Bible Commentaries

Mark 9:8

I. When Jesus thus revealed Himself on the Mount of Transfiguration, He may be said to have taken, by anticipation, so much of that Divine glory with which He is now adorned, in heaven, as would call forth the wonder and admiration, without confounding the faculties, of the beholders.

II. The transfiguration of our Lord afforded a powerful attestation to His Divine character, and the truth of His mission to the world. Moses and Elias would never have appeared to support the pretensions of an impostor.

III. Moreover, the same wondrous transformation on Mount Tabor placed beyond a doubt the fact of the soul's immortality and the resurrection of the body. Not only did the face of the Saviour shine as the sun, and His raiment become white and glistering, but Moses and Elias, also, appeared with Him in glory. What was this but a representation and pledge of the final blessedness of the redeemed. St. Martin of Tours was once meditating in his cell, when a radiant form appeared to him, with a jewelled crown on His head, a countenance resplendent with glory, and with a manner so impressive that it seemed to demand homage and love. The heavenly vision said to St. Martin, "I am Christ; worship Me," and the legend goes on to say that the saint looked upon this glorious form in silence, then gazed upon the hands and asked, "Where is the print of the nails?" Forthwith the vision departed, and St Martin knew that it was the crafty tempter. The same question, Where is the print of the nails? will relieve many an anxious doubt, and reveal the way of duty.

IV. There are times in the history of God's children, when, the brightest visions having faded away, like the disciples in the text, "they saw no man any more, save Jesus only with themselves." Can there possibly be a happier or more sustaining thought than this? The little word only reminds us, that we need not be afraid for ten thousands of the people that have set themselves in array against us, if Jesus be our Friend. Each trusting heart may claim Him, as if no one else shared in His all-perfect love.

J. N. Norton, Golden Truths, p. 312.

References: Mark 9:8.—J. M. Neale, Sermons in a Religious House, p. 440. Mark 9:9-32.—W. Hanna, Our Lord's Life on Earth, p. 264. Mark 9:10.—J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 360; J. B. Heard, Ibid., vol. xxiii., p. 260. Mark 9:14-29.—H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, p. 197. Mark 9:15.—Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 241.

Mark 9:19

Christ's Lament over Faithlessness.

I. The first thing that seems to be in this lament is not anger, but a very distinct and very pathetic expression of Christ's infinite pain, because of man's faithlessness. The element of personal sorrow is most obvious here. All that men have ever felt—of how hard it is to keep on working when not a soul understands them, when not a single creature believes in them, when there is nobody that will accept their message, nor that will give them credit for pure motives,—Jesus Christ had to feel, and that in an altogether singular degree. There never was such a lonely soul on this earth as His, just because there never was another so pure and loving.

II. In this short sharp cry of anguish, there may be detected by the listening ear not only the tone of personal hurt, but the tone of disappointed and thwarted love. Because of their unbelief He knew that they could not receive what He desired to give them. We find Him more than once in His life hemmed in, hindered, balked of His purpose,—thwarted in His design—simply because there was nobody with a heart open to receive the rich treasure that He was ready to pour out.

III. Another thought which seems to me to be expressed in this wonderful exclamation of our Lord is, that their faithlessness bound Christ to earth, and kept Him there. As there is not anger, but only pain, so there is also, I think, not exactly impatience, but a desire to depart, coupled with the feeling that He cannot leave them till they have grown stronger in faith, and that feeling is increased by the experience of their utter helplessness and shameful discomfiture during His brief absence. They had shown that they were not fit to be trusted alone. He had been away for a day up in the mountain there, and though they did not build an altar to any golden calf, like their ancestors, when their leader was absent, still when He comes back He finds all things gone wrong because of the few hours of His absence. What would they do if He were to go away from them altogether? "How long must I be with you?" said the loving Teacher, who is prepared ungrudgingly to give His slow scholar as much time as he needs to learn his lesson.

IV. Again, we here get a glimpse into the depth of Christ's patience and forbearance. This plaintive question sounds like a pledge that as long as they need forbearance they will get it, but at the same time a question of how long that is to be. It implies the inexhaustible riches and resources of His patient mercy,

A. Maclaren, Week Day Evening Addresses, p. 54.

References: Mark 9:19.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 261. Mark 9:22.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 182.

Mark 9:23

Christ's "If" answered and more than answered the man's "if." The man had said, "if thou canst do anything"; Christ reversed it and showed where the real contingency lay. "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." And why are all things possible to him that believeth? Because he that believeth takes hold of Christ and uses His omnipotence.

I. Observe first the expression. "If thou canst believe," not, "if thou dost believe." Every man who has not made himself lower than a man, and so lost the position of our common humanity—every man has some faith. And every man who uses the faith he has, will increase its' power and acquire more. You are the arbiter of your own creed, and your faith is also the test of your own moral condition. And our Lord was not mocking the father of the lunatic child—He was not making a requirement of that which was an impossibility, but He was elevating his mind, and carrying on his own spiritual life, when He said to him "If thou canst believe."

II. The outside boundary line of the province of faith, properly so called, is promises. Faith is laying hold, I do not say of what God is, for God may be and is much which we cannot understand enough even to believe—but it is laying hold of what God has covenanted Himself to us—what God is to His people. The promises are what God is to His Church, therefore faith confines itself to promises.

III. The text does not say "All things are given to him that believeth," but "All things are possible to him that believeth." It may happen, for various causes, that a man may not, at a certain period, receive even what he believes and seeks. God may have some wise, secret reason for not giving it at that time. The man himself, though, he has the faith, may yet have to learn how to use and express his faith better. There is no promise respecting the time, or the way; there is the promise, but not the how or the when. All that is asserted is this, that when a man has the faith of a mercy, he has then the possibility of that mercy. Then, all barriers have been removed, and he may have that mercy at any time, and be sure to have that mercy some time.

J. Vaughan, Sermons, 1868, p. 85.

References: Mark 9:25.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii., No. 474; vol. xxix., No. 1744; Ibid., Evening by Evening, pp. 222, 281; J. M. Neale, Sermons for the Christian Year, vol. ii., p. 193.

Mark 9:23-24

Present Phases of Unbelief.

I. Unbelief may have its rise and find occasion in three directions—the external world, man, and the nature of Christianity itself. One meets constantly the words Agnosticism and Positivism, and these words indicate the channel in which unbelief at present flows.

II. The very principle of the Agnostic involves a contradiction. He declares that man cannot know that there is a God—that God, if He exists, cannot make Himself known. Is not this professing to know a very great deal? This is not agnostic—without knowledge; this is claiming to have an exhaustive knowledge both of man and God, claiming a knowledge, too, in plainest contradiction to human history and human consciousness.

III. One of the characteristics of the unbelief of the present time is its high ethical spirit and purpose. In this it stands wholly opposed to the atheism of former days, which often sought to efface moral distinctions. Our quarrel with this phase of unbelief is, that it ignores man, that it does not look at the facts of the soul, in comparison with which all others are fading pictures. It is fractional and exclusive. Christianity is wide and impartial. It believes that the true reason is the utterance of man's whole nature.

IV. The Positivist rejects agnosticism He is successful in showing that agnosticism as a religion fails in the three essential elements—belief, worship, conduct. But when he comes to exhibit his own substitute for Christianity, he creates a feeling of surprise, of bewilderment. It is collective humanity that he proposes to worship. While rejecting all abstractions and theories, and professing to regard only fact and law, "law social, moral, mental as well as physical," he is guilty of worshipping the most entire, and at the same time the most incongruous abstraction. He forgets that men can only worship that which can respond.

V. Another phase of unbelief specially characteristic of our time, and by which it seeks to overthrow religion, is the exclusive claim to disinterestedness.

VI. Our age supplies in its spirit and tendency three antidotes to its own phase of unbelief. (1) The study of the comparative science of religions. The effect of this is to deepen on the mind the conviction that religion is an essential part of human nature, and the dominating part. (2) The strongly ethical character of much of the literature of the time and the deep interest taken in the discussion of ethical questions is on the side of religion. (3) The best poets are among the best friends of religion in our day.

J. Leckie, Sermons at Ibrox, p. 362.

References: Mark 9:23, Mark 9:24.—Clergyman's Magazine, vol. iii., p. 281; J. Natt, Plain Sermons, p. 166.

Mark 9:24

The transfiguration marks, so it seems, a crisis in our blessed Lord's history. It was a great out-shining of the glory of God in the sacred Humanity, permitted alike for the strengthening of the Son for His bitter passion, and for the more confirmation of the staggering faith of the holy Apostles as they witnessed the descent of their Master low down into the valley of His unfathomable humiliation. Henceforth His eye seems ever to be fixed on the cross. Many people have seen Raphael's famous picture of the Transfiguration. It is a striking contrast and absolutely necessary if we would really grasp the meaning of the miracle. The lesson of the contrast is:

I. "Seek ye My face." Cultivate the presence of Jesus Christ; realise that any conversation, any pleasure, any companionship, any business where He cannot be called, tempts Him to leave the soul; that a life lived without Him must end in darkness and in shame. Realise on the other hand, that wherever our lot may be cast, in poverty, in sickness, in loneliness, it matters not where, it is well, so only in meekness we cling to Him.

II. As you think of our Lord descending from the height of glory to this scene of sadness and sorrow, see a picture of His love. This demoniac boy, what was he but a type of the sin-stricken world? These vain attempts alike of the Jewish Church and of the Apostles not yet gifted with the Holy Ghost, how it all tells us of the thousand efforts made, now by pious Jews, now by those outside the covenant of Promise, to heal the plague of a fallen world, yet was it all in vain. So He, the Eternal, left the Holy Mount, clad Himself in the robe of flesh, and all that He might expel from our souls the evil spirit who had robbed God of His creature, man.

III. See the power of faith: "All things are possible to him that believeth." The father cried, "If Thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us." The reason why miracles are not wrought today is, not because Christ has failed in power, but because we have failed in faith, the faith as a grain of mustard seed is lacking.

IV. See the power of self purification. "This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting."

T. Birkett Dover, The Ministry of Mercy, p. 175.

If these words express a real state of mind—and who that knows his own heart can doubt for a moment that they do?—it is evident that belief and unbelief can co-exist at the same time; that unbelief is not at once eradicated because we say "I believe;" that belief is not unreal, not hollow, because it is sadly lacerated, and sometimes as it would seem almost interpenetrated, with the poison of unbelief.

I. When the father of the stricken child cried out and said with tears, "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief," He knew what he meant. He meant this: "Lord, I do believe that Thou canst heal my child. How it can be, I know not; but everything tells me that Thou canst aid me. I do believe, though I hardly know why. Give me clearer knowledge. Help my unbelief. But meanwhile heal my son. I know that Thou canst do that." We need healing. Do we know that we need it? If we do, the doctrine of the Trinity is not far from our hearts, however perplexing it may be to our intellects. If we do not know it, our Lord Himself, though He were again present on the earth, could not prove to us that He is one with the Father and the Comforter.

II. Men believed to be inspired have by all people been regarded with peculiar veneration. The veneration has often been paid to an inspiration which certainly did not come from the spirit of good. But our temptation is to disbelieve inspiration altogether, as a present, operative reality; to regard men as left to themselves, as the authors of their own good and their own evil; to deny a Divine presence; to regard God as a Being historically past or indefinitely future; as One who did speak to the Jews, and will hereafter speak to us, but leaves us now to pass unassisted through a probation which is to fit us for knowing Him in a different state of existence. He who believes in a Holy Ghost sees mankind under a different aspect. They are either grieving or obeying that Divine Spirit. Their evil is rebellion. Their good is God's. It is possible to say in folly, "There is no God"—no Spirit. It is also possible to say and to feel, "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief." God revealed Himself gradually to the world. He reveals Himself gradually to us. We pray that His work may go on in our hearts; that no prejudice, or sin, or indolence, or insincerity of ours may thwart Him. We believe that the doctrine of three Persons in one God, so far from being an abysmal mystery which it may be right to accept but impossible to make practical, is the one thing which it is most needful for us all to know. "Lord, we believe; help Thou our unbelief."

H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, p. 61.

Take these words:

I. As the voice of one seeking salvation. Now, if one ask salvation for another, or for himself, Christ demands faith, and in demanding, helps faith to exist and act. "Lord I believe." How do I believe? It is the Lord who, by the secret power of His Holy Spirit, enables me to believe at all. And yet, what we are conscious of, when we first believe, is not of that Divine touch of the quickening Spirit, but of the action of our own souls, taking hold upon Him, according to His words, as our only and all-sufficient Helper and Healer, and putting our entire trust in Him. "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief."

II. As the voice of the Christian in some anguish of spirit. Grant that the first lessons of faith have been learned, and the elements of new life and hope have been planted in the soul. It is seldom that men understand the real use and value of faith, or the real strength and mischief of unbelief, until they have fallen into some distress, or wrestled with some great sorrow. Adversity or discouragement comes, and words will not support us then. We are alone with a heavy grief, or involved in something that, of all things, we wanted to avoid and shrink from, or face to face with what we know not how to bear. We toss on the sea and the wind is contrary, and where is our faith? Ah! it is with a struggle then that we believe, and we quickly add, "Lord, help mine unbelief."

III. As the words of the believer in view of duty, or of some holy privilege. (1) Say of duty first. You have some lowly work to do for the Lord on whom you wait. There are trials about very lowly work. At times you have your temptations. Your motives become complicated because you have lost your simplicity of faith and purpose and your singleness of eye looking at your Master's hand and countenance. Then make haste to the Saviour and pray unto Him. "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief." (2) It may be, you advance to some holy privilege of grace, say the Lord's table. Go with your faint heart, your feeble faith, and your emptiness and helplessness, to the fulness of Jesus Christ, and you will not fare worst at His table. And when you say, "Lord Jesus, I do believe," then add in a breath, "Help Thou mine unbelief."

IV. As the voice of the whole Church on earth anxious for the salvation of her children. She has a constant struggle to maintain the holy faith, and overcome the doubts and incredulities that are springing up within her pale. The mediæval missionary, the Reformer, the Puritan, and the Covenanter, had none of that dapper orthodoxy which now-a-days casts its measuring line over all. He fought his doubts and gathered strength, and while he had a faith that gave courage to his heart and gravity to his character and heroism to his life, on that very account he felt that he must judge himself rather than other men, and that he must cry for himself in the battle of life, "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief." I should have more hope for the cause of truth now if we saw the same type of brave and humble Christian character returning, of course with the additional charm of the culture of the present age.

D. Fraser, Penny Pulpit (New Series), No. 444.

The Struggle and Victory of Faith.

We learn here:

I. That faith and unbelief are often found in the same heart.

II. That whenever faith and unbelief meet in an earnest heart there will be war.

III. We can foretell how the war will go, by the side which a man's heart takes.

IV. The way to be sure of the victory of faith is to call in the help of Christ.

J. Ker, Sermons, 2nd series, p. 1.

References: Mark 9:24.—R. W. Evans, Parochial Sermons, vol. ii., p. 229; G. C. Bell, Church of England Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 17; M. Dix, Sermons Doctrinal and Practical, p. 195; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii., No. 1033; Ibid., My Sermon Notes: Gospels and Acts, p. 71; Preacher's Monthly, vol. iii., p. 345; vol. vii., p. 165; vol. ix., p. 181; J. Martineau, Endeavours after the Christian Life, p. 343. Mark 9:29.—W. F. Hook, Sermons on the Miracles, vol. ii., p. 83. Mark 9:30-41.—H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, p. 202; W. Hanna, Our Lord's Life on Earth, p. 272. Mark 9:33.—G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons and Addresses in Mar thorough College, p. 19.

Mark 9:33-37

The child in the midst.

Note:—

I. That our Lord's lesson lay, not in the humanity, but in the childhood of the child. The disciples had been disputing who should be the greatest, and the Lord wanted to show them that such a dispute had nothing to do with the way things went in His kingdom. Therefore, as a specimen of His subjects, He took a child and set him before them. It was not, it could not, be in virtue of his humanity, it was in virtue of his childhood that this child was thus shown as representing a subject of the Kingdom. It was not to show the scope, but the nature of the Kingdom. He told them they could not enter into the Kingdom save by becoming little children—by humbling themselves, for the idea of ruling was excluded where childlikeness was the one essential quality. It was to be no more who should rule, but who should serve; no more who should look down on his fellows from the conquered heights of authority—even of sacred authority—but who should look up, honouring humanity and ministering unto it, so that humanity itself might be persuaded of its own honour as a temple of the living God.

II. This lesson led to the enunciation of a yet higher truth, upon which it was founded, and from which indeed it sprung. Nothing is required of man that is not first in God. It is because God is perfect that we are required to be perfect; and it is for the revelation of God to all the human souls, that they may be saved by knowing Him, and so becoming like Him, that this child is thus chosen, and set before them in the gospel. It is the recognition of the childhood as Divine, that will show the disciple how vain is the strife after relative place or honour in the great Kingdom.

III. To receive a child in the name of God is to receive God Himself. How to receive Him? As alone He can be received—by knowing Him as He is. Here is the argument of highest import, founded upon the teaching of our Master in the utterance before us. God is represented in Jesus, for that God is like Jesus; Jesus is represented in the child, for that Jesus is like the child. Therefore God is represented in the child, for that He is like the child. God is childlike. In the true vision of this fact lies the receiving of God in the child.

G. Macdonald, Unspoken Sermons, p. 1.

References: Mark 9:33-37.—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 200. Mark 9:33-50.—Expositor, 1st series, vol. xi., p. 79; A. Maclaren, Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament, p. 37. Mark 9:35-37.—D. Fraser, Metaphors of the Gospel, p. 157. Mark 9:36.—H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Waterside Mission Sermons, 2nd series, No. 11. Mark 9:36, Mark 9:37.—J. Keble, Sermons for Saints' Day, p. 77. Mark 9:38.—H. P. Liddon, University Sermons, 2nd series, p. 165.

Mark 9:38-39

Persons who choose their religion for themselves, or who wander about from one communion of Christians to another at their will, often urge upon us who wish to be disciples of the faith, which was once delivered to the saints, this passage of Scripture. They argue that as the Apostles were not allowed to forbid this stranger, neither may the Church forbid strange teachers and preachers; that all have a right to preach, whether they follow the Church or no, so that they do but preach in the name of Jesus, without any molestation.

I. Now I deny that the case in the text is at all parallel to that which it is brought to justify, as a few remarks will show. (1) First then, this man was not preaching, he was casting out devils. This is a great difference—he was doing a miracle. Man cannot overcome the devil, Christ alone overcomes him. If a man cast out a devil, he has power from Christ; and if he has power from Christ, he must have a commission from Christ; and who shall forbid one to whom God gives commission to do miracles, from doing them? That would be fighting against God. But, on the other hand, many a man may preach without being sent from God, and having power from Him. (2) But it may be said, The effects of preaching are a miracle. I answer that though such preaching did work what looks like a miracle, this would not prove that it came from God; for the false prophets, against whom our Saviour warns us, are to do "signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect." (3) Even if sinners were converted under such an one's preaching, this would not show that he did the work, or at least, that he had more than a share in it. The miracle after all might belong to the Church, not to him.

II. It should be observed, that if our Saviour says, on this occasion, "He that is not against us is on our part"; yet elsewhere He says, "He that is not with Me is against Me." The truth is, while a system is making way against an existing state of things, help of any kind advances it; but when it is established, the same kind of professed help tells against it. Before the Gospel was received, those who did not oppose the Apostles actually aided them; when it was received, the very same parties interfered with them. Let us consider when it was that our Saviour spoke the words in the text. It was at a time when there was no Church, when He had not yet set up His Church; we have no warrant, therefore, in saying, that because men might work in Christ's name, without following the Apostles, before He had built up His Church, and had made them the foundations of it, therefore such persons may do so lawfully since.

J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. vi., p. 190.

References: Mark 9:40.—Homilist, 3rd series, vol. vii., p. 103. Mark 9:41.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 535; vol. vii., p. 275; Homilist, vol. vi., p. 395. Mark 9:42-50.—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 231; H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, p. 207.

Mark 9:43-44

These are words from the lips of Christ; what do they mean? They were evidently spoken in a very serious and solemn mood, and were evidently intended to represent a very serious and solemn reality.

I. Now we know what the popular opinion is, concerning the hell of which Christ speaks, and I must needs begin by repudiating it under the constraint, the irresistible constraint of the conviction, that it is diametrically opposed to all that He has shown and told us of God; that it contravenes entirely the revelation which He has brought to us of the Father. What then is this hell, with its unquenchable fire, of which Christ warns us. To go into hell, was on His lips, as you know, simply to go into Gehenna, and Gehenna was the Syro-Chaldaic word for the Hebrew Gahinnom, "valley of Hinnom"—a narrow valley with steep rocky sides, running south-west of Jerusalem; but a ravine with a history. It would seem to have become "the common cesspool of the city, into which its sewage was conducted, to be carried off by the waters of the Kedron," as well as the spot where combustible refuse of various kinds was gathered to be burnt. It represented to the Jews as being "the lay-stall of Jerusalem's filth,"—the ultimate portion of corrupt souls.

II. Gehenna was the state of moral unwholesomeness, of corruption, to which they would invariably reduce themselves, who refused to give up what they felt to be perilous, or prejudicial to their interests, as moral creatures.... When Christ says, Better life with self-mortification than self-indulgence with Gehenna, Gehenna, on His tongue, must needs stand for corruption, since corruption is the antithesis of life, and the literal Gehenna, as we have seen, was emphatically the place of corruption. Yes, the hell by which Christ warns us to be loyal to the demands of faith, to the voice of the soul within us, is just the inward depravity which disloyalty and unfaithfulness in such directions are certain to breed; and what hell can be worse than that?

III. But the Lord Jesus goes on to speak of the fire of Gehenna, passing thus from the thought of the corruption induced by unworthy self-indulgence, to the thought of what such corruption shall be subject to. Gehenna, he says, is frequently lit up with fires; fires kindled for the consumption of the refuse collected there; and remember, that in the moral world of God, wherever there is corruption, there sooner or later, fire will surely come, to attack it remorselessly, until it shall be purged away.

S. A. Tipple, Echoes of Spoken Words, p. 143.

References: Mark 9:47, Mark 9:48.—Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 216. Mark 9:50.—Preacher's Monthly, vol. x., p. 28. Mark 10:1-12.—H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, p. 211. Mark 10:1-27.—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 251; W. Hanna, Our Lord's Life on Earth, p. 257. Mark 10:2-52.—Ibid. x. 13, 14.—Sermons on the Catechism, p. 230; Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. iii., p. 241. Mark 10:13-15.—J. Aldis, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiv., p. 280.