7
A
The Anointed. His humility and triumph.
B
Paradise restored.
We therefore believe that it was a sound sense of fitness that led the early Christians to identify the four
gospels with the cherubim.
Matthew
The LION
The King.
Mark
The OX
The Servant.
Luke
The MAN
Back to Adam.
John
The EAGLE
My Lord and my God.
Christ is set forth in Matthew in the highest earthly position, that of King, and in Mark as the lowest, that of a
Servant. Luke presents Him as the second Man the last Adam, and John as "The Word made flesh", "The Son of
God".
It has been said concerning the fact that we have four gospels "The marvel is that we have not had more".
Luke tells us that many had "taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of things which are most surely
believed among us" (Luke 1:1). Some find a difficulty in believing the doctrine of Inspiration when faced with
these four separate accounts.
Yet a consideration of the duplication of another important event might enable the
reader to see that purpose, influencing choice of material under Divine superintendence, may fully answer the case.
Paul's conversion is recorded in Acts 9, again in Acts 22 and yet again Acts 26. To which must be added his
own references in the epistles. The first record made by Luke places the conversion and commission of Paul in its
historic setting, the accounts given by Paul himself follow this primary record, but with that freedom which must
ever mark the retailing of first hand knowledge. Moreover, there is one item of information which neither Acts 9
nor Acts 22 record , namely, the words actually spoken from heaven to Paul himself. These are found for the first
time in Acts 26:16-18 and their absence from the earlier accounts can be satisfactorily explained for dispensational
reasons. In like manner we shall discover that there is a definite and sufficient reason for the fourfold presentation
of the Gospels " each has a purpose to fulfil and each has been written with a specific object. The critics" view is
that because there are similar passages in each of the four gospels, that there must, therefore, have been an earlier
common original which is now, apparently, "lost". The critics however cannot agree among themselves as to which
Gospel denotes this supposed original. Urquhart has given a table showing six different theories, in which Matthew,
Mark and Luke have respectively been "proved" to be the original, and he comments :
"In other words, criticism tells us (1) that each of the three was the original Gospel; (2) that each of the three
was derived from another; and (3) that each of the three was derived from the two others!"
There has probably occurred to the reader, as it has to the writer, that a trite comment of Euclid namely,
"which is absurd", could be quoted very fittingly here.
Dr. E.A. Abbott wrote :
"It is well known that in many parts of the four gospels the same words and phrases are curiously interlaced,
in such a way as to suggest that the writers have borrowed either from each other or from some common source".
This conclusion has stultified research and led its followers into the blind alley of self contradiction.
John Urquhart replies :
"But why? Is the explanation not at least equally good that they have come from One Mind, by which the
similarity was preserved when no variation was called for?"
This is illuminating, it involves us in no contradictions, it accepts both the differences and the agreements as
coming from ONE AUTHOR, God the Holy Spirit, who caused the four-fold Gospel to be written in harmony with
that Divine purpose which it was the blessed object of the Son of His love to bring to glorious fruition.
The accompanying diagram may help the reader to visualise this fourfold gospel.