QUES. 20.-In Luke 7:28, after commending John to the people, and saying that of all born of women there was no greater prophet than he, the Lord adds, "But he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he." What is the meaning of this? Would not John himself be in the kingdom of God ?

ANS.-Surely he will be there, but not in the greatness which attaches to great deeds. God was about to open a new order of things, a heavenly kingdom, in which the privileges conferred by His sovereign grace would be greater than anything that had gone before. It is a question of God's will and sovereign grace, not of what we are in ourselves, of course. A weak believer now is not in himself greater than those mighty servants of God in Old Testament times, but by the position that grace has given him he is greater. A child in a king's household may in himself be like nothing compared with able and trusted servants of the king ; yet, by the privileges of his position, the least child in the king's household is greater than the ablest minister in the king's dominions.