Matthew 23

¹³ “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. ¹⁵ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell^[e] as yourselves. ¹⁶ “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ ¹⁷ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? ¹⁸ And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ ¹⁹ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? ²⁰ So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. ²¹ And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. ²² And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it. ²³ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. ²⁴ You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! ²⁵ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. ²⁶ You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. ²⁷ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. ²⁸ So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. ²⁹ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, ³⁰ saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ ³¹ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. ³² Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. ³³ You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? ³⁴ Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, ³⁵ so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. ³⁶ Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

One of the stranger songs I have ever heard is Tom Waits’ 1999 “Chocolate Jesus.” He recorded it while singing through a bullhorn, a technique he also employed when he performed the song live on David Letterman. Here are the lyrics:

Well, I don’t go to church on Sunday
Don’t get on my knees to pray
Don’t memorize the books of the bible
I got my own special way
I know Jesus loves me
Maybe just a little bit more
Fall down on my knees every Sunday
At Zerelda Lee’s candy store
Well, I’ve got to be a chocolate Jesus
Make me feel good inside
Got to be a chocolate Jesus
Keep me satisfied
Well, I don’t want no Abba Zabba
Don’t want no Almond Joy
There ain’t nothing better
Suitable for this boy
Well, it’s the only thing that can pick me up
It’s better than a cup of gold
See, only a chocolate Jesus
Can satisfy my soul
When the weather gets rough and it’s whiskey in the shade
It’s best to wrap your savior up in cellophane
He flows like the big muddy but that’s okay
Pour him over ice cream for a nice parfait
Well, it’s got to be a chocolate Jesus
Good enough for me
Got to be a chocolate Jesus
It’s good enough for me
Well, it’s got to be a chocolate Jesus
Make me feel so good inside
Got to be a chocolate Jesus
Keep me satisfied

I agree with those who see in this song a lampooning of American Christianity, of what it has become. I am actually inclined to agree with the one reviewer who commented on songmeanings.com:

I see this song as a satire of America’s twisted version of Christianity.

America has commoditized religion (hence, chocolate Jesus wrapped in cellophane)—it has been monetized (sold at “candy store”), exploited (melted and poured over ice cream), and, most importantly, disconnected from its origins (don’t get down on my knees to pray…memorize books of bible…got my own special way). Christianity is used and abused (makes the chocolate eater happy and is good enough…but the eater doesn’t go out of their way for the religion, just uses for personal comfort).

One does not need to go out of their way to see the “Chocolate Jesus” phenomenon in America’s citizens, politicians, stores, and churches…(is there even a difference b/t the last two?)

Salvation is bought and sold in america…[1]

A religion that has been corrupted, detached from its origin, and valued largely for the pleasure it gives its adherents…that is a pretty good description of a lot of what passes for Christianity in our day. And, to read Matthew 23, it is a pretty good description of much of what passed for Judaism in the first century.

Beginning in verse 13, Jesus launches into a series of seven woes, seven indictments of the scribes and Pharisees, of the religious elites, the religious establishment. In doing so, Jesus paints a cautionary picture of false religion that we must heed.

The Seven Woes of False Religion

Seven is the number of completion, so the fact that there are seven woes here communicates the total corruption of the religious system as the scribes and pharisees had construed it. Jesus began our chapter rebuking them, but now it becomes an outright prophetic oracle of woe and doom!

The Woe of the Shut Door Instead of the Open Door

The first mark of false religion is that it keeps people out of heaven.

¹³ “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.

The scribes and Pharisees “shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces.” They did this primarily through leading their followers to focus on legalisms, on arbitrary rules, instead of on the deeper issues of a relationship with the Lord God and the condition of their own hearts before Him. They kept people out of the kingdom by reducing their religion to performance and to externals. And why did they do this? Because they had never entered the kingdom themselves, Jesus says. They were lost, blind guides.

The bitter fruit of false religion ultimately takes you further from God and never brings you closer to Him. But let us remember that great, powerful, symbolic rending that took place when Jesus died upon the cross. In Matthew 27, we read:

⁵⁰ And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. ⁵¹ And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.

Jesus opens the door. Jesus makes the way. Jesus is the way! Jesus brings us to the Father. Jesus ushers us into the kingdom!

The Woe of Corruption Instead of Edification

What is more, the fruit of false religion is rotten.

¹⁵ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across 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.

When false religion has run its course, its adherents are not only not transformed, they have regressed. They have become “twice as much child[ren] of hell” as their teachers. The lives of the adherents of false religions are as godless as those of their deceiving teachers.

Not so, the kingdom. In the kingdom, we are drawn ever closer to Christ and are consistently being transformed into His image. If you imitate false teachers, you will end up corrupted. But in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul can say:

¹ Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

Paul clearly did not see himself as perfect. He considered himself the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). Even so, the faith is ever compelling us Christward. So even though Paul was not perfect, He could commend imitation of himself insofar as he was imitating Christ. The fruit of Christianity, when practiced rightly, is sweet and edifies.

The Woe of the Parsed Word Hiding the Uncommitted Heart

False religion also plays with words in order to leave loopholes to actual holiness. Consider:

¹⁶ “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ ¹⁷ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? ¹⁸ And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ ¹⁹ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? ²⁰ So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. ²¹ And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. ²² And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.

The scribes and Pharisees had created a kind of verbal loophole by which a person could seem to be making an oath when in fact they were not. Only certain constructions of speech were binding (i.e., “I swear by the gold of the temple.”) whereas others were not (i.e., “I swear by the temple.”). In doing this, the religious establishment had created a system where actual holiness could be evaded on the basis of carefully parsed words, on the verbal formulas of intended avoidance.

Frank Stagg explains:

The third woe has to do with casuistry, a legal distinction between oaths found binding and those not. In making some oaths valid and some not, the way was opened for legalizing perjury, i.e., pretending to bind oneself by oath yet leaving oneself a technical or legal loophole…It is sheer folly and blindness to seek to hide behind such legal fiction as that the particular wording of an oath binds one to his word or not.[2]

Jesus points out that the formulas themselves were absurd! After all, is not the temple itself greater than the gold included in it? Is not the altar itself greater than the gift on it? So the details of this scheme were already convoluted.

But even more damning was the game that was being played here: this parsing of words behind which an uncommitted heart lurked. In true and authentic relationships, these kind of verbal games are considered absurd. Such is not the way of love! Love speaks simply and openly and honestly with no qualifications. “A person who lives in moment-by-moment accountability to the presence of the living God,” writes Michael J. Wilkins, “will need only to give a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as a binding oath (cf. 5:23, 34–37).”[3] This is indeed what Jesus says in Matthew 5:

³³ “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ ³⁴ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, ³⁵ or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. ³⁶ And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. ³⁷ Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

This is the way of the kingdom and of the people of God.

The Woe of Majoring on the Minors

False religion always majors on minors. The scribes and Pharisees did precisely this.

²³ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. ²⁴ You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!

Mint and dill and cumin were herbs. They were tiny things. The point Jesus was making is that these religious leaders were hyper-scrupulous about their tithing. They tithed down to the minutest of realities. They were proud of their precision! Yet they “neglected” the bigger issues of “justice and mercy and faithfulness.”

False religion always does this. It prides itself on the herbs while neglecting what really matters. It is concerned with countless petty legalisms while missing the great matters of love and goodness. It prides itself on precision while missing all the while the huge and obvious heart of God.

The Woe of Externalism

In general, false religion is obsessed with externalism, with outward appearances, all the while neglecting the heart. The next two woes fall under this heading.

²⁵ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. ²⁶ You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

²⁷ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. ²⁸ So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Here, Jesus uses two metaphors to illustrate the foolishness of externalism.

• A cup and plate, clean on the outside but dirty on the inside.
• A whitewashed tomb, beautiful on the outside but full of bones on the inside.

The point is clear: It is possible to appear externally righteous while you are actually internally corrupt. The way of the kingdom is not outside-in transformation but inside-out. The first step is to get a new heart and then it will manifest in external holiness. It does not work the other way around! False religion makes a fatal mistake on precisely this point.

The Woe of Assumed Righteousness

Finally, we see the woe of assumed righteousness.

²⁹ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, ³⁰ saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ ³¹ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. ³² Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. ³³ You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? ³⁴ Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, ³⁵ so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. ³⁶ Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

The adherents of false religion always assume they are holier than they are. Here, Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees for assuming that they were holier than their forefathers, that they would not have killed the prophets as their forefathers did. Clearly these leaders thought that they had progressed past such sinfulness.

Jesus’ response is intense. He pronounces the coming of eternal judgment for these religious elites, calling them “serpents” and a “brood of vipers” in the process. He then flatly denies their assumption, pointing out in verse 34 that they will in fact kill some of the prophets and wise men. Indeed, Jesus says that “this generation” is truly no better than the previous in terms of their wickedness.

We might remember at this point the words of Stephen that led to his martyrdom. In Acts 7, Stephen rebukes his listeners by saying:

⁵¹ “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. ⁵² Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, ⁵³ you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”

Stephen too highlights the connection between the “fathers” and the current generation, noting that this generation does just as their fathers did. They are truly no better. In fact, they are worse. Their forefathers killed the prophets who announced the coming of Jesus, but this generation had “murdered and betrayed” Jesus himself!

Beware assumed righteousness. Beware the naïve belief that you, that we, are not capable of falling as our forefathers fell. Sin pursues all of us, and our only protection is in the arms of Jesus. When we assume that we are beyond or incapable of certain degrees of wickedness, we are primed for a fall!

See the bitter fruits of false religion!

The One Way of Living Faith

In contrast to false religion stand the one way of living faith, the way of Christ. In John 14, Jesus says:

⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Here we see the great contrast between the way of Christ and the way of false religion.

False religion focuses on our performance. The true way focuses on Christ and His performance.

False religion focuses on externals. The true way focuses on the heart transformed by Jesus Christ.

False religion views transformation as an outside-in process. But the true way sees it as an inside-out process.

False religion inevitably focuses on us. The true way focuses on Christ.

False religion is always trying to earn Heaven. The true way runs to Jesus because we know we can never earn anything.

False religion has no real joy. The true way has the joy of Christ.

False religion is always lonely. In the true way, the church is on pilgrimage together with Jesus.

False religion condemns. Jesus saves.

False religion destroys. Jesus gives life.

Choose the true way.

Choose Christ.

 

[1] https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858535998/

[2] Frank Stagg, “Matthew.” The Broadman Bible Commentary. Gen. ed., Clifton J. Allen. Vol.8 (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1969), p.213.

[3] Michael J. Wilkins, “Matthew.”  Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. Gen. Ed., Clinton E. Arnold. Vol.1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), p.143–44.