Mark 6:6 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters | Metropolitan Tabernacle

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Mark 6:6

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Only twice is it recorded that Christ marvelled at something: once at faith, and once here at unbelief. He didn’t marvel in the same sense that we do – in total surprise. No, he expected this; he saw human unbelief from heaven. He knew all; he predestined all, but here on earth, as he savoured unbelief first hand, he marvelled at it. He didn’t marvel at the landscape: he knew that to its tiniest detail. He did not marvel at knowledge, science, or power; he had all power. What filled him with astonishment – though he fully understood the psychology of it – was human unbelief. It amazed even the Son of God. To us it is absolutely normal. You wouldn’t lock anyone up for it. It is the norm. People grow up, and it is expected that they will be full of doubts. In fact these days unbelief takes sophisticated forms. We justify it and encourage it in others. It is the smart thing, the clever thing. So why then was it so astonishing to Christ? To him it was the most idiotic thing for people created with a mind to do. Also it is so obviously against our interests, like not believing in money. He found it very ignorant, and shocking. Jesus was here among the Jews. The Jews were trained to expect him, to recognise their Messiah when he came, so it was all the more amazing that they did not believe. He healed in the temple precincts, and instead of being amazed, they asked him what licence he had to do such things on their territory? He comes and, in the presence of those trained to accept him, he fulfils the Old Testament. He healed all in full public view, and shows himself to be full of mercy. He explains things they could never understand. He speaks words that no man ever spoke before. He cannot be defeated by even the cleverest minds in the land, but answers their every objection. But after all this, because they knew his brothers and sisters, they were not going to believe in him. Why? The answer is that we cling to any excuse not to be a believer.

Application

Unbelief is deliberate sin. It is contrived, a calculated insult. We choose to insult God because we do not want our lives to change. People say, ‘I can’t help my unbelief’, or, ‘I can’t believe as you do.’ They say, ‘No one told me’, or, ‘I did not have the information you have.’ But the questions are staring us in the face: Is there a God? Can we know God? Why are we here? Can God intervene? Where are the dead? Is there an afterlife? Many never seriously ask these questions. God sees you go to internet or library and research some question, or pursue some interest, but he sees you carefully avoiding asking about the big issues in life. Isn’t that the sin of unbelief? Don’t say, ‘I didn’t know.’ God will say, ‘I made you a curious person. You asked lots of other questions.’

Our belief is unreasonable, irrational – the mere fact that we are here. You can pin your faith on evolution in spite of its unanswered questions and its unworkable mechanism. You would rather believe that chance created all that you see, than believe in God who designed and made all life in this designed world. Look at yourself. There is no other explanation for your existence which you can really understand than that you are made in the image of God. The Bible alone says why we are what we are. We all have a conscience, but we are morally weak. It is the explanation given in the Bible that we were made in the image of God with a finely tuned sense of right and wrong, and we disobeyed God and sin came and took up residence in us. Now we are under the sentence of death, and God has introduced the principle of corruption into our world.

We are in a particularly bad cycle of unbelief in our country at the moment. Hardly anyone believes. Experts on TV don’t believe in God, nor in right and wrong. There is no adequate definition of what is sinful available to society. There is so much unbelief on display that we think it is amazing, extraordinary, unusual to believe.

Suppose a new government came in that could solve all major problems: in six months they achieved zero inflation, zero unemployment, and minimal taxes, and then the people just threw them out. It would be so irrational. It is similarly crazy rejecting God.

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Mark 6:6 Commentary and Bible Study