A bad tree can not produce good fruit. Seems pretty simple, right? Jesus was saying that if a tree is rotten it can only produce rotten fruit.
This is what Jesus taught Israel when He told them about false prophets and their false teaching. He related the bad fruit to their words, not their works. And the same goes for anyone who claims to be a believer who teaches anything that does not align with the word of God.
In the example Jesus gave in Mt.7 was the teaching that it was their works righteousness that made them false prophets. It’s the same message Paul taught throughout his epistles.
Because their’s was an experience with the law that is all about works that caused many in Israel to fall into the trap that works have anything to do with righteousness. So it was natural for them to make this mistake.
Even though it meant taking their eyes off of the God who gave the law and their trustin Him for righteousness. And instead putting their trust in its keeping to make them acceptable to God.
But, why does any gentile, that is the people of the rest of the nations, fall into this trap? They have never been accountable to God to keep the law. Yet many of them have adopted the same thinking many Israelites did.
The reason this happens is because like Augustine who introduced this false doctrine to the Roman Catholic church, they too want an excuse for their bad behavior. An excuse that is found in the false doctrine of original sin and sin nature.
Indeed, these doctrines promoted and adopted by the Roman Catholic religion and passed down to evangelical Protestants have at their very heart the same works righteousness that Jews found in their required law keeping.
Last week we focused on original sin and its effects on theology taught in seminaries and churches all over the world. Today we will look closely at sin nature and its effects.
How that this belief gives men the excuse they’re looking for to account for the naughty things they do. To place the blame elsewhere because it can’t be their fault that they do them. They were made that way. Putting the blame on God for making them this way and capriciously condemning them for it.
Some have come to realize the lie that sin nature is and while rejecting it have developed a theology that while helping them to turn from it, still keeps them in a works righteousness paradigm.
This theology is called moral gov’t theology. And traces its roots back to a 16th-century Dutch jurist named Hugo Grotius. And was preached by Charles Finney from 1825 to 1835 in America.
Basically teaching that men have free will and therefore can not have a sin nature. This much is true. But, they ignorantly conclude that when by this free will they choose to trust in Jesus the proof they are truly saved will be in their never doing anything naughty. And that if they do sin this is proof that they have not trusted in Jesus.
This is why this is a righteousness by works theology every bit as much as sin nature and original sin. Because once again, after having been set free from the false works righteousness of original sin and sin nature, they turn again to works being evidence for righteousness.
Again as before when we were looking at original sin and how Jesus accomplished salvation for us we see the subtlety of the serpent. Because even after rejecting that man has a sin nature by rightly concluding that free will and sin nature are mutually exclusive. They return to works being the evidence that a man is saved.
This is why Jesus taught saying “beware of false prophets” in Mt.7. At the end in vs.24-29 showing us that if our house of faith is to stand it must be built upon the rock which is the faith of Jesus Christ. And not on the sand of works righteousness.
Telling Israel in Joshua 24:15 to “choose you this day whom you will serve”. And saying again in Mt.12:37 that “by your words you will be justified. And by your words you will be condemned.” Because our words are the fruit of our heart which is the tree.
Placing the sole responsibility for their choices squarely upon them. So that when God judges it is not capricious, but just. Because He gave to men free will so their choices would really be their own.
So the foundation of a bad tree is always when we make works our definition for righteousness. Whether they be our own works or someone else’s. And in the case of sin nature use that as an excuse for bad works. And make God capricious in His judgments like the false gods.
Which is probably why people who believe like this gravitate toward predestination meaning God chooses who will and who will not be saved before we ever make a choice. And because of this believe that there are babies in hell.
This is why I have always taught that believing sin nature changes our perception of who God is, who Jesus is, and what the atonement was for. Because by believing in sin nature we discover a being that not only made us in a way that forces us to sin. He also punishes us for the sin for which we were made to do.
If you make a table but capriciously decide you want it to be a chair, do you get angry with the table when it can not function as a chair? This is what those who believe sin nature believe about God’s character.
They arrive here because their foundational beliefs are the bad tree Jesus said can not produce good fruit. Because sin nature is a rejection of free will. And without free will men can never truly and fully know the love of God.
In this analogy we find in Mt.12:33-37 Jesus said “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.“
Jesus did not say here that He would make the tree good or bad without your consent or participation. He did not say He would place the words in our hearts so we could say them without consent or participation either. He said for us to make the tree good or bad. And that this is evidenced when our words are the kind that express faith in Him.
Paul said the same thing in different words in Rom.10:9,10. Saying, “If you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus. And believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead. You shall be saved.”
This confession is words that come from a heart that believes. Believing that salvation is knowing Jesus and confessing the same. This is the good tree and good fruit Jesus told them about.
And how does the scripture say the bad tree/bad fruit Pharisees responded? They asked “Master, we would see a sign from thee.” A sign?! What in the world do signs have to do with words? Nothing, and that’s why they asked the question. Because their thinking was that anyone who claims to know the truth as Jesus did must also have works that show this. Because works was where they believed they attained to righteousness.
But, rather than going down that rabbit hole Jesus stuck to the subject of His teaching that faith in Him alone is righteousness and “answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” He spoke of His death and resurrection for which they had no frame of reference because they did not believe the prophets.
Which is why Jesus finished His discourse with them saying, “41 The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.”
The Pharisees made the tree bad by having hatred in their hearts for their promised messiah. And from that hatred in their hearts came the bad fruit of words that rejected Him. This acknowledgment and confession is the foundation for the bad tree and its bad fruit.
But, the foundation for the good tree and its good fruit is believing in our heart that He has raised from the dead. And confessing with our mouth the Lord Jesus. Without any regard for His or our own works for our righteousness. Do this and you shall be saved.
Do this and you will be born again. Do this and you will be made a spiritual being by a spirit God creates in you when you trust in Jesus that you never had before. A spirit that makes you a child of God and heir to His kingdom. Do this… and I will see you there or in the air!
This message can also be heard at: https://rumble.com/v7hc8iu-bad-tree-bad-fruit.-teaching-sin-nature-is-the-fruit-of-a-very-bad-tree-mt..html
