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ROYALISTS, REPUBLICANS, FIFTH MONARCHISTS AND LEVELLERS
Israel did’; that is, to dismiss the Old Testament as
ethically irrelevant altogether.” 361
One such paradigm, the Hebrew polity, included an
institutional structure of constitutional design, or an
external form through which civil relationships were
governed. Simply because this polity was cast culturally
in a milieu pre-dating our own does not disqualify it
from our political consideration. Neither can we simply
extract the principles which generated it, or even
reapply them in a way completely foreign to that
original design. Consider the following explanation of
the authoritative claims of Israel as paradigmatic
generally for Christian social reform:
The social shape of Israel was not an
incidental freak of ancient history. Nor was it
just a temporary, material by-product of their
spiritual message. We cannot set aside the
social dimension of the Old Testament as a
kind of husk, out of which we claim to extract
a kernel of spiritual timeless truths. Rather,
the social reality of Israel was an integral part
of what God had called them into existence
for. Theologically, the purpose of Israel’s
existence was to be a vehicle both for God’s
revelation and for the blessing of humanity.
They were not only the bearers of redemption,
but were to be a model of what a redeemed
community should be like, living in obedience
to God’s will. Their social structure,
aspirations, principles and policies, so
organically related to their covenantal faith in
the LORD, were also part of the content of
that revelation, part of the pattern of
redemption. God’s message of redemption
through Israel was not just verbal; it was
visible and tangible. They, the medium, were
themselves part of the message. Simply by
existing and being obedient to the covenant
law of the LORD, they would raise questions
among the nations about the nature of their
God and the social justice of their
community. 362
Wright is not suggesting that a paradigmatic approach
should move beyond textual particulars to emphasise
the social “story” of Israel at the expense of specific
universal commands and absolute divine prescriptions.
Neither is he emphasising a sociological approach
whereby whatever Israel “did,” we “ought” to do. A
paradigmatic approach does not deny the importance of
principalising, with its emphasis upon what a text meant
to its original audience and the importance of
361
Christopher J.H. Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of
God (Leicester, UK: Inter-Varsity Press, 2004), 62, 63.
362
Ibid., 62.
discovering abiding principles and normative essentials
to apply to analogous situations. Rather, it incorporates
principles and commands apart from a very wooden
application, conceding that we do not stand in the same
sort of relationship to God as Israel did, or abide in the
same sort of cultural context. Principles must be
considered, but if we tackle our ethical dilemmas by
approaching the Old Testament as simply a collection of
commands, laws, principles and propositions, we bypass
the relational content and context, and reduce our
exegesis to a cold, mechanical, rational, and
inadvertently non-relational process. We could miss the
inspired nature of the broader context if we neglect
God’s providential dealings with a real people He
prepared for Himself. Israel, as a nation, was to be a
model for other nations. The key to the paradigmatic
approach is to consider the larger social and political
context too—not just principles! Paradigms and
principles are mutually supportive, and both may make
authoritative claims upon our lives, whether corporately
or individually. We are hard pressed as Christians to
ignore divinely delivered commands and social
constructs; Israel’s social framework may bear
authoritative weight and make a social claim because it
came directly from God Himself and His requirement
that she be a righteous model to the nations. Wright
mentions God’s long-term vision for Israel as His
“priesthood in the midst of the nations,” and resorts to
Deuteronomy 4:6-8 as a controlling context of Israel’s
paradigmatic authority.
Considering Israel as a Paradigm includes
the Search for Normative Principles
Reformed, dispensational, and theonomic approaches
all have inherent hermeneutical weaknesses. Reformed
theorists consider only the moral law as the enduring
element of the Old Testament, Dispensationalists
interpret the Mosaic Code as applicable to Israel only,
except where it is repeated in the New Testament, and
therefore, the Gospel dispensation has replaced its laws,
commands, and structures. Theonomists tend to
advance as normative both the Mosaic law and its legal
dimensions wholesale, generally discounting the cultural
and societal gaps. A paradigmatic approach, like a
principalising one, guards against the literal and direct
application of Israel’s laws and societal forms by
approaching the Mosaic Law as a unified whole, by
assuming that God’s holiness is an essential part of His
ethical requirements, by presupposing uniformity
between the Canons, and by incorporating the ethical
use of Israel as a paradigm for social reform and
relational application.
Given then, Israel’s role in relation to God’s
purpose for the nations, and given the law’s
function in relation to that mission of Israel,
we can see that the law was designed . . . to
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