I recently picked back up the book, Evil and the Justice of God by N. T. Wright. I had set it aside for a while with life getting busy and all. But I recently finished the last two chapters and found the best jewels of the book were saved for the end. I really enjoyed the insights that Wright brought to the surface, and I even enjoyed the challenges. This is the fourth book I have read by Wright, the others being the three volumes he has written on Christian Origins and the Question of God. This book did not disappoint, just as expected given his other work. The book is another look at the problem of evil and God's dealing with it. As with other books, Wright shows that God's response to evil is Jesus Christ's work on the cross and the resurrection that follows. These two parts of one event are the means by which evil will eventually be eradicated from the cosmos. I appreciated, Wright bridging together of two prominent theories of the atonement: 1) the Christus Victor and 2) penal substitutionary atonement. Both are important emphases in the work of Christ death on the cross, and are clearly seen throughout the Scriptures. One does not have to create and either/or situation in regard to theories of the atonement; if the Bible supports these theories, then one should look at them as different facets of the wonderful plan of God for humanity and creation. But back to what Wright says...the major thrust that of that work on the cross is forgiveness. This human side of this forgiveness, the release from the penalty of sin and evil, was something I had heard again and again in Christian theology from the pulpit and from the classroom. But Wright's perspective of the release for God in the act of forgiveness was something altogether new. I have to admit that I was not, and am still not completely comfortable speaking of God in the way that Wright does, but nevertheless, he might be helping us see some truth. I am not sure. What he says is this...based upon the death of Jesus, "God will forgive; and with that forgiveness God will not only release the world from its burden of guilt but will also, so to speak, release himself from the burden of always having to be angry with the world gone wrong" (pg. 136). Elsewhere in the book he likens this to the psychological release of burden that happens when someone pursues forgiveness toward those who have wronged them deeply. I believe this is completely right and truthful language in the human realm, but I don't necessarily see the proper precedent to speak of God this way. I guess I'm not sure that we can know that this is what things are like for God. Maybe for Jesus Christ in His humanity, still I guess we cannot know this until heaven, but it was interesting.
There is another point that Wright makes, which I believe is crucial for the Church to understand. This is something that is a full outworking of the victory of God on the cross over evil. We can see it in Revelation 5:9-10, where we read that God, the Lamb, has ransomed people from every nation on earth to be royal priests who will rule and reign on the earth. This is a somewhat neglected part of our ecclesial theology. I guess that is probably an outcome of the fact that we shy away from eschatological ideas (we rarely even read Revelation because it is so highly debated and difficult to understand). I guess I will give away where I am at in terms of my eschatology. I know that some see this as prophetic for the new millennium. And it may very well be, but in the New Testament we find an "already/not yet" eschatology. God's promised future and hope for us is going to be fulfilled in the end times, but some of the realities of that future are already here. God enabled us to experience and live in light of eternity through the power of the resurrection, which everyone in Christ has through the Holy Spirit. This is why we have hope now, because we have the Spirit, our down payment on the future blessings of God. God's down payment is giving His Spirit, Himself, to us so that we can live now in victory over evil. So, I view Rev. 5:9-10 as both prophetic and a present reality, which we as Christians can pursue with the power of the Spirit. Therefore, one of the outworkings of the cross and resurrection is that we should serve God by reigning on earth as His image bearers (this I believe, was the true thrust of what Moses wrote in Gen. 1:28 - multiplying image bearers that would rule on earth - not simply a command to procreate). I will close this post with a long quote from Wright about the neglect of this theme (reigning on earth) in the Church. He sums this up better than I can. "This theme, so frequent in the New Testament and so widely ignored in Christian theology, is part of the solution to the problem. it isn't that the cross has won the victory, so there's nothing more to be done. rather, the cross has won the victory as a result of which there are now redeemed human beings getting ready to act as God's wise agents, his stewards, constantly worshipping their Creator and constantly, as a result, being equipped to reflect his image into his creation, to bring his wise and healing order to the world, putting the world to rights under his just and gentle rule. A truly biblical ecclesiology should focus not so much on the fact that that the church is the community of the saved but that the church is the community of those who, being redeemed through the cross, are now to be a kingdom of priests to serve God and to reign on the earth. Our fear of triumphalism on the one hand, and on the other hand our flattening out of our final destiny into talk merely of 'going to heaven,' have combined to rob us of this central biblical theme. But until we put it back where it belongs we won't see how the New Testament ultimately offers a solution to the problem of evil" (pg. 139).
