This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “What is the Gospel?” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, July 5, 1998.

Tonight we are beginning our scripture reading in Isaiah 61, and we are reading the first three verses. Give your attention to God’s holy word. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

And then turning over to Matthew chapter 11, and we read at verse 2: Now when John, while in prison, heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for someone else?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, 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. And blessed is the one who does not take offense at me.”

Our Father, we by faith are granted blessing from the eternal Sabbath, that Sabbath that does not end, and Lord, by Christ’s resurrection we are in fact enabled to participate wonderfully in that Sabbath rest. At the same time, O God, there is an end for the Sabbath in this creation. And Lord, we know this as this day comes to a close, and we look again at the work week ahead.

Father, we do pray that, according to your mercy and in keeping with the gospel of Christ, we would maintain, indeed, our perspective on the blessings given to us in Christ and our hold on the reality and meaning of this day. Father, throughout the week, may there be evidence that we have been with you, even with your people. And Father, as you have blessed your people today, may you continue to bless them throughout the week. And Lord, we ask that, as we are granted strength by your Spirit, we might also draw strength from one another. For we are a company of saints gathered by you and established as a church in your name. But help us, Father, lest we forget one another. Truly, the strength that you give to one becomes a blessing to all, and the burden that you give to one becomes a burden for all. May we be conscious, O Lord, of the life we have in our Savior, and may you encourage us, O Father, as we live out this week in light of your great work and mighty redemption. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I am returning to Matthew 11 this evening and to the question, What is the Gospel? I do so because there remain a few loose ends from last Sunday evening’s message, and matters yet demanding further explanation and emphasis. I have in mind, specifically, John the Baptist’s situation in prison. I have in mind, especially, John the Baptist’s situation in prison. And I want you to consider the effect of Jesus’ words to him, as those words are carried back to him while he is still in jail. You are aware of the situation; we have covered that, but I will review it once more for you this evening.

About a year after John had baptized Jesus at the Jordan, he was arrested by the soldiers of Herod Antipas and placed in prison. While in prison, questions arose in John’s mind about Jesus’ ministry, as reflected in Matthew 11:2. In summary, John could not separate the Messiah’s presence from his expectation of immediate judgment. John’s own prophecies concerning the Christ declared that the Messiah would baptize with the Spirit and with fire.

In the administration of His kingdom, the Messiah would lay the axe at the root of the tree and separate the wheat from the chaff, consigning the chaff to unquenchable fire. John’s question, as he languished in prison, was this: Where is the fire? Where is the judgment?

You see, and this is crucial in the case of John the Baptist, he not only expected immediate judgment but also believed that this judgment would come before the promised blessings of the kingdom. I will repeat that. In John the Baptist’s case, he not only expected judgment at the time of the Messiah’s revelation but also believed that this judgment would precede the promised blessings of the Kingdom. First judgment, then blessing.

Therefore, John sent his disciples from his prison cell with this question for Jesus: Are you the one who was to come, or should we look for someone else? In response, Jesus pointed to the great and mighty works of His ministry, thereby highlighting the blessings of His ministry in the context of the fulfillment and arrival of the kingdom. Pay special attention to verse 5.

The message of Jesus to John, communicated through John’s disciples, is this: No, John, not judgment before blessing, but blessing before judgment. It is here that we are presented with a clear picture. As I have maintained throughout this ministry, and especially in these messages about the gospel, it is here that we see what is good about the good news. I cannot emphasize this enough for you.

If you are wrong in embracing the message of Jesus, then you are wrong in embracing the gospel. If you are one who embraces the gospel, which literally means good news, then it is necessary for you to understand what is good about the good news. I would even suggest that there may not be a more fundamental question for you in understanding the ministry of Jesus and the ministry of the gospel. It is necessary for you, then, to answer the question: What is so good about the good news? From Jesus’ point of view, what makes the gospel the gospel?

In the gospel, as Jesus declares it and as he administers it, blessings—eternal blessings—have arrived at a specific time. These are blessings with clear definition and real substance. They are not vague, nor are they merely abstract feelings. They are not simply related to religious emotion. These are eternal blessings, full of content and substance, blessings of the heavenly kingdom, of the kingdom that is above, which have now come. The marvels and wonders of glory, of that which is above, of that which is yet future, are being revealed in the present. These blessings are not reserved for a time beyond judgment, nor are they reserved for a time beyond death.

Rather, they are present as gracious evidence that the age of fulfillment for God’s promises has begun for us in and through Jesus Christ. If you are seeking that which communicates to you, then, the joy produced by the gospel message, you must come to grips with this matter. If you are going to comprehend, to grasp the significance of that which is blessing to you in the gospel, you must come to grips with this matter. Heavenly, eternal blessings are being given to you, mediated to you in and through Jesus. Truly, today is the day of salvation, as salvation in its ultimate and highest sense has come to us. But now, having become familiar with all this, we are faced with further matters arising from this text, Matthew 11.

Once again, the most pressing is the effect Jesus’ words to John’s disciples had upon John himself. What impact, you imagine, did Jesus’ words have on John when those words were brought back to him? Was he, do you think, able to appreciate what was good about the good news as Jesus proclaimed it? I personally have no doubt that John understood the response that was directed his way. In fact, I believe that John understood Jesus’ words far better than many in the Church today.

In his response to John, Jesus quotes in part Isaiah 61:1, which we have read this evening. The part about bringing the good news or the gospel to the afflicted. Jesus has rendered these words in Matthew 11:5 this way: “The poor have the gospel preached to them.” But you will notice that as verse 1 in Isaiah 61 continues, it goes on to state that the Messiah in his kingdom would bring liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners. Now, Jesus does not include these lines, nor those sentiments, in the message that he sends back to John. But John, fully aware of what Isaiah 61:1 says, we must then imagine the impact that such an omission had upon him as he sits in his prison cell.

He is compelled in a doctrinal direction. He is compelled theologically. There are constraints now upon his mind as he reflects upon what Jesus has said to him through his disciples, and he is forced now to make connections and draw conclusions. He is compelled; he is even being compelled by the constraints of God’s providence. It is not happenstance that he has his question, or that his disciples come to Jesus, that Jesus meets them and gives them his response, and through them that response is mediated to John. John is now being compelled to see that blessing, even eternal blessing, precedes judgment. He is being forced to comprehend what is good about the Good News. But he is also being compelled to see the spiritual intention of the kingdom’s promises. He is being forced, he is being compelled to see the spiritual intention of the kingdom’s promises. Stay with me in this. Persevere through this argument.

I trust that as we travel this path, we are going to see something of the interior reasoning taking place in the mind of John the Baptist as he struggles with the issue of the gospel. John, while in his prison cell, is compelled to consider the relativity of his present imprisonment in Herod’s jail. He is being compelled to consider the relativity of his present imprisonment in Herod’s jail.

Jesus does not mention freedom for the prisoners when he sends his message to John and quotes from Isaiah 61. John recognizes this, realizes this fully, and he also understands that in the omission of these words, he may not expect release. He may not expect release. Release from prison need not come, may not come, and finally does not come. John is being compelled to deal with the possibility then that the true intention of the Isaiah prophecy, Isaiah 61, is not a release from a prison of this creation.

But it is even more monumental and ethical than that. As the Isaiah prophecy was written, it had in view the upcoming national imprisonment of Israel during the days of Judah’s exile in Babylon. John must now conclude, as he reads the entirety of the Old Testament history and specifically the epoch of the captivity, that the true intention of Isaiah 61, verse 1, is this: an Israelite release from bondage to any nation in this creation. He must conclude that.

John is compelled to see, by Jesus’ response, that the good news of the kingdom, the gospel of the promised Messiah, ministers already to us the greatest, the most permanent, the ultimate, the eternal freedom—a freedom essentially belonging to another world. And that we come into possession of this true and heavenly freedom in this world, comforting many who, like John, receive this freedom and even maintain it, despite whatever prison cell in this world, for the gospel’s sake, they might find themselves.

Here is a freedom now, surely in my judgment, and I trust in the judgment of the Gospel too: here is a freedom now belonging to John, which he carries in himself, even though the threat that his earthly imprisonment may not end, even though there is the prospect that his present imprisonment in an earthly cell may end with his death. Is John, despite his imprisonment, a free man? You now understand something of what I mean when I speak about the spiritual character of the blessings that are being spoken of by Jesus as he sends word to John. Even while in prison, John now has become a free man. He is a free man.

I believe it is now apparent, at least I hope it is apparent to you, the way in which Jesus’ statement in verse 5 of Matthew 11 is to be understood. Jesus’ words about the poor, having the gospel preached to them in that verse, must be interpreted in light of the ministry John receives through Jesus’ message in his jail cell. You will have to interpret these words and these responses along a single line. In other words, the poor, mentioned expressly in verse 5, must be placed on the same line as the prisoner, which John is himself. This means that the gospel is no more about prisoners being released from earthly cells than it is about the poor being secured against the threat of earthly hardship. I made this point last week, and I will make it again here. We cannot take any different approach in the case of anything Jesus lists in Matthew 11, verse 5, than we have already taken in the cases of the prisoners and the poor. To be sure, one sees the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead hear, and the dead are raised up.

However, the true intention of these mighty works is not the resolution of some tragic human condition or catastrophe, which merely leaves those recipients of these temporary remedial earthly evidences of the kingdom’s presence susceptible to the same tragedies and catastrophes all over again.

Each of these categories points to the arrival of the heavenly kingdom and sets before us this truth. Already we have received heavenly sight. Already we have received the perfection of our limbs for walking in God’s way. Already we have received a cleansing which cannot be lost nor even improved upon. Already we have received ears that hear as the ears in heaven hear, that is, ears that listen by obeying. That is, they listen in such a way that hearing and obeying are not distinguished. Already we have received resurrection, and such life as lasts forever. Again, this is the gospel, this is the good news.

Such blessings are given to us and are bestowed upon us by grace, not according to merit. As Matthew 11:6 says, the words of Jesus here: “These blessings belong to those who are blessed because they do not stumble over Jesus,” that is to say, because they trust in him. All this means that we cannot allow Matthew 11:5 to function finally at the level of the earthly. But unfortunately, that is exactly where far too many Christians leave this verse. They have interpreted this verse and the gospel itself as good news about the prospect for physical health. They have interpreted this verse and the gospel itself as good news about the prospect for material security in this world, about such things as world peace and social improvement. But I ask you, in closing tonight, of what comfort were such considerations to John the Baptist in his cell as he awaited death? You might well imagine that John would be comforted by thoughts that he might at least leave this world in good health, or that those responsible for him while in prison would provide him with a good meal before he goes. You might well imagine that John would be comforted, at least with the knowledge that his relatives, his survivors, were materially well-off, that they were provided for after his departure. And you might well imagine that John would be comforted by the thought that the world would not blow itself up in the next two millennia. And you might well imagine that John would be comforted just to learn that yes, finally, we would all discover how to get along.

But none of that, none of that is the gospel. None of that is the good news. Sadly, many who call themselves Christians believe that such considerations not only pertain to the gospel, but are the substance of the gospel. Even more sadly, these people, unlike John, are still in prison. They are still slaves, bound. They are not free. They do not understand what Jesus was talking about. Every time they are confronted by what Jesus is truly teaching, they take offense and stumble. You do not have to be a liberal to stumble. You can even be an Orthodox Presbyterian. But I trust that you do not take offense at what is good about the good news. Even as it is now spiritually discerned for you, and that you have not stumbled, but are walking in the light of that gospel present. We ask you, our Father, that you will give to your people, even in keeping with your gospel, by your Spirit, the comprehension of what the gospel is, and that your Church would be clear-headed about the gospel and its significance. Father, may we press on, for the temptation is great for us to stop short of those considerations that are most necessary. For we too are liable to focus on earthly advantages through the gospel. To come to the conclusion that those earthly advantages are what the gospel is all about—Father, we ask you to preserve us, encourage us, not that we would stand proudly, self-righteously before the world and the Church to proclaim our superior insight, but rather, with all humility, we might stand as evident tokens of your grace, humbly endeavoring to stand for the Gospel and at the same time as we have opportunity to speak about its truth. Bless the ministry of this Church, bless us all in our conversations, bless us in our communications with others who desperately need to hear the true meaning of the Gospel.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.