9:18-27 It is an unspeakable comfort that our Lord Jesus is God's Anointed; this signifies that he was both appointed to be the Messiah, and qualified for it. Jesus discourses concerning his own sufferings and death. And so far must his disciples be from thinking how to prevent his sufferings, that they must prepare for their own. We often meet with crosses in the way of duty; and though we must not pull them upon our own heads, yet, when they are laid for us, we must take them up, and carry them after Christ. It is well or ill with us, according as it is well or ill with our souls. The body cannot be happy, if the soul be miserable in the other world; but the soul may be happy, though the body is greatly afflicted and oppressed in this world. We must never be ashamed of Christ and his gospel.

Verse 26. - For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels. Here follows the punishment in the world to come. It consists in the Judge's solemn award to the man who has succeeded in saving his life in this world. The award is, "Depart from me: I know you not." Of such a selfish soul, who here has loved his own ease, and has declined all self-sacrifice, will the Son of man, in the day of his glory, be justly ashamed. The suffering Messiah thus completed his vivid picture of himself. Not always was he to suffer, or to wear the robe of humiliation. The Despised and Rejected would assuredly return with a glory indescribable, inconceivable. His assertion, advanced here, that he will return as Almighty Judge, is very remarkable. In the parallel passage in St. Matthew (Matthew 16:13) it is put even more clearly. There Jesus asks his disciples, "Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" In ver. 27 Jesus goes on to say, "The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his works." The lesson was very clear. His own might surely be content. Only let them be patient. Lo! in the poor rejected Rabbi now before them, going to his bitter suffering and his death, they were looking really on the awful form of the Almighty Judge of quick and dead. These words, very dimly understood then, in days to come were often recalled by his hearers. They formed the groundwork of many a primitive apostolic sermon.

For whosoever shall be ashamed of me,.... Of my person and offices, of me, as the Messiah, Saviour, and Redeemer, of my grace, righteousness, blood, and sacrifice:

and of my words; of the doctrines of the Gospel, one and another of them. In Mark, it is added, "in this adulterous and sinful generation"; having a peculiar respect to the people of the Jews, and the age in which Christ lived; but is true of any other people and age in which men live:

of him shall the son of man be ashamed when he shall come in his own glory; in the glory of his human nature, when his glorious body, as now, in heaven, shall be seen by all; and in the glory of his office, as mediator, and the judge of all the earth; and in the glory of his divine nature, which will appear in the resurrection of the dead, in the gathering of all nations before him, in separating one sort from another, and in passing and executing the definitive sentence on them; particularly the glory of his omnipotence and omniscience will be very conspicuous:

and in his Father's; which is the same with his own, as he is the Son of God, and the brightness of his glory; and which, as mediator, he has from him, and will be the object of the saints' vision to all eternity;

and of the holy angels; who shall attend him at his second coming, and be employed in various offices under him. The Syriac version renders, these last clauses as they are in Matthew 16:27 in the glory of his Father, with his holy angels; See Gill on Matthew 16:27. See Gill on Mark 8:38.

26. ashamed of me, and of my words—The sense of shame is one of the strongest in our nature, one of the social affections founded on our love of reputation, which causes instinctive aversion to what is fitted to lower it, and was given us as a preservative from all that is properly shameful. When one is, in this sense of it, lost to shame, he is nearly past hope (Zec 3:5; Jer 6:15; 3:3). But when Christ and "His words"—Christianity, especially in its more spiritual and uncompromising features—are unpopular, the same instinctive desire to stand well with others begets the temptation to be ashamed of Him, which only the 'expulsive power' of a higher affection can effectually counteract.

Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh, &c.—He will render to that man his own treatment; He will disown him before the most august of all assemblies, and put him to "shame and everlasting contempt" (Da 12:2). "Oh shame, to be put to shame before God, Christ, and angels!" [Bengel].

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