To study the Gospels is to study the first-century context in its depth. To read the first four books that shape the main corpus of the story of Jesus is to inundate ourselves in a world that is foreign to our eyes, our ears, and our taste. We are called to experience the dusty days of Jerusalem and the rain of God’s mercies among stubborn people. When we read the Gospels in their fullness, we find our own lives ingrained in the doubts of the disciples, the victories of the kingdom, and the corporate undoing of Jesus’ antagonists.
This entire endeavor begins early as we consider the genealogy of Jesus. There, in that vast array of heroic characters, we are considering a long line from Abraham to Mary that connects the Scriptures in all its covenant unity. It traces the lineage of our forefathers with the precision of a scalpel surgically tuned to its purpose. Far from tedious, it reveals in vivid language the precipitous fall of every attempt to break the sacred line. The Scriptures stir the imagination to see the unfolding drama of the sacred violence of old and the new sacred peace far as the curse is found; the journey through the wilderness to the arrival at the promised mount of Calvary.
To read the Gospels is to witness the fulfillment of history, the impending doom of an old world that was ready to die to make room for a new world. This new world brings with it the entire glory of Old Covenant history to the forefront as the writers retrace the steps of Israel leading to her final days in the destruction of the Temple. Yet, in Israel’s final days, God’s saints are not left to wander again in the wilderness, but a new Israel steps in to relive Israel’s history and journey through the wilderness to triumph over every failure of Israel’s past. In Jesus, the old Israel gives way to a new Israel with a new Moses and a new kingdom.
The Gospels set the stage for the subversion of the present authority structures by a new-born King whose very presence rifled Satan’s fold and the Herodian throne. In his birth, he overthrows the principalities of the day and fulfills the promise to be a light to the Gentiles. Jesus’ Epiphany glory in his infancy provides the environment for everything else that unfolds in the New Covenant Scriptures. For in his birth, the Gentiles appear, the religious leaders sneer, the earthly powers jeer, and the angels cheer. Indeed, the life of Jesus’ birth signals the future ministry of Jesus bringing blessings to the Gentiles, conflicting with the religious leaders, provoking political figures to take a stand and to receive the ministry of angelic beings and the glorious saints.
The Gospels introduce us to a world that is perishing under the weight and burden of sin only to engulf us into a new world where righteousness and hope prevail. The kingship of Jesus becomes the Gospels’ exceedingly great project: to reveal Christ as Lord and to see his kingship confound worldly wisdom and bring salvation to the cosmos.
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