Mark 8

Mark 8:1-26

XV “He hath done all things well.”- Mark 7:37. Mark 7:24-37 - Mark 8:1-26. IN this paragraph we have the story of the last things in the public ministry of Jesus, prior to the confession of Peter at Caesarea Philippi, and the new teaching and method which followed that confession.

The story contained in this paragraph may be divided into two parts. The first gives the account of a Gentile ministry of Jesus which was new, and must have been startling to His disciples, and to others. He travelled north, away from the earlier scene of His labour, so far as Tyre, and there He healed the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman. Then, proceeding still further north, and bearing to the northeast, He came to Sidon, travelling in a southerly direction through Decapolis, the country of the Ten Cities, all the while in Gentile territory, exercising a ministry among these Gentiles similar to that which He had been exercising among the Hebrew people. All this is contained in chapter seven, from verse twenty-four to the end of the ninth verse of chapter eight.

The second part of the paragraph, commencing at the tenth verse of chapter eight, and ending at the twenty-sixth verse, takes us back again into a hostile atmosphere. As He returned across the sea to Dalmanutha, He was immediately met by Pharisees and Sadducees demanding a sign. Then, once more crossing the sea in company of His disciples, He warned them, and dealt with their blindness. The brief story ends with the account of their arrival on the other side-on the northeastern shore of the lake-again in Gentile territory, and the opening of the eyes of the blind man.

The text, “He hath done all things well,” is resolutely borrowed from the context. The words were spoken by the Gentiles, and had special reference to the healing ministry which Jesus had been exercising in Decapolis, of which Mark gives no account, but which Matthew records quite clearly, and to this wonderful miracle, the opening of the ears of the deaf man, and the straightening out of his twisted tongue. It was in the presence of these evidences of His power that these Gentiles said, “He hath done all things well.”

If, however, I admit that I resolutely borrow the text from its context, let me hasten to add it is not ruthlessly so taken; for accepting the conclusion of these Gentiles, I propose simply to make a wider application of it; to let this declaration cover the whole of these events, and so form a fitting conclusion to that survey of the public ministry of our Lord which at this point ceases. By its use in this way, I desire to fasten attention upon Him.

In these events we see Him in His relation to humanity in its varied needs. We will take that outlook, ignoring the racial division which we have already recognized as between the Gentile and the Jew; simply looking at Him as He stands confronting these varied phases and illustrations of human need. Such a meditation will constrain us at the conclusion to return to the text and say, “He hath done all things well.”

We know these stories, and are indeed very familiar with them. We glance at them once again, desiring, as we move in front of the pictures they present in imagination, specially to observe the need represented.

The first picture is that of the Syrophcenician woman. Out of the mass of detail that we have here in Mark and in Matthew, let us attempt to gather the central value. The revelation of need supremely represented here is that of the sorrow of a mother. Any careful reading of the story must bring something of pathos into the voice, as the account is read of how the woman besought Him that He would cast the demon out of her little daughter. Leave the Lord out of view for the moment, and all the difficulties which gather about the story, and see that one woman in agony about her child. Admit the disabilities under which she laboured, which these evangelists are both careful to point out, Mark speaking of her as a Greek, which simply means a Gentile, and not a Greek only, but a Syrophcenician.

Matthew does not speak of her as a Gentile, neither adds the fact that she was Syrophcenician; but, taking the more general term, he at once says a Canaanitish woman. Humanity is revealed as we look at the woman, and the elemental superiority to racial disadvantage is seen in the agony of the mother heart. Oh yes, she was a Greek, and not a Hebrew, but she was a mother! She was a Syrophcenician, a Canaanitish woman, one of the accursed race, but she had a heart, and it was a mother’s heart! There, flashing out on the canvas, is this revelation of a touch of humanity that is independent of advantage, and superior to disadvantage, mightier than racial differences; and in the wail of the woman we have the cry of the heart of a mother.

The next picture that Mark gives, is that of a man deaf, and having an impediment in his speech. This is a picture of personal disability. The whole point of the picture, however, as it occurs here in the Gospel, is not that of the man’s personal disability. It is rather that of the fact that this man in this Gentile region was brought to Jesus by his friends. It is never safe to base too much upon the argument of silence, but at least it is an interesting fact to note that the man made no appeal to Christ. He did not come to Christ on his own initiative.

His friends brought him, and besought Jesus that He would touch him. So while the man stands central in the picture, in some senses, I look again, and in the sympathy of these men for their friend, men outside the company of Israel, outside that racial relationship which was religious in its function, I see something human. I am again impressed by the elemental superiority over racial disadvantage. Oh, yes, these men were Gentiles, but they were men. Oh! yes, these people also probably were of the Canaanitish race, but they had sympathy in their heart; witness their effort to bring their friend to Jesus.

The next picture is one full of life, colour, and movement. It is that of a great multitude, at least four thousand people, gathered together; and it is a picture of these people hungry. Do not spiritualize the word too soon. There are spiritual values undoubtedly in these miracles of feeding, but let us begin on the true level-a literal hunger, a physical hunger, a need for food. The hunger of these people was the outcome of their attraction to Jesus, and their determination to stay by Him. Mark the words of Christ, “because they continue with Me now three days, and have nothing to eat.” Here was a situation of real need, arising within the material and the physical.

These people were hungry, and it was the hunger of health, and thus ought to be met and satisfied, lest journeying back, they faint. This was an experience of physical weakness!

The next is a very different picture. It is that of a deputation, an official deputation, almost certainly, of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Mark says “Pharisees” only, but comparing the account with Matthew’s Gospel, which is necessary for the understanding of some subsequent things, we find the Sadducees came with them, demanding a sign from Him. Who were these men who came to Jesus? The religious leaders of the hour, the men who were religious teachers in Jerusalem, the spiritual rulers of the people, men whose office it was to interpret to the people the law of God, to reveal to the people the way and the will of God,

They were in conflict; with each other, these Sadducees and Pharisees. The Pharisees stood for the spiritual ideal of religion. While they trammelled that ideal by tradition, and hindered its working, nevertheless they stood for spiritual things; or if we may borrow, for the sake of illustration, a somewhat questionable word, they stood for the supernatural in religion. On the other hand, the Sadducees were the rationalists, who denied angels, spirits, and resurrection, everything in the nature of the supernatural. The Sadducees were men who believed in a religion that was entirely ethical, and who never admitted the relation of the ethical to the spiritual. The representatives of these opposing parties came together to Christ to prefer the same request. The thing they asked was a sign from heaven.

What is the supreme revelation of this picture? It is that of spiritual inferiority in spite of advantage. That statement is only forceful as it is immediately put back into contrast with what we saw concerning the Syrophoenician woman. In the case of the woman we saw the elemental need of humanity superior to all social and racial disadvantages. In these men we see deterioration; and failure, and spiritual inferiority, in spite of religious advantages. Here were men asking for a sign, who had seen His signs; men who had listened to His words, and followed Him from Judaea and from Galilee; men who had watched the working of His power in the marvels that He had wrought, had seen Him healing disease, casting out demons, raising from the dead; and infinitely more wonderful than all, banishing the power of sin, forgiving it, and demonstrating His right and authority to forgive in the results that followed.

They had seen Him dealing with every form of human malady, material, mental, moral. Yet these men said: “Show us a sign.”

Once again I pass on, and the next picture is that of the disciples, alone with Jesus in the boat, for I think the warning and the conversation took place as they crossed over the sea to Bethsaida. This is a picture of the misunderstanding of the loyal-hearted. It is a picture of men who loved the Lord, and were loyal to the Lord, and as He Himself with infinite grace did say upon, a later occasion, men who abode with Him in His temptations; but they had not understood Him. As they crossed over the sea, Jesus warned this little group of His disciples, His apostles, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” They immediately connected His reference to leaven with material bread. They said, “We have no bread.” Now what they really meant by that I cannot tell. It may be some one can tell me!

I have been trying to find out how they connected the word of Jesus with bread. If I judge by the Lord’s answer it is as if they thought He was rebuking them for carelessness; for in effect He said, Do you not yet see that I am able to provide for that physical need? Why should you trouble about that? Did I not feed five thousand and four thousand?

Yet I am still in some difficulty. What did they imagine He meant by the leaven of the Pharisees? Did they imagine that the Pharisees were going to take their meal and put leaven into it? Or was there in their mind some lurking suspicion that when He said, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,” He was giving them a new ceremonial addition to the law? I do not know. Speculation is unprofitable! I cannot see the connection between what He said and what they thought. The fact remains that, when Jesus uttered that which He evidently felt was a greatly-needed spiritual warning, His disciples, His loyal-hearted ones, those who loved Him, thought about bread.

There is one other picture. Arrived at Bethsaida again, they brought to Him a man suffering personal disability, a blind man. Once again the central value of the story is that it is a revelation of the sympathy of His friends, for they brought Him to Jesus,

Now let us look again at these stories. What did Jesus do with that woman in whom there was manifested the touch of true humanity, the agony of the mother’s heart? In considering what He did for her, first look at the result. That may not be a proper line of consideration, yet I think it is. The result was what the mother found when she got back home. She found the child laid upon the bed, and the demon gone out.

To know what He did, we must see that child as the mother left her, contorted, twisted, and then lying on the bed, quiet, restful. That is what He did for her. To look at the result first is to be better qualified to see the process. Is not that the solution of many of the things of this life? I think so. I think when at last we really see the result; we shall not be so perplexed about some of the processes.

From the standpoint of the result, let us observe His method, and observe it most carefully. It did look hard. It did seem severe. First, He was silent. He did not answer her. Then He said to her, “Let the children first be filled; for it is not meet to take the children’s bread and to cast it to the dogs.” But did He really say this? Listen to Him again, and notice that He said to her, “Let the children first be filled.” That in itself was suggestion that others might be fed after the children were fed.

Then we have not a word conveying the exact equivalent in our language to a word in the Greek here. He did not say, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.” To put it into colloquial English, He said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and cast to the doggies.” There is a difference here. There are dogs and dogs; and there certainly were dogs and dogs in Palestine. There were dogs fierce and wild, marauding beasts; but there were also the dogs of the household, the diminutive dogs, that had their place in the household, that had their place in the dwelling. This word the Master used was one of these diminutives; and there is so much in diminutives! No one can use them without there being tenderness in the voice.

I claim that tenderness for Jesus here. He said, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the doggies.” There is at least something in that tenderness.

Ah! to us it may seem harsh to refer to her even in that way; but mark what He did for the woman. Put the apparent severity of His method by the side of what He did. He set her free from the trammels of a false view of privilege. When she first called to Him she called to Him as the Jewish Messiah. “O Lord, Thou Son of David, my daughter is grievously vexed with a demon.” She was asking some pity from a Hebrew Messiah, she herself being, a Gentile, and He answered upon that ground. If she appeal to Him as Hebrew Messiah He will say Nay. So she was brought to cry to Him out of her elemental humanity. “Lord, help me . . . for even the doggies eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” Then He said, “For this saying go thy way; the demon is gone out of thy daughter.” Thus, whereas He said the apparently severe thing, He admitted her immediately to the privilege of a child.

There is a word of Paul in his Galatian letter, having a profounder application than I am now going to make of it, but in some ways the dealing of our Lord with this woman is a wonderful commentary on this word of Paul; “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love.” That is what happened in the case of the woman; faith working through love. Christ had told her that it was not good to give the children’s bread to the little dogs; and faith wrought through love, and He treated her, not as a dog to whom the crumbs were to be given, but as a child admitted into all the privileges of the family.

Thus our Lord showed that in .Him all racial barriers, were broken down, all racial privilege was as nothing; that where the soul in its elemental human agony approached Him in faith, He answered. It was a foreshadowing of the Acts of the Apostles; of what Peter and others had to learn afterwards.

But look at Him again. I will take the second and last pictures, and put them together, because they are so much alike in certain ways. He was dealing with two men, a dumb man and a blind man. Now it is noticeable and all students of these stories are arrested by it that our Lord was adopting new methods in His miracles, or seemed to be doing so. He took the dumb man apart from the crowd, put His fingers into his ears, and touched him with His own spittle, sighed, and said, Ephphatha, and the man’s ears were opened. Even more remarkable was the case of the blind man, where His working of the wonder seemed to be gradual; first of all the anointing with a touch, then asking him, “Seest thou aught?” and after the answer of the man, “I see men, for I behold them as trees, walking,” the touch of the hands, and full recovery. In these two cases we see a process of healing.

Do not let us imagine for a moment that in these methods of Jesus we have any revelation either of weakening power on His part-for that has been suggested or of the adoption of new methods and the banishment of the old, for this also has been suggested.

In these two stories we have wonderful illustrations of a perpetual fact in the method of Jesus with human need; the fact that He adapts His method to the peculiar circumstances of need of the one with whom He is dealing. I am quite convinced if we could perfectly know these men we should discover the reason for the method. In each case Christ adapted Himself to the need of the man. This was also finely illustrated in the case of the woman.

In all these stories Jesus approached human need full of resources. There was no necessity, as far as He was concerned, to heal by any kind of means; no necessity to keep that woman waiting for a moment for the healing of her child; but there was profound necessity for everything He did in the case of the people who came to Him. If at your leisure you will go through the Gospel stories, and the cases in which Jesus dealt with need-I am not now referring to the spiritual needs, but to the needs met by these very miracles-you will discover, perhaps to your amazement, and certainly to your profit, that He never did anything the same way twice. There was infinite variety in all His dealings with men. He never healed more than one blind man in the same way. He never cast out the demon from more than one man in the same way. There was always a difference, and in the difference is a wonderful revelation of the variety of the experiences of human need, and consequently a wonderful revelation of our Lord’s adaptability to that variety of experience.

All of which is at once a revelation of the Lord, and an indication of the true line of Christian service. If we are really going to deal with men in the name of Christ and humanity, we cannot deal with all men in the same way. Inasmuch as the material miracles of Jesus are all parables of spiritual value in Christian service, as I watch the Lord I understand that when I talk to one man of his spiritual need, and try to help him; and then to another man of his spiritual need, and try to help him; if I approach the two men in succession, having arranged everything as to my method of dealing with them, the probability is that I shall not help them at all. The Lord never did a thing twice in the same way, He was not changeable therefore, but changeless; absolutely true to the underlying principle that every human life is lonely, separate, peculiar, and must be separately dealt with. Christ never deals with men en masse. He deals with men one by one.

It is an old proverb, and a foolish one, that God made Oliver Cromwell, and broke the mould. I join issue with what is inferred when men say that God made Oliver Cromwell and broke the mould, or God made John Wesley and broke the mould. The inference is that He does not always break the mould when He makes a man; that the vast majority of people are run through the same mould. Nothing of the kind! There is neither man nor woman but stands separate, alone, in the dignity of individuality, and who can say with Jesus, “To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world.” It is sad that so few find out the greatness of individuality, and consequently fail to discover the meaning of individuality and personality.

The Lord provided for the hungry multitude because they had been three days with Him. There is another important principle here. Jesus did not feed them in order to persuade them to listen to His teaching. When a tea-meeting is necessary, to get people to listen to the Gospel there will be failure. That is not the method of Christ. To build an Institute in connection with a Church, and provide all kinds of entertainment for the young people, in order that they may come to the Bible classes, is to be foredoomed to failure.

In the case of the Pharisees and Sadducees who demanded a sign, the Lord refused what they asked; first because their motive was wrong; and secondly because no sign would have convinced them. They had already had the signs, and were willfully blind.

His treatment of the disciples those-disciples to whom the Lord always spoke with sympathy was that He definitely and sternly rebuked them in a series of indignant questions. Yet observe also that He led them on until they did understand what He meant.

I gather up the impressions made upon my soul, as I have watched the Lord in these stories. The first is that of His perfect understanding of every case as it came before Him.

The second is that of His quick sympathy, the sensitiveness of His soul, that immediately responded, whatever the need by which He stood confronted.

Yet again I am impressed by His sustained loyalty to principle. He never deviated by a hair’s-breadth from the pathway of His loyalty to the Kingdom of God.

I am impressed finally by the very sternness of His rebuke of the disciples who failed.

Ah! but there are two little phrases in the course of this passage that are very revealing, far more revealing than we know. When He was about to open the ears of; the man, “He sighed” In the presence of the demand for a sign by the Pharisees and Sadducees, “He sighed deeply in His spirit.” Thus twice I hear a sigh coming up from His soul. Behold, “a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief!” Behold a Man exercising a ministry full of healing power and elemental light; but never forget that this service was costly. The principle of the Cross ultimately to be revealed supremely on Calvary, ran through all,’ making Him what He was to the men of His own age, making Him what He is to the men of today.

Mark 8:27-38

XVI “And He said unto them, verily I say unto you, there are some here of them that stand by, which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Kingdom of God come with power.”- Mark 9:1.

Mark 8:27-38 - Mark 9:1-13. THE stories which we grouped in our last meditation gave a graphic revelation of the conditions obtaining at the end of the second period of the ministry of the Servant of God, which was practically also the end of His more formal and public propaganda. The multitudes were interested, and were prepared to receive His gifts. They were prepared, moreover, to crown Him and follow Him in the establishing of a material kingdom, in which He would supply their needs. The rulers on the other hand, were definitely and desperately hostile to Him. The disciples were dull of spiritual apprehension, needing to be warned against the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. At this time in the ministry of our Lord He might fittingly have employed the words of the great Servant of Jehovah, as found in the prophecy of Isaiah:

“Who hath believed our message? and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed? For He grew up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised, and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as One from Whom men hide their face He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.”

The paragraph now under consideration tells the story of a crisis in the ministry of our Lord, and of a new beginning. In the teaching ministry of Jesus there were two distinct stages. The burden of His early teaching was that of declaring His Messiahship, and of bringing men to understand that He was the Messiah, in fulfillment of prophecy. The second matter of importance in the teaching ministry of our Lord was that He should show men that Messiah must go by the way of suffering and death, to His crowning. Men who were familiar with the ancient prophecies knew full well that the two aspects had been suggested. At the time, however, they were so strangely puzzled by this fact, that there were those who declared that there would be two Messiahs, one, a suffering Messiah, and the other, one who should come in glory, and establish a Kingdom.

In this paragraph we are at the parting of the ways, at the hour of crisis, when He ended the first phase of teaching, and began to devote Himself, within the narrower circle of His disciples, to the second stage. This particular verse has been selected as text because I believe it to be central to the whole paragraph. With slight variation the statement which our Lord made upon this occasion is found in exactly the same contextual relation in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

The statement opens chapter nine in Mark’s Gospel; and of its placing there, Dr. Morison says:

“It was in a mood of mental somnolence that Hugo de Sancto Caro concluded the eighth chapter with the thirty-eighth verse, and carried forward into a new chapter the verse before us.”

Here is one illustration of the unfortunate division of our Bible into chapters. By its system of paragraphing the Revised Version attempts to remedy the blunder, and yet the supreme mistake was a chapter division at all, at this point. Observe the sequence of events. Jesus journeyed north until Caesarea Philippi was reached; and there at some one point, as Mark says, somewhere among those villages, came the sudden halt, and the challenge to His disciples: “Who do men say that I am?” The answers were given, and then He challenged that narrower circle of His own, “Who say ye that I am?” Then came the hour toward which the Lord had been moving, the victory for which He had been working, the hour of illumination, when one man. Peter, made his great confession, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That confession was immediately answered by our Lord with another confession, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” Mark does not record this, but Matthew in his Gospel, which is supremely that of the Kingdom, tells the story of that word of Jesus.

Immediately following these confessions of Peter and of Jesus, a new note in the teaching of our Lord was sounded. He “began … to show unto His disciples, how that He must . . . suffer”; and the use of the word began there, and the emphasis I place upon it, are warranted. Never before had He talked of His coming Cross or suffering. Never before had He spoken of the resurrection which should crown the Cross. Never before had He spoken of the second advent. All this teaching began then. The supreme note of the teaching was that of the Cross.

This gave rise to the fear, born of love, in the heart of Peter that made him say, “Be it far from Thee, Lord”; and called forth the sudden, startling, stern answer of the Lord to the man whom He had commended for his confession: “Get thee behind Me, Satan: thou art a stumbling-block unto Me for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men.” Then followed the teaching of the disciples and the multitudes in the presence of the Cross, His insistence upon the necessity for the Cross; and at the end of that whole incident, the words: “I say unto you, There are some here that stand by, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Kingdom of God come with power.”

Then there were six days of silence, followed by the transfiguration mount; and after that the descent from the mount, and the conversation by the way.

Thus the text selected is seen as central. It gathers up and emphasizes that teaching of Jesus; first that the Kingdom is to come in power note the confession about the Church-but supremely that the Kingdom can only come in power by the way of the Cross. “There are some here of them that stand by”-a special reference in His mind undoubtedly to His own apostles, although others would be included “who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Kingdom of God come” not in perfection, not in finality, but “in power.” This was a reference undoubtedly to the fact that those who had said they were afraid, and shrank from the Cross, should yet come to understand that the Kingdom comes in power only by way of the Cross.

We are at once reminded of a paragraph in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, which has the closest spiritual relation to this word of Jesus (1 Corinthians 1:18-25). From the paragraph we select these phrases: “The word of the Cross . . . is the power of God.” “Christ crucified . . . the power of God.” “Verily I say unto you, There are some here of them that stand by, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Kingdom of God come with power.”

Our Lord was declaring, not that these men who were round about Him could ever see the Kingdom come in its perfection in the present life. He was declaring to them, startled, amazed, mystified as they were by the strange new thing He was saying, that by that very process from which they were shrinking, and naturally so, the Kingdom of God would come with power.

Now this is still a stumbling-block, not to the Jew alone, but to many others; still foolishness, not to the Greek only, but to many others. This view of the way through which the Kingdom comes continues to baffle the philosophy of the age and the world. These are “the things of God,” to which the “ things of men” are opposed. This is God’s way to victory. Men cannot understand it even yet. Still too often His disciples mind the things of men rather than the things of God.

In order that this meaning and value of our text may be apprehended, let us consider the ideas of the text in the light of its context; first, the idea of the Kingdom; secondly, the idea of the Kingdom coming in power; concluding with an inquiry as to how these men really saw it come in power.

The Kingdom idea runs throughout the whole of this story.

We are inclined to think, or we sometimes speak as though we were, that our Lord at this point departed from what evidently had been the master passion of His ministry, that namely, of the establishing of the Kingdom of God in the world. We seem to imagine that this reference to the Church, and to the Cross, and to a second advent were all removed from the theme of the Kingdom. It is of supreme importance that we recognize that they are closely related to the purpose of the Kingdom of God. When our Lord challenged these men, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” it was a Kingdom passion that moved Him. With singular daring, and arresting intention, He made human opinion concerning Himself the supreme thing in His ministry. He did not ask what men thought of the things He had done.

He did not ask what men thought of the things He had said. He asked, “Who do men say that I am?”

In view of all that followed, in view indeed of all that had preceded, wherein we have seen Him moving forward with singular authority and dignity, we immediately recognize that He was seeking to discover whether men would recognize Him as supreme. When the answers came He was not satisfied until He asked the inner circle, “Who say ye that I am?” and one man had confessed Him supreme. That is the real value of the confession. Thou art not John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, a prophet; Thou art not one looking for Another; Thou art the Other for whom all have looked; the last and final One, to the brightness of Whose coming, longing eyes have long been lifted, Messiah, anointed King, and Priest. It was for that confession the Lord was seeking. His question was the question of the King.

All prophetic references to Messiah looked upon Messiah as King, through Whom should come the establishment of the Divine Kingdom. This is the real meaning of the word. Christ is but the Greek form of Messiah, or anointed One. Messiah is not a name; Christ is not a name. When we speak of the One Whom we worship as Christ, let us remember that is a title, and not a name; marking the eternal Son of God for one mission and one work. It is the title of an office, the office of supremacy, of Kingship, of the One Whose business it is to ransom men, and realize the Kingdom of God.

All this is patent also if we listen to the confession of Jesus. “Upon this rock I will build My ecclesia, My church.” “My ecclesia.” This was a word in common use at that time, used of the Hebrew nation as constituting a theocracy, and used in every Greek city with regard to the governing body in the city. It is a word saturated with the ideas of authority and kingship.

When our Lord said, “Upon this rock I will build My ecclesia,” He really inferred, Upon this rock I will build My Kingdom. The reference is to the Kingdom realized, the functions and the purpose of the Kingdom revealed through the instrument to be known as His Ecclesia, His Church. The master passion in the heart of Jesus here, as always, was that of the Kingdom, and its establishment.

So also, the function of the Church is essentially revealed: “Upon this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it,” The Church is a conquering Kingdom, bringing all kingdoms into subjugation to itself. “And I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom”; by the Church the moral standards of life are erected and revealed to all kingdoms, until coming into harmony with it, they become the one Kingdom of our God and of His Christ. The supreme idea is that of the Kingdom.

The Kingdom throughout all this period, was not seen in power, but in weakness; an ideal, but not realized; a vision, but not a victory. In the answers that they gave to Him, reporting the things said concerning Him, is a revelation of the failure of the Kingdom ideal. The vast multitudes of men had not seen the Kingdom, and although here was one soul illuminated, so that he confessed Him Messiah, in his halting a moment afterwards was a revelation that the Kingdom seen, was not yet with power. In the “must” of the new unveiling of Jesus, when He said that He must go to Jerusalem, was a revelation of the Kingdom in weakness, for notice with what carefulness He named the opposition that confronted Him in Jerusalem: elders, chief priests, scribes. That was no careless grouping, but the naming of all the authorities within the city; elders, the civic rulers; chief priests, the religious rulers; scribes, the moral rulers. All the authority within the city-civil, religious, moral-was massed against Him.

The Kingdom was in weakness; and as He Who represented it, in Whom it was brought, Who had come for its revelation and establishment, moved to the centre of national life, to Jerusalem, He came into the realm of hostility and suffering, and He must suffer, and be killed. The Kingdom in weakness, is the picture presented to us here.

Yet once s more glancing over the picture from another standpoint, the way of the coming of the Kingdom in power is revealed. First, this is seen in the declaration of the Lord Himself. As I hear Him speak and interpret the thing He said in the light of subsequent events, I know that there is a deeper meaning in the “must” of Jesus. When He said the Son of man must go to Jerusalem and suffer, He was not declaring that He was hemmed in by circumstances; He was not declaring that He was the victim of forces that were against Him. Partially, yes, we may have admitted it; but there is a deeper note. The “must” of Jesus is something profounder than that.

In the next book to the Gospel stories, the book of the Acts, I find the first recorded address of this very man, Peter, who made his confession of Christ, and then shrank from the Cross and was so sternly rebuked. In that first address delivered on the day of Pentecost, I find an account of the Cross, strangely full of light. Speaking to these men in Jerusalem, within a few minutes or hours after the illumination of Pentecost had come to him, Peter thus spoke of the Cross: “Him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men did crucify and slay.” Now mark the words of Peter. That to which he referred in the second place was that which has been first in our consideration. Ye rulers of Israel did crucify and slay by the hands of men without the law; that is by Gentile hands, ye crucified Him, and slew Him. Yes! but Peter had now seen something more than that in the Cross, and so he declared that He was “delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” In the “must” of Jesus there was recognition not of the compulsion of circumstances, but of the compulsion of the will of His God, and of His cooperation with God. Into the “must” of Jesus there is gathered the strange and mystic light which reveals Him even at this juncture, not as One going as a Victim to be murdered, but as the one Priest, proceeding as a Victor over all circumstances including the death to which He went, in order that He might accomplish a purpose, and build a Kingdom, and realize the will of God.

That value of the “must” is borne out by the fact that He interpreted His death by His resurrection. When they presently descended from the mount of transfiguration, they inquired what this resurrection from the dead should mean. That was the arresting thing to them. Strangely enough they never seemed to grasp its significance, or to have been able to believe in it, as something to come immediately. Even after He had answered their inquiry, they were inclined to think of resurrection as Martha did. When Jesus said to her, “Thy brother shall rise again,” she said, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” By which she meant, Do not try to comfort me with a far-off resurrection; I want him now!

I think these disciples had the same attitude toward the resurrection. They believed in it as a far-off event.

We must never forget this fact, that there is no instance in these New Testament records of Jesus referring to His Cross, but that at the same time He also referred to His resurrection. The Son of man must go up to Jerusalem, and suffer, and be killed, and the third day rise again. That is not the language of a man who says: I am beaten by circumstances; but I must be loyal to a principle; I must go on, though I die. No! It was the calm, strong, amazing language of One Who saw death interpreted by resurrection; of One Who must suffer and die and be raised again. In the mystic language of our Lord, even though as yet we have not come to the full realization of it, we begin to hear the thunder of His power, and find the Kingdom coming in power.

Then in all the teaching that followed-His stern rebuke of Peter; the statement He made to the multitudes as to the necessity for following Him by the way of the Cross if they would be in cooperation with Him in the building of the Kingdom; and the final and resultant words concerning His second advent in the glory with His Father and with the angels in all these things, we catch the tones of power, and see that our Lord knew and declared that the Kingdom would only become dynamic by the way of the Cross.

Then followed that wonderful event of the transfiguration. The disciples saw the Lord transfigured. It would be better, perhaps, if we changed the word “transfiguration,” anglicizing the Greek word; and read it thus, They saw the Lord metamorphosed. “Transfiguration” is a perfectly accurate word, only we are apt to think of it as though they saw Him with light falling on Him. On the contrary, He Himself was metamorphosed, changed completely in some strange mystery of glorification and realization.

The disciples saw Moses and Elijah talking with Him. Mark does not tell us this; but another of the evangelists. They heard Him talking with them of the exodus that He was about to accomplish; that is, of this going to Jerusalem, and dying, and rising again. Then the disciples said, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” We have been forever criticizing them, and trying to say what they meant when they said that; all the while forgetting that the evangelist tells us that they did not know what they were doing; and did not know what to say, so they said that!

But now observe most carefully that they heard a voice, which said to them, “This is My beloved Son: hear ye Him.” There had been six days of silence, because He had brought them face to face with the Cross, and they had shrunk from it. I think this was quite natural. Who could understand this strange mystery that One could build a Kingdom by dying, that One could gain a victory by being defeated, that One could come to crowning by the way of the Cross? Who could understand? We hardly yet believe it! It was revolutionary!

This is surely what they were thinking on the mount. Lord, not that Cross to which Thou art going; let us stay here! Let us build three tabernacles here. Let us stay in this light, in this glory, in this holy conversation. Yet the conversation was of the exodus; and if they had stayed there, the exodus had never been accomplished? The Divine voice rebuked them: “This is My beloved Son: hear ye Him.” The supreme and sacramental glory of the mount of transfiguration was not “that of its flashing splendour, but of the conversation concerning the Cross, and the ratification of that conversation and purpose by the Divine voice.

These men saw the Kingdom come in power in His dying, in His rising, and in that immediate spiritual coming again, which took place in their experience on the day of Pentecost.

They saw the Kingdom coming in power in His dying. Grant their terror, their sense of defeat; and yet remember what they saw. During these days they saw things that they hardly saw at the time; but they knew afterwards that they had seen them. Impressions were made upon their souls, the value of which was not immediate, but which came after. In all these last and tragic events they saw the unconquered King. In every incident from that moment of foretelling, to the final act and fact of death, they saw Him moving with authority, with power, with dignity.

Take this illustration. One of their own number, Judas, was plotting and planning with the priests for the arrest of his Lord; and in the dark and terrific business we are told that the priests said to Judas, “Not during the feast.” Judas took the thirty pieces of silver, the bargain being made, and went with the money, oh! ghastly thing! into the very presence of Jesus, charged by the priests not to betray Him until the feast was over. While Judas was plotting with the priests, Jesus was talking to His disciples, and He said: “After two days the passover cometh, and the Son of man is delivered up to be crucified.” When Judas came into the presence of Jesus, after a little while Jesus looked at him and said, “That thou doest, do quickly”; and he went out, and betrayed Him at the feast. Not the priests arranged the hour of His dying, but Jesus Himself.

This same activity in power runs all through. They saw Him in the garden, in the intervals of their sleeping, heard His words as He came back to them through the hours of His agony. They were all kingly words. They saw that strange thing happen in the garden, which we hurry over in our reading too carelessly. When the guard came to arrest Him, led by Judas, Jesus said, “Whom seek ye?” They replied, “Jesus of Nazareth.” He said, “I am”; and those soldiers fell backward in His presence. Why?

I am not going to answer the question. I have no details, but I pray you, mark it. These disciples saw this strange sight. Something happened that made these men fall back; and then something more wonderful happened, for they bound Him and took Him away. Through the trial they watched Him, some of them, and saw Him kingly, saw Him in the midst of the mock trial solemnly affirm His Messiahship, His Kingship; kingly to the end, until in the final act He said, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit.” As we listen we remember words He uttered long before, “Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.” The men about the Cross had killed His body, but His spirit was commended to God, and He died as a King. We remember once again words that He uttered: “No one taketh My life away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.

I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again.” These are the things of the Kingdom in power, strange things, mystic things, things that raise questions, things the full value of which the heart of man challenges, and wonders whether they can be so. These are the things of power; the strange mystery of a kingly dying in agony and pain, and yet in triumph. So they saw the Kingdom of God coming in power; not in finality, but in power.

Then upon the resurrection I need not dwell. About that resurrection Paul said He “was declared the Son of God with power … by the resurrection of the dead”; and Peter declared: “He begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” In those resurrection days, in the commissions He uttered, and in other appearances, He made them see the Kingdom, no longer as an ideal outside them, but as a power operating within them; until as He had told them in the upper room, He came again, in the coming of the Paraclete.

He so came, and these men began to preach, and they saw the Kingdom without weakness, hi strength prevailing amongst the men listening, who had been hostile. Then they knew that this coming of the Kingdom in power, was by the way of the Cross.

These men saw the Kingdom of God come, not in perfection. That has been our mistake in reading our text, as we have interpreted it by the transfiguration mount. Not in perfection, and not finally; but in power; with mastery and force mastering the things against it, and proceeding toward its final glory.

Thus, and thus only the Kingdom still comes in power; only by the way of the Cross; and as the Cross is borne by those who name the Name. It is not easy to believe, and it is less easy to practice. Do we not, even within the Christian Church, often need to hear the rebuke of Jesus as He says to us: “Thou mindest not the things of God but the things of men”? We are seeking to establish the Kingdom by the methods of men, by their policies, and their programmes, and their machinery. The Kingdom of God can never be so established. The Kingdom of God only comes in power by the way of the Cross.

There is one terribly solemn suggestion in this text. Our Lord was speaking in the presence of the multitudes, yet surely with special reference to His own, and He did not say, All shall see the Kingdom of God come in power. He said, “Some here . . . shall in no wise taste of death.” Judas never saw the Kingdom in power. There is an attitude of heart toward the Lord that cuts off from seeing the Kingdom come in power; and even though we may not become our own executioners in the literal sense in which Judas did, we may live our life, and yet never see anything of the power in operation. If we know what it is to come so near to Him as to be able in very deed, to share His sufferings, then through us the Kingdom may come in power.