Can sinners be Christians? Or How would I interpret Matthew 7:16- 20.

 

The Conflict

A non-Christian friend of my mine recently sent me these texts,

You shall know them by their fruits...a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit...wherefore by their fruits you shall know them. Matthew 7: 16-20

Still believe Herschel is a "christian?"

The primary questions I would like to answer for my friend are: What does Matthew 7:16-20 mean? How do I arrive at that conclusion? And finally does the message of Matthew 7:16-20 preclude Herschel or someone like him from being a Christian? 

Clearing away the brush

Therefore, I want to respond to him, but before I do, I want to clarify some hidden issues and assumptions in this conversation.

1. I don't think I have ever talked to my friend about Herschel Walker, who is a US Senate Candidate from Georgia. Now maybe he has had conversations with other people and so was responding to them, but otherwise, this was for me a new conversation, so the "still" implies that I had a prior belief about Herschel's status as a Christian, about which I had never commented. In fact, up to this point, I have heard very little about this race. It simply has not been on my radar, so I don't have a very informed opinion one way or the other, as I am not a resident of Georgia and won't get to vote for or against him.
2. From what I know, I am not a fan of Herschel as a candidate, because he is very inexperienced and will likely be beholden to Trump (who I think has been very bad for the GOP), but I am also not a fan of Rev. Warnock who is Herschel's opponent. If I lived in Georgia, I might very well vote for Herschel, not based on whether or not he is a Christian, but because it is likely he will support policies that I believe are better for the country.
3. This leads to what seems to be another hidden assumption, namely that Christians vote for a candidate primarily because he or she holds the same faith. I think the other implication is that they are inconsistent to do so when it can be shown that the candidate is not a real "Christian" because they (the candidate) are hypocrites who do not live up to the Christian faith. Perhaps this is the motive of some people who claim to be Christians, but I don't know this to be the case for every Christian and it is certainly not how I chose to vote for people. I do prefer to see good character in our elected leaders and I definitely hate hypocrisy, and Herschel almost certainly has had some major life issues in the past, which would give me pause. I would not have voted for him in the primary if there was any better choice. But main elections are often binary (perhaps a flaw in our 2 party system?) and if I have to choose, then I make my decision based on a number of factors, not just the character or hypocrisy of one of the candidates.
4. This leads to another assumption and perhaps unseen bias from my friend. Why is this only a question about Herschel's character and whether he is a Christian or not? Rev. Warnock clearly claims to be a Christian and not just a regular Christian, but a leader of Christians. There are likely people voting for him because they think he is a Christian. Yet, from the one news report I had read about this, Rev. Warnock had a divorce and there are claims he abused his wife and a child. I am pretty sure that this divorce happened while he was in the position of Christian leadership. Therefore, I wonder why my friend did not send me a message questioning whether either Warnock or Herschel was a "christian." I suspect it is because he tends to agree more with the Democratic policies that Warnock promotes and that he sees Trump as the primary threat to the country, so it is more likely he sees the hypocrisy of his opponents rather than those who would fall on his side.
   

The Primary Question

This leads me to the primary questions to which I responded. Does a proper reading of Matthew 7:16-20 mean that imply that someone like Herschel Walker is not a Christian?

My initial text response was,

Could be, 1 John 1:8-9 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

In other words, I was responding directly to the claim about whether the Christian religion based upon the Bible means that someone with clear sins like Herschel has in his past could be a Christian right now. I gave one passage that I think does indicate that all people are sinners and that Christians are those who have been forgiven. Since I don't know Herschel personally, I cannot say anything one way or the other about how sincere he is, but the consistent teaching of the Christian religion and many Bible passages indicates that he could be.

On the other hand, my friend made this claim after my response,

That's what's great about scripture - you can bend it to the cause. This is why faith is a prerequisite - it makes all the other nonsense possible and palatable. 

Was I in fact doing this? Perhaps it was a legitimate response to me as I was answering one scripture with another scripture and not dealing with the message of Matthew 7:16-20. If different Bible passages have conflicting messages then simply bringing up competing passages to try and make a different point would in fact be doing what he claimed. Furthermore, if I used some preconceived notions based not upon the passage itself, but upon what I wanted to be true, then it would also be true that I was bending it to the cause. In the moment of a text exchange in the middle of the day, I really did not have the time to think through all of these issues listed above, and thus why I am writing them out and trying to think more clearly now. 

The primary questions I would like to answer for my friend are: What does Matthew 7:16-20 mean? How do I arrive at that conclusion (do I just bend scripture to my cause)? And finally does the message of Matthew 7:16-20 preclude Herschel or someone like him from being a Christian?

The Interpretation 

To get to the meaning of a passage, I want to walk through the process I use, but I don't think this is just a process I use, but rather the process most of us use when reading anything. On a more technical level, they are processes used by Bible scholars and scholars of all ancient documents when trying to understand the material that they are reading. The basic interpretive principle is that the meaning of the written material comes from discovering what the original author intended to say to the original hearers. The assumption is that the author had a message he or she wanted to convey and that they did it in such a way that their intended audience could understand it. Therefore, if we can understand the words themselves along with the historical context we should be able to restate the message of the passage. There should not be multiple meanings of a passage, unless the author himself intended that, so we should not be able to have multiple meanings from any given Bible passage or frankly any written material. 

When I start to try to find the meaning of a passage in the book of Matthew then, I would first like to understand a little about the author and the intended audience. In this case, Christian tradition says that Jesus' disciple Matthew authored the book, but the author never names himself or give specific textual clues, so we don't know for sure as the tradition is later than the writing of the book itself. What we can have some confidence about is that the book was written by a Christian leader in the first century who was trying to convince Jewish people that Jesus was the Messiah that they had been expecting, and perhaps to Jewish Christians who he wanted to strengthen in their beliefs about Jesus. We can know this because internal evidence refers frequently to prophecies in the Jewish scriptures implying that the reader would have a knowledge of those scriptures and uses terms that would have been more known to Jews.

Next I would look at the specific type of writing in the passage in question. The book as a whole is a polemic or an argument to convince people about who Jesus is, but within the book there are several types of literary styles. In this case, we see that the passage is part of a larger section traditionally called, "The Sermon on the Mount," starting in chapter 5 and running through chapter 7. The author recounts for us a large teaching of Jesus. It is likely that he intends us to see this as a whole sermon that therefore has similar themes, but even within the sermon there are individual parts that can be broken down, just like in any speech or like the heading of this blog post. The setting of the sermon and any repeated themes in the sermon then would be important interpretive context tools to help us in our specific passage.

The passage in question has a clear start in verse 15 and has a thought end in verse 20 or more likely in verse 23, but the surrounding passages are clearly related as they are parts of the same sermon. Remember that the original writing did not have chapters, verses, or heading like modern Bibles, so we have to take literary context clues to understand where idea breaks come. Here is the full passage in question from the English Standard Version:

Matthew 7:15–20

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

At the beginning of this passage, we see that is a warning against false prophets, and the discussion of fruit is how to recognize a true Christian leader versus a false one. By using metaphor the author clearly means to indicate that the results of a prophet's teaching and influence will help you determine whether or not they are actually following Jesus and teaching the message he taught. We do not get a clear sense in the specific passage about what is good fruit versus bad, but the sermon as a whole can give us an idea of what the author meant. In general there are a number of moral rules that fall in line with the golden rule, which is listed in 7:12. Many of the rules listed in the sermon have to do with some of the morals found in Jewish law, but Jesus goes deeper and proclaims that even the thoughts of his disciples should be changed (see 5:21-30). One moral that is relevant specifically to the situation with Walker and Warnock is the prohibition against divorce. It is clear from this passage that the lives of Christian leaders should be changed to produce good fruit, which means better behavior personally and more loving toward others.

But does this message just apply to Christian leaders? No, the surrounding passages and the sermon as a whole are clearly for all people who would follow Jesus. Furthermore, this teaching of a changed life for Christians is also consistent with other passages in Matthew, such as the sheep and goats of Matthew 25. Other early Christian teaching in the Bible also make the same point:

Romans 6:1-2, "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?"  

James 2:18, " But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works" 

1 John 3:9–10 [9] No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. [10] By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. 

These passage along with our passage in Matthew 7 mean it is reasonable to conclude that early Christians believed in the practice of examining the lives of people, especially leaders, who proclaim themselves to be followers of Jesus and to see if their teaching and lives lead to good fruit or not. In fact this plain meaning seems to be the primary meaning of Matthew 7:15-20.

On the other hand, my friend's question implied a more specific meaning as he applied it to Herschel Walker. He seems to be suggesting that this passages means that someone who has sinned like Herschel Walker could not be a Christian. Does this passage or any of the other Bible passages mean that someone with any bad fruit could not be a Christian?

If we look at the wider context of Matthew and of the New Testament books we can clearly see that this is not the case. In the immediate context of the sermon on the mount, we see this passage,

Matthew 6:12–15 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, [15] but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (ESV)

People who need forgiveness are clearly not perfect. They must have some bad fruit in their lives. It is very unlikely that the author intended to teach that perfection either before or after following Jesus was necessary to be a true Christian if Jesus is teaching his follower to ask for forgiveness. In Matthew 26, we see the account of Peter denying knowing Jesus, so even one of the leader of the disciples was not perfect.

Many other passages and authors of the early church make it clear that while life change is expected of true Christians, perfection not only will not be expected, but will not be possible which is why I quoted 1 John 1:8-10 which says, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. [10] If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." 

Another biblical principle is that even people who are great sinners can repent and become his followers. Paul calls himself the "chief of sinners" in 1 Timothy 1:15, one of the thieves on the cross is recorded as repenting right before dying, and the man the early church credited with writing Matthew had been a tax collecter, which was basically a legal extortionist position for the Roman government. 

Conclusion

Therefore, it is highly unlikely that Matthew 7:15-20 either intended to say that someone who has had bad fruit is not a Christian or that we should have the expectation that someone will be perfect to be called a Christian. That would be taking the meaning of the passage too far, and I doubt any scholar would think this passage ever meant to teach that.

Rather if we were to apply this passage now, we might look in particular at how someone is currently living to see if their lives are match the type of life described in the sermon on the mount. Are they trying to live up to that standard and repenting when they fail? If not, then perhaps we should be careful not to believe their professions of being a Christian, especially if they claim to be Christian leaders or teachers. We do have current example in the news of people that appear to be like this, but I do not know if Herschel Walker fits this category. He in facts admits to sinning and repenting. He had bad fruit not doubt, as his family history suggests. I do not know if he remains in that condition and is just faking a conversion, which is why my response was uncertain.

On the other hand, the New Testament teachings give plenty of room for someone with whatever bad fruit in their life to repent and turn and follow Jesus. I know personally of people who have had really bad actions in their life who have been repented and have given every appearance of being Christians up to the time of their death. For example here is the testimony of Bishop Tanniehill, the man sitting behind him is Manny Hill, another criminal who was changed by believing in Jesus. I know Manny personally, having met him 30 years ago in college just after he was released from prison. He is still changed and working in jail ministry in the Chicago area right now. 

So yes, Matthew 7:15-20 and especially the following verses in 21-23 should be a warning to anyone claiming to be a Christian and not seeing your life change. If you live inconsistently or secretly against the very things you say you believe, the author wants you to know you are not a Christian. 

But even those people have the opportunity to repent and turn to Jesus at any time, even up to the moment of death. 

I am certainly praying for my friend, that he will someday come to believe in the wonderful hope that I have in Jesus. Not become I am perfect, but because he comes to understood Jesus is true.