Mark 1

Mk. 1 THE beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

L. 1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip, tetrarch of

2. Iturea, and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the Baptist, the

3 son of Zacharias, in the wilderness of Judea. And in those days he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins;

4 and saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. As it is written in the prophets, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. For this is he that was spoken of in the book of the words of Esaias, the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the

5. Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways

6 shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. And the same John

M. 4 had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins, and his meat was locusts and wild honey.

5. Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all the land of Judea, and all the region round

6 about Jordan, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins.

7. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, and to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of

L. 8 vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance; and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children

9 unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire.

10,11. And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then? He answereth, and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that

12 hath meat, let him do likewise. Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto

13 him, Master, what shall we do? And he said unto them, Exact no more than that

14 which is appointed you. And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages.

15. And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John,

16 whether he were the Christ or not; John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance; but one cometh after me mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose, whose shoes I am

17 not worthy to bear; he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

18. And many other things in his exhortation preached he unto the people.

HERE is the honest, outspoken boldness of a man of God, and yet one who took broad and noble views of existence and its duties. He advocated no unnatural disseverance of man from his work-day world, as if business and religion were antagonistic and incompatible. He enjoins all classes to return to their ordinary occupations, but imbued with a new heaven-born spirit; seeking that religion should moderate worldly cares, employments, and enjoyments, and leave its sanctifying influence upon all. Macduff.

Though he did not claim the credentials of a single miracle, yet, while he threatened detection to the hypocrite and destruction to the hardened, he promised also pardon to the penitent and admission into the kingdom of heaven to the pure and clean. “The two great utterances,” it has been said, “which he brings from the desert, contain the two capital revelations to which all the preparation of the gospel has been tending. Law and prophecy; denunciation of sin and promise of pardon; the flame which consumes and the light which consoles—is not this the whole of the covenant?” F.

John enunciated the first principles and enforced the first great duties of the gospel; and ere the echoes which he awakened in the hearts of men had died away into silence, a greater than he took up the noble theme, and proclaimed it as with the tongue of a trumpet to an astonished world. J. L. P.

Mk. 1. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, places us at the opening of the mystery of godliness, of the salvation of the world, of the glory which fills the heavens, and of the kingdom which endures forever. The beginning of the gospel (according to this Evangelist) is not found at the birth of Jesus, when the communications of heaven were made to few, and died suddenly into silence; but from the time when John baptized, and when Jesus began to show himself, and “the word of the beginning of Christ” was publicly proclaimed, never again to be suspended till it should have become the word of a completed gospel. The gospel which Jesus preached was a gospel which in its main particulars had yet to be fulfilled, and which could not be fully opened till it had been fulfilled. Considered as fact, the gospel began from the Incarnation, and was completed at the Resurrection; but considered as doctrine, it began with the first preaching of Jesus, and was completed in the dispensation of the Spirit. When the Lord quitted the world, he left the material of the gospel already perfect, but the exposition of the gospel only begun. T. D. B.

All the Evangelists set out from the Baptist in introducing the ministry of Jesus, but the differences in procedure are characteristic. Mark, keeping in view the Roman, merely makes the imprisonment of the Baptist the starting-point of a wonder-working ministry of Jesus in Galilee, into the marvels of which he hurries us at once, without even hinting at its prophetic relations. Luke, in tracing for the reasoning Greek the orderly development of the life and work of Jesus, opens with the ministry in Galilee, as the natural sequence of that of the Baptist, but does not emphasize the connection. John, writing for the Christian, sets out with the Baptist, as preparing the way for that private ministry of Jesus in Judea which preceded the public ministry in Galilee, and which, as being directed to the true Israel and dealing with high spiritual themes, is passed over in silence by the other Evangelists, but brought forward in the gospel for the Christian, the spiritual man, as eminently fitted to further its peculiar aim. Matthew, with his eye on the Jew, starts with the public ministry of Jesus in Galilee—which, strictly speaking, could begin only when that of the Baptist, the forerunner, closed—and presents Jesus at once and most prominently in his Messianic character, fulfilling prophecy. D. S. G.

L. 1. Herod the Great, in whose day Christ was born, had divided his entire kingdom among his three sons, Archelaus, Philip, and Herod Antipas—Archelaus obtaining Judea, Idumea, and Samaria. In the tenth year of his reign, however, Archelaus was deposed by the emperor, and a Roman governor appointed in his room. The fifth in order of these governors was Pontius Pilate. C. B.—The Roman governors, or procurators, were lieutenant-governors of divisions of Roman provinces, under the governors-general of each province. Occasionally, in smaller provinces, or in districts belonging to a larger province, they took the place of the governor-general, and in that case had in part the command of the troops, and were the judges even in criminal matters, but always in subordination to the governor-general of the province. This was the position of the procurators in Judea and Samaria after the incorporation of these as one district with the province of Syria, on the banishment of Archelaus. G.—Herod Antipas, the brother of Archelaus, was confirmed by Augustus in the tetrarchy of Galilee and Perea, which had been assigned to him by his father’s will, and hence he is mentioned in the gospels by the style of Herod the Tetrarch. His whole importance is derived from his two appearances in the gospel history, as first the hearer and then the murderer of John the Baptist, and as taking part with Pilate in the condemnation of our Lord. Herod Philip II. was the son of Herod the Great and Cleopatra, a maiden of Jerusalem. He received as his own government “Batanea, Trachonitis, Auranitis (Gaulonitis), and some parts about Jamnia” (i. e., N. E. Palestine), with the title of Tetrarch. His rule was distinguished by justice and moderation, and he appears to have devoted himself entirely to the duties of his office without sharing in the intrigues which disgraced his family. He built a new city on the site of Paneas, near the sources of the Jordan, which

he called Cæsarea, and raised Bethsaida (in lower Gaulonitis) to the rank of a city under the title of Julias, and died there A. D. 34. He married Salome, the daughter of Philip I. and Herodias, but, as he left no children, his dominions were added at his death to the Roman province of Syria. S. (See Section 9.)

2. The Word of God came. The usual formula for the divine commission of the prophets

(Jer. 1:1; Ezek. 6:1). And the effect of the Holy Spirit on John was more in accordance with the O. T. than the N. T. inspiration; more of a sudden, overpowering influence, as in the prophets, than a gentle indwelling manifested through the individual character, as in the apostles and evangelists. A.—Such formulas, of course, are never used when speaking of Jesus, because the divine nature manifested itself in him not at certain isolated moments of his life. He was the one everlasting manifestation of the Godhead—The Word. O.

John the Baptist. The true meeting-point of the Old and New Testaments is found in the mission and character of John the Baptist. He is the living link between the earlier and later parts of the Bible. In his personality and in the style of his teaching he seems to belong alike to both dispensations. The manner of his appearance, the sententious severity of his words, remind us of the old prophets; while yet we see in him all that loving personal, intelligent devotion to Christ which is the mark of the Christian saint. J. S. H.—His mission was calculated, in accordance with the office of the law which gives the knowledge of sin, to bring men’s minds into that state in which the Redeemer invites them as weary and heavy-laden to come to him. A.—John was a dweller in the wilderness, only that he might thereby become the prophet of the Highest. His nature was full of impetuosity and fire. The long struggle which had given him so powerful a mastery over himself—which had made him content with self-obliteration before the presence of his Lord, which had inspired him with fearlessness in the face of danger, and humility in the midst of applause—had left its traces in the stern character and aspect and teaching of the man. His very teaching reflected the imagery of the wilderness—the rock, the serpent, the barren tree. “In his manifestation and agency,” it has been said, “he was like a burning torch; his public life was quite an earthquake—the whole man was a sermon; he might well call himself a voice—the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” F.

3. Baptism.** Symbolical or ceremonial washing, such as the Mosaic Law prescribed as a sign of moral renovation, and connected with the sacrificial types of expiation, to indicate the internal connection of atonement and sanctification. It was from these familiar and significant ablutions that John’s baptism was derived. Baptism (not the baptism) of repentance: i. e., a ceremonial washing, which involved and denoted a profession of repentance, or a thorough change of mind, both of judgment and of feeling, with respect to sin. To (or for) remission, with a view to it or for the purpose of promoting it, not directly or efficiently, but as an indispensable prerequisite. Remission: loosing, leaving, i. e., letting go unpunished, which is essentially the same with pardon or forgiveness. The indefinite expressions of this clause (a baptism of repentance for sins) are not unmeaning or fortuitous, but designed to introduce John’s ministry as something new and previously unknown to the reader. The meaning of the verse as thus explained is, that the ancient prophecies were fulfilled in the appearance of a preacher in the wilderness calling the people to repent, and baptizing them in token of their having done so. J. A. A.

3. Kingdom of heaven:** Signifies the gospel dispensation, in which subjects were to be gathered to God by his Son, and a society to be formed, which was to subsist first in imperfect circumstances on earth, but afterward complete in glory. In some places the phrase denotes the state of it on earth; sometimes it signifies only the state of glory; but it generally includes both. The Jews understood it of a temporal monarchy at Jerusalem, which would become, instead of Rome, the capital of the world; and the expected sovereign of this kingdom they learned from Daniel to call the Son of man; by which title they understood the promised Messiah, the Christ, or the Anointed One of God. Both John the Baptist and Christ took up this phrase, and used it as they found it, and gradually taught the Jews to affix right ideas to it. This very demand of repentance showed it was a spiritual kingdom; and that no wicked man, how politic or brave, how learned or renowned, soever, could possibly be a genuine member of it. D.—As to the nature of the Messianic expectation prevailing in this period among the Jews, what can be established with any degree of certainty amounts to the following: The Jews divided the entire history of the world into two principal periods, the present and the future. At the end of the first the coming of the Messiah has place, whose way, it was expected, would be prepared, and his coming announced by Elijah the prophet, who was to appear a second time. The Jews expected him from the tribe of Judah and the family of David (the Samaritans on the contrary from Ephraim), and regarded Bethlehem as the place of his approaching birth. Of an extraordinary birth by the Holy Ghost they seem not to have thought. Anointed with the Spirit of God, and richly furnished with higher powers, he should not only make an end to all religious disputes, and effect a restoration of religion and morals which had so sadly declined, but above all should shine forth in royal dignity. He should deliver Israel from the oppressive yoke of his enemies, yea, he should conquer all the earth for the sake of the chosen people, in order so to found a universal theocratic government. Then should a golden age of peace and happiness dawn, and Jerusalem’s temple be the centre of a dominion, of which Israel should enjoy the glory and all the world the blessing. Moral improvement was, especially according to the better disposed, the condition of his manifestation. Hence it was that John’s requirement of repentance excited as little surprise as it met with contradiction, and that still at the present day the Jews ascribe the delay of the Messianic period to their transgressions. The representation of the Messiah’s person, that prevailed with most, was that he should be a true man, anointed to be a theocratic king, filled with the Holy Spirit, and invested with the most unlimited authority. The earthly-minded multitude expected from his rule freedom, national glory, and sensual bliss: the better disposed hoped also that he would teach them to serve God without fear, that he would also be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and would dispense spiritual gifts. Van O.

M. 4-6. The traveller who now wanders along the desolate shores of the Dead Sea, or roams over the bleak hills of Juttah, will see many a figure whose garb and mode of life must remind him of John. Time has not changed, and fashion never modifies the simple costume and manners of those children of the desert. The brown cloak of camel’s hair, thrown loosely over the shoulders, is still the principal covering. The leathern girdle is still worn. The wilderness is still their only home; sometimes a tent, and sometimes the canopy of heaven, their only covering. Locusts, too, and wild honey, are still articles of food. J. L. P.—A mysterious intimation had closed the prophetic writings, announcing, from the lips of Malachi, on which the fire of prophecy had expired, a second coming of Elijah. And where, and at what time, and in what form, was he so likely to appear, as in the desert, by the shore of the Jordan, at so fearful a crisis in the national destiny, in the wild garb and with the demeanor so frequent among the ancient seers? H. M.

The region round about Jordan. Properly the valley on both sides of the Jordan, from Tiberias to the Dead Sea. The tract near Jericho is so large in proportion to all the rest that it often takes the name. The expression points, however, to John’s ministry being carried on on both sides of the river. G.—Went out to him all. That which no doubt drew the whole population in such crowds to the desert shores of the Jordan, was the mysterious yet distinct assertion that the “kingdom of heaven was at hand;” that kingdom of which the belief was as universal as of the personal coming of the Messiah. H. M.—The nation was daily expecting the appearance of “the wise and perfect prophet, who should restore the tribes of Israel, reprove the times, and appease the wrath of God, before it broke out in fury.” A prophet, in the Jewish point of view, might reveal the future; but his great characteristic was, that he was the mouthpiece of God, to utter, by resistless impulse, the rebukes or commands of the Almighty, as his ambassador, and the interpreter of his will to men. John realized this ideal. G.—Here was no “reed shaken by the winds,” but an inspired soul, liberated from all dread of man, elevated above the influence of selfish passion, and himself schooled to practise the virtues which he demanded of others. G. P. F.

The conscience of the masses was roused. It had sunk to sleep under Pharisaic formalism, Roman oppression, and Sadducean indifference. John’s voice sounded like a trumpet to alarm them. The

popular excitement spread. Crowds gathered in daily greater numbers from Jerusalem, Judea, and the wide uplands of Perea. It seemed, indeed, as if he were the promised Elias, the herald of Messiah. G.

A Tiberius was polluting by his infamies the throne of the empire; a Pontius Pilate, with his insolences, cruelties, extortions, massacres, was maddening a fanatic people; Herod Antipas was exhibiting to facile learners the example of calculated apostasy and reckless lust; Caiaphas and Annas were dividing the functions of a priesthood which they disgraced. Yet the talk of the new prophet was not of political circumstances such as these; the lessons he had to teach were deeper and more universal in their moral and social significance. Whatever might be the class who flocked to his stern solitude, his teaching was intensely practical, painfully heart-searching, fearlessly downright. And so Pharisee and Sadducee, scribe and soldier, priest and publican, all thronged to listen to his words. F.

THE VALLEY OF THE JORDAN, from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, depressed from 650 to 1,300 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, is now called The Ghor. It is filled up to a certain level with alluvial deposit, forming what is often called the “upper plain” of the Jordan valley; and in this the river has hollowed out for itself, during the course of long ages, a “lower plain,” varying in width from a quarter of a mile to a mile, and from 50 to 100 feet below the general level of the valley. There are thus two distinct, well-defined plains in the Jordan valley: the upper, generally sterile, and only capable of cultivation where springs or perennial streams afford the means of copious irrigation; and the lower, through which the river pursues its tortuous course, keeping by its occasional overflows certain small tracts under cultivation. Wilson.—The Jordan valley on the east side, between the Lake of Tiberias and the Jabbok, was a paradise of cities and gardens and cultivated fields, and well watered in every part. I have found the ruins of at least a dozen important places between the points just named, which show that in Christ’s time there was here a dense population. S. M.

Baptized in the river of Jordan. Both physically and historically, the Jordan is the most remarkable river upon earth. The whole valley is just a great rent or chasm in the crust of the earth. At its southern end, along the shores of that mysterious lake, there is the intense heat only found elsewhere beneath the equator; while at its northern end the noble cone of Hermon towers to the skies, and is crowned with perpetual snow. . . . We naturally conclude that the place indicated was close to the wilderness of Judea, which included the whole of that wild region lying between Jericho and Jerusalem. The plain or valley of the Jordan at Jericho is about ten miles wide, and is inclosed on each side by ridges of gray limestone, which rise up in abrupt, jagged masses. A number of great highways, from Hebron, Jerusalem, Bethel, Samaria, and Galilee, converged on the plain of Jericho. Down these the people of those cities and regions would find easy access to the Baptist; and he whose mission it was to give the widest publicity to the Messiah’s advent, would doubtless take advantage of such facilities, and preach in the most accessible locality. J. L. P.—The place (five miles N. E. of Jericho) was known as Bethabara, “the house of the ford.” Fords do not change in a river like the Jordan; roads are never altered in the East; and this must always have been, as it is now, the place of passage from Jericho to Gilead. At this spot we must place the departure of Elijah from earth, and the preaching of the Baptist. And there is surely a deep significance in the fact that here, as suddenly as the first Elijah disappeared, did the second Elias appear; and where the first dropped his mantle, did the second take it up. And this was the ordinary place of passage for those who travelled from Galilee to Jerusalem by the Jordan route. Here our Lord often crossed with his disciples, when he would avoid passing through Samaria on his way to the temple festivals at Jerusalem. The east bank of Jordan seems always to have been preferred to the western as the route from Galilee. The way was more shaded by occasional trees, and frequent streams intersect the path. These streams are perennial, and over them waves many a palm-tree; while on the other side the palm is all but extinct. H. B. T.

M. 7. Pharisees and Sadducees. These two sects, according to Josephus, originated at the same period, under Jonathan the high-priest (B. C. 159-144). The Pharisees took for their distinctive practice the strict observance of the law and all its requirements, written and oral. The religionism represented by the Sadducees was bare, literal, moral conformity, without any higher views or hopes. They thus escaped the dangers of tradition, but fell into deadness and worldliness, and a denial of spiritual influence. While our Lord was on earth, this state of mind was very prevalent among the educated classes throughout the Roman Empire, and most of the Jews of rank and station were Sadducees. The two sects, mutually hostile, are found in the gospels united in opposition to our Lord, the Pharisees representing hypocritical superstition; the Sadducees, carnal unbelief. A. (Read Section 182.)

L. 8-17. The language of the Baptist at once fell in with and opposed the popular feeling; at one instant it raised, at the next it crossed their hopes. He announces the necessity of a complete moral change, while he repudiated the claims of those who rested their sole title to God’s favor on their descent from the chosen race. But, on the other hand, he proclaimed the immediate coming of the Messiah; and, on the nature of the kingdom, there was nothing which interfered with the prevailing belief in the personal temporal reign of the Son of David. H. M.—The narrow separatism and worthless externalism of the law were to be forsaken, and love to God and their neighbor, and a future baptism of the Holy Ghost, by him who was to come, were to take their place. G.

9. The axe is laid at the root.** Laid there, at hand for immediate use, though as yet no blow has been struck; but laid there also that this sign of what is threatened may avert the fulfilment of the threat. T.

12. The publicans.** The Greek word translated “publicans” describes the inferior officers employed as collectors of the Roman revenue. But the Latin word publicani, from which the English has been taken, was applied to a higher order of men. The Roman senate farmed the direct taxes and the customs to capitalists, who undertook to pay a given sum into the treasury (publicum), and hence received the name of publicani. Contracts of this kind fell naturally into the hands of the richest class of Romans. In the provinces were managing directors, and under them were the actual custom-house officers. The latter were commonly natives of the province in which they were stationed. The Greek word, which etymologically might have been used of the publicani properly so called, was used popularly, and in the N. T. exclusively, of the inferior officers. The system was essentially a vicious one. The publicani encouraged their agents in the most vexatious or fraudulent exactions. By accepting the baptism of John, the publicans gave, at the very beginning of the gospel dispensation, an illustration of the great principle so often taught by Christ, that the sinner, conscious of his guilt, is better prepared to enter the kingdom of heaven by repentance, than self-righteous men who think they need no repentance. S.

16. I baptize.** I administer but the external symbol of purification. His it is, as his sole prerogative, to dispense the inward reality. And with fire. Clearly it is the fiery character of the Spirit’s operations upon the soul—searching, consuming, refining. And thus in two successive clauses the two most familiar emblems—water and fire—are employed to set forth the same purifying operations of the Holy Ghost upon the soul. B.

17. Purge his floor.** The Jewish Church, or people, is here compared to a threshing-floor covered with a mixture of chaff and wheat, which should be separated by the winnowing fan of Christ.

His doctrines were such as to test the real dispositions of the hearts of men, and to distinguish between the hypocritical and the sincere. The separation to be made is described as preparatory to everlasting rewards and punishments. The phrase of burning the chaff with unquenchable fire is inconsistent with all views of the restoration of the wicked or of their annihilation. D.

18. Preached he unto the people.** It was John’s hand which struck the first bold stroke at the root of the strong national prejudice which narrowed and carnalized the expected kingdom of their Messiah. One thing was revealed to him in clearest light, and upon this he spoke with such power: that whatever the future kingdom was to be, it should be one in which force and fraud, selfishness and insincerity, and all sham piety, were to be denied a place; for which those would stand best prepared who were readiest to confess and give up their sins, and to act justly and benevolently toward their fellow-men, humbly and sincerely toward God. You have but the rudiments, indeed, of the true doctrine of repentance in the teaching of the Baptist—the Christian doctrine but in germ; but it is not difficult to see in it the same great lesson as to the inner and spiritual qualifications required of all members of the kingdom of Christ, which was unfolded, at the very beginning of our Lord’s ministry in Judea privately to Nicodemus, and publicly to the multitudes on the hill-side of Galilee. H.—He knew that the highest truth of spiritual life was to be given by One that should come after. What he had learned in the desert was contained in a few words: Reality lies at the root of religious life. Ye must be real, said John. “Bring forth fruits meet for repentance.” Let each man do his own duty; let the rich impart to those who are not rich; let the publican accuse no man falsely; let the soldier be content with his wages. The coming kingdom is not a mere piece of machinery which will make you all good and happy without effort of your own. Change yourselves, or you will have no kingdom at all. Personal reformation, personal reality, that was John’s message to the world. F. W. R.

The grandeur of his mission lay in the keen discernment with which he had seized hold of the one ordinance to bring before his countrymen the truth, ever old, yet ever new, that the cleanness, the whiteness of the human heart is the only fitting preparation for the divine presence. This startling note of the universal need for the creation of a new morality, for a “transformation of the mind,” struck a chord which had not vibrated since the days of Malachi. A. P. S.—He spoke nothing of Levitical rites or sacrifices, but demanded that the law should be applied to the conscience, and carried out in the life. A spiritual preparation would alone avert the coming wrath. Religion must henceforth be in the heart and life, not in worthless outward forms or privileges. For the first time the great truth was pressed home to the conscience of men that the true kingdom of heaven is in the renewed soul. Everything was new, startling, impressive—the wilderness, the stream, the solemn hills—a prophet appearing, after more than five hundred years. His words, his baptismal symbol, the kingdom he preached, the Messias whom he announced as at hand, the very multitudes assembled, the visible emotion, the evident good effected, the contrition of the most sunken classes—the publicans and harlots—all showed that the whole nation believed in him. G.

Section 13.—Preface to John’s Gospel.

M. 13 AND it came to pass in those days when all the people were baptized, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And he was baptized of John in Jordan. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water. And praying, lo, he saw the heavens opened unto him, and the Spirit of God descending in a bodily shape like a dove, and lighting upon him. And lo, a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased. And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age. J. 15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me; for he was before me. And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

It is as he prays that the Spirit comes, sustaining him under that consciousness of his Sonship to God, which now fills, expands, exalts his weak humanity. And does not our great Head and Representative stand before us here a type and pattern of every true believer in the Lord, as to the duty, the privilege, the power of prayer? Of him, and of him only of the sons of men, might it be said that he prayed without ceasing; that his life was one of constant and sustained communion with his Father; and yet you find him on all the great occasions of his life having recourse to separate, solitary, sometimes to prolonged acts of devotion. His baptism, his appointment of the twelve apostles, his escape from the attempt to make him a king, his transfiguration, his agony in the garden, his death upon the cross, were all hallowed by prayer. The first and the last acts of his ministry were acts of prayer. From the lowest depth, from the highest elevation of that ministry, he poured out his spirit in prayer. For his mission on earth, for all his heaviest trials, he prepared himself by prayer. And should we not prepare for our poor earthly service, and fortify ourselves against temptations and trials, by following that great example? The heavens above are not shut against us, the Spirit who descended like a dove has not taken wings and flown away from this earth. There is a power by which these heavens can still be penetrated, which can still bring down upon us that gentle messenger of rest—the power that lies in simple, humble, earnest, continued believing prayer. H.

AT this period the power and influence of John over the public mind were at their height. Jesus, humanly speaking, was but an unknown youth, whose higher character was as yet untried. Yet John cedes at once the first place: in the strongest language he declares himself immeasurably inferior to him who stood among the crowd, unmarked and unregarded. H. M.

13. We should naturally expect to find in Jesus an attitude corresponding to the extraordinary grandeur of the end which he sets before himself, and of the dignity which he claims. But his appearance is simplicity itself. When we first see him it is in the midst of the penitents who come to receive from the forerunner the baptism of repentance: when we first hear him, it is in the midst of the multitudes who are gathered from all parts to hear the new prophet, proclaiming, in language free from all pomp, the blessedness of the humble and the afflicted. Not for one instant does that simplicity forsake him. R. C.

The holy Jesus leaves the home of his childhood to return to it no more as his earthly abode save for the few days that preceded the removal to Capernaum. His path lay toward the desert valley of the Jordan, to the neighborhood of that ford, not far from Jericho, to which the multitude flocked from Judea and Jerusalem. There the great forerunner was baptizing; there he had been but just uttering those words of stern warning to the mingled multitude. Around him stood men with musing hearts, doubting whether that bold speaker were the Christ or no, when suddenly, unknown and unrecognized, the very Messiah mingles with those strangely assorted and expectant multitudes, and with them seeks baptism at the hands of the great preacher of the desert. E.—As became the head of this spiritual kingdom, he entered upon his ministry by an act of obedience. In his childhood he received the sign of the covenant, and submitted to the ceremonial purification required by the law. In later years he took part in the sacrificial offerings of the temple worship. So now he is anxious to obey the divine will, not only as revealed by the founder of the ancient institutions, but as revealed by the herald of the new dispensation. He fulfilled all righteousness. “He came to John to be baptized of him.” J. A.

14. I need to be baptized of thee. Hitherto the Baptist had insisted on the purification of all who had assembled around him; and, with the commanding dignity of a heaven-commissioned teacher, had rebuked the sins of all classes and all sects. In Jesus alone, by his refusal to baptize him, he acknowledges the immaculate purity, while his deference assumes the tone of homage, almost of adoration. H. M.—John has baptized many; has seen, and in some sense seen through, men of all kinds; but no one like this had as yet come before him. They have all bowed down before him; but before this Man bows down, in the irrepressible emotion of his own most profound contrition, the sinful man in the greatest prophet. Stier.—The circumstances of their life had entirely separated them. John, as a child in the house of the blameless priest his father, had lived at Juttah, in the far south of the tribe of Judah, and not far from Hebron; Jesus had lived in the deep seclusion of Galilee. F.

15. Our Saviour doth not deny either that John hath need to be baptized of him, or that it is strange that he should come to be baptized of John; but he will needs thus far both honor John and disparage himself, to be baptized of his messenger. He, that would take flesh of the Virgin, education from his parents, sustenance from his creatures, will take baptism from John. Bp. H.—He received it as ratifying the mission of his great forerunner—the last and greatest child of the old dispensation, the earliest herald of the new; and he also received it as the beautiful symbol of moral purification, and the humble inauguration of a ministry which came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil. His own words obviate all possibility of misconception. He does not say, “I must,” but, “Thus it becometh us.” F.

16. As Jesus stepped forth after the baptism on the banks of the river, he stood severed from the past, connected with a new future; Nazareth, its quiet home, its happy days, its peaceful occupations, lay behind; trials and toils, suffering and death, lay before him. He would not have been the Son of man had he not felt the significance and solemnity of the hour. He turns, in the pure, true instinct of his sinless humanity, to throw himself and all his future upon his Father in prayer. And then it is, as with uplifted hands he gazes into the heavens, that he sees them opened above his head, the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him, and hears a voice from heaven saying to him, “Thou art my beloved son, in thee I am well pleased.” This voice was twice heard again: on the Mount of Transfiguration, and within the temple. It was the voice of the Father. The fall sealed the Father’s lips in silence; all divine communications afterward with man were made through the Son. It was he who appeared and spake to the patriarchs; it was he who spake from the summit of Sinai, and was the giver of the law; but now for the first time the Father’s lips are opened, the long-kept silence is broken, that this testimony of the Father to the Sonship of Jesus, this expression of his entire good pleasure with him as he enters upon his ministry, may be given. H.

Like a dove. To his vision it appeared as the form of a dove descending. A symbol this of perfect gentleness, purity, fulness of life, and of the power of communicating it. L.—The quiet flight and the resting dove betokened no rushing torrent of inspiration, no sudden seizure of the Spirit, but a uniform unfolding of the life of God, the loftiness yet the calm repose of a nature itself divine, the indwelling of the Spirit so that he could impart it to others, and fill them completely with it. N.—Here, in the baptism of our Head, are that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, into whose adorable name we are baptized. B.

Isaiah had foretold (11 : 2) how the Spirit of Jehovah should rest upon the branch from the roots of Jesse, and the prediction was now fulfilled. It was the divine anointing of Jesus, the consecration from on high to the office of Messiah, and, as such, the true birth-hour of Christianity. It was his solemn designation as the great High-Priest of the new and abiding dispensation. G.—At his birth, he was filled and actuated by the Holy Spirit, so far as his talent and disposition were concerned. This implied his perfect sinlessness. But at his baptism, he attained the full consciousness of his nature and mission as the God-Man and Saviour. From that moment he became the organ of the Holy Spirit, not merely so far as he was personally concerned, but also as fully realizing his mediatorial character and work, and its relation to the salvation of mankind. But this fulness of the Spirit remained still concealed under the form of a servant, and in the lowliness of his walk and work. It was only after the work had been finished and accepted, that the Spirit was poured out in all his fulness upon his believing people; and the dove, which had erst descended into his heart, issued forth to move and to brood over the waters of the nations of the earth. Lange.—At his birth his person was owned; in his baptism his ministry is owned, and the Father is pleased in him; by and by he will, for the third time, be owned again, when his regal glory shines for a moment around him; and then there will be the addition, “hear ye him.” Later still these attestations will all be confirmed; not by words only, but by solemn acts, and the resurrection will at length declare him to be the Son of God with power. His person, his ministry, and his dominion, all are owned. At each stage the full pleasure of God rests upon him; and at last the full subjection of the earth is demanded for him. J. A.

L. 23. Began to be. It should be translated, “was about thirty years old when he began”—i. e., his public life and ministry. L.—The Jewish priests were required to be thirty years old before they were allowed to officiate in their ministry. Pearce.

J. 16. Grace for grace—i. e., grace upon grace (as all the best interpreters), in successive communications and larger measures. B.—So inexhaustibly rich is his fulness, that not only all receive from it a full sufficiency, but each receiver of grace takes away grace for grace; for every grace received is the earnest of one yet to be received. R. B.—Grace, like life itself, is a principle of growth: the more we have, the more we shall receive, “grace for grace,” grace upon grace, one measure drawing after it another, until we shall be filled with all the fulness of God. A divine dignity was stamped upon our humanity by the incarnation of Christ; but the blessing and the glory that he brought will come to us personally only as we receive his grace by believing on his name. J. P. T.

17. The law was given by Moses. The moral law, full of high and holy demands, and of stern threatenings against disobedience; and the ceremonial law, full of burdensome sacrifices, ordinances, and ceremonies, which never healed the worshipper’s conscience, and at best were only shadows of good things to come. Grace and truth by Jesus Christ. Grace by the full manifestation of God’s plan of salvation, and the offer of complete pardon to every soul that believes on Jesus; and truth, by the unveiled exhibition of Christ himself, as the true sacrifice, the true priest, and the true atonement for sin. J. C. R.—By him grace has come, which the law, working wrath, only teaches men to feel the want of, but does not offer for their acceptance; and by him also, truth has come, which the law, prophesying of future blessings, only indicates and shadows forth, but does not actually bring to pass or realize. Moses was not himself the law, but he was the servant through whom God gave his law. Jesus Christ is himself the grace and he is himself the truth; the very substance of his announcement is contained in his person and his work. Jesus Christ! In that name, which henceforward the evangelist gives to the incarnate Word—in that name is grace and truth. “He is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” R. B.

18. Only-begotten Son. What means that significant word, “only-begotten,” if Jesus is not a Son in some sense that we are not, and never can be, sons? There is that in Jesus Christ which separates him even from this spiritual nature in humanity, distinguishes him from the best dignity in man, and exalts him above even our highest honors. There is a line drawn between his soul and our souls, not cutting us off from his perfect sympathy, not barring us from his fellowship, not veiling his face with any dimness from ours, but marking us, in our nature, as human; and him, in his nature, as divine. F. D. H.—In the bosom of the Father. John remembers how he himself lay on Jesus’ bosom, and he can think of no more tender expression to describe that most intimate, ever-blessed communion of the only-begotten Son with the Father than this. R. B.

Declared him. A remarkable expression, here only used, presupposing the Son’s conscious existence distinct from the Father, and expressing his immediate and most endeared access to and absolute acquaintance with him. He—emphatic—“He and he only hath declared him,” because he only can. B.—He has explained, truly and fully, in his words and in his life; his instruction alone merits the name of an explanation; he is the expounder of God and divine things. Here is the origin of all true exegesis: Christ is the revealer and expounder of God, the Holy Ghost the revealer and expounder of Christ and his word. P. S.

Section 15.—The Temptation.

Wilderness of Judea.