The Self-Donation of God. Jack D. Kilcrease

Scriptures, but Jesus’s commission to the disciples in chapter 28 echoes Cyrus’s commission for the restoration of Israel and the temple at the end of 2 Chronicles (the canonical end to Israel’s history).268 Jesus’s ministry therefore encompasses and redeems the whole of Israel’s history.

This reading is also validated by the fact that Jesus’s ministry and life move through the stages of Israel’s history. During his flight to Egypt as an infant, Matthew cites Hosea 11:1: “Out of Egypt I called my Son” (Matt 2:15). The passage in its original context literally describes Israel in the desert and therefore should not be confused with rectilinear prophecy. Nevertheless, the use of this passage typologically identifies Jesus with the true Israel. If Jesus is the true Israel, he must also follow their route of exile and return from Egypt.269 He is not only the divine Son of God, but a “replacement” (to use Jeffrey Gibbs’s term) for God’s human son Israel (Exod 4:22, Hos 11:1).270 Gibbs has highlighted this theme and observed that there is an obvious connection between this and Jesus’s designation as the “Beloved Son” in Matthew’s baptismal scene. This title does not come from Psalm 2 (as is commonly thought), but rather has a direct verbal parallel with the designation in the LXX version of Genesis 22 for Isaac and Jeremiah 31 (Masoretic text, chapter 38) for Israel.271 Similarly, Austin Farrer has shown in his book, The Triple Victory that Jesus’s temptations in the wilderness directly parallel those of Israel.272 Jesus goes so far as to quote the verses that accompanied each act of apostasy by Israel in the wilderness, culminating in his rejection of the devil’s insistence on receiving divine worship. Here Jesus overcomes where Israel fell to the temptation of worshiping the golden calf.273

Scaer has also highlighted Matthew’s theme of the recapitulation and transcendence of Israel’s history of mediation.274 Jesus fulfills and transcends kingly mediation because, as he asserts, he is greater than Solomon (Matt 12:42, i.e., the greatest Israelite king). He fulfills and transcends prophetic mediation because he is greater than Jonah (v. 41). Finally, he transcends and fulfills both the Old Testament cult because he is greater than the temple (12:6).

Much as he recapitulated the exodus and wanderings of Israel in the desert, Jesus’s ministry represents a reconquest of the land (this time from the power of the devil) by his exorcisms, healing, and the forgiving of sins. As Ernst Hegstenberg notes, Jesus identifies himself with the Angel of YHWH who participated in the original conquest of the land, by claiming that he is the commander of God’s heavenly armies (Matt 26:53, echoing Joshua 5 and Daniel 10).275 He finally is rejected like the prophets and suffers death on the cross as a sign of Israel’s continuing exile. In this, he is the true king who bears the wrong doing of the people, like his ancestor Josiah. Indeed, as in Mark’s gospel, Jesus is willing to drink the cup of wrath spoken of by the prophets of the Old Testament (Matt 26:42).276 His resurrection then becomes an end of cosmic exile and his enthronement as the true king.

      The Synoptic Gospels: Luke

In Luke’s gospel, the emphasis falls on Jesus’s prophetic ministry as the Servant of Isaiah and YHWH returning to Zion.277 Luke’s Christology is best summarized by the acclamation of the people in their response to Jesus’s work: “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” (Luke 7:16). By recording statements like this and others, Luke makes explicit the fact that he understands Jesus to be a fulfillment of the coming of the Servant, who, as we saw, Isaiah also identified with the return of YHWH himself.

The gospel is replete with evidence for this reading. When in chapter 2 Gabriel begins to announce Jesus’s birth to Mary, he states: “The Lord is with you” (1:28). The coming of Jesus is therefore implicitly equated with the coming of God’s presence. When informed that she will give birth to Jesus, Mary asks how this will be, in light of the fact that she is a virgin. The angel responds, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (1:35, emphasis added). Arthur Just has demonstrated that this description (particularly the language of “overshadowing”) directly corresponds to the description of the kavod’s descent into the tabernacle in the LXX’s version of Exodus chapter 40.278 In that she is the new dwelling place of the kavod come in the flesh, Elizabeth can very easily call her “mother of my Lord” (1:43). Leithart also notes that the overshadowing of Mary is reminiscent of the Spirit’s hovering above the waters at the beginning of creation (Gen 1:2).279 Later, Jesus’s genealogy connects him with Adam, whom Luke also refers to as “the son of God” (Luke 3:38). By implication then, Luke seems to be suggesting to his audience that Jesus is the beginning of a new creation.

Luke’s identification of Jesus with the Servant and kavod is reinforced when he is presented in the temple for circumcision. Just notes that if one adds up the weeks between Gabriel’s confrontation of Zechariah in the temple (the angel, who is also the agent of revelation in Daniel 9) and Jesus’s presentation at the temple, one gets the number seventy.280 As we observed earlier, this is the number of the universal Jubilee of Daniel 9.281 In connection to this, later Luke recounts Jesus’s reading of Isaiah 61 in the Nazareth synagogue, where he himself makes the claim to be the Servant of that text (4:16–20).282 Indeed, this announcement is keeping with Jesus’s preaching of the kingdom of God. The coming of universal Jubilee was a common image of eschatological redemption in many of the texts of Second Temple Judaism.283

After Jesus is presented in the temple, Simeon makes the final identification between Jesus and the returning kavod/Servant in his song: “for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to [or ‘of’] your people Israel” (Luke 2:30–32, emphasis added). This on the one hand represents an allusion to the Servant of 49:6 who is a “light to the nations,” and also to the kavod. The later phrase, “the glory of your people Israel,” is reminiscent of the description of the kavod in the LXX version of 1 Samuel 4:22.284 When informed of her status as the mother of God, Mary’s song of praise echoes that of Hannah, Samuel’s mother, in 1 Samuel (compare 1 Sam 2:1–11 and Luke 1:46–55). This suggests that Jesus will be a prophet similar to Samuel. Nevertheless, in that he is God himself come in the flesh, Jesus’s role is not merely one of continuation of prophecy, but also its fulfillment. As the final and universal prophet, Jesus is the “light to the nations.”

This idea of Jesus as the “light” of revelation might also be present in Luke’s prologue. Here Just notes the possibility of a non-Johannine reference to Jesus as the “Word of God” in the sentence: “those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them [the kerygma] to us” (Luke 1:2, emphasis added).285 If “eyewitnesses” and “ministers” are the same people, then their witness is not to something, but to someone (i.e., the divine Word, Jesus). David Scaer agrees with this argument and observes that Luke’s rhetorical use of this description of his sources makes little sense if the eyewitnesses are not the same as the ministers.