Click here for the Matthew 11:25-27 PODCAST
25 At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. 26 Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. 27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. ~ Matthew 11:25-27
Today, we return to our study of Matthew 11 where the Lord Jesus has been revealing what happens to people when they resist the truth. Recognizing truth has become more complicated these days because it has been replaced with deceptions of a variety of kinds. In fact, we live in a world where we are told to discover our own truth. We mustn't forget that this world that we live in is largely run by the devil himself. His world desires to blur the truth so that we would be kept from it. The devil desires to get us to the place where we see his lies as the truth. But, God’s Word makes the truth abundantly clear and the more we are defined by the truth, the more we will know the God of truth for ourselves.
In v.25-26 of today's passage we read, "25 At that time Jesus answered and said, 'I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. 26 Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.'"
The wise and prudent here was a sarcastic reference to the religious leaders of Israel. They were not those who were extra smart or had a great intellect. Rather, they relied on their own wisdom and understanding instead of seeking God accordingly. They were those who believed they were the source of their own holiness. They did not understand that they needed a Savior and they definitely did not look to the Lord Jesus to be their Messiah.
One of the prerequisites to know God is divine revelation. We will never know a person lest they reveal themselves to us. We can know God because He has revealed Himself to us through creation and our conscience. In John 3:36, we read, "He who believes in the Son has everlasting life. He who does not believe in the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides in him." We enter into a personal relationship with God when we trust in the finished work of the Lord Jesus on the cross for the forgiveness of our sin. In 1 John 5:1 we read, "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and everyone who loves Him, who begot, loves Him who is begotten of Him." When we first became believers in the Lord Jesus we were given the witness of the Holy Spirit convincing us that we had come into a personal relationship with the God of love.
The Lord Jesus came to this earth to reveal the Father to all willing enough to believe in Him. For those unwilling to believe, the truth will be hidden from them. It is the pride of man that prevents him from being made whole by God. The Lord Jesus used a metaphor to describe those who come into a personal relationship with God and that metaphor is "babes." This metaphor represents people who realize they are totally bankrupt spiritually before God. An infant has no capacity to care for itself whatsoever. These are people who are utterly helpless and utterly dependent. They have come to the end of themselves and they know they desperately are dependent on God’s grace. These are the people to whom God reveals the gospel.
In v.27 of today's passage we read, "All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him."
In context, the Lord Jesus had earlier referenced John the Baptist as the greatest in the kingdom. John taught us that greatness is accessed through one's admission that we do not and cannot measure up to God's standard. When the Lord Jesus fulfilled all of the Old Testament, He brought it to its intended purpose in our lives. This is greatness! He fulfilled the Law and the prophecies of the Old Testament, and having received His performance on our behalf, we are positionally perfect in Christ. That is greatness!
The goal of coming to the end of ourselves is to enter into a personal relationship with God through the Lord Jesus. If God in His grace and mercy did not reveal Himself to us, we would remain forever blind to the truth about the Lord Jesus. But, the life-giving gospel, the good news of life now and forevermore has been revealed to the humble and the broken and the honest. Revelation is life because it illuminates for us the good news that though we were formerly blind and lost, now we see reality which is the glory of the Father revealed in and through the Son. It is the will of God that everyone comes to the revelation of the Lord Jesus as Savior. But, we can only see the Lord Jesus as such through the lens of our brokenness. We are wise to embrace our brokenness and those things that led to our brokenness because they rendered to us wisdom and understanding.
