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7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, 9 and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. 10 And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” ~ Matthew 3:7-12
Today, we continue our study of Matthew 3 where the narrative has moved along about 26 years to the Jordan River where the cousin of the Lord Jesus, John the Baptist, was preaching a message of repentance and that the kingdom of God was at hand. Many of those who went out to hear John believed his message and were baptized by him in the Jordan River. Baptism is an outward declaration of an inward change of heart. In today's passage, Matthew, while speaking of John, turns our attention to what John had to say to the Jewish religious leaders.
In v.7-10 of today's passage we read, "7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, 9 and do not think to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. 10 And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."
The Jewish religious leaders in that day believed that since they were born Jewish, they were automatically included in the family of God. Since they believed it was about them, they taught the people that a literal obedience to the written law and to an unwritten tradition was a must for any Jew. It was evidence that they were in the family. But, no amount of goodness earns or maintains the acceptance before God. It is only through the Lord Jesus that we are made and maintained right with God. Since it is impossible for anyone to obey God perfectly, the "hypocrisy" of the Jewish religious leaders numbed their conscience toward the Lord and made them "incapable of repentance."
The religious leaders questioned John's authority, doctrine, intent, and theology. Since so many people were coming to him, the Jewish religious leaders saw John as a threat to their power. In response, John identified them as a "Brood of Vipers" akin to the serpent who introduced sin to man in the Garden of Eden. Brood means offspring. The Jewish religious leaders were the offspring of the serpent also called the devil. So, John "warned" the religious leaders of their phoniness. The word "warned" is a compound word signifying "to exhibit under the eyes." This word is only used six times in the New Testament. John used this hard hitting word to draw the attention of the religious leaders to the coming wrath of God which had been prophesied by the Old Testament prophets.
The wrath of God is something that cannot be dismissed when the Bible is read. To sin is to miss the mark with God. In this, His judgment must be issued. The very holy nature of God demands judgement of sin. This is why the Lord Jesus had to ransom us through His death. The religious leaders saw no need for God's forgiveness and so they rejected God's provision for forgiveness and atonement of sin. For those who reject this free gift means that God's wrath, by default, remains upon them. The religious leaders of Israel were offered God's forgiveness through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ, but most of them rejected it.
This is why John the Baptist challenged them to "bear fruits worthy of repentance." The word fruits is a metaphor used to describe that which comes from an individual to describe his essence. The Lord Jesus would later say that the state of a tree would determine the state of the fruit born by that tree. The point of John’s baptism was for people to reconsider their state before God, whether they were acceptable before Him or not. To the honest and humble, repentance was most necessary because they understood that no one can be good enough. For those who were baptized, they did so out of their honest reconsideration of their condition before God. The religious, on the other hand, were sons of the devil and were defined by the phony.
John’s words signified the impending judgment of God and every tree not producing good fruit would be cut down. John's message would be that which God used to point the people to the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of sin. One thing we always notice about John the Baptist is that he always pointed people to his cousin. John knew that he was the forerunner to the Messiah. John knew that he was just the messenger and that the Lord Jesus was the message.
Unbeknown by most, the Lord Jesus would be the antitype to all the lambs that were sacrificed since the Exodus in the Old Testament. And everyone who would turn to the Lord Jesus would be like the tree that produced good fruit. Interestingly, the trees mentioned in the Bible provide for us understanding. The fig, for example, consistently speaks of one's connection to God. The olive tree reminds us of the spiritual privileges that God gave to the people of Israel. The acacia tree is incorruptible, picturing for us the incorruptible Man and His work on our behalf, the Lord Jesus Christ.
In v.11-12 of today's passage we read, "11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
John the Baptist had just told the religious leaders that any tree that did not bear good fruit would be cut down and thrown into the fire. Like all of the Old Testament prophets, John's calling was to get the people to repent from themselves and turn to God for forgiveness. John employed a metaphor that all in that day clearly understood. If a man had slaves, the lowliest job for the lowest slave would be to wait for the master to come through the door into the house. When he arrived, this slave would take his masters shoes off and then proceed to wash his feet. The Lord Jesus said of John, "Of all of the prophets, John the Baptist was the greatest," and yet, in his words John was unworthy to lift the sandals of the Lord Jesus.
John next noted that the Messiah would "baptize them in the Holy Spirit." This baptism was of utmost necessity because without the indwelling Holy Spirit, there would be no connection for sinful man to God. For man to be restored to God, man's sin had to be atoned for and God's Spirit had to awaken his spirit to God. The baptism the Lord provides was compared by John with "fire" which describes the effects of accepting the Lord Jesus as our Savior through faith in His work on the cross. Even though we still live in these corruptible bodies, the purification that has come through believing the gospel is once and forever for the believer. That which was impure and which separated us from God has by the Lord Jesus been removed from us.
John told the people that the Messiah would come with His "winnowing fan" in His hand. A winnowing fan was used to toss freshly harvested wheat into the air, where the useless chaff could be blown clear by the wind. The heavier wheat would fall back to the ground and be gathered up. In John's metaphor, the wheat represents those who repent and look to the Christ for salvation, while the chaff symbolizes those who reject Him. John declared that unbelievers will burn with unquenchable fire, referring to the eternal judgment of God's wrath mentioned by the Old Testament prophets. For the willing of heart, the Lord Jesus would earn and provide for them complete purification from sin. God Himself came to rescue sinful man out of our mess that we created in the Garden of Eden. The difference between the saved and those who are not is that the saved humbly and honestly express our need to God for His help and we have received from Him His salvation.
