INTRODUCTION In opening verses of the chapter Jesus publicly condemned the Pharisees (vv.1-12) and now Jesus will personally condemn the Pharisees (vv.13-36). In the previous verses Jesus exposes their corrupt character and now he will condemn the Pharisees in a series of denunciations or judgments or curses. These are called woes or judgments. We will begin our study by examining the first three judgments and in our next visit we will look at the final four woes or judgments. You will remember when Jesus publicly condemned the Pharisees he accused them of failing to practice what they preach (vv.1-7); placing heavy burdens upon people and refusing to lighten the load themselves (v.4); doing everything for show (vv.5;7) and demanding positions of prominence (v.6). Jesus warned them that whoever exalts himself will experience unwelcome humbling and whoever humbles himself will be exalted (vv.8-12). Now Jesus issues a series of scathing ultimatums judgments on the religious hypocrites. 1. The first judgment: Preventing People From The Kingdom Of God and refusing entrance themselves (v.13). 2. The second judgment: Converting people away from God to like yourself (v.15). 3. The third judgment: Blindly leading people to man made traditions instead of God s Word (vv. 16-22). 4. The fourth judgment: Participating in every last detail but ignoring what is important; justice, mercy and faith (vv.23-24). 5. The fifth judgment: Keeping up appearances while your private world is corrupt (vv.25-26). 6. The six judgment: Acting spiritual while covering up sin (vv.27-28). 7. The seventh judgment: Pretending to have learned from past history, but present behavior betrays the fact that you haven t learned anything (vv.29-36).* (adapted from notes in the Life Application Study Bible; NLT p.1457). Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees and by extension condemns and curses all people who preach a false gospel and promote false doctrine. The King condemns false leaders and exposes their false agenda. (1) False spiritual leaders exclude people from the Kingdom of Heaven. (2) False teachers preach a false faith, a distorted substitute of true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. (3) False leaders pervert the truth by promoting lies! (4) false leaders twist, torture and switch God s priorities. (5) False teachers exercise extortion. (6) False leaders are committed to self-indulgence and sinfully contaminating everyone around them. (7) False teachers and leaders presume to be superior to everyone and their presumption are willing to kill people who do not subscribe to their brand of external and hypocritical religion. Jesus curses counterfeit leaders. The Pharisees hate Jesus. Jesus reveals the inward human condition. The Pharisees focus on outward appearances. Jesus is concerned with what is going on in the inside of a person s heart and the Pharisees focus on what is going on the outside! Jesus teaches spiritual life based on Biblical principles; the Pharisees and religious leaders teach spiritual life based on rules and regulations. Jesus measures a woman or a man s relationship with the Lord on the basis of spiritual character. The religious leaders measure a man or woman s relationship with God based on activity, conformity or participation in the rules and regulations. Jesus taught honesty, humility, simplicity and sacrificial service (Wiersbe p. 86). The religious leaders used people and were proud. Jesus was pure. The religious leaders polluted. The Failure In Refusing To Enter The Kingdom And Refusing Others Entrance (vv.13-14) Matthew 23:13 14 (NKJV)13 But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. 1
Jesus repeats two words as he registers his dissatisfaction with the religious leaders: woe and hypocrites! Woe is the Greek word ouai. Like the English word ouch or cuckoo or boom the word is onomatopoeia a sound that communicates a sentiment. Woe is a cry of anguish or pain or both. The word is used in the Greek Septuagint (Greek OT) to express grief, sorrow or despair, it was also used to express profound dissatisfaction and sometimes the fear of losing one s life. In the NT it is used to speak of sorrow and judgment, carrying the mingled ideas of punishment and pity, cursing and compassion (see MacArthur p. 375). Jesus is not saying I curse you or damn you but rather as one Bible commentator as pointed out When God utters woe against evil men He sets divine judgment in motion (MacArthur p.375). The word hypocrite is familiar to the regular reader of the New Testament. The word means answering or replying in the sense of a prepared response like the fictional dialogue of people acting or performing. It was used to describe the pretend dialogue of the stage. Later it was used in Greek culture of actors and performers on stage pretending to be what they were not wearing a mask acting. When Jesus uses the term I think He means godless pretender. What are the basic credentials of the hypocrite? Deceit (v.18); Formalism (v.23) Appearances (vv.25-28). To the religious hypocrite religion is all about appearance, envy, arrogance and pride. The religious hypocrite restricts true entrance into the kingdom of heaven! In Matthew 5:3 Jesus said Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven! The first evil of false religion is it sentences people to hell! How can you be sure? Jesus says so! Jesus condemns and curses false teachers and their teaching because they keep people out of heaven! J. Vernon McGee once said, There s only one thing worse than going to hell! That is holding the hand of your little child in hell with you! Every false religion, cult, every false philosophy that rejects Jesus as Savior rejects the Cross rejects His sacrifice rejects grace sentences people to hell! But what about the good they do feeding the poor housing the homeless providing clean fresh drinking water education and sanitation and medication? What if their religion raises the moral climate, brings families together and promotes peace? If your religion does not remove the stain of sin from the human heart and transform that heart into a heart that is acceptable to God reconcile you to God and keep you out of hell what good is it? Some false religions promise heaven but always give you hell. They promise freedom but give slavery. They promise to speak for God but ultimately speak for Satan. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus blesses those who are spiritually bankrupt, who have nothing to offer God but their sin! The poor in spirit enter the Kingdom of Heaven and the proud in spirit are kept out! Jesus characterized the proud in spirit when he spoke of a religious leader praying a prayer I thank God I m not like other men. Remember the Pharisee claimed to be spokesman for God. The Pharisees pretend citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven but they are not! With bloated pride and arrogance they claimed to be the gate-keepers if Heaven! 2
Jesus said you neither go in yourselves, neither do you allow those who are entering to go in. Jesus believed some people are not going to heaven. Jesus believed false teachers prevented real people, hurting people, desperate people, lost people from going to heaven! Does your religion matter? It does to Jesus. Beloved souls are on the line. Eternity is at stake. 14Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation. This verse does not appear in some ancient manuscripts but is contained in Mark 12:40 and Luke 20:47. Remember the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus said (Matthew 5:4) Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted? The religious leaders manipulate the mourners! When a man died, the Pharisees would show up on the doorstep saying to the widow, If you really want to honor your husband s memory, make a donation to our ministry (Courson p. 193). Does that still happen? Please donate in memory of (fill in the blank). It is not wrong to donate money to the church for the memory of a loved one but it is wrong to manipulate a person s emotions in times of distress in order to finance a false leader s dream! Beware of fund raisers! Beware of bake sales and burrito sales and bar-b-que sales that manipulate rather than comfort! The religious leaders failed to mourn over sin and instead took advantage of people with the false promise of spiritual reward! Paul told the people of Thessaly (1 Thess.2:5) For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness God is my witness. Paul is saying we did not tell you what you wanted to hear in order to get stuff from you! Converting People Away From God To Be Like You (v.15) 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. A proselyte is a convert. The religious leaders sought to convert people not from sin to righteousness not from being alienated to God and then reconciled to God but from outward badness to outward goodness! The religious leaders were interested in converting people to their own legalistic, hypocritical system of law keeping. Jesus curses the religious leaders not only for keeping people out of heaven excluding them from genuine faith but poisoning people with false faith! The Jews seldom sought converts but apparently in the first century their was a massive missionary movement. How did a Gentile become a Jew in the ancient world? It occurred in two stages. The first step was to have a right understanding of the God of the Scriptures. God was a singular God as opposed to the polytheism and pagan concepts in the ancient world. This would include the Bible s teaching concerning the nature of God and then subscription to the basic tenants of Judaism. The second step was to become circumcised a permanent and irrevocable act which 3
joined you God s people. The Pharisees would focus on the God-fearing pagans those who expressed an interest in Judaism and then belief in God s revelation and then would urge them to take the final step to become circumcised. Unfortunately, many of the Pharisees converts were attracted to status and rule keeping, not to God (see Life Application Bible Commentary; p.453). What happens when you focus on a religion of external observances? In the ancient world it was hard for a pagan to convert to Judaism. There were two kinds of converts one was called the proselyte at the gate. These were Gentiles who attended Synagogue services. He worshipped the true God, but had not necessarily committed to all the rituals, all the laws, all the ceremonies, all the ritual cleansing. These were Gentiles who participated as much as a Gentile could participate. The men would undergo circumcision and these converts were given Jewish names in order to separate themselves as far as possible from their pagan past. The most converted became the most perverted. The converts became more legalistic and selfrighteous then their mentors. The Pharisees preferred their ideas of religion to God s idea of religion (Barclay p. 289). False leaders and teachers prefer their own ideas about truth than what the Bible says about truth. False leaders and false teachers elevate their ideas, opinions and preferences above the Word of God! People who substitute their ideas for God s Word become barriers instead of bridges they are guides blind guides, who mislead others. The Pharisees did not lead people to the revelation of the Scripture but to legalism, hypocrisy and Pharisaism. Mormons, JW S Christian Scientists et al lead people to their twisted system of perverse doctrine not to Jesus Christ and salvation by grace alone and faith in Christ alone. Jesus accuses the Pharisees of being evil missionaries and representatives for hell! When we lead people to anything or anyone other than the God of the Bible and God s Messiah we partake in the Pharisees sin! God help us. Leading God s People To Follow Human Traditions Instead Of God s Word (vv.16-22) 16 Woe to you, blind guides, who say, Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it. 17Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? 18And, Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obliged to perform it. 19Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? 20Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it. 21He who swears by the temple, swears by it and by Him who dwells in it. 22And he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it. When I was young we played a game. If you told someone something with your fingers crossed behind your back, it didn t matter if you were telling a lie the fact that you had your fingers 4
crossed behind you back meant it didn t really have to be true. But if you really wanted to tell the truth you had to open the palms of your hands (to show your fingers were not crossed) and say cross my heart and hope to die stick a needle in my eye. These were sacred words. You were in effect saying I hope I die if I m lying. I give you permission to stick a needle in my eye if I am lying. I don t recall anyone sticking a needle in anyone s eye for not telling the truth. We play the game; God keeps score (Erwin Lutzer). The Pharisees would also play a game. Jesus accuses them of being blind guides drawing attention to their own dark misunderstanding of God s nature and God s standards. God is a God of truth. God does not lie. Satan is the Father of lies (John 8:44). Satan is skilled in lying. The perversion and distortion of truth is one of the hallmarks of false followers. The religious leaders considered themselves to be guides of the people people trapped in darkness in need of the light. The religious leaders considered themselves correctors of the foolish or immature. The religious leaders prided themselves in their superior religious knowledge, professional training, understanding and leadership. Jesus exposes their game! Religious Jews would swear by the Temple the ancient version of putting your hands behind your back and crossing your fingers. If a Jewish person swore by the Temple they had no real intention of honoring the oath. This was the legal way to back out of a promise you made to God (I did not lie under oath). If a person swore to give a certain gift or money to the Temple decided it was too much they could back out and not honor their promise. But if a person swore by the gold in the Temple it was like saying, cross my heart and hope to die stick a needle in my eye! The person making the promise was legally obligated to keep his vow! There were penalties in the Jewish Law of the first century if a person swore by the gold in the Temple and then failed to honor the oath. Every society has a way of exacting the truth. In our culture if you sign a contract you must fulfill the terms of the contract or suffer the consequences outlined in the contract. If you lie under oath in a Court of Law or a Grand Jury you are liable for certain civil and criminal penalties. If you lie to an FBI agent in the course of investigation you can be criminally charged. The Jews had developed a double standard for swearing and giving evidence. One where the person making the oath was free to lie the other you could not lie without suffering penalty. Jesus exposes this phony double standard. In certain religious traditions people give themselves permission to lie. But Jesus said (Matt.5:6) Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Jesus pronounces a blessing for those who long for purity, integrity, truth, holiness. The Pharisees and religious leaders weren t starving for truth and so gave themselves permission to continue in their self-righteous charade. Just like all false religions and all false cults. They ignore the passages in the Bible that do not suit them Christ grace salvation apart from the works of the Law. On the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, Don t swear or don t make promises at all. Matthew 5:34-37; But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God s throne, nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is 5
the city of the Great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your Yes be Yes and your No, No. For whatever is more than these is from the evil one. A godly person tells the truth. A simple yes or a simple no. Jews in ancient times would swear an oath to give money to the work of the Lord and they would swear by the Temple. But it was really an empty promise. We play the same games. We will say something like I promised I did not swear. Or I gave my pledge but not my word. Or I gave my word but have no intention of honoring my word. Jesus exposes their little game in verses 17-22. He exposes their faulty logic, their moral absurdity. On what logical basis did the religious leaders arrive at the conclusion they could swear by lesser things and not have to honor their word BUT if they swore by greater things they were under HOLY obligation? The bottom line these men were using holy things holy words holy religious language to mask their unholy lying! The speech was a pretense to cover up lies. Jesus said, when you swear by the altar you swear by everything on the altar. When you swear by the Temple you swear by everything in the Temple and the God of the Temple. When you swear by the throne of God you swear by the person who sits on the throne. When you swear by anything God made you swear by God. Jesus exposes the folly of lying. When we lie we become like the Father of lies we pervert the truth (like Satan) and we become co-conspirators in Satan s agenda to undermine truth. The Pharisees confused the externals for what was essential. We run the risk of making the same mistake. We major in the minors and minor in the majors. We can make minor issues become major concerns. We need help. How can we recover from the legacy of the Pharisees? We can once again affirm what Jesus affirms. Conclusion Do you want to provoke God s anger? Do you want to be on the receiving end of condemnation and curse? Make the decision to refuse to enter God s Kingdom. Refuse to believe the gospel. Reject Christ and then ridicule others when they accept Christ. Do not enter the Kingdom of Heaven and make every effort to insure others do not. Convert people away from God and make sure they are as much like you as possible. Blindly lead God s people to follow man-made traditions instead of God s Word. Or not. Enter God s Kingdom. Encourage others to do so. Believe the gospel. Receive Christ. 6