“But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” Matthew 3:7-10 NIV

Here, John the Baptist is speaking to Jewish religious leaders in very harsh terms. After calling them "brood of vipers," he explains that their biological descent from Abraham does not exempt them from God's wrath against the rebellious world. Only one thing would save them from that judgment: "producing fruit in keeping with repentance." John continues, saying that being a child of Abraham is not a privilege without duties in God’s eyes, and that God can make anyone or anything, even stones, into children of Abraham.

One lesson we can learn from this text is the importance of bearing fruit in keeping with repentance. Here, salvation is compared to being a child of Abraham, in other words, a member of God's chosen nation, Israel. The children of Israel were automatically admitted into God's covenant with the attached blessings through that avenue, as confirmed by Jesus in his response to the syrophoenician woman begging him to deliver her demon-possessed daughter (Matthew 15:24-26) and in his statement when he was about to deliver a woman with a bent back for eighteen years (Luke 13:16). Therefore, being born a child of Abraham comes with privileges, as Jesus acknowledged.

The same is true for us when we are born children of God by His Spirit (John 1:12–13; Romans 8:17). However, according to John’s rebuke to the Pharisees, these inheritance rights do not guarantee one’s preservation from God’s eternal judgment if one does not produce fruit in accordance with repentance. This fruit comes from the Holy Spirit within us (Galatians 5:22). Nevertheless, we must collaborate with Him for it to manifest, as we can quench the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19) or choose to walk by the flesh (Galatians 5:16-17).

May we always choose to walk by the Spirit and thus bear fruit in keeping with repentance.