[Note: This sermon expounds Matthew 23:1–22. Delivered 5 April 1981, Montreal. The parallel passage Matthew 22:34–40 (the great commandment) was already expounded in the parable of the Good Samaritan in October 1978, together with Luke 10.]
Today we continue our exposition and go on to Matthew chapter 23, well known as the chapter containing the Lord's condemnation of the Pharisees. Let us read from verses 1 to 7. "Then said Jesus to the crowd and to his disciples: The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach but do not practice. They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by men; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. And they love the place of honour at feasts and the best seats in the synagogue, and salutations in the marketplaces, and being called rabbi by men."
When we come to a passage like this, it is most important that we approach it with the right attitude. If we use it as an instrument to beat our opponents over the head and compare them to hypocrites and Pharisees, we have already come in the wrong attitude. If we approach it thinking that this is a very exact description of many people we know — ourselves being excluded, of course — then we have again come in an entirely wrong attitude, because that is precisely the attitude of the Pharisees themselves. You will remember in Luke 18 the Pharisee who said to God: "I thank you that I am not like that man." I suspect that many of us, when we read Matthew 23, come and say: "I thank you, God, that I am not like those Pharisees." The moment we think in this way, we prove ourselves to be precisely the kind of people this chapter describes.
The right approach to this chapter is to see it as a handbook of spiritual diseases — a description of the symptoms of spiritual diseases which could prove fatal to us if we do not catch them early. If we study these symptoms carefully, we will soon see that we ourselves, time and again, have manifested them. This is why the chapter is extremely precious — not as a weapon against others, but as a diagnostic tool for ourselves.
We must also dispense with the popular misunderstanding that hypocrisy means insincerity. That is not a biblical definition of hypocrisy at all. The basic definition given right here is simply this: to say something and not do it. It does not mean that you deliberately or intentionally do not do it. It simply means that, whatever the reason, you haven't done it. I am a hypocrite if I have preached something or exhorted others to something and I myself don't do it — no matter how sincere I may be. The Apostle Paul himself was a Pharisee, and when he was tried before the Jewish court he still said "I am a Pharisee" — he had not given up being one even as a Christian. No one would charge the Apostle Paul with insincerity. The Pharisees were not insincere people; anyone who has studied them carefully knows this. Hypocrisy is something that strikes all religious people.
The Lord speaks to the crowd and to his disciples together — not to the disciples alone, as though this does not apply to them. The scribes are the Bible experts, the theologians, and this goes to show that knowing the Bible very well does not safeguard you from hypocrisy. In fact, as your knowledge of the word of God increases and the level of your practice remains where it was, the gap between knowledge and practice widens, which renders you a bigger hypocrite. The scribes sit on Moses' seat — they are teachers of the law and also administrators of justice in Israel. Because of their position, the Lord does not charge them with false teaching; he says, "Practice and observe whatever they tell you." Their teaching may be right; it is their practice that is the problem. And their attitude is unloving — in verse 4, they bind heavy burdens hard to bear upon others, without lifting a finger to help.
What do they do? They do all their deeds to be seen by men. Their religion is something on the surface for other people to admire — how pious they are. They make their phylacteries broad. A phylactery is a small box, about the size of a ring box, in which a little scroll is placed containing key passages: Exodus 13:3–16, Deuteronomy 6:4–9, and Deuteronomy 11:13–21. One box is bound on the forehead, one on the upper left arm near the heart, in fulfilment of Deuteronomy 6:8: "You shall bind them as a sign upon your hands, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes." What the word of God was actually saying in Deuteronomy 6 is figurative — we are to meditate upon the law constantly and to do it. But it is remarkable how we tend to literalise and reduce to superficiality the practice of God's word: instead of practicing it, you just tie a box on your hand and you can go and do anything else you like after that.
The fringes or tassels are in fulfilment of Numbers 15:38, where Moses says: "Speak to the people of Israel and bid them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations and to put upon the tassel of each corner a cord of blue; and it shall be to you a tassel to look upon and remember all the commandments of the Lord to do them." These tassels of blue or violet were a visual reminder to walk according to the law as they moved through the day. Nothing is wrong with that idea — wall plaques with scripture verses serve the same purpose — but the Pharisees made their tassels longer so as to appear more holy. The Lord does not condemn the use of phylacteries or tassels as such; he condemns the spirit in which they are used.
In verse 7 he mentions that they love to be saluted in the marketplaces and called "rabbi." The word "rabbi" means "my great one" — it is a title of honour, not simply a title of teaching. The Lord then forbids this in verse 8 and says: "He who is greatest among you shall be your servant." We must be careful with verses 8–10, however: the point is not that you must never call your father "father" or your teacher "teacher." That would be absurd. What is prohibited is the use of these titles to glorify men and put them on a pedestal that belongs only to God. Some rabbis in fact were addressed with all these titles doubled — "Rabbi, Rabbi, Father, Father, Lord, Lord" — giving a sense of accumulated honour. The Lord Jesus wanted to build a community of God's people in which no man takes the place of God. God is always supreme; no portion of the glory belonging to him should be given to man.
Now we come to the seven woes, which describe these spiritual diseases more explicitly. The first is in verse 13: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men, for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in." The word "woe" is an expression of grief, distress, and warning — it expresses the pain of something that will destroy the person who courts it. This charge may seem unlikely at first: surely we do not deliberately prevent others from entering the kingdom. But ask yourself: is there something in your conduct — the way you behave in college, in the office — that could be putting others off? How many times have I heard the complaint: "I refuse to become a Christian because the Christians I know disgust me." Those Christians think themselves not too bad; the people observing their lives are put off. And we may do this even among brothers and sisters within the church — criticizing those who pursue higher standards, pulling back those who are moving forward. Sometimes we don't want other people to fast, not because we have theological objections, but because they are going ahead of us and we don't like being left behind.
The second woe is in verse 15: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." The word "traverse" means to go around in circles — circling through land and sea, expending enormous energy for one convert. That language sounds familiar: "If all these efforts result in one person being saved, it will have been worth it." The Pharisees thought exactly the same. But the Lord strikes us at the very point where we feel secure — our missionary zeal. We judge the vitality of an evangelical church by its missionary activity, and we can so easily cheat ourselves into thinking that our missionary zeal is equivalent to our zeal for God. There is no necessary connection between the two. You can be so active in the church, so involved in activities, that you are actually the least spiritual person there. A pastor of a busy church may spend the least time in prayer of anyone in his congregation — too busy organizing this and administering that, working for God rather than with God.
The third woe extends from verse 16 to verse 22: "Woe to you, blind guides!" Three times the word "blind" is used — blind guides, blind fools, blind men. What is the spiritual symptom here? A lack of commitment to truth. The Pharisees had a way of defining oaths in which certain oaths were binding and certain oaths were not. If you swore by the temple, the oath was not binding; if you swore by the gold of the temple, the oath was binding. If you swore by the altar, not binding; if you swore by the gift on the altar, binding. The Mishnah has a whole section on the technicalities of oaths that shows the extent of this casuistry. What is the point of an oath if some oaths are not even binding? The Lord Jesus told his disciples: do not swear at all. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. That is commitment to truth. Notice too that what matters — the gold, the gift — reveals the love of money working behind the spiritual-sounding language. That is hypocrisy in its deepest form: something carnal dressed in spiritual clothing, something purely selfish presented in a spiritual form.
[Continues in Part B]
# The Leaven of the Pharisees — Matthew 23:1–22 (Part B) — Pride and False Assurance; Religious vs. Spiritual; Carnal Motives
[Note: This is Part B of the sermon on Matthew 23:1–22, continuing directly from Part A. Delivered 5 April 1981, Montreal.]
The Pharisees did not think of themselves as preventing others from entering the kingdom, and they certainly did not think of themselves as failing to enter it. They were utterly confident of their place — the most elite members of the most religious people in Israel. This is a crucial thing to observe: what matters in the spiritual life is not what we think we are doing, but what is actually happening, how God evaluates it. The Pharisees were completely assured of their place. And that kind of assurance is precisely what is dangerous. If anybody had assurance, the Pharisees had it — not a tentative hope, but absolute certainty that they would be in the kingdom, and probably high up in it. So just because we think we are going to heaven does not mean we actually are. Just because we think we are entering the kingdom of God does not mean God thinks so.
I confess to you that I myself often feel the sense of pride. When I consider that God has chosen me to be a servant of his, that he has given me the ability to preach his word — all of this is of his grace, yes, but the grace is manifested in me and through me, and I feel pride. That is very dangerous. This pride in being the elect, in being specially called and equipped, is one of the prime diseases of the Pharisee, and it is very easy to dress it as humility: "I can't help feeling rather good about being exalted by God. It's not easy to be humble when you are so elect." So we make excuses. We say it is all of grace and therefore we are not really proud — we are just grateful. But the pride is real, and it will produce in our behavior things that are repulsive to others, often without our realizing it. We may put it down to joy, or confidence in God; others will call it something else. And through that pride, precisely as with the Pharisees, we can shut the kingdom against others without intending to.
The second woe about missionary zeal exposes the confusion between religious activity and spirituality. These are worlds apart — in fact they are almost opposite things. Think about this building: there is nothing religious about it. There are pillars in wrong places. When you walk into an Anglican or a Catholic church, the first thing that hits you is the ambience, and the stained glass windows, and the great pipe organ — that feels like church. This doesn't look like a church. And yet we are influenced by external things; we confuse the impression of religion with the reality of the spirit. The person who is truly spiritual walks with God quite regardless of the externals. He may feel closer to God walking in a forest or on a mountain where the birds sing than in any cathedral. And if you can honestly say that, you have a point in your favour — but don't get too confident.
What about those who are so busy with church activities that they think they must be very spiritual? The very opposite is often true. A pastor of a busy church can be the most unspiritual man in the congregation. He has simply not got time for prayer. He is working for God but not with God. He is out of touch with God, too busy organizing this and administering that for the One he no longer truly communes with. I want to slow down. I want to find time to walk down the street communing with the Lord. It is just too dangerous to be too busy. And all seven of these symptoms are related to each other — they form a syndrome. How can you be open to God if you are so consumed with missionary activity and church programming? You haven't got time to listen to God. You haven't got time to be sensitive to him. You haven't got time to fellowship with him.
The third woe, about the oaths, comes down ultimately to this: a lack of commitment to truth that is driven by carnal motives dressed in spiritual language. Why is the gold more important than the temple? Why is the gift more important than the altar? With a moment's reflection you can see that the love of money — a carnal motivation — is masquerading as a spiritual system of interpretation. This is one of the fundamental definitions of hypocrisy: you present something carnal in spiritual dress. And we do this in many ways. You are doing something for carnal reasons and you frame it in spiritual language. If you were to ask every person in a Bible college to be absolutely honest about why they are there, you would be surprised how many would admit, if truly honest, that they are running from something. Maybe they couldn't get accepted elsewhere. Maybe they are following a girlfriend. Maybe they want the social status of ministry. We would never say these things out loud; we would say, "The Lord has led me here." You can dress everything in spiritual language. The mind is very subtle at this. That is why the Bible tells us that the heart of man is deceptive above all things. Let us then search our hearts carefully to see just how deep is our love for the truth, and how often we operate from carnal motives that we have never honestly examined.
Let us be quiet before God in prayer.