Luke 9:21-18:34
In his first volume, Dr. Nolland expertly traced Jesus'
general ministry throughout Palestime. Here the focus
narrows to an incisive statement of Jesus' purpose as the
suffering Servant, and to the fate that this will mean for
Him in Jerusalem. Now the author invites us to follow
Christ's footsteps on what will ultimately turn out to be
His "pathway to glory."
Dr. Nolland continues to portray Luke as a creative
but reliable historian with an explicit theological
purpose. While he probes possible sources of the
evangelist's material, the emphasis is on the final
product-the Gospel text as "an exercise in
communication, deliberately undertaken by the Gospel
writer with at least some focused sense of the actual or
potential needs of his audience."
The author notes the dramatic turn of events with
which this section of Luke begins. The disciples had just
arrived at the exhilarating confession that Jesus is "The
Christ of God." And little wonder-up to now, Luke has
described an ever-upward course of miracles and other
messianic triumphs. But suddenly, as if to warn His
disciples that triumphalism and messiahship were not
the same, Jesus not only warns them to be silent about
their confession, He startles them with the word that
Messiah must suffer and die, and that the "thrones" His
followers anticipated would be won on hteir knees, in
self-denying service.
Dr. Nolland researches fairly the claims of some
scholars that Jesus did not really predict His own death,
but that, knowing the story, the early Church read His
death back into the Gospels. But the author concludes
that this possibility has not been proved, and that "It is
not more scholarly to assume the impossibility of
prediction." Penetrating excursus such as that on the
origin and meaning of the title "Son of Man" add to the
usefulness of this volume for both scholarly research
and informed preaching and teaching.