As it is written in the prophets, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you:
the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight!’ ”
John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching the baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins. All the country of Judea and all those of Jerusalem went out to him. They were baptized by him in the Jordan river, confessing their sins. John was clothed with camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey. He preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and loosen. I baptized you in water, but he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit.”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 7, 8 John goeth before Christ, as it was forespoken by…
John goeth before Christ, as it was forespoken by the Prophets.
The Prophet useth the present tense, when he speaketh of a thing to come, being as a sure of it, as if he saw it.
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This is the figure Metonymy, whereby is meant the books of the Prophets, Malachi and Isaiah.
A metaphor taken from the usage of kings, which used to have ushers go before them.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv2–8 2 As it is written in the prophets, Behold,…
2 As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.
Ver. 2. As it is written in the prophets] Isaiah and Malachi; so that there was no cause why that dead dog Porphyry should here bark and blaspheme, as if this testimony should be falsely fathered on all the prophets, when Isaiah only was the author of it.
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Behold, I send my Messenger before thy face] Malachi saith, "Before my face," in the person of Christ; to show that He and the Father are one.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 6, 7 The prophets Malachi and Isaiah (saith the evangelist) prophesied…
The prophets Malachi and Isaiah (saith the evangelist) prophesied of this beginning of the gospel. Malachi prophesied that before the great King should come unto Zion, a harbinger should come before him, to prepare his way. The angel, Luk 1:17, expounds both their prophecies, and also that Mal 4:5; And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. John by his preaching turned the ears of the people to the sound of the gospel, and so prepared them for Christ. For further explication of these words:
See Poole on "Mat 3:3". See Poole on "Mat 11:10". This name given to John the Baptist, A voice crying, gives us the right notion of a gospel minister. Here is but a voice crying, speaking what God hath first suggested to him. Thus God saith to Moses, Exo 4:15, Thou shalt speak unto him, and put words in his mouth; and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv2–8 St. Mark begins his gospel with an account of…
St. Mark begins his gospel with an account of St. John the Baptist’s preaching and ministry, and declares, 1. That the prophets of old, particularly Isaiah and Malachi, did long before foretell the Baptist’s message and ministry; that he should go before Christ as his harbinger to prepare the way for him: Behold, I send my messenger to prepare thy way.
Where note, 1. The dignity and authority of the ministers of Christ: they are his messengers sent by him to deliver his mind and will unto his people. This ministerial mission is twofold, extraordinary and ordinary; the former when God immediately by himself calls men to the holy function; the latter, when he uses the ministry of men in order thereunto.
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Observe, 2. The work and office of the ministers of Christ declared, and that is, to prepare people to receive Jesus Christ, offered and tendered to them in the gospel. Behold, I send my messenger, to prepare thy way before thee.
Learn thence, That the great design and end of the ministry of the word, is, to prepare and fit men for entertaining the holy religion of Christ in their hearts, and to oblige them to walk according to the rules and directions of it in their lives. St. Mark begins his gospel with an account of St. John the Baptist’s preaching and ministry, and declares, 1. That the prophets of old, particularly Isaiah and Malachi, did long before foretell the Baptist’s message and ministry; that he should go before Christ as his harbinger to prepare the way for him: Behold, I send my messenger to prepare thy way.
Where note, 1. The dignity and authority of the ministers of Christ: they are his messengers sent by him to deliver his mind and will unto his people. This ministerial mission is twofold, extraordinary and ordinary; the former when God immediately by himself calls men to the holy function; the latter, when he uses the ministry of men in order thereunto.
Observe, 2. The work and office of the ministers of Christ declared, and that is, to prepare people to receive Jesus Christ, offered and tendered to them in the gospel. Behold, I send my messenger, to prepare thy way before thee.
Learn thence, That the great design and end of the ministry of the word, is, to prepare and fit men for entertaining the holy religion of Christ in their hearts, and to oblige them to walk according to the rules and directions of it in their lives.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 As it is written in the prophets,.... Malachi and…
As it is written in the prophets,.... Malachi and Isaiah; for passages out of both follow; though the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Persic versions read, "as it is written in the prophet Isaias"; and so it is in some Greek copies: but the former seems to be the better reading, since two prophets are cited, and Isaiah is the last; to which agree the Arabic and Ethiopic versions, and the greater number of Greek copies. The following citations are made to show, that according to the writings of the Old Testament, John the Baptist was to be the harbinger of Christ, to come before him, and prepare his way; and also the propriety of the method the evangelist takes, in beginning his Gospel with the account of John's ministry and baptism: the first testimony stands in Mal 3:1, and the words are the words of the Father to the son, concerning John, pointing out his character and his work:
behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. John the Baptist is here called a messenger, and the message he was sent and came with, was of the greatest moment and importance, and required the closest attention to it; wherefore this passage is introduced with a "behold!" signifying that something momentous, and what should be strictly regarded, was about to be delivered: and indeed, the work of this messenger was no other, than to declare that the long expected Messiah was born; that he would quickly make his public appearance in Israel; that the kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of the Messiah, was at hand; and that it became the Jews to repent of their sins, and believe in Christ: he is called the messenger of God, "my messenger"; because he was sent, and sanctified by him; he was called unto, and qualified for his work by him; see Joh 1:6, his father Zechariah says, he should be called the prophet of the Highest, Luk 1:76. The reason of his being called the messenger of God, may be observed in the text itself, "behold, I send": the words in Malachi are by us rendered, "behold, I will send", Mal 3:1, because this was at the time of the prophet's writing a thing future, but in the times of the evangelist a thing done: and indeed, it is a more literal version of the Hebrew text, to render it "I send", or "am sending"; and it is so expressed, to denote the certainty of it, and because in a little time it would be done: the words "before thy face", are not in the original text of Malachi, nor in the Septuagint version, but are inserted by the evangelist; who might do it with authority, since Christ had done it before him, Mat 11:10, and which, as Surenhusius (c) observes, is for the greater elucidation of the matter. The prophet does not say before whom he should be sent, though it is implied in the next clause, but here it is expressed: besides, this messenger had now appeared before the face of Christ, had prepared his way in the wilderness, and had baptized him in Jordan; all which is designed in the following words, "which shall prepare thy way before thee", by his doctrine and baptism: in the text in Malachi it is, "before me", Mal 3:1; which has made it a difficulty with the interpreters, whether the words in the prophet, are the words of Christ concerning himself, or of his Father concerning him. But sending this messenger before Christ, may be called by the Father sending him before himself, and to prepare the way before him; because Christ is the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and is the angel of his presence, or face; besides, Jehovah the Father was greatly concerned, and the glory of his perfections, in the work the Messiah was to do, whose way John came to prepare. That the prophecy in Malachi here cited, is a prophecy of the Messiah, is owned by several Jewish writers (d); who expressly say, that those words which follow, "the Lord whom ye seek", are to be understood of the king Messiah: and though they are divided among themselves, who should be meant by this messenger; see Gill on Mat 11:10, yet some of them are of opinion, that Elias is intended, even Abarbinel himself: for though in his commentary he interprets the words of the prophet Malachi himself, yet elsewhere (e) he allows Elias may be intended: indeed he, and so most that go this way, mean Elijah the prophet, the Tishbite; who they suppose will come in person, before the Messiah appears: yet not he, but one in his Spirit and power is designed; and is no: other than John the Baptist, in whom the passage has had its full accomplishment.
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(c) Biblos Katallages, p. 229. (d) Kimchi & Ben Melech in Mal. iii. 1. Abarbinel, Mashmia Jeshua, fol. 76. 4. (e) Abarbinel, Mashmia Jeshua, fol. 76. 4.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 7 Mal. iii, 1
Mal. iii, 1
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv2–8 Verse 2. As it is written in the prophets]…
Verse 2. As it is written in the prophets] Rather, As it is written by Isaiah the prophet. I think this reading should be adopted, instead of that in the common text. It is the reading of the Codex Bezae, Vatican, and several other MSS. of great repute. It is found also in the Syriac, Persic, Coptic, Armenian, Gothic, Vulgate, and Itala versions, and in several of the fathers. As this prophecy is found both in Isaiah and Malachi, probably the reading was changed to ταιςπροφηταις, the prophets, that it might comprehend both. In one of ASSEMAN'S Syriac copies, both Isaiah and Malachi are mentioned. See all the authorities in Griesbach, 2d edit.; and see the parallel place in Matthew, Mt 3:3, where the Prophet Isaiah is mentioned, which seems fully to establish the authority of this reading.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv4–5 Mar 1:4. John — Who was the very person…
Mar 1:4. John — Who was the very person spoken of by those prophets, being sent of God for that end, did baptize in the wilderness — Which lay east from Jerusalem, along the river Jordan and the lake Asphaltites, also called the Dead sea. By wilderness, in the Scriptures, it is plain that we are not always to understand what is commonly denominated so with us, a region either uninhabitable or uninhabited. No more seems to have been denoted by it than a country fitter for pasture than for agriculture, mountainous, woody, and but thinly inhabited. These ερημοι, wildernesses, did not want their towns and villages. And preach the baptism of repentance — That is, preach repentance, and baptize as a sign and means of it. Thus John endeavoured to prepare men for the coming of that Messiah who was to save his people from their sins. See notes on Mat 3:2-3. This baptism, says Dr. Lightfoot, may belong to children, though it be the baptism of repentance, and they know not what repentance means; for it requireth not their repentance at the receiving of this sacrament, but it engageth them to it for the time to come, namely, when they shall come to the use of reason, and the knowledge of the engagement. And so was it with the children that were circumcised; for they by that sacrament became debtors to observe the whole law, Gal 5:3, when they knew not what obedience or the law meant; but that bound them to it when they came to years of knowledge and discretion.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv2, 4 As it is written in the prophets - Mark…
As it is written in the prophets - Mark mentions “prophets” here without specifying which. The places are found in Mal 3:1, and in Isa 41:3. See the notes at Mat 3:3.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 6, 7 In Isaias, the prophet. That in the ancient copies…
In Isaias, the prophet. That in the ancient copies was read Isaias, and not Malachias, is confirmed by the Syriac version, and also by St. Irenæus, Origen, St. Jerome, &c. It is also proved from an objection of Porphyrius, who says, St. Mark mistook Isaias for Malachias. In the ordinary Greek copies at present, we read in the prophets, not naming either Isaias or Malachias. The words seem taken partly out of one, and partly out of the other. These words, behold I send my angel before thy face, who shall prepare the way before thee, are found Malachias iii. ver. 1. And the following words, a voice of one crying in the desert: prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths, are is Isaias, chap. xl, ver. 3. (Witham) --- In the beginning of his gospel, St. Mark alleges the authority of the prophets, that he might induce every one, both Jew and Gentile, to receive with willingness what he here relates, as the authority of the prophets so highly respected was very great. St. John [the Baptist] is here styled an angel, on account of his angelic life, and extraordinary sanctity; but what is meant by, who shall prepare the way, is, that St. John is to prepare the minds of the Jews, by his baptism and preaching, to receive their Messias. (Theophylactus) See in Matthew xi. 10.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–3 As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I…
As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee-- (Mal 3:1; Isa 40:3).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 7 2. As it is written — The second and…
2. As it is written — The second and third verses, by a strong inversion, should come after the fourth: “John did baptize… as it is written,” etc. The prophecy is quoted from Isa_40:3, and Mal_3:1. As we have explained in the corresponding passage in Matthew, the quotation is a prophecy concerning John, the harbinger of the Messiah Jesus. I send my messenger — This I in the prophet is spoken by Jehovah. But this Jehovah is the Messiah. So that we have here a true Jehovah-Jesus.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 5, 6, 7 2. in the prophets] The citation is from two…
2. in the prophets] The citation is from two prophets, (1) Mal_3:1, (2) Isa_40:3. Some would read here in Isaiah the Prophet according to certain MSS. Observe that St Mark in his own narrative quotes the Old Testament only twice, here and Mar_15:28. See Introduction, p. 12.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv2–8 (2) In the prophets.—The better MSS. give the more…
(2) In the prophets.—The better MSS. give the more accurate reference, “in Esaias the prophet.” On general grounds, however, it seems more probable that the general reference should have been specialised by a transcriber than the reverse. With one exception, and that very doubtful as to its genuineness (see Note on Mar_15:28), this is the only quotation from a prophet made by the Evangelist himself in this Gospel. The fact that St. Mark wrote for Gentiles furnishes a partial explanation of his silence in this respect, as compared with the other Gospels. (See Introduction.)
Behold, I send my messenger.—See Notes on Mat_11:10-11.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 6, 7, 8 Even as it is written in the prophets. The…
Even as it is written in the prophets. The weight of evidence is here in favor of the reading "in Isaiah the prophet." Three of the most important uncials (a, B, and L), and twenty-six of the cursives, have the reading "Isaiah." With these agree the Italic, Coptic, and Vulgate versions. Of the Fathers, Irenaeus quotes the passage three times, twice using the words "in the prophets," and once "in Isaiah the prophet." Generally the Fathers agree that "Isaiah" is the received reading. The more natural reading would of course be "in the prophets," inasmuch as two prophets are quoted; but in deciding upon readings, it constantly happens that the less likely reading is the more probable. In the case before us we can hardly account for "Isaiah" being exchanged for "the prophets," although we can quite understand "the prophets" being interpolated for "Isaiah." Assuming, then, that St. Mark wrote "in Isaiah the prophet," we may ask why he mentions Isaiah only and not Malachi? The answer would seem to be this, that here the voice of Isaiah is the more powerful of the two. But in real truth, Malachi says the same thing that Isaiah says; for the messenger sent from God to prepare the way of Christ was none other than John, crying aloud and preaching repentance as a preparation for the receiving of the grace of Christ. The oracle of Malachi is, in fact, contained in the oracle of Isaiah; for what Malachi predicted, the same had Isaiah more clearly and concisely predicted in other words. And this is the reason why St. Mark here, and other evangelists elsewhere, when they cite two prophets, and two or more sentences from different places in the same connection, cite them as one and the same testimony, each sentence appearing to be not so much two, as one and the same declaration differently worded.
Vers. 2-8. The ministry of the forerunner.
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This evangelist enters, upon his treatise with no further preface than is to be found in the first verse. He has to tell the good news concerning Jesus Christ the Son of God. And he begins his narrative at once, with an account of the ministry of that grand, heroic prophet, whose great distinction it was to be the herald of the Messiah, and whose greatness was in nothing more apparent than in this he was willing to be superseded by his Lord, and to be lost in him: "He must increase, but I must decrease. In these verses we have
I A GLIMPSE OF THE FORERUNNER"S PERSON AND CHARACTER.
1. He was a priest. This we learn from St. Luke"s narrative of his parentage and birth. John owed something of the respect and acceptance he met with to this fact. Yet his ministry was not sacerdotal, though his education and his associations must all have fitted him to testify to "the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world.
2. He was a Prophet. As Christ himself bare witness, "a prophet, yea, and more than a prophet." He spoke forth the mind of God. He did not sacrifice for the people or reason with them; he declared to them the message he had received from heaven.
3. He was an ascetic in the wilderness. In his dress and mode of life he resembled Elijah the Tishbite. He lived in the wilderness of Judaea, and in the wilder parts of the valley of the Jordan. His raiment was of cloth woven from coarse camel"s hair; his food was that of a child of the desert, "locusts and wild honey." He wore no soft raiment; he was no reed shaken by the wind. Independent alike of the luxuries of life and of the approval of his fellow-men, he lived apart.
4. He was a fearless, faithful preacher. He did not ask Is this message what the people wish to hear? but Is this the word of the living God? When the Divine commission was entrusted to him, no power on earth could prevent him from fulfilling it.
II A STATEMENT THAT HIS MINISTRY WAS PROPHETICALLY FORETOLD. Mark quotes from Malachi, the last of the prophets, "Behold, I will send my messenger, and he will prepare my way before me." He quotes from Isaiah, "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." The forerunner was himself conscious of this; for, disclaiming Messiahship, he claimed to be the voice of the King"s herald. Jesus, too, made the same assertion, "If ye will believe it, this is Elijah, which was to come." All was ordered and predicted beforehand by the wisdom of the Most High.
III A view OF HIS REMARKABLE SPIRITUAL MINISTRY. John did no miracles. But he spoke with a Divine authority; and he exercised an influence which was felt throughout the whole nation, and which was an historical and recognized fact. The elements of his ministry were these:
1. The prediction that the kingdom of God, or of heaven, was at hand.
2. An appeal to repentance, based upon the approach of the new kingdom.
3. The administration of a rite symbolical of spiritual purification.
IV An INSIGHT INTO THE REMARKABLE RESULTS OF THIS MINISTRY.
1. A general and profound impression was produced.
2. The most sinful classes shared in this moral awakening.
3. The religious leaders of the community were led to interest themselves in his message.
4. The political rulers of the land came to some extent under his influence.
5. The ardent and religious youth were at once attracted and awed by the presence and ministry of the prophet. The choice spirits of the generation rising up, the flower of the Hebrew youth, became his disciples.
6. There resulted a widespread conscience of sin, and a hope and desire for a great Saviour.
V A DESCRIPTION OF HIS GREAT OFFICE AND FUNCTION. Above all, John was the forerunner and the herald of the Messianic King, even Jesus. Even before he met his cousin, before he administered baptism to him, he bore witness concerning him. He witnessed:
1. To his personal superiority, speaking of him as "One mightier than I
2. And to his ministerial superiority; for while John"s baptism was one with water unto repentance, that of Jesus was "with the Holy Spirit and with fire." Events proved the truth of this testimony.
APPLICATION. To receive the witness of John is to acknowledge the Messiahship of Jesus, to yield heart and life to the Saviour, seeking through him the forgiveness of sins, the renewal of the heart, and the consecration of the whole being.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv2–7 As it is written in the prophets.
Mar_1:2
As it is written in the prophets.
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The appropriateness of this double prophecy
Its authors were-
I. The first prophet (Isa_40:3) and the last (Mal_3:1.) who wrote. John was the last prophet of the old dispensation and the first of the new who spoke.
II. The one like John was a prophet of hope; the other like him again was the prophet of despair.
III. Isaiah set the door ajar for Christianity which John flung wide open: Malachi began to shut the door on judaism which John closed. (Anon.)
Which shall prepare Thy way before Thee.
Need of preparation for Christ
In the East, few good roads are ever made; and such roads as have been made are generally kept in most wretched repair. Hence, when a sovereign is about to visit any part of his dominions, it is requisite that a messenger be sent on before to get the way made ready. Such, in things spiritual, was Johns mission. Mens ways were in a wretched state. Encumbrances and stumbling blocks lay everywhere scattered about. Mud and mire were the order of the day. It seemed impossible for anyone to get along through life with unpolluted garments, or without stumbling and falling, and getting bruised and broken. The real preparation that was needed was in the hearts of the people. (J. Morison, D. D.)
How to prepare the way for Christ
How was John to prepare the people to receive Christ?
1. By foretelling them that Christ was to come immediately after him.
2. By preaching the doctrine of Christ, touching His Person and offices.
3. By preaching the doctrine of faith in Christ, stirring up the people to believe in Him as the Messiah.
4. By preaching repentance, exhorting them to turn unto God from their sin, that so they might be fit to receive Christ.
5. By administering baptism. (G. Petter.)
Mans part in the work of spiritual preparation
Though the preparation of the heart for Christ is the special work of Gods Spirit, yet He requires that we also should do that which lieth in us toward this preparing of ourselves: though God only can work this preparation, yet He will have us use the means by which it may come to be wrought. He does not work in us, as in stocks and stones that have no sense or motion; but He first moves us by His Spirit, and enables us to the preparation of our hearts, so that we being moved by Him may, after a sort, move ourselves in using the means to prepare our hearts.
1. We must labour to be truly humbled in the sense of our sins, and of our natural misery without Christ. We are never fit to embrace Him, till we feel how wretched we are without Him.
2. We must labour to forsake all sin in heart and affection, and we must purge the love of it out of our hearts.
3. We must get a hungering and thirsting desire after Christ.
4. We must use all means to get faith, whereby to receive Christ into our hearts. (G. Petter)
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The heart prepared to receive Christ
Labour we daily in preparing our hearts unto Christ: strive we to make Him a plain way, and a straight path into our heart. To this end, remove the annoyances of this way of Christ: thy sins and corruptions are the hindrances: take away these by true repentance, that they stop not up the way of Christ, and bar Him out of thy heart. Labour also for true faith in Christ, that by it thou mayest be fitted to receive Him, and that He may come to dwell in thee. Do not think that ever Christ will come into thy heart to dwell there, or that thou canst ever be fit to receive Him, if thou be not careful of preparing thyself to entertain Him. Will any earthly prince go to take up his lodging in such a house or city, where he knows there will be no preparation for his entertainment? No more will Christ in a heart unready to receive Him. (G. Petter)
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Preparing the way of the Lord
The reference may be to the state of the Jewish Church and the Gentile nations. But what is applied generally to the nations is equally applicable to every human heart.
I. There are formidable obstacles to be removed.
1. Prejudice. The gospel is often viewed under a false light, or through a perverting medium. The self-denial, the purity, the separation from the world which Christianity inculcates begets prejudice in many.
2. Carnality. Base desires, carnal affections, etc., present formidable obstacles to the claims of the Lord (Luk_14:18-20).
3. Hardness of heart. By nature impenitent, blind to its own extreme sinfulness, and, even after confession of sin, unwillingness to forsake them (Isa_46:12-13; Eze_11:19).
4. Self-righteousness. Though spiritually diseased and dying, men imagine themselves whole, and without need of a physician. They will not accept salvation by simple faith in the merits of another (Rom_10:1-2).
II. Repentance is necessary to the removal of these obstacles. (A. Tucker.)
Christs way to be prepared, not ours
See what all ministers of the Word must chiefly labour in, even to prepare men for Christ; and this is the main thing to be aimed at in our preaching-we are not to preach ourselves, but Christ; we are not to prepare our own way, or the way of any other, but the way of Christ in the hearts of our people. To this end, we are to speak so to the consciences of our hearers that we may (if possible) by our ministry work faith and repentance in them, and so make way for Christ to enter into their hearts. (G. Petter.)
Preparatory work needful for spiritual progress
When you see a party of men engaged in taking levels and measuring distances along a particular line of country, and a little afterwards, other men laying rails, and building bridges, and cutting tunnels, it is not difficult to guess that the great tide of commerce is about to surge over that region. When loads of wood and stone are laid down on a vacant lot, it is at once evident that a building is about to be erected. So the Old Testament prophecies and Johns preaching showed that the way was being prepared for the coming of Jesus. After the Romans had reduced a country to the position of a province, one of their first cares was to construct a strong military road into it. Thus the way was always prepared for their legions. In the East when some great chief is passing through the country, it is not uncommon to make new ways for his passage. Travellers in unsettled parts of the country soon learn to appreciate as never before the advantages of having roads along which to journey. Ways must be constructed for the progress of Christs truth in the world and in the heart. (The American Sunday School Times.)
Road building in the East
To prepare the way before a sovereign is, and always has been, so universal a practice in the East that wherever an unusually good spot of road is found, or indeed any piece of way that shows signs of labour, a tradition or fable is almost invariably found to lie along it to the effect that that piece of road was built expressly for the passage of such a royal personage, either the sovereign of the realm which includes the territory, or one of his guests of equal exaltation. On going from Cairo to the pyramids, over an exceptionally good road, the traveller will not fail to be told that it was built for the Prince of Wales, or for the Empress Eugenie, or for the Khedive himself, or even, rarely, for Napoleon the Great. (The American Sunday School Times.)
The law of preparation
God doesnt need mans help in anything; but He chooses to call for it in a great many things. And when God does leave a place for mans work, man must do his part-or take the consequences. God is ready to give a crop to the farmer; but He calls on the farmer to plough and plant and harrow and hoe in preparing the way for Gods sun and shower, and power of increase. If the farmer fails to so prepare the way of the Lord for a harvest, he must prepare for a famine-or starve. God is ready to give a blessing on our homes; but we must prepare the way of the Lord for a blessing there, by our love and our faithfulness and our industry. It is not enough to bang up a framed chromo on the dining room walls: God bless our home! As in the field and in the home, so in our hearts. If we want Gods presence and blessing there, we must prepare the way for them. We must plan to find room for the Lord in our hearts. We must make ready to do His bidding We must decide to give up all habits of life that are inconsistent with His service, We must make a proffer of ourselves, of our time, of our talents, of all our posses sloes, to the Lord. If we refuse to do this, we must not wonder that whoever else has a blessing we are without it. (The American Sunday School Times.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v7 CHAPTER 1:7-11 (Mar_1:7-11)
CHAPTER 1:7-11 (Mar_1:7-11)
AT THE JORDAN
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"And he preached, saying, There cometh after me He that is mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I baptized you with water; but He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in the Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens rent asunder, and the Spirit as a dove descending upon Him: and a voice came out of the heavens, Thou art My Beloved Son, in Thee I am well pleased." Mar_1:7-11 (R.V.)
IT was when all men mused in their hearts whether John was the Christ or no, that he announced the coming of a Stronger One. By thus promptly silencing a whisper, so honorable to himself, he showed how strong he really was, and how unselfish "a friend of the Bridegroom." Nor was this the vague humility of phrase which is content to be lowly in general, so long as no specified individual stands higher. His word is definite, and accepts much for himself. "The Stronger One than I cometh," and it is in presence of the might of Jesus (whom yet this fiery reformer called a Lamb), that he feels himself unworthy to bend to the dust and unbind the latchets or laces of His shoe.
So then, though asceticism be sometimes good, it is consciously not the highest nor the most effective goodness. Perhaps it is the most impressive. Without a miracle, the preaching of John shook the nation as widely as that of Jesus melted it, and prepared men's hearts for His. A king consulted and feared him. And when the Pharisees were at open feud with Jesus, they feared to be stoned if they should pronounce John's baptism to be of men.
Yet is there weakness lurking even in the very quality which gives asceticism its power. That stern seclusion from an evil world, that peremptory denial of its charms, why are they so impressive? Because they set an example to those who are hard beset, of the one way of escape, the cutting off of the hand and foot, the plucking out of the eye. And our Lord enjoins such mutilation of the life upon those whom its gifts betray. Yet is it as the halt and maimed that such men enter into life. The ascetic is a man who needs to sternly repress and deny his impulses, who is conscious of traitors within his breast that may revolt if the enemy be suffered to approach too near.
It is harder to be a holy friend of publicans and sinners, a witness for God while eating and drinking with these, than to remain in the desert undefiled. It is greater to convert a sinful woman in familiar converse by the well, than to shake trembling multitudes by threats of the fire for the chaff and the axe for the barren tree. And John confesses this. In the supreme moment of his life, he added his own confession to that of all his nation. This rugged ascetic had need to be baptized of Him who came eating and drinking.
Nay, he taught that all his work was but superficial, a baptism with water to reach the surface of men's life, to check, at the most, exaction and violence and neglect of the wants of others, while the Greater One should baptize with the Holy Ghost, should pierce the depths of human nature, and thoroughly purge His floor.
Nothing could refute more clearly than our three narratives, the skeptical notion that Jesus yielded for awhile to the dominating influence of the Baptist. Only from the Gospels can we at all connect the two. And what we read here is, that before Jesus came, John expected his Superior; that when they met, John declared his own need to be baptized of Him, that he, nevertheless, submitted to the will of Jesus, and thereupon heard a voice from the heavens which must forever have destroyed all notion of equality; that afterwards he only saw Jesus at a distance, and made a confession which transferred two of his disciples to our Lord.
The criticism which transforms our Lord's part in these events to that of a pupil is far more willful than would be tolerated in dealing with any other record. And it too palpably springs from the need to find some human inspiration for the Word of God, some candle from which the Sun of Righteousness took fire, if one would escape the confession that He is not of this world.
But here we meet a deeper question: Not why Jesus accepted baptism from an inferior, but why, being sinless, He sought for a baptism of repentance. How is this act consistent with absolute and stainless purity?
Now it sometimes lightens a difficulty to find that it is not occasional nor accidental, but wrought deep into the plan of a consistent work. And the Gospels are consistent in representing the innocence of Jesus as refusing immunity from the consequences of guilt. He was circumcised, and His mother then paid the offering commanded by the law, although both these actions spoke of defilement. In submitting to the likeness of sinful flesh He submitted to its conditions. He was present at feasts in which national confessions led up to sacrifice, and the sacrificial blood was sprinkled to make atonement for the children of Israel, because of all their sins. When He tasted death itself, which passed upon all men, for that all have sinned, He carried out to the utmost the same stern rule to which at His baptism He consciously submitted. Nor will any theory of His atonement suffice, which is content with believing that His humiliations and sufferings, though inevitable, were only collateral results of contact with our fallen race. Baptism was avoidable, and that without any compromise of His influence, since the Pharisees refused it with impunity, and John would fain have exempted Him. Here at least He was not "entangled in the machinery," but deliberately turned the wheels upon Himself. And this is the more impressive because, in another aspect of affairs, He claimed to be out of the reach of ceremonial defilement, and touched without reluctance disease, leprosy and the dead.
Humiliating and penal consequences of sin, to these He bowed His head. Yet to a confession of personal taint, never. And all the accounts agree that He never was less conscience-stricken than when He shared the baptism of repentance. St. Matthew implies, what St. Luke plainly declares, that He did not come to baptism along with the crowds of penitents, but separately. And at the point where all others made confession, in the hour when even the Baptist, although filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb, had need to be baptized, He only felt the propriety, the fitness of fulfilling all righteousness. That mighty task was not even a yoke to Him, it was an instinct like that of beauty to an artist, it was what became Him.
St. Mark omits even this evidence of sinlessness. His energetic method is like that of a great commander, who seizes at all costs the vital point upon the battle field. He constantly omits what is subordinate (although very conscious of the power of graphic details), when by so doing he can force the central thought upon the mind. Here he concentrates our attention upon the witness from above, upon the rending asunder of the heavens which unfold all their heights over a bended head, upon the visible descent of the Holy Spirit in His fullness, upon the voice from the heavens which pealed through the souls of these two peerless worshippers, and proclaimed that He who had gone down to the baptismal flood was no sinner to be forgiven, but the beloved Son of God, in whom He is well pleased.
That is our Evangelist's answer to all misunderstanding of the rite, and it is enough.
How do men think of heaven? Perhaps only as a remote point in space, where flames a material and solid structure into which it is the highest bliss to enter. A place there must be to which the Body of our Lord ascended and whither He shall yet lead home His followers in spiritual bodies to be with Him where He is. If, however, only this be heaven, we should hold that in the revolutions of the solar system it hung just then vertically above the Jordan, a few fathoms or miles aloft. But we also believe in a spiritual city, in which the pillars are living saints, an all-embracing blessedness and rapture and depth of revelation, where into holy mortals in their highest moments have been "caught up," a heaven whose angels ascend and descend upon the Son of man. In this hour of highest consecration, these heavens were thrown open -- rent asunder-- for the gaze of our Lord and of the Baptist. They were opened again when the first martyr died. And we read that what eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor heart conceived of the preparation of God for them that love Him, He hath already revealed to them by His Spirit. To others there is only cloud or "the infinite azure," as to the crowd by the Jordan and the murderers of Stephen.
Now it is to be observed that we never read of Jesus being caught up into heaven for a space, like St. Paul or St. John. What we read is, that while on earth the Son of man is in Heaven (Joh_3:13), [1] for heaven is the manifestation of God, whose truest glory was revealed in the grace and truth of Jesus.
Along with this revelation, the Holy Spirit was manifested wondrously. His appearance, indeed, is quite unlike what it was to others. At Pentecost He became visible, but since each disciple received only a portion, "according to his several ability," his fitting symbol was "tongues parting asunder like as of fire." He came as an element powerful and pervasive, not as a Personality bestowed in all His vital force on any one.
So, too, the phrase which John used, when predicting that Jesus should baptize with the Holy Ghost, slightly though it differs from what is here, implies [2] that only a portion is to be given, not the fullness. And the angel who foretold to Zacharias that John himself should be filled with the Holy Ghost, conveyed the same limitation in his words. John received all that he was able to receive: he was filled. But how should mortal capacity exhaust the fullness of Deity? And Who is this, upon Whom, while John is but an awestricken beholder, the Spirit of God descends in all completeness, a living organic unity, like a dove? Only the Infinite is capable of receiving such a gift, and this is He in Whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. No wonder then that "in bodily form" as a dove, the Spirit of God descended upon Him alone. Henceforward He became the great Dispenser, and "the Spirit emanated from Him as perfume from the rose when it has opened."
At the same time was heard a Voice from heaven. And the bearing of this passage upon the Trinity becomes clear, when we combine the manifestation of the Spirit in living Personality, and the Divine Voice, not from the Dove but from the heavens, with the announcement that Jesus is not merely beloved and well-pleasing, but a Son, and in this high sense the only Son, since the words are literally "Thou art the Son of Me, the beloved." And yet He is to bring many sons unto glory.
Is it consistent with due reverence to believe that this voice conveyed a message to our Lord Himself? Even so liberal a critic as Neander has denied this. But if we grasp the meaning of what we believe, that He upon taking flesh "emptied Himself," that He increased in wisdom during His youth, and that there was a day and hour which to the end of life He knew not, we need not suppose that His infancy was so unchildlike as the realization of His mysterious and awful Personality would make it. There must then have been a period when His perfect human development rose up into what Renan calls (more accurately than he knows) identification of Himself with the object of His devotion, carried to the utmost limit. Nor is this period quite undiscoverable, for when it arrived it would seem highly unnatural to postpone His public ministry further. Now this reasonable inference is entirely supported by the narrative. St. Matthew indeed regards the event from the Baptist's point of vision. But St. Mark and St. Luke are agreed that to Jesus Himself it was also said, "Thou are My beloved Son." Now this is not the way to teach us that the testimony came only to John. And how solemn a thought is this, that the full certitude of His destiny expanded before the eyes of Jesus, just when He lifted them from those baptismal waters in which He stooped so low.
[1] (Cf. The admiral note in Archdeacon Watkins' "Commentary on John")
[2] By the absence of the article in the Greek.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 5, 6, 7 2, 3. As it is written in the prophets.…
2, 3. As it is written in the prophets. Isa. 40:3 and Mal. 3:1. See notes on Matt. 3:3 and 11:10.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 5, 7 Mat 8:14-17; Mar 1:2-34; & Luk 14:3-35 Mark: “And…
HEALING OF PETER’S MOTHER-IN-LAW
Mat 8:14-17; Mar 1:2-34; & Luk 14:3-35 Mark: “And immediately coming out of the synagogue? came into the house of Simon and Andrew and James and John. The mother-in-law of Simon was lying down scorched with a fever; and immediately they speak to Him concerning her; and coming to her and taking her by the hand, He raised her up; and immediately the fever left her, and she continued to minister unto them. And it being evening, when the sun went down, they continued to carry to Him all the sick and the demonized; and the whole city was gathered at the door. And He healed many sick with various diseases, and continued to cast out many demons; and did not suffer the demons to speak, because they knew Him.” Matthew gives a wonderful prophecy of Isa 53:4 :
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“He took our infirmities, and carried our diseases.”
That prophecy, corroborated by our Savior, is really wonderful on Divine healing, certainly setting forth our blessed privilege in the atonement to have our bodies healed. We need physical health in order to do the work the Lord has given us, to bless mankind and glorify God in this life; our faith being the measuring-line of blessings for body as well as soul. This case of Peter’s mother-in-law, in his house in Capernaum, was really notable.
Luke says, “She was afflicted with a great fever.” The healing was so decisive that she got up at once, and proceeded to do her housework. I have seen that very case duplicated repeatedly. Last August, at Scottsville (Texas) Camp-meeting, we prayed for a lady in her tent who was burnt with a terrible fever, at the same time anointing her with oil. The fever left her immediately she got up and went to meeting within fifteen minutes. I saw her in the meetings constantly till the adjournment of the camp, with no sign of fever, and testifying to her healing. We see here that when the sun went down, they continued to bring the sick; as this was midsummer, and the sea of Galilee is seven hundred feet below the Mediterranean and surrounded by highlands, it gets exceedingly hot on the coast. Hence the importance of waiting until sunset, and perhaps in order to command necessary help, as men have more leisure at night than during the day. We see here that Jesus cast out the demons and healed the sick, thus ministering both to soul and body, converting, saving, and sanctifying the soul and healing the body. He is the same, “Yesterday, today, and forever.” O what a Savior we have! His mercies are boundless and free. It is our glorious privilege, not only to have all the demons cast out of our souls, but to have our bodily ailments healed. We should go to the ends of the earth, as our Lord commissioned us, casting out demons and healing the sick. We see here that, while all of those demons wanted to confess the Christhood of Jesus, His Divine Sonship, He prohibited them. How did they know Him? All these demons were once angels, as God never created a devil. During the bygone ages, before they forfeited their probation and were cast out of heaven, they all beheld the bright glory of the Son of God. Hence they recognized Him; but I am not astonished that He was unwilling for these fallen spirits to become the heralds of His Divinity. He preferred to let His mighty works vindicate His claims to the Messiahship.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v2 Mar 1:1 - Mar 1:11.
Mark
THE STRONG FORERUNNER AND THE STRONGER SON
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Mar 1:1 - Mar 1:11.
The first words of In Memoriam might be taken to describe the theme of Mark’s Gospel. It is the ‘strong Son of God’ whom he sets forth in his rapid, impetuous narrative, which is full of fiery energy, and delights to paint the unresting continuity of Christ’s filial service. His theme is not the King, as in Matthew; nor the Son of Man, as in Luke; nor the eternal Word manifested in flesh, as in John. Therefore he neither begins by tracing His kingly lineage, as does the first evangelist; nor by dwelling on the humanities of wedded life and the sacredness of the family since He has been born; nor by soaring to the abysses of the eternal abiding of the Word with God, as the agent of creation, the medium of life and light; but plunges at once into his subject, and begins the Gospel with the mission of the Forerunner, which melts immediately into the appearance of the Son.
I. We may note first, in this passage, the prelude, including Mar 1:1 - Mar 1:3.
We need not discuss the grammatical connection of these verses, nor the relation of Mar 1:2 - Mar 1:3 to the following section. However that be settled, the result, for our present purpose, is the same. Mark considers that John’s mission is the beginning of the gospel. Here are two noteworthy points,-his use of that well-worn word, ‘the gospel,’ and his view of John’s place in relation to it. The gospel is the narrative of the facts of Christ’s life and death. Later usage has taken it to be, rather, the statement of the truths deducible from these facts, and especially the proclamation of salvation by the power of Christ’s atoning death; but the primitive application of the word is to the history itself. So Paul uses it in his formal statement of the gospel which he preached, with the addition, indeed, of the explanation of the meaning of Christ’s death {1Co 15:1 - 1Co 15:6}. The very name ‘good news’ necessarily implies that the gospel is, primarily, history; but we cannot exclude from the meaning of the word the statement of the significance of the facts, without which the facts have no message of blessing. Mark adds the dogmatic element when he defines the subject of the Gospel as being ‘Jesus Christ, the Son of God.’ In the remainder of the book the simple name ‘Jesus’ is used; but here, in starting, the full, solemn title is given, which unites the contemplation of Him in His manhood, in His office as fulfiller of prophecy and crown of revelation, and in His mysterious, divine nature.
Whether we regard Mar 1:2 - Mar 1:3 as connected grammatically with the preceding or the following verses, they equally refer to John, and define his position in relation to the Gospel. The Revised Version restores the true reading, ‘in Isaiah the prophet,’ which some unwise and timid transcriber has, as he thought, mended into ‘the prophets,’ for fear that an error should be found in Scripture. Of course, Mar 1:2 is not Isaiah’s, but Malachi’s; but Mar 1:3, which is Isaiah’s, was uppermost in Mark’s mind, and his quotation of Malachi is, apparently, an afterthought, and is plainly merely introductory of the other, on which the stress lies. The remarkable variation in the Malachi quotation, which occurs in all three Evangelists, shows how completely they recognised the divinity of our Lord, in their making words which, in the original, are addressed by Jehovah to Himself, to be addressed by the Father to the Son. There is a difference in the representation of the office of the forerunner in the two prophetic passages. In the former ‘he’ prepares the way of the coming Lord; in the latter he calls upon his hearers to prepare it. In fact, John prepared the way, as we shall see presently, just by calling on men to do so. In Mark’s view, the first stage in the gospel is the mission of John. He might have gone further back-to the work of prophets of old, or to the earliest beginnings in time of the self-revelation of God, as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews does; or he might have ascended even higher up the stream-to the true ‘beginning,’ from which the fourth Evangelist starts. But his distinctly practical genius leads him to fix his gaze on the historical fact of John’s mission, and to claim for it a unique position, which he proceeds to develop.
II. So we have, next, the strong servant and fore runner {Mar 1:4 - Mar 1:8}.
The abruptness with which the curtain is drawn, and the gaunt figure of the desert-loving ascetic shown us, is very striking. It is like the way in which Elijah, his prototype, leaps, as it were, full-armed, into the arena. The parallel passage in Matthew links his appearance with the events which it has been narrating by the phrase ‘in these days,’ and calls him ‘the Baptist.’ Mark has no such words, but lets him stand forth in his isolation. The two accounts may profitably be compared. Their likenesses suggest that they rest on a common basis, probably of oral tradition, while their differences are, for the most part, significant. Mark differs in his arrangement of the common matter, in omissions, and in some variations of expression. Each account gives a general summary of John’s teaching at the beginning; but Matthew puts emphasis on the Baptist’s proclamation that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, to which nothing in Mark corresponds. His Gospel does not dwell on the royalty of Jesus, but rather represents Him as the Servant than as the King. Mark begins with describing John as baptizing, which only appears later in Matthew’s account. Mark omits all reference to the Sadducees and Pharisees, and to John’s sharp words to them. He has nothing about the axe laid to the trees, nothing about the children of Abraham, nothing about the fan in the hand of the great Husbandman. All the theocratic aspect of the Messiah, as proclaimed by John, is absent; and, as there is no reference to the fire which destroys, so neither is there to the fire of the Holy Ghost, in which He baptizes. Mark reports only John’s preaching and baptism of repentance, and his testimony to Christ as stronger than he, and as baptizing with the Holy Ghost.
So, on the whole, Mark’s picture brings out prominently the following traits in John’s personality and mission:-First, his preparation for Christ by preaching repentance. The truest way to create in men a longing for Jesus, and to lead to a true apprehension of His unique gift to mankind, is to evoke the penitent consciousness of sin. The preacher of guilt and repentance is the herald of the bringer of pardon and purity. That is true in reference to the relation of Judaism and Christianity, of John and Jesus, and is as true to-day as ever it was. The root of maimed conceptions of the work and nature of Jesus Christ is a defective sense of sin. When men are roused to believe in judgment, and to realise their own evil, they are ready to listen to the blessed news of a Saviour from sin and its curse. The Christ whom John heralds is the Christ that men need; the Christ whom men receive, without having been out in the wilderness with the stern preacher of sin and judgment, is but half a Christ-and it is the vital half that is missing.
Again, Mark brings out John’s personal asceticism. He omits much; but he could not leave out the picture of the grim, lean solitary, who stalked among soft-robed men, like Elijah come to life again, and held the crowds by his self-chosen privations no less than by his fierce, fiery eloquence. His desert life and contempt for ease and luxury spoke of a strength of character and purpose which fascinated commoner men, and make the next point the more striking-namely, the utter humility with which this strong, self-reliant, fiery rebuker of sin, and despiser of rank and official dignities, flings himself at the feet of the coming One. He is strong, as his life and the awestruck crowds testified; how strong must that Other be! He feared not the face of man, nor owned inferiority to any; but his whole soul melted into joyful submission, and confessed unworthiness even to unlace the sandals of that mightier One. His transitional position is also plainly marked by our Evangelist. He is the end of prophecy, the beginning of the Gospel, belonging to neither and to both. He is not merely a prophet, for he is prophesied of as well; and he stands so near Him whom he foretells, that his prediction is almost fact. He is not an Evangelist, nor, in the closest sense, a servant of the coming Christ; for his lowly confession of unworthiness does not imply merely his humility, but accurately defines the limits of his function. It was not for him to bear or to loose that Lord’s sandals. There were those who did minister to Him, and the least of those, whose message to the world was ‘Christ has come,’ had the honour of closer service than that greatest among women-born, whose task was to run before the chariot of the King and tell that He was at hand.
III. We have the gentle figure of the stronger Son.
The introduction of Jesus is somewhat less abrupt than that of John; but if we remember whom Mark believed Him to be, the quiet words which tell of His first appearance are sufficiently remarkable. There is no mention of His birth or previous years. His deeds will tell who He is. The years before His baptism were of no moment for Mark’s purpose. Nor has he any report of the precious conversation of Jesus with John, when the forerunner testified to Christ’s purity, which needed no washing nor repentance, and acknowledged at once his own sinfulness and the Lord’s cleansing power, and when Christ accepted the homage, and, by implication, claimed the character, purity, and power which John attributed to Him. The omission may be accounted for on a principle which seems to run through all this Gospel-of touching lightly or omitting indications of our Lord’s dignity, and dwelling by preference on His acts of lowliness and service. The baptism is recorded; but the conversation, which showed that the King of Israel, in submitting to it, acknowledged no need of it for Himself, but regarded it as ‘fulfilling righteousness’ is passed by. The sinlessness of Jesus, and the special meaning of His baptism, are sufficiently shown by the descending Spirit and the approving voice. These Mark does record; for they warrant the great name by which, in his first verse, he has described Jesus as ‘the Son of God.’
The brief account of these is marked by the Evangelist’s vivid pictorial faculty, which we shall frequently have to notice as we read his Gospel. Here he puts us, by a word, in the position of eye-witnesses of the scene as it is passing, when he describes the heavens as ‘being rent asunder’-a much more forcible and pictorial word than Matthew’s ‘opened.’ He says nothing of John’s share in the vision. All is intended for the Son. It is Jesus who sees the rending heavens and the descending dove. The voice which Matthew represents as speaking of Christ, Mark represents as speaking to Him.
The baptism of Jesus, then, was an epoch in His own consciousness. It was not merely His designation to John or to others as Messiah, but for Himself the sense of Sonship and the sunlight of divine complacency filled His spirit in new measure or manner. Speaking as we have to do from the outside, and knowing but dimly the mysteries of His unique personality, we have to speak modestly and little. But we know that our Lord grew, as to His manhood, in wisdom, and that His manhood was continually the receiver, from the Father, of the Spirit; and the reality of His divinity, as dwelling in His manhood from the beginning of that manhood, is not affected by the belief that when the dovelike Spirit floated down on His meek head, glistening with the water of baptism, His manhood then received a new and special consciousness of His Messianic office and of His Sonship.
Whilst that voice was for His sake, it was for others too; for John himself tells us {Joh 1:29} that the sign had been told him beforehand, and that it was his sight of the descending dove which heightened his thoughts and gave a new turn to his testimony, leading him to know and to show ‘that this is the Son of God.’ The rent heavens have long since closed, and that dread voice is silent; but the fact of that attestation remains on record, that we, too, may hear through the centuries God speaking of and to His Son, and may lay to heart the commandment to us, which naturally follows God’s witness to Jesus, ‘Hear ye Him.’
The symbol of the dove may be regarded as a prophecy of the gentleness of the Son. Thus early in His course the two qualities were harmonised in Him, which so seldom are united, and each of which dwelt in Him in divinest perfection, both as to degree and manner. John’s anticipations of the strong coming One looked for the manifestations of His strength in judgment and destruction. How strangely his images of the axe, the fan, the fire, are contrasted with the reality, emblemed by this dove dropping from heaven, with sunshine on its breast and peace in its still wings! Through the ages, Christ’s strength has been the strength of gentleness, and His coming has been like that of Noah’s dove, with the olive-branch in its beak, and the tidings of an abated flood and of a safe home in its return. The ascetic preacher of repentance was strong to shake and purge men’s hearts by terror; but the stronger Son comes to conquer by meekness, and reign by the omnipotence of love. The beginning of the gospel was the anticipation and the proclamation of strength like the eagle’s, swift of flight, and powerful to strike and destroy. The gospel, when it became a fact, and not a hope, was found in the meek Jesus, with the dove of God, the gentle Spirit, which is mightier than all, nestling in His heart, and uttering soft notes of invitation through His lips.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv3, 5 Jehovah. Isa 40:3.
Lord
Jehovah. Isa 40:3.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv2, 5, 6 John’s ministry in agreement with prophetic vision:
John’s ministry in agreement with prophetic vision:
v. 2. As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face, which shall prepare Thy way before Thee.
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v. 3. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.
v. 4. John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.
Two of the prophets of olden times had distinctly described the person and the work of John the Baptist, and the evangelist combines their prophecies for the purpose of brevity. The first prophecy, Mal 3:1, is one in which the God of Israel promises to send His personal messenger before the Messiah. And this messenger, by the message which should be imparted to him and which he was to proclaim before the people of the nation, had the purpose, the object, of preparing the way for the Messiah. A thorough preparation of the way was necessary and should be accomplished by the message entrusted to the herald. In the second prophecy, Isa 40:3, the distinctive contents of the message are given. It is a voice, preaching, which is heard; not a soft, gentle, and obscure whispering as of one not at all sure of his ground, and not filled with the conviction of the divinity of his message, but a loud calling, to awaken sinners from their sleep of security and indifference. A distinguishing feature: It would be heard, not in the midst of the capital or in the halls of the learned of the people, but out in the wilderness, far from the abodes of men. Simple, but impressive its import: Make ready the way of the Lord; make smooth the highway before Him. It is a spiritual coming of which the prophet speaks; it is the heart and mind that must be prepared for the coming of this Lord, who intends to establish His throne in the hearts of the believers. Only the penitent humble sinners are admitted into this Kingdom. The rocks of self-righteousness, of pride and self-conceit, of a religion of works, will not permit the King to enter into the hearts. These must be removed so thoroughly that not a trace is left behind. That is the sum of the herald’s preaching, of his work in preparation for Christ’s coming. In fulfilling this prophecy, John the Baptist was out in the wilderness; he appeared out in the arid regions between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, where the hills slope downward to the Jordan; he began his ministry as one that baptized. He made use of this rite, by God’s express command, to emphasize still more strongly his preaching. For his was a proclamation of the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. It was not a mere proselyte baptism, nor was it altogether identical with that of Jesus and the New Testament sacrament. Those that really repented of their sins received remission, forgiveness of their sins, and this remission was sealed unto them by the baptism which was administered unto them by John.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv4, 7 General Information:
General Information:
In these verses the words "he," "him," and "his" refer to John.
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John came
Be sure your reader understands that John was the messenger spoken of by the prophet Isaiah in the previous verse.
The whole country of Judea and all the people of Jerusalem
The words "whole country" are a metaphor for the people who live in the country and a generalization that refers to a great number of people, not to every single person. AT: "Many people from Judea and Jerusalem" (See: Metaphor and Hyperbole and Generalization)
They were baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins
They did these things at the same time. The people were baptized because they repented of their sins. AT: "When they repented of their sins, John baptized them in the Jordan River"
he was eating locusts and wild honey
Locusts and wild honey are two kinds of foods that John customarily ate while he lived in the wilderness. This does not mean that John was actually eating these foods while he was baptizing people.
translationWords
John (the Baptist)
baptize
preach
baptize
repent
forgive
sin
Judea
Jerusalem
Jordan River
confess
locust
honey
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv2–8 1:2-8 This account is not primarily about John the…
1:2-8 This account is not primarily about John the Baptist, the messenger, but about the one he announces as “Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God” (1:1).
1:2-3 Mark includes Old Testament prophecies to support his account of the Good News about Jesus Christ. John the Baptist’s role as the prophetic messenger reveals that Jesus is the promised Lord—Christ, the Son of God. • Isaiah: Mark follows the Jewish practice of mentioning only the most prominent of the sources that make up the quotation (Mal 3:1; Isa 40:3).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.