The New Chosen People, Revised and Expanded Edition

A Corporate View of Election

William W. Klein

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781498209342
  9781498209366
• eBook ISBN:
  9781498209359
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Controversy rages on about God's choosing people for salvation. Are only the few elect? Rather than typically beginning with the preconceptions of systematic theologies, Dr. William Klein takes up this question by searching for a biblical theology of election. He surveys the OT contexts of God's choosing individuals--prophets, priests, kings--to serve divine purposes, and considers God's election of the nation of Israel as his special people. This OT study proposes that God's election is both individual and corporate, but not always determinative. Individuals entered the people of God by birth, but not all the people found salvation. Faith in Yahweh was required. This book traces these elective understandings through the intertestamental literature, identifying continuities and shifts. The bulk of the study, and the heart of the argument, focus on the New Testament. Klein identifies concepts of election, and relationships between writers in the gospels, the Lucan material, Paul's writings, and the rest. The new covenant, God choosing the church in Christ, emphasizes election as corporate, while the individual election of Jesus' disciples and of Paul raises the question whether such chosenness is necessarily salvific. In closing, Klein discusses the most engaging and divisive questions around God's election, and offers a real challenge to today's church.

The New Chosen People

A Corporate View of Election

Revised and Expanded Edition

William W. Klein

To Phyllis Gail Klein, my dear wife, editor extraordinaire, constant friend,

and faithful fellow-pilgrim on the journey of faith.

Table of Contents

Preface | vii

Introduction to the Revised Edition | vii

Introduction to the First Edition | vii

Abbreviations | vii

Section I: Old Testament and Jewish Backgrounds | vii

1. Old Testament Background | vii

2. Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha | vii

3. Qumran | vii

4. The Rabbis | vii

Section II: The New Testament Documents | vii

Introduction | vii

5. The Synoptic Gospels | vii

6. The Acts of the Apostles | vii

7. The Johannine Literature | vii

8. The Pauline Literature | vii

9. Hebrews | vii

10. The Epistles of James, Peter, and Jude | vii

Section III: Conclusions | vii

Section IV: Election to Salvation in the New Testament: Concise Discussion of Major Questions | vii

Bibliography | vii

Name Index | vii

Subject Index | vii

Ancient Document Index | vii

Preface

The New Chosen People grew out of conclusions I had surfaced during research on the New Testament in the 1970s. It was not an attempt to address Calvinism per se, nor Arminianism, but rather primarily a work of biblical theology, focused on God’s election of people to salvation. Several decades later, the emergence of the “New Calvinists” has brought this topic back into prominence. This second edition serves to bring back into the conversation many of the issues relevant to understanding “election,” with my major contribution on the New Testament side of the topics. Because the “corporate election” point of view has not received sufficient consideration in these discussions about God’s choosing, I want to highlight it here.

My experience and reflection in the intervening years show that any conclusions about election issues will have pastoral and practical outcomes. The questions around God’s choosing are not purely abstract; we must always ask how theology “plays out” in real life. For that reason, this edition includes a feature not present in the book’s first edition. The last section considers some of the thorny practical questions for biblical theologians in relation to election. In response to these questions, I draw out key implications of my biblical theology of election, especially in corporate terms.

All teachers and writers realize how much we depend on our teachers and mentors. I owe much to many, but here I will mention three men. One was Jerry Hawthorne from whom I first learned classical Greek; he ins...

Table of contents

• CoverImage
• 00.FrontMatter
• 00-1.FrontMatter
• 00-2.FrontMatter
• 00-3.FrontMatter
• 00-4.FrontMatter
• 00-5.FrontMatter
• 00-6.FrontMatter
• 00-7.FrontMatter
• 00-8.FrontMatter
• 01.Chapters
• 01-1.Chapters
• 01-2.Chapters
• 01-3.Chapters
• 01-4.Chapters
• 01-5.Chapters
• 01-6.Chapters
• 01-7.Chapters
• 01-8.Chapters
• 01-9.Chapters
• 01-10.Chapters
• 02.Bibliography