Salvation, then, was a matter of a new world, the renewal of creation. Within this, Israel’s god would call some from within the nation to be a new Israel, the spearhead of the divine purpose. Within this again, this renewed people were to be the holy, pure, renewed human beings, living in a covenant fidelity which would answer to the covenant faithfulness of the creator god, and which would end in the renewal, i.e. resurrection, of human bodies themselves. When this god acted, those who belonged, by his grace alone, to this group, would be rescued, and thereby vindicated as the true people of
...more
