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What the Gospels Are, and What they are Not
By Author Eli of Kittim
Some of my readers have not fully understood my position regarding the gospels because they have not read my book, and therefore do not know the extent of these teachings. As a result, they have voiced their disagreement with my position. But in order to conclusively reject my view on the grounds that it fails to be supported by scripture, certain criteria must be met. However, based on some of my debates, their initial grounds for dismissal are often based on erroneous premises, such as tradition or dogma, conjecture and hearsay. At any rate, whatever it is that they think of my view is patently wrong because they haven’t yet grasped the gist of it. For example, I never said or implied that the gospels are made up stories, or that they were invented or manufactured by the writers themselves. Never was I so bold as to say that the gospels are superstitious myths, or the work of pure fiction with no basis in reality. If this is what some of my readers think, they couldn’t be further from the truth.
So, in my defense, let me explain what the gospels are, and what they are not.
1) I believe that the Gospels were verbally inspired by God (known as “Verbal Plenary Inspiration”). This means that every word of the gospels is God-given (“Plenary” means that the gospels are therefore fully authoritative). A side note: This means that it's not just the gospels, but scripture as a whole is authoritative over tradition or dogma. It means that all church tradition must be subordinated to the authority of Scripture. One of those dogmas that we inherited from the church was that the story of Christ happened in history (presumably from their literal interpretation of the gospels). But unless we check it against scripture, we will never know the validity of this dogma.
2) I also believe that in order to form valid conclusions, we must cross-reference between the gospels and the epistles to make sure that the account of Jesus is the same in all these texts and does not vary or present any major problems, especially with regard to chronology (i.e. the timing of his coming). A side note: When we engage in this type of study, certain things become immediately evident:
a) the authors of the Epistles do not mention a lot of the gospel material. For instance, they never once mention the birth narrative of Jesus, the virgin birth, the Flight into Egypt, the Star of Bethlehem, the magi, or even the city of Bethlehem as Jesus’ birth place. Now, that should raise some red flags.
b) In some cases, the authors of the Epistles seemingly contradict the gospels (I say “seemingly” because they don’t really contradict them, it only appears as such from our particular viewpoint) because they allude to Christ’s revelation as occurring “once at the consummation of the ages” (Heb.9:26), or in the “last days” (Heb. 1:1-2), so that the correct timing of Christ’s coming suddenly becomes an open question!
3) Even within the gospel texts themselves, we find language that seems more consistent with the epistles than with the church’s dogma (remember that in all of this, our dispute is not with the gospels per se, but rather with the “interpretation” of the gospels as put forth by church tradition). In the gospel of Luke, there is some indication that the suffering and rejection of Christ is ascribed not to the present, but to a future generation:
“Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He [Jesus] answered them and said, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; … The days shall come [centuries will pass] when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man and you will not see it. … For just as the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day. BUT FIRST HE MUST SUFFER MANY THINGS AND BE REJECTED BY THIS [implied, future] GENERATION. And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it shall be also in the days of the Son of Man: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, … until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all’” (17:20-27, emphasis added).
During his discourse on the end of days, Jesus promulgates a prophecy which most scholars attribute to his second coming: “For just as the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day” (Luke 17:24). What is surprising, however, is that this prophecy is then expanded by a most intriguing appendage to the previous verse: “But first He must suffer many things” (17:25). In other words, while “the literary Jesus” is predicting his supposed second coming, according to the common view, this terse statement shockingly reveals that his incarnation must necessarily precede his coming from the sky! And since the entire prophecy is set in the future, the sentence pertaining to Christ’s suffering and rejection “by this [chronologically implied] generation” cannot possibly be understood in any other context except as a reference to a future event. Otherwise we would be dislocating this sentence from the end times setting of the prophecy, thus creating a bizarre anachronism. After all, Jesus prophesies that a long time will pass before we behold “the Son of Man” (Luke 17:22), an idiomatic phrase that is deeply tied to his incarnation (Ps. 8:4; Matt. 9:6; 17:9; 24:44; Gal. 4:4). In fact, Luke goes on to say that Jesus will be initially revealed ("ἀποκαλύπτεται" in Greek) in the last days:
“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. ... It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed" (Luke 17:26-30).
Now, let’s compare that passage with one from the epistles. Notice that 1 Peter 1:7 exhorts us to have faith so that we are ready “at the revelation of Jesus Christ,” which is “revealed in the last days” (1 Peter 1:5), and then Peter declares categorically and unequivocally that “the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories” that would follow are really prophecies or “predictions”:
“Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he PREDICTED the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.” (1 Peter 1:10-11, emphasis added, ESV).
4) To shed some light to this apparent controversy, we must also consult the Old Testament. But wherever we look there, we find one prophecy after another that seems to support the epistolary view of Jesus rather than the historical view of the gospels. Zephaniah 1:7, Daniel 12:1-2, Zechariah 12:9-10, and Isaiah 2:19 all place the death and resurrection of the Messiah at “the end of time” (Dan. 12:4). It is not a coincidence that Rabbinical scholars, steeped in Hebrew Scripture, also conclude that, according to their writings, the Messiah will appear once in the last days!
5) There are also literary and historical considerations. We now know that the gospels were written approximately 40-70 years after the purported events, which would indicate that they do not contain eyewitness reports, something the early church was not privy to during the formation of their dogma. Therefore, most of the evidence seems to confirm the epistolary view of Jesus, and the only thing standing in its way from being unanimous is the church’s dogma, which is a thorn in its side because it also creates all of the apparent biblical confusion that is expressed through various diametrically opposed views, such as Preterism versus Futurism, and the like.
Conclusion
Therefore, based on these findings, we must rightly conclude that although the gospels are the word of God, nevertheless, their purpose and function within the New Testament cannot be to give us a literal interpretation of history. After all, the Bible is not a book on science or history, but a book of faith! And if the gospels are the word of God—giving us an outline of the life of Christ within the context of the entire history of mankind, not just past history—then they must be theological documents that give us a glimpse of Jesus’ future history through theological language that imparts instruction into the meanings of salvation, the Messiah, and the nature of God. In other words, the gospels are a mixed bag of theology, history (history written in advance; cf. Isa. 46:10), and prophecy!
