Luke
Below is a brief summary of what I found in Luke concerning each of my four questions. The full evidence and commentary are available in the Luke Study Bible linked above.
Summary: Insight from Luke
1. Who is God?
Luke most directly identifies God as the Lord God of Israel, the Most High, the Father, the Lord of heaven and earth, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the One whom Jesus himself worships, prays to, obeys, and depends upon.
Mary worships “God my Savior” as the God who acted throughout Israel’s history and fulfilled His promises to Abraham.
Jesus identifies the Father as “Lord of heaven and earth” and says that everything he possesses has been handed over to him by that Father.
Jesus repeatedly speaks of God in the third person: God knows hearts, God has a Kingdom, God is the One to whom people pray and whom they serve. Your Luke 16 note correctly observes that this is not isolated wording; it reflects Luke’s sustained narrative distinction between Jesus and God.
Jesus prays all night to God, directs worship to “the Lord your God,” calls the Father his Father, and finally commits his spirit into the Father’s hands.
Luke's ordinary use of “God” most directly refers to the Lord God, the Most High and Father whom Jesus worships and obeys. Luke consistently distinguishes this God from Jesus. Luke does not, however, by itself answer every question about whether the Holy Spirit also shares God's identity; that must be considered separately.
Specifically, who is the Holy Spirit?
Luke presents the Holy Spirit as a holy, active, personal, heavenly agent of God who fills, reveals, leads, teaches, empowers, inspires prophecy, and works intimately in Jesus' mission and in God's people.
Already in Luke 1, John is filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth is filled with the Spirit and speaks, and Zacharias is filled with the Spirit and prophesies. Gabriel says the Holy Spirit will come upon Mary and parallels this with “the power of the Most High” overshadowing her.
At Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit descends bodily like a dove; immediately afterward Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit and is led by the Spirit. He later returns “in the power of the Spirit” and declares, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me.”
Jesus rejoices in the Holy Spirit while addressing the Father, which gives you a narrative distinction among Jesus, the Spirit, and the Father without requiring Luke to explain their ontology.
Most significantly for personhood, Jesus says:
“the Holy Spirit will teach you in that same hour what you must say.”
The Spirit is not merely an impersonal force in Luke; She teaches. And blasphemy against the Holy Spirit receives uniquely serious treatment.
Luke 11:13 also distinguishes the Father and the Spirit: the heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.
Luke by itself does not explicitly call the Holy Spirit “God,” does not explicitly call the Spirit “Mother,” and does not establish feminine personal identity. From Luke alone: the Holy Spirit is a personal divine agent who acts with God's power and presence, fills and teaches God's people, leads and empowers Jesus, and is distinct in the narrative from both Jesus and the Father. Luke strongly supports the Spirit's personhood and divine significance, but the fuller identification of the Spirit as God the Mother requires the wider biblical case.
2. What is God's plan for the world?
Luke is compatible with universal salvation and contains important supporting themes, but Luke by itself does not explicitly teach that every person will ultimately be saved.
There is significant breadth in Luke’s salvation language. John announces that “all flesh will see God’s salvation.” The angels announce good news of great joy “for all the people.” Jesus says the Son of Man came not to destroy human lives but to save them, and later says he came “to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Luke 15 is especially important to your wider case. The shepherd seeks the lost sheep until he finds it; the woman searches for the lost coin until she finds it; and the lost son is received by a father who runs to meet him and celebrates because the one who was lost is found. That gives Luke a very strong theology of God’s joy in restoration.
Luke also gives some interesting judgment language. Jesus says it will be “more tolerable” for Sodom, Tyre, and Sidon in judgment than for cities that rejected greater revelation. That at least suggests differentiated judgment rather than one undifferentiated final fate. And when the disciples ask, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus answers that what is impossible for humans is possible with God. That proves salvation lies within God’s power, though not by itself that God will save everyone.
At the same time, Luke contains genuine warning and judgment: the narrow door, people excluded from the kingdom, Gehenna, the rich man in Hades, differing degrees of punishment, and severe eschatological judgment.
So I would not say:
“Luke proves universal salvation.”
I would say:
Luke strongly emphasizes God's determination to seek, forgive, restore, and save the lost, and contains several themes that fit naturally within universal reconciliation. But Luke does not itself explicitly state that every individual will finally be saved; that conclusion requires the wider biblical case.
3. Who is Jesus?
Luke presents Jesus as God’s human Messiah, Son, Son of Man, prophet, Savior, Lord, King, servant, and uniquely appointed representative—not as God Himself.
From the opening chapters, Gabriel distinguishes Jesus from “the Lord God”: Jesus is the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God gives him David’s throne. Luke therefore presents God as the giver and Jesus as the recipient of messianic kingship.
This distinction continues throughout Luke. Jesus grows “in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God”; he prays to God; he is filled with and led by the Holy Spirit; he says the Spirit of the Lord has anointed and sent him; and he says that everything has been handed over to him by his Father.
Luke also uses explicitly human categories for Jesus. He is repeatedly the Son of Man; Adam himself is called “son of God,” showing that the title “Son of God” is not inherently a claim to deity; and at Emmaus the disciples describe Jesus as a man and prophet “before God.”
The Garden is especially important. Jesus says, “not my will, but yours,” submitting his will to the Father. At his trial he says the Son of Man will sit at the right hand of the power of God, again distinguishing himself from God.
Luke also portrays Jesus as genuinely developing. Luke 13:32 uses the teleioō word family concerning the completion/perfection of his course, which your commentary connects cautiously with Hebrews’ explicit teaching that Jesus was perfected through suffering. Luke itself does not establish your entire wider thesis that Jesus previously sinned and eventually became completely sinless, but it certainly presents Jesus as genuinely developing rather than developmentally static.
Answer from Luke: Jesus is God’s uniquely chosen and exalted human Son and Messiah—the Savior and Lord through whom God acts. Luke consistently distinguishes him from God.
4. Who are Christians?
Luke presents Christians as disciples who are genuinely being formed to become like their teacher and invited into remarkably deep participation in Jesus’ sonship-pattern, mission, authority, service, and kingdom.
The clearest verse is Luke 6:40:
“Everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.”
That is almost tailor-made for this question. Jesus does not present himself as an eternally unreachable category of being that disciples can never resemble. The goal of training is likeness to the teacher.
Luke also deliberately puts Jesus and believers within the same family language. Jesus is the Son of the Most High in Luke 1:32, while Jesus tells his followers that by loving their enemies they will be children of the Most High and should become merciful as their Father is merciful.
Their missions also become increasingly Christlike. Jesus gives the Twelve power and authority over demons and diseases and sends them to proclaim God’s Kingdom and heal. The seventy likewise receive authority over the enemy.
Luke 22 is particularly striking. Jesus says:
“I confer on you a kingdom, even as my Father conferred on me,”
and promises that they will sit on thrones judging Israel. The pattern is explicitly:
Father gives kingdom to Jesus → Jesus gives kingdom to his followers.
That does not by itself establish every dimension of your wider conclusion that Christians eventually become fully equal to Christ in the relevant human/creaturely sense. Luke does not say, for example, “believers will possess everything Jesus possesses in precisely the same measure.”
But Luke establishes the trajectory very strongly:
Jesus is the teacher whom disciples become like; the Son whose family status believers share; the empowered servant whose ministry they participate in; and the King who shares with them the kingdom he himself received from the Father.
So for Luke, Christians are genuinely being formed into Christlike people and are invited into remarkably deep participation in his sonship-pattern, mission, authority, service, and kingdom.
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