As a preliminary to any detailed observations on the Gospels, allow me briefly to notice the wisdom of the Spirit in the choice of each workman for his work.
Matthew, “the publican,” was not one whom man would have selected as the apostle and biographer of the Messiah. At first sight he might seem the least eligible for presenting the Lord to the Jews; for, as a class, none were in such disrepute as those Jews who consented to gather the taxes which the Romans imposed on their nation. But, regarded more closely, nothing could have been in more admirable keeping with the line of things which the Holy Ghost traces in his Gospel; for Jesus there is not the Messiah only, but the rejected Messiah. His rejection, with its grave and fruitful results, is just as much the theme as His intrinsic claims, with all God's external attestations. And who so fit a witness of the grace which would seek the least worthy, if those “that were bidden” would not come, as he who was called from the odious receipt of customs?
In the second Gospel the Spirit is evidently developing the perfectness of the Lord's ministry in word and deed. Now “John, whose surname was Mark,” was just the right person for such a task, always bearing in mind that none could be fit unless immediately inspired to write. But, among those who were so empowered of God, John Mark was precisely the one fitted by personal experience to appreciate, when the Spirit gave him to indite that divine account of the gospel-service of Jesus; for he had bitterly known what it was to put his hand to the plow and look back, with its painful consequences on all sides (Acts 13-15). But he had also learned, to his joy, and the blessing of others, that the Lord can restore and strengthen, giving us, through His grace, to overcome wherein we have most broken down. This very Mark subsequently became a fellow-worker of Paul, and a comfort to him, as much as earlier he had been a sorrow (Col. 4). “Take Mark,” says he, in his last letter to Timothy, “and bring him with thee; for he is profitable to me for the ministry.”
For the writing of the third Gospel, again, Luke was manifestly the most appropriate instrument. From Col. 4 it would seem that he was a Gentile, and by profession a physician, both which particulars, as well as his dedication to Theophilus, wonderfully harmonize with the way in which our Lord is there depicted; not so much the Messiah, nor the Servant, as “the Man, Christ Jesus,” the Son of God, born of the Virgin, in His largest human relations, in His obedience and prayerfulness, in His social sympathies, in miracles of healing and cleansing, in parables of Special tenderness towards the lost. It is this prominence of our Lord's manhood, as brought out in Luke, which to me accounts for the emphatic statements of grace to Gentiles, as it falls in with the special form of his preface, which has been so frightfully abused by rationalists in general, English or foreign. He lets us know his motives, and seeks to draw Theophilus by the cords of a man; but if there be thus a human side of the picture, there is another as divine as in the other Gospels, where the thoughts and feelings of the heart are not so laid bare. The notion that such an opening, touchingly suited as it is to the way in which our Lord is throughout presented in this Gospel, should induce us to regard the writer as a mere faithful and honest compiler, without supernatural guidance in the arrangement of his subject matter, etc., is worthy only of an infidel. And it is only to cheat oneself or others with vain words to affirm that the occurrence of demonstrable mistakes in the Gospels does not in any way affect the inspiration of the Evangelists. The profanity of these statements scarcely exceeds their folly, nor should I have taken this opportunity to denounce them, if they were not at this moment finding extensive acceptance, especially among young students, not, alas! without the sanction of those who ought to know better.
Lastly, that St. John was eminently the right instrument for his task is most apparent. Who could so fitly, if so it pleased the Holy Ghost, set before us “the only begotten-Son, which is in the bosom of the Father,” as he who leaned on Jesus' bosom—the disciple whom Jesus loved?
It is the difference of design, which, to me, solves the difficulty stated by one objector or another—that Matthew and Mark, in the body of their Gospels, are occupied with the Lord's sojourn and ministry in Galilee; Luke with not that only, but His gradual journey to Jerusalem (9:51; 13:22; 17:11; 18:31.; 19:28); and John with His ways and words in or near Jerusalem itself, yet more than elsewhere, though Galilee and Samaria were assuredly not left out. What Matthew describes is the accomplishment of Jewish prophecy and the witness of Jerusalem's unbelief; while Mark's dwelling on the same arose, I think, from the fact that Galilee was the actual scene of our Lord's service, to which theme his Gospel is emphatically devoted. Luke, on the other hand, brings out the lingering of our Lord's love and pity: His face is steadfastly set on the place where He should accomplish His decease; but His slow steps attest the reluctance and the sorrow with which He visits Jerusalem for the last time, and affords the crowning proof of man's total ruin in His blood and cross. John, finally, regards every place and being, in the light of His personal divine glory. Jerusalem, therefore, is no longer, as in Matthew, styled “the holy city.” He was the Light, the true light all outside, and everywhere else, was but darkness, and Jerusalem needed the Son of God as much as Galilee, and was no more to Him, in that point of view, than any other spot. He could, so far as Himself was concerned, freely speak and work there or anywhere. What was “this mountain,” nay, what Jerusalem, to the Son of the Father? If there was nothing to attract, there was nothing in one sense which could repel. He who was full of grace and truth accepted His entire humiliation, and found objects on which to expend His love wherever. He might move in the boastful city of holiness no less than in the barren wilderness. It is the design impressed by God upon the several Gospels, which thus simply explains a fact which is seen by, but useless to, him who denies that design.