Language Studies

Difficult Sayings

John the Baptist and Jesus
Matthew 11:3-5, Luke 7:20-22

"³ and said to Him, 'Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?' ⁴ Jesus answered and said to them, 'Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: ⁵ The blind see 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.'" (Matthew 11:3-5). In Matthew 8:1-4; 9:30; 12:15-16; 16:20; 17:9 Jesus commands people, even his disciples, to continue to veil his identity. This policy is sometimes known as the hidden, secret Messiah or particularly in Mark's gospel, the Messianic Secret (see, e.g., http://tektonics.org/secretmess.html, http://www.total.net/&tilda;pennyo/secret.html, http://users.ox.ac.uk/&tilda;itss0038/Mark%20Classes.htm), attributed to the German biblical scholar William Wrede who wrote about it 100 years ago at the turn of the twentieth century.

Yet, to a faithful Jew, Jesus' life was full of Messianic hints in deeds, words and self-titling. This served to elicit faith and perhaps, too, to not fall foul of Roman laws by declaring himself another king or God. So there was maybe an element of political expediency in offering only hints at his identity rather than declaring himself God and King. Nevertheless, he didn't deny who he was but agreed with any that called him Messiah, saying "it is as you say" (Matthew 26:64 // Mark 14:61-62) or to the Samaritan woman at the well, "I who speak to you am He" (John 4:25-26). It appears that Jesus may have discouraged unauthorised declarations of his nature, as with the demons, or the man healed, instead sent to the proper authorities. Part of Jewish tradition was that only God could announce the Messiah, as indeed he did, as the voice from heaven saying, "This is my Son".

For Jesus, in Hebrew thought, "the things which you hear and see" is effectively the same as saying who he was. To say and to do were meant to be the same. Hence Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees that they didn't do what they said, and that his disciples were to copy their words but not their behaviour (Matthew 23:3):

"Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do"

Jesus forgave a paralytic's sins and the crowd thought it blasphemous as only God could forgive sin (Matthew 9:2-6). Yet Jesus regarded saying the words "you are forgiven" as no harder or easier than "arise and walk" and promptly healed the man, that they might know that the Son of Man has power on earth. In fact, Son of Man was Jesus' preferred title, not Son of God or Messiah, but the Son of Man, a divine-like figure straight out of Daniel (Daniel 7:13).

In his own way, Jesus did not keep his nature a secret. He revealed it through words and actions not empty declarations. Jesus was telling John that not only was he the Messiah but he was also "doing" the deeds of Messiah — he was the "Coming One", in word and in deed.

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KJ Went has taught biblical Hebrew, hermeneutics and Jewish background to early Christianity. The "Biblical Hebrew made easy" course can be found at www.biblicalhebrew.com.

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