Gospel of Mark Chapter 1 Vs. 9

 The Baptism of Jesus

Mark 1:9 “And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.”

In those days... At some unspecified time during John’s baptizing ministry at the Jordan.

came from Nazareth... An obscure village (not mentioned in the Old Testament, or by Josephus, or in the Talmud), about 70 miles North of Jerusalem, that did not enjoy a favorable reputation (John 1:46). Jesus had apparently been living there before His public appearance to Israel.

baptized of John... Over John’s objections (Mat. 3:14), who saw no need for the sinless Lamb of God (John 1:29), to participate in a baptism of repentance (see verses 4-5); for an explanation of why Jesus was baptized (see note on Mat. 3:15).

Jesus did not need to repent of sin, but as the Messiah of Israel He identified thoroughly with the people of Israel. He also would have wished to show His support for John as God’s prophet. Jesus sought this outward identification with John’s ministry to fulfill all righteousness. By identifying Himself with those He came to redeem, Jesus inaugurated His public ministry as the Messiah.

To some people this would seem so unusual that the Savior of the world would come to be baptized. Of course, Jesus had no sins to repent of. He was without sin. In everything, Jesus is the ultimate example. I believe this act of humbly coming to be baptized was simply an example for us to follow.

There had been very little heard of Jesus, since His trip with Mary and Joseph to Jerusalem when He was twelve years old. We know that He lived with His mother Mary, and Joseph, the man that the world thought was His father. Joseph was a carpenter, and Jesus had worked with Joseph in the carpenter’s shop.

I believe a great deal went on that we are not told about in the Scriptures in this interval, since He had been in the temple at twelve.

The statement: Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business? found (in Luke 2:49), tells us that Jesus had begun His heavenly Father’s business.

The fact that Mary knew that Jesus could turn water into wine at the wedding indicates to me that this was the first recorded miracle, not the first one. Jesus from the time He was twelve until the wine incident was possibly ministering, but not formally for recorded history. The Hebrew young men called to the ministry began at age thirty.

John the Baptist was a close relative of Jesus’ mother, Mary. It seems that John’s message had traveled far, and Nazareth was not far from the Jordan River. Jesus in prophecy, would be known as a Nazarene and a Galilean. It is so simply stated here that Jesus was baptized of John. The baptizer is not the important thing, the baptism is.

The criticism which transforms our Lord’s part in these events to that of a pupil is far more willful than would be tolerated in dealing with any other record. And it too palpably springs from the need to find some human inspiration for the Word of God, some candle from which the Sun of Righteousness took fire, if one would escape the confession that He is not of this world.

But here we meet a deeper question: Not why Jesus accepted baptism from an inferior, but why, being sinless, He sought for a baptism of repentance. How is this act consistent with absolute and stainless purity?

Now it sometimes lightens a difficulty to find that it is not occasional nor accidental but wrought deep into the plan of a consistent work. And the Gospels are consistent in representing the innocence of Jesus as refusing immunity from the consequences of guilt. He was circumcised, and His mother then paid the offering commanded by the law, although both these actions spoke of defilement. In submitting to the likeness of sinful flesh He submitted to its conditions. He was present at feasts in which national confessions led up to sacrifice, and the sacrificial blood was sprinkled to make atonement for the children of Israel, because of all their sins. When He tasted death itself, which passed upon all men, for that all have sinned, He carried out to the utmost the same stern rule to which at His baptism He consciously submitted. Nor will any theory of His atonement suffice, which is content with believing that His humiliations and sufferings, though inevitable, were only collateral results of contact with our fallen race. Baptism was avoidable, and that without any compromise of His influence, since the Pharisees refused it with impunity, and John would fain have exempted Him. Here at least He was not "entangled in the machinery," but deliberately turned the wheels upon Himself. And this is the more impressive because, in another aspect of affairs, He claimed to be out of the reach of ceremonial defilement, and touched without reluctance disease, leprosy and the dead.

Humiliating and penal consequences of sin, to these He bowed His head. Yet to a confession of personal taint, never. And all the accounts agree that He never was less conscience-stricken than when He shared the baptism of repentance. St. Matthew implies, what St. Luke plainly declares, that He did not come to baptism along with the crowds of penitents, but separately. And at the point where all others made confession, in the hour when even the Baptist, although filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb, had need to be baptized, He only felt the propriety, the fitness of fulfilling all righteousness. That mighty task was not even a yoke to Him, it was an instinct like that of beauty to an artist, it was what became Him.

Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist

Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan

Mark abruptly introduced the Coming One (Mar. 1:7) as Jesus. In contrast with all the people from Judea and Jerusalem (Mar. 1:5), He came to John in the desert region from Nazareth in Galilee. Nazareth was an obscure village never mentioned in the Old Testament, the Talmud, or the writings of Josephus, the well-known first-century Jewish historian. Galilee, about 30 miles wide and 60 miles long, was the populous northernmost region of the three divisions of Palestine: Judea, Samaria, and Galilee.

John baptized Jesus in (eis) the Jordan River (cf. Mark 1:5). The Greek prepositions eis (into, Mark 1:9) and ek (out of, Mark 1:10) suggest baptism by immersion. Jesus’ baptism probably occurred near Jericho. He was about 30 years old at this time (Luke 3:23).

In contrast with all others, Jesus made no confession of sins (cf. Mark 1:5) since He is without sin (cf. John 8:45-46; 2Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 1Jhn. 3:5). Mark did not state why Jesus submitted to John’s baptism; however, three reasons may be suggested: (1) It was an act of obedience, showing that Jesus was in full agreement with God’s overall plan and the role of John’s baptism in it (cf. Mat. 3:15). (2) It was an act of self-identification with the nation of Israel whose heritage and sinful predicament He shared (cf. Isa. 53:12). (3) It was an act of self-dedication to His messianic mission, signifying His official acceptance and entrance into it.