Four invaluable portraits
God understands our natural limitations to comprehend spiritual and eternal matters. So, in grace, He used various literary forms in the Old Testament, including word pictures, prophecies, shadows, types, allegories, symbols, and plain language, to preface the revelation of His supreme gift of love to the world: His own Son. This would allow humanity to recognize Christ when He arrived. Then, in the New Testament, God demonstrated His infinite wisdom by creating a vivid literary form to express the grandeur of His Son’s life and sacrifice. The new literary form is called “the gospel.” So great would be this love revelation to the world that only the gospel could declare the “mystery of godliness”: God manifest in the flesh.
The meaning of gospel
The word “gospel” is found 101 times in the New Testament. In the original language, the noun form euaggelion simply means “a good message,” while the verb form euaggelizo refers to “announcing the good news,” or “to evangelize.” The gospel message is good news from heaven to all humanity: through Christ, God’s peace has come to mankind, or, as the angelic host declared to the bewildered shepherds near Bethlehem so long ago, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will, toward men” (Lk. 2:14). Samuel Ridout comments on the significance of this message and the unique fashion in which God conveyed it:
It is the consideration of such amazing and wondrous themes as these which make the four Gospels unique in the entire Word of God. These give us the history of the incarnation, and show us “that Eternal Life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us.” The Epistles give us the precious truths which flow from the great fact of the incarnation and the Cross, but the Gospels show us the Person Himself, how He lived and how He died. There must therefore be a special importance attaching to this narrative. No other part of the New Testament could be substituted for the Gospels.1
Uniqueness of the Gospels
As one examines the four Gospels, it is quickly observed that deliberate variations, exclusions, and inclusions of content exist. There are different styles of language and arrangement of subjects. The Spirit of God never intended the Gospels to be a multiplication of narratives, but rather a necessity for completeness.
Likewise, the Holy Spirit made no attempt to convey a complete biography of the Lord’s life, for lengthy gaps of personal history are apparent. A brief breakdown of the content matter within the Gospels clearly demonstrates this point. Of the eighty-nine chapters in the four accounts, eighty-five pertain to the Lord’s last three years on earth, and twenty-eight of these focus solely on His final week. Therefore, roughly one third of the four Gospels is devoted to the specific details surrounding the events of Calvary. The gospel focus is a Person, not a biography of a person. The Gospels reveal what the Father longs for us to appreciate: the profound excellencies of His Son. C. I. Scofield summarizes the main purpose of the four Gospels:
The four Gospels record the eternal being, human ancestry, birth, life and ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus the Christ, Son of God and Son of Man. Taken together, they set forth, not a biography but a Person. The fact that the four Gospels present a Person rather than a complete biography indicates the spirit in which they should be approached. What is most important is to see and know through these narratives Him whom they reveal. It is of less importance to endeavor to piece together a full account of His life from these inspired records (John 21:25).2
Harmony of the Gospels?
God’s written “good news” to mankind is presented from the four unique vantage points found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Many have tried in vain to fully harmonize these accounts, but they cannot be fully harmonized; each gospel stands alone as an inspired testimony of a unique theme of Christ’s life and ministry. A. T. Robertson wrote a classic reference work entitled A Harmony of the Gospels. He acknowledges the difficulty of harmonizing the Gospels in the preface of that book:
A harmony of the Gospels cannot meet every phase of modern criticism…. No effort is made to reconcile all the divergent statements of various details in the different Gospels. The differences challenge the student’s interest as much as the correspondences and are natural marks of individual work.3
The intended purpose and distinct content of each of the four Gospels must be understood to more fully appreciate what God has spoken to us by His Son (Heb. 1:2). J. G. Bellett notes:
The four Gospels are coincident testimonies to the Lord Jesus Christ, and valuable as such. But we are not to read them as merely explanatory or supplemental. We get a complete view of our Lord Jesus Christ only by discerning their distinctness in character and purpose. Even in the histories of men we may perceive this. One biographer may give us the man in his domestic, another in his political life; but in order to be fully acquainted with him, we must see him in both of these, and perhaps in many other connections. And one of such biographers will not only select particular facts, but notice distinct circumstances in the same facts. The same thing we see in the four Gospels.4
Construction of the Gospels
Mark provides the most concise and chronologically accurate gospel account; He is presenting the “doings” of the Lord. John would be the next most chronological account of the Lord’s ministry but is characterized by vast gaps in the life of Christ.
Generally speaking, Matthew and Luke do not strive to record events in sequence, but in accordance with their associated themes of royalty and humanity, respectively. For this cause, miracles, discourses, events, and related facts are grouped together to ensure the fullest development of deliberate themes. For example, there is a variation between Matthew and Luke’s record of events in Christ’s temptation (testing) account. Why? Luke’s order of temptations is chronological, while Matthew arranged it climactically unto kingship, which is the vantage point of his gospel record.
God employed quite a variety of writers and styles to portray His Son to the world. Matthew and John were personally discipled by Christ, while Mark and Luke were not. Two authors were apostles, one was a Gentile believer, and one a later Jewish convert to Christ. One of the apostles and one of the non-apostles recorded the events, generally, as they happened, while the remaining two demonstrated the richness of unique presentation.
The unique gospel themes preclude a full harmony of facts but serve as an invitation to appreciate the distinct glories of Christ: Matthew presents Christ as the Jewish Messiah—the rightful heir to the throne of David. Mark conveys the selfless ministry of Christ as the Servant of Jehovah. Luke portrays the humanity and holy character Christ. John affirms the divine essence of the Lord Jesus as the Son of God.
As one slowly rotates a prism in white light, various colors are refracted through the prism such that the color one actually sees will depend upon one’s viewpoint. Same prism, same light, but distinctions in radiance are observed from various vantage points. As we view the Lord Jesus Christ by the light of divine revelation, we learn to appreciate the fullness of His matchless splendor from the diverse gospel illuminations. The Son is thoroughly and altogether lovely, as the Father fittingly proclaims to us through the four gospel records.
Endnotes
1 Samuel Ridout, The Serious Christian (Charlotte, NC: Books for Christians), p.12.
2 C. I. Scofield, The New Scofield Study Bible (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1967), p.987.
3 A. T. Robertson, A Harmony of the Gospels (New York, NY: Harper & Row Publishers, 1922), Preface.
4 J. G. Bellett, The Evangelists, Meditations on the Four Gospels (Addison, IL: Bible Truth Publishers), Intro.