Mark 8:31-9:1: Jesus’ Identity and Mission Revealed

(1) Bible Study Questions

1. What is the popular opinion as to Jesus' identity? (v. 28, cf. 6:14-16)

2. What is the significance of Peter's answer? (cf. 1:1)

3. Why is Jesus so secretive about Peter's discovery? (vv. 26, 30)

4. What does Jesus now begin to teach them after Peter's discovery? Why?

5. Why do you think Peter is rebuking Jesus?

6. Why is Jesus so harsh in his rebuke of Peter?

7. How is Peter like the blind man?

8. Think of the most precious and invaluable thing you could have. What would you give to possess it?

9. Who does Jesus' speak these words to? (v. 34a)

10. What are the three requirements of the one who would follow Jesus? (v. 34b)

11. How would you describe the demands Jesus makes on those who would follow him?

12. What gives him the right to make such demands?

13. Who saves their lives? Who loses their lives? Why?

14. What arguments does Jesus give us to follow him no matter what the cost is? (vv. 36-37)

15. What must our attitude be to Jesus' and his words? What is at stake?

(2) Sermon Script

Introduction

Who is Jesus? Jesus asks, “Who am I?” It is a vital question, one that confronted every person when it was asked, and one that must confront every person now. Who is Jesus?

We stand 2000 years after the event of Jesus’ coming and going. How do we work out who Jesus is? Everyone has an opinion about him: Muslims, Jews, Atheists, Christians of every shade and stripe. Everyone needs to make a decision about him, because of the magnitude of his claims that have come down to us.

We could probably categorize the possible answers to the question, ‘Who is Jesus?’ under four headings, four ‘L’ words (which I think first came from C S Lewis).

(1) Legend

Perhaps some people might say Jesus didn’t exist. Jesus is like Santa Clause, some would say. That is one reason to tell your kids the truth about Santa Clause, because I heard of one child whose parents told him that Santa Clause was real. But the child later found out that Santa didn’t really exist, and so he rightly asked his parents, “So does that mean that Jesus doesn’t exist either?”

Well, that would be pretty extreme for someone to say that Jesus didn’t exist. More likely, people would say he was blown out of all proportion. The Christ of faith and the Jesus of history are two very different people, some would say. Jesus was a historical figure that became a legend. This line of thinking might go, “Yeah, sure Jesus was a good man. Maybe he even helped people. And he had some good moral teachings, just like Buddha, Confucius, and Ghandi. But equal with God? God himself who became human? That’s taking it a bit far!” And so, on this view, really the church got carried away with a good thing.

(2) Lunatic

Now we sometimes have people today claiming to be Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And what usually happens to those people is that they end up in a psychiatric hospital. So some might think that Jesus was a lunatic, and actually did make those huge claims and believed them himself, and then the church or later Christians made him into a ‘legend’, something that he never was.

(3) Liar

Or perhaps Jesus was just a hardened liar. This view says that Jesus knew that he wasn’t the Son of God, but he lied about it. If this was true, of course, Jesus would then be the worst deceiver or con man that has ever walked the earth. This is because he deceived his closest friends and family into thinking and teaching that he was the Son of God, and literally half the world has followed him. Not only would this be the case, but we could never say of Jesus, “He is a good moral teacher”, no matter what wonderful things he said.

That is because so much of Jesus’ teaching that has come down to us is all about himself. Jesus seems to think that the world revolved around him. So to say that Jesus was “a good moral teacher” might only be true in so far as some of the things Jesus said were good and moral, but because Jesus in the canonical Gospels also claimed to be the Christ, the king of the universe, the Son of God, God the Son, who existed before Abraham was born, and indeed before the world began, means that if he was not in truth who he said he was, he could never be called a good moral teacher, but an immoral and profoundly bad teacher who happened to teach some good things along the way, but the reality was that the key things he taught about himself were untrue and lies.

We of course see such things as these in our world: people lie and deceive and claim to be something they are not, sometimes so successfully that many believe it.

For example, many North Koreans believe that Kim il Sung, the first leader of the Republic who died in 1994, is an “almighty god” (despite being dead!). They believe he created the world in seven days as a divine spirit millions of years ago, and came to earth as a human in 1912 as a messianic figure. His family was Presbyterian and religious, but what he seems to have got from church, he appropriated for his own personality cult to maintain his own power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Il-sung. Whether he was a liar, lunatic, legend, or a mixture of all three, his example shows that sometimes false claims can gain great traction.

(4) Lord

There is a final ‘L’ that might apply to Jesus. And of course, I want you to confess with me that Jesus Christ is Lord. And our passage today allow us to do this with the disciples of Jesus in AD 33, as they came to this conclusion, which Mark records for us.

Jesus’ Identity (vv. 27-30)

We’ve come to Mark chapter 8, and this question—“Who is Jesus?”—has been the question thus far in Mark’s Gospel.

But we already know the answer to the question, ‘Who is this man?’ if we’ve been reading the Gospel of Mark chapters 1 to 8. Mark the author gives the game away in the very first verse, for he writes, “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God” (Mark 1:1). If he was a mystery writer, an Agatha Christie, Mark would have been a tragic failure. And if you accidently miss what Mark has said in his first verse, a few verses later Mark records that God himself gives the answer from heaven as Jesus rose from the Jordan River: “This is my Son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:13).

As a mystery writer, Mark is hopeless. But I don’t think Mark cares. He doesn’t write a clever who-dunnit. There’s too much at stake to leave it up to the reader to ‘read between the lines’. So Mark doesn’t care if he spoils the ending at the beginning. He wants his readers to know front and center who he gets to write about.

However, the disciples up until this stage of Mark’s account haven’t yet worked out the answer to this question, at least as far as we know. Jesus’ disciples up until this point in Mark’s Gospel have been asking one another about Jesus’ identity. Typical is what they ask one another as they sit with him terrified in the boat on Lake Galilee: “Who is this, even the wind and the waves obey him?” (Mark 4:41).

Up until now, it is the unclean spirits, the demons, who would get Mark’s tick of approval about who Jesus is. The unclean spirits have been saying that Jesus is “the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24) and “the Son of the Most High God” (Mark 5:7; cf. 3:11). Everyone else is asking the question, but the demons have the answer, the same answer that Mark and God have given us.

But no other human has come to that conclusion yet—excluding of course the demon-possessed. The religious leaders suspect that Jesus is blaspheming, claiming God’s prerogative for himself (Mark 2:7). Indeed, it is worse, for they think that Jesus is “possessed by Beelzebul”, the devil, and he “has an unclean spirit” (Mark 3:22, 30).

Jesus’ own family think that he is “out of his mind” (Mark 3:21). At this stage they go with the ‘Lunatic’ hypothesis. And Jesus’ hometown take the ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ view. They know his family, where Jesus comes from: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” (Mark 6:2-4).

The regional ruler, king Herod, probably out of his guilt and paranoia because of his sin, thought he was “John the Baptist raised from the dead” (Mark 6:14-16). Others think he was some other prophet.

So far the disciples do not see clearly who Jesus is. They are like the blind man who Jesus healed in two stages—they see only as trees walking (Mark 7:24).

But our passage is a turning point in Mark’s Gospel. Jesus up until now has been preaching the good news, driving out demons and healing the sick. His message has been that the kingdom is near, and consequently people must repent and believe the good news. He has taught this in village and town, in the fields, and in the country, inside and outside.

And Jesus has given proofs of the nearness of the kingdom. He has stilled the storm, walked on water, healed the sick, and raised the dead. He has cast out demons and raided Satan’s kingdom. He has sought sinners and forgiven them. None of this was done in a corner—it was all done openly, on the public record, in the sight of his disciples and the people.

So it is with all of these proofs and evidences, that Jesus first broaches the topic. He circles the issue by first asking the disciples what the crowd think of him. Mark chapter 8 verses 27 and 28:

²⁷And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” ²⁸And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” (ESV)

It is not a scientific poll, there’s no vox pop, but the disciples know enough to get the ‘vibe’ of the people's thinking. Their finger is on the pulse such that they can say that people think that Jesus is either John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the prophets. Popular opinion says, “a special prophet”. Jesus might be John the Baptist risen from the dead—Herod thinks that, for his own reasons, and perhaps so do others. Elijah never died, but was taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire—maybe Jesus is Elijah returned. Or Jesus’ identity might be properly expressed by the amorphous catch-all guess of “one of the prophets”.

But this isn’t enough for Jesus: what he really wants to know is what the disciples think. This first question was just an ‘ice-breaker’. So Jesus asks the disciples, his closest friends, what they have concluded. Verses 29 to 30:

²⁹And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” ³⁰And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him. (ESV)

Peter speaks for all of the disciples when he says, “You are the Christ.” Peter means this: “Jesus, I am convinced you are the king and Lord of the universe, and of course, of Israel also. God has chosen and anointed you to rule everything.” And Jesus accepts this.

Peter is right, of course. We readers have known this from chapter 1 verse 1 of Mark, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” We think, “Why has it taken eight chapters of Mark’s Gospel for Peter and the others to get it?”

Jesus’ Mission (Mark 8:31-9:1)

But it is at this point that Jesus begins a new teaching. He starts teaching a new thing, something we haven’t seen so far. We see a change in Jesus’ message. Jesus adds something to his gospel, a novelty, something Jesus hasn’t said beforehand, something he has been keeping back. For Jesus has been secretive about the Messiah’s work. All through the first eight chapters of Mark we have seen Jesus silencing some of his supplicants. And here also Jesus warns his disciples to keep his identity secret, because Jesus also wants to explain the job description for the Lord of the universe. Now that the disciples have understood Jesus’ identity, they need to understand his mission, his job description. Now is the time for Jesus to show his hand, and tell the terrible truth. Verses 31-32:

³¹And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³²And he said this plainly. […] (ESV)

You call me the Christ? Good. Now know that I must suffer, I must be rejected by the religious leaders, I must be killed, and I must be raised again.

Here is the wrong ‘un, the unexpected delivery that Jesus sends down. Jesus begins to teach them this here, on this mountain, and only after they have clearly confessed him the Christ. Only then does he reveal his hand. Now he teaches without parable or riddle. He speaks frankly, plainly, emphatically, disturbingly. We see that in verse 32: “He spoke plainly about this.” He was speaking the word plainly to them.

In other words, the word of the kingdom that Jesus has been declaring since Mark 1:14, Jesus now declares plainly. (That’s why we should not take the preaching of Jesus in Mark 1-8 as our comprehensive model for what the gospel is—the gospel we preach requires the further revelation of Caesarea Phillipi and the later apostolic reflection on it.)

The message of the kingdom is that the Christ will suffer and die and rise again. This is the message of first importance, and the disciples must repent, and believe this gospel (Paul Barnett, Mark, 168).

“I must do this.” Here is Jesus is a driven man, determined.

I’ve always found driven people are always a bit scary. With steely eye, Jesus looks at humiliation, pain, and death as his future, and he says it must happen.

Mind you, there was more than suffering that was set before Jesus. We must never skip over the last bit of verse 31:“And after three days rise again.” He must not stay dead, but must rise again also.

It was because of “the joy set before him” that Jesus “endured the cross, scorning it’s shame” (Heb 12:2). Jesus is not a masochist, or a troubled mind with a death wish. Jesus looks beyond the cross and grave, to the resurrection and ascended glory. This explains, in part, his steely-eyed focus. Jesus’ resurrection and defeat of death is part and parcel of the reason Jesus sets his out for his death. The resurrection will be the vindication of his claim as Christ, the Son of God (Rom 1:1-4). But he must pass through suffering and the cross first.

But why the “must” in verse 31? “The Son of Man must suffer many things.” There is a necessity. Why is all this necessary? Suffering, cross, death, and resurrection, is not merely an inevitability—Jesus always had a choice. When we reach the Garden of Gethsamane, which is Jesus standing on the brink of the abyss into which he must plunge and taking a good look into it, we will see Jesus makes a deliberate and conscious decision to continue to death. His suffering and death is not inevitable, but it is necessary.

Why is it necessary? Well, it was not necessary for him, as if he was going to earn anything he did not already have and to which he did not already have full rights. Before he made the world, Jesus had ascended glory with his Father (John 17:5). Jesus wasn’t earning that by dying. From the beginning he was with God and was God (John 1:1). He was already in very nature God (Phil 2:6). Every atom of creation was already his.

So by the cross Jesus obtained nothing he did not already have full rights to. He already had everything he could want, except one thing. There was one thing Jesus lacked: a ransomed and redeemed people, who were once lost in sin and captive to Satan, but were now purchased by the precious blood of the king of this kingdom, and who would forever boast about him, that by his blood he purchased men for God.

Why was it necessary for him to die and rise again? It was not for himself. In the end, he forgot himself. Instead, he thought of us. He had us in mind.

We were what made the cross necessary. We are the reason for the ‘must’. He must suffer, and he must die and he must rise again FOR US. He achieved nothing for himself by the cross, except what he also achieved for us. (cf. Calvin, Institutes, II.17.6 [Battles, 534]).

As Paul says, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for of our justification” (Rom 4:25). As the Nicene Creed says, “For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven.”

Jesus’ job description is to suffer: to be rejected, killed, and rise again. He will not carry all before him. He will not gather the Jews together under his banner. He will not lead a reconstituted people to reestablish a Davidic kingdom and defeat the Romans and all the other gentiles. He will be humiliated, suffer, and be killed. This is what he tells the disciples, and this is what they hear. He spoke plainly, not in parables, and they understood him. We know this because of Peter’s response to Jesus’ words. Verse 32:

32 […] And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. (ESV)

There is a line in the movie ‘A Few Good Men’ where Jack Nicholson plays a Marine Colonel being cross-examined by Tom Cruise’s character, a junior JAG lieutenant. The cross-examination gets heated, and Cruise yells “I want the truth”, and Nicholson famously blurts out, “You can’t handle the truth!” Well, there is someone in this story who cannot handle the truth. That’s Peter. Verse 32 tells us this. Jesus spoke plainly about his suffering and death, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

Peter can’t handle the truth. Jesus’ disclosure just doesn’t fit with Peter’s ideas about the Christ.

So Peter settles upon having a private word with Jesus. Peter was very discrete about this. He took Jesus aside. He didn’t want to embarrass Jesus in front of the crowd and the other disciples. So he nobly began to rebuke and correct Jesus privately, just between the two of them. He probably had in mind something like this: “Look Jesus, I didn’t want to bring it up in the meeting, but you were way out of line there! You can’t die! You have to save the world. You have to defeat God’s enemies and rule as God’s king. You can’t waste time going off, suffering, and dying.” But Peter didn’t yet understand that Jesus’ death WAS the way that Jesus would save the world.

Mark doesn’t record what Peter said, but Matthew does: “Never, Lord”, he said. “This shall never happen to you” (Matt 16:22). I imagine that Peter wasn’t thinking about the resurrection bit that Jesus had spoken of. I think Peter meant that Jesus would never suffer and be rejected and be killed. The Christ shall not suffer. That is not in his job description. Psalm 2 says of the Christ, “You will rule them with an iron scepter. You will dash them to pieces like pottery” (v. 9).

But Peter hadn’t seen that the Christ of Psalm 2 was also the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isa 53:3ff). And only after the suffering of his soul would Jesus “see the light and be satisfied” (Isa 53:11).

But notice that Mark says that “Peter began to rebuke him”, because he didn’t get very far with his rebuke. Jesus cut him off and then Jesus escalates the confrontation. Verse 33:

But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (ESV)

Jesus looks around and sees the disciples. It wasn’t such a private conversation after all! Peter’s words and actions will effect the others watching, and they were public, so Jesus’ rebuke of Peter also needs to be public, and proportionate with the danger of Peter’s influence. Peter must be embarrassed before them. So out of love for his disciples, and ultimately for Peter too, Jesus calls his friend, the leader and spokesmen of his disciples, the name of his worst enemy: Jesus calls Peter, ‘Satan’, the devil. The one who got it so right—Jesus is the Christ—now gets it so wrong—Get behind me Satan.

Peter is called Satan because Peter is offering Jesus the same temptation that the devil offered him. “Jesus, you don’t have to suffer and die. You are the Christ! You don’t have to go to the cross.”

Whether Satan knew it or not, Satan offered Jesus a way to the crown without the cross. And that is what Peter is doing also: crown without a cross.

So Satan has returned to Jesus. First in the wilderness he offered Jesus the kingdom if he worshipped him. “I will give you all the world’s kingdoms if you worship me!” Now Satan has come to this mountain, and through the mouth of Jesus’ friend suggests an easier way: a crown without a cross, a dominion which avoids death.

Peter’s thinking is Satanic. But it is also human. Verse 33 yet again: "You do not have in mind the things of God but the things of men." Human thinking about God, unaided by God, is not neutral. It is aided by Satan. “Get behind me Satan! You do not have in mind the things of God but the things of men.”

Now, I reckon that if the disciples knew what Peter was saying, and the effect of his words if Jesus heeded them, then they would have physically jumped him, to shut him up. “Stacks on Peter! Shut up! What are you saying? Of course Jesus has to die! He is going there to die for us. If he doesn’t take the punishment for our sins, we will have to take it forever in hell. Keep quiet, Peter—he might listen to you!”

In fact, Jesus escalates the situation even further. Jesus wants an even wider audience, for he has something to say. Only the disciples know the truth, that Jesus is the Christ, and they must not tell anyone, but everyone must know that Jesus is going to Jerusalem to die. It’s is only fair to tell the crowds the cost of following him. Those who follow the leader Jesus, follow him to death. For it is not just Jesus who must die the death of a cross. Verse 34:

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

I read this with a person whose response was, “Christianity is like Islam. It’s fanatical.” Now this person was both right and wrong. Christianity is very much unlike Islam in many ways. We are called to peace, to turn the other cheek and follow a Jesus who is the Son of God and who died and rose again. But he was right in this, that we are called to follow Jesus to the death. Jesus calls us to give up everything, and follow him. It is radical. But that is what real Christianity is about.

Here is the real Jesus, the only Jesus there is, who lays down the costs of discipleship to the crowd. Jesus expects and requires complete allegiance, even to death.

So our attitude must be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who denied himself. Jesus was in very nature God, Yet he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant and being found in appearance as a man, he became obedient to death, even the obscene death of a cross (cf. Phil 2:6-11). So we too must deny ourselves.

And we too must take up our cross, just like Jesus took up his cross. That is, we must bear the same shame Christ bore. As the author to the Hebrews says:

Let us go to him [who was crucified outside the city wall] bearing the disgrace he bore. (Heb 13:13)

And we must follow Jesus. Jesus is now away. He is now seated in heaven. We cannot follow him physically, nor sit at his feet, nor walk literally in his paths. But we must keep faith with him. We must not give up on our hope in him.

If Jesus suffered, we his followers will suffer as we follow in his footsteps. Paul wrote to the Philippians: “It has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.” He suffered for us. He bore our sin. We suffer for him. We bear his shame. We share in his sufferings, so that we will share in his glory. Jesus is the suffering servant for us and calls us in turn to suffer for him, for his sake and the gospel.

Here is Jesus’ solemn command. And Jesus gives us the kingdom logic on which his command is based. Verse 35:

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel will save it. (ESV)

Alan Cole was a great bible scholar. Most of us in our holidays hope to read a book and think we’ve done well. I heard a story that on his holidays Alan used to learn a language. Alan was a missionary in South East Asia and wrote a number of commentaries. I didn’t know him. I didn’t meet him. But I have his commentary on Mark, and I also somehow acquired one of his Greek New Testaments. It has RAC in the front, and I got it somehow through CMS, which is what makes me think it was his. And in his commentary on Mark, Alan Cole wrote something on this verse that was a bit freaky when I read it knowing that he had just died:

Life, like sand, trickles between our fingers whether we will or no, and to grasp it the more tightly means that it merely flows the faster from us […] All men must one day die. The Christian dies here and now, and so has nothing left to fear; for him, death no longer has any sting (R A Cole, Mark: TNTC, 138)

The Christian has already died while he lives. And so the Christian has nothing left to fear about death. To be a Christian is to give up your life for Jesus and the gospel. Saying “I come to church” is inadequate. God doesn’t want an hour a week of my life—he wants my life.

Friend, have you given up your life for Christ? Have I given up my life to follow Christ? For that is what a Christian is, someone who has given up his or her life for Christ. There is no moderation, dear friends, in Christianity, according to Jesus. Jesus wants all of me and all of you, that we love him with our whole heart and soul and mind and strength—with our lives, our time, our money, our families, our dreams, our passions, our strengths, our energy, our weaknesses. Unless you and I see Jesus as demanding the whole of our lives, we have not understood him. Unless we give him all of our lives, we are not disciples, not Christian, not following Jesus.

Jesus also bids us to do the sums, to take out the calculator and work out what we can win and what we can lose. Verses 36 and 37:

³⁶For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? ³⁷For what can a man give in return for his soul? (ESV)

Jesus is saying, “Suppose someone achieved the world for a few short years but went to hell. What would they have gained? Nothing. And what could they give to get out of hell? Nothing. There is no price we can give.

But the paradox is, when we give our lives to Christ, he gives us life eternal. We die to self, and we live to him forever.

It was Jim Elliot, missionary and martyr, who said this: "That man is no fool, who gives up what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose."

Dear friends, if what Jesus says is true, we cannot but give him our lives. But how should we do this? What does it mean for us to take up our cross and follow Jesus?

Undoubtedly it means to persevere in our Christian faith and practice in difficult situations and to not give up. Certainly it means to accept hardship as discipline, to know that God is in control of everything, even the things we feel are bad, unfair, difficult, painful, as well as the good things. It means that we need to say, that following Christ is not too hard, to not throw our hands up in the air in despair, but to continue trusting God’s promises and obeying God’s commands.

I don’t think I fully appreciate what it means to lose my life? What does it mean to lose your life for Christ? It’s a life spent for others, either to give one’s life as a martyr, or to wear out in the service of the Lord.

And friends, if you have given Christ your life, is it not a commitment you must make again this day? Luke adds in his Gospel that Jesus said that his disciples “must take up his cross daily”. Christianity is a faith whose initial membership is free and paid for you, but whose annual subscription is everything you have.

Friends we are not our own, but we give ourselves to Christ freely in the light of two great events. Both events were future to those who first heard these words fall from Jesus’ lips, but one event is past for us who read Jesus’ words in Mark’s Gospel.

First, Jesus points his hearers to the great day of reckoning, the day of judgment, when Jesus, the Son of Man, will render to us, and return to us according to what we have done. Verses 38:

For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (ESV)

We must confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord, as well as believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead. We must not be ashamed of Jesus, dear friends: ashamed of his words, of his deeds, or of who he said he was. For on that final day, Jesus will vindicate all who have confessed him before other people. Jesus will then confess us before his Father. But if we deny him before men, he will deny us before his Father. Now we know that if we have denied Jesus before men, it is not the unforgivable sin. Peter did exactly that, and was fully forgiven. But he repented, and confessed both his denial and his Lord, Jesus Christ, before men even to death.

Friends, we must never be ashamed of the name Christian, and of Jesus. Heavenly Father, please have mercy that we would bear the name of Jesus with pride, and not bring shame to that powerful saving name.

So Jesus first pointed to his second coming and the judgement. But second, Jesus also pointed to another one of his comings. Chapter 9 verse 1:

And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.” (ESV)

Friends, here Jesus points to his coming as king in the kingdom of God, for he refers to his resurrection. Romans 1:4 tells us that Jesus “was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead.” On the Day of Pentecost, Jesus the Son of Man ascended to the Ancient of Days and received glory, honour and sovereign power, as Daniel 7:13-14 promised. And that event was the inauguration of the kingdom of God, when it comes with power. Of course, in a sense it came when the king came, so it is not surprising that Jesus said that the kingdom was among those to whom he ministered, and when he did his works of power, that the finger of God and the Spirit of God had come among them.

Friends, there is here the two comings of Jesus mentioned: to his father after his resurrection and ascension, which he refers to as a coming that some of those standing there will see; and to those who wait for him at the time appointed by his father, when Jesus Christ returns to earth to bring the current age to an end.

Can I invite you to give your lives up for Christ, and ask you to invite me to do the same. Jesus’ resurrection proved he is ascended king and that he will come again a second time to judge the world.

We need to give Jesus all our lives, not just the bits and shards. We need to give him all of it, for only those who no longer live to themselves, but to him who died and rose again, are the followers Christ seeks.

Let’s pray.

(3) English Translation

27Καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ εἰς τὰς κώμας Καισαρείας τῆς Φιλίππου· καὶ ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ ἐπηρώτα τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ λέγων αὐτοῖς· τίνα με λέγουσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι εἶναι,

27 And Jesus and his disciples went out into the village of Caesarea Philippi, and along the way he asked his disciples, "Who do the people say that I am?

28οἱ δὲ εἶπαν αὐτῷ λέγοντες [ὅτι] Ἰωάννην τὸν βαπτιστήν, καὶ ἄλλοι Ἠλίαν, ἄλλοι δὲ ὅτι εἷς τῶν προφητῶν.

28And they said to him, "John the Baptist, and others, Isaiah, and still others, one of the prophets."

29καὶ αὐτὸς ἐπηρώτα αὐτούς· ὑμεῖς δὲ τίνα με λέγετε εἶναι; ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ Πέτρος λέγει αὐτῷ· σὺ εἶ ὁ χριστός.

29And he asked them, "But you, who do you say I am?" Answering, Peter said to him "You are the Christ."

30καὶ ἐπετίμησεν αὐτοῖς ἵνα μηδενὶ λέγωσιν περὶ αὐτοῦ.

30And he sternly warned them to not speak to anybody about him

31Καὶ ἤρξατο διδάσκειν αὐτοὺς ὅτι δεῖ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου πολλὰ παθεῖν καὶ ἀποδοκιμασθῆναι ὑπὸ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων καὶ τῶν ἀρχιερέων καὶ τῶν γραμματέων καὶ ἀποκτανθῆναι καὶ μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας ἀναστῆναι·

31And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days, to rise.

32καὶ παρρησίᾳ τὸν λόγον ἐλάλει. καὶ προσλαβόμενος ὁ Πέτρος αὐτὸν ἤρξατο ἐπιτιμᾶν αὐτῷ.

32And he spoke this message openly. And taking him aside, Peter began to sternly warn him.

33ὁ δὲ ἐπιστραφεὶς καὶ ἰδὼν τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ ἐπετίμησεν Πέτρῳ καὶ λέγει· ὕπαγε ὀπίσω μου, σατανᾶ, ὅτι οὐ φρονεῖς τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ ἀλλὰ τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων.

33But turning and seeing his disciples, he sternly warned Peter, and said, "Get behind me, Satan, because you are not thinking the things of God but the things of men."

34Καὶ προσκαλεσάμενος τὸν ὄχλον σὺν τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· εἴ τις θέλει ὀπίσω μου ἀκολουθεῖν, ἀπαρνησάσθω ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἀράτω τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀκολουθείτω μοι.

34And calling the crowd with his disciples, he said to them, "If someone wishes to follow behind me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

35ὃς γὰρ ἐὰν θέλῃ τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ σῶσαι ἀπολέσει αὐτήν· ὃς δ’ ἂν ἀπολέσει τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ καὶ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου σώσει αὐτήν.

35For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for me and the gospel will save it".

36τί γὰρ ὠφελεῖ ἄνθρωπον κερδῆσαι τὸν κόσμον ὅλον καὶ ζημιωθῆναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ,

36For what does it profit a person to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul,

37τί γὰρ δοῖ ἄνθρωπος ἀντάλλαγμα τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτοῦ,

37For what can a person give in exchange for his soul,

38ὃς γὰρ ἐὰν ἐπαισχυνθῇ με καὶ τοὺς ἐμοὺς λόγους ἐν τῇ γενεᾷ ταύτῃ τῇ μοιχαλίδι καὶ ἁμαρτωλῷ, καὶ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐπαισχυνθήσεται αὐτόν, ὅταν ἔλθῃ ἐν τῇ δόξῃ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ μετὰ τῶν ἀγγέλων τῶν ἁγίων.

38For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man also will be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels.