Freedom is Good News Part 9

The first four books of the New Testament are called “the Gospels”. These books are the written words of four eye witnesses of the ministry of Jesus Christ. I think it is interesting to call them “eye witness accounts” because in many ways that is indeed what they are. In the Old Testament, God told the children of Israel that “A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses”. (Deuteronomy 19:15) Jesus even quotes this passage in Matt. 18:16! But in having the witnesses of God’s Son and His ministry be four, it is almost like God saying “make no mistake about this matter!”

There are many historical events that we take as fact even when there are no more than one or two witnesses having written about them. And yet today there are more and more people who discount the validity of the bible or want to change it to suit their own thoughts and ideas which contradict the four witnesses of the events surrounding Jesus’ life and ministry.

Have you read through these four books, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? The first three of these are called the synoptic gospels. The word “synoptic” coming from two Greek words meaning “similar view” (literally: same eye). Matthew, Mark and Luke wrote about very similar things but basically were writing to different audiences. John on the other hand writes of very different episodes in the life of Jesus and only quite rarely touches on the things that the other three take up.

Within these four books of the bible, which are called “the Gospels” (the good news) are tremendous amounts of uplifting stories. The overall theme is of course the story of a very loving God who is willing to sacrifice His Son - “This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased” (Matt.3:17) – in order that we, His creation who are sinners, may obtain eternal life through His death.

The book of Matthew begins in 1:1 by stating, “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham”. This statement lays the foundation of all that follows in the gospels and all that is yet to come!! Jesus is indeed the son (or descendant) of Abraham. But the literal son of Abraham is to be a type of the Messiah showing all who would have eyes to see that a savior would come through the lineage of Abraham. The story is found in Genesis. God has already told Abraham that he would have a son in his old age - a miracle birth (Gen. 18:10-15) - and that all peoples on the earth would be blessed through him (Gen. 12:2-3). And then in Gen. 22:2 God says this to Abraham, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love (sound familiar – a type of God the Father and His Son) … sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about. It just so happens that this mountain, Mount Moriah, is the same mountain in Jerusalem where, some 2080 years later, Jesus would undergo a sacrifice for our sins.

This is getting good isn’t it? Stay tuned!!