We now come to Part 8 in my series on how the New Testament writers use the Old Testament. In my last post, I looked at the opening verses of the Gospel of Mark. In this post, though, I’m going to look at Mark’s account regarding John the Baptist’s baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. Now, Jesus’ baptism is recorded in all four Gospels, so there will obviously be quite a bit of overlap, but for our purposes, I’m simply going to be focusing on Mark’s account.
John the Baptist: Who Is This Guy?
Anyone who knows anything about the Gospels, knows that John the Baptist is identified with Elijah the prophet. To be clear, John the Baptist was not literally Elijah. Rather, his prophetic function as a forerunner to the coming of the Messiah and the Day of the Lord caused the Gospel writers to portray him as an Elijah-figure, as was prophesied in Malachi 3:1-3 and 4:5. That is precisely what Mark does here at the beginning of his Gospel (Mark 1:4-8). The odd thing about Mark’s description of John the Baptist as an Elijah-figure is that although the wearing of camel’s hair can be linked to how Elijah is described in II Kings 1:8, there simply is nothing in the Old Testament that mentions Elijah ate locusts and wild honey. Peter Leithart wrote an article a number of years ago in which he argued that since locusts are often associated with Gentile armies invading the Promised Land, and since honey is often associated with the fruitfulness of the Promised Land (i.e. a land flowing with milk and honey), that John the Baptist’s eating of “locusts and wild honey” was reflective of his role in redemptive history, where Gentiles would be incorporated into God’s Kingdom.
Two other things need to be mentioned about Mark’s initial description of John the Baptist in Mark 1:4-8 that provide further backdrop on the entire scene. First, we are told that John began his ministry in the wilderness. Some have speculated that John the Baptist might have originally been associated with the Essenes in the Qumran community. Whereas I think that perhaps is possible, I think we would be remiss if we failed to see the symbolic importance of the wilderness. As we saw in my last post, mention of being out in the wilderness should automatically bring up associations to the Exodus. Not only that, but as we see in passages like Isaiah 40, the return from the Babylonian Exile was described in that very Exodus language. Simply put, the return from Exile was seen as a New Exodus.
Secondly, there is the fact that John baptized in the Jordan River is another important point. At the end of the Exodus and wilderness wanderings, that began with the passing through the Red Sea, the Israelites had another Red Sea type of experience as they crossed over into the Promised Land when the waters of the Jordan River were rolled back and they passed through the Jordan River on dry land. Hence, the entire Exodus story began and ended with a sort of baptism of the people of Israel. And so, when John the Baptist shows up in the wilderness and he starts calling people to come down to the waters of the Jordan River, he is re-enacting the entrance into the Promised Land under Joshua. By prophetically re-enacting the crossing of the Jordan River into the Promised Land, he was signaling that the end of the Exile, the conclusion to the New Exodus, was at hand.
Jesus, the New Joshua…and the Exodus and Exile
The fact that it was Joshua who led the Israelites across the Jordan River and into the Promised Land, and that in Hebrew and Greek the name Joshua is the same as Jesus—and then Jesus shows up in Mark 1:9-11 to get baptized in the Jordan River—well, that just puts all this into an ever greater perspective, doesn’t it? Jesus is the new Joshua who will lead God’s people into the Promised Land.
In any case, as isn’t really surprising, Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism goes even further in its Old Testament allusions that simply allusions to the Exodus and Joshua. Now, when you read Mark’s account, he gets right to the baptism: Jesus comes from Nazareth in Galilee and gets baptized. What happens immediately after Jesus’ baptism is where the plethora of quotes and allusions come into play.
The first thing Mark tells us is that immediately (or straightaway, as in εὐθέως—see my previous post), the heavens were torn apart and the Spirit came down to him like a dove. Now, none of the other three Gospels, although they mention the Spirit coming down, described the heavens as being “torn apart.” They simply state that the heavens were “opened.” Mark’s description is considerably more violent. The reason why can be that Mark is alluding to Isaiah 64:1.
That part of Isaiah particularly Isaiah 56-66, is generally agreed by scholars who have been written after the return from the Exile. The Jews had returned to the land but had not experienced the return of God’s Spirit among them. In Isaiah 63:7-19, the writer is thinking back to the time of the Exodus, when YHWH led the people of Israel through the Red Sea, through the wilderness, and sent His Spirit to dwell in the midst of them. With that in mind, he launches into a prayer that God would once again have mercy on them and send His Spirit to dwell within their midst. In the middle of that prayer, in Isaiah 64:1, he says, “Oh that you would tear apart the heavens and come down!”
Given that the opening in Mark’s Gospel is replete with allusions and references to both the Exodus and the return from Exile, it really isn’t that much of a stretch to see his description of the “heavens being torn apart” as an allusion to Isaiah 64:1, where the author, having returned from the Exile, is thinking back to the Exodus and is praying that God once again sends down His Spirit to be in the midst of His people. Simply put, it seems that Mark is essentially saying, “You know all those Jewish hopes that God would once again send His Messiah and let His Spirit dwell among His people again? It began to happen with Jesus’ baptism!”
The Spirit and the New Creation
Oh, but there’s more! The fact that the Spirit is described to come down “like a dove” also has deep resonances throughout the Old Testament. Here, the picture is of the Spirit, like a dove, coming down from heaven over the waters. Where else does the Spirit of God hover over the waters? If you said, “The first verses in the creation account in Genesis 1:1-2,” you’d be correct! When God’s Spirit goes back and forth over the waters, some sort of creation is going be happening. In addition to it happening in Genesis 1, there is the imagery of Noah sending out a dove to go back and forth over the waters in Genesis 8:8-12 to find new land. With the flood, God wipes the slate clean so to speak, and takes everything back to the original waters of chaos of Genesis 1:1-2. Therefore, what Noah’s dove eventually finds is a new creation.
And so, here in Mark, the image of the Spirit coming down like a dove upon Jesus as he comes up out of the waters serves as a declaration that Jesus’ baptism doesn’t just signal the ultimate end of the Exile and the New Exodus, but it also signals the beginning of God’s new creation. I cannot stress this enough: all throughout the entire New Testament, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is replete with Exodus language, Return from Exile language, and New Creation language.
Jesus: The Son, the Beloved, the Messiah, and the Servant
Finally, we have the declaration of the voice from heaven: “You are my son, the Beloved One! With you I am well-pleased!” This declaration basically is a compilation of three different Old Testament verses. First, there is Genesis 22:2, where God tells Abraham (according to the Septuagint) to “take your son, the beloved one whom you love” and to sacrifice him. Then there is Psalm 2:7, a royal psalm that celebrates the enthronement of a new king of Israel. It says, “You are my son, today I have begotten you!” And finally, there is Isaiah 42:1, one of the “Servant Songs” in the second part of Isaiah, whose focus is on calling the remnant of the Jews out from the Babylonian Exile. Referring to the remnant as His Servant, YHWH says, “Here is My servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one, in whom My soul is well-pleased!”
What Mark has done here within one verse is to draw together three key allusions: (1) to Isaac as the “beloved one” who is offered to God as a sacrifice, but who is rescued, (2) to the anointed king (i.e. Messiah) of Israel who is God’s son, and (3) to the refined and redeemed remnant of Israel who will be God’s light to the nations. By doing so, Mark is making the claim that all of it is fulfilled in Jesus: Jesus is the ultimate Beloved One; Jesus is the Messiah and God’s Son; and Jesus is ultimate Servant of God who embodies the refined and redeemed remnant of Israel.
Conclusion
There you have it. Within the first eleven verses of his Gospel, Mark throws up a Mosaic of Old Testament allusions and images that provide the matrix and framework with which he wants us to understand the Gospel of Jesus. The over-arching narratives are that of the New Exodus, the Return from Exile, and the New Creation. The images are that of John the Baptist as Elijah, and Jesus as the new Joshua, God’s Beloved Son, the King of Israel, and the Servant of YHWH.
Well done, but you missed your chance to say “mosaic of Mosaic allusions,” so I will.