M^2.7fc $^Collecttontne< « 1055 y «c

o
"3

ms

THE FOUR EVANGELISTS;

THE DISTINCTIVE CHAEACTEEISTICS
OF THEIR GOSPELS.

EDWARD A. THOMSON,
MINISTEB OF FKEE ST. STEPHEN'S, EDINECRGH.

EDINBUEGH:
T. & T. CLAEK, 38 GEOEGE STEEET.
LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO.. DUBLIN: JOHN ROBERTSON & CO.
MDCCCLXVIII.

PREFACE

The following pages form a reprint of six Articles
from the Journal of Prophecy. These Articles were
prepared as Pulpit-lectures in the ordinary course of
Sabbath-morning ministration, and they are here
published very much as originally written. This
will account for their popular character and peculiar
form. ^
The author has not adverted to many questions
connected with the Gospels which are being anxiously
canvassed at the present day. They did not come
across him in the prosecution of his object, and he
did not turn aside to seek them. At the same time, he
is disposed to think that some of them may indirectly
receive elucidation from the results of his investigations.
To instance one of the most difficult, — that of the
Origin of the Gospels, — it is not unhkely that the
peculiar aspect in which Christ is exhibited in the
Gospel according to Mark may be held to corroborate

vi Preface.
the opinion that that Gospel is a translation and con
tinuation of original Notes or Memoranda which had
been made by the Apostle Peter during the life-time
of his Master. It is quite the aspect in which, with
his fellow-disciples, Peter would then most naturally
regard the Saviour ; at least, it does not seem easy to
understand how a Gospel, in which, up till the re
surrection, the higher aspects of the Person of Christ
are kept so much in the background, could have
been originally written by either Peter or Mark sub
sequent to the Ascension. No doubt, it has been
said that the idea of translation and editorship is
inconsistent with the doctrine of inspiration, of plenary
inspiration. But the affirmation is unwarrantable.
It is surely quite gratuitous. For if inspiration is
consistent with Book-composition, why not with
one kind of it as well as another ? The book of
Genesis is believed to have been ultimately edited, as
well as originally written, under Divine inspiration ;
and why not the Gospel according to Mark as well ?
Yet after all, this question, along with many others,
is not so much as mentioned in the following pages.
Nor is it to be understood that any positive judg
ment is at present passed upon it. What has been
said is by way of explanation or suggestion only.
The books which have been consulted by the
author need not here be specified. He does not pre-

Preface. vii
tend to be independent of the labours of others ; and
it will be found that, generally, his obligations have
been acknowledged. But, while freely availing him
self of help as it came in his way, he has also thought
for himself ; and the product may now be helpful to
others in their turn. It is accompanied with his
sincerest prayers for a blessing iu the perusal of it.
" Thy testimonies are wonderful ; — therefore doth
my soul keep them. The entrance of Thy words
giveth light : — it giveth understanding unto the
simple. I opened my mouth, and panted ; — for I
longed for Thy commandments. Look Thou upon
me, and be merciful unto me; — as Thou usest to do
unto those that love Thy Name. Order my steps in
Thy word : — and let not any iniquity have dominion
over me. Deliver me from the oppression of man : —
so will I keep Thy precepts. Make Thy face to shine
upon Thy servant : — and teach me Thy statutes."

CONTENTS.

PAGE
The DrvERsrrr of the Gospels, . . .1
The Gospel according to Matthew, ... 21
The Gospel according to Mark, . . . . 50
The Gospel according to Luke, . ... 87
The Gospel according to John,  126
The Harmony of the Gospels,  156

THE FOURFOLD DIVERSITY
OP
THE GOSPELS.

:» • • • c

The four Gospels form in some respects the most
important portion of the Bible. Their value partly
arises out of their relation to other portions of it. All
its earlier revelations flow into them. All its later
revelations flow out of them. They are, as it were,
the heart through which, like hfe's blood, aU it-s
revelations circulate. But it is in their relation to
Christ that their value pre-eminently consists. " In
other parts of Scripture we hear Christ by the hearing
of the ear, but here our eye seeth Him. Elsewhere
we see Him through a glass darkly, but here face to
face."* On this account they claim the most affectionate
as weU as reverent perusal of the Church. The
ancient Church recognised this claim at a very early
period, by giving to each of them the name of "Gospel,"
a name which they did not originally bear, as written
* Dr David Brown.
a

2 The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels.
out by the four evangelists : " The Gospel according
to Matthew," — " The Gospel according to Mark," —
"The Gospel according to Luke,"- — "The Gospel
according to John." The claim may also be said to
be particularly recognised in our own day. Never
was there a period in the history of the Church when
they were more carefully examined, more closely studied.
The theological press teems with works relating to
one or other of the numerous questions connected with
their origin, their authenticity, their harmony, their
literary and other characteristics ; and " The Life of
Christ" is a favourite topic of investigation with both
the friends and the enemies of Christianity. The
volumes which have been published of late under that
title or on that subject form quite a library. It
would require a lifetime to master them.
After all, the Gospels deserve our ever-renewed
and increasingly attentive study. The same topics
in them which have been perhaps most dwelt upon
will always bear fresh and fuller investigation. There
is an exhaustless fulness in them — in every one of
them. Besides, there are multitudes every where who
read the Gospels so perfunctorily, so carelessly, that
they can hardly be said to know them, except in a
very general way indeed. For example, it may very
safely be assumed that many Bible readers have
never observed any thing singular or striking in the
diversity by which the four canonical Gospels are
distinguished from one another. That they were
written by different authors, respectively named Mat-

The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels. 3
thew, Mark, Luke, John, and that, with much that
is common to all, there are certain circumstances
which are only to be found in one or other of them,
is no doubt generally enough known ; but that there
is any thing in their diversity which is at all remark
able, in either one way or other, may very probably
have been wholly unobserved, so common is it for
familiarity to produce negligence of observation, as
well in reading as in other matters.
Now here is a topic which may not unprofitably
engage attention : — the fourfold diversity of the
Gospels ; the individual characteristics of each ; along
with the historical unity which nevertheless binds
theih together, as in reahty, with aU their differences,
the Gospel — the one Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son
of God. It might have been anticipated that the Spirit of
God would not have admitted so many as four Gospels
into so small a book as the Bible without having a
distinct object to serve by each of them ; and it is
really wonderful how this object should be so little
recognised when, so far from being a latent impress,
discernible only to a studious observation, it stands
out as a most prominent feature in every Gospel,
which may be easily enough perceived and also
appreciated by the simplest reader. Here are four
likenesses, photographed on a single card. The same
face appears in aU — only taken, one in profile, one
in full, and the other two from different sides ; so that,
though representing the face of but a single person,

4 Tlie Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels.
there is not one of them alike — they are, so to speak,
the same, but different. Or, here are different pic
tures of the same landscape by different artists ; and
the separate production of each of them, although
perfect after its own manner, is found to be distin
guished by manifold varieties, owing partly to the
different stand-points occupied by the artists in doing
their work, and partly to such causes as the peculi
arity of gifts, the diversity of tastes, and other obvious
differences in the individual painters. The same
thing occurs in literature. Take any biography of
the same person, as written, independently of one
another, by different authors ; and while, no doubt,
with the unity of subject there will be found a sub
stantial unity of representation in their respective
publications, there will, at the same time, be also
found in each of them many circumstantial varieties,
sharply enough defined, according to the amount of
acquaintanceship with the person in question possessed
by the different biographers, or according to the
features of his character which may have severally
most impressed them, and which they have endea
voured to exhibit or reproduce in their several narra
tives. It has been usual to cite in illustration the
well-known case of Socrates, one of the most eminent
characters of Grecian antiquity, whose life as written
by two of his immediate followers, Xenophon and
Plato, has descended to our times, but as differently
represented by each of them as can well be imagined
without destroying the personal identity of their com-

The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels. 5
mon hero. For whereas, according to Xenophon,
who was a soldier, a man of action, his master appears
to have been quite a practical sort of person, always
bringing out his principles in the various activities of
daily life ; according to Plato, who was a philosopher
of contemplative and profoundly thoughtful mind, he
appears to have been a deep, studious, penetrating
thinker, who was for ever inquiring into the principles
of action, the why and wherefore of everything. Now,
when the life of any of the world's heroes, or any
of the Church's worthies, is thus found to present
in ordinary human biogTaphy so many distinctly varied
aspects, quite harmonious enough withal, if the object
or stand-point of the different biographers is con
sidered — for no one doubts that the two accounts of
Socrates are, notwithstanding their diversity, perfectly
consistent with one another ; that, as separately re
presented by his biographers, he was both a man of
thought and a man of action, philosophical and prac
tical together — how much more ought it to be
expected that a similar, or rather a much greater,
variety of view should distinguish the biography of
Christ ! His was the most wonderful life ever spent
on earth ; there was a fulness of development in it, a
richness of phenomena, which far exceeded the per
ceptive power of any individual mind ; there was no
merely human being of sufficient comprehension to
take in the whole ; there was no one adequate to
produce a complete representation of it ; the task
required more minds than one ; and hence the divine

6 The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels.
provision of the four evangehsts, without whose four
fold plenitude we should have manifestly had an im
perfect or but a partial view of His person, character,
and life.
The mutual relationships of the Gospels, along with
their special diversities, were perhaps more distinctly
recognised by the ancient Church than they are now;
at least, it was then common to speak of them as the
four books of the one Gospel, or, more frequently,
the four-sided Gospel — the four-cornered Gospel — the
four-square Gospel. It was also common, and the
practice is still followed, to set forth their united yet
diversified characteristics by various emblematical
illustrations. Irenaeus, one of the earliest fathers of
the^ Church, compares them to the four quarters of
the world, and the four chief winds which blow over
all the earth; and he says, "Plainly the Church must
have four columns in the Gospel to support it, and
from these must come forth a blast breathing mercy
everlasting, and gi^dng life to men." Augustine, the
great divine of the early Church, comparfes them to
the four great trumpets which are. sounded together
into the four quarters of the world to summon and
gather the Church from the East and West and
North and South into a holy unity of faith. Calvin,
the Eeformer, compares them to a triumphal chariot,
drawn by four steeds, in which Christ rides forth in
great magnificence, and with rapid progress, before
the whole Church to review the world. Another
favourite and ancient emblem was taken from the

The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels. 7
river which flowed in a united stream through the
garden of Eden to water it, and then separated into
four channels as it issued out into the world. But
perhaps the emblem most generally used in all ages
is that of the four living creatures with the four faces
of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle, which appeared
in the visions of Ezekiel, moving as they were directed
by the Spirit, and upholding with their interlaced and
outspread wings the throne of the Man who is " the
likeness of the glory of the Lord ;" and which again
appeared in the apocalyptic visions of John as in the
midst of the throne and round about the throne ; or
rather, as an old expositor of the Reformation explains
this account of their position, as between the throne
and the elders, and round about the throne.
There are interpreters who hold that the four-
faced living creatures of Ezekiel and John were really
intended by the Spirit of God to symbolize the four
evangelists, or, as we should rather say, those aspects
of the person and the office of Christ which they
severally exhibit in their respective narratives.
We are not prepared to adopt the views of these
interpreters. They appear to savour more of the
sallow mysticism of the cloister than of the salutary
meditation of the closet. We must not suppose that
every thing in the Bible which is capable of an
allegorical adaptation and application to Christ bears
a typical character, or was intended by the Spirit of
God to exhibit Him in that peculiar manner to our
believing view. Such a notion has often led men to

8 The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels.
despise and decry the obvious interpretation of Scrip
ture as superficial, marrowless, carnal, and to seek
after a hidden mystical meaning as alone worthy of
being regarded as the teaching of the Spirit. Various
evils have flowed from this : — more particularly.
Scriptural study has been prosecuted by many under
the guidance of fancy rather than in the exercise of
faith ; a false craving has been extensively engendered
for something more piquant, and perhaps also more
recondite, than is supplied by the obvious sense of
Scripture; and the Word of God, instead of being
the plain book which he that runneth may read, has
been turned into an enigma, a riddle, a book of conun
drums, the sense of which is best discovered by those
who are most skilful in the art of guessing ; and
hence also the Church of Rome has been furnished
with the semblance of an argument in favour of her
prohibition of the circulation and perusal of the
Scriptures. We are satisfied that Luther had every
reason to denounce on this account the mystical in
terpretations of the monks and schoolmen, however
spiritual and profound they may appear to many, as
" trifling and foolish fables," with which, as he says,
" they rent the Scriptures into so many and diverse
senses, that poor silly consciences could receive no
certain doctrine of any thing ;"* and that Calvin too
was fuUy justified in saying that the true meaning of
Scripture is the natural and obvious meaning, by
which we ought resolutely to abide, and that " the
* Luther on Galatians, iv. 26.

The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels. 9
licentious system " of the mystics, as he strongly ex
presses it, is " undoubtedly a contrivance of Satan to
undermine the authority of Scripture, and to take
away from the reading of it the true advantage."*
Accordingly, we do not recognize in the four hving
creatures, as seen in vision by Ezekiel and John, the
types of the fourfold representation of Christ in the
four Gospels. It is enough to notice the analogy
which has been pointed out, and to employ it as an
ingenious and appropriately fehcitous illustration of
that representation. To this extent the use which
has been made of it for centuries in the Church, and
more particularly by the old painters, may be still
followed ; but, without better evidence than that of
a dogmatic assertion, it is manifestly improper to re
gard it as other than a happy accommodation of
human ingenuity to help the memory.
We only accept it as a comparison, which may be
useful to illustrate the unity of the Gospels along with
their characteristic diversities. As to the manner of
its application, we may notice the different order in
which the faces are represented by Ezekiel and John.
In the vision of Ezekiel the order is : — "As for the
likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a
man, and the face of a lion, on the right side ; and
they four had the face of an ox on the left side ;
they four also had the face of an eagle." (Chap. i.
10.) In the vision of John the order is: — "And
the first beast," or rather, as the word ought to be
* Calvin on Galatians, iv. 22.

1 0 The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels.
rendered, "the first living creature was like a lion,
and the second living creature like a calf, and the
third living creature had a face as a man, and the
fourth living creature was like a flying eagle." (Chap.
iv. 7.) With which of these representations does
the order of the Gospels correspond ? We need not
wonder that some should adopt the one, and some
the other; for, as it is said of the living creatures,
that they four had one Ukeness, and that two wings
of every one were joined one to another, so with all
their diversity of representation the evangelists relate
but one history, the history of the same Christ, and
therefore the view of each, while quite distinct, is at
the same time found to run into, and more or less to
take in also, the respective views of all the others.
At the same time, the order in the Apocalypse is
that which is to be preferred as really answering to
the order of the Gospels. The Church of Rome,
following Jerome, adopts, not very discriminatively,
the order in Ezekiel. We take her interpretation
from the Roman Catholic commentary of the Rhemist
fathers ; and those who are acquainted with the
pictures of the evangehsts in her illuminated missals,
and on her church walls and windows, as on the
interior of the dome of St. Peter's, will at once
perceive how much she makes of it;- — the pictures
are also often copied in the engravings of family
Bibles, and on the enamelled dial-plates of German
clocks : — " St. Matthew is likened to a man, because
he beginneth with the pedigree of Christ, as He is a

The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels. 11
man ; St. Mark to a lion, because he beginneth with
the preaching of St. John the Baptist, as it were the
roaring of a Uon in the wilderness ; St. Luke to a
calf, because he beginneth with a priest of the Old
Testament, (to wit, Zacharias, the father of John
Baptist,) which priesthood was to sacrifice calves to
God ; St. John to an eagle, because he beginneth
with the divinity of Christ, flying as high, as more
is not possible."* This is obviously childish; and,
could no closer resemblance be discovered between
the faces of the creatures and the characteristics of
the Gospels, it would be just as well to pass by the
thing as a comparison no less than as a type. Still,
it is not wrong to use Scriptural incidents or
facts in the way of figurative illustration, when this
may help the elucidation of any portion or any
doctrine of the Bible, provided the facts of history
are not transmuted by the process into the mere fable
of an allegory. We find that, in the Epistle to the
Galatians, Paul allegorises the story of Hagar and
Sarah with their sons Ishmael and Isaac ; and we
may imitate his example, — taking care, however,
to make our comparison but subordinate and subser
vient as a mere figure, or as no other than an
allegorical apphcation of the proper verity.
In this way, or just as a simihtude, let us adopt
the comparison between the faces of the living
creatures in their order, as seen by John, and the
peculiar characteristics of the Gospels in the order in
* Commentarie. Tte sunune of the Gospels. Vide Cartwright.

1 2 The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels.
which we have them in the Bible. " And the first
creature was like a lion." The lion is the emblem of
Judah's royalty, for Judah was the royal tribe.
" Judah is a lion's whelp ; from the prey, my son,
thou art gone up ; he stooped down ; he crouched as
a lion, and as an old lion ; who shall rouse him up ?
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a law
giver from between his feet until Shiloh come, and
unto Him shall the gathering of the people be."
And in the Gospel according to Matthew, Christ is
seen as " the Lion of the tribe of Judah," " the Root
of David," the "Shiloh," who is at once "King and
Lawgiver " in Judah ; in other words. He is the
promised royal Seed, " the Son of David, the Son of
Abraham ;" "and of the increase of His government
and peace there shall be no end," for His "kingdom
is not of this world ;" it is " the kingdom of heaven."
"And the second creature was like a calf," or "an
ox," as it is in Ezekiel. This is the emblem, at least
the oriental emblem, of patient, productive, profitable
labour. For it is written in the law of Moses, "Thou
shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth
out the corn." And saith the wise man, " Where no
oxen are, the crib is clean, but much increase is by
the strength of the ox." And the Gospel according
to Mark is pre-eminently the practical Gospel — the
Gospel of action, as it is sometimes called. There is
nothing royal in it, nothing great, nothing but the
record of constant laborious exertion and endurance in
ways of well-doing ; that is to say, we have in it the

The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels. 1 3
narrative of the outward active ministry of Christ;
not His ministry of words, for there are no long
sermons, and but a few short parables in it ; but His
ministry of deeds, as one labouring even unto death
on behalf of others, and for their good ; He makes
Himself of no reputation, and takes upon Him the
form of a servant, " the Lord's servant," according to
a familiar view or aspect of His character, in which
many of the prophecies exhibit Him. "And the
third creature had a face as a man." Here we have
the human aspect, an emblem of humanity in its
broadest relationships, and without any distinction of
class or country. " There is a spirit in man."
" Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour."
" I drew them with cords of a man." And in the
Gospel according to Luke, it is as "the Son of man"
that Christ is brought before us ; not so much as
"the Son of David;" or as "the Minister of the
circumcision," "the Servant of the Lord;" but as
"the Son of Adam," the partaker of a common
humanity with the whole • family of mankind, and
therefore the kinsman-Redeemer of the race, without
respect to the old distinction of Jew and Gentile ;
" the priest after the order of Melchisedec," for the
seed of Canaan under the curse as well as for the
seed of Abraham under the blessing. "And the
fourth creature was Hke a flying eagle." Here is the
emblem of far-seeing and high-soaring knowledge.
" Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and
make her nest on high ?" " The way of an eagle

1 4 The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels.
in the air " is one of " three things," which Solomon
says " are too wonderful for me." Named of old
"the bird of heaven," and "the king of birds," it is
said to fly higher than any of them, with unwinking
vision right in the eye of the sun itself, till it is com
pletely out of sight beyond the clouds. And in the
Gospel according to John, are we not carried to a
much loftier and sublimer height than in any of the
other Gospels 1 For while in them the three evan
gelists walk with Christ as it were on earth, here
John ascends with Him as it were to heaven, and to
the very throne of God ; he speaks of Him most of
all in the transcendant and ineffable mystery of His
Divine relations ; not as "the Son of David ;" not as
"the Son of Abraham ;" not as "the Son of Adam;"
but as " the Son of God."
We are now able to appreciate the comparison, and
to employ it in helping us to keep in mind the
peculiar characteristics of the various evangelists in
their order. Let the creature like a lion remind us
that in Matthew we have "the King," "the Lion of
the tribe of Judah," " the Root and Offspring of
David." Let the creature like a calf or an ox remind
us that in Mark we have the " Man that goeth forth
unto His work and to His labour," "the Workman that
needeth not to be ashamed;" one who has taken upon
Him " the form of a servant," " the Servant of the
Lord." Let the creature which had a face as a man
remind us that in Luke we have " the Man Christ
Jesus," " the Goel," that is, the brother of humanity.

Tlbe Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels. 15
the kinsman-Redeemer of our race. In fine, let the
creature like the flying eagle remind us that in John
we have "the Lord from heaven," "the Word who
in the beginning was God and with God," " the only-
begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father."
It may be added, that if the cherubim or four hving
creatures are to be regarded, according to the very
generally received interpretation, as types of redeemed
humanity in the plenary perfection of its glorified
existence, we have in this fourfold, and as it were
cherubic, representation of the evangelists the all-
perfect One in whom, as at once its prototype and its
life-source, that plenitude of perfection is attained
and realised. The redeemed are made hke Him, and
hence we find the reflection of His likeness in theirs,
as in the cherubim.
But we shall prosecute the examination of the
various characteristics of the evangehsts, one after
another, in their separate individuality. There are
other characteristics which might also be separately
and profitably examined — characteristics in point of
literary style and execution, in point of historical
selection and arrangement, and so on ; but we must
pass them by, or but slightly advert to them in their
connexion with those to which our attention will be
more particularly directed. Those who have a pre
dilection for the study of such things may perhaps be
guided and stimulated by our suggestions to prosecute
the study for themselves.
We conclude at present by urging the consecutive.

1 6 The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels.
conscientious, and careful perusal of all the Gospels.
Let it be remembered that they are all alike inspired,
and separately intended for instruction. It is no work
of supererogation when we have read one to read the
next- — and then the next, and the next also, till we
have read all four. It is not reading the same thing
over and over again, like the wearisomely vain
repetitions of the Roman breviary. There are not
two of the Gospels alike in their style of narrative, in
their mode of representation, in their system of
arrangement; and viewed in connexion with the
Divine plan, the differences are intentional. So far
from being staggered by them, we ought to be
instructed by them all the better in the knowledge
of Christ, established by them all the more in the
faith of Christ. This is the gracious design of the
Spirit of God in them ; and once we obtain the key,
the clue, to their elucidation, we shall find that there
is not one of them which is not more or less subser
vient in its own peculiar place and way to that design.
And here we may be permitted to offer one or two
remarks on what are commonly called "Lives of
Christ," " Harmonies of the Gospels."
From a very early period in the history of the
Church, their unity of subject has induced many to
attempt the combination and condensation of the four
Gospels into one continuous narrative or complete
whole as the one Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nor can
there be a question that various advantages are to be
derived from comparing the various Gospels, and

The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels. 17
exhibiting their entire consistency with one another
in what they relate in common.
At the same time, if they be viewed, not as
histories complete in themselves so far as respects the
particular purpose they were designed to serve, but
just as so many repertories or magazines of material,
so to speak, out of which we have to draw up a
properly complete history for ourselves, there can be
as httle question that we have set ourselves a task
which God never meant us to undertake, and which,
moreover, with the means at our command, is alto
gether beyond the compass of our utmost energies.
" Scripture," says a writer of our day, — and what he
says is so far apphcable to the Gospels as part of
Scripture, — "Scripture cannot, as it were, be mapped,
or its contents catalogued ; but after aU our diligence
to the end of our hves and to the end of the Church,
it must be an unexplored and unsubdued land, with
heights and valleys, forests and streams, on the right
and left of our path and close about us, full of con
cealed wonders and choice treasures."*
At aU events, a harmony of the Gospels in strict
chronological order is impracticable. We cannot
possibly work it out, at least with any thing hke
scientific certainty; for this plain and obvious reason,
that with the exception of the beginning and the end
of their narratives, which, as connected with a biogra
phy, almost necessarily correspond, the evangehsts do
not write chronologically : — each of them has his own
* Quoted in Trench's Hulsean Lectures, p. 102.
b

1 8 The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels.
distinct plan and system of arrangement, and this so
independent of chronological order, that if we attempt
to put them together in such an order we find our
selves at once entangled in inextricable difficulties, and
expose ourselves to the caustic rebuke of a sagacious
citizen respecting an old minister of the High Church
of Edinburgh, who was engaged for many years in
constructing a Harmony of the kind : " He is a
minister that, who spends his time and strength in
trying to make four men agree that never quarrelled."
Then, in addition to this, there is the all-decisive
consideration — it has pleased- God to give us four
Gospels. He might have given us but one, complete
and perfect in itself; or He might have even given
us four in such exact concordance, both verbal and
chronological, that no other harmony would have been
required, — we should have had what is sought for
ready made to us. Instead of this we have the, four,
all different, and portraying so many different sides
or aspects of the life of Christ, perfectly harmonious
no doubt, but not to be proved harmonious by being
unified or blended into one without diversity or dif
ference. If you have four different portraits, of the
same person, taken in different lights and from different
stand-points, would you ever think of demonstrating
the harmony or unity of their object by cutting them
to pieces, and then amalgamating the different pieces
into one new whole ? Would that ever produce a
likeness ? You keep them separate ; you look at
them apart; and their very diversities harmonise

The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels. 1 9
themselves by remaining as diversities. In the same
way the harmony of the Gospels is evinced, not by
the destruction, but by the preservation, in their own
place and for their own purpose, of their very diver
sities. Compare them as much as you please, iUus-
trate and explain them by one another also as much
as you please, but never do away with their separate
individuahty ; never obliterate any of their peculiar
characteristics, not even so much as the least impor
tant in your regard. Whatever you may do in the
way of exhibiting their consistency or harmony with
one another, let it be in the way of keeping them
distinct, of reading them one by one, and of retaining
every one of even their widest distinctions, of even
their least manifest as well as their most manifest
diversities. The wisdom of God meant that. The
inspiration of God meant that. There they are with
the Divine stamp on them, and we must not efface
one word, one letter, of -the stamp. We must take
them as they stand. They have their own lessons to
teach ; let us learn them — every one. Sometimes
we may be at a loss about them, but even then our
very difficulties may supply instruction to us, most
invaluable instruction. It was said by a wise and
good man of another, — by Richard Baxter of Judge
Hale, — that more might be learned from his questions
than from another man's answers. The same thing
may much more be said of the Holy Scriptures, of the
Holy Gospels, which " oftentimes say much," as one
remarks, "by saying nothing — hke a dial in which

20 The Fourfold Diversity of the Gospels.
the shadow as well as the light informs us,"* and
from which, if you take away either the hght or tbe
shadow, it is of no use at all. Any way, that saying,
" Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in
Me," is as applicable here as elsewhere ; and besides,
when we turn to the Lord for light, when we apply
to the Divine Spirit to guide us into all truth accord
ing to the promise of Jesus Christ, we shall find, that,
sooner or later, veils, doubts, difficulties, shall be taken
away ; and that then,- — when those whose hearts are
stubbornly alienated by reason of carnal prejudices
from the truth as it is in Jesus, are suffered to
" stumble at that stumbling-stone, as it is written.
Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling-stone and rock of
offence ; and whosoever believeth on Him shall not
be ashamed," — " We all, with open face, beholding
as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into
the same image from glory to glory, even as by the
Spirit of the Lord."
* Boyle : quoted in Trench's Hulsean Lectures, p. 109.

THE GOSPEL ACCOEDING TO MATTHEW.

Each of the Gospels has its own distinctive character
istics ; and these are not to be obliterated or sub
ordinated in exposition. We may properly enough
compare them with one another ; we may even gather
up their separate accounts into a historical unity ;
but to work out that unity without carefully preserving
their differences, in both style and subject, demands
the sacrifice of their value as independent Gospels.
Their diversity is, in truth, an evidence of their authen
ticity ; at least we had not so readily received them,
had they not evinced quite plainly that, like all other
men, the evangehsts differed in their modes of thought
and statement, as well as in their natural and
spiritual endowments.
We have to do at present with their diversity ; not,
however, as bearing on the question of their authen
ticity, but as bringing out so many various views of
that wondrous life which required them all in order
to express, or to suggest, as perhaps we should rather
say, the idea of its exhaustless fulness.

22 The Gospel according to Matthew.
The Gospel according to Matthew, as that which
comes first in order, will now occupy our attention.
A few notices of the evangehst himself wiU preface
the consideration of it. They will, in part, prepare
us for some of the peculiarities of the Gospel.

I. THE EVAJSTGELIST.
Of his personal history there is very little known.
That he was originally a publican, that he was called
by Christ to be one of His disciples, that he was
afterwards constituted one of the twelve apostles, and
finally one of the four evangelists, comprises the whole
that we know of him, so far at least as his history
may be gathered from the Scriptures.
But the way in which he adverts to the few facts
which he has occasion to mention regarding himself,
— there are but two, — deserves some notice.
1. Take the account of his call to become a disciple
of Christ. The account is given in chap. ix. 9, 1 0 —
" And as Jesus passed forth from thence. He saw a
man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom :
and He saith unto him. Follow Me. And he arose,
and followed Him. And it came to pass, as Jesus
sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and
sinners came and sat down with Him and His dis
ciples." This account ought to be compared with
that in the Gospel according to Mark, and that also
in the Gospel according to Luke. Mark's is given in
chap. ii. 14, 15 — "And as He passed by. He saw

The Gospel according to Matthew. 23
Levi, the son of Alphseus, sitting at the receipt of
custom, and Said unto him, follow Me. And he arose
and followed Him. And it came to pass, that, as
Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and
sinners sat also together with Jesus and His disciples."
Luke's is given in chap. v. 27-29 — "And after these
things He went forth, and saw a pubhcan, named
Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom ; and . He said
unto him. Follow Me. And he left all, rose up, and
followed Him. And Levi made Him a great feast in
his own house ; and there was a great company of
pubhcans and of others that sat down with them."
In comparing these accounts, the following things may
be noticed : — It is from Matthew himself we learn
that he was originally a publican. The other two
evangelists, in relating the fact, do not call him
Matthew ; they give him what appears to have been
his Jewish name, Levi ; so that but for his own
account we could not have identified him as having
once followed an occupation which was universally
and most justly regarded as dishonourable and even
infamous to a J ew. Then Mark and Luke give us to
understand that, after he left the receipt of custom,
he took Christ home and hospitably entertained Him.
Mark also tells us that he was the son of Alphseus,
and likely enough, therefore, the brother or step
brother of James, and a near kinsman, perhaps a
blood kinsman, of our Lord ; the Lord's brother or
cousin, as James is called. From Luke, too, we
gather that he was quite in the way of becoming rich ;

24 The Gospel according to Matthew.
for, when relating how he responded to the call of
Christ, he does not simply say, with thd others, that
he arose and followed Him, but, with emphasis, — as
if to intimate that it was no small sacrifice that he
made in doing so, — that " he left all, and rose up,
and followed Him ;" and then again, as showing how
completely he had risen above the mean, miserly,
penuriousness of a rapacious pubhcan, that the enter
tainment which he immediately provided for Christ
was " a great feast in his own house." Not one of
these things is mentioned by himself ; not his relation
ship ; not his wealth ; not even that the feast was
given by himself; that it was in his own house ; that
it was a great feast ; or that it was a feast at all.
Called to be a disciple, but originally a publican ; that
is what he says of himself; he has no more to say of
himself; and the grace of our Lord, as exceeding
abundant in calling one hke him, is the only thing we
are thus allowed to think of in connexion with his call.
2. The same self-abasing spirit comes out no less
distinctly in the record of his appointment to the
apostleship. We have three accounts of that appoint
ment ; one by himself, another by Mark, and the
third by Luke, from all of which it would appear that
the apostles were appointed in couples, and that
Matthew belonged to the fourth couple ; but, while
both Mark and Luke name him first, and without any
reference to his original profession, " Matthew and
Thomas," he puts himself second, "Thomas and
Matthew," and at the same time adds, as if, by putting

The Gospel according to Matthew. 25
the black mark upon his name, he would, in the spirit
of that apostle who says of himself, " Who was before
a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious," bring
out in contrast the riches of the grace of Christ —
" Matthew the publican." We can have no idea of
the opprobrium attached to such a designation. Some
how it has come to be enshrined in the Christian
mind as the symbol of humility and honesty, of peni
tence and prayer. The publican of the Gospel ;
which of us thinks ill of him, or speaks ill of him ?
It is the Pharisee, the religionist of his day, for whom
we reserve our contemptuous thoughts and our epithets
of abuse. The story of Zaccheus, the honest publican,
who restored fourfold to all whom- he had at anytime
defrauded by over-taxation, and who received Christ
into his house so joyfully ; and the parable of the
Pharisee and the publican, in which the contrast
between the two is so put as to commend the publican
to our most Christianly affectionate regard, present
our ideal of a publican. It is remarkable that neither
the story nor the parable is to be ' found in this, the
Gospel by the publican. They are both to be found
in the Gospel according to Luke. Had they been
recorded by Matthew, it might have been said that he
was desirous of extenuating the ignominy of his pro
fession, and therefore he makes no mention of them.
It is not from him that we derive our favourable
impression of publicans. It is in his Gospel that
these impressions are completely removed ; for while
in the other Gospels we read of publicans as associated

26 The Gospel according to Matthew.
with sinners — an association which does not very
much offend our propriety or our taste — here, in
that memorable sentence of our Lord's which Matthew
as a publican could never forget, however others
might, and which he, therefore, alone records, we
read of them as associated with harlots (chap. xxi.
31, 32,) — " Verily, I say unto you. That the publicans
and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before
you. For John came unto yoij in the way of righte
ousness, and ye believed him not, but the publicans
and the harlots believed him." Observe the associa
tion — the harlots, the most depraved of women ;
beyond all question, the publicans, as alongside of
them, were in general the most depraved of men.
It would be wrong to say, or to suggest, that Matthew
was a person of profligate character when called by
Christ. Had he been that, it is not likely that he
would have been placed, at least so early as he was,
among the Twelve. But the post he occupied under
the alien heathen government of Rome as a collector
of its odious tolls and customs was quite as bad in the
estimation of at least the Pharisees as profligacy itself.
He may have sought, hke Zaccheus and others, to be
an honest publican ; to be even a religious pubhcan.
No matter. By the Pharisees, and probably by many
more, if not by all, of the orthodox among the Jews,
he was, as it were, excommunicated, or at least shut
out from every thing like friendly fellowship; and
every one who has observed the moral influence of
such exclusion, so depraving in its operation and

The Gospel according to Matthew. 27
effects, will readily recognise the obligation of this
publican to that grace which called him away from so
much that was perilous to his eternal interests to
follow Christ.
80 much for the evangelist. He was originally a
pubhcan. Only from himself do we learn that he
was so. It is, by the way, a singularly impressive
testimony to the genuineness of his Gospel ; to the
fact that he was most certainly the author of it.
None but himself would have been silent upon what
has done so much to reflect credit upon the publicans ;
and none but himself would have been so careful to
let it be known, when he was recording his name
among the apostles of Jesus Christ, that he was
originally a publican.
The ex-scriptural notices of his later life and
labours are of no historical value. They simply
amount to this, that after a fifteen years' residence
in Jerusalem, or somewhere in Palestine, where he
wrote this gospel, he went abroad and preached the
Word in different countries, and at length, according
to a somewhat doubtful legend, died a martyr's death.
But we need not attempt to make any thing of these
traditions. Enough for us that his Gospel stands first
in the New Testament canon. If it was not the first
which was committed to writing, it was, in all proba-
bihty, the first which was authoritatively published
to the world. At all events, it is the first which
claims our attention and regard.

28 The Gospel according to Matthew.

IL THE GOSPEL.
It is inscribed "The Gospel according to Matthew;"
that is, the Gospel in that aspect or view of Christ
which Matthew undertook to exhibit to his readers.
It is not believed that the inscription was prefixed
to the Gospel by Matthew himself, but it has been so
prefixed from the earliest ages, and it has also been
always regarded as correctly ascribing the Gospel to
Matthew as its author.
1. Almost the first peculiarity which strikes a
reader in the perusal of it is its systematic form.
Every part of it is distinguished by its orderly
arrangement. The chronological order is set aside to
a considerable extent, and a topical order is adopted
which is quite as valuable in its own way and for its
own purpose. Discourses, parables, prophecies,
miracles, are grouped together by themselves in
separate chapters. We have whole chapters devoted
to each of them in succession,- — -chapters with nothing
in them but sermons, — chapters with nothing in them
but miracles, — chapters with nothing in them but
parables, and so^ on, — all classified according to their
subject, and all bearing on the illustration of some
particular feature of the official character of our Lord,
or the demonstration of some particular claim, or other
circumstance connected with it. In connection with
this peculiarity of arrangement, it has also been
observed, that this Gospel is not so minutely graphic

The Gospel according to Matthew. 29
in its details as the other Gospels ; but the perfection
of finish, and the sublimity of effect produced by its
admirable combinations, are quite sufficient to com
pensate for the comparative generality of its descrip
tions ; and besides, these combinations are often accom
panied with such sharp and striking contrasts, that
both our instruction and our interest are most
felicitously secured. We may add, that this methodi
cal arrangement bears upon it the unmistakeable
impress of its authorship. As a publican, Matthew
must have been trained to the practice of methodis
ing his business-transactions according to some sort
of rule or order. If he did not keep accounts in the
way that tax-collectors now do, it may be at least pre
sumed that he had learned the art of writing ; and in
his office, or at the receipt of custom, was more or
less habituated to the practice of systematic business
arrangement, if not also of orderly official book-keep
ing.* Perhaps it was on this account that, of all the
apostles, he was honoured, as being the best qualified
in point of acquirement, to be the author of the first
Gospel in the canon ; — first, it is beheved, in point
of publication, as it is in point of order. At any rate,
the orderly habits of his profession, and the orderly
character of his Gospel, are strikingly harmonious ;
so that here again we have another singularly impres
sive testimony to the genuineness of the Gospel.
* That he occasionally plmralises -what is mentioned by other
evangelists in the singular has also been referred, not unwarrant
ably, to his habits of professional exactness. Vide Smith of Jordan-
hUl's Dissertation on the Gospels, pp. 288, 298.

30 The Gospel according to Matthew.
2. But the main pecuharity of the Gospel is to be
observed in its distinct representation of Jesus as the
Christ, — the Messiah promised to the fathers, and so
often spoken of as such, in the prophecies of the Old
Testament Scriptures. This was the representation
which was specially required to secure and to confirm
the faith of pious Israelites who sought in Christ for
" the Son of David, the Son of Abraham ; " and,
accordingly, there is reason to believe that Matthew
primarily intended his Gospel for Jews, or at least
for Christian Jews. On this account it maybe called,
not improperly, the Hebrew Gospel. Some, indeed,
believe, on the testimony of certain of the Fathers,
that it was originally written in the Hebrew language,
or rather the Aramaic, as commonly spoken in Judea
at the time ; and, although this is controverted by
others with much effectiveness, it does not appear
an unlikely thing; nor does it conflict with the
inspiration of the Greek original, if that also was, as has
been conclusively proved, the production of Matthew.
It is quite plain that, as a native Jew and a Roman
official, Matthew must have been qualified to write
both his own language and that of the government
with facility ; and, considering how both languages
were then spoken and written in Judea — as, at the
present day, both Dutch and English are very com
monly used in speech and writing at the Cape of
Good Hope, and Gaelic and English in the Highlands
of Scotland — the patristic evidence for a Hebrew as
well as a Greek Gospel by Matthew, may be accepted

The Gospel according to Matthew. 31
without any great demur. We know that, in order
to its being generally useful, a Hebrew as well as a
Greek History of the Jewish War was written by
Josephus, and the same thing may have been done
by his contemporary, the evangehst. At all events,
this Gospel is unquestionably the Gospel for the
Hebrews, the Gospel particularly designed for them.
We do not find in it such explanations of Jewish
localities and Jewish usages as are common in the
Gospel according to Luke and the Gospel according
to John, which were addressed in the first instance to
Gentile readers. There is, on the contrary, a variety
of allusion in it, which seems to presuppose, on the
part of its readers, an acquaintance with Jewish man
ners and peculiarities, such as could hardly belong to
others than Jews. There is also a much greater fre
quency of reference in it than in the other Gospels to
the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, together
with other indications of a design to establish, on
grounds specially adapted to command the conviction
of Jews, the claim of Jesus as the Christ to the king
dom of His father David. Perhaps it is on this
account that dates and minute details are not given
in it as in the other Gospels. The object of the
evangelist is evidently to furnish, not a chronological
history of the life of Christ, but rather a doctrinally
historical survey of it, so to speak. Hence we have
in it, as already noticed, a grouping together of the
words and the deeds of Jesus, — of His sermons and
parables, of His miracles and movements, — without

32 The Gospel according to Matthew.
much regard to localities and dates, but as plainly
proving in the plenitude of their combination, that
the ancient prophecies were fulfilled in Him, that He
was the very Messiah foretold in them, and that it is
therefore vain, and worse than vain, to look for any
other. Then, in addition to this bringing and blend
ing together of the prophecy and the history, so that
they appear as if no more twain but one in Christ,
there is also a continuously sustained reference in
almost every chapter to the kingship and the kingdom
of the Lord Jesus, as that in which He was pre
eminently proved to be the true Messiah. It must
be obvious that this was absolutely necessary in a
Gospel designed for Jews. They could receive no
Saviour, welcome no Messiah, but such as answered
to the character of the Son of David, the Son of
Abraham, of One who was at the same time "both
Lord and Christ."
3. Accordingly, this Gospel, as designed to com
mand the faith of the Jews in Jesus as the true Mes
siah, is distinctively the Gospel of His Messianic
royalty. As such, the memorial of it, or, if you will,
the symbol of it, is not, as the Church of Rome
makes it, the man-face, but the hon-face, of the
cherubic symbol ; at least, as the emblem of Judah's
royalty, this hieroglyph most appropriately dis
tinguishes or describes the pecuhar aspect of the
character and office of Christ which we have here
portrayed. This may be demonstrated very easily : the most

The Gospel according to Matthew. 33
cursory examination of the Gospel may indeed suffice
to verify it.
(1.) Let us take a general survey of the Gospel.
To begin with the first chapter : — the first verse, even
although it should be held to be but the designation
.of the genealogical table of which it is the heading,
may be said to form the motto of the whole Gospel ;
to announce by anticipation the subject of it, the
burden of it. " The book of the generation of Jesus
Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham ; "
that is to say, of Jesus Christ, who is at once the
Root and the Offspring of David, the Heir and the
Possessor of the Davidical kingdom in its very utmost
extent, as embracing, according to the original pro
mise to the father and founder of the Jewish race,
"all the nations of the earth." Turning -to the
second chapter, we there read, " Now when Jesus, was
born in Bethlehem of Judea, behold, there came wise
men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is He
that is born King of the Jews ?" Then looking into
the third chapter, we hear " John the Baptist preach
ing in the wilderness of Judea, and sajdng. Repent ye,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Then in the
fourth chapter, after the account of the temptation in
which the offer of "all the kingdoms of the world"
is mentioned last, as, according to the idea of this
Gospel, the climax of the temptation, we read of Jesus
Himself beginning to preach ; and the subject of His
preaching is precisely the same as John's ; " From
that time Jesus began to preach, and to say. Repent,

34 The Gospel according to Matthew.
for the kingdom, of heaven is at hand." Observe, the
devil would have had Him to prefer " all the kingdoms
of this world," but His " kingdom is not of this world,"
— " the kingdom of heaven is at hand." " And Jesus
went about all Gahlee, teaching in their synagogues,
and preaching the Gospel of the kingdom." Then in
the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters, we have the
sermon of this Gospel of the kingdom. The sermon
begins with the beatitudes of the kingdom, " Blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven ; " " Blessed are they which are persecuted for
righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven." Proceeding with the laws of the kingdom,
it delivers them in that autocratic style which belongs
to Christ as King, " Ye have heard that it was said
by them of old time," — " But 1 say unto you." To
wards the conclusion there occurs this description of
the subjects of the kingdom, " Not every one that
saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the king
dom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of My
Father which is in heaven.'' The whole is wound up
by the evangelist in the final remark which will be
seen, as thus considered, to be most emphatic, " For
He taught them as One having authority" — -the
authority of One who was King as well as Prophet, —
" and not as the scribes." Then in the eighth and
ninth chapters His miracles are recorded in a manner
which illustriously sets forth His royal majesty, and
at the end we read, " Jesus went about all the cities
and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preach-

The Gospel according to Matthew. 35
ing the Gospel of the kingdom, and healing every
sickness and every disease among the people." Then
in the tenth chapter we have the ordination of the
twelve apostles with their commission, " Go to the
lost sheep of the house of Israel, and as ye go, preach,
saying. The kingdom of heaven is at hand." Then
again in the eleventh chapter we read, that " since
the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven
suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force ;"
and in the twelfth chapter that He vindicated His
authority as Lord of the Sabbath, when on that day.
His disciples, being an hungered, plucked and ate the
ears of com in the fields, by appealing to " what David
did," and that upon His heahng " one possessed with
a devil, blind and dumb," " aU the people were amazed,
and .said. Is not this the Son of David ?"
(2.) But not to refer thus particularly to the re
maining chapters, although similar illustrations might
be cited from all, or almost all of them, we vnay per
haps still better see the distinctive characteristic of
this Gospel by comparing it with the other Gospels.
We always see objects best by contrast — at least their
peculiarities. Take the genealogy of our Lord as
given by both Matthew and Luke. In Luke it runs
up to Adam,, for there He is the Son of man ; in
Matthew, where He is seen not so much in His
mere humanity as in His covenant royalty, it goes
no higher than Abraham,. Then from David, who
is twice over in it called "the king," down to the
captivity it runs in the Hne of the royal seed who

36 The Gospel according to Matthew.
occupied the throne of David ; while in Luke; who
gives the lineal, not the legal genealogy, the royal
dignity of David is not so much as mentioned ; and
the line also diverges from the royal branch of his
family and household, and only touches it again at
the period of the Babylonish captivity, when the
Davidical kingdom came to an end. Turn, in the
next instance, to the notices in the same evangelists
of the infancy of Christ. In Luke He is the " Child
born ;" in Matthew He is the " King born." In
Luke His birth is the visit of "the dayspring, to give
light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow
of death," the dawn of "a Light to lighten the Gen
tiles;" whereas in Matthew it is the advent of "a
Governor to rule My people Israel," " the King of
the Jews." Then pass to the preaching of John the
Baptist ; it is in Matthew, " Repent, for the kingdom
of heaven is at hand :" in Mark and Luke it is " the
baptism of repentance for the remission of sins," — no
mention is made of the kingdom; while in John,
whose notice is also characteristic of his Gospel as the
Gospel of the Divinity of Christ, it is, " This is He of
whom I spake. He that cometh after me is preferred
before me ; for He was before me." Then just to notice
the sermon on the mount, the substance of which, as
given by Matthew, is repeated by Luke : — the expres
sion, in the beatitudes, " For theirs is the kingdom of
heaven," occurs only in Matthew ; and the doxology
to the Lord's prayer,* " For thine is the kingdom, and
* The genuineness of the doxology has been questioned ; but its
appropriateness to Matthew must be allo-wed.

The Gospel according to Matthew. 37
the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen," is also
peculiar to this Gospel, being omitted by Luke alto
gether. Then pass over to the scenes of Calvary.
The only one of the seven sayings of the cross which
is recorded by Matthew is that from the 2 2d Psalm,
"Eli! Eli! lama sabachthani? that is to say. My God,
My God, why hast thou forsaken Me ?" but we have
only to turn to the psalm itself, which is not unrea
sonably supposed to have been repeated by Christ from
beginning to end, in order to see how appropriately
He fell back upon it, or at least took the saying from
it as related in this Gospel. It is distinctively the
psahn of the kingdom, of the kingdom founded upon
His sufferings, upon the atonement-sacrifice of the
Lord Messiah. Sorrowful as is its beginning, how
triumphantly does it end, — exactly like the history
of the cross in Matthew. " All the ends of the world
shall remember and turn unto the Lord ; and all the
kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee.
For the kingdom is the Lord's, and He is the Gover
nor among the nations," — so the psalm. "All power
is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye
therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you," — so the Gospel.
Then to pass over other facts and incidents which are
related by the evangelists in common, but by each of
them with his own characteristic distinctiveness ; let
a glance be taken of some of the parables as found in

38 The Gospel according to Matthew.
the different Gospels. Take, for example, the parable
of the marriage supper. In Matthew (xxii. 2) it is,
" The kingdom of heaven is hke unto a certain king
which made a marriage for his son." In Luke (xiv.
1 6) it is simply — without any reference to royalty —
"A certain man made a great supper, and bade
many." All the parables in Matthew, with three
exceptions, are, in fact, parables of the kingdom of
heaven, while in none of the other Gospels is there
even one parable in which the kingdom of heaven is
so much as mentioned. There are parables of the
kingdom related in the other Gospels ; but while in
Matthew it is " the kingdom of heaven" that is spoken
of,^ — the kingdom of which Christ occupies the throne,
as Himself the monarch of it, — in them it is " the
kingdom of God," a designation under which He
seems to subordinate Himself, as it were, to the posi
tion of a subject of the kingdom. Thus in the para
bles of the mustard seed and the leaven, Matthew
writes (xiii. 31,) " The kingdom of heaven is like to
a grain of mustard seed ;" (xiii. 33.) " The kingdom
of heaven is like unto leaven :" but Mark, (iv. 30-31,)
" Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God ? or
with what comparison shall we compare it ? It is
like a grain of mustard seed :" and Luke, (xiii. 18,)
" Unto what is -the kingdom of God hke ? and where
unto shall I resemble it 1 It is like a grain of mus
tard seed." (xiii. 20,) "Whereunto shall I hkenthe
kingdom of God ? It is like leaven." Even in those
parables of Matthew which are not parables of the

The Gospel according to Matthew. 39
kingdom of heaven, because they immediately refer
to periods and events antecedent to the actual estab
lishment of that kingdom, when Jesus was personally
exalted as both Lord and Christ to the right hand of
God the Father, there are characteristic allusions and
expressions not to be found in the other Gospels. For
example, in the parable of the sower, which refers to
the work of Christ as a Prophet on earth before He
was a King in heaven, and in which therefore the
kingdom of heaven is not the subject of illustration,
the seed is interpreted as " The word of the king
dom, :" whereas in Mark it is simply called " The
word," and in Luke " The word of God." Again, in
the parable of the vineyard, which also in its subject
precedes the establishment of the kingdom of heaven,
Matthew begins, "There was a certain householder," —
"house-lord"- — it is, a title of authority, — "which
planted a vineyard ;" while both Mark and Luke drop
the idea of dignity and say, "A certain maw." Then
again in the parable of the two sons, which makes no
reference in any form to the kingdom, it is added by
way of explanation, " Jesus saith unto them. Verily
I say unto you, that the publicans and harlots go into
the kingdom of God before you." The kingdom here
occurs in the explanation ; but still it is not " the
kingdom of heaven ;" it is " the kingdom of God,"
because the parable refers to the times of John the
Baptist, which preceded " the kingdom of heaven,"
" For John came unto you in the way of righteous
ness, and ye believed him not ; but the publicans and

40 The Gospel according to Matthew.
harlots believed him." Let us here remark, in pass
ing, that the phrase, " the kingdom of God," as it
occurs in Matthew, will be always found on examina
tion to refer to the kingdom before it became " the
kingdom of heaven" by the rejection of its King from
earth and His reception into heaven. To instance
two passages, (xii. 28,) "But if I cast out devils by
the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come
unto you." " The kingdom of God;" — that had come,
because the King — the Divine King Himself — was
there among them ; but not " the kingdom of heaven ;"
that was at hand only : it did not come unto them
till Christ " sat down on the right hand of the Majesty
on high." (xxi. 43,) "Therefore say I unto you.
The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and
given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof"
" The kingdom of God ;" the Jews had that. God was
their King ; His theocracy was their boast, their
glory ; but they never had " the kingdom of heaven."
They might have had it, and they would have had it,
had they not rejected the counsel of God against
themselves, so that others were preferred ; it was set
up among the Gentiles.
(3.) But the subject is too vast to admit of further
illustration : there are so many suchlike characteristic
and equally significant modes of expression in Matthew
which distinguish his view from that of the other
Gospels. We shall only refer to a very few additional
passages and phrases (few among many) by way of
showing that the evangelists view of the Son of David,

The Gospel according to Matthew. 41
" the King of the Jews," is not that of the carnal or
secular traditionalism of his day, but that of the Old
Testament prophecies which the Scribes and Pharisees
with all their pretence of scriptural erudition did not
understand — that of the king whose kingdom is
founded on atonement-sacrifice, on atonement-righte
ousness — whose kingdom is constantly opposed and
rejected by the rulers of the world — whose kingdom,
in short, is not of this world, — while at the same time,
and in the highest sense, it embraces it — it embraces
all heaven and earth together.
There is, first, the significant expression itself —
" The kingdom of heaven." This -expression occurs
in Matthew only, being used, according to Cruden,
as many as thirty times, and never so much as even
once in the other Gospels. Is not this significant ?
We may surely learn something from it, as thus the
uniform designation of the kingdom in the Gospel of
the Messianic royalty. "The kingdom of heaven!"
Can the miserable kingdom of Papal Rome — can any
secular kingdom, whatever it may be, and wherever
it may be, — ever be held to stand for that ? Had it
been " the kingdom of God," it might have been said
that a State-organization, such as the Papacy with its
temporal power, was required as the New Testament
counterpart of the old Israel- theocracy ; but when in
the Gospel of the kingdom it always appears as " the
kingdom of heaven," the argument is gone. It is a
kingdom which is quite distinct from the kingdoms of
the world, which is above them altogether.

42 The Gospel according to Matthew.
Then there is also the equally significant expression,
" The Church." This expression also occurs in Matthew
only. The other evangehsts never name it. Here it
is named over and over again, and always in connexion
with the kingdom of heaven, and as, in fact, identical
with it. The Divine prescience comes out in this
quite unmistakeably. It obviates by anticipation the
argument with which we are sometimes met, that,
because the kingdom of Christ is the kingdom of
heaven. He is not yet a King, or He has not, at least
as yet, a kingdom ; and that therefore the corporate
organisation of Christians into a visible Church, or
spiritual kingdom, in immediate subjection to Himself,
is not a matter of Christian duty. But no. It is
here, in the Gospel of the kingdom, that we find
the Church invested by Christ with the functions of
discipline and self-government, — " The kingdom of
heaven," — and, as such, established and sustained
even on earth by the spiritual sanctions of a Divine
authority. " And I say also unto thee. That thou art
Peter, and upon this rock will I build My Church,
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of
heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth
shaU be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." " Moreover,
if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell
him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall
hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will
not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more.

The Gospel according to Matthew. 43
that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every
word may be established. And if he shall neglect to
hear them, tell it unto the Church. But if he neglect
to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen
man and a publican. Verily I say unto you. What
soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,
and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed
in heaven."
Then in the next place, alongside of the spiritual
independence of the Church — "the kingdom of
heaven" — and quite in harmony with it, there is the
due recognition of civil authority as paramount
within its own sphere of action, and not to be resisted
in the legitimate exercise of its functions under any
pretence of allegiance to the kingship and kingdom of
Jesus Christ. It is in this Gospel only, for example,
that the duty of paying tribute to the civil power is
expressly taught by both the precept and the example
of our Lord. When the Herodians and Pharisees
tempted Him to teach sedition by the crafty question,
" Is it lawful to give tribute unto Csesar or not?"
Mark and Luke represent Him as saying, " Bring Me
a penny," "Show Me a penny;" and it has been
alleged that His admirable reply, when it was brought
to Him, " Render therefore unto Csesar the things
which be Csesar's, and unto God the things which be
God's," was only an ingenious evasion of the question
put to Him ; but as Matthew puts it. He said, " Show
Me the tribute money," so that it was with the penny
in His hand as tribute money that His reply was

44 The Gospel according to Matthew.
given; and accordingly it was no evasion, but an
explicit inculcation of the duty of payment. If any
doubt of this should still remain, it is completely
removed by the fact that our Lord actually paid
tribute, and also on one occasion wrought a miracle
to provide the means of doing so. The fact is only
recorded in this Gospel — in the Gospel by the publican ;
and it is so like the publican to record it, (xvii. 24-27.)
" And when they were come to Capernaum, they that
received tribute money came to Peter and said. Doth
not your Master pay tribute ? He saith. Yes. And
when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented
him, saying. What thinkest thou, Simon ? Of whom
do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute ?
Of their own children, or of strangers ? Peter saith
unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then
are the children free. Notwithstanding, lest we should
offend them," — notice the reasoning here ; it matters
not what the tribute in question may be said to be ;
be it that it is tribute collected for sacred rather than
for properly civil purposes ; those who, as under the
theocracy of Christ, resist the payment of civil and
also ecclesiastical imposts when collected by civil
power, may perhaps learn a lesson, — " Go thou to the
sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first
Cometh up, and when thou hast opened his mouth,
thou shalt find a piece of money : that take, and give
unto them for Me and thee." Again, it is in this
Gospel only that the authority of Pilate is expressly
recognised. In the other Gospels he is simply named

The Gospel according to Matthew. 45
Pilate ; here he is " the governor," or " Pilate the
governor." Then again, it is in this Gospel that we
find the words of Christ, when He rebuked the unlaw
ful resistance of Peter on the occasion of His appre
hension ; " Put up thy sword into his place ;" words
which are, indeed, to be also found in the Gospel
according to John, but not as accompanied by the
following, which are to be found in this Gospel only,
" the Gospel of the kingdom," " For aU they that take
the sword shall perish with the sword."
But we cannot condescend on all the references
which we had marked. We pass from references to
the kingdom as founded on atonement-righteousness,
the key-note of which may be found in that significant
utterance which is peculiar to this Gospel, " Suffer it
to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all
righteousness ; " from references also to the kingdom
as constantly opposed and rejected by the rulers of
this world, the first of which meets us in the persecu
tion of Herod when " the King of the Jews" was but
an infant, and the last in the crucifixion, when Pilate
ordered that inscription to be put upon the cross,
" This is Jesus, the King of the Jews." We shall
only notice further one or two explicit references to
the catholic extension of the kingdom beyond the con
secrated boundaries of the land of Israel to the utmost
boundaries of the Gentile world. In the opening
genealogy we find the names of four Gentile womeii,
Thamar of Timnath ; Rachab of Jericho ; Ruth of
Moab ; and Bathsheba of Gath ; all of them aliens by

46 The Gospel according to Mattheiv.
birth to the Abrahamic family ; and we thus see, at
the very outset, how Matthew, Jew and publican, as
originally he was, distinctly understood that, according
to the Abrahamic covenant, more than the Abrahamic
family, even " all the families of the earth," are to be
" blessed " in Christ. Then, on the birth of the King
of the Jews, it is not the Jews, but " wise men from
the east," the first-fruits of the Gentiles, who come to
worship Him ; and again we see how Matthew had
altogether risen above the exclusive bigotry and
traditionalism of his nation and his day, and how he
should have been so careful to record these and other
sayings of his Lord and Master, which are only to be
found in his Gospel, — -" And I say unto you that many
shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down
with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom
of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be
cast out into outer darkness ; there shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth." " All power is given unto
Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and
teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teach
ing them to observe all things whatsoever I have
commanded you ; and lo, I am with you alway, even
unto the end of the world."
Now TO OONCLXJDE. Let us not fail to make a
practical use of the view of Christ which is thus ex
hibited in this Gospel. It is not enough, in our
examination of the several Gospels, that we can place

The Gospel according to Matthew. 47
ourselves in the proper standing point of contemplation,
so as to view each separate likeness as it has been
drawn, and in the very hght and shade in which it
Avas intended to be seen. Let us remember that the
Gospel has been committed to writing for the accom-
phshment of other and much higher purposes, and
let us read and study it for these purposes. In the
Gospel according to John we behold Christ as the Son
of God, and we are expressly told that that Gospel was
written that we should believe in Him as such, and
receive power to become ourselves the sons of God.
In the Gospel according to Luke we behold him as
the Son of man, and we come to know that as such
He was the Pattern-man, and that, as He was, so
should we be in the world. In the Gospel according
to Mark we behold Him in the form of a servant,
the Servant of God ; and we learn of Him, as such,
the lesson of patient endurance, and unmurmuring
obedience, and unwearied exertion, in the duties of
our station and our vocation, whatever that may be.
And so in the examination of this Gospel, the Gos
pel according to Matthew, where we behold Him as
the King of Israel, let us bow to His authority ; let
us touch, in token of our submission, the outstretched
sceptre of His grace ; let us prove ourselves to be " a
willing people," willing to be for Him, and wiUing to
do for Him, as He may command in the day of His
kingly power.
And with this view, let us here read a passage,
which is only to be found in this Gospel, and certainly

48 The Gospel according to Matthew.
as precious a passage as is to be found in any of the
Gospels ; — it shows, too, in its peculiarly affectionate
style, that the Jesus of Matthew, however differently
viewed by him, is in reality the same as the Jesus of
John, for it reads like a passage from the pen of the
beloved disciple ; only that, as occurring in Matthew,
the Gospel of royalty, it is invested with the majesty
of royalty : (xi. 27-30.) "All things are delivered
unto Me of My Father ; and no man knoweth the
Son, but the Father ; neither knoweth any man the
Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son
will reveal him. Come unto Me, all ye that labour
and are heavy laden, and I wiU give you rest. Take
My yoke upon you, and learn of Me ; for I am meek
and lowly in heart : and ye shall find rest unto your
souls. For My yoke" — observe. He speaks of His
yoke, of the service which He requires, for it is as the
King that He here addresses us — " For My yoke is
easy, and My burden is light." The wise man saith,
"Where the word of a king is there is power." So
here. " I counsel thee to keep the King's command
ment, and that in respect of the oath of God. Be not
hasty to go out of His sight ; stand not in an evil
thing, for He doeth whatsoever pleaseth Him."
And let us also read another passage, equally graci
ous, and equally royal too. We take it from the last
of the parables of the kingdom — a parable only to be
found in this Gospel — the parable of the final judg
ment, in which the Son of man is introduced as sitting
upon the throne of His glory, and passing sentence

The Gospel according to Matthew. 49
upon "aU nations" who are gathered before Him.
"Then shall the King" — "the King!" — "say unto
them on His right hand. Come, ye blessed of My Father,
inherit the kingdom," — "the kingdom !" — "prepared
for you from before the foundation of the world."
" And the King"—" the King !" — " shall answer and
say unto them. Verily I say unto you. Inasmuch as
ye have done it unto one of the least of these My
brethren, ye have done it unto Me." How this glori
ous representation should win us over to the side of
Christ. Like Amasai to David, when the Spirit came
upon him, and he said of himself and the men that
were with him, " Thine are we, 0 David, and on thy
side, thou son of Jesse,'' may every one of us now say,
— 0 that the Spirit would come upon us, that we may
say it, each one for himself, and every one together,
— "Thine are we, 0 Jesus, and on Thy side. Thou
Son of David, Thou Son of God."

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK.

The fulness of the life of Christ was such as plainly
required the record of more than one biogTaphy.
One portrait can never represent the whole of any
man. How could one biography represent the whole
of Christ 1.
We have four biographies of Him — four Gospels ;
and each of them demands and deserves an equally
faithful examination. Nor can we be said to
know Him, or at least to know Him well, till we have
examined all of them — till we have ascertained their
specific representations as well as identified them in
Him. Let us turn to the Gospel according to Mark. As
with Matthew, we shall introduce our examination of
the Gospel with a brief notice of its author.
L THE EVANGELIST.
From the earliest ages it has been generally
believed that he was the same with Marcus, who is

The Gospel according to Mark. 51
mentioned in one of the Epistles of Peter as his son
in the faith, and with John Mark, sister's son to Bar
nabas, who is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles
as the occasion of the unhappy variance between that
singularly eminent disciple and the Apostle Paul,
which issued in their separation from one another in
missionary labour among the Gentiles. We shall
assume this belief to be correct. It would lead us
away from our present object to investigate the
grounds upon which other opinions have been based.
It is enough to say that the common belief appears
to be well sustained by every kind of trustworthy
evidence. 1. We accordingly identify the Evangelist with
the sister's son of Barnabas, and the convert, or son
in the faith, of the Apostle Peter. We know nothing
of his father. He is not mentioned in Scripture —
by name even. Possibly he was a Gentile ; for the
name Mark, by which his son was best known, was
not Jewish but Roman. His wife was certainly a
Jewess. Her name was Mary, not an uncommon
name among the women of the Gospel. She appears
to have been a person of means or property. Her
house is spoken of in the Acts of the Apostles as if it
were her own. It was also a resort of the disciples
in Jerusalem. When Peter was miraculously liberated
from prison, into which he had been thrown by
Herod, he went at once to it, and found many
gathered together, praying for him, so that it must
have been a house of considerable size and accommo-

52 The Gospel according to Mark.
dation. At all events, whether wealthy or not, Mary
was unquestionably a Christian disciple, and on this
account we cannot but be prepossessed in favour of
her son. With such a mother may we not believe
that he had had a Bible-education and a moral train
ing, which went far to fit him, when he was brought
over to the Christian faith, to become the companion
and fellow-labourer of apostles, and ultimately one of
the four who were honoured of the blessed Spirit to
be the Evangelists of the life of Christ ?
That he should not be identified with the Evan
gelist, because of the quarrel of Paul and Barnabas
about him, is a position which evidently rests on very
insufficient grounds. It cannot be maintained that
an evangelist must have been a person of entirely
faultless character. Do we not find faint-heartedness
and vacillancy on the part of Peter, perhaps the most
courageous of the apostles, exposing him on one occa
sion to the open rebuke of the Apostle Paul ; and
when such an instance of shortcoming is found in the
history of even an apostle, how should it be made a
ground of objection that a similar instance should
have occurred in the history of an evangelist ? Be
sides, we should not forget that, while Paul was
opposed to Mark on the occasion referred to, Barnabas
was of a different mind, — and he may have been
right in the matter, — and that Paul himself, as we
learn from several of his Epistles, came afterwards
to have the utmost confidence in Mark, and found '
him a singularly energetic and useful coadjutor in the

The Gospel according to Mark. 53
ministry of Christ.* We therefore see no difficulty
in recognising Mark, the nephew of Barnabas, the
coadjutor of Paul, and the convert, and also compa
nion for a time, of Peter, as the Christian evangehst
of that name.
2. It maybe right to mention that there is a very
old, and perhaps universally received, tradition, that
this Gospel, although attributed to Mark, was written
by him (zs the amxunuensis of Peter, — some say, as
the translator and continuator, or editor, -f- of an
original Hebrew or Aramaic Gospel*memoir by Peter,
and that it was received into the canon of Scripture
by the primitive Church as thus of properly apostohcal
or Petrine authorship. '
There are not a few things in the Gospel itself
which go far to confirm this tradition.
For example, we often find the apostle's name
mentioned in this Gospel in connexion with various
incidents and circumstances which indicate, if not dic
tation on his part, the appearance of something like it,
— at least, as some would say, revision. Here the
house at Capernaum, into which Jesus withdrew with
His disciples after His first appearance there as a
public teacher, is said to have been the house of
Simon and Andrew — Andrew's as well as Simon's; —
the other Evangelists simply mention it as Peter's ;
here we are told that Peter was the disciple who first
* " Take Mark, and bring him -with thee : for he is profitable to
me for the ministry," (2 Tim. iv. 11.) See also Col. iv. 10.
t " 'B^i/tijcei/Tijy HiTpov : " so called by the Fathers.

54 The Gospel according to Mark.
noticed the withered condition of the fig-tree which
had been blasted by our Lord, and first drew atten
tion to it by his exclamations; here we obtain the
very names of the four disciples, Peter, and James,
and John, and Andrew, who inquired of our Lord as
to the time at which the temple would be destroyed ;
and here, once more, we see Peter most pointedly
singled out in the expostulation with the disciples in
the garden, " Simon, sleepest thou ? could est not thou
watch one hour 1"
Several things mentioned in the other Gospels,
which appear to reflect honour on Peter, are likewise
omitted in this Gospel, as if a feeling of modesty had
obliterated them; while there is the utmost explicit-
ness in detailing other circumstances which were fitted
to humble him as one that had indeed no reason to
be set above his brethren. We find in it no mention,
as in Matthew, of his attempt to walk upon the sea,
or of the benediction which was given him on occasion
of his explicit confession of the Messiahship and Divine
Sonship of the Saviour; whereas what passed when
he tried to dissuade his Master from going to Jeru
salem to be " killed " is most faithfully related, with
this additional statement, which is not to be found in
the other Evangelist who records the incident, that
while our Lord looked round about upon His disciples.
He rebuked Peter. Neither do we find any mention
made in it of his having been the first apostle to whom
the Lord appeared after His resurrection ; whereas the
distinction of Mary Magdalene in this respect is re-

The Gospel according to Mark. 55
lated with the utmost explicitness. On the other
hand, we have in it the fullest account of his denial
of Christ, with the addition, not to be found in any
other of the Evangelists, of the circumstance, which
so aggravated his sin in the matter, that the cock crew
twice before he was awakened to repentance ; while
at the same time all that is said of his repentance is
that he wept ; there is no reference to the bitterness
of his tears, as if the thought of its being something
hke an affectation of humility to mention that had pre
vented it. Once more, it is only in this Gospel that that
touching expression of the angel's after the resurrection
is mentioned, " But go your way, tell His disciples and
Peter," — how must Peter have delighted in that " and
Peter !" — "that He goeth before you into Galilee."
These, along with many other references of a simi
lar kind, make it a not unlikely thing that the
Apostle Peter had a hand in perhaps the composition,
or at least, the revision of this Gospel.
At the same time, the individuality of Mark's own
characteristic editorship, if we may not say author
ship, is everywhere apparent in it ; and whatever hand
Peter may have had in its composition or revision, —
if he had any, — it is enough to estabhsh its canonical
inspiration that it was received as of undoubted autho
rity in apostolic times, and that it has ever since been
handed down from age to age as an integral portion
of the Scriptural canon.
So much for the authorship of this Gospel. It has
been said that Mark was one of the seventy disciples;

56 The Gospel according to Mark.
but on what anthority, if other than traditionary, we
have been unable to discover. Probably the minute
ness of his narrative, which appears to indicate the
closest personal observation, may have suggested the
idea to those who wished to assert his independence
as an author. He has also been identified with the
young man whom he alone mentions — anonymously
mentions — as having followed our Lord on the occa
sion of His betrayal and apprehension, clothed in a
light night-dress, which he hastily left in the hands
of those who sought to apprehend him also. It has
been supposed that his mother's house may have been
in the neighbourhood — perhaps in the garden of
Gethsemane — and that, being roused from sleep by
the tumult in the garden, he had impulsively hastened
out to see what was going on, and then again — as on
the occasion which so much displeased Paul, and made
him quarrel with Barnabas about him — as impul
sively hastened back again when he found himself in
danger. But this is merely a supposition, likely
enough, but nothing more than likely. That he tra
velled far and wide as a missionary-evangelist is the
only thing we can further say of him. At one time
we find him far west, with Paul in Rome ; at another
time we find' him far east, with Peter in Babylon ;
and if we may believe the traditions of antiquity,
according to which he finally settled as bishop or
pastor of the church in Alexandria, there seems every
reason to believe that he was thus, as he is commonly
regarded, and as other parts of his history appear to

The Gospel according to Mark. 57
hint, an ardent and energetic, perhaps somewhat im
pulsive Christian labourer, glad, if not always ready,
to have a hand in planting the gospel in the great
centres of civilisation, the capitals of the world.
IL THE GOSPEL.
Of the four Gospels, this has perhaps been least
appreciated, and for two reasons : First, It is the
shortest of the Gospels. As divided into chapters, it
has only sixteen, while John has twenty-one, and
Luke twenty-four, and Matthew twenty-eight ; and,
indeed, when the length of the chapters is taken into
account, Matthew's is nearly twice as large. Secondly,
Most of the events recorded in it, along with numerous
additional facts of eventful import, are found in the
other Gospels. This circumstance has perhaps con
tributed even more than the other to throw it into
the shade, as if it were comparatively valueless.
Certain it is that, in comparison of the other
Gospels, it is very much overlooked in the Bible
expositions of the pulpit and the press ; and how can
we wonder that private Christians know but little of
its peculiar excellencies ? Matthew Henry, careful
student of the Bible as he was, finds himself con
strained to offer something very like an apology for
it, and tells us, that " when many witnesses are called
upon to give testimony to the same facts, we are not
to think it tedious, but highly necessary, that they
should relate the facts in their own words over and
over again, in order to estabhsh the truth by their

58 The Gospel according to Mark.
concurrent testimony." And then he goes on to say
— and this seems with him to be the only distinctive
purpose served by the Gospel — " It is written to put
us in mind of things which we have had in the fore
going Gospel, that we may give the more earnest heed
to them, lest at any time we should let them slip ;
and even pure minds have need to be thus stirred up
by way of remembrance. It was fit that such great
things should be spoken and written once, yea, twice,
because man is so unapt to perceive them, and so apt
to forget them." Thomas Scott also seems to think
that nothing remains to the Christian expositor, in
taking up this Gospel after the former, " except to
note variations."
It may be added, that many have regarded it as
but an abridgment or epitome of Matthew's Gospel,
any additions which they may have noticed as neces
sarily drawn from independent observation being dis
regarded as comparatively unimportant. And yet no
idea could be more erroneous. Take away the first
two chapters of Matthew which bear on the infancy
of Christ, with the chapters which record nothing but
parables and sermons, the most of which are entirely
omitted by Mark, and it will be found that the Gospel
according to Matthew is by far the smaUer of the two,
and that, as a chronicle of facts, Matthew's Gospel is
much more likely to be the abridgment than Mark's,
if either the one or the other may be looked upon as
bearing such a character. Of course, the idea of
Matthew epitomising or abridging Mark cannot be

The Gospel according to Mark. 59
entertained for a moment. Even supposing him to
have seen the Gospel memoirs of Peter,* which Mark
is sometimes said to have translated, his Gospel is in
the truest sense his own, — quite an original and
independent Gospel ; and, as its place in the canon is
designed to indicate, it was unquestionably the first
pubhshed. Properly, neither should be spoken of as
an abridgment of the other. Most certainly Mark,
although later than Matthew, in at least respect of
publication, cannot be said to have either copied or
abridged Matthew ; there are such distinctive char
acteristics, particularly such minuteness and fulness
of personally witnessed and attested detail in almost
everything which he records, as irresistibly lead us
to conclude that his Gospel is also in the proper sense
original — the fruit of independent observation, of
independent authorship. The concluding remarks of
Alford's preliminary dissertation, although, like Henry's
and Scott's, inadequate, are very good : — " I regard
the existence of the Gospel of Mark as a gracious and
valuable proof of the accommodation by the Divine
Spirit of the records of the life of our Lord to the
future necessities of the Church. While it contains
httle matter of fact which is not related in Matthew
and Luke, and thus, generally speaking, forms only a
confirmation of their complete histories, it is so far
from being a barren duplicate of them which is con
tained in it, that it comes home to every reader with
* 'avoiJ.vTiiioveiiw.Ta XliTpav. So Justin Martyr and Eusebius,
&c., as quoted by Smith of JordanhiU.

60 The Gospel according to Mark.
all the freshness of an individual mind, full of the
Holy Ghost, intently fixed on the great object of the
Christian's love and worship, reverently and affection
ately following and recording His positions and looks
and gestures, and giving us the very echoes of the
tones with which He spoke. And thus the believing
student feels, while treating of and studying this
Gospel, as indeed he does of each in its turn, that —
without venturing to compare with one another in
value these rich and abiding gifts of the Holy Spirit
to the Church — the Gospel of Mark is at least as
precious to him as any of the others, serving an end
and filling a void which could not, without spiritual
detriment, be left uncared for."
Let us proceed to notice its various characteris
tics : —
1. The first of these may be said to be determined
by the parties for whose use it seems to have been
published. Formerly it was generally believed to
have been published at Rome for the use of the
Roman Christians, but latterly this opinion has been
shown to be incorrect.
There are internal evidences in the Gospel which
go far to prove that it must have been published in
Palestine for Gentile Christians there.
The evidences are such as these : — Throughout the
Gospel the geography of Palestine is supposed to be
familiar to its readers. Even comparatively obscure
localities are not marked by any accompanying refer
ences, as are common in the Gospel according to Luke,

The Gospel according to Mark. 6 1
which was certainly written for the use of a Roman
Gentile Christian. There is not one instance of such
a geographical explanation in it as might have been
looked for in a Gospel written in Rome for the use of
Roman Christians. On the contrary, the whole topo
graphy of the Gospel is that of one resident in the
neighbourhood of the various places mentioned; and
unaware of any reason for accompanying his references
with explanations. A partial acquaintance with Jew
ish rites and customs is also supposed to be possessed
by his readers. There are particular references in it
to the Sabbath, and the Preparation, and the Jewish
festivals, which must have required explanation — it
distinguishes, for example, between the feast of the
passover and the feast of unleavened bread (chap.
xiv. 1,) without giving any explanation of the distinc
tion, as must have been required — had the Gospel
been immediately intended for the use of entire
strangers to the Jewish faith.
At the same time, there are several references to
the Jews and explanations given, bearing mainly on
their minuter customs, which plainly prove that the
author, or perhaps translator and editor, had in view
the information of persons who, by residence in Judea,
might be supposed to know the localities of the coun
try, and also the more public and prominent of the
national customs ; while at the same time they were
not familiar with those which were more private and
less known, or which, like the religious washing of
hands before meat, of cups and pots, brazen vessels,

62 The Gospel according to Mark.
and tables, had no Scriptural authority — had no
higher authority than the tradition of the elders,
which the parties in question could not be expected
to know so weli as they knew the Scriptures.
Now, if you turn to the history of the Church as
contained in the Acts of the Apostles, it will not be
difficult to ascertain these persons. Among the first
Gentile converts to the faith were Roman soldiers
resident in Palestine and its neighbourhood. The
name of Cornelius at Cesarea, with his friends and
his household servants, and — may we not suppose ? —
some of his soldiers too, for we read of a devout
soldier who waited upon him continually, will at once
occur. During the years which immediately followed
the conversion of Cornelius, we cannot doubt that the
work of conversion made considerable progress among
the foreign military and civil residents in Cesarea and
other parts of Palestine, and more especially among
the devout portion of them, the proselytes — who seem
to have been numerous — to the Jewish faith.
For such persons it was highly necessary that a
Gospel should be prepared and published ; just as
necessary as that that of Matthew should be published
for converts among the Jews, and that that of Luke
should be published for converts among the Gentiles ;
and the Gospel according to Mark answers all the
conditions of such a Gospel as would be required for
them. It refers occasionally to the prophets, but not
often; because the faith of the proselytes, although
strengthened by their testimony, was not, hke that of

The Gospel according to Mark. 63
the Jews, so dependent on it : and it needs not be
said how different it is in this respect from the Gospel
according to Matthew, the Gospel of the circumcision.
It occupies itself with a faithful record of the mighty
deeds by which Jesus at once demonstrated and ful
filled His mission, and it records them in such a form
as was most admirably adapted to command the faith
of those residents in Palestine who, although not Jews,
had been gained over, first to the Jewish, and then to
the Christian faith. Altogether it is just such a
Gospel as may be said to be described by its central
position in the canon between Matthew and Luke.
Matthew gives us the Gospel for the Jewish Chris
tians. Luke gives us the Gospel for the Gentile
Christians. John Mark, who may have been, like
Timothy, a Jew by his mother's side, and a Gentile
by his father's side— and hence perhaps his two names,
the one Jewish, and the other, as already mentioned,
Roman* — gives us between them the Gospel of the
transition-period, the middle Gospel, for those who,
although Gentiles in point of birth, were devout men
or Jews in point of faith, the Gentile proselytes resi
dent in Palestine who had been converted to Chris
tianity ; some of whom would, in all likelihood, carry
it with them to Rome on their return thither, and
* The numerous Latinised expressions and forms of expression
employed in this Gospel, may be also thus accounted for without
having recourse to Da Costa's hypothesis, that its author -was a
Homan, the devout soldier mentioned in the Acts as the servant of
Cornelius.

64 The Gospel according to Mark.
thus give rise to the old tradition that it had actually
been written there.*
2. Another characteristic of this Gospel is to be
seen in its vividness of portraiture, the singularly
picturesque and life-like way in which its narrative
surrounds the events which it records with minute
and circumstantial details, always interesting, often
tenderly touching, sometimes most impressive, and
generally indicative of the autoptical or personal ob
servation of its author. For the appreciation of this
pecuhar characteristic, it might be enough to compare
the narrative with that of the other Gospels in any
event or circumstance which they happen to relate in
common, such as the resuscitation of the daughter of
Jairus, the restoration of sight to blind Bartimeus,
and the contribution by the widow of her two
mites into the treasury of the temple. But we
must leave the work of comparison to personal
examination. We can only instance a few incidental details by
way of specimen. " He was with the wild beasts :" —
so in a merely passing way, yet with eminently gra
phic effect, it is here mentioned in the account of the
wilderness-temptation. "And all the city was gathered
together at the door." " And again He entered into
Capernaum after some days ; and it was noised that
* Simon, the Cyrenian, who was compelled to bear the cross, is
called in this Gospel "the father of Alexander and Rufus," who
are named in the Epistle to the Romans as then resident in Rome ;
and these young men may have taken it -with them to that city.

The Gospel according to Mark. 65
He was in the house.* And straightway many were
gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to
receive them, no, not so much as about the door.-''^ —
so we have it here related, or rather pictured out from
personal knowledge and observation, in the accounts
of the crowds which followed Him when the fame of
His miracles began to be spread abroad. " And they
come unto Him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which
was borne of four. And when they could not come
nigh unto Him for the press, they uncovered the roof
where He was, and when they had broken it up, they
¦let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay." —
so here again, in the account of the paralyiic brought
to Him for healing, we have the scene spread out, in
the minute embodiment of hving reality before us, by
one who had evidently been an eye-witness. Then
in the account here given of the tempest on the sea
of Galilee, we also have some very graphic touches of
autoptical detail : — " And when they had sent away
the multitude, they took Him even as He was in the
ship. And there were also with Him other little ships.
And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves
beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And
He was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a
pillow."X Then in the account of the miracle of the
* " ils oTkov," — " In doors" — " At home" — " Gone home :'' — so
Blomfleld, Alford, and Smith of JordanhUl.
t Tci irpbs T^v eipav,—"the before the door,"— "the front of the
door, " — outside as well as inside the door.
t Mr Smith of JordanhiU has very clearly shown that the various
e

66 The Gospel according to Mark.
feeding of the five thousand upon the five loaves and
two fishes, we have also here in the similarly graphic
style of an eye-witness: — "And He commanded
them to make all sit down by companies upon the
green grass. And they sat down in ranks, by hun
dreds, and by fifties." Then here again we read, in
equally minute and as evidently autoptical description,
that when His disciples were tempest-tossed on the
passage to Bethsaida, whither He had constrained
them to go while He remained to send away the
people, "He saw them toiling in rowing:" that,
when He went to Gennesaret, " they began to carry
about in beds those that were sick where they heard
He was ; and whithersoever He entered, into villages,
or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets:"
that, when He had compassion on the great multitude
that had been with Him three days, and said, " If I
send them away fasting to their own houses, they will
faint by the way," " divers came from, far : " that, on
one occasion when the disciples had forgotten to take
bread with them for a voyage across the sea of Gali
lee, "neither had they in the ship with them more
than one loaf:" that the young man who came to
Him with the question, " Good Master, what shall I
do, that I may inherit eternal life?" "came running
references in this Gospel to nautical matters are professional, such
as might be expected from a fisherman like Peter, and that the
parallel references in Matthew and Luke are those of landsmen, as
these Evangelists are known to have been. — Vide his Dissertation
on the Origin and Connection of the Gospels, pp. 206, 281, 294,
et passion.

The Gospel according to Mark. , 67
and kneeled to Him : " that when He went up to
Jerusalem with His disciples for the last time, " He
went before them, and as they followed they were
afraid:" that they who passed by when He was
crucified, and railed on Him, wagging their heads,
said, "Ah! Thou that destroyest the temple" — what
insult is embodied by Mark in this one word, "Ah !"
which he alone records : and that the reason why
the women said among themselves, when they were
on the way to the tomb of Christ, " Who shall roll us
away the stone from the door of the sepulchre 1 " was,
" For it was very great."
It may be further mentioned, before passing from
these notices, that Mark often gives an additional
touch of, as it were, dramatic reality to his deline
ations, by preserving the very words which were used
by Christ, adding, however, the explanation as perhaps
necessary for some of his readers : — " Talitha cumi,*
which is, being interpreted. Damsel, I say unto thee.
Arise!" "It is Corban — that is to say, a gift;"
* This occasional record of the very words employed by Christ
would have been unnecessary in a Gospel -written for Jews, to whom
the Aramjean language was familiar as their mother tongue ; it
would have been quite useless in a Gospel -written for Gentdes, who
were altogether ignorant of the language ; but it is perfectly natural
in a Gospel -written for Roman residents in Palestine, by whom the
language may be presumed to have been partially kno-wn. The
parallel of it may be often met -with in foreign expressions, as occa
sionally introduced into translated and other books intended for
readers -who may be expected to appreciate their introduction ; and
certainly, if Mark was the translator of Peter, its frequent occur
rence in his Gospel is in this way at once accounted for.

68 The Gospel according to Ma/rk.
"Fphphatha — that is. Be opened ;" "Abba, Father ;"
"Eloi! Eloi! lama sabachthani?* which is, being
interpreted. My God, My God, why hast Thou for
saken Me ? " and by also describing, with the minute
detail of an eye-witness, the very looks, and feelings,
and gestures of Christ on many occasions : — " And
Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth His hand,
and touched him:" "And when He had looked
round about on them with anger, being grieved for
the hardness of their hearts:" "And He looked
round about to see her who had done this thing : "
"And He could there do no mighty work, save that
He laid His hands upon a few sick folk, and healed
them : And He marvelled, because of their unbelief : "
"And He took him aside from the multitude, and
put His fingers into his ears, and He spit, and
touched his tongue, and looking up to heaven, He
sighed : " " And they brought young children to
Him that He should touch them ; and His disciples
rebuked those that brought them ; But when Jesus
saw it. He was much displeased; and He took them
up in His arms:" "Then Jesus beholding him,
loved him : " " And Jesus entered into Jerusalem,
and into the temple, and when He had looked round
about upon all things, and now the eventide was
come. He went unto Bethany with the twelve."
* By Matthew, this is given in the Hebrew proper — "Eli! Eli!"
&c. ; and along with "Immanuel" and "Golgotha," also Hebrew
words, is translated by him, because pure Hebrew was very much
-with the Jews, even then, a dead language, perhaps confined to the
services of Divine worship.

The Gospel according to Mark. 69
3. But, without entering into further details, — for
to exhaust the subject we would require to quote well-
nigh the entire Gospel, — we must now proceed to
notice the distinctive characteristic of this Gospel,
considered in that peculiar aspect in which it por
trays or exhibits Christ to us. This characteristic
does not stand out so conspicuously as that of each of
the other Gospels; but on examination, it will be
found to be no less real and no less expressive. The
symbol of it, according to the mnemonic figures of the
cherubim, we have identified, contrary to the Roman
view, with that of the ox, as indicative of steady,
strenuous labour — humble, patient, faithful servitude.
The hon steps forth with majestic tread, the king and
lord of aU in its own domain. The man looks out
with intelligent catholic sympathy upon the world
around, and recognises in every fellow-man his brother-
man. The eagle soars on high, and, as if it belonged
to another and a higher world than this, gazes with
unwinking eye on the mid-day sun. But the ox has
a yoke upon its neck, and it goes along with head
bent downwards to the earth, dragging the plough
through the farm land, or treading out the corn in
the thrashing-floor. To this symbol, the Gospel
according to Mark exactly corresponds. It is distinct
ively practical — not royal, or cathohc, or divine.
There are references in it which are no doubt royal,
and catholic, and divine ; but they are neither numer
ous nor explicit. The view throughout is that of
Christ in the constant, laborious, unwearied activity

70 The Gospel according to Mark.
of His. daily outward ministry. If He is the Son of
God, it is as in a state of profound humiUation —
" who made Himself of no reputation, and took upon
Him the form of a servant," — the Servant of the
Lord, faithful, dihgent, always at His work. We may
here offer some illustrations.
I. First, we may instance, according to a plan
pursued by others, a few of the more remarkable
omissions in this Gospel, that is, as compared with
the other Gospels. We may often learn not a little
from Scriptural omissions. The silence of the Bible
is, in many cases, as expressively significant as its
explicit statements. Here the significance of silence
is certainly instructive.
1 . Look at the beginning of the Gospel. — There is
nothing here that answers to the introduction in
Matthew, or the introduction in Luke, or the intro
duction in John. The royal genealogy, the immaculate
conception, the birth of the King of the Jews, the
visit of the magi with their gifts and worship, the
Benedictus of Zacharias, the Magnificat of Mary, the
Nunc dimittis of Simeon, the whole infancy, childhood,
and youth of Jesus, together with His pre-existence
as the Eternal Word, and His glory as of the Only-
begotten which is in the bosom of the Father, — are
all omitted ; they are not in keeping with the idea
of this Gospel, and are therefore silently passed over ;
and at once we have, instead, " The beginning of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ" in the full activity of His
energetic efficient ministry.

The Gospel according to Mark. 71
2. Look also at the sermons of the Gospel. — There
are hardly any here, at least of any considerable length;
for the ministry in question is not the ministry of
words, but the ministry of deeds, the ministry of
action. The sermon on the mount is omitted. All
the long parables are omitted. The parable sermons
also, on the Bread of God which came down from
heaven, and on the Good Shepherd, with those on the
Divine equahty and unity of the Son with the Father,
and those on the Father's house with many mansions,
and on the mission of the Holy Ghost, with the fare
well promises of answers to prayer, of peace, of fruit-
bearing, and fulness of joy — there is not one word of
any of them 'here recorded ; they might have made
us lose sight of the Servant in the authority of the
Teacher, of the Master.
In the few discourses which are recorded, they are
not only abbreviated, but comparatively httle in them
is expressive of independent personal authority ; there
are, in fact, not a few expressions in them which
indicate inferiority rather than authority, the subor
dination of the Servant rather than the sovereignty or
majesty of the Lord. We may instance two or three
passages. When, after the confession of Peter that
He was the Christ, He went on to show how much
would be lost — life, even the soul itself — ^by unfaith
fulness to the Gospel, He thus concluded one of the
most solemn warnings He ever uttered, — " Whosoever,
therefore, shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in
this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall

72 The Gospel according to Mark.
the Son of man be ashamed when He cometh in the
glory of His Father with the holy angels." Matthew
adds the words, "And then He shall reward every
man according to his works." Luke characteristically
omits the additional words, and simply records —
" When He shall come in His own glory, and in His
Father's, and of the holy angels." Mark, quite as
characteristically, takes notice of the glory of the
Father only ; because the servant does not claim a
glory which is his own, or other than his lord's, —
" When He cometh in the glory of His Father with
the holy angels." Again : When He took a little
child in His arms, in order to rebuke His disciples for
their strivings about pre-eminence, He said, " Whoso
ever shaU receive one of such children in My name,
receiveth Me," and then added, as here recorded, quite
characteristically, " And whosoever shall receive Me,
receiveth not Me, but Him that sent Me." " Receiveth
not Me," are words which are to be found in Mark
only ; it is the Servant's to say, " Not Me, but Him
that sent Me." Again : When He sat upon the
Mount of Olives, and uttered His memorable prophecy
of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the coming of
the Son of man. He said, as recorded here, " But
when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no
thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do
ye premeditate ; but whatsoever shall be given you
in that hour, that speak ye ; for it is not ye that speak
but the Holy Ghost :" — there is no reference to Him
self, or to His own aid, such as we have in the parallel

The Gospel according to Mark. 73
passage in Luke, " For I will give you a mouth and
wisdom, which aU your adversaries shall not be able
to gainsay and resist." Then again on the same
occasion, and also as only recorded here, " But of that
day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels
which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father."
"Neither the Son !" that is, as characteristically, the
Servant, " for the servant knoweth not what his lord
doeth." "
3. Look at the manner in which Christ is addressed
in the Gospel. The ordinary term of address in the
other Gospels is Lord, sometimes Master : " Ye call
Me Master and Lord ; and ye say well, for so I am."
But in this Gospel, — although He is often addressed
as Master, that is, as so rendered in our version ; for
in the original it is never the word which properly
stands for Master ; it is only Rabbi or Teacher, — He
is never once addressed as Lord. Matthew makes the
leper say, "Lord, if Thou wilt. Thou canst make
me clean." Mark omits the Lord in his account.
Matthew makes the disciples say at the supper-table,
"Lord, is it I?" Mark again very strikingly omits
the " Lord ;" his account is, " They began to say unto
Him one by one. Is it I ? and another said. Is it I ?"
Matthew makes the disciples say when they awoke
Him in the tempest, "Lord, save us, we perish."
Luke makes them say, " Master, Master, we perish."
Mark sinks both terms in Teacher, and makes them
speak also in complaining tones, as if they thought it
wrong in Him who was always working to be then

74 The Gospel according to Mark.
sleeping. "Teacher" — "Master," in our version, is
wrong ; it is always wrong — " Teacher, carest Thou
not that we perish V The same distinction occurs in
the three accounts of the transfiguration. Matthew
makes Peter say, " Lord, it is good for us to be here :"
Mark, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here :" Luke,
" Master, it is good for us to be here." There are,
indeed, three passages in our version in which He is
addressed as Lord ; but incorrectly, improperly, in two,
and by a stranger or foreigner in the third. In one
passage, the word is spurious. It occurs in the address
of the father. of the demoniac child to Christ, " Lord,
I believe; help Thou my unbelief" "Lord" should
not be inserted here ; it is not in any of the oldest and
best manuscripts. In another passage, it is improperly
translated. Blind Bartimeus is represented as praying,
" Lord, that I may receive my sight ; " but the word is
"Rabboni," — not a title of nobility, of authority, but
merely of reverential courtesy. In the third passage
it is, "Yes, Lord !" but the speaker is not a disciple
or a Jew : it is the Syrophenician woman to whom,
as a Jew and a prophet. He was really a lord, if not
the Lord. The only occasion on which even our Lord
unequivocally* speaks of Himself in this Gospel as
* We say, " unequivocally, " because there are two other passages
in which he speaks of the Lord, chapters v. 19, and xi. 3, only the
reference is not explicit ; it may be understood, not of Himself, but
of God. Compare the first of these passages with Luke viii. 39.
The second occurs in the record of His triumphant entry into
Jerusalem, which, as compared -with the other evangelical accounts
of it, will be found in Mark to be quite characteristic.

The Gospel according to Mark. 73
Lord is in the passage — the first part of which, with
the argument dependent on it, is also peculiar to this
Gospel — where He says, " The Sabbath was made for
man, and not man for the Sabbath, therefore the Son
of man is Lord also of the Sabbath ;" but even here,
as the "therefore" of the passage plainly indicates,
the Lordship is a delegated one ; it is a Lordship
acquired from the Sabbath being made for man, and
therefore a Lordship in which every man, the servant
as well as his master, ahke participates. " No man
may take the Sabbath from me. It is as much mine
as his. Be he who he may, or what he may, my
master, my lord, my king even — no matter ; I am
lord of the Sabbath as well as he, — lord of it under
. God, by whom it was made for me, for man — for the
servant-man as well as for the master-man." It is
not tiU the very close of the Gospel that the evangelist
himself applies the term " Lord" to Christ ; and there
only when, after having finished the work which was
given Him to do on earth, the Servant of the Lord is
exalted from a subordinate position to that of sovereign
authority, is proved by His ascension into glory to be
" both Lord and Christ" " So then, after the Lord"
— He is "the Lord" now — "had spoken unto them.
He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right
hand of God. And they went forth, and preached
everyTvhere, the Lord" — observe again, " the Lord" —
" working with them, and confirming the word with
signs following."*
* It might have been noticed here also, that, although this Gospel

76 The Gospel according to Mark.
We must pass over many other omissions, no less
significant, such as the omission of woes and bless
ings : — ^woes are not seemly on the hps of servants,
or of any in subordinate position, — hence Chorazin,
Bethsaida, and Capernaum are not here threatened*
and denounced as in other Gospels ; and blessings do
not befit them either, except in relation to the children
of whom they have the charge, for " the less is blessed
of the greater ;" hence, also, the only case of blessing
related in this Gospel is that of the young children
which " they brought to Him that He should touch
them," and it is said, and only here said, "And He
took them up in His arms, and blessed them."
is called, in its opening sentence, ' ' the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son
of God, " He is never addressed in it as the Son of God. The details
of the temptation which turned on this, "If Thou be the Son of
God," are omitted. The taunting expression as addressed to Him
on the cross, " If Thou be the Son of God, come do-wn from the
cross," is also omitted. Even on His trial, the high priest's adjura
tion is, as it were, softened ; at least, it is not, ' ' Art Thou the Son
of God?" but, "Art Thou the Son of the Blessed?" Perhaps it
may not be amiss to add that, whatever may be said of the rest of
the Gospel, both the beginning and the end of it are evidently from
Mark's o-wn hand. The genuineness of the concluding paragraph,
chap. x-yi. , ver. 9-20, has been much disputed ; and it is certainly
different in its style from the preceding portion of the Gospel ; but,
if Mark was the translator and continuator of Peter, the difference
is rather a proof of its genuineness as an addition by Mark himself
to his translation of Peter's original memoranda.
*¦ Da Costa's -view is not inconsistent -with this. He thinks that
Mark, whom he believes to have been a Roman, or at least a Gentile
by birth, did not record them from motives of delicacy. The same
motives would hold, if, as we suppose, Mark was the son of a Gen-
tUe by the father's side.

The Gospel according to Mark. 77
II. Let us, in the second place, proceed to instance
a few of the additions which are peculiar to this
Gospel, and which are also illustrative of its properly
distinctive character.
1. Look at the narrative of facts in this Gospel.
We shall, as it were, but tabulate a few of the more
outstanding which bear on the point in hand.
Here we learn that He began the business of life
at an ordinary handicraft. We read of Him as " the
Carpenter." The other Gospels call Him " the car
penter's son."
Here we see Him again and again using His hands
in His ministry. When He healed Simon's wife's
mother of a fever, it is said, "And He came and took
her by the hand, and lifted her up." When He
opened the eyes of the bhnd man at Bethsaida, it is
said, "And He took the blind man by the hand:"
"And He put His hands upon him:" "After that
He put His hands upon his eyes." When He cured
the demoniac child, it is said, " But Jesus took him
by the hand and lifted him, up." These details are
given in this Gospel only, along with the similar
reference in the remark of the astonished multitude,
" From whence hath this Man these things ? and what
wisdom is this which is given unto Him, that even
such mighty works are wrought by His hands V His
is a ministry of active labour. It is always seen to
be performed by Himself and wrought by His hands.
Here we often behold Him seeking retirement in
His work, as if it were unseemly in Him to let it be

78 The Gospel according to Mark.
seen of men. When He went into the borders of
Tyre and Sidon, where the Syrophenician woman so
successfully prevailed on Him to heal her daughter,
it is said. He " entered into an house, and would have
no man know it, but He could not be hid." When
He healed the deaf man in Decapolis, it is said, " He
took him aside from the multitude :" and again, in
the case of the blind man at Bethsaida to whom He
gave sight, — He "led him out of the town." It was
the praise, not of man, but of God He sought.
Here we find Him at times so occupied with His
work that the ordinary opportunities of repose and
refreshment are denied to Him. He gets up early in
the morning, for prayer ; because in this is to be found
His strength for service, and He has no time for it
during the day, — then it is, work, work, — "And in
the morning rising up a great while before day. He
went out and departed into a solitary place, and there
prayed." Again and again He is interrupted and
called away when He seeks some rest, but He never
complains. When He went out to a solitary place
and there prayed, " Simon and they that were with
Him foUowed after Him," — literally, ^wwiec? after Him,
— " and when they had found Him, they said. All men
seek for Thee," and at once He answered, not, " Let
us rest awhile," but, " Let us go into the next towns,
that I onay preach there also." When, on another
occasion. He said unto the apostles, " Come ye your
selves apart into a desert place, and rest a while ;" " and
they departed into a desert place by a ship privately ;"

The Gospel according to Mark. 79
" the people saw them departing, and many knew Him,
and ran afoot thither out of all the cities, and outwent
them, and came together unto Him," and then it is
added, "And Jesus, when He came out, saw much
people, and was moved with compassion," — no vexa
tion, no fretfulness, at the interruption, — -" was moved
with compassion toward them, because they were as
sheep not having a shepherd ; and He began to teach
them m,any things." Sometimes the interruptions,
and the occupations connected with them, interfered
even with His meals : — " And the multitude cometh
together again, so that they could not so much as
eat bread:" "For there were many coming and
going, and they had no leisure so much as to
eat." All these references are peculiar to this
Gospel. There is nothing parallel to them in the
other Gospels.
Here we have many things which indicate that it
was hard work He had to do, and that He felt it to
be so. Let the cases brought to Him for cure as
described with so much minuteness, and in terms also
which are meant to show that they were extreme, be
examined and compared with the narratives of the
other Gospels, and the proof of this point will be held
to be complete. We can only advert to the following
things. Here He finds it necessary to ask for faith
when His ability to help, although earnestly requested,
is limited and questioned : — " If Thou canst do any
thing, have compassion on us, and help us. Jesus
said unto him. If thou canst believe, all things are

80 The Gospel according to Mark.
. possible to him that believeth." There is not a word
of this in the other Gospels. Here He is actuaUy
hindered in His work by unbelief ; it stays His hand ;
it disables it ; He becomes, as it were, unable to do
even what He would : — " And He could there do no
mighty work, save that He laid His hands upon a
few sick folk, and healed them, and He m,arvelled
because of their unbelief" Matthew says, " He did
not many mighty works there because of their unbelief,"
but Mark's expression is at once characteristic and
significant, "He could not." Here He is distressed
in His work, as workmen and servants often are ; He
feels it to be a burden ; it oppresses Him ; it wears
Him out with sorrow : " Being grieved for the hard
ness of their hearts :" — This is noticed by Mark only.
" And looking up to heaven. He sighed ;" — No other
evangelist records the sighs of Christ. " And He
sighed deeply in His spirit:"- — The expression in
which this fact is noticed is peculiar to Mark. It
nowhere else occurs in Scripture. Here also we read :
— "And they bring Him unto the place Golgotha,"
or as it is in the original, more expressively, " And
they bear Him unto the place Golgotha." John says,
" And He, bearing His cross, went forth into a place
called the place of a skull;" but it would appear that
He had not sufficient strength to carry it all the way,
and the other evangelists unite in telling us that a
foot-passenger, Simon, a Cyrenian, was compeUed to
bear it for Him ; while Mark here further seems to
intimate, that at length His strength gave way alto-

The Gospel according to Mark. 81
gether, and they had actually to carry Him to the
cross, — to bear Him, faint, exhausted, spent — just as
Simon had " to bear His cross." Here, in short, the
end of the Gospel corresponds to its beginning; it
ends, as it had begun, with work : — " And they went
forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord 'working
with them, and confirming the word with signs
following." All these, along with many other additions, are
singularly characteristic of this Gospel as the Gospel
of ministry, of service, — the faithful service, the
laborious ministry, " of Jesus Christ the Son of God."
2. Look at the record of sayings in this Gospel.
It will be enough to notice the references to God.
These are perhaps the most singularly characteristic ;
although others, not much less so, might also be
instructively observed. We shall omit merely inci
dental references. In several passages, such references
— left out of the parallel passages in the other Gospels,
and not the less instructive on that account — wiU
occasionally be found ; but from their apparently
casual character, it may be as well to pass them
altogether. The following, as quite exphcit and outstanding,
may be simply mentioned.
Here the only parables of "the kingdom" which
are recorded, — there are but four of them, — are par
ables of " the kingdom of GoD." There is not one of
them a parable of " the kingdom of heaven," — the
kingdom in which Christ is King. They all relate to
/

82 The Gospel according to Mark.
the period which, as it were, precedes His coming to
the kingdom. God is King in them, and He Himself
is but a Servant in the work of subordinate minis
tration.* Here the remark of the scribes, when they charged
Him with blasphemy for saying to the sick of the
palsy, " Son, thy sins be forgiven thee," is set down as,
" Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies ? Who
can forgive sins but God only?'' Matthew gives it
as, "This man blasphemeth ; " Luke, "Who is this
which speaketh blasphemies 1 Who can forgive sins
but God alone .?"f but Mark characteristicaUy, and
to show how they sought to exclude the possibihty of
any kind of claim to Deity on the part of Christ, "Who
can forgive sins but THE one God V'l
Here, once more, in the conversation between
Him and the scribe who asked, " Which is the first
commandment of all ? " Jesus is related to have an
swered him, " The first of aU the commandments is.
Hear, 0 Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord:" —
these words are not related by Matthew as quoted on
this occasion ; they are characteristically enough given
* One of these parables — that of the seed which groweth sUently
— is peculiar to Mark. It is strictly a parable of ser-vice, — ^patient
service. The parable of the tares, in which Christ is "the House
holder, " — " House-lord, " — and which would have therefore been out
of place in Mark, occupies its place in Matthew. A comparison of
the difierent Gospels here wiU be found to exhibit very distinctly
their characteristic instructiveness.
t "fidvos 6 Bibs."
% The literal rendering of the original — " els 6 Beos."

The Gospel according to Mark. 83
by Mark only : — " Hear, 0 Israel ; the Lord our God
is ONE Lord ; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all
thy mind, and with aU thy strength ; this is the first
commandment. And the second is like, namely this.
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is
none other commandment greater than these. And
the scribe said unto Him," — the whole of what follows
is quite characteristic of Mark ; it is entirely omitted
by Matthew, the only other evangelist who records
this conversation ; — " Well, Master, Thou hast said
the truth ; for there is one God ; and there is none
otJi^r but He; and to love Him with all the heart,
and with all the understanding, and with aU the soul,
and with aU the strength, and to love his neighbour
as himself, is more than all whole burnt-offerings and
sacrifices." Plainly, in these as well as in other
passages, Mark sets Him before us not as the Lord,
but as the Servant.
"The conclusion of the whole matter" is plainly
this, — that the Gospel according to Mark is "the
Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;" "who,
being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to
be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputa
tion, and took upon Him the form, of a servant, and
was made in the likeness of men ; and being found in
fashion as a man. He humbled Himself, and became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and
given Him a name which is above every name ; that

84 The Gospel according to Mark.
at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things
in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the
earth ; and that every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
Let us, as we did. in our examination of the Gospel
according to Matthew, urge a practical use of the view
of Christ which is thus exhibited in this Gospel.
The practical character of the Gospel is such as of
itself demands its practical improvement. We here,
if any where in the Gospels, behold the example which
Christ hath left us that we should follow His steps.
It was a bright example. How we should delight to
look on Him as our Forerunner, and our Companion
also, in the service of the Lord.
It is encouraging to ministers to observe how in
this Gospel they are specially instructed to do so.
For when He is said to have ordained the twelve to
the apostleship, it is here added, — we do not find it
so in the other Gospels, — " that they might be with
Him," as it were feUow-labourers with Him. And
then again, when they went forth after His ascension
to preach the gospel, it is also added here,- — and no
where else, — " the Lord working with them," that is,
as a fellow-labourer with them.
Let servants in every station, workmen in every
occupation, also learn from Him in this Gospel to be
faithful, zealous, untiring, uncomplaining, prayerful, —
just like Him — at their work. Even those who do
not occupy an inferior position in life may here learn

The Gospel according to Mark. 85
from Him how to serve the Lord in well-doing. Here
is a text for them from this Gospel ; — " For the poor
ye have always with you." Matthew and John also
record these words ; but Mark alone adds — and the
addition, as noted by him, is characteristic — "and
whensoever ye will, ye vnay do them good."
There is one word which is constantly used in this
Gospel, — the word indifferently rendered in our version,
"immediately," "straightway," "forthwith," "anon,"
" by and by," " as soon as,"* from which also, as it shows
us how Jesus was always ready for His work and always
getting forward with it, all of us may learn prompti
tude, diligence, unwearied activity, and many other
important virtues, in the various duties of our several
places and relations. The duties devolving on us in
these places and relations may, no doubt, be hard to
perform, very hard ; but it is here, in this Gospel,
that we are taught to look for that ; " And come, take
up the cross, and follow Me;" — these words are re
corded by Mark only ; and again, " There is no man
that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father,
or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My sake
and the Gospel's, but he shall receive an hundredfold
now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters,
and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecu
tions;"— \hese words are in Mark only — "and in the
world to come eternal life." " The cross !" " With per-
"' ivBeas in the original ; it occurs about forty times in this
Gospel, and only about other forty times in all the rest of the New
Testament together.

8 6 The Gospel according to Mark.
secutions ! " Behold what is before us here. But then
there is His own example to sustain us in bearing that
cross, in suffering those persecutions ; and withal there
is the blessed hope that, as in His case, so in ours,
the cross will be followed with the crown, the persecu
tions with eternal life and glory. " It is a faithful
saying ;" — " If so be that we suffer with Him that we
may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be
compared with the glory which shall be revealed in
us."

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE.

The inscriptions of the Gospels, if not original, were
certainly prefiLsed at a date which warrants us to accept
them as authentic. The necessity of distinguishing
the respective authorship of the Gospels, by prefixing
to each the name of its author, must have become
obvious at a very early period from the number of
copies which required to be transcribed for circulation
in the different churches ; and we are assured by those
who have investigated the subject, that the Christian
fathers universally represent the four Gospels as written
by the persons whose names are still prefixed to them
in our printed copies of the Scriptures.
From the inscriptions we accordingly pass at once
to the Gospels themselves ; and, as that which comes
in turn, the Gospel according to Luke will form the
subject of present consideration.
I. THE EVANGELIST.
It is not much that we know of him. We know
less of him than of any other writer of the New Tes-

88 The Gospel according to Luke.
tament Scriptures. His name never occurs in the
Gospel narrative. According to an old tradition, he
is sometimes said to have been one of the seventy
disciples whom our Lord sent out, two by two, to
preach the gospel ; but, except that he is the only
evangelist who records the commission of the seventy,
there appears to be no evidence for the tradition.
We may briefly state the facts of his history, so far
as they can be gathered from Scripture, whence our
only certain knowledge of him is derived.
1. He was a beloved companion and fellow-
labourer of the Apostle Paul. The first time we meet
with him in this connexion is in the Acts of the
Apostles, a portion of Scripture of which he was hke-
wise the author. There in the course of the sixteenth
chapter we learn, from his exchanging the historical
for the autobiographical form of narrative, that he
accompanied the apostle and the party who went from
Troas to preach the gospel in Macedonia. That he
had been a convert to Christianity for some time pre
vious to this period is more than probable ; but when
or where he was brought to the knowledge of the truth
we have no means of information. It is not likely
that he was converted by the ministry of Paul, for the
apostle never calls him his son, as he terms Timothy
and Titus ; but the general use of the autobiographical
term "We," in the remaining portion of the Acts, as
good as intimates that he continued to accompany the
apostle in at least the most important of those mis
sionary journeys with which the history of the Acts is

The Gospel according to Luke. 89
occupied. From Troas we follow them by Samo-
thracia and Neapolis to Philippi, where Paul and Silas
were scourged and imprisoned, and had their feet made
fast in the stocks. Again, we find them together at
Assos ; and we then foUow them by Mitylene, Samos,
and Trogylhum to Miletus, where Paul had the very
affecting meeting with the elders of the Church of
Ephesus ; and thence by Coos, Rhodes, and Patara to
Tyre, where certain disciples said to Paul through the
Spirit that he should not go up to Jerusalem ; and
thence again by Ptolemais to Cesarea, where the pro
hibition was, as it were, repeated by a prophet named
Agabus, but in vain ; for Paul went on to Jerusalem,
and Luke with him, although he had endeavoured
along with others to prevail on him to comply with
the prohibition. It also appears that he afterwards
went to Cesarea, and remained with the apostle during
the two years of his detention there by orders of Fehx,
the Roman governor. At all events, he accompanied
him on the voyage to Rome, and shared in the ship
wreck and sufferings of the voyage. On arriving in
the city of the Cesars he drops all further notice of
himself from the history ; but we may conclude that
he remained with the apostle as a fellow-labourer in
the Gospel, for his name appears in some of the epistles
which Paul sent from Rome to distant churches, as a
beloved brother who joined with him in his greetings
and salutations.
2. From one of the epistles of Paul we learn, in
quite an incidental way, that he was a physician by

90 The Gospel according to Luke.
profession. Perhaps the attachment which subsisted
between him and Paul may receive an explanation from
this fact. Both were persons of education, superior
in point of literary acquirement to the generality of
Christians of their day^ and therefore more hkely to
be profitable to one another in their companionship.
The attainments of Luke, together with his modesty,
amiability, and gentleness — for the honourable man
ner in which Paul speaks of him as " Luke the beloved
physician," would seem to indicate that he was a
person of this character — ^point him out as the most
suitable person of whom we know to be the friend of
the apostle after his separation from Barnabas. In
their affectionate companionship we are somehow
reminded of that of Luther and Melancthon at the
period of the Reformation. Paul, like Luther, is the
grand actor, the moving spirit : he stands out promi
nently to public view, and all men behold with admi
ration the intrepidity of his character, the amount of
his labours, and his unparalleled success ; while Luke,
like Melancthon writing in the back-ground his
Common-places, the first system of divinity ever pub
hshed by the Church of the Reformation, is a retiring
spirit, also writing away, as it were, behind the scenes,
and in his two volumes of the Gospel and the Acts,
from which, unhke those who seek to immortalise
their name with their work, he excludes all mention
of himself by name, presents us with the first general
history of the apostolic Church, from its foundation in
the person, hfe, and work of Jesus Christ, to its erec-

The Gospel according to Luke. 91
tion and full development under the oversight and in
the labours of the apostles.
It is not known whether the evangelist continued
to follow his profession after he was converted to
Christianity. Certain it is that he was advanced to
the honourable degree of being a physician of souls,
for in the Epistle to Philemon, (ver. 24,) Paul men
tions him as one of his fellow-labourers, — " Ma,rcus,
Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas," or as we commonly
Anglicise it, Luke, " my feUow-labourers." It is
generally admitted that he is the party referred to by
the apostle in the Second Epistle of the Corinthians
(viii. 18.) " And we have sent with him (Titus)
the brother whose praise is in the Gospel in all the
churches," or, as some explain the reference, perhaps
not quite correctly,* " whose praise for the Gospel is
in all the churches," or " whose Gospel is the subject
of praise in all the churches.'' The last Scriptural
notice of him occurs in the Second Epistle to Timothy.
It is very honourable to him as illustrative of his
Christian courage, and, at the same time, of his strong
affection for the apostle, who, after being brought
before Nero the second time, exclaims with profound
emotion, as, on the eve of martyrdom, he lies in his
solitary dungeon bound with chains, and forsaken by
all his other friends, (iv. 9-11,) "Do thy diligence to
come shortly unto me. For Demas hath forsaken me,.
having loved this present world, and is departed unto
* Vide Howson and Conybeare m loco, and Smith of JordanhiU
on the " Voyage and Shipwreck of St Paul," P. 11.

9 2 The Gospel according to Luke.
Thessalonica ; Crescens to Galatia ; Titus unto Dal-
matia ; only Luke is with me."
3. These notices of the evangehst would be incom
plete without a reference to his national and religious
connexions before he became a Christian. Perhaps
no question of a similar nature has been made the
subject of so much inquiry and discussion as the ques
tion whether he were then a Jew, or a proselyte, or a
heathen. The question is not without its interest,
and we may be permitted to state the grounds on
which we are disposed to agree with those who beheve
him to have been a Gentile.
In the Epistle to the Colossians the apostle distin
guishes him from Aristarchus, Marcus, and Jesus,
surnamed Justus, who are expressly said to have been
" of the circumcision ;" and the conclusion seems in
evitable that he must have been by birth a Gentile.
The conclusion is confirmed by his bearing a Greek
name, by his proficiency in the use of the Greek lan
guage, and by the peculiar kind of dedication with
which he begins both of his histories. In this last
respect he stands alone in the sacred Scriptures. All
the other Scriptural histories begin, according to the
Hebrew style, without any dedication ; whereas both
of his histories begin in the Greek and Roman fashion,
and the dedication of the Gospel has been particularly
noticed by learned men as an excellent specimen of
classic writing. On these grounds it seems reasona
ble to conclude that he was a Greek or Gentile.
Whether he was a proselyte to the Jewish faith

The Gospel according to Luke. 93
before he became a Christian, or whether he passed
over at once from Paganism to Christianity, or whether
he may have been, like Timothy, a Gentile by his
father's side, through whom he obtained his Greek
name and his knowledge of the Greek tongue, but
with a Jewish mother, who imparted to him his ex
tensive acquaintance with the peculiarities of the
Jewish character, laws, customs, and religion, is a
question which must be left unsettled ; there are not
sufficient data to determine it. It has been supposed
that he was the anonymous disciple who is mentioned
in his Gospel along Avith Cleopas as walking with
our Lord to Emmaus, and there is not a question that
the supposition gives emphasis to the expressions,
"Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and knowest
not ?" or, "Art thou the only stranger in Jerusalem
who hast not known the things which are come to
pass there in these days ? " " We trusted that it had
been He which should have redeemed Israel." But
this is no more than a supposition.
The fact that he was a Gentile, or at least of
Gentile extraction on the father's side, is aU that can
be definitely ascertained. Even to this conclusion
exception is sometimes taken, on the ground that
none of the books of Scripture can be beheved to have
been written by Gentiles. Yet no good reason can
be assigned to show that the Holy Spirit should not
employ Gentiles as well as Jews in writing the volume
of Inspiration. If the Book of Job was written by
Elihu, as some believe, we have at least one book of

94 The Gospel according to Luke.
the Old Testament written by a Gentile. We have,
at all events, two Old Testament books, the books of
Ruth and Jonah, which treat of Gentiles in a way
which plainly pre-intimated their participation of Gos
pel-privileges in the time of the Messiah. And, when
Gentiles have been admitted into the Church, was it
not most befitting that one of their number should be
employed as the writer of that portion of the Scrip
tures which has recorded the fact of their admission
into the Church, and the important events connected
therewith 1 Is not the fact, that the middle wall of
partition between Jews and GentUes has been com
pletely broken down, proved all the better, when we
are not merely furnished with the history of it by a
Gentile, but when we have two whole books of the
New Testament, and these among the most important
of them, written by a Gentile, or the son of a Gentile.
The mystery is now made known- that the Gentiles
should be fellow-heirs with Jews, and of the same
body, and partakers of the promise in Christ by the
Gospel. The fact is still further confirmed when, on turning
to the books written by Luke, we find that they are
both addressed to a person who, like himseff, was evi
dently a Gentile. It was once very commonly believed
that Theophilus, to whom both books are addressed,
was a fictitious name, which ought to be taken accord
ing to its literal signification — "a friend of God" —
as descriptive of any disciple, or as comprehensive of
all disciples, to whom the books should therefore be

The Gospel according to Luke. 95
considered as dedicated. This opinion must be set
aside as altogether unwarrantable. It is not consis
tent with the practice of the sacred writers to intro
duce ideal characters into their narratives. The
opinion that he was a Gentile rests on the most
conclusive evidence. He was unquestionably a stranger
to Palestine, for when the evangelist has occasion to
mention any country-town he uniformly specifies its
locality, which he would not have done had he been
writing to a native of Palestine, or to a Jew : "A
city of Galilee, named Nazareth;" "Capernaum, a
city of Gahlee;" "Arimathea, a city of the Jews.''
He also mentions that the country of the Gadarenes
is "over against Galilee ;" and in the account of the
two disciples to whom Christ showed Himself after
His resurrection, he says, " They went to a village
called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about
threescore furlongs." In like manner he relates that,
after the resurrection, the disciples " returned to
Jerusalem from the mount Olivet, which is from Jeru
salem a Sabbath-day's journey." It is he also who
gives the Greek name " Calvary," instead of the
Hebrew "Golgotha," to the mount where our Lord
was crucified. Clearly this particularity respecting
localities and distances proves that Theophilus was
neither a Jew nor a native of Palestine. That he
was an Itahan may be held to be almost certain.
This conclusion rests upon the fact that, while Luke
is particular in specifying the situation of places in
other countries, he dismisses all this particularity in

96 The Gospel according to Luke.
his references to the cities of Italy. In the outset of
the voyage of Paul to Rome, he marks the situation of
the different places passed or touched at by the vessel,
but as soon as he approaches Sicily or Italy he names
places, as may be seen in the last chapter of the Acts,
without saying a word respecting their situation, —
Syracuse, Rhegium, Puteoli, and even the Appii
Forum, and the Three Taverns in Rome, — ^places
which would certainly have required some geographi
cal notice or description, if Luke had not had every
reason to know that Theophilus, as an Italian, perhaps
a Roman, was intimately acquainted with them.
4. To conclude these notices of Luke, we have only
to add that the remainder of his history is involved
in great uncertainty. There are several ancient tra
ditions respecting him preserved by the early ecclesi
astical historians, but they are so contradictory that
little or no reliance can be placed on them. It is
indeed a pretty generally received opinion that he was
a native of Antioch in Syria, and his references in
the Acts of the Apostles to Antioch are such as serve
materially to corroborate the opinion. It has also
been affirmed by many that he was a painter as well
as a physician ; and in various places the Roman
Catholic Church exhibits pictures of the Virgin Mary
which are said to have been painted by him, or to
have been copied from originals which were of his
production. There is no notice in the Scriptures of
this artistic gift, and the tradition is, in truth, not
older than the fourteenth century ; only a judicious

The Gospel according to Luke. 97
writer well observes, " Had he been thus qualified,
and could he have foreseen the effects which his per
formances, if extant, would have produced, there can
be no doubt that he would rather have committed his
finest works to the flames than have left them to
future ages as an incentive to superstition and idolatry.
But although he did not paint the face of the Virgin
or that of her Son with the colours of the limner, he
did what was of much more importance; he, in the
book before us, drew to the life an exquisite portrai
ture of their character, which continues with us long
after the masterpieces of the ancient painters have
vanished, and which will continue to the end of time
the antidote of superstition, the study of the serious
inquirer, and the admiration of all good men."* By
one of the Fathers it is said that he died unmarried,
at the advanced age of eighty-four ; and the statement
is not unhkely to be correct, but that is aU that can
be said about it. II. THE GOSPEL.
It has characteristics, not a few, which have attracted
a very general and deeply-interested observation. We
cannot examine them at length. Some of them we
shall hardly do more than mention.
1. It has much more of a strictly historical cast
than the other gospels, and as a chronicle of the facts
of the life of Christ it is also much more complete.
* Foote's Lectures on Luke, vol. i. p. 7.
9

98 The Gospel according to Luke.
The historical character of it is expressly announced
in the dedication. Then, in the body of the Gospel,
we meet with numerous historical references. The
historical phrase, " It came to pass," occurs in it well-
nigh as often as the word " Then " in Matthew, and
" Straightway " or " Immediately " in Mark. Dates
are also often given. One occurs in the first chapter,
" There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea,
a certain priest named Zacharias ;'' and another in
the second, " And it came to pass in those days, that
there went out a decree from Cesar Augustus that all
the world should be taxed ; and this taxing was fir$t
made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria;" and
again another in the third, "Now in the fifteenth year
of the reign of Tiberius Cesar, (Pontius Pilate being
governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee,
and his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and of tbe
region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of
Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being high priests), the
word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias, in
the wilderness." Others of a more private kind occur
still more frequently. The circumcision of the infant
Jesus is said to have taken place " eight days " after
His birth ; and the presentation in the temple, "when
the days of the purification according to the law of
Moses were accomplished." Anna is said to have
been " a widow of about fourscore and four years,"
and to have lived with an husband " seven years from
her virginity." Jesus is said to have been "twelve
years old " when he went to the passover, where He

The Gospel according to LuJce. 99
signalised Himself among the doctors by His under
standing and answers ; and to have been about "thirty
years of age" when He was baptized by John in
Jordan. The daughter of Jairus is said to have been
"about twelve years of age ;" the woman having an
issue of blood to have suffered " twelve years " from
it ; and the woman which had a spirit of infirmity to
have been bowed together " eighteen years." The
facts of ex-scriptural history are also adverted to with
considerable frequency. We can but mention the
references to Cesar Augustus and Tiberius Cesar, to
the various branches of the family of Herod, and to
events hke the census when Cyrenius was governor of
Syria, the fall of the tower of Siloam, and the massacre
by Pontius Pilate of the Gahleans on occasion of their
sacrificial services at a Jerusalem-festival. In addition
to these things, the history begins at an earher period
than in the other Gospels. It begins " from the very
first," so to speak. There is nothing elsewhere to
correspond to the history of the first two chapters,
which is singularly full. There is also great fulness
of detail in what follows. Some parts are no doubt
epitomised as compared with the accounts of Matthew
and Mark ; but others are very circumstantial and
minute, sometimes indeed as picturesquely graphic as
the accounts of Mark; and nearly nine whole chapters,
recording the incidents and discourses of the final
journey to Jerusalein, are quite original ; that is to
say, they have no paraUel in the other Gospels. The
history is also carried beyond the resurrection to the

100 The Gospel according to Luke.
ascension. It traces out, in short, the whole history
of redemption in the life of Christ from its beginning
to its end, and in this respect is above aU the rest
the historical Gospel.
2. The prof ession of the evangelist as a physician
has also left trctces of its impress on this Gospel. It
is here that the first text from which Christ preached
is given at length, " The Spirit of the Lord is upon
Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the
gospel to the poor ; He hath sent Me to heal the
broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty
them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year
of the Lord ;" and that the proverb, "Physician, heal
thyself, " is recorded as having been quoted by Him
in the course of His sermon on that text. It is here
also that in the account of His teaching on one
occasion the singular expression occurs, " The power
of the Lord was present to heal ; " and that in the
commission given to the twelve and to the seventy —
the commission to the seventy is only recorded in this
Gospel — it is said, " He sent them to preach the
kingdom of God and to heal the sick." " And into
whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat
such things as are set before you, and heal the sick
that are therein." Like the other Gospels, this
Gospel also records the miracles of healing which our
Lord performed, but more numerously, as weU as with
more minuteness of detail, — sometimes of technical
detail, or in a way which very plainly indicates the

The Gospel according to Luke. 101
physician. The fever of Simon's wife's mother is
described, according to an old scientific distinction in
certain cases, as "a great fever; "* and as a physician,
who had carefully inquired into the facts of the case,
would naturally remark. He is said to have " stood
over her," when He " rebuked the fever." The leper
is described in medical terms as "full of leprosy."
The paralytic is described as taken "with a palsy;" — in
the original the word is technical, and, although
not exactly translatable, may be rendered " struck
with paralysis." The centurion's servant who was
dear unto him is described as "sick and ready to die."
The woman who had an issue of blood twelve years is
described as having " spent all her living upon physi
cians ;" but without casting any reflection on " the
profession," as is done in another Gospel-account of
the case, it is simply added, " Neither could she be
healed of any."-f- The woman which had a spirit of
infirmity eighteen years is described as " bowed
* In his treatise on the diflference of fevers, Galen says that physi
cians were accustomed to distinguish fevers as the great and small
fevers. (Kat <nivqBes r]dri tois larpois oixoixa^ew evrovra yevei ras
Sia^opas Tov p,eyav re Kai /uKpov Tvperov, — Quoted by Smith of Jordan-
hill, in his Dissertation on the Life and Writings of St. Luke, p. 2. )
+ The account of the case in Mark is just what might be expected
from a fisherman like Peter, in -writing, at the time and on the spot, of
the probably inferior physicians who practised among the compara
tively poor and illiterate community of a fishing town or -village ; —
"And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years,
and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent" —
wasted — squandered — thro-wn away — "all that she had, and was
nothing bettered, but rather grew worse."

102 The Gospel axicording to Luke.
together," so that she " could, in no wise lift up
herself." It is here we are told that, when the devil
sought to destroy the demoniac out of whom he was
expelled, he "hurt him, not ;" that when Jesus said
of the daughter of Jairus, " She is not dea,d, but
sleepeth," those who laughed Him to scorn " knew that
she was dead ; " that when He was in the garden of
Gethsemane, "being in an agony. He prayed more
earnestly, and His sweat was as it were great drops
of blood falling down to the ground ; " and that when
Peter smote the servant of the high priest, and cut
off his right ear, Jesus answered and said, " Suffer ye
thus far : and He touched his ear and healed him."
In fine, it is here that allusions to the heahng virtue
which flowed from, as it were, the very body
of Christ alone occur. " Somebody hath touched
Me, for I perceive that virtue is gone out of
Me." " And the whole multitude sought to touch
Him ; for there went virtue out of Him and
healed them all." These notices may seem, trivial
enough when taken by themselves, and any thing in
them that is professional is certainly not obtrusive,
but in their aggregate they are not without importance;
they bear a silent but not ineffective testimony to the
genuineness of the Gospel ; and they also serve to
illustrate very satisfactorily the fidelity of the evan
gelist in ascertaining the facts of his narrative to the
most minute particulars.
3. As yet another characteristic of this Gospel, it
may be mentioned that the influence of Paul over the

The Gospel according to Luke. 103
mind of Luke is remarkably conspicuous in the spirit
of it, in the very form of its expressions, and not
infrequently, we Tnay also venture to say, in the
selection of the materials of which it is composed.
There is an old tradition, according to which Luke is
said to have been little other than the amanuensis of
Paul in the composition of it ;* and it is sometimes
alleged, that when Paul refers to his Gospel, as he does
in more than one of his epistles, the reference is to
this Gospel, as drawn up by Luke, under his superin
tendence, if not dictation. . It would appear that the
old heretical sect of the Marcionites, who owned no
apostohcal authority but that of Paul, received this
Gospel as his, and rejected all the others ; and, on
this account also, it has been held and described to
be the Pauhne Gospel. But the preface of the Gospel
expressly contradicts the idea of its Pauline authorship-
It asserts that it was drawn up by the evangelist him
self from the testimony of those which "from the
beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the
word;" and we know that Paul was not one of those
authorities. It is, as it has been always designated,
" The Gospel according to Luke," not " The Gospel
according to Paul." At the same time, the connexion
of Luke with Paul does come out in various portions
and references of the Gospel, indicating the similarity
of thought and feeling which obtained between them,
* Vide Smith's Dissertation on the Gospels, p. Ui., and on the
Writings of St Luke, p. 45, for the references of the Fathers to
this tradition.

104 The Gospel according to Luke.
and perhaps also some direction and information on
the part of Paul.
Every one who has examined the subject has
observed the almost verbal coincidence between Luke
and Paul in their accounts of the institution of the
Lord's Supper, a coincidence which appears the more
remarkable when it is compared with the account of
the institution in Matthew and Mark. References to
Jesus as the Saviour, to the free forgiveness of sins
and justification in the righteousness of faith, to the
person and work of the Holy Spirit, to the exercise of
holy Christian joy, and to the duty of glorifying God
in every incident and event, are also much more
numerous in this Gospel than in any of the others ;
and every one knows that the epistles of Paul are full
of these very topics.
It has been noticed, too, that a resemblance may
be traced between the apostle and the evangelis
in the predilection which they both evince for the
use of triplets. The faith, hope, and charity, — the
work of faith, the labour of love, and the patience
of hope, — the one body and the one spirit in the
one hope, — the one Lord, the one faith, and the
one baptism, — the one God and Father of all, who
is above all, and through all, and in aU, — the of Him,
and through Him, and to Him, are aU things, — the
being strengthened by the Spirit in the inner man,
the being able to comprehend the love of Christ, and
the being filled with aU the fulness of God, — the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the

The Gospel according to Luke. 105
communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all; —
these and many other trinities of expression which
occur in the epistles of Paul must be quite familiar.
In Luke the same kind of triune statement not un-
frequently occurs. He relates with Matthew the
parable of the lost sheep, and at the same time adds
the other two, — with which, as joined by him in triple
combination, we always connect it,-— the parables of
the lost piece of silver and the prodigal son. He
relates with Matthew the words of Christ, " Or what
man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will
he give him a stone ? or if he ask a fish, will he give
him a serpent?" and at the same time adds a third
sentence of illustration, as also used by Christ, " Or
if he shaU ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion ?"
With Matthew, he also relates the words, " Then shall
two be in the field ; the one shall be taken, and the
other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill;
the one shall be taken, and the other left;" and in
connexion with them he again makes up the triplet,
" I teU you, in that night there shall be two men in
one bed ; the one shaU be taken, and the other shall
be left." With Matthew also he relates, how when
one said unto Christ, "Lord, I will follow Thee
whithersoever Thou goest ; Jesus said unto him. Foxes
have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the
Son of man hath not where to lay His head ;" and how
when another said, " Lord, suffer me first to go and
bury my father ; JesUs said unto him. Let the dead
bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom

106 The Gospel according to Luke.
of God ;" and then he goes on to relate, in a third
example, how, when "another also said. Lord, I will
follow Thee ; but let me first go bid them farewell
which are at home at my house ; Jesus said unto him.
No man having put his hand to the plough, and look
ing back, is fit for the kingdom of God."
But we must refer the further examination of this
parallel between Luke and Paul to private reading
and research. Too much may be made of it ; we must
beware of that ; but at the same time it will be found
neither uninteresting nor unimportant as attesting in
its own significant manner the close assimilative friend
ship of Paul and Luke, and in this respect also the
genuineness of the Gospel.
4. Let us proceed to elicit the distinctive charac
teristic of this Gospel, so far as it respects the parti
cular aspect in which it contemplates and exhibits the
history of Christ to us. And here we may say at once
that, according to the cherubic symbol of the man-face
with which we have already identified it, it presents
Christ as the Son of man, the partaker of a common
humanity with man, and therefore the kinsman
Redeemer of the human family without respect to
national distinctions, or the ancient separation of
Jews and Gentiles, — the Author of a common salva
tion for lost sinners every where, — the Saviour of the
world. And here, too, we may say, in a single sen
tence, that from this fact we can understand how the
Spirit of God should have selected a Gentile to write
this Gospel, and led him, too, to address it to a Gentile.

The Gospel according to Luke. 107
Nothing could have been more befitting in the Gospel
designed to set forth Christ as the Saviour, not of the
Jews only, but of the Gentiles also.
Some iUustrations of the distinctively human char
acteristic of the Gospel — they will be no more than
suggestive — must here be offered. Any thing like an
exhaustive exposition is at present quite impossible.
(1.) Every stage in the development of the verit
able humanity of Christ is recorded in this Gospel
with the utmost particularity. Here only do we find
the salutation of Elisabeth, " Blessed art thou among
women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb." Here
only do we find "the Babe wrapped in swaddling
clothes." Here only do we read of " the circumcising
of the Child." Here only do we read that " the
Child grew," or, as it should be rendered, that, "the
Lad grew and waxed strong in spirit ; " that " the
grace of God was upon Him;" that, "when He was
twelve years old," " His parents" took Him with them
to Jerusalem to " the feast of the passover ; " that,
after His interview with " the doctors" in the temple,
" both hearing and asking them questions," " He went
down" again with His parents and " came to Nazareth,
and was subject to them ; " that He " increased in
wisdom, and statu/re, and in favour with God and man ;"
and that when He was baptised by John He " began
to be about thirty years of age." Nor do these notices
of veritable humanity terminate with the development
and attainment of His manhood. They are followed
up by others equally specific. These will be found

108 The Gospel according to Luke.
in numerous passages on to the very end of the
Gospel. To instance some of them : — Here only
do we read of "the paps which He had sucked,"
and of " the place where He had been brought up ;"
here only of His " rejoicing in spirit ; " of His
" weeping over the city; " and of His "kneeling dovm"
in prayer : here only that in Gethsemane " there
appeared an angel unto Him from heaven strengthen
ing Him," and that, " being in an agony. He prayed
more earnestly, and His sweat was as it were great
drops of blood falling down to the ground :" here
only that, like "a righteous man," which the cen
turion is here said to have called Him, He cried with
His latest breath, when expiring on the cross, " Father,
into Thy hands I commend My spirit ;" and here
only, that after His resurrection He once and again
verified the reality of His resurrection-body to His
disciples, by "sitting at meat with them," by taking
" a piece of broiled fish and of an honeycomb, and
eating it before them," and by bidding them " handle"
Him to see that it was Himself, — as He is here also,
and here only, reported to have said, — "It is I Myself ;
for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me
have." (2.) The human dependence of Christ on God as
expressed by Him in prayers and supplications is most
faithfully recorded in this Gospel. The other evan
gelists also advert to His prayerful exercises, but not
by any means so frequently, or in the same connexion,
or even with the same object. Here only are we told

The Gospel according to Luke. 109
that He was praying when the Spirit descended upon
Him at His baptism : " Now when all the people were
baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also being bap
tized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the
Holy Ghost descended." Here only are we told that,
when He had to seek retirement from the multitudes
which resorted to Him, He betook Himself to prayer :
" But so much the more went there a fame abroad of
Him ; and great multitudes came together to hear
and to be healed by Him of their infirmities. And
He withdrew Himself into the wilderness, and prayed."
Here only are we told that His choice of the twelve
apostles was made after a night of prayer : "And it
came to pass in those days that He went out into a
mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer
to God. And when it was day. He called unto Him
His disciples, and of them He chose twelve, whom also
He named apostles." Here only are we told that it
was at a time when He was engaged in prayer that
Peter confessed Him to be the Christ : " And it came
to pass, as He vms alone praying. His disciples were
with Him, and He asked them, saying. Whom say the
people that I am ? They answering said, John the
Baptist; but some say, Elias, and others say that one
of the old prophets is risen again. He said unto
them, But -whom say ye that I am ? Peter answering
said. The Christ of God." Here only are we told that
the Transfiguration occurred when He was praying :
" And it came to pass about an eight days after these
things. He took Peter and John and James, and went

110 The Gospel according to LuJce.
up into a mountain to pray. And as He prayed, the
fashion of His countenance was altered, and His
raiment was white and glistering." Here only are
we told that when He gave His disciples a pattern of
prayer, in what is commonly called the Lord's Prayer,
He had just before been giving them a pattern of
prayer in His own example : " And it came to pass
that, as He was praying in a certain place, when
He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord,
teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.
And He said unto them. When ye pray, say. Our
Father which art in heaven." Here only are we told
of His prayer for Peter, " Simon, Simon, Satan hath
desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat ;
but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not ;"
and of His repeated prayers in Gethsemane, "He
prayed more earnestly ;" and of His prayers when
on the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do ;" "Father, into Thy hands I com
mend My spirit." Nor is it only in these records of
His own personal .prayers that this Gospel evinces
the spirit of prayer by which He was possessed and
animated ; it records His instructions on prayer more
fully than any of the other Gospels. It is here only
that we have the parable of the person who apphed
at midnight to a neighbour for the loan of three loaves,
because a friend had unexpectedly arrived on a visit ;
the parable of the importunate widow ; and the par
able of the Pharisee and the publican ; all bearing on
the duty and the character of prayer. And it is here

The Gospel according to LuJce. Ill
only that we also have the injunction repeated twice
over to the disciples in Gethsemane, " Pray that ye
enter not into temptation." " Why sleep ye ? Rise
and pray, lest ye enter into temptation." The Gospel
has, in fact, been caUed the Gospel of prayer, and as
such it is emphatically the Gospel of humanity, of
universal humanity ; and in this connexion it is worth
while to notice and to remember that it is the Gospel
of the hwmanity of Christ.
(3.) The reality of His human sympathies and
affections is brought out im, this Gospel in a very
great variety of m,ost interesting details. We can
only condescend on some of these details ; but our
selection wiU be made so as to assist a personal and
more minute examination.
Take His affection for children. Other evangelists
teU us how graciously He regarded them ; but Luke
commonly adduces some additional circumstance which
discovers a tenderness in His regard, very touching as
weU as human. For example, we learn from him
that they were infants to whom our Lord gave His
blessing on that memorable occasion, when He so
winningly evinced Himself to be the children's Saviour :
" And • they brought unto Him also infants that He
would touch them." We also learn from him that
the daughter of Jairus, who was miraculously restored
to hfe, was an only child : Matthew and Mark, as well
as Luke, relate the miracle, but Luke alone mentions
the fact in question : " For he had one only daughter,
about twelve years of age, and she lay a-dying." A

112 The Gospel according to Luke.
similar notice occurs in his account of the miracle
wrought on the demoniac child, at the foot of the
Mount of Transfiguration. Both Matthew and Mark
relate this miracle also ; but Luke alone records the
appeal with which the father of the child followed up
his petition on its behalf, " Master, I beseech Thee,
look upon my son, for he is mine only child." At
once we see in these and other tender references to
children, only to be found in Luke, how the facts
mentioned in them must have told on the human
affection of our Lord ; and can we wonder that the
Gospel which contains them, containing as it also does
the narrative of the Baptist's and the Saviour's child
hood, should have been called " the children's Gospel?"
Women also appear in this Gospel to have shared
in the affectionate regard of our Lord ; and most
certainly He appears to have largely shared in theirs.
Those who ministered unto Him of their substance
are here introduced to us by name : they are not
named in the same connexion elsewhere : " Certain
women which had been healed of evil spirits and
infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, out of whom
w-ent seven devils ; and Joanna the wife of Chuza,
Herod's steward ; and Susanna, and many others,
which ministered unto Him of their substance."
Martha and Mary, the one cumbered about much
serving, the other sitting at Jesus' feet, and hearing
His word, are also for the first time introduced to us
in this Gospel ; and although we meet with them
again in another Gospel, the account of them here

The Gospel according to Luke. 113
is at once peculiar and unique : " Martha, Martha,
thou art careful and troubled about many things; but
one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good
part which shaU not be taken away from her." It is
in this Gospel that we read how, as He was speaking
on one occasion, a certain woman lifted up her voice
and said, " Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and
the paps which Thou hast sucked." And it is in
this Gospel, too, that we read how, on a Sabbath-day,
He healed a woman which had a spirit of infirmity
eighteen years, and how, when He was blamed for
doing it on that day. He vindicated Himself in those
telling yet touching words, "And ought not this
woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan
hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from
this bond on the Sabbath-day?" And again, it is in
this Gospel that we read how women followed Him
to the cross, and how He turned and said to them so ten
derly, " Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but
weep for yourselves and for your children; for behold
the days are coming in which they shall say, "Blessed
are the barren, and the wombs which never bare, and
the paps which never gave suck." These notices,
along with others, such as of Mary and Elisabeth, are
all to be found, and only to be found, in Luke ; and
they are quite in place in this distinctively human
Gospel, demonstrating, as they do so finely, how the
human heart of Christ went out in kindliest affection
and sympathy as occasion called.
He further appears in this Gospel to have shown a
h

114 The Gospel according to Luke.
particularly tender and compassionate regard to widows.
We do not refer to the attractively interesting story
of Anna, "a widoiv of about fourscore and four
years ; " because, although we only read of her in this
Gospel, she is introduced into it for the sake of show
ing, not His interest in her, but hers in Him. There
are but three notices to which we shall advert. It is
in this Gospel only that we find His first sermon at
Nazareth with its reference in point : " But I tell you
of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days
of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years
and six months, when great famine was throughout
all the land ; but unto none of them was Elias sent,
save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman
that was a widow." It is in this Gospel only that
we find the parable of the unjust judge who was
constrained by her importunity to do justice to a
widow, because "he said within himself. Though I
fear not God, nor regard man ; yet because this widow
troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual
coming she weary me." And again, it is in this
Gospel only that we meet with the widow of Nain,
whose touching story is told in such a way as most
truly corresponds to the humanness of the Gospel.
First, we are told that the " dead man," her son, who
was " carried out " to be buried, was " the only son
of his mother;" and we see at once how this was
fitted to awaken in Christ the truest and the tenderest
sympathy. Then we are told that "she was a
widow," an additional circumstance which could not

The Gospel according to Luke. 115
fail to affect Him most deeply in His human sensi
bilities. Then again, we are told that "when the
Lord saw her He had compassion on her ; " and here
we see how " the eye affecteth the heart," stirring up
the fountain of benignant feeling, and making it
overflow in the exercise of the most effective loving-
kindness. And then again, after the resuscitation of
the young man, we are told of the issue in the simple
intimation, so exquisitely picturesque, so inimitably
expressive of the finest human tenderness — "And He
delivered him, to his mother." These notices, peculiar
as they are to Luke, are most characteristic of him ;
and in their way they also serve to unveil the out
goings in most benevolent and blessed sympathy of
the human heart of Christ.
Again, in this Gospel, the poor are shown to have
been particularly and compassionately noticed by our
Lord. Let the beatitudes be noticed in this connexion.
In Matthew they are given in their deeper and more
spiritual sense — "Blessed are the poor in spirit;"
" Blessed are they that mourn ; " " Blessed are they
that hunger and thirst after righteousness ; " but here
more pointedly and plainly, and in this respect also more
truly human, as well as more truly gracious, " Blessed
be ye poor, for yowrs is the kingdom of God ; "
"Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be
filled ; " " Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall
laugh." Let the injunction given at a chief Phari
see's table respecting feasts, as only to be found here,
be also noticed — "When thou makest' a feast, call

116 The Gospel according to Luke.
the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and thou
shalt be blessed ; for they cannot recompense thee,
for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of
the just." Let the parables for the poor, as we find
them here, be noticed too ; the human benevolence
to be seen in them is so very gracious. There is the
parable of the marriage-supper. The parable is also
to be found in Matthew, but in regal form. Here it
is purely human ; and it gives at length — what
Matthew omits, or puts in a most indefinite form —
the command to gather in the poor for guests, when
those who had been first invited refused the invitation,
" Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the
city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed,
and the halt, and the blind." And then there is the
parable of the beggar Lazarus. The parable is to be
found in no other Gospel. With what interest must
the poor regard it. How they must prize it. Can
any but be thrilled by its simple story — "And it
came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by
the angels into Abraham's bosom,." "Now he is
comforted." All these references to the poor are most
certainly here in place. It is from this Gospel we
chiefly learn how for our sakes Christ Himself became
poor, — " laid in a manger " at His birth, — the
sacrifice of poverty offered at His presentation,
" according to that which is said in the law of the
Lord, A pair of turtle doves, or two young pigeons; "
and with these and other analogous notices of His
humble life as here recorded, we cannot be surprised

The Gospel according to Luke. 1 1 7
to find so many notices of His brotherly-kindness for
the poor, illustrating and exemplifying, most ex
pressively as they do, the fulfilment of His mother's
song, which is also to be found here only — " He hath
put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted
them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with
good things, and the rich He hath sent empty
away." To outcasts also He is seen in this Gospel to have
manifested a most graciously benevolent regard. We
might here refer to His friendly recognition of publi
cans, so abhorred as they were on account of their
professional character and occupation by all the Jews.
The parable of hion who stood afar off in the temple,
and with downcast eyes smote upon his breast, saying,
" God be merciful to me a sinner," is in this Gospel
only. The story of Zaccheus, who " received him
joyfully" when He offered to become his guest, is also
in this Gospel only. But we pass from these and
other distinctively peculiar references to various
notices of His tender-heartedness to those who were
even more despised, and deservedly despised. It is
in this Gospel only that we find the story of "a
woman in the city, which was a sinner," with its
touching record of her humble penitence at His feet,
and His gracious acceptance of her love and forgive
ness of her sin. And it is in this Gospel only that
we find that " Gospel within the Gospel," the parable
of the prodigal son, with its inimitable portraiture of
his profligacy, degradation, repentance, and welcome

118 The Gospel according to Luke.
home. And, again, it is in this Gospel only that we
find, what has been tp many dying and despairing
sinners the most blessed gospel-memoir in the Bible,
the memoir of the penitent "malefactor" on the
cross, with that humble prayer of his, so heart-affect
ing, " Lord, remember me when Thou comest into
Thy kingdom ; " and that soul-thrilling answer of our
Lord's, so very, very gracious, " Verily, I say unto
thee, to-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise."
These various notices, as found only in this Gospel,
are most remarkably distinctive ; and he must be
very slow of apprehension who does not discern, as
reflected in them, the tenderly gracious exercises of
that human heart, of which this Gospel is so much
the mirror.
(4.) Once more, in this Gospel the catholic rela
tions of His humanity come out in very numerous
references and incidents.
Look at the table of His genealogy as it is here
recorded. In Matthew it traces up His ancestry in
the legal line to Abraham, and there it stops : it is
a strictly Jewish genealogy. Here it holds to the
natural line ; and, to show His relation to the entire
family of man, runs up to the common father of the
race in Adam, the first of men : it is a purely human
genealogy. The first shows His relation to the nation,
the second His relation to the world.
Look also at the parables as they are here recorded.
The very form in which they begin is characteristic.
Those which are recorded by Matthew, bearing as

The Gospel according to Luke. 1 19
they do upon the royal dignity of Christ, begin, " The
kingdom of heaven is like." "The kingdom of
heaven is hke unto a man which sowed good seed in
his field." " The kingdom of heaven is like to a
grain of mustard-seed." " The kingdom of heaven is
hke unto leaven." " The kingdom of heaven is like
unto treasure hid in a field." " The kingdom of
heaven is hke unto a merchantman seeking goodly
pearls."* In Luke, on the other hand, the royal
formula is never used ; every one begins with a dis
tinctively human reference. "And the Lord said,
Whereunto then shall I hken the men of this genera
tion ? " "A certain man went dowti from Jerusalem
to Jericho, and fell among thieves." "The ground
of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully."
" A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vine
yard." " What man of you, having an hundred
sheep." " A certain man had two sons." " There
was a certain rich m,an, which had a steward."
" There was a certain rich man, which was clothed
in purple and fine linen." The difference between
the two Gospels in this respect may be still more
impressively recognised by a comparison of such
parables as happen to be contained in both. Take
the parable of the Gospel-supper. As given by
Matthew, it begins, " The kingdom of heaven is like
unto a certain king which made a marriage for his
* There are but three parables in all, as given by Matthew,
which do not begin -with this peculiar form ; but even in them there
are royal references both characteristic and significant.

120 The Gospel according to Luke.
son, and sent forth his servants to call them that
were bidden to the wedding;" whereas in Luke it
begins, entirely stripped of its royal references, "A
certain man made a great supper, and bade many."
That both expressions were used by our Lord on
different occasions — sometimes the one, and some
times the other — is not unlikely to be true ; but
whether or not, that which occurs in Luke most
aptly answers to the object of his Gospel, as cha,rac-
teristically the Gospel of the Son of man. The con
tents of the parables, as recorded by him, will al^ be
found to be as thoroughly characteristic in their
human cathohcity. Take the parables of the good
Samaritan, of the rich man whose ground broiight
forth plentifully, of the prodigal son, of the rich man
and Lazarus, of the importunate widow, of the Pharisee
and the publican, — all of them peculiar to this Gospel,
— and whether they be viewed in their outward form
or in their specific meaning, it wiU be seen at a glance
that their teaching is generically human, looking out
on man as man, apart from national and sectarian
connections, in his catholic relations to the world at
large. And here, to conclude these references, look at the
frequency with which the Gospel notices every thing
which bears a gracious aspect to the Gentiles. It is
certainly not exclusive in this respect. It does not
fail to notice gracious references to the Jews as well.
It is quite catholic in its regards. Here are a few of
the Jewish references : " And many of the children of

The Gospel according to Luke. 121
Israel shall He turn to the Lord their God." "And
the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His
father David." "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for He hath visited and redeemed His people."
" And the glory of Thy people Israel" " And ought
not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham,
whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be
loosed from this bond on the Sabbath-day ?" " This
day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he
also is a son of Abraham" "0 Jerusalem, Jeru
salem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them
that are sent unto thee ; how often would I have
gathered thy children, as a hen doth gather her brood
under her wings, and ye would not." " If thou hadst
known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things
which belong unto thy peace." But the references
to the Gentiles are much more numerous ; and they
are also most expressive. Here is the song of
Zacharias, in which he welcomes the rise of "the
day-spring," " to give light to them that sit in dark
ness and in the shadow of death." Here is the
annunciation to the shepherds of the birth of Christ,
" Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which
shall be to all people."* Here "just and devout
Simeon" speaks of the salvation of God in Christ as
"prepared before the face of all people, a Light to
lighten the Gentiles." Here, in quoting from Isaiah
* This, it is true, may be rendered, "To all the people;" but
still, even if it should not be considered as referring immediately to
the Gentiles, the expression is characteristically human.

122 The Gospel according to Luke.
the prediction regarding John the Baptist as "the
voice of one crying in the wilderness," — while Matthew
and Mark stop short with the words, " Prepare ye the
way of the Lord, make His paths straight," — Luke
completes the quotation, as looking out most benig-
nantly on the Gentile world, " Every valley shall be
filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought
low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the
rough ways shall be made smooth ; and all flesh shall
see the salvation of God." Here we have the dis
course in the synagogue at Nazareth, in which our
Lord so much provoked His townsmen by quoting the
proverb, "No prophet is accepted in his own country,"
and reminding them in proof how, as typically pre
dictive of His own case, the prophets Ehas and
Eliseus were sent on different occasions to bless
Gentiles in preference to Jews : " But I tell you of a
truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of
Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and
six months, when great famine was throughout all
the land ; but unto none of them was Elias sent, save
unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that
was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in
the time of Eliseus, and none of them was cleansed
saving Naaman the Syrian." Here we have His
rebuke of James and John when they proposed to
consume with fire from heaven the village of the
Samaritans, in which He was not received, because
His face was as though He should go to Jerusalem,
" Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of For

The Gospel according to Luke. 123
the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives "
— how truly catholic His grace — " not come to destroy
men's lives, but to save them." Here we read of
" the times of the Gentiles" — that is, the times
appointed for the full inbringing of the Gentiles along
with the Jews into the Church of Christ : " And they
shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led
away captive into all nations ; and Jerusalem shall
be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of
the Gentiles be fulfilled." Here, in a word, we read
of Jews and Gentiles being both addressed by the
Gospel in the message of its mercy : " And that
repentance and remission of sins should be preached
in His name, among all nations, beginning at Jeru
salem." All these references to the Gentiles, as they
are to be found only in this Gospel, are at once seen
to be in their proper place, when we remember that
Luke was a Gentile, and that he wrote his Gospel to
a Gentile, and that his object was to exhibit Christ as
the Son of man in His broad relations to the family
of man, or as the kinsman-Redeemer, not of the
Jews, but of the Gentiles also.
And now, to wind up the examination of this
Gospel, let us seek to Tuake a practical use of the
view of Christ as seen to be presented by it. It is
not enough that we are able to trace the specific
features of His character and life as they are here
exhibited. We must receive into our heart and home
the glorious One who is thus revealed ; and we must

124 The Gospel according to Luke.
look at Him, and look at Him again and again, until,
by the contemplation, we are transformed into His
very likeness, until " we all, with open face, behold
ing as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed
into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by
the Spirit of the Lord." The Gospel has not been
written to please our sense of beauty, or our emotions
of taste and tender feeling ; the object it has in view
is our salvation, — our deliverance from sin, — our
conformity to Christ, — our preparation for heaven.
In the study of it, as we have it here, let us therefore
remember that its exhibition of Him, as the Son of man,
is designed to show us what we should be as men, — that
as He was, so should we be in the world. Let children
look at Him, — the Child subject to His parents, and
attending with them on the ordinances of God, — and
learn a lesson of youthful piety and fihal duty. Let
men look at Him when on His knees, — at His baptism,
— in choosing His apostles, — on the mountain apart, —
in all circumstances, and on all occasions, — and learn
that " men ought always to pray, and not to faint."
Let us all look at Him in the exercise of His
human sympathy and compassion, and learn to be
kind one to another, tender-hearted, pitiful, compas
sionate, merciful. Let us all look at Him as the
Saviour bom unto all people, " a Light to lighten the
Gentiles, and the glory of His people Israel ;" and
let us learn to send the Gospel to both Jews and
Gentiles, so that they and we may share alike in the
" common salvation " bestowed by Him.

The Gospel according to Luke. 125
In fine, let its all " come unto God by Him," " the
Man Christ Jesus," the one only Mediator. Let us
hear Him say in answer to the prayer of the ancient
Church, " 0 that Thou wert as my brother, that
sucked the breasts of my mother," — " Behold, I am
according to thy wish ; I also am formed out of the
clay : behold. My terror shall not make thee afraid,
neither shall My hand be heavy upon thee ; " and as
we believingly contemplate Him in this character, we
shall find that He grows upon us, and that we our
selves grow in the contemplation of Him ; insomuch
that, — while, as here seen in Luke to be the Son of
man. He may be truly said to have become like us,
— we at length may also be said to become like Him,
as next He is seen in John to be the Son of God,
warranting us then to say in the lively hope of the
most jubilant expectation, "Behold, what manner of
love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should
be called the sons of God; therefore the world
knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved,
now are we the sons of God ; and it doth not yet
appear what we shall be ; but we know that, when
He shall appear, we shall be like Him ; for we shall
see Him as He is. And every man that hath this
hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure."

THE GOSPEL ACCOEDINO TO JOHN.

Like the first of the Gospels, the last was vreitten by
an apostle. All the Gospels are the product of one
and the same inspiration — the inspiration of the Holy
Ghost. We receive them as alike of Divine authority.
At the same time the apostolical Gospels have ' special
claims on our attention. They were written by
eye-witnesses, and in this respect their testimony is
particularly valuable and welcome.
On this account we turn with special interest to
an examination of the Gospel according to John. We
not unreasonably expect to be well rewarded by the
examination of it. L THE EVANGELIST.
Perhaps he is as well known to the Christian Church
as any of the apostles. Even the Apostle Paul can
not be said to be better known. Hence in our notices
we need not condescend to minute details. We shall
confine ourselves to but a sketch of his history and
character.

The Gospel according to John. 127
1. His history may be summed up in a few brief
sentences. He appears to have been born of respect
able parentage in Bethsaida of Gahlee.
We know nothing of his father, who was named
Zebedee, except that he was a fisherman in apparently
good circumstances ; at least he was proprietor of the
boat in which he carried on his avocation, and he had
a number of hired servants or assistants in his employ
ment. Salome, the wife of Zebedee, appears to better
advantage in the Gospel history. She is mentioned,
along with other women of good standing in society,
as having ministered to Jesus of her -wealth or sub
stance ; and to her honour it is further related that
she followed Him to the cross, and that she also
accompanied the Marys on the morning of the resur
rection with sweet spices and ointments, which she
and they had bought to anoint His body in the
sepulchre. Doubtless she was a singularly godly
woman ; and, as a wife and mother, an eminent bless
ing to her household.
That her two sons, James and John, should have
been both called to be disciples of the Lord, speaks
volumes in her favour.
The latter of them was at first one of the disciples
of John the Baptist ; but, true to his office and func
tions as but the forerunner of the Messiah, that pro
phet-preacher directed him to "the Lamb of God,
which taketh away the sin of the world;" and he
then became a follower of the Lamb, to whom in some

128 The Gospel according to John.
way or other, probably by his natural disposition and
the warmth of his attachment, he made himself so
dear that he is commonly known as "the beloved
disciple," or "the disciple whom Jesus loved." At
the institution of the Lord's Supper, he " was leaning
on Jesus's bosom ;" that is, he was honoured with the
place next to Jesus, and on several other occasions he
was also admitted by Him, along with his brother
James and the Apostle Peter, into special confidence
and fellowship ; — they were the chosen witnesses of
the raising of the daughter of Jairus, of the trans
figuration, and of the agony in Gethsemane. Like
the rest of the disciples, he gave way to faint-hearted
ness on occasion of the apprehension of his Master ;
but, with Peter, he soon raUied, and we find him true
thereafter, — present at the trial in the palace of the
high priest, to whom he seems to have been personaUy
known ; and again at the crucifixion, where, as he
stood with Mary, the mother of Jesus, beside the cross,
Jesus commended her to his care, and we are told
that he " took her unto his own home." His acquaint
anceship with the high priest, and his having a house
of his own, may be here noticed in evidence of his
occupying a good social position, probably better than
his fellow-disciples.
After the resurrection and ascension of our Lord, he
appears to have been associated for some time with
the Apostle Peter in evangelistic labours ; but, while
many of Peter's words and sermons have been pre
served, not one sermon, not one word, of his remains.

The Gospel according to John. 129
Except as he is found in company with Peter, we have
no Scriptural record of his discourses or of his labours
any where.
Tradition endeavours to make up in some measure
for this silence of the Scripture. We learn from it
that, during the persecution of the Emperor Domitian,
he was banished to the island of Patmos, where he
wrote the Apocalypse, as is stated in the beginning of
the Apocalypse itself. It further relates that he ulti
mately became a bishop of the Church of Ephesus,
and died there in extreme old age. Various interest
ing incidents in his history, some of them evidently
authentic, and others somewhat doubtful, are also
preserved by it, but we cannot detail them here ; they
will be found in the ordinary ecclesiastical histories of
the early ages.
2. His character may be thought worthy of a pass
ing reference. The ideal generally formed of him is
that he was a soft, tender, almost femininely affec
tionate spirit. The painters have plainly had to do
with this impression of him, which is not quite sus
tained, however, by the view to be obtained of his
character from Scripture.
There are two incidents in his earlier history, as
found in the Gospels, which are not very honourable
to him. The one is the request preferred to Christ
by him and his brother, or by his mother in their
name, for a princely pre-eminence in the Gospel-king
dom ; and the other is the request, again preferred by
him and his brother, for permission to bring down fire

130 The Gospel CKCording to John.
from heaven in order to consume a village of the
Samaritans, which refused a shelter on one occasion to
their Master. Unquestionably there is abundant
evidence to show that, notwithstanding these indica
tions of shortcoming, he was a most loving-hearted
man. It is impossible to read his writings without
discovering evidences of a profound intensity of affec
tion which weU entitles him to be regarded as the
Apostle of love. Very probably this was one of the
things which so much endeared him to his Master.
But the feebleness or effeminacy too frequently
ascribed to him has no foundation in fact, at least in
Scripture. We find him and his brother James sur
named by our Lord, Boanerges, " sons of thunder ; "
and if there was any correspondence between them
and that name, we cannot associate the idea of feeble
ness or softness with them. We also find in his
Gospel and in his Epistles the evidences of a severe
moral earnestness which are utterly inconsistent with
any thing of the kind. It is he who records these
solemn words concerning the unbeliever, " The wrath
of God abideth on him." It is he also who records
these other very fearful words concerning Judas, " One
of you is a devil." — " None of them is lost but the
son of perdition." And in his Epistles, so redolent of
love, he likewise speaks most vehemently and energe
tically against heretics and seducers, " Who is a liar,
but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ ?" " He
is Antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son."
" If there come any unto you, and bring not this

The Gospel according to John. 131
doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid
him God speed ; for he that biddeth him God speed is
partaker of his evil deeds." It may be added that
the traditionary incidents of his apostolical life which
have been handed down from the earliest ages are
quite in keeping with what may be gathered of his
character from these and other references.
Altogether it would appear that, while it would be
too much to affirm, with some, that he was a vehe
ment and passionate, he was nevertheless a vigorous
and energetic character, full of affection, but as full of
mental and moral power, transformed by the grace of
God into a model of Christian loveliness, yet not the
less, but all the more, a model of Christian manliness
as well. From the grandeur of his conceptions in
respect of God — of the Divine being, character, and
ways — he is commonly called John the divine ; and
as such he was certainly in no sense a weakling — ^he
was as masculine in intellect as he was affectionate in
heart, he was " every inch a man."
II. THE GOSPEL.
It is hardly necessary to say that this is, perhaps
with most, the favourite Gospel.
One has called it " The heart of Christ." Another
has said of it, " The hand of an angel has -vvTitten
it."* A modern writer has said of it, almost as en-
* Emesti and Herder, quoted by Tholuck in his Commentary on
the Gospel of John, p. 21.

132 The Gospel according to John.
thusiastically, "Here we have found, as it were, quite
a new Gospel. Quite a new Gospel ! Nevertheless not,
as many of our day in Germany have sometimes
fancied, quite another. Gospel. No doubt the fourth
Gospel stands in a sense isolated among the four ; yet
it only presents a richer development, a deeper com
prehension, a more heavenly mode of contemplating,
a minuter elaboration of the same subject, the same
truths, the same supernatural order of facts. Yes, it
is ever the same subject, the same revelation, the same
truths ; but in this, at once the most heart-affecting
and the most sublime of the four Gospels, these are
contemplated and represented from their greatest alti
tude to their lowest depths, from their inmost essence
to their external aspects. Hence the Gospel of the
Word forms in that beautiful quartette, if we may so
express it, the bass of a full harmony ; or, if you would
rather have it, the highest copestone which termi
nates, completes, and crowns the well-founded ¦ and
weU-built fabric ; or further still, if one would rather
borrow an image from the circle of the sacred Scrip
tures themselves, then our fourth Gospel stands out
from among the other three pre-eminent, as the Sab
bath or feast-day in Israel among the days of the
week, as the office of the priesthood among the func
tions of the Levites, or like the gleaning of the grapes
of Ephraim, which was better than the vintage of
Abiezer."* Let us turn from these and other testimonies to
* " The Four Witnesses," by Da Costa, p. 275.

The Gospel according to John. 133
examine the Gospel for ourselves. We shall require
to touch but briefly on the various points in it, —
there are so many, — which present themselves for our
consideration. 1. It is generally believed that Ephesus, where
John is said to have lived and laboured in his latter
days, was the place of its publication. Several of
the fathers bear testimony to this effect, and there is
no reason to doubt their testimony. From the Gospel
itself, we can easily enough gather that it must have
been written at a distance from Judea. Two facts
may be noticed here in proof: first, that the Evan
gelist uniformly names the Jewish people "the Jews,"
a designation very seldom used by the other evan
gelists, who commonly caU them " the people," or " the
multitude ;" and secondly, that, when he has occasion
to refer to customs or circumstances peculiar to Judea
or the Jews, he generally explains them ; as in the
account of the marriage in Can a of Galilee, where he
says, " There were set there six water-pots of stone,
after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, contain
ing two or three firkins a-piece ; " and again, in the
account of the interview between our Lord and the
woman of Samaria, where he parentheticaUy interjects
such pieces of information as. When Jesus " left Judea,
and departed again into Galilee," " He must needs go
through Samaria ;" " The Jevjs have no dealings with
the Samaritans." These and many similar explana
tions plainly show that the Gospel must have been
published in some other country than Judea, for there

134 The Gospel according to John.
they were not required ; and we may therefore admit
the traditionary reference of its publication to Ephesus.
2. Again, it is co'mmonly believed to have been
written at a date posterior to the destruction of Jeru
salem ; and by some of those who are given to the
investigation of such subjects, it is even said to have
been the latest of the New Testament writings.
The specification of Jewish localities in the past
tense, as if they were no longer extant, may be
thus accounted for : " Bethany was nigh unto Jerusa
lem ;" " He went forth with His disciples over the
brook Cedron, where was a garden ;" " Now in the
place where He was crucified there was a garden."
It is true that the pool of Bethesda is spoken of in
the present tense, " Now there is at Jerusalem, by
the sheepmarket, a pool, which is called in the Hebrew
tongue Bethesda ;" but there is historical evidence to
prove that that pool remained long after the destruc
tion of Jerusalem, so that the exceptional character
of the reference to it seems intentional, and may be
taken to be confirmatory of the fact that it still
remained while other localities had been swept away
by the ravages of war.*
Other peculiarities may be similarly accounted for.
For example, it is only in this Gospel that Peter is
named in the incidents of Gethsemane as the disciple
who smote the high priest's servant with the sword,
and that Malchus is said to be the name of that ser
vant. The action was criminal, and so loner as the
* Vide Trefeey on The Eternal Sonship, p. 212.

The Gospel according to John. 135
mention of names in connexion with it would have
exposed any one to danger they were prudently sup
pressed. That they occur here would seem to inti
mate that the record was not likely to endanger Peter
in any way; if he was not dead, there was at least
no risk of his undergoing a criminal prosecution in
Jerusalem. Again, it is only in this Gospel that the
resurrection of Lazarus is recorded. At first it seems
difficult to account for the omission of so extraordinary
a miracle from the other Gospels ; but when we are
told that the chief priests consulted that they might
put Lazarus as well as Jesus to death, we see at once
how the pubhc record of it would have exasperated
them still more against him; and how, from a regard
to his safety and that of his sisters, it was left to
merely oral publication tiU the power of the priest
hood was at an end, and Jerusalem destroyed. Once
more, there is no mention in this Gospel of our Lord's
predictions respecting the destruction of Jerusalem
and the dispersion of the Jews, and it appears reason
able to conclude that this was owing to their having
already been fulfilled.
After aU, the main interest connected with the date
of publication is the weight imparted by the lateness
of it to the Gospel. As the last of the Gospels, and,
although not last in order of the books of the New
Testament, as one of the last of them, if not the last
of them, in point of date, what a claim has its repre
sentation of the Saviour on our regard ; and with
what importance is its testimony invested when, in its

J 36 The Gospel according to John.
substance, it addresses us for God in what may be
thus regarded as the farewell-words of inspiration,
"This is My beloved Son, hear ye Him."
3. It is very generally believed to have been written
for Christians as such. On this account it evidently
occupies its appropriate position as the last in order
of the Gospels. The Gospel according to Matthew
was written for Christian Jews; the Gospel accord
ing to Mark for Christian proselytes ; the Gospel
according to Luke for Christian Gentiles; but when
Jerusalem was destroyed, and the Jewish nationality
broken up by the dispersion, these, along with other
pecuhar distinctions, were soon lost in the oneness of
the catholic Christian brotherhood ; and hence this
Gospel, — the Gospel according to John, — was written
for Christians in their catholic relations, and is there
fore distinguished by quite a different kind of charac
teristics from the former ; by characteristics which
are certainly not Jewish, or Gentile, or transitional,
but, if we may so put it, positively Christian, purely
Christian. 4. It will be universally acknowledged that the
characteristics of this Gospel are in general somewhat
prominent. We may proceed to notice a few of the
most inviting as weU as most outstanding.
1 . There is no mention made in the Gospel of the
author's name. In this respect his modesty is strik
ingly apparent. The same modesty is, no doubt,
observable in the other evangelists, who are similarly
distinguished for their self-obliviousness ; only here.

The Gospel according to John. 137
although perhaps not so much thought of — for every
reader has been taught to recognise the writer through
the veil of his concealment — it is more carefully, and,
as it were, more studiously sustained. For example,
while the twelve are freely enough spoken of as such,
the hst of their names is never given, so that in this
way he completely escapes the necessity of naming
himself in connexion with them. Then when occa
sions occur in which he has to speak of himself, he
does it in the well-known general and indefinite ex
pressions, " One of the two," " That other disciple,"
" The disciple whom Jesus loved." In the same way
he never, hke the other evangehsts, distinguishes his
former master as the Baptist ; he simply calls him
John, as if, in his idea, there was not another of the
same name that deserved to be known or distinguished
from him.
Nor can this be ascribed to indifference respecting
the identification of particular persons, for he is most
specific in this respect : Simon Peter is distinguished
by him from Simon Zelotes ; Thomas always receives
from him his surname Didymus ; and he never has
occasion to mention any of the two Judases, but he is
most careful to specify which of them he means.
Hence it is quite impossible to refer his self-conceal
ment to any thing but that modest reserve by which,
in fact, aU the Scriptural writers are more or less dis
tinguished, and for which they are so much and so
justly celebrated. He was a genuine disciple of that
Master who was meek and lowly in heart, and in whom

138 The Gospel according to John.
that old prediction was, in its truest sense, most faith
fully fulfilled — " He shall not strive, nor cry, nor cause
His voice to be heard in the streets."
2. There are various remarkable peculiarities in
the language of this Gospel. The narrative-expression,
" And it came to pass," so common in the other
Gospels, never once occurs in it ; but others are
employed, some of them quite new, and many of them
in a sense which is both peculiar and profound. Of
new expressions — expressions which occur no where
else — we may specify the " Only-begotten," as applied
to Christ, and the " Comforter," as applied to the
Holy Spirit. The expression, " Lifted up," as applied
to tbe crucifixion of Christ — -" The Son of man must
be lifted up " — " And I, if I be lifted up" — is also
peculiar to this Gospel ; no other Bible writer uses it.
Of other expressions which, if not quite peculiar to
this Gospel, are certainly employed in it with singular
frequency or with peculiar significance, we may specify
"The Word," "the Life," "the Light," "the Lamb,"
"the glory," "grace and truth," "coming to God,"
and " going to God," " drawn by the Father," and
" given by the Father."
How the Evangelist should have been led to employ
these and many other expressive words and phrases
is a matter of interesting inquiry, but this is not the
place to enter on it. It is not likely that he coined
them for himseff. It is more than likely that they
were current in the theological diction of his day, and
that they came originally from the Scriptures of the

The Gospel according to John. 139
Old Testament. Be this as it may, it is enough to
have thus mentioned them. The simple reference
may obtain for them a greater interest, a more marked
attention. 3. There is in this Gospel a constant intermingling
of reflective commentary with the narrative. In
this respect it differs considerably from the other
Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are mere his
torians ; they put on record the various acts, and
incidents, and discourses which make up their narra
tives, without adding any reflections of their own ;
whereas John, in a way which does not infringe,
however, upon the purely objective nature of his
narration, is ever looking into it and thinking over it ;
and we have the historical record and the expository
reflection so much interwoven with -one another, that
it is sometimes difficult to separate them by any hne
of demarcation. The double "Verily," which must be quite familiar,
as so often occurring in it, is here in point. It does
not appear from the other Gospels that our Lord was
in the way of repeating the Verily of His affirmations
as John repeats it. Plainly, the second of John's
Verilies is his own. It is the response of his faith to
the faithfulness of his Lord, like the instantaneous
echo by the rocks of a peal of thunder.
We may further instance the following passages as
illustrative of the way in which, as the commentator,
he continually inserts remarks of his own in the record.
When, as the historian, he reports the words of Jesus,

140 The Gospel according to John.
" Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise
it up ;" as the commentator, he adds, " But He spake
of the temple of His body. When therefore He was
risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that
He had said this unto them ; and they beheved the
Scripture, and the word which Jesus had said."
Again, when, as the historian, he records the words
of Jesus to Nicodemus, " And as Moses hfted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of
man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life ;" as the
commentator, he immediately follows them with that
magnificent exposition, " For God so loved the world
that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have ever
lasting life. For God sent not His Son into the
world to condemn the world, but that the world
through Him might be saved." Then again, when,
as the historian, he records the words of Jesus in the
temple on the last day of the feast of tabernacles, " If
any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink ;"
as the commentator he at once adds, in most satisfac
tory exposition, " But this spake He of the Spirit,
which they that believe on Him should receive ; for
the Holy Ghost was not yet given ; because that Jesus
was not yet glorified." In the same way, when he
reports the singular speech of Caiaphas, "Ye know
nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us,
that one man should die for the people, and that the
whole nation perish not ;" he again appends the com-

The Gospel according to John. 141
mentary, "And this spake he not of himself; but
being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus
should die for that nation ; and not for that nation
only, but that also He should gather together in one
the children of God that were scattered abroad."
It must not be supposed that this system of com
mentary is carried on to such an extent as in any way
to overlay or damage the properly historical character
of the Gospel. The truth is, that in some respects it
is the most historical of the Gospels. Its record of
incidents and events is singularly exact, and the
minuteness of its details is marvellously complete. It
is so particular in its dates, that the calculations of
chronologists respecting the period of our Lord's
ministry are aU made up from it. From none of the
other Gospels could it be ascertained that that ministry
extended over three full years, or about three years
and a haff. It is, in short, as historically real as any
of the Gospels. The artless simphcity, the unconscious
delicacy, of its particularisations is every way as
striking ; and we must not allow the accuracy of its
narrative — it is plainly that of a most attentive eye
witness — to be challenged, or in any way called in
question. At the same time, it is quite proper that
we should notice the outcome of its author's peculiar
subjectivity in the ever-recurring commentary of ex
position and reflection which so distinguishes it from
the other Gospels, and which has not infrequently led
cursory readers and shaUow thinkers to represent it
as incapable of reconciliation with them. Let its

142 The Gospel according to John.
characteristic in this respect be properly regarded in
the examination of it, and much of the apparent dis
crepancy between its representations and those of the
other Gospels will be found to disappear.
(4.) There is unquestionably a special object to
be served by this Gospel, which accounts for the
peculiar fm-m and substance of its representations.
Every author has a purpose in view when he sets
himseff to write, whether on one topic or another ;
and the discovery of that purpose must shed a flood
of light on his production, must serve as a key to open
up his meaning in every part of it, in every page and
sentence of it. Accordingly it is a matter of con
siderable importance to discover the particular object
of John in the publication of this Gospel, and we may
be prepared to learn that it has been most thoroughly
investigated. [1.] By some it is supposed to have been polemical.
They allege that the Evangelist meant to combat
various heresies respecting the person of Christ which
had been broached and adopted, even then, by not a
few in the fellowship of the Church.
Nor can it be doubted that in not a few expressions
and references he does, incidentally at least, take
notice of erroneous opinions which appear to have
already obtained considerable currency. It is natural
to every author to evince regard to the ideas and
other characteristics of his age. Christianity also
comes of necessity into antagonism with error ; and
hence there is not an error which has ever been

The Gospel according to John. 143
advanced, but it might seem as if the writers of
Scripture had been speciaUy directed to write in
anticipation against it.
At the same time, there is .not sufficient evidence
to prove that the Evangelist had any particular con
troversial design in view ; much less that he had any
thing of the kind as his main object. Certainly, if
such had been his object^ we may learn from him, as
one has said — and the 9bservation is just, indepen
dent of the basis on which it is made to rest — "What
is the purest, noblest form of polemics from the
Christian stand-point ? It is that which contends
against its opposite rather by means of the power of
the truth unveihng itseff in its beauty than by positive
assault ; because positive assault generally calls forth
and embitters what is sinful in man, while the mere
disclosure of the truth makes common cause with what
is noble in the hearts of adversaries themselves, and
so enlists them among its friends and defenders."*
[2.] By other expositors it is held that the main
object of the Evangelist is supplemental. They re
present him as meaning to do no more than fill up or
supply the omissions of the other Gospels, which are
warrantably enough believed to have been already in
general circulation.
And certain it is that he passes over in silence very
much of what is recorded in the other Gospels. He
records none of the leading events which are detailed
by the other evangehsts till he comes, with them, to
* Olshausen on the Gospels, iii. 178.

144 The Gospel according to John.
the history of the Passion. The genealogy of Christ,
with all the remarkable circumstances attendant on
His birth, and on that of His harbinger, is passed
over without the slightest notice. The angelic visits
to Zacharias, and Mary, and Joseph, the immaculate
conception, the birth and circumcision of the Holy
Child, the announcement of the nativity to the
shepherds of Bethlehem, with the appearance and the
song of the heavenly host, the epiphany of the star
in the east, and the journey of the wise men in quest
of the new-born King, the massacre of the inno
cents, the escape of the holy family to Egypt, and
other equally interesting and important incidents of
the early hfe of Christ which are recorded in the
other Gospels, are not so much as even once referred
to in any part of this. The same silence is also
evinced in respect of the baptism of Christ, the temp
tation in the wilderness, the transfiguration on Tabor,
the most of the miracles, all of the parables, the
institution of the Supper, the agony in Gethsemane,
the original designation together with the final com
mission of the apostles, and — what is still more re
markable, considering that John begins, as no other
evangelist does, with an account of the pre-existence
of Christ — the triumphal ascension into heaven, with
which Mark and Luke conclude their respective
Gospels, and to which Matthew, although not expressly
relating it, very distinctly refers.
On the other hand, the additional information
communicated by John is most extensive. It is only

The Gospel according to John. 145
in this Gospel that we read of Nicodemus and the
woman of Samaria, with the interesting discourses and
incidents connected with the introduction of these
persons into its history. It is only in this Gospel
that we are told of the turning of the water into wine
on occasion of the marriage in Cana of Gahlee, of the
heahng of the nobleman's son in Capernaum, of the
cure performed on the impotent man who had lain at
the pool of Bethesda for thirty and eight years, of the
bestowal of sight on the man who had been blind
from his birth, and of the raising of Lazarus, the
brother of Martha and Mary, from the dead. In
short, it is only in this Gospel that we have an
account of the first meeting of Andrew, Simon Peter,
Philip, Nathanael, and John himseff with our Lord ;
of the officers who, when sent to apprehend Him, re
turned without Him, saying, " Never man spake like
this Man " ; of the woman taken in adultery, whom
- they brought to Him to know what should be done
to her, that they might have to accuse Him ; of the
washing of the disciples' feet on the evening of the
last passover ; of His farewell-discourse on the same
evening, with the remarkable prayer which He then
offered for them and for all who should believe on
Him to the end of time ; of His dying commendation
of His virgin-mother to the care of John ; of His
repeated meetings on the first day of the week with
the disciples after He was 'risen from the dead ; of
the absence of Thomas from the first of those meet
ings, with his pertinacious unbelief, and its complete
k.

146 The Gospel according to John.
removal at the next of them ; of the meeting with
the disciples at the lake of Tiberias, with the
miraculous draught of fishes then taken under His
direction ; of the subsequent repast, with the thrice
repeated interrogation to Peter, "Lovest thou Me?"
of the prediction of the manner in which that apostle
should glorify God in dying, and also of the obscure
intimation respecting the prolongation of John's life,
which his brethren unwarrantably construed into an
assurance of absolute exemption from death, of out
standing longevity tiU the coming of the Lord.
After all, there seems good reason to dispute the
correctness of the view as to the merely supplemental
character of the Gospel. Were it but a supplement,
an appendix, it would exhibit the form of a fragmen
tary writing or a misceUany, whereas it is as unfform
in its character, and presents as complete and har
monious a whole of its kind, as any of the other
Gospels. Nor does the design of supplementing the
other Gospels appear to have formed even a definite
secondary object with the Evangelist. Had such an
intention formed any part of his plan, we can hardly
think that there would have been, as there is, an entire
absence of express allusion to the other evangelists ;
nor can we think that he would have permitted
himself to write, as he has written on several points,
particularly in his account of the resurrection, in such
a manner as to occasion considerable perplexity in re
conciling his account with theirs. These things in
connexion with the fact that he occasionally, although

The Gospel according to John. 147
not often, relates the same things which are related
in the others, seem to disprove the idea that he had
it in view to fill up or supplement their deficiencies.
Doubtless he all along proceeds on the assumption
that his readers were fully acquainted with other ex
isting and equaUy authentic accounts of the life of
Christ. Many of his references presuppose both their
existence and their authority ; but if the idea of fill
ing them up was at all in his mind, it must have
occupied a very subordinate place as a specific
object with him, so subordinate as never once to in
terrupt the continuous thread of his narrative, or in
the slightest degree to interfere with his main design.
[3.] Accordingly, we have yet to ascertain the object
of the Evangelist in this Gospel ; and we think he has
furnished abundant data from which it may be very
satisfactorily ascertained.
In one passage he says expressly, "These things
are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God ; and that beheving, ye might
have hfe through His name."
Then his prologue, or preface, which embraces the
first eighteen verses of the first chapter, will be found
on examination to contain the plan, the epitome, the
quintessence, so to speak, of the whole Gospel; the
Gospel is, in fact, from first to last the continuous
development or unfolding of those eighteen verses.
From these two sources of information, we conclude
that, whatever subsidiary purposes may be served by
this Gospel, the main object of it is to bring out the

148 The Gospel according to John.
profound spiritual verities relating to the Divine
person and mission of Jesus Christ as the Son of
God and the Messiah-Saviour of the world, in their
connexion with the reception which He obtained
from mew, and the consequences of that reception.
Viewed in this light, we find no difficulty in making
it out to be an entire and harmonious whole ; we see
at once how there should be much less of historical
detail, and much more of lofty revelation in it, as
compared with the other Gospels. We also perceive
the utmost propriety in its very omissions, and its
manifold and interesting additions. In short, we per
fectly understand how the Evangelist should soar
away in it, as if borne upon " eagle's wings " into
"heavenly places;" and, even when he speaks of
Christ as in the world, should exhibit Him as "not
of this world," should remind us that He is " the Son
of man which is in heaven," at the very time that
He is " the Son of man that came down from heaven ;"
should bring us to that part'of the river of God, where
the waters are not to " the ankles," or " the knees,"
or " the loins," but where they are risen far above
ankles, knees, and loins ; where they are " waters to
swim in, a river that cannot be passed over."
First, take the prologue, and cast but a single
glance ove¥ the Gospel in connexion with it. It ex
hibits our Lord ; not as in Matthew, the Son of David ;
not as in Mark, the Servant of God ; not as in Luke,
the Son of man; but as the Son of God ; and, as
such, the Word, the Life, the Light, the Only-begotten

The Gospel according to John. 149
of the Father, full of grace and truth ; the Only-
begotten which is in the bosom of the Father ; in
short, as God ; with the way in which, when in the
world — as the Word made flesh — He was rejected by
many, but received by others, who became in conse
quence the sons of God. Now run over the Gospel,
and you wiU find that it is occupied throughout in
most orderly succession with these very topics.
It is full of the revelations of the Word. The
discourses in it so profound, so full, so spiritual, so
heavenly, quite sustain His distinction as the Revealer
of the Father, the Only-begotten who is in the bosom
of the Father, and who hath declared Him.
Then the first seven chapters very explicitly set
forth the life, with the fulness of grax:e which is in
Him. Take one passage from the first chapter, a
key-passage, " Behold the Lamb of God which taketh
away the sin of the world :" — all the life that is in
Him, that flows from Him in the fulness of His grace,
comes to us through the channel of His atonement.
Takei a passage from the second chapter, another key-
'passage, " Destroy this temple, and in three days I
will raise it up. But He spake of the temple of His
body :" — or of His resurrection-K/e, in the possession
of which He has ability, as well as authority, to give
hfe and grace unto the world. Take a passage from
the third chapter, also a key-passage, " Verily, verily
I say unto thee. Except a man be born of water and
of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
God :" — the first effect of the outflow of hfe and

150 The Gospel according to John.
grace from Him takes place in the production of the
new birth,. — the new life in Him begins with that.
Take a passage from the fourth chapter, also another
key-passage, " Jesus answered and said unto her.
Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again ;
but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shaU
give him shall never thirst; but the water that I
shall srive him shall be in him a well of water
springing up into everlasting life :" — that is to say,
the life, the grace, which is received from Christ is
more than quickening — it is indwelling and abid
ing ; the new birth is followed by the new hfe, and
that is never followed by the second death ; the
life which it initiates is eternal life. Take a pas
sage from the fifth chapter, still the key-passage,
"The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall
hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear
shall live. For as the Father hath life in Him
self, so hath He given to the Son to have life in
Himself :"— the voice of Christ, the word of Christ, is
the mean of grace, of life, the instrumentality em
ployed in the impartation or communication of it.
Take a passage from the sixth chapter, again the key-
passage, " I am the living bread which came down
from heaven ; if any man eat of this bread, he shall
live for ever ; and the bread that I will give is My
flesh, which I will give for the life of the world :" —
Christ Himself, in His person and atonement, is the
food, the nutriment of the spiritual or divine life of
faith ; the life of grace obtains its whole sustenance

The Gospel according to John. 151
from Him — in Him. Take a passage also from the
seventh chapter, yet again the key-passage, " In the
last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and
cried, saying. If any man thirst, let him come unto
Me and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the
Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers
of hving water. But this spake He of the Spirit,
which they that believe on Him should receive : for
the Holy Ghost was not yet given ; because that Jesus
was not yet glorified."
Then pass over to the eighth and ninth chapters,
and see how He is there set forth as the light with
all the fulness of truth in Him. Take the key-
passage from the eighth — it is after tbe conviction
and seff-condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees,
who brought unto Him the woman taken in adultery —
" I am the light of the world ; he that fohoweth Me
shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of
life." Take also the key-passage from the ninth — it
is in connexion with the miraculous restoration of
sight to the man who had been blind from his birth —
" I must work the works of Him that sent Me while
it is day ; the night cometh when no man can work.
As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the
worid." Then again, in the following chapters, we have
still grace and truth in Him, hfe and light in Him,
with the revelation or unfolding of the heart and the
home of the Father, in such key-passages as, " No man
is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand :" " In

152 The Gospel according to John.
My Father's house are many mansions :" "Whatso
ever ye shall ask the Father in My name. He will
give it you :" " And I say not unto you, that I wiU
pray the Father for you ; for the Father Himseff
loveth you :" " I ascend unto My Father and your
Father, and to My God and your God." But we must
leave to private study the more particular examination
of the remaining history, as well as of the reception of
the grace and truth, the life and light and love of God
in Christ, as detailed with more or less explicitness
throughout the Gospel.
Secondly, take that passage in which the Evange
list expresses his object to be, that we m,ight believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that,
believing, we might have life through His name;
and, with it as a guide, run once more over the
Gospel, and see how in every chapter that object is
steadily kept in view and most satisfactorily fulfilled.
Take the testimony of John the Baptist in the first
chapter, — " I am not the Christ ; but He that sent
me to baptize with water, the same said unto me.
Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and
remaining upon Hirh, the same is He which baptizeth
with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and bare record
that this is the Son of God." Take the Samaritan
testimonies in the fourth chapter — " Come, see a Man
which told me all things that ever I did : is not this
the Christ?" "Now we believe not because of thy
saying : for we have heard Him ourselves, and know
that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world."

The Gospel according to John. 153
Take His own testimony in the tenth chapter : " Then
came the Jews round about Him, and said unto Him,
How long dost Thou make us to doubt ? If Thou be
the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I
told you, and ye believed not ; the works that I do
in My Father's name, they bear witness of Me." And
take the testimony of Martha in the eleventh chapter :
"Yea, Lord, I believe that Thou art the Christ, the
Son of God, which should come into the world."
Then notice also, as you go along, how the expres
sions, "the Father" and "the Son" occur more fre
quently in this Gospel than in aU the other three
together. And notice further the assertion and claim
of oneness or equahty with God, of proper and perfect
Deity, in such expressions and passages as, " The Word
was God:" "He said that God was His Father,
making Himseff equal with God :" " Before Abraham
was, I am :" "I and My Father are one :" "He
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father :" " And now,
0 Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self, with
the glory which I had with Thee before the world
was." But here we are again constrained to leave the
subject to personal examination. We have only
further to cite two testimonies to the position which
the Gospel, as thus considered in its object, occupies
in relation to the other Gospels, and in virtue of
which it is usually distinguished from them by the
symbol of the eagle-face. The first is that of Matthew
Henry : — " Here a door is opened in heaven, and the

154 The Gospel according to John.
first voice we hear is. Come up hither, come up higher.
Some of the ancients that supposed the four hving
creatures in John's vision to represent the four evan
gelists make John himself to be the flying eagle, so
high doth he soar, and so clearly doth he see into
divine and heavenly things." The other is that of
Augustine : — " In the four Gospels, or rather in the
four books of the one Gospel, the apostle St John, not
undeservedly, with reference to his spiritual under
standing, compared to an eagle, has lifted higher and
far more sublimely than the other three his proclama
tion, and in lifting it up he has wished our hearts
also to be lifted. For the other three evangelists
walked, so to speak, on earth with our Lord as man ;
of His divinity they said but few things : but John, as
if it oppressed him to walk on earth, has opened his
words as it were with a burst of thunder, has lifted
himself not only above earth and every sphere of
sky and heaven, but even above every host of angels,
and every order of invisible powers, and reaches to
Him by whom all things were made, as he says, ' In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God.' He proclaims other
things in keeping with this great sublimity with which
he begins, and speaks of the divinity of our Lord as
no other person has spoken. He pours forth that
into which he had drunk. For not without a reason
is it mentioned in his own Gospel, that at the
feast he reclined on the bosom of his Lord.
From that bosom he had in secresy drunk in the

The Gospel according to John. 155
stream, but what he drunk in secret, he poured forth
openly." We should have wished to say something, in con
clusion, by way of showing how we should make a
practical use of the view of Christ presented in this
Gospel; but it would lead us into too extensive a
field of observation ; and we must forbear. Let
us only quote two passages, the one expressive of
the blessed result of faith in Him, — may we profit
by the lesson of it, — " But as many as received Him,
to them gave He power to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on His name ;" and the
other expressive of the awful consequences of unbelief
in Him, — may we profit by the lesson of it also, —
" But he that believeth not is condemned already,
because he hath not believed in the name of the
Only-begotten Son of God." Plainly we cannot be
too much impressed with the high importance of the
object for which this Gospel has been provided.
" These things ure written that ye might believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believ
ing, ye might have life through His name." Amen.

THE HAEMONY OE THE GOSPELS.

Once more we return to our examination of the
Gospels. We have by no means exhausted the in
quiries which might be instituted into their individual
characteristics and relative connexions. They present
a field of investigation by far too large and fertile to
be ever exhausted. But there is one topic to which,
before leaving them, it may be desirable to direct
attention. Hitherto we have been mainly occupied with their
diversity. We have seen that each of the evangelists
relates the history of our Lord from a different stand
point, exhibits it in a different aspect ; and that this
ought to be kept in view and properly considered in
our examination of the various Gospels.
On the present occasion, the harmony of the
Gospels is the subject which we wish to bring under
consideration. Sceptics have often sought to construct
an argument out of their diversity agaiust their
authenticity ; and not a few of them have even gone
so far as to allege that their different representations

The Harmony of the Gospels. 157
are incompatible with historical reality. On this
account it is the more necessary to attend to their
essential unity. Scepticism loses all foothold here.
The ground is completely cut away from under it.
Very numerous attempts have been made from the
earhest ages to construct a Harmony of the Gospels,
by combining their several narratives into one com
plete continuous whole — one Gospel instead of four.
From the nature of the case, it was quite natural that
it should be so. We cannot help identifying the
leading events of the life and ministry of our Lord, as
related by the evangelists, or rather they identify
themselves ; and it would have been strange had this
process of identification been limited to what is merely
obvious, had it not been carried out and even sought
to be completed.
Nor can it be said that the enormous amount of
labour expended in the effort has been lost. By
bringing the Gospels together- — placing their parallel
accounts in juxtaposition, and comparing them with
one another — many passages in all of them, which
had been otherwise perhaps inexplicable, or at least
obscure, have been most happily elucidated ; and
difficulties and discrepancies, which might have
been stumbling to the faith of not a few, have been
entirely removed or satisfactorily explained. In this
respect the end of a Gospel harmony has been com
pletely gained, and the result is every way worthy of
all the eighteen hundred years' study which has been
given to it.

158 The Harmony of the Gospels.
At the same time, it must be owned that, in so far
as Gospel harmonisers have sought to reduce the four
Gospels, with all their characteristic varieties, into
one, in which all these varieties are absorbed, if not
obliterated, they have never been as yet successful;
and it is not possible that they ever can be so. For,
first, each of the evangelists has his own order of
narration, and that order so widely different that it
is quite impossible to determine with any thing like
exactitude the chronological sequence of the events
which they respectively relate. Then again, each of
them has his own style of narration, and that also so
evidently different, that an amalgam of the four must
necessarily be destructive of the distinct individuality,
and, to this extent, of the particular value of their
separate productions. And then, once more, their
difference of representation is so palpably distinct
that, however they may be brought into juxtaposition,
and compared and studied together, to fuse or blend
them into a new artificial compound Gospel ought
never to be attempted or even thought of It would
just be an attempt to form a fifth Gospel of our own,
by way of improving on the product of Divine in
spiration. Accordingly, we have no idea of harmonising the
Gospels in the sense in which it is usual to speak of
harmonising them. If we show that they are bound
together by a true historical harmony, that is all that
can ever be required, or that should ever be required,
on the theory of four independent Gospels. A literal.

The Harmony of the Gospels. 159
circumstantial, formal harmony is in fact impossible ;
it could only have been possible in one way — that of
each of the Gospels being but a copy or repetition of
a common original ; in which case, however, they
would have manifestly lost their fourfold value ; they
would have possessed the value of no more than a
single testimony. Besides, if the Spirit of God had
thought it necessary or desirable that we should be
put in possession of such a Gospel, surely He would
have Himseff provided it.
Our present task is therefore hmited to the exhibi
tion of their essential harmony, of their historical
harmony. We shall endeavour to accomplish this by
setting forth their harmony in what they do not relate
in common, and also in what they do relate in common.

I. THEIR HARMONY IN WHAT THEY DO NOT RELATE
IN COMMON.
The greatest apparent divergence from a common
testimony occurs in the Gospel according to John.
It has been common among sceptics to represent its
narrative as entirely different from the others — at
least so different as to be quite incapable of reconcilia
tion with them. According to them, the Christ of
John is quite an ideal personage, the mental concep
tion of a dreamer, which had no counterpart in actual
history, or at all events the counterpart of which
they allege is not to be found in the Christ of the
other evangelists. They admit that these evangelists

160 The Harmony of the Gospels.
may be harmonised, and that it is easy enough or
possible enough to identify the Christ of all of them ;
but they maintain that this is quite impossible with
the Christ of John.
We shall therefore confine ourselves at the present
stage to the reconciliation of the narrative of John
with that of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
1. Then here we have to notice, in the first place,
how they agree in respect of the locality in which
they represent the ministry of Christ to have been
exercised. It is here, perhaps, that cursory readers
wiU most readily discover discrepancy, or at least fail
to perceive agreement. According to John, the
ministry of Christ appears to have been mainly exer
cised in Judea. According to the others, it appears to
have been mainly exercised in Gahlee. Apart from
the events of the Passion Week, which are related
by all the evangelists, it is almost entirely a Judean
ministry which is related in the one Gospel, and a
Galilean ministry which is related in the others.
But very little is required to show that the differ
ence in this respect may be easily enough adjusted.
Were the two ministries represented as contemporane
ous, that would necessarily involve an irreconcilable
contradiction ; but that our Lord should have exer
cised His ministry both in Judea and in Gahlee, and
that one of the evangelists should have related His
ministry in the one country, and the other evangelists
in the other country, carries no contradiction in it.
Besides, if it turns out that both the one and the

The Harmony of the Gospels. 1 6 1
other distinctly advert to the ministry which they do
not relate, and allow sufficient time for it, — then, so
far from disagreement, there is harmony between
them, and harmony which is the more striking and
satisfactory, that coming, as it does, out of apparent
difference, it is obviously undesigned.
This is precisely how matters stand in the four
evangelists. The following passages from Matthew,
Mark, and Luke, may suffice to show that, while they
confine themselves to the narrative of the Galilean
ministry, they did not mean to ignore the Judean
ministry ; they were perfectly aware of it, and of the
extensive influence which it exercised : " And there
followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee,
and from Decapohs, and from Jerusalem, and from
Judea, and from beyond Jordan," (Matt. iv. 25. See
also Mark iii. 8 ; Luke viii. 17.) " Verily I say unto
you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel,"
(Matt. viii. 10 ; Luke vii. 9.) "And He arose from
thence, and cometh into the coasts of Judea by the
farther side of Jordan ; and the people resort unto
Him again ; and as He was wont He taught them
again," (Mark x. 1 ; Matt. xix. 1.) "And He went
through the cities and villages, teaching and journey
ing towards Jerusalem," (Luke xiii. 22.) "0 Jeru
salem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and
stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often
would I have gathered thy children together, even as
a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye
would not," (Matt, xxiii. 37 ; Luke xiu. 34.) "And
I

162 Tlie Harmony of the Gospels.
when He was come near. He beheld the city, and wept
over it, saying. If thou hadst known, even thou, at
least in this thy day, the things which belong unto
thy peace ! but now they are hid from thine eyes,"
(Luke xix. 41, 42.) The foUowing passages from
John may also suffice to show that, while be mainly
confines himself to the narrative of the Judean min
istry, he was quite cognisant of the Galilean ministry,
and did not mean in any way to ignore it : " This
beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee,
and manifested forth His glory; and His disciples
believed on Him. After this He went down to
Capernaum, He, and His mother, and His brethren,
and His disciples ; and they continued there not
many days," (chap. ii. 11, 12.) "When therefore
the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that
Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,
(though Jesus Himself baptized not, but His disciples,)
He left Judea, and departed again into Galilee,"
(chap. iv. 1-3.) " After these things Jesus walked
in Galilee ; for He would not walk in Jewry, because
the Jews sought to kill Him," (chap. vii. 1.) "But
some said. Shall Christ come out of Galilee ?" " Art
thou also of Galilee ? Search and look : for out of
Galilee ariseth no prophet," (chap. vii. 41, 52.)
" Therefore they sought again to take Him : but He
escaped out of their hand, and went away again beyond
Jordan, into the place where John at first baptized :
and there He abode. And many resorted unto Him,
and said, John did no miracle : but all things that

The Harmony of the Gospels. 163
John spake of this Man were true. And many
beheved on Him there," (chap. x. 39-42.) "Then
from that day forth they took counsel together for to put
Him to death. Jesus therefore walked no more openly
among the Jews ; but went thence unto a country
near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim,
and there continued with His disciples," (chap. xi.
53, 54.) It may be added that, under the guidance
of these and other passages, the two ministries, as
related by the different evangelists, can be, though
not completely, yet satisfactorily dovetailed into one
another, so that in this respect the apparent discre
pancy between them, which may at first be somewhat
stumbling, passes away almost entirely — becomes
positive harmony.
2. Then here we have to notice, in the second
place, how they agree in respect of the topics which
they report to have formed the burden of the ministry
of Christ. Here again a most manifest difference
between the Gospel according to John and the other
Gospels presents itself Both in form and in contents
the Gospel according to John is cast in a mould of its
own, a mould so evidently peculiar that sceptics, as
we have already said, will not allow that it can ever
be received as in unison with the other Gospels, or as
portraying the same life, the same person, with them.
But here also the difference may be easily enough
adjusted. It will be admitted that the ministry of
Christ would naturally divide itseff into two parts —
that which was fulfilled in pubhc, and that which was

164 The Harmony of the Gospels.
carried on more privately ; tbe former comprising His
popular discourses, so to speak. His more open utter
ances respecting the nature and the object of His
mission. His parables and prophecies, and other
addresses to the people ; and the latter setting forth
the profound spiritual mysteries relating to His Divine
person and mission, which, from their pecuhar charac
ter, He would not so readily in His then circumstances
bring out in public, but reserve for more confidential
intercourse with His disciples, except when He was,
as it were, constrained by the active opposition of His
adversaries among the Jews, to assert them openly.
Now this again is precisely how the matter stands
in the four evangelists. In the earlier Gospels we
have what would certainly form the staple of elemen
tary Christian instruction to the first converts to the
faith, the record of the more public ministry of Christ ;
and then again, in the last Gospel, what would most
certainly be demanded with the growth of Christian
life and knowledge in the Church, the record of His
more private ministry, along with that which was
carried on at a distance from His own country, such
as in Samaria and Judea, and in which it might be
legitimately enough expected He would be more open
in His communications respecting Himself and His
mission. The difference between the evangehsts,
when thus regarded, will be seen to be quite natural,
and, instead of shaking, ought to confirm our faith in
the authenticity of all the Gospels. Bengel makes a
pertinent remark on this subject which may here be

The Harmony of the Gospels. 165
quoted. " If a drawing is made of a city, first from
the east side, then from the west, though in both
cases the tallest and most striking towers and edifices
are presented, yet in all other respects the two sketches
not only can, but must differ widely. And yet both
are faithful copies of the original." Obviously the
only thing that is required in such a case is, that,
with the necessary variety of representation, there
should be such resemblances and affinities as make it
evident enough that there is really identity in the
object of their representation. This requirement is
fully answered in the Gospels. To advert to the par
ables of Christ, — of which it has often been observed,
there is not even a single specimen in the Gospel
according to John, — we have frequent metaphors in
this Gospel, which so far correspond to the parables
as to show that the similitudes of them were common,
as might be expected and demanded in historical
reality, to both the pubhc and more private minis
tries; only used in the latter, as of course, with a
profounder emphasis and significance. For example,
the similitude in the parable of the sower occurs in
these words as given in John : " Say not ye. There
are yet four months, and then cometh harvest ? behold,
I say unto you. Lift up your eyes, and look on the
fields, for they are white already to harvest. And he
that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto
life eternal ; that both he that soweth and he that
reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that
saying true. One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent

166 The Harmony of the Gospels.
you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour :
other men laboured, and ye are entered into their
labours," (chap. iv. 35-38.) Again, the similitude in
the parable of the shepherd and his sheep occurs in
these words, as also given in John : " I am the good
Shepherd : the good Shepherd giveth His life for the
sheep," (chap. x. 11.) And once more, the similitude
in the parable of the vineyard occurs in these other
words, as also given again in John : " I am the true
Vine, and My Father is the Husbandman. Every
branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away :
and every branch that beareth fruit He purgeth it,
that it may bring forth." "As the branch cannot
bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine ; no
more can ye, except ye abide in Me. I am the Vine,
ye are the branches. He that abideth in Me, and I
in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit : for with
out Me ye, can do nothing. If a man abide not in
Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and
men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and
they are burned," (chap. xv. 1-6.) On the other
hand, there are not a few passages in the earlier
Gospels which are every way as explicit and profound
in their reference to the Divine aspects of the person
and mission of Christ as any to be found in John ;
some of them so Joannean in their form and charac
ter, that such as are not very familiar with the Bible
might readily enough expect to find them in his
Gospel rather than in any of the others. " Wist ye
not that I must be about My Father's business ?"

The Harmony of the Gospels. 167
(Luke ii. 49.) "I thank Thee, 0 Father, Lord of
heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things
from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them
unto babes. Even so. Father ; for so it seemed good
in Thy sight. All things are delivered unto Me of
My Father, and no man knoweth the Son, but the
Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save
the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal
Him. Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I wiU give you rest," (Matt. xi.
25-28.) " Simon Peter answered and said. Thou art
the Christ, the Son of the hving . God. And Jesus
answered and said unto him. Blessed art thou, Simon
.Barjona : for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto
thee, but My Father which is in heaven," (chap. xvi.
16, 17.) " Again I say unto you. That if two of you
shall agree on earth as touching anything that they
shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father
which is in heaven. For where two or three are
gathered together in My name, there am I in the
midst of them," (chap, xviii. 19, 20.) "But I say
unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of
the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you
in My Father's kingdom," (chap. xxvi. 29.) "And,
behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you ;
but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be
endued with power from on high," (Luke xxiv. 49.)
" And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of
the worid," (Matt, xxviii. 20.)
So much for the harmony on this head. We might.

168 The Harmony of the Gospels.
indeed, have carried it out much further ; as, for
example, to the facts in the history of Christ, as weU
as to the discourses in His ministry. We have no
account in John of the miraculous conception, or of
the nativity in Bethlehem, or of the early residence in
the obscurity of Nazareth ; and yet these various facts
are fully corroborated in numerous incidental refer
ences of expressive significance. " And the Word was
made flesh," (John i. 14.) — There is evidently an
underlying allusion to the miraculous production of
His humanity here. " We have found Him, of whom
Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus
of Nazareth, the son of Joseph," (John i. 45.) " The
son of Joseph." — This was what He was popularly
believed to be ; but the Evangelist himself never calls
Him so. He uniformly distinguishes Him as the Son
of God. " And the third day there was a marriage
in Cana of Galilee ; and the mother of Jesus was
there," (John ii. 1.) " The mother of Jesus." — There
is no hesitation on the part of the Evangelist to
speak of her as such ; on several occasions he so
names her. " And when they wanted wine, the
mother of Jesus saith unto Him, They have no wine."
" His mother saith unto the servants. Whatsoever He
saith unto you, do it," (John ii. 3, 5.) "Now there
stood by the cross His mother, and His mother's sister.''
" When Jesus therefore saw His mother and the
disciple standing by, whom He loved. He saith unto
His mother. Behold thy son," (John xix. 25, 26.)
The following questions, as recorded by the Evan-

The Harmony of the Gospels. 169
gelist, also indicate his knowledge both of the nativity
in Bethlehem and of the residence in Nazareth, and
plainly confirm the other evangelists in their accounts
of these events. " Can there any good thing come
out of Nazareth ?" (John i. 46.) " Shall Christ come
out of Galilee? Hath not the Scripture said that
Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the
town of Bethlehem, where David was ?" (John vii.
41, 42.) Again, we have no account in John of the
baptism of Christ, but we have a distinct corrobora
tion of it in his account of the testimony of the
Baptist. "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven
hke a dove, and it abode upon Him. And I knew
Him not ; but He that sent me to baptize with water,
the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see
the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the
same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.
And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of
God," (John i. 32-34.) In the same way, although
we have no list of the apostles in John, as in all the
other Gospels, we have Andrew and Peter, James and
John, Philip and Nathanael, introduced to our Lord
in the very order ' in which their names are coupled
together in the evangelical lists, and the number of
them is mentioned once and again as twelve : "Have
not I chosen you twelve?" (John vi. 70.) "And
Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not
with them when Jesus came," (John xx. 24.) We
have also no account in John of the casting out of
devils, but we have a most explicit reference, in his

170 The Harmony of the Gospels.
own peculiar style and way, to Christ's conquest of
Satan, which was so strikingly illustrated and em
bodied in the demoniacal dispossessions. " Now is the
judgment of this world ; now shall the prince of this
world be cast out," (John xii. 31.) "The prince of
this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me," (John
xiv. 30.) "Because the prince of this world is judged,"
(John XV. 11.) There is also no mention made in
John of the agony in the garden, but the words of
Jesus, when He rebuked Peter for drawing sword in
His defence, allude very plainly to the prayer which
He had so earnestly offered up under the agony ;
" Put up thy sword into the sheath ; the cup which
My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it ? "
(John xviii. 11.) Then, besides all these and other
references in John which distinctly evince his know
ledge of many facts related by the other evangelists,
but omitted by himself, there are facts related by him
which go to explain various references of the evan
gelists left unexplained by them from their omission
of the facts in question. Thus they record the testi
mony of the false witnesses against Jesus at His trial :
" This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of
God, and to build it in three days,'' (Matt. xxvi. 61 ;
Mark xiv. 58.) John alone records what Jesus really
said upon the subject, and so explains, quite inciden
tally, how such an accusation could be brought against
Him : " Then answered the Jews and said unto Him,
What sign showest Thou unto us, seeing Thou doest
these things ? Jesus answered and said unto them.

The Harmony of the Gospels. 171
Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it
up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was
this temple in building, and wilt Thou rear it up in
three days ? But He spake of the temple of His
body," (John ii. 18-21.) Thus also all the evangelists
relate the triumphal entry of our Lord into Jerusalem,
but John alone relates the occasion of it, which, pro
bably for the prudential reason stated in our exami
nation of his Gospel, they intentionally omitted :
" The people therefore that was with Him when He
called Lazarus out of his grave bare record. For this
cause the people also met Him, for that they heard
that He had done this miracle. The Pharisees there
fore said among themselves. Perceive ye how ye prevail
nothing ? Behold the world is gone after Him,"
(John xii 17-19.)
But we cannot carry out this comparison and recon
ciliation of the evangelists any further under this
head. It is enough to say that, when a person's life
is written by different parties, one of whom exhibits
him mainly in his public, and the other in his private
character, while of course there is such a basis of
resemblance in the two biographies as serves to iden
tify the subject of them, it is impossible to consider
them harmonious unless the different stand-points of
their authors are taken into account, and proper
allowance is made for the specific characteristics of
their distinctive views. Just so is it with the Gospels.
Many supposed and alleged discrepancies vanish
whenever we contemplate them from the proper point

172 The Harmony of the Gospels.
of view. Where discrepancies were said to exist, we
observe the nicest harmonies, the most admirable,
undesigned coincidences. We also at once perceive
how one evangelist records one class of facts, and
another evangelist another class of facts, according as
the facts fall in with their respective objects ; and
how, in recording even the same facts, the one and
the other should notice different circumstances con
nected with these facts, without infringing upon the
perfection of any one of the Gospels, as viewed from
its own particular stand-point; and how, in short,
without regarding the Gospels as merely supplemen
tary or corroborative of one another, we may make
them serve this purpose by the exhibition of their
unintended and unfettered -harmonies, while at the
same time we come to apprehend and to appreciate
the purpose of the Spirit of God in an omission here,
and an addition there, in now presenting one fact in
a certain relation, and again presenting it in another
relation, and in so giving us a different view in one
Gospel from that which is given us in another Gospel.
II. THE HARMONY OF THE EVANGELISTS IN WHAT
THEY DO RELATE IN COMMON.
Under this head there opens up a most extensive
field of observation and investigation, on which, how
ever, we shall hardly enter. Two observations will
serve us here.
1. First, We may shortly notice their harmony in

The HarrrMny of the Gospels. 173
the vieivs of Christ which they present in common.
That a particular view of Christ predominates in the
separate representation of each of the four Gospels we
have sufficiently proved already. In Matthew we see
Him in His covenant royalty as the Son of David;
in Mark in His laborious ministry as the Servant of
God ; in Luke in His common humanity as the Son
of man ; and in John in His true Divinity as the Son
of God. To advert to the cherubic symbols by which,
from the earliest ages, they have been commonly dis
tinguished : Matthew portrays the lion, Mark the ox,
Luke the man, and John the eagle. This arrange
ment, it is true, is not uniformly adopted. The
commentators of the Church of Rome, along with
many others, follow the order of the cherubic forms,
as in the vision of Ezekiel. They see the man in
Matthew, the lion in Mark, the ox in Luke, and the
eagle, of course, in John. Nor is it surprising that
there should be this diversity of arrangement. It is
just as with the cherubim themselves. According to
the prophet each of them had the four faces, although
it was at the same time apparently distinguished by
one which was more prominent than the rest. So in
the Gospels. The view of each is not to be found in
itseff only; we find traces of it in aU the others.
With that which in each is distinctively its own, the
whole four have resemblances and affinities which are
common to them all. And hence, as it is also said
of the cherubim, " Two wings of every one were joined
one to another ;" and again, " They four had one

1 74 The Harmony of the Gospels.
likeness," the view pecuhar to one Gospel seems in
many places to join and even to identify itself with
the view in another Gospel. You find the Son of
David in Mark, Luke, and John, as well as in Matthew;
you also find the Servant of God in Matthew, Luke,
and John, as well as in Mark ; you find the Son of
man in Matthew, Mark, and John, as well as in Luke ;
you also find the Son of God in Matthew, Mark, and
Luke, as well as in John ; in short, it just comes to
this, that, while each has his own distinctive view
standing out in prominent relief, they all distinctly
recognise one another's view, and more or less embrace
it, and incorporate it with their own, so that with all
their obvious diversity, they are thus in perfect har
mony ; they exhibit but one Christ, who is at once,
in symbol, lion, ox, man, and eagle, and in fact the
Son of David, the Servant of God, the Son of man,
and the Son of God.
2. Secondly, We may as shortly notice their har
mony in the incidents and facts respecting Christ
which they record in common. These incidents and
facts are so few that they may all be stated in little
more than a single sentence. There is, first, the
feeding of the five thousand men, besides women and
children, on the five loaves and the two fishes. The
miracle is related in all the Gospels — in Matthew xiv.,
in Mark vi, in Luke ix., and in John vi. It is the
only incident in the life of Christ, prior to the events
of the Passion week, which they all relate ; and we
may therefore very warrantably conclude that it is full

The Harmony of the Gospels. 175
of significance, and that the instruction of it is to be
viewed in its connexion with all the characters and
relations which He sustains as the Son of David, the
Servant of God, the Son of man, and the Son of God.
Then we next find them all relating the important
events of the Passion week. The riding into Jeru
salem, the treachery of Judas, the resistance of Peter
in the garden, and his thrice repeated denial of his
Master in presence of the servants and the soldiers,
the trial before the Sanhedrim, the arraignment before
Pilate, the hberation of Barabbas, the condemnation,
the crucifixion, the raiment-partition, the death, the
burial, the resurrection, — all these events are alike
related, with, of course, many circumstantial and
characteristic varieties, in all the Gospels. Again, it
is to be observed that these events, and the instruction
of them, must be viewed in their connexion with all the
characters and relations which He sustains as the Son of
David, the Servant of God, the Son of Man, and the Son
of God. The Son of David rides in triumph into Jeru
salem, suffers, dies, rises from the dead. The Servant
of God rides in triumph into Jerusalem, suffers, dies,
rises from the dead. The Son of Man rides in triumph
into Jerusalem, suffers, dies, rises from the dead. The
Son of God rides in triumph into Jerusalem, suffers,
dies, rises from the dead.* We do not enter on the
examination of the various accounts of these events ;
that would involve us in an investigation which is by
far too extensive and too important to be disposed of
• Vide Jukes on the Gospels, p. 176.

176 The Harmony of the Gospels.
in connexion with our present object. We content
ourselves with the simple statement that the events
in question, together with the miracle of the loaves,
comprise the whole of what literally forms the common
testimony of the Gospels. In all other respects they
may be said to be harmonious, though not coincident,
or four, though one ; here they are not only harmo
nious but coincident, or one, though four. Let us
commend their various narratives to attentive prayer
ful perusal ; they will largely repay all the study
which may be bestowed upon them.
We now conclude this examination of the charac
teristics of the Gospels. The Gospels are worthy of
all the study that can be bestowed on them. ' If it
was true of our blessed Lord that " never man spake
like this man," the remark may be extended unto
them. Never were books written like these books.
Never Gospels like these Gospels, so simple in style,
yet so profound ; so unadorned in their heavenly
beauty ; so consistent and harmonious, even to repeti
tion, in their grand outhnes, and so rich in their
multiplied diversities ; they contain an evidence of
truth and reality which defies all the vain efforts of
unbelieving minds ; they are a treasury of wisdom and
grace, that is able to supply the deepest wants and
remedy the most grievous miseries of a faUen world.
Like the heavenly cherubim, each has its own peculiar
character, and reveals a separate aspect in the love of
Christ ; but they ah unite as with a voice of thunder
in uttering the same invitation to sinners ; Come, see

The Harmony of the Gospels. 177
a man who is at once the Son of David, the Servant
of God, the Son of man, and the Son of God ; — is not
this the Christ ? And every humble heart will re
spond to the invitation, and in responding to it will
have to say, like the Samaritans of old, ' Now we believe,
for we have seen Him ourselves, and know that this
is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.'*
It might be expected that we should here offer some
observations on the practical use to be made of the
harmony in diversity which we have now seen to
characterise the fourfold view of Christ in the different
Gospels. And certainly the subject is fertile enough,
and prolific enough, so that we might have swept over
a very large field of valuable reflection. That we mean
to restrict ourselves is not owing to any deficiency of
material. It is exactly the reverse.
We prefer to advert to but two things, in the hope
that, limiting ourselves to them, they may be the more
faithfully considered and applied.
The one is. That there is an infinite fulness of
gracious supply in Christ to meet all the wants of His
disciples. Does not the fourfold repetition of the
miracles of the loaves teach us that ? No commentary
which overlooks or in any way ignores this lesson can
do justice to the repetition. We are in a desert —
thousands of men, besides women and children.
Whence shall we buy bread that all may eat ? We
do not need to buy at aU. " Jesus said. My Father
* Birks' Horse Evangelicas, p. 550.
m

178 The Harmony of the Gospels.
giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the Bread
of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and
giveth life unto the world." "Wherefore do ye
spend money for that which is not bread, and your
labour for that which satisfieth not ? Hearken dih-
gently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and
let your soul delight itself in fatness."
The other is. That this infinite fulness of gracious
supply is only to be partaken of in the faith of Christ
as the once crucified but now glorified Redeemer.
And hence also the fourfold repetition of the history
of His death and resurrection. Some are arrested by
the history of the incarnation. It holds them fast.
They say that they cannot get past the Bethlehem-
manger to the Jerusalem-cross. But the Gospel of
Jesus Christ is only, as it were, begun in the incarna
tion of the Bethlehem-manger. We never get to the
heart of the Gospel tiU we find our way to Calvary.
The Bread of life is, in symbol, not the unbroken wafer
of Rome's idolatry, but the broken bread of the true
Scriptural Communion. It is, in reality, the atone
ment-sacrifice of the Lamb of God. There is a sense
in which the all of religion may, no doubt, be said
to centre in the Person of our Lord. " Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God." We do not won
der at the approval of that confession : — " Blessed art
thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not
revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in
heaven." ' At the same time, it must not be forgot
ten that, when Peter immediately went on to express

The Harmony of the Gospels. 179
himself in opposition to the cross, the benediction was
at once exchanged for a malediction, the like of which
is next to unparaUeled in the Word of God — " Get
thee behind Me, Satan." The conclusion is plain
enough. If the cross of Christ is in any way obscured,
if the atonement of Christ is in any way denied, men
may say what they please about the Person of Christ,
they may appear to be full of love to Him — very
Peters in the fervour of their zeal, and affection, and
courage for Him ; but He will not have them for His
disciples. Let them put away His cross, and He will
only identify them with Satan. " Tell no man that
I am Christ tiU I have suffered, died, risen from the
dead ; because, till I am Christ the sufferer, Christ
the sacrifice, it is reaUy of no consequence to the
world whether or not I am Christ at aU." It is on
this account that we have the crucifixion and the
resurrection of Christ in aU the Gospels. There is no
Gospel without a crucified Saviour. There is no
Gospel without a risen Saviour. There could be none.
" I am the Living One that was dead, and behold I
am alive for evermore," is the very essence, the sum
and substance, of the Gospel. The saying, " No cross,
no crown," is now quite commonplace — so common
place that few think any thing about it, except as a
phrase of happy alliteration. But there is a great
reality covered by it, as we see in the fourfold history
of the Cross ; and it is hot less true in the history of
His disciples than it is in His own. Let theni con
sider it, ponder it. Only let it be taken in its entire-

180 The Harmony of the Gospels.
ness ; so that, when the cross comes, they may not
fail to look forward to the crown which is coming too,
like "Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who,
for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is now set down at the right
hand of the throne of God." " It is a faithful say
ing ; for if we be dead with Him, we shall also live
with Him ; if we suffer, we shall also reign with
Him."

TURNBULL AND SPEARS PRINTERS EDINBURGH.

WORKS

PUBLISHED BY

T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH.

IN DEMY Svo, PRICE 10s 6rf,
THE
REVELATION OF LAW
IN SCRIPTURE:

CONSIDBEED V/ITH EESPEGT BOTH TO ITS OWN NATUEE,
AND TO ITS EELATIVE PLACE IN SUCCESSIVE
DISPENSATIONS.

Cfte WoitXi levies of t\)t ' ffiunningljani ilectures,'

BY
PATRICK FAIKBAIEN, D.D.,
AUTIIOK OF 'TYPOLOGY OF SCUIPTUKE.'

2 Works Puhlished hy T. <i' T. Clark, Edinburgh.
IN DEMY %vo, PRICE 10s 6c?,
THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT
AS TAUGHT BY CHEIST HIMSELF;
Ok, The Sayings of Jesus on the Atonement Exegetically
Expounded and Classified.
By Rev. GEORGE SMEATON,
Professor of Exegetical Theology, New College, Edinburgh.

'Professor Smeaton shows himself master of his whole subject 
We venture to predict for this volume a lasting place among our standard
works on theology;' — Weekly Review.
'¦ We heartily recommend this great and useful work to our readers. The
arguments are well sustained with great originality and force of logic, and
the whole tone of the work is that of the gospel.' — Rock.
' We recommend it as forming a most useful introduction to the study
of a deep and mysterious doctrine, and likely to be profitable to the
thoughtful and judicious reader. Its matter is carefully digested, and its
argument is well thought and clearly reasoned.' — Churchman.
'Professor Smeaton is singularly well qualified for the work he has
chosen. He is one of the few men we have in Scotland who have
thoroughly availed themselves of the results of recent research, and of the
theological movements of modern times. . . . It is the work not only
of a ripe, well-finished theologian, but of one who handles his subject with
the skilful ease which nothing but long familiarity with his subject gives.
He passes from chapter to chapter with a certainty which tells of accurate
knowledge and wide information  We "hail this volume, there
fore, as a really valuable contribution to theological literature.' — I>aily
Review. ' We welcome this work as an effort in a department of theology which
is hardly yet distinctly recognized in this country, though it has been for
some time cultivated with much vigour and success in the continental
schools. .... The author's unflertaking is a very lofty and bold one;
and, looking at the work as a whole, it appears to us on many accounts
seasonable and fitted to do good. A work in defence of the Atonement
was surely needed, as nothing of the sort has appeared in this country for
a considerable time, during which much has been puhlished on the
opposite side. It is not the less suitable, too, that the work should not be
directly polemical but expository in its plan, being more likely thus to
commend itself to candid doubters or opponents, and giving a practical
proof that the evangelical doctrine need not shrink from an appeal to the
naked word of God, on the strictest principles of interpretation.' — The
Presbyterian.

Works Published by T. & T.. Clark, Edinburrjh. 3

IN CROWN 8uo, PRICE 4s.,

THE

SYMBOLICAL NUMBERS OF SCRIPTURE.

By the Eev. MALCOLM WHITE, M.A.

' The recommendation of Mr White's researches is, that while he
has no sympathy with this presumptuous prying into the future, he
yet endeavours to give the right meaning to the symbolical numbers.'
— Clerical Journal.
' We heartily thank Mr White for his able, sober, and suggestive
contribution to the right interpretation of the symbolical numbers
of Scripture ; for, without binding ourselves to every detail, we say
with coniidence. that he has rendered a good and needful service to
the book " one jot or one tittle of which shall in no wise pass away
till all be fulfilled."' — London Weekly Review.
' We have read this volume with more than ordinary interest, treat
ing as it does of one of the greatest diiEculties which the interpreters
of Scripture have to encounter. . . . We bear willing testimony
to the general excellence of his work, which is well deserving of a
place in the library of every biblical student.'^ Wesleyan Methodist
Magazine. ¦ It is quite refreshing to meet with a book of this kind on such a
subject. There is an absence of the dogmatic tone that so often
meets us in connection with it. The author speaks not as one who
claims the very gift of prophecy ; he shows himself a humble and
devout inquirer after the truth. His investigations cannot fail to
interest every student, every intelligent reader of Scripture, and those
whom they do not satisfy, they cannot by any possibility offend.
.... Most heartily we commend this volume. Our readers, we
are sure, will thank us for introducing it to their notice. We trust
the author will continue his investigations. Where such spoil has
already been gathered, there is more to be found.' — United Presby
terian Magazine.

4 Works Published by T. & T. Glwrk, Edinburgh.
IN FOOLSCAP Svo, PRICE 7s. 6rf.,
DAVID THE KING OF ISRAEL :
A POETKAIT DRAWN FKOM BIBLE HISTORY AND
THE BOOK OF PSALMS.
By FEEDEEICK WM. KEUMMACHEE, D.D.,
Author of 'Elijah the Tishbite,' etc.
TRANSLATED UNDER THE EXPRESS SANCTION OF THE AUTHOR BT TUB
Rev. M. G. EAST ON, M.A.

'From the author of "Elijah the Tishbite" we were entitled to
expect no ordinary treat, when he proposed to lead us over a life
fraught with such variegated interest as that of " David the King of
Israel." In such a field Dr Krummacher's well-known powers of
description, his chaste fancy, his well-balanced judgment, and
enlightened piety were sure to find full scope ; nor have our antici
pations been disappointed. Time has not blunted the keen percep
tion of the theologian ; and though it may have sobered the exuber
ance, it has not withered the power, of the writer. In these pages,
David passes before us, in the various phases of his character as
shepherd, psalmist, warrior, and monarch. There is no attempt at
originality of view, no prosy solution of difficulties, no controversial
sparring ; the narrative flows on like a well-told story ; and the art
of the writer lies in the apt selection of salient points, and in the
naturalness of his reflections. A tone of spirituality is imparted to
the narrative by linking it to the Book of Psalms.' — British and
Foreign Evangelical Review.
' We have a lifelike picture of the prophet-king and of his times.
The truths brought out are applied with marvellous skill and deep
spiritual insight to the Christian state, so that every page is lumin
ous with gospel lessons. The character of David is nobly drawn ;
and he stands before us as one of the greatest men and greatest
saints of the Old Testament. We trust its venerable author will be
rewarded by the abundant popularity of his picturesque and charm
ing volume.' — Evangelical Christendom.

tT

MLE UNIVERSIPr' LIBRARY

3 9002 08844 8569