Mark 15:31

Mark 15:31

In this text a truth is spoken, but it is a truth which the speakers do not know. By this word the railers meant to mock the pretensions of Jesus; by it the Spirit in the Scriptures declares the glory of God in the Gospel of His Son. Like Balaam, these false prophets intended to curse, but their lips were overruled, and framed to express the distinguishing feature of redemption.

I. What the Jewish leaders understood and intended to say is obvious at a glance. They see their Enemy at last in extremities. Now that they have compassed the object of their desire; now that they see Him ready to expire on the Cross, they cannot contain themselves. They must give vent to their exultation. They must triumph over their victory. "He saved others; Himself He cannot save." When they see Him dying, they deem the sight a proof of His weakness. They think that if He had saved others, He would also have saved Himself; and they flourish the fact of His yielding to death as a proof that His miracles had been impostures.

II. This word may be read in two ways. The one is darkness, the other light. The one is a lie, the other is the truth; the truth on which the saving of the lost depends. The leaders read it thus: "We see He does not save Himself from death, and thence we infer that He has not power; and whatever appearances may be, He cannot have saved others." The meaning which, under direction of the Spirit, the word of the Scriptures contains for us is, He saved others, as their covenant Substitute, and therefore He cannot also save Himself from the obligation which He undertook as Mediator. He saved others, and therefore Himself He cannot save. His life has been pledged for the life of His people forfeited; they have obtained their life eternal, and therefore His life, so pledged, cannot be saved. If He had saved Himself from humiliation and suffering, we could not have been saved. If the Son of God had treated the world when it fell as the priest and the Levite treated the man who fell among thieves; if He had looked on us and passed by on the other side we should have all perished in our sins.

W. Arnot, The Anchor of the Soul,p. 229.

References: Mark 15:33. J. Vaughan, Sermons,1869, p. 172; B. F. Westcott, Expositor,3rd series, vol. v., p. 457. Mark 15:33. H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man,p. 371.Mark 15:34. Expositor,1st series, vol. xii., p. 374.