a hindering of that part. And so Jesus _does not_ fill out the old Hebrew
picture of the Messiah. He could not without the nation's consent. Man
would have used force to seize the national reins. But, of course, God's
man could not do that. It would be against God's plan for man. Everything
must be through man's consent.

Out of this perplexity there came to be the four Gospels. They grew up out
of the needs of the people. Mark seems to have written his first. He makes
a very simple recital, setting down the group of facts and sayings as He
had heard Peter telling them in many a series of talks. It is the
simplest of the four, aiming to tell what he had gotten from another. But
it offers no answer to these puzzling questions.

Matthew writes his account of the gospel for these great numbers of
perplexed, earnest Jewish questioners. They are Palestinian Jews,
thoroughly familiar with Jewish customs and places. Sitting backward on
the edge of the Hebrew past, thoroughly immersed in its literature and
atmosphere, but with his face fastened on Jesus, he composes out of the
facts about Jesus and the old prophetic scriptures a perfect bit of
mosaic. There is the fascination of a serpent's eye in turning from the
prophetic writings to the Gospel of Matthew. Let a man become immersed and
absorbed in the vision of the Hebrew prophetic books and then turn to
Matthew to get the intense impression that this promised One _has_ come,
at last has actually come, _and_--tragedy of tragedies--_is being
rejected_.

This is the gap gospel. It bridges the gap between the prophetic books and
the book of Acts, between the kingdom which has slipped out and the church
which has come in. It explains the adjournment of the kingdom for a
specified time, the church filling a sort of interregnum in the kingdom.