And all the people that heard him, and the tax collectors, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
God himself is justified through baptism, but people justify themselves by confessing their sins, as it is written, “First confess your transgressions, that you may be justified.” One is justified because the gift of God is not rejected through stubbornness but acknowledged through righteousness. “The Lord is righteous and has loved righteousness.” The justification of God is in those who see him to have bestowed his gifts not on the unworthy and the guilty but on the righteous and those made guiltless by baptism. Let us then justify the Lord that we may be justified by the Lord.
God is justified by baptism, wherein men justify themselves confessing their sins. For he that sins and confesses his sin to God justifies God, submitting himself to Him who overcomes, and hoping for grace from Him; God therefore is justified by baptism, in which there is confession and pardon of sin.
Let us not then despise (as the Pharisees did) the counsel of God, which is in the baptism of John, that is, the counsel which the Angel of great counsel searches out. No one despises the counsel of man Who then shall reject the counsel of God?.
But the prophets sung, repeating in spiritual strains their oracles of the common salvation; they wept, soothing with mournful dirges the hard hearts of the Jews. The songs were not sung in the market-place, norin the streets, but in Jerusalem. For that is the Lord's forum, in which the laws of His heavenly precepts are framed.
The Son of God is wisdom, by nature, not by growth, which is justified by baptism, when it is not rejected through obstin...
Now these words have reference to John and Christ. For when he says, We have mourned, and you have not wept, itis in allusion to John, whose abstinence from meat and drink signified penitential sorrow; and hence he adds in explanation, For John came neither eating bread, nor drinking wine, and you say he has a devil.
But his words, We have piped to you, and you have not danced, refer to the Lord Himself, who by using meats and drinks as others did, represented the joy of His kingdom. Hence it follows, The Son of man came eating and drinking
Or, when he says, wisdom is justified of all her children, he show that the children of wisdom understand that righteousness consists neither in abstaining from nor eating food, but in patiently enduring want. For not the use of such things, but the coveting after them, must be blamed; only let a man adapt himself to the kind of food of those with whom he lives.
Or, when he says, wisdom is justified of all her children, he show that the children of ...
These words were ere spoken either in the person of the Evangelist, or, as some think, of the Savior; 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 Jewish generation is compared to children, because formerly they had prophets for their teachers, of whom it is said, Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings have you perfected praise.
And the publicans justified God. Confessed the goodness of God in sending the Baptist, and in offering them salvation :through his baptism and preaching. See verse Luke 35; 1 Timothy 3:16; and S. Matthew 11:l9.
There is a question whether this verse and the one following, give the words of the Evangelist or of our Lord Himself. But as the opening words of the31st verse, "and the Lord said," are absent from the best MSS, we may conclude, with Maldonatus, that these two verses are a part of the continuous discourse of Christ.
There was as a certain play among, the Jewish children of this kind. A company of boys were collected together, who mocking the sudden changes in the affairs of this life, some of them sang, some mourned, but the mourners did not rejoice with those that rejoiced, nor did those who rejoiced fall in with those that wept. They then rebuked each other in turn with the charge of want of sympathy. That such were the feelings of the Jewish people and their rulers, Christ implied in the following words, spoken in the person of Christ; Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation, and to what are they like? They are like to children sitting in the market-place.
They take upon themselves to slander a man worthy of all admiration. They say that he who mortifies the law of sin which is in his members has a devil.
But where could they point out the Lord as gluttonness? For Christ is found every where repressing excess, and leading mento temperance. But He associated with publicans and si...
Because also they believed, they justified God, for He appeared just to them in all that He did. But the disobedient conduct of the Pharisees in not receiving John, accorded not with the words of the prophet, That you might be justified when you speak. Hence it follows, But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God
Justified God; i.e. feared and worshipped God, as just, merciful (Witham)
There are only two different sets of men, who glorified God for the baptism of John, and these seemed the most remote from works of piety; viz. the ignorant multitude, who scarcely knew the law; and the publicans, who were in general the most avaricious of mortals, and were looked upon as public sinners. If the preaching of John the Baptist had such an effect upon these men; what kind of hearts must not the Scribes have had, who, with all the advantage of the knowledge of the law, still refused to believe? This verifies the saying of our Lord, in St. Matthew chap. xxi. 31: Amen, I say unto you, that the publicans and harlots shall go into the kingdom of heaven before you. (Maldonatus)
God has hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them to little ones; (St. Luke, x. 21.) for so it hath seemed good in his sight (Luke, x. 21.)
But singing and lamentation are nothing else but in the breaking forth, the one indeed of joy, the other of sorrow. Now at the sound of atune played upon a musical instrument, man by the concordant beating of his feet, and motion of his body, portrays his inward feelings. Hence he says, We have sung, and you have not danced; we have mourned to you and you have not wept.
But by the children of wisdom, He means the wise. For Scripture is accustomed to indicate the bad rather by their sin than their name, but to call the good the children of the virtue which characterizes them.
For Christ would not abstain from this food, lest He should give a handle to heretics, who say that the creatures of God are bad, and blame flesh and wine.
