“Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” (Mt 11:11) This is an extraordinary statement balancing praise and paradox

In common Jewish belief there had been no prophecy in Israel since the last of the Old Testament prophets, Malachi. The coming of a new prophet was eagerly awaited, and Jesus agrees that John was such. Yet he was more than a prophet, for he was the precursor of the one who would bring in the new and final age. The Old Testament quotation is a combination of Malachi 3:1; Exodus 23:20 with the significant change that the “before me” of Malachi becomes “before you.” The messenger now precedes not God, as in the original, but Jesus.

“Born of women” is a Semitic idiom meaning any human being — all mortal humans. and Jesus has just declared John the greatest of all humans up to that point — greater than Abraham, Moses, David, or the prophets. He is the culmination of the prophets — “the voice crying in the wilderness” (Isa 40:3), the forerunner of the Messiah, bridging Old and New. He personally identifies the Lamb of God (Jn 1:29). He embodies austere holiness and prophetic courage, dying for truth and righteousness. In short: John is the final prophet of the Old Covenant, the greatest light before the dawning of the Messianic era.

And then there is the paradox. How can someone “greater than all” be “less than the least” in the kingdom? John belongs to the Old Covenant order. Yes, he announces the Kingdom, but does not yet live within it. He dies before Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection — the saving events that inaugurate the new covenant and the kingdom of heaven in its fullness. Therefore, even the “least” person who shares in Christ’s redemptive grace possesses something John could only anticipate: participation in the divine life through the Spirit. Because of the greatness of the kingdom’s age, all of the kingdom’s citizens will in some sense be greater even than John. 

Image credit: Christ Presenting the Keys to Saint Peter, c. 1636-40, by Nicholas Poussin, Public Domain