Lange Commentary - Mark 1:14

Lange Commentary - Mark 1:14 - 1:15

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Lange Commentary - Mark 1:14 - 1:15

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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

PART SECOND

Royal Appearance of Christ after the Baptist. His Conflicts and Victories in Galilee, in the Old Jewish Church (Mar_1:14 to Mar_9:50)

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FIRST SECTION

ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

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Mar_1:14-15

(Parallels: Luk_4:14-15; Mat_4:12-17; Joh_4:43 seq.)

¹⁴Now, after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the¹⁵ Gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe [in] the Gospel.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

See on Matthew, Mar_4:12-17.

Mar_1:14. Jesus came.—Ewald: He would not let the Baptist’s work fall to the ground. Meyer, on the contrary: that He might be safe; but see our Notes on Matthew in refutation of this. By the Baptist’s imprisonment the Baptist community in Israel was broken up; Jesus therefore saw occasion first to receive to Himself the poor people in Gentile Galilee, and that as the representative of John. John was put in prison by the Galilean prince; Jesus summons the people of this prince to repentance, and to faith in the Gospel: this is the true political retaliation, and the sacred way to salvation and the restoration of right.

Mar_1:15. The time, ä ̔ êáéñüò .—Not the period, but the right time; the great, fore-ordained, predicted and longed-for time of Messianic expectation; more closely defined by the following “the kingdom of God is at hand.” (See Gal_4:4.) Repent, Ìåôáíïåῖôå .—See the lexicon for the original meaning and the various significations of the word. [It includes the ideas of reflection, afterthought, and change of mind, i.e., of judgment and of feeling, upon moral subjects, with particular reference to the character and conduct of the penitent himself. Alexander in loc.—Ed.] Believe the Gospel, Ðéóôåýåôå ἐí . Gal_3:26; Eph_1:13.—By this expression faith is more strongly emphasized. Entering into the Gospel, we have decisive faith. The object of faith in this view is the manifestation of the kingdom of God.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. From the still prayer of the wilderness, or from the new paradise in which Christ had conquered Satan, He has now come forth to endure all the individual conflicts of life for the founding of His eternal kingdom. Adam came from his paradise conquered, to endure in his descendants a constant succession of defeats.

2. As here, so everywhere, the economy of the Gospel takes the place of the economy of the law. The legal economy yields at last to the lawlessness of the world: the economy of faith and salvation triumphs over it even in yielding, and saves with itself also the ideality of the law.

3. An economy of the law which, in its tragical conflict with the spirit of the world, recognizes not the deliverance which is in the coming economy of salvation, like Elias (1Ki_19:13), is thereby converted into an economy of carnal precepts, which finally combines with the world against the economy of salvation. But, on the other hand, true evangelical faith knows how to give its due to the precursory office of the law, just as Christ gave honor to His forerunner, John the Baptist.

4. “Almost all the Jews of that time hoped for the kingdom of God; but it was a strange and unrecognized idea, that repentance and faith must be the entrance into it. Jesus begins with the promise, but immediately goes on to the conditions.” Gerlach.

5. Mark, like Peter in his first and second Epistle, places the announcement of the kingdom of heaven at the head of his writing. The kingdom is his fundamental thought.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Jesus, in the silent conflicts of the wilderness, prepares for the open conflicts of life—takes the place of John, delivered to death by the carnal mind. 1. The history: A testimony, a. that He honored the Baptist, b. that He did not fear the enemy, and c. that He was faithful to His people and His vocation. 2. The doctrine: a. The witnesses of the kingdom of God cannot be destroyed; b. after every seeming triumph of the kingdom of darkness, still stronger heroes of God come forward. 3. Christ is always Himself victorious at last in every scene.—Persecution the primitive furtherance of the kingdom of God.—The blood of the Church, the seed of the Church.—Where the law falls in the letter, it is reestablished in the spirit.—The preaching of Christ: 1. It appears as the announcement of salvation in the place of danger and ruin. 2. What it announces: that the time is fulfilled, and that the kingdom of God is come. 3. What it requires: repentance (as change of mind, ìåôÜíïéá ) and faith. 4. What it signifies: the saving presence of Christ Himself.—Christ and John as preachers: the might of their preaching itself. 1. John preaches in his whole life and manifestation; 2. Christ preaches out of the depth of His own divine life.—The seal of evangelical preaching the full harmony of the person and the word.

On the whole section (Mar_1:14-45).—The first victorious appearance of Christ the prelude of His whole path of victory: 1. In the announcement of His Gospel; 2. in His dominion over the hearts of the chosen; 3. in His victory of the kingdom of Satan; 4. in His miraculous removal of human misery; 5. in His salutary shaking of the world.—The glory of the Lord in its first actual exhibition: 1. A glory of grace (Mar_1:16-20), 2. of sacred judicial and redeeming power (Mar_1:21-28), 3. of healing mercy (Mar_1:29-39), 4. of purifying purity (Mar_1:40-44).—Christ proceeds from the wilderness of the earth into the wilderness of human life for the restoration of paradise.—Christ confirms His victory over Satan in the solitude of the desert by His victories over satanic powers among all the people.

Starke:—Satan seeks to bind and to oppress Christ and His Gospel; but God’s wisdom and power set at naught all his aggression.

Gerlach:—With the public appearance of Jesus, the end of John’s work had come.—Gossner:—He who understands repentance to mean that he must first become pious and good, and then come to Jesus, and believe His Gospel, goes out at the door of grace instead of entering in. Repenting and believing the Gospel, or believing in Christ, must go together and be one.

Footnotes:

Mar_1:14.—Codd. B., L., and several cursive MSS. and versions, leave out ôῆò âáóéëåßáò . So Lachmann and Tischendorf. Meyer thinks it an exegetical addition. But what follows might also have caused the omission.