The Pharisees and Sadducees ( ). These two rival parties do not often unite in common action, but do again in Mt 16:1. “Here a strong attraction, there a strong repulsion, made them for the moment forget their differences” (McNeile). John saw these rival ecclesiastics “coming for baptism” ( ). Alford speaks of “the Pharisees representing hypocritical superstition; the Sadducees carnal unbelief.” One cannot properly understand the theological atmosphere of Palestine at this time without an adequate knowledge of both Pharisees and Sadducees. The books are numerous besides articles in the Bible dictionaries. I have pictured the Pharisees in my first (1916) Stone Lectures, The Pharisees and Jesus. John clearly grasped the significance of this movement on the part of the Pharisees and Sadducees who had followed the crowds to the Jordan. He had welcomed the multitudes, but right in the presence of the crowds he exposes the hypocrisy of the ecclesiastics.

Ye offspring of vipers ( ). Jesus (Matt 12:34; Matt 23:33) will use the same language to the Pharisees. Broods of snakes were often seen by John in the rocks and when a fire broke out they would scurry () to their holes for safety. “The coming wrath” was not just for Gentiles as the Jews supposed, but for all who were not prepared for the kingdom of heaven (1Th 1:10). No doubt the Pharisees and Sadducees winced under the sting of this powerful indictment.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

1) “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” (idon de pollous ton Pharisaion kai Saddoukaion) “Then observing many, of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees,” the two most prominent sects of formal Judaism of that day. Pharisees were strict moral, zealous, self-righteous, destitute of a real sense for a redeemer and vehement persecutors of Jesus, Luk 7:39; Luk 18:9; Mat 23:13-29.

2) “Coming to his baptism,” (erchomenous epi to Baptisma) “Coming to the baptism or immersion,” which John was administering to so many professing believers.

3) “He said unto them” (eipen autois) “He (John) said (directly) to them,” to the popularity seeking Pharisees and Sadducees. The Sadducees denied the existence of angels, spirits, and miracles, and rejected the idea of a resurrection, Act 23:8.

4) “0 generation of vipers,” (gennemata echisnon) “You offspring of vipers,” venomous serpents, of the old serpent the Devil himself, Joh 8:44; Mat 12:34. The Devil has children. The Pharisees and Sadducees were his children at this time, 1Jn 3:10.

5) “Who hath warned you to flee,” (tis hupedeiksen humin phugeis) “Who warned you all to flee;” John the Baptist, a prophet sent from God, was warning these snake-hearted hypocrites of their religious sins and need to repent, as Jesus did, Luk 13:3; Luk 13:5.

.6) “From the wrath to come?” (apo tes mellouses orges) “Away from the coming wrath?” The Sadducees, denying the resurrection, also denied that there awaited for them a day of wrath and judgement, while the self righteous Pharisees thought themselves to be safe from it, Ecc 12:13-14; Mat 5:20.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

Mat 3:7

. And when he saw many of the Pharisees. It is here related by Matthew and Luke, that John did not merely preach repentance in a general manner, but that he also applied his discourse to individuals. And the manner of teaching will, in point of fact, be very unprofitable, if instructors do not judiciously inquire what the season demands, and what belongs to individuals. Nothing can be more unequal, in this respect, than a constant equality. (261) For this reason John, we are told, addressed the Pharisees and Sadducees with greater severity: because he saw that their hypocrisy, and swelling pride, rendered them liable to be more severely censured than the common people. To comprehend more fully his design, we must understand, that none are more stupid than hypocrites, who deceive themselves and others by the outward mask of holiness. While God thunders, on all sides, against the whole world, they construct a refuge for themselves in their own deceitful fancy; for they are convinced that they have nothing to do with the judgment of God. Does any one suppose, that John acted improperly, in treating them with so much harshness at the first interview? I reply: They were not unknown to him, (262) and the knowledge he had of them was derived, not from acquaintance or experience, but, on the contrary, from a secret revelation of the Spirit. It was therefore necessary that he should not spare them, lest they might return home more inflated with pride. Is it again objected, that they ought not to have been terrified by such severity of reproof, because they made a profession, in baptism, that they would afterwards be different persons from what they had formerly been? The reply is still easy. Those whose habits of uttering falsehood to God, and of deceiving themselves, lead them to hold out hypocrisy and pretension, instead of the reality, ought to be urged, with greater sharpness than other men, to true repentance. There is an astonishing pertinacity, as I have said, in hypocrites; and, until they have been flayed by violence, they obstinately keep their skin.

(261) “ Et n’ y a rien plus inegal en cest endroit, que de vouloir garder tousjours une mesme egalite.” — “And nothing is more unequal, in this respect, than to wish to maintain always one uniform equality.

(262) “ Je res ond uil co oissoit bien quelles gens c’estoyent.” — “I reply, that he knew well what sort of people they were.”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(7) Pharisees and Sadducees.It is desirable to give, once for all, a sufficient account of these two sects to explain their relation to each other and to the teaching of our Lord. (1.) THE PHARISEES. Singularly enough, the name appears for the first time in the Gospel history. Josephus, who tells us most about them, being presumably later, if not than the Gospels in their present form, yet, at all events, than the materials from which they are derived. We cannot say, therefore, when the name came first into use. They are first mentioned by the Jewish historian as opposing the government of the priest-ruler of the Asmonan house, John Hyrcanus (Ant. xiii. 5). The meaning of the name is clear enough. The Pharisees were the separated ones, and the meaning may help us to trace the history. The attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes (as related in the two Books of Maccabees) to blot out the distinctness of Jewish life by introducing Greek worship and Greek customs, was met with an heroic resistance by priests and people. The mingling or not mingling with the heathen in marriage or in social life became a test of religious character (2Ma. 14:3; 2Ma. 14:38). The faithful became known as Assideans, i.e., Chasidim or saints (1Ma. 2:42; 1Ma. 7:13; 1Ma. 7:17; 2Ma. 14:6), and looked to Judas Maccabeus as their leader. Later on, as the holding aloof from the heathen became more and more characteristic of them, they took the name of Pharisees, and under John Hyrcanus became a powerful and organised body; forming a kind of guild or fraternity as well as a party, uniting some features of the Puritan with some of the Society of the Jesuits. Like most sects and parties, they had their bright and their dark sides. They maintained the ethical side of the Law as against the sacrificial. They insisted on alms, and fasting, and prayer, as the three great elements of the religious life; on the Sabbath, as its great safe-guard. They did much to promote education and synagogue-building. In gathering the traditions of older Rabbis, they held themselves to be setting a fence round the Law to maintain its sacredness. They were eager in the mission-work of Judaism, and compassed sea and land to make one proselyte (Mat. 23:15). They maintained or revived the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and of the rewards and punishments that were to follow. On the other side, their separation developed almost into the exclusiveness of a caste. Their casuistry inverted the right relation of moral and ceremonial duties. They despised the mass of their own countrymen as the brute people of the earth. Within the sect there were two schools, represented at this time by the followers of Shammai and of Hillel, the former more after the pattern of the Puritan, rigid in its Sabbatarianism, hard and bitter in its spirit; the latter more after the type of the Jesuit, with wider culture, gentler temper, an easier casuistry, moral precepts of a wider kind. Of both schools it must be remembered that they were emphatically lay-religionists, unconnected with the priesthood, and often in opposition to it. (2.) THE SADDUCEES. Etymologically, the name, though connected with the Hebrew word for righteous, must be derived from the proper name Zadok, found in the Old Testament as belonging to the high priest in the time of Solomon. A tradition, of uncertain authority and date, states that the founder of the sect was a certain Zadok, the disciple of Antigonus, who, in his turn, had sat at the feet of Simon the Just. Antigonus taught, it was said, that men should not be servants who do their Masters will for a reward, and the scholar developed the doctrine into a denial of the resurrection, which formed the reward. Whether this is a true account or not, the features of the Sadducees in the New Testament stand out with sufficient clearness. They are for the most part of the higher priestly order, as contrasted with the lay-scribes of the Pharisees. They admit the authority of the written Law, not of traditions. They deny the existence of angels and spirits, as well as the resurrection and the immortality of the soul. They made up for the absence of the fears of the future, by greater rigour in punishments on earth. They courted the favour of their Roman rulers, and to some extent even of the Herods. It is not easy to enter into the motives which led either of the sects to come to the baptism of John. It may be that they were carried away for a time by the enthusiasm of the people, or sought to guide the movement by controlling it, or to enlist the new teacher on this side or that. Anyhow, there was no repentance, and no confession, and so the Baptist met them with a stern reproof.

O generation of vipers.Better, brood, or offspring, of vipers. Our Lord takes up the same term, and applies it to them at the close of his ministry (Mat. 23:33).

Who hath warned.Better, who taught you? Who had shown them the way without repentance by which they sought to escape? He had given them no such guidance, and they must have gained that notion from some other teacher.

The wrath to come.This is spoken of as something definite and known, the thought resting probably on the pictures of the great day of the Lord in Malachi 3, 4.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

7. Many of the Pharisees and Sadducees Many, but not all. They were the heads of the Church and State, and it was hard for them to come down into the vale of humiliation.

The PHARISEES derived their name from a Hebrew word signifying to separate. It indicated a profession of standing apart from a wicked world. When they arose is not clearly known. Their number at Herod’s death, according to Josephus, was six thousand. They claimed to be the orthodox party, and believed in the strictest letter of the law and all the traditions of the rabbies. They maintained their power by display of external sanctity, and so became hypocritical and ambitious; they exercised great influence over the popular mind; they finally only served to shed an air of sanctity over the wickedness of the day, and thus became the authors of a full security for crime. When John came many of them presented themselves for baptism. A few may have been truly penitent, but the larger number, perhaps expecting that they would be the hierarchy in the new Messianic realm, were insincere. When there came a Saviour from sin instead of a saviour from Rome and a conqueror, their hearts were wholly hostile unto him. They adhered to their sins; they took a stand of opposition to him; they involved themselves in rankling hate, sophistical gainsaying, plots and conspiracies, until they consummated their whole career by false accusation and judicial murder.

The SADDUCEES were worldly unbelievers, who admitted, indeed, the Pentateuch as the temporal though divine constitution of the state, and Moses as a founder; but denied immortality, spirits, angels, or resurrection. Their name is derived by some from their supposed founder, Sadoc, who flourished in the time of Alexander the Great; but others maintain that the word is but a form of the Hebrew word for “the just ones.” Their ideal theory of righteousness was very high; for a maxim, derived from Sadoc himself, as is claimed, runs thus: “Be not as those slaves that serve their master on this condition only, namely, that they may receive a reward.” But a maxim of such a nature could serve as little else than a moral pretension, which could be repeated with a lofty air of virtue, but would leave the heart and life to practical selfishness and sin. Herein the Sadducees resembled the Grecian Stoics, and the sect derived, no doubt, much of its character from Grecian philosophy. They were generally aristocrats in government, philosophical in profession, and ambitious of rule. Many of the Jewish statesmen were of this sect.

There was a third sect, called ESSENES, who lived in monastic seclusion, (very much like the Shakers of the present day,) renouncing meats, wine, marriage, and all secular life, and giving themselves up to visionary piety, and worshipping angels. Many of these, doubtless, became Christians, and brought in those heresies to the Church. Indeed, they were perhaps the original authors of the monkish and conventual system subsequently developed in popery.

Generation of vipers Not only m the history of the fall, but through the Bible generally the serpent is the emblem of a wicked race. John really holds these classes of men as the head and front of Jewish wickedness. They were responsible, in a great degree, for the depraved character of the times. John evidently knows their radical insincerity; they are, in spite of their coming for baptism, serpents, and of the very essential race of serpents.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

It is not clear whether the Pharisees and Sadducees actually came to be baptised, or whether they had in fact come in order to decide whether John should be authenticated. It may well be that this indicates an official investigative body from the Sanhedrin. It was the responsibility of the Sanhedrin to see to the vetting of such religious figures. Note that they are seen as a combined unit by the one definite article applying to both. The only thing that could have united these bitter opponents was official duty. They had to work together in the Sanhedrin against a common ‘foe’ whether they liked it or not. On the other hand the suggestion that they are depicted as possibly heeding God’s warning might suggest that some at least were indeed coming genuinely. Then the common article would indicate that even such great enemies were being united by the ministry of John. So we may see John as just being hopeful, and even possibly a little sarcastic. On the other hand it could be that some among them did come forward for baptism, and yet possibly with such arrogance and with such a desire not to be contaminated by the common people that John was moved to his open criticism.

John would have got on no better with them than Jesus did, and they themselves admitted that most of them had not listened to John (Mat 21:25). The Pharisees laid great stress on ritual washings, on tithing, on fasting, and on good works. As well as believing in the Scriptures they held to the ‘secret’ teaching of the Elders, ‘the traditions of the elders’, the words of the Scribes which they claimed had been passed down, and which Jesus pointed out often distorted what the Scriptures said. John may well have feared that they would see his baptism as just another ritual washing. The Sadducees restricted themselves to the Scriptures, with a major emphasis on the Law. But to them the ritual of the Temple was all important. They above all wanted to maintain the status quo. John’s straight talking and ‘revolutionary ideas’ must have made them shudder. Both were therefore natural opponents of both John and Jesus.

“You offspring of vipers.” The psalmists likened men to vipers because of the venom of their mouths (Psa 58:4; Psa 140:3) and because of their deafness in the face of entreaty (Psa 58:4). Thus John may be warning them not to be like their fathers had been, venomous and deaf. However, behind the picture is the idea of the snakes who fled from the cornfields when they were reaped or when the stubble was burned. Note also the beautiful picture in Jer 46:22 of the snakes slipping away before the axes of their enemies (compare Mat 3:10). So what he is saying to them is that it is useless for them to be like snakes who merely flee from the flames or from the axes, but are deaf to entreaty. They must rather undergo a real change of heart and mind. They must recognise that the wrath to come is not so easily avoided. The idea of ‘wrath’ is of God’s innate antipathy towards sin, which must inevitably result in judgment for those who refuse to repent.

Luke has these words addressed to all. In a sense, of course, they were. But Matthew may well have learned from those who were there that John had been looking especially at the party of Pharisees and Sadducees when he spoke.

We should note here that Jesus takes up John’s description of the Scribes and Pharisees as ‘the offspring of vipers’ in Mat 12:34; Mat 23:33. There is a tendency with some to see John as the fierce preacher, and Jesus as the prophet of love. However, there can be no question but that Jesus’ preaching could be equally as fierce as that of John, and that John is being slightly misrepresented simply because it is the eschatological aspect of his teaching that is mainly presented in the Gospels, so that he is rarely seen as a moral preacher in his own right. But if we look at Luk 3:10-14 we see that this is partly redressed. And Jesus in fact learned much from him, for He made good use of John’s images.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

A perplexing, disagreeable situation:

v. 7. 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?

Matthew includes the members of both sects in one and the same category of unworthy intruders. The Pharisees excelled especially in their insistence upon outward observance of the Law and the traditions of the elders, and the Sadducees were rationalists that rejected all the inspired writings but the books of Moses. In either case their religion was nothing but a thin veneer of form and show of pomp, without the assent of the heart. All the more reprehensible, then, is their affront in appearing at John’s baptism, where repentance, change of heart, was the primary demand. It may have been partly curiosity, partly fascination, since they could not remain indifferent to a movement which had assumed such proportions, that brought them to John. At any rate, they came upon the scene, they appeared at the place where John was baptizing. But their reception at his hands was anything but pleasant. “Generation of vipers” is the epithet he applies to them, offspring of serpents, imbued with the nature of the slimy, stinging reptiles. It is an outburst of intense moral aversion that causes him to shrink from, and openly denounce, these visitors as both deceitful and malicious, Psa 140:3; Isa 14:29; Isa 59:5; Psa 58:4. It seemed indeed as though they were fleeing from the wrath to come by making application for entrance into the Kingdom, but there is every reason for distrusting their sincerity. It is impossible to escape from the wrath which will bring upon hypocrites the holy, penal justice of God, and thus the punishment itself, Rom 1:18; Eph 2:3.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Mat 3:7. Pharisees A Jewish sect so called from a Hebrew word signifying separated, or set apart, because they distinguished themselves from the rest of the Jews, by pretending to a greater degree of holiness and piety than the generality of them did; and by some particular observances. The Sadducees were another Jewish sect, so named from Sadoc, the founder of it. The most authentic account of these sects may be seen in Josephus, Antiq. b. xviii. c. 1. and Jewish War, b. ii. c. 8. All writers of Jewish antiquities describe them largely, but none better than Dr. Prideaux, Connect. vol. 2: p. 335 and the editors of the Prussian Testament, in their excellent introduction, which is translated into English, and well deserves the perusal of all who would thoroughly understand the New Testament. It is manifest from St. John’s reproof of these Pharisees and Sadducees, that they did not come to his baptism with true faith; or else that they fancied that baptism could procure them the remission of their sins. See Luk 7:29. Mat 21:25; from which passages it appears, that the Pharisees in general did not receive the baptism of John. it is also evident, from Luk 3:7 that there were among the multitude some personsof no better dispositions than the Pharisees, since the Baptist gives them the same reproof, calling them, ye brood of vipers, as the words may be rendered. “As to this term of reproach, I take the reason of it,” says Dr. Heylin, “to be as follows:Itis a probable conjecture, that men (quatenus animals) have each a peculiar resemblance to some peculiar species of animals; which may be the reason why Jesus is called the Lamb of God, or the Divine Lamb; and his disciples, or those who are in such a state as renders them capable of becoming such, are named sheep; as on the other hand, the politic Herod is called a fox; and persons noted for an insidious, ravenous, profane, or sensual disposition, are called respectively, serpents, dogs, wolves, and swine; which terms, when they occur in the Gospel, are not the random language of passion, and ‘calling names,’ as we speak; but a judicious designation of the persons meant by them; for it was fitting that such men should be denoted by their proper signature, either for a caution to others, or a warning to themselves. The Baptist had probably both these ends in view, when he called these Pharisees and Sadducees a brood of vipers. As they were persons of a public character, it was proper that the world should be informed what kind of men they were, to prevent the infection of their bad example; and upon their own account, it was proper to describe them to themselves, and denominate them (mere animal-men as they were, 1Co 2:14.) by their animal properties; because, being already hardened in the use of religious ordinances, if they were not thus roughly dealt with, and alarmed by a true sense of their dangerous condition, they would probably abuse baptism, as theyhad other holy institutions, to quiet their consciences, which were now somewhat awakened, and struck as with a panic fear, upon the general concourse to the preaching of St. John.”From the wrath to come, means not only from the Gehenna, chap. Mat 5:29 but also from the dreadful calamities which were ready to fall on the Jewish nation.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Mat 3:7 . The Pharisees (from , separavit, the separated ones, , Epiphanius, Haer. i. 16) received, besides the law, also tradition; taught the doctrine of fate, without, however, denying the freedom of the will; of immortality, and that in the case of pious persons, in pure bodies; of good and evil angels, and were, in all the strictness of external righteousness, according to law and statute, the crafty, learned, patriotic, and powerful supporters of the degenerate orthodoxy. The Sadducees [381] recognised merely the written law, and that not only of the Pentateuch, but of the whole of the O. T., although according to the strict exposition of the letter, and to the exclusion of tradition; they denied the existence of higher spirits, of fate and personal immortality, and adhered to a strict code of morals; they had less authority with the people than the exclusive orthodox Pharisees, against whom they formed a decided party of opposition, but had much influence over men of rank and wealth. The strictly closed order of Essenes , in its separation from the world and the temple, as well as in its ascetic self-satisfaction and self-sanctification, the quiet separatistic holy ones of the land, connected together by community of goods, and under obligation, besides, daily to perform holy lustrations, kept themselves far away from the movement evoked by John.

Observe that the article is not repeated before ., because they are conceived as forming, along with the Pharisees, one unworthy category . “Nempe repetitur articulus, ubi distinctio logica aut emphatica ita postulat,” Dissen, ad Dem. de cor . p. 574.

] not contra (Olearius), which would be quite opposed to the context, but telic , in order to be baptized; comp. Luk 23:48 . Why should the Pharisees and Sadducees not also have come to baptism, since they shared with the people the hope of the Messiah, and must have felt also on their part the extraordinary impression made by the appearance of John, and the excitement awakened by it, and, in keeping with their moral conceit, would easily enough have compounded with the confession of sins? It is, however, already probable priori , and certain, by means of Luk 7:30 , that they, at least so far as the majority were concerned, did not allow themselves to be baptized, although they had come with this intention, but were repelled in terror by the preaching of repentance and punishment, Mat 3:8 ff.

There exists, therefore, no variation between this and Luk 7:30 ; the Pharisees and Sadducees are no addition by Matthew (Ewald, Holtzmann), and neither is Matthew to be blamed for committing a historical mistake, occasioned by Joh 1:24 (Schneckenburger, Bleek), nor is Luke to be charged with want of originality in this section (de Wette). But the former relates with more minuteness than Luke (Mat 3:7 : ) in separating the persons in question from the mass along with whom they came.

] cunning, malignant men! Mat 12:34 , Mat 23:33 ; Isa 14:29 ; Isa 59:5 ; Psa 58:5 ; Wetstein on the passage. Comp. Dem. 799. 4 : .

] is to be understood of the divine wrath which is revealed at the Messianic judgment (Rom 2:5 ; 1Th 1:10 ). The common belief of the Jews referred this to the heathen (Bertholdt, Christol . pp. 203 ff., 223 ff.). John, however, to the godless generally, who would not repent. The wrath of God, however, established as a unity in the holy nature of the divine love as its inseparable correlate, is not the punishment itself, but the holy emotion of absolute displeasure with him who opposes His gracious will, and from this the punishment proceeds as a necessary manifestation of righteousness. The revelation of the divine wrath is not limited to the last judgment (Rom 1:18 ; 1Th 2:16 ; Luk 21:23 ), but in it attains its consummation. Comp. Rom 1:18 and Eph 2:3 , and so on, especially Ritschl, de ira Dei , [382] 1859; Bartholomaei in the Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol. 1861, II. p. 256 ff.; Weber, vom Zorne Gottes , 1862.

] is, like (Isa 48:20 ; Isa 24:18 ), constructio praegnans: to flee away from , Mat 23:33 ; Mar 16:8 ; Joh 10:11 ; Hom. Od . xii. 120: , Xen. Mem . ii. 6. 31; Plat. Phaed . p. 62 D. The infinitive aorist designates the activity as momentary , setting forth the point of time when the wrath breaks forth, in which the flight also is realized. Meaning of the question: Nobody can have instructed you, that you should escape. Comp. Mat 23:33 : .

[381] Epiphanius, Haer . i. 14 : . The Jewish tradition derives it from the proper name Zadok. R. Nathan, ad Pirke Aboth , i. 3. The latter is to be preferred, with Ewald, Geiger, Hitzig, and others; see Keim, Gesch. J . I. p. 275. Hausrath, Zeitgesch . I. p. 118. That name, however, is to be understood as that of an old and distinguished priestly family; 2Sa 7:17 ; 2Sa 15:24 ; Eze 48:11 ; 1Ma 7:14 .

[382] Who determines the conception, p. 24, thus: “Certum argumentum justitiae divinae ab humana diversae, quatenus valet ad defendendum adversus homines contumaciter Deo fidem denegantes finem ejus summum et absolutum, per Christum cum genere humano communicatum.”

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 1282
JOHNS ADDRESS TO THOSE WHO CAME TO BE BAPTIZED OF HIM

Mat 3:7-10. 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.

WHEN a profession of religion is become fashionable, as it were, and common, it is necessary for ministers to be doubly careful that they do not sanction, much less promote, the delusions of hypocrites or impostors. At such seasons, peculiar faithfulness and discrimination will be wanted, that the upright may not be discountenanced, nor the vain pretenders to piety be encouraged.
The Baptist was signally successful in his ministrations, insomuch that Jerusalem, and all Juda, and all the region round about Jordan, went to be baptized of him. Amongst this great multitude came many Pharisees and Sadducees, desiring to be numbered amongst his disciples. At this he was utterly astonished; because the Pharisees were so conceited of their own goodness as to think that they needed no better religion; and the Sadducees, the free-thinkers of the day, despised religion altogether. He would not immediately reject them, but, in a most faithful and energetic address, declared what they must be, if they would obtain happiness in the future world. He called them a generation of vipers, because of the poisonous and infectious nature of their principles, and the manifest relation which, both in sentiment and conduct, they bare to the old serpent the devil [Note: Joh 8:44.]. Such an address became him as a prophet [Note: Such were delivered by other prophets, Isa 1:10; and by Christ himself, Mat 23:33.]; but it would not be suited to us who bear an inferior commission. Nevertheless the same fidelity should be found in all: and what he spake to them, we must declare to you; namely, that,

I.

True religion must be judged of by its fruits

As this is the only criterion whereby the excellence of a tree can be known, so is it the only true test of religion. There are fruits meet for repentance; fruits that manifest its existence, and denote its power. Let us inquire what they are: and, as they will be found in every part of our conduct, let us examine them in reference to,

1.

God

[It will certainly shew itself in high thoughts of Gods unbounded goodness and mercy; in deep humiliation of our souls before him; in a joyful acceptance of his proffered salvation; and in love, ardent love, to the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us; together with a simple reliance on his atoning sacrifice. It will stimulate the soul to fervent prayer for the continued influences of Gods Holy Spirit, and to a surrender of the soul, with all its faculties and powers, to his service. It will make the pleasing of God to be henceforth the great object of our lives; and will moderate all our regards to the creature, insomuch that, though we are in the world, we shall not be of it; and, though we use it, we shall not abuse it.]

2.

Our neighbour

[Repentance extends not to the sins of the first table only, but to those of the second table also. It will give a new principle to us in all our dealings with mankind. We shall be strictly just and honest in all our transactions, doing to others precisely as, in a change of circumstances, we should think it right for them to do to us. If a man be our superior, we shall be ready to pay him, for Gods sake, all that respect and obedience which the laws of God or man enjoin. If he be our inferior, we shall act towards him with all kindness and condescension, all tenderness and love. Whatever be his state and condition, we shall be cautious of grieving him by word or deed; we shall applaud his virtues, conceal his faults, and exercise towards him that forbearance and forgiveness which we ourselves desire to meet with at the hands of God. It will be the joy of our hearts to alleviate his troubles, to supply his necessities, and to seek his welfare, not only as well as, but even in preference to, our own [Note: 1Co 13:4-7. Php 2:4. 1Co 10:24.].]

3.

Ourselves

[The office of repentance in regulating the secret dispositions of our hearts, is by no means sufficiently considered: but, if it extend not to these, it is not genuine, nor will it ever prove a repentance to salvation. In the natural and unrenewed heart, pride, envy, malice, wrath, discontent, uncleanness, lasciviousness, and many other hateful evils, are harboured, even where the external and visible exercise of them is restrained. But the true penitent puts away all these, and and cultivates a spirit of meekness and gentleness, of love and kindness, of patience and thankfulness; and endeavours to guard against an impure thought or desire, no less than against the most criminal indulgence.
I do not say, that a penitent so attains all these graces as never to betray his weakness; but this I say, that these are the fruits of the Spirit which every penitent will produce [Note: Gal 5:22-23.]; that they necessarily arise out of godly sorrow [Note: 2Co 7:10-11.]; and that every sincere penitent will advance in these attainments, so that they who are most conversant with him shall be constrained to bear testimony to the progressive amelioration of all his tempers.

O that there might be in all of us such an heart; and that all who profess repentance might thus make their profiting to appear!]
It is of infinite importance to ascertain in this way whether our religion be genuine; for,

II.

Without it, all hopes of salvation are delusive

The Jews were apt to found their hopes of mercy on their relation to Abraham
[Many of them had a strange conceit that no child of Abraham could perish: and it is probable that they built that notion on the promise of God never to cast off the seed of Abraham [Note: Jer 31:35-37.]. They had no idea that there was such a thing as a spiritual seed; and therefore they limited the promise to his descendants according to the flesh, and included all of them without any regard to their moral character. Against this erroneous notion the Baptist cautioned those whom he now addressed; and told them, that God would rather raise up a posterity to Abraham out of the very stones, (or perhaps from among the Gentile soldiers, many of whom might be present with them on that occasion,) than either suffer his promise to fail, or admit impenitent sinners to heaven.]

And similar to this are the delusions which obtain amongst us
[Because men have been born of Christian parents, and educated in a Christian land, and have never formally renounced Christianity, they imagine that they are Christians, notwithstanding they havenever cordially embraced the doctrines of Christianity, nor obeyed its precepts. They have the same reason for being Christians that Mahometans have for being Mahometans, and no better. They have never seen the suitableness of Christianity to their wants, nor the sufficiency of it for their necessities: nor have they been concerned about it, any further than just to observe its outward forms. Yet on this the generality found their hopes of heaven. Whether they will express it in words or not, it is that which they think to say within themselves. But we must remind all such persons of the declaration of St. Paul, that he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God [Note: Rom 2:28-29.]. It is not any external profession that will avail us in the day of judgment: we may have the sublimest knowledge, the strongest faith, the most ardent zeal, and the most unbounded liberality, and yet perish at last for want of that principle of love, which is the source and summit of all vital godliness [Note: 1Co 13:1-3.]. O that we may never deceive our own souls, nor rest in any thing short of pure, practical, and undefiled religion!]

Such indifference about true religion would not long exist, if men would but reflect, that,

III.

There is a time shortly coming, when the want of it will be attended with the most bitter consequences.

God had determined to punish the Jewish nation for their unfruitfulness
[Long had he waited to see whether the vines he had cultivated with so much care, would bring forth fruit: but they brought forth none but wild grapes: and therefore, though he had spared them long at the intercession of the vine-dresser, he determined speedily to cut them down, that they might cumber the ground no longer. Of this the Baptist warned his audience: he assured them, that God was ready to execute his purpose; that the axe was even now lying at [Note: .] their roots; and that nothing but immediate and true repentance could avert their doom.]

The same awful judgment awaits every unfruitful soul
[An unfruitful tree stands unconscious of the destiny that awaits it: but they who see the preparations made for cutting it down, anticipate its fate. Thus, if impenitent transgressors had eyes to see, they might see the axe lying at their root, and God giving his orders to him that is to use it. Disease or accident are just tarrying awhile, but coming at the appointed moment, to execute their commission.
And here let it be remembered, that it is not a mere negative goodness that will obtain a respite. It is not said, that every tree which brings forth peculiarly bad fruit, shall be cut down; but every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit. There must be such fruits as we have before spoken of; such as characterize a converted state; such as are meet for and worthy of true repentance. As the unprofitable servant is numbered with those who are positively wicked, so the unfruitful tree will receive the same doom as that which is laden with the most pernicious fruits. And happy would it be for such professors of religion, if they had only temporal judgments to expect: but there remains for them a fire, after they are cut down; a fire into which they will be cast, and which, though incessantly consuming them, will never be extinguished.]

Address
1.

Guard against delusive expectations

[Every person, whatever may have been his life, hopes to be happy in a future world. The vanity of such hopes is in many cases so manifest, that we cannot but pity the selfdeluding people who cherish them. Yet, though we can see the delusions of others, we cannot see our own: we all hope that our own state is safe: a deceived heart turns us aside, so that we cannot deliver our souls, or say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? The Pharisees had a high conceit of their own comparative sanctity, as the Sadducees had of their superior wisdom: and though each condemned the other, neither would condemn themselves. But John saw that neither the one nor the other would ultimately attain salvation, unless they experienced an entire change both of heart and life. They however would not believe him, and therefore rejected the counsel of God, which the more humble publicans thankfully embraced [Note: Luk 7:29-30.]. Let me guard you then against their mistakes; and entreat you all, however wise or good you may conceive yourselves to be, to entertain a godly jealousy respecting your state: and be fearful, lest by building your hopes upon the sand, you then begin to find your error when it is beyond a remedy.]

2.

Be thankful to those who will shew you your true character.

[Those ministers who commend themselves most faithfully to your consciences, deserve your thanks. Many are the reproaches which they bear on account of their fidelity; but a hope of benefiting your souls emboldens them to proceed; and they account themselves richly recompensed, when they see you bringing forth fruits meet for repentance. Do not then be angry with them for speaking plainly and pointedly, as the Pharisees were when they saw that our Lord had spoken a parable against them [Note: Luk 20:19.]; but rather take occasion, from what they say, to search and examine your own hearts with sincerity and diligence, desiring and determining, with Gods help, to know the worst of yourselves.

You will do well also to encourage your friends to communicate to you freely what they see amiss. You cannot but know, that if a skilful lawyer were to point out to you a flaw in the title of an estate which you were about to purchase, you would feel greatly indebted to him: and why? Because you would save your money. And will you not be thankful to one who by his counsel endeavours to save your soul? Alas! alas! to flatterers we can listen without weariness; but to a faithful monitor we can scarcely for a few minutes lend an ear: what the one says is received gladly, even though we have every reason to believe that he goes beyond the truth; but what the other says, calls forth all our ingenuity to weaken its force, though we know every syllable of it to be true. Beloved, be on your guard against this self-love: you may easily deceive yourselves, but you cannot deceive your God.]

3.

Let nothing retard you in fleeing from the wrath to come

[There is no room to ask, Who hath warned you? for I have warned you; and God has warned you; and, I hope, your own consciences have warned you: or, if none of these have spoken yet so as to attract your attention, I now warn you, with all plainness and faithfulness, to flee from the wrath to come. Consider whose wrath it is: it is the wrath of Almighty God. Consider the description given of it: it is, and ever will be, the wrath to come: yes, many millions of years hence, it will be no nearer its termination than at this moment: to all eternity it will be the same, The wrath to come. Can you reflect on the greatness and duration of this wrath, and not be diligent in fleeing from it? What other work can you have to do that is of the least importance when compared with this? Would the man-slayer loiter, when he saw the pursuer of blood just ready to overtake him? Do ye then use all diligence: leave nothing till to-morrow that can be done to day. I would lay hold of your hand, as the angels did of Lot and his daughters, and hasten your steps. Stop not even to look behind you; but what your hand findeth to do, do it with all your might. The Saviour is ready to receive you: he will cast out none that come unto him: and the express promise of your God is this, Repent, and turn from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin [Note: Eze 18:30.].]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

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.

The Pharisees were a sect who prided themselves upon a more than ordinary sanctity of life and manners. The Evangelist Luke hath drawn the portrait of one, which may serve as a sample of all. Luk 18:9-14 . And their general character our LORD himself hath most strikingly marked in a whole chapter. Mat 23 . The Sadducees, in their very name, which implied righteousness, from Sedek, were of that class who justified themselves before GOD. What unceasing persecutions our dear LORD sustained from both these characters I need not enumerate, for the history of the life of JESUS is full of them. But what a name did the Baptist give them; O generation of Vipers! A name which can belong only to the seed of the Serpent. And I pray the Reader, once for all, to observe this feature of character as uniformly given to the reprobate, and to them only, throughout the whole Bible. See Mat 23:33 ; Rev 12:9 ; Joh 8:44 . The children of the Kingdom are never once in all the Word of GOD called by such a name. See POOR on Eph 2:3 . I pray the Reader to weigh this consideration well, for it is highly important. And I pray the Reader to remark yet further with me, that (as far as my memory chargeth me) we do not find a single. Pharisee or Sadducee who saw CHRIST in the days of his flesh (Nicodemus excepted), ever savingly converted. Paul was a Pharisee indeed, and of the highest order in point of high, self exalting notions: but then Paul lived not in the days of CHRIST’S flesh, so as to know CHRIST; and saw nothing of JESUS, until he saw him in his glory in his way to Damascus. It furnisheth out a solemn consideration this, that not one (Nicodemus excepted) of those sects in the days of CHRIST, and who assumed a greater degree of holiness than others, was savingly converted.

The children of Abraham, according to the Covenant made with Abraham, were those of grace, and not counted after nature. The one decisive feature of this family is; if ye be CHRIST’S, then y e are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Gal 3:29 . So hath it been in all ages. So was it then. So is it now. And such will it be forever. The Ishmaels, and the sons of Keturah; the Esaus, and the whole troop of natural descendants from Abraham: these, as the HOLY GHOST hath said by Paul, which are the children of the flesh; these are not the children of GOD; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. In Isaac shall thy seed be called! Reader! think What a blessed thing it is to be able to say, as Paul did, Now we brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. Rom 9:7-8 ; Gal 4:28 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 8

John’s Preaching The Right Spirit of Hearing the Old Grit Is Lost a Kingdom Or a Wrath Different Reports of Preaching

Prayer

Almighty God, our mouth is filled with thanksgiving, because our heart is stirred with gratitude. Thou hast done great things for us, and most wonderful, therefore is our mouth opened in praise, therefore are our hands stretched out to thee in the offer of loving service. Thou hast beset us behind and before and laid thine hands upon us, and thine eye has gleamed from heaven like a great sun, shining upon all our way, bringing us continual light and hope. Thou hast lifted us above our fears, so that the clouds have rolled under our feet, and we have seen thy bright blue morning spreading over our whole destiny, like a father’s blessing. Thou art great, thou art kind, thy name is mercy, thy ministry is love. These things have we, learned in our heart in its deep pain and want, and having learned them, we would turn them into religious hymns and continual and delightful service. Thou art our God, and we have none beside; thine hand is the treasury of our almightiness, and in thine heart is hidden the gospel of our salvation. We will look unto the hills whence cometh our help; we will repair to the Saviour’s cross in the time, of infinite distress on account of sin, and through his most precious blood, shed for the sins of the whole World, our guilt shall receive the answer of thy forgiveness.

We bless thee for this uplifted cross, a tree higher than all forests, a spectacle that makes all other sights dull and poor the great tragedy of thy love. To that tree we come: its leaves are for the healing of the nations, and other healing for the heart of man there is none. This is the Lord’s doing; may we within its span be in the Lord’s spirit, lifted up in heart, made ecstatic in joy, having around us all the sweet bright ministry of holy hope. Being delivered from every fear, freed from every snare, and delivered from every perplexity, may our souls become filled with thy joy and soothed and calmed by thy peace.

We mourn our sin: ’tis our daily cry; we have done the things we ought not to have done, we have left undone the things that we ought to have done the Lord’s mercy be multiplied unto us, and all the ministry of Christ be sent to our aid. Let us every one hear the utterance of thy forgiving love, let the most burdened conscience be delivered from its load, let the wounded and crying heart be healed of its pain, and over all the assembly may there pass the assurance of thy pardon, and may there return upon our life the lifting up of the light of thy countenance.

We bless thee for all thy blessings: they are in our individual life, for thou hast continued unto us health and strength and reasoning power and hope within the limits of this present scene. Thou hast blessed us in basket and in store, so that our trade has brought profit and our merchandise has yielded us a living. Thou hast given us favour in the sight of the people, so that our foothold in society is not lost, Thou hast saved us from many a temptation and delivered us from many a sin and snare, so that oar feet walk in the ways of freedom and we breathe the air of liberty. Thou hast blessed us in the family; the father and the mother and the child are here, reunited, returned to one another, in the grace and fulness of thy protection. The Lord continue all household mercies to us: spare the elder and the younger, may there be no vacant chair, no empty heart, no desolated spirit. Where thou hast sent thy bereaving providence send thine all-healing grace; where thou hast but now dug the deepest grave ever dug in the heart, the Lord fill it up with flowers, and so set upon it the sign and seal of a sure, glorious resurrection.” Where the house is dark, do thou kindle an unexpected fire; where the life is impoverished, do thou come with all thy treasure about it.

The Lord heal the wounded, the Lord carry the tired in his arms, the Lord bless the unblest, and send dew upon the withering flower. Thou knowest us every one, our ancestry, our difficulties, our temptations, our temperaments peculiarities which individualize us one from the other. Thou knowest all that is in us and about us be the God of each life, the Saviour of each heart, the friend of each pilgrim.

Give thy word mighty wings to-day, that it may fly farther than ever: make the voices of thy servants sweeter than trumpets of silver and louder than shocks of thunder, and let thy word be heard everywhere, awakening and gladdening the hearts of men.

Pity us in our littleness and infirmity, make the way down to the grave as easy as thou canst, and may the farewells of earth have in them tones subtle and tender, suggesting reunion in heaven. Amen.

Mat 3:7-12 .

7. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation (brood) of vipers, who hath warned (taught) you to flee from the wrath (a kingdom to some, a wrath to others) to come?

8. Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:

9. And think not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to ( as ) our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. (“God is not tied to the law of succession in the church.”)

10. And now (already) also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees (the Jews: the Gentiles were stones): therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.

11. 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:

12. Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

This is a wonderful, yet not difficult, change of tone in the speech of such a man as John the Baptist. His baptism was the sensation of the day. Everybody seemed to have more or less interest in it. Not to have heard it was to be misinformed or wanting in information, and not to have partaken of it was to have missed a great opportunity. All the valley of the Jordan was moved, people poured in from every centre, great and small, in order that they might hear this new prophet, for a prophet had not appeared in Israel for five hundred years. Curiosity was touched, wonder was on the alert, national pride was excited, and a great and hardly expressed hope was moving the ambition of the people.

For a long time John seems to have pursued his baptismal course without interruption, and indeed with some signs of satisfaction. There went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins not, I imagine, confessing their sins in a minute and detailed manner, but generally acknowledging that they were not as good as they ought to have been, pleading guilty to a certain great, broad, general indictment, which all men probably over the civilized world are not unwilling to do. This was enough, as a starting point, in the case which John the Baptist represented. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, the great and leading men of the day, pure in their own estimation, not needing any such ministry as he came to conduct, except in an official and ceremonial manner, it changed his tone; he cried aloud with piercing and ringing voice, “O brood of vipers, progeny of serpents, deceitful, cunning, malignant, empoisoned, how do you account for being here? Who hath warned you, called you, who hath entitled you to avail yourselves of this opportunity?”

John was a man who recognised the possibility of people coming to religious ordinances from wrong motives. The people to whom he spake did not come for purely religious purposes at all. They thought it was something to be passed through in order to realize a great end. They accepted it as a little ceremonial, preceding some great national endowment or fulfilment of long delayed prophecy. John startled them, therefore, with the tidings that this was a religious ordinance, and that men can only avail themselves satisfactorily of religious ordinances in proportion as they come to them with religious motives.

Are the Pharisees and the Sadducees of the olden time the only people who have come to church through wrong motives? Is it possible that any of us can ever go to a holy place with unholy intent, or with a purpose infinitely below the grandeur of the opportunity? When I ask the questions I kill myself. Do I pierce any of your hearts, or wound, ever so slightly, any of your consciences? Whatever is religious must be touched religiously, or it will yield no true benefit or profit. You are not to touch the Bible as literary men, you are not to come to church as clever men, you are not to sit bolt upright as those who have a claim to judge in God’s sanctuary. The attitude is abasement, the spirit is contrition, the desire is a yearning for a purer and broader life. “To this man will I look the man that is of a humble and contrite heart, and that trembleth at my word.” The haughty he will bow down, the wise he will confound and disappoint. He will look to the eager heart, the gentle, simple, yearning spirit whose one object is to know God’s will and to try to do it.

When men come to religious ordinances, they should be warned of the meaning of the action which they wish to accomplish. They should have a clear and most intelligent conception of the whole purpose of religious worship. It is the business of the heralds of the cross and the ministers of the truth to give this warning, to keep back those who have not the right credentials. This is a kingdom that can only be entered by one right, the right of sin, avowed, confessed, deplored. Blind man, your blindness is your certificate, you want no other. Broken-hearted, wounded man, your contrition or your penitence is your credential; seek for none beside. Weary, tired soul, altogether overborne and distressed by the burdens and difficulties of life, your weariness is your claim. Do not try to get up your strength. When you lie flat in your weakness, your attitude is most acceptable to Heaven. To try to gain your breath that you may appear with some decorousness in his presence is to enhance your sin. To come panting, heaving, out of breath, gasping, dying that is the guarantee of a good hearing in the presence of God.

How comes it that people so little profit by religious ordinances? Because they are too clever, too wise, too conceited, too good, in their own estimation. I never heard Pharisees and Sadducees praise with religious gratitude any service they ever attended. They, mighty men, confer an honour, they add lustre to the altar, they lift up the church in which their self-vaunting supplications are uttered. How then can they, who are so full of themselves, who are enriched with the emptiness of their own self-satisfaction, gain any spiritual advantage from any church they ever entered? They do not go to church to get benefit, but to give it. Their purpose is to lay a flattering hand upon the infinite, and to bless it with the paw of their consecration. We should have been richer men to-day, broader and more massive in all religious instruction, intelligence, and force, if we had come with a true humbleness and bent down before God with an utter, absolute sense of unworthiness in his sight.

Surely he was a wilderness-trained man who spake thus to the high citizens of the day. Look at him, with his camel’s hair and the leathern girdle about his loins, fed with locusts and wild honey. When he speaks, he will speak honey, but only in his speech to self-satisfied men there will be less honey than locusts. Upon some men you cannot confer any social advantage. They do not want it. What can I do for you, poor Diogenes, living in your tub? Nothing, but stand out of the light. The religious man ought never to be one to whom no favour can be shown. A man who can live in the wilderness, read the literature of the everlasting hills, and decipher the poetry of the skies, asks for no favour, can stoop to receive none; his is a marvellous independence of all social patronage and help. “Do not offend the Pharisees and the Sadducees, conciliate them, conceal as much as you can: they have it in their power to do great things for you.” Such might have been the speech spoken to this man with the camel’s hair and the leathern girdle, fed on locusts and wild honey; but he would have hurled it back again in shattering accents of scorn. So the religious teacher has it in his power to lift himself high above the line of patronage and the line of obligation, for religious men should be able to live upon nothing. Every true teacher of God should have bread to eat that the world knoweth not of, so that when men who misunderstand his mission come to him and say, “Let us hear your sermon, and then you shall have the loaf,” he should be able to decline the loaf, to preach his discourse, and to vanish into the wilderness.

This gospel of Christ, either in its prophetic outlines, or in this transient dispensation of the Baptist, or in its full revelation in Jesus Christ, has never sought to make itself a popular religion in the sense of bowing down hopefully before thrones on which were seated kings that could confer advantages upon it. Its fierce, all but savage, independence always strikes me with infinite force. When the Pharisees and the Sadducees came to the baptism of John, he said, “You are a brood of vipers.” He called them by their right name. We dare not use such names now, because we do not live in the wilderness, we live in a city; we are not clothed with camel’s hair and a leathern girdle about our loins, we have now gown and bands and a silken girdle, therefore we must be very complacent with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and with people who are socially tall. I heard a fine and most prosperous gentleman say that he entered a London church once and only once because in the course of the service the minister called some person who had been acting vilely a wretch. “For that reason I have shut up the Bible I heard a man call the most respectable citizens of his day a brood of vipers, a progeny of serpents, a nest of evil things. And I heard another man call a king a fox, and others he called whited sepulchres, hidden graves, actors, masked men.” The age of free, clear, grand speech is dead: we have come into the age of euphonism. He is the bold man who so utters his sentences that nobody can quote them, who so rounds and oils them that it is impossible to retain them in the grasp. The old grit is lost, the old free piercing speech is gone; we have alighted upon silken times, and hard words would not become the lips that cannot live but on the rich man’s viands.

Though the gospel has never endeavoured to make itself popular in the sense of conciliating those who might confer patronage upon it, yet it has always welcomed with infinite pathos the hearts that felt their need of its redemption. No broken heart was ever turned away from the cross, no weary and overborne soul was ever discouraged by the Son of God. No poor bent woman, having nothing left but her touch of faith, was ever spurned by God’s dear Son. He resents our fulness, not our poverty: it is when we are great he has nothing to say to us, not when we are little in our own esteem.

It is everywhere made clear in these Scriptures, that in coming for divine blessings we must renounce all human satisfactions. Nothing but emptiness can be heard at the divine bar. John gives a hint of this grand condition of entrance into the divine kingdom when he says, “Think not literally plume not yourselves by saying, We have Abraham for our father. This is a kingdom that knows nothing of these intermediate and transient relationship; this is not a kingdom of great families, it is a kingdom of humanity.” Therefore, for John the Baptist, trained in the wilderness, to come up amid all these glittering things and to lay down this doctrine of the kingdom of Heaven being founded upon humanity, was a miracle then it is a commonplace now, because we have had full instruction upon gospel principles and purposes. But in John the Baptist’s day to lay down this grand doctrine here is a kingdom not for special families and particular kindreds, but for all the wide world that was a consummation of all the miracles as well as a fulfilment of all the prophecies.

How difficult it is to break a man’s prejudice when it rests upon considerations of the kind which John refers to. A man had Abraham to his father, therefore, he. wildly reasons, it will be all right with him whatever may happen in the world. Christianity aims a destructive blow at all such pretences. This is the last fibre of badness. You cannot take out of some men a claim to God’s favour, because of something ancestral or official represented by their individual life. Blessed are they who never heard of Abraham as compared with those who turn their Abrahamic ancestry into a prejudice against the divine kingdom or a condition of entering it. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are they who can say

“Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” This is the first time I have heard you say “wrath;” when you began to preach you said, “the kingdom of Heaven.” How do you account for this change in your language and your tone? In reply to this inquiry John tells me that the Gospel of Christ is either a kingdom or a wrath. It is a saviour of life unto life, or a saviour of death unto death. It is a gospel or a judgment, a heaven or a hell, an eye turned towards the zenith of God’s heart, bright as a morning, or the same eye turned in kindling wrath towards the Egyptians, troubling the camp, and striking off the chariot-wheels though they be made of solid iron. This book cannot occupy a middle place in society. It is either the Book or no Book, a gospel or a lie, a religion or a blasphemy. No man can entertain an opinion of indifference regarding Jesus Christ. If he has considered the subject at all, he must worship Christ or crucify Him. He cannot be allowed to live as an indifferent person, about whom any opinions may be formed you please. When there is earnestness in the inquiry and the criticism, that earnestness ends in homage or crucifixion.

This sermon by John the Baptist is not the kind of introduction one would have expected to the incoming of the Son of God. No gentle tone seems to escape the lips of this man: it is as if a stormy whirlwind had caught him and borne him on through the wilderness of Judea, and as if a great fire were behind him as he earnestly makes his way. Strange and terrible are these words Repent, Prepare, Axe, Purge his floor, Burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. In all these there is not one tone of conciliation, one smile of amiability, one outflow of cordiality. Yet this man comes before the Prince of Peace. Nor does he allude in this report to the gentler aspects of the coming One. He is taken up with the idea of power; hence he says, “He that cometh after me is mightier than I.” The preacher in the wilderness deals with the idea of strength; strength as a terror to evil, as a terrible judicial power. A melodious hymn, such as peace would sing in a garden of flowers, might have been expected, trembling, quivering with hopeful joy; but instead, there is a roar as of a sudden storm, and a cry as of unexpected terror. This is not the introduction I looked for, yet it is like the way of God in the making of human history. He is always setting aside human expectations, and building His temples in unlikely places and with unlikely material. God uses the storm. The ages are not all made up of long radiant summer days: night, and storm, and battle, as well as day, and calm, and peace, are God’s servants. This age requires voices that can be heard: the world’s vast wilderness is open, and the man that is needed now and in every age is the man who, with throat of brass, inspired with iron lungs, can cry, “Repent.” The church is now in danger of overfeeding the few and forgetting the hungry many. There is a work to be done in the wilderness; the manner appropriate to the wilderness may not be appropriate to the church; what is wanted, therefore, is adaptation, the loud cry or the subdued tone both are wanted, and always will be wanted, to meet the world’s great want.

Yet how incomplete it would be to say that this report of John’s ministry given in the gospel by Matthew fully represents the work done by the energetic Baptist. Supposing we had no other account but the one which is now immediately before us, we should have no conception approaching completeness of the work which John did in his short day. It is so that all preacher’s suffer. Let us go and inquire of those who have heard John the Baptist preach, and listen what reports they give of this wonderful man. Have you heard this new preacher deliver a discourse the man whose raiment is of camel’s hair, with a leathern girdle about his loins? “Yes,” is the reply, “we have heard him preach.” What do you think of him? “He is a harsh man, his voice grates, he utters austere words.” What did you hear him say? “We heard him call the Pharisees and the Sadducees a brood of vipers.” He did not call the Pharisees and the Sadducees a brood of vipers to their faces, did he? “Yes.” Then we do not care to hear so fierce a preacher.

Ask others. Have you heard John the Baptist preach? “Yes.” What say you about him? “Savage, terrible; do not go near him, he will offend, he will affright you.” Why? you say. Can you tell us anything you have heard him say? “Yes, we heard him say, 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; and after that he said it was an unquenchable fire.” Then he is not the kind of preacher that would suit us: we like the gentle and the quiet, the contemplative, the almost silent: above all things we love the pathetic and the soothing so we shall not go to hear this Jordan-preacher.

But here are others coming from the sermon: have you heard him preach? “Yes.” What said he? “He said there was One coming, whose fan was in his hand, and he would thoroughly purge his floor, and gather the wheat into the garner, but burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

All these three reports concur: they all represent John the Baptist as a fierce, objurgatory preacher. His lips are iron-bound, his voice is like a shock of tempest, and there is no gentleness in his heart. By these fierce utterances he disproves his claim to be the herald of the man you expect.

There the report of this great preacher might end. Would you have a true conception of his marvellous power from the report which Matthew gives in this chapter? You must collate the other evangelists and put the story together, piece by piece, until you get its wholeness. This same John the Baptist said the tenderest thing that ever fell from human lips. The man who said, “Vipers axe fire fan” said the most touching words that ever fell on the bruised and expectant heart of men. I have noticed that to be the case so frequently that the men who can denounce the age with so fierce an accent, can bless the age with its softest and sweetest benedictions. I have noticed that the humorist is the master of pathos. I have observed that the man who is most fierce against iniquity can also be the most sympathetic with weakness and sorrow.

Now having heard the three reports about John, let us wait a few days and then inquire again. Let us suppose those few days to have elapsed, and here is a party coming from listening to the Baptist. Let us inquire have you heard the Baptist preach? “Yes.” What think ye of him? “He hath broken our hearts.” What, has he said anything about viper, and fire, and axe, and fan? “Nothing.” What then did he say? He cannot have spoken any gentle thing: gentle things would not become that fierce mouth. What said he? Now listen to the reply, and tell me if this does not reveal the character of the Baptist in its roundness. He said, looking upon One who was within sight, and pointing to him, “Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.” What, did the man who said, “Viper, axe, fire, fan, purge the floor” did he say, “Behold the Lamb of God”? “Yes.” Then he preached the only sermon worth preaching.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

7 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?

Ver. 7. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees ] Two leading sects among the Jews, but notable hypocrites, yet pressing to the ordinances. (Joseph. B. J.; Ant. Jdg 13:17 ) A Doeg may set his foot as far within the sanctuary as a David, and let him. He may be caught, as those warrant officers sent to apprehend our Saviour, as Saul’s messengers coming to Naioth were turned from executioners to prophets. “Come” (saith Latimer) “to the holy assemblies, though thou comest to sleep; for God, perhaps, may take thee napping.”

He said unto them, O generatian of vipers ] Or adders, which are outwardly specious, inwardly poisonous: so are all hypocrites a mere outside, but God will wash off their paint with rivers of brimstone. Of the viper it is said, that when he hath stung a man he makes haste to the water, and drinks, or dies for it. So did these Pharisees to baptism, hoping by the work done to avoid the wrath to come. But a man may go to hell with baptismal water on his face, unless with the water of baptism he have grace to quench the fiery darts of the devil: as that holy virgin, whereof Luther reports, that she beat back Satan’s temptations with this only argument, I am a Christian. a The enemy quickly understood (saith he) the virtue of baptism, and the value of that vow, and fled from her. There are those who boast and bear themselves bold on their Christendom; but hath not many a ship, that hath been named Safeguard and Goodspeed, miscarried at sea, or fallen into the hands of pirates. This generation of vipers conceited themselves to be Abraham’s seed: so do many of the serpent’s seed today, because of their baptism; but all in vain, unless they walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, Rom 4:12 . The old serpent hath stung them, neither is there any antidote for such but the flesh (not of the biting viper, but) of the slain Messiah, foreshadowed by the brazen serpent. See Isa 27:1 . God hath promised to break for us the serpent’s head, who hath so deeply set his stings in us; yea, with his sore and great and strong sword, to punish Leviathan, that piercing serpent, and to slay the dragon that is in the sea.

Who hath forewarned you ] Who hath privily and underhandedly, as it were, shown you ( , clanculum indicavit et admonuit ), and set you in a course of avoiding the danger that hangs over your heads as by a twined thread? The wrath of God is revealed from heaven, and hell hath enlarged herself, and even gapes for you: who gave an inkling thereof, and sent you hither for help? &c.

From the wrath to come ] Called the damnation of hell, Mat 23:33 , which hath torments without end and past imagination. For “who knoweth the power of thine anger?” saith David. “Even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath,” Psa 90:1 ; that is, as I conceive it, let a man fear thy wrath never so much, he is sure to feel a fair deal more thereof than ever he could have feared. When but a drop of God’s displeasure lights upon a poor soul in this present world, what intolerable pain is it put to! “The spirit of a man may sustain his infirmity,” saith Solomon, Pro 18:14 , q.d. some sorry shift a man may make to rub through an outward affliction, and to bear it off by head and shoulders, “but a wounded spirit who can bear?” q.d. the stoutest cannot possibly stand under it: there is no proportion between the back and the burden; it is able to crush and crack the mightiest among us. Judas chose a halter rather than to endure it: and well he might, when as Job (with whom God was but in jest, in comparison) preferred strangling and any death before such a life, Job 7:15 . But all this, alas, is but present wrath, and nothing at all to the “wrath to come,” a phrase of speech that involves and carries in it stings and horrors, woe, and, alas, flames of wrath and the worm that never dieth, trembling and gnashing of teeth, seas of vengeance, rivers of brimstone, unutterable and insufferable tortures and torments. We read of racking, roasting, hanging, stoning, putting men under harrows of iron and saws of iron, scratching off their flesh with thorns of the wilderness, pulling their skins over their ears, and other exquisite and unheard of miseries that men have here been put unto; -but , Heb 11:35 what is all this to the wrath to come? not so much as a flea biting, as a prick with a pin, or smart blow with a finger; no, though a man should go through a thousand cruel deaths every hour his whole life throughout. Oh, bless and kiss that blessed Son of God that bore for us the brunt of this insupportable wrath, even “Jesus that delivered us from the wrath to come,” 1Th 1:10 ; and shun sin, that draws hell at the heels of it. Is it nothing to lose an immortal soul, to purchase an everliving death?

a Legitur de quadam sancta virgine quae quoties tentabatur, non nisi baptismo suo repugnabat, dicens brevissime, Christiana sum. Intellexit enim hostis statim virtutem baptismi et fidei, et fugit ab ea.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

7. . . ] These two sects, according to Josephus, Antt. xiii. 5. 9, originated at the same period, under Jonathan the High Priest (B.C. 159 144). The Pharisees, deriving their name probably from , ‘he separated’ ( , Epiph. Hr. xvi. 1, vol. i. p. 34), took for their distinctive practice the strict observance of the law and all its requirements, written and oral. They had great power over the people, and are numbered by Josephus, as being, about the time of the death of Herod the Great, above 6000. (Antt. xvii. 2. 4.) We find in the Gospels the Pharisees the most constant opponents of our Lord, and His discourses frequently directed against them. The character of the sect as a whole was hypocrisy; the outside acknowledgment and honouring of God and his law, but inward and practical denial of Him: which rendered them the enemies of the simplicity and genuineness which characterized our Lord’s teaching. Still among them were undoubtedly pious and worthy men, honourably distinguished from the mass of the sect; Joh 3:1 ; Act 5:34 . The various points of their religious and moral belief will be treated of as they occur in the text of the Gospels.

] Are said to have derived their name from one Sadok, about the time of Alexander the Great (B.C. 323): but more probably, as stated by Epiphanius, Hr. xiv. 1, vol. i. p. 31, (whence the adjectival form, , see Gen 6:9 ; Gen 18:25 a [21] . fr.) . They rejected all tradition , but did not, as some have supposed, confine their canon of Scripture to the Pentateuch. The denial of a future state does not appear to have been an original tenet of Sadduceism, but to have sprung from its abuse. The particular side of religionism represented by the Sadducees was bare literal moral conformity, without any higher views or hopes. They thus escaped the dangers of tradition, but fell into deadness and worldliness, and a denial of spiritual influence. While our Lord was on earth, this state of mind was very prevalent among the educated classes throughout the Roman empire; and most of the Jews of rank and station were Sadducees.

[21] alii = some cursive mss.

The two sects, mutually hostile, are found frequently in the Gospels united in opposition to our Lord (see ch. Mat 16:1 ; Mat 16:6 ; Mat 16:11 ; Mat 22:23 ; Mat 22:34 : also Act 4:1 ); the Pharisees representing hypocritical superstition; the Sadducees, carnal unbelief.

] as they came. It would appear here as if these Pharisees and Sadducees came with others, and because others did, without any worthy motive, and they were probably deterred by his rebuke from undergoing baptism at his hands. We know, from Luk 7:30 , that the Pharisees in general ‘ were not baptized of him .’ denotes the moral direction of their purpose , not merely motion towards: as in , Eur. Iph. Aul. 178, and similar expressions; cf. Bernhardy, Syntax, p. 252 f., where many examples are given. Some interpret it in a hostile sense, ‘to oppose his baptism,’ as in : but this is manifestly inconsistent with the context.

] The reference of John’s ministry to the prophecy concerning Elias, Mal 3:1 ; Mal 4:5 ( Mar 1:2 ), would naturally suggest to men’s minds ‘the wrath to come’ there also foretold. It was the general expectation of the Jews that troublous times would accompany the appearance of the Messiah. John is now speaking in the true character of a prophet, foretelling the wrath soon to be poured on the Jewish nation.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Mat 3:7-10 . Words of rebuke and warning to unwelcome vistors (Luk 3:7-9 ).

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Mat 3:7 . , etc.: among those who visited the Jordan were some, not a few, many indeed ( ) of the PHARISEES and SADDUCEES. The first mention of classes of whom the Gospels have much to say, the former being the legal precisians, virtuosi in religion, the latter the men of affairs and of the world, largely belonging to the sacerdotal class (consult Wellhausen, Die Phariser und die Sadducer ). Their presence at the scene of John’s ministry is credible. Drawn doubtless by mixed motives, as persons of their type generally are, moral simplicity not being in their line; partly curious, partly fascinated, partly come to spy; in an ambiguous state of mind, neither decidedly in sympathy nor pronouncedly hostile. In any case they cannot remain indifferent to a movement so deep and widespread. So here they are; coming to ( ) John’s baptism, not to be baptised, nor coming against , as some (Olearius, e.g. ) have thought, as if to put the movement down, but coming to witness the strange, novel phenomenon, and form their impressions. John did not make them welcome. His spirit was troubled by their presence. Simple, sensitive, moral natures instinctively shrink from the presence of insincerity, duplicity and craftiness. : how did they come under his observation? By their position in the crowd or on the outskirts of it, and by their aspect? How did he identify them as Pharisees and Sadducees? How did the hermit of the desert know there were such people? It was John’s business to know all the moral characteristics of his time. These were the matters in which he took supreme interest, and he doubtless had means of informing himself, and took pains to do so. It may be assumed that he knew well about the Essenes living in his neighbourhood, by the shores of the Dead Sea, somewhat after his own fashion, and about the other two classes, whose haunts were the great centres of population. There might be Essenes too in the crowd, though not singled out, the history otherwise having no occasion to mention them. : sudden, irrepressible outburst of intense moral aversion. Why vipers? The ancient and medival interpreters (Chrysos., Aug., Theophy., Euthy.) had recourse in explanation to the fable of the young viper eating its mother’s womb. The term ought rather to be connected with the following words about fleeing from the coming wrath. The serpents of all sorts lurking in the fields flee when the stubble is set on fire in harvest in preparation for the winter sowing. The Baptist likens the Pharisees and Sadducees to these serpents fleeing for their lives (Furrer in Zeitschrift fr Missionskunde und Religionswissenschaft , 1890). Professor G. A. Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land , p. 495, suggests the fires among the dry scrub, in the higher stretches of the Jordan valley, chasing before them the scorpions and vipers, as the basis of the metaphor. There is grim humour as well as wrath in the similitude. The emphasis is not on vipers but on fleeing . But the felicity of the comparison lies in the fact that the epithet suits very well. It implies that the Pharisees and Sadducees are fleeing. They have caught slightly the infection of repentance; yet John does not believe in its depth or permanence. : there is surprise in the question. Can it be possible that even you have learned to fear the approaching crisis? Most unlikely scholars. : pregnant for “flee and escape from” (De Wette). The aorist points to possibility, going with verbs of hoping and promising in this sense (Winer, xliv. 7 c.). The implied thought is that it is not possible = who encouraged you to expect deliverance? The aorist further signifies a momentary act: now or never. . , the day of wrath impending, preluding the advent of the Kingdom. The idea of wrath was prominent in John’s mind: the coming of the Kingdom an awful affair; Messiah’s work largely a work of judgment. But he rose above ordinary Jewish ideas in this: they conceived of the judgment as concerning the heathen peoples; he thought of it as concerning the godless in Israel

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat 3:7-10

7But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. 10The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Mat 3:7 “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them” John’s statements to these religious leaders are shocking in their intensity (i.e., “you brood of vipers,” cf. Luk 3:7; and used by Jesus in Mat 12:34; Mat 23:33). Several theories have been advanced about why he reacted so strongly.

1. he saw them as Satanic agents

2. he saw them as spiritually dead to the true faith

3. he saw them as fakes

4. he saw them as being manipulative leaders whose public professions did not match their attitudes and motives

It is significant that these leaders were considering baptism themselves. Possibly they wanted to identify with the multitude and thereby retain their leadership status. John recognized their true motives.

For a full discussion of the origin and theology of the Pharisees see Special Topic at Mat 22:15 and for Sadducees see Special Topic at Mat 22:23.

“to flee from the wrath to come” From the parallel of Mal 3:2-3, it is clear that judgment was coming upon Israel because of her violations of the Mosaic Covenant (cf. Deuteronomy 27-28). Amos called it “the day of YHWH” (i.e., Amo 5:18), which inaugurated the New Age of Righteousness or the Messianic Kingdom. Here John confirms Malachi’s judgment motif. Note that John’s message was not national or corporate like Malachi’s, but individual (cf. Ezekiel 18; Ezekiel 33; Jer 31:31-34).

Mat 3:8

NASB”bear fruit in keeping with repentance”

NKJV, NRSV”bear fruit worthy of repentance”

TEV”Do the things that will show that you have turned from sins”

NJB”But if you are repentant, produce the appropriate fruit”

Even in the OT, faith was more than simply ritual or membership in a national group (cf. Deu 10:12; Deu 10:16; Mat 7:15-23; Rom 2:28-29). Faith was and is both corporate and individual, both faith and works (cf. Jas 2:14-26)! Their lives must show their new relationship with God (cf. Mat 7:16-20; Mat 12:33; Luk 6:43-44; Act 26:20). For “repentance” see full note at Mat 4:17.

Mat 3:9 “and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father'” This same dependence on national descent can be seen in Joh 8:31 ff. and the Talmud’s “Sanhedrin” Mat 10:1. The Jews believed that the merit of Abraham’s faith was applied to them. However, Mal 3:2 ff; Mal 4:1 show that judgment would come upon the Jews for their violations of the Covenant (also note Mat 8:11-12). Lifestyle faith, not lineage, is the way to recognize a true child of Abraham (cf. Rom 2:28-29).

“stones. . .children” This was a word play using the Aramaic words for “stones” (‘ebnayya) and “children” (benyya), which sounded similar. See G. B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of The Bible, p. 48.

Mat 3:10 “the axe is already laid at the root of the trees” This judgment motif is similar to Malachi’s. A parallel can be seen in Isa 10:33-34. One reason John the Baptist wondered whether Jesus was really the Messiah was because His message was not one primarily of judgment as John anticipated.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

Pharisees and Sadducees. See App-120.

saw. App-133.

come = coming.

baptism. See App-115.

generation = brood or offspring.

vipers = serpents. Not ordinary snakes, but venomous vipers.

who . . . ? Figure of speech Erotesis (App-6), for emphasis.

warned, &c. = forewarned; or who hath suggested or given you the hint?

from = away from. Greek. apo. App-104.

the Wrath to come. The reference is to Ma Mat 1:4, Mat 1:1. The coming of Messiah was always connected with judgment; which would have come to pass had the nation repented at the preaching of “them that heard Him” (Heb 2:3. Compare Mat 22:4). The “times of refreshing”, and “the restoration of all things” of Act 3:19-26, would have followed. Hence 1Th 1:10; 1Th 2:16; 1Th 5:9. See notes there; and compare Mat 10:23; Mat 16:28; Mat 24:34. Luk 21:22, Luk 21:23. Act 28:25, Act 28:28.

to come = about to come.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

7. . .] These two sects, according to Josephus, Antt. xiii. 5. 9, originated at the same period, under Jonathan the High Priest (B.C. 159-144). The Pharisees, deriving their name probably from , he separated ( , Epiph. Hr. xvi. 1, vol. i. p. 34), took for their distinctive practice the strict observance of the law and all its requirements, written and oral. They had great power over the people, and are numbered by Josephus, as being, about the time of the death of Herod the Great, above 6000. (Antt. xvii. 2. 4.) We find in the Gospels the Pharisees the most constant opponents of our Lord, and His discourses frequently directed against them. The character of the sect as a whole was hypocrisy; the outside acknowledgment and honouring of God and his law, but inward and practical denial of Him: which rendered them the enemies of the simplicity and genuineness which characterized our Lords teaching. Still among them were undoubtedly pious and worthy men, honourably distinguished from the mass of the sect; Joh 3:1; Act 5:34. The various points of their religious and moral belief will be treated of as they occur in the text of the Gospels.

] Are said to have derived their name from one Sadok, about the time of Alexander the Great (B.C. 323): but more probably, as stated by Epiphanius, Hr. xiv. 1, vol. i. p. 31, (whence the adjectival form, , see Gen 6:9; Gen 18:25 a[21]. fr.) . They rejected all tradition, but did not, as some have supposed, confine their canon of Scripture to the Pentateuch. The denial of a future state does not appear to have been an original tenet of Sadduceism, but to have sprung from its abuse. The particular side of religionism represented by the Sadducees was bare literal moral conformity, without any higher views or hopes. They thus escaped the dangers of tradition, but fell into deadness and worldliness, and a denial of spiritual influence. While our Lord was on earth, this state of mind was very prevalent among the educated classes throughout the Roman empire; and most of the Jews of rank and station were Sadducees.

[21] alii = some cursive mss.

The two sects, mutually hostile, are found frequently in the Gospels united in opposition to our Lord (see ch. Mat 16:1; Mat 16:6; Mat 16:11; Mat 22:23; Mat 22:34 : also Act 4:1); the Pharisees representing hypocritical superstition; the Sadducees, carnal unbelief.

] as they came. It would appear here as if these Pharisees and Sadducees came with others, and because others did, without any worthy motive, and they were probably deterred by his rebuke from undergoing baptism at his hands. We know, from Luk 7:30, that the Pharisees in general were not baptized of him. denotes the moral direction of their purpose, not merely motion towards: as in , Eur. Iph. Aul. 178,-and similar expressions; cf. Bernhardy, Syntax, p. 252 f., where many examples are given. Some interpret it in a hostile sense, to oppose his baptism, as in : but this is manifestly inconsistent with the context.

] The reference of Johns ministry to the prophecy concerning Elias, Mal 3:1; Mal 4:5 (Mar 1:2), would naturally suggest to mens minds the wrath to come there also foretold. It was the general expectation of the Jews that troublous times would accompany the appearance of the Messiah. John is now speaking in the true character of a prophet, foretelling the wrath soon to be poured on the Jewish nation.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Mat 3:7. , …, many, etc.) of whom some adhered to their purpose of receiving the baptism of John; some, deterred by his just denunciations, appear to have gone back. By far the greater number did not come at all.-See ch. Mat 21:25, and Luk 7:30.- , of the Pharisees and Sadducees) Differing sects.-, to them) i.e., to the Pharisees especially, but also to the people, before baptizing them.-See Mat 3:11, and Luk 3:7. It frequently occurs, that words are mentioned after the act which they accompany or precede.-See 2Sa 1:16; 2Sa 1:15.-, broods) Various families.-, of vipers) This is said in opposition to their boasting of their descent from Abraham.-, …, who? etc.) As though he had said, You appear to be showing the way to others, but who showed it to you? He implies that wrath was in store for them; that there was, close at hand, a means of escaping it, but that the Pharisees and Sadducees were strangers to it.-, hath showed) The compound verb has the same meaning as the simple . He approves of their coming, but with an important condition.-, to flee) sc. by baptism.- , from the wrath to come) which they will incur, rejecting the kingdom of Heaven by their impenitence. That same wrath is afterwards spoken of, in 1Th 1:10, as , which is coming. At the same time, the error of the Sadducees in denying the resurrection is refuted. That wrath was to come upon them at the destruction of Jerusalem and the last Judgment.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Pharisees

So called from a Heb. word meaning “separate.” After the ministry of the post-exilic prophets ceased, godly men called “Chasidim” (saints) arose who sought to keep alive reverence for the law amongst the descendants of the Jews who returned from the Babylonian captivity. This movement degenerated into the Pharisaism of our Lord’s day– a letter-strictness which overlaid the law with traditional interpretations held to have been communicated by Jehovah to Moses as oral explanations of equal authority with the law itself. (cf. Mat 15:2; Mat 15:3; Mar 7:8-13; Gal 1:14).

The Pharisees were strictly a sect. A member was “chaber” (i.e. “knit together,”) Jdg 20:11 and took an obligation to remain true to the principles of Pharisaism. They were correct, moral, zealous, and self-denying, but self-righteous Luk 18:9 and destitute of the sense of sin and need Luk 7:39. They were the foremost prosecutors of Jesus Christ and the objects of His unsparing denunciation (e.g.); Mat 23:13-29; Luk 11:42; Luk 11:43

Sadducees

Not strictly a sect, but rather those amongst the Jews who denied the existence of angels or other spirits, and all miracles, especially the resurrection. They were the religious rationalists of the time Mar 12:18-23; Act 5:15-17; Act 23:8 and strongly entrenched in the Sanhedrin and priesthood; Act 4:1; Act 5:17. They are identified with no affirmative doctrine, but were mere deniers of the supernatural.

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

the Pharisees: Mat 5:20, Mat 12:24, Mat 15:12, Mat 16:6, Mat 16:11, Mat 16:12, Mat 22:15, Mat 22:23, Mat 22:34, Mat 23:13-28, Mar 7:3-5, Mar 8:15, Mar 12:13, Mar 12:18, Luk 7:30, Luk 11:39-44, Luk 16:14, Luk 18:11, Joh 1:24, Joh 7:45-49, Joh 9:40, Act 4:1, Act 4:2, Act 5:17, Act 15:5, Act 23:6-9, Act 26:5

O generation: Mat 12:34, Mat 23:33, Gen 3:15, Psa 58:3-6, Isa 57:3, Isa 57:4, Isa 59:5, Luk 3:7-9, Joh 8:44, 1Jo 3:10, Rev 12:9, Rev 12:10

who: Jer 6:10, Jer 51:6, Eze 3:18-21, Eze 33:3-7, Act 20:31, Rom 1:18, Heb 11:7

flee: Rom 5:9, 1Th 1:10, 2Th 1:9, 2Th 1:10, Heb 6:18, Rev 6:16, Rev 6:17

Reciprocal: Gen 19:17 – Escape Lev 11:42 – goeth upon the belly Deu 32:5 – a perverse 2Ki 6:10 – warned him Job 20:16 – the viper’s Job 36:18 – Because Psa 12:7 – this Psa 19:11 – Moreover Psa 58:4 – serpent Pro 27:12 – General Pro 28:4 – but Pro 30:11 – a generation Ecc 12:11 – as goads Isa 1:4 – a seed Isa 58:1 – spare Jer 7:29 – generation Jer 36:3 – hear Eze 3:17 – hear Eze 16:3 – Thy birth Eze 20:3 – Are Mic 3:8 – to declare Zec 11:3 – for their Mal 3:2 – who may abide Luk 1:17 – power Luk 9:41 – perverse Luk 11:29 – This is Joh 8:38 – and ye Act 2:40 – untoward Act 13:10 – O full Act 28:3 – came Gal 2:15 – Jews Col 1:28 – warning 1Th 2:16 – for

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

3:7

Verse 7.. The Pharisees and Saducees. were two leading sects of the Jews In the tlme of Christ. They had some radical differences which wtll be described. in another place. There were some principles. however, which they both had In common and one of them was hypocrisy. and both made great claims of excellence which they did not possess. This, too, will be described elsewhere. Generation of vipers is a figure of speech meaning a class of vile and poisonous characters, They came to the baptismal services of John for the outward appearance it made. In his preaching John exhorted the people to repent and be baptized for the remission of sins. in order to escape the wrath of God. He had not specified any classes, so the response of these sects was an outward admission of their being sinners thougb their attitude was one of self-righteousness.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

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?

[And seeing many of the Pharisees and Sadducees.] To attempt a history of the Pharisees and Sadducees; after so many very learned men, who have treated of their original, manners, and institutions, would be next to madness: we will briefly touch at a few things, and those, perhaps, less obvious.

1. That the Pharisees do not derive their name (as some would have it) from the word which signifies to expound is sufficiently evinced by this, that there were women-Pharisees as well as men. “R. Joshua saith, A religious man foolish, a wicked man crafty, a woman-Pharisee; and the dashing of the Pharisees [against the stones], destroy the world.” Those things are worthy observing, which are spoke by the Babylonian Gemarists on that clause, A woman-Pharisee. “The Rabbins teach. A praying [procax] maid, a gadding widow, and a boy whose months are not fulfilled, these corrupt the world. But R. Jochanan saith, We learn the shunning of sin from a maid, and the receiving of a reward from a widow. ‘The shunning of sin from a maid’; for R. Jochanan heard a certain maid prostrate on her face thus praying; Eternal Lord, thou hast created Paradise, thou hast created hell also, thou hast created the righteous, and thou hast created the wicked: let it be thy good pleasure that I be not a scandal to men. ‘The receiving of a reward from a widow’; for there was a certain widow, who, when there were synagogues nearer everywhere, she always resorted to the school of R. Jochanan to pray: to whom R. Jochanan said, O my daughter, are there not synagogues at hand round about you? But she answered, Will there not be a reward for my steps [or, for my journey hither]? For [the tradition] saith, These destroy the world, as Joanna, the daughter of Retib.”

…[O]ne Gloss [says] a maid given to prayer; or a maid of many prayers. By another it is rendered, a maid given to fasting: losing her virginity by fasting.

A gadding widow they call her, “who always goes about from place to place to visit her neighbours”; they are the words of the Gloss. “And these corrupt the world, because they are no other but bawds and sorceresses, and yet they pretend sanctity.”

“Joanna the daughter of Retib [the Gloss also being witness] was a certain sorceress widow, who, when the time of any child’s birth drew near, shut up the womb of the child-bearing woman with magic arts, that she could not be delivered. And when the poor woman had endured long and great torments, she would say, ‘I will go and pray for you; perhaps my prayers will be heard’: when she was gone, she would dissolve the enchantments, and presently the infant would be born. On a certain day as a hired man wrought in her house, she being gone to a woman’s labour, he heard the charms tinkling in a pan; and, taking off the cover, the charms presently came out, and strait the infant is born; and hence it was known that she was a witch.”

I have therefore cited these passages, not only that it may be shown that there were women-Pharisees; and so that the name is not take from interpreting or expounding; but that it may be observed also what kind of women, for the most part, embrace Pharisaism; namely, widows and maids, under the veil of sanctity and devotion, hiding and practising all manner of wickedness. And so much we gain of the history of the Pharisees; while we are tracing the etymology of the word.

II. That the Pharisees therefore were so called from the word signifying separation; is more commonly asserted, and more truly; and the thing itself, as well as the word, speaks it. So that by a word more known to us, you might rightly call the Pharisees, Separatists; but in what sense, has need of more narrow inquiry. The differences of the Jewish people are to be disposed here into diverse ranks: and, first, we will begin with the women.

1. It were an infinite task to search particularly, how their canons indulged (shall I say?) or prescribed the woman a freedom from very many rites, in which a great part of the Jewish religion was placed. How numberless are the times that that occurs in the Talmudic pandect, “Women, servants, and children, are not bound to these things. Women, servants, and children, are not bound to recite their phylacteries, nor to wear them. The Passovers of women are at their own will.” And, not to dwell upon things that are obvious, let this one serve instead of many: “A certain matron asked R. Eleazar, Why, when Aaron sinned in making the golden calf, the people are punished with a threefold death? He answered, Let not a woman be learned beyond her distaff. Hircanus his son said unto him, Because no answer is given her in one word out of the law, she will withdraw from us three hundred tenth cori yearly. To whom he replied, Let them rather go and be burnt, than the words of the law be delivered to women.”

From hence it appears that the women that embraced Pharisaism did it of their own free will and vow, not by command: which the men-Pharisees also did.

2. Pass we from the women to the men; and, first, to the lowest degrees of men in the distinction relating to religion; namely, to them whom they ordinarily called illiterate; and the people of the earth; or the plebeians. Of them, thus the Gemara in Sotah newly cited: “One reads the Scriptures, and recites the Misna, and yet he waits not upon the scholars of the wise men; what of him? R. Eleazar said, This is one of the people of the earth. R. Samuel Bar Nachmani saith, Behold, this is an illiterate man. R. Jannai saith, ‘Behold, this is a Cuthean.’ R. Achabar saith, ‘Behold, this is a magician.’ ” And a little after, “Who is the people of the earth?” R. Meith saith, ‘He that recites not his phylacteries morning and evening with his prayers.’ But the wise men say, ‘He, whosoever he be, that lays not up his phylacteries.’ Ben Azzai saith, ‘He who hath not a fringe on his garment.’ R. Jochanan Ben Joseph saith, ‘He that instructs not his sons in the doctrine of the law.’ Others say, ‘He who, although he read the Scriptures, and repeats the traditions, yet attends not on the scholars of the wise men, this is, the people of the earth [or the plebeians]. Does he read the Scriptures, and not repeat the tradition? Behold, this man is illiterate.’ ” The Gloss upon the place speaks thus, “The people of the earth are they of whom there is suspicion of tenths and cleanness”: that is, lest they tithe not rightly, nor take care aright concerning cleansings. And the illiterate person is “more vile than, or inferior to, the people of the earth.” Compare that, Joh 7:49; “this people that knoweth not the law is cursed.”

The colleagues or associates; and scholars of the wise men; were opposed to these vulgar persons. Under the title of scholars of the wise men are comprehended all that were learned and studious: under the title of religious; as well learned as unlearned. There were some of the learned whom they commonly called colleagues of the Rabbins; who as yet were candidates, and not preferred to the public office of teaching or judging. The thing may be illustrated by one example: “Do the colleagues enter in to appoint the new moon?” R. Hoshaia said, When I was a colleague; R. Samuel Ben R. Isaac led me in to the appointment of the new moon, but I knew not whether I were of the number or no.” And a little later; “Do the colleagues [or fellows] go in to intercalate the year? Let us learn this from the example of Rabban Gamaliel, who said, Let the seven seniors meet me in the chamber. But eight entered, ‘Who came in hither,’ saith he, ‘without leave?’ ‘I,’ answered Samuel the Little.”

In this sense the word a colleague; differs nothing from a scholar of a wise man; in that both signify a student and a learned man. But the word a colleague; hath a wider sense, denoting all such who have more professedly devoted themselves to religion, and have professed a more devout life and rule than the common people, whether they were learned or unlearned, whether of the sect of the Pharisees; or of the Sadducees; or some other. Hence you have mention of a religious Samaritan; and of a religious baker. And the phrase seems to be drawn from Psa 119:63; “I am a companion of all those that fear thee”: They take upon them the habit of religion. See the Babylonian Talmud in Avodah Zarah in the Gloss. That distinction also is worthy of consideration, of The greater and the less religious.

Yet the word seems sometimes to be appropriated to the Pharisees; as being men who, above all others, put on a splendidly cloaked religion, which appears enough from the history of the Gospel. So, perhaps, is that to be understood, The religious Galileans purify; that is, as the Gloss explains it, “They cleanse their wine and their oil for a drink-offering, if perhaps the Temple may be built in their days.” Which, nevertheless, the Aruch citing, thus explains them, The religious eat their common food in cleanness. By which very thing the Gloss defines Pharisees; To the Pharisees; that is, to them that eat their common food in cleanness. Behold, how the word religious; and Pharisees; are convertible terms; and how this was the proper notion whereby a Pharisee was defined, “That he ate his common food in cleanness”: that is, that he washed his hands when he ate.

III. We must not think that Pharisaism arose altogether and at once, but it was long a-conceiving, and of not fixed form when it was brought forth. The same may, in a manner, be said of this, which is of the traditions: both these and that were the issue of many years. The traditionarians do refer the first conception of the Traditions to the times of Ezra. But how many centuries of years passed before the birth of this whole monster was full ripe? In like manner, the first seeds of Pharisaism were cast long before its birth; and being now brought forth, was a long time growing, before it came to maturity; if so be any can define what its maturity was.

We observe presently, that the foundations of Sadduceeism were laid in the days of Ezra, before there were any Sadducees: in his days also, I suspect, the foundations of Pharisaism were laid long before there were any Pharisees. For, since the Pharisees were marked with that title because they separated themselves from other men, as more profane; and since, in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, it was the great care, and that a holy care too, to separate the seed of Israel from the heathen inhabitants of the land, to wit, the Samaritans, the Ashdodites, the Moabites, etc., not much after; some men, arrogating too much for themselves, took occasion hence of separating themselves from the men of the Israelitic seed, as too profane, and very unfit (alas!) for their communion. Which very thing we experience in our present Separatists. For when the Scripture commands Christians that they communicate not “with unbelievers, with those who are without,” etc., that is, with heathens; some do hence make a pretence of withdrawing themselves from the assemblies of Christians: by what right, by what foundation, let themselves look to it.

We shall not trace the time wherein the name of Pharisee first arose; this is done by learneder men: and therefore let it be enough to have observed that only. After once this pretence of religion was received, “that it was a pious matter to separate a man’s self from the common people,” superstition increased every day, which served for a stay and patronage to this sect and separation. For when they had espoused a religion so supercilious, that they commonly said, “Stand off, I am holier than thou” (which was also foretold by the prophet with an execration, Isa 65:5), and that they place the highest sanctimony in this, to withdraw themselves from the common people, as profane; it was certainly necessary to circumscribe, and to put themselves under a more austere rule and discipline, that they might retain the name and fame of religious person in other things besides that separation, that argued so much pride and arrogancy. Hence the troubles about tithings and washings arose, and increased age after age: hence sprang the frequent fasting and prayers, the cares of the phylacteries, fringes, and other matters without number: so that (a thing fatal to Separatists) this sect, at last, was crumbled into sects, and a Pharisee was, in a manner, the same to a Pharisee; that the people of the earth was to a Pharisee.

Both Talmuds reckon seven sects of Pharisees; and so does the Aruch; which it will not be irksome to describe with their pencil, that the reader may see to what a degree of madness this sect was come, as well as to what a degree of hypocrisy. The Pharisees are seven:

1. A Shechemite Pharisee. This [Pharisee] does as Shechem Where the Gloss is, “Who is circumcised, but not for the honour of God.” He carrieth his precepts upon his shoulders; that is, as the Aruch explains it, “wood to make a booth [in the feast of Tabernacles], or something of that nature.”

2. A Pharisee struck or dashing. Who dasheth his feet. The Gloss is, “He who walketh in humility, the heel of one foot touching the great toe of the other: nor did he lift up his feet from the earth, so that his toes were dashed against the stones.” The Aruch writes, “Who withdrew himself a great way off, that he might not press upon men in the ways, and dashed his feet against the stones.” Strike me (or surround me), and yet I will perform the command.

3. A Pharisee that lets out his blood. “He strikes out his blood against the walls.” The Gloss is; “He shows himself such a one as if his eyes were hoodwinked, that he might not look upon a woman; and hereupon dashed his head against the walls, and let out his blood.” The Aruch writes, “He so pressed up himself against the walls, that he might not touch those that passed by, that by the dashing he fetched blood of himself.” — “He performed one precept, and one duty, and struck out blood at each.”

4. A Pharisee of the mortar. The Aruch thus describes him; “He went in a loose coat, resembling a mortar with the mouth turned downwards. So he, with his loose garment, was straiter above and broader below.” In the Jerusalem Talmud he is called “who saith, I withdraw whatsoever is mine and fulfil the command.”

5. “The Pharisee which saith, Let me know what my duty is, and I will do it.” “I have done my duty, that the command may be performed according to it.” The Aruch thus; “As though he should say, There is no man can show me wherein I have transgressed.”

6. A Pharisee of fear; such was Job.

7. A Pharisee of love: Among all these, none is worthy to be loved but the Pharisee of love: as Abraham.

Whether Pharisaism ran out into any of these sects in the days of the Baptist, we dispute not. Let it be granted, that the best and the most modest of that order came to his baptism: the best of the Pharisees certainly were the worst of men. And it is so much the more to be wondered at that these men should receive his baptism after that manner as they did; when it was highly contrary to the rule of the Pharisees to converse among the common people, of whom there was so great a concourse to John; and highly contrary to the doctrine of the Pharisees; so much as to dream of any righteousness, besides that which was of the works of the law, which the doctrine of John diametrically contradicted.

The original of the Sadducees; learned men as well Jews as Christians, do, for the most part, refer to one Zadoc; a scholar of Antigonus Socheus; which Antigonus took the chief seat in the Sanhedrim after the death of Simeon the Just. Of him thus speaks the tract Avoth; “Antigonus of Socho received traditions of Simeon the Just. He said, Be not as servants, who wait upon their master for the sake of the reward; but be ye like servants who wait upon their master not for the sake of the reward: but let the fear of the Lord rule you.”

“This wise man (saith Rambam upon the place) had two scholars, Zadoc and Baithus; who, when they heard this from their master, said among themselves, when they were gone away. Our master in his exposition teacheth us that there is neither reward nor punishment, nor any expectation at all [for the future]: for they understood not what he meant: therefore, they mutually strengthened one another, and departed from the rule, and forsook the law: and some company adhered to both. The wise men, therefore, called them Sadducees and Baithusees.” And a little after; “But in these countries, namely in Egypt, they call them Karaites; but Sadducees and Baithusees are their names among the wise men.” See also the Avoth of R. Nathan.

Yet that raiseth a scruple here: “At the conclusion of all prayers in the Temple they said, for ever. But when the heretics brake in and said, There was no age but one, it was appointed to be said, for ever and ever; or from age to age.” Upon these words thus the Gloss; “In the first Temple they said only, ‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for ever.’ But when the heretics brake in and said there was no age but this, Ezra and his consistory appointed that it should be said, for ever and ever; or from age to age; to imply there is a double world [this, and one to come], to root out of the heart the opinion of those that deny the resurrection of the dead.”

Take notice, reader, that “there were some who denied the resurrection of the dead in the days of Ezra,” when as yet Zadoc, the father of the Sadducees; was not born. After Ezra, and his great synagogue (which endured many a year after Ezra was dead), sat Simeon the Just, performing the office of the high-priest, for the space of forty years: and Antigonus Socheus, the master of Zadoc, succeeded him in the chair of the Sanhedrim. So that although the Sadducees, with good reason, do bear an ill report for denying the resurrection, and that was their principal heresy; yet that heresy was, when as yet there were no heretics, called by the name of Sadducees. To which, perhaps, those words do agree (which sufficiently taste of such a heresy), “Ye have said, It is in vain to serve God,” etc., Mal 3:14.

It is not, therefore, to be denied that the Sadducee-heretics were so named from Zadoc; but that the heresy of the Sadducees; concerning the resurrection, was older than that name, one may suppose not without reason; nor that that cursed doctrine first arose from the words of Antigonus, illy understood by Zadoc and Baithus, but was of an ancienter original, when as yet the prophets Zecharias, Malachi, and Ezra himself, were alive, if that Ezra were not the same with Malachi, as the Jews suppose. Therefore I do rather think that heresy sprang from the misunderstanding of the words of Ezekiel, Ezekiel_37; which some understanding according to the letter, and, together with it, seeing no resurrection, dreamt that there would be none afterward. And this doctrine increased, and exalted itself into a sect; when, at length, Zadoc and Baithus asserted that it was so determined out of the chair by their master Antigonus, the president of the Sanhedrim.

When I fetch the rise of the Sadducees not much after the death of Simeon the Just, that does not unseasonably come into my mind, which is mentioned by the Talmudists, that the state of things became worse after his death. “All the days of Simeon the Just, the scape-goat had scarce come to the middle of the precipice of the mountain [whence he was cast down], but he was broken into pieces: but, when Simeon the Just was dead, he fled away [alive] into the desert, and was eaten by Saracens. While Simeon the Just lived, the lot of God [in the day of expiation] went forth always to the right hand: Simeon the Just being dead, it went forth sometimes to the right hand and sometimes to the left. All the days of Simeon the Just, the little scarlet tongue looked always white; but when Simeon the Just was dead, it sometimes looked white and sometimes red. All the days of Simeon the Just, the west light always burnt; but when he was dead, it sometimes burnt and sometimes went out. All the days of Simeon the Just, the fire upon the altar burnt clear and bright; and, after two pieces of wood laid on in the morning, they laid on nothing else the whole day: but when he was dead, the force of the fire languished in that manner that they were compelled to supply it all the day. All the days of Simeon the Just, a blessing was sent upon the two loaves and the show-bread, so that a portion came to every priest, to the quantity of an olive at least; and there were some others to whom something remained after they had eaten their fill: but when Simeon the Just was dead, that blessing was withdrawn, and so little remained to each, that those that were modest withdrew their hands, and those that were greedy still stretched them out.”

For more info on Pharisees and Sadducees see “Sketches of Jewish Social Life,” chapter 13. Among the People, and with the Pharisees, chapter 14. The “Fraternity” of Pharisees and chapter 15. Relation of the Pharisees to the Sadducees and Essenes, and to the Gospel of Christ by Alfred Edersheim.

[Generation of vipers.] I. Serpents,; Mat 23:33. Not so much “the seed of Abraham,” which ye boast of, as “the seed of the serpent,” “O, the Antichrist, the Opposer; 2Th 2:4. A nation and offspring diametrically opposite, and an enemy to that seed of the woman, and which was to bruise his heel.”

II. Hence, not without ground, it is concluded that that nation was rejected and given over to a reprobate sense, even before the coming of Christ. They were not only a generation; but an offspring of vipers, serpents sprung from serpents. Nor is it wonder that they were rejected by God, when they had long since rejected God, and God’s word, by their traditions. See that Mat 13:13-15; 1Pe 2:10; “Ye were not a people.”

There was, indeed, a certain remnant among them to be gathered by Christ: and when that was gathered, the rest of the nation as delivered over to everlasting perdition. This is that remnant of the apostle, Rom 11:5; which then was, when he writ those things; which then as to be gathered, before the destruction of that nation.

[To fly from the wrath to come.] These words respect the very last words of the Old Testament, “lest I smite the earth with a curse,” Malachi_4; and denote the most miserable destruction of the nation, and now almost ready to fall upon them.

The receiving of John’s baptism signed and fenced those that received it from the ruin that was just coming. To this belongs that of St. Peter, Epistle 1, 1Pe 3:20-21; in that manner as Noah and his sons were by water delivered from the flood, “so also baptism now, the antitype of that type, saveth us” from the deluge of divine indignation, which in a short time is to overflow the Jewish nation. Think here, if those that came to baptism brought not their little ones with them to baptism: when, by the plain words of the Baptist, those that are baptized are said to “fly from the wrath to come?” that is, ‘the wrath of God,’ that was not long hence to destroy the nation by a most sad overthrow.

Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels

Mat 3:7. But when he sawcoming to his baptism. Not against his baptism, though he opposed them. They came to be baptized (for baptism is the sense of a briefer reading), but John saw they were not fit subjects. Luke represents John as speaking thus to the multitudes. The coming of these leading people probably attracted a crowd to whom the language was equally applicable; or the Pharisees and Sadducees themselves formed the multitudes, more closely defined by Matthew in accordance with the character of his Gospel.

The Pharisees and Sadducees. Two opposing parties, here classed together in the same unworthy category. They afterwards stood together against Christ. According to Josephus, both parties originated about the same time, B.C. 154-144. The Pharisees were the upholders of strict orthodox Judaism, including the traditions of the elders. The name probably means, Separatists, but implies, not a separation from the rest of the people, although this occurred to some extent, out their desire to separate the Jews from other nations. They represented one great form of religious error, that of outward legalism and traditionalism, hence of superstition, of self-righteousness, of hypocrisy, of lifeless orthodoxy,a pernicious tendency that has continued. While our Lord lived on earth, they were his bitterest opponents.

The Sadducees (so named from their supposed founder, Zadok), represent the opposite tendency of skepticism, rationalism, and unbelief. They rejected tradition, and probably even the later books of the Old Testament, denied the immortality of the soul, the existence of angels, etc., and conformed greatly to heathen customs. Out of Christ the majority of men belong to one or the other of these schools.

A third school existed, the Essenes. They are not mentioned in the Gospels, probably because they stood aloof. Their daily lustrations would lead them to attach little importance to the baptism of John. They may be called the Jewish mystics, and represent a tendency less universal than the other two schools. They stood no nearer to Christianity than the Pharisees and Sadducees, for they adopted both Jewish purifications, and Alexandrian philosophy. Among the Greeks and Romans the Stoics correspond to the Pharisees, the Epicureans to the Sadducees, the Platonists to the mystical and ascetic Essenes.

The two leading schools seem at first to have recognized John as a prophet, but his words soon aroused dislike. This grew into enmity when he announced Jesus as the Messiah, so that afterwards they tacitly denied his authority (comp. Luke vii 30; Mat 21:25-27). The new teacher lost popularity when he rebuked sin and pointed to Christ.

Brood of vipers. The phrase characterizes them as both deceitful and malicious. John probably alludes to the expression, seed of the serpent(Gen 3:15); in spite of their descent from Abraham, he thus classes them among those over whom the seed of the woman should obtain the victory. This explanation takes away the apparent harshness, is in keeping with what follows, and appropriately applied by one who heralded the coming of Christ, to those who caused His death (thus bruising his heel).

Who warned you? Intimated to you, gave you a hint of. John expresses surprise that such as they could take the hint.

To flee, i.e., to attempt to escape, as they were professing to do, or were actually doing. If the first be the sense, then John doubted their sincerity; if the latter, he would insist on thorough work.

The wrath to come, or, the coming, impending wrath of God, here identified with punishment itself. Foretold by Malachi (Mat 3:2; Mat 4:5), in connection with the forerunner of the Messiah. Hence troublous times were anticipated. The fear of these times rather than of the future judgment moved the Pharisees and Sadducees, while John himself foretold the fate of the Jewish nation as part of the impending wrath.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Here we have the entertainment which John gave to his unexpected auditors, the Pharisees and Sadducees, which came to hear him, and to be baptized by him.

He gives them first a quick and cutting compellation, O generation of vipers!

Next a sharp and severe reprehension, Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

It was matter of wonder and admiration to see such men turn proselytes.

Note thence, That the condition of proud Pharisees, pretending and false-hearted hypocrites, though it be very dangerous, yet is not hopeless and desperate; and their salvation, though very improbable, yet must not be despaired of as impossible: and accordingly, the Baptist having given them a smart reproof, subjoins a seasonable exhortation, Bring forth fruits meet for repentance; as if he had said, Do not satisfy yourselves with a bare profession of repentance, but let us see the fruits of repentance in your daily conversation.

Learn thence, that sincere repentance is not a barren thing but constantly brings forth the fruits of holiness answerable to its nature. As the body without the spirit, and as faith without works is dead also.

Observe farther, How he enforces his exhortation with a necessary caution; Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father, &c.

As if he had said, Trust not to your outward privilages, and glory not in them, flatter not yourselves, that because you are Abraham’s seed and the only visible church, that therefore the judgments of God will not reach you; for God can out of the obdurate Gentile world, who now worship stones, raise up a people to himself, and take them into covenant with himself, and cast you all out, who have Abraham’s blood running in your veins, but nothing of Abraham’s faith in your hearts, nor of his obedience in your in your lives.

Now from St. John’s plain-dealing with these hypocritcal Pharisees, we learn, That it is the duty, and ought to be the endeavour of the ministers of Christ, to drive hypocrites from their vain confidence who do constantly bear up themselves upon their external privileges, in the enjoyment of which they promise themselves a freedom from the judgments of God. Think not to say within yourselves, We have, &c.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Mat 3:7. When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees, &c. These are not names of office, but of sects, or sorts of persons of different opinions in matters of religion. There were three religious sects among the Jews, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. Of the latter, indeed, we read nothing in the Holy Scriptures. We shall only, therefore, observe concerning them, that their way of life was very singular. They did not marry, but adopted the children of others, whom they brought up in the institutions of their sect. They despised riches, and had all things in common, and never changed their clothes till they were entirely worn out. When initiated they were strictly bound not to communicate the mysteries of their sect to others; and if any of their members were found guilty of any enormous crime they were expelled. As to their doctrine, they allowed a future state, but denied the resurrection of the body. The reason why we find no mention of them in the New Testament may be their recluse and retired way of life, no less than their great simplicity and honesty, in consequence of which they lay open to no censure or reproof. The Pharisees were a very ancient sect. They are said to have made their first appearance about 150 years before Christ. It is certain from the account given by Josephus, Ant., lib. 12., cap. 10., sect. 5, 6, that in the time of John Hyrcanus, the high priest, about 108 years before Christ, the sect was not only formed, but made a considerable figure; and that it had advanced to a high degree of popularity and power about thirty years after that period. They took their name from the Hebrew word , pharas, which signifies to separate, because they seemed to separate themselves from all others by their peculiar manner of living. They pretended to have greater knowledge of the rites of the Jewish worship and of the customs of their country than other people, and were very strict in the observance of them, as also of all the traditions of the elders. They fasted often, made long prayers, rigorously kept the sabbath, and put on an appearance of great sanctity, with much display of zeal for Moses and the law. On all these accounts they were in high esteem among the people: and some of them, we have reason to hope, had a measure of true piety; but it is evident from several of the discourses of our Lord, recorded by the evangelists, that they were in general devoid of that humility, and sincere love of God, which are essential to true religion. Though they acknowledged the existence of angels, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, and a future state of rewards and punishments, yet they were involved in many great and destructive errors, both in principle and practice. They held the unwritten traditions of the elders to be of equal authority with the written word, pretending that both were delivered to Moses from mount Sinai. From their rigorous observance of these traditions they considered themselves as more holy than other men, and held their own righteousness to be sufficient for their justification before God; having no proper conception of the spirituality, extent, and obligation of the divine law. Accordingly they neglected the weightier matters of it, justice, mercy, and the love of God, and rendered its holy precepts of none effect through their traditions, while they were scrupulously exact in little and trivial things, such as washing cups, &c., Mark 4., and tithing mint, anise, and cummin.

The Sadducees also were a sect of great antiquity, having existed, as well as the Pharisees, according to Josephus, from the time of the Maccabees. They had their name from their founder, Sadoc. Antigonus of Socho, president of the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, and teacher of the law in the divinity school in that city, having often in his lectures asserted to his scholars that they ought not to serve God in a servile manner, with respect to reward, but only out of filial love and fear; two of his scholars, Sadoc and Baithus, inferred from thence that there were no rewards or punishments after this life; and therefore, separating from the school of their master, they taught that there was no resurrection nor future state. Many embracing this opinion gave rise to the sect of the Sadducees, who were a kind of Epicureans, but differing from them in this, that, though they denied a future state, yet they allowed that the world was created by the power of God, and governed by his providence, whereas the followers of Epicurus denied both. The Sadducees, says Luke, (Act 23:8,) say, there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit. Add to this, that they not only rejected all unwritten traditions, but all the books of the Old Testament, excepting those of Moses. They were not very numerous, but being the wealthiest of the three sects, the rich and great gave in to their opinions; whereas the people were firm in the interest of the Pharisees, and so attached to their notions, that, if a Pharisee should happen to throw out reflections, either upon the high priest or king, he was sure to be believed; for every thing that concerned divine worship was regulated by the Pharisees. So that when the Sadducees took upon them any public employment they were obliged, though never so much against their own interest, to obey the injunction of the Pharisees, which had they presumed to refuse, the consequences would have been dangerous, and would have set the people in an uproar. O generation of vipers A wicked offspring of wicked parents, crafty, malignant, mischievous creatures. In like manner the crafty Herod is styled a fox, and persons of insidious, ravenous, profane, or sensual dispositions, are named respectively by Him who saw their hearts, serpents, dogs, wolves, and swine; terms which are not the random language of passion, but a judicious designation of the persons meant by them. For it was fitting such men should be marked out, either for a caution to others, or a warning to themselves. Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? To put on this form of humility and repentance? What hath moved you to it? How came you to think yourselves in any danger of divine and future wrath, or to use any means to escape it? since you Pharisees think yourselves secure from it, on account of the sanctity of your lives, and you Sadducees imagine there is no such wrath, and that all that is spoken of it is a mere fable and delusion?

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

JOHN REJECTS THE HON TONS OF THE CHURCH

Mat 3:7-8; Luk 3:7-8. Among the teeming myriads, here came the Pharisees, with their boasted orthodoxy; and the Sadducees, with their higher criticism, cutting up Gods Word to suit their carnal natures, both feeling sure that John will be glad to get them, and have their influence; as the Pharisees rule by their official power, and the Sadducees by their money. The trouble with great people is, they are too high for the graces of God, which, like water their symbol always flows down. John had the spiritual gift which we all need, and it is our privilege to have; i.e., discernment of spirits. He saw they did not repent and good reason: they thought they were all right. That is the way Satan fills up hell with the great people of the Church. They will not repent, because they think they are Christians. While Satan has his arms round them, dragging them into hell, they think he is an angel of light, lifting them up to heaven. God is no respecter of persons. The king has to be saved just like the crank, and the proud society woman must get low down in the dust, and cry to God like the poor harlot, whose heart the lightning of conviction has torn all to pieces.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Verse 7

The Pharisees and Sadducees were two prominent religious sects among the Jews. The Sadducees maintained the doctrine that the soul of man perishes with the body.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

3:7 {2} 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?

(2) There is nothing that shuts up the way of mercy and salvation from us so much as the opinion of our own righteousness does.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

This verse contains Matthew’s first reference to the Pharisees ("separate ones") and the Sadducees ("righteous ones"). Significantly, John was antagonistic toward them because they were hypocritical, a trait that marks them throughout the Gospels. Matthew lumped them together here because they were Israel’s leaders.

"After the ministry of the postexilic prophets ceased, godly men called Chasidim (saints) arose who sought to keep alive reverence for the law among the descendants of the Jews who returned from the Babylonian captivity. This movement degenerated into the Pharisaism of our Lord’s day-a letter-strictness which overlaid the law with traditional interpretations held to have been communicated by the LORD to Moses as oral explanations of equal authority with the law itself (cp. Mat 15:2-3; Mar 7:8-13; Gal 1:14). . . .

"The Sadducees were a Jewish sect that denied the existence of angels or other spirits, and all miracles, especially the resurrection of the body. They were the religious rationalists of the time (Mar 12:18-23; Act 23:8), and were strongly entrenched in the Sanhedrin and priesthood (Act 4:1-2; Act 5:17). The Sadducees are identified with no affirmative doctrine, but were mere deniers of the supernatural." [Note: The New Scofield . . ., p. 995.]

"Vipers" is a word Isaiah used to describe God’s enemies (Isa 14:29; Isa 30:6). John’s use of it associates him with the former prophets and reflects his prophetic authority.

"The first major appearance of the religious leaders in Matthew’s story occurs in conjunction with the ministry of John the Baptist (Mat 3:7-10). The importance of their appearance here has to do with the fact that John is the forerunner of Jesus. As such, the attitude that John assumes toward the leaders is predictive of the attitude that Jesus will assume toward them." [Note: Kingsbury, p. 117.]

John’s question (Mat 3:7) amounted to, "Who suggested to you that you would escape the coming wrath?" [Note: Carson, "Matthew," p. 103.] The behavior of the Pharisees and Sadducees should have demonstrated the genuineness of their professed repentance, but it did not. Fruit is what people produce that other people see that indicates their spiritual condition (Mat 13:21; cf. Mar 4:19; Luk 8:14; Joh 15:1-6). The fruits of repentance were absent in the case of these leaders. There was no external evidence that they desired to draw near to God in anticipation of Messiah’s appearance.

Many of the Jews in the inter-testamental period believed that if one was a descendant of Abraham he would automatically enter Messiah’s kingdom. [Note: Edersheim, 1:271.] They counted on the patriarch’s righteousness as sufficient for themselves. However, God had often pruned back the unrighteous in Israel and preserved a remnant in its history. As Matthew continued to point out in his Gospel, many of the Jews refused to humble themselves before God and instead trusted in their own righteousness. The Pharisees and Sadducees were doing that here. Josephus placed the origin of both of these groups in the time of Jonathan, the son of Judas Maccabee (160-143 B.C.). [Note: See ibid., 1:96.]

John’s reference to "stones" (Mat 3:9) was a play on words with "children" in both the Hebrew and Aramaic languages. If stones could become God’s children, certainly Gentiles could.

Mat 3:10 gives the reason the Jews needed to repent. Divine judgment would precede the establishment of Messiah’s kingdom (cf. Isa 1:27; Isa 4:4; Isa 5:16; Isa 13:6-19; Isa 42:1; Jer 33:14-16; Dan 7:26-27). The Jews connected the concepts of repentance and the messianic age closely in their thinking. [Note: C. G. Montefiore, "Rabbinic Conceptions of Repentance," Jewish Quarterly Review 16 (January 1904):211.] John announced that this judgment was imminent (Mat 3:10-12). Any tree (better than every tree) that does not bear good fruit, regardless of its roots, will suffer destruction. Probably John had individuals and the nation of Israel in mind.

The reference to fire in Mat 3:10 pictures the judgment and destruction of those who fail to repent (cf. "wrath," Mat 3:7, and "winnowing fork," Mat 3:13). For individuals this judgment would involve eternal destruction (Mat 3:12), assuming there was no later repentance. For the nation it would involve the postponement of the kingdom and its attendant blessings.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)