from a kingdom gospel to a cross gospel, all of which nonetheless affirm that both remain valid and interrelated. Let us consider each in turn.
Delayed Parousia
This is the oldest solution, dating back to the 1930s and the work of C. H. Dodd. He claimed that, although there is still to be found in Paul the kingdom theme of “transition from ‘this evil Age’ to ‘the Age to Come,”’15 there is a marked shift of emphasis away from a futuristic hope to a here-and-now gospel. In this here-and-now message, “believers are already delivered out of this present evil age.”16 In both Paul and John, there is still present the familiar “eschatological valuation”17 of the historical facts surrounding Jesus. In short, there is an already-but-not-yet tension in Paul similar to that found in the teachings of Jesus, the speaker of parables about tiny seeds and massive harvests and slowly spreading leaven which then completely permeates. But where Jesus is trying to wean his audiences off the idea of a right-now and complete in-breaking of the victory of God, Paul seems precisely to offer the possibility of right now walking in newness of life: for him the emphasis is on the “already.” Paul’s is more of a realized eschatology than an inaugurated one.
In both Paul and John, mystical incorporation into Christ is what brings this realized eschatology about. By participating in Christ, believers are already risen with him and the church has already become the eschatological people of God. Notably in John’s Gospel, in place of the Olivet Discourse predicting the second coming of Christ, there is the Upper Room Discourse in which, instead of a second coming of Christ, the coming of the Spirit after Christ’s departure is predicted.
Dodd believed he had an explanation for this: “This [realized eschatology] was the true solution of the problem presented to the Church by the disappointment of its naïve expectation that the Lord would immediately appear.”18 However, I would argue that this entering of the life of the age to come into people’s here-and-now experience is a phenomenon very much brought about by Pentecost. This, rather than some hasty revision demanded by the embarrassment and disappointment of a delayed parousia, is where I would prefer to place the emphasis:
Salvation meant incorporation into the kingdom of God, which occurred as the Holy Spirit swallowed them. . . . Until Pentecost, Jesus and the resurrection were wondrous events outside them. At Pentecost, however, the followers of Jesus became a part of the body of Christ.19
Dodd’s solution, then, offers a biblical hinge between the kingdom emphasis and the arguably more this-worldly emphasis of the cross and resurrection. Dodd reckoned that this hinge was basically an enormous non-event: the delayed parousia. I argue that it was an event: Pentecost. There is, of course, a case for saying that both are related. An arguably more cynical take on it would say that teaching about the present time wonders of life in the Spirit was deliberately pushed as a sort of consolation prize for the big non-event of the century. If we suppose, however, that people’s experiences of the Spirit were very real and that the teachings about life in the Spirit were an outcome of these experiences, then the Pentecost explanation becomes a convincing one, regardless of whether or not there was any real anxiety about a delayed second coming.
Lost in Translation
This is my term for the explanation that, in the transition from a Jewish sect to a predominantly gentile religion, Paul translated what had been a Jewish apocalyptic idea into terms that were their gentile equivalents. Jesus had already transformed it from a “narrow-minded nationalistic hope to a universal, spiritual order,”20 now Paul, without altering its fundamental meaning, replaced the kingdom language with dynamic equivalents.21 In Paul’s case, “the righteousness of God” was a favorite, but “salvation” and being “in Christ” also translate Christ’s original message about himself as the inauguration of the reign of God. Similarly, John, also writing for a gentile audience, liked the term “eternal life,” and generally avoided “kingdom of God,” though he did use the term (John 3:3, 5; 18:36). Poe again:
When the evangelists moved outside the context of a Jewish community, they no longer bound themselves to the language of the people of the covenant, wrapped up as it was with a redemptive time, place, and tradition. Instead, they employed language that communicated the same message, but to a people who never knew the Law or the Prophets.22
The kerygma, or preached message, on this reckoning, certainly retains a fixed inner core but superficially shapes itself to new contexts.
However, the transition from a gospel of the kingdom to a gospel of the cross and resurrection does seem like a change to the inner core, not just to its mode of expression. This cultural explanation alone, though illuminating, does not seem sufficient to fully explain the post-Easter transition, though it is certainly of some help.
Cause and Effect
Richard Bauckham opens the way for a promising synthesis in his use of the particular and the universal as two poles between which the whole mission of God may be articulated:
Mission takes place on the way from the particularity of God’s action in the story of Jesus to the universal coming of God’s kingdom. It happens as particular people called by God go from here to there and live for God here and there for the sake of all people.23
And the Bible, he says, is full of these journeys from the particular to the universal. God is the God of the heavens and the earth yet chooses Abraham, showing that he is both and equally the God of the particular and of the universal. The Bible is full of this “universal direction that takes the particular with the utmost seriousness.”24
Don Carson’s solution may be grouped together with this one as he resolves the disconnect using cause and effect. He is very clear that the gospel is a proclamation. It is not to be equated with any of the things that result from that proclamation, whether these are personal salvation or social action. Good news is simply to be announced because, “that’s what one does with news.”25 Carson describes the popular saying, wrongly attributed to St. Francis, “preach the gospel, sometimes use words,” as “smug nonsense.”26 That the Bible addresses both individual salvation and social justice he does not dispute, but “what is more doubtful is that the Bible treats either as the gospel.”27 The events of the incarnation, death, and resurrection result in the spreading of the kingdom that Jesus was predicting. Yet, this means that the message we actually preach is about the coming of Christ and what he achieved for us in death and resurrection. The kingdom is not the message but the result of the message.
Ironic Victory
For the earliest formative remnant of them the paradoxical notion that God’s anointed vice-regent was ignominiously killed became the generative center of their beliefs.28
The central irony in the passion narratives of the Gospels is that Jesus’ crucifixion turns out to be his elevation to kingship.29
The very most recent scholarship tries to make cross and kingdom as indistinguishable as possible. Taking their bearings from an entire sweep of biblical theology, advocates of this view point out that, at least as far back as Isaiah, the promised Messiah-King always was destined to ascend his throne by way of suffering, just like David himself. Isaiah becomes especially illuminating once we can move beyond the sharp divisions of the text into First, Second, and Third Isaiah. Irrespective of who wrote the various parts of Isaiah and when, the final work was edited to be a literary whole. Once we see Isaiah whole again we see that there is a connection between the royal Davidic figure of Isaiah 1–39 and the Servant of the Servant Songs of 40–55. In the case of the Suffering Servant passage, if we take the unifying step of placing it back into its literary context we can see that this suffering figure might also be a royal figure. Isaiah 51 and 52 are full of references to David’s Zion to which the Lord was now about to return bringing a reign of peace (52:1, 7–8), and 55:3 promises faithfulness to the covenant with David.
Fast forward to the Gospels, especially Mark,
