Law & Grace - Matthew 23:1-39 Down With The Good Guys!

We'll be working our way through Matthew chapter 23, starting of course with the passage that Randy just read for us here. Just to summarize the passage, in other words, what are we encountering here, this passage has three main parts. Jesus gives some warnings against the Pharisees and their associated group, the scribes, and that's the first 12 verses that Randy has read. Jesus then in verses 13 to 36 announces seven woes against these Pharisees and their buddies the scribes. And Jesus laments in verses 37 to 39 the spiritual and other, frankly, other tragedies of Jerusalem. So anyway, that's the quick summary. We'll take a look particularly at the woe in verse 14, because that's one that a number of you may have notes in your Bibles and whatnot about, so we'll address that.

Not on your handout, but something I think is of some value here, is to look at where is this in what's often called Passion Week, the week prior to our Lord's crucifixion and burial and resurrection. This is the traditional chronology, and so we'll take that approach to it. The Friday before the Friday that our Lord was crucified, the event was Zacchaeus and Jericho, and we took a look at that on April 1st. No fooling, we did. Then the next day, Saturday, was when Lazarus was raised in Bethany. And then on Sunday, following that, is the time of the triumphal entry, as it's typically called.

And they also spent some time there in the temple area in Jerusalem. On Monday is the account of Jesus driving out the money changers, which by the way, wasn't the only time that he did that. Real popular, you understand. The money changers were just delighted.

Then on Tuesday is the day of what's often called the Olivet Discourse, and we will talk about that briefly. That's Matthew Chapter 24 and 25. The events of Matthew Chapter 23 took place on that same day right before the Olivet Discourse, Matthew 24 and 25. Wednesday was a time coming into the temple area and Thursday was the day of the Last Supper as it's called. Friday then in the night began the time in the Garden of Gethsemane and Christ's crucifixion as we recounted on Good Friday took place at 9 o'clock in the morning continued until 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The burial then before sundown that day by Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus was also involved with that. Saturday in the grave and that would be the remainder of the Sabbath and then resurrection early Sunday. So we will be focusing today on the events of chapter 23 which is the earlier part of that same day that includes the Olivet Discourse.

Now, there's something about this that may seem a little strange. First of all, you may have noticed I've titled this message, Down with the Good Guys. This passage might seem strange for a couple of reasons, and that apparent contradiction is on purpose.

The Pharisees were the culture heroes of the people of Israel, and they were missionary about their message. In great part, the Jews admired them. They were, yeah, these are the good guys. These are the ones that, they're the way people ought to be. And so Jesus pronouncing woes against them would be rather surprising. Of the various groups, and this may be also surprising, the various groups among the Jews, Jesus was more in agreement with the Pharisees than any other group. Very interesting.

They both believed in all the Old Testament. The Sadducees, for example, only believed in the first five books. They believed in the Law of Moses, which was foundational. The Pharisees, and of course Jesus and his disciples, believed in miracles. The Sadducees did not, by the way. They believed in the Resurrection, and the Sadducees did not. and things of that sort.

So, real curious that Jesus, though he agreed with the Pharisees more than any other group, would come out with essentially almost an entire chapter of warnings and cautions and woes against these Pharisees. Actually, rather final pronouncements. Even the Apostle Paul would come before the Sanhedrin, consisting mostly of Pharisees and a minority of Sadducees, and declare before them, Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees, a long line of Pharisees, in Acts 23.6. So Jesus mentions the scribes and the Pharisees together here. Indeed, the Gospels have them together about 40 times. They're often together.

The scribes would copy scripture with great care, all of the Old Testament books. Well, so the Sadducees only believe in the first five books, so guess what they thought about copying all the rest of them? Big waste of time, right? Here's one other thing, and that is that the scribes would not only do book copying, they would record things that had to do with judgments about the law and of course they agreed with the Pharisees and listened to the Pharisees when they recorded things far more than the Sadducees so in this chapter Jesus speaks about and to let's take a look at that he speaks about the scribes and the Pharisees but he speaks to the crowd and to the disciples It doesn't say so, I'd be very interested to see the expressions on the faces of the Scribes and Pharisees if they happen to be listening.

I'm sure they were delighted to hear this. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught about seeking after righteousness. But, in this passage, Jesus says that the Scribes and Pharisees, and I'm paraphrasing here, they aim for hypocrisy and they have hit the target dead on. They've done a great job. Nobody does hypocrisy better than the scribes and Pharisees. I could almost sing a song about that.

Now the question is, is Jesus talking to you when he's saying these things? Jesus spoke to the crowds and to the disciples who were all Jews in the land of Israel under the entire law of Moses. In fact, he pointed them back to the law of Moses and away from all the things that the Pharisees had added. Jesus even made reference here to Moses' seat or chair, depending on what your translation happens to be. The seat or chair of Moses, as we will soon see, He judged using the law. This is what the chair, I think, primarily refers to. We have a picture of Michelangelo's Moses, and he had him in that position of sitting, and you see him holding the law tablet to the side. Moses would sit and judge the people of Israel.

But we in the body of Christ are not under the law of Moses, not even the ten, not even the 10 plus 1 minus 1 or anything like that. We are entirely under the principle of grace, Romans 5.21. Grace is the reigning principle for us in the body of Christ.

We have died in relationship to the law, Romans 7.4-6 and Galatians 2.19.

Romans 15.4 and 1 Corinthians 10.11 both use this terminology. These things, however, that happened in the Old Testament and even references to it in the Gospels are written for our instruction, not because we are under the law or have to follow it, but because we ought to learn from it. How would we understand what grace is unless we understand what the law is? It is by contrast with the law that we understand what grace is.

This chair of Moses, some people have pointed to the synagogues. Here's the leader seat, for example, of the synagogue at Chorazin. And that may be, but even more particularly, Moses sat regularly in judgment over the people of Israel, applying the law to the people. And so Jesus says that these scribes and Pharisees have put themselves into Moses' seat, standing in judgment over the people. And that, in fact, is what they did. So the scribes and Pharisees placed themselves in position of judgment over the people of Israel, in the land of Israel, using their version of the law. Their version of the law. We'll talk about that in a minute.

So Jesus tells the disciples in the crowd, to the extent that the scribes and Pharisees stated the law of Moses, the Jews were to do everything, sitting in Moses' seat, that the scribes and Pharisees said to do and, in fact, not to do. But Jesus warned the crowd and his disciples not to follow after the hypocritical practices and teachings of the scribes and Pharisees. Don't follow after their hypocrisy. You see, as Jesus spelled out, their principle of application was make it harder on others and easier for themselves. We want to weigh things down for other people, but we Pharisees and scribes, we know the loopholes, right? And so we know how to get around it and you don't.

So they would fill people's backpacks, so to speak, with heavy loads and bricks. So they added many more laws, not just a few, many more laws to the Law of Moses in order to give definition and make certain that no one came close to breaking the law. So if you have one law, we'll make eight more to make sure you don't break the one that has been given. They also came up with exceptions and loopholes, which they themselves knew very well. around the Law of Moses which allowed them to sidestep the Law of Moses when it was convenient and make it easy for themselves for their own benefit.

Here's an example of some of the twisting of the Law. You recall the account from John chapter 8 where the Jews bring a woman who was caught in adultery to Jesus and they say, doesn't the Law say that she should be stoned? Well, very interesting as you look at that. Here is what the law says in Leviticus 20 verse 10. If there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress.

So what had they done? They had only brought the woman. That's why last week I called them chauvinist pigs. Right? And that's on purpose. I was not being just silly because this was one of the ways they showed chauvinism. Oh, we'll just kill the woman, but not the man. Oh, one more thing. They had interpreted the law such that if a woman had bare arms, like I have now, that was constructive adultery and she was guilty. That's right. Bare arms is all it takes. Kill her.

The Mount called Olivet, the Mount of Olives, which is near Jerusalem, is a Sabbath day's journey away, about three-fifths of a mile, about one kilometer, approximately. So that was as far as you could go. You could only go that distance on a Sabbath. Beyond that, it was considered work. You couldn't travel from your house any farther than that. Unless, if you wanted to go farther, you could do so.

And here's how you would do it. You would take light, small things, because you don't want to pick up heavy things. That's work, right? Light, small things from your house and put them in a pocket or a purse. and then travel a Sabbath day's journey and then put that object down on the ground. And then because that's now a part of your house, then you can go another Sabbath day's journey distance and put another. So you go as far as you want, as long as you have little pieces of your house that you drop by. Right. So that was how they made a loophole. You could go as many times beyond the Sabbath day's journey.

Even now, of course, with our modern technology, you have elevators. And they've defined that elevator buttons, pushing those is work. So you have, for the Jews, here's a special Shabbat, that's their way of saying the Sabbath. Elevator stops on every floor, so you don't have to push the button, right?

Because that's work. They even have available special Sabbath bathroom tissues, because tearing off the pieces of bathroom toilet paper is work. And you don't want to violate the Sabbath by pulling the pieces of toilet paper off, so they have special things you hang on the toilet paper roll, you know, in there, and they don't tear off, so it's not work. Well, you get the idea. This is starting to get ridiculous.

These guys were also professional narcissists. Having placed themselves in positions of authority, the scribes and the Pharisees liked to draw attention to themselves, which Jesus points out, and have others show them honor. Now, Narcissus, according to the Greek myth, was one who just lost himself looking at his image and reflection in the water. And so these scribes and Pharisees were much like Narcissus, just love to get the titles, love to get the attention, love to get the places of honor.

There's nothing better, you know. And so they would like to have everyone pay them attention. And so one of the ways that they did that was they'd have factories that stuck out and everybody could see. Everybody can see, and see that little box there that's got scripture rolled up inside it. So they have things like that. They would have tassels, and of course they're supposed to have these tassels, but then make them really long and ornate, right? And so Jesus said, hey, just serve one another humbly. This isn't that difficult, right? Just serve one another humbly. Don't do this. Now, we do have a question here.

Are there seven woes or eight in this passage? In verses 13 through 36, Jesus announces a series of woes against these scribes and Pharisees, pointing out a number of aspects of their blindness and hypocrisy. In verse 14, though, we have a question. It's included in your King James Bibles, and modern versions will include it too, but with brackets and a note.

Here's the reason why the question mark. In the early Greek copies that we have, there's one of three circumstances regarding that verse. Some of the copies do not include the verse. Some include it after, in the position that you see it here, and some make it before. So the appearance is this. that this verse was more than likely copied over, because it is in Mark 1240 and Luke 2047, copied over by some scribe, some of them, from Mark and from Luke. But it doesn't appear to be in the original in Matthew. Nonetheless, that having been said, since it is in Mark and Luke, it's certainly scripture, it just doesn't seem like Matthew actually included that. So we will look at 7, realizing that verse 14 is included in the other two Gospels. Now, as we go through this section here, we're going to point out that this section is what's called a chiasm. That is, a chiasm is a mirror image in written form.

And so you have this on page 2 of your handout there. And you'll notice a beginning and ending that's similar. Rejection of the kingdom, rejecting of the kingdom's heralds is the beginning and ending pattern. The turning point is the failure to understand scripture.

That's the middle of this chiasm pattern here. Matthew may have chosen not to include that second woe, the one that was copied from Mark and Luke, in order to construct this chiasm. Similar to what he did in Matthew chapter 1, where he made a pattern of 14 generations between pivotal events, and he selected certain generations in order to do that. Now, let's look at this. There is also another pattern in these passages.

In verses 16 and 24, Jesus calls the scribes and the Pharisees all blind guides. We of course know what that would be like. That would be rather rough. So he calls them blind guides. Then in verses 13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29, he calls them all hypocrites. They peg the hypocrisy meter. So he just calls them blind guides and hypocrites, one or the other, all the way through this section. As blind guides, they can't see anything, but they present themselves as guides for others as if they did see. So he calls them blind guides repeatedly.

As hypocrites, they require others to do what they themselves don't do. We don't do it because we know the loopholes. And we're not going to tell you what the loopholes are, right? That word hypocrites basically comes from the Greek theater and it means to step into a role that you're playing as a part of being an actor or an actress that is really not you. And that's the word that he uses and in fact where we get our word hypocrites.

Now, in verses 13 and 15, We find the rejection of the kingdom as a theme and doing more harm than good. The scribes and the Pharisees did not embrace Jesus as the Messiah, a major problem, with rare exceptions. Let me give you an example or two of where those exceptions are.

Nicodemus was one who was a Pharisee. John chapter 3 says he was a Pharisee. Nicodemus became a believer and was actually one who participated in the burial of Christ. And he was a part of the Sanhedrin. He had to do so quietly and secretly, however, otherwise he'd get in trouble. Joseph of Arimathea, who also was principal in Jesus' burial, was another who was a very likely Pharisee here.

The scribes and Pharisees shut off the kingdom for themselves and those who listened to and regarded them. They basically said, look, this Jesus guy, we're not going there because we're in charge. We're the big guys. Pay attention to us. And so they not only cut it off for themselves but for others.

The scribes and Pharisees were missionaries for the corruption of the law of Moses. Their followers then began to get more and more off track, more and more focusing on tiny little things while missing the big things, the things that really mattered. The scribes and Pharisees had come up with a list of things that you could swear by, that you were held to and had to fulfill. And then they came up with a list of things that you could swear by that you didn't have to hold to.

So as long as you swore by things on the other list, you could lie through your teeth. And so somebody would say, I swear by... Somebody else would be thinking, oh, well, they must be telling me the truth. Oh, no. They've come up with an item out of the list that gave them an exception. So unless one was quite familiar with all the items in the list, it was possible that someone was lying to you, but covering up the lie by swearing from the non-binding list. We would do it similarly with crossing fingers or some silly superstition like that. Jesus says, hey, here's a concept, just tell the truth!

Right? Well, they also had this pattern. They would tithe from the tiniest thing, even their garden herbs. There'd be a little garden herb plant and they'd go and one-tenth of that, that goes into the tithe. But they would risk, they would miss the really big things, and these are words out of Micah 6.8, justice and mercy and faithfulness. Why are those things really big? Because those things reflect the character of God Himself. You guys are tithing the tiniest little things, but you're missing God's character. That's what he's telling them. Ah, here's a fun one. Straining out gnats and swallowing camels. There's a picture of a nice gnat, right? It says straining out gnats. I think King James has straining at gnats, and that's not quite the correct sense there, straining out gnats.

As you can imagine, in a place like Israel in ancient times, you might have to do that, because you'd have various things flying around, and you need to get it out of whatever you're drinking. Now, here's a picture of somebody being swallowed by a camel. I don't know how that came about, but at any rate. I wouldn't recommend it. Here's a picture of somebody getting ready to swallow a camel and that's more like the illustration.

The straining out gnats and swallowing camels expression is so graphic and so extreme that this line is likely the most well-known line out of this chapter and maybe out of the whole section of Matthew there. Neither a gnat nor a camel were allowed in the diet of a Jew. But interestingly, the words in the original language, a gnat is a calma, and a camel is a gamla, right?

And so Jesus was probably having a play on words there. But the illustration showed they overlooked really big matters, really big stuff they would overlook and pay no attention to, and looking at minutia, because that pleased them to do so. Deuteronomy 14 1 through 21 contains the food loss. Oh, by the way right after that that's about tithing Okay Jesus said that the outside of the cup is clean, but He used another illustration here. He says the outside is clean, but inside is full of robbery and self-indulgence The scribes and the Pharisees were all about how things looked to others. Hey, how do I look? It was all about that. Externalism. What do you do on the outside? Rather than true spirituality focused on God's character.

Passages like Hosea 6.6 place the priority on the heart rather than external compliance. I care more about heart issues, that passage says, far more than whether you're keeping all the rules with the sacrifices. The next part, and one that Randy titled the, what I call it, a joke song, is whitewashed tombs. Verses 27 and 28.

The outside doesn't look too bad. It's been whitewashed so it looks good, at least superficially. And in fact, whitewashing tombs was something that they would do from time to time, as we see done here in this modern example, where you can see the whitewash having gotten spilled on the ground.

The inside, Jesus said, is full of death and rotten flesh and stench. That's what's inside these whitewashed tombs. This was another graphic illustration that our Lord used. According to the law of Moses, touching dead things would defile a man for a period of time. However, if what's inside the man is all dead, well then they're permanently defiled, right?

Now Jesus begins cranking it up in terms of the severity of what he has to say. They're sons of those who murdered the prophets. Now here's a principle you can use, Old Testament, New Testament, in all kinds of context, to be a son of or a child of, in biblical terms meant to be like in character and close in relationship. So if we are called, for instance, sons of God, it means we're like in character and close in relationship, right?

But he used it in a negative sense. So while the scribes and Pharisees would dress up the outside of the tombs, the tombs of the prophets, Jesus was saying that the scribes and pharisees were like in character and close in relationship to those who murdered the prophets.

He was not speaking fondly of them. He called them a brood of vipers, which I'm sure delighted them to no end, and asked how they would escape the sentence of hell. By the way, who's going to decide whether they go to hell or not? Christ himself. That's right. They rejected the one who would judge them. That word for hell, by the way, is the word Gehenna.

It was the valley just south of Jerusalem. In that valley, way back in Old Testament times, they would burn the firstborn infant as a sacrifice to the pagan god Molech. In New Testament times, the very same location was basically a burning garbage heap. They would not only throw trash there, but for example, Jesus was claimed off the cross, but if nobody came to claim the body after a crucifixion, they would throw that down there too. So that was used as an illustration of hell, and that's the word that Jesus used. It was in Jerusalem, here is Jerusalem, and it's this Hinnom Valley to the south of Jerusalem where Gehenna was, and that was the term that he used for hell.

In verses 34 through 36 he's saying, scribes, Pharisees, the end is near, and by the way, yours. He says innocent men from Abel to Zechariah were killed by the likes of the Scribes and Pharisees and the men who would yet be sent to them to the people of Jerusalem after this would be killed by these kind of men. That is in fact what happened with Stephen, Acts chapter 7. Stoned to death by this same group of men. Jesus' brother James was killed by the same means in Jerusalem in 62 AD.

Those would be just examples fulfilling what Jesus said. Due to their chronic rejection of Christ as their Messiah, and of all the messengers sent both before and afterward, This generation of Jewish leaders, and he points specifically to them, this generation of Jewish leaders would do ghastly things but then be ruined. The last few verses, 37-39, he says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Jesus lamented what was coming upon Jerusalem because rather than responding favorably to God's messengers. They just killed him again and again and again.

He draws upon frequent Old Testament imagery in which God desired to shield Israel as a bird takes its young under its wings for safety. I have one instance here. It would be another one with a hen. Now, I'm going to tell a farm story here. Remember on the farm, we would have the chickens running out in the barnyard there. And when the chicken hawk would fly over, the chicks would come run underneath the wings of the hen. And the hen would put its wings out to try to protect the young.

So from Ruth 1.16 all the way into several passages in Psalms, ending at Psalm 91.4, the same imagery takes place and often it is God is the one who does this. So when Jesus said, how often I wanted to take you under wing, he is claiming to be God. Here's an artist's depiction of the Roman attack on Jerusalem in 70 AD. The Romans came in and attacked the city.

Hundreds of thousands of Jews died, some of them at the hands of other Jews. If you refused to fight, you were killed. It was the end of the Sadducees. It was the end of many Pharisees. and many scribes. It was the end, the last people who descended from Esau. It was a horrific event.

Now, rather than having the kingdom come right away, Israel's rejection of Christ as their Messiah is going to postpone, put off in time, the kingdom and bring ruin to Israel and to Jerusalem. This is why Jesus would would lament this. It means ruin for you. It means awful things.

Here are stones from the temple dumped off the temple mount by Roman soldiers. In fact, there were a great many more stones. The archaeologists came in and cleaned up a lot of it and recording what was on them. They had things that were written on some of the stones. But they left some there. in order for people to see where it was and the fact that there are still stones left over. The Romans took every single stone, none left on top of another, and dumped them off the edge.

In just a few days from this time that Jesus is talking, Israel's leaders would have Christ himself killed. Jerusalem would not see Christ again until his second coming An event that could be, from our time now, as close as seven years from now. I hope he takes us home today. You have a timeline there on page four. This is what would and could have taken place had Israel, en masse, embraced Christ as the Messiah. There would have been his first coming in the events that are recorded, then a seven-year tribulation period, and then Christ's return. That soon. That fast. But because Israel rejected their Messiah, here's what took place instead. Instead, you have the first coming, and then the church is inserted in this time period. We are, in fact, in that place right now.

That time of the church will end at what is called the rapture, the time when the Lord will come for His church, us, to take us home. And seven years after that, He will come again with us. The rapture is His coming for us. This will be His coming with us to rule and to reign. in the coming kingdom. So Acts chapter 2 is the start of the church. The rapture is the time when the Lord takes us home.

So we can ask the question, what's next? Jesus announces postponement of the kingdom here in this passage. We see that the time of postponement provides the fresh opportunity for us, the church, For the next two Sundays, we'll be examining Matthew 24, which is the beginning of what's called the Olivet Discourse. It tells us about the coming tribulation period.

It does not, by the way, talk about the rapture. And also talks about the second coming of Christ. Now, we will cover that over the next two Sundays, unless Christ comes for us before then, which I would be happy to have take place. We won't be covering it if Christ comes for us.

I think we'll be otherwise occupied. But as we look at this, I think some churches make the mistake of getting all wrapped up in prophecy. Is it biblical? Yes, it is. But, getting all wrapped up in it, what's going to happen? What's going to happen next? What's going to take place? And we will take a look at what this chapter says.

Very important though that we understand that our relationship with the Lord is such that we were identified with Him on the cross and in His burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating in the heavenlies. We have intimacy with Him and we don't need to fear the things that we're going to be looking at here in the tribulation period. The Lord loves us and will take us home. That we ought to instead be occupied with Him not obsessed with prophecy. In the end, the prophecy ought to be telling us, boy, I'm glad I'm going to be spending the time with the Lord, and to focus upon Him, and our knowledge of Him, and our relationship and fellowship with Him.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you as we look at this passage. We thank you that you've laid out what's true, that we don't need to go about fearing the Pharisees, so to speak, But in fact, we can put our hope and trust in you. And we thank you that you've spelled out what is true and what really matters. And we so appreciate that. And Lord, we thank you also that you have, because of the rejection of the Pharisees, created this body called the church, your bride forever. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.