Lange Commentary - Mark 1:9

Lange Commentary - Mark 1:9 - 1:13

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Lange Commentary - Mark 1:9 - 1:13

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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

SECOND SECTION

CHRIST

______

Mar_1:9-13

(Parallels: Mat_3:13 to Mat_4:11; Luk_3:21 to Luk_4:13; Joh_1:29-42)

⁹And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of [by] John in Jordan. ¹⁰And straightway coming up out of [from, áðï ] the water, he saw the heavens opened [parted], and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him. ¹¹And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. ¹²And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness. ¹³And he was there in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Mar_1:10. Straightway, åὐèÝùò .—Mark’s watchword, constantly recurring from this time onwards. But here it means that Jesus only in a formal sense submitted to the act, and therefore did not linger in it. Much in the same way as Luke hastily passes over the circumcision of our Lord.—He saw the heavens.—Not John (as Erasmus and others), but Jesus is the subject of the seeing (Meyer): yet the concurrent and mediate beholding of the Baptist is not excluded; see John 1. That the occurrence should not have been only an external one, but also an internal (Leben Jesu, ii. 1, S. 182), Meyer calls “fantasy.” But it is certain that without the fantasy of theological spiritual insight we cannot penetrate the internal meaning of the text, and must fall now into mere dogmatism, and now into rationalistic perversions.

Mar_1:12. And immediately the Spirit driveth Him.—’ ÅêâÜëëåé is stronger than the ἀíÞ÷èç of Matthew and the ἤãåôï of Luke.

Mar_1:13. And He was there forty days tempted of Satan.—According to Meyer and others, Mark (with Luke) is here out of harmony with Matthew. This difficulty springs from neglecting to distinguish, 1. between real difference and less exactitude, and 2. between the being tempted generally of Satan, and the being tempted in a specifically pregnant and decisive manner. But it is evident that Mark places the crisis of Christ’s victory already in the baptism. That act of victory over self, and humiliation under the baptism of John, had already assured Him the victory over the now impotent assaults of Satan.—With the wild beasts.—The older expositors find hi this circumstance a counterpart of the serpent in paradise. Starke:—The wilderness was probably the great Arabian desert, and Satan attacked Him also through the beasts. Usteri and others:—Christ as the restorer of paradise, and conqueror of the beasts. De Wette:—This is a mere pictorial embellishment. Meyer:—He is threatened in a twofold manner: Satan tempts Him, and the beasts surround Him. But this is a misleading view. A threefold relation of Jesus is here depicted, 1. to Satan, 2. to the beasts, 3. to the angels; and it is arbitrary to separate the second from the third, and make it the antithesis of the first. There is nothing in the ìåôÜ to justify this.—The angels.—Not merely fortuitous individual angels. By the individuals which minister to Him, the angel-world is represented. Meyer:—By the ministering we are not to understand a serving with food, but a sustaining support against Satan and the beasts. This is more than fantasy.—The theory concerning the various forms of the history of the temptation, of which Mark is supposed to have used the earliest and simplest, we pass over, as flowing from the well-known scholastic misapprehension of this Evangelist’s original view and exhibition of the Gospel.—Ex ungue leonem! This holds good of Christ, as He is introduced by Mark; and in another sense it holds good of the beginning of the Gospel itself. Remark the expressions: ïἱ ‘ Éåñïóïëõìῖôáé ðÜíôåò — êýøáò ëῦóáé — åἶäå ó÷éæïìÝíïõò ôïὺò ïὐñáíïýò , etc.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The self-denial and self-renunciation with which Christ, the Son of God, had lived in the seclusion of Nazareth, was the condition and source of that strength in which He subjected Himself to the baptism of John in the Jordan. This act of subjection sealed His submission under the law, His historical fellowship of suffering with His people, and His passion. The baptism of Christ was consequently the pledge of His perfect self-sacrifice. Hence it was in principle the decision of His conflict and His victory; and therefore it was crowned with His glorification. In this one act there was a consummation of His consciousness as God, of His consciousness as Redeemer, and His consciousness as Victor.

2. Christ really decided, in His baptism, His victory over Satan. He went into the wilderness and made it a paradise. The serpent in this paradise assaults Him, but cannot hurt Him; the wild beasts sink peaceably under His majesty; and the angels of heaven surround and serve Him.

3. John is in the wilderness, and Satan tempts him not. Jesus is led up from the wilderness into the wilderness,—that is, into the deepest wildness of the wilderness (this being the residence of the demons, see Com. on Matthew 4),—and Satan comes down to assault Him there. But the Evangelist deems it superfluous to remark that Jesus overcame Satan. After what had just preceded, this was self-understood. Moreover, it is in the casting-out of the devils, that Mark presents to us Christ’s concrete victories over Satan. Yet this victory is intimated in the fact that He maintained His abode in the wilderness for forty days in spite of all the assaults of the devil, and that in that very wilderness the angels ministered to Him. The incarnate Son of God could hold His heavenly court in the place which Satan preëminently arrogated for himself. The Lord’s relation to His surroundings is threefold. 1. It is a sovereign and inimical one towards Satan, whose temptations appear only as impotent assaults. 2. It is a sovereign and peaceful one towards the beasts: they dare not hunt the Lord of creation, nor do they flee before Him. Jesus takes away the curse also from the irrational creation (Romans 8). According to the same Mark, who places this circumstance at the outset of his Gospel, Jesus commanded at its close that His Gospel should be preached to every creature. See Daniel in the den of lions. Comp. Gœthe’s Das Kind und der Löwe. 3. A sovereign and friendly one towards the angel-world. The world of the angels is subjected to the dominion of Christ: Eph_1:21; Col_2:10; Hebrews 1.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The abode of Jesus in Nazareth, or His self-humiliation, the foundation of all the Divine victories in His life, Php_2:6 seq.—The greatness of Christ by the side of the greatness of John.—Even in humiliation Christ is above John, in that He voluntarily submits to his baptism.—With the submission of Christ to the baptism of John, and what it signified, the whole course of His life, and also His victory over Satan in the wilderness, were decided. Hence His tarrying in the wilderness was the festival before a new career.—The perfected unfolding of the consciousness of Christ at His baptism, in its eternal significance.—With the self-consciousness of Christ was perfected the consciousness of the Son of God and of the Son of man at one and the same time: Thus, 1. the consciousness of His eternity in His Godhead, and 2. of His redeeming vocation in His humanity.—The significance of perfect self-knowledge in self-consciousness: 1. Finding self, 2. gaining self, 3. deciding and dedicating self in God.—The kindredness and difference between the development of the Redeemer’s consciousness and that of the sinner: 1. Kindredness: humiliation, exaltation. 2. Difference: a. Christ’s humiliation under the judgment of His brethren; b. the sinner’s under his own judgment;—a. Christ’s exaltation through the contemplation of the communion of the Trinity; b. the sinner’s exaltation through faith in the fellowship of the Redeemer.—As our consciousness, so our history: This holds good, a. of our true consciousness, b. of our false.—The abode of the Baptist and of the Lord in the wilderness, a token of the destruction of the satanic kingdom.—The inseparable connection between the divine dignity and the redeeming vocation of Christ: 1. He is Christ, and submits to John’s baptism of repentance; 2. He sees the heavens open upon Him, and enters into the depths of the wilderness to contend with Satan.—The connection between the Lord’s baptism and His temptation.—The connection between the humiliations and the exaltations of our Lord, an encouraging sign to all who are His.—The connection between the invigorations and the new conflicts of Jesus, an admonitory sign to all who are His.—Christ takes possession again of the wilderness (the world), without asking leave of Satan whose dwelling it is.—Christ in the wilderness Ruler of all: 1. Of the abyss, whose assaults He regards not; 2. of the earth, whose wild beasts and passions sink to rest at His feet; 3. of the heavenly world, whose angels minister to Him.—Wherefore the Lion of Judah, according to Mark, so often goes into the wilderness.—How the Holy Spirit opens, with the manifestation of Christ, the decisive conflict with the spirit of apostasy.—How the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of might, drives the Lord into the decisive conflict. Even Christ did not go led by self into the contest.—Christ changing the wilderness, despite Satan, into a paradise.—Adam in paradise, and Christ among the beasts in the wilderness.

Starke:—Humility the best adornment of teachers.—Jesus of Nazareth (despised): So little does the great God make Himself, and thus at the same time constructs a ladder by which we may go up.—Jesus sanctifies through His baptism the laver of regeneration in the word.—Rejoice, O soul, in that God is well pleased with His Son, and with thee also, who through Him art reconciled to God! But thou must in faith be made one with Him, Eph_1:5-6.—As soon as we become God’s children, the Holy Ghost leads us; but the cross and temptation come forth-with.—What the first Adam lost among and under the beasts, the Second Adam has asserted and regained among the beasts.—A pious man has nothing to fear, among either wild beasts or bestial men.

Gerlach:—How infinitely high does Christ stand above all human teachers, even those inspired by God.—Schleiermacher:—The legal excitement which John occasioned, and the excitement which Jesus enkindled.—Gossner:—Solitude and the wilderness have their temptations equally with the world.—Baur:—No one is near to celebrate this victory, yet God’s angels are there to glorify Him.

Footnotes:

[Mar_1:10.—The reading of the Received Text is ἀðü , which is also adopted by Scholz, and agrees, moreover, with Mat_3:16. But Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Meyer, following B., D., L., and the Gothic Version, read ἐê . Griesbach also favored this reading. The English Version “out of” accords with the latter reading, but not with the former. The use of the two prepositions is seen m Luk_2:4 : “And Joseph also went up from ( ἀðü ) Galilee, out of ( ἐê ) the city of Nazareth,” &c. “Beyond doubt,” remarks Winer, “ ἐê indicates the closest connection; ὑðü one less strict; ðáñÜ and more especially ἀðü , one still more distant.”—Ed.]

Mar_1:11.—After B., D., &c., Lachmann and Tischendorf read ἐí óïß , “in Thee.”