What does Luke 7:21 mean?
Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. As such, throughout His ministry He fulfilled many Messianic prophecies as recorded in the Jewish Scriptures—that which Christians label the "Old Testament." John the Baptist has sent his disciples to determine if Jesus' works really affirm that identity (Luke 7:18–20). He may be experiencing hesitation because Jesus had not yet fulfilled some prophecies about Messiah. In the presence of those messengers, Jesus performs miraculous acts. Next, He will explain to them what they've seen and how to explain it to John (Luke 7:22–23)."Disease" as used here simply means illness. A "plague" implies a more painful condition; the Greek word is sometimes used of torture. "Evil spirits" are demons, such as the one Jesus expelled in the synagogue on the Sabbath early in His ministry (Luke 4:31–37). Healing disease, expelling demons, and even raising the dead (Luke 7:14–15) are powerful signs that someone is a prophet of God, but they don't necessarily identify the promised Messiah.
Where Jesus is different is in healing the blind and deaf. No prophet in the Old Testament healed a blind person other than events where the blindness was for temporary judgment (2 Kings 6:18–19). Even in the New Testament, this is the case (Acts 9:18). Giving sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf is a sign of the Messiah (Isaiah 35:5).
Jesus makes many blind people see again. John the Baptist, the son of a priest (Luke 1:5, 57), would understand the significance of such an act. But John also knows that Jesus had not yet fulfilled every prophecy of the Messiah. He has not yet freed the prisoners nor judged the wicked (Isaiah 61:1–2). John is looking for "the one who is to come" (Luke 7:20)—"one like a son of man" whom the Ancient of Days will give "dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him" (Daniel 7:13–14). Sitting in prison, soon to be beheaded (Mark 6:21–29), John reaches out for reassurance that he did not spend his life in vain.
