The Saving Cross of the Suffering Christ

The Death of Jesus in Lukan Soteriology

Benjamin R. Wilson

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9783110475906
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

What is the place of the cross in the thought of the third evangelist? This book seeks to show the central significance of the death of Jesus for Luke's understanding of (1) how salvation is accomplished and (2) what it means for Jesus to be the messiah. Whereas previous authors have helpfully attended to individual motifs within Luke's account of the passion, this book takes more of a wide-angle approach to the topic, moving from the very first allusions to Jesus' rejection at the beginning of Luke's gospel all the way through to the retrospective references to Jesus' death that occur throughout the speeches of Acts. By focusing on the inter-relationship of the various parts that form the whole of the Lukan portrayal of Jesus' death, Wilson proposes fresh solutions to several of the intractable exegetical disputes related to the place of the cross in Lukan theology, thereby helping to situate Lukan soteriology within the broader context of Jewish and Christian belief and practice in the first century.

Chapter 1 – Introduction and History of Research

I.Introduction

What is the place of the cross in the thought of the third evangelist? The question is not as straightforward as it may initially seem. On the one hand, references to the rejection and suffering of Jesus can be found from the early chapters of Luke’s gospel to the closing chapters of the book of Acts. Luke’s whole story of the life of Jesus unfolds in the shadow of the cross, and the body of the third gospel progresses as one long journey to Calvary. The passion narrative itself extends over the course of two lengthy chapters, so that Jesus’ final hours occupy a prominence in Luke’s narrative entirely out of proportion to the rest of Jesus’ life. Moreover, the death of Jesus is one of the core components of the apostolic proclamation in Acts. Indeed, with only a few exceptions, the story of Jesus begins with the cross for Christian preachers in Acts. Whatever its function in Lukan thought, clearly the death of Jesus emerges as a pivotal event in the Lukan narratives.

On the other hand, many interpreters have found that the Lukan cross is most distinctive for what it lacks. Unlike the other synoptic evangelists, Luke’s gospel does not contain Jesus’ famous ransom saying that interprets his death as a redemptive event (cf. Mark 10:45; Matt 20:28). In addition, the dubious textual tradition behind the Lukan account of the last supper has convinced some interpreters that Luke did not originally preserve the soteriological interpretation of the cross found in Jesus’ words over the cup (Luke 22:19b-20). When one turns to the book of Acts, the early Christian sermons appear to treat the death of Jesus as a mere historical fact. Even the preaching of Paul in Acts seems to lack the sort of soteriological interpretation of Jesus’ death that is so conspicuous in Paul’s own account of his gospel (cf. 1 Cor 15:3–5). The confluence of these assorted Lukan silences has led many interpreters to conclude that while the cross obviously occupies a central place in Luke’s portrayal of the life of Jesus and the kerygma of the early apostolic mission, Jesus’ death actually stands at the margin of Lukan thought, an event relegated to the sacred past with little abiding significance for the contemporary church.

The present work represents my own attempt to come to terms with the Lukan cross, and I hope to demonstrate that the death of Jesus functions in Lukan soteriology as an event of pivotal salvation-historical importance. More specifically, I wish to show that Luke conceives of the crucifixion as a cultic act of atonement that results in the establishment of a new covenant relationship between God and his people, a relationship marked by the eschatological forgiveness of sins and experience of salvation. As such, for Luke the cross is central to Jesus’ fulfillment of scriptural expectations for the messiah, and so in the course of establishing the centrality of the cross in Lukan soteriology, one cannot help but uncover the importance of the cross for Lukan christology as well. Luke presents to us a Christ who suffers upon a cross that saves. The death of Jesus therefore occupies a prominent position within the thought of the third evangelist.

Before embarking upon a new analysis, however, it is important to examine the long history of scholarship bearing upon the Lukan perspective toward the death of Jesus. The development of differing attitudes toward Luke’s conception of the passion is an interesting topic in its own right, and by tracing out the history of the discussion, one gains a greater sense of the methodological and exegetical issues that lie at the heart of the present scholarly stalemate concerning the Lukan cross. Thus, the remainder of this introductory chapter offers an account of the range of explanations that have arisen in order to interpret Luke’s unique treatment of the death of Jesus. Upon surveying the full spectrum of previous interpretive endeavors, I will then comment briefly upon what I perceive to be the distinguishing elements of my own approach to the topic.

II.History of Research

The literature devoted to the Lukan passion is expansive and fragmented, with no two authors agreeing in every detail. Nevertheless, some effort toward categorization must be made, and I will approach the discussion in terms of the soteriological function of Jesus’ death within Lukan theology.1

I will start with those treatments which find on various grounds that the death of Jesus possesses no intrinsic soteriological significance for Luke. After surveying the historical development of this general interpretive outlook, I will discuss a number of comparative analyses which seek to show that the Lukan description of Jesus’ death is based upon parallels within the literary traditions of Luke’s day. These comparative analyses attempt to provide interpretive paradigms for understanding the Lukan passion without direct reference to the intrinsic soteriological significance of Jesus’ death, so that they can be adapted to varying perspectives on the place of the cross in Lukan soteriology. As such, they can be deemed mediating interpretations of the Lukan cross. Finally, I will examine the most common attempts that have been made to find an intrinsic soteriological significance in the death of Jesus in Luke-Acts.2

1.Minimalist Perspectives on the Death of Jesus in Luke-Acts

In his seminal work concerning the making of Luke-Acts, the American H. J. Cadbury observes that for Luke the cross seems to serve as a mere prelude to the resurrection, an unfortunate necessity that is overcome by the power of God in raising Jesus from the dead.3 Writing a few years later, the Englishman J. Creed echoes this sentiment in his influential commentary on the third gospel, stating quite bluntly, “There is indeed no theologia crucis beyond the affirmation that the Christ must suffer, since so the prophetic scriptures had foretold.”4 Within German scholarship, this interpretive perspective is typically traced back to H. Conzelmann’s statement, “There is no trace of any Passion mysticism, nor is any direct soteriological significance drawn from Jesus’ suffering or death.”5 Subsequent generations have frequently followed the lead of these foundational interpreters, so that a common understanding of the Lukan cross has been that Jesus’ death was merely a divine necessity with no soteriological significance in itself, a tragic historical event which had to take place in order to fulfill God’s plan.

Commentators have typically been content to cite Cadbury, Creed, and Conzelmann as the founding advocates of a minimalist approach without inquiring as to how they arrived at their conclusions.6 However, the seeds of this minimalist outlook, particularly within German scholarship, were actually planted quite early in the history of modern NT research. Indeed, the impetus for the restrained appraisal of the Lukan passion among interpreters of the 20th century can be traced all the way back to a number of trends within biblical criticism in the 19th century. A continuous tradition of interpretation therefore spans from the Tendenzkritik of F.C. Baur and the Tübingen School in the mid-19th century, through the Bultmann tradition of the mid-20th century, and into the modified soteriological minimalism of present-day interpreters.

Roots of the Minimalist Outlook
F.C. Baur and the Tübingen School

The move toward a minimalist assessment of the Lukan cross begins in earnest with F.C. Baur’s influential hypothesis regarding the purpose and provenance of the book of Acts. Baur posits that the ostensibly historical portrayal of the early church in Acts is determinatively influenced by the author’s desire to present an essential continuity and agreement between Pauline, Gentile Christianity and the Jewish Christianity of the original apostles. Indeed, this is the “chief tendency” of the book of Acts, the purpose which gives unity to the whole work.7 While this conciliatory purpose is not necessarily incompatible with an accurate historical account of the ministry of the apostles, Baur finds that the author of Acts, who was a disciple of the Pauline school, has allowed his concern for the needs of the early second century church to affect his representation of Pauline theology.8 Since Paulinism could only survive during the second century by modifying its opposition to Judaism, the author of Acts has attenuated Paul’s original bifurcation of law and grace, faith and works. Consequently, in Baur’s estimation, the Paul of Acts is made more Jewish than the Paul of the epistles, so that the Paul of Acts might be more acceptable to second century Jewish Christianity.

Baur writes generally of the conciliatory purpose of Acts, yet the systematic application of his hypothesis to the interpretation of Acts is performed by his students from the Tübingen school rather than by Baur himself. Schneckenburger, for example, affirms Baur’s hypothesis through a sustained analysis of the purpose of Acts, comparing the Pauline and Petrine portions of Acts in order to demonstrate the work’s conciliatory agenda.9 Schneckenburger concludes that the theology of Paul’s speeches in Acts is mirrored at every turn by the theology of the Petrine speeches.10 In both sets of speeches, the resurrection is emphasized far more than the death of Christ.11 Moreover, according to Schneckenburger, in Paul’s speech at Pisidian Antioch, the author of Acts exchanges the Pauline concept of justification by faith alone for a synergistic understanding of justification in which the law and faith are viewed as complementary (Acts 13:38–39).12

In a similar manner, Zeller, in his 1854 commentary on Acts, contends that the soteriology of Paul in Acts does not resemble the soteriology expressed in the genuine Pauline epistles.13 Paul’s speech at Athens in Acts 17 replaces the genuine Pauline contrast of sin and redemption with the opposition of monotheism and polytheism, and faith in the messiah is only mentioned once in passing.14 Indeed, in the Pauline speeches in Acts, Zeller discovers “nichts von der allgemeinen Sündhaftigkeit und der Versöhnung durch das Blut Christi, vom Aufhören der Gesetzesreligion, vom alleinrechtfertigenden Glauben, von allen den Ideen, welche den Kern des paulinischen Christenthums ausmachen.”15 Acts 20:28 alone, with its curious reference to a church obtained by blood, preserves “eine flüchtige Andeutung der Versöhnungslehre” in a book otherwise purged of distinctively Pauline theology.16 Thus, Zeller can only conclude that the author of Acts has deliberately transformed the apostle to the Gentiles into a spokesperson for Jewish Christianity, in keeping with the author’s purpose in writing his conciliatory account.17

Overbeck

The leading Acts commentator of the next generation, F. Overbeck, rejects the Tübingen school’s specific reconstruction of the purpose and provenance of Acts. According to Overbeck, any dispute between a law-free Pauline Christianity and a Torah-observant Jewish Christianity had long been resolved by the time of the production of Acts. Thus, the purpose of Acts could not be conciliatory in the sense that Baur had supposed. Rather, the purpose of Acts is historical, or perhaps genealogical. For Overbeck, Acts is the attempt of a dominant, second century Gentile Christianity to evaluate its past, particularly its origins and founder, Paul.18 This Gentile Christianity had been strongly influenced by Jewish Christianity at an earlier stage in its development, but such concerns had ceased by the time of the production of Acts. The book belongs to the era of early Catholicism, and the apparent inaccuracies in Acts are a result of the author’s historical distance from the object of his narration, not any conciliatory agenda (contra Baur).

Still, Overbeck affirms that the Tübingen school has rightly called attention to the differences between the theological perspective of Acts and its ancestral Pauline Christianity. Echoing Schneckenburger an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Citations and Abbreviations
• Chapter 1 – Introduction and History of Research
• Chapter 2 – The Passion before the Passion: Anticipatory Allusions to Jesus’ Fate of Rejection, Suffering, and Death
• Chapter 3 – The Lukan Last Supper: Text and Interpretation
• Chapter 4 – The Passion Narrative within its Lukan Framework
• Chapter 5 – The Death of Jesus Proclaimed
• Chapter 6 – The Pattern of Proclamation within a Jewish Context
• Chapter 7 – Conclusion
• Appendix 1 – Pre-Passion References to Jesus’ Death & Synoptic Parallels
• Appendix 2 – Retrospective References to the Passion in Acts
• Bibliography
• Subject index
• Footnotes