LESSON VII.--NOVEMBER 13.

CHRIST'S WITNESS TO JOHN.--MATT. 11:2-15.

      GOLDEN TEXT.--He was a burning and a shining light.--JOHN 5:35.
      TIME.--A. D. 27. In the second year of Christ's ministry.
      PLACE.--Jesus in Galilee; John in the prison fortress of Machærus near the Dead Sea.
      HELPFUL READINGS.--Luke 7:19-28; Matt 3:1-17; Mark 6:14-29.
      LESSON ANALYSIS.--1. John's Messengers; 2. Christ's Message; 3. More than a Prophet.

INTRODUCTION.

      On the brink of a great precipice, above the steaming hot fountains of Callirrhoe, and facing the Dead Sea, is the lonely fortress of Machærus. Here, in the midst of a scene of most remarkable desolation, John the Baptist was imprisoned until be met his death.--W. M. Thomson. The great and noble prophet had, indeed, for the moment found a stumbling block to his faith in what he heard about the Christ. And is this unnatural? Is it an indecision which any one who knows anything of the human heart will venture for a moment to condemn? Though all men flocked in multitudes to listen to the fiery preacher of the wilderness, the real effect on the mind of the nation had been neither permanent nor deep. Though his friend and his Savior was living, was at no great distance from him, Was in the full tide of his influence, and was daily working the miracles of love which attested his mission, yet John saw that friend and Savior on earth no more. He seemed to be neglected not only by God above, but by the living Son of God on earth. Among so many words of mercy and tenderness might not some be vouchsafed to him who had uttered that voice in the Wilderness? What wonder if the eye of the caged eagle began to film?--Farrar.

      I. JOHN'S MESSAGE.--2. Now when John heard in prison. John had now been a year in prison, and Josephus states that Machærus, east of the Dead Sea, one of the strong fortresses built by the elder Herod, was the place of his imprisonment. In that case the disciples must have come upward of fifty miles to visit Jesus at Capernaum.--Kitto. He sent his disciples. Two of them according to Luke.

      3. Art thou he that should come? Here is no doubt a reference to [309] Malachi 3:1, where it is said: "Jehovah whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple." The slowness of our Lord to develop the glory of his kingdom seemed to John not to agree with the suddenness ascribed to the Messiah.--Whedon. John had himself been inspired to proclaim the "One coming after him," and had heard the Father acknowledge the Son, seen the Holy Spirit descend, and had pointed out Jesus as the Lamb of God. But he, like the Jews, had expected a speedier and more striking manifestation of the kingdom. As Jesus did not unfurl his standard, proclaim his kingdom, overthrow Pilate and Herod, and break open his own prison, John, in the gloom of long confinement, began to ask himself whether. Jesus was really the long-expected Messiah, or only another but greater prophet than himself. It would appear probable, from this inquiry, that our Lord had hitherto abstained from making any distinct public assertion of his being the Son of God; though certainly he had preached the Gospel to the poor in a more general manner, he had not yet formally presented himself to the Jewish Church and people as their expected Messiah. See Mark 1:14.--J. Ford. Look we for another? John here seems to be running in the same train of reasoning as that which induced the later Jews to adopt the theory of two Messiahs, one of whom (called by them the Son of Joseph) should fulfill the humiliations described by the prophets as belonging to the Messiah, and the other (whom they called the Son of David) should fulfill the glorious part of the prophecies. I do not mean that John adopted or was acquainted with this Jewish theory, but that the same idea (namely, the contrast lying between the humble, suffering Messiah and the glorious Messiah, prince of the kingdom of God) which prompted that theory prompted his question.--Whedon. Not the Savior's person, but his mode of action, is to John a riddle. Matters move too slowly for him, especially as he himself is now condemned to involuntary inactivity. In vain does he wait for a speedy and public declaration of the Lord in respect to his Messianic dignity. It annoys him that the Savior speaks more by deeds than by words. Since these deeds are not miracles of punishment, like those of the old prophets, but benefits, which perhaps did not so well correspond with the expectation of the Lord of the threshing-floor with his fan in his hand. Matt. 3:11, 12.--Van Oosterzee.

      II. CHRIST'S MESSAGE.--4. Jesus answered and said. Luke states that at that same hour he cured many of their infirmities. After permitting the messengers to see his work, he pointed to it as his answer. Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see. The words plainly show that it is John, not his disciples, who is to be taught the truth. To John's question Jesus gives no direct reply. There is something severe in the whole of our Lord's demeanor and language, as if reproving this shaking of John's higher faith in God. Just so at a time when the firmness of Elijah's faith was shaken (1 Kings 19), the Lord rebukes him, and instructs him with signs and miracles.--Whedon. [310]

      5. The blind receive their sight. As the article is wanting in each of these clauses, the sense would be better perceived by the English reader thus, though scarcely tuneful enough: "Blind persons are seeing, lame people are walking, leprous persons are getting cleansed, deaf people are hearing, dead persons are being raised."--D. Brown. It must not be forgotten that the words here used by our Lord have an inner and spiritual sense, as betokening the blessings and miracles of divine grace on the souls of men, of which his outward and visible miracles were symbolical. The words are mostly cited from Isaiah 35:5, where the same spiritual meaning is conveyed by them.--Alford. Dead are raised. In Luke, the raising of the widow's son at Nain immediately precedes this message; and in this Gospel we have had the ruler's daughter raised. These miracles might be referred to by our Lord under the words the dead are raised up; for it is to be observed that he bade them tell John not only what things they saw, but what things they had heard.--Alford. Malice itself cannot find reason to suspect a collusion when prophecies and miracles thus unite their testimony, and proclaim Jesus to be the Messiah.--Bishop Horne. The poor have the gospel preached to them. It adds to the force of this testimony that the poor had always been overlooked by Pharisees and the Jewish doctors. The ancient philosophers and theologians had no gospel for those who could not pay for it. The climax is preaching the gospel to the poor.

      6. Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me. Shall not find an occasion for stumbling in me. This is suggested by John's seeming to have stumbled, not fallen, because Christ had not publicly declared his mission. The Lord does not upbraid, but gives in this way a tender rebuke, implying that he knew best what to do with reference to his kingdom.

      III. GREATER THAN A PROPHET.--7. What went ye out into the wilderness to see? An allusion to John's ministry in the wilderness, which had been attended by most of Christ's disciples. A reed shaken with the wind. The reed of Egypt and Palestine is a very tall cane, growing twelve feet high, with a magnificent particle of blossom at the top, and so slender and yielding that it will lie perfectly flat under a gust of wind, and immediately resume its upright position. It grows in great canebrakes in many parts of Palestine, [311] especially on the west side of the Dead Sea, where, nourished by the warm springs, it lines the shore for several miles with an impenetrable fringe, the lair of wild boars and wild leopards, to the exclusion of all other kind of vegetation. On the banks of the Jordan it occurs in great patches, but is not so lofty.--H. B. Tristam. Did you expect, what John now appears to you, a trembling vacillator, shivering in every breeze of doubt and difficulty? Such is not John's true character. When the wind of popular applause, on the one hand, blew fresh and fair, on the other hand, grew fierce and blustering, John was still the same, the same in all weathers.

      8. A man clothed in soft raiment.--Were you attracted into the wilderness of Judea to see an effeminate courtier, who could not bear the severities of a desert or of a prison, as John now perhaps appears? Certainly not. The very direction you took shows the reverse. You would not have gone to the wilderness, but to the palace of a king, perhaps to Herod's, to fine those who were delicately appareled. John with his camel's hair and leathern girdle, was far from being clothed like a courtier.

      9. What went ye out for to see? The third question brings before them the real object of their pilgrimage in his holy office, and amplifies that office itself. So that the great forerunner is made to rise gradually and sublimely into his personality, and thus his preaching of repentance is revived in their minds.--Alford. More than a prophet. John was more than a prophet, because he did not write of, but saw and pointed out, the object of his prophecy, and because of his proximity to the kingdom of God. He was, moreover, more than a prophet, because he himself was the subject, as well as the vehicle, of prophecy.--Alford. He was more than a prophet, because he was a reformer, forerunner and way-preparer, as well as prophet. No other prophet ever had so honored an office.

      10. This is he, of whom it is written. Of whom Malachi prophesied. [312]

      11. Among them that are born of women. Among mankind in general. Christ was "born of a woman" (Gal. 4:4), but this differs from the phrase here used, as "Son of man" does from men.--Schaff. The world thinks that kings, generals, and statesmen are the greatest of men. But God measures differently. The divine Head of Christ is the loftiest of all men's heads, and his nearest servant's is next.--Whedon. He that is least in the kingdom of heaven. This shows, (1) That John was not in the kingdom of God. (2) That, as none greater than John had been born of women, no one had yet entered the kingdom. (3) That therefore it had not yet been set up, but as John himself, Jesus, and the Twelve under the first commission, preached, was "at hand." (4) All in the kingdom, even the humblest, had a superior station to John. Quoting Alford: "John, not inferior to any born of women--but these, even the least of them, are born of another birth (John 1:12, 33; 3:5). John, the nearest to the king and the kingdom, standing on the threshold, but never having himself entered; these "in the kingdom," subjects and citizens and indwellers of the realm, whose citizenship is in heaven. He, the friend of the Bridegroom; they, however weak and unworthy members, his body and his spouse."

      12. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence. The idea is that from the time when John began preaching, men of violence were trying to force their way into the kingdom. It is compared to a walled city that men try to storm and enter. The multitudes that rushed out to John and those who sought to make Jesus a king by force were all trying to press their way into a kingdom that was then still future.

      13. The prophets and the law prophesied until John. For the full meaning we must turn to Luke 16:16, where the same words occur with the addition, "since that time the kingdom of heaven is preached." Then first began the announcement that John was the way-preparer, the forerunner of the king, that the kingdom was at hand, that the old dispensation was about to close.

      14. This is Elias, who was to come. Malachi predicted that Elijah would come to prepare the way for the Lord. Christ explains that this was fulfilled in John, who came in the spirit and power of Elijah, one in dress, habits, preaching and sternness of purpose, a second Elijah. He was not the literal, but a spiritual Elijah.

      15. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. A formula used by Christ to give [313] especial emphasis. The truths announced were of great moment to those who could hear and understand. He had declared John's mission and exalted place, and in doing this, had really declared that he was himself the one spoken of by Malachi before whom the messenger should go. He had thus, to those who understood it, made a striking revelation of himself.

PRACTICAL AND SUGGESTIVE.

      Doubts come often from inactivity: John working beside the Jordan bears testimony to his faith; but shut up in the prison begins to doubt.

      Doubts may arise from incomplete knowledge: John can only judge of Christ's works from the partial and prejudiced accounts of visitors to his prison.

      There is no better way to be relieved of doubts than to tell them fully to Christ.

      The best answer is, not In words, but in deeds. The words of Jesus demonstrate him to be the Christ. Christianity has also an answer in words. It connects its deeds with the worker and the result. "Tell John." Its words illuminate its deeds by the expanse of the underlying law, force, and aim of its activity.

      "To the poor the gospel is preached." This explains the miracles. There appears all the divine origin of the gospel; there is illustrated the divine intent of the gospel; there blossoms the divine method of the gospel.

      THE SIX ARGUMENTS.--By six works of mercy Christ wrought miracles upon the body, and by those six also doth he work miracles upon the soul. Blindness is ignorance and error; lameness is infirmity and waywardness of will; the leprosy is concupiscence of the flesh; deafness is obduration of the heart; the separation of grace from the soul is death; poverty is the defect, or want of the knowledge of God, the power to receive the gospel.--Sutton.

      NOT A REED.--Our light is like a candle; every wind of vain doctrine blows it out, or spends the wax, or makes the light tremulous; but the lights of heaven are fixed, and bright and shine forever. John 5:35; Eph. 4:14.--Bishop J. Taylor.

      JOHN THE BAPTIST.--Thirty long years of preparation; then a brief and wonderful success, brimful of promise; that success suddenly arrested; all means and opportunities of active service plucked out of his hand. Then the idle months in prison, and then the felon's death! Mysterious, inexplicable, as such a life might look to the eyes of sense, how looked it to the eyes of God? The lips that never flattered have said to John, that, of those that have been born of women, there hath not arisen a greater; his greatness mainly due to his peculiar connection with Christ, but not unsupported by his personal character, for he is one of the few prominent figures in the sacred page upon which not a single stain is seen to rest. And, though they buried him in some obscure grave, yet for that tomb the pen that never traced a line of falsehood, has written the brief but pregnant epitaph: "John fulfilled his course."--Hanna. [314]

POINTS FOR TEACHERS.

      1. Bring out the former relation of John to Christ, his prediction of the one coming after, the Baptism; the Spirit and the Father's Voice, the Witness of John to his Disciples. 2. Point out the Position of John now, long a Prisoner exposed to Death, his Expectation of Christ as a Temporal King. 3. Show why he was Disappointed and in the Dungeon losing heart, hope and trust in Jesus. Why the messengers are sent. 4. Point to Jesus when they come, at work, Healing, Helping, Teaching. 5. Bring out the Reply of Christ; Not an answer of Words but of Deeds; What Points in It; the Last and Greatest; contrast that with the way of Jewish Rabbis, Scribes and the Heathen Philosophers; With that of such men as Ingersoll. 6. Note Christ's Testimony of John; not a Reed, not a Courtier, more than a Prophet; none Born, Greater. Show why. 7. Who are Greater. Show why. 8. Show Logical Sequence. John, not in kingdom, not set up, when set up. Show how John was the Elias to come. 10. Deduce the inestimable privilege of Being in the Kingdom. Who is in it. (Matt. 7:21.) Are you in it?

Source: Barton Warren Johnson. The Christian International Lesson Commentary for 1887. Des Moines, IA: