The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion

by N.T. Wright

What we can say beyond any doubt is that within the first generation of the church there was an explosion of revolutionary beliefs about what had been accomplished on the day Jesus died, but that the revolution had a definite shape that remained constant across different traditions and widely different styles of expression. The early “official” summary remained the gold standard: the Messiah “died for our sins in accordance with the Bible.” Those who expounded this belief did so with a robust understanding of each element. The great narratives of scripture, it was assumed, had finally arrived at their divinely intended goal. This was naturally controversial then, and it has been controversial ever since, just as every messianic claim was controversial in early Judaism, meaning as it did that other claims about where Israel’s history might be going were to be set aside. The early Christians stuck to the basic belief. Jesus had been raised from the dead; therefore, he really was Israel’s Messiah; therefore his death really was the new Passover; his death really had dealt with the sins that had caused “exile” in the first place; and this had been accomplished by Jesus’s sharing and bearing the full weight of evil, and doing so alone. In his suffering and death, “Sin” was condemned. The darkest of dark powers was defeated, and its captives were set free.