A Study of Matthew: Bloodlines, Boulders, and Baptism

Matthew 3 ESV

In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’ ” Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for 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. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Our study of Matthew continues. We began this book a few weeks ago, and we learned that Matthew’s main goal in writing this was to prove to Jews that Jesus was the Messiah, the chosen one from God sent to restore God’s kingdom on earth.

Matthew starts with the genealogy, the list of Jesus’ human ancestors, to show that Jesus has the right human lineage to claim the title of Messiah. Then we read about Jesus’ birth, which fulfilled the prophecy in Isaiah that the Messiah would be born of a virgin. The wisemen, who were foreigners from a different religion, showed up to worship Jesus because a star led them to him. This is reminiscent of Psalm 19:1

Psalm 19:1 ESV

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Last week, we looked at the next part of the story, when Herod sent his soldiers to kill every boy under the age of two in the region around Bethlehem, but God had protected Jesus by warning Joseph to move the family to Egypt until Herod dies, after which they end up in Nazareth. Matthew showed how these events were also prophesied about.

Today, we look at chapter 3, which jumps about 30 years to the day Jesus gets baptized. We are introduced to John the Baptist, along with another reference to prophecy of the one who would prepare the way for the Messiah.

John the Baptist was actually a relative of Jesus. The book of Luke tells us that John’s father, Zechariah, was a priest who was visited by an angel who declared that he and his wife Elizabeth would have a son, even though they were now elderly. This child would be filled with the Holy Spirit from conception, and would prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. When Mary learned she was pregnant with Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, she went to stay with Zechariah and Elizabeth, who just happened to be her relatives. As soon as Mary arrives and greets her cousin, Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit, and the baby she is pregnant with (John) is described as leaping for joy.

Now John is all grown up. He’s dressed like a wild man in camel’s hair, and he eats locusts and wild honey. Maybe he’s the one who invented cicada ice cream. John is preaching about the imminent coming of God’s kingdom and of the need for repentance. He is also baptizing people in the Jordan river as a sign of their repentance as they confess their sins. All kinds of people are coming, and John is baptizing them.

As John is baptizing these people, he sees a group of religious teachers and leaders coming to the river. And how does he greet them?

Matthew 3:7–8 ESV

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

What a greeting! These are the men who are supposed to be the experts on being holy and righteous. They come from a long line of men who have dedicated themselves to knowing God’s laws and making sure those laws were obeyed.

When God made his covenant with the Jewish people, he told them that he would bless them as long as they were faithful and kept his laws. He also said that he would punish them if they were unfaithful and broke his laws. And, of course, we know what happened. By the time David’s great-grandson was on the throne, Israel had turned away from God. Civil war broke out, dividing the kingdom into Israel and Judah. The 10 tribes that made up Israel remained disobedient, and eventually they were captured, taken away, and lost to history. The remaining tribes of Judah and Benjamin stayed faithful a little while longer, but they too fell away. They were captured and sent to Babylon. They experienced invader after invader. They had watched Jerusalem be destroyed, along with the temple that Solomon had built. And even though one benevolent conqueror eventually allowed them to rebuild, the city and temple were nothing compared to the glory of the original.

On top of that, the number of prophets and others who heard from God grew less and less. It had been about 400 years since God had moved in a miraculous way among his people.

The Jewish leaders knew that the reason for this silence from God was because the people had not kept God’s laws. So they decided to make sure everyone kept the laws. In order to do that, they created more laws that would make it virtually impossible to break God’s laws. God said, “don’t eat meat cooked in its mother’s milk.” So the leaders decided, we will use separate dishes for our meat and dairy products. These dishes will be washed in separate loads, in separate water basins, to make sure that the meat never comes in contact with its mother’s milk. That’s just one example.

But the power of their position as the keepers of law and “godliness” for everyone had gone to their heads. Their job was supposed to be to point people to God, but their legality only served to further separate everyone from God. They wore their special robes and vestments to show how holy they were. They enjoyed pointing out the ways that everyone else was getting it wrong and they were getting it right. Clara goes to a Christian school in Jeff. Last year, Clara asked her music teacher if her class could learn a song she heard on Christian radio. The teacher refused. Why? Because the song has the line, “Great God almighty, He changed me.” The teacher thought it sounded like cursing. A good and proper Christian would know better than to write a song like that!

When the religious leaders came down to the Jordan to watch John baptize, it wasn’t because they wanted to see what God was doing among their people. They came to check out John and see if he was any kind of threat to their authority.

John was the son of a priest. He had been around this kind of people his whole life. He knew how religious they acted and how far away from God they really were.

He told them, “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” A repentant heart is a humble heart that knows how messed up it is and how much it needs Jesus. These guys were arrogant in their presumption that they had everything figured out. The thing is, they weren’t righteous—they were experts in creating legal loopholes so that they could get what they wanted without “breaking the law.”

So John got them on their false righteousness. He also hit them in their other false sense of security. Matthew 3:9-10

Matthew 3:9–10 ESV

And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

These men were quick to advertise their pedigrees as true-blue Jews. They were pure-blooded, from the best families. Several generations had served as experts on Jewish law. What does John have to say about that?

“Man was created from the dust. So God could create more men from the ground and label them children of Abraham.” It’s not your bloodline that makes you holy, but how you live in relationship with God.

In verse 8, John said they must bear fruit in keeping with repentance. In verse 10, he warns that every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

In other words, it’s not about how you act as much as what is in your heart. When we trust in our works to save us, how are we different from the rest of the world who says, “I’m not going to hell. I’m a good person”? We treat our deeds and our morality as proof that we are saved. But I recently heard a quote: Satan is not against good morals.  He is against Jesus Christ. Satan wants us to think that good behavior is all it takes. You can do all the right things for all the wrong reasons. If your main motivation is having everyone tell you what a good Christian you are, that’s the only reward you will receive. If you think you can somehow impress God with your good deeds, you are mistaken. But if your heart is genuinely seeking God, your actions will line up with that. You will find yourself doing things to honor God and serve others, just because you love God and want others to know the amazing God you serve.

John was inviting people to baptism to demonstrate their repentance. Baptism is supposed to be an action representing both burial and washing. As we go under the water, we are letting our old self die, and we are washing off who we used to be. When we come up, we are clean, a new person with the Spirit of God alive in us.

But if we are not careful, even the act of baptism can be just another religious thing we do, without any real meaning in our hearts.

We are not saved by our deeds or through our rituals. We are not saved through our family connections or our church membership. We are saved when we acknowledge that Jesus paid for our sins on the cross and we surrender ourselves to him in repentance.

There is still more to this passage, and we will get to it next week. But for now, I just want us to examine ourselves and what we are putting our faith into. Are you basing your eternal security on the fact that you go to church, that you come from a strong Christian family, and that you pray sometimes? Or is your faith based on the knowledge that there is nothing you can do to earn heaven, but our heavenly Father loves you and that he sent his son Jesus to die on a cross to pay the price for your sin? Is your Christianity a religion, or is it a loving relationship with your creator and savior? The good things you do—giving tithes and offering, helping others, whatever—why do you do them? Is it because you like when people recognize how kind you are? Is it because you think it’s a religious obligation? Do you think your efforts impress God? Or is it because the things you do are an expression of love to the God who saved you and an opportunity to show God’s kindness to others?

God doesn’t want great performers. He wants repentant, humble, loving hearts. He wants YOU, in all your imperfection. He wants you to love him like a child loves their daddy and tries to copy daddy.

If you are searching your heart and beginning to see that you’ve been counting on bloodlines and religion instead of repentance and relationship with God, all you have to do is say to yourself and God, “I get it now. I was off. I was missing the point.”

Repeat after me: “Father, I realize that my salvation is not based on how well I keep your laws or how religious I act in public. My salvation is based on what Jesus did on the cross so that I could be adopted as your child. I don’t need to impress you to get your attention. You are my Father who deserves my love and obedience. You are my King who deserves my undying loyalty and faithfulness. Father, please forgive me for getting it wrong. Help me do this the right way, for the right reasons.”