Mark 9:1

The transfiguration (Mark 9:2-8), teachings concerning Elijah (Mark 9:9-13), the cure of the lunatic boy (Mark 9:14-29), another prophecy of the Passion (Mark 9:30-32), discussion of who was the greatest (Mark 9:33-37), the unknown wonder-worker (Mark 9:38-42), and a collection of independent maxims uttered by our Lord (Mark 9:43-50), form the subject matter of Mark 9.

Mark 9:1 was discussed in Mark 8, but a little further attention is directed to it here.

And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There are some here of them that stand by, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God come with power. (Mark 9:1)

The final five verses of Mark 8 and Mark 9:1 are a collection of independent sayings of our Lord which Mark grouped together. This grouping on the part of the inspired evangelist, however, does not require that any connection be established in every case between two adjoining statements. Another such grouping of independent maxims is found at the end of this chapter (Mark 9:43-50). Regarding those verses, especially Mark 9:49-50, Barclay said:

We often get a series of quite disconnected sayings of Jesus set together because they stuck in the writer's mind in that order. ... We must not try to find some remote connection between these sayings; we must take them individually, one by one, and interpret each one as it comes.[1]

What Barclay affirmed of Mark 9:49-50 is likewise true of Mark 8:38 and Mark 9:1; and, although they occur side by side in this gospel, the two verses are independent, having reference to two distinct and utterly different events which were both in the future. Mark 8:38 has reference to the final judgment of humanity, an event which is still future; but Mark 9:1 has reference to an event which occurred in that generation, now nineteen centuries in the past.

The efforts of some commentators to construe these verses as a reference in both cases to the final judgment, or any other event still in the future, has the effect of a charge of ignorance against the Saviour of the world. Interpreting Mark 9:1 as a reference to the final and glorious phase of the kingdom of God as ushered in by the second coming of Christ and the appearance of his holy angels leads to such conclusions as those of Grant who stated that "This expectation (the coming of Jesus in the glory of the Father) was universal in the early days of Christianity, and must go back to Jesus himself."[2] Of course, such a view makes the Lord Jesus Christ to have been mistaken and incorrect in such a statement as Mark 9:1. This is ground enough for rejecting all such interpretations. There is no need whatever to construe Mark 9:1 as a reference to the second coming of Christ or the beginning of the glorious phase of the kingdom. The great preachers of the Restoration have long held Mark 9:1 to be a prophecy of the establishment of the church on the first Pentecost after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Dorris stated that argument as follows:

The kingdom was to come with power, and the power was to come with the Spirit (Acts 1:8). The Spirit came on the first Pentecost after the resurrection of Christ (Acts 2:1-4). As the kingdom was to come with power and as the power was to come with the Spirit, and as the Spirit and the power came on Pentecost, therefore, the kingdom came on that day.[3]

In order to deny the thesis so logically advocated by Dorris, one must hold the Lord of Life to have been in error in his alleged meaning in Mark 9:1. Therefore, it is mandatory to reject the application of Mark 9:1 to the subject matter of Mark 8:38. There is no connection between them, except in the matter of their lying alongside each other within the matrix of the sacred text. It is impossible to interpret certain paragraphs in Mark without regard to his occasionally grouping of disconnected saying of our Lord. See the final verses in this chapter.

[1] William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1956), p. 240.

[2] Frederick C. Grant, Interpreter's Bible (New York: Abingdon Press, 1951, en loco.

[3] C. E. W. Dorris, The Gospel according to Mark (Nashville: The Gospel Advocate Company, 1970), p. 202.