…my reading of the NT is that the Gentiles share in the resurrection life of Jesus - not in the renewed life of Israel primarily. The resurrection is of direct significance to all mankind - and so is the death of Jesus.

Yes, and the difference is basically how we correlate or prioritize those two narratives - one about Jesus, the other about Israel. I think I would want to say that they are rather more interdependent than you would allow - you prefer to prioritize the story of Jesus, and there are, of course, very good reasons for doing that.

The Abraham narrative is the key narrative for Israel, pointing to Israel’s destiny, and emphasized by the prophets, especially Isaiah, which is of the blessing and salvation that was to come from Israel, through her messiah, to all nations.

We disagree somewhat here. I don’t think the point is that a universal saviour arises from the people of Israel in fulfilment of the promise to Abraham. I would say that it is the people who will be blessed and who will be a blessing to the nations, but that only becomes a reality through the participation of that people in the death and resurrection of Jesus. I see a stronger narrative continuity here than you do. So, yes, I think that there is an important sense in which Jesus serves the promise to Abraham. I would say that modern evangelical theology, by its overwhelming focus on Jesus, tends to downplay the significance of the concrete, historical existence of a called people.

Son of man

The Son of man argument is not at all at odds with the calling of Abraham. It provides the paradigm by which the salvation of Israel through the faithfulness of Jesus at a time of crisis is interpreted. I argued in Re: Mission, in fact, that Jesus’ statement about seeing the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man (Jn. 1:51) brings the two narratives together: the disciples will come to understand that it is through the suffering and vindication of the Son of man that the patriarchal vision of this people as new creation will be fulfilled.

Lamb of God

You more or less make the point for me with regard to the Lamb of God motif. The modern ‘truncated mythology of personal salvation’ has very little sense of how the description of Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world presupposes a more complex narrative about Israel and the nations. We disagree on how that narrative works, but that was not really my point in the original post.

Romans

Your comments on Romans are helpful. I’ll look at this more carefully. I would stress again, I am not trying to argue that Jesus’ death does not have a bearing on the spiritual destiny of all mankind - it is a question of how the biblical narrative underlying such statements as ‘Jesus died for my sin’ works. And I am quite happy to back up this road if it should prove to be a dead-end.

I still think, however, that Paul’s intention in Romans 3-4 is to convince Jews that they are no better off than Gentiles - that’s why the quotations in 3:10-18 all speak of Israel’s unrighteousness. It is an argument about Israel in the light of the condition of all humanity.

When we come to 3:21-23, you are right to point out that now the righteousness of God has been revealed in a way that has relevance for all humanity. ‘Redemption’ in 3:24 is a forward-looking concept (cf. Lk. 21:28; Rom. 8:23): it has in view the wrath that is coming, first on the Jew, then on the Greek. Jews and Gentiles alike, if they are in Christ Jesus, will be justified on that day of wrath - that is, they will not suffer the consequences of condemnation. But this does not necessarily mean that in 3:25 Jesus’ death is regarded as a death directly and indiscriminately for Jews and Gentiles alike. In a passage that seeks to convince Jews that they are as wretched as the Gentiles, as much under sin, I wonder whether the very Jewish image of the hilastērion does not point to the thought that Jesus’ death was in the first place a death for sinful Israel facing judgment, which secondarily changed the conditions for membership of the people. Similarly, in Ephesians 2:11-22 Jesus’ death is not regarded as a death for the sins of the Gentiles but as the means by which the ‘dividing wall of hostility’ between Jews and Gentiles was broken down.

In Romans 4:25 Paul writes that Jesus was ‘handed over for our trespasses (paraptōmata) and raised for our justification’. This strongly suggests that Jesus died because of the sins of Israel - paraptōmata are contraventions of the Law. The echo of Isaiah 53:12 adds further weight to this: the servant was handed over (paredothē) not because of the sins of the world but because of the sins of Israel.

The argument of Romans 6:3-10 is not that Jesus died for but that we have died with. That is not an insignificant difference. It is my argument about the story of the Son of man that it entails the concrete participation of the early church in the experience of Jesus’ suffering and vindication, death and life. Now in this sense it may be appropriate to speak of a death for Jews and Gentiles alike, but this is not the same point as 3:25 or 4:25.

2 Corinthians 5:11-21

There is a universal offer of reconciliation with God in this passage - that is clear. But all the way up to 5:13 ‘we’ has referred to the apostles: eg., ‘we persuade others’, ‘we are not commending ourselves’, ‘we are beside ourselves’ (5:11-13). The basic thrust of these chapters, moreover, has been that the apostles have made themselves nothing for the sake of Christ - indeed, they have suffered greatly for the sake of the gospel. My suggestion, therefore, is that he refers to the death of Christ for all in 5:14 as part of this argument: they share in the death of Christ and so live not for themselves but for the sake of Christ. It is on that basis that they carry out their task as envoys to the nations, seeking to reconcile both Jews and Gentiles to God. They do so as representatives of Israel, for whom Christ became a sin offering so that the apostles might become the righteousness of God.

The issue here is not that there is anything intellectually offensive about the statement that ‘Jesus died for my sins’. I’m just not sure it is the best summary of the ‘salvation’ narrative in the New Testament. I think that there is a strong case for saying that Jesus died for the sins of Israel, so that they would escape the condemnation of the wrath of God; envoys are then sent to the nations to proclaim what God has done for his people and to announce that this has implications for the whole world; Gentiles such as Cornelius believe this announcement and come to worship God in the Spirit; and the church concludes that there is nothing to prevent them from being baptized into membership of this eschatological community that must share in the sufferings and vindication of Jesus.