Four Portraits, One Jesus: The Different Angles

A Jewish King, a Suffering Servant, a Universal Lord, and a Revealer of Divinity, all in One

Last time, we noted that the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) have so much in common that some copying is almost certainly going on. In other words, there are so many similarities and verbatim agreements between Matthew, Mark, and Luke that someone is clearly copying someone. If this sounds at all alarming, it may be worthwhile to revisit our previous installment, because this observation is simply that: an observation, and it is in no way a criticism of the Gospels. Instead, the striking amount of similarity between the Gospels, especially the three Synoptics, only makes their differences that much more profound.

We have already seen that the differences between the Synoptic Gospels cannot be accidents. This is even more the case with John. There has been recent debate around whether or not John had access to any of the Synoptics, but the main point worth considering here is that John is so different from the other three that he also is not simply putting the same details into his own words. And if we know what the big picture differences between each Gospel are ahead of time, the unique portrait of Jesus that the authors want to portray will be that much clearer to us as we read through the stories and sayings of Jesus that they present us with.

But it’s all about the same Jesus. And because each Gospel paints a different picture of the same Jesus (not to mention the fact that they use many of the same stories to do so), the Gospels first and foremost agree on the key details of who Jesus is.

In each of the four Gospels, Jesus is first and foremost the Messiah. He is, after all, Jesus Christ. Both "Christ" and "Messiah" mean "anointed one," pointing to Israel's promised king who would usher in God's kingdom here on earth. It's not surprising, then, that each Gospel is also concerned with letting us know all about His kingdom, though the kingdom takes a bit of a backseat in John to the idea of "eternal life" (more on that in a second).

For each writer, Jesus emerges as Savior just as much. Jesus is not only a healer, but one who forgives sins, and His death is seen as necessary for salvation. Each Gospel author paints Jesus as a deliverer throughout His entire life.

Jesus is also everywhere confirmed as the Son of God in a very special way, and not only that, but the divine Son of God. Just being the Son of God does not make a person divine—Adam, and even Israel as a whole, are sometimes described this way—so that the way the Gospels view Jesus is unique because of His divinity. And even more than being in complete agreement on His divinity, we can go further and observe that each Gospel author knows Jesus to be the God of Israel.

This last point is sometimes attacked by critics. Only John chapter 1, they say, really makes it clear that Jesus is God. In saying this, they also note that John happens to be the last Gospel to be written. When these two points are combined, they argue that nobody thought of Jesus as God during His life on earth, and He certainly must not have ever claimed that He was. Instead, the story goes, Jesus really was a great teacher, and perhaps He did some remarkable things, so that over time, stories about Him grew into legends, which led to Him being elevated more and more with each passing generation, until finally, by the time John was written, He came to be seen as God.

The argument is clever. But if Mark is our earliest Gospel, with Matthew, Luke, and John following him, we are struck by the fact that he already uses prophecies about the God of Israel to describe Jesus as early as chapter 1 verse 3. And in doing so, Mark agrees with Paul writing before him, the very same Paul who learned all that He knew about the life of Jesus from the very same disciples who walked with the Lord. So the claims that John makes about Jesus certainly go back to the earliest generation of believers, and Mark, Matthew, and Luke are in complete agreement with them too. In our final installment of this mini-series, we will explore a Gospel story that clearly demonstrates this.

Not only do the Gospels agree on these basic facts, but their differences add to our confidence in who Jesus is, not lessen it. It's amazing how well the different portraits we have of Jesus complement each other, and knowing up front what each Gospel author is trying to communicate to us about Jesus will help us see the unique ways that each Gospel’s portrait of Jesus addresses our needs.

We'll start with Matthew's Jesus—not just because our Bibles place his account first, but also because Matthew's purpose may just be the most difficult for us to appreciate. Why? Because Matthew is a Jewish author writing to Jewish Christians, trying to prove to them that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah whom Israel had been waiting for. And we are not Jewish.

We might ask, then, what good does it do for us to know this? Especially for those of us who want something "practical" from the Bible?

In reality, the theology of the Bible is never impractical, and neither is knowing that Jesus is the Messiah. Remember what we said about the Messiah just a moment ago? To be the Messiah—to be the Christ—is to be anointed as king. And a king always gets what he wants.

So you really want to make sure you have a good king.

You really want to be able to rest assured that the one running everything has it under control and has your best interest in mind. You need to know when it seems like things are spiraling, it's not because he's asleep at the wheel. The eyebrow you raise at your president when the cost of gas shoots up is just like the fist you will shake at your king when things are not going according to plan.

And if there is a king, there must be a kingdom. If the king is a good king, and his kingdom will look the way he wants it to, then it will be a good kingdom.

We Americans don't have a king, so maybe there's a simpler way of thinking about what it means to have a good kingdom: there is a proper order to society. As we look around at our culture, we will see things that should make us sick, values that should be outrageous to us. Matthew's Jesus has a better blueprint, a vision of a kingdom that shows us how the world should look and the way forward toward ordering the world as God intends it to be. And as Messiah and King, Matthew’s Jesus has the authority to build it.

Some of us care deeply about politics and are very invested in social issues. But not everyone, and not every high school Bible student, shares that passion, and talk of grand visions for society can feel too abstract to be relevant for many of us. But all societies depend on human relationships and interaction, and we all have relationships and interactions. Because Matthew’s Jesus shows what the rightly-ordered society looks like, He shows us what good citizens look like at the same time, and thus how to properly engage in our relationships and interactions as well.

Some of us are not very good at either of these. Perhaps we put up walls and like to isolate ourselves. Or perhaps we prefer cliques, and perhaps we are fine, if not happy, with the exclusion of others, and do not mind putting others down who are different from us. Matthew's Jesus came to fix that dysfunction within our souls.

Others of us have been on the receiving end of mistreatment. And again, Matthew's Jesus comes to rescue us, to give us the hope of knowing that the King sees us, that it's not supposed to be this way, and that He will make all things right for us in the end. The Jewish Messiah is King, and we all want the Jesus Matthew invites us to behold.

Mark's Jesus is king too, and a king of the most unlikely kind. Sometimes suffering is so unbearable that reassurance of a better future hurts even more, and all we want to know is that someone is with us. This was probably the situation of the Christians who received Mark's Gospel. Mark's Jesus is king, but this is not seen as much in how exalted He is, or in the promises made in Israel's Scriptures (though there is some of that). Indeed, Mark's Jesus is not king in spite of His sufferings but because of them. Mark's Jesus is not a king concerned with lifting Himself up but with laying Himself down, and Mark makes clear that this was exactly the path to the throne that God intended. Take heart, you who are afflicted, because Mark's Jesus is afflicted too. And afflicted by the very same things and people that you are.

If you are a new believer, perhaps Luke's Jesus will be easiest for you to approach. Or if you are a long-time believer who has sometimes wondered where you fit in. In either case, Luke's is perhaps the picture of Jesus that is most open to anyone and everyone. Luke writes to believers who do not share the same experience and background as those around them, and he assures them that Jesus is big enough to be their Lord too. This is not to say that Luke's Jesus isn't demanding, but it is to say that He extends the offer of a demanding life of following Him, no matter the cost, to all people equally. And surprisingly, even though Luke writes to Theophilus, a Greek of elite social standing—with a very different experience from Jewish Christians he may have worshipped with—Luke’s Jesus is especially concerned for the poor. Luke's Jesus wants Theophilus to include those poorer than him just as much as He wants the larger community of believers to include people like Theophilus.

And then there is John's Jesus. In John, the divine features of Jesus are more clearly on display, and yet John's Jesus can sometimes feel like the most relatable. John's Jesus is not shown performing nearly as many miracles, and neither does He really speak in parables, the usual style of teaching that Jesus draws upon in the Synoptics. Instead, John's Jesus speaks in lengthy, intensely personal discourses, and while His kingdom is not entirely absent from His teaching, He focuses much more on "eternal life."

One mistake we have to avoid is thinking that eternal life is simply another term for the kingdom of God and heaven. The kingdom of God and heaven refers to the restoration of God's created world. It is not even a reference to some "place" people go when they die; it is the world we all inhabit made new. Eternal life, on the other hand, is knowing God by living and participating in Him (John 17:3), and John's Jesus is the divine Son of God who is the only One capable of making God known in this very unique way. With only a few hours before His arrest, John's Jesus can be seen praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, begging the Father that Jesus Himself would be in us the way the Father is in Him. Even before we ever thought about being one with Him, John’s Jesus was praying that He Himself would be one with us. Do we dare to believe that so great a union is possible?

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