20. Chapter 6: His Eulogy.

CHAPTER 6: HIS EULOGY.

Matthew 11:7-19; Luke 7:24-35.

It was as the messengers of the Baptist departed that “Jesus began to speak unto the multitudes concerning John.” When people have departed, the language which breaks out behind their backs about them and their friends is too frequently of a questionable order. Gossip only waits till the door is shut behind a visitor before canvassing every defect in his appearance and ripping up the seams of his character. Those who have been all smiles and flattery to a person present will dissect with the most venomous relish the same person absent. But how different was Jesus, and what an example he has left in this as in other particulars ! While John’s messengers were present he was silent in his praise; indeed, he spoke rather in a tone of reproof. But no sooner were they out of earshot than he broke out in language of the warmest eulogy, as if his admiration had been pent up, and rushed forth as soon as it could find an outlet.

There are few things in biography more beautiful than the relations to one another of John and Jesus. John’s trial took place when the multitude forsook him and went away to Jesus. Others envied for his sake; but not a thought of the kind could find its way into his heart; he only said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” The trial of Jesus, on the other hand, arrived when John sent his messengers to ask a depreciatory question. But He did not resent it. His language about John is full of generosity. There is in it even a poetic intensity, which shows from what a warm place in his heart it came.

Four things about John are embraced in Christ’s panegyric: his personal character, his prophetic greatness, his success, and his failure. The opening words—“What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses”—appear intended to protect John from the unfavorable impressions which may have been made by his own message. The question, “Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another?” might have suggested in John a certain fickleness when contrasted with the emphasis of his earlier testimony; and it suggested an impatience which might be attributed to dissatisfaction with the hardships which he was enduring. Was John, then, a changeable mortal, sighing for release and comfort? From such a caricature Jesus lifted the minds of the listeners to the image of the real John as he appeared in the days of his prime. Was he, whom they went out into the wilderness to see, a reed shaken with the wind—one whom the wind of popular favor could sway this way or that, as it listed, or the stormy wind of persecution bend and break? Was he not, on the contrary, an Elijah-like figure—one fit to stand up against any odds and face the frowns of a hostile world? Was he a man clothed in soft raiment—one who loved his ease and shrank terrified from suffering? They could not but remember the emaciated figure and the coarse and scanty garb of the man of the desert. He had, indeed, had an opportunity of being a courtier, because Herod had cast on him a favoring eye and listened to his preaching with delight; but it was well known what use he had made of this opportunity—not in such a way as to be included among those who are gorgeously apparelled and live delicately in kings’ courts, but in such a way as to doom himself to a dungeon.

Such was John—the uncompromising witness, able to stand like an iron pillar and a brazen wall against whosoever ventured to oppose the truth, the self-denying ascetic whom no threats could intimidate or sufferings tame—and Jesus loved to paint him in the glory of his prime. God always sees the best of his servants and places their character and their services in the most favorable light: not his the petty spirit which criticises everything that is high for the purpose of bringing it low, or judges a man by his worst hour rather than by his best.

It has been said that every man of prophetic endowment has to pass through the stages of criticism against which John was defended by Jesus. First, when he begins to attract attention, he is said to be a reed shaken with the wind: he is waiting for the popular breeze and will bend any way, as influence is brought to bear upon him. By and by, when he has conquered popularity, he is assailed with the second accusation—that he is a man clothed in soft raiment; he is making his friends among the rich and powerful, and is intent on feathering his own nest. Only after running the gauntlet of such criticism does he at last wring from the minds of his contemporaries the acknowledgment that he is a prophet. Perhaps this is true, and it is a lesson for the critics; but there is a solemn lesson for the man himself. Any one endowed with the prophetic gift will be tempted at precisely these points. He will be tempted first to use the gift of speech for the gratification of his own vanity, being puffed up or cast down according as the multitude follow him and the organs of public opinion praise him or not. Then, after his position is won and his fame established, he will be tempted to use his gifts to shape for himself a comfortable place in society. And only after he has surmounted both forms of temptation will he approve himself a true prophet of the Lord. The Baptist, then, was no reed shaken with the wind or softly clothed courtier, but a true prophet. “Yea,” the Lord added, “and more than a prophet; for this is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist; notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” This is high and almost, one would think, excessive praise. Among those born of women, before the birth of Christ, must we regard John the Baptist as the very greatest man? Was he greater than Moses, Elijah, David, Isaiah; or—to glance beyond the elect people—greater than Homer and Plato, Sakya-muni and Confucius? Probably this was not what Jesus meant; and the difference in his meaning points to a profound difference between the human and the divine way of estimating greatness. We measure greatness by the size of the brain—by what we call brilliance, talent, genius. This flatters human vanity; and out of it arise the extravagances of hero-worship and the madnesses of ambition. But God’s way of estimating greatness is different: greatness is to be sought in faithfulness to duty, in the humility with which the gifts of God are received and utilized; above all, in nearness to God himself. John was greater than all who had gone before him, not because the force of his manhood surpassed that of Moses, or because his prophetic style excelled that of Isaiah—for they did not—but because he was nearer to the divine Light which was coming into the world, and to him was vouchsafed the unique privilege of introducing it to mankind. This explains the remarkable statement: “Notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” The comparison is not in reference to character or performance, but in reference to position and privilege. In a somewhat similar way we might say that a student of to-day is greater in mechanics than Archimedes or in astronomy than Copernicus; not in the sense that he has greater mechanical or astronomical genius, but in the sense that his position in time lifts him over the heads of those men of the past. John is regarded as still belonging to the Old Testament era, although so near the New Testament era as to be able to touch it and, therefore, greater than those more remote from it; but those in the New Testament era, even the least of them, are greater than he. The New Testament era is here called “the kingdom of heaven and this suggests a comparison. We are accustomed to divide nature into three kingdoms— the mineral, the vegetable and the animal. Now, it can be said that what is least in the vegetable kingdom is greater than that which is greatest in the mineral kingdom, and that what is least in the animal kingdom is greater than that which is greatest in the vegetable kingdom. So he that is least in the kingdom of God, as Christ set it up in the world, is greater than he that was greatest in the imperfect dispensation of the Old Testament, just as he that was least there was greater than the greatest in the world which lay outside the sphere of revelation.

Such is the tenor of the whole New Testament. It will be remembered how St. Paul contrasts the ministration of condemnation, as he calls the Old Testament, with the ministration of the Spirit, as he calls the New Testament. The Old Testament was, indeed, glorious in comparison with the surrounding world; “but even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth. For if that which is done away is glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.”

We may well inquire wherein this glory or greatness consists; for, if we are Christians, it belongs to us. Everyone who is in Christ is greater than was Abraham or Moses, Isaiah or John the Baptist. This is not, indeed, a greatness of character, but of position and privilege; yet it is meant to react upon character. Indeed, this is the very spring of New Testament morality: it is the worldly maxim, Noblesse oblige, raised to a heavenly intensity. Ye are risen with Christ, therefore rise with him to newness of life; ye are seated with him in the heavenly places, wherefore set your affections on things above. This is the strain of the whole New Testament: it is from the sense of being ideally lifted up into a region of holiness and blessedness through our connection with Christ that we are supplied with the motive and the power for the real conflict with evil. “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” From the Baptist’s personal character and his official greatness the Lord goes on to speak of the success of his work: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force.” These words are difficult; but not a few misinterpretations, which need not be mentioned, fall away when we observe that Jesus is still being carried forward on the tide of eulogy, and that these words, therefore, are words of praise, not of blame.

What John had done was to set the kingdom of heaven in the midst, where it attracted the thoughts, the desires and the conversation of men. Through his eyes his hearers saw the kingdom of heaven as a city of which they must get possession, and, like resolute besiegers, not to be baulked, they were ready to do and to sacrifice everything in order to obtain this object of desire: “the violent take it by force.” The words, “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence,” would not mean anything more than is expressed by the second clause, “The violent take it by force.” But perhaps a better translation would be, “cometh in with violence;” and this would naturally refer to the earnestness with which it was preached, whereas the other clause refers to the earnestness of the hearers. With this agrees the version of St. Luke: “The kingdom of heaven is preached, and every one presseth into it.” John had not only been an earnest preacher himself, but he had raised up a race of preachers like-minded; and these earnest preachers made earnest hearers.

Whether in the words, “The violent take it by force,” any reference is made to the character of John’s converts is not certain. At any rate, his converts were the violent rather than the respectable. To the respectable Jesus said on a subsequent occasion, “John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not; but the publicans and harlots believed him.” There was an element of violence in John’s preaching; it was full of wrath and menace; it was not the pure or the full gospel. His hearers also were very imperfect; their previous lives had been violent and their apprehension of the kingdom of God was very defective; yet his was a genuine work, and it caused a genuine revival. Sometimes the preaching of the gospel may not be very refined; there may be too much terror in it, and it may lack the sweetness and light of mature Christianity. Yet, if it comes with power from the heart of the preacher, it may do infinitely more good than a perfect form of sound words preached without earnestness. Hearers awakened in open-air meetings or mission halls to flee from the wrath to come may press into the kingdom, while many who have heard the gospel for a lifetime in fashionable churches are dismissed into outer darkness.

Up to this point Jesus has proceeded in the strain of panegyric; here, however, comes a “but”—“But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets and calling unto their fellows, We have piped unto you and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you and ye have not lamented.”

Now a “but” after a panegyric is suspicious. In talking of others we sometimes say a certain amount of good, then suddenly, with a “but,” the conversation takes a turn, and the good already spoken is undone by the envious and malignant sequel. The transition in the discourse of Jesus was not of this kind. He went on, indeed, to speak of John’s failure to influence his generation as a whole; but his aim was not to depreciate John, but to attack those who had rejected him. And the final proof of the purity of his motive is that at this point he associates himself with John: the failure of the Baptist was also his own. The language in which Jesus here speaks is very striking. It is figurative; and this is like him, for he loved to use similitudes. The imagery is taken from common life—the life of the street—and this also is characteristic. It is most characteristic of all that he borrows from the children’s world; for of that world in all its phases he was lovingly observant.

Jesus had seen the children in the markets—as we may see them in our own streets—playing at funerals and marriages. One child would play the chief mourner, and the others would follow lamenting; one child would play the pipe, or something which could be feigned to be a pipe, and the rest would dance like the guests at a wedding. But soon the children tired, or something else attracted them, and the leader was left lamenting or piping in vain. And there, said Jesus, are John and the Son of man. John came neither eating nor drinking: he was mournful, ascetic, funereal; and for a time it looked as if the whole country was to repent and mourn with him. But this seriousness did not last; the penitence of the people had not gone deep, and their impressions passed away. They threw the blame, however, on the preacher. “He is a little wrong in the mind,” they said; “he hath a devil.” Then came the Son of man, eating and drinking; and for a time his flute-like note of joy attracted more than had ever followed the mournful lead of the Baptist. But neither were the impressions permanent which He made; the enthusiasm cooled down, life returned to its ordinary channels, and they cast the blame on him. “A gluttonous man,” they exclaimed, “and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.”

These objections cancelled one another. Had it really been because John was too mournful that they left him they would have clung to Jesus, the joyful; had it really been because Jesus was too convivial that they left him they would have been satisfied with John. But their objections were merely excuses. The real reason was that they feared both John’s glittering axe, “Repent,” and the winnowing fan of Jesus, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself.” There are always excuses in plenty. One day it is too hot, another too cold; one church is too empty, another too full; one preacher is too learned, another not learned enough; one congregation is too genteel, another too common. But the real reason is still the old one—it is dislike to religion itself. Sinners do not wish to give up their sins, as John demanded; they do not wish to be brought nigh to God, as Jesus offered.

Such was our Lord’s condemnation of his own generation; but it does not contradict what he had already said about John’s success or deny entirely success to his own ministry. Though they had both failed with the generation as a whole, their mission was not wholly a failure; and this is what is expressed in our Lord’s closing words: “But Wisdom is justified of her children.” Those who slighted and rejected John and Jesus practically condemned the divine Wisdom which had sent these prophets; but there were those who condemned this condemnation and justified Wisdom. These were Wisdom’s own children. In the preaching of John they recognized the accents of their lost mother, and they recognized them still more in the preaching of Jesus. But most of all did they discern the presence of divine wisdom in the combination of the two; because John’s preaching of repentance awakened in them the sense of spiritual need, and in Christ’s preaching the awakened soul obtained complete satisfaction. In religion much depends on the preacher, and to his work is attached a heavy responsibility. But more depends on the hearer. Even when John and Jesus were the preachers many hearers profited nothing. The preaching of repentance can do no good when sinners are determined not to give up their sins; and the unsearchable riches of the gospel are spread out in vain before those who are not hungering and thirsting after righteousness.