Mark
Chapters 15 & 16
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Mk 15,1-32
(18a) Sin >>
Unrighteous judgment >> Condemning Jesus –
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a threat to all other beliefs. The
Pharisees, Scribes and chief priests believed in their rendition of the Old
Testament, and they believed in their position among the people of Israel.
They had prestige among the people and they lived sumptuously; their beliefs
engendered their lavish lifestyles, but the resurrection of Jesus Christ
diametrically opposed this. If they believed in the resurrected Christ, they
would have had to give up their business of religion and their prestigious
place in society, because Jesus would then be the focus of attention.
Instead,
they were happy to mock Him on the cross. He conquered death three days
later, just as He promised, but for His enemies it was too late; they wanted
Him to come off the cross right then while they were watching, but of course
they didn’t really want this. Had Jesus done what they asked, they would
have nailed Him right back on it again. The reason they were standing there
was to make sure He died. They weren’t about to go home
before He breathed His last and merely supposed He had died; they wanted to
see him dead with their own eyes to confirm everything they had previously
believed about Him. In their minds, if He could not stop them from killing Him, then none of His claims were true, but what they failed
to recognize was that the cross was God’s preordained plan; they were all
acting like puppets on a string; God was using them to crucify His Son. God
was saying, ‘I knew you would do this.’ For them to crucify Him based on
God’s preordained plan was to inadvertently admit to God that they were
hopeless sinners desperately in need of a savior, but salvation would never
come to them, because they refused to believe in Him. Essentially, they
sacrificed the Lamb of God for the sake of others who would inherit eternal
life. It was possibly the only selfless thing they ever
did.
Mk 15-2
(17i) Sin >>
Unrighteous judgment >> Ignorance >> Speaking truth without knowing it
(58k) Paradox >>
Two implied meanings >> Are you the king of
the Jews? / You are the king of the Jews!
-- Instead of asking Jesus whether He was the king of the Jews, Pilate could
have converted his question to a declaration of faith by merely switching
two words: "Are you?" to "You are!," and changing his
eternal destiny and
possibly the course of history. No one knows whether Pilate went to
heaven, but if he didn't, it is because of those two
words out of order.
(85a) Thy kingdom come >>
Your words can lead to your own demise >> They
will keep you out of heaven
Mk 15,3-5
(18f)
Sin >> False Judgment lacks evidence >>
Accusing God –
Pilate wanted Jesus to beg for His life but Jesus wouldn’t do it, because His
destiny was in the hand of another, His Father. Jesus was Almighty
God dressed in human flesh, and He wasn’t about to beg anybody for anything.
Pilate would have less believed Jesus was a king had He begged for his life, but
the fact that He didn’t made the stronger case that perhaps He was a king, and
this was partly the reason he wrote the plaque above his cross that read,
“Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews” (Jn 19-19). The accusations the
chief priests brought against Him were matters of their own law, which were
irrelevant to Pilate. The religious establishment in Jerusalem was a thorn in
his side, not that day only but ever since he took office as the Roman governor
of Jerusalem. These same people and others like them were a thorn
in Paul’s side too, who followed him wherever he went preaching the gospel.
Part of the reason Paul went to the ends of the earth to preach the gospel was to get away from the Jews,
and Pilate felt the same way about them.
There was very little they actually understood about the Scriptures, though
they supposedly devoted their lives to studying them.
(49m) Judgment >>
God judges the world >> Condition of the Church in the last days –
The fact that the religious establishment was present when Jesus was crucified,
suggests that people similar to them will also be present in the last days. Anybody who would disagree with contemporary spiritual
authority is automatically dubbed as false, their evidence being that
their opponents contradicted them. This was the Pharisees’
acid test to discern truth from error, and they used it on Jesus, and He proved them
wrong by their Old Testament Scriptures. After smashing their teachings to
pieces their belief system warped back into shape, being unaffected by
anything He said to them. The Pharisees were no more seeking truth than the
devil himself. The Pharisees were reminiscent of the machines on Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s Terminator movies, where after pounding them into the
pavement or blowing them to pieces and spattering their parts in every
direction, their memory metal would seek itself and recombine and return to its
original shape with the net result of its battle scars disappearing. The
Pharisees were the same way. Jesus could totally destroy their understanding of
the Scriptures, spattering their doctrines over the streets of Jerusalem, and
shortly thereafter their skewed doctrines would find their way back to their darkened
hearts, and they would be completely unaffected by anything Jesus said to them.
(180c) Works of the devil
>>
Practicing witchcraft >> Wolves >>
Be shrewd as wolves and more innocent than they appear >>
Fighting off wolves with a clever innocence
>> Being more innocent than their self-righteousness
Mk 15-3
(25g) Sin >>
Poverty (Forms of fear) >> Killing Jesus
-- This verse goes with verses 10-32
Mk 15-4,5
(62d) Paradox >>
Anomalies >> Being clever >>
Answer with wisdom
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Mk 15,10-32
(25g) Sin >>
Poverty (Forms of fear) >> Killing Jesus
-- These verses go with verse 3. It
says in Jn 3-16 that God so loved the world that He sent His Son, so it was
the Father’s plan that Jesus should come to us. Everything that happened to
Jesus was the Father’s plan. When we look at Jesus, everything
seems fine, but when we look at our own lives, many things seem out of place.
This is from retrospect; we have the advantage of viewing Jesus' life from a
distance where everything is going according to plan, but we don't see a
distinct plan and purpose in our own lives, and it is troubling. What we see is a lot of death and suffering
and pain and evil; this is the Father allowing it in order to achieve His
objective, which is to create a people for His own good pleasure, who have
been tested by the world, the flesh and the devil and found true. We pour
contempt on someone like Hitler, who had the attitude that the end
justifies the means and then proceeded to murder all the people He
didn’t like. God allows
suffering in order to refine His people, while,
men like Hitler hold the place of evil that God uses to prove His saints. God
the Father is truly a conundrum to us in many respects. He is so big
and powerful that we wonder if He even notices us. When we try to calculate these
things, we discover our math is insufficient, and so part of the testing in
this life is in trusting God in His absence in the face of pain and
suffering. Should we stop trusting God?
Is He so little that His plan would fail? Man thinks pain and suffering
is evil, but God says that sin is evil. Man murdered the Son of God, but
pain and suffering never hurt anyone. See also: God allows suffering and evil to test us like He
tested Job;
Lk 22-31,32; 65i
Mk 15,10-15
(199i) Denying Christ >>
Man chooses his own destiny apart from God >>
Rejecting Christ >> The world rejects God >>
World rejects God because it does not know Him –
Jesus performed thousands of miracles and many who saw the miracles were
present in Jerusalem, and some were even healed by the touch of His hand, yet
they cried with the rest of them for His blood. This seems impossible but it
happened. They should have had the attitude that they didn’t know what this
man allegedly did wrong; all they know is that He loved them, and He taught
them the word of God and healed their diseases, so whatever they say He did
wrong, the people should have trusted Him instead. The way it happened,
though, He gave them every reason to trust Him, but they cried for His blood
instead. Then again, had they trusted Him, they wouldn’t have crucified Him,
and God’s predetermined plan would not have come to fruition. This was
predestined to happen. Had they not crucified Him, it would have proved God
wrong, because He is under the conviction that the world hates Him and does not know Him.
Mk 15-10
(24f) Envy
(Key
verse)
(24g) Sin >>
Poverty (Forms of fear) >> Envy >>
Angry at God because of their poverty
-- Man's issues with God are not altogether obvious. Besides being prodded by
the devil into sin, Man's greatest enemy is poverty. An easy way to arrive at
this conclusion is to determine the common thread between all wars fought
throughout man's bloody past. We must conclude that
poverty is at the root of our dilemma. If we were not so needy, we would not
be so greedy. It is our fear of the future and the stockpiling of supplies that
causes us so much anxiety and grief. Once greed enters
the world, those who don't have what they think they need become envious of those who
have more, and start wars over resources, rather than
living one day at a time.
(170c) Works of the devil >>
Manifestations of the devil >> Pursuing the glory of man turns us in
the wrong direction >> Fighting God to keep the
glory of man
(185b) Works of the devil >>
The origin of lawlessness >> Mystery of
lawlessness >> Having no grounds for your hate >>
Hating Christ without a cause –
This is the negative power of envy at work. There is one kind of envy that
wishes we were rich and famous like some of our favorite celebrities. We sit at
the television set and dream of being like them. We are jealous and wish we had
what they had; we’re not angry at them but love them. The envy that the
Pharisees had against Jesus was not the same; it was an envy that hated Him.
Their envy was competitive. Instead of wanting to be like Him, they wanted to
overcome Him. They were like Satan, who is first deceitful, and when that
didn’t work, they resorted to murder. They would have done just about anything
to have healing power in their fingertips, so they could charge exorbitant
prices to touch the bodies of the sick and diseased, and they wished they had
His wisdom and could draw a crowd the way Jesus did, so they could charge
exorbitant prices for their speeches, and they would amass greater fortunes and
prestige than ever. Jesus drove His enemies crazy having the
power of God at His disposal and refusing to use it for evil. The religious
establishment had the power of Satan at their disposal and used it exclusively for
evil.
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Mk 15,11-16
(186da) Works of the devil >>
The result of lawlessness >>
Man’s role in becoming a reprobate >> The fool throws Jesus away for something
better >> Israel betrayed the Lord
Mk 15,11-15
(179d) Works of the devil >>
Practicing witchcraft >> Wolves stir up the crowd through
jealousy –
Just how close was the crowd to the opinions of the chief priests’ and
Pharisees’ before they stirred up the people? How close were they to
asking for the blood of Christ on their own? The attitude of the Jews was that
if Jesus would not become their king and fight against their enemies the
Romans and focus on the problems of this life, instead of incessantly talking
about the afterlife, then they didn't want Him. This was already well cemented in their heads, so
they had the sentiments of the religious establishment; all they needed was a
little prodding. It wasn’t long before this that they gave Jesus a great
entrance into the city laying down palm branches and praising God. What happened
to make them cry for His blood only days later? Their hope was that Messiah
would come and raise them over the nations, but they never stopped to think
what
expectations their Messiah might have of them. They considered His coming to be
stipulation-free, but their past
interactions with God never exhibited such a conspicuous absence of
conditions. Contradictorily, Moses continually warned them of God’s
conditions that He imposed on His people before He would lift a finger to help
them. The entire chapter 28 of Deuteronomy is devoted to espousing the terms
that God required of Israel before they saw one benefit of being the nation
chosen to bear His name.
Mk 15-15
(37a) Judgment >>
The cross >> God judged the sin of the world
through Christ –
Jesus became the blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin and took the
punishment that belonged to Barabbas, who represents us all. He was the
scapegoat that they practiced in the Old Testament prior to making the annual
sacrifice of the lamb at Passover. Before killing the lamb, they would take a
similar lamb and release it into the wilderness.
Mk 15,16-37
(103i) Thy kingdom come >>
Purifying process >> God purifies His church >>
Jesus goes through God’s purifying process --
Since Jesus is innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the
heavens (Heb 7-26,27), why did He need to go through a purifying process? Heb 5-8 says
that He learned obedience through the things which He suffered. Although God
is totally complete and in need of nothing, He still lacked experience with
sin. God found a way to experience sin by experiencing ours on the cross
without ever personally sinning. Eph 4-9,10 says, "Now this
expression, 'He ascended,' what does it mean except that he also had descended
into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who
ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things."
Jesus was already Lord of Satan, but He wanted first hand experience with the
realm of darkness, so God sent His Son all the way to the bottom of human
depravity to experience the full impact of sin on His soul; that is, He descended
into hell, in order that He
may become Lord even of darkness and evil. If God required His Son to
experience the things that He learned, how much more does He require from us
that we do more than just say we love God. He expects us to prove it. God's
purifying process always involves suffering. Our relationship with God grows
deeper as we endure His will in our lives. This process is painful because it
always involves sacrifice, but our reward is experiencing God through the
things we suffer in His name.
Mk 15-21
(37f) Judgment
>> Judgment of God >>
Jesus’ humanity >> Jesus had human limitations
(188e)
Die to self (Process of substitution) >> Separation from the old man
>> Suffering >> Suffering the will of God in your life –
They scourged Jesus and then crucified Him. That is a quick few words, but
they represent an unimaginable amount of pain and suffering to our Lord. When
we think of Satan’s absolute hatred for God’s Son, having tempted Him
innumerous times, failing to make Him sin, He tried to disrupt Jesus'
relationship with His Father. The only thing Satan knew after deception failed was murder, and he did it with such violence and rage, no doubt possessing
the men who wielded the whips, giving them superhuman strength. The
cat-o-nine-tails tore the skin off his back until He almost died, and what was
left of Him they nailed to a cross until dead, which only took a few hours,
because of the horrible beating he received. Each whip had nine leather
strands and each strand had glass and bone fragments tied into them, so when
they hit the soft flesh, it tore chunks of meat from the body. Each time the
whip struck the back it was like whipping Him nine times.
Mk 15-28
(141f)
Witness >> Validity of Jesus Christ >>
Old Testament bears witness to the new >> It
bears witness to Jesus >> Prophesy about
Jesus’ death –
The Bible says that Jesus hung with sinners; what choice did He have?
Everybody’s a sinner. When it says He socialized with sinners, it meant that
He made His company with people whom the religious establishment considered
sinners, because they didn’t worship at the temple or participate in the
festivals and ceremonies, nor did they tithe. In this case, when Scripture was
fulfilled, those with Him were His own disciples, and they were said to be
transgressors. This was partly due to the fact that they carried weapons and
actually used them against their enemies when they came to arrest the Lord.
The disciples were also sinners in other ways; they were the kind of people
Jesus came to rescue from death through His own death, that they might believe
in His blood sacrifice, in order that God could count them righteous through
faith. The disciples were sinners in the eyes of God, yet they were upstanding
citizens according to our standards. Therefore, if these good men needed
salvation, how much more do transgressors who are sinners according to our own
standards need the blood of Jesus to cover their sins?
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Mk 15,29-32
(19m)
Sin >>
Nature of sin >>
Unwilling to believe >> Spirit of unbelief
(243b)
Kingdom of God >> Opposition toward the Kingdom of God >> Persecuting the kingdom >>
Mocking Christ –
Jesus’ enemies mocked Him saying, “You who are going to destroy the
temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself, and come down from the
cross!” Later Jesus rose from the dead, but He didn’t appear to everyone. He didn’t
show Himself to the high priest; He showed Himself to His disciples and
those who believed in Him. His enemies who mocked Him never saw Him alive
again, so they continued in their unbelief. This is what God is willing to
do for us; if we believe in Him, He will go out of His way to help us
believe all the more, but if we refuse to believe in Him, He will give us
reason for that too. This is based on the
kingdom principle: “For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he
will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be
taken away from him” (Mat 13-12). This principle is threaded throughout
Scripture. Had Jesus shown Himself to the
high priest, he would have had Him crucified again. We all have an opportunity to believe in God, but if we choose
not to
believe in Him, He will leave us in our unbelief. God has
expectations of us; He wants us to show Him a little faith so He can work
with us.
Mk 15-29,30
(58j) Paradox >>
Two implied meanings >> The temple building /
The temple of His body
(140e)
Temple >> Temple made without hands >>
Hiding place >> The entrance exam --
Heb 9-24 says that Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, but
into heaven itself to appear in the presence of God for us. The way into the
holy place for Jesus was through the cross, then in Mat 26-24 Jesus told us
to take up our cross and follow Him. We are all going to die some day; that
day will be the point of transition and will be our ticket to the holy of
holies in the most literal sense, but until then God has commanded us to
deny our petty pleasures that conflict with the life
He has prepared for us behind the veil, a spiritual realm where we can go
and experience God until we meet Him face to face.
(184k) Works of the devil >>
The origin of lawlessness >> Abusing the grace
of God >> Dragging God’s Grace Through The Mud >> Dishonoring the grace of God
–
Those who hurled abuse at Him may have been throwing stones, but another
passage says that one who was crucified next to Him also hurled abuse at
Him. With his hands nailed to a cross the only thing He could have been
hurling was mocking words and spittle (Lk 23-39). It is amazing that God
allowed people whom He created to mistreat Him to such an extent, but He did
it as a way of proving to mankind that we are all sinners. The problem with
many people, they don’t think they’re sinners. If we were willing
to hurl abuse of all forms at our maker, then we must be sinners, yet people
simply refuse to believe it. Instead of
seeking truth, they look for teachings that appeal to their flesh and then
throw them in God's face.
Mk 15,33-37
(26b)
Sin >>
Consequences of sin >> Death is separation >> Death is hell
>> Sin has the sentence of hell
–
That loud cry may have been the sound that everybody makes after they die and goes
to hell. The Father forsook Jesus at His death; no one was there to catch Him
when He fell, and as His Spirit slipped from His body it fell into the recesses
of the pit, and there He spent 3½ days preaching to the people who lived there.
He probably informed them of His identity and that He was only there temporarily
and that He wasn’t taking anybody with Him when He left. He didn’t go there
to rescue anybody; He only went to tell them how big a mistake they made in
their former lives by rejecting all that was right and good and living as though
there was no God. Three days later He returned to a resurrected body to the
light of day, only He was in a tomb, and the angel rolled away the stone, and
He walked out alive forevermore. Death will never touch Him again, and He holds
out the promise to anybody who would believe in Him for eternal life that they
would not have to see that evil place from which He had returned. They will
become immune to death, and life will take hold of them and they will live
forever with Him in paradise.
(208g) Salvation >>
The salvation of God >> Personal relationship >>
Being the friend of God >> Father & son
relationship –
The centurion heard many of the claims about Jesus, but he never considered them
to be true, until He died. It was the way He died that convinced Him that He was
the Son of God. How did Jesus die to convince a skeptic of His divinity? His cry
just before He died revealed His deep and abiding relationship with His Father.
Jesus knew God on a personal level, having known and loved His Father from eternity
past; nobody but the Son of God could have expressed the feelings He had that
welled inside Him that He never expressed throughout His life until His death.
This is probably true about all of us. We will probably have feelings at our
death that we never felt until then, a summary of our whole lives.
Jesus summarized eternity past in a moment’s time, expressing a genuine
relationship with God that He had always known.
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Mk 15-37
(192a) Die to self (Process of substitution) >>
Result of putting off the old man >> Gain by
losing >> Life for life >>
Losing your life to gain God’s life
Mk 15-38
(205h)
Salvation >> Salvation is based on God’s
promises >> New covenant >>
The old one is obsolete
-- The veil of the temple covering the Holy of Holies was torn from top to bottom,
symbolizing that the ministry of the
old covenant had reached its end and that a new, better covenant was being
inaugurated in its place. An
angel grabbed the top of the curtain and ripped it in half from top to bottom.
Had it been an earthquake, it would have ripped from bottom to top as the
earth split beneath it. The tearing of the veil represents the access God
has given us into the Most Holy Place, not only in the life to come, but also
in this life.
Mk 15-39
(86e) Thy kingdom come >>
Belief >> God’s works act as evidence to
support our beliefs
(150f) Witness >>
Validity of Jesus Christ >> Works of the Church bear witness of Jesus >>
Confessing Jesus as the son of God –
For the centurion to make the claim that Jesus was the Son of God and
then to thrust a spear in His side must not have been easy, but it was
required of Him. Had he not made sure Jesus was dead, he too would have ended
up on
a cross, and somebody else would be shoving a spear in his side.
After the centurion realized this was the Son of God, he had to inflict wound
in His body,
fatal had He not already been dead. For this man to have
confessed Jesus indicates that he got saved. If he didn’t
get saved at that moment, he probably got saved later after hearing the gospel
message of His resurrection. Many were unwilling to believe in Jesus
no matter how much evidence was presented to them. The Pharisees may have known Jesus was the Son of God, but they refused
to believe it. Putting it in those terms, it really shows their depravity. His
countenance alone was enough for the discerning believer to accept Jesus
Christ as the Son of God.
Mk 15,40-47
(14e)
Servant >> Ministry of helps >>
Being in charge of the details –
The disciples came to the women to ascertain where they laid the body of their Lord.
Women are servants by nature, and this is the way it has been throughout all
time. Women generally have a beautiful spirit, and men have been the
breadwinners, and together they have raised families throughout the generations.
However, we see that the world today does not fit this nice pattern anymore,
indicating that we are reaching the end of the age. We now must deal
with cultural change going in directions that no one is controlling so that no
one knows his or her place anymore. For thousands of years, the genders were well
defined, but the world has
been blurring the distinctions in social order and the result is confusion about
our roles in society. When a woman tries to
be a servant, she gets mocked and told that it is no longer her job and that a
man could just as easily do it. Now a woman doesn’t know if she should obey
her culture or her instincts that she received from God. Paul said
the woman has received the ministry of angels, for they too are servants (1Cor
11-10).
Mk 15-40
(170e) Works of the devil
>>
Manifestations of the devil >> Seeking the glory
of man >> Greed and lust are the glory of man >>
Woman is the glory of man -- This verse goes with verse 47. It
is
no wonder more women go to church than men; many women followed Jesus in His
day. Women
understand the gospel seemingly better than men. Jesus was a man devoid
of violence, and women gravitate towards gentlemen. He had a very attractive
personality and His gospel was attractive to women. His whole teaching and
ministry revolved around love, which is very attractive to women. Love
integrates into their nesting instincts; this is what women are striving to
emulate as mothers. Love is primary to mothers in raising their children.
Mothers have kept this world alive all these thousands of years, not just giving
birth to the next generation, but also nurturing them, so it shouldn’t be
surprising that women are attracted to Jesus, because He has a motherly way
about Himself. Jesus said in Jn 14-2,3, “I go to prepare a place for you. If I
go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself,
that where I am, there you may be also.” That has a ring of nesting instincts,
like a mother bird builds a nest to raise its young. That place, by the way is
the New Jerusalem.
Mk 15,43-47
(123d) Thy kingdom come >>
Manifestations of faith >> Love >>
Spiritual affection >> Compassion >>
Reaching out to those in need
Mk 15-43
(84b)
Thy kingdom come >> Be on the alert >>
Remain on duty >> Keep watch –
When an Old Testament believer says he is waiting for the Kingdom of God, it
means something different to the New Testament believer who says the same thing. We have far greater knowledge than Old Testament
believers ever thought of having, in the sense that many of their questions have been answered. Joseph of Arimathea was an Old Testament
believer waiting for the Millennium, which is a kingdom that is still to come
that this planet will enjoy, whereas the new covenant believer is waiting for
the Kingdom of God in eternity. The old covenant believer was waiting for an
earthly heaven, a temporal thousand-year prototype of paradise, while the new covenant believer is waiting for a heavenly earth
after Christ makes all things new. Just as the old covenant believer
passed over the 2000-year age of grace, so the new covenant believer passes over
the Millennium. Most Christians don’t talk about the Millennium, except those
who study endtime prophecy, and then they just refer to it as a fact and not as
something they really anticipate. Joseph of Arimathea waited for the Kingdom of God,
the Millennium; how much more should we also be waiting for this glorious age,
especially when it is just around the corner? The Millennium is the last age before
eternity resumes, an age when Christ reigns on this planet and sustains peace for a
thousand years among sinners, proving that it can be done. The Church will also
be present in resurrected bodies, and many of us will have jobs during the
Millennium, leading people in paths of righteousness. Since the Millennium
will occur on this planet, we could bury a time capsule in this life and recover
it in our resurrected bodies during Christ's reign, and put things in it that we
think would be significant in the age to come.
See also: Waiting for the Millennium; Mk 16-13,14; 138b
Mk 15-47
(170e) Works of the devil
>>
Manifestations of the devil >> Seeking the glory
of man >> Greed and lust are the glory of man >>
Woman is the glory of man
_________________________________
MARK
CHAPTER 16
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Mk 16,1-10
(3i) Responsibility
>> To the Family >>
God addresses both genders >> Women leaders –
Should we believe the witness of a woman who once hosted seven demons? Jesus
taught that when demons are exorcized, the person must dedicate her life
to Christ or else those demons would return. Mary Magdalene certainly did
that. She was a woman, and so she was not one of the disciples, but she
loved the Lord at least as much as the eleven. She was always there, like
a groupie, she never left His side. She fell in love with the Lord, not
sexually, like some people have claimed, like Dan Brown wrote of her in “The
Da Vinci Code.” If her interest in Christ were sexual, the demons
would have returned to her, just like those who make these ridiculous claims
probably have demons tormenting them in the form of lying spirits. We
should believe her testimony and not be like the disciples and doubt her
word.
(14i) Servant
>>
Ministry of helps >> Helpers are Indirectly in charge of
the word >> They minister to God's leaders
(228g)
Kingdom of God >> God’s kingdom is a living
organism >> God is working in you to place you
in His will >> To lead you in His purpose
-- Jesus may have appeared to Mary Magdalene twice, the first
time at the tomb where they saw the stone rolled away. She and her companions
fled, telling no one what they had seen because they were afraid. The second
time He appeared to her, she reported it to the other disciples, who did not
believe her. God gave her a second chance to report to His disciples about His
resurrection, just as He gave His disciples a second chance to believe in His resurrection. God has a plan for each of us, who patiently works
with us to fulfill His purpose. If we make a mistake, He helps us get back
on track, so long as we don't oppose His will. If we resist Him beyond human
blundering and demonstrate that we just don't want Him in our lives, He will
get the hint and find someone who is interested in doing His will. God knows
we love Him; He understands we are but dust, and that we are blundering little
children who frequently need help and a second chance.
Mk 16,1-3
(189aa) Die to self (Process of substitution)
>>
Separation from the old man >> Holy sacrifice >>
The smell of death >> Stench of the dead –
Pilate spoke to a guard, who assured Pilate that Jesus was dead by the spear
that the centurion plunged into his heart, and out came blood and water. He
granted the body to Joseph of Arimathea, a lifeless object that once had a name,
Jesus, but now was just a thing that if He hadn’t risen from the dead would
have begun to stink with the putrefaction of decay, being why we bury corpses.
Jesus was dead 3½ days, close to the period of Lazarus (four days). In both
cases, Jesus and Lazarus were buried in a tomb hewn from rock, and so the
temperature remained a constant and predictable fifty-five to sixty degrees,
making the decaying process relatively slow, though Lazarus’ sister was
concerned that his body had already begun to stink, suggesting that Jesus’
body had also begun to stink before His Father raised Him from the dead.
Mk 16,5-8
(248f) Priorities
>>
God’ s preeminence >> Jesus is first >>
Jesus is first born of the Father –
Some people say Jesus received His body back, while others say God gave Him a
new body. Jesus did many miraculous things in His temporal, human flesh before His
resurrection: He walked on water and performed thousands of miracles, but He
never mutated His body to take on different appearances, and He never walked
through walls. We know that as Jesus was raised from the dead, so we will be
raised in like manner. Many who have died have nothing left of their bodies
depending on how they died and when they died. If they have been dead for
thousands of years, their bodies are gone; they no longer physically exist, so God
will give them a new body. However, a body that partially remains in the casket
God will use to ensure the tomb is empty in case someone checks if the person
was included in the First Resurrection. God transformed the atomic structure of
Jesus’ resurrected body, and we will follow the same pattern when we receive
our resurrected bodies. See also: Resurrection (A new body using existing parts);
Gal 6-18; 132a
Mk 16,5-7
(15e) Servant >>
Angels are messengers from God >> They are sent to impart information –
Angels are first and foremost servants; in other contexts they are called
messengers. They have done many things in the Old Testament. For example, a
great angel led Israel into the promise land, and angels were sent against
Israel to chastise them when they sinned. People are always
fearful when we see them, like seeing a bear. Angels are
beings of renown. They are not human, and that is one reason we fear them.
Another reason is that we instinctively know God has uses them to execute
judgment, and we can see on their faces that
they are capable of it, and if they ever raised their hand against us, it
would be for righteousness sake and not for evil. The scariest part of
angels is that whatever they do, they are totally justified in it, because
they take orders from God. Jesus was as much God as He
was human, and He was a servant like the angels, and He created them before
He created man. In the beginning God said, “Let Us make
man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Genesis 1-26), and He
created man to be magistrates, angels as servants, and we both reflect His
divine nature. We will have more authority and angels will be greater
servants, making us equal in His eyes.
KJV
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Mk 16-7
(126f) Thy kingdom come
>>
Manifestations of faith >>
Terms of peace – The angel specifically mention Peter's name, not because
he was leader of the disciples, but because he needed special treatment,
suffering terrible internal anguish since he denied the Lord. His conscience bothered him;
he questioned his faith; he wondered if he had committed the unpardonable sin;
he didn’t even know if God cared about him anymore. Once he learned that Jesus
had risen from the dead, he questioned if Jesus would want to see Him again, and
so the angel wanted to ease his mind about these concerns. Christ had the angel
specifically mention his name to begin the process of healing so he could get
passed his guilt and know there are no hard feelings. He blasphemed Jesus’ name and
denied that he even knew Him. Jesus said, “Whoever denies Me before men, I
will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven” (Mat 10-33), but he
repented, and so the subject was closed. This is the power of repentance.
Mk 16-8
(23m) Sin >>
Poverty (Oppression) >> Fear of the unknown >>
Fear the appearance of angels –
The disciples had fear mixed with excitement, joy and
many other emotions, fear being the greater emotion, though
not terrible or necessarily frightening. The disciples were never in any
danger. Should we fear angels? In every case in the Bible it says the people
were mortified in their presence, but also every case in the New Testament the angel told them
not to be afraid. Since the angel always said this, then we should not fear them.
The angel said not to be amazed. They were amazed in the
sense that they didn’t know to believe what they were seeing was real. When we
watch a magic trick, we are amazed, meaning we question what we saw was real,
and the angel said not to be amazed, meaning believe that Jesus has risen
from the dead.
(88i) Thy kingdom come >>
Fear of God >>
Fearing the power of God is the beginning of wisdom
Mk 16,10-14
(4m)
Responsibility >> Advocate God’s cause >>
Disciples are chastened by the Lord
– Jesus believed the truth
about His Father with a faith that was not of this world. His expectation
for us is the same for us; He wants us to believe the truth about God with a
divine faith that He will give us. Therefore, the Bible’s definition of a hardened heart is
the inability to believe the truth about God. There are many people who believe lots
of things about God, and they give themselves credit for their many beliefs,
but God doesn’t give credit for a rendition of truth that is
diluted by falsities. We could say that the disciples had an excuse
for their unbelief, but Jesus didn’t see it that way. They had the Old
Testament Scriptures that said He would rise from the dead, though there
were mountains of words in the Old Testament that obscured these
passages, but once He had risen, it was easier to see the truth written on
the page. They
thought they had an excuse because they saw His agonizing death on the
cross, being violently killed, His body horribly
mutilated, seemingly impossible to raise from the dead, but Jesus
Himself told them in advance that these things would happened (Mk 8-31).
According to the Lord, they had every reason to believe in His resurrection, but at the same time Jesus also knew their actual response would
be unbelief and hardness of heart, which is associated with bitterness. It
could be that their hearts became bitter and angry with God, because all
their hopes had been seemingly dashed. Nevertheless, Jesus reproached them for their unbelief. His attitude was
that they should have known. They walked with Him for three years, and they saw one miracle after another. They should have known that
God had something up His sleeve.
(18b) Sin >>
Unrighteous judgment >> Condemning God’s
people
(20i)
Sin >> Doubting miracles
(197a) Denying Christ >>
Man exercises his will against God >>
Spiritual laziness >> Rebelling Against what
God wants you to do >> Refusing to renew your
mind
Mk 16,11-16
(20e)
Sin >>
Nature of sin >>
Having a hardened heart
Mk 16-12
(224a) Kingdom of God >>
Illustrating the kingdom >> Description of
heaven >> Describing the kingdom after he makes
all things new >> Description of the
resurrection
-- Prior to the cross, for 33 years Jesus had the same kind of body as ours.
In every respect Jesus was a human being of the male gender, but after
the resurrection, He was no longer tied to the limitations of
human flesh. He appeared in different forms and walked through walls, but
are those greater miracles than walking on a storm-tossed sea? Some say that
Jesus' resurrected body was no longer human flesh, but He bore the nail
marks in His hands and feet, indicating that it was the same body, though now
with the frailty of the flesh removed. Many things changed at His resurrection,
but the only thing that physically changed was
His ministry. After the resurrection Jesus'
ministry would turn spiritual, so His disciples needed to adjust to a
new way of relating to Him.
KJV
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(138b) Temple >>
Building the temple (with hands) >> Reproof >>
Jesus reproves His disciples for their unbelief –
Jesus' disciples cowered in fear, having never heard their Master tell them
repeatedly that He would rise from the dead. His enemies heard Him, but His
enemies didn’t believe in Him. They hired a squadron of soldiers to guard
the tomb to keep His disciples from stealing the body (Mat 27,62-66), also in
case Jesus did rise from the dead. In that case, the guards would have
immediately arrested Jesus as He was stepping from the tomb and brought Him to
the chief priests, that they might kill Him again as many times as it took to
finally get rid of Him. They didn’t have Jesus crucified ignorantly. During
His ministry the Pharisees were always in the crowd somewhere, listening and
taking notes about what He was saying and doing, and reporting to the chief
priests. With all the signs
and wonders that He performed in front of the disciples, we should think that
this would be enough to help them believe whatever He said, but it wasn’t
enough. It’s not that the disciples didn’t believe in Jesus; they believed
the wrong thing about Him. They thought He came to pioneer a Millennium, the
thousand-year reign of Christ that we are still waiting for Him to initiate,
when He comes in His glory and power to become King of Israel, destroying His
enemies in the process. The disciples were looking forward to being heads of
that kingdom. All the things that Jesus told them about the gospel they
didn’t want to believe, so they didn’t. Meanwhile, the Pharisees believed
that if the kingdom came while they were in power, God would make them
leaders, but to be made leaders of a spiritual kingdom was not preferred by
the Pharisees or the disciples, where the only power they had was to preach
the gospel, and when people hated them for it, they had no way of defending
themselves. However, after Jesus rose from the dead and met with His
disciples; then, whatever was the will of God they wanted to be part of it.
After His resurrection they abandoned their hopes and dreams and adopted His
vision of the Church, an invisible kingdom that would grow alongside the
kingdoms of the world, and at the end of the age He would come in His glory
and bring all His faithful ones with Him.
See also: Waiting for the Millennium;
Act 3,20-26; 245i
Mk 16-14
(5i) Responsibility >>
Discipleship tested >>
God tests your loyalty >>
God tests your commitment to believe Him – We have a responsibility to the truth. The
disciples loved Jesus with all their hearts, yet they were unwilling to listen
to everything He said. To believe most of what He said is still not believing in
Him, for to believe in Him is to believe everything He says, as His
mother, Mary, said to the waiters at the wedding in Cana, “Whatever He says
to you, do it” (Jn 2-5). There was an endpoint to the disciple’s
willingness to believe in Him, though they fully believed that He
was the Son of God. He told them that He was the embodiment of truth and
they believed Him, yet when He spoke to them the truth about His suffering, He
discovered their limitation to believe in Him, and if they had their
limitations, then we have ours. What are we unwilling to believe about God's
word? They were more convinced about their own opinions than what Jesus was
telling them, and it is inevitable that this is happening to us too; we are
all in the dark about some things. None of us have the pure,
untainted truth as God would have us believe. We all have a picture in our
minds of God, and every person’s picture is invariably skewed to the degree of our lack of
willingness to believe the truth. We don’t know
where we are wrong; we just know that we can’t be completely right. The
worst part about this is most likely the areas where we are wrong are
regarding aspects of the truth that are really going to sting when the truth
overcomes our self-deceptions. Therefore, there is always room to open our
minds and be ready to edit our belief systems and scenarios that we have
created about God. There is nothing wrong with creating scenarios
in our minds about Him, but we should avoid being dogmatic about
them, and be ready to change whenever the persuading power of the Holy Spirit
reveals a more accurate version of the truth.
(74l) Thy kingdom come >>
Let not your heart be hardened >> Insensitive to
the things of God –
Jesus told His disciples in advance what would happen to Him when He came to Jerusalem; He would be mistreated by the Jews and given to the Romans to be scourged and crucified, and three days later rise from the dead. However, none of these words made it to their ears. They were all deaf to them, because they didn’t want to believe it. They were in tune to a gospel of their own making, expecting the Kingdom of God to appear immediately (Lk 19-11). It was one thing to not comprehend His words, but to never hear them in the first place when He bluntly spoke to them about His impending
future suggests there was something else underfoot. This was a spiritual problem when considering that after his crucifixion after others testified that he was alive they were too afraid to believe
it. Their minds were locked as in a prison. Jesus did what He could to prepare them, saying, “let these words sink into your ears” (Lk 9-44), but it was useless. This is the power of Satan to blind a person’s mind to the truth, as in the parable of the Sower, whom seed fell beside the road and the birds ate them. Whatever we don’t want to believe about God, the power of Satan to blind our mind is there to enforce our resistance. His power is profound and scary. After Jesus was crucified the disciples were then in a position to want to believe the truth of Jesus' resurrection, yet even then they were unwilling to believe. Imagine how much easier it would have been for the disciples to accept Jesus’ fate and hope for His resurrection had they simply believed
what He told them. After getting through the terrible experience of the cross, they could have had a three-and-a-half-day party waiting for their Lord to rejoin them; instead, they lamented Him. Once Jesus rose from the dead and He appeared to them all in the flesh, then and only then did Satan’s power lose its effect, but we don’t have the convenience of Jesus literally manifesting Himself every time we falter in our faith. Therefore, we must protect our heart by maintaining our faith, so Satan has no opportunity to blind our minds. If we do not diligently protect our mind, we are destined to suffer the same fate as the disciples only without Jesus physically coming to save us from our unbelief. If we are not actively protecting our hearts from the power of spiritual darkness, we will become blind to whatever truth we choose not to believe.
Mk 16-15
(44k) Judgment >>
Transformation process >> Fulfill your ministry
in evangelism >> Complete your mission –
When Jesus gave his proclamation to preach the gospel to every creature, this
was the vision that He delivered to His people as how they should use their
lives for God’s service to spiritually establish His kingdom on the earth. It was a spiritual kingdom that God had in mind, and later He
would add flesh and bone to it when the time came for His millennial kingdom to
manifest. The resurrection showed them that everything was
possible. No doubt the very first thought that ran through their minds when they
saw their Master standing in front of them again was that God would raise their
bodies from
the dead too one day, for Jesus taught that whatever He did they would do also, and
whatever happened to Him would happen to them. Therefore, when
they saw Jesus alive again, they were looking as in a mirror at
themselves one day alive from the dead, never to die again, and this was their new great hope, and
their plan and purpose in life was to preach this gospel of the resurrection.
Mk 16-16
(47j)
Judgment >> God judges the world >>
Eternal judgment against unbelief toward Christ
(157f) Witness >>
Validity of the believer >> Evidence of being
hell-bound >> Being displeasing to God >>
Living in unbelief
--
The whole world lives in unbelief toward God; only the Church believes in Him.
1Jn 5-19 says, "We know that we are of God, and that whole world lies in
the power of the evil one." When those of the world repent of their
unbelief and acquire a faith in God, they join ranks with a group
who believe in Him called the Church. Whether or not they actually go to a
local church does not make them any less a member of the True Church; they are, however, strongly encouraged to seek fellowship with
other people of like faith for their own sake and for the welfare of the body. This
means that the world remains in total darkness, except for that one special
group, whom Jesus called "the light of the world." Unbelief can be
defined as a secular world view (devoid of all spiritual and religious input).
Upon a premise of systematic rejection of all things pertaining to God, the
world's thought processes are built on a foundation of atheism, the religion
where matter created itself (which is ridiculous), and uses evolution to
explain the
origins of life and the universe. The world offers no hope.
KJV
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Mk 16-17,18
(67f)
Authority >> Jesus delegates authority >>
Name of Jesus >> Performing miracles in Jesus’
name
(146i)
Witness >> Validity of Jesus Christ >>
Jesus’ works bear witness of Himself >>
Purpose of Miracles, Signs And Wonders >> Proof
that Jesus is the son of God >> That the world
may be saved –
This is a fairly well known passage and fairly well distorted, such as by
snake charmers picking up snakes while under some kind of trance, both the snake and the charmer, and they
think they are doing it by the power of God. What Jesus meant was for
cases like Paul, who when gathering sticks had a viper latch onto his hand,
but he shook it into the fire without any harm come to his person (Act 28,3-6). God has an
interest in protecting His servants, his disciples and missionaries who were
carrying His word into the darkness, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and
doing His will. Along the way if something happened to them, God would be
there to protect them from all harm in order that they may continue their
work. While preaching Jesus to the world, we will run across many
sick people and demoniacs who need healing. One effective way of spreading the
gospel is to heal those with maladies, not to make a show of it, but as the
need arises. God promises to heal them in order to authenticate His servants
and their message as genuine
ministers of the gospel, so people might be more willing to listen and believe.
(156g) Witness >>
Validity of the believer >> Evidence of
salvation >> Manifesting the Holy Spirit is
evidence of salvation
Mk 16-17
(67f)
Authority >> Jesus delegates authority >>
Name of Jesus >> Performing miracles in Jesus’
name
(95d) Thy kingdom come >>
Positive attitude >> Speaking in tongues >>
Tongues are a sign of obedience
Mk 16-18
(243h)
Kingdom of God >> The eternal kingdom >>
The body of Christ is indestructible >> The new
man is indestructible
Mk 16-19,20
(67d)
Authority >> Jesus delegates authority
from the right hand of the
father –
There are many definitions of God, perhaps the most poignant being that He is
the creator of the universe, but He has other attributes that define Him
as God, many of which are elucidated by the one who is seated at the Father's right-hand. Lucifer was defined as the brightest star in the
sky, and He was given the universe, by evidence that it is now cursed. The fact that he had possession of the entire universe,
suggests that He initially received a position that was just below Jesus
Christ; he all but sat in
His chair. It doesn't say that
Lucifer was granted God’s throne, so we could say that Lucifer
wanted to be like the Son of God when He tried to take His throne by force. To
possess God's creation wasn’t good enough for Lucifer; he wanted
His authority too, but God never offered it to Him, so he attempted to usurp
it. Jesus saw him fall from heaven like lightning, who remained on His
Father's
throne until He came into the world in human flesh and revealed to us the
character of God (Phi 2-8). After this He returned to heaven, and now His throne is glorified all the more and heaven
is raised to new heights, and it will continue to rise in power and authority
throughout eternity. Christ achieved these things through humility and
submission to His Father's authority, not by Lucifer's tactics. See also: Satan
wanted to be God;
he
wanted His throne;
Lk 10-21,22; 66g
(115d)
Thy kingdom come >> Faith >> Working the grace of God >>
Through your ministry >> Through your calling >>
In preaching the gospel –
The gospel has always grown and spread
to more people, possessing the earth, taking it from Satan and his
minions one soul at a time. This is how the gospel started, but what is the gospel? If
it is
not advancing into new territories, then it is stagnant and dying through
disobedience. Over the centuries Christianity has been reduced to
a mere set of doctrines without any net change in the way people live.
(237h) Kingdom of God >>
Pursuing the kingdom >> The Church is transferred to the kingdom >>
The ascension >> Jesus’ ascension
Mk 16-20
(254k) Trinity >>
Holy Spirit’s relationship between Father and Son >>
Jesus is equal with the Holy Spirit >> Power of
Jesus’ Spirit --
The disciples who personally walked with Jesus for three years, whose hands handled the word of life, did not see a contrast
between He and the Holy Spirit. This verse says that Jesus worked with them
through various signs to authenticate the gospel. The Holy Spirit is simply
Jesus minus His flesh, showing the close ties between the members of the godhead within the trinity.
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