The Unbelievable Gospel
Notes
Transcript
Mark 16:9-13 ESV
9 Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. 10 She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. 11 But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. 12 After these things he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. 13 And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.
I have named this sermon, “The Unbelievable Gospel”, and for good reason too, as we will see throughout the text that we will be expositing today, the consistent unbelief of those who heard the reports of good news.
And have you ever experienced something or received news that was so profound that you thought to yourself “that is too good to be true!”, but even though that’s how you felt, it was indeed true?
For example, let’s say that you have your heart set on going to Walmart and buying something that you expect to cost twenty dollars, but when you get there, you notice that the price tag on what you want to buy says five dollars and ninety-nine cents.
You think to yourself, “That is too good to be true. That can’t be the correct price!” so, when you go to the checkout, you tell the cashier, “This said $5.99 on it, but I know that that can’t be the right price”. But when she goes to ring the item up, she says, “No, the price is right, it is $5.99”.
It seemed too good to be true, and you didn’t believe that it was true, until you had seen it for yourself.
Well, as we go to our reading for this morning what we see on two different occasions is the ones who should have believed the testimony of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus the most, refused to believe it, determining that the news was too good to be true and wouldn’t believe it until they saw for themselves.
As we begin our exposition for today, we see first that which precedes the testimonies that were given to the Lord’s apostles in verse nine, where we read:
Mark 16:9 ESV
9 Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons.
Here we are reminded of what was spoken of in our reading from last week, but we also see an additional detail in this verse that we didn’t read of last week.
We are reminded, first of all, that Jesus “rose early on the first day of the week”, Sunday. And what we read here is that “when” He rose, the first one He appeared to was Mary Magdalene, one of the women from our reading last week who had gone to anoint the body of the Lord at His tomb.
She is described in our text as one “from whom (Jesus) had cast out seven demons.”
That Jesus had cast out these demons signifies that Magdalene had previously been possessed by them. This means that her mind and her actions were under the control of demons.
Furthermore, we read that Magdalene was possessed by “seven demons.” This may or may not be in reference to the literal number of demons which possessed her, but the number seven in scripture indicates fullness and completion. Therefore, this indicates that before Jesus came, Magdalene had been fully, completely demon-possessed. It also indicates that when He effectively cast these demons from her, she received a complete and radical salvation.
This makes the Lord’s appearance to her all the more remarkable. She had gone from a demoniac to laying eyes on the resurrected Jesus! And not only laying eyes on the resurrected Jesus but receiving the unspeakable honor of being the first one to whom He appeared.
In addition to this, Mary Magdalene was of course a woman living in the first century, and women in the first century were viewed as second-class, almost as non-people in some circumstances. And thus, the Lord, in His resurrected body, appeared, first, of all other people, to a lowly woman who used to be noticeably demon-possessed. That is unheard of!
Then as we move on to the next verse in our reading, verse ten, we are told what Magdalene and the other women who had gone to the tomb did after the resurrected Jesus had appeared to her, where it says:
Mark 16:10 ESV
10 She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept.
We remember from last week how the angel at the tomb of the Lord Jesus had commissioned Magdalene and the other two women with her to report to the apostles of Jesus that Jesus had risen and would meet them in Galilee.
And we see in this verse how Magdalene and the women with her had went and faithfully did as they were told. And indeed, the report given to the apostles would have been all the more intense after having the Lord Jesus truly, physically appear to her.
Furthermore, it would seem to be the perfect timing to pass along this news as we read that when the women arrived at where the apostles were staying, they were still mourning and weeping over the crucifixion of Jesus.
But now, here comes Magdalene and her companions to report the good news that Jesus lives!
How would they respond to such earth-shattering news? Verse eleven tells us, where it says:
Mark 16:11 ESV
11 But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.
This verse begins with the word “but”… you know what that means! So often, is the word “but” an unwelcomed word. It’s like saying, “It’s so nice outside today. It warm out, not too warm, just right. The sun is shining, I have the day off work, and I have nothing that I have to do… BUTI recently had a procedure done and the doctor told me that I need to stay inside and rest for the next week, so I can’t enjoy the nice weather!”
Well, the word “but” in this verse works in a similar way. The women had come and told the apostles the good news about the resurrected Jesus, “but” when they heard this good news from Magdalene and the women with her about the appearance and commission of the angel and the physical resurrection and appearance of the Lord Jesus, our reading says that they “would not believe it.”
They would not believe the report that they had received. Perhaps they disregarded the report because it was given to them by Mary Magdalene, a former demoniac and by women in general, who were not trusted as credible sources of information in the first century. But regardless of any kind of social norms in those days, there really was no excuse for them not to believe as Jesus Himself had told them on numerous occasions that He would be raised from the dead on the third day.
But there was yet another report which came to the Lord’s apostles, which we read of in the final two verses of our reading, verses twelve and thirteen, which read:
Mark 16:12-13 ESV
12 After these things he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. 13 And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.
So, what we notice right away here are the words that open verse twelve: “After these things”. Now, what’s important here is recognizing what “these things” are, and remembering that what takes place here comes “after” “these things” take place.
If we follow the chronology of our reading, we know that among “these things” that are spoken of includes, first of all, the report that Magdalene and her companions had relayed to the apostles and the unbelief that they exhibited at the report.
But the other occurrence which is included in “these things” is actually found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 24, verse 34, which reads that as these two spoken of in verses twelve and thirteen of our reading went to report the appearing of Jesus to them that the apostles of the Lord proclaimed to them:
Luke 24:34 ESV
34 “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!”
So, what we see here is that prior to these two reporting the appearing of the Lord Jesus to them, Simon Peter had already witnessed and laid eyes on the resurrected Jesus Himself!
In fact, even Paul speaks of how the Lord Jesus appeared first to Peter and then to the rest of the apostles in 1 Corinthians 15:5, where he simply says:
1 Corinthians 15:5 ESV
5 he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
So, going back to our reading now, we know that it was after Magdalene and the other women reported the resurrection to the Lord’s apostles and after Peter too had beheld the resurrected Jesus, that Jesus appeared to two other men who had followed Him and believed on Him as they were walking in the country.
This speaks of what is more well-known as the encounter on the road to Emmaus. But what is especially interesting here is how Mark mentions that to these two men, Jesus appeared “in another form”.
So, what we see here is that at this particular juncture and to these particular men, Jesus appeared in a form that was unlike the form in which He had appeared to the women at the tomb and to Peter.
Now, what exactly this form was, how He appeared, and even why Jesus appeared in this different form is not known. But it is apparent that when Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene and to Peter, He was recognizable, they knewthat it was Jesus Who was before them. But if we look back to Luke’s account of these men walking with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, we read in Luke 24:16, that:
Luke 24:16 ESV
16 their eyes were kept from recognizing him.
They didn’t know Who it was that they were talking to on the road. Their eyes were kept from recognizing Him. And why, or rather, how were their eyes kept from recognizing the Lord Jesus you might ask? And I believe that Mark supplies us with the answer as he says that Jesus appeared to these men “in another form”.
And if we continue to read Luke’s narrative we see that after Jesus had walked and talked with these two men, He went to where they were staying and ate with them and we read there that after the Lord took bread, blessed it, and then gave it to these men, that their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him. And He vanished from their sight.
So, what exactly this “opening of eyes” was we don’t know for sure. But I would be willing to say that while Jesus had previously appeared to these men “in another form” as they walked on the road to Emmaus, here, when it is written that the eyes of these men were opened, He probably appeared in the same form that He had appeared to Peter and Mary Magdalene.
And after this happened, we read that these two men, disciples of the Lord Jesus went to where the apostles were staying and relayed to them what had happened: How the resurrected Jesus had appeared to them in a different form as they walked through the countryside, how He expounded the scriptures to them, how He sat down to break bread with them, how their eyes were opened to Who He was, and how He then vanished from them.
But look again at how the apostles responded to this report at the end of verse thirteen:
Mark 16:13b ESV
13b but they did not believe them.
These come to the apostles with the report that Jesus had appeared to them. And when I say that they came to the apostles, I mean all of the apostles. In the narrative found in Luke’s gospel, it is written that these two came to and found “the eleven”, which is how many apostles there were at that time after Judas Iscariot had done away with himself.
And so, even Peter, who had already had the resurrected Jesus physically appear to him, even he did not believe the report that had been passed along to him and the other apostles.
And while I don’t know for certain, if I were to make an educated guess, I would say that these, Peter included, did not believe the report that was given to them, because these two disciples reported that Jesus had appeared to in a different form.
And we may look at that and say, “Come on guys! Really? Even after receiving the reports from Mary Magdalene and Peter, you’re doubting the claim that two of Jesus’ other disciples saw Him as well?!” And this may seem the most shocking when it comes to Peter’s doubting when he himself had already been apprehended by the resurrected Jesus.
But I think that this disposition of the Lord’s apostles is mimicked by all of us who are truly Christians in one way or another.
You see, one of the beautiful things about the Christian faith is that for we as individual Christians, our faith does not stay the same but is consistently changing.
Now, I’m not saying that the contents or the substance of our faith changes, that always remains the same. What changes is our experience of God.
We as Christians continuously, for the entirety of our existence in this world, are continuously moving from one degree to the next in the process of sanctification.
Geerhardus Vos, when asked, in volume four of his work on Reformed Dogmatics to define sanctification, he writes that sanctification is, “The gracious work of God whereby, under the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit, the justified believer is renewed by degrees in his whole nature, so that Christ is formed in him and he lives for God in good works.”[1]
What this means is that as a Christian lives in this world, God the Holy Spirit graciously works through him and causes him to grow more and more in godliness which then results in actively devoting more of his existence to God, worshipping Him more reverently, knowing Him better, and loving Him as He is and as He reveals Himself.
But indeed, this isn’t natural for us, just like the apostles, it’s different and strange for us to move from one degree of faith to another, to discover something new about God, perhaps something that makes us even a little uncomfortable at first. And so, as God apprehends us through the process of sanctification, at times, our apprehension of God in response to us growing in sanctification isn’t always immediate. Indeed, at times it might even be a little stubborn.
Indeed, beloved, let us be quick to embrace our God and the beautiful changes that He wills to make in us as Christians!
Amen?
[1]Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr., trans. Richard B. Gaffin Jr., vol. 4 (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012–2016), 191.
