Expositor's Bible: The Gospel of Matthew

Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistencies in hyphenation, and apparent punctuation and spelling errors, have been corrected. Repetitions of of and the have been removed.
Inconsistencies in spelling have been corrected by the following changes: chapters 3 and 4, Judea to Judæa ; chapters 5 and 9, intrusted to entrusted ; chapter 10, baptized to baptised ; chapter 21, Cesarea to Cæsarea .
An advertisement for the Expositor's Bible series has been moved to the end of the text.
THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. EDITED BY THE REV. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D., Editor of The Expositor.
CONTENTS.
CHAP.PAGE

THE New Testament opens appropriately with the four Gospels; for, though in their present form they are all later in date than some of the Epistles, their substance was the basis of all apostolic preaching and writing. As the Pentateuch to the Old Testament, so is the fourfold Evangel to the New.
That there should be a manifold presentation of the great facts which lie at the foundation of our faith and hope, was both to be expected and desired. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, as proclaimed by the first preachers of it, while in substance always the same, would be varied in form, and in number and variety of details, according to the individuality of the speaker, the kind of audience before him, and the special object he might have in view at the time. Before any form of presentation had been crystallized, there would therefore be an indefinite number of Gospels, each according to the individual preacher of Christ and Him crucified. It is, therefore, a marvellous proof of the guidance and control of the Divine Spirit that out of these numerous oral Gospels there should emerge four, each perfect in itself, and together affording, as with the all-round completeness of sculpture, a life-like representation of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is manifestly of great advantage to have these several portraits of our Lord, permitting us to see Him from different points of view, and with varying arrangements of light and shade; all the more that, while three of them set forth in abundant variety of detail that which is more external,—the face, the features, the form, all the expression of that wondrous Life,—the fourth, appropriately called on this account the Gospel of the heart of Jesus, unveils more especially the hidden riches of His inner Life. But, besides this, a manifold Gospel was needed, in order to meet the wants of man in the many-sidedness of his development. As the heavenly city lieth four square, with gates on the east, and the west, and the north, and the south, to admit strangers coming from all points of the compass; so must there be in the presentation of the Gospel an open door for all mankind. How this great purpose is attained by the fourfold Gospel with which the New Testament opens can be readily shewn; and even a brief statement of it may serve a useful purpose as introductory to our study of that which is known as the First Gospel.