Tests of the Deliverer

“Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, and said unto Him, Art thou He that should come, or do we look for another?”—Matthew xi. 2, 3.

The Gospel for this day was chosen, I have no doubt, chiefly for the sake of our Lord’s discourse respecting John. The ministers of the New Covenant are to learn from it the nature of their vocation,—that they are Prophets of the Advent of a King, that they are Messengers to prepare His way, that, however insignificant in themselves, their work is greater than that of the greatest who preceded the Incarnation.

But though the framers of our services may have thought most of the latter portion of this narrative, they could not sever it from the former. Christ’s words were called forth by the message which John’s disciples brought with them. That message exhibits him, not as the preacher of repentance, not as the reprover of Herod, but as hesitating about the truth of his own mission,—uncertain whether he had not been deceiving the people when he told them that a greater than he was at hand, One Who would baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Was John, in this part of his life also, a lesson to the ministers who should follow him? Can the prayer of the Collect refer at all to this question, “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?”

I. I have assumed that that question does express a suspicion in the Baptist’s own mind. I am aware that he is supposed by many to have devised it merely for the satisfaction of his disciples. We should not say so, I think, if we met with the same story in any other book: I do not see why we should adopt the opinion because we meet with it in the book which is most honest in exposing the infirmities of its heroes. Our Lord’s words, “Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me,” was part of the answer which he sent to John. Were they not intended specially for him? Were they not addressed to his conscience by One Who knew what was in him and in every man? It would be a great mistake, I confess, to overlook the disciples, or to forget that John chose them to be the bearers of his question. One can easily suppose that they had proposed it first to their master; that they had accompanied it with another: “How could the noblest of all witnesses for God be left in prison, if the Deliverer were indeed at hand?” Such thoughts may never have been uttered by the Teacher; he may have repelled them when they were presented to him. But they may have stung him all the more for that effort of repression; they may have been far bitterer, more tormenting, to him than to those who were able to put them into words: he may have known that they had not come to him from without, but had only been awakened in his own heart out of a moody threatening sleep. Such, I think, experience tells us would be the process by which such a doubt would be generated and ripened in us; so we attribute it naturally to one of those who are expressly represented to us as having like passions with ourselves.

II. If this is reasonable, it must be also reasonable to conclude that we have here some lesson for the New Testament minister. Is the lesson this, that he should shut his ears to the anxieties and questionings of his disciples; that he should scowl at them for indulging what causes so much pain, perhaps so much self-reproach, in him? I can conceive no more mischievous result from the narrative than that; none so bad for those whom the teacher compels to stifle their most terrible perplexities within them, or to pretend a satisfaction which they do not feel; none so fatal to himself, seeing that he must feign to be better than he is, or must brood over a scepticism which he has not courage to bring forth into God’s clear light. No, brethren; the teacher who wishes to be on such terms as these with the men who look up to him as a guide, is treacherous to them, more treacherous to his own heart. If he leads them to suppose that God is pleased with them for any suppression or crushing of doubts, even those that seem the most injurious to His providence and His character, he is turning their questionings into unbelief; he is training them for atheists. If he is afraid to confess a share in their difficulties,—if he seeks to pass himself off for a being of another and higher nature than they are,—he is hastening to become a hard, unfeeling Pharisee, wrapt in his own security, incapable of human sympathy, treating God as an enemy. He will not be an imitator of John the Baptist, for he was a brave and sincere man; and to adopt this course is to be out of communion with all that has ever been brave and sincere upon God’s earth.

III. There is, indeed, one fear which a teacher may lawfully entertain respecting these communications. When they take the form, which they do so often take, of insinuations that he has sustained some personal wrong, that he has received fewer rewards, or suffered more, than he deserved; then they speak, not to his sympathy, not to his dislike of hypocrisy, not to his desire of finding out the truth, whatever it is, but to his self-conceit; then they cultivate something in him which he may well wish that they had striven to kill, and not to feed. John’s disciples might be excused if they thought his imprisonment a greater proof that the Deliverer was not come, than the subjection of their country to Rome, or to its own lusts and baseness; but John could not safely cherish such an opinion. If he found himself hovering on the edge of it,—inclined to make that the test of God’s fidelity to His promises,—he will have had a sense of giddiness, a staggering sickness, which never overtakes a man till self-love has thrust itself in, to bewilder him about his own position in the world, and the need which the world has of him. Yet how easily the best may be so bewildered; how necessary it is that the best should feel that they are in the same peril as the worst!

IV. I have intimated what kind of doubts, besides these personal ones, might be awakened in the mind of Jews, especially of earnest patriotic Jews, about the possibility of Jesus fulfilling the promises made to their forefathers. What deliverance had He wrought already for Israel? What was He likely to work? He preached of a kingdom being at hand, as John had preached; but what signs were there of the establishment of such a kingdom? He called men to repent, as John had called them. But He mixed far more than John had done, with the sinful; the most religious avoided Him, and He denounced them. These were facts which could scarcely fail to trouble John’s disciples; may they not have added greatly to his trouble? He took the one simple, manly course. He did not balance one argument against another; he did not try to refute the objections which occurred to others or to himself. He sent the disciples to Jesus. They were to ask Him to explain His pretensions. They were to see whether He was the person they were in need of, or no.

I cannot conceive that in any act of John’s life he was more an example to later ministers than in this. Disciples come to them, or men who are not disciples, full of doubts whether the Gospel has indeed fulfilled its promises. If these men have courage to say what they think; if they have not conceived an unfortunate opinion that a Christian minister is just the man to whom they should not speak out their minds,—just the man who would be shocked at their freedom, or whom it would be uncourteous and cruel to rouse out of the acquiescence in his system to which he is pledged,—they would probably ask him whether Christianity had not been tried for eighteen hundred years, and been found wanting; whether the state of the world at large is not almost conclusive against either its truth or its power; whether the Church, in the most favoured portions of it, by its sins, by its divisions, is not a more overwhelming witness still? When such doubts are propounded by some one who would gladly believe if he could, but who cannot pretend that he believes when he does not, who regards a falsehood as damnable; is it of any use to produce dexterous apologies, evidence that there are as many difficulties and contradictions in the theories of Deists or of Atheists as of Christians; proofs, generally too well heeded, that this or that conviction, which is held with trembling love and devotion, must in logical consistency be abandoned? Is it of any use, I asked, to take this course? I ought to have said, When we take it, are we not undermining the soul of our brother? are we not robbing him of the treasures which he has? And are we not putting the Gospel of Christ in the lowest position conceivable,—a position of mere defence,—as if we knew that it could not make out any claim to be the regenerator of mankind; as if we were quite content to show that it is not worse or feebler than systems which we denounce as having no divinity at all?

Surely, if it is true, as St. Paul taught us last Sunday, that the Bible is a book of Hope; that it can be recommended only to men of any class, Jews or Heathens, in this character, there cannot be a method of pleading for it so unapostolical, so suicidal as this. Men want to know if there is really a Saviour of the world, a Saviour who actually saves;— and we tell them there is a document which they must accept, because we have a set of ingenious arguments which prove that not to accept it is dangerous, and that, being a revelation of God, it does not leave us in more darkness than would surround us, if no revelation had been made or were possible.

And is not the real plea for such experiments,—if we would be honest,—that we do not believe God has revealed Himself or can reveal Himself to men? If we thought that the Jesus to whom John the Baptist sent his disciples was and is the Christ, the Image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature, should not we suppose that He has the power and the will to make what He is, manifest to the consciences and hearts of His creatures? On what other faith did John act? “If this Man who is called the Carpenter’s Son, is indeed that King of Men, that Word, that Son of God, of whom I have borne witness, He can make it evident to my disciples and to me, that He is; He will bring an evidence to us which we shall never obtain by days, months, years of arguing.” Is it not so now? Has not the minister of Christ to confess for himself, to confess for his disciples, to confess for those whom he has tried to convince that it is very foolish and wrong not to be convinced,—“Son of God! it is not thus that I can bring my own heart or the heart of any man to receive Thy yoke! My logic and rhetoric are as little able to bind the human will, as they are to bid the winds and the waves be at peace. We want One Who can do both. Amidst the overwhelming wail of outward calamities, out of the confusion and darkness of my own spirit, I cry to thee, ‘Show us O Lord, whether Thou art He that shall come, or whether we must look for another?’”

V. And then comes the answer; from the only voice that can utter it, or make it effectual. “Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them.” This was the commentary on John’s own words, “I baptize with water, He shall baptize with the Holy Ghost.” Here were the signs, not of a Teacher, but of a Ruler; here were acts of deliverance. The Kingdom of Heaven was not merely at hand: it was coming with power. Human creatures were learning in their own very selves, in their bodies and spirits, what manner of Kingdom it was. Men were not instructed how they might be made well; the most wretched were made well. They were not commanded to do, and live; a Gospel of life and renovation was proclaimed to them. He from Whom they heard the Gospel, was bestowing the life and renovation. John’s disciples were to see, and hear, and report. Their master would have to decide,—each of them would have to decide,—whether this was the Person they needed; whether this was the Person to whom they owed the homage of subjects; or whether they were to wait for a king of another character, governing in some other region, using his dominion for other ends.

We are not told the result. It is quite possible that these two disciples did not confess Jesus as the Christ. The sight of Him, while he was performing these acts, laid no more compulsion upon them to admit his claims, than it laid upon the Pharisees, who said that by the prince of the devils He cast out devils. And this is for us the most striking part of the evidence. The King to Whom Nature paid obeisance, was asserting a higher sovereignty than that. He was claiming to be Lord over man’s will; over that which no force can subdue, which scorns and defies force, even if it perishes in its resistance. The King, meek and gentle, comes not to beat down this rebel, but to overcome it by humility, by endurance, by sacrifice. The strangest of paradoxes! The Divine Will exhibits itself in Jesus as the Will of surrender, of abasement; the will of the creature is that which aspires to set itself above the stars! Which shall prevail? which shall be defeated at last?

That is precisely the problem which those who are occupying now the position which John’s disciples occupied of old, have to meditate; that is the subject of the Gospel which the ministers of Christ who have succeeded to the place of John, have to declare. They are not to speak of One Who has come to set the world right, to set the condition of mankind right, by decrees and statutes, whilst He leaves them just as they were,—obstinate and rebellious within, hating the rules to which they must by force and terror submit. They are to speak of One Who could not prevail by these means, because His kingdom is within; because He baptizes with the Spirit; because He has not established His complete royalty, till He has made His subjects willing in the day of His power. They are to speak of One Who has proved that He is mightier in the depth of His weakness, than the greatest amount of evil might that can be opposed to Him; Who has shown in death that Love is stronger than death; Who by His sacrifice has triumphed over the powers of malice and selfishness, making a show of them openly. They are therefore to meet the objections of men, that evil has a frightful hold upon a world into which the Gospel has entered, over a Church which professes to accept that Gospel,—not the least by disputing or explaining any one of the facts upon which this charge rests,—not by pleading that some one place, or Church, or body of believers, is exempt from the charge,—not by the miserable excuse that unbelievers are worse, or not better, than Christians;—but by simply and honestly appealing to the conscience of each man, Jew, Turk, Infidel, Heretic, whether there is not a battle in him between Light and Darkness, between Good and Evil; and by telling him that the Christ whom Apostles announced to men is precisely that Source of Light, that Champion of Truth, against Whom he is fighting, when he yields to any baseness or insincerity, by Whom everything that is manly and truthful within him has been inspired; by bidding him consider, yet further, whether the Jesus of Whom Evangelists speak, He Who healed the sick, He Who spake comfort to the poor, is not what that unseen Lord would be, must be, if He took flesh and dwelt among men. Are not these acts—these acts of fellowship with all the miseries of men—those by which He would prove His Manhood and His Godhead?

VI. Arguments drawn from the miracles of Christ, when those miracles are considered as strange exceptions and anomalies, have, I believe, peculiarly little force with the men of our generation. A minister of Christ may attribute this feebleness to the hardness of his hearers’ hearts; but does he find that such proofs have much effect in softening his own? It is when these acts are owned by him, not as the attestations of a doctrine, but as the signs of a living Person Who is healing the sick, raising the dead, preaching a Gospel to the poor, now as in the days of His flesh, that they strengthen him to patience and to hope. For then he feels that he is indeed only a minister, only a messenger; that all the diligence which is required of him is only that he may not intercept the communications of his Master to men, that he may not greatly mar His tidings in delivering them. Then he understands the need which there is of a written record to define the vagueness, to expand the narrowness, of his utterances. Then he understands, at the same time, why a book could not suffice without a man to speak its words, since readers are so apt to forget that they are not spelling out letters, but listening to the Living Teacher. Then he is able to bear in some measure the oppression of the remembrance which should be heavier upon him than upon those who use it most as a reason for unbelief,—which will often be to him the temptation to a deeper unbelief than theirs——that the earth is still full of the habitations of cruelty, that some of the cruelest deeds are done in the name of Christ. For then the thought will be continually present to him, that the meanest in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater in this than John the Baptist, that he is the herald of that Advent which shall consummate all that Christ’s first Advent, to save and judge the earth of that day, promised. He will find in every page of the history of individuals and of nations, the tokens and witnesses of Christ’s rule over men, the preparation for the complete discovery of it to men. He will receive every baptism, wherein he claims Christ’s pledges for infants which He for His part will surely keep and perform; every communion, wherein he gives thanks for the complete sacrifice that has been offered for the sins of the whole world; every burial, in which we commit a brother’s body to the earth, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life—as testimonies to that Eternal, Unchangeable Truth which his own slow intellect, wavering faith, insincere love, is so unwilling to embrace, so ready to deny. He will learn by degrees, with these helps, to look upon the darkest clouds that gather about us, as signs of the Son of Man; hiding His light for awhile, at last to break forth and reveal Him and not another, to the eyes of His waiting servants.