Matthew 3:7-12
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.”
In today’s reading we have a continuation of John’s message from yesterday’s reading.
And what a message it is; it’s all Law, from yesterday’s “Repent!” to today’s “You brood of vipers!” and “Bear fruit worthy of repentance!” John lays waste to anyone’s claim of earthly family lineage as a ticket into heaven and eternity when he says, “And do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’.” Abraham’s faith is faith in the Old Testament promises of God’s Messiah to come, but the Pharisees and Sadducees would rather rely on their supposed connection to a bloodline rather than the blood that Christ would shed for their sins.
How about you? Do you, in any way, claim anything about yourself as a basis for God loving you or taking you into heaven? Do you think that just because your parents were Christians that you have an “in” with God? Indeed, their example is God-pleasing, but they can’t believe for you. Just because you show up in church do you think God will love you more than others who don’t?
If any of that applies, repent, you brood of vipers, and bear fruit in keeping with repentance. When God’s Law has its desired effect, that of killing, condemning, and destroying, then hear the sweet Gospel that Christ, about whom John preached, has paid for all your sins with His holy, innocent, bitter suffering and death. Christ Himself has laid waste all the powers of sin, death, and hell in your place by taking your sins into Himself. Christ has also risen from the dead to give you the sure and certain hope of your own resurrection through God-given faith and trust in Him. You are no longer a child of the devil but a child of God. Rejoice, dear Christian! Christ is yours!
Let us pray: O God, our Maker and Redeemer, You wonderfully created us and in the Incarnation of Your Son yet more wonderfully restored our human nature. Grant that we may ever be alive in Him who made Himself to be like us; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
