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.
33. Either make the tree good, &c.] The meaning and connection are; “Be honest for once; represent the tree as good, and its fruit as good, or the tree as evil and its fruit as evil; either say that I am evil and that my works are evil, or, if you admit that my works are good, admit that I am good also and not in league with Beelzebub.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Either make … – The fact asserted in this verse is, that a tree is known, not by its leaves, or bark, or form, but by its fruit. The application to the argument is this: You are to judge of mans being in league with Satan by his works. If my doctrines and works be properly the works of Satan, then I am corrupt; if not, then your charge is blasphemy. So, on the other hand, if, notwithstanding your professions, your works are the works of the devil, and your doctrines are such as he would teach, it would prove respecting you that which you charge on me. In this indirect but powerful manner he advances to the charge against them, which he urges in the following verses.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Mat 12:33
Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt.
Trees of righteousness
There are two kinds of religion in the world: one teaches that men are not so holy as they should be, but that by a little attention they may be improved; the other that men are only evil, and must be made new creatures. The one mends, the other makes. Christ says, Make the tree good.
I. Although the tree has been made good by engrafting, and has consequently begun to bear good fruit, the young trees that spring from the seed of that good fruit, when it is sown again, take after the original bitter root of the parent tree, and not after the sweetness subsequently imparted to it. The child of a Christian man is not by birth a Christian.
II. As the first lesson is one of warning to those who presume upon their privileges, the second is one of encouragement to those who have had in youth no privileges to presume upon. Although a young tree has sprung from the seed of an evil tree, it may be made good by engrafting as effectually as if its parent had been the best in the garden. The unprivileged need not despond.
III. Although an evil tree ought to be made good by engrafting while it is young, it may be made good by engrafting after it has grown old. Some are converted in youth; some have mark and date of conversion more distinct than others.
IV. A tree that has been made good does not again become vii; but latent evil in its roots may, if it be not watched, spring up and bear bad fruit, and mingle with the good, and to a great extent outgrow and choke the good.
V. Although the natural head of the tree, either in youth or age, is cut off, and the new, good branch brought near to touch it, unless the new branch take to the old tree, and the old tree at its wound take to the new branch, so that they become one, no change will be affected in the old tree. The wounds of conviction prepare the way for Christ; but if the wounded do not in the end close with Christ, his wounds will not make him safe or holy. (W. Arnot.)
The grafting mark
In fruit-trees fully grown you may sometimes observe a ring round the stem, midway between the ground and the branches, resembling somewhat the mark of a healed wound on a living man. This indicates the place where the natural stem was cut off and a new branch inserted. You perceive at a glance that this tree has been engrafted, and that it was well grown ere it was made good. In the same garden another tree may grow which exhibits no such mark; yet the owner does not value it less on that account. These two trees are equally good and equally prolific. They differ not in their present character, but in the period of life at which they were severally renewed. This latter tree must have been engrafted when it was very young: the cut was made close to the ground when the stem was very slender; and thus the mark has been obliterated by the subsequent growth of the tree. The cicatrice is concealed under the grass, or perhaps under the ground. The renewing has certainly taken place, but when or where no man can tell. The date of its new birth is no longer legible. Such similarities and such differences obtain also among converted men. Some who were born when they were old bear the mark of their regeneration all their days. When the old nature was matured and developed before the change, the memory of the fact is more distinctly retained, and the contrast more vividly displayed. It was thus in the experience of the Apostle Paul. The spiritual man did not in his case obtain the sway while the natural was yet young and tender and easily moulded. Paul was a man, every inch of him, before he was a Christian. I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. (W. Arnot.)
Two kinds of fruit
One clear example of this tendency I knew well in my youth. I think it remains to this day, and I could point to the spot. A grove given over, by the time I knew it, for the purpose of affording shady pleasure-walks, had originally been a fruit-garden. Some of the old fruit-trees had been left standing as ornaments, when the owner no longer looked for a profitable return. These trees were left growing for the sake of their beauty merely, not for the sake of their fruit. They were allowed, accordingly, to run wild, that their appearance might be more picturesque. An aged pear-tree stood there, with a tall, bare, straight stem and round bushy head like an Eastern palm. But while not a single branch grew on the naked trunk, from where it emerged out of the moss to where its head began to spread at three times the height of a man, a number of lively vigorous shoots sprang from its roots, or rather from its stem where it touched the ground. Thus the long bare stem had a bushy head of branches on either extremity. These lower branches had been permitted to grow freely till they reached maturity on their own account, and bore fruit of their own kind. I have seen fruit growing on these suckers, and fruit hanging at the same time high over them on the trees towering head, with a large portion of the bare stem between. I have compared them, and found that which grew from the old root hard and bitter, while that which grew on the head that had been made new, although somewhat deteriorated, retained still the sweet flavour of its best days. Here were two kinds of fruit growing at the same time on one tree-evil fruit growing on the original root, and good fruit growing on that which had been made new. If the tree had been rightly cultivated for the sake of its fruit, those suckers would have been without pity torn off in the bud as soon as they showed themselves, and never have been permitted to open their blossoms or bring forth their fruit. You do not ordinarily see these out-growths from the old stock growing to the size of bearing, on fruit-trees. This, however, is not because they do not manifest a tendency to throw out these shoots, but because the shoots are, in ordinary cases, wrenched off by the husbandman as soon as they appear. (W. Arnot.)
Grafting an old tree
You may see this glory of grace reflected from the field of nature. Perhaps you have looked over the hedge and seen, in a garden by the wayside, a sight that attracted your eye and excited your curiosity. A tree, old, thick, and rusty, has been cut off, not by the ground, but about the height of a man, and the bare stump left standing. On a closer inspection you see one or more small fresh twigs fastened to the bark on the top of the desolate trunk. They are budding and putting out green leaves. It is a tree that had grown old, either barren or bearing bad fruit. Its owner would not longer permit it to occupy uselessly the precious ground. But it is not necessary that he should cut it down and cast it away, in order to make room for another tree. Even this tree, grown old in evil, may be made good. It is not cut down, but cut off, and a new nature engrafted on its stem. Even in old age it will yet be fresh, and flourishing, and fruitful. The owner of the garden counts that he will sooner get a large return by engrafting the old tree than by rooting it out and planting another. The tree was full grown and in vigorous health. The owner will utilize all these powers by sending the sap through a new and better head. It is thus that our Father, the husbandman, takes full-grown vigorous natures, charged with gifts of understanding, and eloquence, and zeal, that have been hitherto occupied with evil, and makes them new creatures by His power. Forthwith they are fit for able-bodied service in the work of the Lord. (W. Arnot.)
The danger of delayed grafting
Let the warning be distinctly, fully given on the other side. If the tree is permitted to grow up and grow old in evil, there is danger lest, by storm or fire, it should be destroyed, and so never be made good. But even although it were insured against all accidents, there is no reason why another, and yet another year an evil tree should cumber the ground, merely to put off the time of its change. (W. Arnot.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 33. Either make the tree good] That is, the effect will be always similar to the cause; a bad tree will produce bad fruit, and a good tree, good fruit.
The works will resemble the heart: nothing good can proceed from an evil spirit; no good fruit can proceed from a corrupt heart. Before the heart of man can produce any good, it must be renewed and influenced by the Spirit of God.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
We met with much the same Mat 7:16. The words here spoken may be understood to have reference to the devil, to the scribes and Pharisees, or to Christ himself.
1. You say I do these things by the devil: you cannot but say the things I do are good; the fruit followeth the nature of the tree: the devil is evil, a corrupt tree, how can he produce good fruit? Or thus;
2. You show yourselves to be corrupt trees by the fruit you bring forth; you indeed are not lewd and profane, but put on a mask and vizard of godliness, but your fruit showeth what you are. Or;
3. If the fruit which I produce be good, why should not you judge me good? Speak things that are consistent; if the fruit be good, the tree must be good; convince me of any evil things that I do, from whence you can rationally conclude that I am a corrupt tree.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
33. Either make the tree good,&c.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Either make the tree good, and his fruit good,…. That is, either assert them both good, or
else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: say they are both evil, for the contrary cannot be affirmed with any consistency and propriety: the matter is easy to be determined,
for the tree is known by his fruit; fruit will discover what a tree is, and accordingly judgment may be made. No man will say a tree is good, and its fruit corrupt; or say, that a tree is corrupt, and its fruit good: these are glaring contradictions, and can never be reconciled. The case Christ here puts, is a very easy and familiar one, and is obvious to common sense: the application of it may be made, either to the foregoing instance of Christ’s casting out devils, which the Jews ascribed to the help of Satan; and then the sense is, either say I am a good man, and do good works, or that I am an evil man, and do evil works: to say that I do good works, as the casting out of devils must be allowed to be, and yet am an evil man, and do this under satanical influence, is as great an inconsistency, as to say that a corrupt tree brings forth good fruit; either therefore condemn these miracles as evil actions, done by confederacy with Satan; or if you will allow them to be good ones, as you do, ascribe them to the Spirit of God; for these things may as easily be determined, as the cause by its effect, or as a tree is known by its fruit: or else this may be applied unto the Pharisees, who, though wicked men, pretended to do good works; and though they set up for men of religion and holiness, yet did evil things, as their words and actions testified; particularly the blasphemy just now uttered by them, charging the miracles of Christ as done by the assistance of the devil, which discovered the malignity and rottenness of their hearts: and the meaning of Christ is, that they would either both say, and do, that which is right and good; or relinquish their pretensions to the character of good and religious men: nothing can be concluded from hence in favour of free will, or a power in the creature to make himself good; for the word “make”, here signifies to “say, affirm, assert”, and the like; see Joh 5:18. Though it may be fairly inferred from hence, that a man must first be a good man, ever he can perform good works, truly and properly so called; and that these are fruits and evidences of the inward real goodness of a man; which must be understood not of a few single actions, but of the common, constant series and course of life.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
INFLUENCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY OF WORDS
V. 33-37
1) “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good;” (e polesate to dendron kalon kai ton karpon autou kalon) “You all either make the tree good, and its fruit good;” This is done by, 1) Planting good seed, 2) Or grafting good stock, so that the tree is good, and produces good fruit, else it is bad, wild and produces bad fruit, displeasing to the owner, Jer 2:21; Rom 11:17-24; Isa 5:1-7.
2) “Or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt:” (e poiesate to dendron sapron kai ton karpon autou sapron) “Or make the tree bad (in a moral sense) and its fruit morally bad,” or corrupt. The good tree is, or refers to, the new nature (the Divine nature) of man that produces -good words, works, fruit and character. The corrupt tree is the old, carnal, nature that produces only leaves, or bad fruit, Mat 7:17-18.
3) “For the tree is known by his fruit.” (ek gar tou karpou to dendron ginosketai) “Because by the nature or kind of fruit the tree bears, the tree is known,” or identified, Mat 7:19-20. The idea is “like produces like,” in kind. Truth in nature is the finger and voice of God. Only a half-blind, badly astigmatized person, would mistake a fig for a thorn, or a grape for an apple.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
33. Either make the tree good It might look like absurdity, that men should be allowed a choice of being either good or bad; but if we consider what sort of persons Christ is addressing, the difficulty will be speedily resolved. We know what opinion was generally entertained about the Pharisees; for their pretended sanctity had so blinded the minds of the common people, that no one ventured to pass sentence on their vices. (134) Wishing to remove this mask, Christ desires them to be either good or bad; or, in other words, declares that nothing is more inconsistent with honesty than hypocrisy, and that it is in vain for men to boast of pretensions to righteousness who are not sincere and upright. (135) So then he puts nothing at their disposal, and withdraws no restraint from them, but only reminds them that their empty professions will avail them nothing so long as they are double, because they must be either good or bad
From the expression, make the tree, some foolishly infer, that it is in every man’s power to regulate his own life and conduct. It is a rhetorical mode of speaking, by which Christ points out the scribes, dispels—so to speak—the smoke of their hypocrisy, and recalls them to pure and genuine uprightness. He afterwards explains the way and manner in which they may show that they are good or bad trees; which is by yielding good or bad fruit: so that there is no ambiguity in the meaning. The life of the scribes was not rendered infamous among men by gross vices. Pride, ambition, and envy, displayed their venom in the slanders which they uttered; but as that venom was not perceived by ignorant people, Christ brings the concealed evil from its lurking-place, and drags it forth to light.
But perhaps it will be objected that, in consequence of the corruption of our nature, it is impossible to find any man who is altogether upright, and free from every vice. The answer is ready. Christ does not demand absolute and entire perfection, but only a sincere and unfeigned disposition, which the Pharisees whom he addresses were far from possessing. As Scripture applies the terms, bad and wicked, to those who are completely given up to Satan, so the sincere worshippers of God, though they are encompassed by the infirmity of their flesh and by many sins, and groan under the burden, are called good. This arises from the undeserved kindness of God, who bestows so honorable a designation on those who aim at goodness.
(134) “ Que nul n’osoit parler de leurs vices, et les condamner;” — “that none dared to speak of their vices, or to condemn them.”
(135) “ Lesquels ne vont point rondement, et n’ont une affection droite;” — “who do not go straight forward, and have not an upright disposition.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(33) Either make the tree good.Like most proverbs and parables, the words present different phases, and admit of various applications. As spoken to men of neutral, half-hearted character, they might seem a call, not without a touch of indignant rebuke, to consistency. At least be thorough; lot principles and actions harmonise. Do not think you can produce the fruit of good works from the tree of a corrupt heart. This, however, is not their meaning here. The men to whom our Lord spoke were not neutral, but in direct hostility to Him, and here, therefore, He presses on them logical rather than practical consistency; make, i.e., reckon, the tree and the fruit as having the same character. If to cast out demons be a good work, then the power from which it flows must be good also. Works of that kind do not come from a corrupt source.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
33-37. Our Lord in this passage first argues in regard to himself, that as his fruit is good, namely, his miracles of mercy, it follows that he is good, and not, as they have blasphemously charged, on the side of evil. He then retorts the same principle on themselves. They cannot do right and good so long as their hearts are evil. Nothing but the change of heart can produce the beneficent change of life.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
33. Either make the tree good That is, consider or hold the tree to be good. There cannot be a permanent contrariety between a moral agent’s moral actions and his moral dispositions.
There is a sort of religious doctrine which teaches that men are not depraved in their natures, but only in their actions. Their nature back of their actions, it is claimed, is either innocent or it is neutral neither good nor bad; and all of human depravity consists in the fact that men do freely act bad, and always will do so. Now, in opposition to this doctrine, our Lord teaches that there is in men a moral nature back of moral action; just as the tree is back of the fruit, just as the fountain is back of the stream, and just as the treasury full of good or evil is drawn from by the owner. It follows from this fact of man’s fallen moral nature, that in order to be pure in life he must become pure in heart. There must be a change in heart in order that there should be a complete change in moral action. This does not indeed deny that in individual acts (as in the fall of the angels or of man) their free will may choose wrong from a right nature. But in their permanent history, the actions and the character will conform to each other.
Now no nature can change itself. If the nature is bad, the resulting action is bad; and if the action is bad, that bad action cannot react and make the nature good. So that no mere natural man can regenerate himself; that is, make his own nature good and pure. No filthy stream can make its fountain clean. No corrupt fruit can send back a stream of pure sap and regenerate the tree.
There must then be a divine aid. A gracious power must be able to enter our nature, and there, by power, make all right, or must communicate to the fallen nature the power to perform those conditions by which it may come right. Fatalism teaches that God by arbitrary power seizes some part of the human race, and absolutely makes them right. Our own Church teaches that God gives the power to all men by his Holy Spirit to do works meet for repentance; that grace used obtains further grace and power; so that by a gracious ability, and not by a natural ability, man may attain reformation, regeneration, and salvation. Yet that grace is not irresistible, nor necessarily unresisted, but accepted and used in action, with a full power of willing and acting otherwise instead.
Tree corrupt Moral corruption of nature lies to a great degree in the state of the dispositions. It consists in a permanent temper and purpose to indulge the appetites, passions, and desires, with little or no regard to the divine law or the obligations of absolute right. Hence sin is either a state or an action which is a transgression of the law.
“Either make the tree good, and its fruit good, or make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt, for the tree is known by its fruit.”
The alternative is then put in another way. It is a choice between making the tree good and or making it corrupt. As agriculturalists they would know that this was dependent on how it was tended and looked after, and whether it was in the hands of the right gardener. By responding to Jesus and His words they can ‘make the tree good’, for He is the Master gardener. They can experience God’s working in their hearts to ‘bless’ them (Mat 5:3-9). They can be ‘saved’. They can come under the Kingly Rule of God which has come upon them. They can become ‘trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord’ (Isaiah (Isa 61:3, contrast verse 13) The alternative is to turn away from God’s mercy, and to neglect His forgiveness, and the offer of His Holy Spirit. Then the tree will become corrupt. It will go beyond the point of no return. And the result will be that it will produce corrupt fruit, fruit that is unwanted and unwelcome and inedible. And in the end, like any tree, each will be known by its fruit.
Later in Mat 15:13 Jesus will refer to the Pharisees as plants which His heavenly Father had not planted, which would be rooted up. There too they were known by their fruits.
Kindred warnings:
v. 33. 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.
v. 34. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
v. 35. A good man, out of the good treasure of the heart, bringeth forth good things; and an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth evil things.
v. 36. But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the Day of Judgment.
v. 37. For by thy words thou shall be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.
These words no longer describe the sin against the Holy Ghost, but they characterize the conduct of such as may be in danger of hardening their hearts against the benign influences of Christ and His Gospel-message. It is the nature of a good tree to yield good fruit; it is the nature of a putrid, rotten tree to have rotten, bad fruit. All depends upon the relation to Christ, whether a person does good or evil works. As for those that followed the Pharisees in their hatred and its consequences: generation of vipers He calls them. The malice, the hypocrisy, the deceit of serpents is their outstanding trait, Mat 3:7; Psa 140:3. John the Baptist and Christ agree in their judgment of them. Satanic evil is all that one may expect from a morally hopeless brood. The poison of their nature must come out in the filthiness, in the malevolence, in the enmity of their tongue. A significant fact: In the midst of His scathing denunciation Jesus uses a proverb that has a good interpretation as well as an evil. The heart, filled to the brim with certain thoughts, naturally overflows in the words expressing the condition of the heart. If the heart be a treasure-house of good, edifying thoughts and desires, they strive to come out in kind, edifying speech. But if sinful desires have taken possession of the heart, there will be passionate outbursts in words directed against all the commandments. Mat 15:19; Mar 7:21. And this is no small matter: Every idle, vain, empty, superfluous word, spoken without need or the purpose of edifying, is a matter of record before God, and must be answered for at the final Judgment. For the word, as the ancient Greeks were wont to say, is the revelation of the soul. Words are the index of a good or a bad heart, of a heart firm in the faith in Christ and full of love toward Him, or of a heart that has never taken thought of the will of the Lord, and is bad out of pure inertness toward that which Christ has declared to be good the poorest species of unbelief.
Mat 12:33. Either make the tree good, &c. “If you make my miracles Beelzebub’s, you must make my doctrine his also: all the good I do, you must say is his work; all the exhortations by which I excite sinners to repentance are his; the knowledge which I give you of the way of life, and the motives I offer for your encouragement to enter upon it, are his. On the other hand, if you make my doctrine GOD’s, you must make mymiracles his likewise; for men judge of the nature of an agent by the actions which he does, just as they judge of trees by the fruit they produce; for which reason you may easily know that I am not in league with Beelzebub; but that you yourselves are so.” Or, we may give the words another turn, thus: “Since you, Pharisees, pretend to extraordinary holiness, your words and actions should be all holy; judge therefore candidly, and speak reverently of the divine dispensations; or, if you will blaspheme, layaside your pretensions to religion; for, however specious these may be, your true characters will be discovered by your words and actions, even as a tree is known by its fruit.” See Macknight, and Beausobre and Lenfant.
Mat 12:33 . Euth. Zigabenus says correctly (comp. Hilary, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Erasmus, Beza, Jansen, Raphel, Kypke, Kuinoel, Schegg, Grimm): . , . , , , , . Either make the tree good ( i.e. judge it to be good), and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad (see on Mat 7:17 ), do not proceed in the same absurd way as you did when you pronounced an unfavourable judgment upon me, when you made the tree bad (declared me to be an instrument of the devil), and gave him credit for good fruit (the casting out of demons), , similarly to our make , is used to denote the expression of a judgment or opinion, therefore in a declarative sense. Joh 5:18 ; Joh 8:53 ; Joh 10:33 ; 1Jn 1:10 ; 1Jn 5:10 ; Xen. Hist. vi. 3. 5 : , you declare them, to be enemies. Stephanus, Thesaurus , ed. Paris, VI. p. 1292, and the passages in Raphel, Herod . p. 154; Kypke, I. p. 66; among Attic writers usually in the middle voice, denotes the tree on which you pronounce a judgment, and nothing is to be supplied after . Some (Grotius, Fritzsche), who, however, attach substantially the same meaning to the figurative terms, take in the sense of to suppose, assume, animo fingere (Xen. Anab. v. 7. 9; Ast, Lex. Plat . III. p. 136 f.), though the imperative is not so well suited to the second clauses, , etc. Others , understanding as meaning, partly to judge , as well as partly to assume , refer it to the evil disposition of the Pharisees, which can be detected in the kind of language they indulge in. So Munster, Castalio, [445] Maldonatus, and others; also de Wette, Neander, Bleek (comp. Olshausen). But in that case the imperative is no longer appropriate to the second clauses. According to Ewald (comp. Baumgarten-Crusius, and Holtzmann, p. 187), the connection and meaning may be thus stated: “Let it not be supposed that these are but mere words! It is exactly the words that spring from the deepest source, and proceed as it were from the root of a man; like tree, like fruit.” is a bold expression in reference not only to the fruit, as has been supposed, but also to the tree itself (“cultivate the tree well, and thus make the tree good”). But is not used in this sense (which would have required instead); and, once more, the imperative expression would scarcely have suited the second clauses, for an alternative so imperious might, with much more propriety, be addressed to persons who were undecided, neutral . Similarly Keim, though without any further grammatical elucidation (“man either makes himself good a tree which bears good fruit or makes himself evil”).
[445] “Hoc pro certo habere necesse esse, quae arbor sit bona, ejus fractum esse bonum. Atqui ista vestra verba malus fructus est: ex quo consequens est vos stirpem esse malam.”
33 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.
Ver. 33. Either make the tree good, &c. ] q.d. Your blasphemy is therefore irremissible, because it is the fruit of so base a root of bitterness, as the desperate malice of your hearts, wilfully crossing your consciences; a wretched despising and despiting of God, and the work of his Spirit, out of revenge, Heb 10:29 . Draw not therefore a fair glove over so foul a hand, but show yourselves in your own colours.
33, 34. ] , not, as generally understood, = ‘ponite,’ ‘ represent as: ’ for then the clause . . . loses its meaning: but literally, make. The verse is a parable, not merely a similitude. ‘There are but two ways open: either make the tree and its fruit both good , or both bad: for by the fruit the tree is known.’ How make , the parable does not say: but let us remember, the Creator speaks, and sets forth a law of his own creation, with which our judgments must be in accord. This verse resumes again the leading argument, and sets forth the inconsistency of the Pharisees in representing Him as in league with evil, whose works were uniformly good. But the words have a double reference: to our Lord Himself, who could not be evil, seeing that His works were good; and (which leads on to the next verse) to the Pharisees, who could not speak good things, because their works were evil.
Mat 12:33-37 . Kindred Logia . With the word concerning blasphemy the self-defence of Jesus against Pharisaic calumny reached its culmination and probably (as in Mark’s report) its close. The sentences following seem to be accretions rather than an organic part of the discourse. They substantially reproduce sayings found in Sermon on Mount (Mat 7:16-20 ), there directed against false prophets, here against false religionists.
Mat 12:33 . = (Euthy. Zig.), judge, pronounce; call both tree and fruit good, or evil; they must both be of one kind, in fact and in thought ( vide Kypke, ad loc. ). The reference of the adage has been much discussed: to the Pharisees or to Christ? Kypke replies: to Christ if you connect with what goes before, to the Pharisees if with what follows. As an adage the saying admits of either application. The Fathers favoured the reference to Christ, whom Meyer follows.
Matthew
‘MAKE THE TREE GOOD’
Mat 12:33 In this Gospel we find that our Lord twice uses this image of a tree and its fruit. In the Sermon on the Mount He applies it as a test to false teachers, who hide, beneath the wool of the sheep’s clothing, the fangs and paws of ravening wolves. He says, ‘By their deeds ye shall know them; for as is the tree so is its fruit.’ That is a rough and ready test, which applies rather to the teacher than to his doctrine, but it applies, to some extent, to the doctrine too, on the hypothesis that the teacher’s life fairly represents it. Of course, it is not the only thing that we have to take into account; but it may prick many a bladder, and unmask many an error, and it is the way by which the masses generally judge of systems and of their apostles. A saintly life has more power than dusty volumes of controversy.
But in our text Christ applies the same thoughts in rather a deeper fashion. Here the lesson that He would have us draw is of the connection between character and conduct; how what we do is determined by what we are, and how, not of course with the same absolute regularity and constancy, but still somewhat in the same fashion as the fruit is true to the tree, so, after all allowance made for ups and downs, for the irregular play of will and conscience, for the strife that is waged within a man, for the temptations of external circumstances, and the like-still, in general, as is the inner man, so is the outward manifestation. The facts of a life are important mainly as registering and making visible the inner condition of the doer. Now, that seems very elementary. Everybody believes that ‘out of the heart are the issues of life,’ as a wise man said long ago, but it is one of the truths that, if grasped and worked into our consciousness, and out in our lives, would do much to revolutionise them. And so, though it is a very old story, and though we all admit it, I wish now to come face to face with the consequences of this thought, that behind action lies character, and that Doing is the second step, and Being is the first.
I. I would ask you to notice how here we are confronted with the great problem for every man.
Therefore, brethren, I have to urge this, that we shall not be doing our true work as men and women, if we are simply trying to better our actions, important as these are. By this saying the centre of gravity is shifted, and in one aspect, the deeds are made less important. The condition of the hidden man of the heart is the all-important thing. Christ’s word comes to each of us as the briefest statement of all that it is our highest duty and truest wisdom to aim at in life-’Make the tree good.’
If you have ever tried it honestly, and have not been contented with the superficial cleaning up of outsides, which consists in shifting the dirt into another place only, not in getting rid of it, I know what met you almost as soon as you began, like some great black rock that rises in a mountain-pass, and forbids all farther advance-the consciousness that you were not good met you. I am not going to talk theological technicalities. Never mind about phrases-they have been the ruin of a great deal of earnest preaching-call it what you like, here is a fact, that whenever a man sets himself, with anything like resolute determination and rigid self-examination, to the task of getting himself right, he finds that he is wrong. That being the case, each of us has to deal with a tremendous problem; and the more earnestly and honestly we try to deal with it, the more we shall feel how grave it is. You can cure a great deal, I know. God forbid that I should say one word that seems to deny a man’s power to do much in the direction of self-improvement, but after all that is done, again you are brought short up on this fact, the testimony of conscience. And so I see men labouring at a task as vain as that of those who would twist the sands into ropes, according to the old fable. I see men seeking after higher perfection of purity than they will ever attain. That is the condition of us all, of course, for our ideal must always outrun our realisation, else we may as well lie down and die. But there is a difference between the imperfect approximation, which we feel to be imperfect, and yet feel to be approximation, and the despairing consciousness, that I am sure a great many of my audience have had, more or less, that I have a task set for me that is far beyond my strength. ‘Talk about making the tree good! I cannot do it.’ So men fold their hands, and the foiled endeavour begets despair. Or, as is the case with some of you, it begets indifference, and you do not care to try any more, because you have tried so often, and have made nothing of it.
There is the problem, how ‘make the tree good,’ the tree being bad, or, at all events, if you do not like that broad statement, the tree having an element of badness, if I may so say, in and amongst any goodness that it has. I do not care which of the two forms of statement you take, the fact remains the same.
II. Note the universal failure to solve the problem.
Yes. And there are a whole set of would-be arboriculturists who tell you they will do it if you will trust to them. Let us look at them. First comes one venerable personage. He says, ‘I am Law, and I prescribe this, and I forbid that, and I show reward and punishment, and I tell you-be a good man.’ Well! what then? It is not for want of telling that men are bad. The worst man in the world knows his duty a great deal more than the best man in the world does it. And whether it is the law of the land, or whether it is the law of society, or the law written in Scripture, or the law written in a man’s own heart, they all come under the same fatal disability. They tell us what to do, and they do not put out a finger to help us to do it. A lame man does not get to the city because he sees a guide-post at the turning which tells him which road to take. The people who do not believe in certain modern agitations about the restrictions of the liquor traffic say, ‘You cannot make people sober by Act of Parliament,’ which is absolutely true, although it does not bear, I think, the inference that they would draw from it, and it just puts into a rough form the fatal weakness of this would-be gardener and improver of the nature of the trees. He tells us our duty, and there an end.
Do you remember how the Apostle put the weakness of law in words, the antique theological terminology of which should not prevent us from seeing the large truth in them? ‘If there had been a law given which could have given life, then righteousness should have been by the law,’ which being translated into modern English is just this, If Law could impart a power to obey its behests, then it is all that we want to make us right. But until it can do that it fails in two points. It deals with conduct, and we need to have character dealt with; and it does not lift the burden that it lays on me with one of its fingers. So we may rule Law out of court.
And then comes another, and he says, ‘I am Culture, and intellectual acquirement; or my name is Education, and I am going to make the tree good in the most scientific fashion, because what makes men bad is that they do not know, and if they only knew they would do the right.’ Now, I thoroughly believe that education diminishes crime. I believe it weans from certain forms of evil. I believe that, other things being equal, an educated man, with his larger interests and his cultivated tastes, has a certain fastidiousness developed which keeps him from being so much tempted by the grosser forms of transgression. I believe that very largely you will empty your gaols in proportion as you fill your schools. And let no man say that I am an obscurantist, or that I am indifferent to the value of education and the benefits of intellectual culture, when I declare that all these may be attained, and the nature of the tree remain exactly what it was. You may prune, you may train along the wall, you may get bigger fruit, you will not get better fruit. Did you ever hear the exaggerated line that describes one of the pundits of science as ‘the greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind’? The plain fact is that the cultivation of the understanding has little to do with the purifying of the depths of the heart.
And then comes another, and says, ‘I am the genius of Beauty and Art. And my recipe is pictures and statues, and all that will refine the mind, and lift the taste.’ That is the popular gospel of this day, in a great many quarters. Yes, and have we never heard of a period in European history which was, as they call it, ‘the Renaissance’ of art and the death of morality? Do we not know that side by side there have been cultivated in all ages, and are being cultivated to-day, the most exclusive devotion to the beauty that can be expressed by art, and the most intense indifference to the beauty of holiness? Ah! brethren, it wants something far deeper-going than pictures to purge the souls of men. And whilst, as before, I thankfully acknowledge the refining influence of this new cult, I would protest against the absurdity of putting it upon a pedestal as the guide and elevator of corrupted humanity.
And then come others, and they say, ‘Environment is the thing that is to blame for it all. How can you get decent lives in the slums?’ No, I know you cannot; and God bless every effort made to get the people out of the slums, I say. Only do not let us exaggerate. You cannot change a man, as deeply as we need to be changed, by any change of his circumstances. ‘Take the bitter tree,’ as I remember an old Jewish saying has it, ‘take the bitter tree and plant it in Eden, and water it with the rivers there; and let the angel Gabriel be the gardener, and the tree will still bear bitter fruit.’ Are all the people who live in good houses good? Will a ‘living wage’-eight shillings a day and eight hours’ play-will these change a man’s character? Will these go deep enough down to touch the springs of evil? You cannot alter the nature of a set of objects by arranging them in different shapes, parallelograms, or squares, or circles, or any others. As long as you have the elements that are in human nature to deal with, you may do as you like about the distribution of wealth, and the relation of Capital to Labour, and the various cognate questions which are all included in the vague word Socialism; and human nature will be too strong for you, and you will have the old mischiefs cropping out again. Brethren, you cannot put out Vesuvius by bringing to bear on it the squirts of all the fire engines in creation. The water will go up in steam, and do little or nothing to extinguish the fire. And whilst I would thankfully help in all these other movements, and look for certain limited results of good from them, I, for my part, believe, and therefore I am bound to declare, that neither singly, nor all of them in combination, will they ever effect the change on human nature which Jesus Christ regarded as the only possible means for securing that human nature should bear good fruit.
For, if there were no other reason, there are two plain ones which I only touch. God is the source of all good, of all creatural purity as well as all creatural blessedness. And if a life has a blank wall turned to Him, and has cut itself off from Him, I do not care how you educate it, fill it full of science, plunge it into an atmosphere of art, make the most perfect arrangements for social and economical and political circumstances, that soul is cut off from the possibility of good, because it is cut off from the fontal source of all good. And there is another reason which is closely connected with this, and that is that the true bitter tang in us all is self-centring regard. That is the mother-tincture that, variously coloured and compounded, makes in all the poisonous element that we call sin, and until you get something that will cast that evil out of a man’s heart, you may teach and refine and raise him and arrange things for him as you like, and you will not master the source of all wrong and corrupt fruit.
III. Lastly, let me say a word about the triumphant solution.
He does it by coming to us; to every soul of man on the earth, and offering, first, forgiveness for all the past. I do not know that amongst all the bonds by which evil holds a poor soul that struggles to get away from it, there is one more adamantine and unyielding than the consciousness that the past is irrevocable, and that ‘what I have written I have written,’ and never can blot out. But Jesus Christ deals with that consciousness. It is true that ‘whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap,’ and the Christian doctrine of forgiveness does not contradict that solemn truth, but it assures us that God’s heart is not turned away from us, notwithstanding the past, and that we can write the future better, and break altogether the fatal bond that decrees, apart from Him, that ‘to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant,’ and that past sin shall beget a progeny of future sins. That fruitfulness of sin is at an end, if we take Christ for our Saviour.
He makes the tree good in another fashion still; for the very centre, as it seems to me, of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that into our spirits He will breathe a new life kindred with His own, a new nature which is free from the law and bonds of past sin, and of present and future death. The tree is made good because He makes those who believe in Him ‘new creatures in Christ Jesus.’ Now, do not turn away and say that that is mysticism. Be it mysticism or not, it is God’s truth. It is the truth of the Christian Revelation, that faith in Jesus Christ puts a new nature into any man, however sinful he may have been, and however deep the marks of the fetters may have been upon his limbs.
Christ makes the tree good in yet another fashion, because He brings to the reinforcement of the new life which He imparts the mightiest motives, and sways by love, which leads to the imitation of the Beloved, which leads to obedience to the Beloved, which leads to shunning as the worst of evils anything that would break the communion with the Beloved, and which is in itself the decentralising of the sinful soul from its old centre, and the making of Christ the Beloved the centre round which it moves, and from which it draws radiance and light and motion. By all these methods, and many more that I cannot dwell upon now, the problem is triumphantly solved by Christianity. The tree is made good, and ‘instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree.’
You may say, ‘That is all very well in theory. What about the practice? I do not see such a mighty difference between you Christians and us.’ Well, for myself and my brethren, I accept the rebuke. There is not such a difference as there ought to be. But do you know why? Not because our great Gardener cannot change the nature of the plant, but because we do not submit ourselves to His power as we ought to do. Debit us with as many imperfections and inconsistencies as you like, do not lay them to the charge of Christ.
And yet we are willing to accept the test of Christianity which lies in its power to change men. I point to the persecutor on the road to Damascus. I point to the Bedfordshire tinker, to him that wrote Pilgrim’s Progress . I point to the history of the Christian Church all down through the ages. I point to our mission fields to-day. I point to every mission hall, where earnest, honest men are working, and where, if you go and ask them, they will let you see people lifted from the very depths of degradation and sin, and made honest, sober, respectable, hard-working, though not very intelligent or refined, Christian people. I suppose that there is no man in an official position like mine who cannot look back over his ministry and remember, some of them dozens, some of them scores, some of them hundreds, of cases in which the change was made on the most hopeless people, by the simple acceptance of the simple gospel, ‘Christ died for me, and Christ lives in me.’ I know that I can recall such, and I am sure that my brethren can.
People who are not Christians talk glibly about the failure of Christianity to transform men. They have never seen the transformations because they have never put themselves in the way of seeing them. They are being worked to-day; they might be worked here and now.
Try the power of the Gospel for yourselves. You cannot make the tree good, but you can let Jesus Christ do it. The Ethiopian cannot change his skin, nor the leopard his spots, but Jesus can do both. ‘The lion shall eat straw like the ox.’ It is weary work to be tinkering at your acts. Take the comprehensive way, and let Him change your character. I believe that in some processes of dyeing, a piece of cloth, prepared with a certain liquid, is plunged into a vat full of dye-stuffs of one colour, and is taken out tinged of another. The soul, wet with the waters of repentance, and plunged into the ‘Fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness,’ the crimson fountain of the blood of Christ, emerges ‘whiter than snow.’ Let Him ‘make the tree good and fruit will be good,’ for if not we shall be ‘hewn down and cast into the fire,’ because we cannot bear any fruit unto holiness, nor can the end be everlasting life.
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat 12:33-37
33″Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. 34You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. 35The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. 36But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. 37For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Mat 12:33 “for the tree is known by its fruit” What one does, like what one says, reveals the true self. See note at Mat 7:16.
Mat 12:34 “You brood of vipers” Jesus used His harshest language for the religious leaders of His day. In this regard He followed the preaching of John the Baptist (cf. Mat 3:7). The Serpent of Genesis 3 could be the original source of this metaphor (cf. Rev 12:9; Rev 20:2).
“For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart” It is not what goes into a person, but what comes out, that defiles (cf. Mar 7:17-23). Humans reveal themselves by what they say. Speech is part of the image of God. Speech reveals the heart (cf. Matt. Mat 7:11; Mat 7:20; Luk 6:44; Jas 3:12). See SPECIAL TOPIC: HUMAN SPEECH at Mat 15:19.
Mat 12:35 The “treasure” refers to a person’s inner self (cf. Luk 6:45).
Mat 12:36 “they shall give an account for it in the day of judgment” Jesus repeatedly spoke about judgment and its eternal consequences (cf. Matthew 7; Matthew 25). This relates to those who have rejected Jesus. Their lives, priorities, and words reflect their spiritual choices (cf. Mat 12:37).
Mat 12:37 See SPECIAL TOPIC: HUMAN SPEECH at Mat 15:19.
his = its.
is known = getteth known. Greek. ginosko. App-132.
by = from. Greek. ek.
33, 34.] , not, as generally understood, = ponite,-represent as: for then the clause … loses its meaning:-but literally, make. The verse is a parable, not merely a similitude. There are but two ways open: either make the tree and its fruit both good, or both bad: for by the fruit the tree is known. How make, the parable does not say: but let us remember, the Creator speaks, and sets forth a law of his own creation, with which our judgments must be in accord. This verse resumes again the leading argument, and sets forth the inconsistency of the Pharisees in representing Him as in league with evil, whose works were uniformly good. But the words have a double reference: to our Lord Himself, who could not be evil, seeing that His works were good; and (which leads on to the next verse) to the Pharisees, who could not speak good things, because their works were evil.
Mat 12:33. , and) Understand again , make; resolving the imperative into the future.-, good) The Jews wished to be a good tree with bad fruit, though they plainly knew it to be contrary to the truth.
make the good tree, Mat 23:26, Eze 18:31, Amo 5:15, Luk 11:39, Luk 11:40, Jam 4:8
and his fruit good: Mat 3:8-10, Mat 7:16-20, Luk 3:9, Luk 6:43, Luk 6:44, Joh 15:4-7, Jam 3:12
Reciprocal: 1Sa 24:13 – Wickedness Psa 36:1 – The transgression Pro 10:16 – the fruit Pro 21:8 – but Isa 10:12 – punish the fruit of the stout heart Isa 65:2 – after Jer 4:14 – wash Mat 7:17 – but Mat 13:23 – beareth Mar 11:14 – No 2Co 5:17 – a new 2Co 7:1 – let Gal 5:22 – the fruit 1Ti 6:5 – men
2:33
Make is said in the sense of describe or consider or classify. The clause means that as a bad tree cannot produce good fruit, so the good work of casting out a devil could not be done by a wicked character like Satan.
Mat 12:33. Either make the tree good, etc.The law of Gods creation is: good trees, good fruit; corrupt trees, evil fruit. Judge the tree by its fruit. My works are good, hence I am good; the blasphemous words of the Pharisees show their character. Some explain make as meaning exhibit, represent, but the application is the same.
For by the fruit the tree is known. Comp. chap. Mat 7:20. The mention of this general principle here favors the view that Mat 12:31-32 are to be applied to a state.
These words may either refer to the Pharisees, or to Christ himself.
If to the Pharisees, the sense is, You hypocritical Pharisees show yourselves what you are by our words and actions, even as the fruit showeth what the tree is.
If they refer to Christ, then they are an appeal to the Pharisees themselves, to judge of our Saviour and his doctrine by the miracles which he wrought.
If he wrought by the devil, his works would be as bad as the devil’s; but if his works were good, they must own them to be wrought by the power of God.
The expression implies, that a man may be known by his actions, as a tree may be known by his fruit; yet not by a single action, but by a series of actions; not by a particular act, but by our general course.
Mat 12:33-35. Either make the tree good, and his fruit good, &c. That is, you must allow they are both good, or both bad: for if the fruit be good, so is the tree; if the fruit be evil, so is the tree also. Judge, therefore, by my works, of the power by which I work: if it be not a good work to heal the sick, and blind, and lame, and cast out devils, and preach repentance and forgiveness of sins, to convert and save souls, then God is not the author of them. If they be bad works, they have a bad cause; if they be good works, they have a good author: either say plainly, (you that ascribe them to the devil,) that the works are good and the devil is good; or else that the devil is bad and the works are bad: or, if you confess that the works are good, confess that they are done by the Spirit of God.
Baxter. O generation of vipers Perverse, venomous, deceitful creatures; how can ye, being evil Being envious and malicious, speak good things It is surely a force upon nature whenever you do so; and you will easily return to such uncharitable and impious language as we have now been hearing from you; the thoughts of your hearts showing themselves by the words of your mouths. For out of the abundance of the heart The overflowing pride, envy, and malice thereof, the mouth speaketh Utters words of the same nature with the corrupt source from whence they flow. A good man, out of the good treasure of the heart The wisdom and piety, the truth and grace lodged there, bringeth forth good things. Freely and abundantly, to the edification of all with whom he converses. And an evil man A man full of corrupt affections and dispositions; a man of an earthly, sensual, and devilish mind, out of the evil treasure The corrupt principles and inclinations which are within him, bringeth forth evil things Wicked words and actions, and that naturally and readily: and even when he labours most artfully to disguise himself and his character, breaks out, like you, in some unguarded moment, into such language as betrays the shame he would conceal.
Verse 33
They had attributed the Savior’s efforts relieving the sick and the suffering, to the influence of Satan–the very personification of malice and wickedness. This was making good fruit come from a very bad tree.
Jesus proceeded to point out that conduct typically reflects character (Mat 12:33-37; cf. Mat 7:16-19). To have good fruit one must make the tree good, for example by cultivating, grafting, fertilizing, etc. If one makes a tree rotten by neglect and abuse, for example, one will get bad fruit. A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree yields bad fruit. Jesus’ works were good, so He must be good.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)