For John the baptist has come neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and ye say, He has a demon.
Here Jesus describes how His generation answered God's messengers. He starts with John the Baptist, whose plain diet matched his plain message — and whose reward was the charge that a demon was behind it.
John's separation was literal. A Nazarite was someone under a vow of strict separation from ordinary comforts.
John the Baptist was a literal Nazarite. He was a man who abstained from all kinds of things. "He came neither eating nor drinking," and the compliment he got was that he had a demon. The Son of Man came eating and drinking. He was a Man with men.
Kelly explains why God sent a messenger who would not share a table.
When John the Baptist came, eating no bread and drinking no wine, that showed there was no fellowship, because sin was in question. How could God send someone to have fellowship with sin? So they said he had a demon.
The accusation was not random. It grew directly out of the distance John kept from the people he preached to.
John the Baptist came requiring fruit and calling people to repentance. The tax collectors and sinners justified God in this. The axe lay at the root of the trees; these poor sinners admitted it and repented. They justified God. The first good fruit is always the admission that we produce bad fruit… John was so strict he would not even eat with anyone. He could have nothing to say to these sinners. That was why they said, "He has a demon."
God sent a stern voice first, then a gracious one. The same generation turned down both.
John the Baptist they did not like: he was too strict for them. Then came the Son of Man, the Saviour Himself. They called Him by even worse names: He was too loose for them. So it does not matter what testimony God gives — man always has some reason for refusing.
Each messenger was slandered in a way that fitted his manner — and both slanders landed on Christ.
The first presented himself with the severity of a prophet, separated from the people on whom judgment was pronounced; the second made Himself accessible to men, in order, if it were possible, to win for God the confidence of sinners. These two testimonies had found no echo; these two witnesses had been rejected; man did worse than that, he accused John of having a demon, and Christ of sharing in the sins of those He came to save. By refusing grace, by refusing it in this way, what a weight of suffering has man not piled on the heart of the Saviour!
The problem was not John's diet. It was a conscience left untouched, and turning down the smaller witness closed the door on the greater one.
But the prudent and wise, the religious, learned, and great — "the Pharisees and the lawyers" — rejected God's purpose for themselves. They refused even the preparatory work of John the Baptist. Having refused the lesser testimony, they never passed on into the greater things — the reality from God… A person receives Christ for salvation only in the conscience. Feeling and understanding will never do alone.
The same attitude shows up in religious people today.
They did not like John the Baptist's serious call to repentance. In effect they played their frivolous music to him, complaining that he was too serious to dance. But how could John join in, when their true state was one of departure from God? He refused even to eat and drink with them. God had sent him for the serious purpose of bringing them down in self-judgment, so as to prepare the way of the Lord. They then accused him of having a demon… Religious zealots today glory in their boasted self-denial and despise others who do not do the same. So self-righteousness despises the grace of God, and is grossly unfair in its accusations.
Others heard the same preaching and agreed with God about themselves. That is what the crowds and tax collectors did earlier in the chapter.
They justified God! What does this mean? If we speak of God justifying the sinner — well, he is made right with God, he is declared to be righteous before God. If we justify God we do not make Him right, but declare that the way He has taken to reach and bless us is just the right way.
John's abstaining was his own calling, not a higher standard than his Lord's.
Is the use of bread or wine wrong in itself? Was John the Baptist more pure than his Lord and Saviour? Note well, too, that he abstained from bread as well as from wine. Are we, then, to give up either or both?
- Sent — John came as a literal Nazarite. He gave up bread as well as wine, so his whole way of life preached repentance.
- Slandered — his strictness gave them their hook for the charge of a demon. They slandered Christ's grace just as freely, so the fault lay in the hearers, not the messengers.
- Stopped — refusing John's smaller testimony left them unable to receive the greater One. A person receives Christ in the conscience, not by feeling alone.
- Submitting — the tax collectors and sinners justified God. They admitted the judgment against them and repented, and the first good fruit is always admitting that we produce bad fruit.
- Sober — John's abstaining was his own calling, not a purity higher than his Lord's. It makes no rule for anyone else.
The Son of man has come eating and drinking, and ye say, Behold an eater and wine-drinker, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners;
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