Up to the end of chapter 6, the Lord is still within the precincts of Israel, though undoubtedly there are principles of grace which intimate much more—the outgoing of divine mercy toward every soul of man. Yet until the end of that chapter the Lord does not actually go beyond the godly Jews now associated with Himself, and in mission too, as the apostles. If He gathers, He sends out from Himself to gather unto Himself: and their moral traits which distinguished them from the nation, are laid down with great emphasis and direct personal application to the close of that chapter. Then we have a Gentile's faith, who owns Christ's divine supremacy over all things, whether even disease or distance here below. Nothing could be too great for Him. Jesus, the day after, proves His power over death. Most truly man, He is nevertheless above nature, so to speak, and that which sin had brought in as God's judgment on the race. Clearly therefore in all this we have what goes beyond Israel as such; and expressly so in the case of the Gentile centurion's servant.
This, accordingly, brings in deeper things. John's disciples reported all these things to their master, who calls two of his disciples and sends them to Jesus, questioning whether He were “he that should come, or look we for another?” The Lord, in the same hour that they stated their errand, cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits, and unto many that were blind He gave sight. And then He “answering said unto them, Go your way and tell John what things ye have seen and heard: how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached; and blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.” It was a solemn answer, and should have been a very touching reproof to John. Here was One that sought not His own glory, yet He could not but point to that which God was doing, for God was with Him. He “went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with birth” God meant this for a witness. But was it not sad and humbling that be who was raised up specially to render witness to Jesus should require witness from Jesus? And Jesus, in the overflowing of His grace, gives witness not only to what God was doing by Himself, but to John also. Thus no flesh glories in His presence. He that glories must glory in the Lord. John himself failed completely in the object for which he had been sent, at least at this crisis. None can bear utter rejection but the Spirit of Christ; nothing else can go through it undimmed, unstained. Christ is not only the great doer, but greatest sufferer; and John did not look for this. He had known what fidelity of witness was in an evil world: but the testifying of the Messiah that He should be a sufferer, and consequently his own share of it as His herald in prison, seem to have been too much for his faith or that of his disciples. He needed at the very least to be confirmed; he needed to have proof positive that Jesus was the predicted Messiah, for himself or for others. We have seen the answer given him by our Lord.
Observe here that there was no point more remarkable in the ordinary ministry of Jesus, than His care for the poor. To the poor the gospel was preached. His concern about them was the very reverse of all that was found among men before. If others had cared for the poor, it was but the working of His Spirit in them, and nothing characteristic; in Jesus' case it was opening out His heart if possible, with greater care to them than to any others, the bright hopes that the gospel announces, the display of that which is eternal for the eyes of believers in the midst of present need among those who were most liable to be overwhelmed by it. “And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.” There we find a rebuke, couched undoubtedly in the gentlest terms; nevertheless, it was that which was intended, no doubt, to deal with the conscience. John seems to have been stumbled; but blessed was he whosoever was not offended in Jesus. There is nothing that so grated upon every natural thought of a Jew than rejection and shame accompanying the Messiah or those that bore witness of Him. Man was wholly unprepared for it. They had been waiting for long and weary years for the Messiah to bring in deliverance. Now that He was come, that evil should fall with apparent impunity on His servants, and shroud Himself—that they and He too should be despised of men—was too much for their faith. They were offended in Him.
Christianity, let me say, has given immense range to the display of all this. Indeed it is the glory and blessing of the Christian. He is not stumbled at the rejection of Christ. He sees the cross in the light of heaven, not of the earth; he knows its bearing on eternal things. Present things are not the question. God has brought in the unseen, and the Christian is familiar with them even now. He accordingly rejoices in the cross of Christ, and boasts in that which is the overthrow of all the natural thoughts of men, and the judgment of the world, but which is really in the grace of God the judgment of sin, and the vindication of His own moral glory. Therefore the Christian triumphs in it. Besides, it is that which gave occasion to the infinite grace of the Lord Jesus, and in all these things he delights. He therefore has the blessing fully; and is strengthened, not offended, by the cross.
When the messengers of John go away, the Lord can speak in vindication of His servant. After all, viewed not in connection with what was coming, but according to that which had been and was, who was found among men worthy of such honor? He was no reed shaken with the wind: this they might see any day in the wilderness. Neither was he a man clothed in soft raiment: they must look to kings' courts to find men gorgeously appareled and living delicately. There is no moral grandeur in any of these things. A prophet then he was, and much more than a prophet. Such is the witness of Jesus. “This is he of whom it is written, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.” He was the immediate forerunner of the Messiah. God put singular honor on him. There were many prophets; there was but one John, but one who could be the messenger before His face. Consequently our Lord adds, “Among those that are born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist.”
Yet this, be it noted, brings out so much the more the superior blessing of those who were to be in the new state of things, when it should be no longer prophecy or unfulfilled promise, but the basis of the kingdom was laid in the work of Christ. That new order was coming in, first to faith, then in power; and Luke gives great force to that which was revealed to faith, because it is known through the word of God and the power of the Holy Ghost. It is not yet the visible manifestation of the kingdom, but none the less God's kingdom, which was to come in through a rejected Son of man. Redemption may be the basis of better and still more glorious things, but it is the basis of the kingdom of God: and in that kingdom the least was greater than the greatest before—greater even than John. The least in that kingdom would rest on redemption already accomplished; the least would know what it is to be brought to God, sin put away, and the conscience purged. John the Baptist could only look onward to these things. The Christian knows them to be actually come, and by faith his own portion. He is not waiting for them; he has them. Thus he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than John.
At the same time we are told that all the people that heard John the Baptist, and the publicans too—that is the mass, even the lowest of them—justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. They were right as far as it went. It was a witness of what was coming: it was a confession of their own sin. Thus far they justified God. But the prudent and wise, the religious, learned, and great, the Pharisees and lawyers, rejected and frustrated the counsel of God against themselves, because they refused even the preparatory work of John the Baptist. Having refused the lesser testimony, they never passed into the greater things—the reality from God. Having refused that which their own consciences ought to have proved to be true, they were not prepared to receive the gift of His grace. Christ can only in the conscience be received to salvation. Feeling and understanding will never do alone. There must be conscience. Those that had conscience awakened Godward about their sins were too glad to receive Christ. Those whose consciences slept or were roused but for a moment were never brought to God savingly. When Christ is received by faith, the conscience is active toward God, the mind and heart rejoice as they enter into and appropriate the blessing, but not otherwise. Where there is no work in the conscience, all is given up speedily. They are offended by this or that. Thus, the men of that generation were like captious children, “sitting in the market place, and calling one to another, and saving, We have piped unto you and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you and ye have not wept.” Whatever God called to was offensive. If God brought in joy, they would not dance: if God brought in a call to mourn, they would not weep. Thus, when John the Baptist came, neither eating bread nor drinking wine, the expression of no communion, because sin was in question (and how could God send one to have communion with sin?), they said, He had a demon. “The Son of man is come eating and drinking.” Now there could be communion: the rejected Christ is the foundation of all true fellowship with God. But “they said, Behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber, the friend of publicans and sinners.” Man, thinking well of himself, counts the grace of God to be allowance of sin. When God calls to righteousness, it is too severe for man: when He calls to grace, it is too loose for him. Every way man likes not God: he shrinks in presence of law; and he despises in presence of grace. “But wisdom is justified of all her children.” And the incident that follows is a striking proof of it in both its parts—the witness of it not only in her who was a sinner, but is now a child of wisdom, but also in him who could not appreciate the One who is the wisdom of God.