178 Hanna Stettler Jesus was not lightly setting Torah aside, as a false prophet urging people to abandon their ancient loyalties... He was claiming ... to be inaugurating the new age in Israel’s history, to which the Mosaic law pointed but for which it was [no longer] adequate (79). Jesus’ attitude towards the ethical Torah is equally rooted in the new reality he brought about: He interprets the Torah in God’s authority, in order to teach the newly gathered people of God, how to live a holy life. He emphasizes love and mercy as the essence of holiness. Taking the double commandment of love as his starting point, Jesus newly interprets the Torah and attributes different weight to each of its individual commandments. He does so in his authority as the “beloved Son”, to whom one has “to listen” (Mark 9,7). Jesus not only taught the Torah in messianic authority, but he also enabled his disciples to fulfil it by calling them to follow him, thus granting them communion with God. When the majority of Israel rejected Jesus’ messianic call to repentance, he completed his messianic role by taking upon himself death upon a cross as atonement for Israel and — beyond that — for the whole of humankind. In him, God “commits himself to the world by drawing all that is secular into the holy”, thus “taking total possession of the world in a final revelation and penetration” (80). 21 Chaucer Road Hanna STETTLER Cambridge CB2 2EB (UK) SUMMARY According to the Synoptic Jesus tradition, Jesus brings about the eschatological sanctification of Israel promised in Ez 36,22-32 and 37,28. He ushers in the time of the Holy Spirit, and gathers God’s eschatological people, which includes sinners as well as Gentiles. Moreover, he sanctifies people by healing and cleansing them, and teaches them to live a holy life. According to Jesus, the holiness of God’s holy people is no longer jeopardized by ritual impurity. This is not because ritual purity is irrelevant per se, but because in Jesus, the “Holy One of God”, God’s holiness has come into the world. Jesus sanctifies people and time so completely that the intention of the ritual Torah is fulfilled. Holiness is now to be lived out through mercy and love, even for one’s enemy. (79) WRIGHT, Jesus and the Victory of God, 646. (80) GESE, Essays on Biblical Theology, 86.