Why is marks gospel good news

There, as you make your nervous way into the exam room, you see your lecturer, or your teacher, coming in with you; and he is not there as examiner, he sits down at the table next to you, gets his pen out of his pocket and starts working his way through the exam paper. Unexpected, to say the least!

John has been telling people to come out to him, to turn away from their sins, and be baptised in water to show their clean break with their past. But why should Jesus need to do that? Why does he need a baptism of repentance? Mark points it up for us: if you put v. This is the perfect man. We have already had strong hints about this — in v. Jesus joins them, not because he has sins to confess but because he wants to identify with them.

That is his mission. He is here to place himself deliberately under the judgement and condemnation of God. Only he stands there as the one who can take that condemnation, that judgement on himself, in place of them, forgive their sins and bring them freely to God. So he takes his turn, immersed in the water that means sins washed away, blazing our trail, opening up the pathway for men and women to get back to God. But what makes it possible for Jesus to perform this mission?

How can this apparently anonymous figure attempt such a task? Look at vv. As Jesus emerges from the river, the water still streaming off him, something amazing happens. As he looks up he can see what seems like a tear in the fabric of the sky and descending from above the shape of a dove, flying down and alighting on him; and a voice that speaks to him words of assurance and affirmation. However anonymous Jesus may appear in the surging crowds around the river, however little they may recognise his real identity, with God there is no doubt.

Far from it. It is an apocalyptic moment — heaven is opened to show that God is breaking through, intervening in human history in a new way. This scene is full of echoes from the distant past: echoes of Creation itself, when God spoke the Word and brought the universe into being; and we read that the Spirit of God was moving over the formless waters. Here once more God speaks; and the Spirit descends from heaven and moves over the waters, to show that in his Son Jesus Christ, he is beginning his new Creation, the new people he will call to himself.

Once again Father, Son and Holy Spirit are here together to fulfil their unique roles. All this Jesus has come to do, not just as a Servant, but as the unique, beloved Son of the Father. The hopes and longings of the centuries are focused and fulfilled in Jesus Christ. So with the Spirit descending from heaven and with the words that he speaks, God the Father publicly sets the seal on the mission of his Son. He smiles down at the Son he has sent into the world out of his love to save it.

Jesus himself knows his unique qualification for his mission. Looking back, we too can understand and know. This is the Lord Jesus, who is both God and man so that he is able to stand in the gap that separates us from God. The man who can identify with us in our weaknesses — who feels the cold as he stands on the river bank and the wind dries him off — but who is also God the Son, with the authority and power of God, the authority that will be seen throughout his ministry as he heals diseases and drives out demons with a word: qualified and able to save us.

Now Jesus comes up from the river Jordan, commissioned by his Father, equipped and prepared for his ministry. We might expect that he will immediately swing into action: a preaching tour, some healings to prove to everyone who he is. But not yet: his mission has to begin in a much more remote and lonely place — vv. Jesus has now come into the world, and Satan sees his chance to attack and to destroy his mission. Jesus opens the conflict by taking on Satan himself, alone in the desert, in forty intense days.

This battle will not reach its climax until Jesus finally defeats Satan at the cross. The fight takes place far from where people can see it. Forty days — a time that links Jesus directly with the prophets Moses and Elijah, both of whom spent forty day periods out in the desert at key points in their ministry.

Only he can take on Satan directly and win the decisive victory which will set people free. For modern city dwellers, perhaps, that sounds quite appealing! But if we take off our urban spectacles we will see it differently. The desert is a place of danger. Wild beasts can kill unwary travellers; Jesus has both spiritual and physical danger to face. The kingdom of this world was not ready to give up its worldly power.

Yet Jesus will return to Galilee to meet his disciples , so the preaching of the good news will start again, and spread among all nations , even in the face of hostility The fulness of the kingdom will come.

But Mark is realistic about this world. In Daniel, the reign of the Son of Man the human one [Dan ], contrasted with the preceding kingdoms depicted as beasts [] is linked with the triumph of the consecrated ones of the Most High , 27 —after suffering , Let no one deceive you: suffering continues in this present age.

But also let no one deceive you that this age is all there is. The fullness of our promised home is yet to come. His books include Anatomy of the New Testament 7th ed. Isaiah was a prophet in ancient Judah between and B. A collection of first-century Jewish and early Christian writings that, along with the Old Testament, makes up the Christian Bible.

A system of religious worship, or cultus e. Also refers to adherents of that system. Isaiah , or "Second Isaiah," so called because the author is different from and later than the author of Isaiah ; sometimes also subdivided into Deutero-Isaiah chapters and Trito-Isaiah "Third Isaiah," chapters Hebrew is regarded as the spoken language of ancient Israel but is largely replaced by Aramaic in the Persian period.

Of or related to the written word, especially that which is considered literature; literary criticism is a interpretative method that has been adapted to biblical analysis. Salutation 1Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,2which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the View more. The Question about Paying Taxes 13Then they sent to him some Pharisees and some Herodians to trap him in what he said.

The Question about Paying Taxes 20So they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be honest, in order to trap him by what he said, so as to hand him over to The Resurrection of Christ 1Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also y The Power of the Gospel 16For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the G You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel.

The Messages of the Three Angels 6Then I saw another angel flying in midheaven, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every natio Site HarperCollins Dictionary. Add this:. Ask a Scholar. Jesus and Caesar Did Caesar know who Jesus was?