Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 3:5
And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched [it] out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
5. with anger ] Not merely did He look upon them, He “ looked round ” upon them, surveyed each face with “an all-embracing gaze of grief and anger.” Feelings of “grief” and “anger” are here ascribed to Him, who was “very God and very Man,” just as in another place we read that “He wept” before the raising of Lazarus (Joh 11:35), and “slept” before He stilled the storm (Mar 4:38), and was an hungred (Mat 4:2), and was “exceeding sorrowful even unto death” (Mat 26:38).
being grieved ] The word here used occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, and implies “a feeling of compassion for,” even in the midst of anger at, their conduct.
hardness ] The word thus rendered denotes literally (1) the process by which the extremities of fractured bones are re-united by a callus; then (2) callousness, hardness. St Paul uses the word in Rom 11:25, saying, “I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that hardness (see margin) in part is happened to Israel;” and again in Eph 4:18, “Having the understanding darkened because of the hardness of their heart” (see margin again). The verb, which = “to petrify,” “to harden into stone,” occurs in Mar 6:52; Mar 8:17; Joh 12:40 ; 2Co 3:14.
whole as the other ] This is one of the instances where our Lord may be said to have wrought a miracle without a word, or the employment of any external means. It also forms one of seven miracles wrought on the Sabbath-day. The other six were, (1) The demoniac at Capernaum (Mar 1:21); (2) Simon’s wife’s mother (Mar 1:29); (3) the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda (Joh 5:9); (4) the woman with a spirit of infirmity (Luk 13:14); (5) the man who had the dropsy (Luk 14:1); (6) the man born blind (Joh 9:14).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Mar 3:5
Being grieved for the hardness of their hearts.
The anger of Christ
I. But is anger a passion which it was right for Christ to show and to feel? And if it were right for Christ, is it equally right for us? The answer to the first question is simple enough. As the Holy One, the very presence of evil must be abhorrent to Him. He may be reconciled to the sinner, but He can never be reconciled to sin. His whole nature revolts from the evil thing. It was not then the mere ebullition of passion. It was not a sudden outburst of rage. It was righteous wrath. It was the emotion which stirred His whole being, just because sin is the utterly opposite of Himself. The trained eye is offended with that which is distorted and ugly; the trained ear is pained beyond expression with that which violates the very elements of harmony; and the perfect heart loathes and cannot but be angry with sin. Can there be any doubt that Christs anger with sin in these men also glanced at their relations with other men? No man liveth unto himself. He was angry at the blighting influence of the mens lives. Yet there was no sin in Christs anger, although Christ was angry with sin. While His anger was strong His pity was yet Divine. He was sorrowful at the thought of what it all meant, and would yet Himself rescue them from the snare. Anger and grief were blent together in the same mind, just because in His mind there was perfect holiness, and there was perfect love; for it is not the stirring and agitation of the waters that troubles and defiles them, but the sediment at the bottom. Where there is no sediment, mere agitation will not create impurity. There was none in Christ. His anger was the anger of a holy Being at sin, at the devils corruption of Gods creature. His grief was for man, Gods offspring. He hated the thing which alienated the sons from the Father. The anger may well make us tremble, but should not the pity make us trust?
II. If it were right in Christ to be angry with sin, is it equally right and becoming in us? We are always right in being angry with sin. But just here is the difficulty. We are angry not so much at sin as at something in it which affects and inconveniences us. It is not that which is opposed to the holy law of God which most commonly makes us angry, but that which brings us some petty discomfort and trouble. We see how sin injures others. Purity will bring its own anger. Remember, however, that anger with sin is not something permitted; it is an emotion demanded. Ye that love the Lord, hate evil. But our anger must be interblent with pity. Christ sought to give these hard-hearted men another chance. He did not permit them to hinder His work. He would have won them if only they would have opened their hearts to the truth. It is Christs great love alone which can fill our souls with unwearied compassion for sinners. Beware, then, of thinking that anger with sin is enough. It is but one-half of our work. Pity is the other half. (J. J. Goadby.)
Anger against sin blended with pity
It should be so trained in us by our docile obedience to Christ, that sin should always, and upon the instant, fire the righteous indignation of our hearts. It is not to be like that anger which one of the ancients describes as the fire of straw, quickly blazing up, and as quickly extinguished. It is rather to become an unquenchable fire. The other ball of our duty is equally binding that we pity the sinner, and do our best to free him from his thraldom. It is here that so much yet needs to be done. One may cheaply earn, to our own satisfaction, a passing praise for righteousness, by anger against sin; but the best proof that it is the hateful thing to us which we proclaim it to be, is this, the efforts we make to get rid of it, the sacrifices we cheerfully bear to snatch men from its bondage, and the earnestness and persistence of our endeavours to secure their freedom. (J. J. Goadby.)
Rules to be observed, that our anger against sin may be good and warrantable
1. We must not be too hasty and sudden in giving way to our anger, without duly considering that there is just cause for it.
2. We must distinguish between the offence done against God and any personal indignity we may have suffered. When these two are combined, as often happens, our anger must be directed chiefly against the sin; the offence against ourselves we must forgive.
3. Our anger must be properly proportioned, according to the degree of sin.
4. We must be impartial, being displeased at sin wherever and in whomsoever we find it; as well at our own sins, as at the sins of others; as well at the faults of friends as of enemies.
5. Our anger must be joined with grief for the person against whose sin we are offended.
6. Our anger against the sin must be joined with love to the sinner, making us willing and desirous to do him any good we can. (G. Petter.)
Christs anger not like ours
There was in Christ real anger, sorrow, and the rest of the passions and affections as they exist in other men, only subject to reason. Wherefore anger was in Him a whetstone of virtue. In us (says F. Lucas) anger is a passion; in Christ it was, as it were, an action. It arises spontaneously in us; by Christ it was stirred up in Himself. When it has arisen in us it disturbs the other faculties of the body and mind, nor can it be repressed at our own pleasure; but when stirred up in Christ it acts as He wills it to act, it disturbs nothing-in fine, it ceases when He wills it to cease. (Cornelius a Lapide.)
Christs indignation
The anger here mentioned was no uneasy passion, but an excess of generous grief occasioned by their obstinate stupidity and blindness. From this passage the following conclusions may be drawn:
1. It is the duty of a Christian to sorrow not only for his own sins, but also to be grieved for the sins of others.
2. All anger is not to be considered sinful.
3. He does not bear the image of Christ, but rather that of Satan, who can either behold with indifference the wickedness of others, or rejoice in it.
4. Nothing is more wretched than an obdurate heart, since it caused Him, who is the source of all true joy, to be filled with grief in beholding it.
5. Our indignation against wickedness must be tempered by compassion for the persons of the wicked. (T. H. Horne, D. D.)
The disposition of a wise minister
This conduct and these dispositions of Christ ought to be imitated by a wise minister.
1. He ought to have a holy indignation against those who, out of envy, oppose their own conversion.
2. A real affliction of heart on account of their blindness.
3. A charitable and constant application to those whom God sends to him, notwithstanding all contradiction.
4. He must incite them to lift up, and stretch forth, their hands toward God, in order to pray to Him; toward the poor, to relieve them; and toward their enemies, to be reconciled to them. (Quesnel.)
Hardness of heart
II. Let us show what is meant by hardness of heart. A hard-hearted man, in the current use of language, means a man void of humanity; a man of cruel habits. In the Bible it is a compound of pride, perverseness, presumption, and obstinacy. It is said of Nebuchadnezzar, that when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took away his glory from him.
II. The causes of hardness of heart.
1. By neglecting the word and ordinances of God. There is a salutary power in Divine truth of which it is not easy to give adequate ideas (Psa 81:11-12).
2. By our slighting and despising the corrective dispensations of Providence. When painful events do not rouse to seriousness, and fiery trials do not melt to tenderness, we generally see increased levity and obstinacy.
3. By cherishing false opinions in religion.
4. By persisting in any known course of sin (Deu 29:19).
III. The awful consequences of hardness of heart.
1. It provokes God to leave men to their own errors, base passions, and inveterate passions.
2. It involves men in utter and irretrievable ruin. He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.
Learn:
1. How much guilt there is in hardness of heart.
2. Take the warnings of Scripture against hardness of heart.
3. Take those measures which are absolutely necessary to guard you against hardness of heart. (J. Thornton.)
Hardness of heart
I. The heart-figuratively the seat of feeling, or affection.
II. It is said to be tender when it is easily affected by the sufferings of others; by our own sin and danger; by the love and commands of God-when we are easily made to feel on the great subjects pertaining to our interest (Eze 11:19-20).
III. It is hard when nothing moves it; when a man is alike insensible to the sufferings of others, the dangers of his own condition, and the commands, the love, and the threatenings of God. It is most tender in youth. It is made hard by indulgence in sin; by long resisting the offers of salvation. Hence the most favourable period for securing an interest in Christ, or for becoming a Christian, is in youth-the first, the tenderest, and the best days of life. (A. Barnes, D. D.)
Hardness of the heart
Stones are charged with the worst species of hardness-as stubborn as a stone; and yet the hardest stones submit to be smoothed and rounded under the soft friction of water. Ask the myriads of stones on the seashore what has become of all their angles, once so sharp, and of the roughness and uncouthness of their whole appearance. Their simple reply is, Water wrought with us; nothing but water, and none of us resisted. If they yield to be fashioned by the water, and you do not yield to be fashioned by God, what wonder if the very stones cry out against you? (Pulsfords Quiet Hours.)
Hardness of heart
In that Christ mourned in Himself for this hardness of their hearts, we may learn that it is a most fearful and grievous sin, and to be greatly lamented in whomsoever it is found. It is that sin whereby the heart of man is so rooted and settled in the corruption of sin, that it is hardly or not at all withdrawn or reclaimed from it by any good means that are used to that end. Two kinds are to be distinguished.
I. When the obstinacy and perverseness of the heart is in some measure felt and perceived by those in whom it is, and also lamented and bewailed and resisted. This kind of hardness may be, and is, found more or less in the best saints and children of God (Mar 6:52; Mar 16:14).
II. That hardness which either is not felt at all, or, if felt, is not resisted. This is found only in wicked men. It is a fearful and dangerous sin; for-
1. It keeps out repentance, which is the remedy for sin.
2. God often punishes other heinous sins with this sin (Rom 1:28).
3. God also punishes this sin with other sins (Eph 4:18).
4. In the Bible we find fearful threatenings against this sin (Deu 29:19; Rom 2:5). (G. Petter.)
Signs whereby men may know whether their hearts are hardened
1. If they are not moved to repentance and true humiliation for sin, by seeing or hearing of the judgments of God inflicted on themselves or others; or if they are a little moved for the time, yet afterwards grow as bad or worse than before.
2. If the mercies of God, shown to themselves and others, do not affect them and persuade their hearts to turn to God (Rom 2:4).
3. If the word preached fail to humble them in the sight of God; but the more the hammer of the Word beats on their hearts, the harder they become, like the smiths anvil. These are all evident signs of great hardness of heart, in whomsoever they are found. And it is fearful to think how many there are of this rank and number. Let them consider how fearful their case is, and fear to continue in it. Let them be humbled for it, and lament it. (G. Petter.)
Remedies for hard-heartedness
I. Pray earnestly to God to soften our hearts by the work of His Spirit, to take away our stony hearts and to give us hearts of flesh. He only is able to do it, and He has promised to do it if we carefully use the means (Eze 36:26).
II. Be diligent and constant in hearing the Word of God. This is the hammer which will break the stone; the fire to melt and thaw the heart frozen in sin.
III. Meditate much and often upon Gods infinite and unspeakable mercy toward penitent sinners (Exo 34:6).
IV. Meditate seriously upon the bitter sufferings of Christ. It is said that the blood of a goat, while it is warm, will break the hardest adamant; so the blood of Christ, apprehended by faith, and applied to the conscience, will break the hardest heart in pieces, with godly sorrow for sin.
V. We are to use Christian admonitions and exhortations one to another: if we see others fall into any sin, point it out to them in a loving manner, and beseech them to repent of it; and if others admonish and exhort us, let us hearken to it.
VI. Be careful to avoid the causes of hardness of heart; viz.
1. Habitual sin; for, as a way or path, the more it is trodden and trampled upon, the harder it gets, so the more we inure ourselves to the practice of any sin, the harder our hearts will grow. It is said of Mithridates, that through the custom of drinking poison, he became so used to it that he drank it without danger; so the wicked, by habitual indulgence in swearing, uncleanness, etc., make these sins so familiar to them, that they can swallow them without any remorse of conscience.
2. Take heed of sinning against knowledge and the light of conscience.
3. Guard against negligence and coldness in religious exercises, such as prayer, hearing and reading the Word, etc. If we either begin to omit, or else carelessly to perform these duties, by which our hearts should be daily softened and kept tender, then by little and little we shall become dangerously hardened. (G. Petter.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 5. With anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts] These words are not found in any of the other evangelists. For hardness, or rather callousness, the Codex Bezae, and four of the Itala, read , deadness; the Vulgate and some of the Itala, caecitate, blindness. Join all these together, and they will scarcely express the fulness of this people’s wretchedness. By a long resistance to the grace and Spirit of God, their hearts had become callous; they were past feeling. By a long opposition to the light of God, they became dark in their understanding, were blinded by the deceitfulness of sin, and thus were past seeing. By a long continuance in the practice of every evil work, they were cut off from all union with God, the fountain of spiritual life; and, becoming dead in trespasses and sins, they were incapable of any resurrection but through a miraculous power of God.
With anger. What was the anger which our Lord felt? That which proceeded from excessive grief, which was occasioned by their obstinate stupidity and blindness: therefore it was no uneasy passion, but an excess of generous grief.
Whole as the other.] This is omitted by the best MSS. and versions. Grotius, Mill, and Bengel approve of the omission, and Griesbach leaves it out of the text.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
And when he had looked round about on them,…. In the several parts of the synagogue; for there were many of them on every side of him; which he might do, to observe their countenances, which might justly fall, upon such a close question put to them, and what answer they would return to him: and his look upon them was
with anger, with a stern countenance, which showed indignation at them, though without sin, or any desire of revenge, for the evil they were meditating against him; for at the same time he had pity and compassion for them,
being grieved for the hardness of their hearts: or “the blindness of their hearts”, as the Vulgate Latin, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions render it; being troubled in his human soul, both at their inhumanity and cruelty to a miserable object, whose cure, in their opinion, would have been a breach of the sabbath; and to himself, having a malicious design against him, should he perform it; and at their stupidity and ignorance of the law of God, the nature and design of the sabbath, and of their duty to God, and their fellow creatures: wherefore as one not to be intimidated by their evil designs against him, or prevented thereby from doing good,
he saith unto the man, stretch forth thine hand; that is, the lame one; and such power went along with his words, as at once effected a cure:
and he stretched it out, and his hand was restored whole as the other. This last clause, “whole as the other”, is not in the Vulgate Latin, nor in the Syriac, Arabic, Persic, and Ethiopic versions; and may be added from Mt 12:13; see the note there; since it is wanting in the Alexandrian copy, and in Beza’s most ancient copy, and in others.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
When he had looked round on them with anger ( ‘ ). Mark has a good deal to say about the looks of Jesus with this word (Mark 3:5; Mark 3:34; Mark 5:37; Mark 9:8; Mark 10:23; Mark 11:11) as here. So Luke only once, Lu 6:10. The eyes of Jesus swept the room all round and each rabbinical hypocrite felt the cut of that condemnatory glance. This indignant anger was not inconsistent with the love and pity of Jesus. Murder was in their hearts and Jesus knew it. Anger against wrong as wrong is a sign of moral health (Gould).
Being grieved at the hardness of their hearts ( ). Mark alone gives this point. The anger was tempered by grief (Swete). Jesus is the Man of Sorrows and this present participle brings out the continuous state of grief whereas the momentary angry look is expressed by the aorist participle above. Their own heart or attitude was in a state of moral ossification () like hardened hands or feet. was used of a kind of marble and then of the callus on fractured bones. “They were hardened by previous conceptions against this new truth” (Gould). See also on Mt 12:9-14.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Being grieved [] . Why the compound verb, with the preposition sun, together with? Herodotus (vi., 39) uses the word of condoling with another’s misfortune. Plato (” Republic, “462) says,” When any one of the citizens experiences good or evil, the whole state will either rejoice or sorrow with him [] . The sun therefore implies Christ ‘s condolence with the moral misfortune of these hardhearted ones. Compare the force of con, in condolence. Latin, con, with, dolere, to grieve.
Hardness [] . From pwrov, a kind of marble, and thence used of a callus on fractured bones. Pwrwsiv is originally the process by which the extremities of fractured bones are united by a callus. Hence of callousness, or hardness in general. The word occurs in two other passages in the New Testament, Rom 11:25; Eph 4:18, where the A. V. wrongly renders blindness, following the Vulgate caecitas. It is somewhat strange that it does not adopt that rendering here (Vulgate, caecitate) which is given by both Wyc. and Tynd. The Rev. in all the passages rightly gives hardening, which is better than hardness, because it hints at the process going on. Mark only records Christ ‘s feeling on this occasion.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “And when He had looked round about on them with anger,” (kai periblepsamenos autous mat’ orges) “Ana looking around and upon them intently, with anger,” having made a quick indignant survey of His cynical, skeptical religious foes, His sniping Jewish accusers, on whom He later pronounced woes, Mat 23:13. Because they had no human sympathy for the afflicted one, but were meticulous about the letter of the law.
2) “Being grieved for the hardness of their hearts,” (sullupoumenos epi te porosei tes kardias auton) “Being deeply grieved at the hardness of their hearts,” at the hearts of the skeptic Pharisees. The singular (Gk. kardias) “heart” signifies that their hearts were hardened as “one heart,” of rebellion and unbelief.
3) “He saith unto the man,” (legei to anthropo) “He said directly to the man,” who then stood up before them all in the synagogue with his withered, dried up, paralyzed hand.
4) “Stretch forth thine hand.” (ekteinon ten cheira) “Stretch forth the hand,” raise and extend the hand that is dried up, paralyzed. He couldn’t stretch it out; he never had, but at the word of Jesus he did; See Joh 4:50. Even diseases and afflictions obeyed Jesus.
5) “And he stretched it out:- (kai ekseteinen) “And he extended it,” or stretched it out and away from his body. This was visible evidence of the genuineness of our Lord’s miracle.
6) “And his hand was restored whole as the other.” (kai apekatestathe he cheir autou) “And his hand was restored,” to life, to mobility, to full use fullness, along side the other. This only incited further jealousy, fear, and hatred in the hearts of the Pharisees who “hated Him, (Jesus) without a cause,” Joh 15:25.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Mar 3:5
. And when he had looked around upon them with indignation To convince us that this was a just and holy anger, Mark explains the reason of it to be, that he was grieved on account of the blindness of their hearts. First, then, Christ is grieved, because men who have been instructed in the Law of God are so grossly blind; but as it was malice that blinded them, his grief is accompanied by indignation. This is the true moderation of zeal, to be distressed about the destruction of wicked men, and, at the same time, to be filled with wrath at their ungodliness. Again, as this passage assures us, that Christ was not free from human passions, we infer from it, that the passions themselves are not sinful, provided there be no excess. In consequence of the corruption of our nature, we do not preserve moderation; and our anger, even when it rests on proper grounds, is never free from sin. With Christ the case was different; for not only did his nature retain its original purity, but he was a perfect pattern of righteousness. We ought therefore to implore from heaven the Spirit of God to correct our excesses.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
5. Looked round about on them with anger Before proceeding to the performance of the miracle he makes a full pause as they stand in a silent circle before him. They are fixed in the obdurate silence of hatred. For one moment the Saviour is a Judge. There is one glance of that eye which in the final day will rive his adversaries. Some have wondered that the Lord should be angry. But justice has its rightful wrath for guilt. Right is terribly hostile to wrong. God is angry with the wicked every day. All government as it sits upon the judgment seat has this true wrathful anger. Our Lord looked full upon these malicious beings as they stood using their powers in the cause of evil and consecrating themselves to the eternal service of the devil, and he felt that they were sinners deserving of God’s just judgment. Grieved And so the pure and Holy Spirit of God may be grieved, vexed, made angry, and caused to depart. Sorrow and pity for their wilfulness and their ruin mingles with the stern recognition that they deserve the ruin they incur. Hardness of their hearts A determination to allow no proof to convince and no good to soften them.
Stretch forth thine hand The bodily healings performed by our Lord were ever a symbol of the cures he works as great physician on the fountain malady in the soul sin. Depraved man is withered in every limb of his soul; impotent by fallen nature. Yet just as this man is commanded to put forth his strengthless hand, so is the strengthless soul commanded to put forth a powerful act. How? Because the grace that gives he command therewith supplies the underlying power “to will and to do .” Yet as the man was not made either to will or do the act, as the performance though empowered was not secured, but left to free agency, so does the grace of God simply enable the act, but not absolutely secure its performance.
Whole as the other Both hands testified to the reality of the miracle. But the reality of the miracle is not denied. In the very charge that it is done by diabolical power it is admitted to be done.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And when he had looked round on them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their heart, he says to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And the man stretched it out and his hand was restored.’
‘He — looked round on them with anger.’ Jesus was angry because these men, who considered themselves to be especially devout, were deliberately and arrogantly closing their minds to what, within themselves, they knew to be true. It is one of the specific marks of the depths of man’s sinfulness that he can consider himself devout and yet act wrongly for his own ends, while at the same time convincing himself that what he is doing is justified. For the truth is that man learns to control and quench the niggling of the conscience. We are all good at doing it. And that was what these men were doing. We must beware lest we become like these Pharisees.
But He was also grieved. The word means ‘to mourn with’. There was an element in it of both compassion and grief, and of an awareness of their dreadful condition. He knew that their hearts ‘were hardened’, (or many consider it means ‘were blinded’). And He must have thought, ‘if only these men could allow the barriers they had built around themselves to break down’. But He was beginning to recognise that they were basically unteachable, because the wall that they had built around the Law had been built around their hearts too. And they could no longer be moved. So Jesus was both angry and grieved. Indeed He had a whole mixture of emotions at the situation. He grieved at them and He grieved for them.
‘He says to the man, “Stretch out your hand”.’ Jesus knew exactly what He was doing. He knew what the reaction would be. But He knew that He had to do it, for they were specifically challenging His authority to act as He was doing. They were seeking to make Him bend to the will of the Rabbis and admit that His claims at the previous incident had been excessive. But this He could not do, for He did have God’s authority to question the interpretations of the Rabbis, and He wanted all to know it. (Had He been a fellow Rabbi they might have accepted this argument once he had established a great reputation. But to them He was just an outsider making great and dangerous claims so that His argument was considered not to be worth examining. So He was challenging their authority just as they were challenging His).
‘And his hand was restored.’ Before their very eyes they saw that weakened, withered, pitiful arm become whole. This was a picture of what Jesus could also do for men’s whole being (compare Mar 2:17) and of what He could do for Israel (Joh 15:1-6). Here was the One who had come to restore withered Israel. How then could they still maintain their stubbornness? But they had come knowing that Jesus could heal, and so its message did not get home. In a sense they did not see it. They were concentrating too much on what they were defending to consider the implications of what He had done. They were fighting for their very existence. And so unbelievably they dismissed the clinching argument, and did not even realise it.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mar 3:5. And when he had looked, &c. Our Saviour looked about upon all, in such a manner, as to shew both his indignation at their wickedness, and his grief for their impenitence. He knew that his arguments did not prevail with his enemies present, because they wereresisting the conviction of their own minds; and he was both angry at their obstinacy, and grieved on account of the consequences of it; shewing these just affections of his righteous spirit by his looks, that if possible an impression might be made either on them, or on the spectators. He might in this likewise propose to teach us the just regulation of the passions and affections of our nature, which are not sinful in themselves; otherwise, he who was without sin could not have been subject to them. The evil of them lies in their being excited by wrong objects, or by right objects in an improper degree. “I am resolved,” says Bishop Beveridge, “by the grace of God, so to be angry, as not to sin, and therefore to be angry at nothing but sin.” See his Private Thoughts, 8vo. vol. 1: p. 221. At the same time that Jesus testified his displeasure at the Pharisees, he comforted the infirm man; for he commanded him to stretch out his contracted hand, and with the command communicated power to obey.
In an instant his hand was made sound as the other; so that he stretched it out immediately, in the sight of all present, who thus were eye-witnesses of the miracle. The Evangelists say no more; they leave their readers to imagine the wonder and astonishment of the numerous spectators, and the joy of the man, who had recovered the use of so necessary a member.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
DISCOURSE: 1421
THE MAN WITH THE WITHERED HAND
Mar 3:5-7. And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other. And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him. But Jesus withdrew himself with his Disciples to the sea.
THE exercise of benevolence is, in itself, calculated to excite universal admiration; but it is far from producing that effect on those who are blinded by prejudice or passion. They whose conduct is reproved by it will rather take occasion from it to vent their spleen the more. This our Lord uniformly experienced from the Pharisees. A remarkable instance of it is recorded in the text. Let us,
I.
Consider the circumstances of the miracle
The Pharisees, observing our Lords intention to heal a man who had a withered hand, questioned his right to do so on the Sabbath-day
[Wishing to accuse him of inconsistency, or a contempt of the law, they asked him whether it was lawful to heal on the sabbath-day [Note: Mat 12:10.]? Our Lord shewed them, that it was [Note: Mat 12:11-12.]. He then asked them, Whether, while they condemned him for doing so benevolent an action on the Sabbath, they were more justified in indulging murderous purposes against him on the Sabbath [Note: ver. 4. This seems the true import of this question.]? They, unable to answer except to their own confusion, held their peace. Though convinced of their unreasonableness and impiety, they would not confess it.]
Our Lord beheld their obstinacy with indignation and grief
[Meek as our Lord was, he was susceptible of anger; yet that anger was not like the passion that too often agitates us. It was perfectly just and righteous. Sin was the object against which it was directed; and, while he was angry with the sin, he mourned over the sinner. Hereafter indeed his anger will be unmixed with any pity; but now it is, as ours also should ever be, tempered with compassion towards the offending person.]
Not intimidated by their malice, he proceeded to heal the withered hand
[He bade the man stand forth in the midst of all. Surely such a pitiable object should have engaged all to interest themselves with Christ in his behalf. He then ordered him to stretch forth his hand. The man, notwithstanding he knew his inability to do it of himself, attempted to obey, and, in the attempt, received an instantaneous and perfect cure.]
Having thus more than ever exasperated his enemies, Jesus retired from their rage
[One would have thought that all should have adored the author of such a benefit: but, instead of this, the Pharisees were filled with madness [Note: Luk 6:11.]. Alas! what wickedness is there in the human heart! They joined immediately with the Herodians in a conspiracy against his life [Note: The Herodians and Pharisees differed so widely both in their political and religious sentiments, that they hated each other exceedingly. But what enemies will not unite against Jesus? Luk 23:12.]: but our Lords hour was not yet come; he withdrew therefore from their power, and thus defeated, for the present at least, their efforts against him.]
Having thus touched upon the principal incidents in the miracle, we shall proceed to,
II.
Deduce from it some practical observations
My first observation refers to our blessed Lord who wrought the miracle
[Did our Lord in defiance of the rage of the surrounding Pharisees discharge his office boldly, yet, when he saw their murderous designs, withdraw himself? Then it may be observed, that, though we are never to decline any duty through the fear of man, yet are we at liberty to avoid the storms which we cannot allay.
Nothing is more clear than the duty of dismissing from our hearts altogether the fear of man. Fear not man who can only kill the body; but fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell [Note: Luk 12:4-5. Isa 51:7-8; Isa 51:12-13.] Indeed so obvious is this duty, that it commends itself even to the most prejudiced and embittered mind [Note: Act 4:19; Act 5:29.] Not life itself is to be of any value in our eyes in comparison of a faithful adherence to this principle: we must be ready to lay down our lives for Christs sake, if ever we would be approved of him in the day of judgment [Note: Mat 10:38-39.]
But this does not forbid our prudently withdrawing from scenes of danger, provided we can do it without making any compromise of our fidelity to God. The seventy whom our Lord sent out to preach his Gospel, were told, that, if they were persecuted in one city, they should flee to another [Note: Mat 10:23.]. And St. Paul, when the Jews of Damascus watched the gates night and day in order to destroy him, was let down by the wall in a basket, in order that he might escape their murderous rage [Note: Act 9:23-25.]. On many occasions our Lord himself withdrew from those who sought his life. And when Paul would have gone into the theatre at Ephesus, the Disciples kept him from his purpose, because they knew that he would instantly be put to death by his blood-thirsty enemies [Note: Act 19:30-31.]. The truth is, that life is a talent to be improved for God, and is not to be carelessly thrown away. We must be willing to sacrifice it, if called to do so in the providence of God. Neither a fiery furnace, nor a den of lions must so intimidate us, as to cause any violation of our integrity. But if, consistently with fidelity to God, we may preserve life, our duty is rather to preserve it for God, than to throw it away by a needless exposure of it to dangers which we cannot withstand.]
My next observation relates to him in whom the miracle was wrought
[Did the man with the withered hand, in compliance with the Lords command, stretch out his hand, and in that act experience the healing of it? Then we, however desperate am condition be, should endeavour to execute the commands of God, and in that act expect his blessing on our souls.
Doubtless we are in ourselves as impotent as the man with the withered hand. But are we therefore at liberty to sit still without making any effort to save ourselves? If that man who laboured under a natural infirmity had refused to make the effort which our Lord enjoined, he had in all probability lost the cure which, in making the attempt, he obtained. How much more then shall we be left to rue our folly, if we, whose impotence is only of a moral nature, decline using the means which God has ordained! It is our duty to repent: it is our duty to believe in Christ: it is our duty to surrender up ourselves unreservedly to God. And if, when called to these exertions, we excuse ourselves by saying that we are not able, we shall provoke Almighty God to withhold from us the blessings which we so greatly need, and which he is ever ready to bestow upon us. He has told us, that his Spirit shall help our infirmities. But how will he help us? Not by moving us without any co-operation on our part, but by taking hold of the opposite end of a burthen, and bearing it together with us [Note: Rom 8:26. .]. Very remarkable is that answer which Jehovah gave to his people of old. The Church prayed, Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord. The Lord answered, Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem. Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion [Note: Isa 51:9; Isa 51:17; Isa 52:1.] God does not need our efforts; but he requires them; and when they are put forth in obedience to his commands, and in dependence on his grace, he will perfect his own strength in our weakness.
I call upon you all then to repent of sin, to flee to Christ for refuge from the guilt and power of it, and to consecrate yourselves unreservedly to him. I readily acknowledge, that you are not of yourselves sufficient for these things: but the grace of Christ is, and shall be, sufficient for you, if, in dependence on his promised aid, you will address yourselves to these all-important duties. Be workers together with God; and he will never suffer you to work in vain. I grant, you are asleep; I grant, you are dead: but I say with confidence, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light [Note: Eph 5:14.].]
My last observation is, that if, like this man, you have experienced the mighty working of Christs power, you must, throughout the whole remainder of your lives, shew yourselves living monuments of his power and grace.
[Wherever he went, he was a witness for Christ. And such must you be. You must let it be seen that he both does and will renew the powers of a withered soul, and infuse into it such energies as shall bear the stamp and character of divinity upon them. And one such witness, if he provoke hostility in some, will afford the greatest possible encouragement to others. The Sabbath-day is now the time that our Lord especially selects for the communication of his blessings to the souls of men. But the generality are content with an attendance on outward ordinances, without expecting any peculiar blessing from them. Let it however be seen in you that his word is quick and powerful, and, that to those who receive it aright, it is the power of God to their salvation.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
5 And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
Ver. 5. With anger, being grieved ] A sweet mixture of sinless passions, , simul dolens. It is difficult to kindle and keep quick the fire of zeal without all smoke of sin.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
5. ] , peculiar to Mark.
. probably implies sympathy with their (spiritually) miserable state of hard-heartedness: but see note on Rom 7:22 . On , see note, Eph 4:18 , and Fritzsche on Rom 11:7 .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mar 3:5 . , having made a swift, indignant ( ) survey of His foes. : this present , the previous participle aorist, implying habitual pity for men in such a condition of blindness. This is a true touch of Mk.’s in his portraiture of Christ. : singular, as if the whole class had but one heart, which was the fact so far as the type of heart (hardened) was concerned.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Mark
WORKS WHICH HALLOW THE SABBATH
THE ANGER AND GRIEF OF JESUS
Mar 3:5
Our Lord goes into the synagogue at Capernaum, where He had already wrought more than one miracle, and there He finds an object for His healing power, in a poor man with a withered hand; and also a little knot of His enemies. The scribes and Pharisees expect Christ to heal the man. So much had they learned of His tenderness and of His power.
But their belief that He could work a miracle did not carry them one step towards a recognition of Him as sent by God. They have no eye for the miracle, because they expect that He is going to break the Sabbath. There is nothing so blind as formal religionism. This poor man’s infirmity did not touch their hearts with one little throb of compassion. They had rather that he had gone crippled all his days than that one of their Rabbinical Sabbatarian restrictions should be violated. There is nothing so cruel as formal religionism. They only think that there is a trap laid-and perhaps they had laid it-into which Christ is sure to go.
So, as our Evangelist tells us, they sat there stealthily watching Him out of their cold eyes, whether He would heal on the Sabbath day, that they might accuse Him. Our Lord bids the man stand out into the middle of the little congregation. He obeys, perhaps, with some feeble glimmer of hope playing round his heart. There is a quickened attention in the audience; the enemies are watching Him with gratification, because they hope He is going to do what they think to be a sin.
And then He reduces them all to silence and perplexity by His question-sharp, penetrating, unexpected: ‘Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath day, or to do evil? You are ready to blame Me as breaking your Sabbatarian regulations if I heal this man. What if I do not heal him? Will that be doing nothing? Will not that be a worse breach of the Sabbath day than if I heal him?’
He takes the question altogether out of the region of pedantic Rabbinism, and bases His vindication upon the two great principles that mercy and help hallow any day, and that not to do good when we can is to do harm, and not to save life is to kill.
They are silenced. His arrow touches them; they do not speak because they cannot answer; and they will not yield. There is a struggle going on in them, which Christ sees, and He fixes them with that steadfast look of His; of which our Evangelist is the only one who tells us what it expressed, and by what it was occasioned. ‘He looked round about on them with anger , being grieved .’ Mark the combination of emotions, anger and grief. And mark the reason for both; ‘the hardness,’ or as you will see, if you use the Revised Version, ‘the hardening’ of their hearts-a process which He saw going on before Him as He looked at them.
Now I do not need to follow the rest of the story, how He turns away from them because He will not waste any more words on them, else He had done more harm than good. He heals the man. They hurry from the synagogue to prove their zeal for the sanctifying of the Sabbath day by hatching a plot on it for murdering Him. I leave all that, and turn to the thoughts suggested by this look of Christ as explained by the Evangelist.
I. Consider then, first, the solemn fact of Christ’s anger.
Christ’s anger was part of the perfection of His manhood. The man that cannot be angry at evil lacks enthusiasm for good. The nature that is incapable of being touched with generous and righteous indignation is so, generally, either because it lacks fire and emotion altogether, or because its vigour has been dissolved into a lazy indifference and easy good nature which it mistakes for love. Better the heat of the tropics, though sometimes the thunderstorms may gather, than the white calmness of the frozen poles. Anger is not weakness, but it is strength, if there be these three conditions, if it be evoked by a righteous and unselfish cause, if it be kept under rigid control, and if there be nothing in it of malice, even when it prompts to punishment. Anger is just and right when it is not produced by the mere friction of personal irritation like electricity by rubbing, but is excited by the contemplation of evil. It is part of the marks of a good man that he kindles into wrath when he sees ‘the oppressor’s wrong.’ If you went out hence to-night, and saw some drunken ruffian beating his wife or ill-using his child, would you not do well to be angry? And when nations have risen up, as our own nation did seventy years ago in a paroxysm of righteous indignation, and vowed that British soil should no more bear the devilish abomination of slavery, was there nothing good and great in that wrath? So it is one of the strengths of man that he shall be able to glow with indignation at evil.
Only all such emotion must be kept well in hand must never be suffered to degenerate into passion. Passion is always weak, emotion is an element of strength.
‘The gods approve
The depth and not the tumult of the soul.’
The other condition that makes wrath righteous and essential to the perfection of a man, is that there shall be in it no taint of malice. Anger may impel to punish and not be malicious, if its reason for punishment is the passionless impulse of justice or the reformation of the wrong-doer. Then it is pure and true and good. Such wrath is a part of the perfection of humanity, and such wrath was in Jesus Christ.
But, still further, Christ’s anger was part of His revelation of God. What belongs to perfect man belongs to God in whose image man was made. People are very often afraid of attributing to the divine nature that emotion of wrath, very unnecessarily, I think, and to the detriment of all their conceptions of the divine nature.
There is no reason why we should not ascribe emotion to Him. Passions God has not; emotions the Bible represents Him as having. The god of the philosopher has none. He is a cold, impassive Somewhat, more like a block of ice than a god. But the God of the Bible has a heart that can be touched, and is capable of something like what we call in ourselves emotion. And if we rightly think of God as Love, there is no more reason why we should not think of God as having the other emotion of wrath; for as I have shown you, there is nothing in wrath itself which is derogatory to the perfection of the loftiest spiritual nature. In God’s anger there is no self-regarding irritation, no passion, no malice. It is the necessary displeasure and aversion of infinite purity at the sight of man’s impurity. God’s anger is His love thrown back upon itself from unreceptive and unloving hearts. Just as a wave that would roll in smooth, unbroken, green beauty into the open door of some sea-cave is dashed back in spray and foam from some grim rock, so the love of God, meeting the unloving heart that rejects it, and the purity of God meeting the impurity of man, necessarily become that solemn reality, the wrath of the most high God. ‘A God all mercy were a God unjust.’ The judge is condemned when the culprit is acquitted; and he that strikes out of the divine nature the capacity for anger against sin, little as he thinks it, is degrading the righteousness and diminishing the love of God.
Oh, dear brethren, I beseech you do not let any easygoing gospel that has nothing to say to you about God’s necessary aversion from, and displeasure with, and chastisement of, your sins and mine, draw you away from the solemn and wholesome belief that there is that in God which must hate and war against and chastise our evil, and that if there were not, He would be neither worth loving nor worth trusting. And His Son, in His tears and in His tenderness, which were habitual, and also in that lightning flash which once shot across the sky of His nature, was revealing Him to us. The Gospel is not only the revelation of God’s righteousness for faith, but is also ‘the revelation of His wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.’
‘It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.’ The ox, with the yoke on his neck, lashes out with his obstinate heels against the driver’s goad. He does not break the goad, but only embrues his own limbs. Do not you do that!
II. And now, once more, let me ask you to look at the compassion which goes with our Lord’s anger here; ‘being grieved at the hardness of their hearts.’
He looked upon these scribes and Pharisees sitting there with hatred in their eyes; and two emotions, which many men suppose as discrepant and incongruous as fire and water, rose together in His heart: wrath, which fell on the evil; sorrow, which bedewed the doers of it. The anger was for the hardening, the compassion was for the hardeners.
If there be this blending of wrath and sorrow, the combination takes away from the anger all possibility of an admixture of these questionable ingredients, which mar human wrath, and make men shrink from attributing so turbid and impure an emotion to God. It is an anger which lies harmoniously in the heart side by side with the tenderest pity-the truest, deepest sorrow.
Again, if Christ’s sorrow flowed out thus along with His anger when He looked upon men’s evil, then we understand in how tragic a sense He was ‘a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.’ The pain and the burden and the misery of His earthly life had no selfish basis. They were not like the pain and the burdens and the misery that so many of us howl out so loudly about, arising from causes affecting ourselves. But for Him-with His perfect purity, with His deep compassion, with His heart that was the most sensitive heart that ever beat in a human breast, because it was the only perfectly pure one that ever beat there-for Him to go amongst men was to be wounded and bruised and hacked by the sharp swords of their sins.
Everything that He touched burned that pure nature, which was sensitive to evil, like an infant’s hand to hot iron. His sorrow and His anger were the two sides of the medal. His feelings in looking on sin were like a piece of woven stuff with a pattern on either side, on one the fiery threads-the wrath; on the other the silvery tints of sympathetic pity. A warp of wrath, a woof of sorrow, dew and flame married and knit together.
And may we not draw from this same combination of these two apparently discordant emotions in our Lord, the lesson of what it is in men that makes them the true subjects of pity? Ay, these scribes and Pharisees had very little notion that there was anything about them to compassionate. But the thing which in the sight of God makes the true evil of men’s condition is not their circumstances but their sins. The one thing to weep for when we look at the world is not its misfortunes, but its wickedness. Ah! brother, that is the misery of miseries; that is the one thing worth crying about in our own lives, or in anybody else’s. From this combination of indignation and pity, we may learn how we should look upon evil. Men are divided into two classes in their way of looking at wickedness in this world. One set are rigid and stern, and crackling into wrath; the other set placid and good-natured, and ready to weep over it as a misfortune and a calamity, but afraid or unwilling to say: ‘These poor creatures are to be blamed as well as pitied.’ It is of prime importance that we all should try to take both points of view, looking on sin as a thing to be frowned at, but also looking on it as a thing to be wept over; and to regard evil-doers as persons that deserve to be blamed and to be chastised, and made to feel the bitterness of their evil, and not to interfere too much with the salutary laws that bring down sorrow upon men’s heads if they have been doing wrong, but, on the other hand, to take care that our sense of justice does not swallow up the compassion that weeps for the criminal as an object of pity. Public opinion and legislation swing from the one extreme to the other. We have to make an effort to keep in the centre, and never to look round in anger, unsoftened by pity, nor in pity, enfeebled by being separated from righteous indignation.
III. Let me now deal briefly with the last point that is here, namely, the occasion for both the sorrow and the anger, ‘Being grieved at the hardening of the hearts.’
And what was hardening their hearts? It was He. Why were their hearts being hardened? Because they were looking at Him, His graciousness, His goodness, and His power, and were steeling themselves against Him, opposing to His grace and tenderness their own obstinate determination. Some little gleams of light were coming in at their windows, and they clapped the shutters up. Some tones of His voice were coming into their ears, and they stuffed their fingers into them. They half felt that if they let themselves be influenced by Him it was all over, and so they set their teeth and steadied themselves in their antagonism.
And that is what some of you are doing now. Jesus Christ is never preached to you, even although it is as imperfectly as I do it, but that you either gather yourselves into an attitude of resistance, or, at least, of mere indifference till the flow of the sermon’s words is done; or else open your hearts to His mercy and His grace.
Oh, dear brethren, will you take this lesson of the last part of my text, that nothing so tends to harden a man’s heart to the gospel of Jesus Christ as religious formalism? If Jesus Christ were to come in here now, and stand where I am standing, and look round about upon this congregation, I wonder how many a highly respectable and perfectly proper man and woman, church and chapel-goer, who keeps the Sabbath day, He would find on whom He had to look with grief not unmingled with anger, because they were hardening their hearts against Him now. I am sure there are some of such among my present audience. I am sure there are some of you about whom it is true that ‘the publicans and the harlots will go into the Kingdom of God before you,’ because in their degradation they may be nearer the lowly penitence and the consciousness of their own misery and need, which will open their eyes to see the beauty and the preciousness of Jesus Christ.
Dear brother, let no reliance upon any external attention to religious ordinances; no interest, born of long habit of hearing sermons; no trust in the fact of your being communicants, blind you to this, that all these things may come between you and your Saviour, and so may take you away into the outermost darkness.
Dear brother or sister, you are a sinner. ‘The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, thou hast not glorified.’ You have forgotten Him; you have lived to please yourselves. I charge you with nothing criminal, with nothing gross or sensual; I know nothing about you in such matters; but I know this-that you have a heart like mine, that we have all of us the one character, and that we all need the one gospel of that Saviour ‘who bare our sins in His own body on the tree,’ and died that whosoever trusts in Him may live here and yonder. I beseech you, harden not your hearts, but to-day hear His voice, and remember the solemn words which not I, but the Apostle of Love, has spoken: ‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth upon him.’ Flee to that sorrowing and dying Saviour, and take the cleansing which He gives, that you may be safe on the sure foundation when God shall arise to do His strange work of judgment, and may never know the awful meaning of that solemn word-’the wrath of the Lamb.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
looked round. Noting the minutest action of Jehovah’s Servant.
with, Greek. meta. App-104.,
being grieved. Implying sadness accompanying the anger. A Divine supplement, here.
for = at. Greek. epi. App-104.
hardness = hardening. Greek porosis. Oce. only here, Rom 11:25, and Eph 4:18,
other. Greek. allos. App-124.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
5.] , peculiar to Mark.
. probably implies sympathy with their (spiritually) miserable state of hard-heartedness: but see note on Rom 7:22. On , see note, Eph 4:18, and Fritzsche on Rom 11:7.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mar 3:5. , looking round) The expressions of Christs countenance teach us many lessons, Mar 3:34 [comp. ch. Mar 10:21; Mar 10:27].-, being grieved) In the case of the Pharisees, their grief was malignant; Jesus grieves with holy affection, individually for individuals. Along with His just grief was combined just anger; see note Mar 3:2.-, the hardness) The habitual disposition of the heart renders the perception of the truth, and of its conclusions, either difficult or easy.-, hardness, which destroys the use of the senses, for instance, the sight and the touch. It is blindness, not to sec; hardness, not to perceive; Joh 12:40.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
with anger: With anger at their desperate malice and wickedness, and with commiseration for the calamities which they would thereby bring on themselves. Luk 6:10, Luk 13:15, Eph 4:26, Rev 6:16
grieved: Gen 6:6, Jdg 10:16, Neh 13:8, Psa 95:10, Isa 63:9, Isa 63:10, Luk 19:40-44, Eph 4:30, Heb 3:10, Heb 3:17
hardness: or, blindness, Isa 6:9, Isa 6:10, Isa 42:18-20, Isa 44:18-20, Mat 13:14, Mat 13:15, Rom 11:7-10, Rom 11:25, 2Co 3:14, Eph 4:18
Stretch: 1Ki 13:6, Mat 12:13, Luk 6:10, Luk 17:14, Joh 5:8, Joh 5:9, Joh 9:7, Heb 5:9
Reciprocal: Gen 30:2 – anger Gen 31:36 – was wroth Exo 11:8 – a great anger Exo 16:20 – and Moses Exo 32:19 – anger Lev 10:16 – angry Num 11:10 – Moses Num 16:15 – very wroth 1Sa 11:6 – his anger 1Sa 20:34 – he was grieved 2Ki 13:19 – was wroth Neh 5:6 – General Job 32:2 – kindled Psa 119:158 – General Psa 139:21 – and am not Mat 18:31 – they Mar 6:52 – their Mar 8:12 – he sighed Mar 8:17 – perceive Mar 8:33 – turned Mar 10:14 – he was Mar 10:23 – looked Luk 20:17 – beheld Joh 11:33 – he groaned Joh 13:21 – he was Act 13:9 – set Act 17:16 – his spirit 1Co 13:5 – is not 2Co 7:11 – indignation
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE ANGER OF CHRIST
And Be looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts.
Mar 3:5
Marks narrative has many notices, not only of what Jesus said, but also of how He looked, or what He felt in saying ittouches that irresistibly suggest impressions made on an eyewitness. Here we have one. It pained Him to be angry, albeit with a wholly righteous anger.
1. How was this anger roused?The Pharisees had been attacking Christ, through His disciples, for non-observance of the Sabbath, and in the case of the man with the withered hand, He challenged them with the question, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day? But they kept silencea silence partly of shame and inability to answer, but more perhaps of calculated subtlety; they would lie low and let our Lord commit Himself. Then He looked round in anger, grieved for their hardness of heart, and by one short, sharp utterance rent all their subtle toils. Any touch would have been a work, a formal infraction of the law; therefore there is no touch, neither is the helpless man bidden to take up any burden, or instigated to the slightest ritual irregularity. Jesus only bids him to do what was forbidden to none (Bishop Chadwick). No wonder they were filled with madness and foolishness, and actually took counsel with their old enemies, the Herodians, how they might put Him to death.
II. How far does anger at evil cause any grief to our souls?Those, says Archbishop Trench, whom the truth mightily takes hold of, who are content to be fools for Christ, who would be content to be martyrs for Christ, who love the good with a passionate love, who hate the evil with a passionate hatred, are few: while yet it should be thus with all. Is the sin which is in the world around us a burden to our souls and spirits? When we look abroad on the world and see the works done against the words of Gods lips, does this fill us with any heaviness, with any indignation? Is it any part of the burden of our hearts, the sorrow of our lives? Or do we rather feel that if we can get pretty comfortably through life, and if other mens sins do not seriously vex, cross, inconvenience or damage us, they are no great concern of ours, nothing which it is any business of ours to fight against?
III. What is there in us akin to the Pharisees meanness that stirred our Saviours wrath?They were ruffled at being reproved and worsted in argument. Their own little grievance filled all the foreground of their view; they wanted to avenge it. When unclouded and unbiassed they may have been individually kindly gentlemen. But they had no eye to human misery because they were preoccupied with petty pride; that sometimes happens to ourselves. We miss a good many clear opportunities of well-doing, because we are concerned about our dignity more than about the needs of other men. And do we never sneer at goodness displayed on lines that differ from our own? Are we not just a little pleased to find weak points in it, something at least that will prevent its seeming to entirely eclipse our own?
Rev. H. A. Birks.
Illustration
Let us seek grace that the emotion of anger in our breasts may more closely assimilate with the emotion of anger in Christsa holy anger against sin, blended with a loving, yearning compassion for the sinner. Such is the Divine precept: Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath (Eph 4:26). When this emotion springs from zeal for God, His truth, and worship, and glory, and when it prompts us to seek, in the spirit of meekness, humility, and love, the good of those whose conduct we condemn, it then becomes in us what it was in Christ, a holy, amiable, God-honouring emotion, unmixed with sin and self, and throwing no shadow of sadness upon the mellow light of evening, when the sun goes down at the hour of prayer. If, on the contrary, you find this emotion rising in your bosoms, in its sinful, fleshly, and corrupt form, lose not a moment in bringing it to the Cross, that by the love, the sufferings, the last prayer for the forgiveness of injury of Him who died upon its wood, that species of anger which dwells alone in the bosom of fools, may be crucified and slain in you. Seek not mercy from thy fellows, and ask not for forgiveness from thy Father, whilst unholy anger against a brother or a sister finds a moments lodgment in thy heart.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
5
Another word in Thayer’s definition of the Greek for anger is “indignation,” and it means that Jesus was greatly agitated over the hardness of their hearts. However, it did not keep him from performing the good deed for the man. He was told to stretch forth his hand which shows that his arm was not affected. As soon as he stretched forth his hand it was cured without any bodily contact from Jesus that we know of.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mar 3:5. And he looked round about on them. So Luke, who adds all, implying that He took a formal survey of those in the synagogue.
With anger. A holy indignation, mentioned by Mark alone, and no doubt expressed in His look.
Being grieved for the hardening of their hearts. The original implies a compassionate sympathy for their spiritual insensibility. These two feelings, usually excluding each other, are here combined. In this, Christ manifests the character of God as Holy Love,His anger was the result of holiness, His compassion of love. This character is revealed in the Bible alone. Of themselves men discover either Gods anger, forgetting His love, or His mercy, forgetting His holiness. So, too, they are usually angry without compassion, or compassionate without being just. Hardening is preferable to hardness, since the original suggests a process as well as a result. This process was going on as the effect of their opposition to Him, and as a punishment for this sin against privilege. For it man is responsible, and it can put men beyond the reach of the Saviours compassion. Not that anything is too hard for Him, but He never saves us against our will.On the cure, see Mat 12:13.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe here, 1. The Pharisees’ sinful and graceless disposition, and that was hardness of heart. The heart of man is naturally hard, and full of obstinacy and enmity against Christ: but there is an acquired hardness, which continuance in sin occasions; the Pharisees laboured under both.
Observe, 2. A double affection which this hardness of heart found in the Pharisees did stir up in Christ: namely, anger and indignation, grief and commiseration: He was grieved for the hardness of their hearts.
Learn hence, 1. That human passions are not sinful, and that the christian religion doth not destroy natural affections.
2. That anger at sin, either in ourselves or others, if kept within its due bounds, is not only lawful but commendable. This passion of anger was found in him, in whom was no sin.
3. That our anger against sin ought to be accompanied with grief and compassion towards sinners. We should pour out our tears of compassion, when men pour forth their abominations.
4. That all sins, hardness of heart and unbelief are most grievous and offensive, nost displeasing and provoking to Jesus Christ: He looked about with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts.
Obsreve, 3. The sudden aned instantaneous cure which our Saviour wrought upon the man that had the withered hand: our Saviour did not touch him, but only said to him, Stretch forth thy hand, and it was presently cured.
Learn hence, That Christ’s having absolute power over all bodily diseases and infirmities to cure them miraculously without means, only by a word speaking, is one argument that proves him to be truly and really God.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Verse 5
With anger; with an expression of displeasure upon his countenance.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
Mar 3:5 And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other. 6 And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.
We see in this passage that Christ “looked round about on them with anger.” Do not take this for more than it is. He did not strike out in anger. He did not attack them verbally in anger. He “looked” at them in anger. WHOOPS! Bet some of them had a few shivers in their beings.
I can’t really imagine what Christ looked like, but to imagine him looking in anger – not sure I want to know what that looked like.
Anger is a topic that needs to be covered in our day. Many people are angry and their anger is just below the surface waiting to lash out against anyone or thing that is near to set it off. Recently Dr. David Jeremiah on his television program explained that Christ’s anger (not in this context, but when he cleansed the temple) was different than our anger. He explained, and correctly so, that our anger is usually due to someone doing something to us or to our belongings. In Christ’s case it was anger due to their misuse of God’s things and being an affront to God. I think this is probably a true analysis of the difference, though in this case there is a difference stated. This difference may have been part of Christ’s anger in the temple as well. The next phrase modifies the anger phrase. “Being grieved for the hardness of their hearts” tells the reader where the anger came from. It was based on His grief, at their hardness toward God.
The term translated “anger” is a general word normally translated anger, but can indicate any violent emotion and it is a strong word that is translated vengeance as well as anger, wrath, and indignation. The point however is that it was simply a look, not an outward verbal or physical out working.
The attitude of the leaders was a total affront to Christ and Who He was, yet His anger wasfueled from their hard heart.
Now let us get back to anger and the average Christian. It isn’t Christian and we all know it, and don’t relate the explosion at the wheel over the stupid idiot that cut you off to Christ’s anger. Our anger is that which Dr. Jeremiah pointed out, our anger against someone that does something against us or our toys – not the Christian attitude.
There is another point to this anger. The “look with anger” was an aorist tense or a momentary thing, yet his being grieved is a present tense, or a continuing thing. I would think that this gives insight into God’s justice and compassion. His concern for His creation is ongoing and never ending. He seems to grieve when the lost refuse Him yet He is longsuffering with them and gives them every opportunity to come to Him.
Constable points out that Mark is the only Gospel writer that mentions this “anger” and “grieving” of the Lord thus pointing out to his readers the complete manhood of the Lord. His emotions were as ours, except He successfully controlled His with the assistance of the Holy Spirit – as we ought, it might be added.
Matthew adds that the Scribes and Pharisees asked the Lord if it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath and further adds that they wanted to accuse him. Not nice folks. Luke adds as a doctor would that the man’s RIGHT hand was the one that was withered.
Matthew also records that Jesus asked the leaders if they had a sheep fall into a pit if they would not rescue it. He also told them that a man was of much more value than a sheep. I do think that Christ answers the environmentalist that submits that man is the same as the animals. The environmentalist is incorrect.
Luke mentions that the leaders went away in “madness” trying to figure out how to do the Lord in.
Again we see the Lord heal and none of that partial stuff, He healed the man “whole.” What a wonderful experience for the man. I’m sure it was hard to make a living with only one hand and to know that your physical life had been changed in an instant. His mind must have been in a total mess. He had gotten up in the morning to the same drudgery of life and along comes this Jesus to mess up his whole day – his heart must have been full of joy and his head full of questions.
Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson
3:5 And when he had looked round about on them {c} with anger, being grieved for the {d} hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched [it] out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
(c) Men are angry when they have wrong done to them, but not without sin: but Christ is angry without sin, and he is not sorry for the injury that is done to him as much as he is for their wickedness; and therefore he had pity upon them, and because of that he is said to have been grieved.
(d) As though their heart had been closed up and had grown together, so that wholesome doctrine had no effect upon them.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Vainly Jesus "looked around" for someone who would respond to His question (cf. Mar 3:34; Mar 5:32; Mar 10:23; Mar 11:11). This expression is unique to the second Gospel. Evidently Peter remembered Jesus’ looks around and communicated these to Mark as significant indications of His looking for the proper response from people.
This is the only place in the New Testament where a writer explicitly stated that Jesus was angry. This was a case of righteous indignation in the presence of unrepentant evil. This is also the only account of this miracle that records Jesus’ compassion for the objects of His anger. The tenses of the Greek verbs indicate that Jesus was angry momentarily (aorist tense), but His attitude of compassion was persistent (present tense). References to Jesus’ emotions are peculiar to Mark’s Gospel. They show His humanity.
"Jesus’ action was perfectly consistent with His love and mercy. As a true man, Jesus experienced normal human emotions, among them anger as well as grief at obstinate sin. In His reaction to the sullen refusal of the Pharisees to respond to the truth, the incarnate Christ revealed the character of our holy God." [Note: Hiebert, p. 81.]
"Their opposition rested on a fundamental misunderstanding-an inability, or refusal, to see that Jesus was God’s eschatological agent and that his sovereign freedom with regard to law and custom sprang from that fact." [Note: D. E. Nineham, Saint Mark, p. 110.]
Since Jesus did not use anything but His word to heal the man, His enemies could not charge Him with performing work on the Sabbath. Jesus’ beneficent creative work on this occasion recalls His work in creating the cosmos (Genesis 1). The Pharisees should have made the connection and worshipped Jesus as God.
"Thus when Jesus as Son of Man declares himself to be master of the Sabbath . . . he presumes the very authority by which the Sabbath was instituted by the Creator.
"This sovereign disposition toward the Sabbath is typical of Jesus’ challenges to the rabbinic tradition as a whole. Such challenges are found primarily at the outset and conclusion of Mark, as if to signify that from beginning to end the antidote to the ’leaven of the Pharisees’ (Mar 8:15) is the exousia [authority] of Jesus. He violates laws of purity by touching and cleansing a leper (Mar 1:40-45) and by association with sinners and tax collectors (Mar 2:13-17). He places in question the issue of purification by violating food prohibitions in fasting (Mar 2:18-22) and by eating with unwashed hands (Mar 7:1-23). He contravenes marriage laws in his teaching on divorce (Mar 10:1-12), and he openly denounces the scribes (Mar 12:38-40). In the question on the son of David he tacitly assumes supremacy over Israel’s greatest king who, according to 2Sa 7:14, would be the progenitor of the Messiah (Mar 12:35-37)." [Note: Edwards, p. 225.]