Luke 7:18-35 And the disciples of John showed him of all these things. Jesus pursued a policy of mercy and of salvation. He healed all who asked for healing or were brought to him; he raised the dead; he was a Philanthropist rather than a Judge. The fame of his miracles was spread abroad, and made its way to the castle and its keep, where John the Baptist was now Herod's prisoner. The result is a deputation of two disciples sent by the illustrious prisoner to Jesus. We are to study the interview and the subsequent panegyric on John. I. CONSIDER JOHN'S DIFFICULTY. John had preached about a coming One, according to such prophecies as that of Malachi. He had preached that Jesus was coming to judgment. His fan was to be in his hand; he was throughly to purge his floor; he was to gather the wheat into his garner; and he was to burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire (Luke 3:17). And in the spirit of the Old Testament, which was largely a dispensation of judgment, John looked for Messiah to be mainly a Messiah of judgment. The kingdom of Messiah was to be set up, John thought, like all world-kingdoms, by "the thunder of the captains and the shouting," by some remarkable series of judgments; but now that Jesus is devoting himself to philanthropy pure and simple, John thinks that perhaps another messenger is to be looked for, who will make judgment his role. John's difficulty is what we all experience when we imagine that a more impressive and decisive method of advancing God's cause might be adopted. Human nature has great faith in blows! II. OUR LORD'S RESPONSE. (Vers. 21-23.) This consisted of: 1. Miracles of mercy. All that needed healing in the crowd received it in presence of John's disciples. He cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and many blind ones received their sight. The Healer was there; philanthropy was in full swing. 2. He preached the gospel to the poor. He backed up the miracles by a message; he made his mercies to the body the texts from which he preached deliverance to the souls of men. 3. He directed the disciples to report to John what they had seem and heard, with the additional warning, "Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me." His policy was one of love, of disinterestedness; and John was to study it more thoroughly and come to a better conclusion. We thus learn that the best defence of a suspected work is the patient performance of it. It will vindicate itself in due season, if it be good and genuine. Christ came not to wade through seas of blood to a temporal throne, but by persevering love to win men's hearts and rule over their lives from within! III. HIS PANEGYRIC UPON JOHN. (Vers. 24-28.) It was after the deputation had departed that Jesus pronounced John's panegyric. Most people would have pronounced it in their hearing, that they might carry it to John; but Jesus says the good and noble things behind John's back, having given all the warning he needed before, so to speak, his face. It partakes, as Godet remarks, of the nature of a funeral oration. Like Jesus himself, John is anointed with considerate praise before his burial. And here we have to notice the order of the panegyric. 1. Christ describes John negatively. Borrowing his simile from the desert, where the reeds bow before the breeze and do not break, he insists that John was not like one of these. In other words, he was a man of unflinching integrity, who would break rather than bend before the breeze of opposition. He preferred to be Herod's prisoner in the dungeon rather than his fawning sycophant in the palace. Nor, again, was John a courtier gaily and silkenly clad. The Camel's hair garment was a perpetual protest in the castle, before he was thrust down into the dungeon, against the effeminacy of the court. If he had come to be "court preacher" to Herod, he had come to be one in earnest. 2. He describes John positively. He was a "prophet." Great honour was it to be recipients and communicators of revelations. John was charged, like other Old Testament prophets, with messages from God. But he was more - he was the forerunner of Messiah. In applying to John the prophecy in Malachi, Jesus was asserting his own Messiahship and Divinity. This was a great honour for John to be the immediate predecessor of the Lord. Still further, our Lord asserts that of woman-born there has not been a greater prophet than the Baptist. This is unstinted praise. And it is just. When we consider all John attempted and the means he had at hand, when we consider that he attempted the regeneration of his country and asked no miraculous power to accomplish it, - then he comes before us in moral grandeur exceeding that of the first Elias. 3. He describes him candidly. The panegyric is judicious. Our Lord declares that, great though John undoubtedly is, he is surpassed by "the least in the kingdom of God." This may mean that the least Christian has greater insight into the nature of the kingdom than John. Or it may, perhaps, rather mean that he who is consciously the least in the kingdom of God, by whom we must understand the most advanced spiritually, is greater than John. The insight of a Paul, for instance, who felt himself to be less than the least of all saints, was greater than that of John, climax though he was of Old Testament prophecy. Or, final]y, may it not mean Jesus himself, who was the meekest and lowliest in the Kingdom of God. IV. THE CHARACTER OF JOHN'S SUCCESS WAS LIKE THAT OF JESUS. (Vers. 29, 30.) The evangelist seems to add the significant words that it was among the common people, the publicans and the poor, not among the Pharisees and lawyers, that he secured his penitents. So that John's revival was really among the humbler classes, where the work of Jesus was being now wisely prosecuted. The self-righteous rejected John's appeal for repentance; the common people and the publicans embraced it, and "justified God" by repenting before him. For we must acknowledge God's perfect justice in condemning us for our sins, before we can appreciate his justice and mercy in forgiving us for his Son's sake. Luke's observation, then, makes Christ's panegyric a perfect picture. V. THE TWO ASPECTS OF TRUTH, AND THE GENERAL REJECTION OF BOTH, (Vers. 31-35.) Jesus, in these verses, contrasts John's ministry with his own. Little children at play sometimes find their fellows utterly intractable. Tried by a funeral, they will not join in the mournful procession; tried by a marriage, they will not join in the bridal party. They are too ill-natured to take part in either. Nothing pleases them. So was it with the Pharisees in their attitude to the preaching of John and to the preaching of Jesus. John presented the truth in its severe and mournful aspects. He was unsocial, to lead men to a sense of sin and to repent of it. But the Pharisees would not believe the self-denying preacher from the desert. Jesus presented the truth in all its winsomeness and attractiveness; but they found as much fault with Jesus as they did with John. John had a devil, and Jesus was a glutton and a wine-bibber. Neither could please these prim, self-satisfied ones. But the vindication of wisdom was on its way. The penitents of John and the joyful disciples of Jesus would yet justify the truth which John and Jesus preached. The Pharisees might reject both missions, but the common people who received them justified the truth in both by lives and conversations becoming the gospel. We may in the same way leave our work with confidence to the verdict of the future, if we feel that it is true. Opposition from a self-righteous party is itself a vindication of the truth which we have embodied or declared. - R.M.E. Parallel Verses KJV: And the disciples of John shewed him of all these things. |
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