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Scripture Reading: Mark 1:14-18; 4:26; 9:1-8; 10:23-25; Rom. 14:17
In the foregoing message we considered the background of the Lord’s ministry in the Gospel of Mark. We saw that in His baptism He terminated the things of religion and culture. Then in His ministry He sowed Himself as the seed of the kingdom into God’s chosen people. This seed develops into the kingdom of God. On the one hand, the kingdom of God is for the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose; on the other hand, the kingdom of God is for our enjoyment. Let us now go on to see how God’s chosen people are the “soil” into which Christ as the seed of the kingdom is sown to develop into the kingdom of God.
God’s chosen people are the soil to grow Christ into the kingdom of God. However, God’s people have become fallen. According to the picture portrayed by the cases recorded in Mark, they were sick, contaminated, paralyzed, withered, corrupt, deaf, dumb, blind, and even spiritually dead.
God’s people had been destined by Him to be the soil in which Christ would be sown as a seed and in which He would grow for the development of the kingdom of God. But this “soil” became sick, contaminated, paralyzed, and withered. The soil was corrupt, blind, deaf, dumb, and even demon-possessed. Before we were saved, we all were this kind of soil.
In chapter one of the Gospel of Mark the Lord Jesus began to gather the soil. In 1:14 and 15 we are told that Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has drawn near. Repent and believe in the gospel!” Immediately after this we have the record of the Lord’s calling four of His disciples: Simon, Andrew, James, and John (1:16-20). In the foregoing message we pointed out that the Lord preached the gospel by sowing Himself as the seed into people. In 1:16-20 we see four of those whom the Lord gathered to be the soil into which He sowed Himself as the seed of the kingdom.
When the Lord gathered the disciples in 1:16-20, what did He want them to do? Verse 16 tells us that Simon and Andrew were “casting a net in the sea, for they were fishermen.” Jesus said to them, “Come after Me, and I will make you become fishers of men” (v. 17). Immediately, they left their nets and followed Him (v. 18). Going on a little further, the Lord Jesus saw James and John in a boat mending the nets. He called them, and “leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, they went after Him” (v. 20). Here we see that these four disciples left their nets, their boat, their father, and even the sea. They left everything to follow Jesus.
When I read the Gospels as a youth, I wondered what it meant to follow Jesus. I was very impressed with the Lord’s words, “Follow Me.” Later I was taught that to follow Jesus meant to do whatever Jesus did. For example, Jesus loved people, and we also should love others. Jesus was gentle and kind, and we also should be gentle and kind. At first I agreed with this understanding of the meaning of following the Lord Jesus. But eventually I discovered that to follow Jesus in this way can be compared to teaching a monkey to act like a man. A monkey may be trained to sit, stand, and walk like a man. However, this is nothing more than mere imitation. Nevertheless, many Christians try to follow Christ in the way of imitating Him. This understanding of following Jesus is mistaken, and we should repudiate it. But we are still left with the question concerning what it means to follow the Lord Jesus.
We have emphasized the fact that when the Lord Jesus called the disciples, He gathered them to be the soil into which He would sow Himself as the seed. Therefore, we may say that to follow Jesus is to be put in His “pocket” for the purpose of His sowing Himself into us.
We have seen that in Mark the Lord Jesus gathered the soil and put it into His pocket in order to sow Himself into it. But according to the cases recorded in the Gospel of Mark, this soil was in a pitiful condition. How could the Lord use soil that is sick, contaminated, and corrupt? Some may think that He should cast such useless soil away. But the Lord cannot cast away those who were chosen by God and predestinated before the foundation of the world. In a very real sense, the Lord Jesus did not have a choice. The disciples had been marked out, predestinated. How could He reject them? The Father had chosen them before the foundation of the world, and the Lord had come to do the will of God the Father. Therefore, He could not cast aside the disciples, even though as soil they were in such a pitiful condition. What, then, could the Lord do about the soil? As the Gospel of Mark indicates, it was necessary for Him to heal this soil and turn it into good soil.
We have seen that, according to the Gospel of Mark, the soil was in a pitiful condition. How could it be healed? The proper way to heal the soil is for it to pass through a process of death and resurrection. In principle, this is the way healing takes place in our physical bodies. We thank the Lord that in His creation of man’s body He ordained such a principle. Otherwise, once a person became ill, he would not be able to recover. However, in our bodies there is the principle of death and resurrection, the principle of the dying out of what is old and the rising up of something new. Diseases are healed in man’s body through this basic life principle in which old things die out and new things are produced.
If we understand this principle, we shall see how the Lord Jesus heals the soil into which He sows Himself as the seed of the kingdom. The human soil that had been chosen by God became contaminated and useless. But because God the Father had chosen this soil, the Lord Jesus could not cast it away. This soil had even been predestinated, marked out, by the Father. The Lord must have some way to heal this soil.
As we have seen, to follow the Lord Jesus is to be put in His “pocket.” But how does the Lord heal the soil that is in His pocket? He heals the soil by bringing it to the cross and causing it to die out and then bringing it into resurrection. In the Lord’s death we died out; that is, in His death we were made dead. Then in His resurrection we were resurrected. Therefore, we died in the Lord’s death and rose in His resurrection. In this way the soil is healed.
In chapter one of Mark, the Lord Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James, and John, and they began to follow Him. Actually, they followed the Lord blindly, not knowing where they were going or what they were doing. The fact that Peter made many blunders indicates that he did not know what was happening. The Lord Jesus, however, knew what He intended to do with the disciples.
After gathering the disciples as the soil, the Lord presented Himself to them as a pattern. For more than three years, Peter and the other disciples observed what the Lord said and did. Eventually, the Lord Jesus brought the disciples, and all those chosen by God, to the cross. After He brought them through death and resurrection, they were healed. This is the reason we say that in Christ’s death and resurrection His followers, as the soil chosen by God, were healed. All the healings in the Gospel of Mark are signs pointing to this real healing, the healing that takes place through Christ’s death and resurrection.
When we come to chapter one of Acts, we see that Peter, Andrew, John, and James, with the remainder of the one hundred twenty, were no longer sick. They were no longer sick with a fever, contaminated, paralyzed, withered, blind, deaf, or dumb. They all had been healed through the Lord’s death and resurrection.
In the foregoing message and in this message we have covered four matters: the background of the Lord’s ministry, the Lord as the Sower sowing Himself as the seed, the disciples as the soil chosen by God, and the healing of the soil. As a result of being healed through Christ’s death and resurrection, the chosen people of God were recovered and became good soil. They became the “good earth” spoken of in Mark 4:8 and 20.
Through His death and resurrection the Lord Jesus not only healed the soil, but He also released God’s life and imparted it into the soil. Through His death the divine life in Him was released, and through His resurrection this life was imparted to the soil. Hence, the Lord’s death and resurrection were the completion of His sowing Himself as a seed into His disciples.
This sowing began in chapter one of Mark and continued throughout this Gospel until it was completed in chapter sixteen. In chapter after chapter the Lord Jesus was sowing Himself into His disciples. This is clearly revealed in chapter four where we see that as the Sower He came to sow the seed of the kingdom. When the Lord Jesus was resurrected, this sowing was completed. The disciples then became another kind of soil, the good soil, and they began to grow Christ. In the early chapters of the book of Acts we see that the disciples were good soil producing Christ.
However, the fact that the disciples became good soil and began to grow Christ does not mean that the “weeds” could not grow in them again. In Galatians 2 we see that certain weeds had begun to grow again in Peter. The reason the weeds came back was that Peter was still under the influence of the old religion.
Actually, the weeds were trying to grow in Peter in Acts 10. According to this chapter, Peter saw a heavenly vision, a vision related to the sowing of the seed into the Gentiles. God intended to use Peter to sow the seed of the kingdom into another kind of soil, into Gentile soil. At first Peter refused to obey the vision. This refusal indicates that something was growing in Peter instead of wheat. The things of the old religion, the weeds, were growing in him.
In chapter twenty-one of Acts we see that Peter was under the influence of James. When we consider Acts 21 together with Galatians 2, we see that many weeds were growing in Peter.
We need to ask ourselves how many weeds are growing in us. What do we mean by weeds? A weed is something other than Christ that is growing in us to replace Christ. In our experience these weeds may include culture, religion, ethics, morality, philosophy, improvement of character, and the effort to be spiritual, scriptural, holy, and victorious.
Many of the saints who have been under this ministry for years are still under the influence of their cultural and religious background. Because of this influence, the view of God’s New Testament economy has not been made clear to them. This influence and this lack of clarity delay the Lord’s coming back because it frustrates the development of the kingdom within us.
At this point we should once again ask this question: what is the kingdom of God? Contrary to the traditional understanding, the kingdom is not merely a realm where God rules over people and a realm which we enter to enjoy eternal life. Many Christians do not have a proper understanding even of what eternal life is. They think that eternal life is some kind of everlasting blessing. We need to have a clear view from the New Testament concerning the kingdom of God.
In the New Testament the kingdom of God is not a material realm in which God exercises His authority to carry out His governmental administration so that we may enter this realm to enjoy an eternal blessing. This is not the concept of the kingdom in the New Testament, and we should drop this concept. What is revealed in the New Testament regarding the kingdom of God is that the kingdom is a Person, not a material realm. This Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the embodiment of the Triune God. This One who is the embodiment of the Triune God came to be the kingdom. In Mark 4 He says that the kingdom is like a sower sowing the seed. Both the Sower and the seed are the Lord Himself. The Lord Jesus came to sow Himself as the seed of the kingdom into God’s chosen people. In His ministry He did not sow anything other than Himself as the seed of the kingdom.
