which sorrow is not resident in the word itself.  John the Baptist opened his

ministry with this call to repent (Matt. 3:2; Luke 3:3).  The Lord Jesus

Christ opened His ministry with this call (Matt. 4:17).  Peter and the eleven

opened their ministry at Pentecost with this call (Acts 2:38; 3:19).  Paul

also included repentance in his testimony (Acts 20:21; 26:20).  Later on in

chapter 17 we read 'Now (God) commandeth All men Everywhere to repent' (Acts

17:30).  Repentance itself does not figure in three great epistles of the

Mystery (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians), but comes in 2 Timothy 2:25

where it is associated with acknowledging the truth, and recovery from the

snare of the devil.  Those who have laid upon them the making known of the

dispensation of the Mystery, will have continual reason to urge this form of

repentance upon many believers who will 'oppose themselves' in mistaken zeal

for orthodox beliefs.  That John looked for 'works meet for repentance' is

made clear from his exhortation to those who came to his baptism (Luke 3:8).

How are we to understand the language of John when he cried:

'O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to

come?' (Luke 3:7).

A generation may indicate a period of time measured as it were by the

average interval between the birth of father and son.  Thus in Matthew 1:17

'all the generations are fourteen' and the Greek word thus translated is

genea.  Like the words translated 'age' and 'world' genea takes on a moral

significance, 'Whereunto shall I liken this generation?' (Matt. 11:16).  The

generation to which the Saviour spoke, and before whose eyes His mighty deeds

were wrought, is called an evil generation, this wicked generation, a wicked

and adulterous generation, a faithless and perverse generation, adulterous,

sinful, and is particularly singled out by the epithet 'this generation'.

'Whereunto shall I liken this generation?'  'The men of Nineveh shall rise in

judgment with this generation and shall condemn it'.  'All these things shall

come upon this generation'.  'But first He must suffer many things and

be rejected of this generation'.  All these terrible titles, crooked,

perverse, faithless, sinful etc. are gathered up and focused in the one used

by John 'a generation of vipers'.  Here the Greek word employed is not genea

but gennema a product, work or fruit.  These men had proudly claimed Abraham

as their father, but John looks not at their pedigree, but at their fruits

and warned them saying:

'Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to

say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father' (Luke 3:8).

The Saviour Himself took a similar line against this same evil

generation saying, 'If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of

Abraham ... ye do the works of your father ... ye are of your father the

devil' (John 8:39-44).  Paul tells us that, 'They are not all Israel, which

are of Israel; neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all

children: but, in Isaac shall thy seed be called.  That is, They which are

the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the

children of the promise are counted for the seed' (Rom. 9:6-8).  Gennema is

translated 'generation' four times, and always in the phrase 'generation of

vipers'; in the five other occurrences it is translated 'fruit' and 'fruits'.

The generation living in Palestine at the time of Christ was there in much

the same way that the Canaanites were put into the land by the evil one in

Abraham's day.