1. Introduction
2. Praying for the Coming of the Kingdom (Luke 11:1-2 = Matt 6:9-10)
3. Eschatological Restoration of Israel
   3.1. Twelve Disciples
      3.1.1. Symbolic Nature of the Twelve
      3.1.2. Twelve Thrones (Matt 19:28)
   3.2. From East and West (Matt 8:11-12; Luke 13:28-29)
4. Eschatological Reversal (Luke 6:20-23 = Matt 5:3-12; Luke 6:24-26)
5. Resurrection (Mark 12:18-27 = Matt 22:23-33 = Luke 20:27-40)
6. Names Written in Heaven (Luke 10:20)
7. Conditions of Entrance into the Kingdom of God
   7.1. Responding Positively to Jesus
      7.1.1. Confession of Jesus (Luke 12:8-9 = Matt 10:32-33)
      7.1.2. Parable of Two Foundations (Luke 6:47-49 = Matt 7:24-27)
   7.2. Obedience to the Law
      7.2.1. Only Those Who Do the Will of the Father (Matt 7:21)
      7.2.2. Righteousness Exceeding That of the Pharisees (Matt 5:20)
      7.2.3. Entering the Kingdom Maimed (Mark 9:43-48)
      7.2.4. Inheriting Eternal Life (Luke 10:25-28)
      7.2.5. Difficult for the Rich to Enter the Kingdom of God (Mark 10:23-27 = Matt 19:23-26 = Luke 18:24-27)
8 . Final Judgment
   8.1. Whom to Fear (Luke 12:4-5 = Matt 10:28)
   8.2. Revealing of All Things (Mark 4:22 = Luke 8:17)
   8.3. Warning to Repent (Luke 13:1-5)
   8.4. Woes on Galilean Towns (Matt 11:20-24 = Luke 10:13-15)
   8.5. Parable of the Sower and Interpretation (Mark 4:3-9, 13-20 = Matt 13:1-9, 18-23 = Luke 8:4-8, 11-15)
9 . Separation Only at the End
   9.1. Parables of the Wheat and the Weeds (Matt 13:24-30, 36-43)
   9.2. Parable of the Net (Matt 13:47-50)
10. Shortness of the Interval (Mark 9:1; Matt 10:23b)

Back to: Kingdom of God as Present

1. Introduction

Although he views it as a present reality, Jesus also teaches in a non-rejection context that the Kingdom of God will grow until it reaches its culmination, for which the disciple are to pray. The culmination of the Kingdom will include Israel’s restoration to the land, final judgment and an eschatological reversal. At this point, a Jew will enter again into the Kingdom on the conditions of having responded positively to Jesus and having obeyed the Law. Before this time there will be no separation of righteous and unrighteous Jews. According to Jesus, the time until the culmination of the Kingdom is relatively short.

2. Praying for the Coming of the Kingdom

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus instructs his disciples to pray for the future culmination of the Kingdom of God. After the direct address "Father" occurs two eschatological petitions: "May your name be made holy" and "May your kingdom come" (Luke 11:1-2 = Matt 6:9-10). The Aramaic originals may have been: ytkdš shk and t'th mlkwtk. These two petitions are in synthetic parallelism and so are co-ordinate in meaning.

The absence of a conjunction (asyndeton) binds the two clauses more closely together. In Greek and Aramaic each line has two beats, one on the verb and one on the noun, and both end with the same sound as a result of having the second singular possessive pronoun (Polag, Christologie, 59-60; Meier, A Marginal Jew, vol. 2, Mentor, Message and Miracles, 295). Schlosser point out that Jesus’ language of the coming of the Kingdom is unique, not found in the Old Testament or second-Temple sources (Le règne de Dieu dans les dits de Jésus, 1. 261-62). Nevertheless, the idea of the manifestation or revelation of the Kingdom occurs and this is a near synonym. In Testament of Moses, Taxo anticipates that, after his and his son's death, "Then his [God's] Kingdom will appear throughout his whole creation” (et tunc parebit regnum illius in omni creatura illius) God's Kingdom in Testament of Moses is synonymous with eschatological salvation. In Sibylline Oracles, the eschatological use of "[God's] Kingdom" occurs: "Then indeed the most great Kingdom of the immortal king will become manifest over men" (3.47-48). In Targum Jonathan, the phrase "the kingdom of Yahweh will be revealed" is used as a substitute for three phrases in which Yahweh is described as acting savingly on behalf of Israel (Isa 31:4; 40:9; 52:7). Also in Ezek 7:7, 10, the phrase "the kingdom is revealed" is inserted into the text as a means of announcing final judgment, and in Obad 21 the phrase "the kingdom of Yahweh will be revealed" is substituted for "the kingdom will be Yahweh's. Finally, in Targum Jonathan on Zech 14:9, the idea of eschatological salvation is expressed in terms of the Kingdom of God: Zech 14:9 "Yahweh will be king" [eschatologically] is translated in the Targum as "the Kingdom of God will be revealed" (see Camponovo, Königtum, Königsherrschaft und Reiche Gottes in den frühjüdischen Schriften; Meier, A Marginal Jew, vol. 2, Mentor, Message and Miracles, 237-70).

The disciples are to pray that God’s name will be made holy. God's name is synonymous with God, or at least with God as known to human beings (see Exod 3:13-14). To make God's name holy is an idiom, meaning to give the reverence and obedience that is due to God (Isa 29:23; Ezek 36:22-23; Sipre Deut 306; Sipra Leviticus 195 [Parashat Qedoshim Parashah 1]. The equivalent is “to make God holy” (Num 20:12; 27:14; Isa 8:13). The opposite of making God's name holy is to profane the name of God. The disciples are also to pray that the Kingdom of God will come, which will be the time when, by ruling as a king, God will make his name holy. This will be the time when God’s will shall be done by human beings as it is done by God’s angels, as Matthew’s expanded version explains: ‘May your will be done as in heaven so also on earth’ (6.10b). The fact the disciples are to pray for its coming implies that the culmination of the Kingdom still lies in the future. At the present it is not true that the name of God is made holy and so the Kingdom has not yet fully come, but it will become true at some point in the future, at the culmination of the Kingdom. The prayers of disciples actually contribute to the future realization of the Kingdom, its culmination.

Image of the Temple During he revolt of 132-135 CE led by Simon ben Kosiba, who become known as "Bar Kochba" or "Son of a Star" (see Num 24:17), Jews began to mint their own coinage. On the obverse of this coin is represented the facade of sanctuary; the inscription written in ancient Hebrew letters is "Jerusalem." Since only relatively few years had elapsed between the destruction of the Temple by the Romans and the minting of this coin, it is probable that the image represents how the sanctuary appeared before its destruction by the Romans in 70.

Question 

What does Jesus say that the disciples are to pray for?

3. Eschatological Restoration of Israel

In keeping with Old Testament and second-Temple expectation, Jesus teaches that the culmination of the Kingdom of God will include the restoration of Jews to the promised land. Although details are lacking, Jesus adheres firmly to a hope of national salvation.

3.1. Twelve Disciples

3.1.1. Symbolic Nature of the Twelve

Jesus' choice of twelve disciples was no accident. Any contemporary of Jesus would understand immediately the significance of the fact that there are twelve disciples and not some other number: they symbolize the nation as a whole as constituted by the twelve tribes.

The names of the twelve disciples appear in Mark 3:16-19; Matt 10:2-4; Luke 6:14-16; Acts 1:13. The group is mentioned in the pre-Pauline creedal formula (1 Cor. 15.3-5) and in Acts, but only before 6.2. The purpose of the twelve is to ‘be with Jesus’ (Mark 3.14). Although some deny it, to claim that the twelve as an institution cannot be traced back to Jesus is unwarranted skepticism towards the synoptic gospels. Most recently the Jesus Seminar has concluded the non-historicity of the institution of the twelve (Robert W. Funk, The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus, 71). The Jesus Seminar’s non-eschatological Jesus is largely responsible for this conclusion.

By choosing twelve disciples, Jesus probably intends to symbolize Israel’s eschatological restoration. Part of biblical eschatological expectation is the future return of the dispersed Israelite tribes to the land (Isa 11:11-12; 49:6; 63:17; 66:18-21; Jer 3:18; 29:14; 30:3; 31:7-10; 32:36-41; Ezek 11; 36:8-11; 37; 47:13; 47:21; 48:1, 19, 23, 29, 31; Hos 3:5; Amos 9:14-15; Mic 2:12; 4:6-7; Zeph 3:19-20; Zech 10:8-10). This hope of restoration to the land persists into the second-Temple period, in spite of the fact that there were no longer twelve identifiable tribes.

It would seem that the twelve tribes came to symbolize Israel, the covenant people, in its totality. (Twelve as a symbolic number was important to the Qumran community. In 1QS 8.1-3 reference is made to the council of the community that consists of twelve men and three priests: the twelve men represent the twelve tribes of Israel and the three priests the three Levitical clans (see also 1QM 2.1-3; 3.13-14; 5.1-2; 4Q159 [Ordinances-a] frgs. 2-4.3-4; 4Q164 (pIsa-d) 4-6; 11Q19 [Temple-a Scroll] 18.14-16; 57.11-14). Details about Jesus’ view of Israel’s eschatological restoration are lacking, but given the religious-historical background, the assured minimum that can be said is that he expects in the future that all Jews will return to the land of their ancestors where they will experience the other benefits of the Kingdom of God. Presumably this will include receiving a portion of the land as their inheritance, since a restoration without land would scarcely be a biblical restoration. In the first century most Jews lived outside of Palestine.

Matthew 10:2-4	Mark 3:16-19	Luke 6:14-16	Acts 1:13
Simon Peter Andrew his brother James son of Zebedee John his brother Philip Bartholomew Thomas Matthew James son of Alphaeus Thaddeus Simon the Cananean Judas Iscariot	Simon Peter James son of Zebedee John brother of James Andrew Philip Bartholomew Matthew Thomas James son of Alphaeus Thaddeus Simon the Cananean Judas Iscariot	Simon Peter Andrew his brother James John Philip Bartholomew Matthew Thomas James of Alphaeus Simon the Zealot Jude of James Judas Iscariot.	Peter John James Andrew Philip Thomas Bartholomew Matthew James of Alphaeus Simon the Zealot Jude of James (Matthias)

3.1.2. Twelves Thrones (Matt 19:28)

Not only do the twelve disciples symbolize Jesus’ intention to effect the eschatological restoration of Israel, but they also are to be assigned roles in leading the restored people of God. Matthew interpolates a saying into his Markan source between the question posed by Peter (Mark 10:28 = Matt 19:27) and Jesus’ answer to that question (Mark 10:29 = Matt 19:29) He apparently considered this to be a good context for this originally isolated saying. In Matt 19:28, Jesus says that at the paliggenesia the son of man will sit upon his throne in glory and the disciples "will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."

There is a partial parallel to Matt 19:28 in Luke 22:28-30, but, since verbatim agreement is restricted to last part of Matt 19:28 only, likely Luke 22:29-30 is a different saying (T.W. Manson, The Sayings of Jesus, 216; Higgins, Jesus and the Son of Man, 107; Sato, Q und Prophetie, 2, 23). Contrary to many commentators, one should not assume that Luke 22.30b and Matt 19.28 derive from a common written source, the Q-source, and the differences between them are redactional (Erich Klostermann, Matthäusevangelium, 289; Strecker, Der Weg der Gerechtigkeit, 238 n. 3; Lührmann, Die Redaktion der Logienquelle, 75, 109; Hoffmann, Studien zur Theologie der Logienquelle, 42; Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus, 17; Dupont, ‘Le logion des douze trônes [Mt 19,28; Lc 22,28-30]’, Bib 45 [1964] 355-92; Trautmann, Zeichenhafte Handlungen Jesu, 190-99; Schulz, Spruchquelle, 330-32; Hampel, Menschensohn und historischer Jesus, 140-51; Reiser, Jesus and Judgment, 258-62; Meier, A Marginal Jew, vol. 3, Companions and Competitors, 135). Luke 22:28-30 is situated during Jesus’ last Passover meal and belongs to a rejection context.

The paliggenesia denotes the culmination of the Kingdom of God, which includes the restoration of the twelve tribes to the land. The use of "son of man" is self-referential, so that Jesus is speaking about his future role at the time of the culmination of the Kingdom of God. But the use of the term is probably also intertextually allusive of Dan 7:9-27; Jesus is implicitly identifying his future self as Daniel’s one like the son of man: "He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power" (Dan 7:13-14). The fact that Dan 7:9 says that "thrones were set in place" is apparently interpreted to mean that the son of man would have a throne besides the Ancient of Days. (Of course, thrones are symbols of authority.) Jesus then adds twelve more thrones—or spheres of authority—to the already existing two, so that the disciples will share the authority that has been given to him, the son of man, by God in the Kingdom of God. He promises that the twelve who have followed him will sit on the twelve thrones "judging" the twelve tribes of Israel. The term krinô should probably be understood in the broader sense of "to rule" rather than in the narrower sense of "to judge" (in a juridical sense).

The Greek word paliggenesia has no obvious equivalent in Hebrew or Aramaic, but certainly the idea expressed by the term was a fixture of second-Temple Judaism (see Dalman, The Words of Jesus, 177-78; Schweizer, Matthew, 389-90; Higgins, Jesus and the Son of Man, p. 107; Hampel, Menschensohn und historischer Jesus, 146). Two synonymous terms for "in the paliggenesia" include "in my kingdom" (Luke 22:30) and "in the coming age" (Mark 10:30). It is also another way of saying ‘the kingdom of God come in power’ (Mark 9:1). What the original Aramaic word or phrase that Jesus used is beyond recovery. The term paliggenesia is used in Stoicism to refer to the periodic renewal of the world after the cosmic conflagration, the return of all things to their origin in the divine fire; clearly, Jesus did not use the Aramaic equivalent of paliggenesia in the Stoic sense. (Philo uses the term paliggenesia to refer to the renewal of the world after the Flood [Vit. Mos. 2:65].) Rather, his view is at home in second-Temple Judaism. Jews of this period distinguished between the present age and the coming age (see 4 Ezra 6:9; 7:12-13, 42-43; 8:1; 2 Bar. 44:15; 48:50; 73:5; m. Ber. 1.5; m. Pe’ah 1.1; m. Qid. 4.14; m. B.Mes. 2.11; m. Sanh. 10.1-4; m. Ab. 2.7; 4.1, 16, 17; 5.19). Jesus also uses this terminology in Mark 10:30 = Luke 18:2930: ‘in this time...in the coming age." The coming age is the age of eschatological salvation. Such a distinction is an interpretation of the eschatological and messianic promises of the Hebrew prophets; likewise, it reflects the Isaian promise of ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ destined to replace the present heaven and earth (Isa. 65:17; 66:22). A parallel to Jesus' saying about the paliggenesia occurs in 1 En. 72:1: "And he showed to me their whole description as they are, and for the years of the world to eternity, until the creation will be made anew to last forever." In the Similitudes of Enoch a similar statement is made: ‘I shall transform the earth and make it a blessing and cause my elect one to dwell in her’ (1 En. 45:5). Likewise, in 1QS 4.25 reference is made to the time that God has set apart for the ‘making of (all things) new’ (This would be coincidental with the restoration of the glory of Adam [4.23]). (See also the renewal of creation in Jub. 1:29; 4.26; 4 Ezra 7:75 [renovare]; 2 Bar 32:6; the new or renewed world in 2 Bar 44:12; 57:2, and another earth and heaven in LAB 3:10; see also Sib. Or. 4.175-80 for a description of the destruction of the present earth before its renewal and 5.212 for the ‘new nature’.) On this topic, see Büchsel TDNT, I, pp. 686-88; Burnett, ‘Paliggenesia in Matt. 19:28: A Window on the Matthean Community?’ JSNT 17 (1983), pp. 60-72; idem, ‘Philo on Immortality: A Thematic Study of Philo’s Concept of paliggenesi/a’, CBQ 46 (1984), pp. 447-70; Derrett, ‘Paliggenesia’, JSNT 20 (1984), pp. 51-58; D.C. Sim, ‘The Meaning of Paliggenesia in Matthew 19.28’, JSNT 50 (1993), pp. 3-12; Anton Vögtle, Das Neue Testament und die Zukunft des Kosmos, 161-66; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3, p. 57; Trautmann, Zeichenhafte Handlungen Jesu, 194-95; Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 437 n. 273.

3.2. From East and West (Matt 8:11-12; Luke 13:28-29)

Matt 8:11: Many will come from the east and west and recline with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven.12 And the sons of the Kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Luke 13:28: In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you will see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God. But you will be thrown out. And they will come from east and west, north and south and recline in the Kingdom of God.

In Matthew and Luke there are found two versions of a pair of sayings concerning the restoration of Israel at the time of the culmination of the Kingdom and the danger of being excluded from this eschatological event (Matt 8:11-12; Luke 13:28-29). In Luke the pair of sayings is situated after the saying about metaphorically striving to enter the narrow door (13:24) and the saying in which a closed door is used metaphorically of final judgment (13:25-27). (Arguably, these two sayings became joined because of the link-word "door.") These three sayings are in one way or another related to the question in 13:23: ‘Lord, will only a few be saved?’ In Matthew, the pair of sayings, which exist in antithetical parallelism, occurs after the Healing of a Centurion’s Servant, which is found elsewhere in Luke (7:1-10). The order of the sayings is different in Matthew and Luke.

The four clauses in Matt 8.11-12 are as follows: 1. "Many will come from the east and west" (8:11a); 2. And recline with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven" (8:11b); 3. "And the sons of the Kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness" (8:12a); 4. "In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (8:12b). By contrast, using Matthew’s numbering, Luke’s order is: 4. "In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you will see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God" (13:28a, b); 3. "But you will be thrown out" (13:28c); 1. "And they will come from east and west, north and south" (13:29a); 2. "And recline in the Kingdom of God" (13:29b). Most agree that both versions contain redactional changes, but it has been debated which of the two is closest to the hypothetical original written source, the Q-source, especially with respect to the order of the two sayings. Some have argued that Luke is the closest to the Q-source. For this view, see Wolfgang Trilling, Israel, 88-89; Strecker, Weg der Gerechtigkeit, 100-101; Marshall, Luke: Historian and Theologian, 567; Schlosser, Le Règne de Dieu, 2.603-41; Schürmann, Gottes Reich-Jesu Geschick, 117-22; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2.25-32. It is safe to say, however, that more have decided in favor of the originality of Matthew’s version. See Hoffmann, ‘Pantes ergatai adikias: Redaktion und Tradition in Lc 13,22-30’, ZNW 58 (1967), 188-214; Dupont, ‘Beaucoup viendront du levant et du couchant (Mt 8, 11-12; Lc 13, 28-29)’, Sciences ecclesiastiques 19 (1967), 153-158; Zeller, ‘Das Logion Mt 8,11f/Lk 13,28f und das Motiv der “Völkerwallfahrt”’, BZ 15 (1971) 222-37; 16 (1972) 84-93; Schulz, Spruchquelle, 323-30; Perrin, Rediscovering, 161-64; Chilton, God in Strength, 179-201; Sato, Q und Prophetie, 136-38; Kloppenborg, The Formation of Q, 225-27; Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God, 169-74; Schweizer, Matthew, 213; Reiser, Jesus and Judgment, 230-41. Without the assumption of the Q-source hypothesis, however, such a determination is unnecessary.

On the assumption of a common written source, the so-called Q-source, attempts have been made to reconstruct the original version of the pair of sayings and its original context in this hypothetical document, but without any consensus. Given the significant differences between them, however, it is preferable to handle Matt 8:11-12 = Luke 13:28-29 as tradition-historically independent of each other. The differences are too great to be explained as redactional. In fact, it is possible that both ultimately go back to two similar sayings of Jesus in Aramaic, which were then translated into Greek.

    In Luke 13:28-29 the image of the closed door in 13:25-27 is replaced by a banquet from which some Jews will be excluded. The adverb ekei (‘in that place’) does not function to join 13:27 and 13:28 because there is no real antecedent for the adverb: the focus in 13:27 is not on where those who are shut out are but on where they are not, i.e. in the house. Rather ekei points forward to where those who will see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Exod. 3:6) and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God will be at that time. (As a result, 13:27 is only loosely connected with 13:28 insofar as they share the theme of judgment and exclusion.) Where they will be is the place of "weeping and gnashing of teeth"—expressive of great despair—because those who witness this eschatological event will be "thrown out" of the Kingdom of God. (The idea of the wicked weeping at the time of their eschatological punishment is found in Luke 6:25; 1 En. 108:3, 5, 15; 2 En. 40:12.) Since those thrown out of the Kingdom will see the patriarchs and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God, one can only assume that the resurrection of the righteous will have already taken place at this time. In the second saying, Jesus explains that people will come from east, west, north and south to take their place at the banquet in the Kingdom of God, which is a metaphor describing the culmination of the Kingdom.

    In contrast to Luke 13:28-29, Matt 8:11-12 begins with the assertion that many will come from east and west and recline with the patriarchs in the Kingdom of Heaven. As in Luke, the banquet is being used as a metaphor of the culmination of the Kingdom, which includes the resurrection of the righteous from the dead, for otherwise Abraham, Isaac and Jacob could not be there reclining at the banquet. Jesus says that "the sons of the Kingdom" will be thrown into the outer darkness (8:12a). In this context the Semitic idiom "sons of the Kingdom" refers to Jews who were privileged to witness the inception of the Kingdom. (Unlike its use in Matt 13.38, it does not refer to the "good seed," those who have accepted Jesus’ message of the Kingdom.) The phrase "the outer darkness" (to skotos to exôteron) refers to the place of punishment. (See Wis. 17:21; Tob. 14:10; 1 En. 10:4 ; 63:6; 108:14; Jub. 7:29 ; Ps. Sol. 14:9; 15:10; 2 Pet. 2:17; Jude 13. For darkness and fire together, see 1QS 2.8; 4.13; Sib. Or. 4.43; 1 En. 103.7-8; 2 En. 10.2.) (Luke simply has ‘outside’ [exô].) As in Luke 13:28a, in Matt 8:12b it is said that "in that place there will weeping and gnashing of teeth."

    Those who will come from all parts of the world in order to participate in the eschatological banquet with the patriarchs and all the prophets are probably Jews, not gentiles, as is sometimes thought. What Jesus is referring to is the eschatological restoration of Israel, which will occur after the resurrection. (Whether the resurrected righteous will be included in the number of those Jews who are restored to the land is not clear.) If he were speaking about gentiles, one would expect an explicit identification as such because it is not second-Temple expectation that gentiles would actually displace Jews in the Kingdom of God. Intertextually, an eschatological interpretation of Ps 107:2-3 may stand behind Jesus’ statement or perhaps Isa 49:12 is his inspiration. On this basis, Jesus warns his contemporaries that they as ‘the sons of the Kingdom’ could tragically find themselves excluded from the Kingdom of God in its future culmination because of their rejection of him and his message in the present.

Some have rejected the authenticity of Matt 8:11-12 and Luke 13:28-29 on the grounds that these sayings are too severe and extreme to be something that Jesus could have said, but are consistent with what an early Christian prophet may have said against Jewish contemporaries (Zeller, ‘Das Logion Mt 8,11f/Lk 13,28f und das Motiv der ‘Völkerwallfahrt’’, 2.91; Schulz, Spruchquelle, 328-29; see Bultmann, History, 128; Sato, Q und Prophetie, p. 138. But there is no reason to deny that Jesus holds the views expressed in these passages. See Perrin, Rediscovering, 161-64; Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God, 169-74; Reiser, Jesus and Judgment, 230-41.

Question 

What does Jesus say about the future hope of the nation?

4. Eschatological Reversal

Jesus teaches that there will be an eschatological reversal at the culmination of the Kingdom, which he expressed in the form of beatitudes. Matthew and Luke each has a collection of beatitudes (Luke 6:20-23 = Matt 5:3-12; Luke 6:24-26).

Those who hold to the hypothesis that the double tradition derives from a single document explain the differences between the two collections of beatitudes as redactional or by on the hypothesis of slightly different versions of the so-called Q-source (Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1.121; Schulz, Die Spruchquelle, 76-84; 452-57; Lührmann, Redaktion, 53-56; Strecker, Weg der Gerechtigkeit, 12 n. 2; idem, "Die Makarismen der Bergpredigt," NTS 17 (1988) 255-75 [255 n. 2]). It is better, however, to explain the most of the differences between the two collections of beatitudes by postulating that Matthew and Luke had access to different collections of written or oral tradition in which there were different beatitudes or versions of beatitudes. It seems unlikely that either Matthew or Luke would exercise such redactional liberty with respect to the words of Jesus when they do not handle their Markan source in this way. (Such a position, of course, does not preclude some redactional changes, but it does make them more difficult to detect.)

Jesus used the beatitude genre as a means of communicating his understanding of the Kingdom of God; these beatitudes were preserved and probably organized into collections, as is the case in Matthew and Luke. (Jesus' beatitudes that have not been preserved as part of a collection include Matt 11:6 = Luke 7:23; Matt 13:16 = Luke 10:23; Luke 11:28; Acts 20:35; see also Matt 24:46 = Luke 12:43; Luke 12:37-38; John 20:29.)

    A beatitude is a short saying in which a certain class of human beings are  pronounced "blessed," i.e., happy, insofar as they belong to that class. (To be blessed is to be beneficiary of God's mercy and goodness.)  In most of Jesus' beatitudes the pronouncement of being blessed is proleptic. In other words, those identified as belonging to a certain class are said to be destined to be happy ("blessed") in the eschatological future; their future happiness stands in contrast to their present circumstances, which defines their membership to the class of those destined for eschatological blessedness. Jesus' beatitudes presuppose the second-Temple view that  human history is divided into two eras, a present evil age in which the righteous do not receive from life what they deserve, and a future age of salvation, in which the righteous and the wicked finally receive what is due to them. Thus the transition from one age to the next is marked by a reversal of fortunes of the wicked and the righteous; this is coincidental with final judgment, when God metes out retributive justice delayed until that point in human history.

As a literary genre, collections of beatitudes are not unique to the Jesus tradition (Sir. 14:1-2, 20; 25:8-11; 2 En. 52). In addition, a text assembled from some fifty fragments and known as Beatitudes (4Q525) likewise contains beatitudes, similar to those found in Ben Sira and the gospels (see 4Q185 1–2 col. 2.8, 13). In fragment two of 4Q525, five beatitudes are found, but originally there may have been more than five, perhaps even eight, as in Ben Sira and Matthew. The first four beatitudes are bicolons composed according to paralelismus membrorum. The second stich reiterates in a negative manner what the first stich states positively. The fifth beatitude, however, could be called an extended beatitude. After the makarism, there follow four positive stichs and then four negative stichs. Those who are blessed in these beatitudes are blessed in the present because of their present obedience and possession of wisdom. But there are also hints of an eschatological perspective in some fragments of Beatitudes (4Q525), as the final destinies of the wise and the wicked are considered. Thus, it seems that its literary genre combines both makarisms and eschatological pronouncements, although the beatitudes themselves are not eschatological, unlike Jesus’ beatitudes.

    It is possible to isolate three different types of beatitudes in the two collections in Matthew and Luke, differentiated from each by the type of condition of eschatological blessedness set forth. Some beatitudes identify the condition as present suffering (poverty, hunger, mourning, weeping), whereas other beatitudes specify the condition of eschatological blessedness as present righteousness. Third, both Matthew and Luke have different versions of a beatitude in which eschatological blessedness is said to be conditional on a present identification with Jesus. (The use of "son of man" in Luke 6:22 appears to be a circumlocution for "me," as occurs in Matt 5:11)

Type One: Eschatological Blessedness Conditional on Present Suffering

Present Suffering	Future Result Arising from Present Suffering
Those who are poor (Luke 6:20)	Theirs is the Kingdom of God.
Those who hunger now (Luke 6:21a)	They will be satisfied.
Those who mourn (Matt 5:4)	for they will be comforted.
Those who weep now (Luke 6:21b)	for they will laugh.
Those who are persecuted (because of righteousness) (Matt 5:10)	Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Type Two: Eschatological Blessedness Conditional on Moral Rectitude

Present Righteousness	Future Result Arising from Present  Righteousness
Those who are poor in spirit (the humble) (Matt 5:3)	Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt 5:6)	They will be filled.
Those who are merciful (Matt 5:7)	They will be shown mercy.
Those who are pure in heart (Matt 5:8)	They will see God.
Those who are the peacemakers (Matt 5:9)	They will be called sons of God (in a salvific sense).

The term "poor" is used as a self-designation of the Qumran sectarians, who were probably Essenes. The singular occurs in 1QH 10[2].32; 11[3].25; 13[5].16, 18, 22; frg. 16.3, where it seems to describe the righteous but helpless and suffering person, who is the recipient of God's mercy. The term is used in the plural in 1QpHab 12.3, 6, 10 to describe the community as the victims of the hostility of the Wicked Priest. In 4QpPsa 171 2.10 the phrase "congregation of the poors ones" occurs. It is said of the members of this group that they will undergo a period of affliction but will be rescued from all the snares of Belial. It is clear that Jesus' use of the term "poor" to denote a group of righteous Jews is not original to him.

Type Three: Eschatological Blessedness Conditional on Identification with Jesus

Luke 6 22 Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the son of man. 23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven, for that is how their fathers treated the prophets.

Matthew 5 11 Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

It is probable that, in Jesus' understanding, the membership of the three groups defined according to the condition of eschatological blessedness are identical; that is, membership in one group is mutually implicative of membership in the others. Those who in the present suffer are the righteous: Jesus assumes that the present, pre-eschatological phase of human history is such that the wicked prevail over the righteous, who then are denied what is their due. Likewise, the righteous are those who have chosen to identify with Jesus. In summary, Jesus teaches that there will be an eschatological reversal in the Kingdom of God in its future realization. He pronounces blessed those who lack in some way now, because in the future and full realization of the Kingdom of God (Heaven), this will no longer be the case. On the other hand, in Luke 6:24-26, the wicked, who now have whatever they want, usually at the expense of the righteous, are warned that his state of affairs is only temporary, for the culmination of the Kingdom of God (Heaven) will include final judgment, when they will be condemned for their sins. Jesus pronounces eschatological woes upon them.

There are parallels to Jesus' understanding of the eschatological reversal in second-Temple texts. In 2 Maccabees, ironically, those who suffer and die under God's disciplining of the nation are righteous Jews, those who have remained loyal to their ancestral way of life.  Although God does not prevent their suffering at the hands of their opponents, they are not, however, to be left without retribution.  Unlike 1 Maccabees, it is clear that retribution in the next life awaits those who suffered for God in this life.  The second of the seven martyred brothers explains in his final address to his persecutor, "Fiend though you are, you are setting us free from this present life, and since we die for his laws, the King of the universe will raise up to life everlasting made new" (7:9).  Those who are denied justice in this life can expect to be rewarded by being restored to life. The mother and her remaining sons find scriptural support for this position in the song of Moses in Deuteronomy: "He [God] will have compassion on his servants" (2 Macc 7:6; see Deut 32:36).  God could scarcely be said to have compassion on his servants unless that compassion is extended into next life for those servants who are put to death precisely because they are servants of God. Conversely, judgment is in store for Antiochus and his descendants (2 Macc 7:17, 31-36). Why God delays in the meting of retributive justice, however, is left unanswered. In the Letter of Enoch, the antediluvian patriarch sternly warns sinners and encourages the righteous on the basis of the revelations received in a vision (1 En. 93.2; see also  91.1-3, 18).  The thrust is that both the sinners and the righteous should recognize that the present state of affairs is abnormal and temporary. In due time God will restore the moral order, bringing punishment to the wicked and retribution to the righteous. Enoch's exhortation in 1 En. 102:4-103:4 illustrates this well: "But you souls of the righteous, fear not; and be hopeful, you souls that died in righteousness.  Be not sad because your souls have gone down into Sheol in sorrow; or because your flesh fared not well the earthly existence in accordance with your goodness; indeed the time you happened to be in existence was a time of sinners, a time of cursing and a time of plague....For all good things, and joy and honor are prepared for and written down for the souls of those who died in righteousness" (see also 1 En. 103:5-104:5).  The righteous must be careful not to fear sinners or be deceived by their prosperity: "Now fear not, righteous ones, when you see the sinners waxing strong and flourishing; do not be partners with them, but keep far from those who lean unto their own injustice; for you are to be partners with the good-hearted people of Heaven" (1 En. 104:6-7). Similar material is found outside the Letter of Enoch. On his second journey through the cosmos, Enoch sees the place where the spirits of the dead are gathered until the day of judgment (1 En. 22). It is explained to him that, although the wicked appear to escape the consequences of their wickedness, judgment is merely postponed until that great day of judgment. The wicked are in fact waiting all together in the assigned place, separated from the righteous, until the time of retribution: "In like manner the sinners are set apart when they die and are buried in the earth and judgment has not been executed upon them in their lifetime upon this great pain until the great day of judgment" (1 En. 22:10-11). Until the day of judgment, the prayers of the righteous and their blood ascend to heaven, and in heaven the holy ones (angels) petition God on behalf of the blood of the righteous.  But not until the requisite number of the righteous has been offered will God bring retribution (1 En. 47-48). At the final judgment, the righteous will be given the glory and honor that is their due (50), and finally have respite from the oppression of sinners, for at that time sinners will be destroyed (1 En. 53; see 62:11).  Finally, in 1 En. 108:3, the righteous are called upon to wait patiently until the time of the sinners is complete (see 108:8-12). 4Q171 (Psalms Pesher) reassures the righteous that the prosperity of the wicked is only temporary; shortly Yahweh will destroy them and save the righteous.  The Qumran community applies Ps 37 to itself, with the result that the principle of retributive justice basic to the psalm undergoes a process of eschatologization.  Thus, although the application of retributive justice is suspended in the present, the community hopes for eschatological vindication.  This psalm, therefore, came to be an encouragement to the community—in light of its precarious situation over against their opponents—that God would ultimately destroy their enemies. God's design, according to the interpretation of the psalm, is to protect the community and especially its leaders against those who would destroy them, until "the season of penance" (2:9), which is to last forty years (see CD 20:15), comes to an end.  At the end of the season of penance the community's opponents will be destroyed and those who joined themselves to the community along with their descendants will possess the earth for "a thousand generations" (3:1).

 
  Question

What does Jesus teach will take place at the culmination of the Kingdom of God?

 

Source

Galilean Fishing Boat After several years of drought, in the winter of 1986, the outline of a boat became visible along the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Carbon-14 dating places the manufacturing of the boat  between 100 BCE and 70; construction techniques confirm that it is from the Roman period. The boat, probably used for fishing on the Sea of Galilee, is 8.2. m. long, 2.3 m. wide and 1.2 m. deep; it is made of cedar planks and an oak frame. There are many references to fishing boats in the gospels.

5. Resurrection

In a Pronouncement Story, Jesus teaches about the nature of resurrection life. Engaging Jesus in argument, some Sadducees seek to refute Jesus' belief in a final resurrection, what they consider to be a new and unbiblical teaching (Mark 12:18-27 = Matt 22:23-33 = Luke 20:27-40). Their strategy is prove that the levirate law and belief in the resurrection are incompatible; in such a case, one of the two must be false, and surely no Jew would assert the Law to be so. They present a reductio ad absurdum argument: their aim to show that Jesus' belief in the resurrection is untenable insofar since it leads to the absurd result that a woman who had seven husbands one at time in her life would be married to all seven at once at the resurrection. Against the Sadducees, Jesus teaches that there will be a resurrection of the dead; at this time there will be no sexual relations among men and women, since they will be "like the angels" (Mark/Matt: hos aggeloi; Luke: isaggeloi) (see 2 Bar 51.10; Philo, De sacrif. Abel. 1.5; see also 1QSb 4.25). To be like the angels in this context is to be non-sexual. The time of the resurrection is part of the Kingdom of God in its culmination, so that in the Kingdom of God there will be no sexual relations among human beings. In Luke's version of this Pronouncement Story, Jesus differentiates between "the sons of this age" who marry and give in marriage; these are set in contrast to "those who are deemed worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection." (Luke's source for his interpolation into his Markan source is unknown; Schramm posits the existence of another source on the basis of the non-Lukan Semitisms in 20:34-36: "Das stark semitisierende "Sprachgepräge" der Verse schließt spezifisch luk Mark-Redaktion aus" [Der Markus-Stoff bei Lukas, 170-71].) Thus, using traditional two-age terminology, Jesus explains that conditions in each "age" (aiôn) ("this age" and "that age") (see Luke 18:30 for reference to "in the age to come") are not the same, contrary to what the Sadducees assume. In "that age" there is not only no death, but also no procreation, which means that marriage becomes obsolete, suitable only for "this age."  In Luke's version, Jesus also says that those who are in "that age" are "sons of God" (huioi tou theou), which has an eschatological sense (see also Luke 6:35; Matt 5:9, 45 for other uses of this term), and "sons of the resurrection" (huioi tês anastaseôs), by which he means those who are "deemed worthy" of this eschatological benefit (for parallels to Jesus' view, see 1 En. 22.13; 46.6; 51.1-2; Pss. Sol. 3.11-16; 13.9-11; 14.4-10; 15.12-15). The fate is those who are not "deemed worthy" is not specified.

6. Names Written in Heaven

Luke 10:20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

Jesus tells his disciples to rejoice because their names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20). To have one's name written in heaven is synonymous with being destined to have a part in the Kingdom of God its culmination in the future; it is to be registered, as it were, in the heavenly roll. The idea of a heavenly registry in which those destined for life are listed is common in the Old Testament (Exod 32:32-33; Ps 69:28; Dan 12:1; Mal 3:16-17; see also other references to heavenly book in Pss 66:9; 87:6; Isa 4:3; 34:16) and in texts from the second-Temple period (1 En. 47:3; 104:1; 108:3; Jub. 19:9; 30.:9-23; 36:10; 1QM 12.2; for other references to a heavenly book, see 1 En. 104:7; 108:7; 4Q180 1.3)

 
  Question

What does Jesus mean by having one's name written in heaven?

 

7. Conditions of Entrance into Kingdom of God

Jesus gives two conditions for entrance into the Kingdom at its future culmination. First, a Jew must respond to Jesus positively by believing his message of the Kingdom of God and his self-claims. Second, a Jew must also be obedient to the Law. If these two conditions are not met then future entrance into the Kingdom at its culmination will be denied.

7.1. Responding Positively to Jesus

7.1.1. Confession of Jesus

Matt 10:32: Therefore everyone who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven.33 But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven.

Luke 12:8: And I say to you, everyone who confesses me before men, the son of man will confess him also before the angels of God. 9 But he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.

In the collection of sayings represented by Luke 12:2-9 = Matt 10:26-33 is found a saying that puts forward a condition of eschatological salvation: "And I say to you, everyone who confesses me before men, the son of man will confess him also before the angels of God, but he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God" (Luke 12:8-9; Matt 10:32-33) (see also Mark 8:38). Jesus says that confession of him will result in being confessed before God at the time of judgment at a heavenly tribunal, whereas denying him will result in being denied. Both versions have two sayings in antithetical parallelism: confessing Jesus and its consequences followed by denying Jesus and its consequences.

Most exegetes believe that Mark 8:38 is another version of the second half of the saying represented by Matt 10:33 = Luke 12.9. On this assumption, after reconstructing the original Q-version, the task is to determine the original pre-Q and pre-Markan version from which both diverged (see Schulz, Spruchquelle, 66-67; Kümmel, Promise and Fulfilment, 44-45; Horstmann, Studien zur markinischen Christologie, 41-54; Pesch, "Über die Autorität Jesu. Eine Rückfrage anhand des Bekenner- und Verleugnerspruch Lk 12,8f. par,"’, in Die Kirche des Anfangs, 25-55 [pp. 36-39]; Lindars, Jesus, Son of Man, 50-53; Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God, 291-96; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2.214; Riniker, Gerichtsverkündigung, 336; Zager, Gottesherrschaft und Endgericht, 250-53). Although there is some similarity between Mark 8:38 and Matt 10:33 = Luke 12:9, their many differences make it is more probable that Mark 8:39 is an independent saying. The arguments for how Mark redacted his source tend to be circular.

    There are significant differences, however, between the Matthew and Luke. Matt 10:32a is parallel in structure to 10:33b and 10:32b is parallel to 10:33b. By contrast, Luke exhibits no such close structural parallelism: the subject of the second confession is "the son of man" not "I" and in the second part the passive voice is used, so that no subject is required. On the assumption that both versions derive from the so-called Q-source, many attempt to separate redaction from tradition and reconstruct the original saying. Most important is the question of whether "the son of man" (Luke 12:8) or ‘I’ (Matt 10:32, 33) is more original. But if the hypothesis of a common written source is set aside, it is arguable that the two versions of the saying are independent translations of an Aramaic original.
When the Q-source hypothesis is rejected, it becomes unnecessary to choose between the options of whether "the son of man" has been added or removed. The original saying probably had bar enash, which was rendered both literally as ho huios tou anthropou and idiomatically as egô. That the two are translation variants of the original Aramaic provides a clue to the meaning of the saying. The fact that in Luke 12:8, "the son of man" does the confessing, whereas in Matt 10:32 it is Jesus himself who confesses, suggests that the phrase ‘the son of man’ in this context is a circumlocution for ‘I’. Jesus’ purpose in using the phrase "the son of man" is to obscure his identity as the instrument of final judgment on account of the delicacy of speaking of himself in such exalted terms. Jesus’ identification of himself with the son of man is an ambiguous way of describing himself in his future role as eschatological judge, which he has yet to assume.

    To confess Jesus before human beings is to acknowledge him. In other words, it is to declare publicly one’s conviction that his message of the Kingdom of God is true and that he is sent from God. To deny is to do the opposite. At the final judgment, coincidental with the culmination of the Kingdom of God, Jesus will confess those who have confessed him, which means that he will acknowledge them in a soteriological manner. This confession will occur ‘before the angels of God’, which is to say in the heavenly court. It is clear that confessing Jesus before the time of final judgment is a criterion for a favorable outcome at final judgment.

7.1.2. Parable of Two Foundations

Luke 6:47-49 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.

Matt 7:24-27 24 Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. 26 Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall."

Matthew and Luke have two versions of a parable of Jesus about two men who build houses on different foundations (Luke 6:47-49 = Matt 7:24-27). Both versions of the parables take the form of antithetical parallelism, contrasting two builders and their respective houses. Given the major differences between them, it is probable that Jesus told two different versions of this parable in Aramaic, which were then translated into Greek.The Lukan version is situated at the end of his Sermon on the Plain, whereas Matthew's version concludes the Sermon on the Mount. They are integrated into their contexts differently: Matthew connects 7:24 with 7:23 by means of the conjunction oun followed by a relative clause: "Therefore everyone who hears these words and does them." Different from Matthew, Luke introduces the parable with "All who come to me" followed by two participles: "hear my words and do them." The point of both versions is the eschatological consequences of either accepting Jesus’ teaching or rejecting it.

Most commentators assume that Matthew and Luke used a common written source, the so-called Q-source, so that all differences between the two versions are redactional; usually, Luke is thought to have made the most redactional changes to this hypothetical original version (Schulz, Spruchquelle, pp. 312-16; Fitzmyer, Luke, 1.627; Strecker, Sermon on the Mount, 169; Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus, 132; Luz, Matthew, 1.451; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1.117, 719-20; Riniker, Gerichtsverkündigung, 276-78; Snodgrass, Stories, 330). But in the absence of sufficient evidence for the existence of the Q-source, it is more credible to hold that each gospel writer had his own version of the tradition. Beare writes, ‘The differences in wording are so great as to indicate that it has come to them through independent channels of transmission’ (The Earliest Records of Jesus, 69). Nevertheless, Luke gives evidence that he redacted his version of the parable (Jeremias, Sprache, 149-50).

    What is of central importance in both versions of the parable is the contrast between two types of foundations for building a house. Matthew contrasts building "on rock" with building "on sand," whereas Luke contrasts digging deeply and laying "a foundation upon rock" with building a house "on the ground without any foundation." (Rock as metaphor for a solid, stable foundation for life occurs in Ps 40:2 and God is also pictured as a rock (2 Sam 22:2; Pss 18:2, 31, 46; 19:14; 28:1; 31:2-3; 42:9; 62:1-2, 6, 7; 71:3; 78:35; 89:26; 92:15; 94:22; 95:1). See 1QH-a 14.22-32: God places the foundation upon rock.) Jesus compares the one who hears his words and does them to the man who builds a house on a foundation of rock, which can withstand a flood. By contrast, the one who hears his words and does not do them is like a man who builds a house on an unstable foundation, which cannot withstand a flood. (The metaphorical use storms and floods occurs in 2 Sam 5:20; Job 22:16; Pss 69:2, 15; 124:1-5; Isa 8:7-8; 28:2, 13-22; 30:30; Ezek 13:10-16; 38:22; Nah 1:7-8; Wis 5:22; Sir 40:13; 1QH-a 11.13-20, 27-41. Such imagery is also used in relation to the upheaval that will characterize the last days (1QH-a 14.21-38; Sib. Or. 3.685-95; 5.375-80; 2 Bar 53.3-12.). In Matthew’s version the former is said to be wise and the latter foolish. Building on a foundation of rock is a metaphor for basing one’s life on Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God and doing what he instructs one to do. In particular, a person will repent and begin to obey the Law as Jesus interprets it. (Matthew’s future tense "he will be likened" points more clearly to eschatological judgment.) By a house being able to withstand the flood without collapsing, Jesus is referring metaphorically to the ultimate consequences of accepting his teachings and putting them into practice. The flood waters that batter each house represent eschatological judgment, coincidental with the culmination of the Kingdom of God. By contrast those who reject his teaching or at least do not put his teaching into practice are in danger of eschatological destruction. Jesus’ assumption of exclusive religious authority is remarkable and potentially offensive to those who do not recognize his right to such authority.

7.2. Obedience to the Law

7.2.1. Only Those Who Do the Will of the Father

Matthew 7:21 Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter.

Luke 6:46 Why do you call Me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?

Included in the Sermon on the Mount is a saying in which Jesus sets forth a condition of entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven at its future culmination (Matt 7:21). There is a similar saying in Luke 6:46, but there is not nearly enough commonality to justify the conclusion that they are two versions of the same saying.

Those who accept the hypothesis of the Q-source usually assume that Matthew and Luke had access to the same saying from this source and that the differences between Matt 7.21 and Luke 6.46 are redactional. Most hold that Luke’s version is closer to the hypothetical Q-source (Manson, Sayings of Jesus, 60; Dupont, Les Béatitudes, 3.252-59; Schulz, Spruchquelle, 427-28; Trilling, Israel, 189; G. Schneider, "Christusbekenntnis und christliches Handeln. Lk 6,46 und Mt 7,21 im Kontext der Evangelien’, in Die Kirche des Anfangs, 9-24; Schlosser, Le Règne de Dieu, 2.556; Polag, Christologie, 49 n. 143; Strecker, Sermon on the Mount, 164-68; Guelich, Sermon on the Mount, 398-400; Marshall, Luke, 274-75; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1.711-12). (Only Luke’s kalô is suspected of being unoriginal, as compared to Matthew’s legô.) In part this conclusion is based on the typically Matthean features found in Matthew’s version: pas ho; to thelêma tou patros; and ho patêr mou ho en tois ouranois. It is assumed that these features are evidence of extension Matthean redaction. But such a conclusion requires holding that Matthew made major changes to a saying of Jesus, which does not seem credible.

In Matt 7.21, Jesus describes how not everyone who says to him, "Lord, Lord" will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The phrase "Lord, Lord" implies that those who address Jesus in this manner accept his salvation-historical claims about his role as messenger and mediator of the Kingdom. But what they lack is obedience to the Law, which is what is intended by the phrase doing "the will of my Father in heaven." This entrance into the Kingdom is in the future, at the culmination of the Kingdom of Heaven. Probably the disallowance of entering the Kingdom comes after final judgment, the criterion of which is obedience to the Law. Jesus' teaching assumes that not all Jews will enter the Kingdom, even some of those who have accepted his message.

Many attribute the saying in either Luke 6.46 or Matt 7.21 to the early church (Manson, Sayings of Jesus, 176-77; Schulz, Spruchquelle, 427-30; Hahn, Hoheitstitel, 97-98; Dupont, Les Béatitudes, 3.252-59; Schlosser, Le Règne de Dieu, 2.556; Strecker, Sermon on the Mount, 164-68). But there is no reason to deny this saying to Jesus (Guelich, Sermon on the Mount, 398-400; Schürmann, Lukasevangelium, 1.380). Surprisingly, Bultmann assigns Luke 6:46 = Matt 7:21 to the "primary tradition," in which the "prophetic self-consciousness of Jesus speaks" (History, p. 151).

7.2.2. Righteousness Exceeding that of the Pharisees (Matt 5:20)

Matthew 5:20 Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Redactionally, Matt 5:20 serves to make a transition from 5:17-19 to 5:21-48; it functions to introduce the antitheses that follow, which are an exposition of Jesus’ understanding of God’s true and more profound requirements for Jews. It is probable that 5:20 is an independent saying of Jesus that was placed after three other sayings that relate to Jesus’ view of the Law (5:17-19) and before the antitheses in 5:21-48.

Because the saying is found only in Matthew and because of its typically Matthean vocabulary many have concluded that 5:20 is a redactional composition created to introduce the antitheses in Matt 5:21-47 (Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 150; Dupont, Les Béatitudes, 1.131-33; 2.245-59; Gerhard Barth, “Matthew’s Understanding of the Law,” in Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew, 58-164 (66, 73); Guelich, Sermon on the Mount, 155-61; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1.498-501; J.P. Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel, 108-19; E. Arens, The ELTHON-Sayings in the Synoptic Gospels, 98-99; Strecker, Der Weg der Gerechtigkeit, 151-52; Merklein Gottesherrschaft, 78-80). The introductory clause “I say to you” (legô humin hoti) is typically Matthean, although not absent in the other synoptic gospels. Also the phrase “the scribes and Pharisees” is distinctive of Matthew, as is the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven.” Finally, the expression “to enter the kingdom” (eiserchesthai eis tên basileian) occurs more frequently in Matthew than in the other synoptics (E. Arens, The ELTHON-Sayings in the Synoptic Gospels, 98-99). It is also argued less convincingly that the verb perisseuein is redactional because Matthew adds the verb to his sources in 13:12 = Mark 4:25 and 25:29 = Luke 19:26 (Q) and changes perisseumata to the verbal form in 15:37 (see Mark 8:8) (Banks, Law in the Synoptic Tradition, 224; Guelich, Sermon on the Mount, 158). (Guelich also thinks that Matthew is responsible for the use of perisso\n in 5:37 and 5:47.) Most importantly, the use of “righteousness” with the meaning that it has in 5:20 is unique to Matthew (3:15; 5:6, 10, 20; 6:1, 33 21:32). Such features are interpreted to mean that Matthew composed 5:20 himself. On this hypothesis, the structural similarity between 5:18 and 5:20 (both have in common legô humin and ean / an + mê) is explained as the result of Matthew’s use 5:18 as a model by which to create 5:20 (Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1.499). In addition, entrance-sayings, of which 5:30 is an example, are common in Matthew (Guelich, Sermon on the Mount, 155-56). Of the eleven such sayings six refer to entering the kingdom (5:20; 7:21; 18:3; 19:23, 24; 23:13). (Three other entrance-sayings in Matthew refer to life 18:8; 18:9 [= Mark 9:47]; 19:17 [= Mark 10:17] and two refer to the joy of the Lord [25:21, 23].) It is argued that since he introduces an entrance-saying into his Markan source in Matt 18:1-5 (18:3) (= Mark 9:33-37), it is probable that Matthew is responsible for the creation of the entrance-saying in 5:20 (see Merklein, Gottesherrschaft, 79; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 500). (A similar saying but without the idea of entrance into the kingdom occurs in Mark 10:15; Luke 18:17.) But it must be stressed that to move from evidence of Matthean redaction to the conclusion of Matthean composition is unjustified.

In spite of being linked to 5:19 by means of the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven” and sharing the common theme of the necessity of obedience, 5:20 specifies a ground of exclusion from the Kingdom of Heaven, unlike 5:19, which specifies different degrees of greatness in the Kingdom of Heaven determined by the level of obedience to the commandments. This thematic discontinuity is evidence of that originally 5:19 and 5:20 were originally unconnected. Further evidence is that there is a change from the third person singular in 5:19 to the second person plural in 5:20. Jesus’ point in this saying is that entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven in its future completion is conditional upon a record of obedience that is greater than those Jews who already have a reputation for obedience, the scribes and Pharisees (see Matt 5:48 = Luke 6:36). The term “righteousness” in this saying refers to conformity to God’s will expressed in the commandments. (As is often noted, righteousness used in this sense is a distinctive of Matthew (see 3:15; 5:6, 10; 6:1, 33 21:32).) It is “your” righteousness in the sense that it belongs to a person insofar as he or she has habitually obeyed the commandments. The manner in which the required righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees is no doubt found in Jesus’ intensification of the demands of the Law in the antitheses that follow (Matt 5:21-48). In addition, rather than stressing obedience to the individual commandments, Jesus stresses purity of heart, out of which naturally flows obedience to the individual commandments: this is a higher obedience. (See Mark 7:14-23 = Matt 15:10-20; Luke 11:39-41 = Matt 23:25-26; Matt 7:16-20; 12:33-27; 6:43-45; Matt 6:22-23 = Luke 11:34-36.)

7.2.3. Entering the Kingdom Maimed

There are three sayings in Mark 9:43-48 that belong together thematically and by virtue of sharing a common structure (see Matt 5:29-30; 18:8-9). Each begins with the protasis "And if it causes you to stumble" and a body part as the subject; the protasis is the removal of the body part. Following each conditional sentence is a comparative sentence functioning as a warrant for the conclusion; this warrant begins with the phrase "it is better for you." In the first two sayings, it is better to enter into life without a particular body part than go away into or be thrown into Gehenna with it, whereas in the last saying it is better to enter the Kingdom of God without it. In this context, Kingdom of God and life are synonyms, the opposite of which is Gehenna. (Matt 18 has ‘eternal fire’ (18:8) and ‘Gehenna of fire’ [18:9].) Clearly the entry into the Kingdom or life is at the culmination of the Kingdom of God in the future, and that entrance comes after final judgment. (Other references to Gehenna in Jesus’ sayings include Matt 5:22, 29, 30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Luke 12:5.)

    Jesus should be understood to be speaking metaphorically and not literally. His point is that a Jew must remove all sin, since it is better to do without any specious advantage that sin might afford than to miss entering the Kingdom of God or entering into life.This is expressed metaphorically as being willing to cut off one's hands and one's feet and to remove one's eye, if necessary. Taken literally, these sayings would be shocking and disturbing to his hearers and prompt a consideration of a possible metaphorical meaning for them, which no doubt is Jesus’ intention. The analogy between sin and a part of one’s body is that, like the latter, the former may be a cherished part of one’s livelihood and identity, which one may be understandably reluctant to thrust aside since the loss of it would be keenly felt, even though such sins will prove to be deleterious to one’s eschatological well-being. The consequence of not being righteous because one has not removed all sin from one’s life is punishment in Gehenna (or "eternal fire"). The Jew who repents in response to Jesus’ message that the Kingdom of God has drawn near is required to persist in obedience to the commandments until the culmination of the Kingdom of God, which is the time of final judgment. In fact, a Jew must pass through final judgment in order to enter this future Kingdom of God or life.

7.2.4. Inheriting Eternal Life (Luke 10:25-28)

Luke 10:25-28 25 And a legal expert stood up and put him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 And he said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?" 27 And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." 28 And he said to him, "You have answered correctly; do this and you will live."

In response to the question of what a person must do to inherit eternal life put to him by a nomikos ("legal expert"), Jesus says that that it is obedience to the Law, which his interlocutor summarizes as the two-fold commandment to love (see Manson, The Sayings of Jesus, 259-61). Even though he sees the Law as reducible to two more general laws, Jesus still upholds the central covenantal principle: "The man who does these things will live by them" (Lev 18:5). Eternal life is a synonym for Kingdom of God in its culmination. Jesus causally ties inheritance of eternal life with obedience to Law. Jesus does not specify, however, how habitual the obedience to the commandments must for a Jews not to be considered as a sinner.

Some scholars hold that Luke 10:25-28 is a redactional reworking of Mark 12:28-34, but there are too many differences between the two narratives to support such a conclusion (see Marshall, Luke, 440; Manson, The Sayings of Jesus, 259-61). In the fourth block of Markan material in the third gospel (Luke 19:29-22:13 = Mark 11:1-14:16), Luke has added Luke 21:34-38, and has omitted Mark 11:14-18; 20-25; Mark 12:28-34; Mark 14:3-9. His omission of Mark 12:28-34 at Luke 20:40 and his insertion of Luke 10:25-28 in a non-Markan section of his gospel suggests that Luke had available to him two similar narratives, one from his Markan source and the other from a non-Markan source; he opted for the non-Markan source, which was his tendency.

7.2.5. Difficult for the Rich to Enter the Kingdom of God

After his discussion with the rich man about the conditions of inheriting eternal life (zoên aiônion klêronomein) (Mark 10:17-22), Jesus says to his disciples that it is immensely difficult for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God (eis tên basileian tou theou eiseleusontai) (Mark 10:23-27 = Matt 19:23-26 = Luke 18:24-27). (Matthew and Luke both shorten Mark's version.) Given the context, Jesus seems to be speaking of a future entrance into the Kingdom of God  (If so, then "to inherit eternal life" is synonymous with "to enter the Kingdom of God.") Jesus compares the difficulty to a camel's passing through the eye of the needle, which is to impossible. A camel would be the largest animal known to people in Palestine, and so would serve well to make the point of the absurdity of something that large going through something as small as the eye of a needle. Presumably, the rich man cannot enter the Kingdom of God because the will to be rich and to maintain one's riches is antithetical to the will to enter the Kingdom of God; these are competing interests. It seems that Jesus' point is that one cannot become rich without violation of the Law, so that the will to be rich is the will to sin. If so, then Jesus teaches that in order to enter the Kingdom of God in its future manifestation, one must be obedient to the Law. The disciples then ask, "Who can be saved?" To be saved is another synonym for entering into the Kingdom of God and entering into life; one is saved from the eschatological wrath of God, which is coincidental with the future manifestation of the Kingdom of God, being its negative correlate. The disciples perhaps assume that if anyone can be saved from the wrath of God the rich can, since they as rich are are blessed of God and better able to do the will of God (e.g., almsgiving). Jesus' response is that what is impossible for human beings is possible with God; he conceives of the Kingdom of God as a gift to be bestowed, so that even the most unlikely type of person may enter the Kingdom of God. There are then two competing conceptions entering of the Kingdom of God in its future manifestation: one cannot enter without obedience to the Law, but God as merciful makes possible what is impossible.

Source

Site of Jotapata Jotapata was a town in Galilee, located to the north of Sepphoris. Historically, it is known for the long siege that it endured in the Jewish war with the Romans. Josephus, the Jewish historian, was the commander of the town during the siege, and relates the details of this event. Jesus and his disciples may have visited the town (see Mark 1:39).

 
  Question

What are the two conditions that Jesus sets for entrance into the Kingdom of God at its future culmination?

 

8. Final Judgment

Jesus teaches that the culmination of the Kingdom of God in the future will include a final judgment of all Jews. On this basis he warns his generation of the consequences of their present choices. At this time there will be a eschatological reversal when the righteous will receive what is their due. In this, Jesus continues the teaching of John the Baptist.

8.1. Whom to Fear

Luke 12:4-5 4 But I say to you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and And afterwards have no more that they can do. 5 But I show you whom to fear: fear the one who, after he has killed, has the power to throw into Gehenna"

Matt 10:28 Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; rather fear the one who is able to destroy body and soul in Gehenna.

Both Matthew and Luke have a saying in which Jesus tells his disciples not to be afraid of what people can do to the body, but to fear God instead (Luke 12:4-5 = Matt 10:28). He is referring to eschatological judgment. In both gospels, this saying is found as part of a larger collection. Luke 12:2-9 = Matt 10:26-33 contain five sayings of Jesus in the same order (Matt 10.26-27 = Luke 12.2-3; Matt 10.28 = Luke 12.4-5; Matt 10.29, 31b = Luke 12.6, 7b; Matt 10.30, 31a = Luke 1.7a; Matt 10.32-33 = Luke 12.8-9). Three of the sayings contain the same key phrase "Do not fear," and no doubt were brought together because of this commonality. The data suggest that both Matthew and Luke had access to two different versions of this collection of five sayings in either an oral or written form. Matthew includes his version of the collection in the larger context of Jesus' commission to the disciples, whereas Luke's version is found in a section containing general encouragements. One should assume that these five sayings at one time circulated independently of one another and so each should be interpreted in isolation from the other sayings.

    Unlike Matthew, Luke begins his saying with the clause ‘I say to you, my friends’. While the introductory clause legô de humin "But I say to you" is characteristic of Luke, the designation of the disciples as "friends" is unique in the synoptic gospels. So whether Luke redacted his source is difficult to say. In both versions, Jesus tells the disciples that they should not fear those who can merely kill the body. Luke adds ‘And afterwards have no more that they can do’ (12.4), whereas Matthew’s version reads "but are unable to kill the soul" (10.28a). Luke’s version bears the marks of Lukan redaction and so could be interpretive of the more original version found in Matthew. The point made in both versions is that the disciples ought not to be afraid of other human beings because they cannot do anything to their non-corporeal and true selves. Jesus continues in antithetical parallelism to tell the disciples that they should fear God, who can assign them to Gehenna. In Matthew’s version, this is expressed as "Rather fear the one who is able to destroy body and soul in Gehenna" (10.28b), whereas Luke has, "But I show you whom to fear: fear the one who, after he has killed, has the power to throw into Gehenna" (12.5). Again Luke’s version has distinctive Lukan features, and so may imply that Luke redacted a more original version of the saying that is more similar to Matt 10.28. If so, then Matthew’s version, preserving the chiastic parallelism between body and soul from the first line, would be more original. At any rate, the same point is made in both versions: Jesus is referring to the negative consequences of final judgment, coincidental with the culmination of the Kingdom of God. This saying is intended to put life into proper perspective, especially for those who suffer unjustly in the present at the hands of the unrighteous.

8.2. Revealing of All Things

Mark 4:22 For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light.

Luke 8:17 For nothing is hidden that will not become evident, nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light.

Jesus speaks about the revealing of all things at a time in the eschatological future (Mark 4:22 = Luke 8:17). In Mark this saying is found in a collection of three originally independent sayings; Mark places these in his parable chapter probably because of the use of the figurative language in two of them. For this reason, the connective gar ("for") linking 4:22 with 4:21 should be considered secondary, used merely to join the second saying to the first. The second of these sayings consists of two clauses in synonymous parallelism joined by the conjunction oude: "For there is nothing hidden, except that (ean mê hina) it may be revealed; nor is anything concealed but that (all’ hina) it may come to revelation. Luke takes over this unit of three sayings from Mark, but makes changes to his Markan source; most importantly he replaces Mark’s two final clauses with two relative clauses: "For there is nothing hidden that will not become revealed, nor anything secret that will not be known and come to revelation."

    By the revealing of all things at a time in the future Jesus is referring to final judgment, when God will bring all things to light for the purpose of judgment; this will occur at the culmination of the Kingdom of God. In the original Markan version, the hina-clauses "except that it may be revealed" and "but that it may come to revelation" could be taken to mean that the ultimate purpose of what is now hidden is to be revealed, as if the final judgment is the final cause or telos of all human history. But Luke’s rephrasing of his Markan source should be taken as a clue to the meaning of the saying in Mark. His relative clauses indicate that Mark’s use of the conjunction hina should be understood as introducing result clauses rather than purpose clauses.

8.3. Warning to Repent

Luke 13:1 Now on the same occasion there were some present who reported to him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 And Jesus said to them, "Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this fate?3 I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."

In Luke 13:1-5, Jesus warns his hearers of the need of repentance in light of final judgment. Form-critically, Luke 13:1-5 could be called a double apophthegma, for Jesus makes the same pronouncement twice: ‘I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish’ (Luke 13:3, 5). The pronouncement is made first in response to being told about what happened to some unfortunate Galileans, and second in response to Jesus’ own recounting of the time when the tower in Siloam tragically fell on eighteen people. In both cases, Jesus brushes aside the theodicean question of why these people died and not others in order to formulate a general warning concerning the eschatological future, the time of the culmination of the Kingdom of God. In the first case—the one reported to Jesus—it would seem that during one of the Jewish festivals Pontius Pilate used deadly force to quell a disturbance in the Temple, although the event is not otherwise known.

Josephus describes several massacres in Palestine at different times, two of which involve Pontius Pilate (War 13.372; Ant. 18.85-87; War 2.169-74 / Ant. 18.55-59; War 2.175-77 / Ant. 18.60-62; War 2.8-13 / Ant. 17.213-18; War 2.223-47 / Ant. 20.105-12 (Fitzmyer, Luke, 2.1006-7; Plummer, Luke, 337-40). Pilate could easily have perpetrated another massacre, similar to what Josephus describes in Ant. 18.85-87 and War 2.175-77 / Ant. 18.60-62.

No doubt Jews speculated about why these particular Galilean pilgrims were killed by the Roman soldiers, and some probably reasoned that they must have deserved what they suffered because of previous sins: their violent deaths were divine retribution. Although he does not disagree with this view, Jesus does seek to steer his hearers away from the present towards the future, in particular the time of final judgment. He offers an implicit qal vahomer argument (from minor to major): if these Galileans, who were not greater sinners than one would find among the general run of Jews, were punished in history for their sins how much more will all sinners be punished at final judgment. In the second case—the one he himself cites—Jesus offers a similar qal vahomer argument. During a construction project in Siloam, a tower collapsed and killed eighteen people. On the assumption of the correlation between sin and suffering, it was reasoned that these eighteen people died under divine judgment on account of their previous sins. Again Jesus does not repudiate this view but does argue that if sinners are punished pre-eschatologically in this manner then how much more will they be punished on the day of final judgment. This is especially the case if those who were crushed death by the falling tower were not greater sinners than can be found anywhere in Jerusalem and beyond. Jesus holds out to his hearers, however, the possibility of repentance, which is God’s eschatological provision of mercy.

There are no grounds to question the authenticity of Luke 13:1-5. The lack of Lukan redaction and the presence of Semitisms support its authenticity. If it created this double saying, the early church would no doubt have chosen two well-known and/or biblical examples (Reiser, Jesus and Judgment, 245-47). Also, according to Riniker, the saying meets the criterion of dissimilarity because, as explained above, the church would have chosen two biblical examples and, in addition, Jesus’ orientation is away from the question of justice in the present and past, which is not typically Jewish (Gerichtsverkündigung, 167-69). Nevertheless, in terms of its terminology and theological concepts the passage is rooted in early Judaism—especially its "prophetisch-radikalen Pointe" (169). Jesus is a participant in the on-going debate within Judaism over the relation between sin and suffering, which is another indicator of authenticity. The two historical examples are also consistent with what is known of the time. Applying the criterion of coherence, Riniker concludes that Luke 13:1-5 is consistent with what Jesus teaches in recognizably authentic sayings about repentance.

8.4. Woes on Galilean Towns

Jesus warns that the people of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, three towns in Galilee, will come under judgment at the culmination of the Kingdom of God because they did not turn to God in repentance in response to the ‘miracles’ (dunameis) performed there by him (Matt 11:20-24 = Luke 10:13-15). In Luke, this tradition follows Jesus' instructions to the twelve (10.1-12), whereas in Matthew it comes after Jesus’ testimony to John the Baptist (11:7-19). In each the context is secondary, and so one should assume that this was originally an independent tradition. In the first strophe, Jesus justifies the woes against of Chorazin and Bethsaida by saying that the inhabitants of the nearby gentile cites of Tyre and Sidon would have long ago repented in sackcloth and ashes if the same miracles had been performed in those cities. (There is only this one reference to Chorazin in the gospels, but Bethsaida is mentioned occasionally (Mark 6:45; 8:22; Luke 9:10; John 1:44; 12:21).

To dress in sackcloth and to sit in ashes are signs of repentance (LXX Jon 3:6; Isa 58:5; LXX Est 4:2-3; LXX Dan 9:3; Josephus, Ant. 5.37; 10.349; 20.123) (see Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2.267; Fitzmyer, Luke, 2.854). The cities of Tyre and Sidon are often paired in prophetic utterances (see Isa 23; Jer 25:22; 27:3; 47.4; Ezek 26-28; Joel 3:4; Zech 9:1-4). See also 1 Macc 5:15; Jdt 2:28).

He thereby provocatively compares Jews and gentiles to the disadvantage of the former. For this reason, on the day of final judgment, it will be worse for the inhabitants of Chorazin and Bethsaida than for those of Tyre and Sidon. In the second strophe Jesus says of the town of Capernaum, "And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades." He is alluding to part of a prophetic oracle in Isa. 14.4b-21 (see 14.13-15) directed against the King of Babylon. Like the king, the inhabitants of Capernaum exalt themselves in their self-importance, but will be destroyed at final judgment, because they did not respond appropriately to Jesus' miracles, which served to confirm his message. Using hyperbole, Jesus says that it will be easier for the proverbially-wicked city of Sodom than for Capernaum, because the latter did not respond appropriately to his message and the confirmations of his message. The guilt of Capernaum is greater because they were so much more favored.

Matt 11:20-24 = Luke 10:13-15 is a prime example of close agreement in the double tradition (Fitzmyer, Luke, 2.851). The two versions differ only in four minor ways: 1. Matthew has the active egenonto (11:21) rather than Luke's passive egenêthêsan (10:13); 2. Luke includes the participle kathêmenoi ("sitting") after spodô ("ashes") (10:13), absent from Matthew; 3. Matthew includes legô humon (‘I say to you’) after the conjunction plên (11.22), absent from Luke; 4. Matthew has en hêmera kriseôs ("in the day of judgment") (11:22) rather than Luke's shorter phrase en tê krisei ("in the judgment") (10:14). It is possible that Matt 11:20, since it has no parallel in Luke, was created by Matthew to serve as an introduction to this tradition (Schweizer, Matthew, 266-67). Luke does not require such an introduction because the ending of the previous pericope (10:12) serves as an effective transition between 10:1-11 and 10:13-15 (see below). It is always possible, however, that Luke omitted an introduction that Matthew retained.

    This tradition presupposes that, during his itinerant ministry (Mark 6:6), Jesus’ message of the Kingdom of God met with resistance and rejection, even when it was confirmed by miracles. The inhabitants of these three towns had sufficient evidence to conclude that Jesus was sent from God, so that they should have responded positively to his injunction to repent and to believe the good news that the Kingdom of God had drawn near about the appearance of the Kingdom of God [see Mark 1:14-15]). The fact that these Galileans rejected Jesus and his message in spite of the evidence of his miracles will be used as a basis of their condemnation at final judgment, coincidental with the culmination of the Kingdom of God. As a result, Jesus had no choice but to pronounce proleptic judgment upon them, although it was not necessarily irreversible.

Many have concluded that Matt 11:20-24 = Luke 10:13-15 is a community formulation reflecting the frustration stemming from the failure of early Christian mission to these three Galilean towns. The early Christian community assumed that the rejection of Jesus’ words was tantamount to rejection of Jesus himself. See Bultmann, History, 112-13; Schulz, Spruchquelle, 362-63; Haenchen, Der Weg Jesu, 226; Lührmann, Redaktion, 64; Oberlinner, Todeserwartung und Todesgewißheit, 90-93; Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 114; Boring, The Continuing Voice of Jesus: Christian Prophecy and the Gospel Tradition, 209-10; Sato, Q und Prophetie, 199-200; Funk and Hoover (eds.), The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus, 181. First, it is argued that the two sayings look back to Jesus’ activity as something completed in the past, which is incompatible with an origin with Jesus. Second, it is pointed out that there is no evidence that Jesus did miracles in Chorazin and he only performed one miracle in or perhaps only near Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-26). It is assumed that the early church undertook failed missions to the towns, which is what these sayings address. Third, Jesus’ view of miracles is said to be contrary to that presented in these sayings; according to this view, Jesus sees his miracles as ambiguous, not as compelling assent. The example of the Beelzebul controversy is brought forward as typical: a Jew can interpret Jesus’ exorcisms as from God or from Beelzebul. (Schulz offers other arguments but these are not so convincing, and some of them tend to be circular, presupposing his hypothesis about the growth of the Q-source and the community to which it belonged [Spruchquelle, 362-63].) The arguments against the authenticity of Matt 11:20-24 = Luke 10:13-15 are unconvincing (Mussner, The Miracles of Jesus, 18-22; id., ‘Gab es eine ‘galiläische Krise’?’ in Orientierung an Jesus: Zur Theologie der Synoptiker, 238-52; Hoffmann, Studien, 303 n. 53; Marshall, Luke, 424; Fitzmyer, Luke, 2.852; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2.270-71; Becker, Jesus of Nazareth, 64-65; Reiser, Jesus and Judgment, 229-30; Riniker, Gerichtsverkündigung, 315-29; Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 421). First, Jesus does indeed look back upon his activity in Chorazin and Bethsaida as completed; after proclaiming the Kingdom of God in these towns with little or no success he determined that the inhabitants were unresponsive and resistant to him and his mission, and so he moved on. Similarly, at some time after taking up residence in Capernaum Jesus came to the conclusion that his adopted hometown would remain unreceptive to him for the most part. It is clear that there is no reason to conclude that the sayings could not have come from Jesus because there is a sense of closure and finality in the sayings—quite the contrary. Second, the fact that little or nothing is said about Jesus’ performing miracles in Chorazin and Bethsaida in the gospels is irrelevant since equally nothing is said in Acts or any other source about a mission by the early church to these Galilean towns. In fact there is evidence that Jesus travelled around Galilee with his disciples, so that it is probable that he performed miracles in Chorazin, Bethsaida and other places that are never mentioned in the gospels (Mark 1:14-15). Third, unless one is willing to discard pieces of the gospel tradition as inauthentic, it is clear that Jesus does view his miracles as confirmations of his message (see Matt 11:4-6 = Luke 7:22-23; Matt 12:28 = Luke 11.20).

8.5. Parable of the Sower and Interpretation

Jesus implicitly compares the preaching of the Kingdom of God with the sowing of seeds, and the results of the preaching are compared to what happens to the seed when it falls on four types of soil (Mark 4:3-9, 13-20 = Matt 13:1-9, 18-23 = Luke 8:4-8, 11-15). The parable assumes that sowing was done before the plowing, which was the method used in Palestine in Jesus' day (see t. Ber 7.2; Jub. 11:11, 23; Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, 11-12). The point of the parable to describe four types of hearers of Jesus' message of the Kingdom of God; these are represented by four types of soil. The path represents those who never believe, because Satan takes away the words as soon as it is sown, whereas the rocky soil represents those who believe in the short term, but stop believing when trouble and persecution come. The thorns are those who also believe in the short term, but stop believing when beset by the worries of life, deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things. Finally, the good soil represents those who believe and bear fruit in differing proportions (Cranfield, "St. Mark 4.1-34"; id., St. Mark, 158-63; Lane, Mark, 161-63; Birger Gerhardsson, “The Parable of the Sower and Its Interpretation,” NTS 14 (1967/68) 165-93; C.F.D. Moule, “Mark 4,1-20” ). It seems that the sower who sows the word is Jesus himself, who announces that the Kingdom of God has drawn near. Those represented by the good soil go on to produce "fruit," insofar as they are characterized by righteousness characteristic of those who have entered the Kingdom of God. The fact that Jesus speaks about a thirty, sixty and hundredfold return would strike the readers as unrealistic, since even a twelvefold return would be considered exceptional (see Gen 26:12) (Klauck, Allegorie und Allegorese in synoptischen Gleichnistexten,191). It would seem that the intention is to indicate that even the least fruitful hearer is still exceptional in righteousness when compared to the average human being. Jesus' general point in the parable is to indicate that not all will respond to his message, and thereby to warn his hearers not to be like the first three types of soils. This is important in view of final judgment.

It is commonly assumed that the interpretation should be considered an early interpretation of the parable and is not original to Jesus. For this reason, many interpreters reject the authenticity of the interpretation of the Parable of the Sower in Mark 4:13-20. On the assumption that Jesus' parables are not allegorical, Jeremias, for example, believes that Jesus' point in the Parable of the Sower is to communicate that the Kingdom of God would come to completion (represented by the harvest) in spite of all obstacles (represented by the lost seed) (The Parables of Jesus, 11-12, 77-80, 149-51; see also Linnemann, Gleichnisse, 120-26; Weder, Die Gleichnisse Jesu als Metapheren, 108-11; Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God, 128-31; 197-98; Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus, 156; Dahl, "Parables of Growth," StTh 5 (1951) 132-66; 152; Carlston, The Parables of the Triple Tradition, 137-49; Taylor, Mark, 258; Schnackenburg, God’s Rule and Kingdom, 146-52; Klauck, Allegorie und Allegorese in synoptischen Gleichnistexten, 196-98; 200, 206). It is claimed that in the history of the tradition not only was an unoriginal interpretation added but new elements were added to the original parable. Expressing a common point of view, Jeremias assumes that every parable of Jesus must make an "eschatological point," and then concludes that, since it does not, the interpretation of the Parable of the Sower in Mark 4:13-20 could not originate with Jesus. But this seems to be a circular argument, insofar as he assumes what "must" have occurred as the premise of argument (77-80). Allegedly, the linguistic peculiarities of Mark 4:13-20 point to the interpretation's origin in the early church. Jeremias says that there are several words in Mark 4:13-20 that do not occur elsewhere in the synoptic gospels, but do occur elsewhere in the New Testament; this suggests that the interpretation originated in the early church (see Klauck, Allegorie und Allegorese in synoptischen Gleichnistexten, 200). But such an argument is only permissive, since one cannot assume that every hapax in the synoptic gospels is an indicator that a tradition is inauthentic.Those who support the originality of the interpretation include: C.F.D. Moule, “Mark 4:1-20 Yet Once Again,” in Neotestamentica et Semitica: Studies in Honour of Matthew Black, 95-113 argues in favor of the interpretation; as does John W. Bowker, “Mystery and Parable: Mark iv.1-20,” JTS 25 (1974) 300-17; Gundry, Mark, 204-11; Gerhardsson, “The Parable of the Sower and its Interpretation,” NTS 14 (1967/68) 165-93. N.T.Wright’s interpretation of the Parable of the Sower is about Israel’s return from exile (Jesus and the Victory of God, 230-39). The seed is said to be the remnant “true Israel, who will be vindicated when her god finally acts” (232). Even without the inclusion of the interpretation Wright’s view would have little to commend it, but the seed is explicitly identified as “the word of God” in the interpretation provided.

Question 

What is the basis of final judgment and how does it relate to the culmination of the Kingdom of God?

9. Separation Only at the End

Jesus teaches that there will be no separation of righteous and unrighteous Jews before the future culmination of the Kingdom of God. Rather, all Jews will exist together as a mixed group until the end. During this time the possibility of repentance and forgiveness remains open, and Satan is allowed to interfere with the progress of the Kingdom of God.

9.1. Parables of the Wheat and the Weeds

In the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds, Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to a field sown with "good seed" or wheat that was subsequently also secretly sown with weeds by an enemy of the owner of the field, while everyone was sleeping (Matt 13:24-30, 36-43). When, after the two types of seed germinate and it becomes clear that weeds are mixed in with the wheat, the owner’s servants report to him what has happened. At this point he recognizes that "An enemy has done this" (13:28). The servants ask him whether he wants them to pull out the weeds, but the owner tells them to allow the two types of plants to grow together until the harvest, when they will be separated. If they pull up the weeds before the harvest, they will no doubt pull up the wheat also since the roots will be entangled; as a result the harvest would be reduced greatly. The landowner instructs them, "Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, 'First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn'" (13:30).

On the assumption that it shows signs of being composite, attempts have been made to identify the stages in the evolution of Matt 13.24-30. Kingsbury isolates 13.24b-26 as being the core of the parable originating with Jesus, and the rest of the parable derives from Matthew (Parables of Jesus in Matthew 13, 65). Similarly, Schweizer claims that the parable in its present form has some strange features, in particular the enemy who sows weeds at night. He says that this was awkwardly introduced into the parable by the community under the influence of 13.19 ("The evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart"), which explains the existence of 13.25, 27, 28a, since these depend upon the idea of the enemy. He also holds that 13.30 may be a later addition, since Matthew tends to add or elaborate on material relating to final judgment (13.42, 50) (Matthew, 302-304). Weder has an even more elaborate tradition-historical reconstruction. Jesus tells a parable consisting of 13.24b (without kalon), 26, 30b. Weder assumes that the original version of the parable has Jesus telling a parable similar to the parable of the net. To this core, additions were made consisting of 13.25, 27, 28a; later more additions were made: 13.28b, 29, 30a. Finally, the author of Matthew added 13.24a and revised 13.30b (Die Gleichnisse Jesu als Metaphern, 123-25). There is no justification for attempting to isolate the supposed original version of the parable from its later stages. Any unrealistic or awkward features of the parable are the result of its being an allegory. As Snodgrass explains, ‘Parables do sometimes have unrealistic features, and a charge of lack of realism should not necessarily be a threat to authenticity’ (Stories, 201).

    When they are in private with him, the disciples ask Jesus for an explanation of the parable (13:36-37a). The interpretation that Jesus provides has three parts: a catalogue of allegorical equations (13:37b-39), an account of final judgment (13.40-42a) and a general admonition (13:43b). Jesus says that the field is the world, by which is meant not necessarily the whole world but world defined as the geographic location in which he proclaims the Kingdom, i.e. Israel. The good seed (wheat) sown into the world stands for the "sons of the kingdom," while the bad seed (weeds) stands for ‘the sons of the evil one’ (antithetically parallel to ‘sons of the kingdom’). The enemy who sowed the weeds is equated with the devil (ho diabolos), who no doubt is the same as ‘the evil one’. Finally, the harvesters are said to be angels. (Judgment as harvest or threshing occurs in Jer 27:16 (LXX); 51:33; Hos 6:11; Joel 3(4):13; Rev 14:14-20; 4 Ezra 4:28, 35, 39; Sib. Or. 2:164-65.) Using this interpretive key, Jesus then briefly explains the parable as an allegorical description of final judgment. In the same way that after the harvest weeds are gathered up by harvesters and burned, so ‘at the end of the age’ the sons of the evil one will be gathered by angels and thrown into ‘the furnace of fire’ (13:40), the place of judgment. In this place, "there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth," which expresses the torment that those sent there will experience. The phrase "end of the age" is a distinctly Matthean phrase denoting the time set by God for the completion of disobedient human history. In other words, it is the culmination of the Kingdom of God, which will be coincidental with final judgment. The son of man who sends out his angels must be the one who "sows the seed," in which case he could be none other than Jesus, since he proclaims and mediates the Kingdom. This is why he can refer to the Kingdom of Heaven (13:24) as his kingdom (13:41). In this context, the expression "son of man" appears to be a circumlocution for "I." The intention is partially to conceal his identity as the one through whom final judgment will be executed, since he has yet to assume this salvation-historical role. The "sons of the evil one" are further identified as those who are "all the stumbling blocks" and "the ones who do evil." Stumbling blocks refer to people who function as the cause of sin to someone else. Such people, however, not only cause others to sin but do their own share of evil acts: "do evil." Those known as "sons of the kingdom" and "the righteous," by which is meant those Jews who have accepted Jesus’ message of the Kingdom and have repented if necessary, are destined "to shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father" (11:43). Light is the reward of the righteous, which is an allusion to Dan 12:3 and symbolizes God’s eschatological blessings.

    In Jesus’ view, until the culmination of the Kingdom of Heaven, there will be no separation of the righteous and the wicked among Jews in the world, by which is meant Israel. Although defeated, Satan will be allowed to incite some Jews to thwart the progress of the Kingdom and in so doing to oppose the "sons of the Kingdom." This will be permitted until the ‘end of the age’. Jesus’ view is a variant of the common second-Temple view that eschatological salvation is established gradually over a period of time. Only after the culmination of the Kingdom, will there be a full eschatological reversal, leading to final judgment for the wicked and eternal life for the righteous. So from the time of its inception to its culmination, evil will be present in the Kingdom.

Jeremias argues that, because the interpretation of the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds "exhibits a simply unique collection of the linguistic characteristics of the Evangelist Matthew" (Matt it follows that Matthew himself composed the interpretation (The Parables of the Kingdom, 81-85) . (This then frees Jeremias to investigate the originally intended meaning.) Since Jeremias' work, many scholars merely assume the inviolability of his conclusion (see Manson, The Sayings of Jesus, 196; Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God, 132-35; Schweizer, Matthew, 308-309; Beare, Matthew, 311). Jeremias' position, however, contains serious flaws. One cannot gainsay the linguistic data, which Jeremias cites in detail; one can, however, reject the conclusions that he has drawn from the data. First, prima facie, it is improbable that Matthew would create de novo his own interpretation of the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds. The gospel writers compiled traditional material, and were not creators of it; if there were not an interpretation available from the tradition, Matthew would simply have left the parable uninterpreted, as he does with other parables. Second, Jeremias commits the fallacy of assuming that evidence of Matthean redaction is evidence of Matthean authorship. There is no doubt that Matthew redacts his sources, and does so in an identifiably Matthean way, but evidence of Matthean preferred vocabulary and style does not justify the conclusion that Matthew composed Matt 13:36-43 himself. Probably, Matthew composed Matt 13:36-37a as an introduction to the interpretation of the parable; this was literarily necessary since the interpretation is separated from the parable by Matt 13:31-35. It is not surprising , therefore, to find "the linguistic characteristics of the Evangelist Matthew" in this passage. Since Matthew redacts his sources, it is also not surprising to find evidence of Matthean preferred vocabulary and style in the parable proper. Third, Jeremias commits another fallacy is assuming that what is unique to the Gospel of Matthew was created by the author. There are some key theological terms in the interpretation of the parable that occur exclusively in traditions unique to Matthean (the so-called M source). These are: 1. "The sons of the kingdom" (hoi huioi tês basileias) in Matt 8:12; 13:38; 2. "The completion of the ages" [hê sunteleia tou aiônios] in Matt 13:19, 40; 13:49; 28:20 (In 24:3, Matthew probably changes Mark 13:4 sunteleleisthai panta to sunteleia tou aiônios); 3. "The fiery furnace" (hê kaminos tou puros) in Matt 13:42; 13:50; 4. "The weeping and gnashing of teeth" (ho klauthmos kai ho brugmos tôn odontôn) in Matt 8:12; 13:42; 13:50; 22:13 (It is possible that Matthew is responsible for adding the phrase in 24:51 = Luke 12:46 and 25:30 = Luke 19:11-27, since the Lukan parallel does not have the phrase; this assumes again that the Lukan version is the more original.) Jeremias seems to conclude that Matthew composed the material in which these unique theological terms occur. This position, however, assumes a highly creative role for the author, which does not seem to be justified. It seems better to assume that Matthew had access to material that included these theological terms, including the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds and its interpretation.

9.2. Parable of the Net (Matt 13:47-50)

Matthew 13:47-50 47 "Once again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish.  48 When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away.  49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Jesus tells another parable in which he compares the Kingdom of Heaven to the process of fishing with a dragnet (Matt 13:47-50). This parable is a similitude, or an extended analogy, without plot development. Structurally it consists of the parable proper (13:47-48), a transitional statement (13:49a) and an interpretation (3:49b-50). The parable proper consists of two scenes: the gathering of the catch and separation of it into two groups. Whereas there is little distinctly Matthean in the parable proper, there are more instances of typical Matthean vocabulary in the transitional statement and interpretation. More importantly, there is verbatim agreement between the interpretation of the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds (Matt 13:36-43) and that of the Parable of the Net (13:49-50). Clearly this is intentional, and in spite of the differences between the two parables, the hearer is expected to understand both parables as belonging together and making the same basic point.

Many have concluded that the original parable consisted of either 13:47 or 13:47-48, and the interpretation derives from Matthew’s own hand (Otto, The Kingdom of God, 126-28; Manson, Sayings of Jesus, 197-98; Dodd, Parables of the Kingdom, 140-41; Jeremias, Parables, 225-27; Beare, Matthew, 315-16; Weder, Gleichnisse Jesu als Metaphern, 142-47; Schweizer, Matthew, 313-14; Gnilka, Matthäusevangelium, 1.508-509; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2.442; Liebenberg, Language, 258-75; Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 313-16; Luz, Matthew, 2.281-82; Jones, Matthean Parables, 355-58; Hultgren, Parables of Jesus, 303-309). It is usually assumed that Matthew also composed the interpretation of the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds, which explains the similarities between 13:36-43 and 13:49-50. But it is not necessary to conclude that Matt 13:49-50 or 13:36-43 are Matthean creations. Both parables could derive from a Matthean special source in which those expressions now identified as uniquely Matthean were found; if so, then the distinctive vocabulary is that of his source. It is also possible that Matthew redacted the two parables, which would also account for the presence of Matthean preferred vocabulary. Or both explanations may be applicable. At any rate, there is no reason to conclude that Matthew composed the two interpretations de novo. In fact, as already indicated, it is doubtful that Matthew would create his own gospel tradition. See Michaelis, Gleichnisse Jesu, 67-70; Kümmel, Promise and Fulfilment, 136-38; Ladd, Presence of the Future, 239-42; Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God, 135-38; Snodgrass, Stories, 482-92.

    Fishing was commonplace along the Sea of Galilee. Fishermen used a dragnet: either they pulled it between two moving boats or a fisherman in a boat would drop it into the water and then others would pull it with ropes towards the shore while standing on the shore. Fishing with a dragnet was indiscriminate, so that when it was full enough, the net was brought on to the shore where the fishermen sorted the catch of various kinds of fish and other sea creatures into two groups: clean, edible and salable and unclean, inedible and unsalable. The fish in the former group was placed in containers whereas what was left over, considered to be useless, was thrown out. In this everyday experience, Jesus finds an analogy to the Kingdom; his interpretation assumes the conventional metaphor that people are fish. The point of comparison is that both involve a process of separation based on a criterion. The fact that when the net is full a fisherman separates edible fish from inedible is analogous to the separation of the wicked from the midst of the righteous at the completion of the age, the culmination of the Kingdom of Heaven. In the parable, the fullness of the net corresponds to the completion of the age (13:49a), the act of sitting down and gathering good ones into containers and throwing out the rest corresponds to angels’ separating the wicked from the midst of the righteous (13:49b) and throwing out the useless fish corresponds to throwing of the wicked into the fiery furnace (13:50). Any incongruity between the tenor and vehicle in the similitude is the result of there being an incomplete correspondence between fishing with a dragnet and the process of final judgment.

Davies and Allison unfairly judge the interpretation in 13:49-50 to be artificial and inappropriate: "The interpretation which follows is rather artificial, and even if Jesus’ parable originally had to do with the eschatological judgement (a disputed issue), his meaning could hardly have matched Matthew’s….For one thing, whereas in vv. 47-8 it is fishermen who cast, gather, and sort, in 49-50 the angels sort, which implies also that they cast and gather, for their role is allegorically that of the fishermen. But in what sense angels can be said to cast and gather is mystifying. Furthermore, while ‘and throw them into the furnace’ made sense in connexion with tares (13.42), fish were not fired but rather tossed back or used for fertilizer’ (Matthew, 2.442; see Manson, Sayings of Jesus, 197; Beare, Matthew, 315; Hultgren, Parables of Jesus, 306-308). Weder rejects the one-sided Matthean interpretation (focusing on judgment of the wicked) and describes Jesus’ meaning somewhat obscurely in existentialist terms: ‘Die gegenwärtige Sammlung, die sich in Jesu Gleichnisrede ereignet und in Jesu bedingungloser Sammlung von Pharisäern, Zöllnern und Sündern wiederholt wird, notwendige Voraussetzung für die Zukunft der Gottesherrschaft ist. Ohne sein sammelndes Wort und Werk gäbe es keine künftige Scheidung. So manifestiert sich der Bezug der Gegenwart zur Zukunft’ (Gleichnisse Jesu als Metaphern, 145; see Jüngel, Paulus und Jesus, 146-47).

The larger point that Jesus seeks to make with this parable is that from the time of its inception of the Kingdom to its culmination, those who reject the Kingdom and continue to disobey the Law will not be judged. This is no doubt an act of mercy, giving recalcitrant Jews opportunity to repent, and would serve as both a promise and a warning.

 

Question 

Until the culmination of the Kingdom of God what will be the situation of the unrighteous in Israel?

10. Shortness of the Interval

Jesus teaches that the culmination of the Kingdom of God will occur in the near future. In his view, the progress of the Kingdom of God will come to completion within his own generation. Two sayings support this conclusion: Mark 9:1 and Matt 10:23b.

Mark 9  1 And he said to them, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Kingdom of God come in power."

Matthew 16 28 "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his Reign."

Luke 9 27 "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Kingdom of God."

Matthew 10:23 23 But whenever they persecute you in one city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes.

The saying "Amen, I say to you that some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Kingdom of God come with power" (Mark 9:1) is part of a larger collection of five sayings, which both Matthew and Luke take over as a unit from their Markan source (Mark 8:34-9:1 = Matt 16:24-28 = Luke 9:23-27).

Both Matthew and Luke make modifications to their Markan source (Matt 16:28 = Luke 9:27). With respect to Mark 9:1 Matthew replaces Mark’s "before they see the Kingdom of God come in power" with "before they see the son of man coming in his Kingdom." It seems that Matthew sees his version as equivalent in meaning to his Markan source: the coming of the Kingdom of God in power will occur when the son of man appears and assumes full authority in his Kingdom (For Matthew, of course, the son of man is Jesus, in particular, in his full eschatological appearance). (In the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, a parable unique to his gospel, Matthew also includes a reference to ‘the son of man coming in his glory’. Likewise, the phrase ‘when the son of man sits upon the throne of his glory’ occurs in Matt 25:31, whereas a similar saying in Luke 22:28-30 lacks such a reference to the son of man.) It is possible, however, that Matthew was influenced in his redaction of his Markan source by another version of this tradition, and he conflated the two. Luke modified his Markan source by eliminating the participle phrase "come in power," but one should not read too much into this change, as if this were a reflection of Lukan theology; rather, Luke's change reflects his tendency to shorten his Markan source: for him the phrase is redundant (Percy, Botschaft, 176-77). On this topic, see Chilton, God in Strength, 253-56; Perrin, Rediscovering, 16-17; Schlosser, Le règne de Dieu, 1.23-25.

The first four sayings are originally isolated sayings relating to discipleship, which Mark collected together or received as a unit. The fifth saying, Mark 9:1, likewise probably circulated as an originally independent saying, and may have been appended to the other four sayings either by Mark or a pre-Markan redactor (arguably by Peter himself). Mark 9:1 is linked to the previous saying by the introductory link-phrase kai elegen autois ("And he was saying to them"), which is typical of Mark. Although not all agree, there are no grounds to deny the authenticity of this saying of Jesus.

Some have rejected the authenticity of Mark 9.1, holding that it is a community-product that originated with an early Christian prophet, addressing the problem of the delay of the parousia for those waiting for the Kingdom of God. See Bultmann, History, 121; Bornkamm, "Die Verzögerung der Parusie. Exegetische Bemerkungen zu zwei synoptischen Texten," in In Memoriam E. Lohmeyer, 116-26; Grässer, Parousieverzögerung, 133-36; Percy, Botschaft, 177; Grundmann, Markus, 231-32; Vögtle, "Exegetische Erwägungen über das Wissen und Selbstbewußtsein Jesu," in Das Evangelium und die Evangelien. Beiträge zur Evangelienforschung, 296-344 (321, 326); Pesch, Naherwartung. Tradition und Redaktion in Mark 13, 183, 188, 240; Linnemann, Gleichnisse, 139; Patsch, Abendmahl, 119-23; Hiers, The Historical Jesus and the Kingdom of God, 108; Merklein, Gottesherrschaft als Handlungsprinzip, 151-52; Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God, 187-93. Paul is said to deal with the same problem in 1 Thess 4:13-18 and 1 Cor. 15:51. Jesus is not supposed to have indulged in ‘apocalyptic’ speculation, and 9:1 is taken to be precisely that. His view is said to be found in Mark 13:32: "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." Moreover, Mark 9:1 is supposed to weaken the basis of Jesus’ urgent demand for repentance by extending the coming of the Kingdom of God into the future (see Rigaux, "La seconde venue de Jésus," La venue du messie: messianisme et eschatologie, 173-216). The reasons advanced for rejecting the authenticity of Mark 9:1 are unconvincing. First, the alleged commonality between 1 Thess. 4:13-18 and Mark 9:1 is not very impressive upon closer inspection, because in the latter, unlike the former, there is no concern to provide comfort for those who have died (Schlosser, Le Règne de Dieu, 1.344). Likewise, it is difficult to imagine the hypothetical Christian prophet addressing his brothers as ‘some who are standing here’; rather this presupposes ‘un groupe concret et défini’ (Schlosser, Le Règne de Dieu, 1.244). What is implied is that this saying was addressed to a particular group of people, and not generally. Third, the early church did not express its eschatological hope for the future as the coming of the Kingdom of God with power; in fact, the phrase Kingdom of God occurs rarely outside of the gospels. For this reason it is doubtful that the hypothetical early Christian prophet would express an eschatological hope in such terms, even taking into account that the Kingdom of God is supposed to evoke the positive idea of salvation, which is intended to encourage the hearers, as opposed to negative idea of the coming of the son of man in judgment (Schlosser, Le Règne de Dieu, 1.345-46). It should be added that to conclude that Jesus could not have spoken of the coming of the Kingdom in power within the lifetime of some of his hearers because this would diminish the urgency of his demand for repentance misses the point of the saying in 9:1: that very little time remains until the culmination of the Kingdom of God. So it actually emphasizes the urgency not diminishes it (Patsch, Abendmahl, 122). Besides, the idea of the urgency of Jesus’ appeal to his contemporaries is an influence of existentialist or dialectic theology, which stresses "crisis." Mark 13:30 belongs in a rejection context but, even if it did not, it would not be incompatible with 9.1 since in the latter Jesus does not give the hour, day, month or even year; in addition Jesus’ statement in 9:1 is hardly ‘apocalyptic’. Moreover, the Semitic nature of the saying in 9:1 is incompatible with a later origin in the Hellenistic church. The introductory clause amên legô humin is an obvious Semitism. Likewise, the expression "to taste death" is a common Jewish expression for "to die" (4 Ezra 6:25; LAB 48.1; John 8:52; Tg. Deut. 32.1). The use of the construction ou mê heôs reflects the Aramaic l'…'d, and the verb "to see" in sense of "to experience" or "to participate in" is Semitic. These data are consistent with a Palestinian origin with Jesus (Schlosser, Le Règne de Dieu, 1.323-50; Hampel, Menschensohn und historischer Jesus, 123; Gundry, Mark, 466-70; F. Manns, "Le milieu sémitique de l’évangile du Marc," Liber Annuus 48 [1998] 125-42 [133-35]).

    Mark 9.1 reveals that Jesus sees the Kingdom of God advancing until it has reached its culmination in the future. This is expressed by the qualifying phrase "come in power," which denotes the mode in which the Kingdom of God will come in opposition to the mode in which it now appears. The use of this adverbial phrase implies that at the time when Jesus speaks the Kingdom of God has come in a preliminary and incipient manner, but still awaits a more complete and undeniable coming, a coming "in power." Although the exact time is not specified, the Kingdom of God will come to its culmination within the lifetime of some of his hearers. The expression "some standing here" refers indefinitely to some from the group to which Jesus is speaking, without specifying how many from that group will be alive to see the Kingdom of God come with power. This group of people will "see" the Kingdom of God come in power in the sense of experiencing it. Jesus holds that so long as it is not rejected, the Kingdom of God will continue to advance until it reached its culmination sometime in the near future. The rejection of the message and its messenger, however, would render this conditional statement untrue.

    The isolated saying in Matt 10:23, probably inserted by Matthew into its larger context, likewise indicates that the interval between the present and the culmination of the Kingdom of God, which is synonymous with the coming of the son of man, is relatively short. Jesus says, "But whenever they persecute you in one city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes." This obscure reference to the future appearance of the son of man is intertextually allusive of Dan 7 and is probably self-referential. Jesus is obliquely referring to his future assumption of the role of son man, the one to whom the Kingdom of God will be given when it comes to its culmination. In his view, the mission to the Jews will still be incomplete when this event happens.

Some have concluded that Matt 10:23b is Matthean redaction and so cannot be a saying of Jesus (Frankemölle, "Zur Theologie der Mission im Matthäusevangelium," in Mission im Neuen Testament, 93-129 [130-33]; Gundry, Commentary, 194). It is better to hold that Matt 10:23 derives from the tradition (Schürmann, "Zur Traditions- und Redaktionsgeschichte von Mt 10,23," BZ 3 [1959] 82-88). Since such a saying would not have been created in a rejection context, it is more believable that it is a saying of Jesus uttered in a non-rejection context. Others have unconvincingly claimed that the saying stems from the early period of the church when the mission was limited to Palestine and missionaries were being persecuted (Schweizer, Matthew, 243; Jüngel, Paulus und Jesus, 237-38; Schürmann, Gottes Reich—Jesu Geschick, 39-41; Merklein, Botschaft, 55; Gnilka, Matthäusevangelium, 1.374-75; Meier, A Marginal Jew, vol. 2, Mentor, Message and Miracles, 339-41). The phrase "son of man" can be both idiomatically self-referential and titular at the same time, which adds to the obscurity of the saying. For this reason, there is no need to argue that the original saying referred to the coming of the Kingdom of God and not the son of man (Jesus Lindars, Son of Man, 122-23; Hampel, "Ihr werdet mit den Städten Israels nicht zu Ende kommen," TZ 45 (1989) 1-31; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2.189).

Question 

According to Jesus when will the culmination of the Kingdom of God occur?

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