Luke 7v20

When the men were come unto him, they said, John Baptist hath sent us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?

John the Baptist had previously been perhaps the greatest witness of Jesus’ place in the Kingdom – see also Matthew 3v11-16 {4 } {5 } {6 } {7 } and Mark 1v8-9 {20 } {21 }. In John 1v34-36, John the Baptist even said of Jesus that He was “the Son of God” and “the Lamb of God.” When John sent these two disciples of his (v19), he was most likely already imprisoned by Herod – otherwise he could have come himself.

From v12-15 we see the story of Jesus raising from the dead the only son of a widow in the city of Nain. The news of this spread like wildfire throughout Judaea and the surrounding regions, and some of John’s disciples told him about the news too (v18). John called for two of his disciples and sent them to Jesus to ask the question that we find in this verse.

This verse is very revealing due to the fact that John is now asking the question ‘is Jesus the Messiah and Christ.’ Although he testified that Jesus was the Son and Lamb of God, in his own mind he still expected something slightly different of the Messiah. When we look back to the prophecy of his father Zacharias at John’s birth in Luke 1v67-80, perhaps we can start to see why. No doubt John spent his whole life growing up with the sense of purpose that God had for his life, and also the one that he was to be the forerunner for – Jesus. Part of the prophecy regarding the ministry of Jesus, from Luke 1v71, said “That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us”. With the benefit of hindsight we can see the slight ambiguity of what was expected here. Israel was being occupied by the Romans during New Testament times, and the earnest desire and prayer of the Jews no doubt was to ‘cleanse’ the land of these gentiles. So a political solution to this situation was expected of the Messiah. Jesus however fulfilled this prophecy in a spiritual rather than political way. This is why we see Jesus saving those that would be saved from the works of the devil, such as sin and the results it ultimately brought – curses such as poverty, sickness and disease for instance.

After John’s disciples asked this question in verse 20, Jesus did not answer straight away. Verse 21 says: “And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind he gave sight” It was only after they had witnessed Jesus dealing with the people’s spiritual enemies; sickness and disease, and quite possibly their sins as well (see also Matthew 9v2-6), that Jesus gave the answer to John’s disciples: “Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.” (Luke 7v22-23)

Jesus could have easily just said ‘Yes, I am” to John’s disciples. He did not answer John’s question directly, but in his answer also corrected John’s preconceived idea that the Messiah was expected to deliver the Jews from their Roman occupation. Instead, His answer both confirmed that He was ‘the one’ (although still only indirectly), but also corrected some of John’s ideas about what that actually meant.

Let us especially notice the last few words of the message from Jesus to John the Baptist: “And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me” (v23). Jesus could see that John’s false assumptions had gone on to the point that he found some offence in Jesus. John expected something more, something slightly different from the Messiah than he found in Jesus. Perhaps it was related to the fact that John was in jail and Jesus didn’t seem to be demanding his release in some way. I believe that John didn’t realise that being in jail was part of God’s purpose for him and his ministry – after all, as we have already seen in section {22 }, John the Baptist was virtually Herod’s most trusted advisor (Mark 6v20) and therefore almost second-in-charge of the kingdom, just as Joseph and Daniel had been in their own foreign administrations.