Matthew 21:25

THE BAPTISM OF GOODNESS

‘The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, or of men?’

Matthew 21:25

St. John the Baptist was not only a striking individual character, but a type.

I. The ascetic character.—He was a type of that band of fine spirits whose lives stretch down the ages in a chain of witness to the glory of renunciation. The ascetic character has ever its two aspects; sometimes the one is prominent, sometimes the other; sometimes they are bound together as in the life of the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ. There is (a) the beauty of simplicity, and (b) the stern denunciation of wrong.

II. Question and answer.—Turn, then, to the words which bring his mission into question, ‘The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven or from men?’ Here was the best question to those who had come to entangle the Lord. Did they really want to know the truth? If so, they could answer truly about what they had seen and known. John was a witness for truth and religion; he died for his bold defence of that pure family life which Jews held most dear. And now there came the Great Prophet whom he had foretold, and He asked them the simple, straightforward question. They answered Jesus and said, ‘We know not.’

How pitiable! We do not know. A man has preached sound doctrine and lived a holy life, has constantly spoken the truth, boldly rebuked vice, and at last has patiently suffered for the truth’s sake: was his work the work of God or not? Was his baptism from heaven or from men? We know not. There are some things which not to know condemns a man at once; they are the things to which every conscience witnesses, which belong to the Kingdom of God.

III. The baptism of goodness.—Year by year the Church twice sets St. John Baptist before us as an example. He was a man who knew his own mind—not in worldly matters only, but in those great questions of right and wrong that are before us all, and that will seem, depend upon it, when we are on our death-beds, the only questions we have had to deal with in our lives. And that question of our Lord’s means this: that every day you must be ready to answer for your soul. You can’t pass by the great questions as if you were too busy, or too old, or too young, or too insignificant for it. We must know that the baptism of goodness is of God; we must accept it, and live in the strength and the purpose that it gives.

—The Rev. W. H. Hutton.