The Problem of the Delay of the Parousia in Luke–Acts

Abstract

The topic of Lukan eschatology has received considerable scholarly attention in the last few years. 1 But certain obscurities remain. In Conzelmann's view, Luke ' abandoned belief in the early expectation'; he undertook to project the coming of the Kingdom of God into the 'distant' future: 'the End is far away'. 2 And yet, Conzelmann notwithstanding, Luke preserves sayings to the effect that' the Parousia ' 3 will come upon ' this generation', that it may come at any time, and will do so 'speedily'. 4 Another problem: Conzelmann proposes that Luke's 'main declaration is not that the Kingdom is coming, but that the Kingdom is being preached by Jesus and made manifest in his ministry'. At the same time, Conzelmann insists, ' I t cannot really be disputed that Luke means by the Kingdom of God a future entity.' 6 We may ask: Did Luke really intend such a subtle distinction between the 'manifestation' of the Kingdom in Jesus' ministry and its 'coming' in the future? If this distinction had been, as Conzelmann claims, the goal of Luke's apologetic, calculated to spare the Church from coming to grief at the time of the Parousia, 6 we might expect that Luke would have presented this distinction clearly and insistently, for he was not subtle in setting forth his other basic concerns, for example, that wealth should be used for the benefit of the poor, or that Jesus, Paul and the whole Christian movement were innocent of any charges of sedition against Rome. In fact, however, Luke says nothing about the 'appearance' or 'manifestation' of the Kingdom of God in Jesus or his ministry. What will be 'manifest' is the great day of the Lord (Acts ii. 20).

"Luke—Writer, Theologian, Historian

“…One would have to agree that Luke is in continuity with other New Testament writers in his attempt to grapple with the relation between history and eschatology (Zmijewski, 1972;Kummel, 1973/70;Hiers, 1974;G16ckner, 1976). While one would grant that the eschatological permeates the Lukan writings and that imminent expectation has merely been put to one side (Geiger, 1973), one would hardly wish to view Luke as an apocalyptic writer (Mattill, 1979).…”

“…In this regard, it should be noted that eschatology as expectation of the parousia, a major and traditional theme of all the Synoptics, becomes secondary and almost negligible in Acts. Finally, Luke sees both the ministry of Jesus and the time of the community as eschatological, i.e., the Spirit is at work and salvation is being offered to humanity, while awaiting Jesus' return (Barbi, 1979;Hiers, 1974;Rasco, 1976). 6 …”