NOTES for Luk 7:17-30
When we read in Luke's Gospel how John the Baptist, imprisoned, sends his disciples to ask the Lord Jesus, “Are You the One who is to come, or should we expect another?”, we usually respond with a question of our own: why does John doubt? This question has become a commonplace, regularly asked by all sorts of people. Perhaps it also occurred to the disciples accompanying Jesus Christ, some of whom had previously been the Baptist's disciples and had been directed to Jesus by John himself. This partly explains why, after answering John's messengers, the Lord turns to the people and says these astonishing words about the Baptist: “Among those born of women there is no prophet greater than John.” In any case, this passage, and particularly the answer to the messengers, contains none of the reproach for little faith that the Lord sometimes addresses to His disciples and to the people.
Apparently, John the Baptist's question goes deeper than we think. Moreover, it is asked by someone who, unlike us, has not read the Gospel and knows nothing of the resurrection. We can try to reconstruct the question's meaning from Christ's answer, as we often have to do when reading the Gospel. Most likely, John, who knows both the spirit and the letter of the Old Testament well, is asking about something connected with the prophecies of the Messiah's Kingdom, in which God's Light will transfigure the whole world, every evil will be defeated, and God Himself will wipe away every human tear. The Old Testament prophets proclaimed the spiritual meaning of what God would grant through Christ, but the mystery of His first and second comings had not been revealed to them. They did not distinguish what would take place in the New Covenant from what would happen at the end of time. John the Baptist is probably asking precisely whether the fulfillment of these prophecies should be expected and how it will take place. Nor should we forget that a theory of two Messiahs—a King and a Priest, whose ministries would differ—was popular among Jewish theologians at the time. This theory arose from interpretations of certain prophecies when the mystery of the Son of God's Incarnation was still inaccessible to human beings. Finally, judging by the evangelists' testimony, the Lord Jesus had not yet spoken of the New Covenant at that point. The evangelists unanimously testify that the New Covenant is established only at the Last Supper, but this still remains hidden from the Baptist.
The point, then, is not that John doubts whether Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. As the herald of God's Kingdom, he needs to see what is happening in the context of the prophecies. That is precisely why the Lord answers his question by pointing to prophecies already being fulfilled in what is happening at that moment, and this answer apparently satisfies John. It is also clear why Christ adds: “Blessed is the one who does not stumble because of Me.” The Lord thus directs John's attention to the fact that the prophecies go deeper than their literal understanding and that not everything in their common interpretations is correct.
Finally, the evangelist Luke tells us that, on hearing Christ, all the people gave glory to God, having received John's baptism. This means that by His words the Lord confirmed John the Baptist's ministry as the last herald of the New Covenant. Perhaps this was, in fact, the underlying meaning of John's question: he addresses the Son of God Himself with a question about his own ministry. John's whole life had been devoted to preaching repentance and preparation for Christ's coming, and now he brings that ministry before the judgment of the Son of God. The Lord answers that, in the Kingdom of Heaven proclaimed by John the Baptist, God's gift to humanity incomparably surpasses anything we can conceive. The least in the Kingdom will possess more than John possesses now. In this connection, we recall the apostle Paul's words that now we see God as through dim glass, indistinctly, whereas in the Kingdom God's Light will reach our eyes unhindered.