It may be instructive to compare the different ways in which the Holy Ghost introduces our Lord's ministry in the gospels. And when I speak of His ministry, you will understand that I mean His public service, for there was much appertaining, to the Lord—miracles performed, and remarkable discourses uttered—before His ministerial course was formally entered on. What I would desire now, with the blessing of God, to notice is, the wisdom with which He has given us a distinct view of our Lord in each of these different inspired accounts. We may reverently follow Him who has been pleased to furnish them so variously omitting certain statements in some, and presenting them in others, altering now and then the order of narrating events, to accomplish thus His purpose more perfectly. In comparing these accounts we may see that the Holy Ghost always preserves the grand design of each gospel, and this is the basis of all just interpretation. We shall find, steadily keeping in view what He is aiming at, that we have in this what was really the principle on winch the gospels themselves were written, and consequently what alone will enable any soul to understand them aright.
Now, I have already shown, to commence with the gospel of Matthew, that, throughout, the Holy Ghost is setting before us the Messiah with the fullest proofs of His mission from God, but, alas! a suffering, a rejected One, and this specially by His own people; and among them rejected most of all by such as, humanly speaking, had most reason to receive Him. Were any peculiarly remarkable for their righteousness in the estimate of the nation? If Pharisees were so, who so bitter against Him? Were any celebrated for their knowledge of scripture? The Scribes were those combined with the Pharisees against Him. The priests, jealous of their position, would naturally oppose One who brought out the reality of a divine power, administered by the Son of man upon earth, in the forgiveness of sins. Now all these things come out with striking force and clearness in the gospel of Matthew. But although we are not arrived at these details as yet, still the main design of the Holy Ghost discovers itself in the manner in which our Lord is presented as entering upon His public ministry, in the portion that is now before us.
First of all, no notice is taken in Matthew of all that passed at Jerusalem. The Holy Ghost knew this perfectly well; He had nothing to learn about it. Humanly, Matthew was as likely to have known and inquired into the earlier circumstances of our Lord, and particularly as connected with that city, as the beloved disciple John. Yet of a great deal given in John, not a word appears in Matthew. In the fourth gospel we have a deputation from Jerusalem to see John the Baptist first, and then our Lord is acknowledged as Lamb of God, and as He who baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. Then we have our Lord making Himself known to various persons, among them to Simon Peter, after Andrew his brother had already been in the company of the wondrous stranger. Then Philip is called, who finds Nathaniel, and thus the work of the Lord spreads from one soul to another, either by the Lord attracting to Himself directly, or through the intervention of those already called. All this is entirely omitted here. Then, again, in John 2 is given the first great miracle in which Christ set forth His glory—the turning of water into wine—and after that our Lord goes up to Jerusalem and executes judgment upon the covetousness that then reigned, even in the boasted city of holiness. We have also a little incidental view of what our Lord was doing during this time at Jerusalem. He was working mighty miracles there, and many were believing on Him, though in a natural way. Jesus, it is said, “did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men;” but He does open the great doctrine of regeneration, and brings out the cross Himself to be made sin, thus, as the serpent had been lifted up by Moses in the wilderness, that whosoever believed Him “should not perish, but have everlasting life.” All this took place before the circumstances recorded by Matthew. When this is seen, it must strike any observing reader of the word of God. It could not be that these things were unknown to Matthew: they could not fail to be named and dwelt on, if, apart from inspiration, you look at him as a mere disciple. Andrew, Peter, and John, and the rest would have conversed on their first acquaintance with the Savior over and over again. Matthew does not say one word about it, neither does Mark or Luke, but John does. Now, when we examine the gospels themselves, we find the real solution. It is not the ignorance of one evangelist, nor the knowledge of another, that accounts either for the omissions or for the insertions. God gives such an account of Jesus as would perfectly impress the lesson He was teaching in each gospel.
Why does all we have noticed appear appropriately in John? Clearly because it falls in with the truth that is taught there. In John we have the utter ruin of man—of the world—from the outset. The first chapter shows us the practical evidence of what Judaism was—the Lord not received by His own, however duly coming, and thus calling His own sheep by name, and leading them out. For the testimony of John Baptist had no abiding effect upon the mass; it might pass from mouth to mouth, but it fell unheeded upon the ears of those that had no faith; “ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.” Now we have the individual sheep called by name, and one of them receiving a new name, thoroughly in keeping with the character of the Apostle John’s gospel. In Matthew we have none of these striking incidents, because therein the Holy Ghost is showing us Jehovah-Jesus, the Messiah, working miracles, accomplishing prophecy, expounding the kingdom of heaven, but in want, despised, and the companion of such in Galilee; for He is not seen here as the Son of God, whether from everlasting or as born into the world; but He Himself takes a place of separation, to carry out the great thought that the prophet Isaiah had been inspired of God to reveal hundreds of years before. For you will remark that our Lord's leaving Nazareth and coming to dwell in Capernaum is brought in here, as the fulfillment of that which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, “the land of Zebulon and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.” It was outside the regular allotment of Israel; in that part of it which is yet to belong to Israel, which certain of the tribes had taken possession of, though, strictly speaking, it was beyond the proper limits of the promised land. The Lord goes through Galilee of the Gentiles—and all this He was doing to fulfill a prophecy. The Jews ought surely to have known it. The people which sat in darkness thus “saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.”
Now, if we turn to the prophet Isaiah, we shall find the importance of this quotation somewhat more. It is part of a great prophetic strain, in which the Lord is showing the exceeding rebelliousness of Israel, and the judgments that came upon His people, because they would not hearken to His voice. His hand was stretched out against them. “For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.” (Isa. 5:25) In the midst of these dealings of God we have in Isa. 6 the glory of the Lord revealed. God is acting in his own glory. Now, we know that this glory is in the person of Christ, as John 12. declares. The Lord shows accordingly in Isa. 7 that there was to be a birth wholly above nature. It was no longer nor merely a glorious One sitting upon. a high throne removed from men, yet men receiving a message of mercy from Him in the midst of judgment. Chapter vii. reveals the great fact of the incarnation. The King of Glory, Jehovah of hosts, was to become a babe, born of a virgin. The next chapter shows us another fact. Israel no more cared for the glorious child of the virgin, than before for the warnings of God. On the contrary, they despised and rejected Him. Consequently, chapter viii. supposes a godly remnant more and more despised in the midst of a fearful state of things in Israel. who will then be joined, too, with the Gentiles, saying, A confederacy. There Israel are to take the place of utter unbelief; the inhabitants of Judea will be the leaders in this rebellion against God. But in the midst of it all, what is He doing? “Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. And I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and wonders in Israel, from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in Mount Zion.” That is, there is a most distinct declaration that God will be pleased to have only a little remnant in the midst of His own people. When Israel should reject the Messiah, a separated remnant appears there, and the blessing would come at last in all the fullness of this grace. Still it would be a small despised thing in the beginning; and this is exactly the circumstance that our Lord now was bringing out in evidence. “And when they shall say unto you, seek unto them that have familiar spirits Should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” And, accordingly, the prophecy goes on, “Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first He lightly afflicted the land of Zebulon, and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light (namely the Messiah): they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” He shows afterward in his prophecy that, while the Gentile affliction upon the nation would be heavier than ever, and the Roman oppression far exceed the Chaldean of old; yet the Messiah would be there, despised and rejected of men, nay, of the Jews, and that at this very time, when thus set at naught by the people that ought to have known His glory, great light would spring up in the most despised place, in Galilee of the nations, among the poorest of the Jews, where Gentiles were mixed up with them—people who could not even speak their language properly. There should this bright and heavenly light spring up; the Messiah would be owned and received. Thus we can see how thoroughly this prophecy suits the gospel we are considering. For what we have here, is One who is Jehovah-Messiah, in the truest sense, a divine king. and not a mere human being; but at the same time Messiah, while slighted by the nation, despised by the leaders, making Himself known in grace to those who were the most scorned in the outskirts, as you go out towards the Gentiles. What kings had looked for in vain, what prophets had desired to see, it was for their eyes to look upon. The Lord begins to separate Himself a remnant in Israel in Galilee of the Gentiles. This completely keeps up and confirms the object of Matthew, from the first.
But there is more than this. “From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Now it is clear that this begins His public preaching. The discourse to Nicodemus was entirely different. Why have we nothing like the Samaritan woman in Matthew? How does it fit in with the gospel of John? In Matthew the subject is the accomplishment of. the prophecies about the Messiah. The object of God there was to show that there was, on His part, no failure of testimony, till the Baptist's work closes. Jesus awaits this in Matthew In John He waits for nothing. He gives the grandest possible testimony about the kingdom, not exactly of heaven, but of God; the necessity of a life that man has not naturally—that God alone can give; and the necessity of the cross as the expression of God's judgment of sin in grace to sinners—to the world. So that the discourse in John 3 consists of these two parts—a life given of God, that never sins, that is perfectly holy; and Jesus dying in atonement for the sins of the old life which never could enter into the presence of God. And though believers must have that new life, yet this cannot blot out sin. Death is needled as well as life, and the Savior provides both. He is the source of life as the Son of God, and He dies as the Son of man. And this is what He brings out most profoundly in the beginning of John's gospel. In Matthew we have Jesus waiting till the testimony of John the Baptist is closed, and then He enters upon His public ministry. These things are perfectly harmonious. If our Lord had been said to preach the kingdom of heaven to Nicodemus, there might have seemed to be a contradiction; but He did not. He showed the necessity of a new birth for any who would see the kingdom of God. But in Matthew He is looking at what, though from a heavenly source, concerns the earth—the kingdom of heaven according to the prophecy of Daniel. He therefore waits till His earthly forerunner had fully done his task. The ministry of John is set forth by Elias; the forerunner must have done his work before the Lord begins His own. Hence Matthew leaves out all illusion to anything public about Christ before John is cast into prison. He presents to the Jews the kingdom of heaven as that which was according to their prophets.
In the gospel of Luke let us see how our Lord's ministry is opened. Chapter iv. will suffice for my purpose. The Lord returns in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, “and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. And he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up.” This is a previous scene; He is not in Capernaum yet. Matthew leaves it all out. This is the more striking because Luke was not one of those personally with our Lord, while Matthew was. But unless you believe that it is God who has guided the hand of every writer, and put His own seal upon it, you are incapable of understanding scripture; you will add your own thoughts, instead of being subject to the mind of God. What we want is to understand God, who is shedding on us His own blessed and infinite light. Why does God give us this incident at Nazareth in Luke and nowhere else? Is it the Messiah? No; such is not the object of Luke. Nor is it His ministry in the order in which it occurred; this you will find in Mark. But Luke, as well as Matthew, changes the order of events, for the purpose of bringing out the moral object of each gospel. Luke gives us this circumstance in the synagogue; Matthew does not. if any one has read the gospel of Luke with spiritual intelligence, what is the one grand impression conveyed to the mind? There is the blessed man, anointed of the Holy Ghost, and who goes about doing good. Indeed, this is precisely the way in which Peter sums up the life of Jesus in the Acts, when preaching Him to Cornelius; “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power; who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him,” and then he gives an account of His wonderful work in His death and resurrection.
Opening, then, the Gospel of Luke, what is the first incident of our Lord's ministry recorded there? At Nazareth, the most despised village in Galilee, the place where our Lord was sure to be scorned—in His own country, where he had been living all the days of His private life of blessed obedience rendered to man and of dependence upon God—in this same place He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read from the prophet. Isaiah, where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor: he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book.” He stopped in the very middle of a sentence. Why so? For the most precious reason. He was come here as a herald of grace, the minister of divine goodness to poor, miserable melt. There was judgment mingled with mercy in the prophecy of Isaiah. The Gospel of Matthew shows us judgment upon the Jews and mercy to despised Galilee. But here it is a larger thing. In Luke there is not a word about judgment; nothing appears but the fullness of grace that was in Christ. He was come with all power and willingness to bless: the Spirit of Jehovah was upon Him for the purpose. He was sent to preach the acceptable year of the Lord—and there and then He closed the book. He would not add the next words, which announced “the day of vengeance of our God.” He most significantly stops before a word is said of that day. As to the actual errand on which Jesus was come from heaven, it was not to execute vengeance: that was only what man would, by and by, compel Him to do by refusing grace. But He came to show divine love, flowing in a perfect, unceasing stream from His heart. This was what our Lord opened out here. Where does such a scene as this suit? Exactly the place where it does occur—the Gospel of Luke only. You could not transplant it to Matthew, or even to John. There is a character about it that pertains to this gospel and none other. Some of the circumstances of our Lord's ministry are given in all the gospels; but this is not; because it flows in the current of Luke: and there it is found, and there alone.
This will help to illustrate the characteristic and divinely-arranged differences of the gospels. Harmonizing is the attempt to squeeze into one mold things which are not the same. Thus, if I may add a few words on the account in Luke, we have more in corroboration. While they hung upon His lips to hear the gracious words, as the Holy Ghost characterizes them, all eyes fastened upon Him. “He began to say unto them, This day is the Scripture fulfilled in your ears. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?". There was their unbelief of heart. He was despised and rejected of men; not only of the proud men of Jerusalem, but at Nazareth. This is Luke's object, who shows is the deeper thought still—that it was not only men who might be built up in the law, but that the heart of man despised Him wherever He was. Let it be at Nazareth, and let Him utter the most gracious words that ever fell from the lips of man, still He was despised. “And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself; whatsoever we have heard down at Capernaum do also here in thy country.” Evidently we learn, too, that the Lord had done many things there. and things that had taken place previously to this: but the Spirit of God records this first at length. The Lord accordingly brings in another thing that I must refer to. He takes instances from Jewish history to illustrate the unbelief of the Jews, and the goodness of God to the Gentiles. “I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up. But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta.” &c. That is to say, He shows that, is the unbelief of Israel, God turns to the Gentiles, and that they should hear. There was one grand point in Luke's Gospel—not only the display of the fullness of grace that was in Jesus, but God going out to the Gentiles and showing mercy to them. The first recorded discourse of our Lord's in Luke brings out the very object of the gospel. Accordingly when the Lord uttered these words, “they were filled with wrath, and rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he, passing through the midst of them, went his way, and came down to Capernaum.” And then we have the Lord dealing with a man that was possessed with a devil. This is the first miracle detailed here and it is only in the next chapter that we find out Lord calling Simon Peter, Andrew, and the rest to follow Him; all which is given with the greatest possible care. At once we are struck with the difference; for when we turn back to Matthew, there is not a word about Nazareth, or the casting out of a devil from a man possessed; but that our Lord, when He began to preach, was walking by the sea of Galilee, and “saw two brethren, Simon, called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishers. And he said unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” The account is given very succinctly. The particulars are not found, but we do get them in Luke, and I presume, for this reason that his is specially the gospel where we see the moral analysis of the human heart. There are two things specially brought out in Luke—what God's heart is towards man, and what man's heart is naturally towards God; and, besides this, what he becomes throngh the grace of God. Take the parable of the prodigal for instance. Have you not there God's heart, and the wickedness of man's heart fully brought out; and then his coming to himself, and being lost in the goodness of God towards him? That is just the Gospel of Luke, the sum and substance of the whole book. This is one reason why you have the experience of Peter when first called to service; how the Lord met his fears, and fitted hilt, to become a fisher of men. And Peter is there made a prominent one, because you cannot have experience except in all individual. Experience must be a thing between the soul and Christ; and the moment it comes to be a matter of public notoriety, all is gone; it becomes then rather a snare for the conscience. There is the danger of repeating what we have heard from others, or of keeping back what is bad in our own. souls. It must be a matter of individual conscience with the Lord. In Luke you have one individual singled out, and the account given of what be passed through with the Lord; but in Matthew this is not the point. There it is the rejected Messiah, now that His forerunner is cast into prison, who will himself soon find that there is worse than a prison in store for Him. lint for all that, the Lord will accomplish the prophecies. He is, it, the most despised place, fulfilling the prophecy that predicted in Isaiah the law bound up among His disciples, at the very time that the Lord was hiding His face from Israel. Now, He wants to have persons who are prominent as the representatives of this godly remnant in Israel. Therefore, He calls first two brethren, Simon, called Peter, and Andrew, his brother. It would be a mistake to suppose that this was our Lord's first acquaintance with them. They knew the Lord long before. How do we know this? John tells us. If you examine the point, you will find that all the incidents in the first four chapters of John's Gospel occurred before this scene. The circumstances recorded of our Lord in Jerusalem, in Galilee, and with the woman of Samaria even, all took place before Simon and Andrew were called away from their work. In order to call for a special line of service, there is a second work of Christ necessary. It is one thing for Christ to reveal Himself to a soul, it is another to make that soul a fisher of men. There is a special faith needed in order to act upon the souls of others. The simple, saving faith that appropriates Christ for one's own soul is not at all the same thing as understanding the call of Christ summoning one away from all the natural objects of this life to do His work. This comes out here. The Lord, in His rejection, calls, and causes His voice to be heard by these four men, and by others also. They had already believed in Him, and had everlasting life; but to have everlasting life merely is compatible with a man's following a good deal with the world, and being occupied with what contributes to his own ease here below; he remains a member of the society of men. Many that are godly still continue mixed up with the world; but in order for the Lord to make them to be the companions of his own service, and to fit them for carrying out His own objects, He must call them away. But they have got a father: what is to be done? No matter; the call of Christ is paramount to every other claim. They were casting a net into the sea; and He saith onto them, “Follow me.” But they might have caught ever so much fish: what of that? “They straightway left their nets and followed him. And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them.” No doubt it was a struggle. They were mending their nets with their father when the Lord called them; but they immediately left their nets and their father, and followed Him. And for this reason. They now knew who Christ was, that He was the Messiah, the blessed object of hope that God had from the beginning promised to the fathers; and now the children had it. He called them. Could they not trust all they had in His hands, and confide in His care for their father? Surely they could. The very same faith which gave them to follow Jesus, not merely as a giver of everlasting life, but as One to whom they now belonged as servants, could enable them to confide all that they had pertaining to them in this world into This keeping. Surely, if the Lord called them, His call must be superior to their natural obligations. This was an extraordinary case. We do not find that persons in general are called to such a work as this; but, it may be, there are occasions where the Lord has those that He summons to serve Him in this special way. How could one be of use to the souls of others, unless one has known somewhat of this trial for one's Own soul? The Lord is presented here as thus forming this godly remnant, for Himself From the very beginning. “Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel.” This was what the Lord was now showing; but it is not all. “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 diseases among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought unto him all manner of sick people, that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy, and he healed them.” Now, mark; you get nowhere, except in Matthew, such a series of the Lord's works and teaching compressed into a couple of verses. In Matthew they are crowned into a cluster, before we have the teaching commonly called the sermon on the mount. Why do we have the ordinary current of the Lord's ministry brought before us here in this comprehensive form? The gospel of Matthew is intended to show that, after the Lord had called these disciples, you have His general service given for the purpose of proving the universal attention that was drawn to His doctrine, The Lord had been giving a full testimony every where through all Syria. Persons had been brought from every quarter; and the Holy Ghost then gives us the grand outline, that follows, of the kingdom of heaven. The circumstances are so arranged by the Holy Ghost as to show the universal attention directed to it. When all are on tip-toe to understand about the kingdom of heaven, then the Lord unfolds it. Matthew knew perfectly well that the sermon on the mount was really uttered long after. He heard it himself. Yet Matthew's own call is not given till chapter ix. It was subsequently to the call of the twelve disciples that our Lord took His place upon the mountain; but Matthew records it long before. The object is to show, not the time when our Lord uttered this discourse, but the fact itself. There were first, all these mighty deeds that were witnesses to His being the true Messiah; and then we have His doctrine perfectly brought out. The sermon on the mount need not be considered, historically, as one continuous discourse, but may have been uttered at different times. It is nowhere said that it was all uttered at the same occasion. We have only the general fact that there He was upon the mount, and there He taught the people. It may have been broken up into several discourses, with the circumstances giving rise to this part or that omitted in Matthew. The human mind compares these things together, and finding that in Luke different portions of it are given to us at different times, while in Matthew all is given together, instead of confiding in the certainty that God is right, jumps at once to the conclusion that there is confusion in these scriptures. There is really perfection. It is the Holy Ghost shaping all according to the object that He has in view.
Another time I hope, if the Lord will, to enter carefully into this most blessed discourse of our Lord's, to show its grand importance in itself, and its appropriateness in Matthew, where alone you have it so fully. In Mark it is not given at all, in Luke only in detached fragments, in Matthew as a whole. But now I merely commend to you the subject we have been looking at, trusting that the general remarks which have been made may prove an incentive to further and prayerful examination. May the hints thrown out help some to a more profitable reading of God's word, and more intelligent entering into His mind, besides giving a key to difficulties in the gospels.