MARK 8:27-38

MARK 8:27-38

MARK 8:27-38 - “Whom say ye that I am?” It is not enough to be familiar with other men’s views of Christ, be they right or wrong. Our Lord’s question was intended to emphasize the responsibility of individuals to know Him for themselves. Peter’s answer was the result of deep conviction, based on a divine revelation: “Thou art the Christ.” The fuller confession given in Matthew 16:16 is a declaration of this disciple’s faith in Jesus, both as the Messiah of Israel and the divine Son of God. He is both. In fact, He could not be the Messiah (Christ) were He not the Son of God, for the Christ was the Son given and the Child born, as prophesied in Isaiah 9:6. It is to Him the Father says, “Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee” (Ps. 2:7). 

While His death would be the manifestation of man’s bitter hatred to God, it was also to be the supreme expression of God’s love to man. This was to be followed by the physical resurrection of the body of Jesus, the proof that redemption was accomplished, and so the believer might be justified from all things. The foreknowledge of Jesus may be accounted for in three ways, all in perfect harmony with each other. In the first place, though He had become Man, He did not cease to be God, and therefore He knew from the beginning all things through which He was to pass. Then as Man He was a Student of the Word. He knew the Scriptures and came to fulfil them. So He based His predictions upon the Scriptures. And, lastly, He was a Prophet speaking under the direct control of the Holy Spirit.

The Necessity of the Death of Christ. In no other way than by His sacrificial death could our Lord make atonement for sin. The word so translated in the Old Testament involves the thoughts of appeasement, satisfaction, substitution, redemption, pacification, and reconciliation. It is far more than At-one-ment, which is accepted by many as its true meaning. In the New Testament, the Hebrew word translated by these various terms is rendered by a Greek word meaning “propitiation.” All that these many terms suggest is involved in the vicarious death of the cross. But apart from resurrection, all would be meaningless. 

 “Let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” A man carrying a cross was a man going out to die. The true disciple of Jesus is one who is prepared to refuse to own the claims of self, and is ready to “die daily” for his Master’s sake (1 Cor. 15:31). To deny oneself is more than to be self-denying or unselfish. It means the utter setting aside of the self-life, that Christ alone may be seen (Gal. 2:20).

“Whosoever will save his life shall lose it.” The professed follower of Jesus who is concerned with his own best interest, as men say, and lives to gratify his own natural desires will find out at the judgment-seat of Christ that his life has not counted for God, and it is really lost. On the other hand, Jesus said, “Whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel’s, … shall save it.” A life laid down for Christ’s sake is a life saved for that day when all that has been done to glorify God and make known His gospel will be rewarded richly. 

 “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” The Revised Version reads, “And forfeit his life.” That is, present temporal gain will sink into nothingness if the soul, the real life, has been frittered away in things that do not profit. The only life that counts is that which has been lived for eternity.

Christ is the touchstone of all hearts. As is our attitude to Him, so will be God’s attitude to us when the day of reward shall come. In order that He might save our souls and have us wholly for Himself, our blessed Lord laid down His life. He loved the Church and gave Himself for it (Eph. 5:25). He considered no sacrifice too great in order to redeem us and make us His own. Surely, then, we should be prepared to go even to death in order to prove our love for Him. His death was atoning. By it we are justified when we trust in Him (Acts 13:39). Our sins are forever put away by His precious blood. We could have no part in making propitiation, but we are called upon to deny self and to lay down our lives, if need be, to attest our faithfulness to Him, and our love for a world for which He gave Himself (1 John 4:10, 11). If Christ died for all, then God saw all as dead, that they who live through faith in Him might henceforth live, not unto themselves, but unto Him who died and rose again (2 Cor. 5:14, 15). 

Had the Lord Jesus not died for our sins, there would have been no living message to carry to the world. He came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many (Matt. 20:28). We are told that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3). “Christ died”—that is history. “For our sins”—that is the central doctrine of grace. Ere He left the glory that He had with the Father before the world was (John 17:5), He said, “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God” (Heb. 10:9). The will of God to which He referred specifically was the settling of the sin question. He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself (Heb. 9:26). Voluntarily He put Himself at the disposal of sinful men that this will of His Father might be carried out (John 14:31). No one took His life from Him; He laid it down of Himself (John 10:18). All was foreknown and predetermined, though this did not lessen man’s guilt in rejecting Him (Acts 2:23). He sought to prepare the minds of His followers beforehand, that when they saw Him die, their faith might not fail.