The New Testament enunciates no new God and no new doctrine of God. It proclaims that the God and Father of Jesus Christ is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of earlier covenants. What the New Testament announces is that this God has acted anew in inaugurating God's final reign and covenant through the career and fate of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Pre-Easter Jesus

Jesus inherited the Old Testament Jewish faith in Yahveh, which held that God was the creator of the world (Mk. 10:6 and parallel) and the one God who elected Israel as his people and gave them his law (Mk. 12:29 and parallels). Moreover, God promised the Israelites final salvation (Is. 35, 61). At the same time, the sense in the New Testament that God is now realizing ancient promises and is acting anew (cf. Mt. 11:4–5, an indubitably...