Introduction
This work will attempt to study all four Gospels together to get a full and complete picture of the life of Jesus. As we shall see, each writer had a unique perspective of the life of Jesus, and while some events are recorded in each Gospel, others appear in only one or two. To get a complete view of the life of Jesus requires a study of all four together. While it's true even this will obviously leave out many of the events in his life, we must remember God has told us all we need to know in the Bible. So by studying all four together, we will know what God wants us to know about the life of Jesus.
To do this we must use what's called a harmony of the Gospels. The one we are using appears in the MacArthur Study Bible, and was originally published as noted in the bibliography.
To begin, we will naturally begin where anyone would, in Ezekiel chapter one, where we meet some interesting creatures. These creatures are associated with God and his throne (Ezekiel 1:10, 10:14, Revelation 4:7), and Ezekiel describes what he saw.
As for the likeness of their faces, each had the face of a man; each of the four had the face of a lion on the right side, each of the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and each of the four had the face of an eagle. (Ezekiel 1:10)
So there were four faces: man, lion, ox and eagle. And of course this immediately brings to mind ..... Numbers chapter 1-2. In it, you see an enumeration of the tribes of Israel and in chapter two, very specific instructions about how they were to camp.
"Everyone of the children of Israel shall camp by his own standard, beside the emblems of his father's house; they shall camp some distance from the tabernacle of meeting. "On the east side, toward the rising of the sun, those of the standard of the forces with Judah shall camp according to their armies; and Nahshon the son of Amminadab shall be the leader of the children of Judah." (Numbers 2:2-3)
"All who were numbered according to their armies of the forces with Judah, one hundred and eighty-six thousand four hundred; these shall break camp first. (Numbers 2:9)
"On the south side shall be the standard of the forces with Reuben according to their armies, and the leader of the children of Reuben shall be Elizur the son of Shedeur." (Numbers 2:10)
"All who were numbered according to their armies of the forces with Reuben, one hundred and fifty-one thousand four hundred and fifty; they shall be the second to break camp. (Numbers 2:16)
"On the west side shall be the standard of the forces with Ephraim according to their armies, and the leader of the children of Ephraim shall be Elishama the son of Ammihud." (Numbers 2:18)
"All who were numbered according to their armies of the forces with Ephraim, one hundred and eight thousand one hundred; they shall be the third to break camp. (Numbers 2:24)
"The standard of the forces with Dan shall be on the north side according to their armies, and the leader of the children of Dan shall be Ahiezer the son of Ammishaddai." (Numbers 2:25)
"All who were numbered of the forces with Dan, one hundred and fifty-seven thousand six hundred; they shall break camp last, with their standards." (Numbers 2:31)
"And the tabernacle of meeting shall move out with the camp of the Levites in the middle of the camps; as they camp, so they shall move out, everyone in his place, by their standards. (Numbers 2:17)
But the Levites were not numbered among the children of Israel, just as the LORD commanded Moses. (Numbers 2:33)
So there were four camps able to perform military duty (the Levites were exempt). What you may not know is the tribal standards for the camps were:
Judah - Lion
Reuben - man
Ephraim - ox
Dan - eagle.
These are the same as the faces of the creatures Ezekiel saw in chapter one, which are associated with God's throne. Which leads us to the following questions:
- Is there a connection between the camp of Israel and these creatures, which are associated with the throne of God?
- Why would the Holy Spirit tell us the how they camped? What difference does it make to us (thousands of years later) if the camp of Reuben had 151,450 in it?
- What does any of this have to do with the four Gospels?
If we look at exactly how they camped, it might give us a clue.
First, the Levites were in the middle of the camp. We don't know exactly how many there were, but they were always in the center. Now, we must think Jewish. If a Jew was instructed to camp north of the Levites, he would camp exactly north. In other words, to camp exactly north means as wide as the camp of the Levites was, proceed exactly north, not off the corner north-east or north-west. You could extend your camp as far as needed, but must stay in the bounds of the Levites camp.
Now we know the number of people in each camp (from Numbers 2), and if we draw a (somewhat) scale map, we get the aerial view pictured on the following page.
The Camp of Israel - Numbers 1 & 2
Not necessarily to any scale
Look familiar? But how does any of this relate to the Gospels? (How many do we have?) Could there be a connection with the four camps and the four Gospels?
Matthew was a Levi, and as such, presents Jesus as the Messiah ("The Lion of the tribe of Judah"). Mark presents Jesus as a Servant, and a classic image of a servant is an Ox. Luke portrays Jesus as the Son of Man, while John presents Him as the Son of God (Eagle). So there may indeed be much more to these four Gospels than just different views. We could make the following chart[1]
| Matthew | Mark | Luke | John | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Presents as: | Messiah | Servant | Son of Man | Son of God |
| Face: | Lion | Ox | Man | Eagle |
| Ensign: | Judah | Ephriam | Reuben | Dan |
| Camp side: | East | West | South | North |
| Genealogy | Abraham (Legal) | - | Adam (Blood) | Eternity (preexistence) |
| What Jesus | Said | Did | Felt | Was |
| To the: | Jew | Roman | Greek | Church |
| First Miracle | Leper cleansed | Demon expelled | Demon expelled | Water -> Wine |
| Ends with | Resurrection | Ascension | Promise of Spirit (Acts) | Promise of Return (Revelation) |
| Style: | Groupings | Snapshots | Narrative | Supernatural |
| Key Word | Fulfilled (38x) | Eutheos (42x) | It came to pass (40x) | Verily, Verily (24x) |
| Jesus: | 151x | 13x | 88x | 247x |
Thus, we see that while there are four Gospels, they provide much different views of the life of Jesus. In order to get a complete picture, we must study them at the same time. Remember as you read each Gospel the above chart, and it will help in understanding why each writer included or omitted certain details and events.
Note: some people would disagree about the preceding, especially about the way Israel camped. They would picture Israel camping more like a square completely surrounding the Levites. Thus the preceding may or may not be correct, judge for yourself. But it's an interesting possibility.
[1] Missler The Gospel of Matthew page 4
Copyright © 1999-2008 Darrin Yeager. http://www.dyeager.org
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