Jesus and learned, undoubtedly, the manner of His birth in detail and set down the record.” Then the second reference, in which Luke starts with Zacharias: Luke 1:5— “There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a cer tain priest named Z-acharias . . .” Luke begins with the announcement to Zacharias that John the Baptist would be bom, then he tells of the birth of Christ with relative facts. Let us set down the Synoptics in review: 1— Matthew begins with Abraham; his purpose is to prove the Messiahship of Christ through genealogy. 2— Mark begins with John the Baptist, the Forerunner of Christ. Mark’s purpose is to show Christ to be the mighty worker—His miracles etc. 3— Luke begins with an announcement of Christ the man; his purpose—to show Christ’s humanity. It is Luke who tells of the Prodigal Son; The Rich Man and Lazarus, and human matters of that kind, to show Jesus personally in touch with men. This is not so with John. We shall return to Chapter 1: John 1:18— “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” Christ is the Son of God. He came from the bosom of God and went back to the bosom of the Father as the Eternal One. So John goes back far beyond Gen esis. Genesis goes back to creation; John goes back before creation, and, if he is to show you Christ as Deity, he must go back before creation. Christ was not created. He was al ways in existence. There was a time when the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three persons in one, dwelt in infinite bliss alone. When God had not created anything, then it was that the Son was in the bosom of the Father! He was plucked from the bosom of God and given to us to be cursed, hated, and slain—an offering for our sin! 13
before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Pre pare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. John did baptize in the wilderness . . .” Mark is showing Christ as the mighty worker, but he (Mark) must initiate his teaching with the ministry of John the Baptist who was heralded as the Forerunner—he also baptized Christ. It is of interest that Christ was thirty years of age before He performed mir acles. Now we want to run a comparison with Luke, and to do so we must look at two references—First: Luke 1:1,2—“ Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the be ginning w e r e eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;” We draw from Dr. Edward Drew again as we quote “Luke is writing down all he learned from eyewitnesses. Perhaps he tried to find some of the shepherds . . . who heard and saw the heavenly host, and he went to the mother of
Dr. Lloyd T. Anderson, Bible Teacher, Pastor , Bethany Baptist Church , West Covinay California
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