The prophetic herald of God's Judgement had been silenced by imprisonment when Jesus began preaching (l: 9). John the Baptist's work was finished as Jesus began to proclaim the Good News that God had broken into time and human experience to transform the human race and the world. The new age of God's rule in the world was being manifested, as Jesus preached in the place where he had grown up and lived. The time had come for all to turn from evil to God and receive the liberation which God offered to his people. Jesus called to all who heard him to believe (in the sense that this word is used in the letters of the New Testament). To believe in the Good News meant to commit oneself to God and follow his will, trusting that God's truth was being revealed in what Jesus said, did and was.

It has been said that the whole of the New Testament is 'explanation about and interpretation of Mark 1: 14-15, which so tersely summarizes the work of God in Jesus Christ.