Four Faces of the Gospel

“Four. There’s nothing special about four in the Bible, is there?”

Well, there is no number that’s not special or interesting. Suppose N is the first uninteresting number, isn't that interesting?

Anyway, someone did say that to me last winter. And in one of life’s non-coincidences, I had learned about the four faces of the Gospel just that month. There are plenty of other “fours” in the Bible (Google [1]) that you can read about, but I was surprised to learn that the four Gospels parallel the four “living beings” of Revelation 4, and also parallel ancient Israel. The four living beings have four different faces - lion, ox, man, and eagle. The banners or flags that ancient Israel camped by had the same four faces.

The Israelites were instructed to camp around the Tabernacle by tribe, Levites nearest to the Tabernacle, and the other tribes camped around the Levites  in a specific order.  According to Jewish tradition (Keil Commentary on the Old Testament [2]) it was believed that the banners of the tribes were as follows (I couldn't find clipart that matched the Keil text exactly, this was the closest I could find).

The Four Banners [3]

Judah - East (Lion of gold with a scarlet background).

Reuben - South (Man on gold background).

Ephraim - West (Ox of black on gold background).

Dan - North (Eagle of gold on a blue background).



It’s not clear whether the tribes camped in rings outward from the temple or in spokes.

Jesuswalk.com [5]

A History of Israel [4]

Either way, all the depictions seem to be inaccurate because they don’t account for the large number of people and tents and livestock. See Google Image Search [6] for a variety of opinions of how they camped around the Tabernacle, I assert that all of them are wrong, a topic for another day.

What has this got to do with the gospel? Well, there is the obvious fact that there are four animals, four faces, four gospels. Is there a connection? Early church writers taught so. And it makes sense. The only problem is that these early writers don’t agree on which Gospel writer is represented by which face. Consider this chart from  http://catholic-resources.org/Art/Evangelists_Symbols.htm  [7]. There is good agreement here that Matthew is the Human (Rueben) and John is the Eagle (Dan), but there are at least four opinions. Apparently, almost every combination has been suggested (24 permutations).

Early Christian Author	Human/Angel	Lion	Ox	Eagle
St. Irenaeus of Lyons	Matthew	John	Luke	Mark
St. Augustine of Hippo	Mark	Matthew	Luke	John
Pseudo-Athanasius	Matthew	Luke	Mark	John
St. Jerome	Matthew	Mark	Luke	John

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the synoptic Gospels, that is they “form a general summary”.  John’s Gospel is different from the other three.  So I wanted to say “one of these animals is not like the others” to fit the Gospel of John.  But I can find ways in which each is different – there is only one human, the ox is the head of tame animals, the eagle is the only bird, the lion the head of wild animals. John may be considered as loftier than the others, a bird’s eye view so to speak. 

While the early Church writers may not have agreed on which face went with which gospel, they were unanimous that the symbolism existed, and it pictured four different faces or aspects of Christ’s ministry. Spiritandtruth.org [8] tells us:

The unanimity of the early church regarding acceptance of some combination of such symbolism is remarkable

Notwithstanding the careful chart above, I think the weight of evidence goes to Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary [9]:

the lion expressing royalty, as Matthew gives prominence to this feature of Christ; the ox, laborious endurance, Christ's prominent characteristic in Mark; man, brotherly sympathy with the whole race of man, Christ's prominent feature in Luke; the eagle, soaring majesty, prominent in John's description of Christ as the Divine Word.

Again from JFB:

(1)   kingly righteousness with hatred of evil and judicial equity, answering to the "lion";

(2)   laborious diligence in every duty, the "ox";

(3)   human sympathy, the "man";

(4)   the contemplation of heavenly truth, the "eagle."

Spiritandtruth.org [8] agrees with JFB, adding this

There is objective evidence found within Scripture itself which reliably establishes the intended emphasis of each gospel. This evidence is found in the genealogies of Christ which establish the line of Jesus from Abraham (Matthew), Adam (Luke), and eternity (John). Thus we know with some certainty that Matthew presents Jesus as King of the Jews, Luke as the Son of Man, and John as the Son of God. The only remaining question is that of the presentation of Mark. There being no genealogy in Mark, it seems plain that the emphasis of servant fits his gospel.

In other words, none of the combinations in the chart above.

Gospel	Face
Matthew	Lion
Mark	Ox
Luke	Man
John	Eagle

The number four also suggests the whole world is involved, as in these common expressions, “four points of the compass”, “to the four winds”, “the four corners of the earth”.  As far as I know, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse bear no relation to the four living creatures except they are worldwide.  The Gospel is to go to all the world. Many verses in the Old Testament point out that Israel (not just the Jews) were chosen to be a light to the world, that salvation would go to all the world through them.  Sadly, they did not fulfill this role

Ex 19:6  and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests

Dt 7:6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession

Is 42:6 I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind

Isaiah 49:6. It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

Spiritandtruth.org [8] has much more detail there than I give here.  However, it suggests that the one “face” of Christ represented by Mark focused on the Romans, and the face represented by John focused on the Greeks.  I think that is skipping over the notion above that Israel was to be the light to the nations, the Gospel was to go to Israel first. Mt 10:6 & 15:24 “But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Since the Tabernacle is a shadow of the heavenly throne (Heb 8:5), consider this - the four living beings surround the throne, while the four banners surround the Tabernacle. And Christ is surrounded by the four Gospels, which go out to the whole world.


There is something quite special about four in the Bible, it's a shorthand way of saying Christ's Gospel has four aspects, came from heaven, and is going to Israel and the world.

References

1. https://www.google.com/search?q=biblical+four

2. http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_adv_b/?search-alias=stripbooks&unfiltered=1&field-title=Commentary%20on%20the%20Old%20Testament
3. http://seekianseng.blogspot.com/
4. http://www.israel-a-history-of.com/zebulun.html#gallery[pageGallery]/4/
5. http://www.jesuswalk.com/moses/7_tabernacle.htm
6. https://www.google.com/search?q=images&q=israel+camping+around+the+tabernacle
7. http://catholic-resources.org/Art/Evangelists_Symbols.htm
8. http://www.spiritandtruth.org/teaching/Book_of_Revelation/commentary/htm/topics/four_gospels.html
9. http://biblehub.com/commentaries/jfb/revelation/4.htm