“You are badly
mistaken!” Mark 12:27
Making a mistake is bad, but being badly mistaken is
worse. Such is so because while the
first deals with what we do, the second relates to what we think—and what we
think affects who we are which influences what we do, and round and round it
goes. In other words, the key to doing what’s
right is believing what’s right, and never in our lives has believing what’s
right mattered more than now as the cultural pursuit of things spiritual
increases but the passion for things Scriptural decreases.
Faith as a general acknowledgement of a supernatural
divinity is hailed as a positive attribute, but a focused confidence in Christ
alone and in what the Bible says alone is berated as close-minded and bigoted. Such
criticism should never scare us nor surprise us for erroneous belief is nothing
new under the sun, and sadly sometimes those who should know truth best seem to
be the most blind. We see this in our
day, and Jesus saw it in His with a group of guys known as the Sadducees.
The Sadducees were members of a Jewish religious and
political faction who believed that only the first five books of the Bible were
divine revelation. Since the rest of the
Old Testament was disregarded, they did not believe in angels and demons, the
resurrection, or any kind of life after death.
It was to this group of men, who disagreed greatly with Jesus’ doctrine
and doings, that He spoke a phrase which shows up only once in Scripture—“You are badly mistaken!”(Mk 12:27).
They came to test him, trying to trick him and hoping to catch
him in a contradiction, so they tossed out a hypothetical setup about a lady who
subsequently married seven brothers in hopes of bearing children to carry on
her first husband’s name. And then they slyly
and smugly asked, “At the resurrection,
whose wife will she be, since all seven were married to her?”(Mk 12:23). The Saducees were certain their supposed situation
presented a puzzle with no plausible solutions, but Jesus sorted it all out and
shook them all down all in one breath.
First there was the “talkin’ to” about their failures—“Are you not in error because you do not
know the Scriptures or the power of God!”(Mk 12:24). (Ouch!)
This was followed by some serious teaching on the afterlife—“When the dead rise, they will neither
marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven”(Mk
12:25). Without pausing Jesus laid
out the straight truth about the resurrection—“Now about the dead rising—have you not read in the book of Moses, in
the account of the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is
not the God of the dead but of the living”(Mk 12:27). And while they were still reeling, there came
the straightforward indictment on the sum of their beliefs—“You are badly mistaken!”(Mk 12:27).
“Badly mistaken” is not a different interpretation on a
non-essential precept. It is not a
varied view on how God started this earth or how He will end it. It is not whether you dunk, sprinkle, or
douse in the name of the triune God. “Badly
mistaken” means you have missed the crucial and indispensable truth that God so
loved the world that He became a man who lived a perfect life on this earth and
tore Himself apart on the cross so we would not have to be separated from Him
forever because of our sin. “Badly
mistaken” means you do not believe that Jesus conquered death physically and
spiritually. “Badly mistaken” means you’re
trusting in your being better instead of God’s best. “Badly mistaken” means you think that the paths
of all religions lead to the same place. “Badly mistaken” means you might believe in
the existence of God and even the events of Jesus’ earthly life but you have never
received His gift of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
Believing what’s right makes more than just a big
difference; it makes all the difference.
Stick with Scripture, and you’ll never be badly mistaken.
