Mark 1:8,9 - He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit

1:8

“I have baptised you with water, but He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit”. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit was associated with the coming of the Messiah in the Old Testament (Joel 2:28,29; Is 32:15, 44:3; Ezek 39:29), and in Acts we read of the “promised Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:33). There is a way in which we also need to understand this. We may preach and teach, but we need to recognise that it is the Holy Spirit who opens a man’s eyes to see the truth, it is the Holy Spirit who can change a man. We have an important role to play, we are meant to live and preach the word of God, but it is only God who can truly change people. If we understand our role aright then we will do our task properly. However, if we start thinking that it is us, our words, that change a man we will quickly fall into error. We may become manipulative as we try to change people with our eloquence or wisdom. It is the Holy Spirit who convicts, not us.

1:9

Nazareth was a village in Galilee, possibly with about five hundred residents. Matthew gives a much longer description of the baptism of Jesus (Matt 3:13-17), Mark simply states that Jesus was baptised by John. Imagine what it would have been like for people hearing this for the first time. They have just heard (v4) that John was “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”. Now Jesus Himself gets baptised by John. If we knew nothing else then the clear implication is that Jesus is a sinner like the rest of us! The following two verses make it clear that this is not the case, and we know from Matthew’s account that John was fully aware of the apparent absurdity of Jesus being baptised. Jesus was fully identifying with the human race.