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| Comparison of the Statements of the Four Evangelists Respecting John the Baptist, the Prophecies Regarding Him, His Addresses to the Multitude and to the Pharisees, Etc.
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14. Comparison of the Statements of the Four Evangelists
Respecting John the Baptist, the Prophecies Regarding Him, His
Addresses to the Multitude and to the Pharisees, Etc.
We deem it necessary to compare with the expression of
the passage we are considering the similar expressions found elsewhere
in the Gospels. This we shall continue to do point by point to
the end of this work, so that terms which appear to disagree may be
shown to be in harmony, and that the peculiar meanings present in each
may be explained. This we shall do in the present passage.
The words, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make
straight the way of the Lord,” are placed by John, who was a
disciple, in the mouth of the Baptist. In Mark, on the other
hand, the same words are recorded at the beginning of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ, in accordance with the Scripture of Isaiah, as
thus: “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it
is written in Isaiah the prophet, Behold, I send My messenger before
thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one
crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His
paths straight.” Now the words, “Make straight the
way of the Lord,” added by John, are not found in the
prophet. Perhaps John was seeking to compress the “Prepare
ye the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God,” and
so wrote, “Make straight the way of the Lord;” while Mark
combined two prophecies spoken by two different prophets in different
places, and made one prophecy out of them, “As it is written in
Isaiah the prophet, Behold I send My messenger before thy face, who
shall prepare thy way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.”
The words, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness,” are
written immediately after the narrative of Hezekiah’s recovery
from his sickness,4895
while the words,
“Behold I send My messenger before thy face,” are written
by Malachi.4896
What John
does here, abbreviating the text he quotes, we find done by Mark also
at another point. For while the words of the prophet are,
“Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our
God,” Mark writes, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make
His paths straight.” And John practises a similar
abbreviation in the text, “Behold I send My messenger before thy
face, who shall prepare thy way before thee,” when he does not
add the words “before thee,” as in the original.
Coming now to the statement, “They were sent from the Pharisees
and they asked Him,”4897
we have been led by
our examination of the passage to prefix the enquiry of the
Pharisees—which Matthew does not mention—to the occurrence
recorded in Matthew, when John saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees
coming to his baptism, and said to them, “Ye generations of
vipers,” etc. For the natural sequence is that they should
first enquire and then come. And we have to observe how, when
Matthew reports that there went out to John Jerusalem and all
Judæa, and all the region round about Jordan, to be baptized by
him in Jordan, confessing their sins, it was not these people who heard
from the Baptist any word of rebuke or refutation, but only those many
Pharisees and Sadducees whom he saw coming. They it was who were
greeted with the address, “Ye offspring of vipers,”
etc.4898
Mark, again, does not record any words
of reproof as having been used by John to those who came to him, being
all the country of Judæa and all of them of Jerusalem, who were
baptized by him in the Jordan and confessed their sins. This is
because Mark does not mention the Pharisees and Sadducees as having
come to John. A further circumstance which we must mention is
that both Matthew and Mark state that, in the one case, all Jerusalem
and all Judæa, and the whole region round about Jordan, in the
other, the whole land of Judæa and all they of Jerusalem, were
baptized, confessing their sins; but when Matthew introduces the
Pharisees and Sadducees as coming to the baptism, he does not say that
they confessed their sins, and this might very likely and very
naturally be the reason why they were addressed as “offspring of
vipers.” Do not suppose, reader, that there is anything
improper in our adducing in our discussion of the question of those who
were sent from the Pharisees and put questions to John, the parallel
passages from the other Gospels too. For if we have indicated the
proper connection between the enquiry of the Pharisees, recorded by the disciple John, and their baptism
which is found in Matthew, we could scarcely avoid inquiring into the
passages in question, nor recording the observations made on
them. Luke, like Mark, remembers the passage, “The voice of
one crying in the wilderness,” but he for his part treats it as
follows:4899
“The
word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias, in the
wilderness. And he came into all the region round about Jordan
preaching the baptism of repentance unto remission of sins; as it is
written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, The voice of
one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His
paths straight.” Luke, however, added the continuation of
the prophecy: “Every valley shall be filled, and every
mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall become
straight, and the rough ways smooth, and all flesh shall see the
salvation of God.” He writes, like Mark, “Make His
ways straight;” curtailing, as we saw before, the text,
“Make straight the ways of our God.” In the phrase,
“And all the crooked shall become straight,” he leaves out
the “all,” and the word “straight” he converts
from a plural into a singular. Instead of the phrase, moreover,
“The rough land into a plain,” he gives, “The rough
ways into smooth ways,” and he leaves out “And the glory of
the Lord shall be revealed,” and gives what follows, “And
all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” These
observations are of use as showing how the evangelists are accustomed
to abbreviate the sayings of the prophets. It has also to be
observed that the speech, “Offspring of vipers,” etc., is
said by Matthew to have been spoken to the Pharisees and Sadducees when
coming to baptism, they being a different set of people from those who
confessed their sins, and to whom no words of this kind were
spoken. With Luke, on the contrary, these words were addressed to
the multitudes who came out to be baptized by John, and there were not
two divisions of those who were baptized, as we found in Matthew.
But Matthew, as the careful observer will see, does not speak of the
multitudes in the way of praise, and he probably means the
Baptist’s address, Offspring of vipers, etc., to be understood as
addressed to them also. Another point is, that to the Pharisees
and Sadducees he says, “Bring forth a fruit,” in the
singular, “worthy of repentance,” but to the multitudes he
uses the plural, “Bring forth fruits worthy of
repentance.” Perhaps the Pharisees are required to yield
the special fruit of repentance, which is no other than the Son and
faith in Him, while the multitudes, who have not even a beginning of
good things, are asked for all the fruits of repentance, and so the
plural is used to them. Further, it is said to the Pharisees,
“Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our
father.” For the multitudes now have a beginning, appearing
as they do to be introduced into the divine Word, and to approach the
truth; and thus they begin to say within themselves, “We have
Abraham for our father.” The Pharisees, on the contrary,
are not beginning to this, but have long held it to be so. But
both classes see John point to the stones aforesaid and declare that
even from these children can be raised up to Abraham, rising up out of
unconsciousness and deadness. And observe how it is said to the
Pharisees,4900
according to the
word of the prophet,4901
“Ye have
eaten false fruit,” and they have false fruit,—“Every
tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the
fire,” while to the multitudes which do not bear fruit at
all,4902
“Every tree which bringeth not forth
fruit is hewn down.” For that which has no fruit at all has
not good fruit, and, therefore, it is worthy to be hewn down. But
that which bears fruit has by no means good fruit, whence it also calls
for the axe to lay it low. But, if we look more closely into this
about the fruit, we shall find that it is impossible that that which
has just begun to be cultivated, even should it not prove fruitless,
should bear the first good fruits. The husbandman is content that
the tree just coming into cultivation should bear him at first such
fruits as it may; afterwards, when he has pruned and trained it
according to his art, he will receive, not the fruits it chanced to
bear at first, but good fruits. The law itself favours this
interpretation, for it says4903
that the planter is
to wait for three years, having the trees pruned and not eating the
fruit of them. “Three years,” it says, “the
fruit shall be unpurified to you, and shall not be eaten, but in the
fourth year all the fruit shall be holy, for giving praise unto the
Lord.” This explains how the word “good” is
omitted from the address to the multitudes, “Every tree,
therefore, which bears not fruit is hewn down and cast into the
fire.” The tree which
goes on bearing such fruit as it did at first, is a tree which does not
bear good fruit, and is, therefore, cut down, and cast into the fire,
since, when the three years have passed and the fourth comes round, it
does not bear good fruit, for praise unto the Lord. In thus
adducing the passages from the other Gospels I may appear to be
digressing, but I cannot think it useless, or without bearing on our
present subject. For the Pharisees send to John, after the
priests and levites who came from Jerusalem, men who came to ask him
who he was, and enquire, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not the
Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet? After making this enquiry
they straightway come for baptism, as Matthew records, and then they
hear words suited to their quackery and hypocrisy. But the words
addressed to them were very similar to those spoken to the multitudes,
and hence the necessity to look carefully at both speeches, and to
compare them together. It was while we were so engaged that
various points arose in the sequence of the matter, which we had to
consider. To what has been said we must add the following.
We find mention made in John of two orders of persons sending:
the one, that of the Jews from Jerusalem sending priests and levites;
the other, that of the Pharisees who want to know why he
baptizes. And we found that, after the enquiry, the Pharisees
present themselves for baptism. May it not be that the Jews, who
had sent the earlier mission from Jerusalem, received John’s
words before those who sent the second mission, namely, the Pharisees,
and hence arrived before them? For Jerusalem and all Judæa,
and, in consequence, the whole region round about Jordan, were being
baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins; or, as Mark
says, “There went out to him the whole land of Judæa, and
all they of Jerusalem, and were baptized of him in the river Jordan,
confessing their sins.” Now, neither does Matthew introduce
the Pharisees and Sadducees, to whom the words, “Offspring of
vipers,” etc., are addressed; nor does Luke introduce the
multitudes who meet with the same rebuke, as confessing their
sins. And the question may be raised how, if the whole city of
Jerusalem, and the whole of Judæa, and the whole region round
about Jordan, were baptized of John in Jordan, the Saviour could
say,4904
“John the Baptist came neither eating
nor drinking, and ye say he hath a devil;” and how could He say
to those who asked Him,4905
“By what
authority doest thou these things? I also will ask you one word,
which if ye tell me, I also will tell you by what authority I do these
things. The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven or of
men? And they reason, and say, If we shall say, From heaven, He
will say, Why did ye not believe him?” The solution of the
difficulty is this. The Pharisees, addressed by John, as we saw
before, with his “Offspring of vipers,” etc., came to the
baptism, without believing in him, probably because they feared the
multitudes, and, with their accustomed hypocrisy towards them, deemed
it right to undergo the washing, so as not to appear hostile to those
who did so. Their belief was, then, that he derived his baptism
from men, and not from heaven, but, on account of the multitude, lest
they should be stoned, they are afraid to say what they think.
Thus there is no contradiction between the Saviour’s speech to
the Pharisees and the narratives in the Gospels about the multitudes
who frequented John’s baptism. It was part of the
effrontery of the Pharisees that they declared John to have a devil,
as, also, that they declared Jesus to have performed His wonderful
works by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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