From Heaven's Approval to Hell's Assault

If one carefully reads through the 16 chapters of Mark, it should become obvious that he wants us to see Jesus at work. It is as though he says: “Look! What Jesus did proves who He  was. What He wrought authenticates what He taught. The mighty works verify the startling words. Watch Him at work and marvel at this supernatural Wonderworker! That will convince you. Mark is the cameraman of the four Gospel-writers, giving us shot after shot of unforgettable scenes. The perfect balance is sustained throughout between human servanthood and Divine lordship. The lordship is on every page, yet everywhere the Lord is the SERVANT. Jesus the Messiah is the Sovereign/Servant King. We hear King Jesus declaring in Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

King Jesus is Announced by the Forerunner – 1:2-9

The door of the carpenter’s shop in Nazareth swung shut for the last time. Thirty years of relative obscurity in the life of Jesus is about to be ended. We are about to witness the initiation of Jesus’ public ministry. Out of the baptismal waters, goodness at its highest commended, accredited, and commissioned him. Out of the battle in the wilderness evil at its lowest was confronted and conquered by him. Heaven’s affirmation and hell’s assault combine to accredit Jesus as the God-man Messiah.

Mark 1:2-3 is a passage comprised of a mixture of texts from Exodus 23:20, Malachi 3:1, and Isaiah 40:3. Exodus 23:20 contains God's promise to send his angel/messenger before the Israelites on their exodus through the desert to Canaan. Isaiah 40:3 speaks of a second exodus through the desert to the final deliverance prepared for God’s people. Malachi 3:1 warns that God will send a messenger to prepare the way before him prior to the coming of the day of judgment.

Over four hundred years of silence is broken as the last of the Old Testament prophets – John the Baptizer – burst on the scene preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 3:1-2).

“It is fascinating to see where each Evangelist starts his story of Jesus. Matthew begins with Abraham, Luke even further back with Adam, while John links Jesus directly to the eternal God Himself. Mark starts with the Exile - with Isaiah 40 - by identifying John the Baptist as the "voice in the wilderness preparing the way of the Lord". This bizarre prophetic figure lures the people to a barren landscape and urges Israel to start afresh with God. To that end, John preaches national repentance and national forgiveness, inviting Israel, through baptism, to repeat, as it were, the original Jordan crossing and so to enter the new promised land of God’s long-awaited Messianic kingdom!

The sum of John’s ministry is articulated in Mark 1:7-8, “And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” The entire purpose behind his preaching (literally, proclaiming) was to point his listeners to the One who was coming after him. That is what it meant to be the forerunner, the herald who directed everyone’s attention away from himself and toward the coming King.

John’s message summarizes the heart of the gospel, bringing us back to Mark’s use of the term in verse 1. The gospel is good news—the glad tidings of a new King who is bringing a new kingdom. The new King is the long-awaited Messiah. He is God Himself. His kingdom is a kingdom of forgiveness, blessing, and salvation. It comes to those who repent. And those who do will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. This gospel is the culmination of all past redemptive history and the door to all future glory. And John the Baptist, the faithful herald and forerunner, had come to announce His arrival. At last, God’s time has come! God’s age-old plans have come of age! The day Isaiah saw is here!

Luke, in his gospel account, tells us that John the Baptist is conceived by a miracle, announced by Gabriel, the archangel, and filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother's womb. He appears in a hair shirt tied down with a leather belt, and he subsists on a diet of locusts and wild honey. What a character!

Jesus called him the greatest of the prophets (Matt.11:1-15). In his dress, manner of life, and message of repentance, John identified with Elijah (2 Kings.1:8; Mal. 4:5; Matt.17:10-13; Luke 1:13-17). The “wilderness” where John ministered is the rugged wasteland along the western shore of the Dead Sea. John was telling the people symbolically that they were in a “spiritual wilderness” far worse than the physical wilderness which their ancestors had endured for forty years. John called the people to leave their spiritual wilderness, trust their “Joshua” (Jesus), and enter into their inheritance.

John was careful to magnify Jesus and not himself (see John 3:25-30). John would baptize repentant sinners in water, but “the coming One” would baptize them with the Spirit (Acts 1:4-5). This did not mean that John’s baptism was unauthorized or that water baptism would one day be replaced by Spirit baptism. Rather, John’s message and baptism were preparation so that the people would be ready to meet and trust the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

In ancient times, before a king visited any part of his realm, a messenger was sent before him to prepare the way. This included both repairing the roads and preparing the people. By calling the nation to repentance, John the Baptist prepared the way for the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah and Malachi join voices in declaring that Jesus Christ is the Lord, Jehovah God.

The Baptism Which Initiated Jesus’s Public Ministry – 1:9-11

What was the purpose of Jesus taking baptism? He had no sins of his own to repent of. Reading Matthew’s account in Matt 3:13-15, “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented.”

Jesus’ Baptism was His Public Identification with Sinners. Through His baptism, Christ identifies with sinners. He will ultimately bear their sins; His perfect righteousness will be imputed to them (2 Cor. 5:21). This act of baptism is a necessary part of the righteousness He secured for sinners. This first public event of His ministry is also rich in meaning: (1) it pictures His death and resurrection (Luke 12:50); (2) it, therefore, prefigures the significance of Christian baptism; (3) it marks His first public identification with those whose sins He would bear (Isa. 53:11; 1Pet. 3:18); and (4) it affirms His messiahship publicly by testimony directly from heaven.

Accepting the likeness of his sinful people, he assumes their personal and legal liabilities to God.

Jesus’ Baptism was His Initial Introduction into His Messianic Office. To fulfill all righteousness, denotes that there is no righteousness that will not be met, satisfied, or fulfilled by this act of baptism. It represents the entire undertaking of Christ to bear away our sins by submitting to the punishment meted out by God’s wrath upon him as the sin-bearer.

In symbolism, he takes the whole load of sin and washes it away in the forthcoming of his baptism of suffering and fiery ordeal.

The reality of the symbolism must have deeply stirred Jesus as John placed him beneath the water. To know this meant in 3 1/2 years he would die on the cross, be buried in a tomb, and then rise triumphantly from the dead three days later, must have been an occasion of ambivalent emotions – joy and dread.

King Jesus is Affirmed by the Father – 1:10-11

“And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” 

There were many who bore witness to the ministry of Christ - angels, John the Baptist, His followers. But the Father’s witness was the most important of all (cf. John 5:32; 8:18). And what was the Father’s testimony? “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.” No prophet had ever been told that. Prophets might be called friends of God (James 2:23), servants of God (Deut. 34:5), or men of God (1 Sam. 2:27). But no prophet was ever called the Son of God. Yet, over fifty times in the gospel accounts, Jesus Christ is called the Son of God. On this occasion, the testimony came from the Father Himself. His words are reminiscent of Psalm 2:7, a passage that the Jews universally regarded as messianic: “I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.’ The fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, as the Father here declares Him to be, is central to the gospel message. It underscores the truth that He is one in essence with God, possessing the same nature as the Father. He is both God and “with God” (John 1:1). “When Jesus called God “Father,” He emphasized the fact that He shared the same essence and nature as the Father. As John 5:18 explains, even His enemies knew Jesus “was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.”

Not only is the Son equal in essence with God, but He is also beloved by God. From the Father’s perspective, He is My Son, the only one who bears that eternal privilege. He is uniquely the object of the Father’s highest affection (cf. John 5:20), in a way that is shared with no other like Him. Beloved (agapētos) expresses the infinitely deep and eternally profound relationship enjoyed by the Father with the Son.

Having “loved [the Son] before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24), the Father is eternally and completely well-pleased with Him (cf. Isa. 42:1). Jesus Christ was well-pleasing to His Father in everything that He did. In His incarnation, the Son perfectly submitted to the Father’s will, and in His death, He fully satisfied the Father’s wrath.

King Jesus is Anointed by the Spirit - 1:10,

“And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.”

The ultimate authentication of the Son came from the verbal affirmation of the Father accompanied by the visible manifestation of the Spirit. Such constitutes the divine inauguration of the new King - God’s sinless, beloved Son who was anointed and empowered by the Holy Spirit to glorify the Father, save sinners and establish His kingdom. This is the Messiah’s coronation, a ceremony in which the entire Trinity was involved.

Later in Jesus’ ministry, when the religious leaders asked Him, “By what authority are You doing these things, or who gave You this authority to do these things?” (Mark 11:28), Jesus answered by pointing them to His baptism: And Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question, and you answer Me, and then I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was the baptism of John from heaven, or from men? Answer Me.” They began reasoning among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ But shall we say, ‘From men’?” - they were afraid of the people, for everyone considered John to have been a real prophet. Answering Jesus, they said, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Nor will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” (vv. 29–33) Because they were unwilling to acknowledge the legitimacy of John’s baptizing ministry - and by extension Jesus’ own baptism - the Lord had nothing else to say to them. If they would not recognize His coronation, the discussion was over before it even began. In essence, Jesus was saying, “If you refuse to admit that John was a prophet of God, then you will not acknowledge the reality of what occurred at My baptism, where the Spirit anointed Me and the Father affirmed Me. And if you reject that, then there is nothing else I can add to convince you about the source of My authority.” That is how critical Jesus’ baptism was. It was His coronation, and the divine inauguration of His public ministry.

King Jesus is Assaulted by Satan – 1:12-13,

“The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.” 

Having been commissioned king in the baptismal waters, having been officially commended by the voice of the father from out of the heavens, Jesus must now confront the usurping Prince of this worldly system, Satan, and defeat him. Thus demonstrating that he was truly the priest king redeemer of a fallen race.

Jesus went into the wilderness under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to find the devil. The devil challenged the first Adam in a perfect environment and ruined him and his descendants. The last Adam, Jesus, challenged the devil in a most inhospitable environment, and spoiled him, and thus initiated the process that would save a new race of the twice born.

Would He, as the divinely commissioned King, be able to meet and conquer His archenemy? Could He endure the most alluring assaults the devil could devise? He would never be able to establish His kingdom if He were unable to overthrow the usurper. It was His royal duty to crush the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15), “to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), and to depose the illegitimate “god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4). But would He be able to do that decisively when, after fasting for forty days, He was physically weak, emotionally drained, and completely isolated?

Satan’s First Temptation of Jesus – Matt 4:3-4

The aim of Satan’s attack in the first temptation - To lead to disobedience by doubting the providential care of God. The insinuation from the devil was such a state of need did not become so exalted a person, and revealed neglect on the part of God

The avenue of Satan’s approach, the body, legitimate appetites and needs. The temptation was to do a right thing in a wrong way. That is satisfying a legitimate need in an unlawful manner for you see hunger was the will of God for Jesus at that moment. Do a right thing from the wrong motive. To turn stones into bread to prove that he could. Do a right thing at the wrong time prove your manhood by asserting your rights. The inference is that all you need for meaningful life is bread.

The answer to Satan’s argument - Jesus publicly defined his position of submission to the authority of God’s word. Jesus concisely declared that life is more than physical.

Satan’s Second Temptation of Jesus – Matt. 4:5-7 – The test was an attempt to lead to disobedience by presuming upon God.

The aim of Satan was to produce spiritual results by unspiritual means. The first temptation was to act independently of God. The second temptation was to act in unwarranted dependence upon God. In the first it was distrust of God and into the second it was false trust in God.

The avenue of Satan’s approach – the mind. The issue was ambition - the desire to achieve things. If Jesus lived only by the Word of God, then he would give him something from that Word. Demanding sensational proof is not evidence of faith, but doubt. The temptation was to gain the admiration approval and acceptance of men by the exercise of power apart from the will of God.

The answer of Satan’s argument - Apply scripture within its context.

Satan’s Third Temptation of Jesus – Matt. 4:8-11

The aim of Satan attacking the third temptation - to obtain a lawful heritage or purpose by unlawful means. Taking the line of lease resistance, to reach the crown by dodging the cross. Allow a little evil for the sake of good. The ultimate philosophy behind this temptation could be expressed as the end justifies the means

The avenue of Satan’s approach - the spirit. To involve oneself in treason against God’s government. In the first temptation, Satan suggested what Jesus ought to do for himself. In the second temptation, he suggested what the father ought to do for Jesus. In the third temptation, he suggests what Satan could do for Jesus, of course, in exchange for what Jesus could do for him.

Satan was saying to Jesus in essence, why should you have to wait for what is rightfully yours? You deserve it now why submit as a servant when you can reign as a king. Compromise, take the shortcut.

The answer to Satan’s argument - the Spirit-filled, God-empowered man using the Word of God.

Mark’s concluding phrase and the angels were ministering to Him implies what Matthew and Luke state explicitly—that, indeed, Jesus triumphed over all the temptation Satan brought, emerging victorious from His forty-day isolation in the wilderness. The word ministering (diakoneō) indicates that these angels provided Jesus with food. But the angels also ministered to Him by their very presence, which served as confirmation that the Father who sent them was still well pleased with His Son.