“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.”
And do not presume to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. The appeal to Abrahamic descent as a substitute for genuine repentance is the specific self-deception John names. The claim we have Abraham as our father was not merely ethnic pride but a theological conviction: the covenant with Abraham was permanent and the descendants of Abraham were its beneficiaries. John does not deny the covenant; he challenges the assumption that biological descent from Abraham automatically places one within the covenant's benefits. Romans 9:6–8 makes the same point: not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. God can make children of Abraham from stones — covenant membership is God's creative act, not humanity's genealogical inheritance.
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