NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER SEVEN

Part IV

The prophet Micah encountered some false teachers that sound very much like what we have today. He writes: “Some false prophets are telling the LORD’S people lies. This is what the Lord says this about them: ‘These prophets are led by their stomachs. They promise peace for those who give them food, but they promise war to those who do not give them food.”¹ In our modern era it would be easy to substitute food for financial support in order to identify such false prophets today.

Then the prophet Isaiah also points out another problem that plagues the church to this day. “The watchmen are all blind. They don’t know what they are doing. They are like dogs that will not bark. They lie on the ground and sleep.”² Ezekiel had an even more graphic description, “The prophets in Jerusalem are making evil plans. They are like a lion—it roars when it begins to eat the animal it caught.”³ So what does this say to Christians today. If a watch dog doesn’t bark when trouble draws near, it becomes nothing more than a pet. And if a lion roars before it begins to consume its prey, it is their way of showing that they should be feared and not taken lightly.

Also, when the prophet Zephaniah looked around, he saw a similar scene. “Jerusalem’s leaders are like roaring lions. Her judges are like hungry wolves that come in the evening to attack the sheep—and in the morning nothing is left. Her prophets are always making secret plans to get more and more. Her priests have treated holy things as if they were not holy. They have done bad things to God’s teachings.”⁴ In other words, these type of people are only out to destroy, not to build; to tear apart, not to bring together.

It was Jewish historian Josephus who reminded his fellow Jews of these omens when he said: “And who is there that does not know what the writings of the ancient prophets contain in them – and particularly that oracle which is just now going to be fulfilled upon this miserable city? For they foretold that this city should be then taken when somebody shall begin the slaughter of his own countrymen. And are not both the city and the entire temple now full of the dead bodies of your countrymen? It is God, therefore, it is God Himself who is bringing on this fire, to purge that city and temple by means of the Romans, and is going to pluck up this city, which is full of your pollution.”⁵ This was the scene after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD because of the siege by Roman General Titus.

This made our Lord’s warning in these verses so important to the Early Church, that in their teachings they included this alert: “For in the last days the number of false prophets and corrupt teachers will grow and the sheep will be turned into wolves, and love will be turned into hate; for when lawlessness increases, they will hate and persecute and betray one another, and then will appear the world-deceiver as a Son of God, and will perform signs and wonders, and the earth will be delivered into his hands, and he will do ungodly things which have never been done since the beginning.”⁶

While some preachers and teachers of questionable doctrines may not as futile or fatal as what John saw in his revelation, there is another disturbing factor in our church pulpits today. That is those who misuse and misinterpret the Word of God to make a philosophical point that is not found in the text. For instance, describing the cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 12:1 as a group of departed saints who are looking down from heaven much like a crowd in a stadium watching a game, instead of pointing out that the cloud the writer referred to were those in Chapter 11.

Also, Paul’s statement in Romans 8:1 about condemnation being used as a reward for being morally good rather than acknowledging that the word translated as “condemnation” in the original Greek is a judicial phrase that refers to the death sentence all sinners live under until they are redeemed and saved from punishment. As well as the statement by the apostle Paul who said: “I can do all things through Him who gives me strength,”⁷ as a mantra or magical phrase Christians can use in overcoming any problem, rather than noting that Paul was pointing back to all that he’d suffered through and yet survived.

There are other examples of such encouragement when Paul tells the Romans: “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose,”⁸ as a proclamation of assurance to any believer in any situation, rather than a comment by Paul on life in the Spirit and the suffering that comes from living that life for God.⁹ These may all seem as minor errors in interpretation, but just like a measurement being taken that is one sixteenth of an inch offline at the beginning can end up missing its target by feet and then yards the longer it goes uncorrected.

Verse 16b: People don’t go out to gather grapes from thornbushes, or figs from barbed weeds.

Our Lord understood the intellectual level of His audience, so He uses illustrations to help them comprehend the meaning of His teachings. He knew that by pointing out the obvious through a story would help get His point across a lot clearer. This is a longstanding tool speakers and teachers have employed when wanting to prove a point that may not be so easily discerned on the surface. It’s almost like using a level to indicate how off kilter a door post maybe, or a ruler to show how crooked a line is.

For instance, on one occasion Rabbis were discussing when boys become men. They told the story of Abaye and Raba when they were boys and were sitting in the presence of Rabbah bar Avuha, who was asking them some questions. They were so good that Rabbah said that both of them would become Rabbis. So the commentators concluded: “This accords with the popular saying: pumpkins can be identified just from the stalk.”¹⁰ In other words, sometimes you do not need to see the fruit before knowing what will be produced. For most of us, a stalk standing in a field would be enough for us to know that long before it starts producing the ears, it is corn. The same with tomato and grape vines. Knowing the source of one’s fruit is also explored in this discussion.

According to another tradition, Rabbis were talking about when a person should be held responsible for why they misled others. Said Rabbi Judah: “Even if a person went to pick figs but picked grapes, or intended grapes but picked figs, or white grapes but picks black ones, or black and he picked white ones, Rabbi Eliezer declares him liable.”¹¹ In other words, it’s like a Sunday school teacher telling students that they got their information from the Bible when in fact it came from a commentary. Or when preachers hold up their Bibles and say: “Let me tell you what God’s Word says,” and then propagates some personally conceived concept or calculation.

In one case, the Rabbis were comparing the marrying of a priest’s daughter to a scholar, to that of a Priest’s daughter marrying someone who is called an ignoramus. Said the Rabbis: “This may be compared to grafting a grape vine into a thorn bush in order to grow berries, which is a repulsive.”¹² So it was that Jesus did not hesitate telling His listeners whether what He was saying came from the Torah or the prophets, or that it was given to Him by His Father in heaven.

Verses 17-18: Jesus no doubt did this so that by not having to decipher His metaphor, they were then able to add the rest of what He was about to say without a struggle. In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, and bad trees produce bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit.

Our Lord now offers more spiritual insight by using another illustration on what happens when a father gives his son a stone instead of bread, when people do not treat others the same way they wish to be treated, and when wolves come disguised as sheep in order to carry them off to their den of false doctrine. As in previous illustrations, Jesus said that we can identify them by watching what they do. This was the method David and the prophets used.¹³ In both cases, it depends on the soil in which they are planted and the nutrition that they receive.

But the prophet Isaiah shares God’s disappointment when trees planted and watered correctly do not bear good fruit, “What more could I do for my vineyard? I did everything I could. I hoped for good grapes to grow, but there were only rotten ones. Why did that happen?”¹⁴ Then the Lord goes on to say what will happen to these producers of rotten grapes, “Now I will tell you what I will do to My vineyard: I will pull up the thornbushes that protect it, and I will burn them. I will break down the stone wall and use the stones for a walkway. I will turn My vineyard into useless land. No one will care for the plants or work in the field. Weeds and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.”¹⁵

The prophet continues with what Jesus echoes here, “The vines will become dry, and the branches will break off. Women will use them for firewood.”¹⁶ And the prophet Ezekiel gives and even more graphic description, “People will throw such wood into the fire. The ends burn, and the middle is scorched. If you cannot make anything from that wood before it is burned, you surely cannot make anything from that wood after it is burned! So people throw the pieces of wood from a grapevine into the fire. It is just like wood from any other tree in the forest.”¹⁷ Also in one apocryphal Gospel we find a rendering of our text: “Jesus said, ‘Grapes are not harvested from thorn trees, nor are figs gathered from thistles, for they yield no fruit. Good persons produce good from what they’ve stored up; bad persons produce evil from the wickedness they’ve stored up in their hearts, and say evil things. For from the overflow of the heart they produce evil’.”¹⁸

One Jewish scholar did a study on the Jewish Commentary of Ruth and found some similarities between it and views expressed in the Gospels. One of those was this: “In this world one who is small can become great and he who is great can become small, but in the world to come one who is small can not become great and he who is great can not become small.”¹⁹ In other words, there is still time to change for the best or the least while here on earth, but one we are ushered into the next world, there will be no change; you will be for eternity what you were when you entered. How much more should this motivate us to be all we can be through Christ here and now, so we can spend eternity worshiping Him as an overcomer.

The preacher Chrysostom had this to say: “Even though Jesus seems to make virtually the same point a second time, it is hardly redundant. For in the second time around he prevents anyone from concluding, ‘The evil tree bears evil fruit, but it also bears good fruit, so as to make it difficult to recognize an evil tree, because the crop is of two kinds.’ No. Jesus says, ‘This is not so. For the evil tree bears only evil fruits and would never bear good fruits. So also it is the same way with the opposite kind of tree.’ What then? Is there no such thing as a good person who becomes corrupt? Or a corrupt person who becomes good? Isn’t life full of many examples of such reversals? But the Messiah is not saying that the evil person is incapable of changing or that the good person will never fail in anything. But he is saying that so long as a person is living in a degenerate way, he will not be able to generate good fruit. For he may indeed change to virtue, being evil, but while continuing in wickedness, he will not bear good fruit.”²⁰

Chrysostom goes on: “What then? Did not David, even though good, bear evil fruit? No, because he did not bear evil fruit while remaining good but while being changed. For if indeed he had remained continually good as he had been, he would not have produced the bad fruit. For it surely was not while abiding in the habits of excellence that he had the audacity to do the very things that he had the audacity to do. Jesus also said these things to shut the mouths of those who say nothing but slander and to reign in the lips of those who speak maliciously. For many are suspicious of good people because so many others are evil, but Jesus by this saying has deprived them of all excuse. For on this premise one would not even be able to say, ‘I am deceived and was misled.’ For he has provided you a rule by which accurately to identify the frauds by their deeds. He has also commanded you to proceed on the basis of practices and not to mix up all cases at random.”²¹

Verses 19-20: Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. You will know these false people by the fruit they produce.

At this point, it would be good to untangle the literal meaning Jesus intended here about throwing this useless wood into the fire, and the spiritual meaning often applied of saying that such people will end up in hell. It is true that Jesus was comparing these people who pretend to be part of a congregation of believers but become known for the false doctrines they spread and the disharmony they bring, first as wolves camouflaged by sheep’s wool, and second to trees or vines that instead of bearing the good fruit like all those around them, produce inedible fruit that cannot be used. As wolves they are quickly identified and told to leave because they have no place in that body of believers. And as trees or vines, they are rooted up and hauled out of the field or orchard, and used for fire wood.

In the case of the wolves, their end is to be exposed so that they may either repent, return and reconcile with the congregation and become strong supporters of the church’s mission and faithful servants to the church’s cause. But as trees, there is no regret, no restitution, and no rescue. They are to be used for some other cause in the secular sector of society. So in a way, Jesus was saying that while the way of the impostors is correctable, the way of the bitter fruit tree has no redeeming value for the body of Christ. The judgment will be held for those who completely and unequivocally denounce and deny Jesus Christ as the Savior and will have nothing to do with Him. But people whose actions and attitudes are at odds with the mission of any person or group of believers, will be judged on a different criteria. It you want a good example, just look at Saul of Tarsus who became the apostle Paul. What he did to the church and against Christianity in the beginning was more like the bitter fruit tree, not the masked wolf. Yet Jesus was able to turn him around and use him in a marvelous way. Jesus will get to those who deserve nothing but hell fire.

Some of the most tragic ending to those who’ve been led astray by false prophets are those of Jim Jones that began in 1956 in Indianapolis, Indiana and ended in mass suicide in Jamestown, Guyana in 1978, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas who willingly allowed themselves to be burned to death in 1993, and a group known as Heaven’s Gate founded by Marshall Herff Applewhite in California and their mass suicide in 1997. The sad part were those who were led astray and suffered so enormously because they had been deceived. Threat of punishment does not seem to work on such deceivers. Only the truth can set their captives free, and there is but one Truth and His name is Jesus.