7 As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? 8 If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. 9 Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written:
11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12 From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence,[d] and violent people have been raiding it. 13 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. 14 And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. 15 Whoever has ears, let them hear.
16 “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:
17 “‘We played the pipe for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not mourn.’
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not mourn.’
18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”
Questions:
ReplyDelete- Whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John - is Jesus referring to just Himself? Can any of us be the least?
- The kingdom of God has been subjected to violence?
- If John was the Elijah, does that mean Elijah is not going to come again (as prophesied in Revelations)?
https://bible.org/seriespage/15-question-john-baptist-matthew-111-19 says:
ReplyDeleteJesus appraised the ministry of John and confirmed His own Messiahship (11:7-15).
He was more than a prophet, because he also was prophesied about in the Old Testament as the one who would announce the inauguration of the “Day of Yahweh.”3 So Jesus reminds the people of the words of the last prophet, Malachi: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.” This is Malachi 3:1. Now to get the full impact of what is being said here, you really need to go back and look at the context of Malachi 3. There we read:
See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to His temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom you desire, He will come.”
There are a couple of things worth noting here that inform the New Testament use of the passage. First, Jesus changed the pronoun from “me” to “you.” In the oracle in Malachi if you read the whole paragraph, verses 1-5, you will see that the speaker is Yahweh--God Himself. He is sending the messenger before Himself, because according to verse 5 He will come in judgment. The great event was the coming of the Yahweh; and the announcement of it would be through the messenger. Jesus wanted His audience to be clear on that point, and so by changing the pronoun in His use of the verse He affirms that if John the Baptist was the messenger preparing the way for the Yahweh, then He, Jesus, is Yahweh in the flesh, the God of Israel who was coming into the world.
https://bible.org/seriespage/15-question-john-baptist-matthew-111-19 (continued 2 of 3):
ReplyDeleteThe second thing is to observe that in Malachi the messenger of the covenant--Jesus the Lord--will come to “His temple.” Here too we have a subtle indication of the deity of Christ. All through the Old Testament the temple is called “the house of Yahweh” (the house of the LORD). Malachi prophesied that the messenger of the covenant would come to “His” temple--He is the LORD.
The first difficult saying is that John was greater than all born of women, and yet the least in the kingdom will be greater than he (v. 11). On the one hand John is acclaimed as the greatest human being because he was a prophet, he was prophesied about, and he was the one who introduced the Messiah and the Day of the LORD to the world. But who is the least in the kingdom and in what sense is he greater than John? One view takes the “least” to be the “younger,” referring to Jesus Himself--he is the younger one and greater than John. No one would argue that he is greater, but “younger” is forced. Another view takes “the least in the kingdom” to refer to the future phase of the kingdom, in all its glory. John only got to announce it, but others will see it in all its glory. But that view would suggest John will not be in the kingdom. The third and better view has to do with “greater” in the sense of ministry or witness. John was great because he could point unambiguously to Jesus as the Messiah. But now that the New Covenant has been inaugurated in the Upper Room, and Christ has died, risen and ascended to heaven, the least in the kingdom has a greater witness than John. And this fits the context which is about John’s ministry, and the previous chapter which focused on the disciples’ task of acknowledging who Jesus is to the world. The most humble Christian has greater knowledge and greater opportunity than John the Baptist had. Of course, if they do nothing with that, then the description does not fit. But potentially they are greater.
The text says that the kingdom has been forcefully advancing from the time of John until now, as Jesus was speaking. That has to be in either a good sense (the Gospel is working) or in a bad sense (the zealots are trying to force the issue with Rome). The good sense works better. If it meant that the kingdom was under attack or being pushed by the zealots, that did not start in the days of John. But with John and then immediately Jesus, the message of the Kingdom and the Gospel was being proclaimed and was being received by multitudes. John heard about this in prison.
The next clause then states “and forceful men take hold of it.” One view is that if the kingdom is steadily advancing, those who join in its cause must be courageous and openly promoting it. But this verb “lay hold of” almost always has a negative or evil sense. The violent or forceful4 “men” here could be zealots, Pharisees, Herod, or even spirits. This would then mean that the two clauses are different: the verse would then say that from the time of John the Kingdom preached by Jesus has been making great inroads, but at the same time wicked men have been trying to plunder it for their purposes--such as by beheading John. The point would be that the kingdom has been advancing, but it has not swept aside all opposition as John had expected. As the kingdom advances, the attacks on it by violent men increase. Jesus will later explain why this is the case; but for now it explains why John is in prison and wondering.
https://bible.org/seriespage/15-question-john-baptist-matthew-111-19 (continued 3 of 3):
ReplyDeleteThen the third difficulty is verse 14: “If you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who was to come.” Now you have to go back to Malachi to get the background for this. Malachi 4:5 announces that the LORD is sending Elijah before the great and terrible Day of the LORD (you might want to read Malachi 3 and 4 through to see his vision. There is some ambiguity in Malachi, because he does not say the “messenger” of 3:1 is “Elijah” of 4:5. They are separated by a description of the judgment to be poured out on the earth. If you only had Malachi, you could conclude they are different, and you could conclude they are one and the same. In the New Testament John was asked if he was Elijah, and he said he was not (John 1:21). But Jesus here says, “If you receive it” he is Elijah.
Most commentators say that John (in John 1:21) was wrong. He saw himself as the voice crying in the wilderness but did not see himself as fulfilling Malachi’s prophecy. This is possible, for in our passage we have already seen that John may have been perplexed on how things were working out. But if this view is correct, then Jesus was saying that John fulfilled the prediction of an Elijah who would prepare for the great and terrible Day of the LORD. Obviously, John was not literally Elijah, for that would involve something phenomenal, akin to re-incarnation, since John was born of natural means. But it would mean that John came in the spirit and power of Elijah, an Elijah figure.
Others are not satisfied with this view and suggest the key is in the contingency clause, “If you receive it.” This would not be interpreted as “if you like” or “if you are willing to accept this saying” but “if you receive the whole message of the kingdom.” It would be understood in the sense of “He came to His own, and His own received Him not.” If they had received Him and His message, John would have fit all the conditions of the promise of Elijah. But they did not, and so the prophecy of an Elijah still stands and may be fulfilled literally before the second coming. And some even point to the appearance of Elijah with Moses at the Transfiguration as a preview of this.
http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/2423/what-does-it-mean-that-the-least-in-the-kingdom-of-heaven-is-greater-than-john-t says:
ReplyDeleteThe point about John the Baptist was simply that although he played a very special role history -- a role itself foretold as one who would prepare the way at the coming of the Messiah -- this did not make him special in the Kingdom because that placement is dependent on the work of the Son of Man, not that of John. What greater honor could a man have than to be the immediate herald of the greatest event in all of history? And yet that honor and distinction is shown as insignificant compared to the honor that we are all given as believers grafted into God's family being made co-inheritors with Christ in His kingdom.
All this verse shows us is that any earthly rankings in honor are utterly irrelevant when it comes to our membership in the Kingdom.
http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/2423/what-does-it-mean-that-the-least-in-the-kingdom-of-heaven-is-greater-than-john-t also says:
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot going on here and I can't address it all. However, the key analogy Jesus is drawing is between Herod/Herodias and Ahab/Jezebel (the violent who take the kingdom by force) and between John and Elijah (the ones who suffer violence, but are eventually vindicated). In other words, we should not be surprised John suffered under the thumb of a false king, since all the prophets suffered the same fate.
At that moment, John certainly was not in the kingdom since he was a forerunner to it and was a prisoner of the violent powers.
https://carm.org/bible-difficulties/matthew-mark/was-john-baptist-really-elijah says about John being the Elijah:
ReplyDeleteYes, he was Elijah (Matthew 11:13-14) - "For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John. 14"And if you care to accept it, he himself is Elijah, who was to come."
No, he was not Elijah (John 1:19-21) - "And this is the witness of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" 20And he confessed, and did not deny, and he confessed, "I am not the Christ." 21And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" And he *said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" And he answered, "No."
Luke 1:13-17 - . . . 17"And it is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts . . .
So, we see that John the Baptist was in the spirit of Elijah, but not actually Elijah reincarnated.
http://www.gotquestions.org/John-Baptist-Elijah.html:
ReplyDeleteFirst, the concept of reincarnation would have been foreign to the Jewish mindset, and faithful Jews would have rejected the idea of reincarnation out of hand. Besides, Elijah did not die; he was taken to heaven in a whirlwind as he rode in a chariot of fire (2 Kings 2:11). Arguing for a reincarnation (or a resurrection) of Elijah misses that point. If anything, the prophecy of the Elijah “to come” would have been viewed as Elijah’s physical return to earth from heaven.
Second, the Bible is quite clear that John the Baptist is called “Elijah” because he came in the “spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17), not because he was Elijah in a literal sense. John the Baptist is the New Testament forerunner who points the way to the arrival of the Lord, just as Elijah filled that role in the Old Testament (and might again in the future—see Revelation 11).
Third, Elijah himself appears with Moses at Jesus’ transfiguration after John the Baptist’s death. This would not have happened if Elijah had changed his identity into that of John (Matthew 17:11–12).
Fourth, Mark 6:14–16 and 8:28 show that both the people and Herod distinguished between John the Baptist and Elijah.
Finally, proof that this John the Baptist was not Elijah reincarnated comes from John himself. In the first chapter of John the Apostle’s gospel, John the Baptist identifies himself as the messenger of Isaiah 40:3, not as the Elijah of Malachi 3:1. John the Baptist even goes so far as to specifically deny that he was Elijah (John 1:19–23).
John did for Jesus what Elijah was to have done for the coming of the Lord, but he was not Elijah reincarnated. Jesus identified John the Baptist as Elijah, while John the Baptist rejected that identification. How do we reconcile these two teachings? There is a key phrase in Jesus’ identification of John the Baptist that must not be overlooked. He says, “If you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah.” In other words, John the Baptist’s identification as Elijah was not predicated upon his being the actual Elijah, but upon people’s response to his role. To those who were willing to believe in Jesus, John the Baptist functioned as Elijah, for they believed in Jesus as Lord. To the religious leaders who rejected Jesus, John the Baptist did not perform this function.