An Exegetical And Biblical Theological Evaluation Of N. T. Wright’s "How God Became King" -- By: Robert H. Gundry

Journal: Bulletin for Biblical Research
Volume: BBR 24:1 (NA 2014)
Article: An Exegetical And Biblical Theological Evaluation Of N. T. Wright’s "How God Became King"
Author: Robert H. Gundry


An Exegetical And Biblical Theological Evaluation Of N. T. Wright’s
How God Became King

Robert H. Gundry

Westmont College

During his public ministry, Jesus taught extensively in words and deeds about the kingdom of God. In How God Became King, N. T. Wright weds this material with Jesus’ self-sacrificial death to argue that God’s kingdom was also established by those words and deeds and, above all, by that death rather than by the force of arms. Growing out of this argument are an advocacy of pacifism, theocracy, and the divine right of human rulers, on the one hand, and a repudiation of democracy, the separation of church and state, and just war theory on the other hand. Undergirding these pros and cons is the use of Israel’s theocracy as a pattern to be followed in political engagement as part of Christians’ evangelistic enterprise. This review finds Wright’s arguments exegetically and biblically-theologically unconvincing.

Key Words: kingdom of God, cross, theocracy, democracy, separation of church and state, pacifism

The canonical Gospels pack a lot of material about Jesus between his birth and crucifixion. With the sole exception of an account concerning Jesus at the age of 12 (Luke 2:40–52), this material deals with his public ministry and features, above all and at least in the Synoptics, the theme of God’s kingdom as established in that ministry. The classic Christian creeds omit the ministry, however, by skipping from Jesus’ birth to his crucifixion. As a result, argues N. T. Wright in his recently published book, How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels,1 the Christian church has by and large—and for many centuries—missed the message of God’s kingdom contained in the Gospels. Not that their individual units (sayings, parables, sermons, and accounts of miracles and exorcisms) have suffered wholesale neglect, of course. But Wright sees inattention to what he regards as the

metanarrative of how God became king, a narrative that does not exclude Jesus’ birth, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension but that certainly does include the other material missing from the creeds but present in the Gospels. There are many modern studies of God’s kingdom, however—far too many, indeed, for even a lengthy footnote. Added to these studies are not only Luther’s and Calvin’s doctrines of two kingdoms but also Tatian’s, Origen’s, Augustine’s, and—perhaps surprisingly—the emperor Constantine’s far earlier distinction between divine and human governments.

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