Mark 4:35 On the same day, when evening had come, He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side.” 36 Now when they had left the multitude, they took Him along in the boat as He was. And other little boats were also with Him. 37 And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat so that it was already filling. 38 But He was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?”
39 Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace,[g] be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. 40 But He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How[h] is it that you have no faith?” 41 And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!”
Many of the pericopes in the NT are present in order to connect the Old Testament to the New Testament. The Gospel of John especially does this kind of work. The material that John selects is often selected to set forth the divinity of Jesus Christ.
The question in Mark 4:41 is answered in the previous record of God’s Word. The answer to, “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey him,” is none other Jehovah as seen from the Psalms.
Then the mighty waves of the sea.
7 At Your rebuke they fled;
23 Those who go down to the sea in ships,
And praise Him in the company of the elders.
With the insertion of this pericope by Mark, Mark is declaring the divinity of Jesus Christ. Just as the Psalmist understood that God calmed the seas so Mark records that Jesus calms the seas. In the Hebrew mindset, the sea was often associated with chaos having its own internal power and so were places to be feared. In Genesis 1 we read,
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Here we see that God is taming the chaos of the waters (The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters) bringing order where formlessness and void had previously existed. When we arrive at Genesis 7:11 we read of “the fountains of the great deep (tehom) bursting forth. The “great deep” in the Genesis 7 flood is the same deep that in Genesis 1:2 the Spirit of God is hovering over in order to bring order from chaos. However, in Genesis 7 we see this great deep under God’s control being used as an agency of God’s judgment against His disobedient creation. It is as if God is saying; “From chaos, I have created. To chaos, I return.”
Another example of the sea being an agent of chaos and judgment is the occasion of the Hebrews crossing the Red Sea. God, as He did in Genesis 1, separates the land from the sea and in doing so tames the sea for Israel’s rescue. However, the Egyptians receive the chaos of the sea as God covers them with chaos (Ex. 15:5 — “covered by the deep.”) Once again God is seen as being master of the chaos.
When we turn to the Psalms above we once again see evidence of how the sea was viewed by the ancient fathers.
Now, enter Jesus who in Mark 4 commands the winds and the waves … commands the chaos. Likewise in Matthew 14, Jesus tames the chaos not only by calming it but also by walking upon the great deep. All of this, for those with eyes to see, is the Scripture screaming that “Jesus is God.” Screaming because here in Matthew 14 as read next to Genesis 1:2 we find the great deep as unruly and chaotic being tamed by God hovering over the chaos bringing order out of chaos.
These passages are communicating the ontological nature of Jesus Christ. In generations, previous writers like Oscar Cullman insisted that the preoccupation of the early creeds to set forth the ontological deity of Jesus Christ were misplaced because the early Church fathers were displaying a Greek mindset in worrying about establishing the deity of Jesus. Cullman insisted that the Hebrew mindset was really only concerned with how Jesus was God in a functional sense. However, this passage in Mark gives the error to Cullman’s musings. When the disciples asked;
“Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!”
They were asking what we would call an ontological question about the nature of Jesus Christ and in the record of their worshiping of Jesus we find the testimony that they concluded with the Greek early church Fathers that Jesus was very God of very God. Of course, this is underscored by John 1 when under the inspiration of the Spirit he gives quite the ontological passage as to the nature of Jesus Christ.
