Even the inattentive see that Jesus’ ministry focused on what He described as the coming of the “reign of God.” In his recently republished The Aims of Jesus , Ben F. Meyer puts some concreteness to that by emphasizing “that the reign of God as imminent meant the imminent restoration of Israel, and the reign of God as already overtaking Israel in Jesus’ words and acts meant that Israel was already in the process of being restored” (221).
Meyer sees Jesus’ teaching, His exorcisms, His healings, his forgiveness as components of this agenda: “His teaching was Torah appropriate to restored Israel and requisite to perfect restoration. His wonder-working signified the restoration of Israel and effected it by restoring the afflicted to their heritage as children of Abraham. The appeal to ‘the sinners’ likewise belonged to this context. Offering forgiveness and eliciting conversion, it was designed to restore the outcasts to Israel. this is confirmed by Jesus’ repeated efforts to reconcile the righteous to this move toward socio-religious integration.”
It’s on the “theme of natural restoration in its full eschatological sweep” that “all the particulars converge.” The keynotes are “the gratuity and present actuality of Israel’s restoration” and “the choice of its privileged beneficiaries: the simple, the afflicted, and the outcast” (221).
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