In other words, Christianity is not about a new moral teaching- as though we were morally clueless and in need of some fresh or clearer guidelines. This is not to deny that Jesus, and some of his first followers, gave some wonderfully bracing and intelligent moral teaching. It is merely to insist that we find teaching like that within a larger framework: the story of things that happened through which the world was changed.
Christianity isn't about Jesus offering a wonderful moral example, as though our principal need was to see what a life of utter love and devotion to God and to other people would look like, so that we could try to copy it. If that had been Jesus's main purpose, we could certainly say it had some effect. Some people's lives really have been changed simply by contemplating and imitating the example of Jesus. But observing Jesus's example could equally well simply make a person depressed. Watching Richter play the piano or Tiger Woods hit a golf ball doesn't inspire me to go out and copy them. It makes me realize that I can't come close and never will.
Nor is Christianity about Jesus offering, demonstrating, or even accomplishing a new route by which people can "go to heaven when they die." This is a persistent mistake, based on the medieval notion that the point of all religion -the rule of the game, if you like- was to make sure you ended up at the right side of the stage at the end of the mystery play (that is, in heaven rather than in hell), or on the right side of the painting in the Sistine Chapel. Again, that isn't to deny that our present beliefs and actions have lasting consequences. Rather, it's to deny both that Jesus made this the focus of his work and that this is the "point" of Christianity.
Finally, Christianity isn't about giving the world fresh teaching about God himself- though clearly, if the Christian claim is true, we do indeed learn a great deal about who God is by looking at Jesus. The need which the Christian faith answers is not so muchthat we are ignorant and need some better information, but that we are lost and need someone to come and find us, stuck in the quicksand waiting to be rescued, dying and in need of a new life.
So what is Christianity about then?
Christianity is about the belief that the living God, in fulfillment of his promises and as the climax of the story of Israel, has accomplished all this- the finding, the saving, the giving of new life- in Jesus. He has done it. With Jesus, God's rescue operation has been put into effect once and for all. A great door has swung open in the cosmos which can never again be shut. It's the door to the prison where we've been kept chained up. We are offered freedom: freedom to experience God's rescue for ourselves, to go through the open door and explore the new world (Terra Nova) to which we now have access. In particular, we are all invited- summoned, actually- to discover, through following Jesus, that this new world is indeed a place of justice, spirituality, relationship, and beauty, and that we are not only to enjoy it as such but to work at bringing it to earth as in heaven. In listening to Jesus, we discover whose voice it is that has echoed around the hearts and minds of the human race all along."
Excerpt from:
Simply Christian Pgs:91-2
By NT Wright
