God Has Returned
Mark’s high Christology of the returning YHWH
The Gospel of Mark has been traditionally seen by scholarship to portray a human Jesus (a low Christology). The Gospel of John is often contrasted with it as it portrays a divine Jesus (a high Christology). Along with the other two gospels, we get four distinct voices on how to interpret Jesus theologically. Now of course, this is not a problem because Christian theology has always acknowledged all these voices as equally valid. However, sometimes the low Christology of Mark is over stressed, and we miss the high Christology within it. Let’s reflect on the opening of Mark and see what we can learn.
Mark 1.1–4, 7–11 (NRSV)
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins…. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
The Gospel of Mark opens with prophecies about Jesus from Isaiah and Malachi. It is rare for Mark to quote the Old Testament, so it’s important to investigate what’s going on here. To understand Mark’s view, we need to see how he transforms the meaning of these passages. A cursory look at the prophecies quoted tell us that God will send a messenger to prepare the people for the coming of the Lord. It is clear from the narrative that the messenger whose voice cries out from the wilderness is John the baptizer. He comes from the wilderness telling the people to repent of their sins. But he is not the coming of the Lord — John tells us that the one coming after him is greater than he. Then we are introduced to Jesus. Is Mark implying that Jesus is the Lord? And what does he mean by that? We can now approach the fuller Old Testament context with these questions in mind.
Malachi 2.17 — 3.4 (NRSV)
You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “All who do evil are good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?” See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight — indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.
Malachi is an interesting book because in it God tells us in the first chapter that He is so disgusted with the offerings of the priests and the hearts of the people that He is cutting off communication with them. He tells them in 1.10 that He would no longer accept offerings and wishes for the temple doors to be shut. However, He promises that He will return to them one day and purify the priests so that they would offer pleasing offerings to Him. Mark’s quote comes from 3.1, and God is telling His people that He will one day return to them. As we established before, the messenger is John the baptizer, and the one being prepared for is Jesus. This means then that Mark sees Jesus as the God who returns to His people. This is an extremely high Christology — Mark is directly identifying Jesus as YHWH. So who are the purified descendants of Levi (the priests), and what are the pleasing offerings? The answer to both is those who follow Christ and are renewed in the resurrection. Peter tells us in 1 Peter 2.4–5: “Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Clearly he is drawing on the language of Malachi and says those in Christ are the holy/purified priesthood who offer spiritual sacrifices that are pleasing to God. Paul tells us in Romans 12.1 what these sacrifices are: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Our bodies, our selves, our being is the sacrifice we offer to God. Mark, along with these other early Christian authors, is identifying Jesus as YHWH who returns and purifies His people.
Isaiah 40.1–5 (NRSV)
Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Isaiah 40 is a hymn to the supremacy of God over false gods. It begins with telling God’s people their sins have been paid, that He is coming to them, and that His glory is going to be revealed. Then it goes into a song praising God for his knowledge, power, and supremacy over the false gods of the nations. The passage tells us that God is coming to His people after the way has been prepared for Him. Once again, we can see that Mark is directly identifying Jesus as YHWH. When Mark reads this passage, he sees the hymn to be about Jesus as the one supreme over the false gods. The revealing of His glory is explained in John 1.14: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” In Hebrews 1.3 the author tells us “He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word.” God’s glory is revealed in the Incarnation of Christ. We see again the extremely high Christology that Mark subtly displays.
Looking at these prophecies, we can see that Mark has a subtle, yet high, Christology. He identifies Jesus as YHWH — the God of the Old Testament — who is returning to His people to purify them. He is supreme over the false gods, and reveals His glory to us. This is not to imply any form of modalism — Jesus is the second person of the Trinity. I cannot get into here, but this returning YHWH theology has been expounded in great detail by theologians like N.T. Wright. Not only do we see this theology found in Mark, but also spattered around the rest of the New Testament. In unity with the rest of the early Christian communities, Mark has both a low and high Christology and worships Jesus Christ as Lord God.
