In this chapter we have John the Baptist sending two of his disciples to Jesus with the question, “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?” Some hold that at this time John the Baptist had an attack of unbelief, others, that he put the question rather for the benefit of his disciples. We find the latter view more agreeable to our mind, for we see that the disciples of John seemed jealous for the honour of their own master when they said to him, “Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom though barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him.” John 3:26. Part of John’s work was to draw them from this jealousy, and therefore, he tells them concerning Christ, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” verse 30. If his object in this instance was to instruct them by directing them to put this question to Jesus, their attention was directed to what should have been ample evidence for them that this was the promised Messiah. He told them to tell John of the wonderful miracles which they saw and heard, and ended with the words to which I would seek to draw your attention at this time as enabled. “And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in one.”
From these words I would seek to draw your attention as enabled to two things in particular:—
I. Those who are not offended in Christ.
(1) They are not offended in Him because of the condition in which He appeared in the world.
The Jews generally, and especially their rulers, looked for a Messiah who was to appear in earthly splendour and glory, sitting upon the throne of David and setting up an earthly kingdom for Israel, and when He did not appear as they expected they were offended in Him and rejected Him. There were some, however, who were not offended in Him because of His humiliation. He appeared to some of them when engaged in their lawful calling, and had only to say, “Follow Me,” and they left everything and followed Him, and His humble appearance did not prevent them from following Him. This is true of the Lord’s people in every age of time. Christ may be despised and rejected by others, because of His humble appearance in the world, in His ordinances and in His members, but they will not be offended in Him.
Many are offended in Him because of His seeming weakness. Ample fulfilled in Him is the description of His weakness given by the Psalmist, “But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.” Psalm 22:6. Naturally, we are given to admire strength but here the world sees nothing but weakness, but His own are not offended in Him because of His weakness, for they have learned that “though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God.” II Cor. 13:4, and that His sinking in deep mire was the preparation for putting them on a sure foundation for eternity.
Those spoken of in our text are not offended in Him though He is spoken against everywhere. His people are a sect that is everywhere spoken against. They are looked upon as cursed, as we find the Pharisees taunting their own officers sent to apprehend him, by saying, “Are ye also deceived? Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him? But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.” John 7:47-49. In the face of this bitter taunting the Lord’s true people are not offended in Him, for they realise that the world, whether or not it has a profession of religion is against Christ, and that learning does not put one in possession of true godliness. Yea, Christ Himself gives thanks to the Father in this chapter that He has seen fit to reveal much to the unlearned. “… I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.” Matth. 11: 25-26.
(2) They are not offended in Him because of His way of salvation.
This salvation is a God-glorifying salvation. The most of people would like to go to Heaven at the end of life’s journey, but they would like to go there in a way that self would be glorified. Men’s ambition is to be honoured, and that where honour belongs to God alone. The man or woman who is savingly changed will not be offended that all the glory of his salvation will be put on God Himself. They will join with the Psalmist in saying, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth’s sake.” Psalm 115:1. They readily acknowledge that the glory of their election in Christ belongs to God, that the glory of their redemption belongs to Him in sending His Son into the world, and that in the work of the Holy Spirit, the glory of their effectual calling, justification, adoption and sanctification belongs to God alone. From this point of view they are not offended in Christ with respect unto His way of salvation.
Further, they are not offended in Him with reference to His salvation for it is a Christ-exalting salvation. Christ came into this world to reveal to men the glorious attributes of God, and in this way, by His humiliation, sufferings and death, gave a wonderful manifestation of the holiness, justice, truth, love and mercy of God, and it is in the light of this wonderful manifestation that the redeemed child of God is enabled to say with the Psalmist, “O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.” Psalm 34:3. In this his spirit is brought into conformity with the Word of God where Christ is exalted “a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.” Acts 5:31.
They are not offended in Him on account of the fact that His salvation abases man. A debtor, if he knows his own place, will not carry it proudly before the one whose debtor he is, and those who have tasted of God’s salvation, realise that they are debtors to Christ for what they are and what they receive. This humbles them before Him and makes them wonder that He should deal so kindly with them when they are so unworthy. They are not, however, constrained to humility. They are willing to take a low place at the feet of Christ and to give Him all the glory. Thus they are not offended in Christ when being made partakers of His salvation requires them to be abased before Him.
(3) They are not offended in Him on account of His Person.
This one is not an ordinary person; He is the eternal Son of God in human nature. Many see in Him nothing but a mere man, and will not acknowledge that He is God manifest in the flesh, but the Lord’s people require a Saviour who is God, co-equal with the Father and Holy Spirit in all His attributes, and yet who has bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. In His deity and humanity He is holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners, and thus able to act as the Substitute of His people. In His human nature He suffered all that the justice of God required, but was continually supported in His sufferings by His Divine nature until He accomplished the whole of that work of redemption which the Father gave Him to do, and cried on Calvary’s accursed tree “It is finished” and gave up the ghost. Who then can be offended in Christ, with respect to His Person, except those who do not know Him as their own Saviour? His own can say, “We behold his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
In this Person there is an inexhaustible fulness for in Him “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”, Col. 2:3, and “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Col. 2:9. On this account those who realise their own needs cannot be offended in Him, for they saw themselves destitute of knowledge, righteousness and holiness, dead in trespasses and sins, heirs of eternal wrath, and utterly unable to help themselves, but they saw in Him a fulness to meet with all their wants, and in that personal transaction which took place between Christ and their souls in the day of justification they became perfectly satisfied with Him, and can never be offended in Him.
They are not offended in Him in His human nature. Men in a state of nature see no form or comeliness in Him. He is to them as a root out of a dry ground, and they refuse to trust to Him their souls for eternity. It is true that when He appeared in this world there was no outward beauty in Him to attract the eye. His afflictions and sorrows left such traces on His physical frame that the Jews took Him to be nearly twenty years older than He actually was. “Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?” John 8:57. This is in accordance with what was prophetically revealed concerning Him, “His visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men.” Isaiah 52:14. With His own this outward uncomeliness has more the effect of attracting than repelling, for through the teaching of the Holy Spirit they learned that, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5.
(4) In the fourth place, they are not offended in Him with respect unto His relationship in the days of His humiliation.
He came in God’s great name to save sinners, and, as the Saviour of sinners, He had full power to say, as He said to some, “Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.” Matth. 1:2, which when some who were present heard, they were offended and said within themselves, “This man blasphemeth.” The Apostle Paul, however, and all those who are taught by the same Spirit look to Him alone as the source of forgiveness. “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.” Eph. 1:7.
In His humiliation, He associated with those whom the scribes and Pharisees looked upon with contempt, and with whom any association on the part of anyone, was enough to stigmatise that person as on the same level as those with whom he associated. In the chapter from which our text is taken we find Christ Himself taking up how the man of that generation went to two extremes with John the Baptist and Himself. “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.” Matth. 11:18, 19. Thus they were offended in Him, but to the real child of God it is the most comforting of news that He is the “Friend of publicans and sinners” and that “this man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.” Luke 15:2. They are weary of themselves and of Satan’s temptations, and feel the burden of sin unbearable, and so they cannot be offended in Him who says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matth. 11:28.
(5) His own are not offended in Christ with respect to His teaching.
The Pharisees were offended in Christ because of His teaching. They were, generally speaking, outwardly moral, and outwardly observing God’s law. They were strict in their manner of life and zealous for the traditions of the elders, and in this way they thought they were sure of Heaven. What an offence it must have been to them when Christ taught that the non-observance of those rites which they valued so much did not defile a man, but that what defiled a man was to be found in his own heart? “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these are the things which defile a man but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.” Matth 15: 19, 20. He warns His own that, “except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Matth 5:20, and they, being under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, instead of being offended in Him for this, cry, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10.
True disciples are not offended in Him for His teaching, though would-be disciples are. When He taught that He Himself was the True Bread that came down from heaven, and the absolute necessity of partaking of this bread in order to have eternal life, many of His followers said, “This is an hard saying; who can hear it?” John 6:60, and because it offended them, “many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.” John 6:66. His own, however, feed by faith on Him, and thus are spiritually nourished and growing in grace. They have of the Spirit of Christ what has made them willing to serve Him, so that their meat and drink is to do His will, as it was His meat and drink to do the will of Him that sent Him.
(6) They are not offended in the Cross of Christ.
The Apostle Paul says, “If I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased.” Gal. 5:11. The Cross was an offence to the Jews, so that the preaching of Christ crucified was to them a stumbling-block. They made choice of this form of death for the Lord Jesus, for, although it had been foreordained from all eternity that He should be crucified, when Pilate asked what should be done to the King of the Jews, they signified their choice of the manner of His death by saying, “Crucify him.” It is easy to see how such men could do nothing else but be offended at the preaching of Christ and Him crucified. They dealt with Him as if He were the worst of malefactors, and, in their opinion, how could such a one save them.
To the Greeks the preaching of the cross was foolishness. They were wise men in their generation, and the fame of their wisdom has reached to our own day. Many of them spent their whole time speaking about Wisdom, and searching into its nature, but with all the knowledge which they acquired concerning Wisdom, they were ignorant of Christ, who is the Wisdom of God, and who was made of God to His people Wisdom. In them was exemplified the truth of what is written, “The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” II Cor. 4:4. Therefore they could see nothing but the opposite of wisdom in the preaching of Christ and Him crucified, and the enmity of the carnal mind working in them, taking advantage of this, made the cross of Christ an offence to them.
To those who believe, the preaching of the cross is the power and the wisdom of God. They see in it the fulfilment of the purposes of God, the finishing of the work of redemption, the bruising of the head of the Devil, the end of sin, the abolishing of death, the bringing in of an everlasting righteousness, the bringing to light of life and immortality, and the opening up of a new and living way unto God. In the light of this, instead of the Lord’s people being offended in Christ because of the shameful and cursed death which He died, they are privileged with the Apostle Paul in saying “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto one, and I unto the world.” Gal. 6:14.
(7) They are not offended in Him because of the persecution which they have to endure in following Him.
If persecution could accomplish what persecutors desire, the Cause of Christ would have been out of existence long ago, but of God’s martyred saints it is written that they had “trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonments: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; of whom the world was not worthy; they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” Heb. 11:36-38. Pagan Rome and Papal Rome tortured and martyred hundreds of thousands of Christ’s witnesses and in our own land let us not forget what the Episcopal Church, aided by a papistically inclined monarchy, did, but as they tortured and martyred, the number of those who were not offended in Christ grew, so that the Church became “fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners.” Song 6:10. Oh! friends, there is a mystery here which the world cannot understand, but, nevertheless, it has been so often demonstrated in the history of the Church that it cannot be denied. Men and women turned their backs on their worldly prospects, thought lightly of their social standing, suffered to be cast out of their homes, and deprived of the affections of relatives, and with Moses, chose “rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season.” Heb 11:25. The terrible hardships which in consequence they had to endure, instead of causing them to be offended in Christ, served rather to cause them to cleave closer to Him, for they experienced the fulfilment of Christ’s promise, “And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or fathers, or mothers, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.” Matth 19:29.
(To be continued)