We have discussed the message of John the Baptist, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”  But we are not finished with the message.  There is more.  Before Jesus comes to be baptized by John in a few days (Feb 16), first he has some other visitors.

John was at the Jordan for months in the winter of 27 AD.  And he was attracting crowds.  So some of the religious leaders in the area came to see what was going on.  They felt a responsibility to make sure he was not someone just misleading the people.  So they traveled the 20 miles to where John was baptizing.  They did not exactly get a warm welcome from John.  

Matt. 3:7-10   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.

“You brood of vipers”  Why this greeting?  A brood is the young of a species, and vipers are poisonous snakes.  So ‘You snake babies!’, or ‘You son of a snake!’.  As you read on, you discover that John is saying that they are not ‘sons of Abraham’, but instead ‘sons of a serpent’.  They had the idea that God’s promise to the heirs of Abraham guaranteed their relationship with God.  Today, we look at someone who is acting just like their father and say, “That apple didn’t fall far from the tree”.  John is telling them that their ancestry does not make them a ‘son of Abraham’.   

Romans 9:6-7 For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring 

 Not every physical descendant of Abraham is a ‘son of Abraham’.  Abraham’s first two sons were Ishmael and Isaac.  Isaac was a son of the promise, but Ishmael was not. Isaac had twin boys, Jacob and Esau.  Jacob was the son to carry the promise of God, not Esau.  

Galatians 3:7 The real children of Abraham, then, are those who put their faith in God.  

Now according to my genetic analysis from Ancestry.com, I have no Jewish roots.  But Biblically speaking, I am a son of Abraham adopted in, or as Paul says in Romans 11 grafted in.  So John tells these religious leaders that they are not sons of Abraham, but instead sons of a serpent.  It doesn’t take much thinking to figure out which serpent he was referring to.  Anytime you see snakes or serpents in the Bible you must ask yourself if there is a reference to the serpent in Genesis 3.¹  

Jesus has a similar encounter with religious authorities in John 8:39 and challenges them in the same way John the Baptist did: “They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did,”.  Jesus then tells them who he thinks their father is in John 8:44 “ You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.”   To Jesus, like John, they are sons of the devil (the Genesis 3 serpent).  

Don’t you find it interesting that the Bible is chiming in on the nature vs nurture debate?  Are we more a product of our nature (our genetics), or are we more a product of our environment (how we were raised)?  I will let you draw your own conclusions, but I think the Bible is clear, when we become adults, we are not a product of where we come from genetically, nor of where we come from environmentally.  We are not a product of where we come from at all, but of where we are going.  We are a product of our actions — We are a product of the path we choose.  In other words, your actions speak louder than your chromosomes.

But John is not done with the religious leaders.  He felt they needed further explanation of his message.  They shouldn’t have.  They spoke Hebrew and understood the full concept of ‘shuv’ — that repentance involved a change of mind and a change of action.  But John felt their actions were lacking, and so he adds, “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.”  ‘In keeping with’ from the Greek ‘axios’. ‘Axios’ means ‘bringing into balance’ from the Greek root ‘ago’ (to weigh).  Think of a balance scale.  On one side of the scale is repentance. On the other side is a person’s actions, the fruit of their life.  It should balance.²  

This is not works-based righteousness.  This is a life changed by the grace of God that produces fruit.  Jesus tried to explain this to Simon the Pharisee in Luke 7.  Remember the story?  Jesus had been invited to Simon’s home and the meal was interrupted by a woman “who was a sinner” who anointed him with ointment and her tears.  Jesus tells Simon the story of two people who had debts canceled by a lender.  Simon agreed that the one who had the greatest debt canceled would love the lender more.  Jesus explains that because this woman had been forgiven much, she loved much.  (Jesus knows that “love” as a Hebrew verb is emotion and action.)  Lest anyone think this concept of your actions being in measure with your repentance is outdated after the cross, let’s look at Paul describing his message to Agrippa in Acts 26:19-20

“Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.

“So how do you practically live so that your deeds are in balance with your repentance?”  I’m so glad you asked.  The people listening to this in John’s day wanted to know also.

Luke 3:10-14      And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?”  And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.”  Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”

There is a lot to unpack here, but notice there are three very different groups of people asking him the same question.  But his suggestions of how to respond to each of them deal with money and possessions.  For you see, people in the first century were very different than us.  Back then, in Jesus’ day, people had a problem that we may not understand. They loved money and possessions.  They were a very materialistic culture.  They had to have the latest name-brand tunics, shoes, and insulated drinking mugs.  Okay, maybe they weren’t so different.

If you need further explanation, Jesus will go on a mountain and preach a whole sermon on this (see Matthew 5-7).  Here is an excerpt:

You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.  A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.  Mt 7:16-18

Let me challenge you today to ask God, what one thing can I do this week to help balance my repentance?  Maybe it’s sharing clothing, food, or money.  Maybe it’s being a friend to someone, maybe it’s sharing the good news of the kingdom with someone.   Do not let this week go by without your repentance being an action. Be a son of Abraham.

1. An exception to this is the sea serpent/dragon (Hebrew ‘tannin’) which is a special case with its own symbolism.  The Bible Project has a 22-episode podcast series on the symbolism of the sea dragon in the Bible.  (And you had no idea there was that much about sea/land serpents/dragons/monsters in the Bible. Now say it in your best “pirate” voice, “There be dragons!”)

2. Balance scales were very common in Jesus’ day.  Every vendor in the market had them to weigh out whatever you bought and to weigh out your payment.  Before coins were used,  you weighed out your silver or gold on a scale to balance the known weight. A ‘shekel’ was initially a measure of weight, and then later a coin.