There hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist.
The least in the kingdom of heaven
Is it contrary to any true theory of John’s prophetical mission that he should be for once seized with a spasm of doubt? Great men are not at their greatest at all times. The heavenly treasure is in earthen vessels. There are two sufficient reasons for his doubt:-
1. Things were turning out somewhat differently from his own programme. He was falling into the mistake we often make of fancying ourselves architects in God’s world, whereas we are only day labourers.
2. John’s message came from the inside of a prison. A man of his temperament, flung back from great activities to mope by himself, was almost sure to get a little strained in his views of things. For such men the difficulty is not to do hard things, but to be kept back from doing them. Note, now, the way in which Christ deals with this message.
How is the doubter received? No word of anger or remonstrance.
1. He gives the messengers clear proof of His Messiahship, and then, when their back is turned, He speaks to the multitude of John in terms of commendation.
2. Observe what Christ says concerning John-“What; went ye out for to see.” Men go out to see what there is to see: what we bring to a thing conditions what we shall bring away from it. “Notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” We are all of us higher up than John. We are so by virtue of belonging to a dispensation beyond his. The baptism of Pentecost lifted the world to a higher stage, and we are on that higher stage. It is a glorious thought that, under God, the human race is continually advancing.
3. Take two particulars as regards our dispensation:-
1. We have the advantage of John in the testimony we bear, from the facts we deal with, as compared with those of which he spake. He sketched the Christ in outline; we have the picture filled up.
2. The advantage of the worker in the Christian Church over the Baptist is seen in the kind of effort to which he puts his hand. John’s work was to bring men to repentance; this its limit. But in the Christian Church this work is to be carried on through all the process of sanctification, till it lifts the soul to the topmost heights of holiness. The element of the remarkable and extraordinary is not always the measure of real value. John’s career was extraordinary. We do a work thousands have done before. Yearn not to be eccentric, but deep and real. (J. Brierley, B. A.)
The infinite possibility of manhood
Each generation is on higher ground than the last. Fathers, respect your children, they are older than you. Do people speak of me as some forty years of age, more or less? Nonsense. I am 6,000 years old, at least. I have in me the sum of the lives and consciousness of all who preceded me, and something new added besides. We are trees which, through the root, drink up the virtue of the soil around them-soil made up of the buried generations of trees-and bring forth also something new in their own fruit and flower. In the light of this, what business have we to be always looking to the past, as if there were nothing of goodness or value in the world but what is hundreds and thousands of years old:’ You get people who, in religion, are nothing if not antiquarian. If Quakers, they think there were never such days as those of George Fox; if Methodists, there will never be the like again of John Wesley and his fellows; if Churchmen, they grope about amongst the fathers, and hold that wisdom and worth died with them. This is a wrong mood of mind. We want to take in all our predecessors can teach us: hut, oh, if we have faith in the living God we shall have belief in the boundless possibilities also, of the present and of the future. Man is going on. He is pushed up from behind. He is drawn up from above. Yes [John is mighty in his generation. But those who come after are higher than he. Onward, upward l Oh, that we may not hinder the progress in ourselves, but spread every sail, stretch every stitch of canvas to the breeze that bears us along to the celestial country! (J. Brierley, B. A.)
Greater than the Baptist.
I. The meaning of the text. The first clause is simple enough; it states that John Baptist was greater than all who preceded him. The second clause is the difficulty least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” What is intended by “the kingdom of heaven”-the kingdom of glory, or of grace, or both? It is of course true that the least in heaven is greater and more privileged than John. It is better to he with Christ than on earth. But the kingdom of glory is not meant here. The term is almost universally used with reference to the kingdom of God on earth. “The kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God, cometh not with observation.” This refers to earth: the heavenly kingdom will come with splendour. The gospel dispensation is intended. Who are the least:’ Not the apostles, but the saint.
II. The reason. In what sense John was greater than all who preceded him.
1. One might take the personal character of John, and his superiority will be seem His zeal was great, he was the messenger before our Lord. This establishes the great superiority of John. No prophet actually prepared the way of the Saviour. Real greatness is approximation to God. The man who knows God best is greatest. Who was ever brought into such near connection with God as John? He was the friend of the Bridegroom. The dispensation of John was peculiar; he stood between the law and the gospel. How is it that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John? Observe the expression “least in the kingdom of heaven.” John was not in the kingdom of heaven. It all turns upon this. Our Lord draws the contrast. John was the greatest of all who went before him; but the least in the kingdom of heaven was greater than he-hot in heaven, but on earth.
The kingdom of heaven, in the sense here intended, commenced with the day of Pentecost; it is essentially connected both with the in-dwelling and out-pouring of the Holy Ghost. John said. “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.”
1. The least in the kingdom of heaven is participator of all that the God of heaven can bestow. Nothing more can be given him.
2. The least in the kingdom of heaven is a member of the bride’s.
3. The least in the kingdom of heaven is a temple of the Holy Ghost.
4. The least in the kingdom of heaven has the spirit of adoption-the spirit of a son.
5. The least in the kingdom of heaven is brought into relationship with each of the Persons in the Trinity, in a sense which John was not.
6. The least in the kingdom of heaven may therefore become the greatest. Let us realize the greatness of the gospel dispensation. (Capet Molyneux, B. A.)