Matthew 3:7

III. THE HOLY SPIRIT AND FIRE.

7. When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

The two principal religious sects. The first originated in the time of the Maccabees, and were. kind of Jewish Puritans, but had in the Savior's time degenerated into. set of formalists, who paid far more attention to outward forms than to inner life. The Sadducees were materialistic, skeptical, sensual, worldly. The Pharisees were religious in their way, but blind, full of spiritual pride and prejudiced; the Sadducees had little religion.

Generation of vipers.

No apology must be made for the denunciatory preaching of John; no more than for the thunder and smoke of Sinai, or for the fire and brimstone of Gehenna. Neither commentator nor preacher should effeminately shrink at the "mention of hell to ears polite." Doubtless John applied precisely the right epithet, and threatened precisely the true destiny to these future murderers of the Messiah he came to announce.-- Whedon. The guilty, corrupted race of mankind is become. generation of vipers; not only poisoned but poisonous, hateful to God, hating one another. This magnifies the patience of God, in continuing the race of mankind upon the earth, and not destroying the nest of vipers. He did it once by water.

Who hath warned you?

In other words, who hath taught you, and how came you to think that while yet you remain as you are, and without an inward change of mind, you can escape the wrath to come by compliance with an outward sign alone? The last of the Old Testament prophets had also spoken of the judgment to be executed by the Messiah (Malachi 4:5-6); but the Jews pacified themselves with the idea that this threat applied to the Gentiles, and not to themselves.-- Van Oosterzee.