CHAPTER XI.

JOHN THE BAPTIST AND HIS MESSAGE.

JESUS continued in Galilee. John the Baptist had been for some time imprisoned by Herod. This was Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, who is mentioned in the second chapter of Matthew. His father had once by will named him as his successor in Judæa; but he afterwards changed his mind, and leaving his son Archelaus, king of Judæa, appointed Herod to the inferior dignity of tetrarch or viceroy of Galilee to the north, and of Perea which lies on the east side of the Jordan. Herod Antipas was a cunning, unscrupulous man. His usual place of residence was at Tiberias, a name which, in honor of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, he had given to a town on the southwestern border of the Lake of Galilee, probably somewhere from eight to eleven miles south from Capernaum. In the other extremity of his kingdom, only a few miles eastwardly from the place where the Jordan empties into the Dead Sea, he had a castle called Macharus, which had been enlarged and fortified by his father, and in which, as appears, Herod Antipas sometimes resided. In this castle, according to Josephus (Ant. XVIII. 5. 2), John was imprisoned. He had never quite comprehended the nature of the kingdom of Heaven which he had announced as near at hand, nor could he fully understand either the character or the office of Jesus, to whom he pointed his disciples (John i. 29) as "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world,” and of whom he had afterwards said (John iii. 30), “he must increase, but I must decrease." In this respect he was like other prophets chosen for a specific purpose, who sometimes

(Dan. xii. 8) had but an imperfect understanding of the symbolical images which they saw, and the words they used. Even to the seers themselves "the words were closed up and sealed" for the time.

We sometimes attribute a sort of omniscience to men raised up by God, and inspired only for a particular purpose. And when a man has once been set apart in this way, we are too apt to suppose that he must be entirely unlike other men, and free from human infirmities and passions. But even Moses, who was favored with a nearer and more frequent access to God than any other of the prophets, had his seasons of distrust (Ex. iii. iv.), of unrestrained passion (Ex. xxxii. 19), and unbelief (Num. xx. 12). Elijah, the greatest of the prophets who came after him, showed himself to be of like passions with other men, and (1 Kings xix. 4-10) had his time of almost angry impatience, despondency, and doubt. In this they were only subject as men to the laws of our physical and mental constitution. The more they were raised above themselves in their moments of religious exaltation, the more severe would the reaction be likely to be, and the greater the depression that followed.

John the Baptist, who in his public ministry had been followed by thousands to whom he had been devoting himself with all the zeal and energy of his earnest and powerful nature, proclaiming the near approach of the long-expected kingdom of Heaven, and having the head of that kingdom pointed out to him by a voice from heaven, was now cut off from his public labors, and shut up in a prison far away from the scene of Christ's ministry. He had been urging the necessity of immediate repentance as a preparation for the immediate coming of the kingdom of God. He waits in awe and expectation, but the silence is not broken by the sound of its coming. What can be the meaning of this delay? The energies of his active and powerful nature are thrown in upon themselves. He is moved by strong and violent emotions. He broods over the unpromising condi

tion of things, and is disturbed by the tardy development of the Divine plans. He becomes impatient and distrustful. "Can it be," he may have asked himself amid the many thoughts that rushed upon his mind, "that there is any mistake in this matter?' The slightest doubt is too painful to be borne, when the whole thing can so easily be set at rest by one word from Jesus himself. The impatient doubt could hardly have gone further than this.

His faith in Jesus

could not have been seriously disturbed, or he would not have sent his followers to ask him the question which he put. He would have sent them rather to see for themselves, and to inquire of others. But tired of the delay, brooding over the possibilities of mistake, with apprehensions and forebodings which bear some proportion to the grandeur of his previous anticipations, in his forced inactivity and confinement, he sends two of his disciples across the whole length of the province, to ask Jesus whether he is really the one who was to come, or whether they were to look for another? In these few words, John intimated his impatience of delay, his secret misgivings, and his desire that Jesus would adopt some more decided and effective course. The whole proceeding on the part of John is perfectly natural, and in no way inconsistent with the assurance which had been miraculously given to him in regard to the office and person of the Messiah. Such alternations of feeling, and such convulsive movements of the mind, leading them for the moment to question the reality of their most cherished convictions, and even of what their eyes have seen, belong to men of his temperament, even where, as in the case of Martin Luther, there is the strongest faith and the most courageous and determined energy of will.

How admirable the course which Jesus took to satisfy John, and how in its calmness does it show his infinite superiority, and the easy, majestic ascendency which he had over men! Merely to declare in words that he was the Messiah would not have satisfied the prisoner in his present state of

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mind. Why then," he might have asked, "if he is the Messiah, does he so long delay ?" Nor had the time yet come for Jesus publicly to announce himself as the Messiah. He knew that whenever that announcement was made, his earthly ministry must be brought speedily to an end, and, therefore, in the presence of John's disciples, in that same hour (Luke vii. 21) he performed many and various kinds of miracles; and, having thus impressed them with a conviction of more than earthly authority and power, he directed them to go back and tell their master what they had seen and heard, — how the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good tidings proclaimed to them, — in this message using just enough of the old prophetic language (Isaiah xxxv. 5, 6, xlii. 7, Ixi. 1) to give, in the mind of John, additional significance and solemnity to his message. Then he added, in words of mild rebuke and encouragement, coupling a benediction with his reproof, "And blessed is he who shall not be offended in me," who does not allow himself to be disturbed, or to lose his faith in me, because, in my divinely appointed work, I am not pursuing precisely the course which he had expected. No reply could have been better fitted to the state of John's mind, which was impatient because it was so earnest, disappointed and doubting because it had believed and expected so much.

Then, 7-14, turning to the multitude, Jesus made this an occasion of admonition and instruction to them. At the same time he would renew their respect for John, which might have been lessened by the doubts into which he would appear, from his questions, to have been betrayed. There is nothing which the multitudes bear with less patience than any seeming vacillation, or want of steadfastness in their great men. "What went ye out into the wilderness to see? Did ye go out expecting to find one who would bend to your changing wishes, as a reed to the wind; or one who would gratify your voluptuous tastes, like courtiers who are in

kings' houses, with their soft, effeminate garments? Or did you go into that solitary place to find a prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. He is one who has been foretold by prophets as the herald who should be raised up to announce the new dispensation, and to prepare the way for its coming. Among those born of women no greater man than he has ever been raised up. And yet, he adds, with solemn emphasis, calling their attention to the higher kingdom which is now to be established, the least in the kingdom of Heaven is greater than he. That higher kingdom is of such transcendent dignity and power, that its lowest subject shall be greater than he who stood foremost in the old dispensation. Possibly Jesus may have had in his mind the Roman empire, whose citizens were greater, and bore with them the ensigns of a mightier power, than kings of other nations. But what does he mean in saying that the least of his own disciples is greater than John the Baptist? He means that the humblest of those who really belong to his kingdom are made the partakers of a diviner life, and better understand the nature of his kingdom, and the elements of a true spiritual greatness, than even the greatest of those who had gone before. "They are greater," says Lightfoot, "in respect of clear and distinct knowledge in judging of the nature and quality of the kingdom of Heaven.” The knowledge of a divine life unfolded in the Sermon on the Mount, and set before the humblest of his followers in the words, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, is beyond all that the prophets and righteous men of old were able to attain to. They indeed, 13, i. e. the law and the prophets until John, heavenly kingdom,

only predicted the coming of the only pointed on to it in the remote and distant future. John, in this respect greater and more favored than they, proclaimed it as already at hand, and from his time (the idea is drawn from a besieged city) men are forcing their way into it, and taking it as by violence. In these words Jesus alludes to the crowds who, first attracted