Mark 5:40 Commentary and Bible Study

They were filled with derision. ‘They laughed him to scorn’, says our translation, and it is the best translation. They ridiculed his statement. The Son of God is ridiculed, yet he says nothing in reply, but lets the miracle answer them. He had deliberately expressed himself in a way that was open to misinterpretation. Anyone with faith would have treated his words with great caution so as not to come to the wrong conclusion, but these scoffers hurried to trip over his words and fall flat on their faces. They thought that they would reduce him to shame and crowed about it, but he reduces them to shame in a far more dignified way. They scorn him – the most powerful way they can find to pour contempt on his words, on his knowledge, and on his whole person. What meekness in the Son of God to allows sinful men to contradict their Creator! What self-assurance to allow their contradiction to stand for a time, knowing that all things will be brought into the light. This alone, without any other sin being added, is something of incalculable gravity. This is reported in part to show that they knew she was really dead. Scorn is such a strong expression that no one risks using it who is likely to be proved wrong subsequently. All men are ashamed to be discovered to have been overconfident. So we know that when this young girl was presented alive to her parents, she had truly been raised from the dead. They were also allowed to make this error and to express it with such force to teach them that their own assessment of events was so far from the mark. It seemed impossible to them that they could be wrong, but when man clashes with God he is always wrong. If our assessment contradicts that of the Son of God, it is wrong, however sure we are that we are right. These things took place to make them marvel all the more when she was raised from the dead. They will learn that they have deeply underestimated him. They have misread his quiet confidence; they have not understood that he knows what to do in every situation however hard it seems; they have not understood that he has infallible knowledge. They seem to also misunderstand his choosing not to reply to their taunts. He allows their confidence in their opinion to reach such heights, because their fall will be all the more spectacular. Men judge God by their own standards and their own behaviour, but they are out of their depth and cannot assess his ways. His quiet confidence they treat as a sign of weakness and uncertainty, his failure to reply as evidence that he knows he is wrong. But when was the Son of God ever uncertain of anything he said? The Lord does not fight to contest his superior knowledge but speaks quietly and calmly and waits for fools to discover their own foolishness. He will one day come with overwhelming force and terror to confound his enemies, but during this gospel age the message is spoken calmly and without striving. As a result, they were excluded from the scene of the miracle. Unbelief and scorn are excluded from the blessing. They were to see nothing of what took place, though they saw the result.