Matthew 3v7

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

John also saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the religious leaders of his time, coming – perhaps to be baptized, or more likely, just to witness what was happening. This is the first recorded time where John criticised those in religious authority. His likening them to vipers, another name for serpent or snake, was a direct and unmistakeable reference to the Devil and his curse in Genesis 3v14. To ask the question here shows that John believed that:

God Himself, through the Holy Spirit, was drawing most people to his ministry.
The Pharisees and Sadducees had strayed far from God, and no longer had any direct connection to Him, so it couldn’t have been God that had warned them to flee.
There was a coming outpouring of the wrath of God, most likely due (at least in part) to the ungodly lives of those that were supposed to be the leaders of the people of God.
Baptism has a part to play in the avoidance of the ‘wrath to come’. The wrath was not for everybody, and could be avoided by all but the select few. Those that were destined for the wrath had selected themselves by not repenting of their ways and turning back to God – the Pharisees and Sadducees were the leaders of this group.

When we also read verses 8&9, we see John telling them: “Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” Here John admonishes them to have a true repentance, and not just trust in forms and rituals (baptism perhaps being the newest one) or being descendants of Abraham. John is making the point that repentance must have fruit – repentance is a change in the way that you think, and a change in the way that you live your life. This change will be evident to the outside observer. This point and John’s teaching is further amplified in Luke 3v3-18 {30 } {31 } {32 } {33 }.

Perhaps some of the Pharisees and Sadducees that were present were the same ones that Jesus would later talk about as “whited sepulchres” (Matthew 23v27). A ‘whited sepulchre’ is a freshly painted above-ground grave, looking fresh and clean on the outside, but in reality still containing dead men’s bones and ashes on the inside.