← Ask NT Wright Anything
Ask NT Wright Anything
Why was Jesus so cryptic? Is divorce ever OK? Does Isaiah 53 predict Jesus? And which theologian is hardest to understand?
00:41:36
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A
Hello and welcome to Ask NT Write Anything. This is the show where we try to answer your questions about Jesus, the Bible and the life of faith. I'm Mike Bird from Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia, where it's nice and cool right now. And I'm joined by Tom Wright from
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B
Wickliffall, Oxford, where it is absolutely baking hot right now.
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A
I bet, I bet. Well, let's try cool things down with a bit of thought theological and pastoral discussion. Tom, can I open by asking you who's the hardest theologian you've ever struggled to understand?
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B
Yeah, that's a good question. I had an aunt who was an Anglican nun at Fairacres Convent here in Oxford and she was a great reader. She loved John Henry Newman and I've read some Newman and I thought, yeah, that is okay. I wouldn't say I loved him, but I understand why you would feel like that. She also absolutely loved Hans Urs von Baltasar and used to tell me to read von Balthasar. And each time I tried to read von Balthasar I just couldn't figure out what was going on. And I think he was working in a different frame of reference from anything I knew. Now at the same time I know that some other of my friends, like Rowan Williams for instance, have been great von Balthasar fans and scholars. It just hasn't clicked with me and no doubt that's a character failure on my part, but we can't all do everything and no doubt I enjoy things which some others find obscure. Have you, have you read.
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A
You're not going to believe this, Tom, but I've got a browser open on my computer here and it says hands Baltazar. Because my answer to the question was going to be exactly the same one. I've tried to read some Baltazar. It's. It's kind of like for me it's like Russian Caravan Te. This is strange. It's weird. I do not know what people see in this. I do not know what is going on. So I'm just putting Baltazar and the Russian Caravan Tea over on the side there. That can be for someone else to do.
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B
Right, right. That's funny. That's funny.
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A
Well, if there's any bolters are aficionados out there, I guess. Tom and I would very much appreciate someone helping us see past the error of our ways and grasping the essence of Baltazar, who from, from my conversation with some friends was a somewhat esoteric figure even within the Catholic Church. But that's, that's for another Day. What we have on today are some questions about the clarity of Jesus's teachings, pastoral response to the difficult topic of divorce, and more on the Old Testament prophecies and Jesus. So let's dive into our first question. Tom, we've got a question. HollyWisenberg of Goffstown, and she wants to know why Jesus can sometimes be unclear. And this is what Holly tells us. Why did Jesus use so much figurative language, double meaning riddles? While reading through the Gospels in an effort to feel closer to Jesus, it became very apparent that he didn't often speak plainly. People must misunderstood him constantly, and it seemed like he hardly ever gave context. Yet in the Gospels, people would suddenly become amazed, as if they suddenly found what he said clear, even though I still don't. But why the runaround in the first place? Was he being cryptic on purpose? That seems a bit cruel and counterintuitive to spreading a coherent and important message? Or is there something that ancient people would have understood in his words that made it clear to them that I can't see because of my modern way of thinking? Well, Tom, I want to tell Holly she's not alone. There are some elements of Jesus's teaching which are hard to understand. And there is a sense in which Jesus would often say things to whet people's appetite, sort of, you know, arouse their interest in the topic, but without giving them the full deal. And I think here particularly of Mark, chapter 4, 11, 12, where Jesus talks about the mystery of the kingdom, and I'll be using the New Testament for everyone translation. Jesus said, the mystery of the kingdom of God is given to you. He replied, but for people outside, it's all in parables, so that they may look and look, but never see and hear and hear, but never understand. Otherwise they would turn and be forgiven. Does Jesus teach things just for the purpose of obfuscating things, to make it more problematic, complicated and. And to leave people deliberately and permanently bamboozled by what he said or. Tom, is there something else going on here?
- [04:48]
B
Wow. I think the answer is yes, something else going on here. But I appreciate the problem. Although one of the instant answers you just quoted from Mark chapter four, where Jesus is quoting from Isaiah chapter six, that Isaiah, chapter six actually has that agenda for the prophet. The prophet Isaiah is told, go and say to this people. And we expect to hear, go and say to this people, God is king, he is Lord, obey him and follow his way. And Isaiah is told, no, they're past that. I've been knocking on that door for too long. And now the only word is judgment. So all they can do is look and look, but never see, and hear and hear, but never understand. And though there is mercy at the end of that oracle of judgment at the end of Isaiah, chapter six, and I think Jesus is hinting at that as well, because he's expounding the parable of the sower. I'll come back to that in a minute, that there is a necessary word of judgment before the word of grace can come through. So let's back up and say we often have the sense today. And I've heard leading preachers and theologians talking as if this was the case that. As though Jesus was simply addressing a kind of neutral audience or situation where there are people like our sort of modern secular audience who just want to be told some truths about God and the world and so on. And really, it wasn't like that at all. Jesus was addressing a highly charged and volatile situation in which. In what we call the Second Temple period, that's between the rebuilding of the temple after the Babylonian exile and then the destruction in AD 70. During that period, there were all sorts of different movements, different agendas, different people clamoring that this was the time for God to do what he's always promised to do. This is how it was gonna work out. Follow me and I'll make it happen. There were prophetic movements, there would be messianic movements. There were people springing up, saying, I have the answer. This is what the prophets were all about. Follow me down to the River Jordan and we'll do something, and it'll make the walls of Jerusalem fall down or whatever. The pages of the Hist and Josephus have plenty such characters in them. And this is why. I mean, for instance, in John 10, Jesus says, All who came before me were thieves and robbers. But the sheep didn't listen to them. I have come that they may have life. In other words, Jesus is looking out on a world where there are all sorts of teachers clamoring for this and that and the other solution. And the sad thing is, when Jesus is talking in Galilee, which was his sort of. He made it his home territory. Nazareth, Capernaum. From Nazareth, down the hill to Capernaum and Bethsaida and Chorazin. As we know from later on, after his initial lengthy preaching tours, he looks back and he says, woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida. Woe to you, Capernaum. Because they haven't repented. Why have they not repented? And what is it they haven't repented of. And I think the answer is they were all absolutely bent on one particular way of bringing in God's kingdom. And Jesus is like somebody today in a world which is bent on one particular political course of action, somebody who has to sort of stand up in the marketplace and say, hey, guys, there's a different way. And the only way you can then say that is cryptically by teasing them, because if they understand what you're saying, they'll likely run you out of town. Which actually happened in Luke 4, in Luke chapter 4, where Jesus announces in the synagogue in Nazareth that this is the time for the kingdom to come. And he, Jesus is the one who's bringing the reality of that. And then he quotes from bits of the Old Testament, and he is not on message at all. Because as far as his contemporaries were concerned, the bit of the Old Testament that they wanted to hear was about the enemies of the people of God attacking and God putting them to flight, the God killing the hordes of the Philistines or the Syrians or whatever it was. And Jesus instead quotes a couple of passages from the Books of Kings, where, for instance, when you get many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha, but there's only one who is healed, and guess who it is? It's the commander of the enemy army. I remember preaching on that in the Holy Land at a time when Yasser Arafat was the head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. And I said, this is like somebody going into a synagogue in the land of Israel today and saying, the one person whom God was saving in that story was Yasser Arafat. And you'd expect a riot. You would expect people to try to kill you or do you down in some way. So Jesus is facing a potentially hostile audience that does not want to hear. And you see this all the way through to Luke 19, where he says, if only you'd known the way of peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes. And Jesus was saying, this is the way. It's the time of peace. That's what the fulfillment of the kingdom of God looks like. It's a time of loving your enemies and praying for your persecutors. That's not what they want at all. So how does he have to couch the message? He couches it in terms of parables, often alluding to bits of the Old Testament. So that, for instance, the parable of the sower traces back to Isaiah and Jeremiah, where the promise of return from exile is sometimes expressed in terms of God sowing his field Again with seed, and there will be an abundant harvest. And Jesus is saying, yes, that's happening, but let me tell you what happens when the seed gets sown. An awful lot of it gets spilt this way and eaten up by birds that way, and so on and so forth, and there will be some harvest, but there'll be a lot of catastrophes on the way. In other words, he's saying to his contemporaries, if you have ears, then here God is doing the new thing that he promised, but it doesn't look like you hoped it would, namely the national validation of first century Israel's hopes and expectations. Rather, it is a message of judgment and warning as well as of mercy and fresh life. Another obvious example, which I think makes the point very well, is in Mark 7, when Jesus is confronted with the question of the food laws and cleanness and uncleanness and so on. And then he says this cryptic word, it isn't what goes into you that defiles you, it's what comes out of you that defiles you. And the disciples, what on earth is that about? And then when they come into the house, just as in Mark 4, when they come into the house away from the crowds, the disciples ask him, please explain the parable to us. Mark sees that as a parable itself. And Jesus says, don't you see the point that whatever you eat doesn't actually defile you? It goes in at one end and out at the other. It's not a big deal, but it's what comes out of the heart. Murder, theft, adultery, wicked desires, et cetera. These are the things that defile you. And Mark adds a little footnote, saying, he said this in Greek, Catharidson pantata abromata. Making all foods clean. Why is that controversial? Well, read the Maccabean literature, especially two Maccabees, where the Jewish heroes from two centuries earlier who were still fated and made great hero figures in Jesus Day, they had withstood the demands of the Syrian megalomaniac king Antiochus Epiphanes, who tried to force them to eat pork in order to abandon their ancestral religion so that he could then come and take over and sweep away Judaism entirely. In other words, the food laws had been an absolute badge of national identity. It's like this is a flag, that they ran up the flagpole to say, this is who we are. And if Jesus is now saying that flag is now irrelevant, there's going to be a lot of angry people out there, just like there would be in your country or mine. If somebody pulled a flag down from a flag pole and burnt it in a public square, it's that kind of clash of agendas, which is what's going on. And that's why Jesus has to say things the way he does. Obviously it goes deeper than that, but that's where I would start at least.
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A
So the cryptic nature of some of Jesus's parables is because he's drawing an Old Testament imagery. He's dealing with some contemporary issues, and he sometimes has to slightly veil his answer le he be be perceived as being too incendiary or being too political or being too controversial. And then thirdly, because he's also challenging some controversial beliefs during the day of which he'll just say something to. To hook people's interest, but then they need to bring him in or get closer to him where he can unpack it. Well, I think that. I think that's a good explanation, Tom. That's a great explanation. I hope that helps you out, Holly. Tom, our next question is a difficult one. It's from Matthew in Detroit, and it's on the sad topic of divorce. He says, hello, Reverend Wright and Reverend Bird. I'm a big fan of Michael's YouTube channel. That's good to hear. Good to hear. Early Christian history. You should all check it out. This is what brought me to the podcast and the works of N.T. wright. My question is about divorce. He says Jesus condemns remarriage after divorce in Mark 10, in Matthew 5 and Luke 16. Paul even quotes Jesus on this point in 1 Corinthians. At the same time, I live in the 21st century and have many loved ones who are divorced or born from second marriages. How can we stay faithful to Jesus teaching in light of these circumstances? Well, Tom, as you can no doubt appreciate, this is a hard topic, both at the level of exegesis in the New Testament. You know, what were the particular types of marriages? What are the grounds of divorce? They're trying to protect women from being cast out easily by husbands who go off and marry a younger woman or a more convenient marriage. And how do we cope with it today? Because I think all of us in some way or other, have been touched by divorce. It's quite sad that marriages, for all sorts of reasons, can end often in very tragic and broken circumstances. Tom, what do you have to say to our friend Matthew?
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B
Yeah, yeah, I'm totally with you, Mike. It is a sad and difficult topic. And certainly my family has been touched by the question of divorce and remarriage. And the Church of England, where I've worked for most of my life, has struggled with this one, because when I was young, it used to be the case, take with clergy, that if a clergy marriage split up, then the clergyman, it was always a man in those days, would have to leave parish ministry and often they would go and become schoolteachers or something else quite other, on the grounds that if their marriage had broken up, then when they as a parish priest were asked to take somebody else's marriage and were pronouncing God's blessing on this marriage, it felt that it was ringing hollow if in their own case it didn't match up. Now we've got. I'm not sure if I want to say beyond that, but we certainly don't take that view in the Church of England as a whole today. There are some rigorists who would want to take that view. I know some people, some wise, devout Christians, who say, well, actually the teaching of Jesus and Paul has not changed and we shouldn't be changing it just because our society is sliding this way and that. And as we know, societies can easily slide morally this way and that. And we charged with modeling the Christian way of being human, irrespective of what the world says, you know, Romans 12:1 and 2 remains absolutely the gold standard. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And that applies to everything. And if the world says, oh, well, now we live in the modern age so we can swap partners and it really doesn't matter, the Church says, actually, no. We are called to model creation and new creation. And this isn't just some odd rule. You know, people sometimes make out that Christian ethics consists of a list of strange unrelated rules that people made up a long time ago and we can't see any sense in them, so we can break them at will. Absolutely not. The Christian ethic, perhaps, particularly here, and you see this in Ephesians 5, as well as in the teaching of Jes. And in 1 Corinthians 7. The Christian teaching about marriage and divorce is that the coming together of man and woman in marriage is a sign of God's covenant relationship with the creation. God and creation. It's a sign of Christ's relationship with the church, says Paul in Ephesians 5. And it's therefore not simply one miscellaneous item among others, the way that Ephesians works is to say God's purpose is to bring together heaven and earth. One of the advanced signs of this is the coming together of Jew and Gentile in the church. And then in chapter five, one of the special signs of it is the coming together and the staying together of man and woman in marriage. Now, having said all of that, then of course there is Jesus teaching. In Mark 10, we notice that where Jesus is when he's being asked about divorce is down by the Jordan, in the territory of Herod Antipas. And of course, John the Baptist had criticized Herod Antipas because he had snatched his brother's wife. Presumably she was quite happy to be complicit with this arrangement. We're not actually told, but John the Baptist had quite literally lost his head because of his opposition to Herod's divorce and remarriage. So asking Jesus, can you tell us about divorce? Rabbi? This is a way of saying, would you like to put your head into the same noose that your cousin got stuck in? And so what Jesus says is in a sense cryptic because he has to go back into the house with the disciples in verse 10 for them to ask him about the precise meaning of it. But what he does is repeat Genesis 1 about a man leaving his father and mother and cleaving to his wife. And what he says is, yes, Moses gave us a command about how to divorce, but that's because you are hard hearted. Now that too is cryptic, but it must mean that Jesus is offering, offering a cure for hardness of heart. That's a tough thing to say. And having counseled many people in different stages of marital, either coming together or breakup, it's not possible just to say, oh well, Jesus offers a cure for hardness of heart. So say your prayers and your heart will soften and then all will be well. Pastoral situations don't work that easily in my experience. However, that doesn't mean that it isn't still the aim. And it doesn't mean that if divorce does happen that we then have to shrug our shoulders and say, oh well, stuff happens, really doesn't matter, just get on with life as though nothing had been particularly difficult or different. And because I do think that divorce leaves a wound, it leaves a wound for the people, it leaves a wound in their extended families, it leaves a wound in their community. And if the community is a church community, it leaves a wound in that church community, and actually a very damaging one, because divorce says here are promises that were made that for whatever reason are no longer kept. And the entire Christian truth is based on God making promises in creation and covenant, which God has kept faithfully. And you know, that is a hard saying for all those of us who've been married for 50 plus years as I have. Yeah, there are tough times, there are difficult times as well as joyful times. And there's that stickability of God which is at stake. Now, having said all of the above, I would then be content. And we've actually done this in one case in my family, that if divorce has happened for whatever reason and then one partner intends to marry somebody else, that they can, according to the law of the land where I am at the moment, they can marry in a registry office, in other words, not in a church, but then they are allowed to come into church for a blessing of the marriage. The trouble with that, I understand why that happens and why we've done it, but the trouble with that is that it looks to the outside observer as though, oh well, the church is quite happy they got divorced, but never mind, we're going to do it again and see what happens this time. And it's very important to communicate to the wider world that actually the one man, one woman for life thing is not a casual old rule which we can ignore. It's absolutely vital for the health and well being of the world in general, the church in particular, and certainly these human beings at the middle of it. So when divorce does happen, I think it's a cause for deep sorrow lament. And there should be ways of doing that lament together and perhaps even with the church community and then within that lament or arising out of that lament, if God then leads one or both parties forward in different directions, well, that too is something which is a sorrowful, maybe second best. It may still be a good thing in its way, especially if they are then able to be faithful and wise together, but that will always have the note of lament about it. This is a hard saying and I'm speaking about people that I know and love and I hope if any of them listen to this, they won't think I'm being harsh on them, because I'm not. I'm simply trying to say this is how I currently see the landing of the New Testament in our very contested world. Just as in other respects, for example, political respects, I would need to say some pretty harsh things or things that would sound harsh to people who took a very different view politically from where I would be. So I think it's important that we don't just say, oh well, let's just all be nice to each other, but we actually can state where the Bible puts things and then say, now, if there needs to be a new arrangement, let's be honest about the fact that that's what's happening and not pretend that we can just say, well, the past didn't really happen, or it didn't really matter, because it did happen and it did matter. So I could go on with this a long time. Mike, you. You may well have some personal experience as well, pastoral experience, on which to draw to help us further forward.
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A
Yeah, I mean, divorce is something that's touched my family as well. I mean, and it's hard because you've got what I think is the biblical norm, which is, you know, one man, one woman for life. But you do have to deal with the messy realities that it doesn't always turn out that way and without retreating to. To a kind of. Of, oh, well, such is life. You know, do the best you can, and what happens happens. You don't want to be blase about it. But I think we do have to recognize that, you know, this is a complicated part of human relationships. These things do happen, and we've got to be pastoral. We've got to be faithful in the way that we deal with it and recognize that, you know, people who are divorced or in the process of separating, they do need a lot of pastoral care, a lot of support. Getting divorced, in terms of stress levels, it's right up there with grieving for the death of a loved one, because, you know, you.
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B
You're.
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A
There is the death of a kind of. Of an entity, which is the marriage and that. And. And the stress is similar to, you know, grieving for a lost family, relative or something like that. So I think it's very important to minister to people who are going through these situations, even if. And I think it's just recognizing, like, so much of life, it's not ideal. There's so much of life that is not ideal. And yet you've got to discern how do we meet others, and how does God meet us at some of the lowest ebbs in our life that happen in places like divorce.
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B
Yeah, no, I'm totally with you. And I think part of our problem may be this. As a society, we're not good at doing lament. We're not good at facing up to deep sorrow. And so it can get buried, and then it comes back in other ways psychologically. And I think to face up to it, say, here it is. It's a matter of real, as you say, tearing apart of something which was a unit. It's not just two people who came within shouting distance of each other and then drifted away again. It's two people who became a single unit and there's a sense of tearing of flesh, a tearing of a very, very deep bond. And that when then one or other gets together with somebody else, if that is to receive God's blessing, it's as a new thing, the other side of tragedy rather than oh well, you know, we did that and now we're doing this. And I think God can and does and will bless those new things, particularly when the people concerned approach it with appropriate lament and sorrow for what's happened, and then waiting for a kindly word from God to say, okay, this now is the way forward. These are very difficult things and we
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all know that they are. Well, this is the point where maybe we should take a break and when we come back we're going to look at Isaiah 53 and whether it really is literally a prophecy about Jesus,
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A
Welcome back everyone. Our third question for today comes from Alan Pauly of Manchester, United Kingdom, who says this. Thank you for your amazing podcast. I've been listening from the beginning. I have a question about Old Testament prophecies and applying them to Jesus. I think it's helpful to be flexible and not too precise and literal in their interpretations, especially given the limitations of translation, etc. And I don't find these things troubling, but I would like advice on explaining things to counter the idea that claiming prophecies is a bit like a fortune teller's trick. For example, on Isaiah 53 we have he will see his offspring and prolong his days. If applied to Jesus as we normally do this passage, I think we need to be flexible and for example claim that the disciples and we ourselves are his offspring and perhaps his days were prolonged by defeating death. I appreciate there may be much better interpretations there there. However, hopefully this illustrates my general point and question. It would be great to hear Tom's views on how to present this sort of things to skeptics. Tom yeah, I do. I do like this question because it helps us understand how does the Old Testament relate to Jesus? And not everything in the Old Testament points forward to Jesus as a prophecy. Some of it is more of a typology, a pattern in biblical history that's being repeated at a new juncture as we approach the coming of the new covenant. I do take the point about the fortune tellers trick. You know, do prophecies in the Old Testament function something like a person says Tom, you know, I predict within the next 12 months you will have a birthday. I mean it's kind of like self fulfilling because within 12 months you are going to have a birthday. You Something like that. So are these Old Testament prophecies prophetic patterns? Are they just so General that they could appoint to anyone, or is there something else going on here? Is it, is it more of like, of a, a pattern that's being replicated and being applied to Jesus, or is it a type of, ah, this happened to Jesus. And it reminds me of this thing in the Old Testament. What is going on with the Old Testament in Jesus? The way Allen is asking.
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B
Wow, it's a great question. And I suspect that many of us as biblical scholars of a certain age will be able to recall from our early days, as I can, people talking rather woodenly about, here is a verse in Isaiah or Jeremiah or somewhere, and here is how it is fulfilled by this or that feature in Jesus. And very much in an isolated fashion. One verse here and one incident there. Now, of course, there are some moments in the Old Testament and which pick up or are picked up by some moments in the New. I mean, suddenly we've got in the prophet Zechariah, here's your king coming riding on a donkey, and oh my goodness, here is Jesus riding on a donkey. And guess what? Jesus probably knew that prophecy in Zechariah and probably deliberately chose to do that. Is that the same sort of fulfillment? We could debate that endlessly. I was going to say till the cows come home, perhaps till the donkeys come home. But when it comes to Isaiah particular, and if I can do some shameless advertising, I have a little book called into the Heart of Isaiah coming out in October 2026, God willing. And there I'm looking at Isaiah 40 to 55 as a whole and going through and showing how the whole thing works in its own context. And what I say there may be helpful if I can say it here as well, that when we read Old Testament prophecy, we need to have three different focal lenses. You probably, you can't tell if you're looking at the screen with me on it, but I have varifocal glasses so that the top level I can see long distances, the bottom level I can see close up to read a book that's in front of my nose. And the middle level is what I'm looking through when I'm looking at the computer screen. Now, with Old Testament prophecy, it's often a bit like that. That, yes, there is the close up level. What would this have meant at the time when Isaiah, whoever Isaiah was or who together, the book of Isaiah editing it, what would it have meant at that time? And then the long distance would be, is there something that we can see about God's purposes for the whole creation, which is coming at us from this text. And then in the middle we've got, well, wait a minute, halfway between Isaiah and God's ultimate future there is Jesus. What can we see about Jesus through the middle lens? And often these three go together and kind of interweave. And Isaiah 40 to 55 is a wonderful, wonderful poem. To my mind it ranks with say T.S. eliot's four quartets as an extraordinary blend of this and that. Different styles of poetry, one and then another and then another, but all then building up and actually chapter 53. And I would want to go back to 52 7, because that passage leads into the so called 4th century song of 5213 to 53 12. But so that whole section, second half of 52 and then all of 53 is the climax of the entire poem which began in Isaiah chapter 40. Now the poem beginning in Isaiah chapter 40 is all about God bringing comfort to the people who are in exile and are waiting for God's promise to take them home, and particularly for God to come back and dwell in their midst. So you have to have the larger picture in mind, which is the people in Babylon are longing for God to do what he always said he would do to show his sovereign power by coming back in person to deal with the sins which caused their exile in the first place, and then to re establish not only his people but also the whole creation. And you can see that whole sequence gloriously going from chapter 40 through to chapter 55, which is, well, 54 is about new covenant, 55 is about new creation. And there's purpose in that sequence. But it's all focused then on 52:7 through to the fourth servant song 52:13 to 53:12. So that when we say was this about Jesus or was Jesus plugged into this? Or are there bits of this which relate to Jesus? It's more than that. Jesus whole public career was saying in effect what you've heard in Moses and the prophets is now coming true. Well, Jesus, which prophets do you have in mind? Well, what about the one that begins with the voice crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Because that's where Jesus public career begins, with John the Baptist doing that in fulfillment of Isaiah 40. And we can see layer upon layer upon layer, the messianic promises in Isaiah 42, for instance, going together with God's overthrow of the idols of Babylon, and all building up and building up and then it all seems to come together in this strange picture, which is one single figure who is both Israel in person and one who stands over against Israel and does for Israel what Israel cannot do for herself. And so in Isaiah 52, verses 7, and on into Isaiah 53, this is about the return of Yahweh to Zion. And we look on in horror as the returning Yahweh. The arm of Yahweh. Yahweh in power, in strength, turns out to be one who was despised and rejected by humans, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And the imagery of that chapter, including the stuff about seeing his offspring and prolonging his death, this all is poetic imagery about how the servant of the Lord, who is himself Israel's God in person, how he is dealing with the sins of Israel, how he is overcoming the idols of the nations, and how he is thereby launching new covenant and new creation. So we stand back from that glorious poetic picture and we say, did Jesus fulfill all that? And Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, the rest of them, they all say, you bet he did, too. Right? He did. And the more you discover about Isaiah as a whole, the more you see that it was all fulfilled in Jesus.
- [39:31]
A
Well, Tom, thanks for that. It's a great thing to wrestle with Isaiah 53. And, you know, people who want to know how the Old Testament relates to the New Testament should probably check out your book, How God Became King. You know, that's a good way of connecting Jesus with the Old Testament. But also your more recent book, God's Homecoming, that's got a lot of themes about Old Testament and being realized and fulfilled in the New Testament.
- [39:56]
B
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [39:59]
A
Hey, and to all of our listeners out there, if you've got a question, whether it's about biblical theology, about faith, some of the difficult pastoral situations maybe you're getting into, then send us your questions@askantewright.com Otherwise, it's goodbye from me, Mike
- [40:16]
B
Bird, and goodbye from me, Tom Wright.
- [40:18]
A
And we look forward to joining you again on another episode of Ask N.T. wright, anything.