Commentary - Matthew 12:33-37

Bird's-eye view

In this sharp and incisive passage, Jesus confronts the Pharisees head on, moving from the specific blasphemy they had just committed (v. 24) to the general principle that governs all human speech and action. The Lord is not interested in behavior modification or in getting the Pharisees to simply clean up their language. He goes straight to the root of the issue, which is the heart. Using a series of powerful and plainspoken analogies, a tree and its fruit, a treasure and its contents, He teaches that what comes out is determined by what is within. This is a profound statement on the nature of sin and righteousness. Sin is not a series of unfortunate choices made by a neutral party; it is the necessary outflow of a corrupt nature. Righteousness, likewise, is not the result of strenuous effort, but is the natural fruit of a regenerated heart. Jesus concludes with a sobering warning about the final judgment, where our words will serve as the primary evidence, either for our justification or for our condemnation. This passage is therefore a crucial discourse on the relationship between nature, words, and ultimate destiny.

Outline

Context In Matthew

This passage does not occur in a vacuum. The Lord's teaching here is a direct response to the Pharisees' accusation in Matthew 12:24. After Jesus cast out a demon from a man who was blind and mute, the Pharisees, unable to deny the miracle, attributed His power to Beelzebul, the prince of demons. This was a deliberate, high-handed sin. They were staring at the light of the world and calling it darkness. Jesus had already dismantled their logic (vv. 25-29) and warned them about the unforgivable sin, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (vv. 31-32). Our text, then, is the application of that warning. Jesus is explaining why they could say such a thing. It was not a slip of the tongue. It was a revelation of the heart. Their words were the predictable fruit of a rotten tree. This section serves as a diagnostic tool, exposing the fatal condition of their souls and, by extension, warning all who would hear against the same kind of spiritual poison.

Key Issues

Verse by Verse Commentary

33 Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.

Jesus begins with an appeal to basic, agricultural common sense. You cannot get apples from a thornbush or figs from a thistle. The nature of the tree determines the nature of the fruit. He presents two, and only two, options. The tree is either good, in which case its fruit will be good, or the tree is bad, and its fruit will be bad. There is no third category of a bad tree that, through sheer effort, produces good fruit. The logic is inescapable. And the application is this: if you want to fix the fruit, you have to fix the tree. The Pharisees were meticulously polishing their external fruit, their religious observances, while their tree, their heart, was rotten to the core. Their blasphemous words were the bad fruit that gave the game away. It revealed the true condition of the tree. This is a fundamental principle of the Christian life. Regeneration is not about turning over a new leaf; it is about God giving us a new root, a new nature in Christ.

34 You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.

Here Jesus drops the agricultural metaphor and goes for the jugular. "Brood of vipers" is not polite language, but it is precise. He is identifying them with their father, the serpent of old (Gen. 3:15). Their nature is serpentine, venomous. And so He asks a rhetorical question that expects a negative answer: "how can you, being evil, speak what is good?" The answer is, you cannot. It is an impossibility. An evil nature cannot produce good speech, any more than a snake can produce birdsong. Then He states the principle that governs this reality: "For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart." The mouth is the overflow valve for the heart. Whatever the heart is full of, good or evil, truth or lies, love or bitterness, that is what will inevitably spill out in our words. Our speech is a spiritual electrocardiogram. It gives a reading of the state of our heart. The Pharisees' hearts were full of envy, unbelief, and hatred for the Son of God, and so their mouths produced blasphemy. It was as natural and predictable as water flowing downhill.

35 The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil.

Jesus now shifts the metaphor from a fountain to a treasury or a storehouse. A man's heart is a treasure chest. What he has stored up in there is what he will bring out. A good man, one who has been made good by the grace of God, has a good treasure deposited in his heart by the Holy Spirit. This treasure consists of things like faith, hope, love, humility, and the truth of God's Word. When he speaks, he draws from this good treasure, and so his words are good, they build up, they give grace to the hearers. The evil man, on the other hand, has an evil treasure. His heart is a storehouse of pride, rebellion, deceit, and all manner of filth. When he speaks, he can only bring out what is in there. He brings forth evil things. Notice the active language: the man "brings out" what is in his treasure. This is a choice, an action for which he is responsible. Yet the choice is determined by the contents of the treasury. This is the biblical doctrine of human responsibility and moral inability in perfect harmony. We are responsible for what we say, because we are the ones saying it. But what we say is determined by what we are.

36 But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.

This is one of the most sobering verses in all of Scripture. The Lord raises the stakes from blasphemous words to "every careless word." The Greek word is argon, which means idle, inactive, or unprofitable. This refers to the words we speak without thinking, the offhand comments, the jokes, the chatter that fills our days. Jesus says that none of it is neutral. None of it is forgotten. We will give an accounting for every single one of them on the day of judgment. This is not to create a paranoid, scrupulous fear that paralyzes our speech. Rather, it is to teach us that our words have immense weight and consequence. They are never "just words." They are always fruit, always coming from the treasury of the heart. The idle words are particularly revealing because they are spoken when our guard is down. They show what is really in the heart when it is not being carefully curated for public display. This verse is a call to take our speech with the utmost seriousness, recognizing that it all matters to God.

37 For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

This final statement is the capstone of the argument. It explains why we will give an account for our words. It is because our words will be the evidence presented at our final trial. On the day of judgment, our words will be brought forth to either justify us or condemn us. Now, we must be clear. We are not saved by our good words in the sense that they earn our salvation. We are saved by grace alone through faith in Christ alone. However, the words of a saved person will reflect that salvation. They will be the evidence of a regenerated heart. A person who has been justified by faith will have a treasury filled with good things, and his words will show it. His speech will be characterized by praise for God, love for the brethren, and the confession that Jesus is Lord. Conversely, the words of the unregenerate will be the evidence of their condemnation. Their blasphemies, lies, gossip, and careless filth will demonstrate the evil treasure within their hearts. Words are the evidence of faith or unbelief. They are the fruit that reveals the nature of the tree. And on the last day, God will simply point to the fruit and render His righteous verdict.

Application

The immediate application of this passage is a call to radical heart-examination. We are far too concerned with the leaves and branches of our lives, our external actions and words, and not nearly concerned enough with the root and the soil. If you find that your speech is consistently critical, bitter, untruthful, or foolish, the solution is not to tape your mouth shut or to try harder to say nice things. The solution is to go to God and plead with Him to perform heart surgery. You need a new heart. This is what the gospel promises: God takes out the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26).

Secondly, we must take our words with deadly seriousness. In our casual and flippant age, we treat words like styrofoam packing peanuts, disposable and weightless. But God treats them like stones that build a house or sink a ship. We are building our case for the final judgment with every word we speak. This should lead us to pray with the psalmist, "Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips!" (Psalm 141:3). We should cultivate the habit of speaking deliberately, truthfully, and graciously.

Finally, this passage should drive us to Christ in profound gratitude. Our only hope in a judgment based on our words is to have an advocate who is the Word Himself. Jesus Christ is the one man whose every word was good, drawn from a perfectly good treasure. And through His death and resurrection, He offers to stand in our place. He takes the condemnation for all our careless, evil, and blasphemous words, and He gives us His perfect righteousness. When we are united to Him by faith, our words begin to change, because our hearts have been changed. Our speech becomes the evidence of His grace at work in us, a testimony that will stand up in the court of heaven and lead to our justification.