SPIRIT AND KINGDOM IN THE WRITINGS OF LUKE AND PAUL: AN ATTEMPT TO RECONCILE THESE CONCEPTS

Written by Youngmo Cho Reviewed By Justin K. Hardin

In this revised doctoral thesis from Aberdeen University, Youngmo Cho attempts to differentiate between Luke’s and Paul’s understanding of the Spirit by investigating in the Spirit and the kingdom of God in their respective writings. Cho’s primary aim is to show that Paul’s pneumatology is more developed than Luke’s. Whereas for Paul the Spirit contains a soteriological function, for Luke the Spirit serves only as the source of prophetic proclamation. Here his conclusions largely echo his former teacher, R. P. Menzies (see especially. The Development of Early Christian Pneumatology with Special Reference to Luke-Acts, JSNTSup 54, Sheffield, 1991), who also wrote the foreword to this monograph. The originality of Cho’s thesis, to be sure, is found in his discussion of the kingdom of God in Luke and Paul. Here he links Paul’s understanding of the Spirit with the blessings of the kingdom of God as discussed in the Synoptic Gospels. Luke, on the other hand, separates the Spirit from the blessings of the kingdom, limiting the Spirit’s role to the charismatic witness (i.e. proclamation) of the kingdom.

This thesis proceeds both logically and intuitively. In his introductory chapter, Cho provides a brief review of the three primary views on the relationship between Luke and Paul’s understanding of the Spirit: Menzies (discontinuity), J. D. G. Dunn (continuity), and M. M. B. Turner (mediating). In Chapter Two (‘The Spirit and Life-Giving Wisdom in Intertestamental Literature’) Cho then challenges Turner’s view that the Spirit in the intertestamental literature involves a life-giving (i.e. salvific) function. Instead, ‘the intertestamental Jewish literature generally understands the Spirit as the source of prophetic inspiration’ (51). This conclusion allows Cho to investigate afresh both Luke and Paul’s understanding of the Spirit.

Chapter Three (‘The Relationship between the Spirit in Paul and the kingdom of God in the Synoptics’) compares Paul’s understanding of the Spirit with those aspects of the presentness of the kingdom that are found in the Synoptic Gospels (e.g. new life, sonship, resurrection, righteousness, and ethics). Here Cho advances a bold argument: Paul’s understanding of the Spirit is virtually synonymous with the kingdom in the Synoptics. For Paul, ‘the Spirit embodies the essence of the kingdom of God’ (108). In Chapter Four (‘The Spirit and the Blessings of the kingdom of God in Luke-Acts’) Cho contends that although the Spirit’s role is closely connected with the kingdom, unlike Paul, the Spirit is dissociated from the kingdom blessings. Instead, Cho maintains in Chapter Five (‘The Primary Role of the Spirit in Relation to the Kingdom of God in Luke-Acts: Proclamation’) that the Spirit’s role is limited to proclaiming the presence of the kingdom.

This thesis is certainly a careful study that provides a fresh round of discussion on the pneumatologies of Luke and Paul. The book, however, has a few shortcomings. In his discussion of the intertestamental literature, for example, Cho hastily discounts 1QH and the Wisdom of Solomon 9:13–18—both of which clearly associate the Spirit with life-giving wisdom—by chalking them up as reflecting a minor strand within a much larger and dominant tradition. In addition, he unfortunately does not discuss the pneumatology of John’s Gospel (only five references to this Gospel appear in his Scripture index). In this regard, his conclusion, only two pages in length, is simply a summary of his thesis, which attempts neither to draw further implications nor to anticipate future discussion. One would have liked to see, for example, some suggestions explaining why Paul felt it necessary to replace kingdom language with such a unique pneumatology (and why Paul even continues to employ kingdom language at all!). Even with these drawbacks, however, Cho is to be commended for providing a careful and engaging study on the pneumatologies of Luke and Paul.


Justin K. Hardin

Oklahoma Baptist University