'He that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than
he.'--LUKE vii. 28.
We were speaking in a preceding sermon about the elements of true
greatness, as represented in the life and character of John the
Baptist. As we remarked then, our Lord poured unstinted eulogium
upon the head of John, in the audience of the people, at the very
moment when he showed himself weakest. 'None born of women' was, in
Christ's eyes, 'greater than John the Baptist.' The eulogium,
authoritative as it was, was immediately followed by a depreciation
as authoritative, from Christ's lips: 'The least in the kingdom is
greater than he.' Greatness depends, not on character, but on
position. The contrast that is drawn is between being _in_ and
being _out_ of the kingdom; and this man, great as he was among
them 'that are born of women,' stood but upon the threshold;
therefore, and only therefore, and in that respect, was he 'less
than the least' who was safely within it.
Now, there are two things in these great words of our Lord to notice
by way of introduction. One is the calm assumption which He makes of
authority to marshal men, to stand above the greatest of them, and
to allocate their places, because He knows all about them; and the
other is the equally calm and strange assumption of authority which
He makes, in declaring that the least within the kingdom is greater
than the greatest without. For the kingdom is embodied in Him, its
King, and He claimed to have opened the door of entrance into it.
'The kingdom of God,' or of heaven--an old Jewish idea--means,
whatever else it means, an order of things in which the will of God
is supreme. Jesus Christ says, 'I have come to make that real reign
of God, in the hearts of men, possible and actual.' So He presents
Himself in these words as infinitely higher than the greatest
within, or the greatest without the kingdom, and as being Himself
the sovereign arbiter of men's claims to greatness. Greater than the
greatest is He, the King; for if to be barely across the threshold
stamps dignity upon a man, what shall we say of the conception of
His own dignity which He formed who declared that He sat on the
throne of that kingdom, and was its Monarch?
I. The first thought that I suggest is the greatness of the little
ones in the kingdom.
As I have said, our Lord puts the whole emphasis of His
classification on men's position. Inside all are great, greater than
any that are outside. The least in the one order is greater than the
greatest in the other. So, then, the question comes, How does a man
step across that threshold? Our Lord evidently means the expression
to be synonymous with His true disciples. We may avail ourselves, in
considering how men come to be in the kingdom, of His own words.
Once He said that unless we _received_ it as little children,
we should never be _within_ it. There the blending of the two
metaphors adds force and completeness to the thought. The kingdom is
without us, and is offered to us; we must receive it as a gift, and
it must come into us before we can be in it. The point of comparison
between the recipients of the kingdom and little children does not
lie in any sentimental illusions about the innocence of childhood,
but in its dependence, in its absence of pretension, in its sense of
clinging helplessness, in its instinctive trust. All these things in
the child are natural, spontaneous, unreflecting, and therefore of
no value. You and I have to think ourselves back to them, and to
work ourselves back to them, and to fight ourselves back to them,
and to strip off their opposites which gather round us in the course
of our busy, effortful life. Then they become worth infinitely more
than their instinctive analogues in the infant. The man's absence of
pretension and consciousness of helplessness and dependent trust are
beautiful and great, and through them the kingdom of God, with all
its lights and glories, pours into his heart, and he himself steps
into it, and becomes a true servant and subject of the King.
Then there is another word of the Master's, equally illuminative, as
to how we pass into the kingdom, when He spoke to the somewhat
patronising Pharisee that came to talk to Him by night, and
condescended to give the young Rabbi a certificate of approval from
the Sanhedrim, 'We know that Thou art a Teacher come from God.'
Christ's answer was, in effect, 'Knowing will not serve your turn.
There is something more than that wanted: "Except a man be born of
water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."'
So, another condition of entering the kingdom--that is, of coming
for myself into the attitude of lowly, glad submission to God's
will--is the reception into our natures of a new life-principle, so
that we are not only, like the men whom Christ compared with John,
'born of women,' but by a higher birth are made partakers of a
higher life, and born of the Spirit of God. These are the
conditions--on our side the reception with humility, helplessness,
dependent trust like those of children, on God's side the imparting,
in answer to that dependence and trust, of a higher principle of
life--these are the conditions on which we can pass out of the realm
of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
This being so, then we have next to consider the greatness that
belongs to the least of those who thus have crossed the threshold,
and have come to exercise joyous submission to the will of God. The
highest dignity of human nature, the loftiest nobility of which it
is capable, is to submit to God's will. 'Man's chief end is to
glorify God.' There is nothing that leads life to such sovereign
power as when we lay all our will at His feet, and say, 'Break,
bend, mould, fashion it as Thou wilt.' We are in a higher position
when we are in God's hand. His tools and the pawns on His board,
than we are when we are seeking to govern our lives at our pleasure.
Dignity comes from submission, and they who keep God's commandments
are the aristocracy of the world.
Then, further, there comes the thought that the greatness that
belongs to the least of the little ones within the kingdom springs
from their closer relation to the Saviour, whose work they more
clearly know and more fully appropriate. It is often said that the
Sunday-school child who can repeat the great text, 'God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,' stands far
above prophet, righteous man, and John himself. This is not exactly
true, for knowledge of the truth is not what introduces into the
kingdom; but it is true that the weakest, the humblest, the most
ignorant amongst us, who grasps that truth of the God-sent Son whose
death is the world's life, and who lives, therefore, nestling close
to Jesus Christ, walks in a light far brighter than the twilight
that shone upon the Baptist, or the yet dimmer rays that reached
prophets and righteous men of old. It is not a question of
character; it is a question of position. True greatness is
regulated, by closeness to Jesus Christ, and by apprehension and
appropriation of His work to myself. The dwarf on the shoulders of
the giant sees further than the giant; and 'the least in the
kingdom,' being nearer to Jesus Christ than the men of old could
ever be, because possessing the fuller revelation of God in Him, is
greater than the greatest without. They who possess, even in germ,
that new life-principle which comes in the measure of a man's faith
in Christ, thereby are lifted above saints and martyrs and prophets
of old. The humblest Christian grasps a fuller Christ, and therein
possesses a fuller spiritual life, than did the ancient heroes of
the faith. Christ's classification here says nothing about
individual character. It says nothing about the question as to the
possession of true religion or of spiritual life by the ancient
saints, but it simply declares that because we have a completer
revelation, we therefore, grasping that revelation, are in a more
blessed position, 'God having provided some better thing for us,
that they without us should not be made perfect.' The lowest in a
higher order is higher than the highest in a lower order. As the
geologist digs down through the strata, and, as he marks the
introduction of new types, declares that the lowest specimen of the
mammalia is higher than the highest preceding of the reptiles or of
the birds, so Christ says, 'He that is lowest in the kingdom of
heaven is greater than he.'
Brethren! these thoughts should stimulate and should rebuke us that
having so much we make so little use of it. We know God more fully,
and have mightier motives to serve Him, and larger spiritual helps
in serving Him than had any of the mighty men of old. We have a
fuller revelation than Abraham had; have we a tithe of his faith? We
have a mightier Captain of the Lord's host with us than stood before
Joshua; have we any of his courage? We have a tenderer and fuller
revelation of the Father than had psalmists of old; are our
aspirations greater after God, whom we know so much better, than
were theirs in the twilight of revelation? A savage with a shell and
a knife of bone will make delicate carvings that put our workers,
with their modern tools, to shame. A Hindoo, weaving in a shed, with
bamboos for its walls and palm leaves for its roof, and a rude loom,
the same as his ancestors used three thousand years ago, will turn
out muslins that Lancashire machinery cannot rival. We are exalted
in position, let us see to it that Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,
and all the saints, do not put us to shame, lest the greatest should
become the guiltiest, and exaltation to heaven should lead to
dejection to hell.