We’ve been dealing with this subject for several weeks now — the idea of equipping ourselves to counter the cultural basis for discounting the Gospels, the claim that there is no history to them, that they are so diverse they must all be made-up stories. We’re going to continue tonight with that, and starting next week we’ll do a more detailed study of the Gospel of John and the history of John’s Gospel. As we mentioned before, John is the latest Gospel, and so critics try to say that a lot of what John taught was made up much later than the events. So we’ll do a little bit of that.
We are exploring this subject because critics say the diversity in the Gospel accounts shows the stories to be fabrications without historical foundations. One of the arguments that is made — and this is what we’re going to look at tonight — centers on the question: Why, if the Gospels are true and important, do the New Testament letters not mention them very much? There’s almost no mention of them. The things you read in the Gospels you don’t find in the letters of Paul, Peter, and John. And the question is: Why is that, if it was so very important?
This is what people say: apart from the central doctrine of Christ’s death and resurrection, there’s little of what is found in the Gospels themselves in the letters.
Now, it is important for us to remember the early date of some of the epistles. This is very important: the letters were written prior to the Gospels. In your outline I have 48 to 54 — that’s the earliest estimate. As you’ll see later, the Thessalonians are estimated to be around the year 50 A.D., and James even before that. So the letters — the letters were in print before the Gospels themselves had been written. This is an important consideration. The estimated dates of the written Synoptic Gospels — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — are somewhere between 40 and 60 A.D.
And the argument then is: since at least two New Testament letters parallel or precede the written Gospels, and because they make no mention of anything in the Gospels, the idea is that the letters were made up to provide a framework for the beliefs that later were developed. This is the argument that critics make: the letters are admonishing obedience and worship of Jesus Christ without reference to His life or teachings; therefore they must have been fabricated after the fact. “Here are the Gospel letters, the letters from Paul, to fill in the blanks; somebody came up with the Gospels.” This is the argument.
Now, as Christians we hear that and we think, “Boy, people believe anything, won’t they?” But this is exactly what we find in our culture. And by the way, it is not ignorant people — as you’ll find later, some very intelligent people throughout history have bought into this kind of thing.
Is it true that the New Testament letters contain no Gospel references — not Old Testament references, but Gospel references? That’s what we’re going to be talking about this evening.
We need to make a distinction between implicit and explicit. Explicit means actual word-for-word quotations that could be found in one of the Synoptic Gospels. Implicit means there isn’t a word-for-word quotation, nor an indication of where Jesus was when He said it. Remember, in the Gospels a lot of times it says Jesus was in this city, or He was in this town, or He was on a mountain, or He was by a lake — they would tell you where He said it. None of that is in the letters. So there’s no word-for-word quotation, nor indication of where Jesus was when He said such and such. But as we shall see, the thought is nearly identical, and often it comes in the form of a command. Now that’s very important. I hope you’ll be able to follow my thinking here.
In other words, there is a presumption on the part of the New Testament letters that the reader knows the background. They don’t need to tell you again, because the very idea is that you’ll only obey this if you know the Person and the Acts behind it. So even though they weren’t in written form until perhaps 60 A.D., clearly the concepts and the teachings were orally transmitted before that, and the people were familiar with them. You’ll find this when we get over into the book of John. As we go forward with this study — we start next week — John says a lot of things that can only be understood if the person already knew some of these things. So even though his letter is later, he’s presuming that the people know these certain kinds of things.
It’s very important for us to understand that, when you come to the letters — especially well, all three of them, but Paul’s is the most authoritative — where he tends, on several occasions, because he has to, to say, “I am an apostle; I’ve got this authority; you should obey this.” But the question is: Why should I obey him? Because of the truth that’s behind his ministry. And this is what we have in the letters: even without a reference to the Gospels, the information and the expectation that people would believe has to be explained. Without knowledge of Jesus — who He is and why He should be obeyed — the letters have no teeth. The people have to know what’s behind the letters, or it is really just a religion that’s being made up. And this can only be true — these people could only know these things behind the letters — if the oral traditions or other written sources were available and well known. They had to know these things in order to accept what Paul and Peter and James and John say. They have to know what’s behind it.
Martin Hengel says: “In the ancient world, it was impossible to proclaim as Son of God and Redeemer of the world a man who had died on the cross without giving a clear account of his activity, his suffering, and his death.” You can’t just stand up and talk about this Guy without people knowing Him, knowing about Him. And that’s exactly what Paul and Peter do — they speak as if you already know these things. Well, where would that information come from? It would have come from the Gospels — whether in written form, in oral form, or in another written form that did not end up in the Gospels. Okay. Now that’s the technical part; we won’t get into it tonight, but there’s a lot of information that goes with that.
Virtually none of the letters — one or two letters — begin with kind of a Gospel overview, but most of the letters don’t start that way. Paul just announces who he is and where he’s at, and says, “Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ,” and he goes into his teachings without any reference to these Gospel stories. That is a presumption that the people are well aware of the Gospel story to begin with.
Craig Blomberg says it like this: “Paul displays a fairly detailed knowledge of the Gospel traditions, because most, if not all, of his letters predate the composition of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The awareness of these details is a significant confirmation of the early existence of the traditions that went into the formation of the Gospels.”
Now, again, let me see if I can remind you what we’re dealing with. The argument is: in this lesson, there’s no mention of these Gospel stories in the letters, so they must have been made up afterward, after the letters were written. This is the thing the critics will say. And we’re saying: look, the letters make no sense unless you know the Gospel behind the letters already. You don’t have to be told again, “This is what happened.” You know that. “How do I live out these truths?” — that’s the concept.
When you look at Paul’s letters, you see that a survey of Paul’s letters reveals knowledge of Jesus’s biographical information. Where did you get that? Where does Paul get this information about Jesus? Because it’s not in his letters. It is in his letters, but — where did he get it to speak of it? That is in the Gospels. So you see: Jesus’s descent from Abraham and David in Galatians 3:16 and Romans 1:3 — He knows this stuff. First Corinthians 9:5 — He’s aware that Jesus has a brother named James. First Corinthians 11:23 — He uses it, which we use every time (well, not every time, because our guys vary in how they use it). But First Corinthians 11 is the passage about the communion: “Take this bread; take this cup.” It’s very interesting. I didn’t have time — it’s not that I don’t have time, but sometimes I don’t want to be too technical — but when you look at what Paul says here in Corinthians about communion and then you go back to the three Gospels that deal with it, Paul has details that are not in there, and yet they’re almost identical. This is what we mean by other written sources: there’s an oral tradition, the Gospels themselves, but there must have been other written things, because what Paul says jives with the Synoptic Gospels, and yet has details they don’t have, but He knows about them.
Now, where did he get that information? Remember — and I think I put this here — Paul was not one of the first believers. Where does he get this information? It’s because we have what we call the Gospel. So even though they aren’t mentioned per se in the epistles, they’re clearly an assumption.
There’s also, in First Corinthians 15, verses 4 through 8, numerous details about the death and resurrection of Jesus which Paul could not have known because he was not a believer when Christ died and was resurrected. He became a believer a couple of years later.
So here we have… we know Paul already — he’s very familiar with the life of Jesus. Where does he get that information? Did he make it up? I want to say this here, and I can’t remember where I wanted to bring this out, so I’ll say it here. Remember, when you talk about how important this was, and I go back a minute ago to what I said about important or educated people: Thomas Jefferson — and in fact it’s down at the very last of this page, but I wanted to say it earlier as well; I’ll just repeat it. Thomas Jefferson believed that the early church took the religion of Jesus and made it into a religion about Jesus. He — and this is the argument — said that Paul created Christianity, that he made up these things in his letters. But where does Paul get the information that’s already in existence? This is the point that people just don’t take into consideration.
So let’s look at some of the examples tonight of the many parallels that exist in Paul’s writings with the Gospels. Paul’s quoting — where’s he getting the stuff? — and when we look at the two, you can see that it’s almost parallel to things we find in the Gospels.
The book of Romans begins, and Paul takes 11 chapters talking about the Gospel — talking about salvation, justification, about faith, etc. He comes down to chapter 12, and now he begins to get into ethical teachings — the way you should live as a Christian. And in that section there are these parallels with the Gospels. If the Gospels were not written — or didn’t… they weren’t known until after. Again, we have to — I hate to keep drilling this in, but I want to make sure I don’t lose you in my inability to explain things. Paul is writing here; the Gospels are supposedly written over there. Then how does Paul know over here what’s in the Gospels if it hadn’t been written yet? This is the idea: they say, “Well, they made all this up.” How could they make it up over there if Paul is quoting what we find in the Gospels 20 years later — or 20 years earlier? This is the consideration these people would try to ignore.
So, for example, Romans 12:14. Paul says, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.” Now, let’s see. I said this last week, and I don’t want to belabor the point, but if you know your Bible well — and in the 21st century, many Christians don’t — this is not a moral judgment; please don’t hear it that way. When I became a Christian 50 years ago, maybe it’s still like this in some parts of the Christian church — it won’t be legalistic, and if you’ll stay with me, I explain why there’s a difference today. When I got saved, everybody carried a Bible to church; everybody — when you open the Bible to read, everybody in the room opened their Bible to read. Today, for numerous reasons — one is all the different translations. I use the screen precisely because there are people in the congregation: here’s John Doe with the King James, and over there’s Jane Doe with the New International Version. And so, to keep the focus, I use the slides with one translation. Occasionally I will use something else. All of that translates into the fact that there’s a great biblical illiteracy in the Christian church today — that people, many people, think, “I believe in the Bible, so I don’t need to know what the Bible says.” And this is the contradiction. “Well, I believe the Bible — do you know what it says?” You would be surprised. As your pastor, of course, I encounter this stuff: people say, “So, I believe the Bible,” and then they tell you something that is not in the Bible. “Oh, I believe the Bible — I believe what the Word of God says,” and we have to be careful with this. This is so important.
My point is this: those of us who are familiar with the Scriptures will read Romans chapter 12, verse 14, and we will remember — “Jesus said that!” But someone who’s not familiar with the Scriptures is not going to pick up on that. And this is where we have to help the critics and the skeptics, and the person who has genuine, real questions about Christian faith.
Romans 12:14: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” — is mirrored in Luke chapter 6: “Love your enemies; bless those who curse you; pray for those who abuse you.” You can see the overlap of the language. And again — where does Paul get that? Where does Paul get it? If it was written — if it was made up after Paul wrote — then how could he quote it over there? Very considerable.
Romans 12:17: “Repay no one evil for evil” — which comes from Matthew 5:39: “I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil.” What is the next part? I never know how much to leave on this outline, because I always run out of room. But in Matthew 5:39, what follows that? It’s a very familiar passage that every one of you knows: “Do not resist the one who is evil” — and the next verse says, if the person hits you on the right cheek, turn to the left cheek. “Do not repay evil for evil.” And this is what Paul says. So, where’s Paul getting this concept — with authority? Please note that, and we’ll come back to it.
Romans 13:7: “Pay to all what is owed to them; taxes to whom taxes are owed.” And he goes on. Mark chapter 12, verse 17: Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Now what is that? It’s in a tax context. They come to Jesus and say, “Is it lawful to pay tax to Caesar?” And Jesus says, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” Yes, it’s appropriate to pay taxes. And He speaks of this, but Paul uses that same phrase, that same term. Again, the argument is: if Paul is quoting what’s in the Gospels over here, they couldn’t have been made up over there. It’s just simple as that.
Romans 14:10: “Why do you pass judgment on your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.” And in Matthew 7:1 and 3, that famous passage: “Judge not, that you be not judged. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” This is the concept. Paul is saying things that are almost identical — or have amazing parallels — with what we find in the Gospels themselves. How could they have been made up after the letters? Should we make that argument, as the critics do?
Romans 14:14: “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself.” Now then, that passage again — Romans 14:14 is a reference to food offered to idols, so it’s talking about food, it’s talking about eating. Mark 7:18 and 19: “Do you not perceive this? That whatever enters a person from outside cannot defile him. Thus he declared all foods clean.” So you see — this again and again, Paul’s quoting things. They clearly have a Gospel origin; they certainly have a Gospel foundation. And this puts to rest — or should put to rest — the whole idea that the Gospels were written, made up after the letters, because of this.
Now, this is debated, but First Thessalonians is one of the earliest letters, perhaps 51 to 52 A.D. And in First Thessalonians 5:2, among many other things, we find this phrase from Paul: “You yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” Now the question is — you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. Where did their awareness come from? Where did they get their awareness? Paul says, “You are fully aware.” This is the first time he used it; it has to come from the Gospels. And when we go to the Gospels, Matthew 24:43, it says — Jesus speaking here — “Know this: if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not let his house be broken into.” Now that’s the closest thing to what Paul says in First Thessalonians. And He says, “You know the day of the Lord is coming like this.”
Now, what is in chapter 24 of Matthew? So let’s pause for just one moment: “the Day of the Lord” — what is meant by that phrase?
Okay. The Day of the Lord is an umbrella term. And by that we mean that underneath “the Day of the Lord” are all these kinds of events. So there is His coming — His specific coming — but when you go to Matthew 24 again, He’s describing the Day of the Lord; the whole chapter is describing the Day of the Lord. So it’s not Tuesday or Wednesday — it is a period of time at the end of time where all of God’s purposes are coming to pass. Now in that context — that’s the context of Matthew 24 — Jesus then says, in that context: be aware that there will be that specific day that I will be coming, and you have to be aware — or it’ll be like the thief coming in the night. But it’s part of the whole end-time framework and picture there. And this is the thing: when Paul says, “You are fully aware” — now again, this letter, and we have to be honest that we’re using internal evidence or other traditional information to make these dates, and you have debate about them. But First Thessalonians, perhaps one of the earliest, 51 to 52 A.D.… If the Gospels were written between 40 and 60, then you’re a whole decade before the Gospels are known to have been in print, and here’s Paul referring to a principle from those Gospels that could only be known from those Gospels. How could you make it up after this? Or how could it be that, to try to say the Gospels aren’t true simply because the letters of Paul do not speak of them?
This is again a technical point: there’s a difference between an epistle, which is an exhortation giving you instruction on how to live, and a Gospel, which is telling you the history of the Person you’re supposed to live for. Paul’s not telling the story again — he is telling you what to do with the story. But you have to know what to do with the story to do those things — what’s the motivation?
I just had a thought, that, uh, as usual, slips my mind — but you have to know; you have to know the information. Where did Paul get it there? And there are many other passages, by the way, where he says “you know,” but this one especially: “You’re fully aware.” How could they be fully aware unless they already had the Gospels in some form — oral, or fragments of the Gospels that were later put together in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? We don’t know how the whole process worked. But the argument that Paul is creating Christianity is simply untrue, because he’s using phrases and terms that are found in other parts of the Bible.
Now, this specific imagery that Paul uses in First Thessalonians appears nowhere else in any other sources or earlier sources in that part of the world, or in any of the Christian writings. Where’s he getting it? It has to be coming — from Him — from the Gospels, because Paul doesn’t make mention of it.
Now, some people argue that these ethical instructions could be paralleled in other religious movements and are not unique to Christianity. Can anybody give me one example of a very central teaching of Jesus that is not unique to Christianity — in other words, you find it in many other religious viewpoints or writings?
The Golden Rule.
“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” — that’s not unique to Christianity. There are numerous varieties of that in ancient history. But what makes it different? What makes it different?
Good point. I want to touch on it, but let me answer — or affirm — your question, your answer. What makes the Golden Rule in the Bible different from that principle in other religions is who said it. Because in other religions they were just religious people saying it; here it is the Lord Jesus Christ saying it, which gives it some teeth. It’s an important point: sometimes the Golden Rule is stated negatively — “Don’t do it to them.” That’s not unique to the Lord Jesus in Christianity, in the Bible — that’s not unique to the Lord Jesus. But in Jesus’s rendering, it’s positive: “You do what you want other people to do to you.” Don’t wait until they do you wrong and then don’t do anything — because what happens? You haven’t done anything. You go out and positively do unto others. That’s one of the things that sets it apart. But the biggest thing is who says it.
So, again, this is technical and involved. But the Code of Hammurabi have you ever heard of? An ancient Mesopotamian king who had a law very similar to the law of Moses. There was great overlap between those two laws. What makes it different? Who’s saying it. With Moses, it’s God saying it. With Hammurabi, it’s a pious king who was given some wisdom, by many number of sources, including from God — but there’s no teeth behind that.
The question is, with respect to Paul: “Why should I care what Paul says?” Only if he has an authority as an apostle do I have any obligation to follow his instruction. And where do we get the idea — there isn’t even such a thing as an apostle? Where do we get that? We get it from the Gospels, don’t we? Where it says Jesus chose 12 men. In one of the Gospels — I’m sorry, I can’t remember which one now. It might be Luke, because Matthew and Mark refer to it as “disciples,” but I believe it’s Luke who says He chose 12 — that they would be apostles, that they would have apostolic authority. Take away the Gospels, and we have no basis for believing Paul has any authority to tell us how to live. And this is the connection there. It’s very important: He has apostolic authority from Jesus Christ. This is why a lot of Paul’s letters begin this way: “Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Jesus Christ,” and then he goes on to the next part of his saying. Second Corinthians: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” And you can go to Galatians — I don’t know if he says, in Galatians, “Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead.” All of that makes no sense unless you know the Gospel story of Jesus Christ — dying, appointing men to take the Gospel into the world, dying, being resurrected.
So it’s all — all the arguments that Paul made it up. You know, Thomas Jefferson, as I’ve told you before, was a deist — he believed God wound the world up and left it on its own; He has no part in it. And he took the Bible — the Gospels — and he clipped out all the miracles and put it together. And by the way, John Adams, who was also a deist — it’s one of those frustrating things: we want to affirm the Christian influences that brought our nation into existence, but all of the leaders of the Revolution and colonial America were not Christians. They were not Bible-believing Christians. And Thomas Jefferson took the Bible and clipped it, cut it out. In a letter — John Adams, the second president — wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson that said, “I wanted to do that myself, but I don’t have time to do it.” And they clipped out all the miracles, all the references to miracles. And Thomas Jefferson, as I told you, said: “They took the religion of Jesus and turned it into a religion about Jesus.” And where do they get those ideas? This is one of them. They say the Gospels aren’t in the letters, so that must mean they were made up. And in fact, we see them prior to, and as the framework, the background for everything we find in the Gospels.
And that’s so very important. If you forget everything else I said tonight, this is important for people that do that, because there are people who still do it. Thomas Jefferson — you said, “Well, he’s been dead for a couple hundred years.” That’s true. There are still people that are writing books and saying, “Paul created Christianity. It was not a — it was not a grassroots result of the ministry of Jesus. This Paul Guy comes along, and he comes up with all these ideas, and now we call it Christianity.” And this is simply not true. It wouldn’t be called “Christianity” unless what? — There’s a Person named Jesus Christ! That’s exactly right. The disciples — were first called, in Antioch, were first called Christians in Antioch — they were followers of this Christ Guy. So Paul can’t make up this Guy without there being a real Jesus Christ. And we saw some of that from the history last week.
Now, the other New Testament letter with the clearest allusions to the word of Jesus is the book of James. We went through the book of James, and this again is a book with a possible date of 45 to 50 A.D. — that’s probably a fair number. We know from the Jewish historian Josephus that James — rather, that means James the brother of the Lord, not James the son of John, who died much earlier than that — James himself was killed in 62 A.D. And so it’s at the front end. So again, if you say the Gospels are written from 40 to 60, James is at the front end of that thing, and here He is using all kinds of references. I only put a couple on your outline, but the one that’s most well known to everybody, James chapter 1 — it’s in section five through six — “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds” — and Matthew 5:11 and 12 says, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you. Rejoice and be glad.” “Count it all joy when you fall into these kinds of trials.” You fall into these kinds of trials. And remember, we affirm sickness, financial problems, marital difficulties, rebellious children, corrupt government — we affirm all those as trials that test our faith — but in the context of Jesus’s words and James’s, it had a lot to do with persecution: “Count it all joy when you’re persecuted.”
Now, if James was making that up — again, who’s going to believe what He says? Who cares what James says, unless James is speaking for Someone higher and greater than himself, which is the Lord Jesus, and He’s writing a letter where He quotes the Gospels?
Now, we’re at the end of the outline, but let me just say this to you. This — again, this. I know, sometimes, some of these subjects, and I agree with you, can be tedious, and I try not to bring all the detail in, because it could really make it tedious. But, children, it really is important — why — it really is important that we know the Gospels, that we have confidence in the Gospels, that we’re able to defend the Gospels, and this is the message — the message is in the Gospels — for people to come to Christ in salvation.
So this is the consideration, and when you go through there, you also find it — I focused on Paul tonight, but you find it in James’s letter, especially when you go through James — which we did the other year — but when you go through that, it’s almost like you’re in an echo chamber of the things that Jesus has said in the Gospels. Peter says a lot of things that you find in the Gospels. And even in John’s Gospel, Peter makes some statements. Well, again — how could they make those statements, quoting from the Gospels, if the Gospels were written after the letters of the New Testament church? And so, when you really go back, you see that there’s this — there’s this meshing together of these things. They’re happening simultaneously. And the reason they’re happening simultaneously is because the historic sequence of events is correct. And you see this again — and it’s many more passages of Scripture we could have brought out tonight for that.
So, at the end of the outline — any questions or considerations or comments about how this came to be, or anything that’s confusing to you? Because next week we’re going to move — as I said — into John’s Gospel specifically, in the historical reliability of John’s Gospel. Because He is the one who has the greatest Christology, and so this makes people think, “Well, this was a development — they didn’t really believe this at the beginning, but as the decades went by, they came up with these ideas about Jesus.” Well, if you can prove the Gospel is historical, then you can eliminate that argument from people.
And again, folks — we live in the… I love — I saw a bumper sticker yesterday on my car. I thought it was kind of funny. It said, “YouTube certified mechanic.” And you just watch YouTube enough, and you can figure out how to do anything. And people do that with their religious faith: “I saw this Guy on TV, I saw this Guy on YouTube, and he said this or that.” And you and I, as Christians, must step into that void and say, “Okay, let’s rewind, and let’s find out what that Guy really knows about it.” And sometimes you’re dealing with skeptics; sometimes we’re dealing with people who would really like to have somebody point them in the right direction with these things.
What was one of the most frequent statements made about Jesus by the people listening?
One of the most frequent statements made about Jesus — and why?
“He spoke with authority.” They said, “This Guy — He’s not like the religious teachers. He’s not hauling around guesswork. He’s putting it out there.” Well, you and I need to have that kind of boldness and assurance. And how do we get that? By learning how to defend the Scriptures and the Word of God, and asking God to send people into our lives who are hungry, and that we can touch — and also asking God to send people into our church for the same reasons.
Amen.
Exactly — well, that’s part of the failure of the church-growth movement: let’s just get them in church, I believe, end of story. And Jesus says, “No — you’re supposed to teach them how to live. And there’s the authority that Paul exercises, but He’s got to have the command of Christ” — which means they’re coming along at the same time. Not “this was first and then this happened later.”
Okay — anyone else? Okay. Don’t forget Saturday evening, if you’re able to come out for the Fall Festival — food and fellowship. Supposed to be nice weather, so we hope to see you.