Andrew,

Thanks for your thoughtful interaction with my series of posts, in which I attempted to understand the concept of "new creation" as it appears explicitly in the Bible. Last night I dreamed that you and I got together, I believe it was in a railroad car, and I found myself completely at a loss to explain myself clearly to you. So we’ll see if the dream proves to be a prophecy or a warning that I’ve heeded and managed to avert at least in part. (Note: in the dream someone told me that you were a member of some Mormon sect, so beware if two young men wearing white shirts and ties show up at your door.)

1. To recap: In your prior post about the Canaanite genocide you said that you intended neither to justify nor to disavow the slaughter, but rather to account for it in the context of the broader Biblical theme of the "new creation." Drawing on the Old Testament texts, you proposed that the destruction of the occupants of Canaan be regarded both as God’s judgment on the Gentile nations’ sinfulness as well as a sort of pragmatic necessity, inasmuch as the promised land needed to be cleared out in order that the Israelites might occupy it. You interpreted the genocide in the context of God’s larger works in history, extending from the Flood forward to the destruction of the Roman Empire and perhaps to some future last judgment.

"So just as the macrocosm is cleared of corrupted life
before the ’new creation’ of Genesis 9:1-7 [i.e., the covenant with Noah], so the land of Canaan is
cleared of corrupted life before the consummation of the ’new creation’
promise to Abraham."

You acknowledged that "we have to deal with" God’s command to destroy everything that breathes in Canaan and to kill or enslave the occupants of the neighboring cities; yet, you asserted,

"I
don’t see at the moment that it invalidates the basic argument that
Israel was conceived from the start as a ’new creation’, a response or
counterpart to a macrocosm that had repeatedly rejected the creator."

In brief, then, you framed the the Canaanite genocide in the context of God’s establishing the nation of Israel as the new creation in fulfullment of God’s promise to Abraham, while simultaneously destroying the corrupt peoples who constituted the old creation. Having read this post, I decide to look up the explicit Biblical references to the new creation to see whether they lent support to the general contours of your interpretation. There are five such passages, all occurring in the Pauline epistles. My prior posts and my responses to your post here are couched primarily in the context of those five passages.

2. You contend in the present post that

"‘new
creation’ language in the New Testament is a natural development of the
Old Testament understanding of the restoration of Israel following
judgment as a renewal of creation."

When God encourages Noah and Abraham and Israel to be fruitful and multiply, He’s echoing the blessing He bestowed on the original creation narrative of Genesis 1. Though the words are never explicitly stated in Scripture, I can see how you might regard these blessings as repeated efforts to renew the original creation.

However, Paul speaks not of yet another renewal of the old creation but of a new creation. Disjunction rather than continuity characterizes Paul’s language. In this new creation Paul says that there is neither Jew nor Gentile, and that in Christ’s crucifixion he reconciled the two into one new man. (Gal. 6, Eph. 4). Paul speaks not at all here about the work of Christ bringing about another renewal of Israel as a microcosm and another destruction of the surrounding macrocosm. Rather, addressing himself explicitly to the Gentiles, Paul says that Christ destroyed the dividing wall that had previously separated these two mutually antagonistic subdivisions of the old creation (Eph. 4).

While Paul elsewhere acknowledges God’s distinct blessings on Israel, I see nothing in these passages to indicate that he regards Israel as retaining a distinctive microcosmic status in the new creation. As you say,

"in the resurrection the people of God corporately
find a new way of being community in the world."

3. You contend that

"The fact that the structural divisions of humanity
have been overcome in Christ certainly does not mean that the
distinction between microcosm and macrocosm is no longer valid."

Neither Jew nor Gentile: Christ has merged the two into one new man. I’d say that Paul does disavow any micro/macro distinction that’s continuous with the old-creation divisions of humanity. As I said elsewhere, Paul seems more concerned that his readers act in accord with their new-creation status than in establishing a new set of micro/macro distinctions within the new creation. If such divisions are implicit in Paul’s other writings, he’s explicit in rejecting the old divisions that separated Israel from the rest of humanity.

You assert that "the cross does not nullify the promise to Abraham," and Paul agrees. In Gal. 3 Paul contends that the whole era of Israel and the Law
constituted not a fulfillment of the promise made to
Abraham, but rather a temporary measure instituted "because of
transgressions." The Abrahamic promise finds its fulfillment not in the
national identity of Israel but in solidarity with the dead and
resurrected Christ. It’s a blessing that extends not to just one nation but to all, as envisioned in the original promise. As you say,

"Jesus’ death may have nullified the distinction between Jew and
Gentile, but Paul is quite clear: through the ‘faithfulness’ of Jesus
the promise to Abraham would be safeguarded."

4. Paul’s five passages about the new creation make no references to the Christ-followers’ suffering or their surviving a coming judgment, so I offer no response to your fourth point.

5. I’m not sure I agree with your reading of Galatians that

"Paul is concerned precisely that the Galatian believers will disqualify
themselves from membership of this community by reverting to the law."

Paul worries that he’s wasting his breath, and that the Galatians are going to start following the Law as a means of assuring their justification before God and purging themselves from sin. The Law is an artifact of Israelite distinctiveness, specifically intended to establish the Jews as a "peculiar people" among the Gentiles. This sort of separation isn’t just futile; it’s old-creation thinking, suitable only for Israelite children and Gentile slaves. You Gentiles are no longer slaves, says Paul; in Christ you are now sons of God and fellow-heirs (Gal. 4:7). Circumcision and the Law — distinctive marks of the Jewish microcosm — are nothing in light of the new creation. So it’s not so much that the Galatians are in danger of disqualifying themselves, but that they’re looking to qualify themselves with false assurances based on the obsolete in-versus-out criteria that characterized Israel’s distinctiveness.

You say:

"In Ephesians and Colossians to put on the ‘new
person’ is to become fundamentally set apart from an old world upon
which the wrath of God is coming."

The wrath of God poured out on the old world isn’t at all the focus of these Pauline passages about the new creation. The split between old man and new man described in these texts isn’t a division between individuals or groups of people. Rather, old man/new man is an internal split within the individual believer in Christ. When Paul encourages his readers to lay aside the old man and to put on the new man, he is addressing himself to those who have already placed their faith in a Christ who through death and resurrection brought a new creation into being in the world.

You say:

"Gentiles have become part of the commonwealth of Israel, they have become ‘one new man’ (Eph. 2:15) - and as a result they are no longer ‘by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind’ (2:3)."

You’ve slipped back into the old paradigm here. Paul pointedly does not say that the Gentiles have become part of Israel; rather, the two, formerly divided by a wall of enmity, have been merged together into something altogether new.

(As an exegetical aside, "children of wrath" doesn’t explicitly refer to the wrath of God. In Eph. 2:15 Paul says it was the Law that created mutual enmity between Jew and Gentile. In this context, a "child of wrath" might well be someone who continues to live in this old-world milieu of mutual antagonism, of wrath poured out by one nation upon another, an antagonism provoked by the Jewish Law.)

6. Disregarding your microcosmic language, I agree that Paul regards those who believe in Christ as a blessing to the whole world. But invoking God’s blessing on Israel, setting them apart as "a kingom of priests and a holy nation," is precisely what Paul sets aside. This sort of spiritual aristocracy is old-creation thinking that’s been nullified in Christ.

7. Inasmuch as the Pauline new creation texts don’t speak of judgment on 1st-century Israel or on the world, I offer no reply other than what I’ve already noted: the violent establishment of Israel through the destruction of Canaanite nations is regarded by Paul as a temporary expediency occupyinng a closed interval between the promise made to Abraham and its fulfillment in Christ’s death and resurrection.

8. You acknowledge:

"The three ‘practical implications’
that John modestly suggests make pretty good sense, in my view, for the
descendants of Abraham conceived as a renewed microcosm in Christ."

That’s gratifying, Andrew, though again you insist on reinstituting the microcosmic language which, as I read Paul, characterizes old-creation distinctions. Reiterating Peter Wilkinson’s point, you emphasize that the community of faith is called to invite others to share in the new-creation resurrection blessings made possible in Christ. Amen.