Chapter # 3 Paragraph # 3 Study # 1
October 8, 2019
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
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Thesis: Mark's presentation of Jesus as John's "Mighty One" whom the Father made both Lord and Christ is wrapped up in His ascent upon "the mountain".
Introduction: Last week we gave a cursory look into an entire paragraph (
3:7-12). This week we are going to give a more detailed look into one word. In the first verse of this new paragraph we are given what is an
anomaly at first glance: the use of the specific definite article, "the", which has no obvious prior referent. Because authors have a limited number of options available to them to get their readers to grasp what they are trying to communicate, we have to pay attention when they do things linguistically that are unusual. When Mark wrote that Jesus "ascended into the mountain" we are automatically driven to ask "what mountain?"
- I. Mark's Use of a "Telling" Linguistic Anomaly.
- A. Many times authors use words that have been previously used so that their readers will recall the force of those words in the previous use and let that "force" have a part in their thinking about the current use.
- 1. In 3:15 Mark says that Jesus gave The Twelve "authority to cast out demons".
- a. The word "authority" has already been a high visibility word in that it defines Jesus' identity as One Who forgives sins (2:10).
- b. The word "demons" has already been used to validate Jesus' absolute dominion over the spiritual forces of wickedness in the spirit world.
- 2. In the verse before us this evening, Mark uses the word "ascend" in the historical present tense to make the visual graphic (we "see" Jesus as He is ascending into the mountain).
- a. But, this word was previously only used by Mark in respect to his record of Jesus' baptism by John as he told us that Jesus "ascended" out of the water (using a present tense of the verbal form again).
- b. In that text, the "ascending" was attended by the heavens being parted, the Spirit descending, and God's voice from heaven declaring Jesus' identity as His Beloved Son whom John has previously identified as the "Coming Mighty One".
- 3. Thus, we are already "prejudiced" by the idea that maybe "ascending" has both "authority" and "identity" issues attached.
- B. On many other occasions authors say things that, if we are paying attention, will arrest our attention and make us ask "what is going on here?"
- 1. The anomaly of the use of a definite article when there is no obvious referent in the text/context is one such technique.
- 2. Mark intends us to say "what mountain?"
- II. Our Response to Mark's Use of This "Telling" Linguistic Anomaly.
- A. First, we look up Mark's references to "mountains".
- 1. Mark's other references to "the mountain".
- a. 6:46; He went up into "the mountain" to pray immediately after sending those who ate what He provided of fish and bread in the wilderness away.
- b. 9:9; He descended from "the mountain" where He had been transfigured before Peter, James, and John.
- c. 11:1; This text actually identifies "the mountain" to which Mark refers (likewise 11:23, 13:3, and 14:26) as "the mountain of the olives".
- 2. Mark's "generic" references to "mountain/mountains".
- a. 5:5; This is where the Legion of demons drove their victim.
- b. 5:11; This tells us about the herd of swine that the demons destroyed.
- c. 9:2; This is the "referent" for 9:9 above.
- d. 13:14; This is a part of Jesus' instructions to those who are in Jerusalem when the prophetic armies begin to surround the city.
- B. Then, we chase our thinking back into the previous material to see if there might be some linkage to a "mountain" thesis in that material that would give us a hint as to what the present text is revealing.
- 1. And we find that there is this: a very oblique link to the identity and message of John as the fulfillment of Isaiah 40 and the prophecy there of John's coming.
- a. In this prophecy, "mountains" are presented as serious obstacles to the building of a highway in the wilderness so that "the Lord" can travel upon it without resistance.
- 1) As "obstacles", the "mountains" refer to "attitudes of high arrogance" as an issue of resistance toward God and His plans.
- 2) But, as "mountains" this issue of "high arrogance" is only arrogance because it symbolizes the attitude of men toward themselves as "independent" of God, "sufficient" in themselves for the details of life in God's creation, and "insistence" upon their own right to sit upon God's "throne" of "Life" and call the shots for themselves and all others.
- 3) IF, however, a person possesses the right to "sit upon God's throne", the "mountain attitude" is no longer arrogance.
- 4) Jesus, after His ascension sat down upon the Father's throne with Him because He had that "right".
- 5) Thus, for Jesus to go upon "the mountain" to select His future "throne-sitters" (Matthew 19:28) who were to rule with Him in the Kingdom of God is not only "proper", it is a necessary picture.
- b. And, when Jesus told the disciples that there were among them some who would not die before they witnessed the coming of the Kingdom with power (Mark 9:1) and then took Peter, James, and John to the fulfillment of that promise so that they witnessed Jesus being transfigured before them into His kingdom glory and speaking to Moses and Elijah, He took them up onto a high mountain for the presentation (9:2).
- 2. Thus, oblique as it may be, John's ministry of preaching "repentance unto forgiveness" as the qualification for any who would enter into the Kingdom has a very definite "Kingdom" element which, in Isaiah 2:7-12, is tied to "the highest of the mountains".
- 3. Then, because of Jesus' identity upon "the mountain", He chooses Twelve and gives them "authority to cast out demons"; a "Kingdom" issue of dominion over spirits of greater identity and power.
- a. Men were created "lower" than angels/demons.
- b. Paul backs this up with his scolding of the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 6:3.
- C. Thus, we actually do have a "referent" for "the" mountain (even though it is unlikely that any of those involved at the time would recognize it): that one which represents Jesus' status as God's Kingdom Ruler; John's "Mighty One Who is Coming".
