The coming wrath

Eschatology involves a judgment and punishment of those who have transgressed against a deity. The deity on the  other hand is offering rewards to those who have been faithful. The opening of the earliest gospel does not include judgement allusions, yet the later gospel who follow it's opening appears to gradually introduce this aspect into the story.

The earliest gospel introduces the John the Baptist in it's opening chapter! His mission is to prepare the way for the coming Messiah (Mark 1.1), and Mark thinks that this is a fulfilment of a prophecy (Mark 1.2-3; Malachi 3.2; Isaiah 40.3).

The prophecy has it's first century cultural significance that Mark had to address, and will be examined in later study, although he failed to address it properly, because he attributes the prophecy falsely to Isaiah.

The later gospel of Matthew basically follows the story line in Mark. According to Mark and Matthew people were drawing from the "whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him" (Mark 1.5; Matthew 3.5).

At this point Matthew introduces an interesting aspect of the story, something not known to the gospel of Mark; John the Baptist is now addressing part of his public directly:

But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
(Matthew 3.7)

The wrath the Baptist is talking about is a imminent wrath. It is so imminent in so far that the "ax is already at the root of the trees" (Matthew 3.10). Taken in context, the imminent wrath is directly linked with the "Kingdom of Heaven that has come near" (Matthew 3.2), and the one that is coming in power (Matthew 3.11)  most likely the awaited Messiah, the main protagonist of Matthews story.

In other words, what Matthew is telling his public, is that John the Baptist has singled out his enemies. This are the  Pharisees and Sadducees, the established religious elite of the time, and they are subjects of the wrath that is coming with the future kingdom of god, established by the Messiah.

The gospel that follows is that of Luke. In this gospel John the Baptist addresses the coming wrath as well:

John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
(Luke 3.7)

The wrath is still imminent (Luke 3.9), but is not connected contextually to the kingdom to come or the Messiah who is going to establish it. Unlike Matthew, here the coming wrath extends to all those who were coming to John, not just the religious elite!

This is the situation we find here; in Marks gospel after the introduction to the John the Baptist, Jesus' is baptised, and his message is about the nearness of the kingdom of god (Mark 1.15) but has no explicit mention to any coming wrath. Matthew goes along this line and syncs the message of John with that of Marks Jesus' (Matthew 3.2; Matthew 4.17) and contextually connects it to the coming wrath (Matthew 3.7). Luke on the other hand has retained the reference to the coming wrath (Luke 3.7) but contextually has no link to the kingdom to come.

It appears that the introduction to the coming wrath has different narrative purpose in both of the gospels.