The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth

 

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK

THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

Mark 9:9-13

9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10 They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what "rising from the dead" meant. 11 And they asked him, "Why do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?" 12 Jesus replied, "To be sure, Elijah does come first, and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? 13 But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him." 

NIV

After seeing that amazing, extraordinary, supernatural event of Jesus being transfigured and having Elijah and Moses appear, Jesus tells them to keep it to themselves until after he has risen from the dead. Not only are they supposed to keep quiet about the transformation, they now have to wonder just what he meant by being raised from the dead. If that had been us, we are not sure we could have kept that secret. But then we are not supposed to keep any secret about Jesus, as he has already been raised from the dead and has already ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father continually making intercession for us. In Fact, we are to boldly go forth and tell the world all about Jesus. Well, back to the narrative. So they ask him this question about why the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first. What we know is that Jesus was not actually saying that Elijah the prophet, who he was just talking with, would return from the dead and come before Jesus was raised from the dead. We know from both the accounts of Matthew and Luke that Jesus was speaking about John the Baptist. John did come before Jesus and his message was about repenting and making straight the way for the Lord. He restored many of the erroneous doctrines about the Messiah. Luke records that the angel told Johns, father, Zechariah, that his son would have the spirit and power of Elijah. But what lesson do we get from this narrative? We know that all scripture is profitable for rebuking, correcting, teaching, and training in righteousness, so then what do we glean from this portion of the word other than history. Because of the account of Matthew, we can be sure the disciples understood Jesus was talking about John the Baptist. What this tells us is that Jesus did not keep secrets from them as he revealed everything to them. This also gives us the truth that everything has been revealed to us as well. Some want to say there is a mysterium tremendum et fasinian, the doctrine of both a dreadful and awe-inspiring God. This has a certain sense of mystery, which we cannot know for sure, such as a murder mystery in which we are not revealed who the murderer is until the very end. That would be like when the end of times, the Last Day when we see God clearly as we stand before him. Until then, we live with this mystery. But we are not completely in agreement with that doctrine. The Word of God reveals all we need to know about God, and about Jesus and the Holy Spirit, in fact, the Spirit leads us into all, not some, not just a portion, not holding back until, but all truth. So if the Spirit leads us into all truth, then where is there any mystery? True, we do not know what God looks like at this point, but we know all about Him. Just as we cannot see the wind, but we know all about wind, we know why it occurs and exactly why it is stronger than other times, and we can see the effects of wind. We can explain every aspect of wind without ever actually seeing it. This is how we can know everything about God, about Jesus and the Spirit. We may not be able to see them in the physical realm, but we can know all about them from the word, and about their power, the effects of the Spirit in our lives. Why would God hold back any truth about himself? Why would God created a mystery about himself, so we could not know him? What we learn is that Jesus told his disciples all the truth and he has told us all the truth and nothing but the truth.