Matthew 23

Matthew 23:1

M. Warning Against High Talk, Low Walk (23:1-12) 23:1-4 In the opening verses of this chapter, the Savior warns the crowds and His disciples against the scribes and the Pharisees. These leaders sat in Moses’ seat, or taught the Law of Moses. Generally, their teachings were dependable, but their practice was not. Their creed was better than their conduct. It was a case of high talk and low walk. So Jesus said, … whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do.They made heavy demands (probably extreme interpretations of the letter of the law) on the people, but would not assist anyone in lifting these intolerable loads. 23:5 They went through religious observances to be seen by men, not from inward sincerity. Their use of phylacteries was an example. In commanding Israel to bind His words as a sign upon their hands and as frontlets between their eyes (Exo_13:9, Exo_13:16; Deu_6:8; Deu_11:18), God meant that the law should continually be before them, guiding their activities. They reduced this spiritual command to a literal, physical sense. Enclosing portions of Scripture in leather capsules, they bound them to their foreheads or arms. They weren’t concerned about obeying the law as long as, by wearing ridiculously large phylacteries, they appeared super-spiritual.

The law also commanded the Jews to wear tassels with blue cords on the corners of their garments, (Num_15:37-41; Deu_22:12). These distinctive trimmings were intended to remind them that they were a distinct people, and that they should walk in separation from the nations. The Pharisees overlooked the spiritual lesson and satisfied themselves with making longer fringes. 23:6-8 They showed their self-importance by scrambling for the places of honor at feasts and in the synagogues. They nourished their ego on greetings in the marketplaces and especially enjoyed being called rabbi (meaning my great one, or teacher). 23:9, 10 Here the Lord warned His disciples against using distinctive titles which should be reserved for the Godhead. We are not to be called rabbi as a distinctive title because there is one Teacherthe Christ. We should call no man father; God is our Father. Weston writes insightfully: It is a declaration of the essential relations of man to God. Three things constitute a Christianwhat he is, what he believes, what he does; doctrine, experience, practice. Man needs for his spiritual being three thingslife, instruction, guidance; just what our Lord declares in the ten words of the GospelI am the way, and the truth, and the life… . Acknowledge no man as Father, for no man can impart or sustain spiritual life; install no man as an infallible teacher; allow no one to assume the office of spiritual director; your relation to God and to Christ is as close as that of any other person. The obvious meaning of the Savior’s words is that in the kingdom of heaven all believers form an equal brotherhood with no place for distinctive titles setting one above another. Yet think of the pompous titles found in Christendom today: Reverend, Right Reverend, Father, and a host of others. Even the seemingly harmless Doctor means teacher in Latin. (This warning clearly applies to spiritual, rather than natural, professional or academic relationships. For instance, it does not prohibit a child’s calling his parent Father, nor a patient’s addressing his physician as Doctor.) As far as earthly relationships are concerned, the rule is respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due (Rom_13:7). 23:11, 12 Once again the revolutionary character of the kingdom of heaven is seen in the fact that true greatness is exactly opposite to what people suppose. Jesus said, He who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. True greatness stoops to serve. Pharisees who exalt themselves will be brought low. True disciples who humble themselves will be exalted in due time.

Matthew 23:13

N. Woes against the Scribes and Pharisees (23:13-36) The Lord Jesus next pronounces eight woes on the proud religious hypocrites of His day. These are not curses, but rather expressions of sorrow at their fate, not unlike the expression, Alas for you!23:13 The first woe is directed against their obduracy and obstructionism. They refused to enter the kingdom themselves, and aggressively hindered others from entering. Strangely, religious leaders are often the most active opponents of the gospel of grace. They can be sweetly tolerant of everything but the good news of salvation. Natural man doesn’t want to be the object of God’s grace and doesn’t want God to show grace to others. 23:14 The second woe lambastes their appropriating of widow’s houses and covering it up by making long prayers. Some modern cults use a similar technique by getting elderly widows, sometimes undiscerning believers, to sign over their property to the church. Such pretenders to piety will receive greater condemnation. 23:15 The third charge against them is misdirected zeal. They went to unimaginable lengths to make one convert, but after he was won they made him twice as wicked as themselves. A modern analogy is the zeal of false cults. One group is willing to knock on 700 doors to reach one person for their cause; but the final result is evil. As someone has said, The most converted often become the most perverted.23:16-22 Fourthly, the Lord denounced them for their casuistry, or deliberate dishonest reasoning. They had built up a false system of reasoning to evade the payment of vows.

For instance, they taught that if you swore by the temple, you were not obligated to pay, but if you swore by the gold of the temple, then you must perform the vow. They said that swearing by the gift on the altar was binding, whereas swearing by the empty altar was not. Thus they valued gold above God (the temple was the house of God), and the gift on the altar (wealth of some form) above the altar itself. They were more interested in the material than the spiritual. They were more interested in getting (the gift) than in giving (the altar was the place of giving). Addressing them as blind guides, Jesus exposed their sophistry. The gold of the temple took on special value only because it was associated with God’s abode. It was the altar that gave value to the gift upon it. People who think that gold has intrinsic value are blind; it becomes valuable only as it is used for God’s glory. Gifts given for carnal motives are valueless; those given to the Lord or in the Lord’s Name have eternal value. The fact is that whatever these Pharisees swore by, God was involved and they were obligated to fulfill the vow. Man cannot escape his obligations by specious reasonings. Vows are binding and promises must be kept. It is useless to appeal to technicalities to evade obligations. 23:23, 24 The fifth woe is against ritualism without reality. The scribes and Pharisees were meticulous in giving the Lord a tenth of the most insignificant herbs they raised. Jesus did not condemn them for this care about small details of obedience, but He excoriated them for being utterly unscrupulous when it came to showing justice, mercy, and faithfulness to others. Using a figure of speech unsurpassed for expressiveness, Jesus described them as straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel. The gnat, a tiny insect that often fell into a cup of sweet wine, was strained out by sucking the wine through the teeth. How ludicrous to take such care with the insignificant, then bolt down the largest unclean animal in Palestine!

The Pharisees were infinitely concerned with minutiae, but grossly blind to enormous sins like hypocrisy, dishonesty, cruelty, and greed. They had lost their sense of proportion. 23:25, 26 The sixth woe concerns externalism. The Pharisees, careful to maintain an outward show of religiousness and morality, had hearts filled with extortion and self-indulgence. They should first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that is, make sure their hearts were cleansed through repentance and faith. Then, and only then, would their outward behavior be acceptable. There is a difference between our person and our personality. We tend to emphasize the personalitywhat we want others to think we are. God emphasizes the personwhat we really are. He desires truth in the inward being (Psa_51:6). 23:27, 28 The seventh woe also strikes out against externalism. The difference is that the sixth woe castigates the concealment of avarice, whereas the seventh condemns the concealment of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Tombs were whitewashed so that Jewish people would not inadvertently touch them and thus be ceremonially defiled. Jesus likened the scribes and Pharisees to whitewashed tombs, which looked clean on the outside but were full of corruption inside. Men thought that contact with these religious leaders would be sanctifying, but actually it was a defiling experience because they were full of hypocrisy and iniquity. 23:29, 30 The final woe was against what we might label outward homage, inward homicide. The scribes and Pharisees pretended to honor the OT prophets by building and/or repairing their tombs and putting wreaths on their monuments. In memorial speeches, they said they would not have joined their ancestors in killing the prophets. 23:31 Jesus said to them, Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. But how did they witness this? It almost seems from the preceding verse that they dissociated themselves from their fathers who killed the prophets. First, they admitted that their fathers, of whom they were physical sons, shed the blood of the prophets. But Jesus used the word sons in the sense of meaning people with the same characteristics. He knew that even as they were decorating the prophets’ graves, they were plotting His death. Second, in showing such respect for the dead prophets, they were saying, The only prophets we like are dead ones. In this sense also they were sons of their fathers. 23:32 Then our Lord added, Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. The fathers had filled the cup of murder part way by killing the prophets. The scribes and Pharisees would soon fill it to the brim by killing the Lord Jesus and His followers, thus bringing to a terrible climax what their fathers had begun. 23:33 At this point the Christ of God utters those thunderous words, Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Can Incarnate Love speak such scathing words? Yes, because true love must also be righteous and holy. The popular conception of Jesus as an innocuous reformer, capable of no emotion but love, is unbiblical. Love can be firm, and must always be just. It is solemn to remember that these words of condemnation were hurled at religious leaders, not at drunkards and reprobates. In an ecumenical age when some evangelical Christians are joining forces with avowed enemies of the cross of Christ, it is good to ponder the example of Jesus, and to remember the words of Jehu to Jehoshaphat, Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? (2Ch_19:2). 23:34, 35 Jesus not only foresaw His own death; He plainly told the scribes and Pharisees that they would murder some of the messengers whom He would sendprophets, wise men, and scribes. Some who escaped martyrdom would be scourged in the synagogues and persecuted from city to city. Thus the religious leaders of Israel would heap to themselves the accumulated guilt of the history of martyrdom. Upon them would come all the righteous blood shed on the earth from … Abel … to … Zechariah, whose murder is recorded in 2Ch_24:20-21, the last book in the Hebrew arrangement of the Bible. (This is not Zechariah, author of the OT book.) 23:36 The guilt of all the past would come on the generation or race to which Christ was speaking, as if all previous shedding of innocent blood somehow combined and climaxed in the death of the sinless Savior. A torrent of punishment would be poured out on the nation that hated its Messiah without a cause and nailed Him to a criminal’s cross.

Matthew 23:37

O. Jesus Laments Over Jerusalem (23:37-39) 23:37 It is highly significant that the chapter which, more than almost any other, contains the woes of the Lord Jesus, closes with His tears! After His bitter denunciation of the Pharisees, He utters a poignant lament over the city of lost opportunity. The repetition of the nameO Jerusalem, Jerusalemis charged with unutterable emotion. She had killed the prophets and stoned God’s messengers, yet the Lord loved her, and would often have protectingly and lovingly gathered her children to Himselfas a hen gathers her chicksbut she was not willing. 23:38 In closing His lament, the Lord Jesus said, See! Your house is left to you desolate. Primarily the house here is the temple, but may also include the city of Jerusalem and the nation itself. There would be an interval between His death and Second Coming during which unbelieving Israel would not see Him (after His resurrection He was seen only by believers). 23:39 Verse 39 looks forward to the Second Advent when a believing portion of Israel will accept Him as their Messiah-King. This acceptance is implicit in the words, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.There is no suggestion that those who murdered Christ will have a second chance. He was speaking of Jerusalem and thus, by metonymy, of its inhabitants and of Israel in general. The next time the inhabitants of Jerusalem would see Him after His death would be when they would look on Him whom they pierced and mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son (Zec_12:10). In Jewish reckoning there is no mourning as bitter as that for an only son.