Mark 1:1 (ESV)
1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
The word gospel in Greek simply means “good news”, not the formal 4 letters about Jesus that we think of today. In the Greco-Roman culture of Mark’s day this word was regularly used to report victory from the battlefield. Also, in 9 BC the birthday of Caesar Augustus was hailed as “good news for the world”.
Although interesting and certainly relevant to how Mark’s readers would understand his use of the term this is not his primary reference for its use. Since he is going to quote Isaiah in v. 3 his primary reference is most likely the book of Isaiah, indicating that he views this story of Jesus as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s Messianic prophecies. (see Isaiah 52:7 and all of ch. 52 and 53) These 2 chapters in Isaiah are the most descriptive OT passages to the suffering servant Messiah.
Isaiah 52:7 (ESV)
7 How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,
who publishes salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
So we must be careful when we hear these interesting facts from the Greco-Roman culture and try to make them the primary reference for the New Testament authors use of a word. This will come into play a great deal when you read John‘s writings and the epistles and can lead to a lot of misunderstandings (ie. Gnosticism and Spiritualism) if taken too far. The question is, what is the best reference for the authors use of the term? In most cases if there is an OT reference for it, this is likely the preferred option. So here Mark is not subtly saying that Jesus is a greater conquering king than Caesar, although true, he is pointing to this Isaiah text to say that the good news about Jesus is the kingdom of God coming and his suffering and death that will prove him to be the messiah foretold in Isaiah 52 and 53.
So Mark begins his letter by saying that the events he is about to describe are the continuation of an old story--the story which began in the Old Testament through God’s work in the people of Israel. Jesus is the one foretold in Isaiah who brings good news and is good news. He’s the Christ, which is not Jesus’ last name, but the Greek translation of the Hebrew, “messiah”. The one whom the Jewish people have been waiting with great expectation for centuries. And he is the Son of God (we will explore Mark’s use of “Son of God” in later devotionals) So to more fully understand the ministry and life of Jesus we must understand the history of the people of Israel as described in the Old Testament, which we will reference throughout the gospel.
He is going to use it again in v. 14 while speaking in the synagogue to inaugurate his ministry. So we will be back to this topic on Thursday.