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Are You The Expected One – Matt. 11:3
Are You The Expected One – Matt. 11:3
John, being in prison and facing martyrdom, sends and asks Jesus: “Are you the expected one, or shall we look for someone else?”
I find it instructive to see how Jesus answers this. “Go and report what you hear and see!” What did they see and hear? “Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know…” (Acts 2:22). The people, upon seeing and hearing, could ask: “When Christ comes, will he do more than these? “ (John 7:31). Nicodemus could state: “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him” (John 3:1-2). This was not a philosophical answer, nor a theological one, but one based in historical events that they both saw and heard.
Second, such signs and wonders were in themselves a fulfillment of the prophecies of ‘the Expected One’. Here in Matthew, we keep seeing the phrase: “and thus if fulfilled what was written”. (Matt. 1:22; 2:15, 17,23; 4:14; 8:17; 12:17; 13:35; 21:4; 26:56; 27:9). Such fulfillment of prophecy was at the foundation of the apostles’ preaching:
“But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled” (Acts 3:18).
“For those who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, recognizing neither Him nor the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning Him” (Acts 13:27).
“…God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, 'You are My Son; today I have begotten You.'” (Acts 13:33).
With what they had seen and heard, they could return and tell John “HE IS the Expected One”! We, on the other hand, have the record of what Jesus said and did. We can study, outline, and memorize the events of His life and correlate them with what God through the prophets foretold would happen! We have the 'prophetic word made more sure’ (2 Peter 1:19).
“Blessed is he who does not take offense!” (Matt. 11:6). How have you responded to what they saw and heard?
Hugh DeLong
