The Transfiguration

After the Lord Jesus spoke in the previous verse of “the glory of His Father”, He now speaks of the coming of that glory. He speaks of it when He speaks of the coming of the kingdom of God with power. Then His majesty will be seen and acknowledged all over the earth. Some of His disciples will not have to wait until after their death when they will participate in it in the resurrection. They may already taste some of it in the next scene. To encourage them, for a moment, they are lifted over suffering and the cross (Mk 8:31-38) into glory. Peter speaks about it in his second letter as a scene that speaks of the power and majesty of the Lord Jesus (2Pet 1:16).

This is an encouragement for servants, because they get to see the reward that awaits them after having served. The emphasis is on the coming of the kingdom with power. Power is what servants need. That power is found in the dependence on God. If we forget that we are dependent on God, we become powerless.

Mark speaks of “six days later” because he describes Christ as the true Servant. The number ‘six’ speaks of the period of man’s works that precedes rest. Thus, God worked six days before He rested from His works on the seventh day (Gen 1:31; Gen 2:1-2).

The Lord “took” three disciples on a high mountain. He is the Lord. In order to participate in the glory of the kingdom, He must take us there and we must be alone with Him. At the same time, today the revelation of that glory is still a heavenly matter. That is why He takes His disciples with Him on a “high mountain”, away from the earthly. He takes precisely these three disciples with Him because of the service they will later perform to confirm and strengthen their faith. They will be pillars of the kingdom (Gal 2:9).

The Lord is transformed before their eyes. They see Him Who had no “form or majesty” (Isa 53:2) in outer glory, as He will have in the realm of peace. In the Gospel according to Matthew He shines like the sun (Mt 17:2). That fits in the Gospel that describes Him as the King. But here we have the Servant in perfect purity. His garments, which become “radiant and exceedingly white”, speak of His outward manifestation, of His service and the testimony He gives in the world. The description of the whiteness of His garments is more extensive in this Gospel and therefore more emphatic because Mark describes Him as the perfect Servant. With Him there is no stain to be found by anyone who, like a launderer, has the sharpest eye for cleanness. It is a cleanness that the most competent earthly cleanser cannot work. It is the cleanness of heaven.

People could spit on the Lord Jesus during His days in the flesh and smear His garments with the blood they had brought forth from the scourges. If He reigns, that will be impossible, but the immaculate white will be the hallmark of His reign, a hallmark that no ruler has had before Him. It is the reign of heaven. The transfiguration is a prophecy. Christ will be the radiant center of the glory of the kingdom of peace, as He is here. The saints will then be with Him under heavenly circumstances, like Moses and Elijah.

In this glory, Elijah and Moses do not appear to the Lord Jesus, but to the three disciples. For the Lord they are always present. Together, Elijah and Moses are a picture of all believers who will reign with Christ. In Elijah we see a picture of believers who will go to heaven without dying (2Kgs 2:1; 11) and then reign with Christ. In Moses we see a picture of the dead and buried believers (Deu 34:5-6) who will rise up and go to heaven to reign with Christ. Moses is also the lawgiver and Elijah the law restorer. Both have placed the people on the foundation of the law as the only right foundation for God.

They “were talking” with Him, that is to say, they spoke with Him in complete confidentiality. Mark mentions Elijah first, for he has revealed spiritual power, a power that will also be revealed in the future (Rev 11:5). It is also he who will restore the connection between fathers and children (Mal 4:5-6), a picture of which we see in the following history (Mk 9:14-29). Elijah is the special encouragement here for the servant who needs this power for his service in the present time.

Peter is impressed by what he sees. He wants to hold on to this scene. That is why he proposes to make three tents for the three persons for whom he has great admiration. He makes the mistake of thinking that this scene can be permanent and can be held in tents. With the sight of the glory that is revealed to him, he forgets that the cross has yet to come, for without the cross this glory can never become reality. Peter also makes the mistake of thinking that the Lord Jesus is the First among the greatest people.

He and also the others don’t know what they see and how to deal with it. Besides admiration there is also fear. Against the immaculate cleanliness of heaven stands the sinfulness of man.

Peter may – impressed by what he sees – put the Lord on a par with the great men of the Old Testament, but heaven does not share this impression. On the contrary, heaven declares the exaltation of Christ above these great men. This explanation is made both by a visible sign, a cloud, and by an audible voice. The cloud that overshadows them represents the holy abode of God, which was also above the tabernacle. Peter and the other disciples are not allowed to make tents, but they may experience something much greater. They may enter the abode of God Himself.

The voice that sounds is the voice of the Father Who declares that the Lord Jesus is His beloved Son. He alone must be listened to. Everything that Moses and Elijah have said is the truth, is God’s Word. Through them we learn God’s thoughts. But they give testimony concerning Him and not together with Him. Everything they have said relates to Him and not to themselves. Moses and Elijah only express His voice. Christendom is: Hear Him. He who does not listen to Him will perish.

After this impressive testimony they see no one with them anymore than Jesus alone. In the light of the Gospel according to Mark, nothing else is important in the service we may do for Him but to see Him as the true Servant. “With them” is said only in this Gospel. He, whom we have just seen in strength, is with His own, with us.

Elijah Must Come First

The stay on the mountain has come to an end. The time comes for the disciples to descend from the mountain again with the Lord. This is often the case in the life of the believer. After special moments of fellowship with Christ, the feeling of being elevated from the earth and forgetting everything for a moment, comes the moment when daily life demands attention again.

The Lord tells His disciples that they may only give the testimony of what they have seen when He has risen from the dead. They also only understood after His resurrection, when they have received the Holy Spirit (Jn 16:12-15; 2Pet 1:16-18). Now they hold on to the word He said about His death and resurrection because they do not understand it. That is a good thing. So we must hold all the words of the Lord Jesus, even the words we do not understand. They speak to each other about it. That too is an example for us. It is good to speak to each other about what Christ said.

They do not ask Him for an answer about what He said about “rising from the dead”. Their preoccupation with what He has said brings them to the question of the coming of Elijah, which they have heard the scribes speak of. They know that the coming of Christ in power, of which they have just had a foretaste on the mountain, will be preceded by the coming of Elijah. They know the Lord Jesus and have accepted Him as the Messiah. They have also just seen Elijah and they know Malachi’s prophecy about him. At the same time, their question makes it clear that they do not include the rejection and death of Christ in their thinking about His coming in power. In His reply, He connects that to it.

He tells the disciples that the scribes are right that Elijah comes first and restores everything. They know this from Malachi 4 (Mal 4:5-6). It doesn’t mean Elijah will come in person, but someone with the typical characteristics of his service. Malachi speaks about the relationship between fathers and children. As has been mentioned, we see an example of this in the following history. But the Lord Jesus says that there is more written that also has to be fulfilled. This concerns His suffering and rejection, His being “treated with contempt”. Surely they should know that too? The scribes do not want to talk about it, nor do the disciples want to hear about it, but He makes it clear that there is no other way.

He adds that Elijah has even come, that is, someone in the spirit and power of Elijah. This is John the baptist (Mt 11:13-14; Lk 1:17). But the religious leaders did not listen to John. When he was captured, they did not do their best to release him. They did not mourn his death. They and the people will also reject Him of Whom John was the forerunner. This means Elijah must come another time. We will see that happen at the second coming of the Lord Jesus. In one of the two witnesses mentioned in Revelation 11, we recognize someone acting in the spirit and power of Elijah (Rev 11:5; cf. 2Kgs 1:10).

The Powerlessness of the Disciples

At the foot of the mountain the Lord and His three disciples are again in direct contact with the power of satan, who reveals himself in the reality of earthly circumstances. At the foot of the mountain they see the disciples left behind surrounded by a large crowd. There are also scribes present who are discussing with the disciples.

When the entire crowd sees Him, His appearance impresses them. It is possible that the shine of the glory on the mountain can still be seen on Him. They turn away from the arguing company and walk toward Him and greet Him. They feel that He is Lord of the situation.

The Lord asks about the content of the discussion. The answer comes from the crowd, from someone who brought his son to Him because this son has a mute spirit. In his need the man has come to Him, that He might heal him (cf. Mal 4:5-6). This man and his son are the clear proof of how much the coming of Elijah is necessary to restore a disturbed father-son relationship, so that it may resemble the relationship of the Son to His Father, as shown in the previous scene on the mountain. There is complete fellowship between that Father and that Son, and here it is just as completely lacking.

The relationship between father and son is one of the most beautiful earthly relationships. All earthly relations are torn apart by the power of satan. Only the Lord Jesus can restore them. For this He wants to use people like Elijah, servants who can speak God’s Word in power.

The father describes to the Lord the seriousness of the boy’s situation. Now he had come to His disciples and had told them to cast out the mute spirit. In Mk 9:17 the man said that he had brought his son to the Lord and now he says that he had told the disciples to cast out the spirit. For the man the disciples, as followers and pupils of Him, were able to do the same as He did. However, they were incapable, even though He had given them that power earlier (Mk 6:7) and they had already cast out many demons. They cannot do it here, for they lack faith. If there is no faith, there is no power.

The Lord blames them for not having healed the boy. He even calls them an “unbelieving generation” because in this case they have the same characteristics as the whole generation of Israel. Then He asks two questions to which He does not expect an answer. They are as it were sighs of His heart concerning their unbelief. We know the answer to both questions: He stayed with them until His ascension, and He endured them until the year 70, the year in which the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the temple.

But He does not leave the begging father without an answer to his supplication. He commands him to bring his son to Him. That is always the great consolation for anyone who walks around with a need. The Lord says: “Bring him to Me.” We may do that when we pray. His order to bring the boy to Him is carried out. The demon knows, when he sees Him, that he will be cast out immediately. That is why the evil spirit does its utmost to harm the boy as much as possible before he will have to leave him.

The Father

Before the Lord takes action, He asks the father how long this has been happening to the boy. He wants the father to find out when his son’s behavior started. We must seek out the origin of a need, discover its root.

The father knows that his son has been plagued by a demon since childhood. Only now does he come to the Lord with it. All this time, he will have tried to persuade his son to behave in a controlled way, but to no avail. Parents who can no longer control their children can go to the Lord. However, it is important to find out whether the cause of their unruly behavior may lie in the way they dealt with their children in their youth. They will have to ask themselves what they have allowed into the house, possibly without having minded it themselves, but what has made their children a prey of evil.

The father says what the boy went through and what he went through with him. Throwing him into the fire of trial and into the water of need will also happen with the remnant, and Christ will deliver them out of it (Isa 43:2). The father is at his wit’s end and begs the Lord if He can do anything for the boy. He makes an insistent appeal to His mercy to help him and his son.

The Lord Jesus responds to the father’s words “if You can do anything”. With this assumption, the father falls short of the possibilities the Lord has at His disposal. The father is not fully convinced that the Lord is capable of casting out the spirit. That is why He says, in a way that implies indignation: “What, “if You can?”” He means: “Of course I can, you don’t have to doubt that.” The problem lies with the father. If only he can believe He can do it, it is possible He heals his son. The Lord says, as it were: “The “if” is not on My side, but on your side. It’s not about whether I can do it, it’s about whether you can believe.” Changes in our family and in the local church as a family of God depend on our faith.

Then the father speaks the words already spoken by countless believers as an expression of desire to believe and the difficulty they have in doing so. Many believers have faced great difficulties. They have brought those great problems to the Lord believing that He is powerful to solve those problems. At the same time, in the background there was still doubt about the extent of their faith, whether they have enough faith. Then that word may also be spoken in confidence, asking to help them to believe.

The Boy Healed

No matter how weak the faith, it is never left without an answer. When the Lord sees the crowd coming, He knows it is time to act. He does not seek the admiration of the crowd with the deliverance of the bound boy. In a powerful and also definitive way He delivers him from the unclean spirit.

While inflicting the final torments, the spirit obeys the Lord’s command and leaves the boy. We see how badly the demon has harmed the boy when he becomes like a dead man. The bystanders think he died. Then the Lord seems the Loser. But He is the Victor. He proves that a moment later.

The spirit can no longer hold his prey. The Lord seizes the boy with His mighty hand and raises him. By His power he gets up. Christ delivers and gives strength to rise and go. He gives the son back to his father, as it were, from the dead. In this way He also awakens our spiritually dead children to life.

The Cause of the Failure

When the Lord has gone into the house, where the crowd cannot follow Him, and He and His disciples are again among themselves, they ask why they could not drive out the evil spirit. It is always good to ask the Lord why we cannot do certain things. Again and again we find in this Gospel that the house is the place where the Lord makes confidential announcements to His disciples, or where they ask Him questions. In the house, the crowd does not listen.

In prayer we acknowledge our utter powerlessness and our complete dependence on God. The world has pleasant and good things we may use. Fasting is the conscious temporary renunciation of such things that are not wrong in themselves, so that heart and time are completely devoted to a particular cause for the Lord. Spiritual power disappears completely when life is taken up by earthly things. The kingdom of God displaces the kingdom of satan only through faith, prayer and fasting.

Second Announcement of Suffering

After this event they begin to go through Galilee. And as we have seen before, the Lord does not want to draw attention to Himself in His work. Therefore His coming should not be announced. The coming of a servant is not a matter of fuss.

Instead of drawing attention to Himself, the Lord is teaching His disciples a second time about what will happen to Him. He knows that His people will not accept Him as the Messiah, but on the contrary will kill Him after they have delivered Him into the hands of men. He also speaks about His rising, which will take place three days later.

The expectations of the disciples are still focused on a reigning Messiah. That is why the meaning of His words passes them by. They prefer not to think about it either. They are afraid to ask their Master about it because they feel that His words are serious. If they were to ask Him, they might be shocked at their expectations. They become afraid, there is distance between them and Him. This is also due to their lack of faith, prayer and fasting, for the earthly glory is at the forefront of their minds. In the following verses we see that this keeps them busy.

Who Is the Greatest?

When the Lord and His disciples have come to Capernaum, they go back into the house. Now it is His turn to ask a question (cf. Mk 9:28). He asks His disciples about the subject of their conversation while they were on the way. He also asks us about the subjects of our conversations. They can be quite different, but do they have Him as their content or are they about our own importance?

The disciples are silent because their conscience speaks. Along the way, haughty thoughts had filled their hearts as they thought of Him. This is the cause of their lack of understanding of what He said about His suffering and death. If we let ourselves be guided by the flesh and its lusts, even when we think of Him and what we all do for Him and what our reward will be, the whole extent of God’s thoughts remains hidden from us.

The disciples sought their own glory in the kingdom. Therefore, the cross, the true way to glory, is incomprehensible to them. By thinking only of their own importance it is no wonder that there is little power in the presence of satan (Mk 9:28) and little understanding in the presence of the Lord (Mk 9:32).

The Lord does not need their answer. Their silence says enough. It is the reason for Him to teach His disciples about the ranking in His kingdom. He sits down to teach in rest and calls His disciples to Himself. Is each one of them so eager to be the greatest? Then He will teach them how each can become one. He holds out to them that the only way to true greatness is that one is the last and the servant of all. He has taken that place. We may be willing to be a servant, but are we willing to be the servant of all and take the last place of all? He is in a perfect way, and we can only learn it from Him. Therefore we must be humble.

The Lord makes His teaching vivid by taking a child and setting him before them. There stands a small child before large men. To Him, this child has great significance. Such a child He takes in His arms. His heart goes out to him. He brings it to His heart. While He has pointed out the child and now stands with it in His arms, He teaches His disciples the corresponding lesson. Children do not have the thought of taking the first place among the believers.

That He takes the child in His arms means that He surrounds it with His love. That is the hallmark of the true Servant: He gives others the feeling that they are coming into His arms, that is, in the sphere of love, of the Lord Jesus. We also see the servant in the unpretentious child who is accepted by others because of his open-mindedness. The servant lives in the awareness that he is in the arms and at the heart of the Lord Jesus and will radiate this.

It is about receiving such children, insignificant to the world, in His Name. The Name of Christ is the touchstone. Children may have no value to the world that is driven by performance and selfish ambition, but to the disciple, these unappreciated children, following Christ, should be the very objects of his service.

Whoever sees what place a child, who is not of significance, has to the heart of Christ, and receives such a child for that reason, in reality receives Christ. It goes even further, for he who receives Christ receives His Sender, God the Father. So great is the blessing of being the servant of all.

Who Is Not Against Us …

The words of John show how difficult the lesson of the previous verses is learned. After the search for one’s own interest, presented in the previous verses, we see here the search for the group’s interest. John believes that the group to which he belongs is superior to someone who has not joined the group to which he belongs and which follows the Lord. Outside that group, according to John, can be no blessing. In order to truly do a service for Him, John believes, the man who casts out demons must join them.

John even speaks of the fact that they prevented the service of the man because “he was not following us”. He makes “us”, that is the group to which he belongs, the measure of the service. He must have forgotten that the man does what the disciples were unable to do because of their unbelief (Mk 9:18). Such a spirit of sectarianism also prevailed among the group of believers in Corinth who had made Christ the “head of the party” (1Cor 1:12-13).

The question is not whether someone joins the disciples, but whether something happens in the Name of the Lord. If the Lord chooses someone, that is decisive. How does John come to such an assessment when he and the other disciples were recently unable to do so? The cause is a lack of self-knowledge and the posturing to belong to the right group. Some may not go with ‘us’ on the church path because they find so little of what they find with the Lord Jesus in service, humility, love, faith, prayer and fasting. We should humble ourselves about this. We should rejoice about every service that is done for Him and thank Him for it.

The Lord reprimands John. Whatever moved the man, the Lord emphasizes His Name in His answer. Because the man is acting in His Name, he is for Christ and not against Him. The Lord connects Himself to what the man does. This man does not seek his own honor, but that of Christ. He does not abuse the Name of the Lord to make a name for himself and to defame the Name of the Lord, but uses it to honor Him in the deliverance of people from the power of satan.

This principle of “he who is not against us is for us” is important in judging all that is done for the Lord Jesus. He connects His disciples in His service with Himself. And when it comes to a service for Him, it is not a testimony against Him nor against His disciples, but the disciples and He are dealing with someone who is cooperating toward the same goal. When it comes to service, the Servant acknowledges every service done for Him.

When He says, “he who is not with Me is against Me” (Mt 12:30), it relates to His rejection. He who chooses not to share with Him in His rejection actually chooses against Him. Neutrality is impossible.

The Lord makes it clear that even the smallest service performed by anyone to one of His disciples, precisely because he is of Christ, will be rewarded by Him. A cup of water may not be much for the giver, but for those who are truly thirsty, it is a great refreshment. The Lord unites Himself so much with His disciples, that He experiences this refreshment done to one of His own as done to Himself.

His disciples are the little ones, the dependents. Christ, too, has made Himself nothing (Phil 2:6-7) and has been here as the dependent Man. He who acknowledges this and therefore follows Him is great to Him. He has others, who perhaps do not “go with us” the way, who give a refreshment to those who have gone out for Him in His service. They will receive their reward from Him.

The giving of a cup of water does not seem much compared to the casting out of demons. The Lord holds up this example to His disciples because they did not consider the man who cast out the demons to be one of them. In their eyes, that man could not be good because he had not joined their group. The Lord now says that they must appreciate and accept everything they receive from others, even though they do not belong to ‘their group’, if that is done “because of your name as [followers] of Christ”.

For example, a group may be so sectarian that only literature written by someone from the group may be read. One shuts oneself off from the readings of other believers. The Lord says here that believers may receive everything from other believers who have the desire to serve each one who is of Christ, precisely because that other one is of Christ. The Lord knows how to appreciate this and will reward it.

Seduction to Sin

In this section the Lord speaks of the opposite of what He has just said. We are to our brothers and sisters a refreshment or a stumbling block. Think of the young people in a church who look at the behavior of the elders. If they leave the church because of that, it’s a serious matter. Instead of wanting to resemble a small child (Mk 9:36-37) and thus magnify the Lord Jesus, there are people who want to tempt these little ones to forget their smallness and seek their own importance. Someone who wants to cause disciples of the Lord to think great of themselves, thus dishonoring Him, awaits a terrible judgment.

In the following verses He works this out for His disciples. He gives an impressive description of eternal destruction. No evangelist does this in such a poignant way as Mark.

The warning for people who want to make others stumble in their life of faith now goes, through the use of the word “your”, in the direction of the disciple. Every disciple must see to it that he or she does not fall. I must be aware that my hand can be a cause for a fall. By doing something that is not done by order of the Lord, the fall is a fact.

Everything that does not happen in dependence on Him is sin. Therefore, the inclination to do a certain wrong deed must be condemned immediately, no matter what it costs. It is better for me not to do the coveted thing and think that I am missing something on earth because of it, but through it I am going into life, than to do something that will cause me to spend eternity in the unquenchable fire with remorse.

The Greek word for hell, gehenna, appears twelve times in the New Testament. Literally translated, it is ‘the valley of Hinnom’. This valley was originally consecrated to the idolatry of Moloch (2Kgs 16:3; 2Chr 28:3), in which children were sacrificed. After the exile, the Jews were so disgusted with this place that they turned it into a dumpsite for all Jerusalem’s garbage. In this place, just outside the city, the fire burned constantly and maggots did their incessant work. That place was known as Gehenna.

This word becomes on the Lord’s lips the terrible and at the same time appropriate picture of the abode of the lost. Hell will truly be the great garbage heap of eternity, where all that is incorrigibly evil will be separated from good and forever under the judgment of God. This terrible fact comes from the mouth of Him Who loves sinful people and weeps over them.

This section is not about the possibility that a believer might still perish. A believer cannot possibly perish (Jn 10:28-29). It is about those who have a Christian confession and the responsibility that such a confession entails. The true Christian, the believer, would rather cut off his hand than do something that is sin. The false Christian, the unbeliever, will be seduced into doing acts that will lead him into the eternal fire. The Lord speaks to the whole company of confessors of His Name. The warning comes to all. Paul has taken this warning seriously and applied it to himself (1Cor 9:27).

It is about things that are traps in our lives, it is about wrong things we do, or wrong places we are or are going, or wrong things we see. They are things that we can prevent by self-judgment. If we believe that we have strength in ourselves to stay free from them, we will certainly fall.

What applies to the hand also applies to the foot. Not only do we have to watch out for a wrong deed because of the terrible consequences it can have, we also have to watch out that we don’t put our foot on a path of sin. Here, too, we must judge ourselves if we tend to take a path of which we know that the Lord does not lead us down that path. It is about entering into life, where every loss is fully compensated and made good.

Finally, the Lord speaks of a third part of the body, the eye. Through the eye, sin has come into the world. Covetousness begins with seeing. This leads to a wrong path (foot) and to a wrong deed (hand). The eye is the most dangerous part of the body. It leads the most quickly to sin. That is why we have to be careful what we see, what we focus our eye on. Any tendency to look at something that leads us to sin must be radically condemned. It is about entering the kingdom of God or being thrown into hell.

The Lord leaves no doubt that the judgment of hell is eternal. Eternal pain will be exacerbated by the eternal remorse for the deliberately wrong choice that has been made. A temporary enjoyment of sin has been chosen, and with it eternal life has been forfeited.

Fire and Salt

Fire is the symbol of God’s testing, examining righteousness that kills all evil germs. Everyone has to deal with it. The believers will have to deal with it in the sense of 1 Corinthians 3 (1Cor 3:13), where the salt will keep all that is good. The wicked have to deal with it in a way that they remain in this judgment (Jn 3:36b) and are not annihilated by it. There is no such thing as the annihilation of the soul, as if someone would cease to exist.

The “salting with fire” applies to believers and unbelievers. The unbelievers are salted before the great white throne, that is to say, judged with a righteous, irrevocable and eternal judgment. In the case of believers, it is already happening on earth and will soon be happening in full before the judgment seat of Christ. To believers, salt is the power of sanctifying grace that binds the heart to God and preserves the inner for evil. If we have salt in ourselves, that is to say, if we live in self-judgment, it will not be difficult to be at peace with one another.

If Christians, those who are of Christ, do not testify to this, there is no hope for their testimony. For where, then, can something be found that gives this testimony back to them or awakens it in them? For Christendom is the only place on earth where this salt of self-judgment can be found. If it has disappeared there, it is nowhere to be found.

The sense of the obligation toward God to be separated from evil, this judgment of all the evil of the heart, must be found in each person. It is not a question of judging others, but of oneself. It is a question of putting oneself before God, by which one becomes ‘salty’ and has it in oneself. In relation to others one must continue to seek peace.

Christians must remain separated from evil and remain close to God inwardly. They must walk with God, in peace with one another. This principle judges and governs the whole Christian life in a few words. Spiritual discernment and the preservation of goodness must be within ourselves and that will lead to peace with others.