Truly Human & Truly Divine
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
If you have your Bibles let me invite you to open with me to the gospel of Mark.
We will read verses 1-8 by way of review and then we will read all the way down to our verses for study today, verses 9-13 .
1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way,
3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’ ”
4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
5 And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey.
7 And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.
8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.
10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.
11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.
13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.
Lets Pray
Everything thus far in the book of Mark has been introductory.
In verse 1, we are introduced to the book’s theme.
1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
In verses 2-8, we hear the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
John the Baptist fulfills prophecy by serving as a messenger preparing the way of Jesus with a message of repentance and forgiveness.
John points to someone greater who was coming
and then with little warning, and no more introduction.... the main character arrives on the scene.
In verse 9, Jesus appears.
You might expect for him to appear riding on a fiery chariot surrounded by splendor and majesty.
He is the Christ,
He is the Son of God,
He is the coming of the LORD that fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 40,
He is the one who John the Baptist says is mightier
He is the one who has the authority and the ability to immerse people in the very Spirit of God.
but in verse 9, he just came from Nazareth.
Jesus is introduced as having a place of origin, the city of Nazareth.
It would have been a striking thing to hear in the first century that Jesus came from Nazareth.
Nothing and no one very important ever came from Nazareth,
It was a small insignificant impoverished town.
No one important came from Nazareth.
No one of great wealth,
no one of great power,
no one of great fame ever came from Nazareth.
Hence Nathaniel's response to the news in John 1:46
46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
By introducing Jesus as a man coming from Nazareth…
we are confronted with the first of two realities about Jesus that will be communicated simultaneously throughout the book.
Jesus is truly human AND Jesus is truly divine.
As we work through these two paragraphs introducing us to Jesus, we will see both realities on display.
In a one moment, we are awestruck by his divinity.
In another, we are shocked by his humanity.
and back and forth and back and forth throughout the gospel of Mark.
Truth #1 Jesus is Truly Human
Truth #1 Jesus is Truly Human
Jesus was a real man who had a real home town, which was relatively insignificant in the world’s eyes.
Jesus was truly a human who was truly from a place in space and time.
Jesus of Nazareth approaches John and he requests to be baptized.
He submits himself under the sign-act or the symbol of the baptism.
Jesus literally and physically gets down into the dirty waters of the Jordan and he asks John the Baptist to physically baptize him just as all the others were doing.
Though John didn’t feel worthy to even untie Jesus’ sandals, he is asked to baptize Jesus.
Now why in the world would Jesus need to be baptized?
We will look into that question more in a moment, but for now, simply notice the humility, the obedience, and the wonder of this moment.
The one who through whom the waters were separated at creation, now allows a man to immerse him into the water in an act of obedience.
The one, through whose power parted the Jordan river for the Israelites to walk through on dry ground in the book of Joshua, now dips himself into that same river in solidarity with his people.
Jesus got baptized, like everyone else was called to…,
but Jesus’ baptism was hardly like any one else’s....
10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.
11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
Truth #2 Jesus is Truly Divine
Truth #2 Jesus is Truly Divine
The book of Genesis records a time when heaven and earth were one space...
The dwelling place of God was with the dwelling place of humanity.
God walked in the cool of the garden with Adam and Eve…,
but when they rebelled against God,
they were cast out of his manifest presence…
Between heaven and earth, the sin of humanity created a barrier that was not there before.
This barrier was symbolized throughout Israel’s history by a large veil in the temple which separated the manifest presence of God from the people.
Because of humanity’s sin… only a High Priest after a series of washing rituals and only with the preparation of a sacrifice could enter into the presence of a Holy God behind the veil...
but here in this moment… after this symbolic washing ritual of baptism…,
Jesus rises from the water....
and the very heavens themselves are torn open
The Greek word is “σχίζω”- means to tear apart, or split, or separate.
The heavens are torn apart
and the manifest Spirit of God is visually seen descending upon Jesus and into Jesus...
There is this moment where the gap between heaven and earth is being bridged by and in the person of Jesus…
....The holy Spirit of God is seen communing with him in a visible form like that of a dove descending upon him....
Jesus is shown to be in intimate connection to God the Father by God the Spirit.
You can’t help but think forward to what Jesus would say in John 17.
5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
In the baptismal moment we see the very Spirit of God descending upon Jesus in his human flesh and communing with him and filling him....
In this moment we see the fullness of heaven resting upon and in the physical body of Jesus.
And as if the visual picture was not enough, God the Father audibly affirms what is happening...
11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
Truth #2 Jesus is Truly Divine
Truth #2 Jesus is Truly Divine
This is not the moment where Jesus became the divine Son of God…
This is the moment where God the Father is affirming and declaring what has always been.
This is the moment where Jesus begins the ministry he was determined to do from all eternity.
The greatest mystery of Christianity is that God even in his essence is beyond our ability to comprehend.
He is trinity. He is love in and of himself.
He is and has always been relational from the dawn of eternity.
He is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, distinct in personhood yet united in deity.
In the incarnation, God the Son became embodied flesh,
and now God the Father affirms his true identity through a manifestation of God the Spirit and the voice of God the Father.
Theologian J.I. Packer writes this....
It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of Christian revelation lie. The Word became flesh (Jn 1:14); God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, .... The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the Incarnation. - JI Packer
In a single moment we see the fullness of God on display.
God the Father, God the Spirit, and God the Son working in perfect harmony to declare who Jesus really was.
The book began with Mark’s declaration that Jesus is the Son of God in verse 1…
And now that assumption is confirmed by the most authoritative of voices… the very voice of God the Father speaking from the heavens.
Truth #1 Jesus is Truly Human
Truth #2 Jesus is Truly Divine
While the book begins with this declaration of Jesus’ personhood...
the book of Mark also ends with a declaration of Jesus’ personhood.
There is only one other time in the gospel of Mark where this word “σχίζω” is used… and it comes at the very end of the book at Jesus’s death.
38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
39 And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
At the beginning of the book....
the heavens are “torn open”…
the Spirit of God is seen as descending upon Jesus...
The Father declares this is my beloved Son of whom I well pleased.
At the end of the book....
the curtain in the temple “is torn” “σχίζω”
and the most unlikely of people declare Jesus’ true identity -
A Roman soldier guilty of crucifying Jesus now declares “Truly this man was the Son of God.”
Mark sandwiches the entire book with these two pictures.
The heavens being torn open
The Spirit descending upon Jesus.
and God the Father identifying Jesus for who he really was
And then
The curtain being torn open.
The Spirit now being made available to all who believe.
And the worst of Sinners identifying who Jesus really was.
This sandwiching declares what Jesus really came to do.
Jesus is the one who bridges the gap between sinful humanity and a holy God.
He tears the veil.
He tears open the heavens… so that even the most unlikely of sinners can know God and be filled with his Spirit.
All of this brings us back to why Jesus is being baptized in the first place?
Why is Jesus, truly human, and truly divine, subjecting himself to the act of baptism?
Mark just states this as a matter of fact and leaves us to wrestle with the reality…
Other gospel writers share how hesitant John the Baptist was even to baptize Jesus…
Baptism was a symbol of repentance.
It was a symbol of faith.
Why would Jesus, the Son of God, need to be baptized?
Why would he dip his perfect body into the same waters as all those sinners who had been immersed into the waters?
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him.
14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented.
This is Jesus’ answer.....
Truth #3 Jesus Came to Fulfill All Righteousness
Truth #3 Jesus Came to Fulfill All Righteousness
I like how pastor theologian Sinclair Ferguson says it.:
“Jesus’ baptism inaugurates him publicly into his role as the priest who bears away the sins of men in order to bring them forgiveness and salvation… What we have here is Jesus’ public acknowledgement that he had come to stand where sinners should stand , receive what they should deserve, and in return give to them his gift of grace and fellowship with God.” - Sinclair Ferguson
Jesus was baptized, not because he needed to symbolize repentance and forgiveness for his own sins....
rather Jesus was baptized, so that he might perfectly walk in all the righteousness we are called to walk in and thus represent us before God the Father.
He is the only one who could live the righteous life we could not have lived,
and die the death for our unrighteousness we should have died.
As a perfect man he represents us,
as God he forgives us.
He fulfills all righteousness doing all the things we were called to do while also resisting all the sins we are called to resist.
Mark quickly transitions from the baptism scene to the wilderness scene where again we are confronted with these same realities.
Look with me again at the end of our text.
12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.
13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.
The Spirit of God we see communing with Jesus at the baptism now compels him into the wilderness.... and again we are confronted with the humanity of Jesus.
Truth #1 Jesus is Truly Human
Truth #1 Jesus is Truly Human
Jesus is driven by the Spirit into the wilderness.
He must humbly follow the leading the Spirit of God into the next moment of his ministry.
Jesus is thrust into a situation for forty days where he faces with great intensity what every human being experiences - temptation.
The cosmic enemy of God attacks Jesus with temptation.
In other gospels we are given far more detail then here in the gospel of Mark, but the picture is clear.
Jesus is alone…
He is in the wilderness.
He is with the wild beasts.... surely this detail is provided to help us as the readers imagine the sort of frightening and difficult situation Jesus was placed in for these 40 days.
If you remember last week, we spoke about the original readers of the gospel of Mark and how the Roman emperor Nero was persecuting Christians, and was known for feeding them to the wild beasts.
Listen to what one commentator says...
The Gospel according to Mark God’s Son Meets God’s Adversary (1:12–13)
. Tacitus spoke of Nero’s savagery toward Christians in the sixties of the first century in these words: “they were covered with the hides of wild beasts and torn to pieces by dogs” (Ann. 15.44). Given the ravaging of Christians by ferocious animals during Nero’s reign, it is not difficult to imagine Mark including the unusual phrase “with the wild beasts” in order to remind his Roman readers that Christ, too, was thrown to wild beasts, and as the angels ministered to him, so, too, will they minister to Roman readers facing martyrdom.41
Not only is Jesus alone, in the wilderness, surrounded by the hostility of wild animals… he is apparently experiencing temptation and vexation of such intensity that angels are needed to minister to his weak human body.
This 40 days of temptation in the wilderness was real.
It was difficult.
Though Jesus never sinned, Jesus understands the intensity of our temptation even more than we do.
Listen to what C.S. Lewis says as he reflects on Jesus’ temptation compared to our own temptations.
bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means—the only complete realist. - C.S. Lewis
Not only was Jesus tempted… he was tempted beyond what any of us have ever been…
If you think the spiritual warfare in your life is great…
consider what it must have been for Jesus… with all of the energies of Satan himself being directed to Jesus the Son of God in human flesh.
The author of Hebrews agrees.
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
so why does the Spirit lead Jesus into the wilderness?
Why is the wilderness a part of the plan as Jesus begins his ministry?
Well the answer to this question is the same as the answer to Jesus’ baptism.
and now we are back to truth #3
Truth #3 Jesus Came to Fulfill All Righteousness.
Truth #3 Jesus Came to Fulfill All Righteousness.
Adam and Eve failed to resist temptation in the garden.
Israel tremendously failed for forty years of wilderness wanderings.
It seems as if they gave into every temptation that came their way.... but now the one has come.
A new and better Adam has come who resists the temptations of the serpent.
A new and better Israel who survives the forty days in the wilderness without falling into sin.
Jesus overcame temptation because we couldn’t
and it is through his victory over sin and death that we have victory over sin and death today!
He was righteous on your behalf.
He did what you cannot do.
He resisted what you could not resist....
SO THAT...., he would be the perfect sacrifice on the last day…
SO THAT…., his sacrifice would tear the veil and you would be invited in to the presence of God now and forever.
The message of Christianity is NOT, you can do it and Jesus can help.
The message of Christianity is, you couldn’t do it so Jesus did it.
He bridges the gap between us and God.
Truth #1 Jesus is Truly Human
Truth #2 Jesus is Truly Divine
Truth #3 Jesus Came to Fulfill All Righteousness
so how do we respond to this Jesus...
I’d like to close with three takeaways.
Takeaways:
Takeaway #1 - Be Humbled by the Mystery of the Incarnation
Takeaway #1 - Be Humbled by the Mystery of the Incarnation
There are things about God that are beyond our comprehension.
There are things about God that so obviously make him God.
He is Eternal.
He is Creator.
He is Uncreated.
He is All-Knowing.
He is All-Powerful.
He is Omni-present.
He is Self-Sustaining.
And somehow, someway, God is Father, Son and Spirit,.
Somehow, someway, God the Son took on human flesh in the person of Jesus, God the Father remained in the Heavens, and God the Spirit transcended as the connection between God the Father and God the Son.
No doctrine in the Bible is as mysterious.
All the miracles of Jesus are easy to believe, if you grasp the first one, that he was God with us in human flesh.
You can let this doctrine frustrate you because of how other worldly it is.
Or you can let it humble you into awe inspiring worship, that our God is both so much bigger than our comprehension, yet he knows so intimately our temptations and our suffering.
Takeaway #2 - Turn to Christ Alone for Your Salvation
Takeaway #2 - Turn to Christ Alone for Your Salvation
The gospel of Mark makes crystal clear that there is no other way to know God.
There is no other way through the veil.
God the Father says of Jesus, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
This is the verdict over Jesus’ sinless life. The Father is “pleased” with him.
And this is precisely what you are invited into.
You are invited into a place where God declares over you exactly what he declared over Jesus.
This is how salvation works. We trust Jesus as Lord and Savior… and we are placed in the place where Christ stands.
1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
Through faith in Jesus…
God the Father is now pleased with you as a son… as if you had fulfilled all righteousness just as Jesus did.
Only Christ Jesus can offer this.
Takeaway #3 Follow Christ’s Example for Your Sanctification
Takeaway #3 Follow Christ’s Example for Your Sanctification
Not only does Jesus provide the only way for our salvation.
He also provides the perfect example for our sanctification.
He models for us what true human flourishing should look like.
- He humbles himself to the act of baptism as a public declaration of who he was.
and so should you. If you have not been baptized as an adult as a public proclamation of your faith in Jesus, I want to reiterate again this week, that this is both the command and the example of King Jesus.
He then follows the leading of the Spirit into the wilderness.
He does not avoid the difficulty, he does not shy away from the uncomfortable places, but he follows the Spirit in order to fulfill the ministry.
In the wilderness he wages war against the enemy.
He resists temptation,
and he seeks relief from God the Father in all his warfare.
May we do the same...
May we stop believing the lie, that God would never lead us into the wilderness.... sometimes it is the uncomfortable spaces where God most wants us to be.
May we go where God leads, do what God says, and resist what God hates all in reliance on God’s Spirit, Following in the footsteps of God’s Son.
Lets pray and respond to that end.