Luke 7:30

These words were spoken either in the person of the Evangelist, or, as some think, of the Saviour; but when he says, against themselves, he means that he who rejects the grace of God, does it against himself. Or, they are blamed as foolish and ungrateful for being unwilling to receive the counsel of God, sent to themselves. The counsel then is of God, because He ordained salvation by the passion and death of Christ, which the Pharisees and lawyers despised.

The evil counselor is he who converts great things into nothing, as those who say that the counsels of God are evil and worthless. Such counselors were the Pharisees and Lawyers, of whom it is said: 'The Pharisees and the Lawyers rejected the counsel of …

The Pharisees, who were most in reputation for religion and devotion, and the lawyers, who were celebrated for their learning, especially their knowledge of the scriptures, rejected the counsel of God against themselves; they frustrated it, they received the grace of God, by the baptism of John, in vain.

But the Pharisees and lawyers,.... Or Scribes, as the Syriac and Persic versions read; for the Scribes and lawyers were the same sort of persons.

Christ comforting a poor penitent that applied herself to him, all in tears of godly sorrow for sin, assuring her that her sins were pardoned, and justifying himself in the favour he showed her against the cavils of a proud Pharisee,

Rejected the counsel of God - Or, frustrated the will of God - την βουλην του Θεου ηθετησαν. Kypke says the verb αθετειν has two meanings: - 1, to disbelieve; 2, despise, or disobey: and that both senses may be properly conjoined here. The will of God was that all the inhabitants of Judea should repent at the preaching of John, be baptized, and believe in Christ Jesus.

The first point that demands our notice in this passage — is the tender care which Jesus takes of the characters of His faithful servants. He defends the reputation of John the Baptist, as soon as his messengers were departed. He saw that the people around him were apt to think lightly of John — partly because he was in prison, and partly because of the inquiry which his disciples had just brought. He pleads the cause of His absent friend, in warm and strong language.

The first point that demands our notice in this passage — is the tender care which Jesus takes of the characters of His faithful servants. He defends the reputation of John the Baptist, as soon as his messengers were departed. He saw that the people around him were apt to think lightly of John — partly because he was in prison, and partly because of the inquiry which his disciples had just brought. He pleads the cause of His absent friend, in warm and strong language. He bids His hearers to dismiss from their minds their unworthy doubts and suspicions about this holy man. He tells them that John was no wavering and unstable character — that he was no mere reed shaken by the wind. He tells them that John was no mere courtier around king's palaces, though circumstances at the end of his ministry had brought him into connection with king Herod. He declares to them that John was "much more than a prophet" — for he was a prophet who had been the subject of prophecy himself. And he winds up his testimony by the remarkable saying, that "among those who are born of woman — there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist!" There is something deeply touching in these sayings of our Lord on behalf of his absent servant. The position which John now occupied as Herod's prisoner, was widely different from that which he occupied at the beginning of his ministry. At one time he was the best-known and most popular preacher of his day. There was a time when "Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him — and were being baptized in Jordan." (Matthew 3:5.) Now he was an obscure prisoner in Herod's prison — deserted, friendless, and with nothing before him but death. But the lack of man's favor — is no proof that God is displeased.