From whom or what Jesus was hiding (afraid of) in the given cases during his ministry?

Question

We know Jesus is not afraid of anybody or anything, but let us consider these scenarios during His ministry.

1. Jesus healing a leper- Mark 1:43-44

"Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”

2. Jesus Heals a deaf and mute man"- Mark 7:36

"And He gave them orders not to tell anyone; but the more He ordered them, the more widely they continued to proclaim it. "

3. Jesus warns disciples- Mark 8:29-30

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.” Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

So here is my question - To whom or what Jesus was hiding/afraid of in these cases?

Answer 1

Jesus was totally aware of the future, and he was also aware of all of the possibilities of people making differing decisions. In other words God will not interfere with our free will, and so the future depends heavily on all our decisions and each decision will set into motion a different course for the future.

Although Jesus was afraid of nothing, the plan of Salvation was based on all of those decisions happening in a specific order.

Matthew 26:18 KJV And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples.

Jesus had to follow the plan God had determined, and every step along that path was necessary to fulfill the prophesies of the Old Testament. As for instance the Scripture cited above, was necessary not only to show that he was diligently following a specific course, but that by knowing the specifics of the plan; he was of necessity, showing his disciples the proper reactions to God.

It need be noted here that this also led to his teaching them servitude by his washing their feet, an action normally assigned to the lowest of servants.

Jesus was afraid of no man but did fear not completely following the plans of God. Unless every facet of Jesus life were to take place exactly as planned some important part of the plan would be incomplete. Therefore, Jesus was warning them that there was a danger in not completing the plan completely.

John 7:8 KJV Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come.

John 7:8 is indicative of just how critical the timing was in Jesus life since Jesus did go to Jerusalem, but not at the minute that the others did, so it was not going to the feast Jesus was avoiding, but the timing. Had Jesus gone with them it is possible that when he got to the Temple the Sanhedrin might have been there with their Temple guards and could even have prevented his display of anger at the commercialization of the Temple.

Were not every jot and tittle of his life in the exact timing of God's plan, we must wonder how it would have effected the plan of Salvation.

Jesus was born, lived, and died in total consonance with God's plan to save you and me.

In short the only thing Jesus feared was not being totally obedient to the Father, that is not to say that he desired all of the pain and suffering he encountered, but knew that every pain was necessary to Save us from our sin

Answer 2

This is known as the Messianic Secret and occurs primarily in the Gospel of Mark, where Jesus is portrayed as commanding his followers to be silent about his Messianic mission. Throughout the Gospel of Mark, there are regular examples of Jesus admonishing both people and demons not to reveal to others who he truly was. Conversely, there are some passages in which Jesus actually told people to tell others about him, such as happens in Mark 5:19.

In 1901, William Wrede proposed the hypothesis of a Messianic Secret in Mark's Gospel. He believed that Mark's Gospel was faithfully reporting the events and sayings of Jesus, but added the admonitions of secrecy in order to reduce tension between early beliefs about Jesus being the Messiah and the non-messianic nature of his mission. Wrede suggested that his hypothesis would work best if Markan priority turned out to be false, writing that it would be 'most highly desirable' if such a gospel as Mark were not the oldest gospel. It is now almost universally accepted by scholars that Mark's Gospel was the first New Testament gospel to be written and it is also generally accepted that Mark is not an accurate report on the mission of Jesus, so his hypothesis necessarily requires revision.

If Mark is not an accurate report, we can say that the central idea of the Messianic Secret comes from the author of Mark and not from Jesus, but that the context is not as Wrede envisaged. Peter, alone among the disciples, refers to Jesus as the Christ (Messiah), but later in the Gospel, Peter denies Jesus three times, thereby amending his earlier belief in Jesus as the Messiah. It appears that the author of Mark was careful not to have Jesus or his followers speak of Jesus as the son of God, perhaps because it would have been considered blasphemy among potential converts. Only outsiders such as demons, the high priest and the centurion present at the crucifixion could be used to make this claim. On two occasions, God himself announces that Jesus is his beloved son, in whom he is well pleased, but no opponent of the early Christians would criticise God. A Proposed Framework Structure in Mark's Gospel provides a sound explanation of the literary constructs that may have been used in Mark's Gospel to develop themes, including the theme of the Messianic Secret.

Jesus was not hiding or afraid of anything on this earth, but his story had to be adapted to protect the church and its members in its earliest years. By the time the later gospels were written, this was no longer necessary, and we find that the Messianic Secret becomes increasingly less in evidence as we move from Matthew to Luke and then John.