CHAPTER I.

THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST.

Ver. I.

The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

THE Gospel of Jesus Christ, in the meaning in

THE

which St. Mark here employs the phrase, was the glad tidings proclaimed by him, and fulfilled in his ministry. Accordingly, a little further on, in this first chapter, our Lord is represented, immediately after his baptism and temptation, as preaching the Gospel, and saying, 'the kingdom of God is at hand.'

Gospel is an old Saxon word, meaning 'good news;' and the title of good news appears to have been affixed to the message of mercy from God to man in Christ, by Isaiah's prophecies,* and by the angel who said to the shepherds of Bethlehem on the night of the nativity, ‘I bring you good tidings of great joy.'† It is not, however, uniformly employed in the same sense. Sometimes it is used for the whole of Christianity; sometimes, as in this passage, for our Lord's ministry. It is from the original Greek word, of which Gospel is our translation, that the kindred expressions, Evangelist, Evangelize, Evangelical, are derived.

*Isaiah xl. 9, lii. 7, lxi. 1.

B

+ Luke ii. 10.

JOHN THE BAPTIST'S OFFICE.

Ver. 2-8.

As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And there went out unto him all the land of Judæa, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. And John was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey; and preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.

All

It will be observed that the Jews very readily flocked to John. It is said that 'all the land of Judæa, and they of Jerusalem, went out to him.' Judæa knew that the time specified by the prophets for the Messiah's appearance was come; and were ready to listen to any person who should present himself either as the Messiah, or as Elias, whom they expected to precede the Messiah, agreeably to a prophecy of Malachi.*

Two circumstances respecting John are noticed by St. Mark-his dress and habits of life-his testimony to Jesus.

As Elias, in whose 'spirit and power' he came, lived much in the wilderness, and was often secluded

* Chap. iv. 5.

from public notice, this circumstance in the life of John was probably intended to direct the attention of the Jews to him as the person in whom Malachi's prophecy was fulfilled. Malachi had said that 'Elias should come before the great and terrible day of the Lord,' meaning thereby the Elias of the new dispensation, the great prophet of the latter days; even as we should speak of any very distinguished living admiral, as the Nelson of his age.* John wrought no miracles, and made no assertion respecting his claim to be the Elias. It was the more needful, therefore, that even the minutest points of coincidence between Elijah and him should have been brought under notice. If the attention awakened by these points of resemblance had caused the Jews to suspend their judgment, and to wait for further evidence, then their candour and docility would in time have been rewarded. For as John bare witness to Jesus, without performing miracles, so Jesus afterwards bare witness to John, and confirmed his witness by miracles. Accordingly, John did not preach faith, but repentance. It was Jesus and the ministers of the Gospel who preached belief; because they, and not John, presented miraculous proofs to their hearers. All that

*It is not said by the prophet Malachi, Behold I will send you Elijah the Tishbite, but Elijah the prophet; which, perhaps, might be better rendered a prophet Elijah (an Elijah-like prophet?) So among the Talmudists, any one skilled in signs and languages is called Mordecai, viz., because he is like him who lived in the days of Ahasuerus.'LIGHTFOOT's Heb. and Tal. Exercit. on St. Luke, c. i. v. 17.

John's ministry seems designed to accomplish was, 'to prepare the way of the Lord;' to cause men to lend a candid and attentive ear to him, to suspend their decision, and to be ready to admit the force of his miraculous evidence when displayed to them.

The Baptist's testimony respecting our Lord was, that he was mightier than himself: and, that his baptism, instead of being one with mere water, such as his own, was to be a baptism with the Holy Ghost. From this declaration we may infer, that some new connexion with the Holy Ghost is acquired by Christian baptism, such as was derived from no other baptism, no not even John the Baptist's; although among them that were born of women there had not arisen a greater than John.'* Accordingly, we read in the Acts, that some whom John had baptized, were re-baptized by St. Paul, in order to make them partakers of this privilege;† and we find our Lord, in his last charge to his apostles, not only commanding them to baptize all nations, but declaring that he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.'‡ It is not that there is any inherent efficacy in the waters of baptism, nor that it affects us like a medicinal application; but the ceremony is a fulfilment of a condition, which it has pleased the Lord to enjoin on us; and he who complies with that condition is saved' or admitted to the blessings and privileges of Christianity, not because he is affected by the water, but

*Matt. xi. II.

† Acts xix.

‡ Mark xvi. 16,