ST. MARK 5
1 I have read somewhere an ancient Hindu legend to this effect. In an extensive district of the country a terrible famine long pre- vailed. The parched land refused to yield any sustenance for man or beast, and the wretched people were perishing miserably. A princess of the country knew of their condition and boldly went forth to see for herself ; and what she saw of their sufferings filled her with unutterable compassion. The wise men had declared that the only hope for the country was that some worthy person should die for them and so remove the heavy curse. She quietly resolved to become the needed sacrifice, and retiring among the mountains had a grave dug. She crept into it, and was buried ; and forth from her grave there gushed a pure stream of water. It rushed down the valley, gathering volume as it flowed, and went forth into the wide plain a river bearing freshness, fertility and life to all the land. That river of life in the old legend did not originate in the grave of the dead princess, but in the warm loving heart of a noble maiden, who, in mighty compassion, gave her life for her perishing people. Even so, the Gospel of Jesus Christ has not its beginning in the manger of Bethlehem, in the ministry of John the Baptist, in the Galilean ministry of Jesus, nor yet in the atoning death upon the cross, but in the loving heart of the Eternal God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that all might have eternal life in Him.^
4. But the Gospel had a new beginning in the preparatory '''/ ministry of John the Baptist. TT~not expressed, it is at least implied and ' necessarily indicated, in St. Mark's introductory expression, that John the Baptist's preaching in the wilderness the baptism of repentance, with a view to the remission of sins, was the beginning of the Gospel, — its immediate precursor, the appointed preparation for its full disclosure, so that John's in- structions and his baptisms derived all their worth and meaning from the fact that in the verse explained they were the actual beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We find, accordingly, that when John's ministry was closed, and that of Christ Himself succeeded, it was at first simply a con- tinuation of John's preaching; that the burden of both cries was, " Eepent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand ! "
IT The effective teacher must always have a Gospel to pro- claim. He cannot place himself on the common level of man's life merely. He must have something to say from God, some Divine message to deliver, something that will attract, cheer, and
^W. T. Flack.
6 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
uplift, something that will appeal to that deepest in man which also becomes the highest. He must come, as both John and Jesus did, with " good tidings " from God.^
IT The biographer of Michael Angelo tells that he was once seen standing, chisel in hand, gazing intently on a rough block of marble. Upon being asked what he saw there, he said, " I see a beautiful angel imprisoned, and I mean to set it free." So God gazing on the rough undeveloped mass of humanity saw there the vision of the Ideal Man. The Incarnation of the Divine Son was the deliberate beginning of God on the plane of time to develop the thought of man that was His in all eternity.
II.
The GospeL i. The Word "Gospel."
1. The Eifiglish word. The word "gospel" is an English word. It is a translation of the Latin hona adnuntiatio, which was a translation of the Greek word (evayyiXcov) used in our text. Its original form was godspel, god being the Anglo-Saxon adjective "good," and spel meaning "news." Afterwards god was taken for the name God, and godspel was understood to be " God's story," or the Book of God ; but that was when the name Gospel was used chiefly of the first four books of the New Testament. The Greek word was also turned into the Latin evangelium, and that into the Saxon " evangel," and the two words " gospel " and " evangel," one English, the other classical, were used indiscriminately. Taverner in his Pastils, of date 1540, speaks of "the euangell or glad tydynges of oure saluation (whyche thynge we call commonly in Englyshe a gospell)."
2. The Greek word. The Greek word (evayyiXiov), of which the EngHsh word " gospel " is a translation, was used in classical Greek for the reward given to a man who brought good news ; but in later Greek it was used of the good news itself. The latter is its meaning in the Greek of the New Testament. And what was the good news ? Throughout the whole New Testa-
> W. L. Walker, The True Christ, 110.
ST. MARK 7
ment, says Zahn,^ the whole Gospel is " the oral proclamation of God's ])lan of salvation as made known and realised by Jesus." As verb or substantive the word occurs in the New Testament more than seventy times. The underlying idea is always " good news " or " joyful annunciation." In course of time, the word "gospel" was used of the books which contain the Gospel. That is to say, the longer but more exact form " the Gospel according to St. Matthew " was contracted into " the Gospel of St. Matthew," and then it became customary to speak of the " four Gospels." This expression occurs as early as Justin Martyr {Apol. i. 66).