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"Jesus Christ's Hero" Among the various characters who cluster around the Lord Jesus in the Gospel account of his life and work -- from Zechariah and Elizabeth and Joseph and Mary to the Twelve Disciples -- the greatest of these is without doubt John, the son of Zechariah, known already in the days of his ministry as John the Baptist. His name came from the distinctive use he made of water baptism as a sign of repentance, administering it to multitudes of folk who came to hear his preaching and, at least for a time, were changed by it. In chapter 3:1-6, Matthew has already given a summary of John's preaching and the sensation it caused. "People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River." We know that some of the Lord's disciples were first disciples of John the Baptist. Andrew was, and from early days it was thought that John the Evangelist was as well, which may explain why, in John 1:40, where we read of two of John's disciples leaving him to follow Jesus, only Andrew is named. John the Evangelist, you may remember, is the only one of Jesus' disciples who is not mentioned by name in his Gospel. The fact that he names one of these two disciples and not the other seems a strong argument that he himself was the other disciple. The greatness of John the Baptist was the product of many things: his other-worldly character, his fiery preaching that captivated the huge congregations that came to hear him, his eventual death as a martyr all had their part in making him so great a man. But, his greatness lay especially in this, that he was, from all eternity, the man God had chosen as the forerunner of Jesus Christ, the Elijah who was to prepare the way of the Lord as Malachi had prophesied four hundred years before the birth of Christ. John the Baptist himself said, as we read in John 1:31, that the character of his ministry and his use of baptism as a sign and seal of repentance from sin had this purpose only: to prepare for the appearance of the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. There is much to suggest that Jesus himself had a particular affection for John the Baptist and even, in his human nature, a sense of dependence upon him. The two men were relatives of course, their mothers having been related to one another. Now the Baptist does suggest in John 1:31, that he and the Lord were not closely acquainted with one another -- after all, John was apparently raised in Judea and Jesus we know was raised in Galilee -- and that John did not grow up understanding that his relative, Jesus, was the Messiah. Nevertheless, the boys and the young men cannot have been ignorant of the remarkable circumstances that attended their respective births or of the relationship between the births of each of them or of what the angel of the Lord said when the boys were conceived and were still being carried in their mother's womb. These are things we fairly assume mothers and fathers would have communicated to their sons. Still, what they were being called to believe was so great a thing and required so much illumination from the Holy Spirit -- think of how thick the disciples would be even after a year or two of living with Jesus and watching his miracles and hearing his preaching -- that we are not, finally, surprised that John the Baptist did not know everything about Jesus beforehand. However, when John did come to understand that Jesus was the Messiah he played the pivotal role as the forerunner of the Lord: first in the preaching he gave to the crowds about the coming Messiah, second in baptizing Jesus in the Jordan and so sending him off on the course of his public ministry, and, third, in pointing his own disciples to the Lord as the Lamb of God. After the Lord appeared on the scene and began his public ministry John continued to preach for a little while, but relatively early on in the Lord's ministry he was imprisoned for his public criticism of the morals of King Herod Antipas and remained in prison until he was executed by that grubby little man who, though a king, couldn't stand up to a spiteful woman. There are two moments in the Gospel history that, I think, are wonderfully revealing of the greatness of this man, of his heroic stature and of the tremendous impression that he left on others. The first is the response of the Lord Christ himself to the news of John's death when it was brought to him by John's disciples. Remember, as we read in Matthew 14:12, after John was beheaded, and his head brought into the banquet hall on a platter, John's disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus. Now, in all the Gospel account of the Lord's life and work, we are rarely told anything about how the Lord responded to events. There are a few exceptions, but by and large, the emotional life of the Lord is unreported. But we read in Matthew, in the very next verse following the arrival of John's disciples to report his death, that "when Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place." Given the Gospel's economy in reporting the mental and emotional state of the Lord, given the veil that it regularly draws over the Lord's psychological condition, it seems to me that Matthew's statement that the Lord withdrew alone upon receiving this news is a powerful witness to what a crushing blow John's death was to him. He needed time apart to absorb it and to pray to his heavenly Father for help to deal with a new measure, a new degree of loneliness. For John was the only person in the world at that moment who understood, really understood, who Jesus was and something of the meaning of his life and suffering. The disciples, at this time, were catching glimpses now and again, but as often as they would say something indicating understanding they would follow it up with some display of a virtually invincible ignorance. John himself had wavered momentarily, as we read in our text, but the Lord's response to his question put his doubts to rest. John knew who Jesus was and what he was. Jesus had gone to John to mark the beginning of his ministry, those three years that would take him to the cross. It is hard to know, of course, what Jesus himself knew, as a man, of what lay before him when he was baptized by John in the Jordan. Perhaps it was of great significance to Jesus himself to have the Baptist call out upon seeing him that Jesus was "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Perhaps John's witness was what the Father used to send Jesus on his way into the public ministry. It is hard to say. But it is certain that John meant a great deal to Jesus and, insofar as in his manhood Jesus too had to live by faith and not by sight, John had been a great strength to his faith. And now, he was gone and Jesus was alone in the world -- as alone perhaps as he had ever felt himself before. And he went off -- or sought to get off by himself to mourn and to pray. I have in my Bible, in the margin next to Matthew 14:13, Wordsworth's line, But she is in her grave, and, oh, I never had noticed that connection between the report of John's death and the Lord's going off alone before nor considered all that I think now that it suggests of the blow that John's death was to the Lord Jesus, until I happened to be reading there when we received the news, some years ago now -- September of 1988 -- that Ruthie Codling, the six year old daughter of Doug and Hellen, Doug our PCA pastor in Vancouver B.C., had been struck and killed by a car on her way to school. The emotions raised by the news of that one death opened the understanding to the emotions that were raised by that other death long ago. I remember John Bunyan, in Grace Abounding [paragraph 120], saying how the Lord brought the Gospel to life for him as he read it with the eyes of faith, reflecting on his own experience. "Methought I was as if I had seen him born, as if I had seen him grow up, as if I had seen him walk through this world, from the cradle to his cross; to which, also, when he came, I saw how gently he gave himself to be hanged and nailed on it for my sins and wicked doings." Like so many others, Bunyan was reading the Bible, in Boston's phrase, "as if it had been written for him." And by peering into that story from the vantage point of his own experience was seeing wonderful and important things he had not seen before. Well, that is partly an aside. But, what a measure of the greatness and the importance of John the Baptist, that his death should have been such a personal loss, a blow to the Lord Christ himself! And, then, the second moment in the Gospel history that reveals the greatness of this man, the impression of his life and work, the place he occupied on the stage of the history of salvation comes at Caesarea Philippi when the Lord, in that immortal conversation with his disciples, asks them, "Who do men say that I am?" And you remember their reply. The first thing they said in answer to that question was "Some say John the Baptist... -- others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." Now, it would be testimony enough to the greatness of any man to be named in the same sentence with Elijah and Jeremiah. But, what greater compliment could conceivably be paid to a man, what sign of his greatness could there be more unmistakable than that someone should think that Jesus Christ were he. People thought Jesus Christ was John the Baptist! They thought that a man who was performing the most astonishing miracles, day after day divine power was flowing from him such as the world had never seen -- even in the days of Moses and Elijah, nothing quite like this, so constant, so glorious -- they thought a man who was preaching sermons such as the world had never heard before, with an authority that took the breath away, they thought a man whose own character and goodness marked a new chapter in the history of mankind was John the Baptist. And, though they were wrong about that, what conceivably higher praise could be given any man than that people should have confused him with Jesus Christ during the very days of the Lord's ministry? There is another small detail regarding John's life that I want to add to these indications of his greatness. One cannot be so certain about this, but it is worth mentioning in connection with an account of the life, the work, the influence, the impression of this great, great man, this colossus on the stage of world history. In Luke 8:3, listed among the women who often accompanied the Lord during the ministry and supported him and the twelve out of their own means, is one Joanna, the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod's household. We naturally wonder how a woman who lived in the midst of Herod's court came to be such a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. And many have thought that it must have been John's imprisonment that brought first Cuza and then his family into the circle of faith. What kind of impression must John have made upon those responsible for his incarceration? Knowing what kind of man he was, and what his ministry had been, we find it difficult to believe, frankly, that someone was not brought to faith in that court and in that prison by the presence of that great man of God among them. Still, our point is John's greatness and the witness born to it in the Gospels. And that leads us to the remarkable statement in our text: verse 11 of chapter 11. "I tell you the truth," Jesus said, "Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." We have no problem with the Lord's statement about John's greatness. He has elaborated that himself in the verses that immediately precede v. 11. "Was John a reed swayed by the wind?" Jesus asked the crowd. That is, was he a weak and pliable person? The farthest thing from it, as you know, Jesus means. His rugged independence; his fearlessness before the authorities; his moral courage -- these are what attracted you to him. Nor was he a man dressed in fine clothes. His entire way of life was a demonstration that he had no interest in and was not seeking the kind of creature comforts that Herod made so much of in his palace where John was now being held a prisoner. His wealth and his comfort were in doing God's will and in telling the truth to others. "It is not even enough," Jesus went on to say, "to call John a prophet." For he was much more than a prophet. He was the messenger appointed to prepare the Messiah's way, to usher in the day of the Lord's visitation of the world in salvation and in judgment. John is, as Jesus comes out and says in v. 14, the "Elijah" who, according to Malachi, was to come before the great and terrible day of the Lord. John is thus the greatest of all the prophets, indeed of all men up to his own day! That much is clear in what the Lord says. But what does he then mean when he speaks of "he who is least in the kingdom of heaven" being greater than John. Well, as you can imagine, a text like that has been interpreted in many ways. Some of the early fathers, for example, Origen, took the phrase "the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven" to be a reference to Jesus himself and the contrast thus is between one whose greatness is recognized and one whose greatness is not yet known -- as the contrast in 12:42 between Solomon and Jesus. That is hardly obvious as an interpretation and, as we shall see, does not seem to fit the Lord's interest in the context. Jerome took the Lord to be contrasting John, who was still alive, with those who were already in heaven. In Matthew 8:11 we find the phrase "kingdom of heaven" to refer to actual heaven where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are. Their circumstances in heaven are far better, far greater than those of John, great as he is, because he is still in this world. The best here is not to be compared with anyone there! But, again, that does not seem to be the Lord's precise point, as we shall see. Most commonly today, Christians take the Lord to be contrasting epochs in the history of salvation. John was a great man, but he was an Old Testament man. He lived before the age of the Spirit. And the least of New Testament men, men who live in the age inaugurated by the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost, is greater than the best Old Testament man. It is one of my chief interests as your minister to disabuse you of any such notion in regard to this text or many others that Christians understand in a similar way. The Bible says no such thing about Pentecost -- ever! -- and no such thing about the difference between believing life in the epoch before Christ's incarnation and that following it. And, I do not want any of you to think -- God forbid that you should think -- that you are, in fact, greater than John the Baptist! By any measurement, for any reason! Do you think you are? Can you possibly believe yourself to be a greater man than he was, a more faithful servant, a greater lover of God and Christ, a greater adornment to the gospel? The very idea is not only absurd, preposterous really, but repugnant for the pride and the appalling lack of spiritual insight and understanding one would have to have to think it. But, without thinking about what they are saying, multitudes of Christian ministers have taught congregations of Christian folk to think that somehow that is what Jesus meant. That Pentecost has elevated them above a man such as John the Baptist. Jesus means no such thing. He is obviously talking about something that is true at the moment he is speaking and not several years later, after Pentecost. As he goes on to make clear in the verses that follow. There is some debate as to whether v. 12 should be translated as the NIV has, in which case the Lord is referring to the impact of the kingdom of God upon men, making them perfect warriors for their own souls and the cause of God, sweeping great numbers of men and women up into its train as it advances in the world. Or, the "forceful men" in v. 12 could be translated "violent men" and taken to refer to those who oppose the kingdom, such as Herod who has imprisoned John and the Jewish leadership that is already coming out into the open against Jesus. It seems to me that the parallel statement in Luke 16:16 pretty much settles the case in favor of the way the NIV has taken the text. There we read "The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached and everyone is forcing his way into it." There is little doubt about what Luke means and it seems that the idea is the same here in Matthew 11:12. What the Lord is saying is that the ministry of John the Baptist inaugurated a time of the advancement of the kingdom of God that John himself did not participate in. He saw the foretaste of it in his own ministry, but he himself said that one was coming after him who would baptize with the Spirit and with Fire. His had not been such a baptism, but Jesus' would be. Jesus had referred to this already in vv. 4-5. A great power had appeared in the earth, great things were happening, and, while everyone did not believe, many were made strong enough to break away from the stultifying traditions of centuries to return to the pure Word of God. It was a day of forceful men laying hold to the Word of God. It was a day of the Spirit's power. But John was in prison and didn't see this. That was the root of his uncertainty that brought him to send his disciples to ask Jesus whether he was indeed the Christ. An astonishing question for the man who had identified Jesus as the Lamb of God to ask, but, remember, he was in prison. He did not have first hand experience of what was happening in Jesus' ministry. And, what is more, he probably thought, as did many of the Lord's followers, that the Messiah's ministry would unfold differently than it did. Jesus is not comparing John's character to those who are "in" the kingdom of God, nor is he comparing his spiritual development or insight or wisdom or faith. He is comparing his "privileges." That is all! The Lord's statement about the least in the kingdom being greater than John is just like his statement in Matt. 13:16-17: "...blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it." He is not using the term "kingdom of God" for a new epoch such as the period of salvation history following Pentecost. The term "Kingdom of God" is used in a lot of different ways in the gospels. But usually it has a dynamic sense -- the reign of God. He is using the term as it is so often used in the Gospels to refer to the manifestation of the Lord's presence and reign. The kingdom of God, we read, has come upon you. As, for example, in Matthew 12:28, where Jesus said, "If I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." A man who is "in" the kingdom of God in the sense in which Jesus uses the term in 11:11-12 is a man who participates in a time of the manifestation of God, of the descent of the Spirit of God, of the forceful advance of the Gospel. That man has a privilege far above those of ordinary believers, even far above those of the most extraordinary believers who do not live in such a day and time of the kingdom's forceful advance. Such a man was John the Baptist. He came as close to the outpouring of divine power as any man who never actually saw it with his own eyes. John, remember, the Gospels tell us, worked no miracle. So far as we know he never saw a miracle performed. Yet he announced to the world the greatest miracle worker there would ever be. He came within a hairsbreadth but he missed the coming of the kingdom of God. Now, what are you and I to do with a statement like this; what the Lord Christ says about John being so great but the least in the kingdom being greater than he? So much, my brothers and sisters. So much. We can ponder the mysterious ways of God that led to such a pass for such a man. We can glory in the fact that we belong, by faith in Christ, to a company that includes such a titan as John the Baptist, who in a day of smaller things made such a mark and so prepared the way for the kingdom of God. Think of others who would follow in his train: Wyclif, Huss, Savanarola -- whose eyes likewise would never see the coming of the kingdom of God for which they labored and suffered and died. It would come right on their heels but they would miss it! But we can, most of all, ponder this fact. You and I have not seen the coming of the kingdom of God either. We have longed to see what some eyes have seen in this world but we have not seen and to hear what some ears have heard but we have not heard. John in this way is a man like us! In a way the twelve are not, John is man like us. Hear our Savior praise him, appreciate him, for his faithfulness -- even though in privilege his life was nothing in comparison to those who saw the kingdom come, in privilege the least of those folk were beyond him -- but hear Christ praise John and not the least of those whose eyes saw and whose ears heard what was kept from this great man. Just as it has been kept from you and me. We have not worked and we have not seen a miracle; we have not lived through days when the kingdom of God was sweeping the world before it. We are just like John in that. And now hear the Savior praise him for his constancy and fidelity and courage. Jesus would later say to his disciple Thomas, after appearing to him after his resurrection, "you believe because you have seen. Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed." Bishop Ryle says this about what Jesus said about John: "There is something very beautiful and comforting to true Christians in this testimony which our Lord bears to John the Baptist. It shows us the tender interest which our great Head feels in the lives and characters of all His members; it shows us what honour He is ready to put on the work and the labour that they go through in His cause. It is a sweet foretaste of the confession which He will make of them before the assembled world, when he presents them faultless at the last day before His Father's throne." [Expository Thoughts, Matt., p. 111] John the Baptist is the patron saint of those who have not seen the coming of the kingdom of God. He is our patron saint, yours and mine. And now listen to our Redeemer praise this man to the skies. It is a greater thing to be faithful to God in John's day, in our day, than it is to be faithful to him in the days of the coming of the kingdom of God. They too will have their reward who wait faithfully for what they do not see in this world and, while waiting, serve the Lord. John the Baptist did; go and do likewise. |
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