The Pulpit Commentary — Mark — Volume 1 — Section 36

God, in righteousness and true holiness." •• I can do all things through Christ which strengthcneth me."-M. Vere, 9-11.-The baptism of Jesua. One of many proofs of the wide influence of the Baptist's ministry. He ea.me from Nazareth of Galilee. The multitudinous baptism of John was a fit occasion and background for the special and peculiar baptism of Jesus. The awakened national conscience represented for the nonce the general confession of sin by the individuals of mankind saved through the gospel. Christ's baptism was- L A FULFILMENT OF LEGAL BIGHTEOUBNEBS. It was one ceremony of the Law taken 119 representative of the spirit and essence of the whole ceremonial system. Inasmuch as it involved a confession of sin, he by undergoing it (1) hurr.iliated himself; and (2) identified, himself with the sinful nature of the race. Whilst condemning in his pure spirit the sin of man, he yet takes his place with sinners, as one with them in their penalty and their hope. II. A FULFILMENT OF BPIBITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS. 1. ThrO'Ugh plenary reception of the Holy Spirit. This was the same Spirit in which he had already been living, but given now "without measure." Inspiration ensues upon co!lscious acts of obedience and righteous- ness; true spiritual baptism is given to those who submit willingly to the positive require- ments of God's Law. This was (1) the completion of the Divine-human consciousness; and (2) the communion of God and man, of heaven and earth. The (violently and suddenly) rent heaven symbolized this. 2. Throogh Divine attestation. It was a voice to John, but much more to Jesus himself. Through this experience he realized that the attitude he had assumed, and the career upon which he was about to enter, were approved of his Father. The favour and acceptance therein declared were also, by implication, a recognition of his purfect personal purity. It was not as a sinner that he submitted to baptism, but as the sinner's Friend and intending Saviour.-M. Vere. 12, 13.-Tlie temptation. Great moral problems are suggested by the tempt:r tion. Mark does not describe the nature of it, but leaves the imagination and cognate experience of his readers to fill up the spaces, or, having a different object from the other evangelists, he, supposing the details furnished by them well known, contents himself with an epitome. But it is an epitome of a very vivid and pregnant kind. The salient points alluded to by him are- I. THE PnEDISPOSING CAUSE OF IT. The temptation, singularly enough, follows "straightway" upon the baptism, in such a way as to establish the fact of a close con- nection between the two events; and that Spirit which crowned with its descent the act of obedience is the direct cause of Christ's being tempted. Is not this inconsistent with what we learn of God from the Bible? He is not, we are told, tempted of evil, " neither tempteth he any man." 1. It was necessary to the purpose of Christ's coming into the world that he should be tempted. As a portion, therefore, of his mediatorial experience and perfecting, it was quite fitting that the Spirit, through whom he had come, should lead him forward to each chief point of trial in his career. It is con- ~ivable that one should approach evil from the side of an evil heart already predisposed lo yield. But it belongs to the virtue of Christ's position as one tempted that he was led into it by the Spirit. It was-to translate a part of the meaning of this into familiar speech-it was "from the highest motives" that he submitted to temptation. 2. It was not the Spirit that tempted him, but it wcu through being in the condition induced by the indwelling of the Spirit that he became exposed to temptation in its most terrible forms. It is only ns being in a higher spiritual state than that to which one's circum- stances correspond that they can be truly said to tempt him. The greatest temptations are revealed in the highest spiritual experience, even as darkness by light. We can never appreciate the power of Satan until we look at him from a state of holiness aod devout illumination. II. THE AGENT OF IT, Mark uses the peculiar word "Satan," instead of "the devil," as in the other Gospels. 'l'he choice of this term may have been deter- mined by a desire to emphasize the special character of the devil as" the adversary" whom he was to overthrow, or simply by an instinctive sense that thereby the person- ality, and the identification of that personality with the historic Satanic principle of ruvela.tion, would be ma.de clrarer. It was with no secondary being that Jesus  8Z THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BT, MARK.