The Gospel of Jesus Christ: In the Beginnings

The first four books of the New Testament (NT) provide a remarkable record of the life of Jesus Christ. We should not call them “the four gospels”, because there is really only one Gospel, and what we have in our hands are four accounts of this one gospel. That is why we refer to them not as the gospel of Matthew, or the gospel of Mark, but the gospel according to Matthew, the gospel according to Mark, and so on. We have four views of the same event, each from a distinct vantage point.

Nowhere, perhaps, is this better seen than in the accounts of the birth of Christ.

One: Matthew.

Matthew’s gospel has preeminent place as the first gospel in the canonical ordering of the NT. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, church tradition tells us that Matthew was the first to write a gospel, and he did so in the Hebrew language. The gospel of Matthew that we have today is written in Greek. Secondly, Matthew is most concerned with the link between the Old covenant and the New, with the continuity and fulfillment of the Old Testament (OT) in the New; that is why we often read in Matthew’s gospel, “that it might be fulfilled as it was written in the prophets...”.

Matthew begins his gospel with a bang: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.” This wouldn’t mean much to a Gentile audience, but it would mean a lot to a Jewish one. The Jewish listener would understand that in referencing David, Jesus is of royal lineage. The Jewish listener would also know that God had promised the Jews that a Son of David would rule and reign over them from Jerusalem. A Jewish listener, or reader, would also know that it was promised to Abraham that from Abraham’s seed would come One by whom all the nations of the world would be blessed. So, Matthew packs a lot into the first sentence!

Matthew does not come right out and say that Jesus was born of a virgin. However, it is implicit in what he does say. When Matthew comes to Jesus' earthly father Joseph in his geneology, he is careful in his phrasing.He deliberately avoids the claim that Joseph was the father of Jesus. He puts it this way: “And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.”


Matthew’s account includes the story of the wise men coming from the East, King Herod inquiring of them, them giving Herod the slip, and Herod’s subsequent murderous rage. The gospel is not a saccarine account; it is realistic. Christ’s birth, and our redemption came at great cost at the hands of evil men.

Two: Mark.

Mark starts off all in a rush with a fully-adult Jesus ready to begin his public ministry; Mark was in a hurry to get on with telling the story to a Gentile audience, who would have been less interested in where Christ came from than in what he did. A Christmas service based on the book of Mark would be a very thin Christmas service -- no Mary and Joseph, no shepherds, no angels, no star, no wise men from the east bearing gifts of incense, frankincense, and myrhh. From Mark we simply get as an opening salvo: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

But look what is packed into this opening sentence: The name Jesus means “one who saves”; Christ means “anointed by God”, and, “chosen to rule”; and Son of God in this instance means exactly that -- the only-begotten Son of God. So, in Mark we’ve got the declaration of Jesus Christ, Saviour, Anointed One, Chosen to Rule, Son of God -- all in the first sentence!

Like Matthew, Mark does not explicitly address the virgin birth of Christ. However, like Matthew, it is implicit in what he does say.

Three: Luke.

After a four-verse dedication of his book, Luke begins as follows: “There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah.”

From this opening sentence we learn that what we are about to hear is not only gospel -- i.e., biographical narrative, it is also history. Luke oozes the sensibilities of an historian and this is reflected in the gospel that bears his name.

Luke perhaps had Matthew and Mark’s gospels in front of him when he wrote. Desiring to give us a fuller account, he begins with the elderly and barren Elizabeth and Zacharias, and the miraculous pregnancy and birth of the herald of the Lord, John who would become known as the Baptist. Luke the Physician and historian, by starting where he does, gives us what screenwriters like to call “the backstory”.

Based on the contents, Luke probably got a lot of his information from Mary, who was a prominent member of the early church in Jerusalem. It is from Luke that we learn of the coming of the angel to Mary announcing that she shall give birth to the holy One of God. It is from Luke that we have the beautiful Magnificat, “My soul does magnify the Lord”, as well as Simeon's prophetic song, "Now Lord, let thy servant depart in peace / for mine eyes have seen thy salvation (i.e., "thy Jesus"!).

Like Matthew, Luke has a genealogy; perhaps having seen Matthew’s genealogy and wishing to go one better, whereas Matthew is content to trace the lineage of Joseph back to Abraham, Luke goes all the way back to “son of Adam, son of God!”. As some might say, "beat that!".

As heavenly and Spirit-centred as Luke’s gospel is, it’s not all angels and dreams and visions and miracles.

Luke’s historical gospel compels us to understand that that the gospel is not some fanciful story picked out of the air, that Christ is not some kind of universal cosmic entity; rather, God became man at a particular time, in a particular [geographical] place, and in a very specific cultural context: he was born of a virgin, a woman, a Jew, under the Jewish Law or Torah, and in the midst of a people oppressed by Roman rulers who thought nothing of using crucifixion as a weapon of subjugation and punishment. It is into this real, messy, and dangerous world that Jesus was born.

And then we come to John.

Four: John.

John is almost literally out of this world. While Luke insists on rooting his gospel in history, John insists on uprooting it from history and placing it in a cosmic, eternal perspective.

No plodding earthly geneologies or mundane narratives about travelling to Bethlehem to be taxed and finding no room in the inn for John. John takes the cosmic, eternal view: in words that are a direct echo of the beginning of the Bible, John soars as he says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, i.e., the word was from the get-go divine.

In John we have another great, punchy first sentence. We are transported back to the beginning of time, the beginning of creation, the beginning of history, and who do we find there? Jesus Christ, the Word or Logos of God.

Why does John choose to go all the way back and start at the very beginning? One reason may be that in the ancient world novelty and newness was not revered the way it is in our culture. In the ancient world, the older the better. So John is perhaps saying, “OK, you want old, top this: before the world began, Jesus Christ was! He then ups the ante and takes things a step further. Not only did Jesus Christ exist from the very beginning, he existed with God. And not only did he exist with God, he was (and is) himself divine. He is no less than God Himself. How’s that for an opening sentence!

Conclusion:

What a wonderful diversity and richness we find in these four accounts of the incarnation of our Lord. We thank God for these four reliable, authentic, and faithful witnesses to the life of Christ -- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

As we ease into the new year, may I leave you with a piece of advice?

RTB - Read The Book.

ETB - Enjoy The Book.

LTB - Live The Book.

There is, quite simply, no other book like it.

“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.”

“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

“There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah.”

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”