In Mark’s gospel, Jesus constantly tells people not to share who he is. Jesus repeatedly silences the demons (Mk. 1:23-25, 34; 3:11ff; 5:6ff; 9:20), the people whom he healed (Mk. 1:43-45; 5:43; 7:36; 8:26), and the disciples (Mk. 8:30; 9:9). Readers of Mark wonder why Jesus would do this; why is Jesus so secretive about his identity?
In 1901, critic Wilhelm Wrede proposed an answer. He claimed that this is evidence of a conspiracy among the early Christian community—what he called a “messianic secret” in Mark’s gospel.[1] Wrede argued that the historical Jesus didn’t actually claim to be the Messiah. In Wrede’s view, it wasn’t until after Jesus’ death that the early Christians invented that Jesus was the Messiah. Since the historical Jesus didn’t understand himself to be the Messiah, the early Christian community needed to explain how this belief arose only after his death. He proposed the “messianic secret” because he argued that the early Christians needed to explain why Jesus wasn’t accepted as the Messiah in his earthly ministry. Consequently, the early Christians invented the idea that Jesus silenced everyone about his true identity as the Messiah until after his resurrection. To summarize, Wrede argued that:
(1) The historical Jesus didn’t claim to be the Messiah.
(2) Early Christians invented Jesus’ messiahship—even though the historical Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah.
(3) The early Christian community invented the idea that Jesus kept his identity a secret until after his death—only allowing his followers to reveal this fully.
Let’s look at each of these assertions, and weigh their merits:
(1) The historical Jesus didn’t claim to be the Messiah
The centrality of Wrede’s theory rests on the assumption that we cannot build a good historical case for Jesus’ self-understanding as the Messiah. However, this simply isn’t true. Based on The Criteria of Authenticity, we can make a very strong case for these historical claims regarding the historical Jesus:
First, Jesus taught that he was inaugurating the kingdom of God in himself. This is multiply attested, appearing in independent material in all four Gospels: Mark, Q, M, L, and John—not to mention various literary forms (e.g. predictions, prayers, beatitudes, etc.).[2] Jesus said, “If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Mt. 12:28; cf. Lk. 11:20), and he told John the Baptist that he was fulfilling predictions about the coming Messiah (Mt. 11:4-5).
Moreover, this also passes the criterion of embarrassment and the criterion of dissimilarity. We see a number of cases where Jesus broke from contemporary Jewish teaching regarding the kingdom of God in a dissimilar and potentially embarrassing way.
- Children enter the kingdom. Children were not seen as important or significant in first-century Jewish culture.[3] However, Jesus used children as a model for those who would enter the kingdom of God! He said, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” (Mk. 10:14; cf. Lk. 18:16-17).
- The wealthy have a hard time entering the kingdom. In first-century Judaism, wealth “was regarded as a sign of God’s blessing.”[4] Yet Jesus said, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” (Mk. 10:23; cf. Lk. 6:20)
- Tax collectors and prostitutes enter the kingdom. Tax collectors and prostitutes were despised in first-century Judaism (see “Tax Collectors in Jesus’ Day”). Yet Jesus said, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you” (Mt. 21:31).
Each of these examples give historical credibility to Jesus’ statements because they were dissimilar to his contemporary, religious setting and were embarrassing in this setting.
Second, Jesus died for claiming to be the King of the Jews. Again, this is multiply attested. Above Jesus on the Cross, the inscription said, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (Mt. 27:37; Mk. 15:26; Lk. 23:38; Jn. 19:19). This appears in all four Gospels—though it appears in different forms—and it was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek (e.g. rex, melek, basileus) for all to read. Furthermore, this passes the criterion of dissimilarity. Christians never referred to Jesus as “the King of the Jews” outside of the four Gospels.[5]
Third, Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man. Once again, this is multiply attested. Jesus’ favorite self-designation was “the Son of Man.” He used it 79 times out of the total 84 occurrences in the four Gospels. Furthermore, it passes the criterion of dissimilarity. The use of the expression “Son of Man” was not used of the Messiah before Jesus (see only 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra), and it only appears on the lips of Stephen (Acts 7:56) and John (Rev. 1:13). This meets the “criterion of dissimilarity,” because “early Jews before or during Jesus’ day seem not to have envisioned a coming of the Son of Man.”[6] Likewise, outside of the Gospels, we don’t read about the coming of the Son of Man to Earth. Ben Witherington writes, “It has long been the consensus of most scholars that if there are two things Jesus certainly spoke about they are the Son of Man and the kingdom of God.”[7] He adds, “It is surely significant that the only place in the Hebrew Bible where the motifs of Son of Man and kingdom of God appear together is in Daniel 7, and these are the two most frequent and important phrases.”[8]
This explains why the Sanhedrin had grounds for putting Jesus to death. Caiaphas asked Jesus, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” (Mk. 14:61). Jesus replied, “I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mk. 14:62). Here, Jesus cites Psalm 110:1 and Daniel 7:13 to refer to himself, which were both very clear messianic passages. Moreover, Jesus’ use of the self-designation “Son of Man” is clearly being lifted from Daniel 7. Lane writes, “There is evidence that contemporary Judaism also conceived of the Messiah as sitting at God’s right hand and coming in the clouds of heaven. The Sanhedrin would understand Jesus’ words as an unqualified claim to messianic dignity. The prophecy and the clear response ‘I am’ are mutually supportive.”[9]
To summarize, Jesus believed three concepts about himself: (1) Jesus believed he was inaugurating the kingdom of God on Earth, (2) Jesus was killed for claiming to be the King of the Jews, and (3) Jesus called himself the “Son of Man” which was a strong messianic claim. All three of these concepts have strong support from internal historical evidence (i.e. the Criteria of Authenticity). In fact, a central “problem with Wrede’s theory is that there is no evidence that a nonmessianic tradition about Jesus ever existed. Every stratum of Gospel material contains messianic implications.”[10] This means that the foundation of Wrede’s thesis is shaky at best, and shattered at worst.
(2) Early Christians invented Jesus’ messiahship—even though the historical Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah
Various scholars affirm that the Jewish people had no concept for an individual resurrection before the end of history—let alone a resurrected Messiah:
Joachim Jeremias (German New Testament scholar): “Ancient Judaism did not know of an anticipated resurrection as an event of history. Nowhere does one find in the literature anything comparable to the resurrection of Jesus. Certainly resurrections of the dead were known, but these always concerned resuscitations, the return to the earthly life. In no place in the late Judaic literature does it concern a resurrection to [glory] as an event of history.”[11]
Ulrich Wilckens (German New Testament critic): “Nowhere do the Jewish texts speak of the resurrection of an individual which already occurs before the resurrection of the righteous in the end time and is differentiated and separate from it; nowhere does the participation of the righteous in the salvation at the end time depend on their belonging to the Messiah, who was raised in advance as the ‘First of those raised by God.’ [1 Corinthians 15:20]”[12]
Even if a person was individually resurrected, the Jewish people had no concept for that person being the Messiah. After all, the Messiah came to judge Israel’s enemies—not be judged by them. The thought of a dying and rising Messiah was somewhat of an oxymoron to Jewish people at the time.
Thus, Wrede’s argument continues to falter on faulty grounds: The early Christians wouldn’t have invented a dying and rising Messiah after the death of Jesus. Indeed, a horrific death by crucifixion would offer definitive evidence to both Jews and Gentiles that Jesus wasn’t the Messiah.
(3) The early Christian community invented the idea that Jesus kept his identity a secret until after his death—only allowing his followers to reveal this fully
Wrede’s thesis continues to struggle. His theory overgeneralizes the data in Mark, and it lacks explanatory scope to explain so much of the material that it makes the theory implausible. After all, how do these examples below fit with the thesis that Jesus kept his identity hidden during his time on Earth? Put simply, they don’t.
- Even though Jesus performed miracles, this didn’t always lead to people coming to faith (Mk. 6:1-6; 6:14ff; 8:28).
- Jesus healed a leper, and he sternly told him not to tell anyone. Yet, the leper told so many people that Jesus couldn’t enter the towns in the surrounding region (Mk. 1:45). Moreover, after healing a deaf man, we read that Jesus “gave them orders not to tell anyone.” And yet, “the more He ordered them, the more widely they continued to proclaim it” (Mk. 7:36).
- Bartimaeus—the blind man whom Jesus healed—is the only case where a person specifically used a messianic title for Jesus (“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”). Yet, in this case, Jesus doesn’t silence him (Mk. 10:46-52).
- Some exorcisms contain no commands for the demons to be silent (Mk. 5:1-20; 7:24-30; 9:14-29).
As we read Mark’s gospel, we see that Wrede’s thesis simply doesn’t explain the data comprehensively. Indeed, his theory simply doesn’t fit various accounts of Jesus revealing his identity. We agree with James Dunn who states that the “‘Messianic secret’ hypothesis in fact is now a theory searching for a rationale.”[13]
Conclusion: Three Reasons why Jesus was Secretive
When Peter plainly stated that Jesus was the Messiah (Mk. 8:29), we read that Jesus “warned [the disciples] to tell no one about Him. And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mk. 8:30-31). Lane’s comments on insightful:
This is the only time in Mark that an injunction to silence is explained and it provides the key to all of the previous injunctions to silence… The repeated injunctions to silence throughout the Gospel of Mark are an expression of Jesus’ fidelity to the divine plan of salvation.[14]
We agree. Jesus surely had multiple reasons for slowly revealing his identity, but three specific ones come to mind:
First, Jesus wanted to demonstrate who he was before he would reveal what he would do on the Cross. If Jesus simply announced himself as the Messiah early on, the people would’ve thought that he was going to be a Conquering King—not a Suffering Servant. Cole writes, “Jewish concepts of Messiahship were so triumphalistic and ‘this worldly’ that for Jesus to simply accept the title of Messiah without also explaining the nature of his Messiahship would only have misled people into nationalist dreams, not revealed God’s plan.”[15]
Second, Jesus didn’t want to expedite his death at the hands of the religious leaders and the Romans. If Jesus spoke openly about his messianic identity, this would’ve incited the crowds to make him a king. Indeed, at one point, the crowds tried to “take [Jesus] by force to make Him king” (Jn. 6:15). This would’ve shortened Jesus’ earthly ministry considerably. Stein writes, “The avoidance of an open proclamation of Jesus’s messiahship averted an immediate confrontation with Rome, for Pilate would not tolerate a popular, charismatic teacher who drew thousands of enthusiastic followers and referred to himself as the Christ/Messiah, the Son of David, the long-awaited King of the Jews. For the masses and Rome, this would have been interpreted to mean that Jesus came to deliver the Jewish people by force from the rule and bondage of Rome.”[16]
Third, and finally, Jesus’ approach was not unknown during this time. Craig Keener writes, “Wrede’s thesis falters not only on literary-critical grounds but also from comparative studies. Contemporary messianic figures usually avoided claiming their own messiahship, depending instead on others to acclaim them. In the broader culture, self-testimony may have seemed inappropriate, especially in view of the sentiment against self-boasting in the first-century Mediterranean world.”[17] He goes on to note that many biblical prophets worked “clandestinely” (e.g. 1 Kin. 11:29; 13:8-9; 21:18; 2 Kin. 9:1-10).
[1] Wilhelm Wrede, The Messianic Secret (Greenwood, S.C.: Attic, 1971; German ed., 1901).
[2] John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew (New York: Doubleday, 1994), p.349.
[3] For instance, m. ‘Abot 3:10 reads, “Morning sleep, mid-day wine, chattering with children and tarrying in places where men of common people assemble, destroy a man.” See Joel Green, The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 391.
[4] R.T. France, Matthew (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), p.287.
[5] Craig Evans, Authenticating the Activities of Jesus (Eiden: Brill Publishers, 1999), p.24.
[6] Ben Witherington III, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth (2nd Ed. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), p.94.
[7] Ben Witherington III, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth (2nd Ed. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), p.55.
[8] Ben Witherington III, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth (2nd Ed. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), p.95.
[9] William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974), 537.
[10] Walter W. Wessel, “Mark,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 701.
[11] Joachim Jeremias, “Die älteste Schicht der Osterüber-lieferüng,” in Resurrexit, ed. Édouard Dhanis (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1974), p. 194. Cited in William Lane Craig, The Son Rises: The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2000), p.130.
[12] Ulrich Wilckens, Auferstehung, Themen der Theologie 4 (Stuttgart and Berlin: Kreuz Verlag, 1970), p. 131. Cited in William Lane Craig, The Son Rises: The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2000), pp. 130-131.
[13] J.D.G. Dunn, “The Messianic Secret in Mark.” Tyndale Bulletin 21 (1970) p.115, 116.
[14] William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974), 296.
[15] R. Alan Cole, Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 2, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989), pp.88-89.
[16] Robert H. Stein, Mark: BECNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), p.25.
[17] Craig Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009), p. 262.
In Mark’s gospel, Jesus constantly tells people not to share who he is. Jesus repeatedly silences the demons (Mk. 1:23-25, 34; 3:11ff; 5:6ff; 9:20), the people whom he healed (Mk. 1:43-45; 5:43; 7:36; 8:26), and the disciples (Mk. 8:30; 9:9). Readers of Mark wonder why Jesus would do this; why is Jesus so secretive about his identity?
In 1901, critic Wilhelm Wrede proposed an answer. He claimed that this is evidence of a conspiracy among the early Christian community—what he called a “messianic secret” in Mark’s gospel.[1] Wrede argued that the historical Jesus didn’t actually claim to be the Messiah. In Wrede’s view, it wasn’t until after Jesus’ death that the early Christians invented that Jesus was the Messiah. Since the historical Jesus didn’t understand himself to be the Messiah, the early Christian community needed to explain how this belief arose only after his death. He proposed the “messianic secret” because he argued that the early Christians needed to explain why Jesus wasn’t accepted as the Messiah in his earthly ministry. Consequently, the early Christians invented the idea that Jesus silenced everyone about his true identity as the Messiah until after his resurrection. To summarize, Wrede argued that:
(1) The historical Jesus didn’t claim to be the Messiah.
(2) Early Christians invented Jesus’ messiahship—even though the historical Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah.
(3) The early Christian community invented the idea that Jesus kept his identity a secret until after his death—only allowing his followers to reveal this fully.
Let’s look at each of these assertions, and weigh their merits:
(1) The historical Jesus didn’t claim to be the Messiah
The centrality of Wrede’s theory rests on the assumption that we cannot build a good historical case for Jesus’ self-understanding as the Messiah. However, this simply isn’t true. Based on The Criteria of Authenticity, we can make a very strong case for these historical claims regarding the historical Jesus:
First, Jesus taught that he was inaugurating the kingdom of God in himself. This is multiply attested, appearing in independent material in all four Gospels: Mark, Q, M, L, and John—not to mention various literary forms (e.g. predictions, prayers, beatitudes, etc.).[2] Jesus said, “If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Mt. 12:28; cf. Lk. 11:20), and he told John the Baptist that he was fulfilling predictions about the coming Messiah (Mt. 11:4-5).
Moreover, this also passes the criterion of embarrassment and the criterion of dissimilarity. We see a number of cases where Jesus broke from contemporary Jewish teaching regarding the kingdom of God in a dissimilar and potentially embarrassing way.
- Children enter the kingdom. Children were not seen as important or significant in first-century Jewish culture.[3] However, Jesus used children as a model for those who would enter the kingdom of God! He said, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” (Mk. 10:14; cf. Lk. 18:16-17).
- The wealthy have a hard time entering the kingdom. In first-century Judaism, wealth “was regarded as a sign of God’s blessing.”[4] Yet Jesus said, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” (Mk. 10:23; cf. Lk. 6:20)
- Tax collectors and prostitutes enter the kingdom. Tax collectors and prostitutes were despised in first-century Judaism (see “Tax Collectors in Jesus’ Day”). Yet Jesus said, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you” (Mt. 21:31).
Each of these examples give historical credibility to Jesus’ statements because they were dissimilar to his contemporary, religious setting and were embarrassing in this setting.
Second, Jesus died for claiming to be the King of the Jews. Again, this is multiply attested. Above Jesus on the Cross, the inscription said, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (Mt. 27:37; Mk. 15:26; Lk. 23:38; Jn. 19:19). This appears in all four Gospels—though it appears in different forms—and it was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek (e.g. rex, melek, basileus) for all to read. Furthermore, this passes the criterion of dissimilarity. Christians never referred to Jesus as “the King of the Jews” outside of the four Gospels.[5]
Third, Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man. Once again, this is multiply attested. Jesus’ favorite self-designation was “the Son of Man.” He used it 79 times out of the total 84 occurrences in the four Gospels. Furthermore, it passes the criterion of dissimilarity. The use of the expression “Son of Man” was not used of the Messiah before Jesus (see only 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra), and it only appears on the lips of Stephen (Acts 7:56) and John (Rev. 1:13). This meets the “criterion of dissimilarity,” because “early Jews before or during Jesus’ day seem not to have envisioned a coming of the Son of Man.”[6] Likewise, outside of the Gospels, we don’t read about the coming of the Son of Man to Earth. Ben Witherington writes, “It has long been the consensus of most scholars that if there are two things Jesus certainly spoke about they are the Son of Man and the kingdom of God.”[7] He adds, “It is surely significant that the only place in the Hebrew Bible where the motifs of Son of Man and kingdom of God appear together is in Daniel 7, and these are the two most frequent and important phrases.”[8]
This explains why the Sanhedrin had grounds for putting Jesus to death. Caiaphas asked Jesus, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” (Mk. 14:61). Jesus replied, “I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mk. 14:62). Here, Jesus cites Psalm 110:1 and Daniel 7:13 to refer to himself, which were both very clear messianic passages. Moreover, Jesus’ use of the self-designation “Son of Man” is clearly being lifted from Daniel 7. Lane writes, “There is evidence that contemporary Judaism also conceived of the Messiah as sitting at God’s right hand and coming in the clouds of heaven. The Sanhedrin would understand Jesus’ words as an unqualified claim to messianic dignity. The prophecy and the clear response ‘I am’ are mutually supportive.”[9]
To summarize, Jesus believed three concepts about himself: (1) Jesus believed he was inaugurating the kingdom of God on Earth, (2) Jesus was killed for claiming to be the King of the Jews, and (3) Jesus called himself the “Son of Man” which was a strong messianic claim. All three of these concepts have strong support from internal historical evidence (i.e. the Criteria of Authenticity). In fact, a central “problem with Wrede’s theory is that there is no evidence that a nonmessianic tradition about Jesus ever existed. Every stratum of Gospel material contains messianic implications.”[10] This means that the foundation of Wrede’s thesis is shaky at best, and shattered at worst.
(2) Early Christians invented Jesus’ messiahship—even though the historical Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah
Various scholars affirm that the Jewish people had no concept for an individual resurrection before the end of history—let alone a resurrected Messiah:
Joachim Jeremias (German New Testament scholar): “Ancient Judaism did not know of an anticipated resurrection as an event of history. Nowhere does one find in the literature anything comparable to the resurrection of Jesus. Certainly resurrections of the dead were known, but these always concerned resuscitations, the return to the earthly life. In no place in the late Judaic literature does it concern a resurrection to [glory] as an event of history.”[11]
Ulrich Wilckens (German New Testament critic): “Nowhere do the Jewish texts speak of the resurrection of an individual which already occurs before the resurrection of the righteous in the end time and is differentiated and separate from it; nowhere does the participation of the righteous in the salvation at the end time depend on their belonging to the Messiah, who was raised in advance as the ‘First of those raised by God.’ [1 Corinthians 15:20]”[12]
Even if a person was individually resurrected, the Jewish people had no concept for that person being the Messiah. After all, the Messiah came to judge Israel’s enemies—not be judged by them. The thought of a dying and rising Messiah was somewhat of an oxymoron to Jewish people at the time.
Thus, Wrede’s argument continues to falter on faulty grounds: The early Christians wouldn’t have invented a dying and rising Messiah after the death of Jesus. Indeed, a horrific death by crucifixion would offer definitive evidence to both Jews and Gentiles that Jesus wasn’t the Messiah.
(3) The early Christian community invented the idea that Jesus kept his identity a secret until after his death—only allowing his followers to reveal this fully
Wrede’s thesis continues to struggle. His theory overgeneralizes the data in Mark, and it lacks explanatory scope to explain so much of the material that it makes the theory implausible. After all, how do these examples below fit with the thesis that Jesus kept his identity hidden during his time on Earth? Put simply, they don’t.
- Even though Jesus performed miracles, this didn’t always lead to people coming to faith (Mk. 6:1-6; 6:14ff; 8:28).
- Jesus healed a leper, and he sternly told him not to tell anyone. Yet, the leper told so many people that Jesus couldn’t enter the towns in the surrounding region (Mk. 1:45). Moreover, after healing a deaf man, we read that Jesus “gave them orders not to tell anyone.” And yet, “the more He ordered them, the more widely they continued to proclaim it” (Mk. 7:36).
- Bartimaeus—the blind man whom Jesus healed—is the only case where a person specifically used a messianic title for Jesus (“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”). Yet, in this case, Jesus doesn’t silence him (Mk. 10:46-52).
- Some exorcisms contain no commands for the demons to be silent (Mk. 5:1-20; 7:24-30; 9:14-29).
As we read Mark’s gospel, we see that Wrede’s thesis simply doesn’t explain the data comprehensively. Indeed, his theory simply doesn’t fit various accounts of Jesus revealing his identity. We agree with James Dunn who states that the “‘Messianic secret’ hypothesis in fact is now a theory searching for a rationale.”[13]
Conclusion: Three Reasons why Jesus was Secretive
When Peter plainly stated that Jesus was the Messiah (Mk. 8:29), we read that Jesus “warned [the disciples] to tell no one about Him. And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mk. 8:30-31). Lane’s comments on insightful:
This is the only time in Mark that an injunction to silence is explained and it provides the key to all of the previous injunctions to silence… The repeated injunctions to silence throughout the Gospel of Mark are an expression of Jesus’ fidelity to the divine plan of salvation.[14]
We agree. Jesus surely had multiple reasons for slowly revealing his identity, but three specific ones come to mind:
First, Jesus wanted to demonstrate who he was before he would reveal what he would do on the Cross. If Jesus simply announced himself as the Messiah early on, the people would’ve thought that he was going to be a Conquering King—not a Suffering Servant. Cole writes, “Jewish concepts of Messiahship were so triumphalistic and ‘this worldly’ that for Jesus to simply accept the title of Messiah without also explaining the nature of his Messiahship would only have misled people into nationalist dreams, not revealed God’s plan.”[15]
Second, Jesus didn’t want to expedite his death at the hands of the religious leaders and the Romans. If Jesus spoke openly about his messianic identity, this would’ve incited the crowds to make him a king. Indeed, at one point, the crowds tried to “take [Jesus] by force to make Him king” (Jn. 6:15). This would’ve shortened Jesus’ earthly ministry considerably. Stein writes, “The avoidance of an open proclamation of Jesus’s messiahship averted an immediate confrontation with Rome, for Pilate would not tolerate a popular, charismatic teacher who drew thousands of enthusiastic followers and referred to himself as the Christ/Messiah, the Son of David, the long-awaited King of the Jews. For the masses and Rome, this would have been interpreted to mean that Jesus came to deliver the Jewish people by force from the rule and bondage of Rome.”[16]
Third, and finally, Jesus’ approach was not unknown during this time. Craig Keener writes, “Wrede’s thesis falters not only on literary-critical grounds but also from comparative studies. Contemporary messianic figures usually avoided claiming their own messiahship, depending instead on others to acclaim them. In the broader culture, self-testimony may have seemed inappropriate, especially in view of the sentiment against self-boasting in the first-century Mediterranean world.”[17] He goes on to note that many biblical prophets worked “clandestinely” (e.g. 1 Kin. 11:29; 13:8-9; 21:18; 2 Kin. 9:1-10).
[1] Wilhelm Wrede, The Messianic Secret (Greenwood, S.C.: Attic, 1971; German ed., 1901).
[2] John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew (New York: Doubleday, 1994), p.349.
[3] For instance, m. ‘Abot 3:10 reads, “Morning sleep, mid-day wine, chattering with children and tarrying in places where men of common people assemble, destroy a man.” See Joel Green, The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 391.
[4] R.T. France, Matthew (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), p.287.
[5] Craig Evans, Authenticating the Activities of Jesus (Eiden: Brill Publishers, 1999), p.24.
[6] Ben Witherington III, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth (2nd Ed. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), p.94.
[7] Ben Witherington III, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth (2nd Ed. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), p.55.
[8] Ben Witherington III, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth (2nd Ed. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), p.95.
[9] William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974), 537.
[10] Walter W. Wessel, “Mark,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 701.
[11] Joachim Jeremias, “Die älteste Schicht der Osterüber-lieferüng,” in Resurrexit, ed. Édouard Dhanis (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1974), p. 194. Cited in William Lane Craig, The Son Rises: The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2000), p.130.
[12] Ulrich Wilckens, Auferstehung, Themen der Theologie 4 (Stuttgart and Berlin: Kreuz Verlag, 1970), p. 131. Cited in William Lane Craig, The Son Rises: The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2000), pp. 130-131.
[13] J.D.G. Dunn, “The Messianic Secret in Mark.” Tyndale Bulletin 21 (1970) p.115, 116.
[14] William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974), 296.
[15] R. Alan Cole, Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 2, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989), pp.88-89.
[16] Robert H. Stein, Mark: BECNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), p.25.
[17] Craig Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009), p. 262.