Mark · Doctrine · Featured Study
Tell No One
In Mark, Jesus orders demons, the healed and his own disciples to be silent about him, until he answers the high priest under oath at his trial.
Mark tells you who Jesus is in his first sentence. Then, for fifteen chapters, Jesus works to keep it quiet, muzzling demons, charging healed men to say nothing and forbidding his disciples to repeat their confession. Meanwhile every crowd in the book keeps asking who then is this? The silence breaks once, under oath at his trial, when the answer can no longer be taken for the promise of a throne.
Gustave Doré, The Transfiguration, 1866. Public domain.
Summary
Mark shows Jesus silencing demons, healed people and disciples who name him correctly, while the crowds go on asking who he is.
- Mark records nine silencings to three audiences, demons, the healed and the disciples, and the reason for the silence changes with each.
- One man, delivered from Legion in Gentile country, is sent home to tell what was done for him, because no one there was waiting for a Messiah to misread.
- Two readings explain the pattern: William Wrede's view (1901) that the early church invented the silence, and the older view that Jesus himself controlled the timing.
- The silence ends at his trial, when Jesus answers the high priest's direct question under oath, and at the cross a centurion is the first person in Mark to confess him without being silenced.
The Ledger of Silencings
Nine commands from 1:25 to 9:9, sorted by audience
Demons are the only characters in Mark who name him correctly every time, and theirs is the testimony Jesus refuses.
| The unclean spirits | Who | What they knew | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mark 1:25 | The demoniac in the Capernaum synagogue | He calls Jesus the Holy One of God, an exact name shouted in public worship. | Jesus orders him to be silent and to come out of the man, in one command. |
| Mark 1:34 | The demons cast out at Simon's door, at sundown | Mark gives the reason in the same verse: they knew who he was. | Mark states the policy here for the first time. |
| Mark 3:11–12 | The unclean spirits falling before him by the sea | They call him the Son of God, the Gospel's own title in the wrong mouth. | He warns them sternly not to make him known. |
A healer who draws crowds cannot move, teach or reach the next town, as Mark says at 1:45.
| The healed | Who | What they knew | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mark 1:44 | The cleansed leper | That Jesus was willing, and able, to do what only God does for leprosy | He is sent to the priest for the certification the Law requires. He tells everyone instead, and Jesus can no longer enter a town openly (1:45). |
| Mark 5:43 | Jairus, his wife, and the inner three | That a twelve-year-old had been dead and was walking | Jesus orders strictly that no one should know, and then tells them to give her something to eat. |
| Mark 7:36 | The crowd around the deaf man with the impeded tongue | That Isaiah 35's sign of the messianic age had just happened in front of them | The more he orders them to be silent, the more widely they proclaim it. |
| Mark 8:26 | The blind man of Bethsaida, healed in two stages | That sight had come to him in stages, men like trees before men like men | Jesus sends him home and tells him to keep out of the village, which removes him from the audience. |
What the disciples know is true, so the reason for their silence is its timing.
| The disciples | Who | What they knew | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mark 8:30 | The Twelve, at Caesarea Philippi | That he is the Christ, as Peter has just confessed | They are told to tell no one, and in the next verse he begins to teach that the Son of Man must suffer and be killed. The order and the new meaning arrive together. |
| Mark 9:9 | Peter, James and John, coming down the mountain | That they had seen his glory unveiled, with Moses and Elijah, and heard the Father's voice | This silence has an end date, the rising of the Son of Man from the dead. It is the only command in Mark that names when the silence ends. |
The One Loud Exception
Mark 5:19–20, in the Decapolis
But Jesus would not allow him. “Go home to your own people,” He said, “and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy He has shown you.” So the man went away and began to proclaim throughout the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And everyone was amazed.The man delivered from Legion had broken every chain put on him, and he is the one man in Mark whom Jesus sends out to speak. He asks to go with Jesus, and Jesus sends him home instead.
The difference is the ground he is standing on. This is the Decapolis, Gentile country, with no messianic hope to inflame and no crowd waiting to crown a national deliverer, so the news has no false meaning to attach to.
And so, on the far side of the lake, this man is the first missionary in Mark.
The Question Nobody Can Stop Asking
Eight questions about who he is, from 1:27 to 14:61
All the people were amazed and began to ask one another, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him!”The Capernaum synagogue asks it first.
Overwhelmed with fear, they asked one another, “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”The disciples ask it in the boat.
Worshippers, scribes, disciples, his hometown, a king's court and the high priest each ask or answer it.
| Verse | Who asks | What the question shows |
|---|---|---|
| Mark 1:27 | The Capernaum synagogue | The first to ask are the worshippers, amazed at a new teaching with authority. |
| Mark 2:7 | The scribes | They ask who can forgive sins but God alone. Their charge of blasphemy is, without their knowing it, the right answer. |
| Mark 4:41 | The disciples, in the boat | They ask who this is, that even the wind and the sea obey him. |
| Mark 6:2–3 | Nazareth | They ask where he got these things and call him the carpenter. The hometown answers wrongly, and the miracles thin out. |
| Mark 6:14–16 | Herod's court | The court names John raised from the dead, Elijah or a prophet, and Herod settles on the man he killed. |
| Mark 8:29 | Peter | Peter answers that he is the Christ. He is right, and the answer is placed under silence at once. |
| Mark 11:28 | The temple authorities | They ask by what authority he does these things. It is the exousia question, asked at last by the men who claim to hold it. |
| Mark 14:61–62 | The high priest | He asks whether Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One, and this time no order to keep quiet follows. |
Mark 11:28, Mark 14:61–62
The Keynote Words
Three Greek words the pattern runs on
They name the authority the crowds see, the tearing that opens and ends the secret, and the gospel Mark announces in his first line.
| Greek | Transliteration | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ἐξουσία | exousia | Authority, what astonishes the crowd (1:22, 27) and what the temple finally demands he account for (11:28) |
| σχίζω | schizō | To tear, used of the heavens at the baptism (1:10) and of the veil at the death (15:38), the secret's opening and its end |
| εὐαγγέλιον | euangelion | Gospel, the announcement Mark makes in his first line (1:1) |
The Voices
Five teachers on the commands to silence
The five wrote from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first.
| Voice | Era | Work | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| John Wesley | 1755 · public domain | Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, on Mark 5:43 | Wesley gives the timing argument in brief. The charge to tell no one holds because the time for his death, and for the full showing of his glory, had not yet come. |
| Matthew Henry | 1710 · public domain | Commentary on the Whole Bible, on Mark 1:44 and 7:36 | Henry reads the charge to the healed as self-denial. On the cleansed leper at 1:44 he ties it to the Servant of Isaiah 42:2. On 7:36 he writes that Christ was in no danger of pride himself and set an example for those who are. |
| J.C. Ryle | 1857 · public domain | Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Mark | Ryle turns this material on the reader. The disciples' slowness to grasp a suffering Messiah is the lasting difficulty of a gospel that puts a cross before a crown. |
| Chuck Missler | modern · cited | Learn the Bible in 24 Hours (2002) and the KHouse Mark series | Missler reads the withheld title as part of the canon's integrated design, a Messiah disclosed on a schedule, as the Old Testament discloses him step by step. |
| Derek Prince | modern · cited | They Shall Expel Demons (1998) | Prince's point is that knowing correct doctrine differs from submitting to it. The spirits in Mark know exactly who Jesus is and are still cast out. |
died 253 · Origen of Alexandria
Catena Aurea by Aquinas
Origen, Matthew Henry and John Gill in their own words
The quotation1 quotation
“(in Matt. tom. xii. 43) After the showing of the mystery on the mount, the Lord commanded His disciples, as they were coming down from the mount, not to reveal His transfiguration, before the glory of His Passion and Resurrection; wherefore it is said, And as they came down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead.”
Origen of Alexandria · Catena Aurea by Aquinas · on Mark 9:9Patristic
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Commentary on the Whole Bible
The quotation1 quotation
“Most men will proclaim their own goodness, or, at least, desire that others should proclaim it; but Christ, though he was himself in no danger of being puffed up with it, knowing that we are, would thus set us an example of self-denial, as in other things, so especially in praise and applause.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Mark 7:36Puritan
1697 to 1771 · John Gill
Exposition of the New Testament (1746-1748)
The quotation1 quotation
“And Jesus said, I am,.... That is, the Son of God; in proof of which he adds, and ye shall see the son of man sitting on the right hand of power; that is, of God, who is all power, the Lord God Almighty: and coming in the clouds of heaven; either at the destruction of Jerusalem, or at the last day, referring to the prophecy in Dan 7:13; See Gill on Mat 26:64.”
John Gill · Exposition of the New Testament (1746-1748) · on Mark 14:62Reformed
Why the Secret?
Two readings, Wrede's thesis of 1901 and Jesus' own timing
William Wrede's reading, a literary device1 work, 1901
In Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien (1901), Wrede argued that Jesus never claimed to be Messiah during his ministry. On his reading the early church, which believed he was the Messiah, had to explain why the tradition it inherited held so little of that claim. The secrecy commands are that explanation, a theological device set into the story to account for why almost nobody recognized him at the time. Mark itself shows that most of the people around Jesus missed who he was, and that is the fact Wrede set out to explain.
The traditional reading, Jesus' own control of the disclosure1 quotation, John Wesley
On this reading the commands are Jesus' own control of when and how his identity was disclosed. A suffering Messiah announced as the popular conquering king would have been misunderstood, until the cross had given the title its meaning. Those who hold this reading give two reasons against Wrede. Peter's confession at 8:29 is true and is corrected anyway, which is what a problem of timing looks like. And the pattern carries its own exception at 5:19, the man sent home to tell.
“He charged them that no man should know it - That he might avoid every appearance of vain glory, might prevent too great a concourse of people, and might not further enrage the scribes and Pharisees against him; the time for his death, and for the full manifestation of his glory, being not yet come.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament · on Mark 5:43Evangelical
Broken Open
Mark 14:62, 15:38–39 and 16:7
But Jesus remained silent and made no reply. Again the high priest questioned Him, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”The high priest asks the question for the last time.
“I am,” said Jesus, “and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.”Jesus gives this answer to the high priest under oath.
WHY NOW
He is bound, deserted and hours from execution, with no throne for a crowd to seize, so the title can no longer be taken to mean a conquering king.
WHAT HE CLAIMS
He joins two texts in one answer, Daniel 7's Son of Man coming with the clouds and the seat at the right hand from Psalm 110.
WHAT IT COSTS
The high priest tears his clothes and the council condemns him. The answer brings his death, and his death is what makes it safe to give.
Two events at his death end what the secret held back.
| Verse | What happens | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Mark 15:38 | The veil torn | The concealment ends in the temple as well as in words, with the verb Mark used of the heavens at the baptism. |
| Mark 15:39 | The centurion | A Gentile soldier who watched how he died says what the demons were silenced for saying. His is the first human confession in Mark that no one silences. |
As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus admonished them not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.At 16:6 the women at the tomb are told that he has risen, the day this command waited for.
At 8:29 Jesus asked the Twelve who they said he was, and at his trial he gave the answer himself.
After the resurrection the angel sends the word to the disciples and to Peter, the disciple who denied him, and the question of 8:29 now stands before every reader of the Gospel.
But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him, just as He told you.’”The women at the empty tomb receive this command.
Mark 9:9, Mark 16:7
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- William Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien, 1901.
- Origen, in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea, on Mark 9:9.
- John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Homily 57, on Matthew 17:9, the parallel to Mark 9:9.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on Mark 1:44 and 7:36.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, on Mark 5:43.
- John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament (1746-1748), on Mark 14:62.
- Gustave Doré, The Transfiguration, from Doré's English Bible, 1866, public domain.
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