L'affirmation de l'Epître aux Colossiens (i. 16a) selon laquelle toutes choses ont été créées dans le Christ embarrasse fort les exégètes: si curieux que cela puisse paraître, nous n'en avons trouvé nulle part une explication pleinement satisfaisante. Tout n'a pas été dit, pas plus en exégèse que dans les autres domianes.

When people living in Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece and Rome in the first century A.D. were given reports of events which had happened in the past, were they concerned to ask the question: ‘Did it happen in this way?’

Professor W. G. Kümmel's Promise and Fulfilment marked a permanent advance in the understanding of the eschatological teaching of Jesus. Going beyond the ‘realized’ eschatology of C. H. Dodd and the ‘futurist’ eschatology of J. Weiss and A. Schweitzer, Kümmel demonstrated that for Jesus the kingdom of God was both a present reality and an imminent future expectation. The present study examines several texts in Luke in which the present and future manifestations of the kingdom are set in juxtaposition. It is hoped that this will illuminate the Evangelist's understanding of an important theme as it is related to other Gospel traditions and to the proclamation of Jesus.