GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 9-1
The Kingdom of God Coming With Power
The question is often asked, “How do you see this?” or “How do you stand on this?” Teachers often elicit from students their understanding of a subject by turning a question back to them, asking, “Well, what do you think about this?” or by using some kind of circumlocution to pry open their understanding. An old adage says that one cannot learn until he finds out what he does not know. Sometimes students (and everyone else) have to be brought to the brink of their knowledge before they can see the chasm of their ignorance; then they become teachable.
St. Mark wrote that Jesus brought his lesson for the disciples and the crowd at Caesarea Philippi to an end. “And he said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you that there are some standing here who certainly will not taste death until they see the Kingdom of God having come in power.’” (Mark 9:1) There were two groups standing around Jesus: those who would see the Kingdom of God coming in power and those who would not—or, those who would gain knowledge and those who would not. It made a great difference which group the crowd stood with.
In this instance, Jesus was referring to the time scarcely more than thirty years later, when Christianity—the Kingdom of God—spread through Asia Minor, penetrated Egypt, crossed the sea to Rome, and swept through Greece. So it was true that many standing with Jesus did see the Kingdom of God come with power.
The Kingdom of God has overcome massive assaults, diluted teaching, internal turmoil, manipulation, and misappropriation, but it is still coming with power. Every individual must decide either to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God or of one of the other kingdoms—kingdoms that rise and fall.
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