If, now, we review the series of designations applied to our Lord in the Gospel of Mark, as a whole, we shall, we think, be led by them into the heart of Mark’s representation of Jesus.
What Mark undertook in his Gospel was obviously to give an account of how that great religious movement originated which we call Christianity, but which he calls ‘ the Gospel of Jesus Christ “—the glad tidings, that is, concerning Jesus Christ which were being proclaimed throughout the world. To put it in his own words, he undertook to set forth “the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ” (1¹). The account which he gives of the beginning of this great religious movevw ment, by means of his ‘ Gospel,’ is briefly that it origix nated in a divine intervention; and that this divine intervention was manifested in the ministry of the divinely promised and divinely sent Messiah who was no other than the man Jesus. This man is represented as coming, endowed with ample authority for His task; and as prosecuting this task by the aid of supernatural powers by which He was at once marked out as God’s delegate on earth and enabled, in the face of all difficulties and oppositions, to accomplish to its end what He had set His hand to do.
It is idle to speak of Mark presenting us in his account of Jesus with the picture of a purely human life. It belongs to the very essence of his undertaking to portray this life as supernatural; and, from beginning to end, he sets it forth as thoroughly supernatural. The Gospel opens, therefore, by introducing Jesus to us as the divinely given Messiah, in whom God had from the ages past promised to visit His people; heralded as such by the promised messenger making ready the way of the Lord; and witnessed by this messenger as the “mightiest” of men, who bore in His hands the real potencies of a new life (1⁸); and by God Himself from heaven as His Son, His beloved, in whom He was well pleased (1¹¹). Anointed and tested for His task, Jesus is then presented as entering upon and prosecuting His work as God’s representative, endowed with all authority and endued with all miraculous powers. His authority was manifested y alike in His teaching (1²²), in His control of demonic ” personalities (1²⁷), In the forgiveness of sins (2¹⁰) (i in His sovereignty over the religious ordinances of x Israel (2²⁸), in His relations to nature and nature’s laws (4⁴¹), in His dominion over death itself (5⁴². As each of these typical exercises of authority is signalized in turn and copiously illustrated by instances, the picture of a miraculous life becomes ever more striking, and indeed stupendous. Even the failure of His friends to comprehend Him and the malice of His enemies in assaulting Him, are made by the evan- gelist contributory to the impression of an utterly supernatural life which he wishes to make on his readers. So little was it a normal human life that Jesus lived that His uncomprehending friends were tempted to think Him beside Himself, and His enemies proclaimed Him obviously suffering from possession” (323). Whatever else this life was, it certainly was not, in view of any observer, a ‘ natural” one. The ‘ unnaturalness” of it is not denied: it is { only pointed out that this “ unnaturalness” was systematic, and that it was systematically in the interests of holiness. What is manifested in it, therefore, is ‘ neither the vagaries of lunacy nor the wickedness of demonism. What is exhibited is the binding of Satan and the destruction of satanic powers (cf. 1²⁷ et saepe). To ascribe these manifestations to Satan is therefore to blaspheme the Spirit of God. Nobody, it appears, dreamed of doubting in any interest the abnormality of this career: and we should not misrepresent Mark if we said that his whole Gospel is devoted to making the impression that Jesus’ life and manifestation were supernatural through and through.
This is, of course, however, not quite the same as saying that Mark has set himself to portray in Jesus the life of a supernatural person. Whether the supernatural life he depicts is supernatural because it is the life on earth of a supernatural person, or because it is the life of a man with whom God dwelt and through whom God wrought, may yet remain a question. Certainly very much in Mark’s narrative would fall in readily with the latter hypothesis. To him Jesus is primarily the Messiah, and the Messiah is primarily the agent of God in bringing in the new order of things. Undoubtedly Mark’s fundamental thought of Jesus is that He is the man of God’s appointment, with whom
Mark’s Conception of Our Lord 33 God is. Designating Him currently merely by His personal name of Jesus,’ and representing Him as currently spoken of by His contemporaries merely as Jesus of Nazareth and addressed by the simple honorific titles of Rabbi,’ ‘ Teacher,’ ‘ Lord ‘—His funda- mental manifestation is to him plainly that of a man among men. That this man was the Messiah need not in itself import more than that He was the subject of ‘xdivine influences beyond all other men, and the vehicle of divine operations surpassing all other human experience. It may fairly be asked, therefore, what requires us to go beyond the divine office to explain this supernaturally filled life? Will not the assumption of the Messiahship of Jesus fully account for the abounding supernaturalism of His activity as por- trayed by Mark? Questions like these are in point of fact constantly raised around us and very variously answered. But it behooves us to be on our guard respecting them that we be not led into a false antithesis, as if we must explain Mark’s presentation of the supernatural life of Jesus either on the basis of His office as Messiah or on the basis of His superhuman personality. There is no necessary contradiction between these two hypotheses; and we must not introduce here I a factitious ‘ either—or.”” What it behooves us to do is simply to inquire how the matter lay in Mark’s mind; what the real significance of the Messiahship he at- tributed to Jesus, and represented Jesus as claiming Il for Himself, is; and whether he posits for Jesus and represents Him as asserting for Himself something more than a human personality.