The main point of McKnight’s book is that the word “gospel” to the apostles meant the story of Yeshua giving meaning to life and eternity. Gospel was not simply a message of personal salvation. Personal salvation is one of the things that happens when people listen to the gospel.

In this podcast I’m simply exploring one aspect of McKnight’s four-part outline of what the gospel is. He says it is:
(1) The Story of Israel
(2) The Story of Jesus
(3) The Plan of Salvation
(4) The Method of Persuasion

In considering the first part of McKnight’s outline, the gospel as the story of Israel, I am turning to Luke’s infancy narrative. Luke, whose gospel bears clear signs of relationship to Paul, presents Yeshua’s birth, the community into which he was born, and his early childhood as a culmination of the hopes of faithful Israelites.

In particular, I want to look at Mary’s Psalm in Luke 1:46-55. It has traditionally been called the Magnificat, from the Latin translation of the Bible. I will read Mary’s Psalm in the newly released Delitzsch Hebrew English version (DHE), where its relationship to the language of the Psalms and prophets is clarified by Delitzsch’s careful retranslation of the Greek text of Luke into Hebrew.

The overall concept of Mary’s Psalm is that of Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel, who spoke a psalm on the birth of her son. Hannah’s Psalm and Mary’s Psalm have the following ideas in common, though Luke does not exactly quote from 1 Samuel 2:

• Rejoice in God’s salvation.
• The strong are humbled.
• The lowly are raised up and empowered.
• Rich and poor are reversed.

One example of Delitzsch’s work to conform the New Testament language at times to the style of the Hebrew Bible is seen in Luke 1:47. Compare the ESV (English Standard Version) with the DHE:

“My spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:47, ESV).

“My spirit rejoices in the God of my salvation” (Luke 1:47, DHE).

Why the difference? Luke has used a phrase in his Greek gospel which will speak to his Greco-Roman audience. Roman emperors are hailed as saviors. The early believers used language regularly to refer to Yeshua as Lord and Savior, as opposed to the common idea of Caesar as Lord and Savior.

But Luke’s phrase is a departure from the idiom of the Hebrew Bible. While the noun Savior is used of God, the phrase “God my Savior” does not exist. Rather, we find six times in the Hebrew Bible the phrase “God of my salvation.” Delitzsch has taken Luke’s Greco-Roman shaped expression and cast it back into the customary language of the Bible.

The prophet Micah, for example, looks at the deplorable condition of his generation in Judah. He sees that the people are far from God and selfishness and cruelty reigns in the land. He knows his nation will be judged by God for the evil in his time. “Don’t rejoice over me,” he says, “when I fall . . . I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him.” And in this era of wickedness in Judah, Micah says, “I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation.”

So Mary in her psalm recognizes that the community of the faithful in Judea is small. People like her cousin Elisheva (Elizabeth) and Zechariah and Simeon and Anna, the godly characters depicted in Luke chapters 1 and 2, are the remnant of righteous Israel in an unrighteous time. Judgment is coming for Judah and by the time Luke writes his gospel, Jerusalem has already been laid waste.

But while Romans look to Caesar as Savior and while the clueless in Israel think the Savior has not come, Mary sees in the birth of her son the great act of the God of my salvation.

In verse 54, Mary calls Israel the Servant. Delitzsch’s translation opts to go strongly with the idea of Servant, whereas the Greek could also possibly be read as “child.” In the Servant songs of Isaiah, the Servant is first and foremost Israel. Yet as Israel is a blind and unfaithful servant of God, it becomes clear in Isaiah that the remnant of faithful in Israel are the ones who will fulfill that role. Mary and the community of righteous Israelites in Luke chapters 1 and 2 are that remnant. But ultimately Isaiah narrows it down even more to one Israelite who is the Servant, an Israelite who will suffer for the transgressions of his people.

And Luke’s audience knows well that Yeshua is ultimately the Servant.

More than that, he is the Servant whose coming was promised to the fathers. Mary recognizes in verses 54-55 that her child has arrived due to God remembering his compassions on Israel. Though there is much wickedness and though the people are not right, God has shown compassion and brought the Promised One.

It is because prior to everything God made an unbreakable promise to Abraham. The birth of Yeshua in Judea is the culmination of an age-old story. These events are not new. They are from days of old. A humble woman of Israel has become the mother of the Messiah, the bearer of the promise made to Abraham.

Luke’s gospel is written primarily to gentiles. Why, then, did he bother to give all this Jewish background and understanding? Didn’t Luke realize gentiles don’t need the story of Israel? Of course Luke did not realize something so false.

The gospel, as Scot McKnight says, is the story of Israel. It goes back even before that, before the promise to Abraham. It goes back to Adam. What has been lost will be recovered. The Abrahamic promise, with which Mary completes her psalm, is God’s promise to bring back what was lost in Adam’s day, and even more, to exceed the blessing of Eden.

The meaning of Yeshua cannot be separated from Israel’s story. Far from being irrelevant, people today need to read the larger story, to see Jesus as God’s compassion on Israel after many generations, the fulfiller of the promise to the fathers.

Luke understands that Israel’s role in all this is not finished. He more than hints in Mary’s Psalm that Yeshua’s identity as the Promised One of Israel is God’s compassion on Israel, meaning good news for Jewish people. It would have been easy for Luke to omit this in the gentile churches of his time. He did not omit it.

The apostolic understanding of Jesus and the gospel is not replacement. It is not a new religion. It is the expansion of the faith of Abraham, the story of Israel expanding in Yeshua, the Seed of Abraham. And in God’s compassions, no one is left behind. The nations should not boast nor should Israel. God is the salvation of Jew and gentile in one Savior for a consummation that we have yet to see but in which we greatly hope.

Israel’s story begins with Abraham, the one who was chosen by God. His children would be in covenant relationship with God without regard to merit (free election) and forever without condition (irrevocable election). Being an Israelite meant secure covenant standing with God.

Yet the story of Abraham is not merely about national privilege for Israelites, but blessing to all the families of the earth as well. At several places in the gospels we see how this dynamic idea, being a child of Abraham, means holding a special place in God’s covenant. But there is more. Both John the Baptist and Yeshua hint that Abraham has other children. Paul, who wrote after Yeshua said these things, but before the gospels were written down, has much to say about the “child of Abraham” theme and Jews and gentiles in covenant with God. This very Jewish issue is very much alive for gospel readers with eyes to see.

ABRAHAMIC COVENANTAL LANGUAGE IN THE GOSPELS

…do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’ (Matt 3:9; Luke 3:8).
John the Baptist knows his audience assumes a special place with God by virtue of being Israelite. But he indicates that there is more to being right in God’s eyes than covenant membership.

…as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity for ever (Luke 1:55).
…the oath which he swore to our father Abraham (Luke 1:73).
The first is in Mary’s song. She sees the birth of the messiah-child as part of God’s covenant with Abraham, to bless Israel and make Israel a blessing. The second is in Zechariah’s song. God has shown mercy to Israel to raise up the messiah-child (Yeshua) and the prophet-child (John). Israel does not deserve these blessings, but the promise to Abraham is the reason they have come to pass.

CHILDHOOD IN ABRAHAM IN THE GOSPELS

See Matt 3:9 and Luke 3:8 listed above.

…ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond (Luke 13:16).
Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham (Luke 19:9).
In both of these references, Yeshua applies the childhood in Abraham to people who were marginalized. This is perhaps ironic for his critics who had a tendency to be elitist. The Abraham doctrine could become national pride but could also be used to include the outcast in Israel.

We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to any one (John 8:33).
A simple example of national pride. The comparable sin today is Yeshua-followers who assume that Yeshua came for “my personal salvation.” Owning the promise is not our calling but giving it away and setting people free.

REMNANT THEOLOGY AND ABRAHAM’S CHILDREN

See Matt 3:9 and Luke 3:8, listed above.

…when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves thrust out (Luke 13:28).
…he lifted up his eyes, and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus in his bosom (Luke 16:23).
In a sharp and cutting reversal, Yeshua indicates that being a child of Abraham is not sufficient to be right with God. This does not go against the free and irrevocable election of Abraham’s children, but simply indicates that election as a nation is not the same as being right with God.

If you were Abraham’s children, you would do what Abraham did (John 8:39).
The principle, stated here simply, is that Abraham had faith and a heart to seek God. This is virtually identical to Paul’s repeated talk of being children of Abraham by faith, Jew or Gentile (see Gen 15:6).

LANGUAGE CONCERNING ABRAHAM’S GENTILE CHILDREN

…many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven (Matt 8:11).
Certainly Matthew has a theme of the legitimacy of gentiles being included in God’s plan (the story of Israel, properly understood, has always been about blessing overtaking the whole world). Yeshua utters this saying in response to a gentile’s amazing faith. Some of the language is from Isaiah 49 and 59, in both places the role of the nations in God’s salvation is in view.

YESHUA AS THE SEED OF ABRAHAM

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham (Matt 1:1).
…all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah fourteen generations (Matt 1:17).
The prominence of Abraham in the genealogy has to do with the theme of Yeshua as messiah (son of David) and the Israelite who will at last bring the Abrahamic covenant to its completion (son of Abraham). In Abraham’s descendant (can be plural or singular) all the families of the earth will be blessed. Matthew more than hints that this is who Yeshua is.