The second Gospel3 has for its design the setting forth of the service “of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” He who at first failed, but at length was pronounced “profitable for ministry,” was just as suitable in the power of the Holy Spirit for that task as Matthew, called from the receipt of customs to be an Apostle, was for the first Gospel. Christ Himself serves in the Gospel, and does mighty works accompanying it, as Mark describes.
The precision which Mark furnishes, partly by his characteristic “straightway” that so often occurs, partly by a perhaps still more definite specifying of time — e.g., in chapter 4:35 — enables us to clear up some difficulties in the different order of the events related in the three Synoptic Gospels.3 From a careful comparison it results that, of the four inspired writers, two were led to abstain save in the rarest degree from chronological order; two from their respective designs subordinate that order where requisite to a grouping of events or discourses independently; and of the two, in each case one was an Apostle, the other not. Matthew and Luke were from time to time not bound to simple historic sequence; whereas Mark and John as the rule adhere to it.4
None can be justly called “fragmentary,”5 for each has a specific design impressed on the work, and all that is inserted or omitted may be accounted for on this principle. Where an incident illustrates that which belongs to the scope of all four, they all introduce it, as, for instance, the miracle of the five loaves and the two little fishes. Where it falls in with the province of one only, there it is given, and nowhere else; as the Temple tax in Matt. 17, the deaf stammerer in Mark 7, the penitent woman in Luke 7, and the Samaritan woman in John 4, to mention but one of the many facts, signs, and discourses peculiar to each, and to John abundantly. In some cases nee give the same subject-matter, in others but two. But this is not all. Whilst there are notable phrases lid words common to al1,6 there are quite as notable, differences7 in the mode of communication. Hence speculative minds are tempted to irreverent cutting of to knot they cannot untie;8 whilst unexercised souls to gather the profit intended of the Spirit through every shade of difference. For it is a perversion of the truth that the writers were inspired, but not the writings.
If 2 Pet. 1:2121For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. (2 Peter 1:21) warrants the former, still more explicit and distinctly applicable is the claim for the latter in 2 Tim. 3:1616All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: (2 Timothy 3:16). In the verse preceding we have the “sacred” title of the Old Testament; but in verse 16 the Spirit of God pronounces for “every” thing that falls under the designation of “Scripture.” It is not a question of human infirmity, but of God’s power. Every Scripture is inspired by God (θεόπνευστος). Not only were the men inspired, but so, according to the Apostle Paul, is the result. Ordinarily their writing, like their words, would have been liable to the imperfections of human speech and the limitations of human thought; but every Scripture, every writing that comes under this category, is God-breathed, and in no way “left” to the mere accidents of human faculties. To mix up with inspiration the manifold errors of copyists in the lapse of ages is illicit and illogical, not to say dishonest, for this is quite another question. All we contend for is the Divine character of indisputable Scripture.
Differences, then, there are; but instead of being the discrepancies which unbelief hastily and improperly calls them because of ignorance, they are the beautiful and instructive effect and evidence of God’s varied designs. Take Matt. 8 as an instance — “a solemn assembly of witnesses,” as one justly calls it. The leper came, in fact, long before what is called the Sermon on the Mount. “And, behold,” in verse 2 ties us down to no date. But as the Holy Spirit had already given a summary of the Lord’s deeds of gracious preaching and power in Matt. 4:23, 2423And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. 24And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. (Matthew 4:23‑24), so He presents details of His teaching in chapters 5, 6, 7, and of His miracles in chapter 8, and again in another way in chapter 9, where the date yields to deeper considerations, and selected proofs are grouped together designedly. In Mark 1:40-4540And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 41And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. 42And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed. 43And he straitly charged him, and forthwith sent him away; 44And saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. 45But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places: and they came to him from every quarter. (Mark 1:40‑45), where no such purpose operates, we see its place historically. Luke confirms the fact that it was on “one of those days” when Christ was in Capernaum, and before the healing of the paralytic, which in Matthew is reserved for the first case in chapter 9.
But, to look into details, the leper’s cure fitly attested the present power of Jehovah-Messiah which opens Matt. 8 And as this proved His grace toward the Jew that came in his uncleanness and faith (however faltering), the Gentile centurion’s great faith next follows, and here only is connected thus. In the Gospel of Luke it has a different place, in Mark it has none. The third fact in chapter viii., the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, so interesting to a Jew, and assuring that grace to the Gentile did not turn Messiah’s heart from Israel, seems here inserted with that design, whereas historically it preceded both the previous miracles in date, as shown in Mark 1 and Luke 4. So, of course, did the healing of many demoniacs and sick on that evening after the Sabbath, in fulfillment of Isa. 53:44Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53:4). It is not in the least difficult to believe that the Holy Spirit led Matthew to introduce at this point what Luke presents in quite a different connection (9:57), and with an addition too. The harmonists who imagine duplicates are no more faithful than the commentators who tax the inspired with discrepancies. The conversation, whenever it occurred, seems given in the first Gospel to show the great vessel of Divine power and grace — i.e., the Messiah consciously rejected, the Son of Man having nowhere to lay His head, yet claiming from a disciple to be followed, even if a father lay dead. We know, too, or certain that the storm which He rebuked and the deliverance of the demoniacs took place after the parables of chapter 13. were heard and explained.
The septenary of chapter 9 is a similar collection n witnesses following that of chapter 8, which indicates not only His Divine power displayed in Israel, but the growing hatred and jealousy which it excited in the scribes, till it culminated in the Pharisees who sought to poison the multitude with their blasphemy: “By the prince of the demons He casteth out demons.” But no more evidence is needed that Matthew was led, where it was required, to state facts and words so as best to give dispensational order, as Luke was led in no less a degree to present moral order. Take the Lord’s genealogy as a clear proof, not in chapter 1, but in chapter 3, after the statement of John put in prison, and of the wondrous scene of His baptism following, though, of course, it long preceded what is here recounted. Take, again, the temptation, where Luke puts the third act in the second place as the moral order; whereas the actual fact as represented by Matthew coincided with the dispensational, which it was his function to make known. This necessitated the remarkable omission which the true and ancient text testifies, as distinguished from the common error introduced by copyists, harmonists, and the like, whose false assimilations provoke the rather more evil doubts of their opponents.
How full of interest, as bearing on Divine purpose, to observe that in the Gospel of Mark there is no account of the Lord’s reading of Isa. 61 and preaching in the synagogue at Nazareth, any more than Matthew or John gives it! For Luke 4 it was reserved, as Christ’s grandly suited introduction to public witness, as we shall see more fully in its place. The introduction for Matthew’s Gospel was the striking but wholly different application of Isa. 9, where the light shining in despised Galilee was promised, Nor was Mark given to state this, but only Matthew, whose also it was, above all, to point out the fulfillment of prophecy in the still more despised Messiah, as he only had mentioned the visit of the Magi, and the flight into Egypt, and the slaughter of the babes, all bearing in the same direction.
Again, Mark was not led to present the remarkable healing of the centurion’s servant, which has so prominent a position in the first Gospel, and a still greater length in the third. The leper’s cleansing Mark does give, followed by the healing of the paralytic, and very graphically in both cases; but there was no design by him to bring in the witness that Jehovah’s power would call in Gentiles when Israel should be cast out, as in Matt. 8, any more than to show, as in Luke 7, the faith of the Gentile, not so seen in Israel, which recognized the power of God in Jesus to command sovereignly and in love, and this in a soul so humbled by grace as to discern His people in the degenerate Jews, loved and honored for His name’s sake.
So, further, in the first Gospel and the second we have no account whatever of the widow’s son raised from the dead outside Nain. It had no connection with their scope in particular, and we may presume that it was therefore here omitted. But it had the utmost importance for illustrating Divine power in the highest form, united in our Lord Jesus with the fullest human sympathy, and so it is exactly in accord with the special aim of Luke’s Gospel, where alone it is found.
On the same principle we may account for a vast deal of intermediate matter given in the central parts of the first and third Gospels, which does not appear in the Gospel of Mark .9 We are thus delivered from the theories which have occupied many learned men, to the hurt of themselves and of those who trust them. For they have sought on human grounds to explain the different phenomena of the Synoptic Gospels, some advocating a common document,10 others only a general apostolic tradition.11 Again, a supplemental intention has been, attributed to those that followed successively the first, or his own contribution to the sum as it gradually, appeared and grew.12 Had they believed in the special design imprinted by the Holy Spirit on each and every one of them, erroneous speculation had been spared, to the honor of God’s word and to the spiritual profit of His children. The differences which undoubtedly occur would then have been known to be in no case discrepancy, but springing from God’s wisdom, not man’s weakness, and adding incalculably to the witness of Christ, and consequently to the spiritual intelligence of him that accepts all from God in faith of His truth and love.
Legitimate criticism may seek to gather the true text from reliable documents, in time differing more or less through human infirmity or fault. But it rightly supposes an original Divine deposit. No intelligent person would mix this question with God’s inspiration; various readings belong to the distinct region of man’s responsibility, as Scripture does to Divine grace. The problem of the true critic is to use all means, external and internal, to recover what was originally written. What is called “higher criticism” is essentially spurious, either denying God as the Author or impudently pretending to speak for Him, if they go not so far. Even Christians are in danger of heeding what these enemies of the written word assume, when it is said that it nowhere claims Divine authority. Nor is it only inferential evidence that is given throughout the Bible in general, as well as the conclusive proof of the reverence to all then written shown by our Lord, the Lord of all. It is dogmatic truth that God’s inspiration is claimed for every Scripture — not merely for all given before the Apostle Paul wrote his last epistle, but for that part which remained to be written. For nothing less is the force of 2 Tim. 3:1616All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: (2 Timothy 3:16): “Every scripture [is] inspired of God and profitable,” etc. Had the existing body been meant the article would have been requisite, as in verse 14, which speaks only of the Old Testament. Its absence was no less correct for accrediting with the same source and character all that God might be pleased to vouchsafe till the canon was complete.
Indeed, the Apostle had at an earlier date made in substance the same claim in 1 Cor. 2 Where the Hebrew oracles stopped, the New Testament revealed all that is for God’s glory and goodness to communicate (verses 9-12): “Which things also we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those Spirit-taught, communicating spirituals by spirituals,” or, if we supply the gap, “spiritual [things] by spiritual [words].” The words were as positively of the Holy Spirit as the thoughts.13 Such is the essential property of Scripture. Thus all was of the Spirit of God — the revelation, the communication, and also the reception. Rationalism denies God in them all, attributing them to man’s spirit, which he may elevate in effect to that of God, being in darkness and walking in darkness, and knowing not whither he goes, because darkness blinded his eyes.
Translation, again, like interpretation, as well as editing the text from the varying witnesses, belongs to the responsible use of Scripture, and is quite distinct from the fact of its Divine inspiration. No doubt the conviction that God inspired every Scripture would act powerfully on the spirit of every believer who undertook works so serious, and is intended to make him feel his dependence on God in the use of all diligence and every means duly to attain the end in view. But inspiration means, as one of those employed in it says, that men spoke from God, moved (or borne along) by the Holy Spirit. Hence Scripture is not of man’s wit or will, but of God, as no one more clearly than our Lord ever shows, and so of final and Divine authority. Hence, too, the danger and evil for anyone to give, whatever the cause of failure, his own mind and not God’s in editing, translating, or interpreting. What God communicated is able to make one wise unto salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus. “Is it not written?” if truly applied, is absolutely conclusive in His judgment who will judge living and dead. “And the Scripture cannot be broken.”
How immense, too, is the privilege! In its later portion it is the revelation of God, not merely from God, but of Himself, and of God speaking to us in a Son — not the Firstborn merely, but the Only-begotten, the revelation of the Father and the Son by the Holy Spirit. Oh, the grace, too, of His Son deigning to become man, that we might have what is absolute made relative to us in the tender affections of very man, yet of One who was and is God as His Father. Hence the total change for us in looking at things, seen or unseen, according to God, where the greatest are brought down to our hearts, and the least we learn to be near to God’s love; nothing too great for us, nothing too little for God, as said another departed from his labors to be with Christ. Christ alone, Christ fully, accounts for both, and Scripture is the true treasure-house as well as standard of it all, as the Spirit was sent forth from heaven to make it good in us in every way. No tradition could avail for such a stupendous task.
The Spirit of God in recording does not limit Himself to the bare words that Jesus spoke. This I hold to be a matter of no little importance in forming a sound judgment of the Scriptures. The notion to which orthodox men sometimes shut themselves up, in zeal for plenary inspiration, is to my mind altogether mechanical; they think that inspiration necessarily and only gives the exact words that Christ uttered, There seems to me not the slightest necessity for this. Assuredly the Holy Spirit gives the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The differences are owing to no infirmity, but to His design, and what He has given us is incomparably better than a bare report by so many hands, all meaning to give the same words and facts.... Matthew and Luke alike give us the parable of the sower, but Matthew calls it the word of the kingdom, while Luke calls it the word of God. The Lord Jesus may have employed both in His discourse at this time.... The Spirit of God did not give us to have both in the same Gospel, but acts with Divine sovereignty. He does not lower the Evangelists into mere literal reporters... The mere mechanical system can never explain inspiration. It finds itself entirely baffled by the fact that the same words are not given in all the Gospels. Take Matthew: “Blessed are the poor” (verse 3), and Luke (verse 20): “Blessed are ye poor.” This is at once an embarrassing difficulty for the mechanical scheme of inspiration; it is none at all for those who hold to the Holy Spirit’s supremacy in employing different men as the vessels of His various objects.