“You spawn of vipers!”

Matthew 3.7-8, Luke 3.7-8A.

In Mark we only see John the baptist’s appearance, plus the obligatory reference to that Isaiah passage about preparing the Lord’s way and making his paths straight. Is 40.3 In the other synoptic gospels we see the same thing… plus a bit where John rebukes some of the people who aren’t all that repentant; who’ve come to the desert to gawk at him.

Because of the time Matthew and Luke spend on this bit, you might get the wrong idea—that this was all John taught. That his only purpose was to denounce popular Jewish culture for being hypocritical and only worthy of God’s wrath. You’d especially get this wrong idea if your favorite preachers taught this was John’s main purpose—and likewise teach it’s their main purpose. This is how dark Christianity perpetuates itself.

But this is not John’s main purpose, nor his main message. Preparing the Lord’s way does not consist of raging against all the evil and corruption in the world. It’s doing as John usually did: Telling people their sins are forgiven, and baptizing them so they can follow the LORD anew. We Christians are supposed to do this too.

And when the religious snobs come to visit our churches and meetings, and complain we’re not doing it in a manner which pleases them, then we can respond to ’em like John did.

Matthew 3.7-8 KWL

7Seeing many of the Pharisees and Sadducees

coming to his baptism,

John told them, “Spawn of vipers!

Who whispered to you² to flee the coming wrath?

8So produce the worthy fruit of repentance!”

Luke 3.7-8 KWL

7So John said to the crowds

coming out to be baptized by him, “Spawn of vipers!

Who whispered to you² to flee the coming wrath?

8ASo produce the worthy fruit of repentance!”

Christianity is meant to be a lifestyle of repentance. And by “repentance” I don’t mean feeling remorseful and guilty all the time, constantly apologizing for all our past misdeeds, constantly apologizing for others’ many and egregious misdeeds. (I mean, there’s obviously a time to tell American Indians you’re dreadfully sorry for your white ancestors murdering their ancestors, or looking the other way as your ancestors moved onto their stolen land… and a time not to. True of other such atrocities.) Christianity isn’t supposed to be about continuously beating ourselves up for being dirty sinners. Some churches do that, and they’re absolutely wrong to. Properly, repentance is about going the other way. You used to run towards sin; now go the other way. You used to rush towards evildoing and revenge and trolling; now go the other way. You used to embrace insults and trash talk and sarcasm; now go the other way.

Used to, right? If not, maybe you’d better start producing the worthy fruit of repentance.

The religious snobs.

We tend to bash these groups for being religious snobs, while ignoring much of our own condescending attitudes towards other religions, and towards fellow Christians who don’t worship like we do. They’re in the gospels to warn us away from adopting their behavior. Not to simply say, “Thank you Lord that I am not a Pharisee nor Sadducee nor secular pagan who only pays you lip-service; I fast twice a week and tithe whatever I get.” Lk 18.11-12 Never presume just because we don’t share their labels that we don’t share their trespasses. Oh, and don’t share their trespasses.

In John’s crowd, we have:

• PHARISEES. These are the religious Jews—as opposed to irreligious, secular Jews. Most were actually trying to follow God as best they could; it’s why they went to synagogue so they could learn the Law of Moses in excruciating detail, and never violate it—or at least learn all the useful loopholes. Yeah—same as Christians—many were hypocrites, faking it for social and political acceptance. But don’t get the wrong idea all Pharisees were that way.
• SADDUCEES. These are the Reform Jews of the day: They believed in God and upheld the Law, but didn’t believe in angels, miracles, present-day prophets, afterlife, resurrection, or End Times; and only had five books in their bible. When they weren’t working in temple they lived much like their Greco-Roman patrons. Freakishly, these are the folks who ran Judea: The head priest, his family, and the leading families of Jerusalem, were Sadducee.
• LEVITES. Israel consisted of 13 tribes—12 with land, and Levites were the 13th, a tribe of priests who lived in cities and took turns serving in temple. John was a Levite himself. Some were Pharisee, some Sadducee, some in other Jewish sects. But all were involved in temple.
• THE ROMANS. Luke 3.14 says there were soldiers in John’s crowd, and the only soldiers were Roman—occupying troops originally sent to help Herod 1 suppress his own people, but after Herod died, Cæsar Augustus turned Judea from a client state to a Roman province, and the troops were there to support the Roman procurators and the taxmen. Understandably, Judeans didn’t care for them—and some would object to John even teaching them to be saved. But salvation is for everyone; even gentiles.
• “THE CROWDS.” In Luke, John appears hostile to everybody, not just the religious folks. Everybody gets slammed in his preaching. No exceptions. But it’s fair to say most of them were Pharisees—because in their End Times timeline, Elijah comes before Messiah, and they wondered whether John was this Elijah. (Spoiler: He is.)

Prophetic disdain for religious snobs.

Elsewhere I pointed out some preachers and commentators claim John was Essene. There are some really shaky grounds for this idea, but they ignore all the shaking and insist on it. I say ignore them.

After the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the 1940s, people presumed the separatist Jewish sect which collected them—the Qumranis; the zealots who occupied Masada when the Romans invaded in the year 70—were actually the Essenes, and John came from this sect. Again, no he wasn’t. But I will point out one of the popular Qumrani beliefs was that heretics—meaning the Sadducees—had taken over the temple, and needed to be overthrown.

In the Qumrani version of the End Times, Sadducee priests and Pharisee rabbis were some of the “sons of darkness,” whereas they were the sons of light. At some point, the sons of light would fight the sons of darkness, win, and the two messiahs (yep, they believed in two messiahs) would rule Israel: The Messiah of Israel would rule the nation, and the Messiah of Aaron would run the temple. When the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in the great tribulation, the Qumranis believed it to be the End, and fought these “sons of darkness” to the death. Their death; none survived. Which just goes to show how getting the End Times wrong can become a really big deal.

Anyway, Qumranis weren’t alone in thinking Sadducees and Pharisees were heretic, or at least profoundly wrong and corrupt. I don’t know whether John shared the Qumranis’ sentiment, but he did call these people γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν/yennímata ehidnón, “spawn of vipers” (KJV “generation of vipers,” NIV “brood of vipers”). Yes, the vipers were intentionally meant to remind people of the serpent of Eden, i.e. Satan. “Spawn of vipers” would’ve been immediately recognized as an offensive term; exactly like “sons of bitches” in ours. (Whoops, should’ve warned you that profanity was coming. I’ll wait while you go get your fainting salts and fan yourself.)

Why was John trying to offend them? We can tell from what he said next: “Produce the worthy fruit of repentance.” Which they weren’t doing. They were producing the fake stuff. Stuff which made ’em look good in public, but didn’t impress God any. John nailed down the sort of fruit he meant: Stuff which demonstrates to God, not others, they’re serious about following him.