The Pulpit Commentary — Luke — Volume 1 — Section 200

from his people's faces every tear shall be wiped away. 1 The miracle thus throws II clear and steady light upon those last things which perplex so many people now.-R. M. E. Vere. 18-35.-The deputation from John. 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 wa.e spread abroad, and made its way to the castle and its keep, where John the Baptist was now Herod's prisoner. 'fhe result is a deputation of two disciples sent by the illustrious prisoner to Jesus. We a.re to study the interview and the subsequent panegyric on John. I. CoNSIDER Jo1IN's DIFFIOULTY. John had preached about a coming One, accord- ing to such prophecies as that of Malachi. He had preached that Jerus 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 (eh. iii. 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 wa.s to be set up, John thought, like all worlJ- 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 a.11 experience when we imagine that a more impressive and decisive method of advancing God's cause might be adopted. Human naturt: ha.s great faith in blows! II. OUR LoRD'B RESPONSE, (Vera. 21-23.) This consisted of: 1. Miracles of 'f'MTCY, All that needed healing in the crowd received it in pre~ence 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 meo. 3. He directed the disciples to report to John what they had seen and heard, with the additional warniug, "Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offtinded in me." His policy wa.s one of love, of disinterestedness; and John wa.s 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 v::indicate itself ia due sea.son, 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 I III. Ills PANEGYRIC UPON JoHN. (Vers. 24-28.) It wa.s 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, hia 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 reecls bow before the breeze and do not break, he insists that John was not like one of these. In other words, he was a ma.o of unflinching integrity, who would break rather than bend before the breeze of opposi- tion. He preferred to be Herod's prisoner in the dungeon rather than his fawning sycophant in the pa.lace. Nor, again, was John a courtier gaily and silkeoly 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 Jobn positively. He was a "prophet." Great honour was it to be recipients e.nJ communicators of revelations. John was charged, like other 01<1 Testament prophets, with messages from God. But he was more-he was theforerunn,r of Messiah. In applying to John the prophecy in .Malachi, Jesus was asserting his own Messiahship a.nd Divinity.• This was a great honour for John to be the immedie.te predecessor of the Lord. Still 1 'Tl,e Ch1mgcil Cross, nnd other Poems: •"The Widow of Ne.in." 1 Cf. Gess's 'Christi-Solbstzcuguiss,' s. 40.  THE aosrr.:r. ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. [en. vu. 1-GO. ---------------------------------- further, cn1r Lorrl R~serts that of woman-born there hns not l1een R greater prophetjban the Ilnpfot. 'l'his is unstintcd prniso. And it is just. When we consider all uhn attempted and the means he had flt hand, when we consider that he attempted the regeneration of his country and asked no miraculous power to accomplish it,-tben he comes before us in moral grandeur exceeding that of the first Elias. 3. He describes him candidly. 'l'he panegyric is judicious. Our Lord declares that, great though John undoubtedly is, he is surpassed by "the least in the kingdom of God." 'l'his may mean that ~he least Christian hns greater in~ii:;ht into the nature of the kingdom than John.· Or 1t may, perhaps, rather mean that he who is ccnsciously the least in the kingdom of God, by whom we must undE>rstand the most advanced spiritually, is greater than John. The insight of a Paul, for instance, who felt hirosolf to be Iese than the least of all saints, was greater than that of John, climax though he was of Old 'l'estarncnt prophecy. Or, finally, may it not mean Jesus Limself, who was the meekest and lowliest in the Kingdom of God. · IV. THE CHARAOTEB OF JoHN's SUCCESS WAS LIKE THAT OF JESUS. (Vers. 29, 30.) The evangelist seems to ad,\ the significant words that it was amona the common people, the publicans and the poor, not among the Pharisees and la~•yers, that he secured his penitents. So that John's revival was really among the humbler classes, where tho 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 bis justice and mercy in forgiving ns for his Son's sake. Luke's observation, then, makes Christ's panegyric a perfect picture. - V. THE TWO ASPECTS OF TRUTH, AND THE G~"ERAL REJECTION OF BOTH. (Vers. 31-35.) Jesus, in these verse$, 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. 'l'hey are t-00 ill-natured to ta.ke part in either. N otbing 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 wa.s on its way. The penitents of John and the joyful disciples of Jesus would yet justify the truth which John and Jerus preached.1 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 declan:d.-R. M. E.