Lange Commentary - Mark 16:19 - 16:20

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Lange Commentary - Mark 16:19 - 16:20


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

THIRD SECTION

THE RISEN SAVIOUR IN HIS ASCENSION, AS CONQUEROR WITH THE CHURCH, GIVING POWER TO THE MESSAGE OF SALVATION THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE EARTH

16:19, 20

(Parallels: Luk_24:50-53; Act_1:4-12.)

19So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. 20And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Comp. the parallels in Luke and Acts; also the comments upon the conclusion of Matthew.—Mark’s account of the ascension possesses a noble simplicity; and so conveys to the mind a comprehensive idea of Christ’s majesty and rule, which consists most fully with the character of this Gospel. The ascension, described accurately by Luke, is here briefly sketched: the exaltation of Christ in the words, “and sat on the right hand of God,” implies the supreme rule of Christ, as related by Matthew; while the last verse is analogous to the end of the Gospel by John, and expresses in a word the essence of all contained in the Acts.

Mar_16:19. The Lord Jesus.—Term of reverence.—After He had spoken.—Augustine and the majority of commentators understand this to refer to the forty days; but Meyer will not concede this. According to him, this account and the lapse of forty days are quite irreconcilable. It is only when the Gospels are treated as mere chronicles, in which an exact sequence of all events in time is expected, that it becomes impossible to reconcile them with each other.

He was received up.—Taken up. Meyer properly combats the representation given by Strauss and Bauer, that Christ ascended to heaven from the room where they had supped. Yet, if we must not interpret this passage literally regarding the place, Meyer has as little right to insist upon a literal view as to the time. The account of the ascension is in every point to be supplemented by that of Luke, with whom Mark stands in no contradiction.—And sat on the right hand of God.—An account, resting partly upon the direct vision of the disciples (Act_1:19), partly upon a revelation (Act_1:11), partly upon the words of Christ (Joh_14:3), and upon the lively inference of faith, especially from the events occurring at Pentecost, Act_2:33. The fact is itself, on the one hand, local—that is, the being seated upon that throne of glory where the self-revelations of God take place, and in the midst of that majesty whence the manifestations of His power proceed; and, upon the other hand, is symbolic of Christ’s royal dominion, Php_2:10.

Mar_16:20. Everywhere.—As it is probable the Evangelist wrote in Rome, and had been in Babylon, he knew that the Gospel was extending over the earth.—The Lord working with them.—See Matthew, close; Eph_1:19.—With signs following.—The previously-promised powers to work these signs have been conferred; the miracles have appeared in striking forms, and conveying their symbolic import in their more general working. We see here the Gospel’s absolute power to conquer in the might of the Lord. From this we perceive how close the connection between the closing of this Gospel and its beginning, and its every statement. Each Evangelist concludes in a manner peculiar to himself, but with each the common topic is the glory and the kingly rule of Christ. The view peculiar to Mark is the forthputting of Christ’s power by His servants on earth, to free the world and remove all demoniacal powers by which the earth was polluted.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. See the conclusion of Matthew and the parallels in Luke.—We find the explanation of the circumstance, that Mark has combined the ascension in his Gospel narrative, in the fundamental principle of his Gospel, viz.: Christ, the omnipotent conqueror bursting through all barriers, the Lion in His retreat and advance. On this principle he was led to briefly mention the last withdrawal of Christ, the ascension; but then, only as the basis for the last forthcoming of Christ in His people, in their preaching of the Gospel and their working of signs in all places. Matthew presents Christ as a spiritual, invisible, theocratic King, beneath whose jurisdiction the present and the future worlds both lie, and whose administration over His people is in this present world universal, and of a specially spiritual character. By John, the universality and the present manifestation of Christ’s glory are still more strongly emphasized. The typal form of this administration of Jesus is to be seen in the activity of a John and a Peter; that is, in contemplation and profound meditation combined with earnest labor and constancy in faith. Respecting Christ Himself, it is only hinted by John that He goes and comes again. According to Mark and Luke, Christ is with equal distinctness characterized as King of both worlds; but He works individually and personally from the other world outwards: and hence both these Evangelists present the ascension as a link, connecting Christ’s life on earth with His work in and from heaven. In addition to this, however, Mark, like Peter, makes the rule of the exalted Christ in and with His people to prevail, because it is a work of the exalted Jesus which success will certainly crown; while Luke, with Paul, makes this prevalence result from the exalted state of the working Jesus.

2. When we estimate the resurrection properly, and consider that it was not the return of Jesus to His old, His first life, but His exaltation to His second, His new life, we see at once that the ascension must be joined to the resurrection as its necessary consequence. Christ’s last departure from His disciples must have therefore, in any case, been termed His ascension; nevertheless, it consisted with His glory, that His return home should be an imposing and sublime ascension.

3. The doubts of critical writers as to the history of the ascension rest upon a mistake, often alluded to, regarding the nature of the Gospels, which are held to be memorabilia collected from various sources, instead of being received as individual, graphic life-pictures and views, organic in form, and Christological in character. The doubts of writers upon dogmatics are to be connected with their doubts regarding the resurrection itself, the divine dignity of Christ, the eternal continuance of personality, and the reality of a future state in heaven. In each of these two points the Apostles agree, as witnesses of the ascension, in their testimony with one another.

4. The theologians of the Lutheran school have thrown as much obscurity around the historical ascension, as those of the Reformed school around Christ’s descent into hell (the Heidelberg Catechism). The Reformed Church has gone too far in its teaching regarding the glorified Christ’s spiritual, omnipresent working; and the Lutheran, in its views upon the distinct localization and extension of Christ, now exalted. (Luther upon the Supper.) But the descent into hell and ascent to heaven must not be separated; and the localization of the exalted Redeemer in heaven must be held, along with His omnipresent manifestation. “That He reveals Himself in one way only in heaven amid the blessed, and that He in some other sense is everywhere present, are not contradictory propositions.” Spener, Katechismus-Predigten, 2 Bd. p. 914.

5. When we represent the ascension as the triumph of Christ and His Church, let us not forget the sad, earnest side for the Church in her human weakness. But as death is swallowed up in victory, so human sorrow is swallowed up in divine joy.

6. For the accounts given in Church history, and for the various traditions regarding the apostolic labors in preaching the Gospel, see Lange’s Apost. Zeitalter, 2 Bd. p. 401.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See Matthew and Luke.—Christ’s exaltation the great turniug-point in His life and work.—The exaltation of Christ to heaven, a sign of the completion of His work on earth (“After the Lord,” etc.).—The union of the Father and the Son seen in the ascension: as He had been sent, and yet came freely,—as He had finished the work given Him by the Father, and unfolded His own secret life, was given up to the death, and resigned His life,—as He was raised from the dead, and rose by His own power,—so He is exalted by the Father, and yet ascends by virtue of His own might.—The degrees of Christ’s exaltation shadowed forth in the ascension: 1. It points back to His descent into hell, and His resurrection; 2. it points forward to His being seated upon the throne of glory at the right hand of God.—Christ’s ascension: 1. A return home; 2. an exaltation; 3. a never-ending march of triumph.—The import of Christ’s exaltation for His people. It settles, 1. the ascension of the members in Him, as the Head; 2. the ascension of the members after Him, in the spirit; 3. the final ascension of the members at the coming of the Lord.—Christ’s seat at the right hand of God, the goal of His pilgrimage; or the point of rest between His two great careers: 1. His career through all the misery of the world; 2. His career through all the salvation of the world.—Because Christ is the highest above all heavens, He is the nearest to His people in all their depths: In their depth, a. of struggling, b. of suffering, c. of want, d. of death and the grave.—The Lord’s rest causes the activity of Apostles, and of the members of Christ’s body.—From the tranquil, rejoicing, divinely-human heart above, proceeds every pulsation of the new life throughout the entire world.—All Christ’s Apostles are Apostles of His royal authority.—The blessed consciousness of Christ’s glory, the motive power of the Gospel in the hearts of believers.—The preaching of Christ is a preaching for all places.—Human proclamation of salvation confirmed by the divine manifestations from the Lord.—The truth of the faith established by the signs of love.—The Lord was one with them in tiepower of the Spirit.—The ever-blessing and victorious efficacy of the Gospel, a witness for Christ’s everlasting administration of blessing and conquest.—Christ above all; Christ here, too, in His people.—Lo, the Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed!—Our faith is the victory which overcometh the world.—Christ’s seat, His throne: 1. The unceasing rest and festival in heaven; 2. unceasing work on earth; 3. unceasing rule in both kingdoms.—At the right hand of God, working in concert with Him; or, the revelation of the Trinity in Christ’s exaltation (as at His birth and baptism, in His death and resurrection).—Where the exalted Christ appears, there doth heaven appear: 1. Where He is throned, there is heaven; 2. where He works, thither heaven comes (the spiritual, glorified world; the inheritance incorruptible, undefined, that fadeth not away, 1Pe_1:4; 2Pe_1:4; 2Pe_1:11).—We are with Christ transferred to the heavenly state.

Starke:—Let each see that he hold his confifidential interview with Jesus, ere he leave the earth.—God is gone up with a shout, Psa_47:6.—The ascension of our Jesus is our after-ascension. Where the Head is, there are the members. “Where I am, there shall My servants be, that they may see My glory.”—The heavens stand open: we are certain of our salvation. Even so come, Lord Jesus!—The presence of Christ in the earth has not ceased with His ascension; it is rather established, being combined with His session at the right hand of God.—Hedinger:—Be faithful and industrious in thy calling; God will add His blessing and success.—If believers are not able to see Christ with their eyes, yet they feel His working in their hearts (proof sufficient that He is with and in them).—Osiander:—Jesus is to the present day with the preachers of the Gospel.—When the spiritually blind are enlightened, the spiritually dead quickened, the spiritually deaf and dumb made to hear devoutly and speak piously, the spiritually lame made to be righteously industrious and active, and the spiritually leprous are cleansed from sins, these are greater signs and wonders than physical changes.

Lisco:—He wished to depart from them in such a way that they, seeing whither He had gone, could not imagine that they had lost Him: rather should the thought that He lived and was in heaven be ever present to them, that they might testify courageously of Him, and labor for Him, as though they had Him by their side.—They should know Christ no more after the flesh (2Co_5:16), but as the exalted Son of God, whose glorious elevation filled them with the most blessed hopes and opened to them the most blessed prospects.—Braune:—A close of the activity of the visible, personal Redeemer, that corresponds perfectly with the beginning. Not more mysterious than the birth and resurrection of the Saviour is His ascension.—Christ, having conquered death, could not die, and so ascended to heaven.—Brieger:—Psa_68:19; Eph_4:8 : Christ, to manifest His victory over the devil and his angels, returns as a conqueror to heaven, Col_3:1-2; Heb_8:1.—We are the subjects of the Heavenly (the second Adam), who is transforming us more and more into His likeness.—Bauer:—Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.

Footnotes:

Mar_16:14.—C., D. add äÝ to ὕóôåñïí .

Mar_16:14.— Ἐê íåêñῶí , supported by A., C., X., Ä ., 1, 33.

Mar_16:17.—The omission of êáéíáῖò by C., L., Ä . is not decisive against it.

Mar_16:18 .—Codd. C., L., M.**, X., Ä ., the Coptic, Armenian, and Syriac versions, read before ὄöåéò , êáὶ ἐí ôáῖò ÷åñóßí . But it is probably a mere explanatory addition.

[These passages, however, speak only of human creatures.—Ed.]

Mar_16:19.—After êýñéïò stands Ἰçóïῦò in Codd. C., K., L., Ä . Lachmann adopts this reading. (Lange renders literally: “The Lord Jesus, after he had spoken thus unto them, was raised,” &c.— Trs.)