CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Mark 10:40. See R.V. for last clause, which, however, may also be rendered same to them for whom it is prepared (made ready). “The throne is the prize of toils, not a grace granted to ambition,”
Mark 10:45. “The human blood of the Eternal Son was the ransom paid to God for our eternal redemption from the curse of the law and from the wrath of God, and from the claims of Satan and from the power of sin.” This “one offering, single and complete,” when put in the balance over against the transgressions of many, proved sufficient to atone for all.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Mark 10:34-45
(PARALLEL: Matthew 20:20-28.)
The petition of Zebedee’s sons.—It was our Lord’s custom, when any indefinite request was preferred to Him, to draw forth from the petitioner a more exact statement of his wants and desires. Of this we have one instance here (Mark 10:35-36), and another in Mark 10:51. Can we have a stronger argument than this for the exercise of special prayer? And can we have a plainer testimony to the need of self-examination before we venture to approach the throne of grace?
I. The request of the two brothers.—“Grant unto us,” etc.
1. This petition displayed their ignorance of Christ’s plans. They looked for a kingdom of this world and a temporal Messiah. They were waiting with impatience for the moment when Christ should throw aside the mean disguise under which He now walked, and proclaim Himself in His true character, as the lawful inheritor of the throne of David. All enemies being subdued, and the whole world reduced to a state of peaceful subjection under His sceptre, then (they imagined) would begin such an earthly kingdom as would swallow up the splendour and the remembrance of all former ones. And they, the chosen companions and faithful followers of His low estate—what should they not have, what honours and dignities might they not aspire to in His exaltation?
2. This petition was marked by forwardness and presumption. To ask that they might “sit, the one on His right hand, and the other on His left, in His kingdom,” was to seek for themselves a pre-eminence in that kingdom above their fellows; for these were the two most honourable seats in an Eastern court, and always reserved for those whose rank was only inferior to him who sat upon the throne. It is dangerous to say, “What wilt thou?” to persons whose requests are not likely to be guided by modesty or discretion.
3. Observe, also, the worldliness of this petition. It looks no farther, apparently, than the present life.
(1) How many still follow Christ, knowing and caring nothing about the riches of His redeeming grace, but desiring to eat of the loaves and be filled! How many make a profession of religion for the sake of certain worldly advantages which they expect to gain by it! Not so gross, but equally dangerous, is the delusion of those who look for any part of the reward of godliness in this world. If we entered thoroughly into the mind of Christ, and saw eye to eye with Him the end He has in view, we should never think of asking of Him such mere temporal advantages as a good name, a quiet mind, a comfortable enjoyment of life, or even a peaceful and happy death. These are consolation certainly, but not the consolation of Christ; these are blessings, but not the blessing of Him who “came to bless us by turning,” etc. (Acts 3:26).
(2) How many religious parents, like “the mother of Zebedee’s children” (Matthew 20:20), display a much greater anxiety about the worldly prospects of their offspring than about the welfare of their souls! Judging by their conduct, they think more of seeing them now “riding upon the high places of the earth,” than of meeting them hereafter at the right hand of power in heaven.
II. The Saviour’s reply.—“Ye know not,” etc.
1. It may be said to all who pray for any temporal advantages, “Ye know not whether the issue of your prayer, if granted, will be for good or evil.” We do not, however, bid you not ask at all for the things of this life; but when you do, ask discreetly, modestly, without importunity, with an entire submission to the will and wisdom of God, confident that He will not only give good things, but also refuse evil and hurtful things, to them that ask Him.
2. But Christ’s answer to these petitioners seems to insist chiefly on their ignorance of the manner in which the great prizes (so to speak) in the distribution of heavenly honours were to be sought and won. Would they have preferred their request in this form had they realised that “through much tribulation,” etc.? “My own exaltation,” says the Saviour, “will be the reward of My previous sufferings and humiliation. If you desire to share in My Crown, you must expect to bear your part in My Cross. Are you able to do this?” Those who are contented to be called the least in the kingdom of heaven may perhaps escape with just the ordinary afflictions that fall to every man’s lot. But those who aspire (as who would not?) to a place near the throne must expect to be called upon to resist unto blood, striving against sin, to go through fire and water, and to be baptised in the furnace of affliction, “that the trial of their faith,” etc. (1 Peter 1:7).
III. The decision of the two brothers.—“We can.”
1. Here we have a striking instance of the levity and rashness with which men undertake they know not what. Amongst Christ’s followers, as indeed in the outset of any enterprise whatever, there was no lack of zealous promisers and hasty undertakers (Mark 14:29-31). But “pride goeth before destruction.” When the hour of trial came, “all the disciples forsook Him and fied.”
2. If you are wise you will before beginning to build “sit down first and count the cost,” etc. (Luke 14:28-30), duly sensible of your own weakness, relying only upon the ability and sufficiency which cometh from God. Then you may adopt as your own the golden maxim of the apostle (Philippians 4:13).
IV. The Saviour’s concluding observation.—
1. “Ye shall indeed drink,” etc. This is generally supposed to be an intimation of what should happen to these two brothers in the prosecution of their apostolic ministry.
(1) James was the foremost in time of all the apostles to follow his Master to death (Acts 12:2).
(2) John was preserved alive the longest of all the apostles, and for that very reason doubtless endured and suffered the most.
2. “But to sit on My right hand,” etc. The power of Christ, whether to reward or punish, is a judicial power, not to be exercised in a partial or capricious manner (if we could suppose Him capable of such weakness), but by certain fixed rules and principles. It is of the very essence of a judge to judge according to law. Surely we do not need to be told that in the distribution of heavenly honours there is no room either for partiality on the part of the dispensers or solicitation on the part of the candidates. Nor does it diminish aught from the dignity of the Son that He should assign the high places of His kingdom to those who are the blessed and approved of His Father. And who are they? “Not every one that saith,” etc. (Matthew 7:21). “Holy and humble men of heart”; “Israelites indeed”; “the true circumcision”; they that “worship God in the spirit,” etc. (Philippians 3:3). They who “strive to enter in at the strait gate”; and, being entered, strive to advance farther and farther, always “pressing toward the mark,” etc. (Philippians 3:14). Above all, they who in this life have “received their evil things,” and counted them as good; who have been great and patient sufferers, whether “in mind, body, or estate”; who have “come out of great tribulation,” etc. (Revelation 7:14).
3. If we would know these assessors of the Saviour, these right-hand and left-hand men, while they are upon earth, or if we would determine whether we ourselves are of the number, we must attend to the signs which He has given us (Mark 10:42-45).
The request of James and John.—I. The request.—This request is a remarkable instance of that slowness and dulness of heart with which our Lord had to deal, even among those who understood Him most. For you observe that it was made immediately after a very clear prediction of His Cross and Passion. You may judge how great was the solitude of heart, the isolation in which the Incarnate Son abode on earth, when even His intimates and closest followers could so little sympathise with His purposes or enter into His thoughts.
II. Our Lord’s answer.—He does not deny that there are high places in His kingdom, but He unveils the terms on which only they may be won. Nearest to Him they might be, but then it must be a nearness in self-abasement, self-sacrifice, and suffering. The very terms Christ uses spoke of suffering: the poison-cup was not seldom used of old as a mode of execution—you remember the hemlock of Socrates; and water was sometimes the instrument of death—we read of being drowned in the depth of the sea. They were terms, moreover, which the Old Testament connected with suffering; “the cup of trembling,” “the cup of the Lord’s fury,” express some discipline very terrible to flesh and blood: “I will take the cup of salvation” is by some interpreted, “I am ready to undergo even the pains of martyrdom”; and the mention of the baptism also would recall such expressions as these, “All Thy waves and storms are gone over me.” And the sharp searching trial implied in these words would only be intensified when, at a later period, they heard their Master speak of that terrible agony which they were called to witness as His cup—“Let this cup pass from Me”; when they stood before His Cross, and saw His life-blood streaming from His head, and hands, and feet, and side, a very baptism of blood. Were they able to face such things as these? to go through those trials, that anguish, coming in various shapes, which were necessary to prepare in them those graces, only as possessing which they could stand high in the kingdom of the Man of Sorrows, of the Lamb slain? In short, in these words our Lord intimates the use of suffering as a preparation for glory, for the presence of God. Not that suffering necessarily does this. It can act on us only according to the state we ourselves are in, and a corrupt heart it is likely only to embitter and harden. Suffering can bless but those who receive it meekly and in the love of God.
III. What a bearing has all this upon ourselves.—
1. Have we not often asked our Blessed Lord to place us near Him, to shew us His truth, to open our eyes to enable us to cast in our lot with Him, to give us a throne among His saints, to set us on His right hand at least, if not upon His left? What do such prayers imply?
(1) To cast in your lot with Christ, what is that? To share the portion of One whom the world rejected, whose goodness those about Him could not appreciate. Are you ready to do that? to be called an enthusiast? to lose the support of the many who stand by that which is popular and moderate and safe? to become in their estimation “a fool for Christ’s sake”?
(2) To know Christ’s very truth; do you understand that to wish this is to draw down on yourself the agony of seeing truths which the world will not accept, while you see also that she is suffering for not accepting—the agony which prophets of old knew, of having a message, a revelation, which men will not hear from you, which is the only panacea for the ills of society, of nations, of homes, and yet to which they will not listen?
(3) To be like our Lord, you have asked that. But have you considered through what you must pass, that you may have opportunities of exercising longsuffering, forgiveness, calmness, like His? Have you thought what a discipline it requires, what self-denials you must exercise to prepare in you a mind like that of Jesus?
2. And yet do we withdraw you from these high aspirations because there is a price to pay for their fulfilment? Ah, no: those are indeed your most blessed moments, your most blessed thoughts, when you long the most to be like your Incarnate Lord, feel most the attracting influence of His purity. Cleave to them, part not with them, cost you what they will. Whatever the price you must pay for the fulfilment of those wishes, however bitter the cup or the baptism, there are some thoughts which will strengthen you to bear them.
(1) You may think of them as His baptism and His cup; as sufferings and trials which He has sanctified for you by first bearing them Himself, taking His own deep draught before the cup is handed on to us.
(2) You may think of the sympathy of Christ; for there is that close oneness of life between Christ and His people that their afflictions become His.
(3) There is the strength supplied to you in sacramental grace. The very terms our Lord uses to denote His sufferings, and His people’s, are borrowed from those two great means of grace, whereby our union with Him is begun and perfected. We have our baptism into Him, as the guarantee that our souls have been brought into a relation of grace to Him, into a capacity of receiving life from Him, which nothing but our own sinfulness can render nugatory. We have that other Sacrament of His Body and Blood, the cup of blessing and the bread of life, wherein we can again and again draw nigh to Him, and unite ourselves with Him, and reinvigorate, as it were, the wasting frame of spiritual strength. This baptism and this cup, since they bring the faithful soul into such direct connexion with Him through whom we may do all things, are able to equip us for all the demands of patience, of sweetness, of strength, which that other baptism, that other cup, may make upon us.—Canon Turnock.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Mark 10:37. Is ambition wrong?—What is ambition? Ambition is an instinct of nature, a desire to rise; and, like all other instincts, capable of good and evil. Satan took hold of it, and said, “Ye shall be as gods.” Jesus enshrined it, “Ye shall sit on thrones”; “Be ye perfect, even as your Father, who is in heaven, is perfect.” When a man wishes to go out of his own line into another, to which evidently God has not called him, his ambition is wrong. When a man tries to get to the very top of his own line, his ambition is right. When a man seeks great things for himself, only for himself, it is a worldly ambition. When a man pursues great things for usefulness, for the Church, for Christ, it is the same principle, but it is consecrated, pious, and good.—J. Vaughan.
Mark 10:38. “Ye know not what ye ask.”—Often we offer large petitions with small meanings or motives, and would be overwhelmed if they were granted. When they ask for thrones, they ask the path leading thither—the discipline fitting for them, the service which wins such influence.—R. Glover.
Cup and baptism.—The word “cup” is often used by sacred and other writers to signify the portion of good and evil which is assigned to men in this life. It probably arose from the custom in ancient times of the master of the household distributing to his children and servants a certain separate allowance of meat and drink each by himself, differing in quality and quantity according to their desert. The same custom was also observed in entertaining guests (see Genesis 43:34). In allusion to which custom the word “cup” is used for the dispensation of Providence—the Almighty, as our common Master and Father, appointing to each one his respective share of suffering and enjoyment. “Baptism,” which signifies immersion, is also familiarly used in Scripture to denote a person being overwhelmed with calamities, as it were with a flood of waters. The “cup,” then, which Jesus was to drink of was one of affliction; the “baptism” with which He was to be baptised was that of a cruel and ignominious death. And they who should follow Him in His career were to drink deep of that cup of suffering and be immersed in the darkest horrors of human barbarity.
Mark 10:39. The ambitious person finds nothing difficult, provided he can but raise himself.—He easily presumes upon that which he cannot perform, to obtain that which he cannot deserve. It was but a moment ago, and these men were seized with fear and amazement at the bare sight of the way to Jerusalem; but one passion weakens another, and, like a burning fever, supplies a man with fresh strength and courage.—P. Quesnel.
Mark 10:40. No true honours are lightly won in either earth or heaven.—None are arbitrarily given; for to give honours for which we are unfit would be no kindness. Besides, the true crown is a flowering of our nature, not a garland lifted and put on. Accordingly the right-hand and left-hand thrones go to those fullest of the Saviour’s spirit, and who, of all men, have been most like Him in their work and sacrifice.—R. Glover.
Lessons.—On the whole incident note—
1. How noble these men are in their very faults; they seek not money, fame, or ease, but the honour that comes from God.
2. How graciously Christ deals with what is faulty in us.
3. How, in answering our prayers, He has to answer not the great words, but the small meaning, lest we should be overwhelmed.
4. In the other world there will be no unequal distribution of rewards, but each will receive what fits him.—Ibid.
Mark 10:41. Ambition of the clergy.—The ambition of clergymen is a great scandal in the Church, and is frequently an occasion of emulations, enmities, divisions, schisms, and wars—of all which the displeasure and indignation of the apostles give us an imperfect shadow and resemblance. If apostles, trained up with so much care in the school of charity and humility, notwithstanding are not free from this vice, what effects will not ambition produce in souls, wholly immersed in flesh and blood, which have no motion but from their passions, no law but that of their own desires!—P. Quesnel.
Mark 10:42. The principle of scramble.—There is a strange ambition ruling in the hearts of multitudes—to be ministered to instead of ministering. Men wish to get rather than to give. Hence the universal scramble in commerce. Hence the worldwide diffusion of the spirit of selfishness—a spirit whose tendency is to turn every man into an Ishmaelite, with his hands and heart against all other men, and all other men’s against him. One might have expected men would see that the plan of seeking to receive ministry rather than to give it is short-sighted and suicidal. Suppose you were one of an association of a hundred persons, all jealous of one another, each seeking to take advantage of all the rest, and trying to get them all to minister to him. What is likely to be the result? Each will shut himself up as in his own castle to defend himself against all the rest. All the energy that each possesses will be expended on promoting his own particular advantage; and not one will get from any of his neighbours a really helping hand, if the circumstances will admit of the help being withheld. This is the principle of scramble—every one for himself and for himself alone. It has been tried in every country and in every coterie under heaven, and everywhere with lamentable results. All tyrannies have sprung from it. All wars have been begotten by it. All poverty is its child. All household feuds and family alienations are to be traced to its baleful influence.—J. Morison, D.D.
Mark 10:43-44. Mutual service is something very practical. Do not put it aside as one of the counsels of perfection, or as a theory that will not work on weekdays. Mutual service may be the abiding principle of every-day life in any station of domestic or public or mercantile life. Think, first, how much is done for us—what service we receive and absorb. Let our imagination travel for a moment over the scenes where toil is even now going on for us, to the far countries whence come our food-supplies—all the world laid under tribute; think of our sailors in their hard and dangerous work; visit in fancy our miners, our labourers, our factory-workers, our clerks, the myriad-handed, myriad-headed service of a great city. Think what has been the labour of creating the civilisation, the conquest over nature, even the delicate organisation of faculties that we unconsciously inherit. Which of us can repay to the existing generation, still more to the world, the vast debt we owe? Are we not indeed under a sort of spell that forces us to sit, and be clothed, and carried about, and amused by the labours of others? No, it is not so. You may break the spell. It is open to all of us to render service to others over and above our business in life. We may render bodily service; and we know how high a value our Lord puts on the service of our bodily needs. We may diminish the scale of our own comfort, that we may raise the standard of the comfort of those who work for us; we may thus serve our own generation even in its physical needs, and this is an absolute duty. But there is other service than this. When material nature is conquered, its wastes tilled, its wild beasts slain, there remains the harder problem of conquering human nature, reclaiming its waste places, casting out its evil spirits. There is the noblest service of all, the spiritual service of lifting the ignorant and degraded, of supplying “the spiritually indispensable—the bread of life.” Here are our worlds to conquer, our unknown seas to traverse. Men have toiled for us in body, and are toiling, that we in our turn may toil for them and give them light, and life, and hope, and heaven. This is the true mutual service, and this we may all render.—J. M. Wilson, D.D.
Mark 10:45. Christ’s ministry and self-sacrifice.—I. The negative side—“the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto.” This clears the ground. The Son of Man is not a self-seeker. That is the meaning of the manger in little Bethlehem, the want of a place to lay His head, the departure into a mountain alone when they would make Him a king.
II. The positive and general side—“but to minister.” This is the character of His life—the Son of Man ministers to the sons of men. He restores health, brings back the dead, speaks and there is a great calm. Then after a hard day’s ministering He rises a great while before day to pray—to pray for strength to minister more. And it was all of His own free choice. He came to minister, and He ministers still.
III. The positive and precise side—“and to give His life a ransom for many.” The first two clauses point to His life; this points to His death. And it rises to a climax—this is His greatest deed. He gave His life for many. So He places a great value on His life. His single life is an equivalent for many lives. I am in the circle of the many. Like Paul I say, “He loved me, and gave Himself for me.”—A. Scott.
Service and sacrifice.—
1. The greatness of God is, in one point of view, service. Every power in nature is a power of God, so that in steam, electricity, and the like we are in different ways taking advantage of God’s goodness as a servant.
2. In all nature God is a servant, and finds joy in the service. But in redemption it is otherwise. This is the highest service God has rendered man, and it has the element of sacrifice in it.
3. Thus the death of Christ is an example of service and sacrifice—of the highest form of service, service which demands what it is hard to give. But there is more in it than that. There is substitution. His death was the climax and consummation of a life of ministering; but it was a death in the sinner’s room, without which the sinner could not have been saved.—W. M. Taylor, D.D.
“Even the Son of Man.”—The Saviour was perfectly conscious of His own intrinsic elevation and dignity. It was not because He could do no better that He came into the world amid poverty and lived among the poor. Of His own free-will, and although He was infinitely rich, He stooped into the valley of humiliation. But He never forgot the height from which He had descended, and back to which He was by-and-by to reascend, leading captivity captive.—J. Morison, D.D.
Gifts to the ministering Christ.—He came not to get, but to give. Such was His aim. But He got, nevertheless, and still gets, and will continue to get, through all time and through eternity. He cannot help getting. He gets gratitude. Oh, how much of it! and yet not one atom more than He deserves. He gets devotion of hearts, such as no other being ever gets or got. All the noblest souls that are either in the higher places of society or in the lower places and the hidden nooks and corners count it their joy to do service to Jesus. They do minister to Him, even as also, though on a lower plane, they minister to their fellow-men.—Ibid.
Christ’s life the ransom for our life.—The suggestions of this statement are very grave.
1. Our life is forfeit.
2. Sin is so great an evil that even God cannot, without sacrifice, free us from it.
3. To let us off without penalty or atonement would make us indifferent to doing wrong.
4. In love to man God punishes sin.
5. And to save thoroughly Christ shares with us that punishment. Are we thankful for the great redemption? humbled by the Cross? saved by it? Be grave with the Saviour’s gravity in your thoughts of sin and of salvation.—R. Glover.
The needed ransom.—The surrender of the life of Christ unto death was the needed ransom. No wonder! A ransom is something valuable. It may be all but invaluable. Certainly the life of Christ was inestimably valuable, more valuable by far than myriads of other lives—the lives of nobles, or princes, or kings, or queens. Yet He came into the world, and into our nature, that He might give His life a ransom for many. Oh, the incalculable value of a life such as Christ’s—a life so rich in possibilities of enjoyment, and so rich in goodness, unselfishness, and every kind of moral beauty and excellency! Thus valuable and invaluable was the life of Jesus; and yet it was that very value that made the surrender of His life, in connexion with the great moral government of the Father, something incalculably better, and more glorious and more glorifying to the law, than a mere equivalent for all the penalties that could have been inflicted on the guilty.—J. Morison, D.D.
The ransom paid for all—The word “many” is not used to suggest that the ransom was paid for fewer than all. It is another idea altogether that is intended. All are not always many. All the queens of Europe are not many. All the great poets of the world are not many. All the inhabitants of a hamlet are not many. But the persons for the salvation of whose souls the Son of Man gave His life as a ransom were and are many—incalculably numerous. Yet not one was left out of His regard and interest and sympathy.—Ibid.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 10
Mark 10:38. Ambition.—A boy at play hit a ball so that it fell on the roof of a high barn. He climbed up the rugged door, and, clinging by a hole in the brickwork, reached the top of the barn, rubbing off the skin from his fingers, tearing his clothes, and running great risk of breaking his neck. He gained the ball; but was it worth climbing for?
Mark 10:39. Use of suffering.—In the manufacture of paper the filthy rags are torn to pieces, reduced to pulp, bleached and washed till it is white as snow, then shaken to and fro till fibre crosses fibre and gives firmness to the sheet, and ironed by hot cylinders till made smooth and even. Such is the effect of tribulation.
Mark 10:44. Life as service.—Confucius being asked if he could in one word express the whole duty of life, said, “Will not the word serve do?”
Mark 10:45. The law of service.—
Not to be served, O Lord, but to serve man
All that I can,
And as I minister unto his need,
Serve Thee indeed;
So runs the law of love that hath been given
To make earth heaven.
What if the task appointed me be mean!
Wert Thou not seen
To gird Thee with the towel, as was meet,
To wash the feet
Of Thy disciples, whom Thou wouldst befriend
Until the end?
For meanest work becomes the noblest part,
When a great heart,
Pitiful, stoops to comfort our distress,
Or to impress
A sealing kiss on penitence fresh clad
In raiment sad.
And if the wanderer’s feet be soiled and sore,
So much the more
He needs a tender hand to cleanse and heal,
And make him feel
There is no task that love will shrink to do
Life to renew.
Walter C. Smith, D.D.
A throne for the ministering Christ.—The other day I sat in St. Paul’s, and by my left was Nelson’s monument. Why was that monument erected? Nelson told his men that England expected every man to do his duty, and he did what he felt was his duty. And because he served his country, his country honours his memory. I have in my heart a throne, and on that throne—Christ. Why? Because He came to minister, and has ministered to me.—A. Scott.