Mark 5:21-43 - The Divine Nature of Christ

Mark 5:21-43
When Jesus had crossed over again in the boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around Him; and so He stayed by the seashore. One of the synagogue officials named Jairus *came up, and on seeing Him, *fell at His feet and *implored Him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death; please come and lay Your hands on her, so that she will get well and live.” 24 And He went off with him; and a large crowd was following Him and pressing in on Him.

A woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years, and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse— after hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak. For she thought, “If I just touch His garments, I will get well.” Immediately the flow of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Immediately Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power proceeding from Him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched My garments?” And His disciples said to Him, “You see the crowd pressing in on You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’” And He looked around to see the woman who had done this. But the woman fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your affliction.”

While He was still speaking, they *came from the house of the synagogue official, saying, “Your daughter has died; why trouble the Teacher anymore?” But Jesus, overhearing what was being spoken, *said to the synagogue official, “Do not be afraid any longer, only believe.” And He allowed no one to accompany Him, except Peter and James and John the brother of James. They *came to the house of the synagogue official; and He *saw a commotion, and people loudly weeping and wailing. And entering in, He *said to them, “Why make a commotion and weep? The child has not died, but is asleep.” They began laughing at Him. But putting them all out, He *took along the child’s father and mother and His own companions, and *entered the room where the child was. Taking the child by the hand, He *said to her, “Talitha kum!” (which translated means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). Immediately the girl got up and began to walk, for she was twelve years old. And immediately they were completely astounded. And He gave them strict orders that no one should know about this, and He said that something should be given her to eat.

Message: The Divine Nature of Christ

Time: Mark's personal connection with Peter gave him the source material for this book. This book was composed probably between AD 57 and AD 59. It's a book that is on the move, leading to the cross. 39 times is the word immediately used. Mark reveals Jesus as God's servant, reaching into the lives of people and effecting physical and circumstantial change.

What the Lord is Saying:

Overview of this Series

Tabletalk for this day states - Christianity is all about Christ, who He is and what He has done. Christ alone is head of the church; Christ alone is worthy of adoration; Christ alone saves.

In this study celebrating the 500th year of the Reformation (which was actually back in 2017), the Reformers sought to return people to Christian orthodoxy, echoing statements like the Definition of Chalcedon.

The Chalcedonian definition is a declaration of Christ's nature, adopted in AD 451 at the Council of Chalcedon. This was a church council held from 8 October to 1 November, 451, at Chalcedon, a town of Bithynia in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey (on the north-western shore) and now Chalcedon is a district within Istanbul. The purpose of the Council was to come against the heresy of Eutyches. What Eutyches was saying at the time is hard to define, though it seems that he was stating that Jesus was not fully human. The Council was led to convene because of the talk that erupted and the off-shoots of this heresy. Heresy is making a statement that has been revealed by God and confirmed by the Church in which the person refuses to be corrected.

This definition stated that Jesus is one person who possesses two natures, a divine nature and a human nature, truly God and truly man. A nature is that which makes something what it is, those attributes that define it. The divine nature is marked by divine attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, self-existence, eternity, and so on, thus to have all the attributes that make God who He is. Thus, we are saying Jesus possesses every attribute that God possesses and is therefore truly God. The following study will talk of the Human nature of Christ.

Today's Lesson

For example, today's passage states in verse 23 that a daughter of a man is at the point of death. In Matthew 9:18 records that "My daughter has just died." In Mark, the man stated that she was taking her last breath and by the time of Matthew's record she had died. What Jesus does then is give life to this girl as stated in Mark 5:41, "Little girl, I say to you, arise!" Genesis 1 records God creating life and now here Jesus is creating life.

Thus, in this situation is the first example of how it was recorded that Jesus, the man, also had a divine nature - giving life to this girl. 

Promise: Many respect Jesus, but only few see him as Lord and King and truly God and worthy of our worship. Jesus is the God incarnate creator.

Prayer: Lord, thank you for the truth of Your word and that Your ways have been confirmed throughout history. Thank you for men that saw a need to convene regularly to declare who You are and re-confirm who You are through clear definition. Help me Lord to continue to better understand You through Your word. Help me Holy Spirit to see Christ for who He really is and help others to know the same.

Note: I follow the readings from the Tabletalk Magazine devotional, though I am a little behind and working through 2017 devotionals. 2017 is a study of key biblical doctrines celebrating the 500th year of the Reformation. The month of April is about solus Christus - Christ Alone; April was about salvation by grace alone; March about the sovereign providence of God; February was about the doctrine of revelation and the various aspects of the doctrine of Scripture that sola Scriptura seeks to preserve; January was about the doctrine of God.

Romans 12:3 - The Pelagian Captivity of the Church

Romans 12:3
For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.

Message: The Pelagian Captivity of the Church

Time: Written sometime in AD 57-58, probably from Corinth, at the end of Paul's third missionary journey.

What the Lord is Saying:

I have arrived at the last lesson of this series on salvation by grace alone. I have learned a lot. But it has taken me a long time. I should be okay with that. It has taken almost a year to go through this one month as I started on March 6, 2019. Yowza. That's 20 or so lessons. Hmm. Oh well. At least I am still going at it. It is March 19, 2020. I started this post over a month ago, and now revisiting it. I've been doing other things, BSF, but also not waking up early, and getting busy with getting on with each day. At the moment, due to the coronavirus, I am working at home more, so I go back to revisiting these studies, to see what I can get through.

I think what I have been amazed about through this series (as I have been listening to RC Sproul messages on the last 5 or so of these lessons) is the history of comprehending salvation and whether man has done anything to earn salvation. The message is simple: Jesus did it all.

Pelagian, a man who lived 1600 years ago, is still having an impact on how people think today - being the idea that man is involved in salvation and God can only work in man if man agrees.

In his final message in this series, he has titled it "The Pelagian Captivity of the Church" which makes sense because the tenets of Pelagian are still at work today in the church. Sproul hones in on this idea of the extent that Pelagian and his ideals have made their way into evangelicalism today and invaded the church still today. He speaks of Charles Finney, a 19th century preacher, and his focus on evangelism and 500,000 people coming to Christ. His methods of evangelism live on today. Yet, while Finney may say that Jesus paid it all, how many gets to salvation is about man being involved in this work.

Let me step back for a moment - what I am seeing in this study is trying to intersect God's ways with my thinking of God's ways. Who God is and how he works sits on a plane. If we believe in God, then life is about understanding how he works and who He is. So is my understanding of Him the same as His? Does my plane intersect His? To me that is the goal. To be on the same plane. So does God's plane or ways include me being involved in my salvation or not? At the end of the day whether I am saved or not does not change. Can I change God's mind? Can I change my own mind? All of these are questions I am trying to figure out as I read and learn and study scripture.

As I back up to Finney, I am not saying the 500,000 that came to Christ under his method are not saved. Whether I think that or not is not for me to decide, as if my view of their salvation determines their salvation. I can honestly say the Spirit of God is living in me. I know this. So now my quest is understanding salvation and what actually occurred. Then as I intersect with others, no matter what they believe, I first wonder if the Spirit of God is living in them. I don't want to assume He isn't based upon the label they have attached to their lives of the type of religious thought or group they hold to. For example, I don't want to assume all Catholics are not Spirit-filled. But, I know this is my tendency.

Historically, the group of people that are identified as evangelical are those that embrace the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Yet Charles Finney, who is generally regarded as a hero of the faith, denies this thinking. What he denies is sola fide - which can be described as - when the sinner looks to Christ by faith and puts his trust in Christ and Christ alone that God legally declares that sinner just by the virtue of the imputation or the transfer of the merit of Christ and the righteousness of Christ to the legal account of the sinner who lacks merit and lacks any righteousness of his own. "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:28). Each person has an account. Before Christ it is an account of works with the hopes that my works will yield salvation. But my works without Christ include sin and sin on its own whether intermingled with good works is unclean and cannot merit being declared just by God. Thus salvation is the sinner looking to Christ by faith, putting his trust in Christ, believing in the resurrection, believing in the transfer of righteousness -- then I am declared just by God imputing or transferring the merit or work of Christ or the righteousness of Christ to my account, to cover my sin - and man is incapable of having anything to do with this righteousness transfer. I don't make the transfer happen. But, my faith in Christ does happen.

According to Finney, such a view of justification would be a travesty of divine justice and God indeed would never make a legal declaration in calling someone just when that person is not just in and of himself. In this vein, he shares a common objection to forensic justification of the Roman Catholic church. Where Finney missed it was in his view of what Jesus did on the cross, seeing it as an example of the seriousness of sin and thereby the Christian is pardoned by God, not justified, but pardoned. It is not about Christ atoning but Christ using the cross to show us that we are evil and therefore we need to clean up our lives. In a subtle way it shows that man is responsible agent in cleaning up his/her life. For Finney sanctification yields justification whereas the classic protestant view is justification occurs and sanctification is a process in the Christian's life of being conformed to the image of Christ.

Finney is Pelagian to the core in that he believes that man has a natural ability and moral ability to make choices, to naturally choose right and wrong, but also the moral ability to choose the things of God, even without grace. Whereas, the discussion of classical Protestants is that man does not on his own have the ability to choose the things of God unless God intervenes.

What Sproul is arguing is that most evangelicals today hold to this view and do not rightly understand the meaning of original sin. Do we come to sin thinking that we can change or do we come to sin thinking that Christ must change us?

Summary: Salvation by grace alone. Man is a sinner and nothing in man can make him right with God except for the grace of God intervening. Man cannot choose to be right with God. Faith is the expression by man of the grace of God in God making man right with Himself through the work of Jesus and the transfer of His righteousness to man upon His conquering of sin through the resurrection after He was crucified on the cross. It is a fine line.

Promise: We do not have to invent fancy techniques to bring people to faith; we just have to preach God’s Word accurately and trust Him to save His people. Let us put our hope not in methods but in faithfulness to God’s Word.

Prayer: O Lord, thank you for the truth of your Word that has invaded my life and shown me the significance of Your grace. Forgive me for thinking I make myself righteous. I want to turn to You and trust You and You alone and depend on You. Thank you for RC Sproul and illuminating him and calling him to teach and show us that your truth is continuous. Keep us on the right track. Help me to discern false messages, expose them, and continue to uphold and praise You God. Give me compassion upon people and help me to not have strife with others over this issue. As I've learned of you, continue to sink truth into my life - to your Glory.

Note: I follow the readings from the Tabletalk Magazine devotional, though I am a little behind and working through 2017 devotionals. 2017 is a study of key biblical doctrines celebrating the 500th year of the Reformation. The month of April is about salvation by grace alone. March was about the sovereign providence of God; February was about the doctrine of revelation and the various aspects of the doctrine of Scripture that sola Scriptura seeks to preserve; January is about the doctrine of God.