"Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."
Mk 8:27-35
(From Nineham's commentary)
v. 27. Now Jesus and his disciples set out
for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he asked his disciples,
“Who do people say that I am?”
The villages of Caesarea Philippi: An
obscure expression generally taken to mean the villages in the area around
Caesarea Philippi. For the town itself, formerly called Paneas, and rebuilt by
Herod Philip.
v. 28. They said in reply, “John the
Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.”
Cf. 6: 14-15 may well have influenced, or been influenced by,
this verse.
v. 29. And he asked them, “But who do you
say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Messiah.”
If vv. 27-29 existed before St Mark's time
as an independent unit of tradition, the unit will no doubt have contained
further verses making plain the significance of the event. Since St Mark has
omitted these in the process of building up his longer unit, we can no longer
tell how the pre-Marean Church understood the incident. They may have seen its
significance as showing that the decisive confession of the Church had already
been made in the lifetime of Jesus.
v. 31. He began to teach them that the Son
of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests,
and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days.
“The elders and the chief priests” could be
simply a way of referring to the lay and clerical aristocracy in Jerusalem who,
with “the scribes”, formed the Sanhedrin. But even if so, the question has
naturally been raised whether so detailed a forecast is not a prophecy after
the event, ascribed to Jesus by the early Christians. We have no means of
deciding for certain, but if Jesus did foretell disaster for himself, it seems
unlikely that it was in terms as precise as these; in particular, if he had
several times referred to the resurrection as explicitly as is suggested here
(and in 9:31.and 10:34), the behavior of the disciples after the crucifixion is
almost impossible to explain. On the other hand, if he did foresee disaster he
must presumably also have looked forward to ultimate vindication in some form
or other.
Chief priests: Greek “archiereus”,
elsewhere (e.g. 14:47 and 54) translated high priest. The plural is at first
sight surprising, as there was only one high priest at any given time, but it
occurs frequently in the New Testament and also in Josephus, and the usual
explanation is that, in addition to the ruling high priest, deposed high
priests and other male members of the most prominent priestly families were
included.
After three days: cf. 9:31, 10:34, and
Matt. 27:63. Elsewhere in the New Testament we have 'on the third day'. It is
often held that, at any rate in popular usage, the two phrases were synonymous,
'after three days' meaning 'when the third day had begun". But this is
difficult to reconcile with the evidence of such a passage as Matt. 12:40, and
the fact seems to be that the tradition on the matter was influenced in rather
different directions by two Old Testament passages, Hos, 6:2 and Jonah 1:7. In
light of the Hosea passage it would seem that such a phrase could be used
simply as a conventional expression meaning 'after a short while'. On the
assumption that the words go back to Jesus himself; it has been suggested that
it was in that conventional sense that he used them; clearly, however, that was
not St Mark's understanding.
v. 33. At this he turned around and, looking
at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are
thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
Looking at his disciples: 'The reproof
which follows is for their benefit as
well as Peter's'.
You are thinking not as God does (Or You
are not on the side of God): The Greek here is one of those expressions too rich
in meaning to be fully represented by any single translation. The RSV may well
be right in hinting at a political metaphor, but the basic meaning of the verb (phronein}
is 'to be minded' and there is certainly the idea of sharing, or failing to
share, another's point of view and intentions.
v. 34. He summoned the crowd with his
disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.”
Take up his cross: The Romans required a
condemned criminal to carry part of his own cross to the place of execution;
hence the metaphor. As the words stand, they seem to presuppose that 'the Cross'
is already a familiar idea. No doubt Jesus' audience would have been familiar
with crucifixion as a Roman method of execution, but it was normally reserved
for criminals condemned by due process of law and it remains very doubtful
whether, before Jesus' own crucifixion, they could have caught the allusion here.
.Probably the present formulation of the saying is the work of the early
Church.
v. 35. For whoever wishes to save his life
will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel
will save it.
And that of the gospel: These words,
omitted by Matthew and Luke, and by Jolm at 12:25, again suggest that the
present formulation of the saying dates from a time when Christians were being
martyred 'for the sake of the gospel'.
ON THE NECESSITY OF SUFFERING
Neither here nor elsewhere in Mark is any
theory offered as to why it should be God's will that the Messiah and his
disciples should suffer, but in this connection we need to remind ourselves of
the eschatological mould in which the thought of the early Christians was cast.
For them God's realm in heaven entirely conformed to God's holiness, and stood
in the sharpest contrast to this age or world ruled by forces of evil and
governed by their evil values and designs. One day God would judge this world
and bring this age to an end, transforming whatever in it was capable of being
transformed, and transferring it to the conditions of his realm. But meanwhile,
so long as this world lasted, anyone in it who represented God's realm and its
values must look for misunderstanding and persecution from the evil powers and
the human beings under their sway. 'The Old Testament itself says of the
children of Israel: "They mocked the messengers of God, and despised his
words, and scoffed at his prophets" (2 Chron, 36:16. Cf. Ps. 34:19). For later
Jewish writers it was axiomatic that the people of God were basically opposed
to whatever really emanates from God, and that therefore they had, always
persecuted God's true servants and ambassadors and always would'. Such ideas
would thus seem natural to Jesus and his early disciples. For evidence that
they shared them, see such passages as Luke 11:49ff, Acts 7:2ff.
The true servant of God would not be
disconcerted by such suffering, but would realize that in some mysterious way
it was a means by which the redemptive purpose of God for this world was
carried out. Isa. 53 is the classic passage for this idea but it by no means
stands alone. In view of the remarkably few references to the Isaiah passage in
the Gospels, It is probably better to think of a general background of ideas
than of direct influence from that particular passage.
Against this background, the true character
of the disciples' reaction to Jesus' prophecy of suffering can be recognized.
What the disciples had to learn was that until the kingdom came with power (9:1),
the law of suffering applied at least as fully to the Messiah and his followers
as it had done to earlier representatives of God see (9:13 and 6:17-29).
