As we have seen in our previous meditations, the books of the Old Testament abundantly set forth the character of God—His goodness, power, holiness, wisdom, and faithfulness; His patience too with a perverse and rebellious people, and His constant readiness to turn to them and to bless them; and though often obliged to chastise, He always eventually stood up for them, and humbled their adversaries. We see also that those who trusted in God were always helped and blessed. For a Christian, therefore, to be ignorant of the divine teaching of the Old Testament Scriptures, would not only be connected with great lack of knowledge of God and His ways, but with serious loss of the encouragement they minister to the life and walk of faith. We must not forget also, that as God’s blessings could only flow out to man since he fell through the sacrifice of Christ, we have oft-repeated, and varied typical instruction, concerning different aspects of His infinitely precious person, and work.
But in the New Testament the Son of God Himself is set before us, and His personal glory, redemption-work, and moral excellencies are largely and attractively unfolded. Here also we find that the Holy Ghost has come, and His Godhead, indwelling, personal acting’s, and operations, are blessedly set forth. The Father’s counsels in Christ are also brought out; so that it has been truly said that “the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.” In the Gospels, we are in company with our adorable Lord, and trace His steps, hear His words, contemplate His marvelous acting’s, and admire His perfect wisdom, holiness, and love. This is, no doubt, why Christians so often like to read this part of Holy Scripture. The Epistles instruct us in the mystery of the church, and the calling, standing, present acceptance, special blessings, relationships, hope, and walk of the believer. The failure of the church as a corporate witness for God in the earth ending in judgment, with instructions to the faithful in the last days, are also here. But, in the book of Revelation, the curtain which now hides the future is lifted up, and we are divinely instructed as to the great principles now working in the earth and their results. We are here led by the Spirit to look down into the lake of fire, and behold the eternal doom of the unbelieving, and also to turn our eyes upward to the everlasting joy and unchanging blessedness of those who are redeemed by the precious blood of the Lamb.
THE FOUR GOSPELS.
Every attentive reader must have been struck with the diversity of the four gospels. Even in the narration of the same event, considerable difference is found to exist. The reason is obvious. While each writer was divinely inspired for the work, it is clear that it was the province of each to give a different aspect of the personal glory and ways of the blessed Lord. While no parts, therefore, of these Holy Scriptures can possibly contradict each other, it is clear that, because each evangelist gives a separate line of instruction, the labor of the natural mind to harmonize the four Gospels must always be unsuccessful. To suppose that each merely wrote an account of our Lord and His blessed ways, as each best knew and remembered, would be to lower the idea of an inspired account to a mere human production. It is, moreover, certain that this was not the case, but that they recorded and put together facts, sometimes independent of their chronological order, as they were divinely directed; so that on some occasions one omitted what he was most familiar with, and others who had no personal acquaintance with the fact were led to narrate it. For example, John was the only one of the four evangelists (Matthew 26:3737And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. (Matthew 26:37)) who was present in the garden with our blessed Lord at the time of His agony, when “He sweat as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” But John writes nothing of it in his Gospel; whereas Matthew, and Mark, and Luke, who were not present, are the instruments used to give us such touching details of Gethsemane.
It was Matthew’s office to write of our adorable Lord as the Messiah, Mark as the perfect servant, Luke as the Son of Man, and John as Son of God— “the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” All the Gospels, therefore, begin differently. Matthew introduces Him as “Son of David, the Son of Abram;” Mark as “Jesus Christ, the Son of God;” Luke as the holy thing born of Mary, “called the Son of God;” John as “the Word which was in the beginning with God, and was God; the Word made flesh, and dwelt among us.” Nor are the terminations of each Gospel less remarkable, each too in keeping with the subject of the book. Matthew gives us no account of our Lord’s ascension, but concludes his Gospel by setting forth Jesus risen, standing on the earth, and instructing the apostles of the kingdom—representing the Jewish remnant—as to the discipling of the nations, which we know will not take place till after the church is gone. Mark sets our Lord before us as finding no rest till He is risen, ascended, and sitting on the right hand of God; Luke concludes his account of Jesus the Son of Man as risen, eating broiled fish and honeycomb, promising the Holy Ghost, leading His disciples out as far as to Bethany, parted from them, and carried up into heaven. John ends his Gospel by an account of Jesus risen, ascending to His Father and our Father, His God and our God, breathing on His disciples the Holy Ghost, caring for them, and alluding to His coming again. Observe, too, the gradation in the termination of the four Gospels. Matthew concludes with Jesus risen; Mark with Jesus risen and ascended; Luke with Jesus risen, ascended, and promising the gift of the Holy Ghost— “power from on high;” John with Jesus risen, ascended, breathing on His disciples the Holy Ghost, dud speaking of His coming again.
The general structure and contents of each Gospel remarkably agree with the aspect of the Lord which each evangelist introduces. Matthew, therefore, treating of the Messiah character of our blessed Lord, gives many points of precious truth, in keeping with this subject, which are not found in any other part of Scripture. He alone speaks of Him as “born King of the Jews.” The expression, “the kingdom of heaven,” is found only here, and is repeated about twenty-eight times; for the hope of Jewish people is a kingdom “as the days of heaven upon the earth.” (Deuteronomy 11:2121That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth. (Deuteronomy 11:21).) The expression, too, “the end of the age,” only occurs in this Gospel. Here only have we a detailed account of the Sermon on the Mount, as it is called; and the twelve apostles of the kingdom are charged to confine their ministry to the house of Israel. Here only have we a full record of “the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” because, though they give instruction to us now, they will be specially applicable to the remnant of Israel by and by, when the Lord shall “cast out of His kingdom them that offend and do iniquity.” Matthew only gives a full report of our Lord’s prophetic discourse as to His coming again to the earth and the end of the age, and of His judgment of the sheep and goats when Christ sits as King upon His throne; and His brethren after the flesh deeply realize Jehovah’s faithfulness to His promise to Abraham, “I will bless him that blesseth thee, and curse him that curseth thee.” In this Gospel only is recorded the wicked utterance of the apostate Jews, “His blood be on us, and on our children;” or the fact narrated that the soldiers were bribed with money to declare the palpable falsehood that while they slept the disciples came by night, and stole the body of the Lord Jesus. And, as before alluded to, here only is the commission given (not by Jesus ascended in glory, but) by Jesus risen and standing on the earth, to the apostles of the kingdom, to disciple (not Jews, but) the nations, and to baptize them “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Thus the Lord looks beyond this present church-time altogether, and appoints a ministry of His faithful people on earth (no doubt the Jewish remnant) after the church is gone. This ministry is here contemplated to continue until the Lord comes out of heaven with us in flaming fire, “the end of the age;” hence He adds, “Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world” (age).
In Mark we have no account of the Lord’s birth. “Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” is here looked at as the perfect servant, going on day by day in faithful, untiring devotedness to Him who sent Him. The words “anon,” “straightway,” “immediately,” occur many times. On one ‘occasion we are told that “they could not so much as eat bread.” His feelings as Jehovah’s servant are peculiarly noticed. We read once that “He looked round about on them in anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts;” and another time, that “He sighed deeply in His spirit.” Still He went on, and accomplished all the work appointed Him, until He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. He commissions the eleven to “go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”
Luke, presenting Jesus as the woman’s Seed—Son of Man—brings out many points, not found in any other book, of the Lord’s ministry and ways, strikingly in keeping with his subject. Here only have we a detailed account of the circumstances connected with our Lord’s birth, and “that holy thing, the Son of God,” and “Son of the Highest,” contrasted with a child full of the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb, and “prophet of the Highest.”— John. The Lord’s genealogy is here traced to Adam; and in this gospel only is the account of Simeon’s taking the holy child in his arms; the ways of Jesus at the age of twelve years; His deep compassion for the widow of Nain; the story of the good Samaritan; His being received into Martha’s house; the parable of the prodigal son, as it is called, and also of the rich man and Lazarus. And, to pass on, it is Luke alone who speaks of our Lord in Gethsemane, “sweating as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground;” or that He prayed for the Jews, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do;” and said to the believing thief, “This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise;” or that records the conversation with the two disciples going to Emmaus after He was risen from the dead. This evangelist only tells us that He enjoined His disciples, when they were affrighted, supposing they had seen a spirit, to handle Him, and see; for, said He, “a spirit has not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have;” and then took a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb, and did eat before them. It is Luke who enters so fully into the Lord’s ministry of the Scriptures to them, and that, while in the act of blessing them, “He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.” The commission here is to preach “repentance and remission of sins in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”
In John we see Him who “is in the bosom of the Father”— “the Son of God”— “the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” We therefore find Him here disclosing the counsels and love of the Father’s heart. This Gospel is unlike any other book in Scripture. All is peculiarly in keeping with the subject proposed. It is the ministry of “life,” and “light,” and “love.” He is “the life,” the giver of life, and of the water of life, and is the bread of life. He is “the light of the world,” and those who follow Him have “the light of life.” He so declared the Father’s love, that He spake the words of the Father, and that the Father who dwelt in Him did the works. So that he that had seen Him had seen the Father, that the Father was greater than He, though it was equally true that He and the Father were one. But, for all His love, He had hatred—they hated Him without a cause. And, after being rejected by Israel, He brings out the marvelous discourse of chapter 14, 15, 16, and the prayer recorded in chapter 17. Here, specially for our comfort during His absence, He refers to the Father perhaps forty times, and many times to the Holy Ghost, the other Comforter given to us while He is away. Nor can He leave the earth after He is risen from the dead without sending to His disciples the message, “I ascend unto my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your Go;” thus showing that, through the grace of God, in virtue of His finished work, they would now be brought into the same relationship with His God and Father as Himself. In the last chapter He shows His tender care of His own, even as to food for the body, enjoins them who love Him to care for His lambs and sheep, and to follow Him in expectation of His coming.