Observant travellers in the blogosphere will notice something curious about Andrew’s reframing of the biblical narrative - that while the resurrection has implications for all humanity as the life of the new creation in which they can share, the death of Jesus has significance for historic Israel alone. So we have a narrative which includes the cross which is relevant to Israel alone, and a resurrection which is relevant to everyone: the beginning of a cosmic renewal in which all may participate. The missing middle for us is Jesus on the cross - which is just as much part of a personal encounter with the Jesus who died on it as the resurrection which followed it (Romans 6:3-7, addressed to Jews and Gentiles).

Is Andrew’s retelling of the biblical narrative accurate? In the narrative of Abraham which framed the story of Israel, Abraham was to be made into a great nation, to be blessed, and to bring blessing to all peoples of the earth. This was to come through his seed, which in its singular sense referred to the coming messiah, Jesus, and in its corporate sense, to all who were joined with him as the renewed people of God - the great nation. The nation referred to in Ezekiel 37, and also in Hosea 5 & 6, found its fulfilment in this prophecy - which included the believing part of ethnic Israel, but was not limited to her, and when set alongside it, the Roman Empire and Caesar became its grotesque parodies.

Jesus was the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham - the outer boundaries of which encompassed all peoples. This fulfilment of the promise comprised Jesus’s entire history, including his death on the cross, by means of which “one died for all, and therefore all died” - 2 Corinthians 5:14; “all” meaning the occupants of the old creation, Jew and Gentile, as becomes clear in verse 17: “Therefore, if anyone (Jew or Gentile) is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has gone, the new has come!”

The main thing which is ‘truncated’ here is not ‘a mythology of personal salvation’ but the missing middle to Andrew’s reframed biblical narrative - the death of Jesus on the cross. It is truncated in Andrew’s scheme because it is detached from the wider narrative, in which it became the means of reversing the Genesis catastrophe. In this narrative Abraham and ethnic Israel were forerunners of the main act. The narrative was ultimately that of Jesus, the crucified and risen messiah.

Peter came to understand this wider narrative slowly, the conversion of Cornelius and his household being a defining moment. Paul understood the narrative early and from all parts of the scriptures: from Genesis 1-3 (as recounted in Romans 5:12-19); from Abraham (as recounted in Galatians); from Isaiah (as recounted in his frequent allusions to Isaiah and his own divine mandate (eg Acts 13:47).

The life, teaching/ministry, death, resurrection, ascension, outpoured Spirit and on-going life of Jesus in the people of God are a continuum which is of direct relevance and application to all who believe in him. The death of Jesus on the cross, vindicated and interpreted by his resurrection, was never detached from the rest of the narrative in its wider relevance.