The Axe is Laid to the Roots
Luke 3:7-18
As we come to the third Sunday of Advent, we continue in the third chapter of Luke. Last week, we saw who John the Baptist was, what God had called Him to do, and where he performed his mission. This week we will look at how this mission was carried out.
John is shown in Luke to be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy in the 40th chapter of the book. John himself in other places states this of himself. Jesus also shows John the Baptist to have been the return of Elijah prophesied in the book of Malachi, and his general appearance was similar to the description of Elijah. John the Baptist was no man of culture. He had a wild appearance, lived in the wild, and his message was likewise wild.
John’s message was blunt and to the point. When news had gotten out about him, large crowds came out from Jerusalem, Judaea, and other places as well. His first address of these crowds was to call them a generation of vipers. There was no politeness in this kind of greeting. To be called a child of a serpent is to liken them to the serpent who deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden and caused Adam to disobey the commandment of God. The result of this disobedience is that a curse was placed on humanity, and indeed upon all creation. There is, of course the promise given to Eve in Genesis 3:15 that the curse would be reversed, but at this point, all people, whether respectable or deplorable, were equally under the curse of God. The remedy to this curse was coming, but Jesus had not yet come upon the scene to begin His public ministry.
The first thing that needs to be addressed was to show people who they really were and where they currently stood in the face of a Holy God. There was no message of affirmation of brokenness or such like we hear today. They stood under the wrath of God who was coming to execute it on a wicked and adulterous generation. Their heart was offensive, and so were there practices. But yet there were words of hope in John’s man, as harshly as he spoke. These people who had come had somehow been warned of this beforehand. God was already at work, preparing them to receive John’s message of repentance. I am, of course, talking of those who would accept his message and not the skeptics and spectators who wanted to be entertained by this madman. This is the first part of any gospel message preached in our time as well. People need to know what the problem really is, that it is severe, and it is without ordinary human remedy. People are under the wrath of God. They are in danger of eternal judgment. Their works are an offense in the nostrils of God. They must repent.
John preached a gospel of repentance. This is the second part of this message. The only hope people have is to change their ways to ways that pleased God. But repentance is more than being sorry for one’s sin. It involves both the Greek idea of rethinking where they stood. They had been given their current true status, now they needed to think this over and choose a different road they were on. The Hebrew idea of repentance was to return to solid ground and choose a different road than the one they were on.
They now were told that they could not depend upon their relationship with Abraham to save them. John says that God is able to raise up stones to be children of Abraham. By saying this, we can anticipate these stones to be Gentiles. So people were not children of Abraham by their self-identification with Abraham or even genetic descent from him. The axe was laid to the roots. This means that those who falsely trusted in their pedigree would be cut off from the people of God. They are not the children of Abraham any longer. Those who were not the children of Abraham would become the children of Abraham. Since everyone is guilty of sin and had broken the covenant of God, whether in Adam or Moses, or both does not matter. All who heard the voice of John knew they had been reduced to unbelievers. They were cut off from God. In the thinking of that day, most held that Gentiles who were converted were baptized as well as circumcised into the covenant. But Jews did not require baptism or circumcision as the males had been so from the 8th day circumcised and therefore a chid of the covenant. But this was a false hope. John’s message had reduced all to tax collectors and heathens. They had to be baptized. Their circumcision had become uncircumcision.
Repentance wasn’t real unless one’s life showed the fruit of repentance. It is more than verbal assent, it is a transformation of life, a metamorphosis if you will. “Produce fruit worthy of repentance” demanded John. The people responded by asking what these fruits were? How do we know that we have repented? John’s answer is shocking. Let the person who has two cloaks give one of them to the person who has none. Share your food with the hungry. This is radical, even in our ears.
Then the tax collectors came to be baptized. These people were considered to be beyond hope and even worse than Gentiles. “Should these vermin be allowed back into covenant relationship” would have been in the mind of some who were self-righteous. John’s answer to them was yes, but the fruit of repentance was not to collect more than was apportioned to them. This is far more radical as it first seems. It seemed to allow them to make a respectable profit from their trade. We tend to think that they were paid out of their apportionment. But this is not how the system worked. 100 percent of the apportioned amount went to Rome. The tax collector actually got paid by shaking extra coin out of those he collected tax from. What they were being asked to do is to collect the tax for free. They had a contract with Caesar. As Jesus said, “render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar.” The could and should be faithful to the contract. But they could not make any money doing so. One should see here that as soon as their contract was up, they would find something else to do for a living.
The soldiers also asked what they should do to show that they repented. These “soldiers” were probably Gentiles. If so, they could be the new stones of the covenant. They also were under contract with Rome for their service. They were to remain faithful to their contractual obligation. But they could not shake down the people for money or falsely accuse others in hope in profiting from forfeiture of goods. They were entitled to their salaries and nothing else. Needless to say, pay for soldiers was pitiful. It would indeed be a hard life for the soldier.
John concludes here by saying that another one who was far greater than Him was coming. He would thoroughly purge the people and separate the wheat from the chaff. If John’s message was fearful, the one who was coming was to be feared. This is why John preached the way he did. These weren’t all the words he preached but a good summary of the content.
John the Baptist’s message was one of clearing the forest. Luther followed in this tradition that he came swinging his axe. He would leave to Melanchthon and others to trim things up. When things were as thoroughly corrupt in that church of Luther’s day as it was in John the Baptist’s day, it was necessary to do major surgery on society.
Have things changed today? Are things so well in the world and the church that we just need to tidy things up a bit. That seems to be the message in large portions of the church today. We are just a little broken and need a bit of help. And for so much money, you can buy a book or a video from some “Christian” psychologist, theologian, or self-help artist, all will be OK. We have people in the church who trust in their church membership as though it is good enough to be on the roll of a Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, or some other church. Of course, we admit that we are not perfect. We even have a song that “God’s still working on me.” Are our churches growing? Do we hear the cries of new birth? Answer these for yourselves.
But to me, it seems that we have left off the message of John the Baptist, one of radical repentance. Instead of being radically transformed by the gospel, we try to tidy up the message. We try to remake John are the respectable retailer of camel-hair suits and make Jesus a respectable Rabbi or minister. We try to repent (rethink) Jesus into our image rather than to be transformed into His. Some may say: “But John’s preaching is so hard! Who can do it?” This is when we need to remember the One whom John said was coming after Him. Hard preaching is the first step into coming to grace. The words of John, like Jesus, were not words to condemn, but to save. Part of this message is that we are not able to reform ourselves or repent enough. It drives us to the cross where we might find grace. It is in Jesus alone we find hope. If we fail to believe, however, the situation is quite gloomy. It is by grace and faith in Christ that we are transformed. It is then that God Himself begins the good work of repentance in you. The Holy Spirit does in us what we could never do. Let us keep in mind that there is an answer to this dilemma.
The Lord is coming back, and soon for a prepared people. Let us not delay. Let us be bold to call ourselves and people “to repent and believe the good news.
