Christ and Community

In this thematic exploration of Jesus' messianic career and identity, we discover the close correlation the NT Gospels forge between Jesus' own mission and the mission entrusted to his followers. Like him, they proclaim the coming kingdom of God in word and deed; like him, they deny themselves for the sake of others; like him, they will be raised and seated on thrones of judgment. Along the way, Jesus' righteousness, wisdom, divine sonship, and union with God emerge not as unique attributes of Jesus as the Christ but as paradigmatic for any who would trust in God's reign. More than just belief in Jesus' messiahship, the NT Gospels promote active participation in the messianic age that Jesus' life and death inaugurated. This book builds on and extends beyond recent studies that have highlighted the communal nature of the NT Gospels. Though scholars increasingly recognize that these texts reflect the concerns of their first-century settings, few have noted how pervasively they depict Jesus' identity and mission as collaborative and inclusive. To this day, NT scholarship broadly assumes that questions about Jesus' messiahship remain distinct from questions about ecclesiology, discipleship, and ethics. This inquiry is both historical and literary, as it situates the Gospel portraits of Jesus' career against the backdrop of Jewish apocalyptic thought and sets aside doctrinal beliefs about Jesus' exclusive status to expose those portraits on their own terms. As we shall see, every dimension of Jesus' messianic role-his message, his authority, his relationship with God, his sacrificial death, his resurrection, and his coming reign-applies in turn to the messianic people of God, established in his wake. Jesus' followers appear as heirs to his mission, equipped and authorized by him as agents of God's reign on earth, even as they await its final consummation. Ultimately, this book's findings carry weighty hermeneutical implications, offering today's readers a fresh glimpse of the call to bear corporate witness to Jesus' messianic vision. There are study questions at the end of each chapter.