There came John baptising in the wilderness, and preaching [the] baptism of repentance for remission of sins.
Mark opens with no birth story and no family line. The first voice we hear belongs to a man in the desert. Two questions come at once. Why does this Gospel begin in an empty land instead of the temple? And what could his baptism offer people before the cross?
Matthew and Luke both trace family lines. Mark gives none. Writers see that silence as a choice, not a shortcut.
Mark 1 presents neither genealogy nor early history, as we have in the accounts of Matthew and Luke. Yet this is not because he was shortening facts already well known. It is because of the divine design, which made a genealogy out of place here. The service even of such a Servant did not call for it. The forerunner is introduced briefly, preaching and baptizing.
John came from a priestly family. He could have asked to preach in the temple, and he did not.
It is not even mentioned that John was from a priestly family. His service comes first: he baptized in the wilderness, preaching the baptism of repentance with a view to the forgiveness of sins. Being a priest, he might have asked permission to preach in the temple. Instead he went to the wilderness, and this matched the spiritual desolation of Israel. No impressive legal forms and ceremonies were there to attract people. There was only the solemn, serious declaration of their guilt, and of God's requirement that they repent. They were baptized — figuratively buried in the muddy Jordan River — confessing their sins. The Jordan pictures death, running into the Dead Sea. It was God who brought the crowds from Judea, and especially from Jerusalem, to accept in effect the sentence of death against themselves — a death deserved because of their sins.
The place itself raised a question about Jerusalem.
But where does this voice of the herald cry, and where was he baptizing? "In the wilderness." What, then, was the state of Jerusalem and the people of God? They had to go outside to John if they wanted to take their right place before God. The effect was great — I do not say saving, but wide-reaching, and not without touching the conscience.
John's call rested on an assumption the earlier prophets did not share.
The older prophets always assumed the nation could still return to the Lord. Like them, John the Baptist had certainly preached repentance, but a repentance founded on ruin without remedy... What remains of man? Nothing. The wrath of the Lord has blown upon him. From then on, repentance meant self-judgment in the presence of God. People "went out" to the prophet, "confessing their sins," and he baptized them in the Jordan. The sinner did not stop at confessing his sins. He owned that from then on the only answer to his state was death. There was no remedy.
This phrase names the purpose of John's whole mission.
The Lord was coming according to His promise. To prepare His way before Him, John was preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This was what they needed. Forgiveness of sins for the repentant was the great thing, the formal purpose of John's mission. Repentance and forgiveness of sins have to do with the responsibility of man before God. They qualify him to receive the blessing God purposed: morally, because he judges his sins as God does; and responsibly, because God forgives them all. So forgiveness is necessarily a present, actual thing.
Commentators differ here. Another writer reads the wording as "unto" forgiveness — a hope held out, not yet a possession.
John's baptism was a baptism of repentance, preparing people for the coming Lord. So it was a purification. It marked out a remnant from the mass of the people, to escape the coming judgment. They are baptized for, or rather unto, forgiveness of sins, waiting for this in hope, though not yet having received it.
John's preaching broke through pretence, and his baptism had one condition.
John preached, and his word had power to break through the hollow crust of things and bring men to reality. Crowds from all the country round about poured out to listen to him, and submitted to his baptism. The conditions of it were within easy reach: every convicted sinner had in this his title.
- Servant. Mark drops the family line because a servant needs no pedigree. The Gospel opens with work, and John is the first at work.
- Wilderness. A priest's son skipped the temple and preached in the desert. The empty place matched how empty Israel's religion had become.
- Outside. Anyone who wanted right standing with God had to walk out of Jerusalem to get it. God Himself brought the crowds out.
- Ruin. The repentance John preached left man no remedy. Those who went down into the Jordan owned death as the verdict they deserved.
- Title. The forgiveness rested on the Saviour still to come. The one thing that gave a person title to it was a conscience that admitted guilt.
And there went out to him all the district of Judaea, and all they of Jerusalem, and were baptised by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
John preached out in the wilderness, and the crowds poured out to a man with no temple, no platform, and no position. Mark tells it in one quick sentence, but three choices sit inside it: the place they went to, the river they went into, and the words they said there.
Where John preached said something about the state of Jerusalem. Anyone who wanted their right place before God had to leave the religious centre and go out to a wasteland.
But where does this herald's voice call out, and where was he baptizing? "In the wilderness." What, then, was the state of Jerusalem and the people of God? They had to go outside to John if they wanted to take their right place before God. What he presented was the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. The effect was great. I do not say it was saving, but it was widespread, and it did touch the conscience.
Kelly draws a careful line here. The movement was wide and consciences were touched, but he will not call it all salvation.
The wilderness was not just where John happened to be. God has long used empty places to speak to the heart, then and now.
He takes his stand in the wilderness, and "all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him." Long centuries before, the Lord had said to the prophet, "Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart" (Hosea 2:14). As one has said, "There was no talking to her heart in the bright, thriving city. But out in the cold, hungry, empty wilderness, He allured her." There He could speak to the conscience and win the heart. Today God often takes this same way with sinners, and with believers too. We look for comfort and ease, and too often our hearts grow cold and careless. Then the Lord breaks in on our ease with sorrow and trial, to speak to our hearts and draw us to Himself.
Mark names the river. Going down into the Jordan said something about what their sins deserved.
They were baptized — that is, buried in picture in the muddy Jordan River — confessing their sins. The Jordan stands for the river of death, running into the Dead Sea. It was God who brought the crowds out from Judea, and from Jerusalem in particular. In effect they accepted the sentence of death against themselves, a death their sins deserved.
The link between confession and forgiveness was not new. Scripture shows the same ground long before John.
It is important to notice the connection there was between repentance and baptism: so the Jews must have understood it… Confession of sins was the scriptural ground of forgiveness from the days of ancient Job. "He looks upon men; and if any say, I have sinned, and twisted what was right, and it did me no good; He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life will see the light." We see how this was finally produced in Job. He says, "I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." … There God met him in unhindered blessing.
Their confession was also not private. It sorted the nation into two camps.
His mission left the nation as a whole standing on one side, with temple, sacrifices, ritual, priests, Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers, scribes, and unrepentant Jews of all kinds. On the other side stood a mixed number, drawn from all classes, who had only one thing in common. They were sinners — sinners who confessed it, sinners encouraged to hope only because God is the God of salvation. Their confession was not a secret either. John baptized them in public, in the river Jordan, and that marked them out as a repentant minority.
For all its power, John's baptism had a limit. John could seal a confession; he could not announce a pardon.
God taught John to point to the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Yet John could not tell anyone who came to him that their sins had been forgiven… His mission was only to set God's seal, as it were, by baptism on those who, by their confession, took their place before God as sinners. Then he could turn their thoughts to One who was coming after him, the only One who could baptize them with the Holy Spirit.
One further contrast is worth holding: when Jesus Himself came to that same river, He came on entirely different terms.
The godly remnant, by John's baptism, took separate ground from the national body, in expectation of Messiah's coming: they judged themselves, and cleared themselves of the sinful condition of the nation. The Lord was baptized by John, so taking His place among the repentant in Israel — not confessing sins, but fulfilling righteousness.
- Out — God's testimony ran outside Jerusalem into the wilderness. People had to leave the religious centre to take their right place before Him.
- Alone — in the empty place God speaks to the heart, as He promised in Hosea. He still breaks in on our comfort to do it.
- Under — the Jordan runs to the Dead Sea, and going into it was accepting the sentence of death their sins deserved.
- Aloud — confession has been the ground of forgiveness since the days of Job. Here it was public, and it marked off a repentant minority from the nation.
- Onward — John could seal a confession, but he could never announce a pardon. He could only point to the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.