Mark gives us the ministry of the Lord. His account is brief; and there are few events which are not recorded by Matthew and Luke. Nevertheless, what a gap there would be in our view of the Savior's life and work here below, if we had not Mark! In none have we a more characteristic manner of presenting what is given us. In none have we such graphic, vivid life-touches of our Master: not only what He said and did, but how He looked and felt. Besides, there is the evident design of drawing our attention to His gospel-service; and all the incidents chosen, and the peculiar mode in which they are handled, will be found to bear upon this weighty and affecting theme: the Lord God as the servant, in lowly, faithful ministration of the gospel here below.
The very opening illustrates this. “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God: as it is written in the prophets, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying,” &c. We at once enter on the great business the Holy Ghost had in hand. There is no blowing of trumpets to usher in the king in due style and title. This has its just place in Matthew, where the descent traced from Abraham and David, along the chosen royal line of Solomon too, so admirably agree with God's object there. And the circumstances before and after His birth follow, all carrying out the same end of presenting Jesus as the true and blessed Messiah of Israel. Luke and John, it could be readily shown, were endowed by the Spirit with equally striking and suited wisdom for maintaining the aim of their gospels respectively; but space forbids, for the present, our delaying to speak of these things particularly.
It is well, however, in noting the beautiful immediateness of the picture here brought before our eyes, to observe that there is no precipitancy, no omission of what was a most important preface for the account of Jesus thus ministering—the previous appearance and services of John the Baptist. To this there seems to be an allusion in the opening words. It was more than prophecy, though in accordance, as verses 2 and 3 prove, with the prophets. “The law and the prophets,” we are told elsewhere, “were until John,” who took a great step in advance— “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Such was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, after long silence had reigned as to God's testimony in Jerusalem.
Further, is it not touching to see that, if we are about to follow the steps of God's faithful and only perfect servant, the change which the Holy Ghost, in sovereign wisdom, makes in His citation (ver. 2) of Mal. 3:1, attests the divine glory of Jesus? In the prophecy it is Jehovah sending His messenger who would prepare the way before Him. In the evangelist it is still Jehovah sending His messenger, but it is now before “thy face,” i.e. the face of Jesus Christ. The truth is, Jesus, humble Himself as He might, was Jehovah. Matthew elicits the same truth from His name. “Thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins.” Now the Jews were the people of none but Jehovah. It is the more remarkable in the opening of our gospel; for Mark, unlike Matthew, rarely quotes the Scriptures. How perfectly it is in keeping with the gospel, and its opening part also, is evident. If the Lord of glory was coming or comes in the form of a servant and the likeness of men, it was most appropriate that prophecy should (not be broken but) bend before Him, and that a new and still more blessed testimony should begin.
But where cries this voice of the herald, and where was he baptizing? “In the wilderness.” What, then, was the state of Jerusalem and the people of God? They must go outside to John if they would take their right place before God. What be presented was the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. The effect was great; I say not savingly, but extensive, and not without touching the conscience. “There went to him all the land of Judea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” All this is here sketched by Mark, clearly but rapidly and in brief, without stopping by the way to set before us, as was needful to the purpose of God in Matthew, the proud and false-hearted men who stood in the place of religious leaders of the day, objects of God's certain and scrutinizing judgment.
But if John had his own special place, and if his abode, and garb, and food, (ver. 6,) witnessed his separation from the evil state of Israel, it was his happier task to testify the superiority of Christ's person, and of His ministry, as compared with his own (ver. 7, 8). Nothing is here said of baptizing with fire, as in Matthew and Luke, to both of whose subjects it was requisite. But Mark was inspired to speak only of that part of John's testimony which is directly associated with the Lord's gospel work, namely, baptizing with the Holy Ghost. It is not, of course, that, under Christ repentance ceased, and can ever but be in a world of sin, the necessary pathway of a soul that is born of God. Still, the turning of a soul to God, in a sense of sin and self-judgment, is different from the divine power which sets evil aside on the basis of a redemption accomplished by the grace of God. This is the characteristic blessing of Christianity.
Yet was Jesus, the baptizer with the Holy Ghost, Himself baptized by John in the Jordan (ver. 9), Himself receives the Holy Ghost! What a sight and truth! Infinitely above sin and sins, (which He did not even know,) yet was He baptized with water: He had no unrighteousness to confess, but thus it became Him to fulfill all righteousness. From Nazareth of Galilee came He, who was God over all, blessed forever. There He dwelt, as Matthew tells us, so that the prophets' saying might be in this, as in all else, fulfilled. Could heaven behold unmoved such grace? Impossible. “And straightway coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens opened [cleaving asunder], and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him.” What meaning had that act of baptism in the mind of God! “And there came a voice from heaven saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” “Him,” as John says, “hath God the Father sealed.” It is not merely the fact, but “He saw,” &o., which is here recorded. Though truly God, He was man; though a Son, He became a servant, and was now about to enter on His ministry. He receives the Spirit as well as the recognition of His Sonship. He had justified God's sentence on, and call to, Israel; yea, He had in grace joined the souls who had bowed to it in the waters of Jordan; but this could not be without the answer of the Father for His heart's joy in the path He was about to tread. The one was the fulfillment of every kind of righteousness and not legal only (this in grace, for there was no necessity of evil in His case); the other was His recognition thereon by the Father in the nearest personal relationship, over which His submission to baptism might have cast a cloud to carnal eyes.
“And immediately the Spirit driveth Him into the wilderness; and He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts, and the angels ministered unto Him.” (Ver. 12, 13.) What a picture of His position in a few words of God! Moses, the lawgiver, had been with God on the mount forty days; Elijah, the prophet, had been in the wilderness with God for the same, sustained without the need of man's food. But what was either miracle compared with the position of Jesus? For Him the Son, to be with God was, and had been from all eternity, His natural place, so to speak; but now He was come down to the earth, a man among men; and in the wilderness, to which sin had reduced this fair creation, He is for forty days tempted of Satan. Man was not there; but the wild beasts were, as our evangelist so forcibly adds; and there too the angels were ministering to Him. It was all His wondrous preparation for a service no less wondrous.