Mark and His Rooms

Who is Mark, the author of the Gospel which bears his name? It is a commonplace that he wrote in Rome, and that what he wrote was largely the content of Peter’s preaching. He is sometimes known by the double name John-Mark, assuming that the man mentioned in Acts chapters 12, 13, and 15 is the same as the author.

Scholars are conflicted: some see Mark as the earliest of the four Gospels, while other view Mark as an epitome written after the others had been fixed. Richard Lenski writes:

Mark is first mentioned in Acts 12:12, where he is named only incidentally to distinguish his mother Mary from the other Marys mentioned in the New Testament. Peter, released from prison by an angel, went to the house of this woman, which seems to have been near by. This was in the spring of the year 44, at the time of the Passover. The fact that this is called her house indicates that she was a widow at this time, but how long her husband had been dead, or what name he bore, is not known. Mark was very likely present among the many who prayed for Peter. It is worth noting that here, where we first hear of Mark, it is in connection with Peter; the last we hear of him, when he wrote the Gospel in Rome, shows him again in closest association with Peter.

Because Mary’s house is mentioned in Acts, some readers have assumed that a special significance is to be attached to it. Is Mary’s house in Acts, mentioned with its “upper room,” to be identified with “upper room” narratives in the first five books of the New Testament?

Yet there must have been, at that time and in that region, thousands of houses, and other buildings, which had “upper rooms.” Probability is against the identification, even if we reduce the field to those in and around Jerusalem.

Much has been made of this house of Mary’s. It is made the house in which Jesus ate the last Passover and instituted the Holy Supper; likewise, the house to which the eleven returned after the ascension of Jesus, and where ten days later the Spirit descended upon the assembled disciples (Acts 2:1, 2).

There are two different words in play. In Mark 14:15, one Greek noun is used for the upper room; in Acts 1:13 a different noun is used. Some English translations obscure the fact that two different words are used; other translations make it more obvious.

Both words mean “an upper room,” and in the latter passage the article refers to this room as one that was well known. The man bearing the pitcher of water is supposed to be Mark’s father. Mark is said to have been present at the Lord’s last Passover and at the institution of the Supper. He is also supposed to have followed to Gethsemane, with only a linen cloth cast about him (Mark 14:51). All this is ingenious enough but hardly convincing. We cannot believe that, if Mark had been present fully dressed in the upper room with Jesus, he would have left the house and gone through the streets out to Gethsemane clad only in a linen sheet. Every detail in the story of the last Passover leaves the impression that no one was present in the upper room except Jesus and the disciples. Mark was not there to wash the feet of the guests, Jesus himself had to wash the feet of the Twelve.

Does any doctrine or article of faith hang on the question about these rooms? Probably not. Mark’s narrative is known for its speed. Would it be in Mark’s character to introduce subtle allusions? If Mark wanted to draw our attention to the upper room, would he have given it a more prominent role in his narrative?

Perhaps it is worth noting that an upper room was usually quieter and less likely to be disrupted. Both in Mark 14:15 and in Acts 1:13 (and possibly Acts 12:12), God placed the followers of Jesus, not in a busy market square in the center of town, but in place appropriate to His plans for them.

Wrangling about Wright

The writings of N.T. Wright are long and complex. These texts have attracted passionate fans and animated detractors, who in turn write their own long and complex texts. Nicholas Thomas Wright, responding to them, writes more long and complex texts, and so we descend into the swamp of polemic theology.

Theologians in disputation tend toward hyperbole, and so the reader might want to be wary when he is assured that a certain text is “orthodox” - it will probably contain a dash of heresy. Likewise, a text advertised as “heretical” will probably include a fair dose of orthodoxy.

Setting aside both real and feigned controversy, a look at Tom Wright’s words can, in any case, be an occasion for reflection. The wrangling about Wright and his critics will perhaps eventually be forgotten in a century or two, but meditation on Jesus and His Word is always worthwhile.

In a 2009 book titled Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision, Wright sets out the book’s program in a preface. He writes that the concept of justification is contentious because

the question is about the nature and scope of salvation. Many Christians in the Western world, for many centuries now, have seen “salvation” as meaning “going to heaven when you die.” I and others have argued that that is inadequate. In the Bible, salvation is not God's rescue of people from the world but the rescue of the world itself.

While it is true that many lay Christians casually or superficially equate salvation with entry into the afterlife, a diverse spectrum of informed theologians, who might otherwise agree on little, concur with Wright. He acknowledges that he is offering a truism. He contends, however, that while this truth is widely acknowledged, the full implications of it are rarely calculated.

Another way of stating this problem is to note that the word ‘salvation’ has a wide sense and a narrow sense. Those who preach to the common man are fond of saying that “there’s nothing more to salvation than Jesus, but there’s more to Jesus than salvation.” If we understand this slogan to be using ‘salvation’ in the narrow sense, i.e. restricted to the question of how one gets into the afterlife, then it’s expressing a sentiment similar to what Wright is expressing.

One might point to the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Colossians, where Paul writes about Jesus that

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

If the word ‘salvation’ means ‘reconciling all things in heaven and on earth to God,’ then ‘salvation’ refers to a bit more than simply getting individual humans into the afterlife. So at least part of what Wright is saying here is that we need sort out the broad sense and the narrow sense of the word ‘salvation’ and the various contexts in which we use that word.

It is progress to clarify that the word ‘salvation’ has both a broad sense and a narrow sense, but there is more to the matter than that. Further investigation into the question will, however, be helped by more careful and consistent use of vocabulary. Instead of ‘salvation,’ for example, one could say either ‘entry into the afterlife’ or ‘God’s project to reconcile all aspects of creation to Himself.’

If the first task in Wright’s preface to this particular book is to ask about the ‘what’ of salvation, the next task is to ask about the ‘how.’ He writes:

Second, the question is about the means of salvation, how it is accomplished.

To this question, Wright answers with some variation of the common notion of substitutionary atonement, organized by God’s grace and accessed through faith. Here, too, Wright has lots of company, and in one, or more, major currents of theology. But he adds that many instances of this common theme underemphasize or underappreciate the role of the Holy Spirit.

Some formulations of atonement, substitutionary or otherwise, make it the activity of the Father and the Son, and give the impression that the Holy Spirit was out playing golf while the whole thing happened. Wright argues that the Holy Spirit is an integral part of salvation. Wright could have helped himself here to Luther’s phrasing: the Holy Spirit “calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies” the followers of Jesus. Wright does not quote these words of Luther, but it seems that he is reaching for a similar concept.

The next task which Wright sets for his book is about the nature of justification and its relation to salvation. Again, definition of words is a central part of the task.

Third, the question is about the meaning of justification, what the term and its cognates actually refer to. Some Christians have used terms like justification and salvation as though they were almost interchangeable, but this is clearly untrue to Scripture itself.

There is certainly nothing new about asking provocative questions related to these topics, or initiating debate about them. That’s been going on for 2,000 years. Is Wright saying anything new? He would probably give the traditional theologian’s answer - that, no, he’s saying something very old - as old as the text of the New Testament itself.

It is nearly pointless to attempt to analyze who - Wright or his critics - is ‘orthodox’ or ‘heretical’ - because those words, in turn, have ever shifting definitions.

Wright does seem to be working to contextualize Jesus as a Jew, as placed within a Heilsgeschichte which took place, at least for its first 2,000 years, in a Hebrew cultural context and an Israelite social context. In this, too, he is neither alone nor the first. Already in the late nineteenth century, theologians who followed the concept of the Heilsgeschichte to its logical conclusion understood the need for exploring the context of Jesus, including His Jewishness.

In exploring the interrelations between, and the definitions of, salvation and justification, the playing field for both Wright and his opponents must be a clear statement of grace - that which is unearned, unmerited, freely given: a gift. In layman’s terms, the usual avoidance of speaking about the individual “accepting” Jesus, and to speak rather of “receiving Jesus,” and in general to speak not about what believer does, but rather about what Jesus does and did.

There is room for substantial variation and divergence, even mutual exclusivity, on that field. To stray from that field, however, is to be clearly out of bounds.

The word ‘justification’ in New Testament Greek has legal overtones - to have been justified in a court of law - and Wright will point to key passages in the New Testament which emphasize the courtroom image. The problem for us is, of course, that we are not justifiable - we are sinners. We are born with a corrupt and flawed sinful nature, and we further go on to commit actively, or omit passively, our own sins. We are guilty. What can it mean, then, that we are justified? How can God treat us as innocent? This has led to endless theological wrangling along the lines that God attributes to us a justified status - He labels us ‘just’ - a notion sometimes called ‘forensic’ justification.

To use a simple analogy: if a man owes a large debt, one which he can’t possibly pay, and another man pays it for him, the clerk will mark the first man’s paper with the word ‘paid’ - even though the man did not pay his bill. The payment has been attributed to him.

To gain insight into justification and salvation, Wright urges the reader to consider that

Paul’s doctrine of justification is about the work of Jesus the Messiah of Israel.

Whatever Jesus did then, and whatever he’s doing now, Wright tells us, He did and does as the Jewish Messiah. The fact that He’s generous enough to include Gentiles in no way entails a repudiation of His Judaism. Here, naturally, we speak of a first-century Judaism, not of what might be called ‘Judaism’ 2,000 years later. Jesus finds His context in a robust Judaism which was willing to consider the supernatural, willing to consider an afterlife, and willing to at consider Jesus and His teachings - many of the adherents of that Judaism also became the first adherents of Jesus, and they saw no internal contradiction in doing so.

The second step which Wright takes in exploring the relation between justification and salvation is to examine the concept of covenant as it unfolds in the Heilsgeschichte. Taken as one continuous narratives from the call of Abraham to Christ’s resurrection and to the day of Pentecost, ‘covenant’ is an essential concept in any version of the Heilsgeschichte.

Paul’s doctrine of justification is therefore about what we may call the covenant — the covenant God made with Abraham, the covenant whose purpose was from the beginning the saving call of a worldwide family through whom God’s saving purposes for the world were to be realized.

A third step in Wright’s exploration of the connection between justification and salvation is the exploration of the courtroom image. As already noted, ‘justification’ is a bit of Greek legal jargon. But beyond this, there are other courtroom vocabulary in the New Testament - an extended legal metaphor.

Perhaps, however, this legal talk is not so metaphorical. God is a judge, humans stand accused, there is an accuser against the humans, and there is an advocate for the humans. This is, literally, a trial.

Paul's doctrine of justification is focused on the divine lawcourt. God, as judge, “finds in favor of,” and hence acquits from their sin, those who believe in Jesus Christ.

The fourth and final step which Wright outlines for his project is to look at the end: the Heilsgeschichte does not end with the day of Pentecost, it continues into the future, to a day when God unveils a new heaven and a new earth.

Paul's doctrine of justification is bound up with eschatology, that is, his vision of God's future for the whole world and for his people.

Any version of the Heilsgeschichte which fails to include some version of a finite end to the Heilsgeschichte - which is at the same time a concrete beginning of a new paradise - is incomplete. The starting point of this Heilsgeschichte, a covenant made with Abraham, includes already a vision of the renovation of all creation.

The project which Wright sets out for his book is, at first glance, neither new nor very heretical. But, as theologians say, taking delight in their deliberately ironic use of a common idiom, the devil is in the details.