Thirdly, the visual symbol is accompanied by the divine voice, which affirms Jesus as his beloved Son. If we discount the occurrence of this nomenclature in v. 1 because of textual uncertainty, this will then be the first time Jesus is called God’s Son. Scholars have debated the precise nature of the background to this verse: whether it is based on Ps 2:7; Isa 42:1 (for this to work, it must be conjectured that an original pais has been transmuted to huios); or Gen 22:2. If we are right to propose that sonship language should first and foremost be understood as election language when used of human beings, Ps 2:7 appears to be the more suitable background, being a verse from an enthronement psalm. But there is no need to think of a precise passage. What is more important is the story and role underlying such a title. Jesus as God’s beloved Son takes Israel’s role upon himself and rule as God’s vicegerent. This divine pronouncement gives the true perspective on Jesus’ identity for the reader.
As the Son of God, Jesus is then led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan in the wilderness, which Mark describes rather briefly (vv. 12–13). Jesus may be regarded here as recapitulating the experience of Israel in the first exodus. Instead of forty years, he is tempted for forty days by Satan. The mention of Satan also serves to foreshadow the conflict to come in Jesus’ ministry. Interestingly, Jesus is described as being with the wild beasts (v. 13). The significance of this remark is unclear. It may refer either to the intensity of his temptation (i.e., threat of wild beasts), or the restoration of paradisiac conditions (i.e., wild beasts are tamed).
The Gospel in Galilee: The Mighty Acts of the Messiah (1:14—8:21)
Jesus’ Inaugural Message (1:14–15)
The programmatic significance of these verses must be highlighted. This is the first time that Jesus speaks in Mark’s Gospel, and with this Mark sums up Jesus’ message. If the preceding section formed the beginning of the gospel, this passage may be understood as the hinge moment in the gospel story.
Mark prefaces Jesus’ proclamation with the arrest of John. The point is that the forerunner has done his part, and Mark will explain later why he was arrested (see 6:17–18). The stronger one who baptizes with the Spirit (1:7–8) now proclaims. The locality of this proclamation is not in the wilderness but in Galilee, a cosmopolitan region belonging to Herod Antipas. The message concerns the gospel of God. For the alert listener, a connection between this and 1:1 is at once detected.
The statement of Jesus in v. 15 may be broken into two parts. First he announces what is happening, and Mark uses the Greek perfect tense here (peplērōtai and ēngiken) to signify that what Jesus proclaimed continues to have currency for his readers. Secondly, Jesus counsels a response, and Mark depicts this with the present tense, signifying that the actions of repentance and faith are to be ongoing. The key themes of Jesus’ ministry and Mark’s Gospel are therefore given in a nutshell: fulfillment, kingdom, repentance, faith, and gospel.
Fulfillment speaks of plot, with currents reaching back to the past. What is described as taking place is therefore to be construed as being once foretold. In this regard, there is meaning to history, and more precisely, it implies God has been faithful to his promises. It is this quality that gives his people hope.
The word kingdom (the Greek is basileia) should be understood primarily in the abstract sense of “reign,” rather than in the concrete sense of “realm,” as the Hebrew malkût or the Aramaic malkûta’ makes clear. But the two ideas are associated, as reign often entails realm. Israel believes her God is the only true ruler and creator, and so his reign cannot be abstractly divorced from history. Indeed, Israel was chosen to be God’s true subjects to demonstrate concretely to the world what his reign meant. But her disobedience sent her into exile. Consequently an eschatological expectation of God’s return to Zion shows in a climactic way that he is the sole king of the universe and that Israel is his special people (Ps 145:10–13; Isa 52:7). While the meaning of the kingdom may indeed be polyvalent, it should not therefore be conceived as referring to anything. Instead, it is to be anchored in the ongoing story of the one God and his people, and understood in relation to the yearning for eschatological closure.52
Is there an OT passage that may help us situate Jesus’ announcement? Isaiah 52:7 is a good candidate. This is supported by Mark’s having named Isaiah as the key inspiration behind his idea of the beginning of the gospel in 1:2–3. Furthermore, the notions of God’s reign and the proclamation of good news are explicitly joined together in Isa 52:7. In this passage, God returns to Zion to reign as king. Consequently, the herald announces to Zion and the cities around her the good news. This divine advent signifies for the Israelites the end of exile and the onset of eschatological blessings. Jesus’ message of the kingdom may be said to relate to such a hope.
The puzzling thing is that the kingdom is described as “having come near,” which contradicts on the surface the fact of fulfillment. Not surprisingly, scholars have debated the precise meaning of the original Greek, whether ēngiken means imminence53 or arrival.54 The consensus is that it means imminence, but this does not bring us any closer to a resolution of the apparent contradiction. That said, this phenomenon of the “now-and-not-yet” actually forms the substructure of much of Markan theology, indicating that Mark sees in it a potent theological theme. Indeed, as his narrative progresses, the reader will see that the resolution of this oxymoron lies in answering correctly the question of who Jesus is, and how the kingdom is intimately bound up with him. In this regard, “paradox” is a better word than “contradiction” (i.e., the kingdom is in a sense still future but in an important sense it may be claimed to have arrived).55 We will return to this topic in our treatment of chapter 4.
The response counselled by Jesus is repentance and faith. While such qualities have an important role in general piety, their special connection with the kingdom of God should not be missed. In the prophetic literature, repentance (often described with the Hebrew šûb) is often the precondition of forgiveness and restoration (Isa 44:22; Jer 3:10–14; Hos 14:1–9). All this is often couched in corporate terms.56 In this regard, the pattern of sin-exile-restoration, found frequently in the story of Israel and God, may plausibly be latent here.57 More significantly, there can be no repentance if we do not agree with God’s statement of our condition or his promise of forgiveness. Hence, repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin: we repent believingly, and we believe repentantly. Note the link back to John’s ministry, as his baptism is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (1:4).
Leading from the above point is the idea that this faith, while directed ultimately to God, must also take the form of believing the message of Jesus. As Mark will demonstrate later, faith is not so much about trusting generally in God’s faithfulness as confessing that through the ministry of Jesus God’s faithfulness is seen. In this regard, the promises that Israel longed for are now encapsulated in the ministry of Jesus.
The Gospel in Action and Typical Activities of Jesus’ Ministry (1:16–45)
In this section the typical activities of Jesus’ ministry are presented in cameo form. Mark narrates Jesus’ call of his first disciples (1:16–20), his teaching activity which is connected with the performance of miracles (1:21–39), and the foreshadowing of conflict through the story of the healing of the leper (1:40–45). Discipleship, teaching, miracles, and conflict will be motifs occupying much of Mark’s Gospel. Through all these cameo-like stories, Mark gives his listeners an idea of what it means for the gospel to be in action.
The Call of the First Disciples (1:16–20)
If according to the prophetic literature, God’s return to Zion takes place in tandem with the reconstituting of a covenantal community (Isa 59:20–21; 61:1–8; Jer 31:31–34; Ezek 37:21–28; Hos 2:18–23), and if, through the Spirit’s anointing, the task of this reconstitution has been devolved upon Jesus, then it is not surprising that together with the gospel proclamation, Jesus would call disciples as the first step in building this reconstituted community. This is precisely what is presented in vv. 16–20.
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