The story of Jesus is God’s most important message to mankind. Without His gift of salvation, man has no way of knowing the One True God. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.’” God chose four men with varying backgrounds to give four different perspectives of the life of Christ. The four Gospels are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John written by the respective men. The term Gospel initially was used to refer to the message of salvation through Jesus Christ but was later accepted to reference these four documents. Collectively, these books not only give us a written record of Jesus’s life but show us through His life who God is.
The first book in the New Testament is the Gospel according to Matthew. Matthew was one of the twelve disciples of Christ. He wrote to give evidence to the Jews that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, the King. He begins by affirming Jesus’s royal line back through King David to Abraham through the line of Joseph, his earthly adopted father (Mt. 1:1). Matthew then continues to build his case by comparing prophecy found in the writings of the Old Testament prophets to the events in the life of Jesus. For example, he references Micah 5:2. “But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel” (Mt. 2:6). Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Mt. 2:1). Another prophecy Matthew records, “Say to the daughter of Zion, behold your King is coming to you, gentle, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden” (Mt. 21:5; Zech. 9:9). Jesus rode into Jerusalem days before His crucifixion on a donkey (Mt. 21:6-7). The book of Matthew contains more references to fulfilled prophecies through the life of Christ than any of the other three Gospel accounts.
The book of Mark portrays Jesus as the suffering servant. “Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all” (Mk. 9:35). From 1 Peter 5:13 and the early church fathers, Papias and Eusebius, we learn that Mark was close to Peter. It is believed that Mark’s words are Peter’s testimony of his years with Jesus. His account is written in chronological order with little detail. Mark centers more on what Jesus did to help others rather than what He said. Some scholars believe that Matthew and Luke used the record of Mark as a template for their own manuscripts. All three books have similar content and verbiage.
Luke was a physician that traveled with Paul on his missionary journeys. The purpose of his writing was to show Jesus as fully man. In doing so, he penned the most extensive description of Jesus’s birth and his early years. Luke was the only Gospel writer to mention Jesus’s circumcision at eight days of age and His presentation to the temple after the days of purification (Lk. 2:21-24). Also unique to Luke is his record of Jesus’s visit to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover at the age of twelve (Lk. 2:41-51). These are life events that most Jewish children would have experienced. Concerning His teenage and young adult years, nothing is written except what is found in Luke’s Gospel. “And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Lk. 2:52). Before Luke mentions Jesus’s years of ministry, he records His genealogy through His mother Mary back to Adam, giving evidence of Jesus as a member of mankind (Lk. 3:23-38). He wrote about Jesus’s basic human needs, such as the need for food and the need for rest. Even in Christ’s death, Luke’s writing shows the humanity of Jesus’s as He suffered the arrest, the trials, and finally the cross.
John, the writer of the last Gospel, was most likely the youngest disciple of Jesus. He wanted His readers to recognize Jesus as the Son of God and a messenger from God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being” (Jn. 1:1-3). Here, John refers to Jesus as the Word, who was with God at creation. This reference to Jesus as the Word is best explained in John 12:49-50 when Jesus says, “For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak. I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.” Jesus’s message was that God loves us. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16). This shows God’s message is personal to each one of us. John realized that ultimate love when he watched God’s Son die on the cross for each of our sins (Jn. 19:25-27). John calls himself “the disciple whom He loved” or “the beloved disciple” because John realized the love that God and His Son have for each one of us.
The four Gospels do not contain everything about Jesus’s life but only what was most important in the message of salvation. John shares this at the end of his book. “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written” (Jn. 21:25). I am thankful God placed the Gospels in Scripture. He wanted us to know His Son where we would trust Him as our Savior and in turn have a relationship with the Creator of the universe, the One True God.