“The Torah has the effect of, as it were, piling up the sin of the world in one particular place, that is, in Israel.”
-N.T. Wright from Climax of the Covenant
I like this quote because it reveals the redemptive quality of Israel as a “kingdom of priests”. This is observed by how the Levitical priests ate and consumed the sacrificial sin offerings shows so that they were taking on, so to speak, “the sins of the world”.
God concentrated the curse of sin at Jerusalem so that Christ could go “outside the camp” and bear it once and for all as we read in Hebrew 13:
[11] For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp.
[12] So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.
[13] Therefore let us go forth to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured.
[14] For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come.
Jesus is, as Origen once said the Kingdom-Himself (autobasileia). I believe Wright has placed his finger on something equally important. Jesus is the auto-Israel, the true Israel-Himself. In His divine Person is the fullness of the Law and the fullness of the Kingdom.
Taylor was an Episcopal priest in Fort Worth, Texas before being received into the Catholic Church by Bishop Kevin Vann of Fort Worth.
Taylor was also formerly the Assistant Director of the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C., located three blocks north of the White House, where he lectured regularly. He was served under Archbishop John J. Myers and Msgr. William Stetson for the Pastoral Provision of John Paul II, the canonical structure by which Anglican clergy are received into the Catholic Church and then go on to pursue Holy Orders in the Catholic Church.
He is a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary (M.A.R. Theology), Nashotah Theological House (Certificate in Anglican Studies), and University of Dallas (M.A. Philosophy). He is currently a Ph.D. student in Philosophy at the University of Dallas where he studies the Natural Law theory of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae Ia Iaa qq. 94-108). Taylor and his wife live in Dallas, Texas with their five children. He is the author of The Catholic Perspective on Paul (forthcoming).
Visit his personal site at: www.taylormarshall.com
Taylor is also the Editor of Christian and American at: www.christianandamerican.com. 
