Even in our secular Age religion is still alive and well. And there are some aspects of religion that even the secular world admires and praises. I was reminded of this recently when Pope Francis was named by Time magazine as the Person of the Year for 2013 – mostly because of his compassion for the poor and his willingness to seek change within the Catholic Church. So even the secular world admires religious people who take a stand on those issues deemed important by today’s cultural elites.
Jesus was born into a religious culture that would make us seem pagan by comparison. Most of the things that Jesus taught were said to people who were deeply religious, having been formed not only by the Law of Moses, but by an organized and formalized system of traditions. The infamous Pharisees represent one tributary of this religious stream, the fountainhead of which could be traced back to the time between the Old and New Testaments.
And Jesus found this religious system with all of its traditions to be a complete corruption of the Word of God that had originally come to Israel through Moses. You will soon discover, from even a brief exposure to Scripture, that what impresses men and what pleases God are not one and the same.
The official religious establishment of the nation of Israel did not love or even know the God of Israel at all and were using their religion entirely for self-aggrandizement. The religious elites were emphasizing only what was convenient for them or what made them look good in the eyes of the people instead of actually doing the things that really mattered to God that He had commanded in the Law.
These religious leaders of Israel had become proud and self-righteous and were completely alienated from the God they claimed to worship. Jesus is showing His disciples how to avoid the folly of these religious men, which was leading them directly to Hell.
If we examine the larger context of Matthew 23 we begin to see that our text is actually part of a long section devoted to Jesus pronouncing judgment and condemnation on the religious establishment of Israel at that time. It is difficult for Americans to understand the context in which Jesus spoke these words of judgment. We don’t take religion seriously. The Jews took their religion very seriously, enough so to want Jesus dead when He did not endorse the system.
Jesus could not endorse Judaism as it had developed because the religious leaders had corrupted the original Law of Moses by adding to it a layer of traditions and Rabbinical interpretation and commentary. Jesus made it clear what He thought of these additions. He told them that they had nullified the Word of God for the sake of their traditions (Mark 7.1-13).
Jesus’ final condemnation of the Jewish religious establishment began when He came into the city of Jerusalem for the final time – an event Christians call The Triumphal Entry (Matthew 21.1-11). But Jesus’ first order of business in Jerusalem was to clean out the Temple (Matthew 21.12-17). This bold act was a picture of God’s judgment on that corrupt, religious system. This event was immediately followed by Jesus cursing a fig tree outside of Jerusalem because the tree had no fruit. This was yet another picture of God’s judgment on the religious system of the Jews. God was looking for spiritual fruit and He had found nothing but leaves (Matt. 21.18-22).
You can probably anticipate what happened next. Jesus was attacked by the religious leaders who were seeking to trap Him and discredit Him by something He might say (21.23-27; 45-46; 22.15-39). Several different groups of religious leaders, representing the various parties in that system, all try to trap Jesus with what they thought were tricky issues and difficult questions. Nothing works and Jesus counter-attacks, speaking in parables about the religious leaders and their rejection of God, God’s Kingdom, and God’s messengers. Jesus also asks them a question that they cannot answer, concerning the true identity of the Christ, and thereby silences them for good (21.28-32; 33-44; 22.1-14; 41-46).
Jesus then turns to instruct His disciples about the danger of following in the footsteps of these corrupt religious leaders. This diatribe against the religious leaders of Israel included a series of seven woes, or warnings of impending doom (23.13-36).
Israel actually had a history of rejecting God’s messengers that He sent to them, and now they were even rejecting the Son of God Himself (Matthew 23.34-36). And Jesus laments the sad, spiritual state of Jerusalem and foretells its destruction (Matthew 23.37-39; 24.1-2).
Jesus’ words in this section should in no way be taken to be a condemnation of all the Jewish people everywhere and for all times. Jesus’ words are directed at the religious leaders of that particular generation. Not all of the Jews rejected Jesus and God has certainly not written off the Jewish people and replaced them with the Church (See Romans 9-11).
One important lesson we learn from this entire section is that there is perhaps no sin that arouses God’s wrath like religious hypocrisy! The Church needs to take this to heart, and that is probably why this section of Scripture was preserved for us. We should not think we are safe from God’s wrath if we transgress like the religious leaders of Israel.
Lurking behind the scenes were the secret plots of the Jewish leaders to murder Jesus (Matthew 26.1-5). It is a little disturbing to see that the people who wanted Jesus dead were the most religious people! Why was this the case? Should they have not been the first to recognize and welcome the Christ? But Jesus was a threat to their power and position. They were simply jealous of Jesus, His power, and His popularity with the people who flocked to hear Him. Pilate knew the Jews were wanting to get rid of Jesus out of envy (Matthew 27.18). Remember that these men claimed to be close to God and to represent Him, but they hated the Son of God!
Their true feelings about God were exposed by Jesus, the Light of the World, just as light exposes what is hidden in the darkness (John 3.19-21). Their hatred of Jesus shows that even though they knew about the true God and were experts in His Word, they did not really love or know the living God (John 5.37-47).
Of course we love to read these passages about Jesus versus the Pharisees because we always put ourselves on Jesus’ side against the Pharisees. If we had been alive back then we would have been on the right side, no doubts at all! In other words, we all assume our moral superiority. But if moral superiority had anything to do with entering the Kingdom of God, then the Pharisees certainly would have entered in and would probably easily beat out all of us by comparison.
So we can easily miss the whole point of this passage, which is not to condemn the Pharisees (Jesus already did that for us) but to look at our own hearts and make sure there is nothing there resembling what Jesus condemned here in this passage.
Jesus stands firmly planted in the prophetic tradition and sounds very much like Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Amos in this passage. These prophets also warned Israel about God’s wrath against them because of their religious hypocrisy.
We should take note of what makes God angry. Jesus got angry with the religious leaders. Jesus did not get angry with the Samaritan woman who had five husbands and was with a man who was not her husband. Jesus did not get mad at the woman caught in the very act of adultery. The prostitutes, tax collectors, and other sinners were entering the Kingdom of God ahead of these religious leaders because those who know they are sinners are ready for a Savior. From this viewpoint the worst possible sin, the sin that makes you irredeemable, is pride and self-righteousness.
Religious sin is much more serious than the sins of the flesh.
What God really wants from us is honesty and truthfulness instead of pretense. Our righteousness must exceed the scribes and Pharisees (Matt 5.20). It was God’s intention to make a New Covenant and write His law on our hearts (See Jer. 31.31-34).
This is why Jesus told a Pharisee that “unless you are born again you cannot see the Kingdom of God” (John 3.3-5). What is needed is the total renovation of the human heart.
We must remember as we read the Gospels that when we see and hear Jesus we are seeing and hearing God. Jesus is God in human flesh and so when Jesus speaks, acts, or reacts, we are seeing the nature of God displayed through a human being. The incarnation is what separates Christian faith from all other philosophies or religions out there in the world. The God revealed in Christ is up- close and personal. Perhaps too close for our comfort sometimes!
In Jesus’ condemnation of the religious system of the Jews we are seeing something about God. Obviously we see something about God’s wrath here. Wrath is God’s righteous indignation. God is opposed to evil and sin and to anything that is at variance with His own nature. God is never neutral about evil, and we should be glad that He is not a passive observer.
But we also see in Jesus the compassion of God, even here in this text that thunders forth in judgment. After Jesus has pronounced doom on the religious system in Jerusalem, He then breaks down and laments the awful fate of the city, or people, that God loved.
Compassion is a feeling – the original Greek word literally means to feel something in your guts – of pity and of sorrow for someone who is hurting or who is in dire straits. The Gospels are constantly showing the compassion of Jesus, particularly for those who were sick, and also for those who were lost like sheep without a shepherd. The attributes of wrath and compassion both belong to God’s nature, without being at conflict with each other or canceling each other out.
If we are to add wrath and compassion what we get is jealousy. God is a jealous God! This was one of the primary revelations of the Law of Moses. God is jealous for His covenant people and He becomes filled with both wrath and compassion when His people turn away from Him to other lovers. Wrath, you see, is not the opposite of love. The opposite of love is indifference. Love does not equal tolerance.
This is what many people today who object to God’s wrath or jealousy fail to understand. I know that the idea of jealousy makes many people uncomfortable because they think of God as some kind of selfish, manipulative man who just wants to control. But God is not a man. God is the Creator and He has the right to lay claim on His creatures and their affections.
God is not being selfish because we can add nothing to Him – He doesn’t need us. But we need Him. His love is our highest good and when we reject Him we are choosing death. And God does not want us to die. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He sets before us life and death and He pleads with us to choose life!
God often compared Himself to a husband who was jealous for His wife. But Israel was unfaithful to her Husband and broke the covenant – just like Hosea’s wife. God loved Israel but they ran away after other lovers. Is God not supposed to be moved by this unfaithfulness?
I am not sure that people really want God to love them. I think what they really want is for God to leave them alone. But Love cannot leave us alone. The Lover pursues the Beloved. I have a certain jealousy for my wife because I love her and I want her to be with me and love me back. The marriage covenant is a picture of God and His people. When we invest in a relationship we expect something in return and God is no different. God’s wrath is not because God hates His people, but precisely because He loves them and seeks their highest good. And He is filled with compassion, or grief, when they reject Him and die as a result.
The nature of God is the engine that powers salvation. In salvation we see both wrath and compassion. There are numerous examples of this in Scripture. We see it at the very beginning after the man and his wife had sinned and stood before the Lord. They were made to face their sin and were kept from the Tree of Life and cast out of Eden. Yet God made coverings for them and gave them a promise that the serpent’s head would eventually be bruised.
Later God was grieved in His heart, a feeling of compassion, because of the wickedness of mankind. He determined to destroy mankind, an expression of wrath, yet Noah found grace and the human race was not exterminated. God came down to confuse the language of those building Babel, yet immediately after He scattered the people He called Abram out of Ur and gave Him a promise of blessing for the world. The ultimate meeting of God’s wrath and compassion was seen in the Cross and in God providing atonement, or a covering, for sinners. Without God’s wrath and compassion there would be no salvation for us.
Those who want to remove God’s wrath are actually making God less loving, not more loving. God’s love is what moved Him to provide a propitiation for His wrath. Unless we accept the Biblical revelation of God we are in constant danger of creating a god in our own image – either a god who is soft and tolerant or a god who is harsh and angry.
But God is making a people for Himself who know Him and who reflect His own character. We are meant to feel what God feels – both wrath and compassion. In other words, we are to be like Jesus. When Jesus looked at Jerusalem and that religious system He felt both wrath and compassion and we should also have this complex response to the sin and error of people. Sometimes I think we are too simple and only have one gear in our emotional transmission. We feel either wrath or compassion, but not both at the same time. We get out of balance.
Some of you feel nothing but compassion for people, and because of this you are too soft. You tolerate too much and you fail to say the hard words that must be said. Some of you are all wrath and anger. You are like the prophet Jonah who wanted nothing more than to see the people of Ninevah fried to a crisp! Instead of being like Jonah we should be like the Apostle Paul who was distressed when he saw the city of Athens filled with idols. Paul was not simply angry. He was filled with concern for people who were being ruined by the idols they worshiped. We must represent God accurately – feeling both wrath and compassion for those who are going astray. If we don’t feel these things then we are not really ready to serve God because we are nothing like Jesus.
If Jesus had not come, there is a very good chance that many of us would be just like the Pharisees and would fall under the same condemnation. Jesus wants to save us from corrupt religion. I say corrupt religion because religion in itself is not necessarily evil. There is a kind of religion that is pure.
But religion can easily be false or corrupted, and that is what Jesus is condemning in our text. The Jews had the only revealed religion in history and they managed to corrupt it. I have no doubt that the Church has done the same thing with the Gospel, which is even more serious!
We learn from Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees that the flesh, or human nature, can corrupt anything.
Our religion must be pure, untainted by the flesh, and Jesus is the only one who can save you from your flesh. What this means is that Jesus is really saving us from ourselves. As long as your flesh dominates your life, everything you do – even your religion – will be corrupt and unacceptable to God. Those in the flesh cannot please God (Rom. 8.8). There is something we are missing that no religious service can give us. Religious people still need Jesus.
Cain is a picture of the kind of religious man God will not accept. Cain was going through the motions of religion and offering something to God, just like his brother Abel. Abel is accepted and Cain rejected. It has been noted that Abel offered an animal sacrifice while Cain offered something from his crops. But under the Law Israel was commanded to offer both animal sacrifices and part of the fruit of their crops. The problem was not with the offering but with the man. Cain’s offering was rejected because there was something wrong with Cain. It is the man who makes the offering acceptable not the offering that makes the man acceptable.
God does not simply want our sacrifices and offerings. In fact, Israel’s sacrifices were rejected by God even though they technically brought the correct offerings (See Amos 5.22). The PEOPLE were not acceptable so neither was their religion. We are to offer ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God (Rom 12.1-2). God is not just looking for a certain kind of worship or religion. God is looking for a certain kind of worshiper (See John 4.23). We tend to be far too impressed by the external act of worship. But God looks at the heart and is not impressed by what pleases men. Jesus came to change our hearts so that we would be acceptable to God. When we are acceptable then our worship or our religion will also be acceptable.
Our self-centered focus is the problem. From this comes the hideous sin of pride. Religious pride is perhaps the worst kind. The pride of religion is self-righteousness and the smug, self-satisfied feeling of moral superiority.
But anyone who really saw Jesus became instantly humble, even afraid. When Jesus commanded Peter to cast his nets and there was a miraculous catch, Peter fell down before Jesus and said “away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5.8).
Imagine that you are an accomplished singer. You even enter singing competitions and you win! Perhaps you have just been crowned the best singer in your town. Then you decide to take your talents to the Big Apple! What will happen to your self-image when you arrive on Broadway in New York City? You will be humbled!
We can always make ourselves feel superior by comparing ourselves to some poor slob who is a moral failure. But what happens to our self-confidence when we look at Jesus?
The key to true humility is neither to praise yourself nor to debase yourself, but not to look at yourself at all. We cannot be proud when we look at the Cross of Christ.
“When I survey the wondrous Cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride!”
Jesus came to Jerusalem to offer himself as a sacrifice for sinners. When he got there he encountered this proud, self-righteous, religious institution. There is this intentional contrast between Jesus who will humbly offer Himself and the pride of the Pharisees who thought only about themselves. The Cross is God’s final judgment of all human pride, religion, and self-righteousness. All of our efforts to justify ourselves before God through our religion are judged by the Cross.
That’s why, unless you become like a little child, you will never enter the Kingdom. Pride is not something we can bring with us into the Kingdom and work on later, like a bad habit. Pride excludes you from entering.
Pride not only alienates us from God, it also alienates us from each other. Religious pride is expressed in a feeling of superiority. This causes rivalry, competition, contention, and division. We feel free to attack people because we feel superior to them.
But Jesus is setting the standard for relationships among His disciples. We are not to be like the Pharisees who were looking only for position and trying to exalt themselves over each other.
Those who exalt themselves will be humbled by God. Those who humble themselves will be exalted by God. This is a universal law of the Kingdom of God that is just as dependable as the law of gravity!
Keeping pride from rising up within us is a constant battle because pride is so subtle and can be well-concealed behind a religious cloak. Pride is not always so obvious like the sins of the flesh. Maintaining humility can be like trying to hold a wet bar of soap.
We should examine ourselves to make sure we are not modern-day Pharisees! Jesus makes it clear that if we are like the religious leaders there is no way we will escape being condemned to Hell!
We know how God feels about corrupt religion.
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