It is exceedingly touching to observe the tenderness of our Lord’s habitual thought of his followers, as manifested in the affectionate designations which he applies to them. It was a land and an age in which the teaching function was greatly magnified. First and above everything else, therefore, his followers were his “disciples,” and so he constantly thought and spoke of them. As his disciples, they were, of course, also his “Servants,” – though he alone of all the “Rabbis” was really their Lord as well as Master. He preferred to think of them as “friends.” Nay, they were more even than friends; they were his “children” or in the extreme expression of his tenderness, his “little children.” His shepherd heart went out to them as his “flock,” – or rather, in the fondness of his thought to them his “little flock.” They were his “sheep,” or even his “little sheep,” – or rather, more lovingly his “lambs,” – or even his “little lambs” – his “lambkins.”
It will be observed that the use of what grammarians call, “hypocoristics,” or “endearing diminutives,” is characteristic of our Lord’s thought and speech concerning his followers. In a word, he employs “pet names” in designating them.
What may be looked upon as, in a formal point of view at least, the typical form of our Lord’s “endearing diminutives” as applied to his disciples, may possibly be discerned in a designation that occurs half a dozen times in the record of the gospel writers. We refer to the designation “These Little Ones.” The phrase is not the “little ones,” but ever “these little ones.” The emphasis is solely upon the objects to whom the designation applies. These objects are called nothing whatever but “little.”
This certainly seems to be just the perfect embodiment of the “endearing diminutive” – the “pet name,” so to speak, at its climax; it is the expression of pure affection. It seems, that is, to tell us nothing about Christ’s “little ones” except that he loves them very fondly and thinks of them with exquisite tenderness – going out towards them in a passionate impulse of protection. They were his “little ones” who needed him and whom he would never fail in their times of need, even though their time of need be all times, as indeed they are.
B. B. Warfield.