Lange Commentary - Mark 1:1 - 1:8

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Lange Commentary - Mark 1:1 - 1:8


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

PART FIRST

Grand Preparation. Christ’s kingly appearing by the side of John the Baptist. First Victory and First Withdrawal. The virtual Decision of all subsequent Conflicts and Victories (Mar_1:1-13).

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FIRST SECTION

JOHN THE BAPTIST

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Mar_1:1-8

(Parallels: Mat_3:1-12; Luk_3:1-20; Joh_1:19-28)

1The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God: 2As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy 3way before thee; The [A] voice of one crying in the wilderness [desert], Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 4John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. 5And there went out unto him all the land of Judea, and they of Jerusalem [the Jerusalemites], and were all baptizedof [by] him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. 6And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts 7and wild honey; And [he] preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. 8I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Mar_1:1. The beginning of the Gospel.—The superscription includes from Mar_1:1-3, closing with the words, “make his paths straight.” The Evangelist designs by both passages (Mar_1:2 from “behold,” etc., and Mar_1:3) to indicate the forerunnership of John. Hence the beginning goes on, according to Meyer, to Mar_1:8, and not, as Ewald says, to Mar_1:15. There is an analogous superscription in Mat_1:1. When Mark points to John the Baptist as the beginning of the Gospel, he refers to its whole development, and this logically leads to and includes the narrative of the Infancy. But he does not include in his design generally, processes and means: hence John also must come upon the scene as the mature man. In this concise and sudden introduction, the Evangelist himself appears before us in all his own peculiarity. Indeed, this beginning of the Gospel was in the apostolical age the customary commencement of evangelical tradition, and as such always accompanied the apostolical preaching. It always started with the appearance of John the Baptist. The history of the Infancy and the doctrine of the Logos followed later for the initiated, the believers.—Of Jesus Christ (genitive of the object), the Son of God.—Matthew: The Son of David. In Mark, the theocratic relation of Jesus recedes, as he wrote especially for Gentile Christians.

Mar_1:3. In the wilderness.—See on Mat_4:1. So also Luk_4:1.—The baptism of repentance.—Baptism as not only obliging to change of mind ( ìåôÜíïéá ), but also exhibiting and symbolizing it.—For the remission of sins.—Meyer rightly: To be received from the Messiah; and not, as Hoffmann in the Schriftbeweis asserts, as assured by John’s baptism. Thus it denotes the preparatory reference of John’s baptism to Christ, or to the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

Mar_1:5. All the land of Judea, and (even) all they of Jerusalem.—Peculiar to Mark, is this strong expression. But it is so far not hyperbolical, as the Baptist had at this crisis overpowered and led captive, not only the consciousness of the people, but that of the hierarchy also.

Mar_1:6. And John was clothed.See on Mat_3:4.

Mar_1:7. There cometh one mightier than I after me.—Present. Decision and vigor of the Baptist, reflecting itself in the view of the Evangelist. Christ is already in the company.—To stoop down.—Pointing to his self-depreciation and humility. In this picturesqueness, peculiar to Mark.

Mar_1:8. With the Holy Ghost.—As Mark does not record the severity of John’s preaching, and his announcement of the judicial work of Jesus, he omits the clause “and with fire.” Thus the omission proves nothing against the genuineness of the clause.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Jesus the Christ, and Christ the Son of God, in the full apostolical meaning. Thus the Gospel of the manifestation of the Mighty One of God is described and opened.

2. The Baptist is here, as in the Gospel of John, Mark 1, the representative and final expression of the whole Old Testament. But the Old Testament itself, terminating in him, becomes one great forerunner, and the voice of the Spirit of God in the wilderness, which proclaims the manifestation of Christ; that is, it becomes a compendious introduction to the original New Testament, springing from heaven.

3. John appears here as at once summing up his office as forerunner: 1. Himself the preparer of the way; 2. and the voice summoning to prepare the way. For the prophecies of Isaiah and Malachi, see on Mat_3:3.

4. The great baptism of John: its seemingly slight, but yet great and decisive, results.

5. John in the desert as a hermit; John arousing the land: preludes of the Lord’s self-humiliation and withdrawals, and of His victorious comings forth into the world.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The beginning of the Gospel of Christ in the manifestation of the Baptist: 1. In his appearance, as described by the prophets; 2. in his vocation (preaching and baptism); 3. in his demeanor; 4. in his alarming influence; 5. in his reference to Christ.—The two Testaments, as they concurrently glorify Christ as the Lord.—How far the Lord will have a way prepared for Him, and how far He makes a path for Himself.—Repentance and faith a miraculous path through the wilderness.—The confession of sin, and its significance for piety: 1. Oftentimes, alas! nothing, or less than nothing; 2. oftentimes very much; 3. oftentimes everything.—John’s great renunciation of the world, the silent condition of his great influence.—The hermit and the shaken land.—Collectedness in secret, victory in the world.—The two strong men, with whom the kingdom of heaven breaks into the world: 1. John, the strong man; and 2. Christ, the stronger than he.—The anointing of the Holy Ghost: the consummation of the baptism of Christ.—The greatness of John the Baptist, that he always, and in all things, points out of and beyond himself: 1. A preparer of the way, who summons his people to prepare their own way; 2. baptizing, and preaching the baptism of repentance; 3. the overcomer of the people, who predicts Christ as overcoming himself; 4. pointing from his own water-baptism to the baptism of the Spirit.—The baptism of water and the baptism of Spirit.—The heroic constancy and decision of John in his work, a symbol for all believers.

Starke:—Thus the last messenger of the old covenant points to the first of the new. Thus truth agrees with truth.—The New Testament looks back to the Old.—The wilderness in which the Baptist appeared, a shadow of this world.—Word and sacrament the two essential elements of the preaching office.—Preachers furnished with the Spirit and power may have great concourse around them; but Israel soon becomes weary of the manna, Joh_6:66.

Gerlach:—John’s baptism as the conclusion, and consequently also the epitome, of all that the legal economy contained in itself.—It was not itself to communicate forgiveness of sins, but prepare the way for it.—Even Christians should not despise such preparations through the law for the Gospel.—In times of great declension in morals, the servants of the Lord appear with a special self-renunciation even in external things. So the ancient Elijah, 2Ki_1:8.—Gossner:—A preacher should be only a messenger who proclaims the coming of the Lord and Saviour.—W. L. Bauer:—The man of humility, who aimed only to prepare the way.

Footnotes:

Mar_1:2.—We regard the testimony of Irenæus and other fathers, with Codd. A., P., as sufficient to establish the reading ἐí ôïῖò ðñïöÞôáéò , against the reading of Codd. B., D., L., and others, ἐí Çóáῖ ̓ á ôῷ ðñïöÞôῃ , which Griesbach and most recent critics would prefer on their authority. That the text was changed into the form which it has in our reading is scarcely conceivable; on the other hand, the reading “in Esaias” might have been inserted from the second citation through an inexact reminiscence, especially as Mark is not elsewhere accustomed to quote minutely (Mar_11:17; Mar_12:10; Mar_14:27). If the reading “in Esaias the prophet” be preferred, the passage of Malachi must be regarded as a further development of the main passage in Isaiah, which is made prominent as the first announcement of the forerunner.

Mar_1:2.— ÅìðñïóèÝí óïõ is not sufficiently supported.

Mar_1:5.—The ðÜíôåò belongs to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, according to the best MS., and does not come after ἐâáðôßæïíôï .