Latest / Reformed Thinking / More Than a Prophet: John the Baptist and the Kingdom’s Demand to Hear (Matthew 11:7–15)

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More Than a Prophet: John the Baptist and the Kingdom’s Demand to Hear (Matthew 11:7–15) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reformed thinking. I'm really glad you're with us
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  today because we're not just, you know, reading a few verses.
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  We are stepping into a very specific, very tense moment in
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  the 1st century. We're going to a place called
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  Makaris. Makaris.
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  Yeah, that's Herod Antipas's Fortress, a place with a, well,
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  a pretty dark reputation. It's a grim setting for what
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  we're about to read. We're in Matthew Chapter 11,
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  looking at verses 7 through 15, and to really get what's
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  happening in the text, you almost have to feel the
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  temperature of the room, or maybe more accurately, the
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  temperature of a dungeon. Right, because that's where John
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  the Baptist is. He's sitting in a cell.
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  And this isn't just some random prisoner.
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  This is the guy who baptized Jesus.
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  Man who saw the heavens open, saw this spirit come down like a
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  dove. And now he's in the dark, he's
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  in silence. And outside, you can just
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  imagine the confusion spreading through the crowds.
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  Well, it's a real hinge point and you can almost hear it
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  creaking under the weight of of disappointment.
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  You have to remember what everyone was expecting.
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  Oh absolutely. They thought the Messiah would
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  show up with fire and brimstone. Drive the Romans into the sea,
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  that sort. Of thing exactly.
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  Immediate judgement, a political takeover.
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  But instead of that, the great prophet John is locked up, and
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  Jesus is out there preaching about mercy and, you know,
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  turning the other cheek. It's a recipe for a massive
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  crisis of faith. I mean, John himself sends his
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  disciples to ask Jesus, are you the one or should we be looking
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  for someone else? That's a heavy question.
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  It is. But today we're not focusing so
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  much on John's question. We're looking at what happens
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  right after that. We're looking at Jesus's answer
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  to the crowd. Right, so John's messengers
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  leave, and Jesus turns to this multitude and he knows what
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  they're all thinking. He does.
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  They're wondering if they made a mistake.
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  Did they bet on the wrong horse? Is John a failure?
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  Is he weak? And Jesus just launches into
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  this incredible defense of John. But in doing so, he completely
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  flips our human ideas of greatness on their head.
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  And that's our mission for this deep dive.
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  We're going to unpack Matthew 11 verses 7 to 15.
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  We'll look at how Jesus defends his friend, how he defines what
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  true spiritual grit looks like. And then we get to this.
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  This really difficult, almost shocking statement he makes
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  about the violence of the Kingdom.
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  And, you know, this isn't just some ancient history lesson.
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  It speaks directly to us. It confronts our whole celebrity
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  pastor culture, our love for a comfortable, easy religion, and.
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  What it actually means to have ears to hear.
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  That's the core of it. All right, let's get into the
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  text itself. Jesus starts by asking the crowd
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  a question. He says.
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  What did you go out into the wilderness to see?
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  He actually asks it three times in different ways.
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  It's a rhetorical move. He's forcing them to look inward
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  to check their motives. Why did you trudge all the way
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  out to the Jordan River? It wasn't for the scenery.
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  And the first image he uses is, it's so specific, he asked, did
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  you go out to see a Reed shaken by the wind?
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  And this is where the geography just lights up the text.
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  The Greek word he uses here is colamos.
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  It refers to these tall, hollow reeds that grew all along the
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  banks of the Jordan River. They were everywhere.
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  That's so common sight. Very common, but what's their
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  main characteristic? A columnos is flimsy.
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  It's hollow. If the wind blows N, the Reed
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  bows N If the wind switches and blows S, the Reed just bows
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  South. It is no structural integrity at
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  all. None.
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  It just vibrates with whatever is happening in the atmosphere.
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  So Jesus is asking, did you go all that way to see a spiritual
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  weather vane? And the answer, of course, is a
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  resounding no. Of course not.
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  John the Baptist was an iron pillar.
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  He was the absolute opposite of a Reed.
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  He didn't give a thought to public opinion.
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  He certainly didn't care about the religious establishment in
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  Jerusalem, the Pharisees and Sadducees, and he definitely
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  didn't care about Herod's political power.
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  He just spoke the truth, no matter what it cost.
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  Him, no matter the cost. That feels like such a stark
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  contrast to what to a lot of what we see today.
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  It feels like we are living in an age of the Reed leader.
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  I think we are. You see a lot of what you might
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  call the seeker sensitive impulse, and it's this tendency
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  to measure your success by the approval of the crowd.
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  By the numbers. By the numbers, by the applause.
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  If the culture shifts on a major moral issue, will the leadership
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  just sort of shifts with it? They soften the hard truths of
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  the Bible. They adjust their theology to
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  fit the wind of the current moment.
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  They're like spiritual barometers, just reading the
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  cultural pressure. Instead of being thermostats,
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  setting the temperature. That's a great way to put it.
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  John was a thermostat. He wasn't reading the
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  atmosphere, he was trying to change it.
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  It's the fear of man, isn't it? That's what it boils down to.
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  We want spokesperson for our faith who is pliable, someone
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  who won't make things awkward at a dinner party.
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  That's it exactly. And Jesus rebukes that desire
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  right here. He's reminding them you didn't
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  go to John for that. You went because he had a spine.
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  He had a backbone. The Kingdom of heaven is not
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  built by men who bend. So then he went to a second
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  image. If John is in a Reed, maybe he's
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  a celebrity. Jesus asks a man clothed in soft
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  garments. The word for soft here is
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  malaccos. It can mean soft, delicate, even
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  effeminate, and in the 1st century, if you saw a man
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  wearing fine silk or soft, expensive linen, you knew
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  exactly where he lived. Not in the desert.
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  Not in the desert. He lived in a palace.
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  He was in the King's house. And John, of course, wore
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  camel's hair and eight locusts. I mean, the contrast could not
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  be more visually striking. No, it couldn't.
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  And the theological point is all about the source of spiritual
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  authority. It doesn't come from your social
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  status. It doesn't come from luxury or
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  comfort. John was not a courtier.
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  He wasn't some kind of court chaplain who was hired to bless
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  whatever the king felt like doing.
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  Wow, that just that cuts right through the prosperity gospel
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  doesn't. It it absolutely demolishes it
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  the prosperity gospel and really just our general cultural
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  materialism. It operates on the assumption
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  that God's favor looks like soft clothing.
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  Right. It assumes that if you're really
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  blessed, you'll be driving the best car living in the biggest
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  house. Yes, you'll be wearing the
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  finest silk. And Jesus says no.
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  The people who have that stuff, they're in King's houses,
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  they're insulated, they're safe. But the prophet of God, well,
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  he's often in prison. He's often suffering for his
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  message. It seems like the world loves a
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  polished religious figure, Someone who's, you know, court
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  approved. Well of course it does, because
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  a court approved prophet is safe.
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  He won't talk about sin, he won't talk about judgement.
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  He'll just come along and validate your lifestyle choices.
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  John's ministry was never built for comfort.
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  It was built for conversion. And conversion is messy.
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  Conversion is messy and involves repentance.
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  It involves dying to yourself and you just don't get that
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  message from a man in soft clothing.
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  OK, so John is not a read. He's not a Prince.
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  Jesus then tells the crowd what he is.
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  He says a prophet. Yes, I tell you.
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  And more than a prophet. More than a prophet.
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  I mean, just let that sink in. That is a massive claim.
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  Jesus is elevating John above Isaiah above Jeremiah above
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  Elijah himself. So why?
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  What makes him greater? Was he a better preacher?
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  Did he perform more miracles? I don't think John did any
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  miracles, did he? No, he didn't.
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  The Book of John makes that very clear.
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  So his greatness isn't about his skill set or his resume.
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  It's all about his placement. It's about where he stands in
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  the timeline of redemptive history.
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  OK, I'm back that a little. Think of it this way.
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  All the prophets before him, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Malachi, they
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  all saw the Messiah like a mountain peak in the far
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  distance. They saw him through the the fog
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  of history. They pointed and said He's
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  coming someday. But John.
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  John is the man standing right at the door.
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  He's the one who gets to open the door and announce he is here
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  in another place. He's called the friend of the
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  bridegroom. He's the one who actually gets
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  to introduce the groom to the bride.
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  He's the terminus. He's the end of that long Old
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  Covenant line of prophets. He's the one who gets to
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  physically point a finger at Jesus and say, behold the Lamb
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  of God. That's the moment.
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  That's his unique privilege. And to prove this, Jesus quotes
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  Scripture he pulls from Malachi 3 verse one.
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  Behold, I send my messenger before your face.
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  And I want to pause here because there's something going on with
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  the pronouns in this quote that is just, it's explosive.
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  This is one of those moments that if you're not paying close
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  attention, you'll just read right over it.
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  But it changes everything. It's a Christological bomb.
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  So what's happening? OK, so in the original Hebrew of
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  Malachi 3.1 it's YHWH. It's God who is speaking, and
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  God says, behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare
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  the way before me. Before me, before God.
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  Correct. The messenger in Malachi
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  prepares the way for God himself to show up.
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  Now look closely at how Jesus quotes it here in Matthew 11.
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  He changes a pronoun. He applies the prophecy to the
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  Messiah, to himself. He says I send my messenger
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  before your face, who will prepare your way before you.
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  So if Malachi says the messenger prepares the way for God and
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  Jesus says John the Baptist prepares the way for Jesus.
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  Then Jesus is God. He is YHWH, He is the Lord of
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  glory, showing up in the flesh. He takes a text that is
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  explicitly about the arrival of God Almighty and applies it
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  directly to his own ministry. It's an implicit but completely
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  undeniable claim to deity. That is incredible.
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  And it also clarifies what John's job really was.
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  I mean, he wasn't doing political organizing, right.
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  He wasn't trying to start a get out the vote campaign for the
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  Messiah. No, not at all.
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  Preparing the way, in the biblical sense, is always moral
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  preparation. It's spiritual road work.
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  It's construction for the heart. What does that look like?
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  Well, you have to clear away the boulders of pride.
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  You have to fill in the potholes of despair and self pity.
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  You have to straighten out all the crooked motives and hidden
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  sins. That's what repentance is.
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  It's making a straight highway for the King to ride into your
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  life. So if you reject the messenger,
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  if you refuse to repent. You can't receive the king,
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  you're blocking the road. OK, so Jesus has established
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  John's identity in the clearest possible terms.
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  Then he drops his absolute paradox.
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  He says among those born of women, there has arisen no one
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  greater than John the Baptist. That's the verdict.
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  He's the greatest. Pull slot.
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  But then comes the flip side. Yet he who is least in the
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  Kingdom of heaven is greater than He.
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  And this is that hinge of redemptive history we mentioned
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  earlier. This is the dispensational pivot
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  right here in this verse. It sounds, on the surface,
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  almost unfair to John. How can he be the greatest and
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  yet we're greater than him? And that's because we're tempted
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  to think in terms of, like, moral superiority.
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  It's not that you or I are holier people than John the
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  Baptist. I can assure you we're not.
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  This is a strictly positional statement.
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  Positional, meaning his place in the timeline.
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  Exactly. John belongs to the old economy.
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  He belongs to the era of promise and anticipation.
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  And you have to remember he died before the main event.
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  He died before the cross. He died before the resurrection.
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  He died before Pentecost. He never saw the empty tomb.
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  He never saw it, He preached it, he pointed toward it, but he
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  didn't live in the reality of the finished work of Christ.
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  So the least Christian today, even someone who was just saved
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  5 minutes ago, stands on this side of the cross.
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  We look back at a completed redemption.
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  And we have the indwelling Holy Spirit.
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  We possess the indwelling Holy Spirit in a way that Old
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  Testament Saints did not. We live inside the house that
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  John was only able to announce from the driveway.
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  That is a staggering privilege. I don't think we feel the weight
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  of that often enough. We look back at figures like
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  Moses or David or John as these giants and they were, but we
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  actually have a better vantage point.
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  We do, and that privilege brings a great deal of responsibility.
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  If we have been given more light than John the Baptist, we have
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  absolutely no excuse for having less faith than he did.
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  Now connecting to that same idea, Jesus says in verse 13 for
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  all the prophets in the law prophesied until John.
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  That little word until is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that
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  sentence. It signals an endpoint.
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  It tells us that the era of the Law and the prophets,
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  specifically the era of predictive prophecy about the
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  coming Messiah, has a stop sign. And the stop sign is John the
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  Baptist. He's the finish line for that
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  kind of ministry. So what does that mean for us
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  today? Does that have implications for
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  how we view things like modern day prophecy?
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  Oh, it has huge implications specifically for what
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  theologians call cessationism. This verse gives us a strong
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  biblical basis for rejecting the idea of, you know, new prophets
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  and new apostles giving us new revelations today.
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  So, well, the entire prophetic stream of the Old Testament was
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  narrowing, becoming more and more focused, pointing to one
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  person, the Messiah. Once the Messiah actually
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  arrived, the primary function of the prophet as a foreteller of
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  the coming King is fulfilled. It's over the.
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  King is here. The King is here, so to go
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  looking for new prophets and new words from God is actually a
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  regression. It's like choosing to go back
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  and live in the shadows when the sun is shining brightly.
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  We have the completed Canon of Scripture.
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  We have the full and final word of God in Christ.
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  We don't need a new word. We need to understand and obey
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  the word we already have. That is a really helpful
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  guardrail. It keeps us from constantly
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  chasing, chasing after the new thing.
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  It does. It grounds us in the sufficiency
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  of Scripture. All right, now we have to tackle
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  what is probably the hardest verse in this whole section,
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  maybe in the whole chapter, Verse 12.
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  And for the days of John the Baptist, until now, the Kingdom
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  of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.
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  Yeah, this is a notorious verse for translators and theologians.
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  The main issue is the Greek verb here by as a Thai.
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  The problem is grammatically it can be read in a couple of
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  different ways. It could be in the passive
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  voice, meaning the Kingdom is suffering violence from an
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  outside force. OK, so it's being attacked.
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  Right. Or it could be in the middle
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  voice, which would mean something more like the Kingdom
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  is forcefully advancing or breaking in.
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  So which is it? Is the Kingdom under attack, or
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  is the Kingdom the one kicking down the doors?
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  Well, let's start with the immediate context.
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  Where is John the Baptist as Jesus is saying this?
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  He's in prison. Exactly.
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  And where is Jesus himself heading to the cross, right?
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  The whole context is one of growing hostility.
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  The Pharisees are plotting against him.
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  Herod is imprisoning and will eventually kill his messenger.
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  The world is not rolling out the red carpet for the Kingdom of
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  God. So the first and most immediate
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  meaning is likely the passive 1. The Kingdom of Heaven suffers
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  violence. It's not a peaceful arrival.
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  Not at all. It doesn't arrive like some
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  gentle breeze that everyone welcomes.
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  It provokes a violent reaction. It stirs up the darkness.
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  Herod tries to snatch it away by killing John.
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  The Sanhedrin tries to suppress it by plotting against Jesus.
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  So the take away from that view is expect opposition.
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  Absolutely. If your ministry is faithful to
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  the Word of God, you will be resisted.
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  A Kingdom that confronts sin will always be attacked by
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  sinners. It's a guarantee.
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  But that's not the only way to understand the verse, is it?
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  There's another view, one that a lot of the the Puritans were
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  fond of. Yes, there is, and this is where
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  we can take the text and apply it to the heart of the believer.
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  This is the holy violence interpretation.
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  You have writers like Thomas Watson in his great book The
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  Christian Soldier, who argued that this verse also describes
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  the kind of response the Kingdom demands from us.
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  The violent take it by force. Exactly.
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  Watson would say something like this.
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  Salvation is free. It is by grace alone, through
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  faith alone. But it is not cheap.
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  It's not for the spiritually lazy.
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  You cannot just casually drift into the Kingdom of Heaven.
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  It requires effort. It requires a fighting faith.
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  You have to fight your way through the resistance of your
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  own sinful flesh, through the lies of the devil, through the
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  constant allure of the world. I really like that phrase, holy
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  violence. It pushes back so hard against
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  that sort of easy believism that's so common where you just,
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  you know, raise a hand in a service or sign a card and then
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  go back to living however you want.
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  It does. I mean think of the examples you
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  see in the gospels. Think of the Friends of the
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  Paralytic man in Mark 2. They can't get to Jesus because
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  of the crowd. So what do they do?
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  They climb up on the roof and start tearing it apart.
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  That's violence. That's force.
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  I heard the woman with the issue of blood.
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  Yes, pushing and shoving her way through a hostile crowd, just
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  desperate to touch the hem of his garment.
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  That is a desperate, violent kind of faith.
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  It's the idea that we have to sort of violently drag our own
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  lusts and our pride to the foot of the cross and put them to
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  death. It's not a passive activity.
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  It is absolutely not passive. It's an active daily fighting
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  faith. We need to violently shake off
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  our spiritual lethargy. If we truly want the Kingdom, we
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  have to prize it enough to fight for it.
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  Moving on to verse 14, Jesus brings up Elijah, he says.
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  And if you're willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.
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  Right, and this connects directly back to the very end of
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  the Old Testament to Malachi chapter 4.
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  The Jews had a firm belief that before the great and terrible
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  day of the Lord Elijah, the Tishbite, the actual prophet who
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  went up in a chariot of fire, would physically come back down
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  to. Earth and Jesus just says that's
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  John, but he doesn't mean John is a reincarnated Elijah,
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  correct? No, absolutely not.
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  That's foreign to biblical thought.
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  In fact, John himself, when asked, said I am not Elijah.
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  Jesus means that John fulfills the type of Elijah.
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  As the Angel Gabriel told John's father, He comes the spirit and
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  power of Elijah. So what are the similarities?
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  Well, they both confronted corrupt kings.
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  Elijah had Ahab, John had Herod, they both had a wilderness
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  ministry, they both wore strange rough clothing, and most of all,
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  they both had the same message. Repent, because judgment is
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  coming. There's a really interesting
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  condition that Jesus puts on this statement, he says.
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  If you are willing to accept it. That phrase is it's almost
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  haunting, isn't it? If you are willing, it implies
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  that the offer of the Kingdom was genuine.
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  It was a real offer to the nation of Israel.
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  The king was there. The prophesied herald, the
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  Elijah figure was there. If Israel had repented, if they
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  had accepted John and his message.
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  Things would have looked very different the.
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  History of the world would have changed.
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  The Messianic Kingdom and its earthly fullness could have been
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  established right then and there.
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  But they were not willing. They were not willing, they
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  rejected the forerunner and in a short time they would conspire
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  to kill the king. So does that mean that God's
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  plan somehow failed? Never.
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  This is where we see the beautiful mystery of God's
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  sovereignty and human responsibility.
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  God knew they would reject the offer.
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  In fact, their rejection was the very means by which He planned
• 18:28
  to get Jesus to the cross, which secured redemption for the whole
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  world. So there no was part of the
• 18:34
  plan. It was because Israel as a
• 18:37
  nation rejected the Kingdom. The door was open for what Paul
• 18:40
  calls the mystery of the church age.
• 18:43
  For Gentiles, for people like you and me, to be grafted into
• 18:46
  the people of God. It's the postponement of the
• 18:49
  earthly Kingdom. That's a good way to put it.
• 18:51
  The physical Davidic reign on Earth is postponed until the 2nd
• 18:54
  Coming, and in this period in between we have this incredible
• 18:57
  age of grace. But the rejection by 1st century
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  Israel was a real rejection, and their responsibility for it was
• 19:05
  real. Jesus then ends this whole
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  section with a formula. It's when we hear him use a lot,
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  especially in the Gospels. He who has ears to hear, let him
• 19:14
  hear. Yeah, and it sounds so simple,
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  but it is a theological heavy hitter.
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  Jesus is not talking about acoustics here.
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  He's not telling them to check their hearing aids.
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  He is talking about spiritual perception.
• 19:25
  Which brings us right into the heart of Reformed soteriology,
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  the doctrine of salvation. It does, because the unspoken
• 19:31
  assumption behind that statement is that naturally, we do not
• 19:34
  have ears to hear. Left to ourselves, we are
• 19:37
  spiritually deaf. We're dead in our trespasses and
• 19:39
  sins. You can shout the good news at a
• 19:41
  dead man all day long and he won't respond.
• 19:44
  So how do we get these spiritual ears?
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  They have to be a gift. This is what we call the
• 19:48
  effectual calling of God. The Holy Spirit has to perform a
• 19:51
  divine surgical work on the human heart.
• 19:54
  He has to sovereignly open our ears to hear and open our eyes
• 19:57
  to see the truth. And that helps us distinguish
• 20:00
  between the external call and the internal.
• 20:02
  Call, and it's the perfect illustration.
• 20:03
  The external call of the gospel goes out to everyone.
• 20:06
  It's the if you are willing, it goes out to the whole crowd.
• 20:09
  But the internal call is the effective work of the Spirit,
• 20:12
  and it's only for the elect, for those whom the Spirit
• 20:15
  regenerates and gives those ears to hear.
• 20:17
  And to hear in the biblical sense implies something more
• 20:21
  than just receiving information always.
• 20:24
  In the Bible, you have not truly heard God until you obey Him.
• 20:27
  To hear is to do. It means you stop bargaining.
• 20:31
  You stop negotiating the terms with God.
• 20:33
  It means you bow the knee. So unbelief isn't really an
• 20:36
  intellectual problem. Rarely, yeah.
• 20:39
  At its root, it's a moral problem.
• 20:41
  It's a resistance to authority. He who has ears to hear, let him
• 20:45
  hear is a final summons to surrender.
• 20:47
  Let's try to pull all these threads together.
• 20:50
  We covered a lot of ground here, from a prison cell in Makaris
• 20:53
  all the way to the doctrine of election.
• 20:55
  It just shows you how dense this passage in Matthew really is.
• 20:59
  We saw Jesus move the crowds, thinking from the read that
• 21:04
  unstable people pleasing kind of leader to the iron pillar of
• 21:08
  conviction that was John. We saw the clear warning against
• 21:11
  soft clothing, against the temptation to make our religion
• 21:14
  comfortable, socially acceptable and lucrative.
• 21:17
  And we saw this incredible privilege that we have as new
• 21:20
  covenant believers. We are the least in the Kingdom
• 21:24
  positionally, and yet we are greater than John because we
• 21:27
  stand on this side of the finished work of Christ.
• 21:30
  And we heard that challenging call to a holy violence, not a
• 21:33
  physical violence, of course, but the spiritual violence of a
• 21:36
  fighting faith that takes the Kingdom seriously.
• 21:39
  So as we wrap up, what's the challenge for you, the listener
• 21:41
  today? How do we take this home with
• 21:43
  us? Well, I think we can break it
• 21:44
  down into the classic 3 head, heart and hands.
• 21:47
  OK, start with the head. For the head, understand your
• 21:51
  place in salvation history, understand the distinction
• 21:54
  between the Old Covenant and the New, and please understand the
• 21:57
  sufficiency of Scripture. You do not need a new prophet.
• 22:00
  You do not need a new revelation.
• 22:02
  You have the full and final word of God in Jesus Christ.
• 22:06
  Rest in that truth. All right, now the heart.
• 22:09
  For the heart, do a self check. Look for soft clothing in your
• 22:14
  own life. Ask yourself, am I too
• 22:16
  comfortable in this world? Do I love its approval too much?
• 22:19
  Do I get angry or offended when the Bible confronts my sin?
• 22:23
  And if you find yourself acting like a Reed bending whenever the
• 22:26
  cultural winds blow, then repent of that.
• 22:28
  Ask God to give you a spiritual backbone.
• 22:30
  And finally, the hands are actions.
• 22:32
  Stand firm like John. Don't adjust your theology to
• 22:35
  fit the culture. Adjust your life to fit your
• 22:37
  theology. It might cost you something.
• 22:39
  It might feel like you're in a prison sometimes, socially
• 22:41
  speaking. You might be misunderstood or
• 22:43
  mocked. Remember, the Kingdom suffers
• 22:46
  violence expected, but take hold of Christ with a grip that
• 22:49
  refuses to let go. The Kingdom is here.
• 22:52
  The King has spoken. The only question left is the
• 22:55
  one he leads us with. Do you have ears to hear?
• 22:58
  That's the only question that matters in the end.