“The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ” is when, exactly?
My pastor, mentor, and friend Eric Huber once told me this wonderful truth: “beginnings matter, and so do endings.” It’s one of those lines that chimes in my mind from time to time. It resonated recently as I was studying the Gospels.
It’s interesting that each of the gospel narratives opens with a reference to “the beginning.” Each of them uses a “beginning” word in the first sentence of their story. They each highlight the importance of where the gospel story begins, and yet each of the gospels begins in a different place. The story of Jesus fits within a broader story, and the frame of that broader story widens or tightens based on the point each evangelist wants to make. The beginning matters, and it subtly shapes the way the story is told and how the end of that story is interpreted. In fact, as we delve ever deeper into the dawn of time, it becomes apparent that actually, the story of the gospel is just getting started.
It Began with John the Baptist (Mark 1:1)
Mark’s gospel opens with a fragment of a sentence. “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet…. John appeared” (Mark 1:1-4). We are thrown right into the action, with John baptizing in the wilderness in fulfillment of prophecy: “make straight the paths of the Lord” (Mk. 1:3). In the very next moment (“immediately”) we are witnessing the baptism of Jesus, followed by the temptation, and as soon as 1:14 the public ministry of Jesus has begun.
This is a good place to start. Actually, all the gospels begin their narratives proper with Jesus and John the Baptist.1 We don’t get stories of Jesus’ childhood in Nazareth (well, we get one I guess) or his education or his early adulthood (surely he was working hard as a carpenter alongside Joseph prior to the baptism). Though we might expect that material from a biography, the Gospels have a more focused goal, and that means starting at the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry, which is to say his baptism. Mark in particular tells us why he’s beginning with John, the appearance of John represents the end to a long period of waiting. By quoting Isaiah (“the voice of one crying in the wilderness”), Mark places the story of Jesus squarely within Israel’s exile. Although Israel is restored to their land, and though the temple is rebuilt and fully operational, nevertheless the restoration is still partial, and the temple corrupted, and the promised Messiah has not yet come; indeed, even his forerunner tarries.
“John appeared” (1:4). This is the beginning of good news. Centuries of God’s silence are ended. It is beginning; God has come to redeem Israel from it’s exile.
Starting here puts the focus of Jesus’ story on the immediate problem: the exile. The gospel is the fitting conclusion to the story of exile. After all, that is what everyone is waiting for. How will God fulfill his promises to restore Israel, establish the final temple, and through these things make the world right again? The other Gospels do not ignore this aspect of the story; thus, the first sermon Jesus preaches in Luke is about release of Israel’s captivity (Luke 4:18-19). As we will see, though, these other writers utilize a wider lens, and so the focal point is slightly shifted. By contrast, Mark keeps the focus on exile, and at the critical juncture when someone finally professes that Jesus is the Christ, it serves to increase anticipation that he will judge the Roman and the rebel and reestablish Jerusalem as God’s place and the center of the world (Mark 8:27). Of course, things do not fall out as expected (and if you prefer the shorter ending of Mark, the story concludes with the scattering of the last of Jesus’ disciples–a new kind of exile, which in fact brings the exile to its fullest expression). But in the end Jesus’ story is the fitting conclusion to the Israel’s exile. In his resurrection Jesus becomes the First Israelite, and the work of the next 40 days (we know from other Gospels) will begin the work of restoration.
What does this teach us about God’s plan? Mark reminds us that God cares about the immediate problem. God responds to our felt needs. Jesus comes preaching restoration for his people Israel, which they rightly (but reductionistically) read as a response to their exile. And what we learn from Mark is that God does care about that problem and will respond in a fitting manner. In the end that requires seeing God’s response to our prayers through the eyes of faith. It does not often look like God is addressing the problem that we think needs to be addressed, but the call of Mark is the call of faith. “Who do you say that I am” (Mark 8:29)? If, like Peter, you respond “you are the Christ,” then know that, regardless of appearances, he will restore you.
It Began with Abraham (Matthew 1:1)
Matthew also includes a “beginning” word in his first sentence. He opens with a “genealogy.” So it’s a different word, but Matthew is clearly trying to do the same thing that Mark is doing: setting the story of Jesus (which is to say, the public ministry of Jesus) within a broader story. Jesus has a family tree, and that family tree clearly matters for his ministry and work. He may be poor, but he doesn’t come “from nothing,” humanly speaking. He comes, Matthew makes clear multiple times, from Abraham.
This is a good place to start. Mark begins with exile, but if you’re familiar with your Bible you know that the exile is simply where we left the story of Israel before God went silent. Israel’s story didn’t begin with exile, it simply stalled out there. So Adam backs the story up a bit. When did Israel’s story begin? It began with Abraham. Why Abraham? Abraham is God’s solution to the curse he pronounces on humanity in Genesis 11. He scatters the remnants of humanity, confusing their language, resulting in a proliferation of nations, each of which will serve its own ends and its own gods. Abraham, though, is chosen to be God’s own nations, or at least the seed of that nation. What is more, “through you all the nations will be blessed” (Gen. 22:18). Abraham is thus a proto-king, and God will fulfill his promises to Abraham by forming a nation from his heirs, with a King at their head. In some mysterious way this nation will be the source of blessing (salvation?) for the whole world.
“So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations” Matt. 1:17). Jesus is the fulfillment of generations of hope. Abraham’s story has been in long anticipation of this moment. History itself has conformed itself to this, the first Son of Abraham born to the 7th set of Seven generations.
Starting here puts the focus on Israel, and also anticipates God’s bigger plans for Israel’s role in history. The Gospel is the fitting conclusion to Israel’s story. We see this play out in the pages that follow. Jesus in his birth and life “fulfills” (a frequent refrain in Matthew) the prophecies made to and about Israel. In fact, so close is Jesus’ own calling to that of Israel that his early life seems to recapitulate Israel’s own story. He’s a new Moses (Herod killing the firstborn sons). His journey into and out of Egypt is a new Exodus (Matt. 2:14, which is also a restoration from exile, Hos. 11:1). And like Solomon he attracts the wisdom of the east (2:1-6). This last point is important, for although Matthew does not spell it out for us, his Gospel anticipates the blessings of Israel overflowing to the Gentiles. It turns out that Israel’s salvation isn’t just about Israel. Through Israel all the nations will be blessed, so God, in saving Israel (by raising Jesus) also saves the world.
What does this teach us about God’s plan? First, theologically, for us Gentiles it is a reminder that we are not God’s replacement for Israel, as if God’s plan didn’t work out for Israel so he decided to start a new one with “the Church.” No, we Gentiles are grafted into Israel. We are saved because Israel was saved by her appointed King Jesus, and it was his will to invite us in too (Matt. 20). Secondly, it reminds us that the story has always been about God’s people. Salvation isn’t some individualistic “I got my ticket into heaven.” It always expresses itself corporately–a world, a nation, a family. God didn’t save you, he saved his people. Or, better put, he saved each of us by incorporating us into his people, by adopting us as a son of Abraham. After all, Abraham was promised many sons, and I am one of them, and so are you, so let’s all praise the Lord.
It Began with Adam (Luke 1:1, 3:23)
Perhaps you see where all of this is going. We are moving backwards in time, and Luke does not disappoint. Like Mark (on whose Gospel he is definitely dependent), Luke wants to tell the story “from the beginning” (Lk. 1:2). It would appear at first that Luke’s beginning is not with John and Jesus, but rather their parents. Luke gives us an extensive prologue to the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry with two birth narratives, first John the Baptist, then Jesus. There’s also a lot of singing. But all of this is prologue. The story of Jesus actually begins far earlier. Like Matthew, Luke also includes a genealogy, but it’s placement is a bit odd. It’s not at the beginning of his gospel, like Matthew; it’s right between the baptism of John and the temptation in the wilderness. In the other gospels these two stories flow right into one another, but Luke breaks them up. Why? If John’s baptism is something like Jesus’ “ordination” to public ministry, then the temptation is the first test of that ministry (and, in Luke, the crucifixion is the last test). The genealogy thus represents the last element of Luke’s prologue and transitions the reader into the first act of Jesus’ mission: the testing of Satan. Luke’s genealogy sets the thematic stage of Jesus’ ministry. Luke begins contextualizes the first act of Jesus’ public ministry with this genealogy. So where does Luke thematically locate us?
“Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph,…the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God” (Luke 3:23, 38).
Luke’s Gospel begins with Adam, and this is a good place to start. In some ways it’s the obvious way to start. After all, this is where the problem began. Israel is a solution to the problems that Adam set into motion. It’s not an accident that Genesis 3:15 (“he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel”) is sometimes called the proto-evangelion, the “first gospel.” Here we see the gospel through the widest possible lens: it is the fitting and glorious resolution of the greatest tragedy: the fall of humanity.
Actually, it’s even broader than that, for Adam was created “the son of God.” Luke backs up even further than we expected. His gospel begins before the fall. There is good news in the story of creation. Eve and Adam are created for a purpose. They have a creational identity and destiny. “In the image of God he created them” (Gen 1:27). The first couple was to fill the earth, to cultivate it, to extend the garden, to be the start of a humanity fit for bringing all of creation to glory (Psa. 8; Heb. 2:5-11). Instead, they subjected the creation to futility (Rom. 8:20), but God was not done. He brought forth a new Adam, one not only born under the Torah (and so he’s new Israel), but born of woman (so he’s a new Adam too). It matters that Jesus’ story begins with Mary, because in being born of Mary he is Son of Man.
Starting here broadens the focus to a cosmic scale. The Gospel of Jesus is the fitting conclusion to Adam’s story. Matthew reminds us that God is saving a people for himself. Luke reminds us of the purpose of this people: to tend God’s world until it reaches the fulness of his purposes. Luke is a student of Paul, who tells us precisely this. “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:19). Jesus is that Adamic Son, and because of his suffering, he is able to lead many sons to share in this grand task (Heb. 2:9-15).
What does this teach us about God? It reminds us of our purpose. We were made to do his work. We were made to be ambassadors of God in creation, and as we obeyed his will and cultivated his garden, we would bless the whole world. It reminds us that this plan has not been finally sundered. “Grace restores nature,” as our theologians say. Our salvation is not plan B but the merciful reconstitution of the original plan, now guaranteed not by our obedience but rather by that of the Second Adam. Furthermore, it reminds us that even now we have a task to do. We are to fill the earth and care for it in anticipation of the creation that is to come. We are to do this by being fruitful and to multiplying. And how do we do that? Well, the normal way still works, but after the fall there is also a second parallel path: “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
It Began with God (John 1:1)
Ah John. When John plays, he plays to win (John 20:3-8). Luke begins the Gospel with creation. We can’t get any earlier than that right? John’s response: “hold my beer.”
John begins before the dawn of time.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-5
This is a surprising place to start. First, notice that it definitely is before time, since the “Word” who brings light “to humanity” exists and has communion with God before “any thing made that was made.” Second, notice that it is the very nature of this Word to be “with God;” in fact, the Word “was God.” This is the tightest and most perfect kind of communion. It’s our doctrine of the Trinity. The Word, which is to say the Son, is distinct and separate from the Father, but he is such in a way that is fully consistent with being God. We can put this another way. The Son is in perfect and perpetual communion with the Father before the dawn of time, and John opens his Gospel precisely by putting that communion on display. This observation brings us to our third point: the destiny of humanity, as John sees it, is sharing in this communion.
“In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4).
This is a good place to start. The fall has not happened yet. Humanity has just entered the sphere of God’s created work. The life that man is destined to receive is the life of communion with God the Father and God the Son. In the fall man chooses darkness rather than light and life, but Jesus became like us in order to bring us back. Such a reading of John 1 is confirmed later in Jesus’ farewell discourse.
Just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
When we examine the deeper magic before the dawn of time we better understand what we were made for, what it means to be image. It means to have perfect creaturely communion with God. It means we become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:5).
Starting here reminds us that the story all along was about more than just a job we were to do. That job (ruler of creation) is important, but even here there is a higher purpose. Creation is about presence and communion with God. God needs no place in which to dwell, and creation cannot contain him, and yet, in desiring to share his life and light, he chose to create, and the goal of that creation is that we might dwell in His light. God needs no place in which to dwell, but in his grace he has decided to dwell with us, that we might have life and light forever (Rev. 20-21). John thus widens the scope of the Gospel still further; he steps back past creation in order to project the hope of the Gospel forward into the reaches of eternity, into a new age that has not yet dawned (though its glimmers on the horizon even now).
Mark gives us the fitting conclusion of the story of exile. Matthew the fitting conclusion of Israel’s story. Luke gives us the end of all creation. But with John we have the fitting end of God’s story. But because God is God, the word “end” isn’t right is it? God is eternal, his purposes forever. And so when we look at the “end” from this angle, we realize that actually, this is the beginning. The Gospel is the fulfillment of John 1:1-5, which is to say perfect and eternal communion with God, which is to say something brand new and forever glorious. The Gospel has only just begun.
It Begins at the End
In other words, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is beautifully multifaceted. The resurrection of Jesus addresses and resolves the immediate problem; it is the solution to the world as it is right now. And yet, without nullifying the importance of the immediate, it is also the appropriate and perfect conclusion to Israel’s story, and indeed the story of the whole world. More than all this, as if this wasn’t enough, the resurrection is in reality just the beginning; it brings to a close the story of death and begins the story of everlasting life, the joys of which we have not yet been able to imagine. It begins at the end.
- The other Gospels have what we can call “prologues,” each of which, as we have said, set the stage of the story of Jesus in a different place, but all of them begin the narrative proper with John the Baptist. [↩]
