Latest / Reformed Thinking / Blessed Are the Unoffended: John’s Question, Jesus’ Evidence, and the Real Messiah (Matthew 11:1–6)

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Blessed Are the Unoffended: John’s Question, Jesus’ Evidence, and the Real Messiah (Matthew 11:1–6) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to another session of Reformed Thinking.
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  I'm your host and we are cracking open the archives again
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  today. That's right.
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  And as always, we are coming at this as two Protestant
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  Christians standing on the foundation of the Westminster
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  Confession. Our goal here isn't just to, you
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  know, read the text. It's to put on those Reformed
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  lenses and really grapple with the hard.
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  Stuff the really hard stuff. God's sovereignty, The nature of
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  assurance. And, well, what happens when
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  those two concepts seem to just crash into each other in your
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  life? And we have quite a stack of
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  commentaries, lexical notes, and some historical research on the
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  table today to tackle a very specific and I'd say very heavy
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  passage. We are looking at Matthew
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  Chapter 11 and really just the first 6 verses.
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  It's such a small section of text, but the weight of it is
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  massive. We're calling this discussion
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  When Providence Hurts John the Baptist's doubt and Christ's
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  answer. It is, and I'm not exaggerating
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  here, one of the most startlingly human moments in the
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  entire New Testament. I mean, if you're listening to
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  this and you have ever felt like your life is falling apart
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  precisely while you're trying your hardest to be faithful to
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  God, then this is for you. This is the deep dive for you.
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  It really is. It deals with that that violent
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  collision between what we expect God to do based on our theology
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  and what He actually does in His Providence.
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  And a context here is absolutely vital.
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  I was looking at the structure of Matthew's Gospel again, and
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  the transition from chapter 10 to Chapter 11 is, well, it's
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  jarring. It's like a jump cut in a movie
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  that gives you whiplash. Oh, it's a deliberate literary
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  contrast. I mean, Matthew knows exactly
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  what he's doing here, right? Because you look at chapter 10,
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  it's this incredible high point. This is the mission discourse.
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  Jesus is commissioning the 12. He's giving them authority over
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  unclean spirits, authority to heal every disease.
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  He is sending them out to conquer spiritual darkness.
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  It feels victorious. It feels dynamic.
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  You know, Go to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.
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  Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.
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  It is the Kingdom of God. On the offensive, the.
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  Energy is just kinetic. Yeah, you feel like the
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  revolution has finally started. And then you turn the page.
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  Chapter 11 begins and the narrative camera just pans away
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  from all that excitement, leaves the open fields of Galilee, and
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  zooms right into a damp, dark dungeon.
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  The claustrophobia sets in immediately.
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  We go from the expansion of the Kingdom to the confinement of
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  its greatest herald. And the man in that cell is John
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  the Baptist. The central character in crisis.
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  And we have to pause here because I think we get so used
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  to the flannel graph version of these guys, you know, we forget
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  who John actually was just a few chapters.
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  Prior we do, we domesticate him. But you have to remember this is
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  the man Jesus later calls the greatest man born of women.
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  This is the forerunner. Just a short time ago, John was
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  not in a cell. He was thundering in the
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  wilderness. He was the voice crying out.
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  Prepare the way of the Lord. He was the definition of wild
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  and free. Absolutely.
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  Wearing camel's hair, eating locusts and wild honey.
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  He was baptizing thousands. I mean, this is the one who
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  actually baptized Jesus. He saw the heavens tear open.
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  He saw the spirit descend like a dove.
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  He heard the Father's voice. He was at the absolute epicenter
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  of redemptive history. He was the tip of the spear.
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  He was the one pointing the finger and saying, behold the
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  Lamb of God. He's rotting in the fortress of
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  Makaris. Makaris yeah, I wanted to dig
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  into that because the text just says prison, but the historical
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  background gives us so much more color.
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  Our sources mentioned Josephus, the Jewish historian identifying
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  this location. It's a crucial detail for
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  setting the mood. Makaris was not just a local
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  jail, it was a bleak citadel east of the Dead Sea.
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  So one of Herod the Great's fortress palaces.
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  Right. Built on a high Ridge surrounded
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  by these deep ravines, it was isolated, incredibly hot and
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  just. Grim.
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  So you have this man of the wilderness whose entire ministry
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  was under the open canopy of the sky.
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  Cool little freedom. Now locked behind stone walls in
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  the stifling heat of the Dead Sea region.
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  The sensory deprivation alone would have been madding, but the
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  physical suffering? It's not even the main issue.
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  The core tension, the thing that is driving John to the broke, is
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  why he's there. That is the kicker.
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  He didn't mess up. Usually if we end up in a mess,
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  we can trace it back to a bad decision.
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  You know I shouldn't have done that, right?
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  But John is suffering specifically because he did the
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  right thing. Precisely.
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  He's there because he preached the law of God to a tyrant.
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  He rebuked Herod Antipas for his illicit marriage to Herodias,
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  his brother's wife. He spoke truth to power, yeah.
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  He upheld the sanctity of God's law, and his reward for
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  faithfulness was chains. That sets up what the
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  theologians call the theological crisis, because the forerunner
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  is rotting in a cell, silence is closing in, and meanwhile the
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  Messiah, the one John prepared the way for, is seemingly just
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  wandering around Galilee, teaching and, well, having
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  dinner. And that leads to the main
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  question we are wrestling with today, right?
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  How do we handle it when the clearest creed on our lips meets
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  the darkest Providence in our lives?
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  John knew who Jesus was. He had the right theology.
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  He had the right confession, but his circumstances were screaming
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  the opposite of what he expected the Kingdom of God to look like.
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  Let's get into the text itself then.
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  Section 1, The anatomy of doubt. This comes from Matthew 11,
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  verses 2 and three. It says Now when John heard in
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  prison about the deeds of the Christ, Let's just stop there
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  and unpack that phrase. It is dripping with irony, isn't
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  it? It is, Matthew writes, that John
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  heard about the works of the Christ.
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  He uses the title The Messiah, the King.
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  So John hears that the King is active doing works, but the
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  herald of the King is left to rot.
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  So it's not that John wasn't getting news.
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  His disciples were clearly coming and going.
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  No, it's the type of news. This is the crucial distinction.
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  John is not doubting because Jesus is silent or inactive.
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  He's doubting because of what Jesus is actually doing.
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  The sources refer to this as the expectation gap.
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  Precisely to understand John's pain, you have to go back to his
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  preaching. Just flip back to Matthew 3
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  point 11:50. What was the content of John's
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  message about the coming one? He was pretty aggressive.
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  He talked about an axe being laid to the root of the trees.
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  He talked about a whittling fork clearing the threshing floor.
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  He talked about burning the chaff with unquenchable fire.
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  Fork, fire. Those are instruments of
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  judgement. Right instruments of violent
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  separation. John expected immediate
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  judgement. He expected the Messiah to show
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  up, clean house, toss out the Romans, judge the wicked,
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  specifically people like Herod, and vindicate the righteous.
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  He was looking for a lion. He was looking for the
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  conquering king of Psalm 2. Yes, he had a theology of glory.
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  He expected the day of the Lord to be a day of blazing fire, but
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  instead his disciples come back to the prison and report.
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  What? Well, John Jesus is healing some
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  sick people. He's preaching about mercy.
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  He's telling people to turn the other cheek.
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  Oh, and he had dinner with some tax collectors last night.
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  Right. Jesus is bringing healing and
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  mercy. He's not swinging an axe.
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  He's extending an olive branch. He's not burning the chaff.
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  He's eating with sinners. And for John, sitting in a cell
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  waiting for the Holy Revolution to start, this simply does not
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  compute. The data points aren't matching
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  his theological framework. Not at all.
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  It's like he's doing the math and the equation is broken, so
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  he sends his disciples to ask this specific question.
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  Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?
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  That phrase the coming 1 horicomenos in Greek is
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  technical. It's not just a casual.
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  Are you the guy? Knows a messianic title.
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  Deeply rooted in the Old Testament.
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  You see it in Psalm 118.26. Blessed is he who comes in the
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  name of the Lord. You see shadows of it in Daniel
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  7. So John is asking a very serious
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  covenantal question. Are you the fulfillment of
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  Genesis 3.15? Are you the serpent crusher or?
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  Or shall we look for another? And the word for another there
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  is interesting. In Greek, there are different
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  words. For another, you've got alos,
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  which means another of the same kind, and you have heteros,
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  another of a different kind. And the implication here is
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  leaning toward heteros. It seems to be the idea is, do
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  we need to wait for a different kind of Messiah?
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  Maybe one who acts more like a zealot.
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  Maybe one who actually brings the fire.
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  That feels like such a heavy thing for a prophet to ask.
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  I mean, this is the guy who saw the Spirit descend.
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  Is this unbelief? Has John just lost his faith?
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  That's a vital distinction to make, and one that should really
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  comfort every believer listening.
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  This is doubt, not unbelief. There is a massive difference.
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  OK, so how do you define the difference?
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  Well, unbelief turns away from God.
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  Unbelief says you didn't do what I wanted, so I'm done with you.
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  I'm walking away, it closes the door.
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  But doubt. Doubt, especially in the life of
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  a believer, searches for understanding.
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  It questions, but it questions toward God.
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  And look at what John does. He doesn't just Stew in his cell
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  and become bitter. Right.
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  He sends his disciples to Jesus. He doesn't send them away to
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  find a new religion. He doesn't send them to the
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  Pharisees. He takes his confusion, wraps it
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  in honest inquiry and addresses it to the Lord.
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  He runs to the very person causing his doubt to solve his
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  doubt. Which is so key.
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  Of the term, the source is used here to describe the danger John
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  was in and the danger we're in too.
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  Functional atheist. It's a convicting term, isn't
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  it? It describes what happens to us
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  during hard times. A cancer diagnosis, unexpected
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  job loss, family breakdown. We believe in God.
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  On Sunday, we have the Westminster Confession on our
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  shelf. But when the crisis hits and God
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  does not act according to our script.
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  We start living and thinking as if he's not there, or worse, as
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  if he's not good. We panic.
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  We manipulate, we despair. We become functional atheists.
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  So the application here is to imitate John, yes.
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  Don't suppress the doubt, don't fake it, don't put on a plastic
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  smile for church. Take the confusion to Christ.
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  The expectation that God must act according to our timeline or
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  our logic is an idol. And like all idols, it has to be
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  smashed so we can see the true God.
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  That brings us perfectly to Section 2, the scripture stamped
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  answer. This covers verses 4 and 5 S
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  Jesus gets the question. His cousin, his forerunner, is
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  questioning his very identity. How does he handle?
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  It Well, first notice what he does not do.
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  He doesn't give a simple yes. That would have been the easiest
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  answer. Yes, tell John I'm him.
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  And he doesn't offer sentimental reassurance either.
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  No, it's not. Oh, poor John.
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  Tell him to hang in there. I love him.
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  Send him a care package. He gives them a command.
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  Go and tell John what you hear and see.
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  Jesus pivots immediately to objective external evidence.
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  This seems really important for us as reformed believers.
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  We talk a lot about feelings versus facts, or rather
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  assurance being grounded in something outside of.
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  Us, we do. Christianity is grounded in
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  history. It is grounded in public acts.
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  It's not a religion of private mysticism or internal warm
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  fuzzies. Jesus is saying, John, look at
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  the evidence outside of yourself.
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  Look at the reality of what is happening in space and time.
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  And he lists this catalog of miracles.
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  The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk.
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  Lepers are cleansed and the deaf here, and the dead are raised
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  up. Now to a modern era.
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  That just sounds like a list of charitable deeds.
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  I'm doing good stuff, but to John, John knew his Old
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  Testament better than anyone. This was a coded message.
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  These are not random miracles. No, these are direct allusions
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  to Isaiah 35.56 and Isaiah 61.1. Then the eyes of the blind shall
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  be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
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  Then shall the lame man leap like a deer.
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  Spot on. Jesus is validating his identity
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  not by political conquest, which is what John wanted, but by
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  scriptural fulfillment. He's showing that the Kingdom of
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  God is breaking in right where Isaiah said it would, with
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  restoration, with the reversal of the curse.
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  But here's where it gets really fascinating.
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  And our source material made a huge point of this.
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  There's a significant omission in what Jesus quotes.
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  This is the key to the whole answer.
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  If you miss this, you miss the theology.
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  In Isaiah 61, the prophecy says the Messiah will proclaim the
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  year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God.
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  And Jesus stops. He stops quoting right before
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  the Day of Vengeance. He just leaves it out.
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  Why? Why would he do that?
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  Because that explains John's confusion.
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  John wanted the vengeance. He wanted the fire.
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  By stopping, Jesus is teaching John and us about the mystery
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  phase of the Kingdom. The Jews expected the Messiah to
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  come and do it all at once. Salvation and judgement.
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  One big event. Like a single mountain peak.
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  Right. But as you get closer, you
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  realize it's two peaks with a valley in between.
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  Jesus, the Saint John. I am doing the Isaiah 61 stuff.
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  But right now it is the year of the Lord's favor.
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  It is the Kingdom of grace. So the vengeance is still
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  coming. Oh yes, the Kingdom of glory and
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  the vengeance that comes with it.
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  That's the second coming, but the first coming is for mercy.
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  So the delay of judgement is not a failure.
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  No, it is patience. It is God's mercy.
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  I mean, if Jesus had brought the vengeance immediately right then
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  and there, who would be left standing?
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  Would John have survived it? Would we?
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  That is a sobering thought. We want justice, but if we got
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  absolute justice instantly, we'd be consumed.
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  Now, we should probably take a quick detour here, because our
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  sources emphasize A Reformed cessationist note regarding
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  these miracles. Right, We need to be precise
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  here. In the New Testament, these
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  miracles are often called messianic signs or somaya.
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  From a classical reformed perspective, we distinguish our
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  view from, say, charismatic or prosperity theology.
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  But to be clear, we're not saying God cannot heal today.
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  Of course not. God is sovereign.
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  He can heal whenever He wants, however He wants.
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  We pray for healing, but the specific purpose of these
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  miracles, raising the dead, cleansing lepals on command,
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  instant restoration of sight, was to act as unique credentials
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  for the Messiah and the apostles.
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  They were the badge of office. Exactly.
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  There were signs to prove who he was and to authenticate the new
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  revelation. So it's not a normative promise
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  that every believer gets physically healed right now if
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  they just have enough faith. Correct.
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  And that's crucial for the sufferer.
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  If you think your lack of healing is a lack of faith or
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  that God has failed His promise, you will be crushed.
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  John was not healed. He was not delivered right.
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  But if you understand that these signs were recorded in Scripture
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  so that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, as John 20
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  says, then our assurance rests on the record of the signs, not
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  on repeating them personally every Tuesday.
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  That is incredibly helpful. Assurance comes from the Word,
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  the testimony of what Christ did, not from demanding A
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  miraculous experience in the present moment.
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  Precisely. The miracle has already
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  happened. It's written down.
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  Believe the record. Moving on to Section 3, the
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  Gospel to the poor, this is the last item on Jesus's list of
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  evidence. The poor have good news preached
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  to them. We need to define the poor here.
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  The Greek word is to Choi. To Choi, does that just mean
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  someone with a low income? It's much more intense than
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  that. There's a Greek word for the
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  working poor, penis, but to Choi refers to someone who crouches
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  or cringes. It describes A beggar who has
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  absolutely nothing, someone entirely dependent on another
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  for survival, someone who covers their face in shame.
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  And historically, or I guess theologically, how do we
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  interpret that in this context? Well, we have to connect it to
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  the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5.3.
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  Blessed are the poor in spirit. Well, the gospel certainly has
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  implications for the economically destitute.
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  We have to refute the idea that this is just a social program.
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  This is not just the Social Gospel interpretation that
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  limits Jesus's mission to economic reform.
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  It goes deeper, it hits the soul.
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  Much deeper the good news is the proclamation of the Kingdom to
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  the spiritually bankrupt. It's for those who have no merit
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  to offer God. It is for the tax collectors,
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  the prostitutes, the lepers and, yes, the confusingly imprisoned
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  prophets. The sources argue that this is
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  actually the ultimate miracle in the list.
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  It is. Think about it, raising a dead
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  body is an act of power, a surge of energy.
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  But the holy God speaking peace and pardon to a spiritual
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  beggar, that is an act of infinite grace that requires the
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  cross. Jesus doesn't rally the
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  self-sufficient. He doesn't call the righteous.
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  He saves those who know they cannot save themselves.
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  That is the greater miracle. That leads us to the final part
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  of Jesus's message, the closing argument.
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  Section 4. The beatitude of the unoffended
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  Matthew 11.6. Blessed is the one who is not
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  offended by me. This is the sting in the tail.
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  It's a beatitude, but is also a warning.
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  He starts with blessed Macarios, which means it describes a state
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  of objective well-being. It's divine favor.
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  It's the applause of heaven. But notice the context.
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  John is still in prison. He's not getting out yet.
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  Jesus says he can be blessed. So you can be blessed even if
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  your circumstances are terrible. That just flies in the face of
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  so much modern teaching. It does.
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  Blessedness is not determined by whether you're in a palace or a
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  dungeon. It is not determined by your
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  health or your bank account. It is determined by your
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  relationship to the king. But then comes the warning.
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  Who is not offended by me? The Greek word there is
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  interesting. Scandalous from the reeked
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  scandalong. And we need to do a little
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  lexical excavation here. Scandalong is not just insulted,
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  right? It's not.
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  Blessed is the one who does not get their feelings hurt.
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  No, no, it's not about social offense.
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  A scandal on was a specific mechanism.
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  It was the bait stick of a trap. You know the little stick that
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  holds the bait, and when the animal nudges it to get the
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  food, the trap snaps shut. It's a vivid image.
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  It is. It means a stumbling block, a
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  trap, and Jesus is saying, surprisingly, that He himself
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  can be a trap. Isaiah 8.14 prophesied that the
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  Messiah would be a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling.
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  How is Jesus a trap? That sounds so counterintuitive.
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  He's the savior. We stumble or the trap snaps
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  shirt when we demanded Jesus who fits our boxes, we approach him.
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  But we want the bait, the benefits on our terms.
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  We want a pragmatic Jesus who fixes our problems instantly.
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  Or political Jesus who votes like we do and crushes our
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  enemies all. Right.
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  John was tempted to stumble because Jesus didn't fit his
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  timeline. So the trap is our own judgement
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  of God. Yes, when we judge God for not
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  acting according to our logic, we are skipping right onto the
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  scandal on we're finding fault with God.
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  John Calvin had a great insight on this in his commentary,
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  didn't he? He did.
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  Calvin commented that we must not imagine a Christ who suits
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  our fancy, but receive Him as offered by the Father.
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  He famously said the human heart is an idol factory.
• 18:36
  We are constantly trying to manufacture a version of Jesus
• 18:39
  that is safer, more predictable, more tame.
• 18:42
  This really brings out the dynamic between law and gospel.
• 18:45
  It does. The law exposes our arrogance.
• 18:48
  It shows us our sin in wanting to control God.
• 18:51
  Why didn't you do this for me, God?
• 18:52
  I did everything right. That's the law condemning our
• 18:55
  pride. But the gospel.
• 18:56
  The gospel is the promise of blessing for those who accept
• 18:59
  the offense. The offense of the cross.
• 19:01
  Right. The gospel looks like like
• 19:03
  losing. It looks like weakness.
• 19:05
  A crucified Messiah that is offensive.
• 19:08
  A king who dies. That is foolishness to the
• 19:11
  Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews, but for those who
• 19:15
  accept it, who do not stumble over the weakness of God, is the
• 19:18
  power and wisdom of God. So we're coming to the end of
• 19:21
  the narrative here, and we have to address the elephant in the
• 19:24
  room. What happened to John?
• 19:26
  We have to be honest, there is no Hollywood ending here.
• 19:29
  The credits don't roll with John walking out of the prison gates
• 19:32
  into the sunset. Jesus did not release John.
• 19:35
  No, he sent the message, but he left the locks on the doors,
• 19:39
  Yes. Shortly after this, John was
• 19:41
  executed, beheaded by Herod on a whim during a party.
• 19:44
  That's hard to swallow if you're a functional atheist.
• 19:47
  That looks like failure. That looks like Jesus.
• 19:48
  Let him down. It does, but the sources point
• 19:51
  out something beautiful John received, something better than
• 19:55
  a jailbreak. He received the word of God.
• 19:58
  The message from Jesus. The validation.
• 20:01
  Yes, he received the objective testimony of fulfilled prophecy.
• 20:06
  The blind see the deaf here, the poor have the gospel.
• 20:10
  That was the anchor that held John.
• 20:13
  He didn't get a change in circumstances, but he got a
• 20:15
  confirmation of Christ and that was enough to sustain him to the
• 20:19
  executioner's block. That redefines what Deliverance
• 20:22
  looks like, doesn't it? Sometimes deliverance is being
• 20:25
  taken out of the fire, but sometimes it's the fourth man
• 20:28
  standing in the fire with you. Right.
• 20:30
  John's faith was stabilized not by a miracle for himself, but by
• 20:34
  the knowledge that the Kingdom was advancing, even if he would
• 20:37
  not live to see the fullness of it.
• 20:39
  So for the listener right now who might be in their own
• 20:41
  prison, maybe it's a sin struggle that just won't go
• 20:44
  away. Maybe it's grief that feels like
• 20:46
  a heavy blanket. Maybe just a season where God
• 20:48
  feels terrifyingly silent. The application is clear.
• 20:52
  There is no Plan B. No other savior is coming.
• 20:55
  You can look for another. You can try money, you can try
• 20:57
  politics, you can try relationships.
• 20:59
  But you won't find one. Our Caminos has come.
• 21:02
  The cure for doubt isn't necessarily that things get
• 21:04
  better externally. No, the cure for doubt is a
• 21:08
  fresh vision of the scriptural Christ.
• 21:10
  We have to look away from our shifting feelings, which go up
• 21:13
  and down like the stock market, and fix our eyes on the
• 21:16
  unchangeable evidence of who Jesus is.
• 21:19
  He is the one who heals the broken, even if he doesn't
• 21:23
  always open the prison doors. And the final blessing stands.
• 21:27
  Blessed is the one who does not stumble over him.
• 21:30
  Amen. Blessed is the one who accepts
• 21:33
  Jesus on His terms, not ours. Blessed is the one who trusts
• 21:37
  His heart even when they cannot trace His hand.
• 21:39
  I think that's the perfect place to leave it.
• 21:41
  Thank you for digging into this text with us it.
• 21:43
  Was a pleasure to walk through it.
• 21:44
  And to our listener, here is one final thought to chew on.
• 21:48
  We talked a lot about John expecting fire and getting
• 21:51
  mercy. But remember, the fire does
• 21:53
  eventually come. The question is, have you
• 21:56
  accepted the mercy now in this season of grace so that you can
• 21:59
  stand with confidence in the day of fire later?
• 22:02
  Something to think about. Thanks for listening to Reformed
• 22:04
  Thinking.