It was into this world of Greek philosophy, Roman imperial might, and rampant paganism that Jesus of Nazareth was born. Of course, the “genesis-point,” if you will, of the Jesus movement was in backwater Palestine…Galilee to be specific. This Jewish Messianic movement that emerged around Jesus of Nazareth eventually grew beyond its Jewish roots and then evolved by taking on, addressing, challenging, and eventually defeating the ancient pagan world of Greece and Rome.
In order to understand this, though, we must first understand what Jesus’ message to Judaism was and how his followers came to be convinced that it was in Jesus that all the messianic hopes within Judaism were fulfilled. After that, we can then seek to understand how this “fulfilled messianic movement” was translated to speak to the larger Greco-Roman world.
The Jewish Worldview: God, Creation, Mankind, and History
All too often, in their attempt to talk about Jesus and his Gospel, people gloss over the critical worldview of Second-Temple Judaism. Instead, far too many Christians reduce the concept of Jesus’ fulfillment of Judaism to nothing more than, “There were a bunch of predictions in the Old Testament about a coming Messiah, and Jesus fulfilled those predictions! Now you can accept him into your heart, get saved, and go to heaven when you die!” Such a depiction should be deemed over-simplistic to anyone who takes Jesus and Christianity seriously.
The Jews of the Old Testament were not just people sitting around, trying to keep God’s rules, and waiting for a future god-like superman to take them away to heaven. They viewed themselves as the people with whom the Creator God of the universe entered into a covenant, with the sole purpose of working through them in order to redeem His creation from sin, death, and decay. That one sentence opens the door to a radically different worldview by the standards of the ancient world. This is extremely important to know: the Jews viewed God differently, the natural world differently, and mankind differently than any society or culture at the time.
Perhaps the most basic difference between the Old Testament Jewish worldview and those of the ancient world is that it declared that there was one Creator God, and that He had revealed himself within history. Unlike the polytheism of the ancient world, Judaism declared that there was only one God, and that He was all-powerful, above nature, and the creator of a good created order. There were no warring gods of nature whom human beings had to appease in order avoid their petty and vindictive punishment. YHWH was just, righteous, merciful, compassionate, and good, and He cut a covenant (i.e. made a deal!) with Abraham and his descendants.
Therefore, the sacrificial system outlined in the Torah was not aimed at appeasing an angry god, but rather highlighting YHWH’s compassion and love: the worshiper would sacrifice, let’s say, a lamb, by offering it to YHWH. This act, done as a confession and admission of sin, would then be accepted by YHWH and turned into a celebratory meal: one which the worshiper would eat in the Temple, in the presence of YHWH. The meal would signify and celebrate the restoration of the worshiper’s relationship with YHWH.
The revelation of the purpose of not only the sacrificial system, but also the Torah itself, coupled with YHWH’s redemptive actions during the Exodus and throughout Israel’s history, testified to YHWH’s power, compassion, justice, and intention to redeem, remake, and transform, not only all of mankind, but the entire creation. Therefore, the Jewish worldview was radically different than what was found in other ancient societies, for it declared a number of things:
- There was one God, YHWH, the Creator of the natural world. He was good, just, and compassionate.
- Furthermore, He was also a personal being who revealed Himself in history and communicates with mankind.
- Creation itself—the natural, material universe—declares the glory of God. Creation is good, and worthy to be redeemed from death and decay.
- Mankind, being made in God’s image, has dignity and worth. He is not just a part of the natural world; he is unique and has a purpose: to act as God’s king, priest, and custodian of creation, to rule over God’s creation by caring for it and offering it back to God. He is to reflect and live out God’s justice, mercy, compassion, righteousness, and love in his creation.
- History, therefore, has a purpose, for it is in history that we see the Creator God communicate with mankind and empower the one He has made in His image to care for and ultimately redeem His good creation.
But if this is what Old Testament Judaism taught concerning God, mankind, and creation, the actual history of ancient Israel revealed something else: things weren’t as they should be. Corruption, sin and death seemed to rule the day. In fact, no one was immune from it, not even God’s people. Despite God’s self-revelation to His people, something obviously wasn’t right. This leads us to the fifth tenet of the Jewish worldview:
- Yes, YHWH was working through history and was in the process of bringing mankind and creation itself to their full fruition. Old Testament Israel, though, had failed to be the kind of people God wanted. Nevertheless, despite the inevitability and reign of sin and death throughout creation, YHWH was still in control. He was still building everything up to what he purposed all along. He was faithful to His covenant with Abraham, and somehow He would work through Israel to accomplish His purposes.
Indeed, everything in the Old Testament, everything in the history of ancient Israel, looked forward to God’s revelation as to how He would actually fulfill his purposes for mankind and creation itself. By the time of Jesus, the Jews, therefore, develop these views into the general, over-arching worldview of Second Temple Judaism.
The Jewish Worldview and the Two Ages of History
The Jews of Jesus’ day viewed history in terms of two distinct ages. The present age in which they currently found themselves was under the rule of Satan, and it was evidenced by the presence of sin, death, demon-possession, sickness, the oppression of pagan rulers, and the general absence of the Spirit of God among his people. The future age that they looked forward to was an age in which God would fulfill his purposes for mankind and creation. It would be, in fact, the Kingdom of God, and it would be characterized by righteousness, eternal life, health and peace, the rule of God’s anointed Messiah, and the out-pouring of God’s Spirit on His people.
The “turn of the ages,” so the Jews believed, would happen all at once: the Messiah would appear, defeat the pagan rulers and purify the Temple. There would be a resurrection of the righteous dead into eternal life, and God’s Spirit would be poured out on all flesh—and thus, the New Creation, the Kingdom of God itself, would be ushered in. Now obviously, there is a lot more to the Jewish worldview, but for our purposes, this general outline will suffice in order to lay out precisely what the proclamation of the early Church (which was, don’t forget, essentially Jewish) really was.
The Christian Proclamation: The turn of the ages has happened (just not how we thought!)
The early Christian proclamation that we see being declared throughout the New Testament was that the long-awaited “turn of the ages” expected in the Jewish Worldview had, in fact happened…just not in the way they had been expecting. In a simplified fashion, here’s what the earliest Christians in the first century declared:
- The Jewish worldview declared the present age to be evil; the early Church agreed.
- The Jewish worldview looked forward to the coming of God’s Messiah; the early Church declared that Jesus was, in fact, God’s Messiah. But instead of coming to defeat pagan rulers like Rome, Jesus had come to defeat Satan himself, because evil was not just among the pagans, but among the Jews as well. And shockingly, instead of coming to purify the Temple, Jesus had come and condemned the Temple as being hopelessly corrupt. Much like Jeremiah 600 years earlier, Jesus had prophesied that God would destroy the Temple, ironically, by the hands of Rome.
- The Jewish worldview looked forward to an instantaneous “turn of the ages,” signified by the resurrection of the dead. The early Church declared that the “turn of the ages” had begun, but that it was not a one-time instantaneous thing. It had begun with the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, the only true righteous one. And that the power revealed at his resurrection (which was, in fact, the power of God’s Spirit) was now given to Jesus’ followers. And they, as God’s people, as God’s true Israel, were given a mission: to bear witness to God’s power and God’s Messiah throughout a world still in subjection to the “Old Age.” There would be a future full resurrection of dead, and that would signal the consummation of God’s purposes.
- The Jewish worldview believed that the dawn of the Kingdom of God and the New Creation would be evidenced by the outpouring of God’s Spirit on all flesh. The early Church declared that that very outpouring of God’s Spirit had happened at Pentecost, and part of their mission as God’s Messiah/Kingdom of God people was to further that outpouring of God’s Spirit, indeed, on all flesh…throughout the world, even among the Gentiles.
Simply put, the early Church proclaimed that in Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the long-awaited “turn of the ages,” the Kingdom of God, the New Creation itself (as evidenced in Christ’s resurrection) had begun. It is in that sense that we must understand the idea of Jesus “having fulfilled” the Jewish hopes and worldview. It is not simply a matter of a number of predictions finally happening. It signaled the culmination of all the Jewish hopes (albeit in a way they had not envisioned), and the end of that “chapter” in God’s story.
But when the followers of Jesus went out to the Gentile world, complete with all its polytheism, superstition, and pagan philosophy, the question became, “How does the fulfillment of the Jewish worldview now translate to the pagan world?” Although what lay at the heart of the Christian proclamation was, in fact, the declaration that certain things really had happened (i.e. the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit), how those things affected our understanding of the natural world and mankind itself had to be worked out. In short, the resurrection of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit changed everything. And the mission of the Church was thus to explain and effect that change.
You don’t explicitly mention it here, but by my reading it sounds like the Old Testament Jews didn’t even necessarily have any sense of a coming Messiah, and that it was an idea that had coalesced fairly recently before Jesus’ coming. Similar to how there’s no indication that the OT Jews believed in heaven as we or the early church would think of it, rather than some vague underworld (at best).
Yes, you are right. The Messianic hope arose in Judaism after the exile, along with a hope in a future resurrection. But my point is that in the first century, these were quite characteristic of Second-Temple Judaism, and therefore the early proclamation of the Church was that Jesus had fulfilled the Jewish hopes of his day.