In the New Testament, Jesus seems to have rebuked no group of people more strongly and more frequently than He did the Pharisees. These rebukes and warnings are not recorded merely as a matter of historical interest; they are set down for our benefit. During this Passover season, as we engage in a time of self-examination, it is important that we come to understand a vital lesson that most Pharisees never understood.
Most of us are familiar with the beatitudes, a series of blessings that Christ pronounced for those holding and practicing seven specific attitudes and behaviors. Jesus enumerated them at the very beginning of what is commonly called the Sermon on the Mount, recorded in Matthew 5.
Many have not realized, however, that these seven blessings are paralleled by seven curses that Jesus pronounced on many of the Pharisees because of attitudes that they held and behaviors that they practiced. Jesus pronounced this series of "woes" just a couple of days before the final Passover of His ministry, as recorded in Matthew 23.
While a few Pharisees were undoubtedly sincere— Nicodemus and Saul come quickly to mind—most were simply "playing at religion." They were actors, little different from the actors on the stage of the Greek theaters with which most of Jesus' listeners would have been familiar. In fact, our English word "hypocrite" is taken from the Greek word for actor.
Did you know that even the Talmud acknowledges that most Pharisees were hypocrites? In fact, the Babylonian Talmud lists seven kinds of Pharisee, and six out of the seven were bad (Sotah 22b)! The six bad categories were:
- The "shoulder" Pharisee who wore his good deeds on his shoulder so everyone could see them.
- The "wait a little" Pharisee who always found an excuse for putting off a good deed.
- The "bruised" Pharisee who shut his eyes to avoid seeing a woman and knocked into walls, bruising himself.
- The "hump-backed" Pharisee who always walked bent double, in false humility.
- The "ever-reckoning" Pharisee who was always counting up the number of his good deeds.
- The "fearful" Pharisee who always quaked in fear of the wrath of God.
Finally, there was the seventh category: The "God-loving" Pharisee who sought to copy Abraham by living a life of faith and love.
Most of the Pharisees, in spite of all their talk of religion, totally missed the point of what God was truly seeking in them. The best that could be said of the few sincere Pharisees was what the Apostle Paul wrote: "For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God" (Romans 10:2–3). We should deeply understand the lesson that most Pharisees never understood—a lesson that should be especially meaningful to us during the Days of Unleavened Bread.
Blessings and Woes
How can we know what God really seeks from us? A good place to start is by looking at the Sermon on the Mount—in which, right at the beginning of His ministry, Jesus laid out the approach to God's law that was fundamental to the New Covenant. Christ began this teaching by describing the attitudes and behaviors that God would honor and bless.
Jesus first told His hearers: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3). The poor in spirit are the very opposite of the proud and haughty who possess illusions of spiritual self-sufficiency and grandeur. The poor in spirit recognize how desperately they need what God alone can supply. Those who have that deep humility are the ones who will ultimately inherit the Kingdom that God is preparing. Contrast this with the stinging rebuke that Christ gave the Pharisees when He pronounced the first "woe" on them. These proud hypocrites "shut up the kingdom of heaven against men," neither entering themselves, nor helping others to enter (Matthew 23:13). This woe is the exact opposite of the first blessing Jesus pronounced in Matthew 5.
Jesus' second blessing may appear contradictory at first glance: "Blessed [the Greek word literally means "happy"] are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (v. 4). This describes an attitude of repentance. Ezekiel described this very spirit in Ezekiel 9:4, when God told the angel with the writer's inkhorn to mark those who "sigh and cry" for the abominations of Israel and were to be spared God's wrath. Contrast this with the second woe pronounced on the Pharisees in Matthew 23:14, where Jesus denounced those who make long prayers for pretense yet "devour widow's houses"—whose continued behavior shows that they are not repentant, in spite of the length of time they spend praying. Had they sincerely mourned sin, they would have changed their conduct!
In the third beatitude, Christ declared: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" (v. 5). Those who are truly willing to let God fight their battles for them will ultimately inherit what all of the great conquerors who have struggled and fought were unable to finally obtain: possession and rulership of the earth. The Pharisees were indicted for going all over the earth to make a proselyte, yet ultimately making him a "son of hell" like themselves (Matthew 23:15). In other words, rather than inheriting the earth, they and their followers would inherit death.
Jesus' fourth blessing is found in Matthew 5:6: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." Those who truly crave God's character and nature in this life will be blessed by being totally filled with it in the resurrection. In contrast, the Pharisees were not really seeking the true mind of God; rather, they took a legalistic approach and drew many artificial distinctions that let them avoid doing what they should. In Matthew 23:16–22, Christ pronounced curse and woe on them for making a distinction between oaths that were binding (swearing by the gold of the temple and the gifts on the altar) and oaths that were not binding (merely swearing by the temple or the altar itself). They were not really craving God's righteousness the way a starving man desires food. Rather, they simply wanted their own way, while trying to give the illusion of obedience and piety.
Jesus' fifth blessing was: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy (Matthew 5:7). Mercy is a vital quality of our Creator, and it is a characteristic that He values greatly in human beings. We all deeply need God's mercy, yet we can only partake of it if we are willing to dispense it to others. This contrasts with the Pharisees, against whom Jesus pronounced His fifth woe in Matthew 23:23–24. While they were very meticulous in tithing, right down to counting the leaves on their mint plants, they omitted judgment, mercy, and faith. Mercy, one of the weightier matters of the law, was totally left out of their scheme of things!
Matthew 5:8 records the sixth beatitude: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." What kind of heart does our Creator seek in us? One that is pure in motive and intent. Such a heart is not filled with guile and deceit, nor with hidden sins tucked away in the corners. An open, honest and repentant heart is clean and pure! By contrast, Jesus compared the Pharisees to those who scrub the outside of a dish while leaving the inside filthy. They were like whitewashed tombs. Outwardly they appeared clean and beautiful, yet within was rot, decay and stench (Matthew 23:25–28). The continued presence of spiritual filth that made their hearts unclean and impure brought forth a solemn declaration of curses and woe from the Savior.
The seventh behavior on which Jesus Christ pronounced blessing is mentioned in Matthew 5:9: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." In order to be a peacemaker we must know and practice the way of peace—something the world around us does not understand. The prophet Isaiah declared that peace is the work or result of righteousness (32:17). Hypocritical Pharisees sought to give the impression of loving peace and righteousness, yet they possessed the same murderous spirit of their forbearers who had slain God's true prophets throughout the ages (Matthew 23:29–33). Christ denounced this in the strongest terms, and pronounced curses and woe on those who clung to such attitudes.
In Matthew 5:10–13, Christ told His disciples that their spiritual blessing and happiness did not depend what others around them thought or did. Rather, even in the midst of persecution and false accusation from the world, Jesus' true followers could rejoice, knowing the reward that lay ahead for them. Everything was put into proper perspective for those who genuinely loved and trusted God with all of their hearts.
What the Pharisees Failed to Understand
The Pharisees were greatly concerned about avoiding ceremonial defilement. Such defilement would exclude one from access to the altar, and prevent further participation in temple ceremonies until one could be cleansed. Desiring to be as holy and undefiled when they approached their own dinner table as any priest officiating in the temple coming before the altar—the table of the Lord—the Pharisees went to great lengths to identify and avoid possible sources of defilement. This became an obsession with them.
Despite their concerns about defilement, they fundamentally failed to understand the subject. Notice the exchange recorded in Mark 7:1–23, when the Pharisees criticized Jesus' disciples for not practicing the Pharisees' elaborate hand-washing ritual before eating. Jesus responded by quoting the words of Isaiah 29:13: "This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me." Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for elevating human tradition above the law of God. With clever legalistic reasoning, the Pharisees often managed to circumvent the clear intention of God's law while appearing to remain within its letter. Jesus explained, by contrast, the nature and source of real defilement—that it does not come about by contact with outside things, but rather originates in the heart.
Jesus taught His disciples that food touched with unwashed hands could not be a source of spiritual uncleanness, for it enters the stomach and not the heart. Real defilement arises from the heart. "And He said, 'What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man'" (Mark 7:20–23).
The Pharisees failed to understand that cleanness, first and foremost, is not primarily a matter of externals; it is an inside job! Deleavening our homes for the Days of Unleavened Bread is designed to teach a similar spiritual lesson. As Paul explained to the Corinthians, we should not keep the Feast with the spiritual leavening of malice and wickedness, any more than we would keep the Feast with the physical leavening that we regularly eat throughout the rest of the year. Rather, we are to be partaking of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (1 Corinthians 5:8).
Before conversion, we walked according to the course of this world, ultimately influenced by Satan—the prince of the power of the air—who actively motivates the children of disobedience. However, God took the initiative by sending His Son—our Savior—to give Himself in atonement for our sins. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:8–10). We do not earn it or deserve it. We can never make ourselves good enough. However, we are His workmanship—and God is remaking us from the inside out.
Paul told the Colossians that if they had truly been raised from spiritual death to spiritual life, they would be seeking the things that are above, living in a quest for heavenly values. He exhorted them to set their affection (Colossians 3:1, KJV) upon things above. This is perhaps the greatest key to living a life of spiritual growth—we pursue and embrace that which we most deeply love and think about. If our hearts and minds are set on heavenly things, we will cherish them and hold them fast. We can never forsake a life based on self-will unless we love God's will more. The Pharisees valued appearances and the approbation of other people, and many of their choices demonstrated that they cared more about what people thought than about what God thought.
God's Power—Key to an Inside Job
The Pharisees considered the Sadducees and Herodians their bitter rivals. However, they were willing to cooperate to get rid of Jesus. Yet even after colluding to convict Him of blasphemy in the Sanhedrin, and delivering Him to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, for execution, their worries were still not over. They thought they were finally rid of Christ, but they still worried about His earlier statement that the sign of Jonah would be the sign of His Messiahship (Matthew 12:39–40). As a result, several of the religious leaders came to Pilate early on the morning of the First Holy Day of Unleavened Bread. They asked that a guard be posted at the tomb for the next three days. They told Pilate of Jesus' promise to rise from the dead after three days, and they expressed their fear that Christ's disciples would break into His tomb, steal His body, and spread the story that He had indeed risen. Pilate gave them the guard that they requested and allowed them to seal the tomb (Matthew 27:62–66).
The previous day's events had certainly been unsettling to all in Jerusalem. Beginning around noon on Passover day, the sky rapidly darkened and the sun disappeared behind heavy clouds. It became as black as night for about three hours. Finally, just before the sky began to lighten, an earthquake shook the area so severely that structural damage was done to the temple. This earthquake broke the stone lintel that supported the veil separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, ripping that heavy curtain from top to bottom. This exposed the Holy of Holies to view. In addition, the quake shook open some tombs in the Jerusalem area (Matthew 27:45, 51–52). As if all this were not unsettling enough, a lunar eclipse occurred that night. The earth's shadow fell across the full moon heralding the Night to be Much Observed, peaking at about 9:00 p.m. Jerusalem time and causing the moon to appear blood red. Astronomers confirm that this eclipse, mentioned in Acts 2:20, occurred on Wednesday night, April 25, 31AD.
With all these unusual occurrences, which many of the common people considered to be portents, the religious leaders could not afford to take a chance on something else happening. They surely congratulated themselves on their foresight in having taken steps to prevent someone from breaking into the tomb. Of course, before the end of the wavesheaf Sunday during the Days of Unleavened Bread, they learned—from the very guards they had posted—that their plans had gone awry. The religious leaders intended that the guards would prevent someone from breaking into the tomb and stealing Jesus' body. Instead, the guards bore witness that no one had broken into the tomb, which was already empty when the angel rolled back the stone early Sunday morning! The guards became eyewitnesses to the fact that the empty tomb was an inside job! They knew that no outsiders had broken in (Matthew 28:11–15).
What do true righteousness and the resurrection of Jesus have in common? Both represent an inside job that can only be accomplished by the power of God! Let us come to understand more deeply this Passover season what most of the Pharisees never grasped—the importance of an inside job!