Matthew 11

Chapter 11.

Matthew allows the readers to see the reality of faith, even the shortcomings of the “super spiritual”. Faith doesn’t come without doubts and everybody has them, even John the Baptist, Jesus’ own prophetic escort nurses a few doubts as he sits in prison (v3). Perhaps the isolation of prison caused John to battle growing doubts in his own mind. Christians, even the ones who seem to know Jesus the best, tend to expect things from Him and when things do not go the way they expect, doubts rise to the surface. We pipe to Him, and when that doesn’t work we mourn to Him but still we complain when Jesus doesn’t do things our way. Perhaps John was expecting the Messiah to come and free him from prison or bear more of a role in Israel’s government as Isaiah prophesied that He would. Jesus gives John’s disciples other scriptural evidence showing how His miracles fulfill the Scriptures regarding Him. Again, Jesus settles matters of faith with the Scriptures.

Turning now to Jesus’ own followers, there is certainly now doubts in their minds as well. It is apparent the Jewish community was not expecting a suffering Messiah, but rather a strong political figure like David or Solomon. If John the Baptist could doubt, then certainly any one else could. But Jesus will direct their doubts to the Scriptures and find answers there (v4-6)  Verses 4 through 6 are allusions to and words spoken by prophet Isaiah (see Isaiah 35:5-6;61:1).  Jesus ministry is the fulfillment of these Messianic passages.  The miracles are not merely exhibitions of power but they are signs that point to Jesus’ identity and ultimately His work of the cross.

The arrival and departure of John’s disciples welcomes the discourse about John and the kingdom of God (v7-18). Jesus rightly places gives John the highest honor for being the one to personally introduce the Messiah (v11); John has the privilege of pointing to Jesus in the most unambiguous way. John the Baptist gets to says, “Here he is! See Him! Hear Him! Touch Him!” While other prophets before him could only write about future visions of Him. But in the same verse Jesus places”The least of the kingdom is greater than he” (11:11) .  The kingdom is a reference to our own covenant relationship with God in the New Testament, therefore this is a reference to you and I who are reading this within the church age. In a sense we are “greater” than the greatest of OT prophets, but how?

I suppose it could be argued that the New Covenant is superior to the more inferior Old Testament. Therefore John being the last of Old Testament prophets would be inferior to the humblest of God’s new testament people, the church.  But this isn’t actually what I think these verses mean.  The standard of comparison for John’s greatness is his opportunity point to Jesus in an unambiguous way. For those who belong to the kingdom, we are more gifted in this area than John was.  For those who believe in Christ after His crucifixion, we see the Kingdom inaugurated, and we point to Jesus even more clearly than John could.  Being in the kingdom means we have more revelation than John has.  John pointed the future hope of Jesus’ sacrifice, but we point to the historical truth of His cross and resurrection.  We have seen the kingdom’s power in the book of Acts as Jesus continues to work through His disciples.  We are greater than John because our ability to point to the Savior is the  greatest the world has ever seen.

The kingdom of heaven receives violence because there are men who violently fight against it, thus John the Baptist finds himself in prison for the preaching of the kingdom of heaven (v12). Such violence against the kingdom and evil men’s apparent triumph over the kingdom only bred more doubts in the disciple’s minds. So Jesus describes this “generation” as a people who piped and mourn but didn’t get the reaction they wanted out of Jesus (v17-18). Is anyone innocent from not expecting God to serve us in the way we piped and mourned to Him in our prayers? We often expect God to serve us like a genie and when He doesn’t we “doubt” Him. Furthermore, the greatest antagonists of Christ seek to turn the disciples against by arguing that John is too stern and Jesus too gracious. (11:18-19) But this is an obvious contradiction of opinions that Jesus didn’t see the need to further explain. People will doubt and antagonize either way.

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