The fruit of repentance

Read Matthew 3:7-8

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John didn’t pull his punches! His message was uncompromising, especially when addressing the Jewish spiritual leaders. These groups were scrupulously religious, yet John calls them a bunch of snakes, the people most in need of repentance. Otherwise, they would remain under God’s wrath (7) i.e. the settled opposition of God’s holy nature to everything that is evil (Jn.3:36).

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The Pharisees would become enemies of Jesus. He denounced them for their hypocrisy (Mt.23:25-26) and for their rejection of people they counted unrighteous (Lk.5:29-32). Righteous living matters, of course, but (as will be made clear in the Sermon on the Mount) God calls us to a righteousness very different to that of the Pharisees (Mt.5:20).

True repentance produces good fruit (8) and that can only come from a good tree (Mt.7:18-19). Later on, Jesus repeats this to the Pharisees (he too calls them “a brood of vipers”), telling them that they need to make the tree good through having their heart-attitudes changed (Mt.12:33-35). Good fruit grows from a contrite and humble spirit (Ps.51:10,17). So “above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Prov.4:23).