Biblical Theology XXXVII: Mark

The Gospel of Mark is foundational for the other two Synoptics, Matthew and Luke, in that it argues that who Jesus is demands a response of true discipleship that is characterized as death to the one’s own vision of what life should be and one’s own activity moving toward that vision. Matthew applies this to the Jewish-Gentile conflict and obeying Jesus’s commands over one’s own desires when it comes to how one treats other covenant members in general, and Luke applies this specifically to how one treats the poor and marginalized within the covenant community. It is clear that Mark is the first Gospel written, as it is the Gospel that Paul uses in his earliest letters, and the others do not seem to be known by him in those early epistles.

Theology: Jesus is the Messianic Son of Man, and as the Messiah, He begins to take authority over all things by subduing chaos and demanding that all things submit to Him: He calls sinners to repentance, demonic powers to relinquish their hold on people, illness and death to depart, and natural disasters/cosmic chaos to yield to Him.

Jesus fulfills all of the prophecies of the Old Testament concerning Him.  He is the Prophet like Moses who has a messenger go before Him to make a way for Him (1:2-13). He is the Son of Man who shatters the demonic powers among His people (1:21-27). He is the healer of Israel (1:29-2:12), and the Lord of the law, who interprets and applies it correctly and with authority (2:18-3:6). He is the King of Israel who begins to gather the twelve tribes together by selecting the twelve judges of those tribes who will proclaim to them the will of the King (3:13-19).

Ethics: As Jesus is the Messianic King who demands that all submit to Him as the Sovereign Lord, the right response to His authority is submission to Him. This submission is characterized as dying to the self and all other things. Jesus message begins, therefore, by His proclamation of the good news in Mark, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is accessible. Repent, therefore, and believe the proclamation.” 

He judges Israel for not being true disciples by preaching the truth to them in parables, truths that are meant to convey God’s condemnation of false believers. They will hear without hearing, and see without seeing, so that they do not repent and are forgiven (4:10-12), which is a judgment of the prophets upon wayward Israel who had the commands of God and did not obey them. 

In contrast, those who would be Christ’s disciple and enter into the kingdom to come must become moldable like a little child, and therefore, he must die to who he has become, what he thinks, and what he does. He uses the issue of divorce and remarriage and money as examples of where people must die to what they want out of life in order to follow Him.

Faith, therefore, plays a huge role in the Gospel, and Christ teaches that with it, one can do the impossible. Faith, therefore, is the ultimate act of submission and dying to self, as it must trust God completely when one wishes to preserve the life that gives him comfort. Christ Himself is the example for all in Mark. Christ came to be rejected and to lose His life. Hence, all who would follow Him as His disciples must do the same. This is why Mark does not have a large resurrection narrative at the end of the book, but rather emphasizes the death of Christ. The ethical theme of Mark, then is that discipleship is death.

Then  Jesus called the crowd, along with his disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospel will save it. For what benefit is it for a person to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his life? What can a person give in exchange for his life? For if anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (8:34-38)