Full Transcript

Welcome to Share the Word. This is one of those episodes that will bring a perplexing focus that will cause you to pause and, well, for me, rewind and listen again. Thought-provoking with eye-opening observations, but don’t just take my word for it. Listen closely for yourselves. Mark chapter 9, Solving Two Enigmas. I hope you have a good thinking cap, and if you do, this would be a time to put it on.

We’re going to get into some fascinating, but I admit a little complicated stuff today that comes up in chapter 9 of Mark’s Gospel. I have to say, this chapter is, for me, the most difficult one in Mark to feel I understand, and one of the most difficult passages in the New Testament. But I want to delve a little further than we usually go into a subject introduced last episode, which the first half of this chapter brings to the forefront. The chapter begins with an enigmatic verse which most feel is most closely connected to the previous chapter. And Jesus was saying to them, Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God having come in power. If you remember last time, we got into a discussion about the major misunderstanding that existed in Jesus’ time about the role of the Messiah when he appeared.

Remember, Peter even foolishly rebuked Jesus, thinking he knew better what should be ahead for him than Jesus knew about his mission. So, to add more confusion to the existing confusion, Jesus apparently left that discussion with Peter and his disciples on this note. I tell you the truth, some of you standing here will not die until you see the kingdom of God having come in power. Wait a minute. Hadn’t he just sharply responded to Peter for insisting to him that as Messiah, who Jesus certainly was, they should be moving toward fulfilling the messianic expectations, that is, about initiating the kingdom of God on earth? And hadn’t Jesus just told them that’s not where things were heading, that in fact he was heading toward Jerusalem, where he would be rejected by the religious leaders and killed?

I’m sure Peter and the rest of the disciples’ heads were spinning at that point, so confused that no one even asked for further clarification. So after plainly telling them that he was heading toward the cross and not toward the throne as Israel’s king, what could Jesus possibly have meant when he said in that conversation, Some of you are going to see the kingdom of God come in power? I’ll tell you, there have been many postulations by Bible students and commentators over the years as to what Jesus could possibly have meant by that, and I’m not going to debate the merits of all of them.

But if I didn’t know what comes next in Mark’s account and all I knew was where we ended in chapter 8, I would probably guess that Jesus was referring to the fact that before he died, the apostle John would in fact see the kingdom of God come, not physically, but in his visions, which we have written down for us in the book of Revelation. Obviously, Jesus did not literally bring about the physical kingdom of God on earth in any of the lifetimes of any of the disciples who were listening to him that day. But John was shown in vision form the future scene when Jesus returns to the earth in power and glory at the end of this age to put down God’s enemies and establish his kingdom. And he writes about that in Revelation chapter 19. I’d love to tell you I’m comfortable with that interpretation of Jesus’ words here, but I’m not.

I can’t be for the simple reason that when he said some of you, that is plural. When Jesus said some of you are going to see the kingdom of God in its power and glory, because I believe in the verbal inspiration of Scripture, I can’t conclude that that only meant John in his visions. That just wouldn’t fit Jesus’ statement. So what then? Well, not just in this gospel, but in Matthew and Luke as well, the same event described next comes up in all of the narratives. Here’s what Mark’s version sounded like.

Six days after this, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and brought them high up on a mountain alone by themselves, and he was transfigured before them. And his garments were shining intensely white as no launderer on earth could ever whiten. And Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Rabbi, it’s good for us to be here. Let us make three booths, meaning temporary shelters, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah, and we’ll sleep on the rocks if necessary, he meant. For he did not know what to say, and he was terrified.

Then a cloud formed over them, overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud, This is my beloved Son. Listen to him. And all at once, when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore except Jesus alone. These verses seem clearly tied by the word and to what Jesus had just said about some of them seeing the kingdom of God in its glory and power. And six days later, Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him to the high mountain. Based on where they were, this was probably Mount Hermon.

And this was another of Jesus’ deliberate attempts to get away from the multitudes of people who were always demanding things of him, to get some needed physical rest as well as some recharge spiritually. And what happened next, witnessed by those three disciples, Peter being one of them who must have relayed this to Mark, was the clearest picture of who Jesus really was that anybody here on earth ever got. For two plus years by this point, Peter and the others had seen glimpses of Jesus’ power and glory, as when he commanded the forces of nature, when he did astonishing miracles, when he demonstrated authority over evil spirits, things that caused them to look at each other in amazement and say, What kind of man is this? Who could do these things? But on this day, the answer to that question got a whole lot clearer.

I don’t think what happened on the Mount of Transfiguration, as we call it, was all or even mostly for the watching disciples’ benefit. I described this back in episode 31 when we were in the Gospel of Luke. On that mountaintop, Jesus was transformed from his earthly physical body to a brightly gleaming heavenly body, and then he was joined by Moses and Elijah, two of the greatest men of the Old Testament times. And the three fishermen from Capernaum, looking on from a few feet away, heard Moses and Elijah discussing with Jesus what was upcoming for him in Jerusalem. That is his passion. I think those two great heroes of the faith were sent from heaven to encourage Jesus on this occasion, to kind of steel up his nerves for the last grueling leg of his earthly journey.

But why those two men? Well, Moses was the lawgiver. He was instrumental in the founding of the nation of Israel. Elijah was the greatest of the prophets who preached repentance and tried to prevent the nation’s demise hundreds of years later. And Jesus, of course, was the fulfillment of all that the law and prophets pointed to. Seeing Jesus in his heavenly glory flanked then by Moses and Elijah, I feel certain triggered in the disciples the thought that this must be it, that this was the beginning of Jesus’ move toward establishing the kingdom of God in Israel as Messiah.

We must be here witnessing the kickoff, they thought. Remember, they, Peter in particular, badly wanted to believe that this was Jesus’ destiny. He’d just been insisting a little while before that it had to be as the Christ. Not knowing what to say or do, he blurted out, Do you want us to build three shelters so that we can stay here for a while, imagining that they would be setting up some kind of headquarters, I guess, for the kingdom. And even as he was making that awkward suggestion, the Shekinah glory of God came over the mountaintop, a bright cloud enveloping them, and a voice like none he had ever heard before said, This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.

Peter had not been listening to what Jesus had been saying. Seeing the transfigured Jesus gleaming there with glory that belongs only to God, and seeing those great men from the past, Moses and Elijah, and being suddenly engulfed in the cloud of God’s glory and hearing God’s own voice, all of these things were terrifying to the three disciples. They were right then witnessing the fullness of what they had only seen brief glimpses of up until then. Seeing Jesus unfiltered in all His divine glory. Did you know that God the Father speaks from heaven only three times in the New Testament, in an audible voice, I mean? He did so at the outset of Jesus’ public ministry, at His baptism by John the Baptist.

Some heard there as Jesus came up out of the water, This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And then, on the Mount of Transfiguration here, they heard, This is My beloved Son. Listen to Him. In a final time, the day they entered Jerusalem for the last time, which began the Passion of the Christ, they came through the city gates and Jesus was heard to say, Father, now glorify Thy name. And they heard from heaven a response, I have both glorified it, and I will glorify it again. Each time the Father was confirming His Son, that Jesus was obediently following through on the divine plan.

This is all very interesting to me. But here is why I ask you to find and plant on your thinking caps for a minute. In some sense, that experience on the mountain there was the coming of the kingdom of God, which Jesus said some of them would see. Although it clearly was not the outset of the literal fulfillment, which Peter and the rest of them were hoping it would be, but seeing Jesus transformed into the powerful heavenly divine being that He is was certainly a foretaste of that event, of the time when Jesus will come out of heaven very different, with an army of angels to destroy His enemies and establish the kingdom of God on earth, which will last a thousand years. What I really want you to think about with me today comes in what Mark writes in this chapter immediately after his description of what happened on the mountain, and herein lies the second enigma. Listen.

And as they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to recount to anyone what they had seen there until after the Son of Man arose from the dead. And they seized upon that statement, that is, about the Son of God rising from the dead, arguing with one another what rising from the dead could possibly mean. And they began asking Jesus, Why is it that the scribes say that Elijah must come first, meaning before the Messiah establishes his kingdom? And he answered them, Elijah does come first and restores all things. And yet, Jesus countered, how is it that at the same time, written of the Son of Man, that he will suffer many things and be treated with contempt? I say to you that Elijah has indeed come, and they did to him whatever they wished, just as it was written.

Oh boy, stay with me here. Peter and the other two disciples had just seen the real Elijah, fresh from heaven, with the glorified Jesus on the mountaintop. Remember the then-current messianic narrative we were talking about? Well, this is one more piece of it, that before the Messiah returned to establish his kingdom, the Jews believed he would be preceded by the resurrected Elijah, who would prepare the way for the coming King. And you know what? They were right about that part.

The last Old Testament prophet who wrote the last Old Testament book, the prophet Malachi, said as much. The Old Testament literally ends on this promise of God in Malachi chapter 4. Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord, and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers. The disciples were just trying to put two and two together. Having just seen the glorified Jesus and Elijah together on the mountaintop, they wanted desperately to believe this was pointing to the imminent establishment of the kingdom of God. But now Jesus words to them as they ascended from the mountain were, Shh, don’t even tell anybody what you saw up there until after my resurrection.

And they had no idea what to make of that. Although we can see, in retrospect, this was another instance of Jesus not wanting to stir up messianic fever among people because he knew he was headed to the cross and not to the throne of Israel. But the disciples naturally pressed the question, Didn’t the scribes, the Old Testament experts then, have it right when they say Elijah will come back to prepare the way for the Messiah’s kingdom? Jesus responded to them, Yes, that’s going to happen. But yet realize, how is it also written of the Son of Man that he will suffer many things and be treated contemptuously? You can imagine the disciples’ confusion if you’re following me here.

They had to be thinking, Wait a minute, how could both of those things be true at the same time? We’ve just seen Elijah, who’s promised to return at the time of the Messiah when he establishes his kingdom, and we just saw you with him in your powerful glorified form, and you keep talking about suffering and being killed in Jerusalem. Understand their confusion? What could Jesus possibly be talking about? Well, honestly, we could never figure it out from just Mark’s account of this conversation. But fortunately, the riddle is possibly solved by comparing this day’s events and the conversation that followed them in the Gospel of Matthew, because there it’s summarized like this.

Jesus said to them, Elijah is coming and will restore all things. But I say to you that Elijah already has come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands. Then the disciples, Matthew adds, understood that he had been speaking to them about John the Baptist. What? Maybe this recalled other things then that Jesus had said about John the Baptist, as when he had earlier, on a different occasion entirely, told the disciples, And from the time of John the Baptist, when he began preaching until now, the kingdom of heaven has been advancing, but violent people are attacking it.

For before John came, all the prophets and the law of Moses looked forward to our present time. And if you are willing to accept what I say, he is Elijah, the one the prophets said would come. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. Wow. So Jesus had said, Get this, if Israel had been willing to accept it, John the Baptist could have been the Elijah to come, the prophet who prepared the way for the Messianic kingdom. But his message of repentance was largely ignored, and some found John the Baptist so annoying he had been killed by this time by Herod Antipas.

Are you starting to put the puzzle pieces together? Another piece that fits here is something John the Baptist’s father had been told even before he was born. He was told, Your son will go before the Messiah in spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children, and the disobedient to the attitude of righteousness, to make ready the people for the Lord. That’s a direct connection to the prophecy of Malachi. So John the Baptist had come, sort of in the role of Elijah, in the spirit and power of Elijah, it says, and he had been the Messiah’s forerunner, but he was largely rejected, and then he was killed. Jesus the Messiah then appeared on the scene, and he too was largely rejected and would be killed.

But at the risk of blowing your minds, let me ask the obvious hypothetical question: What if John’s preaching had turned the nation toward repentance, and what if Jesus had been accepted as the Messiah rather than rejected by the religious elite in Israel? Would the kingdom of God on earth have been established then? Wow. The answer to that is up above the clouds, or back behind the curtain, where we cannot see the interaction between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility, isn’t it? The fact of the matter is, John and Jesus were rejected, which led to Jesus’ death on the cross, which led to salvation becoming available for everyone in the world, including us. Thank God.

But do not lose sight of the fact that the literal fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy about Elijah returning and preparing Israel for the coming of the Messiah has not been forgotten and has not been nullified. Its fulfillment is still ahead of us. In the book of Revelation, in chapter 11, one of the future scenes revealed there is of two great witnesses during the tribulation era, that seven final years of turmoil just before the second coming of Christ. They will preach in Israel for three and a half years, trying to turn people’s hearts away from the Antichrist and toward the Lord Jesus. One of those witnesses will certainly be Elijah. The other, I think, will be Moses.

I’ll make a case for that more when we get to the study of Revelation, but don’t miss this. God will send Elijah from heaven one final time on one final assignment to prepare the way for the second coming of Jesus the Messiah at the end of this age. In summary, Elijah has and continues to play quite a role in God’s plans, 900 years or so before Jesus’ time. During the prophet’s natural lifespan, Elijah was God’s spokesman in Israel during the dark days of King Ahab, trying to turn the rebellious people’s hearts back to God. He’s next mentioned by the prophet Malachi 400 years after that, before Jesus’ time, as one day returning to Israel to prepare the way for the Messiah.

The next time he’s mentioned is here in the gospel account in connection with John the Baptist, who Jesus said would come in the spirit and power of Elijah and who could have fulfilled Malachi’s prophecy if people had only accepted him and his message. But he was rejected and killed. Then in today’s chapter, we see Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration with Moses, sent from God to encourage Jesus in view of his upcoming passion. But there’s this one more appearance of Elijah we’re told about in the book, and that is in the book of Revelation, which tells us he will once again be sent to the world in the very last days to preach the gospel in Israel and give people one last opportunity to ready themselves before the Messiah’s return. I hope this clears up everything you’ve ever wondered concerning the role of Elijah. Ha ha, probably not, but it was my effort.

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