Bring Forth Fruits Meet For Repentance

Matthew 3:1-12, “In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan, And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

There is much misunderstanding about this passage of Scripture. What exactly did John the Baptist mean when he said: “Bring forth fruits therefore meet for repentance”? The Devil is a beautiful liar! Since the beginning of human civilization, the Devil has subtly done all he can to corrupt the Gospel (i.e., the way of salvation), by embellishing (obscuring) it with adding or subtracting from what God requires to be saved. I recently did a very fruitful Bible study about the PROMISE of eternal life, which God made before the world began (Titus 1:2).

It saddens me how preachers will cherry-pick the Scriptures, lifting texts out of context to create a new pretext, corrupting the Word of God. The key to understanding Matthew 3:8 is to simply examine the surrounding verses. The word “therefore” is always THERE FOR a reason! Therefore is an adverb that means “as a consequence,” “as a result,” or “hence.” So we must look at verse 7 carefully. John asked the Jewish religious leaders (Sadducees and Pharisees) who warned them of the wrath to come. Clearly John is referring to Hell, which he implies in verse 10 as well. The wages of sin is death, which includes the second death in Hell (Romans 6:23; Revelation 20:12-15; 21:8).

John was showing the people the way of salvation. So here comes the unsaved religious crowd, who are self-righteous (and John fully knew it). John knew well the doctrine of the Sadducees and Pharisees. John was essentially saying to them the same thing that Jesus said in Matthew 5:20, “For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Just like Roman Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and the Lordship Salvation (Calvinist) crowd today, they were all self-righteous! To some extent, they all pervert the grace of God, requiring something different than what God does to be redeemed. Whereas God requires faith alone, the Jewish religious leaders required keeping the law of Moses (Acts 15:1). Romans 3:20 teaches that no one can be saved by keeping the Old Testament law.

Also, please notice Matthew 3:9, in which John the Baptist rebukes the religious Jews, for thinking that they were automatically going to Heaven because they were Jews. John tells them that God could raise up literal stones as descendants of Abraham if He wanted to. Why should that be surprising, considering that every human is made of the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7). God created mankind from dirt. So God could certainly make some rocks into Jews. Is there anything too hard for the Lord? No! God can do anything that doesn't violate His holy character!

John the Baptist was exposing the fallacy that Jews are somehow a superior Master Race, as some wayward theologians like Dr. William P. Grady errantly teach. It is bizarre! I love Jewish people and Gentiles alike. So it is not a criticism of the Jews to refute the heresy that they are somehow the Master Race! It is simply not true. God initially chose the Jewish people as His ambassadors to the Gentile world (Exodus 19:5-6), but they refused, so God turned to the Gentiles to preach the Gospel instead (Romans 11), which the Gentiles have done. God chose the nation of Israel for a specific task, but that doesn't make them the Master Race. The Bible plainly teaches in Acts 17:26a that God “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth...” There is only one human race! Jews are no better than anyone else, nor do they have their own unique plan of salvation. John 3:3, “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

So in Matthew 5:7, John emphasizes that the Jewish religious leaders are guilty sinners on their way to burn in Hell, suffering God's coming wrath. John even calls them “vipers” (snakes). Snakes are subtle creatures, both venomous and sly. A snake's movements are subtle and harder to detect by their prey. Luke 11:44, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.” False religion is like a false floor in a Mexican mineshaft which descends 550 feet into the darkness.

And then in Matthew 5:9, John tells the Jewish religious leaders THE TRUTH that their ethnicity cannot save them! Folks, I have heard some bizarre things taught by Zionist pastors over the years. Case in point is Pastor James Modlish, who said he wanted to hire a Jewish man, to go out into New York City and witness only to Jewish people, so that God would bless his church. That sounds more like like a strange episode of The Outer Limits! Or perhaps The Twilight Zone. I am not trying to be unkind nor disrespectful of anyone. I am simply showing you dear reader that Gentiles are just as important to God as are Jews. Kindly said, it is absurd for Pastor Modlish to think that God would bless his ministry more, for witnessing to Jews, than to Gentiles. The Bible plainly teaches again and again that God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34; Romans 2:11; James 2:1), and that there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek (Romans 10:12). Christian believers (regardless of who they are or where they came from) are all one in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:29).

Having said all that as introduction, to properly exegete the true meaning of Matthew 3:8, we can only soundly conclude that John the Baptist was not teaching that a person must turn from sinful behavior to be saved, nor to prove they are saved. Sadly, many preachers misinterpret Matthew 3:8 to teach the heresy of Lordship Salvation. They claim that someone is not saved unless they have “turned away from their sins.” This is a false gospel. Not one verse in the Holy Bible (if you have an inspired King James Bible), teaches to “repent of your sin” or to “turn away from your sin” to be saved. 

Since the Bible does not teach such things, incompetent ministers “wrest” (Greek: strebloo, “to torture” - 2nd Peter 3:16-17) the Scripture to their own destruction. The proponents of Lordship Salvation torture obscure passages of Scripture, which blatantly contradict clear ones which teach salvation by faith alone. This is theological incompetence! Kindly said, I am talking about the Bob Jones University crowd, who pervert the grace of God, requiring people to turn from their sins to receive God's free gift of eternal life. How then is it a gift?

So what did John the Baptist mean in Matthew 3:8. I have painfully exegeted the verses before and after verse 8, to show you clearly what John really meant. The religious leaders were self-righteous. Mark 2:16-17, “And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners? When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” This is what John meant. The religious leaders needed to repent of their self-righteousness! That is as clear as day my friend.

You don't have to stop shacking up with your girlfriend in fornication to be saved, nor do you have stop abusing yourself with drugs and alcohol to be saved, nor do you have to stop stealing from your employer to receive God's free gift of eternal life. These are horrible sins according to the Bible (1st Corinthians 6:9-10). We “SHOULD” live godly in Christ Jesus (Titus 2:12). We ought to depart from iniquity because we are saved, not to be saved (2nd Timothy 2:19; Ephesians 2:10; Romans 3:31). It is very important to notice that John didn't say to bring forth “works,” but “fruit” meet (or as a result) of repentance. That fruit would have been faith alone in Jesus Christ. 

The religious leaders hadn't repented yet, which is why they were still in darkness, blinded by their false religion of keeping the law. Repentance is acknowledging the truth (2nd Timothy 2:25). It is a change of mind. 2nd Timothy 2:25-26, “In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.” That is all repentance is, and has ever been—acknowledging THE TRUTH!!! When a man acknowledges THE TRUTH, he gets saved. That is how you get saved, by embracing the TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL. Colossians 1:5, “For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel;”

By God's wondrous grace I have been saved now for 40 years. I got saved at 13 years of age, at the Northland Baptist Church on Chicago's northside in 1980. The preacher was a Hyles-Anderson College graduate. I don't recall the name of the sermon, or even the topic. All I remember is that the pastor said if you don't have the Holy Spirit living inside you, convicting you about the sin in your life, you are not saved. I knew immediately that I didn't have the Holy Spirit living in me, and I had no conviction about my sins up until then. So I quietly got saved in my pew at the end of the service, receiving Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. 

The thought of turning away from my sins never crossed my mind. No such thought was involved in my salvation. I simply knew that I was a needy sinner, deserving of hellfire, and that Jesus is the One Who could save me. I believed that Christ died on the cross for my sins, and knew that I was calling out from my soul to a risen and living Savior to save me (and He did). Getting saved is a simple matter of childlike faith in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:26).

I am done with explaining Matthew 3:8. I am 100% confident that what I have just taught you is solid fundamental Bible doctrine. I would stake my life on it! Nowhere does the Bible tell anyone to “turn from sin” to be saved. We must not only reject such nonsense, but expose it wherever Lordship Salvation rears its ugly head. The Sadducees and Pharisees came to be baptized by John, but he refused. Why? It is because they weren't sick, just like Jesus said in Mark 2:16-17. They were self-righteous. They failed to see their need for Christ, because they refused to see themselves as guilty sinners.

That is why John called them vipers, and spoke of God's wrath to come. John was wisely addressing them as woeful sinners, because that is what they desperately needed to hear. Whereas the common people came “confessing their sins” (verse 5), the religious leaders did not. Repentance is necessary for salvation, but repentance means a change of mind. Repentance is the acknowledgment of THE TRUTH that one is a guilty sinner in the sight of a holy God (Romans 3:19), so they will put their faith in the wonderful Savior (Galatians 3:26). 

“He [God] did everything, so that you would have to do nothing, except receive it as a free gift! And God says, 'I love you so much that I gave My Son to pay for your sins. Will you believe it? And if you will (believe/ trust, used interchangeably in the Bible), will you simply believe that Jesus Christ died for you? And God says, 'If you'll do that, I'll promise you on the authority of My Word, that you'll never perish, but you'll have everlasting life!'” —Pastor Max D. Younce, an excellent quote from the intriguing Bible study titled: “SO GREAT SALVATION,” Part 7 | MP3's