Mark 15:29 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Mark 15:29

Comments

What is the reaction of the people? ‘And they that passed by railed on him wagging their heads’. This was derision, scorn. The people who had cheered him to the rooftops now look on scornfully. This ‘wagging’ of the head is a good idea in translation. Our King James translators could have said, ‘They shook their heads’, but they've chosen ‘wagging’ because the idea is that the head was wagged from side to side as they gestured: ‘Look at him there.’ It's done in derision, and the King James translators have hit upon something in choosing this unusual word. ‘Ah,’ or as we say, ‘Aha, thou that destroyest the temple’, they said – misquoting him. He was so powerful; he was going to destroy the temple and raise it up in three days. Aha, look at him. That is the scene. How they've swung round! Of course, he never said he would destroy the temple and raise it up in three days. The Roman armies would, by his permission, destroy the temple within forty years, but that's not what he was referring. John's Gospel tells us clearly he referred to the temple of his body. He was speaking about his own death and resurrection. He was speaking in veiled terms about his own crucifixion and suffering and dying on Calvary. But they misquoted his words: ‘You that said, you would destroy the temple.’ That's what the chief priests had spread about, and they grabbed hold of it.

Application

If we are unbelievers, we grab hold of anything that reinforces our unbelief. Any idea, any theory, any teaching, that can explain the world and creation in purely material terms, we clutch hold of eagerly. The chief priests were putting it about, ‘He said he would destroy the temple and renew it in three days’, and they clutched hold of this as evidence that he was absurd. Yes, but they had great evidence of his authenticity. In every family, virtually, someone had been remarkably healed – people who were so desperately handicapped. The dead had been raised, the blind had been given sight; lepers had been cleansed. Amazing things that happened. They had flocked in huge crowds to be healed. Against that they put this misquotation of the clergy, and the believed that in preference. They didn't see he was atoning for sinners. They didn't see the greatest act in the history of the universe, even greater than the creation of the universe, even greater than the ultimate destruction and renewal of the universe. The suffering and death of God the Son on the cross of Calvary bearing the eternal punishment of sin for millions and millions of people, compressed into the space of six hours, so that we may be forgiven and made new. They didn't see the magnitude and the astonishing lovingkindness of that act. We don't see the higher purpose so often: the higher purpose of God in life.

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Mark 15:29 Commentary and Bible Study