Introduction
The first major section of the New Testament is composed of the four Gospels. It is helpful in approaching a study of these books to first read through them thoroughly, forming general impressions about them as a whole. Afterwards a more detailed study of the individual books may be entered into with more profit.
General Impressions
The general impressions of the Gospels will be presented using an Acrostic on the word “Gospels.” This is a simple mechanism designed to facilitate the study as well as to encourage remembrance of as many of the basic details as possible. Key phrases will be formed using the letters of the word “Gospels” as the initial letters of the key phrases. Each key phrase will suggest a significant aspect of the Gospels as a whole.
Genesis 3:15
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
This verse reveals that which underlies all of human history, a major conflict between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. This warfare has been waged between those who line up with Satan and those who by faith align themselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, ever since the Fall of man in the Garden of Eden. Unless the Gospel records are approached from this perspective they cannot possibly be rightly understood.
The oldest book in the Bible, the book of Job, reveals this conflict of the seeds in a very clear manner. The book opens with a description of Satan’s activity in bringing about the sufferings of Job. Satan’s attack was directly upon this man who was a model of God’s redemptive power in Christ. These early chapters of Job ought not to be overlooked by serious Christians today. Nor should serious Bible students study the Gospels without the emphatic reminder that they record important aspects and events in the history of the conflict of the seeds. Another writer suggests this same reality when he says the following.
The Gospels narrate stories of intense conflict, a warfare that the narrators believed to have had both primal and eschatological dimensions. These dimensions inhered in the conviction that the ultimate antagonists were God and Satan.[1]
Continuing in the same vein later, Minear says the following.
It is not surprising, then, that their grammar included a correlation of thinking about God with thinking about his age-long conflict with Satan, a warfare involving both heaven and earth but centering on earth in Israel’s rebellion against God.[2]
Jesus Christ is the conquering Seed of the woman. He came to destroy Satan and his works. But Satan did not sit idly by at the time of the incarnation of the Son of God. He pressed the battle. This can be seen in the gospels in a number of ways:
In Matthew 2 Herod sends out a company of soldiers to kill all of the children in the area of Bethlehem, in hopes of killing the newborn king of the Jews. This is larger than a mere manifestation of the paranoia of a power-mad king. It is the outworking of the conflict of the seeds. Satan is influencing a powerful human being to attempt to destroy the conquering Seed of the woman while He is still in infancy.
This conflict of the seeds is nowhere more clearly seen in the Gospels than in the temptation of Christ recorded in Matthew 4, Mark 1, and Luke 4. Here the warfare between the Lord Jesus Christ and Satan is right out in the open.
Numerous times throughout the Gospels the Lord Jesus Christ engages the forces of darkness in direct confrontations, as He casts demons out of individuals or multitudes. Christ, the genuine Incarnation of God, is infinitely greater than Satan’s caricature of incarnation through demon possession.
In Gethsemane the Lord Jesus Christ proves that He is victorious over Satan’s greatest ally in the conflict of the seeds: the human will.
In His trials the Lord manifested His victory over human political and religious leaders who were under the influence or control of Satan. It was Christ, and not Pilate or Herod, who reigned in those judgment halls that night.
Finally, in His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, the Lord Jesus Christ revealed His complete victory over Satan and all his works.
The student of the Gospels does well to keep in mind the theme of the conflict of the seeds.
Objective Resting Place of Faith
Both the Old Testament and the New Testament begin with historical foundations. The Pentateuch records the historical facts that underlie all of the Old Testament. And the Gospels record the historical facts that underlie all of the New Testament. Any religion that is not rooted in historical fact cannot truly lead a man to God.
There is a strain of pseudo-Christian interpretation of history that is often identified by the label: heilgeschichte.[3] Using this mode of interpreting history, one would see the broad, significant realities, while devaluing the historical facts. The important thing in history, according to this approach, is that God is at work redemptively. But the verifiable facts of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth are really of little significance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Another writer says the following in response to such foolish thinking.
From the very beginning his resurrection and glorification was the basis on which the early church was founded, the Jewish christian church in Palestine as well as the gentile one. The faith of this church was founded on what happened to Jesus, not simply on his teaching. The reason for the oldest community in Jerusalem placing his teaching at the centre of its life was that his disciples had experienced the resurrection of the crucified Jesus. Only because God had finally given his sanction to Jesus, because the resurrection was proof of the truth of his teaching, did his teaching have such importance for the church after Easter.[4]
In the Gospels mankind is presented with the redemptive facts of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, who is the Christ, the Son of God. Apart from the veracity of these facts, there can be no objective resting-place for the Christian’s faith.
Furthermore, one must accept the facts about Jesus Christ revealed in the Gospels before he can experience the work of the Holy Spirit making this same Christ “real” to him. Apart from the revelation of Who Christ is in the Gospels, one has no assurance of the message of redemption and salvation in the rest of the New Testament. For example, the promise of Philippians 4:19- My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus has little meaning apart from the revelation of Christ in the Gospels in such passages as those where He fed the 5,000 with five loaves and two small fishes.
Every Christian needs the revelation of the facts about Christ in the Gospels as an objective resting-place for his faith. Everything that follows the Gospels depends upon their historicity.
Seed Plot of the New Testament
The Gospels also provide the Seed Plot for the entire New Testament. For everything that is revealed in the New Testament, there are seeds planted in the four Gospels. This principle can perhaps best be understood by looking at the book of Genesis. It is obvious that for everything that is revealed in the entire Bible, the seeds are planted in the book of Genesis. Genesis, then is the Seed Plot for the Bible as a whole.
The Old Testament is also a Seed Plot, in a sense. All that is revealed in seed form in the Old Testament is revealed in fully developed form in the New Testament. It is literally impossible to find anything in the New Testament that does not have it corresponding seed form revelation in the Old Testament.
Similarly, the Gospels are literally filled with seed form revelations of truth which are brought out in fully developed form later in the New Testament. Van Oosterzee says the following regarding this matter.
In the discourses of Jesus, we have the pregnant germ and kernel, the root, the simple but firm foundation; in the Apostolic teaching, as the other New Testament writings give it, we have the offshoots and the branches, the plant grown forth from the germ; we have the completed edifice, which rests upon the simple but firm foundation.[5]
An example of this entire scope of revealed truth can be seen in the mention of that which is “within the veil” in Hebrews 6:19. In order to understand this reference the student is driven back to the mentions in the Gospels of the temple veil being rent (Matthew 27:51, Luke 23:45), and further back into the Old Testament seed form revelations of the same reality where the veil in the Tabernacle is mentioned.[6]
Thus, any study of the New Testament is dependent upon a foundational understanding of the Seed Plot of the New Testament in the Gospels.
Picture Christ Completely
Taken together the four Gospels picture Christ completely. These four documents reveal all that the Christian needs to know about the Person of Jesus Christ during the present dispensation. Two passages in the Gospel of John clarify this.
And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.
But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
John 21:25 & 20:31
Thus, it is that each of the Gospel writers has a primary approach, or central theme that he carries throughout his Gospel. In Matthew Christ is presented as the promised Savior-King of the Jews. Mark presents Christ as the Amazing Servant of God. Luke emphasizes that this same Christ is the Kinsman-Redeemer of all mankind. And John identifies Christ as the Life-giving Son of God. Taken together, these accounts provide a complete revelation of Christ. But it is important not to make a very common mistake about these Gospels at this point. It is brought out by another writer, as follows.
The Gospels are distinctively Christian forms of literature. At first the message about Jesus Christ was circulated by means of oral communication. However, in response to the increasing dearth of eyewitnesses to Jesus, to the challenges of competing religions and philosophies, to persecutions, and to questions, concerns, and needs of Christians, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John emerged. The writers penned the Gospels at different times and under different circumstances; consequently, each writer compiled and wrote from a different perspective and purpose. They are not exactly history or biography, although they contain historical and biographical information. Rather, they are proclamations about Jesus Christ.[7]
Emphasis upon the Supernatural
The Endpoints of the Section as a Whole: In Matthew 1, the opening chapter of the Gospels, there is overwhelming emphasis upon the supernatural in the revelation of the Virgin birth of Jesus Christ. In John 21, the last chapter of the Gospels, the supernatural reality of Christ is manifested as He, risen from the dead, enables His disciples to catch a miraculous draught of fishes.
The Endpoints of each of the Gospels: The first and last chapters of each Gospel, taken separately, lay special emphasis upon the supernatural as well.
Throughout the Gospel narratives stress is laid upon the supernatural power of Christ:
His power over the physical creation is seen as He calms the stormy sea.[8]
His power over the plant creation is revealed as He curses the fig tree and it withers.[9]
His power is shown over the animal creation in numerous ways. In one instance He sends Peter to catch a fish with a coin in its mouth.[10] That fish had the coin in its mouth because of the sovereign power of Christ.
Christ manifests supernatural power in the realm of spirits as He casts them out of human hosts repeatedly.[11]
He has power over disease[12]
And even death.[13]
His supernatural power extends to overruling the laws of nature as He walks on water[14]
And eventually ascends bodily into the heavens.[15]
This emphasis upon the supernatural in the Gospels serves as a constant reminder to the Christian that all of the Christian life is supernatural. It begins with a supernatural conversion and ends with a supernatural resurrection. All throughout life on the earth the Christian life is a continuous manifestation of the supernatural power of Christ in the believer, as the believer rules over sin and reigns in life through Christ.[16]
Leave Us with a Missionary Message
The Gospels are literally filled with an emphatic missionary message. By the time of His coming His own people, the Jews, constituted a mission field. But, though sent first to the Jews, the Lord Jesus Christ did not limit His redemptive work to them. Even a cursory reading of the four Gospels leaves the reader with a consciousness that Christ came to save sinners, and that He is indeed the propitiation for the sins of the whole world.
This missionary emphasis is clear even in His baptism, an act by which He identified Himself with all the sinners of the world. It was at that time that John the Baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” Each Gospel ends with the Great Commission, by means of which the resurrected Lord sends forth His disciples to preach the Gospel to every creature.
The Gospels are literally filled with Christ’s concern for the multitudes. The word multitude, in its singular or plural form, occurs at least eighty-three times in the Gospels. While Christ laid special emphasis upon teaching His own, it was always with the view of reaching the multitudes. One is reminded of the passage in Revelation 7 that speaks of the multitude which no man can number surrounding the throne in heaven. It is a multitude taken from every kindred and tribe and tongue under heaven. This emphasis is well delineated by another writer in the following excerpt.
The God of the Gospels selects particular individuals and sends them to selected audiences with carefully chosen messages on which the future of those audiences depends. Again, the God of the Gospels is one who calls into existence a community of the elect and gives to it a distinctive mission for all races and nations. Other societies are born and die within the span of universal history; this one alone draws its life from a realm that has no end, hidden with the Eternal.[17]
Failure to discern this missionary emphasis in the Gospels results in failure to grasp the fullness of the Gospel message, or the reality of Who Christ is.
Stress the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Christ
The passage in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 has often been called the Gospel in a nutshell.
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, How that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures: And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures.
Since it is these key events associated with Jesus Christ which comprise the essence of the Gospel message, it is no surprise that fully one third of the content of all the Gospels details His last week, culminating with His crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.
Matthew 21 - 28
Mark 11 - 16
Luke 19 (near the end of the chapter) - 24
John 12 (near the end of the chapter) – 21
In contrast with this strong emphasis upon these key events in all four Gospels are the following events NOT mentioned in all four Gospels: the Virgin birth of Christ, the Baptism of Christ, the Temptation of Christ, the miracle of His walking on the water, and His Ascension.
These deliberate omissions by the Holy Spirit serve to lay even greater stress upon the inclusion of the detailed accounts in all four Gospels of the key events of His last week. It is these events which lay the foundation for the Gospel message as a whole. Indeed, the Gospel message is the message of the terribly suffering Saviour. Hear John Hall.
“No man cometh unto the Father but by Him.” And when the Father would give men the knowledge of the light of His glory, how does he proceed? Why (2 Corinthians iv. 6), He shines into their hearts. And how? To what does He turn men’s gaze? Not to His mighty works; not to creative or providential wonders; not to geological or astronomical facts; not to the data on which Paley and Bell, and other admirable writers build up their argument from design; not to the still greater wonders of mind, but to “the face of Jesus Christ”- that face that was more marred than any man’s; that endured the ruffian blows; down which the blood-drops trickled; that looked down on a mocking crowd from an ignominious cross. To that the Father points, as though He said, “Look at that spectacle- my Son, my holy, innocent Son, wounded for your transgressions, bruised for your iniquities. See in Him the holiness of my law, the rigor of my justice. See in Him the depth and tenderness of my love. Believe the love I have toward you, and give your hearts to me in Him.” This is God’s method, my brethren.[18]
The Gospels lay such significant stress upon the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ because these are the very essence of the Gospel message these books were written to convey.
[1] Paul S. Minear, The God of the Gospels (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1988), 102. [2] Ibid, 134. [3] For a brief, but clear description of this mode of interpretation see Norman L. Geisler’s Christian Apologetics, Grand Rapids: Baker: 1976, 86-88. He presents the matter from the positive side, saying little about the dangers involved. [4] Ulrich Wilckens, God’s Revelation: A Way Through the New Testament (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1967), 74. [5] Rev. J. J. Van Oosterzee, Theology of the New Testament (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1890), 188. [6] Exodus 26:31ff, etc. [7] Joe Blair, Introducing the New Testament (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994), 15. [8] Matthew 8:26 [9] Mark 11:13ff. [10] Matthew 17:27ff. [11] Matthew 8:28ff, etc. [12] Matthew 8:5ff, etc. [13] John 11:43ff, etc. [14] John 6:19, etc. [15] Luke 24:51, etc. [16] Romans 5:17. [17] Paul S. Minear, The God of the Gospels (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1988), 34-35. [18] John Hall, God’s Word Through Preaching: The Lyman Beecher Lectures before the Theological Department of Yale College (New York: Dodd and Mead, 1875), 175-176.