Written, and Therefore Binding

The next claim comes from a real conversation:

“It is written that fruit and deeds follow repentance, so literally that is right. But being written does not make it a standard that must be kept.”

There is something honest in this. The speaker is not twisting the verse; he admits that it says what it says. He is only asking whether every line in the Bible is meant to bind us, and that can sound like a reasonable question, since not everything written down is a rule. A diary is written, and so is a shopping list.

Yet the question has quietly shifted. It is no longer about what the text means, but about whether the text is the standard at all. That is where we must begin.

“It Is Written”

When Yeshua was tested in the wilderness, He was hungry, alone, and under pressure. Three times He answered in the same way:

Matthew 4:4 But He answered and said: "It is written: 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every rhema ῥήμα hray'-mah(spoken-word) that proceeds through the mouth of God.'"

He said “It is written,” then “Again it is written” (Matthew 4:7), and a third time “For it is written” (Matthew 4:10). He did not argue from His own authority, nor did He appeal to experience. He pointed to the page. For Yeshua, the fact that a thing was written was exactly what settled it.

His first answer says something more. Man lives “on every rhema(spoken-word) that proceeds through the mouth of God,” every one of them, not only those we find convenient or those that already match the way we live. Yeshua answered the tempter with a verse that itself refuses to let us pick and choose.

Once, in a hard argument, He said this:

John 10:35 If he called them gods, to whom the logos λόγος log'-os(word) of God came — and the graphe γραφή graf-ay'(written-scripture) cannot be broken —

The word is graphe (γραφή), “written-scripture.” It means neither the spoken word in general nor a feeling about God, but what is written, and what is written “cannot be broken.” No one may snap off one piece and keep the rest.

Isaiah had said the same centuries before:

Isaiah 8:20 To the Torah and to the testimony (edut עֵדוּת ay-dooth')! If they do not speak according to this word, it is one for which there is no dawn.

Isaiah sends his hearers back to the Torah and to the testimony. Any teaching that does not speak according to this word, Isaiah says, has “no dawn”: no light will come from it.

The idea that something can be written in Scripture and still not be a standard was therefore not a position Yeshua shared. For Him, what was written was the standard.

Three Sentences, One Speech

Now turn to the verse in question. John the Baptist is at the Jordan, and religious leaders are coming out to be baptized. He says to them:

Matthew 3:8 Therefore bear fruit worthy of metanoia μετάνοια met-an'-oy-ah(repentance, spiritual domain),

The Greek word for fruit is karpos καρπός kar-pos', the fruit a tree produces. The word for worthy is axios ἄξιος ax'-ee-os, fitting, matching in weight. The fruit is to match the repentance. A person who says he has turned should have something on his branches to show it.

Verse 8, however, is not a proverb hanging by itself on a wall. It belongs to one speech, given to one crowd on one day. Two verses later John says:

Matthew 3:10 And even now the axe is laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into fire.

And two verses after that:

Matthew 3:12 His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor and gather His wheat into the storehouse, but the chaff He will burn up with unquenchable fire."

Read the three together. Bear fruit that fits repentance. The axe is already at the root, and the tree without good fruit is cut down. The winnowing fork is in His hand, and the chaff is burned.

Picture a storm warning on the radio: “A hurricane is approaching the coast. Leave your homes and move inland. Shelters are open at the high school.” Suppose someone answers, “Yes, it does say ‘move inland,’ but being said doesn’t make it something we have to do.” The hurricane is still coming. No one can keep the forecast and throw away the instruction, since the instruction makes sense only because of the storm.

Matthew 3 works in exactly that way. Remove verse 8 from the standard, and the axe and the threshing floor fall away with it. The fruit is the instruction, and the axe and the fire are the reason for it. All three came from the same mouth in the same breath.

It Was Not Only John

Someone might answer that this was John the Baptist, before the cross, and that things changed afterward.

Paul, however, years after the cross, stood before King Agrippa and explained what he had preached ever since he met the risen Messiah:

Acts 26:20 but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first, and also at Jerusalem and then throughout all the region of Judea, and even to the Gentiles, that they should metanoein(repent, spiritual domain) and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to metanoia(repentance, spiritual domain).

He preached in Damascus, in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, “and even to the Gentiles.” He told them to repent, to turn to God, and to be “performing deeds appropriate to metanoia(repentance, spiritual domain).” The word “appropriate” is the same axios that John used. It is the same message and the same word, now carried to the nations.

Metanoia (μετάνοια) is a turning of mind and of direction. Paul did not preach a turning that stays inside the head. He preached a turning that shows itself in deeds.

What This Does Not Mean

None of this means that the fruit buys anything. The order laid out in Chapter 2 still stands. The thief on the cross had no time to bear fruit, and he was with Yeshua in Paradise that day. Justification is a gift.

Where there is time, however, a living tree bears fruit. That fruit is not a price paid to become a tree; it is simply what a living tree does. John and Paul both say so, and both put it in writing.

Followed to its end, the claim reveals a deeper problem. “Being written does not make it a standard” sounds like a small adjustment, yet it cuts the ground out from under everything. If the written word is not the standard, then neither is the verse that says we are saved by grace, and we would have no Romans 3 and no Ephesians 2 to stand on. We hold to the gift because it is written, and the call to bear fruit is written on the same pages.

A Question About the Past

Once fruit is accepted as part of repentance, another claim usually follows, this time about the past: “In those days, if you sinned, you could just go to the temple and offer a sacrifice.” That claim sends us to the temple itself, to see what had to happen before anyone could bring an animal to the altar.