Bible Study

The Three Biblical Strands in Luke-Acts

I have elsewhere traced three strands through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. The three strands are: redemption, calling, and empowerment. Taken together, these three strands help define spiritual leadership for Christ’s church. See my article.

In this article, we will narrow our focus to Luke’s writings. Luke’s writings consist of The Gospel according to Luke and The Acts of the Apostles. For short, I will call these two volumes Luke/Acts. In my judgment, nowhere are the three strands better illustrated than in Luke/Acts.

I have seen three summaries of the main theme of Luke/Acts:

Summary One

Luke/Acts is about salvation in Jesus Christ. This is the redemption strand. From this strand we draw our Christian message.

Summary Two

Luke/Acts is about the assignment of disciples and apostles to carry the gospel to all of the world and to all kinds of people. This is the calling strand. From it we draw our Christian mission.

Summary Three

Luke/Acts is about the Spirit who anointed Jesus’ ministry being given to his followers so that they could do the kinds of things he did. This is the empowerment strand. From it we draw our Christian method.

I would say that Luke/Acts is about these three strands taken together. It is convenient that they correspond with the three strands I see running throughout the Bible.

The Redemption Strand in Luke/Acts: Our Message

When Gabriel tells Mary to name her son Jesus, the redemption strand is introduced. The name Jesus translates the Hebrew Yehoshua or Yeshua which we render Joshua. It means, The Lord saves.

Early in his Gospel, Luke defines the theme of salvation. Perhaps you remember the story in Luke 2:25-35. It is often read the Sunday after Christmas. Joseph and Mary took the infant Jesus to Jerusalem for the appropriate dedication and purification rituals. They were met by elderly Simeon. Simeon prophetically perceived that the infant Jesus represented a major saving initiative. The Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah. When he saw Jesus, he said to God, “You are now dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation.” He also noted that the salvation would be for Gentiles as well as for Jews, that it would turn many expectations upside down (Jesus would be destined for the falling and rising of many), and that it would come painfully (Jesus would be a sign that is spoken against that the thoughts of many hearts would be revealed, and, in the process, a sword would pierce Mary’s own heart).

Luke’s Gospel portrays salvation holistically. Salvation certainly includes forgiveness of sins and certainly anticipates eternal life; these are major parts of the saving process. But salvation also involves deliverance from evil spirits; from illness and affliction and, in some cases, even death; from materialism and lust; from despair over oppression and poverty; even from hatred of enemies. Luke presents the saving work of Jesus as pushing beyond the usual boundaries of who gets blessed (a religious elite) to give hope to the lost, the labeled, the ostracized, and the alien.

While not denying that there is divine truth in the formulas of Deuteronomy and Proverbs that speak of blessing for the righteous, Jesus certainly demonstrated that there is a gracious and redeeming love of God that reaches beyond such formulas. Much of the central section of Luke’s Gospel can be read as a dialogue with the blessing formulas of Deuteronomy. A brief presentation of Luke 10:1—18:4 in relation to Deuteronomy can be found in Luke, New International Biblical Commentary, Craig A. Evans, Hendrickson Publishers, 1990.  Those wanting to go deeper may explore Luke and Scripture: The Function of Sacred Tradition in Luke-Acts, Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders, Augsburg Fortress, 1993. Click the title to view or buy from Amazon.com.

Jesus came as a grand fulfillment of the Old Testament type kinsman-redeemer. A kinsman redeemer was a person who gave of himself to restore a relative’s life, liberty, property, reputation, prosperity, fruitfulness, progeny, and inheritance. Jesus is our elder brother in the family of God. He came to bring discouraged people into the experience of and confidence in the reigning power of God. Beginning to trust God’s sovereignty provided all kinds of deliverance, all manners of salvation. Jesus has come to save us in the full sense of the word.

In Jesus’ saving work, he replaced the Jerusalem temple. God had intended the temple to be a place of atonement and answered prayer, but it had become a place where many were excluded from experiencing the benefits. For excluded people, Jesus came to be a portable, living temple where they could be reconciled to God and receive answers to their deepest desires.

His ministry was a challenge to the Jerusalem temple, and the challenge had to be issued in person. So, at last, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem where he was to demonstrate what the temple was to be, a place of healing and redemption. Jesus’ actions of driving the traders out of the temple finds its fulfillment in Philip’s baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-40). The excluders were to be removed while those who knew their need for God were to be brought in.

In reaching out to sinners, Jesus never softens the challenge to righteous living, but provides the love and power that enable them to hope. He delivers people from despair and fatalism by proving to them that God can make a difference in their lives.

As extraordinary and wonderful as Jesus’ kingdom ministry was, there is no dodging the fact that the salvation theme reached its high point when Jesus gave his life on the cross. In his death on the cross, Jesus replaced the temple and its sacrifices as the means of reconciling God’s holiness and love in face of human sin. Jesus in his death provided the means by which all who trust in him may enter the presence of the holy God and receive his Spirit into their lives in token and guarantee of the new heaven and new earth in which they may hope to dwell eternally.

As we move into Acts, the apostles consistently proclaim the message of salvation through Jesus. In Acts 2, on Pentecost Sunday, Peter proclaimed Jesus the crucified as both Lord and Christ and called those who were convinced of this to “Repent and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” He exhorted them to, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.”  Three thousand persons responded positively to this exhortation on this first day of the church. Later in Acts 4, Peter explained that the healing of the man lame from birth was by the name of Jesus, crucified and risen, and declared, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.”

Jesus is not only the unique Savior; he is also the unique Judge. We do not have to answer questions about the salvation of good Buddhists. Jesus knows the human heart far better than we, and he is the one who renders judgment. We do not have to know what his judgment is. We have only to recognize him as in charge.

In Acts 13, Paul proclaimed the same message. After speaking of the crucified and risen Jesus, he closed, “Let it be known to you…that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you; by this Jesus everyone who believes is set free from all those sins from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.”

For Paul’s message to non-Jews, see Acts 17:29-31. The salvation Jesus offers is superior not just to the revealed Law of Moses, but even more to all the religions and theologies of human imagination. This passage warns that Jesus will judge invented religion.

We should state clearly that, although the apostles’ emphasis often fell on repentance, forgiveness, and eternal life, they continued to proclaim a message and to carry out a ministry of holistic salvation, a total message of the kingdom of God: healing, deliverance, freedom from materialism, love of enemy, and so forth.

Our salvation is not just from hell, but also into fullness of life. We must not narrow the message of salvation to the point that it has nothing attractive to offer to those who are not yet thinking about eternity. Both Jesus and the apostles had a broader message of complete redemption, and so must we.

The Calling Strand in Luke/Acts: Our Mission

When Jesus was baptized, he heard the voice from heaven saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well-pleased.” These words refer to the Royal Son of Psalm 2:7 (in which God says to the king, as part of an enthronement ritual,  “You are my Son…”) and the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 42:1 (in which God speaks through Isaiah, introducing a stunning Servant who will end up giving his life for our redemption, “my chosen, in whom my soul delights”). I understand these words to be Jesus’ calling to be the Anointed Agent of God’s kingdom and the Priestly Servant who offers the supreme atoning sacrifice.

The task of a priest is to bring God and the world together, offering what is needed to bridge the gap. This is what Jesus does on a grand scale. We are called to represent his priesthood in our lives. In the case of Christian priests, our sacrifices are of the nature described in Romans 12-13 and Hebrews 12-13. Much of our role is to demonstrate faithful, self-giving love so that others gain a glimpse of the character of God..

The concept of a royal priesthood applies to ethnic Israel throughout the Old Testament (Exodus 19:6) and to the multi-ethnic church in the New Testament (1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 5:9-10). Jesus plays the pivotal role in bringing the royal priesthood concept to fulfillment and in expanding the concept to define the church’s mission to the world.

Luke presents Jesus as a Royal Priest of an order preceding David’s kingship, an order preceding Aaron’s priesthood, the order of Melchizedek, to whom Abraham paid a tithe. Now is not the time to divert ourselves into a full discussion of Melchizedek. The point is not about Melchizedek, of whom we know very little, but about the higher order of Jesus’ Royal Priesthood that extends beyond Israel.

Initially, Jesus’ mission as Royal Son is to proclaim the reign of God in an attractive, positive, and redeeming manner (Luke 4:43). He had to help John the Baptist understand his calling. John had expected Jesus to destroy the wicked with fire, but that strategy is reserved for the endtime. Now is the time of redemption: “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news preached to them.”  Jesus calls us to a redemptive mission, not a punitive one (See Luke 9:51-56, including the manuscript note usually displayed at the bottom of the page).

Shortly after Peter concludes (in Luke 9), based on the kingdom ministry, that Jesus is the Royal Son, the Messiah, Jesus begins to unfold his role as Suffering Servant. The disciples suffer from major denial as Jesus begins to tell them what lies ahead in Jerusalem. Jesus meets on a mountain with Moses the lawgiver and Elijah the prototypical prophet who discuss with him his coming exodus (crucifixion). On the mount of transfiguration, the Law and the Prophets confirm that his coming death is a necessary part of his Messiahship.

The central portion of Luke’s Gospel portrays Jesus with his face set toward Jerusalem and the awaiting cross (Luke 9:51—19:10). After his resurrection, in Luke 24, Jesus asked the two disciples on the Emmaus Road, “‘Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” He repeated to a larger gathering of disciples, the eleven and their companions, “‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you--that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations….’” In short, Suffering Servanthood was as much a part of his calling as being the Royal Son of God.

As Royal Son, Jesus early (Luke 5:1-11) began calling disciples to share in his kingdom ministry. The fisherman Simon Peter’s first reaction to recognizing Jesus’ divine power was to declare, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Yet Jesus persisted, saying, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”

Jesus prepared the disciples and sent them out to proclaim in words and deeds the good news of the kingdom, first sending twelve (Luke 9:1-6) and then seventy or seventy-two (Luke 10:1-23). He then had to begin to introduce servant themes into their calling. He taught them the hard lesson that greatness consists not in their power as agents of the kingdom, but in loving service to a saving mission. They too are destined to be royal children and suffering servants, albeit children by adoption and servants whose suffering points to Jesus’ once-for-all suffering.

But disciples of Jesus are called into mission that leaves them both empowered and vulnerable. They can’t have one without the other.

On the one hand, in Acts, Peter and Paul each is an agent of the kinds of miracles that Jesus worked, including raising the dead.  There are many parallels between the miracles of Jesus in Luke and those of the apostles in Acts.

On the other hand, in Acts, Stephen is stoned to death with Christlike forgiveness on his lips (Acts 7:60). James, the fisherman disciple, is killed with the sword. Peter is imprisoned repeatedly.  Among Paul’s many adventures, his trip to Jerusalem, like Jesus’, leads to his arrest and trial. In the end, beyond the conclusion of Luke’s writings, tradition tells us that Peter and Paul both gave their lives for their faith. But, Luke already makes it clear that they are conformed to Christ in the self-giving nature of their mission as well as in their supernatural ministry.

Their calling and our calling is to represent both the reigning power and the self-giving love of Jesus Christ, to call people to faith, repentance and baptism, and to help people receive the benefits thereof.

The Empowerment Strand in Luke/Acts: Our Method

The Old Testament book of Zechariah, set in the latter sixth century and early fifth century B.C., foretells that, because false prophets had abused the claim to speak for God, the prophetic Spirit would be withdrawn from the land (Zechariah 13:2-6). Prophecy and inspired scripture soon came to an end for a time. In this vacuum the power of elite temple priests and the power of Pharisaic scribes and rabbis emerged to replace the living word of God.  

The Gospel of Luke begins by showing a dramatic turning point in its first two chapters. The Spirit begins to speak again through elderly Elizabeth and her priestly husband, named--interestingly enough-- Zechariah, through their miraculously conceived embryonic son John, through Elizabeth’s young cousin Mary, the bearer of another type of miraculous conception, and through the elderly Simeon and Anna. The Spirit is back big-time in preparation for the ministry of Jesus.

The Spirit descended on Jesus at his baptism, impelling him into ministry. In Luke 4:18-19, Jesus, in his hometown Nazareth synagogue, asserts his source of empowerment, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Jesus is quoting Isaiah 61:1-2. Alec Motyer has analyzed Isaiah as offering three images of the Messiah: the King of Isaiah 1-37, the Servant of Isaiah 38-55, the Anointed Conqueror of Isaiah 56-66. Compare Isaiah 11:1-10, 42:1-9, and 61:1-9. Jesus is empowered to fulfill all three Spirit-filled images.

Jesus conducted his ministry in the power of the Spirit. He said (Luke 11:20), “But if it is by the finger (Spirit) of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you.” He taught his followers to ask, seek, and knock in prayer for the gift of the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:9-13).  After his resurrection, he told them (Luke 24:49) to wait until they had been “clothed with power from on high.” In Acts 1:8, he continued, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

On Pentecost Sunday (Acts 2), Peter explained that the gift of the Spirit moving among the disciples/apostles was evidence that Jesus who had been crucified was not only risen from the dead, but also exalted as Lord and in a position to send the Spirit upon all who believed in him.

It was the Holy Spirit who enabled the apostles to carry out supernatural miracles and to undertake great deeds of courage and generosity. The Spirit guided and sometimes compelled the apostles in their mission. The Spirit spoke through their mouths. Both their supporters and their opponents had to come to terms with the extraordinary works being done in and through these previously quite different men and women. The point is that the Spirit’s presence in the lives of the apostles confronted people with the living presence of God, and they had to decide how they were going to respond.

Consistent with what we find in Acts, later the Apostle Paul would describe many aspects of the work of the Spirit in his letters. In summary, the Spirit:

I do not know how to emphasize strongly enough that this is the method by which the church works. Worldly wisdom has its place, but it is not our clever worldly strategies that build the church of Jesus Christ. What builds the church is the living presence of God working in and through submitted servants. The person of the Holy Spirit is the method by which churches come alive and effectively represent the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In conclusion,

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