Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/128

 who gathered round Him, afterwards to the teeming multitudes."

Characteristic of this Gospel is the rapidity of its move ments, and the promptness of the obedience to the Father's will and to the impulses of the Spirit, expressed in the word rendered "straightway," "immediately" (i. 10-12).

Mark gives no genealogy, because a servant needs not such recommendation, he being judged by his work alone.

(3) But, if Matthew is the Gospel of the King and the Kingdom, and Mark that of the perfect Servant, the prominent feature of our Lord in the Gospel of Luke, which probably was primarily intended for the cultured Greek world, is that of " the Son of Man In it Christ is por trayed as the Man par excellence the true Man, who is both the ideal and the representative of the race; the second Adam, who, in contrast to the first, who brought sin and ruin to the race, is the Saviour of men. The chief characteristic of this Gospel is its universality. The Christ depicted on its orderly pages is indeed the Messiah of Israel, " who is sent in fulfilment of the promises made to our fathers," and of the oath which God sware " to our father Abraham " (i. 67-80); and Who, even after His rejection by Israel, commands that, in the proclamation of His gospel among all nations, His disciples should " begin at Jerusalem " (xxiv. 47) but He is shown as caring also for all who are sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death. " Already in the narrative of the infancy there are hints of the Light which is to enlighten all nations; in the parable of the Good Samaritan and the recital of the mission of the seventy, there is the promise of the advancing outreach of the Divine mercy to men of every nation and tongue; and in the call of Zacchaeus, the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, and the salvation of the penitent robber, we have tokens of a grace which reaches out to the uttermost. The author does not aim at being a theologian; he is an evangelist, and his message is, " The Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost."