Luke 7:23

“And blessed is he, whoever shall find no occasion of stumbling in me.”

And then He adds that John must believe and trust Him. He will be blessed if he does not find what Jesus is doing as a stumblingblock. In other words He is saying to John. ‘Yes, I am the Coming One as you will recognise if you consider what I am doing along with the Scriptures, but you have misunderstood the present purpose in My coming. Trust Me and you will see that all will work out as God has planned.'

‘No occasion of stumbling in Me.' John is to see Him as a sanctuary, a firm rock, not as a stumblingstone (Isaiah 8:14). Indeed that is why John himself has prepared the way so that none may stumble (Isaiah 57:14).

We should note that it is not a question of John having lost faith. He still believes that One is to come from God. He has rather partially (only partially, for he has still sent to enquire of Him) lost faith in the way Jesus is going about things. It just does not accord with his expectations. Possibly he had hoped to gee Jesus up. That is why Jesus' reply is ‘trust me John, and consider again my activities in the light of Scripture. I know what I am doing, and blessing for you rests in recognising it too'.

Jesus' Testimony to John (Luke 7:24).

His answer being sent to John Jesus turned to the waiting crowd. He did not want them to see John as a shaken reed. It was not John who had failed in the purposes of God, but the fickle hearers. And He uses the opportunity to make clear His own great superiority to John because of what He had come to do, while at the same time giving John the highest place possible to man. In doing so He brings home the wonder of the fact that the anticipated Kingly Rule of God is now here in Him. But He then rebukes those who have failed to understand. The Scribes and Pharisees are especially in mind.

We can analyse this passage as follows:

a When the messengers of John were departed, he began to say to the crowds concerning John, “What did you go out into the wilderness to behold? A reed shaken with the wind?”

b “But what did you go out to? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, those who are gorgeously apparelled, and live delicately, are in kings' courts.”

c “But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and much more than a prophet.”

d “This is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, Who will prepare your way before you.”

e “I say to you, Among those who are born of women there is none greater than John.

f “Yet he who is but little within the Kingly Rule of God is greater than he.”

e “And all the people when they heard, and the public servants, justified God, being baptised with the baptism of John, but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected for themselves the counsel of God, being not baptised of him.”

d “To what then shall I liken the men of this generation, and to what are they like? They are like children who sit in the marketplace, and call one to another, who say,

‘We piped to you, and you did not dance,

We wailed, and you did not weep.'

c “For John the Baptiser is come eating no bread nor drinking wine; and you say, ‘He has a demon.' ”

b “The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and you say, Behold, a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of public servants and sinners!”

a “And wisdom is justified of all her children.”

The contrasts are powerful leading up to the presence of the Kingly Rule of God and its glory. In ‘a' the people see a reed shaken in the wind, and in the parallel wisdom is justified of her children, who have totally misunderstood both John and Jesus. In ‘b' we are told of the celebrating in king's houses, and in the parallel the Son of Man comes celebrating for He is the King, even though misunderstood. In ‘c' John is ‘more than a prophet' and in the parallel he reveals it by his abstinence and they misunderstand him and see his prophetic spirit as of the devil. In ‘d' we have the powerful Scriptural expression of the purpose of John's coming and in the parallel the Pharisees' expression of it in the equivalent of Nursery Rhymes. In ‘e' there is none greater than John and in the parallel the people confirm it and the Pharisees deny it. And centrally in ‘f' those who come under the Kingly Rule of God as expressed in Jesus, however lowly, are ‘greater' than John, for they have entered in to what John could only look forward to.

Note the powerful progression in greatness from lowest to highest; John is not a reed that bends to the wind (a), John is not a soft courtier (b), John is a prophet and more than a prophet (c), John is the one sent to prepare the way for the Coming One (d), among men born of women there is none greater than he (e). And yet with all that the Kingly Rule of God has now come, and those who enter it are greater than John (f).

Then notice the comparisons. The people (the poor, and hungry, and weeping) have received the Kingly Rule of God and have been baptised with the baptism of John, ‘justifying God', while the Scribes and Pharisees and their like (the rich the full and the foolishly content) have turned away from it, rejecting the counsel of God, and refusing to be baptised (e). They have done so because neither John or Jesus have danced to their tune (d). John they have accused of being devil-possessed because of his asceticism which has gone beyond what they consider necessary (c), Jesus they have accused of being worldly and frivolous because He eats and drinks and fails to totally follow their rules (b). Truly, says Jesus, wisdom is ‘justified of her children' (a), just as God was justified of His (e).