Why did John the Baptist's followers ask Jesus if He was the Coming One in Luke 7:19?

The Baptist's Message. — John had been cast in prison by Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch of Galilee, for reproving him in the matter of his brother Philip's wife, and for all the evils that he had done (Luke 3:19); yet no deliverance had been wrought for him by the Lord, whose power over death had just lately been manifested. Was He really the Christ? John sends to ask — pondering, it may have been, in the solitude of his prison, over what seemed so strange, that His forerunner, if Jesus was the Christ, should be allowed to languish in the fortress of Machaerus. Clear had been the Baptist's testimony to the Lord at Bethany beyond Jordan (John 1:21-34). He had seen the Holy Spirit descending on Him, and remaining on Him. He had borne witness in consequence that He was the Son of God, and had proclaimed Him as the Lamb of God. He had known, too, that he himself was the forerunner of the Christ. But now a cloud had come over what had once seemed so clear and distinct, — an earthborn cloud it was, — and the Baptist questioned within himself, whether the person to whom he had borne witness was indeed the One who should come, the theme of prophecy. For evidently (and the Lord's answer makes it perfectly plain), John sent two of his disciples on his own behalf, and not merely on theirs. His faith was wavering, not understanding why he should be apparently forgotten, and should experience cold neglect at the hand of the One to whom he had formerly borne witness. "Art thou He that should come? or look we for another?" (Luke 7:19).

The question thus plainly put was as definitely answered, the answer betokening real wisdom; for the Lord pointed to His miraculous works in proof that He was the Christ, and thus would settle John's faith in Him by the word of God. The Baptist's messengers arrived at an opportune moment, for in that same hour He cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and to many that were blind He gave sight. And answering, He said to them, "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 (or, shall find none occasion of stumbling) in me." The Baptist was evidently acquainted with the prophet Isaiah. The answer to the priests and Levites, sent from Jerusalem to ask who he was, proves that. Compare John 1:23 with Isa. 40:3. To that same prophet's testimony the Lord turned him for the answer to his question, as He called the attention of the messengers to the proofs of His Messiahship (Isa. 35:5-6; 61:1). Wise indeed was this way of answering. John knew the prophetic word. What his disciples, then, would tell him they had heard and seen, was proof that the Christ was there, and that Jesus was the Messiah. What they had heard and seen, they were to tell John. They saw miracles of healing performed before their eyes, and they had heard of the dead being raised. The Christ of God was certainly upon earth. His miracles proclaimed it, for such were powers of the coming age (Heb. 6:5): samples of blessings to be enjoyed when He reigns in power. The answer to John's question was clear. Faith, however, was required to be in exercise, for the kingdom in power was still in the womb of the future. The King was there, but the truth of the King present in humiliation was as yet unlearnt by men. So the Lord added, "Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me" (Luke 7:23). Slow indeed are we all to learn.

Testimony to John. — The Baptist's messengers returned to their master. They had faithfully carried to the Lord their message. We cannot doubt that they as faithfully reported to John the answer. But they brought him no word of coming deliverance from the power of Herod. Was he neglected by the Lord — a vessel formerly used, and then flung aside when his work was done, without care or thought for him? How often have men acted in this way towards their servants! Not thus does the Lord: He never forgets His servants, though suffering for Him may be their lot. So now to the multitude He bears testimony in favour of His imprisoned forerunner, and by consequence proclaimed who He was Himself. Who was John, He asked, to whom multitudes had gone out? A reed shaken by the wind? John had not been carried about with every wind of doctrine, yielding to superior power, like a reed before the wind. He had not been clothed in soft raiment. No gorgeous apparel to attract the eye of the populace adorned his person. What was he? A prophet? Yes, and more than a prophet. For he was the predicted immediate forerunner of the Lord, the one of whom Malachi (3:1) had written. Great, then, was John. Of none born of woman was there a greater. Yet the least (rather, the lesser one) in the kingdom of God was greater than he (7:28).

The Lord then takes occasion to tell them of the privilege of being in the kingdom. John, on earth, never was in it. He preceded the King. We shall find him in the kingdom on high, but on earth he was never in it. He was never reckoned among the followers of the King. What a privilege it must be, to be in the kingdom in truth! The lesser one in that is greater, dispensationally speaking, than John the Baptist. Now the Lord would rouse people up, and if possible make them alive to the privileges they might enjoy; and for that used the occasion when speaking about John to draw the distinction between that wonderful man as he was, and any in the kingdom of God while here below.

The disciples of John the Baptist carried news to him in prison of the power of the Lord Jesus over disease and death. This beloved prophet of God had ministered publicly only for a short time in the living power of the Spirit of God, and had borne faithful witness to the glory of the Lord Jesus as the Son of God (Jn.1:34). He heard of miracles performed by the Lord, but there was no miracle performed to release him from prison, nor had the Lord taken any place of power and dignity such as might be expected of the Messiah of Israel. Evidently this bewildered John, and his faith for the time wavered. Sending two of his disciples to the Lord, he instructed them to question Him as to whether He was the one for whom Israel looked, or was it for another? Not only John was affected in this way, for none of the Lord's disciples expected their Messiah to take a pathway of humiliation leading to the death of the cross. This was contrary to the great manifestation of His glory for which they looked. But they must learn that He was to be "made perfect through suffering" (Heb.2:10).

John's two disciples witnessed the marvelous power of the Lord Jesus in the healing of great numbers of infirmities and virulent diseases, of demon possession also and restoring the sight of many who were blind (v.21). This last was a special sign of the power of Messiah (Isa.42:6-7). No other had ever opened the eyes of the blind before the Lord Jesus did so (Jn.9:32-33).

The Lord answered by telling them to report to John what they had seen and heard in the way of miraculous power shown in tender mercy to those who were in deepest need, and ending with "to the poor the gospel is preached." John may have wondered why he was not brought out of prison, when Isaiah 42:7 spoke of the Messiah "bringing the prisoners from the prison", but soon he was delivered from prison by way of a martyr's death, which surely has resulted in greater blessing than he had imagined. However, the things the Lord had done could not have been done by any other than the Son of God, the true Messiah of Israel. There could be no question whatever. Yet the Lord only gently reproved John's doubts, "Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me" (v.23). Who else could possibly speak this way?

While in prison John's faith or patience seems in measure to have failed him, and he sent two of his disciples to the Lord with the question, "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" He evidently had not apprehended the humiliation and rejection of the Messiah, and expected to have been delivered from prison by the power which he knew had been exercised in grace by the Lord. The Lord wrought various miracles while John's disciples were there, and bade them tell him what they had seen and heard, adding, "Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me." Luke 7:19-23.

We have hitherto considered John the Baptist in the different phases of his progress as a man of faith. We are coming to the only point in his history where weakness and failure are exhibited. The great prophet John, like Elijah, was for a moment disheartened. He was in prison, and his Master had not delivered him; his hopes were disappointed, and apparently there were no fruits to his ministry. The people, "offended in" Christ, had not "gathered under His wings;" the disowned Messiah had not where to lay His head; and this glorious Lord, who had been announced as coming "suddenly to His temple," on the very heels of His messenger, with His fan in His hand to purge His floor, was rejected and despised. Alas! under such circumstances, for the prophet to be discouraged was natural, but it was not faith, for it led John to doubt Christ, to ask himself if He was indeed the promised Messiah, He who was coming according to Mal. 3:1. John did not in his uncertainty ask himself if he were really the messenger; our failures more readily lead us to suspect God than ourselves. Any way, this scene is somewhat consoling; if John be led to question the Messianic character of the Saviour, he is in no doubt about Him in other respects. The word of Jesus is his only and sufficient resource. "Art thou He that should come? or do we look for another?" It is decline in a career of faith; but, thank God, it is still faith, however small its measure, and it finds, as it always will, a perfect response. John, however, the great witness, failed in his testimony. It is ever so with man; something is lacking, and even be he a John the Baptist, he will not compare with Christ. We lose nothing by it. The Lord alone remains unchangeable. It is beautiful to see in John 1 the man of faith humbling himself before the Lord; the Lord Himself is still more admirable when, man being necessarily lost to sight, He alone remains in view.

Let us consider in greater detail the Saviour's part in this scene. Whilst John is in doubt about Christ, the Lord meets his failure by putting before him His grace. "Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see" (His words and His works): "the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them." (vv. 4, 5.) All these miracles, accomplished in presence of John's messengers, were the sign of the presence of Messiah in Israel (Isa. 61:1-2), not Messiah in grace. Was grace then a less thing than the glory expected by the Baptist? To his question Jesus replies, "Grace remains in power, and the poor have the gospel preached to them." It is a precious thought, that in the present time — a time of weakness and of the cessation of miracles — a soul may recognize Jesus in the preaching of the gospel to the poor, and say, — "I myself have heard the Lord." Jesus adds: "And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me." (v. 6.) In spite of the forsaking of the people, there is a blest remnant convicted of sin, who, instead of awaiting Messiah's glory, have found favour in a rejected Saviour come for sinful man. The knowledge of grace in the person of Jesus constitutes the happiness of such. This was a gentle and delicate reproof to John the Baptist. Ought not the one who had saluted Jesus as Lamb of God to have remembered this grace? "Are you any longer of this blest company?" the Saviour's voice seems to say. But for the glory of Christ, the great prophet John the Baptist must be an object of grace even as others.

Whilst the imprisoned forerunner is for a moment discouraged, and abandons his testimony, the Lord Himself bears witness to John before the multitude. What grace! What divine delicacy in the choice of such a time for re-instating John, whose doubts had lowered him in his capacity of prophet, in the eyes of all! "What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?" A man who in trial was weak and uncertain? Ah!! if he shows himself such at the time when Jesus was speaking, he had not been so at the outset of his career, and it was then that they had been called to make acquaintance with him. Or had they gone to see a rich man clothed like the great ones of this world? Nothing of the kind. But John the Baptist was still the great messenger of whom Malachi 3 speaks, although the Lord had not come to His temple. A little further on, alluding to Malachi 4:5 (not to Malachi 3), Jesus adds, "And if ye will receive it" (that which I say), "this is Elias, which was for to come." If they received the Lord Jesus, the kingdom might be established, the curse still hanging over the people set aside, and relationships according to God re-established in Israel; in such a case, the future mission of Elias would not be necessary, and John the Baptist, come in the spirit and power of Elias, would occupy the place, so to speak, of the future prophet.*

In the verses read from Luke 7 we have another view of this remarkable servant John, although rendering a faithful testimony, is in prison, perplexed and in doubt. Why? John was not privileged to know what we know today; he did not expect that Christ was to be rejected; that was not revealed to John. He did not know that the very One he had testified to; He who was to take "away the sin of the world," that this One would ultimately be refused by Israel, and crucified. The kingdom was not yet established in power. It looked as though the enemies were gaining the ascendancy. John is in prison; and as far as he can see the kingdom was not about to be set up as he had expected it would be; and indeed it was not set up as John had expected. He calls two of his disciples and sends them to the Lord asking "Art Thou He that should come? or look we for another?" John began to cast about in his mind as to whether he had missed something in his testimony. Had he failed somewhere? Was this the One he was to present? He was perplexed because things had not turned out as he thought they would have done, and so he sent these two disciples to Jesus. Sufficient for the moment was the fact that the Lord "in that same hour … cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind He gave sight" (v. 21). He said, as it were, to these disciples of John, "That is all the testimony you need as to who I am." "Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard … And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me." John, wonderful servant as he was, nevertheless reached a point of disappointment in regard to that service; he did not know of the many who had believed on the Lord as the result of his testimony as we have seen at the end of John 10. It looked as though his service had failed, and, probably discouraged in the prison, John sought a little comfort, or a little confirmation from the Lord. Have we , in our service ever reached the point when we thought we could not see any fruit for our service? We may look in on ourselves and wonder whether there has been anything wrong with us? We may quite easily get perplexed like that; and the danger when we do get like that, is to think that the service is not worth while. John was in prison, but he did not give up, although he was disappointed and perplexed. Let us seek grace to continue, and not to allow disappointment or perplexity to deter us from going on with the service. Only when we have left this world and have joined men like John the Baptist in heaven above, only then shall we see what has been produced in a steadfast careful testimony to the Son of God. No faithful service has ever been rendered for the Lord by any servant, whether in the early days of the church of God, or in the present days of manifest weakness, but what that service has been registered in heaven, and its results will be seen in a day to come.

If the Baptist had been a spiritual automaton, he would no doubt have been an entirely consistent character to the end; but he was a man of like passions with ourselves, and at one time his faith failed. He is surprised to find himself left languishing in prison by the One Whom he understood to he the Messiah, Who was to right all wrongs, whilst the great work of the rescue and restoration of the nation is apparently as far off as ever, and the Lord seems to take no notice. He therefore sends to Christ a question framed in one of those brief direct sentences which he appears to have generally used, "Art thou He that should come, or do we look for another?" We cannot for a moment think, however, that it was fear or anxiety as to his own fate that impelled him to act thus. It was that kind of doubt which a capacious mind feels at times of discouragement as to whether the course pursued has been absolutely right after all, and such a kind of depression as every just mind feels when God seems to take no notice of the things all going disastrously wrong, "when His eyelids try the children of men."

John the Baptist spent therefore some time in prison before he sent his disciples to our Lord. It is generally assumed that John, the preacher of repentance and the coming Kingdom, had finally expected that Jesus would soon establish the Kingdom, and that he, as the voice in the wilderness, the forerunner, would have a share in its glories. Instead of this expected glory he is cast into a dungeon. He had faithfully discharged his duties. Not like a miserable hireling had he acted, but fearlessly he had denounced evil, and for all his faithfulness nothing but suffering, rejection and death staring him in the face. It is, therefore, said by many that he doubted that Jesus was truly the promised Messiah, and asked for evidences of His Messiahship. However, this interpretation can hardly be right. If we turn to the Gospel of John and read his utterances there, we find that he had a complete insight into the work which Christ as the Lamb of God was to do, and he knew Jesus was the Christ. It is also reasonable to assume that his own disciples who had come to our Lord with the question, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast but Thy disciples fast not?" had come to him and given him the answer, that the bridegroom, the Messiah, was to be taken away from them, and then there would be fasting.

(1) First of all, we have brought before us the sufficiency and unity of the manifestation made. And this is emphasized in a message to the Baptist, who from Herod's prison in which he is shut up, sends by his disciples to the Lord, to ask if He is indeed the Coming One, the One they had been expecting; or were they still to look for another.

It is evident that, in some measure at least, doubt was assailing the mind of the Baptist. Indeed, with regard to such a matter as this, the smallest question unanswered is an agony. No doubt, he had expected in the One to whom he had borne witness, conduct in some way different from that which he had since heard of Him. It is generally and naturally said that he expected, as the mass of the nation certainly did, the Kingdom to be established in power which would put down all opposition; and yet here was he, the messenger to prepare His way, languishing in the power of an immoral usurper of the Kingdom that was Christ's alone. But John had proclaimed Him as the Lamb of God, and evidently the Lamb of sacrifice, ― nay, as taking away the sin of the world (John 1:29). How, but by suffering and death? taking he not have understood, then, that this might involve suffering for His disciples also, even as the Lord had spoken of days to come in which the Bridegroom would be taken away from them, and that then they would fast?

Finally, even the smallest recognition of Christ would not be unrewarded. One who gave a cup of cold water to a little child, only in the name of a disciple, that is, as identified with a disciple of the Lord, would certainly be rewarded. For, in doing this one is evidencing the fact that he doe at least have some respect for Christ.Throughout Israel now the Lord carries on an intensive teaching and preaching in their cities. John the Baptist hears of this in the prison, but he is deeply puzzled, for he sends two of his disciples to Him to ask, "Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another?" Yet this same John had said of Him, "I saw and bear record that this is the Son of God" (Jn.1:34). No doubt John expected Him to very soon take His place of royal dignity as Messiah of Israel. Yet John's testimony to His glory had been silenced, and He to whom John bore witness was now traveling as a loving teacher through the land. This does not seem to be consistent with the great glory that John had (rightly) ascribed to Him.

Yet John had heard, not only of His teaching and preaching, but of His works, which of course none other had ever done. The Lord therefore instructed the disciples to show John again the things they saw and heard, works of marvelous grace and power as well as words such as had never before been spoken observe that all the miracles of verse 5 are significant of that which is spiritual. First, the blind received their sight, this itself being an evidence of His Messiahship (Isa.42:5-7), and typical of the totally ignorant being enlightened. The lame are the impotent, healed in order to walk before God. Lepers are typically those corrupt, cleansed from this loathsome state. The deaf are those indifferent to the voice of God, now made to hear. The dead are the dormant, with no life toward God, but quickened by divine power. Finally, the poor are these desolate spiritually, but enriched by the Gospel of grace preached to them.

It was a special moment. Even John the Baptist began to doubt; and he sent his disciples, saying, "Art thou He that should come, or do we look for another?" He had been told that the One upon whom he should see the Spirit descending and abiding was He, and he "saw and bare record that" Jesus "was the Son of God." What could have made the difference in John's thoughts? He saw the Lord rejected in this world, and that in spite of all the good He did in the world. The Lord Jesus came, as it were, piping the news of grace, and they heard it not; people did not believe Him. A few fishermen of Galilee believed on Him, but none of the leaders. Do they receive Him now? Not at all. Don't you think He felt it when He was here? Ah, He did feel it, and He feels it still, and He is conscious of it. The Lord Jesus Christ did not go amongst the ranks of angels to find companions, but He came amongst men in the streets and lanes of the city. The Lord wanted saved sinners to be His companions in eternal glory.