With this message we begin a series of supplementary messages to the Life-study of the Gospel of Mark. These messages will be concerned with the life of the Slave-Savior as a life that is fully according to and for God’s New Testament economy.
In the Gospel of Mark we see a Person, the God-man, who lived a life that was fully according to and for God’s New Testament economy. If we would understand this life, we need to know what God’s New Testament economy is. In other words, it takes the entire New Testament to explain the life the Lord Jesus lived. This means that it takes all the other twenty-six books of the New Testament to define the Gospel of Mark. If we make a thorough study of the New Testament with respect to God’s economy, we shall see that there is no defect, deficiency, or shortcoming in the life of the Lord Jesus. The life He lived was absolutely according to and for God’s economy. In His life there is nothing contrary to this economy.
Although we may love the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Matthew, in these Gospels we do not have a complete biography of the Lord’s life. This complete biography, presented in its historical sequence, is found in Mark. In this Gospel we have a complete record of a life, the life of the Lord Jesus, that is according to and for God’s New Testament economy. In this life there is no deficiency with respect to God’s economy.
Mark is the base of Matthew, John, and even Luke, because Mark is a biography of the life of the Lord Jesus arranged according to historical sequence. If we want to understand a certain matter in the other Gospels, we need to come back to the Gospel of Mark.
At this point I would like to call your attention to the chart printed with this message. In this chart we can see how in the Gospel of Mark the record of the Lord’s life progresses step by step until we come to the highlight. Then we are brought into the Lord’s all-inclusive death and wonderful resurrection so that we may enjoy Him as our replacement. The result of taking Christ as our replacement is the new man. The new man is the reality of the kingdom of God, which issues first in the church, then in the millennium, and ultimately in the New Jerusalem.
Although the Gospel of Mark is short, it is all-inclusive. It contains all the factors of the New Testament. These factors are elements of the life of the Slave-Savior, a life fully according to and for God’s New Testament economy.
As the One who lived according to and for God’s New Testament economy, the Lord Jesus lived in a new dispensation, having the old dispensation terminated. This is clearly revealed and portrayed in chapter one (1:1-8). John the Baptist was born a typical Old Testament priest, yet he lived in the wilderness in a way that was uncultured. His appearance and his food were very different from that of the priests. John’s work and his way of speaking were also uncultured. Whenever a person repented, John put that one into the water, baptizing him. All this was an indication that the old dispensation had been terminated. This was the situation and atmosphere when the Lord Jesus began His ministry. This indicates that His ministry was fully in the New Testament dispensation. Therefore, with His life we cannot find anything of the old dispensation.
When the Lord Jesus was about to begin His ministry, He had Himself buried, baptized, by John the Baptist (1:9-11). He had no sin or oldness, yet He was still baptized. His baptism was a testimony to the universe that He rejected Himself, that He put Himself aside in order to live by God.