As you look at Mark 8:31–33, think of the reactions of a family to a son who volunteers for additional rotations in a war zone. Does he need to face danger and suffering? That might help you understand part of Peter’s reason for rebuking Jesus.
Don’t be a Satan to Jesus! Understand the seriousness of Peter’s “things of men.” Jesus has just begin to describe to his disciples (they use the word “plainly” to describe his words) the rejection, suffering, death, and resurrection that he would face as Son of Man. He has just accepted Peter’s confession, a confession that is full of faith and which speaks for the disciples, that Jesus is the Christ. Part of it may be that Peter, though he has just risen to a spiritual peak, cannot wrap his mind and heart around the concept of a Messiah who suffers. But here Jesus outlines a path (using “must”) that has a cross awaiting in Jerusalem. This is the first of three similar predictions (9:31; 10:33–34), and a journey that follows the path outlined in those predictions. Part of the problem may be the parties Jesus lists as turning against him. He includes all of the religious establishment. The future is not a Messiah accepted by a portion of the people and rejected by others, but a Messiah who is universally condemned by the leaders of Israel. Part of it may be that Peter sees his own involvement in the kingdom slipping away. Here he, and the others, had left their fishing boats, their tax collector’s booths, and had thrown their lot in with Jesus. They could appreciate that early stages of the kingdom could involve deprivation and suffering. But to have Jesus say that this is what was to be the work of the Son of Man was too much to bear. Beware of shaping Jesus according to your own expectations. Peter at least has the decency to take Jesus aside before correcting him. The verb is a strong one. It describes the response of Jesus to Peter, and it is the verb that pictures Jesus triumph over the demons.
Get behind Jesus is a command addressed to Peter — and to us! Jesus in turn rebukes Peter (turning and viewing the disciples, for whom again Peter is the spokesman), addresses him as Satan, and orders him behind him. Though Satan originally means accuser, you can’t water it down to that meaning here. Mark uses the Aramaic name, not just the Greek word for accuser or adversary. Remember Mark’s brief account of the Temptation, Mark 1:12–13. Mark ends it without the note of Luke that Satan left him for a season, though even that suggests a return of tempting activity. Mark seems to be saying that the rest of the Gospel would describe such temptation. Here is a prime example. And it comes from a man, a disciple, a trusted confident. Do not grieve the Spirit, Ephesians 4:29–32. Notice that the context refers, not to apostasy, not to Peter-like denials of the Lord, but to the use of the tongue, to words that tear down, instead of building up. What you are harming, knowingly or not, is not just some other person who is harmed by gossip that tears down, but you are dealing a blow to the body of Christ. In that context, Jesus address us as well as Peter with the command to get behind him. That grieving the Spirit of the risen Lord is as offensive to Christ as was Peter’s bold effort to turn him from his path. Every act of unbelief, every failure to serve (we will look at the command to take up your cross next Lord’s Day, the Lord willing), every time we look to the fact that we have not committed “that” sin (whatever unappealing disobedience strikes us) we are not really so bad — ultimately a form of self-righteousness, each of these puts us in Peter’s sandals, and we deserve a similar check.
“As often as we fail to believe, to serve the Prophet, Priest, and King, we are satans to Him. O yes, He is no more with us as He once walked beside Simon Barjonah, but His Spirit, we know, has returned to dwell with us; and as often as we do not believe Him, as frequently as our hearts ponder some other way of redemption, we grieve that Spirit. And that familiar phrase, ‘grieving the Spirit,’ is the New Testament term for what before the day of Pentecost was called ‘being a satan to Jesus.’”
K. Schilder, Christ in His Suffering, p. 21
Instead, refocus your mind and your life as you set your mind on the things of God. Submit to the divine necessity that Jesus sets forth. The Son of Man must go. The title is full of the glory of God himself. But he “must” suffer (hear the language of our Old Testament reading), be rejected (echo of Psalm 118:22), and be killed–the ultimate rejection. This is not blind fatalism. The suffering is not for anything he might have done wrong, for he is the sinless one. Rather, must is parallel to it is written,” see Mark 9:12; 14:21. He must do this, because it is the revealed will of his Father, and he is obeying his Father–to death itself. Unpack it a bit more. This not an arbitrary action by a capricious God who enjoys watching his Son suffer. Rather, having determined to redeem you from your sin, this is the only way that your forgiveness can be purchased. This must happen, because the Father has given you to the Son, and the Son will not stop until he has redeemed you.
“Here is the marvel of grace and love. Death is the wages of sin and therefore Jesus’ death pertained to sin. Nothing is more basic or central than this little expression ‘for sin.’ ‘What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh’ (Rom. 8:3). ‘When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son’ (Gal. 4:4)”
“The Death of Christ” in Collected Writings of John Murray, Vol. 1, p. 37
Look at the whole statement and trust the Son of Man who had to suffer, be rejected, be killed, and rise on the third day. Jesus uses the title, Son of Man, and now begins to fill it with the meaning that truly belongs there. Read Daniel 7, and the emphasis is on glory. But look also at the suffering passages of the Old Testament, and appreciate the necessity Jesus speaks of. Peter and the others tended to get stuck on rejection and death. Those are absolutely essential elements to your salvation. There is no forgiveness without the death of the Savior in your place. The Savior was on the way to the cross so that Peter could again be described, as his name indicated, as a rock, and not as Satan. Jesus the Christ went to the cross so that you and I, with our mouths that engage without our controlling them, whose thoughts go to places they ought not, whose action too often tear down rather than build up, we who leave undone what we should do, and find cross-bearing uncomfortably tiresome–so that we might be the forgiven people of God. One of the ways your confess your trust in the suffering and crucified Savior is by coming to his table, a meal where the element so clearly give you Christ in his suffering and death. (That is not the only way, as we will see next week in the very next verse.) But Jesus also focused on the resurrection, though no matter how often he talked about it, the twelve really didn’t seem to get it. That triumph, too, is there as you come to the Lord’s Table. You show the Lord’s death until he comes. It is the risen, ascended Lord who invites you to this meal.
“The suffering of Christ, which begins with his incarnation and is completed in his ‘great passion,’ is the will and command of he Father (Matt. 26:39, 42; John 10:17–18), proof of his absolute obedience (Phil 2:8; Heb. 5:8), an example to be followed by his disciples (1 Pet. 2:21), a ransom for their sins (Matt. 20::28; 26:28), a victory over the world (John 16:33; Co. 2:15).”
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 3, p. 409
Mark’s language emphasizes the activity of Jesus in his resurrection. It is because he is the risen Lord that you can live your daily life bearing your cross, following him. And the context points you to the future, in fact to the culmination of all things. In Mark 9:1 some of those present would witness this glory and power, anticipating the glory to which the Son of Man would ascend. Three of those there would witness the transfiguration. Many others would see the risen Savior. And all of us who trust him, all of us for whom he had to suffer, die and rise again, all of us will have him acknowledge us in the day when he appears in his Father’s glory.
No, the question isn’t, Peter, how did you dare rebuke Jesus. Rather it is, how on earth could I so often grieve the Spirit, so often act like Satan towards Jesus and his body here on earth? But Mark’s Gospel doesn’t leave you to stew in that guilt. It focuses your trust on the One who died and rose in your place.