Jesus Came

Mark 1:9-13
Richard Spencer | Sunday, September 29, 2019
Copyright © 2019, Richard Spencer

The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are the most significant events in all of history, and the events described in this short passage in the gospel of Mark are the most significant turning point in the life of Jesus Christ. They took him from being a private citizen, a humble carpenter living in an unimportant small town, to publicly proclaiming himself to be the promised Messiah, the King of his people. The parallel account in Luke tells us that Jesus was 30 years old when these events took place, which was the age at which a priest would enter his service at the temple in Jerusalem. And so Jesus, who we are told in Hebrews is our great high priest forever, entered into his service at that age as well.

He is, as Mark told us in the first verse of his gospel, the Son of God. He is the unique God-man, the only mediator between God and men, the only Savior of mankind, the Creator of the universe, the Lord of history and the one to whom we will all have to give an account at the end of our lives. The apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:10 that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”

I have organized our examination of this passage under four headings, which come straight from the text. The first heading is simply the first three words of the passage; namely, “At that time”. The second heading is, “heaven opened”. The third heading is, “God’s beloved”. And the fourth is, “Holy Spirit empowered work”. So let’s begin with the first three words of our passage, “At that time”.

I.      At That Time

In our translation Verse 9 begins, “At that time Jesus came from Nazareth”. The Greek construction used at the beginning of this verse is a conscious imitation of the style of the Septuagint,[1] which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament that was in use at the time of Christ. It can be more literally rendered as “And it came to pass in those days”. Mark was conscious of the fact that he was recording real history concerning the life, teaching and works of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He knew that Jesus is fully God and fully man. He knew that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies about the coming Messiah. He is telling us historical fact, not fiction. What Mark wrote was absolutely true.

The modern view that doctrine and historical truths are unimportant so long as we are “spiritual”, is incoherent nonsense. When some Sadducees questioned Jesus about the law, he rebuked them as we read in Mark 12:24, by saying, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?”. If we want to know truth, we must know what the Word of God says and we must know God. And intellectual knowledge is not sufficient, we need experiential knowledge of God. We must love God, which as Christ told us in John 14:15, means that we will obey him. And so, in John 8:31-32, we read that Jesus told the Jews who had believed him that “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” And notice that to “hold to my teaching” simply means to obey. You cannot know the truth in its fullest sense if you do not obey God.

John Calvin began his great work, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, by writing, “Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.”[2] And we learn about God and ourselves in the Bible, which is the Word of God. Understanding the Word of God properly is critically and eternally important. It alone tells us that we are sinners, deserving hell, and it alone tells us how to be saved. In 1 Corinthians 15:34 Paul commands his readers, “Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame.”. And in 2 Peter 3:16 the apostle mentions “ignorant and unstable people” who “distort” the Scriptures “to their own destruction.” The Bible is the most important book ever written, it alone contains the truth about how we can be saved. To ignore or distort its message is to court eternal destruction.

The modern scientific worldview that dominates UC Davis and virtually every other university denies the existence of anything outside of this physical universe. Many intellectuals will tell you that it is irrational to believe in the God of the Bible. But that is a lie born out of human arrogance and enmity against the holy God. The truth is that it is irrational to believe that this universe popped into existence out of nothing with no cause. It is irrational to believe that living, sentient, moral beings came into existence through the random combinations of non-living chemicals. It is irrational to believe that there is no absolute moral standard. It is irrational to believe that our ultimate standard for truth should be a brain that is supposed to be nothing more than atoms in motion obeying the laws of physics and which is supposed to have developed by random mutations and natural selection over millions of years in a fight for survival.

In fact, the Bible tells us that this unbelieving worldview is worse than irrational, it is wicked because it is rebellion against God and it is suppressing the truth that we all know if we are honest with ourselves. Romans 1:18-19 tell us that “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.”

Friends, do not suppress the truth. Lies will not set you free, only the truth can do that. Listen to Mark. He is telling us about real historical events. Christianity is reality. It is historically true. We need to pay attention to what Mark wrote.

And so, our passage begins in Verse 9 by saying that “At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.” Jesus Christ is God incarnate. He was and is perfectly sinless, which is why in Matthew’s account of his baptism we read that John the Baptist tried to deter Jesus from being baptized, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” (Matt 3:14) And yet, Jesus was beginning his public ministry by identifying with his sinful people. The Lord of glory had already humbled himself and become a man, and now in this action he humbled himself even further and submitted to a baptism of repentance, which was intended to symbolically cleanse a person of sin. And he did this in spite of the fact that he had no sin of his own of which he needed to repent. But, in being baptized by John, he identified with those sinners whom he came to save.

And then in Verse 10 we read that “As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.” Which leads to my second point today, heaven opened.

II.      Heaven Opened

Friends let me tell you the truth. There is a real heaven and there is a real hell. And they are the only two possible eternal homes for every single one of us. The university intellectuals will tell you that they don’t exist because we can’t see them or go and measure their extent and determine their nature. But they are real, and unless you suppress the truth, you know that is true. You know that this life is not all there is. When you die you don’t just cease to exist. And the word of God, which is truth, tells us in Hebrews 9:27 that “man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment”. And Jesus told us in Matthew 25:46 that the wicked “will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” We all know there is a judgment coming, which is why people fear death as much as they do.

So be warned and take heed! Life if short and eternity never ends. It is the most logical and important thing you can do in this life to prepare yourself for eternity. You know from the nature of the world around you and your own nature that God exists, but you must look into God’s word to see how to be saved. And you know you need a Savior. Is there anyone here who would volunteer to stand alone before the perfectly holy and just God as judge? This God created you and knows your every thought, word and deed. He has commanded you to be perfect as he is perfect. Have you loved him as you ought to have loved him? Have you lived life in thankful obedience to his every command? Would you want to stand before him and ask him to judge you justly? I can’t believe that anyone would be so foolishly arrogant as to want to do that. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. And so we should all ask, “What must I do to be saved?”

The fact that heaven opened shows us that there is more to this universe than we can see with our physical eyes. There is a spiritual dimension as well. You are not just atoms in motion, you have a spirit. That is what makes you a rational, morally responsible human being. The spiritual realm is every bit as real as the physical realm, but we can’t normally see it or touch it. And yet, as a testimony to the unique nature of Jesus Christ, heaven opened and the Father sent the Holy Spirit down to Jesus in a visible form as a dove. We see the triune nature of God in this passage. The Father is in heaven, Jesus Christ, the God-man, was here on earth, and the Holy Spirit came down upon him, which is a most important point that we will return to it in a few minutes.

But this brings us to Verse 11, where we hear the Father speak. We read that “a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’” Which leads to my third point, God’s beloved.

III.    God’s Beloved

It is true that Jesus Christ was born of the virgin Mary in the town of Bethlehem a little over 2,000 years ago, but that was only the beginning of the incarnation. The eternal Son of God had no beginning. The triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – has always existed. He is the only necessarily and independently existent being.

The apostle John tells us about the eternal nature of Jesus Christ clearly in the first chapter of his gospel. We read in Verses 1-4, 14 and 18 that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. … The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. … No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.”

Jesus Christ the eternal Word has made the Father known to us. We are told in Hebrews 1:1-3 that “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” As these verses tell us, God spoke to his people through prophets for many years before Christ came. We have the record of that communication in the Old Testament. And the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ fulfilled many prophecies made hundreds of years before he was born. In fact, these words of God spoken at Jesus’ baptism harken back to what God said in Isaiah 42:1, the beginning of the first so-called suffering servant passage, where God declared, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.”

But now, God has spoken through Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God, through whom he created the universe. This Son is the exact representation of God’s being and he sustains all things. And we are told that he provided purification for sins and then, when that work was accomplished, he sat down at the right hand of God.

And our passage this morning tells us about the beginning of Christ’s work. According to God’s plan, as revealed through the prophets in the Old Testament, Jesus had to become incarnate because it was man who sinned and it must, therefore, be a man who pays the penalty for our sins. But no mere man could possibly pay that penalty, which is why the Savior also had to be God.

After being born, the man Jesus of Nazareth had to grow up just like all other men do. He had to learn to walk and talk and earn a living. We are told in Luke 2:51-52 that as a child he was obedient to his parents and that he “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” And Jesus was not only perfectly obedient to his earthly parents, he was also perfectly obedient to his heavenly Father.

He knew what it was he came to accomplish and in our passage this morning we see the beginning of what is called his public ministry. In obedience to his Father’s will, he was baptized. And God sent the Holy Spirit to indwell him without limit we are told in John 3:34.

We then read, in Verse 12 of our passage, that “At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert”. And this leads to my fourth point, Holy Spirit empowered work.

IV.    Holy Spirit empowered work

God created this universe for a purpose, which is the manifestation of his own glory. And all of history is unfolding according to God’s eternal plan to accomplish this purpose. There is work to do and each one of us has a role assigned to us. And just as God poured out his Holy Spirit on Jesus without measure to enable him to do the most difficult task anyone has ever been called upon to do, so he will provide his Holy Spirit to us in sufficient measure to do the work he has assigned to us, all we need to do is ask. We read in Luke 11:13 that Jesus told his disciples, “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

And so Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, began his work. And the first thing he had to do in his public ministry was to go through 40 days in a desert wilderness being tempted by Satan. We are told in Verse 13 that Jesus, “was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.”

We first encounter Satan in the book of Genesis. Satan was originally created as a great holy angel, who enjoyed perfect communion with God. But for some unfathomable reason, he became proud and rebelled against God. As a result, he lost communion with God and became his arch enemy.

In Genesis we see him fighting against God by tempting Eve and bringing about the fall of mankind. And we should take note that Adam and Eve were given a very simple command to obey under absolutely ideal circumstances. They were in an idyllic garden, they had all the food they could possibly need, they had beauty and peace with each other and with God. There were no dangers, there was no sickness, there was no sorrow or pain of any kind. They were only forbidden to eat the fruit of one tree. And yet they failed, they rebelled against their Creator by violating this simple command.

When God pronounced judgment on Adam and Eve for their sin, he also pronounced judgment on Satan. We read in Genesis 3:15 that God told Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

Satan knows that his days are numbered. He knows that he is only a creature and cannot defeat God. In fact, he can do nothing without God’s permission. And yet, in spite of the futility of it all, his hatred drives him to continue to oppose God to the utmost of his ability. And Jesus was driven into the desert for 40 days without food to be tempted by Satan. But God always has a purpose in bringing trials. And we know the purpose of Jesus’ temptations. We are told in Hebrews 4:15 that “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.” Friends, Jesus knows experientially what it is like to endure great hardship and tremendous temptation, and he was completely victorious because he was filled beyond measure with the Holy Spirit of God.

We should contrast the task assigned to Jesus with the temptation that Adam and Eve experienced. He was in a desert, they were in a garden. He had nothing to eat for 40 days, they had all the food they could want. He was with wild animals who would like to do him harm, whereas all of the animals in the garden were completely subject to Adam and Eve. And Jesus’ temptations were unimaginably greater than the one that tripped up Adam and Eve. And yet, by the Holy Spirit power, Jesus was victorious. He never sinned. And this same awesome Holy Spirit is available to us who believe. Praise God!

In overcoming these temptations, Jesus showed us how we can defeat Satan when we are tempted. In James 4:7 we are told, “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Therefore, the first step in defeating Satan is to be fully submitted to the will of God. Jesus had submitted fully in becoming incarnate and living a perfectly sinless life to this point, and now he submitted fully by being baptized and then going into the desert.

The second step in defeating Satan is to resist him. And Jesus demonstrated for us how to do that too. Although Mark does not provide the details, we are told of three specific temptations in the accounts in Matthew and Luke. In each case, Satan struck at what he perceived to be a possible weakness and wrongly interpreted the Word of God. And in each case Jesus stood firm and replied with Scripture, correcting Satan and vindicating God. We need the Holy Spirit to properly understand God’s word so that we can effectively oppose Satan. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 2:14 that “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

Friends, let me tell you, if you are fully submitted to the will of God and if you know his Word and apply it correctly, you too can defeat Satan. We have God’s promise in 1 Corinthians 10:13 that “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” We have a great high priest who has been tempted in every way, but never sinned. Go to him in prayer, ask for the power of the Holy Spirit – the same Holy Spirit who helped Jesus – and he will supply you with all you need to resist temptation and glorify God.

But Jesus’ victory provided much more than just a good example for us. And he endured far more than just the temptations in the desert for those 40 days. He went on to minister to the people for three years. Healing the sick, raising the dead, driving out demons, choosing and instructing his apostles and challenging the rulers and priests in their hypocrisy.

Then, at the end of those three years, he willingly gave himself over to suffer the agonizing and shameful death of a criminal on the cross. And he did this all in his human nature and in the power of the Holy Spirit. And because he himself was completely sinless and had lived a perfectly obedient life, he was a worthy sacrifice. We are told in Hebrews 5:8-9 that “Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him”. Pay careful attention to this limiting clause. Jesus didn’t come to save everyone, only those who obey him!

And because he is not just a perfect, sinless man, but also God, his sacrifice was sufficient to pay for the sins of every person who will surrender to him and trust in him alone. We are told in 1 Peter 1:18-19 that “it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”

Praise God for his glorious plan of salvation. We are told in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Friends, every single one of us begins life as a child of Adam. Having inherited his sinful nature and his guilt we are enemies of God and are subject to his eternal wrath. We are controlled by our sinful natures and never do anything out of love for God or a desire to please and obey him. All we can do is sin. We refuse to submit to God’s rule. In Romans 8:7-8 we are told that “the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.”

But God does not leave us without hope. In John 3 Verses 3 and 5 we read that Jesus told Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” And “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.” If you have never been born again you are spiritually dead and headed for eternal hell. So, what must you do to be saved? You must confess that you are a sinner, worthy of God’s wrath, and that you cannot save yourself. Then cry out for God to have mercy on you and give you a new heart so that you can see and understand the truth.

For Jesus Christ not only died on the cross to pay for our sins, he also rose from the dead on the third day for our justification. God raised him up because death had no hold on him. God’s raising him up showed that his sacrifice had been accepted. Our sins have been paid for in full and salvation is possible. And so we are told in Romans 10:9 that “if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Salvation is a gift from God. It is free and costs you nothing, indeed, if you think you can earn even the tiniest fraction of it you have not truly seen your need and are not saved. But let me issue a warning to all of us; the confession we make is that Jesus is Lord. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” If you are a new creation and Jesus is truly your Lord, that change will manifest itself. Your life will be different. Remember, he only came to save those who obey.

I said earlier that God’s purpose in creation is the manifestation of his own glory. Therefore, in 1 Corinthians 10:31 we are told, “whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” And we can look to Jesus to see how we glorify God. In John 17:4 Jesus was praying to the Father and said, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.”

There is work for us to do. In Ephesians 2:10 we are told that “we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” We glorify God by being obedient and doing the work he has assigned. And if we do the work that God has ordained for us to do, angels will attend us just as they did Jesus Christ. Your work in the Lord is never in vain and if you are obediently doing his will you cannot fail. God will make sure that you succeed, but you need the Holy Spirit to enable and guide you every step of the way. So ask for the Holy Spirit, cry out to God!

It is my hope and prayer that everyone who can hear my voice will see the truth of God’s Word and be born again so that we can all obey God’s commands to repent and to believe in his Son, Jesus Christ. Then we can all glorify God by being filled with the Holy Spirit and doing the work he has given us to do. We will then spend eternity together in heaven enjoying perfect fellowship with God and each other.

 

 

[1] See G. Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1964, Vol. I, pg. 682

[2] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Translated by Henry Beveridge, Hendrickson Publishers, 2008, 1.1.1