Jesus and the Holy City, New Testament Perspectives on Jerusalem

By P. W. L. Walker

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Grand Rapids/Cambridge 1996. ISBN 0-8028-4287-9

Book Review for Evangelicals Now

 

Just Another Book on Jerusalem? No, not just another book on Jerusalem. A book, in the words of Jim Packer, "worth selling your shirt for". Peter Walker has already demonstrated his expertise in the field of historical research on Jerusalem with his "Holy City, Holy Places? (Oxford: OUP, 1990) in which he explored the divergent views of two 4th Century Bishops, Eusebius and Cyril on the significance of the City. He also edited a book entitled "Jerusalem Past and Present in the Purposes of God" (Cambridge: Tyndale House, 1992). He has subsequently invested the last three years full time, researching New Testament material for this new book and the fruits are obvious. His Cambridge Paper entitled "Centre Stage: Jerusalem or Jesus?" (Cambridge Papers, 5.1, 1996) was an excellent taster and gave an inkling of the direction he was moving in with this latest offering. I can do no better than concur with N. T. Wright who writes,

"This is the first systematic treatment of Jerusalem right across the New Testament... If Christians, and for that matter anyone else, want to think seriously about the place of Jerusalem in the Bible and for today, they will have to take this book very seriously indeed."

What is the Biblical Significance of Jerusalem?

In what is a very readable style, Walker answers four vitally important questions: What is the biblical significance of Jerusalem?; What was Jesus’ attitude toward the City and its Temple?; Did the New Testament writers see Jerusalem as being affected by the coming of Jesus?; and, How should Christians view Jerusalem today? It is amazing to realise that this is probably the first comprehensive study of New Testament teaching on Jerusalem. This work clearly fills the gap between the historical works of Josephus and Edersheim and the more general works by modern authors such as W. D. Davies and Wilken. His thesis is that the New Testament writers, and in particular Jesus re-evaluate the Old Testament significance of Jerusalem. For the first Christians, the coming of the Messiah cast Jerusalem in an entirely new light.

"...any passion they might have had for Jerusalem had been transformed by reflecting on a different kind of "passion" -Jesus’ death outside the city’s wall." (xi)

Walker shows that it is quite vacuous for Christians to quote Old Testament texts concerning Jerusalem to imply that God’s purposes remained unchanged with the coming of Jesus. Walker shows convincingly that the way New Testament writers view Jerusalem is indicative of the way they view the Land. Working systematically through the New Testament documents, Walker focuses on what each book has to teach about the Temple, the City and the Land. In the first part, his main sections cover, a New Teaching (Mark); a New Zion (Matthew); a New Era (Luke-Acts); A New Centre (Paul); A New Temple (John); A New Calling (Hebrews); a New City (Revelation). The second part of his book deal specifically with Jesus understanding and the implications for today under the headings, a New Direction - Jesus and Jerusalem; a New Theology - New Testament Reverberations; and a New Significance - Towards a Biblical Theology.

The Significance of Jerusalem Today

Gary Burge, himself not afraid of controversy having authored the book "Who are God’s People in the Middle East?" (Zondervan, 1993), writes,

"Peter Walker’s study is both comprehensive in its scope and practical in its wisdom... Walker shows how a correct view of the Jerusalem theme will utterly affect not only our biblical theology but also our politics as we view Jerusalem today."

Little has changed since Kenneth Cragg wrote,

Jerusalem...is still bitterly the symbol of confronting defiance and dismay, its centrality to both parties ensuring that the obdurate loyalties it commands continue to forbid the peace to which its name is dedicated. All visions of a federal constitution, a mutual destiny, a bi-communal possession, have thus far been fruitless. The city remains the indivisible, inalienable Jewish symbol Zionism cannot allow itself to share, except in the free access of tourism and the tolerance of religious devotion. It is, therefore, a painful sign of irreconcilability-and steadily more so as the years pass.

It is particularly in helping us to think objectively and dispassionately about how Christians should view Jerusalem today that I welcome Peter Walker’s book. He is not afraid to bring his scholarly mind to apply Scriptural truth to the present dispute between Christians over the present sovereignty and future relevance of Jerusalem in the purposes of God. With the controversy surrounding the arbitrary celebrations of Jerusalem 3000 in mind, Walker’s treatment of the Galatian passages is particularly useful. He shows how Paul compares the present Jerusalem not with Sarah but Hagar still in slavery and bondage. He points out how Paul refuses to allow Christians to link the earthly Jerusalem to the Jerusalem above since she is still spiritually in Arabia. Theologically nothing has changed since that assessment. Jewish people need to hear of the Gospel of grace and freedom from the law found in Jesus, not affirmed by Christians, in their nationalistic legalism.

"Access to the "Jerusalem above" had nothing to do with the Jerusalem below... Christian identity...was not bound up with the physical Jerusalem... The Christian gospel did not offer a new validation for Jerusalem; on the contrary, the Christian Church needed to be set free from the ‘slavery’ that was inherent in the ‘present Jerusalem’ The Cross of Christ had had profound repercussions, leading to the death of many things (cf. 6:12-15); one of these, paradoxically, was Jerusalem itself." (p. 131-132)

Walker’s analysis of the Johannine material is equally excellent. Summarising John’s perspective, he concludes,

Any Christian attempt to invest the places associated with Jesus in Palestine with a new spiritual significance should be ruled out-Jesus himself was the only true ‘Holy Place’. (p. 191)

Likewise the call of Hebrews is a radical one,

"...a call to make a decisive break with the past at a time when there was much pressure to invest in the Temple and Jerusalem with a future... Christian believers had a new calling-to identify with Jesus, not with Jerusalem." (p. 234)

Walker’s book is a healthy antidote to the earth bound and materialistic theology of much Christian Zionism, preoccupied as it is with the rebuilding of an earthly Temple, with supporting Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem and their conquest of most of the Middle East to fulfil the Abrahamic promise. Walker convincingly shows through this comprehensive analysis of the New Testament material that,

...Jerusalem has lost whatever theological status it previously possessed. The way the Old Testament ascribes to Jerusalem a special, central and sacred status within the on-going purposes of God is not reaffirmed by the New Testament writers. Instead they see God’s purposes as having moved forward into a new era in which the previous emphasis on the city (as well as on the Land and the Temple) is no longer appropriate. The coming of Jesus has been its undoing...Jesus expressed his true love for Jerusalem not by acceding to its agendas but by denying them. Those who follow in his steps and who truly love Jerusalem may similarly have to resist some of the enticements which this city offers. (p. 319, 326)

The consummation of God’s purposes lie in a City made without hands which we await from heaven, "But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God." (Hebrews 12:22). Peter Walker’s book helps us to get our perspective right. I wholeheartedly commend it.

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