ON THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST
ACCORDING TO MATTHEW, MARK, AND LUKE
In order to read with profit the Evangelical history, it is of great importance to understand the meaning of the word Gospel.1 We shall thus be enabled to ascertain what design those heavenly witnesses had in writing, and to what object the events related by them must be referred. That their histories did not receive this name from others, but were so denominated by the Authors, is evident from Mark, who expressly says (1:1) that he relates the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is one passage in the writings of Paul, from which above all others a clear and certain definition of the word Gospel may be obtained, where he tells us that it …
was promised by God in the Scriptures, through the prophets, concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of sanctification, by the resurrection from the dead,
(Romans 1:2-4.)
First, this passage shows that the Gospel is a testimony of the revealed salvation, which had been formerly promised to the Fathers in an uninterrupted succession of ages. It points out, at the same time, a distinction between the promises which kept the hope of the people in suspense, and this joyful message, by which God declares that he has accomplished those things which he had formerly required them to expect.2 In the same manner he states a little afterwards, that in the Gospel
the righteousness of God is openly manifested, which was testified by the Law and the Prophets, (Romans 3:21.)
The same apostle calls it, in another passage, an Embassy by which the reconciliation of the world to God, once accomplished by the death of Christ, is daily offered to men, (2 Corinthians 5:20.)
Secondly, Paul means not only that Christ is the pledge of all the blessings that God has ever promised, but that we have in him a full and complete exhibition of them; as he elsewhere declares that all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen, (2 Corinthians 1:20.) And, indeed, the freely bestowed adoption, by which we are made sons of God, as it proceeds from the good pleasure which the Father had from eternity, has been revealed to us in this respect, that Christ (who alone is the Son of God by nature) has clothed himself with our flesh, and made us his brethren. That satisfaction by which sins are blotted out, so that we are no longer under the curse and the sentence of, death, is to be found nowhere else than in the sacrifice of his death. Righteousness, and salvation, and perfect happiness, are founded on his resurrection.
The Gospel, therefore, is a public exhibition of the Son of God manifested in the flesh, (1 Timothy 3:16,) to deliver a ruined world, and to restore men from death to life. It is justly called a good and joyful message, for it contains perfect happiness. Its object is to commence the reign of God, and by means of our deliverance from the corruption of the flesh, and of our renewal by the Spirit, to conduct us to the heavenly glory. For this reason it is often called the kingdom of heaven, and the restoration to a blessed life, which is brought to us by Christ, is sometimes called the kingdom of God: as when Mark says that Joseph waited for the kingdom of God, (Mark 15:43,) he undoubtedly refers to the coming of the Messiah.
Hence it is evident that the word Gospel applies properly to the New Testament, and that those writers are chargeable with a want of precision,3 who say that it was common to all ages, and who suppose that the Prophets, equally with the Apostles, were ministers of the Gospel. Widely different is the account which Christ gives us, when he says, that
the law and the prophets were till John, and that since that time the kingdom of God began to be preached, (Luke 16:16.)
Mark, too, as we mentioned a little ago, declares that the preaching of John was the beginning of the Gospel, (John 1:1.) Again, the four histories, which relate how Christ discharged the office of Mediator, have with great propriety received this designation. As the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ contain the whole of our salvation, and are therefore the peculiar subject of the Gospel, the name of Evangelists is justly and suitably applied to those who place before our eyes Christ who has been sent by the Father, that our faith may acknowledge him to be the Author of a blessed life.