Luke’s Gospel begins, and Acts ends, with a pointed reminder that the coming of Jesus fulfills God’s promises, expressed in the Old Testament, to redeem2 the world through Israel. As Luke’s genealogy of Jesus makes clear, everyone who is descended from Adam—all humanity—has departed from God. Only “repentance and forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24:47) can restore us to the fullness of life that God intends for his human creatures. God’s purpose is to raise up a king in
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