Chapter # 9 Paragraph # 1 Study # 2
December 13, 2022
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
(364)
1901 ASV
9:2 And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them;
9:3 and his garments became glistering, exceeding white, so as no fuller on earth can whiten them.
9:4 And there appeared unto them Elijah with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus.
9:5 And Peter answereth and saith to Jesus, Rabbi, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.
9:6 For he knew not what to answer; for they became sore afraid.
9:7 And there came a cloud overshadowing them: and there came a voice out of the cloud, This is my beloved Son: hear ye him.
9:8 And suddenly looking round about, they saw no one any more, save Jesus only with themselves.
- I. The Kingdom Of God, Having Come, Made Visible.
- A. The backdrop of this event.
- 1. Many Old Testament prophecies regarding the coming of The Christ, one of which is Zechariah 9:9. (the coming of the Christ riding upon the foal of a donkey).
- a. This one is the basis for Mark's record in 11:1-11, which is the final paragraph of Mark's extended chiasm that begins here in 9:1-13.
- b. This one also is the basis for our hermeneutical expectations regarding how we are to take the individual words/parts of the prophecies.
- 2. The first century expectation that centered around the coming of The Christ.
- a. The larger issue: the coming of a prophesied Son of David to take up the throne of David and rule over the nation.
- b. The underlying difficulties: the "apparent" contradictions involved in a triumphant King thesis and a suffering Servant thesis.
- 1) These are the two major issues in Mark's "pivot" from his focus upon the coming of the Mighty One (until it reached to the "You are the Christ" pinnacle of "conclusion", as it rested upon the extensive experiences of The Twelve as they followed Jesus through their days), to his shift in focus upon the approaching death/resurrection of Jesus.
- 2) The question, at that time, was, "How are these disparate realities to be reconciled?"
- 3. The contextual crisis of Peter's pronouncement (8:29) and Jesus' immediate insertion of the physical events that would lay the foundation for the "qualifying" of sinful men to inherit a place in Messiah's righteous kingdom.
- a. This was the huge theological conundrum.
- 1) Messiah's coming to set up a kingdom automatically assumed the presence of human beings in that kingdom.
- 2) The doctrine of the universal sinfulness of men seemed to preclude any human being from inheritance in that kingdom.
- 3) Thus, the question arose: "Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" (10:17, which follows immediately upon the heels of the chiastic "point" revealed in 9:1-11:11).
- a) This was the question for men in respect to the expectation of a Messianic Kingdom; a question of methodology.
- b) At the heart of this question is the "problem" of how God goes about "justifying" men in the face of the Justice/Grace clash: how does God go about to become "Justifier" while yet legitimately retaining His own "Justice"? (Romans 3:26).
- b. This was Mark's basis for presenting Jesus as "The Christ" through widely accepted reasons (authority over mighty spirits and ability to heal any/every kind of physical maladies) before he turned the page to present the Servant's task in making The Kingdom of God more than an empty geographical area by qualifying people to fill up that geography with "subjects to the King".
- B. The particular "presentation" in a visible form.
- 1. Jesus' statement about "some standing here" being able to "see" the Kingdom, having come in power.
- a. The "power" thesis is crucial to Mark's presentation.
- 1) "Power" is first addressed in 5:30 where Jesus perceives it as having flowed out of Him to someone who touched His garments.
- 2) "Power" is the main question in the next reference to it in 6:2 where it is the question facing the witnesses to it.
- 3) And "power" is the "at issue problem" in 6:5 and 14.
- 4) Our text, 9:1, is the next reference to "power" and it is a declaration that Jesus is going to demonstrate it to "some" so that they will have no question about Jesus' relationship to God's Kingdom.
- b. This "power" was going to be visible to the physical eyes of the "some" who were standing there.
- 2. The related details.
- a. Six days. Matthew also notes this event "after six days" in 17:1, but, other than tying the announcement to the event, the reference to "six", as a significant detail, escapes me.
- b. Peter, James, and John. These three are presented as a special group in four places in Mark's record: 5:17 tells us they were privileged to witness the resuscitation of Jairus' daughter; 9:2 is our current text; 13:3 has these three plus Andrew asking Jesus about His prophecy about of the magnificent buildings (temple, etc.); and 14:33 has these three being chosen by Jesus to pray for Him in His extreme distress. Herod killed this James (Acts 12:2); John survived into the decade of the nineties of the first century; and Peter made specific reference to this event in 2 Peter 1:16-18 which he used to undergird the integrity of the Gospel.
- c. Taking them up a "high mountain". The imagery is out of the general context of the Old Testament and the specific imagery of Daniel 2:25 and 2:45 and 9:16 and 9:20. Mark 3:13 uses it in the same way.