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The Ascension and the Eschatology of Luke-Acts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Eric Franklin
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Extract

Much recent discussion of Luke and his theology has revolved around his interpretation of the eschatological outlook of early Christianity. That he has at this point entered upon a certain amount of redefinition seems clear from his handling of St. Mark's gospel. What is less clear, however, is that his interpretation represents the turning away from eschatology that is sometimes attributed to him and that, because of this, he merits the accusation of having compromised the outlook of the early proclamation. Wilckens defends Luke against such accusations on the grounds that they rest upon a one-sided conception of Paul's theology. It may also be suggested that they can be substantiated only by a failure to appreciate Luke's own outlook and by a determination to force him into the mould of ‘redemptive historya’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , May 1970 , pp. 191 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1970

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References

note 191 page 1 See the essays by Vielhauer, ‘On the Paulinism of Acts’ (originally published in 1950, E.T., in Studies in Luke-Acts, ed. Keck, and Martyn, , London, 1968, pp. 33–50)Google Scholar , and by Käsemann, ‘The Problem of the Historical Jesus’ (first published 1954, E.T., in Essays in New Testament Themes pp. 28–29)Google Scholar , ‘New Testament Questions of Today’ and ‘Paul and Early Catholicism’ (originally published in 1957 and 1962 respectively and now found in E.T. in his collected essays, New Testament Questions of Today). See also the full-length study by Conzelmann, , The Theology of St. Luke (original German, Die Mitte der Zeit, 1954), and the report by Ellis in his commentary on the Gospel of Luke (1966), pp. 48–50.Google Scholar

note 191 page 2 ‘Interpreting Luke-Acts in a period of Existentialist Theology’, in Studies, pp. 60–80.

note 193 page 1 J.T.S., n.s., VI, 1955, pp. 229–33, ‘The Prefigurement of the Ascension in the Third Gospel’.

note 194 page 1 Barrett, C. K., ‘Stephen and the Son of Man’, Apophoreta, Haenchen Festschrift, 1964.Google Scholar

note 194 page 2 Robinson, J. A. T., Jesus and his Coming, 1957, p. 28.Google Scholar

note 194 page 3 Wilson, S. G., ‘The Ascension: a Critique and an Interpretation’, Z. N. T. W., 59, 1968, p. 275.Google Scholar

note 195 page 1 Wilckens, , Die Missionsreden der Apostelgeschichte, 1961, p. 178.Google Scholar

note 195 page 2 This would run counter to the arguments of Moule, C. F. D., ‘The Christology of Acts’, in Studies, pp. 160–166.Google Scholar

note 196 page 1 op. cit., pp. 95ff.

note 196 page 2 op. cit., pp. 113ff.

note 196 page 3 ‘The God of Israel's purpose is to wield his sovereign power over the heathen through the mediation of His City. Isra el's mission is to bear witness in the presence of the heathen to the reality of its God's sovereignty over all the earth; it exercises a kingly office in the sight of mankind.’ Martin-Achard, R., A Light to the Motions (E.T. 1962), pp. 71–75.Google Scholar

note 197 page 1 Whereas Paul tends to reverse the expectations of the Old Testament and sees his mission as the prelude to the restoration of Israel in the final eschatological act (Käsemann, ‘Paul and Early Catholicism’, op. cit., p. 241), Luke follows the Old Testament pattern. Pentecost witnesses to the visitation that has occurred in Jerusalem, to the restoration of the true Jewish nation that has taken place there, and, from this, there follows the Gentile incorporation. But both Paul and Luke see the mission as having an eschatological significance and both probably see the universal mission as culminating in the Return of Christ.

note 197 page 2 Moule, op. cit., pp. 179–80.

note 198 page 1 Ellis, op. cit, pp. 12–15, maintains that Luke accentuates the manifestation of the Kingdom in the present. He admits that the term ‘Kingdom of God’ is used in Acts only of a future event, but he nevertheless states that ‘the Spirit constitutes a continuing presence of the Kingdom of God in the post-resurrection church’. This claim seems not only to turn its back upon Acts' use of the term, but also to ignore the relatively limited and clearly-defined function that Luke assigns to the Spirit in the post-Pentecostal life of Christians. It also gives to Luke's historicalaccount in Acts a significance which Luke nowhere attributes to it, and does not make full allowance for the gospel's teaching about the Parousia. Above all, I would feel that it does not take seriously Luke's thought about the Ascension, and his understanding of an absent Christ.

note 199 page 1 Moule, op. cit., p. 160 notes that ὁ κύριος in Luke is ‘with very rare exceptions, confined (on the lips of men) to passages in which the evangelist is himself as the narrator alluding to Jesus’.

note 199 page 2 It is one of the great merits of Ellis' commentary that he shows how the teaching of Jesus that Luke records is directed explicitly at those who are contemporaries of the evangelist. “The pre-resurrection hie ot Jesus is a time of unique events,” but ior LuKe it inaugurates and belongs to the same “time of salvation” in which Luke's readers live. Only this explains, for example, the fact that the evangelist can contemporise the pre-resurrection sayings of Jesus and mix among them oracles from the exalted Jesus.' Ellis, op. cit., p. 16.

note 199 page 3 Flender, , St. Luke: Theologian of Redemptive History (E.T. 1967), pp. 150–152Google Scholar , as opposed to Conzelmann, op. cit., p. 36.