Simply Jesus is a
recent book written by author and scholar Nicholas Thomas Wright, a former
Bishop of Durham in the Church of England.
Among his many lectures and papers, some of his 50 books include Simply Christian, Surprised by Hope, Scripture
and the Authority of God, and After You Believe.
The hallmarks of Wright’s writings include evocative
imagery, a charming British wit, and a passion for making history vivid to the
reader. There are various other
strengths. Nevertheless, these are a few
of the many I’ve come to enjoy.
Simply Jesus
certainly has some wonderfully sharp features to it. I considered Tom’s presentation of the
context of the debates of Jesus’ identity to be accessible and
interesting. He uses an extended
metaphor of the “perfect storm” to describe Israel’s Messianic expectation,
Rome’s empirical power, and YHWH’s sovereign actions as three winds which came
crashing together producing the Man, Messiah, and Incarnate God: Jesus of
Nazareth. This is simply masterful. It’s so
basic, but it makes the history of the first century really stand forth. This is noteworthy, because it’s within those
pages that you experience Jesus walking.
I found myself confronted with such a personal Person.
Wright helped me rediscover Jesus not only as a human being
from history, but also as a living and knowable person. In contrast to say, John Eldridge’s Beautiful Outlaw, the historical and the
personal can and should come together as we encounter the Lord. Thankfully, the gospels of Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John hold together a transcendent and immanent God right there in the
human being Jesus. He does not give in
to the temptation to make the point of the gospels the portrait that Jesus was
a ‘regular Joe’. And he does not make
Jesus into such a wispy philosopher that he makes no sense to normal people on
the street.
Nether of those constructs satisfy. So, Wright opened the pages of the Bible to
reveal a King more worthy of my allegiance and worship than I had previously
imagined. But I may be attributing too
much to him; it was probably just the Holy Spirit’s use of him as a tool. Nonetheless, I was glad to be helped.
However, Wright also has patterns, which emerge in his
writings that I would call ‘strategic weaknesses’, because his omissions or
emphasis are purposeful; yet, they are nonetheless imbalances that can mislead
people into error. Particularly, when it
comes to the nature of propitiation by substitution, I get frustrated. These are observations that other critics
have made on his previous books Simply
Christian and Jesus and the Victory
of God. Like any writer or
theologian, you cannot say everything-all-at-once. Additionally, if you are going to make an
imprint you have to pick and choose the features of the mold.
I do think that
for a man of brilliance like Bishop Wright, he could pull off this balance if he
wanted to. It’s disappointing that he
chooses not to. Admittedly, he is
“turning up the loud speakers” of other themes in order to counter-balance what
most people emphasize. However,
“Exhausting the powers of evil” is also exhausting the wrath of Creator. It is possible for these two essential pieces
to unite in the victory of Jesus’ death.
This would be my biggest critique of our brother N.T. Wright and the
book, Simply Jesus.
If you have not read this book, I recommend that you
do. I believe that Wright shatters some
unbiblical categories that a lot of Christians have on Jesus. But readers beware: Wright’s views on Jesus’
self-understanding are controversial and he has been highly criticized for his
perspective on Paul’s theology of justification. But I do not think that these structural
doctrines hinder their robust foundational doctrines of Jesus’ divinity or of
justification by grace through faith.
While I don’t think Wright is right
about everything, he has a valuable voice in our generation on the nature
and work of our Lord Jesus the Christ.
-Ryan Donell, Minister to High School Students & Families