What does Mark 6:1–6 reveal about what God does in my place and on my behalf (Son)?
This passage identifies the fact that our natural response to Jesus is unbelief. Even if we might like Jesus (as his family and friends in Nazareth surely did), our natural response to him is not to believe his message but to ignore it. This shows us that God needs to do something in us if we are going to come to true faith in Jesus Christ. We need God to make us alive if we are to come to faith. We need God to pay for our sin of unbelief, our sin of hearing the good news about Jesus but rejecting that good news. Our enduring comfort in this life is that our Saviour died also for my sin of unbelief. The unbelief that I showed before my conversion, the unbelief that stubbornly remains in my heart and shows itself whenever I choose to ignore God even now. Jesus Christ has paid the penalty for all my sins.
1 He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him.