Mark 8:11–30 · 24 November 2024
Understanding Jesus is the Christ
Understanding Jesus is the Christ
Intro
When was the last time you were trying to explain something to someone and just try as you might they could not understand you? Or the opposite — you’ve been trying to learn or understand something, but no matter how many times you get told you still don’t get it?
If you don’t know me, I’m a software engineer, and I know for me it makes me very frustrated when I’m in work and I have to have hundreds of meetings with the same people explaining for the hundredth time how some feature or product my team owns works and then the next day I have to do it all over again. But I also know the other side where my wife is trying to explain something to me and she keeps trying and trying but I just don’t understand. Now these things aren’t really that important in the grand scheme of things, but when someone wants us to understand something, it is usually good to try understand. When God wants us to understand something, it is vital we understand, because in many cases it is very much a matter of life or death.
If you have closed your bible, please do open it up again to Mark chapter 8 to follow along with the passage that we’re looking at this morning. As we’ve been going through our series in Mark you may remember the context of where we are and what’s been happening the past couple of weeks. Jesus has been travelling around, teaching and healing. He’s had some altercations with the Pharisees and exposed their hypocrisy as they watch and wait for others to sin. We’ve also seen Jesus feed the 5000 and the 4000, which will be pertinent to our passage that was read this morning.
You may have noticed a theme that was present throughout the different sections of the passage, that of understanding. Different groups of people have different understandings of who Jesus is, the Pharisees, the disciples, the crowds. And all these sections have a common goal. They contain Jesus’ teachings to his disciples of who he is. Jesus wants the disciples to understand his identity. And everything Jesus does, all the questions he asks, and all the actions he takes serve to show and teach the disciples about his identity, so that they can understand who Jesus is.
1 - The Blind – Rejection (8:11-13)
Look with me from verse 11:
Mark 8:11–13 · ESV
11The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. 12And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” 13And he left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side.
The Pharisees, we see, are not approaching Jesus out of faith, or out of any noble or good intentions. No, we read rather, that they wanted to argue with him, and sought a sign from him to test him. In fact the same word ‘to test’ here is translated earlier in Mark’s gospel as ‘to tempt’, the implication being that the Pharisees are acting similar to Satan who tempted Jesus in the wilderness.
Jesus’ response to the Pharisees is that he, verse 12: sighed deeply in his spirit. Jesus has been travelling around Israel teaching with authority, healing the sick, casting out demons, and even raising people from the dead. These are the very people Jesus came to earth to save, and the Jews were the very people who should have received him. The Pharisees especially should have known the scriptures, they should have known and recognised Jesus. They should have understood who Jesus was. But they are spiritually blind.
And Mark describes Jesus’ sigh as coming from deep in his spirit. This isn’t just a gasp of exasperation, or a performative gesture for others to see. No, Jesus is feeling deep despair in the innermost part of himself because of the hardness of the hearts of those he came to save.
Jesus tells the Pharisees that they will not receive a sign. If they have not been convinced by the miracles he has performed there is nothing he could do to convince them. They are even conveniently ignoring the sign from heaven confirming who Jesus was given by the Father and the Spirit in Jesus’ baptism when the Spirit descended on Jesus and the Father declared Jesus to be his Son.
Those who reject Jesus will do so regardless of signs. We have seen that the past number of weeks also as we’ve gone through Mark’s gospel. Even Jesus’ own family and townspeople rejected him. And despite Jesus confirming his identity and mission through the greatest sign of all, his resurrection from the dead, people still reject him today. Because they are spiritually blind.
Those who are spiritually blind cannot and do not understand who Jesus is. Jesus will use the Pharisees as an example to warn the disciples of the dangers of their way of thinking which leads to spiritual blindness.
2 - The Semi-Blind – No Full Understanding (8:14-21)
The disciples are not like the Pharisees. They have not rejected Jesus. However they have not understood who he is fully yet either. They can only see dimly who he is.
Jesus has two connected things that he wants to teach the disciples in the next section of our passage, in order to help them to understand his identity.
2a - The Semi-Blind (8:14-17)
Look with me at the next section of our passage this morning from verse 14:
Mark 8:14–17 · ESV
14Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. 15And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” 16And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. 17And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?”
The disciples are worried over the fact that they have forgotten to bring any bread with them on the boat and are discussing what they will do, what they will eat. And so Jesus uses this as an opportunity to teach the disciples, teaching metaphorically about the leaven of the Pharisees. The leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod is to be avoided.
What is the leaven? The leaven of the Pharisees is their teaching, their hypocrisy, their rejection of Jesus. The Pharisees claim to follow and worship God, but their actions show otherwise. The Pharisees in the previous section did not want to see a sign from Jesus for good reasons, but in order to put God to the test. They wanted to tempt Jesus and to trap him. To the Pharisees Jesus could not be, as he claimed, the way, the truth, and the life, the only way to have access to the Father and eternal life. No, the Pharisees believed themselves to be clean, set apart and holy, uniquely chosen by God because they were descendants of Abraham, and through their observance of the law were considered righteous. But the Pharisees did not even practice what they preached, and rather laid up heavy burdens on the people with their man-made commandments.
Why is it that the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod was to be avoided? Because leaven in dough spreads throughout the whole batch. It gets into everything and nothing is left unaffected by it. The leaven of the Pharisees will not lead to life, but will lead to death. And to tolerate their teaching at all is dangerous. Jesus wants the disciples to rather trust in him, understanding who he is.
A few weeks ago we considered Jesus overturning the teaching of the Pharisees that the Jews were clean and the gentiles were unclean. Rather all are unclean, and all therefore need Jesus. We cannot let ourselves become complacent and think that we don’t need Jesus, that whatever we do is enough to make us clean. That is the leaven of the Pharisees, that our works, or our parents, or our church that makes us clean. No, it is Jesus alone who can clean us. We need to be wary of false teaching, of accepting that which is not true. Because just like leaven, false teaching will permeate our whole being eventually and we don’t know what the affect may be down the line. We must be on our guard against hypocrisy, against false teachers, and teaching, and trust in Christ alone. If we know who Jesus is, if we have been healed by him, and understand his identity, then we know he is all sufficient. When false teaching which attempts to dimmish Christ’s sufficiency arises we must put it to death immediately.
However, the disciples don’t understand what Jesus is talking about, and think that he is talking about their physical circumstances, perhaps warning them not to buy bread from the Pharisees. And so, verse 16: they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread.
The disciples have not understood who Jesus is so far. They have been with Jesus in the storm on the lake, and had enough trust to wake him up and ask for help, but not enough to know that he would protect them even while asleep. They then questioned who he could be when he calmed the wind and waves. From the very beginning since Jesus called the Twelve he has been patient with the disciples, but has constantly challenged and taught them about his identity. And even as Jesus is teaching them here again, they are not getting it, and so he challenges them yet again. Because to know Jesus, to understand his identity is their greatest issue, and yet they are too busy worrying about what they will eat than thinking on what Jesus is teaching them.
This is a challenge for us too. We can often think we are too busy to think about what Jesus has to teach us, that it can wait til another time. That we are too busy with work, or worrying about what we will eat or wear or where we will live, and that growing in knowledge and understanding of Jesus can wait. But to Jesus, for the disciples not to understand is a sign of their hard-hearts, which is very dangerous. They are on the verge of ending up like those in the parable he taught to them earlier on in Mark’s gospel. Those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
The disciples shouldn’t be questioning the fact that they have no bread at all. They have just witnessed Jesus feeding both the 5000 and the 4000 with just a few loaves and fishes, and now here they are worrying about whether he can provide for the few of them in the boat.
There’s actually some differences in opinion by some commentators on how much bread the disciples actually had on the boat. Some think that the disciples had just the one loaf as per verse 14, and the no bread of verse 16 is just the way of saying that they didn’t have enough to feed everyone. Others think that the disciples truly did have no bread at all, and the one loaf is referring to Jesus. Perhaps in this case the disciples could understand Jesus having the ability to multiply loaves as he had before, but because of their hard hearts could not conceive of him being able to provide for them with no bread to work with at all.
The disciples fail to recognise anyway that they do have bread with them, and enough to satisfy them completely. Thus when Jesus asks whether the disciples do not perceive or understand, he is not only talking about the fact they don’t understand his teaching on the Pharisees, but also that they don’t understand who he is, that he is the bread of life, and is sufficient for them.
How could you worry about what you will eat when the creator of the universe and everything in it is sitting beside you in the boat! And how could you worry about whether he will provide when you have seen him provide much more, feeding the 5000 and the 4000.
And yet how often are we the same. God answers our prayers in one manner, but days later we are worried about something else, completely forgetting his provision for us in the past. This worry and lack of trust in Jesus that the disciples display, and we display, is part of the leaven of the Pharisees. It is a lack of trust in Jesus because of a lack of a sign. Rather it is by faith that the disciples should be walking, understanding who Jesus is.
2b - The Semi-Blind (8:18-21)
The disciples are in danger of being those with hard-hearts and so Jesus continues asking them questions in order to again teach them about who he is, and remind them of what he has done.
Look with me from verse 18:
Mark 8:18–21 · ESV
18Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? 19When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.” 20“And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.” 21And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”
Notice the repeated warnings in the questions Jesus asks from verse 15:
Watch out, beware
Do you not perceive or understand?
Are your hearts hardened?
Having eyes do you not see?
Having ears do you not hear?
Do you not remember?
Do you not yet understand?
To understand who Jesus is is the most important thing. But the disciples have not as in verse 18 remembered what Jesus has done. This is very dangerous. In the Old Testament the people of Israel were commanded to remember what God had done for them, and to remember and obey his commands so that they could live in the land of Canaan and experience the blessings of God. But time and time again we’re told that they forget God and instead turn away from him to idols. Jesus does not want the disciples story to mirror that of Israel.
And so Jesus again uses this opportunity in comforting them in their worry about what they will eat to teach them about himself, and call them to remember. When Jesus asks the disciples to remember the feeding of the 4000 and the feeding of the 5000 he asks them in each case to remember how much bread was left over. To the feeding of the 5000 Jews the disciples reply that there were twelve baskets left over. To the feeding of the 4000 gentiles there were seven baskets left over.
In the bible there are different repeated numbers which have significance in their use throughout scripture. And the two numbers we have in this section are two of those numbers. They are not random, as indicated by Jesus’ highlighting of them as he seeks to teach the disciples.
When Jesus feeds the Jewish crowd there are twelve baskets left over. Jesus is sufficient for all twelve tribes of Israel, those who have primarily been his audience for teaching and healing in Mark’s gospel. The number 7 is used throughout scripture to signify perfection, wholeness, completeness, or fullness. And when Jesus feeds the gentiles he does so with a fullness of abundance, with 7 baskets left over. Jesus could have had any number of baskets left over in each of these miracles. There could have been an exact amount with none left over, there could have been 10 or 100 baskets left over in each case. But Jesus specifically made it so there were 12 and 7 leftover. Jesus wants to teach the disciples that he is a blessing to the Jews and to the gentiles.
As Jesus questions the disciples and causes them to reflect upon and remember what he has done he is teaching them that he is someone significant. The numbers were important, and they were to point the disciples towards the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, the Davidic King who would reign on the throne of David eternally, and who would be a blessing to the nations. He is not just any king, or any prophet. The disciples should recall the scripture that they knew, , which tells of the Anointed one of God who receives the nations as his heritage and the ends of the earth as his possession. Jesus is expanding the Kingdom from Israel to all the earth, Jews and Gentiles with increasing fullness.
Verse 21: And he said to them, “do you not yet understand.” At the end of this teaching it seems like the disciples still don’t get it. But while Jesus is warning them and cautioning them against their hard hearts, he still hasn’t given up on them. In fact he says in both verse 21 and verse 17 “do you not yet understand”. There is not no hope for the disciples as Jesus has hope that they will come to understand in the future.
This call to understanding is something that all of us here this morning need to pay attention to, whether we are Christians or not. It is made clearer in the other gospel accounts of this narrative that the disciples don’t understand the teaching on the leaven and its meaning until after Jesus explains it. If we are followers of Jesus we need to study the word diligently and carefully. This is why you will often hear Duncan or I saying to keep your bibles open when we’re preaching. Because we want you to follow along and see if what we’re saying is what the text is saying. And that requires us to actually wrestle with and strive to understand the scriptures.
Bible believing Christians who are our brothers and sisters don’t all agree on everything! We agree on the essentials and it is true that there are some things, such as everything necessary for salvation, which are clearer than others in scripture, but if people disagree on things then some people are right and others are wrong. So if we are to be faithful followers of Jesus, we need to study God’s word ourselves, with the Spirit working in us, to understand the word of God rightly. We need to reflect upon and remember what God has done in scripture and how that reveals his character.
3 - The Healing of Blindness (8:22-26)
Jesus continues to teach the disciples of his identity and their spiritual state in the next few verses of our passage this morning. Look with me from verse 22:
Mark 8:22–26 · ESV
22And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. 23And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” 24And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” 25Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26And he sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”
First let us consider how this miracle is continuing Jesus’ teaching the disciples on his identity. We can see for two reasons in this passage that this miracle is for the benefit of the disciples specifically, even as it is to the benefit of the blind man who is being healed.
First we see that Jesus brings the man out of Bethsaida. Jesus isn’t performing this miracle for the people in the village, it’s not for their sake. And if it was just for the sake of the blind man himself Jesus would not have needed to bring him out of the village. No Jesus is privately using this healing as a time of teaching for the disciples.
Secondly we see that Jesus performs this miracle in two stages, the only recorded event in all the gospel accounts where this happens. While we clearly see that Jesus is free to heal people in whatever manner he chooses by this difference, I think it is also clear that there is a reason why this healing takes place in stages, which we could surely agree isn’t to the benefit of the man being healed, who I’m sure would prefer it be done instantaneously! Therefore, whatever the reason is, it must be for the benefit of the disciples to see.
Jesus uses this miracle to teach the disciples about their spiritual state. The blind man is in three states in this passage, which mirror the three groups of people we see in our passage this morning.
The first state the man is in is blindness. He is brought to Jesus by his friends. They recognise that Jesus is able to heal, and that he is willing. This corresponds to the Pharisees that we saw at the beginning of our passage. The Pharisees are spiritually blind. They have rejected Jesus and cannot see who he is.
So Jesus, taking the man out of the village spits in the man’s eyes, lays his hands on him, and asks him if he can see. The man replies that he can see, but not clearly. He can’t tell a person from a tree. The man is no longer completely blind, but he is partially blind.
This is where the disciples are currently at. They haven’t rejected Jesus like the Pharisees, but they do not fully understand who he is either. Jesus himself asked them earlier if: having eyes do you not see?
Finally Jesus lays his hands on the man again and heals him completely, making him able to see everything clearly. We’ll see how this pertains fully to the disciples in the final section of our passage shortly, but this is when the disciples understand who Jesus is. Peter declares Jesus as the Christ. This doesn’t mean that the disciples don’t have anything left to learn. In fact we’ll see when we return to Mark’s gospel next year how Jesus then begins to teach the disciples what being the Christ actually means. But they are no longer blind.
Just as the blind man’s healing was gradual, so too will the disciples understanding and growth in knowledge of Jesus and his identity and mission be gradual. This should be an encouragement to us also in different ways.
First, we should be encouraged that our growth and sanctification in our walk as Christians takes time. We shouldn’t expect to fully get everything and know and understand everything immediately. Rather, like the disciples we need to sit under Jesus’ teaching and reflect upon it as we walk daily as followers of Jesus. We should also be challenged that just because we are Christians that doesn’t mean that we’re done now and we’ve reached the end of our journey. No, we are now running a race which we need to persevere in to the end. We need to patiently wait as God works in us, continuing to trust in him in all things.
Secondly, we should not be discouraged when those we share the good news of Jesus with are slow to understand. Jesus heals people in different ways. Sometimes there is immediate healing and those we share the gospel with will turn in faith and repentance quickly. Many times though there will be a gradual change in people as they slowly begin to understand who Jesus is. We should not be discouraged when this happens, but like Jesus keep questioning and reminding others of the truth of Jesus.
And we should remember also that it is not us who makes others able to see clearly. Nor can they make themselves see clearly. Neither the blind man nor his friends could make him see clearly, it was only Jesus who could heal him and make him able to see. Rather we lead those we see to Jesus, we bring them to him who is able and willing to heal, that they would understand his identity.
Seeing clearly, seeing Jesus clearly, is the answer to avoiding the leaven or teaching of the Pharisees. We need to be healed by Jesus to see our hypocrisy, to see the hypocrisy of others, to see the truth. When we look to Jesus, and examine the claims and teachings of others, we can see if they measure up to who Jesus is and what he taught.
But why does Jesus tell the man not to enter the village when he has healed him? Well I think it has to do with what we see in the final section of our passage this morning, which we’ll jump into shortly, as this section and the next parallel each other in what happens.
4 - True Sight – True Understanding (8:27-30)
In some senses the healing of the blind man is just another healing miracle that Jesus performs. So why does it trigger the disciples to understand who Jesus is?
Because as they have been reflecting upon their travels with Jesus, seeing his previous healings and miracles, and hearing his teaching they have been, or should have been, considering who he is. But what Jesus shows them in this miracle is that spiritual sight comes from him. And this is why the disciples are able to now recognise who Jesus is. Because Jesus has healed them of their spiritual blindness, replacing their hard hearts of stone with hearts of flesh.
So look with me at the last section of our passage this morning from verse 27:
Mark 8:27–30 · ESV
27And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” 29And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” 30And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.
You may notice how this section mirrors the previous section. They each start with Jesus and the disciples on their way somewhere, each end with Jesus’ command not to do something, and in the middle section start with partial sight or understanding and end with full sight and understanding.
Jesus first asks the disciples, verse 27: who do people say that I am? And the disciples reply with different options. Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, still others another prophet. These responses indicate that the people do not understand clearly who Jesus is. They are not necessarily like the Pharisees who have rejected Jesus, but they don’t get his identity right either. They are just like the disciples earlier on in our passage this morning. And they are like the blind man who has partial sight. But either way, their responses are not correct.
And so Jesus asks the disciples who they think he is. Do they agree with the people? Do they still not yet perceive or understand? Are their hearts hardened? Do they have eyes but cannot see? Do they remember?
Peter answers verse 29: You are the Christ. This declaration is the turning point of the gospel. It is what these first 8 chapters in the Gospel of Mark have been building up to and pointing towards. Jesus has been teaching and showing his disciples who he is, his identity revealed by Mark in the first sentence of the gospel, The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And this is the first time since then that anyone has declared Jesus as the Christ. From now on we’ll see a shift in the gospel as Jesus begins to head towards Jerusalem and his death, and a shift in his teaching, as he no longer teaches the disciples that he is the Christ, but what that means.
But before we jump away from this declaration, we need to see what it means and why it is so important.
Firstly what does Jesus being the Christ mean? When you hear people refer to Jesus as “Jesus Christ”, it isn’t that Christ is Jesus’ surname or something like that. No, the Christ is a title. In fact we see in scripture Jesus is called: Jesus Christ, or Christ Jesus, or Jesus the Christ. The Christ is the New Testament Greek word which is the same as the Old Testament Hebrew word — the Messiah. And both are translations meaning “Anointed One.”
In the Old Testament people were anointed in their appointment to different offices. Prophets, priests, and kings were all anointed to show their appointment to their roles. The Messiah, or Anointed One, or Christ, of the Old Testament was the promised anointed king who would be a descendant of King David and who would reign on his throne eternally. Now the Jews who hoped in this Messiah believed that he would come as a mighty military commander who would free Israel from their oppressors and would restore to them the blessings of living in the land as in the time of David or Solomon. When Peter declares Jesus as the Christ, this is what he is declaring. Not that Jesus is just another prophet, but that Jesus is the Anointed One of God, the promised Messiah who will be the King over Israel.
Secondly why is Jesus as the Christ important with regard to how the people view him? Jesus’ question of Who do people say that I am indicates that others are thinking or reflecting on Jesus just as the disciples have been. But just as Jesus warned the disciples earlier that they were in a dangerous place and might have hardened hearts, the warning applies to the people too. While they have not rejected Jesus as the Pharisees have, they have not accepted Jesus as the Christ as the disciples now have.
But whereas the disciples did come to a correct understanding of Jesus’ identity, for many of the people the opposite will be true. Many will be like the seed Jesus warns about in the parable of the sower who fall away. We read later in Mark’s gospel that the Pharisees stir up the crowd in Jerusalem against Jesus and the crowd calls for his crucifixion. Many will fully reject him because of their spiritual blindness.
The people then, and all people now, need to be spiritually healed by Jesus to fully understand and know who he is. Jesus as the Messiah, as the Christ versus Jesus as just a prophet, even a great one like Elijah or John the Baptist, is as radically different an identity as a man is from a tree.
Who do people say Jesus is today? If you were to go out and ask you might get some different but similar answers. Many would say that he was a good teacher. Others might say that he is a good moral example, if outdated. Others might say that he is just a myth and the stories of Jesus aren’t who the real Jesus was.
C.S. Lewis famously said this on this topic:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to… . Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.
So then what does it mean to declare Jesus as the Christ? To declare Jesus as Christ is to say that he is the Anointed One of God. That he was chosen by God and appointed as King over all the earth. It is to declare your allegiance to him, to submit to him, to turn to him, to follow him in obedience. It is to love him, to worship him, to leave all we have to follow him, to count him more than the greatest treasure. It is to trust him in all circumstances and remember that he alone can satisfy. It is to recognise that we are sinners, that our sin has separated us from God and because of our sin we deserve God’s wrath and justice upon us. And it is to recognise that Jesus is the one who can take away our sin, who has paid the penalty for our sin in our place and who calls us to turn to him in faith and repentance.
Who do you say that Jesus is? When Peter makes this declaration he doesn’t do so when Jesus is sitting on a throne in Jerusalem with armies at his command and people falling at his feet worshipping him. He does so when he is just a poor Rabbi wandering from place to place, often rejected by those he meets. He is rejected by the religious leaders of the day, and the people don’t know who he is either. He has no power, or wealth, or honour in the eyes of the world. And yet, because Jesus has opened his eyes he can declare nothing but that Jesus is the Christ.
It is not popular in our society to declare Jesus as Christ. It will not be welcomed by your friends or family or colleagues or neighbours. But if Christ has opened your eyes that you can see, if he has given you ears to hear, if your heart has not been hardened, if you perceive and understand then you must be ready to confess that Jesus is Christ. It is a costly confession but one that leads to life.
If you are a Christian here this morning continue to live out the confession that you have made, that Jesus is the Christ. Continue to trust him; He has proven himself trustworthy, and he has never let you down. Resist the temptations to look elsewhere to other teachings which will lead you away from Christ. If you are here this morning and you haven’t made this confession. If you have not confessed Jesus as Christ, then heed Jesus’ warnings. Do not let your heart be hardened toward him. Turn to Jesus, he can heal you. The opinions of what others say about Jesus are inconsequential, whether they are right or wrong. It is what you confess about Jesus that is key.
Peter’s declaration of Jesus as the Christ does not however mean that the disciples fully understand everything about Jesus, his identity, and his mission as the Messiah. In fact we see Jesus rebuke Peter only a couple of verses after this confession of faith. And this is why we see, verse 30: Jesus strictly charged them to tell no one about him.
We would expect this to be a cause for celebration right? After all isn’t this what Jesus has been teaching the disciples the whole time? Isn’t this what he wanted them to understand about him? Haven’t they been healed by Jesus? Doesn’t he want them then to share this with others so that they will know too?
Well, yes and no. Jesus does want the gospel, the good news, his life and death and resurrection to be proclaimed to the ends of the earth, but the disciples do not yet understand what Jesus being the Christ fully means. This is what Jesus would begin to teach them from now on. They still likely think that Jesus will bring in the Kingdom of God by force, that he will raise up armies, kick out the Romans, and head to Jerusalem to take the throne of David. But Jesus needs to teach them that the Kingdom of God will not be brought in by the ways of the world and human might. He needs to teach them that the Christ will be a suffering servant who will die and rise again. Before they can proclaim that Jesus is the Christ they need to understand what that means before he will give them permission to proclaim it.
Mark Dever explains it as follows:
You see there were strong misconceptions about the Messiah and there were popular expectations that Jesus would not meet. He had no intention of meeting those. And he couldn’t meet those if he were to be the Messiah that was prophesied. If he were to do what the Messiah needed to do. Jesus knew that his Messiahship could not be rightly understood apart from his substitutionary atoning death and resurrection. So what Jesus was doing by this command to silence wasn’t contradicting the Great Commission. It was simply that Jesus had not yet finished his time of teaching. And he had not yet died for our sins. He had not yet been raised from the dead. And so it was not yet quite time to let slip the grand news about who Jesus is. More instruction was needed even by his own disciples in order to understand… But the very fact that Mark wrote this gospel shows that the Christians understood that Jesus’ command of silence about his identity was only for a time.
Conclusion
As we imitate what the disciples should have been doing, and reflect upon Jesus’ teachings in this passage:
Do not be like the disciples who worry over their lack of physical bread when they should be concerned instead over their spiritual health. Rather remember what God has done, remember that he is enough to satisfy, remember that he has never forsaken you in the past and he will not in the future.
As Paul writes to the church in Corinth — examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.
Do you understand who Jesus is? Do you understand what it means for Jesus to be the Christ? Do you confess truly that Jesus is Christ? That he is God’s Anointed One and King over all? That he is your Lord and Saviour, the one whom you are striving to follow, though imperfectly, in obedience, repentance, and love? And are you living in line with that confession?
If you are rejecting Christ — you are blind. Turn to Christ. If you are not sure you fully understand Jesus — be wary. Do not end up like those who hear the word and then turn away. Rather follow the disciples and turn to Christ. If Jesus has given you eyes to see, that he is the Christ, keep turning to him and trusting him in all things, even when it is hard to be patient.
And now as we start this new week — go! We are not in the time of hiding anymore. The restriction on the disciples to tell no one has been removed. The world is blind. It suppresses the truth and does not see Jesus as Christ. But you are called to go and bring people to Jesus, to bring them to the one who can heal their spiritual blindness. And as you go to this world hear Jesus’ words to the disciples:
Matthew 28:18–20 · ESV
18“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”