We cannot know Jesus without knowing his story.Today the debate over who Jesus is rages on. Has the Bible bound Christians to a narrow and mistaken notion of Jesus? Should we listen to other gospels, other sayings of Jesus, that enlarge and correct a mistaken story? Is the real Jesus entangled in a web of the church's Scripture, awaiting liberation from our childhood faith so he might speak to our contemporary pluralistic world?To answer these questions we need to know what story Jesus claimed for himself. Christopher Wright is convinced that Jesus' own story is rooted in the story of Israel. In this book he traces the life of Christ as it is illuminated by the Old Testament. And he describes God's design for Israel as it is fulfilled inthe story of Jesus.



Christopher J. H. Wright (PhD, Cambridge) is international ministries director of the Langham Partnership, providing literature, scholarships, and preaching training for pastors in Majority World churches and seminaries. He has written many books including commentaries on Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Ezekiel; The Mission of God; Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit; Old Testament Ethics for the People of God; and the three volumes of Knowing God Throughthe Old Testament. An ordained priest in the Church of England, Chris spent five years teaching the Old Testament at Union Biblical Seminary in India and thirteen years as academic dean and then principal of All Nations Christian College, an international training center for crosscultural mission in England. He was chair of the Lausanne Theology Working Group from 2005 to 2011 and the chief architect of The Cape Town Commitment from the Third Lausanne Congress, 2010.



Preface

Chapter One: Jesus and the Old Testament Story



Jesus: A man with a story



Jesus was a real Jew



Jesus was a real man



Jesus was the Son of David



Jesus is the end of the time of preparation



Jesus is also a new beginning



The story so far



From Abraham to David



From David to the exile



From the exile to the Messiah



Light on the story



Light on the Old



Light on the New



A unique story



A universal goal



A unique experience



Israel and other stories



God in control of all history



The nations share in Israel's history



The nations share in Israel's future

Chapter Two: Jesus and the Old Testament Promise . . . .



'And so was fulfilled'



Five scenes from Jesus's childhood



Geography and history



The promise declared



Promise involves commitment to a relationship



Promise requires a response of acceptance



Promise involves ongoing levels of fulfillment



The promise guarenteed



The features of biblical covenants



The covenant with Noah



The covenant with Abraham



The Sinai covenant



The covenant with David



The new covenant



Conclusion

Chapter Three: Jesus and his Old Testament Identity . . . .



'This is my Son'



Old Testament pictures and patterns



'That's just typical'



Jesus as the Son of God



God as Father: Israel as Son



Fathers and sons in Israelite society



Israel's sonship and the covenant



Sonship as the foundations for hope



Israel's sonship and God's universal purpose

Chapter Four: Jesus and his Old Testament Mission . . . .



Jewish expectations at the time of Jesus



John the Baptist



The Messiah



The Son of Man



The Servant of the Lord



The mission of the Servant in the Old Testament



The Servantand mission to the Gentiles



Our mission in the light of Christ's



The unity and continuity of mission



'To the Jew first'



Mission in servanthood



Mission in its wholeness

Chapter Five: Jesus and his Old Testament Values . . . .



Jesus tested in the wilderness



The basic orientation of life before God



Simple obedience



Jesus and the law



The law as response to redemption



Motivations for obedience



The law'sscale of values



The authority of Jesus



Jesus and the prophets



Spiritual loyalty to God



Economic issues



Political conflict



Jesus, the Psalms and the reign of God



The universal dimension



The redemptive, theocratic dimension



The eschatological dimension



Bibliography