Week 16 : Mark 9:7 - 11:26

Having spent some three years mostly in the area around Galilee, far away from Jerusalem, at the beginning of Mark 10, Jesus began His final journey to Jerusalem. He had to return to the holy city for the accomplishing of God's eternal plan. As the Lamb of God (John 1:29), He had to be offered to God at Mount Moriah, where Abraham offered Isaac and enjoyed God's provision of a ram as a substitute for his son (Gen. 22:2, 9-14) and where the temple was built in Jerusalem (2 Chron. 3:1). It had to be there that He would be delivered, according to the counsel determined by the Trinity of the Godhead (Acts 2:23), to the Jewish leaders (9:31; 10:33) and be rejected by them as the builders of God's building (8:31; Acts 4:11). It had to be there that He would be crucified according to the Roman form of capital punishment (John 18:31-32 and note; 19:6, 14-15) to fulfill the type concerning the kind of death He would die (Num. 21:8-9; John 3:14). Moreover, according to Daniel's prophecy (Dan. 9:24-26), that very year was the year that Messiah (Christ) was to be cut off (killed). Furthermore, as the Passover lamb (1 Cor. 5:7), He had to be killed in the month of the Passover (Exo. 12:1-11). Hence, He had to go to Jerusalem (v. 33; 11:1, 11, 15, 27; John 12:12) before the Passover (John 12:1; Mark 14:1) that He might die there on the day of the Passover (14:12-17; John 18:28) at the place and the time foreordained by God.

I still find it incredible that there is so much detail contained in the verses cited above, yet they prove beyond all doubt the sovereignty of God in His move. Everything - the time, the place and the method of execution - were all prophesied hundreds or thousands of years in advance. Daniel prophesied that the Messiah would be killed 483 years after the proclaimation of the Israelites' return to Jerusalem from captivity, on the fourteenth day of the first month of the Jewish calendar, that is, the Passover. Just as was the case when the magi came to seek the birth of the King-Saviour, the religious establishment, who should have known all the details and should have been actively looking for this One, instead were blinded by their knowledge.

The place of His death was typified by Abraham's offering of Isaac on Mount Moriah, another name for Mount Zion, the highest peak of the mountains on which Jerusalem was later built.

The manner of His death was foretold in Number 21:8-9; when in the wilderness, the Israelites complained against God and Moses, and God sent fiery serpents amongst them which killed many men. Moses then interceded for them, and God commanded Him to make a bronze serpent, and to lift it up on a pole, that if someone were bitten and then looked upon the bronze serpent, they would be saved. This is revealed in John 3:14-15 as one of the highest prophecies concerning Christ:

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, That everyone who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.
(John 3:14-15)

When Christ was incarnated, He came only in the likeness of the flesh of sin, not having any sin in Him. Similarly, although the brass serpent looked like a serpent (the expression of Satan), it did not have the venom (the sin). Jesus was a genuine man, and although He looked like sinful Man, there was no sin in Him. By being lifted up, that is, crucified, He became our salvation from sin and sins. If we behold Jesus, if we receive Him, then by His blood, we are saved from every sin (1 John 1:7).

Execution by crucifixion was not the Jewish means of capital punishment, which was death by stoning; instead, it was a method brought in by the Romans, who had occupied the Holy Land. Again, this just goes to prove God's sovereignty, by arranging for the Romans to be in power, that the type in Num. 21:8-9 would be fulfilled (there are many other prophecies that were fulfilled by the Roman occupation - for example, without Caesar Augustus's decree for a census, Joseph and Mary would never have come to Bethlehem to fulfil Micah 5:2's prophecy concerning the place of the Messiah's birth).

So, do you ever find yourself doubting the Word of God? Just read all the above verses, and be restored in your faith - God prepared all these things thousands of years ago, and raised up every situation necessary to bring them to fulfillment. Hallelujah for His Word!