Chapter 1 Section 1

Where to find the sayings of Jesus and how we will investigate them

1 The four Gospels - where to find the sayings of Jesus

The four Gospels are written in a way that is just right for showing us why Christ died. It will be enough here just to briefly note the elements found in them.

It was impossible for one writer to adequately describe the riches of Christ's life and so God gave us a four-faced mirror to adequately reflect the God-man. This is one reason why the apostles were allowed to get so close to him during his earthly public ministry. God intended that they should be eye witnesses and ear witnesses who would, in due time, faithfully record Jesus' deeds and words. This comes out at certain points even when they had not fully realised this (see Matthew 26:13 Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her; Acts 1:21). For thirty years the precious record waited on their lives, so often in danger, until the appointed time, when it could be committed to the church in writing. By that time the church was ready to welcome it and appreciate it as God's Word. What was eventually written down had shared with the church orally by the apostles for nearly a generation. The Gospels themselves were produced either by eye witnesses or by those who knew the eye witnesses and were approved by them. The fact that the apostles were still leading the churches when the Gospels first appeared ensured at least two things. First, the authenticity and faultless accuracy of the records. Second, their unimpeded circulation. They were accepted as books written by people who were called to the task and competent to execute it by putting the material in the form it is in now. Down the years Christians have continued to reverently preserve these records as part of God's Word.

• Matthew's Gospel was received by the church as the work of an eye witness. It has its own distinctiveness. The fact that it opens with a family tree that begins with Abraham and its apparently rather Jewish interests suggests that it was written with Jewish believers in mind. He describes the life of Jesus in the light of Old Testament prophecies about Messiah. He avoids detail, much more than Mark and John at least. He puts together an important set of facts and sayings, however, often pointing out where prophecy has been fulfilled.
• Mark's Gospel has long been said to be John Mark's record of the preaching of Peter. It does not merely give us the gist of Matthew but is a separate Gospel in its own right. It is often thought to be the first Gospel published and this is likely. It begins in the style of Peter's sermons as found in Acts (see Acts 10 for example) and focuses on Jesus's great deeds. It reveals what a powerful impression Jesus made. There is little teaching and little attempt to show that Jesus fulfilled prophecy.
• Luke's Gospel is like Mark except that here it is Luke and Paul rather than Mark and Peter. It was prepared by someone from Paul's circle and with his approval. Its connection with Paul comes out in many ways. For example, Luke's genealogy makes no attempt to distinguish Jew and Gentile and goes right back to Adam.  Or take the way he reports the Song of Simeon, the insufficiency of deeds or the connection between salvation and faith (see 2:32, 17:10, 7:50).
• The fourth Gospel, by John, the disciple Jesus loved and his apostle, was written long after the others had died and was intended to supplement what they had written. John's main aim was to show that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (20:31). This is done in a way not attempted before that focuses on the Lord's own consciousness. John was particularly suited and gifted to work in this way. Unlike Matthew and Luke, he does not begin with a family tree or Jesus as a baby nor does he begin with Jesus' public ministry as Mark does. Rather he goes back to the Lord's divine pre-existence and eternal Sonship before coming to the story of what happened and what Jesus said.

This brings us to the matter of the facts of Jesus' life and the things he said.

The facts. As to the facts, the story is basically simple and straightforward. The necessary interpretation and commentary comes mainly from the Lord's sayings and the comments we find in the New Testament letters. Without this interpretation, the story of Jesus' suffering can give rise to nothing more than sentimental feelings or idle sympathy, something the Lord rejected (see Luke 23:28). The facts and sayings are so connected that on their own they cannot be understood. The story would be an insoluble puzzle without the commentary. The historic incidents of the Lord's suffering supply what we may call the realism of the atonement. They exhibit it in concrete personal form. The teaching is given in the New Testament letters. There the curtain is lifted so that we can see God's thinking or the plan of redemption that the stories embody in historical reality. It is when we combine God's thought and action, his plan and its fulfilment, that the way they coincide serves to confirm both. The teaching makes the story clear. The Gospels can only be studied properly when they are read in the light of God's plan. Without that you only skate on the surface, happy just to see Christ as an example or slipping in some petty and random ideas of your own, even though the stories are dominated by this idea of sacrifice on behalf of others. When the story is read by those able to trace the cause of the Lord's sufferings as well as the sufferings themselves, they are able to learn the true teaching from the facts. The Gospels, in a word, exhibit on a foundation of fact, both the conditions of the atonement and all its different parts. The more the story is examined, the more the correspondence between sayings and facts, predictions and fulfilments, is seen.
When we closely examine the story in the Gospels, we find these writings very well adapted to the design for which they were composed. They must be read with this design in mind. They aim to bring out, in line with a definite plan, the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the suffering Messiah, who all the prophets wrote about. For this reason, their story is so arranged that it will bring out, either directly or indirectly and without labouring the point, the co-incidence between fact and prophecy.
We can divide Old Testament prophecy of the humiliations of the Messiah into three sorts:
1. Those announcing a suffering Guarantor
2. Those showing the voluntary subjection of Messiah to the sufferings faced
3. Those setting forth how those sufferings serve to lead others to put their trust in him for salvation.
There is a most impressive coincidence between fact and prophecy.
But further still, the Gospels are structured, careful analysis will show, in a way that brings out all the most important elements of the atonement in terms of the historical reality. This confirms that an infinite Intelligence is behind their composition. No merely human version of the Lord's life can come near it. The essential qualities required in an atoning Guaranotr are chiefly the following four. In each case we see them developed on the basis of fact. The sufferings must be
1. Faultless and entirely in keeping with the character of the one to whom satisfaction is required to be made.
2. Very painful and shameful
3. Of unlimited worth or value in light of the dignity of the sufferer
4. In accurate correspondence with God's declarations
All four points come out in the facts as recorded in the Gospels in a most remarkable way. By way of example think of
1. The declarations of Pilate and his wife, of Herod and of Judas. These all come out quite naturally.
2. The scorn and mockery inflicted on the sufferer, the indignities he suffered, the false charges that condemned him and the way the sentence was carried out.
3. Christ's dignity is confirmed by those touches in the story where his priestly prayers and sacrifice are covered, including the way he blessed the dying thief beside him. In the most simple way, the Gospel writers record his royalty when his enemies were thrown back in his presence and he protected his disciples; the notice that, in God's providence, Pilate placed above his head on the cross and the words of the centurion at the cross "Truly this was the Son of God".
4. The final point is the one most fully illustrated in the original threat of death, the curse of which being hung on a tree was the obvious evidence and emblem and in the details of the arrest, trial, crucifixion and shame, sufferings and death, as foreshadowed and foretold in the Old Testament and as recalled in those brief records supplied by the Gospels; not to mention little incidents occasionally introduced, such as his thirst and none of his bones being broken.

The sayings. As to the sayings, they are expressions of the Lord's own consciousness. They are accurately given, having been lodged in the memories of the apostles. These sayings undoubtedly give us Jesus' own thoughts on the subject of his atoning death. They announce the design, aim and motive behind his actions. Every Christian will readily admit that they are spoken truthfully, without overstatement, on the one hand, or defect, on the other. They give us not only an objective outline of his work in its nature and results but also a glimpse into the very heart of his activity. In this light these sayings are invaluable. They disclose Jesus' inner thoughts and convey the absolute truth on the subject of the atonement, in accord with a knowledge of his function that was known only to himself. Only in his own mind did he fully and adequately know such things. Here, then, we have perfect truth. Here we may affirm, unless we are ready to give up everything to uncertainty and doubt, that we have the whole truth as to the nature of the atonement, as well as in reference to the design and scope for which Christ gave himself up to death for others.