This life of faith, this spiritual life that Jesus came to reveal, is seen even more clearly when it stands in contrast to the religious life of the scribes and Pharisees. Mark introduces this contrast between earthly and spiritual religion again in Mark 7, wherein the first eight verses, these men involve Jesus in an argument about ceremonial washings and the eating of unclean foods. As usual, their concern was with ceremonialism and not with inward holiness. But for Jesus, the concern was not the posture of the worshiper’s body, the soberness of his face, or the ritual that accomplished outward acceptability. Jesus’ concern was the submission of the heart. There is no good to be done by taking your body to church if you leave your heart outside. That is why Jesus calls them hypocrites in verses 6-8. Instead of using human traditions as helpful supplements to Scripture, these men had gone further, first to make the traditions equal to Scripture and finally to make them supersede scripture, degrading God’s, Word and making an idol out of human principles. This was an idol that left them free to sin against God without any pangs of conscience (vv. 9-13).
To understand all this, we must understand what true faith is. It is not mere belief; it is belief plus a total commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. I know a man who once quoted Romans 10:9-10, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead; you will be saved.” He went on, “I believe this, and the man that believes this, he’s got his nose over the line, and that’s enough.” But that’s not enough. Salvation is not a cheap insurance policy to keep you from the flames of hell; salvation is a new creation. This means new life, new love, new desires, a new direction of will, a new center for living, and a new acceptance of the course of life, recognizing the sovereignty of God in even the littlest events of life. Faith is the total commitment of the life to the Lord Jesus, and that is why the Lord Jesus did not perform His greatest works without its being present.
In chapter 6, Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth (6:1– 6). We can well realize that, He loved His people and wanted to see them again, that He wanted to give the village a second chance. The last time He had spoken there, they had tried to kill Him, though here, more than any place, He should have been accepted. He had lived there for thirty years; people knew Him and His family. Joseph was now dead, and Jesus had become the carpenter of the village. Jesus had lived there among them and they had seen a perfect, blameless life. But it was all lost on them. They were blinded because of what they were in themselves. Jesus had eaten with them, drunk with them, dressed like them, had been—for all intents and purposes— one of them. They simply could not believe that one who was so much like them could be so different from them. It was as in the days of John the Baptist, when he said, “Among you stands one whom you do not know” (John 1:26). And, as in John 1:10, “He was in the world and the world was made through Him, yet the world knew Him not.” Here, those who knew Him best were deeply offended by Him.
Here was a miserable, sick woman who had lost everything after twelve years of illness. She was filled with superstition as she approached Jesus: “If I touch even His garments, I shall be made well” (v. 28). She thought that there was some magical power emanating from Jesus’ physical body rather than power going forth from His omnipotent and sovereign will. It was a faith that was supremely ignorant. It was the same kind of faith encouraged by certain healers of today, who say, “Put your hand on the radio and send me a dollar,” or, “Visit this shrine,” or, “Buy the special charm.” She had no concept of the fact that true life comes from Christ’s sovereign grace and that His compassion goes out to save, heal, and bless by an act of His will. She thought that it would be possible to sneak a blessing and slip away without being caught. There is no knowledge of Christ’s identity and His ways of working. There is no thought of a connection between the Giver and the gift.
But when faith comes as a gift of the Holy Spirit, blindness recedes as faith grows. I believe that is why Mark brings us next to the incident in which Jairus pleads with Jesus to save his daughter’s life (5:21–43). Jairus had seen enough, to know that Jesus’ spiritual power gave Him authority over the material world; he had faith to believe that Jesus would exercise that power to heal the body of his dying daughter. Jairus had faith in two things about Jesus: His power and His willingness to use that power on his daughter’s behalf. And Jairus had one thing more: an awareness of his own desperate need for Christ’s help. How different a response from that of the crowds who gaped in astonishment at Jesus’ works but neither saw their own need nor sought to have Jesus apply His power to their lives.
