Mark 9:9-13 - Elijah has come

9:9,10

Jesus did not want them blabbing about their experience at this time. To do so would have got people focusing on entirely the wrong thing. They were to wait till after He had been raised from the dead before recounting this incident. At stage Jesus would have been crucified and there would have been little danger of a wrong focus. For once the disciples obeyed! They just talked about it among themselves. However, they still had no idea what Jesus was on about when He said He would rise from the dead. One of the arguments used by some against the resurrection essentially boils down to saying the people of the day were rather gullible and would believe anything, such as someone rising from the dead. As well as being rather insulting to the people of the first century. there are no ground whatsoever for giving this view any credibility. The disciples expectation of Jesus rising from the dead, or even having any idea of the concept, was precisely zero, even when Jesus had spoken about it plainly.

9:11-13

Based on Malachi 4:5,6 the view was that Elijah would come first, first here meaning coming before the Messiah, before God restored all things. The disciples asked Jesus why they taught that. Jesus gives one of His enigmatic replies. He agrees that Elijah does come first, indeed that he has come. So Jesus is saying that John the Baptist is Elijah. In fact there is an interesting point here on Biblical interpretation. We tend to either want everything in the Bible to be taken literally, or we take everything metaphorically.  This is most apparent in interpreting the first three chapters of Genesis, and in interpreting Revelation (funny that it is the beginning and the end!). But look at what is happening here. John the Baptist was not physically Elijah, but he is the Elijah figure prophesied by Malachi. So we have the metaphorical interpretation. But on the mount of transfiguration Elijah did appear, so we have a literal interpretation. God has a habit of being more balanced than we are!

Anyway, while Jesus affirmed that Elijah was involved, there was also a serious lack of understanding, mainly over suffering. Jesus points to what happened to John the Baptist, he was beheaded! They did not expect that to happen. In the same way, the suffering of Jesus, the Messiah, was not expected by the people, not even by the disciples. But note that Jesus says that Scriptures say the  Messiah must suffer (probably thinking primarily about Isaiah 53). On the road to Emmaus He told the two disciples how the Scriptures actually foretold of all that had happened.

Isaiah 14:26-32 - The Lord has established Zion

14:26,27

This section closes with a declaration of the sovereignty of the Lord over all things. Nations rise up and imagine that they are all powerful. But it is the Lord who is all powerful, and it is He who has a purpose for all the earth. The purpose was set out in Genesis 1 and 2, and it is this purpose that will be fulfilled, and it is through Christ that it will be fulfilled. “His hand is stretched out over all the nations”, the Lord is not sleeping, He watches and He takes action, and He will take action. Notice the “all the nations”, the gods were all local gods, the one true God is Lord over all, and cares about all the world. And no one can annul the purpose of God. The devil may try, men may try, but they will not succeed.

14:28,29

A clear timeframe is put on this oracle, it was given in the year that King Ahaz died, Philistia may have seem to have got some relief, with a heavy oppressive power on her have its power broken. For something much worse was about to come. The only true way to relief is repentance.

14:30-32

While the Philistine rulers would be decimated, the poor would find pasture. Every dictatorial regime ends up oppressing the poor, even if they started on a “socialist” manifesto. The removal of wicked regimes by the Lord is not just a judgement upon them (though that is a crucial element), but also a transformation so that the poor are no longer oppressed. The change is also associated with the restoration of Zion. We need to understand the fullness of God’s plans for Israel. On the one hand there is a judgement upon their sin, and no hiding from the reality of her rebelliousness. On the other hand the goal is to restore Zion to be the people they were always meant to be. If we focus on only one of these aspects then we distort Scripture.

Mark 9:7,8 - This is my beloved Son

9:7

God, however, knew exactly what He was doing! A cloud covered the whole situation and a voice came from the cloud “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to Him!”. We don’t appreciate the full significance of this. In Deut 18:15 it says “The Lord your God will raise up a prophet like me (Moses) from among your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him” (NIV). So God is making clear that Jesus is the one that Moses was speaking about. This is very important for understanding the relationship of the Old and New Testament. The Old was pointing forward to Jesus. Moses never imagined that he was “it”. someone far greater would come. One of the reasons found the gospel so hard to accept was that they thought it was going against the Law, when in fact it was fulfilling the Law.  By the way, Islam claims that Deut 18:15 is speaking of Mohammed, not Jesus. Of course this is not the case, but it is worthwhile being aware of this claim.

9:8

Then everyone except Jesus were gone, ie no more Moses and Elijah. The “suddenly” brings out the vividness of the description, reflecting the account of an eye witness. This tells us something about visions, or visitations, depending on how we want to refer to this incident. They do happen from time to time, but they happen for a purpose. They are not an end in themselves, and we must not build “altars” to them, definitely no physical ones, but not mental ones either. We can all hanker back after some religious experience. Now remembering them is not wrong, Paul recounted the Damascus road experience in the later chapters of Acts. But the main thing is the message that God gave, the purpose for the revelation. Here it was to assure them that Jesus really was the hoped for Messiah, and that they must listen to Him. In Paul’s case it was that he was to take the gospel to the Gentiles, and this he did with great determination.

Isaiah 14:22-25 - Surely as I have planned, so it will be

14:22

We should remember that this was all given many years before Babylon was the dominant power. We may not understand why God allows such evil regimes to rise and prosper, but we can always be certain that a judgement is already planned for them. Evil always has to pay a price at some point. The Lord rises against them, and the judgement will be severe.

14:23

This verse seems to give hedgehogs a unduly important role in life! The word translated “hedgehog” in ESV could also mean porcupine. What it means is that wild animals will take over the land, and animals of little account. Utter destruction will come upon the land.

14:24,25

This verse outlines the ultimate reality that we need to grasp if we are to understand the world at all. When God plans something that is what will happen. It is the Lord’s will that prevails. Having addressed Babylon, events that were many years ahead, His concern now turns to the immediate future and so involved Assyria. The Assyrians would be defeated “on my land”. Babylon would be defeated in her own land, Assyria had invaded Israel, would invaded most of Judah, but would be defeated there. So why did God go into great length about Babylon first? They would see that the Assyrian prophecies came true, and history would record it as such. This would show that the Babylon prophecies must be taken seriously, they too would come to pass. And for us, all this shows that the kingdoms of this world will all pass away.

Mark 9:3-6 - Moses and Elijah

9:3

As He was transfigured, Jesus’ clothes became an intense white, a more intense white than had ever been seen on earth. Even in those days, bleaching was used to remove stains in clothes, and whiteness was associated with heavenly beings.

9:4

Elijah and Moses appeared with Jesus. Elijah had not actually died, but had been taken up to heaven (2 Kings 2:11), which is consistent with Malachi talking about the return of Elijah. Moses was buried, so had died in the normal way. Moses and Elijah are taken to represent the Law and the Prophets, the two main pillars of the Old Testament. Deut 18:15-19 speaks of the coming of a prophet like Moses. This is taken as showing that Jesus is the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies, showing that Jesus is the one that Moses and Elijah were pointing forward to.

9:5,6

While Mark tends to omit bits that might tend people to “worship” Peter, he is perfectly happy to put in those parts that highlight Peter’s failings. All this is consistent with the view that Peter was a key source for Mark. Peter wanted to erect three shelters, one for Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Quite what the they were meant to do with these shelters isn’t clear, but Mark then states that Peter did not know what he was talking about. It was a response of fear, ie Peter felt he had to say something, and wanted to keep on the right side of the three of them!

Isaiah 14:14-21 - Is this the man who shook the earth?

14:14,15

These two verses contrast the lofty thoughts of the king of Babylon compared with the end result. Babylon thought she was all powerful, thought she was like God (the Most High is a term used to describe God). But the end result was that she was brought down to the pit, to the realm of the dead. We can apply this to the whole of humanity. We act as though we are god, as though we can determine what is right and wrong, as if we can control everything. But a little thought show the utter nonsense that this is, for we all die, we all ultimately come to nothing.

14:16,17

The world looks on Babylon’s downfall with amazement. They knew how mighty she once seemed, how all-dominant she once was. Once she deported large segments of the population she conquered, as she did with the Israelites, and refused to let them return to their homelands. But now she had come to nothing.

14:18-21

Earthly rulers are usually buried in honour, given a “state funeral” or some such recognition, but the ruler of Babylon would die in total ignominy. Hitler ruled with fear for several years, but at the end he was utterly despised. The ruler of Babylon would not be named with the other kings. The judgement would even be passed on to his sons, to make sure that such evil never rose again.

Mark 9:1,2 - Up a high mountain

9:1

This verse can be problematic. If we interpret it in terms of the fulfilment of all things, ie the return of Christ, then clearly that is not true. So it seems more likely that He is either referring to Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came and filled the disciples, or more generally to the disciples seeing the true power of the kingdom. At present the disciples, and certainly not the general population, really had no idea what the kingdom of God was about. They thought they knew, they thought they had an idea, but in reality they knew virtually nothing. However, a time would come when they would see the true power if the kingdom, the power to change sinful rebellious men in to people who were trusting in God and being transformed by Him.

9:2

We now come to the Transfiguration. Consider the situation. Mark tells us that it took place six days after Peter’s declaration of who Jesus is, and Jesus telling them about the suffering He must endure. The disciples were probably in a pretty confused state. The only previous example of “transfiguration” is that of Moses whose face shone. The six days is also significant in this regard, for six days is mentioned in Ex 24:16 when Moses went up Mount Sinai.