Grace Bible Church Expository Sermon Notes

Jesus Rebukes Religious Hypocrisy - Part V

cf. Matt. 23:25-36 The Lord's Day 10/5/97 AM

The Lord doesn't view religious hypocrisy with the same tolerance as so many of us do.¹ And in Matthew 23 He condemns this evil with a full blast of warning, focusing on the real problem of the heart.² Three concluding woes are given: for Extortion and Indulgence; for Rottenness and Uncleanness; and for Hypocritically Persecute the Righteous.

Judgment is Coming on You Because
of Your Extortion and Indulgence

Matthew 23:25-26 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the patter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

The NASV reads, "For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence." The Lord's illustration is a person offering a meal to guests on a clean, shinny serving platter, but the meal itself is rotting food! And the rotten food, Jesus describes as twofold:

A. Their Evil of Robbery. This wickedness (Greek, harpage) refers to plundering or extortion. Similar to "devouring widows houses" (vs. 14) but broader in application, it included all the theft connected to the priestly sacrificial system and beyond. Religious extortion!

B. Their Evil of Self-indulgence. This wickedness (Greek, akrasia) refers to unrestrained self-gratification. This is actually an absence of moral restraint, leading to excess and extravagance.

The hypocritical scribes and Pharisees outwardly appeared godly, but actually used the people to extort money from them for their own self-indulgence.³ Then the Lord quickly followed that rebuke and appeal with a similar one...

Judgment is Coming on You Because
of Your Hypocrisy and Iniquity

Matthew 23:27-28 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but within ye are full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

Jewish historians inform us that a month before the Passover celebration in Jerusalem, a general city cleaning project would prepare for the thousands of Jews who would come to the city. One of the cleaning projects related to the graves or tombs, which would be painted with a white-wash. This would not only make the tombs a bit more attractive, but warn worshipping Jews of their location, because to touch a tomb would render the Jew unclean for seven days. He or she, would miss the Passover season, being excluded from public worship! Two days previously, Jesus had journeyed into Jerusalem and no doubt passed by many of these white-washed tombs and He picked up this vivid mental picture, to describe His hypocritical enemies once again. Regardless how they appeared before others, Jesus knew their corrupt hearts, unmasking their…

A. Their Evil Hypocrisy. Basically the term (Greek, hypokrisis) refers to playing a part or a stage-actor; ethically, it refers to any carnal attempt to pretend one is spiritual in order to impress others, when in fact the life is carnally oriented.

B. Their Evil Lawlessness. The term iniquity (Greek, anomos) refers to lawlessness, in the sense of a breaker of the law. It is not so much someone without the law as someone who flagrantly defies the known will of God! cf. 1 John 3:4; compare with 2 Thess. 2:3-12.

They appeared as white-washed sepulchers, attractive to the eye, but within contained the rotting carcass of someone who had died. People may try to reform their lives by adding the white-wash of religious duty to their lives, but within they are still walking rotting corpses, awaiting the judgment to come! This brings us to the final pronouncement of woe…

Judgment is Coming on You Because
of Your Persecution of the Righteous

Matthew 23:29-30 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

Jesus previously had cleansed the temple during the week leading up to the Jewish Passover and then began to "teach daily" in the temple Court of the Gentiles. His authority was challenged by the "chief priests and elders of the people" which caused the Lord to give a series of three parables of judgment for their rejection of the messengers of God: first, in the past they rejected the ministry of John the Baptist, as mentioned in the parable of the two sons; second, in the present they were rejecting the ministry of the Christ as mentioned in the parable of the tenant farmers; and thirdly, in the future, they would reject the ministry of the Apostles and other Christians, as mentioned in the parable of the marriage feast. The Jewish leadership stood in the tradition of rejecting the messengers of God sent to the nation and in this seventh pronouncement of judgment, Jesus repeats this rebuke. Actually this is the culminating climax of rebuke that Jesus would make. This sin is the most serious of all! Each of the other pronouncements of warning judgment mentioned in chapter 23, lead up to this final great rejection of the messengers of God, especially, their rejection of Jesus Himself and those who would follow Him. Jesus reminded the scribes and Pharisees that their claim that they "would not have been partakers with [their fathers] in the blood of the prophets," is an actual admission of guilt. They were in fact, claiming that they are the spiritual offspring, not just physical offspring, of the wicked Jewish leadership of old, who killed the messengers of God. Evidently, since the times of Herod the Great, it was a practice to make shrines out of the Jewish prophets tombs, out of respect for their ministry. But the scribes and Pharisees Jesus' day, regardless of their homage to these prophets tombs, admit their guilt by calling themselves children of the former Jewish leaders. So the Lord continues...

Matthew 23:31-33 Wherefore, ye are witnesses against yourselves, that ye are the sons of them who killed the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

What an insightful statement by Jesus. The implication is subtle but clear: "You hypocrites are in the process of doing the very same thing as your spiritual fathers did, although you deny that you would be so stupid as to kill the prophets. Go on, and complete the task they began!" They are told to "fill up, then, the measure of your fathers," or complete what they started and taught you to do, i.e., reject, persecute, kill and crucify the messengers of God. The idea of filling up the measure is one of filling up the measure of God's wrath, until it bursts forth in judgment. Like a glass being filled up to the brim, holding in all the liquid, until it spills over, the image is one of God's patience being exhausted and His anger exploding, as it did to the Jewish leadership in 70 A.D.⁴

No wonder Christ lashed out, "you serpents, you generation of vipers! How can you escape the damnation of hell!" The Lord's point is, they can't if they remain religious hypocrites, unrepentant and unresponsive to God's demand for repentance. Then Jesus continues, as He concludes His last public sermon of warning judgment, with these words...

Matthew 23:34-36 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some of them ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zechariah, son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

Jesus was predicting what the scribes and Pharisees would do to His messengers, and how they would treat them. Some would be persecuted, some scourged, some killed and even some would be caused to be crucified. The Jewish leaders would instigate or contribute to, the Romans to crucifying Christians, as we know began under Nero in the early 60's. And upon this generation of religious leaders, the wrath of God finds its full expression, building ever since the first righteous martyr "Abel" to the last righteous martyr, "Zechariah, son of Barachiah." Abel we read about in Genesis 4 but there is still debate concerning the identity of Zechariah, but we should miss the Lord's point, just because we can't specifically identify this man. The sense is, that the cup of God's wrath, being filled since the very first messenger of God was killed by a religious hypocrite, was to spill over on this generation.⁵

Main Idea: Hypocrisy tries to hid behind a mask of spirituality while abandoning themselves to inner wickedness. But regardless of the outward show of religious display, God knows the heart of all of us and God's wrath will judge all hypocrites in eternal damnation.

What Should We Do About this Passage?

- Application Recommendations -

Religious hypocrisy, allowed to exist unchecked, becomes entrenched as a way of life and soon substitutes the inner man of the heart for mere pretense. The end result is that the person becomes a monster of wickedness, selfishness, indulgence and damages the cause of the Gospel.

Notice in Jesus' warning sermon the progression of hypocrisy. e.g. what begins as saying something but not doing it (vs. 3), progresses until the hypocrite is willing to murder genuine servants of God (vss. 34-35). Ignored sin never stays the same but increases in its capacity and drive for greater evil! At GBC let us all seek to realize the corruption of the flesh and check its growth at the earliest opportunity, least hypocrisy leavens the whole lump and blasphemes the name of God. cf. Romans 2:1-29.

Footnotes:

1. Religious hypocrites could be defined as those who make an outward show of godliness but lack the powerful inner change of heart. cf. 2 Tim. 3:5. The Greek perfect tense of the main verb means, they have once and for all denied its power. And Paul's command is that Timothy and the other Christians "turn away" from them or have nothing to do with them. These religious hypocrites make an outward show of godliness but they lack the inner change of heart and they are to be considered enemies of the Gospel. Paul further warned that: "They profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable [i.e., hated by God], and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate." (cf. Titus 1:16)

2. In the early 70's as a young student at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, I remember a series given by Stephen Olford on "Heart to Heart with the Word of God." Although this was over twenty-five years ago, I still remember the emphasis of Dr. Olford's messages, i.e., be a man or woman whose heart is changed by the Jesus Christ and make sure you keep your heart on fire for God. As Olford preached, "The heart of the human problem is the human heart!"

3. Because the scribes and Pharisees were basically materialistically frugal men, rejecting the luxurious lifestyle of the priestly Sadducees, some suggest the Lord was describing their self-gratification as seeking honor, privilege and prestige. This seems however to be too limiting.

4. This statement is the background for the Apostle Paul's observation of the present first stages of God's judgment, showing itself in Judea around 50 A.D. He told the Thessalonians of the Jews: "Who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always; for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost." (cf. 1 Thess. 2:15,16) The Apostle was wise enough to apply this statement of Jesus' to the contemporary famines and Roman persecutions that were beginning in Judea, evaluating that God's patience had reached an end and His wrath was beginning to burst forth!

5. Before turning from the text, make sure you objectively examine your own life, remembering Paul's warning to the religious of his day: "And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them who do such things and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despiseth thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds." (cf. Rom. 2:3-6)