Why are there four Gospels?
by Monty Sholund

From the February 2008 Philogian

It is with a sense of humility, thankfulness and anticipation that we put our hearts and heads to the study of the Gospel of John.  Martin Luther is reported to have said:  “If a tyrant succeeded in destroying the Holy Scriptures and only a single copy of the Epistle to the Romans and of the Gospel of John escaped him, Christianity would be saved.”  To this F. Godet comments, in his invaluable commentary on the Gospel,  “He spoke truly, for the fourth Gospel presents the object of the Christian faith in its most perfect splendor and the Epistle to the Romans describes the way of faith which leads to this object, with an incomparable clearness.”  We enter into this E-LINK exercise with a great sense of privilege and possibilities.

For many years I asked myself the question, “Why are there four gospels and not only one.  Or why aren’t there five, or six.”  And it was wonderful to learn that there had to be four and could not have been more for several reasons.

Throughout the Old Testament we see many prophecies regarding the coming of Messiah.  A careful examination will discover they fall under four categories.  These are illustrated in two ways.  The first is found in Ezekiel, chapter 1, where the prophet is trying to describe the one whose appearance gave the likeness of the glory of the Lord. (vs.28).  And if you have your Bible at hand, you will have seen that this one seemed reflected like being four living creatures (vs.5), with the face of a man, a face of a lion, a face of an ox and the face of an eagle (vs.10).  (You’ll find this same statement in Revelation 4:7).

Barclay, in his Daily Study of the Bible, p.160, comments,  “It was not long before the early church found certain symbolism in these living creatures, in particular of the four Gospels.  The earliest and fullest identification was made by Irenaeus in about 170 A.D.  He held that the four living creatures represented four aspects of the work of Jesus Christ, which in turn are represented in the four Gospels.”  I see in these four symbols a useful presentation of Christ in the following way:  Matthew represents the King and is particularly directed to Jewish readers, full of Old Testament references. Mark represents the Ox, a symbol of service and sacrifice, with no reference to Christ’s birth or child-hood, since we are not interested in the genealogy of a servant.  Luke represents the perfect Man, with the genealogy traced back to Adam and Christ’s deep interest in prayer and in reaching out to the neglected and needy.  So John is represented by the Eagle, which in Hebrew thought represented Deity.  In the Gospel of John we see the God-Man, without any reference to Bethlehem, but with a constant presentation of Him as the Eternal Word, made flesh, dwelling among us, revealing the mind of God and His redemptive love. 

We approach this window into the mind of God prayerfully and thankfully. 

“Lord Jesus, we marvel at the wonder of this great Gospel of your amazing Grace and thank you for the privilege of pondering it together. Bless my friends, even as we praise you for each other in this special, prayerful fellowship around the world.”

Thank you, my partner, for being along.   Great times ahead.  Cheerio!  Monty

This article was originally sent out as an E-Link in March of 2000 as an introduction to a study on the gospel of John. We continue to send out Monty's teachings via email. if you would like to be included, please contact our office at info@vsb.net.

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