NOTES for Mat 7:18-20

These words of Jesus are not about the predestination of some people to good and others to evil. He is simply saying that our actions, our "fruits," are not something spontaneous and conditioned by nothing, but an expression of our inner orientation toward sinking in sin or toward coming out of it. No one except God knows what is inside us, but this is not very important, because the "fruits" correspond to the inner state of the "tree," and if they are bad, the whole tree is cut down. Only, for God's sake, let us not think that cutting down "trees" is our task.