II. DISCIPLESHIP TO A REJECTED MASTER. (Chap. 6:-10:)
In the face of rejection, the Lord now sends out His disciples; chosen before, but now actually sent into the field of labor. This characterizes, I do not doubt, the second part of Mark. It gives us, first, in the sixth chapter, the features, for faith, of a world in which Christ has been rejected, but in which divine love manifests itself in none the less energy, while its ways suit themselves to the condition of things. Secondly, to the ninth verse of the eighth chapter, we have the religious opposition, which ignores man's true need, as well as the authority of God, in contrast with divine grace, which recognizes both. Thirdly, to chapter 9:8, we find the person of Christ confessed by faith, with the cross as present result, the glory the final one. Fourthly, to the end of the same chapter, lowliness and self-judgment are insisted on as the sole way of power and blessing. Lastly, in the tenth chapter, the original divine order in creation is restored, marriage cleared, and its fruits received and blessed, while the fall and need of salvation are maintained, and the principles of reward and rule with Christ announced.
I. (Chap, 6:)The activity of divine love in a scene of rejection.
(i) 6:1-13. Limited by unbelief, yet with full power for men, and seeking them. At the outset, we find the Lord rejected in His own 'country; spite of His mighty works, refused, because of the lowly, familiar way in which He appeared among them. The prophet is not without honor save in his own house. He recognizes this, yet marvels; hindered by their unbelief, can there do no mighty work:yet what they will let Him do He does; He lays His hand upon a few sick folk, and heals them. Still seeking them in patient grace, He goes round about the villages teaching.
It is in face of this unbelief He now sends out the twelve. " He who could not work mighty works, because His service was dependent on divine conditions, on which God could found and carry on His intercourse with men, in order to reveal Himself, now gives power to others over all unclean spirits, a power which is divine. Any can work miracles if God gives the power, but God alone can give it. They are to lack nothing, for Emmanuel was there; and to announce judgment if their message was rejected. Divine love had made Him entirely a dependent Servant; but the dependent Servant was God, present in grace and righteousness," * Synopsis, 3:212.
They who are sent forth are identified then with this gracious activity of divine love toward men; take up their Master's word, and manifest the power given them over the enemy.
(2) 6:14-29. The power of the world in opposition. But here the evangelist turns aside to exhibit the character of the world in opposition to the message of God. At Herod's court the Lord Himself appeared at another time, to find him only hardened by resistance to the present prick of conscience. The scene here is without Christ, in awful antagonism. But such is the rule of the "prince of this world" during the whole present time of long-suffering goodness, until the revelation of the Lord from heaven ends it. How easy to see here the real ruler is not Herod! How marvelous to find Satan using the conscience that would not bow to the word of truth and God, to make him bow to the mandate of a wicked woman against one he knows to be " a just man and a holy"! This, too, was-among the professing people of God, by one who swore to Him the oath by which the prophet died. Since then the powers of the world may be professedly Christian, and that only disguise, not hinder, the real rule of Satan.
(3) 6:30-45. Wilderness ministry. We now return to the Lord, who brings His disciples out into the wilderness for rest and refreshment. This is what still for us the wilderness is made to yield. But here, too, they find a multitude of needy ones, who, seeing them depart, have come out thither after Christ. The day will soon declare how much the wilderness has been the meeting-place between Christ and the souls He serves, and how the Church, in this her necessary place if she will company with Him, has been used for the communication of blessing . to those seeking Him. Little, it may seem, they have, but if God's grace be there, five loaves and two fishes feed five thousand men, while each of those distributing has his precious basket of fragments left,-more than what he began with. For true ministry does not exhaust the one who serves, but furnishes him, if (that is) it be received from Christ. Let us remember the command also to make men sit to eat; and that none that come but find a welcome him that cometh He in no wise casts out.
(4) 6:36-52. His way in the sea. What follows represents His care for His beloved people toiling across the sea, the wind contrary, (for Satan is the prince of the power of the air,) Himself absent:how He comes to them upon the sea, and they know Him not, but take Him to be a spirit, one . conquered of death, not conqueror; how He makes Himself known and is received into the ship, and then the wind ceases. Our general and our individual histories repeat this story often; and how often do we find, when the new trial comes, that we are no more prepared than formerly to recognize the One who comes to us, and when He makes Himself known, it is as great a wonder! Our hearts are, how often, hard and unbelieving as these disciples-indeed, more strangely so.
(5) 6:53-56. The final blessing. But at last the sea is passed, as when He joins us in the end it will be passed, and then the blessing comes, even for the earth, when it, like Gennesaret, shall " know" the One upon whom it all depends, and the blight upon the whole frame of things shall pass, with the spiritual sickness it attends and indicates. For us in His presence also, the former things shall have passed away.
2. (7:-8:9.)The religious opposition, and the grace that alone meets the need of man.
(i) 7:1-23.Human tradition against God and man. We have now the opposition of the religious leaders, always to be met under whatever different forms, until Christ comes. Human authority, first derived from the authority of the Word interpreted, soon and surely displaces the authority of God Himself; and superstition darkens and perverts the natural conscience. It is easier to wash the hands than to purify the heart, and, a priesthood having taken the place of God, their profit may be found in that which sets aside His glory. But man's true need is where all human help is powerless, in a heart from which nothing but evil comes.
(2) 7:24-30. The grace which meets man where no claim is possible. But then in God alone man's help is, and where no claim is possible at all. Of this the Syrophenician woman is the example. A Canaanite, of a race under the curse, and under the power of Satan in her daughter, she is not of the privileged family, but outside-a dog:man's true position whosoever he is. But he has only to take this, to find his sure resource in the grace of God, which cannot possibly fail the one who counts on it. So the woman finds, and from such need Christ cannot be hid.
(3) 7:31-37. The gift of hearing and of speech. But this is not all, nor the worst of man's condition. His deepest need is just that which leaves him without voice to cry, or ears to hear the word that comes to him. It is here we find the Lord oppressed with the state to which He ministers. This is indeed the fullness of grace, yet it is that of which every saved soul is the recipient. Here the election of grace is marked, the man being taken apart from the multitude when he receives healing. And this, it seems to me, connects this with the miracle that follows in which is emphasized-
(4) 8:1-9. The divine sufficiency of the provision made for man. We have a similar miracle indeed to that in the sixth chapter, but the numbers tell a different tale. It is now seven loaves, instead of five, and the baskets-large baskets, and not as before,-are seven also. Before, the numbers 5 and 12 point surely to the human instrumentality employed. Seven speaks rather of divine perfection, although still the grace of God employs men as instruments. This is the fitting close of what is the subject of this second section.
3. (8:lo-9:8.) The confession of Christ, leading to the cross in this world, and to the glory beyond.
(i) 8:10-13. The unbelieving Pharisees seek a sign. Again the section opens with the question of unbelief on the part of the leaders of the people. The Pharisees seek a sign from heaven-some wonder which would command the attention and secure the homage of men at large. The sign of the Son of Man in heaven will be this at last, but too late then. Their former religiousness had no need of the cross, and could not recognize the lowly self-humiliation to which divine love had stooped for men. But of necessity that love must keep its own way, and Christ must be a stumbling-block to those whose pride could not interpret grace. To such a generation no sign could be given.
(2) 8:14-26. The leaven of the Pharisees. But not only in enemies did these things work; the leaven of the Pharisees acted as hindrance to faith in the hearts of the disciples also, and the. Lord's warning words to them as to it only serve to bring it out. They prove themselves ignorant of the proper power and glory of Him in whom yet they sincerely believe. They see, but as through a vail, "men as trees." This condition is no doubt represented in the blind man at Bethesda. But the Lord does not leave incomplete that to which He has once put His hand, and at last the man is restored and sees every thing clearly.
(3) 8:27-30. Faith's confession. Save in those brought thus by personal need into contact with the Lord Jesus, there was nowhere any true faith, those who thought to do Him honor only equaled Him with John the Baptist, Elias, or some other prophet. For truly convicted souls, blessed be God ! there is but one Christ. Peter, divinely taught, then confesses Him. But for Israel, as for man / in nature, all was over therefore, and as Messiah, He charges them that they should tell no man of Him. Through depth's of suffering and distress the way lay open to higher glory,-the glory from which He had stooped, and to which He was to return with the joy for which He endured the cross.
(4) 8:31-38. The way of the cross. And now the Lord begins to speak openly of His rejection and death; and immediately the unbelief which can be so strangely mixed with faith begins to show itself in Peter. He "took Him, and began to rebuke Him"! but the Lord at once rebukes as of Satan Peter's opposition, and announces this cross of His as a pattern and principle for His disciples also. " Whoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel's," (observe how legality is swept away by the very terms,) "the same shall save it. . . . . Whosoever, therefore, shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when He cometh in the glory of His Father with the holy angels."
(5) 9:1-8. The glory at the end. The revelation of the glory closes, therefore, this section. Three-disciples are taken up into the mount of transfiguration to see the kingdom of God come with power. All the elements of the kingdom are in the scene, -the saint who has passed through death; the saint who, like another Enoch, was translated without seeing death; the saints on earth in natural bodies, yet with the glory openly revealed; the "bright cloud," the Shekinah, soon declared as the place of the Father's presence; but Jesus, the Son of Man, proclaimed once more, as at the beginning of His ministry, the Son of God, is the object before the eyes of the astonished disciples, who, if they for a moment put their lowly Master upon some sort of equality of footing with Moses and Elias, are at once warned by the voice from the " excellent glory," " This is My beloved Son; hear Him."
4. (9:9-50.)Lessons of the Path.
(i) 9:9-13. The lesson of resurrection from the dead. The Lord has already spoken of resurrection, but now He refers them to the time when the Son of Man should be risen from the dead as the time when the glory just, unvailed to them should be matter of public testimony and of common joy. But before this, the. Son of Man must suffer, as Elias, for that generation had already come and been cut off. Thus resurrection from the dead, at which they wonder now as a new thing announced, is indeed the foundation of the power and blessedness of Christianity. It is the witness of Christ's work accepted for us; it is that in which we too are risen with Him ; it is that which gives character to our walk through the world. These meanings are not here, nor could be yet, unfolded; but to us, they connect necessarily with what the Lord speaks of to His disciples.
(2) 9:14-29. The lesson of power to use power. On their descent from the mountain, they find a multitude gathered, and the scribes questioning with the other disciples. The power of Satan is manifesting itself unchecked by that which the Lord had intrusted to them. It is this that causes His exclamation, " O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?" Still there is resource 'in Himself. The only lack of power, as He assures the father of the afflicted child, is in the lack of faith. The devil is cast out; and the Lord, in answer to the question, " Why could not we cast Him out?" points out the root of failure to be in want of prayer and fasting. Dependence and self-denial is the secret of power, without which we do not practically possess what in fact is ours. We have seen, in the beginning of His ministry, the Lord Himself meeting Satan as the dependent One; how necessary, then, that His followers should do so!
(3) 9:30-37. The lesson of greatness. The Lord we find full of the cross and of resurrection; the disciples, shrinking from this, are occupied with and dispute about which of them should be the greatest. The Lord bids them understand that the desire to be first would put one last of all. He takes a child as His fitting representative, and assures them that whosoever receives one such little child in His name receives both Himself and His Father also. Self-seeking is surely the antipodes of greatness, as every conscience needs must own. And yet how far asunder are heart and conscience here!
(4) 9:38-41. A lesson on "not following us'' An important lesson comes next as to the largeness of heart by which alone we are competent for a narrow path. John answers the Lord, " Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and he followeth not us; and we forbad him, because he followeth not us." It is self in a subtle, religious way, none the less offensive upon that account. Think of devils being actually cast out in the name of Christ, and a disciple of His forbidding it! But liberality is not enjoined, as men enjoin, upon the ground of any uncertainty as to the path itself. They could not be-how could it be supposed they could be-uncertain of their own path. The Lord puts His answer upon different ground entirely. " No man can do a miracle in My name that can lightly speak evil of Me." In the midst of a world which rejects Christ, how simple and necessary should be the recognition of all that is of Him. It is the joy of the Spirit to take forth the precious from the vile, supposing there be the vile. And as to the Lord Himself, there is not a cup of water given to a disciple in His name but He will acknowledge it in due season.
(5) 9:42-50. Salting with fire. On the other hand, woe to him who causes to stumble one of Christ's little ones; and whatever in you causes you to stumble, cut it off:for every one shall be salted with the fire of divine holiness. If it be in this present life, the result will be holiness eternal; but if not, in Gehenna the flame of remorse will accompany the eternal fire which will subdue all opposition. " Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another."
5. (10:1-45.) The moral restitution of a fallen world.
(i) 10:1-12. The divine order of marriage restored. We find now the moral Order of the kingdom of God, in which the defects of the law (which made nothing perfect) are removed, and the institutions of God in creation are freed from the perversions of man, fallen and corrupt. In answer to the Pharisees, the Lord restores the primitive meaning of marriage, and forbids the divorce which Moses, for the hardness of their hearts, had allowed.
(2) 10:13-16. Children received and blessed. Children are next received and pronounced of the kingdom of God, while whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.
(3) 10:17-27. The need of salvation affirmed. But if only as a little child can the kingdom be entered, the power of man to earn it in any shape is excluded. His goodness is set aside. Not the rich but the poor enter, and that by the very grace of God,-by salvation. Thus the natural amiability, which even drew out the regard of Jesus, when tested, proves only the more decisively the complete ruin of man. " There is none good but One, that is, God." The first-born of fallen man is Cain, "possession;" for the heart dropped away from Him who alone can satisfy it, seeks its good where death reigns over all, where all is vanity. Possessed of this, God is all the more shut out by it out of his heart, and " it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." But " who then can be saved?" asks the disciples. That is indeed what is needed-salvation; but that is entirely in the hands of God:"with men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible."
(4) 10:28-31. The principle of reward. Peter then begins to say to Him, " Lo, we have left all and followed Thee." The heart of a disciple is quite capable of turning the rewards of grace into earning, and so destroy their whole character. Divine love will in fact reward, but only what is done for Christ, not for the reward. "There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or-lands, for My sake and the gospel's, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brethren and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the world to come, eternal life." But then all depends upon the motive; and thus, in result, " many that are first shall be last, and the last first."
(5) 10:32-45. The kingdom of God no kingdom of the Gentiles. Again the Lord begins to put before them the cross. It was that which if they had known in its inner meaning, of necessity would have delivered them from the spirit they immediately manifest; for James and John come unto Him now seeking the places on the right hand and the left in His glory. The Lord puts to them the question of their ability to drink of the cup He was to drink, and be baptized with the baptism with which He would be baptized. They answer, though they had shrunk from it just before, that they are able. He replies that they shall do this, but that the places they seek are not His to give, except to those for whom they' are prepared of His Father. When the ten hear it, they are much displeased, for the same spirit really animates them all; and then the simple blessed truth is stated, so clear and necessary when made known, so impossible to conceive beforehand, that God's kingdom is not like a kingdom of the Gentiles-the places in it not such as would satisfy the pride and ambition of men. The highest there is He who as the " Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." The spirit of service is that which qualifies for a rule which is service still, the ministry of love which values the wealth that is in its hand as power to minister.