests that the "image" refers to the spiritual capacities of Adam and Eve, while the "likeness" refers to virtues developed over time. This perspective shapes Irenaeus' view of the Bible's unity. First, he sees God's work as Consummator as separate from God's election of Israel. Second, he views humanity as the focus of God's work, emphasizing their unique nature created in God's image.
Irenaeus likens God's work as Consummator to the growth from infancy to adulthood. Just as God raises an infant to maturity, He aims to bring humans to full spiritual companionship. Adam's missteps don't lessen the severity of his fall, which brings sin and death to humanity. However, Irenaeus believes that God's intention to complete creation will not be thwarted by sin. He holds that God will not give up on Adam or His plan for humanity, as doing so would imply that death could defeat God's will for life.
Therefore, in line with God's purposes, God showed compassion for Adam and his descendants, preparing them for redemption through Jesus Christ. This redemption restores order and fulfills God's original intention for humanity. Irenaeus describes this as "recapitulation," where Christ's obedience and sacrifice reverse the consequences of Adam's disobedience. Christ, the Second Adam, establishes the likeness between God and humanity, which was the goal from the beginning.
Irenaeus can be seen as the father of two different views on how God's work as Consummator (the one who completes everything) relates to Christ's incarnation. Both views follow the same basic story: creation, fall, redemption, and final completion. They differ on whether Christ would have become incarnate (taken human form) even if Adam had not sinned. This question helps us understand if Christ's incarnation is based only on God as Redeemer or if it is also based on God as Consummator from the beginning, even before sin and the need for redemption.
One view, supported by John Duns Scotus, believes that God's plan from the very beginning included Christ's incarnation as the fulfillment of God's purpose for humanity, regardless of Adam's sin. The other view, supported by Thomas Aquinas, believes that Christ's incarnation is solely based on God as Redeemer, and Adam's sin made it necessary. The Thomist view has been dominant in Christian theology, but the Scotist view is becoming more prominent in modern theology.
Irenaeus likely saw Jesus Christ as part of God's initial plan for Adam and in response to Adam's sin. However, it is doubtful that Irenaeus fully supported either view with certainty, as he did not specifically address this question.
For Irenaeus, Christ's work of recapitulation continues in the life of the church, which is like a great sun that illuminates the truth for everyone. The church is like a paradise where God admits all who obey Him. Through the church, Christ helps humanity grow into the fullness of God's image, and this maturity will be fully realized in the future.
Irenaeus' anti-gnostic strategy centers on his whole theology. Following the rule of faith, Irenaeus identifies God the Father of Jesus Christ with the Creator of heaven and earth. From this standpoint, he presents God's plan for humanity, countering the gnostic belief that separates the God who creates from the God who redeems. However, Irenaeus' view doesn't fully account for the central part of the Hebrew Scriptures, which focus on God's covenant with Israel.
Irenaeus includes the story of Israel in his narrative by using the idea of preparatory dispensations. Just as the Apostolic Witness relates how God reorders creation, the Hebrew Scriptures show how God prepared humanity for the incarnation. This approach lets Irenaeus adopt Justin's view of the Hebrew Scriptures as a prefiguration of Christ while more securely anchoring Israel's story in God's plan to restore and complete humanity. Irenaeus sees the Mosaic dispensation as a re-statement of natural law, a prophecy of Christ, and a punishment for sin. He goes beyond Justin by suggesting that each element was meant to educate the Jewish people about Christ.
In summary, Irenaeus sees God's history with Israel as part of a larger story where God prepares humanity for the incarnation. This story shows the Bible's unity, with a single plan of redemption from the fall to the end of time. This plan appears in two forms: one temporary and prophetic (the Old Covenant) and the other permanent and definitive (the New Covenant). Both covenants come from the same God and aim to redeem humanity in Christ, differing only in their outward forms. The Old Covenant is suited for "one nation" and is passing and figurative, while the New Covenant is eternal and for the whole world.
Irenaeus views the Mosaic law as a renewal of natural law, a prediction of Christ, and a consequence for sin. Christian theologians later used the terms Old and New Testaments to refer to the different parts of the Bible, building on Irenaeus' idea of a unified canon. In this sense, the terms Old and New Testaments as designations for the Christian canon are part and parcel of the standard canonical narrative.
Irenaeus' solution opens up two complementary perspectives on the relation of Old and New Covenants, either of which can be emphasized according to circumstances or theological predilection without threatening the solution as a whole. For example, Reformed theologians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries tended to emphasize the common substance that united the Old and New Testaments (the covenant of grace), while Lutheran theologians of the same period tended to emphasize the discontinuity of outer form (law and gospel). But neither party lost sight of the contrasting perspective. The two perspectives require one another and are both integral to the Irenaean solution.
Irenaeus' solution supports the idea of economic supersessionism, which maintains the continuity of God's purpose for Israel and the church. He sees the Old Covenant as fulfilled by the New, with Christ and the church being the ultimate goals of Israel's history.
Irenaeus believes that Christ perfects the natural law common to both Christians and Jews, but he also ends the "law of bondage" that was for the Jews alone. He explains that the apostles continued to observe the Mosaic law after Christ's resurrection to show that Jesus was the true author of the Mosaic law. However, this period was temporary as the Mosaic law was meant to prepare for the law of liberty in Christ. Irenaeus acknowledges Israel's rejection of Christ and sees God's plan as a means to prepare them for salvation through Christ.
Irenaeus acknowledges Israel's rejection of God but doesn't focus much on it. His main concern is the continuous flow of God's plan for redemption, which overshadows Israel's disbelief. God chose the Jews to prepare them for salvation through Christ, but when the crucial moment came, they rejected and killed God's son. Because of this, God gave their inheritance to the Gentiles. Those Jews who claim to be Israel are actually "disinherited from the grace of God."
Irenaeus' vision of the Christian story is highly supersessionist. He aims to vindicate God's identity as the God of Israel but ends up making the role of Israel in Christian faith less clear. He shapes the Bible's narrative into two dimensions: one focusing on God's universal purposes and the other on God's historical preparation of Israel for redemption. This results in the Hebrew Scriptures being largely irrelevant for shaping conclusions about God's purposes in universal and enduring ways.
The Legacy of the Standard Model
Justin Martyr and Irenaeus of Lyon left the church a powerful and expansive narrative. The approach by Irenaeus has been especially influential for two main reasons. First, the Christian understanding has largely followed Irenaeus' view of God's work as both the one who completes creation and the one who redeems it, structured around the story of creation, fall, redemption, and final completion. Second, it also follows his framework of organizing the Scriptures into Old and New Testaments.
While Christian theologians have differed in details, they have generally agreed on the unity of the canon as presented by Irenaeus. However, this solution is problematic today when considering the rejection of supersessionism—the idea that the church has replaced Israel in God’s plan. Irenaeus aimed to defend God's identity as the God of the Hebrew Scriptures against gnosticism. Despite his intentions, his approach makes the Hebrew Scriptures seem less important for understanding God's ongoing purposes for creation, embedding the idea of supersessionism deeply into Christian theology.
Forgetfulness of Israel
One measure of the standard model's structural supersessionism is what can be called the Israel-forgetfulness of the model's foreground. To recall, the model's foreground is the sequence of episodes that constitute the standard model's overarching plot: God's creation of Adam and Eve for the purpose of consummation, the fall, redemption in Christ through the church, and final judgment and final consummation. Although the model's foreground is by definition not identical with the model as a whole, it does depict how God's consummating and redemptive purposes engage humankind in universal and enduring ways. The foreground can therefore be said to encapsulate what the standard model depicts as theologically decisive for a Christian reading of the Bible. The difficulty, of course, is that the foreground wholly omits the Hebrew Scriptures with the exception of Genesis 1-3. In proportion as Christian theology has defined its problems and solutions within the framework of the model's foreground, therefore, it has done so in an Israel-forgetful manner.
One area where the standard model's Israel-forgetfulness is especially evident is the church's classical doctrinal heritage. In principle, doctrines about the Trinity, the person of Christ, sin and salvation, and so forth presuppose the authority of the whole Christian canon, including the Scriptures of Israel. In practice, these doctrines have been shaped with almost exclusive reference to the foreground story.
One clear example of the standard model's tendency to overlook Israel is in the church's classical doctrines. Ideally, teachings about the Trinity, the person of Christ, sin, and salvation should be based on the entire Christian Bible, including the Scriptures of Israel. However, in reality, these doctrines have mostly focused on the main story of creation, fall, redemption, and final completion.
Not surprisingly, therefore, the doctrines mirror the foreground's emphasis upon the cosmic and universal dimensions of salvation history. For instance, debates about the Trinity focused on the nature of the pre-incarnate Word and the eternal relationship between the Father and the Son. Discussions about Christ's nature revolved around his divine and human qualities. The Western debate about sin and salvation found resolution in Augustine's ideas about human nature and divine grace. In each case, the dominant categories are those of divine and human natures. By contrast, the Scriptures' testimony to God's history with the Jewish people is almost wholly absent from view.
It's important to appreciate the significant theological achievements of the classical tradition. However, there have been notable shortcomings, such as a disconnect from the Hebrew Scriptures and the history of Israel. Additionally, there's been a broader disconnect from aspects of human life like public history, economics, and politics, which are central to the Hebrew Scriptures
To cite only one example, Wolfhart Pannenberg argues that the whole edifice of classical incarnational christology is basically detachable from the Hebrew Scriptures and the history of Israel. "Jesus' relationship to Israel and to the Old Testament cannot be so fundamental for a Christology that takes its beginning point in the concept of the incarnation that such a Christology could not exist without it. But much the same observation could be made about virtually every other aspect of traditional doctrine, including its keystone, classical trinitarian theology. The point Soulen wishes to underscore is simply that a connection exists between the standard model's structural supersessionism and the weakness that Pannenberg observes. The connection is the standard model's tendency to render the bulk of Israel's Scriptures indecisive for the formation of Christian doctrine. The main point is that the standard model's structural supersessionism weakens the connection to Israel's Scriptures in Christian doctrine. This model tends to make Israel's Scriptures less important in forming Christian beliefs. Classical Christian theology, as seen in the creeds and many theological works, often presents Christian beliefs with little reference to God's relationship with Israel. The first and largest part of the Bible rarely has its own doctrinal focus or significantly influences other doctrines.
The standard model tends to forget about Israel when considering God's role as the Consummator of humankind. God's work as Consummator focuses on the goal and means of perfecting humanity, even before thinking about sin and redemption. This idea is very important for Christian theology because it sets the ultimate framework for understanding God's work in Christ.
However, the standard model bases this concept on a very small part of the Hebrew Scriptures, specifically Genesis 1-2 or even just Genesis 1:26-27. This interpretation centers on Adam as the first example of human nature and the image of God. A different perspective, called the Scotist account, adds the idea of incarnation as part of God's plan to perfect humanity.
In both cases, the Hebrew Scriptures are not significantly used to shape these conclusions about God's work as Consummator. This shows a major neglect of the central parts of the Hebrew Scriptures, especially their story of God's relationship with Israel and other nations.
The standard model's way of understanding God's role as Consummator has influenced the "religious" interpretations of Christianity that Dietrich Bonhoeffer criticized while he was in prison. Bonhoeffer pointed out that these interpretations often focused too much on individual piety and metaphysical ideas rather than the communal and historical aspects of faith.
In the standard model, theologians linked God's work as Consummator mainly with Adam and the image of God. This led them to think about God's perfecting work in very individualistic and theoretical ways, often ignoring the broader context of the Hebrew Scriptures. Since there isn't much in the Hebrew Scriptures about God's consummating work, theologians turned to the philosophical ideas of their time to fill in the gaps. This approach resulted in a version of Christianity that Bonhoeffer felt was too detached from the real-world struggles and historical context of faith, and too focused on abstract, "religious" concepts
Many early Christian and medieval theologians used the Neoplatonic idea of exitus and reditus to explain God's work as Consummator, which means creation's emanation from and return to God. This approach often led them to a dualistic view of body and soul. The issue isn't that Christians are wrong to use ideas from their culture, but that in explaining God's work as Consummator, this method wasn't entirely effective. By focusing only on the image of God, theologians often thought about God's perfecting work in overly individualistic and metaphysical ways. This is exactly what Bonhoeffer criticized, questioning its biblical integrity and relevance to human life.
Foreshortening the Hebrew Scriptures
Another measure of the standard model's supersessionistic structure is what might be called the soteriological foreshortening of the model's background. The raw material of the model's background, to recall, consists in all of the Hebrew Scriptures apart from the opening chapters of Genesis. The thing that strikes any reader of this material is the extraordinary range and diversity of its subject matter and interests. The Hebrew Scriptures deal with the creation of the heavens and the earth and the population of the world by animals and human beings, but also with the rise and spread of families and nations, with battles and conquest, and with market-place, temple, and courthouse. The Scriptures touch on a virtually inexhaustible spectrum of human experience, including slavery, betrayal, migration, drought, childlessness, jealousy, theft, lust, war, infirmity, murder, and childbirth. Above all, the Scriptures are concerned with the history that transpires between the God of Israel, Israel, and the nations, a history that the Scriptures appear to regard as virtually coextensive with human history as a whole.
Characteristically, the standard model brings all of this unruly material under the hermeneutical control of the foreground story of creation, fall, redemption, and final consummation. Within this context, the background material is construed as the Old Covenant, that is, as the economy of redemption in prophetic form. As we have seen in the previous pages, one consequence of this is the logic of economic supersessionism, according to which it is Israel's destiny to flow into the church like a river into the sea. But another consequence is what might be called the soteriological foreshortening of Israel's Scriptures.
"Soteriological foreshortening of Israel's Scriptures" refers to the tendency to interpret the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) primarily through the lens of salvation (soteriology) in Christian theology. This approach compresses or shortens the broader and more complex narratives and teachings of the Hebrew Scriptures to fit them into a specific framework focused on salvation history—specifically, the coming of Christ and the redemption of humanity.
In essence, it means that the rich, diverse, and multifaceted content of the Hebrew Scriptures is often viewed mainly in terms of how it prefigures or relates to the Christian understanding of salvation through Jesus Christ, rather than appreciating it in its own right or in the context of Israel's history and relationship with God.
The vast panorama of the Hebrew Scriptures is made to unfold within the basic antithesis of Adam's sin and redemption in Christ. This soteriological framework foreshortens the Hebrew Scriptures both thematically and temporally. Thematically, because the Scriptures are thought to relate a story whose fundamental presupposition is the catastrophe of sin and whose goal is therefore deliverance from the negative conditions of existence. This perspective obscures the possibility that the Hebrew Scriptures are not solely or even primarily concerned with the antithesis of sin and redemption but much rather with the God of Israel's passionate engagement with the mundane affairs of Israel and the nations. Once again, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's reflections from a prison cell in Nazi Germany cast a critical light on the logic of the standard model:
Unlike the other oriental religions, the faith of the Old Testament isn't a religion of redemption. It's true that Christianity has always been regarded as a religion of redemption. But isn't this a cardinal error, which separates Christ from the Old Testament and interprets him on the lines of the myths about redemption? To the objection that a crucial importance is given in the Old Testament to redemption (from Egypt, and later from Babylon) it may be answered that the redemptions referred to here are historical, i.e. on this side of death, whereas everywhere else the myths about redemption are concerned to overcome the barrier of death. Israel is delivered out of Egypt so that it may live before God as God's people on earth.
In other words, the Old Testament faith is different from other ancient religions because it isn't focused on redemption in the way those religions are. Christianity, on the other hand, is often seen as a religion of redemption. This might be a mistake because it separates Jesus from the Old Testament and makes him fit into stories about redemption that are like myths.
In addition to narrowing the thematic focus of the Hebrew Scriptures to the problem of sin and redemption, the standard model also foreshortens the Hebrew Scriptures in a temporal sense. As perceived through the lens of the standard model, the Hebrew Scriptures do not relate a story that extends indefinitely into the future. They relate instead the story of one finite dispensation in the history of God's dealings with humankind, a dispensation that extends from Abraham or Moses to Jesus Christ but that in any case has already come to an end. Clearly this pattern of thought creates a gulf between the Scriptures and the Apostolic Witness by consigning to the past not only God's particular concern with Israel but also God's more general concern with humankind in all its adulterous, blasphemous, and murderous ambiguity. Here too Bonhoeffer's musings can be allowed a final word:
Why is it that in the Old Testament men tell lies vigorously and often to the glory of God (I've now collected the passages), kill, deceive, rob, divorce, and even fornicate (see the genealogy of Jesus), doubt, blaspheme, and curse, whereas in the New Testament there is nothing of all this? "An earlier stage" of religion? That is a very naive way out; it is one and the same God.
Bonhoeffer's point here seems to be that the "standard model" of interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures reduces their focus to the issues of sin and redemption, and limits their relevance to a specific historical period that ends with Jesus Christ. This view treats the Hebrew Scriptures as a story that has already concluded, thus distancing it from the ongoing story of God's relationship with humanity as seen in the New Testament.
Bonhoeffer highlights this disconnect by noting how the Old Testament is filled with human imperfections and morally ambiguous actions, while the New Testament seems to lack such raw and gritty human experiences. He suggests that this difference is not because the Old Testament represents an "earlier stage" of religion, but because both testaments are about the same God dealing with the real, messy lives of people. Bonhoeffer is criticizing the tendency to see the Old Testament as merely a prelude to the New Testament, rather than as an integral part of the continuous story of God's interaction with humanity.
Redemption and the Flight From History
A final measure of the standard model's structural supersessionism appears in its conception of redemption, which although antignositic nevertheless entails a curious kind of flight from history. The standard model appears in its entirety when its foreground and background are taken as complementary parts of a single comprehensive story. The full story then consists in the sequence: creation-for-con-summation, fall, Old Covenant in Israel, redemption in Christ, New Covenant in the church, and final consummation. This story is profoundly antignostic in intention, especially with respect to God's engagement with creation. The story affirms that the God who creates and the God who redeems is one God, the Father of Jesus Christ.
Moreover, the model affirms that God's action in Christ Jesus does not liberate humanity from the sphere of creation but much rather liberates creation itself from the threat of sin and death.
When our attention shifts from God's engagement with creation to God's engagement with the flesh of Israel, however, the story's relationship to gnosticism appears in a different light. God's abiding commitment to creation passes through the flesh of the people Israel in the Old Covenant and ultimately lodges with irrevocable finality in the one Jewish man, Jesus of Nazareth. But with that the vocation of the people Israel reaches its foreordained goal and comes to an end. In the process, God's commitment to Israel's flesh is revealed as only a passing stage on the way to God's truly abiding commitment, which is to Christ and the community of salvation in its spiritual form. So conceived, God's commitment to creation betrays a certain kinship to gnosticism after all. God's work of redemption entails liberation not indeed from creation but nevertheless from the historical dispensation that is characterized by Israel's carnal election and by the distinction between Israel and the nations. This is a softened Christian gnosticism, a gnosticism not of being but of his-tory. Humanity is redeemed not in history but from it, and above all, from a history in which God's commitment to creation goes by way of the Jewish people and its history among the nations.
Taken as a whole, the standard model embodies a vision of Christian faith that seeks to reconcile the affirmation of God's passionate and enduring engagement with creation with the denial of God's equally passionate and enduring engagement with the people Israel. The result is an evisceration of the God of Israel in Christian theology. When the question is put: is the God of Israel irrevocably bound to creation, Christians have traditionally answered with a resounding yes. But when the question is put: is the God of Israel irrevocably bound to the people Israel, Christians have equivocated.
The standard model provides a framework in which it appears evident that the God of Israel's abiding commitment to creation goes not by way of the Israel of the flesh but by way of the Israel of the spirit. The upshot is a vision of the God of Israel that is internally ordered to the disappearance of the Jewish people. Yet Christians have rarely sensed any contradiction in this idea. They feel no contradiction because the standard model--while not denying God's history with the Jewish people renders this history largely irrelevant for deciphering God's enduring purposes for creation. Because God's enduring purposes engage humankind as spirit, Israel's flesh can drop out.
Despite its quasignostic character, classical Christian thought was generally unable and unwilling to consign carnal Israel's existence completely to the past. Unable, for the simple reason that the Jewish people by their survival and flourishing did not permit it.
Unwilling, because the continued existence of carnal Israel demanded an explanation in theological terms. If carnal Israel was fundamentally superseded within the sphere of the church, what accounted for its continued existence outside the church? The obvious explanation, of course, was sin. Carnal Israel existed alongside the church precisely because of its disobedience to the gospel, on which account it spurned Christianity's invitation to join the spiritual church. John Chrysostom in the fourth century complained that the Jews were always perversely out of step with the times, disobeying the Mosaic law while it was in force and cleaving to it after it had been annulled. Others sought in addition to this an explanation in the providence of God. Origen, on this point as on others an exceptional voice, perceived in unbelieving Israel the unfolding of a benign providence that was ultimately directed to the redemption of Jew and Gentile alike. A more influential answer was advanced by Augustine, who argued that God preserved the Jews in existence for the sake of their unwilling testimony to Christian faith. By honoring the Old Testament, the Jews demonstrated that it was no mere forgery of the church, but authentic prophecy that predicted long ago the incarnation of Jesus Christ and the rise of the spiritual church.
Thus Christian theology preserved, in however backhanded a fashion, a limited theological rationale for the continued existence of the Jewish people. The rationale was not sufficient to spare the Jews from political and economic disenfranchisement after the political ascendancy of the Christian church, nor was it sufficient to spare them from murderous outbreaks of popular persecution and national expulsion. Nevertheless, it was sufficient to help spare the Jews from the programs of outright extermination that met adherents of pagan religion and to secure them a subordinate but viable niche in Christian culture. Though superseded in principle and besieged in fact, carnal Israel was permitted to exist within Christendom because of its incontrovertible connection to the God of Christian confession, the God of Israel.
Chapter Review Closing
In this section, we explore the development and impact of the standard canonical narrative in Christian theology, which emerged in the late second century when the church expanded its original canon of Jewish Scriptures to include the New Testament. This narrative unifies the Bible's diverse texts into a coherent story focusing on creation, fall, redemption in Christ, and final consummation. It emphasizes God's dual roles as Consummator, who aims to perfect humanity, and Redeemer, who saves humanity from sin and evil. However, this model has inherent limitations, particularly its tendency to overlook the ongoing significance of Israel's history and God's relationship with the Jewish people. By examining these flaws, we can better understand the importance of a more inclusive and accurate theological framework.