Luke 6:43

See Poole on "Mat 7:16", and following verses to Mat 7:20. Luk 6:43 and Luk 6:44 are expounded in Luk 6:45. Men and women here (as in other texts of Scripture) are compared to trees, with respect to their root and fruit, and the dependence the fruit hath upon the root and the nature of the tree. The heart of man is made the root, that being the principle of human actions, as the root is the principle to the fruit; for all the overt actions of a man’s life are but the imperate acts of the heart and of the will. Hence it is that a will renewed and sanctified in a man, and made conformable to the will of God, doth not only will and choose the will of God, love it, desire it, and delight in it; but commandeth the tongue to direct its discourses conformable to it, and also commandeth all the members of the body, in their motions and order, to act conformably: and on the contrary, the unrenewed and unsanctified will of man doth not only reject and refuse the will of God, but directeth the tongue to words contrary to the Divine will, and all the members of the body, in their motions and order, to act without any respect to or awe of the will of God.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Luk_6:43-44

For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither a corrupt tree bringeth forth good fruit

Good works the evidence of new creation

We cannot perform any good works, unless we are created unto them in Christ Jesus; and hence that creation in Christ Jesus cannot be anywise the effect or consequence of our good works: we were saved, as the apostle tells us, by grace, when we were dead in trespasses and sins.

But if we are indeed created anew in Christ Jesus, our good works must follow, as a necessary, certain, irrepressible result. They are the only evidence of that creation to others: and they are no less indispensable to ourselves, to certify us of its reality. If we do not bring forth good works, we ought to be convinced that we cannot have been created anew in Christ Jesus, that in one way or other the process of our regeneration has been marred. Good works are the mark, the proof, the evidence of Christian life; they are the badge of a Christian community; and they are the means through which the members of that community are bound together, and the Christian life is brought to pervade them all. When they are scanty, the Christian life must be feeble; when they are totally wanting, whether in an individual or a community, the Christian life must be all but extinct. They are the evidences of the Christian life, and they are also the means of growing in it; for it is by exercise, by action, that every living principle is strengthened. This is no way at variance with the assertion that the Christian life is not the effect of our good works. The primary creative cause is, in all instances except the highest, distinct from the highest nutritive causes. The bread which feeds will not beget a man. By study we do not acquire the power of knowing; but we improve and increase that power, End may do so almost indefinitely. By practising any art--be it music, or painting, or statuary--we do not acquire that particular faculty of the mind which fits a man for becoming a musician, or a painter, or a sculptor, any more than we acquire our eyes by seeing: indeed, if a man has not that faculty already within him, no teaching or practising will draw it out of him; but when he has it, practice will greatly sharpen and better it. Such, too, is the case with the Christian life. It is not created by our good works, but is to be fostered and nourished by them, and may be so to a wonderful extent, if we always bear in mind how it originated, and are careful to have it replenished from its only source; while, on the other hand, without them it will pine and die. Indeed, in this instance we have the special assurance: To him who hath shall be given, &c. (J. C,. Hare.)

A new nature needed to produce good fruit

Without a change of nature, mens practice will not be thoroughly changed. Until the tree be made good, the fruit will not be good. Men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles. The swine may be washed, and appear clean for a little while, but yet, without a change of nature, he will still wallow in the mire. Nature is a more powerful principle of action than anything that opposes it: though it may be violently restrained for a while, it will finally overcome that which restrains it. It is like the stream of a river, it may be stopped for a while with a dam, but if nothing be done to dry the fountain, it will not be stopped always; it will have a course, either in its old channel, or a new one. Nature is a thing more constant and permanent than any of those things that are the foundation of carnal mens reformation and righteousness. When a natural man denies his lust, lives a strict, religious life, and seems humble, painful, and earnest in religion, it is not natural, it is all a force against nature; as when a stone is violently thrown upwards. But that force will be gradually spent; nature will remain in its full strength, and so prevails again, and the stone returns to the earth. As long as corrupt nature is not mortified, but the principle left whole in a man, it is a vain thing to expect that it should not govern. But if the old nature be indeed mortified, and a new heavenly nature infused, then may it well be expected that men will walk in newness of life, and continue to do so to the end of their days. (Jonathan Edwards.)

Reformation must begin at the heart

If we desire a true reformation, let us begin on reforming our hearts and lives, in keeping Christs commandments. All outward forms and models of reformation, though they be never so good in their kind, yet they are of little worth to us without this inward reformation of the heart. Tin, or lead, or any baser metal, if it be cast into never so good a mould and made up into never so elegant a figure, yet it is but tin or lead still; it is the same metal that it was before. If adulterate silver, that has much alloy or dross in it, have never so current a stamp put upon it, yet it will not pass when the touchstone tries it. We must be reformed within, with a spirit of fire and a spirit of burning, to purge us from the dross and corruption of our hearts, and refine us as gold and silver, and then we shall be reformed truly, and not before. (R. Cudworth, D. D.)

Underlying element of moral character

Moral character is--

1. Mans only real property.

2. The only measure of mans real worth.

3. The only earthly product man will bear to another world.

4. The source whence springs lasting weal or woe.

I. It is a vital source of action.

II. It is either radically corrupt or good.

III. When corrupt, generally disguised.

IV. When disguised, may, and should be detected. (Dr. Thomas.)

Religion seen in principle before it appears in conduct

When the Sidonians were once going to choose a king, they determined that their election should fall upon the man who should first see the sun on the following morning. All the candidates, towards the hour of sunrise, eagerly looked towards the east, but one, to the astonishment of his countrymen, fixed his eyes pertinaciously on the opposite side of the horizon, where he saw the reflection of the suns rays before the orb itself was seen by those looking towards the east. The choice instantly fell on him who had seen the reflection of the sun; and by the same reasoning, the influence of religion on the heart is frequently perceptible in the conduct, even before a person has made direct profession of the principle by which he is actuated.

False reputation of trees:--The upas tree once had a bad name, as its leaves were supposed to exhale a poison, which, spreading over a wide region, was fatal to man and beast.. But scientific investigation has shown that the tree is harmless, and that its reputation is due to its growing in a bad neighbourhood. The tree grows in volcanic valleys in Java, which are noted for their desolation. It is the only green thing in a region where death seems to reign. But the fatal poison comes not from the tree, but from the gases of the volcano, amid which the upas thrives though all other vegetable forms perish. Another tree, the Eucalyptus, has enjoyed undue credit, as the upas has suffered undue odium. This tree was said to exhale from its leaves healthful influences, which made it an antidote to many forms of malaria. It belongs to Australia, and it was noticed that in its neighbourhood malarial fevers were unknown. This fact caused it to be planted in some of the worst malarial districts of Italy, and there, too, fevers gradually disappeared. The inference seemed inevitable that its foliage exerted some occult influence which prevented malaria. But science, by careful examinations, explains the mystery in a new way. The tree is such a great absorbent of water that its roots easily drain marshy land. It destroys malaria, not by giving out healthful influences, but by absorbing the moisture which creates the disease. It is believed that the terrible Campagna of Rome can be made healthy by the draining power of the Eucalyptus.

Judging by the fruits

A young man of considerable gifts was introduced to a knowledge of the truth in the revival of 1859, and became an occasional preacher or exhorter at the meetings. When he went to study in Edinburgh he parted with all his old beliefs one by one, and ultimately embraced Pantheism. For several years he lived a blameless life morally, but an utterly blank life spiritually, having no hope and without God in the world. He went out to India, where the unnameable horrors of heathenism had the extraordinary effect of convincing him that Christianity must be true, and could be the only hope of the world. Meekly and humbly he began to seek a true knowledge of God, and in due course entered into the family circle of the children of God. (A. Craig.)

Christianitys fruits Divine fruits

The subject of my lecture this evening is, The truth of Christianity proved by its fruits.

I. I begin, then, by showing WHAT EFFECT CHRISTIANITY HAS HAD ON LIBERTY. What was the state of matters in regard to liberty in the Roman Empire in the days of the apostles? When we look at Roman society, we see that there was no recognition of individual liberty as a natural right, and that a most debasing slavery had obtained gigantic proportions. In the city of Rome there was a population of 1,610,000, and of that number 900,000 were slaves: that is to say, that of every five persons in the capital three were slaves. And if we take the whole of the empire, then Gibbons deliberate opinion is that the slaves were at least equal in number to the free inhabitants of the Roman world; and the entire population he estimates at 120,000,000; so that there were, as stated in a previous lecture, 60,000,000 slaves. Their numbers were recruited, not wholly, indeed, but largely from war. The Romans made slaves of those whom they captured. And how were they treated? In its mildest form, slavery is a galling burden; but Roman slavery was noted for its cruelty. The slaves were the absolute property of their master. He could treat them as he chose, so that, as it has been said, a dog with us has more rights than a Roman slave had. Tholuck, in his work on the Nature and Moral Influence of Heathenism, gives the following description of their treatment: A scanty and disgusting dress, and dog-skin cap, distinguished them from all the rest of the inhabitants. Those who were too strong had to be weakened by various kinds of ill-treatment; and if the masters did not do this, they became themselves liable to a penalty. Every slave received annually a certain number of stripes to remind him that he was a slave. Hymns of a nobler kind they were not allowed to sing, but only gay and sensual songs. TO complete their degradation, they were sometimes compelled to sing songs in disgrace and ridicule of themselves; and to the same purpose they were also compelled to perform indecent dances. In order to make the sons of the Spartans loathe the vice of drunkenness, the slaves were compelled to intoxicate themselves in public assemblies. When they became too numerous, they were murdered clandestinely; every year at a certain period the young Spartans, clad in armour, used to hunt them, and to prevent their increase they were killed with daggers. Christianity is thus in its very essence hostile to slavery; and this was one reason why the educated heathen opposed it so bitterly. But this was what it did; and hence the social change it accomplished. It undermined and threw down this monster evil of Roman slavery. As early as the time of Trajan, A.D. 98117, one Hermes, who had embraced Christianity, liberated 1250 of his slaves; and even under Domitian, who reigned before him, A.D. 81-96, a prefect of Rome, called Cromacius, liberated 1400 slaves, who had been baptized, and said unto them: Those who begin to be the children of God ought no longer to be the slaves of men. That was the way in which it began to work, and as the gospel leaven widened its area, slavery disappeared. Through their contact with the Mahommedans in the fifteenth century, the Portuguese began to traffic in negro slaves; and you know to what the traffic grew, how it spread over the colonies, and continued to hold its ground in spite of Christian influence. But the gospel has also proved itself victorious here. It was through the power of Christian principle that Great Britain, at a vast pecuniary sacrifice, washed her hands of all complicity with the evil in her colonies.

II. I next proceed to show WHAT EFFECT CHRISTIANITY HAS HAD ON LABOUR But let us see what change Christianity has wrought on the industrial life. It gave no countenance to the old Roman idea that labour was unbecoming a free man. To labour was in a sense to pray; work was worship. And its civilizing power is especially striking when we look at what it has wrought in our own time in heathen lands. When Christianity has been fairly rooted in heathen soil, its inhabitants are lifted up to the plane of a new and civilized life. They begin to clothe themselves, to build proper houses, to cultivate the land, and to develop all its resources. This is the effect of their new belief; this is one practical shape which Christianity takes in them, when it has been received in the love of it. And so commerce has followed in the wake of the missionary enterprise. Some have spoken contemptuously of the expenditure on Christian missions, as if it were a waste of money. But I hold that, even on the low ground of purely worldly profit, they pay themselves many times over in commercial gain, and I adduce the following facts in proof:--The Basutos in South Africa are now beginning to dress decently, to cultivate the land, and to build proper villages, and they have created a traffic of £150,000 a year. And every year English goods find their way to Kuruman to the value of £75,000, where, according to Dr. Moffat, scarcely a pocket handkerchief, or string of beads, or other trifle was bought. In Samoa, in the Pacific, where the people have nearly all become Christians, the imports reach the value of £50,000 and the exports £100,000, and all this within fifty years. Before that time there was almost no trade with the island. An American clergyman has calculated, on the ground of statistical data, that the traffic originated by means of the mission repays tenfold the capital expended. But can we not give the heathen our civilization without our Christianity? I most emphatically answer, No; for, as it has been well said, no nation can appropriate the fruits of Christian civilization apart from its roots.

III. The next point with which I propose to deal is THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE. But let us now turn to the marvellous and beneficent change effected by Christianity. It has lifted up woman, and made her, as a moral and spiritual being, mans equal in privilege. Home life under the influence of Christianity became a new thing, nobler than what had ever existed under heathenism. Moreover, Christianity defined and hallowed the relations of parents and children. And in confirmation of this, I would adduce one or two facts from the records of modern missions in savage lands. In the Polynesian Islands, says Dr. War-neck, Christianity has the undeniable merit--that it has suppressed cannibalism, human sacrifice, and child murder, ameliorated the family life, restrained drunkenness, and wherever it has got a footing has led to the orderly establishment of rights … The weapons of war and instruments of death may be seen hanging from the rafters of their humble cottages, covered with dust and become unusable, or they are converted into tools of industry, or they are given to visitors as useless curiosities. That is how Christianity has affected those who were living in a savage state. I give another quotation, containing the confession of a Christian who had been a cannibal, and from it you will see what has been in his case the gospels power. It was a sacramental day at the mission church. When I approached the table, he says, I did net know beside whom I should have to kneel. Then I suddenly saw I was beside the man who, some years ago, slew my father, and drank his blood, and whom I then swore I would kill the first time that I should see him. Now think what I felt when I suddenly knelt beside him. It came upon me with terrible power, and I could not prevent it, and so I went back to my seat. Arrived there, I saw in the spirit the upper sanctuary, and seemed to hear a voice, Thereby shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another. That made a deep impression on me, and at the same time I thought I saw another sight--a Cross and a Man nailed thereon, and I heard Him say, Father, forgivethem, for they know not what they do. Then I went back to the altar. All this will show you what great and beneficent changes Christianity has wrought in family and social life, and what evidence is thus furnished of its being a stream from the fountain of Divine love.

IV. I proceed now to show HOW CHRISTIANITY HAS AFFECTED THE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL LIFE. There has been high intellectual culture without Christianity. In pagan Greece and Rome, as we have seen, it reached a lofty eminence. But neither the ancient religions, nor any philosophic teaching, nor any literary culture, could so transform the heart as to ennoble the moral life of society. The ancient religions did not even attempt this. When morality was taught, it was the philosophers who stepped forward and not the priest. The old mythologies were demoralizing. The gods were represented as fighting with one another, and goddesses as engaging in intrigues; and thus the conscience of the people who believed in this was debauched. But what have been the intellectual and moral fruits of the gospel? Christ came not only to free men from guilt, but from corruption. It is the religious teaching of Christianity which gives power to its moral teaching. As the natural sun not only gives us light but heat to quicken life, so from Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, come those Divine rays which vitalize while they enlighten. And if we turn to the New Hebrides, we find the evidence to the regenerating power of Christianity equally striking. Take Aneityum, one of the group. In 1848 this was its condition, according to the Rev. J. G. Paten, the devoted missionary who has long laboured, and is still labouring, there: Every widow was strangled to death the moment her husband died; infanticide was common; and children destroyed their parents when long sick or aged. Neighbouring tribes were often at war with each other; and all the killed were feasted on by the conquerors. But now the whole population of this island, then 3,500, has been led to embrace Christianity. Heathen practices have been abolished; churches built; family worship established; and the Sabbath has become a day of rest. And they have sent 150 of their best and ablest men and women as teachers to the other islands. They have paid £1,400 for printing the Bible, and will contribute £200 this year (1885) for the support of the gospel. I should like to have been able to deal more fully with the influence of Christianity on the believer in all his varied circumstances; but I have drawn so long on your attention that I must close. (A. Oliver, B. A.)

A fair test

When I was in Rome a priest came to one of my meetings and asked me what authority I had to preach. I said, Two horses ran a race on your Corso. One had a grand pedigree, but he was lame in three legs and could not stand on the other. The second horse had no pedigree, but quickly ran over the course. Which should have the prize? Can you show thieves made honest, drunkards sober? Come to my tabernacle and I can show you hundreds. These are my certificates. The people cheered vociferously, and the priest, a notorious profligate, beat a retreat. (C. H.Spurgeon.)

Personal effects of Christianity and Atheism contrasted

A youth who had been carefully brought up in the fear of God, and had been a Sunday-school teacher, and a frequent speaker in small meetings, went to college to study for the ministry. There he was led to become a Freethinker. It took a good while to do, but in course of time he did not even believe in a God. In this way he lived about a year, hiding the truth from friends as well as he could. One day, in the class-room, there came a thought into his mind which he could not get rid of. What kind of man are you now as compared with what you were when a Christian? Reason and conscience combined m answering: A worse man every way. As a Christian you were a better man to your parents and to others; you lived a worthier, nobler, and more unselfish life; your unbelief has lowered you in every respect: what produces the best life must be the right creed. The Father, whose loving heart had thus spoken to him, was not far away, speedily received him back as a wanderer made welcome, and in due time sent him out to preach the faith he had once denied. (A. Craig.)

Fruits of Godliness

Faith in Jesus is the invisible root of religion concealed within the soul; but deeds of holy duty are the glorious outgrowth of stalwart trunk, and branches broad, and luxurious masses of foliage lifted into the airs of heaven. And amid these goodly boughs are found the fruits of godliness, shining--as quaint Andrew Marvell said of the Bermuda oranges--

Like golden lamps in a deep green night.

Aim immediately at fruits.

(Dr. Cuyler.)

The constant and legitimate result is the test of every doctrine

The general principle laid down here is, that the truth of a doctrine, a system of doctrine, is to be tested by the life and conduct of its professors. Stated thus broadly, the rule commends itself at once to the common sense of men, partly in consequence of the truth contained in it, and partly from its being mistaken for a statement that the effect of a practical doctrine upon the life of its professor is the true test of the hold which that doctrine has upon his mind. This is something quite different from the truth or falsehood of the doctrine in itself. A life which would be conclusive as to a mans sincerity might be no proof at all of his doctrinal soundness.

I. THESE TWO QUESTIONS, THEN, MUST BE KEPT DISTINCT from one another in the inquiry suggested by the text, viz., how the rule that good conduct is evidence of sound doctrine must be understood when we come to apply it to the different cases in which, as we shall see presently, we need great caution in its application.

1. All the difficulties that meet us are contained in this one, viz., that men who hold sound doctrines lead bad lives, and men who hold unsound doctrines lead good lives. This is a useless weapon in controversies between conflicting creeds, because there never has been a religious party without discreditable adherents. Its tendency is, not to establish any doctrine as superior to any other, but to produce an indifference to doctrine altogether. It tends also to engender the belief that it is no matter what any one believes if iris life be such as to call for no unfavourable comment.

2. Time enough to refute this view when people apply it to other matters as well as to religion. Conventionalisms in society, &c.

3. The question is not as to the value of the fruit or its desirableness; but as to its use in enabling us to judge of the doctrine from which it springs. For this we must take into consideration something more than the mere fact of its being good when presented to us for examination.

4. Our Lord assumes, in those who were to apply the test, a knowledge of the natural productions of trees, i.e., a knowledge of the tendency of particular doctrines, as a necessary qualification for judging how far practice, presented in connection with them, may be regarded as attesting their truth.

5. The fruit by which we may judge of a tree must be its legitimate fruit and its habitual, or average, fruit.

II. Bearing this in mind, let us APPLY THE RULE OF THE TEXT TO SOME OF THOSE CASES IN WHICH WE MIGHT BE LED ASTRAY BY A WANT OF SUFFICIENT CAUTION.

1. There are trees artificially covered, for an occasion, with fruits by which, obviously, the tree could not be known. A fir-tree, adorned for an occasion with oranges, could assuredly not be known by them. Its power of producing oranges could not be known. So, impulsive and exceptional acts of kindness and benevolence on the part of persons without any definite belief at all furnish so tests as to the practical creed of those by whom they are performed, from the circumstance that they are impulsive and exceptional.

2. When conduct, undeniably good, is found constantly to attend upon the holding of doctrines which legitimately should issue in what was positively bad, or in nothing practical whatever, we are in danger of accepting the doctrines on beholding the fruit. This is as though a mountain-ash had been engrafted with a cutting of a pear-tree, and a person, from seeing the fruit, and knowing that it grew upon a particular stock in the present instance, should thence conclude that in all cases the same stock might be expected to bear the same fruit, and that the surest way to produce an abundance of pears would be to secure the multiplication of mountain-ash trees! In such cases, though the fruit is habitual, it is not legitimate.

3. A third kind of conduct which is constantly appealed to as attesting the truth of doctrine is that which may be likened to fruit produced by means of unusually stimulating culture, and in very high temperature. Extraordinary means have been used, and an extraordinary produce is the result; and its worthlessness as a test is the fact that it is extraordinary.

III. The rule remains thus: That WHEN CONDUCT, LEGITIMATELY FOLLOWING FROM DOCTRINE HELD, IS GOOD--HABITUALLY GOOD--THAT DOCTRINE IS TRUTH; that where there is genuine piety, self-denial, humility, where what the New Testament calls the fruits of the Spirit are found in place, in proportion, in constancy, the doctrines of which they are the lawful consequences are true.

1. To this it will at once be said that the spirit of the New Testament teaching has manifested itself in the lives of men whose creeds were widely different, and even avowedly antagonistic. True; but between a mans creed in the sense of the document of his Church or sect and his creed in the sense of his working belief there is often a wide difference. If the lives of many men are worse than their pure creed, the lives of others may be better than their corrupt one. In the creed which produces a life like that sketched out in the New Testament there is undoubtedly some of the essential truth of the New Testament doctrine; and it is from this that the practice springs.

2. There are many whose hearts are better than their heads; who will do what is right, while they maintain what is wrong; or who will hold at the same time two doctrines subversive of one another, without being aware of it. They live by truth while they profess with it a great deal of falsehood.

3. It is true, then, that men of different religious professions will produce the genuine fruits of righteousness by which the trees may be known. But these are not the produce of the different creeds; but of such parts of each of them as agreed in being essential truth. They are the fruits of gardens stocked very differently--some of them full of tempting and poisonous shrubs, through which few could pass without harm--but still the fruits of the same tree in each garden. In a garden bad on the whole, good fruit may be found, and it may be spoken of as the fruit of that garden. In a garden good on the whole, evil fruit may be pointed out; but a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them; of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble-bush gather they grapes. Conclusion: For the most part men will apply the test of the text inconsiderately, and decide for or against doctrines on insufficient grounds. They will be won to a creed, or turned away from it, by the exceptional conduct of its professors. Much is it to be wished that men had sufficient grounds for their belief, and had them capable of ready production; but a very little experience will dispel any large expectations we may have formed in this direction. And, therefore, so long as men will judge of doctrines by individual instances among their professors, and the more men do this, the more important is the conduct of each individual Christian. (J. C.Coglilan, D. D.)

Christians known by their fruits

The religion of Jesus Christ is one of deeds, not words; a life of action, not of dreaming. If we would know whether we are being led by the Holy Spirit, we must see if we are bringing forth fruits of the Spirit. If we would discover if the works of a clock are right, we look at the hands. So, by our words and deeds, we shall show whether our hearts are right with God. A religion of the lips is worth nothing. It is easy enough to assume the character and manner of a Christian, but to live the Christian life is not so easy. A man can make a sham diamond in a very short time, but the real gem must lie for ages in the earth before it can sparkle with perfect purity. We have far too many of these quickly-made Christians amongst us, who have never brought forth fruits meet for repentance, nor gone through the fire of trial, and sorrow, and self-sacrifice. Do not trust to feelings or words in yourselves or others, but look at your life; a real and a false diamond are very much alike, and yet there is all the difference in the world in their value. Let us look into our lives very closely, and see whether we are mistaking outward form for true religion, words and professions for holiness, leaves for fruit. What are some of the fruits which God looks for in the life of a Christian?

1. At the head of all we must place love. Really trying to do Gods will; showing kindness to brethren; trying to lead others to God. A Christian cannot be selfish.

2. Another fruit for which God looks in a Christians life is humility. Every act and word of Christs earthly life teaches this. The longer we go to His school, and the more we know of the way of godliness, the humbler we become.

3. Another fruit God expects to find in the lives of His people is forgetfulness of self. (H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, M. A.)

The true test

The most important thing to know is ones self. No one, however, can know his own character aright without first making himself acquainted with that of God. It is in His light that we see light clearly.

What a miserable thing for a man to know how to make money, and make it too--to know science so well that he is familiar with the secrets of nature, can measure the distance of a star, and follow a wandering comet on its fiery track--to know statesmanship so well that his country, in a crisis of her affairs, might call him to the helm, as before all others the pilot that could weather the storm--and yet not to know whether he is at peace with God; whether, should he die to-night, he is saved or lost, is going to heaven or to hell!

I. IT IS POSSIBLE TO ASCERTAIN OUR REAL STATE AND CHARACTER. Who has any difficulty in settling whether it is day or night? whether he enjoys sound health or pines on a bed of sickness? whether he is a free man or a slave? No man could mistake a Briton sitting under the tree of liberty which was planted by the hands of our fathers and watered with their blood for the negro who stands up weeping in the auction-mart, to be sold with his masters cattle, or crouches in the rice-swamp, bleeding under his masters lash. Degraded by a system that curses both man and master, the black man may be content to eat the bread and wear the brand of bondage. Still he, as much as we do, knows the difference between fetters and freedom; he feels that he is a slave, and I feel that I am free. Even so may we know whether we belong to the class of saints or to that of sinners; for sin is darkness, sickness, bondage.

II. OUR RELIGIOUS PROFESSION IS NOT ALWAYS A TEST OF OUR STATE.

1. It may be a test in certain circumstances. Look, e.g., at two men on parade. They wear the same dress and arms; and both, the result of drill and discipline, have acquired such a martial air that you cannot tell which is the hero and which the coward. But change the scene. Leave the parade-ground for the field of battle; and when, as bugles sound the charge, I see, through clouds of smoke and amid the clash of arms, the sword of one flashing, and his plume dancing in the very front of the fight, while his comrade, pale and paralyzed with fear, is only borne forward in the tumult like a seaweed on the rushing billow--how easy now to tell beneath whose martial dress there beats a soldiers heart! So, though the profession does net prove the possession of religion in a time of peace, show me a man, like the soldier following his colours into the thick of battle, who holds fast the profession of his faith in the face of obloquy, of persecution, of death itself, and there is little room to doubt that his piety is genuine--that he has the root of the matter in him.

2. The profession of religion is not a test of the reality of religion in our times. Like flowers which close their leaves whenever it rains, or birds that seek shelter and their nests when storms rise, there are Christians so timid by natural constitution, that they shrink from scorn, and could as soon face a battery of cannon as the jeers and laughter of the ungodly. Granting this, still it is true that, where there is no profession of serious religion, we have little reason to expect its reality. Perhaps there never was a time when the mere profession of religion was a less satisfactory test of its reality than at present. There have been dark and evil days, and these not long gone, when religion was, if I may so express myself, at a discount: piety was not fashionable: profane swearing and deep drinking were the accomplishments of a gentleman; the man who assembled his household for prayer was accounted a hypocrite, the woman who did so a fool: missionary societies were repudiated by the courts of the Church, and eyed with suspicion by the officers of the Crown; Robert Haldane was denied an opportunity of consecrating his fortune to the cause of Christ in India; Carey and Marshman, while seeking to convert the Hindoos, were driven from the British territories, and had to seek protection from a foreign Power; and such as formed missionary associations launched them on society with the anxieties and prayers of her who, cradling her infant in an ark of bulrushes, committed him to the waters of the Nile and the providence of her God. Power, rank, fashion, science, literature, and mammon were all arrayed in arms against everything that appeared in the form and breathed the spirit of a devoted piety. Thank God, it is not so now I He has touched the heart of the Egyptian, and she has adopted the outcast as her son. From holes and caves of the earth, religion has found her way into palaces and the mansions of the great and noble. Science has become a priestess at her altar. Literature has courted her alliance. Infidelity assumes even a Christian-like disguise. Iniquity, as ashamed, is made to hide her face. The tide has turned; and those who now make a profession of zealous and active piety find themselves no longer opposed to the stream and spirit of the age. This is a subject of gratitude. Yet it suggests caution in judging of ourselves; and warns us to take care, since a profession of religion is rather fashionable than otherwise, that in making it we are not the creatures of fashion, but new creatures in Jesus Christ. Hence the necessity for trying ourselves by such a test as ray text suggests. The tree is known, not by its leaves, nor we by our professions; not by its blossoms, nor we by the promises of which they are lovely images; but by its fruit, and we by those things which the fruit represents--our hearts and habits, our true life and character. The tree is known by its fruits; moreover, every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.

III. THE TRUE EVIDENCE OF OUR STATE IS TO BE FOUND IN OUR HEART AND HABITS. We have often sat in judgment on others; it is of more consequence that we form a right estimate of ourselves. In attempting to form a correct estimate of our own state and character--in the words of the Greek sage, to know ourselves--let us bring to this solemn task all the care and the conscientiousness with which a jury weigh the evidence in a case of life and death. They return from their room to the court to give in a verdict, amid breathless silence, which sends him whom they left pale and trembling at the bar to liberty or to the gallows; yet, sacred as human life is, on our judgment here hangs a more momentous issue. A mistake there may send a man to the scaffold, but one here to perdition; that involves the life of the body, this of the immortal soul. Judges sometimes find it difficult to know how to shape their charge, and juries how to shape their verdicts--the evidence is conflicting--not clear either way. The case is obscure,perplexing; perhaps a bloody mystery, from which no hand but Gods can raise the veil. But light and darkness, life and death, are not more unlike than the heart and habits of believers, on the one hand, and those of unbelievers, on the other; and with such a catalogue of the works of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit as Paul has given us, how can it be difficult for a man to settle under which of these two classes his are to be ranked--with which they most closely correspond? A man may fancy himself possessed of talents which he has not, and a woman of beauty which she has not. But with all our strong bias to form a favourable and flattering opinion of ourselves, each to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, it seems as impossible for a man who is an adulterer, a fornicator, unclean, a drunkard, whose bosom burns with unholy and hateful passions, to imagine himself virtuous, as to mistake night for day, a bloated, fetid corpse for one in the bloom and rosy beauty of her youth. It is often only by a careful application of delicate tests that the chemist discovers a deadly poison or a precious metal; but how easy is it by a few simple questions to bring out our real character! Have you suffered a heavy wrong, for example, at the hands of another? You remember it. But where? Is it at the throne of grace, and to pray with Him whose blood fell alike on the head of foe and friend, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do? Again, when you think of perishing souls, is yours the spirit of Cain or of Christ? Can you no more stand by with folded hands to see sinners perishing than men drowning? Are you moved by such generous impulse as draws the hurrying crowd to the pool where one is sinking, and moves some brave man, at the jeopardy of life, to leap in and pluck him from the jaws of death? There is no better evidence that we have received the nature as well as the name of Christ than an anxious wish to save lost souls, and a sympathy with the joy of angels over every sinner that is converted. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

The testing time

The tree is known by his fruit. That is a fact with which we are all familiar. To stock the garden with fruit-trees, I repair to the nursery, but not in spring, when all are robed alike in green, nor in summer, when the bad equally with the best are covered with a flush of blossoms: it is when the corn turns yellow, and sheaves stand in the stubble-fields, and fair blossoms are gone, and withered leaves sail through the air and strew the ground--it is in autumn I go to select the trees, judging them by their fruit. And as certainly--may I not say as easily?--as the tree is known by his fruit, may we know our spiritual state and character, if we will only be honest, nor act like the merchant who, suspecting his affairs to be verging on bankruptcy, shuts his eyes to the danger, takes no stock, and strikes no balance. Or take, for another example, two houses that stand on the banks of the same stream. Under a cloudless sky, amid the calm of the glen in a summer day, with no sound falling on the ear but the bleatings of the flock, the baying of a sheep-dog, the muffled sound of a distant waterfall, the gentle murmur of the shallow waters over their pebbly bed, each house in its smiling garden offers, to one weary of the din and dust of cities, an equally pleasant and, to appearance, an equally secure retreat. But let the weather change; and after brewing for hours, from out the darkness that has deepened into an ominous and frightful gloom let the storm burst! Suddenly, followed by a crash like that of falling skies, a stream of lightning, dazzling the eye, glares out; and now the war of elements begins. Peal rolls on peal; flash follows flash; and to the roar of incessant thunders is added the rush of a deluge, and the hoarse voices of a hundred streams that leap foaming from hill and rock down into the bed of the river. Red, rolling, swelling, it bursts its dykes, overflows all its banks, and, attacking the foundations of both houses, breaches the walls of one, and at length tumbles the whole fabric, all of a heap, into the roaring flood; and while the houseless family that had fled from its rocking walls gather, shivering on a neighbouring height to see, where once stood their pleasant home, only the rush and hear only the roar of waters--how easy, as we look on the other, erect and defiant in this widespread sea, to know that the one had been built on sand, but the other founded on a rock. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

The fruits of heathenism and of Christianity

The intellect of Greece was keen, her poetry splendid, her art unrivalled, her eloquence overwhelming; and yet when the poor worn Jew of Tarsus trod the streets of Athens, a hunted, persecuted man--when his bent frame and feeble steps passed along her avenues of noble sculpture; when his strange words were jeered at by philosophers under the shadow of the Acropolis; when the stoic mocked at the message of Jesus and the resurrection--who could have believed that the might and glory of the future was with the poor Jew, not with these philosophic and gifted Athenians? Who would have guessed that, in spite of her aegis, and flaming helm, and threatening spear, the awful Pallas of the Acropolis should be forced to resign her Parthenon to the humble Virgin of Nazareth? Not many years afterwards, that same suffering missionary who had been ridiculed in Athens was dragged a prisoner to Rome. At that time her Caesar seemed omnipotent, her iron arms unconquerable. And Rome did not yield without a desperate struggle. She strove to crush and extirpate this execrable superstition (as her great writers called Christianity)with sword and flame; she made Christianity a treason; she made her Coliseum swim with the massacre of its martyrs. Yet it was all in vain! The worshippers of the Capitol succumbed before the worshippers in the Catacombs. The thirty legions, the white-robed senators, the ivory sceptre, the curule chair, were all defeated by the Cross, which was the vilest emblem of a slaves torture; and the greatest of earthly empires, with her dominion yet unimpaired, embraced the gospel preached by the unlettered peasants of the race which she most despised. Why was it? It was because a tree is known by its fruits, and every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. The fruits of heathendom had been selfishness, and cruelty, and corruption; the fruits of Christianity were love, joy, peace, longsuffering, temperance, goodness, faith, meekness, charity, and the leaves of that tree were for the healing of the nations. (Archdeacon Farrar.)

Reasons for watching our actions

The whole value of our deeds depends upon the state of heart out of which they come. As our hearts are, so are our deeds.

1. One reason, then, why we ought to be careful to notice our actions is, because they help us to read ourselves. We may have succeeded in persuading ourselves that we are very kindly and charitably disposed towards others; many a man goes on fancying this to be the case, year after year, simply trusting to his own feeling that he is so. But now, let him just try himself by this simple practical test: let him ask himself, What kind and charitable actions have I performed within the last day, or week, or month? and if, in putting this question to himself, he finds that, with all his warmth and kindness of heart, he has done nothing in the way of helping his poor and distressed neighbours, he must confess that he is very much mistaken in the estimate which he has hitherto formed of himself.

2. Not only do our actions show us exactly what we are, but they also materially contribute to make us what we are; over and above the impression which they receive from the heart which originates them, they themselves in turn react upon the heart. Take, e.g., the case of a boy who feels very much tempted to take something that does not belong to him. No doubt the very indulgence in such a thought is highly dishonest in itself; still, there is something in the very act of stealing, when he at last comes to it, that puts him in a worse state than he was in before. He has now actually committed himself to what he might still have drawn back from only a few minutes since; he has set his seal to what was before only melted wax, already softened indeed, and quite fitted to receive the impression, still not moulded as yet into any defined and permanent shape.

3. A third and last reason why we must attend carefully to the deeds which proceed from our hearts, as well as to our hearts themselves, is, that our deeds will form the standard by which we shall all be judged at the last day Rev_20:11-12; 2Co_5:10). What the body is to the soul, so are our deeds to the heart out of which they spring; our deeds are the bodies in which our hearts and desires show themselves and clothe themselves. And as our bodies form a real part of ourselves, so do our actions; as our bodies obey the direction of our souls, so do our actions; as our bodies will rise again at the last day, so our actions, too, will rise again along with them, and will be judged along with them. (Henry Harris, B. D.)

Every tree is known by his own fruit

I. We observe of a tree, THAT WHAT IT IS BY NATURE IT WILL, IF LEFT TO ITSELF, EVER REMAIN. The thorn will continue a thorn, the bramble-bush will ever be a bramble-bush. If you go and seek for fruit on either, you will be disappointed, and the prickly branches may wound your hands. No mere pruning of the tree or fertilizing of the soil around its roots will alter its nature.

II. Having thus seen that the natural man, when left to himself, must ever continue unproductive in good works pleasing and acceptable to God, LET US NOW OBSERVE THE WORK OF GRACE IN THE HEART FOLLOWING UPON REPENTANCE, AND CAUSING AMENDMENT OF LIFE. Every tree is known by his own fruit. The wild vine, the wild olive, the wild apple, bear each a semblance of fruit. So in the natural man there may be a semblance of good works. Moral virtues, amiable qualities, a noble disposition, adorn the character of many an unrenewed nature, spring from many an unconverted heart. Moral excellencies and Christian graces often so nearly resemble each other, that they are confounded together in the estimation of man, but never in the judgment of God. Our Saviour said of the Pharisees, who rested upon an outward appearance of holiness, Every plant which My heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. When a bud or graft has been made upon a wild tree, all which springs from that scion resembles the parent stem from which it was taken. The rose will have the same colour, fragrance, and shape; the apple will have the same taste and form. The beauty of the flower and the sweetness of the fruit are owing, not to the nature of the stock, but to the character of the graft made upon it. And yet the roots and stem of the wild tree are in a measure necessary and conducive to the fruitfulness of the graft. The sap, in being conveyed through a new branch, undergoes such a change, that it is made to produce fragrant and beautiful flowers or fine and luscious fruit. So with the converted man who has been united by living faith to Jesus: by union to his Saviour his moral virtues become Christian graces. There is the same brain, the same heart, in their material properties, but all the thoughts, feelings, and desires which they originate flow through a renewed nature, and become changed in principle and action. Even the very passions which expended themselves in vice and lust, now flowing through the pure channel of a sanctified mind and will, breathe the fragrance and assume the loveliness of heaven-born virtues. In gardening, we can perceive and understand how the process of grafting is carried on. The bud or shoot is made so to adhere to the stock on which it is placed, that it unites to the stem, and grows into it and with it; the flow of the sap passes on unchecked, and produces growth and fertility to the scion. It is by the closeness of the union, and the assimilation of the parts, that life is maintained, and vegetation proceeds. In spiritual things, we know that it is by our union to Christ that the life of faith and the fruits of righteousness are produced, through the agency of the Holy Spirit. The practical application of our subject leads to the personal inquiry, What fruit do I bear? The vitality of our spiritual life depends upon our union with Christ. (S. Charlesworth, M. A.)

The fruits of Christianity

Let us not be guilty of the rashness that ascribes all the good of earth to the Christian philosophy. There are those who, in a zeal without knowledge, will declare all our arts and sciences, our compass, telegraph, and steam-engine, to have come to the world through the evangelical religion. But all such generalities damage the cause they are designed to support. The youth drilled in this kind of declamation subsequently find that the Greek and Roman worlds were wonderful in science, art, literature, law, and inventions before our era began; that they had grand things which we boastful ones of the nineteenth century cannot equal. Four thousand years before Christ came, God the Father declared the world to be very good, and, having such a Creator, the goodness poured into man at his creation burst forth from the soul all along, from Adam to Socrates. We need not take the garlands from the Father to bestow them upon the Son. The world of God was good, the world of Christ only better. The first great fruit of the Christian tree is certainly the better path of salvation it brought. It brought no wholly new method; but it perfected the ideas that lay only in outline. The idea of sacrifice can never go beyond the death of Christ. After God came with His Lamb there was no more need of the flocks and herds of a thousand hills. And after Christ taught His ethics there was room for nothing more; His hopes, His penitence, His virtue, His love, were all the zenith of those moral heights. Let us pass by these fruits and go to fields less familiar to all our thoughts. It is a great injustice to Christianity if one views it only as being an escape from hell hereafter to a heaven also beyond. The real truth is, Christ has blended Himself with all the annals of Christian lands, and He has given new colour to all the days of the great era that wears His name. As the setting sun shining through a watery air makes all things--fence, hut, log, forest, and field--to be gold like himself, so Christ blends with the rich and the humble details of society, and sheds His heavenly blush upon the great pageant of humanity marching beneath. If we dare not say Christianity invented the steamboat and the railroad, we may say that it reshaped literature and all the arts, and has deeply affected law and the whole moral aspect of civilization. There is an art which Christianity created almost wholly, asking little of outside aid. Music is that peculiar child. The long-continued vision of heaven, the struggle of the tones of voice and of instrument to find something worthy of the deep feelings of religion, resulted at last in those mighty chants that formed the mountain-springs of our musical Nile. There could have been no music had not depths of feeling come to man. The men who went up to the pagan temples went with no such love, with no sorrow of repentance, with no exultant joy. It was necessary for Jesus Christ to come along and transfer religion from the form to the spirit, and from an airy nothingness to a love stronger than life, before hymns like those of Luther, and Wesley, and Watts could break from the heart. The doctrine of repentance must live in the world awhile before we can have a Miserere, and the exultant hope of the Christian must come before the mind can invent a Gloria. There could be no music until the soul had become full. Therefore, when John drew his picture of heaven, when Magdalen shed her tears, when Christ died on the cross, when the Christian martyrs began to die for their faith, when Paul astonished the world with his self-denial and heroism, when the religion of Jesus began to picture the immortality of man, then the foundation of music began to be laid, wide, and massive, and deep. Thus you may glance over all the arts, and find that the great ideas and emotions of the new religion affected them all--the paintings of Raphael and Angelo, and the architecture of all the great middle centuries, great in the construction of temples. Christianity helped to make Angelo and Raphael by furnishing them with grand themes. As no lips can be eloquent unless they are speaking in the name of a great truth, so no painter can paint unless some one brings him a great subject. Heaven and hell made the poet Dante; Christianity made Beatrice; paradise made John Milton; the mother of our Lord and the last judgment made Angelo. It is the great theme that makes the orator, the painter, the poet. (David Swing.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 6:43-45. For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit, &c. — See notes on Mat 7:16-20; Mat 12:33-35. For of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh — The meaning of this whole passage is, as a tree is known to be either good or bad by its fruit, so a man is known to be either good or bad by his words; especially when he speaks of the characters and actions of others, or pretends to rebuke them. On such occasions he will, either by the charitable and mild constructions which he puts upon the doubtful actions of others, show himself to be a good man; or, by his uncharitable and harsh interpretations, demonstrate the wickedness of his own heart.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 6:43. Γἀρ, for) The force of the for is, He who, whilst suffering under his own beam, yet aims at extracting rather another’s mote, is like a bad tree affecting (aspiring) to bring forth good fruit.—ποιοῦν, producing, bringing forth) A part of the subject.[68]

[68] The Predicate is οὐ—ἐστιν, the Subject is δένδρον καλὸν ποιοῦν καρπὸν σαπρόν.—ED. and TRANSL.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk_6:43-44. Comp. Mat_7:16-18; Mat_12:33 f. For[105] a mans own moral disposition is related to his agency upon others, just as is the nature of the trees to their fruits (there is no good tree which produces corrupt fruit, etc.), for (Luk_6:44) in the case of every tree the peculiar fruit is that from which the tree is known.

οὐδὲ πάλιν δένδρον] (see the critical remarks) nor, on the other hand, vice versa, etc. Comp. Xen. Cyrop. ii. 1. 4; Plat. Gorg. p. 482 D, and elsewhere.

[105] Bengel aptly says on this γάρ: Qui sua trabe laborans alienam festucam petit, est similis arbori malae bonum fructum affectanti.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 6:43-45 . In Mt. these parabolic sayings are connected with a warning against false prophets (Mat 7:15-19 ). Here the connection is not obvious, though the thread is probably to be found in the word ὑποκριτά , applied to one who by his censoriousness claims to be saintly, yet in reality is a greater sinner than those he blames. This combination of saint and sinner is declared to be impossible by means of these adages.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

In vers. 43-45, the idea of teaching, which is perceptible in Luk 6:40, takes the place altogether of the idea of judging, with which it is closely connected.

Vers. 43-45. “For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 44. For every tree is known by his own fruit: for of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble-bush gather they grapes.”

In order that our words may have a good influence on our neighbour, we must be good ourselves. In this passage, therefore, the fruits of the tree are neither the moral conduct of the individual who teaches, nor his doctrines. They are the results of his labour in others. In vain will a proud man preach humility, or a selfish man charity; the injurious influence of example will paralyze the efforts of their words. The corrupt tree (σαρπόν) is a tree infected with canker, whose juices are incapable of producing palatable fruit.

The connection between Luk 6:43-44 a is this: “This principle is so true, that every one, without hesitation, infers the nature of a tree from its fruits.”

In Palestine there are often seen, behind hedges of thorns and brambles, fig-trees completely garlanded with the climbing tendrils of vine branches.

Ver. 45 gives expression to the general principle on which the whole of the preceding rests. A man’s word is the most direct communication of his being. If a man desires to reform others by his word, he must reform himself; then his word will change the world. Jesus Himself succeeded in depositing a germ of goodness in the world by His word alone, because He was a perfectly good man. It is for His disciples to continue His work by this method, which is the antipodes of that of the Pharisees.

An analogous passage is found in Matthew, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount (Luk 7:15-20). There Jesus is exhorting His hearers to beware of false prophets, who betray their real character by their evil fruits. These false prophets may indeed be, in this precept, as in that of Luke, the Pharisees (comp. our Luk 6:26). But their fruits are certainly, in Matthew, their moral conduct, their pride, avarice, and hypocrisy, and not, as in Luke, the effects produced by their ministry. On the other hand, we find a passage in Matthew (Mat 12:33-35) still more like ours. As it belongs to a warning against blaspheming the Holy Ghost, the fruits of the tree are evidently, as in Luke, the words themselves, in so far as they are good or bad in their nature and in their effect on those who receive them. Form this, is it not evident that this passage is the true parallel to ours, and that the passage which Matthew has introduced into the Sermon on the Mount is an importation, occasioned probably by the employment of the same image (that of the trees and their fruits) in both?

Thus Jesus has risen by degrees from the conditions of the Christian life (the beatitudes) to the life itself; first of all to its principle, then to its action on the world. He has made His renewed disciples instruments for the renewal of humanity. It now only remains for Him to bring this inaugural discourse to a close.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He is a good man, not that is skillful to reprehend others, but he that proveth his uprightness in word and deed.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 43. Corrupt fruit] καρπον σαπρον, literally, rotten fruit: but here it means, such fruit as is unfit for use. See on Mt 7:17-20.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(43-46) For a good tree bringeth not forth . . .—See Notes on Mat_7:16-21. Here again, judging by what we find in St. Matthew, there may have been missing links; but even without them the conjunction “for” does not lose its force. The good tree of a Christ-like life cannot bring forth the “corrupt fruit” (better, perhaps, rotten fruit) of censorious judgment; the rotten tree of hypocrisy cannot bring forth the “good fruit “of the power to reform and purify the lives of others. The tree of life (i.e., the wisdom of perfect holiness, comp. Pro_3:18; Pro_11:30), whose leaves are for the healing of the nations (Rev_22:2), is of quite another character than that.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For every tree is known by its own fruit,.... Good and bad preachers are known by their doctrines, the one being agreeable, the other disagreeable to the word of God; and good and bad men are known by their lives and conversations: the grace of God revealed to good men, and wrought in them, teaches them to live soberly, righteously, and godly; a holy life is the fruit of grace, and an evidence of it; and the wickedness that is in the heart of unregenerate men, and even the hypocrisy of formal professors, will show themselves in the common and ordinary course of their conversations:

for of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes; nor can they be expected from them: and no more can an unregenerate man perform good works, or bring forth: fruits of righteousness acceptable unto God; for these require a knowledge of his will, obedience to it, a principle of grace, love to God, faith in Christ, and a view to the glory of God; all which are wanting in such a person.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

42 Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.

43 For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

Ver. 43. See Mat 7:16.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

43, 44. Mat_7:16-18.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 43, 44. For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree is known by his own fruit. For a religious teacher ever to work any real work of good, the first requirement is that he should be known as a faithful doer of the thing he advocates. He must be intensely in earnest, and to be in earnest he must be real. This is emphatically what the religious scribes of Israel were not. This portion of the report of the great sermon, at one period of the Church"s history possessed a special importance. It was used as one of the foundations of the system of dualism taught in the once widespread Manichaean heresy, which apparently reached its culminating period of popularity in the fifth century. This heretical school taught that there were two original principles one good, from which good proceeded; one evil, from which evil came; that there were two races of men, having severally their descent from the one and from the other. The Manichaean teachers, while rejecting many of the Christian doctrines, made much of the sermon on the mount, calling it the "Divine discourse," mainly on account of the statement we are here discussing. Yet here, when the words of Jesus are carefully considered, there is no assertion of Manichaean dualism, neither does the Master hint that there is anything irrevocably fixed in men"s natures, so that some can never become good, and others never evil, but only that, so long as a man is as an evil tree, he cannot bring forth good fruit; that if he would do good he must first be good (see here Augustine, "Contra Faust.," 32:7; and "De Serm. Dom. in Mon.," 11. 24; "Contra Adimant.," 26, etc., in Archbishop Trench"s "Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount," pp. 309, 310). For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes.

This imagery is taken from what is a common sight in Palestine; behind rough hedges of thorn and of the prickly pear, fig-trees are often seen completely covered with the twining tendrils of vine branches.

Vers. 43-45. Being and doing.

The great Teacher here puts into figurative language the truth which was afterwards so tersely and forcibly expressed by his most appreciative disciple, "He that doeth righteousness is righteous." We have here

I THE FOUNDATION-TRUTH on which our Lord"s word is built, viz. that life is the outcome of character; that as men are so they will live. "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good," etc. Granted that a man is sound at heart, it is certain that he will spend a good life, that he will shrink from the evil and pursue and practise the holy thing. Granted that a man is radically corrupt, it is certain that his life will be unworthy and sinful. Character must come forth into conduct; behaviour is the manifestation of the secret spring which is within the soul. "A good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit," etc.

II THE APPARENT EXCEPTIONS, which are only apparent, and not real. If this be true, we want to know how it is, on the one hand,

(1) that men we feel sure are bad at heart are found living lives that are blameless and even devout; and how it is, on the other hand,

(2) that men we feel sure are sound at heart deviate so often from the straight line of propriety. The answer to this question is manifold.

1. It must be remembered that much of that which seems goodness of life, and which seems as if it must have come from a true heart, is not real goodness it is only pretence. Hypocrisy, the affectation of piety and virtue, is not a good fruit, though it may look very much like it; it is no more "good fruit" in the garden of the Lord than poisonous berries are good fruit on the trees or shrubs of our visible garden.

2. And it must also be taken into account that much of that which seems like departure from moral excellence, and which seems as if it cannot have proceeded from the good heart, is not really "evil;" it is either mannerism that is only skin-deep, to be regretted indeed, but not to be confounded with essential moral evil; or it is undeveloped, struggling righteousness, the crude and imperfect attempt of a soul that is moving upwards from below; there is many a slip and many a false step, but then there is much honourable effort and much spiritual earnestness recognized and owned by the patient Father of spirits.

III THE PRACTICAL CONCLUSION for which we must be prepared. "Every tree is known by his own fruit." "By their fruits ye shall know them." Men must form their judgment about us; and they must judge us by the lives they witness. If, therefore, we do not manifest a Christian temper and a loving spirit, if righteous principles are not visible in our daily dealings, if we do not give evidence of caring more for truth and for God and for the establishment of his holy kingdom on the earth than we care for our own temporal prosperity or present enjoyment, we must not complain if men count us among the ungodly. Our godliness, our spirituality, our rectitude, ought to shine forth clearly and unmistakably from our daily life.

IV THE PRACTICAL TRUTH which we must apply to ourselves that, if we would live a life of uprightness in the sight of God, we must be right at heart in his esteem. It must be out of the fulness of our soul that we do right actions; it must be out of "the abundance of the heart that our mouth must speak" his praise and his truth; or our proprieties of behaviour and our suitableness of language will weigh nothing whatever in his balances. The first thing for every man to do is to become right in his own heart with God; to return in spirit unto him; to go to him in humility and in faith; to find mercy of him in Jesus Christ, and, having thus entered into sonship, to live the life of filial obedience to his Word; then and thus will the good tree bring forth good fruit. C.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

A further application:

v. 43. For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

v. 44. For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble-bush gather they grapes.

v. 45. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil; for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.

The heart of a man is like a tree, whose fruits are the works of the mars. It is the nature of a good tree to bring forth good fruit; it is the nature of a rotten, evil tree to bring forth bad fruit. By its fruit a tree is judged. To attempt to gather figs from thorns is just as foolish as to look for grapes on bramble bushes. Even so a man whose heart has been renewed by faith, and thus has been changed to a truly good heart, will produce out of this truly good heart good works that will stand the test of God’s scrutiny. On the other hand, a person whose heart has not been changed by faith and is thus evil before God, will bring forth only such works as must be condemned in His sight. As is the heart, so is the utterance. See Psa 36:1.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Our Saviour here and elsewhere frequently compares persons to trees; the heart of man is as the root, the actions as the fruit; as the root is the principle from which the fruit springs, so the heart of man is a principle from which all human actions flow: an holy heart will be accompanied with an holy life, where there is a vital principle of grace within, there will be the actings of grace without; a good conscience will be accompanied with a good conversation.

Observe farther, a double treasure discovered in the heart of man.

1. An evil treasure of sin and corruption, from which flow evil things: but why should sin be called a treasure? Not for the precious- ness of it, but for the abundance of it; a little does not make a treasure: and also for the continuance of it; for though sin be perpetually overflowing in the life, yet does the heart continue full. The treasure of original corruption in man’s heart and nature, though by sanctifying grace it may be drawn low, yet it is never in this life drawn dry.

2. Here is a good treasure of grace discovered in a sanctified and renewed man; which is the source and spring from which all gracious actions do proceed and flow; namely, a sanctified and renewed heart and nature. When once the will of man is made conformable to the will of God, it does will and desire, choose and embrace, take pleasure and delight in, what God approves, commands, and loves; and it will lay an injuction upon all the members of the body to act comformably thereunto.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XLII. J. The Two Ways].

XLII. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. (A Mountain Plateau not far from Capernaum.) Subdivision J. THE TWO WAYS AND THE FALSE PROPHETS. aMATT. VII. 13-23; cLUKE VI.. 43-45.

a13 Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many are they that enter in thereby. 14 For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few are they that find it. [The Master here presents two cities before us. One has a wide gateway opening onto the broad street, and other a narrow gate opening onto a straitened street or alley. The first city is Destruction, the second is Life.] 15 Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. [From the two ways Jesus turns to warn his disciples against those who lead into the wrong path--the road to destruction. Prophets are those who lay claim to teach men correctly the life which God would have us live. The scribes and Pharisees were such, and Christ predicted the coming of others ( Mat_24:5, Mat_24:24), and so did Paul ( Act_20:29). Their fate is shown in Mat_7:21, Mat_7:22. By sheep's clothing we are to understand that they shall bear a gentle, meek, and inoffensive outward demeanor; but they use this demeanor as a cloak to hide their real wickedness, and so effectually does it hide it that the false prophets often deceive even themselves.] 16 By their fruits ye shall know them. Do i men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but the corrupt tree bringeth [266] forth evil fruit. c43 For there is no good tree that bringeth forth corrupt fruit; nor again a corrupt tree that bringeth forth good fruit. a18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. c44 For each tree is known by its own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. a19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. [It is a law of universal application that whatever is useless and evil shall eventually be swept away.] 20 Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them. c45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth that which is evil: for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh. [Teachers are to be judged by their conduct as men, and also by the effect of their teaching. If either be predominantly bad, the man must be avoided. But we must not judge hastily, nor by slight and trivial actions, for some specimens of bad fruit grown on good trees.] a21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven. [To say, "Lord, Lord," is to call on the Lord in prayer. While it is almost impossible to overestimate the value of prayer when associated with a consistent life, it has been too common to attribute to it a virtue which it does not possess. The Pharisees were excessively devoted to prayer, and they led the people to believe that every prayerful man would be saved. The Mohammedans and Romanists are subject to the same delusion, as may be seen in their punctilious observance of the forms of prayer, while habitually neglecting many of the common rules of morality. It is here taught that prayer, unattended by doing the will of the Father in heaven, can not save us. Doing the will of God must be understood, not in the sense of sinless obedience, but as including a compliance with the conditions on which sins are forgiven. Whether under the [267] old covenant or the new, sinless obedience is an impossibility; but obedience to the extent of our possibility amid the weaknesses of the flesh, accompanied by daily compliance with the conditions of pardon for our daily sin, has ever secured the favor of God.] 22 Many will say to me in that day [the final judgment day], Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by thy name do many mighty works? [Jesus here prophetically forecasts those future times wherein it would be worth while to assume to be a Christian. Times when hypocrisy would find it a source of profit and of honor to be attached to Christ's service. In these days we may well question the motives which induce us to serve Christ. High place in the visible kingdom is no proof of one's acceptance with God. Neither are mighty works, though successfully wrought in his name. Judas was an apostle and miracle-worker, and Balaam was a prophet, yet they lacked that condition of the heart which truly allies one with God ( 1Co_13:1-3). Jesus says the number of false teachers is large. We must not carelessly ignore the assertion of that important fact. We should also note that Christ will not lightly pass over their errors on the judgment day, though they seem to have discovered them for the first time. Such truths should make us extremely cautious both as teachers and learners.] 23 And then will I profess [better, confess] unto them, I never knew you [never approved or recognized you]: depart from me [ Mat_25:41], ye that work iniquity. [This indicates that false teachers filled with a patronizing spirit toward the Lord, and with a sense of power as to his work, will be deceived by a show of success. Through life Christ appeared to them to be accepting them and approving their lives, but he now confesses that this appearance was not real. It arose from a misconception on their part and on that of others. Many works which men judge to be religious really undermine religion. The world esteems him great whose ministry begets Pharisees, but in Christ's eyes such a one is a worker of iniquity.] [268]

[FFG 266-268]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

43–45. For a good tree. See notes on Matt. 7:15–20.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

General Information:

People can tell if a tree is good or bad, and what type of tree it is, by the fruit it produces. Jesus uses this as an unexplained metaphor—we know what kind of person someone is when we see his actions. (See: Metaphor)

For there is

"This is because there is." This indicates that what follows is the reason why we should not judge our brother.

good tree

"healthy tree"

rotten fruit

fruit that is decaying or bad or worthless

each tree is known

People recognize the kind of tree by the fruit it bears. This can be stated in active form. AT: "people know the type of a tree" or "people recognize a tree" (See: Active or Passive)

thornbush

a plant or shrub that has thorns

briar bush

a vine or shrub that has thorns

translationWords

good

fruit

fig

thorn

grape

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

43.] The καρπὸς σαπρός = the δοκὸς ἐν τῷ ὀφθ. If thy life is evil, it is in vain to pretend to teach others.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

43. οὐ γάρ ἐστιν Codex D and some versions omit the γάρ, the connexion with the preceding not being observed. The connexion is close. A good Christian cannot but have good results in the work of converting others, and a bad Christian cannot have such, for his bad life will more than counteract his efforts to reclaim others.

The etymological connexion between καρπός (carpo, Herbst, harvest) and κάρφος is by no means certain. But if it is a fact, it has no, place here. The phrase ποιεῖν καρπόν is not classical, but a Hebraism (3:9, 8:8, 13:9; Gen 1:11, Gen 1:12; Psa 107:37). By σαπρόν (σήπω) is meant (1) what is “rotten, putrid,” and (2) what is “worthless.” See Wetst. on Mat 7:18. A rotten tree would produce no fruit; and fishes just caught would not be putrid (Mat 13:48). In both places the secondary meaning is required.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit [ου εστιν δενδρον καλον, ποιουν καρπον σαπρον] . Rev., more correctly, there is no good tree that bringeth, etc. Sapron, corrupt, is etymologically akin to shpw, in Jas 5:2 : "Your riches are corrupted." The word means rotten, stale. Neither. Rev., nor again. The A. V. omits again (palin, on the other hand).

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.