Now many have undertaken to compile an account of the
things that have been fulfilled among us, like the accounts passed on to us by
those who were eyewitnesses and servants of the word from the beginning. So it
seemed good to me as well, because I have followed all things carefully from
the beginning, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,
so that you may know for certain the things you were taught.
Luke 1:1-4, New English Translation (NET)
So, how does a non-Jewish believer explain to another
non-Jew, maybe a believer, maybe not, why a supposed Jewish messiah figure is
important to non-Jews? We get some help in answering this, and other questions,
from the Expositor’s Bible Commentary:
THE four walls and the twelve gates of the Seer looked in
different directions, but together they guarded, and opened into, one City of
God. So the four Gospels look in different directions; each has its own
peculiar aspect and inscription; but together they lead towards, and unveil,
one Christ, "which is, and which was, and which is to come, the
Almighty." They are the successive quarterings of the one Light. We call
them "four" Gospels, though in reality they form but one, just as the
seven arches of color weave one bow; and that there should be four, and not
three or five, was the purpose and design of the Mind which is above all minds.
There are "diversities of operations" even in making Testaments, New
or Old; but it is one Spirit who is "over all, and in all"; and back
of all diversity is a heavenly unity-a unity that is not broken, but rather
beautified, by the variety of its component parts.
Turning to the third Gospel, its opening sentences strike
a key-note unlike the tone of the other three. Matthew, the Levite Apostle,
schooled in the receipt of custom-where parleying and preambling were not
allowed-goes to his subject with sharp abruptness, beginning his story with a
"genesis," "the book of the generation of Jesus Christ."
Mark, too, and John, without staying for any prelude, proceed at once to their
portrayals of the Divine Life, each starting with the same word "beginning"-though
between the "beginning" of St. Mark and that of St. John there is
room for an eternity. St. Luke, on the other hand, stays to give to his Gospel
a somewhat lengthy preface, a kind of vestibule, where we become acquainted
with the presence and personality of the verger, before passing within the
temple proper.
It is true the Evangelist does not here inscribe his
name; it is true that after inserting these lines of explanation, he loses
sight of himself completely, with a "sublime repressing of himself"
such as John did not know; but that he here throws the shadow of himself upon
the page of Scripture, calling the attention of all people and ages to the
"me also," shows clearly that the personal element cannot be
eliminated from the question of inspiration. Light is the same in its nature; it
moves only in straight lines; it is governed by fixed laws; but in its
reflections it is infinitely varied, turning to purple, blue, or gold,
according to the nature of the medium and reflecting substance. And what,
indeed, is beauty, what the harmony of colors, but the visible music as the
same light plays upon the diverse keys? Exactly the same law rules in
inspiration. As the Divine Love needed an incarnation, an enshrining in human
flesh, that the Divine Word might be vocal, so the Divine Light needs its
incarnation too. Indeed, we can scarcely conceive of any revelation of the
Divine Mind but as coming through a human mind. It needs the human element to
analyze and to throw it forward, just as the electric spark needs the dull
carbon-point to make it visible. Heaven and earth are here, as elsewhere,
"threads of the same loom," and if we take out one, even the earthly
woof of the humanities, we leave only a tangle; and if it is true of works of
art that "to know them we must know the man who produced them," it is
equally important, if we would know the Scripture, that we have some knowledge
of the scribe. And especially important is it here, for there are few books of
Scripture on which the writer’s own personality is more deeply impressed than
on the Gospel of St. Luke. The "me also" is only legible in the third
verse, but we may read it, between the lines, through the whole Gospel.
Concerning the life of St. Luke the facts are few. It has
been thought by some that he was one of the "certain Greeks" who came
to Jerusalem to worship; while others, again, suppose him to be the nameless
one of the two Emmaus travelers. But both these suppositions are set aside by
the fact that the Evangelist carefully separates himself from those who were
"eye witnesses," which he could not well have done had he taken part
in those closing scenes of the Lord’s life, or had he been honored with that
"infallible proof" of the Lord’s resurrection. That he was a Gentile
is evident; his speech betrayeth him; for he speaks with a Grecian accent,
while Greek idioms are sprinkled over his pages. Indeed, St. Paul speaks of him
as not being of the "circumcision," (Col_4:4; Col_4:14) and he
himself, in Act_1:19, speaks of the dwellers at Jerusalem, and the Aceldama of
"their" proper tongue. Tradition, with unanimous voice, represents
him as a native of Antioch, in Syria.
Responding to the Divine Voice that bids him
"write," St. Luke brings to the task new and special qualifications.
Familiar with the Old Testament Scriptures-at least in their Septuagint form,
as his many quotations show-intimately acquainted with the Hebrew faith and
ritual, he yet brings to his work a mind unwarped by its traditions. He knows
nothing of that narrowness of spirit that Hebraism unconsciously engendered,
with its insulation from the great outer world. His mount of vision was not
Mount Zion, but a new Pisgah, lying outside the sacred borders, and showing him
"all the kingdoms of the world," as the Divine thought of humanity
took possession of him. And not only so, we must remember that his connection
with Christianity has been mainly through St. Paul, who was the Apostle of the
"uncircumcision." For months, if not for years, he has been his close
companion, reading his innermost thoughts; and so long and so close together
have they been, their two hearts have learned to beat in a perfect synchronism.
Besides, we must not forget that the Gentile question-their status in the new
kingdom, and the conditions demanded of them-had been the burning question of
the early Church, and that it was at this same Antioch it had reached its
height. It was at Antioch the Apostle Peter had "dissembled," so soon
forgetting the lessons of the Caesarean Pentecost, holding himself aloof from
the Gentile converts until Paul felt constrained to rebuke him publicly; and it
was to Antioch came the decree of the Jerusalem Council, that Magna Charta
which recognized and enfranchised manhood, giving the privileges of the new
kingdom to Gentiles, without imposing upon them the Judaic an achronism of
circumcision. We can therefore well understand the bent of St. Luke’s mind and
the drift of his sympathies; and we may expect that his pen-though it is a reed
shaken with the breath of a higher inspiration-will at the same time move in
the direction of these sympathies. And it is exactly this-its
"gentility," if we may be allowed to give a new accent and a new
meaning to an old word-that is a prominent feature of the third Gospel. Not,
however, that St. Luke decries Judaism, or that he denies the
"advantage" the Jews have; he cannot do this without erasing
Scripture and silencing history; but what he does is to lift up the Son of Man
in front of their tabernacle of witness. He does not level down Judaism; he
levels up Christianity, letting humanity absorb nationality. And so the Gospel
of St. Luke, is the Gospel of the world, greeting "all nations, and
kindreds, and peoples, and tongues" with its "peace on earth."
St. Matthew traces the genealogy of Christ back to Abraham; St. Luke goes
farther back, to the fountain-head, where all the divergent streams meet and mingle,
as he traces the descent to Adam, the Son of God. Matthew shows us the
"wise men," lost in Jerusalem, and inquiring. "Where is He that
is born King of the Jews?" But St. Luke gives, instead, the "good
tidings" to "all people"; and then he repeats the angel song,
which is the key-note of his Gospel,
"Glory to God in the highest, goodwill toward men.
It is St. Luke only who records the first discourse at Nazareth, showing how in
ancient times, even, the mercy of God flowed out towards a Gentile widow and a
Gentile leper. St. Luke alone mentions the mission of the Seventy, whose very
number was a prophecy of a world-wide Gospel, seventy being the recognized
symbol of the Gentile world, as twelve stood for the Hebrew people. St. Luke
alone gives us the parable of the Good Samaritan, showing that all the virtues
did not reside in Israel, but that there was more of humanity, and so more of
Divinity, in the compassionate Samaritan than in their priest and Levite. St.
Luke alone records the call of Zacchaeus, the Gentile publican, telling how
Jesus cancelled their laws of heredity, passing him up among the sons of
Abraham. St. Luke alone gives us the twin parables of the lost coin and the
lost man, showing how Jesus had come to seek and to save that which was lost,
which was humanity, here, and there, and everywhere. And so there breathes all
through this Gospel a catholic spirit, more pronounced than in the rest, a
spirit whose rhythm and deep meaning have been caught in the lines."
"There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, Like the
wideness of the sea."
The only other fact of the Evangelist’s life we will here
notice is that of his profession; and we notice this simply because it enters
as a factor into his work, reappearing there frequently. He was a physician;
and from this fact some haste supposed that he was a freedman, since many of
the Roman physicians were of that class. But this by no means follows. All
physicians were not freedmen; while the language and style of St. Luke show him
to be an educated man, one, too, who walked in the upper classes of society.
Where he speaks natively, as here in the introduction, he uses a pure Greek,
somewhat rounded and ornate, in which there is a total absence of those
rusticisms common in St. Mark. That he followed his calling at Troas, where he
first joined St. Paul, is probable; but that he practiced it on board one of
the large corn-ships of the Mediterranean is a pure conjecture, for which even
his nautical language affords no presumption; for one cannot be at sea for a
few weeks-especially with an observant eye and attentive ear, as St. Luke’s
were-without falling naturally into nautical language. One’s speech soon tastes
of salt.
The calling of a physician naturally develops certain
powers of analysis and synthesis. It is the art of putting things together.
From the seen or felt symptoms he traces out the unseen cause. Setting down the
known qualities, by processes of comparison or of elimination he finds the
unknown quantity, which is the disease, its nature, and its seat. And so on the
pages of the third Gospel we frequently find the shadow of the physician. It
appears even in his brief preface; for as he sits down with ample materials
before him-on one side the first-hand testimony of "eyewitnesses,"
and on the other the many and somewhat garbled narratives of anonymous
scribes-we see the physician-Evangelist exercising a judicious selection, and
thus compounding or distilling his pure elixir. Then, too, a skilled and
educated physician would find easy access into the higher circles of society,
his very calling furnishing him with letters of introduction. And so, indeed,
we find it. Our physician dedicates his Gospel, and also the "Acts,"
to, not the "most excellent," but the "most noble"
Theophilus, giving to him the same title that he afterwards gave to Felix and
to Festus. Perhaps its English equivalent would be "the honorable."
At any rate it shows that this Theophilus was no mere myth, a locution for any
"friend of God," but that he was a person of rank and influence,
possibly a Roman governor. Then, too, St. Luke’s mention of certain names
omitted by the other Evangelists, such as Chuza and Manaen, would suggest that
probably he had some personal acquaintance with the members of Herod’s
household. Be this as it may, we recognize the "physician" in St.
Luke’s habits of observation, his attention to detail, his fondness for
grouping together resemblances and contrasts, his fuller reference to miracles
of healing, and his psychological observations. We find in him a student of the
humanities. Even in his portrayal of the Christ it is the human side of the
Divine nature that he emphasizes; while all through his Gospel, his thought of
humanity, like a wide-reaching sky, overlooks and embraces all such earthly
distinctions as position, sex, or race.
With a somewhat high-sounding word "Forasmuch,"
which here makes its solitary appearance in the pages of Scripture-a word, too,
which, like its English equivalent, is a treble compound-the Evangelist calls
our attention to his work, and states his reasons for undertaking it. It is
impossible for us to fix either the date or the place where this Gospel was
written, but probably it was some time between A.D. 58-60. Now, what was the
position of the Church at that date, thirty-five years after the Crucifixion?
The fiery tongues of Pentecost had flashed far and wide,
and from their heliogram even distant nations had read the message of peace and
love. Philip had witnessed the wonderful revival in "the (a) city of
Samaria." Antioch, Caesarea, Damascus, Lystra, Philippi, Athens,
Rome-these names indicate, but do not attempt to measure, the wide and
ever-widening circle of light. In nearly every town of any size there is the
nucleus of a Church; while Apostles, Evangelists, and Christian merchants are proclaiming
the new kingdom and the new laws everywhere. And since the visits of the
Apostles would be necessarily brief, it would only be a natural and general
wish that some permanent record should be made of their narratives and
teaching. In other places, which lay back of the line of Apostles’ travel, the
story would reach them, passed from mouth to mouth, with all the additions of
rumor, and exaggerations of Eastern loquacity. It is to these ephemeral Gospels
the Evangelist now refers; and distinguishing, as he does, the "many"
from the "eyewitnesses" and "ministers of the word," he
shows that he does not refer to the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark-which
probably he has not seen-for one was an Apostle, and both were "eyewitnesses."
There is no censure implied in these words, nor does the expression "taken
in hand" in itself imply failure; but evidently, to St. Luke’s mind, these
manifold narratives were incomplete and unsatisfactory. They contain some of
the truth, but not all that the world should know. Some are put together by
unskilled hands, and some have more or less of fable blended with them. They
need sifting, winnowing, that the chaff may be blown away, and the seed tares
separated from the wheat. Such is the physician’s reason for now assuming the
role of an Evangelist. The "forasmuch," before being entered on the
pages of his Scriptures, had struck upon the Evangelist’s soul, setting it
vibrating like a bell, and moving mind and hand alike in sympathy.
And so we see how, in ways simple and purely natural,
Scripture grows. St. Luke was not conscious of any special influence resting
upon him. He did not pose as an oracle or as the mouthpiece of an oracle,
though he was all that, and vastly more. He does not even know that he is doing
any great work; and who ever does? A generous, unselfish thought takes
possession of him. He will sacrifice leisure and ease, that he may throw
forward to others the light that has fallen upon his own heart and life. He will
be a truth-seeker and a light-bearer for others. Here, then, we see how a human
mind falls into gear with the Divine mind, and human thought gets into the
rhythm and swing of the higher thought. Simply natural, purely human, are all
his processes of reasoning, comparing, and planning, and the whole Gospel is
but the perfect bloom of this seed-thought. But whence came this thought? This
is the question. Did it not grow out of these manifold narratives? And did not
the narratives themselves grow out of the wonderful Life, the Life which was
itself but a Divine Thought and Word incarnate? And so we cannot separate
heaven from earth, we cannot eliminate the Divine from even our little lives:
and though St. Luke did not recognize it as such-he was an ordinary man, doing
an ordinary thing-yet we, standing a few centuries back, and seeing how the
Church has hidden in her ark the omer of manna that he gathered, to be carried
on and down till time itself shall be no more, we see another Apocalyptic
vision, and we hear a Voice Divine that commands him "write." When
St. Luke wrote, "It seemed good to me also," he doubtless wrote the
pronoun small; for it was the "me" of his obscure, retiring self; but
high above the human thought we see the Divine purpose, and as we watch, the
smaller "me" grows into the ME, which is a shadow of the great I AM.
And so while the "many" treatises, those which were purely human,
have passed out of sight, buried deep in their unknown sepulchers, this Gospel
has survived and become immortal-immortal because God was back of it, and God
was in it.
So in the mind of St. Luke the thought ripens into a
purpose. Since others "have taken in hand" to draw up a narrative
concerning those matters which have been "fulfilled among us," he
himself will do the same; for has he not a special fitness for the task, and
peculiar advantages? He has long been intimately associated with those who from
the very first were "eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word," the
chosen companion of one Apostle, and doubtless owing to his visit to Jerusalem
and to his prolonged residence at Caesarea, personally acquainted with the
rest. His shall not be a Gospel of surmise or of rumor; it shall only contain
the record of facts-facts which he himself has investigated, and for the truth
of which he gives his guarantee. The clause "having traced the course of
all things accurately from the first"-which is a more exact rendering than
that of the Authorized Version, "having had perfect understanding of all
things from the very first"-shows us the keen, searching eye of the
physician. He looks into things. He distinguishes between the To seem and the
To be, the actual and the apparent. He takes nothing for granted, but proves
all things. He investigates his facts before he endorses them, sounding them,
as it were, and reading not only their outer voice, which may be assumed, and
so untrue, but with his stethoscope of patient research listening for the
unconscious voices that speak within, and so finding out the reality. He
himself is committed to nothing. He is not anxious to make up a story. Himself
a searcher after truth, his one concern is to know, and then to tell, the
truth, naturally, simply, with no fictitious adornment, or dressing up of his
own. And having submitted the facts of the Divine Life to a close scrutiny, and
satisfied himself of their absolute truth, and having thrown aside the many
guesses and fables which somehow have woven themselves around the wonderful
Name, he will write down, in historical order as far as may be, the story, so
that his friend Theophilus may know the "certainty of the things" in
which he has been "instructed," or orally catechized, as the word
would mean.
Where, then, it may be asked, is there room for
inspiration? If the genesis of the Gospel is so purely human, where is there
room for the touch of the Divine? Why should the Gospel of St. Luke be
canonized, incorporated into Holy Scripture, while the writings of others are
thrown back into an Apocrypha, or still farther back into oblivion? The very
questions will suggest an answer. That touch of the Divine which we call
inspiration is not always an equal touch. Now it is a pressure from above that
is overwhelming. The writer is carried out of himself, borne up into regions
where Sight and Reason in their loftiest flights cannot come, as the prophet
foretells events no human mind could foresee, much less describe. In the case
of St. Luke there was no need for this abnormal pressure, or for these
prophetic ecstasies. He was to record, for the most part, facts of recent
occurrence, facts that had been witnessed, and could now be attested, by
persons still living; and a fact is a fact, whether it is inspired or no.
Inspiration may record a fact, while others are omitted, showing that this fact
has a certain value above others; but if it is true, inspiration itself cannot
make it more true. Nevertheless, there is the touch of the Divine even here.
What is the meaning of this new departure? For it is a new and a wide
departure. Why does not Thomas write a Gospel? Or Philip, or Paul? Why should
the Evangelist-mantle be carried outside the bounds of the sacred land, to be
thrown around a Gentile, who cannot speak the sacred tongue except with a
foreign Shibboleth? Ah, we see here the movings of the Holy Ghost! Selecting
the separate agents for the separate tasks, and dividing to "every man
severally as he will." And not only does the Holy Spirit summon him to the
work, He qualifies him for it, furnishing him with materials, and guiding his
mind as to what shall be omitted and what retained. It is the same Spirit, who
moved "holy men of old" to speak and write the things of God, who now
touches the mind and heart of the four Evangelists, enabling them to give the
four versions of the one Story, in different language, and with sundry
differences of detail, but with no contradiction of thought, each being, in a
sense, the complement of the rest, the four quarters making one rounded and
perfect whole.
Perhaps at first sight our subject may not seem to have
any reference to our smaller lives; for who of us can be Evangelists or
Apostles, in the highest meaning of the words? And yet it has, if we look into
it, a very practical bearing upon our lives, even the commonplace, every-day
life. Whence come our gifts? Who makes these gifts to differ? Who gives us the
differing taste and nature? For we are not consulted as to our nature any more
than as to our nativities. The fact is, our "human" is touched by the
Divine at every point. What are the chequered scenes of our lives but the black
or the white squares to which the Unseen Hand moves us at will? Earth’s problem
is but Heaven’s purpose. And are not we, too, writing scriptures? Putting God’s
thoughts into words and deeds, so that men may read them and know them? Verily
we are; and our writing is for eternity. In the volume of our book are no
omissions or erasures. Listen, then, to the heavenly call. Be obedient to your
heavenly vision. Leave mind and heart open to the play of the Divine Spirit.
Keep self out of sight. Delight in God’s will, and do it. So will yon make your
lowlier life another Testament, written over with Gospels and Epistles, and
closing at last with an Apocalypse.
