Him that serveth God. Do we not know that He who gave to the earth its richness, and who set the sun to shine in the heavens, and who gave to us that wonderful frame of body and mind, whose healthful workings are so delightful to us, that He gave them that we might use both body and mind in His service; that those faculties which we feel, as it were, burning within us, have their work before them, a work far above their strength, though multiplied a thousandfold; that the call to them to be busy is never silent; that there is an infinite voice in the infinite sins and sufferings of millions which proclaims that the contest is raging around us; that every idle moment is treason; that now it is the time for unceasing efforts; and that not till the victory is gained may Christ’s soldiers throw aside their arms and resign themselves to enjoyment and to rest? T. Arnold.

Chap. 4. With no break in the continuous thought, this chapter proceeds to contrast the destiny of the wicked and of the righteous (verses 1-3); gives a general injunction to observe the law of Moses (verse 4), and a promise of John Baptist under the name of Elijah, with brief hints of the work he should do (verses 5, 6). H. C.

1. For, behold, the day cometh. The connection of these words with the preceding is so apparent, that there seems no reason why they should have been separated and made the beginning of a new chapter. The words themselves are an image or description of the final judgment on the Jews in their destruction, and an image or representation of the last general judgment on all mankind. The former was certainly then to come on the Jews, if not prevented by their repentance, as it was not; the latter is yet to come, but shall in God’s appointed time as certainly come as if it were already present. Of both, therefore, it might then be said, “Behold, the day cometh”—that is, it shall certainly come; and the description is so full of terror, that it may be well applied both to one and to the other. The primary intention, however, of the prophet seems to have been to describe the judgment denounced upon the Jews, to whom he was peculiarly sent to reprove them for their sins, and to admonish them of the consequences of impenitence. Pocock.

In my view, the primary reference must be to judgments on the wicked in time, providential inflictions, like that on Jerusalem by the Romans, like the still earlier judgments that fell on the ungodly portion of the Jews in the fearful Syrian wars during the second century before Christ; indeed, embracing all those forms of special infliction which belong to God’s providential government over nations and individuals too in the present world. All these are to be taken as prophecies and pledges of that far more terrific vengeance which shall come down on all the finally wicked in the world to come. I would not apply this passage to either this world or the next, to the entire exclusion of the other, but assume that it refers primarily to judgments in this world; then as a type, a harbinger, prophecy, and pledge, it embraces also those heavier, sorer judgments which execute full and unmitigated justice on the ungodly in the world to come. H. C.

2. The Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings. The Messiah is called here “the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings,” to signify that His light clears up men’s understandings and chases away the darkness of their minds, and that His rays and kindly warmth will heal all the diseases of their souls. W. Lowth.

This is the joyous, far different lot of the righteous. The fearers of God’s name are in strong contrast of character as well as destiny with the proud blasphemers. The rising sun is a glowing and glorious image of hope and joy. “Righteousness” has here the not uncommon sense of deliverance, salvation, blessedness, with no implication of its being strictly deserved on the score of simple justice, and by no means excluding mercy. The reference is mainly to the Messiah as the great fountain of light, peace and joy to the saints of God. His wings are the beams of His light. H. C.

Outward riches are but a shadow of the unsearchable riches of Christ; outward life is but a shadow of Him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life; outward liberty is but a shadow of that freedom that is to be had in Christ; “If the Son make you free, then are you free indeed” (John 8: 36), importing that no freedom is freedom indeed and in truth but this; outward rest is but a shadow of the rest that is to be had in Him. “Come to Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The sun in the firmament is but a shadow of the Sun of Righteousness and of His glory; roses and lilies are but shadows of His beauty, who is the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley; rivers and fountains are but shadows of His fulness, who is the fountain of living waters; not a fountain closed, but a fountain opened to us; plants and trees are but a shadow of the verdure of Him who is the plant of renown, the tree of life. All things that have an excellency in them are but shadows of Him in whom excellencies do concentrate. All the stars of creature-excellencies are but shadows of Him who is the bright and morning Star. Ralph Erskine.

With what other testimony is the whole of Scripture charged but that of Christ, Christ, Christ? Christ, in the typical histories of the Old Testament. Christ, in the typical ceremonies of the Mosaic Law. Christ, in the Psalms, as the source of the Christian’s consolation, and the key to unlock all the affections of his heart. Christ, in the prophecies, as Captain of the great triumph over evil—predicted with greater clearness as time wears on. Christ, in the Gospels, as the Healer and Benefactor of the race. Christ, in the Epistles, as the Wisdom of God. Christ, in the Revelation, as the Coming One, whose advent is ever imminent, the pole-star of hope, upon which the Christian’s eye is ever fixed. The Scriptures are, indeed, full of Christ, and we have His own testimony that we shall read them amiss and discuss them amiss unless our study and our discussion lead us to find Him in them. E. M. G.

4-6. The final admonition.** The closing verses of Malachi are also the closing verses of the Old Testament. As his voice, so also the Voice of Inspiration dies away, and will be heard no more for four hundred years. It was but meet that a revelation so noble as that contained in the Old Testament Scriptures should rise to a high and stately close. And what close could be more lofty than the passage before us? It is a true Mount of Vision on which the prophet stands; and as he looks across the valley at his feet, peering into the years to be, there rises before him the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses, Elijah and Christ conferring together on its summit concerning the things which pertain to the kingdom of God: “Remember the law of Moses;” “Behold, I send Elijah;” “Jehovah cometh.”

In the previous section of his prophecy, Malachi had predicted the coming of the Lord, of Adonai, the present and active Ruler of men (chap. 3: 1). The day of His coming would be a day of blended mercy and judgment, burning like a furnace for the wicked, shining like a quickening healing sun on the righteous. Who could endure the day of His coming or stand when He appeared? Only those who remembered and kept the law of God, who were living in the obedience of faith. Therefore the prophet exhorts the men of his time, as they would escape the curse, to bear the law in mind, and, as they would secure the blessing, to walk in the statutes and judgments given to Moses in charge for all Israel on Horeb. The very form of his exhortation lends new force, for he so frames it as to bring out the Divine origin and authority of the law. Moses indeed spake the words of this law on Mount Horeb; but Moses, says Jehovah, was “My servant,” or minister, and only delivered the statutes and judgments which “I gave him in charge” and gave him in charge “for all Israel”—not only for the men who heard his voice, but for all their succeeding generations. Thus, by a single stroke, the prophet reminds the men of his own time that the Divine law was binding on them no less than on their fathers, and that it was Divine; he eliminates from it all that was merely human and temporary; Moses was only the channel, God was the source from which the law came; Moses uttered, but God gave the law, revealing in it His eternal will and goodwill. Cox.

4. Remember ye the law of Moses.** Ye are not to expect any prophets, for the time to come till the forerunner of the Messiah appears; so your chief care must be to attend to the instructions which Moses has given in his law, the most solemn part of which was delivered to him in an audible manner upon Mount Horeb (Ex. 19: 9; De. 4: 10). This your lawgiver plainly speaks of the Messiah, and instructs you to expect His coming and to obey His commands (De. 18: 15). W. Lowth.

With reference to the law, the last chapter of the latest prophet closes with the admonition, “Remember ye the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments;” and in all the later books this is conspicuously the case. The law of Moses is regarded as a Divine legacy at once inviolate and inviolable. It is certain that at that period those who wrote in such a way could have been conscious of no substantial alteration in books which for long ages had been so esteemed. Leathes.—If there was any truth in the critical hypothesis that the Pentateuch was written by Ezra, how absurd it would be for Malachi, who as a contemporary must have known all about its recent origin, to speak of it as he does in this verse! W. H. G.

Observe here, 1. The honorable mention that is made of Moses, the first writer of the Old Testament, in Malachi, the last writer. God by him calls him Moses My servant; for the righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance. See how the penmen of Scripture, though they lived in several ages at a great distance from each other (it was above twelve hundred years from Moses to Malachi), all concurred in the same thing, and supported one another, being all actuated and guided by one and the same Spirit. 2. The honorable mention that is made of the law of Moses; it was what God Himself commanded, He owns it for His law, and He commanded it for all Israel, as the municipal law of their kingdom. Thus will God magnify His law, and make it honorable. We are therefore concerned to keep the law, because God has commanded it, and commanded it for us, for we are the spiritual Israel; and if we expect the benefit of the covenant with Israel (Heb. 8: 10), we must observe the commands given to Israel, those of them that were intended to be of perpetual obligation. 3. The summary of our duty, with reference to the law; we must remember it. Forgetfulness of the law is at the bottom of all our transgressions of it; if we would rightly remember it, we could not but conform to it; we should remember it when we have occasion to use it; remember both the commands themselves and the sanctions wherewith they are enforced. The office of conscience is to bid us remember the law.

Prophecy was now to cease in the Church for some ages, and the Spirit of prophecy not to return till the beginning of the Gospel, and now they are bid to remember the law of Moses; let them live by the rules of the latter, and live upon the promises of the former. We need not complain for want of visions and revelations, as long as we have the written word and the canon of Scripture complete to be our guide; for that is the most sure word of prophecy, and the touchstone by which we are to try the spirits. Though we have not prophets, yet, as long as we have Bibles, we may keep our communion with God, and keep ourselves in His way. H.

5,6. These are the last words of the Old Testament, there uttered by a prophet, here expounded by an angel; there concluding the law, and here beginning the Gospel. “Behold,” saith Malachi, “I will send you Elijah, the prophet;” and “he,” saith the angel, “shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elias.” “And He shall turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children,” saith the one; and “to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,” saith the other. Thus sweetly and nearly do the two Testaments join together, and thus divinely do they kiss each other; like the two cherubim in the temple oracle, as with their outward wings they touch the two sides of the house, from “In the beginning” to “Come, Lord Jesus,” so with their inner they touch each other, the end of the law with the beginning of the Gospel. Dr. Lightfoot.

5. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet. The same person who is called the “messenger” or forerunner of the Messiah (chap. 3: 1). It was the unanimous sense of the Jews, that “Elias should first come and restore all things” (Mark 9: 12; John 1: 21). This they understood of the coming of Elias in person. (See Ecclus. 48: 10). Our Saviour has interpreted this Elias to be John the Baptist (Matt. 11: 14; 17: 12, 13). W. Lowth.—This prophecy was to receive its fulfilment in the person of John the Baptist, who came in the spirit and power of Elijah. This meaning of the passage was confirmed by our Lord on two several occasions. B. C.

John Baptist was the Elias that was to come (Matt. 17: 10-13, and very expressly Matt. 11: 14). This is Elias which was to come; and verse 10, the same of whom it is written, Behold, I send My messenger (chap. 3: 1). Elijah was a man of great austerity and mortification, zealous for God, bold in reproving sin, and active to reduce an apostate people to God and their duty; John Baptist was animated by the same spirit and power, and preached repentance and reformation, as Elias had done; and all held him for a prophet, as they did Elijah in his day, and that his baptism was from heaven and not of men. When God has such work to do as was formerly to be done, He can raise up such men to do it as He formerly raised up, and can put into a John Baptist the spirit of an Elias. H.

The Gospels hardly record a single sentence or figure of speech employed by John the Baptist, the germ of which may not be found in the prophecy of Malachi the messenger. So that he who really “searches” the Scriptures with fidelity and patience, whatever sceptical prepossessions he may bring to the quest, is more and more impressed with the sense of a vital unity in them which can only be accounted for by the guiding and controlling inspiration of one and the self-same Spirit. Cox.

The Baptist was the only second Elijah promised to the Church, and we do not look for another. Why, indeed, should another come? He would have no work to do. When the day of final judgment arrives men will be divided into the two great classes in which they have chosen their respective places—the believing, waiting Church upon the one hand, the unbelieving world that has steeled itself against Christ, upon the other. The former need no Elijah-work. The latter would not profit from it. No time of new probation then begins, but only the full and perfect manifestation of a probation ended. Even now the course of time is running on lines which do not change, which only reach their terminal issues in the world’s great assize: “He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness still, and he that is filthy let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous let him do righteousness still, and he that is holy let him be made holy still” (Rev. 22: 11). W. Milligan.

The great and dreadful day of the Lord. The Messiah is by this prophet contemplated chiefly as a judge, the day of the Lord is regarded as beginning with His first advent, since His work of judgment really began then, and is carried forward through its various phases and successive steps, until its final consummation is reached in the awful terrors of the last great day. Moses and Elijah, who are here joined together in contiguous verses, as representing severally the law and the prophets, which testified alike of Christ’s advent and sufferings, appeared in glory with the Redeemer on the Mount of Transfiguration (Luke 9: 30, 31), bearing to Him the homage and the witness of the Old Testament, in which they are the most prominent figures. It is after them that the description of the two witnesses of the book of the Revelation (Rev. 11: 3) is evidently modelled (see verses 5, 6), which has led some to the opinion that this prophecy of Malachi is to have an additional fulfilment prior to Christ’s second advent. W. H. G.

To warn in mercy before He smites in judgment, is evermore the order of God’s throne. Hence the second Elijah should come before the Jewish people and polity should be smitten down by the terrible Roman arms. They were fearfully corrupt already. It was foreseen that they would become yet more so before and during the Messiah’s incarnation. Hence the last warnings of the Baptist came in the hour of their greatest moral extremity.

6. How often do we see the hearts of parents borne down with almost crushing solicitude in the tenderness of their love for the souls of their children! What but this turning of the hearts of parents to their children begets such agonizing prayer of Christian parents for ungodly children, and of converted children for yet unconverted parents? Hence it was the

Spirit of the Lord that moved this prophet to touch by one master-stroke the central influence of John Baptist’s preaching. When the men whom he called so mightily to repentance had bowed their hearts to this high behest, their next thought was that of renewed care and love for their children. If we had been present in that revival, we should have found it by no means unlike all the true revivals of our day in this one most precious feature. Such a revival of the home and household affections is eminently pleasing to God. In such a soil religion thrives. Where the hearts of fathers turn with loving, tender interest toward their children, and the hearts of children in like manner to their fathers, the Saviour finds a congenial home and takes up His abode. It seems to be implied that if John’s preaching had altogether failed of this result, the gospel of salvation from the lips of Jesus might have fallen powerless upon the world, and left to Judea and to the nations of the earth only the remediless “curse.” How forcibly, then, comes the appeal to us to cherish the tenderness of mutual love and earnest care for others’ souls, especially within the dear circle of family relationships, lest the Gospel should fail to bless us, and lest we doom ourselves and those we ought to love to a moral ruin for which God has no remedy! Thus close the admonitions of the last prophet of the Old Testament age, and with them the volume of Scripture as it stood till in the fulness of time the Messiah came. H. C.

The Old Testament closes with a cherem or curse; and the omen has been fulfilled. In vain came the law by Moses; the Messenger was sent in vain; in vain did the Lord Himself come to His temple. Israel would not hearken, repent, obey. And she was proscribed. The doom was pronounced, the interdict felt. Her land was smitten with desolation; and, to this day, all her pleasant places lie waste. Her children were driven forth to wander, smitten and afflicted, through the earth, aliens in every land; and, to this day, they stand before us a monument of the wrath of God against sin. The Jews are to Christendom what the cities of the plain were to the Jews. The curses with which they drove their Lord and Christ to the cross have in very deed come home to roost; and they who would not accept the salvation of God have long been “scattered and peeled” by His judgments. The fair olive and stately palm of Israel have been stabbed and rent and scathed as by stroke after stroke of angry lightnings; all the bolts of heaven having fallen on them, hurling the blackened splinters to the very ends of the world, to bear witness in all lands that there is a God who judgeth in the earth. Cox.

With Malachi prophecy ceased, and Israel was left to herself four hundred years. But at last, immediately before the fulfilment of the Messianic promises, the whole old dispensation appears summed up and embodied once more in the greatest of them that are born of women; in one, who went before the Lord, like the aurora before the sun, till, in unrivalled humility, he disappeared in its splendor. John the Baptist, by his earnest preaching of repentance, his abode in the wilderness and his ascetic life, personified the law; while, at the same time, pointing to Him, for whom he was not worthy to do the most menial office, who should baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire, to the Lamb of God, which bears the sins of the world, he also embodied the cheering word of promise. Schaff.

This last of the mighty line of prophets gives strong utterance to the “hope of Israel”! One clear voice, coming from we scarcely know what lips, proclaims for the last time, “He comes! He comes!” and then all is silence for four hundred years. Here is the concentration, in this last prophetic utterance, of that element of forward-looking expectance which marked all the earlier revelation. From the beginning the selectest spirits in Israel had set their faces and pointed their fingers to a great future, which gathered distinctness as the ages rolled, and culminated in the king from David’s line, of whom many psalms sung, and in the suffering servant of the Lord, who shines out from the pages of the second part of Isaiah’s prophecy. This Messianic hope runs through all the Old Testament, like a broadening river. “They that went before cried, Hosanna; blessed is He that cometh.” That hope gives unity to the Old Testament, whatever criticism may have to teach about the process of its production. The most important thing about the book is that one purpose informs it all; and the student who misses the truth that “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” has a less accurate conception of the meaning and inter-relations of the Old Testament than the unlearned who has accepted that great truth. We should be willing to learn all that modern scholarship has to teach about the course of revelation. But we should take care that the new knowledge does not darken the old certainty that the prophets

“testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and of the glory that should follow.” Here, at the very end, stands Malachi, reiterating the assurance which had come down through the centuries. A. M.

In the interval between the closing of the Old Testament and the destruction of Jerusalem One appeared in whom centred every line of history and of prophecy. He led a life, as man, in which the most daring gainsayer cannot suggest a flaw. He also claimed to come as fulfilling the older Revelation, and Himself foretold the downfall of the earthly Jerusalem, since the purpose of its separation from the world had been accomplished. He, in fact, commenced by the foundation of the Christian Church a new kingdom, in which the promised King should reign, “to whom it was a light thing that the Jews should be saved,” since to Him all the Gentiles also were to be given. Such an One rose from the grave after having to the letter accomplished, both in life and death, all that prophecy had foretold of His earthly career, and then sent down the long-promised gift of the Holy Spirit, the inward teacher of the heart, the builder of that spiritual temple which was to supersede the material edifice on Mount Moriah; and such temple (though, alas! too slowly and imperfectly) is gradually rising throughout the civilized world, to the honor and glory of the Triune Jehovah. Surely this continuity of events establishes that the written word has its outward counterpart, that the Old Testament is but the germ of the New, and the one is connected with the other as indissolubly as the Word of God made flesh is forever united to the nature of regenerated man. Lord Hatherly.

Since the Old Testament has so many and such vital connections with the New—connections which enter into the very substance of both; since its whole scope and aim is to prepare the way for the Messiah, to adumbrate His offices, and to educate the covenant people for His coming, we need not wonder at the constant appeals which the Saviour and His apostles make to its pages. It is throughout a perpetual prophecy of the Gospel, and so they manifestly regard it. E. P. Barrows.

The Bible reveals God’s purpose to form a spiritual kingdom in the world, submissive to His government, obedient to His law, and to gather the members and the citizens of this kingdom out of all countries and peoples of the earth—a conception that was not possible to either Greek or Egyptian, and that certainly was not more possible to the Jew, except as he

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THE

The Fourfold Gospel,

THE FOUR GOSPELS CONSOLIDATED IN A CONTINUOUS NARRATIVE, PRESENTING THE LIFE OF CHRIST IN THE ORDER OF ITS EVENTS; THE TEXT ARRANGED IN SECTIONS; WITH READINGS AND COMMENTS SELECTED FROM THE CHOICEST, MOST ILLUMINATING AND HELPFUL THOUGHT OF THE CHRISTIAN CENTURIES.

Second Edition.

So they read in the book in the law of God, distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to unders and the reading.—NEHEMIAH viii. 8.

That form of writing which in my judgment is of all others most rich and precious, is positive divinity, collected upon particular texts of Scriptures in brief observations; not dilated into commonplaces, not chasing after controversies, not reduced into method of Art. . . . For I am persuaded that if the choice and best observations upon texts of Scripture which have been made dispersedly in sermons. . . . leaving out the largeness of exhortations and applications thereupon, had been set down in a continuance, it had been the best work upon divinity which had been made since the apostles’ times.—BACON, Advancement of Learning.

The Purpose and Plan of the Volume—Prefatory Statement . . . . . . 5

Preliminary Facts and Thoughts:

I. The New Testament 7 II. The Fourfold Gospel. 8 III. The Four Gospels: their Distinctive Characteristics . . . . . . . 9 IV. The Life of our Lord 16

The History of Christ, as recorded by the Evangelists . . . . . 1-166 19

(For Synopsis of this History, see pages 674-677.)

Summarized Topics:

Of the Divine Trinity 167 589

The Person of Christ 168 591

Doctrine of Messiah as disclosed under the Theocracy . . . 169 592

Christ: Prophet, Priest, and King 170 594

Christ, the Divine Man: His Doctrine and Character . . . 171 595

Admissions of Skeptics concerning Christ . . . . . . . 172 599

The World before and at Messiah’s Advent . . . . . . 173 604

Christ’s Doctrine of the Kingdom, the Key to His Ministry . . 174 607

Christ and His Kingdom in Subsequent Human History. . . 175 609

New Testament Intimations of the Second Coming of our Lord. . 176 611

The Miracles of Christ 177 615

The Temple: its Structures and Priesthood. . . . . . . 178 618

The Synagogue: its Officers and Service . . . . . . . 179 626

The Scribes: their Traditions and Schools . . . . . . . 180 630

The Targums and Midrash; the Talmud and Masora . . . 181 632

Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. 182 638

Family and Religious Life of the Jews 183 642

The Basis and Change of the Sabbath. 184 644

Historical Summaries: concerning the Jews and Jerusalem . . 185 646

Palestine, the Scene of the Labors of our Lord . . . . . 186 652

Physical Map, Descriptions and Diagrams. The Jordan and the Dead Sea 187 655

Jerusalem and its Vicinity 188 660

Galilee and its Sea 189 666

Synopsis of the History: Sections, Topics, Chapters, and Verses from Each Gospel 674

Table to find Any Verse of Any Gospel 678

Authors cited, and Key to Abbreviations 682

| Frontispiece: JERUSALEM IN HER GRANDEUR.* (On steel, from Selous.) | | SECTION | PAGE | | — | — | — | — | | BETHLEHEM. Illustration | 6 | 33 | | | EASTERN INN. Illustration | 7 | 36 | | | NAZARETH AND PLAIN OF ESDRAELON. Sketch-map. English survey | 10 | 46 | | | NAZARETH. Illustration | 10 | 48 | | | ESDRAELON AND LOWER GALILEE. Map | 11 | 50 | | | SKETCH-MAP FOR THE GOSPEL HISTORY | 12 | 56 | | | MAP OF JORDAN RIVER AND VALLEY. American survey | 12 | 58 | | | ROCKY HILLS OF THE WILDERNESS, NEAR JERICHO. Illustration | 15 | 69 | | | HIGH RIDGE OF CENTRAL PALESTINE. Sketch-map | 22 | 96 | | | JACOB’S WELL, and VALE OF SHECHEM. Illustrations | 22 | 98 | | | SHECHEM AND MOUNTAINS. Sketch-map | 22 | 100 | | | SEA OF GALILEE. English survey | 26 | 112 | | | PLAIN OF GENNESARET. Illustration | 26 | 115 | | | COUNTRY WEST OF SEA OF GALILEE. English survey | 34 | 140 | | | SEA OF GALILEE. English survey | 34 | 141 | | | CHORAZIN, ON THE LAKE. Illustration | 45 | 178 | | | TRICLINIUM, OR DINNER-COUCH. Illustration | 46 | 182 | | | THE DEMONIAC FROM THE TOMBS. Illustration | 59 | 221 | | | ESDRAELON AND LOWER GALILEE. Map | 62 | 233 | | | TIBERIAS AND SEA. Illustration | 66 | 243 | | | LAKE OF GENNESARET. Mr. Macgregor’s map | 67 | 247 | | | SKETCH-MAP FOR THE GOSPEL HISTORY | 74 | 270 | | | ONE SOURCE OF THE JORDAN. Illustration | 74 | 271 | | | SOUTHERN SPURS OF HERMON. English survey | 76 | 281 | | | SYRIAN SHEEPFOLD. Illustration | 93 | 335 | | | SKETCH-MAP FOR THE GOSPEL HISTORY | 114 | 395 | | | BLIND BARTIMEUS. Illustration | 115 | 399 | | | BETHANY. Illustration | 117 | 405 | | | MOUNT OF OLIVES. Illustration | 119 | 412 | | | SEA OF TIBERIAS. Illustration | 164 | 576 | | | GROUND PLAN OF TEMPLE AREA AND COURTS | 178 | 619 | | | GOLDEN GATE OF JERUSALEM, and SOLOMON’S PORCH. Illustrations | 178 | 620 | | | SACRED ENCLOSURE AND INNER COURTS | 178 | 623 | | | THE GOLDEN CANDLESTICK, and THE GOLDEN TABLE. Illustrations | 185 | 651 | | | PHYSICAL OR SURFACE MAP OF PALESTINE | 187 | 654 | | | WEST AND EAST PROFILE SECTION | 187 | 655 | | | SOUTH AND NORTH PROFILE SECTION | 187 | 656 | | | THE VALLEY OF THE JORDAN. Illustration | 187 | 657 | | | MAP AND LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF THE DEAD SEA | 187 | 658 | | | NORTH BAY OF THE DEAD SEA. Illustration | 187 | 658 | | | THE DEAD SEA, MIDWAY OF THE WESTERN SHORE. Illustration | 187 | 659 | | | ROCK PLAN OF JERUSALEM | 188 | 660 | | | OUTLINE OF ANCIENT JERUSALEM | 188 | 661 | | | POOL OF SILOAM, LOOKING NORTH. Illustration | 188 | 662 | | | PROFILE SECTION EAST AND WEST THROUGH JERUSALEM | 188 | 663 | | | SOUTH WALL, EAST ANGLE. Illustration | 188 | 664 | | | VICINITY OF JERUSALEM. Sketch-map | 188 | 665 | | | THE PLAIN OF GENNESARET. Illustration | 189 | 668 | | | LAKE OF GENNESARET. Map | 189 | 671 | |

• By permission of the holder of the American copyright.

It is a Life of Christ, wherein the words of the inspired Biographers are woven into a consecutive, complete story, and accompanied with select thoughts from garnered studies of the wise and devout that have sought to interpret that story. It is prepared, not for reference, but for continuous reading or study. It is the fruit of an endeavor to meet the needs of the large class of intelligent persons who have neither time nor taste for extended statements or discussions, and who desire matured thoughts set in few and acceptable words. It aims to answer every important question respecting the meaning of the text, and the related facts of history, geography, and social life. This it seeks to do by presenting in readable sentences, and in clear concise form, reliable results of Biblical scholarship and research. The reach of exploration has been widely extended; and the material finally selected has been sifted from a five-fold amount carefully gathered from more than two hundred authors.

As a valuable peculiarity, the citations are mainly taken out of a body of continuous thought; the matter is, therefore, characterized by peculiar freshness, vigor, and fervor. Since truth thus set forth carries with it spiritual kindling and unction, and since such living truth of itself effectively quickens feeling and moves the will, matter formally hortatory or “practical” has been omitted. Further, since the entire body of comment is selected exclusively from cultured and scholarly writers, and is infused with the results of the best criticism, matter formally critical has been found in great part unnecessary.

The Plan of the work is distinguished by these features:

I. An orderly arrangement of the text in convenient portions, or Sections.

II. Appended to each section is a brief Reading. This comprises a few suggestive sentences related to the subject-matter of the text, with more or less of an experimental bearing. Its purpose is to widen the vision and intensify the force of truth, and so help to deepen spiritual insight and quicken devout feeling.

III. A complete but compact body of Note and Comment. This is explanatory of the sense, or meaning of the text, and suggestive of the underlying or interwoven spirit. It is descriptive of persons, places, customs, and incidents. The matter is full, succinctly stated, and proportional; disclosing also the connections of the text. It is composed of such additions or expansions of thought as flow naturally, manifestly, and justly from the Scripture, and are demanded for an intelligent apprehension of its meaning. These thoughts are chosen from learned, judicious, and devout writers of the Christian centuries. For the most part a single statement or interpretation is given, that a clear, positive impression may be made. For a similar reason, the results only of studies or discussions, or, at most, summaries of reasoning, are presented. Redundant statements, conflicting opinions, and special allusions for the learned, have been excluded. Care has also been taken, as far as possible, to avoid mere paraphrase or amplification, which dilutes and weakens the text; fragmentary definition and piecemeal exposition; technical and obscure forms of thought and expression; all purely speculative matters; things merely curious, conjectural, or probable; and, lastly, encumbering references and distracting foot-notes.

IV. A special feature of this volume is the single continuous narrative constructed out of the Four Gospels, giving a complete and connected view of our Lord’s life and ministry. In this narrative is faithfully incorporated every word and phrase of each Gospel, or else its equivalent or concurrent expression in another, and no words are added to those found in the Gospels.

The valid objections to such a chronological narrative have been fully borne in mind. The reader is distinctly informed that inspiration has given the form of Four Gospels, and the specific form of each of the four; and the individuality of the Gospels is recognized throughout. In the introduction and in the commentary are carefully noted the distinctive characteristics of each of the four writings. And it is implied throughout that the order is assumed upon probable grounds alone.

But there are obviously so many and so great advantages in consecutively unfolding the connections of the Christ-life, as fully to justify this undertaking on behalf of the great body of intelligent and even professional readers. By exhibiting the Gospel narrative as other histories are written, the reader receives all the information furnished by the complementary accounts. With the complete detail of every transaction, parable, and conversation, as variously recorded by two or more of the Evangelists, each event or saying will be more satisfactorily studied and better understood; the interest in the study, and the impression wrought by the clearer knowledge, will be deepened. With more vividness of reality will stand forth the sequence of events, and the differing characters, motives, and utterances of persons connected with the history. And, what is of highest importance both in a critical and devotional point of view, thus only can the thread of the sacred Biography be clearly traced; the marked progress in Christ’s doctrine and self-disclosure be fitly apprehended; and the silently increasing purpose of that marvellous life, with its blending of all divine and human perfections, be fully appreciated.

Patient and painstaking endeavor in the study of the four records, and comparison of the differing arrangements of leading harmonists, has been the condition under which the work has been done; and careful consideration has been given to the placing of each incident in the entire history. In its general order, the arrangement herein adopted accords with the conclusions reached by a majority of the best qualified investigators.

In addition to these prominent features, provision has been made for all needful auxiliary information. In this are included Maps and Diagrams of special interest and value, prepared with the aid of the latest and most authoritative researches. This matter, where practicable, is embodied in the comment. But a large portion of it, comprising specific topics applying to the entire narrative, is placed with orderly arrangement in sections immediately succeeding the Life of Christ. To these valuable sections the reader’s attention is specially directed.

In conclusion, as summarizing the distinctive points of the volume, we may refer to its substance, comprising select portions of the most valuable thought contained in the entire literature of the New Testament; to the completeness of the comment, including the explanation of the sense, the exposition of the spirit, and all the related facts of history and incident; to the convenience of arrangement, by which all that bears upon the text is brought into direct connection with it (thus avoiding the recurrence to other volumes of commentary or cyclopedia); and, as a real though minor advantage, to the attractive variety in the subject-matter and style.

Explanation respecting points of detail.—1. To lessen the bulk and increase the richness of the volume, the citations in many cases have been condensed; yet in no case has the thought been altered or marred, nor has its form been cramped into mere aphorism. 2. To secure the uniformity essential in minor particulars, a common rule of omission has been applied to the formal use of initial capital letters, and to the prefix to apostolic and saintly names. 3. For necessary brevity, also, the names of Matthew, Luke, and John are generally represented by the initial letters, M., L., and J.; while the name of Mark is distinguished by adding its terminal k: thus, Mk.

The term New Testament unquestionably proceeds from the institution of the Lord’s Supper. The Lord designates the Eucharist the New Covenant in his blood, in the strict sense of the term. The writings which record the foundation of this new and eternal covenant are themselves called the New Covenant, the New Testament. This designation, also, indicates the connection and the contrast between these writings and those of the Old Covenant. The universal character of the New or Christian Covenant as compared with the old or Jewish is indicated by the language in which each is expressed. The Greek of the New Testament was the universal language of the civilized world, while the Hebrew of the Old was the peculiar dialect of the chosen race. Lange.

The New Testament begins with the person of Christ, the facts of his manifestation in the flesh, and the words he gave from his Father; and accustoms us by degrees to behold his glory, to discern the drift of his teaching, and to expect the consequences of his work. It passes on to his body the Church, and opens the dispensation of the Spirit, and carries us into the life of his people, down into the secret places of their hearts; and there translates the announcements of God into the experiences of man, and discovers a conversation in heaven and a life with Christ in God. It works out practical applications, is careful in the details of duty, provides for difficulties and perplexities, suggests the order of churches, and throws up barriers against the wiles of the devil. It shows us things to come, the course of the spiritual conflict, the close of this transient scene, the coming of the Lord, the resurrection of the dead, the eternal judgment, the new creation, and the life everlasting. T. D. Bernard.

The New Testament consists of twenty-seven books, which may be thus classified: 1. The FIVE HISTORICAL BOOKS; namely, the Four Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles. 2. The FOURTEEN EPISTLES OF PAUL; namely, Ten addressed to eight Churches, and Four to three individuals—Philemon, Timothy, and Titus. 3. The SEVEN GENERAL EPISTLES; the Second and Third of John, though addressed to individuals, being placed as appendices to the First. 4. The REVELATION OF JOHN, though in the form of an Epistle to the Seven Churches of Asia, is rightly placed in a class by itself, as the one great prophetic book of the New Testament. 5.

The unanimity of Christendom on the twenty-seven books of its sacred code is permanent, universal, unalterable, and not less firm than that of the Jews for their canon. It is even a unanimity still more astonishing; since that which we wonder at in this family of Israel, which has always kept its sacred oracles free from every mixture through thirty-four centuries, this very marvel we have here to admire in all the families of the nations, which equally preserve the New Testament in the midst of their most ardent disputes and their profoundest divisions; which preserve it in the most uncultivated churches, notwithstanding their ignorance; in the most idolatrous, notwithstanding their traditions, as in the most rationalistic, notwithstanding their infidel literature and all the wanderings of their teachers. It is a unanimity, we may say, the more striking that it is only on this one point. It is a wonderful and manifestly providential fact, that, on this point alone, there can be found nowhere in the documents of history any account of public constraint, any collective action of counsels, any prescription of emperors—although from the fourth century they meddled with everything else in the church—in a word, not an act of human authority which was intended to impose on the churches the acceptance of a sacred code, or to force any individual conscience to admit into the canon a single one of the twenty-seven books now constituting the New Testament. An.

THE testimony of Christian Antiquity is clear and consistent, that the Four Gospels were delivered by the Holy Spirit to the Church of Christ through the instrumentality of those persons whose names they bear; that they were written in the order of time in which they are now placed; that these Four Gospels, and they alone, were received from the beginning as divinely inspired histories of our blessed Lord; and that these Four Gospels were identical in name, in form, and in matter, with those received by ourselves at the present day. Wordsworth.

It was no part of the design of the writers to secure that chronological accuracy of arrangement and of detail which is “essential to history, but which forms no portion of the plan of a memoir.” Out of the vast array of facts and events which were crowded into the life of Jesus, the Holy Ghost leads each writer to select those which will best serve the special purpose of each; and to arrange them in accordance with his own design, now following the order of time and now departing from it. Those facts and truths were brought forward which suited the practical end in view, and they were put in that order which seemed best fitted to secure the one great result, the acceptance of Jesus as the Saviour. Gregory.

God has been pleased to give us the life, as never a life was given, by those four, each different, yet each the same; a separate mirror to take in the side presented to it, but all disclosing in life-like harmony the one grand person, each so absorbed in his theme that he himself is forgotten, his personality lost in the object—all eye, all ear, all heart for Christ alone. If this were not divine, we might say that it is the perfection of biography; it makes the historian nothing; it makes him he looks at all in all, and it puts every one of us where the witness himself stood, and lets us take in the great life as he did. It is one testimony to the greatness of the life that it so burned and fused itself into these men that they can do nothing but reflect it again, with this unconsciousness which is higher than the highest art. There was inspiration guiding them, true, but this inspiration took, as its most powerful instrument, the overmastering might of that wonderful personality. Ker.

No literary fact is more remarkable than that men, knowing what these writers knew, and feeling what they felt, should have given us chronicles so plain and calm. They have nothing to say as from themselves. Their narratives place us without preface, and keep us without comment, among external scenes, in full view of facts, and in contact with the living person whom they teach us to know. The style of simple recital, unclouded and scarcely colored by any perceptible contribution from the mind of the writers, gives us the scenes, the facts, and the person, as seen in the clearest light and through the most transparent atmosphere. Who can fail to recognize a divine provision for placing the disciples of all future ages as nearly as possible in the position of these writers? We feel that we see Jesus as he was. No human being that ever trod the earth has left behind a representation of himself more clear and living, and more certain in its truthfulness, than is that which we possess of the Prophet of Nazareth in Galilee. Bernard.

The truth of God was not to be presented in a fixed and absolute form, but in manifold and peculiar representations, designed to complete each other, and which, bearing the stamp at once of God’s inspiration and man’s imperfection, were to be developed by the activity of free minds, in free and lively appropriation of what God had given by his Spirit. Neander.—Each Gospel has its own features, and the divine element has controlled the human, but not destroyed it. But the picture which they conspire to draw is one full of harmony. The Saviour they all describe is the same loving, tender guide of his disciples, sympathizing with them in the sorrows and temptations of earthly life, yet ever ready to enlighten that life by rays of truth out of the infinite world. Townsend.

It can be shown that the Gospel sums up in the record of the Incarnation all that was evolved of spiritual import in the long discipline from the Captivity to the Advent; that the time at which the Gospels were written was at once most suited to their publication, and yet least likely to have given birth to them; that they grew up as it were spontaneously in the Church without effort and without design, and yet have a distinct relation in their fourfold diversity to the past and future wants of the Church; that in the difference of letter there is a perfect unity of spirit; that there is a special tendency and plan in the writing of each Evangelist; that the varieties of detail and succession of incidents converge to one common point, and conduce to one common end; and that in particular parts the teaching of the different Gospels may be combined into a whole of marvellous symmetry and completeness. And herein we see a noble view opened of the relation of the Gospel to the former and future history of the world, and of the Gospels to the Gospel itself. We feel that deep sense of the continual presence of the divine influence, and that firm conviction of the unerring truthfulness of the sacred writers, which can only be gained by a comprehensive view of the complete subordination of every part of the Scripture to the training of man and the realization of his hopes. We find nothing superfluous in the repetitions of the Gospels, and nothing inconsistent in their variety, any more than in the fresh groupings and different prospects of some earthly scene. We understand, with the great master of Alexandria, that “every word, if rightly viewed, effects a special purpose;” for revelation is not a vain thing for us; it is our life. Westcott.

1. MATTHEW.**—This first Evangelical Record of Christ’s miracles, preaching, death, resurrection, and ascension, was composed for the use of that country in which our Lord’s life was passed. The Gospel was first offered to the Jews. It was circulated in that city in which our Lord suffered: a striking proof of the confidence of the Apostles in the truth of Christianity. And its reception and public reading, as not only a true history but as divinely inspired, in the church of Jerusalem at that period, is one of the strongest evidences that could be given of its veracity and inspiration. Wordsworth.

The Gospel by Matthew connects the New Testament most intimately with the Old, by the Old Testament genealogy of Jesus. In this Gospel, the life of Jesus is presented as forming part of the history and life of the Jewish nation; and hence as the fulfilment of the hereditary blessing of Abraham. Jesus is here set before us as the new-born King of the Jews, as the promised Messiah, and the aim and goal of every progressive stage of the Theocracy. He is the great Antitype of Old Testament history, in whom everything has been fulfilled—the types in the law, in worship, in historical events, and in gracious interpositions—in short, the fulfilment of the Theocracy. In and with him the Old Covenant is transformed into the New, the Theocracy into the kingdom of heaven, the demands of the law into the beatitudes, Sinai into the Mount of Beatitudes, the prophetic into the teaching office, the priesthood into redemption by suffering, and the kingship into the triumph of almighty grace, restoring, helping, and delivering a fallen world. Lange.

The Gospel for the Jew.—Matthew wrote his Gospel for the Jewish race, the first of the three great representative races of which the civilized world of his day was made up. A representative Jew, he was eminently fitted by his nature and by his experience, Jewish and Christian, for the work of preaching and embodying the Gospel for the Jewish race.

For the Jew, the man of the covenant and of prophecy, the credentials of Jesus must be drawn from Moses and the Prophets. In his origin, human and divine, in the capital facts of his life, in his character, private and official, in short, in his work and in his kingdom, he must be shown to meet the requirements of the Messianic Scriptures. Jesus must be set over against the prophetic Messiah, so that they shall both be seen to be one and the same. This Gospel takes the life of Jesus as it was lived on earth, and his character as it actually appeared, and places them alongside the life and character of the Messiah as sketched in the Prophets, the historic by the side of the prophetic, that the two may appear in their marvellous unity and in their perfect identity. The Jew who once took its truths and facts into his mind could not get them out again, for it connected the name of Jesus of Nazareth indissolubly and forever with all the religious knowledge and hopes of the descendant of Abraham, and with all the glories of his past national history. In short, the Old Testament doctrine of the Messiah, as announced in the Protevangelium, in the opening of Genesis, and unfolded through all the ages till the final words of Malachi, is the only key to the first Gospel. This appears in its entire plan, which is the unfolding of the central idea that Jesus is the Messiah of the Prophets. It appears likewise in the omissions and additions made by the Evangelist, both of which have been made to adapt it to the Jewish soul and its needs. It appears no less clearly in all its incidental variations from the others, and in all its incidental, at first view almost accidental, peculiarities—the entire production being moulded and shaped and colored in its narratives, sentences, and words, by its Jewish reference and adaptation.

Outline of Matthew’s Gospel.—1. The Advent of the Messiah (1 : 1 to 4 : 12). Matthew demonstrates, by way of introduction, that Jesus had the origin and official preparation of the Messiah of the Prophets. 2. The Public Proclamation of Messiah’s Kingdom (4 : 12 to 16 : 12). He demonstrates that Jesus did the public work and bore the public character of Messiah, the King and Prophet, in the period devoted chiefly to the proclamation of the coming kingdom of heaven, with divine power in Galilee. 3. The Distinct and Public Claim of Messiahship (16 : 13 to 23 : 39). He shows that, after the rejection and the retirement from the public ministry in Galilee, Jesus openly claimed to be the Messiah, and abundantly proved the righteousness of his claim both to his disciples and to the people. 4. The Sacrifice of Messiah the Priest (24 : 1 to 27 : 66). He demonstrates that, after his public rejection by the Jews, Jesus fully established his claim to be the Messiah by fulfilling the Messianic types and prophecies in laying the foundation for the Kingdom of Heaven by his own priestly sacrifice. 5. The Triumph of Messiah the Saviour and King (28 : 1 to 20). Matthew shows in conclusion that Jesus, after his death, fully established his claim to the Messiahship as the risen Lord and Redeemer. Gregory.

2. MARK, the Gospel for the Roman.**—The second Gospel was written for the Romans, the second of the three great representative races of the then civilized world. They represented the idea of active human power in the ancient world. They embodied that idea in the state or empire, as the repository of law and justice. They came in process of time to deify the state as the grandest concrete manifestation of power. With the consciousness of being born to rule the world, they pushed the idea of national power to universal empire. For the Romans, the Gospel must present the character and career of Jesus from the Roman side or point of view, as answering to the idea of divine power, work, law, conquest, and universal sway. It must exhibit Jesus as adapted, in his power and mercy, in his mission and work, to the wants of the Roman nature and world. To the Roman these are the credentials of Jesus, no less essential than prophecy to the Jew, or philosophy to the Greek. The second Gospel itself everywhere bears the marks of its Roman origin and aim. This is manifest in its entire plan, which involves the presentation of the divine power and activity of our Lord, and which views his life as one career of conflict and conquest ending in the universal sway of the kingdom of God. It is no less manifest in the omissions and additions made by the Evangelist, all of which are explained by his Roman design.

Mark prepared this Gospel from the preaching of Peter, for Roman readers, the men who were the workers, conquerors, and rulers of the world. He was, like Peter, originally a man of action rather than of deep and abiding principle, a man of fervor and enthusiasm rather than of persevering effort; but he was transformed, by the power of the same Christ who transformed Peter, into the man of rapid, continued, and effective effort in the missionary work of the Church. Three men had to do chiefly with the shaping of his character after the Roman ideal. He was made to feel the influence of the gentle and merciful spirit of Barnabas, whose fellow-worker for Christ he was in his early life. He received the impress of the tremendous sustained energy of Paul, whose companion he was in the Apostle’s earlier ministry, and again at Rome during his captivity. He was moulded by the restless, unwearying activity of Peter. Thus fashioned in character by these great Apostles and preachers, he was providentially brought into the widest and most varied contact with the Empire, in its customs and language, in its law and legions, from the centre of authority at Rome to its remotest limits.

Mark was probably not personally cognizant of the facts of the Gospel, save perhaps the later ones. Peter, the man of deeds rather than words, was therefore appointed to supply in his preaching, out of his vivid memory, and after his striking manner, the materials for the Gospel; while Mark was appointed, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and in accordance with his character and training, to give it final shaping. Gregory.—Like Peter, he is contented to lay the foundation of the Christian faith, and leave the superstructure to others. It is enough that Christ should be presented in the most vivid light, unfolding the truth in acts rather than in words; for faith will translate the passing deed into an abiding lesson. Everything centres in the immediate facts to be noticed. The living portraiture of Christ is offered in the clearness of his present energy, not as the fulfilment of the past, nor even as the foundation of the future. In substance and style and treatment the Gospel of Mark is essentially a transcript from life, a tracing of the life of the Lord in the fresh vigor of its outward power. If all other arguments against the mythic origin of the Evangelic narratives were wanting, this vivid and simple record, stamped with the most distinct impress of independence and originality—totally unconnected with the symbolism of the Old Dispensation, totally independent of the deeper reasonings of the New—would be sufficient to refute a theory subversive of all faith in history. Westcott.

Outline of Mark’s Gospel.—1. The Advent of the King and Conqueror (1 : 1 to 2 : 12). The Evangelist brings forward the Almighty King in his Divine Person and Kingdom. Jesus appears as exercising the prerogatives of God himself. 2. The Conflict of the Almighty King (2 : 13 to 8 : 26). He exhibits Jesus in the teaching, work, and conflict of the period of public ministry devoted to the continued proclamation of the coming Kingdom of Power. Here, too, Jesus appears as the Son of God, wielding almighty power, in its most tangible forms. The Roman, the man of power, is thus irresistibly attracted toward him. 3. The Claim of the Almighty King (8 : 27 to 13 : 37). Jesus, the Almighty Conqueror, is exhibited as distinctly claiming the right to the Kingdom of Power, to be won through suffering and rejection, and both explaining and maintaining his claim. 4. The Sacrifice of the Almighty King (14 : 1 to 15 : 47). He exhibits Jesus preparing for the setting up of the Kingdom of Power through his sacrificial sufferings and death. The scenes of the last days are left to depend for their impressiveness upon the power of the naked facts of the final struggle with the Jewish authorities and the death upon the cross—facts depicted with the life-like touch of an eye-witness, and fitted to draw from every true Roman the exclamation of the centurion at the cross, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” 5. The Universal Empire established (16 : 1-20). The appropriate conclusion of this Gospel, in which Jesus, the Almighty King, is exhibited as conquering death and taking the Universal Kingdom, and as organizing the work of conquest.

All this was just what was needed to commend Jesus as a Saviour to the Romans. It was, moreover, a true view of the man of Nazareth, in whose many-sided character was found not only the Messiah, the ideal Jew, but also the universal Conqueror and King, the ideal Roman. This Jesus, the inheritor of all the true power and manhood found in the Roman nature, and adding to this a divine power and manhood, is the Jesus represented by Mark. Gregory.

3. LUKE, the Gospel for the Greek.**—The chief facts touching the origin and design of the third Gospel, as presented by most trustworthy witnesses, are, that Luke wrote the Gospel which bears his name; that it was substantially that which he and Paul had proclaimed to the Greek world; that it was produced and published among Greek peoples; and that it was written for the Greeks as representing the Gentile world and suited to commend Jesus to them as their Saviour.

The Greek looked upon himself as having the mission of perfecting man. Through all the ages, in literature and art, in statecraft and gymnastics, he was working toward his one great idea of the perfect man. In his ideal, intellect and taste held the supreme place. His aim was not the beautiful man in the lower sense merely, but thinking, reasoning man, with his intellect full-summed, farthest reaching, most gracefully working. He accordingly bequeathed to the world the grandest models of beauty and of thought that the unaided human mind has ever produced. These characteristics of the Greek brought him into sympathy with man as man, and made him in the ancient world the representative of universal humanity.

A Gospel for the Greek must be shaped by the Greek idea; must present the character and career of Jesus of Nazareth from the Greek point of view, as answering to the conception of a perfect and divine humanity; must exhibit him as adapted, in his power and mercy, in his work and mission, to the wants of the Greek soul, and of humanity as represented in it. Reason and beauty, righteousness and truth, dignity and earnestness, must be exhibited as they meet in Jesus in their full splendor, and his divine tenderness and compassion must have universal sweep. It must open the way to a mission grand enough for man here, and must bring to light an immortality beyond. In short, the Gospel must meet the true and correct the false in the Greek ideal.

God was everywhere in the perfect man, Jesus. Here was just the Saviour the Greek needed. He wanted some living image of God in some truly perfect man. He had striven after this in his poor blind way; but the end was only godlessness, or the altar to “the unknown God.” He had longed for humanity in its perfection and glory, for a God who should be a son of man. Jesus was that. So Luke portrays him. Jesus was Deity taking human form. Through that deep heart and matchless intellect and marvellous sense of the beautiful God himself shone. In that spotless character and that active life of love God himself lived and wrought. Jesus was most human, the great and perfect brother, and yet most divine, the great and perfect God. The Evangelist prepares for the Greek—as he announces his purpose to do—an accurate and systematic exhibition of the facts of the career of Jesus; but this is only the more perfect framework for the exquisite portraiture of the perfect man, who is himself the pledge of the blessedness of faith and the exaltation of the lowly, and who appears in the world to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

Four things made Luke the proper instrument for this work: that he was of Greek origin; that Antioch was doubtless the place of his birth and residence—the city in which the great missionary impulse of that age was given, and in which the sympathy of Christianity with all the perishing world reached its greatest breadth and depth; that he was a physician by profession; and that he was the disciple and companion of Paul, the Apostle to the Gentile world. It is the unvarying testimony of the early Church that Luke’s Gospel originated in his companionship and work with Paul, and that it was moulded and inspired by that great Apostle, who combined the Jewish soul with the culture of the Greek, the world-citizenship of the Roman, and the undying devotion of the chief of sinners saved by grace. Such a nature, residence, culture, companionship, joined with inspiration, fitted Luke to trace the life of Jesus, “in its wide comprehensiveness, as the Gospel of the nations, full of mercy and hope, assured to a whole world by the love of a suffering Saviour.” Gregory.

Luke’s Gospel distinctively presents Christ as the Son of Man, partaker of a common humanity, and therefore the kinsman Redeemer of the whole human family. Every stage in the development of Christ’s veritable humanity is recorded—the conception, the birth, the babe, the child, the youth, and the man. So the human dependence of Christ on God, as expressed in prayers and supplications, and the human sympathies and affections of Christ, manifested toward individuals and multitudes, are particularly recorded. And here, too, the catholic relations of his humanity come out in numerous references and incidents. Not only is the genealogy a natural or human one, as traced to Adam rather than Abraham, but the royal formula is never used in the parables; every one begins with a distinctly human reference, generally, “A certain man,” etc. Thomson.

Outline of Luke’s Gospel.—1. The Advent of the Divine Man (1 : 1 to 4 : 13). After stating the literary aim of his work, he presents Jesus the perfect man, first, in his origin, birth, and manifestation to men; secondly, in the development of his human nature under law, human and divine; and, thirdly, in his special preparation for the work of the Saviour of the world. This is the true unfolding of the manhood of Jesus in its relations to all mankind. 2. The Work of the Divine Man for the Jewish World (4 : 14 to 9 : 50). Luke exhibits Jesus as the fully-developed divine man, in his work of divine power for Israel, and in his laying the foundations of the Kingdom of God. 3. The Work of the Divine Man for the Gentile World (9 : 51 to 18 : 30). Luke exhibits Jesus as the divine and universal man, in his gracious work for the Gentile world, chiefly in heathen Perea and on his last journey to Jerusalem. 4. The Sacrifice of the Divine Man for all Mankind (18 : 31 to 23 : 49). Luke unfolds the voluntary suffering and death of Jesus the divine man for all the lost world, showing how everything is colored by the human perfection and compassionate tenderness, and by the divine compassion and saving power, exhibited to all classes of men. 5. The Divine Man, Saviour of all Nations (23 : 50 to 24 : 53). The conclusion sets forth the experience of the divine man in his triumph over death, and as the Saviour of the world, showing the place of his career in the plan of God, and sending out his followers with salvation to all nations.

This was just what was needed to commend Jesus as a Saviour to the man of Greek soul. It was at the same time a true view of the Prophet of Nazareth, whose many-sided character embraced not only the Messiah, the ideal Jew, and the almighty worker and victor, the ideal Roman, but also the divine and universal man, the ideal Greek. This Jesus, the inheritor of all the real perfection and manhood, of all the natural reason and culture found in the Greek nature, and adding to all these a divine perfection and manhood and a supernatural reason and beauty, is the Jesus represented by Luke. Gregory.

4. JOHN, the Gospel for the Church.**—Abundant testimonies, from witnesses of the highest character, justify the belief in the following facts: that the Apostle John wrote the fourth Gospel at the close of the first century; that it was substantially the embodiment of his preaching to the early Church, of those spiritual doctrines and experiences which had come from his most intimate communion with Jesus, and which, in an important sense, supplemented the other Gospels; that it was written, not for the Jew, Greek, or Roman, as such, but for the Church; and that it was fitted to commend Jesus to Christians in the Church, as the divine Son of God, the light and life of the world.

This is the Gospel which gives the Christian the requisite instruction concerning the secret springs and laws of the life of faith and obedience to God, and concerning the mission of the Holy Ghost as man’s divine helper in that life. This is peculiarly the Gospel of everlasting life. It regards the divine life begun in the Christian soul as the germ of an endless life of purity and blessedness. It most clearly reveals in Christ the resurrection and the life, and the lifting up of even man’s body from the grave to immortality. It alone, therefore, meets the longing of the renewed soul for the endless life in the heavenly mansions in perfect union and communion with God. This is the Gospel of the risen and living Christ. The perpetual ministrations of the risen and living Christ are brought out in the closing chapters as nowhere else in the Gospels. These chapters are accordingly among the most precious treasures of the Word of God.

John’s birth and early history; his character as transformed and exalted by the power of the Gospel; his intimate union with his Master, and his intense sympathy with him; his long and profound Christian experience, and his wide acquaintance with the needs of the Church, combined to make him the fit instrument for the work to which he was divinely called. For half a century he seems to have been comparatively silent concerning the higher truths of the Christian life, although doubtless brooding over them, until God’s hour came. During threequarters of a century he lived upon the words of his Master, the Eternal Word—in filial intercourse with Mary, in spiritual communion with the Church, in living union with the ascended Christ—until those words became the very thought of his thought and the very life of his life, and he could give them a reality in the utterance such as no other man could ever give them. Gregory.

The prophecies which ushered in the new dispensation failed; the tongues which gave utterance to the raptures of the first believers ceased; the knowledge of the early Church vanished before the fuller development of Christianity; but love still remained, and at Ephesus, which combined all the refinement of Greek culture with the freedom of Eastern thought, John wrote “the Gospel of the world,” resolving reason into intuition and faith into sight. Westcott.—It presents in fairest harmony the highest knowledge and the deepest love of Christ. It sets him forth as the Eternal Word, who was the source of life from the beginning, and the organ of all the revelations of God to man, as the fountain of living water that quenches the thirst of the soul, as the light of the world that illuminates the darkness of sin and error, as the Resurrection and the Life that destroys the terrors of death. It is the Gospel of love, life, and light, the Gospel of the heart taken from the very heart of Christ, on which the beloved disciple leaned at the Last Supper. Schaff.

The fourth Gospel stands in a sense isolated among the four; yet it only presents a richer development, a deeper comprehension, a more heavenly mode of contemplating the same truths, the same supernatural facts. In this, at once the most heart-affecting and the most sublime of the four Gospels, these truths are contemplated and represented from their highest altitude to their lowest depths. Da Costa.—As the other Gospels respectively make prominent the ideas of law, of power, and of grace, so does this present the glory of Christ. John begins, not like his predecessors from an earthly starting-point, from the birth of the son of Abraham or the son of Adam, or the opening of the human ministry, but in the depths of unmeasured eternity and the recesses of the nature of God; and then, bringing the First-born into the world, traces with adoring eye the course of word and deed by which he manifested forth his glory. From the beginning of Matthew to the end of John it is one Lord Jesus Christ, as really the Son of Man in the last Gospel as in the first, as really the Son of God in the first Gospel as in the last. Only we find, in passing under the teaching of John, that here the great mystery shows more vivid and mature; that the intuitions of it have become more conscious and more clear, and the assertions of it more definite and indisputable; that we have advanced from the simple observations of facts to the state of retrospection and reflection; and that we have attained to the formation of a language fitted to the highest conceptions of him who is the Only-begotten of the Father, the Life, the Light, the Truth, and the Word Eternal. Bernard.

Outline of John’s Gospel.—1. The Advent and Incarnation of the Word (1 : 1–13). The Evangelist opens his Gospel by exhibiting Christ the Eternal Word, in his Divine Origin and in his manifestation to men in the Incarnation. As the Son of God incarnate, he is the Word, the Life, the Light, the Only-begotten which is in the bosom of the Father, full of grace and truth. He is God. 2. The Incarnate Word the only Life of the World (1 : 14 to 6 : 71). These early chapters unfold the spiritual manifestations of Jesus in the public ministry in Judæa. He appears during this period, especially to the faithful in the world, as the incarnate Son, the only life of the world, revealing the glory of God and a supernatural fulness of grace and truth, and meeting with rising faith and unbelief. 3. The Incarnate Word, the Life and Light, in conflict with the Spiritual Darkness (7 : 1 to 11 : 54). The Evangelist exhibits some of the teachings of Jesus to the unbelieving Jews, during the period in which he visits Jerusalem only occasionally and privately. In these instructions Jesus presses upon them, with ever-increasing plainness and energy, his claim to be the Son of God, coequal with the Father, and, through his sacrificial death, the only source of light and freedom and life to men in their darkness and slavery and death, the only hope of a lost world. These teachings enrage the Jews beyond measure, and prepare them for his murder. 4. The Incarnate Word securing the Life of the World through his Sacrificial Death (11 : 55 to 19 : 42). John gives those last and clearest manifestations of Jesus as the light and life, made in connection with the close of his career. Jesus, as he voluntarily moves toward the cross, presents his claims in the fullest manner before all classes in Jerusalem, and reveals to his disciples on the evening of the betrayal the great doctrines of the Christian system and life. He then completes his sacrifice by yielding himself up to his enemies, to the cross, and to the power of death and the grave, declaring with his closing breath that the work of redemption is “finished.” 5. The Incarnate Word, Crucified and Risen, the Saviour and Lord of all Believers (20 : 1 to 21 : 25). The Evangelist presents the manifestations of the risen Saviour to the faith of his followers, establishing his identity, and the reality of his presence of sympathy and power with his Church in all ages. Gregory.

The fourth Gospel carries its evidence in itself, for of it, as of Him of whom it tells us, we may confidently say, “Never man spake like this.” An air as from Paradise breathes through its verses, and he who walks before us in its holy light is instinctively felt to be Divine. “We may conclude from the experience of the past,” says Meyer, “that this Gospel will always emerge from all the storms of criticism radiant and victorious in its calm inner majesty, as the last star of evangelical history and teaching, shining with the purest and highest light within the limits of the Apostolic age; the spiritual creation of that disciple, who was most intimate with his Master. Nor will it ever set.” Geikie.

5. CONCLUSION. I. The Gospel for Man.—There is a central mass of fact and truth around which Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John alike group their other material. These chief facts and truths may be summed up in four particulars. The first is found in the incarnation of the Son of God. The four Evangelists set it forth in such a way as to make it patent to every candid reader. The second is found in the life of the Son of God on earth in human form and subject to human conditions and laws. This makes up the central portion of each of the Gospels. The third is found in the death upon the cross. As this is the all-essential fact, all the Gospels devote large space to it, delineating also the events centring in it. The fourth is found in the rising of Jesus from the dead, in his giving the Apostles their great commission to preach the Gospel to all the world, and in his ascension to heaven, at once establishing his claim to be the Saviour of mankind, and organizing and beginning his saving work.

All these—the incarnation, the life, the death, the resurrection—are the essential facts and truths of the Gospel, those which at the first made it good news to men. Without any one of them all it would cease to be good news; for, without the incarnation, the Son of God would have no part in our human nature; without the life on earth, he could neither be our righteousness nor our example; without the death he could not be our sacrifice for sin; and without the resurrection and ascension his claims would be proved baseless and the world would be left to perish without a Saviour. The Son of God became incarnate, lived, died, rose from the dead, for the redemption of the lost—this cannot grow old but must be glad tidings for man, the sinner, till the end of time.

II. The Gospel for all Men.—There is an element of fact and truth peculiar to each of the Evangelists. It was by means of this, as has been seen, that the essential and fundamental Gospel truth was brought by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, favorably before the minds of the Jew, Roman, Greek, and Christian, and Jesus of Nazareth commended to them all as the Saviour of the world. It is this fourfold difference that completes the rounded, perfect fitness of the four Gospels to constitute the perpetual Evangel for the world of the ages subsequent to the apostolic.

Not only is it ever true that man is a sinner and needs the good news of Christ’s incarnation, life, death, and resurrection; but it remains equally true that the world of mankind is always divided into the same great classes and always exhibits the same generic phases of thought. In all ages the Jewish, Roman, and Greek natures reappear among men, and, in fact, make up the world of natural men; while the Christian nature and wants likewise remain essentially identical. From age to age the four Gospels appeal to the classes who, in temperament, mental constitution, training, and modes of thought, are like those for whom of old, in obedience to the inspiring breath of God, they were prepared. Thus this is the brief but all-important productions have had power to captivate men by a perpetual fitness and a perennial freshness. Thus it is that the one Gospel of God in fourfold form, which was exactly fitted to commend Jesus of Nazareth to the ancient world, and which could not then have been put in other shape without a radical change in the races and history of the apostolic age, is still so perfectly adapted to meet the wants of the modern world, that it would require a revolution in the mental structure and experience of man, before any other number of Gospels or any different ones from the four in the New Testament could meet the necessities of ruined and redeemed humanity.

God appears, therefore, in his Word no less than in his world, as a God of order. The same perfect, divine plan which science is finding in the latter, a rational and reverential study finds in the former. The Gospels are the perfect thought of God for the restoration of a lost world. The four Gospels, therefore, in their essential unity and harmony, and in their fourfold difference and contrast, illustrate at once and equally well the wonders of the divine love and the comprehensiveness of the divine plan—a love reaching out after and laying hold of all the great classes of sinners to be found in the race; a plan comprehending and providing for the spiritual wants of all men to the end of time. In contemplating, in the writings of the Evangelists, this sublime plan of the Heavenly Father, who “so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” the devout soul must ever bow with an humble, grateful adoration, growing with increasing knowledge, and exclaim, To God alone be all the glory! Gregory.

AND whatever changes of arts, letters, institutions, empires, one figure continues supreme in history. It is that of the man whom John baptized, whom Pilate crucified; who built no capital, led no army, wrote no volume; who seemed to the principal persons of his time to have fitly closed a restless yet an obscure life in an ignoble death; but who named himself, and who now is named in all the written languages of mankind, the Son of God.

More than sixty generations of men—vexed with thought, burdened with cares, and each accomplishing, wearily or victoriously, its office in the world—have lived, and wrought, and passed away, since the young child Jesus lay on his Mother’s breast at Bethlehem. Yet they are to-day more numerous in the world and more influential than ever before, who turn with profoundly attentive minds, because with profoundly adoring hearts, to consider what he was, and to ponder the things which he said and which he did.

This supreme man was born to no rank, and trained in no school, held himself aloof from none, and did not shrink from the touch of the sinful, sought no fame, and seemed content to strew his words on the vanishing winds. But he perfectly expressed in his crystalline character whatever all peoples concede most precious, and to-day governs governments; his words are the light, his temper the model, and his life the inspiration, of all that is noblest in the modern as in ancient character and thought; and from his inconspicuous advent the new ages of liberty, of discovery, and of progress, date their birth.

Only in general do we know where he tarried or wrought. Only the significant facts of his life are left on record for our instruction. For these make impression on the soul, not the sense; and, by reason of their wonderfulness, they are as near and as glorious to those who look up to them from the banks of Indian or American rivers as if these had followed the winding Jordan from its sweet fountains to its salt grave, or had climbed to the crest of Tabor or of Hermon. Not so much by what they are, as by what they evidently contain and declare, do the facts which confront us in the life of the Lord engage and reward the thoughts of disciples. The secret of their preciousness, the hiding of their power, is in this: that—admitting the Lord to have been what faith, from both prophecy and history, affirms him to have been—through these facts are declared to us, in the sharpness and fulness of a personal revelation, the life, the might, and the character of the Most High; that he whom men had blindly groped after, and whom, as Paul declared of the Athenians, they unknowingly had worshipped, is here set forth in the perfect discovery of his grace and his glory, to draw men in penitent love to himself.

Not only is the life of the Lord, in its entireness, the inestimable means for bringing us to such a knowledge of God, and to such an experience conditioned upon it; but it is wonderful to see how each separate part, the most unobtrusive and familiar particular, in that brief but ample and crowded career, bears on the result; how each fraction of it is freighted with divinest meaning when we have found the secret of its glory, in the manifestation it makes of God. Not only do the miracles attest his power, and unveil the energy to which the act of creation was but a choice. Not only do the signal utterances of truth show forth his wisdom, and tell us, as sunbeams tell of the sun, of that effulgent and unsearchable mind before which angels bow in awe. The silent years, so many in comparison with the three of the ministry, yet of which our records are so brief, reflect the patience of the eternal, and his recognition of the fitness of times in his most gracious operations. The tears of Jesus become to us drops from the infinite sympathy, beneath which our inmost hearts are melted. His interest in the humblest things reproduces before us the mind supreme, to which nothing is small, and which equally rounds the drop of dew and the photosphere of suns. His benediction of the children whom he took in his arms makes us say “Our Father” with warmer heart. His very delay in answering some requests interprets the pauses in God’s ways, and gives us new motives to continuance in prayer. His smile lights up the very heavens, as it reveals the omnipresent compassion, and pours a sunshine on our souls which brightest mornings could not image. While still from his sad rebuking glance flashes a light that illumines all warnings of the word, and is itself yet more admonitory; that makes what is meant by the “outer darkness” almost palpable to our thoughts, and lifts the judgment before our minds as real and near.

Through prayer must we gain an inward and quickening sympathy with the Lord, before the very narratives of the Gospel can make him live and move before us, whom Paul and John adoringly served; in whom we meet the ideal of humanity, but are faced as well, and overshadowed, by the present divinity; through whose tender and kindling eyes we see the Creator’s face shining on us, and are conscious that it is not a mere human career—the most eminent of the ages—which we observe, but that still through those eyes, “as meditation soars upward, it meets the arched firmament, with all its suspended lamps of light.”

Through such a sympathy, wrought within us by the Spirit of God, may we come to what Pasquier Quesnel called “the sacrament of the Gospels,” and look to find the Lord whom they present made evident to our souls. We learn then how matchless was the wisdom that formed these, and that still has preserved them, amid the disasters of letters and of empires, and has kept them as fresh and full as at first;—written with a beauty, and an unconscious pathos, which inspiration alone could have secured; their simplicity as inimitable as their sublimity; even the apparent discrepancies between them becoming but the hooks to hold more firmly and closely to them the thoughts of their students; their fourfold unity presenting with a perfection not otherwise attainable the image of him, fairer than men, to whom alike they all give witness.

Then is the work of the Gospels complete for him who studies them. Then is the fruit of that divine guidance by which they were prepared presented in his surpassing experience. For then, in the light that has shined from them on the person of the Lord, all things are transfigured. Life is sacred. Death is sweet. Heroism is easy; self-sacrifice a delight. Each work for the Master becomes a worship. The eating of bread in his dear name is not a form, nor an outward memorial, but a mystical sacrament, through which his present love is declared. The Church expands to a vast and vital fellowship of believers, knit together in him,—many on earth, and more on high. The whole earth is a temple, since the Lord hath been in it. The grave is perfumed, since he there lay. The future is resplendent with immortal invitations. Indeed, that future is not far off. It invests our life, at such an hour, and is prophesied in it. For the experience then already attained needs only to burst its imprisoning shell to be revealed in all the glory of the life everlasting.

No man has derived the highest advantage from the study of the Gospels, till he has known this grandest experience. No man has known this until he has studied them, not with a common cursory carelessness, but with prolonged and searching thoughtfulness, and with the heart engaged to the work as well as the intellect. But whosoever has gained and felt this has known that in it he drew nearer than elsewhere to the gates of pearl, and the instant vision of the King in his beauty. And so it is that from all the other portions of the Scriptures,—fascinating as are many of them with narrative or portraiture, resplendent as often they are with miracle, or wondrous with prophecy, full as they all are of the truth of the Most High, and its renovating power,—the hearts of Christians instinctively turn to these which are central in the series. So it is that with each successive revival of God’s great spiritual work in the world, the sign of its coming, the pledge of its reality, are found in the fact that through the Gospels the person, the work, and the character of the Lord become present and paramount in men’s thoughts. And so it is, through a clearer and more general revelation of the Lord to the mind of mankind, that the infinite Spirit is now working in the earth to bring in the final glory of his reign. It is among the brightest signs of that approaching millennial day of light and love for which the world still waits and moans, and which the Church surely expects, that he of whom the martyrs witnessed, and in whose holy faith and service millions of men have nobly lived and gladly died, is more plainly declared from press and pulpit, is more evidently seen through the Scriptural record, than for centuries he has been. A new spiritual coming and triumph of the Lord are surely to be evolved from this closer struggle of his holy kingdom with the kingdom of evil. God hasten it, in his grace! to his own honor, and the infinite rest and welfare of the world. R. S. Storrs.

Section 1.—Luke’s Preface. Annunciation to Zacharias.