Companion to the Bible

by E. P. Barrows

And first, with respect to time. The first three gospels—frequently called the synoptical gospels, or the synoptics, because from the general similarity of their plan and materials their contents are capable of being summed up in a synopsis—record our Lord's prophecy of the overthrow of Jerusalem. The three records of this prediction wear throughout the costume of a true prophecy, not of a prophecy written after the event. They are occupied, almost exclusively, with the various signs by which the approach of that great catastrophe might be known, and with admonitions to the disciples to hold themselves in readiness for it. Matthew, for example, devotes fifty verses to the account of the prophecy and the admonitions connected with it. Of these, only four, chap. 24:19-22, describe the calamities of the scene, and that in the most general terms. Now, upon the supposition that the evangelist wrote before the event, all this is natural. Our Lord's design in uttering the prophecy was not to gratify the idle curiosity of the disciples, but to warn them beforehand in such a way that they might escape the horrors of the impending catastrophe. He dwelt, therefore, mainly on the signs of its approach; and with these, as having a chief interest for the readers, the record of the prediction is mostly occupied. It is impossible, on the other hand, to conceive that one who wrote years after the destruction of the city and temple should not have dwelt in more detail on the bloody scenes connected with their overthrow, and have given in other ways also a historic coloring to his account. We may safely say that to write a prophecy after the event in such a form as that which we have in either of the first three gospels, transcends the power of any uninspired man; and as to inspired narratives, the objectors with whom we are now dealing deny them altogether.

But there are, in the record of this prophecy, some special indications of the time when the evangelists wrote. According to Matthew, the disciples asked, ver. 3: "When shall these things"—the destruction of the buildings of the temple—"be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?" These questions our Lord proceeded to answer in such a way that the impression on the minds of the hearers (to be rectified only by the course of future events) must have been that the overthrow of the temple and city would be connected with his second coming and the end of the world. "Immediately after the tribulation of those days," says Matthew, "shall the sun be darkened," etc. The probable explanation of this peculiar form of the prophecy is that it does actually include all three events; the fulfilment which it had in the destruction of the city and temple by the Romans being only an earnest of a higher fulfilment hereafter. But however this may be, it is important to notice that the evangelists, in their record of the prophecy, are evidently unconscious of any discrepancy, real or apparent, that needs explanation; which could not have been the case had they written years after the event predicted. "It may be safely held," says Professor Fisher, Supernatural Origin of Christianity, p. 172, "that had the evangelist been writing at a later time, some explanation would have been thrown in to remove the seeming discrepancy between prophecy and fulfilment."

It should be further noticed that the evangelists Matthew and Mark, in reference to "the abomination of desolation" standing in the holy place, throw in the admonitory words, "Let him that readeth understand." These are not the Saviour's words, but those of the narrators calling the attention of believers to a most important sign requiring their immediate flight to the mountains. Before the overthrow of the city these words had a weighty office; after its overthrow they would have been utterly superfluous. Their presence in such a connection is proof that the record was written before the event to which it refers.

Admitting the genuineness and authenticity of the book of Acts, (which will be considered hereafter,) we have a special proof of the early composition of the gospel according to Luke. The book of Acts ends abruptly with Paul's two years residence at Rome, which brings us down to A.D. 65, five years before the destruction of Jerusalem. The only natural explanation of this fact is that here the composition of the book of Acts was brought to a close. The date of the gospel which preceded, Acts 1:1, must therefore be placed still earlier.

If, now, we examine the gospel of John, we find its internal character agreeing with the ancient tradition that it was written at Ephesus late in the apostle's life. That it was composed at a distance from Judea, in a Gentile region, is manifest from his careful explanation of Jewish terms and usages, which among his countrymen would have needed no explanation. No man writing in Judea, or among the Galileans who habitually attended the national feasts at Jerusalem, would have said, "And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh," 6:4; "Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand," 7:2, etc. The absence of all reference to the overthrow of the Jewish polity, civil and ecclesiastical, may be naturally explained upon the supposition that the apostle wrote some years after that event, when his mind had now become familiar with the great truth that the Mosaic institutions had forever passed away to make room for the universal dispensation of Christianity; and that he wrote, too, among Gentiles for whom the abolition of these institutions had no special interest. In general style and spirit, moreover, the gospel of John is closely allied to his first epistle, and cannot well be separated from it by a great interval of time; but the epistle undoubtedly belongs to a later period of the apostle's life.

From the language of John, chap. 5:2, "Now there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep-gate, a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue, Bethesda, having five porches,"—it has been argued that, when John wrote, the city must have been still standing. But Eusebius speaks of the pool as remaining in his day, and why may not the porches, as useful to the Roman conquerors, have been preserved, at least for a season?

We have seen the relation of John's gospel to the other three in respect to time. It must have been written several years later than the last of them; perhaps not less than fifteen years. If, now, we look to its relation in regard to character, we must say that it differs from them as widely as it well could while presenting to our view the same divine and loving Saviour. Its general plan is different. For reasons not known to us, the synoptical gospels are mainly occupied with our Lord's ministry in Galilee. They record only his last journey to Jerusalem, and the momentous incidents connected with it. John, on the contrary, notices his visits to Jerusalem year by year. Hence his materials are, to a great extent, different from theirs; and even where he records the same events—as, for example, the miracle of the loaves and fishes, and the last supper—he connects with them long discourses, which the other evangelists have omitted. Particularly noticeable are our Lord's oft-repeated discussions with the unbelieving Jews respecting his Messiahship, and his confidential intercourse with his disciples, in both of which we have such treasures of divine truth and love. How strikingly this gospel differs from the others in its general style and manner every reader feels at once. It bears throughout the impress of John's individuality, and by this it is immediately connected with the epistles that bear his name. It should be added that in respect to the time when our Lord ate the passover with his disciples there is an apparent disagreement with the other three gospels, which the harmonists have explained in various ways.

The essential point of the above comparison is this: Notwithstanding the striking difference between the later fourth gospel and the earlier three, it was at once received by all the churches as of apostolic authority. Now upon the supposition of its genuineness, both its peculiar character and its undisputed reception everywhere are easily explained. John, the bosom disciple of our Lord, wrote with the full consciousness of his apostolic authority and his competency as a witness of what he had himself seen and heard. He therefore gave his testimony in his own independent and original way. How far he may have been influenced in his selection of materials by a purpose to supply what was wanting in the earlier gospels, according to an old tradition, it is not necessary here to inquire; it is sufficient to say that, under the illumination of the Holy Spirit, he marked out that particular plan which we have in his gospel, and carried it out in his own peculiar manner, thus opening to the churches new mines, so to speak, of the inexhaustible fulness of truth and love contained in him in whom "dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily." And when this original gospel, so different in its general plan and style from those that preceded, made its appearance, the apostolic authority of its author secured its immediate and universal reception by the churches. All this is very plain and intelligible.

But upon the supposition that the gospel of John is a spurious production of the age succeeding that of the apostles, let any one explain, if he can, how it could have obtained universal and unquestioned apostolic authority. Its very difference from the earlier gospels must have provoked inquiry and examination, and these must have led to its rejection, especially at a time when some who had known the apostle yet survived; and no one now pretends to assign to it a later period.

15. We will next consider the relation of the first three gospels to each other. Here we have remarkable agreements with remarkable differences. The general plan of all three is the same. It is manifest also, at first sight, that there lies at the foundation of each a basis of common matter—common not in substance alone, but to a great extent in form also. Equally manifest is it that the three evangelists write independently of each other. Matthew, for example, did not draw his materials from Luke; for there is his genealogy of our Lord, and his full account of the sermon on the mount, not to mention other particulars. Nor did Luke take his materials from Matthew; for there is his genealogy also, with large sections of matter peculiar to himself. Mark has but little matter that is absolutely new; but where he and the other two evangelists record the same events, if one compares his narratives with theirs, he finds numerous little incidents peculiar to this gospel woven into them in a very vivid and graphic manner. They come in also in the most natural and artless way, as might be expected from one who, if not himself an eye-witness, received his information immediately from eye-witnesses. The three writers, moreover, do not always agree as to the order in which they record events; yet, notwithstanding the diversities which they exhibit, they were all received from the first as of equal authority.