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<p>27:27&nbsp;<em>Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium-&nbsp;</em>Being Roman soldiers, these were likely Gentiles from many different nations within the Roman empire. The Lord was abused not only by Jews but by a wide range of Gentiles- the very ones for whom He was dying. When we do things in love for those who are in the throes of hatred against us (and many are in domestic situations where this has to be done by the believer in Christ)- then we are fellowshipping His sufferings at this time in this way.</p><p><em>And the whole battalion gathered around him</em>- Similar to the way the record repeatedly stresses that&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;the chief priests, the&nbsp;<em>whole</em>&nbsp;Sanhedrin, condemned the Lord to death. The point is that group mentality is far more powerful than we think, and leads even good men like Nicodemus and Joseph, and perhaps the Centurion who came to confess that "Truly this was the Son of God", to do things which are far beyond the evil intention within any one individual mind. Again, we see in the crucifixion of Jesus where human nature leads in its ultimate end. It comes to full term in nothing less than the crucifixion of God’s Son. One of the ways in which our nature operates is in tandem with others. Many have noted that the sum total of human evil in this world is likely more than the sum of all the individual 'evil' of every human being combined. The 'extra' factor in the equation is provided by the way in which humans in group mode can end up thinking and acting far more extremely than all the individual 'evil' within each of them as individuals. This is why the New Testament parable of 'satan' uses the term not only for individuals and for abstract human sin, but for sinful organizations and group entities. I have commented upon this several times throughout my&nbsp;<em>The Real Devil</em>.</p><p><em>"</em>Gathered around Him" continues the theme of the Lord's passion causing men to gather and unite, either for Him or against Him. We note how John adds that Herod and Pilate were reconciled together- over the issue of Jesus. And this is what response to the fact of His suffering and death continues to do today. If we as believers are&nbsp;<em>not&nbsp;</em>united around Him, we are allowing our own traditions to become an obstacle to the process of unity which the Lord's death is intended to achieve. Our refusal to unite, e.g. by forbidding brethren from communion and remembrance of Him, is to work against the intention of the cross.</p>


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<p>27:28&nbsp;<em>And they stripped him and put on him a scarlet robe</em>- Stripped naked? To be undressed is used by Paul as a metaphor for human death (<em><a href='B:540 5:4'>2Co 5:4</a></em> s:w:), and to be clothed upon is used by Paul to mean a change of nature. The Lord may have seen in this mockery a strange foretaste of the death and change of nature which awaited Him. Through all His sufferings, the hand of providence was giving Him encouragement. And that happens in our lives too. The Lord would've thought of His own story of the wounded man who was stripped (<em><a href='B:490 10:30'>Luk 10:30</a></em> s:w:). He was both the Samaritan Saviour and the wounded man, in that He identified so fully with us in our moral tragedy. The same LXX word is found in "They stripped Joseph out of his coat" (<em><a href='B:10 37:23'>Gen 37:23</a></em>); was Joseph naked in the pit?&nbsp;</p>


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<p>27:29&nbsp;<em>And they plaited a crown of thorns and put it upon his head and a reed in his right hand, and they knelt down before him</em>- The thorns were growing between the cobbles of the courtyard? Or were they using thorns on their courtyard fire? The thorns on the head would have reminded Him that He was being temporarily overcome by the result of the curse in Eden. As with several aspects of His mocking, His tormentors unknowingly gave Him spiritual stimulus by what they did. His mind was certainly in Eden, for He spoke of the Kingdom as "paradise", with evident allusion to Eden (<em><a href='B:490 23:43'>Luk 23:43</a></em>). Note that the Lord was beaten up at least three times: by the Jewish guards, by Herod's men and by the Roman soldiers. In a literal sense He was bruised for our iniquities, and chastised for us to obtain the peace of sin forgiven (<em><a href='B:290 53:5'>Isa 53:5</a></em>). And the Father surely foresaw all this back in <em><a href='B:10 3:15'>Gen 3:15</a></em>, where the promised seed was to be&nbsp;<em>bruised</em>. He willed (<em>not</em>&nbsp;"pleased", as AV) this bruising, and this putting to grief (<em><a href='B:290 53:10'>Isa 53:10</a></em>). The parallel here between the bruising, beating and putting to grief may suggest that the beatings up ('bruisings') really grieved the Lord. And note that the final sacrifice of which Isaiah 53 speaks was not&nbsp;<em>only</em>&nbsp;achieved by the hours spent hanging on the cross. This earlier beating and abusing was just as much a part of His final passion, as, in essence, His whole life was a living out of the principles of the cross. It has been suggested that the crown of thorns was not only a mockery, but a significant part of the physical torture of crucifixion. If the net of nerves and veins under the skin of the scalp are pierced, profuse bleeding and stunning head ache would occur. His hair would therefore have been bloody. It would have been a wreath, a&nbsp;<em>stephanos</em>&nbsp;similar to that worn by Tiberius. The mock homage to the crowned Saviour-Lord was surely in the Lord’s mind at His ascension, when all the Angels of God bowed before Him in true worship (<em><a href='B:650 1:6'>Heb 1:6</a></em>):&nbsp;<br/><em>A reed</em>- This is the same word translated "pen". The hint was that the Lord was taking note. All was written and would be judged when the books are opened.</p><p><em>And mocked him</em>- The Lord had foreseen that the Gentiles would "mock" Him (20:19 s:w:). Matthew gives more attention to the repeated mocking of the Lord than the other Gospels (27:29,31,41).</p><p><em>Saying: Hail, King of the Jews- "</em>Hail" is literally, 'Be happy'.<br/>J:D. Crossan mentions a Jewish tradition, quoting Mishnah passages to support it, that the bruised scapegoat had scarlet wool tied to it, and that the Jews spat on the scapegoat in order to place their sins upon it (J:D. Crossan,&nbsp;<em>Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography&nbsp;</em>(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994)). It could be that the Roman soldiers were doing all this in mockery of this tradition. It would have given the Lord something more to fill His holy mind with. He knew that He was actually doing what they were mockingly suggesting- carrying Israel’s sins. God worked even through the spitting and mocking of men to work out the finest details of our redemption. The spitting is in the context of their mocking His Kingship. “Hail, King of the Jews” was in parody of ‘Ave, Caesar’. It was customary to give a kiss of homage to royalty. Their parody of this was to spit at Him, in the face, according to the type of <em><a href='B:220 30:10'>Job 30:10</a></em>. Earlier, at the trial, the Jews had spat in His face (<em><a href='B:470 26:67'>Mat 26:67</a></em>). Now He tasted Roman spittle. And this was the face from which the glory of God had shone (<em><a href='B:480 9:15'>Mar 9:15</a></em>?). One of the themes of the crucifixion records is that the same abuse and suffering was repeated to the Lord. Hence the frequent usage of the continuous tense. During the trial by Pilate, the Lord underwent mock worship and spitting (<em><a href='B:500 19:3'>Joh 19:3</a></em>). Then later it was mock worship, spitting, hitting on the head (<em><a href='B:470 27:29-30'>Mat 27:29-30</a></em>). And then hitting on the head, spitting, mock worship (<em><a href='B:480 15:19-20'>Mar 15:19-20</a></em>). It seems they alternated bruising / spitting on Christ with bruising / kneeling before Him in mock homage. The reed was used as a mock diadem, although instead of touching His shoulder with it they hit Him on the head with it. They put it in His hand as a sceptre and then snatched it back to hit Him on the head with it. Wave after wave of the same treatment. Notice how many times the word “again" features in the Greek text (<em>palin</em>). This is the essence of our temptations. And it was a big theme in the Lord's final human experience. Likewise a comparison of the records shows that "Come down..." was clearly said more than once, the continuous tenses notwithstanding (<em><a href='B:470 27:40'>Mat 27:40</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:480 15:30'>Mar 15:30</a></em>). However, it is worth cataloguing the use of continuous tenses in this part of the record: The crowd&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>crying out (as demons did), "Crucify him" (<em><a href='B:470 27:23'>Mat 27:23</a></em>); the soldiers&nbsp;<em>kept on</em>&nbsp;clothing Him (<em><a href='B:470 27:28'>Mat 27:28</a></em>),&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>coming to Him and kept on saying... (<em><a href='B:500 19:3'>Joh 19:3</a></em> Gk:), Pilate&nbsp;<em>kept on seeking</em>&nbsp;(imperfect) to deliver the Lord (<em><a href='B:500 19:12'>Joh 19:12</a></em>), thereby agitating the tension in the Lord's mind. They&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>kneeling (27:29),&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>spitting (v:30),&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>passing in front of Him on the cross and&nbsp;<em>kept on</em>&nbsp;shaking their heads (v. 39),&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>saying "…save thyself",&nbsp;<em>kept on&nbsp;</em>mocking and asking Him to come down from the cross (vv. 40,41), the soldiers&nbsp;<em>kept on</em>&nbsp;coming to Him and offering Him their vinegar in mock homage (<em><a href='B:490 23:36'>Luk 23:36</a></em>), they&nbsp;<em>kept on</em>&nbsp;offering Him the pain killer. They&nbsp;<em>kept on and on and on</em>. This is an undoubted theme.</p><p>The events of the crucifixion were so packed with fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy and shadows that the Lord’s discernment of them must have given Him a wonderful boost of strength, in knowing who He was and where He was destined. For example, when they put a broken reed in his hand as a mock sceptre, His mind would have flown to the Messianic <em><a href='B:290 42:3'>Isa 42:3</a></em>: “A bruised reed shall he not break... he&nbsp;<em>shall</em>&nbsp;bring forth judgment”, as they mocked Him for His apparent inability to do.</p>


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<p>27:30<em>&nbsp;And they spat upon him and took the reed and struck him on the head-&nbsp;</em>The question is to why Gentile soldiers would unleash such hatred upon Jesus, when the crucifixion of a Jew was just another job for them to do. We somehow do not imagine them doing this to the thieves or other crucifixion victims. I conclude that there was something in the Lord which forced men to either respond to Him, or go the other way in assuming that unless He was as He claimed, then He must be the worst of all and worthy of all hatred. We see the same effect upon men today, even if social norms mean that we express the passions both for and against Him in less dramatic and more restrained terms.</p>


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<p>27:31&nbsp;<em>And when they had mocked him, they took the robe from him and dressed him in his own garments</em>- The record that they put the Lord's own clothes on Him and then led Him to crucifixion conflicts with contemporary records of the victim being led out naked, or certainly without his own outer clothes. Christ was revealed, or 'revealed himself' (Gk:) on the cross, when He took away our sins (<em><a href='B:690 3:5'>1Jn 3:5</a></em>). This may be John referring to how he had witnessed Christ crucified naked. Yet we know that the Lord wore His outer robe right up to the impaling. It may be that the whipping and abuse He had suffered was far beyond what the soldiers had the right to minister. There were special directives concerning the need for the victim to die by crucifixion, not at the hands of the soldiers. It may be that they wanted to cover up the illegal marks on the body by making the Lord go to the cross fully dressed. In which case, again we see how He suffered the very&nbsp;<em>worst</em>&nbsp;of man's machinations. The Lord having His own clothes put back on Him meant that He would have been dressed in blood sprinkled garments for the walk to Golgotha. Again His holy mind would have been on the Messianic prophecies of Isaiah 63 about a Messiah with blood sprinkled garments lifted up in glorious victory. Or perhaps He saw the connection to <em><a href='B:30 8:30'>Lev 8:30</a></em>, where the priests had to have blood sprinkled garments in order to begin their priestly work. This would have sent His mind to us, for whom He was interceding. Likewise when He perceived that His garment would not be rent, He would have joyfully perceived that He was indeed as the High Priest whose garment was not to be rent (<em><a href='B:20 39:23'>Exo 39:23</a></em>).</p><p><em>And led him away to crucify him</em>- The Greek word translated "led away" is used about 10 times in the Gospels for the leading away of Jesus to death. It occurs in another context, in <em><a href='B:470 7:13-14'>Mat 7:13-14</a></em>, where the Lord spoke of how wide and common is the way that 'leads away to' destruction compared to the way which 'leads away to' eternal life. He was being led away to destruction; He was sharing the path of all condemned sinners. This is a great theme of the crucifixion accounts- that the Lord identified totally with the position of condemned sinners. The logic is that by living the life of the flesh, we are led away to destruction; and yet by being led away to destruction with the Lord, in sharing His death, we are in fact being led away to life.</p><p>Tradition has it that the victim had to hold their hands out to receive the stake, which they then had to carry. The Lord's prophecy of Peter's crucifixion thus describes it as Peter stretching out his hands and being led to his death (<em><a href='B:500 21:18'>Joh 21:18</a></em>). Yet the Lord emphasized in His teaching that we must&nbsp;<em>take up</em>&nbsp;the cross, as He did (<em><a href='B:480 8:34'>Mar 8:34</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 10:21'>Mar 10:21</a></em>). This might just suggest that in line with the Lord's willing death, giving up of His life rather than it being taken from Him, He bent down and picked up the stake before the soldiers had the chance to offer it to Him. I imagine doing this in a deft manner. The deftness of the way He broke that bread apart and held the cup comes out in <em><a href='B:470 26:26'>Mat 26:26</a></em>. He knew what that breaking of bread was going to mean. His willingness would have been such a contrast to the unwilling hesitation of the thieves and other victims. The soldiers must have been blind indeed to still mock Him, despite all these indications that He was more than mere man. That piece of wood that was laid upon Him by the Father, however the Lord physically took it up, represented our sins, which were laid upon Him (<em><a href='B:290 53:6'>Isa 53:6</a></em>); your laziness to do your Bible readings early this morning, my snap at the woman in the bus, his hatred of his mother in law... that piece of wood was the symbol of our sins, every one of them. This is what we brought upon Him. It was our laziness, our enmity, our foolishness,&nbsp;<em>our weak will</em>... that necessitated the death of Jesus in this terrible way. He went through with it all "to make an end of sins" (<em><a href='B:340 9:26'>Dan 9:26</a></em>). Will we do our little bit in responding? The marks of His sufferings will be in Him eternally, and thereby we will be eternally reminded of the things we now only dimly appreciate (<em><a href='B:730 5:6'>Rev 5:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:450 13:6'>Zec 13:6</a></em>):&nbsp;<br/>The walk from the courthouse to Golgotha was probably about 800m (half a mile). One of the soldiers would have carried the sign displaying the Lord's Name and crime. The thieves were probably counting the paces (maybe the crowd was chanting them?). You know how it is when doing a heavy task, 'Just three more boxes to lug upstairs... just two more... last one'. But the Lord was above this. Of that I'm sure. Doing any physically strenuous task that takes you to the end of your strength, there is that concentration on nothing else but the job in hand. Hauling a heavy box or load, especially in situations of compulsion or urgency, it becomes irrelevant if you bump into someone or crush a child's toy beneath your heavy feet. But the Lord rose above. He turned and spoke to the women. Luke as a doctor knew that suffering makes one self-centred. It is perhaps because of this that he especially seems to concentrate on the wonder of the way in which the Lord looked out of His own agony to be so concerned with that of others. A:D. Norris has commented (<em>The Gospel Of Mark</em>): "It is he who reports the Lord's prayer for Simon Peter (<em><a href='B:490 22:31'>Luk 22:31</a></em>); who recounts the Lord's sympathetic warning to the women of Jerusalem (<em><a href='B:490 23:27-31'>Luk 23:27-31</a></em>); and who speaks of the Lord's forgiveness for His crucifiers, and remission for the penitent thief (<em><a href='B:490 23:34'>Luk 23:34</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:43'>Luk 23:43</a></em>)”.</p>


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<p>27:32&nbsp;<em>And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name-&nbsp;</em>Cyrene was where there was a strongly orthodox Jewish community (cp. <em><a href='B:510 6:9'>Act 6:9</a></em>). Simon was probably dark skinned, a countryman, a simple man, who had perhaps come up to Jerusalem in his zeal to keep Passover. What a comfort it was to the Lord to see a black man carrying His cross; for He had earlier said that&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;His true followers would carry the cross behind Him (<em><a href='B:470 10:38'>Mat 10:38</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 16:24'>Mat 16:24</a></em>). The Hebrew writer seemed to see Simon as typical of us all when writing of how we must go out of the city with the Lord, "bearing his reproach" (<em><a href='B:650 13:12-13'>Heb 13:12-13</a></em>, probably using 'reproach' as a parallel to 'the cross'). He would have seen in Simon a prototype of all His future, suffering, humiliated followers; "impressed" by the predestined calling, almost against our will, to carry His cross (<em><a href='B:470 27:32'>Mat 27:32</a></em> RV mg:). And was it accident that this prototype was almost certainly a black man, when perhaps ultimately it may appear that a large proportion of the faithful body of the Lord Jesus will have been black people? If indeed Simon was a black Jew (cp. modern Falashas) who had come up to keep the Passover, it would have been annoying beyond words for him to be made unclean by the blood of the Lord, which was inevitably on the stake after His first attempt at bearing it after His flogging. Not to mention the shame for a zealous Jew in having to carry the cross of this Jesus of Nazareth. Yet it would seem that he was later converted, and he in turn converted his wife and son (<em><a href='B:480 15:21'>Mar 15:21</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:520 16:13'>Rom 16:13</a></em>). Mark rarely records proper nouns, but he makes a special effort to mention that Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus. It would therefore seem that these men were well known in the early church. Simon may be the "Simeon called Niger" ('the black one') of <em><a href='B:510 13:1'>Act 13:1</a></em>. He is listed there next to Lucius, who was also from Cyrene. The thief and the centurion were likewise converted, and the faith of Joseph, Nicodemus and probably others was brought out into the open by the cross. Like Samson, the Lord won victories even in His death. The spiritual turn-around in Simon is a type of what is experienced by all whom the Lord compels to carry His cross. He was passing by, going somewhere else, full of his own plans, going about to establish his own righteousness... and then, out of the blue, he was called to what he much later realized was the greatest honour a man could be called to: to accompany the Son of God and carry His cross, right to the end. We are left to imagine him plonking it down, as if to say to Jesus 'Now you've got to do the rest', and then slipping off into the crowd.</p><p>Another reading of Simon is possible. Simon is a Greek name, and the names of his sons are Greco-Roman. The way he is described as “coming out of the field" (<em><a href='B:490 23:26'>Luk 23:26</a></em>) could imply that he was working, doing what was improper on a feast day, because he was a Gentile. It could be that he simply lived and worked near Jerusalem, he wasn’t a religious guy, and like Saul out looking for lost cattle, he was going some place else…until the Lord as it were arrested him with the message of the cross.</p><p><em>Whom they forced to carry the cross</em>-"The crossbar was carried... weighing 34 to 57 kg:, was placed across the nape of the victim's neck and balanced along both shoulders. Usually the outstretched arms then were tied to the crossbar" (W:D. Edwards,&nbsp;<em>On The Physical Death Of Jesus Christ</em>, JAMA March 21 1986, Vol. 255 No. 11). This means that the Lord would have had His shoulders bowed forward as He walked to Golgotha, with both His hands lifted up against His chest. He evidently foresaw this in some detail when He described His mission to man as a shepherd carrying His lost sheep on both shoulders. Let's forever forget the picture of a happy, quiet lamb snugly bobbling along on the shepherd's shoulders. We are surely meant to fill in the details in the parables. The sheep, his underside covered in faeces and mud, would have been terrified; in confusion he would have struggled with the saviour shepherd. To be carried on His shoulders would have been a strange experience; he would have struggled and been awkward, as the shepherd stumbled along, gripping both paws against His chest with His uplifted hands. This was exactly the Lord's physical image as He stumbled to the place of crucifixion. He evidently saw the cross as a symbol of us, His struggling and awkward lost sheep. And every step of the way along the Via Dolorosa, Yahweh's enemies reproached every stumbling footstep of His anointed (<em><a href='B:230 89:51'>Psa 89:51</a></em>). It was all this that made Him a true King and our unquestioned leader- for on His shoulders is to rest the authority of the Kingdom (<em><a href='B:290 9:5'>Isa 9:5</a></em>), because He bore His cross upon the same shoulders.</p><p>John says that the Lord went out bearing His cross. Luke says that Simon was asked to carry the hinder part of the cross behind Him. Matthew and Mark say Simon carried the cross. <em><a href='B:480 15:22'>Mar 15:22</a></em> (Gk:) says that the soldiers carried Jesus to Golgotha. J:B. Phillips renders it: "They got him to a place Golgotha”. It would seem that the Lord collapsed, perhaps fainting. If He was crucified on an olive tree (excavations of crucified men suggest this is what was used), it would not have been simply because of the weight of the stake. Take a picture of Him lying there, with the face that was marred more than the children of men pressed into the hot dust of that Jerusalem street. And some human fool probably said something like 'Come on, get up' (doubtless with embellishments). If indeed He did faint, there would have been that sense of 'coming round', the "Where am I?", the memory and consciousness flooding back. "Have I died and been resurrected?" No, as some nameless soldier kicked Him and told Him to get up.</p><p>John's statement that "He went out, bearing the cross for Himself" as He walked to Golgotha is a real emphasis, seeing that it was&nbsp;<em>as</em>&nbsp;He came out that it was necessary for them to make Simon carry the cross. John takes a snapshot of that moment, and directs our concentration to the Lord at that moment, determined to carry it to the end, even though in fact He didn’t. It is this picture of following the Lord carrying&nbsp;<em>His</em>&nbsp;cross which the Lord had earlier asked us to make the model of our lives. We are left to assume that the two criminals followed Him in the procession. They were types of us, the humble and the proud, the selfless and the selfish, the two categories among those who have been asked to carry the cross and follow the Lord in His 'last walk'.</p><p>The word John uses for 'bearing' is translated (and used in the sense of) 'take up' in <em><a href='B:470 10:31'>Mat 10:31</a></em>. It was as if John saw as significant the Lord's willingness to take up the cross Himself, without waiting for it to be forced upon Him as it probably was on the other two. And there is a clear lesson for us, who fain would carry something of that cross. And yet the similarity of meaning within this word for 'taking up' and 'bearing / carrying' is further instructive. The Lord picked it up and was willing to carry it, but didn’t make it to the end of the 'last walk', through understandable human weakness. Amidst the evident challenge of the cross, there is interwoven comfort indeed (as there is in the Lord's eager and positive acceptance of the thief, Joseph and Nicodemus, and the wondrous slowness of the Father's punishment of those ever-so-evil men who did the Lord to death).</p><p>The Lord had foreseen most aspects of His death: the handing over, the picking up of the cross, the carrying it, the being lifted up. In <em><a href='B:490 15:5'>Luk 15:5</a></em> the Lord spoke about how He as the good shepherd would carry the lost sheep on His shoulders,&nbsp;<em>rejoicing</em>. It is tempting to connect this with the way Christ spoke of His&nbsp;<em>joy</em>&nbsp;(<em><a href='B:500 17:13'>Joh 17:13</a></em>) just hours before He was arrested. I am not suggesting there was&nbsp;<em>any</em>&nbsp;joy at all for the Lord in His carrying of the cross- not in the way we understand joy. But perhaps to Him, in His vocabulary, " my joy" meant something else; as for Him, 'eating' meant not eating food but doing the Father's will (<em><a href='B:500 4:34'>Joh 4:34</a></em>). Whatever "rejoicing”, " my joy" meant for the Lord, He had that sense as He carried the cross on His shoulder.</p>


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<p>27:33&nbsp;<em>And when they came to a place called-&nbsp;</em>He didn’t carry His cross all the way to Golgotha; He went out of the guard room with His face set towards Golgotha, as it had been so visibly set on Jerusalem a few weeks before. Note the emphasis on "unto", "to", "the place". They arrived. They stopped there. This was it. They arrived at the destination. "Outside the city walls was permanently located the heavy upright wooden stipes, on which the patibulum which Christ carried would be secured" (Edwards&nbsp;<em>op cit</em>). The Lord would doubtless have meditated upon it. The cross was waiting. All He had to do was carry the cross bar. His invitation to men to carry the cross to the place where the other part of that instrument of death was already prepared must be seen in this light. The way for our self-crucifixion is prepared. We carry but the cross bar.</p><p><em>Golgotha, that is to say, the place of a skull</em>- Possibly meaning 'The skull of Goliath'. In this case, we have opened up a detailed typological meaning to David’s victory over Goliath. He was there as the Lord Jesus fighting sin, and then burying the head of Goliath, the 'man of sin', near Jerusalem.</p><p>Luke adds that He turned and spoke to the women on the walk to Golgotha; He looked out of His own agony to the needs of others. This is another theme of the cross. He was even thoughtful for weak Pilate (<em><a href='B:500 19:11'>Joh 19:11</a></em>); for the thief, for the forgiveness of those mocking soldiers, for His mother, for John, for those women lining the Via Dolorosa... And those women, He said, would be destroyed in the condemnation of Jerusalem in AD70. <em><a href='B:570 2:2-4'>Phi 2:2-4</a></em> makes the point that the essence of the cross is in the way the Lord's mind was so full of concern for&nbsp;<em>others</em>&nbsp;throughout the whole wretched process. The Lord's Bible-filled mind would have been aware of <em><a href='B:300 9:20-22'>Jer 9:20-22</a></em>, which prophesied special woe to women in the holocaust of AD70. Those women were condemned. Yet the Lord turned, in His desperate agony, to speak to them. I admit, as I must through every stage of the cross, that I wouldn't have done this. I wouldn't have bothered with them. But He made such effort to at least try to get them to change their minds. They were weeping for Him, but He knew they would not obey His command to leave Jerusalem when it would be surrounded by armies. Neither would their children. On a human level, they must have been so annoying. Young women (if they were alive in AD70 40 years later), probably passively in love with Him, moved to tears at His passion but with no regard for His words and the real implications of His cross. Yet still He tried for them, running the risk of cat calls of 'You can't carry your own cross but you can talk to the girls':&nbsp;<br/>"If they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?" is packed with allusion to O:T. Scriptures (<em><a href='B:330 17:24'>Eze 17:24</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 11:16'>Jer 11:16</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 11:19'>Jer 11:19</a></em>; Psalms 1; <em><a href='B:300 17:5-8'>Jer 17:5-8</a></em>). His preceding words to the women were likewise; his quotation from <em><a href='B:350 10:8'>Hos 10:8</a></em> is set in a context so appropriate to the situation He was in. If they did these things to Him, the green and healthy shoot, what would be done to the dry dead wood of Israel…? His concern was always with the sufferings others would experience rather than being lost in His own introspection. Without getting too deeply involved in the actual exposition, a simple lesson emerges: He was not so overpowered by the terrible physicality of His human situation that He ceased to be spiritually aware. His mind was full of the word, not just out of place quotations flooding His subconscious, but real awareness of the spirit of the Father's word and its' intensely personal relevance to Himself. In this He sets a matchless example.</p><p>If the crossbeam was tied to the nape of the Lord’s neck, it would have been impossible for Him to turn round and talk, as it is specifically stated that He did. I would reconstruct that the Lord collapsed, and Simon was forced to carry the cross, whilst the Lord followed on, scarcely conscious. Before collapsing again, with the result that He was carried to the cross, He used His last and final energy at the time to speak to those women. He used His last bit of mental and physical strength to preach- to women whom He knew were not going to really respond. For He said they should weep for themselves, He knew they would not listen to His warning to flee Jerusalem in AD70. But such was His hopefulness for people, that He still made the effort to communicate rather than get lost within Himself and His own thoughts as I would have tended to.</p>


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<p>27:34&nbsp;<em>They gave him wine to drink mingled with gall. And when he had tasted it, he would not drink it-&nbsp;</em>To give strong drink to those ready to perish was a well-known custom at crucifixion. The fact victims survived two or three days was only because they were given drink. The Lord didn’t simply refuse the pain killer. He took it, tasted it, and then refused it. Why did He first taste it? Surely He knew the custom, and He knew what it was. Various alternatives arise in the mind, each a source of devotional inspiration:</p><p>- Was it that His eyesight was damaged by the punches and He didn’t see what it was until He tasted it? "When Jesus therefore saw his mother..." may suggest that He didn’t initially recognize her. The Messianic Scriptures mention the affliction of eyesight in Messiah's final suffering. Early crucifixion art shows the Lord with His right eye damaged (as does the Turin shroud). The mucous membrane (the thin slippery tissues which lubricate the human body) would have dried so that “they rip layers of tissues from the eyes every time the pupil is moved or blinked" (C:M. Ward):&nbsp;<br/>- Maybe He realized as He had the cup on His lips that they were giving this to Him in the spirit of <em><a href='B:300 23:15'>Jer 23:15</a></em>: to show that He was a false prophet. In this case, for the sake of His respect for the implications of Holy Scripture, He endured a far higher degree of pain.<br/>- Another explanation is that He wanted to speak out loud, saying (several times?) "Father, forgive them", and to perhaps recite Psalms 22. He was so parched from thirst (He had lost body fluid in Gethsemane) that He knew He couldn't speak out loud without some liquid. The dehydration would have made His tongue thicken so that speech was eventually almost impossible. But He only drank enough to moisten His throat, not to deaden any pain. This shows the majestic self-mastery within the Lord; He knew just when to stop, even though it must have been so tempting to keep on drinking.<br/>- Taking the pain killer would not have been a sin, neither would it have theologically damaged the atonement. Perhaps the Lord took it, as doubtless the others did, and then had the self-control to think better of it and give it back. Such was His devotion to the absolute height of identity with us. It makes His action all the more poignant if He first tasted and then refused, rather than just refusing outright.</p><p>He was&nbsp;<em>repeatedly</em>&nbsp;offered the pain killer, the tense implies. Men offering Him myrrh in (mock) homage would have sent His mind back to the story dear Mary had told Him about the wise men bringing myrrh. And inevitably her tortured mind would have gone back there too. But I have another suggestion. When we read that “someone" offered him a sponge with wine mixed with myrrh (<em><a href='B:480 15:36'>Mar 15:36</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:48'>Mat 27:48</a></em>), we recall the use of myrrh in preparing bodies for burial (<em><a href='B:480 14:3'>Mar 14:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:56'>Luk 23:56</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:3'>Joh 12:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 19:39'>Joh 19:39</a></em>). Pliny (<em>Natural History</em>&nbsp;14:15:92,107) records: “The finest wine in early days was that spiced with the scent of myrrh… I also find that aromatic wine is constantly made from almost the same ingredient as perfumes, from myrrh". This alerts me to the real possibility that the unnamed bystander who did this was Mary Magdalene. Earlier she had anointed the Lord’s body with myrrh “to the burial". And now she has prepared the most expensive form of wine as some sort of pain killer. Perhaps the Lord was so touched by this that He accepted it, but didn’t drink it. His doing this is otherwise very hard to understand. Her love was on one hand inappropriate, and yet the Lord still accepted it, even though He couldn’t use it. He could have felt angry with her for tempting Him to the easier way. But He didn’t. And in so doing He showed her that the essence of the cross is that there is no easy way. The principles of all this are to be reflected in our cross carrying.</p><p>Another alternative presents itself from the Hebrew text of <em><a href='B:230 69:21'>Psa 69:21</a></em>: “They gave me also gall". The Hebrew can stand the translation ‘poison’ (see RSV). Given the extended, agitated torture of crucifixion, there was a custom for close friends to get close enough to the cross to lift up a poisonous substance which the crucified would lick, and thereby die quickly. It is just possible that a friend (or even his mother?) or a sympathetic soldier did this. Again, in this case it would seem that the Lord chose the highest level; our salvation would surely have been theologically achievable if He had taken it. But He chose to attain for us not only salvation, but “such&nbsp;<em>great&nbsp;</em>salvation" (<em><a href='B:650 2:3'>Heb 2:3</a></em>) by always taking the highest level. He became obedient not only to death, but “even the death of the cross".</p><p>One feels that Christ would have been justified in accepting the pain killer that was offered Him in His final agony; but He refused it, it seems to me, in order to achieve the&nbsp;<em>greatest&nbsp;</em>salvation for us. He never once used what I have called the principle of Jephthah's vow. In the same spirit, some faithful men of old refused legitimate deliverance from torture so that they might obtain "a better resurrection" (<em><a href='B:650 11:35'>Heb 11:35</a></em>). The record of the cross is full of examples of where the Lord in physical terms rejected legitimate comforts in His final hours. Yet throughout His life, He was ever ready to concede to the weakness of those who would genuinely follow Him. The way He spoke about demons without giving His hearers a lecture about the folly of such belief is proof of this. He could have insisted, as we do, on the rejection of such superstitions. But this was not His way. I am not suggesting that&nbsp;<em>we</em>&nbsp;have the right to make such concessions in our preaching and baptizing. But He did:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>27:35&nbsp;<em>And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots</em>- "And it was the third hour and (not 'when') they crucified Him" (<em><a href='B:480 15:25'>Mar 15:25</a></em>) suggests they were waiting for the hour to come. It was in their brief to do it at the third hour. It may be that they got there a little early, and there was an agonizing wait for the third hour. Mark 15 has so many usages of the word “and”; circle them in your Bible (especially AV). This is to emphasize the relentlessness of it all, the repetition of everything, the way it droned remorselessly on. This is a feature of the cross, which we must carry. The crucifixion of Christ was at 9 a:m. He would have willingly laid Himself down on the stake, whereas most victims had to be thrown down on the ground by the soldiers. He gave His life, it wasn't taken from Him. Likewise He&nbsp;<em>gave</em>&nbsp;His back to the smiters when they flogged Him; He gave His face to them when they spoke about pulling out His beard (<em><a href='B:290 50:6'>Isa 50:6</a></em>). Men usually clenched their fists to stop the nails being driven in, and apparently fingers were often broken by the soldiers to ease their task. Not a bone of the Lord was broken. We can imagine Him willingly opening His palms to the nails; as we, so far away from it all, should have something of a willing acceptance of what being in Him demands of us. It may be that He undressed Himself when they finally reached the place of crucifixion. In similar vein, early paintings of the flogging show the Lord standing there&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;tied to the flogging post, as victims usually were. As He lay there horizontal, His eyes would have been heavenwards, for the last time in His mortality. Perhaps He went through the business of thinking ‘this is the last time I'll do this…or that…’. How often He had lifted up His eyes to Heaven and prayed (<em><a href='B:500 11:41'>Joh 11:41</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 17:1'>Joh 17:1</a></em>). And now, this was the last time, except for the final raising of the head at His death. “While four soldiers held the prisoner, a Centurion placed the sharp five inch spike in the dead centre of the palm…four to five strokes would hammer the spike deep into the rough plank and a fifth turned it up so that the hand would not slip free" (C:M. Ward,&nbsp;<em>Treasury Of Praise</em>). If it is indeed so that a Centurion usually did the nailing, it is a wondrous testimony that it was the Centurion who could say later that “truly this was the Son of God". The very man who actually nailed the Son of God was not struck dead on the spot, as a human ‘deity’ would have done. God’s patient grace was extended, with the result that this man too came to faith:&nbsp;<br/>The Hebrew language so often reflects the character of God. And His artless self-expression is no clearer seen in the way He inspired the records of the death of His Son. The record of the death of God’s Son is something altogether beyond the use of devices as primitive as adjectives. The way in which the actual act of impaling is recorded as just a subordinate clause is perhaps the clearest illustration of this. The way Mary thinks the risen Lord is a gardener is another such. Or the weeping of the women, and Joseph, and Nicodemus (presumably this happened) when the body was taken from the cross, as the nails were taken out: this isn't recorded. Likewise, only Matthew records the suicide of Judas; the Father chose not to emphasize in the records that the man who did the worst a man has ever done or could ever do- to betray the peerless Son of God- actually went and took his own life (and even made a mess of doing that). If it were my son, I would have wanted to emphasize this. But the Almighty doesn't. In similar vein, it is almost incredible that there was no immediate judgment on the men who did the Son of God to death. The judgments of AD70 only came on the next generation. Those middle aged men who stood and derided the Saviour in His time of finest trial: they died, as far as we know, in their beds. And the Roman / Italian empire went on for a long time afterwards, even if God did in fact impute guilt to them for what their soldiers did.</p><p>Another hallmark of God’s Hand in the record is that what to us are the most obvious OT prophecies are not quoted; e.g. <em><a href='B:290 53:7'>Isa 53:7</a></em>: "He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth". A human author would have made great capital from such detailed fulfilments. But not so the Almighty. Hebrew, along with all the Semitic languages, has no superlatives. God doesn’t need them. And the record of the cross is a classic example. The record of the resurrection reflects a similar culture. The actual resurrection isn’t ever described in marked contrast to how it is in the uninspired ‘gospels’. Instead we read of the impact of His resurrection upon His disciples. The spiritual culture of Almighty God is also shown by the way in which although&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;the Council (<em><a href='B:480 14:64'>Mar 14:64</a></em>), including Joseph, condemned Christ to death by crucifixion, God overlooks Joseph's lack of boldness in not contesting this, and speaks of him in such glowing spiritual terms. His 'not consenting unto' Christ's death was deep within him. I would be inclined to say: 'The&nbsp;<em>least</em>&nbsp;you could have done was to have abstained from the vote'. But the record is far more positive than that.</p><p>For want of a better way of putting it, the spiritual culture of God comes through so sublimely in these records. He began His written revelation with the comment, as an almost throw-away clause, that "He made the stars also" (<em><a href='B:10 1:16'>Gen 1:16</a></em>). The vastness of that creation, far more wondrous and extensive than just this planet, is treated&nbsp;<em>en passant</em>. The actual resurrection of the Lord Jesus is likewise not recorded; we only learn of it from the recorded witness of those who went to the tomb, and who later met the Lord. The uninspired&nbsp;<em>Gospel of Peter&nbsp;</em>39-42 does record the actual arising of the Lord’s dead body; but immediately it becomes evident that this isn’t inspired, simply because of the lack of spiritual culture which we are accustomed to in the inspired writings. Likewise it has been observed that God uses "an economy of miracle" when He has acted openly. The record of the disciples' baptism, whether and how the Lord met His mother after the resurrection (for surely He did), Saul changing his name to Paul, Aaron's repentance after the golden calf- all these things are left unrecorded. The Gospel writers do not praise the majestic temple and city of Jerusalem in any way, unlike the uninspired contemporary writers. And that same spiritual culture comes out especially in the account of the crucifixion. It makes a good exercise to read through one of the records, especially John 19, and make a list of the adjectives used. There are virtually none. Read a page of any human novelist or historian: the pages are cluttered with them. Hebrew is deficient in adjectives, and because of this it often uses 'Son of…' plus an abstract noun, instead of an adjective. Thus we read of a "son of peace" (<em><a href='B:490 10:5-6'>Luk 10:5-6</a></em>), or "a man of tongue" (<em><a href='B:230 140:11'>Psa 140:11</a></em> RVmg; AV "an evil speaker"):&nbsp;<br/><em>Divided His garments</em>- There seems to have been something unusual about the Lord’s outer garment. The same Greek word&nbsp;<em>chiton</em>&nbsp;used in <em><a href='B:500 19:23-24'>Joh 19:23-24</a></em> is that used in the LXX of <em><a href='B:10 37:3'>Gen 37:3</a></em> to describe Joseph’s coat of many pieces. Josephus (<em>Antiquities</em>&nbsp;3:7:4,161) uses the word for the tunic of the High Priest, which was likewise not to be rent (<em><a href='B:30 21:10'>Lev 21:10</a></em>). The Lord in His time of dying is thus set up as High Priest, gaining forgiveness for His people, to ‘come out’ of the grave as on the day of Atonement, pronouncing the forgiveness gained, and bidding His people spread that good news world-wide. The robe was not to be torn,&nbsp;<em>schizein</em>. There was to be no schism in it. Ahijah tore his garment into twelve pieces to symbolize the division of Israel (<em><a href='B:110 11:30-31'>1Ki 11:30-31</a></em>). The Lord’s coat being unrent may therefore be another reflection of how His death brought about unity amongst His people (<em><a href='B:500 11:52'>Joh 11:52</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 17:21-22'>Joh 17:21-22</a></em>). Before Him, there, we simply cannot be divided amongst ourselves. Likewise the net through which the Lord gathers His people was unbroken (<em><a href='B:500 21:11'>Joh 21:11</a></em>). Note how all these references are in John- as if he perceived this theme of unity through the cross.</p><p>It is likely that the Lord was crucified naked, thereby sharing the shame of Adam's nakedness. The&nbsp;<em>shame</em>&nbsp;of the cross is stressed (<em><a href='B:650 11:26'>Heb 11:26</a></em>; <em><a href='B:650 12:2'>Heb 12:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 31:17'>Psa 31:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 69:6-7'>Psa 69:6-7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 69:12'>Psa 69:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 69:19-20'>Psa 69:19-20</a></em>). And we are to share those sufferings. There&nbsp;<em>must</em>, therefore, be an open standing up for what we believe in the eyes of a hostile world. Preaching, in this sense, is for all of us. And if we dodge this, we put the Son of God to a naked shame; we re-crucify Him naked, we shame Him again (<em><a href='B:650 6:6'>Heb 6:6</a></em>). He was crucified naked, and the sun went in for three hours. He must have been cold, very cold (<em><a href='B:500 18:18'>Joh 18:18</a></em>). Artemidorus Daldianus (<em>Oneirokritika&nbsp;</em>2:53) confirms that the Romans usually crucified victims naked. Melito of Sardis, writing in the 2nd century, writes of “his body naked and not even deemed worthy of a clothing that it might not be seen. Therefore the heavenly lights turned away and the day darkened in order that he might be hidden who was denuded upon the cross" (<em>On the Pasch</em>&nbsp;97). The earliest portrayals of the crucified Jesus, on carved gems, feature Him naked. There is reason to think that the Jews put the Lord to the maximum possible shame and pain; therefore they may well have crucified Him naked. T. Mommsen&nbsp;<em>The Digest Of Justinian&nbsp;</em>48:20:6 reports that “the garments that the condemned person is wearing may not be demanded by the torturers"- the fact that they gambled for His clothes shows that the Lord was yet again treated illegally (quite a feature of the records) and to the maximum level of abuse. We not only get this impression from the Biblical record, but from a passage in the Wisdom of Solomon (2:12-20) which would have been well known to them, and which has a surprising number of similarities to the Lord’s life amongst the Jews (Susan Garrett lists several Greek words and phrases found in the Gospel of Mark which are identical to those in this section of the Wisdom of Solomon. It would seem that Mark was aware of this passage in the Wisdom of Solomon, and sought to show how throughout the Lord's ministry, and especially in His death, the Jews were seeking to apply it to Him in the way they treated Him. See Susan Garrett,&nbsp;<em>The Temptations Of Jesus In Mark's Gospel</em>&nbsp;(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) p. 68):</p><p>“Let us lie in wait for the virtuous man, since he annoys us and opposes our way of life, reproaches us for our breaches of the law an accuses us of playing false... he claims to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a son of the Lord. Before us he stands, a reproof to our way of thinking, the very sight of him weighs our spirits down; His way of life is not like other men’s... in His opinion we are counterfeit…and boasts of having God as His father. let us see if what he says is true, let us observe what kind of end he himself will have. If the virtuous man is God’s son, God will take his part and rescue him from the clutches of his enemies<em>. Let us test him with cruelty and with torture, and thus explore this gentleness of His and put His endurance to the proof. Let us condemn him to a shameful death</em>&nbsp;since he will be looked after- we have his word for it".</p><p>The idea of the Lord being subjected to the maximum pain and mocking must, sadly, be applied to Seneca’s description of how some victims of crucifixion were nailed through their genitals (<em>Dialogi</em>&nbsp;6:20:3). In this sense the paradox of Isaiah 53 would have come true- through losing His ability to bring forth children, the Lord brought forth a huge multitude of spiritual children world-wide. It’s an honour to be one of them:&nbsp;<br/><em>By casting lots</em>- Did they throw the die on top of His outer garment? Note the focus of the soldiers upon the dividing up of the clothes, whilst the Son of God played out the ultimate spiritual drama for human salvation just a metre or so away from them. And our pettiness is worked out all too often in sight of the same cross. As those miserable men argued over the clothes at the foot of the cross, so when Israel stood before the glory of Yahweh at Sinai, they still suffered “disputes" amongst themselves (<em><a href='B:20 24:12'>Exo 24:12</a></em> NIV cp. <em><a href='B:650 12:29'>Heb 12:29</a></em>). So pressing and important do human pettinesses appear, despite the awesomeness of that bigger picture to which we stand related.</p><p>The sheer and utter reality of the crucifixion needs to be meditated upon just as much as the actual reality of the fact that Jesus actually existed. A Psalm foretold that Jesus at His death would be the song of the drunkards. Many Nazi exterminators took to drink. And it would seem almost inevitable that the soldiers who crucified Jesus went out drinking afterwards. Ernest Hemingway wrote a chilling fictional story of how those men went into a tavern late on that Friday evening. After drunkenly debating whether “Today is Friday", they decide that it really is Friday, and then tell how they nailed Him and lifted Him up. ''When the weight starts to pull on 'em, that's when it gets em... Ain't I seen em ? I seen plenty of 'em . I tell you, he was pretty good today". And that last phrase runs like a refrain through their drunken evening. Whether or not this is an accurate reconstruction isn't my point- we have a serious duty to seek to imagine what it might have been like. Both Nazi and Soviet executioners admit how vital it was to never look the man you were murdering in the face. It was why they put on a roughness which covered their real personalities. And the Lord’s executioners would have done the same. To look into His face, especially His eyes, dark with love and grief for His people, would have driven those men to either suicide or conversion. I imagine them stealing a look at His face, the face of this man who didn’t struggle with them but willingly laid Himself down on the wood. The cross struck an educated Greek as barbaric folly, a Roman citizen as sheer disgrace, and a Jew as God’s curse. Yet Jesus turned the sign of disgrace into a sign of victory. Through it, He announced a radical revaluation of all values. He made it a symbol for a brave life, without fear even in the face of fatal risks; through struggle, suffering, death, in firm trust and hope in the goal of true freedom, life, humanity, eternal life. The offence, the sheer scandal, was turned into an amazing experience of salvation, the way of the cross into a possible way of life. The risen Christ was and is just as much a living reality. Suetonius records that Claudius expelled Jewish Christians from Rome because they were agitated by one Chrestus; i:e. Jesus the Christ. Yet the historian speaks as if He was actually alive and actively present in person. In essence, He was. All the volumes of confused theology, the senseless theories about the Trinity. would all have been avoided if only men had had the faith to believe that the man Jesus who really died and rose, both never sinned and was also indeed the Son of God. And that His achievement of perfection in human flesh was real. Yes it takes faith- and all the wrong theology was only an excuse for a lack of such faith.</p><table><tr><td></p><p></td><td></td></tr></table><p>Several crucifixion victims have been unearthed. One was nailed with nails 18c:m. long (7 inches). A piece of acacia word seems to have been inserted between the nail head and the flesh:&nbsp;<em>Did the Lord cry out in initial pain and shock?</em>&nbsp;Probably, as far as I can reconstruct it; for He would have had all the physical reflex reactions of any man. But yet I also sense that He didn’t flinch as other men did. He came to offer His life, willingly; not grudgingly, resistantly give it up. He went through the panic of approaching the pain threshold. The nailing of the hands and feet just where the nerves were would have sent bolts of pain through the Lord's arms every time He moved or spoke. The pain would have been such that even with the eyelids closed, a penetrating red glare would have throbbed in the Lord’s vision. Hence the value and intensity of those words He did speak. The pulling up on the nails in the hands as the cross was lifted up would have been excruciating. The hands were nailed through the 'Destot gap', between the first and second row of wrist bones, touching an extra sensitive nerve which controls the movement of the thumb and signals receipt of pain. They would not have been nailed through the palms or the body would not have been supportable. It has been reconstructed that in order to breathe, the crucified would have had to pull up on his hands, lift the head for a breath, and then let the head subside. The sheer physical agony of it all cannot be minimized. Zenon Ziolkowski (<em>Spor O Calun</em>) discusses contemporary descriptions of the faces of the crucified, including Jehohanan the Zealot, whose crucifixion Josephus mentions. Their faces were renowned for being terribly distorted by pain. The Lord's face was marred more than that of any other, so much so that those who saw Him looked away (<em><a href='B:290 52:14'>Isa 52:14</a></em>). That prophecy may suggest that for the Lord, the crucifixion process hurt even more. We suggest later that He purposefully refused to take relief from pushing down on the 'seat', and thus died more painfully and quicker. Several of the unearthed victims were crucified on olive trees. So it was perhaps an olive tree which the Lord had to carry. He would have thought of this as He prayed among the olive trees of Gethsemane (perhaps they took it from that garden?). I would not have gone through with this. I would have chosen a lesser death and the achieving of a lesser salvation. I would have had more pity on myself. But the Lord of all did it&nbsp;<em>for me</em>, He became obedient&nbsp;<em>even</em>&nbsp;to death on a cross (<em><a href='B:570 2:8'>Phi 2:8</a></em>), as if He could have been obedient to a lesser death, but He chose this ultimately high level. I can only marvel at the Father's gentleness with us, that despite the ineffable trauma of death, the way He takes us is so much more gentle than how He allowed His only begotten to go.</p><p>Presumably there were many soldiers around. The temple guard which was seconded to the Jews (<em><a href='B:470 27:65'>Mat 27:65</a></em>) was doubtless there in full force, lest there be any attempt to save Jesus by the crowd or the disciples. And yet <em><a href='B:500 19:23'>Joh 19:23</a></em> suggests there were only four soldiers, each of whom received a part of His clothing. This must mean that there were four actually involved in the crucifixion: one for each hand and foot. He had signs of nails (plural) in His hands. We are left to meditate as to whether He was nailed hand over hand as tradition has it (which would have meant two very long nails were used); or both hands separately.</p><p>Despite much prior meditation, there perhaps dawned on the Lord some 'physical' realizations as to the nature of His crucified position: the utter impossibility of making the slightest change of position, especially when tormented by flies, the fact that the hands and feet had been pierced in the most sensitive areas; the fact that the arms were arranged in such a way so that the weight of the body hung only on the muscles, not on the bones and tendons. The smell of blood would have brought forth yelping dogs, circling birds of prey, flying insects…an incessant barrage of annoyances, things to distract the Lord’s mind. As we too also face. He would have realized that the whole process was designed to produce tension in every part of the body. All His body, every part of it, in every aspect, had to suffer (and He would have realized the significance of this, and seen&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;of us as suffering with Him). The muscles were all hopelessly overworked, cramps due to the malcirculation of blood would have created an overwhelming desire to move. All victims would have writhed and wriggled within the few millimetres leeway which they had, to avoid a splinter pushing into the back lacerated from flogging... But my sense is that the Lord somehow didn’t do this. He didn’t push down on the footrests for relief (see 54), He didn’t take the pain killer, He didn’t ask for a drink until the end, when presumably the others accepted. Every muscle in the body would have become locked after two hours or so. Every part of His body suffered, symbolic of how through His sufferings He was able to identify with every member of His spiritual body- for "we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones" (<em><a href='B:560 5:30'>Eph 5:30</a></em>). He had perhaps foreseen something of all this when He likened the killing of His body to the taking down of a tent / tabernacle- every bone and sinew, like every pole and canvass, had to be uprooted, 'taken down' (<em><a href='B:500 2:19'>Joh 2:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 2:21'>Joh 2:21</a></em>).</p><p>The moment of lifting the stake up vertical, probably amidst a renewed surge of abuse or cheering from the crowd, had been long foreseen and imagined by the Lord. "If, if I be&nbsp;<em>lifted up</em>..." (<em><a href='B:500 12:32'>Joh 12:32</a></em>). He foresaw the physical (and spiritual) details of the crucifixion process in such detail. Recall how He foresaw that moment of handing over to death. And yet still He asked for the cup to pass, still He panicked and felt forsaken. If the theory of the cross was so hard to actually live out in practice for the Lord, then how hard it must be for us. The Lord's descriptions of Himself as being 'lifted up' use a phrase which carried in Hebrew the idea of exaltation and glory. As He was lifted up physically, the ground swaying before His eyes, His mind fixed upon the Father and the forgiveness which He was making possible through His sacrifice, covered in blood and spittle, struggling for breath... He was 'lifted up' in glory and exaltation, to those who have open eyes to see and hearts to imagine and brains to comprehend.</p><p>Imagine yourself being crucified. Go through the stages in the process. The Lord invited us to do this when He asked us to figuratively crucify ourselves daily. Consider all the language of the sacrifices which pointed forward to the final, supreme act of the Lord: poured out, pierced, parted in pieces, beaten out; the rock smitten... and this is the process which we are going through, although the Father deals with us infinitely more gently than with His only Son.</p><p>It is one of the greatest internal proofs of inspiration that this climactic act is recorded by each of the Gospel writers as a participial or subordinate clause. The concentration is on the splitting up of the clothes, which happened, of course, after the impaling. It is as if the record at this point is from the perspective of the soldiers. Get the job done, and&nbsp;<em>then</em>, on with the important bit- the dividing of the clothes No human author would ever have written like this. It's rather like the way Mary thinks that the risen Lord is a gardener. There is something artless and utterly Divine about it all. The record is full of what I would call spiritual culture. It has the hallmark of the Divine. This may be why some of the 'obvious' fulfilments of prophecy aren't mentioned, e.g. <em><a href='B:290 53:7'>Isa 53:7</a></em> concerning the Lamb dumb before her shearers. Likewise there is no record of the faithful women weeping, or moaning as the body was taken down.</p>


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<p>27:36&nbsp;<em>And they sat there-&nbsp;</em>"And they sat down" after symbolically killing Joseph. "Sitting down&nbsp;<em>they</em>&nbsp;watched&nbsp;<em>him</em>&nbsp;there". Mark particularly has an abnormal number of pronouns throughout the record. The emphasis is on " he... him... his”; also " they" occurs more than average. The contrast is being established between the crucified Christ and the world. If we are to identify with His cross, it is axiomatic that there must be a thorough separation from this world (<em><a href='B:550 1:4'>Gal 1:4</a></em>).</p><p><em>And watched him</em>- In the sense of guarding Him, rather than simply staring at Him. Matthew and Mark discuss the placing of the placard out of sequence, in order to emphasize how they did the Son of God to death, and then got on with splitting up His few clothes. The petty materialism of man was played out just a metre or two from the suffering Saviour, while He saw saying (repeatedly, the Greek could imply), "Father, forgive them"; with all the pain of speech which the crucified position involved. There were four soldiers, and they each took a part of His clothing: His head covering, belt, inner coat, His sandals. Those Galilean sandals, that had walked so many miles. He went about doing good, and healing... They kneeled on His chest and nailed Him, slung the mallets back into their packs, and straight away got on with arguing about who was going to keep those worn out shoes. One wonders whether the soldier wore them or sold them. Or kept them. And we must look at our petty materialism in the light of the cross, reflecting on the power of mammon: to eclipse the vision of the cross, to silence men from speaking of the wonder of the resurrection (<em><a href='B:470 28:14'>Mat 28:14</a></em>)- to entice a man to betray the Lord of all grace (<em><a href='B:470 26:15'>Mat 26:15</a></em> implies Judas' motivation was financial, first and foremost). Long hours, demanding hours, striving for well-paid careers... all so we can have a nice car, a house, not a flat, in a nice area, so we can wear nice fitting clothes, so we can eat food which tickles the taste buds, rather than food which gives the basic proteins and vitamins etc. We do all this. Almost all of us. At the foot of the cross. Ignoring what it really means. And even worse: we excuse ourselves rather than admit our guilt. The records of the writing of the inscriptions may also be out of place in order to create the picture of all the people sitting watching the Lord Jesus, with that title over Him. The other two were there, but the people all watched Jesus. He was lifted up, and He drew all men (all men's eyes, in the primary sense) unto Him (<em><a href='B:500 12:32'>Joh 12:32</a></em>). And the cross has that same magnetism today.</p>


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<p>27:37&nbsp;<em>And over his head they put the written accusation against him, which read-</em>&nbsp;This is out of sequence; the inscription was placed at the actual impalement (according to the other Gospels). Luke seems to imply that the mocking was because of this placard; it must have been a very unusual crime to die for, contrasting sharply with the usual reasons for death which were displayed on crosses.</p><p><em>This is Jesus, the King of the Jews-&nbsp;</em>Not only was the Lord’s death ongoing during His life. It was normal to write over the crucified ‘This&nbsp;<em>was...</em>’. But over the Lord it was written: ‘This&nbsp;<em>is</em>&nbsp;Jesus’, as if for all time, this was His memorial to all generations.</p><p>Did Pilate write it in his own handwriting? Did they use the same ladder to place the inscription which Joseph later used to retrieve the body? Why do the records suggest that the inscription was placed after the stake had been erected? Was there initial resistance from the Jews? Was He impaled with the placard around His neck, and then the ladder was put up, and a soldier lifted it off and nailed it above His head? "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" written in Hebrew would have used words whose first letters created the sacred Name: YHWH. Perhaps this was why there was such opposition to it. "King of the Jews" would have been understood as a Messianic title. Either Pilate was sarcastic, or really believed it, or just wanted to provoke the Jews. In any case, somehow the Yahweh Name was linked with the Messiah: King of the Jews. The Name was declared in the Lord’s death, as He had foretold (<em><a href='B:500 17:26'>Joh 17:26</a></em>). Forgiveness of sins is through baptism into the Name (<em><a href='B:510 2:38'>Act 2:38</a></em>), as even in OT times forgiveness was for the sake of the Name (<em><a href='B:230 79:9'>Psa 79:9</a></em>). And yet through the cross and blood of Christ is forgiveness made possible. His blood and death therefore was the supreme declaration of God’s Name; through His cross the grace and forgiveness, love, salvation and judgment implicit in the Name was all enabled and revealed in practice. <em><a href='B:230 22:22'>Psa 22:22</a></em> prophesied that “I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation&nbsp;<em>ekklesia</em>, LXX". It was to us His brethren that the Name was declared; in the eyes of an unbelieving world, this was just another crucified man, a failure, a wannabe who never made it. But to us, it is the declaration of the Name. It was and is done in the midst of the ecclesia, as if the whole church from that day to this beholds it all at first hand. And our response is to in turn “Declare His righteousness" (<em><a href='B:230 22:31'>Psa 22:31</a></em>), in response to seeing the Name declared, we declare to Him…in lives of love for the brethren. For the Name was declared, that the love that was between the Father and Son might be in us.</p><p><em><a href='B:230 40:9-10'>Psa 40:9-10</a></em> speaks of how the Lord Jesus would proclaim righteousness to the&nbsp;<em>ekklesia</em>&nbsp;and declare God’s faithfulness and salvation, i:e. the things of His Name. Yet this passage is quoted in <em><a href='B:650 10:5-7'>Heb 10:5-7</a></em> about the cross. It was there above all that “thy law is within my heart" and He “preached righteousness". This is why Paul can talk of “the preaching which is the cross". He as He was there is the ultimate witness. And this was why the Yahweh Name was written up over Him.</p>&nbsp;<br/><p>Note that <em><a href='B:490 22:36'>Luk 22:36</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 22:38'>Luk 22:38</a></em> record that the inscription on the cross was “also" written- connecting with how the soldiers “also" mocked Him. The inscription was intended as another mockery; but it was a vital part in declaring God’s glory. The incident is typical of how those things which seem the most negative and unspiritual are used by the Father to His and our glory in the end.</p>


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<p>27:38<em>&nbsp;Two robbers were crucified with him-&nbsp;</em><em><a href='B:470 27:38'>Mat 27:38</a></em> RV has a dramatic change of tense: “Then are there crucified with him…". Mark’s present tenses are also arresting: “plaiting…&nbsp; they clothe him… they smote…" (:17,19 RV). Perhaps Mark is seeking consciously to make us imagine it all as going on before our eyes. Take just <em><a href='B:480 15:23-26'>Mar 15:23-26</a></em>: “They offered…&nbsp; they crucify…&nbsp; and part… casting lots… crucified… was written". These arresting changes are surely to encourage us to re-live it all. Mark speaks of “they crucify him", going on to say that “then are there two crucified with him" (<em><a href='B:480 15:38'>Mar 15:38</a></em> RV), whereas Luke records the act in the past tense. Significantly, very few actual details are given by the Gospel writers of both the scourging and the crucifixion. It could be that they felt it impossible to dwell upon these things; or it could be that they and their readers knew what was involved in these practices, and we are left to dwell upon them in our own imagination. We are intended to reconstruct in our own minds what may have happened… We have a solemn duty towards Him to do this. This is perhaps why the tenses change so dramatically in the records.</p><p><em>One on his right hand and one on his left</em>- The crucified Christ is portrayed as King of criminals, King of the basest sort, enthroned between them, taking the place of their leader Barabbas, who ought to have been where the Lord was. Both Barabbas and the thieves are described with the same Greek word, translated "robber" (<em><a href='B:500 18:40'>Joh 18:40</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 15:27'>Mar 15:27</a></em>). The Lord uses the same word when He points out that His persecutors were treating him as a "robber" (<em><a href='B:470 26:55'>Mat 26:55</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 14:48'>Mar 14:48</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 22:52'>Luk 22:52</a></em>); He seems to be aware that what the experience He is going through is setting up Barabbas as a kind of inverse type of Himself, the true 'Son of the Father' (= 'Barabbas'). Those low, desperate men, the dregs of society, were types of us. Barabbas especially becomes a symbol of us all. According to Jewish tradition at the time (<em>Pesach</em>&nbsp;8:6) “They may slaughter the Passover lamb…for one whom they the authorities have promised to release from prison". The Passover amnesty freed a man justly condemned to death- on account of the death of the lamb. We can imagine the relief and joy and almost unbelief of Barabbas, as he watched or reflected upon the crucifixion of Jesus- that he who rightfully should have been there on the cross, was delivered from such a death because of the cross of Christ. The image of condemned prisoners being released due to the death of Messiah is an undoubted Old Testament figure for our redemption from slavery. Some of the legal terms used in the NT for our redemption imply that Christ redeemed us from slavery through His death. And yet one could redeem a slave by oneself becoming a slave (<em><a href='B:530 6:20'>1Co 6:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 7:23'>1Co 7:23</a></em>; <em><a href='B:550 3:13'>Gal 3:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:550 4:5'>Gal 4:5</a></em>). This is why the crucified Jesus is typified by the suffering servant / slave of Isaiah’s prophesies. And Paul seems to have risen up to something similar when he speaks of giving his body to be branded, i:e. becoming a slave (<em><a href='B:530 13:3'>1Co 13:3</a></em> Gk:).</p>


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<p>27:39&nbsp;<em>And they that passed by</em>- The idea of crucifixion was that it was public. The invitation to carry the Lord's cross is an invitation to likewise be public and open in our identification with Him. But these people repeated the false accusation raised in the Sanhedrin trial, that the Lord had planned to destroy the temple (:40). One wonders, therefore, whether these people were indeed passers by. To have access to that information means they may have been close to the Jewish leadership. Perhaps they simply made out that they were 'passers by', and the Biblical record is at times written from the standpoint of how things appear to men, even if that is not the actual case consider the language of demons. Or it could be that these people continually passed back and forth in front of the Lord in order to try to provoke Him repeatedly with their blasphemy.</p><p>“Those that passed by" were not only comprised of casual passers-by who thought "Hey, there's a crucifixion, let's go and have a look". Golgotha was a little way out of the city. The size of the crowd must have been considerable; "crowds came to the spectacle" (<em><a href='B:490 23:48'>Luk 23:48</a></em> Gk:). It seems more reasonable that the reference is to those who passed by, back and forth (the Greek could imply), 'passing along' (<em><a href='B:480 15:29'>Mar 15:29</a></em>) in front of the cross, taunting the Lord, as if they were making a wave offering in front of the presence of God in the crucified Christ. The connection between <em><a href='B:230 22:7'>Psa 22:7</a></em> and <em><a href='B:470 27:39'>Mat 27:39</a></em> would suggest that these 'passers-by' were there with the express intent of taunting Him. Because His eyes were inevitably downward, it would have been difficult for the Lord not to look at them. Their words were exactly those of the Sanhedrin (<em><a href='B:470 26:61'>Mat 26:61</a></em>), so presumably they came from there- the work colleagues of Joseph and Nicodemus.</p><p><em>Derided him, wagging their heads</em>-&nbsp;The reproach broke the Lord's heart (<em><a href='B:230 69:20'>Psa 69:20</a></em>). It could even be that He suffered a heart rupture, a literal broken heart, some hours prior to His death- hence when His side was pierced, blood flowed out- and corpses don’t usually bleed. It has been commented that severe emotional trauma is enough to cause such a rupture. He wasn't hard and impervious to it all. He knew who He was, and where He was going. To be treated as He was, was such an insult to the God of all grace. And He keenly sensed this. <em><a href='B:650 12:2-3'>Heb 12:2-3</a></em> parallels the Lord's enduring of the cross with His enduring "such contradiction of sinners against Himself". These mockings were therefore part of "the cross". The "cross" process began before His impalement; in the same way as some verses which evidently concern the crucifixion are applied to the Lord's earlier life. His was&nbsp;<em>a life</em>&nbsp;of cross carrying. And we are asked to live the same life, not just the occasional 'cross' of crisis, but a life embodying the cross principles. As "the cross" means more than the impalement which epitomized it, likewise "the blood of Christ" means far more than the red liquid. These concepts found their physical epitome in the crucifixion process, but there is so much more to these things than the physical. The blood of the covenant, the Son of God and the Spirit of grace are bracketed together in <em><a href='B:650 10:29'>Heb 10:29</a></em>. The Lord&nbsp;<em>was&nbsp;</em>His blood. The pouring out of blood from His side, the trickles down His cheeks from the crown of thorns, quickly drying in the hot dust beneath... this was&nbsp;<em>Him</em>. We take the wine in memory of&nbsp;<em>Him</em>; not just His blood. And He&nbsp;<em>is</em>&nbsp;the Spirit of God’s grace. By Himself He purged our sins (<em><a href='B:650 1:3'>Heb 1:3</a></em>); and yet this purging was through His blood (<em><a href='B:650 9:14'>Heb 9:14</a></em>). He was His blood; His cross was the essence of all He was.</p>&nbsp;


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<p>27:40&nbsp;<em>And saying: You that would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days</em>- This would have reminded Him that He was doing this to Himself, they weren't doing it to Him. He knew that the temple would be ripped apart stone by stone. And so He knew the temple of His body must be, for in that body He bore our sins on the tree. He had foretold that the tabernacle of His body would be 'taken down' as that in the wilderness was, taken apart piece by piece. In that lengthy procedure He had seen foretold the excruciating nature of His death, as every aspect of humanity was taken apart. "…and buildest it in three days" would have taken His mind forward to that certain future. So their taunt would have aided His efforts to remain spiritual. Likewise their allusions to Psalms 22 ("He trusted in God...") served to steer the Lord's mind there, and to take comfort from the rest of the Psalm and the context of their mocking quotations. Yet even in the mocking, the Lord’s Bible mind would have found some sort of encouragement. For the Lord was so clearly bearing the judgment of Israel’s sins: “All who pass along the way clap their hands at you: they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem" (<em><a href='B:310 2:15'>Lam 2:15</a></em>). And note too <em><a href='B:300 48:27'>Jer 48:27</a></em> (LXX 31:27): “Is Israel a laughing stock? Was she caught between thieves that you wag your head?". This is exactly the Lord’s position, between thieves, and mocked- but by Israel. These prophecies imply it was the Gentiles who would mock Israel; thus by treating the Lord as they did, they declared themselves to be no longer God’s people but Gentiles. The darkness that came down would have recalled <em><a href='B:300 33:19-21'>Jer 33:19-21</a></em> - when day and night no longer follow their normal sequence, God is breaking His covenant. Israel’s condemnation would be that “even at midday you will grope like a blind man in the dark" (<em><a href='B:50 28:29'>Deu 28:29</a></em>). And yet the Lord would have known that He was suffering for Israel, treated as an apostate Israel, and thus He was the more inspired to pray for their ultimate forgiveness and salvation, seeing He had borne their condemnation. The Lord suffered “for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due" (<em><a href='B:290 53:8'>Isa 53:8</a></em> RVmg:). There are therefore elements of the crucifixion sufferings of Jesus in every suffering of natural Israel.</p><p><em>Save yourself</em>- All the emphasis on save&nbsp;<em>yourself</em>&nbsp;was a temptation for Him to forget&nbsp;<em>us</em>. He would have reflected that He was saving Himself and us by staying where He was; coming down from the cross wouldn't lead to salvation. What the flesh understands by salvation and what the spirit understands by it are vastly different.</p><p><em>If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross</em>- A repeat of the wilderness temptation to come down from the temple pinnacle. This temptation was at the hands of the Jews, and there is every reason to think that the wilderness temptations likewise were somehow involved with the Jewish satan. The Lord had likened His death on the cross, His giving of His flesh for the life of the world, to the coming down of manna from Heaven (<em><a href='B:500 6:50-51'>Joh 6:50-51</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:58'>Joh 6:58</a></em>). 'Coming down' was the classic language of theophany and God manifestation; the Lord's ascension was on the very basis that He had indeed 'come down' (<em><a href='B:560 4:10'>Eph 4:10</a></em>). And He was indeed 'coming down', not a mere meter or so from the stake to the ground, but from Heaven to earth- for their salvation. Time and again the situations associated with the Lord's suffering were full of reference to His earlier teachings and beliefs. He was thus confirmed by the hand of providence in the path He had taken, realizing that this was not at all 'bad luck' or a suffering to simply be endured, but rather every detail of it was under God’s hand controlled to confirm Him in His path to glory.</p><p>“Come down from the cross” was a repeat of the second temptation: Come down from the temple tower; throw yourself to death in Gehenna below, and perhaps the Angels will even then save you. This had been a temptation to commit suicide, to give up life without giving it for His friends, and hope that somehow the Angels would save Him personally. Victory in one temptation leads to victory again and again. All the wilderness temptations recurred during the crucifixion. Notice how the three temptations of Jesus in the desert are repeated in the three mockeries of Him on the cross recorded in Matthew and Luke. The comment that the devil departed from Him “for a season" may imply ‘he’ returned at the cross. And clearly enough, the temptations at the end were internal, even if voiced by an external person.</p>


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<p>27:41&nbsp;<em>In like manner also the chief priests with the Scribes and elders mocked him, saying-&nbsp;</em>Matthew and Mark record the same incident. The priests said among themselves (Mk:); Matthew implies they said it to Him. They spoke in mock whispers, huddled in their group, but loud enough for Him to hear. Many of "the elders" believed in Him (<em><a href='B:500 12:42'>Joh 12:42</a></em>), but were led to this awful behaviour by the need to keep up appearances and the fear of exclusion from the synagogue.</p>


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<p>27:42&nbsp;<em>He saved others</em>- A tacit recognition that His healing miracles and the resurrection of Lazarus were undeniable. “He saved others" would have been a reference to Lazarus. His was a well-known case among the Jews (was Lazarus there? It would have been strange if He had not been). The Lord's mind would have choked at the memory of dear Lazarus, Martha, Mary, the now shattered family whom He had loved and still loved.</p><p><em>He cannot save himself. If he is the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in him-&nbsp;</em>RV "He is the King of Israel..." - His claims to Kingship, and the claim of His placard, was a repeated jibe. It must have seemed so incongruous that this wretchedly suffering man actually thought Himself to be a King. "If... let him come down" may have been followed by a pause: is He going to do anything? In their hearts they must have known that He had had the ability to pull off this kind of thing. Those silent pauses must have been an agony for the Lord. There were probably many in that crowd half sympathetic to His wretched cause, who, on the surface, really might have believed if He had come down. But He had learned the lesson in the Galilee days, that impressive miracles didn’t really instil faith (Pentecostals etc. still fail to realize this).</p><p>The mocking Jews fall strangely silent in the crucifixion accounts. The Lord had plainly foretold that when they had lifted up the Son of man, then they would know “that I am he", and would recognize His Divine Sonship (<em><a href='B:500 8:27'>Joh 8:27</a></em>). There was something about the vision of Christ crucified which convicted them of their folly and of the Divinity of God’s Son. And that power burns on today.</p>


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<p>27:43&nbsp;<em>He trusts in God</em>- As in :42 "He saved others", a tacit recognition that He had indeed trusted in God.</p><p><em>Let Him deliver him now</em>- Perhaps mocking the Lord's model prayer, "Deliver us from evil". If so, this is an indication of how well known the Lord's teachings had become. Even the elders knew the content of His model prayer.</p><p><em>If He desires him</em>- They were alluding to the LXX of <em><a href='B:230 18:19'>Psa 18:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 91:11'>Psa 91:11</a></em>. God cannot be tempted, otherwise He would have responded. 'If God&nbsp;<em>likes</em>&nbsp;Him', is what they were really implying.</p><p><em>For he said: I am the Son of God</em>- The Lord is never recorded as actually saying that in so many words. He preferred to leave His works and character to show that fact. And these learned men showed ignorance of the most basic Bible teaching- that God does not immediately deliver His children from their crises, nor does His apparent silence mean that He does not love them.</p>


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<p>27:44&nbsp;<em>And the robbers also that were crucified with him cast upon him the same reproach</em>- The same word is used of how these reproaches were actually against God, but they as it were fell upon the Lord (<em><a href='B:520 15:3'>Rom 15:3</a></em>). In this we see the intensity of God’s manifestation in his crucified Son. Paul quotes this in the context of appealing for our patience with the weak, knowing we are living out the spirit of the crucified Christ in our patient bearing with them (<em><a href='B:520 15:1'>Rom 15:1</a></em>). Perhaps Paul specifically has in mind how the Lord was patient with the thieves, the weak, who reproached Him; and that patience paid off, in that one of them was converted to such an extent that he was assured of final salvation.</p><p>The intellectuals in concentration camps were often mocked and hated by the other inmates until they came down to their level. It is, apparently, an almost natural reaction. It explains another concentration camp phenomenon- that victims often cooperate with their persecutors in crimes against other victims; the weak join with the strong to persecute others who are weak. This, on a psychological level, helps to explain why the later-repentant thief should speak like this. And yet the Lord bore with him, and His patience led to the man’s conversion and salvation. They were men at the very limit of human experience. The self-respect of Jesus would have been most unusual; the purpose of the crucifixion process was to drive this out. He knew Who He was, and where He was going. Josephus describes how those on trial with the threat of crucifixion hanging over them did all that they could to appeal for mercy. The thieves probably did this. This is why the Jews were so scandalized when the Lord refused to answer for Himself, and then calmly stated that He was the Messiah who would come to them in judgment at the last day (<em><a href='B:470 26:64-65'>Mat 26:64-65</a></em>); He was speaking the very blasphemy which they were trying so unsuccessfully to convict Him of. We can be sure that they and the soldiers tried especially hard to drive the self-respect from Him: which in His case would have meant resigning His belief that He was the spotless Son of God. This would explain why the soldiers mocked Him as they did, and why the onlooking Jews did so: unconsciously, they wanted to bring Him down to their level. The fact the Lord didn’t descend to their level is yet another mark of the extent of His victory. It was the same temptation as 'Come down from the cross'; 'Come down to our level, the level of desperate men, just concentrating on hanging here and shifting the weight around between hands and feet, hands and feet, hands and feet…'. You know how it is when you are carrying a very heavy load. You just concentrate on carrying it. You pant and sweat and don't care if you bump into somebody or tread on a child's toy. Those men were on that level. The Lord was in the same physical situation, but somehow He rose above, He didn’t descend to the animal, mindless level. Thank you, Lord, that for&nbsp;<em>my</em>&nbsp;sake You didn’t.</p>


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<p>27:45&nbsp;<em>Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour</em>- The only other Biblical reference to the sixth and ninth hours together is again in Matthew, and again on the lips of the Lord. It is when He spoke of how the householder went out at the sixth and ninth hours to desperately appeal for labourers to come and work for Him (20:5). This connection surely cannot be so arbitrary. The Lord intended that each waypoint or landmark in the crucifixion process would be an appeal to us to break out of our lethargy and come forward and serve Him in practice.</p>&nbsp;<p>Darkness is often associated in the OT with mourning. <em><a href='B:370 8:9-10'>Amo 8:9-10</a></em> speaks of earthquake and darkness at noon because "I will make it as the mourning for an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day", i:e. a funeral. The darkness was a sign of&nbsp;<em>Almighty God mourning for His Son</em>. &nbsp;</p>


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<p>27:46&nbsp;<em>And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice: Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?</em>- The Greek seems to mean "Why&nbsp;<em>did You</em>&nbsp;forsake me", perhaps implying that He had already overcome the feeling of being forsaken. Mark records "Eloi"; Matthew "Eli". Why? There&nbsp;<em>is</em>&nbsp;a difference. Did He say "Eli, Eli, Eloi, Eloi”? Four times calling upon God?&nbsp; We are going to suggest that these words indicate a crisis in the mind of the Lord Jesus. We would wish to write in almost every sentence of this study that the Lord Jesus was utterly sinless. Yet as one tempted to the limit, He must have come close to the edge. One of the superlative marvels of the Lord in His death was the way He never seems to have lost His spiritual composure, despite every physical and mental assault. Yet in these words we have Him perhaps nearer to such a breakdown of composure than anywhere else. Another example of His being 'close to the edge' was when He was in the Garden, asking for the cup to be taken away from Him. Compare those words with His clear understanding that He would have to die on a cross and later be resurrected. The clarity of His understanding is to be marvelled at. He went to the cross “knowing all things that should come upon him" (<em><a href='B:500 18:4'>Joh 18:4</a></em>). He not only foresaw His death by crucifixion and subsequent resurrection, but many other details besides. Thus He spoke of how He was like a seed which would be buried in a&nbsp;<em>garden</em>&nbsp;(as He was) and then rise again (<em><a href='B:490 13:19'>Luk 13:19</a></em>). But compare all this with His plea for another way to be found in Gethsemane, and also the cry "Why hast thou forsaken me?". There is only one realistic conclusion from this comparison: those words indicate a faltering in the Lord Jesus, a blip on the screen, a wavering in purpose. One marvels that there were not more such occasions recorded.</p><p>The first blip on the screen was in Gethsemane. The second one was when He cried "Why have You forsaken me?". We should remind ourselves of the chronology of events around the crucifixion (1):</p><table><tr><td></p><p>14th Nissan</td><td>9p:m.</td><td>Last Supper</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>12p:m.</td><td>Arrest</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>9a:m. (the third hour”)</td><td>Crucifixion</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>12a:m. - 3p:m. ("sixth to the ninth hour")</td><td>Darkness</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>3p:m. ("the ninth hour")</td><td>Death; Passover lambs killed</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>15th Nissan</td><td>9p:m.</td><td>Israel eat Passover</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>16th Nissan</td><td>6p:m.</td><td>Passover Sabbath ends</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>5a:m.</td><td>Resurrection?</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>6a:m.</td><td>Women at the tomb</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>3p:m.</td><td>Walk to Emmaus</td><td></td><td></td></tr></table><p>The fact is, Christ died "at the ninth hour". It was at the ninth hour that he cried "It is finished" and "Father into thy hands I commend my spirit". Yet it was also&nbsp;<em>at&nbsp;</em>the ninth hour that He said "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (<em><a href='B:480 15:34'>Mar 15:34</a></em>). The conclusion is that&nbsp;<em>at the very last moment</em>&nbsp;our Lord faltered. It was 11:59, and He faltered. Enter,&nbsp;<em>please</em>, into the sense of crisis and intensity. This is the only time that he prays to God as “God" rather than “Father" /&nbsp;<em>abba</em>. This itself reflects the sense of distance that enveloped Him. For He was your Lord and your Saviour hanging there, it was your salvation which hung in the balance. There is a very telling point to be made from <em><a href='B:470 27:46'>Mat 27:46</a></em>. There we read that at "<em>about</em>&nbsp;the ninth hour, Jesus cried" those words about being forsaken. Mark says it was at the ninth hour, and we know it was at the ninth hour that Christ uttered His final words of victory. Yet it must have been only a few minutes before the ninth hour when Christ faltered; hence Matthew says that it was "<em>about</em>&nbsp;the ninth hour". What is a few minutes? Only a few hundred seconds, only moments. Only moments before the sweetness of the final victory, "It is finished" or accomplished, the Son of God was faltering. The more we appreciate this wavering at the last minute, the more fully we will appreciate the power and sense of victory behind Christ's final two sayings on the cross, uttered only moments later.</p><p>And so we come to the crux of the problem. How and why was Christ forsaken by the Father? Ultimately, of course, the Father did not forsake the Son in His time of greatest need and agony. I would suggest that Christ only&nbsp;<em>felt</em>&nbsp;forsaken; although if you&nbsp;<em>feel</em>&nbsp;forsaken, in a sense you are forsaken. The prototype of Christ feeling forsaken was in David feeling forsaken by God when he fled from Absalom (<em><a href='B:230 42:9'>Psa 42:9</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 43:2'>Psa 43:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 88:14'>Psa 88:14</a></em>); but clearly he was not actually forsaken. But&nbsp;<em>why</em>&nbsp;did our Lord falter like this, at 11:59, one minute to twelve, at this agonizing last moment? Seeing the Father did not forsake the Son, there seems to have been some kind of intellectual failure in the Lord’s reasoning. In the terrible circumstances in which He was, this is hardly surprising. Yet such genuine intellectual failure, a real, unpretended failure to correctly understand something, usually has a psychological basis. The Lord, it seems to me,&nbsp;<em>feared death more than any other man</em>. He knew that death was separation from God, the wages of sin. Different people have varying degrees of fear of death (e.g. the unrepentant thief was totally resigned to it). It would seem that the Lord had the highest conceivable level of unresignation to death, to the point of being almost paranoid about it- even though He knew He must die. Two prototypes of the Lord had similar experiences. Abraham suffered “an horror of great darkness" (<em><a href='B:10 15:12'>Gen 15:12</a></em>), in an event rich in reference to the crucifixion. And Job’s sufferings were the very things which he “greatly feared" (<em><a href='B:220 3:25'>Job 3:25</a></em>). The Lord stood as a lamb dumb before His shearers; and the lamb is struck dumb with fear. This all makes the Lord’s death&nbsp;<em>for us</em>&nbsp;so much the more awesome.</p><p>We have elsewhere commented concerning the possibility that Christ felt that although He would be tied to the cross as Isaac was, yet somehow He would be delivered. <em><a href='B:10 22:22'>Gen 22:22</a></em> LXX speaks of Abraham not withholding his son- and the same word is found in <em><a href='B:520 8:32'>Rom 8:32</a></em> about God ‘not sparing’ His own son. Clearly the offering of Isaac is to be understood as prophetic of the Lord’s sacrifice. The Lord's growing realization that the entangled ram represented Him rather than Isaac would have led to this sense of panic which He now expressed. There is more evidence than we sometimes care to consider that Christ's understanding was indeed limited; He was capable of misunderstanding Scripture, especially under the stress of the cross. Earlier, in the garden, He had panicked; He was "sore amazed" (<em><a href='B:480 14:33'>Mar 14:33</a></em>, s:w. "greatly wondering", <em><a href='B:510 3:11'>Act 3:11</a></em>).</p><p>This desire for personal deliverance from the cross would have been there within our Lord throughout the six hours He hung there. And yet His only other earlier utterances which are recorded are all concerned with the welfare of others; us, the Jews, the thief, His mother. He supremely mastered His own flare of panic and desire for His personal salvation and relief, subjecting it to His spiritual and practical concern for others.</p><p>A study of Psalms 22 indicates deeper reasons why Christ felt forsaken. He had been crying out loud for deliverance, presumably for some time, according to <em><a href='B:230 22:1-6'>Psa 22:1-6</a></em>, both during and before the unnatural three hour darkness. He felt that His desire for deliverance was not being heard, although the prayers of others had been heard in the past when they cried with a like intensity. The Lord Jesus was well aware of the connection between God’s refusal to answer prayer and His recognition of sin in the person praying (<em><a href='B:100 22:42'>2Sa 22:42</a></em> = <em><a href='B:230 2:2-5'>Psa 2:2-5</a></em>). It is emphasized time and again that God will not forsake those who love Him (e.g. <em><a href='B:50 4:31'>Deu 4:31</a></em>; <em><a href='B:50 31:6'>Deu 31:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:90 12:22'>1Sa 12:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:110 6:13'>1Ki 6:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 94:14'>Psa 94:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 41:17'>Isa 41:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 42:16'>Isa 42:16</a></em>). Every one of these passages must have been well known to our Lord, the word made flesh. He knew that God forsaking Israel was a punishment for their sin (<em><a href='B:70 6:13'>Jdg 6:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:120 21:14'>2Ki 21:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 2:6'>Isa 2:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 23:33'>Jer 23:33</a></em>). God would forsake Israel only if they forsook Him (<em><a href='B:50 31:16-17'>Deu 31:16-17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:140 15:2'>2Ch 15:2</a></em>). It may be helpful to summarize the two strands of Bible teaching concerning being forsaken:</p><p>God will not forsake His people if they are righteous<br/>"When thou art in tribulation... and shalt be obedient unto his voice... he will not forsake thee" (<em><a href='B:50 4:18-19'>Deu 4:18-19</a></em>)<br/>"The Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee" (<em><a href='B:50 31:6'>Deu 31:6</a></em>)<br/>"The Lord will not forsake His people for his great name's sake: because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people" (<em><a href='B:90 12:22'>1Sa 12:22</a></em>)<br/>"If thou wilt walk in my statutes... and keep all my commandments to walk in them... I will not forsake my people" (<em><a href='B:110 6:12-13'>1Ki 6:12-13</a></em>)<br/>"Blessed is the man (Messiah) whom thou chastenest... for the Lord will not cast off his people, neither forsake his inheritance... all the upright in heart" (<em><a href='B:230 94:12-15'>Psa 94:12-15</a></em>)<br/>"When the poor and needy seek water... I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them" (<em><a href='B:290 41:17'>Isa 41:17</a></em>); i:e. God not forsaking was shown in His answering of prayer (cp. <em><a href='B:230 22:1-11'>Psa 22:1-11</a></em>).</p><p>God will forsake His people if they sin<br/>"Now the Lord hath forsaken us" because of Israel's disobedience at the time of the Judges (<em><a href='B:70 6:9'>Jdg 6:9</a></em>; <em><a href='B:70 6:13'>Jdg 6:13</a></em>)<br/>"Because Mannaseh hath done these abominations... I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies" (<em><a href='B:120 21:14'>2Ki 21:14</a></em>)<br/>"Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people... because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers and they please themselves" (<em><a href='B:290 2:6'>Isa 2:6</a></em>)<br/>"I am against the (false) prophets... (therefore) I will even forsake you" (<em><a href='B:300 23:33'>Jer 23:33</a></em>)<br/>"If ye seek him, he will be found of you; but ye forsake him, he will forsake you" (<em><a href='B:140 15:2'>2Ch 15:2</a></em>)<br/>"This people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the land... and will forsake me... then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them" (<em><a href='B:50 31:16-17'>Deu 31:16-17</a></em>).</p><p>Knowing all this, He cried out: "<em>Why</em>&nbsp;have You forsaken me?". He felt forsaken by God, and Biblically, without a doubt, being forsaken by God means you are a sinner. "<em>Why</em>&nbsp;(oh&nbsp;<em>why</em>) have You forsaken me?" is surely the Lord Jesus searching His conscience with desperate intensity, finding nothing wrong, and crying to God to show Him where He had failed, why the Father had forsaken Him. It may be that initially He assumed He had sinned (<em><a href='B:230 69:5'>Psa 69:5</a></em>), going through the self-doubt which David went through at the time of Absalom's rebellion (<em><a href='B:230 3:2'>Psa 3:2</a></em>). As David had felt then that God had cast him off, even though "My lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail", so the Lord felt (<em><a href='B:230 89:33'>Psa 89:33</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 89:38'>Psa 89:38</a></em>). But then with an unsurpassedly rigorous self-examination, He came to know that He really hadn't. This means that once over the crisis, our Lord died with a purity of conscience known by no other being, with a profound sense of His own totality of righteousness. Again, this enables us to better enter into the intensity of "<em>It</em>&nbsp;is finished".</p><p>The Lord understood His death as drinking a cup from God. But that cup was, in Old Testament language, the cup of God’s wrath against a disobedient people. The Lord knew that His death was a bearing of their judgment- which is not to say, of course, that the Lord’s murderers, as any sinners, have to also answer for their sins. He so wished to gather the “chicks" of Jerusalem under His wings, but they would not, and thus the house of the temple would be left desolate. The image seems to be of a farmyard hen in a fire, gathering the chicks under wings as the house burnt down, so that afterwards, beneath her charred and destroyed body, her brood would be found alive. The Lord so wished the burnt offering of the cross to result in the salvation of the Israel of His day- but they would not. This was His level of love for those who baited Him, irritated Him, dogged His every step.</p><p>Christ knew from Isaiah 53 that He was to bear Israel's sins, that the judgments for their sins were to fall upon Him. Israel ‘bore their iniquities’ by being condemned for them (<em><a href='B:40 14:34-35'>Num 14:34-35</a></em>; <em><a href='B:30 5:17'>Lev 5:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:30 20:17'>Lev 20:17</a></em>); to be a sin bearer was therefore to be one condemned. To die in punishment for your sin was to bear you sin. There is a difference between sin, and sin being laid upon a person. <em><a href='B:40 12:11'>Num 12:11</a></em> brings this out: “Lay not the sin upon us… wherein we have sinned”. The idea of sin being laid upon a person therefore refers to condemnation for sin. Our sin being laid upon Jesus therefore means that He was treated&nbsp;<em>as if</em>&nbsp;He were a condemned sinner. He briefly endured within Him the torment of soul which the condemned will feel. It seems that even our Lord did not appreciate the extent to which He would be identified with sinful Israel, the extent to which He would have our sins imputed to Him, the weight of them, the degree to which He would be made sin for us, although knowing no sin (<em><a href='B:540 5:21'>2Co 5:21</a></em>). And if He found this hard to come to terms with, no wonder we do too. The fact that the judgment for sin is sometimes equated with the sin itself was doubtless appreciated by the Lord (cp. <em><a href='B:120 15:23'>2Ki 15:23</a></em>); but the extent of this principle was what seemed to have been unappreciated by Him until the cross. Likewise, He would have meditated upon the way righteous men had taken upon themselves the sins of their people. Thus Jeremiah speaks as if he has committed Israel's sins; Ezra rends his clothes and plucks off his hair, as if&nbsp;<em>he</em>&nbsp;has married out of the Faith (<em><a href='B:150 9:4'>Ezr 9:4</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:160 13:25'>Neh 13:25</a></em>; the Lord received the same sinner's treatment, <em><a href='B:290 50:6'>Isa 50:6</a></em>). Moses' prayer for God to relent and let him enter the land was only rejected for the sake of his association with Israel's sins (<em><a href='B:50 3:26'>Deu 3:26</a></em>). But the&nbsp;<em>extent</em>&nbsp;to which the Lord would bear our sins was perhaps unforeseen by Him. And indeed, through His sin- bearing and sin-feeling, He enabled God Himself to know something of it too, as a Father learns and feels through a son. Thus God is likened to a man who goes away into a far country (<em><a href='B:470 21:33'>Mat 21:33</a></em>)- the very words used by the Lord to describe how the sinner goes into a far country in his departure from the Father (<em><a href='B:490 15:13'>Luk 15:13</a></em>). “My servant" was both Israel and the Lord Jesus; He was their representative in His sufferings. Which may well explain why in an exhibition of prisoners art from the Auschwitz death camp, there were so many crucifixes and ‘stages of the cross’ drawn by Jews, even in the wood of the huts, etched with their finger nails. They saw then, and will see again, the extent to which Jesus of Nazareth, through His cross, identifies with the suffering servant of Israel. Isaiah brings this point out Biblically- early in his prophecy he speaks of how “my servant" Israel will be wounded, bruised, tormented with “fresh stripes" (<em><a href='B:290 1:6'>Isa 1:6</a></em> RVmg)- exactly the language Isaiah later uses about the sufferings of the Lord Jesus in His death.</p><p>Christ died to save Israel rather than everyone in the Gentile world (<em><a href='B:290 49:5'>Isa 49:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 53:8'>Isa 53:8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:550 4:4-5'>Gal 4:4-5</a></em>), He was “a servant to the circumcised" (<em><a href='B:520 15:8'>Rom 15:8</a></em>), " the consolation&nbsp;<em>of Israel</em>”, unto&nbsp;<em>them</em>&nbsp;was born a saviour (<em><a href='B:490 2:11'>Luk 2:11</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 2:25'>Luk 2:25</a></em>), and therefore He had to be exactly representative of them. For this reason it was theologically necessary for Jesus to be Jewish in order to achieve the work He did. We are only saved by reason of becoming in Christ and therefore part of the Israel of God (<em><a href='B:550 3:27-29'>Gal 3:27-29</a></em>). The Jewish basis of salvation is absolutely fundamental to a correct understanding of the Gospel.</p>&nbsp;<p>Consider the following evidence that fundamentally, Christ died to save Israel:<br/>"For unto us (Israel) a child is born, unto us a son is given" (<em><a href='B:290 9:6'>Isa 9:6</a></em>)<br/>"The Lord formed me in the womb to be His servant, to bring Jacob again to Him" (<em><a href='B:290 49:5'>Isa 49:5</a></em>)<br/>"For the transgression of my people was he stricken" (<em><a href='B:290 53:8'>Isa 53:8</a></em>)<br/>“God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law" (<em><a href='B:550 4:4-5'>Gal 4:4-5</a></em>)<br/>The good news of Christ’s birth was for “all the people" of Israel, primarily (<em><a href='B:490 2:10'>Luk 2:10</a></em> RV).<br/>The Lord laid down His life “for the sheep" of Israel (<em><a href='B:500 10:15-16'>Joh 10:15-16</a></em>).</p><p>Both Peter and Paul appealed to the Jews to repent because it was for them that Christ had died: "Ye are the children…of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying…. And in thy seed shall all the kindreds (tribes) of the earth (land) be blessed. Unto you first (i:e. most importantly) God, having raised up his son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities... God raised unto Israel a Saviour… men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham... to you is the word of this salvation sent... we declare unto you glad tidings (the Gospel), how that the promise (of salvation in Christ) which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children" (<em><a href='B:510 3:25-26'>Act 3:25-26</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 13:23'>Act 13:23</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 13:26'>Act 13:26</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 13:32-33'>Act 13:32-33</a></em>).</p><p>"For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision (<em><a href='B:520 15:17'>Rom 15:17</a></em>) has reference to Isaiah’s Servant prophecies of the crucifixion. But it is also, as so often in Paul, a reference to the Lord’s words; in this case, <em><a href='B:470 20:26-28'>Mat 20:26-28</a></em>: "It is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many". The ‘becoming a servant’ refers to His death; and He became a servant, Paul says, to the Jews above all.</p><p>Because of all this, the sufferings of Christ on the cross have connections with the punishments for Israel's sins (e.g. being offered gall to drink = <em><a href='B:300 8:14'>Jer 8:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:310 3:5'>Lam 3:5</a></em>). Israel were temporarily forsaken by God because of their sins (<em><a href='B:290 49:14'>Isa 49:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 54:7'>Isa 54:7</a></em>), and therefore so was Christ. Christ was chastened with the rod of men "and with the stripes of the children of men", i:e. Israel (<em><a href='B:290 53:5'>Isa 53:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:670 2:24'>1Pe 2:24</a></em>; <em><a href='B:400 5:1'>Mic 5:1</a></em>), in His death on the cross. But punishment with rod and stripes was to be given if Messiah sinned (<em><a href='B:100 7:14'>2Sa 7:14</a></em>). Yet Christ received this punishment; because God counted Him as if He were a sinner. His sharing in our condemnation was no harmless piece of theology. He really did feel, deep inside Him, that He was a sinner, forsaken by God. Instead of lifting up His face to Heaven, with the freedom of sinlessness, He fell on His face before the Father in Gethsemane (<em><a href='B:470 26:39'>Mat 26:39</a></em>), bearing the guilt of human sin. There are times when we may feel that the righteousness of Christ makes Him somehow inaccessible to us. Even among contemporary brethren and sisters, there are some who I feel somehow distanced from, simply because I know they are far more righteous than I. And I know that there are many of us who feel the same. We feel that they just don't know what it feels like to be spiritually down and out, to feel and deeply know the dirt of our own nature. And if we have this problem with each other, we will surely have it with the Lord Jesus too. For this reason many of us lack the dynamic, close personal relationship with Christ which we should have.</p><p>And yet here on the cross, we see our Lord with all the panic of the sinner who knows He is facing judgment and death, feeling every bit, right throughout His very being, the alienation from God which sin brings. He knew the agony of separation from God because of sin. He was a sin bearer (<em><a href='B:290 53:11'>Isa 53:11</a></em>); and the idea of sin bearing was almost an idiom for being personally guilty and sinful (<em><a href='B:40 14:34'>Num 14:34</a></em>; <em><a href='B:20 28:43'>Exo 28:43</a></em>). The Lord was our sin bearer and yet personally guiltless. This is the paradox which even He struggled with; no wonder we do, on a far more abstract level. <em><a href='B:290 63:2-3'>Isa 63:2-3</a></em> explains how in the process of obtaining salvation, the Lord’s clothing would be made red. Red clothes in Isaiah suggest sinfulness that needs cleansing (<em><a href='B:290 1:18'>Isa 1:18</a></em>). He was completely identified with us, to the point of feeling a sinner even although He never sinned. Perhaps this was why Pilate marvelled so greatly at Christ's silence when under false accusation (<em><a href='B:480 15:5'>Mar 15:5</a></em>); Pilate knew Jesus was innocent, and he had seen many innocent men being condemned in that court situation. Innocent men usually protest their innocence, desperately. But this innocent man didn’t. Perhaps the paradox is explained by the fact that Jesus felt so closely identified with sinful, guilty humanity that He didn’t do the natural thing, which would've been to loudly proclaim His own innocence.</p><p>The Greek word translated "forsaken" occurs also in <em><a href='B:510 2:27'>Act 2:27</a></em>, where Peter quotes from Psalms 16 concerning how Christ was always aware of His own righteousness, and therefore confidently knew that God would not "<em>leave</em>&nbsp;(forsake) his soul in hell". In <em><a href='B:230 22:1'>Psa 22:1</a></em>, our Lord was doubting His previous thoughts, as prophesied in <em><a href='B:230 16:10'>Psa 16:10</a></em>. He now feared that God had forsaken Him, when previously He had been full of confidence that God would not do so, on account of His perfect character. Because Christ felt such a sinner deep within Him, He even doubted if He really was the Messiah. This is how deeply, how deeply, our Lord was our representative, this is how thoroughly He bare our own sins in His own body on the tree, this is how deeply He came to know us, to be able to exactly empathize with us in our spiritual weakness; this was how He became able to have a fellow feeling with those who are out of the way, who have lost the faith, "for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity" (<em><a href='B:650 5:2'>Heb 5:2</a></em>). The way the Lord felt as a sinner without being one is possibly reflected in the way He framed the parable of the prodigal son. For like it or not, the prodigal is portrayed in terms which are elsewhere applicable to Jesus- the beloved son of the Father, given the Father's wealth as His inheritance, He who was rich becoming poor, going into the Gentile world, accused of companying with prostitutes, bitterly rejected by the elder brother cp. the Pharisees, accused of wasting wealth by Judas, received with joy by the Father. Of course, the Lord Jesus did not sin. But why is the sinner framed in the story in the very terms which are applicable to the sinless Son of God? Surely the Lord did this to reflect the degree to which He felt His identity with sinners, although He never sinned.</p><p>The greatest fear within a righteous man is that of sinning. There are many Messianic Psalms in which David, in the spirit of Christ, speaks of His fear of being forsaken by God:&nbsp;<br/>"Leave me not, neither forsake me,&nbsp;<em>O God of my&nbsp;</em>salvation" (<em><a href='B:230 27:9'>Psa 27:9</a></em>; cp. "<em>My God</em>, Why hast thou forsaken me")<br/>"Forsake me not, O Lord:&nbsp;<em>O my God</em>&nbsp;be not far from me" (<em><a href='B:230 38:21'>Psa 38:21</a></em>)<br/>"Hide not they face from thy servant... hear me speedily" (<em><a href='B:230 69:17'>Psa 69:17</a></em>)- implying that a lack of response to prayer (as He experienced on the cross) was perceived by the Lord as rejection.<br/>"Forsake me not…&nbsp;<em>O God</em>, forsake me not" (<em><a href='B:230 71:9'>Psa 71:9</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 71:18'>Psa 71:18</a></em>)<br/>"I will keep thy statutes: O forsake me not" (<em><a href='B:230 119:8'>Psa 119:8</a></em>)<br/>"Forsake not the works of thine own hands" (<em><a href='B:230 138:8'>Psa 138:8</a></em>).</p><p>This points forward to how our Lord had this lifelong fear of being forsaken by God as a result of sin. Under the extreme pressure of the cross, amidst His constant self-examination, it is understandable that Christ's greatest fear, perhaps almost His paranoia, appeared to become realized. The crowd had been trying to brainwash our Lord with the idea that He had sinned; and because of His humanity and sensitivity of His personality, the Lord Jesus was perhaps subconsciously influenced by all this. He was no hard man, insensitive to the jeers of men. Remember how He was laughed&nbsp;<em>to scorn&nbsp;</em>both on the cross and in the home of Jairus, and how He did not hide His face from the&nbsp;<em>shame</em>&nbsp;which He was made to feel by men (<em><a href='B:470 9:24'>Mat 9:24</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 22:7'>Psa 22:7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 50:6'>Isa 50:6</a></em>). Job's sufferings were another type of Christ's, and his sufferings (cp. Christ's experience on the cross) was the thing which He had greatly feared all his life (<em><a href='B:220 3:25'>Job 3:25</a></em>). The thing which Christ greatly feared, according to the Psalms, was being forsaken by God. And true enough to the Job type, this came upon Him:&nbsp;<br/>Because Christ truly felt a sinner, He felt forsaken by God. This is to me the explanation of one of Scripture’s most enigmatic verses: “Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see. Who is blind, but my servant? Or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? Who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord’s servant?" (<em><a href='B:290 42:18-19'>Isa 42:18-19</a></em>). The Lord Jesus, as the servant, was to share the blindness and deafness of an obdurate Israel. He identified with us even in our sinfulness; and yet He was the blind who was perfect; and this is the very thing that empowers the spiritually blind to see. When God made His soul sin on the cross AV “offering for sin" is not in the Hebrew text- it’s an interpretation,&nbsp;<em>then</em>&nbsp;He saw Heb. to perceive / discern His seed (<em><a href='B:290 53:10'>Isa 53:10</a></em>). This all seems to mean that it was through this feeling as a sinner deep within His very soul, that the Lord Jesus came to ‘see’, to closely identify with, to perceive truly, us His sinful seed / children. And He did this right at the very end of His hours of suffering, as if this was the climax of His sufferings- they led Him to a full and total identity with sinful men and women. And once He reached that point, He died. The total identity of the Lord with our sinfulness is brought out in passages like <em><a href='B:520 8:3'>Rom 8:3</a></em>, describing Jesus as being “in the likeness of sinful flesh" when He was made a sin offering; and <em><a href='B:670 2:24'>1Pe 2:24</a></em>, which speaks of how He “his own self…in his own body" bore our sins “upon the tree". Note that it was at the time of His death that He was especially like this. I believe that these passages speak more of the Lord’s moral association with sinners, which reached a climax in His death, than they do of His ‘nature’. The Greek words&nbsp;<em>charis</em>&nbsp;grace and&nbsp;<em>choris</em>&nbsp;apart differ by one very small squiggle. This is why there’s an alternative reading of <em><a href='B:650 2:9'>Heb 2:9</a></em>: “So that apart from God&nbsp;<em>choris theou</em>&nbsp;he Jesus tasted death for us” (2). This would then be a clear reference to the way that the Lord Jesus felt apart from God at His very end. Not that He was, but if He felt like that, then this was in practice the experience which He had. Thus even when we feel apart from God- the Lord Jesus knows even that feeling.</p><p>In every other recorded prayer of His in the Gospels, the Lord addressed the Almighty as “Father"; but now He uses the more distant “My God", reflecting the separation He felt. But therefore His mind flew to <em><a href='B:230 22:1'>Psa 22:1</a></em>, and He quoted those words: "My God, why hast thou forsaken me". But the fact His mind went to the Scriptures like that was His salvation. There is reason to think that in His last few minutes, the Lord quoted the whole of Psalms 22 out loud. Thus He asked for a drink " that the Scripture might be fulfilled”, or finished, and then His words "It is finished" followed- which are actually an exact quote from the Septuagint of the last verse of Psalms 22. Psalms 22, 69 can be clearly divided into two halves; the first half speaks of the confused thoughts of the Lord Jesus as He hung on the cross, but then there is a sudden rally, and His thoughts become clearly more confident and positive, centred around the certainty of our future salvation. As Christ quoted or at least thought through Psalms 22, He came to the glorious conclusion: Of course this is how Messiah must feel, He&nbsp;<em>must</em>&nbsp;feel forsaken, as Psalms 22 prophesied, but He would go on to save God’s people Just because Messiah would&nbsp;<em>feel</em>&nbsp;forsaken didn’t mean that He Himself had sinned We can almost sense the wave of reassurance that swept over our Lord, that deep knowledge of His own good conscience. And therefore how desperate He was, despite that ravaging thirst, to utter to the world that cry, "It is finished"; to show to us all that He had achieved God’s work, that He&nbsp;<em>had</em>&nbsp;perfectly manifested the Father, and that thereby He really had achieved our redemption:&nbsp;<br/>Notes<br/>(1) This chronology is my preferred one. Yet it presents the problem (for some) of reading "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (<em><a href='B:470 12:40'>Mat 12:40</a></em>) as an idiom rather than a literal time period. This problem is well handled in H:A:Whittaker, 'Three days and three nights',&nbsp;in&nbsp;<em>Studies in the Gospels</em>:&nbsp;<br/>&nbsp;(2) A reading justified at length in Philip E. Hughes,&nbsp;<em>A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews</em>&nbsp;(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977) pp. 87-97.</p>


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<p>27:47&nbsp;<em>And some of them standing there, when they heard it, said: This man calls Elijah</em>- They were confusing "Eliyahu" with "Eloi, Eloi". With teeth loose or missing, throat parched from the fever induced by the iron nails in the blood stream, the difficulty of speaking because of being suspended by the arms... this confusion isn't surprising.</p>


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<p>27:48&nbsp;<em>And immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink</em>- John defines the reed as a hyssop, which is not more than 50 cm. long. We conclude that the Lord was not lifted up that high above the earth. His knees would have been at head height for those standing by the cross.</p>


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<p>27:49&nbsp;<em>And the rest said: Let him be. Let us see whether Elijah comes to save him</em>- They grudged even temporal relief for the Lord, because they were intent on testing whether He was indeed a true prophet. They felt justified in subjecting Him to the worst torture and indignity because they thought they were testing a false prophet.</p>


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<p>27:50<em>&nbsp;And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit-&nbsp;</em>“Again"- after "It is finished". The Diaglott of <em><a href='B:470 27:50'>Mat 27:50</a></em> suggests that this cry&nbsp;<em>was</em>&nbsp;the giving up of the spirit: “Then Jesus crying out again with a loud voice, expired". For the huge significance of this, see on <em><a href='B:490 23:46'>Luk 23:46</a></em>. The Lord gave His life, it was not taken from Him (<em><a href='B:500 10:18'>Joh 10:18</a></em>); He consciously controlled the giving out of His last breath.</p>


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<p>27:51&nbsp;<em>And the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom; and the earth quaked</em>- The way into the most holy was now open to all, the veil torn from top to bottom because this was done by God. The High Priest's garments had been torn by him, and now the veil itself was open. Judaism was effectively over. Direct fellowship with God was now made possible through the Lord's death. We note by contrast how the same word is used to describe how the Lord's garment was&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;rent (<em><a href='B:500 19:24'>Joh 19:24</a></em>). &nbsp;.<br/><em><br/>And the rocks were split</em>- "Rocks" translates&nbsp;<em>petra</em>, the Lord's special name for Peter. According to the reconstruction of events offered earlier, Peter was present at the crucifixion, a witness to the Lord's sufferings (<em><a href='B:670 5:1'>1Pe 5:1</a></em>), and what he saw there was the basis of his conversion. Perhaps we are therefore intended to imagine the rending of Peter's heart as part of his conversion process; and his path is to be ours, if we allow the cross the same power in our hearts.</p><p>Job said that if he justifies himself, he will be condemned out of his own mouth (<em><a href='B:220 9:20'>Job 9:20</a></em> - he understood the idea of self-condemnation and judgment now). Isaiah also foresaw this, when he besought men (in the present tense): “Enter&nbsp;<em>into the rock</em>, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty", and then goes on to say that in the day of God’s final judgment, “the rejected shall go&nbsp;<em>into&nbsp;</em>the holes of&nbsp;<em>the rock</em>... for&nbsp;<em>fear of the Lord and for the glory of His majesty</em>&nbsp;when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth" (<em><a href='B:290 2:10-11'>Isa 2:10-11</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 2:19-21'>Isa 2:19-21</a></em>). We must find a true, self-condemning humility now, unless it will be forced upon us at the judgment. The LXX of <em><a href='B:290 2:19'>Isa 2:19</a></em> speaks of a rending of the rocks, exactly the same phrase as occurs in <em><a href='B:470 27:51'>Mat 27:51</a></em> about the crucifixion. Rending of rocks is common judgment day language (<em><a href='B:410 1:5-6'>Nah 1:5-6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:450 14:4'>Zec 14:4</a></em>), and consider too how this happened in the theophany of <em><a href='B:110 19:11-12'>1Ki 19:11-12</a></em>, in which the still small voice would be comparable to the message of the cross.</p>


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<p>27:52&nbsp;<em>And the tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints that had fallen asleep were raised</em>- Not in order to let the bodies climb out, for they were already decayed; but rather as a visual witness to the fact the Lord had conquered death. Likewise at His own resurrection, the Angelic rolling away of the stone was not simply so that the Lord could walk out into the open air, as if He was otherwise trapped behind the rock. He could pass through walls at ease. Rather was it again a visual witness to men.</p>


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<p>27:53&nbsp;<em>And coming forth out of the tombs after his resurrection</em>- The graves were open for three days, and the bodies only came out of them when the Lord rose from the dead. The message was that His resurrection meant the resurrection of others, if we identify with Him. This latter point suggests to me that these people were likely known followers of the Lord who had died during His ministry and would've been well known to those who saw them.</p><p><em>They entered into the holy city-</em>&nbsp;That sinful city is called “the holy city", even though this will only be Jerusalem's title in the Kingdom age, after her repentance (<em><a href='B:290 1:26'>Isa 1:26</a></em>). What imputation of righteousness Again, we see how the record&nbsp;<em>breathes</em>&nbsp;the spirit of grace. The fact those mocking Jews died in their beds, that judgment didn’t immediately come, that the repentant thief was saved and not made to apologize, that Joseph the secret doubter who voted for the Son of God’s crucifixion should be spoken of so highly... there are so many examples of God’s pure grace to man.</p><p><em>And appeared to many</em>- The idea of the Greek is not a mere appearance but an explanation or giving of information. These persons were therefore actually preaching something, which supports my suggestion above that they were believers in Jesus.</p>


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<p>27:54&nbsp;<em>Now the centurion and those that were with him watching Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that happened-&nbsp;</em>There is great emphasis on people "beholding" (<em><a href='B:470 27:36'>Mat 27:36</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:54'>Mat 27:54</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:35'>Luk 23:35</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:47-49'>Luk 23:47-49</a></em>). He drew the eyes of all men unto Him (<em><a href='B:500 12:32'>Joh 12:32</a></em>). There was (and is) a magnetism about the cross.</p><p>The point has been made that the sight of the crucifixion process divided people into the only two categories which exist in God’s sight:<br/>- The repentant thief and the bitter one<br/>- The soldiers who mocked and the Centurion who believed<br/>- The Sanhedrin members who believed and those who wouldn't<br/>- The women who lamented but didn’t obey His word, and those whose weeping isn't recorded, but who stood and watched and thought<br/>- The people who beat their breasts in repentance, and those who mocked as to whether Elijah would come to save the Lord.</p><p>This is why recollection of the Lord's agony is to be associated with serious self-examination and humbled, zealous response (<em><a href='B:530 11:28-29'>1Co 11:28-29</a></em>). And this is where our study must lead us.</p><p><em>Were terrified, saying</em>- Not just the Centurion but the soldiers with him all made the confession that "This was the Son of God". This is the confessional formula used in the Gospels and Acts. They feared because it was exactly that battalion of soldiers who had just hours before so cruelly abused and mocked the Lord. They came very quickly from that extreme of hating Him to a public confession of faith in Him at the foot of His cross. This is the power of the cross in convicting men. I suggest that psychologically, they could only have made this step of faith because they believed that somehow He would forgive them. They perceived a connection between His death there, and the forgiveness of the greatest human sin, the sin of the cosmos, the worst sin ever committed in the infinity of time and space- to abuse and crucify God’s Son. Even that could be forgiven. If those soldiers did not have that conviction, then it seems to me that they simply would have cursed their luck and lived the rest of their days with a "certain fearful looking for of judgment".</p><p><em>Truly this was the Son of God</em>- He said it twice: "This was a righteous man (Lk:), truly this man was the son of God" (Mk:). And he might well have added in his own thoughts: “And I’ve crucified him".</p>


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<p>27:55&nbsp;<em>And many women were there watching from afar</em>- There is great emphasis on people "beholding" (<em><a href='B:470 27:36'>Mat 27:36</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:54'>Mat 27:54</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:35'>Luk 23:35</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:47-49'>Luk 23:47-49</a></em>). He drew the eyes of all men unto Him (<em><a href='B:500 12:32'>Joh 12:32</a></em>). There was (and is) a magnetism about the cross. <em><a href='B:490 23:48'>Luk 23:48</a></em> says that there were people 'coming together to that sight'. This might imply that the crowd which was milling around came clustering around the cross once the Lord uttered His final cries and so evidently died. The women also beheld His dead corpse from afar. This seems to be encouraging us to imagine the picture of the Lord just at that point; the dead body on the cross, the victory achieved. It was only at this stage that the curse of Deuteronomy 21 came into effect: "Cursed (Heb. a curse; the Hebrew is&nbsp;<em>always</em>&nbsp;translated this way) is every one that hangeth on a tree" (<em><a href='B:50 21:22-23'>Deu 21:22-23</a></em>). These words have been misunderstood as meaning that the Lord as a living being was under one of the Law's curses of condemnation. This cannot be. It must be remembered that crucifixion was a Roman, not Jewish method. The Deuteronomy passage was not written with reference to crucifixion, but rather to the custom of displaying the already dead body of a sinner on a pole as a witness and warning (cp. the display of Saul's body). Sin brought the curse; and so every sinful person who died for their sin was bearing the curse of God. They were to be buried quickly as a sign of God taking no pleasure in the death of the wicked. The Lord died the death of a sinner; He bore our sins, and therefore our curse (<em><a href='B:550 3:13-14'>Gal 3:13-14</a></em>). Every condemned sinner whose body had been displayed had been a type of the sinless Son of God. He was exhibited there for one or two hours (until Joseph got the permission to take the body), totally, totally united with sinful man. And then, because God had no pleasure in this condemnation of sin, the body was taken and buried.</p><p>Luke adds that people smote their breasts and ‘returned’, the same word used about repentance. Smiting the breast connects with the sinner smiting his breast in repentance (<em><a href='B:470 11:17'>Mat 11:17</a></em> RVmg:). The thoughts of many hearts are revealed by meditation on the cross (<em><a href='B:490 2:35'>Luk 2:35</a></em>). It leads us to repentance. The prophecy that the Jews would look on His they pierced and mourn in repentance may have had an incipient fulfilment at the crucifixion.</p><p>John notes that all the ‘beholding’ of the crucified Christ was a fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy about Israel beholding the one whom they had pierced. Simeon had prophesied that a sword would pierce Mary's heart as it also pierced that of Christ her son (<em><a href='B:490 2:35'>Luk 2:35</a></em>). This is one reason for thinking that Mary may still have been at the cross when the Lord died. It could be that John took her to his home, arm round her shoulders as she wrestled with the desire to take one last motherly look back, and then returned himself to the cross; and then Mary crept back, almost hot on his heels, or perhaps choosing another route, and hiding somewhere in the crowd where neither her son nor John, her new son, would see her. To me, this has the ring of truth about it. Simeon's prophecy, as that sweet baby in cheap cloths lay cradled in his arms, seems to imply that&nbsp;<em>as&nbsp;</em>the Lord's heart was pierced, so would his mother's be. Are we to conclude from this that there was a heart-piercing groan within her, as she saw the spear head enter and the blood flow out? Each time they called out ‘Come down from the cross’, her heart must have been in her mouth. Would He? She had learnt the lesson of Cana, not to pressurize Him for convenient miracles; not to catch His eye as if to say ‘Go on, do it, for my sake’. But nonetheless, because she was only human, she would have hoped against hope. But now, the finality of death forced itself upon her. And her heart was pierced in that moment. Yet Yahweh Himself had prophesied, years before: "They shall look upon&nbsp;<em>me</em>&nbsp;whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for&nbsp;<em>him</em>... and shall be in bitterness for&nbsp;<em>him</em>" (<em><a href='B:450 12:10'>Zec 12:10</a></em>). The use of pronouns here seems to mean that God was in Christ on the cross, reconciling the world unto Himself (<em><a href='B:540 5:19'>2Co 5:19</a></em>). When the Son was pierced, so was the Father. And so at the moment of that sword-thrust, we see the connection of both parents with their suffering Son. As He was pierced, so were the Father and mother. Here we see the wonder and yet the tragedy of the Divine family. We have a very rare insight into the relationship between the Father and Mary. The notion of personal pre-existence and total Deity of Christ destroys this beauty and mystery. Indeed, the whole relationship between the Lord and His mother and Father is surpassingly beautiful, once His nature is correctly understood. There is so much one could speculate and yet dares not hardly think or say (e.g. whether the Lord appeared to His mother after the resurrection; what their relationship will be in the Kingdom).</p><p><em>Those who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him</em>- The women who stood afar off and watched in helplessness and hopelessness and lack of comprehension&nbsp;<em>also followed</em>&nbsp;the Lord and ministered to Him in the Galilee days. Their standing there like that was still reckoned to them as active following and ministry to Him. They also serve, who merely stand and wait.</p>


text:
<p>27:56&nbsp;<em>Among whom were Mary Magdalene</em>- Mary Magdalene was perhaps named after the town of Magdala. But named Magdalene may mean the Lord gave her that Name just as He gave names to His other disciples. The name derives from the Hebrew&nbsp;<em>migdol</em>, ‘tower’:&nbsp; So the repeated description of her as the Magdalene could be implying: Mary the tower- Magdalene. Just as the shaky Simon was described as ‘the rock’, Simon-the-rock, so the shady Mary was surnamed ‘Mary-the-tower’. It was common for Jewish rabbis to give their followers names, and it seems the Lord did this too- but the names He gave reflected the potential which He saw in His men and women. And the name He gives us likewise is a reflection of the potential we can live up to. Mary Magdalene is the most frequently named person in the passion narratives. Clearly the Gospel writers, under inspiration, perceived her as the central figure amongst those who were witnesses of it all. In doing so they turned on its head the prevailing idea that the witness of a woman was worthless. They saw her as the main witness. The Gospel writers clearly see Mary Magdalene as of prime importance amongst the women who followed the Lord. Luke twice places her first in his lists of the ministering women (<em><a href='B:490 8:2'>Luk 8:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 24:10'>Luk 24:10</a></em>). Matthew likewise focuses on how she was at Calvary, at the burial and at the empty tomb (<em><a href='B:470 27:56'>Mat 27:56</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:61'>Mat 27:61</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 28:1'>Mat 28:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 28:9'>Mat 28:9</a></em>). She clearly captured the attention of the gospel writers.</p><p><em>And Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee</em>- The Torah required "two or three witnesses" (<em><a href='B:50 19:15'>Deu 19:15</a></em>); yet Roman law disallowed women as witnesses. Significantly, the Torah didn’t. The fact it doesn't, and therefore accepted women as witnesses, was actually quite a radical thing. The records of the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus are carefully framed to show that there were always two or three witnesses present- and they are all&nbsp;<em>women</em>:</p><table><tr><td></p><p>&nbsp;</td><td>Cross</td><td>Burial</td><td>Resurrection</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Matthew</td><td>Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James and Joseph, Mother of the sons of Zebedee</td><td>Mary Magdalene, "the other Mary"</td><td>Mary Magdalene, "the other Mary"</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Mark</td><td>Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James and Joses, Salome</td><td>Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of Joses</td><td>Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James, Salome</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Luke</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary mother of James</td><td></td></tr></table><p>The emphasis is surely deliberate- women, the ones who were&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;witnesses according to the world, were the very witnesses chosen by God to testify the key truths concerning His Son. And His same approach is seen today in His choices of and amongst us.</p><p><em><a href='B:500 19:25'>Joh 19:25</a></em> speaks of “His mother’s sister”. It is entirely possible that the sister of Jesus’ mother mentioned in the account of the crucifixion is to be identified with the woman named Salome mentioned in <em><a href='B:480 15:40'>Mar 15:40</a></em> and also with the woman identified as “the mother of the sons of Zebedee” mentioned in <em><a href='B:470 27:56'>Mat 27:56</a></em>. If so, and if John the Apostle is to be identified as the beloved disciple, then the reason for the omission of the second woman’s name becomes clear; she would have been John’s own mother, and he consistently omitted direct reference to himself or his brother James or any other members of his family in the fourth Gospel. Therefore "behold your mother" meant he was to reject his mother and take Mary as his mother, to alleviate the extent of her loss. Finally Mary came to see Jesus as Jesus, as the Son of God, and not just as her son. This was her conversion- to see Him for who He was, uncluttered by her own perceptions of Him, by the baggage of everything else. And so it can be with us in re-conversion. We each must face the reality of who Jesus really is, quite apart from all the baggage of how we were brought up to think of Him: the Sunday School Jesus, the Jesus of the apostate church, the Jesus we have come to imagine from our own human perceptions…must give way when we are finally confronted with who He really Is. This line of thought is born out by a consideration of <em><a href='B:480 15:40-41'>Mar 15:40-41</a></em>: “There were also women beholding from afar: among whom were both Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the little and of Joses, and Salome; who, when he was in Galilee, followed him and ministered unto him: and many other women which came up with him unto Jerusalem”. Jesus had two brothers named James and Joses (<em><a href='B:470 13:55'>Mat 13:55</a></em>). If the principle of interpreting Scripture by Scripture means anything, then we can fairly safely assume that the Mary referred to here is Mary the mother of Jesus. It was perhaps due to the influence and experience of the cross that His brother James called himself “the little”, just as Saul changed his name to Paul, ‘the little one’, from likewise reflecting on the height of the Lord’s victory. So within the crowd of women, there were two women somehow separate from the rest- “among whom were both Mary Magdalene, and Mary”. Mary Magdalene was the bashful ex-hooker who was almost inevitably in love with Jesus. The other Mary was His mother. Understandably they forged a special bond with each other. Only Mary Magdalene had fully perceived the Lord’s upcoming death, hence her anointing of His body beforehand. And only His Mother had a perception approaching that of the Magdalene. It’s not surprising that the two of them were somehow separate from the other women. These women are described as following Him when He was in Galilee; and the mother of Jesus is specifically recorded as having done this, turning up at the Cana wedding uninvited, and then coming to the house where Jesus was preaching:&nbsp; The description of the women as ‘coming up’ (the idiom implies ‘to keep a feast’) with Him unto Jerusalem takes the mind back to Mary bringing Jesus up to Jerusalem at age 12. But my point is, that Mary is called now “the mother of James…and of Joses”. The same woman appears in <em><a href='B:480 16:1'>Mar 16:1</a></em>: “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James…had bought sweet spices that they might come and anoint him”. Earlier in the Gospels, Mary is always “the mother of Jesus”. Now she is described as the mother of her other children. It seems to me that this is the equivalent of John recording how Mary was told by Jesus at the cross that she was no longer the mother of Jesus, He was no longer her son. The other writers reflect this by calling her at that time “Mary the mother of James” rather than the mother of Jesus. The way that Jesus appears first to Mary Magdalene rather than to His mother (<em><a href='B:480 16:9'>Mar 16:9</a></em>) is surely God’s confirmation of this break between Jesus and His earthly mother:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>27:57&nbsp;<em>And when evening had come, there came a rich man</em>- The Greek term is found elsewhere in the Lord's parables of the rich fool and of the rich man who refused to believe the testimony of Moses and the prophets about Messiah's resurrection (<em><a href='B:490 12:16'>Luk 12:16</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 16:19'>Luk 16:19</a></em>). Perhaps Joseph had reflected upon those teachings and vowed not to be like those rich men, but rather to give up his wealth.</p><p><em>From Arimathaea, named Joseph</em>- Perhaps Old Testament 'Ramah', birthplace and home of Samuel.</p><p><em>Who also was a disciple of Jesus</em>- He was 'also' a disciple, in God’s eyes, in the same category as the women disciples who were so public about their discipleship (:56). Whilst secret discipleship is not the Lord's intention, and He will arrange circumstances so that we 'come out' publicly, it is not for us to say that He doesn't count secret disciples as also His disciples, just as He did Joseph.</p>


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<p>27:58&nbsp;<em>This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded it to be given him</em>- The body was sometimes granted to very close relatives. Joseph is now showing his open affinity with this crucified man. At that time, he didn’t firmly believe in the resurrection. For sheer&nbsp;<em>love</em>&nbsp;of this crucified man, he was willing to sacrifice his standing in society, his economic position, risk his life, grovel before the hated Pilate to beg (Lk:), crave (Mk:) the body. This was something which only the close relatives of the crucified could presume to do. But he felt already that new relationship to the Lord, and whether or not He would ever be raised he wanted to show openly to the world his connection with Him, come what may. This was the effect of the Lord’s death upon him.</p><p>The text records that the Jews desired Pilate for the death of Jesus; but the very same Greek words are used to describe how Joseph desired Pilate to let him have the body of Jesus (<em><a href='B:470 27:58'>Mat 27:58</a></em>)- as if to show how Joseph openly undid his request for the crucifixion, by requesting the body. It is twice stressed that Joseph was on the Sanhedrin council. So was Nicodemus (<em><a href='B:500 3:2'>Joh 3:2</a></em>). Yet the whole council unanimously voted for the crucifixion (<em><a href='B:480 14:64'>Mar 14:64</a></em>). "The whole Sanhedrin" (<em><a href='B:480 15:1'>Mar 15:1</a></em> NIV) agreed the High Priests' plan of action. They&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;interrogated Him and “the whole multitude of them" led Jesus to Pilate (<em><a href='B:490 22:66'>Luk 22:66</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 22:70'>Luk 22:70</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:1'>Luk 23:1</a></em>). This is some emphasIs. Joseph “was not in agreement" with them, we are told, but it seems this was a position held within his own conscience; indeed, “many” of the elders actually believed in Jesus (<em><a href='B:500 12:42'>Joh 12:42</a></em>). It was only the actual cross which brought faith into the open. “You shall not be in agreement with the wicked as an unjust witness" (<em><a href='B:20 23:1'>Exo 23:1</a></em>) probably tore out his heart. It may be that these men weren't present and that the Jews broke their own law, that the death sentence must be unanimously agreed. However, I have an intuitive sense (and nothing more) that these men voted for the Lord's death; and that they went along with the discussion in which " all" the council were involved, as to which incidents in His life they could remember for which they could condemn Him (<em><a href='B:480 14:55'>Mar 14:55</a></em>). They may not have consented to what was done in their hearts, but they still went along with it all on the surface. <em><a href='B:510 13:28-29'>Act 13:28-29</a></em> is at pains, almost, to associate Joseph, Nicodemus and the rest of the Sanhedrin: "<em>They</em>&nbsp;have fulfilled them in condemning him. And though&nbsp;<em>they</em>&nbsp;found no cause of death in him, yet desired&nbsp;<em>they</em>&nbsp;Pilate that He should be slain…&nbsp;<em>they</em>&nbsp;took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre".</p><p>They were secret disciples, fearing the loss of standing among the Jews. It was only after the Lord's death that they came out in the open. It seems to me that they voted for the Son of God to die. But in His grace, the Father emphasizes in the record that Joseph was a good man, and a just; a disciple, although secretly. The grace of God shines through the whole record. Thus only Matthew speaks about the suicide of Judas; the other three records are silent. A human god would inevitably have stressed that the betrayer of His Son went out in shame and took his own life. But the God of all grace is higher than reflecting vindictiveness in His word:&nbsp;<br/>If the Lord died at 3p:m. and sunset was at 6p:m:, there were only three hours for Joseph to find Pilate, gain a hearing, make his request, for Pilate to verify that the body was dead, and then for Nicodemus to buy the spices and for the burial to be done. Joseph and Nicodemus must have decided almost immediately what they were going to do. And the lesson for us: Beholding the cross makes us see what we ought to do, it becomes urgently apparent, and then we give our all, with the spirit of 'nothing else matters', to achieve it as far as we can. But we can enter into their thoughts: I wish I'd done more for Him while He was alive, and now, even now, because of the pressure of time, I just can't bury and honour this body as I'd like to. All these things are against me. The self hate and loathing and regret would have arisen within them, mixed with that love and devotion to the Lord of all grace. And there would have been an earnest desire for God to accept what little they could do, with time, the surrounding world, the Jewish culture, the unchangeable past, and their own present natures, all militating against the height of devotion they fain would show.</p><p>John gives the additional detail about the concern that Jesus might not be fully dead, and the piercing of His side. It is difficult to tell if a body is dead or not. But there was something about the Lord's corpse which somehow shone forth the message that He had given up His life. " He that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe" (<em><a href='B:500 19:35'>Joh 19:35</a></em>). Do we not get the sense here of a man, even under inspiration, grasping for adequate words and finding there are none? This is an experience beyond the paradigm of verbal description. The description of blood and water flowing has raised the question as to whether the Lord had been fasting, or had emptied His bowels in Gethsemane, before the crucifixion. It has been suggested that for this to have happened the Lord would have been pierced from the right hand side above the fifth rib, piercing the right auricle of the heart (from which the blood came) and also the pericardium, from where the serum came which appeared like water. However there are critics of these suggestions, which leaves the possibility that the flow of blood and water was in fact a miracle- hence John’s insistence that yes, he actually saw this happen. And he says that he records it so that we might believe. The implication is that meditation upon the cross is what inspires faith, as well as conviction of sin and repentance. The way the Lord’s blood flowed out from His heart is highly evocative of powerful lessons. He gave out from the very core and foundation of His being. We may serve God in good deeds, in writing books, in labouring for Him, without any real demand being made on our innermost self. The challenge of the cross is to give from the very centre and fountain of our life, our very selves, our person, our most vital soul.</p><p>Josephus records that victims usually lingered for two days or so before death. The Lord died so quickly. And the legs were broken so that the victims would die quickly (not, as has sometimes been supposed, to stop them running away). These things are harmonized by realizing that there was a support on which the victim could seek temporal relief in order to keep himself alive. Werner Keller explains: "There was often a small support attached called a "sedile" (seat). If the victim hanging there eased his misery from time to time by supporting himself on this, the blood returned to the upper half of his body... when the torture of the crucified man was finally to be brought to an end, the "crucifragrum" was proceeded with: his legs were broken. That meant that he could no longer ease his weight in the footrests and heart failure quickly followed" (Werner Keller&nbsp;<em>The Bible As History</em>&nbsp;(New York: Bantam Books, 1983 ed:) p. 356). It seems to me that in keeping with His refusal of the pain killer, His not requesting a drink until the very end, His willing giving of His life... that the Lord didn’t press down on the seat, so that effectively He tortured Himself to death. If the victim did not press down on the sedile, the dead weight of the body would cause the intercostal muscles that facilitate inhaling to become too weakened to function. The lungs, unable to empty, would become full of carbon dioxide and death would result from asphyxia. The fact the Lord was making the effort to talk to people and yet, it seems, not pressing down on the sedile… is simply an essay in His self control, in His love, to bother to talk to others… which should inspire us to rise out of our introspection and make the effort likewise to connect with others. Seneca (<em>Dialogue 3</em>) writes: “Is it worth to weigh down on one’s own wound and hand impaled on a gibbet to postpone something which Is... the end of punishment i:e. death?" (Quoted in Martin Hengel,&nbsp;<em>Crucifixion In The Ancient World</em>&nbsp;(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977)). In practice, the victim was only prolonging his own agony by pressing down on the rest. If the Lord didn’t do this, He must have been extremely faint. Keller also comments: "In the case of a person suspended by his two hands the blood sinks very quickly into the lower half of the body. After six to twelve minutes blood pressure has dropped by 50% and the pulse rate has doubled". The Lord must have felt His every heartbeat, and therefore been able to sense when He was approaching death (see 38). Yet amidst the faintness, the knowledge that His heart was about to give out, the Lord remained, I am convinced, completely intellectually consciousness. Deep within Him, that perfect mind was centred on the Father and His word. Several Psalms take on a literal reference to the Lord's final agony: "My heart panteth, my strength faileth me: as for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me... my flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever" (38:10; 73:26).</p><p>The physical sufferings of the cross were an especial cause of spiritual temptation to the Lord; just as physical pain, illness, weakness etc. are specific causes of our temptations to sin. <em><a href='B:650 2:9'>Heb 2:9</a></em> defines the Lord's 'sufferings' as specifically "the suffering of death", the sufferings associated with His time of dying. <em><a href='B:650 2:18'>Heb 2:18</a></em> RVmg. then goes on to say: "For having been himself tempted in that wherein he suffered". The sufferings of death were therefore an especial source of temptation for Him. Truly did He learn obedience to the Father specifically through the process of His death (<em><a href='B:650 5:8'>Heb 5:8</a></em>). Let's seek to remember this when we or those close to us face physical weakness, illness and pain of whatever sort.</p>


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<p>27:59&nbsp;<em>And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth</em>- Luke's record that Joseph himself took the body down invites us to imagine him using a ladder, perhaps that used to place the title. However, <em><a href='B:510 13:29'>Act 13:29</a></em> suggests that the Roman soldiers on behalf of Jewish people (i:e. Joseph) took the body down; Pilate "commanded the body to be delivered", implying he gave a command to underlings. So in what sense did&nbsp;<em>Joseph</em>&nbsp;take the body down and wrap it? Are we to imagine him humbling himself before the crowd to assist those soldiers in the physical act of taking the nails out and lowering the body down? Or it could be that he attracted so much attention to himself and had to humble himself so much to ask the soldiers to do it, that it was effectively as if he did it. But there is no reason to think that he himself didn’t walk out in that no man’s land between the crowd and the cross and humble himself to take it down, hearing the gasp from the crowd as he touched the blood and dead body which would make him unclean for the feast. His act was a tremendous mental sacrifice as well as a social and physical one. He is described as "honourable", literally 'well-formed / bodied', as if to emphasis his deportment befitting a leader of men. But he humbled himself before that stake. "He took it down" may imply that the stake was left standing. Or was it laid backwards and lowered down horizontal, with Joseph's anxious hands guiding it down? His contact with the body meant that he couldn't keep the Passover (<em><a href='B:40 9:9-10'>Num 9:9-10</a></em>). The people would have watched incredulous as one of the leaders of Israel openly showed his preference for the crucified Nazarene as opposed to keeping the Mosaic Law. The obsession with cleanliness at Passover time would have meant that everyone was extremely sensitive to what Joseph did.</p>


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<p>27:60&nbsp;<em>And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock; and he rolled a great stone as the door of the tomb, and departed</em>- This apparently needless detail is added because Matthew's camera is as it were focused on the closed tomb, with Joseph now walking away from it.</p>


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<p>27:61<em>&nbsp;And Mary Magdalene was there</em>- They didn’t stay there long, but Matthew's camera is focused on Joseph, sealing the tomb and walking away from it, but in the background the camera picks up (blurred and out of focus, as it were) the women sitting there.</p><p><em>And the other Mary, sitting opposite the tomb</em>- The crucifixion record describes Mary the mother of Jesus as Mary the mother of James and Joses (<em><a href='B:480 15:40'>Mar 15:40</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:470 13:55'>Mat 13:55</a></em>)- not Mary the mother of Jesus. It’s as if the record itself seeks to show that separation between mother and Son which occurred there. Both Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James- i:e. the mother of Jesus too (<em><a href='B:480 16:1'>Mar 16:1</a></em> = <em><a href='B:480 15:40'>Mar 15:40</a></em> = <em><a href='B:470 13:55'>Mat 13:55</a></em>) came to the sepulchre, but Jesus chose to appear to Mary Magdalene first (<em><a href='B:480 15:9'>Mar 15:9</a></em>), and not His own dear mother. <em><a href='B:470 27:61'>Mat 27:61</a></em> almost cruelly rubs the point in: “There was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre”, but the Lord appeared to Mary Magdalene first. Indeed, there is no record that He ever appeared to His mother. This would presumably have been to help her in realizing that she must relate to Him as her Lord and Saviour now, like any other woman had to, and not as a woman with special maternal privileges in her relationship with her now Almighty Son. It must have so pained the Lord to do this- to not appear to his dear mother first. But as He oftentimes acts with us, so He did with her- doing something which even in Divine nature must have been so painful for Him, in order to help her in her growth. &nbsp;We read in <em><a href='B:480 15:40'>Mar 15:40</a></em> that “Mary the mother of James the little one and of Joses” stood by the cross (RVmg:). I take this Mary to be Mary the mother of Jesus, for <em><a href='B:470 13:55'>Mat 13:55</a></em> records that James and Joses were brothers of Jesus and thus children of Mary. Remember that Mark is writing under inspiration a transcript of the preaching of the Gospel by the apostles, as they recounted the message of Jesus time and again. Could it not be that in the preaching of that Gospel, when it came to the cross, James asked to be surnamed “the little one”, remembering his earlier rejection of Jesus his brother? Now it is not at all surprising that Saul of Tarsus too decides to call himself ‘the little one’, through sustained meditation upon the cross.</p>


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<p>27:62&nbsp;<em>Now the next day, which is the day after the Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together before Pilate</em>- Matthew wants to present the day of the Lord's death as being the day upon which the Passover lambs were killed. "Came together" again shows how the Lord's cross both gathered together and divided people, as it does, or is intended to do, today.</p>


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<p>27:63&nbsp;<em>Saying: Sir, we remember that that deceiver said when he was still alive, After three days I will rise again</em>- They were capable of accurate quoting the Lord's words, which means their frequent misquotations of His words were the more culpable and consciously done.</p>


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<p>27:64&nbsp;<em>Therefore, command that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples come and steal him away and say to the people, He is risen from the dead; and so the last error will be worse than the first</em>- The Greek for "error" is the same basic word as that translated "deceiver" with reference to the Lord (:63). The first deception would therefore refer to the Lord's supposedly deceptive claim that He was Son of God and would therefore rise from the dead; the last error / deception would then be the distribution of the idea that He had indeed risen from the dead. And of course it was exactly this which happened; yet again, we see how the careful, cunning plans of the Jews concerning the Lord's destruction never really worked out. They ended up crucifying Him at Passover, exactly when they did&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;want to do it; their plan with Judas backfired when he recanted and killed himself; their attempt to bribe the soldiers became an openly known secret. Quite clearly, the Lord's death was arranged by the Father and was the Lord's own will, and was in no way merely the result of the clever plots of wicked men.<br/>But there is another possibility regarding the first and last errors. It could be a reference to Mary and Jesus claiming that He was the result of a virgin birth- this, as far as the Jews were concerned, was the “first deception”.</p>


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<p>27:65&nbsp;<em>Pilate said to them: You have a guard. Go make it as secure as you can-</em>&nbsp;The Jews had access to detachments of Roman soldiers with which they policed and protected the temple. These would have been the same soldiers who arrested, guarded and mocked the Lord, and perhaps were also present at the crucifixion. Surely many of them came to believe.</p>


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<p>27:66&nbsp;<em>So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard</em>- Absolutely all was done to make the tomb tamper proof, making the Lord's resurrection all the more powerful.</p>


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<p>28:1&nbsp;<em>Now after the Sabbath-&nbsp;</em>AV "In the end of the Sabbath". This could be another hint that the ordinances of Judaism had now come to an end with the Lord's death; the Sabbath was now "past" (<em><a href='B:480 16:1'>Mar 16:1</a></em>).</p><p><em>Toward the dawn of the first day of the week</em>- AV "as it began to dawn toward the first day". The language hints very much at a new creation beginning. And yet it began in darkness, not only literally, but also in the darkness of the disciples' disappointment, misunderstanding and weak faith. From all this, great light was to arise:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went</em>- The Lord's mother. Inevitably there would have been jealousy between the two Marys, not least because Mary Magdalene apparently saw the Lord first and appears to have been closer to Him than His own other. This is perhaps reflected in the other records focusing on Mary Magdalene going to the tomb as if she went alone:&nbsp;</p><p><em>To see the tomb</em>- The same word has just been used about the same women 'beholding' the crucified Christ (27:55). The impression presented as so often is that the Lord's followers fiercely and deeply loved Him, but with such little understanding. And perhaps that is the abiding impression we are left with of the body of Christ, despite all our strife over 'understanding correctly'.</p>


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<p>28:2&nbsp;<em>And there was a great earthquake, for an Angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came</em>- Two earthquakes happened, three days apart (<em><a href='B:470 27:54'>Mat 27:54</a></em>). A "great earthquake" is associated with the Lord's return (<em><a href='B:470 24:7'>Mat 24:7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:730 6:12'>Rev 6:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:730 11:19'>Rev 11:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:730 16:18'>Rev 16:18</a></em>). And there is plenty of other language used about the second coming which also occurs here in the record of the Lord's resurrection. A descent from Heaven, an Angel Angels will come with the Lord at His second coming, lightning, glistering white clothing, fear and great joy- this is all the language of the second coming and the resurrection from the dead. The connection is clearly because the Lord's resurrection is to be understood as the basis for the resurrection of all in Him- see on <em><a href='B:470 27:52-53'>Mat 27:52-53</a></em>. The women went to the tomb in the immediate aftermath of a great earthquake; or perhaps it happened whilst they were on their way there. Their love of their Lord, purely as love for Him as a person, as they had little firm expectation of a resurrection, is amazing. The earthquake didn’t faze them.</p><p><em>And rolled away the stone and sat upon it</em>- The Angel descended and did this before the women arrived; for on the way, they had worried about how they would roll the stone away, but when they got there, they found it done already (<em><a href='B:480 16:2'>Mar 16:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 16:4'>Mar 16:4</a></em>). Women unable to roll away a stone recalls the scene when Rachel and her girls were unable to roll the stone away from the well until Jacob did it (<em><a href='B:10 29:3'>Gen 29:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:10 29:10'>Gen 29:10</a></em>). The idea would therefore be that the Lord's tomb was in fact a well of living water which would flow for God’s people after and on account of His resurrection; and this idea is elsewhere stated specifically by the Lord in John's Gospel:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>28:3&nbsp;<em>His appearance was as lightning and his garment white as snow</em>- This is the language used elsewhere about the Lord Jesus, especially at the transfiguration and later in Revelation. The similarities were intentional. The women were being shown that the Lord's representative Angel perhaps Gabriel was visible and active, and this was to encourage them to believe that He Himself was now alive.</p><p>Of course Mary was scared. But note the contrast with the soldiers guarding the tomb. They were&nbsp;<em>so</em>&nbsp;scared by the sight of the Angel that they lost consciousness (<em><a href='B:470 28:4'>Mat 28:4</a></em>). The women saw the same Angel, were scared, but not to the same extent. They looked at His face- for it was presumably they who told Matthew what the Angel’s face looked like: “As lightning, and his raiment white as snow”. Their love for their Lord, their searching for Him, the very deep, unarticulated, vague hope they had in Him… drove away the worst part of their fear, whereas the unbelieving soldiers simply passed out from fright. Indeed, it appears that Mary was so distracted by the deep grief that only comes from love, that she perhaps didn’t even notice the Angel’s glory, or at least, didn’t pay too much attention to the two Angels sitting where the head and feet of the Lord had been. They ask her why she’s crying, and she simply turns away from them, muttering ‘Because they’ve taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they’ve put Him’. That was how deep her grief and distraction was; for that was how deeply she loved Him. Again and again one salutes the decision of the Father, in choosing Mary to be the first one of us to see His risen Son. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


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<p>28:4&nbsp;<em>And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men-&nbsp;</em>They shook along with the earth, which shook at the earthquake. Their association with the earth is therefore made apparent:&nbsp;The women came to the tomb, therefore, to find the stone moved away, the Angel sitting upon it, and the soldiers laying on the ground like corpses. The women had come expecting to find the dead body of Jesus, slain as He had been by Roman soldiers. Instead they find the situation reversed; the soldiers are lying there dead, as corpses&nbsp;<em>nekros</em>, and an Angel who is clearly representative of Jesus tells them that He has risen from the dead.</p>


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<p>28:5&nbsp;<em>And the angel said to the women</em>- AV "Answered and said". The fear of the women was not verbalized, but the Angel responded to it, just as God often responds to our unexpressed fears:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Do not be fearful</em>- The idea is '<em>You</em>&nbsp;do not need to be fearful, unlike these soldiers who are paralyzed by their own fears'. Their weakness is still apparent in the record, because :8 says that they left the scene "with fear...":&nbsp;</p><p><em>For I know you seek Jesus, who has been crucified</em>- The women had come to anoint the Lord's dead body, with apparently no expectation that He would indeed rise the third day as He had predicted. And yet the Angel generously counts this to them ('I know / perceive / accept / count it') as if they were actively looking for Jesus. Their obvious error- that they assumed Him to still be dead- is not rebuked because the good news is simply so much greater. The resurrection records are full of such imputed righteousness. <em><a href='B:490 24:5'>Luk 24:5</a></em> enquires why they are 'seeking the living amongst the dead'. They were not seeking the living- they had come to anoint a dead body. Yet they are graciously counted as seeking Jesus as if they were seeking for a living person. John's record has the Lord asking Mary&nbsp;<em>whom</em>&nbsp;she is 'seeking', and this is how John's Gospel opens, with the Lord enquiring of His followers&nbsp;<em>whom</em>&nbsp;they were seeking (<em><a href='B:500 1:38'>Joh 1:38</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 20:15'>Joh 20:15</a></em>). This question as to the Lord's identity echoes down to us, for we too can feel a devotion and identity with the idea of 'Jesus' without perceiving that He really is alive and active. The Lord counted righteousness to them, they are commended by the Angels for ‘seeking the Lord’- even though that seeking was deep in their subconscious. Yet the record notices that even incipient faith and understanding in those women, and counts it to them. Would that we would be so generous in our perception of others. The weeping, helpless standing afar off at the cross are described as still following the Lord Jesus and ministering to Him, as they did in the happier Galilee days (<em><a href='B:480 15:41'>Mar 15:41</a></em>). Their essential spirit was understood and credited to them, even though their actions seemed to belie this. Likewise our essential desires are read as our prayers, even if the words we use seem quite different.</p><p><em><a href='B:480 16:6'>Mar 16:6</a></em> adds: "Jesus of Nazareth", as if emphasizing the Lord's humanity and death as compared to the wonderful reality of His resurrection.</p>


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<p>28:6&nbsp;<em>He is not here, for he is risen, even as he said</em>- The idea may be 'Not here in a tomb, in a place for the dead', in the spirit of <em><a href='B:490 24:5'>Luk 24:5</a></em> "Why do you seek the living amongst the dead?".</p><p><em>Come see the place where the Lord lay</em>- There is no hint that the women obeyed. They had arrived at the tomb and had gone in and found the body missing (<em><a href='B:490 24:3'>Luk 24:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 24:23'>Luk 24:23</a></em>), and then the Angels appeared to them. Now the Angels are inviting them to go into the tomb again and behold the place where the Lord's body had lain- perhaps because now there were Angels sitting at the head and feet of where the Lord's body had lain (<em><a href='B:500 20:12'>Joh 20:12</a></em>). Along with imputed faith and righteousness, the disobedience of the disciples is also emphasized by the records. They struggle to believe His clear predictions of resurrection, are disobedient to the various commands to witness about it, disbelieve the women, and still appear depressed and sceptical that it is really Him when He appears to them for the third time in Galilee. Or it could be that they did go and see the place where the Lord lay, and yet found the body missing and were confused (<em><a href='B:490 24:3'>Luk 24:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 24:23'>Luk 24:23</a></em>)- even with an Angel standing there telling them the Lord had risen as He had said</p>


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<p>28:7&nbsp;<em>And go quickly and tell his disciples</em>- The urgency required was partly because the wonder of the good news does itself impart an urgency to our presentation of it. And we need to analyse our own approach to witness and discern whether there is any sense of urgency to it; the record of baptisms in the early church was of immediate baptism, the very moment the person had believed, rather than waiting as many do today until a convenient time and place. But the urgency was also to tell the disciples before they totally lost their faith. The Lord was clearly concerned that they would lose faith entirely; and this explains His change of plans concerning revealing Himself to them in Galilee.</p><p><em>That he has risen from the dead, and that he goes ahead of you into Galilee. There you shall see him</em>- This addresses their obvious although unspoken question: 'Where's the body? When can we see Him?'. The answer was 'As He explained before, you must show your obedience to Him by going into Galilee and there you will see Him'. But this plan, explained by the Lord earlier and now repeated by the Angel, was cut short by the Lord Himself. For right after this, He appears to Mary and the women. Right there, and not in Galilee. And soon afterwards He appears to the eleven in Jerusalem; and when He does finally meet the disciples in Galilee, this was the third appearance He had made to them, the earlier two having been in Jerusalem (<em><a href='B:500 21:14'>Joh 21:14</a></em>). This change of plan was perhaps partly quite simply from the excitement of love, emotions which are still possible even within Divine nature. But partly it may have been because of the very weak state of the disciples' faith, and the Lord's sense that He must act urgently so that they did not lose faith permanently; see on&nbsp;<em>Go quickly and tell...</em>. The idea of the Lord going before them into Galilee is based upon the Lord's teaching in <em><a href='B:470 26:31-32'>Mat 26:31-32</a></em>:&nbsp; "I will smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. But after I am raised up, I will go ahead of you into Galilee". The 'going ahead' is also a sheep and shepherd allusion; although the sheep would be scattered, the Lord would go ahead of them into Galilee and like sheep obedient to the shepherd's voice, they would follow Him there. But perhaps the Lord now realized that their faith and obedience was just not enough for them to do that, and so He appeared to them anyway. Indeed, according to John, the disciples appeared to have finally returned to Galilee in order to return to their fishing business, despite having met the risen Lord in Jerusalem. They were very slow to really grasp the reality of His resurrection. The Gospels are their own account of their preaching, and it's as if they are telling the world how slow they had been to believe and were urging the world to do better than them, and to believe more quickly.<br/><em><br/>Look, I have told you</em>- This could be in order to encourage their obedience. But see my suggestions above, that the disciples simply failed to have that level of obedience. Angelic unity with the risen Lord Jesus is brought out by a comparison of the words spoken to the women after the resurrection. <em><a href='B:480 16:7'>Mar 16:7</a></em> has the Angels telling the women: “He is going before you to Galilee; they you will see him, as he told you”. But <em><a href='B:470 28:7'>Mat 28:7</a></em> has the Angel saying: “He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. Lo, I the Angel have told you”. Perhaps what the Angel said was: “… as he told you… Lo, I have told you”, thus bringing out the new unity between the risen Christ and the Angel who now appeared as Him and represented Him.</p>


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<p>28:8&nbsp;<em>And they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy</em>- In apparent obedience to the command to "quickly" tell the disciples (:7). But again the record is imputing righteousness to them, for <em><a href='B:480 16:7-8'>Mar 16:7-8</a></em> says that they fled in fear and said nothing to anyone: "Go tell His disciples, and Peter, that He goes ahead of you into Galilee. There shall you see Him, just as He told you. And they went out and ran from the tomb. Trembling and astonishment had come upon them, and they said nothing to anyone. For they were afraid". It was only later that they told the disciples, once their fear subsided and joy began to be their dominant emotion. We recall how the shepherds were told not to fear but to focus upon the joy of the Lord's birth (<em><a href='B:490 2:10'>Luk 2:10</a></em>). Fear and joy do not remain coexistent for long, and to their credit, the women's joy became greater than their fear. See on :10&nbsp;<em>Fear Not</em>. But putting meaning into words, what were they fearful about? Surely they now realized that they had so failed to believe the Lord’s clear words about His resurrection; and they knew now that since He was alive, they must meet Him and explain. So their fear related to their own sense of unworthiness; and yet it was paradoxically mixed with the “great joy” of knowing His resurrection. And there is reason to understand that those women are typical of all those who are to fulfil the great commission:&nbsp;</p><p>The accounts of the Lord’s resurrection and the imparting of that good news to others are studded with the idea of speedy response. “Go quickly and tell his disciples… and they departed quickly… and did run to bring his disciples word” (<em><a href='B:470 28:7-8'>Mat 28:7-8</a></em>). The accounts show how Mary “quickly” told the disciples, the women did likewise, the two on the way to Emmaus ran back to town and urgently told the others that the Lord had risen… and then the record climaxes in bidding us take that very same good news of the resurrection to the whole world. But the implication from the context is that it is to be done with the same spirit of urgency. We are merely continuing in the spirit of those who first spread that good news.</p><p><em>And ran to bring this message to his disciples</em>- Running and sharing God’s word are associated to the point that running is almost a metaphor for preaching. Thus Paul writes of his preaching among the Gentiles as 'running' (<em><a href='B:550 2:2'>Gal 2:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 9:26'>1Co 9:26</a></em>; <em><a href='B:570 2:16'>Phi 2:16</a></em> s:w. cp. <em><a href='B:340 12:2'>Dan 12:2</a></em>). The clearest example would be in <em><a href='B:600 3:1'>2Th 3:1</a></em>: "Pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run swiftly" (s:w:). The running of the women with the fresh news of Christ's resurrection then becomes the pattern for all Christian preaching; we are continuing to run with the message. And the content of the message, 'the word of / about the Lord', is the word that He has risen. We should recall that this very first obedience to the great preaching commission was not met with success- but rather the words were mocked as madness and disbelieved.</p>


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<p>28:9<em>&nbsp;And Jesus met them, saying: Greetings-&nbsp;</em>Having changed His plan of meeting the women in Galilee, see on :7&nbsp;He goes ahead of you into Galilee. "Greetings" is otherwise translated "Joy" or "Rejoice". The last two times the Lord had heard it, it had been addressed to Him sarcastically by His abusers (<em><a href='B:470 26:49'>Mat 26:49</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:29'>Mat 27:29</a></em>). But it is the word also used of how the shepherd 'rejoices' on finding the lost sheep (<em><a href='B:470 18:13'>Mat 18:13</a></em>). This perhaps was the sense of the Lord's joy upon meeting them; the whole process of death and resurrection had been in order to seek and find the disciples. And surely the Lord was consciously aware of His prediction of <em><a href='B:500 16:22'>Joh 16:22</a></em>: "I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice" s:w. "greetings". But again it was as if He had to get them to rejoice, rather than them doing so on their own initiative; their weakness is so emphasized.</p><p><em>And they came and took hold of his feet and worshipped him-&nbsp;</em>The Lord appeared to them from a slight distance and did not go up to them and initiate physical contact. Rather did He announce Himself and leave them to come to Him:&nbsp;The Lord, straight after His resurrection, repeats verbatim the Angels words to Mary: “Woman, why are you weeping?” (<em><a href='B:500 20:13'>Joh 20:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 20:15'>Joh 20:15</a></em>). Likewise, when He appears to the women in <em><a href='B:470 28:9-10'>Mat 28:9-10</a></em>, He repeats the Angel’s words of <em><a href='B:470 28:5'>Mat 28:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 28:7'>Mat 28:7</a></em>. This indicates the unity which He felt with them especially after His resurrection.</p><p>Is "took hold of his feet" to be connected with how <em><a href='B:470 18:29'>Mat 18:29</a></em> describes casting oneself down at another’s feet implying a desperate request for mercy? Or at least, a desperate request (<em><a href='B:480 5:22'>Mar 5:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 7:25'>Mar 7:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 8:41'>Luk 8:41</a></em>), as Mary had made herself earlier (<em><a href='B:500 11:32'>Joh 11:32</a></em>). Their experience of the death and resurrection of the Lord elicited within them a sense of their unworthiness. Or was it simply because they feared He would disappear, as in <em><a href='B:500 20:17'>Joh 20:17</a></em>? The same Greek words for falling down at the feet and worshipping are used about how Cornelius worshipped Peter (<em><a href='B:510 10:25'>Act 10:25</a></em>) and how the believers at Philadelphia will be worshipped (<em><a href='B:730 3:9'>Rev 3:9</a></em>). Trinitarians therefore display their Biblical ignorance and paucity of Biblical scholarship by making any claim that the fact Jesus was worshipped by the feet therefore means He was God. That is simply not the case.</p>


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<p>28:10&nbsp;<em>Then Jesus said to them: Fear not</em>- See on 28:8&nbsp;<em>They departed quickly:&nbsp;</em>Their fear was wrong, the Angel had urged them not to fear, and yet they still feared:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Go tell My brothers-&nbsp;</em><em><a href='B:480 16:7-8'>Mar 16:7-8</a></em> says that initially their fear was so great that they were resolved not to tell anyone anything, i:e. to be disobedient to the commission to tell their brethren the good news. And so the Lord Himself intervenes to urge them to go tell their brethren. Note how the Lord uses the term "My brothers". He was anxious to demonstrate that His resurrected, glorified status did not mean that His human brethren were not His brethren any longer; just as in John 21 He addresses the disciples with a slang word, ‘guys’ AV “children”,&nbsp;<em>paidos</em>, to emphasize His humanity, urging them that His God and Father is theirs (<em><a href='B:500 20:17-18'>Joh 20:17-18</a></em>). We note that it was fear which held them back from obeying the commission to preach, and it is fear which likewise stymies so much of our obedience to the great commission. Fear of consequence, of what others may think of us, of our own unworthiness, fear that we may have misunderstood... all these fears are what stop obedience to the clear, simple command to take the good news directly and personally to others.</p><p><em>"</em>Go tell my brothers<em>"</em>&nbsp;is quoting from the LXX of <em><a href='B:230 22:23'>Psa 22:23</a></em>, where in the context of predicting the Lord’s death and resurrection, we read that therefore “I will tell of Your name to my brothers”. The “I” is clearly Jesus Himself; and yet, as we have elsewhere shown at length, when His people preach in His Name, this is effectively Him preaching. And so the first preacher of the Lord was to be those women. They were to tell His brethren the good news of His resurrection, or, as Psalms 22 puts it, to declare the Name of Yahweh to them. For His resurrection was the declaration and glorification of that Name to the full. Thus <em><a href='B:510 4:10-12'>Act 4:10-12</a></em> definitely connect the Lord’s resurrection and the declaration of the Name. The “things concerning the name of Jesus Christ” would have been those things which concern His death and resurrection:&nbsp;“I will&nbsp;<em>declare</em>&nbsp;thy name unto my brethren” (<em><a href='B:650 2:12'>Heb 2:12</a></em>) uses the same Greek words as in <em><a href='B:470 28:10'>Mat 28:10</a></em>, where Mary is told to go tell her brethren of the resurrection:&nbsp; <em><a href='B:520 15:8-9'>Rom 15:8-9</a></em> speaks of how it is the Lord Jesus personally who was to fulfil those words through His death, which confirmed the promises of God: “Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises<em>&nbsp;made</em>&nbsp;unto the fathers: And that the Gentiles might glorify God for&nbsp;<em>his</em>&nbsp;mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name”. And yet these words are applied by the Lord to Mary She was to be Him, in the fulfilment of the great commission to tell the world.</p><p>The women were told by the risen Lord to “tell My brethren…”. In <em><a href='B:510 12:17'>Act 12:17</a></em> the same Greek words are used by Peter: “Go show these things… to the brethren”. Peter felt that his deliverance from prison was like the Lord’s resurrection, and perhaps consciously he used the Lord’s words to Mary Magdalene. Peter then went “to another place” just as the Lord did on saying those words. He saw that his life was a living out of fellowship with the Lord’s mortal experiences, every bit as much as our lives are too. The same words occur also in <em><a href='B:690 1:2-3'>1Jn 1:2-3</a></em>: “That which we have seen and heard the teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus declare we unto you”, our brethren. It’s as if John is acknowledging that the Lord’s commission to Mary was in fact binding upon us all; for we are represented by her. &nbsp;</p><p><em>To go to Galilee and there shall they see Me</em>- The initial plan had been that the women also would need to go to Galilee before meeting the Lord (:7). The Lord changed that plan and appeared to the women immediately; but His plan was still that He would reveal Himself to His male disciples for the first time in Galilee. But He soon changed that plan too, for the other records make it clear that the Lord twice appeared to them in Jerusalem (<em><a href='B:500 21:14'>Joh 21:14</a></em>):&nbsp;</p><p>Put together the following passages:<br/>-&nbsp;The disciples’ return to Galilee after the resurrection was a result of their lack of faith (<em><a href='B:500 16:31-32'>Joh 16:31-32</a></em>)<br/>-&nbsp;But the Lord went before them, as a shepherd goes before His sheep, into Galilee (<em><a href='B:470 28:7'>Mat 28:7</a></em>). Even in their weakness of faith, He was still their shepherd, they were still His sheep, and He led them even then.<br/>-&nbsp;The Lord told them to go to Galilee (<em><a href='B:470 28:10'>Mat 28:10</a></em>). He accepted their lower level of faith. And He worked through that and led them through it:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>The return to Galilee is seen in an even worse light once we reflect on the circumstances surrounding the first calling of the disciples, nearly four years earlier. John’s Gospel implies that they were called at Bethany; whereas the other Gospels say they were called whilst fishing at the sea of Galilee. This is usually, and correctly, harmonized by concluding that they were called as John says in Bethany, but they then returned to their fishing in Galilee, and the Lord went there to call them again. So returning to their fishing in Galilee had already been shown to them as being a running away from the call of their Lord. And yet still they did it. And yet John’s inspired record is so positive; he speaks as if the disciples were called at Bethany and unwaveringly responded immediately. The point that they actually lost their intensity and returned home is gently omitted from specific mention.</p><p>Mary Magdalene is always noted first in the appearance lists in the gospels. It is unusual that the first appearance would involve women as in that culture their role as witnesses would not be well accepted. It is a sign of the veracity of the account, because if an ancient were to create such a story he would never have it start with women. But inspiration disregards this. The Lord so wanted those women to be His leading witnesses. Joachim Jeremias quotes extensively from Jewish sources to show that “a woman had no right to bear witness, because it was concluded from <em><a href='B:10 18:15'>Gen 18:15</a></em> that she was a liar”. And Josephus (<em>Antiquities Of The Jews</em>&nbsp;4:219) concurs: “Let not the testimony of women be admitted because of the levity and boldness of their sex”. And so it should not surprise us that He chooses today the most unlikely of witnesses, indeed, those who somehow shock and arrest the attention of others. &nbsp;</p>


text:
<p>28:11&nbsp;<em>Now while they were going, some of the guard came into the city and told the chief priests all the things that had happened</em>- The impression is given of two parallel groups of people running back to Jerusalem from the Lord's grave. Both were fearful, both carried the news that the tomb was now empty. The one group went to tell the disciples, the other group went to the chief priests; both groups of messengers were full of an urgent need to tell what had happened. One group were women, the other were men. The suggestion may be that they all carried the same message- Angels had appeared, the body was not there any more, the grave was now open. Something Divine, supernatural and unstoppable by men had happened. See on 28:15&nbsp;<em>Did as they were told.</em></p>


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<p>28:12&nbsp;<em>And when they were assembled with the elders</em>- Again, as with every stage of the whole process, the Jews tried to take comfort in numbers, always meeting together in a vain attempt to spread the responsibility:&nbsp;</p><p><em>And had taken counsel</em>- Matthew especially notes this feature of the Lord's Jewish enemies (<em><a href='B:470 12:14'>Mat 12:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 22:15'>Mat 22:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:1'>Mat 27:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:7'>Mat 27:7</a></em> - all using the same Greek word):&nbsp;</p><p><em>They gave much money to the soldiers</em>- Circumstances repeat under the hand of Providence, but wicked men never learn. They had given money to Judas but he had made a huge mess of it- in that he had not provided the incontrovertible legal evidence they had hoped for, the Lord's trial had been an obvious farce, and then he had come out on the Lord's side and killed himself. But they still tried to use money to get around the problem. We note that the Jewish leadership did not seek to discredit the soldiers as liars nor did they produce a corpse and claim it was that of Jesus. Their policy had to take account of the simple fact that the body of Jesus was missing from the tomb, despite the seal, the soldiers, and every effort to ensure that something like this did in fact&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;happen:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>28:13&nbsp;<em>Saying: You are to say that His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we slept</em>- The desperation of the story is self-apparent; if the soldiers were really asleep then they would not know it was the disciples who had come, nor would they have any explanation as to how the corpse disappeared. Theft, after all, was only one possibility. The story shows every sign of having been thought up too quickly, and then those who wished to believe it were left to justify it for evermore. There was no recorded attempt to arrest or try the disciples for grave breaking or stealing a corpse- a serious offence under Roman law. There should at least have been a semblance of effort to do this if indeed the story were true:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>28:14&nbsp;<em>And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will appease him and keep you out of trouble</em>- The same word translated "persuade" in 27:20. They had persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and crucify Jesus, and they thought they could deal with Pilate in the same way. Their power over Pilate was assumed; it is doubtful whether they had that much power over a man who was consistently written into history as a conscienceless man- in every matter apart from that of the Lord Jesus.</p>


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<p>28:15&nbsp;<em>So they took the money and did as they were told-&nbsp;</em>The Greek&nbsp;<em>didasko</em>&nbsp;means 'taught' as AV, and is an unusual word choice here. Perhaps the idea is that they were taught an official explanation which they memorized and were to trot out each time the issue of the empty tomb was raised. Early Christian converts had to memorize a Gospel record by heart- they were taught&nbsp;<em>didasko</em>&nbsp;the message of the empty tomb and repeated it. The same word is used just five verses later in :20, where the disciples are commanded to go and teach&nbsp;<em>didasko&nbsp;</em>again the good news of the empty tomb to the whole world. And the soldiers did the same, spreading the same reality an empty tomb but with a different explanation. This connects with the observations made on :11&nbsp;<em>While they were going</em>&nbsp;that there were two groups of people telling the same message- the tomb was empty. But the Gospel preachers were paralleled, as it were, by another group of messengers whose message was identical but freighted with concern that it&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;be believed:&nbsp;</p><p><em>And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day-&nbsp;</em>This is another allusion to the great commission; see on&nbsp;<em>Did as they were told</em>. As the story Gk:&nbsp;<em>logos</em>&nbsp;of the empty tomb was spread by the soldiers "among the Jews", so was the Christian account of the empty tomb spread "among the Jews to this day". The Greek word for "spread" is only elsewhere used about the spreading of the&nbsp;<em>fame&nbsp;</em>of Jesus. This is perhaps an allusion to the spreading of Matthew's Gospel record amongst the Jews right up until the day when it was written down- "this day":&nbsp;</p>


text:
<p>28:16&nbsp;<em>But the eleven disciples went into Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go</em>- This continues the theme of the resurrection accounts imputing righteousness to the disciples. The Lord's intention had been that they went into Galilee&nbsp;<em>before</em>&nbsp;they saw Him, in order to test their obedience to their Lord's words. But sensing their weakness of faith, the Lord dramatically changed plans and appeared to them whilst still in Jerusalem; see on :7&nbsp;<em>He goes ahead of you into Galilee</em>. And according to John 21, they returned to Galilee to return to their fishing business, rather than out of obedience to the Lord. The disciples "went away from Jerusalem to the mountain in Galilee"; this may not mean that they actually went where He told them, but rather that they left Jerusalem in that direction. For the whole plan of meeting in Galilee was abandoned; the Lord appeared to them before then, in Jerusalem. And yet the record here speaks so positively of their obedience.</p>


text:
<p>28:17&nbsp;<em>And when they saw Him</em>- His appearance to the disciples in Galilee was the third time He had appeared to them (<em><a href='B:500 21:14'>Joh 21:14</a></em>). And even then, they doubted. The disciples were the ones preaching the Gospel records, and truly were they emphasizing their own fallibility and slowness to believe the very message which they urged people to&nbsp;<em>quickly</em>&nbsp;believe and accept in instant baptism:&nbsp;</p><p><em>They worshipped him; but some doubted-&nbsp;</em>The idea may not be that some believed but others doubted. It may rather be that they worshipped him and yet doubted at the same time. 'Doubted' translates a word essentially implying to be double minded, wavering between the two positions. The Lord was either dead or alive, and amazingly, they still wondered whether His appearances were tantamount to Him being alive. Even after the resurrection, they&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;saw Him and&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;worshipped Him; but some of them “doubted”. You can worship, see the evidence of the Lord with your own eyes, as Israel daily saw the manna, and yet still doubt. Despite having seen the risen Jesus before, they&nbsp;<em>still</em>&nbsp;doubted. We really have to reflect on this and be challenged by the weakness of our natures.</p>


text:
<p>28:18<em>&nbsp;And Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying: All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth</em>-Mark and Luke suggest the great commission was given in Jerusalem or on the mount of Olives. So this verse 18 may now be talking about the Lord's next appearance to them in Jerusalem. Or it may be that He gave them the commission twice, and this was the first time He gave it to them. If this latter possibility is correct, then we would have the Lord's triple commission to Peter concerning feeding His sheep given at the same time as the great commission. This commission to Peter was therefore part of the commission to go and make disciples of all the world; with Peter taking special responsibility for the pastoral care of the converts.</p><p><em>All power</em>- The Lord's promised presence with His preachers is capable of being backed up by "all power". The assurance is that insofar as we give our lives to follow the great commission, all power will be potentially available to us in order to help us achieve that work. This is the force of the "therefore" in :19; because the Lord has all power, we are therefore to go and teach all nations. It is commonly thought that even the Lord Jesus doesn't know the time of his return, only the Father does. During his mortality, the Lord said exactly this (<em><a href='B:480 13:32'>Mar 13:32</a></em>)- at the time he was speaking to the disciples, he himself didn’t know. But after his resurrection and glorification, the Lord made two statements to the disciples which he surely intended to be connected: "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth... it is not for you (the inquisitive eleven standing on Olivet) to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power" (<em><a href='B:470 28:18'>Mat 28:18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 1:7-8'>Act 1:7-8</a></em>). But&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;the Father's power has been given to His glorified Son, and this therefore includes knowledge of the "times and seasons" of the second coming. In the exalted Lord "are hid all the riches of wisdom and knowledge" (<em><a href='B:580 2:3'>Col 2:3</a></em>); it is thereby inconceivable that the Father would still keep back some knowledge from the Son. The point of all this is that when the Lord Jesus said that "of that day and that hour knoweth (present tense) no man, no, not the angels... neither the Son" He was not laying down a general principle for all time. He was speaking of the situation at that time: 'You can't know now, indeed at the moment even I don't know; but these are the signs which will tell the believers when I'll come'. By implication He was saying 'You can't understand them, although I'm giving them to you, but in the future some will understand them, because these signs will accurately pinpoint my return'. This was exactly the spirit of what the Angel told Daniel when he too wished to know when Messiah would come in glory; he was basically told 'It's not for you to understand, but in the last days understanding of these things will be increased among God’s people; they will know the time, but you can't'.</p><p>The Lord gave a reason for His great preaching commission: "Go ye&nbsp;<em>therefore</em>". "<em>Therefore</em>". Because of what? <em><a href='B:470 28:18'>Mat 28:18</a></em> provides the answer: "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye&nbsp;<em>therefore</em>”. Because of this, we must spread the Gospel of Christ to the whole planet, because His authority is over the whole earth. He has that power just as much now as He did in the first century; and&nbsp;<em>therefore</em>&nbsp;the command to spread the Gospel world-wide still stands today. Indeed, His words here in Matthew 28 have evident reference to <em><a href='B:340 7:14'>Dan 7:14</a></em>, where the Son of Man is given authority and power over all&nbsp;<em>so that</em>&nbsp;people of all nations, races and languages should serve Him. We must remind ourselves that out of the 5,000 or so languages in the world, only about half of them have the Bible in their own language. Peter preached in and about the name of Jesus- this is emphasized (<em><a href='B:510 2:31'>Act 2:31</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 2:38'>Act 2:38</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 3:6'>Act 3:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 3:16'>Act 3:16</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 4:10'>Act 4:10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 4:12'>Act 4:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 4:17-18'>Act 4:17-18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 4:30'>Act 4:30</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 5:28'>Act 5:28</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 5:40-41'>Act 5:40-41</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 10:43'>Act 10:43</a></em>). The excellence of knowing Him and His character and the wonder of the exalted Name given on His ascension (<em><a href='B:570 2:9'>Phi 2:9</a></em>; <em><a href='B:730 3:12'>Rev 3:12</a></em>) lead Peter to witness. Because of His exaltation, we confess Jesus as Lord to men, as we later will to God at judgment (<em><a href='B:570 2:9'>Phi 2:9</a></em>). According as we confess Him before men, so our judgment will reflect this. Lifting up Jesus as Lord is to be the basis of giving a witness to every man of the hope that lies within us (<em><a href='B:670 3:15'>1Pe 3:15</a></em> RSV). The knowledge and experience of His exaltation can only be witnessed to; it can’t be kept quiet. <em><a href='B:710 1:7'>3Jn 1:7</a></em> refers to how the great preaching commission was obeyed: “For his name’s sake they went forth, taking nothing (material help) from the Gentiles" (Gentile believers). For the excellence of knowing His Name they went forth in witness, and moreover were generous spirited, not taking material help to enable this. The knowledge of the Name of itself should inspire to active service: for the sake of the Lord’s Name the Ephesians laboured (<em><a href='B:730 2:3'>Rev 2:3</a></em>). The great preaching commission is therefore not so much a commandment as an inevitable corollary of the Lord’s exaltation. We will not be able to sit passively in the knowledge of the universal extent of His authority / power. We will have to spread the knowledge of it to all (note the way <em><a href='B:610 3:16'>1Ti 3:16</a></em> alludes to the preaching commission as having already been fulfilled the moment it was uttered, so strong is the imperative). There may be some similarity with the way in which the exaltation of Israel / God’s people was so that all men would be witnessed to (<em><a href='B:50 4:6'>Deu 4:6</a></em>).<br/>The great preaching commission is therefore not so much a commandment as an inevitable corollary of the Lord's exaltation to having “all power”. We will not be able to sit passively in the knowledge of the universal extent of His authority / power. We will have to spread the knowledge of it to all. There may be some similarity with the way in which the exaltation of Israel / God’s people was so that all men would be witnessed to (<em><a href='B:50 4:6'>Deu 4:6</a></em>). Jehu was exalted from amongst his brethren as was Christ (<em><a href='B:120 9:2'>2Ki 9:2</a></em> = <em><a href='B:50 18:18'>Deu 18:18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 45:7'>Psa 45:7</a></em>) and taken up into a chamber within a chamber (AVmg), cp. Heaven itself. There Jehu was anointed, made Lord and Christ, and then the people placed their garments underneath him (v. 13) and proclaimed him to the world as King of Israel. This symbolic incident teaches a clear lesson- the exaltation of Jesus should lead us to be witnesses for Him. The wonder and joy of it alone, that one of us, one of our boys, a man like us... should be&nbsp;<em>so&nbsp;</em>exalted.</p><p><em><a href='B:730 14:6'>Rev 14:6</a></em> describes the great latter fulfilment of the great preaching commission in terms of an Angel flying in Heaven with the Gospel of the Kingdom to be preached to all nations and languages. Surely the implication is that the latter day preachers of the Gospel are walking on earth in league with an Angelic system above them, empowering and enabling them. An Angel may be given a mission to preach somewhere, and success may be arranged by Him in prospect, but it is for us to put the work&nbsp;into&nbsp;practical effect, without which the converts will not be produced, despite the Angels preparatory work, although of course ultimately this is all foreknown by God Himself. Thus we read in <em><a href='B:730 14:6'>Rev 14:6</a></em> of an Angel being sent "having the everlasting Gospel to preach&nbsp;unto them that dwell on the earth (same word as 'land'- the land of Israel), and to every nation, kindred and tongue and people "(i. e. the whole world as well). However, this actual work of preaching to the Jews and to the world will be done by the saints; thus they will work out in practice what was achieved by the Angel in God’s plan. In this context it is worth considering how the great commission as recorded in <em><a href='B:470 28:18-19'>Mat 28:18-19</a></em> is set in the context of other references in Matthew to world-wide preaching. We are to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations; and yet it is the Angels who will gather the harvest from “the world” (<em><a href='B:470 13:38'>Mat 13:38</a></em>), Angels who will “repay” us for our work at the last day (<em><a href='B:470 16:27'>Mat 16:27</a></em>), Angels who gather the elect from “the four winds” (<em><a href='B:470 24:31'>Mat 24:31</a></em>) and gather converts from “all nations” to judgment (<em><a href='B:470 25:32'>Mat 25:32</a></em>). The implication surely is that in our preaching work, the Angels are with us and will gather in the converts which we have made.</p>


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<p>28:19&nbsp;<em>Therefore go-&nbsp;</em>&nbsp;This evidently connects with the Lord’s command in the parable: “<em>Go ye</em>” into the highways and “gather together&nbsp;<em>all</em>”, as many as were found. And this in turn is an extension of an earlier parable, where the net of the Gospel is presented as&nbsp;<em>gathering</em>&nbsp;“every kind”- every&nbsp;<em>genos</em>, every “kindred / nation / stock / generation”, as the word is elsewhere translated (<em><a href='B:470 28:19'>Mat 28:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 22:9-10'>Mat 22:9-10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 13:47'>Mat 13:47</a></em>). The work of the Gospel described in those earlier parables was now specifically delegated to the Lord’s men. Through the work of the Lord’s followers over the generations, there would in every nation and generation be some who were gathered in, of as many social classes as one finds walking along a street highway / byway. The net of Gospel preaching is filled (<em>pleroo</em>), and then pulled to shore for judgment. When the Gospel has been preached in all the world (with response), then the end will come. Elsewhere Paul uses the same word to describe how the Gospel is fulfilled by preaching it (<em><a href='B:520 15:19'>Rom 15:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:580 1:25'>Col 1:25</a></em>). To have the Gospel is to have an imperative to preach it.</p><p>The victorious truth that “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” is purposefully juxtaposed against the next clause, which seems to contradict it: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations..." (<em><a href='B:470 28:18-19'>Mat 28:18-19</a></em>). Through teaching and baptising all nations, the extent of that universal power is made known. But it depends on the freewill obedience of the believers to this commission. The Lord had the Spirit without measure, and yet He “could not” do many miracles in Nazareth because of their unbelief:&nbsp;</p><p><em>And make disciples-&nbsp;</em>The aim of our fulfilling the great commission is above all to "make disciples", to get more followers behind Jesus, more learners of Him, a greater bride for Him. Grammatically in <em><a href='B:470 28:19-20'>Mat 28:19-20</a></em>,<em>&nbsp;mathateusate&nbsp;</em>("make disciples") is the main verb, and&nbsp;<em>poreuthentes&nbsp;</em>("while going"),&nbsp;<em>baptizontes&nbsp;</em>("baptizing"), and&nbsp;<em>didaskontes&nbsp;</em>("teaching") are subsidiary participles. In other words, the focus of our work must be upon making disciples for Christ, on thereby bringing about His glory. All the baptizing and teaching which we do is subsidiary to this aim, and they can therefore never be ends in themselves.</p><p>Matthew’s record of the great commission draws on earlier themes and passages in his Gospel. The Lord told His men to go out and make disciples of men (<em><a href='B:470 28:19'>Mat 28:19</a></em> RV). In the immediate context, there are many references to the disciples (<em><a href='B:470 27:64'>Mat 27:64</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 28:7-8'>Mat 28:7-8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 28:13'>Mat 28:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 28:16'>Mat 28:16</a></em>). And the term “disciples” occurs more often (73 times) in Matthew than in any of the other Gospels (e.g. only 37 times in Luke). The Lord is telling His men: ‘Go out and make men like you- disciples, stumbling ‘learners’, not experts’. Thus they were to witness from their own experience, to share this with others, to bring others to share the type of relationship which they had with the Lord. In this sense preaching is seen by Paul as a bringing forth of children in our own image. John likewise was “the beloved disciple”, the&nbsp;<em>agapetos</em>. And yet this is the very term which he uses in his letters to describes his “beloved children” (<em><a href='B:690 2:1'>1Jn 2:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:690 4:11'>1Jn 4:11</a></em>). He saw them as sharing the same relationship to his Lord as he had. The nature of our relationship with the Lord will be reflected in that of our converts. He tells His men to go to the lost sheep, and yet in that same context He calls them sheep, in the midst of wolves (<em><a href='B:470 10:6'>Mat 10:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 10:16'>Mat 10:16</a></em>). They were sheep sent to rescue sheep- to plead with men and women as men and women, to witness to humanity through their own humanity. Likewise the Lord spoke of how the extraordinary unity of His men would&nbsp;convince others that “thou didst send me” (<em><a href='B:500 17:23'>Joh 17:23</a></em>), having just commented how they had surely believed “that thou didst send me” (:8):&nbsp;</p><p>The command to ‘make disciples’ of all men in Matthew is framed in such a way as to make ‘…baptising them…’ a subordinate clause. Baptism is only part of the work of making disciples. In <em><a href='B:470 28:19-20'>Mat 28:19-20</a></em><em> mathateusate&nbsp;</em>("make disciples") is the main verb, while&nbsp;<em>poreuthentes&nbsp;</em>("while going" or "when you go"),&nbsp;<em>baptizontes&nbsp;</em>("baptizing"), and&nbsp;<em>didaskontes&nbsp;</em>("teaching") are subsidiary participles. The focus clearly is upon making disciples- all the other things, the teaching, baptizing, our effort in travelling and preaching, are incidental to this main aim. This is why responsibility to those we may convert only begins at baptism; it’s a beginning of a man or woman being fashioned into the image of Christ, not the end. This is why Paul often uses the language of preaching about his pastoral efforts with his brethren e.g. his desire to ‘preach the Gospel’ to the believers at Rome to whom he was writing. He sees himself as preaching Christ to them still, in so doing warning them, “that we may present every man perfect” (<em><a href='B:580 1:28'>Col 1:28</a></em>). Thus Paul parallels being a minister of the world-wide preaching of the Gospel, and being a minister of the church (<em><a href='B:580 1:23'>Col 1:23</a></em>; <em><a href='B:580 1:25'>Col 1:25</a></em>). He saw his continued work amongst his baptized readership as&nbsp;<em>fully preaching</em>&nbsp;the word of God (<em><a href='B:580 1:25'>Col 1:25</a></em> AVmg:). So Paul said&nbsp;in <em><a href='B:550 4:19'>Gal 4:19</a></em> “I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you”. How do we see our responsibility to those to whom we have preached the gospel? We should continue to nurture and feed them well after the time of their baptism:&nbsp; It seems that this is not a general responsibility which falls on the shoulders of all of us:&nbsp; Rather we have a personal responsibility to those we have begotten through the gospel (<em><a href='B:530 4:15'>1Co 4:15</a></em>).</p><p><em>Of all the nations</em>- A reference to <em><a href='B:10 18:18'>Gen 18:18</a></em>. The Lord twice told the disciples: "Go ye... go ye" (<em><a href='B:480 16:15'>Mar 16:15</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:470 28:19'>Mat 28:19</a></em> and contexts). He was encouraging them to do the natural corollary of what they had experienced. The Lord commissioned us to go into all the world and make disciples of all; but He describes this in other terms as being witnesses of Him to the world (<em><a href='B:470 28:19'>Mat 28:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 1:8'>Act 1:8</a></em>). Our witness must fundamentally, therefore, be Christ-centred.</p><p>If we say that we are&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;commanded to obey the command to go into all nations, then we must also conclude that we are not commanded to baptize people. And if these words about baptism don't apply to us today, then there is no command of the Lord Jesus to be baptized. The connection between the command to preach and the command to baptize is made clearer by the parallel record: "Go ye therefore, and teach (make disciples of, AVmg:) all nations, baptising them... and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" (<em><a href='B:470 28:19-20'>Mat 28:19-20</a></em>), i:e. Christ will be with us in our preaching right to the ends of the world. The special closeness of the Lord in preaching work has been widely commented upon by preachers. The commission of <em><a href='B:470 28:19-20'>Mat 28:19-20</a></em> is alluded to in <em><a href='B:510 14:21'>Act 14:21</a></em> AVmg. concerning the work of Paul and Barnabas, neither of whom were among the twelve: "And when they had preached the Gospel to that city, and had made many disciples...". This in itself disproves the idea that the great commission was intended only for the twelve.</p><p><em>Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit</em>- To love God and Christ is to love our neighbour as ourselves. This is because of the intense unity of God’s Name. Because our brethren and sisters share God’s Name, as we do, we must love them as ourselves, who also bear that same Name. And if we love the Father, we must love the Son, who bears His Name, with a similar love. The letters of John state this explicitly. If we love God, we<em>&nbsp;must</em>&nbsp;love our brother; and if we love the Father, we&nbsp;<em>must</em>&nbsp;love the Son. This is why we must honour the Son as we honour the Father (<em><a href='B:500 5:23'>Joh 5:23</a></em>); such is the unifying power of God’s Name. So the Father, Son and church are inextricably connected. Baptism into the name of Christ is therefore baptism into the Name of the Father, and associates us with the "one Spirit" (<em><a href='B:470 28:19'>Mat 28:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:560 4:4'>Eph 4:4</a></em>). In the same way as we cannot choose to live in isolation from the Father and Son, so we cannot separate ourselves from others who bear the same Name. The Scribe well understood all this: "There is one God... and to love him... and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices" (<em><a href='B:480 12:32-33'>Mar 12:32-33</a></em>). Those whole offerings represented the whole body of Israel (<em><a href='B:30 4:7-15'>Lev 4:7-15</a></em>). The Scribe understood that those offerings taught that all Israel were unified together on account of their bearing the same Name of Yahweh.</p>


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<p>28:20&nbsp;<em>Teaching them to observe all things whatever I commanded you; and I am with you always, even to the end of the age</em>- The Lord will support the work of the great preaching commission right up to the end of the age- which means that once the commission is completed, and the whole world has indeed been told the good news of the resurrection, then this age shall finish and the Lord shall return. He said the same very clearly in teaching that once the Gospel goes into all the world, then the end shall come. Matthew clearly saw his own Gospel record, the testament to his life's work, as playing a part in bringing about "the end". The further it could be distributed, the faster the end would come. And that challenge remains with us as with no other generation.</p><p>There are some definite links between the Greek text of Matthew’s record of the commission, and the LXX of the end of Daniel 12 :</p><table><tr><td></p><p>Matthew</td><td><em><a href='B:340 12:13'>Dan 12:13</a></em> LXX</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Go ye into all the world (<em><a href='B:470 28:20'>Mat 28:20</a></em>)</td><td>Go thou thy way</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>“…then shall the end come” (when the Gospel has been preached to all the world)</td><td>till the end</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>I am with you all the days (28:20 Gk:)</td><td>for still there will be days</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>unto the end of the world</td><td>to the end of the world.</td><td></td></tr></table><p>These connections suggest that the great commission to preach worldwide will be powerfully fulfilled in the last days- see on 24:14.</p>


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<p>1:1<em>&nbsp;The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God</em>- This may simply mean that Mark is beginning at the beginning, with the account of John the Baptist. Given the intensity attached to words used in the Gospels, which are highly abbreviated records anyway, that would appear somewhat superfluous. It's likely he also meant to suggest that the events of the Gospel record were only a beginning, and in the lives of all future disciples, the Gospel story continues. John begins his Gospel with the same word- "In the beginning was the word". Luke uses a related word when he says that his Gospel was the record of all that Jesus "began to do" (<em><a href='B:510 1:1'>Act 1:1</a></em>), with the implication that it was not being continued. So we are to see the Gospel records as a beginning of the work and word of Jesus, which continues into our lives. Matthew uses the same word in saying that Jesus "began to preach" (<em><a href='B:470 4:17'>Mat 4:17</a></em>). Indeed, this word is later used by Matthew concerning how Jesus 'began' to do and teach things (<em><a href='B:470 11:7'>Mat 11:7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 11:20'>Mat 11:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 16:21'>Mat 16:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 18:24'>Mat 18:24</a></em>); we are to understand that this beginning implies a continuation, and that continuation is in our lives. Mark’s Gospel opens with Jesus going around preaching, appealing for people to repent and believe the Gospel (and this is described as “the beginning of the Gospel”). Mark concludes with&nbsp;<em>us</em>&nbsp;being asked to do the same, thereby directly continuing the work of the Lord, because we are in Him. The only other occurrence of the phrase "beginning of the Gospel" is in <em><a href='B:570 4:15'>Phi 4:15</a></em>, where it means the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel. Mark's gospel is a transcript of how he or Peter used to teach the Gospel; it was written down under inspiration so that it would be preserved for future generations. We learn from this that the Gospel is in the gospels. The good news is essentially the biography and teachings of the Lord Jesus. The rest is interpretation.</p><p>The Greek text in Mark often has a rhythm and rhyme to it created by similar sounding words- because the early church aimed for new converts to memorize Mark’s Gospel. Just one example from <em><a href='B:480 1:1'>Mar 1:1</a></em>:<br/><em>Ar-khay tou you-ang-ge -lee-ou Yay-sou Khrees-tou whee-ou the -ou</em>.<br/>The 'ou' endings are somehow rhythmical. Especially do we see this rhythmical quality in the phrase used for "Jesus Christ the Son of God" in <em><a href='B:480 1:1'>Mar 1:1</a></em>: "<em>Ieso-u Christo-u huio-u Theo-u</em>".</p>


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<p>1:2&nbsp;<em>Just as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: Look, I send My messenger before your face</em>- Both the MT and LXX (translations of the Old Testament) in <em><a href='B:460 3:1'>Mal 3:1</a></em> have "before Me". The face of the Lord Jesus was the face of God. He was the man with the face of God. To meet Him, to spit upon that face, was to do so to the face of God. And in Judaism it was well known that not even Moses could see the face of God. But it was now revealed in the face of the Lord Jesus. 'Face' in Semitic thought refers also to the presence; the presence of Jesus can be felt today, and it is none less than coming before the face of God. “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, which shall prepare your way before you” is how <em><a href='B:480 1:2'>Mar 1:2</a></em> quotes <em><a href='B:460 3:1'>Mal 3:1</a></em>; but “before your face” is added, as if to create a reference to the Angel sent before Israel in the wilderness, to find a resting place (<em><a href='B:20 23:20'>Exo 23:20</a></em>). The parallel is set up between John and the Angel, and therefore between Jesus and the people of Israel. The Lord Jesus&nbsp;<em>is</em>&nbsp;His people. He personally is the vine, the one body- symbols of the whole community. He isn’t the trunk, and we the branches;&nbsp; We are the branches, and He is the whole vine. We are Him to this world. Thus <em><a href='B:560 3:20-21'>Eph 3:20-21</a></em> and many other passages parallel Christ and the ecclesia. “The servant” of Isaiah’s prophecies is therefore both Israel and the Lord Jesus. The fact He was and is the representative of God’s people means that those in Him must act and witness as Him.</p><p><em>He will prepare your way</em>- This was John's intended mission, and he certainly tried to achieve it. But ultimately his mission failed in that Israel were generally like the children sitting in the marketplace with John as it were weeping to them- and they didn’t respond. There was the possibility that if John's mission had succeeded, then Messiah could have come to Zion in glory over the made up way or road. But they didn’t respond as needed- despite being baptized and approving his message in crowds. This is a sobering thought- that such response alone is not the same as really responding to the call for radical preparation for the coming of the Christ.</p><p>In response to Israel's attitude of "Where is the God of judgment?", and a genuine failure to realize their sinfulness ("wherein have we…?"), God prophesied He would send His messenger and then His Christ; His Son was by His coming alone the manifestation of "the God of judgment", the supreme judge of men by His very being (<em><a href='B:460 2:17'>Mal 2:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:460 3:1'>Mal 3:1</a></em>). In His coming, God "visited His people" (<em><a href='B:490 7:16'>Luk 7:16</a></em>); but the OT image of Yahweh visiting His people was one of visiting in judgment (<em><a href='B:330 32:3-4'>Eze 32:3-4</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 23:2'>Jer 23:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:350 2:13'>Hos 2:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:350 9:9'>Hos 9:9</a></em>). By His very being amongst men He would convict them of their sinfulness. His light would show up the shadows of their sins. Mark begins his Gospel by quoting this Malachi passage, as if to say that the appearance of Jesus was the coming of judgment for men (<em><a href='B:480 1:2'>Mar 1:2</a></em>):&nbsp; This judgment-coming of Jesus at His revelation to Israel 2000 years ago is then described as God coming near to men in judgment (<em><a href='B:460 3:5'>Mal 3:5</a></em>). This is why a consideration of the Lord Jesus in bread and wine inevitably and naturally leads to self-examination; for He is, by His very being, our immediate and insistent judge.</p>


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<p>1:3- see on <em><a href='B:470 11:14'>Mat 11:14</a></em>.</p><p><em>The voice of one crying in the wilderness</em>- The idea is of a radio play for voices. We are focused not upon the person of John, but upon his message, upon the voice crying in the wilderness. We likewise are to hear the message of the preacher rather than being side-tracked by his or her personality. For we preach not ourselves but Jesus Christ. But John didn’t literally go into the desert and shout out his message with nobody listening but the wild camels and conies. The image is that actually it was a spiritual wilderness- it was&nbsp;<em>as if</em>&nbsp;there was nobody there listening, even though there were large crowds listening to his message with apparent approval. The hint is that actually he may as well have been shouting out in the desert with nobody listening. The same metaphor of a wilderness is used in speaking of how at this very time, the Lord Jesus arose as a tender green shoot out of a parched land (<em><a href='B:290 53:1'>Isa 53:1</a></em>). We might be able to infer from this that it was John who prepared the way for the personal emergence and spirituality of the Lord Jesus out of an environment which was otherwise unresponsive to his message. Or perhaps we are to make the connection with the fact that after John's preaching, the Lord Jesus went into that same barren wilderness, was tempted and emerged spiritually triumphant, for the same words are found in 1:12- Jesus went "immediately" (s:w. "straight" regarding his way) into the wilderness. It could be that His triumphant emergence from the wilderness was partly due to the inspiration he received there from John's preaching.</p><p><em>Make ready the way of the Lord, make his paths straight</em>- The work of John was to prepare the way for Jesus (1:2), but this would be achieved insofar as individuals prepared themselves. But Israel generally were not prepared by John, they rejected the One whose road John tried to prepare. But the Greek word translated "prepare" is commonly used in the New Testament for how the Father and Son are 'preparing' our place in the Kingdom, of how the Lord Jesus was the Passover lamb 'prepared', and how on the cross, He prepared a place for us in His Father's Kingdom (<em><a href='B:500 14:1-2'>Joh 14:1-2</a></em>). But this was all plan B. The potential and intended plan was that Israel would respond to John's message and repent, thus becoming a people prepared for the Lord Jesus (<em><a href='B:490 1:17'>Luk 1:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:76'>Luk 1:76</a></em> are very clear about this). Failure to respond has never stopped the God of all grace; He takes over where human response fails. Such is His passion for our final salvation. This thought should calm the fearful hearts of all we who at times shake our heads at our own paucity of response and preparation.</p><p>That one purpose of our calling to the Gospel is to assist others is brought out by the way John the Baptist prepared a highway in the desert through baptizing repentant people (<em><a href='B:480 1:3-4'>Mar 1:3-4</a></em>). This highway was to be a path&nbsp;<em>to&nbsp;</em>Christ as well as the one He would travel. And it's worth reflecting that Christ can only come once the way for Him is prepared- as if His coming depends upon a certain level of response to our preaching, especially to the Jews of the very last days.</p>


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<p>1:4&nbsp;<em>John came and baptized in the wilderness, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins</em>- The two clauses in this sentence appear to be the wrong way around. We would expect to read that John came preaching baptism, and then baptized people. One way around the problem is to imagine that the second clause ("preaching the baptism...") is as it were in brackets, explaining that the baptism he performed was not Christian baptism but simply a sign of repentance and request for remission of sins. But <em><a href='B:470 3:11'>Mat 3:11</a></em> makes it explicit that his baptism&nbsp;<em>preceded</em>&nbsp;the call for repentance. "Baptize... unto repentance" implies that forgiveness is offered in order to provoke repentance. John baptized in order to lead people to repentance, rather than baptizing only those who had repented and got their lives in order. Even the NET Bible's "baptize... for repentance" could be read the same way- baptism was for the end of provoking repentance, rather than being baptism only for the visibly repentant. This likelihood is strengthened once we realize that there is surely an allusion here to the apocryphal Book of Wisdom (not part of NEV translation), <em>Wis_11:23</em>: "You overlook the sins of men, unto repentance". Repentance in any case is an internal attitude, so John, as he stood in the Jordan River, was totally incapable of judging whether or not in practice his hearers had actually changed their lives. He baptized them because they had confessed their sins and re-thought, re-pented. Not because they had actually changed in practical, ongoing lifestyle issues. Likewise, the apostles who baptized 3000 people in <em><a href='B:510 37-41'>Acts 2:37-41</a></em> had no way of measuring repentance in practice. <em><a href='B:480 1:15'>Mar 1:15</a></em> records John’s message as being: “Repent ye and believe the Gospel". This might seem to be in the wrong order- for we have come to think that surely belief of the Gospel comes before repentance. And so it does very often- but there is another option here- that the repentance is ongoing. Life after conversion is a life of believing the basic Gospel which led us to conversion and repentance in the first place.</p><p>The Greek&nbsp;<em>metanoia</em>&nbsp;"repentance" was used as a legal term describing the re-thinking of a sentence. Paul uses this figure in <em><a href='B:520 2:4'>Rom 2:4</a></em> to describe how we are condemned as guilty, but the sentence is re-thought because we are in Christ. Strong's lexicon claims that the word can mean "by implication, reversal of another's decision". Our re-thinking thus becomes God’s re-thinking. In this we see something of the intimacy and connection between God and man achieved by human repentance. The legal metaphor continues in the word translated "remission"- the idea is of legal pardon or freedom from the accusation.</p><p>John the Baptist's audience responded to his preaching by being baptized "with the baptism of repentance" (<em><a href='B:480 1:4'>Mar 1:4</a></em>); and yet the Lord Jesus built on this by appealing to people to repent because the Kingdom was at hand (<em><a href='B:480 1:15'>Mar 1:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 3:2'>Mat 3:2</a></em>). Their repentance was therefore only surface level. The Lord cursed the fig tree (cp. Israel) because they had only leaves, an appearance of repentance and spiritual fruit, but actually there was not even the first sign of real fruit on that tree when it was really analysed. Earlier, Israel had appeared to have fruit, when actually, they didn’t have any at all (<em><a href='B:350 10:1'>Hos 10:1</a></em>). The man in the parable built his spiritual house, but in fact he didn’t get down to the real nitty-gritty of obedience to the Lord's words; and so it miserably, pathetically fell at judgment day. The seriousness of sin becomes de-emphasized in our lives, until repentance comes to mean a vague twinge of guilt. This, again, was the problem of Old Testament Israel. "They return, but not to the Most High" (<em><a href='B:350 7:16'>Hos 7:16</a></em>);&nbsp;they had the sensation of regret, of turning back- but it wasn't real repentance. A few verses earlier God had commented: “They do&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;return to Yahweh their God” (<em><a href='B:350 7:10'>Hos 7:10</a></em>); but they on a surface level&nbsp;<em>did</em>&nbsp;return to Him. Hosea continues his theme: “Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself” (<em><a href='B:350 10:1'>Hos 10:1</a></em>). Did they or did they not bring forth fruit? They did- but only in their own eyes. They felt they had repented, and brought forth spiritual fruit. But not in God’s estimation. And we too can have the sensation of spirituality and even spiritual growth, but only in our own eyes. “Though they called them to the Most High, none at all would exalt him” (<em><a href='B:350 11:7'>Hos 11:7</a></em>) in the way which true repentance requires. "Judah hath not turned unto me with her&nbsp;<em>whole</em>&nbsp;heart, but feignedly" (<em><a href='B:300 3:10'>Jer 3:10</a></em>). They did turn back to Yahweh- but not in their heart. Israel rejoiced in the light of John’s teaching- and he taught real, on-your-knees repentance. They thought they’d repented. But the Lord describes John as mourning, and them not mourning in sympathy and response (<em><a href='B:490 7:32'>Luk 7:32</a></em>). They rejoiced in the idea of repentance, but never really got down to it.</p><p>Remember that this is in explanation of what the content of the Gospel was (<em><a href='B:480 1:1'>Mar 1:1</a></em>). The good news is not solely of a future political Kingdom to be established on earth at Christ's return. It is of forgiveness of sins right now.</p>


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<p>1:5&nbsp;<em>And there went out to him all the country of Judea and all they of Jerusalem</em>- The emphasis on "all" is perhaps to make the point that there was mass response to John's message about Jesus; and yet ultimately, his mission failed, because these large masses of people did not fully accept Christ despite their acceptance of John's teaching and baptism. "They of Jerusalem" are depicted as those who later refused or were at best agnostic towards the Lord Himself (e.g. "they of Jerusalem", <em><a href='B:500 7:25'>Joh 7:25</a></em> s.w.). We get the impression that the Galileans were more receptive of the Lord than "they of Jerusalem". They were eager enough to get caught up in a movement teaching that Messiah would soon come; but when He actually came, they didn’t want Him. It can be that some are so enthused about "the signs of the times" (<em><a href='B:470 16:3'>Mat 16:3</a></em>) that personal relationship with the Lord Jesus becomes subsumed beneath the interest in the search and expectation, rather than the finding. And that is observable in so many people today.</p><p><em>And they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins</em>- Judaism at the time believed that the Elijah prophet must appear and baptize a repentant Israel, and then Messiah would come and save them from Roman domination. Their confession of sin was therefore unlikely to have been totally genuine; as noted above, these mass crowds later rejected the Lord Jesus as Messiah. Repentance can therefore be insincere, or surface level, tokenistic rather than from the heart. And yet despite being aware of this, John made no attempt to judge or assess the sincerity of repentance before baptism; and neither can we.</p>


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<p>1:6&nbsp;<em>And John was clothed with camel's hair and had a leather girdle about his waist, and</em>- John 'put on' Gk. this outfit, in conscious imitation of Elijah (<em><a href='B:120 1:8'>2Ki 1:8</a></em>). He took his calling seriously and intentionally emulated the Bible character most relevant to his work, just as we should. John is presented as a cameo of all the faithful (<em><a href='B:650 11:37'>Heb 11:37</a></em> = <em><a href='B:480 1:6'>Mar 1:6</a></em> and <em><a href='B:530 15:47'>1Co 15:47</a></em> = <em><a href='B:500 3:31'>Joh 3:31</a></em>).</p><p><em>Ate locusts and wild honey-&nbsp;</em>To 'eat' in Semitic terms can mean to dominate or absorb into oneself. Locusts are consistently used in the Old Testament as a symbol of Israel's enemies (<em><a href='B:50 28:38'>Deu 28:38</a></em>; <em><a href='B:70 6:5'>Jdg 6:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:70 7:12'>Jdg 7:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 46:23'>Jer 46:23</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 51:14'>Jer 51:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:360 1:4'>Joe 1:4</a></em>). John's father Zacharias had incorrectly supposed that the herald of Messiah would be directly involved in bringing about the triumphant coming of that Messiah in order to destroy Israel's enemies (<em><a href='B:490 1:71'>Luk 1:71</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 1:74'>Luk 1:74</a></em>). It seems that John lived out parental expectation and thus made the same mistake, assuming that he as the herald of Messiah was effectively Messiah, and that Israel's locust enemies were therefore soon going to be subdued. It was Messiah who was to eat honey (<em><a href='B:290 7:15'>Isa 7:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 7:22'>Isa 7:22</a></em>), and again John seems to see himself as effectively the Messiah figure, so close was his identity with Him. He knew that he was heralding Messiah, but he presented himself as Messiah, knowing that Messiah's representatives were effectively Him to the world. We are in the same position. What John failed to realize, just as his father had failed to, was that Messiah had the possibility of being rejected, and the promised salvation and Kingdom of God could well be long after His initial exposure to Israel.</p>


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<p>1:7&nbsp;<em>He preached, saying: There comes after me</em>- Gk. 'behind me', alluding to John as a herald, the one who went before the greater one. His message included up front that he was not preaching himself, but One far mightier and better than himself.</p><p><em>He that is mightier than I</em>- The Greek is that translated 'stronger' and the idea of Jesus as the one 'stronger / mightier than' recurs in <em><a href='B:490 11:22'>Luk 11:22</a></em>, where Jesus is 'mightier than' the 'strong man' who had previously possessed the house of Israel. That there is a connection of thought here cannot be denied, but the existence of such a connection doesn't of itself mean that there is a detailed semantic connection. Perhaps John's words had simply left a subconscious impression upon the word choice of the Lord.</p><p><em>Whose shoelaces I am not worthy to</em>- The idea of untying sandals was an idiom for being a herald of a person. John was doing this, untying the sandals, for he was the herald; but he is saying that he is unworthy to do the job he was doing. This must be a feature of our proclamation- a clear statement of our own inadequacy.</p><p><em>Stoop down</em>- Gk. 'to bend toward'. John saw himself as bowing at the feet of Jesus in his work of witnessing about Him; and this should be our attitude. All self-presentation and self-exaltation through preaching is the very opposite of what the work of witness is all about. It is a bowing at our Lord's feet in unworthiness.</p><p><em>And untie</em>- The same word used about Moses unloosing his sandals at the beginning of his public ministry, at the burning bush (<em><a href='B:510 7:33'>Act 7:33</a></em>; <em><a href='B:20 3:5,6'>Exo 3:5,6</a></em>). John surely felt that the Lord Jesus was the second Moses, but so exalted, so higher than Moses, that the Lord should not unloose His own shoes, but rather John as His servant would unloose them for Him. To see anyone, Messiah included, as greater than Moses was a paradigm breaker within Jewish thought.</p>


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<p>1:8&nbsp;<em>I baptized you in water, but he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit</em>- The Greek grammar could just as well mean 'I baptize you with water, but He will baptize you with that&nbsp;<em>as well as</em>&nbsp;with the Holy Spirit'. The structure 'I this, but He that' is used in a number of languages in this way- meaning effectively 'He this + that'. Indeed the Greek&nbsp;<em>de&nbsp;</em>translated "but" is also translated "also". For water baptism was clearly practiced by those following Jesus in the early church; they understood His baptism to involve water baptism. John's version of this material is in the record of the discussion with Nicodemus, where He says we must be "born of water and of the Spirit" (<em><a href='B:500 3:3-5'>Joh 3:3-5</a></em> - this is one of many examples of where John repeats the essence of the material chosen by the other Gospel writers). If John the Baptist's words here apply generally and not just to the disciples, then we note that every baptism is therefore effectively the Lord Jesus baptizing the person. The human baptizer who holds our shoulders as we are immersed is therefore irrelevant- we are baptized by none less than the Lord Jesus. Just as literally as John baptized people, so Jesus baptizes us to this day. The reference to water and spirit is repeated, with the same Greek words being used, when just two verses later we read of the Lord Jesus arising from the baptismal water and the Spirit descending (<em><a href='B:480 1:10'>Mar 1:10</a></em>). This cannot be incidental. The idea is clearly that the baptism of water and Spirit is the baptism Jesus Himself experienced, and His baptismal experience becomes ours in Christian baptism- for the act identifies us with Him, with His death and resurrection. It cannot be denied, however, that the reference to a future baptism in Spirit has reference to the specific experience of the disciples; <em><a href='B:510 1:5'>Act 1:5</a></em> records the Lord Jesus stating clearly to them that John had truly baptized them with water, but soon they were to be baptized by the Holy Spirit. And this was fulfilled at Pentecost, when the Spirit as tongues of fire fell upon them. Matthew and Luke add that the Lord's baptism was to be of Spirit and fire (<em><a href='B:470 3:11'>Mat 3:11</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 3:16'>Luk 3:16</a></em>)- which was clearly fulfilled at Pentecost. But the impression is given that the general principle remains for all time- Christian baptism is a participation in the baptism of Jesus, which involved water and Spirit. Peter reasoned that if people had received the Spirit then they must also be baptized in water (<em><a href='B:510 10:47'>Act 10:47</a></em>), suggesting he understood the promise of water-and-spirit baptism as relevant to believers of all ages. Indeed, in explaining his actions here Peter says that he was inspired by the Lord's own teaching that John baptized with water, but His followers were to be baptized by the Spirit (<em><a href='B:510 11:16'>Act 11:16</a></em>). This means that Peter's insistence that there must be water baptism too shows that he didn’t believe that water baptism had been superseded by a Spirit-only baptism. Rather did he understand John's words and those of the Lord as suggested above- that John baptized with water, but Jesus would baptize not only with water but also with the Spirit.</p><p>It must be remembered throughout this discussion that the Greek and Hebrew words for 'spirit' and 'wind' are the same. The teaching about baptism in wind / spirit and fire has to be understood in the context of the metaphor of winnowing which follows immediately in <em><a href='B:470 3:12'>Mat 3:12</a></em> and <em><a href='B:490 3:17'>Luk 3:17</a></em>, whereby the Lord Jesus is pictured as threshing His people by casting them into the wind, and thus separating out the chaff, which He then burns in fire. The above evidence must be given its due weight- that baptism in Spirit refers to later Christian experience in baptism. But it cannot be denied that there is connection to the metaphor of winnowing in wind and condemnation in fire, speaking of the condemnation of the wicked at the last day. Christian baptism is a symbolic death, an acceptance of condemnation for sin- and yet at the same time a connection with resurrection and hope of life eternal. Or it could be that the baptism in Spirit and fire speaks of two separate things- the acceptance of the faithful and destruction of the wicked in fire. But this is hard to square with the Lord's usage of the prediction of fire baptism with His baptism of the disciples with fire and Spirit at Pentecost.</p>


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<p>1:9&nbsp;<em>And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee</em>- The idea is that the Lord Jesus came forth from the obscure, despised north of Israel and began His public ministry at His baptism. John’s Gospel puts this in more abstract, spiritual terms in saying that Jesus came down or came forth from God. This language, therefore, does not speak of any literal descent from Heaven to earth of a pre-existent being.</p><p><em>And was baptized by John in the river Jordan</em>- The Greek&nbsp;<em>hupo</em>&nbsp;("by") speaks of being beneath another. He was baptized under John’s ministry and authority. Here we see the Lord’s humility in submission, and we can better understand John’s reticence at baptizing Him. We would rather expect to read of the Lord’s baptism&nbsp;<em>by</em> John, but&nbsp;<em>hupo</em>&nbsp;doesn’t mean simply ‘by’. The validity of baptism doesn’t of itself depend upon the baptizer, but we do also have a sense in the New Testament that the baptizer often had some sense of responsibility for their converts.</p>


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<p>1:10&nbsp;<em>And immediately coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens open and the Spirit&nbsp;</em>- The contrast is with how as the Lord came&nbsp;<em>up</em>, so the Spirit came&nbsp;<em>down&nbsp;</em>upon Him. There was a meeting of Heaven and earth, of God and man, in the man Christ Jesus. This ascending and descending was associated with “the heavens opened”. These three concepts are to be found in <em><a href='B:500 1:51'>Joh 1:51</a></em>: “Hereafter you will see Heaven opened, and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man”. The context of <em><a href='B:500 1:51'>Joh 1:51</a></em> is that John has just spoken of how&nbsp;<em>he</em>&nbsp;had seen the Spirit descending upon Jesus and remaining upon Him at His baptism, proving that He was indeed the Messianic figure who would baptize with the Holy Spirit (<em><a href='B:500 1:32-33'>Joh 1:32-33</a></em>). The Lord Jesus is surely alluding to this, teaching that “hereafter” the disciples would&nbsp;<em>also</em>&nbsp;see what John had just said he had seen. And they would not just see it once, but would perceive that Heaven was now permanently open, and the ascent and descent of God’s Spirit in the Angels “He makes His Angels spirits”, <em><a href='B:650 1:7'>Heb 1:7</a></em> was not just a one-time incident at the Lord’s baptism, but was ongoing in His life. The comment that they would “see” this must be understood in the context of how John’s Gospel uses the idea of ‘seeing’. It refers to spiritual perception rather than literally seeing a specific incident. The only other time Mark uses the Greek word translated “opened” is in describing how the veil of the temple was “rent” at the Lord’s death (<em><a href='B:480 15:38'>Mar 15:38</a></em>), thus making the way into the most Holy ‘Heaven’, in the tabernacle symbology open to all (<em><a href='B:650 9:8'>Heb 9:8</a></em>). The opening of the Heavens at the Lord’s baptism therefore looked forward to what would happen at His death; for He understood His baptism as also having an ongoing dimension, culminating in His death (<em><a href='B:490 12:50'>Luk 12:50</a></em>). At His death, the Spirit would freely ascend and descend on Him, through the ministry of the Angels (<em><a href='B:500 1:51'>Joh 1:51</a></em>), and the book of Acts records how this happened in the history of the body of Christ, the church. And in this we see the sense of the obvious connection to the experience at Bethel, the house of God, which represents the church- the Angels ascended and descended upon that place.</p><p><em>As a dove descending upon him</em>- The Greek can equally refer to a pigeon. The hovering of the Spirit over the waters of creation can be read as an allusion to the hovering of a dove; in which case, seeing water is also present at the Lord's baptism, we can see the theme of a new creation being developed. What arose from the waters with a dove's presence was not a new planet, but the man Christ Jesus- the apex and quintessence of the new creation (<em><a href='B:540 5:17'>2Co 5:17</a></em>). I consider it unlikely that John saw a literal dove fly down. Therefore the comparison with a dove is intentional; and surely to recall some earlier Biblical allusion. Noah's dove likewise was associated with water, and the flood water is also understood by Peter as representative of baptism; and again there is the theme of a new creation and God’s loving goodwill toward men being developed. It's tempting to accept a variant manuscript reading of the Messianic prophecy of <em><a href='B:290 11:1-2'>Isa 11:1-2</a></em>: "A shoot will come out of the stump of Jesse... like a dove the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him" (see George Johnston,&nbsp;<em>The Spirit-Paraclete in the Gospel of John</em>&nbsp;(Cambridge: C.U.P., 2005 p. 20). In any case, the idea of the descent of the Spirit was predicted as being a sign of Messiah, and John therefore felt confirmed in saying that he had seen with his own eyes the confirmation that Jesus was Messiah (<em><a href='B:500 1:32'>Joh 1:32</a></em>).</p>


text:
<p>1:11&nbsp;<em>And a voice came out of the heavens: You are my beloved Son; in you I am well pleased</em>- See on <em><a href='B:680 1:17'>2Pe 1:17</a></em>. The voice had the same intonation as the voice on the mount of transfiguration; it was the voice of God Himself in person. The Father's 'pleasure' spoke also of His 'will'. His will was done, and His pleasure thereby achieved, "in" His Son; because of the Lord's internal state of mind. And this sets the path toward understanding our own status "in Christ".</p>


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<p>1:12&nbsp;<em>And the Spirit immediately drove him into</em>- The Greek&nbsp;<em>ekballo</em>&nbsp;means to cast out, to drive out from one place to another. But Matthew and Luke both say He was "led" by the Spirit into the wilderness. There were therefore both push and pull factors. He was led by the Spirit, perhaps in the form of an Angel. The allusion is to Israel at their baptism at the Red Sea (<em><a href='B:530 10:1-2'>1Co 10:1-2</a></em>); immediately afterwards, they too entered the wilderness, for 40 years instead of 40 days. we note that the Lord's quotations against temptation were all from the Deuteronomy passages concerning Israel's experiences in the desert. They were&nbsp;<em>led out&nbsp;</em>of Egypt, and yet they were also&nbsp;<em>cast out</em>&nbsp;of Egypt. The Lord's 'driving out' could therefore refer to opposition which forced the Lord to leave that area, as if there were some who strongly reacted against the declaration that He was God’s Son; we read the same of how He was cast or driven out from Nazareth. Yet Israel's experience was typical of that of all God’s people. And that experience is being made the prototype for what happened to the Lord at His baptism. Whilst the Lord's baptism differed in some dimensions from ours, clearly we are to see our baptisms as a participation in His; or rather, the other way around. His baptism enabled Him to enter into ours. See on <em><a href='B:480 1:13'>Mar 1:13</a></em> &nbsp;<em>took care</em>.</p><p>Note how Legion was 'driven' by 'the demon' into a wilderness (<em><a href='B:490 8:29'>Luk 8:29</a></em>)- as if to imply that the Lord's wilderness experience enabled Him to identify with the episodes of mental illness experienced by the man. So many of His experiences were likewise to enable Him to enter into the essential experiences of us His people.</p><p><em>The wilderness</em>- There is an intended connection with the fact that John had been living in and preaching in "the wilderness" (<em><a href='B:480 1:3,4'>Mar 1:3,4</a></em>). Clearly the same "wilderness" is in view. The very place where John had preached about Jesus' Messiahship and Kingdom was where He was now being tested. It follows that His temptations were therefore related to the things which John had preached about Him there, and the fact that in that very same place, the crowds had apparently agreed to follow this new Messiah. All the temptations were concerning these things and the Lord's temptations were to misuse them. This is more ground for considering the temptations to have been internal to the thought processes of Jesus, as argued in our comments on the wilderness temptations on Matthew 4. But perhaps we can also speculate that we are intended to think of "the wilderness" as the location of persons who believed in Jesus as Messiah and wished to see His Messianic Kingdom. So there's no reason why the satan / adversary could not have been a Jewish person or persons suggesting to Jesus these ideas of immediate Messianic rule. The temptations departed from the Lord for a period, implying they returned (<em><a href='B:490 4:13'>Luk 4:13</a></em>). And elsewhere we read of Him going out into deserted places s.w. "wilderness" and praying (<em><a href='B:480 1:35'>Mar 1:35</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 1:45'>Mar 1:45</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 5:16'>Luk 5:16</a></em>) or struggling with crowds who wanted an immediate Messianic Kingdom (<em><a href='B:470 14:13'>Mat 14:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 14:15'>Mat 14:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 6:31'>Mar 6:31</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 11:54'>Joh 11:54</a></em>)- perhaps suggesting that the same temptations returned later in His ministry.</p>


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<p>1:13-&nbsp;<em>And he was in the wilderness forty days-&nbsp;</em>See on <em><a href='B:480 1:12'>Mar 1:12</a></em> &nbsp;<em>Drove Him</em>.</p><p><em>Tempted by Satan</em>- see more detailed commentary on Matthew 4 (<em><a href='B:470 4:1'>Mat 4:1</a></em>).</p><p><em>And he was with the wild beasts</em>- Suggesting He was as it were in Eden, and is compared favourably against Adam who failed his test when amongst the wild beasts. Paul in <em><a href='B:570 2:6-8'>Phil 2:6-8</a></em> and <em><a href='B:530 15:45'>1 Cor 15:45</a></em> likewise compares the Lord's strength against temptation against Adam's weakness (see commentaries on these 2 verses). Yet the Greek root word&nbsp;<em>therion</em>&nbsp;is the word repeatedly used in Revelation about the Lord's struggle with "the beast", and again we there encounter the motif of the wilderness. Indeed, the parallel between 'beast' and 'satan', the adversary, is found both here in <em><a href='B:480 1:13'>Mar 1:13</a></em> and in Revelation- and hardly anywhere elsewhere. The Lord's struggle and victory against the beasts in the desert was therefore what is being repeated now in His struggle against the various beasts of political and spiritual opposition to His work, and His victory in the desert looks ahead to His final victory against the beast in the last day.</p><p>The ‘devil’ of the Lord’s own thoughts tempted Him to apply <em><a href='B:230 91:11'>Psa 91:11</a></em> in a wrong context, and jump off the pinnacle of the temple. But if the Lord had gone on, as surely He did, He would have found the words: “You will tread on the lion and cobra, you will trample the young lion and the serpent underfoot” (<em><a href='B:230 91:13'>Psa 91:13</a></em>). This promise would have been of wonderful comfort, as throughout the wilderness temptations the Lord “was with the wild beasts” (<em><a href='B:480 1:13'>Mar 1:13</a></em>).</p><p><em>And the angels took care of him</em>- AV "ministered". This is alluded to in <em><a href='B:650 1:14'>Heb 1:14</a></em>, where we learn that Angels are spirits He was led of the Spirit who 'minister' unto us. Again we find the hint that His baptismal experience was a participation in ours; see on <em><a href='B:480 1:12'>Mar 1:12</a></em>&nbsp;<em>drove Him</em>. I would therefore conclude that the purpose of the Lord's baptism was not in order to obtain forgiveness of sins, but to enable Him in essence to be able to participate in our baptisms- the driving out of Egypt, the leading into the desert, the ministration of Angels afterwards. And this was surely the reason for so many of His experiences.</p>


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<p>1:14&nbsp;<em>Now after John was delivered up</em>- The same word used about the betrayal / handing over of the Lord Jesus. He must have seen John's sufferings as a precursor of His own, as He makes explicit in <em><a href='B:470 17:12'>Mat 17:12</a></em>: "Elijah came already and they knew him not, but did to him whatever they would. Likewise shall the Son of Man suffer by their hands".</p><p><em>Jesus came into Galilee</em>- He had come down from Nazareth to be baptized by John near Jerusalem at the Jordan, and now He returns into Galilee. He took John's imprisonment as the cue to begin His public ministry. His 'coming' can be understood as the fulfilment of the idea of Messiah as 'He that shall come' (<em><a href='B:490 7:19'>Luk 7:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:14'>Joh 6:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 7:28'>Joh 7:28</a></em>); Legion likewise speaks with that perception of His 'coming' (<em><a href='B:490 4:34'>Luk 4:34</a></em>). The many references in John to the Lord's 'coming down' from Heaven would therefore refer not to any literal descent of a pre-existent being from Heaven to earth, but of His 'coming' in the sense of His public manifestation to Israel as their Messiah. <em><a href='B:500 4:54'>Joh 4:54</a></em> seems to describe the beginning of His public ministry as when He 'came' s:w. out of Judea into Galilee, which is precisely the same moment being described here by Mark. The Lord 'came' because He had been 'sent' (<em><a href='B:500 7:28'>Joh 7:28</a></em>); that sending was therefore into Galilee to begin His public ministry, rather than a sending from Heaven to earth. He was sent from Heaven, i:e. from God, in that His sending was Divine; not in any literal sense. It would be literalism's last gasp to read this as meaning that Jesus personally was in Heaven and was literally sent all the way 'down' to earth. He 'came' s:w. into the Jewish world not at His birth but at the beginning of His public ministry (<em><a href='B:500 9:39'>Joh 9:39</a></em>); this was when light 'came' into the Jewish world (<em><a href='B:500 3:19'>Joh 3:19</a></em>). He 'came' when He 'spoke' the word of the Gospel to Israel (<em><a href='B:500 15:22'>Joh 15:22</a></em> "If I had not&nbsp;<em>come&nbsp;</em>and spoken unto them..."). He came into the Jewish world in order to publicly bear witness (<em><a href='B:500 18:37'>Joh 18:37</a></em>)- that bearing of public witness was when He 'came into the world'. John the Baptist had repeatedly taught that Jesus would 'come' after him (<em><a href='B:500 1:15'>Joh 1:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 1:27'>Joh 1:27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 1:30'>Joh 1:30</a></em>)- proof enough that His 'coming' was not at His birth but at the start of His open ministry. Jewish thought expected Messiah to 'come into the world', not through a literal descent from Heaven, but through public manifestation to the Jewish world (<em><a href='B:500 6:14'>Joh 6:14</a></em>) and 'coming' from the family of David (<em><a href='B:500 7:42'>Joh 7:42</a></em> "Christ comes of the seed of David&nbsp;and out of the town of Bethlehem"). We can helpfully note how often we read of men 'coming' to Jesus in response to His 'coming' to them (e.g. <em><a href='B:500 3:19-20'>Joh 3:19-20</a></em> - the light comes into the world, and men come to that light; <em><a href='B:500 4:5'>Joh 4:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 4:7'>Joh 4:7</a></em> - Jesus came to Sychar and the Samaritan woman came to Him; <em><a href='B:500 5:40'>Joh 5:40</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 5:43'>Joh 5:43</a></em> - "I am come... come to Me"; <em><a href='B:500 11:20'>Joh 11:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 11:29-30'>Joh 11:29-30</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 11:32'>Joh 11:32</a></em> - when Jesus came, Martha and Mary came to Him; <em><a href='B:500 12:1'>Joh 12:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:9'>Joh 12:9</a></em> - Jesus came to Bethany and the people came to Him). This is the ultimate meeting between God and man- when we respond to His having 'come' to us in His Son. For He 'comes' to us today in knocking on the door of our hearts (<em><a href='B:500 14:3'>Joh 14:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 14:18'>Joh 14:18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 14:23'>Joh 14:23</a></em>).</p><p><em>Preaching the Gospel of God</em>- The same word is used of how John 'preached' (<em><a href='B:470 3:1'>Mat 3:1</a></em>), emphasizing the continuity between John's activity and that of the Lord Jesus whom he heralded. <em><a href='B:480 1:15'>Mar 1:15</a></em> and <em><a href='B:470 4:17'>Mat 4:17</a></em> say that the preaching of Jesus about the Kingdom was a preaching of repentance- and that is in fact good news. The good news of the Kingdom is therefore not simply information about a future good time to come on this earth, but as the Lord's parables of the Kingdom make clear the good news of a repentant life which can be lived right now in preparation for the future Kingdom on earth.</p><p>Mark's truncated term "The Gospel of God" perhaps intends to get over the idea that God is good news. For in so many religions, Judaism included, "God" or 'the gods' are generally bad news for sinful man. But the true God is good news for sinners.</p>


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<p>1:15&nbsp;<em>And saying: The time is fulfilled</em>- But later on in His ministry, the Lord taught that His time was not yet fulfilled (<em><a href='B:500 7:8'>Joh 7:8</a></em> - the same words are used). The words are used in <em><a href='B:490 1:20'>Luk 1:20</a></em> concerning how each prophetic word has a time for its fulfilment. But as we learn from the prophetic word against Nineveh in Jonah's time, those times for fulfilment can be changed. The Kingdom could have come in the first century had Israel accepted Jesus as Messiah. But instead they refused Him. And so the time of fulfilment was changed; and the content of the fulfilment likewise changed. The "time" shifted from being the time of the Kingdom to the time of their crucifixion of their Messiah. We see how God’s purpose is in some ways open-ended, such is His respect of human freewill decisions.</p><p><em>And the kingdom of God is at hand-</em>&nbsp;In the sense that Jesus as King of the Kingdom could be called "the Kingdom of God". His life was the Kingdom life; to accept the offer of His life was therefore, in John's gospel, to receive the eternal life, the kind of life we shall eternally live in God’s Kingdom. John's message was that the Lord was about to be revealed; "the Kingdom" was therefore "at hand". This was good news for all men because this message was of the forgiveness of sins; the imminent arrival of God’s political Kingdom on earth is not good news for sinners, nor for anyone unprepared for it. The essential good news is of forgiveness in the Lord Jesus. Thus the good news of&nbsp;<em>potential&nbsp;</em>deliverance from Babylon is quoted as the good news of salvation from sin (<em><a href='B:290 52:7-10'>Isa 52:7-10</a></em> = <em><a href='B:480 1:15'>Mar 1:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 10:7-8'>Mat 10:7-8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:520 10:15'>Rom 10:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:560 6:15'>Eph 6:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 61:1-2'>Isa 61:1-2</a></em> = <em><a href='B:490 4:16-21'>Luk 4:16-21</a></em>). Therefore the response to this good news was intended to be repentance.</p><p><em>Repent and believe in the Gospel</em>- This might seem to be in the wrong order- for surely belief of the Gospel comes before repentance. And so it does. But the point is, life after conversion is a life of believing the basic Gospel which led us to conversion and repentance in the first place. Thus Romans 6 teaches that we were once servants of sin... and we expect the sentence to conclude: 'But now you are servants of righteousness'. But it doesn't. We were once servants of sin but now we have obeyed the form of doctrine delivered to us... and are&nbsp;<em>therefore</em>&nbsp;servants of righteousness. Or we could have here an example of where teaching and belief of the Gospel in its fuller sense comes&nbsp;<em>after</em>&nbsp;conversion; this is stated explicitly in the great commission, which tells us to take the good news of the resurrection to people, to baptize them into the risen Christ, and then to teach them all things the Lord commanded (<em><a href='B:470 28:19-20'>Mat 28:19-20</a></em>). We might expect 'repent and you will be forgiven'. Instead we read that repentance is to lead to believing in the Gospel; the good news of sin forgiven and that we can really have a place in God’s eternal Kingdom on earth. The Gospel of the Kingdom is not therefore simply that the Lord shall come and establish an eternal Kingdom on earth. It is that we can really be forgiven and given the life eternal in that Kingdom which He shall establish at His return.</p><p>Mark gives no prior definition of what the Gospel of the Kingdom is (:14). And the LXX only contains the word once (<em><a href='B:100 4:10'>2Sa 4:10</a></em>). Is this an example of Mark assuming that his readers know what 'the Gospel' is? Or did the Lord speak in this way in order to beg the question from His audience: 'And what is your good news?'- and the rest of the Gospel record is the answer to that question. Another approach is possible; although the Greek&nbsp;<em>euangelion</em>&nbsp;is not used, the LXX of <em><a href='B:290 40:9'>Isa 40:9</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 52:7'>Isa 52:7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 60:1-2'>Isa 60:1-2</a></em> clearly envisage a Messianic figure proclaiming the "good news" of Israel's freedom from oppression and sin. The Lord seems to assume that His audience would know what 'good news' He had in view. Perhaps He was alluding to those Servant Songs in Isaiah, and saying that the good news is of "the Kingdom of God". And He goes on in Matthew to explain that this good news is of the life of forgiveness and grace lived out now, under the rulership of God, and coming to its material climax in His second coming and the literal establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth.</p>


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<p>1:16&nbsp;<em>And passing along by the sea of Galilee</em>- The Greek could mean that He walked around the entire lake. But He waited to call them, it seems, until the most inconvenient moment, just as the nets were in mid-air. And His call likewise comes to us in the midst of daily life.</p><p><em>He saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen</em>- Literally, 'salty ones'. The Greek can equally mean 'sailors'. The Lord must have had this in mind when He said that they were "the salt of the earth" (<em><a href='B:470 5:13'>Mat 5:13</a></em>). If we are likewise the salt of the earth in our influence upon others, we will find ourselves as the modern counterpart to those 'salty ones' who followed the Lord in His Galilee days.</p>


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<p>1:17 - see on <em><a href='B:490 9:59'>Luk 9:59</a></em>.</p><p><em>And Jesus said to them-&nbsp;</em>It was whilst Simon and Andrew were in the very act of casting their net into the sea, snap shotted in a freeze-frame of still life, silhouetted against the sea and hills of Galilee, that the Lord calls them to go preaching (<em><a href='B:480 1:17'>Mar 1:17</a></em>). The Lord surely intended them to at least later figure out His allusion to <em><a href='B:300 16:14-16'>Jer 16:14-16</a></em>, which prophesied that fishermen would be sent out to catch Israel and bring them home to the Father. And He called them to do that, right in the very midst of everyday life.</p><p><em>Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men</em>- The Lord had a program of education in view; their following of Him would mean that they would naturally reach out to save others. One aspect of our discipleship is likewise that we might bring others to salvation; otherwise, they swim off to their death in the sea of nations. We are saving people out of the world; for the sea refers to the Gentile world. And in that connection we see how the Lord considered the Jews to be no better than the sea of the Gentile world, and His disciples were initially to save Jewish people out of it. Separation from the world is therefore an essential part of our message and the result of our work with people. This was exemplified by the way the disciples themselves forsook their nets and s:w. also their own father (:18,20).</p>


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<p>1:18- see on <em><a href='B:480 10:28'>Mar 10:28</a></em>.</p><p><em>And immediately they left the nets and followed him</em>- Mark uses this kind of word often, especially in his opening chapters, to create the impression of speed and urgency associated with the Lord Jesus. Immediacy of response is likewise a theme in Matthew. If our lives are in the realm of the Spirit, we will likewise experience the Lord's fast moving activity in our lives and hearts. Whilst each day can seem much like the previous day, the speed of His activity is incredible. And we are to respond immediately to it.</p>


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<p>1:19&nbsp;<em>And going on a little further, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who also were in the boat</em>- The reference to a specific boat suggests that they had been in the boat from which Simon and Andrew had been casting their nets (:16).</p><p><em>Mending the nets</em>- Which were presumably damaged. The implication was that the Lord would give them nets which would not break- the work of the Gospel will always succeed, ultimately. Hence the later acted parable of the nets which did not break despite the 153 fishes caught (John 21). We can assume that they had just had a good catch, hence the need to mend their nets. It was at the peak of their career success, as it were, when they were feeling good about their work... that the Lord asked them to leave it all for Him.</p>


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<p>1:20&nbsp;<em>And immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and went after him</em>- The fishermen disciples were not, therefore, of the lowest social class. They owned a boat and a business large enough to employ workers. Their speed of response and forsaking it all is therefore all the more commendable, a challenge indeed to the middle class. And it is a witness to the power of the seed of the Gospel which John the Baptist had sown in them. Our preaching of the same message may likewise elicit radical response in people quite some time after we first sowed the seed in them. The middle class are uncomfortably, inconveniently challenged by the real call of Jesus; but it's worth reflecting that the majority of the people brought before us in the Bible as examples of faith and commitment were in fact not the poorest of the poor; they were from the middle class of their day. But much was expected of them.</p>


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<p>1:21&nbsp;<em>And they went into Capernaum; and immediately on the Sabbath day he entered into the synagogue and taught</em>- The synagogue minister gave the lesson or sermon, but invited members of the congregation to contribute their thoughts. The Lord's message would therefore have been brief, but so powerful that it astonished people (:22).</p>


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<p>1:22&nbsp;<em>And they were astonished at his teaching, for-&nbsp;</em>The "they" may refer to the newly called disciples. They had not had previous exposure to His teaching; all they had received was the message of John the Baptist. Their immediate response was therefore on a fairly slender knowledge base. The Gospel records twelve times record astonishment at the Lord's teaching. How could the passage of mere ideas from the larynx of a Palestinian Jew be so utterly astonishing, no matter how profound the content of the message? The Old Testament prophets likewise spoke God’s word, but they were met with cynicism and mocking. Surely there was another factor which elicited such astonishment at His teaching, and I suggest it was in the way that His person was so perfectly congruent with the amazing ideas He was teaching. He was after all the word made flesh.</p><p><em>He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes</em>- As noted above, this authority was based upon something. And I suggest it was not His miracles, but rather the congruence between His person and His word. The scribes indeed claimed authority. But the teaching of Jesus somehow had that authority within itself. It was not therefore just the nature or profundity of the ideas and content itself which were authoritative. The astonishment at the Lord's teaching in :27 was because of the actions of Jesus, in that case, in curing a man. The emphasis is perhaps to be placed on the word "having". He really did have authority, and He didn’t need to make any claim to having it. The amazing challenge is in the parable of <em><a href='B:480 13:34'>Mar 13:34</a></em>, where the Lord gives His authority to us His servants... We are not merely standing on a street lamely holding out tracts, offering them to anyone willing to come up and take one. We have an element of His authority if we are teaching His word in His Name; and thus Paul uses the word when speaking of his 'authority in the preaching of the Gospel' (<em><a href='B:530 9:18'>1Co 9:18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:540 10:8'>2Co 10:8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:540 13:10'>2Co 13:10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:600 3:9'>2Th 3:9</a></em>). And in our personal standing before the Father, we likewise have been given authority by the Lord Jesus to be the sons of God (<em><a href='B:500 1:12'>Joh 1:12</a></em>). Paul realized we have each been given this authority, and uses the same word when warning believers not to let their "authority" (AV "this liberty of yours") cause others to stumble (<em><a href='B:530 8:9'>1Co 8:9</a></em>).</p>


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<p>1:23&nbsp;<em>And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out</em>- As John speaks of the "synagogue of the Jews" and a "feast of the Jews". The Old Testament spoke of the feasts of Yahweh and&nbsp;<em>His</em>&nbsp;house; but Israel had hijacked God’s religion and made it their own, just as we can in our day. And indeed the established churches appear to have done just that. "And immediately" suggests the cameraman as it were suddenly introducing a new person to us, with a jolt, "immediately". The impression is being created by the record of a fast moving ministry.</p>


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<p>1:24&nbsp;<em>Saying: What have we to do with you, Jesus, you Nazarene? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are- the Holy One of God</em>- Notice the changes of pronouns from plural to singular. The supposedly spirit-possessed man was what we would call a man suffering from multiple personality disorder or a schizophrenic. Perhaps the dominant personality of the man was that which could say "I know who you are- the Holy One of God". "You Nazarene" may suggest this man had met the Lord previously, and was one of the few who during the Lord's carpenter years had perceived that He was God’s Holy One. Despite his affliction, in his deepest heart and most fundamental personality, the mentally ill man perceived what few others did- that Jesus was the Son of God. The man's less dominant personalities feared condemnation and destruction from this Son of God, and wanted Him to leave. The dominant personality recognized Him as Son of God, and maybe we are to imagine him saying "I know who you are..." said in a totally different tone of voice, as if another person was speaking compared to the ones who feared condemnation and didn’t want closer engagement with Jesus. That same struggle, in essence, goes on in the mind of every person as they come to Jesus; a desire to pull back before it gets too serious and risky, and yet another desire to accept Him for who He is, the saviour Son of God. The Lord's apparent exorcism of the other personalities therefore left the man with who he really was in his heart of confused hearts- a believer in Jesus as God’s Holy Son.</p>


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<p>1:25&nbsp;<em>And Jesus rebuked him, saying: Hold your peace and come out of him</em>- If as suggested on :24, the man had multiple personalities, the Lord is rebuking the less dominant personality. He speaks of course in terms which the man would have related to- of demon possession. The language of "rebuke" is appropriate to rebuking a personality; for one could hardly "rebuke" a person for being mentally disturbed. That is not a moral issue.</p>


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<p>1:26<em>&nbsp;And the unclean spirit, tearing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him</em>-This and :27 are recorded from the perspective of the onlooking crowd, with their beliefs and observations coloured by those beliefs. The video camera of the Gospel writer is as it were focused on them, and therefore the language of demon possession is used. The Greek for "tearing" is literally 'to make gasp'. It is appropriate to an epileptic convulsion or fit. But these incidents are not the work of indwelling demons; for they can be managed by medication today. The convulsion is described in the language of the day, as if there was a struggle within the man, and then in the man's panting afterwards we are invited to imagine a spirit departing from him. There was no actual "unclean spirit" involved; the cure was of personality, as noted on :24, it was as if one of the man's less dominant personalities now left him. And that is the kind of healing which the Lord through the Spirit can work today.</p>


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<p>1:27&nbsp;<em>And they were all amazed, so much so they questioned each other, saying: What is this? What a new teaching With authority he commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him-&nbsp;</em>See on <em><a href='B:480 1:22'>Mar 1:22</a></em>&nbsp;<em>He taught them as one having authority</em>. We can see here one reason why the Lord 'went along' with their misunderstanding about evil spirits. They were left with the impression, within their albeit incorrect worldview, that His&nbsp;<em>teaching</em>&nbsp;had the power to change radically, and to cause a spirit or mindset to depart from a person permanently. They thereby perceived that His words had power; the ideas in His teaching were of themselves powerful.</p>


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<p>1:28&nbsp;<em>And the report of him went out immediately everywhere into all the region of Galilee and thereabout</em>- "Report" in Greek is literally the hearing; as noted on :27, the Lord performed this miracle in terms of their understanding of 'spirits' in order that the hearing about&nbsp;<em>Him</em>&nbsp;might spread. And so it did.</p><p>'Galilee' literally means a circle or ring; the Greek here is a play in words, developing the idea that the Lord's fame spread around around Galilee, the circle, as if in concentric circles rippling out from a lake. This kind of literary device would be an aid to memorization, and is understandable if indeed tradition is correct in claiming that first century Christian converts were required to learn the Gospel of Mark by heart.</p>


text:
<p>1:29&nbsp;<em>And immediately, when they had come out of the synagogue</em>- "Come out" translates the same Greek word used in :28, "went out". This kind of repetition of original words is common in Mark, and was an aid to memorization. This word occurs seven times in Mark 1 alone (:25,26,28,29,35,38,45). An alternative word or method of expression could have been used in most of those cases, so the repetition is purposeful. See on :28.</p><p><em>They came into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John</em>- Perhaps we are intended to see a movement of the Spirit out of the houses of organized religion and into domestic homes, which became the house churches upon which the Christian faith was originally built. See on :33&nbsp;<em>Gathered together at the door</em>.</p>


text:
<p>1:30&nbsp;<em>Now Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever</em>- Gk. 'on fire'. Clearly the unscientific language of the day being used to describe medical conditions, as was the language of demon possession.</p><p><em>And immediately they told him about her</em>- He obviously knew about her condition already. For He is portrayed in the Gospels as the one who knew all things. The gospel records feature often this way they had of telling Him about things which we now can imagine the Lord already knew. The gospel writers are witnessing to their own immaturity, and this admission of personal lack of perception and weakness made their message attractive and compelling to their hearers. It is the same today.</p>


text:
<p>1:31&nbsp;<em>And he came and took her by the hand and raised her up</em>- Most of the other 46 uses of&nbsp;<em>krateo</em>&nbsp;in the NT imply an exertion of significant energy, as if hauling her up; rather than a graceful touch of her hand. There was an expenditure of effort by the Lord in order to heal a person (<em><a href='B:480 5:30'>Mar 5:30</a></em>).</p><p><em>And the fever left her, and she served them</em>- The response to the Lord's healing was and must still be to serve Him through serving His people. Again we note her immediacy of response, such a theme in the gospels Mark especially and the Acts.</p>


text:
<p>1:32&nbsp;<em>When evening came, and when the sun had set, they brought to him all that were sick and those possessed with demons</em>- This is saying the same thing twice. The point being made is surely that these sick people and their relatives waited with impatience until the Sabbath was ended before being healed. The contrast is with Simon's mother-in-law, who was healed on the Sabbath, within the dwelling place of Jesus, and worked in service immediately. There was no need for them to wait; and they must surely have reflected on that, having heard that the woman had been healed that Sabbath afternoon.</p>


text:
<p>1:33&nbsp;<em>And all the city was gathered together at the door</em>- The Greek&nbsp;<em>episunago</em>&nbsp;is related to the word for "synagogue"; see note on :29. A new synagogue had been formed in a house- that surely is the idea.</p>


text:
<p>1:34&nbsp;<em>And he healed many that were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons</em>- The Greek for "healed" is defined by some as meaning "to wait upon menially". The Lord performed His healings in a spirit of humble service. Another form of the word is found in <em><a href='B:650 3:5'>Heb 3:5</a></em>, where Moses is described as a "servant". This is a far cry from the arrogance and self-glory of faith healers today. All that we do for others is to be done in a spirit of menial service; and this means that when they are deeply thankful to us, we will not in any sense be proud. It's just part of what we are called to do on the Lord's behalf, as His servants, doing His work in His power. To the glory of God. The "various diseases" demonstrated His wide ranging power; for healers tended to specialize in specific diseases, claiming power over particular supposed demons. But the Lord could heal all kinds of diseases.</p><p><em>And he did not permit the demons to speak</em>- The same word translated "send forth". The idea could simply be that the Lord didn’t send out these converts as 'sent forth' missionary apostles. "The demons" are put for the supposedly 'demon possessed' people. The focus is ultimately upon the person and not upon whatever was thought to be possessing them. Note how it was the Egyptian people who were judged (<em><a href='B:10 15:14'>Gen 15:14</a></em>); their idols (“gods”) are used by metonymy to stand for those who believed in them. Likewise “demons” is sometimes put by metonymy for those who believed in them.</p><p><em>Because they knew Him-&nbsp;</em>It was the mentally sick who were the main group to 'know him to be the Christ' (<em><a href='B:480 1:34'>Mar 1:34</a></em> RVmg:). And it was a woman, and one with a history of mental illness, who was chosen as the first and leading witness of His resurrection. And women had no legal power as witnesses. The Greek here can be translated to the effect that the Lord did not allow them to preach, which they wanted to do because they knew / recognized Him. In this case, knowing Him naturally leads to a desire to witness to Him. It's the kind of knowledge which cannot be merely theoretical. The Lord had to command those who knew Him not to speak out that knowledge (<em><a href='B:480 1:34'>Mar 1:34</a></em> cp. 44)- because people knew Him, they quite naturally wanted to preach it. One cannot truly know the Lord and not tell others of Him. This is the power of true knowledge, believed as it should be believed. But at this stage the Lord did not wish for yet further mass publicity. His focus was upon training the twelve and others who wished to understand His teachings. The miracles were it seems largely done when people came to the Lord for them, or when in the course of His preaching work, He encountered need such as the hungry crowds who had listened to Him and were starving, even fainting, from lack of food.</p>


text:
<p>1:35<em>&nbsp;And in the morning, a great while before daybreak, he rose up and went out, and departed into a deserted place; and there prayed</em>-<em><a href='B:290 50:4'>Isa 50:4</a></em> prophesies of the Lord Jesus that morning by morning, God awoke His ear "to learn as a disciple". That last phrase is surely to signal the intended similarities between the Lord's path of growth, and that of all disciples. The next two verses go on to predict that because of this morning-by-morning teaching process, "I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting" (<em><a href='B:290 50:5-6'>Isa 50:5-6</a></em>). Thus we come to the cross, the life of cross carrying, as the end result of our morning reflections. It was from His own experience that the Lord could bid us take up our cross-&nbsp;<em>His</em>&nbsp;cross- each morning. The Lord's attitude to prayer was radical in itself. The observant Jew prayed three times / day, the first and last prayers being merely the recital of the&nbsp;<em>shema</em>. Yet Jesus spent hours in those morning and evening prayers (<em><a href='B:480 1:35'>Mar 1:35</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 6:46'>Mar 6:46</a></em>). Perhaps He was motivated in His prayers by the lengthy implications of the fact that Yahweh is indeed one, and this demands so much of us. &nbsp;</p>


text:
<p>1:36&nbsp;<em>And Simon and they that were with him followed after him</em>- The Greek means to search for, implying they found Him on His knees in some discreet corner or behind a bush.</p>


text:
<p>1:37&nbsp;<em>And they found him, and said to him: All are seeking you</em>- <em><a href='B:490 4:42'>Luk 4:42</a></em> says that the crowd, "the people", were seeking Him. But so were Simon and the disciples- and they found Him, whereas the people did not. And that was an acted parable of how they sought and found, but the masses did not 'find' the Lord because they didn’t really seek Him properly. The contrast, therefore, is between how the masses were 'seeking' the Lord; but the disciples "followed after Him" (:36), using the Greek word usually translated 'persecute'. Passing fascination level interest, mere religious curiosity, is not the real seeking for Jesus which will result in finding Him. The contrast between the crowds and the disciples seems to be that they found Him because they searched for Him more passionately.</p>


text:
<p>1:38<em>&nbsp;And he said to them: Let us go elsewhere, into the next towns, so that I may preach there also; for this is why I came</em>-This could imply the Lord was unimpressed by the crowds searching for Him; see on 37&nbsp;<em>All are seeking you</em>. The Lord's focus is presented as being upon preaching, teaching His ways, rather than upon meeting human need through miracles. This strongly impacts our thinking as to whether a purely social gospel is Biblical or even any kind of 'gospel'. The reason for His 'coming' was to preach- not to heal. Otherwise He would have remained where He was, seeing He had attracted droves of sick folks and likely more were now on the way to Him, to be bitterly disappointed that He had abruptly left first thing that morning. His 'coming forth' was not from heaven to earth; the same word is used of how He 'came forth' from Bethlehem (<em><a href='B:470 2:6'>Mat 2:6</a></em>). It refers to His coming to Israel in His ministry. However, we can note that "I came" is the same Greek used in :35: "He went out". He may simply be saying: 'This is why I went out of the house early in the morning; because I must be on My way to take the Gospel further to other towns'.</p>


text:
<p>1:39&nbsp;<em>And throughout all Galilee he went into their synagogues, preaching and casting out demons</em>- See on 1:23&nbsp;<em>Their synagogue</em>. The miracles, the 'casting out of demons', were to back up His preaching; hence "preaching" is mentioned first; see on :38.</p>


text:
<p>1:40&nbsp;<em>And a leper came to him, begging him as he knelt down before him, saying to him</em>- "Begging" is the Greek&nbsp;<em>parakleo</em>; and John's Gospel records at length the Lord's promise to be our<em>&nbsp;parakletos</em>, doing the work of comfort and entreaty,&nbsp;<em>parakleo</em>, for&nbsp;<em>us</em>. We see here the mutuality between a man and his Lord; both relate to each other in the same passionate way, in prayer from our side and in the Lord's gracious response from His side. The&nbsp;<em>parakleo</em>&nbsp;group of words are appropriate to both sides of the relationship.</p><p><em>If you will</em>- The man recognized that it was within the Lord's power to heal him, but he also recognized that the Lord's will is not always ours, as His longer term plan may require Him not to respond to our request in the immediate term. This is a great example to us. For he would have been aware that the Lord did not heal all human need which He encountered; He had just left Simon's house, apparently because He didn’t want to cure all the crowds surely gathering there for healing.</p><p>Faith is inculcated by an appreciation of the height of Christ’s exaltation. He now has all power in Heaven and in earth, and this in itself should inspire us with faith in prayer and hope in His coming salvation. On the basis of passages like <em><a href='B:20 4:7'>Exo 4:7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:40 12:10-15'>Num 12:10-15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:120 5:7-8'>2Ki 5:7-8</a></em>, “leprosy was regarded as a “stroke" only to be removed by the Divine hand which had imposed it" (L:G. Sargent,<em>&nbsp;The Gospel Of The Son Of God</em>, p. 28). The leper of <em><a href='B:480 1:40'>Mar 1:40</a></em> lived with this understanding, and yet he saw in Jesus nothing less than God manifest. Inspired by the height of the position which he gave Jesus in his heart, he could ask him in faith for a cure: “If You will, You can as only God was understood to be able to make me clean".</p><p><em>You can make me clean</em>- The man realized the spiritual dimension of his affliction; for he asks not merely fur healing but specifically to be made clean. The Lord replied that this was indeed His will. This coincidence of human will with that of our Lord is what fellowship with Him and answered prayer is all about. The phrase "If You will, You can..." is recorded identically in all three of the synoptics (<em><a href='B:470 8:2'>Mat 8:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 1:40'>Mar 1:40</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 5:12'>Luk 5:12</a></em>), as if they all wished to draw attention to the man's attitude and make an example of it- accepting that the Lord has all power ("can" =&nbsp;<em>dunamai</em>), but that our will is not always his.</p>


text:
<p>1:41&nbsp;<em>And being moved with compassion</em>- It has been observed that oral performance of texts like e.g. the Gospel of Mark was designed towards producing an emotional impact upon the hearers. We who read the same text and seek quite rightly to understand from it doctrine and practical commands for living somehow miss much of this; we inevitably subject the text to intellectual analysis, whereas the first century audience would have felt from their performance an appeal to convert, to accept, to feel something in response towards the Man Jesus who was presented there. Perhaps this is why a reading of the Gospels produces less response in us than that from a first century group hearing the same Gospels read / performed to them. Thus a first century reciter / listener would have paid special attention to the way Mark indicates the emotional state of Jesus as He said His words- angry (<em><a href='B:480 3:5'>Mar 3:5</a></em>), compassionate (<em><a href='B:480 1:41'>Mar 1:41</a></em>), snorting like a horse (<em><a href='B:480 1:43'>Mar 1:43</a></em> Gk:), troubled and distressed (<em><a href='B:480 14:33'>Mar 14:33</a></em>). Likewise Mark's constant use of the term "immediately..." in his early chapters would've created a sense of urgency, fast flowing narrative, perhaps matched by the reciter speaking quickly.</p><p><em>He stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him: I will. Be cleansed</em>- The Lord responds within the terms of the man's request: "If You will, You can make me clean". We note the man sought cleansing above mere healing; his spiritual need for cleansing was paramount in his mind. We likewise should ask for material blessings motivated by spiritual concerns. The Lord could have cured the man in multiple ways, but he chose to touch the man, making Himself technically unclean; although it could be argued that the cure was so immediate that it was therefore debatable as to whether the Lord had actually touched a leper or not. Surely He did it the way He did to provoke such questions; for the process of questioning led to them becoming the more aware of the fact that the Lord's touch had indeed cleansed the man. And the whole question of ritual uncleanness was of course put in the spotlight. The Lord was and is unafraid to associate with the very dirtiest of human conditions and situations. There was no revulsion from them, as there is not today. The Lord is described a staggering 28 times in the synoptics as touching people. This was a studied rejection of the false teaching of 'guilt by association' or 'contamination by contact'. More than that, the Lord was at such lengths to identify Himself with suffering people.</p>


text:
<p>1:42<em>&nbsp;And immediately the leprosy departed from him and he was made clean; and</em>-For this whole incident, see commentary on <em><a href='B:470 8:1-4'>Mat 8:1-4</a></em>. The immediacy of the cure upon touching the Lord raised all kind of questions for the legalistic mind, as to whether the Lord was made unclean or not (see on :41).</p><p>In <em><a href='B:470 10:8'>Mat 10:8</a></em> the Lord told the disciples to likewise "cleanse the lepers". Again the Lord is giving the disciples the work of the priests to do. For it was their job to pronounce lepers cleansed. But He is asking them to do what He Himself had done here. His work was to be theirs. The later NT references to&nbsp;<em>our</em>&nbsp;being cleansed by the Lord Jesus (<em><a href='B:560 5:26'>Eph 5:26</a></em>; <em><a href='B:630 2:14'>Tit 2:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:690 1:7'>1Jn 1:7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:690 1:9'>1Jn 1:9</a></em> etc:) perhaps look back to how the historical Jesus cleansed lepers in Galilee. We are to see ourselves in that isolated and rejected man.</p><p>The Greek literally means 'scales' and the same word is used of scales falling from Saul's eyes in <em><a href='B:510 9:18'>Act 9:18</a></em>. It could've been any skin disease rather than Hansen's disease.</p>


text:
<p>1:43- see on <em><a href='B:480 1:41'>Mar 1:41</a></em>.</p><p><em>He immediately sent him away with a stern warning</em>- As noted on :45, the stampede of people wanting healing meant that the Lord was unable to perform His most important ministry, which was to preach rather than to heal; see on :39.</p>


text:
<p>1:44&nbsp;<em>Saying to him: See you say nothing to anyone, but go show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing the things which Moses commanded, for a testimony to them-&nbsp;</em>The Lord had told the cured leper to tell no other man but go and offer for his cleansing, in order to make a witness to the priests. All three synoptics record this, as if it made a special impression on everyone (<em><a href='B:470 8:4'>Mat 8:4</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 1:44'>Mar 1:44</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 5:14'>Luk 5:14</a></em>). It could be that the Lord is using an idiom when He told the leper to tell nobody: ‘Go and make a witness&nbsp;first and foremost&nbsp;to the priests as opposed to anybody else’. Such was His zeal for their salvation. And the fact that “a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith” (<em><a href='B:510 6:7'>Act 6:7</a></em>) shows how this apparently hope-against-hope desire of the Lord for the conversion of His enemies somehow came true. We noted on <em><a href='B:470 8:3'>Mat 8:3</a></em> that the work of the priests was to cleanse the leper- but this had been done by the Lord. The man was therefore to show himself to the priests- in order to demonstrate to them that another priest and priesthood was already coming into operation.</p>


text:
<p>1:45&nbsp;<em>But he went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the news, so much so that Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, but stayed in deserted places</em>- If we put the stress on the word "openly", we are left imagining Jesus somehow disguising Himself in order to enter the towns. This is the reason why the Lord so sternly charged the healed man not to spread the news (:43); the stampede of people wanting healing meant that the Lord was unable to perform His most important ministry, which was to preach rather than to heal; see on :39.</p><p><em>But still they came to him from every quarter</em>- This was a small foretaste of people from every direction coming to Messiah. The Lord's life experiences, like ours, were a living exemplification of the future Kingdom experience.</p>


text:
<p>2:1- see on <em><a href='B:480 6:2'>Mar 6:2</a></em>. For this section on the healing of the man carried by four, see on <em><a href='B:470 9:1-6'>Mat 9:1-6</a></em>.</p><p><em>And after some days, when he entered again into Capernaum, it became known that he was in the house</em>- The "that" is recitative, so the sense is 'It was reported- He is in the house'. This was the level of gossipy attention paid to the Lord, which must have been so irritating: "He has gone into the house, and is there". Again we get the impression that the Lord was not interested in mass public meetings and healings; His focus was upon training the twelve and teaching the Gospel. It seems He was almost hiding away in the house. Not surprisingly, because He left there because of the attention caused by His miracles, and He had been hunted down even in the deserted places by those eager for a miracle (<em><a href='B:480 1:45'>Mar 1:45</a></em>).</p>


text:
<p><em><a href='B:480 2:2'>Mar 2:2</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room, not even about the door; and he spoke the word to them</em>- "Gathered together" is literally 'synagogued', and this continues the idea noted on <em><a href='B:480 1:29'>Mar 1:29</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 1:33'>Mar 1:33</a></em> that the Lord was effectively setting up a new Israel, with synagogues in homes, in public places, under fig trees- anywhere, where the Lord's followers gathered together. We can be sure that the "house" where he was was likely that of Simon, and the crowds of people wanted healings. For they had descended on that same house for healing in <em><a href='B:480 1:33'>Mar 1:33</a></em>. But instead of reading that He healed them, we read that He preached to them. Mark is stressing that this was the Lord's essential ministry. The fact He chose to heal just one person was because He perceived deep faith in those who brought him, and also because He wished to make a point out of that healing- but again, harnessed to the objective of teaching the people.</p>


text:
<p>2:3&nbsp;<em>And they came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them</em>- The Greek for "carried" means literally to be taken up or away, and reflects the Hebrew term used for the bearing away of sin. And :5 confirms this association by stating that it was through the faith of the four friends that the man's sins were forgiven. This is the huge horizon of potential which there is for us in our efforts for others- we can even play a role in the Lord forgiving them their sins. This lifts the concept of pastoral work far beyond mere doing of good works. See on <em><a href='B:480 7:32-35'>Mar 7:32-35</a></em>.</p>


text:
<p>2:4&nbsp;<em>And when they could not come near to him for the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was; and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed whereon the paralyzed man lay</em>- This was all done in faith, and by doing this the Lord saw their faith (:5). "Bed" is Gk. a table or a couch. They had grabbed whatever could serve as a stretcher.</p>


text:
<p>2:5&nbsp;<em>And Jesus seeing their faith, said to the paralyzed man-&nbsp;</em>This is emphasized in all the accounts of this incident. Because of the faith of third parties, the sins of this man were forgiven. James speaks of the same possibility (<em><a href='B:660 5:15'>Jas 5:15</a></em> - the same Greek words for "sins" and "forgiven" are used there). Here we have a principle which can totally affect the course and hourly practice of our lives. In some cases, the sins of others can be forgiven because of&nbsp;<em>our</em>&nbsp;faith. Job understood that when he offered for his sons after their wild parties. Of course there are invisible limits to the principle, but many of those with whom we have to do in church life are surely within those limits. Quite simply, the salvation of others depends to some extent and in some cases- upon our faith and prayers, and effort to get them to Jesus. This imparts huge and eternal significance to our lives, lived and prayed for others. The same Greek words for "sins" and "forgiven" are used again in the enigmatic <em><a href='B:500 20:23'>Joh 20:23</a></em>: "Whose soever sins you forgive, they are forgiven them". I suspect this is John's version of the great commission to preach the Gospel of forgiveness to others- the idea being that if we bring them to Jesus, then thanks to our efforts for them, they will be forgiven. And if we are slack to do this, then God may not always find another way, and their sins remain unforgiven. Prayer really does change things. God is willing to do things in the life of a third party (even forgive them) for the sake of the prayers and efforts of others. That man was healed for the sake of the faith of others. The widow woman’s son was resurrected because God heard Elijah’s faithful prayer (<em><a href='B:110 17:22'>1Ki 17:22</a></em>). Prayer really does change things. God is willing to do things in the life of a third party (even forgive them) for the sake of the prayers and efforts of others:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Son, your sins are forgiven</em>- The Lord emphasized this first, and then went on to heal him physically. It's common for the sick and their carers to focus almost exclusively upon their need for healing, whereas the most essential human need is for forgiveness. So the Lord stressed the forgiveness first, and the healing secondly. Clearly there was a link in this case between sin and illness. It could be argued that the two things are connected as they both arise from the curse in Eden. But I would suggest that it's likely that in this case, the connection between the man's paralysis and his sin was more direct. We too often shrug at those in such situations and consider that 'it's their fault'. So it may be, but if a man digs a hole and falls into it, he's still in the hole. And we have all done this, and the Gospel was designed for us exactly because we have done that. There is an inevitable connection between this incident and <em><a href='B:290 33:24'>Isa 33:24</a></em>, where we read of the restored Zion that "the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity". The Lord is implying here as elsewhere that the prophecies of the restored Zion were to be fulfilled in the lives of individuals who had come to Him, and not in the literal glorification and exaltation of Jerusalem over the Roman occupiers.</p>


text:
<p>2:6&nbsp;<em>But some of the scribes sitting there questioned in their hearts</em>- <em><a href='B:470 9:3'>Mat 9:3</a></em> "said within themselves".</p><p>Consider the huge emphasis of the New Testament upon 'thinking / talking within oneself', especially within the Gospels. The same Greek phrase is used repeatedly:<br/>- "Think not to say within yourselves" (<em><a href='B:470 3:9'>Mat 3:9</a></em>)<br/>- "The scribes said within themselves" (<em><a href='B:470 9:3'>Mat 9:3</a></em>)<br/>- "She said within herself" (<em><a href='B:470 9:21'>Mat 9:21</a></em>)<br/>- The believer who fails to grow spiritually has no root "within himself" (<em><a href='B:470 13:21'>Mat 13:21</a></em>)<br/>- "They reasoned within themselves... Why do you reason within yourselves..." (<em><a href='B:470 16:7-8'>Mat 16:7-8</a></em>)<br/>- "The husbandmen... said within themselves" (<em><a href='B:470 21:38'>Mat 21:38</a></em>)<br/>- The disciples "disputed within themselves" (<em><a href='B:480 9:33'>Mar 9:33</a></em>)<br/>- Have salt "within yourselves" (<em><a href='B:480 9:50'>Mar 9:50</a></em>)<br/>- The Pharisee "spake within himself" (<em><a href='B:490 7:39'>Luk 7:39</a></em>)<br/>- The guests "began to say within themselves" (<em><a href='B:490 7:49'>Luk 7:49</a></em>)<br/>- The rich fool "thought within himself, saying..." (<em><a href='B:490 12:17'>Luk 12:17</a></em>)<br/>- "The steward said within himself" (<em><a href='B:490 16:3'>Luk 16:3</a></em>)<br/>- The unjust judge "said within himself" (<em><a href='B:490 18:4'>Luk 18:4</a></em>)<br/>- Peter "doubted in himself" (<em><a href='B:510 10:17'>Act 10:17</a></em>)<br/>- Jews who heard the Gospel "reasoned within themselves" (<em><a href='B:510 28:29'>Act 28:29</a></em> Gk:)<br/>- Israel "through the lusts of their own hearts... dishonoured their bodies within themselves" (<em><a href='B:520 1:24'>Rom 1:24</a></em>)<br/>- "Within yourselves... you have a better and enduring substance" (<em><a href='B:650 10:34'>Heb 10:34</a></em>)<br/>- "Partial within yourselves, judges of evil thoughts" (<em><a href='B:660 2:4'>Jas 2:4</a></em>).</p><p>There are many other Bible verses which likewise speak of the internal state of a person and the significance of our self-talk- these are just examples of one Greek phrase. It is logical therefore to expect that the great adversary or 'satan' to be internal thinking, how we think and speak within ourselves. And properly understood, this is indeed what 'satan' in the Bible sometimes refers to.</p>


text:
<p>2:7&nbsp;<em>Why does this man speak so? He blasphemes. Who can forgive sins but one- God</em>- The Jews got caught up on the issue of whether Christ's forgiveness of others made Him God or not- just as some folk do today. His response was to refocus them on the fact that He wanted&nbsp;<em>you</em>&nbsp;to<em>&nbsp;know</em>&nbsp;that He had real power to forgive&nbsp;<em>their</em>&nbsp;sins (<em><a href='B:490 5:24'>Luk 5:24</a></em>). I spend a lot of time arguing against the trinity and the 'Jesus = God' mentality. But the essence is, do we&nbsp;<em>know</em>&nbsp;on a personal level that the Lord Jesus really has the power to forgive&nbsp;<em>our</em>&nbsp;sins?</p><p>We should deeply note at this point that the thoughts of men in their hearts are known to the Father and Son, and have been recorded publicly here in these records for many centuries.</p>


text:
<p>2:8<em>&nbsp;And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit what they questioned within themselves, said to them: Why do you question these things in your hearts?</em>- Perhaps we're helped to understand the ability of the mind / spirit of the Lord Jesus to connect with that of human beings by <em><a href='B:480 2:8'>Mar 2:8</a></em>: "Now immediately, when Jesus realized in his spirit that they were contemplating such thoughts, he said to them, "Why are you thinking such things in your hearts?" (NET Bible). The spirit / mind of Jesus was at one with the spirit / mind of those men. Such was His sensitivity. I don't think it was a gift of Holy Spirit knowledge so much as His sensitivity to the minds of men... and yet <em><a href='B:520 8:16'>Rom 8:16</a></em> calls Jesus "The Spirit" as a title, saying that He bears witness with our spirit / mind, in His intercession to the Father. So <em><a href='B:480 2:8'>Mar 2:8</a></em> gives us as it were an insight into how He&nbsp;<em>now</em>&nbsp;operates too... He's the same today as yesterday. He's at one with our mind / spirit, and also with the mind / Spirit of the Father. Thus is He such a matchless mediator.</p>


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<p>2:9<em>&nbsp;Which one is easier to say to the paralyzed man?-&nbsp;</em>Gk. 'less work'. The Lord meant 'Which is easier&nbsp;for Me'. There were plenty of claims to heal people; but to forgive sins was of a different order altogether. But the Lord is saying that for Him, they are one and the same; and that His healing was performed in this case on the basis of having forgiven the man his sin. Not only could He forgive sin, but in this case He could remove the consequence of it. For the Lord healed the man&nbsp;<em>so that&nbsp;</em>they would realize that He had power to forgive sins (:10).</p><p><em>Your sins are forgiven; or to say, Arise, pick up your bed and walk-</em>&nbsp;The same words used by Peter when he tells the lame man to 'arise and walk' (<em><a href='B:510 3:6'>Act 3:6</a></em>). Peter consciously or unconsciously replicated his Lord in doing healing miracles. The very body language and word choice of the Lord were so impressed upon him that they became the pattern for&nbsp;<em>his</em>&nbsp;ministry; and the same should be true of us. The paralyzed man of <em><a href='B:500 5:8'>Joh 5:8</a></em> was likewise told to arise, take up his bed and walk- using the same words used here about the paralyzed man. Clearly the Lord Jesus worked with people according to some pattern. And we can discern similar hallmarks of His work as we get to know each other within the body of Christ today, perceiving as we exchange stories and testimonies that the Lord in essence works in similar ways between human lives today.</p><p>The disciples observed as Jesus made a lame man&nbsp;<em>arise</em>, take up his bed, and follow Him (<em><a href='B:490 5:25'>Luk 5:25</a></em>). But in <em><a href='B:510 9:34'>Act 9:34</a></em>, we find Peter doing just the same to Aeneas, even taking him by the hand as he had seen Jesus do to Jairus’ daughter. What Peter had seen and learnt of the Lord Jesus, he was now called to do. Not for nothing did he tell Aeneas that “Jesus Christ maketh thee whole”, thereby recognizing the connection between him and his Lord.</p>


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<p>2:10&nbsp;<em>But so you may know</em>- He cured the man sick of a palsy that the onlooking, cynical Scribes&nbsp;<em>might know</em>&nbsp;that He had power to forgive sins. He didn’t&nbsp;<em>only</em>&nbsp;reward the faith of the man’s friends; His motive for the miracle was to seek to teach those Scribes. Our tendency surely would have been to ignore them, to be angry that in the face of grace they could be so legalistic and petty and so far, far from God... and get on and heal the sick man who believed. But the Lord’s picture of human salvation was far wider and more inclusive and more hopeful than that.</p><p>The reason for the healing miracle was to teach that He could forgive sins. This is why I suggest that in this man's case, his paralysis was a direct and publicly known result of his sin. Perhaps he had been alcoholic, or become paralyzed in an accident whilst stealing something. In this case his friends are to be commended for so wanting his healing, because many would have shrugged him off as someone who was suffering justly. The link between his illness and his sin was so clear that to heal him was seen as effectively forgiving him&nbsp;<em>and</em>&nbsp;removing the consequence of his sin. David, Moses and others often asked for the consequences of sin to be removed and at times received this. The palsied man was healed by the Lord in order to&nbsp;<em>teach others</em>&nbsp;that Jesus had the power to forgive sins. Job was a “perfect” man before the afflictions started; and he is presented as a ‘perfect’ man at the end. The purpose of his trials was not only to develop him, but also in order to teach the friends and we readers some lessons. The purpose of our trials too may not only be for our benefit, but for that of others. If we suffer anything, it is so that we might help others (<em><a href='B:540 1:4'>2Co 1:4</a></em>).</p><p><em>That the Son of Man</em>- The humanity of Jesus was the very basis upon which He could and can forgive human sin. This is why 9:8 records that the crowds praised God for having given such power&nbsp;<em>unto men</em>. He understood Himself as rightful judge of humanity exactly because He was "son of man" (<em><a href='B:500 5:27'>Joh 5:27</a></em>)- because every time we sin, He as a man would've chosen differently, He is therefore able to be our judge. And likewise, exactly because He was a "son of man", "the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" (<em><a href='B:480 2:10'>Mar 2:10</a></em>). If it is indeed true that "'Son of Man' represents the highest conceivable declaration of exaltation in Judaism", then we can understand the play on words the Lord was making- for the term 'son of man' can also without doubt just mean 'humanity generally'. Exactly because He was human, and yet perfect, He was so exalted.</p><p>He understood Himself as rightful judge of humanity exactly because He was "son of man" (<em><a href='B:500 5:27'>Joh 5:27</a></em>)- because every time we sin, He as a man would've chosen differently, He is therefore able to be our judge. And likewise, exactly because He was a "son of man", "the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins". If it is indeed true that "'Son of Man' represents the highest conceivable declaration of exaltation in Judaism", then we can understand the play on words the Lord was making- for the term 'son of man' can also without doubt just mean 'humanity generally'. Exactly because He was human, and yet perfect, He was so exalted.</p><p><em>Has authority on earth to forgive sins</em>- He had that power during His mortal life, and yet after His resurrection "<em>all</em>&nbsp;power is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth" (<em><a href='B:470 28:18'>Mat 28:18</a></em>). His power to save and forgive is therefore even greater. Perhaps the contrast was that He had the power of forgiveness delegated to Him in specific cases during His ministry, but after the resurrection He had power in His own right to forgive, not on the basis of delegated power but power / authority in His own Name; even though that exalted position was of course given Him by God the Father.</p><p><em>He said to the paralyzed man</em>- As if He turned from the Jews to the paralyzed man. It could be that the healing was really for the benefit of the hard hearted scribes- the Lord was going to all this trouble to try to persuade them of His authority as God’s Son. We would likely have given up with them, but the way the Lord kept on trying with the orthodox Jews of His day is an essay in perseverance in witnessing. And amazingly, it paid off- in that a number of priests and Pharisees were baptized after His resurrection (<em><a href='B:510 6:7'>Act 6:7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 15:5'>Act 15:5</a></em>).</p>


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<p>2:11&nbsp;<em>I say to you Arise, pick up your bed and go to your house</em>- The same word is used for taking up the cross (<em><a href='B:470 16:24'>Mat 16:24</a></em>), and the Greek for "bed" is also translated a table or couch. He was to pick up a piece of wood and go his way. He was given a simple task of obedience immediately after meeting with Jesus, and we can see that pattern repeated in how the Lord works with people today.</p><p>The Lord was sensitive to the situation of those He healed or converted. Just as He commanded the resurrected girl to be given something to eat, so He realized the pressure that would be on the healed man- and so He told him to go home immediately and thus avoid the limelight.</p>


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<p>2:12&nbsp;<em>And he arose and immediately picked up the bed, and went out in full view of them all. They were all amazed and glorified God, saying: We have never seen anything like this before</em>- The immediacy of the cure, especially in response to the faith of third parties, was utterly unknown amongst those who had seen too many fake healers attempting to heal illness. "In full view of them all" is another hint that the miracle was for teaching purposes; the Lord was surrounded by people eager for healing, and instead He taught them.</p>


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<p>2:13&nbsp;<em>And he went out again by the sea side; and all the crowd went to him and he taught them</em>- The imperfect tenses mean they kept on coming to Him, and He kept on teaching them. The interest in miracles had given way to interest in His teaching, just as the Lord had intended. His location by the lake side was perhaps in order to require some effort by the people to come to Him; and there were no houses large enough to hold the crowds coming to Him anyway.</p>


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<p>2:14&nbsp;<em>And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus-&nbsp;</em><em><a href='B:470 9:9'>Mat 9:9</a></em> calls him Matthew. Matthew’s preaching of the Gospel makes reference to himself as if he had no personal awareness of himself as he recounted his part in the Gospel events. Whilst personal testimony has a role, the Gospel is about Jesus and therefore "we preach not ourselves" but Christ as Lord and Saviour. If the focus is upon us rather than Him, then we are failing dismally. The humility of the Gospel writers when they refer to themselves is highly instructive. There is reason to believe that Matthew was himself a converted Scribe, who had perhaps turned away from it to being a tax collector; the way he has access to various versions of Scripture and quotes them as having been fulfilled in a way reminiscent of the Jewish commentaries (compare <em><a href='B:470 4:12-17'>Mat 4:12-17</a></em> with <em><a href='B:480 1:14-15'>Mar 1:14-15</a></em>) suggests this. Matthew's other name was Levi, strengthening the possibility he was once a Levitical scribe; for the scribes were drawn from the priests and Levites. The point is that in this case Matthew would be referring to himself when he writes: “Every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old” (<em><a href='B:470 13:52'>Mat 13:52</a></em>). Yet he does so in a beautifully oblique and selfless manner. The Scribes have just been mentioned in the previous incident, which apparently took place within sight of Matthew's desk (<em><a href='B:470 9:3'>Mat 9:3</a></em>).</p><p><em>Sitting at the tax office-&nbsp;</em>It's hard to grasp the degree to which tax collectors were despised and distrusted. We may at times think that we need to show our best front personally when preaching the Gospel, to display our credentials, in order to persuade others of our message. Matthew thought otherwise. He was quite open about who he had been when he was called. Human credentials do not ultimately persuade men and women of Christ- a degree in theology, knowledge of Hebrew or Greek, academic status, a stable career, an externally spotless family history. Rather do the Gospels show us that it is those from questionable backgrounds who are chosen by the Lord as His most effective messengers. The content of the message ultimately far outweighs the credibility of the messenger. And the same is seen today in the preaching of the Gospel:&nbsp;</p><p>It was whilst he was at work that he was called, just as the other disciples were called exactly whilst they were about their fishing business, and like Matthew, left all and "followed" the Lord. This is when the call of Christ comes to us- in the very midst of secular life, rather than resting at home looking at a screen.</p><p><em>And he said to him: Follow me-&nbsp;</em>The Greek means to share the same road with. And the road or way of Jesus led to Jerusalem, to the death of the cross, and then to life eternal. The word is used about 80 times in the Gospels. The call was to follow Jesus; the crowds followed, the disciples followed, but often the Lord tries to teach them the difference between merely externally following Him on the same public road, and following Him as He intends; which is to carry a cross and follow Him to Golgotha. We who follow Him in our life situations today are in essence continuing the following of Him which began in those early days in Galilee. But we likewise are challenged as to whether our following is mere membership of a denomination, or a personal following of Him:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p><em>And he arose and followed him</em>- Exactly as he had just observed the paralyzed man obediently arise and go where the Lord told him (another example of Mark highlighting immediate response to the Lord's call). As the man was laying on the 'bed', so Matthew was sitting 'on' the receipt of custom, the elevated chair and desk (<em>epi</em>, translated "at", is better translated in this context "on").</p><p>The Lord valued persons for who they were, and this had radical results in practice. And yet He spoke with "authority" in the eyes of the people. What gave Him this? Surely it was His lifestyle, who He was, the way there was no gap between His words and who He was. The word of the Gospel, the message, was made flesh in Him. There was a perfect congruence between His theory and His practice. The repeated amazement which people expressed at the Lord's teaching may not only refer to the actual content of His material; but more at the way in which He expressed it, the unique way in which word was made flesh in Him. The way the Lord could ask men to follow Him, and they arose and followed (<em><a href='B:480 2:14'>Mar 2:14</a></em>), is surely testimony to the absolute, direct and unaccountable authority of Jesus. It was surely His very ordinariness which made Him so compelling. &nbsp;</p>


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<p>2:15&nbsp;<em>And it came to pass, that as he was dining in Levi's house-&nbsp;</em>Matthew's account is vague about whose house it was; he just says "the house" in his record. We note Matthew's humility in his recounting of the Gospel, that he leaves the identity of the house vague. He had no desire to boast that he had once hosted Jesus within his private home. Humility and self-abnegation must really be the lead characteristics of all tellers of the Gospel.</p><p><em>Many tax collectors and sinners sat down with Jesus and his disciples. For there were many, and they followed him</em>- Clearly the associates of Matthew. They came and sat down with Jesus whilst He was eating. And He accepted them, even though to eat with a person was seen as a religious act of fellowship. The Lord's open table was and is scandalous to the religiously minded. <em><a href='B:490 5:30'>Luk 5:30</a></em> RVmg. describes how publicans and sinners had Pharisees and Scribes among them as they all sat at the same table gathered around Jesus. There was something in His person and teaching which welded people together:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>2:16&nbsp;<em>And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples: How is it that he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?</em>- To break your bread with someone, to eat together, was a religious act in Palestinian Jewish society. The Lord broke His bread with sinners in order to bring them to repentance; not because He considered they had cleared some kind of bar of moral and doctrinal acceptability. His table was open, radically so, and so should ours be.</p>


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<p>2:17<em>&nbsp;And when Jesus heard it, he said to them-&nbsp;</em>The way the Lord Jesus 'knew' things because of His extreme sensitivity, rather than necessarily by some flash of Holy Spirit insight, isn't unparalleled amongst other men. Elisha knew what Gehazi had done when Gehazi went back to ask Naaman for a reward- Elisha commented: "Went not my heart with you, when the man turned again from his chariot to meet you?" (<em><a href='B:120 5:26'>2Ki 5:26</a></em>). Elisha imagined Naaman dismounting from his chariot, etc. And he could guess that the request had involved "money... garments" etc. That the Lord's knowledge wasn't necessarily automatic is reflected in the way we read things like "When he saw their faith... when Jesus heard it..." (<em><a href='B:480 2:5'>Mar 2:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 2:17'>Mar 2:17</a></em>). He 'saw' and knew things by the sensitivity of His perception.</p><p><em>They that are whole have no need of a doctor-&nbsp;</em>Literally, a healer. The same word is used of how "by his stripes you were healed" (<em><a href='B:670 2:24'>1Pe 2:24</a></em>). All who will finally be saved have been healed by Jesus. Therefore "they that be whole" must be understood as meaning 'those who&nbsp;<em>think they are</em>&nbsp;whole'. The Lord's healing work was done by fellowshipping with those who realized their need for healing. He broke His bread with them first; He didn’t heal them and then invite only the healed to His exclusive table. This breaking of bread with them was a 'calling to repentance' (<em><a href='B:480 9:13'>Mar 9:13</a></em>). The many records of the Lord's physical healing were all intended to be acted parables of His healing of spiritual sickness</p><p>The Greek word for "whole" or healthy is usually translated with the sense of 'being able'. The Lord's work was with them who felt&nbsp;<em>unable</em>&nbsp;to be righteous, who felt that circumstance and past history had left them spiritually incapacitated. Perception of need and spiritual helplessness is the vital prerequisite. The Lord healed "them that had need of healing" (<em><a href='B:490 9:11'>Luk 9:11</a></em>), those who perceived their need. The Lord uses the same word in speaking of how He doesn't go find and save those "which need no repentance" (<em><a href='B:490 15:11'>Luk 15:11</a></em>); again, an ellipsis must be read in: 'Those who&nbsp;<em>think they</em>&nbsp;need no repentance'. And again in <em><a href='B:730 3:17'>Rev 3:17</a></em> - the Laodiceans thought that they "had need of nothing". This, therefore, was a major concern of the Lord- that we cease to perceive our need for Him. The attitude that 'I have no need…' is picked up by Paul in <em><a href='B:530 12:21'>1Co 12:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 12:24'>1Co 12:24</a></em>, where he warns against thinking that we have no need of weaker members of the body of Christ. Our need for Christ personally is to be reflected in practice in our need for association with His body, however weak we feel it to be. God supplies all our need in Christ (<em><a href='B:570 4:19'>Phi 4:19</a></em>), but that supplying of our need is not solely in the death of Christ for us, but in the body of Christ:&nbsp;</p><p><em>But they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance</em>- It was the disciples, including Matthew, who had only recently been 'called' (<em><a href='B:470 4:21'>Mat 4:21</a></em>). They were not the most righteous of people. The fellowship of the Lord Jesus was a call to or towards repentance, not a reward for it. See on <em><a href='B:470 3:11'>Mat 3:11</a></em>; John baptized people&nbsp;<em>unto</em>&nbsp;repentance. The methods of the Lord should be ours, for having spent His ministry doing this, He transferred it to us in bidding us likewise go worldwide and call others to repentance (<em><a href='B:490 24:47'>Luk 24:47</a></em>).</p>


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<p>2:18&nbsp;<em>And John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and they came, and said to him: Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?-&nbsp;</em>Implying they didn’t even do so at the Day of Atonement, the one Biblical command for fasting? The Lord's disciples were mostly secular men whom He was trying to turn into spiritual people. And this continues to be the thrust of His work with people. The focus of our preaching should likewise be on getting unspiritual, secular people to believe, rather than focusing on trying to persuade those who already believe in Him to change their understandings of some points. I don't say we shouldn't do this, but far more will be achieved to His glory by bringing unbelievers to faith, rather than correcting misbelievers. Another reason why John's disciples thought the Lord's men didn’t fast could have been because they took seriously His command to not appear to others to fast. And John's disciples proclaiming their fasting meant they were overlooking the Lord's clear teaching&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;to do this in the Sermon on the Mount. But in His gracious way, the Lord didn’t point out the obvious&nbsp;<em>faux pas</em>&nbsp;in their reasoning. He could've said 'John told you to obey Me. I teach not to proclaim your own fasting. Why aren't you obedient to My teaching?'. But instead He reasoned with them on their own ground. And again, we see a pattern for our engagement with others- not to always baldly confront misunderstanding and reduce it to a right / wrong, black and white issue, but to lead the person further by accepting for a moment that their faulty assumptions are true; for they are true to the person who holds them, and the Lord recognized that.</p><p>We also see the Lord's gentle grace in teaching His disciples how to fast, acting as if they were not fasting; when actually they never fasted at all until that point. He wanted them to continue showing themselves to be secular men, who really believed in Jesus. This had been exactly His approach until age 30, to manifest God’s perfection through the shroud of ordinariness.</p><p><em>&nbsp;</em></p>


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<p>2:19<em>&nbsp;And Jesus said to them: Can the sons of the bride chamber fast-&nbsp;</em>John had likened himself to the Lord's best man at a forthcoming wedding. The Lord phrases his reply to John's disciples in terms they would've understood- a pattern for us to follow in our response to people. Note too that the Lord's answer implied that His wedding was about to happen. He hoped against hope that Israel would respond, and the Messianic banquet would be soon. But in His later parables, He spoke of how even the guests couldn't be bothered to attend it; it was delayed until human response was suitable. But His hopefulness for human response is again a pattern for us, to have a hopeful attitude in our witness.</p><p><em>While the bridegroom is with them?-&nbsp;</em>The joy of the bridegroom's friends is a sharing of the groom's joy. John's Gospel records this truth in a different way when speaking of how the Lord's joy is to be our joy (<em><a href='B:500 15:11'>Joh 15:11</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 17:13'>Joh 17:13</a></em>); at His return, we will enter into His joy (<em><a href='B:470 25:21'>Mat 25:21</a></em>). We note again how the Lord phrased His response to John's disciples in terms they would best relate to- for John had said that his joy was complete, because he was 'the friend of the bridegroom' (<em><a href='B:500 3:29'>Joh 3:29</a></em>). The Lord is saying here that His disciples are also friends of the bridegroom- He is seeking to persuade John's disciples that actually His disciples are the same as they are, notwithstanding differences in spiritual culture, in that they are related to Jesus in the same way, as friends of the groom. The Lord was always very positive about His followers. He explained their lack of fasting on their joy at the forthcoming Messianic banquet, when in reality their lack of fasting was because they were secular, non-religious people. The Lord wasn’t naïve, although He was so positive. He told the disciples quite frankly that they were full of “unbelief”, and couldn’t do miracles which He expected them to because they didn’t pray and fast (<em><a href='B:470 17:19-21'>Mat 17:19-21</a></em>). And yet when quizzed by the Pharisees as to why His disciples didn’t fast, He said it was because they were so happy to be with Him, the bridegroom (<em><a href='B:470 9:15'>Mat 9:15</a></em>). Here surely He was seeing the best in them. They come over as confused, mixed up men who wanted the Kingdom there and then and were frustrated at the Lord’s inaction in establishing it. But He saw that they recognised Him as the bridegroom, as Messiah, and He exalted in this, and saw their lack of fasting as partly due to the deep-down joy which He knew they had.</p><p><em>As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast</em>-&nbsp;<em>&nbsp;</em>Time and again, the Lord uses language about the restoration from exile and applies it to Himself. Thus fasting was common amongst Palestinian Jews of His time, and it was involved with mourning the destruction of the temple and Judah's submission to Rome. And yet the Lord pronounced that the days of fasting were over, and His people were to be feasting because of His work (<em><a href='B:480 2:19'>Mar 2:19</a></em>). But He brought no freedom from Rome, and spoke of the principles of the Messianic Kingdom as being non-resistance to evil rather than military resistance to it. He spoke of Yahweh as 'visiting' His people- but not to save them as they expected, but rather to judge them, with Messiah on His behalf at the head of the Roman armies who would come to destroy Jerusalem and the temple. And thus Jesus deeply disappointed people who didn’t want to change their self-centred, nationalistic outlook- those who didn’t want to see things spiritually rather than naturally, those who refused to accept the extent of Israel's sin.</p>


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<p>2:20- see on <em><a href='B:500 14:2'>Joh 14:2</a></em>.</p><p><em>But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them. In that day, they will fast</em>-</p><p>The Gk:&nbsp;<em>apairo</em>&nbsp;is a form of the Greek&nbsp;<em>pairo</em>&nbsp;which has just been used ("<em>take up</em>&nbsp;your bed" <em><a href='B:470 9:6'>Mat 9:6</a></em>) and which is now used in the next verse about the new cloth 'taking from' the old garment (<em><a href='B:470 9:16'>Mat 9:16</a></em>). What exactly the connection of thought might be is hard to say. But clearly the 'taking of Jesus from' the disciples was to be at the same time as when the new wine and new cloth were available, which would 'take from' the old cloth in destroying it. This time was surely the death of the Lord Jesus, at which the new wine of His blood confirmed the new covenant and thus ended the old. It was then of course that the disciples mourned (s:w. <em><a href='B:480 16:10'>Mar 16:10</a></em> "they&nbsp;<em>mourned</em>&nbsp;and wept"); and the same Greek word for 'taken from' occurs in <em><a href='B:500 19:15'>Joh 19:15</a></em> where the Jews cry "Away with Him"- to the cross; in <em><a href='B:500 19:31'>Joh 19:31</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 19:38'>Joh 19:38</a></em> where the body of Jesus is 'taken from' the cross and in <em><a href='B:510 8:33'>Act 8:33</a></em> "His life is&nbsp;<em>taken from</em>&nbsp;the earth". Significantly, <em><a href='B:580 2:14'>Col 2:14</a></em> uses the word to describe how on the cross, Christ 'took away' the old covenant. This is the idea of its usage in <em><a href='B:470 9:16'>Mat 9:16</a></em>, that the new wine and new garment would 'take from / away' the old. And it was achieved by the 'taking away' of Jesus at the cross. Through the grace of Jesus, He is in love with us; He has called us to be His bride. He sees us in an extremely positive light. He counts us as righteous to a degree that is a real struggle to believe- even during His ministry, "when we were yet sinners", and when the only example He had of His bride were those faltering 12. He tells the Jews that&nbsp;His people will fast and mourn for His absence after His departure, with the intensity that the friends of the bridegroom would have if the groom suddenly collapsed and died at the wedding (this seems to be the picture of <em><a href='B:470 9:15'>Mat 9:15</a></em>, seeing "taken away" as an idiom for sudden death). This is surely a positive view of the sorrow of the body of Christ for their Lord's absence. Even if we see in this mini-parable only a description of the disciples' sorrow after the&nbsp;Lord's death, He is giving a very positive description of the disciples' joy, saying that they didn’t fast for joy of being with Him; He describes their joy as the joy of the friends of the groom at the wedding. Yet the Gospels paint the twelve as a struggling, uncertain group of men, eaten up with the petty arguments of this life, unused to the self-control of fasting. Peter, for example, had until very recently been a possibly immoral young fisherman (<em><a href='B:670 4:3'>1Pe 4:3</a></em>):&nbsp;The happiness of the disciples is explained in terms of them being at a wedding. The happiness of the wedding is normally associated with alcohol, and the context of <em><a href='B:470 9:15'>Mat 9:15</a></em> goes on to explain that Christ's new covenant is symbolised by new wine. The difference between John's disciples and Christ's was that Christ's were full of the joy of the new covenant. But there is ample reason to think that they were heavily influenced by Judaist thinking; they didn’t go and preach to the Gentile world as Christ commanded, and even Peter was marvellously slow to realize the Jewish food laws had been ended by Christ, despite the Lord's strong implication of this in <em><a href='B:480 7:19'>Mar 7:19</a></em> (not AV). Yet the grace of Jesus saw His men&nbsp;<em>as if</em>&nbsp;they had grasped the meaning of the new covenant,&nbsp;<em>as if</em>&nbsp;they had the joy of true faith in and understanding of His work; and He spoke of them to the world in these terms. We can take untold comfort from this; for we dare to believe that the Lord does and will confess our name (character) in a like exalted manner to the Father and His Angels.</p><p>There seems to be the idea that fasting was somehow part of the Mosaic system that we have now left behind. Yet the Sermon on the Mount clearly implies that the Lord saw fasting as part of the path of discipleship (<em><a href='B:470 6:16-18'>Mat 6:16-18</a></em>). And there are many examples of fasting in the Old Testament that are quite unconnected with obedience to the Law. When the bridegroom is away, then we will fast by implication, for His return- <em><a href='B:470 9:15'>Mat 9:15</a></em>. Try it, that's all I can say. Just start by going without some meals. Use the time and the natural desire to eat to increase the poignancy of the special requests you are making. <em><a href='B:290 58:4'>Isa 58:4</a></em> RV says that fasting makes “your voice to be heard on high”. Yet the essence of fasting is to take us out of our comfort zone. We human beings have a great tendency to form habits in order to create or keep us within the comfort zone. Yet truly creative thinking and action, not to say true obedience to the call of Christ, all occur outside of the comfort zone. Fasting is only one of many ways to go outside of it. Take a different route home from work; describe your faith to yourself in terms and language you wouldn't usually use. Pray at different times, bring before the Lord the most banal things you usually wouldn't dream of talking with Him about.</p><p>Time and again, the Lord uses language about the restoration from exile and applies it to Himself. Thus fasting was common amongst Palestinian Jews of His time, and it was involved with mourning the destruction of the temple and Judah's submission to Rome. And yet the Lord pronounced that the days of fasting were over, and His people were to be feasting because of His work. But He brought no freedom from Rome, and spoke of the principles of the Messianic Kingdom as being non-resistance to evil rather than military resistance to it. He spoke of Yahweh as 'visiting' His people- but not to save them as they expected, but rather to judge them, with Messiah on His behalf at the head of the Roman armies who would come to destroy Jerusalem and the temple. And thus Jesus deeply disappointed people who didn’t want to change their self-centred, nationalistic outlook- those who didn’t want to see things spiritually rather than naturally, those who refused to accept the extent of Israel's sin.</p>


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<p>2:21&nbsp;<em>Nobody sews a piece of unshrunk cloth-&nbsp;</em>The stress may be on "a&nbsp;<em>piece</em>". Taking parts of Christ's teachings was the temptation being given in to by John's disciples (<em><a href='B:470 9:14'>Mat 9:14</a></em> and see note there on&nbsp;<em>fast not</em>). The torn old garment had to be thrown away and the new one totally accepted and publicly worn. The Greek for "new" is not the same as in "new wine" in <em><a href='B:470 9:17'>Mat 9:17</a></em>. Here the word means not dressed, not worked by a dressmaker. The only other time the related word occurs is in <em><a href='B:480 9:3'>Mar 9:3</a></em> concerning the clothes of Jesus not having been worked by a dressmaker (AV "fuller"). The Lord Jesus presents Himself here as raw, fresh, unworked to suite the appearance of men:&nbsp;</p><p>To get a piece out of a new garment, that new garment would be spoiled; and the old one likewise would be rent further (Mt:, Mk:). "New"&nbsp;cloth refers to cloth which hasn't yet been washed; on first washing of the new garment, it would shrink, and thus make a tear. The tragic waste envisioned here is like the new wine running away on the ground from the burst old bottles. Likewise the old wine skins would've had to have the old wine poured out from them to have this new wine put into them. Mixing the old life and the new covenant, a bit of the one here and a bit of the other there, results in this tragic wastage all around. The parables make it seem so obvious that this isn't the way to go; but in reality, we find it hard to be so complete in our devotion to the new covenant.</p><p>The unrent garment is that of Christ- the same Greek words are used about the fact that His garment was not rent at His death (<em><a href='B:500 19:24'>Joh 19:24</a></em>). Division both within ourselves and within the community is caused by partial response to the new covenant; mixing grace with legalism; it is a rending of Christ's garment, cutting out just a part of it and mixing it with the old way. An old garment that is torn can't be mended by anything new- it must be thrown out and a new garment accepted. The Mosaic system is described as an old garment in <em><a href='B:650 1:11'>Heb 1:11</a></em>; it "shall perish" uses the same Greek word as in <em><a href='B:480 5:37'>Mar 5:37</a></em>, where the bottles "perish". The new garment of Christ is unrent. We are each clothed with the white garment of Christ's imputed righteousness (<em><a href='B:730 19:8'>Rev 19:8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 22:11'>Mat 22:11</a></em>); by dividing with each other we are seeking to rend and thereby destroy that covering. "New" translates a different Greek word than that which in the parallel <em><a href='B:470 9:16'>Mat 9:16</a></em> and <em><a href='B:480 2:21'>Mar 2:21</a></em> is translated "new". The word there means something which has not been carded. "<em>Agnaphos</em>&nbsp;is a combination of the negative article&nbsp;<em>a</em>, with&nbsp;<em>knapto</em>, meaning, "to card":&nbsp; It is sometimes translated undressed, uncombed or, as above, unfinished, and refers to wool or cotton cloth that has not been carded or combed so that the fibres are aligned, giving it both strength and a smoother, more finished appearance":&nbsp; This suggests that the New Covenant is an unfinished work, God’s work in us is ongoing and may take apparently unstable turns and changes- e.g. prophecy is often conditional, the intended timing of Christ's return has and may yet still change, dependent upon factors like the freewill repentance of Israel; God may plan one line of possibility for someone or a whole nation, e.g. Nineveh or Israel at the time of Moses- but change His stated intention in response to human prayer and repentance. This open-ended approach simply can't be squared with the "old" set-in-stone approach of the Old Covenant. The same message is taught by the next parable-&nbsp;<em>new</em>&nbsp;wineskins are required, because the New Covenant wine is fermenting, they need to be soft and flexible enough to change; if they are old and set, they will burst because of the movement and dynamism of the new wine. The wine of the Lord Jesus is therefore not about tradition, about a set pattern; but is rather a call to constant change and evolution. Yet paradoxically, religious people become set in their ways more than any, and seek stability in those traditions; whereas the activity of the Lord Jesus is the very opposite:&nbsp;</p><p><em>Onto an old garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse</em>- "Pulls away from" is&nbsp;Gk:&nbsp;<em>schisma</em>, used elsewhere about divisions between people, especially the Jews, concerning Christ (e.g. <em><a href='B:500 7:43'>Joh 7:43</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 9:16'>Joh 9:16</a></em>). We note the contrast with unrent, untorn garment of the Lord Jesus which even in His death was not rent. Acceptance of the way of Christ means that there will come schism with the old; and more positively, seamless unity is only possible between those who have totally given their lives and way of thinking to Him and His way.</p><p>"Made worse" in its NT usage has a moral sense. The division is made more evil. In the context, the Lord was addressing John's disciples who had come under the influence of the Pharisees (<em><a href='B:480 9:14'>Mar 9:14</a></em>). He is saying that they must fully commit to Him, or else the schism between them and the Jews and them and Himself will only become worse and more destructive. There could be no middle way between Christ and orthodox Judaism; the early church tried it, as the NT letters demonstrate, but in the end, it came to a sad and bitter end, and the permanent division of the garment. And this is how all schisms go- unless there is a wholehearted acceptance of Jesus and His teachings, the end finally will be a bitter, destructive rending. The pre-existing, initial schism between persons (cp. that between John's disciples and Christ) will only be made worse unless there is a total surrender to the Lord's ways. In all the unhappy church history which most of us have experienced, that is proved true time and again. Likewise there are those who seek to hide their faith in societies and social situations where it is costly to go Christ's way; but ultimately, they have to choose one way or the other. The rent is made worse. A city set on a hill cannot be hid by its nature.</p>


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<p>2:22&nbsp;<em>And no one puts new wine into old wineskins-&nbsp;</em>A clear reference to Christ's blood of the new covenant.</p><p><em>Otherwise the new wine bursts the wineskins-&nbsp;</em>Gk. to shatter, divide. The context is of John's disciples uniting with the Pharisees against the disciples of Jesus. He's saying that if His new wine is not totally accepted, if it is mixed with the old, then lives will be destroyed through further schism. The only basis for avoiding schism is a total acceptance by all parties of the blood of the new covenant:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p><em>The wine is spilled-&nbsp;</em>The same word for "shed" (<em><a href='B:490 20:20'>Luk 20:20</a></em>). Especially significant is the reference in <em><a href='B:470 26:28'>Mat 26:28</a></em> to Christ's blood of the&nbsp;<em>new</em>&nbsp;covenant being "shed". Failed spiritual life, the life which only partially accepts the new wine of Christ but refuses to change, refusing to be new containers for it, results in the blood of Christ being as it were shed, the blood of Calvary wasted in the dust, and Christ crucified afresh by our apostasy (<em><a href='B:650 6:6'>Heb 6:6</a></em>). This is the final tragedy of refusing to change upon receipt of the new wine.</p><p><em>And the wineskins are ruined-&nbsp;</em>The point is twice emphasized. The bottles are 'broken' or shattered, and they also "perish". The word is used of the final destruction in condemnation at the last day (<em><a href='B:470 10:28'>Mat 10:28</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 10:39'>Mat 10:39</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 16:25'>Mat 16:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 3:15'>Joh 3:15</a></em>). The lives of the untransformed recipients of the new wine are shattered ("break") and then finally they are destroyed in final condemnation:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p><em>New wine must be put into new wineskins</em>- Wine skins were made of goat skin. The goats speak of the rejected, the sinners, in the parable of the sheep and goats. The wine skins may therefore speak of our flesh of sin. It's no sin to be a human being and have human flesh, but because of the nature of the new wine, we must become wholly new- or we will be destroyed. The new wine fermented powerfully- similar to the Lord describing His Gospel as yeast which works through flour (<em><a href='B:490 13:21'>Luk 13:21</a></em>). The new covenant will work powerfully in us if we let it, and our skins, the life structure we have, must be prepared to accept that. Each wineskin expanded slightly differently in response to the fermenting of the new wine poured into it; no two wineskins expanded to an identical shape or form. We too will individually and uniquely respond to the new wine:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>2:23&nbsp;<em>And it came to pass, that he was going on the Sabbath day through the grain fields; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of grain</em>- Luke says they rubbed them in their hands; Matthew says they ate. Here we have a superb example of the Gospel writers being in artless agreement with each other, in a manner which would not have been achieved by an uninspired record. The force of "began..." might be because the Pharisees came and stopped them. This shows how closely the Lord and His men were under the critical eyes of others, even from a distance.</p><p>The very poor were allowed to do this by the Law (<em><a href='B:30 19:9'>Lev 19:9</a></em>; <em><a href='B:50 23:24-25'>Deu 23:24-25</a></em>), and so we see in this a picture of the deep poverty of the Lord’s followers; He later parallels the urgent hunger of David’s men at the time of 1 Samuel 21 with that of His followers. It would seem that He Himself did not make use of the concession, because the criticism was focused upon His disciples rather than Himself. W:D. Davies lists evidence that Judaism forbad fasting on the Sabbath (Jubilees 50:12) (W:D. Davies&nbsp;<em>Matthew&nbsp;</em>p. 312). In this case, the record is showing how the legalism of the time would’ve condemned the disciples- and the poor generally- either way: for fasting on the Sabbath, or for ‘threshing’ on the Sabbath to get food so as not to fast. The Lord therefore takes the whole argument to a level far above such petty legalism.</p><p>The Pharisees had reasoned themselves into a position whereby plucking heads of corn whilst walking through a corn field on the Sabbath was regarded as reaping. When the Lord was questioned about this issue, He didn’t reply as most of us would have done: to attack the ridiculous definition of ‘work on the Sabbath’. He seeks to teach by general principle that the extent of His Lordship meant that He and His men were free to do as they pleased on this kind of matter.</p><p>The Lord’s men were accused of ‘threshing’ on the Sabbath because they rubbed corn in their hands (<em><a href='B:480 2:23-28'>Mar 2:23-28</a></em>). The Lord could have answered ‘No, this is a non-Biblical definition of working on the Sabbath’. But He didn’t. Instead He reasoned that ‘OK, let’s assume you’re right, but David and&nbsp;<em>his</em>&nbsp;men broke the law because they were about God’s business, this over-rode the need for technical obedience’. The Lord Jesus wasn’t constantly correcting specific errors of interpretation. He dealt in principles much larger than this, in order to make a more essential, practical, useful point.</p>


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<p>2:24&nbsp;<em>And the Pharisees said to him: Look, why do they do on the Sabbath day what is not lawful?</em>- A constant concern with the Pharisees (<em><a href='B:470 19:3'>Mat 19:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 22:17'>Mat 22:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:6'>Mat 27:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 5:10'>Joh 5:10</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 18:31'>Joh 18:31</a></em>). The Lord's attitude here was to show that the Old Testament itself envisaged situations where true spirituality was above law. The parable of <em><a href='B:470 20:15'>Mat 20:15</a></em> brings the point home- the generous employer justified his pouring out of grace, giving the weak and lazy the same penny a day as the hard workers, on the basis that 'It is lawful for me to do what I wish'.</p>


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<p>2:25&nbsp;<em>And he said to them: Have you never read-&nbsp;</em>Of course they had, many times. But the Lord here and several times elsewhere challenges them (and us) as to whether we have really read what we have. The Lord could have legitimately answered them: ‘It is lawful to pick corn whilst passing through a field, the Law allows for this if one is poor, and my followers are indeed poor. There is nothing in the Law which stipulates this permission doesn’t operate on the Sabbath’. But as always, the Lord was prepared to meet people where they were, and to take them to a higher level. He seeks to teach by general principle that the extent of His Lordship meant that He and His men were free to do as they pleased on this kind of matter. He reasoned that ‘OK, let’s assume you’re right, but David and&nbsp;<em>his</em>&nbsp;men broke the law because they were about God’s business, this over-rode the need for technical obedience’. The Lord Jesus wasn’t constantly correcting specific errors of interpretation. He dealt in principles much larger than this, in order to make a more essential, practical, useful point.</p><p>We need to reflect upon the implications of the fact that the vast majority of the early Christians were illiterate. Literacy levels in first century Palestine were only 10% at the highest estimate. Some estimate that the literacy level in the Roman empire was a maximum of 10%, and literacy levels in Palestine were at most 3%. Most of the literate people in Palestine would have been either the wealthy or the Jewish scribes. And yet it was to the poor that the Gospel was preached, and even in Corinth there were not many educated or “mighty” in this world within the ecclesia. Notice how the Lord said to the Pharisees: “Have you not&nbsp;<em>read</em>?” (<em><a href='B:480 2:25'>Mar 2:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 12:5'>Mat 12:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 19:4'>Mat 19:4</a></em>), whilst He says to those who responded to Him: “You have&nbsp;<em>heard</em>” (<em><a href='B:470 5:21'>Mat 5:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 5:27'>Mat 5:27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 5:33'>Mat 5:33</a></em>). His followers were largely the illiterate:&nbsp;As the ecclesial world developed, Paul wrote inspired letters to the ecclesias. Those letters would have been&nbsp;<em>read</em>&nbsp;to the brethren and sisters. Hence the great importance of ‘teachers’ in the early churches, those who could faithfully read and transmit to others what had been written.</p><p><em>What David did when he had need and was hungry- he and they that were with him?</em>- The Lord’s reasoning depends upon drawing a parallel between Himself and David, and David’s warriors and the disciples. Again, He is encouraging them to see themselves as no less than the warriors of David who later became the governors of Israel. Aaron’s sons were the ones who were intended to eat the showbread (<em><a href='B:30 24:5-9'>Lev 24:5-9</a></em>)- and again the Lord is inviting His secular disciples to see themselves as a new priesthood.</p>


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<p>2:26<em>&nbsp;How he entered into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the showbread, which it is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and gave also to those that were with him?-</em>&nbsp;<em>&nbsp;</em>For non-Levites to enter the Sanctuary was also not 'lawful', quite apart from eating the bread which only the priests could lawfully eat. This prepares the way for the Lord's later parable about God urging unclean street people to 'enter His house' because Israel had rejected the invitation (the same words are used- <em><a href='B:490 14:23'>Luk 14:23</a></em>). The psychological magnitude of the Lord's new system of thinking is hard to appreciate. Non-Levites could now enter it- and even the worst of the Gentiles. But the magnitude of the new thinking in Christ for anyone, not least secular people of the 21st Century, is no less.</p><p>The opposite of love isn’t so much hatred, as indifference. To be indifferent to the real welfare of our fellows in this world, and of&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;our own brethren, is perhaps our most common sin. The Lord taught us that we should have a sense of urgency in our response to others. The Lord showed by His example that it is better to meet the hunger of human need than to keep the letter of Sabbath law (<em><a href='B:480 2:25-26'>Mar 2:25-26</a></em>):&nbsp;<em>His&nbsp;</em>urgency,&nbsp;<em>God’s&nbsp;</em>urgency,&nbsp;<em>our&nbsp;</em>consequent urgency… all means that when even Divine principles appear to come into conflict, we are to be influenced above all by the urgency of others’ need.</p><p>The Lord defended the non-observant Judaism of the twelve as being due to their joy that He, the bridegroom, was with them (<em><a href='B:490 5:33-34'>Luk 5:33-34</a></em>). When they ‘ground corn’ on the Sabbath, the Lord defended them to their critics by saying that they were like David’s men eating the showbread. Those guys were just walking through a cornfield rubbing ears together as their manner was, as they had done on many a Sabbath day, but not realizing that this time there was some Scribe out with his binocular vision scrutinizing them. They surely weren’t doing it because their minds were on the incident of David’s men eating the showbread. The Lord had asked them to obey the Scribes, who sat in Moses’ seat, over this kind of trivia. But He doesn’t rebuke them. Rather, He defends them to others, imputing far more spiritual perception to them than they had (<em><a href='B:490 6:1-4'>Luk 6:1-4</a></em>). Clearly the Lord is suggesting that His ragtag crowd of disciples and questionable ministering women were the new priesthood of a new Israel.</p>


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<p>2:27&nbsp;<em>And he said to them: The Sabbath was designed for man, and not man for the Sabbath</em>- Mark alone records this. The allusion is surely to the fact that at creation, man was made NEV "designed" just before the Sabbath; the Sabbath was made afterwards, so that man could rest. The Sabbath, the seventh day, came&nbsp;<em>after&nbsp;</em>man's creation on the sixth day. It was therefore for man. It was for man's blessing, and therefore it was wrong to add legislation to it which made it an utter pain for man rather than a blessing. We can almost read in an ellipsis- the Sabbath was made for man's blessing. Man was not made in order to keep a pre-existing legal code about the Sabbath. The laws and institutions of God were intended for human&nbsp;<em>blessing</em>; and yet human legalism has meant that so often, they become a curse and frustration to man. Man is not made or designed to keep legal codes- man was not made to keep "the Sabbath" as it was being presented by Judaism at that time. The Sabbath was made for man's blessing, not in order to trap him. This same argument can be applied to so many of the trappings of religion, from dress codes to statements of faith.</p>


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<p>2:28&nbsp;<em>Therefore the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath</em>- The “of” is supplied as guesswork by the translators; it could equally be left unsupplied, giving the sense of “the Lord the Sabbath”; or, “Lord&nbsp;<em>on</em>&nbsp;the Sabbath”. Mark in :27 adds that the Lord went on to teach that God’s law was made for man, rather than man being built in such a way as to easily fit in with God’s word. This could be the inspired comment of the Gospel writer, rather than the actual words of the Lord. Because the Sabbath law was made for human benefit and blessing, man is therefore above the Sabbath; and so "the Son of Man", the quintessential and supreme human, the Lord Jesus, is "Lord of the Sabbath". We see here an incidental proof of the utter humanity of the Lord Jesus; if something is true for man generally, then it is all the more true for Him, because He was also a man, although the supremest of all men. He could legally infringe the law, just as men like David did, because He understood that the intention of the law was for human blessing. If that intention was fulfilled, there was no need to keep the letter of the law. This of course can too easily become a slippery slope towards disobedience; and yet the other extreme is a legalistic obedience to the letter of a law, which results in not achieving what that law intended, which is blessing to man. "Lord even of the Sabbath" can be rendered 'Is also lord of the Sabbath'; as if what were true for man generally is all the more for Jesus. As David and the Lord's disciples were masters of the Sabbath, rather than being dominated by it and the associated legislation; so even more was the Lord Jesus Himself, as the archetypical man, "the son of man", also lord of the Sabbath.</p><p>Here as elsewhere we see the juxtaposition of the Lord's humanity and His Lordship. His exaltation is precisely because He was human; He has authority to judge us because He was Son of man (<em><a href='B:500 5:27'>Joh 5:27</a></em>). The Lordship of Jesus was predicated upon His obedience to death and exaltation (<em><a href='B:510 2:36'>Act 2:36</a></em>), and yet Jesus was calmly confident that this would be achieved by Him; to the point that He could reason that He already was "Lord" and thereby able to abrogate the Sabbath and act as the ultimate temple.</p>


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<p>3:1&nbsp;<em>And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there who had a withered hand</em>- His right hand, according to Luke. His own strength and ability to act was withered:&nbsp;The hand had "withered", suggesting this was a result of human accident or sin, rather than genetic.</p>


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<p>3:2&nbsp;<em>And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day- so that they would have an excuse to accuse him-&nbsp;</em>"Would heal" is literally 'Will heal'; this typical change of tense is to encourage us to see the situation played out live before our eyes, as it were; entering into the question as we do when watching a movie: 'Will He heal him... or not??'.</p><p>An "excuse to accuse" is a legal term. They wanted to get Jesus in court over this issue. But there’s no evidence they actually did, and there was no recorded mention of Sabbath breaking in His final trial- so well and profoundly did He answer them.</p>


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<p>3:3&nbsp;<em>And he said to the man that had the withered hand: Come here</em>- The man was apparently not next to the Lord; he was probably lurking at the back of the hall or outside it.</p>


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<p>3:4&nbsp;<em>And he said to them: Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good, or to do evil? To save a life, or to kill? But they remained quiet</em>-</p><p>When the Lord taught that it was right to break the Sabbath because they were in the business of saving life (<em><a href='B:480 3:4'>Mar 3:4</a></em>), His words were purposefully alluding to how the Maccabees had pronounced that it was acceptable for Jewish soldiers to break the Sabbath in time of war, in order to save lives through their fighting (<em>1Ma_2:32</em>). He intended His people to live as active soldiers on duty, at war in order to save the lives of God’s people. Indeed, so frequently, the whole language of the future judgment is applied to us right here and now. We are living out our judgment now; we are standing as it were before the final judgment seat, and receiving our judgment for how we act, speak and feel and are.</p><p>He said that if Had omitted to heal the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath, this would have been 'doing evil' and even 'killing' (<em><a href='B:480 3:4'>Mar 3:4</a></em>). That's how seriously He took omitting to do good when it's in our power to do it. See on <em><a href='B:480 7:11'>Mar 7:11</a></em>:&nbsp;<br/>The Lord said that He had a choice of saving life or destroying life, were He to prefer to keep the Sabbath laws above the need for preserving life. Clearly He saw failing to act to save life as tantamount to destroying life. We must give our Lord's words their due weight here in our decision making. To not act to save life, to excuse ourselves for whatever reason, is effectively destroying life, or, as Mark's record puts it, “to kill" (<em><a href='B:480 3:4'>Mar 3:4</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 6:9'>Luk 6:9</a></em>). We can't therefore be passive in this matter. The context of the Lord's statement was in response to questions about whether something was "lawful" or not; it was the age old question, 'Is it is a sin to do X, Y or Z?'. His answer was as ever in terms of a principle- that our guiding principle must be the saving and healing and preservation of human life. The attitude of the Pharisees was that the Lord was infringing a letter of the law and therefore was guilty of death. They murdered Him on the Sabbath days; and thus they chose to destroy life rather than save it. The word for “to kill" in <em><a href='B:480 3:4'>Mar 3:4</a></em> is so often used in the Gospels about the killing of Jesus. They failed to take His exhortation. The crucifixion of God’s Son was thus a result of legalism; it was because of His attitude to the man with the withered hand that the Pharisees first plotted to kill Jesus (<em><a href='B:490 6:11'>Luk 6:11</a></em>). Whatever our individual conscience, let us not "be filled with madness" as the Pharisees were at the fact the Lord approached human behaviour in terms of principles, rather than reducing everything to a common right / wrong scenario. The principle is clearly the saving and preservation and enriching of others' lives. Surely we should each allow each other to articulate this fundamental issue as we each have occasion to do so:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>3:5- see on <em><a href='B:480 1:41'>Mar 1:41</a></em>.</p><p><em>And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man-</em>&nbsp;The way the Lord didn’t just ignore the Jewish leaders, as we might ignore trouble makers at a public meeting or correspondence course students who ask endless questions... this is really quite something. He grieved for the hardness of their hearts, and finally broke down and wept over Jerusalem, in an agony of soul that they would not respond. The apparently foolish catch questions of <em><a href='B:480 3:21-29'>Mar 3:21-29</a></em> are answered in some depth by the Lord, and He concludes with pointing out that they are putting themselves “<em>in danger&nbsp;</em>of eternal damnation” (although, notice, not yet condemned). One senses the urgency with which He put it to them. He was angry i:e. frustrated?, “being grieved for the blindness of their hearts” (<em><a href='B:480 3:5'>Mar 3:5</a></em>). Are we just indifferent or evenly smugly happy that men are so blind…? Or do we grieve about it to the point of angry frustration? Remember how Moses and Paul would fain have given their eternal life for the conversion of Israel, this is how they felt for them.</p><p>Almost every reference to Israel's hardness s:w. "blindness" of heart is to their hearts having been made hard / blind. Their attitude of mind was confirmed by the work of God’s Spirit; just as Pharaoh hardened his heart, and had it hardened by God in response. But the Lord grieved for this condition, whatever the cause.</p><p><em>Stretch out your hand. He stretched it out, and his hand was restored</em>- Matthew uses the same word to describe how the Lord Himself stretched forth&nbsp;<em>His</em>&nbsp;hand in order to heal, save and welcome (<em><a href='B:470 8:3'>Mat 8:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 12:49'>Mat 12:49</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 14:31'>Mat 14:31</a></em>). Again we are encouraged to perceive a sense of mutuality between the Lord and His people:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>AV adds: "Whole as the other". This detail is recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke. It is another touch of the eye witness- the man would've held out both his hands and everyone would've looked from the one to the other, observing they now looked so similar:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>3:6&nbsp;<em>And the Pharisees went out-&nbsp;</em>Again, an emphasis on physical movement. We imagine Mark's camera covering their departure from the synagogue.</p><p><em>And immediately took counsel against him with the Herodians-&nbsp;</em>Nothing formal is necessarily implied by the word. Perhaps we are to imagine them gathering in a tight circle somewhere outside the synagogue.</p><p><em>How they might destroy him</em>- Here we see the common human feature of doing evil in response to the experience of grace. Even amongst believers, and even at judgment day, there is the possibility of the eye becoming evil because of His goodness and grace to others (<em><a href='B:470 20:15'>Mat 20:15</a></em>). We see the principle in both secular and church life. Grace shown to others can elicit the worst evil from religious people. We shouldn't be surprised at this phenomenon; but it is the very surprise at encountering it which causes so many to become disillusioned with the church and ultimately with the Lord.</p>


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<p>3:7&nbsp;<em>And Jesus with his disciples withdrew to the sea; and a great crowd from Galilee and from Judea followed-&nbsp;</em>Several times we read of the Lord withdrawing from the public, or at least trying to (<em><a href='B:470 4:12'>Mat 4:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 14:13'>Mat 14:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 15:21'>Mat 15:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 3:7'>Mar 3:7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:15'>Joh 6:15</a></em>). But Mark especially references this, at least 11 times. We get the impression that He made public appearances, did some healing and teaching, and then 'withdrew'. The Gospel records focus much on the last week and months of His ministry. The first three years has relatively little recorded- but there is a lot of information about some very long, action packed days. We can assume too easily that these recorded days were typical. But perhaps they were not. There are probably no more than 20 days' events recorded- out of the three and a half years of the Lord's ministry. One possibility is that the rest of the time, or much of it, He spent simply teaching the disciples. If the Lord maintained the same tempo and intensity of His recorded activity throughout the three and a half years, it surely would've been almost impossible to have avoided His being propelled to political power by the masses. This suggestion of limited public activity makes better sense of the note we made on <em><a href='B:470 11:20'>Mat 11:20</a></em>, that the majority of His miracles were performed in three small villages in Galilee. That also must provide some context to the comment here that He healed 'all' the multitudes on this occasion; He healed 'all' amongst the crowds who were in need of healing, not every member of the crowd.</p>


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<p>3:8&nbsp;<em>And from Jerusalem and from Idumaea and on the other side of the Jordan and about Tyre and Sidon, a great crowd, hearing what great things he did, came to him</em>- There would have been many Gentiles in this crowd. Their attraction was because of the miracles, the "things which he did", rather than His teaching. Primitive societies are always attracted to healers, and this healer appeared to be the best ever.</p>


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<p>3:9&nbsp;<em>And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, in case they crushed him</em>- "Crushed" translates the Greek word usually used for 'affliction'. There was the real danger of serious damage to Him. Not just because of the crush of people, but perhaps because of the anger there would be from those who feared they would not get cured. Once the Lord started healing, it was hard to stop- for there would be huge anger and disappointment from those who felt they had missed out. And the line waiting for healing was unending. To draw a point beyond which 'no more' was going to provoke anger.</p>


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<p>3:10&nbsp;<em>For he had healed many; so much so that as many as had illnesses pressed upon him that they might touch him-&nbsp;</em>This could suggest that the Lord's physical touch was required for the healing to happen. This would explain the physical danger to the Lord, with perhaps thousands of sick people and their carers desperately trying to touch Him. His pushing out to sea in the boat was therefore a master stroke; because it signalled an end to the healings and a focus upon teaching. It also provided Him with literally a platform from which to speak, with the hills and cliffs behind the shore providing a natural amphitheatre which would have amplified His voice.</p>


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<p>3:11&nbsp;<em>And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried, saying: You are the Son of God-&nbsp;</em>Again, the 'spirits' or 'demons' are put for the supposedly demon possessed. It was those afflicted with illnesses which were not understood, the isolated and despised, those with mental illnesses, who perceived the Lord for who He was. Their heightened states of perception in some areas enabled them to make this connection. The falling before Him was in worship.</p>


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<p>3:12&nbsp;<em>And he strictly ordered them not to make him known</em>- The Lord charged the healed people to not make Him known, in the sense of not advertising their experience of healing, because He wanted to focus on teaching without the distraction of the crowds who sought only healing. Yet His commands about this were disobeyed. Clearly if He were addressing literal spirits, then He failed to have power over them. For they were disobedient, in going around praising Him for His healing. The whole insistence upon reading the "unclean spirits" literally simply breaks down. For evil spirits are not supposed to utter the praise of the Lord Jesus. The language only really makes sense if were read the "spirits" as referring to persons who were once ill but whom the Lord healed.</p>


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<p>3:13&nbsp;<em>And he went up into the mountain and called to himself whomever he would; and they came to him</em>- In the same way as Moses was called up into the mount to receive his Divine commission, so the Lord Jesus called up to the mount His disciples- implying that they, who represent all of us, were now a new Moses (<em><a href='B:480 3:13'>Mar 3:13</a></em>). Moses was thus an example that challenged those from a Jewish background especially. He was no longer to be gazed at with incomprehension as to his greatness and intimacy with God; he was to become the realistic pattern for all followers of the Lord Jesus, who would meaningfully emulate His closeness to God.</p>


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<p>3:14&nbsp;<em>And he appointed twelve, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach</em>- It is simply so, that when we witness, the words we speak are in effect the words of Jesus. Our words are his. This is how close we are to Him. And this is why our deportment and manner of life, which is the essential witness, must be in Him. For He is articulated to the world through us. And it explains the paradox of <em><a href='B:480 3:14'>Mar 3:14</a></em>, whereby Jesus chose men that they should “be with him and that he might send them forth to preach”. As they went out to witness, they were with Him, just as He is with us in our witness, to the end of the world both geographically and in time. And this solves another Marcan paradox, in <em><a href='B:480 4:10'>Mar 4:10</a></em>: “When he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked him…”. Was He alone, or not? Mark speaks as if when the Lord was away from the crowd and with His true followers, He was “alone”- for He counted them as one body with Him. This was why the Lord told Mary, when she so desperately wanted to be personally with Him, to go and preach to His brethren (<em><a href='B:500 20:18'>Joh 20:18</a></em>), just as He had told some of those whom He had healed- for going and preaching Him was in effect being with Him.</p><p>The idea of course may also be that they were firstly to be with Him, trained by Him; and then sent out alone to preach.</p>


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<p>3:15&nbsp;<em>And to have authority to cast out demons-&nbsp;</em>This is in the context of the Lord's concern that the crowds were sheep with no shepherd, which I suggested was an allusion to Moses' words of <em><a href='B:40 27:17'>Num 27:17</a></em> (see on <em><a href='B:470 9:36'>Mat 9:36</a></em>). Moses asks for God to raise up another to do his work, and God gives him Joshua- and is told "You shall invest him with some of your authority" (<em><a href='B:40 27:20'>Num 27:20</a></em>). So the Lord is here treating the disciples as if they are His replacement, going out to do His work, just as the later body of Christ are to do. We have in this preaching tour they are sent on some sort of foretaste of the great commission.</p>


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<p>3:16&nbsp;<em>And Simon he surnamed Peter</em>- Note this is not the record of the choosing of the twelve, but rather of their commissioning and being sent out. The list is broken up in Matthew into pairs, perhaps because they were sent out as six pairs. Simon was anything but rock-like, but the Lord named him Peter, 'rocky'. He perceived the ultimate stability in Peter's faith, despite all the ups and downs He had. And He sees to the core of each of us too.</p>


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<p>3:17<em>&nbsp;And James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James he surnamed Boanerges, which means, sons of thunder</em>- James and John were to be the “sons of thunder", a Rabbinic phrase, used of the young trainee Rabbis who stood at the left and right of the Master of the Synagogue during the Sabbath services (hence the later appeal for confirmation as to whether they would&nbsp;<em>really&nbsp;</em>stand at the Master’s right and left in His Kingdom). These uneducated men were to take the place of the learned Scribes whom they had always respected and lived in fear of... truly they were being pushed against the grain. See on <em><a href='B:470 16:19'>Mat 16:19</a></em>. The Lord was establishing a new Israel with a new synagogue system.</p>


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<p>3:18&nbsp;<em>And Andrew and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas and James the son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus and Simon the Cananaean</em>- Bartholomew is apparently the same as Nathanael, also mentioned with Philip in <em><a href='B:500 1:46-51'>Joh 1:46-51</a></em><em>. "</em>Simon the Cananaean" doesn't mean 'from Canaan' but a&nbsp;<em>kananites</em>, a zealot. We see the wide range of men the Lord called into His band; Matthew the tax collector would've been seen as a traitor, whereas the zealots were at the other end of the political spectrum. The way the 12 didn’t break up as a group after living together under extreme psychological conditions is a testament to the unifying power of the person of Jesus. The composition of the Lord's body is the same today, including "all types of men". Sadly denominationalism and churchianity has led to churches often being clusters of believers having the same socio-economic, racial and personality type positions, rather than being conglomerations of literally all types of person, of whatever accent and formation.</p>


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<p>3:19&nbsp;<em>And Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. And then he went home</em>- "Iscariot" is perhaps 'man of Kerioth:' Kerioth was a small village in Judea (<em><a href='B:60 15:25'>Jos 15:25</a></em>). Judas would therefore have been the only Judean. It could be that 'Iscariot' is from&nbsp;<em>sicarius</em>, 'dagger-man' or 'assassin'. This would suggest that Judas belonged to what was reckoned to be the most far right of the various resistance groups, the Sicarii (the partisans, cp. <em><a href='B:510 21:38'>Act 21:38</a></em>). Again we see the wide range of people the Lord was calling together in order to weld them into one body in Him.</p><p>The Lord's "home" may have now been in Capernaum. That He can be described as having a "home" is an essay in His utter humanity.</p>


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<p>3:20&nbsp;<em>And the crowd gathered again, so many people that they could not so much as eat bread</em>- The Lord appeared to have taken the disciples into the "home" He lived in at Capernaum (:19). But the people invaded the home, desperate for healing, to the point that they could not even eat. We can now better understand why the Lord didn’t want the healings advertised; it serious derailed the function of His whole ministry.</p>


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<p>3:21&nbsp;<em>And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying: He is out of his mind</em>- His natural family were no longer in the family home (:19), because it had been taken over by the Lord's new family. "They were saying" to the critical Jews, now eager to check out the Lord's relatives, that He was crazy.</p><p>As Paul wrote to his unspiritual Corinthian brethren, he was doubtless hurt at the thought of their opposition to him; yet his mind flew to the similarities between himself and his Lord being rejected by&nbsp;<em>his</em>&nbsp;brethren (<em><a href='B:480 3:21'>Mar 3:21</a></em> = <em><a href='B:540 5:13'>2Co 5:13</a></em>).<br/>When she stands outside the house asking to speak with Jesus, Mary is identified with her other children who considered Jesus crazy. Jesus says that His mothers are those who hear the word of God and do it. This must have so cut her. There is a rather unpleasant connection between <em><a href='B:480 3:32'>Mar 3:32</a></em> “they stood without” and <em><a href='B:480 4:11'>Mar 4:11</a></em> "unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables”. And further, <em><a href='B:490 13:25'>Luk 13:25</a></em> speaks of how the rejected shall stand without same words knocking and asking to speak with the Lord. <em><a href='B:480 3:19-20'>Mar 3:19-20</a></em> RVmg. says that Jesus came home- i:e. to the family home, and it turned out that the interested visitors took the house over, with His relatives, mother, brothers, sisters etc. left outside (<em><a href='B:480 3:21'>Mar 3:21</a></em> RVmg:). No wonder the point was made that He now had a new family; and His natural family, Mary amongst them, resented it:&nbsp;</p><p>The incident of Mary and her other children coming to Jesus is inserted by Mark in the context of his record that the Scribes concluded that He had “an unclean spirit”. In that same context, we read that Mary and His brothers concluded that He was “beside himself” (<em><a href='B:480 3:21-22'>Mar 3:21-22</a></em>). The language of demon / unclean spirit possession is used in the Gospels to describe mental rather than physical illness. The Scribes thought that Jesus was demon possessed; His family and mother thought He was mentally ill. The two thoughts are parallel, as if to imply that His family had been influenced by the prevailing opinion of the elders about Him. The Lord responded to the Scribes by warning them that they ran the risk of blaspheming the Holy Spirit by saying this of Him. And it would appear that His own mother may have been running the same risk. This is such a tragic difference from the young, spiritually minded woman who was so convinced that her Son was indeed Messiah and the uniquely begotten Son of God. And it happened simply because she was influenced by what others thought of Jesus, rather than what she had learnt from the word and experienced herself. It’s a powerful warning to us:&nbsp;</p><p>In <em><a href='B:480 3:21'>Mar 3:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 3:31-35'>Mar 3:31-35</a></em> we read of how “his own” family thought He was crazy and came to talk to Him. Then we read that it was His mother and brothers who demanded an audience with Him, perhaps linking Mary with her other children. Their cynicism of Jesus, their lack of perception of Him, came to influence her- for He effectively rebuffs her special claims upon Him by saying that His mother and brethren are all who hear God’s word. The parallel <em><a href='B:470 12:46-50'>Mat 12:46-50</a></em> five times repeats the phrase “his mother and his brethren”, as if to link her with them. Clearly the brothers, who didn’t believe in Jesus (<em><a href='B:500 7:5'>Joh 7:5</a></em>) influenced her. When He speaks of how His real family are those who hear the word of God and do it, the Lord is alluding to <em><a href='B:50 33:9'>Deu 33:9</a></em>, where we have the commendation of Levi for refusing to recognize his apostate brethren at the time of the golden calf: “Who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren… for they Levi have observed thy word, and kept thy covenant”. The last sentence is&nbsp;the essence of the Lord’s saying that His true family are those who keep God’s word and do it. The strong implication of the allusion is that the Lord felt that His mother and brethren had committed some kind of apostasy. &nbsp;</p>


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<p>3:22&nbsp;<em>And the scribes that came down from Jerusalem said</em>- Perhaps the very ones who had come from Jerusalem to be baptized by John; see on <em><a href='B:480 1:5'>Mar 1:5</a></em>.</p><p><em>He has Beelzebub, and by the prince of the demons he casts out the demons</em>- "The Prince of the demons",&nbsp;a<em>rchon</em>, "the first", would imply that Beelzebub was also a demon, the "first" or leading one. Thus the fallacy of their argument is the more apparent- if Beelzebub really existed, why would he cast out his own fellow demons?</p><p>Their comment appears to have been made in very hot blood, for it was logically contradictory to claim that someone who cast out demons must therefore be in league with the prince of the demons; because their own sons (either literally or in the sense of their disciples) claimed to cast out demons (<em><a href='B:470 12:27'>Mat 12:27</a></em>). And if Jesus was actually on the side of the prince of demons, why then was he as it were fighting for the other side by casting out demons. Such gaping error in logic was exactly what the Pharisees were constantly careful to avoid; but their intense jealousy of the Lord led them to make this logical error. Again we note that the Lord's style was not so much to directly state the errors of his opponents, but to work on the assumption that their beliefs were correct- and to then follow those beliefs to their logical conclusions, thus showing how those positions contradicted themselves to the point they could not be true. This is one explanation for the use of the language of demons in the Gospels, even though demons don't in fact exist.</p><p>They were driven to assume that the Lord was in league with some higher power in order to perform His miracles. If it wasn't the Holy Spirit of God- it had to be by some other power, and the only option in their theology was some form of the Satan myth. Their logical desperation is a reflection of the undeniable nature of the Lord's miracles (as in <em><a href='B:510 4:16'>Act 4:16</a></em>). Any who claim to be able to do miracles through the Holy Spirit should likewise be producing healings which even their most sceptical opponents cannot deny are miracles; but that feature is not seen in many claims of healings today. When accused of being in league with ‘satan’, the Lord didn’t read them a charge of blasphemy. He reasoned instead that a thief cannot bind a strong man; and likewise He couldn’t bind ‘satan’ unless He were stronger than Satan (cp. <em><a href='B:480 3:23-27'>Mar 3:23-27</a></em>). He doesn’t take the tack that ‘Satan / Beelzebub / demons’ don’t exist; He showed instead that He was evidently stronger than any such being or force, to the point that belief in such a concept was meaningless. Faith must rather be in Him alone.</p>


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<p>3:23&nbsp;<em>And he called them to him, and said to them in parables: How can Satan cast out Satan?</em>- 'Satan' was a parable and is being used here in a non-literal sense. The Lord reasons with them on their own ground, assuming for a moment that their wrong ideas were true- hence "<em>if</em>&nbsp;Satan...". The one who cast out Satan / demons was of course Jesus personally. Their false logic and theology had led them to label a good man as Satan just because He did a good work of healing. So quickly, false logic and theology drives jealous people along a path of demonization, negative labelling of others and religious hatred:&nbsp;</p><p>But the argument is about casting out of&nbsp;<em>demons,&nbsp;</em>yet here 'satan casts out satan'. One thing we learn from this use of language is that beliefs about 'Satan', demons and the casting out of demons were very vague and poorly defined. And that is how it is to this day with those who believe in the literal existence of 'Satan' and demons. When pressed for definition and a more connected theology, they flounder.</p><p>When accused of being in league with ‘satan’, the Lord didn’t read them a charge of blasphemy. He reasoned instead that a thief cannot bind a strong man; and likewise He couldn’t bind ‘satan’ unless He were stronger than Satan (<em><a href='B:480 3:23-27'>Mar 3:23-27</a></em>). He doesn’t take the tack that ‘Satan / Beelzebub / demons’ don’t exist; He showed instead that He was evidently stronger than any such being or force, to the point that belief in such a concept was meaningless. Faith must rather be in Him alone.</p><p>Judaism had taken over the surrounding pagan notion of a personal ‘Satan’. And the Lord Jesus and the Gospel writers use this term, but in the way they use it, they redefine it. The parable of the Lord Jesus binding the “strong man” – the Devil – was really to show that the “Devil” as they understood it was now no more, and his supposed Kingdom now taken over by that of Christ. The last Gospel, John, doesn’t use the term in the way the earlier Gospels do. He defines what the earlier writers called “the Devil” as actual people, such as the Jews or the brothers of Jesus, in their articulation of an adversarial ‘satanic’ position to Jesus.</p>


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<p>3:24&nbsp;<em>And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand</em>- Again the Lord accepts their position for one moment as true, and yet takes it forward to its logical implication. If Beelzebub was fighting against his own side, then all the same, Satan's Kingdom was divided against itself and would soon crumble into self-destruction. Therefore what Jesus had done ought to be seen as a presage of Satan's Kingdom ending and, by implication, the soon triumph of God’s Kingdom.</p><p>The Lord Jesus framed His parable about Satan's kingdom rising up and being divided against itself (<em><a href='B:480 3:23-26'>Mar 3:23-26</a></em>) in the very language of the Kingdom of Israel being "divided" against itself by Jeroboam's 'rising up' (<em><a href='B:110 12:21'>1Ki 12:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:140 13:6'>2Ch 13:6</a></em>)- as if Israel's Kingdom was Satan's kingdom. <em><a href='B:330 17:14'>Eze 17:14</a></em> uses this language about how Old Testament kingdom of Judah no longer 'stood' because of their disobedience. The true Kingdom of God would 'stand' for ever (<em><a href='B:340 2:44'>Dan 2:44</a></em>). The Lord may be hinting that Israel was no longer God’s Kingdom and was in fact therefore Satan's kingdom- for the true Kingdom of God would always stand. It is Satan's Kingdom which falls, not God’s.</p>


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<p>3:25&nbsp;<em>And if a family be divided against itself, that family will not be able to stand</em>- &nbsp;The Lord is teaching that the breakup of a Kingdom, even Satan's, must start on the household level and progress higher. Perhaps this is a hint at the growth of&nbsp;<em>God’s</em>&nbsp;kingdom beginning with the household conversions and house churches with which Christianity started.</p>


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<p>3:26<em>&nbsp;And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but has an end-&nbsp;</em>The Jews accused the Lord of being in league with the prince of the demons, Beelzebub. His comment was that if the family / house of Satan was so divided, then Satan “has an end” (<em><a href='B:480 3:26'>Mar 3:26</a></em>). His approach was ‘OK you believe in demons, Beelzebub etc. Well if that’s the case, then according to the extension of your logic, Satan will soon come to an end, will cease existence. That’s the bottom line. As it happens, I am indeed ‘binding the strong man’, rendering Satan powerless, making him ‘have an end’, and so whichever way you look at it, believing in demons or not, the bottom line is that My miracles demonstrate that effectively Satan is powerless and not an item now’. The way the New Testament is written reflects the same approach. When the Lord was alone with His disciples, He explained further: “If they have called the Master of the House i:e. Jesus ‘Beelzebub’, how much more shall they call them of his household?” i:e. the disciples (<em><a href='B:470 10:25'>Mat 10:25</a></em>). By saying this, the Lord was clarifying that of course He didn’t&nbsp;<em>really&nbsp;</em>mean that He was part of the Satan family, working against Satan to destroy the entire family. Rather was He and His family quite separate from the Satan family. But He didn’t make that clarification to the Jewish crowds – He simply used their idea and reasoned with them on their own terms. Note in passing how the Jews actually thought Jesus was Beelzebub, or Satan. This would be one explanation for their mad passion to kill Him; for those labelled ‘Satan’ were hunted to their death in such societies, as seen later in the witch hunts of the middle ages. The Jews say Jesus as a false miracle worker, a false Messiah, a bogus Son of God – all characteristics of their view of ‘Satan’. Some centuries later, the Jewish sage Maimonides described Jesus in terms of the antichrist: “Daniel had already alluded to him when he presaged the downfall of a wicked one and a heretic among the Jews who would endeavour to destroy the Law, claim prophecy for himself, make pretences to miracles, and allege that he is the Messiah” (<em>Maimonides’ Epistle to Yemen</em>). It’s been suggested that the way the Jewish rabbinical writings call Him&nbsp;<em>Yeshu</em>&nbsp;is an acronym for the Hebrew expression<em>&nbsp;yemach shemo vezichro</em>&nbsp;– “May his name and memory be obliterated”. This was the very Jewish definition of Satan. They saw Jesus as Satan himself; hence they were so insistent on slaying Him. Yet by the deft twist of Divine providence, it was through the death of Jesus that the&nbsp;<em>real&nbsp;</em>Devil (i:e. the power of sin) was in fact slain (<em><a href='B:650 2:14'>Heb 2:14</a></em>). To those with perceptive enough minds to see it, yet once again the Jewish ideas had been turned back upon them to reveal the real nature of the Devil to them, within their own frames of reference and terminology. Likewise Beelzebub means literally ‘the lord of the house’; and the Lord Jesus alludes to this in describing Himself as the Master of the House of God.</p>


