Jesus Christ, the Son of God

Mark 1:1-8
Gregory Perry | Sunday, September 22, 2019
Copyright © 2019, Gregory Perry

Mark 1:1-8: The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2 It is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way– 3 a voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’” 4 And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And this was his message: “After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 

We are beginning a series of sermons in which we will be preaching through the Gospel of Mark. This morning I will introduce the book as we look at its first eight verses. In these opening verses the author first introduces to his readers Jesus the Son of God, then the witness John the Baptist introduces to his followers Jesus the Messiah.

We will look at three points: The Gospel, The Christ, and The Witness.

A. The Gospel

The Book of Mark starts abruptly with this verbless phrase which acts as the book’s title and theme: The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

We are accustomed to the title of “Gospel” for the first four books of the New Testament, but the term being used to describe these four narratives of the life of Jesus comes from this introductory phrase in Mark. The Gospel genre presents the historical facts of the life, death, & resurrection of Jesus. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are all systematic accounts of the life and words of Jesus.

These Gospels present the gospel— the “good news” about God’s work of salvation in history through the death of Jesus Christ for our sins. All the Gospels climax in the death of Christ for the salvation of His people. So much so that all four Gospels have frequently been described as essentially “passion narratives with extended prologues.”

Most Bible scholars agree that Mark is the first Gospel written. The evidence suggests that Matthew and Luke, which are both significantly longer than Mark, used the Gospel of Mark as a framework for their own Gospel accounts.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the synoptic gospels because of how similar they are in their content. In fact, over 600 of the 661 verses of Mark (over 90%) are found in some fashion in Matthew and Luke combined. The Gospel of John, on the other hand, introduces a lot of material not found in the synoptic gospels.

While these three synoptic gospels have much in common, there are still significant differences. For one thing, unlike Matthew & Luke, there is in Mark no genealogy of Jesus given and no narrative of His birth. But only in Mark do we learn that before beginning His ministry, Jesus was a carpenter by trade (6:3).

Mark is also very different stylistically. The Gospel of Mark is much more fast-moving, vivid, and action-based than Matthew and Luke. One commentator spoke of Mark as reading much more like a series of “Eyewitness News Briefs.” The historical present tense is used more than 150 times (often not translated).

Mark 2:17 (literally): “On hearing this, Jesus says [legei] to them…” [your translation likely says “said” because it reads better in English]

Matt. 9:1 (parallel passage): “On hearing this, Jesus said [eipen]…”

Moreover, the Gospel of Mark uses “euthus” (“immediately”) 42 times— indicating the rapid movement to the next recorded event. In contrast, Matthew uses “euthus” only seven times and Luke uses it only once.

Mark 1:10: “As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.”— Greek says “And immediately (euthus) coming out of the water…”

Mark 1:12: “At once (euthus) the Spirit sent him out into the desert…”

Mark 2:8: “Immediately (euthus) Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts”

Christ is all action in Mark. Matthew famously records six lengthy teaching discourses of Jesus. But Mark only records one of these six discourses— the Olivet Discourse, no Sermon on the Mount.

Luke records 27 parables from Jesus, Matthew records 19, while Mark records only four parables of Jesus. Repeatedly Mark tells us that Jesus taught without recording His teaching.

Mark 1:21-22: “They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. 22 The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.”

Mark 2:2: “So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them.”

Mark 2:13: “A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them.”

On the other hand, Mark (though it is a significantly shorter book) records more miracles of Jesus (18) than any of the other Gospels. Moreover, the coverage of the miracles in Mark are often described in a more detailed and vivid way than in the other gospels.

This Gospel is anonymous (nowhere in the book does it tell us the author), but according to the overwhelmingly strong testimony of church tradition, the author of this Gospel is John Mark. Like Simon Peter, he has both Hebrew name (John) and a Latin name (Mark).

This John Mark is the son of Mary, in whose home the disciples regularly gathered (Acts 12:12). Mark was also the cousin (or nephew) of Barnabas (Col. 4:10). Many scholars suspect that when Mark seemingly randomly mentions an anonymous “unclad lad” who flees from the garden in Mark 14:51-52, that Mark is actually referring to himself as the “unclad lad.”

This Mark joined Barnabas on his first missionary journey with the apostle Paul, but for an unknown reason Mark abandoned the mission (Acts 13:13). Because of this, Barnabas and Paul split up when Paul refused to take Mark on their second missionary journey (Acts 15:36-41). From Paul’s letters it is clear that he later reconciled with Mark, and while he was a prisoner in Rome, Mark aided him and Paul sent him as a delegate on an important mission to Asia Minor (Philemon 24; Col. 4:10). In fact, Mark is so useful to Paul that in his last letter he asks Timothy to bring Mark back with him to Rome (2 Tim. 4:11).

As important as Mark’s connection with Paul was, it was Mark’s close connection with the apostle Peter that was more significant in his writing this Gospel. While writing from Rome, Peter refers to Mark figuratively as his son (1 Pet. 5:13). According to strong church tradition, Mark’s close connection with Peter motivated & enabled him to write this portrait of Christ.

Papias (bishop of Hierapolis, ~140 AD): “Mark became Peter’s interpreter & wrote accurately all that he remembered… of the things said or done by the Lord.”

The early church tended to treat Matthew as the first Gospel, but overwhelming textual evidence makes it pretty clear that Mark is actually the first Gospel written. I am not going to get into all the complex evidence here, but William Henriksen says that Mark was written sometime between AD 40-65, with the balance of evidence favoring the earlier part of this period (maybe 55).

The original audience of this Gospel was most likely the church in Rome. It seems clear at least that Mark (who is a Jew) is writing to a non-Jewish audience, especially since Mark habitually translates many Semitic terms into Greek for his readers.

Mark 5:41: He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”).

The fact that his readers appear to most be Gentile suggests that one of Mark’s chief pastoral purposes in writing this Gospel was to encourage the Gentile church in Rome. He wants them to see Christ as our Suffering Servant-Savior. He quotes the Lord in the key verse of Mark 10:45: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Mark wants his readers (including us as we study this Gospel) to understand the nature of Christian discipleship. He wants us to know what it means to follow Jesus. And this is what we hope to convey through this series of sermons on Mark.

And the first key to being a follower of Jesus is to know who Jesus truly is. And Mark deals with this important issue right off the bat.

B. The Christ

This Gospel of Mark is not merely the memoir of a great man in history. The central question of Mark surrounds the identity of Jesus:

Mk. 8:27 (Jesus asks): “Who do people say I am?”

Mk. 14:61 (Pilate asks): “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”

Mark writes this Gospel to persuade his readers that Jesus is, in fact, the long-awaited Messiah and the second person of the Trinity, which is why he begins his Gospel with this title phrase: The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

First of all his name is Jesus, which is the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew “yehoshua” (or, as we say, “Joshua”) which means “Yahweh is salvation.” As the angel instructs Joseph, the one betrothed to the virgin Mary, in Matt. 1:21: “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” In Jesus, the Savior of God’s people has come, and He has come to save those who believe in Him from the wrath of God that is due us for our sins.

Now, let’s look at the two titles that Mark specifically uses to introduce Jesus to his readers: He is the Christ and He is the Son of God.

1) He is the Christ. When we hear “Jesus Christ,” many tend to think of Christ as something like a last name; but it is not a name, it is a title. In fact, instead of translating it “Jesus Christ,” we may be better off translating it (as some do) “Jesus the Christ.”

“The Christ” (christos) is Greek for the Hebrew word “Messiah” (meshua), which literally means “the Anointed One.” Throughout the Old Testament there was a prophesy about a Messiah (an Anointed One) who would come from God to redeem God’s people.

Ps. 2:2: “The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.”

Dan. 9:25: “Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty- two ‘sevens.’”

In the Old Testament, there are three anointed offices: prophet, priest, and king. The Messiah who would come would be the fulfillment of all these offices. Jesus is the prophet like Moses, prophesied about in Deut. 18; He is the Son of David who establishes an eternal kingdom, spoken of in 2 Samuel 7; and He is the great high priest who offers himself as the once for all sacrifice to atone for our sins, as the book of Hebrews so aptly argues.

The chief role of John the Baptist, whom we will look at more closely in a bit, is to declare that this long awaited Messiah has finally come.

In the Book of Mark, Jesus only refers to himself as “Christ” once:

Mark 9:41: “I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.”

Nevertheless, Mark leaves no doubt about Jesus being the Christ by introducing Jesus in the very first verse of His gospel as “Jesus the Christ.”

2) He is “the Son of God.” This is a title actually not used very frequently in the Gospels. Jesus is called “the Son of God” only three other times in the Book of Mark—two times He is rightly called “Son of God” by demons (3:11; 5:7) and once He is correctly identified as the “Son of God” by the centurion at the cross (15:39).

The title “Son of man” is used much more often because it is what Jesus most frequently referred to Himself as. In fact, Jesus refers to Himself as “the Son of Man” twelve times in the Gospel of Mark.

Nevertheless, in the very opening verse here in Mark we have Jesus very directly & definitively being declared to be the Son of God. His being the Son of God points to His unique relationship to God the Father. Jesus is the second person in the Holy Trinity—three persons in one Godhead—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Being the Son of God, birthed into this world by the Spirt through the virgin Mary, Jesus is both truly and fully man and truly and fully God. Two natures in one person— He who is fully God from all eternity has taken on a human nature.

Throughout this Gospel, it is clear that Jesus is thoroughly human: he eats, drinks, touches others and is touched by others, he grieves, becomes indignant, falls asleep, plies a trade, and has family. His knowledge even seems to be limited at points.

But it is also clear from this Gospel that Jesus is thoroughly divine: He is the Son of God, He heals diseases, casts out demons, causes the blind to see and the deaf to hear, cleanses lepers, raises the dead, and has power over nature. He knows the future, knows men’s hearts, and knows all circumstances.

There is an important application here: Jesus asked then and He asks us now: “Who do you say that I am?” Your eternity hinges on your answer to that all-important question. Repent of your sins & believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and be saved. Identify Him as Lord & surrender your whole life to Him. Then live out that good confession—don’t call Him “Lord, Lord” & then not do what He says. 

C. The Witness

Finally, from this opening prologue of the Gospel of Mark, we want to look at “The Witness.” The coming of Jesus was not an afterthought— it was not God’s Plan B. Throughout the Old Testament (even beginning as far back as in Gen. 3:15), His coming is prophesied. As Sinclair Ferguson points out, the coming of this Messiah, which is, in fact, the turning point of all of history, is about to take place.

Not only are we told of His coming, but Mark quotes the Old Testament prophecies that tell of the coming of the one who will introduce the Messiah.

Mark introduces Christ by telling us about John Baptist, the one called and sent by God to introduce the Messiah onto the scene. Mark tells us a number of key things about John the Baptist:

1) John’s ministry was foretold in the OT. John the Baptist was the prophesied-about forerunner of the Messiah. John comes suddenly onto the scene, but he does not come from nowhere. His birth origin is told in Luke, but Mark emphasizes his OT origin. The very last book in OT prophesied that one like Elijah would come as forerunner of the Messiah. And Mark quotes from this prophecy:

Mal. 3:1: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way.”

John ushers in this age of fulfillment. Many, like the aged Simeon, were “working for the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25)—meaning he was waiting for the coming of the Christ. John comes declaring, “He is coming; in fact, He is here.”

2) We are told that John the Baptist prepared the way for the Lord and declared that we too are to prepare the way:

Is. 40:3: “… a voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”

John prepared the way by announcing that the long-awaited Messiah has arrived. As he announces in John 1:29: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

But in the same way, we are to prepare the way for His return by declaring the gospel of salvation and telling of His imminent return. Christ has come in humility to save His people from their sins, and He is coming again in glory, this time to judge the world.

Just like we need to prepare ourselves to meet our Maker before we die, John is saying prepare to meet your Messiah, because He has arrived! The question we all must ask ourselves is this: Am I prepared for His return?

Remember the parable of the servants:

Matt. 24:45-51: “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? 46 It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. 47 I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 48 But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ 49 and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. 50 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. 51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

The faithful & wise servant is prepared; he is found doing his job when his master returns. But the wicked servant is not prepared for the master’s return.

2 Pet. 3:11-12: “Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.”

3) John the Baptist then tells us what we must do to be prepared: He preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. If the messianic Savior and Judge is coming, we must confess and repent of our sins.

The burden of John’s preaching was repentance. Though this good news of the gospel is for all people, John particularly came to Israel, God’s covenant people. John came to announce that these people had broken covenant with their God and were, therefore, under His judgment. Their only hope was to turn away from their sins and turn back to their God.

When we are told that John preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, it is implied that he did this first through the preaching of the law. He declared that we are all guilty before God for having broken His law, and so our greatest need is to be forgiven for our sins.

This Jesus is coming and now has come to save us from our sins, and we are saved through placing our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But make no mistake, the man with true saving faith will repent of his sins. Simply put, it is clear throughout the Bible that there is no salvation apart from repentance. Jesus said it most plainly, when twice in Luke 13, He declared, “Repent or perish.”

4) The next thing that stands out in the ministry of John, as recorded by Mark, is the widespread response to John’s ministry: The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River (v. 5).

Obviously, “all” here does not literally mean all. “All” is being used to describe the vast numbers of people that turned out to see this humble, yet bold preacher. What is key here is that a multitude of Jews were confessing their sins and being baptized.

There is no record of Jews being baptized before John’s requirement of Jews being baptized. Up to this point, the Jews had only required the unclean Gentile proselytes to be baptized by self-immersion. But what John is saying here is, “You Jews too are unclean and also need to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins!”

5) The final thing that this text tells us about John’s ministry relates to our opening theme. Verses 7-8 show us that John is caught up in how great is the Messiah of whom he is the forerunner:

And this was his message: “After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

John emphasizes how much greater the coming Messiah is than him. John’s interest is in pointing people not to himself, but to the One who is coming after him. He is interested in promoting not his own glory, but the glory of the coming Christ.

John highlights the superiority of the coming Messiah in these three ways: this Christ is more powerful than him; John is not worthy to untie this Christ’s sandals, and this Christ will baptize not just with water, but with the Holy Spirit.

a) John the Baptist may seem powerful and influential in his ministry (after all, the “whole Judean countryside” has come out to him), but John is earnest to establish that this Messiah is much more powerful than him: After me will come one more powerful than I.

Jesus is, in fact, infinitely more powerful than John, because He is God. When John claims to be the one who has come to “prepare the way for the Lord” (in fulfillment of Isaiah 40:3), the Lord in Hebrew is Yahweh, the covenant name for God. In other words, John is calling Jesus “Yahweh.” Jesus is the God of the covenant. In Matthew 11:11, Jesus calls John “the greatest among those born of women,” but the greatest of men is less than nothing in comparison to the infinite, almighty eternal Son of God.

b) In fact, Jesus is so much greater than the Baptist that John says that he is not worthy to stoop down and untie the Messiah’s sandals. A Hebrew slave was not even required to untie the thongs of his master’s sandals, so to untie the thongs would make you lower than a slave. So John is saying that he is not even worthy of being lower than a slave of Jesus. That is how great this Messiah, Son of God is.

To untie His sandals, would be a privilege because to untie His sandals, we would need to be in His presence. And He being the Holy One of Israel, we sinners are not even worthy to be in His presence. Remember that in both the tabernacle and temple of God no one was allowed in the Most Holy Place, the Holy of holies, where dwelt the ark that represented God’s presence.

Heb. 9:7: “But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance.”

It is a tremendous act of grace that we are even allowed in His presence, let alone that we will dwell with Him for all eternity. And we receive this grace to enter into His presence only through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ in our behalf. He died for our sins and was raised again so that we who are united with Him through placing our faith in Him could have eternal life in and through our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

c) Finally, John says that this Jesus is greater than he is, in the sense that while John baptizes with water, this coming Messiah will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Baptism in the Holy Spirit is the reality that baptism in water symbolizes. John baptizes in water, which symbolizes being cleansed, but Jesus baptizes us in the Holy Spirit, who is the Person of the Godhead devoted to cleansing us, making us holy and blameless in God’s sight.

Christ has ushered in the age of the Spirit, in which the Holy Spirit is poured out on God’s people. This coming age of the Holy Spirit being poured out on all believers was prophesied about in the Old Testament, especially in Joel 2:28-32.

In the beginning of Acts, the risen Lord then tells His disciples that the pouring out of the Holy Spirit is about to come and they are to wait for this event:

Acts 1:8: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Then on the day of Pentecost, the apostle Peter declares that the day that Joel prophesied would come has come:

Acts 2:16-18: “No, this is what [this is that] was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17 “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. 18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.” Acts 2:33: “Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.”

We then read throughout the Book of Acts about the activity of the Holy Spirit in declaring and receiving the gospel.

Acts 4:31: “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”

Acts 10:44: “While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message.”

In being baptized with the Holy Spirit we come under the Spirit’s life-giving power. William Hendriksen spoke of some of the results of being baptized with the Holy Spirit. He says that “our minds are enriched with unprecedented illumination, our wills are strengthened like never before, and our hearts are flooded with warm affection to a previously unprecedented degree.”

What we take away from all this is that we need Christ to baptize us with the Holy Spirit. We first need to be born again by the Spirit; that is, God must do a radical work regeneration in our hearts (if He has not done so already). For no one will see or enter the Kingdom of God unless He is born again, born of the Spirit (John 3:3, 5).

And having been regenerated, we then need to be daily filled with the Holy Spirit. We will then be empowered by God to do His will. We then daily give our lives to the One who served us by giving His life as a ransom to many.

We need to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, that we would have the grace, the wisdom, and the power we need in order to persevere in faithfully following our Lord Jesus the Christ, the Son of God.