New Testament Revelation

(The Four Writers)

Peace be to you :

New Testament Revelation

– In the last lesson we studied the Old Testament prophecies showing that Jesus Christ alone was pre-announced.

– Now we must study the New Testament documents concerning his life, but still from the historical point of view.

 

As yet we do not know the Scriptures are the inspired.

 

It may be asked – If there were so many prophecies in the Old Testament – — – Why did not the Jew accept Him?

– Why did they not recognize Christ as the Son of God and The Messias?

 

1^st  REASON – Why Christ wasn’t recognized as the Son of God.

One reason is this:

– they made no objection to fulfillment of individual prophecies of in our Lord. But

– General conception which the Rabbis had formed relating to the Messias differed totally from that in which He revealed Himself.

– Remember that the Jews had been subjected for centuries to all manner of political slavery

– by the Babylonians

– the Chaldeans

– the Greeks

– and the Romans

– Wasn’t it natural therefore for them to begin to lose the Spiritual Aspects of promises.

– And began to expected a Savior who would save them from political Bondage rather  the Spiritual Bondage of Sin.

– And that was what happened – in many instances – The Romans were walking their streets – Roman judges were in their courtrooms.  Actually – Therefore they thought that a Savior means a political liberator.

• That in any case – Why should we be blaming them?

– Remember we have exactly the same prophecies today in the Old Testament (OT).

– Just as valid for us today as they were for the Jews

• Why do not many more believe them today – then actually do?

 

• 2^nd Reason – Why Christ wasn’t recognized as the Son of God.

 

Now to return to this problem-

Just as there is Evolution in the Material Universe / so there is a gradual unfolding of the Divine Plan in the Spiritual Universe:

• In the Cosmos – Man has a very unique position.
• All evolution tends towards him. Everything beneath him ministers to his purposes. Chemicals , Plants, Animals would have never come into being if there had not been a higher creature , which they were destined to serve – Namely Man.

–   Evolution has God for its Cause, Man for its Goal.

–   Now as the material universe is a vestibule for man, so all human history, Jew and Gentile, is a vestibule for Christ.

– As the Universe would be chaos without man to organize it.

– So History would be meaningless if it were not a highway which provided the way for man to realize his capacities for Love and Truth in Christ.

 

Now this centrality of Christ in history as revealed in New Testament:

• But here we must make certain ideas very clear:
• First – though it is too early to speak of the church- We must however anticipation just a bit, and tell you :

1: -The Church did not come out of the Bible.

-The Church did not begin as a religion of a book.

– It was first Preached as a Living Voice – fallen not from

pen – but from the Lips of The Master.

– The Doctrine of the Church in the beginning was not a     collection of writings. – What was called “The Word of God” – “The Word of Salvation.”

– And the first Apostles/Ministers of the Church were called “Ministers of the Word.”

 

2:  Our Lord did not write.

– Nor were the Gospels written mediately after his death.

It was only when the church had emerged from her cradle and

Born her zeal across Asia Minor and Greece, as far as Rome, all that was Caesars’, it was only then, that the New Testament was written.

• The only time our blessed Lord ever wrote was in the sand, in the occasion when the woman was taken in adultery.(1)
• Nor did our Lord tell his apostles to write.
• Our Lord did not write because he was not an author, but an authority

– when a man leaves a literary work behind him, there is a tendency to forget the man and to concentrate on his writings.

Socrates never wrote. He was known through his disciples, and therefore his personality remains a living one.

Plato on the other hand wrote, and he’s known mostly through his writings, only secondarily in his person. Not that there is any comparison between Socrates and Christ.

The fact is that Christ did not want to give grounds to the temptation to look upon his written word, rather the words that were written about him.

He wanted us to take hold of his person. He would set his doctrine not on paper, but in the members of his New Covenant or New Testament.

The very first task of the apostles after the death of the Divine Master, in obedience to his commands, was to preach. Our Lord had many firsthand witnesses of his resurrection, all around him. So the apostles began preaching the gospel orally.

The earliest converts were gathered around the apostle to receive the revelation from their lips.

They were taught by men who had seen, had heard and had touched Christ. They had learned about Christ and his gospel from those who had lived intimately with him for three years.  And as it says in the Acts, “…had eaten and also taken drink with him….” (2)

3^rd Point:

– It was only about thirty (30) years after the death of our Lord that the first Canonical Gospels were written.

– And far from replacing oral teaching -The written Gospels was a help not an obstacle for the leaders of the church.

– The Church therefore existed before the Gospels.

-It was the Church that composed the Gospels

-It was in the Church that the New Testament was written

– Therefore: During first thirty years the Church knew Christ’s messages through the preaching of the apostles and others.

-This is the meaning of the word “evangel” or “Gospel”

-means “Good tidings”, not a good book.

-Good tidings of Salvation brought by the Servants of the Word.

-So it must be kept in mind that the teaching of our Christ was not put into writing until the first witnesses were beginning to disappear.

 

-Actually it was the sudden and unforeseen acceptance of Christianity by Pagans that called for the Christian writings.

-Many of the Writings were written to answer very specific needs of the moment.

– Paul, for example, had to carry-on a tremendous correspondence with missions he had started.  He had no intention of producing literature in the Greek sense of the word.

-Furthermore, the rapid growth of the church brought on new problems.

-By year 50 it was becoming imperative that the oral methods of the teaching of the apostles should be communicated through writing. So that the Content of oral teaching would be preserved.

-St. Luke tells us in the beginning of his gospel that several attempts were made in this direction. And his statement has been verified by recently discovered fragments that pivot from unknown gospels. Though not inspired Gospels. (3)

 

New Testament Documents will reveal that the Bible has two acts: as do many dramas in the theater:

 

These acts are vitally related one to the other. The second act is an advance upon the first, that carries the plot to its full realization

• Both acts are covenants or agreements or testaments.
• Now these covenants were given, the old and then the new time.

 

• One of the principal covenants of the Old Testament was given at Mt Sinai
• And the New, very much related to Cavalry.
• Old Testament or Covenant / God dealt with only one nation and indirectly with the others.

New Testament / God is dealing with all nations.

• Old Testament or Old Covenant / justification was by the LAW.

New Testament/ justification is by GRACE.

• Old Testament, emphasizes on doing certain things that God commanded.

New Testament, emphasizes is on being something.

• Old Testament, created expectations.

New Testament, realizations.

• Old Testament, stirs a longing in the Heart.

New Testament, satisfaction.

• Old Testament, man seeks God.

New Testament, God seeks man.

• Old Testament, man is condemned as a sinner.

New Testament, man is delivered from sin.

 

–    If we had only the Old Testament, we would have a LOCK without a KEY, a STORY without a PLOT, a PROMISE without FULFILLMENT, a SEED without a FRUIT.

 

–   If we had The New Testament without the Old would be an END without a BEGINNING, a FULFILLMENT without a PROMISE, a SUPER STRUCTURE without a FOUNDATION.

 

As it was said long ago….

– “The New is in the Old concealed: the Old is in the New revealed.

The New is in the Old contained: the Old is in the New explained”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BIBLE

 

– Now we have already told you that the Old Testament had A collection of books, number is 45.

–  The Protestant churches give the number as 38:  thus there are 7 books in the old testament of the Catholic Bible which are not found in the Protestant Bibles. What these books are you get by further discover by reading on the subject. (omitted are Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Baruch, Tobit, and the 2 Maccabees).

 

-The New Testament is composed of 27 books: 4 of which are historical narratives of the life of our Lord, called the Gospels.

 

• And there is The account of the early years of the Church, this is known as the Acts of the Apostles.

 

– there are 14 books called the Epistles of St. Paul.

-addition to that there are 7 other Epistles: 2 from St. Peter, 1 of James, 1 of Jude and 3 of John.

-Finally the end, the book called Apocalypse, it was written by St. John, who is also the author of the fourth gospel.

 

WHY FOUR GOSPELS?

-Now we come to each of the four documents that are known as the Gospels.

– You may ask why are there four? Why should there be different accounts of our Blessed Lord?

– The answer as we will show is because they were addressed to different audiences. This is something you must always keep in mind when reading the four Gospels.

– take for example Saint Paul’s conversion. That is told three times in the acts of the apostles. Why is it told three times? Because there was a different intention each time it was told. The first time it was told was to explain how he became an apostle. The second, Paul’s defense before the Jews in the temple. And the third, Paul’s defense before the Romans, namely Agrippa and Festus.

– So it is with the life of Our Lord. Each of the evangelist, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote for a different audience.

– Secondly, because each wrote for a different audience, each wanted to bring out a different phase of the life of our Lord.

– Light is the same by nature, it is governed always by fixed laws, but note how it’s reflections are infinitely varied. Turning to purple, blue, Gold according to the nature upon which is shines. Light plays on different keys.

– So each of the four Gospels, plays a different key. Because it’s addressed to a different audience. Because each one wanted to bring out One phase of the multiple variety of the person of Christ.

– These are the audiences principally to which each of the four address themselves:

 

• MATTHEW: wrote principally for the Jews
• MARK: wrote principally for the Romans
• LUKE: wrote principally for the Greeks
• JOHN: wrote for the Christian world

 

St. Matthew

First, we begin with Matthew.  We said that Matthew wrote his Gospel for the Jews. Matthew wrote to show that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised MESSIAS. His audience therefore was a shut-in group whose gaze went not beyond the horizons of Judea. It is wholly Palestinian in character. We are steeped everywhere in Matthew in the Old Testament. It is obvious, is it not, that the very best way to convince the Jews that our Lord was the promised Messiah of the Old Testament was to quote the Old Testament, and to show that our Blessed Lord was pre-announced? Since, therefore, Matthew directed his Gospel to the Jews, he was very careful to unite the Old and the New Testaments, often quoting Christ to say: “I am come not to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it”. (4)

Now there are 1,068 verses in the Gospel of Matthew, and about 3/5 of those are taken up with words of our Lord. But, the point to be emphasized is, he is using the argument to the Jews, you must believe that CHRIST is the SON of GOD, because he was pre-figured, he was pre-announced in our scriptures. (5)

There are in all, in Matthew, 129 Old Testament references. Fifty-three of them are citations or texts and 76 are allusions. And these references are taken from 25 books of the Old Testament and from the major parts of them, too, all the prophets and the Psalms. We were showing that Christ was the expected Messiah and saying that Matthew used that as his argument. That is why, ten times, Matthew uses the expression after a text or before a text in the Old Testament “that it might be fulfilled” , for example “that it might be fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Micah” or “what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah”, and he also uses the expression “which was spoken of” by Jeremiah, by David, and so forth. He uses that expression fourteen times.

The Law of the Old Testament demanded a Priest, a Prophet and a King, therefore in the first part of the Gospel of Matthew we find Christ presented as a King, then we find Him presented as a Teacher and then finally as a Priest.

Now Matthew was a tax collector. He was a dishonest and disloyal Jew because he sold himself off to the Romans. He was known as a publican. A publican was one who had bargained with the Romans who had captured and were masters of the country. He would bargain with the Romans for the collection of taxes. He might promise, in our money, say $200,000 for a certain area in Capernaum. Then he would collect $400,000 and pocket $200,000. That was why he was so much despised by his own people. Then, after he meets our Lord, and our Lord said, “Come, follow me”, (6) Matthew leaves everything – his counting table, his money – in fact, he does take one thing with him, his pen because he writes a Gospel and he becomes the most patriotic of all the evangelists. No one loves Israel more than Matthew, and he loves Israel, he loves the Old Testament, simply because he had discovered its fulfillment.

It is worth pointing out, too, how his vocation as a tax collector is reflected in what he writes. Matthew uses three words for money which occur nowhere else: tribute (7), piece of money (8), and talent (9), then he uses words like gold (10) and silver (11)  which do not occur in the other Gospels. Two parables of the talent are recorded by Matthew only. He was the only one of the evangelists who would have handled that much money. A talent was worth about 300 times as much as a dollar and about 8,000 times as much as a penny, of which Mark speaks. Matthew the tax collector also uses the word

Moneychangers (12) which does not occur elsewhere except as a debt, and to which a publican such, as Matthew, would naturally make reference.

Such, in brief, is the Gospel of Matthew.

 

 

 

 

St. Mark

 

Mark wrote for gentile readers and for Roman readers in particular. The gentile destination of the Gospel is rather evident from the fact that there are few Old Testament quotations. Furthermore, there are a number of Latin words which are found in Mark and which are not found in the other Gospels. This was because he was addressing the Roman mind. He therefore omits certain parables, which had a Jewish significance like laborers in the vineyard, (13) the parable of the two sons,(14) and the marriage of the King’s son (15), Old Testament scripture and prophecy which meant so much to the Jews did not mean quite so much to the Romans.

Another fact that is to be noted about Mark is that he was a follower of Peter. They are often mentioned in Scripture together and in tradition. Peter calls Mark his son, that is to say his spiritual son, and implies that Mark was in Rome one time with him. And the Gospel of Mark indicates that he was very close to Peter. First of all, there is much about Galilee and in particular, Capernaum, which was Peter’s place of residence. And the Gospel points to an eyewitness, wither directly or indirectly, as its author. And that eyewitness, obviously, was Peter. For example, we are told about Peter’s home and his mother-in-law. (16)

Mark says it was Peter who called our Lord’s attention to the withered tree. (17)  It is also worth noting that details favorable to Peter are omitted in the Gospel while others, not at all favorable to Peter, are recorded. The hand that transcribed the story was that of Mark, but the voice that speaks is unquestionably that of Peter, who was on the spot.

What Mark brings out, with swift and vivid touches, is the personal actions and work of the Son of God as Lord of the World and conqueror of the hearts of men. This was something that the Roman mind could understand.

And so, he represented Christ as establishing an increasing dominion over evil and over nature and overcoming the powers that opposed Him until at last, He rose from the dead.

 

 

St. Luke

Next was the Gospel of Luke. Luke wrote his Gospel sometime before the year 67, and Mark’s, of course, is written before that time. Luke was born in Antioch. By education and birth he belonged to the Greek world. His Gospel is addressed principally to the Greeks and was composed in Greek surroundings without precluding the hypothesis of its being completed in Rome. And Luke evidently, and perhaps had, the evangelist Mark at his side or certainly his Gospel when he was writing.

Luke was a medical doctor. This is evident from medical terms which Luke uses. Paul speaks of Luke as the “beloved physician”. Luke’s narrative shows a preference for stories of healing. Language is covered by technical medical terms. Traces of diagnosis occur, also medical phraseology. In fact, you can prove that Luke was a doctor by examine certain words that he uses. Mark and Matthew have occasion to use the word “needle”. Now the word “needle”, which they used in Greek, is “sewing needle”. When Luke uses the word “needle”, he does not use the Greek word for “sewing needle”, but for a surgical needle, a word that was used by a Greek physician who lived after him by only about 70 or 80 years.

Then Luke records that the Lord sent forth his missionaries both to preach and to heal. He also preserved our Lord’s words, “Physician, heal thyself.”(18)

Most important of all, he alone narrates the Virgin Birth. (19) If there was anyone whom we think would not narrate the Virgin Birth, if it were not true, it would be Luke simply because he was a physician. Yet, he’s the one, the doctor who gives us an account of it.

 

St. John

Finally, John wrote toward the end of the first century and for the Christian world. By this time a generation had lived which had seen God in the flesh. Burning words of the Master had circulated from home to home and from city to city. Men were eating the Bread of Life. Paul’s Epistles were circulated and spread like prairie fire over the Roman Empire.

Matthew had written for the Jews, Mark especially for the Romans, Luke for the Greeks – these were three representative peoples of the world. But John wished to put on record the spiritual aspects of our Lord’s ministry, which had not been recorded by the other three and for which the Jews, the Greeks and the Romans were not then ready.

For John directs his Gospel to the Christians. The fourth Gospel, before its writing and publishing had been spoken by its author to an immediate circle of disciples. But when he set it down he presumed that his readers already know about the life of Christ. St. John proposes to perfect this knowledge, make his readers penetrate into the intimacy of the Master, and to understand his most profound thoughts.

St. John also said at the end of his Gospel that “the world would not be large enough to contain the books if he had written down all the miracles our Lord had worked.” (20)

When the church was finally established throughout the Roman empire when John wrote, it was no wonder, then, that after having seen the persecution under Nero, after having suffered his own banishment under Domitian, after having heard of the trials of Paul, that when the time came for him to write the Gospel it would be the echo of a heart whose perturbed strings were smitten by blood stained hands and then swept by the mighty winds of inspiration of the Spirit into the greatest Gospel that was ever written. This is the Gospel of St. John.”

God Love You!

Footnotes:

1. 1. Jn 8:6

2 Ac 2:42

3 Lk 1:1-4

4 Mt 5:17

5 Mt 2:1-6

6 Mt 9:9

7 Mt 17:25

8 Mt 17:27

9 Mt 25:15

10 Mt 23:16

11 Mt 26:15

12 Mt 21:12

13 Mt 20:1-16

14 Mt 21:28-32

15 Mt 22:1-14

16 Mt 8:14

17 Mk 11:21

18 Lk 4:23

19 Lk 2:1-20

20 Jn 21:25