As the Passion approaches, the Lord once again speaks to His disciples about what is most important in His teaching. Following, as Church tradition maintains, the preaching of the apostle Peter, the evangelist Mark gives an extremely concise statement of what the Lord Jesus said about...
As the Passion approaches, the Lord once again speaks to His disciples about what is most important in His teaching. Following, as Church tradition maintains, the preaching of the apostle Peter, the evangelist Mark gives an extremely concise statement of what the Lord Jesus said about the three fundamental dimensions of a person's spiritual life.
First He speaks of faith, assuring the disciples that it is faith which raises a person above the whole created world. In faith a person becomes not merely a grain of sand in an ocean of matter, but acquires the ability to “move mountains,” that is, to participate in the work of building the world which the Almighty Himself performs.
Then the Lord speaks of prayer, because our faith and trust in God are expressed first of all in our seeking communion with Him. As Bishop Cassian Bezobrazov said, faith in the biblical sense is the striving of the believer toward perfect union with the One in Whom he believes. Prayer is the principal path to this union. In speaking of the fruit of prayer, the Synodal translation uses the future tense: “believe that you will receive it, and it will be yours.” The original uses the past tense: “believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” This grammatical detail reflects an important nuance of meaning. The purpose of a believer's prayer lies not so much in receiving what is requested as in placing it under God's authority. Therefore, when we do this, the principal result of prayer has already been achieved. That is why the fundamental form of our requests to the Almighty is: “Your will be done.”
Finally, the Lord tells His disciples that faith and prayer, this vector along which the movement of the human heart is directed toward true life, have a projection in our earthly existence, and this is nothing other than forgiveness. Thus, according to the Gospel of Mark, Christ's instruction to His disciples can be expressed in three words: faith, prayer, and forgiveness.
10
10:1 From all that has been said it appears, that the law, the Mosaic dispensation, being a bare, unsubstantial shadow of good things to come, of the gospel blessings, and not the substantial, solid image of them, can never with the same kind of sacrifices, though continually repeated, make the comers thereunto perfect, either as to justification or sanctification.How is it possible, that any who consider this should suppose the attainments of David, or any who were under that dispensation, to be the proper measure of gospel holiness; and that Christian experience is to rise no higher than Jewish?
10:2 They who had been once perfectly purged, would have been no longer conscious either of the guilt or power of their sins.
10:3 There is a public commemoration of the sins both of the last and of all the preceding years; a clear proof that the guilt thereof is not perfectly purged away.
10:4 It is impossible the blood of goats should take away sins - Either the guilt or the power of them.
10:5 When he cometh into the world - In the fortieth psalm the Messiah's coming into the world is represented.It is said, into the world, not into the tabernacle, Heb 9:1; because all the world is interested in hissacrifice. A body hast thou prepared for me - That I may offer up myself. Psa 40:6,etc
10:7 In the volume of the book - In this very psalm it is written of me. Accordingly I come to do thy will - By the sacrifice of myself.
10:8 Above when he said, Sacrifice thou hast not chosen - That is, when the Psalmist pronounced those words in his name.
10:9 Then said he - in that very instant he subjoined.Lo, I come to do Thy will - To offer a more acceptable sacrifice; and by this very act he taketh away the legal, that he may establish the evangelical, dispensation.
10:10 By which will - Of God, done and suffered by Christ.We are sanctified - Cleansed from guilt, and consecrated to God.
10:11 Every priest standeth - As a servant in an humble posture.
10:12 But he - The virtue of whose one sacrifice remains for ever. Sat down - As a son, in majesty and honour.
10:13 Psa 110:1.
10:14 He hath perfected them for ever - That is, has done all that was needful in order to their full reconciliation with God.
10:15 In this and the three following verses, the apostle winds up his argument concerning the excellency and perfection of the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ. He had proved this before by a quotation from Jeremiah; which he here repeats, describing the new covenant as now completely ratified, and all the blessings of it secured to us by the one offering of Christ, which renders all other expiatory sacrifices, and any repetition of his own, utterly needless.
10:16 Jer 31:33, etc