Luke and the Remnant Covenant

Listening to Jim Jordan’s tapes on Daniel has helped me to put some pieces together in Luke. Jim discusses the “remnant covenant” at some length in the first couple of tapes, and points out some of the main features of that period of Israel’s history. In many respects, these features are brought out also in Jesus’ ministry:

1) Elijah and Elisha form a “church” independent of the temple. Jesus does the same, offering forgiveness and atonement and cleansing apart from the temple ritual, and gathering a people whose main activities are not sacrifice but hearing and eating/drinking. (The food theme is prominent also in the Elijah-Elisha narratives — check a concordance for the word “bread” in that section of Kings.)

2) The geographic movement of Jesus’ ministry matches that of the remnant period. Elijah and Elisha minister in the North, but, as Assyria arises as a threat to Israel, the remnant church that they ministered to is invited to move South by Hezekiah. Likewise, Jesus begins in Galilee and moves to Jerusalem, arriving just in time for a Passover.

3) The remnant church is a suffering church, persecuted by the religious and political leadership of the time. This culminates in Jeremiah, who embodies the remnant church in the time just before the exile and is the immediate fulfillment of Isaiah’s suffering servant. Obviously, suffering is central to Jesus’ ministry, and when He arrives in Jerusalem He condemns the temple (as Jeremiah did), offends the established religious leaders (as Jeremiah did), and is put to death (as Jeremiah’s opponents wanted to do to him).

In Luke 8 specifically, this helps to enrich Jesus’ point about teaching in parables. Here I rely on Mark Horne’s excellent recent commentary on Mark: In Isaiah 6, which Jesus quotes to defend His use of parables, the point is that this is preparation for looming judgment on Israel. Isaiah was living near the end of the “remnant church” period, and prophesying of an apostasy and judgment that would lead to exile and ultimately a new covenant. Jesus is telling parables in the same situation: His ministry of gathering a remnant has met with opposition, and He begins to speak in parables; this is a sign of the looming destruction of Israel.