The Purpose of the People of God - 3:7-12
The Purpose of the People of God - Matthew • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 42:31
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The Purpose of the People of God
The Purpose of the People of God
This is a difficult passage. It is complex, there are a lot of characters, a lot of layers, and lot going on from a literary perspective that help us unpack the meaning.
Today in our text we continue our narrative of John the Baptist as he is “in the wilderness.”
1 Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
3 For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet, saying, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, Make His paths straight!’” 4 Now John himself had a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey.
5 Then Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea, and all the district around the Jordan; 6 and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins.
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.
10 “And the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11 “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
12 “His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
Let’s Pray
So Matthew has been preaching “Repent!” to a Jewish audience, to National Israel.
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
New Characters:
Pharisees
Legalistic descendants of the Hasidim (Pious Ones)
Preserve Jewish Culture
Sadducees
Political figureheads
Appointed by King/Ruler
Potentially Hasmoneans
These are indicative of the Jewish Leadership of the day
“his baptism”
Matthew is careful to specify the baptism
επι - “upon the baptism” or “to the baptism” verses what we read as “for”
As such in my observation, they are there as spectators, not participants
John’s greeting would seem to agree with this as it is unlikely he would have addressed those being baptized as he does these Jewish leaders.
7b “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
“offspring of vipers”
Literal translation is “offspring of vipers” which is a different word than snake. It is only used in this phrase in Matthew, the same phrase in Luke, and for the viper that bit Paul on the hand in Acts 28.
As such this word for viper is distinct from snake or serpent. This one is full of venom. John is calling them children of corrupt character. John is calling them destructive people.
We’re going to deal with this more in a moment
“who warned you”
JtB who = “not I”
you = “why are you here”
“from the wrath to come”
“wrath” is one of our words like destroy that we looked at in Chapter 2.
We bring a lot of baggage to this word
This is its only usage in Matthew.
Hebrews uses this speaking of the people “in the wilderness”
7 Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you hear His voice, 8 Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, As in the day of trial in the wilderness, 9 Where your fathers tried Me by testing Me, And saw My works for forty years.
10 “Therefore I was angry with this generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they did not know My ways’; 11 As I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’”
As we saw in Numbers
33 ‘And your sons shall be shepherds for forty years in the wilderness, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your corpses come to an end in the wilderness.
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
I propose to you that this wrath is temporal. This is not eternal condemnation, but temporal consequences.
I believe this wrath is ultimately fulfilled in 70 AD when Titus destroys the temple.
But I want you to remember, what has JtB just preached is near?
The Kingdom
What brings an abundance of life for some, brings wrath for others. The decision is theirs to make.
This is what JtB says in verse 8:
8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance;
Therefore
Because you have been warned
Because you know
Because the kingdom is coming
Produce Fruit
Fruit here is singular καρπον
What is this fruit?
We bring our familiarity with the text when we study, we need to make sure we are still asking questions of the text! This is part of how we study.
DIFFERENT TRANSLATIONS
LSB and NASB95 are the same
8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance,
8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
These are the 4 predominant, literal translations
8 Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God.
8 It’s your life that must change, not your skin!
8 Do those things that will show that you have turned from your sins.
READ CAREFULLY - We bring our familiarity, we need to ask questions.
8 “Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance;
For us to know what the fruit of something is, we have to know what is planted.
Peach Tree bears Peaches
Orange Tree bears Oranges
What is the fruit of teacher - what is taught
What is the fruit JtB is telling them to have?
In this case, we have the definition right in front of us.
in keeping with repentance
“worthy of repentance”
8 “Therefore bear fruit worthy of repentance;
αξιοσ is a word of comparison, like something on a scale, something evaluated (BDAG).
So this fruit is to be evaluated against “repentance”
What repentance?
2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
What is the fruit of repentance? It’s what has changed
In this case, it is a changed worldview about the kingdom. It is alignment toward the coming king.
John is preparing them for Jesus. Get aligned with this coming kingdom so you are prepared for the King who is bringing it.
We are so quick to say fruit has to be action, that we read through the context. What does the next verse say?
9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.
This word suppose can mean think, believe (different than faith), consider probable
It is speaking of something mental
This is the second command
8 “Therefore bear(!) fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose(!) that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.
1. Bear Fruit
2. Do not suppose (neg + aorist subjunctive)
The command of JtB to the Pharisees and Sadducees here is think in accordance with your new worldview
Your current way of thinking will not cut it!
What is their current way of thinking?
9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.
Why would Matthew say this? Because this is what they are doing!
Just because you are descendants of Abraham, does not mean you will avoid the wrath to come. Your blood can’t make any difference.
John the Baptist is foreshadowing to the Pharisees of the Gentiles coming to faith.
This reminds me of what Paul would write in Galatians
6 Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, 7 so know that those who are of faith, those are sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.”
Praise the Lord!
Note we are 3 chapters in, and Matthew has already put it in front of his readers twice, First with the Magi and now to the religious leaders, this message, this kingdom, is also for the Gentiles.
10 “And the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Now right off the bat we see the word “fire”
3.10
3.11
3.12
I believe these are all 3 different things.
At a minimum we should recognize this is serious
Don’t play with fire
I’ll tell you now that I don’t think this usage of fire is hell. I believe this metaphor is used regarding temporal judgment or consequences in time. I would correlate this with the wrath of MT 3.7 which I believe to be 70AD. This usage seems to fit similarly in alignment with John 15.6 in the Upper Room Discourse.
Whether you agree with me or not, we can agree this is an extremely negative consequence.
The Axe is ready to cut the tree down.
The consequence is near.
11 “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
In this verse we see two different baptisms, segmented by a statement of the persons involved in each.
The Greek μεν/δε combination fronts this to mark the first μεν statement as less important, of less emphasis, than the following δε statement. This puts the emphasis on the second half of the verse.
What was John’s job? Prepare the way for the Messiah. That is his message, get aligned with this kingdom perspective because the King is coming.
What does Jesus say about John the Baptist?
11 “Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
The “last OT Prophet”
The greatest of those born among women!
High Praise
Who does John recognize Jesus to be?
11 “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
Oh how I wish we could all be like John! Humility is not self deprecation, it is not viewing yourself as worthless. It is having an accurate view of the King.
John is saying I’m not worthy to deal with dirtiest part of His clothing. The part that has been walking through the mud, dirt, dust, animal dung, and is absolutely filthy. I am not worthy to touch it.
John is not making less of himself, he’s making more of Jesus!
In this same vain, JtB compares their two baptisms. John is saying my baptism is of repentance, it’s of perspective, it’s of preparation. It is to be prepared for the King.
**He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire!
WHOA! Something amazing is at hand!
Remember, baptism means immersion, you will be immersed in the Holy Spirit and fire.
Everyone agrees that baptism of the Holy Spirit is the permanent indwelling and filling of the Holy Spirit that occurs for a believer at the moment of faith.
There are many interpretations of fire this verse:
Tongues of Fire in Acts 2
Holy Spirit now, Fire later
Heaven or Hell - και
Refiner’s Fire - Homework is to read Zechariah 13
9 “And I will bring the third part through the fire And refine them as silver is refined And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are My people,’ And they will say, ‘Yahweh is my God.’”
This is the message of the book of James which we have been through recently.
2 Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials,
12 “His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
Catch the imagery here
The wheat and the chaff are thrown into the air together, and the wind blows the chaff away while the heavier wheat falls.
In a Hebrew context, wind is the same word as Spirit (ruach)
In other words, the Spirit is what separates.
Given that Jesus’ baptism is what is in view here, a baptism of the Holy Spirit, it seems reasonable to recognize that this unquenchable fire is eternal separation from God.
Emphasis here is not placed on how to be saved, but on the consequence of disregard of the immersion by the coming King.
So this means there are 3 different kinds of fire:
3.10 - Fire of Temporal Judgment
3.11 - Fire of Purification
3.12 - Fire of eternal separation
So as always, we ask: What do we do with this?
Takeaways:
We are going to face “fire”
Consequence for wasted time
Purification, conformity to the image of Christ, getting rid of sin
Eternal Separation
Look at Jesus like John the Baptist
I want to look at Jesus with more reverence
Recognize our need
Matthew is creating a need for his audience to listen to what he has to say.
Do you need what the kingdom offers?
Hope and Expectation in Matthew
13 Then Jesus arrives
Let’s Pray
Benediction Scripture:
13 Then Jesus arrives
