God’s message to the world always comes through God’s man. And more often than not this message would be a radical one. It would be met with intrigue and unbelief. John Baptist was one such man to whom the word of the Lord came after a long period of silence. For almost 400 years there was no ‘Thus saith the Lord…”. And then out comes our man from the desert where he’s been waiting upon God. John’s task though simple and short – a bell boy to open the door for Christ – his message was the most radical one till then. He was to announce the tectonic shift in God’s plan for world’s redemption. And even after 2000 years his message still remains a radical one today.
John started out by making mockery of the Jewish bloodline when he said “So you think you can claim Abraham’s lineage? That doesn’t matter one bit to God (Matt 3)”. Till then the Jews had monopoly on truth. They were God’s chosen race. It was to them that God promised salvation. And it was through birth that you became a Jew and not through rituals. But suddenly there’s our new preacher who pulls the rug from under their feet. He tells them that Abraham’s bloodline means nothing to God. It was a radical message then. Alas even today John’s message is a radical one to the church. People believe that you are a Christian because your father was a Christian and that you go to church every Sunday. Very many people in the church believe that they are Christians because they were born to Christian parents and were baptized in the church as infants. You tell them John’s message and they’ll be offended.
And then he added “Every tree that does not produce good fruit…”. Now, producing ‘good fruit’ was not required of the Jews. Theirs was to keep traditions and obey the law to the letter. You cannot tell a Jew to be good. You have to tell him to keep the law. He couldn’t ‘produce’ goodness, but he could keep the law. None before him had taken the Jews to task by asking them to produce ‘good fruit’ (righteousness). The earlier prophets would preach against idolatry or flouting the commandments and so on. They would coax them to adhere to the precepts of God. But here was a prophet wagging his index finger and taking them to task for not ‘producing good fruit’. They were handicapped in this. The law couldn’t produce righteousness (Rom7). But this preacher was preaching about something that produces righteousness. This was new and radical. Even today people in the church would look at you with indifference when you tell them that you have to be like Jesus (producing righteousness). They’d tell you “we can’t be like Jesus since Jesus was God”. When you quote the writer of Hebrews and say “see, we are to take Jesus as our example”, they’d laugh at you and keep away from you like you were a heretic. John’s message of his day still remains a radical one today.
He continued that “… these trees that do not produce good fruit will be cut down from the root and thrown into the fire.” This was not the nipping of the bud that the law would do (dealing with the actions) but this was taking the whole thing at the roots (a complete change at the thought level – the root of actions). The axe was at the root – this meant a radical change. What this meant was that every tree that could not produce good fruit – which included every single Jew since the law could not produce righteousness (Rom 7) – will be thrown into fire. Which fire???? The Holy Spirit fire. Yes, the Holy Spirit fire. Hear him continue “I baptize you with water but He who comes after me will baptize you with Holy Spirit fire”. John’s message was this – “the law couldn’t produce righteousness in you, but Jesus will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and that will do the trick. And then you will produce good fruit”. This was his radical message. He was hinting at the impotence of the law and the importance of the Holy Spirit. This was a radical message in his times and in ours too. Nobody would believe you when you tell them that when we are baptized by Jesus in the Holy Spirit then we’ll produce ‘good fruits’ like Jesus himself did. First of all half the people in the church wouldn’t believe you when you say ‘Holy Spirit’ and then the rest would laugh at you when you say that you’ll produce good works. They’ll open their Bibles and tell you from the book of Acts that you’ll speak in tongues when you are baptized by the Holy Spirit and dismiss you. Well, God’s message to mankind still remains a radical one and I choose to believe His word when it says “The door is small which leads to life and the road is narrow. Only a few people are finding it. (Matt7:14)”.
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