Matthew 3:8-10

THE ABRAHAMIC PATERNITY

Matthew 3:8-10, and Luke 3:8-10. O the withering denunciations which leaped from the eloquent lips of John, like lightning from the skirts of the clouds! “Ye generations of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance; and do not think to say among yourselves, We have father Abraham: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

Already, indeed, the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree, not producing good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire.” The rank and the of fallen Judaism at that day, like the Moslem millions now, as well as the unbelieving Jews, were depending upon their Abrahamic lineage to save them, pursuant to the infallible promises of Cod to that patriarch and his seed, constituting the Abrahamic Covenant. This is all a fond delusion of the devil, a greased plank, over which he has slidden countless millions into hell. Under the Mohammedan priesthood the barbaric children of Abraham, through Ishmael and Esau, this day expect heaven pursuant to the Abrahamic Covenant. Really there is no Abrahamic Covenant, but it is simply the Covenant of Redemption, which God made with His Son, before Abel died, to save all the faithful in Christ. This identical covenant God reiterated and established with Abraham. (Galatians 3:16.) Hence the Abrahamic paternity is not carnal, but spiritual, including all the saved in Christ. (Galatians 3:7.) The viper of the Old World is the congener of the rattlesnake in this country. The serpent is the progeny of Satan, having been subsidized by him in the abduction of humanity, and anathematized by the Almighty (Genesis 3:14) in his transformation into the groveling, obnoxious, poisonous progeny of the archenemy. Stones here symbolize the flinty hearts of Satan-ridden reprobates, which the Holy Ghost is abundantly competent to transform into the sanctified children of heaven, thus making them the spiritual children of Abraham. The ax symbolizes Divine retribution; the tree, every human being. The whole human race are under a dispensation of grace, whether they have ever heard the gospel trumpet sound a solitary note. A momentous crisis came to the Jews with the ministry of John and his introduction of Jesus. Hitherto they could be saved by the Excarnate Christ, under the ministry of the law and the prophets. Now that He has come in human flesh, they must receive Him, or grieve away the Holy Spirit and take the fatal plunge into reprobacy and damnation. O what a flood-tide, led by those proud Church-rulers, to whom John was preaching this awfully plain truth, did reject Christ and take the horrific plunge into irretrievable woe!