Mark 8

Mark 8:10-9

Subdivision 3. (Mark 8:10-38; Mark 9:1-8.)The Revelation of the Glory of Christ here and hereafter. And now we come to the point at which the Lord, having in opposition to the general unbelief elicited from His disciples their faith in Him as the Christ, forbids them any more to speak of Him as that. The Son of man was to suffer and die and be raised from the dead, and come again in glory. The glory now hidden from the world and manifest to faith alone, will at last be revealed from heaven. But till then His disciples must accept the cross after the pattern of their Master. Here the shrinking of nature is at once evident; and in view of it the transfiguration of the Lord attests that they have followed no cunningly devised fables, confirming the word of prophecy by the display of that coming glory. This is Peter’s own interpretation of what took place upon the “holy mount” (2 Peter 1:16-19).

1. We start here with the demand of the Pharisees of a sign from heaven, which shows only their own total and wilful blindness to His true glory. The “sign of the Son of man in heaven” will be seen at last; but too late then for His rejectors. The seeking for new proofs amid the profusion that had been given was but the seeking of justification for their unbelief; and to such no sign could be effectual: none, therefore, would be given. He leaves them and departs to the other side of the sea. In fact their self-righteousness had no need of Him and was but a ferment of opposition in their hearts. This is what He presently calls it - “leaven,” “ferment”: the pride and will of man aroused in rebellion against God; and this characterized them. Elsewhere He stamps it as “hypocrisy”: for their minds were made up, and their arguments were but insincere, - the dictates of will, not reason. Alas, in disciples also such leaven might be found: self-righteousness as in the Pharisees, worldliness as in the Herodians. Of this He warns them now, though at first they think but of the bread they have forgotten; and they have forgotten practically the bread that He had blessed!
2. Following this, the blind man at Bethsaida illustrates, as it would seem, the gradual breaking in of light with those who are in His hands for the cure of nature’s blindness, - hands that do not cease their work until the cure is complete. The hindrances to it have just been put before us, - self-occupation, the world, the half-sincerity and lack of earnestness in our discipleship, and such like things. No wonder if the Lord must have us alone with Himself for cure, outside of Bethsaida, the “place of nets,” which the world truly is. Then comes the touch of His hands; and if the sight produced be indistinct, we must still not deny that it is truly sight. Nor will He leave till it be perfected.
3. We have had the hindrances of faith, and its gradual development amid such hindrances; we now have that in which, where real, it ever manifests itself. It may see men but as trees walking; but it sees Christ and does not confound Him with other men. Those who said He was John the Baptist or Elias did not mean Him any dishonor, but they had not eyes to distinguish the glory of the Christ of God. The Lord tells them that they are not to make Him known as such: for it was now plain that Israel had no welcome for Him; and the Cross was now to be the only expectation that His followers were to entertain. Mark here omits some pregnant words in the confession of Peter, and the announcement both as to the Church and Kingdom with which the Lord answers it. Mark’s abridgment of Matthew, if it were that, still follows the distinct purpose of his Gospel, omitting what is dispensational, and simply showing us what distinguishes true faith from all the wisdom or sentiment of man, and carries us on at once to see what man’s unbelief involves as to the path of the true believer.
4. He begins therefore now to teach them that the Son of man - speaking of Himself under that title which showed His connection with men at large and His own stooping to all implied in true humanity, - “that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priest and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Immediately the very one in whom faith has been foremost becomes foremost in opposition to it. “Peter took Him and began to rebuke Him”! But He turning round, and with His eyes upon them all, on His part rebukes this opposition as of Satan. Satan had before proposed to Him a way to the Kingdom without the Cross; and here amongst His own is the same voice now, exhorting Him to spare Himself. But these were not the purposes of God, but the weak human thoughts which could so easily oppose themselves to God. Not as seeking His own after such a sort could He be man’s Saviour; and the path of His disciples also must be after the pattern of His own. He calls the multitude to Him with His disciples, that the conditions of discipleship to Him may be perfectly understood. He that will come after Him must follow on the same road: he must deny himself and take up his cross also, and follow Him. He contrasts here the two ways, of one of which every one must make choice. To seek one’s own is to lose all, - to lose even oneself,* as it is put in Luke (9: 25), and for ever. To lose one’s life for Christ’s sake and the gospel’s is eternal gain. This in the spirit of it applies to all; today, as much as at any former time: and a solemn word it is. The confession of Christ still costs: that which does not is scarcely to be called confession. “For whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My words, in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him shall the Son of man also be ashamed, when He cometh in the glory of the Father, with the holy angels.” \
5. The last words lead on to the transfiguration scene in which that coming of the Son of man is foreshown. We have already considered it in the notes on Matthew, with whose account Mark’s is almost identical, except that it is shorter. These repetitions have, doubtless, even as such, their significance; and they differ as being connected with different lines of truth. But we need much more and deeper study to understand such things as these.