Author: Richard Sipes

About Richard Sipes

Posts by Richard Sipes:

Enduring to the End – Matthew 24:4-14

Matthew-24.13

Enduring to the End

Matthew 24:4-14

As Jesus sats down on the Mount of Olives, His disciples asked Him about what they had just heard (Matt. 24:3). They had been admiring the magnificent buildings of the temple (Matt. 24:1), and Jesus had just told them that it all would be thrown down, not leaving one stone on another (Matt. 24:2). The temple would be destroyed.

The disciples connected the destruction of the temple with Jesus’ coming—the ushering in of His kingdom and the end of the age. They asked Him, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matt. 24:3). I believe that the disciples thought that Jesus was about to accomplish all these things, that they would be fulfilled in their lifetimes. Even after Jesus’ death and resurrection, they asked Jesus, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6).

They are not expecting two advents of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a time gap in between. They could not conceive of an extended period of time between the ascension of Jesus and the second coming of Jesus. So, looking down from the Mount of Olives to the temple mount and trying to make sense of what they are hearing, they asked two questions: a when question, “When will these things be?”, and a what question, “What will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” They wanted to know the timing of these things, and what signs would show that they have arrived.

In the Olivet Discourse that follows, Jesus answered both these their questions. And in answering, He also gave us an outline of future events. He told us signs of the time leading up to a great tribulation (Matt. 24:4-14), and He told us about that great tribulation (Matt. 24:15-26). He then told us about what follows that great tribulation, namely, His return in glory (Matt. 24:27-31). He gives us signs for that great tribulation, and for His second coming.

So, the section we are looking at today (Matt. 24:4-14) has to do with the time prior to the great tribulation (Matt. 24:31). Remember, the disciples had asked Jesus “when” these things would happen. But I want you to notice that Jesus answers that question mostly by telling them when it would not happen. Notice that after Jesus warns them of signs that would take place, He says, “See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet” (Matt. 24:6). He says, “All these are the beginning of sorrows” (Matt. 24:8). He tells them, “But he who endures to the end shall be saved” (Matt. 24:13), suggesting that the end has not yet come. The one indication He gives of the time of the end is in Matthew 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”

All the signs that Jesus gives in Matthew 24:4-14 we can find in our world today. In fact, what Jesus describes has been ongoing throughout the history of the church. These things may increase in intensity and frequency as the time gets nearer to Jesus’ return, like birth pains increase as the time for birth draws near (Matt. 24:8).

What Jesus stresses in these verses is not so much when He is coming, but how we are to live until His coming. How we live during this undefined amount of time between Jesus’ first coming and His second coming is more important than knowing the timing of His coming. Jesus gives some specific things we are to do while we wait for His coming. The real question we need to ask is not “When will the end come?” but “Will I endure to the end?” Jesus said, “But he who endures to the end shall be saved” (Matt. 24:13).

So, in Matthew 24:4-14, Jesus gives us warnings to help us endure to the end.

1. Take heed that no one deceives you (Matt. 24:4)

Jesus commands them to , “Take heed”. Literally, that is “See!” or “Look!”. Figuratively, it means “Beware!” or “Take care!” Jesus commands us to continually, habitually watch out and beware. Of what? Deceivers. The word “deceives” can also mean “leads astray” or “leads into error”. Jesus wants us to take care that we are not led astray into error.

A. Spiritual Deception

How could we be led astray? Jesus warns, “For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.” (Matt. 24:6). Jesus predicts many false messiahs, false prophets, and false teachers will arise. It happened in the early church. It happens today. It will continue and get worse as the time grows closer to Jesus’ return. Throughout the centuries of the church, many people have risen up and said that they were the Christ—either meaning that they were the long-awaited Jewish Messiah, or that they were the “manifestation of Christ” in some way.

Wikipedia lists over 40 people who have to be some kind of Christ in just the 20th and 21st centuries. Some of the names are infamous from the headlines: 1) Sun Myung Moon: considered within the Unification Church as the Messiah and the second coming of Christ. 2) Jim Jones: claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus, Buddha, Vladimir Lenin, and Father Divine prior to leading a mass suicide of his followers. 3) Marshall Applewhite: claimed to be Jesus and the Son of God prior to leading his Heaven’s Gate cult mass suicide to rendezvous with a space ship hiding behind the comet Hale-Bopp. 4) David Koresh: leader of the Branch Davidian religious sect in Waco, Texas. Claimed to be “the Son of God, the Lamb.”

They almost always announce the end of the old age, and the beginning of a new age. They seek people to follow them and worship them. They claim to be God or Christ. Jesus warns us not to be fooled by such things.

John warns us in 1 John 2 writing, “Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.” (1 John 2:18). These are not just men who are openly against Christ, but also those who are something or someone instead of Christ. These include the false Christs of the cults, the false Christs of other religions, and the false Christ of ultra-liberal theologians. Their message is anti-Christian in that they reject the true Christ. Don’t be deceived. Their Christ is an imposter!

Jesus’ point is: don’t be fooled!

Another thing that will happen and may cause us to be deceived is…

B. International Disruption

Jesus warns us that many world events would occur that may cause us to think that the end-times had come. He says, “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.” (Matt. 24:6) He explains this in Matthew 24:7, saying, “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” It seems that ever time there is war, people begin asking “Is this the end of the world?” They asked it in World War I and World War II. People asked it again when terrorists attacked on 9/11. Recently, people asked it when Hamas and Israel went to war in Gaza or when Iran attacked Israel.

When we see all this international disruption, Jesus says, “See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.” (Matt. 24:6). World wars are not the end of the world. There will be no peace until the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ returns.

C. Natural Disasters

Jesus says (Matt. 24:7), “And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.” Famines can be caused by weather patterns, infestations, or by war. All these can cause scarcity of food. Famine can also be sent by God as a judgment. Earthquakes are common all over the world. Just this week there was another powerful 7.8 earthquake in the Kamchatka region of Russia.

These types of things have happened all throughout human history.

That’s why these are general signs. They are reminders to us that this world is not right, it has been marred by sin and subjected to futility and corruption (Rom. 8:20-21). They are reminders of God’s judgment on this world of sin and that Christ is coming again to make all things right. And yet, Jesus warns us not to be led astray by these things. “All these“, as horrible as they may appear, are only “the beginning sorrows”. “Sorrows” literally means “the pain of childbirth” or “labor pains”. These calamities are only early contractions of the new heavens and new earth that will be born.

Later on in this section of Matthew;’s Gospel, our Lord tells us what the signs are that we should be looking for. But it isn’t any of these things. Don’t be troubled by those who mistakenly declare that the end has come. Don’t be led astray, through fear or panic, from living the life you should in Christ.

A second thing that we are to do is …

2. Endure until the end (Matt. 24:9-13)

Our Lord implies this from His statement in Matthew 24:13, “But he who endures to the end shall be saved.” The word “endures” means to persevere under trial, or bear up under tribulation. Why will we need to endure? Because of what Jesus says will happen during this time.

First He says there will be …

A. Religious Persecution

Jesus says, “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.” (Matt. 24:9). This is probably not speaking about the “great tribulation” because that is not mentioned until Matthew 24:21-22. Rather, this is speaking of the reality that our Lord had already told His disciples about in Matthew 10:16-22 when He first sent them our to preach the Kingdom of Heaven:

“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:16-22).

Our Lord said something similar to His disciples on the night He was betrayed in John 15,

“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18-19).

Christians have been persecuted and killed for their faith throughout all of church history. There were terrible persecutions of the early Christians by the Jews and then by the Romans under Nero and the other emperors. Most of the twelve apostles were martyred for their faith. Indeed, every century has seen persecution of Christians for their faith. However, there has been an absolute explosion of Christian persecution in the last hundred years or so. More Christians died for their faith in the 20th century than in the first 19 centuries combined.

Then there will also be …

B. Spiritual Defection

Not only will there be external pressures from the world against us as Jesus’ followers, but He also warns that there will be internal pressures. The times will be tough; and they will test the integrity of those who say they belong to Christ. He says, “And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.” (Matt. 24:10). To “be offended” means to “cause to stumble or fall away”.

In some of history’s most trying times for the church, those who professed to be His followers would betray others who professed to be His followers. It reminds me about the seed that fell in the rocky places in the parable of the sower in Matthew 13. Jesus said about the false believer, “For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.” (Matt. 13:21). He falls away. And even worse, Jesus says, they will betray and hate one another.

Part of this defection may be the result of false believers who have followed false teachers. Jesus warns in Matthew 24:11, “Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.” They have not believed in the true Jesus because they believed the perversions of the false prophets and false teachers. Today we see so many cults and false religions that draw people away from the truth of Christ. That’s why it is so important to know and study God’s word, so you can discern the truth from deception and falsehood.

Then also there will be …

C. Lawlessness and lack of love

Jesus says, “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.” (Matt. 24:12).

Lawlessness was the characteristic of the scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 23:28) whom Jesus denounced in Matthew 23. John writes, “Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.” (1 John 3:4). Sin promotes self-love, not the selfless love of God. We have certainly seen self-love replace love for others in our day. Homosexuality and transgenderism are at the root the sin of self-love. Paul warns in 2 Timothy 3,

1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! (2 Tim. 3:1-5).

Lawless sin causes love for God and others to grow cold. Lawlessness seems to be prevailing in our society as a whole. Theft, murder, assassinations, riots, mass shootings are all lawlessness. It gets so bad that if we do not endure in faith and love in Christ, it could even cause our love to grow cold. Beware!

So Jesus says, “But he who endures to the end shall be saved.” (Matt. 24:13). Even though many will stumble, fall away, and grow cold, true believers in Christ will endure. He who stays true to the LORD in such times will prove that they truly belong to Him. Paul goes on in 2 Timothy 3 to write,

14 But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. (2 Tim. 3:14-15).

The end-times will come; but they haven’t come yet. And our focus shouldn’t be on when the end-times come, but rather on our own faithfulness in the times in which the Lord has placed us. And in all such times, our Lord tells us, “he who endures to the end shall be saved”.

Finally, Jesus reminds us of our task as we await His coming.

3. Preach the Gospel to all the world

Jesus says in Matthew 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”

This is a promise of our sovereign Lord. No matter what the times are like—throughout the period of our time of awaiting our Lord’s return—His gospel will go forth and save lost people. Even in the places where the governments of men forbid the gospel from entering, the Lord Jesus says that it will be preached as a witness to all nations.

But this isn’t a promise only. It’s also a call. It’s a reflection of our Lord’s great commission; in which He said,

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20).

When we live in the midst of dark times—when we live in times that are the “beginning of birth-pangs”—the most important work we can be doing is the work of spreading the gospel. The end-times are not here yet; but they’re fast approaching. Our Lord’s return is nearer today than it was the day before. And it’s more important than ever that we proclaim the Savior to lost men and women. 

Let’s make sure that we are alert to the times—and that we are not fooled into thinking the end has come when it hasn’t yet arrived, and thus lose sight of our duties. Let’s make sure we endure in the faith to the very end—no matter what the times may be; and that we thus remain useful to Him in the work of His kingdom. And above all else, let’s make sure we are proclaiming the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ wherever—and whenever—He has chosen for us to live; because it is that gospel alone that saves lost souls for eternity.

 

/ / , / 0

The Olivet Discourse Matthew 24:1-3

Matthew 24-3 When will These Things Happen brown

The Olivet Discourse

Matthew 24:1-3

The return of Christ is one of the most important doctrines in the Bible. The story of Jesus is not complete without it. We have seen in the Gospel of Matthew that Jesus is the King, the Son of David, who came in fulfillment of scripture. Throughout His ministry, He preached the Kingdom of Heaven, taught with the authority of God, and proved His identity as the Son of God. Since He arrived in Jerusalem in Matthew 21, we have seen Jesus in conflict with the religious leaders of the Jews. They reject Him as King and Messiah and He closes His final words in the temple pronouncing judgment their house. Now as we come toward the end of the Gospel, we will see Jesus crucified, and raised from the dead. We will see Him commission His disciples with all the authority of heaven and earth. In Acts, we see Jesus ascended into heaven and the epistles declare He sat down at the right hand of the Father in heaven.

But that is not the end of the story. The Bible declares that Jesus will return to earth. The story of Jesus and indeed the story of mankind and salvation history are not complete until Christ returns. The Old Testament is filled with prophecies of the coming of Christ—not just His first coming but also His second coming. There over 1,800 predictions of Christ’s second coming in the Old Testament. There are over 300 references to the second coming in the 260 chapters of the New Testament. One out of every thirty verses in the New Testament refers to the second coming of Christ[i].

And here in Matthew 24 and 25 Jesus gives us His extended teaching about His return. This is the fifth and final major teaching discourse of Jesus in Matthew. We already have heard Him teach the principles of the kingdom in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. He taught His disciples before sending them out to preach the kingdom in Matthew 10. In Matthew 13, Jesus taught the parables of the kingdom. In Matthew 18, He taught about kingdom relationships in the church. And now in Matthew 24-25 Jesus teaches His disciples about His second coming as King in power and glory. The passage is called “The Olivet Discourse” because it took place on the Mount of Olives (Matt. 24:3).

The key passage in Matthew 24 is where Jesus describes His second coming in Matthew 24:29-31,

29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” (Matt. 24:29-31).

Now, before we dig into Matthew 24, I would like to take a few minutes to give you some principles that will govern our study. The study of the end times is called eschatology. It is a doctrine that is fraught with controversy and confusion. Scholars with conflicting views of eschatology find support for their arguments in Matthew 24.

Here is …

How we should approach eschatology:

  1. Christ-Centeredly. The Bible is all about Jesus. Revealing Himself to His eleven disciples after His resurrection, Jesus said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” (Luke 24:44). The Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the gospel of Jesus Christ. The book of Revelation is “the Revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:1). And all eschatology should be about Jesus. We must not get lost in the details of prophecy like the signs and the mark of the beast and miss the main thing—the promised return and reign of King Jesus. The way that Scripture teaches eschatology is much more like gazing upon a dazzling sunset than analyzing the chemical properties of the sun. It is more essential for us to have a grand and glorious view of Christ and His Kingdom than a technical, clinical understanding of the end times. A robust eschatology will drive us to worship Christ with joy, serve Christ with perseverance, and wait for Christ with hope.
  2. With Humility. Although I am confident in my interpretation of this passage and my understanding of end times prophecy, I recognize that it is possible that I might not have it all right. I am certainly no more intelligent or spiritual than other men who have studied this subject. Good and godly scholars and pastors have been mistaken about the end times in the past. This is the nature of prophecy. Although God has not been unclear or purposefully vague, we do not always understand it clearly until it happens. Think about how clear Jesus had been in prophesying about being betrayed, mocked, beaten, condemned, and crucified—yet His disciples did not fully understand it until after all these things actually happened to Him. Prophecy’s fulfillment is much easier to see after the fact than before it.
  3. Graciously. Not all Christians agree on everything concerning the end times. God does not give us end times prophecy so that we might contend with other Christians. Yes, I think you should know what you believe and why you believe it. Yes, we can amicably debate and advocate for our views. But we should not call everyone who holds a different view than ours a heretic. We should not mock or ridicule others for their views. Instead, we should celebrate what we hold in common and give grace where we disagree. Bible-believing Christians passionately agree about the most important matters. These are the things about which the scripture is very clear: That the Lord Jesus Christ will return personally, visibly, and victoriously to the earth. The dead will be raised, and Christ will judge all men in righteousness. The unrighteous will be consigned to everlasting punishment. The righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive the kingdom of heaven and will dwell with the Lord forever. Denying these Biblical truths would take you outside of sound doctrine.
  4. Literally (not allegorically). We will interpret Matthew 24 in context with the grammatical, historical, ordinary, literal sense. When the literal sense makes sense, we will not seek another sense. When symbols and figures of speech are used, we will understand them using sound grammatical and interpretive principles, comparing scripture with scripture. We will try to understand what the Bible says, not speculate about what it does not say or read into it what we already think.
  5. Sensibly. Some Christians are fanatical about biblical prophecy. Many more Christians try to ignore the subject entirely. Neither extreme promotes sound doctrine or godly living. We will not set dates. Jesus could not have been clearer: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.” (Matt. 24:36). We will not obsess over current events, wars, earthquakes, famines, plagues, or other things. We will not search the newspaper for signs of the times or consume ourselves with everything that happens in the modern state of Israel. This kind of fixation distracts us from the true purpose of biblical prophecy. We will not allow ourselves to be overly discouraged or enthused by world events. We will remember that our hope is in Christ.
  6. Practically. End times prophecy was not written just to satisfy our curiosity. This scripture was written for us to take heed, to watch, to be ready, and to turn to Christ. The disciples asked about dates and signs. But notice that Jesus does not really answer the question, “When will the end will come?” The real point that Jesus makes is “Will you endure to the end?” In Matthew 24, Jesus gives His disciples many exhortations: “Take heed that no one deceives you” (4); “See that you are not troubled” (6); “But he who endures to the end shall be saved” (13); “this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world” (14); “… do not believe … false christs and false prophets … See, I have told you beforehand” (23-25); “Watch therefore” (42); “Therefore you also be ready” (44); “Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing” (46). A right understanding of eschatology should result in holy living under the Lordship of Christ.

Next, I want to briefly walk through Matthew 24:1-3. These three verses give us the setting for the Olivet Discourse. It begins with Jesus leaving the temple in Jerusalem for the last time. First, we see…

1. Jesus Predicts the Destruction of the Temple (Matt. 24:1-2).

Matthew 24:1 says, “Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple…” He did not enter it again after this point during His time on earth. And before He left the temple, He uttered the lament…

37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! 38 See! Your house is left to you desolate; 39 for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ “ (Matt. 23:37-39).

Imagine the grief that must have been in our Lord’s heart when He spoke those words. He was the long-awaited King of the Jews, their Promised Messiah. But when He had presented Himself to them, they rejected Him. And now, He was departing from them. They would not see Him again—not until the day comes when they will receive Him as their King at His second coming.

Matthew 24 needs to be understood in the light of that grievous, final departure from the temple. It describes, in part, what He meant when He said, “Your house is left to you desolate . . .” Just as the glory of God left the temple in Jerusalem in Ezekiel’s day (Eze. 10:18-19; 11:23) before it was destroyed by Babylon, Jesus, the glorious Messiah, leaves the temple to become desolate again.

With Jesus’ words of judgment still ringing in their ears, the disciples demonstrate that they clearly did not understand what Jesus meant. As they leave the temple Matthew 1:1 says, “… His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple.” Mark records that one of the disciples said, “Teacher, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!” (Mark 13:1).

The temple was truly an amazing sight. King Solomon had built the original temple 900 years before Christ. Because of Israel’s and Judah’s sin, God permitted Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians to destroy it in 586 BC. After the Babylonian Captivity, the temple was rebuilt under Zerubbabel. But it was modest in comparison to the majesty of Solomon’s temple.

Herod the Great began a massive renovation and expansion of the temple in 20 BC. At the time of Jesus, the project was in progress for over forty years.  still not complete when it was destroyed. The massive complex covered thirty-five acres – one-sixth of Jerusalem. The massive stones and beautiful buildings were marvelous. Its surface was polished white; and its trims were pure gold. It was said that when the sun shone upon it, it sparkled like a jewel. The Jewish historian Josephus described the foundations of the temple as very large, saying that it was built on stones that were “white and strong”, and that some of them were the roughly forty feet long, twenty feet wide, and twelve feet high (Ant. 15.11.3). The sight of this temple was understandably overwhelming to anyone who stood before it.

Imagine how shocking it was then to the disciples when Jesus said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” (Matt. 24:2).

We know from history that Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed by Roman armies under Titus in 70 AD. just as Jesus prophesied. MacArthur comments that the Romans “erected scaffolds around the walls of the temple and its buildings, filled them with wood and other flammable material, and set them on fire. The intense heat from the fires caused the stones to crumble. After it was further dismantled and sifted to find all the melted gold, the rubble was thrown down into the Kidron Valley. Only the huge foundation stones remained largely intact. Those stones, however, were not part of the Temple itself, but supports for the retaining wall.”[ii]

Jesus uses the strongest negative in the Greek language to say that “in no way” will there be left a stone upon a stone that will not be cast down. They saw the temple with its exquisite beauty and immense stones and wondered how in the world such a thing could possibly be! And so, having walked down from Jerusalem through the valley to the nearby Mount of Olives they asked Him about it.

2. The Disciples Question Jesus (Matt. 24:3).

3 Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3).

The disciples ask two questions: a when question, “when will these things be?”; and a what question, “what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”  The first question was inspired by the fact that our Lord said that the marvelous temple they were admiring would be destroyed. They wanted to know when these things would happen. To the disciples, the second question was integral to the first. They apparently thought that all three events, destruction of the Temple, the sign of Christ’s coming, and the end of the age would all occur at the same time. It is clear that in their minds all three were related and all would come to pass very quickly.

Dwight Pentecost explains that their “questions showed that they had arrived at certain conclusions…To these men Christ’s words concerning the destruction of Jerusalem was the destruction predicted by Zechariah that would precede the advent of the Messiah. In Jewish eschatology two ages were recognized: the first was this present age, the age in which Israel was waiting for the coming of the Messiah; the second was the age to come, the age in which all of Israel’s covenants would be fulfilled and Israel would enter into her promised blessings as a result of Messiah’s coming.”[iii]

Since Jesus the Messiah had come, they expected the consummation of the kingdom and all things to come to their end immediately. Jesus will correct their mistaken expectations. These things will not all happen immediately but over a long period of time. Many things would happen first and He teaches them that they must wait.

In the Olivet Discourse, starting in Matthew 24:4, Jesus answers these questions. Now, as I have said, this is a passage that needs to be handled with special care. There have been a wide diversity of interpretations of Jesus’ Olivet Discourse. Some, for example, have suggested that He is speaking strictly of events that would happen in 70 A.D.; that is, of the time immediately in the future when both the city and its temple would be destroyed by the Romans. Other people suggest that He is speaking strictly of events in the far-distant future; that is, of a time when the dispersed Jewish people are back in their land, and when their temple is rebuilt, and when our Lord Jesus returns to this earth. Sometimes, the results of these interpretations have caused Christians a lot of confusion. And I certainly do not want to add further to the confusion.

My interpretation method for Matthew 24 is similar to what I taught when we studied the Olivet Discourse in Mark 13. I believe that our Lord addresses both the immediate situation of the destruction of the city and the temple and the distant future events surrounding His return and the end of the age. Theologians have sometimes referred to this as the “prophetic foreshortening”[iv] or “prophetic foreshadowing” view. Think about what it is like to look the Rocky Mountains from a distance. From your perspective—a ‘foreshortened’ perspective—it looks like one mountain with several peaks. In reality, each of the mountain peaks are separated by many miles by great valleys. Similarly, in “prophetic foreshortening”, great spaces of time may exist between some of the events being described; but they are being presented together in such a way that, from our perspective, it’s as if they were occurring within the same short time frame.

I also follow the principle of “prophetic foreshadowing”, that is that some prophetic events foreshadow the ultimate prophetic event. In this way, there may be a partial near-term, fulfillment of a prophecy and an ultimate end-time fulfillment of the same prophecy. I believe that the destruction of Jerusalem is a foreshadowing or a type of what will happen when Christ returns at the end of the age. This is why although the events of 70 AD seem to fulfill some of what Jesus prophesied, they do not fulfill it completely. What happened at the destruction of Jerusalem may illustrate what happens at Christ’s return, but it does not fulfill it.

I hope that all this will become more clear as we delve into Jesus’ answer starting next time. With that in mind, let me give you an outline of Matthew 24 and 25:

   1) Signs of Christ’s Coming (24:1-35)
   2) Readiness for Christ’s Coming (24:36-51)
   3) Waiting for Christ’s Coming (25:1-13)
   4) Preparing for Christ’s Coming (25:14-30)
   5) Judgment at Christ’s Coming (25:31-46)

Knowing all five of these aspects is essential for us as we await the second coming of our Lord. The important thing for us to remember today is that all these things, the ones that were fulfilled in the past and the ones that will be fulfilled in the future, find their significance and meaning in relationship to Jesus Christ. And so do we. Jesus told us these things so that we would know Him and trust Him and be ready for His return. Are you ready? Have you repented and believed on Jesus Christ?

  ———————————-

[i] H.B. Charles, Jesus Is Coming Again | Mark 13:24-27, https://hbcharlesjr.com/resource-library/sermon-outlines/jesus-is-coming-again-mark-1324-27/ accessed 9/13/2025.

[ii] John MacArthur, New Testament Commentary: Luke 18-24, Moody Publishers, 1988

[iii] Dwight Pentecost, The Words and Works of Jesus Christ: A Study of the Life of Christ, Grand Rapids, Mich. : Zondervan Pub. House, 1981, p. 398.

[iv] Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and The Future (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1979), p. 148-9.

/ / , , / 0

The Savior’s Lament – Matthew 23:37-39

MAtthew 23:37

The Savior’s Lament

Matthew 23:37-39

In our study through the Gospel of Matthew, we have been examining the events that took place during the last few days before Jesus was crucified. After the initial excitement that came with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matt. 21:1-11) and His cleansing of the temple the following day (Matt. 21:12-17), Jesus spent much of His time teaching in the temple (Matt. 21:23). But the religious leaders relentlessly challenged Jesus and tried to discredit Him so that they might eventually destroy Him (Matt. 21:23-27; 22:15-40). Their schemes utterly failed, and instead, at every effort Jesus discredited them, exposing their wicked hearts and distorted understanding of the Scriptures.

Having silenced all His critics (Matt. 22:46), in Matthew 23, Jesus went on the offensive against the scribes and Pharisees. First, He warned His disciples and the people about the danger of their hypocrisy (Matt. 23:1-12). Then, He pronounced a series woes upon them directly, calling them hypocrites, sons of hell, blind guides, serpents, and a brood of vipers. He condemned their hypocritical religion because by it they deterred people from the kingdom of God (Matt. 23:13-15), distorted the word of God (Matt. 23:16-24), disguised unclean hearts (Matt. 23:25-28), and doomed themselves and others to hell (Matt. 23:29-36).  

So, we have seen Jesus’ warning about their hypocrisy, His woes pronounced against them, and finally at the end of Matthew 23, we see Jesus’ weeping over them. These are Jesus’ last words spoken to the Jewish crowds and their religious leaders in the temple. After this, Jesus leaves the temple for good (Matt. 24:1). His final words are a lament, an honest and painful prayer of sorrow. Jesus concludes His harsh rebuke with a tone of compassion and a longing for their repentance. Though it doesn’t tell us so, you can be sure He spoke these words with tears in His eyes and deep passion in His voice. Jesus was not a cold-hearted judge executing punishment upon these people. Jesus was a compassionate Savior, expressing His sorrowful love to those who refused it.

First, we see…

1. The Passion of the Savior (Matt. 23:37)

You can hear the depth of Jesus’ emotions as He repeats the words “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem.” Jerusalem was the capital of God’s people, Israel. The name means, “foundation of peace.” Jerusalem was the city of David where God dwelt with His people in the temple. It was prophesied to be the center of the Messiah’s glorious kingdom. The anointed Son of David would reign from Jerusalem with righteous judgment. All the nations were to stream to Jerusalem to worship the LORD. But instead of embracing this happy destiny, Jerusalem had spurned God again. It became a city not of peace but of violence against God’s prophets and the people that truly followed Him.

Jesus described the city as “the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!” (Matt. 23:37). This had been her legacy in the past. God sent prophets like Jeremiah to warn Jerusalem to turn and repent in order to avoid the Babylonian invasion, but they rejected them (Jeremiah 38:1-4). The two verbs here, “kills” (ἀποκτείνουσα) and “stones” (λιθοβολοῦσα) are both present active participles. Literally, they are continually killing and stoning them. Even now, the leaders in Jerusalem are rejecting Jesus, the greatest prophet (Deuteronomy 18:17-18), the Son of God and Messiah. In just hours from when Jesus spoke these words, they will arrest Him at prayer, falsely accuse Him, mock Him, beat Him, and hand Him over to be crucified.

They will continue to reject God’s messengers in the future, Jesus has just said in Matthew 23:34, “Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city.” Jerusalem is representative of the whole nation of Israel and especially her leaders. By rejecting those whom God sends, they are condemning Jerusalem to destruction once again.

A. The Lord’s Desire

Jesus’ desire for Jerusalem is seen in the second half of Matthew 23:37, “How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” Notice the word “often” it means “many times”. A hen gathering her chicks under her wings is a picture of loving care and protection. David understood this about God and wrote in Psalm 36:7, “How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings.” Jesus said it has always been His desire to gather the children of Israel together as His own precious brood; to care for them, to protect them, and to save them. He had wanted their experience of Him to be the same as the psalmist described in Psalm 91,

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress;
My God, in Him I will trust.” 

Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler
And from the perilous pestilence.
He shall cover you with His feathers,
And under His wings you shall take refuge; 
His truth shall be your shield and buckler.
You shall not be afraid of the terror by night,
Nor of the arrow that flies by day,
Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness,
Nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday (Psalm 91:1-6).

His spirit groaned for Jerusalem to come to its senses and embrace Him as the Messiah the way a tender parent longs to gather their children into their arms, to embrace and protect them. Jesus extended His grace and compassion many times to the people of Israel and their leaders. They heard Him teach upon the mountain side (Matthew 5-7). They heard Him preach in their synagogues (Luke 4:16-30). They heard Him speak in the fields (Matt. 12:1-8), in Paran (Matt. 19:1-12), in Chorazin (Matt. 11:21), in Bethsaida (Matt. 11:21), in Capernaum (Matt. 11:23), in Nazareth (Luke 4:16-20), in Jerusalem (Matt. 22), and in the temple (Matt. 21:12-17). He sent His disciples to preach the kingdom in all of the cities of Israel and Judah (Matt. 10:5-6). People came to hear Him from Galilee and Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan (Matt. 4:25).

His ministry to the people of Israel was repeated and recurring. If anyone ever had an opportunity to hear the good news of the gospel, it was the people of Israel and Judea. If anyone ever had an opportunity to see the proof that Jesus was the long expected one, it was the people of Israel and Judea. For three long years, Jesus ministered to the people of Israel. Time after time after time after time, Jesus demonstrated His great compassion and kindness. His message was one of compassion and mercy and grace and kindness. He called people to repent and believe the good news of the kingdom. Jesus said that He was sent to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15:24). In Matthew 18:11 He told why He was sent, “For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.”

That’s what Jesus desired to do for Jerusalem. Jesus did everything necessary for that gift of eternal life to be freely offered. Redemption was offered even to these hypocritical scribes and Pharisees. Why didn’t it happen for most of them? There was one major problem–their unwillingness to answer God’s call.

B. The People’s Denial

Jesus said, “How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matt. 23:37). He was willing; but they were not.

They demonstrated their unwillingness by persecuting and killing those whom God sent to call them to repentance. They not only rejected what Jesus taught them, they rejected Him completely. They rejected Jesus’ love. They rejected Jesus’ protection. They rejected Jesus’ Messiahship. They didn’t want Him! He was not the Messiah that they expected or wanted. It wouldn’t be too long afterwards that Pilate would offer to release Him; only to hear them shout that they wanted the murderer Barabbas instead (Matthew 27:21). It wouldn’t be too long that Pilate would stand Him before the crowds and say, “Shall I crucify your King?“; only to hear the chief priests—in words almost too horrible to repeat!—answer, “We have no king but Caesar!” (John 19:15).

They refused to repent. They blinded their eyes to the light of Truth concerning Christ and the fact that He alone could bring them peace. It broke His holy heart. He was leaving and their house would be left desolate. This is what must happen as a result …

2. The Penalty of Their Sin (Matt. 23:38).

Jesus says, “See! Your house is left to you desolate” (Matt. 23:38). “House”, as Jesus uses it here, may mean the city of Jerusalem or specifically the temple. After all, the next thing we find in Matthew 24 is the disciples admiring the buildings of the temple, and Jesus then shocking them by telling them that “not one stone will be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matt. 24:2). But it also probably refers to the nation, the “house of Israel” (Matt. 10:6; 15:24). The city and the temple would be torn down. Within a generation, in 70 AD the Roman General Titus would level the city and the temple and the Jews would be either slaughtered or scattered among the nations. The people of Israel lost their temple, their chief city, and their status as a nation. They didn’t want their King, and so they lost the kingdom. As Jesus said, “See! Your house is left to you desolate.”

But even in the midst of prophesying this judgment upon the city and nation, Jesus indicates an even greater …

3. The Plan of the Sovereign (Matt. 23:39).

While He spoke of the certainty of God’s judgment, He also spoke of the certainty of a hope for the future. “… for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ ” (Mat. 23:39). The judgment in this verse is that they would not see Jesus again as they had been seeing Him. They would no longer debate with Him, hear Him teach, or see Him perform miracles. Jesus’ public ministry is at an end. Matthew 24:1 states that Jesus “departed from the temple.” He would never enter there again. He had a few more things to teach His disciples privately, and then He would go to the cross.

But notice the word “till” or “until”. It is a word of hope and certainty. It is something that will absolutely happen and it will not be dependent on man, it will occur by God’s sovereignty. If it was conditioned on their response it would have said, “unless.” But praise God! There is a “till” in God’s plan.

They will not see Jesus again like they had seen Him until what? Till they say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!” The people of Jerusalem had already said these words about Jesus as He first rode into the city (Matt. 21:9). The phrase comes from Psalm 118:26 and refers to the coming of Messiah, the Stone that he builders rejected who becomes the chief cornerstone. He brings salvation to Israel and establishes His kingdom among them. They had shouted this verse on Sunday thinking that Jesus would break the bondage of Rome. But on Friday when it is clear Jesus would not do that, they shouted instead, “Let Him be crucified!” (Matt. 27:22).

Yet, there is a coming day when the nation of Israel will recognize their Messiah. There is a day when, as Paul puts it in Romans 11:26, “all Israel shall be saved.” The prophet Zechariah puts it this way, “And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.” (Zech. 12:10). Zechariah 13 goes on to prophesy,

1 “In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness. 2 “It shall be in that day,” says the LORD of hosts, “that I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they shall no longer be remembered. I will also cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to depart from the land. … 9 I will bring the one-third through the fire, Will refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them. I will say, ‘This is My people’; And each one will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’ “ (Zech. 13:1-2, 9).

And Zechariah 14 goes on to describe the Lord descending upon the Mount of Olives, the nations in rebellion being put down, and the setting up of the kingdom of the Lord in Jerusalem.

The Lord’s promises are true. They can be trusted. Every single one of them will come to pass. To those who are unwilling to accept the salvation offered in Jesus Christ, there will be judgment, but to those who will come to Him for the forgiveness of their sins and place their trust in Him, there will be the glorious kingdom of heaven and eternal life.

Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem shows that despite all the woes for sin, God still longs to save us. However, judgment is coming, so we must respond now. It is clear that Jesus spoke all these warnings with great sorrow in his heart. If you have not yet repented to believe in Jesus Christ, then today is the day to do so. Take heed to the Lord’s invitation, “whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” He is willing to save you, are you willing to repent, believe and be saved?

 

/ / , / 0

My Soul Waits for the LORD – Psalm 130

Psalm 130:5

My Soul Waits for the LORD

Psalm 130

1 A song of Ascents.
Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord;

2 Lord, hear my voice!
Let Your ears be attentive
To the voice of my supplications.

3 If You, Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?

4 But there is forgiveness with You,
That You may be feared.

5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
And in His word I do hope.

6 My soul waits for the Lord
More than those who watch for the morning–
Yes, more than those who watch for the morning.

7 O Israel, hope in the Lord;
For with the Lord there is mercy,
And with Him is abundant redemption.

8 And He shall redeem Israel
From all his iniquities.

Psalm 130 is a “Son of Ascents,” the eleventh of fifteen psalms that pilgrims to Jerusalem likely sang as they went up annually to the temple to worship the Lord. “Psalm 130 puts words to a pattern of conviction, repentance, waiting, and praise that purifies the sinner and glorifies the Savior.”[1] This Song of Ascents takes us from the depths of guilt and despair to the heights of joyous hope in the Lord.

This psalm is a prayer of conviction, repentance, trust, and worship. We can see a four-step progression in the four stanzas of two verses each. In Psalm 130:1-2, the psalmist is in the pit of despair, weighed down by guilt. In the second step, Psalm 130:3-4, he trusts in the Lord’s forgiveness for his sin. Then, in Psalm 130:5-6, he rests in God’s word and expectantly waits for the presence of the Lord. And finally, in Psalm 130:7-8, he calls on all God’s people to hope in the Lord’s redemption. Here is a man who has sinned, but in spite of his sin, he is eager to draw near to the LORD for he knows that the LORD is a God who mercifully forgives sinners.

Psalm 130 reminds us that when we gather for worship on a day like today, we celebrate the fact that our God has not treated us as our sins deserve but has indeed been merciful to us in Christ.

Our first step to worship is to …

1. Cry out to the Lord for mercy (130:1-2).

The psalm begins, “Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord” (Ps. 130:1). The psalmist cried out to the LORD in deepest despair. The language is similar to the cry of Jonah when he was in the depths of the sea because of his disobedience to the LORD. There, he prayed,

“I cried out to the LORD because of my affliction,
And He answered me.
Out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
And You heard my voice.
For You cast me into the deep,
Into the heart of the seas,
And the floods surrounded me;
All Your billows and Your waves passed over me.” (Jonah 2:2-3).

The rest of the psalm clearly shows that the reason for his despair is the guilt of his sin. His problem, he says, is iniquities, a word that in the Old Testament means things that are twisted or bent. In the moral sense, it means the choice to pervert or distort what is good or true. In Psalm 130:3 he says, “ If You, Lord, should mark iniquities …”, and again in Psalm 130:8 8, “… And He shall redeem Israel From all his iniquities.”

He cries out to the Lord from the depths of sin and guilt. His iniquities have brought him low. He knows that his only hope is mercy from the Lord. So he cries out to the Lord for forgiveness and redemption from his sins. When you are in the depths of your sin, there is no other way out than the LORD.

No matter how low you may be, you can cry out fervently to the Lord. The psalmist says, “Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive To the voice of my supplications.” (Ps. 130:2). Notice the intensity of his cry. He uses God’s name eight times in these eight verses, alternating between Lord (Yahweh), the covenant name of God that emphasizes His faithfulness to His promises; and, Lord (Adonai), which emphasizes His sovereign lordship and thus His ability to fulfill His promises.

Have you ever reached such a point of despair over your sin? Cry out to the Lord.  The second step is …

2. Trust in the Lord (Ps. 130:3-4).

Look at the question in Psalm 130:3, “If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” Of course God knows all our sins, but the psalmist means, “If the Lord were to count up all my sins and judge me for them, I don’t have a glimmer of hope.” None of us can stand before the Holy God in our sin.

And so what is the answer? The grace and mercy of God in Christ. Psalm 130:4 says, “But there is forgiveness with You, That You may be feared.” Without forgiveness, we’re doomed, but with it, we learn to fear Him. We fear God because we know that He had every reason to condemn you, but He did not. We do not shudder in terror of His punishment now (1 John 4:18), but we do fear Him, respect Him, and hold Him in reverent awe. His forgiveness does not make us flippant about our sin, it makes us fear the Lord. Forgiveness leads us to greater worship and reverence of God.

So the psalmist tells us that no matter how deep you may be in guilt and despair, you can cry out to the Lord for mercy. He adds that there is forgiveness with God, and it leads to fear, because without it, you’re doomed. The third step is …

3. Wait for the Lord (Ps. 130:5-6).

The psalmist has prayed his prayer, he has cried out to the Lord for mercy, and now he waits expectantly for God to answer. He says, “5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, And in His word I do hope. 6 My soul waits for the Lord More than those who watch for the morning–Yes, more than those who watch for the morning.” (Ps. 130:5-6 NKJV). The night watchman wanted nothing more than for the sun to arise on the horizon, and for the day to dawn. His work would be finished. What is the psalmist waiting for? The LORD. He is not just waiting for help, but he is waiting for the Lord Himself.

Waiting is an expression of a sure hope. What is the basis of his hope? His hope is based on God’s word, “And in His word do I hope.” Don’t base your hope on your feelings or your circumstances, but base your hope fully on the word of God. Trust God’s promises to you in Scripture. Based on God’s sure word of promise, he eagerly anticipates and expects a renewed intimacy with the LORD.

But the psalmist can’t stop writing there. For six verses, he has described his own struggles and his own fight to wait on the LORD. But, now, he urges all of us into the same experience. So in the fourth step he calls us to …

4. Hope in the Lord (Ps. 130:7-8).

7 O Israel, hope in the LORD; For with the LORD there is mercy, And with Him is abundant redemption. 8 And He shall redeem Israel From all his iniquities. (Psalm 130:7-8).

When you’ve been in the depths and then been washed with God’s forgiveness, you want others to experience the same thing! Why should we hope in the LORD? Because with Him, there is mercy, lovingkindness. “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.” (Psalm 103:13 CSB).

With the LORD is abundant redemption! No matter how great your sin, His redemption is abundant. It covers all your sins. Do you have great sin? God has greater grace! Your sin cannot take you out of God’s reach of redemption. Is there hope for the sinner? Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes! With the Lord is unfailing love and with the Lord is full redemption. When you cry out to Christ for mercy, He will hear and He will answer. He has never turned away a repentant sinner. You may be sunk under a load of sin, you may be crying out from the depths, but God’s word declares that He is full of love and mercy. He will hear your voice, be attentive to your prayer, forgive your sin, and restore you to fellowship with Him forever. Forgiveness is open today. Come be forgiven!

————————————————————————-

[1] Marshall Segal, Four Habits of a Happy Heart, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/four-habits-of-a-happy-heart accessed 08/29/2025.

/ / 0

Woe to the Hypocrites Part 2 – Matthew 23:25-36

Matthew 23

Woe to the Hypocrites Part 2

Matthew 23:25-36

In Matthew 23, we are following Jesus’ last words to the crowds of worshippers in the Jerusalem temple in Matthew 23. It is just two days before Jesus will be condemned and crucified. It is His last public encounter with the scribes and Pharisees—the Jewish religious leaders who, on the whole, despised and rejected Jesus. In Matthew 23:1-12, Jesus warned His disciples and the gathered multitudes not to follow the hypocritical practices of the scribes and Pharisees. Then, Jesus turned directly to the scribes and Pharisees themselves and pronounced a series of woes on them. Again and again, Jesus said to them, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” The woes pronounce God’s judgment, while, at the same time, calling for repentance.

We saw last time that Jesus began by issuing some “woes” over the way their religious hypocrisy harmed other people around them (Matt. 23:13-15), showing that …

1. Hypocrisy Deters People from the Kingdom (Matt. 23:13-15)

Jesus said to them, “you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.” They were making converts to themselves and to hell, not to the kingdom of God (Matt. 23:15).

Then He spoke two “woes” over the way their religious …

2. Hypocrisy Distorts the Word of God (Matt. 23:16-24)

They distorted the word of God and dishonored God by majoring on the minor points of the law and minimizing the main points. He called them “Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!” (Matt. 23:24).

And now, He speaks three remaining “woes” over the way their religious hypocrisy harmed these very hypocrites themselves (Matt. 23:25-36). He speaks two woes to expose that …

3. Hypocrisy Disguises an Unclean Heart (Matt. 23:25-28)

Jesus gives two illustrations of this truth. First, He uses the illustration of washing dishes, saying,

25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence.” (Matt. 23:25).

Imagine cleaning only the outside of your dishes, but letting the inside (where the food goes) collect all the grime, scum, and filth from being used time after time unwashed. How ridiculous! None of us would want to eat from dishes that contained putrid food and garbage.

Now, the Pharisees had meticulous traditions and rules about washings. Matthew’s first readers likely knew all these cleansing ceremonies. But Mark, in his Gospel, explains these customs, writing,

3 For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other things which they have received and hold, like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches. (Mark 7:3-4).

Many of these traditions concerning washings and cleansings had their basis in the Old Testament law. But one problem we already saw with these washings back in Matthew 15 was that the Pharisees held their traditions above the commands of scripture. Jesus told them in Mark 7:9, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition” (cf. Matt. 15:3-6).

But, again, the problem Jesus confronts here is their hypocrisy, specifically, the hypocrisy of their priorities. They made great efforts to cleanse their external appearance, but they ignored their internal iniquity. They took great pains to ceremonially clean their cups and plates, following the letter of the law and their traditions. And they thought that by doing so, they themselves were “clean”. Outside they appeared pristine. But Jesus says, “inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence” (Matt. 23:25). The word “extortion” means plundering, robbery. Their heart was full of greed to the point where they thought nothing of devouring “widows’ houses” (Matt. 23:14), preying on the poor and defenseless. Their hearts were also full of “self-indulgence,” that is, lacking self-control or restraint. Their hearts were given over to greedy, unrestrained self-gratification. The Pharisees “plundered both the souls and the wallets of the people and used the ill-gotten gains to serve themselves.”[1]

Jesus’ solution for their problem is in Matthew 23:26, “26 Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.” The Lord is primarily concerned with your heart. It’s not that He isn’t concerned about your external behavior. He is. However, the way that God has made us is that the outside is controlled by the inside. When your heart is clean inside, your behavior will become clean outside.

Next, Jesus uses the illustration of white-washed tombs. He says, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.” (Matt. 23:27). Each year before Passover the people of Jerusalem would whitewash the tombs as a safeguard for the pilgrims traveling to the feast, painting them with white, powdered lime dust. That way, the pilgrims would be careful not to accidentally touch or rest themselves against a tomb, which would make them ceremonially unclean and unable to partake of the Passover. Jesus says that’s what the Pharisees are like. They are all clean and sparkly on the outside, but their insides are like dead men’s bones. Outwardly, they appeared holy, but spiritually, they were dead. In their spiritual deadness, they were not only inwardly defiled themselves, but they also contaminated anyone who came near them.

And they did it all to look good in front of others. Jesus says, “Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” (Matt. 23:28). They wanted to appear righteous before people, but neglected to be righteous before God. They forgot that God looks at the heart. He sees their hypocrisy and lawlessness. Jesus took off their mask of external morality and religious play acting, exposing their rebellion against God and His law.

Without the inner cleansing of the heart, religious display is worse than useless; it is deception. And the danger is that the hypocrite may not only deceive others, but he usually even deceives himself into thinking that all his religious white-washing means that he is truly righteous. Jesus sees the truth. He says they are full of death, uncleanness, hypocrisy, and lawlessness. Charles Spurgeon preaching about hypocrisy says,

Secret sins bring fevered eyes and sleepless nights, until men burn out their consciences, and become in very deed ripe for the pit. Hypocrisy is a hard game to play at, for it is one deceiver against many observers; and for certain it is a miserable trade, which will earn at last, as its certain climax, a tremendous bankruptcy.[2]

Hypocrisy disguises an unclean heart. And the danger of this is, that without a clean heart, no one will see God. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.” (Matt. 5:8). David asks in Psalm 24,

3 Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD?
Or who may stand in His holy place?
4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol,
Nor sworn deceitfully.
5 He shall receive blessing from the LORD,
And righteousness from the God of his salvation. (Psalm 24:3-5).

Only the holy, the pure in heart, may stand in the Lord’s presence. But this is exactly why God sent His Son to save us.

Through the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord made this promise about the New Covenant,

25 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27).

A cleansed and purified heart is a work of God by faith through His grace, not something we can accomplish on our own. Only God can give us a clean heart through His Spirit because of the redemption of Christ. He causes us to be born again (John 3:3-8) as new creations in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). This is how, in Acts 15, Peter describes the salvation that God granted to both Jews and Gentiles,

“Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, 9 and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.” (Acts 15:7-9).

Listen, Christianity is never just cleaning up our external appearance. It is always the Holy Spirit of God in Christ purifying our heart by faith. Look to Christ alone. Only in Christ can you be forgiven and cleansed from your polluting sins. Only in Christ can our hearts be transformed. Look to Christ and the cross. “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18).

So, we see the danger of hypocrisy to ourselves and others, because it deters people from the kingdom of heaven, it distorts the word of God, and it disguises an unclean heart. The final woe shows us that …

4. Hypocrisy Dooms to Judgment (Matt. 23:29-36).

The last woe is for persecuting the prophets. It comes in Matthew 23:29-33, and then Jesus predicts further persecution and pronounces judgment on their generation. This final “woe” stands out from those that preceded it because Jesus gives it the longest treatment. And while the other “woes” our Lord speaks in this chapter dealt with the present hypocritical actions of the scribes and Pharisees, this “woe” deals with actions involving not only the present but also in Israel’s past and their future. Notice the harsh condemnations the Lord spoke in this “woe”. Jesus says,

29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ 31 Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. 33 “Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?” (Matt. 23:29-33)

First, Jesus exposed the hypocrisy of the religious leaders who pretended to honor God’s prophets and righteous men from the past. They knew that God’s prophets down through the centuries were all persecuted by their forefathers. For instance, consider Moses. In the wilderness, the people grumbled and rebelled against him (Exodus 15-17). Consider Samuel. The people didn’t listen to him either but instead demanded a king (1 Sam. 8). Elijah said of the people of Israel, “the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:10). Isaiah was despised. Tradition has it that he was sawn in two (Heb. 11:37). Jeremiah was hated. The priests, (false) prophets, and all people seized him saying, “You must die!” (Jer. 26:8). On several occasions, he was placed in prison (Jer. 32, 37). They even threw him into a pit and left him to die (Jer. 38).

As the writer of Hebrews says, God’s Old Testament prophets and righteous men suffered “trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth” (Hebrews 11:36-38).

Now, the generation of Jesus’ day pretended to honor men like Moses and Elijah and Isaiah and Jeremiah by building them monuments and decorating them in their honor. Sinful hypocrites tend to prefer dead prophets over living ones. And they decorated these monuments with the boastful self-assurance that, if they had lived in those days, they would never have done those horrible things to God’s prophets that their fathers had done. They thought that their religious display somehow separated them from the sins of their fathers.

But Jesus points out the continuity between the murderous acts of their fathers, and their own murderous intentions. Even then, the scribes and Pharisees had already begun to plot how they would put Jesus, the Son of God, to death. Matthew tells us back in Matthew 12:14 that, “the Pharisees went out and plotted against Him, how they might destroy Him.” In Matthew 16:21, Jesus began to show His disciples that “He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day“. And in Matthew 21:45-46, we’re told that when the chief priests and Pharisees heard His parables He spoke against them “they sought to lay hands on Him.”

Do you see their hypocrisy? They were pretending to honor God’s murdered prophets from the past, while perpetuating the murderous acts of their fathers in the present. Jesus says, “Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets” (Matt. 23:31). He tells these scribes and Pharisees, “Fill up, then, the measure of your father’s guilt” (Matt. 23:32). They would add to their fathers’ guilt the ultimate guilt of murdering the Son of God. Thus, Jesus both exposes their treachery and releases them to do their murderous work. And so, that very week, this most privileged of all generations demanded that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, be crucified. And they stood there mocking Him as He hung on the cross. This is why Jesus said, “Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?” (Matt. 23:33).

The great deception of this form of religious hypocrisy is that it allows them to honor God’s great works of the past, and to make great declarations of what they would have done in someone else’s time, and to think that they’ve actually accomplished something “spiritual” in saying such things. And yet, the whole time, they are covering up and ignoring their own disbelief and sinful rebellion in the present.

I wonder if, like me, you have ever wondered what you would have done with Jesus if you had lived in that generation? If I were in the crowd and heard Pilate ask, “Whom do you want me to release to you? Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” (Matt. 27:17), what would I say? Because of the sinfulness of my own heart, would I have also said, “Barabbas” as the multitudes did (Matt. 27:21)? If I were in the crowd and heard Pilate ask, “What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” (Matt. 27:22), would I have joined those who said, “Let Him be crucified!” (Matt. 27:23)? As confident as I might be to say, like Peter, “Even if all are made to stumble because of You, I will never be made to stumble” (Matt. 26:33), I know, like Peter, I am weak of will and feeble of heart. I might have denied Jesus three times that night just as Peter did. (Matt. 26:75).

Do you know the weakness of your heart? These scribes and Pharisees didn’t. They disguised their impure hearts and refused to recognize their own sin. They fooled themselves into thinking that they were more righteous than they were.

Listen, there is hope for the soul that realizes his sin. Jesus said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick … For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” (Matt. 9:12-13). But hypocrisy dooms people to condemnation in judgment because they will not recognize their sin and repent.

Jesus goes on to predict their future treachery that would expose the full guilt of their generation:

34 “Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.” (Matt. 23:34-36).  

Look at that first word in Matthew 23:34, “Therefore . . .” Jesus is saying that, because of their hypocrisy, because they truly had the same murderous intent of their fathers, because underneath their religious façade they were snakes and vipers who were doomed to the judgment of hell, He pronounces their judgment that is coming.

Jesus declares Himself to possess the authority of God, declaring Himself to be the one who will send them prophets from God. He is about to send them more prophets and apostles (Luke 11:49; John 20:21), and what they would do to them would prove what they really are. As Stephen, while filled with the Holy Spirit, would preach to them in Acts 7,

“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it” (Acts 7:51-53).

They immediately killed Stephen for those words, too. They revealed their true character in how they treated him, just as they treated the Son of God. Acts records that the Jewish leaders of that generation drove the apostles and the believers out of the temple, then out of Jerusalem, and then followed them from city to city—persecuting them, scourging them, crucifying them, and killing them. Jesus says that all the righteous blood shed on the earth, “from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah,” would be laid upon that generation. Abel was the first martyr in the book of Genesis, murdered by his unrighteous brother Cain in anger and jealousy over Abel’s righteous worship. Zechariah is the prophet murdered by the Jews in the last historical book of the Hebrew scriptures, 2 Chronicles. And so, it was as if Jesus was telling that generation that the long history of the blood of every righteous saint who was slain for righteousness sake—from the first book to the last—would be laid on that generation!

That generation did suffer the multiplied guilt and judgment they and their fathers had brought upon themselves. About forty years later, just as Jesus prophesied, Jerusalem was utterly destroyed by the Roman armies of Titus, and the people slaughtered or scattered around the world.

Why? Why would they be held guilty for all of that? Because they will reject and crucify the Messiah, the Son of God, the Righteous One whom God sent to be the Savior. They could not be forgiven—they would eternally be guilty—if they persisted in rejecting the only Savior. No one can be saved if they refuse to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.

If you want to avoid condemnation in God’s judgment, you need to recognize your sinfulness. These hypocrites failed to recognize their sinfulness and repent. They proudly boasted in their righteousness, “Oh, we would never do what our fathers did!”; “We would never persecute the righteous.” But they did—they did it even worse than their fathers did. They rejected and crucified the Son of God.

Hypocrisy dooms those who practice it to be condemned by God in judgment. Jesus said, “How can you escape the condemnation of hell?” (Matt. 23:33). The Gospel is clear. The way to escape the condemnation of hell is to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. You must be born again! You must be given a clean heart and a new spirit by faith in Christ.

I wonder if you’re wearing a mask this morning. Are you trying to pretend that you have it all together, when deep inside you know you can’t keep up the act much longer? The cure for hypocrisy is not to change anything on the outside. It’s not a matter of doing more things, of trying to get more religious. That just perpetuates the wearing of masks. If you want to change, if you want to truly become someone you’ve never been before, the change has to take place on the inside.

I know of only one person who can affect that kind of change. His name is Jesus Christ. Stop playing Christian charades. Stand before Him and admit that you’re a sinner. Repent and believe that He died for your sins and was raised to give you a new life. Leave the ranks of the religious hypocrites and join the ranks of the forgiven sinners.

 

— NOTES ————————————————————–

[1] John MacArthur, New Testament Commentary: Matthew 16-23, Moody Publishers, Chicago IL, p. 386.

[2] Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Secret Sins, New Park Street Pulpit Volume 3, https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/secret-sins/#flipbook/ accessed 08/21/2025.

/ / , , , / 0

Woe to the Hypocrites – Matthew 23:13-36

Matthew 23

Woe to the Hypocrites

Matthew 23:13-36

The greatest threat any person will face is that which will keep him from receiving God’s gift of salvation and eternal life in Jesus Christ. Things like secularism, materialism, humanism, and false religions hinder people from believing the truth of the gospel and coming to Jesus. But I believe an even greater threat comes from those that claim they know God, but in fact, they lead people away from Him. The greatest threats to the human soul are false prophets and false teachers. They convince people that they have the truth and will be with God in heaven, but instead, it is a lie that leads to hell. This is why Jesus, who is so tender and kind to all others, is harsh and severe with the false prophets and teachers of His time.

Last time, we began to look at Jesus’ last words to the crowds of worshippers in the Jerusalem temple in Matthew 23. In Matthew 23:1-12, Jesus spoke to His disciples and the gathered multitudes, warning them not to follow the hypocritical practices of the scribes and Pharisees. He warned about them, saying, “…do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do.” (Matt. 23:3). Now in Matthew 23:13-36 Jesus pronounces woes directly upon these religious leaders for their hypocrisy. Again and again, Jesus says to them, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”

The word “woe” (οὐαί / ouai) is a guttural outcry of pain, fear, anger, despair, or sorrow. Daniel Doriani comments, “Like a piano chord played by one hand, a woe has three notes: grief, anger, and sorrow. When something evil happens, the woe both condemns and laments that evil.”[1] The woes pronounce judgment, while, at the same time, they call for repentance. These are some of the harshest words of Jesus recorded for us in Scripture. Seven times Jesus calls them hypocrites. Five times He calls them blind. He also calls them fools, serpents, and sons of hell. New Testament scholar A.T. Robertson called this chapter “a thunderbolt of wrath”![i]

Jesus had told His disciples back in Matthew 16:6 to “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” In Luke 12, Jesus identified the leaven of the Pharisees as “hypocrisy” (Luke 12:1). Hypocrisy is a sin that, once allowed into just one small area of your life, will spread and permeate its influence into your whole being. That is why Jesus speaks so harshly against it here. It is not just a condemnation of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, but a warning to us. When we begin to preach to others what we will not do ourselves, or flagrantly display our religious piety, or seek applause from people by our “titles” and outward “performances” of religion—then we have begun the slide down the slippery slope of religious hypocrisy. And it won’t be long before we’re making pious diatribes against the sins of others—all so that we can distract attention from the sin that is lodged deeply in our own hearts. The Holy Spirit has inspired and preserved these harsh words of Jesus so that we would examine our own hearts in the light of God’s word.

Warren Wiersbe contrasts Jesus’ eight woes on the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23 with the eight beatitudes of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord commended true righteousness; here He condemned false righteousness.[ii]

The poor in spirit are blessed to enter the kingdom (Matt. 5:3), but the proud Pharisees, “shut up the kingdom of heaven against men” (Matt. 23:13). Those who mourn over their sins are blessed with comfort (Matt. 5:4), but the Pharisees are condemned for devouring widows houses while pretending to be pious. The meek are blessed to inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5), but the Pharisees turned men into sons of hell (Matt. 23:15). Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled (Matt. 5:6), but the Pharisees worked out a “religious system” that robbed God of His righteous honor (Matt. 23:16-22). The merciful will be blessed with mercy (Matt. 5:7), but the Pharisees neglected justice, mercy, and faith (Matt. 23:23). The pure in heart will be blessed to see God (Matt. 5:8), but the Pharisees’ hearts were full of extortion, self-indulgence, and all uncleanness (Matt. 23:25-27). Peacemakers and the persecuted are blessed to be called sons of God and enter the kingdom (Matt. 5:9-12), but Jesus called the Pharisees sons of hell and serpents (Matt. 23:29-36).

You can see how polar-opposite was Jesus’ teaching from the scribes and Pharisees. This is why they hated Him. He exposed their hypocritical righteousness for what it was, a lie from the pit of hell. Instead of coming out of the darkness, the Pharisees tried to put out the Light.[iii]

We are going to divide the “woes” Jesus speaks to the scribes and Pharisees into four groups. First, in Matthew 23:13-15, Jesus condemns them for the harmful impact their religious hypocrisy had on others. Jesus speaks the next two woes (in Matthew 23:16-24), against the hypocrisy of their own religious teaching and conduct. Then Jesus speaks two woes (in Matthew 23:25-28) against their artificial, external religion. Finally, in the last woe (in Matthew 23:29-36), Jesus condemns and pronounces judgment on them for their hypocritical piety while persecuting God’s true prophets.

We will save the last woe for next time and look at the others today under three headings: 1) Hypocrisy deters people from the kingdom; 2) Hypocrisy distorts by its teaching and conduct; and 3) Hypocrisy disguises an unclean heart. Here, we have a complete picture of the impact of religious hypocrisy on all spheres of relationship—with others, with God, and with ourselves.

First Jesus shows that …

1. Hypocrisy Deters People from the Kingdom (Matt. 23:13-15)

Jesus says, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.” (Matt. 23:13).

The picture described is of these men standing at the gate of heaven and slamming the gate shut in the face of those who would like to go in. They won’t go in themselves and they do their best to keep other people out too. This is what all false religions and cults do.

How do they do this? By advocating a religious system or philosophy that leads either to false gods or a false understanding of the true God. The scribes and Pharisees set aside the grace of God and developed a religion of works righteousness, believing that if you are good enough, God will let you into the kingdom of heaven.

Look at what Jesus says about their hypocrisy, “…you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in” (Matt. 23:13). They established themselves to be the ‘doormen’ of the kingdom of God. But although Jesus Christ proved Himself to be the door to that kingdom, they persistently refused to go into the kingdom through Him. Every religious system that sets itself up as a way God—but that does not point men and women to Jesus Christ exclusively as “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6)—is, in reality, a spiritual door slammed in people’s faces! They hypocritically claim to offer the kingdom of heaven to men, and yet, in reality, they shut people out of it. Be careful, for religious charlatans abound, and they will seek to market to you a Jesus and a salvation that leaves you self-righteous and therefore still condemned by God.

How important it is that we get the gospel right! The only way to the kingdom of heaven is through Jesus Christ. He alone is the propitiation for our sins. It is His death that paid my debt of sin to God. This is the gospel—”Christ died for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3). 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Paul writes in Romans 5,

8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. (Rom 5:8-10 NKJV)

This is a matter of life and death. This is a matter of eternal life or eternal damnation. If you want to avoid condemnation, you need to get the gospel right.

Next, Jesus condemns their injustice that parades as pretended piety. In the New King James version, Matthew 23:14 has our Lord saying, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.” Other translations put this verse in brackets or a footnote because it is not found in some ancient manuscripts. It is possible that it was added from Mark 12 or Luke 20 where it belongs.

Here, Jesus condemns them for taking advantage of vulnerable and needy widows, plundering their houses, and masking their sin by praying long pretend prayers. And the fact that they used pious prayers to hide their sin caused the Lord to warn that they “will receive greater condemnation”. Beware of covering up your sin with false piety!

In Matthew 23:15, Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” A proselyte, in this case, meant a pagan from the Gentile world who became converted to Judaism. And the scribes and Pharisees would go to great lengths to “win” a proselyte. The problem is that they were not winning converts to God, they were winning converts to themselves. They were not making sons of the kingdom of heaven, they were making sons of hell. They not only teach their convert to be a religious hypocrite, but the convert excels the teacher in hypocrisy. They are not making men better, but worse.

Our Lord hates religious hypocrisy, because it deters people from salvation. It slams the door to the kingdom of heaven in their faces. It covers up injustices with false piety. It condemns them to even greater acts of hypocrisy. Woe to those who do such things!

Next, Jesus shows that …

2. Hypocrisy Distorts God’s Word (Matt. 23:16-24)

Listen to what Jesus says,

16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.’ 17 Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? 18 And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obliged to perform it.’ 19 Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? 20 Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it. 21 He who swears by the temple, swears by it and by Him who dwells in it. 22 And he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it. (Matt. 23:16-22).

Notice what Jesus calls the Pharisees in this section, “Blind guides” (Matt. 23:16,24) and “Fools and blind” (Matt. 23:17,19). Jesus had used this term earlier in Matthew 15 when the Pharisees confronted Jesus about the tradition of handwashing. There, Jesus showed how the Pharisees transgressed the law of God by their traditions. Then He said to His disciples, “Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.” (Matt. 15:13-14).

The scribes and Pharisees claimed to sit in the seat of Moses as teachers and guides to the people. They claimed to lead the blind, but they were blind themselves. The claimed to lead people to the light, but they were in darkness.

How did they mislead the people and cause them to fall into the pit? By distorting the word of God. The Pharisees were famous for playing around with the commandments of God and finding ways to get around the law. Here, Jesus addresses their approach to oaths and sacrifices. They were counting the material things like gold or the gift on the altar as more important than the temple or altar themselves. They didn’t realize that it was the temple that made the gold sacred or the altar that made the gift sacred.

They used their own traditions and rules to skirt around the clear command of God in His word to keep their oaths. Deuteronomy 23:21 says, “When you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to pay it; for the LORD your God will surely require it of you, and it would be sin to you.” Numbers 30:2 says, “If a man makes a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.” Jesus makes it plain that every vow is binding regardless of what you swear by for ultimately it is made before God who is the creator of everything and He will hold you accountable for it.

Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 that we are not to monkey around with our promises to God or to others. Jesus’ command is direct and simple, “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.” (Matt. 5:37). Don’t distort the word of God to skirt around the commands of God. Don’t ever let this form of religious hypocrisy take root in your soul! Don’t hypocritically “manipulate” the word of God, or take it out of context, or minimize what it says for your own purposes.

The other way that the Pharisees distorted the word of God was that they majored on the minor points while minimizing the main points. Jesus says,

23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. 24 Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!” (Matt. 23:23-24).

What a vivid picture! They strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! In the book of Leviticus, winged bugs were identified as ceremonially “unclean” as food (Leviticus 11:20, 41). And so, if these scribes or Pharisees were to drink a glass of wine or water, they would first carefully strain-out any bugs—even the tiniest and most unseen bugs—so that they wouldn’t accidentally take something “unclean” into their mouths and thus become defiled before God. But do you know what else was unclean as food? Camels—one of the largest animals in the Jewish culture (Leviticus 11:4). Imagine the picture of a Jewish man being so mixed-up in his spiritual priorities that he carefully strains out a tiny, unclean “gnat” out of his drink—and yet, thinks nothing of gulping down a whole unclean “camel”!

That’s what our Lord says that the scribes and Pharisees were doing in their religious hypocrisy. They were legalistically concerned with tithing tiny herbs, following the most minute details of the law. But they disregarded the fact that they were failing to keep the greater matters of the law—”justice and mercy and faith.” They strained-out spiritual gnats and swallowed spiritual camels. They maximized the minor things and minimized the major things.

Perhaps Jesus has in mind that great verse in Micah 6.  The prophet asks,

6 With what shall I come before the LORD, And bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, With calves a year old? 7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, Ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? (Micah 6:6-7).

Then he answers,

8 He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8).

It’s not the legal requirements of the law that the LORD is after. He is after a life of integrity. He is after a life of justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Jesus is after the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law. Justice describes the process of being fair with all without showing favoritism. Mercy describes the attitude of heart that is kind to others, especially when they don’t deserve it. Faithfulness describes the consistent commitment of love. In just a few days, the religious leaders will pervert justice by condemning Jesus to death. They will show no mercy. They will prove unfaithful to God.

But listen, here is the gospel. At the same time, Jesus will go to the cross willingly to pay the penalty of sin, satisfying the justice of God. Jesus will show mercy to sinners, redeeming them by His own blood, forgiving their sin. He will be faithful unto death and receive the crown of life. Now Jesus offers forgiveness and eternal life in the kingdom of heaven to all who believe in Him.  

There are many churches that have lost focus of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They legalistically focus on the minutia of the law and neglect faith in Christ. Churches can easily begin to focus upon rules and regulations. But, it’s the saving power of Christ that ought always to be our main thing. Where is the source of the power to live with justice, mercy, and faithfulness? It’s the cross. Apart from the cross, you won’t live justly. Apart from the cross, you won’t live with mercy. Apart from the cross, you won’t live with faithfulness.

Next time we will look at how …

3. Hypocrisy Disguises an Unclean Heart (Matt. 23:25-28)

 

 

[1] Daniel M. Doriani, Matthew & 2, ed. Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani, vol. 2, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 335.

[i] A.T. Robertson, https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/rwp/matthew-23.html  

[ii] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 84.

[iii] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 86.

 

/ / 0

Beware of Religious Phonies – Matthew 23:1-12

Matthew 23:3

Beware of Religious Phonies

Matthew 23:1-12

In this section of Matthew’s Gospel, we are following the events in the final week of Jesus’ life before He went to the cross. We have seen increasing conflict between Jesus and the religious authorities in the temple in Jerusalem. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were by and large hypocrites, and over the last few days in the temple, Jesus has exposed their unrepentant hypocrisy in the parables He told and the questions He answered. The last six verses of Matthew 22 confirmed their hardness of heart. In those verses, Jesus proved from the Old Testament that the Messiah would be more than a man. But rather than believing God’s word and repenting, the Pharisees were silent.

In Matthew 23, we have the last public teaching of Jesus—His last sermon to the multitudes. After this, Jesus will only teach His disciples privately. Jesus knows these will be His last words of counsel to the people. They are words of warning against their religious leaders, namely the scribes and the Pharisees.

Matthew 23 can be divided into three parts. In Matthew 23:1-12, Jesus speaks to His disciples and the gathered multitudes, warning them not to follow the hypocritical practices of the scribes and Pharisees. Then, in Matthew 23:13-36, Jesus pronounces seven “woes” directly upon the scribes and Pharisees themselves. And finally, in Matthew 23:37-39, Jesus speaks mournful words of lament over Jerusalem for its hard-hearted rejection of Him. So, first we see our Lord’s warnings; then, His woes; and finally, His words of weeping.

This morning, we look at the warnings to His disciples and the crowds about the religious hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees. As Matthew writes this true teaching of Jesus, it is more than just a rebuke against the Pharisees, it is also a warning against hypocrisy in the church, especially among its leaders. It is a call for us to examine ourselves against the backdrop of Jesus’ warnings. First, Jesus warns about the hypocrisy and pride of the Jewish leaders (Matt. 23:1-7), then He calls His disciples to a life of servanthood and humility (Matt. 23:8-12).

1. Warning about the Scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 23:1-7).

Jesus began by saying something surprising to the multitudes and to His disciples—especially considering what He is about to say to the scribes and Pharisees in the rest of the chapter. Jesus will later condemn them in no uncertain terms. But first, He says, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do . . .” (Matt. 23:2-3). A “seat”, in the sense that Jesus here speaks of it, is a position of authority that a teacher in Israel would occupy. In some synagogues, this was the literal seat that was centrally placed in the front, from which the scribes and Pharisees taught the law of Moses.

The scribes and the Pharisees were the bible scholars of the day. They had made it their life’s vocation to study the law, and interpret its application. And to the extent that they truly and accurately taught God’s law, the scribes and Pharisees truly sat in Moses’ “seat”. When they taught faithfully from God’s law, Jesus tells His followers to “observe” and “do” as they say. The truth of God’s word is always valid, no matter who speaks it. The law of Moses came from God, and so Jesus told the people you should do the things they tell you, at least as far as they correctly taught and interpreted the law.

We know from the rest of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew that the scribes and Pharisees did not always teach the law of God accurately. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said six times, “You have heard that it was said … but I say to you …” (Matt. 5:21, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43). In each of those instances, Jesus corrected the erroneous teaching of the scribes and Pharisees. They beyond the scriptures in their teaching on the Sabbath (Matt. 12:1-14). They went astray in their teaching on how you are defiled (Matt. 15:1-20). And most importantly, they denied who Jesus was, questioning His authority (Matt. 21:23-27). Jesus clearly opposed these teachings. But the authority of the law of God stands even when men teach it wrongly.

The problem was not always what they taught, but that their teaching was …

A. Characterized by Hypocrisy (Matt. 23:2-4)

What our Lord tells His followers is this: “. . . but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do” (Matt. 23:3). In other words, they were hypocrites. They taught the law, but they did not practice the law. Or when they did practice it, they practiced their own legalistic version of it with all sorts of man-made rules and traditions. Jesus says, “For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.” (Matt. 23:4).

They made things harder for the people, and they weren’t even willing to help out. They were quick to point out the sins of others, but they would not admit their own sins and repent. In short, they preached that others should do what they themselves wouldn’t do. The very heart of hypocrisy is that we think we can help other people by setting standards for them that we don’t feel the need to keep.

Jesus warned us about this kind of hypocrisy in the Sermon on the Mount, saying,

And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye (Matthew 7:3-5).

We must be sure that we preach nothing to others that we aren’t prepared to apply equally to ourselves. The scribes and Pharisees heaped on the people burdensome rules and regulations that were an unbearable load to carry—ones that even they themselves would not carry.  

How unlike Jesus! He said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” (Matt. 11:28). In just two more days, Jesus would take all of our sins and burdens upon Himself at the cross. Isaiah prophesies of Jesus, “Surely He has borne our griefs, And carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4).

Next, Jesus goes further to show that not only were they characterized by hypocrisy, they were also …

B. Characterized by Seeking Acclaim (Matt. 23:5-7)

Jesus says, “But all their works they do to be seen by men . . .” (Matt. 23:5). The religious rules they followed, the rituals they observed, and the alms they performed—they weren’t done from a heart of reverent service to God. Rather, they were all done to make themselves look good in the eyes of other people.

Jesus gives evidence of this that anyone in the crowds could see. The first example is, “They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments” (Matt. 23:5). “Phylacteries” were little boxes, tied to leather straps, that they bound to their arms and hands, or onto their foreheads. In these boxes, they placed portions of Scripture, or written prayers. By doing this, they were sought to apply literally what it says in Deuteronomy 6:6-9, where God told the Israelites,

“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as front lets between your eyes. You shall write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).

Ordinarily, Jewish men would wear these ‘phylacteries’ during times of public worship. But when the synagogue gathering was over, the scribes and Pharisees continued to keep theirs on—walking around with them in public display. And Jesus says they made them “broad” (that is, large and easy to see), in order to show that they were loaded-up with a lot of passages of Scripture and a lot of prayers.

In addition, Jesus says they also “enlarge the borders of their garments.” This refers to the commandment in Numbers 15, where God told the Jewish men to make ‘tassels’ on the corners of their garments (Num. 15:37-41). These ‘tassels’—dangling down from the corners of their garments—were to remind them to “remember all the commandments of the LORD and do them” (Num. 15:39). Apparently, even the Lord Jesus had these on His garments (Matthew 9:20; 14:36). But the scribes and Pharisees made their tassels ostentatiously long and “enlarged”, in order give everyone the impression that they were more devoted to the law than everyone else.

Let’s be careful here to say that Jesus does not teach we must avoid ever letting our devotion to the Lord be seen. Jesus Himself taught, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). What’s the difference? It’s our motivation. We’re to let our light so shine that men may glorify our Father—not that men may glorify us! God knows our motivation. He knows when we are seeking the applause of men rather than the glory of God. Hypocrites put their piety on parade to receive the acclaim of others.

Jesus gives more evidence of their self-aggrandizing behavior in Matthew 23:6-7, “They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi.’“

The scribes and Pharisees were among the most highly respected members of the community. And that was an aspect of their role that they were really fond of. They were invited to the important feasts; and when they arrived, they found that the best place at the table had their name on it. Or when they went to the synagogue, they found a seat of honor set aside just for them. When they walked down the street, or they went to the marketplace, they were recognized and greeted. People greeted them by calling them “Rabbi”, which meant “honored teacher”. And Jesus says, they loved it!

Professing our religion in such a way as to win social benefits that we may derive from it as a result, is a dangerously slippery slope. We will soon be compromising our profession in such a way as to gain the most social approval. Being an attention grabber is also hypocrisy. May God protect us from it by helping us not to do as the Pharisees and scribes did—who showed-off their religion to gain acclaim from others.

Having warned about the hypocritical practices of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus then goes on to teach His disciples by giving them an …

2. Admonition to Humility (Matt. 23:8-12).

First, Jesus urges humility by teaching us to …

A. Avoid Exalted Titles (Matt. 23:8-10)

What Jesus said about the scribes and Pharisees who loved to be called “Rabbi, Rabbi”, led Him to then go on to say to His followers, “But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’ [that is, ‘exalted teacher’]; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. And do not be called teachers [or, more literally, ‘leaders’ or ‘masters’]; for One is your Teacher [or ‘Leader’ or ‘Master’], the Christ” (Matt. 23:8-10).

Jesus says don’t seek to be called by titles that would make you feel superior to other people. We only have one Rabbi or truly ‘exalted teacher’, and we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. We have one Father, and He is in heaven. We have one Master, and He is Christ.

It is not wrong to serve as a teacher, pastor, or spiritual father to others in the church. We see examples of this all throughout the New Testament. God has appointed pastors and teachers in the church. But the pastor or teacher has authority only so long as they are accurately presenting the word of God. We must remember that all believers in Christ are equal before God, and we are never to claim personal superiority over others. What I believe that our Lord is forbidding is “religious professionalism”—that is, esteeming people in the church simply because of the titles men have given them, and not with regard to Christ.

I love Pastor Michael’s attitude in this regard. He has worked hard and rightfully earned his doctoral degree. But he never insists or even expects people to call him Doctor Shockley. He would rather just be called Michael or brother. I serve in the office of pastor, but I would never insist you address me by the title. I am a servant of Christ, just as the rest of you. In the church, the love of “titles” is a snare. It cultivates an unhealthy fear of man and obscures the esteem we owe first to our Lord. Never allow a human with a title to take the place that only God Himself should occupy in our lives.

Finally, Jesus teaches His disciples to …

B. Embrace Servanthood (Matt. 23:11-12)

Jesus says in Matthew 23:11-12, “But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The scribes and Pharisees were not concerned about serving anyone. They used their religious position to make themselves great in the eyes of the people. Jesus taught His disciples to do the opposite. And He set the example for them to follow. In Matthew 20, when James and John, with their mother, came to Jesus seeking places of honor in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus said,

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:25-28).

The way of “greatness” in our Lord’s kingdom is humble service in His name. No one stooped down as low, in humble service, as our Savior did. Paul writes about Jesus Christ,

6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. (Phil. 2:6-8).

Jesus came as a servant. He came in obedience to His Father. He came giving His life on the cross for us. Paul goes on to write,

9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:9-11).

God the Son humbled Himself and became a human. He selflessly served others, ultimately sacrificing His life to save us. And God exalted Him to the highest place of honor.

Scripture consistently teaches that the proud are brought low, but God exalts the humble. We should never strive for prominence, prestige, or positions. We should, instead, strive to humbly serve our Lord by serving others. I fear that in the church today there is far too much emphasis on becoming leaders, and not enough on becoming servants. There are shelves full of volumes of books that tell you how to be a church leader, how to grow a great church, and how to increase the influence of your leadership. Jesus did not teach us to be leaders. He taught us to be servants. Jesus warns us “ whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Matt. 23:12).

So let’s take the warning from Jesus to heart today. We must beware of hypocrisy, especially in ourselves. Beware of pride and attention seeking. The only one who deserves honor—the greatest prominence, prestige, position, and power—is our Lord Jesus Christ. May everything we do and say bring glory to His name!

 

 

/ / , , , , / 0

What Do You Think of the Christ? Matthew 22:41-46

Matthew 22:41-46

What Do You Think of the Christ?

Matthew 22:41-46

What do you suppose might be the most significant question that anyone could answer? In Matthew 22, we have witnessed the Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem questioning Jesus just a few days before they would condemn Him and hand Him over to be crucified by the Romans.

You recall that in Matthew 21, Jesus had shaken the whole city when He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey’s colt to the praise of the multitudes, shouting,

“Hosanna to the Son of David!
‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’[fn]
Hosanna in the highest!” (Matt. 21:9).

The next day, after He cleansed the temple, saying, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves,’” the chief priests and scribes angrily complained about the praises of the children in the temple saying to Jesus, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”

In the temple again the following day, the chief priests and the elders of the people confronted Him as He was teaching, and demanded, “By what authority are You doing these things? And who gave You this authority?” (Matt. 21:23). And when they would not answer His question about the authority of John’s baptism, Jesus did not directly answer theirs, but rather He told a series of three parables that indicted them for their unrepentant unbelief and rejection of Him, saying, “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.” (Matt. 21:43).

Still unrepentant, the religious leaders then “went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk” (Matt. 22:15). Their plan was to press Jesus with questions designed to trap Him and discredit Him before the people. The Pharisees had asked Jesus about politics; the Sadducees had asked about the afterlife; and the lawyer had asked about the Law. But Jesus answered each question with great wisdom; and He exposed the hard-hearted unbelief of His opponents in the process. In the end, all they succeeded in doing was discrediting themselves.

Finally, Jesus turns the tables and asks them a question that gets down to the central issue. The real issue was not about taxes, or marriage in the resurrection, or the commandments in the law. The real issue was about the identity of the Christ, the promised Messiah. Is Jesus the Messiah? Is He the Son of David as the people had been proclaiming? So Matthew tells us,

41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42 saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?”

It’s the most significant question about the most important subject. It is the question that most reveals what is in the human heart, and that most determines our eternal destiny. “What do you think about the Christ?”

Let’s take a closer look at Matthew’s account here. The structure of the passage is simple enough: 1) Jesus questions the Pharisees about the Christ; 2) Jesus challenges the Pharisees with scripture; 3) Jesus silences the Pharisees. 

1. Jesus Asks the Pharisees about the Christ (Matt. 22:41-42).

Matthew tells us, “While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, ‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?’” (Matt. 22:41). This is the second time Matthew has shown the Pharisees “gathered together” to plot against Jesus (Matt. 22:15). It reminds us of the prophecy in Psalm 2 which reads,

1 Why do the nations rage, And the people plot a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the LORD and against His Anointed, … (Psalm 2:1-2).  

When they heard Jesus ask about “the Christ” (which is the Greek word for the Messiah—the Anointed One), they would have understood Him in terms of specific promises of Scripture. All throughout the Old Testament, God had been promising to send One who would deliver His people. The Pharisees all knew about these promises and claimed to believe them. But Jesus gets more specific, asking, “Whose Son is He?”  The word translated “son” in this verse has a wider meaning than our English word son and can also mean descendant. So, Jesus is not necessarily asking about the actual father of the Messiah, but rather the line of descent for the Messiah.

To the Pharisees, the answer was easy, “They said to Him, ‘The Son of David.’” And that made perfect sense. It was the obvious answer. The Messiah is the son of King David, the greatest king in their history, the king against whom all other kings of Israel were measured. They would have remembered the promise that the LORD God gave to David through the prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel 7,

 12 “When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” (2 Samuel 7:12-13).

Jesus doesn’t tell them they are wrong. It’s the right answer in fulfillment of the prophecy of scripture. In fact, Matthew has presented Jesus from the beginning of His Gospel as “Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1) and even gave His genealogy from Abraham through Judah and David all the way to Joseph, the legal adopted father of Jesus. And as we have seen, many have recognized Jesus as the Messiah, calling Him, “the Son of David” (Matt. 9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 20:30,31; 21:9,15).

But is “the Son of David” the complete answer? Jesus goes on to show that that answer alone was only half-correct. A half-correct answer to the most important question of all is not sufficient. The Bible declares that to be our Savior, Christ must also be our Lord.

So we see that …

2. Jesus Challenges the Pharisees with Scripture (Matt. 22:43-45).

Jesus asks them, “How then does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord’ . . .?” (Matt. 22:43). Then Jesus quotes from Psalm 110:1,

‘The LORD said to my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool” ’ (Matt. 22:44).

Psalm 110 is a very important psalm. No other portion of the Old Testament is quoted more often in the New Testament than Psalm 110. It is quoted or alluded to at least thirty-three times. Peter preached it on the day of Pentecost. Paul quotes it in 1 Corinthians 15 about the resurrection of the dead. The writer of Hebrews majors on its prophecy. And whenever the New Testament quotes it, it always refers to Jesus.

Notice the authority of the scripture that Jesus appealed to. Jesus accepts the heading of the psalm that it is a “Psalm of David” (Psalm 110:1). Even more than that, He indicates the inspiration of that scripture saying that David wrote it “in the Spirit.” Further, Jesus teaches that the Psalm is a Spirit-inspired prophecy about the Messiah. In it, David looks ahead and expresses worship toward God for the promise of the Messiah that would one day be born from him.

Jesus’ question to the Pharisees about Psalm 110 is, “How then does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord’ …?” (Matt. 22:43). Why is this significant? Notice the phrase He quotes from Psalm 110:1, “The LORD said to my Lord.” Did you notice that the first word “LORD” is in all-capital letters in your Bible? This is the translators’ way of letting you know that, in the Hebrew, this is the most sacred name of God in all the Hebrew Scriptures—Yahweh. It is the covenant name of the almighty God of Israel. And notice that the second word “Lord” is not in all-capital letters. This is the translators way of letting you know that this second “Lord” is a different word than the first. This second word is Adon (אָדוֹן)—the Hebrew word for “Lord” or “Master”.

We can be sure that all those Pharisees and scribes understood—and rightly so—that here, David speaks of the Messiah. But Jesus’ perplexing question to the Pharisees is: If King David is here speaking of his promised Offspring—the Messiah—then how is it that he also, in prayer before Yahweh, calls his own Son Adoni? How can it be that, in the Spirit, David refers to his promised Son as his “Lord”? Who ever heard of a father calling his son “Lord”? A son might call his father “Lord”, but not the other way around. Everyone knows that a father is always honored as greater than his son. And everyone recognizes King David as the greatest of all the earthly kings of God’s covenant people. So how can it be that, in the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, King David calls his own messianic Son “Lord”?

And then, He is not only David’s Lord, but He will sit at the right hand of God. In other words, He will not only sit on David’s throne, but He will sit on God’s throne, at God’s right hand, the place of highest honor. How can that be?

Now that’s a puzzle! But I believe it wasn’t intended to trap them and confuse them—as they had been trying to do to Him. Jesus intended to challenge these men to let go of their preconceived notions about who and what the Messiah ought to be and change their minds (repent) about what they thought of Jesus.

You see; these religious leaders expected a strictly human Messiah. They expected someone to arise from the lineage of King David; and to, like David, be a mighty, conquering king in their own day. They had no thought of the Messiah being something even greater. In all their studies, they never picked up on the fact that the Messiah was not only human, but also God. They should have. Listen to the words of another messianic psalm, Psalm 2,

1 Why do the nations rage,
And the people plot a vain thing?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying,
3 “Let us break Their bonds in pieces
And cast away Their cords from us.”
4 He who sits in the heavens shall laugh;
The Lord shall hold them in derision.
5 Then He shall speak to them in His wrath,
And distress them in His deep displeasure:
6 “Yet I have set My King
On My holy hill of Zion.”
7 “I will declare the decree:
The LORD has said to Me, ‘You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You.
8 Ask of Me, and I will give You
The nations for Your inheritance,
And the ends of the earth for Your possession.
9 You shall break them with a rod of iron;
You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’ ”
10 Now therefore, be wise, O kings;
Be instructed, you judges of the earth.
11 Serve the LORD with fear,
And rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, lest He be angry,
And you perish in the way,
When His wrath is kindled but a little.
Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him. (Psalm 2:1-12).

The prophet Isaiah wrote about the Messiah,

6 For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this. (Isaiah 9:6-7).

They should have know that the Christ was the Son of God not only from the prophesies of scripture, but they should have recognized Jesus was the Son of God by His words and His works. Jesus—though fully human—had been presenting Himself to them as more than a mere man. We’ve seen this throughout our study of Matthew’s Gospel. He had healed the blind and the lame, cleansed the lepers, cast out demons, and raised the dead. He commanded the wind and the waves of the sea, and they obeyed Him. He fed the multitudes and taught with authority as no man had ever taught before. He proved to them over the three and a half years of His earthly ministry that He was more than mere man alone.

But in their hard-hearted unbelief, they rejected the evidence of their own eyes and ears. Now Jesus challenges them to the conclusion about the Messiah that—in their unbelief—they simply would not accept. “If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his Son?” (Matt. 22:45). The Messiah is not only the Son of David. He is the Son of God. Psalm 110 declares that the Messiah sits at the right hand of God in the position of greatest authority and glory. The Messiah will be God’s appointed judge over all humanity. David calls Him “Lord” because the Messiah is God. As the Son of David, He is human. As the Son of God, He is divine.

Here in Matthew 22, Jesus challenges the Pharisees about the Messiah’s identity. But later that week, Jesus will affirm to them that He Himself is the Messiah, that He is the Son of God who fulfills the words of Psalm 110. When Jesus is on trial in Matthew 26, we read,

 “The high priest said to him, ‘I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.’ 64 ‘Yes, it is as you say,’ Jesus replied. ‘But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.’” (Matt. 26:63-64).

There, Jesus combines Psalm 110 with the prophecy of Daniel 7:13, affirming that He is the Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man. Paul confirms this in Romans 1, writing about “… Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”

David calls the Messiah Lord, so how can he be his son? There is only one answer. The Messiah must be both the son of David and son of God. And there is only one person. Only Jesus is both the son of David as evidenced by His genealogy, and the Son of God as evidenced by His resurrection from the dead.

Look at how the chapter ends …

3. Jesus Silences the Pharisees (Matt. 22:46).

Matthew writes that, after Jesus finished asking His question, “And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore.” (Matt. 22:46). They found that they could not answer Him. In their sinful pride, they either could not grasp the concept of God becoming man in Christ, or in their hatred for Jesus, they would not allow themselves to repent and believe.

The conflict is far from over, though. Jesus is about to unleash on them His strongest words ever in Matthew 23. We will look at this stunning chapter next week as Jesus pronounces seven woes on the teachers of the law and Pharisees, exposing their hypocrisy and warning them of the condemnation of hell. This, of course, will set up the final conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders which will end with Jesus going to the cross to suffer and die for our sins.

Jesus silenced the Pharisees, but the Pharisees could not silence Jesus. They tried to silence Him with their questions, but they failed miserably. Next, they will try to silence Him by putting Him to death on the cross. But three days later, He rose from the grave and lives forever. Today, He sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven until all His enemies are made His footstool. And He will come again as He promised to judge and reign forever.

What do you think about the Christ? It’s the most important question ever asked. To make it personal, let me ask you, “What do you think about Jesus Christ? Do you believe He is the Son of God, Savior of the world, and Lord of all?”

This is not just a speculative theological question. It is the question that determines your eternal destiny. The testimony of the Bible is that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who—without ever ceasing to be God—took full humanity to Himself, became one of us, and died on the cross in our place. We cannot be saved unless it is true that God has sent His Son into the world to die in our place for our sins. We cannot be saved unless God raised Him from the dead and He lives as Lord and King. Praise God! He has done it! And the only right response is to repent and believe on Jesus Christ as both fully human and fully divine and trust that His righteous sacrifice on the cross is the payment for our sins.

And having believed, the right response for us is to worship Him as Lord. He is the eternal Son of God, the second Person of the triune Godhead, the very King of Heaven who sits at the right hand of the Father! Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Have you placed your trust in Him as “the Christ, the Son of the living God?” Have you responded to Him accordingly? Do you express your love and worship for Him? Do you declare Him to be the One you trust in for salvation before God? Do you affirm Him to be your hope for future glory?

What do you say about Christ?

 

 

 

 

/ / , , , / 0

The Great Commandment — Matthew 22:34-40

Matthew 22:37

The Great Commandment

Matthew 22:34-40

In Matthew 22, we are following Jesus and His encounters with the religious leaders in the temple at Jerusalem. Remember that this happened only a couple days before Jesus would be betrayed by Judas, arrested at prayer, put on trial, falsely accused, unjustly convicted, beaten, and crucified. The confrontations in Matthew 22 draw attention to the unrepentant unbelief of the Jewish leaders, while at the same time, highlighting the courage, wisdom, and compassion of our Lord Jesus.

Recall that first, the Pharisees, together with the Herodians, tried to ensnare Jesus in His words by asking a question about paying taxes to Caesar. Next, the Sadducees tried a trick question about the resurrection. Jesus had not only wisely answered their perplexing questions, He exposed their sinful unbelieving hearts. By the end of the chapter, Matthew records, “And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore” (Matt. 22:46). When their trap questions fail, the religious leaders will conspire to get rid of Jesus through crucifixion.

Today, we look at the last question they ask Jesus, and next time, Jesus Himself will ask them a question of His own about His identity as the Son of God. Even though they were trying to trap Jesus, He still gave them an invitation to believe.

First, let’s examine …

1. The Lawyer’s Question (Matt. 22:34-36)

Matthew 22:34 says, “But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.” The Pharisees and Sadducees have been taking turns confronting Jesus. First up were the Pharisees. Then the Sadducees took a turn. Both groups had fired their best shot, and both came up short. Now it’s the Pharisees’ turn again. So, in desperation, they collude, grasping as straws to come up with a way to discredit or accuse Jesus.

And here it is: Matthew 22:35-36, “Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’” Admittedly, it’ harder to see where the trap is here. With taxes the snare was obvious. With the resurrection riddle, the design was to make Jesus look foolish. But this question is a little more perplexing.

The test of the question was the fact that this question was constantly being debated among the Pharisees and to some degree even among the people. Over the years, the rabbis had come up with the idea that there were 613 separate laws in the books of Moses. This came through the use of numerology and grammatical studies. They calculated 613 commandments given by Moses because there were 613 Hebrew letters in the Ten Commandments. In addition, they divided these laws into 365 negative ones (like the “thou shalt nots”), one for each day of the year, and 248 positive laws like “thou SHALL”, one for every part of the human body, they supposed.[i]

They also categorized these laws as either weighty or light. The weighty ones were absolutely binding and had to be done. The light ones were less serious. They never came to any consensus as to which laws fit into which category, and they spent a lot of energy debating various schemes of dividing and ranking the commandments. The Pharisees undoubtedly thought Jesus would have His own scheme for arranging the laws, so perhaps they could get Him to enter into a debate about it. Likely, since Jesus’ teachings were so contrary to their own, and since He claimed to be the Son of God, they hoped perhaps He might not only expose His unorthodox views but might even directly contradict Moses. If that happened, they could accuse Him of heresy and turn the people against Him.

So one of the Pharisees, a lawyer, steps up to ask the question. He wasn’t a lawyer in the modern sense of an attorney. Rather, he was a “lawyer” in the sense that he was a scholar and an expert in the Old Testament law of Moses. “Note the irony. This lawyer tested the true lawgiver and only law-keeper with a question about the law.”[ii] And although Matthew says that this question also was a test, he doesn’t record Jesus rebuking this lawyer as He had done to His previous questioners. Unlike the previous questioners, perhaps this lawyer sincerely wanted to know the answer.

And in fact, it was a genuinely good question. Out of all the commandments of God’s law, and out of all the “rules and regulations” that the Pharisees made up from those commandments, which one was the “great commandment of the law“? “Great” translates the Greek word megas, having to do with the biggest, highest, and best. Which one was “first” above all others; and from which all the others drew their foundational principle?

That’s the question. Let’s look at …

2. The Lord’s Answer (Matt. 22:37-39).

Without a moment’s hesitation, the Lord easily answered the perplexing question. Jesus answered by quoting Moses from Deuteronomy 6. “Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’” (Matt. 22:37). It’s a passage that every Jewish person would have known by heart and would have recited every day. It was even written on pieces of paper and folded up and placed inside the phylacteries that the Pharisees wore around their heads, or on their arms. Listen to it again from Deuteronomy:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).

Jesus says, “This is the first and great commandment.” (Matt. 22:38). Jesus didn’t wade into the debate about heavy and light commandments. He presented the command at the heart of all commandments. The chief command is to …

 A. Love God (Matt. 22:37-38)

Notice first, the Great Commandment is not just a call to love in general. Whom were they commanded to love? “You shall love the LORD your God.” The name of God has two parts here. First is “the LORD”. In the Hebrew of Deuteronomy that is Yahweh, the God of the covenant, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who redeemed Israel out of slavery in Egypt. God spoke in Exodus 20:2 as He gave Moses the Ten Commandments saying, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”

Second, the LORD is “your God”. In Deuteronomy, this is the Hebrew word, Elohim. He is the God who created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1). He is the almighty, sovereign ruler over all creation. And He is personally “your God.” God owns you and you belong to Him.

The command is to love “the LORD your God,” not a god of your own choosing, the LORD God who revealed Himself to Israel and through the Scriptures, the God who ultimately revealed Himself through Jesus Christ His Son. No one who truly loved the Father would have hated His Son.

Notice the three qualifiers Jesus adds to the command. Jesus says you are to love the LORD “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37). It would be easy to think that we keep this commandment if it had been given in an ‘abstract’ form; but the Lord reminds us that it has been broken down for us into ‘concrete’ details of life.[iii]

First, you are to love the LORD with “all your heart.” In scripture, all your thoughts, words, deeds, and affections originate in the heart. To love God with all your heart means that your heart is fully reserved for love of Him and Him only. Your heart is undivided. Does your heart belong to the Lord alone? Love Him only.

Second, you are to love the LORD with “all your soul.” Our “soul” is the seat of our inner-life; and is, in fact, our very life itself. Contrary to the world’s propaganda, your life is not your own. Your soul is created by God, and if you are saved by Jesus Christ, your soul is doubly His. This speaks of the depth of our love. Love Him with your whole life.

Third, you are to love the LORD with “all your mind.” The mind is the center of our decisions and determination. In Deuteronomy, God commands through Moses to love the LORD with “all your strength.” Jesus changes it to “all your mind” knowing that the true place of strength is not the body, but the mind. Love is not just something we feel, but something that we determine to do.

Heart, soul, and mind are not separate parts of human nature. The three nouns stand together to speak of loving God with your total being. The key word here is “all,” used three times: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” We love God and Him only. We love Him with the greatest love. And we love Him with an immeasurable love that moves us to live in obedience to Him. Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” (John 14:15). Love is not just the command, it is the motivation to keep all the other commandments of God.

Jesus said, “This is the first and great commandment.” (Matt. 22:38). It is not only the greatest, most weighty, ultimate command, it is also the “first”. It is first in priority and prominence. There is no more important duty than to love God with your whole being.

The lawyer tested Jesus asking what the one, “great” commandment was. But isn’t it interesting that Jesus goes on to give him what he didn’t ask for—the “second”?

B. Love Your Neighbor (Matt. 22:39).

Jesus says in Matthew 22:39, “And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Jesus quotes this commandment from Leviticus 19:18 which reads, “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”

By the way, this second command to “love your neighbor as yourself” is not two commands. The phrase “as yourself” is not a command, it is a presupposition. We do love ourselves. That’s our problem. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:1, “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come.” What will these perilous times look like? 2 Timothy 3:2 answers, “For men will be lovers of themselves …” Paul writes in Ephesians 5, “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it …” (Eph. 5:29). The point is practical. You take care you. You do is best for you. You do what you have to do to meet your needs. You should do the same for your neighbor. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught, “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 7:12). In other words, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

How is this second command to love your neighbor like the first command to love God? They are not alike simply by the incidental connection of the common theme of love. In the scriptures, loving God and loving others are inextricably linked together. You can’t truly love your neighbor if you don’t love God first. And you don’t truly love God if you don’t love your neighbor also. That’s what Jesus means when He says the second command is like the first.

John writes in his first epistle, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God … By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.” (1 John 4:7; 5:2). God is the source of all true love. So until you receive the love of God and love Him in return, you can’t really love at all. Again, John writes, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10). And the result of that is, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:11). You can’t love your neighbor if you don’t love God.

And the reverse is also true. You don’t love God if you don’t love your neighbor. Again, John writes, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” (1 John 4:20). When you truly love God, you will love who God loves. God loves your neighbor. So, if you love God, how can you not love your neighbor, too?

Finally, we see …

3. The Law’s Governing Principle (Matt. 22:40).

Jesus concludes in Matthew 22:40, “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Jesus has just told the Pharisees what the two greatest commands are. Now He tells them why these two commands are the greatest. They are the greatest because all the Law and the Prophets hang on them. The Law and the Prophets are like garments hanging on a peg. If you remove the peg, all the garments fall down. If you take away the greatest commandment to love God and neighbor, the rest of God’s commands fall down with it.[iv]

The command to love does not replace the commandments of the law. It fulfills them. Paul writes in Romans 13,

8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Rom. 13:8-10).

Think about the Ten Commandments for a moment. The Great Commandment that Jesus quotes here fulfills our obligation to God expressed in the first four commandments. If you truly love Him with all your being, you will never allow any other ‘god’ occupy the first place in your heart. If you truly love God with all your being, you will never seek to create a graven image of Him that reduces Him in some way; nor will you bow down an idol in worship to Him. If you truly love God with all your being, you will honor and reverence Him and never blaspheme by takin His sacred name in vain. And if you truly love God with all your being, you’ll faithfully follow the example He set for you, and give due attention to Him on His sacred day of rest.

And just as the first Great Commandment fulfills the commandments that govern our relationship with God, the second fulfills the ones that govern our relationship with other people. If you love your neighbor as yourself, you’ll honor your father and mother. If you love your neighbor as yourself, you’ll not murder your neighbor, nor have murderous anger and hatred for him (Matt. 5:22). If you love your neighbor as yourself, you’ll not commit adultery against him or her, even with adulterous thoughts. If you love your neighbor as yourself, you will not steal from your neighbor. If you love your neighbor as yourself, you will never bear false witness, lying about them or to them. And if you love your neighbor as yourself, you’ll be content with what God has entrusted to you, not envying what God has given them.

What God requires is that we love Him first and love others. Sound’s simple right? Until you try to do it consistently. We all know how hard it is to love God with all that we are when the world, the flesh, and the devil are vying for our attention. We all know how hard it is to love our neighbor when we have to deal with them at home, at school, at work, or anywhere else in the world. In fact, wouldn’t you agree that to love God perfectly and always love others as the LORD commands us is impossible?

This is why the Great Commandment is not the way of salvation. If getting to heaven is as simple as loving God and loving people, I can’t trust in the best five minutes I have ever lived to get me to heaven. It’s impossible. That’s why Jesus will go on in the rest of this chapter to teach about who He really is, the Son of God and Messiah who came to save His people from their sins. Remember 1 John 4:10? “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Only the love of God the Father, the blood of God the Son, and the power of God the Holy Spirit can enable you to love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.

The old hymn pictures it this way:

I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore,
Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more;
But the Master of the sea heard my despairing cry,
From the waters lifted me, now safe am I.

Love lifted me! Love lifted me!
When nothing else could help,
Love lifted me!  

 

 [i] Scott Harris, The Greatest Commandments – Matthew 22:34-40, https://www.gracebibleny.org/greatest_commandments_matthew_223440

[ii] H. B. Charles, THE GREAT COMMANDMENT  Matthew 22:34-40, https://hbcharlesjr.today/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/The-Great-Commandment.pdf.

[iii] Greg Allen, The Great Commandment, https://www.bethanybible.org/archive/2008/060108.htm.

[iv] Ray Fowler, Loving God and Neighbor, https://www.rayfowler.org/sermons/matthew/loving-god-and-neighbor/.

/ / , , , , / 0

How to Study Your Bible, Part 3

How to Study Your Bible

How to Study Your Bible, Part 3

Please see Part 1 and Part 2 for the rest of the Study Notes.

Click here to download PDF: How to Study the Bible Part Handout

 

Bible Study Step #3 – Investigate the Text for Clarity

This step is a bridge between observation and interpretation. Remember that observation is seeing what the text says. Interpretation is discovering what the text means by what it says. Investigation helps us to get from what the text says to what it means.

As we observed at the end of our last lesson that, after prayerfully reading the text in context and observing what the text says, we may still have unanswered questions. Many things will be clear, but perhaps a few things are still hazy. We may need to do some detailed investigation of the text. Where do we go to bring clarity to our understanding of what the text says?

At the end of our last lesson we made a list of questions we had about the text. Some of these questions can relate to:

  • Meanings of words
  • Difficult phrases or sayings
  • Historical or cultural background
  • Meaning of figures of speech
  • How the passage relates to other scriptures

How do we research the answers to our unanswered questions?

A. Compare Bible Translations

When it comes to understanding difficult or unfamiliar words and phrases, it sometimes helps to read the text in a different translation.

What is a Bible translation?

A translation is the result of transferring the text of the Bible from its original language (Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek) into another language—in our case, English. The Bible was written a long time ago in ancient languages. The Old Testament was mainly written in Hebrew with a small portion composed in Aramaic. Aramaic is a language similar to Hebrew. The New Testament was originally written in the common Greek of the day. Whenever the Bible is expressed in a language other than these, it is a translation. Sometimes we call these translations, “versions” of the Bible.[1]

The King James Version (KJV), English Standard Version (ESV), New International Version (NIV), New American Standard Bible (NASB), Christian Standard Bible (CSB), New Living Translation (NLT) and Legacy Standard Bible (LSB) are popular examples of Bible versions. I usually preach from the New King James Version (NKJV) of the Bible.

Many times, there are a variety of ways that words and phrases can be translated from one language into another. There is not always a one-to-one correspondence between words in different languages. So, comparing different translations may shed some light on the meaning of these words or phrases.

Why do English translations sometimes read differently?

Languages often do not correspond one-to-one because words in both languages (the original and the translation) can have a variety of meanings and uses. Also, translators often have to decide whether they will make the translation closer to the original and possibly harder to read in the translation, or whether they will make it easier to read in the translation but possibly less literally close to the original said. Therefore, some translations are more literal, and others are more dynamic. Translations fall across a spectrum from Formal Equivalence (more word for word) through Functional Equivalence (more dynamic) to Paraphrase (more thought by thought). 

Here is a comparison of the literalness of some popular translations[2]:

FORMAL EQUIVALENCE
More Literal
(Less interpretive, more word for word)

FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENCE
More Dynamic
(More interpretive, balance between literal and paraphrase)

PARAPHRASED
(Highly interpretive, more concept by concept)

Young’s
Literal

NASB
ASV
LSB

Amp
ESV
RSV

KJV
NKJV
CSB

NRSV
NAB
NET

NIV
NJB

NCV
NLT ICB


Phillips

GNT
CEV

TLB

Msg

NASB = New American Standard
LSB = Legacy Standard Bible
Amp = Amplified Version
ASV = Authorized Standard Version 1901
ESV = English Standard Version
CSB = Christian Standard Bible
RSV = Revised Standard Version
KJV = King James Version
NKJV = New King James Version

NRSV = New Revised Std Version
NAB = New American Bible
NET = New English Translation
NJB = New Jerusalem Bible
NIV = New International Version
NLT = New Living Translation
NCV = New Century Version
ICB = International Children’s Bible

Phillips = J B Phillips Paraphrase
GNT = Good News Translation
CEV = Contemporary English Version
TLB = The Living Bible
Msg = The Message

             

Where does Bible you use fall in this spectrum?

I generally use the New King James Version in my preaching or teaching. But I also often consult other translations such as the NASB, ESV, NIV, and CSB. Many of these translations rely more heavily on different manuscript traditions than the KJV and will favor other textual variants that the NKJV puts into the footnotes.

What is the advantage of reading from other translations or paraphrases?

It can help in seeing the richer meaning of some words and phrases.

What are the hazards of using some translations?

Some translations and paraphrases are highly interpretive and may reflect the translators’ biases over the original author’s meaning.

Tool: Parallel Bible

Parallel Bible
New Testament Parallel Bible

You may compare translations of a passage by opening up all the different translations you have on hand and noting the similarities and differences. Parallel Bibles are a time-saving resource that have multiple translations side-by-side for easy comparison.

If you have access to the internet, there are several sites where you can compare translations. A good example is https://thebible.org. Below is a screenshot of their Parallel Plus comparison of Psalm 119:1-3.

Online Parallel Bible

Compare and Contrast different translations of Psalm 119:1-3:

What differences do you notice in Psalm 119:1?

Most translate the first word as “Blessed” (NKJV, ESV. NASB, NIV), but the NLT translates it as “Joyful”, and the CSB translates it as “How happy”. The word that the NKJV translates as “unfiled”, others translate as “blameless” or “integrity”. Most translate the verb in the second line as “walk” but the NLT translates it as “follow”. In that same phrase, the preposition “in” (NKJV, ESV, NASB) can also be translated “according to” (CSB, NIV). Two translations render the word “law” as “instruction(s)” (NLT, CSB).

These differences may help us to understand the nuanced meanings of these words. We could repeat the process with the rest of the verses. For instance,

What differences do you notice in Psalm 119:2 & 3?

In Psalm 119:2, we also notice the different translations of “Blessed” as “Joyful” or “Happy”. The verb in line one is either “keep” (NKJV, ESV, CSB, NIV), “comply with” (NASB), or “obey” (NLT). The last word of line one is either “testimonies” (NKJV, ESV, NASB), “laws” (NLT), “decrees” (CSB), or “statutes”. In the NLT, “seek” is rendered “search for”. The phrase “whole heart” (NKJV, ESV) can also be “all their heart” (NASB, NLT, CSB, NIV).

In Psalm 119:3, “do no iniquity” (NKJV) is also rendered as “do no wrong” (ESV, NIV), “do no injustices” (NASB), “compromise with evil” (NLT), or “do nothing wrong” (CSB). They “walk in His ways” (NKJV, ESV, NASB, CSB) could also be rendered “walk only in his paths” (NLT) or “follow his ways” (NIV).

I encourage you to take the time this week to compare the rest of the verses in Psalm 119:1-8.

Tool: Amplified Bible.

Another translation that can be helpful in word and phrase meanings is the Amplified Bible. Look at how it translates Psalm 119:1-3,

1 ALEPH. How blessed and favored by God are those whose way is blameless [those with personal integrity, the upright, the guileless], Who walk in the law [and who are guided by the precepts and revealed will] of the LORD.
2 Blessed and favored by God are those who keep His testimonies, And who [consistently] seek Him and long for Him with all their heart.
3 They do no unrighteousness; They walk in His ways.
(Psalm 119:1-3 AMP).

What do you notice about the character and design of this translation?

The Amplified Bible will often give alternative translations, additions, or clarifications of words in brackets. This obviously sometimes makes reading the Amplified Bible cumbersome. But using it to see additional or alternate meanings for words can be very helpful. Again, this Bible translation can be found online at several good Bible sites like, Blue Letter Bible, Bible Gateway, Studylight, The Parallel Bible, and YouVersion. Some of these also have apps for use on your mobile device.

This leads us to the next area of investigation:

B. Word Studies

Why is it important to study the meaning of words in the Bible?

Words are the building blocks of thought. Since God has communicated with us verbally in the written scriptures, it follows that a proper understanding of the meaning of individual words is important for a full understanding of the Bible. As we’ve seen, comparing translations may help when we have questions about the meaning or use of certain words. But of course, it’s not only the meaning of the English word that is important, but the meaning of word in the original language. To find this meaning, some words may require additional investigation.

First, it is especially important to remember that words function in a context. This is why we took time to observe the context of the passage before we begin to interpret it. We must also keep the context in mind as we study the biblical words and how they are used.

How does the context change the meaning of a word?

Example: Consider the sentence, Jim is green. What does green mean?
It could mean a number of things. Context alone will tell. What does green mean in these cases?

    • Jim is green. He spilled the paint all over himself.
    • Jim is green. He’s been bitten by the green-eyed monster of jealousy.
    • Jim is a green. He has no clue what he is doing because he’s never worked this kind of job before.
    • Jim is green. He’s had an upset stomach all week.
    • Jim is green. He recycles everything and promotes renewable energy.

When words can have such diverse meanings, how do we determine the meaning of such a word? Several factors may be considered[3]. You can ask questions like:

  • Does the author give his own definition of the word in the context? (cf. Heb. 5:14; 2 Tim. 3:17).
  • Is the word defined by a qualifying phrase or editorial comment? (cf. John 2:19, 21; 7:37-39; Eph. 1:7).
  • Does the grammatical context shed light on the meaning? In Matthew 5:13 we know that the verb “loses … favor” (moraino, μωραίνω, G3471) means “to be tasteless” and not “to become foolish” (as in Rom. 1:22; 1 Cor. 1:20), because of its grammatical relation to “salt” in the text.
  • Does the subject matter require a certain meaning? (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:1 where “house” [οἰκία, οἰκία g3614) refers to our “physical body” not our domicile; Rom. 8:5-8 where “flesh” probably does not refer to our physical body because of the way it is contrasted with “Spirit”).
  • Is there structural parallelism that helps? (cf. Psalm 119:2, “those who keep His testimonies” has parallels “Who seek Him with the whole heart.” Ask, “Is it synomymous, antithetic, or synthetic parallelism?” See Bible Study Step #1 for definitions of these).
  • Are there cross references that give insight? (cf. “Blessed” in Psalm 119:1,2 cross references to Psalm 1:1-3). A cross-reference Bible or tools like Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (TSK) on the Blue Letter Bible are helpful here.
  • How is the word is used in the same chapter, book, and other parts of the Bible? (The most important usage is the immediate context, then a remote context in the same book, a context by the same author or in the same genre, finally, other remote contexts in the Bible. Warning: a word does not always have the same meaning everywhere it occurs in Scripture, even in the same book).

Example: The Apostle John uses the word “world” in his Gospel in many different ways. It can mean: the entire universe, John 1:10; the physical earth, John 13:1; the evil world system under Satan, John 12:31; and the world of humanity, John 3:16.
Look at John 3:17, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

What does the first “world” mean? It refers to the world into which Christ came: the physical world or world of humanity.
Does the second “world” mean the same thing? If so, then does that mean that, because Christ has come, God will not condemn any in the world? Does that mean everyone in the world will be saved?
What does the third “world” mean? Again, does it mean all people in the world? Or does it mean the world of only those who believe and are saved? Or does it mean the world of those who potentially will be saved?

Examining the context in John 3 and the rest of John’s Gospel and epistles can be helpful in determining the meaning of “world”.

As you can see, investigation like this connects with interpretation of the passage, because sometimes the interpretation of a verse may hinge on the meaning of a word. If you are interested in this subject, you can study it further using concordance, cross-reference, or commentary tools.

Let’s do a word study from Psalm 119.

What words in Psalm 119:1-8 did we have questions about from our observations? (see Bible Study Step #2.E, pick one)

Examples:

What does it mean by “blessed”? (Ps. 119:1)
What is “undefiled”? (Ps. 119:2)
Is the difference between the synonyms for “law” important? (Psalm 119)
What is iniquity? (Ps. 119:3)

What is meant by the term “the undefiled” (Psalm 119:1)?

From the context:

We have seen parallelism that explains and clarifies “the undefiled” as those who “walk in the law of the Lord” (Ps. 119:1), “keep (God’s) testimonies” (Ps. 119:2), “seek Him with the whole heart” (Ps. 119:2) , and “do no iniquity” (Ps. 119:3). Therefore, it has the note of obedience, diligence, and purity.

From Parallel translations:

We just saw in our parallel translation study that it is translated either undefiled, blameless, or people of integrity. The Amplified Bible expands it to those with personal integrity, the upright, the guileless.

From the concordance:

A tool that is helpful in word studies is a concordance.[4] A concordance is an alphabetical index of words used in the Bible and the main Bible references where the word occurs. Some study Bibles have a limited concordance as an appendix.

Does the concordance give definitions or meanings of the word?

The concordance shows that this adjective is used 91 times in 85 verses, variously translated as without blemish (44x), perfect (18x), upright (8x), without spot (6x), uprightly (4x), whole (4x), sincerely (2x), complete (1x), full (1x), and undefiled (1x). It’s root is a verb (tāmam, תָּמַם H8552) that means to complete, finish, perfect, or make clean.

Where else is this word used in Psalms?

Psalm 119:80
Psalm 15:2
Psalm 19:7

The concordance shows that this word is used again in the same chapter in Psalm 119:80, “Let my heart be blameless regarding Your statutes, That I may not be ashamed.” Psalm 15 asks about those who may abide in the LORD’s tabernacle, answering, “He who walks uprightly, And works righteousness, And speaks the truth in his heart” (Psalm 15:2). Psalm 19 uses this word to describe God’s Law, “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.” (Psalm 19:7).

It is used to describe Noah as “perfect” (Gen. 6:9). God commanded Abraham to “walk before Me and be blameless” (Gen. 17:1). The Passover lamb was to be “without blemish” (Exo. 12:5). Moses commanded Israel “You shall be blameless before the LORD your God.” (Deut. 18:13).

Some advanced Bible students may want to consult a Hebrew lexicon (cf. BDB).[5] A Bible lexicon is a specialized dictionary that provides detailed information about the meaning, usage, and historical context of words in the original languages of the Bible. There are other, even more in-depth theological dictionary tools that an advanced student may consult for insight (cf. Vines, TWOT or TDOT)[6].

Thus, from our word study we have a better understanding of the word “undefiled”. You may wish to do a similar word study on other words in the passage that are still unclear.

Next, we can …

 C. Study Phrases

Words combine to make phrases or smaller elements of sentences and verses. The online Bibles are helpful in studying phrases. Most of them have a search tool where you can type in a word or phrase and see if there are other places in the Bible that have that same phrase or combination of words.

Example:

Are there any other verses in the Bible with the phrase “uprightness of heart”?

If we search for this phrase in the NKJV on BLB, we get these results for the exact phrase:

6 And Solomon said: “You have shown great mercy to Your servant David my father, because he walked before You in truth, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with You; You have continued this great kindness for him, and You have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. (1 Kings 3:6)

7 I will praise You with uprightness of heart, When I learn Your righteous judgments. (Psalm 119:7)

We also see that it gives three verses that have the same words, just not the exact phrase:

5 “It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (Deut. 9:5)

4 “Now if you walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, (1 Kings 9:4)

17 “I know also, my God, that You test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of my heart I have willingly offered all these things; and now with joy I have seen Your people, who are present here to offer willingly to You. (1 Chr. 29:17)

What do we learn about “uprightness of heart” from these verses?

It was not because the Israelites had any “uprightness of [their] heart” that God allowed them to possess the land. It was because of His promise. “Uprightness of heart” is related to integrity and obedience to God’s commands. God tests and knows our hearts. He desires uprightness.

Sometimes researching a similar phrase will shed light on its meaning.

Try searching for the phrase “upright in heart”. What does it show?

God saves the “upright in heart.”
The wicked oppose the “upright in heart.”
The “upright in heart” have gladness and joy in the Lord.
The “upright in heart” know God, His love, and righteousness.
The “upright in heart” will trust in the Lord, receive His justice, and truth (light).

 

Another tool for clarifying words, phrases, verses, and passages is …

D. Cross-References

MacArthur Study Bible

Many study Bibles have cross-references to the verse or to phrases within verses. These are other places in the scripture that might say something similar or something that relates to the subject of the verse or passage.

This image shows the page containing Psalm 119:1-8 from the 1997 edition of the MacArthur Study Bible. Notice the cross-references and notes are in the center column. For instance, for the phrase “whole heart” (Ps. 119:2), it gives cross references of Deut. 6:5; 10:12; 11:13; 13:3.

What do these verses show us about the “whole heart”?

To love, fear, and serve the Lord with our whole heart.

Most study bibles have cross-references either in the margins, center, or in the notes at the bottom of the page.

NIV Study Bible

 

The 1995 NIV Study Bible references Deuteronomy 10:12 for the phrase “all their heart”. The “S” before the reference (meaning “See”) indicates that Dt. 10:12 is the head of a chain of references.

Another popular Study Bible based entirely on cross references is the Thompson Chain-Reference Bible. It groups and numbers cross-references by topics. The chain system allows you to take one verse and “chain” related verses through the whole of Scripture.

These numbered topics have lists of cross-references in the index in the back of the Bible.

You can find a useable version of the Thompson Chain-Reference topical concordance at: https://www.studylight.org/concordances/eng/tcr/b.html?pn=2&.

Or you can download a PDF version of it at https://archive.org/download/ThompsonChainReferenceBible/Thompson%20Chain%20Reference%20Bible.pdf.

You also can download Young’s Analytical Concordance at https://archive.org/download/analyticalconcor0000youn_j4x7/analyticalconcor0000youn_j4x7.pdf.

One of the easiest online tools for cross-references is the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. This tool is integrated into the Blue Letter Bible. It shows cross references either by the verse or by phrases within the verse.

TSK on BLB

What cross-references does TSK show for Psalm 119:7?

The TSK references the whole phrase “I will praise thee with uprightness of heart”. So some of the references speak about “praise” and others about “uprightness of heart”. Psalm 9:1 and 86:12 speak about praise with the whole heart. 1 Chronicles 29 shows David’s praise to God for the privilege of preparing to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. 1 Chronicles 29:17 uses the phrase “uprightness of heart”.

TSK

 

Click here to download PDF: How to Study the Bible Part Handout

 

————————————————————————————————————-

[1] For more information about Bible Translations, see What Is a Translation? (Version) by Don Stewart, at https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/stewart_don/faq/bible-translations/question1-what-is-a-translation.cfm.

[2] For an explanation and comparison of different translations, see Jacob Edson, Complete Guide to Bible Versions: Comparison, History, and Philosophy of Top Bible Translations [Updated 2025], https://www.biblegateway.com/learn/bible-101/bible-versions-guide/.

[3] Sam Storms, How to do a Word Study, https://www.samstorms.org/all-articles/post/how-to-do-a-word-study.

[4] A comprehensive concordance is Strong’s Concordance. Each Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek word is numbered, making it easy to reference. Strong’s includes word definitions based on Bible usage. The Blue Letter Bible incorporates this tool online: https://www.blueletterbible.org/resources/lexical/strongs-definitions.cfm.

[5] The most used Hebrew Lexicon is the Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius  Hebrew-Aramaic Lexicon. Blue Letter Bible (BLB) has this tool online: https://www.blueletterbible.org/resources/lexical/bdb.cfm. For the New Testament, BLB also has Thayer’ Greek Lexicon online: https://www.blueletterbible.org/resources/lexical/thayers.cfm.

[6] More comprehensive treatments of Hebrew words are found in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (TWOT) and Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT, 17 volumes). These tools can be found at TWOT: https://archive.org/details/theologicalwordb0000unse_v6z7; TDOT: https://archive.org/details/theological-dictionary-of-the-old-testament/Theological%20Dictionary%20of%20the%20Old%20Testament%20-%2001/.
For the New Testament, Vine’s Expository Dictionary of NT Words offers a deeper study of biblical words used in the English language. English entries are mapped to each applicable Greek root according to the Strong’s reference numbers, and include biblical usage, main occurrences in the Bible, English transliteration, and definitions. Find it incorporated in BLB: https://www.blueletterbible.org/resources/lexical/vines.cfm.

/ / 0

Load More