A Study of Mark: Jesus' Baptism (Part 2 continued)

⁷ He proclaimed, “One more powerful than I am is coming after me; I am not worthy to bend down and untie the strap of his sandals. ⁸ I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

John’s message is one of a coming man who will have power; one to whom John has already declared himself a servant (by his unworthiness to untie his sandals); a man whose ministry will surpass his own in every way. Where John is only able to ritually cleanse with water, this person will bring a spiritual cleansing. John’s message of baptism by the Holy Spirit is also a foreshadowing beyond the scope of the Gospel narrative. The Holy Spirit doesn’t make many appearances in Mark. The few times where it is mentioned after this point are in connection with Jesus and the power or authority that he possesses. The baptism of other people with the Holy Spirit is an event that will take place after the resurrection, and is not recorded in this Gospel.

The audience, as believers, would have been familiar with the concept of the Holy Spirit. This is an aspect of theology that was developed by the time Paul was writing his letters (roughly a decade before Mark was written down), and Christian communities all over the Mediterranean, even in Rome, would have understood what was meant when the term Holy Spirit is used in a Gospel. For example:

·        Romans 8:14-16 explains adoption as children of God through the Holy Spirit

·        Romans 8:26-27 discusses the Spirit interceding on behalf of the saints

·        Romans 9:1 indicates that the Holy Spirit can assure one’s conscience of the truth

⁹ Now in those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan River. ¹⁰ And immediately coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens splitting apart and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. ¹¹ And a voice came from heaven: “You are my one dear Son; in you I take great delight.”

We have already been told that Jesus is the Christ and Son of God, so he needs no further introduction. The “prologue,” as it were, is over, and Mark launches directly into the narrative of Jesus’ ministry. The Gospel of Mark is roughly divided into a 3-Act structure, much like an ancient drama. Act 1 (1:9-8:26) is Jesus’ Galilean ministry – it is very action-oriented, it demonstrates Jesus’ authority and identity, and it puts his message at odds with the religious authorities (the scribes, teachers of the Law, and Pharisees). Act 2 (8:27-13:37) transitions to Jerusalem and Jesus’ last week. Here the focus shifts to Jesus teaching his disciples, preparing them for his absence, and forcing them (and the audience) to confront and answer the question, “Who do you say that I am?” Act 3 (14:1-16:8) is the climax of the story, the point that the narrative has been relentlessly pushing toward, the culmination of Jesus’ ministry through his suffering and death, and the ending.

Verse 10 introduces us to one of the first recurring themes we will encounter in Mark: Immediacy. The Greek word meaning “immediately” is used over 40 times in the Gospel. The action in Mark (especially Act 1) is fast paced, constantly driving the audience forward to the climax of the story. There are very few “rest breaks.” Another literary motif presented in these verses is that of Patterns of Three. In Mark, things frequently happen in threes: here, Jesus sees heavens opened, he sees the Spirit descending, and he hears a voice.

Examining the narrative itself, the vision at the baptism is written as a personal experience intended for Jesus alone, and not in any way a demonstration to the crowd. He sees the heavens splitting open. The voice speaks to him and not to the crowd: “You are my son... in you...” No mention is made of anyone else beyond Jesus hearing the voice or seeing the Spirit descend. There is also no indication in the text that John recognized Jesus as the one he had been prophesying about, or that he saw or heard the vision.

The internal narrator of the Gospel, however, allows the audience to take part in an omniscient perspective. Frequently, we are given glimpses into information of which the characters inside the narrative are unaware. This is one such example. We get to experience the vision of the Spirit and voice along with Jesus, and by doing so, we know that Jesus is the one of whom John was speaking. The Spirit descends on Jesus because the audience has been told that he will ultimately baptize with it. And just as the OT quotations in v.2-3 were immediately followed with their embodiment in John the Baptist, John’s declaration of the coming person of power is immediately followed by its fulfillment in Jesus.

Additionally, Mark’s baptism episode contains hints of proto-adoptionist theology. Rather than the belief that Jesus was fully divine from birth or before, Adoptionism believed that Jesus was “adopted” by God at his baptism due to his devotion to God, and that he was given divine status and the Holy Spirit because of this adoption, but that he is not equal to God the Father. This doctrine was declared to be a heresy by the 1^st Council of Nicaea (325 AD), but some ideas in parts of Mark and Paul’s letters can be seen as precursors to this doctrine. Other Gospel writers may have noticed this potential theological issue present in Mark, and dealt with it in different ways. For example, Matthew has the voice at the baptism address the crowd (“This is my son”), rather than Jesus, changing the purpose of the event to a public declaration and indicating that Jesus already knew his identity. Luke includes the account of 12-year-old Jesus declaring God to be his father, years before his baptism. Both Matthew and Luke include birth narratives in which a divine messenger informs Jesus’ parents that he is God’s son by miraculous pregnancy, and thus divine from his birth. John’s prologue places Jesus as the Word, preexistent and coeternal with God.

Mark does not include any of this clarifying information, making his theology a little more uncertain. Does the voice speak because Jesus was not aware of his identity before the baptism? Was Jesus a regular man until God declared his adoption as the Son of God and sent the Spirit into Jesus? Is God simply declaring his approval at Jesus’ submission to God through baptism? Is the voice intended to inform Jesus that it was time to begin his ministry? Is the voice a literary construct intended for the reader and not for anyone inside the narrative, including Jesus? Reading Mark independently, I don’t know that you can fully answer these questions, but try to keep them in mind as we read through the rest of the Gospel to see whether anything can be resolved or clarified.

Another question that may have arisen in your mind is why the Son of God would need to be baptized? Wasn’t John’s baptism one of repentance for the forgiveness of sins? Does this indicate that Jesus had sins that needed forgiveness?  2 Corinthians 5:21 states:  ^“God made the one who did not know sin [Jesus] to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.” Paul wrote this letter most likely between 55-57 AD, which means that this is the earliest point at which we can declare for certain that the doctrine of a sinless Jesus existed in early Christian theology. If we accept the date of Mark as written in the late 60’s then the theological belief of Jesus as sinless would have existed for a decade or more, enough time for the doctrine (even if it was not present everywhere), to be circulated and adopted by the communities around the Mediterranean.  

The other Gospel writers also seem to have noticed this as an issue in need of explanation in the baptism narrative. Matthew 3:14-15 includes an interaction between John and Jesus, in which John tries to prevent Jesus from being baptized and states that Jesus needs to baptize him instead, but Jesus convinces him that it needs to happen “to fulfill all righteousness.” Luke 3:21-23 alters the structure of the events slightly, making the baptism happen after everyone else present was also baptized (v.21 “it happened that, when all the people were baptized, Jesus also was baptized”); having the vision happen as Jesus prays, rather than as he exits the water, thus taking the emphasis off of the baptism itself (v.21 “and while he was praying, the heavens opened...”); and using the event as a symbolic action marking the beginning of his ministry (v.22-23 “‘...in you I take great delight;’ and so Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years old.”). The Gospel of John does not even record Jesus being baptized.

A common explanation attempting to answer the “why baptism” question is that Mark, who greatly emphasizes the humanity of Jesus, has Jesus undergo a baptism in order to declare himself a full member of humanity. A second explanation paints Jesus’ baptism as a symbolic action announcing his willingness to accept the sinfulness of mankind on his shoulders as part of his ultimate mission to suffer and die as Son of God and Christ. Another explanation highlights one of the main purposes of the Gospel of Mark as teaching what it means to be a true follower of Jesus, frequently using Jesus to model the behaviors expected of his followers. Thus, Jesus undergoes a baptism as a model for what future disciples would be expected to do when following in his footsteps. A final explanation (though not in any way the last) views this narrative as another combination of OT quotations, constructed for the audience and declaring the identity of Jesus to the reader just as the OT quotations in v.2-3 declared who John the Baptist was.

·        Psalm 2:7 -- I will proclaim the Lord’s decree:

      He said to me, “You are my son;
      today I have become your father.

·        Isaiah 42:1 -- “Here is my servant whom I support,
my chosen one in whom I take pleasure.
I have placed my spirit on him;
he will make just decrees for the nations.

The placing of the Spirit on Jesus immediately afterward would also serve as a fulfillment of the Isaiah verse for the reader, just as John immediately shows up in the story after Malachi and Isaiah are quoted, and Jesus arrives immediately after John predicts the man of power. Ultimately, whether you think any (or none) of these explanations holds water, I leave it up to you to decide why you think Jesus was baptized.