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Bible (New Testament): English Standard Version
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The Good News of God’s Saving Action in History
The New Testament is centered around a message of “good news,” which is the meaning of the word “gospel.” In Jesus’s teaching, this good news is the announcement of the kingdom of God (Mark 1:14-15), whereas the epistles tend to focus the gospel message on the identity and actions of Jesus himself. This apparent disjunction marks less of a change than it might appear at first glance; both messages are rooted in the idea that God’s saving action has broken into the history of humanity in a new and transformative way. Jesus’s proclamation of the kingdom of God is connected to Jewish expectations of the messianic age and the last days—namely, that God would send his chosen emissary, his Messiah, to restore his people and save them from their enemies, leading to a golden age of the reign of God. The early Christian gospel retained this idea, but rather than phrasing it in terms of the kingdom of God, they saw those expectations as having been inaugurated in Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, so they referred to the gospel in regard to what Jesus had done: “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel” (2 Tim 2:8). Because Jesus had shown himself to be the Messiah, had defeated his people’s enemies (sin, death, and Satan), and had begun the heavenly messianic reign, the early Christians believed that they were living in a new phase of history, in which the great movement of God’s final work had already begun, to reach its fulfillment when Jesus returns.
One of the notable features of this idea of “good news” is that the central message of Christianity is rooted in historical events, not simply in religious precepts or a philosophical perspective. The gospel taught in early Christianity was not just a set of doctrines in which one should believe, but a story about God’s actions on behalf of his people. Because the gospel is primarily about God’s actions, early Christianity developed with an emphasis on faith—that is, casting oneself gratefully on the salvation offered by God—rather than on a list of religious actions to perform or rules to be kept: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8-9). Further, the historical nature of the gospel assisted early Christians in their evangelistic proclamation, since it was rooted in events that could be attested to by eyewitness reports, in contrast to the more speculative theologies of pagan religions and mystery cults in the Greco-Roman world.
The Identity of Jesus
Among the foremost concerns of the New Testament writers, especially in the four gospels, is to make the case for Jesus’s identity as the Messiah and the Son of God. The fact that early Christianity regarded Jesus as the Messiah is indisputable, as demonstrated by their appending the title “Christ” (in Greek, chrīstós, meaning “anointed one”) to his name. The gospels portray Jesus’s words and actions as evidence for that identity. Although Jesus did not apply the title “Christ” to himself, the titles he did use point strongly toward that association. His favorite title was “Son of Man,” which, although it appears at first to be a simple claim to his humanity, is rooted in Old Testament traditions associated with the Messiah. The most prominent example of it comes from the vision of Daniel 7:13-14, in which a messianic character called the “son of man” is enthroned to reign in the heavens. This usage is seen in Jesus’s words at his trial before the high priest: “[…] from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matt 26:64). Further, the fact that Jesus presented his death as a sacrificial offering on the cross (thus fulfilling the priestly messianic office) and defeated all the spiritual enemies of his people by rising from the dead (thus fulfilling the kingly messianic office) marks him, in the eyes of Christians, as being the Messiah. His resurrection was particularly persuasive in this regard because the resurrection of the dead had been expected to come only in conjunction with the future messianic age. In addition, the New Testament makes frequent note of messianic prophecies that Jesus fulfilled, covering everything from the details of his birth to the events of his death.
The New Testament is also clear in establishing Jesus’s divine identity, a trend seen most prominently in the Johannine literature but observable in many other places as well. Contrary to some popular assumptions, the theological milieu of Second Temple Judaism was not as rigidly monotheistic as later trends in Judaism would become, and there was a broad debate in the intertestamental period (the approximately 400 years between the recorded narratives of the Old Testament and New Testament) regarding the question of whether there might be more than one divine “power” represented in the one God of Israel. This debate was rooted in the Old Testament texts that appeared to show divine identities for characters like “the Angel of the Lord” and for the personification of God’s wisdom (Exod 3:2; Prov 8:12-31). Because of this background, early Christianity showed little hesitation in assigning divine identity to Jesus along with God the Father, since the model of a plurality within the unity of Israelite monotheism was already established.
When the New Testament refers to Jesus as “the Son of God,” this is likely both a messianic title (alluding to the way that ancient kings of Israel could be addressed) as well as a claim to his divine nature. The New Testament makes clear, however, that the “sonship” of Jesus is an analogy from familial relations, not to be taken as an indication that Jesus’s divinity was somehow birthed at the time of his incarnation in Mary’s womb. John makes clear in the prologue to his gospel that Jesus’s divine nature was preexistent with God the Father before all things: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1-2). The Gospel of John shows Jesus claiming unity with the Father and using the personal name of God (“I Am”) for himself: “Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). The other gospels, while not using such direct rhetoric to make a case for Jesus’s divinity, nevertheless demonstrate it by showing Jesus accepting worship from his disciples (Matt 14:33; 28:9; Luke 24:52). Further, Jesus’s miraculous power, and especially his power over nature, was taken by early Christians as clear evidence of his divine identity. The rest of the New Testament bears this out, culminating in the vision of Revelation 5, which shows Jesus reigning in the heavenly throne room.
The Relationship Between the Old and New Covenants
Early Christianity saw itself as being in direct continuity with ancient Israelite religion. They did not view themselves as a new religion, but rather they believed that their movement was the intended progression of God’s plan as it had been revealed in the Old Testament. Christians saw the Old Testament as pointing toward a future fulfillment that came to pass through Jesus and the church. The New Testament is saturated with Old Testament references and is impossible to fully understand without the context of the older canon. The core ideas of Old Testament theology—such as the idea that one’s faith is based on God’s saving acts revealed in history, and that God’s relationship with his people is built on the foundation of his steadfast love—become the core ideas of New Testament theology as well. The main change is simply in the content of God’s saving acts, which for Christians now includes the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Further, the great theme of God’s steadfast love is extended in the New Testament to represent the entirety of God’s character—“God is love” (1 John 4:8)—and to encompass not just Israel, but all people everywhere: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Thus Christianity, in the eyes of its earliest adherents, can be understood as the Israelite religion of the Old Testament, but now having found its fulfillment in the Messiah and extended to all nations.
While there was significant continuity, the transition from the old covenant before Christ to the new covenant after him was not always a smooth one. In particular, the inclusion of Gentiles was a difficult hurdle for the early church, both in overcoming the longstanding animus between Jews and Gentiles and in establishing a set of behavioral expectations that applied to all Christians. Many of the Jewish believers in Jesus continued to practice some ritual elements of the Old Testament law, not necessarily because they thought the Mosaic covenant remained binding on them, but because the law was seen as a good gift of God and a way to rightly express devotion to him. When Gentiles began entering the church, however, it quickly became apparent that expectations for keeping the Mosaic law should not be put on them as they had never kept it before and nothing in the teaching of Christ commanded its continued practice.
Certain ritual elements of the law—like the practice of offering sacrifices for sin at the temple—were acknowledged by all Christians as having been entirely fulfilled in Jesus, who was the “once for all” sacrifice (Heb 10:10). It would thus not be appropriate for Christians to continue offering sacrifices for sin in accordance with the law because doing so would negate the place of Jesus’s sacrifice. The principle of Jesus’s having fulfilled the law was further extended to other ceremonial elements (circumcision, food laws, and purity laws), all of which had been aimed at marking the Israelites as a people set apart for God and ritually purified so that they could enter God’s temple for worship. Since Jesus’s sacrifice had already rendered Christians holy and purified in the sight of God, these ceremonial elements were likewise no longer necessary. As such, Gentile Christians could not be told that they must keep the ceremonial laws as a legalistic marker of true religion since Jesus had already accomplished the purpose for which those laws existed: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Gal 5:6). Other elements of the Old Testament law, referred to in Christian tradition as the moral law (such as the Ten Commandments), remain an authoritative guide for Christian conduct, but only in the sense that they reveal which human behaviors are in accordance with the character of God. Christians do not follow laws simply for the sake of having laws, but because they desire to avoid sin and walk in holiness, and the moral laws of the Old Testament offer a guide for how to do this in one’s daily life. The Christian approach to keeping such laws is not legalistic, but is expressed quite simply, by both Jesus and Paul, by the rule of love: “[…] the one who loves another has fulfilled the law” (Rom 13:8; Matt 22:37-40).
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