Sermon Notes: Mark 1:1-11
NOTE: There is an appendix at the end worth reading on your own time.
John Mark, the inspired author of the gospel of Mark, is the son of Mary and cousin of Barnabas. Mary’s home was a hub of activity of Jesus’ ministry.
Mark accompanied Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey. He abandoned the work halfway through, and was rejected by Paul later and mentored by Barnabas.
Mark later accompanied Peter and was reunited to Paul. Paul would later say: 2 Timothy 4:11 (ESV) 11 Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry.
I don’t want to spend too much time on the author. He’s my favorite gospel writer evidenced by the fact that we named one of our sons after him.
I love his redemption story. I love his courage to not let an early setback define his life and work.
We may revisit some of John Mark’s story as we study through but have to be careful because John Mark does not want us to see him.
John Mark has witnessed Jesus’ resurrection, that that changes everything. John Mark is compelled to make sure Gentiles among the nations get to know Jesus who has changed his life, and who has not left him when he didn’t succeed in the early missionary enterprise with Paul.
Mark’s Big Idea that will guide us through our study: Jesus is the divine Son of God and the Suffering Servant Messiah who inaugurates the kingdom of God, who atones for sin through his death, burial, and resurrection, and calls his people to a costly discipleship of self-denial and suffering with purpose and joy.
Mark has some big themes that we will see and will help guide us through his historical account of Jesus and his big idea of who Jesus is that we just stated. These themes help to keep us on track.
1. Discipleship
Discipleship begins with knowing who one is a disciple of. So, Mark will show us Jesus and identify him for us.
As the Father is with Jesus the Son, so the disciples are to be with Jesus.
The Father knows the Son, the Son knows the Father. The Father is near to the Son, and the Son is near to the Father.
Jesus makes himself known to his disciples and is near to his disciples. Jesus’ disciples struggle to get to know Jesus but they stay near to him.
As the Father also sends Jesus, Jesus sends his disciples. Jesus speaks his word to his disciples like the Father speaks to Jesus.
Simply, discipleship for John Mark is proximity to Jesus, and from that nearness knowing him, hearing him, and obeying him.
2. Faith
“For Mark, faith and discipleship have no meaning apart from following the Son of God. Faith is thus not a magical formula, but depends on repeated hearing of his word and participation in his mission.”[1]
There are two groups: Those with great faith and those who are faithless.
There are those who show great faith who have no reason to show faith in Jesus. They are on the outside of Jesus’ circle and seem to have no advantage, yet they display great faith. These folks have an assurance of things hoped for and conviction about unseen things hoped for. They display their faith in their deep desire and effort to get to Jesus for help.
The faithless and those struggling with faith should have the advantage: his hometown, the religious insiders who are supposed to be the theological experts, and even his own disciples. These folks struggle to take Jesus at his word. This group is full skeptics, blasphemers, and those who are slow to believe.
3. Insiders and outsiders
The theme of insiders and outsiders distinguishes those who are enemies of God and those who are not.
Jesus will tell us that he teaches in parables because the secrets of the kingdom of heaven are for the insiders and the parables keep the outsiders from understanding. That’s a little hard to swallow, but it is what Jesus says. This theme will uncover the bias of those who think they are insiders based on their status and are not. This theme puts the last first and first last.
The insiders are those who live by faith and begin to understand Jesus’ teaching.
The outsiders are the faithless.
The problem is that the faithless and outsiders of the kingdom of God are in power and are the ones who are believed to have the answers and should be insiders.
The outsiders are enemies of God. The insiders are those who have been cast out due to the deceived nature of the faithless who think they are faithful.
That feels confusing, but it becomes clear as you walk through Mark’s gospel, and it should cause each one of us to take account of ourselves, to test ourselves, to make sure we are not a self-deceived and perceived insider who is actually an outsider because we are an elite and faithless hack.
4. Gentiles
The emphasis on Jesus working in the North parts of Israel among the Gentiles and close to Gentile territory and not in the southern Jewish-heavy portions shows us the Lord’s intent on reclaiming the nations and conquering the land and people taken captive by the forces of darkness.
The emphasis you will find in the prophets on the north is important, and it’s a theme for a whole Bible exposition not for a study through Mark alone. But Mark picks up on it because it is geographically significant in the prophets, and Jesus actually works from the north of Israel.
The point is that it is Gentile, unbeliever territory.
Jesus’ work in Israel was not for them to have him to themselves, but to redeem and invite them to mission with him to rescue the Gentiles taken captive by the Serpent Dragon to do his will.
5. Messianic secret
Mark is full of Jesus telling folks he heals to keep it quiet, and they usually don’t do it.
Why would Jesus want folks to keep quiet about what he will later tell us to go preach?
Paul said it in Ephesians 3, and we read it last week.
There is a mystery to God’s plan in Genesis 3 about who the seed of the woman is and how the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent dragon. Until the right time, God keeps the Skull Crusher’s identity shrouded in mystery to keep the enemy from impeding God’s work.
In fact, the Lord will successfully lure the seed of the serpent into his trap by his humble ministry and refusal of popularity. He will play them into putting him to death through is willingness to go to the cross and keep his identity on the down low not realizing that by his death he tramples over death, the curse, and crushes the Serpent’s noggin.
Listen to how Paul speaks about this mystery that God and his faithful are to understand has been revealed in the gospel in 1 Corinthians 2:6-8: 1 Corinthians 2:6-8 (ESV) 6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
We know the mystery now because it is the good news in its fullness from Genesis to Revelation.
This is why Jesus labored to keep his identity a secret. From Genesis 3, the enemies of the cross have been trying to wreck God’s plan. The genealogies of the Old Testament are there to show us the teams, and the Serpent’s seed have been trying to destroy the woman’s seed since God’s declaration.
Jesus intends to keep things as shrouded as he can until the resurrection.
6. Focused journey
After Peter confesses Jesus is the Messiah (8:27ff), Jesus sets out with focus to the cross, and Mark captures Jesus’ journey very starkly. Jesus’ focused journey to the cross becomes his invitation to us to join in the focused journey of being with him on mission as the way of the cross.
7. Immediately
Mark uses the Greek word “euthus”, translated as “immediately”, in his account of Jesus’s work.
I believe that the entire New Testament uses this word about 51 times. John Mark uses “immediately” 41 of the 51 times, thus making John Mark the predominant user.
What is Mark communicating?
“Euthus” means “to make straight” regarding physical things. “Euthus” is also used regarding immaterial things like the heart of a matter, and when applied to things like that it means “right” and “true”. Its synonyms are firm, unwavering, and ready.
The Greek word as Mark uses it is not so much about time. We hear “immediately” and think being in a hurry. Jesus was not in a hurry.
Mark is telling us that Jesus was walking in the unwavering and always straight way of truth. Jesus was deliberate about the mission.
Jesus’ way is deliberate not hurried.
There’s something in that for us.
Let’s read our text: Mark 1:1-11
What must we observe?
1. Mark opens with the big idea (the point) of his good news account: Jesus is the Son of God. V. 1
Mark 1:1 – Jesus is the Son of God.
Mark 1:11 – The Father says to Jesus, “You are my beloved Son;”
Big idea? Jesus is the Son of God.
Mark’s first word in the sentence where he states the point of his writing is “beginning”.
Beginning means either “beginning” in regard to order/sequence or it means “beginning” in regard to first principles.
Mark is not dealing with sequence. Mark’s sequence of events differs from others. Mark wants you to know something other than historical and numerical sequence.
Mark is stating the first principle of who Jesus is, thus Jesus is the centerpiece of the good news and thus he is the Christ, the Messiah.
So, for Mark, the beginning of the good news is the truth about who Jesus is, and this truth takes us back to eternity past: Jesus is the Son of God.
What does this mean?
John will say that Jesus is the “only” Son. You probably memorized John 3:16 as “only begotten” Son. The word translated “only” in our ESV and “only begotten” in the KJV is a word best translated as “unique” or “one of a kind”. We have kept “only” for tradition’s sake in the ESV, and it’s a terrible translation.
I’m not going to get any further down in the weeds of why people translated “monogenes” (only / lineage – stock) the way they have over the years. That translation has led to some heretical teaching that Jesus as the Son of God came into being.
Jesus is not created. Jesus, as Paul will remind us in Colossians 1:15-20 is Creator, thus Jesus is the eternal uncreated God of the Bible, yet Jesus is distinct from the Father and Spirit as Mark asserts in verses 9-11 at Jesus’ baptism.
So, as the eternal Creator, what does it mean for Jesus to be the Son of God?
Jesus as the Son of God is the pinnacle of biblical theology. Jesus is the unique Son of God that reconciles all things. Jesus, the Son of God, does this by bringing the reign of God in heaven back into the realm of fallen humanity on earth. He can do this because he has secured victory over the heavenly places in his sacrificial death, his burial, and decent into sheol to declare his victory over the imprisoned evil forces who led the rebellion of Genesis 6. Jesus is he unique Son of God who is true and holy and rightly condemns the heavenly beings who rebelled against Father, Son, Spirit. This is relevant for the rest of our text in a moment.
By his resurrection, his ascension to the right hand of the Father, and his sending of the Holy Spirit as the deposit in us who seals us as his and guarantees our inheritance of the earth as sons and daughters of God, prove Jesus to be the unique Son of God who is Creator with Father and Spirit.
2. The good news has been preached beforehand and written down as God’s word. Jesus the Son of God is the fulfillment of God’s word. V. 2-3
Mark quotes parts of 3 texts from the Old Testament that Jesus fulfills as the Son of God.
The three texts referenced are Exodus 23:20, Malachi 3:1, and Isaiah 40:3.
The greater part of the quotation comes from Isaiah, and the text from Isaiah is used by all four gospel writers as their basis for claiming John the Baptist is the messenger who would come before the Son of God in the spirit and power of Elijah.
Since Isaiah was considered the greatest of the prophets, the greater part of the quotations come from Isaiah, and since Isaiah’s authority in the early church exceeded both Exodus and Malachi, Mark just attributes the whole thing to Isaiah.[2]
Mark’s inspired choice of Old Testament texts is about the Lord sending a messenger to prepare the way for the Lord himself, who will be the Son of God.
That is sort of a loaded sentence. The Lord will send a messenger to preach a specific message in a specific way to prepare for the coming of the Lord himself who is the distinct Son of God.
There is so much in Mark’s first 3 verses that I struggled to not just preach these three verses as an introduction to the doctrine of the Trinity.
It’s embarrassing how little our evangelical commentaries do with the quotations. They spend more time on Mark’s attributing the 3 sources to Isaiah than the implications of Mark’s assertion that the Holy Spirit inspired Old Testament predicted God himself would prepare the way for himself, and God who comes to us is revealed in the Son of God who takes on flesh, and that Son of God is Jesus who is God and yet distinct from Yahweh who is God, and John the Baptist is the one sent to prepare the way for Yahweh in the flesh, who is Jesus.
Mark had a nice grasp on the Triune nature of God revealed in Jesus the Son of God.
NOTE: Mark’s grasp of the Triune nature of God was developed on the mission field with Silas and Peter not in a classroom. Theological growth is never divorced from mission. Let the hearer understand.
This truth exalts Jesus to more than a prophet or good teacher or justice revolutionary. Jesus is God in the flesh, the Son of God, and by his resurrection, he proves it and is worthy of worship.
So, Mark wants to make sure his audience gets this.
3. Baptism rocks. V. 4-11
Let me tell you why.
Baptism was not new to Israelites. Baptism was a ceremony of washing in water for Gentiles who believed in the Lord and left their worship of evil gods.
This is why in John 1:25 they ask John the Baptist “why are you baptizing?” not what are you doing man, did you eat some bad locusts?
John the Baptist, is the fulfillment of Mark’s quoted texts from the Old Testament that prove Jesus is the Son of God.
If the big idea is about Jesus being the Son of God, why intro John the Baptist doing baptisms?
John came like Elijah as the Lord’s forerunner (2 Kings 1:8; Luke 1:17; Matthew 11:14; 17:12; Mark 9:13; Luke 1:76) preaching about a baptism of repentance for the people of God to prepare them for the Lord himself who was coming. Just like the texts John Mark chose tell us.
So, John employs baptism as the Lord’s way for those who were looking for the kingdom of God to display outwardly their repentance and readiness for the Lord himself to bring his kingdodm.
John promised that when the Lord comes and brings his kingdom he would baptize with the Holy Spirit, so they needed to be ready.
Then, the Lord himself having taken on flesh comes to the prophet he appointed for the day and the hour, John the Baptist (remember his conception and mission?) and requests to be baptized by his own prophet.
Jesus is baptized, and when he comes up from being under the water, immediately he sees the heavens torn open (like the veil of the temple will be upon his resurrection), and he sees the Holy Spirit descend on him, and he hears the Father declare that he is pleased with him, the Son of God.
Mark begins in verse 1 by declaring Jesus is the Son of God, and he ends Jesus’ baptism with the Father declaring his pleasure in the Son of God.
What does John Mark put between these two declarations of verses 1 and 11? Baptism. John Baptizing people looking for Jesus and Jesus himself.
This seems significant. So, what’s the deal with baptism here, and why is it important?
It is very easy to keep our understanding of baptism around the mode of immersion, its connection to the local church, and its personal significance regarding a person’s salvation. All that is true, but downstream from the substance of what God was making known in baptism that makes all those things true.
What about the very foundation and substance of baptism that lends significance to mode, and church, and salvation?
The Bible tells us exactly what baptism is, but it’s a difficult text.
If I ignore that difficult text that will help us understand, I should just stop being your teaching elder.
So, here we go.
1 Peter 3:17-22 tells us what the substance of baptism is, and since Mark was a deeply connected helper to Peter, it’s necessary for us to look at what Peter says about baptism, who John Mark learned it from.
Peter calls John Mark his son in 1 Peter 5:13 as Mark served Peter on his missionary journeys, so we can rightly believe Mark has in mind Peter’s instruction.
What is Peter communicating when he connects baptism, the ark, Noah, and spirits in prison?
We won’t really appreciate baptism until we answer that question.
Peter believes that the flood of Genesis 6-8, and specifically the issue of Genesis 6:1-4 foreshadows the good news and the resurrection.
1 Peter 3:17-22 (ESV) 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
Mark, along with all the other second temple Israelites, believed that Enoch (the prophet of the Lord who never died but was just taken by the Lord - Genesis 5:21-24), that Enoch went and delivered the bad news to these imprisoned spirits who participated in the rebellion of Genesis 6 that they were toast, and they were going to be judged by the Lord and that the Lord would be victorious over them and the evil they have incited.
Peter sees connection between these events and the gospel and resurrection.
Like Paul preached Jesus as the better Adam (Romans 5), Peter is declaring Jesus to be the better Enoch. Like Enoch delivered the bad news to these watchers, Jesus in his death descended into the lower parts of sheol to declare to them their rebellion had failed. Why? Because his state of being in the grave was about to end as he would rise from the dead and go to the right hand of the Father, then they would be punished forever and along with all things be subjected to him forever as his kingdom breaks out over all creation because of his resurrection and victory over the rebellions of the Serpent.
How does Peter and thus Mark see these things relating to Baptism?
Verse 21 in 1 Peter 3 is key. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
The physical action of baptism does not produce salvation. We know this because he tells us that the physical act of going into the water and the removal of dirt is not what baptism is proclaiming. It’s not a cleansing action for dirt or the heart.
He tells us that baptism the action is displaying what is happening through the powerful work of the good news in the resurrection of Jesus when our repentance and faith become the appeal to God for a good conscience.
What does that mean? Appeal to a good conscience, rooted in how Peter is connecting the rebellion of Genesis 6 and the flood to baptism, means that when we receive the good news, we are taking sides. So, like Noah passed safely through the waters of judgment in the grace of God’s ark, when we repent and believe, we pass through the waters of God’s justice through the ark of the person of Jesus Christ and his resurrection, and our faith appeals to God that we are clean in Christ and have taken sides with him against the Serpent Dragon and his watchers of rebellion.
The physical act of entering the water is making a declaration to the Serpent and his children that echoes into the universe.
Baptism is a declaration of loyalty to Jesus. It is a public and loud declaration that the one being baptized has chosen the Lord Jesus’ side of the battle of the good of the kingdom of God against the evil of the Serpent Dragon’s rebellion.
Baptism, every time we practice it, declares to the forces of evil as a reminder about the flood and God’s victory over them. It declares to those forces of evil that their final doom is sure and the kingdom of God is breaking out and will finally and fully break out at God’s appointed time.
So, when John sets the pattern, and Jesus participates, he’s declaring what the Son of God’s mission is, and that is to conquer the Serpent and his children. Thus, he fulfills all righteousness.
Jesus in his baptism declared war on the Serpent Dragon, and at the cross and his resurrection, he effectively crushed the Serpent’s head like the Father said he would.
Thus, when we baptize, we are declaring that Jesus has done it and we are on his team.
Baptism rocks!!
Application
1. Repent and believe the good news that Jesus is the Son of God.
2. If you believe Jesus is the Son of God, worship him.
3. Back to the theme of “immediately”: Be deliberate not hurried. Jesus was never in a hurry, but he was deliberate. That means to operate with purpose.
Say “no” a lot. If you don’t know the purpose or that purpose does not match, say “no”.
4. If you have believed and not been baptized, we need to declare to the whole of creation and the dark forces of the Serpent that Jesus has won.
Appendix
Jesus as Son of God seen from the supernatural understanding of the world of the Bible and the presuppositions of a supernatural worldview that the Bible assumes we have.
Jesus' identity as the "Son of God" should be studied within the context of ancient Near Eastern and biblical supernaturalism. The term "sons of God" (beney elohim) in the Old Testament does not refer to humans or metaphorical figures but to real supernatural beings. These beings are members of God's divine council or heavenly host, as seen in passages like Job 1:6, Psalm 82, and Deuteronomy 32:8-9. These beings are created, subordinate elohim (Psalm 82), but not elohim like Yahweh is the superior and Creator Elohim. These beings participate in God's rule but can rebel, as in the cases of the Sons of God in Genesis 6.
What sets Jesus apart as the "Son of God" is his uniqueness, captured by the Greek word “monogenes” in John 3:16 (often mistranslated as "only begotten" in older versions like the KJV). “Monogenes” is a compound word made up of monos (one/only) and genos (kind/type). It means "unique" or "one of a kind”. The Spirit inspired text of the Bible does not imply that Jesus is the sole son of God in existence, but that he is unparalleled in nature because he is the Creator of others who share some of who he is like we share some of who he is, but differently, thus they are called “sons of God” in the Bible.
For comparison, take note that Isaac is called “monogenes” in Hebrews 11:17 in spite of Abraham having other sons. Isaac's uniqueness lies in his promised and God wrought conception and role as the covenant heir.
Similarly, Jesus is unique because:
1) He is Yahweh in the flesh. Unlike other sons of God, who are created supernatural beings, Jesus shares Yahweh's exclusive attributes and essence. He is fully divine (Yahweh himself in human form) and fully human, pre-existing his earthly birth and embodying the Trinitarian Godhead without diminishing Yahweh's uniqueness.
2) Jesus’ role in redemption. Jesus was sent as the superior and final sin offering to reverse the rebellion and it’s curse and reconcile people back to the Father who will repent and believe the good news of the kingdom. Through Jesus’ work, he disarms the rulers and authorities (Colossians 2:15), fulfills Old Testament promises, and restores God's Edenic rule over both seen and unseen realms.
3) Jesus is superior to and ruler over the divine council as God himself. While other sons of God may have some delegated rule over nations or participate in heavenly affairs, Jesus sits at Yahweh's right hand, judging and sentencing the rebellious elohim (as written in Psalm 82 and Isaiah 34). Transformed followers of Jesus, as adopted children of God, join God’s family to become part of his kingdom, ultimately ruling over and judging the messenger beings called angels (1 Corinthians 6:3).
[1] James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2002), 17.
[2] James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2002), 26–27.