Entries For: November 2008

To be honest, I was uncertain how I should proceed with this commentary when I was presented with the topic. The question: "who is Jesus" is a bit overwhelming, both in its breadth and its depth. The later gospel of John would explore the depths of this question, digging out deeper bottoms for the broad channels that had been laid out by the earlier synoptic gospels. Luke, while by no means shallow, is perhaps the broadest of the gospels. Where Mark is swift and focused, Luke is studious and cataloging, earning its author the nickname of "Luke the Historian". Indeed, Luke is the longest of the gospels; at least in a quantitative sense, he has more to say about Jesus than anyone else. So where do we start? Who is Jesus, anyway?

It occurs to me, however, that in asking "who is Jesus", we have an immediate connection to the author. Luke is unique among the gospels in that it contains a personal introduction much like the epistles. The author states quite plainly and explicitly why he is writing his gospel and to whom he is writing it:

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

The author's situation is familiar to us. He implies that he was not an eyewitness to Jesus himself. His is an "inherited" faith like our own - "handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word." He may or may not have been Jewish (tradition has it that he was a gentile), but in any case, he does not write from a Jewish perspective. He never calls Jesus "rabbi", seldom quotes Old Testament scripture unless he is quoting a recitation by someone else, and writes in a polished Greek style free of linguistic cross-over from Hebrew. Perhaps this is a bit of a digression, but my point is this: the author of Luke is in much the same boat that we are. He isn't ignorant of who Jesus is. He knows the narratives and the teachings, which were handed down to him by others. But still the question nags -- who is Jesus?

In a way, Luke has its inception in doubt. Certainly he believes, but like Thomas, he just can't quite resist the urge to reach out and touch it just to be sure. The question won't stop nagging. He has to "carefully investigate everything from the beginning", just to satisfy his own curiosity, as far as I can tell. The way he describes it to Theophilus, he decided to write an orderly account because he had made a careful investigation rather than the other way around. Perhaps he intended to write the account from the beginning, but he presents it as something that "also seemed good" -- a secondary motive to his own personal inquest: are the teachings true? Who is Jesus?

One of the ways that Luke answers this question is by heredity. Jesus is defined by whose son he is. Here we are given a trichotomy: Jesus is the Son of God, the Son of Man, and the Son of a man -- David. The first testifies to his divine nature, the second to his human nature, and the third - the role of Messiah - is where the first two meet.

Jesus as the Son of God, though perhaps the most astounding of the claims, is in some respects the most straight-forward. Luke deals with it flatly and unflinchingly. This identity tends to be most dominant in the early chapters of Luke. It is first testified to in the account of Jesus' birth, which Luke presents with considerable personal detail, probably from first-hand interview with Mary. This is followed by Luke's account of the baptism of Jesus, in which he records God's own direct proclamation that Jesus is the Son of God. As if for emphasis, he immediately launches into the genealogy of Jesus, which is interesting not only because Luke continues past Abraham (unlike Matthew), but he concludes with "the son of God" as matter-of-factly as Isaac is the son of Abraham and David is the son of Jesse. Acts continues this tradition, starting straight away with an account of the ascension. If traditional authorship is correct, perhaps this is trait he acquired from his time with Paul who, as Luke describes it in Acts, wastes no time after recovering from his unsettling conversion experience, immediately taking to proclaiming that Jesus is the Son of God in the middle of the area synagogues. Luke is nothing, if not direct on this point.

Jesus as the Son of Man is something that I honestly don't think I've ever really thought about beyond the obvious. Clearly it refers to Jesus' humanity, and this is quite literally how it was phrased in Greek. In the New Testament, the actual phrase transcribed as "Son of Man" is more literally to the effect of "son of a human being". However, the phrase is used so often and in such a titular fashion throughout the New Testament, that  you can't escape the feeling that there's a bit more significance than just that. The phrase actually originates in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, where it actually has two different forms. One literally means "son of Adam" (and "Adam", in turn, means "man"). The other is literally "son of Enoch", the grandson of Adam by way of Seth. For reasons that are a bit too complicated to get into here, the latter carried the specific connotation in Jewish tradition of man's weakness (physically and morally), frailty, and mortality. Shades of that connotation survived the merger into its Greek form. In that light, it seems likes an odd title for a perfect being to use.

However, if you look closely at where this phrase is used in Luke, you'll see the intent in this. Luke reveals that Jesus most frequently used this phrase in reference to his own suffering. He uses it in reference to the physical limitations he shared with all men - his weariness as the "Man of Sorrows". For instance, in Luke 9:58: "Jesus replied, 'Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.'" He also uses it in sympathetic fashion, for instance when healing the paralytic in chapter 5. It's a way of declaring, "I share this physical existence and its suffering with you." Most of all, Jesus uses it when predicting his own death. This is where the connotations of mortality are particularly apt, and if we look a bit closer, the themes of man's moral weakness that are associated with "Son of Man" find their place as well. It's subtle, but masterful: although God's plan was there from the beginning, there is a sense in which Jesus' sacrifice for atonement was predicated by our own sin. Those who have not fallen do not need to be redeemed. So it is in this sense that the role of redeemer is the offspring of our weakness and sin. In fulfilling this role, Jesus becomes not just the Son of Adam, but also the Son of Enoch.

Finally, Luke identifies Jesus by the Messianic title of the "Son of David". The role of Messiah is two-fold. He is the ruler (Luke 1:31-33, 46-55), and also the deliverer (1:67-79) -- a sort of fusion of the prototypes of David the king, and Moses the prophet. It hearkens back to the deliverance from Egypt, which represented slavery, and to the royal lineage of David, which represented the presence, guidance, and authority of God. The Jews, when they escaped from Egypt wished to be free of slavery, but soon discovered that, without a ruler, they were directionless and without a sense of identity. God desired that they have no earthly king, but begrudgingly acquiesced with the warning that not every king would be a good one. Jesus as the Son of David is the restoration of the true kingship -- God once again taking our own shortcomings and turning them back towards his own good purposes. No other could fill this role - God wished for us to accept his rule directly without an intermediary earthly authority, but we could not accept it. Jesus, being at once both God and man, was uniquely qualified to bridge the gap, simultaneously satisfying our desire for a human, earthly king and God's desire for direct lordship.

Having said all that, I'll conclude by pointing out something about Luke's genealogy that takes on new significance. As I mentioned before, the genealogy in Luke traces beyond Abraham, unlike the one in Matthew. As you trace your way back through the names, it passes through David, Enoch, Adam, and finally God. Son of David, Son of Man, Son of God. Three lineages that are at once distinct in their meaning, and yet unified in their source, and occupying but a single person -- almost like a ghostly image of the trinity itself.