Hey John, is this good news or bad news?   

We have been talking about the message of John the Baptist, which is also the message of Jesus.  “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”  Jesus said his purpose was to “preach the good news of the kingdom of God” (Luke 4:43).  But as we saw last time when the religious leaders came to John, the news was not all good.  John challenged their belief that their physical relationship to Abraham guaranteed their standing with God.  He called them ‘sons of a serpent’.¹  John continues in Matthew 3:10

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.

The removal of trees is a common Old Testament metaphor for God’s judgment on other nations (See Isaiah 10:33-34, and Ezekiel 31).  Jesus will use this same metaphor along with John’s idea of fruit-bearing in Matthew 7:19

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

John will next describe Jesus as one who is separating people, using another common Old Testament metaphor of separating the wheat from the chaff (See Isaiah 41:15-16, Psalm 1:4, Psalm 35:5).  The wheat is taken into the barn, the chaff is burned with “unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12). We have moved beyond a regular farmers fire to the eternal fire, or punishment of the wicked that Jesus mentions three times in Matthew (18:8, 25:41, and 25:46).

What is all of the wrath talk?  Didn’t someone tell John and Jesus that they were in the New Testament?  I was always told that the Old Testament is full of wrath and judgment and the New Testament is full of mercy and grace.  But John speaks wrath much like the prophets of old.  And Jesus, as we have just seen, also does not ignore the wrath of God.  And if you don’t like that ‘wrath-talk’ don’t read the last book in the New Testament.

But in the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, he does focus more on the mercy, love, and grace of God.  For example, when he reads from the Isaiah scroll in his hometown, Nazareth, he intentionally stops in the middle of a verse to leave out the section on wrath.  He reads from the Isaiah scroll (61:1-2) as this is recorded in Luke 4:18-19.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

But in the scroll that Jesus is reading, in Isaiah 61, verse 2 says:

to proclaim the year of the LORD’S favor, and the day of vengeance of our God;

Jesus stops reading in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a passage that everyone in the synagogue is familiar with, and just sits down. Everyone is surprised by his faux pas.  Jesus then really shocks them as he tells them:

“Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

I think this is very significant.  Jesus is announcing this messianic prophecy is coming true…to a point.  Remember that the first-century Jews expected the Messiah to come in with righteousness and vengeance, to overthrow the oppressive government and restore the kingdom to Israel.  Jesus is claiming that the days of the Messiah are here.  This is the “year of the Lord’s favor.”²  This year of the Messiah is all about God’s favor.  Jesus leaves the vengeance out because it is not the time for the wrath of God to be manifest.  That time will come with the Messiah, but not with this coming of the Messiah.

Nevertheless, Jesus does not ignore the wrath of God.  We see it again in the Sermon on the Mount with the house built on the sand. We see it in the woes on Chorazin and Bethsaida in Matthew 11:21-24.  In Luke 19:41-44 he weeps over Jerusalem, knowing that the wrath of God is coming on them in the classic Old Testament method — destruction by a foreign pagan army.  (And Rome did destroy Jerusalem and the temple 40 years later.)

John gives wrath as a warning.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  You could repent.  But if you do not, God’s wrath will come.  So is that bad news?

If you are in a building and someone shouts out a warning to you because the building is on fire, is that bad news?  If you plan on listening to them and leaving the building, then you would gladly thank them for delivering the news.  It is bad news only if you don’t heed the warning and run to the exit.

The Gospel is the good news of the Kingdom of God (unless you decide to ignore it.)

David

1. This leans heavily on information I learned from Tim Mackie in a Bible Project podcast, “God’s Wrath in the Teaching of Jesus”
2. The year of the Lord’s favor, the time of the Messiah, I believe to be the year of Jesus’ ministry that we will follow this year in this 70-week study.  Feel free to disagree with me.  If you do, you will be in agreement with almost everyone who went to seminary and was taught his ministry lasted 3 1/2 years.  This is a not new concept, however, as all the church leaders prior to 300 A.D. said his ministry was about a year.  Whether it was a year or three years of ministry, it will be good to go through the time in order, putting the gospels together.  So stay with me and please voice your opinion, especially if it is different.  That is how we learn.