There is something about the baptism of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel that I keep returning to. Jesus comes from Nazareth, is baptised by John in the Jordan, and as He comes up out of the water, the heavens part, the Spirit descends upon Him like a dove, and the Father’s voice is heard.

“You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:11, NKJV)

I’ve been thinking about those two words, You are. Before Jesus has performed a miracle in Mark’s account, before He has gathered His disciples or the crowds have followed Him, the Father declares who He is. Of course, Jesus doesn’t become the Son of God at the Jordan. He is the eternal Son, the Word who was with God and was God, as John tells us in the opening of his Gospel. What is eternally true is now declared within human history. The Word has become flesh, and immediately the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness.

The proving ground

Mark 1:13 tells us that Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan. I’ve always been interested in the language Scripture uses, particularly when a familiar English translation can lead us to concentrate on only one aspect of a word. The Greek word translated tempted comes from peirazō. It can mean to tempt, to test, to try, or to put something to the proof. It is that last sense, to make proof of, that has captured my attention.

God already knows who Jesus is. The Father has just declared it. Jesus knows His Father and is secure in that relationship. Nothing in the wilderness can change the eternal truth of His Sonship. So what is being proved? I believe the wilderness provides testimony. What has been declared is demonstrated in the realities of human experience. The Father has spoken, the Spirit has led, and the Son, living in a body of flesh, stands firm.

The proof doesn’t produce the truth. It bears witness to the truth.

When we read Matthew’s account alongside Mark’s, we see Jesus responding to the adversary through the written Scriptures. There is something beautiful in that. The Living Word, secure in the Father’s spoken Word, stands upon the written Word. Jesus is the Word made flesh. The Father has declared His identity, and in the wilderness Jesus demonstrates the reliability of God’s Word through His obedience. This isn’t God conducting an experiment to discover the outcome. It is the eternal truth of the Son being made visible within time.

Faith begins with God

This has made me think about the way we sometimes talk about faith. We can describe it as though it is something we gradually build up by collecting enough evidence that God can be trusted. But biblical faith begins with God. Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. In John 1:12–13, those who receive Christ and believe in His name are described as being born of God, rather than through human ancestry or human willing. Peter speaks about being born again through the incorruptible seed of the living and abiding Word of God (1 Peter 1:23).

The new creation is God’s work. We cannot manufacture spiritual life through human effort; the life we receive in Christ originates in God’s grace. That doesn’t mean faith remains static. The faith through which we receive Christ is the faith through which we continue to live, grow and trust Him. Its source remains God.

What the testing reveals

Peter writes about the genuineness of faith being tested by fire in 1 Peter 1:6–7. Read that within the whole passage and you see the faithfulness of God across time. Peter begins with what God has already done: in His mercy, He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He then speaks of what God is doing: keeping us by His power through faith. And he points towards what God will do: the salvation ready to be revealed and the inheritance reserved for us. Past, present and future all rest upon the faithfulness of God.

Right in the middle of that assurance, Peter speaks about trials. I don’t read that as God needing to discover whether we’re good enough children. The Father knows His children. The proving ground is where the genuineness of faith becomes evident and where we experience the reliability of what God has said. We discover, sometimes through very difficult circumstances, that the God who has acted on our behalf continues to sustain us and will remain faithful to His promises.

That doesn’t mean every trial is easy to understand. Some experiences leave us with questions that remain unanswered for years. But faith is grounded in the One who has spoken, rather than in our ability to explain everything happening around us. Hebrews 11:1 describes faith as the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. The reality of God’s promise does not begin when we finally see its fulfilment. The testing of faith doesn’t make God trustworthy; it gives us the opportunity to experience the trustworthiness of the God who was already faithful.

From the wilderness to the cross

Follow Jesus beyond the wilderness. He walks among ordinary people. He experiences hunger and tiredness, encounters grief, rejection and suffering, and knows what it is to be misunderstood. He knows the demands of obedience when obedience is costly. Eventually we find Him in Gethsemane.

“Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.” (Mark 14:36, NKJV)

I find those words extraordinary. The eternal Son, having become flesh, expresses complete trust in His Father through the realities of human suffering. His relationship with the Father has not changed. The same Son who heard the Father’s declaration at the Jordan is now facing the cross, and He remains faithful. I believe the greatest demonstration of human faithfulness is found here: the Son of God, living a genuinely human life, trusting and obeying His Father all the way to death. His certainty about His Father is the foundation of that faithfulness.

Philippians 2:8 tells us that He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Hebrews 5:8 tells us that although He was a Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered. This describes obedience lived and experienced through suffering, not a movement from disobedience into obedience. The eternal Son lived out His faithfulness in time. The wilderness was a proving ground. The cross was the ultimate expression of His obedience, and far more than a demonstration. Through His death and resurrection, Christ accomplished the redemption we could never accomplish for ourselves.

He has walked a yard in our shoes

Hebrews 4:15 tells us that we have a High Priest who can sympathise with our weaknesses, who was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 2:17–18 tells us that He was made like His brethren and that, having suffered when tested, He is able to help those who are tested. That brings me to an expression I often use when talking about understanding people: walk a yard in their shoes.

We often hear people say we should walk a mile in someone else’s shoes before judging them. I’ve always thought that even a yard would change some of our attitudes. Once you’ve stepped into someone else’s circumstances, even briefly, you begin to recognise things you couldn’t see from a distance. But Jesus went considerably further. He entered our humanity. The eternal Word became flesh. He experienced life from within the human condition, while remaining fully God.

He was anointed by the Holy Spirit, lived in intimate relationship with the Father, and walked through the experiences that make up our human lives. He knows weakness without having sinned, suffering without surrendering His obedience, and testing because He has endured it. Now He is our great High Priest. When we come to Him with our struggles, questions, failures and fears, we come to Someone who understands. He understands through divine knowledge, and He also knows what it is to live a genuinely human life.

He has walked a yard in our shoes. In fact, He has walked the whole road.

The security of knowing whose we are

At the Jordan, the Father declares who Jesus is. Throughout John’s Gospel, Jesus reveals who He is: the bread of life, the light of the world, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way, the truth and the life. His works flow from His identity. And through Him, we are invited into a relationship with the Father.

John 1:12 tells us that those who receive Christ and believe in His name are given the right to become children of God. Romans 8:15 tells us that we have received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.” That is the same intimate address Jesus uses in Gethsemane. His Sonship is eternal and unique; ours is received through Him by grace. But the relationship is real, and so is the security that comes from belonging to the Father.

Our past doesn’t have the final authority to define us. Our circumstances don’t have the authority to rewrite what God has declared. And difficult seasons don’t mean God has abandoned His children. Sometimes those seasons become the places where we experience His faithfulness most deeply. I think of how often we allow our identity to be shaped by what we’ve done, what we’ve experienced, what others have said about us, or what we’ve come to believe about ourselves. The Christian life begins with what God has done in Christ. We receive a new identity, and we learn to live from it.

Identity before activity.

The faith that begins with God’s gracious initiative continues to grow as we discover, through life itself, that His Word can be relied upon. We have the greatest testimony of all in Jesus Christ: the Living Word, the beloved Son, the One who lived in the Father’s hands, empowered by the Spirit, in a body of flesh. The One who was tested, suffered, obeyed, died and rose again. The One who knows what it means to be human. The One who has walked a yard in our shoes.

Because of Him, we can approach the throne of grace with confidence, knowing we will find mercy and grace to help in our time of need (Hebrews 4:16). The Father has spoken. The Son has demonstrated His faithfulness. The Spirit bears witness. We are invited to live in the security of what God has already done, what He is doing, and what He has promised yet to do.

If this reflection has encouraged you, please share it with someone who might benefit from it. You can explore more of my writing on this blog, including books and resources about faith, recovery, identity and the transforming grace of God.