Mark
When Jesus came on the scene preaching and inaugurating the
kingdom of God, a conflict was presented between the forces of good and evil,
of God’s kingdom and the anti-kingdom. Jesus’ message, authority, and his
substantial role in salvation-history are derived
from God. Mark’s emphasis on various elements of the story offered a nuanced telling
of the stunning proclamation of Jesus’ authority and lordship for his audience.[1]
“The adherence to Jesus remains a precondition for
eschatological salvation during the post resurrection period. . . . In the face
of persecution and affliction during Jesus' absence the precondition for
participation in the eschatological salvation is faithfulness to Jesus and the
Gospel: whoever denies inherence to Jesus or the gospel (Mk 8:38 parentheses)
forfeits salvation (Mk 8:34, 38; cf. Mk 4:16-19). . . . For Mark, salvation
first of all means participation in God's eschatological reign (Mk 1:14-15;
9:47; 10:24-25), which will be brought about finally when the Son of Man
returns (Mk 8:38-9:1; 13:24-27). The coming of the Son of Man is depicted as
God’s final judgment and is understood as the destruction of God's enemies. Salvation therefore entails being saved
from God's final judgment administered by the Son of Man (Mk 8:34-9:1;
13:24-27; 14:62).” [2]
Luke
It is Luke’s Gospel that has Simeon
declaring that the salvation Jesus brings into history will be a “light of
revelation for the gentiles” (2:32). This theme is realized in the mission
portrayed throughout Acts.
“Luke’s massive two-volume work can be read as claiming,
among many other things, that this status ought now to belong to the
Christians. They are the ones who have inherited the Jewish promises of
salvation; they are the ones to whom accrues the status proper to a religion of
great antiquity.” [3]
“Luke clearly grasped
the equally important Jewish belief that when Israel was redeemed the whole
world would be blessed. Israel’s salvation was not to be a private affair only:
it was to be for the benefit of all. The good news of the established kingdom would
have to impinge on the Gentile world. Since, therefore, he believed that this
good news had taken the form of the life, and particularly the death and
resurrection, of one human being, and since this was a Jewish message for the
Gentile world, Luke blended together two apparently incompatible genres with
consummate skill. He told the story of Jesus as a Jewish story, indeed as the
Jewish story, much as Josephus told the story of the fall of Jerusalem as the
climax of Israel’s long and tragic history. But he told it in such a way as to
say to his non-Jewish Greco-Roman audience: here, in the life of this one man,
is the Jewish message of salvation that you pagans need.”[4]
“‘Salvation’ is a particularly Lukan theme whose thesis is
that ‘the idea of salvation supplies the key to the theology of Luke’ but
familiar in (in verb or noun) in all strands of early Christianity.”[5]
At the circumcision of John the Baptist, Zacharias
prophesied concerning not only John, but regarding Luke’s greater message of God’s
eschatological salvation-history:[6]
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and
accomplished redemption for His people, And has raised up a horn of salvation
for us In the house of David His servant-- As He spoke by the mouth of His holy
prophets from of old-- Salvation FROM OUR ENEMIES, And FROM THE HAND OF ALL WHO
HATE US; To show mercy toward our fathers, And to remember His holy covenant,
The oath which He swore to Abraham our father, To grant us that we, being
rescued from the hand of our enemies, Might serve Him without fear, In holiness
and righteousness before Him all our days” Luke 1:68-75.
Notice that the wording of this prophecy is in the past tense, “visited,” “accomplished,” “raised,” but yet Jesus hadn’t even been born at this time. Speaking in the past tense of something that is assured is an idiomatic expression common throughout biblical and Hebraic literature.
[1]
For example see Thomas Schmidt, “Jesus Triumphal March to Crucifixion: The
Sacred Way as Roman Procession” Biblical
Review (Feb. 1997), 30.
[2]
Joel B. Green, “Salvation,”
Dictionary of
Jesus and the Gospel's, Second Ed. (Downers Grove, Ill.:
InterVarsity Press, 2013) 827.
[3]
Wright, People of God, 376-7.
[4]
Ibid., 381. (cf. Acts 17).
[5]
J. D. G. Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem,
Christianity in the Making, v. 2
(Erdmans, 2008), 672.
[6]
In Acts 28, verse 28 appears to equate the gentiles listening to the “salvation
of God” with Paul’s preaching the Kingdom of God in verse 31.
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