The Gospels

The Gospels The Sun of Righteousness has arisen with healing on His wings. In our previous studies we have been watching the unfolding of the dawn of that day which Abraham rejoiced to see, of the Star prophesied by Balaam, of the great Light foretold by Isaiah. We have, as it were, been watching one cloud after another lit up by the coming glory, and now the King of Glory Himself has come. “We have seen His star in the east, and are come to worship Him.” We have “seen the Lord’s Christ.” “Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a Light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel.”

Wherever the Light of Christ has shone it has brought a higher ideal of human life to the individual, a higher moral law than was known before. The Gospel of Christ is the only religion which has a ray of hope for the lost, the sinful, the oppressed and the weak, or a message for the woman and the little child. The Christ who, for nineteen centuries, has won the victory over sin and darkness and moral degradation is the Christ of the New Testament. Except the bare fact of His existence, all we know of Him is from the Bible. It is vain for men to say today, we believe in Christ, but reject the Bible. It is the preaching of Christ as He is revealed in the Bible--“God incarnate, perfect Man, Saviour by the way of the Cross, and Lord by the resurrection”--that has produced this transformation in the hearts and lives of men (Campbell Morgan). In the Gospel of Christ according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, we see God’s purpose in giving us a fourfold picture of Him, which brings out the majesty of His person and work. A statue has this advantage over a picture, that it enables us to see the one represented from all sides. So this fourfold presentation of Christ exhibits from each point of view some fresh beauty in Him. The four evangelists have been compared with the four cherubim of Ezekiel and Revelation. Matthew shows us our Lord in His kingly aspect as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah; Mark exhibits Him as the faithful Servant of Jehovah, the ox, ready alike for service or for sacrifice; Luke presents Him as the Son of Man, full of human sympathy, as the emblem of the man suggests; whereas, with John, we see Him as the Son of God, the eagle, soaring into the heavenly blue with a majesty that transcends all our thought and imagination.

Dr. Monro Gibson has pointed out the beautiful unity of plan between the Old and New Testaments, as shown in the following table:--

Old Testament|Law|Law|Giving of the Law| |Historical Books|Application|Prophets|Poetical books|Experience| |Prophetical Books|Outlook beyond||
New Testament|Christ|Gospels|Giving of the New Covenant| |Acts|Application|Apostles|Epistles|Experience| |Revelation|Outlook beyond||