GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 8:33
Spiritual Fifth Columnists
Adding to the turmoil of the 1930s was the Spanish Civil War, in which Nationalist forces attacked the Second Spanish Republic, centered in Madrid. General Emilio Mola led the insurrectionist Nationalist forces attacking Madrid from the north. Some writers claim that General Mola made a speech on October 3, 1936, in which he said that four columns of revolutionaries were attacking the capital from the outside, and there was a fifth column inside the capital ready to attack. He referred to sympathizers, saboteurs, and clandestine forces who worked for the Nationalist forces inside the city. The term “fifth column,” then, became the catchphrase for any group of persons who works from inside a group against the group.
Mark wrote that at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus described to his disciples what they could expect in the days ahead: opposition, rejection, and death. Peter, though, would have none of it and rebuked Jesus for painting such a bleak picture for his disciples, who had left all to follow him. All their lives, the scribes and Pharisees had taught them about the Messiah in terms of an irresistible conquest, and they were now presented with the idea of suffering and death—these statements were incredible and incomprehensible. That is why Peter rebuked him—the whole thing was incomprehensible.
“But he, turning around and seeing his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan, because you are not thinking the things of God but the things of men.’” (Mark 8:33)
Jesus’ rebuke of Peter was addressed to the real culprit, Satan—a fifth columnist who wanted to destroy Jesus’ message and mission from the inside by using one of his chief disciples. Peter put into words what the disciples were thinking—the very temptations that were assailing Jesus. Jesus did not want to die. He knew that he had power that he could use for conquest. At that moment, he was refighting the battle of temptations in the wilderness. Satan was again tempting him to fall down and worship him, to take his way instead of God’s way.
Father, I want to guard my heart so that I never become a spiritual fifth columnist.
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