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Stories have turning points, and Peter’s confession—“You are the Christ”—is a turning point in Mark’s Gospel. Many New Testament scholars divide Mark’s Gospel in a way that outlines sections before this confession and after it. Peter’s confession is a threshold.
In Mark’s Gospel, the confession, “You are the Christ” (Mark 8:29), occurs after Jesus healed a blind man at Bethsaida. Reading this miracle alongside Peter’s confession can be interpretively helpful, especially since Mark’s Gospel is the only book that records this miracle. What can we notice by reflecting on this miracle and then on Peter’s confession?
The Blind Man’s Partial Sight
In Mark 8:22–26, Jesus took a blind man aside and led him out of Bethsaida. Then he spit on the man’s eyes, laid hands on him, and asked, “Do you see anything?” (8:23). The response: “I see people, but they look like trees, walking” (8:24).
The miracle didn’t seem complete, as if Jesus’s first attempt fell short of the mark. Jesus laid hands on the man’s eyes, and then his sight was restored: “he saw everything clearly” (Mark 8:25). Success!
We’re not used to seeing miracles take place in stages. We’re used to something more immediate. When Jesus tells the leper, “Be clean,” the leper is healed instantly (Mark 1:41–42). When he tells the paralytic, “Rise, pick up your bed, and go home,” the paralytic immediately rises (2:11–12). When he tells the man with the withered hand, “Stretch out your hand,” the man stretches out his now-restored hand (3:5).
Mark 8:22–26 reports a miracle in two stages. But this was not a record of dwindling power. The stages are the point. The miracle is a physical healing that, at the same time, is teaching a theological lesson. Right before the miracle, Mark’s narrative reports Jesus’s questions to his disciples: “Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?” (8:17–18).
Understanding is a kind of seeing, and not understanding is a kind of blindness. So how well do the disciples understand? How well do they see? They don’t fully understand. They don’t yet fully see.
Peter’s Partial Sight
Before the miracle, Jesus gauges understanding (Mark 8:14–21), and after the miracle he tests for the same thing (8:27–30). He asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” This question probes understanding. And the answers varied: “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets” (8:28).
Now Jesus speaks to the disciples about what they think: “But who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:29). Peter, representing the group, said, “You are the Christ” (8:29).
Peter and the disciples see. But how well do they see? They’re right that Jesus is the Christ. They’re like the blind man during stage one of the miracle, because he knew he saw people, even though the people looked like walking trees (Mark 8:24).
What Jesus did next revealed the limitations of their sight, however. He began to teach the disciples that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected and killed (Mark 8:31). Peter did not see the truth and necessity of this. So he took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him (8:32). Imagine such boldness!
The disciples are in the first stage of spiritual sight, seeing but not fully. Jesus is indeed the Christ, but they don’t understand what the Christ has come to do: be rejected, suffer, and die. Peter’s rebuke confirms his partial sight. He thinks he’s seeing better than he actually is.
But just as the blind man’s sight was fully restored, the disciples have better sight on the way. Clarity is in their future. The Son of Man will die, but then he will rise on the third day. The resurrection of Jesus affected the words of Peter. In the book of Acts, Peter proclaimed that the crucified Jesus had risen from the dead (Acts 4:10) and that this was the plan of God (2:23).
Peter said, “This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone” (Acts 4:11). Now that’s a man speaking from restored spiritual sight.