Uncaused Vengeance
In Matthew 3:7 baptist John speaks of “the vengeance that draws near.” John is reportedly addressing Pharisees and Sadducees together. However, with regard to Sadducees, the account is false and dishonest. While Pharisees are strong believers, Sadducees are strong unbelievers. Matthew himself writes subsequently about Sadducees heckling Jesus over a main saying of his. John was only Jesus’ precursor. It is incredible that Sadducees for no reason at all would suddenly go to John to be baptised by him. Since Pharisees are believers and since moreover they live strictly in accordance with the law given to Moses by jehovah, the vengeance against them that John speaks about is uncaused vengeance.
The word identity is defined as “sameness of essential or generic character in different instances” (Merriam Webster’s). One distinguishing character of the devil or Satan is “uncaused vengeance,” against man. This unique character is visible both in jehovah and Jesus.
Let us begin with jehovah.
Jehovah meets Moses at the mountain of Horeb. There Moses is asked to set out to Egypt to meet the Pharaoh. To this Moses said “Oh, my Lord, send, I pray, some other person” (Ex. 4:13). But then the anger of the lord was kindled against Moses that he was forced to agree. “So Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them on an ass, and went back to the land of Egypt” (Ex. 4:20). But, “At a camping place on the way to Egypt the lord met Moses and tried to kill him” (Ex. 4:24).
Since Moses was executing his demand there was absolutely no cause for this attempted murder on the part of jehovah. The generic character of uncaused vengeance is thus well defined in jehovah.
Now, to Jesus.
“He saw in the distance a fig-tree covered with leaves, so he went to see if he could find any figs on it. But when he came to it, he found only leaves, because it was not the right time for the figs.” Jesus said to the fig-tree, “No one shall ever eat figs from you again!” (Mark 11:13-14).
“Early next morning as they walked along the road they saw the fig-tree and it was dead all the way down to its roots” (Mark 11:20).
The bible itself says because it was not the right time for the figs, there was no figs on the fig-tree. Then why did Jesus curse the tree to death? There is no cause for this vengeance. We sense in the Jesus an advanced symptom of this uncaused vengeance.
Thus the distinctive and unifying character of jehovah and John is also found in Jesus.