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(Comp. Mat_11:2-19 in part, Gospel for the 3d Sunday in Advent.)
Luk_7:19. Art Thou.—We also cannot possibly assume that John doubted respecting the person of the Lord. With reason has the interpretation as well of the ancient Christian Church as of the reformers, controverted this view as untenable.—But as little conceivable is it that he asked this question for the sake of his disciples alone, or that he would in this way even from his prison offer yet a last public homage to the Lord. (Osiander.) It is rather a question not of secret unbelief, but of increasing impatience. Not the Saviour’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 Saviour speaks more by deeds than by words, since these deeds, moreover, are not miracles of punishment, like those of the old prophets, but benefits, which perhaps did not so well correspond with the expectation which he had formed to himself of the Lord of the threshing-floor with His fan in His hands (Mat_3:11-12). Perhaps, moreover (Ebrard), it was not pleasing to him that the Saviour hitherto had as yet made no sharply-marked separation among the people, as he himself had begun to do, but let this building fall, while, working formlessly, He journeyed here and there. We do not need, therefore, to assume “that it had become doubtful to him, how the revelation of God, made to himself, was to be understood.” (Hofman.) But certainly it must, from his point of view, have surprised him, that the Saviour as yet appeared more in a prophetical than in a properly kingly character. So far, but only so far, can we speak of a doubt, a temptation of the faith of the imprisoned Baptist, which will surprise us the less if we consider how completely as yet he stood within the limits of the Old Covenant, whose heroes distinguished themselves more in conflict than in endurance, and whose great reformer, Elijah the Tishbite, whose image he bore, had also known hours of abandonment and anguish of soul in his own experience. (1Ki_19:2-4.) Why should a soul like that of the Baptist have only had its Tabor heights, and not also its Gethsemane depths? And this all becomes the plainer, if we consider that John perhaps in spirit foresaw his end, and, therefore, must have desired the more intensely to see yet before his death the revelation of the kingdom of God, to which his whole life had been devoted. Whoever condemns him, has certainly become acquainted with a life of faith more by description than from personal experience. At the same time he is no less an example worthy of our imitation, that he does not turn himself with his difficulty away from the Lord, but directly to the only one who can solve the riddle for him. As respects the objection, moreover, that he could not in his imprisonment have heard such remarkable reports, comp. Winer on the article Gefängniss, and Act_24:23.
Luk_7:21. In that hour.—The disciples of John, according to this, find the Saviour in the midst of His miraculous activity; and this account of Luke, which is far from being “a merely explicative addition from his own hand” (Ewald), on the contrary explains to us why the Saviour gives to them just this answer taken from His employment at the time. In the account of the sick here healed, it must not be overlooked that Luke also, the physician, distinguishes the demoniacs from naturally sick persons (Meyer), and with peculiar emphasis designates the recovery of the blind as a gracious gift of the Lord ( ἐ÷áñßóáôï ).
Blind.—While the Lord points to these tokens of His Messianic dignity (comp. Isa_35:5-6; Isa_61:1), He shows, on the one hand, that the greater publicity wished for by John was already sufficiently attained; on the other, that He was not yet minded to speak otherwise than through these. The Baptist’s question itself was, moreover, affirmatively answered, for he received in this form the assurance: Jesus is truly the Christ. And so far as he himself, in a spiritual sense, had become poor, the gospel was also announced to him. The question whether here by the ðôù÷ïß is to be understood outwardly or spiritually poor, is to be answered thus, that, as a rule, the latter were mostly to be found among the former, and that, therefore, both meanings are to be here united.
Luk_7:23. And blessed is he.—An intimation which was by no means superfluous, either for John, or still less for his disciples, and least of all for later times.—Whosoever shall not be offended in Me:—“rara felicitas,” Bengel, comp. 1Pe_2:8.
Luk_7:24. And when—were departed.—In Matthew, ôïýôùí äὲ ðïñåõïìÝíùí ἤñîáôï . It is as if the Saviour could scarcely wait for the departure of the messengers to remove immediately the unfavorable impression which the question of the Baptist had, perhaps, made upon the people. Not alone to vindicate the honor of John, but also to anticipate further difficulties conceived as to His person and His work, does He direct an explicit address to the people, in which He extols the character of John, but rebukes the wavering disposition of the people. If any one, perchance, thought that John had not remained consistent with himself, the Saviour lets this reproach so far as this fall upon the nation itself, that neither John, nor Himself, had as yet been able to please them. He makes no scruple of recalling to their memory the image of the Baptist in his most brilliant period.
A reed shaken with the wind?—The Saviour begins with intimating what John had not been; no reed, no weakling, and the like. The assurance that John had not been by nature a wavering and inconstant man, was at the same time a sure implication that the Baptist, therefore, did not doubt respecting the person of the Saviour, as Chrysostom has already justly remarked in his thirty-seventh homily. This first question is followed by no answer, since each one could give this for himself. Observe further the fine climax in the arrangement of the interrogations, êÜëáìïí , ἄíèñùðïí , ðñïöÞôçí .
Luk_7:25. A man.—The question is intended to contradict the conjecture, that John had sent to Christ because his imprisonment was burdensome, and he hoped to be free therefrom. An antithesis between his camel’s-hair garment in the wilderness on the one hand, and the sumptuous clothing of his enemies at the court on the other. In order to seek a weakling, one had to go not to the prison, but to the palace.
Luk_7:26. A prophet?—Instead of allowing that John had in any respect lost his claim to this name, the Saviour shows how far he was even exalted above ordinary prophets. He is something greater (Neuter) than all his predecessors, since he could claim to be the herald of the Messiah.
Luk_7:27. This is he.—Comp. Mal_3:1. “He is, if ye will hear, Elijah who is to come, as Malachi prophesied; and before whom is Elijah to go to prepare the way? Malachi says: ‘Before God the Lord Himself.’ What does Jesus, therefore, testify of Himself, when He says, John has gone as Elijah before Him? Who hath ears to hear, let him hear!” J. Riggenbach.
Luk_7:28. Among those that are born of women.—Comp. Mat_11:11. Luke has correctly adjoined the word ðñïöÞôçò , which was already presupposed in the ἐãÞãåñôáé of Matthew. Among all the prophets John deserves to be called the greatest, because he was the messenger of whom Malachi has spoken. Respecting the ethical worth of his character, the Saviour does not here speak directly, but yet He would not have bestowed this praise upon His Forerunner, if the latter had only possessed prophetical dignity without high excellence of character. The second part of the declaration is by no means to be explained as a testimony of our Lord in reference to Himself (Fritzsche, a. o.). How can the King of the kingdom of heaven place Himself on an equality with those who are in His kingdom? No, He speaks of the least of His disciples, and this not only so far as they appear as apostles or evangelists, but without any distinction. He thinks of their preëminence above the most distinguished men of the Old Covenant, the array of whom closed with John. They had, through the light of the experience of His redeeming power, deeper insight into the nature, the course of development, and the blessings of the kingdom of heaven, than had been the portion of John. If this was true even of those who then believed in Jesus, how much more of us to whom, by the history of the centuries, His greatness has been so much more gloriously revealed.
Luk_7:29. And all the people.—It is a question, whether we have here a remark of Luke, meant to give, Luk_7:29-30, his hearers who dwelt out of Palestine a more particular account of the various reception which the baptism of John had found (Bengel, Paulus, Lachmann, Bornemann, Stier), or whether it constitutes a continuation of the discourse of the Saviour. The latter appears to deserve the preference, as the words åῖ ̓ ðå äὲ ὁ êýñ ., Luk_7:31, are on internal and external grounds suspicious, while, moreover, Luk_7:29-30 contain nothing additional which the Saviour Himself might not have said; and besides, there is no second example of so extended an interpolation of Luke without any indication of it. It is a statement of how differently the preaching and baptism of John had been judged, by which, therefore, the reproach, Luk_7:31; Luk_7:34, is prepared.—[“Luk_7:29 f. does not contain an intervening comment of Luke, which is opposed by his usage elsewhere, and is disproved by the spuriousness of åῖ ̓ ðå äὲ ὁ êýñéïò , Luk_7:31 (b. Elz.), but is the language of Jesus, who states the different results which the appearance of this greatest prophet had had with the people and with the hierarchs. It must, however, be admitted that the words, in comparison with the force, freshness, and oratorical liveliness of the preceding, bear a more historical stamp, and therefore may with reason be regarded as a later intercalation of tradition.” Meyer.—C. C. S.]
Ἐäéêáßùóáí ôὸí Èåüí , i.e., not only: “They declared in act that His will, that they should receive the baptism of John, was right” (Meyer): but they approved the judgment of God, which called them sinners, that needed such a baptism unto repentance.
Luk_7:30. ἨèÝôçóáí . It was God’s counsel ( âïõëÞ ) that the Jews through the baptism of John should be prepared for the Salvation of the Messianic age. Since now the Pharisees and Scribes held themselves back from this baptism, they frustrated this counsel in relation to themselves ( åἰò ἑáõôïýò ), and exhibited themselves, indeed, the bitterest enemies of themselves, as has been in all times the case with the rejectors of the Gospel. The Saviour in this whole remark, just as in Joh_5:33-35, looks back upon the period of John’s activity as one already concluded, and since He is conscious that the opposition against Him, at bottom, springs from no other source than that against John the Baptist, he finds the way prepared of itself for the following parable.
Luk_7:31. Whereunto then shall I.—Here the inquiry of perplexity, as in Mar_4:30 that of intimacy with His disciples. The answer is an irrefragable proof with how attentive and tranquil a look He observed daily life even in the plays of the childish world. In children He sees miniature men, in men grown-up children.
Luk_7:32. Like unto children.—We must declare against the common explanation, as if the children (the Jews) had so played and spoken among one another, for who should then have been the ones who would not dance when others played, nor weep when others lamented? Yet as little do we believe with Fritzsche, that Jesus and John are here reckoned in with their contemporaries, that the former were to be the speakers, and the latter the addressed. We reverse it rather, and consider Jesus and John indicated (according to Matthew) as ἑôáῖñïé , over against whom the people are introduced speaking, and complaining that these friends had always wanted something different from what themselves wanted and did. They had demanded of John cheerfulness, and he had come ìÞôå ἐóèßùí ìÞôå ðßíùí ; from Jesus they had expected strictness and sadness, and He manifested a mild and joyous spirit. In this view no feature of the comparison is lost, and yet the application is not forced or stiff. Comp. Lange, Life of Christ, ii. p. 761, with whose objections against the explanation of R. Stier we fully agree.
Luk_7:33. Neither eating bread, nor drinking wine.—Comp. Luk_1:15. John’s austere mode of life was wholly agreeable to the spirit of his teaching, but displeasing not only to the small court-party, but to all who, pervaded by the leaven of the Sadducees, held unrighteousness dear. They accused him not only of lunacy, but also of actual possession (the Scripture distinguishes the two, Joh_10:20). No wonder, for he would not dance when they piped before him.
Luk_7:34. The Son of Man.—Here is this appellation very especially fitting, as it comes at the beginning of a declaration which refers us to the Lord’s ideal Humanity. He was come eating and drinking, in no way despising the comforts of social life, but temperately enjoying them, even in company with publicans and sinners. But herein had legal self-righteousness found a heavy stone of stumbling. What they had not been able to endure in John, they appeared now to demand in Christ: austere, unbending sternness. And when He did not give ear to this demand, they had ready at once the names of glutton and wine-bibber, friend of publicans and sinners, in which, however, they did not consider that these latter words indicated His highest titles of honor (comp. Luk_15:2). Not only had the disciples of John taken offence at Him (comp. Luk_5:33), but also the Pharisees and all that were accustomed to see through their eyes. The greater part did not receive Him because He had not chosen to weep when they began a gloomy lay of mourning. It would have been a hopeless attempt to labor at the conversion of such a nation, if no exceptions to this sad rule had been found. To these the Saviour refers in the following words. [Notwithstanding that the author’s application of the similitude of the complaining children to the Jews is supported by the names of Bleek, De Wette, and Meyer, I cannot see sufficient reason for abandoning the usual interpretation, which reverses the application. It is confessedly the unreasonableness of the Jews in being satisfied neither with John’s mode of life, nor with our Lord’s, which is the point of comparison. Exactly parallel to this is the unreasonableness charged by the children in the parallel upon their fellows. To say that the complaining children were the unreasonable ones, in expecting their fellows to accommodate themselves to every whim of theirs, appears rather an afterthought, than one suggested naturally by the parable. It is true, the words are, “This generation is like unto children,” &c.; but, as Bleek admits, passages like Mat_13:24 show that these words do not necessarily mean that the generation itself is like the complainers, but that the relation between this generation and our Lord and John, was like that set forth in the parable. There is certainly weight in Bleek’s objection, that this indefiniteness can hardly go so far as to liken the generation addressed to one class of the children, when it was meant to be represented as like the exactly opposite class. But this, it appears to me, does not turn the scale against the evident correspondence between the generation complained of by Christ and the children complained of in the parable.—C. C. S.]
Luk_7:35. But wisdom.—See different views in Lange ad loc. Perhaps we meet here with a proverb not unknown to the contemporaries of our Lord; at least this declaration has a gnome-like character. Wisdom can here be no other than the Divine Wisdom which had been revealed by John and Jesus, and in Jesus was personally manifested: her children are those who are not only born of her, but also related to her, in that they possess a wise heart; and the justification of wisdom takes place where she is acquitted of accusations of this kind, and acknowledged in her true character. Such a justification was to be expected from her children alone, but also from all her children. We are not to understand this saving as a complaint, but as an antithesis of the preceding; an encouragement at the same time for the disciples of Jesus, when they should afterwards experience something similar to that which He and John had experienced.
2. Here also, as in Joh_5:36, the Saviour adduces His ἔñãá as arguments for the certainty of His heavenly mission,—a new proof of the agreement between the Synoptical and the Johannean Christ, but at the same time also a troublesome sign for every one who still with the apostles of unbelief demands: “ôtez-moi ces miracles de votre Evangile.” The Saviour did not perform the miracles that they might become stones of stumbling; on the other hand, they are intended to be means of advancement on the way of faith, and now as ever His answer to every one who secretly takes offence, but turns himself with his doubts to Him that they may be solved, and has remained receptive for rational persuasion, is: “The blind see,” &c. But whoever cannot, by the spiritual workings of Christianity in man and in mankind, be convinced of the fact that something superhuman is working concealed therein, for such an one all abstract grounds of proof are fruitless. From this follows, moreover, that only those who in person belong to the ôõöëïῖò and êùöïῖò spiritually healed by Jesus, will possess a persuasion of faith which can be shaken by nothing subsequent. This is the true demonstration of the Spirit and of power, which constitutes the crown of all Apologetics. But precisely because the Saviour knows this, and foresees how much it costs flesh and blood to remove out of the way all offences taken at Him and His work, He pronounces all blessed who raise themselves to such a height. Another Macarism faith may perhaps subjoin: “Blessed he who, when he might take offence, turns himself to Jesus for healing!”
3. In an exalted tone and, moreover, with perfect justice, does the Saviour praise His imprisoned Forerunner. The whole life of John is a continuous commentary on that which is here said in a few words; and it impresses, therefore, its seal on the correctness of this description of his character. Not less, moreover, does a praise bestowed on such an occasion redound to the honor of the Saviour Himself. In the first place, we admire here His deep wisdom, which takes pains to obliterate in the best manner a perverted impression; and then quite as much the holy severity with which He, without respect of persons, censures the faults of His contemporaries. While the Saviour avoids making a direct declaration of His Messianic dignity, He places it indirectly in a clear light, inasmuch as He points as well to His distinction from, as also to His exaltation above, the position and spirit of the Baptist. And as the people, after what had just taken place, were, perhaps, already disposed to look down upon the prophet of the wilderness with contempt, He constrains them rather to throw a searching and shaming look into their own hearts.
4. “The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater.” One of the most admirable testimonies respecting the inestimable preëminence of the sincere disciples of the Saviour; but at the same time also a witness of Christ to Himself that may not be slightly esteemed. What a consciousness must He bear within Him who exalts His least disciple above the greatest of the prophets, and yet can declare: “I am meek and lowly of heart” (Mat_11:29).
5. The diverse behavior of the publicans and Pharisees, in relation to the baptism of John, gives a convincing proof that self-righteousness sets a far greater obstacle to the coming of the kingdom of God in the heart, than the unrighteousness of the most deeply-sunken sinners. Comp. Mat_21:31-32.
6. The reception on the part of their changeable contemporaries which fell to the lot of John and Jesus, recurs in all manner of forms as well in the history of the Theocracy under Israel, as in that of the Christian Church. This manifestation repeats itself continually where men judge after the flesh, where men judge the truth according to a previously settled system, instead of unconditionally subjecting themselves with their system to the wisdom of God; where, in a word, the natural man bears dominion. Only of the spiritual man does the apostle’s word hold good, 1Co_2:15. Each time the man wills otherwise than God, or he wills that willed by God at another time, in another way, and in another measure. The only infallible touch-stone, therefore, as to whether we already belong to the ôÝêíá ôῆò óïößáò or not, lies simply in the relation in which we stand to God’s word and testimony. The truth of God is recognized with such assurance by the children of wisdom, because, even when it is in conflict with their natural feelings, it finds the deepest echo in the sanctuary of the heart and conscience. The children of wisdom are essentially identical with the íÞðéïé (Luk_10:21), to whom the things of God have been revealed.
7. The crown of all the óçìåῖá of the Lord, and at the same time the means whereby these are continually propagated in the spiritual sphere, is the preaching of the Gospel to the poor, which is, moreover, the highest signature for the divinity of the Gospel. Comp. 1Co_1:26; 1Co_1:31.
Starke:—It is something beautiful and pleasant when teachers and hearers stand in good accord, and diligently edify one another.—Quesnel:—A Christian can draw profit even from novel tidings, if he applies them to his own edification and that of others.—Majus:—Learn to answer rightly the most weighty inquiry of all, who the true Saviour of the world is, and thou shalt be well enlightened.—According to Christ’s example we should rather prove with deeds that we are Christians, than with words.—Canstein:—It is something great when one can fearlessly appeal to truth and deed. 2Co_1:12.—Majus:—Those that walk after Christ find many hindrances and offences in their way, but these must be taken out of the way and overcome, Isa_57:14.—Osiander:—Steadfastness in all good is the most excellent ornament of a servant and child of God.—Brentius:—Careless and rough people are oftentimes easier to be persuaded by the word of truth, than presumptuous hypocrites and reputed wise men.—Whoever despises the counsel of God which is meant for his soul’s health, will experience God’s counsel against him with harm and pain.—Hedinger:—God can manage it so as to please no one: to say nothing then of a frail man with censorious fault-finders.—God’s former servants have been ever calumniated, how then should His present ones fare better?—The world cleaves to its wonted way, and calls evil good and good evil (Isa_5:20); wonder not thereat.—Osiander:—The teacher is not to be born that can please all men.—Majus:—Independent wisdom calls all fools to herself, and will make all wise, but few hear her and follow her.—Heubner:—Whoever does not find in Christ his salvation may wait therefor in vain.—Only one coming will overpass all our expectations, the coming of Christ.—Christianity is founded upon history, upon facts.—Christianity a religion of the poor.—Guyon (on Luk_7:28):—John is the type of the condition of penitence. Whoever has truly pressed into the sanctuary, into the kingdom of grace, whoever has arrived at the full enjoyment of grace, is greater, more blessed than he that remains still in penitence.—Luther (Luk_7:32-34):—“If one preaches the Gospel, it amounts to nothing; if he preaches the Law, it amounts to nothing again: he can neither make the people really joyous, nor really sorry.”
The Pericope (Luk_7:18-27, comp. Mat_11:2-10). The double testimony which Jesus renders before the people: 1. The testimony concerning Himself, Luk_7:18-23; Luke 2. respecting John the Baptist, Luk_7:24-27.—Couard:—John , 1. As to his faith; 2. as to his walk; 3. as to his works.—Ph. D. Burk:—When Jesus will hold up before a soul its wretchedness out of Him. He tells it of the blessedness of those that abide in Him. Contraria contrariis curantur.—Thym:—The question of the Baptist. We take: 1. The question for testing: a. from whom it proceeds, b. how it arose, c. what it aims at. 2. The answer from experience: a. who gives it, b. to what it refers, c. what prize it proposes to us. 3. The testimony in truth: a. by whom it is given, b. what it sets forth, c. what aim it has.—Höpfner:—The glory of Jesus who came into the world in a servant’s form.—Florey:—What the Saviour requires of those who will prepare His way in the hearts of men.
Footnotes:
Luk_7:19.—Rec.: ðñὸò ôὸí Ἰçóïῦí . [With A., Sin., 13 other uncials; ð . ô . êýñéïí , with B., L., R., Î .—C. C. S.]
Luk_7:21.—For Rec.: ἐí áὐôῇ äὲ ôῇ ὥñᾳ , Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Alford read: ἐí ἐêåßíῃ ôῇ ὥñᾳ , as Meyer says, “on insufficient authority and insufficient internal evidence.” They are supported by B., L. Cod. Sin. has ἐí ἐêåßíῃ ôῇ ἡìÝñᾳ .—C. C. S.]
Luk_7:22.—Rec.: ὁ Ἱçóïῦò . [Om., ὁ Ἰçóïῦò , Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford; in Lachmann, bracketed; om., B., D., Î ., Cod. Sin.—C. C. S.]
Luk_7:28.—Rec.: ∆ Ýãù ãὰñ í ̔ ìῖí . [Om. ãáñ , B. Cod. Sin., L., X., Î . read áìçí ëåãù . Tischendorf reads ãÜñ , and remarks: “nisi conjunctio adscripta fuisset, vix tam varie legeretur.”—C. C. S.]
Luk_7:31.—The words at the beginning of the 31st verse: Åἶðå äὲ ὸ êýñéïò , are in all probability spurious, and have been introduced from some evangelistarium, which might the more easily make a new address begin here, as Luk_7:29-30 did not appear to contain a saying of the Lord Himself, but an interposed observation of the evangelist, which, however, is not to be assumed. See below. [Om., Cod. Sin.]