The Pulpit Commentary — Mark — Volume 1 — Section 58

the tabernacle, and the altn.r of incense, which he hnd hid in Pisgah, at whatever time. God should gather his people together. The Pharisees could have readily understood the baptism of Gentile proselytes into the Jewish faith, and euch b11ptism by John could have prod_uced no uneasiness and caused no alarm. Instead of occasioning pain, lt would have given them pleasure, as the admission of converts into the Jewish Church. by such baptism would have contributed to their own ecclesiastical importance, and t.ended to augment the numerical power of their party. But the disouieting circum- stance about it was that it was Jews whom John baptized; and what were they to make of that? What were these zealots for Judaism to think of the adminis- tration to Jews of a rite which had only been administered to Gentile proselytes; and the administration of which was either the formal introduction into a new faith or the first inauguration of a new dispensation? It was this that aroused their fears and excited their apprehensions. They saw clearly that John's baptism was the dawn of a. new dispensation-a dispensation destined, as they rightly suspected, to subvert in a. certain sense, or at least supersede, the old. In their alarm they accordingly: ask, "If thou art not that Christ himself, who, we are taught to believe, will inaugurate a new dispensation; nor Elias, his forerunner; nor that prophet, be it Jeremiah or some other of the old prophets who shall reappear on earth at Messiah's advent ;-why baptizest thou then, seeing it is not Gentile converts to Judaism, but Jews themselves, that are admitted to your baptism?" John's baptism, then, was not proselyte baptism. Neither was it Ohristian baptism, as we learn from Acts :x.ix. at the beginning, where certain o.isciples at Epherus, who had been baptized into John's baptism, were rebaptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. "Unto what then were ye baptized?" asks Paul. "And they said, Unto John's baptism. 'I'hen said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." With this agrees the sentiment of an ancient Greek Father, the purport of which is that John's baptism was more than Jewish baptism, for it involved repentance as well as water baptism; it was les11 than Christian, for it was not with the Spirit, as Christ's was. VII. DOCTBINE PREACIIED :ey THE BAPTIST. The doctrine he preached was the doctrine of repentance for the remission of sins. Ee called their sins to mind, sum- moning them to confession and contrition; while this proper sense of, and sorrow for, sin showed them their need of a Saviour and prepared them for his salvation. In token of repentance commenced and to be continued, and of the power of him whose reign was now beginning, to cleanse the truly penitent from all sin, he baptized them with water nnto repentance. Thus, while John proclaimed the advent of the new dispen- sation, he prepared for it and prefaced it by a most appropriate and significant rite. On this Theopbylact comments as follows:-" But whither did this preaching of repent- ance lead? To the forgiveness of Bins, that is, to the baptism of Christ which had the forgi venes1 of sins." VIII. DRESS OF THE BAl'TIBT. Everything was in perfect keeping with the strange surroundings of the Baptist. His dress, his diet, and his discourse were all in har- mony with the desert where he ministered. Eis dress was neither gorgeous nor gay like that of a king's herald; it was of the coarsest and roughest kind. His garment 'WIIS made of cloth of rudest texture, woven out of camel's hair; he was girded not with the rich linen or highly ornamented girdle of the Oriental, but with a cincture of untanned bide, like the prophets' raiment of early times ; just such as Elijah wore, and such as Zechariah speaks of when he refers to the rou&h garment as _the proper pro- phetic costume, and as such assumed by false prophets in order to dece1 ve. IX. DIET OF THE BAl'TIBT. Eis diet was as plain as his dress. Eis food was not sumptuous, but of the simplest sort; scarce sufficient to keep soul and body together-the honey of the wild bee, which he found in the fissure of the rock or clefts of trees, and the locusts of the wilderness. The honey was not that which exuded from trees, but the veritable product of wild bees; nor were the locusts. the sweet pods of the locust tree but the real locusts still used for food by the Bedouin of the desert. "He also," says Thomson in • The Land and the Book,' "dwelt in. the desert whe~e such food was and is still used; and therefore the text states the simple truth. His ~rdinary •meat' was dried locusts-probably fried in butter and mixed with honey, as OD. I, 1--4.5.] THE GOSPEI, ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. 65