Matthew 23:29-36

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29 ``Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, `If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' 31 ``So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 ``Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. 33 ``You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell ? ``Therefore,, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, 35 so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 ``Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation."

Jesus points out how the Scribes and Pharisees take care of the tombs of the martyrs and beautify their memorials and make the claim that, if they had lived in the old days, they would not have killed the prophets and the men of God. But that is exactly what they would have done, and what they are going to do shortly.

Jesus is quite clear that the murder taint is still there. He knows that now he must die, and that in the days to come his messengers will be persecuted and ill-treated, rejected and killed.

He says that this blight of murder among the leadership of the Jewish people has occurred from the beginning! He says from Cain to Zacharias. In the Hebrew bible the first book is Genesis (the first murder involving Cain) and the last book is II Chronicles (the last murder in the biblical story was Zacharias). Jesus is saying that "rejection" even to the point of murdering God's chosen men, has been the nature of the Jewish leadership throughout their history. What a tragedy! God's chosen people, greatly loved, has continually turned against God and there will be a day of reckoning.

We must evaluate our own lives today. We are the only message of the love of God that most people have today. They will either see the love of God in and through us or they won't. So, are you a clear light that attracts others or do you stand as a hindrance?

Matthew 23:27-28

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27 ``Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. 28 ``So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Any Jew of that time would have instantly understood Jesus' reference to the tombs. First, making their way to Jerusalem, they would have come across many tombs along their way. Remember, anyone who touched a dead body became unclean (Num 19:16), therefore anyone who came into contact with a tomb automatically became unclean. With so many tombs and such great crowds traveling to Jerusalem for the Feasts, they used to whitewash the tombs in order to alert the traveler of its presence.

Second, when walking outside the Temple, one could easily see the massive tombs on the hillside of the Mount of Olives. Both of these sites were very evident to the Jew of that time.

So, these tombs glistened white on the outside, but within they were full of bones and bodies whose touch would defile a man. This was the picture Jesus presented of the Pharisees. Spiritually glistening on the outside, yet spiritually dead on the inside! This continued the theme that Jesus was driving home, internal over the external.

God looks upon the heart; man is attracted to the outward appearance. So, let your life be a focus on the inside and the outside will take care of itself.

Matthew 23:25-26

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25 ``Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. 26 ``You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.

The idea of uncleanness is continually arising in the Jewish Law. It must be remembered that this uncleanness was not physical uncleanness. An unclean vessel was not in our sense of the term a dirty vessel. For a person to be ceremonially unclean meant that he could not enter the Temple or the synagogue; he was barred from worshipping God.

Some of the laws concerning uncleanness: 1. A man was unclean if he touched a dead body or came into contact with a Gentile.

2. A woman was unclean if she had a hemorrhage, even if that hemorrhage was perfectly normal and healthy.

3. If a person who was himself unclean touched any vessel, that vessel became unclean; and, thereafter, any other person who touched or handled the vessel became in turn unclean. Therefore is was very important to have vessels cleansed; and the Pharisaical laws for cleansing them is amazingly complex. 


For instance, an earthen vessel which is hollow becomes unclean only on the inside and not on the outside; and it can be cleansed only by being broken. A flat plate without a rim, an open coal-shovel, a grid-iron with holes in it for parching grains of wheat cannot be clean at all. On the other hand, a plate with a rim, or an earthen spice-box, or a writing-case can become unclean. Of vessels made of leather, bone, wood and glass, flat ones do not become unclean; deep ones do. If they are broken, they become clean. Any metal vessel which is at once smooth and hollow can become unclean; but a door, a bolt, a lock, a hinge, a knocker cannot become unclean. If a thing is made of wood and metal, then the wood can become unclean, but the metal cannot. These regulations seem to us fantastic, and yet these are the regulations the Pharisees meticulously kept. 

The food or drink inside a vessel might have been obtained by cheating or extortion or theft; it might be luxurious and gluttonous; that did not matter, so long as the vessel itself was ceremonially clean. This is another example of fussing about trifles and letting the weightier matters go. 
This can still happen today. Some believe it's unclean to have rock-like music in the church service, some want only hymns, some hold to a certain translation of the Bible, others want those who are up front to be dressed a certain way-no flops or sandals, no jeans, some want choirs to wear robes. A local fellowship can find themselves in an uproar when disagreement occurs over the colors in the carpet or walls, or the architecture of a building or the atmosphere within that building.

Can you say, "IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER!"


Matthew 23:23-24

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23 ``Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. 24 ``You blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! 


The point of Jesus' saying is this. It was universally accepted that tithes of the main crops must be given. But mint and dill and cummin are herbs of the kitchen garden and would not be grown in any quantity; a person would have only a little patch of them. All three were used in cooking, and dill and cummin had medicinal uses.

To tithe them was to tithe an infinitesimally small crop, maybe not much more than the produce of one plant. Only those who were super meticulous would tithe the single plants of the kitchen garden. 

This is exactly what the Pharisees were like. They were so absolutely meticulous about tithes that they would tithe even one clump of mint; and yet these same men could be guilty of injustice; could be hard and arrogant and cruel, forgetting the claims of mercy; could take oaths and pledges and promises with the deliberate intention of evading them, forgetting any sense of right and wrong. In other words, many of them kept the trifles of the Law and forgot the things which really matter. 



Jesus uses a vivid illustration of straining out a gnat. A gnat was an insect and therefore unclean; and so was a camel. In order to avoid the risk of drinking anything unclean, wine was strained out, so that any possible impurity might be strained out of it. This is a humorous picture which must have raised a laugh of a man carefully straining his wine through gauze to avoid swallowing a microscopic insect and yet cheerfully most willingly swallows a camel. It is the picture of a man who has completely lost his sense of proportion.

They majored in the minors and minored in the majors! And its still going on today.

Matthew 23:16-22

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16 ``Woe to you, blind guides, who say, `Whoever, swears by the temple, that is nothing; but whoever, swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.' 17 ``You fools and blind men! Which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold? 18 ``And, `Whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated.' 19 ``You blind men, which is more important, the offering, or the altar that sanctifies the offering ? 20 ``Therefore, whoever swears by the altar, swears both by the altar and by everything on it. 21 ``And whoever swears by the temple, swears both by the temple and by Him who dwells within it. 22 ``And whoever swears by heaven, swears both by the throne of God and by Him who sits upon it.

In verses 13-15 we saw that the legalism of the Pharisees actually served to shut others out of the Kingdom.

"We have already seen that in matters of oaths the Jewish legalists were masters of evasion (Matt 5:33-37). The general principle of evasion was this. To the Jew an oath was absolutely binding, so long as it was a binding oath. A binding oath was an oath which definitely and without equivocation employed the name of God; such an oath must be kept, no matter what the cost. Any other oath might be legitimately broken. The idea was that, if God's name was actually used, then God was introduced as a partner into the transaction, and to break the oath was not only to break faith with men but to insult God."

Jesus is saying, "You have brought evasion to such a fine art that it is possible to regard an oath by the Temple as not binding, while an oath by the gold of the Temple is binding; and an oath by the altar as not binding, while an oath by the gift on the altar is binding." The whole idea of treating oaths in this way, the whole conception of a kind of technique of evasion, is born out of deceitfulness. The truly spiritual man will never make a promise with the deliberate intention of evading it; he will never, as he makes it, provide himself with a series of escape routes, which he may use if he finds his promise hard to keep. For Jesus your oath is bound in two ways. God hears every word we speak and God sees every intention of our hearts.

This was legalism at its best! Legalism lurks around every corner with all of its man-made distortions. It's so tempting for us all and easy to slip into at most every level. Life is not that complicated. What is required for salvation? JESUS. What is required for holy living? JESUS.