Every true Christian holds in high esteem the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. For this reason, everyone should have a unique appreciation for the four Gospels of the New Testament, written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. In fact, for many believers, reading the Gospels can be somewhat confusing as they try to understand the meaning of the works, speeches, and various accounts of the passion of our Lord and Savior, and how those accounts and speeches fit together. with each other and with the central message of Scripture.
That is why, before tackling the study of the Gospels, it is advisable to start with some general questions about the type of literature we are dealing with. Are the Gospels a collection of disconnected stories and sayings of Jesus? Are we to read them as chronological biographies of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, or do they belong to a different literary genre? Why do we have four Gospels instead of one? Why is there so much similarity between Matthew, Mark and Luke, and so much difference with the Gospel of John? Why even between Matthew, Mark and Luke do we find so many differences? These are some of the issues I want to explore below, for the purpose of further understanding in our study of the Gospels.
What are the Gospels?
The word “Gospel” is a Greek word that literally means “joy-bringing news” that significantly affects the lives of its listeners. And from the earliest days of the Church, the four canonical accounts were known as “The Gospel According to…Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.” This designation shows us that these four accounts are not intended to be four different Gospels, but only one, according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke and according to John. In that sense, it would be more appropriate to speak of the fourfold Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were not mere biographies, in the modern sense of the word, but the proclamation that in Christ the messianic hope of the kingdom of God, widely announced by the Old Testament prophets, is fulfilled (Luke 24:25-27).
Some refer to the Gospels as “theological biographies.” This designation is appropriate, in the sense that the evangelists did not intend to provide us with a chronological account of the life of Jesus. However, this designation falls short of not including the element of proclamation that demands a response from your readers.
The proclamation of the Gospel demands repentance and faith from men. It is a message of grace and hope, not a moralistic treatise.
The good news of the arrival of the kingdom of God in the person of Jesus was proclaimed by the church long before the evangelists put their stories in writing; and that proclamation was not a mere conveyance of information about a historical fact, or the explanation of the theological significance of those facts. The proclamation of the Gospel demands repentance and faith from men (Mr. 1:14-15; 2 Cor. 5:18-21). It is a message of grace and hope, not a moralistic treatise.
That explains why the evangelists devoted so much space in their narratives to the last seven days of Jesus’ ministry. Matthew devotes a quarter of his Gospel, chapters 21 through 28, to that small portion of Christ’s earthly ministry. Marcos dedicates a third to it; Luke a fifth; and Juan half of the story of him. If we add the content of the four Gospels, they make a total of 89 chapters, 30 of which focus on these 7 days. In other words, more than a third of the four Gospels is dedicated to narrating in great detail what happened during those last days of Jesus’ life and ministry.
Moreover, these four Gospel narratives are not only intended to be tools for evangelism, but also for discipleship. In this sense, I agree with the American scholar Jonathan Pennington when he affirms that
“We must approach the Gospel narratives as we do a sermon; these (narratives) must be treated, not merely as carriers of information (historical or doctrinal), but as instruments of transformation”.
The Gospels and the canon
What place do the four Gospels have in the canon? This question is important for the correct interpretation of them. These must be read “in organic connection with the Old Testament”, as Alfred Edersheim would say, because in them “the history of the establishment of the long-awaited kingdom of God on earth” is told.
Jesus Christ is the climax of the redemption story that unfolds through God’s covenants with His people.
Jesus Christ is the climax of the redemption story that unfolds through God’s covenants with His people. Hence the explanatory comments, typical of the Gospel of Matthew: “All this happened so that what was said by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled” (Mt. 1:22), and other similar ones.
Jesus himself exhorts us to search the Old Testament Scriptures, “because it seems to you that in them you have eternal life; and they are they that testify of me” (Jn. 5:39). In that sense, once again I think Pennington is correct in seeing the four Gospel narratives function as the cornerstone of a Roman arch: supporting both sides of the biblical revelation, with the Old Testament on one side and the rest of the New. testament of the other Of course, we cannot assume that the Old Testament authors were aware that in their narrative they were predicting or anticipating Christ; rather, this becomes evident when we read the Gospels in retrospect, as Richard B. Hays suggests.
Consider, for example, the statement of Jesus, in John 2:19: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” John further clarifies that “he was speaking of the temple of his body” (Jn. 2:21). These words are organically connected with the redemptive story that begins to unfold from the first gospel promise, in Genesis 3:15. In the Garden of Eden, God manifested his special presence with man created in his image and likeness. This garden was the first sanctuary in history (Gen. 3:8). But access to this sanctuary, to the very presence of God, was blocked because of the fall of our first parents, who were expelled “to the east of Eden” (Gen. 3:26).
Both the tabernacle and the temple would represent that special presence of God in the garden; but the great promise of the covenants would remain in suspense until the arrival of Jesus: “My tabernacle shall be in the midst of them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Ez. 37:27). The identification of Jesus in the Gospel of John, first with the tabernacle (1:14) and then with the temple (2:19,21), is very significant because it points to it as the final dwelling place of God, the true temple (4 :20-24). Until Jesus’ physical body was destroyed on the cross (Jn. 2:19), no sinner could have access to God’s special presence (Heb. 10:19-22).
Why four Gospels?
The first three Gospels that appear in our versions of the Bible (the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke) are known as “synoptics,” from the Greek syn (“together”), and opsis (“see”), because they share a similar point of view. The Gospel according to John is the most different of all. However, even the so-called “Synoptic Gospels” have considerable differences from each other. Take the birth of Jesus as an example: Mark misses this entirely, while Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts, as broad as they are, do not overlap with each other.
Jesus is the King who assumes a servant position to give His life as a ransom for many.
For many believers, having four narratives of the Gospel of Christ is confusing and intimidating, especially when trying to harmonize them with each other. Wouldn’t it have been better to have just one Gospel narrative instead of four? Of course not! In such a case we would have missed the richness of the diverse perspectives that the evangelists present to us in each of their narratives. “Our four Gospels are like stained glass, capturing and refracting sunlight into different shapes, hues, and images.”
Matthew addresses the Jews primarily, trying to show that Jesus is the Messiah who was promised in the Old Testament, the One who embodies the presence of God in the midst of His people. Mark writes for a Gentile audience, showing Jesus as the King who assumes a position of servant to give his life as a ransom for many. The Gospel of Luke, also directed primarily to the Gentiles, shows us Jesus as the perfect Man who came to save and minister in the power of the Holy Spirit. John, for his part, addresses the whole world without distinction, presenting Jesus as the One who is fully Man, and at the same time one with the Father, in whom we must believe to receive eternal life.
Since each Gospel has a distinctive purpose, we must consider them individually, before beginning the study of each passage trying to harmonize them with the other narratives. In other words, while it has its advantages to read the Gospels horizontally, placing them side by side, we should give preference to vertical reading, considering each passage according to the purpose of the author of that particular Gospel.
How to study the narrative parts in the Gospels?
The study of the narrative passages of the Scriptures, and more particularly of the Gospels, can be a real challenge for the interpreters and expositors of the Word of God. Here are some practical suggestions, not without first noting that no methodology is exhaustive or solves all problems.
1) Isolates the literary unit. In other words, determine the demarcation of the passage you are considering.
2) Read the story multiple times. We must familiarize ourselves with the passage in question, before beginning to analyze it.
3) Identify the setting and the characters.
4) Observe the story. “Are there any key words or phrases or ideas that keep coming back? Is any cause and effect relationship stated? What illustrations are used, if any?
5) Isolate the different scenes.
6) Analyze the narrative. Any narrative usually first establishes the setting and characters of the story, before moving on to the next stages in the development of the story: a tension, the climax, and the resolution, which usually establish a new setting. You must take into account that tension is not synonymous with physical or verbal struggle, but that it can be a dilemma or the appearance of an unresolved problem, as well as that this tension can appear at the beginning of the story. It is in the increase of that tension where the plot of the story develops. It is in the tension and in its resolution that the main point that the author is trying to make is usually found…