What are the Synoptic Gospels?

The Gospel of Luke is the third of the so-called Synoptics. The word synoptic means "seeing the whole together or at a glance." Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the synoptic Gospels, because they present a common narrative, relate the same incidents of our Lord, with much the same words, though characteristic differences, omissions, and additions are equally apparent. Various theories have been advanced to explain the similarity and differences, so often called discrepancies, of these three Gospels. One is the theory that originally there existed a primitive Gospel, which has been lost. Out of this primitive Gospel, it is claimed, the three Gospels were constructed. Another theory is that they grew out of one another; that one wrote first and the others followed to add to it and omit what they thought best to omit. It is beyond the scope of our Bible study work to take up these attempted explanations of how the Gospels came into existence. Nor can we follow in detail the intensely interesting historical evidences, which so wonderfully demonstrate their authenticity. However, we desire to say that the last word in the controversy of the Gospels and their genuineness has been spoken. The attacks upon the historicity of the narrative, the denials which have been made, have been silenced, though infidelity cannot completely be silenced, at least not in the present age.

What do we have on the contrary? Three Gospels so clearly linked together that they have been known as the synoptic Gospels from time immemorial. And that word synoptic means "taken together." Taken together — three, — Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John has ever stood alone in all its peerless significance as the one Gospel by itself. Three is the number of divine manifestation. One is the number of divine unity and completeness. When you come to look at these three synoptic Gospels they suggest to us in an amazing way the divine fulness that there was in the Man Christ Jesus down here. All three together in their blended light present to us God manifested in Christ, whether as King, as Servant, or as Man.

We have already seen that the four Gospels fall naturally into two main divisions, in which the Synoptists, Matthew, Mark and Luke, from their contents are taken together, because they resemble each other far more closely than any of them does the fourth Gospel. We have, therefore, two main divisions of the Gospels: first, the Synoptists; second, John.*

In a general way, these are four parallel narratives of the life, works, teachings, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. They were written by four different individuals, and while narrating many things that are common to all or most of them, there are omissions and additions in each which even from a human standpoint would mark them out as four distinct and, we will add, independent narratives.

The division of the four Gospels is also in accord with the scriptural manner, where all is according to God. It is not the 2+2 which is true division, and seems always suggestive of evil in some way; it is 3+1, the number of manifestation and of supreme Godhead: together, therefore, showing us Him who is "God manifest in the flesh." The first three are, as thus going together, called "synoptic" Gospels, as uniting, with all their differences, in a common view of the Lord, very different from that of John, in which all His divine glory is at last displayed. The three agree together, and contrast with John in this, that in them, as in the parable of the vineyard which they all give, Christ is seen as God's last testimony to Israel ― His Son, sent after the rejection of all previous messengers, as His last resource. "Having therefore yet one Son, His well-beloved, He sent Him also last unto them, saying, they will reverence My Son." The whole character of the "synoptics" is affected by this. Testimony, as in the previous dispensations, is still going on. The demonstration of the "mind of the flesh" as "enmity against God" is not complete in them till the Cross. Israel is not yet set aside but is addressed by this last Divine Messenger, who, finding God's treasure hid in the field of the world, goes and sells all that He has to possess Himself of it. Man is not yet seen in them as "dead in sins;" and the decidedly Christian truths of new birth and eternal life are not yet brought out. With all this John's Gospel, coming after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and the setting aside publicly of Judaism by the government of God, is in direct contrast. All three of the synoptic gospels, moreover emphasize the Lord's humanity; John's, as already said, most clearly and emphatically proclaims His Deity.

There are four Gospels, then, not one and these four are three and one. This division is surely significant, for the simple reason that it exists. In the word of God nothing exists in vain; and the more we inquire in this faith into every detail of it, apparently the most trifling, the more we shall be rewarded. We have then in these four Gospels, first, a trinity of Gospels, ― a three that in some sense ― some sense of value to us ― are one: the Synoptics. The last Gospel stands by itself as a second division.

The Synoptic Gospels.

We have already glanced at the unity of the "synoptic" Gospels, ― the name generally given to them since Griesbach employed it: but long before seen in some measure, though in a different way from that in which we have considered them. Ordinarily it is apprehended more as arising from there being in them essentially a common narrative, which has been sought to be accounted for, either by their all being fashioned out of some still more primitive, and perhaps unwritten Gospel, or by their growing out of one another by abridgement or addition.

Thus we have gone over these three synoptists, as they are called, finding much in common, and at the same time, very clearly marked differences. How beautifully they blend together, giving, in their threefold fulness, a view of our blessed Lord such as one single Gospel could not!

In the Synoptists, therefore, we may expect to find our Lord presented objectively to our view; and although the main teaching of these three is not so profound and does not present our Lord so fully in His divine personality as the fourth Gospel, they have this characteristic which we have noted.

As already remarked, the Synoptic Gospels were evidently not written in collaboration to satisfy the demands of critics that they should be in exact mechanical alignment. And indeed the remarkable brevity of these memoirs is such that difficulties like that now under consideration are inevitable. The severe compression of both matter and style is phenomenal. Consider the comparative length of the Gospels as biographies. In an ordinary octavo Bible, with double columns of references, the Gospels of Matthew and Luke occupy about forty pages each, John about thirty, and Mark about twenty-five pages only. And these slight pamphlets constitute the sole authentic memoirs of the life and ministry of the Incarnote Son of God whose public service was characterised by incessant activity. How insignificant these seem in point of size when compared with the ponderous biographical tomes of the world's nonentities! Confessedly, brevity is one of the striking features of the divine Gospels.

A superficial reader may well think that the books of Chronicles are the supplement of the books of Samuel and Kings. The Jews indeed have attributed this character to them since ancient times. Christians have done the same with regard to the three synoptic Gospels; they think that the Gospels of Mark and of Luke complete Matthew's account of the Lord's life. In reality the Chronicles, like these Gospels, present the thoughts of God from a completely new aspect. They present the kingship in a very important dimension, which these pages aim to bring out. In relation to this subject, one or two preliminary remarks will be useful.