2. The Invasion of Planet Earth

The Incarnation

Introduction

The inconsistency manifested by we humans never ceases to amaze (and sometimes amuse) me. For example, I note that most theologians today are strangely silent when men attempt to play God in the matter of human conception. They intervene in the natural process of human reproduction by methods such as cloning, sex determination and test tube fertilization. And, yet, some of these same theologians who do not protest against human intervention in so sacred a matter as reproduction are the first to prohibit God from intervening in the birth of the Savior some 2,000 years ago. As I say, such inconsistency puzzles me. They insist that God could not, should not, and did not intervene in the conception of Christ to make it anything more than a normal and natural phenomenon.

With all due respect to the sacred cows of the liberal theologians, it is our privilege to investigate from the inspired records of the Gospel writers the matter of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Consequently, I have titled this message “The Invasion of Planet Earth.” Few subjects are more important for our study, so let us begin by reviewing several reasons why this investigation is so vital to men today.

(1) The doctrines of the virgin birth and the incarnation are matters of current theological debate. Last year seven British theologians collaborated to publish a book entitled, The Myth of God Incarnate. The sum and substance of the book seems to be that we cannot take the Gospel accounts of the virgin birth and incarnation of Christ literally, although one may wish to take them seriously. The authors want us to divorce our faith from the facts of the Bible. The Gospel records, they say, are not accurate historical reports but fanciful fabrications to give credence to their personal faith in Christ with Whom they have had some kind of subjective encounter. The virgin birth was not an event in time but an embellishment suggested, we are told, by either Jewish expectations¹⁰ or pagan belief in supernatural births.¹¹ All of this, mind you, is coming from those who would have us believe they are part of the family of God.¹² Departures of this kind are not unique to our age.¹³

(2) The doctrines of the incarnation and virgin birth are at the heart of the Christian faith. Not only are the doctrines concerning our Lord’s birth a matter of hot debate,¹⁴ they are also the very heart of the Christian faith.¹⁵ The doctrines of the virgin birth and incarnation are what we might call fundamentals of the faith. Although it is certainly possible that one could come to saving faith in Christ while ignorant of these doctrines, it is difficult to conceive of any Christian rejecting these verities. Let me suggest several reasons for this:

a. The credibility of the Gospel writers is at stake. Few would dare to deny that Matthew and Luke boldly held to a virgin birth, taught in the clearest terms (cf. Matthew 1:18,20,23-25; Luke 1:27,31,34-35). If the Gospel writers cannot be trusted in these matters, how can we believe anything they have reported to us? The Gospels are cut of one piece; they stand or fall together. We cannot distrust any portion without undermining the reliability of it all.

b. The credibility of our Lord is at stake. The Old Testament prophets had written that Messiah would be no mere man, but God Himself (Isaiah 7:14; 9:6; Micah 5:2). Jesus openly made this claim (John 4:26; 8:58; Luke 22:66-70). He manifested the attributes of God (Hebrews 13:8; Colossians 1:17; Matthew 28:18,20; 1 Corinthians 4:5), claimed the authority of God (Mark 2:5-7), and accepted worship as God (John 20:28). If the Gospel writers were in error, then so was our Lord. His credibility, as well as theirs, is on the line.

To press this point one step further, not only is the credibility of our Lord at stake, but also His credentials. Jesus Christ came as the second Adam, the perfect, sinless Lamb of God Who alone could die as an innocent substitute for the sins of men. If His birth were anything less than what it is described to be by Matthew and Luke, then He would be disqualified as the substitute for sinners. As Dr. Chafer put it:

“His full deity and complete humanity are essential to His work on the cross. If He were not man, He could not die; if He were not God, His death would not have had infinite value.”¹⁶

(3) Our response to the doctrines of the incarnation and virgin birth of Christ set a precedent for our response to the rest of the New Testament. When we come to the matter of our Lord’s invasion of planet earth, we have come to the landmark case for supernaturalism in the New Testament. It is the touchstone for our faith in a God Who can and does intervene in the affairs of men, and Who can and does have the power to override the normal course of nature. No one has said it more concisely than J. I. Packer:

“If Jesus had been no more than a very remarkable, godly man, the difficulties in believing what the New Testament tells us about his life and work would be truly mountainous. But if Jesus was the same person as the eternal Word, the Father’s agent in creation, ‘through whom also He made the worlds’ (Hebrews 1:2, RV), it is no wonder if fresh acts of creative power marked His coming into this world, and His life in it, and His exit from it. It is not strange that He, the author of life, should rise from the dead. If He was truly God the Son, it is much more startling that He should die than He should rise again. ‘Tis mystery all! The Immortal dies,’ wrote Wesley; but there is no comparable mystery in the Immortal’s resurrection. And if the immortal Son of God did really submit to taste death, it is not strange that such a death should have saving significance for a doomed race. Once we grant that Jesus was divine, it becomes unreasonable to find difficulty in any of this; it is all of a piece, and hangs together completely. The incarnation is in itself an unfathomable mystery, but it makes sense of everything else that the New Testament contains.”¹⁷

The Investigation of the
Birth of Christ in the Gospels

Probably the greatest difficulty to overcome in our study of this portion of Scripture is our familiarity with it. I would suppose that most of us could recite the story with little difficulty. To catch the significance of this event, let me share several pertinent observations concerning the birth narratives contained in the Gospels.

(1) The fingerprints of God are everywhere evident on these accounts. The lines of evidence pointing to a supernatural birth are numerous and varied. First of all, there is the prophetic word. Old Testament prophecies are frequently cited as fulfilled in the birth of Christ. These prophecies indicated a supernatural birth, or we should rather say, a supernatural conception brought about through a virgin, resulting in the manifestation in human flesh of the second person of the Godhead (cf. Matthew 1:18-23). In addition to ancient prophecies, it was preceded by supernatural announcements and events. Before the virgin conception of the Savior, Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, was visited by Gabriel and promised a son. His request for a sign was answered by a spell of speechlessness. Zechariah and Elizabeth were given a son in their old age, indicating that ‘with God nothing is impossible’ (Luke 1:36-37). Mary and Joseph both received angelic communication (Luke 1:26ff; Matthew 1:20-21). Zechariah, Elizabeth and Mary uttered inspired testimonies concerning the coming of Messiah (Luke 1:67ff; 1:41-45; 46-55).

The birth itself was accompanied by many divine attestations. Angels announced the coming of Messiah to shepherds in nearby fields.¹⁸ Even the heavens gave witness to the birth of Messiah as ‘His Star’¹⁹ appeared in the East and prompted the magi²⁰ to journey to Palestine and worship the new King.

Subsequent to Christ’s birth, He was heralded and worshipped as the One for Whom righteous Israelites had waited. Simeon, under the controlling influence of the Holy Spirit, proclaimed Him as the Lord’s Christ (Luke 2:25ff). Anna also gave witness to Messiah’s arrival (Luke 2:38).

Before, during, and after His birth, God gave remarkable witness through angels, through inspired prophets of the past and present, and through creation itself. What greater proof could one desire?

(2) The birth of Christ is reported with amazing brevity and simplicity. Those who challenge the historicity and authenticity of the Gospel accounts of the birth of our Lord insist that these stories of a virgin birth are embellishments to add substance to their faith in Christ.

Anyone who looks carefully at these accounts would, in my opinion, be impressed with the opposite conclusion.²¹ There is a striking simplicity and lack of sensationalism when the Gospel narratives are compared with apocryphal accounts of our Lord’s childhood.

“Tradition, and the apocryphal gospels written many years later, tell many absurd and fanciful things about the flight of the family and their entrance into Egypt. The flowers were said to spring up in their steps as they entered the land; the palm trees to bow down in homage, and wild animals to come near in friendly approach.”²²

With great economy of words, and without any of the sensationalism of other ancient writings (or those in our own day), the Gospel writers described the birth of the Messiah. This simplicity is one of the convincing evidences of divine inspiration which sets apart the New Testament canonical books from those which were rejected.

(3) The invasion of planet earth by our Lord was revealed to devout men and women, but concealed from the rest. When I read through the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke, I am impressed with the open proclamation and presentation of Messiah to those who were godly men and women: Mary and Joseph, Zechariah and Elizabeth, the humble shepherds and astute wise men, the elderly and expectant Simeon and Anna. These people were God-seekers and God-servers. To such as these, the Messiah was presented with divine testimony.

But where are the others? Where are the seminary professors of Jerusalem? Where are the religious leaders? They are conspicuously absent. While the wise men had traveled from afar, Herod would not go the six short miles between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. And lest we suppose that Herod was the only one who worried while the others worshipped Messiah, Matthew informs us that all Jerusalem was stirred up by reports of the birth of Messiah (Matthew 2:3). The entire city was disturbed because they were the establishment and they had the most to lose if some new king were to overthrow the existing regime.

As our Lord said to the Samaritan woman, “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers.” (John 4:23) God reveals Himself to those who seek Him and will serve Him. Only those who were God-seekers witnessed the coming of Messiah, while the rest slept in complacency and unbelief. And so it is today.

(4) The coming of the Christ foreshadowed His later ministry. One can barely overlook the parallels between the response of men to His birth and their later response to His ministry and message. While the humble in spirit recognized Him as Messiah and worshipped Him, the vast majority ignored Him. His humble entry into the world typified His humble position in life. Just as Herod tried to eliminate Him in His infancy as a threat to his power, so Israel’s political and religious leaders put Him to death to protect their own interests.

(5) There is historical accuracy in the minute details of the Gospel accounts. Critics of the Word of God are quick to point out differences in the Gospel accounts. Robert Coughlan in the article “Who Was the Man Jesus?” (Life Magazine, Vol. 57, No. 26 [December 25, 1964]), stated his criticism by this headline: “In detail and many important points, the Gospels do not agree” (pp. 90-91).

Coughlan criticized the discrepancies between the genealogies of Matthew and Luke²³ and the fact that these two writers chose to trace a different sequence of events following the birth of our Lord. Although Christians must admit that defensive arguments for every challenge may not be sufficient to convince the skeptic, there are viable solutions for the man who is willing to listen. Further, we would maintain that further linguistic and archaeological findings have greatly reduced these alleged discrepancies or ‘errors.’

Let me cite one example which underscores the meticulous accuracy of Luke as a historian. Critics had a heyday when they read in the Antiquities of Josephus that Quirinius was governor over Syria in 6 A.D., and yet Luke states that the census took place at the time of Christ’s birth (probably 5 or 6 B.C.). It has now been discovered from a series of inscriptions that Quirinius was twice governor of Syria.²⁴ (This might be understood better by the analogy of Richard Nixon who served both as vice-president of the U.S. and as president in later years.) The accuracy of Luke as a historian is now widely accepted.

(6) The prophecies concerning Messiah’s coming were precisely fulfilled but in a way totally unexpected. Over and over in the Gospels we find the statement ‘in order that the Scriptures might be fulfilled’ or something to that effect. We learn in the Gospels how Christ could be born in Bethlehem and yet be known as a Nazarene. God’s providence is everywhere evident. God moved the Roman Empire to initiate a census in Palestine so Mary would be in Bethlehem and not Nazareth to give birth to the Messiah.

My point here, however, is not that we should wonder at the providence of God (of course we should!), but that we should be cautioned about being too dogmatic about the interpretation of prophecies yet to be fulfilled. If no one could have predicted in advance precisely how the ancient prophecies would be fulfilled in the first appearance of Messiah (and this is just what Peter tells us—1 Peter 1:10-11), let us be very cautious about being overly detailed or dogmatic concerning the details of His Second Coming.

The Interpretation of the
Gospel Accounts of Our Lord’s Birth

From the Gospel records, we are compelled to arrive at two conclusions: first, the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ resulted from a virgin conception; second, the result of that conception was the perfect God-man, God incarnate.

(1) Jesus Christ was virgin born. Let’s begin with a definition: “The birth of Jesus Christ was a birth in normal human flesh from a normal human mother, whose conception was not the result of sexual intercourse with any man, but by the supernatural activity of the Holy spirit.”²⁵

The virgin birth was a fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah: “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).²⁶

The virgin birth is the clear claim of both Matthew and Luke.

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When His mother Mary had been bethrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her, desired to put her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18,20).

“And behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. And Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ And the angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:31,34-35).

There are many who would have us reject the virgin birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, but to my knowledge, none of them dares to deny that such a birth was what Matthew and Luke claimed to occur. Those who deny the virgin birth cannot say the New Testament does not teach it. No matter how carefully worded, the bottom line of such criticism is that Matthew and Luke were liars—that they deliberately falsified their accounts to further their own ends.

Then the real reason men reject the doctrine is not because they consider the Gospel writers unreliable, it is because they have concluded that miracles cannot happen. The whole matter of the virgin birth and the incarnation is determined on the basis of presuppositions and not on the weight of evidence. Michael Green sums up the problem of those who criticize the historicity of the Gospels by listing three wrong assumptions or presuppositions which they must hold:²⁷

a. There is no divine element in the Bible.²⁸

b. There is no possibility of a miracle.

c. There is no finality about Jesus.²⁹

(2) Jesus Christ was God incarnate. If Matthew emphasized the truth that Jesus was the Messiah, the rightful heir to the throne of David, and Luke stressed the humanity of our Lord, John confronts us with His undiminished Deity.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him; and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (John 1:1-3,14,15).

When we speak of the doctrine of the incarnation and of our Lord as God incarnate, we refer to Jesus Christ as undiminished deity and perfect humanity united permanently in one person.

There has been much confusion concerning this doctrine because of a misunderstanding of Paul’s teaching on the kenosis (or emptying) of Christ in the second chapter of Philippians. Some have attempted to make room for errors in the Bible (and even in the teaching of our Lord) by suggesting that our Lord, at His incarnation, emptied Himself of some of His deity. They would say that He laid aside some of His attributes, such as omniscience.³⁰ Thus, if our Lord did not know all things, He could have been mistaken in some of His teaching.

A look at the context of the passage informs us that the main point of the apostle is that we are to be truly humble—to consider others ahead of ourselves. In this we should imitate our Lord Who willingly set aside His visible glory, who voluntarily veiled His divine splendor, and who made no claim to the exercise and privileges of His divine prerogatives. He put this aside (not His deity but His rights as God) in order to die on a cross for our salvation. Incarnation itself was an act of humiliation. How can one even conceive of the humiliation of the cross?

The Gospels reveal not only the fact of the incarnation, but the purpose.

First of all, the Eternal Son took on human flesh to reveal God to men. “No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (John 1:18).

Our Lord could truthfully say, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father …” (John 14:9).

Second, the Word became flesh to reign over His people. “And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever” (Luke 1:33a; Matthew 2:2). Many have not taken this purpose of the incarnation seriously enough. They are content to spiritualize this reign and to see its fulfillment through the church. Careful attention to the Scriptures necessitates a literal reign of Messiah over the nation Israel.

Third, He came to redeem. As Mark records the words of our Lord, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

The Implications of the Incarnation

There is far more application of the doctrine of the incarnation than any preacher will ever be able to expound, especially in one message. But let us focus our attention on several relevant truths.

(1) The incarnation is the measure of God’s ability to save. The best answer to the critic of the virgin birth is the words of Gabriel to Mary as he foretold of her miraculous conception: “For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).

God was able to give elderly Zechariah and Elizabeth a child. God was able to impregnate Mary without the participation of a man. God was able to move the Roman Empire to take a census in Palestine so that prophecy could be fulfilled. God was able to save an infant from the treachery of a king.

At least some theologians have been honest enough to concede that their God is dead—and so He must be. To others we must say, in the words of J.B. Phillips, “Your God is too small.” If God is God indeed, then God is capable of bringing forth a child from a virgin; He is capable of rising from the dead, and He is able to save a rebel like you and me.

(2) The incarnation is the measure of God’s willingness to save. We can be sure that God, if He is God at all, is able to save, but is He willing to do so? The answer of the incarnation is a resounding yes. My friend, what greater love can God have then to be willing to leave the throne of glory for the thorns of godless men? What greater love can God have than to give His Son as the payment for men’s sins?

If there is anything clear in the Gospel accounts of our Lord’s birth, it is that God has taken the initiative in seeking men for Himself. The incarnation is the measure of God’s love for man.

(3) The incarnation is God’s standard for measuring our love for one another. In Philippians chapter two, Christians are exhorted to have the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ was a love of others which compelled Him to lay aside the glories of heaven for the humiliation of birth in a stable and death on a cross. This is the standard which God has appointed as the measure of our love for one another.

(4) The incarnation is the means God has ordained to save men. It is hypothetically possible that God could have chosen any number of ways to redeem fallen man to Himself. But the message of the Gospels is that God has chosen to save men through the humiliation and sacrifice of His Son.

Now let me ask you very frankly, my friend, if you were God and you have provided a way of salvation through the incarnation and crucifixion of your only Son, how would you feel about someone who tried to earn salvation by some other way?

Religionists believe that all roads lead to heaven, but there is not one word of assurance that this is true from the Word of God. The Gospels inform us that God has made one way of salvation available through faith in the substitutionary death of His Son. Have you had the audacity to suppose that you could enter God’s heaven through any other means? May God grant you the faith to acknowledge your need of His Son as your Savior, your Substitute, your righteousness.

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through me’” (John 14:6).

10 “If the idea of a virgin birth for the Messiah lay ready to hand in the theology of Judaism, it is conceivable that the early Christians could have taken it over from this source. But the difficulty is that no evidence can be cited in favor of such a Jewish expectation. Isaiah 7:14 was not given a messianic interpretation among the Jews of our Lord’s time, unless the use of parthenos (virgin) in the Greek translation of the Old Testament be regarded as proof of such an expectation in some quarters of Judaism. At any rate it cannot be demonstrated that Matthew worked from Scripture to event rather than vice versa. Though there is an undoubted miraculous element in the birth of certain individuals in the Old Testament period, such as Isaac, these cases are clearly not parallel to the virgin birth of Christ. The very notion of a virgin birth was foreign to Jewish thinking, especially at the beginning of the Christian era, when the transcendence of God was more strongly emphasized than through the Old Testament period.” Everett F. Harrison, A Short Life of Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), pp. 45-46.

From ancient Jewish writings, Alford Edersheim has compiled a list of every Old Testament text interpreted Messianically by Jewish scholarship at approximately the same time as the coming of Christ. Significantly, Isaiah 7:14 is absent. A virgin birth was not understood by the Jews of Jesus’ day as part of Messianic prediction. Cf. Alford Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), II, pp. 710ff.

11 “After a careful, laborious, and occasionally wearisome study of the evidence offered and the analogies urged, I am convinced that heathenism knows nothing of virgin births. Supernatural births it has without number, but never from a virgin in the New Testament sense and never without physical generation, except in a few isolated instances of magical births on the part of women who had not the slightest claim to be called virgins. In all recorded instances which I have been able to examine, if the mother was a virgin before conception took place she could not make that claim afterwards.” L. M. Sweet, The Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ (1906), p. 188, as quoted by Everett Harrison, p. 45.

12 One of the authors of The Myth of God Incarnate is Maurice Wiles, chairman of the Church of England’s Doctrine Commission. The book was published in England by SCM press, an arm of the Student Christian Movement, and in the U.S. by Westminster Press, an agency of the United Presbyterian Church.

13 At least as early as the middle of the second century, the story was circulated by the Jews that Jesus’ father was a Roman soldier stationed in Nazareth. Origin, Contra Celsum i. 32, etc., as quoted by R. T. France, I Came to Set The Earth on Fire (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1976), p. 33. For a fuller description of historical departures from orthodoxy cf. W. Graham Scroggie, A Guide to the Gospels (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell Company, n.d.), pp. 526-528. For post-apostolic acceptance of the doctrine of the virgin birth cf. Everett Harrison, A Short Life of Christ, pp. 40-41, also W. Graham Scroggie, A Guide to the Gospels, pp. 529-530.

14 One of the best refutations of The Myth of God Incarnate, which rejects the virgin birth of Christ, is The Truth of God Incarnate, edited by Michael Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977).

15 “This is the real stumbling-block in Christianity. It is here that Jews, Moslems, Unitarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and many of those who feel the difficulties above-mentioned (about the virgin birth, the miracles, the atonement, and the resurrection), have come to grief. It is from misbelief, or at least inadequate belief, about the incarnation that difficulties at other points in the gospel story usually spring. But once the incarnation is grasped as a reality, these other difficulties dissolve.” J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1973), p. 46.

16 Lewis Sperry Chafer, Major Bible Themes, Revised by John F. Walvoord (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), p. 56.

17 Packer, pp. 46-47.

R. T. France says virtually the same thing when he writes, “… the man who cannot accommodate a birth without a human father within his understanding of what God can do is going to make heavy weather of much of the story of Jesus, indeed of the Christian faith.” R. T. France, I Came to Set the Earth on Fire, p. 34.

18 These were shepherds tending sheep probably kept nearby for sacrificial offerings. Cf. J. W. Shepard, The Christ of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939), p. 32.

19 Although some scholars identify this ‘star’ with accounts of an unusual conjunction of stars at this time, I prefer to understand that it was really a manifestation of the shekina Glory of God. Cf. Shepard, The Christ of the Gospels, pp. 39-40, and G. Campbell Morgan, The Crises of the Christ (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1936), pp. 98-99.

20 “The Magi were priest-sages, students of science, especially of astrology and religion, but also philosophy and medical science. Their researches, mysterious and mostly unknown to us, embraced deep knowledge not unmixed with some superstition. They came from the East, probably from Persia, Arabia, or Babylonia. At that time there was a sacerdotal caste of the Medes and Persians scattered over the East, and also many Jews of the Dispersion through whom the priest-sages may have received some knowledge of Israel’s Hope. Perhaps they may have received knowledge through the prophecies of Balaam of the promise of a King who would arise in Judea, who would reign universally. Tactitus, Suetonius, and Josephus bear testimony that such a hope existed at that time in the East.

“The idea that the Magi or Wizards were kings, probably arose from a vague interpretation of Isaiah 60:3, and Rev. 21:24. That they were three, is an inference from the three gifts offered, of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. There is no ground for assigning to them certain names, to say that they were three, or that they were representatives of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, coming from Greece, India, and Egypt. Much less ground is there for the supposition that their bones were discovered in the fourth century and their skulls are yet preserved in the Cathedral of Cologne.” J. W. Shepard, The Christ of the Gospels, p. 37.

21 “… the brevity and sublimity of the virgin-birth narrative in the Gospels is what we should expect if it belongs to revelation, but not what we should expect if it is the attempt of human minds to explain the incarnation.” Everett Harrison, A Short Life of Christ, p. 47.

22 J. W. Shepard, The Christ of the Gospels, p. 41. Everett Harrison, in his book, Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), summarizes on page 118 the Apocryphal Gospel of Thomas:

“This famous writing, known at least as early as the time of Origin, presents the boy Jesus in the light of a wonder worker. It does not seem to matter that he works harm as well as good by his miraculous power. Here the thaumaturgic element has outrun any ethical norm. Jesus molds clay pigeons an the Sabbath. When objection is raised he claps his hands, whereupon the pigeons take to the air and fly away. When a child running through the village bumps him on the shoulder, he cries, ‘Thou shalt not finish thy course,’ and forthwith the child drops dead. When the parents come to expostulate with Joseph, they are smitten with blindness. A certain teacher, desiring to have Jesus as a pupil, soon regrets the arrangement, for when he is asked by the child to explain the letter Alpha and is unable to do so, Jesus elaborates its meaning and makes fun of his teacher, to the great discomfort of the latter. This incident reflects an esoteric interest and may be a Gnostic touch in the childhood tradition.”

23 For a discussion of this problem, cf. W. Graham Scroggie, A Guide to the Gospels, pp. 505-511.

24 For a more complete description of the solution of this criticism, cf. A. T. Robertson, A Harmony of the Gospels (New York: Harper and Row, 1950), pp. 265-266.

25 Cf. J. Oliver Buswell, “The Virgin Birth of Jesus,” Baker’s Dictionary of Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1960), pp. 543-545.

26 As stated previously (fn. 1), what is most significant about this prophecy is that of all the Old Testament texts considered by the Jews to be Messianic prophecies, this was not included. This means that a virgin birth was not expected by the Jews. It also nullifies the argument of those who would have us believe that the Gospel writers added this ‘story’ or ‘myth’ to give substance to Israel’s Messianic hopes, based upon Jewish expectations.

27 Michael Green, “Jesus and Historical Criticism,” Chapter 6, The Truth of God Incarnate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), pp. 107ff.

28 By way of illustration, Green cites this quote from James Barr: “My account of the formation of the biblical tradition is an account of a human work. It is man’s statement of his beliefs, the events he has experienced, the stories he has been told, and so on. It has long been customary to align the Bible with concepts like Word of God, or revelation, and one effect has been to align the Bible with a movement from God to man.

“It is man who developed the biblical tradition and man who decided when it might be suitably fixed and made canonical. If one wants to use the Word of God type of language, the proper term for the Bible would be Word of Israel, Word of some leading Christians.” The Truth of God Incarnate, pp. 108-109.

29 By this Green means that the liberal critic of the Bible refuses to hold that Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for eternal life. The liberal believes that ‘all roads lead to Rome.’

30 “In England, the kenosis theory was first broached by Bishop Gore in 1889, to explain why our Lord was ignorant of what the nineteenth century higher critics thought they knew about the errors of the Old Testament. Gore’s thesis was that in becoming man the Son had given up His divine knowledge of matters of fact, though retaining full divine infallibility on moral issues. In the realm of historical fact, however, He was limited to current Jewish ideas, which He accepted without question, not knowing that they were not all correct. Hence His treatment of the Old Testament as verbally inspired and wholly true, and His ascription of the Pentateuch to Moses and Psalm 110 to David—views which Gore thought untenable. Many have followed Gore at this point, seeking justification for rejecting Christ’s estimate of the Old Testament.” J. I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 52.

3. John the Baptist

Introduction

Several years ago I had perhaps the most unusual introduction of my ministry. I was about to preach when a man whom I greatly respect stood to introduce me to the audience. During the week, there had been considerable press coverage of a famous preacher who was referred to as ‘the man with the silver tongue’ and so on. Well, my dear brother had had just about enough of all that, so in introducing me he took a moment to put things in perspective. “There is too much emphasis these days,” he began, “on the instrument through whom the Word of God is proclaimed. It’s not the man, but the message that counts. It doesn’t matter if the man’s shoes are shined, or if he has a new suit, it’s the message which should be paramount.” He then went on to say, “And now the man with today’s message is Bob Deffinbaugh.”

I knew my brother too well to misunderstand his meaning and loved him too much to take offense. But, when I got up to preach, I found it difficult to miss the humor in it all, so I said, “What our brother meant to say was, ‘Here’s Bob, he’s not much, but he’s all we’ve got.’”

As I have been preparing this week’s message, I’ve found my mind turning back to that introduction for several reasons. First of all, I think that might be the way I would have introduced John the Baptist had the occasion ever arisen. I mean, you have got to admit John the Baptist was a unique individual. I can’t even conceive of him fitting into the contemporary Christian scheme of things. For example, can you feature John doing a 30-second spot on the ‘I Found It’ campaign? Or can you envision an interview with John on the Johnny Carson show? I find it difficult to even feature John standing behind the pulpit on a Sunday morning. Yes, sir, I think I might preface an introduction of John with a disclaimer, too.

Second, although such an introduction contains an element of truth, it also suggests something which it does not seem to convey. There is a great deal of truth in the fact that our attention should not be so much on the speaker (his flashy sport coat, wild shoes, or trembly voice), but on the message which is spoken. Surely it is wrong to glorify and emulate the messenger. In this sense, we might say that while the Catholic church has only one pope, Protestantism has many.

But my real interest in such a statement is that it can be understood in such a way as to be very misleading, even erroneous. The man cannot be separated from the message. Messages are seldom more effective than the man who utters them. As I have studied the towering figure of John the Baptist, I have become convinced that the magnitude of his ministry came not only from the greatness of the message, but also from the godliness of the man. It is my sincere conviction and prayer that our study of this man and his message will be as discomforting and challenging to us as it was to those in his own day.

The Message

The most puzzling aspect of John’s ministry was that he had any audience at all. What was it that compelled residents of Jerusalem to leave the comfort of home to venture miles into the Judean desert to hear John? Some of the uninitiated may puzzle as to why people brave the traffic and the sweltering afternoon heat to watch the Dallas Cowboys. But these people poured out in multitudes, miles into the wilderness to listen to John preach. It would not be stretching the truth to say that John’s sermons were more scorching than the blistering Judean sun. And let us remember that John is never reported to have performed so much as one miracle. Even Herod himself was strangely attracted to his preaching.

Surely there were some who listened to John whose motives were far from noble. To some, it may have been a matter of curiosity. To others, peer pressure. To the religious leaders, it was likely pride and self-preservation. After all, John was a competitor who was cutting into their territory. Others who were fed up with Roman occupation and domination would be hoping for a political revolutionary who would deliver Israel from foreign domination.³¹

Although some came for reasons less than noble, the vast majority came by virtue of the explosive force of John’s message. Pause with me for a few moments to consider the basic ingredients of John’s message, a message so simple that it could be concisely summarized by the Gospel writers in just one sentence, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2).

(1) A Prophetic Message. John’s call to the nation not only penetrated the silence of the wilderness, it shattered the silence of 400 years. The last written word of prophecy was that of the post-exilic prophet Malachi in the 5th century B.C. From that time until John’s public preaching, it was as though the heavens were made of brass. The nation anxiously awaited a word from God, and they were not about to be choosy about the instrument. John was the last of the great Old Testament prophets.

(2) A Messianic Message. When we say that Israel anxiously awaited a word from God, it was specifically a Messianic word that they desired. All through the Old Testament, God had promised an Eternal King and a literal kingdom. Messianic hopes, though diverse, were running high. When John announced that the ‘kingdom of God was at hand,’ many different expectations filled the minds of his audience, but all understood this to be a reference to the Messianic Kingdom.³²

(3) A Preparatory Message. When Zacharias was told of John’s birth by Gabriel, his ministry was defined as one of preparation:

“And it is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous; so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:17).

John continually stressed that he was not the Messiah, but that he was the forerunner³³ of Messiah prophesied by both Isaiah and Malachi. His task was to prepare the people spiritually for Messiah’s appearance. In the Old Testament, God’s choice of Israel’s King was designated by a prophet. Samuel designated and anointed both Saul and David. So it was fitting for John, the last of the Old Testament prophets, to designate Jesus as Israel’s Messiah. The word Messiah itself means ‘anointed one.’ Jesus was the Christ, God’s anointed one, whom John pointed out by public proclamation, and whom God publicly proclaimed at His baptism.

(4) A Negative Message. John’s preaching was a far cry from that to which churches are accustomed today. There were no syrupy sweet pious platitudes or discourses on positive thinking. John’s message was one of warning. The day of the Lord was not just a time of rejoicing and blessing. It was a day of vengeance when God would separate His true believers from the phony and the false professors of religion.

(5) A Partial Message. Some may have observed that little in John’s preaching was positive. That is partially true, but we need to put this in proper perspective. In the days of the physical presence of our Lord among men, people were saved in slow motion. Let me explain what I mean by this. Today, when we share the gospel of Jesus Christ, we should begin with the fact that men are sinners, justly under the condemnation of God, headed for eternal torment. We should then immediately move from man’s problem to God’s remedy. We should inform men that God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to bear our punishment and to provide us with His righteousness in place of our wretchedness. All one need do is acknowledge his need and trust in Christ’s work on his behalf for eternal salvation.

Now this did not happen quite so quickly in the days of our Lord’s earthly visitation. John came with a message of sin and judgment. He could not tell men that Jesus Christ died for their sins, for that was yet future. He simply preached that God’s solution for sinners was going to appear, and after Jesus’ baptism, had appeared. Upon our Lord’s death on the cross, men who had acknowledged their need of forgiveness of sins then needed to place their faith in what Christ had done. That is why the early ‘conversions’ in the book of Acts were those of God-fearers, those who already had faith that God would provide a solution for their sins, and indeed, now had done it in Christ (cf. Acts 19:1-7).

The full disclosure of the message of salvation in the time of John the Baptist and of our Lord took several years. This should help us understand why John’s message was so negative. It is because it was preliminary and preparatory. The good news of the gospel begins with the bad news of man’s sin and of God’s righteous anger because of it.

“He Himself will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire. And His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear out His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Luke 3:16c-17).

From time to time, I hear Christians speaking of the ‘baptism of fire’ as something which we should seek. But the baptism of fire of which John speaks is the baptism of judgment, and that is something from which we should flee. That which prevented God’s kingdom from being established on earth was the problem of sin. Israel must be restored to an unfallen condition. And the necessary action required for this is repentance.

(6) A Call to Repentance. The word repent usually brings several pictures to mind. First of all, is the image of the hairy, disheveled creature holding a sign, ‘repent, the end is near.’ Then, too, we think of sorrow and anguish, of remorse for wrongs done. The biblical term employed (metanaeo) combines several nuances. The root meaning of the term conveys a change of mind. By its usage the idea of sorrow or remorse is also suggested. Finally, this repentance produces a change in behavior. Biblical repentance is a genuine sorrow which is the product of a changed mind, looking at our sin as God sees it, and which results in a change in our actions.³⁴ ³⁵

John was very pointed about the change of mind which the Gospel required. Israelites were depending upon their ancestral origins and externalism as the basis for entering into the blessed Kingdom.³⁶

“ … do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I say to you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Luke 3:8).

The all-important question for those who wished to enter the kingdom was not, ‘Who is your father,’ but ‘In whom is your faith.’ Those who listened to John were reminded of their sinfulness and the need for spiritual cleansing to enter into the kingdom.

The call to repentance was not unexpected, for “it was currently taught and believed among the Jews, that ‘if Israel repented but one day, the Son of David would immediately come’”³⁷

The outward sign of repentance was the rite of baptism.³⁸ Baptism was not without its Old Testament antecedents, rites and washings of purification, but the closer analogy is to be found in proselyte baptism.

“A Gentile who was converted to Judaism had to be circumcised (if he was a male) and to offer a special sacrifice in the Temple (while it stood), and also to undergo a ceremonial bath.”³⁹

There were differences between proselyte baptism and John’s baptism. While proselyte baptism was self-administered, John baptized those who came to him. But baptism surely was a humbling act for the Jew. In effect, it implied that just as a pagan must undergo baptism to enter into Judaism, so the sinful Jew must join the ranks of the pagan and enter into relationship with God in the same way as the Gentile.⁴⁰

Baptism was not the means of attaining forgiveness of sins and readiness for the coming kingdom, but the manifestation of it.

If the sign of repentance was baptism, the fruit of true repentance was to be a radical change of life for individual Israelites.

“Therefore bring forth fruits in keeping with your repentance …” (Luke 3:8a).

Selfishness should be replaced with sharing. The one who has two tunics should share with him who has none. The one who has food should share with the one without (Luke 3:11). Rake-offs should be replaced by righteous dealings. Taxation was a sore point for Jews. Tax gatherers were despised for good reason. It was common practice to increase the tax to include a healthy margin of profit for the collector.⁴¹ Such rip-offs were inconsistent with the kind of righteousness required in the kingdom.

Extortion must be replaced with contentment. When John tells the soldiers to ‘be content with their wages’ (Luke 3:14), I do not think the force of his teaching bears upon the matter of wage disputes and labor unions. The soldier who was unhappy with what he made had no recourse with his employer. But what he could do was to use his police powers to supplement his salary. They could, for example, press false charges and benefit from the fines thereby collected. Now we should not look so pious, for the same thing goes on today. We tell ourselves we are worth much more than we are paid so we extend our lunch hour and coffee breaks. We ‘borrow’ little things like paper and pencils, tools and materials, all under the guise of bringing our salary to our real worth. John says to the soldiers of his day, don’t misuse your job in order to increase your salary. Be content to live on what you are paid without practicing extortion.

The Man

(1) His Credentials. As I have suggested previously, the measure of the impact of the ministry of John the Baptist cannot be determined apart from a consideration of the man. No greater compliment could be paid to John than the assessment of our Lord: “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist.” (Matthew 11:11a).

The Gospel writers give us an indication of the extent of his ministry: “And all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins” (Mark 1:5).

His ministry touched multitudes in Judea. To whatever degree numbers indicate success, John was a successful man.

When evaluated by the standard of longevity, John was also a successful preacher. Most of his ‘converts’ were rather quickly blended into the mainstream of Jesus’ teaching and ministry, even some of John’s disciples (cf. John 1:35ff). Perhaps the most interesting evidence of John’s effectiveness is Luke’s reference in Acts 19 to the small group of men that Paul encountered in Ephesus who were ‘believers’ only to the extent of believing in what John had taught. This was nearly 25 years after the abrupt conclusion of John’s preaching ministry.

(2) His Clothing. One of the most unique features of John was his apparel. A camel’s hair garment and leather belt were not the attire of the fashionable young men of Jerusalem. Neither were locusts and wild honey (Matthew 3:4) served in the finest restaurants. Today we would be likely to identify this kind of clothing and food with the attire of a rebel, as an indication of a kind of counter-culture. I don’t believe this was entirely the case. There were, I believe, several reasons for John’s unusual appearance.

First, his appearance was intended to result in an association. Zacharias had been told that his son John would go forth in the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1:17). Elijah was described as “… a hairy man with a leather girdle bound about his loins” (2 Kings 1:8). John’s attire was designed to associate him with Elijah and his ministry.

Second, his appearance was intended to signify separation. His dress was not that of the man on the street. John stuck out like a sore thumb. Again, this separation was prophesied at his birth: “For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he will drink no wine or liquor; and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit …” (Luke 1:15).

John was to be a Nazarite (cf. Numbers 6:2ff; Judges 13:4-5), and remain separate, set apart from normal defilements for divine service. John was pointedly aloof from the religious system of his day, for it did not reflect the old time religion of the past at its best. Jesus did not come to patch up the existing mess in Judaism, but to create something new. John’s dress symbolized his separation from all that constituted the worn out Judaism of his day.

Third, his raiment revealed application. John had preached that true repentance should result in a compassion for the needs of others. It would have been glaringly inconsistent had John arrived at his speaking in an airconditioned Cadillac and a silk suit. The food and clothing of John were the fare of the poor who lived the simple life of the desert dweller.

(3) His Character. Thomas Carlyle once said, “To teach religion, the first thing needful and the last, is to find a man who has religion.”⁴²

As we assess the character of this man John through the Gospel accounts, we can readily see that he is a man who has religion, or better, a man who’s religion has him.

John was a man of strong convictions and great courage. He did not coddle his audiences; he condemned them. When Herod married Herodias, the wife of his brother, John called it sin. Preachers today are hardly willing to call homosexuality ‘sickness’ and immorality ‘wickedness,’ let alone call it sin. John was a man who spoke boldly to his times. Even when it was Herod himself, John did not shrink from his calling.

Our Lord said we are to serve as salt in our society, but most of us function more like sand—we make good ballast, rather than to rock the boat. John was a man who believed God was listening to what he said.

John was a man of deep humility. The nature of John’s task kept him in the spotlight. Not only did he have the opportunity to enhance his position and prestige, but the crowds were inviting him to do so. There is no greater insight into the character of John than the discourse between the religious leaders of Jerusalem and John as recorded in John 1:19-28. They wanted him to speak of himself, but he could only speak of Messiah. John openly encouraged his disciples (one of whom was Andrew) to leave him and follow Jesus (John 1:35ff). When others tried to stir up jealousy due to the popularity of Jesus, John indicated that he was privileged to draw the attention to Christ and not himself. In his words, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

John was a man with feet of clay. Lest we bestow too much praise upon John, let me conclude by reminding you that John was a man with feet of clay. John witnessed the divine testimony of God that Jesus was his Messiah (John 1:29-34) and was fully convinced. And yet in the last dark hours of his life in Herod’s prison, dark clouds of doubt began to form. Luke tells us that he sent a deputation to Jesus for a word of assurance and our Lord sought to assure him (Luke 7:18ff). Even so great a man as John had feet of clay.

Application

John’s ministry has much to say to us about evangelism. Today, evangelistic methodology seems to be best summarized by the words of the song, ‘Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.’ We avoid the ugly matter of sin and the wrath of God. The fires of hell and the future judgment of eternal damnation are considered pass. John, as the Lord and His apostles did, emphasized the day of judgment. The way we present the gospel, there is no more urgency about conversion than buying a set of encyclopedias or joining a social club.

We do not, and we must not preach only the message of John. We should not speak only of sin and damnation. The problem of today’s evangelism is that it speaks too little of it—if at all! The Gospel begins with the bad news of sin and judgment. Let’s be reminded by John’s preaching that the Gospel of God begins with the bad news of man’s sin and impending damnation and ends with the good news of Jesus’ work on the cross.

Second, there is an amazing contrast between John’s priorities and ours today. Note John’s attitude toward the three most frequent priorities of man (and young people) today.

(1) Popularity. Our children want more than anything to be sought out as friends by others. They (as we) suppose that this happens when they do the ‘in’ things, use the right terminology, and are ‘cool.’ How different was John. He dared to be different, and the result was that he was sought out by all Judea, even Herod, miles in the Judean desert.

(2) Prosperity. Money is the god of many men today. John had little if any of that. He ate from the produce of the wilderness, locusts and wild honey. He preached that money is to be shared, not selfishly hoarded. John was never rich in this world’s eyes, but he received of our Lord the greatest compliment given any man.

(3) Position. The third goal for which men will sell their souls is position—power. They will, in their desire to get to the top, climb rough-shod over anyone who gets in their way. How different was John. “He must increase, but I must decrease.” He willingly took second place, willingly saw the limelight shift to the Savior, willingly encouraged his disciples to follow Jesus. And yet in God’s eyes, and even in that of men, John was a powerful figure in Israel’s history. When Luke introduced the preaching ministry of John, he mentioned the names of five of the most powerful political leaders known to John’s day, and the two most powerful religious leaders (Luke 3:1,2). Luke scarcely gives these men the time of day other than as points of reference by which to introduce John.

Another emphasis I wish to call your attention to is the interrelationship between the man and the message. John had a divine revelation from God; he had a message. But more than that, the message had him. You and I have the Word of God—we are men with a message. But that message will never have great impact in our times until it has taken hold of us. I know of no other city in America where Bible doctrine and teaching are so available than in Dallas, Texas. But my prayer is that we will be marked out in our communities as those men and women whose lives manifest that God is in us. May God grant this to be true in our lives.

Not only should we learn from John, let us also learn from Herod. Here was a man strangely attracted by John’s preaching, yet also repelled by it. Herod’s problem, like ours, is that his morality had control of his theology. Our rejection of the Gospel is seldom based, in the final analysis, upon theology, or upon intellectual hang-ups, but on morality. Believing the Gospel would mean cleaning up our act. Herod attempted to straddle the fence. He was somehow trapped between Herodias and John. Just as his morality finally was his downfall, so will it be with you. My friend, if you understand your sin and understand that Jesus Christ has died for your sins, don’t delay. Surrender to Him Who can save.

31 The ancient historian, Josephus, tells us that Herod imprisoned John the Baptist because he feared John’s political power with the masses.

“Now some of the Jews thought that it was God who had destroyed Herod’s army, and that it was a very just punishment to avenge John, surnamed the Baptist. John had been put to death by Herod, although he was a good man, who exhorted the Jews to practise virtue, to be just one to another and pious towards God and to come together by baptism. Baptism, he taught, was acceptable to God provided that they underwent it not to procure remission of certain sins but for the purification of the body, if the soul had already been purified by righteousness. When the others gathered round John, greatly stirred as they listened to his words, Herod was afraid that his great persuasive power over men might lead to a rising, for they seemed ready to follow his counsel in everything. Accordingly he thought the best course was to arrest him and put him to death before he caused a riot, rather than wait until a revolt broke out and then have to repent of permitting such trouble to arise. Because of this suspicion on Herod’s part, John was sent in chains to the fortress of Machaerus ... and there put to death. The Jews therefore thought that the destruction of Herod’s army was the punishment deliberately sent upon him by God to avenge John.”

Josephus, Antiquities, xviii, pp. 116-119, as quoted by F. F. Bruce, in New Testament History (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1971), pp.152-153.

32 “There is no such thing as the Jewish Messianic hope. Many quite independent ideas are usually grouped under this term. Some looked for a new and greater prophet, some for a priestly leader, some for a supernatural figure, a sort of angelic judge. But the dominant hope was for a king like David, and that meant, by the time of Jesus, a warrior capable of defying the power of Rome and restoring the political glory of Israel. The theologians may have had other ideas, but if you had spoken to the man in the street about the Messiah, he would certainly have understood you to mean the ‘son of David,’ the warrior king of the coming empire of Israel.” R. T. France, I Came to Set the Earth on Fire, Portrait of Christ, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1976), p. 22.

33 “In the orient, a herald went before the King, calling the people together to repair the roads which were usually very poor, that the royal equipage might pass safely.” J. W. Shepard, The Christ of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939), p. 61.

34 “In the New Testament the terms ‘repent’ (metanoeo) and ‘repentance’ (metanoia) refer basically to a change of mind. It is all-important to note this signification. For repentance consists in a radical transformation of thought, attitude, outlook, and direction. In accordance with the pervasive Old Testament emphasis and with what appears also in the New Testament, repentance is a turning from sin unto God and His service. The co-ordination of turning (epistrepho) with repentance places this fact in relief (cf. Acts iii. 19, xxvi. 20) as well as the frequency with which turning from sin unto God occurs as the virtual synonym of repentance (cf. Lk. i. 16; Acts ix. 35, xi. 21, xiv. 15, xv. 19, xxvi. 18; 1 Thes. i. 9; 1 Pet. ii. 25). Repentance is a revolution in that which is most determinative in human personality and is the reflex in consciousness of the radical change wrought by the Holy Spirit in regeneration. It is a mistake, however, to underrate the place of grief and hatred for sin and turning from it unto God. It is true that there can be a morbid and morose sorrow which has no affinity with repentance. It is the sorrow of the world which works death (2 Cor. vii. 10), exemplified in Judas (Mt. xxvii. 3-5) and Esau (Heb. xii. 17). But there is a godly sorrow that works repentance unto salvation (2 Cor. vii. 9,10) and it is an indispensable ingredient in evangelical repentance.” “Repentance,” New Bible Dictionary, ed. by J. D. Douglas (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962), p.1084.

35 “… such a virtuous alteration of the mind and purpose as begats a like virtuous change in the life and practice,’ Kettlewell), which we call repentance…” Richard Chenevix Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament (Marshallton, Delaware: The National Foundation for Christian Education, n.d.), p. 243.

36 “For, no principle was more fully established in the popular conviction, than that all Israel had part in the world to come (Sanh x.1), and this, specifically, because of their connection with Abraham. This appears not only from the New Testament, from Philo, and Josephus, but from many Rabbinic passages. ‘The merits of the Fathers,’ is one of the commonest phrases in the mouth of the Rabbis. Abraham was represented as sitting at the gate of Gehenna, to deliver any Israelite who otherwise might have been consigned to its terrors. In fact, by their descent from Abraham, all the children of Israel were nobles, infinitely higher than any proselytes. ‘What,’ exclaims the Talmud, ‘shall the born Israelite stand upon the earth, and the proselyte be in heaven?’ In fact, the ships on the sea were preserved through the merit of Abraham; the rain descended on account of it. For his sake alone had Moses been allowed to ascend into heaven, and to receive the Law; for his sake the sin of the golden calf had been forgiven; his righteousness had on many occasions been the support of Israel’s cause; Daniel had been heard for the sake of Abraham; nay, his merit availed even for the wicked. In its extravagance the Midrash thus apostrophises Abraham: ‘If thy children were even (morally) dead bodies, without blood vessels or bones, thy merit would avail for them!’” Alford Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), I, pp. 271-272.

37 J. W. Shepard, The Christ of the Gospels, p. 62.

38 “John immersed the entire man in the water in the Jordan river. This mode of baptism symbolized a complete moral cleansing. It was a public confession of sin and of the need of a Saviour-Messiah. The one receiving this rite had to first give evidence of genuine repentance, a sorrow for sin and a determination to turn away from it. It was a declaration also of allegiance to the coming Messiah, when He should appear. John’s new rite was not a means to secure the remission of sins. It was a baptism on the basis of repentance and a confession of sin which accompanied the rite, being related thus to the remission of sins (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3).” J. W. Shepard, The Christ of the Gospels, p. 63.

39 F. F. Bruce, New Testament History, p. 156.

40 “In so far as proselyte baptism provides an analogy to John’s baptism John was saying in effect to true-born Jews, proudly conscious of their descent from Abraham: “Your impeccable pedigree is irrelevant in God’s sight; if you wish to be enrolled in the new Israel of the age that is about to dawn, you must take the outside place, acknowledging that you are not better in his eyes than Gentiles, and you must enter the end-time community of his people by baptism, as they have to do.’” Ibid.

41 “It has been calculated that the total taxation, Jewish and Roman together, may have exceeded 40% of an ordinary man’s income. An elaborate taxation system demands an elaborate civil service, and it was here that the grievances were multiplied. The lucrative privilege of tax-collection went to the highest bidder, who then farmed the work out to smaller fry, and they in turn to others. The top men would be Romans; the lower rank, who actually made contact with the people, were Jews. And each had to make his position profitable to himself. Provided the correct tax was produced, the officials would not worry about how it was collected. So the officially required tax was swollen by the necessary rake-off at each level of civil service, and the name ‘tax-collector’ became in common parlance a synonym for an unscrupulous quisling and extortioner.” R.T. France, I Came to Set the Earth on Fire, Portrait of Christ, p. 20.

42 Quoted by James S. Stewart, The Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ (Nashville: Abingdon, 1978), p. 35.

4. The Baptism and Temptation of Messiah

Introduction

Martin Luther once said, “There are three things that make a Christian—prayer, meditation, and temptation.”⁴³ Luther might very well have great difficulty in getting anyone to agree with him. If, indeed, temptation is a sort of ‘necessary evil,’ one would be hard-pressed to find a non-Christian who would call it an evil, or a Christian who would think it necessary.

A careful look at the Scriptures will prove Luther right. Temptation plays a vital role in the growth and maturing of the Christian.⁴⁴ And what is more, temptation played a significant role in the preparation of our Lord Jesus Christ for His public presentation as Israel’s Messiah.

The temptation of Christ is the sequel to the account of His baptism.⁴⁵ His baptism was so crucial that it is recorded by all four Gospel writers. In the will of God, we shall study the significance of our Lord’s baptism and temptation with a view to their contribution to our Lord’s preparation for His public ministry which followed on the heels of these events. We will also dwell on the lessons to be learned by all Christians in the matter of dealing with temptation in such a way as to avoid sin and achieve God’s purposes for our lives.

The Baptism of Our Lord

Many pages have been written concerning the meaning of our Lord’s baptism, especially the statement of our Lord by Matthew, “… Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness …” (Matt. 3:15). Too often the problem has been intensified by the fact that interpretation has been attempted before sufficient observation has taken place. Let us fix our minds on the Gospel account so as to get facts clearly in mind.

(1) The baptism of Jesus was more private than public. Luke seems to state that Jesus came to be baptized after the multitudes had already received baptism at His hand: “Now it came about when all the people were baptized, that Jesus also was baptized, …” (Luke 3:21).

While the accounts of Matthew and Luke never mention a public audience or any response to the supernatural phenomenon of the Lord’s baptism, they do give the impression that the two who were most affected and involved were Jesus and John (note the change from the second person in Luke to the third person in Matthew⁴⁶). Finally, although the disciples of our Lord were those who were with our Lord from the time of John’s baptism (cf. Acts 1:21,22), they did not mention this spectacular event. But note that almost the same divine testimony occurs at the transfiguration of our Lord (cf. Luke 9:35) and Peter clearly refers to this event as a divine testimony to the kingly majesty belonging to Jesus the Messiah (2 Peter 1:17-18). Now why was no mention made of the experience of our Lord at His baptism, unless of course, no one witnessed it except John and Jesus? The additional words, “Hear ye Him” seem to add weight to this line of argument.

(2) The baptism of Jesus by John was unlike every other baptism he had performed. The baptism which John proclaimed was one signifying repentance. Our sinless Lord had no sin for which to repent. John recognized this and sought to dissuade our Lord from submitting to baptism. If any needed a baptism of repentance, it was John at the hands of the Lord Jesus (Matt. 3:14). The baptizing of Jesus by John in some way fulfilled all righteousness (Matt. 3:15).

(3) John tells us that the reason he baptized was to identify the true Messiah of which he spoke. John’s questioners interrogated him as to who he was. If he was not Messiah, then why was be baptizing (John 1:25)? John’s first response to this question was that the baptism of Messiah was far superior to his. Then in verse 31 we find the purpose of John’s baptism so far as Messiah is concerned: “And I did not recognize Him, but in order that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water” (John 1:31).

By means of the divine testimony, John was able to know Israel’s Messiah for certain. From that day on, John presented Jesus as the Messiah (cf. John 1:29-30,34).

The interpretation of the significance of our Lord’s baptism becomes even more evident when we consider the words of divine testimony: “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well-pleased” (Matt. 3:17).

It is my understanding that by these words and the bestowing of the Holy Spirit, the Father identified Jesus both as Israel’s Messiah King and as the Servant of the Lord. In 2 Samuel 7:14 God assured David of an everlasting Kingdom with these words: “I will be a Father to him and he will be a son to Me; …” (2 Sam. 7:14).

The point here is not that the one referred to (David’s son, Solomon) will be Messiah, for in the next statement it is assumed that son will sin, but that Yahweh’s installation of a King is spoken of in terms of a Father and Son relationship (cf. also Psalm 89:26,27). God appointed the kings over His people. The one installed was called God’s Son. In the Second Psalm God’s anointed, the Messiah, speaks: “I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to Me, ‘Thou art My Son, Today have I begotten Thee” (Psalm 2:7).

Paul, in Acts 13:33 quotes this very passage, but to prove the necessity and historicity of the resurrection of Christ. I understand these passages in the Gospels and Acts to harmonize in this way. Long before David was publicly presented as Israel’s King, he was privately designated to Samuel by God (1 Sam. 16) and anointed by him. It was also at this time of secret identification to Samuel that David was empowered by the Holy Spirit (1 Sam. 16:13). It was not until years later, after David had fled from Saul many times, that God removed Saul and inaugurated David as King.

In similar fashion at the baptism of Jesus, God signified (privately, I believe) to John that Jesus was the promised Messiah. At that time, He received the anointing of the Holy Spirit for the task ahead. It was at the transfiguration of our Lord that His disciples received divine confirmation that He was God’s Messiah. In Acts, Paul used the resurrection of Christ as an evidence that God had accepted His sacrificial work on the cross and had exalted Him to His heavenly throne where He waits the time of His final and public coronation when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Him as Lord (Phil. 2:9-11) because God has put all things under His feet (cf. Acts 2:32-36).

Not only does the testimony of the Father at the baptism of Jesus identify Jesus as King, Who will inherit the throne of His father David (Luke 1:32), but it also identifies Jesus as the Servant of the Lord. Old Testament saints could not put together the two themes of Old Testament prophecy—one concerning a mighty king, the other of a humble servant Who would suffer for the sins of His people (cf. Isaiah 52:13-53:12). The testimony of the Father identified Jesus as the fulfillment of both streams of prophecy. Listen to the words of Isaiah: “Behold, My Servant whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; …” (Isa. 42:1).

Is the similarity of this statement with that of the testimony of the Father not too obvious to overlook? This one brief statement of the Father identified Jesus as both the Messiah-King and the suffering servant Who would die for the sins of His people. Christ is the deliverer Who came to die.

Many interpretations of the baptism of our Lord have been suggested, some of which we should immediately reject,⁴⁷ while others have some merit. But in the final analysis we can conclude two things for certain.

The baptism of our Lord was a testimony to John, identifying Jesus as Messiah.
The baptism of our Lord was a confirmation to the Son of His high calling.

Even if only these two suggestions are true, surely we could agree that this event fulfilled all righteousness.⁴⁸ Here all the righteous program of God was coming to culmination. Things, we might say, were coming to a head.

The Temptation of Our Lord

The two events, the baptism and temptation of our Lord, cannot be separated. They are linked together both chronologically and logically. Chronologically, the temptation of our Lord immediately follows His baptism. Matthew connects the two events by the word, ‘then,’ Mark and Luke ‘and.’ Logically, the two events are inseparable. At the baptism our Lord’s calling and testing is told. In the wilderness, our Lord’s fitness for such a mission is tested. In the temptation, Satan never assails the identification of Christ as Israel’s Messiah.⁴⁹ He simply attempts to divert Him from His task. In the wilderness experience we have recorded a trinity of tests which reveal the character and cunning of Satan and the perfections of Messiah which qualify Him to die for the sins of His people.

The First Temptation

(1) The proposition. Satan’s first line of attack concerns the hunger which our Lord experienced due to His 40-day fast:

“And the tempter came and said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.’ But He answered and said, ‘It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’” (Matt. 4:3-4).

(2) The premise. Satan’s suggestion was based on several erroneous premises or presuppositions. Let’s read between the lines to get them in mind. First, a God Who is good would not deprive one of His creatures. Doing without food cannot be the will of God. Such was the insinuation in the temptation of the first Adam in the garden. “Surely a good God would not withhold such a good thing as this fruit,” Satan suggested. Second, Satan supposes that men serve God and submit to His will because God bribes them to do so with material blessings. Remember Satan’s statement to God concerning Job: “Then Satan answered the Lord, ‘Does Job fear God for nothing?’” (Job 1:9). Satan simply could not conceive of the Lord Jesus submitting to the will of the Father when it meant personal discomfort.

(3) The potential outcome. Had our Lord followed Satan’s solicitous advice several situations would have been inevitable. First of all, if personal pleasure comes before God’s will our Lord would never have gone to the cross of Calvary. If submission and obedience did not involve personal sacrifice, the atonement would never have been accomplished. Then, too, if physical needs have priority over spiritual necessities, then our Lord would never have preached the gospel. All His life would have been spent feeding the hungry and healing the sick. The only result of our Lord’s coming would have been some kind of ‘great society’ with no salvation wrought for men. Also, our Lord could never have spoken on the subject of discipleship and self-denial (as He so often did cf. Matthew 10:31-39; Luke 9:23, 57-62) unless He Himself had experienced it.

(4) The principles. Our Lord’s response indicates several vital principles of Christian service, as relevant for us today as they were 2,000 years ago. First of all the physical hunger which our Lord experienced was the will of God for His life. The account of the temptation begins: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matt. 4:1, cf. also Luke 4:1).

Our Lord was Spirit-led to fast and hunger in the wilderness. Second, obedience to the will of God takes precedence to one’s physical appetites. That is the implication of the statement, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God’ (Matt. 4:4). Physical appetites are good because they are God-given. Bread is important to physical life, but there is no real life apart from obedience to the revealed will of God. Third, physical deprivation in the will of God is not bad, but good, for it tests our faith and strengthens it.⁵⁰ This is the force of the context of our Lord’s quotation in Deuteronomy chapter 8. Note the words which immediately precede those quoted by our Lord to Satan:

“And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart whether you would keep His commandments or not. And He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did no t know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:2,3).

Israel hungered in the wilderness by the will of God. Submission cannot be tested in abundance so much as in adversity. We do not test the obedience of our children by telling them to go to the ice cream store, but by telling them to go to the doctor for a shot. Israel’s faith was strengthened as they learned to trust God for their every need.

Likewise, our Lord’s hunger was a test of His submission to the Father’s will. Just as God provided sustenance for the Israelites in the wilderness, so He would do for His Son, in His own time. The Son would not act independently of the Father to provide food for Himself. After the test was completed, God did supernaturally provide for this need (Matt. 4:11).

Finally, the measure of a man is not to be found in the assertion of his rights, but in his submission to God. One of the things which has always hindered Christianity is the false notion that devotion to God is a womanly trait, and that real ‘he men’ don’t go for the sissy stuff of submission to God. That is one of Satan’s lies. The measure of a man is his submission to God. Satan suggested that our Lord look out for Himself and act independently of the Father. To do that would have depreciated His manhood.

(5) Practical application. The error of communism and its underlying principles of materialism come immediately to mind. Communism says that man does live by bread alone. It is materialism and economics that makes the world go ‘round. Material needs are important, our Lord would say, but they are not primary. Then there are those (even Christians no less!) whom I have heard say, “God does not give us any desire which he does not satisfy.” Physical appetites are God-given, but life’s highest calling is not always to fulfill them.⁵¹ A man may have the desire for the companionship and intimacies of marriage, but he may choose to set these aside for higher spiritual priorities.

The Second Temptation

(1) The Proposition. Having failed in the first recorded effort, Satan moved to an alternate approach:

Then the devil took Him into the holy city; and he stood Him on the pinnacle⁵² of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will give His angels charge concerning You; and in their hands they will bear You up, lest You strike Your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘You shalt not tempt the Lord your God’” (Matt. 4:5-7).

This was a very subtle challenge for Jerusalem was the sacred city, and the temple was the center of Israel’s religious life. Furthermore, the Old Testament prophecies anticipated Messiah’s public presentation at the temple (Mal. 3:1). Besides this, there was a rabbinic tradition that Messiah would reveal Himself from the roof of the temple.⁵³ As a rule, the Jews expected Messiah to be introduced in some kind of blaze of glory, and a spectacular leap and miraculous deliverance would precisely fill the bill.

(2) The Premise. Satan’s presupposition in this challenge was that God’s faithfulness is best demonstrated by the spectacular. In addition, there is the implicit assumption that one’s trustworthiness should be put to the test. If God was the Father of our Lord Jesus, let Him prove it, and in such an unusual way that no one could miss it.

(3) The Potential Outcome. The most distressing possibility had our Lord failed this test is that the Jews would have immediately hailed Him as Messiah. What would have been tragic about such an occurrence is that the Kingdom would have been established on the wrong basis, not right, but might. The moral and spiritual foundations of the Kingdom would have been completely over-shadowed by the spectacular and material elements.

(4) The Principles. There are two principles brought to light by the response of our Lord to Satan’s scheme. First, there was the principle of hermeneutics, or biblical interpretation. Satan said, “it is written.” Our Lord responded, “On the other hand (literally, ‘also’), it is written …” (Matt. 4:7). Satan had used one passage, but he had ripped it out of context. Worse yet, he interpreted and applied it inconsistently with other Scriptures.⁵⁴ Scripture must be interpreted by Scripture.

Second, our Lord would remind Satan and every Christian that testing is not trusting. The 91st Psalm which Satan quoted from speaks of the quiet confidence which the child of God possesses. But divine protection does not encourage presumption. Our Lord’s reply again from the book of Deuteronomy is that, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God” (Deut. 6:16).

The context of this quotation is the incident at Massah, where the Israelites demanded that God provide water. Submission and demanding are at opposite ends of the spectrum. God was challenged to vindicate Himself by acting in a specified way. This was putting God to the test. We might say it was attempting to force God’s hand. Real faith and trust delights in God’s manifestation of Himself in the mundane. It is not faith, but failure when we demand God prove Himself in the spectacular. Over and over in the life of our Lord the Jews demanded a sign (e.g. John 6:30), but our Lord continually refused such requests.

(5) Practical Application. It is sad to see Christians putting God to the test today by insisting on the spectacular. “I expect a miracle,” the song lyrics demand, “and nothing else will do.” Those who are terminally ill are instructed to ‘take a stand of faith’ that God has healed them. Doctors, nurses and family are to be informed that a miracle is happening. In this we are wrongly assuming not only that suffering is improper for the saint, but it demands that God jump through our hoops, that God act just as we have purposed. The Bible knows of none of this.

There are those who are regarded as faith healers who call upon God to heal, without leaving Him the option of continued illness or death, and who insist that Jesus receive all the glory. But in His earthly life Jesus refused to heal men for His own glory. His miracles were both selective, limited, and always purposeful.

Finally, there is the use of the spectacular to win a hearing and acceptance for the Gospel. Our Lord refused to grandstand in order to be accepted. He chose to be accepted because of His message, not His bizarre methods. There is far too much grandstanding of the Gospel in our times. Everything from pony rides to parachutists are employed to get men’s attention. Our Lord rejected all such actions. He came to establish a church, not a circus.

The Third Temptation

(1) The Proposition. Having failed in his first two efforts, Satan makes one last ‘no holds barred’ attempt to divert our Lord from His mission. Our Lord has so frustrated Satan that all masks and facades have been torn away. It is here we see Satan at his worst. The proposal was simple and straight-forward:

Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain, and showed Him all the Kingdoms of the world, and their glory; and he said to Him, “All these things will I give You, if you fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Begone, Satan! For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only” (Matt. 4:8-10).

(2) The Premise. Satan had come to realize that our Lord could not be deceived. As I see it, Satan puts aside the deception and lays all his cards on the table. In offering our Lord the kingdom of the world, Satan proposes to exchange that which was his most valued possession for that which he most diligently aspired, the worship of God Himself. There are no subtleties here, no deceptions, just a hard-nosed business proposal: Give up your kingdom for mine, the future for the present, with only the bow of the knee. Satan had desired to be ‘like the most high’ (Isaiah 14:12-14), to exercise the prerogatives and privileges of God. To receive homage from Messiah would be worth any price.

(3) The Potential Outcome. To once bow the knee to Satan is to forever be in his service. Our Lord’s kingdom would have been one of fallen men in rebellion against Himself. To serve Satan would have been God in rebellion against Himself, something inconceivable.

(4) The Principle. Before we deal with the principles of Scripture which our Lord did employ, let me suggest another passage which makes Satan’s proposal preposterous and ludicrous. It is a passage which our Lord may well have been meditating upon during the 40 days in the wilderness. I have suggested that Psalm 2 was directly alluded to by the testimony of the Father at Jesus’ baptism. A look at the entire Psalm gives ample reason for our Lord’s rejection.

If you will look at this Psalm in your Bibles, you will see that the present state of the world is described. In verses 1-3, the nations are in an uproar, in open rebellion against God and His Messiah. Such is the kingdom which Satan offers in exchange for Messiah’s Kingdom. In verses 4-6 God laughs at man’s rebellion and promises to bring the world into subjection through His ‘anointed.’ In verses 7-9 Messiah speaks and promises to declare God’s decree to men, because of His divine appointment. But note especially verse 8:

“Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as thine inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as Thy possession” (Psalm 2:8).

Think of it; God invites His Messiah to ask of Him, and He will give the nations as an inheritance. Satan offered his broken-down kingdom; God offers the nations. How hollow Satan’s offer must have sounded in contrast to that in Psalm 2, a Psalm which must have been prominent in our Lord’s thinking!

One final comment about Psalm 2. Look at verses 11 and 12:

“Worship the Lord with reverence, And rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son, lest He become angry, and you perish in the way, For His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!” (Psalm 2:11,12).

Verses 11-12 give the response appropriate to those in opposition to God and His Messiah. Worship Him! Do homage to Him! Fear His anger! Serve Him! Think of it. Satan had the arrogance (I think it was sincere) to request worship from Messiah, rather than to fall before Him.

Incredible, you say. But let me ask you, my friend. Have you acknowledged your rebellion against God, your sin, your pride? Are you trying to enlist God in your service rather than surrender to Him? If so, you are, in the words of our Lord, a child of the devil’ (John 8:44). To fail to surrender to Him and to serve Him is to repeat the sin of Satan. May God keep you from it.

Now the principles which our Lord applies to this situation. The first principle is that God alone is to be worshipped. Here is where Christianity departs from other ‘religions.’ Many world religions gladly add Jesus to their host of deities, but God demands exclusive obedience and worship.⁵⁵ In His humanity, our Lord could not submit to or worship any other than the Father.

The second principle is that worship necessitates service. Satan requested what appeared to be only a momentary act of worship, a mere bending of the knee. But such is never the case with true worship:

“You shall worship the Lord Your God, and serve Him only” (Matt. 4:10).

True worship involves service. Satan hoped our Lord would underestimate the implications of bowing the knee in worship.

(5) Practical Application. There is a great deal of lip service in religion concerning worship. The man who tells us that he worships God in the woods and on the lake on Sunday has some real inconsistencies with our Lord’s concept of worship. He may truly see God’s hand in His creation and praise Him for this, but where is his service? Like love and marriage, worship and service must come together. To put it in the words of the song writer, “You can’t have one without the other.”

Sometimes I fear that the church of Jesus Christ has borrowed the techniques of Satan in evangelism. Satan presented his offer as though it were but a trivial request to worship him, while the implications were both profound and permanent. I often have the feeling that Christians are attempting to bring men and women into the kingdom without spelling out the implications. We put the long-term commitments in proverbial ‘fine print.’ That is not God’s way, but Satan’s.

Overview

Having spent considerable time among the ‘trees,’ let me take a moment to look back over the temptation of our Lord as a whole. Several striking features are apparent.

(1) The temptation is not evil in and of itself. Our Lord was ‘spirit led’ to be tempted. What Satan meant as a temptation, God used as a test.⁵⁶ While Satan seeks to cause the saint to fail, God strives to bring about greater faith. Temptation is a part of God’s program in the lives of the saint for his growth, and His glory.⁵⁷

(2) The temptation of Christ proved Him qualified for His work on the cross. Only a sinless, spotless ‘Lamb of God’ could take upon Himself the sin of the world. Our Lord’s sinlessness stood out when tempted by the master deceiver.

(3) The temptation of our Lord prepared Him to be a merciful High Priest.

“For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15).

Our Lord’s temptation ‘in every point as we are’ enables Him to be a sympathetic High Priest (cf. also Hebrews 2:17-18). While His temptation proved Him sinless, it made Him sensitive to our weaknesses.

(4) The temptation of Christ was a test of submission. Underlying the entire temptation was a solicitation to set aside submission to the Father and act independently of God. This was the cause of Satan’s fall. It is interesting to ponder the fact that Satan had no idea of the actual program God had devised to bring about his destruction through the work of Messiah (cf. Gen. 3:15). If Satan would have ever realized that the cross was his defeat, he would never have instigated the crucifixion through the instrumentality of Judas (cf. John 13:2). Satan’s strategy was to entice the Son to act independently of the Father. By undermining the submission of the Son to the Father he could attain his own purposes, just as he had done in the garden.⁵⁸

(5) Because our Lord could not sin, He bore the burden of the temptation to the full. When Adam was created, he was made able not to sin. When Christ, the last Adam, was begotten, He was not able to sin. Some have concluded that the impeccability of Christ would diminish the victory of our Lord over Satan, but, in fact, it intensified the victory:

“In this way the sinlessness of Jesus augments His capacity for sympathy: for in every case He felt the full force of temptation” (in loc.). And Westcott remarks at Hebrews ii. 18: “Sympathy with the sinner in his trial does not depend on the experience of sin, but on the experience of the strength of the temptation to sin, which only the sinless can know in its full intensity. He who falls yields before the last strain.”

If we bear these considerations in mind, we shall realise that the Saviour experienced the violence of the attacks of temptation as no other human being ever did, because all others are sinful and therefore not able to remain standing until the temptations have exhausted all their terrible violence in assailing them.”⁵⁹

Applications

Virtually every verse of this portion of the Gospels is saturated with personal application. As we come to the conclusion of our study, let me spotlight several key facets of Christian living which our text has spoken to.

We can learn much about the ever-present reality of temptation.

1. It should be expected by the Christian.

2. It often comes after moments of triumph or commitment.

3. Satan’s temptations are God’s tests. Remember that Satan tempts only in the will of God, and that temptations are never beyond our capacity (in Christ) to stand (1 Cor. 10:13).

4. Temptation often come in the area of application of truth, and not just the area of interpretation. Satan never challenged Christ’s interpretation of His baptismal experience (the fact that He was both Messiah-King and Suffering Servant), only the application of His position.

5. Temptation often solicits us to sin by doing something that appears ‘religious,’ even biblical.

6. Temptation often arises concerning the will of God. The will of God is not to be determined by our feelings, our desires, or even our logic, but according to the principles of the Word of God.

7. Temptation is best resisted with the Word of God, interpreted in its context, and in light of other Scripture.

We learn a great deal concerning the biblical concept of submission.

1. Submission does not imply inferiority (for our Lord was fully God, equal in essence with the Father), but functional subordination.

2. Satan is ever seeking to overturn God’s chain-of-command by inciting men and women to throw off their bonds and follow him.

3. Submission means not acting independently of the will of the one in authority, nor of forcing him to act in a way we see fit.

May God enable us to apply the principles of this passage to our lives, to His glory.

43 Quoted by Thomas Watson, A Divine Cordial (no publication data given, first published 1663), p. 28.

44 As a suggestion for further study, let me outline Thomas Watson’s comments as to how the evil of temptation is overruled for good to the godly: (1) Temptation sends the soul to prayer. (2) Temptation to sin, is a means to keep from the perpetration of sin. (3) Temptation ... abates the swelling of pride. (4) Temptation ... is a touch-stone to try what is in the heart. (5) Temptation ... makes those who are tempted fit to comfort others in the same distress. (6) Temptations ... stir up paternal compassion in God to them who are tempted. (7) Temptations ... make the saints long for heaven. (8) Temptations ... engage the strength of Christ. Thomas, A Divine Cordial, pp. 24-27.

45 The baptism of Christ is included in all four Gospels, while the temptation of our Lord is omitted by John. Since John seeks to establish the deity of Christ (and God cannot be tempted, James 1:13), it is unnecessary to his argument. Luke seeks to stress the humanity of our Lord, and thus it is not difficult to comprehend his reasons for placing the geneology of our Lord (which traces His lineage back to Adam) between his account of our Lord’s baptism and temptation.

46 In this change from second person to third person, the substance is the same, but in Matthew (in accord with John’s account in John 1), the stress is on the thrust of this testimony toward identifying Messiah for John, while Luke emphasizes God’s assurance and confirmation for the benefit of our Lord.

47 “From earliest ages it has been a question why Jesus went to be baptized. The heretical Gospels put into the mouth of the Virgin-Mother an invitation to go to that baptism, to which Jesus is supposed to have replied by pointing to His own sinlessness, except it might be on the score of ignorance, in regard to a limitation of knowledge. Objections lie to most of the explanations offered by modern writers. They include a bold denial of the fact of Jesus’ Baptism; the profane suggestion of collusion between John and Jesus; or such suppositions, as that of His personal sinfulness, of His coming as the Representative of a guilty race, or as the bearer of the sins of others, or of acting in solidarity with His people—or else to separate Himself from the sins of Israel; of His surrendering Himself thereby unto death for man; of His purpose to do honour to the baptism of John; or thus to elicit a token of His Messiahship; or to bind Himself to the observance of the Law; or in this manner to commence His Messianic Work; or to consecrate Himself solemnly to it; or, lastly, to receive the spiritual qualification for it.” Alford Edersheim The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), I, p. 279.

48 “By his statement to John about fulfilling all righteousness, Jesus seems to mean that for the purpose of accomplishing his mediatorial work it is necessary for him to be baptized. This must be understood as a deliberate identification of himself with the nation, and so is in line with his birth, circumcision, presentation, and assumption of the yoke of the law. Since John’s baptism was bound up with the forgiveness of sins (Mk. 1:4), and no personal sin is involved in Jesus’ case, the conclusion is fairly obvious that the baptism was the first public step taken in the direction of bearing the sins of the people. It may be significant for the understanding of Matthew 3:15 to recall that the servant who was destined to bear the iniquities of the people is called righteous” (Isa. 53:11). Everett F. Harrison, A Short Life of Christ, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), p. 74.

49 In the original text, the expression ‘If you are the Son of God’ is a first class condition and casts no doubt on the fact of Christ’s sonship. It could accurately be rendered, ‘Since You are the Son of God.’

50 For an excellent discussion of the role of suffering and trials in the Christian life, cf. J.I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1973), chapter 21, ‘Those Inward Trials,’ pp. 221ff.

51 Cf. Philippians 1:29.

52 “From here James, the Lord’s brother, was thrown down thirty-eight years later and killed. This wing was the watch-post, where the white-robed priests customarily called the people to the early worship and the priests to the morning sacrifice, as the massive Temple gates swung open ere sunrise.” J.W. Shepard, The Christ of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939), p. 77.

53 “It should be noted that the rabbis identified the person addressed by God in Psalm xci with the Messiah. The Midrash, known as Pesiqta Rabbati (162a), records a traditional belief that Messiah would manifest himself standing on the roof of the temple. The part of the temple indicated in the temptation narrative may have been the part overlooking the “Royal Colonnade”—which Josephus (Antiquities, xv. 11,5) describes as looking down a precipitous descent into the Kidron valley, the height being so great as to make the spectator dizzy.” Norval Geldenhuys, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951), p. 162.

54 G. Campbell Morgan rightly comments, “No one statement wrested from its context is a sufficient warrant for actions that plainly controvert other commands. … How excellent a thing it would be if the whole Church of Christ had learned that no law of life may be based upon an isolated text. … Every false teacher who has divided the Church, has had, ‘it is written’ on which to hang his doctrine.” G. Campbell Morgan, The Crises of the Christ (Old Tappan, New Jersey, Fleming H. Revell Co., 1936), pp. 181-82.

55 “Very nobly the early Church followed its master there. It is an extraordinarily significant fact that of all the new religions that came pouring out of the East in the early centuries the religion of Jesus was the only one to arouse real persecution. When the religions of Osiris, Cybele, and other gods and goddesses came, Rome welcomed them all with open arms. But when the lonely God from Palestine came and the Nazarene’s name was first heard on the imperial streets, Rome girded herself to fight him to the death. Why? It was because Osiris and the rest were content to live together and share the honors, but the young God with the nail prints in his hand would not live together or share the honors with any. From the day of Jesus’ decision in the desert the demand of his religion was all or nothing.” James S. Stewart, The Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ (Nashville: Abingdon, 1978), pp. 49-50.

56 The actual Greek word rendered ‘to tempt’ or ‘to test’ is actually the same. Only the context dictates whether the sense is a ‘test of character’ or ‘a solicitation to sin (temptation).’ What God intends as a test, Satan may exploit as a temptation. But God never tempts us to sin (James 1:13).

57 Cf., footnote 2.

58 God’s order of authority (chain of command) was man, woman, creature; the order of the fall was creature (serpent rebelling against creator), woman (acting independently of her husband), man. Satan always attempts to overturn God’s order. G. Campbell Morgan draws our attention to this same process of reversal in the sequence of temptation as compared with the Lord’s replies from Deuteronomy:

“These answers of Jesus reveal the order of the attacks. First bread, then trust, and then worship. If the references in Deuteronomy are now observed, it will be discovered that they are quoted in opposite order to the way in which they occur in the book. In answer to the temptation concerning bread Christ uttered words to be found in Deuteronomy 8:3. In replying to the temptation directed against trust, His quotation was from Deuteronomy 6:16. While in replying to that in the realm of worship, the quotation is from Deuteronomy 6:13. In the law of God, the order is worship, trust, and bread. That order the devil inverted, and his temptations proceeded as to bread, trust, worship.” G. Campbell Morgan, The Crises of the Christ, p. 201.

59 Norval Geldenhuys, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, p. 157.

Related Topics: Christology, Baptism, Temptation

5. The Manifestation of Messiah (John 1:29-2:25)

The Drawing and Driving of Men

Introduction

Wherever and whenever our Lord Jesus appeared before men they were either drawn to Him or driven from Him. That surely will be the case when our Lord Jesus returns to the earth again, for the Scriptures say on the one hand:

“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:16-17).

And yet on the other hand we are told:

“For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, …” (2 Thess. 1:6-10a).

If the Bible tells us that at the second coming of our Lord some will be drawn and others driven, what is the deciding difference? From the divine perspective, the difference is the elective purpose of God. It is the choice of God that makes the difference. But from the human perspective, there is another reason, and this reason is revealed to us in the initial manifestation of the Messiah at His first coming as recorded by the apostle John in chapters one and two of his Gospel. While the disciples were compellingly drawn to follow our Lord, those in the Temple were driven from His presence. Not only is the contrast clear, but also the condition in men which brought about the distinction in our Lord’s dealings is revealed as well. From the human perspective, the difference which determines men’s destinies is given to instruct us as we study this crucial passage of Scripture.

The Declaration of John the Baptist
(1:29-34)

We have concluded from our earlier study of the baptism of the Lord Jesus that the main reason for Jesus’ baptism by John was that God might signify to John that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel. When the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus and the Father proclaimed Jesus to be His beloved Son, John was assured that Jesus was the Messiah.

There was no one common concept of Messiah or His kingdom, but in the vast majority of cases, Messianic expectation was much more external than internal, much more political than spiritual. This is precisely why John the Baptist was sent to prepare the people for their King. They needed to repent—to have a change of mind and heart. Few were prepared for the introduction of Jesus as Messiah by these words of John: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29b).

This introduction I take to be a summary statement, drawing together all of the Old Testament passages concerning Messiah in His suffering and substitutionary atonement. The Passover lamb was a picture of the Messiah who would come (cf. 1 Cor. 5:7, “Christ our Passover”). The Suffering Servant was described by Isaiah as being like a lamb:

“He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).

The apostles continued to identify Jesus as the Lamb of God (cf. Acts 8:26ff., 1 Peter 1:19; Rev. 5:6,8, etc.). How different was John’s concept of Messiah from the majority of Israelites! John presented our Lord, not as the One Who would throw off the shackles of Rome, but as the One Who would Himself bear the penalty for sin.

Two words summarize John’s evaluation of Jesus. First, He was the sin-bearer. John’s message was one of repentance from sins. Jesus came to accomplish the removal of sin—He ‘takes away the sin of the world.’ Secondly, Jesus was John’s superior. Although John’s birth was prior to that of the Lord Jesus (cf. Luke 1), our Lord’s existence was from eternity: “This is He on behalf of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me’” (John 1:30).

The prophet Micah predicted that Messiah would be eternal:

“But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be Ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity” (Micah 5:2).

Our Lord did not begin His existence in Bethlehem’s manger. It was there He began to exist as God-man, whereas from eternity past He had existed solely as God. It is because of His eternality that our Lord could claim: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I AM” (John 8:58).

Then, also, Jesus was superior to John because His baptism was greater. John baptized with water, but he persistently preached that the One Who would come after him was far greater for He would baptize with the Holy Spirit (Luke 3:16).

The Drawing of the Disciples
(1:35-51)

The first to respond to Jesus as the Messiah were some of John’s own disciples. It is not surprising that they did so, but it is unusual that they did so at the instigation of John:

“Again the next day John was standing, and two of his disciples; and he looked upon Jesus as He walked, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’ And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus” (John 1:35-37).

The greatness of this hairy man of the wilderness is nowhere more striking than in these few words. John actually encouraged his own disciples to follow Jesus. There is a great emphasis today (and often rightly so) on this matter of discipleship. But all too often we want to make men our disciples. The goal of all true discipleship is to enlist and encourage men to become followers of our Lord. How forcefully John reminds us of the nature of true discipleship. We are not to be attracted and attached to the man, but to the Master. John made it easy for these two to do what was right. They took the hint and began to follow Jesus.

If the drawing of these two men was instigated by John, it was also invited by Jesus:

“And Jesus turned, and beheld them following, and said to them, ‘What do you seek?’ And they said to Him, ‘Rabbi (which translated means Teacher), where are You staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come, and you will see.’ They came therefore and saw where He was staying; and they stayed with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour” (John 1:38-39).

We are given the name of only one of these two, Andrew (verse 40), but the identity of the other is not too difficult to determine. No doubt John in his modesty, neglected to mention his name, but the fact that John knew the very hour at which the invitation of Jesus was given (verse 39) leaves little room for doubt. Our Lord’s words to Andrew and John were rightly understood as an encouragement to follow Him. In the case of Phillip (verse 43) the invitation was even more forceful.

Not only did the first disciples of Jesus follow Him because of the implied instruction of John the Baptist and the invitation of Jesus, several followed Jesus because of the invitation of those who first found Him. Andrew immediately found his brother Simon, whose name our Lord changed to Peter. In this act of changing the name of Peter our Lord was, by implication, asserting His authority over him (cf. 2 Kings 23:34). When Adam named the animals of creation as well as his wife he was evidencing his authority over them. (No doubt this is one reason why ‘liberated women’ refuse to have their names changed when they marry—they are resisting the implications of having their names changed.) Also, the Bible informs us that the change of name indicates a change in one’s character and destiny (Gen. 17:5,15; 32:28). As the Gospel accounts make absolutely clear, Peter was no rock, but by the grace of God he became a part of the sure foundation of the church.

While Andrew invited his brother Simon to follow the Messiah, Phillip sought out his brother Nathanael. This episode of the drawing of Nathanael is especially interesting. When Phillip introduced the Messiah to Nathanael as “Jesus of Nazareth,” it brought about immediate skepticism. To come from Nazareth was to be a backwoodsman. No one important ever came from such an insignificant place as that. It was like introducing Jesus as an ‘Aggie.’ Reluctantly, perhaps, Nathanael came to Jesus. On seeing him, our Lord greeted him with the statement,

“Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” (John 1:47).

Nathanael was recognized as a true Israelite, without deceit or deception. Not a sinless man, but a sincere one. Being a man of honesty and truthfulness, Nathanael could not deny our Lord’s assessment, and without false humility, he responded, “How do you know me?” (John 1:48)

Our Lord responded with an even more astounding statement, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you” (John 1:48).

This statement of our Lord was very significant, for it swept any remaining skepticism and resulted in an affirmation of faith: “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel” (John 1:49).

What was so astounding about our Lord’s statement, that brought Nathanael to his knees? First of all, our Lord, even from a great distance, was fully aware of Nathanael and where he was. The fig tree in those times was a symbol of one’s home, and was frequently the place of prayer and meditation. Our Lord did not tell all, but when He said that He saw Nathanael while under the fig tree, I get the distinct impression that He is discreetly informing Nathanael that He was aware of his deeds and his thoughts at that particular moment. Perhaps Nathanael was praying, for something in particular. Perhaps he was beseeching God to send His Messiah. Whatever the specifics were, Nathanael knew that our Lord was aware of his most intimate thoughts. This One had to be Israel’s Messiah and yet our Lord promised that greater things than this they would someday witness.

The Wedding at Cana
(2:1-11)

Our Lord is now in the company of followers who will be known as His disciples. They were convinced that He was their Messiah, but their concepts of what this meant were destined to change drastically. As yet, the faith and commitment of these men did not have the support of one spectacular miracle (such as Satan had suggested in our Lord’s temptation). The first attesting miracle which these men were to witness occurred at a wedding at Cana of Galilee.

Weddings in the days of the New Testament were considerably different from what we know today. There was an engagement period of up to twelve months. This engagement was actually a written and binding contract, which had to be terminated by a written bill of divorce. On the evening of the marriage, the bride was escorted with much ceremony to the home of her husband. The bride was led to her husband where some kind of ceremony took place, followed by the washing of hands and a great feast which could last as long as a week.⁶⁰ It is not difficult to understand why the wine may have run short. Whether the lack of supply was due to poverty or poor planning we are not told, but the consequences could be much worse than the embarrassment which such a situation would bring about. We are told that there was a strong element of reciprocity in weddings of the ancient Near East and that failure to provide an adequate wedding gift could result in some kind of litigation. The family of the bride would suffer not only much embarrassment, but also stood to face financial losses.⁶¹

Mary seemed to understand the urgency of the situation and pleaded with her son to save the situation. Although our Lord complied with her request, He also made it clear that with His public manifestation the old relationship between them as mother and son had ceased. His time had not yet come, and Mary should not attempt to use her relationship with Jesus to alter God’s time table.

Mary, knowing that Jesus would not let the joy of the marriage feast be turned to sorrow, instructed the servants to do whatever Jesus asked (John 2:5). Nearby were six stone water vessels, which held about twenty gallons each. They were present for the rites of Jewish purification. Jesus instructed the servants to fill the water pots and then to serve from them, beginning with the master of ceremonies. The wine, contrary to customary practice, was better than any that had yet been served.

John calls this miracle the first ‘sign’ of our Lord Jesus. A sign is a miracle with an inherent lesson. It is like an arrow that points to a conclusion. What impresses us about this sign is that it was not intended for all, but primarily for the benefit of the disciples, for we are told, “This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His Glory, and His disciples believed in Him” (John 2:11). We might call this a private miracle. In this way our Lord answered the petition of His mother, without altering His own time table appointed by the Father.

Another interesting observation from this miracle is that only those who served saw what Jesus had done. Now if you will permit me to ‘spiritualize’ for a moment, it seems to me that we have a significant principle illustrated here. Those who sat at the table received no lasting benefit, other than the privilege of tasting vintage wine. Those who served were the only ones who benefited from the ‘sign’ that here was One who had power over natural processes.

Haw frequently we see this in the context of the local church. There will always be those who come and sit, and we are grateful to God for them. But those who witness the miraculous power of God are those who serve, not those who sit. Our Lord could have made water into wine without any human participation, but He chose to do so with the involvement of the servants. The privilege of the servants was not in helping God perform a miracle but in participating in it, and in witnessing it. That is one of the great benefits of Christian service, for in serving Him we are privileged to see His working, which others miss.

Unfortunately, men have made more out of the presence of wine at this wedding than its meaning. The tee-totalers assure us that this wine was greatly diluted,⁶² while others point out that the text literally suggests that the poorer wine is served when men have become drunk (margin, NASV, John 2:10) . My personal opinion is that this wine did have some alcoholic content, and that men could have gotten drunk on it. The Scriptures do not condemn drinking wine which contains some alcohol (cf. 1 Tim. 5:23), but they do forbid drunkenness (Eph. 5:13) and the consumption of those strong drinks which are clearly made to get you ‘high’ (cf. Pro. 20:1; 23:30-31).

We should be instructed by our Lord turning the water into wine that our Lord is not a cosmic kill-joy. He tacitly gave His blessing to the joys of matrimonial bliss. He created the wine for the pleasure of the guests and for the preservation of the honor of the host.

The Incident in the Temple
(2:13-22)

Although only the previous visitation of our Lord to the Temple at the age of 12 (Luke 2:41ff.) is recorded in Scripture, we are surely correct in assuming that a visit to the Temple was an annual event (cf. Luke 2:41, which indicates that was the usual practice of Jesus’ parents). There is one decisive difference in the visit reported only by John in the second chapter of his Gospel. This was the first visit of our Lord to the Temple as Messiah. Some critics have pointed out that while John records a cleansing of the Temple at the outset of Jesus’ ministry, the synoptic Gospels place the cleansing during the last week of His life. Those who wish to find ‘errors’ in the Bible will call this some kind of literary license, but those who take the Scriptures as the Word of God simply reply that there were two cleansings, as the Gospel writers indicate.⁶³

How our Lord refused to accommodate Himself to the limited understanding of men is most evident in this account. The Jews had expected Messiah to be manifested in some spectacular way in the Temple. While our Lord refused Satan’s proposal to leap from the pinnacle of the Temple and thereby manifest His divinity, He chose to reveal Himself in Temple by driving out the money-makers.

Like most deviations from the truth, the scene in the Temple which so angered our Lord resulted from some very practical problems. Those who pilgrimaged to the Holy City from afar were obliged (with the native Palestinians) to pay the half-shekel Temple tax (cf. Matt. 17:24-27). They needed to exchange their foreign coinage into Palestinian currency. In addition, those who came from a great distance needed to purchase sacrificial animals to offer at the Temple. What may have begun as an essential service became a highly profitable business, and eventually a corrupt racket, owned by none other than Annas, the ex-High Priest and operated by some corrupted priests. When Jesus struck out against the evils present at the Temple, He opposed no less than the hierarchy of the Judaistic religion.

The corruption and the abuses had made a profound impression on our Lord over the years, but these seem to be more prominent in the second cleansing. Paramount in our Lord’s rebuke on this occurrence of the first cleansing is the inappropriateness of the place where all this activity was going on. The Temple was a place of worship and prayer, but the atmosphere in the courtyard was more like that at a carnival. Imagine if you can that we are about to begin the worship portion of our meeting. There is no organ music quietly playing in the background, nor the sound of a magnificent choir. Rather there is the bleating of sheep, the flapping of pigeon’s wings, the ringing of cash registers, and the characteristic haggling over prices. And the smell is like that of the stockyard. What a way to worship.

Perhaps the worst error of all is the fact that it was in the Court of the Gentiles. This was the only place that Gentiles were allowed to enter for worship. Jews might be able to get away from it all, but this market place in the Temple virtually excluded the Gentiles from worship.⁶⁴

The wonder of it all is how our Lord managed to cleanse the Temple without any real resistance. He did not manifest any of His divine attributes (other than righteous indignation), so men did not shrink back due to fear of His power. Why, then, did they allow our Lord to drive them out? Let me suggest several possibilities. First of all, our Lord was absolutely right and immoral men shrink back when their evil is exposed. Second, although this business enterprise was owned and operated by the religious establishment, it was despised by the masses. Shortly before the fall of Jerusalem, this practice was abandoned due to popular pressure.⁶⁵ Even at this early point in our Lord’s ministry, the Jewish leaders recognized that our Lord had popular support. Finally, they recognized that here, at the very least, was a powerful personality, and that in this act He was making an impressive claim for Himself.

Most of us feel somewhat uncomfortable with passages such as this, for we would rather that the Gospel writers tickle our ears with accounts which reveal the love of Jesus, rather than His holy anger. One way in which we fall far short of the standard set by our Lord is that we seldom get angry at the right things. Some of us get mad for the wrong reasons—this is sin. Few of us get mad when we should—this, too, is sin. Parents should be angry at disrespect in their children. Christians should get angry about corruption and injustice.

The Jewish leaders did not take the act of our Lord lying down. Far from it! But they did calculate the cost of open and public opposition and reckoned it too high. Instead they made a very shrewd counter-offensive. They determined to put our Lord on the defensive. And they did so by appearing to assume that this act declared Him to be Messiah. They intended to force the hand of our Lord by a statement sounding like this, “All right, we are willing to assume that you are claiming to be the Messiah. Now give us a sign that will prove your claim beyond a doubt.” (Cf. John 2:18.)

There was nothing original about this challenge. It was a mere echo of Satan’s taunt not many days past. Our Lord refused to accept such a challenge, for His kingdom was not to be established on such spectacularism. Instead, He chose to answer them in a statement so enigmatic that it partially and temporarily disarmed his critics. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19).

The only sign unbelieving Israel would receive was the sign of the prophet Jonah (cf. Matt. 12:38-40). Of course, they did not comprehend our Lord’s words, and largely disregarded them as insane babblings. It was only later that our Lord’s disciples grasped our Lord’s true meaning (John 2:21-22).

Overview:
Interpretation and Applications

As we look at this portion of Scripture as a whole, there are several observations which we can make by way of interpretation.

(1) Messiah is manifested here, not so much in terms of spectacular miracles, but in term of revelations of His deity. Notice the attributes of God which are attributed here to our Lord Jesus Christ. There is an indication here of the sovereignty of God, for our Lord was at all times in full control of His situation, drew men to Himself, and He drove men from His presence. He chose those who would be followers of Himself. The eternality of God is evident, for John introduced Jesus as the one who existed long before him (John 1:30, cf. 1:1-18). The omniscience of our Lord is revealed by our Lord’s knowledge of Nathanael’s presence and thoughts beneath the fig tree. The omnipotence of Jesus is displayed by His turning of the water into wine. It is very difficult to read the Gospels without very quickly discerning the writers’ intentions to convince us that Jesus Christ was God manifested in human flesh.

(2) I am impressed with the fact that Jesus went about the presentation of Himself as Messiah in a way totally unexpected, indeed inconsistent with what we would think to be best. Let’s liken our Lord’s manifestation to Israel to a person running for high political office. How would a political candidate seek to get himself elected to office? He would certainly seek to gain wide exposure and acclaim. He would probably hire an advertising firm and enlist a press agent. He would seek to get in the public eye and to convey himself as the one who best represents the highest hopes and ideals of the community. He would certainly endeavor to gain the support of men of high political standing. If this is the best way to go about things, then our Lord did it all wrong.

He was One Who came with no great external appeal (Isaiah 53:2). His message was not one of political liberation, but of sin and its forgiveness. His home town was a place of obscurity. He was a backwoodsman whose speech immediately set him apart as uncouth in the minds of the sophisticated. Rather than to get the attention of the masses by a spectacular series of miracles, He disclosed Himself by an act of censure and one which immediately alienated the most powerful political figures of His day. Those whom Jesus chose to be His intimates and His closest followers were not men of great standing or influence.

(3) Jesus’ initial presentation was a foreshadowing of the outcome of His ministry. Some may tend to suppose that at the beginning of His ministry Jesus was popular and welcomed by all, and that only later was His rejection conceived in the hearts of a few who succeeded in winning the support of others to destroy the Messiah. From the very outset our Lord chose to alienate the religious hierarchy of Judaism. He never had their support throughout His life and ministry, nor did He desire it. His coming to draw men to Himself and to drive men away is strikingly parallel to His future coming to the earth.

(4) The Lord Jesus dealt with men so differently in this presentation of Himself. The contrast between the drawing of the disciples in chapters 1 and 2 with the driving out of the money-changers in the last part of chapter two is so dramatic it cannot escape our notice. The real question which comes to mind is, “Why did Jesus draw some men to Himself, while others were driven away?” The answer to this question is to be found in the last three verses of chapter 2:

“Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, beholding His signs which He was doing. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man for He Himself knew what was in man” (John 2:23-25).

Let me be the first to remind you that I am what has been called a Calvinist. I do not prefer the label, but I do hold to this position. I believe in the sovereignty of God in salvation. God is the One Who determines man’s destiny, ultimately. But every good Calvinist that I know believes that man has a decision to make concerning his salvation for which God holds him accountable. As Paul states in Romans, man is lost because God has not chosen him (chapter 9), but he is also lost because he has not chosen God (chapter 10).

The passage which we are studying stresses the human element in man’s relationship with God. What is it that determined what our Lord’s response would be to those He encountered? It is the condition of men’s hearts, which our Lord, as omniscient God, was able to discern. Let me take a moment to characterize the difference between those whom our Lord drew and those He drove way. It is these same factors, I believe, which explain the difference (from a human perspective) between intimacy with God and enmity with Him.

First of all our Lord sought men who were looking for a spiritual Savior, not primarily a secular one. Israelites wanted a physical king, a great liberator, but they were not vexed by the weight of their sins. True Israelites sought a solution to the problem of sin. The primary issue was not revolution or reform, but redemption.

Second, our Lord devoted Himself to the givers, not the getters. The disciples immediately began to share their new-found faith with others. The Jewish leadership sought only to gain financially from religion, and they had no qualm about excluding others (such as the Gentiles) from worshipping God.

Third, our Lord sought out men who desired fellowship with Him. These were men who were content simply to be with Him. They asked nothing more from Him than that. The others cared nothing about His presence, but simply for His presents.

Fourth, our Lord drew men who were willing to find God in the mundane matters of daily life, rather than to demand His self-disclosure in the mighty miracles and signs sought by unbelieving Israel.

We might summarize most of what I have said in this statement: God drew servants, not spectators, not spongers. Those who recognized Jesus for Who He was (and is) were those who served Him. The spectators are oblivious, the spongers uninterested in the kind of Messiah Jesus proved to be.

As we come to the conclusion of this initial presentation of our Lord Jesus as the Messiah, I find that there are four different kinds of people described. The first type are those like the guests at the wedding in Cana. They are totally aloof to the presence of God in their midst. They enjoy the benefits of His presence, but are unaware of His existence. The second variety is that person who seeks God, who to some extent believes in Him, but not as the sinbearer, only as the miracle worker. They seek the spectacular, not the Savior. There are many of these seekers, today, just as there were in Jesus day. If they are Christians at all they are exceedingly shallow ones. The sad thing is that Christianity often appeals to misguided motives. The third kind of person found in our passage is the religious renegade. They are religious outwardly, but they are the enemies of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord speaks of these in the book of Matthew:

Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’ (Matt. 7:22-23).

As I have said many times before, Hell is going to be populated with religious people. Religion has never saved one soul from Hell, but it has led many there. It is only by acknowledging your sin and trusting in the Lord Jesus as God’s provision for your sin that you can come to a living faith that saves.

That brings us to the fourth kind of person. They are the God-seekers who realize their sinfulness and rest in Jesus Christ as God’s only way of eternal salvation. I pray that you are that kind of person.

60 Cf. J.W. Shepard, The Christ of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939), pp. 88-89. Cf. also, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), I, pp. 352-355.

61 Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdnans, 1971), p. 179.

62 “Jesus made real wine out of the water. But there was a great difference between the Palestinian wine of that time and the alcoholic mixtures which today go under the name of wine. Their simple vintage was taken with three parts of water and would correspond more or less to our grape juice. It would be worse than blasphemy to suppose, because Jesus made wine, that He justifies the drinking usages of modern society with its bars, strong drinks, and resulting evils.” (Source unavailable.)

63 For a more detailed discussion of the two cleansings, cf. Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, pp. 188-191.

64 “It is erroneous to suppose that Jesus’ action is an attack on the whole sacrificial system. His motive was one of reverence for my Father’s house, and of deep concern that the spirit of worship should thus be dissipated at its very door.” The court in which all this noisy and boisterous traffic took place was the only court to which Gentiles might go when they wished to pray or meditate in the temple. They ought to have been able to worship in peace. Perhaps we could go so far as to say that they had the right to worship in peace. Instead they found themselves in the midst of a noisy bazaar. “A place that should have stood as a symbol for the freedom of access of all nations in prayer to God, had become a place associated with sordid pecuniary interests” (Wright). On the necessity for sternness in the face of evil Wright quotes Ruskin, that it is “quite one of the crowning wickednessess of this age that we have starved and chilled our faculty of indignation.” Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, p. 195, fn. 68.

65 J. W. Shepard, The Christ of the Gospels, p. 93. Cf. Shepard’s excellent discussion on the abuses of the Temple system on pp. 92-94.

Related Topics: Christology, Soteriology (Salvation)

6. The Manifestation of Messiah to Nicodemus (John 3:1-21)

Introduction

Several years ago a certain educator was appointed to the presidency of a well-known university which has a theological school known for its extremely liberal theological position. When this president was asked to speak to a group of local businessmen, he told them a story which he considered quite amusing. While the president was downtown, he passed by a Salvation Army kettle and stopped to put in a contribution. The elderly volunteer who stood by confronted this dignitary with the question, “Are you saved?” He replied that he supposed that he was, but she pursued, “I mean, have you ever given your full life to the Lord?” It was at this point that the president said he thought that he should inform this persistent woman with his identity. He said, “I am the president of such and such university, and as such I am also president of its school of theology.” The lady gave that a moment’s thought and then replied, “It doesn’t matter wherever you’ve been, or whatever you are, you can still be saved.”

The most tragic part of this story is that the seminary president actually thought this story was amusing, and so did his audience. The reason why I have shared this true story with you is because it is strikingly similar to an account recorded in the Word of God in the third chapter of John’s Gospel. The renowned theologian of this time in history was named Nicodemus. His problem was precisely that of the man who was confronted by the elderly Salvation Army volunteer—he thought that his position and his religion was what constituted him as acceptable before God.

Before we go on let me caution you that this may be your problem, too. The thing that will keep many men and women from God’s heaven is the very thing upon which so many men rely—their religion. It would surely not be an original title, but this account might well be labeled “How to Be Religious Without Being a Christian.” The question which John will pose to us in this lesson is simply this: Are you a Christian, or merely religious?

For the Christian, there is much instruction in this passage concerning the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and how it can be shared with others. In addition, we find in Nicodemus a beautiful demonstration of that fatal disease which troubled Judaism. For in this interview we see the theology of the Jews contrasted with that of their Messiah.

The Man Who Met the Messiah
(3:1)

One’s initial temptation in being introduced to Nicodemus is to berate and belittle. We are inclined to think of him as the man who was so cowardly that he had to sneak into his interview with Jesus by cover of darkness. To the twentieth century Christian, Nicodemus has several strikes against him. First of all, he was a Jewish leader. John tells us that he was a ‘ruler of the Jews.’ By this, John meant to inform us that Nicodemus was a member of the Sanhedrin, which was the highest and most powerful religious and political body within Judaism.⁶⁶ It was this body of men which was ultimately responsible for the shabby trial and unlawful execution of our Lord. Second, Nicodemus was also a Pharisee.⁶⁷ By and large, it would probably be safe to say that the Pharisees were the religious conservatives of their day, while their counterparts, the Sadducees were the liberals. The Pharisees believed in the inspiration and authority of the Old Testament Scriptures and in the supernatural (miracles, life after death, angels, demons). The Pharisees were separatists (in fact the word Pharisee means separated), who made every effort to keep Judaism pure of heathen influences. You and I would be far more comfortable in the company of a Pharisee than a Sadducee. The great problem with Pharisaism was that they had become highly ritualistic and legalistic. The Old Testament was to be interpreted in accordance with oral traditions passed down and recorded in almost endless volumes. Traditions became of higher priority than sound biblical interpretation. Nicodemus’ problem was that he relied upon conformity to the moral codes of Judaism and observance of religious ritual for entrance to the kingdom of God.

Having said all this, we do Nicodemus a great disservice to suppose that he was some kind of weak-kneed coward, coming to Jesus as he did. Our Lord implied that he was perhaps one of the most well-known and respected religious teachers of his day.⁶⁸ In John 7:50-52, we read of Nicodemus taking a very unpopular stand with his colleagues in defense of the Lord Jesus. In John 19:39 Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea came forth publicly to bury Jesus when all of the disciples had fled.

It is hard to conceive of the difficulties which Nicodemus overcame to speak with Jesus. When Jesus cleansed the Temple, it was the Sadducees with whom our Lord most dramatically clashed, for they were the establishment. The Pharisees no doubt detested the ‘simony’ going on in the Temple courts under the auspices of the Sadducees. But it was also clear from the ministry of both John the Baptist and Jesus that Jesus had not come to ally Himself with traditional Judaism. To put it in Jesus’ own words, He had not come to put a patch on Judaism, but to replace it with something entirely new (cf. Mark 2:21-22). Jesus had not come from within the system. He had not been trained at the feet of men such as Gamaleil. He had no diplomas from the leading Jewish schools. Worse yet, He was a Galilean, disdained by any Judaean Jew.⁶⁹ Nicodemus’ coming to Jesus was somewhat akin to the president of the AMA asking the medical advice of a hospital orderly or Muhammad Ali seeking boxing pointers from a ruffian on the streets of New York. It was like the Pope seeking advice in a passage of Scripture from Martin Luther. What I am saying in all of this is that in focusing our attention on the fact that Nicodemus came to our Lord at night, we lost sight of the significance of the fact that he came at all!

The Theology of Nicodemus Turned Upside-Down
(3:2-15)

As we begin to focus upon the interview between Jesus and Nicodemus, it is important to understand why John chose to record this incident. I personally suspect that John was present at this conversation. John does not record this encounter with Jesus to show us the conversion of Nicodemus, for no affirmation of faith is recorded here. Nicodemus came to Jesus, perhaps out of his own personal interest in Jesus, but in spite of this he beautifully represents the classical stance of orthodox and conservative Judaism at the time of Jesus.⁷⁰ This seems evident in the words of our Lord in verse 11: “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak that which we know, and bear witness of that which we have seen; and you (plural) do not receive our witness.”

In this discussion, the theology of Jesus is contrasted against the backdrop of contemporary Jewish orthodoxy, represented by Nicodemus. Here is how Nicodemus and all of Judaism must change their thinking before they can see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus’ evaluation of the person of Jesus is stated in verse 2: “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”

From this, I would conclude that to Nicodemus Jesus was at least accepted as a prophet, a bonafide spokesman for God. The signs our Lord had performed in Jerusalem had convinced him of that. But the theology of Nicodemus and his contemporaries did not go nearly far enough. Because of this Jesus overturned Jewish theology at several crucial points. This is spelled out in the following verses.

(1) The Kingdom is experienced, not by reform, but by rebirth, verses 3-4. Essentially, Judaism believed that would come when all Israel obeyed the Law for one single day. The problem for Nicodemus, and others like him, was to reform the nation. The kingdom was almost exclusively an earthly one to the Jews, and it would begin when they could ‘clean up their act’ sufficiently for Messiah to come. Jesus had something far different to say on this subject: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again,⁷¹ he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

The figure of speech ‘born again’ was not foreign to Nicodemus. It was a figure applied to a bridegroom on the occasion of his marriage, to the Chief of the Academy on his promotion, to the king on his enthronement, and to the proselyte on his entrance into Judaism.⁷² The application of this expression to the entrance of a Jew into the kingdom of God left Nicodemus’ head reeling. A literal interpretation of these words seem most likely, but made no sense at all. This statement by our Lord caught him completely off guard, and the complete lack of understanding on the part of Nicodemus is apparent. “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” (John 3:4).

(2) The essence of rebirth is not physical, but spiritual, verses 5-8. There is a material aspect of the kingdom. Our Lord will come bodily to the earth and establish the Millennial Kingdom for the nation Israel, fulfilling Old Testament prophecies. But this was all that the Jews could think about—just the physical and material side of the kingdom. Nicodemus revealed that he was thinking materialistically and not spiritually. Our Lord restated the biblical requirements for entrance into the kingdom in different terms: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).

This expression, ‘born of water and the Spirit’ has not clarified the issue, but clouded it, at least for many theologians. Some have found in it evidence for the unbiblical doctrine of baptismal regeneration (i.e., that baptism is the means of salvation, rather then the manifestation of it). Others interpret it to mean that men must be born both physically (of water) and spiritually (of the Spirit). This position has much to commend it, for water was employed in those days symbolically for human sperm.⁷³ Also, the next verse (verse 6) contrasts that which is merely physical from that which is spiritual in nature.

If Scripture is best interpreted by Scripture, the best commentary on these words of our Lord is to be found in Ezekiel 36:24-27, where the prophet speaks of the future restoration of the nation Israel:

“For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you into your own Land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

Here the rebirth of the nation Israel (cf. also Ezekiel 37) is described in terms of washing (with water) and the induement of the Spirit. As a teacher of Israel, more than this as ‘the’ teacher of Israel (vs. 10), Nicodemus should have associated the statement of Jesus with the words of Ezekiel concerning the establishment of the kingdom. Ezekiel used both water and the Spirit with reference to the process of spiritual birth, by which men entered into the kingdom of God. Israel must not enter into the kingdom by means of reform, but by rebirth. And more than this, it is by means of a spiritual rebirth, whereby God cleanses His people and places within them His Spirit.

The work of the Spirit is distinct from that of the flesh. They are real in two different dimensions. Rebirth is a spiritual process. The work of the Holy Spirit cannot be observed or controlled, but its effects, like that of the wind, are obvious (verses 6-8).

Further Clarification, verses 9-12. Nicodemus could not seem to grasp what he was being told, for he questioned, “How can these things be?” (verse 9). Our Lord gently rebuked the ignorance of Nicodemus, for as yet He has not gotten to the more difficult aspects of His teaching. As ‘the teacher’ of Israel Nicodemus should have immediately recognized what our Lord was talking about, for entrance into the kingdom of God by rebirth was revealed by the Old Testament prophets. Our Lord had not yet ventured from the theological stomping ground of those who taught from the Old Testament Scriptures.

Nevertheless, it was at these very crucial points that Jesus differed from contemporary Judaism, including Nicodemus (verse 12). When our Lord used the expression ‘we’ (‘we speak,’ ‘we know,’ ‘we have seen,’) it may be that He was alluding to the presence of some of His disciples. I am more inclined to think that our Lord was referring to Himself and John the Baptist, His predecessor. If Nicodemus cannot understand those things of which the Old Testament writers spoke (the ‘earthly things,’ verse 12), how would he be able to grasp the even deeper spiritual truths which our Lord was about to reveal (in verses 13-21)?

(3) Jesus: Not a Man sent from God, but God come as Man, verse 13. The one thing about Jesus that impressed the crowds (Matt. 7:28-29) and irritated the Jewish leaders (Matt. 91:23) was that He taught and acted with authority. The basic issue for a Pharisee like Nicodemus was the authority of Jesus. Nicodemus was willing to grant, by virtue of the signs performed by our Lord, that Jesus was a man sent from God, but this was not nearly enough. Jesus was God sent as a man. Our Lord’s heavenly origin set him apart from every other Israelite, even the great men such as Abraham, Moses and the prophets: “And no one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven, even the Son of man!” (John 3:13).

This is why Jesus was qualified to speak to Nicodemus of ‘heavenly things’ (verse 12)—He is the only one come down from heaven. He is the Son of Man. In my opinion, our Lord employed the term ‘Son of Man’ with reference to Himself with the specific intent of identifying Himself with the Messiah, referred to in Daniel 7:13 as the ‘Son of Man.’⁷⁴ Neither Nicodemus nor anyone else can give sufficient heed to the words of our Lord Jesus, until they have come to grips with His person. He is God come as man. Once that is settled, men must heed His teaching.

(4) Jesus: Exalted, not by a crown, but by a cross, verses 14-15. Every devout Israelite eagerly awaited the coming of Messiah. They looked for Him to be lifted up, to be exalted as the King of Israel. But what they failed to comprehend was that the kingdom was not initiated by a crown, but by a cross. The triumphal entry was Israel’s idea of the introduction of the kingdom. What the nation failed to understand was that God’s sequence is suffering, then glory; the cross, then the crown (cf. Philippians 2:5-11).

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whoever believes may in Him have eternal Life” (John 3:14-15).

From his background Nicodemus could understand that to be ‘born again’ meant an entrance into a new state, a new condition. He should have understood by now that this rebirth was not a material or fleshly matter, but that produced by the mysterious workings of the Holy Spirit. But the basis of that rebirth is only now revealed by our Lord. The basis for entrance into eternal life is the work of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross. It is by virtue of the fact that God’s Messiah has been lifted up on the cross of Calvary that men can be born again.

To facilitate the Jewish mindset of Nicodemus, our Lord likened His death upon the cross to the lifting up of the bronze serpent in the wilderness as recorded in the book of Numbers chapter 21. When the Israelites rebelled against Moses and God, God sent fiery serpents to smite the rebels. When Moses interceded for the people, God instructed him to make a bronze serpent and to lift it up on a pole. Those who were bitten had only to look upon this bronze serpent to be healed.

The death of Jesus upon the cross was much like this. Men are guilty, sinners—rebels against God, and under the sentence of death. Jesus Christ took upon Himself the sins of men and suffered the wrath of God in their place. He was lifted up on a cross, bearing their punishment, and God’s holy wrath. Those who look up to Him, who trust in Him for forgiveness of sins are born again and enter into the kingdom of God.

How is one to see the kingdom of God? He must be born again, that is, he must enter into a new kind of life by the work of the Holy Spirit, based upon the work of Jesus Christ upon the cross of Calvary. To be born again is to admit that you are suffering from the terminal illness of sin and to find healing from it in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross for sinners. It is to believe that He died in your place and provides you with His righteousness, thus accomplishing entrance for you into His Kingdom.

The Heart of God and the Hearts of Men
(3:16-21)

The previous verses seem to have said it all. What more is there to say? Bible students are not all agreed as to who is talking in verses 16-21. Some say it is our Lord; others, that John is now editorializing. It really makes little difference, for either way it is still the Word of God. Whether or not it is printed in red ink is only a matter of academic interest.

What is important to me about these verses is that we are taken beyond the meaning of salvation, taken beyond the means of our salvation, to the motive behind it. It is not sufficient for the writer of this Gospel under inspiration to simply tell us how God has made salvation available to men, but He is constrained to also tell us why. Here we are exposed to the heart of God, as well as to the hearts of men.

I suspect that most of you realize that I am what would be called a ‘Calvinist,’ not because I am a follower of Calvin, nor because I am overly excited about some others who claim the same distinction, but because I believe this best fits the teaching of Scripture. I hope you will understand what I say when I suggest that in many ways the Pharisees, such as Nicodemus, were very inclined toward Calvinistic viewpoints.⁷⁵ They believed in the sovereignty of God, for example. They were firm believers in election. The difference is that they believed God had elected Jews to salvation and condemned the rest. The Pharisees were separatists who strove to keep Judaism distinct from pagan influence. They despised paganism. They even disdained the common people of Israel who were not nearly so meticulous on matters of ceremonial cleansings and so on (John 7:48-49). The love of God did not seem to dominate their thinking, or their actions. It is for this reason, I believe, that our Lord did not stop with the plan of salvation, but went on to probe the reason for it.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Here the heart of God is revealed. It is not the love of the Son which is here emphasized but rather the love of the Father Who gave the Son. The cross of Calvary is the measure of God’s love for man. Now any Pharisee would gladly agree with this. The bitter pill for them to swallow was the revelation that God’s gift of eternal life through the death of His Son was for ‘the world.’ The doctrine of election confirmed for the Pharisee salvation for every Jew, and consigned the nations to perdition. But the love of God constrained Him to make provision for the salvation of men from every nation. This was news for the Jews.

If the positive motivation for the cross of Calvary was the love of God, negatively it must also be said that the primary motivation for sending the Son was not in order to condemn men: “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through Him!” (John 3:17). Salvation, not damnation, was the purpose of God’s love for mankind. Condemnation was incidental, but not primary in God’s gift of His Son at Calvary. Verses 18 and 19 help to clarify this point:

“He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil” (John 3:18-19).

Strictly speaking, the coming of Christ to the world and His death on the cross did not condemn men to eternal damnation. Men were already condemned. The Son came to accomplish salvation for condemned men. He came into a world of sinners, who were under the sentence of death. Those who look to Him for salvation are delivered from condemnation. Those who do not remain in the state of condemnation in which they were found. Our Lord’s death is the solution, not the problem. Our Lord came as light to reveal man’s need of a Savior. Men revealed their sinfulness by rejecting that light and nailing Him to the cross. It was because men were condemned sinners that Christ came to provide salvation. It was because men were worthy of condemnation that they rejected His provision.

While verses 16 and 17 reveal the motive of God in sending the Son, verses 20 and 21 expose the wickedness of the hearts of those who reject Him.

“For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God” (John 3:20-21).

Man is a sinner. He does not sin reluctantly, but with pleasure. When his wickedness is exposed, he has no intention of forsaking sin, and so he extinguishes the light which reveals it. Man in both deed and motive is a sinner. It is for this reason that he is worthy of condemnation. It is for this reason God sent His Son to save.

Conclusion and Application

We must begin to apply this portion of Scripture to our own lives only after we have grasped what our Lord’s teaching meant to Nicodemus. By these words of our Lord, Nicodemus learned that entrance into the kingdom of God necessitated his forsaking much of the traditional theology of his peers, for the teaching of Christ. The kingdom was to be entered, not by the rigorous keeping of the Law and traditions of Judaism, nor by religious reform, but by radical rebirth. This rebirth is not to be achieved by human effort, but is the work of the Spirit of God. Jesus was not merely a man sent from God, but God sent in the form of man. The Messiah was to be exalted, not with a crown, but on a cross, and by looking to Him, men would be saved. The salvation which Christ was to accomplish was not for Jews only, but for men from all nations who would look to Christ for salvation. God’s primary motive in sending the Son was not condemnation (though this must inevitably result), but salvation. It was the motive of love. Men are condemned, not by Christ’s coming, but by their own condition which is manifested in their rejection of Christ.

If this interview with Jesus had much for Nicodemus, it also says much to us, for there are countless men and women who look to their religion to save them. The university president who relies on his position to save him is representative of all too many today. This last week Pope John Paul died what would appear to be an untimely death. Someone asked what I thought of his passing, and I responded that my only question was whether or not he was born again. My friend, have you been trusting in your religion to save you? You must be born again! God does not demand reform; He has provided rebirth. It is not your efforts which can save you, but God’s reaching out in the person of His Son Who died in your place, Who took your punishment, and Who offers His righteousness in place of your wretchedness.

Several years ago when I was teaching in Plano I was involved in a time of Bible study and fellowship with some of the students. We met in the home of a couple who attended a denominational church. We happened to observe the Lord’s Table that night and I spent some time explaining what the elements represented. The following week as our meeting was getting started some of the kids were sharing their experiences of the week. The hostess could not wait to share what had happened to her. “Do you know what happened to me this week?” she questioned. “I got saved.” She had been a member of that church for years. Years before she had walked down the aisle, thinking that this would make her a Christian. But all along she had not been born again. In what are you resting, my friend? Are you trusting in the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross on your behalf, or are you trusting in your religion? You must be born again!

There is in this account a word of caution for those of us who count ourselves among those who are labeled Calvinists, for all too often we present the doctrine of election in such a way as to give the impression that God chooses one and rejects the other with no more emotion than a tornado which levels one house and leaves another. It is God Who ultimately determines the destiny of men, but He does so with great compassion. He saves men out of His love. He condemns men out of His justice, but He never delights in it. It is His ‘strange work’ (Isaiah 28:21). In determining to save some, He chooses to pass over others, but they are already condemned by their own sins and they willfully reject the provision of salvation in Christ freely offered to all men.

Finally, there is much for us as Christians to learn concerning methods of evangelism. We talk far too much about commitment to Christ and far too little about conversion. As James Stahr has aptly put it:

“Conveniently set aside is the Bible teaching that man is an enemy of God who needs to be reconciled (Rom. 5:10; Col. 1:21). Instead, man is pictured as a nice guy with a few problems, who only needs to realize that God is even nicer, and the two ought to get together.

In modern evangelism ‘commitment’ is substituted for ‘salvation.’ Good, moral upright people can make a commitment without the humbling experience of admitting they are sinners, much less lost.”⁷⁶

Modern evangelists would be greatly troubled at the methodology of our Lord, for He did not press Nicodemus for a decision. I do not personally feel that Nicodemus left this interview saved, but rather greatly troubled. In time he came to faith, but Jesus did not feel constrained to ‘twist his arm’ as so many do today. Presenting the Gospel is a far different thing than selling insurance. Our job is not to get men’s signatures, but to confront them with the truth.

May God apply the truth of this passage to each of our lives.

66 “The Sanhedrin, under the chairmanship of the High Priest, was both the supreme religious council and the national parliament. It was also the supreme court for all except political charges. Their powers were limited by Romans rule, but their influence was still enormous. To the ordinary Jew, they were the true government.” R. T. France, I Came to Set the Earth on Fire (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1976), p. 21.

67 Perhaps no one has more concisely summarized the different sects within Judaism than James Stewart, when he writes, “The Pharisees had externalized religion, had made it a matter of outward observance, not of the heart. There were the scribes. The scribes had professionalized religion; they were the dry ecclesiastics, not saints with the fire of God in them. There were Sadducees. The Sadducees had secularized religion; they were skeptical and worldly. There were the zealots. The zealots had nationalized religion, making it a mere adjunct and slave to their one consuming ambition, ‘Down with Rome and up with Jewry!’” James S. Stewart, The Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ (Nashville: Abingdon, 1978), p. 24.

68 We know from verse 1 that he was a religious leader, but in verse 10 he is referred to by our Lord as the teacher of Israel, implying that he was well known by his contemporaries.

69 “A certain Galilean once went about enquiring, ‘Who had ‘amar?’ ‘Foolish Galilean,’ they said to him, ‘do you mean an “ass” for riding, “wine” to drink, ‘wool” for clothing or a “lamb: for killing?”’ (Babylonian Talmud, Erubin 53b).

This Jewish joke, which pokes fun at the slovenly speech of Galilee with its indistinct vowels and dropped aitches, indicates the Jerusalem Jew’s attitude to his northern neighbours. Galilee had once been predominately Gentile territory, and even now its population was far from completely Jewish. Cut off from Judaea by the hostile territory of Samaria, and under a different system of goverment, it tended to develop along its own independent lines of speech and character, and of religious tradition. Hence the great disdain in which a Judaean Jew held his Galilean brother.” R. T. France, I Came to Set the Earth on Fire, p. 30.

70 “Wescott comments: ‘It is worthy of notice that St. John never notices (by name) the Sadducees or the Herodians. The Pharisees were the true representatives of the unbelieving nation.”’ Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, p. 1971), p. 252.

71 This expression, ‘born again,’ can be legitimately rendered either ‘born again’ (as Nicodenus obviously took it), or ‘born from above.’ As it is used here it would seem that both senses merge. To be born again is to be born from above.

72 Alford Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), I, p. 384.

73 “‘Water’ may be connected with procreation This conception is quite foreign to us and we find it difficult at first to make sense of it. But Odeberg has gathered an impressive array of passages from Rabbinic, Mandaean, and Hermetic sources to show that terms like ‘water,’ ‘rain,’ ‘dew,’ and ‘drop’ are often used of the male semen.” Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, p. 216.

74 On this title, ‘Son of Man,’ Morris comments: “… Jesus adopted the term, first because it was a rare term and one without nationalistic associations. It would lead to no political complications. ‘The public would … read into it as much as they apprehended of Jesus already, and no more.’ Second, because it had overtones of divinity. J.P. Hickenbotham goes as far as to say, ‘the Son of Man is a title of divinity rather than humanity.’” J. P. Hickenbotham, The Churchman, LVIII, 1994, p. 54, as cited by Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), p. 172.

75 Cf. Alford Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, I, pp. 316-319.

76 “The Jonah Route,” Interest, Editor James A. Stahr, July/August, 1977, p. 23.

Related Topics: Christology, Soteriology (Salvation)

7. The Manifestation of Messiah to the Samaritan Woman (John 4:1-42)

Introduction

In the Evangelical church, there is nothing more comfortable than an evangelistic sermon. Those who are saved delight in hearing them for several reasons. First of all, in that one remote area they have spiritually arrived. No one is more comfortable during an invitation to salvation than the one who is saved. Second, it means that the preacher can’t step on our toes. The message sails comfortably over our heads to those who really need it. In the meantime, subjects like sanctification and the spiritual life (areas in which we are miserable failures) are neglected. Finally, we feel that if the preacher is laying the gospel on people, we need not devote ourselves to it.

In spite of what little comfort is derived from the hearing of evangelistic preaching, a Christian does not long enjoy the luxury of comfort. We know that the Bible commands us to be witnesses of our faith. We are guilt-ridden because of our failures and frustrations in sharing our faith. If you are like me, you could share far more on your failures than on your triumphs in evangelism. To be perfectly honest, most of us are just plain frightened by our obligation to give witness to our faith.

If you are as troubled about your witness as I am about mine, you will find encouragement and instruction from our study of our Lord’s dealing with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman in the third and fourth chapters of the Gospel of John. The similarities in these two encounters are few, while the contrasts are numerous. In both cases, our Lord is presenting Himself to individuals as the promised Messiah of Israel.

Here is where the similarities end, however. Nicodemus was a man, the Samaritan was a woman. Nicodemus was an orthodox, conservative Jew, the woman a half-breed apostate from Judaism. Nicodemus was a prominent, highly-regarded leader, perhaps one of the best-known religious teachers of his day. The woman was well-known, too, but her reputation had to do with the number of men she had lived with. Nicodemus sought out his interview with the Messiah, while the woman ‘chanced’ to meet with Him.

So far, all the pluses seem to be in favor of Nicodemus. But we should not fail to point out some additional contrasts. Nicodemus was not reported to have been immediately converted, while the woman’s faith is evident. The conversation with Nicodemus had no impact on the lives of his peers. Indeed, Jesus had to leave Judea because of the Pharisees (John 4:1-3). But the woman brought back nearly the whole town with her testimony, and Jesus was invited to stay on (4:39-42). While Jesus spoke of Himself to the Jews in veiled terms (cf. John 2:18-22), He gave one of the clearest statements of His identity to this woman (4:26). The Jews had already begun to reject Him, but the Samaritans received Him as the Savior of the world (4:42).

Let us look, then, to this account of the conversion of a Samaritan city, for lessons from the Master in sharing our faith, even across tremendous cultural barriers.

The Conversion of the Samaritan Woman
(4:1-26)

The occasion for our Lord’s encounter is a bit unusual. Our Lord was passing through Samaria, retreating from Judea to Galilee. The reason for our Lord’s departure was His untimely popularity. The Pharisees were attempting to capitalize on the greater popularity of the ministry of Jesus than of John. They sought to promote a rift. Rather than revel in this popularity⁷⁷ our Lord ran from it, for it was untimely, and would tend to undermine John’s ministry rather than underscore it.

Much has been made of John’s statement that Jesus must travel through Samaria. Technically, it was not a necessity at all, and culturally, it was not customary to do so. If you will look at a map, you will see that Samaria lies between Galilee on the north and Judea to the south. The shortest distance between points is obviously a straight line, which would mean passing through Samaria to get from Judea to Galilee. But because of the animosity which existed between these two peoples, scrupulous Jews⁷⁸ chose to avoid passing through Samaria by traveling around it to the east, crossing the Jordan and passing through the friendlier territories of Peraea and Decapolis.

In what sense was Jesus compelled to pass through Samaria? In part, our Lord may have done so to express His contempt for the narrow bigotry of some of the Jews of His day. Certainly from the divine perspective, He did so in order to bring many Samaritans to faith. But the Jewish historian, Josephus, used exactly the same expression in the sense of necessity for rapid travel.⁷⁹ From the divine perspective our Lord must pass through Samaria in order to fulfill the purpose of God. From the human, it was the shortest and most sensible route. Racial prejudice and bigotry were no consideration at all to our Lord, who came as the Savior of the world, of Jews and Gentiles (cf. John 3:16; 4:42).

The journey from Judea to Sychar was a hot and dusty one. After a grueling 20 miles, our Lord was tired, thirsty, and hungry. His disciples left him⁸⁰ sitting by a well⁸¹ dug by Jacob many years before while they went on into Sychar⁸² for provisions. Apparently, the time was about six o’clock in the evening when the Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water.⁸³

The racial and cultural (not to mention the theological) barriers present at this encounter were insurmountable. When our Lord asked this woman for a drink of water, she was caught completely off guard, for in her own words, “… Jews have no dealings with Samaritans” (John 4:9).

That was putting it mildly. There had been bitter feelings between Jews and Samaritans for centuries. The Samaritans find their origin at the time of the Assyrian conquest of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 721 B.C. According to Assyrian figures, nearly 30,000 Israelites were deported, being replaced by heathen captives from all over the Assyrian empire (cf. 2 Kings 17:3f.). It was not long before the purity of the Israelites was defiled, not only racially, but spiritually.

Ultimately, Samaritan theology differed greatly from that of orthodox Judaism. The Samaritans accepted only the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) as inspired and authoritative. They rejected the Psalms, the prophets, and other books of the Old Testament. When the Babylonian exiles returned to the Holy Land, the Samaritans made efforts toward merger, but were rebuffed and rejected (and rightly so). As a result, open hostility sprung up from time to time. The Samaritans held that the center of worship was at Mt. Gerizim, while the Jews maintained that it was Jerusalem (cf. John 4:20). The Samaritans actually tampered with the Scriptures to substantiate their theology. Around 400 B.C., a Samaritan Temple was built on Mount Gerizim. Around 128 B.C., this temple was destroyed by the Jews and relations between these two peoples worsened. Such was the background to this conversation between Jesus and the woman. Evidence to the friction between the Jews and the Samaritans is easily found.⁸⁴

When Jesus asked for a drink, He boldly refused to fit the Jewish stereotype, for Jews never used the same vessels as the Samaritans.⁸⁵

The racial and cultural barriers, I believe, have been hurdled. The woman is now willing to converse, paving the way for further penetration with the Gospel. Notice that Jesus neither defended Jewish bigotry, nor did He explain how He differed with them. His actions spoke decisively enough. Concentration on such issues would not convert this woman.

The barrier to evangelism was now one of disinterest or apathy. The need was to make the Gospel both relevant to this woman as well as desirable. To do this, our Lord worked upon her sense of curiosity and physical need. He said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water” (John 4:10).

This statement generated interest on two fronts. First of all, who was He? There had been no formal introduction. To make a claim to be Messiah without substantial proof would appear insane. Jesus haunts her sense of curiosity. Second, what was He trying to offer? No doubt this woman had heard a lot of approaches before, and yet it appeared that this Man was trying to give, not to get. What was His angle?

She chose to set aside the question of identity and to get to the bottom line. What was this ‘Living water’ that He spoke about? To a person in that time, the expression ‘Living water’ referred to running water, such as that of a spring or stream, as opposed to that which had no movement. Jesus seemed to be offering water even superior to that of Jacob’s well. As Nicodemus had done, so she took the words of Jesus strictly literally.

Whatever Jesus meant, she thought, He could not be speaking of water from this well, for it was at least 75 feet deep and He had nothing with which to drawn from it (vs. 11). This led her to pursue another line of questioning? “Just Who are You anyway? Do You think You are better than Jacob? Do You think Your well better than his?” (cf. vs. 12). Her question was far more profound than she could have imagined (compare John 8:53).

The water which our Lord offered was of a far different kind. It was not a literal drink, but the life-giving gift of the indwelling, presence of God by the Spirit, Who produces a continual refreshing and sustaining source of strength and blessing (vs. 14; cf. John 7:37-39).

Not yet comprehending the meaning of His words, the woman is ready to receive what He has to offer. She thought He offered the equivalent of hot and cold running water, and she was ready for that. She had a sense of physical need. What was lacking was a conviction of spiritual need. Our Lord’s words brought the matter of personal sin into uncomfortably sharp focus. “Go, call your husband, and come here” (John 4:16).

She tried to tactfully evade the issue. “I’m single,” she replied in effect (vs. 17). There is in this verbal exchange some skillful use of words. The original term rendered ‘husband’ can mean either ‘man’ or ‘husband.’ Our Lord did not necessarily mean for her to bring, her husband, but for her to bring her ‘man.’ Not knowing what our Lord knew, she chose to take the term in its technical sense, and thus thought she would evade her immorality.

Our Lord cut through the cover-up by informing her that she was technically correct. She did not have a husband, but she had a lover, and he was not number one, but number 6.⁸⁶ She may have had, in fact, someone else’s husband. Now, as we might say, we have gotten to the ‘nitty gritty.’ The physical has given way to the spiritual. Whereas this woman would not have had any interest in spiritual things, now she welcomed the subject. Far better than dwelling on the realities of her moral life!

This woman’s awareness of Whom she was speaking to continued to grow.⁸⁷ He was a Jew, but far from typical. He claimed to be greater than Jacob. He spoke with divine insight.

I do not know whether or not this woman was deliberately changing the subject (though we surely would have been inclined to do so), but for whatever reasons she brought the conversation around to the theological issue which divided Jews and Samaritans. Where was the central place of worship? Was it Mount Gerizim? (No doubt she pointed to the mountain with the ruins of their former temple in sight.) Or, was it at Jerusalem, where the Jews insisted?

The question was irrelevant, for with the coming of Messiah, all of that was to change. No longer did man need to seek God’s presence in one place. God is not to be worshipped in a place, but in a person, Jesus Christ.⁸⁸ God is seeking true worshippers, but those who wish to worship Him must do so in accordance with His essential nature.

God is spirit, and thus He must be worshipped in spirit. Spiritual worship is that which takes place in the spiritual realm. No one who has not trusted in Christ as Messiah can truly worship, for they are ‘devoid of the spirit,’ (Jude 19, cf. Romans 8:9). While religionists view worship in terms of ceremony, true worship is a matter of the spirit, prompted and produced by the Holy Spirit.

Further, worship must be within the confines of truth. The Samaritans worshipped in ignorance. They worshipped ‘that which they knew not’ (verse 22). Samaritan worship consistently deviated from the revealed truth of God. One particular truth upon which worship must be based was the fact that salvation was to come from the Jews. The Messiah was to be a Jew, not a Samaritan. It is never enough to be sincere; one must be in accord with truth to be a real worshipper of God. To worship a god who does not conform to the truths of Scripture is to practice idolatry.⁸⁹ Worship concentrates both upon truth (doctrine) and devotion prompted by the Holy Spirit.

Finally, the conversation arrived at the subject of the Messiah. The Samaritans, as well as the Jews, looked for a coming Messiah, although their expectations differed significantly from those of Judaism.⁹⁰ This woman, too, looked for Messiah. When He came all these matters would be straightened out (verse 25). It is at this point that Jesus made one of His boldest and clearest claims to be Messiah. “Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am He”’ (John 4:26).

The reason Jesus refrained from bold claims to be Messiah in Israel was because of the wrong concept the nation had of Messiah’s activity. They looked for a political activist and revolutionary, not a sin-bearer. Here, away from Jewish fanaticism, Jesus was free to openly declare His identity.

It is possible that this statement of our Lord in verse 26 is even more bold than simply a declaration of His identity as Messiah. When our Lord said, ‘I who speak to you am He,’ the ‘He’ is not present in the original text, but rather supplied by the translators. Jesus, I believe, made claim to be the ‘I AM’ of the Old Testament, where God instructed Moses to tell the Israelites that “I AM” sent you (Exodus 3:14). If this is the case, Jesus claimed to be Messiah and God at the same moment.

The Disciples Instructed
(4:27-38)

The disciples arrived back at the well at the end of our Lord’s conversation with this woman, and they were absolutely amazed. We need to look carefully to grasp the true cause for their incredulous surprise. It was not because of this woman’s reputation, for they did not know what our Lord did concerning her past. Nor was it because she was a Samaritan. Notice John’s record: “And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He had been speaking with a woman …” (John 4:27).

The Rabbis had some very strict traditions concerning women. A man was not even to speak to his own wife in public. One of their sayings went like this:

“A man shall not be alone with a woman in an inn, not even with his sister or his daughter, on account of what men may think. A man shall not talk with a woman in the street, not even with his wife, and especially not with another woman, on account of what men may say.”⁹¹

What may have appeared on the surface to be merely a concern for keeping appearances above reproach, was, in my estimation, only a thinly-veiled disdain for woman in general (cf. fn. 15). Our Lord refused to follow the narrow-mindedness of the Rabbis and the disciples did not dare to question Him about it (verse 27).

While the woman was inviting the townsmen to come out to the well, the disciples were urging Jesus to partake of the food they had purchased in town. Our Lord took this opportunity to instruct them about evangelism. The first lesson for the disciples was in the area of priorities. In a sense the disciples were merely mouthing again the first temptation of our Lord Jesus by Satan. They were more concerned about eating than evangelism. Our Lord reminded them that doing the will of God is more important than dining.

The reasons for this urgency in evangelism is two-fold. First of all, the time is far spent. The disciples seemed to sense no great urgency. The expression ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’ (verse 35) was very likely a colloquial way of saying, “What’s the hurry; there’s plenty of time.”⁹² Such a casual attitude was not acceptable to our Lord.

From the imperfect tense employed in verse 30 (‘were coming’) we are informed that while this conversation between Jesus and His disciples was taking place the crowds were making their way from Sychar to the well. I believe it is this our Lord referred to when He said, “… Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest” (John 4:35).

By this he meant for the disciples to see that there was no time for preparing a meal and eating it. Those hungry for the gospel, those ready for reaping, were arriving momentarily and God’s purpose to save is of far greater priority than that of eating a meal.

A second lesson in evangelism has to do with its nature. Those who were arriving at the well were those who were prepared to receive and respond. The work of Jesus and His disciples was that of reaping. It was the woman who had sown the seed, and they would bring in the harvest. That is the nature of evangelism. It is team work, a cooperative effort. So often today, it is represented as a one-man, one-time operation. I find that most often when people share with me how they came to the Savior it was a long process, often the combined efforts of several persons. Let the disciples learn from those who came to hear at the urging of the woman, that evangelism is a team effort. Some sow, others reap.

The Salvation of a City
(4:39-42)

It is significant to observe that the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus seemingly resulted in no noteworthy results. Personally, I do not feel that even Nicodemus was immediately saved. If you and I would have been asked to predict which evangelistic effort would produce the most fruit, we would undoubtedly have put our money on Nicodemus. But it is the (forbidden) conversation with this woman that led to the conversion of a city.

Initially, it was the woman’s testimony that convinced the Samaritans that Jesus was Messiah. But her words were like the light of the moon when compared with the sunlight of direct exposure to Jesus and His teaching. While Jesus could not stay in Judea, the Samaritans urged Him to remain with them (verse 40). While the Jews were still standoffish, the Samaritans were convinced that, “this One is indeed the Savior of the world” (John 4:42).

Interpretation and Application

Historic Interpretation

John’s purposes for including this conversation and resulting evangelistic campaign seem quite clear. First of all this account greatly contributes to John’s purpose of establishing the deity of Christ (John 20:31). Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, and the ‘I AM’ of the Old Testament (verse 26). In addition, He revealed His omniscience by disclosing to this woman the most intimate details of her life. Only she and God knew how many men had been in her life. In this, the woman recognized that Jesus knew all about her (verse 29).

Further, John included this incident in the life of our Lord in order to give an additional exposure to the message of the gospel, presented in just a slightly different way. Just as Jesus gently brought this woman to the point of recognition of His deity and of her sin and ignorant worship, so you must come to this same conclusion and commitment to enter into God’s heaven.

Finally, I believe John included this conversion story in order to foreshadow what was going to take place later on in His ministry. In John 3 and 4 we have two presentations of the Gospel, back to back. The one conversation is with a representative of orthodox Judaism. It has no apparent immediate results and has no significant repercussions. The other is with a representative of the Gentiles so rejected and despised by orthodox Jews. She is immediately converted and that leads to the salvation of a city.

Such was soon to be the case on a much greater scale. Orthodox Jewish leadership would be instrumental in rejecting Messiah and hanging Him upon a Roman cross. But the rejection of the Jews meant salvation for the Gentiles (cf. Romans 11:15, 28, 31-32). This event in Samaria was prophetic of things to come. The rejection of the Jews and the salvation of many Gentiles was evident, even at the earliest stages of our Lord’s ministry.

Lessons for Living

There are many levels of application for men today in this text. We will give our attention to some of the most obvious.

(1) Lessons in Evangelism. One of the most common questions about evangelism pertains to the timing of it. When should I witness? The New Testament reports almost nothing of the kind of witnessing most familiar (and frightening) to us today—that of door-to-door, or some type of cold presentation. Our Lord witnessed in the midst of His normal activities. Two guidelines for when to witness emerge from this text: (a) When you have the opportunity. (b) When you have a listening ear.

The Lord had an opportunity to witness at the well. It might be better to say that the Lord made an opportunity. She did not ask Jesus the way to heaven. He brought her around to the subject. One far wiser than I gave this guideline. “Whenever in the course of a conversation I have the choice of determining the topic of discussion I make every effort to speak of spiritual things.”

The Lord had the opportunity to bring the conversation with the Samaritan woman to spiritual matters, and He used it to full advantage. I believe this is what Paul referred to when he wrote, “Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned, as it were, with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to each person” (Colossians 4:5-6).

Once having arrived at spiritual things we should be sensitive to interest or hostility. We should not ‘cast our pearls before swine’ by forcing an unwanted discussion. Rather, like Jesus, we should pursue spiritual conversation as deeply as the unbeliever wants to carry it.

We must be sensitive to the situation. Our Lord had one point of contact with this woman. He pressed on until she trusted in Him. Whenever I have unbelievers come to me for counsel or I visit an unbeliever in the hospital, I make the effort to give them the gospel clearly and completely. I realize I may never speak to them again. But I don’t press so hard with my neighbors. I have to live with them and generally I must be more gradual.

There is a most significant lesson for us in this passage about how we should witness. There is no one ‘canned’ approach that our Lord forced indiscriminately upon everyone He encountered, rather the Gospel is individualized. How different was His approach to Nicodemus than to this woman.

More significant is the way our Lord gradually moved from impersonal communication to that which was intimate. Here is a tremendous blind spot for many Christians. When once we are saved, our new life crops out everywhere. We want to share Christ with others. We are far more open in our expression of emotions, joys, convictions and so on. But the unbelieving world is just the opposite. They are touchy about spiritual things. They are frightened of them, and they make every effort to avoid the subject. For a Christian to suddenly blurt out, “Are you a Christian?” is absolute trauma. It is something like my meeting you casually and asking your take-home pay.

Communication research indicates that there are several levels of communication. The least intimate is that on the level of the cliche, “How’s it going?” “Great.” “Nice weather,” and so on. Then there is the next level of that which is routine and non-personal. “How do I find Main Street?” It is not until we begin to express our opinions, our feelings, our aspirations, fears, and so on that we really begin to communicate. (Incidentally, there is all too little communication, even in Christian homes.)

When our Lord spoke with this woman, he began an a very unthreatening level. He asked for a drink of water. Actually, this woman initiated a deeper level of communication by bringing up the ethic and cultural differences which separated Jews and Samaritans. Jesus chose not to dwell on that subject and pressed on to spiritual matters, couched in familiar terms (‘living water’). When the woman’s curiosity was sufficiently aroused, the Lord Jesus began to delve into the most intimate area of this woman’s life. By revealing her sinful past, the spiritual need and necessity of salvation was in the open. It was only at this point that a meaningful theological discussion could occur. When Jesus at last corrected her theology, He revealed His identity as Messiah.

If many of us had been sitting at that well when this woman came to draw from it, we would probably have blundered, “Are you saved?” It is no wonder so many people are turned off by the witness of Christians.

If I could give any advice to those who sincerely desire to share their faith, I would suggest two things. First of all, learn the Gospel so well that you are free to share it with great flexibility, rather than in terms of a formula. Second, develop the ability to communicate with people, and begin at home. Whenever we begin to communicate with people about deep-felt beliefs, fears, problems, etc., then the Gospel touches people where they really hurt. Most of us don’t know our friends and neighbors on intimate enough terms to be able to touch their deepest needs with a word from God.

(2) A Lesson on Guidance. Many people are greatly troubled about discerning the will of God. How did our Lord Jesus discern that it was the will of God for Him to pass through Samaria and witness to these people? I do not think that He received any spectacular revelations, nor do I believe He had some strange inner urge.

First of all, our Lord acted on biblical principle. The Old Testament Scriptures told of Israel’s responsibility to take the light of the Gospel to the nations. Although there were racial and cultural barriers between Jews and Samaritans, there were no biblical ones. To the contrary, the Scriptures insisted upon evangelizing the nations. Second, and this will probably smack of being unspiritual, passing through Samaria was the shortest and fastest route. My friend, don’t spend hours praying for guidance in matters which can be settled by common sense. If God wants you to do the unusual, He can make it clear. I know of a seminary professor who’s flight schedule was inexcusably altered so that he missed his plane. As he sat waiting in a coffee shop, he encountered a woman who desperately needed a word from God. When God has such unusual appointments, you can be sure you will not miss them. God’s guidance is always within the confines of what is biblical, and most often in accord with what is practical and logical.

(3) A Lesson on Culture. The thing about Jesus that caught the Samaritan’s initial attention was the fact that He was not controlled by His culture as a Jewish Rabbi. Whenever our culture is contrary to the Scriptures, it must bend. Our Lord did not shrink from speaking to a woman, and thus shocked His disciples. Our Lord did not hesitate to witness to a Samaritan. Jesus was not controlled by culture.

Having said this, I must hasten to add that Jesus did not totally reject or ignore culture. The culture to which He was most sensitive was not His own, but that of the woman. He bent His culture in order to cross over the barriers imposed by the Samaritan woman. Some of the greatest faux pas committed by Christians are senseless violations of culture. Jesus did not let His culture keep Him from reaching those of another.

Perhaps you have not considered the fact that Christians have a unique culture of their own. That is often why we work so hard at meeting all the time. We want to isolate ourselves from the world (and its culture) from within the walls of the church (and its culture). I am privileged to participate in a ministry designed to reach Blacks. I am most grateful to God for my Black brethren who have sought (and continue to do so) to enhance my understanding of the Black culture. Many of you could probably profit from such an education as I am receiving. But I would like to suggest that you make an intensive effort at learning the culture of your unsaved neighbors. I did not ask you to adopt it, but to accept it for what it is. Set aside those non-essentials of your culture, and adapt your witness to the culture of the unsaved American.

(4) A Lesson in Worship. We have already touched on the subject of worship, but let me simply remind you of the essentials of true worship. It is first of all factual—that is, it must be consistent with the truth revealed in the pages of the Word of God and in the person of the Son of God. Second, our worship must be ‘in spirit.’ Worship is not mechanical, not a ritual. It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit’s working in the life of the Christian. There is no worship apart from truth and spirit.

77 I must share Shepard’s comment here, “Not many preachers run from over-popularity.” J.W. Shepard, The Christ of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939), p. 114. Popularity is seldom at the center of God’s program. If our Lord retreated at the prospect of it, how much more should we!

78 “Josephus says that it was the custom of the Galileans to pass through Samaria when they went up to Jerusalem for the feasts” (Ant. xx, 118).” Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), p. 255, fn. 16. Perhaps this helps us understand in part, the disdain that Judean Jews had for the Gailileans.

79 Vit. 269, as cited by Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, p. 255.

80 It is doubtful that the disciples left our Lord alone in this hostile territory. Once again, it would seem that John was silently at the side of our Lord, taking note of the event in detail.

81 Jacob’s well was located at the intersection of several ancient Roman roads. This hand-dug well is a bit unusual, for there were numerous springs nearby. It is one of the best attested biblical landmarks in Palestine. Estimates of the original depth of this well vary from 75-150 feet. Its water was probably much tastier than that of nearby springs.

82 The exact location and identification of this ancient city is matter of academic debate. Some think Sychar is a different, and derisive title for the city of Shechem. Cf. Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, p. 257. fn. 19.

83 There is some disagreement among Bible students as to whether John reckoned time according to the Jewish (i.e. 12 o’clock noon) or Roman mode (6 p.m.). Edersheim’s arguments in favor of the Roman reckoning seem more persuasive:

“We have already expressed our belief, that in the Fourth Gospel time is reckoned not according to the Jewish mode, but according to the Roman civil day, from midnight to midnight. For a full discussion and proof of this, with notice of objections, see McLellan’s New Test. vol. i, pp. 737-743. It must surely be a lapsus when at p. 288 (note ), the same author seems to assume the contrary. Meyer objects, that, if it had been 6 P.M. there would not have been time for the after-events recorded. But they could easily find a place in the delicious cool of a summer’s evening, and both the coming up of the Samaritans (most unlikely at noon-time), and their invitation to Jesus ‘to tarry’ with them (v. 40), are in favour of our view. Indeed, St. John xix. 14 renders it impossible to adopt the Jewish mode of reckoning.” Alford Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, I, p. 408, footnote 1.

84 “Something of the feeling between the two groups may be gauged from the words of Ben Sira: ‘With two nations my soul is vexed, and the third is no nation: those who live on Mount Seir, and the Philistines, and the foolish people that dwell in Shechem’ (Sir. 50:25f.).” Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, p. 256, fn. 18.

85 “The verb means properly, ‘to use with,’ and this appears to be the meaning in the present passage. Jews do not use (utensils) with Samaritans. This was built into a regulation in A.D. 65 or 66: “The daughters of the Samaritans are (deemed unclean as) menstruants from their cradle” (Mishnah, Nidd, 4:1), i.e. they are all regarded as ceremonially unclean … Danby summarizes the complicated situation as “(a) a Samaritan conveys uncleanness by what he lies, sits, or rides on, by his spittle (including the phlegm of his lungs, throat, or nose) and by his urine; and (b) the daughters of the Samaritans even from their cradles (convey uncleanness in like manner), as also do the Gentiles” (Danby, p. 803; see also SBk, I, pp. 538-60). Morris, p. 259, fn. 25.

86 “A woman could not divorce her husband in Jewish Law. But under certain circumstances she could approach the court which would, if it thought fit, compel the husband to divorce her (see, for example, Mishnah, Ket. 7:9, 10). Or she might pay him or render services to induce him to divorce her. (Git. 7:5,6). In theory there was no limit to the number of marriages that might be contracted after valid divorces, but the Rabbis regarded two, or at the most three marriages as the maximum for a woman (SBk, II, p. 437).” Morris, p. 264, fn. 43.

87 “At the beginning of the conversation He did not make Himself known to her ... but first she caught sight of a thirsty man, then a Jew, then a Rabbi, afterwards a prophet, last of all the Messiah. She tried to get the better of the thirsty man, she showed her dislike of the Jew, she heckled the Rabbi, she was swept off her feet by the prophet, and she adored the Christ (Findlay, p. 61).” Morris, p. 254, fn. 13.

88 “Cf. G.S. Hendry: “it has commonly been taken to mean that God, being Spirit, is present everywhere and can be worshiped anywhere; the important thing is not where men worship, but how they worship.” This he vigorously denies. The saying “means the precise opposite; it means that God is present in his own realm, to which man as such has no access. To worship God in spirit is not a possibility that is always and everywhere open to man ... But this is just the gospel of Christ, that this possibility has now been opened to men. … The meaning is that the location has been redefined, and God is now to be worshiped in the place where he is present, i.e., in Him who is the truth incarnate (The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology, London, 1957, pp. 3lf.).” Quoted by Morris, p. 272, fn. 62.

89 Cf. James I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1973), chapter 4, pp. 38-44.

90 “The Samaritan name for the Messiah was Taheb. … “He who returns,” or “He who restores.” According to Odeberg, “A prominent feature in the Taheb traditions was that the Redeemer, in accordance with Deut. 18 would teach the faithful concerning all things” (FG, p. 183). Dodd reminds us that we should not build too much on this figure, for our information about him is late and we do not know whether or not the Taheb was known in New Testament times (IFG, p. 240, n. 2). But Josephus recounts an incident where a man gathered armed men to Mt. Gerizim, saying that he would show them sacred vessels hidden there by Moses (Ant. xviii, 85). This looks very much like messianic expectation during the New Testament period.” Morris, p. 272, fn. 63.

91 “SBk, II, p. 438. Nor was it only discourse in public places that was discountenanced.” Jose B. Johanan of Jerusalem said: Let thy house be opened wide and let the needy be members of thy household; and talk not much with womankind. They said this of a man’s own wife: how much more of his fellow’s wife! Hence the Sages have said: He that talks much with womankind brings evil upon himself and neglects the study of the Law and at the last will inherit Gehenna” (Ab. 1:5), R. Jose the Galilean once asked a woman, “By what road do we go to Lydda?” only to be rebuked by her: “Foolish Galilean, did not the Sages say this: Engage not in much talk with women? You should have asked: By which to Lydda?” (Erub. 53b; soncino trans., p. 374). Perhaps the greatest blot on the Rabbinic attitude to women was that, though the Rabbis held the study of the Law to be the greatest good in life, they discouraged women from studying it at all. When Ben Azzai suggested that women be taught the Law for certain purposes R. Eliezer replied: “If any man gives his daughter a knowledge of the Law it is as though he taught her lechery” (Sot. 3:4). The Rabbis regarded women as inferior to men in every way. A very ancient prayer (still found in the Jewish prayer book) runs, “Blessed art thou, O Lord ... who has not made me a woman.” The equivalent prayer for a woman was “Blessed art thou, O Lord, who has fashioned me according to thy will.” Temple comments, “If we now feel that the women had the best of the exchange, that is a Christian and not an ancient Jewish sentiment!” Quoted by Morris, p. 274.

92 “There is evidence, moreover, that the agricultural year was divided into six two-month periods, seed-time, winter, spring, harvest, summer, and the time of extreme heat. Thus four months elapsed between the end of seed-time and the beginning of harvest. This might well have given rise to a proverbial saying indicating that there is no hurry for a particular task. The seed may be planted, but there is no way of getting round the months of waiting. Growth is slow and cannot be hurried.” Morris, pp. 278-279.

Related Topics: Christology, Soteriology (Salvation)

8. The Meaning of the Miracles (Mark 4:35-41)

Introduction

When I was a student at Dallas Theological Seminary, Dr. Henry M. Morris, co-author of The Genesis Flood, spoke to the student body. In an effort to distinguish between Class A and Class B miracles, Dr. Morris told the true story of a young pilot named Tom (now with Missionary Aviation Fellowship) who was flying at 30,000 feet when his plane exploded. All in the plane were killed except Tom. As Tom was plummeting to the earth, he pulled the rip cord, but his chute failed to open. At the last minute, the chute did open but it was in shreds, hardly breaking the speed of his fall.

Meanwhile, a Christian woman was standing in her drive watching this horrifying scene. Knowing he was in desperate trouble, the woman prayed for his safe descent. Tom, needless to say, was praying, too. Tom landed virtually at the feet of the woman. Looking up, they saw that the ropes of his parachute had caught in two trees, breaking his fall and lowering him gently to the ground.

The most interesting point about this true story is that Dr. Morris used it as an illustration of what he called Class B miracles. After recounting the story, Dr. Morris said to the assembled faculty and student body, “Now men, don’t be overly impressed by the Class B miracles.”

Since we understood Dr. Morris’ conservative theological position, we were not upset, but amazed at his dry sense of humor. But the sad truth is that many theologians throughout the history of the church have not taken any of the miracles of our Lord seriously. The Jews of our Lord’s day did not challenge the actual events, but rather the power by which these miracles were performed (cf. Mark 3:22ff.) The heathen Greeks did not challenge the miraculous event either, but only its interpretation.⁹³ Others, such as Spinoza, held the pantheistic view that miracles were contrary to the nature of God.⁹⁴ Miracles were considered impossible by Spinoza because of his presuppositions. Skeptics, like Hume, held that miracles are simply incredible, because they contradict man’s normal experience.⁹⁵ Since Hume doubted that nothing could be known with absolute certainty, those phenomenon which took place outside of the normal course of nature could never be accepted as true. Schleiermacher and others explained the miraculous in terms of the unknown and misunderstood. Our Lord’s miracles were ‘relative miracles,’ as a savage might consider television, which he does not understand.⁹⁶ The Rationalistic School would have men believe that Christ never claimed to perform any miracles. Only those who sought the spectacular found something miraculous in the records.⁹⁷ Christ did not change the water to wine at Cana, but merely provided a new supply of wine. He did not walk on the water, but on the nearby shore. Others, Like Woolston have found the Gospel miracles to have no factual or historical validity, but are merely ‘tales’ which contain a much deeper spiritual truth.⁹⁸

Such are the views of the skeptics and critics of God’s Word. But for the sincere student of Scripture, there is no satisfaction in these theories. The miracles are an integral part of our Lord’s ministry. They not only authenticate His message; they are a vital part of it.⁹⁹

We have been studying highlights in the Life and Ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have already dealt with the period of preparation, and are now considering the presentation of Jesus as the Messiah, the Savior of the world. The miracles of our Lord are an essential part of that presentation, for, in part, they authenticate His claim as Messiah.

The Terms Employed

The miraculous works of our Lord Jesus were communicated by the use of three primary terms, each of which accentuated one particular facet of the supernatural activity of Christ. These three terms are found together in several passages. “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know” (Acts 2:22, cf. also 2 Corinthians 12:12; 2 Thessalonians 2:9).

The term ‘miracle’ (dunamis), emphasizes the mighty work that has been done, and, in particular, the power by which it was accomplished. The event is described in terms of the power of God in action.

If ‘miracle’ emphasizes the cause of the miraculous event, ‘wonder’ (teras) , underscores its effect on those who are witnesses. On many occasions, the crowds (even the disciples) were amazed and astonished by the works of our Lord (e.g. Mark 2:12; 4:41; 6:51, etc.). Origen pointed out long ago that this term ‘wonder’ is never employed alone in the New Testament, but always in conjunction with some other term which suggests something far greater than a mere spectacle.¹⁰⁰

The most pregnant term used with reference to the miracles of our Lord is ‘sign’ (semeion), which focuses upon the deeper meaning of the miracle.¹⁰¹ A sign is a miracle which conveys a truth about our Lord Jesus. A miracle is usually a sign, but a sign need not always be a miracle (cf. Luke 2:12).

The miracles of our Lord are at one and the same time a visible manifestation of divine power (miracle) an awe-inspiring spectacle (wonder), and an instructive revelation about God (sign).¹⁰²

Classification of the Miracles

Perhaps the most common classification of the miracles of our Lord is into three categories: (1) those which pertain to nature; (2) those which pertain to man; and, (3) those which pertain to the spirit world.¹⁰³

I find it helpful to distinguish between what can be called ‘Class A’ and ‘Class B’ miracles. ‘Class A’ miracles overrule or transcend the laws of nature. Such would be the case of our Lord’s walking on the water (Mark 6:45-52). Here the law of gravity was overruled. ‘Class B’ miracles do not overtly violate natural laws. For example, the stilling of the storm did not appear to violate any natural law. Storms on this lake, we are told, stopped as quickly as they commenced. The fact that it stopped at the time of our Lord’s rebuke is evidence of His sovereignty over nature. ‘Class B’ miracles would be viewed by unbelievers as mere coincidence. ‘Class A’ miracles, such as the raising of Lazarus were an outright affront to natural laws and processes (thus the statement, ‘he stinks’ in John 11:39, stressing the normal course of nature). Both categories, ‘Class A’ and ‘Class B,’ are miracles, but ‘Class A’ miracles are more undeniably so to the skeptic.

Characteristics of the Miracles of Our Lord

Miraculous deeds were not unknown to the age in which our Lord revealed Himself to men. But the miracles which He accomplished were far different than those claimed by other religions. For a few moments, we shall attempt to characterize the miracles of our Lord:¹⁰⁴

(1) They were truly historical. In the Gospel accounts, the writers have not presented the miracles of our Lord as anything other than actual events. They are not true myths, mythical stories with ‘spiritual lessons,’ but real events conveying spiritual truths. The Miracles of other religions are far more mythical in nature. Though perhaps not precisely stated, we can sense a kind of ‘once upon a time’ mood. Not so in the Gospels.

(2) They were reasonable. The miracles of the Apocryphal Gospels are fantastic and questionable.¹⁰⁵ They are completely out of character, with Jesus arbitrarily and capriciously using His supernatural powers. In contrast, the Gospels show a highly ethical use of His power, in a way totally consistent with His person.

(3) They were useful. Almost every miracle of our Lord was designed to meet a physical need. Our Lord refused to employ His powers to satisfy His own appetites, or to ensure His protection. He turned down every invitation to do the miraculous to satisfy idle curiosity (cf. Luke 23:8).

(4) They were accomplished openly. The miracles were performed in the most public situations, not oft in a dark corner. While so many alleged ‘miracles’ of today defy documentation, those of our Lord were mainly public.

(5) They were accomplished simply. Others who claimed to be ‘miracle workers’ always operated with a great deal of ritual and ceremony. A ‘miracle’ was an extravaganza, a carrying-on with pomp and circumstance. Our Lord most often merely spoke a word, and at times performed His miraculous deeds at a distance (cf. Matthew 8:5-13).

(6) They were accomplished instantly. With very few exceptions, the miracles of Jesus were completed instantly and completely.

(7) They were accomplished in a variety of circumstances. While some could do their deeds only under the most controlled environment, Jesus did His works under a great variety of circumstances. His powers were demonstrated over nature, over sickness and disease, and over the forces of Satan. The sicknesses He healed were of amazing variety.¹⁰⁶

(8) They were accomplished on the basis of faith. The miracles of the Gospels were accomplished on the basis of faith, either that of our Lord (cf. John 11:41-43), or of the one cured (cf. Mark 5:34), or of others who are concerned (cf. Matthew 8:10, Mark 2:5). Where there was little faith, little was accomplished (cf. Mark 6:5,6).

(9) They were gratuitous. While in the cults, a fee of payments was expected, the miracles of our Lord were free of charge. No fee was expected or accepted. Our Lord’s ministry, from start to finish, was one of grace.

(10) They were free from retaliation. With the possible exception of the cursing of the fig tree (Mark 11:12-14) none of the miracles of Jesus were of a punitive or negative variety. This is in contrast, not only to the desires of his own disciples (Luke 9:52-56), but also the practices of other ‘healers’ of His day, and even of what often occurred in the Old Testament.¹⁰⁷

(11) They were eschatological. The miracles of Jesus were evidence of the dawn of a new age. With the presentation of Jesus as Messiah, a new age had begun. He had come to restore man from his fallen state, and creation from the chaos resulting from sin. He had come to restore and to save. Man had been placed an the earth to rule over it. When the last Adam (Jesus Christ) came nature immediately recognized its master. When our Lord confronted sickness and disease He mastered it. He came to save, and thus the word often used for healing was ‘to save.’¹⁰⁸

The Purpose of the Miracles

Several purposes emerge from the Scriptures for the exercise of miracles by our Lord.

(1) They attracted men. Though not the primary thrust of our Lord’s miraculous ministry, one outcome was that His miracles attracted men and women who were anxious to hear His message. To many, His deeds were at least those of a prophet (cf. John 3:2; 4:19). Here was a man with a message from God.

Our Lord made many attempts to avoid the spectacular and to arouse misdirected Messianic hopes (Matthew 8:4; 12:16; 16:20, etc.). But we must also recall that it was the miraculous healing ministry of Jesus which drew the multitudes to the place where the Sermon on the Mount was delivered (Matthew 4:24-25).

(2) They accredited Jesus. It was expected that when Messiah came He would be accredited by miracles. When our Lord presented Himself at the synagogue in Nazareth, He quoted a passage from Isaiah chapter 61:

“And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book, and found the place where it was written, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:17-19) .

The people expected Messiah to present Himself by signs (John 7:31). Our Lord’s power over demons demonstrates the coming of the Kingdom: “But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20). By reason of His work alone, men should receive Him as Messiah (John 10:37-38).

(3) They reveal God. As we have previously noted, the miracles of Jesus were not merely deeds to authenticate the message of Messiah, but a vital part of that message. The miracles not only revealed the power of God, but His person. In the miracles of Jesus we see the sympathy and compassion of God. Jesus was deeply moved by human suffering and need (cf. John 11:35). These needs prompted Him to action. Again, the miracles reveal Jesus to be the Redeemer and Restorer of a fallen universe. He came to save.

The Stilling of the Storm
(Mark 4:35-41)

Jesus had spent the entire day teaching the multitudes (verse 35), entering into a new phase of teaching by the use of parables. No doubt, He was completely exhausted, as any preacher could testify. Our Lord had been sitting in the little boat, and apparently without even getting out of the boat, they pushed away from shore and set out for the other side of the lake, leaving the multitudes behind. Following along were other little ships (verse 36).

Within moments, our Lord was in a deep sleep in the stern of the ship, resting an a cushion. (This is the only reference in the Gospels to our Lord sleeping.) Some have piously referred to this sleep as the slumber of faith. If I could be less spiritual, I would simply call it the slumber of fatigue. Once again the humanity of our Lord Jesus is evidenced.

The Sea of Galilee was surrounded by hills, through which the winds violently funneled, creating violent storms which ceased as quickly as began. Such a storm arose as they were in the middle of the lake. The waves were lashing at the ship, filling it faster than the men could bail it out. Even these seasoned sailors were terrified. Higher and higher the water rose within the ship as well as without. How incongruous it must have seemed to the disciples for Jesus to be resting peacefully while they were floundering helplessly.

When they could stand it no longer, they abruptly and rudely wakened the Master with words of rebuke, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38). Although the synoptic writers describe the event independently, Mark (as reported by Peter) chose to report their rudeness by the fact that He was not called Master, or Lord, but only Teacher.

Many Bible students seem to think that the underlying problem was the lack of the disciples faith in God’s protection since Messiah was in their midst. The ship, they tell us, could not have sunk.¹⁰⁹ It is my personal opinion that the disciples believed that Jesus was fully able to save them. That is why they called on Him for help. The real problem of the disciples is precisely that of Christians today; they did not rebuke Jesus for His inability, but rather for His indifference. “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” What irked these men was not that Jesus was helpless in the face of the storm but heedless of it. They were sinking and He was sleeping! Don’t You care?

When Jesus was awakened, He rebuked the winds and the waves. The forces of nature recognized their Lord even if the disciples did not. There was an immediate calm. But not only did the wind and the waves need a word of rebuke, so did the faithless disciples. “Why are you so timid? How is it that you have no faith?” (Mark 4:40). You see, the ‘lack of faith’ for which Jesus rebuked His disciples was not a lack of faith in His ability to save, but a lack of faith in His attentiveness to our needs. Their ‘God’ was able to save, but insensitive to their need.

The words of our Lord, and even more, the obedience of the wind and the waves overcame the disciples with wonder and awe. “Who, then, is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” (Mark 4:41).

The question of the disciples is probably rhetorical, and the answer is left for us to supply. That answer is not difficult to arrive at. The Jews believed that only God had power over the winds and the seas. “O Lord God of Hosts, who is like Thee, O mighty Lord? Thy faithfulness also surrounds Thee. Thou dost rule the swelling of the sea; When its waves rise, Thou dost still them” (Psalm 89:8,9).

The disciples believed that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel, but because their concept of Messiah was largely shaped by that of their contemporaries, they had much to learn. Their understanding of this One would continue to increase, even until the time of His ascension. But now they are forced to the conclusion that He was far more than they anticipated. He had authority even over the forces of nature.

Application

The unbelief of the disciples is just as evident in we who are Christians today as it was in that little ship, tossed by the sea. It is not so much that we doubt God’s ability to save as it is God’s awareness of our needs. We falsely suppose that because our Lord is with us the storms of life will pass us by. And when the trials of life sweep full force over us and it seems that we are losing ground, here our faith is tested. We impugn the character of God by challenging His failure to act in our defense. We wonder at why God seems to be ‘asleep at the wheel’ while we are only too aware of our impending peril. We do not doubt God’s power to act in our behalf; we wonder at His refusal to act. Can God really care for us and let us sail headlong into disaster? It is God’s timing that we question. Our Lord’s sleep was that of human fatigue, but God was not asleep, as Elijah accused Baal (1 Kings 18:27). God delays His deliverance of men to the point of despair so that His salvation will be acknowledged as totally divine. It was only when the disciples were snatched from the jaws of death that they sensed their inability and His omnipotence. We must trust God’s ability as well as His timing if we are to be people of faith.

The miracles of our Lord force us to come to a decision concerning Jesus Christ. He was no mere man. His claims were either that of God or of a lunatic or a liar. The Person the Gospel writers present to us is no mere man, and His mighty works (miracles) must be taken as seriously as He.

“But there are no such miracles today,” you respond. No, as such there are not. But it was not the miracles alone which brought men to faith. It was belief in what our Lord said, in the final analysis. You must respond by faith or rejection to the works of our Lord as documented by the Gospel writers. But more than this you must place your faith in the Person of Jesus Christ Who came to bear the penalty for your sins and to provide the righteousness which God requires for salvation. Ultimately, it is the condition of your heart that determines your response to Jesus Christ and not the spectacular works which He performed.

“But he said, ‘No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead’” (Luke 16:30-31).

93 “Having recounted various miracles wrought, as he affirms, by Appolonius, he proceeds thus: ‘Yet do we not account him who has done such things for a god, only for a man beloved of the gods: while the Christians, on the contrary, on the ground of a few insignificant wonder works, proclaim their Jesus for a God.’” R. C. Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1949), p. 39.

94 Cf. R. C. Trench, Miracles, pp. 40-42.

95 Ibid., pp. 42-44.

96 Ibid., pp. 44-46.

97 Ibid., pp. 46-48.

98 “...Woolston undertook, by the engines of allegorical interpretation, to dislodge them from these also, and with this view published his notorious Letters on the Miracles. It is his manner in these to take certain miracles which Christ did, or which were wrought in relation to Him, two or three in a letter; he then seeks to show that, understood in their literal sense, they are stuffed so full with extravagances, contradictions, absurdities, that no reasonable man can suppose Christ actually to have wrought them; while as little could the Evangelists, as honest men, men who had the credit of their Lord at heart, have intended to record them as actually wrought, or desired us to receive them as other than allegories, spiritual truths clothed in the garb of historic events. The enormous difference between himself and those early Church writers, to whom he appeals, and whose views he professes to be only re-asserting, is this: they said, This history, being real, has also a deeper ideal sense; he upon the contrary, Since it is impossible that this history can be real, therefore it must have a spiritual significance. They build upon the establishment of the historic sense, he upon its ruins.” Ibid., p. 49.

99 “There is an indissoluble connexion of proclamation, miracle, and faith. The Gospel miracle cannot be isolated from this service. None of the miracles takes place in a vacuum. None of them takes place, or is recounted, or claims significance, in and for itself. Their significance is only as actualizations of His Word, as calls to repentance and faith.” Everett F. Harrison, A Short Life of Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), p. 109.

“Wescott wrote, ‘They (miracles) are essentially a part of the revelation, and not merely a part of it.’ Warfield expressed himself similarly. ‘Miracles are not merely credentials of revelation, but vehicles of revelation as well.’” Ibid., p. 116.

100 “Origen … long ago called attention to the fact that the name repara is never in the N.T. applied to these words of wonder, except in association with some other name. ... The observation was well worth the making; for the fact which we are thus bidden to note is indeed eminently characteristic of the miracles of the N.T.; namely, that a title, by which more than any other these might seem to hold on to the prodigies and portents of the heathen world, and to have something akin to them, should thus never be permitted to appear, except in the company of some other necessarily suggesting higher thoughts about them.” Richard Chenevix Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament (Marshallton, Delaware: The National Foundation for Christian Education, n.d.), p. 320.

101 “In this word (‘sign’) the ethical purpose of the miracle comes out the most prominently, as in “wonder” the least. They are signs and pledges of something more than and beyond themselves (Isai. vii. 11; xxxviii. 7); valuable, not so much for what they are, as for what they indicate of the grace and power of the doer, or of the connection in which he stands with a higher world. Oftentimes they are thus seals of power set to the person who accomplishes them (“the Lord confirming the word with signs following,” Mark xvi. 20; Acts xiv. 3; Heb. ii. 4); legitimating acts, by which he claims to be accepted as a messenger from God. “What sign shewest thou?” (John ii. 18) was the question which the Jews asked, when they wanted the Lord to justify the things which He was doing, by showing that He had especial authority to do them. St. Paul speaks of himself as having “the signs of an apostle” (2 Cor. xii. 12), in other words, the tokens which designate him as such. Thus, too, in the Old Testament, when God sends Moses to deliver Israel He furnishes him with two signs. He warns him that Pharaoh will require him to legitimate his mission, to produce his credentials that he is indeed God’s ambassador; and equips him with the powers which shall justify him as such, which, in other words, shall be his signs (Exod. vii. 9,10). He “gave a sign to the prophet, whom He sent to protest against the will-worship of Jeroboam (1 Kin. xiii. 3).” Miracles, pp. 4-5.

102 Cf. Calvin on 2 Cor. xii. 12: “They are called signs because they are no idle spectacles, but are designed to teach. Prodigies (wonders), because by their unwontedness they should rouse and strike. Powers or virtues (miracles), because they are greater indications of divine power than the things which are seen in the ordinary course of nature.” Trench, Miracles, p. 6.

103 Cf. Harrison, A Short Life of Christ, pp. 112-113 for various classifications, including the one cited above.

104 Most of these characteristics follow the suggestions of Harrison, A Short Life of Christ, pp. 113-115.

105 It may be well to cite a few examples in proof, however unpleasantly some of them may jar on the Christian ear. Thus some children refuse to play with Him, hiding themselves from Him; He pursues and turns them into kids. Another child by accident runs against Him, and throws Him down; whereupon He, being exasperated, exclaims, ‘As thou hast made Me to fall, so shalt thou fall and not rise’; at the same hour the child fell down and expired. Such is the image which the authors of these books give us of the holy child Jesus. Even the miracles which are not of this revolting character are childish tricks, like the tricks of a conjurer, never solemn acts of power and love. He and some other children make birds and animals of clay; while each is boasting the superiority of his work, Jesus says, “I will cause those which I have made to go,”—which they do, the animals leaping and the birds flying, and at his bidding returning, and eating and drinking from his hand. While yet an infant at his mother’s breast, He bids a palm tree to stop that she may pluck the dates; it obeys, and only returns to its position at his command. The miracles which He does, so those that are done in his honour, are idle or monstrous; the ox and the ass worshipping Him, a new-born infant in the crib, may serve for an example. Trench, Miracles, pp. 28-29.

106 “Jesus cured a wide variety of complaints. Making due allowance for the imprecise medical terminology of the Gospels, we may distinguish various forms of paralysis, congenital defects like blindness, deafness and dumbness, diseases like leprosy, dropsy and fever, hemorrhage, curvature of the spine, and a severed ear. If even half of these are correctly diagnosed, the Gospel account of Jesus healing ‘all kinds of diseases’ seems no exaggeration.” R. T. France, I Came to Set the Earth on Fire (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1976), p. 67.

107 “Those of the Old wear oftentimes a far severer aspect than those of the New. They are miracles, indeed, of God’s grace, but yet also miracles of the Law, of that Law which worketh wrath, which will teach, at all costs, the lesson of the awful holiness of God. Miracles of the Law, they preserve a character that accords with the Law; being oftentimes fearful outbreaks of God’s anger against the unrighteousness of men; such for instance are the signs and wonders in Egypt, many of those in the desert (Num. xvi. 31; Lev. x. 2), and some which the later prophets wrought (2 Kin. i. 10-12; ii. 23-25); leprosies are inflicted (Num. xii. 10; 2 Chr. xxvi. 19), not removed; a sound hand is withered and dried up (1 Kin. xiii. 4), not a withered hand restored. Not but that these works also are for the most part what our Lord’s are altogether and with no single exception, namely, works of evident grace and mercy. I affirm this of all our Lord’s miracles; for that single one, which seems an exception, the cursing of the barren fig-tree, has no right really to be considered such. He needed to declare, not in word only but in act, what would be the consequences of an obstinate unfruitfulness and resistance to his grace, and thus to make manifest the severer side of his ministry. He chose for the showing out of this, not one among all the sinners who were about Him, but displayed his power upon a tree, which, itself incapable of feeling, might yet effectually serve as a sign and warning to men. He will allow no single exception to the rule of grace and love. When He blesses, it is men; but when He smites, it is an unfeeling tree.” Trench, Miracles, pp. 25-26.

108 “The word commonly employed of our Lord’s gracious acts is heal, but now and again the word is save (to make sound or whole), pointing to a connection between the restoration of afflicted bodies and the saving of the soul. The Lord came to redeem the whole man. Not infrequently the healing of the body was closely linked to a pronouncement of forgiveness of sins, as in the case of the paralytic who was brought by his four friends (Mk. 2:1-12). The Savior bore men’s sickneases and infirmities in the days of public ministry, and their sins he bore at its close.” Harrison, A Short Life of Christ, p. 117.

109 Geldenhuys, for example, states, “Just as it was impossible for that ship, with the Redeemer of the world on board, to founder, no matter how many storms broke over it, so it is equally impossible for the church of Christ, the body of which He Himself is the Head and Preserver, ever to be destroyed, notwithstanding all the forces of hell that continually assail it.” Norval Geldenhuys, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951), pp. 252-253.

9. The Gerasene Demoniac (Mark 5:1-20)

Introduction

The subject of demons and demon possession has always seemed somewhat remote and academic to sophisticated 20th century Americans. Bible-believing Christians have always accepted the fact of demons and their activity in New Testament times, but most of us are inclined to relegate demonic activity in these days to pagan lands and missionary experiences.

In recent years the matter has been getting uncomfortably close to home. My office mate of several years back was interrupted by a young and very zealous new Christian teacher accompanied by a student from whom she wanted my friend to cast out a demon. Not long after that, while I was still a student in seminary, there was a car parked by the seminary in a somewhat suspicious manner and I called the police to check it out. Five squad cars converged on it. I felt somewhat guilty, particularly fearing that I may have created an unintentional hardship for some classmate. A friend of mine told me later that two students were attempting to cast a demon out of a fellow. I have always wondered what my Christian brothers had to say to the police officers by way of explanation.

Like it or not, demons and demonic activity are likely to become much more of a concern to you in days to come. Paul tells us that our struggle is, at bottom, a spiritual one (Ephesians 6:12). Even in our sophisticated times, there is an intense interest in the supernatural and the occult. Ouija boards are found in many American homes. Horoscopes and astrological predictions are found in most major newspapers. In the past several weeks, there has come to light the case of a man arrested for various crimes who has several of the symptoms of demon possession, including multiple personalities, even multiple IQs.

For the Christian, there are two extremes which must be avoided with reference to Satanic activity. As C. S. Lewis aptly put it:

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.¹¹⁰

The confrontation between the powers of heaven and hell are nowhere seen in better perspective than in Mark’s account of the encounter of the Gerasene demoniac with our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Setting
(5:1)

In the third chapter of Mark’s Gospel, our Lord’s miraculous works were attributed by His opponents to the power of Satan (verse 22). Our Lord responded sternly by calling this accusation blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and as such was the one unpardonable sin (verses 28-30). From this point on, Jesus began to speak to the crowds in parables in order to veil or conceal the gospel from those who had blasphemed the Holy Spirit (Mark 4:lff). At the conclusion of this day of teaching by parables, the Lord had instructed His disciples to cross over the Sea of Galilee to the other side. This is when the storm arose which threatened to destroy the ship (Mark 4:35-41). Sometime after the Lord Jesus miraculously calmed the storm, the ship landed, perhaps late in the evening,¹¹¹ on the other side of the lake in the country of the Gerasenes.¹¹² If, indeed, it was late at night, the scene must have been an eerie one, with the nerves of the disciples already worn thin by the terrifying experience of the storm.

The Malady of the Madman
(5:2-5)

Immediately, as this weary group disembarked from the ship, they were met by what appeared to be a madman. Our children would probably understand best if I said that his appearance must have been somewhat like that of the television creation, The Incredible Hulk. Although his symptoms would have appeared to be those of an insane man,¹¹³ the Gospel writers inform us that he was demon-possessed.¹¹⁴

Although the manifestations of demonization vary widely, this man¹¹⁵ evidenced several of the classic symptoms.

(1) Severe personality change. The ‘before’ and ‘after’ descriptions of the demoniac reveal that he was a totally different person under demonic influence. It is something like the behavior and personality change in a man who is totally intoxicated. More than this, however, is the fact that the man’s own identity and individuality were swallowed up by the demons with him. When Jesus asked his name the man answered, “Legion, for we are many” (Mark 5:9). Those who have witnessed demon possession tell us that each demon has its own distinct personality and that the individual possessed begins to manifest the distinct personality of the demon by which he is possessed. If it is a feminine spirit, the voice will be a feminine one, if masculine then very manly.

(2) Anti-social behavior. The conduct of this pathetic individual was obviously anti-social. That is why he was living in the solitude of the tombs, away from civilization.

(3) Spiritual insight. The demoniac further evidenced demon activity by the depth of his spiritual insight. Instantly he recognized the Lord Jesus to be the Son of God (verse 7).¹¹⁶ There was a source of spiritual insight beyond human capabilities here. In addition, Matthew includes the comment, “Have You come here to torment us before the time?” (Matthew 8:29). This reveals to us that demons have an intuitive knowledge of their impending doom.¹¹⁷

(4) Super-human strength. Also, frequently associated with demon possession was a super-human strength (cf. Acts 19:16). The demoniac was uncontrollable by any of the normal means of human confinement. No matter what men attempted to bind him with, he broke loose. No one was strong enough to subdue him (verses 3,4).

(5) Torment. The price tag of possession was high, for those who fell victim to the demons agonized in constant torment. Such was the case with this man (cf. verse 5). His animal-like shrieks must have sent chills up the spines of any who were nearby.

(6) Tendency towards self-destruction. Another indication of demonic control is the fact that this man was continually doing harm to himself by gashing himself with stones (verse 5). Other demoniacs described in Scripture were bent on self-destruction as well (cf. Mark 9:17-29). The destructive desires of the demons were dramatically carried out in the drowning of the swine.

The Confrontation and Casting Out
(5:6-13)

It is not difficult to imagine what was going through the minds of the disciples as their ship landed and as these two demon possessed men rushed to them. It was like being attacked by two ‘Hulks.’ They probably thought of quickly getting aboard ship and pushing off. Perhaps they clenched their fists or picked up driftwood with which to defend themselves.

Such must have been the response of those with our Lord. But from all of the Gospel accounts, I get the distinct impression that this man’s eyes were riveted on Jesus. He did not appear to rush upon the small group of men to attack them (as he would normally have done), but rather to plead with Jesus. Though Legion bowed before Jesus (verse 6), it was no act of worship (as the King James Version would seem to indicate). He seemed to view Jesus’ approach as the launching of a direct attack on the demonic forces. He pleaded with Jesus not to be tormented. How ironic, as others have noted, that the tormentor pleads not to be tormented.

The pleas of Legion were in response to the command of Jesus for the demons to come out of him (verse 8). Significantly, the demons are called ‘unclean spirits’ (verse 2,9). When Jesus asked the demoniac his name, it was not without significance for He was, I believe, asking the demons to reveal their identity. The reply ‘Legion’¹¹⁸ may be some kind of evasion, a reluctance on the part of the demons to individually identify themselves. To the evildoer, anonymity is always preferable to identification. On the other hand, it may be correct to understand that although there were many demons, they had combined as one force to possess this man.¹¹⁹ While Mark records Legion’s request as one of not being sent out of the country (verse 10), Luke adds a significant explanation by interpreting the meaning behind this request: “And they were entreating Him not to command them to depart into the abyss” (Luke 8:31). In Jewish thinking, spirit beings were assigned to certain geographical territories.¹²⁰

Jewish theology, at least on this point, seems consistent with biblical revelation. Demons are highly organized (cf. Daniel 10:13; Ephesians 6:12), whose leader and prince is Satan (Matthew 12:24). The passage in Daniel especially suggests specific geographical boundaries within which spirit beings must abide. For these demons to be sent out of the country would have meant that they would then be confined along with other fallen angels (cf. Jude 6), no longer to afflict men or resist God.

As an alternative to confinement, the demons posed the option of being permitted to enter the pigs, some 2,000 in number, feeding nearby. This request was granted and the entire herd rushed headlong to their own destruction

The drowning of these pigs has caused a great deal of discussion amongst Bible students, for as a friend of mine once observed, “That’s a lot of pork chops!” Had our Lord achieved such a miracle today He would have been in deep trouble. First of all, the EPA would have been investigating the pollution of Lake Galilee with decaying pigs. Then the SPCA would have been up in arms over such cruelty to animals. Then the Livestock Association and consumer groups would have been greatly distressed over the sudden decrease in the pig population and the resulting impact on pork prices.

These, however, are not the problem raised by Bible students. Their first question is a rather pragmatic one, namely, “How can demons possess animals?” To this we must confess that we know too little to understand the mechanism of demon possession but the reality is very evident. The second question is an ethical one: “What right had the Lord to inflict this loss on the owners of the swine?”¹²¹ Put even more crassly, Huxley censored this act with these words: “… the wanton destruction of other people’s property is a misdemeanour of evil example.”¹²²

Some of the proposed answers to this question are totally unacceptable to an orthodox, evangelical Christian.¹²³ By way of explanation, there are several factors which should be given serious consideration.

(1) As Lord of all, God has the right to make use of His creation any way that He deems best, and this includes not only pigs, but people (cf. Romans 9:19-23).

(2) Pork was a food forbidden to Jews, and as such, those who raised these pigs may have done so knowingly in violation of divine injunction. It is in no way certain, however, that the pig raisers were Jews.

(3) Our Lord was moved with compassion by the torment of Legion and the loss of these pigs should in no way dim our view of the deliverance of the demoniac. Also, the wholesale slaughter of these pigs dramatically illustrated the destructive purposes of the demons.

(4) Our Lord did not command the demons to enter into the pigs and bring about their destruction; He only permitted it.¹²⁴

(5) What our Lord could have given the people of this territory was much greater than what He took away.

As we pass from this section to the next, let us not end on the note of the death of the pigs, but on the deliverance of the demoniac. Whereas he had been a slave, he was now delivered from demon possession. While he was once wild and uncontrollable, he was sitting quietly at the feet of Jesus. When once he was an instrument of Satanic opposition against the Messiah, now he is a witness to His power. Once naked, he is now clothed. Once a menace to society, now a messenger with words of deliverance and healing.

The Response of the Residents
(5:14-17)

It didn’t take long for the word to spread quickly. The pig tenders reported it far and wide, in city and country (verse 14). Like the Samaritans who followed the woman at the well to see this One who had ‘told her all she had done,’ so these residents came to see for themselves what had happened.

The typical explanation for the petition of the residents that Christ leave their country is that they were motivated by materialistic considerations. In other words, Jesus had caused a loss to them of 2,000 swine already; what else would His presence cost?

In both the accounts of Mark and Luke, the primary motivation is described as that of fear. Luke seems to base this fear solely upon what happened to the demoniac, not on the loss of their pigs.

“And the people went out to see what happened; and they came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting down at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they became frightened. And those who had seen it reported to them how the man who was demon-possessed had been made well. And all the people of the country of the Gerasenes and the surrounding district asked Him to depart from them; for they were gripped with great fear; and He got into a boat, and returned” (Luke 8:35-37).

As these people began to piece together the previous events, not only of the destruction of the pigs, but also the deliverance of Legion, they began to sense that there was One far more awesome, much more to be feared, than Legion. They had dealt with Legion (I suspect) by forcing him from their presence. Now they would deal with this One greater than he by doing likewise. It is ironic that while the demons didn’t want to leave the country, the dwellers of that land didn’t want the Messiah to stay. Here is one of the few times that a miracle drove people away, rather than to draw them to Jesus. It would seem that these people had no Messianic expectations, and therefore wanted nothing to do with One Who had such awesome power, a power over which they had no control.

The Response of the Released Demoniac
(5:18-20)

The Lord granted the only request of these residents, which was for Him to leave. As Jesus began to get back into the boat, the delivered demoniac pleaded with Him that he might accompany Him. He who feared His arrival now dreaded His departure. It is even possible that his request was to become one of our Lord’s disciples.¹²⁵

The Lord refused this request and commissioned this delivered man to return to his own people and declare to them what God had done for him. His greatest impact would be on those who knew his former state.

The commission of our Lord is considerably different from His instructions to the Israelites whom He had delivered. They were instructed to keep quiet about what Jesus had done for them (cf. Matthew 8:4; Luke 8:56). In Galilee and Judea there were Messianic hopes which would have been quickly fanned into flames if the miracles of Jesus were too widely publicized. There was no such danger in Perea, and thus the mercy of the Lord was to be heralded.

The particular focus of this man’s testimony was the Decapolis region. This was a federation of ten cities (deka = ten, polis = city). This was a region east of the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River. It was greatly influenced by Greek culture.¹²⁶

Conclusion and Application

The Historical Interpretation

As always, we must begin with the principle: Interpretation is one, application is many. What purposes did Mark intend to achieve by the inclusion of this event?

First of all, I believe Mark was attempting to warn his Gentile readers of the great danger of demonic influence and activity. The Greeks were believers in the spirit world, but not necessarily convinced that demons were evil.¹²⁷ As a result, Mark’s readers needed to be instructed as to the essential nature of demons and demon possession. The scene which Mark presents is deliberately dark.

A word of clarification is in order here for we must recognize that in this account the dark side of Satan is exposed, but this is perhaps the more unusual side of Satan. Satan’s most effective tool is not the demoniac wandering about the desolate places. Satan’s most useful instrument is the outstanding, outwardly moral and upright religious man, whose good deeds are done independently of God. “And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14).

As has been said before, look for Satan’s man behind the pulpit. Here is where Satan can use a man to influence scores of people, blinding minds and hearts to the truths of the Word of God (2 Corinthians 4:4). Demon possession, such as that of the Gerasene demoniac is the crudest and cruelest form of Satanic control, but by and large also one of the less common manifestations of Satan’s work in the world today.

Second (and primarily), Mark employs this event to authenticate the claims of Jesus to be the Son of God and Israel’s Messiah. While the Jews had not denied the works of Jesus were supernatural, they had declined to admit they established His deity. Rather, they attributed the power of Jesus to Satan (Mark 3:22). The confrontation of Jesus and the Gerasene demoniac made it clear that Jesus was no servant of Satan. Far from this, He had stormed the gates of Hell and prevailed. Even the demons confessed that He was the Son of the Most High (Mark 5:7).

Implications and Applications

In this account we, by inference, learn much about the demonic spirits. They are ‘unclean spirits,’ (vss. 2,8) who can ‘possess’ men and animals. Their influence and control leads to untold agony and destruction. Demonic influence further destroys man’s reflection of God as originally designed.¹²⁸ Demons have great spiritual insight and reluctantly submit to Jesus as Lord of all. They look forward to their future with great dread. They greatly desire to enter and control a physical body, whereby they may reflect their character and attributes.

For many Christians today, the horrifying experience of Legion should be sufficient testimony of the reality of the Satanic underworld. We should know from other Scriptures that our present spiritual experience is one of spiritual warfare. The occult and every ‘front’ for demonic influence and activity should be avoided like the plague. We should be warned that fooling with these Satanic ‘fronts’ is like experimenting with drugs. At first we may deceive ourselves into thinking that we are controlling them, but the ultimate likelihood is that they will master us.

Although the Gospels give us little information as to how individuals become targets of Satanic control, I would suggest for your consideration that they sometimes do so by leaving themselves open to Satanic influence. Ananias and Sapphira did so by allowing their greed to grip their hearts (cf. Acts 5:1-6). Such seems to be a similar case with Judas (John 13:1-2). The house that is left swept and clean is a likely target for Satanic influence (cf. Matthew 12:43-45). Whenever a man, woman, or child surrenders control of himself either to fleshly desires (anger, lust, passion, etc.) or by some form of self-emptying (such as various forms of eastern meditation) in my opinion, they are in a precarious position.

Having been properly warned of the demonic underworld, let us not fall into the opposite error of absolute paranoia. The lesson of this passage is that Satan is a defeated foe. When our Lord confronted the demons, they had to submit to His power and authority. By His power, we, too, are able to overcome Satan’s treacheries. For those who are shaken like leaves in the wind at the mention of demons, let us remember from this story that demons cannot even possess pigs without prior permission from our Lord. As the servant of Elisha was told, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (2 Kings 6:16).

Some today have given demons far more than their due by blaming demons for every malady of mankind. There is the so-called demon of doubt, of anger, of overindulgence, of drunkenness, laziness and so on. Let me say as graciously as I can, Satan does not need to work on us in those areas as we are doing very well without his exploitation. There is, as we know, the world, the flesh, and the Devil. But for most of us, the world and the flesh are all that are necessary to cause us to stumble.

As I have been studying this account through the week, it has seemed to me a rather bizarre and remote situation, the liberation of this Gerasene demoniac. But having recalled a passage in Ephesians, I realize now that this man is a reminder of the dilemma of every man, woman, and child who have not come to a saving dependence upon the work of Jesus Christ for sinners on the cross. Paul says of the former life of the Christian, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 1:1-2).

How Satan blinds our minds! Men in their unbelief suppose that the choice is either to be free (independent of God) or to be the slaves of Christ. That is not the choice at all. The choice is to be free by submission to Christ (cf. John 8:32; Matthew 11:28-30), or to be the pawns of Satan (Ephesians 2:1-2). Unbelieving men may not rave and carry on like the Gerasene demoniac, but they are nevertheless under Satan’s control, doing his bidding. There is no true freedom and fulfillment apart from Jesus Christ, the Creator and Redeemer of men.

Finally, there is in demon possession a counterpart to the filling (or control) of the Holy Spirit. Just as demons desire to possess persons through whom they can exhibit their personalities, so the Spirit of God indwells man, imparting new life, and progressively gaining control so that the character of God is exhibited, but not in such a way as to hinder our individuality and identity. May the Spirit of God be so evident in us that men may see God in our lives.

110 C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1971), p. 3.

111 Edersheim maintains that it must have been late the same night of the storm: “Most writers have, indeed, suggested, that the healing of the demonized on the other side took place at early dawn of the day following the storm on the lake. But the distance is so short that, even making allowance for the delay by the tempest, the passage could scarcely have occupied the whole night. This supposition would be further confirmed, if ‘the evening’ when Jesus embarked was what the Jews were wont to call ‘the first evening,’ that is, the time when the sun was declining in the heaven, but before it had actually set, the latter time being ‘the second evening.’ For it seems most unlikely that multitudes would have resorted to Jesus at Capernaum after ‘the second evening,’ or that either the disciples or other boats would have put to sea after nightfall. On the other hand, the scene gains in grandeur—has, so to speak, a fitting background—if we suppose the Saviour and His disciples to have landed on the other side late in the evening, when perhaps the silvery moon was shedding her pale light on the weird scene, and laying her halo around the shadows cast upon the sea by the steep cliff down which the herd of swine hurried and fell. This would also give time afterwards for the dispersion, not only into ‘the city,’ but into ‘the country’ of them who had fed the swine. In that case, of course, it would be in the early morning that the Gerasenes afterwards resorted to Jesus and that He again returned to Capernaum. And, lastly, this would allow sufficient time for those miracles which took place on that second day in Capernaum after His return thither. Thus, all the circumstances lead us to regard the healing of the demonized at Gerasa as a night scene, immediately on Christ’s arrival from Capernaum, and after the calming of the storm at sea.” Alford Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), I, pp. 606-607.

112 Skeptics and liberals have made much of the differences between the Gospel writers as to the place Jesus landed with His disciples. Textual variations have compounded the problem. Lane believes the modern Kersa is the most likely place:

“The point of arrival is indicated in a general way as the district of the Gerasenes, most probably in reference to a town whose name is preserved in the modern Kersa or Koursi. At the side of Kersa the shore is level, and there are no tombs. But about a mile further south there is a fairly steep slope within forty yards from the shore, and about two miles from there cavern tombs are found which appear to have been used for dwellings.” William L. Lane, The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), p.181.

Earle’s comments are helpful: “The difference in names for the destination on the east side of the take has caused considerable comment. In the King James Version it is called the country of the Gadarenes in Mark and Luke, and of the Gergesenes in Matthew. As indicated in the textual note, the best Greek text reads Gerasenes in Mark and Luke, Gadarenes in Matthew. There seems to be no excuse here for the charge of contradiction. Dr. Thomson discovered on the eastern shore the ruins of a village called Khersa. This is probably the Gerasa of Mark and Luke. The reference could hardly be to the better known Gerasa (Jerash) between thirty and forty miles southeast from the lake. On the other hand, Gadara is only six miles from the southern tip of the lake and could easily have given its name to the district. Gergesa may have been a variant spelling of Gerasa.” Ralph Earle, The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), p. 70.

F. F. Bruce adds additional helpful insight: “According to the best texts, Matthew calls it “the country of the Gadarenes” (viii. 28); Mark “the country of the Gerasenes” (v. 1), and Luke, probably, “the country of the Gergesenes” (viii. 26). T. H. Huxley, in his Essays upon some Controverted Questions (1892), made merry over the escapade of the Gadarene swine, running the seven miles between Gadar and the lake of Galilee, crossing the deep river Yarmuk en route. The best known Gerasa was a Greek city nearly forty miles southeast of the lake (modern village of Khersa, on the east shore of the lake. Luke’s reading “Gergesenes” may represent even more accurately the ancient name of this place, as Origen knew of a Gergesa on the lake of Galilee. But the city of Gadara owned some territory round about Khersa, so that the district and the pigs could properly also be called Gadarene.” F. F. Bruce, Are the New Testament Documents Reliable? (London: InterVarsity Fellowship, 1950), fn. 1, pp. 61-62.

113 “According to the Talmud there were four characteristics of madness: walking abroad at night; spending the night on a grave; tearing one’s clothes and destroying what one was given. This man demonstrated all four characteristics.” Lane, Mark, p. 182, fn. 7.

114 We are indebted to Edersheim, who reminds us that the expression ‘demon possession’ never occurs in the New Testament: “The term ‘demoniacal possession’ occurs not in the New Testament. We owe it to Josephus, from whom it has passed into ecclesiastical language. We dismiss it the more readily, that, in our view, it conveys a wrong impression. The New Testament speaks of those who had a spirit, or a demon, or demons, or an unclean spirit, or the spirit of an unclean demon, but chiefly of persons who were ‘demonised.’” Edersheim, Life and Times, I, p. 479.

It is Geldenhuys who gives us the most concise description of ‘demon-possession’: “in the New Testament demon-possession means that a person is dominated by the spirit of a demon and tormented by him. It is noteworthy that it is distinguished (especially in the Gospel of the physician, Luke) from cases of ordinary sickness, insanity (“lunacy”), leprosy, blindness, lameness, deafness and other natural defects and diseases (cf. e.g., Matt. iv. 23, 24, viii. 16, x. 8; Mark vi. 13; Luke iv. 40, vii. 21,22). Accordingly this was not merely an ordinary form of mental disease as some writers have alleged, but a special phenomenon which was particularly frequent during Jesus’ earthly sojourn and thus was directly connected with His coming to destroy the power of darkness.

That the unclean spirits were personal beings is evident from what is related about their leaving a possessed person, talking or crying out, possessing knowledge concerning Jesus, as well as other supernatural knowledge—showing fear, and the like.

Demon-possession is, therefore, not merely a mental state in which someone suffers from a delusion or is subjected to some subjective disturbance of the world of ideas. Neither is it only a kind of physical disease, although spiritual and physical disease often accompany it (e.g. Matt. xii. 22, xvii. 15; Mark ix. 18).

It is noteworthy that Jesus nowhere speaks of forgiveness of sins or of purification-sacrifices, that have to be brought after His curing of such cases (as He did in some cases of physical illness). Those possessed are depicted throughout as unfortunate sufferers who by no fault of their own are dominated by evil spirits and who, when the spirits are cast out by Jesus, accept their deliverance with joy and gratitude (Mark v. 18-20, Luke viii. 2).

It should also be observed that nowhere in the Old Testament (except in I Sam. xvi. 14ff. and 1 Kings xxii. 22ff. where something similar occurs) is a demon-possession mentioned, and that outside the Gospels it is referred to only twice in the New Testament (Acts xvi. 16ff., xix. 13ff.). From this it is clear that demon-possession is a phenomenon which occurred almost exclusively, but then to be sure on an amazing scale, during Jesus’ appearance on earth and to a lesser extent during the activity of the apostles. For the reason why this is so we refer the reader to the introduction preceding the exposition of verses 33-7.

Although demon-possession after that time no longer occurs on such a devastating and noticeable scale, the absolute form of demon-possession will appear at the end of the age in the Antichrist and in his followers (2 Thess. ii. 9. Rev. xiii. 2ff., xvv. 8ff.). But then also Christ will triumph, and finally put an end to the evil one and all his powers of darkness (Rev. xvii. 14). Norval Geldenhuys, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951), p. 174.

Putting all of these factors together the term demon-possessed inplies too much. It indicates full and permanent control. This was surely not so in every case, and perhaps in none. Men and women (as well as children) were ‘demonized’ in that they fell under the influence of these unclean spirits. Some appeared not to be oppressed by them so much as exploiting their powers (cf. Acts 16:16), while others were the virtual pawns of these spirits, losing their own identity and autonomy. When addressed, the person was the mouthpiece of the demon (such as Legion, Mark 5:9). Demonized individuals are not to be viewed so much as a pigeon hole category, as they are a continuem. The spectrum ranges from those who seem to control the demonic powers to those who are utterly controlled by them. The best human analogy might be in the area of drug abuse. Some illicitly use drugs, supposing that they have them completely under their control. Others are absolutely controlled (hooked) by the drug and totally dependent upon it.

115 While Mark and Luke describe only one demoniac, Matthew informs us that there were two. There is no conflict, however, for Mark and Luke have apparently focused their attention on the most striking of the two.

116 As Lane observes this title ‘Son of the Most High God,’ “is not a messianic designation but a divine one.” Lane, Mark, p. 133, cf. especially fn. 14.

117 “... so that, by their own confession, a time is coming when there shall be an entire victory of the kingdom of light over that of darkness (Rev. xx. 10). All Scripture agrees with this, that the judgment of the angels is yet to come (1 Cor. vi. 3); they are ‘reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day’ (Jude 6); and what the unclean spirits deprecate here, is the bringing in, by anticipation, of that final doom.” R. C. Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1949), p. 100.

118 “H. Preisker, TWNT IV (1942), pp. 68f. recognizes the military background of the term, pointing out that in the imperial period a legion consisted of 6000 foot soldiers, 120 horsemen and technical personnel. The entrance of the term into colloquial speech indicates that the Roman occupation was a heavy burden. In this context, however, he insists that “legion” has nothing of its usual Roman military overtones, but is the designation of numerous powers which oppose themselves to Jesus as the embodiment of the power of God.” Lane, Mark, fn. 17, pp. 184-185.

119 Ibid., fn. 19, p. 185.

120 “The request is in both cases the same; for, according to Jewish notions, certain countries being assigned to evil as well as to good spirits, whose limits they were unable to overpass, to be sent out of their own country, no other being open to them, implied being sent into the abyss, or bottomless pit, since that remains for them alone.” Trench, Miracles , p. 101.

121 Trench, Miracles, p. 102.

122 Quoted by Alfred Plummer, The Gospel According to Saint Luke, (Edinburg: T. and T. Clark, 5th ed., 1969): p. 228.

123 “1. The whole story is a myth. 2. The healing of the demoniacs and the repulse of the Healer by the inhabitants are historical, but the incident of the swine is a later figment. 3. The demoniacs frightened the swine, and the transfer of demons from them to the swine was imagined. 4. The drowning of the swine was an accident, possibly simultaneous with the healing, and report mixed up the two incidents. 5. The demoniacs were mere maniacs, whom Jesus cured by humouring their fancies; and His giving leave to imaginary demons to enter into the swine, produced the story of the disaster to the herd.—All these explanations assume that the Gospel narratives are wholly or in part unhistorical.” Plummer, Luke, p. 228. (it should be added that Plummer himelf does not hold to any of these views.)

124 “Augustine: ‘The devils were driven out and permitted to go into the swine’; and Aquinas: ‘But that the swine were driven into the sea was no work of the divine miracle, but was the work of the devils by divine permission.’” Quoted by Trench, Miracles, fn. 4, p. 102.

125 This is the position of Lane, Mark, p. 187. The expression ‘to be with Jesus’ is used particularly of His disciples (cf. Mark 3:14).

126 Earle, Mark, p. 73.

127 “The view of Greek philosophy was that these were the spirits of those who lived in the Golden Age. They were not looked upon as necessarily evil in all cases. Hence there was demon-worship, the worship not necessarily of evil spirits; but of the spirits of those who had existed in the Golden Age.” G. Campbell Morgan, The Gospel According to Mark (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1927), p. 114.

128 “In most of the stories of possession what is at issue is not merely sickness but a destruction and distortion of the divine likeness of man according to creation. The center of personality, the volitional and active ego, is impaired by alien powers which seek to ruin the man and sometimes drive him to self-destruction (Mk. 5:5). The ego is so impaired that the spirits speak through him. Jesus is conscious that He now breaks the power of the devil and his angels because He is the One in whom the dominion of God is present on behalf of humanity.” W. Foerster, as quoted by Lane, Mark, fn. 4, p. 180.

10. Where There’s Death There’s Hope (Mark 5:21-43)

Introduction

Interruptions are always frustrating. I just get engrossed in reading the morning paper and my wife wants me to take out the garbage right away. I am out in the garage working on the car with my hands literally oozing with grease and I’m wanted on the phone. Interruptions are a part of life. Few of us would consider the possibility of God being interrupted, but this is precisely the case in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Mark. Jesus was on His way to heal a young girl on the verge of death, when He was interrupted by a women who was also in desperate need of help. For those of us who have not thought very deeply on the theological implications of divine interruptions, this passage invites us to engage in such a novel and noble enterprise.

As we look at the account of the healing of the daughter of Jairus in the synoptic¹²⁹ gospels, we find that in each of them the author interweaves the healing of the woman with a hemorrhage. The focus, I believe, is primarily upon the dying daughter, while the ailing woman is presented as a tragic, unnecessary and fatal interruption. As we work our way through the events of this great authenticating miracle, I want us to do so through the eyes of the synagogue official, sensing what must have been his feelings and fears as he learned to trust in the Lord Jesus, even when all the circumstances of life seemed to be working against him.

The Plea of Jairus
(5:21-24)

Jairus was an official of the synagogue, and as such he was a man of influence and prestige,¹³⁰ but when he came to Jesus he did so as a desperate father seeking to spare the life of his critically ill child. Jesus was not present at what seemed to be the ideal time to deal with the illness of this child. He had crossed over the Sea of Galilee and had not yet returned. I would imagine that the other little ships (Mark 4:36) which had followed Jesus into the middle of the lake and were caught in the storm had returned to port and had told of the miraculous stilling of the sea.

If I had been Jairus these reports would have been of little consolation, for they would only have served to underscore the tragedy that, though Jesus could have helped, He was not present. From Luke’s account (8:40), we know that when Jesus returned by boat from the other side of the lake there was a large crowd gathered which had been there waiting for the return of Jesus. It would not take much imagination to suppose that Jairus was one of the crowd, wringing his hands in dismay, knowing that even now his daughter may have passed away. Every minute was critical and the only One who could help was absent.

Using a bit of sanctified imagination, I can envision Jairus as being the first one to greet Jesus as He stepped from ship to shore. Mark tells us (verse 2) that Jairus fell at the feet of Jesus, beseeching Him to quickly come to the aid of his daughter who was on the verge of death. Mark graphically describes the pleading of the father and we can almost feel the intensity of the situation. Without delay, the Lord Jesus made His way to the home of this dying girl thronged by a host of on-lookers.

An Unwanted Interruption
(5:25-34)

Even the presence of the crowd must have been an irritation to Jairus, who would have looked upon these people only as a hindrance to more rapid travel to his home. Some may have wanted to ask questions or to be taught as on the day He had departed. Others might have asked for healing for themselves or others. Regardless, the crowd refused to be left behind. Perhaps they only lingered to see another miracle. If so, they were not accommodated (cf. 5:37).

One woman in the crowd is singled out by the gospel writers. She was a woman who had suffered from some kind of hemorrhage for twelve years. Her suffering was much more than physical, though that would have been enough. She suffered as much from her ‘cures’ as she did from her case of bleeding. From various sources we are informed as to the nature of some of these ‘cures.’

“Pliny’s Natural History reveals the generally low condition of medical science in the world at that time. Physicians were accustomed to prescribe doses of curious concoctions made from ashes of burnt wolf’s skull, stags’ horns, heads of mice, the eyes of crabs, owl’s brains, the livers of frogs and other like elements. For dysentery powdered horses’ teeth were administered, and a cold in the head was cured by kissing a mule’s nose.”¹³¹

From Jewish writings, such as the Talmud, we learn of some of these ‘cures’:

“One remedy consisted of drinking a goblet of wine containing a powder compounded from rubber, alum and garden crocuses. Another treatment consisted of a dose of Persian onions cooked in wine administered with the summons, ‘Arise out of your flow of blood!’ Other physicians prescribed sudden shock, or the carrying of the ash of an ostrich’s egg in a certain cloth.”¹³²

To add insult to injury (literally) this woman was also subjected to tremendous social pressures.¹³³ The nature of this woman’s illness fell under the stipulations of Leviticus 15, whereby she would have to be pronounced unclean. As such she had been an outcast for twelve years. She could not take part in any religious observances, nor could she have any public contact without defiling those whom she touched. Apparently, she was also forced to be separated from her husband.

Last of all, this pathetic woman has lost all of her financial resources. Mark tells us that she had spent all of her money on doctor bills, with no relief—indeed, with added affliction. And in those days, there was no such thing as a malpractice suit.

This unnamed woman, like Jairus, had heard that Jesus was back in their region and set out to find relief through His power. Conditioned, no doubt, by her long-term rejection and isolation she dared not approach Jesus to ask for a miracle. Her physical contact would defile all that she touched. The best she could hope for was a kind of secret healing. “I need not bother the Master,” she may have rationalized. “I but need to touch the hem of His garment.”¹³⁴ The faith of the woman may well have been mingled with magical ideas as to the power conveyed by one’s clothing.¹³⁵ Regardless of this, the moment she touched Jesus, she was healed.

After her healing, the woman probably began to shrink back into the faceless mob who were pushing and shoving for a look at the Master. To the great dismay of Jairus, Jesus stopped. It would seem that for an instant the crowd was perfectly silent. They expectantly waited to hear what Jesus would say, but they could not believe it when He questioned, “Who touched My garments?” (Mark 5:30).

The disciples considered such a question absolutely incredible, worse yet stupid. The rudeness of their thoughts was expressed by none other than the spokesman, Peter: “You see the multitude pressing in on You and You say, ‘Who touched me?’” (Mark 5:31, cf. Luke 3:45). Everybody was touching, pushing, shoving, grabbing at the Master. How could He ask such an insipid question, they thought.

Surely we are to understand that Jesus was not ignorant of what had happened, nor that He needed to be told who had touched Him. This miracle was not snitched from Jesus like a boy steals an apple off a peddler’s cart. Jesus, in His omniscience, knew the need of the woman before she ever put forth her hand to His garment. Knowing her faith, His power was granted for her healing.

Why, then, did Jesus ask this question? More than this, why did Jesus stop at such a critical time to ask the question? Surely Jesus knew the importance of time.

(1) Our Lord Jesus did not need to learn the woman’s identity. Mark does not tell us that Jesus looked to see who had touched Him, but, “He looked around to see the woman who had done this” (Mark 5:32).

(2) Our Lord delayed in order to give the woman the opportunity to give testimony to her healing. Had Jesus not stopped and asked who touched His garments, no one would have known of the miracle save Jesus and the woman. When she saw the eyes of Jesus fixed upon her, she knew that He knew everything. She had taken nothing from Him, but He had given healing to her. She now poured out her sad and miserable life story, telling how Jesus had done what all of medical science could not.

(3) Our Lord stopped in order to correct any misconceptions on the part of the woman. If there were any elements of magic in the thinking of this woman, Jesus swept them away by making it completely clear that it was her faith that had saved her, not her grasp on His clothing. Jesus touched many as He went about, but few of these found in physical contact with Him a wonder such as this. It was her relationship with Jesus by faith that made her whole.

(4) It has also been suggested that this was a gracious act of our Lord to make it publicly known that this woman had been made whole, so that she was no longer to be considered ceremonially unclean. ¹³⁶

(5) Most significantly in the context, this delay of Jesus resulted in a greater miracle, and greater faith on the part of Jairus, for now the young girl was not sick, but dead.

Upon this woman’s confession of faith, the Lord Jesus sent her off with the words, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your affliction” (Mark 5:34).

From Tragedy to Triumph:
The Raising of Jairus’ Daughter
(5:35-43)

If the disciples were irritated by our Lord’s seemingly unnecessary delay, you can well imagine that Jairus was fit to be tied. He know that at any moment his daughter would be dead, and here was Jesus making mountains out of mole hills. Why could He not have simply ignored the woman in view of the present crisis? I can remember only too well a number of years ago when my mother was seriously injured and bleeding severely. I rushed into the hospital to get help, and who should I encounter but a nurse who must have had her training in bureaucracy from the civil service. All she could think about was filling out the right form, and all I could think about was carrying her out to the car, if need be, to help my mother! Such must have been the frustration of Jairus, but how do you hurry God?

Jairus’ world came crashing down with the report of his servants that his daughter had died (verse 35). The common belief in his day, as ours, is that ‘where there’s life, there’s hope.’ And now all hope was gone. I can vividly remember the morning that my wife and I awoke to discover that our first and only son had died during the night, his crib just a step away from our bed. It was so obvious that he was gone. There was no life. There was no hope. That is the way Jairus felt.

Knowing that every ray of hope had been swept away by this announcement, Jesus ignored these words, and spoke encouragingly to Jairus, “Do not be afraid any longer, only believe” (Mark 5:36). His faith was faltering, and it was through faith that the child would be raised. Where there is life, there is hope. But with God, we must also believe that where there is death, there is hope as well.

Leaving the crowd with all of His disciples but the inner three, Jesus continued on to the home of the deceased daughter. Outside the home the commotion of a typical near-eastern funeral¹³⁷ had already begun (verse 38). All of this carrying-on was unnecessary our Lord informed the mourners, for this girl was asleep. By the expression ‘asleep,’ our Lord did not mean that this girl had not died, but was indirectly stating that for those who have entered the kingdom of God, death is not a permanent state, but a temporary one. Death could not claim this girl, for the Prince of Life was present.

Thinking our Lord to be either naive or completely self-deceived the professional mourners mocked and ridiculed Him by their laughter. They knew death when they saw it. Such unbelief will never witness the power of God and so these people were put outside, with only our Lord, the inner three (Peter, James and John), and the parents going to where the girl’s body had been lain.

The actual event was both simple and sweet. With a couple of softly spoken words, our Lord took the young girl by the hand and lifted her up so that she began to walk about. Earle, sensing the tenderness of this event, suggests that these words, spoken in Aramaic (verse 41), could have been the very familiar words of the mother of this girl by which she was awakened at the dawn of every new day.¹³⁸ The result was that those who witnessed this great miracle were completely astonished (verse 42).

The Lord of life and death gave these overjoyed parents two instructions. First of all, no one was to be told the details of this miracle. Now by this we understand that it was impossible for those outside not to know that this girl had been raised from death. But what Jesus commands is that the details of that healing be withheld, and, I would suspect, that the deliverance of their daughter from death be kept a secret until Jesus was well on His way.¹³⁹

The second instruction was that this girl be given something to eat. What a human touch. This spectacular miracle did not nullify the natural physical needs of the child. Our Lord is so deeply concerned with His creatures, even with such an insignificant thing as a needed meal.

Conclusions and Application

Historical Interpretation

Mark’s primary reason for including this interrupted miracle, I believe, was to authenticate the claims of Jesus to the Messiah of Israel. When viewed as a whole, the four miracles of Mark 4 and 5 prove Jesus to be not only the Messiah, but Lord of all. He is Lord of creation as shown in the stilling of the storm. He is Lord over Satan and his demons as shown by the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac. He is Lord over sickness and even death, as revealed in the healing of the hemorrhaging woman and the raising of the dead daughter of Jairus.

It is helpful to recall that in each of these cases the individuals were completely helpless and hopeless, and that others were totally incapable of helping then either. The storm on the lake terrified experienced sailors. The demoniac could not be subdued by anyone (5:3,4). The hemorrhaging woman had been seeing doctors for twelve years with only a worsening condition. The young girl was no longer ailing, but dead. In the most hopeless cases which men could present to Jesus, there was healing, deliverance, and salvation.

Not only does Mark demonstrate the power of our Lord Jesus, but he also reveals His person. What we see in these passages is not just that God is a God of infinite power, but that He is a God of infinite compassion and tenderness. He is deeply touched by human needs. He is sensitive to our sufferings and trials in life. He cares not only for the raising up and putting down of kingdoms, but also for the missed meal at a time of illness.

Those of us who are so-called ‘Calvinists’ are known for our emphasis on the severity of God. We must proclaim to men the bad news of sin, of the righteous indignation of God, and of the eternal punishment men face apart from faith in Christ. But as Paul reminds us, “Behold then the kindness and severity of God” (Romans 11:22a). In emphasizing the severity of God, let us not represent God as austere and aloof, for He is a God of infinite kindness. Nowhere is that more clear than in these miracles recorded by Mark in the fourth and fifth chapters.

Implications and Applications

There is much instruction in the interrupted miracle for those who have never yet come to a personal faith in Jesus Christ. Perhaps you are like those in the crowd who brushed against the Master, but never reached out in faith. Perhaps you have heard the Gospel many times, and in an intellectual sort of way, for as James warns us, even the demons believe that much (James 2:19). What made the difference for this woman was that she recognized her complete and total inability to help herself. She looked to Jesus as her only hope of healing. When you come to a genuine conversion experience with Christ, you must reach the point of realizing your total inability to do anything which will ever contribute to your eternal salvation. You, like this woman, must look to Jesus to provide what you cannot. When Jesus came to the earth, He lived a perfect and sinless life. This qualified Him to die on the cross, not for His sins, but for yours (2 Corinthians 5:21). In place of our wretchedness, He offers His righteousness. Relying fully on Him alone is what will save you, just as this woman’s faith saved her.

To look at this same lesson from a slightly different light, let us consider the raising of the dead daughter. We would say, ‘Where there is life, there is hope.’ But when it comes to salvation, this is not the case. So long as we think that there is so much as one spark of goodness, one flickering possibility that we can do something to contribute to our own eternal salvation, we are hopeless. So far as salvation is concerned, it is only where there is death that there is hope. When we come to the point of agreeing with Paul that we are dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1,2), then we shall look to Jesus alone as the source of life. May God grant that you will turn to Him, Who alone can save those who are dead in their trespasses and sins.

But there is a lesson here for the Christian as well. It is a lesson in divine delays. Perhaps we might call them unanswered prayers. Here I mean those times in our lives when we think everything around us is collapsing and yet God seems to be puttering around heaven, totally unconcerned about our trials and tragedies in life. May I suggest to you that delays are by divine design. Our Lord deliberately tarried here, just as He did at the report of the sickness of Lazarus, so that when He did act there was no question of who should receive the credit and the glory. Surely these miracles inform us that delays are not due to our Lord’s lack of concern for us, for He is sensitive to the most insignificant needs (such as a meal). It is the purpose of God that these delays will result in greater glory for Himself, and greater faith for us. How beautifully this interrupted miracle illustrates the truth of Romans 8:28: “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

129 The synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, are referred to in this manner because they record the gospel in a similar fashion, as distinguished from the unique approach of John. The term ‘synoptic’ means ‘to see together.’ For further information, consult Everett Harrison, Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), pp. 136ff.

130 “The chief function of the ruler of the synagogue was the conducting of divine service; he determined the persons who were to take part in public prayer or reading of the Scripture; he invited those with suitable capacity for the preaching of the sermon; he saw to it that everything was carried on in an orderly and decent manner.” Strack-Billerback as quoted by Norval Geldenhuys, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951), p. 263, fn. 2.

131 J. W. Shepard, The Christ of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939), p. 240.

132 William Lane, The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), p. 192, fn. 46. Edersheim’s observation is interesting.

“On one leaf of the Talmud not less than eleven different remedies are proposed, of which at most only six can possibly be regarded as astringents or tonics, while the rest are merely the outcome of superstition, to which resort is had in the absence of knowledge. But what possesses real interest is, that, in all cases where astringents or tonics are prescribed, it is ordered, that, while the woman takes the remedy, she is to be addressed in the words: ‘Arise (Qum) from thy flux.’ It is not only that physical means are apparently to accompany the therapeutical in this disease, but the coincidence in the command, Arise (Qum), with the words used by Christ in raising Jairus’ daughter is striking.” Alford Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), I, p. 620.

133 “According to the Jewish ideas of that time the woman was an utter out cast on account of her disease—she was not allowed to take part in any religious proceedings, could not come into the temple, could not touch other persons and had to be separated from her husband. Her disease came within the scope of the regulations of Leviticus xv. So she was not only impoverished through having had to give all her possessions to physicians in the hope that they might heal her—she was a despised and solitary woman. If her cure had taken place without the Saviour making it known publicly, she would have had the utmost difficulty in removing from the inhabitants of the town the prejudice and scorn that she had met with for years. For this reason the Saviour, who knew her in all her need and sorrows, and understood her circumstances ‘makes her appear before the whole multitude to testify publicly that she has been healed.’” Geldenhuys, p. 261.

134 For a detailed description of the kind of clothing worn by a Rabbi in Jesus’ day, cf. Edersheim, Life and Times, Volume 1, pp. 620 ff.

135 Lane, Mark, p. 192, fn. 47.

136 Cf. Geldenhuys, Luke, p. 261, or fn. 5 above.

137 “Arriving at the house Jesus saw that preparations had been made already for the funeral. The minstrels and professional mourners were performing their duties as the first part of the mourning ceremony. The wailing consisted of choral or antiphonal song accompanied by handclapping. Since even the poorest man was required by common custom to hire a minimum of two flute players and one professional mourner in the event of his wife’s death, it is probable that one who held the rank of synagogue ruler would be expected to hire a large number of professional mourners.” Lane, Mark, p. 196.

138 Ralph Earle, The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1957), p. 77.

139 “Special motivation for the injunction to silence may be found in the rank unbelief of those who had ridiculed Jesus with their scornful laughter. It is clear throughout Mark that Jesus revealed his messiahship only with reserve. It is appropriate to this consistent pattern of behavior that he was unwilling to make himself known to the raucous, unbelieving group that had gathered outside Jairus’ house. He did not permit them to witness the saving action by which the girl was restored to her parents, and he directed that it should continue to remain unknown to those outside. He recognized that the responsibility of the parents in this regard could not continue indefinitely. When the child appeared in public the facts would speak for themselves. The parents could, however, withhold what had happened and thus fulfill the intention of Jesus. Before it was known that the girl was yet alive, the purpose for which the charge had been given would have been fulfilled; Jesus would have departed and could no longer be subject to ostentatious acclaim.” Lane, Mark, pp. 198-199.

Edersheim gives this explanation for the somewhat confusing command not to publish what could hardly be kept secret.

“And perhaps this may help us to understand one of the reasons for the prohibition of telling what had been done by Jesus, while in other instances silence was not enjoined. Of course, there were occasions such as the raising of the young man at Naian and of Lazarus—when the miracle was done so publicly, that a command of this kind would have been impossible. But in other cases may this not be the Line of Demarcation, that silence was not enjoined when a result was achieved which, according to the notions of the time, might have been attributed to other than direct Divine Power, while in the latter cases publicity was (whenever possible) forbidden? And this for the twofold reason, that Christ’s Miracles were intended to aid, not to supersede, faith; to direct to the Person and Teaching of Christ, as that which proved the benefit to be real and Divine; not to excite the carnal Jewish expectancies of the people, but to lead in humble discipleship to the Feet of Jesus. In short, if only those were made known which would not necessarily imply Divine Power (according to Jewish notions), then would not only the distraction and tumult of popular excitement be avoided, but in each case faith in the Person of Christ be still required, ere the miracles were received as evidence of His Divine claim. And this need of faith was the main point.” Edersheim, Life and Times, I, pp. 618-619.

Related Topics: Christology, Soteriology (Salvation), Miracles

11. Israel’s Hour of Decision (John 6:1-71)

Introduction

Nearly all of us have had the experience of having unexpected guests drop in and end up staying for dinner. While I was attending seminary, my wife and I began to invite people from church over for dinner. Though times were difficult, Jeanette had prepared some cabbage rolls, stretching our meager supply of hamburger to the point where we could invite someone home for dinner. We went to church that morning, not knowing who we would invite. After the service Jeannette informed me that she had invited one couple, and I added that I, too, had invited a couple. There was no problem we thought for there were plenty of cabbage rolls for all. When we arrived home with our guests, the house was filled with smoke. The oven had been turned up too high and the dinner was burned to a crisp. Jeannette could not understand how it could have happened, since she checked the oven just before she walked out the door. The only problem was that I checked it, too. It was a five dollar stove, and it had no thermostat as most ovens do today. You judged the oven temperature by the height of the flame. Well, to me it didn’t look high enough, so I set it up just enough to burn up the entire dinner.

You can imagine the consternation at our house that Sunday with two families arriving for dinner and nothing but ashes in the oven. Well, as bad as that was, it could not compare to the situation in John chapter 6 where somewhere around 20,000 folks showed up and stayed late for dinner. This, as you will recognize, was the situation facing our Lord and His disciples prior to the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 men.

The significance of this miracle is apparent even at the surface, for it is the only miracle (with the exception of the resurrection) which is recorded in all four gospels. Of far greater importance, this event was indeed the ‘hour of decision’ for the nation Israel. Jesus had long since been written off as a candidate for Messiah by the Jewish leadership, but His popularity among the masses was at its peak. The discourse on the ‘bread of life’ which was the sequel to this miracle was the determining factor for many which caused them to cease following Jesus as their potential Messiah. It is for this reason that we shall give our attention to this crucial event in the life and ministry of our Lord.

The Feeding of the 5,000
(John 6:1-15)

It is only when we put all of the gospel accounts together and get a composite picture that we can ascertain the setting for this great miracle. Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee for several reasons. First of all, Herod had just put John the Baptist to death (Matthew 14:1-12), and he was also eager to see Jesus (Luke 9:9). It was not without good reason that Jesus retired to a desert place on the mountains near Bethsaida, just outside the jurisdiction of Herod.

Second, the disciples had been sent out as apostles to proclaim the message of the Kingdom (Mark 6:7-13). As a result of their taxing ministry, the Lord recognized the need for rest and relaxation, as well as time for reflection. It was to be a time of retreat (Mark 6:31).

Third, to put all of the factors together, the Messianic expectations of the people were at an all time high, dangerously so. Since John the Baptist was dead, all eyes were upon Jesus as his successor. The Jews were ready to throw off the shackles of Rome. Further, the apostles had just been on a campaign preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God. Thus, expectations were heightened. Finally, it was the time of the Passover (John 6:4); there were many zealous Jews who had made the pilgrimage to the Holy Land and the spirit of religious expectation and enthusiasm, due to the season, was unusually high. All of these factors combined to make an explosive situation, one which should be allowed to cool off if at all possible.

For these reasons, our Lord and His disciples set off for the other side of the lake by boat, rather than by land so as not to attract attention. Perhaps because the ship was well-known,¹⁴⁰ it was recognized as it made its way to the other side of the lake. Many people ran ahead by land, gathering a larger and larger crowd as they went. Some of these people actually arrived before the little ship, while the rest arrived somewhat later.

When the Lord saw these sheep without any shepherd (remember that John was now gone) He was moved with compassion. He began to teach them much about the Kingdom, as well as to heal many who were sick (Luke 9:11). It would seem that early in the day our Lord raised the question of how this large group was to be fed (John 6:5ff.). As the day wore on,¹⁴¹ the impact of our Lord’s earlier question began to grip the disciples. Their solution was to send the crowds away and let them fend for themselves. There is probably a great deal of their humanity disclosed here, for they had come expecting a quiet day with the Lord to themselves. They had probably seen all the people they cared to on their preaching tour.

The impossibility of the situation was brought out by our Lord’s discussion with Phillip. According to Shepard,¹⁴² Phillip, in bookkeeper-like fashion, computed the cost for each person to receive even a bit of a snack. When the disciples were told to assess the situation more carefully, five loaves (not loaves in the sense that we know them but more like biscuits that didn’t rise) and two small sardine-like fishes were found in the possession of a boy. But how could this be of any help?

Our Lord instructed His disciples to have the men sit in companies of 50 or 100, the women and children sitting apart from the men, in typical Jewish fashion.¹⁴³ After blessing the loaves and fishes,¹⁴⁴ Jesus distributed the food by means of the disciples. Although the meal was not a luxurious one,¹⁴⁵ it was very adequate, for all who ate were filled (John 6:12). The unused portions were collected so as not to be wasted, and, significantly, there were twelve baskets¹⁴⁶ full, one for each disciple to carry, as I would take it, an object lesson.

This miracle has been variously explained. The liberals, trying at all costs to avoid the supernatural, have explained this as a ‘miracle’ in the hearts of the crowd. These selfish folks had brought plenty of food along, we are told, but they did not want to share it with those who had none. When the example of the generous little boy was put before the crowd by Jesus, everyone felt ashamed and brought out their food to share with the rest. Surely this does not fit the gospel accounts. Others say that it was a sacramental meal, with each person receiving a mere tidbit, just as we do in a communion service. It is hard to see how the crowds could be ‘filled’ by such a fragment. It is also hard to see how so little food could be divided among such a large crowd. The only logical interpretation is to understand it as the gospel writers have recorded it as a full-fledged miracle. If we are not willing to accept it as such, then let us call these writers deceivers and their works mere fiction.

Matthew and Mark inform us that Jesus forcefully instructed His disciples to get into the boat and go on ahead of Him to Bethsaida, while He remained behind to dismiss the crowds. John tells us the reason for what must have seemed highly unusual to the disciples: the crowd had determined to make Jesus their king. Jesus had sought retreat from the crowds, due to their heightened messianic expectations, but instead they gathered about Him, and now He performed this miracle which further added fuel to the flames of their hopes for Messiah. It was difficult enough to deal with the crowd alone. His disciples (with their own messianic hopes running high, perhaps higher than the crowd’s) would have only made matters worse.

Walking on the Sea
(6:16-21)

Our Lord, having dismissed the crowd, went off by Himself to pray (Matthew 14:23). He may have originally intended to walk to the other side of the lake, just as the crowds had come. Looking out from His mountain place of prayer, Jesus may have seen the disciples struggling at the oars, and set out across the lake to help them. As the Lord drew near they supposed that they were seeing a ghost, and cried out in fear (Mark 6:49,50). Immediately, as our Lord got into the ship, the winds became calm and they were at their destination. The amazement of the disciples was due to their hardness of heart (Mark 6:51-52). In particular, Mark informs us that they did not understand about the loaves (6:52). If I understand the passage correctly, the incident with the loaves should have proved Jesus to be One greater than Moses. If the disciples had realized that they were with One Who was greater than Moses, then just as the Lord had provided bread from above, so He could make a path through the sea. They should not at all have been astounded at what took place, for it was the logical corollary to the feeding of the 5,000.

Discourse on the Bread of Life
(6:22-59)

The miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 was a sign (John 6:14) which pointed to a deeper spiritual truth about the person of Jesus Christ. John is the writer who records the discourse on the ‘bread of life’ given by our Lord on the following day. The crowds interpreted the miracle in the light of their distorted messianic hopes. Since Jesus was not this kind of messiah, He sent the crowds away in bewildered disappointment. In this discourse, He indicated the difference in His program, correcting their misconceptions.

The messianic kingdom for which the Jews waited was completely materialistic. Edersheim describes it this way:

“What they waited for, was a Kingdom of God—not in righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Ghost, but in meat and drink—a kingdom with miraculous wilderness banquets to Israel, and of coarse miraculous triumphs over the Gentiles. Not to speak of the fabulous Messianic banquet which a sensuous realism expected, or of the achievements for which it looked, every figure in which prophets had clothed the brightness of those days was first literalised, and then exaggerated, till the most glorious poetic descriptions became the most repulsively incongruous caricatures of spiritual Messianic expectancy. The fruit trees were every day, or at least every week or two, to yield their riches, the fields their harvests; the grain was to stand like palm trees, and to be reaped and winnowed without labour. Similar blessings were to visit the vine; ordinary trees would bear little fruit trees, and every produce, of every clime, would be found in Palestine in such abundance and luxuriance as only the wildest imagination could conceive.”¹⁴⁷

Not finding Jesus at the place where the 5,000 had been fed, the multitude made their way to Capernaum, and when they found Him they asked, “Rabbi, when did You get here?” (John 6:25).

Perhaps they sensed another miracle had taken place and were hoping to draw the details out of Him. But Jesus brushed this question aside, to get to the true motivation for seeking Him. They were not seeking Him for His presence, but for His presents. It was not Jesus that they sought, but some kind of ‘great society’ where men would no longer have to work in order to eat. To put it in yet another way, they did not receive the miracle of the preceding day as a sign, but only as a mere miracle (verse 26). They did not consider the purpose of the miracle, but only sought for the perpetuation of it. It was, at best, a kind of ‘soup line’ mentality revealed in those who were seeking after Jesus. Their eyes were not on the person, but on the provision.

As a sign, the feeding of the 5,000 signified that Jesus was a person who had to be taken seriously. More than this, He should have been acknowledged as One on Whom God had set His seal (John 6:27). Again we see that the miracles of our Lord were accomplished to authenticate the claims of Jesus to be the Son of God, Israel’s Messiah. It was not the person of Jesus that they sought, but His power: “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” (John 6:28).

They perceived Jesus to be no different than any other Jew. If He could work such miracles, so could they. They merely asked Him how to duplicate the works that He did. According to Jesus, the only work acceptable to God (and accomplished by God) is the work of faith. “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (John 6:29).

The Jews perceived that Jesus was attempting to shift their attention from the bread of the previous day to Himself. Consequently, they urged Him to produce some spectacular sign to verify His claim to be their Messiah: “What then do You do for a sign, that we may see, and believe You?” (John 6:30).

Here the gauntlet was thrown down before our Lord. “If You are the Messiah, prove it!” “If Moses provided bread in the wilderness for forty years, let’s see You do better.” By this, they insisted that Jesus should produce better bread and for a longer period of time.

But this was exactly the point. They had fixed their focus only an the physical bread. Now they fixed their eyes on Jesus only as the instrument through which bread was given. Ultimately, it was not Moses who gave the bread, but God. The manna was bread from heaven. Jesus came not as a mere provider of bread, but as the bread from heaven. The superiority of Jesus over Moses was not just to be sought in the period over which the bread would be provided, but in the effect which it produced. The bread which was given in the wilderness did not give eternal life, for they all died (verse 49). The bread which God has provided in Christ is far better, for it gives eternal life. Those who taste of it will never again hunger or thirst for what it provides (verses 50,51).

Although Jesus attracted the multitudes with His works, He repelled them by His words as recorded in verses 32-59. His words were the truth necessary for the moment, both to correct misconceptions concerning Messiah and His Kingdom and to cool the feverish expectation of Messiah’s return in splendor and great power. What He did not accomplish by retreating to a remote spot, He achieved by His discourse on the bread of life. We shall summarize His teaching in seven striking statements.

(1) The issue is not one of physical bread, but spiritual. The kingdom which the Jews sought was almost exclusively material, while that which Jesus came to institute was primarily (though not exclusively) spiritual. He came not to provide free meals, but to satisfy man’s spiritual hunger by the free gift of salvation. Consequently, our Lord could claim that His program was vastly superior to that of Moses.

(2) Christ’s Kingdom was not one established by the good works of (as Israel supposed), but on the basis of faith (verse 29).

(3) Christ came not as a spectacular wonder worker but as the wonder. There was in Israel at this time (as with us in our own time) a craving for the spectacular. It was because of this that Satan challenged Jesus to make a spectacular death-defying leap from the pinnacle of the temple (Matthew 4:5,6). It was the spectacular provision of bread and the mighty miracles of Jesus which attracted the crowds. They sought the works to the neglect of the Worker. It was He that was the wonder, not so much His deeds. They were preoccupied only with the spectacular works.

(4) Those who are to enter Christ’s Kingdom do so by means of election and divine drawing. The Jews supposed that by virtue of their national origin and religious works they were assured of a place in the Kingdom. They thought that they could manipulate Messiah into adapting to their conception of the Kingdom. Quite the opposite was true, our Lord revealed. Entrance into the Kingdom is not ultimately a matter of our choice, but God’s. It is not we who bring God to us, but God Who draws us to Himself.

“All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me; and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37).

“No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:44).

Every Israelite does not have a reserved seat in the kingdom, but only such as submit to the rule of Jesus as their Messiah. The issue is solely one of receiving Christ or rejecting Him (cf. John 6:36,40,45,47).

(5) The Kingdom of our Lord is not merely for the present, but also for eternity. We speak sometimes of our own age as the ‘now generation.’ By this we point out that those in our day live only for the present. So it was in Israel in our Lord’s manifestation as Messiah. Their concept of the Kingdom was material, not spiritual. It was present, not future. The Kingdom of our Lord Jesus is both present and future. The present manifestation is predominantly spiritual, followed in the future by more physical and material dimensions. So it is that our Lord spoke here of the future aspects of His Kingdom instead of what the Jews wanted now.

“For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son, and believes in Him, may have eternal Life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40).

“No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:44)

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life” (John 6:47).

It is no wonder that the theme of resurrection is so prominent in their discourse.

(6) The watchword of the Kingdom is not self-satisfaction, but self-sacrifice. The Jews sought the Kingdom largely for what it would do for them. They projected their own desires into their concept of messiah. They had no intention of entering into a Kingdom which taught self-sacrifice and denial, much less a Messiah Who would die, rather than deliver them from the tyranny of Rome. But Jesus insisted in speaking of His destiny as that of giving His body and His blood for others:

“‘I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread also which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ Jesus therefore said to them, ‘Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life; and I will raise him up on the last day’” (John 6:51,53-54).

Popular Reaction
(6:60-65)

The discourse on the bread of life revealed that Jesus’ concept of the Kingdom was diametrically opposed to the popular expectations of the masses in Israel. As a result, there was a negative reaction. “Many therefore of His disciples, when they heard this said, ‘This is a difficult statement, who can listen to it?’” (John 6:60).

The masses are not troubled because they cannot understand what Jesus has said but precisely because they have understood Him too well. It was not difficult to comprehend but hard to cope with, for it failed to line up with their own distorted views of the Kingdom of God.

Once again, Jesus made no effort to modify or re-state His doctrine so as not to lose popular support. He rather sharpened the issue. If they stumbled at His teaching, how much more would they be distressed at His ascension to return to the right hand of the Father (verse 62). They had chosen to understand God’s Word in an almost crassly literal way, while our Lord’s were more metaphorical. He did not teach the eating of His literal flesh, but of making His person and work a vital part of themselves (verse 63).¹⁴⁸ The real problem, as always, was that of unbelief (verse 64), just as was the case with Judas. They appeared to be true disciples, but were in reality only thrill seekers and deadbeats, looking for a handout. Their unbelief was to be expected for they could only come by means of the Father’s drawing (verse 65).

The Decision of the Twelve Disciples
(6:66-71)

Those who followed Jesus were all called ‘disciples’ (cf. verse 66), but the dividing line was about to be drawn. When the masses heard the discourse they went their way in unbelief. When Jesus’ disciples were given the opportunity to back away, Peter answered for the twelve when he said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. And we have believed that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69).

Here was the response of Jesus’ most intimate followers. They had no other options, for He was the only One Who had the words of life. Yet, even at this point, the betrayal of Jesus by Judas was known to the Master (vv. 70-71).

Conclusion and Application

Historically, the feeding of the 5,000 and the discourse on the Bread of Life was the turning of the tide of national sentiment away from Jesus as Messiah. With the death of John the Baptist, every eye was upon Jesus as his successor. But Jesus’ teaching made it clear that He did not come to conform to the popular thinking about Messiah.

By way of application to us today, it is most interesting to note that in Jesus’ presentation of Himself as Messiah, He refused to accommodate their entirely materialistic ideas and expectations. How different it is in our day and age when men and women proclaim the Gospel, not in terms of its spiritual demands, but in the light of its material benefits. We make it sound as though God is promising a utopian life of unusual and continual blessings for whoever gives at least lip service to Christ.

The real focus of the gospel of our Lord was not on the matter of self-gratification and indulgence, but rather on sacrifice and death. Jesus came to die for men’s sins and only those who have accepted the suffering Savior will reign with Him. Such is the great divide in Christianity. Many are those who name the name of Christ and who call themselves Christians. But when the matter comes down to suffering, they quickly go their way (cf. Mark 4:16-17).

Then, too, we are reminded by this passage that salvation comes not by mere mental ascent, the polite tipping of the hat to Jesus (as a good man, a good teacher, etc.), but by the bowing of the knee, by the actual and personal acceptance of His person and work on the cross of Calvary. It is not just a matter of believing about Him, but of trusting in Him alone for eternal salvation.

140 “St. Mark vi. 32 has it ‘by (or rather in) the ship,’ with the definite article. Probably it was the same boat that was always at His disposal, perhaps belonging to the sons of Jonas or to the sons of Zebedee.” Alford Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), I, p. 678, fn. 2.

141 “For already the bright spring day was declining, and what was called ‘the first evening’ had set in. For the Jews reckoned two evenings, although it is not easy to determine the exact hour when each began and ended. But, in general, the first evening may be said to have begun when the sun declined, and it was probably reckoned as lasting to about the ninth hour, or three o’clock of the afternoon. Then began the period known as ‘between the evenings,’ which would be longer or shorter according to the season of the year, and which terminated with ‘the second evening’—the time from when the first star appeared to that when the third star was visible. With the night began the reckoning of the following day.” Edersheim, Life and Times, I, p. 681.

142 J. W. Shepard, The Christ of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939), p. 262.

143 “In keeping with Eastern customs, according to which the women and children were kept apart, the men alone appear to have sat down in the order indicated. This explains why, as say the synoptic Gospels, they alone were counted, besides women and children.” Godet, quoted by R. C. Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1949), p. 166, fn. 3.

144 “There can be little doubt, therefore, that the words which Jesus spake, whether in Aramean, Greek, or Hebrew, were those so well known: ‘Blessed art Thou, Jehovah our God, King of the world, Who causes to come forth … bread from the earth.’” Edersheim, Life and Times, I, p. 684.

145 “When we read that these five were barley-loaves, we learn that, no doubt from voluntary choice, the fare of the Lord and of His followers was the poorest. Indeed, barley-bread was, almost proverbially, the meanest. Hence, as the Mishnah puts it, while all other meal-offerings were of wheat, that brought by the woman accused of adultery was to be of barley, because (so R. Gamaliel puts it), ‘as her deed is that of animals, so her offering is also of the food of animals.’” Edersheim, Life and Times, I, pp. 681-682.

146 “The word for basket here (kophinos) means a wicker container such as the disciples would have used for carrying provisions on a journey. Juvenal mentions it as used by poor Roman Jews. They carried their own provisions so as not to be defiled by eating Gentile food.” Ralph Earle, The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1957), p. 87.

147 Edersheim, Life and Times, II, p. 28.

“This may be illustrated from the prophecy concerning the messianic age in II Baruch 29:5, “The earth also shall yield its fruit ten thousandfold and on each (?) vine there shall be a thousand branches, and each branch shall produce a thousand clusters, and each cluster produce a thousand grapes, and each grape produce a cor (about 120 gallons) of wine.” Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), p. 364, fn. 87.

148 “The idea of eating, as a metaphor for receiving spiritual food and the benefits flowing there from, was familiar to the Jews. ‘In the Rabbinical literature, sacred instruction was called bread and those who eagerly absorb it were said to eat it.’ ‘Thy words were found and I did eat them’ (Jer. 15:16). In the Talmud Hillel says: ‘The Messiah is not likely to come to Israel, for they have already eaten Him in the days of Hezekiah.’ The Rabbis spoke of their instruction as ‘the whole stay of bread.’ It was a common saying among the Jews: ‘In the time of the Messiah the Israelites will be fed by Him.’” Shepard, The Christ of the Gospels, p. 275.

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2. The Invasion of Planet Earth

Introduction

The Investigation of the Birth of Christ in the Gospels

The Interpretation of the Gospel Accounts of Our Lord’s Birth

The Implications of the Incarnation

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3. John the Baptist

Introduction

The Message

The Man

Application

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4. The Baptism and Temptation of Messiah

Introduction

The Baptism of Our Lord

The Temptation of Our Lord

The First Temptation

The Second Temptation

The Third Temptation

Overview

Applications

We can learn much about the ever-present reality of temptation.

We learn a great deal concerning the biblical concept of submission.

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5. The Manifestation of Messiah (John 1:29-2:25)

Introduction

The Declaration of John the Baptist (1:29-34)

The Drawing of the Disciples (1:35-51)

The Wedding at Cana (2:1-11)

The Incident in the Temple(2:13-22)

Overview: Interpretation and Applications

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6. The Manifestation of Messiah to Nicodemus (John 3:1-21)

Introduction

The Man Who Met the Messiah (3:1)

The Theology of Nicodemus Turned Upside-Down(3:2-15)

The Heart of God and the Hearts of Men (3:16-21)

Conclusion and Application

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7. The Manifestation of Messiah to the Samaritan Woman (John 4:1-42)

Introduction

The Conversion of the Samaritan Woman (4:1-26)

The Disciples Instructed (4:27-38)

The Salvation of a City (4:39-42)

Interpretation and Application

Historic Interpretation

Lessons for Living

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8. The Meaning of the Miracles (Mark 4:35-41)

Introduction

The Terms Employed

Classification of the Miracles

Characteristics of the Miracles of Our Lord

The Purpose of the Miracles

The Stilling of the Storm(Mark 4:35-41)

Application

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9. The Gerasene Demoniac (Mark 5:1-20)

Introduction

The Setting (5:1)

The Malady of the Madman (5:2-5)

The Confrontation and Casting Out (5:6-13)

The Response of the Residents(5:14-17)

The Response of the Released Demoniac (5:18-20)

Conclusion and Application

The Historical Interpretation

Implications and Applications

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10. Where There’s Death There’s Hope (Mark 5:21-43)

Introduction

The Investigation of the
Birth of Christ in the Gospels

The Interpretation of the
Gospel Accounts of Our Lord’s Birth

The Declaration of John the Baptist
(1:29-34)

The Drawing of the Disciples
(1:35-51)

The Wedding at Cana
(2:1-11)

The Incident in the Temple
(2:13-22)

Overview:
Interpretation and Applications

The Man Who Met the Messiah
(3:1)

The Theology of Nicodemus Turned Upside-Down
(3:2-15)

The Heart of God and the Hearts of Men
(3:16-21)

The Conversion of the Samaritan Woman
(4:1-26)

The Disciples Instructed
(4:27-38)

The Salvation of a City
(4:39-42)

The Stilling of the Storm
(Mark 4:35-41)

The Setting
(5:1)

The Malady of the Madman
(5:2-5)

The Confrontation and Casting Out
(5:6-13)

The Response of the Residents
(5:14-17)

The Response of the Released Demoniac
(5:18-20)

The Plea of Jairus
(5:21-24)

An Unwanted Interruption
(5:25-34)

From Tragedy to Triumph:
The Raising of Jairus’ Daughter
(5:35-43)

The Feeding of the 5,000
(John 6:1-15)

Walking on the Sea
(6:16-21)

Discourse on the Bread of Life
(6:22-59)

Popular Reaction
(6:60-65)

The Decision of the Twelve Disciples
(6:66-71)