Wright’s impressive achievement

Just started skimming the long-awaited Wright book. Given NTW’s impressive clarity and his numerous popular level books, I think many of us have a fairly good idea what to expect in terms of the general contours of his argument. But dipping my toes into Paul and the Faithfulness of God nevertheless left me extremely impressed. Not only can one deeply respect his eloquence, but at so many points Wright has shown himself to be an astute exegetical observer. Upon reading the first few pages of pts 3-4 my eyes alighted on:

“Ho monos … ho monos … ho monos. ‘Monotheism’ indeed: neither a philosophical speculation nor an easygoing generalized religious supposition, but the clear, sharp, bright belief that Israel’s God was the creator of all, unique among claimants to divinity in possessing all those specific attributes, in the middle of which we find the politically explosive one, basileus, ‘king’” (from p. 621)

I’m reminded of Baulkham's language of “transcendent uniqueness”. A clear grasp of what Paul’s God-language entails both illuminates and is illuminated by his Christ-language. So he’s on to something crucial, here. Wright often seems to have a “nose” for such things. It remains to be seen if Wright’s work on divine Christology actually accounts for Paul’s own emphasis. We shall see.