Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS
§12.4
God's vindication will not be long delayed: 'I tell you, he (God) will see that justice
is done them (his elect) en tachei' (18.8a), where en tachei must mean
'quickly, soon'. 251 What is in view so far as Luke was concerned is indicated by
his final enigmatic sentence: 'Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he
find faith on the earth?' (18.8b) — nothing other than the final judgment, for only
then can the elect hope to be vindicated. Luke probably draws the note of finality
ironically from 18.5 (eis telos). 252 18.8a adds only the assurance that the vindication
of those unjustly treated ('the elect') 253 will be imminent.
However, for Kümmel the clinching evidence comes in three muchdisputed
texts — Mark 9.1; 13.30; and Matt. 10.23. 254 The first of these, the only
kingdom text of the three, signals a more confusing tradition history than most of
what we have encountered thus far in chapter 12.
Matt. 16.28
Truly I tell you. there are
some standing here who will not
taste death before they see the
Son of Man coming in his
kingdom.
Mark 9.1
Truly I tell you. there are
some standina here who will not
taste death until they see that
the kingdom
of God has come with power.
Luke 9.27
But truly I tell YOU. there are
some standing here who will not
taste death before they see
the kingdom
of God.
The saying comes in the same sequence in all three Gospels, which may simply
indicate the influence of Mark (the literary interdependence of the group of sayings
is clear). And it does clearly indicate that some of the disciples will in some
251. Kümmel, Promise 59; 'Eschatological Expectation' 37. Since Julicher, 18.6-8 have
often been taken as an addition to the parable, the product of a Christian community facing persecution
(Scott, Hear Then the Parable 176-77; others in Hultgren, Parables 257 n. 26;
Lüdemann, Jesus 375). But 18.6-8a reads more as a continuation of the teaching than an interpretation
superimposed (Hultgren 258-59). And the observations of Jeremias as to the Aramaic
idiom employed and the shock of God's mercy being illustrated by an unfeeling judge (Parables
154-55) ought to be given more weight. See further Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom
203-207.
252. 'Ironically', since 'the end' feared by the judge is the widow giving him a black eye
(hypöpiazö).
253. 'The elect' appears elsewhere in the Jesus tradition only in Mark 13.20, 22, 27 par.
and Matt. 22.14; but it was a central feature of Jewish self-understanding (references in my
Romans [WBC 38; Dallas: Word, 1988] 502).
254. But note Kümmel's qualification (Promise 149-51). Despite Kümmel, German
scholarship usually discounts these texts as sayings of Jesus (see, e.g., Schürmann, Gottes
Reich 38-41 and n. 65; Merklein, Jesu Botschaft 54-56; H. Merkel, 'Die Gottesherrschaft in der
Verkündigung Jesu', in Hengel and Schwemer, eds., Königsherrschaft Gottes 119-61 [here
139-41]; Gnilka, Jesus of Nazareth 147-49; Becker, Jesus of Nazareth 121; Theissen and Merz,
Historical Jesus 255). Similarly Perrin, Rediscovering 199-202. Allison suspects that they are
three variants of one saying, with another variant in John 8.51-52 (Jesus of Nazareth 149-50).
In contrast, McKnight follows Kümmel quite closely (New Vision 128-30, 133-37).
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