Mark 2
Remember, Context rules! We saw in the previous chapter several verifications that Yeshua was the Messiah. In our discussion we discussed how John preached turning away from sin and taking a new direction. He did not preach “forgiveness” but rather “redirection”. This chapter starts with a marked situation where Jesus actually “forgives” sin. The idea is to pardon or consider the penalty to be satisfied. When He came as Messiah, He came to set people free from sin as well as disease. Let’s dig in to the study.
I continue to encourage the reader to keep an open Bible available. I cite many verses and expect you, the reader to look them up. It is vitally important to read the scripture, and read the context of the scripture to catch the full meaning. I do not want to fall into the “preacher” role where scriptures are pulled out of context to make a point. If the scripture is not accurate, then it should not be cited. With that said, let’s dig into the study.
In this chapter, there are three instances where the Pharisees and scribes an Pharisees are trying to challenge Jesus’ ministry (Mark 2:6-7; 16-18; 24). They began picking at straws since Jesus did not fit into their view of a teacher.
Mark 2:1-13 (Matt 9:2-8; Lk 5:18-26) Healing of the paralytic. Yeshua came to set people free from bondage. His name literally means “salvation”. This healing emphasizes that, but it also emphasizes the truth of Yeshua the Messiah.
This is one of the most dramatic healing stories in the New Testament. We do not know if the man wanted or believed in healing or not. We only know that he was brought by four others and lowered through the roof of a house. It is obvious that the four who bore him believed that Yeshua could help him. There are many today that preach that you must have faith to be healed. In this case we have no record of any faith, so it was not important to the story. They understood that Jesus could heal and their task was to position the man so that he could see Jesus.
Remember, this is one of the first healings recorded after Yeshua’s ministry began. He had not developed a reputation for being a healer up to this point. The four men that lowered the paralytic down were willing to go through some heavy work in removing the roof and lowering a man down on a cot. This is beyond radical faith. I do not know how the roof was constructed, but it causes you to wonder. Regardless of the construction, there had to be silt and mess dropping on the people below. No one moved as Yeshua taught.
This is the first attack of the scribes on Yeshua. They were concerned that Jesus forgave the mans sins. Jesus equated Himself with God with this action. In essence, Jesus was claiming not only to have great authority, but by forgiving sins, he was claiming to be God. Because only God can forgive sins (Isaiah 43:25; 44:22; Psalm 103:3). They were trying to fit Jesus into their theology. In their view of Torah, a teacher, rabbi, or any spiritual authority could not forgive sins. The only way for sin to be covered was through the sacrificial system.
Yeshua understood their concern and addressed it. He validated their argument and then put the argument to a test. If he was able to forgive sin, then the man could pick up his bed and go home. The man did just that. In the Hebrew way of thinking, He called upon God to verify that He had the authority to forgive sin. God answered. There are many stories in the Old Testament where prophets called upon God to answer through verification. These stories range from the challenge of the prophets of Baal to winning of impossible battles such as with David and Goliath (1 Kings 18:20-46; 1 Sam 17). The test is indisputable. Yeshua challenged God to answer the question. If he was able to forgive sin, then heal the paralytic. This man was healed.
Think about that for a moment. This man went from being paralyzed to completely restored in a split second. His muscles were instantly strengthened and he was able to get up from the bed without assistance and work by carrying the bed out. He had absolutely no therapy, no strengthening of the muscles, nothing. This miracle matched the radical faith that the four men had when they brought the man to Jesus. This was an indisputable act of God.
The the word scribe is often translated as lawyer. Jesus did not fit in their God box. The first attack is listed here, the scribes were more into religion than they were into faith. Satan used religion to convince them that Jesus was not genuine. If we were in their shoes would we be saying the same things? Just imagine, if you were in a house listening to a preacher preach, and all this happened before Jesus came to earth. Then he claimed to forgive sins. It probably would raise a question mark in any knowledgeable person’s mind.
I don’t believe up to this point the scribes had made an error. It was a logical response to the situation, that is the reason that the Lord gave the sign of the healing. It was so that they would know that He was the Messiah, as foretold by the prophets (2 Chronicles 7:14; Psalm 147:3-6; Isaiah 38:16-17; Hosea 14). Scripture makes it clear that only the Lord forgives sins, and the Lord would cause the healing. If Jesus was sinning, surely God would not honor it. The scribes had the wrong attitude of the heart but the right concern, therefore Jesus reacted. I believe that Jesus being a just God, gave them the opportunity to verify the truth, that Jesus is the Messiah based on the scripture that the scribes had already diligently studied in preparing for their position.
Their error was based on the understanding that the Messiah was prophesied and that He must fit into the box that they had constructed for Him through their diligent study of the scriptures. They were watching for him according to the guidelines established in the scriptures but there were added stipulations that came from tradition. Yeshua verified that He was the Messiah, as foretold by the prophets. He also verified that He did not fit into their “box”. They forgot that the scriptures gave an indication of what the Messiah would look like but did not give a detailed picture.
To the Scribe’s credit, there is not a reference that indicates that the Messiah would be able to forgive sins. Jesus then was not only challenging their theology, He was bending their thinking to consider that God had become a man. Only God can forgive sins, Jesus forgave sins, therefore Jesus is God. Connecting the dots is easy for us, it was extremely difficult for them. One indicator that should have helped them clarify this is that the people were glorifying God, not glorifying the action or glorifying Jesus. The people did not connect the dots either, but they did recognize that only God could forgive sins. This hinges on the simple truth that Jesus impressed on them in verses 9-10. The litmus test was that Jesus challenged traditional thinking about God by taking a stand that if he was God, then the man would pick up his pallet and go home. The man did just that.
Mark 2:14-17 Calling of Matthew. Parallel passages: Matthew 9:9-13; Luke 5:27-32. Jesus called Matthew, and he dropped everything and followed Jesus. Not only did Matthew drop everything, he had a big reception at his house and invited all of his friends to meet Jesus.
Let’s hit a rabbit trail for a moment: The New American Standard Bible makes a footnote for “sinners” as “irreligious Jews”. They hit the nail on the head. A sinner by the standard of Torah was one who did not follow the instructions found in Torah. These are the ones who do not keep the feasts and festivals of the Jews. They do not keep the Sabbath holy. They do not observe the dietary instructions. A sinner by Jewish standard means that a person does not follow Torah.
In our day a sinner is one who lives an immoral life. He is one who breaks the standards of society by living in a way that violates the ethics of our immoral nation. This man is one who is more perverted than the normal person in some way. Perhaps he is a pornographer, drunkard, druggie, or in bondage to any number of sins. Ethics, for example, are determined by a people group and these hold the measure for acceptable behavior. Ethics change depending on the people group that you are involved with. Sin is often classified as violating the ethics of a people group. This is not a good definition of sin. Social standards are an entirely different animal since they take into account various agendas found in people groups.
Suppose for example that a woman were to be found on an American beach with her breasts exposed. This would quickly be dubbed as sin and she would be accused of leading people into the sin of lust. However, if you put that same woman into various parts of the world where female nudity is common, no one would give her a second thought. She would be seen as just another woman acting in a normal manner. Societal standards dictate that since she violates the ethics of American society, she is a sinner. She may be committing sin, but it is more of a sin against fellow man. To have a correct definition of sin, we need to divorce it from societal standards and return to the biblical standard.
The only way to determine sin against God is to measure our actions against God’s standard. True sin is failing to follow the instructions of God. A sinner by biblical standards is one who fails to follow the instructions of Torah. Today this definition could be refined a little more to say that a sinner is one who fails to follow the instructions found in the Bible.
This is one of the reasons that the Messianic movement is growing at exponential rates today. People recognize that as we near the return of our Messiah, we need to turn our lives back to the standards that God set. In order to accomplish this, we must take into account all the instructions of the Bible and live our lives according to its standards. This means blending the teaching of Torah with our understanding of the Bible.
Replacement Theology has effectively removed or invalidated the Jewish instructions found in the Bible by saying that they are no longer in effect. If that is the case, we can ignore almost every single instruction found in the Bible. As Christians, since we divorced the Jewish standards, we have attached societal standards to biblical instruction. The biblical instruction then is based upon the standards of society, which are changing constantly. The definition of a sinner changes as the whims of society change. Theology is compromised by allowing outside influence to bend the minds of teachers. The reason for this is simple. We have abandoned the solid base of scripture as he basis for our theology. Therefore, sin and the definition of sin no longer means failing to meet the criteria of scripture. It now means failing to make everyone happy. Alright, enough of my rabbit trail, let’s get back to the study.
Matthew invited many of his friends and they became followers of Yeshua. Matthew became an immediate evangelist. He took sinners and led them to the Messiah.
The response of the scribes and Pharisees is intriguing. This is the second objection that they had with Yeshua’s ministry. Yet, it is not unusual. They saw Yeshua leading a group of sinners toward righteousness. He was not immediately leading them to the Temple or Synagogue. The leaders condemned Jesus for spending time with the tax collectors and sinners. Like many today, these leaders could not see the possibility that these sinners were willing to change their lives in order to return to the truth of God.
When I first began this Bible study many years ago, my pastor at the time encouraged the study. He endorsed the Bible study and was a great supporter. Yet, eventually he gave it an interesting criticism. I was teaching through the internet and had a good portion of the church on the recipient list. There were also many others outside the church who were engaged in the study. His criticism was that through all the effort that I was putting out, he was seeing no growth from the study in our local church. Just like the study today, my original agenda was to encourage people to return to biblical roots and grow where they are planted. The idea is to infect people with the truth of the Bible. Then have them infect their circle of influence. This way, instead of reaching a few recipients with the truth of the Word, I reach many thousands. But, the local church did not see growth from it.
This may be what was going on with the scribes and Pharisees. They saw the sinners congregating around Jesus. Yet, they did not believe in true change in the “Torah breakers”. They decided up front that these people were beyond hope. Why waste your time on them. Yeshua called a “tax collector” from this group of people to be one of his disciples. By association, Matthew was categorized as a “sinner”. Maybe he was. When he was called, he redirected his life to return to God with a full heart.
Instead of asking Yeshua about His ministry to the sinners, the leaders tried to undermine His ministry by going directly to His followers. Notice Yeshua’s response, He stated the obvious, He came to save the sinners, not the righteous. It was a play on words. Very few men at the time were able to completely follow the instructions of Torah, the scribes knew this, that was why a sin offering had to be made. Jesus turns the tables on them, calling them righteous, in that they were standing as judges, therefore they were positioning themselves as righteous.
Yeshua plainly stated that he came to heal the sick, not the righteous. We discussed earlier that the better translation for sinner in this passage was “irreligious Jews”. Those who were sick were the ones who had stopped or never had followed the instructions of Torah. We will see as we progress forward in this study that Yeshua taught Torah exclusively. He never taught any new thing in the New Testament that was not already taught in the Old Testament. With one exception. The “extra mile” is the only teaching that is not found in the Old Testament. His goal was to draw people to God by teaching them how to walk according to the instructions of God. The way to heal an irreligious Jew was to turn that irreligious Jew back to God’s instructions.
The scribes and Pharisees had already set themselves up as “righteous”. The definition of righteous according to the Jewish standard was one who faithfully followed the instructions of Torah. A righteous person was careful to observe Torah in their daily life. The were careful to put into practice all the feasts, festivals, fasts and religious activities that surrounded a Torah observant life.
There were a few results from this. First, they had a closed mind since they felt that they had ultimate truth and nothing could be added to it. Secondly, they judged others by their own actions, anyone found deficient was considered to be “sinners”. Third, since they felt that they were absolutely correct, they were not open to looking at the scriptures from a new angle. This eliminated their ability to learn what God really intended with the instructions of Torah. Fourth, Jesus was considered a potential enemy at this point since He went against their conventions.
They could not see beyond the seed of doubt was sown in the first story regarding the paralytic. The seed grows and the scribes and Pharisees are discussing the possibilities together. They miss the obvious due to the doubt that has crept into their minds. They miss the fact that after the paralytic is healed, the people praise God, and they also miss the fact that the irreligious Jews are repenting due to their association with Jesus. Sometimes knowledge can be a hinderance when it sets up a bias in our mind.
I wonder when considering this passage if the same thing is happening today. Several people that I have spoken with would simply refuse to deal with drug addicts, homosexuals, sex addicts, and sinners of the hideous sorts we have today. What would Jesus say to us if He walked into our churches today? We have removed ourselves so much from the world that we may usher out a drunk that staggers in to church on a Sunday morning. Imagine what it would be like to have a group of tweakers (drug addicts) drop in to a service on Sunday morning. Better than that, how well received would a bunch of gang bangers be if they walked into your home Bible study? Some of the greater sinners that many of us see and refuse to associate with is the members of cults. Imagine if a Mormon, Jehovah Witness, Wiccan, or any of the recognized “cults” were to walk into our churches and become involved in our Bible studies. These people study the scriptures but often tweak the understanding of them through bad interpretation methods. I often invite them to study with me and challenge them to look at context in passages. Few take up the challenge. Think about it though, we are not very much different than the Pharisees of old. Try to picture the same scenario that took place when Jesus visited Matthew in his home.
Mark 2:18-22 The scribes and Pharisees get it right finally approach Jesus to see why He is doing and preaching in a different manner. They come directly to Jesus to find out why He is doing what He is. Why was Jesus ministering in a way that was not consistent with the standards set by John and the Pharisees? Jesus was intensely training His disciples, and was interested in discipling them.
Yeshua taught Torah. Fasting is found in Torah, right? Actually, fasting does not show up until after the first five books of the Bible were written. The fasting situations in the Old Testament took place after Israel had gained the Promised Land after which the land became ruled by judges (Judges 20:26). Fasting was read into Leviticus because of the later practices of the Jews (Zech 8:19; Lev 16:29; 23:27, 29, 32). Fasting then was not found in the Pentateuch or in the original books that were considered “Torah”. It quickly caught on after it was used in Judges and became a regular way to humble yourself before God. However, it was never commanded in Torah. It was a voluntary act that people chose to do in an effort to draw near to God. Where did the idea originate? It is not entirely clear.
I have found that when Yeshua taught, He taught Torah. He also endorsed the actions that were founded after Torah was established such as Purim and Hanukkah. He also endorses fasting in this passage. However, He does not make it a command. It is still a completely voluntary action. If He were to require the apostles to fast, it would have moved from a voluntary action to a command or instruction of God.
Jesus gives them three situations with which to illustrate His reason why He doesn’t require the disciples to fast. The requirement to fast is still not turned into a command in the following scenarios. Yeshua states simply that they will certainly fast in the upcoming days. When? It is up to the disciples. No requirement is given.
First, the Bridegroom is with His bride. This is an allegory that has been given from early days of the Old Testament (Song of Solomon, Isa 49:18-26; 54:4-7; 61:10; 62:4-5; Ps 45:8-14; Context Ps 45; Jer 2:32; Ezek 16:8-16).
Let’s look at the details of these verses in a nutshell fashion: Isa 61:10: Read the entire chapter for context. This is an interesting passage since Isaiah said that he was clothed with “salvation” in the Hebrew this word is “yeshua”. If we were to translate that word according to the New Testament meaning of the word it would say, “for He has clothed me with the garments of Jesus”. The result, being wrapped in righteousness. Jesus the Bridegroom. Paul built upon this idea saying that we are to be clothed with Jesus the Messiah (Ro 13:14; Gal 3:27). Jer 2:32: Read the entire chapter for context. This chapter makes it clear who the bride is. The called out believers who were designated as the Jews is the Bride in this story. They were unfaithful and God brought them back through chastising them. Ezek 16:8-16: Again, look at the entire chapter for context. This chapter looks at the birth of the nation Israel and the desire that God had for them to live. He called them His bride. He also took intimate care of them. Yet they abandoned God for foreign gods and became an unfaithful bride. God promises that he will remember his bride covenant with them and will eventually restore them to their right place as the bride (Eze 16:60-63). Isa 62:4-5: Read the entire chapter. This is the most specific of the prophecies referring to the restoration of the Jews and the end result. The end of the chapter reaches the conclusion that “your salvation comes” (Isa 62:11-12). If we translate salvation as Jesus, then the passage takes on new meaning “your Jesus comes”. After that they will be called a holy people redeemed of the Lord, sought out specifically. The word in the passage for salvation is Yeshua. Isa 54:4-7: Read the entire passage for context. It speaks of the lovinkindness (grace) of God which honors His covenant. The heritage of the Jews is to be the bride of God (Isa 54:17).
In all of these passages it is clear that the nations are blended with the Jewish people. Therefore, from the beginning there was a blending of Jew and Gentile when God spoke of His bride. However, it is very clear that the Jewish people are the designated bride in these passages. Gentiles are blended in because of the influence of the judgments on the Jews for their unfaithfulness.
In Mark 2, Jesus focuses in on the details and places His name as the Bridegroom. Who is His bride? The “church” has claimed that this is referring to them. I agree and disagree with this statement. If we refer to the “church” in New Testament terms, then I agree. If we refer to the “church” from ecclesiastical terms, then I disagree. Why? In the passages listed above, the bride is obviously a blend of Jew and Gentile, yet mainly Jewish. The New Testament idea of the “church” is simply the “called out ones” if we translate the Greek word “ekklesia” properly. Those who are called are the bride of the Messiah.
When He was taken away at His death, the apostles did spend time fasting and praying. Then after He rose from the dead, and ascended into Heaven, once again the disciples fasted and prayed up until the day of Pentecost.
The picture of the bridegroom was one that was well known to the religious teachers. Jesus in effect was not just answering their question, but also teaching them to recognize who he was. Tradition also came into play because it would be foolish for anyone attending a wedding feast to fast during the feast. My understanding of the Jewish wedding is that they would celebrate the wedding for a week during the wedding festivities. The first day of the celebration was when the groom made an unexpected trip to the bride’s house along with the entire wedding party to collect his bride. She is aware that the groom is coming, but never knows the exact time or date. In other words, surprise. Imagine what it was like, the bride prepared for the wedding by being constantly ready for the arrival of the bridegroom. Then at a moment’s notice she was carried by the procession to the bride chamber and married to her husband. We as westerners simply cannot conceive in our minds the idea of a wedding that is driven by the groom.
Second, the illustration of the garment. A person cannot patch an old garment with a new piece of material, because it will shrink and ruin the old garment. This may symbolize the old understanding of Torah versus Torah based on the new covenant (Jer 31:31-34). The original Torah was specifically designed to offer instructions for the people to live by in order to live righteous lives. On the flip side, it demonstrated how utterly sinful that people are. In the New Testament, the Torah changes slightly in its application. Instead of being taught to believers, it becomes resident in believers. The Holy Spirit resides in our heart, and we are taught the law of God through our relationship with Jesus the Messiah.
We have a very flexible teacher. In a way, the understanding of the cloth bends your thinking. Does the New Testament become like a worn piece of cloth as the Old Testament did? To answer my own question, I believe that the Old Testament was a temporary solution to the sin problem. It was not intended to be a permanent answer to the problem of sin. When Jesus came and established the New Testament, the concepts of the Old Testament were refined and re-written to become a dynamic, ever growing, constantly changing concept driven by the Holy Spirit on a continual basis.
Perhaps you may argue that the Bible was completed at the time that the canon of the scriptures was put together which created the Bible that we use today. Learning and application did not stop with the canon, our ideas that we hold today are radically different than the ideas of the early church. The old garment simply does not exist now because the Holy Spirit is driving believers as an ever-changing developing organism.
The New Testament has crippled the church in one way; it has caused the modern church to think that the Old Testament is outdated. The reality is that the New Testament simply finishes the story of the Old Testament. Concepts taught in the Old are still valid in the New, and now through the work of the Holy Spirit we are able to compare, contrast, and apply all scriptures to our lives so that we can live rich lives in our Messiah. The final point I would make on this is that God designed a permanent solution to sin in the New Testament through the work of Christ on the cross. Now that sin has been paid for completely, the one who accepts that sacrifice also gains the Holy Spirit who teaches each of us through the use of the scriptures.
Third, the illustration of the wineskins. Think about wine, it is a very volatile substance. In order to get wine, grape juice or some type of juice has to ferment. That means the juice is alive, it has stuff growing in it causing it to expand, bubble and burp. If you were to put new wine into old skins, it would rip the skins with the intense pressure that it creates. The same is true in relation to the Christian life. We are likened in John as abiding in the Vine, Jesus (Jn 15). He will bear fruit in our lives through the Holy Spirit. This fruit is living and active, it is always moving and growing. The Old Torah was not designed to allow for this type of growth. The new wineskins are our like new lives in Jesus the Messiah. When we are born again, we are like the new wineskins ready for the fruit. Through Jesus the Messiah we are given complete forgiveness forever. This is radically different than the temporary covering of sin in the original Torah. The result of this radical change in Torah is a dynamic growth capacity that is built into every believer.
Mark 2:23-28: Sabbath Question The Pharisees were focused on one thing, the rules and regulations. In order to be a good Jew, a person had to keep Torah! One thing in particular that they must keep was the Sabbath! In order to insure that the Sabbath was properly kept holy a whole list of things was issued regarding it, right down to the number of steps that you could take on the Sabbath. The work and rest that they were supposed to be getting was not working because they had to stress over all the rules.
Jesus informed the Pharisees that “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” The point of this is simple, the Sabbath is supposed to be a day of rest for the man. The Pharisees had made it a day of work because they served the Sabbath as slaves to it. The punch-line of the Sabbath is found in verse 28, “So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” Jesus claimed that he was God in this statement and that the Sabbath was made for Him. Mark did not record the reaction of the Jews to this statement. The other Gospels do not contain a reaction either, it could be that the Pharisees were trying to figure out who Jesus was and were still putting together his statements.
Look at 1 Samuel 21:1-6 and 22:17-18 for the context of David.
David and his men were fleeing from Saul because of the incident with Jonathan where he informed David of Saul’s intent to kill him. David was on the run because he felt that he would be killed by Saul. Driven by fear, David fled from Saul under the pretense that he was on the kings business. In effect, he was on the kings business because as the kings enemy he was leaving the land. God worked though these circumstances to make David into the man that he needed to be in order to take the role of king over the land.
There was a high price to pay for the bread that David and his men consumed. Saul instructed Doeg to kill all of the priests of the Lord, killing 85 men that day, (1 Samuel 22:17-18).
Back to Mark. What can we learn from this passage? The idea of the Sabbath is that it is to be a day of rest and of worship of the Lord. Today the Christian church has replaced the Sabbath with Sunday, for a whole myriad of reasons. Most of them are not scriptural. For example, way back in the early church, Constantine implemented Sunday as the day of worship because it was the day to worship the sun god. Constantine claimed to be a “christian” emporer and declared that day as the day of worship. Some will dispute this by saying that Jesus rose on Sunday from the dead. That is also true. The Sabbath in the scriptures only refers to the time period of Friday sundown to Saturday sundown… No scripture justifies a change from Saturday to Sunday when the verses are studied in context.
Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. This tweaks our thinking since many today deny the Sabbath entirely. I have often said that Christians today only take nine of the Ten Commandments seriously. We have thrown out the commandment on the Sabbath since we have changed the day. Today, many who declare that Sunday is the Sabbath continue working as if it is any other day. Thus they contradict their own claim. If we take Yeshua’s word that He is Lord of the Sabbath, then we need to examine our understanding of the Sabbath.
Many today due to our 24/7 lives; simply are unable to keep the Sabbath holy. My job for example works around the clock, seven days per week. I have a choice to quit my job and try to make it on the designated days. However, after being on the job for close to thirty years, this is rather difficult. Retirement is rapidly approaching for me. Once that takes place, this wrong will be made right. In the mean time, I often take my rest on a different day. Yet, even when working on the Sabbath, I am constantly aware of that. It is a time where meditation and rest are squeezed in at every opportunity.
