October 1st, 2022

Just a few short weeks ago, when the beginning of Ezekiel was being discussed, the four living creatures of the LORD’s throne were connected to the four gospel accounts in an extremely brief way.

MAN AND MATTHEW, LION AND MARK, OX AND LUKE, EAGLE AND JOHN

Those connections have been seen by many and for many centuries as not only superficial but also superfluous. It may be helpful to go over those connections in a bit more detail—although the attempt will be made to keep these connections as brief as possible—a Sabbath day’s journey with a text should, of course, be relatively brief. These connections will happen during the rest of the weeks in October.

It was stated that the first time those four living creatures were listed (in Ezekiel 1), they were listed in the order that they normally appear, with the connections to the four gospel accounts in their normal order. The next time they were listed (in Ezekiel 10), they were listed in the order that the glory left the temple—and basically came to Jesus. In other words, the gospel accounts that had a genealogy of Jesus were first, with the one that went the farthest back in time, that was the very first one. The next time the living creatures were listed (in Revelation 4), they were listed in the order that they were authorized to give the command to ‘Come’ to various horsemen who did things that were against what that particular gospel account did. This was seen as the order in which they were authorized. Therefore, the ones that were written by the secretaries were first, with the ones written by the apostles, last. And, therefore, all four accounts have the resources to be an answer to those difficulties which are caused by those four horsemen.

Although some people think that some of the gospel accounts were written in the decades after Jesus ascended without knowing that other people were writing other accounts—and that is why there is some similarity among the first three—and some think that the Gospel according to John was written at a very different time. There is some evidence that, rather than a chronological answer to the reason for four gospel accounts, there is also a more literary answer.

There is some evidence for an intentional, fourfold account that relates Jesus in four different and important ways. It is most certainly true that a man, a lion, and an ox have some similarities, especially when compared to an eagle, but they are still four different things. In much the same way, The Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are similar, and all three are significantly different from the Gospel according to John. To support the idea of a deliberate, fourfold gospel account, it may be helpful to see some more of the detailed connections between each of the four accounts and the living creature that is most commonly connected to each account.

Starting next week, I will be laying out some of the connections that may be seen between the first of the four living creatures and the account most often connected to it. How can this be done in a brief way? (This is, after all, a Sabbath day’s journey with a text.) A detailed analysis will, admittedly, be quite difficult. Perhaps the easiest way to make a strong connection between the two things will be to look at the historical presents that are in each account.

An historical present is a verb that is in the present tense when one expects the past. One grammar book explains it this way:

The historical present can replace the aorist indicative in a vivid narrative at the events of which the narrator imagines himself to be present; the Aktionsart usually remains punctiliar in spite of the present tense form. This usage is common among NT authors, especially Mk (the Aramaic participial sentence may have contributed to its frequency; s. M.-H. 456f.), as it is among classical writers; only Lk uses it less frequently, probably because he regarded it as a vulgarism… [F. Blass and A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, A Translation and Revision of the ninth-tenth German edition incorporating supplementary notes of A. Debrunner by Robert W. Funk; Chicago, Illinois, USA: The University of Chicago Press, 1961; page 167.].

It is difficult to read the mind of someone who wrote something about two thousand years ago. It would be extremely difficult to say how they were feeling. Therefore, a more literary solution will be attempted with this aspect.
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For the next four weeks, connections will be attempted between the historical presents in the four gospel accounts and the four living creatures. After all, those four creatures are called living creatures, and the historical presents help to bring some of the actions into the present. Instead of focusing on the writer of the text, this method aims to focus on The Author behind the text. He is the One on the throne with those four living creatures. And those creatures are still alive, and they are still doing the work they have been given to do.