Narrative and the righteousness of Abraham

This is how I understand this passage from the relational point of view. 

Genesis 15:6 (Abraham) trusted in YHWH (in that he faithfully migrated to the promised land) and YHWH considered him to be righteous (that is in right relationship with YHWH). 

First, God cannot consider someone to be in right relationship unless that person is in right relationship.  Second, the imputing of the blood of Christ to the sinner does not in a sense make the sinner righteous, but it breaks down the barrier of sin so that it is possible for us and the just God the Father to have a relationship.  Third, faith is not a work, but a relationship initiated by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit.

The "Old" Covenant began with Abraham right here in Genesis, not with Moses on Mt. Sinai.  The covenant is based on the covenant relationship of faith or trust of Abraham and YHWH, not the Law.  This is the point that Paul was making.  The keeping of the covenant law is the result of the covenant relationship, not the relationship is the result of the keeping of the law.  Unfortunately the Pharisees and the Saducees got these two aspects of the covenant  mixed up. 

Therefore the New Covenant is not a different from the Old except that it is fuller and more complete.  They are both based on a love relationship between God and humanity.      

Peace and Joy,

Relates

I’m simply commenting on Andrew’s response rather than Christopher’s initial thoughts which started this thread. I agree with most of what Andrew says - except that, in my opinion, the eschatological narrative of the people of God was not completed in the 1st century (I assume this is what is meant by “the salvation and vindication of the suffering community at the close of the age: cf. Rom. 13:11-12” - which Andrew normally locates in the 1st century). I would however locate the central 1st century eschatological events otherwhere than Andrew, but I don’t need to go into all that again.

Andrew’s use of the phrase “new beginning for a humanity called into obedience” is just another way of describing how God planned to undo the problem of evil through Abraham. Actually, Genesis 15:5-6 does not go so far as to say a “new beginning for a humanity called into obedience” - and such an idea would be inadequate to describe the full scope of what God was intending. There are plenty of failed “new beginnings” in the OT, based on being “called into obedience”. Abraham himself was one such example. But the point here is semantic. We shouldn’t be frightened of using words like “evil”, which describe very aptly what is happening in the world today, and which the biblical narrative aptly mirrors.

All the attempts of Adam’s descendants to achieve a “new beginning” tended to end in failure. What was really required was an end to the “old creation” and a beginning of “the new creation”. This happened when Jesus died on the cross, and rose from the dead. In that sense, “righteousness” is the beginning of that “new creation” in all who believe in Jesus, through the reception of the Spirit - 2 Corinthians 5:17; 2 Corinthians 1;22.

The narrative of the people of God is clearly central to the gospel which Jesus embodied and gave to the church to believe, proclaim and live by. But it cannot be at the expense of what that gospel came to do: which was to bring about the ontological changes necessary in order for the people of God to fulfil “the righteous requirements of the law” through the Spirit - Romans 8:4.

The question of what the “blessing of Abraham” fully means today has to be answered. I am sketching an outline of an answer - which, as I also suggested, is the answer provided by mainstream Christianity. Emergent thought brings some healthy contributions, in some cases adjustments to this mainstream answer. Emergent thought becomes less helpful where it seeks to polarise debate by placing one position (provided by itself) in opposition to another (its perception of other positions as ‘outmoded’). Narrative is not opposed to ontological. Emergent is not opposed to Evangelical. Postmodern is not opposed to Modern - it critiques, but does not dismiss it.