When Righteousness Stops Looking Like Jesus

TLDR: From the serpent's deception in Eden to Jesus' warnings about religious leaders, Scripture invites us to examine the fruit of what we believe. As religious conviction becomes increasingly entangled with political power and public punishment, I wonder whether our pursuit of righteousness is drawing us closer to the heart of Jesus or leading us away from the justice, mercy, and faithfulness He calls us to embody.

This morning I was reading Matthew 3 when one phrase stopped me.

Brood of vipers.

John the Baptist is speaking to the Pharisees and Sadducees who have come to where he is baptizing. These are religious leaders who knew Scripture, taught Scripture, and understood themselves to be defending the things of God.

And John calls them the offspring of poisonous snakes.

It's a startling image, and I found myself wondering why he chose those words.

My mind went immediately back to the Garden.

The Serpent's Oldest Deception

In Genesis 3, the serpent begins by questioning what God has said, introducing doubt about His intentions and inviting Eve to reconsider whether God's boundaries really are good.

The temptation extends beyond disobedience to a fundamental distortion of God's character. The serpent suggests that God is withholding something desirable, that His boundaries are restrictive rather than protective, and that humanity might find something better by stepping outside His instructions.

As fear and shame enter the human story, blame begins to displace responsibility, and relationships that were created for communion become places of hiding, accusation, and control.

I wonder whether we have underestimated how dangerous that first deception really was.

The serpent's work reached far beyond a single act of disobedience because it distorted humanity's understanding of God, and once our understanding of God becomes distorted, even our attempts to be righteous can become dangerous.

As I followed the imagery through Scripture, I found myself in Isaiah 59, where the prophet describes a society in which truth has been abandoned, justice is absent, and people hatch the eggs of vipers.

The imagery connects deception with injustice and the harm that grows when both are allowed to flourish.

Then I returned to Matthew 3, where John calls the religious leaders a brood of vipers and immediately challenges them to produce fruit consistent with repentance. He warns them against relying upon their ancestry as descendants of Abraham, confronting the assumption that their religious identity provides sufficient evidence of faithfulness.

It is their fruit that John wants them to examine.

Luke's account of John's preaching makes this especially interesting because when the people ask what repentance should look like, he directs them toward sharing clothing and food, abandoning financial exploitation, and refusing to use intimidation or false accusations against others.

Their repentance must become visible in the way they live, especially in how they treat the people around them.

Repentance has evidence, and that evidence can be seen in how we treat other people.

When Knowing Scripture Is Not the Same as Knowing God's Heart

Jesus returns to this same problem in Matthew 23 when He confronts religious leaders who have become meticulous in certain forms of religious obedience while neglecting what He calls the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

He challenges the way they have interpreted and practiced the law, exposing the inconsistency between their attention to particular religious commands and their neglect of the very character of the God whose commands they claim to defend.

And I find myself asking how often we do the same.

How often have we been taught that faithfulness requires unquestioning obedience to human authority, even when that authority is harming people? How often has the language of forgiveness been used to bypass accountability, or biblical teaching been accepted without examination because it was delivered from a pulpit with conviction and supported by a collection of carefully selected verses?

I've spent years sitting with people who are trying to untangle what they were taught about God from what they have experienced in relationships.

Some have learned that anger is rebellion, questioning is disobedience, submission requires silence, and extending mercy means removing consequences. Others have carried the belief that being a good Christian requires enduring harm without protest, even when their own dignity and personhood are being diminished.

Sometimes, as we return to Scripture together, the picture of God that begins to emerge is remarkably different from the one they have carried.

This is one reason I keep returning to Jesus, because I believe that within the whole witness of Scripture, He shows us what God's character looks like when it enters the complexity of human relationships.

He confronts exploitation and hypocrisy while restoring dignity to those who have been overlooked or diminished. He challenges the burdens placed upon people by religious authorities and refuses to confuse religious status with spiritual maturity.

What continues to strike me is how tenderly Jesus responds to those carrying shame and how directly He confronts those who use religious authority to burden others.

Jesus takes sin and injustice seriously, and His life gives us a picture of righteousness that is inseparable from mercy, truth, and the restoration of human dignity.

And I wonder how closely our own understanding of righteousness resembles His.

When Vengeance Begins to Look Like Justice

I have written before about Cain and Lamech in Genesis 4, and I found myself returning to their stories as I considered the current climate in our country.

After Cain murders Abel, God does not dismiss what happened. Abel's blood matters, the violence matters, and Cain faces consequences for what he has done.

Yet in the midst of those consequences, God places a mark upon Cain to protect him from being killed in retaliation.

Even after Cain has taken another person's life, God places a limit upon the violence that may be done to him, establishing a restraint upon the human desire to answer one act of violence with another.

Cain remains accountable for his actions while also receiving protection against the escalation of vengeance.

Then, a few generations later, Lamech boasts about his own violence and declares that his vengeance will be multiplied seventy-seven times.

What God had established as a restraint upon retaliation has become, in Lamech's hands, a declaration of power and a source of pride.

I find that progression sobering because it reveals how easily the human desire for justice can become entangled with the desire for vengeance, until violence itself becomes something to celebrate.

And I have been thinking about that progression as I watch what is happening in America.

We are approaching another election amid enormous division, anger, and fear, and I am increasingly troubled by the ways religious certainty and political allegiance can reinforce one another, particularly when that certainty begins to justify contempt or cruelty toward those we perceive as enemies.

Recently, I read about the Pentagon's proposal to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, who was convicted of murdering thirteen people at Fort Hood in 2009.

Those thirteen lives, the families who grieve them, the survivors who continue to carry the consequences, and the need for accountability all deserve our utmost seriousness.

I recognize that Christians hold differing convictions about capital punishment and that questions surrounding justice, punishment, and the state's responsibility are complex.

Yet the proposal to invite a nation to watch another human being die raises a different set of questions for me.

Regardless of whether the proposed broadcast ultimately takes place, I think we need to sit with the fact that it was seriously considered at all. How have we reached a point where the taking of a human life could be presented as something for spectators to gather and watch?

I wonder whether our constant exposure to violence on screens has begun to change our relationship with the reality of death. We have become accustomed to watching people die in films and television shows, sometimes with extraordinary graphic detail, knowing that when the director calls cut, the actor will get up, wipe the fake blood from his chest, and go home to his family.

But there is something profoundly different about watching a real human being take his final breath, knowing that there will be no director calling cut, no actor getting up again, and no opportunity for that person to resume his life.

I imagine some will respond that the man facing execution committed horrific acts, that he deserves his punishment, or that he has forfeited any claim to our compassion. Others may question why we should concern ourselves with his dignity when thirteen people were murdered and so many lives were devastated by his actions.

These are questions worth taking seriously because the victims and their families deserve justice, and the enormity of what happened should never be minimized. I would never ask those who have suffered such loss to feel compassion for the person responsible, nor would I presume to tell them how they should grieve or what justice should mean to them.

Yet I believe there is a distinction we must preserve between holding someone accountable for terrible acts and deciding that those acts have stripped them of their humanity.

Scripture teaches that human beings are made in the image of God. In Genesis 9:6, a passage often cited in discussions about capital punishment, the gravity of taking human life is itself grounded in the fact that humanity bears God's image. James 3:9 reminds us that even the people we are tempted to curse have been made in God's likeness.

This understanding of human dignity cannot depend upon whether someone has a family, whether anyone loves them, or whether we find anything admirable in their character. If it did, dignity would become something we grant or withdraw according to our judgment of another person's worth.

I am aware that some Christians understand capital punishment itself to be compatible with biblical justice, while others believe it is inconsistent with the teachings and example of Jesus. I recognize the seriousness of those differences and the importance of examining them carefully.

But the question I am asking here extends to something that ought to give us pause regardless of where we stand on capital punishment: what happens when the death of a human being becomes an event offered for public consumption?

We might agree that someone deserves the severest punishment available under the law and still ask whether inviting millions of people to watch that punishment being carried out serves any worthy purpose.

After all, what would it mean for us as a society if we began to enjoy watching people die because we had concluded they were sufficiently evil to deserve it?

Public executions are hardly new to human history, but I find it deeply troubling that, with all we have learned about human dignity, suffering, and the consequences of violence, we might consider using modern technology to invite millions of people to witness one.

I cannot help wondering whether we have become so accustomed to consuming images of violence that we are losing sight of what it means to witness the actual death of another human being. Even if the decision is ultimately made not to broadcast this execution, I believe the fact that it was considered deserves serious reflection.

And perhaps the most uncomfortable question is what happens within our own hearts when the suffering of someone we have judged deserving begins to bring us satisfaction.

Because I wonder whether we can become so convinced of another person's evil that we stop examining what our own response to that evil is doing to us.

Surely that, too, is a question of spiritual fruit.

When Faith and Political Identity Become Entangled

Having grown up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, I find it difficult to look at the relationship between religious identity and political allegiance as a purely theoretical problem.

I come from a culture where religious identity became deeply entangled with political history, community belonging, and competing understandings of justice. The divisions were never simply theological, yet religious identity could become a powerful marker of who belonged, who was trusted, and who was viewed with suspicion.

Perhaps that background has made me particularly attentive to the ways our convictions can become intertwined with our loyalties, until questioning an idea begins to feel like betraying our people.

I also recognize that, as someone who did not grow up in America, I bring a perspective shaped by a different history. I don't presume that my experience gives me a clearer understanding of every issue facing this country, but I hope it might invite a willingness to examine assumptions that can become difficult to recognize from within our own culture.

One of the things I continue to wrestle with is how easily belonging can begin to replace discernment, and how readily we can interpret loyalty to a particular group or leader as faithfulness to God.

When religious language is used to affirm political identity, it can become increasingly difficult to distinguish between defending our convictions and defending the people or institutions with whom we have aligned ourselves.

We may become less willing to ask difficult questions about those we consider to be on our side, while growing increasingly comfortable assigning the worst possible motives to those we regard as opponents.

And I wonder what happens to the witness of the Church when our political loyalties become more recognizable than the character of Jesus.

The invitation of Christ calls us to examine our allegiances in light of His character, His teaching, and the kingdom He came to establish.

And that brings me to the cross.

The Cross Should Make Us Ask Different Questions

There is an uncomfortable irony here that I cannot move past.

At the center of the Christian faith is a public execution.

Jesus was condemned, mocked, stripped of dignity, and displayed before a watching crowd as religious accusation and Roman political power converged in the crucifixion of an innocent man.

I recognize the profound difference between the execution of an innocent Savior and the punishment of someone convicted of a horrific crime, and I have no desire to diminish the suffering of the victims or their families by suggesting an equivalence between the two.

Yet I wonder whether those of us who worship a crucified Savior should be especially attentive to the ways public suffering can become a demonstration of power.

The cross ought to make us careful about what we celebrate and cause us to consider what is happening within our own hearts when humiliation becomes entertainment, punishment becomes spectacle, or we find ourselves taking satisfaction in another person's degradation.

It should also remind us that those who speak most confidently about defending God may still misunderstand the character of the One they claim to represent.

Jesus' own disciples were certainly capable of this confusion.

In Luke 9, James and John want to call down fire upon a Samaritan village that has rejected Jesus, apparently believing that such a response would be an appropriate defense of their Lord's honor.

Jesus rebukes them.

I find that exchange particularly revealing because their loyalty to Jesus was real, yet their instincts about how to exercise power were profoundly misaligned with the One they were following.

They were defending Jesus in a way that did not reflect Jesus.

I wonder how often our churches, our communities, and our political conversations repeat that mistake, particularly when our sense of being right becomes so closely connected to our identity that we begin to lose the ability to examine the way we are treating others.

And perhaps this is why the question of spiritual fruit matters so much.

The Wisdom That Comes From Above

This brings me to a passage I have loved for years: James 3:13–18.

James asks who among his readers is wise and understanding, and then directs them toward the evidence of that wisdom in their conduct.

He contrasts the disorder produced by envy and selfish ambition with the wisdom that comes from God, describing that wisdom as pure, peace-loving, considerate, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and sincere.

I keep returning to that description because it challenges so much of what we have come to associate with strength and authority.

The wisdom James describes requires humility, a willingness to listen, and the capacity to examine our own motives even when we are deeply convinced that we are right.

It asks us to hold our convictions in a way that remains consistent with the character of the God we claim to follow.

And perhaps most importantly, it asks us to remain merciful.

I think we sometimes struggle with mercy because we assume that it weakens justice or requires us to minimize wrongdoing. Yet mercy can exist alongside meaningful accountability, the protection of vulnerable people, and the courageous confrontation of evil.

In fact, I would argue that a commitment to justice becomes more trustworthy when it is accompanied by mercy, because mercy reminds us that even those who must be held accountable remain human beings whose dignity is not ours to discard.

Truth deserves to be spoken with integrity, and its credibility is strengthened when those who speak it also demonstrate humility and compassion.

Likewise, our convictions are worthy of careful examination because sincere belief, however passionately expressed, does not guarantee that our interpretation is correct or that our actions are faithful.

James tells us that wisdom from above produces good fruit.

So perhaps we should be asking more of our religious and political convictions than whether we can find a verse to support them.

Perhaps we should also be examining the kind of people those convictions are forming us to become.

Are we growing in truthfulness, compassion, courage, and a willingness to protect the vulnerable? Are we becoming more humble about the possibility that we have misunderstood something, and more willing to listen to experiences that challenge our assumptions?

Or are we becoming increasingly comfortable with contempt, accusation, humiliation, and the suffering of those we have decided are our enemies?

These questions matter because the fruit of our beliefs eventually becomes visible in the way we exercise power, respond to disagreement, and treat those who are most vulnerable to harm.

An Invitation Back to Jesus

I recognize the danger of writing something like this because it is remarkably easy to read Jesus' confrontations with religious leaders and immediately identify the people we believe He would be confronting today.

We can recognize the serpent in someone else's words, identify the modern-day Pharisees, and reassure ourselves that we are standing on the side of righteousness, all while overlooking the possibility that we ourselves might be capable of the very blindness Jesus was exposing.

What if our certainty about the failures of others has made us less willing to examine our own?

I have little interest in handing Christians another category of people to condemn, and I am increasingly convinced that the more difficult and faithful invitation is to examine our own hearts, our assumptions, and the fruit of what we believe.

I want to ask where we may have confused authority with control, where our desire for accountability has become entangled with punishment, and where fear has begun to shape our responses more powerfully than love.

I want us to be willing to examine the interpretations of Scripture we have inherited, particularly when their application appears to require us to become increasingly comfortable with domination, humiliation, or indifference to suffering.

And I include myself in every one of those questions.

The temptation to defend what we believe is right without examining the way we are defending it belongs to all of us, regardless of our political allegiance, denomination, or theological tradition.

I believe faithfulness sometimes requires us to speak clearly in the face of injustice, even when doing so is uncomfortable or unpopular. Yet our responsibility to confront wrongdoing also requires us to examine our motives, remain accountable for our own conduct, and resist the temptation to dehumanize those with whom we disagree.

We can pursue accountability while preserving human dignity, speak truth with courage and compassion, and remain open to correction without abandoning our convictions.

And when we discover that our understanding has been shaped more by fear, inherited assumptions, or allegiance to a particular group than by the character of Jesus, we have the opportunity to repent and return to Him.

If our interpretation of Scripture continually requires us to become less merciful, less truthful, and less concerned with human dignity, at what point do we ask whether we have misunderstood the God we claim to defend?

Perhaps the question before us isn't simply whether we are defending Christianity.

Perhaps it is whether the Christianity we are defending still looks like Jesus.

And perhaps that is where repentance begins, when we become willing to ask God to examine what has been growing within our own hearts before we become occupied with identifying the vipers around us.

An AHAVA Reflection: When Conviction Meets Compassion

An invitation to examine whether the way we hold and express our convictions reflects the values we believe God has called us to live.

A — Acknowledge

As you consider the current political and religious climate, begin by acknowledging the emotions that arise within you.

Perhaps you notice anger at what feels unjust, fear about the direction of your country, grief over the suffering of others, or frustration toward people whose convictions differ significantly from your own.

You may even recognize a sense of satisfaction when someone you believe has done wrong experiences punishment.

Allow yourself to acknowledge those responses with curiosity and honesty, remembering that our emotions can provide valuable information without necessarily determining what we should do with them.

Reflection: What emotions arise when I consider the people, leaders, or events I most strongly disagree with, and how comfortable am I acknowledging those feelings?

H — Hear

Our emotional responses often reveal something about what matters to us, what we fear losing, or what we believe needs protection.

Anger may point toward a deeply held commitment to justice, while fear may reveal uncertainty about safety, belonging, or the future. At times, the desire for punishment may arise from a legitimate longing for accountability, yet it can also become entangled with hurt that is seeking retaliation.

Listening carefully to what is happening within us creates space to recognize those distinctions before we act.

Reflection: What am I trying to protect, and is the response I feel drawn toward consistent with what I most deeply value?

A — Align

Return to Scripture with a willingness to examine the assumptions you bring to the text.

Spend some time with Matthew 23:23 and James 3:13–18, considering how Jesus describes justice, mercy, and faithfulness, and how James invites us to recognize wisdom through the fruit it produces.

Consider whether your convictions and the ways you express them are moving in the same direction.

Reflection: Where might my beliefs and my conduct be out of alignment with the justice, mercy, and faithfulness Jesus calls us toward?

V — Value

Consider the kind of person you want to become in a world that often rewards outrage, certainty, and division.

What qualities of Christ do you hope others experience in their interactions with you, particularly when they disagree with your convictions or challenge your understanding?

Courage and compassion can strengthen one another, just as truthfulness and gentleness can coexist within the same conversation.

Reflection: Which qualities of Christ do I most want reflected in the way I respond to injustice, disagreement, and political conflict?

A — Act

Our values become visible through the choices we make, often in the ordinary moments when it would be easier to remain silent, join in condemnation, or withdraw from an uncomfortable conversation.

Your next step might involve speaking about an injustice you have been hesitant to address, listening carefully to someone whose experience differs from yours, challenging a harmful statement, seeking more reliable information, or advocating for someone whose dignity has been overlooked.

Consider an action that reflects your commitment to both truth and mercy, remembering that the purpose of this reflection is to help you live more consistently with what you believe.

Reflection: What is one action I can take this week that moves me toward truth, justice, and mercy?

A Prayer for Wisdom and Courage

Jesus,

I want to know You as You truly are, beyond the assumptions I have inherited, the preferences I have developed, and the fears that sometimes influence the way I understand You.

I want to know Your heart.

Show me where I have confused certainty with wisdom, where I have mistaken control for righteousness, and where my anger has begun to move beyond the protection of what is good toward the punishment of those I oppose.

Help me hear the cries of those who have been harmed while remaining attentive to the ways suffering can become justification for further cruelty.

Give me courage to confront injustice, humility to examine my own beliefs, and compassion that remains present even when another person's actions are difficult to forgive.

Teach me to love justice as You define it, to practice mercy without abandoning truth, and to speak with conviction while remaining gentle and open to correction.

When I discover that my understanding has wandered from Your character, give me the humility to return to Scripture and the courage to reconsider what I thought I knew.

Above all, may my life increasingly reflect the One I profess to follow, so that the fruit of my faith bears witness to Your truth, Your justice, and Your love.

Amen.

The way back is always open.

Emma Ward, LCMFT
Author of The Ahava Way