The Ax and the Tree

When John the Baptist spoke to the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to see him as he baptized, he chastised them and said, “Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance….  And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire” (Matt. 3:8, 10).  Besides Luke’s rendition of the same encounter, this phrase about the ax being laid at the root of the tree appears two other times in the scriptures.  One is in Alma’s discourse to the people of Zarahemla in Alma 5.  He said, “Repent, for except ye repent ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of heaven.  And again I say unto you, the Spirit saith: Behold the ax is laid at the root of the tree; therefore every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be hewn down and cast into the fire” (Alma 5:51-52).  Here he equated the fruit with the same thing that John did: repentance.  The other time this phrase is used is in D&C 97:7 when the Lord said, “The ax is laid at the root of the trees; and every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be hewn down and cast into the fire.”  He continued in the next verses by saying that those who would “observe their covenants by sacrifice” would be accepted and “bring forth as a very fruitful tree.”  So here the concept of fruit is equated with keeping covenants by sacrifice.  Ultimately I think that we are the trees which need to bring forth fruit, and the fruit itself represents righteousness.  That righteousness means both repentance of our sins and making and keeping the covenants that the Lord requires.  The alternative is indeed a frightful prospect: none of us want to be the tree that the ax chops down.  Though I believe this is mainly figurative and spiritual, for the Pharisees to whom John the Baptist was preaching it was also physical: as a people they were hewn down in a dramatic way in the great devastation that came to Jerusalem in 70 AD.