Bible Study series: Mark 1:1-8. John introduces the coming Anointed One to the crowds. How do we introduce Jesus to our world?
As I will write in every post in this Bible Study series on Mark: friendly greetings and a warm welcome to this Bible study! I write to learn, so let’s learn together how to apply these truths to our lives.
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If you would like to see the original Greek, please click here:
At that link, I also offer more commentary and a Summary and Conclusion, geared towards discipleship. Scroll down to the bottom and check it out!
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Mark 1:1-8
1 The beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ, Son of God, 2 just as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
See! I send my messenger before me, Who will prepare your path, [Mal. 3:1]
3 A voice crying in the desert,
“Prepare the path of the Lord!
Make his ways straight!” [Is. 40:3]
4 John the Baptizer appeared in the desert and proclaiming the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin. 5 All of Judea, including all the Jerusalemites, went out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. 6 And John was clothed with camel hair and a leather belt around his waist, eating locusts and wild honey. 7 He was preaching, saying, “He who is stronger than I comes after me, and I am not fit to bend down and untie the straps of his sandals! 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit!”
Commentary
1:
The opening words is as close as we can get to the title of the Gospel. It certainly is the opening statement, and it is theologically rich one. It lays out themes in the entire Gospel. Let’s study the key words.
“beginning”: this is an allusion to Gen. 1:1 (see also John 1:1).
“good news”: it is the Greek noun euangelion (pronounced you-ahn-geh-lee-on, and the “g” is hard as in “get”). It simply combines “good” or “positive” (eu) and “report” or “news” or “announcement” (angelion). So literally it means “good news” or “good report” or “good announcement.”
An inscription, dating to around 9 B.C. says of the emperor Octavian (Augustus): “the birthday of the god [Octavian] was for the world the beginning of joyful tidings [euangelion] which have been proclaimed in his account” (qtd. in Lane, p. 43). The emphasized words parallel the opening line of Mark’s Gospel.
The gospel is good news, not bad news. Never forget it, ye old harsh preachers.
Commentator R. T. France writes of the term euangelion:
Mark is generally credited with having initiated that usage, not by design, but by the fact that his use of the term in the heading of his work offered an obvious label to those who in due course found it necessary to refer in generic terms to this apparently new category of writing. In classical Greek (where it was normally plural, like our ‘good news’) it originally meant the reward given to the bearer of good news, and then came to refer to the good news itself. In the Hellenistic period there are examples of its use in a more specifically religious context, particularly in connection with the cult of the emperor, whose birthday, accession to power, and the like, even a forthcoming ‘royal visit’, were hailed as [euangelion]
The gospel has one of its source in this passage from Isaiah:
How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,
who publishes salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” (Is. 52:7, ESV)
“Jesus”: Matthew informs us that his name in Hebrew (Joshua) means “Yahweh saves” because he shall save his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). His name reaches out for the purpose of saving others. At the beginning of his ministry, he sought out the lost sheep of Israel (Matt. 10:6; 15:24), but by the end, he will commission his message of good news to go global (Matt. 28:18-20; Mark. 16:15).
“about Christ”: It could be translated “about Christ” or it could be subjective: Christ is the source of the gospel and he is the one teaching it. It is probably both at the same time. Christ is a title that means “the Anointed One.” It soon evolved into his name, and even the writers of the epistles seem to adopt it as his name. It appears seven times in Mark.
3. Titles of Jesus: The Son of David and the Messiah
“Son of God”: Jesus was the Son of the Father eternally, before creation. The Son has no beginning. He and the Father always were, together. The relationship is portrayed in this Father-Son way so we can understand who God is more clearly. Now he relates to us as his sons and daughters. On our repentance and salvation and union with Christ, we are brought into his eternal family.
6. Titles of Jesus: The Son of God
When Did Jesus “Become” the Son of God?
2-3:
This is a hybrid quotation from the prophet Malachi and Isaiah. Mark refers to the dominant prophet, Isaiah. John prepares the way or path or road ahead of Jesus.
“messenger”: is the Greek noun angelos (pronounced ahn-geh-loss, and the “g” is hard as in “get”). Yes, it can mean a heavenly messenger, as in an angel, but its core meaning is a messenger, whether human or heavenly.
4-5:
John was in southern Israel, on the Jordan River, toward the east. This website is not equipped to produce maps, especially when Bible maps can be easily found online. Google Jordan River Bible maps.
France writes of the wilderness or desert:
For the wilderness was a place of hope, of new beginnings. It was in the wilderness that Yahweh had met with Israel and made them into his people when they came out of Egypt. That had been the honeymoon period, before the relationship became strained. ‘I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. Israel was holy to Yahweh, the first fruits of his harvest’ (Jer. 2:2–3).
Some scholars say that around a million people were baptized by him, if they came from beyond Judea and Jerusalem and all over the larger area. Considering the context two thousand years ago, that’s a revival!
“baptizer”: Mark is the only one who uses the participle “the baptizing one” or “he who baptizes.” Matthew and Luke use “Baptist,” more as a title. The participle comes from the verb baptizō (pronounced bahp-tee-zoh), and it means “to dip in or under water”; it can refer in some contexts in Greek literature to being “soaked in wine.” It is related to the briefer verb baptō, which means “to dip in water”; the Latin verb is immergere or immerse. One can dip cloth in dye or a bucket in the well to draw water—those illustrate baptō. It can even be used of a ship that sank (Liddell and Scott). John could rightly be called the Dipper or Immerser.
“baptism”: it is the noun baptisma (pronounced bahp-teez-mah), and, as noted, its basic meaning is dip or immerse. The suffix –ma– means “the result of,” so together baptisma means the result of dipping or immersing.
France writes in his comment on on 4-5: “[Baptism’s] importance in mainstream Judaism is indicated by the increasing number of miqwāʾōt (ritual immersion baths and pronounced mik-vah’oht) which archaeological discovery is revealing in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Palestine.”
“repentance”: it is the noun metanoia (pronounced meh-tah-noi-ah), and it literally means “change of mind.” But it goes deeper than mental assent or agreement. Another word for repent is the Greek stem streph– (including the prefixes ana-, epi-, and hupo-), which means physically “to turn” (see Luke 2:20, 43, 45). That reality-concept is all about new life. One turns around 180 degrees, going from the direction of death to the new direction of life.
Yes, repentance is wonderful as a foundation, but we must move on to Christ’s deeper teachings. In our context today, we should teach repentance to an audience where there may be the unrepentant and unconverted, but let’s not harangue the church with constant calls for them to repent every Sunday. They need mature teachings. There are many other doctrines in Scripture.
“forgiveness”: it comes from the Greek noun aphesis (pronounced ah-feh-seess), which means “release” or “cancellation” or “pardon” or “forgiveness.” Let’s look at a more formal definition of its verb, which is aphiēmi (pronounced ah-fee-ay-mee), and BDAG, considered by many to be the authoritative lexicon of the Greek NT, defines it with the basic meaning of letting go: (1) “dismiss or release someone or something from a place or one’s presence, let go, send away”; (2) “to release from legal or moral obligations or consequence, cancel, remit, pardon”; (3) “to move away with implication of causing a separation, leave, depart”; (4) “to leave something continue or remain in its place … let someone have something” (Matt. 4:20; 5:24; 22:22; Mark 1:18; Luke 10:30; John 14:18); (5) “leave it to someone to do something, let, let go, allow, tolerate.” The Shorter Lexicon adds “forgive.” In sum, God lets go, dismisses, releases, sends away, cancels, pardons, and forgives our sins. His work is full and final. Don’t go backwards or dwell on it.
Please read these verses for how forgiving God is:
10 He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us. (Ps. 103:10-12)
And these great verses are from Micah:
18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
and passing over transgression
for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger forever,
because he delights in steadfast love.
19 He will again have compassion on us;
he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea. (Mic. 7:18-19, ESV)
Please see my post about forgiveness:
“sins”: it comes from the noun hamartia (pronounced hah-mar-tee-ah). A deep study reveals that it means a “departure from either human or divine standards of uprightness” (BDAG, p. 50). It can also mean a “destructive evil power” (ibid., p. 51). In other words, sin has a life of its own. Be careful! In the older Greek of the classical world, it originally meant to “miss the mark” or target. Sin destroys, and that’s why God hates it, and so should we. The good news: God promises us forgiveness when we repent.
6:
John was an austere man, and his clothing and diet prove it. 1 Kings 1:8 says: Elijah “wore a garment of hair, with a belt of leather about his waist. It is Elijah the Tishbite.”
John is fulfilling this Scripture from Malachi, in the OT:
5 “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.” (Mal. 4:5-6, NIV)
Believe it or not, the locust was a clean animal, which means it could be eaten (Lev. 11:20-23). They were roasted or broiled and seasoned with salt, like our prawns or shrimp, or they were dried in the sun and coated with honey and vinegar or powdered and mixed wheat flour and served as pancakes (France, The Gospel of Matthew, p. 106). Great source of protein (apparently)!
7:
“fit”: John did not consider himself worthy to stoop down and unlatch the strap of Jesus’s sandals. This is true humility.
Removing someone’s sandals was a lowly task appropriate only for a slave. The statement is particularly striking in the light of later rabbinic tradition that removing a master’s sandals was too low a task to require even of one’s Hebrew slave” (Wessel and Strauss, comment on 1:7).
8:
“Spirit”: He is the third person of the Trinity. Jesus not only operates by the power of the Spirit, but here he is the one who dispense the Spirit, a role given only to Yahweh in the OT (France). This is one more indicator of Jesus’s divinity. After Pentecost, he is sent into the hearts of everyone who repents and confesses Jesus was Lord. He causes these repentant people to be born again. They can also have a subsequent infilling of the Spirit (Acts 2:4, 4:8, 31; Eph. 5:17).
Here are some of my posts on a more formal doctrine of the Spirit (systematic theology):
The Spirit’s Deity and Divine Attributes
The Spirit in the Life of Christ
The Spirit in the Church and Believers
Here is the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost:
1 And when the Feast of Pentecost had fully come, all of them were together in that one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there was a sound like the rush of an extra-strong wind. The whole house was filled where they were sitting, 3 and tongues as fire were seen by them, were distributed among them, and settled on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other languages, as the Spirit gave them inspiration to speak and declare. (Acts 2:1-4, my translation)
These passages speak of an eschatological outpouring of the Spirit:
… until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high,
and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. (Is. 32:15, ESV)
For I will pour water on the thirsty land,
and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring,
and my blessing on your descendants. (Is. 44:3, ESV)
26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezek. 36:26-27, ESV)
And I will not hide my face anymore from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, declares the Lord God. (Ezek. 39:29, ESV)
“And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
29 Even on the male and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit. (Joel 2:28-29, ESV; cf. Acts 2:17-21)
The Spirit in the Old Testament
To conclude ….
John the Baptist takes center stage but just for a moment. He will usher in the Messiah, and then his ministry will be over. It must have been tough for the fiery prophet to yield up his ministry to his cousin. Fortunately, his relative Jesus was the stronger and more powerful one, so John handed over the lead to him.
The promise of the Spirit, as preached by John, was given to Israel. In Joel’s prophecy, the Spirit is poured out in all flesh or all of humanity. Each of those above passages speak of obeying the law of God and living righteously. Now this obedience comes from the inside out and by the power of the indwelling Spirit. Don’t let any teacher tell you that you don’t have to worry about living righteously. You absolutely do. So does right believing lead to right living? Partly, but not entirely, because anyone who believes right could also live wrong. True and right living is done by the overflow and outflow of the Spirit in conformity to Scripture.
Grow App
1.. Has the Spirit caused you to be born again? Have you had a subsequent infilling or empowerment of the Spirit, for service? Tell your story.
2.. John preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Have you genuinely repented? Tell your story.
3. On your genuine repentance, God forgave you. How did that make you feel?
4. John proclaimed Jesus. When God opens the door for you to proclaim the gospel to a friend or family member, will you be ready to preach Jesus? How do you get prepared?
RELATED
10. Eyewitness Testimony in Mark’s Gospel
2. Church Fathers and Mark’s Gospel
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
SOURCES
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