Pointing to Christ

Dr. John Clayton's sermon on Luke 3:7-20 from our service on August 4, 2024, the thirteenth in his sermon series The Gospel of Luke.

He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”

As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people. But Herod the tetrarch, who had been reproved by him for Herodias, his brother’s wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, added this to them all, that he locked up John in prison (Luke 3:7–20).[1]

Children by Faith

Luke introduces John the Baptist’s ministry with Isaiah’s prophecy of the forerunner of Christ:

            “The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

            ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

            make his paths straight.

            Every valley shall be filled,

                        and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

            and the crooked shall become straight,

                        and the rough places shall become level ways,

            and all flesh shall see the salvation of God’” (Luke 3:4-6).

Don’t let the familiarity of this quote cause you to miss the catastrophic language: John’s ministry would lead to the filling of every valley and lowering every mountain. What kind of seismic event could cause that? But as Luke reveals, John’s ministry was not a geologically but theologically cataclysmic event, the foreshock of the earthquake of Christ.

For those who had ears to hear, John called to repentance, but for those who would not, he promised judgement. To some the seismic message of the gospel was indeed good news, evidenced by the multitude of people who were repenting of their sins and being baptized. But others were merely present, not repenting but observing, neither hearing nor believing. To these, including the religious leaders of Israel whom John called a “brood of vipers,” John asks, “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (7). It’s an odd question posed to the presumably silent bystanders. Who warned them? What had they done? What wrath was to come?

John’s question begins with a bit of brilliant irony: “Who warned you to flee?” No one; that’s the irony. No one warned the unrepentant; they heard nothing but the flattery of their sinful flesh, knew nothing of God’s imminent judgment, and stood only in their self-righteousness, watching the spectacle of a baptizing prophet. They could not hear the mountains of their self-righteousness trembling under the surety of God’s judgment; they could not imagine the valleys of their unrepentant hearts being filled with the outpouring of God’s wrath. John the Baptist, Calvin says, “summons them to the inward tribunal of conscience, that they may thoroughly examine themselves, and, laying aside all flattery, may institute a severe investigation into their crimes.”[2] But the unrepentant did not, and will not, heed the summons.

This is not to say that the unrepentant are ignorant or unbelieving. In the case of Israel’s leaders, their obstinance was based on faith, but it was misplaced faith. They believed that their heritage as the children of Israel, recipients of Abraham’s inheritance, secured their standing with God. But John challenges such belief pointing to the ground: “God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham” (8). Who we are here by nature does not guarantee whose we are in heaven. Faith is not saving faith unless it is faith in Jesus Christ.

Fruit of Repentance

How could John the Baptist make such bold accusations? Because, Israel was not exemplifying fruit characteristic of the children of God, which begins not with self-righteousness but repentance, “a saving grace by which a sinner has a true sense of his sin and realization of the mercy of God in Christ and then with grief and hatred of his sin turns from it to God fully intending and striving after new obedience.”[3] John could say to Israel’s unrepentant leaders, “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees,” because judgment awaits the unrepentant, a day when the tree will be “cut down and thrown into the fire” (8). But true repentance turns from sin to God, desiring and striving to obey him, and therefore bearing fruit.

Such repentance begins with a change of mind, so to speak, evidencing an inward renewal of the heart and practically through our love for our neighbor: From head, to heart, to hands. Luke provides an example of this, not in the silence of Israel’s leaders but in the question from the crowds: “What then shall we do?” (10) If God’s wrath is certain for those who do not bear fruits in keeping with repentance, if heritage will not save us from this wrath, if the fruitless tree will be cut down and thrown into the fire, what then shall we do? It’s a great question, which John does not delay in answering: If you have plenty to wear, share. If you have plenty to eat, give. If you are misusing or abusing others, stop.

Is this the answer you expected? Probably not. So, why does John answer such an important question this way? Because, as Calvin explains, “A true feeling of repentance produces in the mind of the poor sinner an eager desire to know what is the will or command of God.”[4] The fruits of repentance reveal a change of heart away from self and toward others, which Jesus summarized as, “You shall love … your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27b). But we must also understand this in the context of the greater command: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” (Luke 10:27a). It is from the repentant heart’s love for God that love for our neighbor comes. A lack of love tells the condition of the heart.

Calling yourself a Christian, or someone else calling you a Christian, does not make you one. Only God’s grace through saving faith in Christ makes one, not of your doing but God’s.[5] And because a Christian is a new creation of God’s making,[6] a Christian will produce fruit. This is what John was getting at with his practical examples, because there is no such thing as a fruitless Christian. Jesus said, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:4-5).

This is not to say that you and I will always abundantly bear fruit, but when we do not, we must heed John’s clarion call to repent, for it is sin that leads to dormancy. Thankfully, God loves us too much to leave us fruitless but graciously leads us to repentance that we may show forth his love for us in thought, word, and deed. “From such gracious love,” Derek Thomas says, “compliance with His commands emerges. Disobedience drives Him away. But when we enjoy His presence, we also desire to “please him” (2 Cor. 5:9).”[7] Jesus said, “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. And he is pleased that we bear much fruit” (John 15:8). Amen.

Pointing to Christ

There is no record of John the Baptist working miracles, and yet the crowds flocked to him in the wilderness, not for what he could do for them but who he pointed them to. The substance of his message was simple and the scope of his ministry small: bold preaching and baptizing. And yet, as God worked through his prophet, the crowds kept coming, and so they began to wonder whether he might be the Messiah, the Christ. John thankfully did not struggle with a “Messiah Complex” but quickly clarified that he was the forerunner of the one to come, saying, “the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie” (16).

He was John the Baptist, not John the Christ. He baptized with water, but one to follow him would baptize “with the Holy Spirit and fire” (16), clearly a veiled reference to Christ. To understand what John means by this, he adds, “His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (17). Just as the wheat is separated from the chaff at harvest, so those who repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will be separated from those who do not. Those who are in Christ, the Holy Spirit will refine by his purifying fire, but those who are not in Christ shall receive the divine judgement of eternal and unquenchable fire. The good news of Jesus Christ is that if you trust in him alone as he is freely offered in the gospel, you will be saved from the judgment of fire. If you do not believe, you will burn forever in eternal torment.

We do not know everything that John preached, but we know “with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people” (18). Calling the people to repentance was all part of the unfolding of his preparatory ministry, pointing ultimately to Christ. John was bold, calling even the king to repent of adultery. John was faithful, serving even in the Judean wilderness. John was unwavering, preaching contrary to the moral majority of his day. And for his boldness, for this faithfulness, for his unwavering commitment, he was imprisoned and eventually and frivolously executed.

John’s entire life, even from his mother’s womb, was dedicated to serving the Lord, and yet it ended so abruptly and senselessly, imprisoned and beheaded by Herod. Some might say that John’s life was a tragedy, a life lived for someone else ending in a senseless death. Some might argue that the end of John’s life is not how the Lord rewards the faithful. But sometimes, Hebrews teaches us, contrary to world’s definition of prosperity, the faithful are called to suffer for Christ. Hebrews recounts that some of the most faithful were tortured, mocked, flogged, imprisoned, stoned, sawn in two, and killed with the sword. Some “went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated … wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth” (Heb. 11:35-38). John was one of them, “of whom the world was not worthy” (Heb. 11:38).

How then are we to interpret the life of John the Baptist? We must see John’s life, as we see our own, through the lens of God’s glory and eternity. John lived his life in complete devotion to the Lord. What were the fruits of his labors? Crowds of repentant sinners were baptized and pointed to Christ. How many children of Israel came to faith in Christ? God only knows.

What John’s life teaches us is that a life lived for the Lord is not in vain. John’s life teaches that there is something greater than a self-obsessed life: A life that points to Christ. I don’t know what John thought as he sat imprisoned in Herod’s prison, but this he knew: Whether “tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword … neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:35, 38-39). And as this is the truth, I am reminded of the wise words of martyred missionary Jim Elliot who said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”[8]

[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).

[2] John Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Vol 1 (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), 120.

[3] Q. 87, Andrew Green, Sasko Nezamutdinov, Ben Preston, The Illustrated Westminster Shorter Catechism (Fearn: Christian Focus Publications, 2022), 75.

[4] John Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Vol 1 (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), 123.

[5] Eph. 2:8

[6] 2 Cor. 5:17

[7] https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/cure-lack-fruit-our-christian-lives

[8] Elizabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor (New York: Harper & Row, 1958),