The Gospel of Luke holds out its central character Jesus Christ as the fulfilment of the Scriptures and the human climax of redemptive history. In this respect, the third Gospel is eminently simple in what it attempts to do: it tells the story of what this Jesus began to do – Acts would pick up the story from there. In the Gospel’s opening pages, it quickly becomes apparent that Luke’s tale does not float about in the ether, as if the events he relates were somehow strangely above history. No, it is a story about a God-man who enters into history, only to collide with its most significant stakeholders. Think of how many aspects of Luke’s Gospel can be pinned down to a specific time and place. The Evangelist intended it that way. As the first historian in the church, he insists that the gospel contained within his Gospel was enmeshed in the messy time–space continuum we know as human history.
For the purposes of this commentary, I have attempted to take this point seriously. After all, if Luke took human history seriously then so too should his interpreter. That human history begins – as far as our Gospel writer is concerned – with the story of Israel, as contained in Israel’s Scriptures. This has no uncertain hermeneutical significance. In the first instance, the weightiness of Israel’s prior story requires our attending to the redemptive-historical storyline and avoiding the error of the second-century Gnostic theologian Marcion, when he attempted to apply a scalpel to the third Gospel in the hope of disassociating it from the Hebrew Scriptures. At the end of the day, his was a vain endeavour. Wanting to have Luke apart from its scriptural roots is like attempting to have the ocean without its salt. Of course, it is chemically possible to separate ocean water from its salt, but then at that point it would no longer be ocean water! The Hebrew Scriptures suffuse the thought-world of the New Testament authors across the board and Luke is no exception. Our exegesis should reflect as much. Though some of my readers may complain I am sometimes too quick to suppose intertextual correspondences between Luke’s writing and the Scriptures, I would only remind these same readers of what the Evangelist himself wrote about Jesus: ‘Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures’ (24:27). It is impossible to do justice to this writing without circling back to the Scriptures at multiple points. The responsible identification of scriptural allusions in Luke’s text necessarily depends on various criteria that allow for degrees of plausibility or implausibility, probability and improbability. Yet this is as much art as it is a science. In cases of an alleged echo of the Scriptures, New Testament commentators on the minimalist side will demand clear and convincing evidence before even mentioning the possibility of an allusion. By contrast, this commentary will set the evidentiary bar to a preponderance of evidence: where scriptural allusions are more probable than improbable, these deserve mention, even if there is a sliding scale of certainty in these matters.
If one distinctive of this commentary is its rather robust contemplation of the ‘Old in the New’, a second distinctive has to do with its compositional reading approach. In other words, I believe that the Early Church Fathers were on to something when they talked about the principle of Scripture interpreting Scripture. (The principle was in fact derived from a Judaism that preceded Luke.) The self-interpreting quality of the New Testament writings means that the Evangelist is not only in conversation with the Law and the Prophets, but also – as strange as it might sound – with himself. Like a Bach fugue, there is something intrinsically cyclical about Luke’s narrative. In reading Luke, one gets the impression that he is ever circling back, but with each return – with each recapitulation – he expands the horizons of what has gone before. Scripture interprets Scripture even within the bounds of Luke.
The authors writing for this series are encouraged not to overdo it when it comes to engaging the secondary literature. For my part, I have chosen to restrict myself to a more or less fixed number of commentaries. These include Bock, Bovon, Edwards, Fitzmyer, Green, Johnson, Liefeld, Marshall and Nolland. I know or have personally met almost all of these scholars. As much as I have appreciated these commentators personally as individuals, this writing project has also allowed me to come away with a deeper appreciation for their distinctive voices. Though the commentary is based on the Greek text, my default translation throughout is the NRSV (1995). Translations from the Septuagint (LXX) are my own.
I owe a debt of thanks first to our editor Philip Duce of Inter-Varsity Press. His patience has been unfathomable. The same could be said for Eckhard Schnabel, the series editor. I am also grateful in the first instance for the privilege of not only contributing a volume but also serving as consulting editor for this series. Dr Schnabel’s shrewd comments on my manuscript are much appreciated. Appreciation also extends to my colleagues at Trinity College and especially Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. What a privilege to have such a brain trust within a stone’s throw of my office! At my previous institution, countless conversations with Wheaton College faculty and students (including my doctoral students, three of whom have dissertated on Luke) also have played an incalculable formative role. Last but certainly not least, Bryan Eklund gets a special call-out for his unending encouragement and occasional copy-editing, even on this manuscript. It is a sweet thing for a man to have such a close friend who shares his passion for the Scriptures.
The lion’s share of thanks goes to my supportive family, especially my wife Camie who has patiently played the scholarly widow time and time again – and that without murmur or complaint. Conversations with my philosophically inclined son Nathaniel on various topics have likewise contributed to a project like this. Finally, I want to thank my artistically inclined son Luke. Like Luke the Evangelist, my own Luke has helped me to see the world as an unfolding masterpiece – a marred masterpiece but a masterpiece nonetheless. I dedicate this book to him.
Nicholas Perrin