Once John has been introduced into the narrative, both Matthew and Luke have him immediately described as meeting a group of people, and calling them a brood of vipers, urging them to repent. That Mark does not contain this lecture while the other two synoptics do has led scholars to believe that this section comes from the Q document. Luke has John addressing the people that have come to see him in general, while Matthew has him address the Pharisees and Sadducees in particular. According to several scholars, the presence of the Pharisees and Sadducees does not indicate their intent to join John's movement, but rather their wish to investigate it and decide whether it is a threat to their own power.James Tissot's John and the PhariseesA number of theories have been advanced to explain why Matthew directs John's attack to these groups while Luke focuses on the general multitude. Eduard Schweizer believes that since Matthew was writing for a more Jewish audience than Luke, Matthew did not want to offend all Jews and thus focused only on the religious authorities, who had become a direct threat to the Christianity of Matthew's time. Other scholars disagree with this view; some hold instead that Pharisees and Sadducees should be understood as a catch-all term for the Jews in general.Brood of vipers was a common expression at the time indicating those filled with malice, which NT theologian R. T. France believes could be rooted in Jeremiah 46:22. Later in Matthew the expression is employed by Jesus himself on two occasions (Matthew 12:34 and Matthew 23:33). This insult has been borrowed by a number of other writers, including Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida, Anthony Trollope in Barchester Towers, Somerset Maugham in Catalina, and in the title of François Mauriac's Le Nœud de vipères. In Matthew and Luke, the word used for brood implies Illegitimacy, and so scholars, such as Malina and Rohrbaugh, consider a more literal translation to be snake bastards.Superficially, the implication of illegitimacy and the phrase don't think to yourselves "we have Abraham for a father" could be seen as an attack on the importance that Judaism placed on bloodlines. Some, such as R. T. France, do not support this interpretation, and instead see the phrase as a reference to the reliance of the Pharisees and Sadducees on their own religious authority to achieve salvation. Clearly, those having formal hierarchies in their church, particularly Roman Catholicism in regard to the Pope, do not support the interpretation of R. T. France.John goes on to refer to future wrath, although Christians interpret this as referring to the righteous indignation of God. To avoid this wrath, John is described as stating that the fruit of repentance should be made manifest, with every tree not bearing fruit being subject to destruction. The imagery used is of God as a lumberjack cutting down trees and then burning them, much like the imagery at Isaiah 10:34 and Jeremiah 46:22, which may have been the ultimate origin of this verse. An argument for Aramaic primacy can be put forward by this since in Aramaic, the word for a tree root is ikkar, while cutting down is kar, hence in Aramaic the description is an example of punning. Scholars of the eschatological school[4] believe that this verse originally referred to an imminent last judgment which, when it failed to occur, was re-interpreted by later Christianity as referring to individual damnation.In Luke, the crow
d react favourably to John's speech, but Matthew neglects to mention the reaction of the crowd.This passage has become a source of much dispute over soteriology. While the passage could be read as indicating that good works are merely the outgrowth of internal repentance just as good fruit are the product of a healthy tree, it could also be more simply be regarded as indicating that good works are repentance. This verse thus became a part of the larger debate over the doctrine held by Protestants about justification by faith. The Augsburg Confession, for instance, states that "it is taught among us that such faith should produce good fruits and good works and that we must do all such good works as God has commanded, but we should do them for God’s sake and not place our trust in them as if thereby to merit favour before God."
Once John has been introduced into the narrative, both Matthew and Luke have him immediately described as meeting a group of people, and calling them a brood of vipers, urging them to repent. That Mark does not contain this lecture while the other two synoptics do has led scholars to believe that this section comes from the Q document. Luke has John addressing the people that have come to see him in general, while Matthew has him address the Pharisees and Sadducees in particular. According to several scholars, the presence of the Pharisees and Sadducees does not indicate their intent to join John's movement, but rather their wish to investigate it and decide whether it is a threat to their own power.James Tissot's John and the PhariseesA number of theories have been advanced to explain why Matthew directs John's attack to these groups while Luke focuses on the general multitude. Eduard Schweizer believes that since Matthew was writing for a more Jewish audience than Luke, Matthew did not want to offend all Jews and thus focused only on the religious authorities, who had become a direct threat to the Christianity of Matthew's time. Other scholars disagree with this view; some hold instead that Pharisees and Sadducees should be understood as a catch-all term for the Jews in general.Brood of vipers was a common expression at the time indicating those filled with malice, which NT theologian R. T. France believes could be rooted in Jeremiah 46:22. Later in Matthew the expression is employed by Jesus himself on two occasions (Matthew 12:34 and Matthew 23:33). This insult has been borrowed by a number of other writers, including Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida, Anthony Trollope in Barchester Towers, Somerset Maugham in Catalina, and in the title of François Mauriac's Le Nœud de vipères. In Matthew and Luke, the word used for brood implies Illegitimacy, and so scholars, such as Malina and Rohrbaugh, consider a more literal translation to be snake bastards.Superficially, the implication of illegitimacy and the phrase don't think to yourselves "we have Abraham for a father" could be seen as an attack on the importance that Judaism placed on bloodlines. Some, such as R. T. France, do not support this interpretation, and instead see the phrase as a reference to the reliance of the Pharisees and Sadducees on their own religious authority to achieve salvation. Clearly, those having formal hierarchies in their church, particularly Roman Catholicism in regard to the Pope, do not support the interpretation of R. T. France.John goes on to refer to future wrath, although Christians interpret this as referring to the righteous indignation of God. To avoid this wrath, John is described as stating that the fruit of repentance should be made manifest, with every tree not bearing fruit being subject to destruction. The imagery used is of God as a lumberjack cutting down trees and then burning them, much like the imagery at Isaiah 10:34 and Jeremiah 46:22, which may have been the ultimate origin of this verse. An argument for Aramaic primacy can be put forward by this since in Aramaic, the word for a tree root is ikkar, while cutting down is kar, hence in Aramaic the description is an example of punning. Scholars of the eschatological school[4] believe that this verse originally referred to an imminent last judgment which, when it failed to occur, was re-interpreted by later Christianity as referring to individual damnation.In Luke, the crow
d react favourably to John's speech, but Matthew neglects to mention the reaction of the crowd.This passage has become a source of much dispute over soteriology. While the passage could be read as indicating that good works are merely the outgrowth of internal repentance just as good fruit are the product of a healthy tree, it could also be more simply be regarded as indicating that good works are repentance. This verse thus became a part of the larger debate over the doctrine held by Protestants about justification by faith. The Augsburg Confession, for instance, states that "it is taught among us that such faith should produce good fruits and good works and that we must do all such good works as God has commanded, but we should do them for God’s sake and not place our trust in them as if thereby to merit favour before God." 
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