PARABLE OF THE AXE. Matthew iii. 10. Luke iii. 9. 'And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore, every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down, andcast into the fire.'-Matt. iii. 10. THIS figure occurs in an address made by John the Baptist to the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to his baptism. (Matt. iii. 7.) He rebuked them severely for their wickedness, calling them a 'generation of vipers,' and inquired who had warned them to flee from the wrath to come.' This latter expression has by some been supposed to have reference to a judgment in the future state of existence; but all the best commentators, as well as the context itself, forbid such an application. That celebrated critic, Dr. George Campbell, who believed in a future judgment, objected to the phrase, 'wrath to come,' because it appeared to limit the sense to that judgment: he chose, therefore, to use the expression, 'the impending vengeance.' The Greek word in this instance, he adds, ' often means not only future, but near. There is just such a difference between εσται and μελλει εσεσθαι, in Greek, as there is between it will be and it is about to be, in English.' The obvious sense is, the wrath about to come, or more briefly, the impending vengeance.* Adam Clarke takes the same view. He says the wrath to come was the desolation about to fall on the Jewish nation for their wickedness, and threatened in the last words of their Scriptures. (See Mal. iv. 6.) 'Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.' This wrath or curse was coming they did not prevent it by turning to God *Note on the passage. and receiving the Messiah, and therefore the wrath of God came upon them to the uttermost.'* These views agree with that of the celebrated Dr. Lightfoot, a divine of undoubted orthodoxy, who was one of the famous Westminster Assembly. He says of the phrase 'wrath to come,' 'In this speech John seemeth to refer to the last words in all the Old Testament; where Malachi, prophesying of the Baptist, and of his beginning to preach the gospel, he shall turn, saith he, the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. This meaneth that wrath to come which should surely fall upon them, if they should disobey the gospel, which was now the last means offered them for their conversion. And so it came to pass with them, when, about forty-four years after this, they were destroyed by the Romans.'t Bishop Pearce, a distinguished commentator of the church of England, says, that the wrath to come is the punishment to come in the destruction of the Jewish state.' Dr. Hammond, gives it the same interpretation.§ Dr. Gill too, though we should hardly expect it, gives his authority in favor of the same explanation. By wrath to come,' says he, 'is not meant hell fire, everlasting destruction, from which baptism could not save them; but temporal calamity and destruction, the wrath which in a little time came upon that nation to the uttermost.'|| The modern author, Kenrick, observes unequivocally, "The impending punishment in the destruction of the Jewish state, I suppose to be referred to by the 'wrath to come.'¶ After the interrogation which John addressed to the Pharisees and Sadducees, he calls upon them to bring forth fruits meet for repentance;' that is, if they were really the * Comment. on New Tes. in Matt. iii. 7. + Works, iv. 264. Comment. on the place. § Paraphrase and Annot. on the place.. Expos. on the place. subjects of repentance, they ought to evince it by their conduct. He cautions them not to depend too much on their descent from the patriarch Abraham; for God was able, even from inanimate things, to raise up children unto Abraham; ver. 9. They, therefore, were neither the better onor the worse, for being the children of Abraham. That circumstance would not save them in the day of trouble. The Jews were not only proud of their ancestry, but they seem to have relied upon it for safety in times of public danger and calamity; as though Abraham, the faithful, the friend of God, would not see his children suffer, without granting relief. Hence the rich man, in the parable, (Luke xvi. 24,) is represented as calling on Abraham as his father, and begging his intercession to alleviate his sufferings. John was aware of their habit in this respect; and he beseeches them not to think themselves of any greater consideration because they were the children of Abraham; for God was able of the stones on the banks of Jordan to raise up children unto Abraham.* Let it be noticed here, once for all, that the Jews gloried exceedingly in being the children of Abraham, and trusted in their affinity to the patriarch to save them from divine judgment. We be Abraham's seed,' said they to Christ, and were never in bondage to any man.' (John viii. 33, 53.) Dr. Lightfoot gives an instance of the same national vanity. It is storied of R. Jochan au Ben Matthias, that he said to his son, Go out, and hire us some laborers.' He went out and hired them for their victuals. When he came home to his father, his father said to him, My son, though thou shouldst make feasts for them, as gaudy as the feasts of Solomon, thou wouldst not do enough for them, because they are the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.' (Works xii. 321.) Dr. Whitby says on Luke xvi. 24, As the Baptists taxeth their vain imaginations in hoping to be preserved from divine judgment whilst they lived, because they were the children of Abraham, (Matt. iii. 9, so our Lord here may strike at a vain imagination got among them.' Again, Whitby says in another place,' they thought it sufficient to obtain God's favor, and to secure them from his judgment, that they were of the seed of Abraham. The Chaldee Paraphrasts do often mention their expectation of being preserved for the merits or good works of their forefathers, &c. (Com on Rom. ii. 13.) The modern expositor Kenrick has a valuable note. The Jews valued themselves highly on account of their relation to their ancestor Abraham, for whose sake they supposed themselves secure of the divine favor, and safe from danger as a nation. It is the object of John the Baptist therefore, as it was afterward of Jesus Christ, and the apostle Paul, to remove from To show them that the destruction of the nation was at hand, and that it should be thorough, John says, 'And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore, every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down, and cast into the fire.' Here we have the metaphor of the axe, of the trees, and of hewing down the trees, and casting them into the fire. Now, to understand the true application of these metaphors, the best way is to have recourse to the Old Testament. 1. Of the axe. In 2 Sam. xii. 31, and 1 Chron. xx. 3, we find the following language: And he brought forth the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under aces of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln; and thus did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon.' This is a description of the severe afflictions which the children of Israel visited upon their conquered enemies. (Isa. x. 15) Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up; or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood.' Compare verses 5, 6, 12-14, whence you may gather the sense here. The king of Assyria was the rod of God's anger, the staff of his indignation,' and the axe with which he hewed down the nations. he grew proud, and attributed his success to the strength of his own hand, the power of his own wisdom. Hence, says the prophet, shall the axe boast itself? &c. The enemies of Babylon, who overthrew that great city, are But their minds this ill-founded pride and hope of impunity, which was the greatest obstacle to the cultivation of right dispositions, and to all reformation of manners, telling them they were by no means so secure of continuing the peculiar people of God as they imagined; for that God was able to raise children to Abraham, from the most inanimate parts of nature as he had already raised seed to him from one as good as dead; and that he would rather do so than show favor to them while they continued to disobey his laws. In these words there may be an allusion to the call of the Gentiles, who, by their faith and obedience, should deserve to be called the children of Abraham, but from whom the Jews would expect those virtues no sooner than from stocks and stones.' (Expos. Matt. iii. 9.) |