'And Jesus went out, and His disciples, into the towns of Caesarea
Philippi: and by the way He asked His disciples, saying unto them,
Whom do men say that I am? 28. And they answered, John the Baptist:
but some say, Elias; and others, One of the prophets. 29. And He saith
unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith
unto Him, Thou art the Christ. 30. And He charged them that they
should tell no man of Him. 31. And He began to teach them, that the
Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and
of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days
rise again. 32. And He spake that saying openly. And Peter took Him,
and began to rebuke Him. 33. But when He had turned about and looked
on His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan:
for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that
be of men. 34. And when He had called the people unto Him with His
disciples also, He said unto them, Whosoever will come after Me, let
him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 35. For
whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose
his life for My sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. 36 For
what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose
his own soul? 37. Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
38. Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this
adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of Man be
ashamed, when He cometh in the glory of His Father with the holy
angels. IX. 1. And He said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That
there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death,
till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.'--Mark viii.
27-ix. 1.
Our Lord led His disciples away from familiar ground into the
comparative seclusion of the country round Caesarea Philippi, in order
to tell them plainly of His death. He knew how terrible the
announcement would be, and He desired to make it in some quiet spot,
where there would be collectedness and leisure to let it sink into
their minds. His consummate wisdom and perfect tenderness are equally
and beautifully shown in His manner of disclosing the truth which
would try their faithfulness and fortitude. From the beginning He had
given hints, gradually increasing in clearness; and now the time had
come for full disclosure. What a journey that was! He, with the heavy
secret filling His thoughts; they, dimly aware of something absorbing
Him, in which they had no part. And at last, 'in the way,' as if moved
by some sudden impulse--like that which we all know, leading us to
speak out abruptly what we have long waited to say--He gives them a
share in the burden of His thought. But, even then, note how He leads
up to it by degrees. This passage has the announcement of the Cross as
its centre, prepared for, on the one hand, by a question, and
followed, on the other, by a warning that His followers must travel
the same road.
I. Note the preparation for the announcement of the Cross (verses
27-30). Why did Christ begin by asking about the popular judgment of
His personality? Apparently in order to bring clearly home to the
disciples that, as far as the masses were concerned, His work and
theirs had failed, and had, for net result, total misconception. Who
that had the faintest glimmer of what He was could suppose that the
stern, fiery spirits of Elijah or John had come to life again in Him?
The second question, 'But whom say ye that I am?' with its sharp
transition, is meant to force home the conviction of the gulf between
His disciples and the whole nation. He would have them feel their
isolation, and face the fact that they stood alone in their faith; and
He would test them whether, knowing that they did stand alone, they
had courage and tenacity to re-assert it. The unpopularity of a belief
drives away cowards, and draws the brave and true. If none else
believed in Him, that was an additional reason for loving hearts to
cleave to Him; and those only truly know and love Him who are ready to
stand by Him, if they stand alone--_Athanasius contra mundum_. Mark,
too, that this is the all-important question for every man. Our own
individual 'thought' of Him determines our whole worth and fate.
Mark gives Peter's confession in a lower key, as it were, than Matthew
does, omitting the full-toned clause, 'The Son of the living God.'
This is not because Mark has a lower conception than his brother
Evangelist, for the first words of this Gospel announce that it is
'the Gospel of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God.' And, as he has
identified the two conceptions at the outset, he must, in all
fairness, be supposed to consider that the one implies the other, and
to include both here. But possibly there is truth in the observation
that the omission is one of a number of instances in which this Gospel
passes lightly over the exalted side of Christ's nature, in accordance
with its purpose of setting Him forth rather as the Servant than as
the Lord. It is not meant that that exalted side was absent from
Mark's thoughts, but that his design led him rather to emphasise the
other. Matthew's is the Gospel of the King; Mark's, of the Worker.
The omission of Christ's eulogium on Peter has often been pointed out
as an interesting corroboration of the tradition that he was Mark's
source; and perhaps the failure to record the praise, and the
carefulness to tell the subsequent rebuke, reveal the humble-hearted
'elder' into whom the self-confident young Apostle had grown. Flesh
delights to recall praise; faith and self-knowledge find more profit
in remembering errors forgiven and rebukes deserved, and in their
severity, most loving. How did these questions and their answers serve
as introduction to the announcement of the Cross? In several ways.
They brought clearly before the disciples the hard fact of Christ's
rejection by the popular voice, and defined their own position as
sharply antagonistic. If His claims were thus unanimously tossed
aside, a collision must come. A rejected Messiah could not fail to be,
sooner or later, a slain Messiah. Then clear, firm faith in His
Messiahship was needed to enable them to stand the ordeal to which the
announcement, and, still more, its fulfilment, would subject them. A
suffering Messiah might be a rude shock to all their dreams; but a
suffering Jesus, who was not Messiah, would have been the end of their
discipleship. Again, the significance and worth of the Cross could
only be understood when seen in the light of that great confession.
Even as now, we must believe that He who died was the Son of the
living God before we can see what that Death was and did. An imperfect
conception of who Jesus is takes the meaning and the power out of all
His life, but, most of all, impoverishes the infinite preciousness of
His Death.
The charge of silence contrasts singularly with the former employment
of the Apostles as heralds of Jesus. The silence was partly punitive
and partly prudential. It was punitive, inasmuch as the people had
already had abundantly the proclamation of His gospel, and had cast it
away. It was in accordance with the solemn law of God's retributive
justice that offers rejected should be withdrawn; and from them that
had not, even that which they had should be taken away. Christ never
bids His servants be silent until men have refused to hear their
speech. The silence enjoined was also prudential, in order to avoid
hastening on the inevitable collision; not because Christ desired
escape, but because He would first fulfil His day.
II. We have here the announcement of the Cross (verses 31-33). There
had been many hints before this; for Christ saw the end from the
beginning, however far back in the depths of time or eternity we place
that beginning. We do not sufficiently realise that His Death was
before Him, all through His days, as the great purpose for which He
had come. If the anticipation of sorrow is the multiplication of
sorrow, even when there is hope of escaping it, how much must His have
been multiplied, and bitterness been diffused through all His life, by
that foresight, so clear and constant, of the certain end! How much
more gracious and wonderful His quick sympathy, His patient self
forgetfulness, His unwearied toil, show against that dark background!
Mark here the solemn necessity. Why 'must' He suffer? Not because of
the enmity of the three sets of rejecters. He recognises no necessity
which is imposed by hostile human power. The cords which bind this
sacrifice to the horns of the altar were not spun by men's hands. The
great 'must' which ruled His life was a cable of two strands--obedience
to the Father, and love to men. These haled Him to the
Cross, and fastened Him there. He would save; therefore He 'must' die.
The same 'must' stretches beyond death. Resurrection is a part of His
whole work; and, without it, His Death has no power, but falls into
the undistinguished mass of human mortality. Bewildered as the
disciples were, that assurance of resurrection had little present
force, but even then would faintly hint at some comfort and blessed
mystery. What was to them a nebulous hope is to us a sun of certitude
and cheer, 'Christ that died' is no gospel until you go on to say,
'Yea, rather, that is risen again.'
Peter's rash 'rebuke,' like most of his appearances in the Gospel, is
strangely compounded of warm-hearted, impulsive love and presumptuous
self-confidence. No doubt, the praise which he had just received had
turned his head, not very steady in these early days at its best, and
the dignity which had been promised him would seem to him to be sadly
overclouded by the prospect opened in Christ's forecast. But he was
not thinking of himself; and when he said, 'This shall not be unto
Thee,' probably he meant to suggest that they would all draw the sword
to defend their Master. Mark's use of the word 'rebuke,' which is also
Matthew's, seems to imply that he found fault with Christ. For what?
Probably for not trusting to His followers' arms, or for letting
Himself become a victim to the 'must,' which Peter thought of as
depending only on the power of the ecclesiastics in Jerusalem. He
blames Christ for not hoisting the flag of a revolt.
This blind love was the nearest approach to sympathy which Christ
received; and it was repugnant to Him, so as to draw the sharpest
words from Him that He ever spoke to a loving heart. In his eagerness,
Peter had taken Jesus on one side to whisper his suggestion; but
Christ will have all hear His rejection of the counsel. Therefore He
'turned about,' facing the rest of the group, and by the act putting
Peter behind Him, and spoke aloud the stern words. Not thus was He
wont to repel ignorant love, nor to tell out faults in public; but the
act witnessed to the recoil of His fixed spirit from the temptation
which addressed His natural human shrinking from death, as well as to
His desire that once for all, every dream of resistance by force
should be shattered. He hears in Peter's voice the tone of that other
voice, which, in the wilderness, had suggested the same temptation to
escape the Cross and win the crown by worshipping the Devil; and he
puts the meaning of His instinctive gesture into the same words in
which he had rejected that earlier seducing suggestion. Jesus was a
man, and 'the things that be of men' found a response in His sinless
nature. It shrank from pain and the Cross with innocent and inevitable
shrinking. Does not the very severity of the rebuke testify to its
having set some chords vibrating in His soul? Note that it may be the
work of 'Satan' to appeal to 'the things that be of men,' however
innocent, if by so doing obedience to God's will is hindered. Note,
too, that a Simon may be 'Peter' at one moment, and 'Satan' at the
next.
III. We have here the announcement of the Cross as the law for the
disciples too (verses 34-38). Christ's followers must follow, but men
can choose whether they will be His followers or not. So the 'must' is
changed into 'let him,' and the 'if any man will' is put in the
forefront. The conditions are fixed, but the choice as to accepting
the position is free. A wider circle hears the terms of discipleship
than heard the announcement of Christ's own sufferings. The terms are
for all and for us. The law is stated in verse 34, and then a series
of reasons for it, and motives for accepting it, follow.
The law for every disciple is self-denial and taking up his cross. How
present His own Cross must have been to Christ's vision, since the
thought is introduced here, though He had not spoken of it, in
foretelling His own death! It is not Christ's Cross that we have to
take up. His sufferings stand alone, incapable of repetition and
needing none; but each follower has his own. To slay the life of self
is always pain, and there is no discipleship without crucifying 'the
old man.' Taking up my cross does not merely mean meekly accepting
God-sent or men-inflicted sorrows, but persistently carrying on the
special form of self-denial which my special type of character
requires. It will include these other meanings, but it goes deeper
than they. Such self-immolation is the same thing as following Christ;
for, with all the infinite difference between His Cross and ours, they
are both crosses, and on the one hand there is no real discipleship
without self-denial, and on the other there is no full self-denial
without discipleship.
The first of the reasons for the law, in verse 35, is a paradox, and a
truth with two sides. To wish to save life is to lose it; to lose it
for Christ's sake is to save it. Both are true, even without taking
the future into account. The life of self is death; the death of the
lower self is the life of the true self. The man who lives absorbed in
the miserable care for his own well-being is dead to all which makes
life noble, sweet, and real. Flagrant vice is not needed to kill the
real life. Clean, respectable selfishness does the work effectually.
The deadly gas is invisible, and has no smell. But while all
selfishness is fatal, it is self-surrender and sacrifice, 'for My sake
and the gospel's,' which is life-giving. Heroism, generous
self-devotion without love to Christ, is noble, but falls short of
discipleship, and may even aggravate the sin of the man who exhibits
it, because it shows what treasures he could lay at Christ's feet, if
he would. It is only self-denial made sweet by reference to Him that
leads to life. Who is this who thus demands that He should be the
motive for which men shall 'hate' their own lives, and calmly assumes
power to reward such sacrifice with a better life? The paradox is
true, if we include a reference to the future, which is usually taken
to be its only meaning; but on that familiar thought we need not
enlarge.
The 'for' of verse 36 seems to refer back to the law in verse 34, and
the verse enforces the command by an appeal to self-interest, which,
in the highest sense of the word, dictates self-sacrifice. The men who
live for self are dead, as Christ has been saying. Suppose their
self-living had been 'successful' to the highest point, what would be
the good of all the world to a dead man? 'Shrouds have no pockets.' He
makes a poor bargain who sells his soul for the world. A man gets
rich, and in the process drops generous impulses, affections, interest
in noble things, perhaps principle and religion. He has shrivelled and
hardened into a mere fragment of himself; and so, when success comes,
he cannot much enjoy it, and was happier, poor and sympathetic and
enthusiastic and generous, than he is now, rich and dwindled. He who
loses himself in gaining the world does not win it, but is mastered by
it. This motive, too, like the preceding, has a double application--to
the facts of life here, when they are seen in their deepest reality,
and to the solemn future.
To that future our Lord passes, as His last reason for the command and
motive for obeying it, in verse 38. One great hindrance to out-and-out
discipleship is fear of what the world will say. Hence come
compromises and weak compliance on the part of disciples too timid to
stand alone, or too sensitive to face a sarcasm and a smile. A
wholesome contempt for the world's cackle is needed for following
Christ. The geese on the common hiss at the passer-by who goes
steadily through the flock. How grave and awful is that irony, if we
may call it so, which casts the retribution in the mould of the sin!
The judge shall be 'ashamed' of such unworthy disciples--shall blush
to own such as His. May we venture to put stress on the fact that He
does not say that He will reject them? They who were ashamed of Him
were secret and imperfect disciples. Perhaps, though He be ashamed of
them, though they have brought Him no credit, He will not wholly turn
from them.
How marvellous the transition from the prediction of the Cross to this
of the Throne! The Son of Man must suffer many things, and the same
Son of Man shall come, attended by hosts of spirits who own Him for
their King, and surrounded by the uncreated blaze of the glory of God
in which He sits throned as His native abode. We do not know Jesus
unless we know Him as the crucified Sacrifice for the world's sins,
and as the exalted Judge of the world's deeds.
He adds a weighty word of enigmatical meaning, lest any should think
that He was speaking only of some far-off judgment. The destruction of
Jerusalem seems to be the event intended, which was, in fact, the
beginning of retribution for Israel, and the starting-point of a more
conspicuous manifestation of the kingdom of God. It was, therefore, a
kind of rehearsal, or picture in little, of that coming and ultimate
great day of the Lord, and was meant to be a 'sign' that it should
surely come.