Jesus, when asked of John if he was the Messiah, said, “Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me” (Matt. 11:66And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. (Matthew 11:6)). Offense was quite as much a part of His mission as the giving of life or health to the needy. Was John offended by his imprisonment? He had now to learn that his truest honor as his Lord’s forerunner lay in suffering for Him. A special blessing attaches to his sharing the sufferings of Christ — “Blessed is he”! Oh, how this word must have calmed the troubled mind of John! How it would explain his situation as a prisoner and add luster to his chain. In it the Lord predicted His own cross and stamped the nature of all true Christian testimony.
It were an easy service had we only to preach the gospel to the poor and witness the benevolent acts of a gracious Saviour, but while this is our privilege, we are connected with One who was crucified. He esteems the cross His highest glory, and He values the heart that follows in the same path.
Paul broke in upon luxurious Corinth with the gospel, but his motto was that he should know nothing among them but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This steadied his soul and kept him clear of Corinthian folly. He sought to know a crucified Christ.
And in the luxury — the religious luxury — of the day, how this searching truth is needed! The day of glory will come, but meanwhile we are called on to learn the offense of the cross. That offense has not yet ceased, and the cross is, on the one hand, as ever, the badge of man’s enmity to God, as it is, on the other hand, at once the proof of God’s love and of His judgment. God tests everything by the cross of Christ. What savors most of it is dearest to Him, and the religion that refuses it is held in abomination by Him.
Popularized Christianity
How much of this “offense” is to be found in the popularized Christianity of the day? Nay, the one effort seems to be to avoid the cross, both in its atoning and world-condemning characters. It is despised as of old, and therefore this popularization of the truth has brought about the most fearful anomaly possible. What could be a greater travesty of the Christianity of the apostles than the sad counterfeit we see around us? There is no resemblance between that which is presented to us in the Book of the Acts and the money-loving, pleasure-seeking, world-hunting Christianity of today. It is, as a system, the negation of Christianity, and for the general decay we have to bear the shame. If then one testimony can be made brighter than another, it consists in not being offended in Jesus.
Outward success in His work is deprived of the greater part of its glory if the offense be lacking. “Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me” had its deep and significant meaning to the imprisoned John, just as much as the fact that the blind, the lame, the deaf and the leper were cured or the dead raised. The offense of the cross was, and is, an integral and essential part of the one divine testimony.
J. W. Smith r