In 8:27—9:13 we have a revelation of the mystery of the Lord’s Person and His death and resurrection. We may say that what is recorded here is the highlight of the Gospel of Mark. Here the account in this Gospel reaches its peak.
In chapter eight the Slave-Savior healed a blind man at Bethsaida. The Lord did more in this case of healing than in any of the other cases. For example, the first instance of healing in the Gospel of Mark is the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law. This healing was easily carried out. The Lord simply came to her and raised her up, holding her hand. Then the fever left her, and she served them (1:31). From that initial healing, this book progresses step by step until we have in chapter seven the exposure of man’s heart, the exposure of man’s inward condition.
After exposing the condition of man’s heart, the Lord Jesus revealed that He is bread, our life supply. He is not only the forgiving God, but our Physician, the Bridegroom, today’s David, and the Emancipator. He is also both the Feeder and the bread.
After the Lord’s unveiling of Himself as the bread to nourish us inwardly, we have the record of healings that are carried out in a particular way. We have the healing of the ears and the tongue of a deaf and dumb man and also the healing of the eyes of a blind man. After these particular healings, we may say that we have a complete person whose organs have been healed in a particular way. Now this one is prepared and qualified to receive the revelation of Christ’s Person and His death and resurrection.
For the purpose of revealing His Person, death, and resurrection, the Lord Jesus brought His disciples away from the religious region to Caesarea Philippi. While on the way, He questioned His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I am?” (8:27). After they responded, the Lord further questioned them, “But you, who do you say that I am?” (v. 29). At this point Peter saw the vision that Jesus is the Christ, and he declared, “You are the Christ!”
The revelation given at Caesarea Philippi is the highest step, the peak, in the book of Mark. Before the disciples were brought by the Lord to Caesarea Philippi, their eyes were healed. Therefore, they had the sight to see not common things or material things, but to see mysterious, divine things. In particular, their eyes were opened to see Christ, His all-inclusive death, and His marvelous resurrection. In the realm of mysterious, divine things, the revelation concerning Christ and His death and resurrection is foremost.
The realm of mysterious, divine things is altogether hidden from the natural man. As Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 2, the natural man cannot apprehend the things in this realm: “A soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he is not able to know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (v. 14). A soulish man is a natural man, one living in his soul, not in his spirit. Such a man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. Rather, he rejects them.
The Lord Jesus is a mystery to the natural man and the natural mind. Even today, certain Jewish scholars are studying who Jesus was. They are also studying His crucifixion. Because the Person of Christ and His death and resurrection are the topmost matters in the realm of mysterious, divine things, even some Christian professors of theology, as well as Jewish scholars, have not seen the vision concerning them.