<p>3:7&nbsp;<em>But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them</em>- Lk. 3:12 records how there &quot;came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do?&quot;. There is a parallel between desiring baptism and realizing that they must<em> do</em>&nbsp;something concretely in their lives. The baptism process brings us into the realm of God's gracious forgiveness and redemption, and into living contact with the real Christ. There is no way we can be passive to this and do nothing about it. Note that Matthew himself was a publican- this is an example of the Gospel records being a transcript of the message standardly taught by e.g. Matthew.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>You offspring of vipers</em>- This intense, urgent presentation of the ultimate issues of life and death, acceptance and rejection, brought forth a massive response. People lined up for baptism. And John was hardly polite. He called his baptismal candidates a &ldquo;generation of vipers&rdquo;, alluding obviously to the seed of the serpent in Gen. 3:15. Yet his tough line with them, his convicting them of sin, led them to ask what precisely they must do, in order to be baptized. They didn&rsquo;t turn away in offence. They somehow sensed he was for real, and the message he preached couldn&rsquo;t be ignored or shrugged off as the ravings of a fanatic. Time and again we see the same- the very height of the demand of Christ of itself convicts men and women of Him. And it&rsquo;s for this reason that it seems almost &lsquo;easier&rsquo; to convict people of Christ and the need for baptism into Him in societies [e.g. radical Moslem ones] where the price for conversion to Him is death or serious persecution&hellip; than in the easy going Western countries where being &lsquo;Christian&rsquo; is the normal cultural thing to do. The Gospel was presented in different forms by the early preachers, according to their audience. John the Baptist set the pattern in this. Having quoted the prophecy about the need for the rough to be made smooth and the proud to be humbled in order for them to accept Jesus, John &ldquo;said&nbsp;<em>therefore</em>&nbsp;to the multitude&hellip; ye offspring of vipers&rdquo; (Lk. 3:7 RV). He used tough and startling language because that was what the audience required. He had set his aims- to humble the proud. And so he used &ldquo;therefore&rdquo; appropriate approaches. The early preachers as Paul became all things to all men, so that they might win some. They therefore consciously matched their presentation and&nbsp;<em>how</em>&nbsp;they articulated the same basic truths to their audience. But perhaps even his comment &ldquo;Generation of vipers&rdquo; was said with a heart of love and appeal, reflecting the &ldquo;heart of mercy&rdquo; which he had come to know in the Father. He was &ldquo;the friend of the bridegroom&rdquo; (Jn. 3:29)- the one who introduced the groom to the bride and arranged the marriage and then the wedding. John&rsquo;s &ldquo;Generation of vipers&rdquo; stuff was all part of his attempt to persuade the bride, Israel, to accept the groom, the Lord Jesus. He wasn&rsquo;t angrily moralizing, lashing out at society as many a dysfunctional preacher does today, working out his own anger by criticizing and condemning society in the name of God. No, John was appealing. He had an agenda and an aim- to bring Israel and the Son of God together in marriage.</p>
<p><em>Who warned you</em>- The Greek means to exemplify, to 'exhibit under the eyes', and can imply that John had himself shown them the way of repentance by having done so himself. John the Baptist rhetorically asked his hearers: &ldquo;Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?&rdquo; (Mt. 3:7). The answer, of course, was &lsquo;Well, you, John&rsquo;. And John continues: &ldquo;Bring forth&nbsp;<em>therefore</em>&nbsp;[i.e., because I am the one who taught you] fruits meet for repentance&rdquo;. John recognizes that his converts will be after his image in one sense; as Paul put it, what his hearers had heard and seen in him as he preached, they were to do. So I suggest the emphasis should be on the word 'who', rather than on the word 'you'. The sense is not 'You lot of sinners? Ha! And where did you lot hear of the need for repentance!'. Rather is it a rhetorical question. Who warned them to flee from the wrath to come? John himself. Here we see another window onto the humility of John in his appeal. He is saying that he too has confessed and repented of his sins, and he knew this was witnessed in his life. And he asks the legalistic Pharisees to follow his example. John was asking them to repent of their legalism and accept Jesus as Messiah, and it would seem that John had had to pass through that very same path himself, freeing himself from the Essene's legalism which it seems he had got associated with. And Elijah, John's role model, was another man who was led to repent of exclusivism and legalism. The point is clinched by a look at the Greek word translated 'warned'. It literally means to exhibit, to exemplify. John was the pattern for them. And if Paul was indeed amongst that crowd of cynical Pharisees, Paul was ultimately John's most stellar convert, although little did he realize it at the time. The same can happen with our preaching. We may make converts years after our death. And the lesson comes home clearly, that the preacher or the teacher is to be the living embodiment of his or her message, the word being preached made flesh in the preacher.</p>
<p><em>To flee from the anger to come</em>- A common idea of Paul's especially in his letter to the Romans (Rom. 1:18; 2:5,8; 3:5; 4:15; 5:9; 9:22;12:19; 13:4,5). 1 Thess. 2:16 surely alludes here in speaking of how the wrath has come upon the orthodox Jews. See on 3:6. In Mt. 23:33 Jesus seems to say that it is now impossible for that group to flee the coming wrath. Even in this life the frame of opportunity can come to an end before death.</p>
<p>Paul alluded to some parts of the Gospels much more than others. An example of this is the way in which he alluded so extensively to the passages related to John the Baptist. I would suggest that the reason for this is that he saw John as somehow his hero, one for whom he had a deep respect. In doing so he was sharing the estimation of his Lord, who also saw John as one of the greatest believers. There are many 'unconscious' links between Paul's writings and the records of John, indicating how deeply the example and words of John were in Paul's mind (e.g. Mt. 3:7 = 1 Thess. 1:10; 5:9; Jn. 3:31 = 1 Cor. 15:47). Or consider how John said that wicked Jewry would be &quot;hewn down&quot; (Mt. 3:10); Paul uses the very same word to describe how the Jewish branches had now been &quot;cut off&quot; (Rom. 11:22,24). Paul saw himself as being like the best man, who had betrothed the believers to Christ (2 Cor. 11:2,3)- just as John had described himself as the friend of the bridegroom (Jn. 3:28). Or again, reflect how Paul's mention of John in Acts 13:24,25 apparently adds nothing to his argument; it seems out of context. But it surely indicates the degree to which John was never far below the surface in Paul's thinking. &nbsp;</p>