Luke Wrote a Full History For Us

Luke, the author of Luke & Acts said in Luke 1:1-4 (also see Acts 1:1) that he wrote a full history of what happened with Jesus and the early Church.  Taking his gospel with the book of Acts together, it seems that the gave us a full history of the events that took place.  Full, not in the sense of everything that occured, but in the sense of why these events occured in the way they did.  Lost?  Hang on…

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, (named after a roman deity), and wrote twenty volumes on Roman history.  He really wanted to write GOOD history!  Good history does not just record things of the past, it records how the events were influenced, what directed them and what pushed them in the direction they went.  He claimed that speeches changed the course of history.  The word that Luke uses in chapter 1 verse 3 of Luke to say that he will write a “full” account is the same word that Dionysius used to describe his idea of “good” history.  This means, that Luke is going to include the things that tell us how history took the course it did, he is not just going to tell us events.  Luke is going to tell us what actually is driving these events!  Luke wants to write this kind of gospel, a full gospel.  This is also why Luke wrote Acts.

It is worth noting, that 30% of Acts is speeches.  60% of Acts 1-7 is speeches.  (Luke’s gospel does this also) This means that Luke thinks these speeches have changed the course of history.  Also, the role of the Holy Spirit is crucial in the speeches.  The Spirit fell on the disciples so that they could give a speech (or preach the gospel).  This means that Luke is telling us that it is the Holy Spirit who is directing history!  The Holy Spirit is taking people places, and creating the scenes for these powerful speeches.  What has affected history?  People’s speeches that are empowered by the Holy Spirit.  Therefore Acts is an account of God’s actions that direct history through people; empowered by the Spirit, who proclaim the Word of God, the gospel!  This means that in Luke’s mind Christianity is the fulfillment of History.  Knowing this, we could call the book of “Acts of Jesus, by His Spirit, through His Apostles” which fits Luke’s idea of the history he wants to write.

Who cares?  I DO!  Why?

a) We are saved by God (through His Son by the power of the Spirit) individually into a community to take a message to the nations!
b) We can now give people an understanding of Christianity as the fulfillment of history.
c) WOW and Amen!!

Jonathan Edwards on the Holy Spirit

It is hard to describe the Holy Spirit.  He is a person, whom we call a Spirit, that lives inside of us.  It seems that the more you try to figure out what is actually going on within the workings of the persom of the Holy Spirit, the more muddy the waters become.  Jonathan Edwards often tried to explain these deep muddy waters, and probably, out of all people since the apostolic era, brought the most clarity to them in history.  He has two comments about the Holy Spirit that I have always remembered:

And this I suppose to be that blessed Trinity that we read of in the Holy Scriptures.  The Father is the deity subsisting in the prime, unoriginated and most absolute manner, or the deity in its direct existence.  The Son is the deity generated by God’s understanding, or having an idea of Himself and subsisting in that idea.  The Holy Ghost is the deity subsisting in act, or the divine essence flowing out and breathed forth in God’s infinite love to and delight in Himself.  And I believe the whole Divine essence does truly and distinctly subsist both in the Diving idea and Divine love, and that each of them are properly distinct persons. (‘An Essay on the Trinity’, in ‘Treatises on Grace and Other Posthumously Published Writings’, page 118)

If you have a hard time with that one, here’s a clearer picture of Edward’s view of the Holy Spirit:

In other words, the Holy Spirit is the delight that the Father and the Son have in each other, and He carries in Himself so fully the essence of the Father and the Son that He Himself stands forth as a third Person in His own right. (Treatise on Grace, page 63)