GOSPELS, The Four, Sylvester Hassell “Matthew, the Hebrew gospel, is the true commencement of the New Testament; it represents Jesus as the son of David, the son of Abraham, and continually refers to the fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures. Mark, Peter’s gospel, represents Jesus, as Peter said to Cornelius, as anointed with the Holy Ghost and power, going about doing good and healing all oppressed with the devil; it is the gospel of action—rapid, vigorous and vivid. Luke, Paul’s gospel, presents Jesus, not as the son of Abraham only, but as the son of Adam; it seems broader in its human sympathy, and is pre-eminently a gospel for the Gentiles—the gospel of the Son of man, its key-note being mercy; the gospel for women, dwelling upon Elizabeth, the Virgin Mary, Anna, Martha and her sister Mary, and the female disciples who ministered to Christ and his Apostles; the gospel for children, dwelling upon the birth and youth of John the Baptist and of Jesus; and the gospel of sacred poetry, the first two chapters being a paradise of fragrant flowers, where the air is resonant with the sweet melodies of heavenly gladness and thanksgiving; the gospel of Luke says the infidel Renan, is the most beautiful book in the world.” (T.D. Bernard.” From Hassell’s History ppg 7,8)
Sylvester Hassell The gospel of John dwells especially upon the divine and eternal glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of this fact, and of its recording the astounding miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus, and on account of its containing several long spiritual discourses of Christ, the especial malevolence of modern skeptics has been directed against the authenticity of this gospel, and it has been most learnedly and laboriously attempted to relegate its composition to the latter part of the second century and to some unknown and unreliable author. But critics have been forced to retreat from A.D. 170 to about A.D. 100, as the time when it was known and used by the church—that is, to the lifetime, if not of John himself, of many of his friends, upon whom such a work, if spurious, could not have been imposed. The internal proof of its authenticity is stronger than that of any classical work of antiquity. Its general structure and contents furnish a convincing argument for its strict historical truth. It contains more touches of an eye-witness than any other of the gospels; it is more observant of chronological order, and confessedly, the most valuable for consultation in the scientific construction of the Savior’s history. It alone gives an adequate explanation of the manner and time in which Christ’s death was brought about (by his raising Lazarus from the dead, near Jerusalem, after the latter had been dead four days, and thus presenting the strongest proof of his own divinity, and offending the Jewish rulers more than ever before).
Even Baur, the founder of the Tubingen school, admits that the author of the Fourth Gospel was a man of remarkable mind, of an elevated spirit, and penetrated with a warm and adoring faith in Christ as the Son of God, and the Savior of the world, and compares him with the Apostle Paul. Surely such a man could not have fabricated a life of his Master. Baur and Keim give the gospel of John the highest praise as a philosophy of religion. “Going from the first to the second century,”says Professor Fisher, “is passing into a far different atmosphere, descending from the heights of inspiration to the level of ordinary and often of feeble thinking, so that setting a work like the fourth gospel in the second century is a literary anachronism.”
No man but the Apostle John could have written it. “If he did not write it,” says Neander, “then its authorship is the greatest of enigmas. Through the Fourth Gospel, while the Apostle John is never mentioned by name, there moves an unnamed, veiled form, which sometimes comes forward, yet without the veil being entirely lifted; the author must have well known who this person was, and he must have been the person himself, whom it was the whole joy of his life to know that Jesus loved, but who modestly and delicately suppresses his own name.” The authenticity of this gospel was abundantly acknowledged in the second century, and was not disputed till the nineteenth century.
The first epistle of John is remarkably similar, and must have been by the same author. The most radical critics admit that the Apocalypse or Revelation was written by the Apostle John; and they maintain that the Fourth Gospel is so much purer, calmer and more grammatical Greek, that it could not have had the same author. But the latest and profoundest scholars believe that the Apocalypse was written by John, as Boanerges, a son of thunder, about A.D. 69, after the Neronian persecution Rev. 6:9-11, and amid the terrible and portentous events just before the destruction of Jerusalem Rev. 11:1-14; and the Fourth Gospel was written by him some twenty or thirty years afterwards, when he had been residing many years in the Grecian cities of Asia Minor, and had acquired a much freer use of the Greek language, and when he was in extreme old age, and with memory refreshed by the Divine Spirit, according to Christ’s latest promises, he was occupied with tranquil and delightful reminiscences of his beloved Lord.” (Hassell’s History ppg 8,9)