MARKAN MEDITATIONS

Meditations in the Gospel of St.Mark

St. Mark 8:27-30

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THIS SHORT incident illustrates and reveals a very important spiritual truth. The truth is that human wisdom and understanding can never be enlightened to spiritual truth and reality unless it is enlightened by the Holy Spirit. This is illustrated in verse 28 in all the different answers to the question as to the identity of Jesus, that Jesus had posed to his disciples.

There is a very vivid demonstration here of how the natural human wisdom of humanity works when given a question which is from the spiritual realm. The answers as to who Jesus was that are given in verse 28, which related the various opinions being spoken of in society at that time, were all foolish as all the people mentioned were dead. The human mind could not stretch beyond this temporal realm of time, and preferred impossible answers they had some experience of, rather than the real truth which was out of their experience. It showed the spiritual blindness also in the fact that they were totally unprepared and uninterested in the promise of the coming of their Messiah. If they had been looking for their Messiah, they would have been searching their scriptures, so that they would have be able to recognize Jesus when he came and understand his true character and life. They plainly had not done this.

This spiritual truth is true in the visible church today, and is revealed not only in members of the congregation, but also in the teachers and the leaders. This is a repeat of the situation when Jesus came. The teachers of Israel were spiritually dead, and not only did not recognize their Messiah, but grew to hate him as well. It is not a matter of accumulated knowledge in the mind. The creeds can be known, and theological niceties can be known and debated. People can even confess Christ as the Son of God and saviour, but there is no real appreciation of the spiritual reality and power of these truths, nor any experimental knowledge of them. In a word there is a wide chasm between head knowledge and the real knowing experimentally of Jesus as Saviour and Lord.

Peter's testimony was totally different. It came with a conviction and wonder and certainty and adoration that can only come from the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. Mark's account is quite short. The one in Matthew is more complete, so we read in Matthew 16:17 - Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven." So spiritually dead are we without an act of God opening our spiritual understanding, that it is impossible to come to any true spiritual understanding and life, without an act of God upon us by his Holy Spirit. Our ability to believe in Christ unto salvation was only by the sovereign act of God's grace in regenerating our spirit, so that we became alive to the kingdom of heaven. Further it is important to understand that all through our lives here upon earth, we are dependent on the work of the Holy Spirit for every growth in spiritual understanding and experience, and must live waiting upon the Spirit for that enlightenment every day.

The darkness in the human mind and heart without spiritual enlightenment is seen so clearly in the state of the Roman Catholic belief. From the Matthew account Jesus says he will build his church, but on what? The Roman Catholic teaching, unenlightened by the Holy Spirit, has always and still says that Jesus meant he would build his church on Peter himself, and that the Popes that follow Peter down history, are successors to Peter and that Jesus builds his church on the Popes and their teaching and authority. In fact when understood spiritually, what Jesus meant, and the Greek original language makes this plain, is that Jesus would build his church on himself, as the Christ, the Son of God. In other words Jesus meant by his statement of building, that he would build his church on the truth in the testimony given by the Spirit to Peter.

The Roman Catholic Church remains in darkness, and leads its people into darkness and keeps them in darkness, and the same is true in the Church of England and any other denomination, unless their is spiritual enlightenment by an act of God. The darkness is seen in the Church of England, because erroneous views of the sacraments and the ministry held in the present Church of England reveal this darkness. It is just like the church of the Jews in Jesus' time. How we need to continually pray that God will revive his church with spiritual enlightenment. History shows, however, that even when spiritual enlightenment comes, the visible church fights it, like the Jews did, because it is still in darkness.

Let us seek for ourselves spiritual enlightenment as we read the revelation concerning Jesus which this testimony of Peter gives, and pray that ever increasingly we may filled with the power and glory of it. We need to pray that the experience of it may be real and full in our lives. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. God has sent him to the earth, and anointed him (Christ=the anointed one) to be our Saviour, who releases us from the darkness of sin, reconciles us to God, sanctifies us by his Spirit, and brings us everlastingly into the family of God.