One of the things I think we don’t dwell on enough as believers is the blessedness of living on this side of the cross. With the progress of revelation throughout the Old Testament until the New, climaxing in the death and resurrection of Christ, we get the privilege of knowing the full story. Many of the heroes of faith died in faith, not having received the promises (see Heb. 11:13). Furthermore, the redemption we have in Christ Jesus is something that even angels long to look into! (see 1 Pet. 1:12). As you survey the story of Scripture, many of God’s people didn’t have the full story. Adam and Eve are told that their offspring would crush the serpent’s head, but they didn’t live to see it. Abraham was promised a land, innumerable descendants, and that through his descendants all the nations of the earth would be blessed, but he didn’t live to see it. Even the prophets who prophesied about the coming Christ and some of the details of His life such as Isaiah, Micah, or Daniel didn’t have the whole picture. They didn’t know Jesus’ name, they didn’t know the exact nature of redemption through His blood, they only knew some of the details.
As new covenant believers, we get the whole picture. We get to read about Christ’s virgin birth, His sinless life, His atoning death, His resurrection, and His ascension to the Father’s right hand. As if this weren’t enough, we not only get to read and know about these things, but we get to be recipients of the promise and hope of eternal life in Christ! We get to see the full picture and we receive these blessings that are so wonderful that angels who inhabit heaven long to experience them!
Where’s this come in with Matthew 11? Consider what the Lord Jesus says concerning John the Baptist, even after John has some doubts concerning who He was. Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist” (Matt. 11:11). Now, this is a pretty amazing claim, especially coming from Jesus! There’s no one greater than John! He’s the forerunner of the Messiah, the one who would come in fulfillment of a prophetic expectation of a new Elijah as it were. What an endorsement! Not only this, but this endorsement that is off the charts is coming from Jesus the Messiah Himself. John is quite the guy.
But it gets better. Jesus concludes that thought by saying, “Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matt. 11:11). Consider what He is saying there. John is the greatest. There’s no human being born of woman who exceeds John from the beginning until the present…and yet the very least that is in the Kingdom is greater. That is those who are part of the coming Messianic age that has arrived with the coming of Christ and His death and resurrection are greater than all who preceded with the blessedness they walk in. They are those who are no longer in Adam but who are in Christ. They are those who have redemption in His blood and forgiveness from their sins! Biblical scholar, Craig Blomberg, says it best when he writes, “Even the least of these will surpass the greatest of the old era. . .because of the unique blessings associated with the in-breaking kingdom.”[1]
As new covenant believers, we live with blessings that are beyond compare. On Monday morning, we might not feel blessed. As we undergo trials in life, we might not feel blessed. As we have all manner of things about our lives that we would change if we could, we might not feel blessed. Yet we are living in the time of the Kingdom that has broken into this world and is coming. We are living as new covenant believers who have the Spirit of God within us, who have secure promises of eternal life with God, and who have forgiveness for our sins by grace. We might not feel blessed, but we are. Old Testament believers would have loved to have what we have. Even angels long to look into these things! We might hear the good news so frequently that it becomes old news, but let’s not forget how blessed we are to be those who have heard that news and have been recipients of its promise.
[1] Craig Blomberg, Matthew, vol. 22 of The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 187.
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