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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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Mark 1:1
Comments
The amplified version says, ‘The beginning of the [facts regarding the] good news of Jesus Christ’ and that is completely wrong. The translator of Mark in the amplified version is interpreting matters to his own mind there. The text means what it says: ‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ’, and the gospel here is viewed in its entirety: the gospel project, the gospel mission. If you like, it is the gospel age, the coming of the good news age, the age of the good tidings. It is the amazing and wonderful news of free redemption through the shed blood of Christ, of grace and mercy, and peace and reconciliation. When did it all start? Oh, we say, with the coming of Christ. No, says Mark, with the coming of John the Baptist. So he dates the beginning of the gospel age for us. When does the clock start? When did it begin? Before the revealing of Christ himself and his public ministry; it starts with the ministry of John the Baptist. In a sense he was the first Christian minister. The word ‘gospel’ means good news, the good news of a Saviour. God has sent a Saviour to this hopeless, fallen, human race. All of us are under condemnation; none of us going to heaven; none of us capable of pleasing God. We need a Saviour and the second person of the triune Godhead has come into this world to be our representative, to suffer and to die in our place. It is the good news of his atoning death: that he suffered and died on Calvary, suffering not merely physical agony. The physical agonies of Christ, great as they were, were almost immeasurable by comparison with the suffering of his soul. The invisible, terrible pain and torment and punishment that he bore. You cannot film it; you cannot describe it adequately, because it was all the punishment, due to those who would be saved, that they should have suffered throughout the everlasting eternity, compressed into six hours and borne away by Christ the Son of God on Calvary’s Cross.‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.’ John uses his full titles; ‘Jesus’, his personal name. He was truly human, truly a man. ‘Christ’, which comes from the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word, Messiah: Jesus, the Messiah, the appointed one. ‘The Son of God’: his divinity, he is God. It's all there. Mark writes, very tersely, very concisely, and he has got his whole Saviour in the very first sentence.
Application
Questions
What is the gospel? The term ‘gospel’ is a very special term in the New Testament. It isn’t a synonym for the word of God, or for the truth. Some people use it in that way. There are some people who say, ‘Whenever I preach, whatever book I am preaching from, whatever subject I am taking, I am preaching the gospel.’ Well, that’s not true, because in the New Testament, the gospel refers to the soul-saving doctrines, the message of salvation. If we were to study every time the word gospel is used in the New Testament, we would find that in almost every case the word is used in this context – the preaching of soul-saving doctrines to lost people, coupled with a call to them to repent and be converted. So it is a special term.
Outline
Purpose
Introduction