CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 8
This is the second miracle and portrays what belongs to the christian dispensation. In Mark it is not so much dispensational as instruction as to service - very interesting to us because it shows the lines on which we should work, the resources of Christ.
In the first it was, in spite of all the evils without, I will sustain you superior to them; the second, In spite of all the hindrances within, I will support you. My grace is sufficient. This we get in Matthew 15. It is the endowment of the church; chapter 16. What advantage have you from being a living stone? I have this: that all my resources are in Christ. But some who are living stones could not say this; therefore christendom has sought other resources. Here (verses 1 - 9) we see the simple provision that the Lord has for His people when they are cast out of Judaism and out of the world. He shows the character of the support He would give them - the world has its own order. But how am I to get on? All my resources are in Christ! It is a great thing to be simple in this. All is in Him to meet outside evil or for inside weakness. The hindrance is that people are looking for something here. It is what we find in Colossians. Judaism, the rudiments of the world were being built on. One practical difficulty is that we have all been more or less mixed up with the world, and we have lost faith in the provision which Christ has made for the new structure - the church. He feeds us Himself, as our hearts are in concert with Him. He gives us the same grace that He had. He gives us the manna. He had not two lives; He never left heaven. When He was down here He was the Son of man which [p. 162] is in heaven. If He were in the carpenter’s shop, He never left heaven.
In Ephesians you come from heaven, and you must act like Christ. He is the only standard for everything. As a master I am to be like Christ - as a child I have to be like Him. It is not imitation of Christ, but the fruit of what I feed on comes out. We cannot get Him down here - we feed on Him up there.
Christ walked here as a Man, and left nothing untouched by His grace. He knew all the trials of domestic life. When He said on the cross, “Behold thy mother”, He had done with natural things - He closed the manna day. Now He gives us the manna, His sympathy and His support. It is the same life - He is the same blessed Man, but in different aspects. Place makes all the difference. Paul says, “Beside ourselves.. . to God... sober... it is for you”. If I am in the presence of God, I am enjoying Him. I am at perfect ease there. But we all know what the strain is here. I cannot ungird myself here. I must be ever on my guard. If I sit at the fire and then go out in the cold, I am the same man, but I brace myself up against the cold. “As .. . I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me”. As I do this I am enabled to walk in the grace of Christ. I have to walk as He walked. I do not go to heaven now to stay there, but I do go there to get refreshed.
To lie down in green pastures is different from walking in the paths of righteousness. Men have put the gospels before them as though they could imitate Christ, but it must be His life manifested in you. You may have only a thread of gold, but it is gold, and the only thing that will stand. It is the measure of your resource in Him - all provision for you is up there. He says, I will take care of you down here. What did you get from Christ besides your salvation? That was a great thing to get, but is there nothing more? I get a double character of resource as set [p. 163] forth in these two miracles. I get what Christ is to me now down here - His sympathy. I get God upon earth and how He met things. It is not the person who believes that He is Christ who is said to overcome the world (1 John 5), but he who believes that He is the Son of God. I have to do with a divine Person who has been here in this scene, and I live by the faith of the Son of God. Paul preached that Jesus is the Son of God, and he says, “God .. . was pleased to reveal his Son in me”. I have a new Person to direct me now. It is a great lack when a christian is occupied solely with what Christ did for us instead of seeing what Christ is to us.
Verse 10. They ask for a sign. If He had given any more evidence, He would have admitted that what was given was insufficient. The Lord wants to show that it is not what ministers to man, but what He Himself is to them. I get wonderful principles in the gospels, because I get God moving among men.
Verse 21 is the lament of the Servant. “How is it that ye do not understand?” He was grieved with the disciples reasoning about having no bread while He was with them! The great difficulty now is that people do not understand what they get beyond safety. The mass have not found salvation. If things were right, my spiritual father would have been able to tell me that I belonged to the wonderful structure (the church) with nothing visible, but sustained by One who is not here. A man says, That is a very low meeting, nothing to be got there. But where are your resources? You should be able to contribute to the meeting, like those who gathered the manna, everyone brought what he gathered to the common stock.
Verse 22. We have not this blind man in Matthew - a very interesting addition, it is the ministry of Christ opening the eyes, as in the previous chapter making the dumb to speak. At first he only sees enough to perplex him. Many now are in that state. The [p. 164] second touch is the completion of it. He made him look up, and he saw everything clearly - not only men, but every class of men. Things all came out in a clear light to him. It is a wonderful thing to get clearness of vision from the Lord, to see everything as God sees it, but we cannot do so unless we take heavenly standing. “In thy light .. . we see light”. We try to see things with our own sight and from our own side, but the more I see God’s things the less I like man’s things.
The more God’s things are magnified the more their perfections come out. The more you magnify man’s things the more their deformities are seen. If we want to see anything here truly, we must look up first. How does it look in the sight of God? He made him look up - there is great force in that - it was not as if he did himself, but the Lord made him look up. If we want to see clearly, we must look up. “I went into the sanctuary.. . then understood I their end”. There is beautiful moral instruction in all this, because it is preparatory to the fullest revelation.
It is interesting to notice that in this gospel He never hesitates or delays, goes on rapidly from one service to another. After all He had done among them, they did not care to know who He was, conjecture satisfies them. The man in John 9 says, “Who is he, Lord?” He had been preparing His disciples, educating them, for the new place they were to occupy on His rejection - all resources found in Himself. Matthew goes further and speaks of the new structure. We do not get that here, but He is educating them in the character of servant. We get the confession as to who He is, and also that He is to die. This Peter will not have; he refuses it, though he had borne testimony to His Person. By revelation from the Father Peter could see Him as Son of God, but he could not bear the setting aside of man in the cross. It is there that many fail now. It is not merely the [p. 165] cross for our sins, but it is the entire setting aside of man in the flesh. He rose again the new Man of the new order. This is fatal to me if I am satisfied with what man is.
The same Person who is the Rock on which the new structure is built is the One in whom man is set aside. We do not like the effect of the truth on ourselves. It is a serious thing to see that this is a gone life. There is a difference between the way the cross is put here and in Romans and Galatians. Here it is abstract and takes in the whole. “Save his life” is not refusing to be a martyr but keeping the old standing. The Lord shows that He is rejected by the Jews and by the world; therefore your resources cannot be from either - you have to walk through the world looking for Christ alone to support you in the circumstances down here. If you fail, it is because you lack faith in Christ - you should have the sense of plenty of store. Paul could say, I am going to face this world with Christ. He learns in the end to say, “I take pleasure in infirmities”. He had such a sense of the power of Christ resting on him - an infirmity is all that is connected with me, as a human being, that is not sinful.
The Lord brings out in us the actual grace that was in Himself - He left the manna on everything here. I pick it up by faith in Him; it is only for the wilderness - I am a poor, needy person. He says, I will help you through. Christ as the manna is the same Christ as the old corn of the land - one will cease, the other never will. The manna was gathered before the influence of daily life began. You are drawing upon Him by faith; it is easy to understand what feeding is; you are sustained by the power of Christ, and your weakness is the occasion of His helping you. Luke 18 is a good example of it - first, the oppressed widow; secondly, the child, perfectly weak and willing to be supported. I reach Him in my weakness - He [p. 166] takes me up in His arms! Distress is no barrier to Him, though possessions are.
If you start right, you will end right. Even though you may go wrong in the middle, you have to learn yourself on the road, but the Lord will see you safely through, and will also carry out His own purpose in you.
Ques Does verse 38 apply to a christian?
I think not. It is not safe to take these abstract statements to refer to believers. Peter was timid, but he was not ashamed of the Lord. It was fear, not inclination, that made him deny Christ.