Ransom - Mark 10:45 Series

Mark 10:41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. 42 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Introduction

Focus on the Cross

We’re ten chapters into the Gospel of Mark. We’ve covered Jesus’ whole life, his whole ministry—we’re just days now from the crucifixion. And now, near the end of chapter 10, for the first time, we finally find out the mystery of why Jesus had to die. He’s prophesied his upcoming suffering 5 times. The first one was vague—back in ch.2 he just made this cryptic remark about how the bridegroom would be forcibly taken away and his followers would have reason to mourn and fast. Then in ch.8 he explained it with explicit, crystal clarity to his disciples—he would be tortured and die at the hands of the Sanhedrin. Then he said it twice again in ch.9, and now again in ch.10. And most of the rest of the book will be devoted to describing that suffering and death.

The first 30 years of Jesus’ life, Mark just skips completely. When’s the last time you read a biography that begins in the last 2 or 3 years of the man’s life? Then Mark covers Jesus’ entire earthly ministry in 10 chapters, and then devotes 6 chapters to his final week. And 2 and a half of those are his final hours. The other gospels are exactly the same way—they zoom through his earthly ministry, sometimes skipping over as much as a year at a time, then slow way down in his final week, covering it in day-by-day detail, then they slow down even more and give hour by hour detail at the end. These are not typical biographies. There is nothing like them in ancient literature. Mark invented a whole new genre of writing—the gospel genre. The gospels are mainly explanations of the importance of the cross.

The Reason for Jesus’ Death

And with that in mind, it’s fascinating to me that Mark doesn’t reveal the purpose of the cross until here at the end of ch.10. A couple chapters earlier he used the term “must”—he must suffer and die. That hinted at the fact that there was a purpose, but this is the first time Jesus has given any indication of what that purpose was. And not only is this the first mention of it; it’s the only mention. This lone verse—in fact, really just one, single word. A whole book about the fact that Jesus had to die; one word about the reason—what he was accomplishing in his death.

One way to emphasize something is to say it over and over a bunch of different ways. Another way to emphasize something is to say it once, so it stands as a single, glittering jewel set a backdrop of contextual significance so your eyes can’t really go anywhere else and just fix on that one, marvelous truth. So we’re about to see Jesus, in a single word, summarize the message of the entire NT.

Theology in an Illustration

And it comes at the tail end of an illustration. It’s not like back in ch.8 where Jesus had this really important doctrine to explain, and so he sat down, took the posture of formal instruction, and delivered the teaching. No, here he’s actually talking about something else. He’s teaching his disciples how to pursue true greatness and how to handle their leadership the right way—be a servant, don’t lord it over people. And right at the end of his explanation, he throws in this little illustration that lands like an atomic bomb of theology that explodes into the whole rest of the NT. Mark 10:45 is one of the most treasured verses in the entire Bible. It’s one of the most important statements on the nature of the atonement. One of the most studied verses in the book of Mark. And Jesus just throws it out there at the end as an illustration of his point.

This is typical of the way doctrine is revealed in the NT. Some of the richest, most profound theological truths are given to us, not in a context of “Here, let me teach you some theology,” but rather in contexts like this. “Here’s how I want you to live. And one reason why you should live this way is because Jesus did this …” then he drops a theological nuclear bomb. We see the same thing in Philippians 2—the most instructive passage in the whole Bible on the doctrine of the incarnation—God taking on human flesh. Many doctoral dissertations and books have been written on the theological implications of the statement, “Jesus emptied himself.” But the context there was the same as here. Paul’s saying, “I want you to live in humility and serve one another. Do that because, after all, Jesus, being in the very form of God emptied himself and took on the form of a servant …”