| The Christian Life | October 1945 |
Altogether Lovely
A Fourfold View of Jesus
THE attention of the Lord’s people is constantly directed to their adorable Lord and Master, Jesus. A voice out of the cloud on the mount of transfiguration said, “This is My beloved Son: hear Him.” (Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35) Our Lord Himself said, “Learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart. (Matt. 11:29) Paul said, “Consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself.” (Heb. 12:3 ) Peter said, “To Him give all the prophets witness,” and his own testimony was, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”—Acts 10:43; Matt. 16:16
The four Gospels give us a fourfold picture of our Lord, especially of His earthly ministry. One might ask, Why did the Lord provide four fragmentary records, rather than one complete and connected account of the things Jesus did and said? One reason doubtless has been to hide some of the truth from all but those who would carefully search His Word as for hidden treasure—it manifestly being more difficult to obtain a clear outline of our Lord’s ministry from four accounts (each differing in some respects), than from one full and complete record. This would be only one of many ways God has of hiding His truth from the wise and prudent, and revealing it to those of more humble mind—“unto babes.”—Matt. 11:25
Jesus—The King
The Gospel according to Matthew, it is generally understood, was written, in the first place, for Jews; and as the Jews especially thought of their coming Messiah as a great king, Matthew’s presentation of Jesus is that of a king. The genealogy of Matthew, chapter 1, shows Jesus, through His foster father, Joseph, as descended from Abraham through King David. Matthew alone gives the account of the visit of the three wise men: “Where is He that is born King of the Jews?”—Matt. 2:2
Matthew’s Gospel makes particularly prominent the teaching concerning the Kingdom. It records that both John the Baptist and Jesus opened their ministry with the announcement, “Repent ye: for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”—Matt. 3:2
Matthew gives more of the parables of the Kingdom than any of the other evangelists, and is the only one to quote fully the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9: “Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.”—Matt. 21:5
In the days of the prophet it was customary for kings and kings’ sons to ride upon white asses. Jesus was a King as well as a King’s son. He, therefore, in harmony with the prophet’s words, adopted this custom when presenting Himself to Israel as their king.
Matthew alone gives a picture of the day of judgment or the great assize as it has been called, “when the Son of man shall come in His glory,” and the church with Him.—Matt. 25:31,34; 16:27
Finally, we have in Matthew’s account, Pilate’s question, “Art thou the King of the Jews?” To which Jesus in substance replied “What you say is correct.” (Matt. 27:11,42) It is helpful to read through Matthew’s Gospel with this thought of Jesus as the King in mind.
Jesus—The Servant
In Mark’s Gospel we have quite a different picture of the Son of God. Mark, it would seem, especially wrote his account of the works and words of Jesus for Gentiles in the first place, and probably for Romans in particular. Scholars have noticed Latin forms in Mark not found in either of the other accounts. Mark gives us a picture of Jesus as the servant of Jehovah. He opens his account by quoting from Isaiah, “Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, which shall prepare Thy way before Thee” (Mark 1:2), and in Isaiah, Messiah is particularly pictured as the servant of Jehovah: “Behold My servant.”—Isa. 40:3; 42:1
Mark uses the word “straightway” nineteen times, suggesting the prompt way in which a servant would carry out his master’s command. Matthew uses the same word, translated, “straightway,” seven times, and Luke only three. Mark’s Gospel is not so much a record of moral and spiritual teachings, but is an account, full of what Jesus did. Mark shows our Lord’s days as days full of service. Even the Sabbath is frequently occupied with good works. (Mark 3:4,5,20) “And He said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.” (Mark 6:31) “And when they had sent away the multitude, they took Him even as He was in the ship.” (Mark 4:36) The original here, gives the thought that our Lord was so exhausted from his labors, that he just allowed Himself to be carried into the boat, “as he was.” Recall, too, in this connection that they had to awaken Him of sleep, lest they perish from the wind storm.—Mark 4:37-41
Mark shows that it was the works of Jesus, rather than His message, that came to the notice of Herod. “And King Herod heard of Him; … and he said, That John the Baptist was risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in Him.” (Mark 6:14) “Whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.”—Mark 10:44,45
Jesus—The Perfect Man
Just as Matthew presents Jesus to us as the great King of kings, and Mark portrays Him as the servant of all, Luke’s Gospel calls especial attention to the fact that He was the Son of man.
The Greeks thought a great deal about the beauty and perfection of human form. In fact, led on by their great men, they almost worshiped, not the moral, but the physical beauty of the human being, and were continually looking for the human ideal. Luke takes advantage of this natural trait in the character of the Greeks, and presents Jesus as the ideal, the perfect man—the very image of God in the flesh. He shows His perfection in all His human relationships—perfection in the midst of imperfection.
Luke records our Lord’s genealogy not from Abraham, but goes right back to Adam (Luke 3:38), thus showing that Jesus belongs not to one nation but to all. He is the Son of “The Man,” the heir of all that Adam lost. Luke relates how carefully God prepared for the birth of both John the Baptist and Jesus. His account relates of John, “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit” (Luke 1:80); and of Jesus he writes, “And the child grew, and waxed strong, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon Him.” “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature (margin, age), and in favor with God and man.”—Luke 2:40,52
Describing the first sermon which Jesus preached, Luke writes, “And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on Him.” (Luke 4:16-20) And in verse 22, he records, “And all bare Him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth.” The people were impressed with our Lord’s presence as well as with what He had to say.
In Luke’s Gospel more than in any other, we are shown our Lord’s association with publicans and sinners—not to condone their ways, but to draw them back to the paths of righteousness and to the Father’s house. (Luke 15) So much was this true of Jesus, that the slur of being a friend of publicans and sinners was cast upon Him.
Finally, one might mention the parable of The Good Samaritan, a parable peculiar to Luke, in which is shown the Godlike qualities that should be possessed by humanity, in the image and likeness of their Creator.—Luke 10:30-37
Jesus—The Son of God
The fourth Gospel, written some time after the other three, presents Jesus as the Son of God, “in the beginning with God,” and as the Father’s Agent, the Creator of all things. “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:3) He is shown as having come forth from the Father, and who had now returned to the Father.
Matthew traces the descent of Jesus from Abraham, Luke takes His genealogy back to Adam, but John shows Him to be the Son of God. If Jesus were nothing more than a natural descendant of Adam, Abraham and David (as the Jews expected their Messiah to be), He would have been born an imperfect man under condemnation to death like the rest of us; whereas, the divine plan required a perfect man, “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,” who would thus have an uncondemned life to give in sacrifice for the condemned life of Adam and all condemned in him. (Heb. 7:26) This the Father accomplished by transferring the life of the Logos from the spiritual condition, to be born a perfect human being through His mother, Mary.
The angel Gabriel said, addressing Mary, “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35) Just as John shows that the great anointed Redeemer came from heaven to earth, that He was with the Father before the world was, so John shows, much more than the other evangelists, that Messiah’s Kingdom (in which the Lord’s followers are invited to share), is a spiritual Kingdom, a holy, invisible Kingdom, which will follow the destruction of Satan’s unholy, invisible kingdom.
The following Scriptures, among many others, show the truly exalted origin of Jehovah’s King, Messiah:
“Except a man be born [begotten] again (margin, from above), he cannot see [appreciate] the Kingdom of God.”—John 3:3
“The Jews sought … to kill Him, because He not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was His Father.”—John 5:18
“The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.”—John 5:22,23
“I came down from heaven … to do … the will of Him that sent Me.”—John 6:38
“Say ye of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?”—John 10:36
“Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world.”—John 17:24
The object John had in writing his Gospel is summed up in chapter 20:31: “These things are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name.”
Thus in the four evangelists we have pictured, Jehovah’s King; Jehovah’s Servant; Jehovah’s perfect human Son “who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time”; and finally, Jesus, the Son of God, the beginning of the creation of God, who was made flesh and dwelt among us, and who now has been highly exalted to the divine nature, being the effulgence of the Father’s glory, and “an exact impress of His substance.”—I Tim: 2:6; Heb. 1:3, Diaglott
Human Need Provided in Christ
From Israel’s earliest days as a nation, her priests offered typical sacrifices for sin which were repeated year by year continually, for the blood of bulls and goats could never really take away sin. This arrangement doubtless caused some of the nation to realize the need of a greater priest than Aaron or any of his line.
From the days of Samuel onward, God gave Israel a line of kings, a few of whom were good kings, but the larger number were failures. And even the very best of these rulers, such as David, Hezekiah and Josiah were imperfect, dying creatures, unable to continue by reason of death, and who failed to carry out for Israel all that they desired to do; the divine records faithfully revealing their mistakes (some of which were of a very serious character) as well as their good qualities. Such experiences would doubtless cause Israelites indeed to realize their need of a greater king than any yet given to them.
God also gave to Israel a long line of prophets, who, as imperfect men, could only teach the people imperfectly. Israel needed a still greater prophet to show them how to keep God’s Law. The New Testament therefore shows Jesus as the ideal Priest, Prophet and King, able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him.—Heb. 7:25
Soon the mystery of the Gospel age will be finished—the “many members” of Christ all being found—and then the kingdoms of this world will become the Kingdoms of our Lord (Jehovah) and of His Christ. (I Cor. 12:12; Rev. 11:15) “He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet.”—I Cor. 15:25