The best way to become impressed with a book of the Bible and to keep this book in your memory is to keep the bird’s-eye view of this book. Once you become impressed with a bird’s-eye view of a book, this book remains in you. In this chapter, we will look at the bird’s-eye view of the book of Mark and of the book of Romans.
I must honestly tell you that in my whole Christian life I never loved the book of Mark until I was forced to write the notes on this book for the winter training of 1983. At least one of my old Chinese Bibles contained outlines of nearly all the books of the New Testament. This Bible, however, did not contain an outline for the book of Mark. I did not make an outline for this book because I did not think it was worth it. Before preparing for the winter training of 1983, the only thing that I could tell you about the outline of the Gospel of Mark is that in the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, John the Baptist came out (1:1-4), and at the end the disciples went out to preach the gospel to all the creation (16:15, 20). Even though there was no incentive to write this outline and even though I did not have much to write, I was forced to write something to match the writing of the other books. Therefore, the Lord helped. After such a writing, I got a clear bird’s-eye view of the book of Mark. I have been deeply impressed with this view especially after the writing of the notes, the outline, the message outlines, and even more after speaking something concerning these sixteen chapters in the training. I do not think it would be so easy for me to forget what I have been impressed with.
Mark gives us a full portrait of how Jesus as the slave of God serves a sinner. I do not say sinners because all the pieces in this book should be considered as a collective case. Do not consider Peter’s mother-in-law as an individual person sick of fever. She is a part of the sick person. Do not consider the leper as a separate individual. He also is a part of one complete sick person. In other words, the book of Mark shows us a complete sick person who was sick of fever (1:29-31), sick of leprosy (1:40-45), sick of paralysis (2:1-12), and sick of a flow of blood (5:25-34). This is a four-fold sickness. In the entire book of Mark you cannot find a fifth sickness. You may ask concerning the one with the withered hand (3:1). That case does not show the person who was sick; it only shows one of his members being sick. For example, with the blind the eyes are sick, with the deaf the ears are sick, and with the dumb the mouth is sick. However, the entire being, the entire person, is sick of only four kinds of diseases according to Mark—fever, leprosy, paralysis, and the flow of blood, the issue of blood.
After the healing of the entire person, there is the exposure of the real inner being, the heart, in chapter seven (vv. 1-23). The heart is seen in chapter seven as something that is dirty and contaminated with nothing good and nothing pure. This is the inside, real situation and condition of such a fallen and sick person. The one who is sick of fever, leprosy, paralysis, and the flow of blood is rotten, dirty, and contaminated within his heart. Then this dirty inside was cleansed. Following this is a case of feeding—the feeding of the children and the pet dogs (7:27). Accompanying this sort of feeding are two miracles of feeding—the feeding of five thousand (6:30-44) and the feeding of four thousand (8:1-9). We must see that in this Gospel there are at least three feedings. The small miniature feeding is the feeding of the pet dogs. The Syrophoenician woman was considered in the eyes of God as a pet dog. The unbelieving Gentiles are the wild dogs, while all the chosen Gentiles are the pet dogs. We should praise the Lord that we are not wild dogs, street dogs, but we are pet dogs under the table of the children, who are the Jews. We cannot compare with the Jews, but, praise the Lord, we are still the pet dogs under the table eating the children’s crumbs. Preceding this miniature feeding is the feeding of the five thousand, and following it is a confirmation of this feeding which is another feeding of four thousand.
We should not consider Peter, James, and John as individuals in the bird’s-eye view of Mark. You have to consider that they are part of the same person. This person was healed from his fever, cleansed from his leprosy, recovered from his paralysis, and rescued from his issue of blood. He was exposed in his inner being and he was fed. It is this kind of person that can go up to the mount of transfiguration (9:2-13). A person sick with fever or sick of leprosy could not go up the mountain. Only such a person who passed through this marvelous process is qualified to go up to the mount of transfiguration.
This person was healed from all his diseases, cleansed from within, and fed. At this point this person is healed, made alive, and cleansed inside, but he is still deaf, dumb, and blind. At this point what this man needs is a listening ear to be able to listen to the heavenly speaking (7:31-37). This is so that he will not speak nonsensically any longer. He speaks nonsensically because he never hears (7:32). He needs the healing of his ears to hear clearly. Then he needs the healing of his mouth to be able to speak properly and the healing of his eyes so that he can see. It was on the mount of transfiguration that the need of the healing of the listening organ, speaking organ, and seeing organ began. When you were healed from the general diseases, were made alive, and were fed, you were able to go with the Lord to the mountain of transfiguration. Now you need to see and you need to hear the heavenly voice. You need to see that Christ is unique and that He is the unique replacement to replace everything, including you. Do not propose the building of three tabernacles the way Peter did on the mount. There is not one tabernacle for the law, one for the prophets, one for Christendom, or one for human culture. We must hear Him and we need such a hearing ear to hear Him. Do not hear culture; do not hear the prophets; do not hear the law; do not hear Moses or Elijah; do not hear anyone. You hear Him. Then from Mark 9 the Lord began to unveil who Christ is, what Christ will do and go through, and where Christ will be (9:30-32; 10:32-34). This is the basic teaching from chapter nine to the end of this book.
From Mark 9 onward Jesus brought His disciples with Him to bring them into Himself, to bring them into His death, and to bring them into His resurrection. To get into Christ you must go through His death and resurrection. Then you will reach Him. By this we can see how wonderful this book is.
In the first few chapters of the book of Mark, it seems that the Lord Jesus did not grasp Peter, James, and John. In the last four or five chapters, however, the Lord did grasp them. They were there with Him wherever He went and whatever He did. Even Peter’s mistakes and shortcomings did not stop the Lord from grasping him until the Lord Jesus brought him to the cross with Him. Do you realize that when Jesus died on the cross Peter was there? Jesus went to the cross with Peter. Probably Peter did not realize this, but he was brought there (Gal. 2:20). Jesus brought Peter and the other disciples into His death, into the tomb, into His resurrection, and into His ascension. Therefore, Peter and the others eventually became absolutely in Jesus Christ. Then they could carry out Jesus’ commission. Now all of them are able to do what Jesus did in chapter one. In chapter one there is only one Jesus, but in chapter sixteen there are many reproductions of Jesus.
Here is a full portrait of a person sick of fever, leprosy, paralysis, and an issue of blood. Such a person was dying but he was made alive, he was healed of all his diseases, he was cleansed within, he was fed, and he went up to the mountain with Jesus. However, he still needed to hear, to speak, and to see, so Jesus healed all the organs related to these functions (7:31-37; 8:22-26; 9:14-29; 10:46-52). Now this person began to hear the voice from the heavens, to speak the proper thing, and to see the vision. Jesus brought this person into His death (15:16-41) and into His resurrection (16:1-18) and this person ascended to the heavens in Jesus Christ (16:19). Then this collective person came down to preach the gospel just as Jesus did (16:20). This is a bird’s-eye view of the entire book of Mark. This is not merely a history or a story but the divine significance of Mark.
Now we come back to these four kinds of diseases. We must realize that every person is abnormal. Everyone has a fever. It may be that everyone’s temperature is one hundred and five degrees. When a wife gets mad with her husband or when a husband gets mad with his wife their temperature goes up to one hundred and ten degrees. Every descendant of Adam is abnormal with a fever. Everyone is also sick of leprosy; they are unclean. Also, everyone is paralyzed and cannot walk. They cannot do anything before God. Finally, everyone is flowing blood, dying, leaking life. Was not this your case?
We cannot be represented by one case. The Lord Jesus needed four gospels, and we need four “gospels” too. Our “gospels” are negative gospels. He has four sides and we have four sides too: one side is abnormality, another side is that we are dirty and contaminated, a third side is that we are paralyzed, not able to walk or do anything, and the fourth side is that we are leaking life. We are not living, but we are dying. The case of the woman with the flow of blood is merged with the case of a girl who died at twelve years of age (5:21-43). Her death is at the end of the twelfth year of the woman’s flow of blood. This indicates that the flow of blood issues in death. We were abnormal persons, dirty, unclean, paralyzed and dying. However, the Slave-Savior, the Slave of God, came to render us a service. He healed us and He saved us from our sick condition. We were healed from all our diseases, cleansed from within and fed by the Lord. We became a pleasant person like Peter, James, and John. We all were qualified to go up the mountain but we got there blind, deaf, and unable to speak. We were healed and made alive, but we still did not have the seeing, speaking, and hearing ability. We needed the further healing of our organs. At this juncture Jesus was transfigured before them and Christ was unveiled because by this time they were healed in their hearing and seeing organs. They could hear and they could see so the Lord brought this collective person all the way to the cross and entered into resurrection and ascension.
This is not an allegorization. It is impossible for anyone to allegorize things so rightly. What we have done is to put the jigsaw puzzle pieces together to enable us to see a full picture of the Slave-Savior serving the fallen sinners with His all-inclusive salvation. We need such a bird’s-eye view of every book of the Bible.