Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of the ministry of John the Baptist from Matthew 11:2–19
There are some parts of the Bible that become more mysterious the more you think about them. They seem quite easy at first, but reflect on them a little and they become more complex. “Love the Lord your God with heart and soul and mind and strength.” On the face of it, that’s pretty straightforward. But love the Lord your God with your mind? I don’t quite know what that means. In fact, when I start thinking my way through that commandment, it becomes more complex yet.
Love the Lord with your heart. In the Western world, heart is a symbol for the seat of the emotions; that’s what you love people with. “I love you with all my heart,” we say. But in the ancient world, the heart was not a symbol of the seat of emotions. The symbol for the seat of emotions was your kidneys or your bowels. Hence in the Authorized Version, you come across reins … le rein in French: your kidneys or bowels of compassion. I love you with all my kidneys!
The heart, rather, is the seat of personality; it’s the seat of all you are. It’s closer to what we mean by mind. Except mind is perhaps just a bit too narrowly restrictive, too intellectual. So love the Lord your God with all your personality-mind, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. It’s an extraordinarily intellectually-orientated command to love!
Now I would love to pursue that one with you, but I’m not going to. It’s merely an illustration of how many passages of Scripture are straightforward when you first read them, and then when you think about them a little bit more, they stretch. Someone has well said that the gospel of John is like a pool in which a child may wade and an elephant may swim, but in some measure that could be said about all of the Word of God.
Matthew 11, verse 11, says, “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.” So if you are amongst those in the kingdom of heaven, you are greater than John the Baptist, and John the Baptist is greater than all the ones who came before him.
Which means you are to think of yourself as greater than Solomon, greater than King David, greater than Abraham, greater than Isaiah, greater than Ezekiel, and not, for that matter, only the Biblical characters, but greater than Julius Caesar, greater than Genghis Khan, greater than anyone who has ever come before John. Is that the way you think of yourself?
But, of course, when you start turning that one over in your mind, all kinds of questions arise. You may be greater than King David in some respects, but I doubt if you’re greater than King David in the turf you rule as king. I doubt if you’re greater than King David in a military sense. So the question begins to arise … what on earth does this mean? Greater, in what respect?
It is quite clear when one reads these chapters quickly that 11 through 13 are held together, amongst other things, by the theme of the rising tide of disappointment in Jesus and his ministry, an opposition to the reign of God at work in the person and ministry of Jesus. Jesus is not turning out to be the kind of Messiah that people wanted.
In these verses, we find John the Baptist’s doubts, a little farther on, in chapter 11, verses 20–24, all kinds of people in the Galilean towns interested in Jesus’ miracles, applauding Jesus as a capable preacher, but not really repenting. Then, in the following verses in this chapter, the wise and the learned of Jesus’ day discover that God’s truth is hidden.
Then you move to chapter 12; the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders oppose Jesus. They have very different views of Sabbath, of the purpose and coming of the Messiah. They ultimately conclude that his miracles must be the work of the Devil himself. Then, a little farther on in chapter 12, verses 46–50, Jesus distances himself from his own family; his own family members don’t think he’s turning out quite right. Then the parables in chapter 13 are basically bound up with giving an interpretation of the kingdom that nobody else seems to have. Thus Jesus is turning out to be rather unexpected.
In the passage that was read, all of the false expectations turn on John the Baptist. If we’re to understand this statement, which compares us with the Baptist and the Baptist with all who came before him, we need to understand John. We discover here a portrait of a discouraged Baptist (I’m not speaking denominationally), a portrait of a defended Baptist, and a portrait of an eclipsed Baptist.
1. A portrait of a discouraged Baptist.
Verses 2–3: “When John heard, in prison, what the Christ [a titular usage] was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, ‘Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?’ ” This generalizing expression “what Christ was doing” is comprehensive enough to include both Jesus’ preaching (Matthew 5–7) and Jesus’ miracles and works (Matthew 8–9), doubtless even Jesus’ training of others (Matthew 10).
Now when John hears, in prison, what Jesus is doing, he is not quite certain that his initial bold promulgation of the coming Messiah was accurate. We should not duck the obvious. We should not think, “Oh, John the Baptist really didn’t have any doubts at all. This is merely a pedagogical device by which he’s training his disciples who have the doubts, but John himself doesn’t have the doubts.” It simply makes no sense of the passage at hand.
Why is he in this low state? Surely it can’t be because he’s locked up in Machaerus. It’s not a very pleasant stronghold, but just the same, there have been all kinds of heroes of the faith who have faced far worse conditions than that for much longer than that, and they haven’t given up in despair. Why then should he succumb so easily to this sort of black mood? Well, if you compare what Matthew’s gospel says about John the Baptist in passage after passage, it becomes clear pretty quickly.
Go back to what John the Baptist preached, reported in Matthew 3. His was a message of impending judgment and blessing. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Here then is a message of judgment. Even the message of impending blessing is shaped by that message of judgment. “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” The fire may be for judgment or for purification; I suspect the latter. But then (verse 12): “His winnowing fork is in his hand; he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
Then along comes the One to whom he has pointed. What does he do? He preaches great sermons, draws wonderful crowds, heals the sick, casts out demons, proves very interesting and somewhat curious, trains disciples … But he doesn’t even pronounce as much judgment as the Baptist himself did!
It was precisely because the Baptist pronounced judgment against Herod that he landed up in jail. And here is Jesus, with all his extraordinary power, not doing anything to thoroughly clear his threshing floor. Jesus simply is not turning out to be the kind of Messiah that John the Baptist had expected and had announced.
Now before we press on, it’s important to recognize how much discouragement in the ministry turns on false expectations. If you think once you enter the ministry, crowds will flock to you and revival will break out in your parish or your church, and then it doesn’t happen, you are heading for discouragement. Or if you think if only you press on and are faithful enough, then after 20 years that will happen … In 20 years, all that happens is you’re middle-aged.
And if, instead, you have worked in some part of the world where there have been great blessings and then you come to some part where, quite frankly, it’s dead as a dodo, and if your expectation is that all of this turns on who you are, again you will face incredible discouragements.
I was reared in French Canada; I’m a Canadian. Until 1972, in a population of about 6.5 million, the total number of evangelical assemblies or churches of any sort whatsoever was about 35, with an average congregation of something like 20. They simply were not self-sustaining. They were staffed by over overworked, tired, somewhat discouraged people from English Canada (with a small number of exceptions) and funded the same way. That’s the matrix in which I grew up.
Then, after the rebellion in Congo, which issued finally in the formation of what is now Zaire, many American missionaries returned home because of the dangers. Looking around for some other sphere in which they could serve where the French language was utilized, lo and behold, Quebec wasn’t too far to the north, so some of them came our way. Not one of them lasted more than three months or so. Not one.
By that time, I was in my teens and knew a lot about everything. So I said to my father, “What’s the matter, don’t these people have any courage and stamina? They only go to easy places?” My father, who was far milder than his son will ever be, responded, “You don’t understand, Don. These people have served God faithfully in situations where churches multiplied and many, many thousands were converted. They’ve seen a great deal of fruit and you mustn’t throw stones. It’s just that they can’t imagine serving in any place where fruit doesn’t come quite so easily. So they come up here and things don’t work out and they’re discouraged.”
So it was with Elijah, wasn’t it? We’ll have this massive confrontation on Carmel, three years of drought, call down fire from heaven. “Choose you this day whom you will serve! If it be Baal, go with Baal; if it’s Yahweh, go with Yahweh. But get off the fence!” The fire falls. What happens next? Nothing. Except he gets chased out of the country. It’s important to recognize how desperately realistic the Bible is about discouragement, but that’s an aside.
2. A portrait of a defended Baptist.
In verses 4–6, Jesus responds, first to the Baptist and then following he responds to the crowd about the Baptist. “Jesus replied, ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.’ ”
Now what Jesus says regarding his ministry is, in fact, cast in terms of biblical passages, two in particular. Certainly they are passages that John the Baptist would have known. John the Baptist was known to quote Isaiah, and both of these are drawn from Isaiah. Isaiah 35, verses 5–6: “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue shout for joy.” Then again, Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.”
So you see, Jesus is in fact insisting that his ministry, with all of these things about which John has heard reports, is in fulfillment of these passages from Isaiah. But both Jesus and John would also have known that Jesus has left out crucial bits from both passages. In Isaiah 35, just before the bit I quoted, we read, “Say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.” Jesus does not quote that bit.
And Isaiah 61: “Yes, the Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God.” Jesus doesn’t quote that bit.
What he is saying, of course, is that the day of promised Messianic blessing has dawned, but the judgments are not yet. Then he says (verse 6), “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me. “Hang in there. Keep pressing on. You can see that the blessings are there; walk in faith, the judgments are coming too. Just wait.” Hence the warning.
Then almost as if Jesus wants to defend John further to the crowd, he turns away from John’s disciples and speaks to the crowd (apparently listening in) and says, “What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind?” That is, “When you first heard of the great preaching of John the Baptist, did you go out looking for some fickle person who’s knocked about by every passing fancy, every fad that comes along?”
Implicitly, he’s saying, “So now that you see him waffling a bit and not quite certain, don’t you dare think that he’s some reed shaking in the wind and past its time, and so forth. That wasn’t what you went out to see; it’s not what you saw either.” In other words, Jesus is defending John. “Well then, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes?” The knife comes out.
“No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.” Now the whole argument shifts. For while Jesus is defending John. The argument subtly changes so that he now insists John is eclipsed. “Yes, I tell you, more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written: ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ ”
Now what does that mean? The words, of course, are drawn from the book of Malachi, chapter 3, with reference also to chapter 4. In Malachi 3, we read, quoting Yahweh, the Lord God, “See I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant.”
If I understand that passage right, there are two messengers there. “I will send my messenger who prepares the way before me.” That’s the first one. Then the second one comes: “The Lord you are seeking, he will come to the temple; he is the messenger of the covenant.” Then it is further unpacked in chapter 4, verses 5–6:
“See I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers …” Hebrew expressions for repentance and tying things up and consequences in the social structures. “… or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”
What Jesus is saying is that John the Baptist is a prophet; yes, he speaks the word of God. It was a commonplace in the Judaism of the day that the great period of Old Testament prophets had passed and a prophet would not arise until about the coming of the Messiah. Oh, Josephus could still speak of prophets in his day, but clearly what he meant was charismatic figures who wandered around the countryside. He himself distinguished between those kinds of prophets and the great prophets. Since that time, no great prophet has arisen.
But now Jesus says, “Yes, a prophet has arisen, and in fact, he’s more than a prophet. He is someone about who prophesy has been written. And the way in which he fulfills this prophecy, what gives him his greatness, is that his function … uniquely his … is to serve as the messenger who announces my coming.” He is the one who goes before the Lord. He prepares the way before the Lord God who comes in Jesus Christ himself.
“I tell you the truth, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist.” In other words, in the flow of the argument, the reason why John the Baptist is so great is because he is the one to whom it was given to announce Jesus. There is a sense in which Isaiah announced Jesus, there is a sense in which Jeremiah announced Jesus, there is a sense in which David and Abraham announced Jesus, but none of them announced Jesus just the way John the Baptist did, saying, “Look, there is the One.”
He is the one who announces Jesus and fulfills the Malachi prophecy and prepares the way for the great expected coming of the Messiah. In consequence of these, Jesus says, John the Baptist is greater than Abraham, John the Baptist is greater than Isaiah, and John the Baptist is greater than David.
Now of course, as soon as Jesus says this, he is eclipsing John the Baptist. Supposing I were to stand up and say to you, “Ladies and gentlemen, I have a solemn pronouncement. Peter Adam is the greatest person who has ever lived because he announced and introduced me.” Yet it’s what Jesus says! In effect, that’s exactly what Jesus says: “He’s the greatest person born of women because, in fulfillment of prophecy, he introduced me.”
3. A portrait of an eclipsed Baptist.
So if we found the Baptist discouraged and the Baptist defended, now the Baptist is eclipsed. There is one sense in which, as John the Baptist bore witness to Jesus, now Jesus bears witness to John the Baptist, but they are certainly not equivalent.
Jesus bears witness to the Baptist in such a way that everything turns on who he is; his entire evaluation of the Baptist’s significance turns on who Jesus is. The kind of person who says this sort of thing is either a nutter, on the level of the person who says he’s Napoleon or a fruitcake, or you take off your sandals and walk on holy ground. “Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist.”
It reminds us of John the Evangelist’s assessment of John the Baptist. In John 10:40–42, the crowds begin to say of John the Baptist, “You know, John did no miracle. He never cast out a demon. He never walked on water. He never healed anyone of leprosy. But everything that he said about this man was true.” Now that’s the same kind of evaluation here.
Then, Jesus says the most astonishing thing: who is greater than John. The Baptist is well and truly eclipsed. He’s eclipsed by Jesus; he’s now going to be eclipsed by everyone in the kingdom. “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.” What does that mean?
It must be the case that whatever criterion for comparing greatness is used in the first part of the verse must also be used in the second part of the verse, or the verse makes no sense. If John the Baptist is greater than those who came before him because he is more intelligent, and those who come after John the Baptist are greater than he because they are more beautiful, then clearly the categories clash and the entire structure of the verse breaks down; the passage is incoherent.
Thus, those who are least in the kingdom must be greater than John on exactly the same scale, in exactly the same arena, as John is greater than all those who came before him. Then the passage makes sense. For you see, the least in the kingdom is greater than John precisely in this respect: that as John pointed out Jesus with greater clarity and straightforwardness than all who came before him, so the least in the kingdom point out Jesus with greater clarity and straightforwardness than even John himself.
John died. His martyr’s death is reported just three chapters on in Matthew 14. John the Baptist never did see Jesus go to the cross. He never did see Jesus rise from the dead. He never heard of Pentecost. He never saw the dawning of the church. But the least in the kingdom, if you’ve been a Christian for five minutes, you at least know that the Messiah died on the cross for you and rose again for your justification.
John never did get it all put together that the coming conquering King was also the suffering servant. John never did get it all put together that the eschatological age that would bring in the final new heaven and the new earth, in fact, would dawn in a preliminary way already and be characterized by a kind of down-payment blessing: the Spirit. But the least in the kingdom sorts that one out in a big hurry; it’s part of basic Christian catechism.
Thus the least in the kingdom points out Jesus more clearly, more straightforwardly, than John the Baptist. The following verses show that’s really what’s going on. What this turns on, of course, is the progress of redemption. What this turns on is the fact that as God’s purposes in unfolding redemption take place, gradually you are in a new situation where people really do understand more than those who came before.
“From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing and forceful men lay hold of it.” That verse is translated many different ways and is disputed endlessly in the commentaries. I won’t take you through all of the arguments; I will simply give you my conclusions.
There is a pun in the original. “The kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing.” The expression could be either middle or passive. It must be taken in a positive sense. “The kingdom of heaven has been making headway and forceful men …” Now that’s the tricky expression. “… forceful people lay hold of it.” Is that expression positive or negative?
Does this mean as the kingdom of heaven advances, the go-getters (the Calebites who say, “Give me this mountain”) grab hold of the thing and are running with it, while other people are sort of drifting off on the side? Or does “forceful men” here mean wicked people are trying to exploit the kingdom, domesticate it?
In my view, clearly the latter, partly because when this noun is used it always has negative associations. The particular verb used, “lay hold of it,” is always negative; it is used for rape and pillage, thieving in that sense, never in some neutral or good sense. So the force of the argument is, “You expect the kingdom to dawn and I tell you, it has. It has been making forceful advance.” Isn’t that what the previous chapters have been about?
After all, the kingdom has dawned in the preaching of Jesus. The kingdom has dawned in the miracles of Jesus. Jesus has then sent out his own servants, and then in chapter 10 we’re told there, likewise, that the kingdom has been forcefully advancing in their ministry. And what has happened? Has everyone bowed down, come to terms with who Jesus is? Oh no, forceful people have been trying to rape it, to exploit it, to domesticate it, to grab hold of it. Isn’t that typical in all of the Gospels?
Even the disciples themselves say, “Yes, well when you get into your kingdom, I’d like to be on your left and my brother would like to be on the right.” Or after the feeding of the 5,000 in John’s gospel some want to make him king by force! After all, in an age when 60 to 70 percent of your income went on food, to find someone who could provide all the food free would be a considerable advantage. Let’s force the kingdom! Oh, all the Gospels testify to the way wicked people try to exploit and rape and pillage this dawning kingdom.
“All the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John.” That was the way Scripture operated. They prophesied, they looked forward to things until the coming of John, and “If you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.” From the day of John the Baptist, the kingdom has been preceding. Verse 12: “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing.” That is, Jesus ministry began during the days of John the Baptist and now, it has been forcefully advancing with the coming of Jesus. The proper clue to Malachi, he says, is this: “John the Baptist himself is the Elijah who was to come.”
Even the final contrast (verses 16–19) is along the same lines, is it not? “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: ‘We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’ ” As if some children are saying, “Let’s play weddings. You be the bride; you be the groom. Here’s the preacher.
Let’s have some bridesmaids. Anybody have a pipe? We’ll play a little music. Oh boring! We did that yesterday. Well okay, we don’t want to play weddings; let’s play funerals. Here’s a pieces of wood. You can be the corpse. We need a few pallbearers here. We’ll play a dirge instead. Boring! You did not mourn.”
“John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her actions.” That is to say, wisdom here is not some personification; that is a great mistake. Wisdom here is understood exactly as in the Old Testament: how to live out your life under God.
What is meant by this is that both in the Baptist’s case and in Jesus’ case, the way they lived out their lives was vindicated by God. In both cases, they were living appropriately. One called the nation to judgment; one introduced the dawning kingdom, part of God’s plan in the progress of redemption. In both cases, wisdom is vindicated and in both cases, the people wouldn’t play! In the one case, they found he was to ascetic; in the other case, they found he was too libertine. But they always found reasons for rejecting the messengers whom God sent.
Thus what Jesus has done, what he’s given us, is a kind of salvation-historical explanation, a redemptive historical explanation, of where John fits in the scheme of things. But the entailment of all of that is that the least of the kingdom is greater than John on this axis: namely, that the least of us bears witness to Christ more clearly than he. Now there are some immediate and important practical implications to this truth.
1. The deepest Christian criteria for self-assessment, individually or corporately, are not the criteria of the world.
How are you going to assess John the Baptist? By the length of his ministry? He was a failure. If he’d been a little more diplomatic he wouldn’t have been bumped off. By his international stature? He was a minor preacher in the Jordan Valley. By his miracles? He didn’t do any. Yet he’s greater than King David, because to him was given the great privilege of pointing out Jesus.
So how will you assess Christians? By their wealth? By their intellectual heritage? By the color of their skin? By the power they exercise? By how long they live? By whether they’re extroverts or introverts? By their popularity? Their youth? Their beauty? Their age? Do you see this text is insisting we simply cannot adopt the criteria of the world in our self-identity?
After a while, I get sick and tired of reading a fair number of evangelical assessments of clergy malaise that pit the problem in problems of self-esteem and self-identity. Oh, I know we face the same kinds of problems as anyone else, but deep down there is also a spiritual problem. We’re too busy wondering how people are looking at us instead of wondering how Christ is looking at us.
And Christ sees that the least in the kingdom is greater than John the Baptist and is greater than King David because to us has been given the immaculate privilege, the inestimable, wonderful privilege of talking to people clearly about Jesus. If we really believe that with all our hearts, wouldn’t it sort out most of our identity crises?
2. Christian criteria for self-assessment are radically Christ-centered and eschatological.
That is to say they are heavily bound up with what we do with Jesus, and they are part and parcel of the fact that, as Peter puts it, we have the wonderful privilege at the end of the ages to live in the time when the Messiah has come. All who came before that period looked forward to this time, but these blessings have fallen upon us, upon whom the ends of the ages have fallen.
Have there not been times in your ministry when you’ve been plowing through Genesis and you’ve thought, “You know, it must have been easier to have faith in Abraham’s day. God talked to you now and then. He sometimes asked you to do some pretty heavy things, but at least he talked to you. It must have been easier in David’s day. You put out your hand and touched the ark, and immediately you’re dead. Well, at least you know God’s there, don’t you?”
It simply isn’t the biblical way of looking at things. The biblical way of looking at things, according to Peter (in his first chapter in his first epistle), is that all of these people looked forward to what was coming, and what was coming has come on us. There is a question here of extraordinary privilege. We can talk more clearly this side of Calvary than all the saints who ever went before. We can gossip the gospel and announce this good news and preach Jesus more clearly than Isaiah.
3. Christian criteria for self-assessment are radically tied to proclamation and witness.
It’s not just that we can do it, of course, but that we do do it. Now it is important to insist that this text does not even hint for a moment that you rank people in the kingdom according to how fruitful they are as evangelists.
It doesn’t hint that. There is no suggestion of a ranking internally here along these lines. This is not an individual ranking within the kingdom. It is an eschatological ranking or a salvation-historical ranking to see who has great privilege in declaring with boldness who Jesus is across the history of redemption.
Along that axis, brothers and sisters, we win. No thanks to us, but we do! That is where God has placed us; that is our task. But that means, of course, that we must see our task. We must see our calling as Christians, let alone as Christian preachers, as being bound up with the proclamation of the gospel.
So that if we get swamped by our ecclesiastical work, buried in parish councils and deacons’ meetings, never talking to anybody about the gospel except in some peripheral way when somebody comes in for counseling, and never under any circumstances explaining, boldly declaring, proclaiming again and again and again in every context, again and again and again in season and out of season, who Jesus is, then the very thing that makes us great along this axis we abandon, the church withers and dies in introspection, and we quietly disown the Lord.
“I tell you the truth, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” May this work out in our ministry for Christ’s glory and his people’s good. Amen.
