Introduction
The four Gospels depict Jesus as the Lord who came to die and be resurrected “for our salvation,” which is the “heart of the gospel.”[1] Of the four Gospels, Mark’s is the shortest of them. Matthew wrote twenty-eight chapters, Luke twenty-four, and John twenty-one, but the book of Mark only has sixteen chapters, therefore considerably shorter than the other three. The priority of the three synoptic Gospels suggests that Matthew wrote first, then Mark, and then Luke.[2] However, later the Farrer hypothesis indicates that Mark was written before Matthew and Luke, and most scholars tend to approve of the Markan priority.[3]
Another detail to consider is that Mark, also known as John Mark, was not an apostle. Instead, he was Barnabas’s cousin and an assistant or acquaintance of Paul the Apostle. Mark was a close associate of Peter, and Mark likely wrote the Gospel based on Peter’s firsthand encounters with Jesus as his interpreter. This is historically solidified by “One well-known reference is of particular importance: the statement of Papias, who was bishop of HIERAPOLIS in PHRYGIA during the early years of the second century. He is quoted by Eusebius as saying: And the presbyter [John the apostle; see below] used to say this, “Mark became Peter’s interpreter and wrote accurately all that he remembered, not indeed in order of the things said or done by the Lord. For he had not heard the Lord, nor had he followed him, but later on, as I said, followed Peter, who used to give teaching as necessity demanded but not making, as it were, an arrangement of the Lord’s oracles, so that Mark did nothing wrong in writing down single points as he remembered them. For to one thing, he gave attention, to leave out nothing of what he had heard and to make no false statements in them.”[4]
Therefore, it would suffice to say that the Gospel of Mark is historically and Christologically accurate as Mark interprets it from the words of the eyewitness, Peter, to Jesus’s ministry, death, and resurrection.
Jesus, the Son of God: Part One
To attain the fullness of Mark’s portrayal of Jesus, it is necessary to depict the two divisions of Mark’s Gospel. The first part is Jesus’s baptismal and the voice of God. Part two establishes the divine transfiguration of Jesus with the second mention of God’s voice. Part one, The Christological image of Jesus, as seen in Mark, is immediately apparent in the first verse of Mark, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1 English Standard Version). Mark does not appear overly concerned with the details of Jesus’ ancestry, birth, or early life but focuses on the “major episodes of Jesus’s life that prove him to be the Son of God”. The thesis of this paper is that Mark portrays Jesus as the Son of God.
Although Mark wrote the shortest Gospel, it is one of the most descriptive. The Gospel begins with references to Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”. Here, he ensures to correlate the Old Testament with the mentioning of the messenger, John the Baptist, who is to prepare a path for the Lord. By unveiling the prophecies of the Old Testament to be fulfilled by Jesus, he secures His authenticity. This congeals the reader’s understanding of the significance of Jesus’ arrival while fulfilling the promises of God. Mark is unique in his Gospel in that he doesn’t waste any time with the details of Jesus’s genealogy, early life, or even the heavy dialogue with John the Baptist as portrayed in Luke or Matthew. He also neglects the further details of the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness being tempted by the evil one, which is completed in only two short verses, 1:13-14.
However, it is substantial in Marks’s portrayal regarding Jesus’s baptismal that “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. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:10-11). This signifies the author’s intention that validates Jesus as the Son of God and that He is beginning His commitment toward the ultimate sacrifice.
Perhaps it clarifies Jesus’s purpose for demanding silence upon healing or performing exorcisms. However, again Mark used this opportunity to depict the severity of Jesus’s actions of healing and driving out demons. Early in the book of Mark, Jesus called his disciples to follow and began healing. At one point, Jesus healed a desperate leper. Upon restoring his body of leprosy, Jesus sternly told the man, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.”(Mark 1:44). Later, Jesus brought back to life Jairus’s daughter, “And he strictly charged them that no one should know this” (Mark 5:43). And after giving a deaf man the ability to hear, He again charged the witnesses, “to tell no one” (Mark 7:36). Mark detailed Jesus’ silencing of demons in chapter 1:32-34 because “they knew him”. Mark emphasizes that Jesus is the Son of God even through the voices of demons. In chapter 3:11-12, Mark wrote that whenever unclean spirits encountered Jesus, “they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” Again, Mark depicts Jesus as the Son of God while healing a demonic man, “And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” (Mark 5:6-7).
Even more striking is that Jesus demanded that his disciples refrain from speaking of his miracles and the claim that he is the Anointed One. In Mark, Jesus does not refer to himself as the Son of God, Christ, or anything other than the Son of Man, a common phrase meaning human being. However, when Jesus asked, “Who do people say that I am?” And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him” (Mark 8:27-30).
Mark appears to be unfolding that Jesus is not attempting to be secretive in an underground secret society demeanor, as the theory of the messianic secret suggests. Instead, Mark appears to depict Jesus buying as much time as possible. Jesus was sent to complete a divine mission. He understood what would happen to him if too many people or the wrong people got upset for performing miracles and teaching what they considered blasphemy. Although Jesus knew that he would ultimately die, the timing had to be right because He had prophecies and teachings to fulfill before that could happen. Ironically, it was the Pharisees, descendants of God’s chosen people, who were too blind to see the Son of God performing miracles and speaking right before their very eyes. For fear of causing the Romans to perceive an uprising and blatantly denying the idea that a seemingly normal-looking man could be the Son of God, they were rash to denounce Jesus. Jews believed that the Messiah would likely be a soldier and a king, based on the Torah. However, little did they know that God came not as the king, much like David, or a soldier who would save them from Rome but as the Son of God who would direct them to the Kingdom of God.
Jesus, the Son of God: Part Two
Part two of Mark’s Gospel began with the transfiguration of Jesus in chapter nine. Jesus led Peter, James, and John on a mountain where Jesus “was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus (Mark 9:2-4). This was followed by the second time God spoke from above during His transfiguration, telling the three disciples, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” marking part two of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 9:7). The key being that the disciples could audibly hear that God is referring to Jesus as His Son, just as he did at Jesus’ baptismal.
Another exciting detail pointing to the portrayal of Jesus as the Son of God is that approximately one-third of his Gospel is focused on the last week of Jesus’ life on Earth. To stress the weight of that statement, only ten chapters were based on the approximate thirty years of Jesus’s life, while six chapters focused just on the last week of it.[5] In comparison to the other Gospels, Mark appears urgent to reach the cross without omitting the accomplishments of Jesus.[6] This further confirms the impression that Mark’s view of Jesus as the Son of God is potentially the reason for this because, without the resurrection, Jesus could not have been the Son of God.
The entrance into Jerusalem was significant because it marked the beginning of the end of Jesus’ journey from Galilee. It also appears that this is where the story diverges from a state of secrecy (the messianic secret) to openly proclaiming to be the Son of God. First, he is brought in on a colt walking over the cloaks and vegetation in a king-like fashion (Mark 11:1-11). Then in perhaps a state of frustration, He overturned the tables in the temple, declaring, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers” (Mark11:15-17). Using the term “My house” refers to the temple clearly implies that He was referring to himself as the Son of God.
Mark continues to focus on the parables that Jesus used. In the Parable of the Tenants in Mark 12:1-11 Jesus manages to avoid arrest after using a parable referring to the Son of the vineyard owner (God) being killed. Although some of the scriptures do not expressly state that Jesus is the Son of God, it is clearly indicated that Mark portrays Him as such throughout his Gospel. He is again indirectly referred to as the Son of God in verse 13:32, “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
The Last Supper was one of the most significant moments in Jesus’ worldly duration among his disciples. Jesus broke bread and served them the wine, of course, referring to the bread as His body and the wine as His blood (Mark 14:23-25). Only the Son of God could be the body and blood from which they all partook. He obliquely told them of His impending death and resurrection through mysterious messages of Peter’s denial and the betrayal of Judas Iscariot. After the meal, Mark portrays Jesus as deeply troubled because Jesus is well aware of the suffering that will soon occur.
Upon His arrest, he is confronted in chapter fourteen by the high priest at the council, where many false witnesses testified as to why Jesus should be condemned. Here, Mark includes one of the most striking pieces of evidence of his Christological impression: “Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” (Mark 14:61-62). Mark is the only of the four Gospels in which Jesus assertively affirms his role as the Son of God during his questioning by Caiaphas.
After being sentenced to be crucified, Jesus suffers greatly through the torturous beatings, lashings, and finally, being nailed to a cross. Mark finally reaches the point of his Gospel that will become a crucial testimony of Jesus’s suffering so that we may have salvation. However, he also uses it to emphasize his image of Christ. While Jesus hung by nails on the cross, He “uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 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!” (Mark 15:37-39). Mark wrote the fourteen verses of chapter sixteen to proclaim Jesus’s resurrection, as seen by the eleven disciples. Though bloody and excruciatingly painful, the death and resurrection ultimately proved that he is indeed the Son of God.
Mark’s five particularly revealing statements indicate his Christological image of Jesus as the Son of God. The first was noted in the first verse of chapter one of Mark, which ultimately confirms it. The second and third, Jesus, is referred to by unclean spirits as the “Son of God” and the “Son of the Most High God” 3:11 and 5:7, respectively. The most notable instance comes from Jesus himself when he admits to the High Priest that he is indeed the “Son of the Blessed.” Lastly, in 15:39, the Centurion, a Roman, believes Jesus to be the “Son of God” at the very moment that Jesus took his last breath.
[1] Elwell Robert W. and Yarbrough, Walter A. Encountering the New Testament: A Historical and Theological Survey, Third Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013. 54.
[2] Stacy, Dr. Robert Wayne. “The Synoptic Problem.” Video lecture in NBST 515. Lynchburg, VA: Liberty university, Accessed March 1, 2023.
[4] Elwell Robert W. and Yarbrough, Walter A. Encountering the New Testament: A Historical and Theological Survey, Third Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013. 74.
[5] Elwell Robert W. and Yarbrough, Walter A. Encountering the New Testament: A Historical and Theological Survey, Third Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013. 79.
[6] Stacy, Dr. Robert Wayne. “My Favorite Gospel.” Video lecture in NBST 515. Lynchburg, VA: Liberty University, March 3, 2023.