CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Mark 8:10. Dalmanutha.—“Has been identified with the modern Ain-el-Bârideh, the ‘cold fountain,’ a glen which opens upon the lake about a mile from Magdala.” Cp. Matthew 15:39.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Mark 8:10-12
(PARALLEL: Matthew 16:1-4.)
The “sign” refused.—It was, we may be sure, no mere intellectual deficiency in His hearers which drew this sigh from the Gracious Saviour. In the request that He would give them a sign there was some secret spiritual wrongness over which Christ grieved.
I. What did they mean by asking a sign?—Had they not His wonderful works? And why did He say that no sign should be given when in fact He was giving signs innumerable and conclusive? It is quite plain that Christ’s works did not convince them. It is therefore also plain that we greatly overrate the force of miracles as an evidence of Christianity. In those times few, if any, followed Christ because of the miracles. They followed Him because of that all-prevailing power which accompanied the simple words “Follow Me,” because never man spake as He spake, because the message of Divine love carried with it its own overwhelming evidence. And then we know that vast multitudes witnessed the miracles and yet persistently refused to believe. Some other sign they wanted, something besides curing the blind and cleansing the leper and raising the dead. They asked for some imposing display in the heavens, some disclosure of the Messiah magnificently seated on a material throne, which would confound, amaze, and convince all beholders. Now that the Saviour would not give. He refused, first, because they had no right to dictate how much evidence must needs be forthcoming. Part of our trial here consists, in fact, in God’s so adjusting the evidence to our moral condition that, while there is amply enough to determine the acceptance of the honest and good heart, there is no lavishing of proof.
II. Suppose the “sign from heaven” given.—Suppose that in the sky above Jerusalem had been disclosed the form of the Son of Man as the sun in his strength, ten thousand times ten thousand of the heavenly hosts on the right hand and the left, the first effect would doubtless have been unspeakable and overwhelming awe. But remember, belief in the Christ meant trust in the Christ, the homage of heart and soul. Do you think that the most magnificent display in the heavens would secure that?
III. No outward proof alone can determine belief in truths moral and spiritual.—Every kind of truth has its proper evidence. Mathematical truth has its evidence; but to crave mathematical proof outside its own proper region is unphilosophical, and may lead us to suspect that the absorbing study of mathematics disqualifies for, rather than aids, the search after truth of other kinds. Historical truth again is reached through its own proper evidence; but it is here that we touch upon the very point before us. Christianity rests on an historical basis, and because it does so sceptics are apt to assume that its truth or falsehood is merely matter of historical evidence. Doubtless the historical evidence must be sound; but is every one qualified to judge of its soundness? And so we have to point out that Christianity has a moral and spiritual basis also. Suppose there has appeared on the page of history One whom our own hearts and the universal consent of the civilised world pronounce to be perfect goodness, unrivalled purity, Divine dignity, love unequalled. Will not good men yield their love and devotion to Him who is perfect goodness? Will not bad men shrink from Christ and from His perfect purity, and be predisposed to question the historical evidence, because they hope thereby to free themselves from His claim upon their allegiance? For such men there are no signs from heaven. They are not given, simply because they would be useless (Luke 16:31).
IV. Obedience is the condition of faith.—Obedience to what we know leads to faith in what is yet to be revealed. The good ground in the parable of the sower, the only ground that brought forth fruit, is explained to be “the honest and good heart,”—honest, and therefore receptive of everything true; good, and therefore in closest sympathy with the noble, the loving, and the pure. But this is alone of Him from whom comes every good and perfect gift.—Canon Jacob.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Mark 8:11-12. Neglect not the signs given already.—When we long for miracles, neglecting those standing miracles of our faith, the gospel and the Church; when our reason is satisfied of a doctrine or a duty, and yet we remain irresolute, sighing for the impulse of some rare spiritual enlightenment or excitement, for a revival or a mission or an oration to lift us above ourselves,—we are virtually asking to be shewn what we already confess, to behold a sign, while we possess the evidence.—Dean Chadwick.
You cannot convince some men.—Did you ever try to satisfy an impracticable man, or to remove all ground of offence from one who is determined to find fault? The old Greek fable-writer was very wise. The stories of “The Wolf and the Lamb,” and of “The Old Man and his Ass,” bear a moral for all time. Jesus Christ told men that they were not to give that which was “holy to the dogs,” or to cast their “pearls before swine.” Life is too short, time and strength are too precious, to be wasted in vain endeavour.—D. J. Hamer.
Sight more needed than signs.—Persons who, after looking at what Christianity has wrought in the world, and the kind of influence it has on the souls of men, still ask for evidences of Christianity, are of the same sort as these. They forget that demonstration is only possible of the visible or the tangible, and that there cannot be any scientific demonstration of such a thing as the Godhead of Christ. What all such persons want is sight, not signs—the power of seeing and appreciating the Saviour’s moral glory, not evidences of Christianity.—R. Glover.
Mark 8:12. The Lord’s deep sigh in its great significance—
1. A silent and yet decisive sign of His conflict and of His victory.
2. An unuttered word, containing a world of Divine words.
3. A fulfilment of the primitive prophecy concerning the breach between the external and the spiritual Israel.
4. A prophecy which stretches forward to the Cross and the Judgment.—J. P. Lange, D.D.
The infinite meaning of this sigh of Christ.—
1. As a breathing forth of the Divine patience over the visible world.
2. A collective expression of all the sufferings and all the patience of Christ.
3. A declaration of all the incarnate sorrow and endurance of the Lord in His Church.—Ibid.
An unreasonable demand.—In many cases of unbelief the individual is not so much to blame as the spirit of the age of which he is the representative. See 2 Corinthians 4:4. Such persons not only cannot recognise the signs of the kingdom of heaven, but are in a state of heart and mind to which no sign can possibly be given. We are indebted to the fine candour of the late Mr. Darwin for a striking illustration of this. In his life there is an interesting correspondence with Professor Asa Gray, the great botanist, who, wondering how Darwin could remain unconvinced by the innumerable evidences of design in nature, asked him if he could think of any possible proof which he would consider sufficient. Mr. Darwin replied: “Your question is a poser. If I saw an angel come down to teach us so, and I was convinced, from others seeing him, that I was not mad, I should believe.” If he had left it there, it might have been pertinent to ask him whether Christ is not just such an angel come down from heaven to teach us, and whether a sufficient number of persons did not see Him in the flesh, to say nothing of the multitudes who know Him in the spirit, to convince us that we are not mad in believing it. But he went on to say: “If man were made of brass and iron, and in no way connected with any other organism which had ever lived, I should perhaps be convinced.” Nothing could be more candid, or more in keeping with the transparent honesty of the man. But what an acknowledgment! Man must cease to be man, and become a metal machine, and the universe must cease to be a harmonious whole, before there can be evidence enough for so simple and elementary a principle as design in the universe; and then only a “perhaps”! Is Christ’s answer to the seekers after a sign out of date?—J. M. Gibson, D.D.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 8
Mark 8:11. Asking a sign.—Two striking instances from Rabbinic literature will shew that this demand of the Pharisees was in accordance with their notions and practice. We read that, when a certain Rabbi was asked by his disciples about the time of Messiah’s coming, he replied, “I am afraid that you will also ask me for a sign.” When they promised they would not do so, he told them that the gate of Rome would fall and be rebuilt, and fall again, when there would not be time to restore it ere the Son of David came. On this they pressed him, despite his remonstrance, for “a sign,” when this was given them—that the waters which issued from the cave of Paneias were turned into blood. Again, as regards “a sign from heaven,” it is said that Rabbi Eliezer, when his teaching was challenged, successively appealed to certain “signs.” First, a locust tree moved at his bidding one hundred, or, according to some, four hundred, cubits. Next, the channels of water were made to flow backwards; then the walls of the Academy leaned forward, and were only arrested at the bidding of another Rabbi. Lastly, Eliezer exclaimed, “If the law is as I teach, let it be proved from heaven!” when a voice fell from the sky, “What have ye to do with Rabbi Eliezer? for the Halakhah is as he teaches.”
Mark 8:12. Difficult to explain truth to unspiritual people.—If a man paints a picture on canvas, gorgeous in colour as Titian could make it, and then gathers together a multitude of spectators, it is useless for him to undertake to explain to them that the colours are exquisite, and the reasons why they are so. If, as they stand and look at it, one, in behalf of the others, should ask, “Will you be kind enough to prove to us that those are exquisite colours?” he would say, probably with expletives, “If you cannot yourselves see what they are, I cannot explain it to you.” If you play a magnificent overture to an audience, some of them say, “I would rather hear a ballad than that thing.” Others have an appreciation of it. Men only hear what they are capable of hearing. Some men’s ears enable them to appreciate only the lowest elements of music; and when the better parts are developed, these are nothing to them. If they do not like a beautiful symphony, they do not, and that is all you can say about it. It is not in them to like it. The eye cannot see anything which it is not organised to see. Tyndall shewed us that light, besides containing all those qualities which we supposed it contained, also had in it chemical qualities which no sense of ours could trace or comprehend. It was the first intimation I had that the universe is full of things which we are not organised to appreciate. Precisely this was implied by Christ when He said, substantially, to His adversaries, the educated people of His day who denied that He was Divine: “If you were spiritually enlightened, you would recognise My high claim; you would perceive in My life and disposition the qualities of Divinity; and if you do not perceive them, it is because you have not the requisite perceiving power. The proof must always lie in the person who is reasoned with; and you have not the moral faculty which is necessary to enable you to discern it.”—H. W. Beecher.