Bible Commentaries
Mark 4

Verses 1-41

1-9 Compare Matthew 13:1-9; Luke 8:4-8.

1 We now come to a distinct change in our Lord's ministry. He begins to use parables in speaking to the throngs. It is erroneous to suppose that He does this in order to illustrate and simplify the truth. The parable is used in order to put the truth into such veiled and obscure form that those who are not spiritual can never comprehend it. Even His disciples could not understand His parables until He explained them.

3 The parable of the sowing is a resume of His ministry hitherto. He Himself was the Sower. The four classes were those in Israel who heard His word. The usual trinity of evil, Satan, the flesh and the world, hinder its fruitfulness. Only one class out of the four, represented by His disciples, was really fruitful, and only a few of these in abundant measure. A farmer would say that this was a very poor crop. The proclamation of the kingdom has failed to produce the effect necessary for its realization. His miracles and signs now take on a new note. There is often delay or danger, to indicate that the kingdom is no longer so near, and that it will not be established for some time, and then only after suffering on the part of the disciples.

9 The formula "who has ears to be hearing, let him be hearing! " is also significant. Though openly and apparently He speaks to all, it is couched in such language that only those who have spiritual perception will apprehend what He is saying. The rest hear the sound but do not grasp the sense. Parables are puzzles which only they can solve who have the key.

10-13 Compare Matthew 13:10-17; Luke 8:9-10.

11 The kingdom of God had been foretold and typified in their sacred Scriptures, but now the

Lord is unfolding a phase of its history which was unknown to the prophets. It is not a mystery, in the sense of something mysterious or inexplicable, but merely a secret, easily understood once we are initiated into it. The disciples imagined that the Lord's proclamation of the kingdom would continue until He would gain the support of the populace and then seize the sovereignty for Himself. He could not keep on proclaiming the kingdom and at the same time openly teach that the proclamation would be rejected, so He conveys this important fact to His disciples and those spiritual enough to understand, yet conceals it from the multitude by speaking in parables.

12 It cannot be reiterated too often that parables were not used by our Lord in preaching the evangel that they might receive the pardon of sins, but for the very opposite end. He spoke in parables lest the penalty of their sins should be pardoned. It is not gospel, but judgment. To "apply" it to the evangel for this day of grace is utterly contrary to the spirit of the conciliation which we should preach (2 Corinthians 5:19). We seek to assure men that God is not imputing their offenses to them. We do not veil our message in figures which they cannot understand. The Spirit of God has told us explicitly, not in veiled figures, that this economy will end in apostasy (1 Timothy 4:1).

13 The twelve apostles themselves did not perceive the significance of the parable, so He explains its symbols to them. Every detail of the picture He paints was most familiar to them all. In the East there are no fences and the roads go right through the fields or grain. There is but one Sower, the Lord Himself. The figure is important, for it postpones the kingdom until the harvest. He has not been reaping, as the apostles supposed. The end is still far off. By that time three classes who have heard the word will fail of fruition. It is the old kingdom refrain: those who endure to the consummation shall be saved.

14-20 Compare Matthew 13:18-23; Luke 8:11-15.

21-23 Compare Matthew 5:14-16; Luke 8:16-17; Luke 11:33.

21 It is evident that the light He has just given them is the lamp of which He speaks. He would not have them hide the light beneath self-satisfaction or indolence, which are suggested under the figure of a measure or couch. It would be very fine for them to enjoy the measure which had been given to them and repose in the illumination which had been granted to them, but that is not the purpose for which He had given them the light.

24-25 Compare Luke 8:18. See Matthew 7:2; Luke 6:38; Luke 19:26.

24 In this parable He carries on the previous thought concerning the measure. As they impart to others what they had received their own measure will be increased. Spiritual blessings, unlike the physical, increase the more they are distributed.

25 This enigmatical statement can only be understood in the light of the circumstances in which it was spoken. Those who had received spiritual blessing from Christ were to receive more: those who received none would lose even the physical privileges which they had as

Jews.

26 Here they have an even more emphatic hint that the kingdom would not come immediately, but by a gradual process like the growing of grain. Later on in His ministry He postpones the harvest to the conclusion of the eon (Matthew 13:39). The disciples were anxious to put their sickle to the grain while it was in the blade. Even after His resurrection, when the grain was in the ear, the pentecostal era showed that it was not yet ripe. The kernels will not be full until the end time.

30-32 Compare Matthew 13:31; Luke 13:18-19.

30 Ordinarily, wild mustard does not assume such dimensions, but, under favorable conditions, it might well grow into a tree. It was the smallest seed sown by the farmer and became the greatest of all his garden greens. This quick growth is quite in contrast to the previous parable, and the pungent mustard is not food, like grain. The flying creatures of heaven have a sinister significance, being interpreted as Satan in the parable of the sowing. Is not this a forecast of that false premature phase of the kingdom spoken of under the figure of great Babylon?

33-34 Compare Matthew 13:34-35.

35-41 Compare Matthew 8:18-27; Luke 2:22-25.

37 The lake of Galilee is subject to sudden squalls when the wind sweeps down from the mountains on the east. In a short time it changes from a placid mirror-like surface to a leaping, boiling cauldron, in which a small ship could hardly live. There must have been a marvelous calm in His own heart or He would have been roused by the pitching of the ship, or at least He would have been disturbed by the terror of His disciples. No mere man could have preserved his calmness in such danger. And how foolish for a mortal to take the wind to task and talk to the sea! But the wind and the waters were obedient to His will! Again we have a picture of the career of the kingdom, now that its proclamation has not been received. The sea speaks of the nations (Revelation 17:15), the storm of the time of the great affliction, the wind of the spiritual powers which will stir up the nations at the time of the end to persecute and destroy the people of the kingdom. When He comes to rescue His saints then He will say again, "Be still! " And there will be the millennial calm.