This book provides a comprehensive biblical and theological survey of the people of God in the Old and New Testaments, offering insights for today's transformed and ethnically diverse church. Jarvis Williams explains that God's people have always been intended to be a diverse community. From Genesis to Revelation, God has intended to restore humanity's vertical relationship with God, humanity's horizontal relationship with one another, and the entire creation through Jesus. Through Jesus, both Jew and gentile are reconciled to God and together make up a transformed people. Williams then applies his biblical and theological analysis to selected aspects of the current conversation about race, racism, and ethnicity, explaining what it means to be the church in today's multiethnic context. He argues that the church should demonstrate redemptive kingdom diversity, for it has been transformed into a new community that is filled with many diverse ethnic communities.

A careful and exegetical reading and examination of the Pauline passages that suggests particular atonement, together with a thorough engagement with contemporary scholars on the subject. In For Whom Did Christ Die? Williams argues that according to Paul, Jesus died exclusively for the elect to achieve their salvation. The book attempts to show that particular atonement is not simply an abstract theological doctrine, imposed on the text by theologians, and void of a biblical or exegetical foundation, but that this doctrine is biblical, is Pauline, and that particular atonement can be detected in Pauline theology by means of a careful, exegetical analysis of the relevant Pauline texts and of the relevant texts in the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism.

In Christ Died for Our Sins, Jarvis J. Williams argues a twofold thesis: First, that Paul in Romans presents Jesus' death as both a representation of, and a substitute for, Jews and Gentiles. Second, that the Jewish martyrological narratives in certain Second Temple Jewish texts are a background behind Paul's presentation of Jesus' death. By means of careful textual analysis, Williams argues that the Jewish martyrological narratives appropriated and applied Levitical cultic language and Isaianic language to the deaths of the Torah-observant Jewish martyrs in order to present their deaths as a representation, a substitution, and as Israel's Yom Kippur for non-Torah-observant Jews. Williams seeks to show that Paul appropriated and applied this same language and conceptuality in order to present Jesus' death as the death of a Torah-observant Jew serving as a representation, a substitution, and as the Yom Kippur for both Jews and Gentiles. Scholars working in the areas of Romans, Pauline theology, Second Temple Judaism, atonement in Paul, or early Christian origins will find much to stimulate and provoke in these pages.

Jarvis J. Williams argues that the Jewish martyrological ideas, codified in 2 and 4 Maccabees and in selected texts in LXX Daniel 3, provide an important background to understanding Paul's statements about the cursed Christ in Gal. 3.13, and the soteriological benefits that his death achieves for Jews and Gentiles in Galatians. Williams further argues that Paul modifies Jewish martyrology to fit his exegetical, polemical, and theological purposes, in order to persuade the Galatians not to embrace the 'other' gospel of their opponents. In addition to providing a detailed and up to date history of research on the scholarship of Gal. 3.13, Williams provides five arguments throughout this volume related to the scriptural, theological and conceptual, lexical, grammatical and polemical points of contact, and finally the discontinuities between Galatians and Jewish martyrological ideas. Drawing on literature from Second Temple traditions to directly compare with Gal. 3.13, Williams adds new insights to Paul's defense of his Torah-free-gentile-inclusive gospel, and his rhetoric against his opponents.

In an age in which scholars continue to produce books on the nature and significance of Jesus's death, books that often assume the Old Testament cult was the New Testament authors' primary background for their conception of Jesus's death, Jarvis J. Williams offers a fresh and novel contribution regarding both the nature of and background influences behind Paul's conception of Jesus's death. He argues that Paul's conception of Jesus's death both as an atoning sacrifice and as a saving event for Jews and Gentiles was significantly influenced by Maccabean Martyr Theology. To argue his thesis, Williams engages in an intense exegesis of 2 and 4 Maccabees while also interacting with other Second Temple Jewish texts that are relevant to his thesis. Williams further interacts with relevant Old Testament texts and the key texts in the Pauline corpus. He argues that the authors of 2 and 4 Maccabees present the deaths of the Jewish martyrs during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes IV as atoning sacrifices and as a saving event for Israel. He further argues that, although the Old Testament's cultic language certainly influenced Paul's understanding of Jesus's death at certain junctures in his letters, the Old Testament cult alone-which emphasized animal sacrifices-cannot fully explain why or even how Paul could conceive of Jesus's death, a human sacrifice, as both an atoning sacrifice and a saving event for Jews and Gentiles. Finally, Williams highlights the lexical, theological, and conceptual parallels between Martyr Theology and Paul's conception of Jesus's death. Even if scholars disagree with Williams's thesis or methodology, serious Pauline scholars interested in the background influences behind and the nature and s

Jarvis J. Williams argues that the Jewish martyrological ideas, codified in 2 and 4 Maccabees and in selected texts in LXX Daniel 3, provide an important background to understanding Paul's statements about the cursed Christ in Gal. 3.13, and the soteriological benefits that his death achieves for Jews and Gentiles in Galatians. Williams further argues that Paul modifies Jewish martyrology to fit his exegetical, polemical, and theological purposes, in order to persuade the Galatians not to embrace the 'other' gospel of their opponents. In addition to providing a detailed and up to date history of research on the scholarship of Gal. 3.13, Williams provides five arguments throughout this volume related to the scriptural, theological and conceptual, lexical, grammatical and polemical points of contact, and finally the discontinuities between Galatians and Jewish martyrological ideas. Drawing on literature from Second Temple traditions to directly compare with Gal. 3.13, Williams adds new insights to Paul's defense of his Torah-free-gentile-inclusive gospel, and his rhetoric against his opponents.

What should the Christian life look like? What vision does Scripture cast for living as a follower of Christ? The New Testament scholar Jarvis Williams considers how Paul's letter to the Galatians can inform our understanding of the Christian life here and now as well as into eternity. What emerges from this careful study is a multifaceted vision of God's saving action in Jesus Christ for both Jew and Gentile, in both the vertical relationship between God and humanity as well as the horizontal relationships among people-with cosmic ramifications. Through Paul's instructions and Williams's interpretation, Christians can learn the importance of walking by the Spirit.