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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.

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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.

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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.

 

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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!

 

 

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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?

 

 

 

 

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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/.

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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.

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The Question of Resurrection — Matthew 22:23-33

matthew-the-kingdom-of-heaven

The Question of Resurrection

Matthew 22:23-33

We gather each week at this time to read, exposit, and apply the scriptures. We do so because we believe what the Apostle Paul says, that “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). We believe that the Bible is the very word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and is completely authoritative and sufficient. Today, in our study of Matthew 22, we meet a group of men who claim to know God, but who do not understand or believe the scriptures.

Remember our context: Jesus was teaching the people in the temple (Matt. 21:23) just a couple days before the crucifixion. The religious leaders in Jerusalem opposed Jesus at every turn. They questioned His authority (Matt. 21:23-27). They refused to believe in Jesus (Matt. 21:32) and sought to lay hands on Him (Matt. 21:26) and destroy Him (Matt. 12:14).  

So, they plotted to entangle Jesus in His words (Matt. 22:15) by asking Him some perplexing questions designed to trip Him up, discredit Him in front of the people, or indict Him before the Roman authorities. And each time, He their questions with such wisdom and authority that His opponents were silenced. First, the Pharisees sent their disciples and some Herodians to ask a political question about paying taxes to Caesar. This morning, we see another group, the Sadducees, who ask Jesus a theoretical question about the resurrection. And like the Pharisees, these men were not seeking the truth. They were unrepentant and settled in their unbelief.

As believers, living in the midst of a fallen world, unbelieving people may confront us with perplexing questions too. Sometimes, the questions come from those who have a genuine desire to know the answers. The lawyer’s question about the greatest commandment that we’ll be studying next time may fit this category (Matt. 22:34-40). But often, they come someone who has already made up his or her mind to ‘disbelieve’ before they ask the question. In those cases, the questions are just an attempt to make faith in Jesus Christ look absurd.

That’s the nature of the Sadducees question about the resurrection of the dead. In answering, Jesus not only teaches the truth about the resurrection, He also gives us an example of how to answer their suborn unbelief. He teaches us how to faithfully affirm the word and power of God when faced with the scoffing questions of unbelief. Our text has two main parts, the Sadducees riddle and Jesus’ answer, followed by Matthew’s account of the people’s response.

First, let’s look at . . .

1. The Resurrection Riddle (Matt. 22:23-28).

Matthew 22:23 says, “The same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him and asked Him…” Having just dispensed with the trick question of the Pharisees, Jesus had barely caught His breath when a group of Sadducees showed up with their own trick question. 

A. The Questioners: Sadducees (Matt. 22:23).

Who were the Sadducees? In the days that Jesus walked on the earth, there were three or four basic religious “parties” among the Jewish people. Only two of them figure prominently in the New Testament. The first, the Pharisees, we have encountered already a number of times the gospel of in Matthew. They were careful students of the law of Moses, and they sought to expand upon that law through their traditions, rules, and regulations in order to protect themselves from breaking God’s law. Their name suggests the idea of “separation” from the common people they considered sinners. For the most part, they were popular among the people because of their outward show of righteousness. They opposed Jesus because He exposed their hypocrisy and unbelief.

The second group were the Sadducees. They were generally wealthy, and their influence was mostly among the upper classes of society. They High Priest and all the chief priests in Jerusalem were Sadducees. At the time of Jesus, they held the Jewish political power. Their name likely comes from a Hebrew word that means “the righteous”. They rejected the oral traditions that the Pharisees insisted on and believed that the only authoritative scripture was the first five books of the Old Testament, written by Moses.

Because of this, the Sadducees denied angels, spirits, and the afterlife (Acts 2:38). They denied that the dead would be raised unto eternal punishment or eternal rewards. They didn’t believe Moses taught those things. Therefore, the promises of “rewards” from God only concerned life on this earth. Their view of life was, for the most part, materialistic.

As you can imagine, the Pharisees and the Sadducees didn’t get along with each other. They constantly debated and jockeyed for power in the Sanhedrin. But they had this in common with the Pharisees: they also opposed Jesus and saw Him as a threat to their religious and political power. So, when these Sadducees watched and saw that the Pharisees failed to trap the Lord, they stepped in to try to trap the Lord.

Let’s look at . . .

B. The Question: Resurrection (Matt. 22:24-28)

They came to Him with a courteous greeting—calling Him “Teacher“; but they had hatred in their hearts against Him. They said, “Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother” (Matt. 22:24).

The setting for their riddle comes from a law found in Deuteronomy. It was often called “the levirite law”—taken from the Latin word for ‘brother-in-law’ (levir). The Sadducees believed in this law, because it was found in the Scriptures given through Moses. Deuteronomy 25:5-6 says,

“If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family; her husband’s brother shall go in to her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. And it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel” (Deuteronomy 25:5-6).

To the Jewish people, it would be a great tragedy for a man to die without any offspring to carry on his name and preserve his inheritance of land. So, God gave this law to provide for the widow who remained, and to perpetuate the dead man’s name and inheritance. The Sadducees quote the law as saying, “his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother” (Matt. 22:24). The verb they use for “raise up” is the same root word as the term “resurrection”. And it’s here where we see the subtlety of the Sadducees. This was their form of resurrection belief. People are only resurrected in the sense that their children are raised up to continue their line.

They weren’t really concerned about the levirate marriage law. They just used it to craft their “trick question” to trap Jesus in His words. In Matthew 22:25-27 we have their riddle:

25 “Now there were with us seven brothers. The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother. 26 Likewise the second also, and the third, even to the seventh. 27 Last of all the woman died also.”

The Sadducees said that these seven brothers were “with” them, but it’s pretty safe to assume that they made up this story. Can you really imagine all seven brothers willingly marrying this woman, after all their brothers before them kept dying as her husband? It is so far-fetched and extreme that it could never happen in real life. The Sadducees built off this Old Testament law using this absurd scenario of seven brothers, each of whom keeps marrying the same wife and then dying before they have any children. Their intention is clear. They want to make the whole idea of resurrection look just as absurd as their scenario.

The technical name of this form of argument is reductio ad absurdum. It was meant to follow a speculation about the resurrection all the way through, until it was reduced to the level of absurdity. It’s a little like how one famous atheist used to ask if, when God bodily raised us from the dead on the last day, He was planning to resurrect all our old haircuts and fingernail-clippings as well. It was not a sincere question. It was simply a question asked out of a spirit of unbelief—one that was designed to make our Lord scramble around for some answer to a ridiculous question in an effort to save face.

Having laid the trap through this crazy story, they spring it on Jesus by asking, “Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her.” (Matt. 22:28).

They think they’re so smart! Just like the Pharisees thought they “got” Jesus with the question about paying taxes to Caesar, the Sadducees think they’ve “got” Jesus with this question. She can’t be married to them all, right? So, whose wife will she be? Is it the first brother? The last one? One of the brothers in between? It’s a ridiculous scenario which they think proves the absurdity of the resurrection.

However, just as Jesus got the better of the Pharisees in last week’s passage, so he gets the better of the Sadducees in this week’s passage. Look at …

2. Jesus’ Response (Matt. 22:29-32).

First, Jeuss tells them they are in error.

A. Two Errors of Unbelief (Matt. 22:29)

Jesus tells them right away, “You are mistaken . . .” The word that He used is one that meant “to be led astray” or “to be made to wander about”. The idea is that they were not just in error, they were lost, “deceived” in their thinking. They had wandered far from the way of truth. They had derailed from the straight path of the word of God. Jesus says that they were led astray by the condition of their thinking—”not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt. 22:29).

The word “knowing”, in its normal use, simply refers to having information that results in understanding. But it can also refer to having a close and intimate relationship with something or someone. And, in some cases, it refers recognizing and having respect and reverence something or someone. A good example of this is found in 1 Thessalonians 5:12; where Paul writes to his believing friends and tells them, ” And we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord and admonish you.” The ESV translates it “respect those who labor among you.”

Here is the nature of their error: It was all in the attitude of their minds and hearts. The Scriptures and the power of God had been set before them; but they didn’t “know” these things. They didn’t recognize or respect them. And because they didn’t begin with an attitude of respect for God’s word or God’s power—or more to the point, because they chose to “disbelieve” these things at the very start—they were led astray in their thinking and were “mistaken”.

So then, having exposed the attitude of unbelief from which the question was raised in the first place, notice how Jesus shows them their error regarding . . .

B. The Power of God in the Resurrection (Matt. 22:30).

The Sadducees had assumed that, when the Bible taught about the resurrection, it meant a resurrection into exactly the same state of being that the person was in before he or she died. And so, obviously, such an assumption would create a ridiculous picture—seven resurrected brothers having to arm-wrestle over whose wife the resurrected, seven-time widow would be. But Jesus says, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven” (Matt. 22:30).

“Marriage” is something that God made for life on earth. God provided marriage for the perpetuation of the humankind because He knew people would die. It was how God’s commandment to Adam and Eve was to be fulfilled—to be fruitful, and multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it (Gen. 1:28). It was also God’s means of preserving a “godly offspring” in this dark, fallen world (Mal. 2:14). And because God decreed that it is not good for man to be alone (Gen. 2:18), marriage is His gracious provision for the deep human need for a companion and fellow-heir in “the grace of life” (1 Peter 3:7).[1]

But in the resurrection—when God’s people are raised from the dead to enter into the full experience of eternal life—this “earthly” arrangement will no longer be needed. We will be “like angels of God in heaven“. We won’t be angels, of course, but we will be like angels. We will have none of the limitations and needs that we experience now in these unglorified bodies of ours. Because there will be no more death in heaven, there will be no need to perpetuate the human race by procreation. There will be no need for the same kind of companionship we needed in the struggles and trials of earthly life, because those things will be no more. We will all be together, forever, in perfection and in perfect joy.

Like many of you, I love my wife, and want to be with her forever in heaven. And I will. It may not be in the same kind of relationship that we enjoyed on earth, but it will be in a relationship that is deeper and more profound than what we can understand even in marriage. All our relationships in heaven will be free from sin and its effects.

The point is that the Sadducees were mistaken in not giving proper respect and reverence to the power of God. They didn’t know just how great God’s power is to transform His people from the state of sinful fallenness, which characterizes us now, into a state of heavenly glory that is like that of the angels.

C. Proof of Resurrection in the Scriptures (Matt. 22:30-32)

Second, Jesus sets the Sadducees straight about the Scriptures with respect to the resurrection of the dead. As you remember, they only regarded the five books of Moses as authoritative. But Jesus shows them that they didn’t even respect those Scriptures. Jesus shows them that these very same Scriptures support the resurrection that they denied. He says, “But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God . . . ?” (Matt. 22:31).

He then quotes God speaking from Exodus 3:6, saying, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (Matt. 22:32). At the burning bush, God introduced Himself as the God of Moses’ ancestors—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And even though those three men had physically died centuries before Moses’ time, they nevertheless still existed before God, because God said that He was—right then—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

From the very Scriptures they claimed to esteem, Jesus shows that these three patriarchs didn’t cease to exist when their bodies died. They still lived. They still owned God as their God. And God still owned them as His. Therefore, Jesus concludes, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” As it says in Luke 20:38, “… for all live to Him.”

If Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph still lived before God apart from their decaying bodies, then He is absolutely capable of giving life to their dead bodies once more. If God could create man’s body from the dust of the earth, He could just as easily recreate men’s bodies from dust or ashes.

The point is that the Sadducees did not give proper reverence and respect to the Scriptures. They trifled with it but didn’t allow themselves to see the truths of the resurrection that were revealed in it—or in the other portions of Scripture that they arrogantly rejected.

Finally, notice . . .

3. The Response of the People (Matt. 22:33).

33 And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching. (Matt. 22:33).

Notice that Matthew doesn’t tell us the Sadducees’ response. Instead, we read of the multitudes that listened. I suspect that the multitudes had heard this kind of debate between the Sadducees and Pharisees before. But when they heard the Lord’s answer, we’re told that the multitudes literally were “struck out of their wits” by it.

What do we learn from our Lord’s answer to this “resurrection riddle”? Certainly, we learn that we can trust what the Bible teaches us about the hope of the resurrection. Most of all, we can trust it because our Lord proved it by rising from the dead Himself just a few days after this question was asked.

But we also can learn that when we are confronted with unbelieving questions designed to trip us up, we can follow the Lord’s example. We should always respond with courteousness and love. But when the question comes from someone who is stubbornly committed to unbelief, and whose motive is to discredit the faith, I believe our Lord’s example teaches us not to simply jump to the question first—as we’re so easily inclined to do.

First, we should prayerfully, lovingly, but resolutely—in the power and authority of the Holy Spirit—expose the unbelief in the heart of the one asking the question. We should be bold and honest, saying something like, “You are mistaken, friend. You are led astray by the fact that you have chosen to begin in the wrong place. You have chosen from the outset not to esteem God’s power nor His revealed word. You have chosen to begin in disbelief in these things and then to argue from your disbelief. And because you began on the wrong path, you will end up in the wrong place.”

And then, the Lord’s example teaches us that we should affirm what God’s word says. We’re to put His revealed word forth to them plainly, and let it speak for itself. They may hear it and repent. Or they may hear it and harden their hearts against God even more as the Sadducees likely did. But the results are not up to us. They are up to the Holy Spirit. Our job is to simply give them God’s truth from God’s word and let it do its work.

The apostle Paul summed this up for us very well. He said,

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ . . . (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

 

[1] Greg Allen, Giving an Answer to Unbelief, https://www.bethanybible.org/archive/2008/052508.htm

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God and Caesar — Matthew 22:15-22

matthew-the-kingdom-of-heaven

God and Caesar

Matthew 22:15-22

In this section of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus has just rebuked the religious leaders in Jerusalem for their unbelief through a series of three parables. And Matthew 21:45-46 tells us their attitude when Jesus taught these parables:

Now when the chief priests and Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He was speaking of them. But when they sought to lay hands on Him, they feared the multitudes, because they took Him for a prophet. (Matthew 21:45-46).

Now they retaliate by trying to ensnare Jesus with trick questions. They plot together to confront our Lord—all with the intention of trapping Him in His words. They bring three challenges to Him in here in Matthew 22. They first ask about paying taxes to Caesar, then about the resurrection, and thirdly about the greatest commandment. Each of these question were calculated to damage the popularity of Jesus and to find a reason to condemn Him. In all three attempts, Jesus answers them in such a way as to make them marvel, and to leave them with nothing more they can say.

The first thing we see in our text today is…

1. The Ensnaring Question (Matt. 22:15-17)

Matthew tells us, “Then the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk” (Matt. 22:15). This was a calculated attack. Matthew says they “went and plotted.” We have heard that word before, all the way back in Matthew 12:14 when “… the Pharisees went out and plotted against Him, how they might destroy Him.” We will hear it again when they plot to put Jesus to death in Matthew 27:1 and when they plot to cover up the resurrection by paying off the guards in Matthew 28:12.

Their plot this time was to “entangle” Jesus in His words. They intended to trap Jesus, to ensnare by what He said. They had huddled together in order to set the trap by asking the perfect question that would catch Jesus saying something that would discredit Him before the people or accuse Him before the Roman authorities.

When Luke tells this same story in his Gospel, he gives us more details about their evil intent; “So they watched Him and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, that they might seize on His words, in order to deliver Him to the power and the authority of the governor” (Luke 20:20). Their intention was to “catch Him in His words in the presence of the people” (Luke 20:26). That was their motive.

Notice, then, who they sent to ask the question. The Pharisees didn’t go themselves. They sent their ‘students’, whom, as Luke tells us, they had put to work as “spies”. Matthew 22:16 says, “And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians“.

It’s hard to imagine two political groups more opposed to one another than the Pharisees and the Herodians. The Pharisees were devoted students of the laws and instructions of Judaism. They were proud of their Jewish heritage and deeply resented the rule of the Roman Empire over them. They expected the Messiah to come and rid them of their Roman oppressors.

The Herodians, on the other hand, were Jews who were sympathetic with Roman occupancy through the rule of the successors of Herod. The Herodians sought to fit in with Roman government because their cooperation brought them money and power. They encouraged the people to pay taxes to the Romans. I believe that the Pharisees invited the Herodians to be there in case Jesus sided with the Jews in the matter of this poll tax. These Herodians could then go back to Pilate and testify that Jesus was a traitor to Rome.

What could bring such opposite political and religious groups together? It was their opposition to a common enemy—the Lord Jesus Christ. They came to the Lord—these students of the Pharisees, and these Herodians, together—under the pretense of seeking His wisdom and advice concerning a matter of debate between them. But their purpose was to trap Jesus.

So, they bait the trap with flattery. They say things to Him that are accurate in and of themselves, but that they didn’t really believe: “Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men” (Matt. 22:16).

If they had really believed that Jesus was “true“, and that He taught “the way of God in truth“, and that He didn’t “regard the person of men”, then they would have bowed down to Him and received Him as Lord—because that’s who Jesus taught that He was. But they had no intention of bowing to Him. They were seeking to destroy Him!

Let me stop here for a moment and make a point of application. Be on your guard against flattery. It’s one of the devil’s greatest tools. Proverbs says, “A man who flatters his neighbor Spreads a net for his feet” (Pro. 29:5). It says, “24 He who hates, disguises it with his lips, And lays up deceit within himself; 25 When he speaks kindly, do not believe him, For there are seven abominations in his heart; … 28 A lying tongue hates those who are crushed by it, And a flattering mouth works ruin.” (Pro. 26:24-25, 28). Don’t use empty flattery and beware of those who bait their trap with flattery.

The words of praise that they spoke to Jesus were just a set-up. These phonies hoped that they could lull the Lord into a place where He’d relax His guard, so that they could trap Him with His own words. That’s the bait.

Now, notice the trap they set for Him. It’s a question about taxes. They said, “Tell us, therefore, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” (Matt. 22:17).

Obviously, the Pharisees would have answered “no”. They deeply resented paying taxes to the Gentile overlords. Every time they paid the required tax to the Roman government, it was a vivid reminder that they were not a free people or their own sovereign nation. They believed that they were God’s special people. But here they were, under the thumb pagan rulers.

On the other hand, the Herodians would have answered “yes” to the question about paying taxes. By paying the tax to the Romans, they continued to enjoy the benefits of their rule.

The Pharisees crafted this clever question and enlisted the Herodians to discredit Jesus before all the people. If He said yes—that it was legal to pay taxes to Caesar—then the Pharisees could accuse Him before the people, and say that He was not the conquering Messiah they expected. And if He said no—that it was not legal to pay taxes to Caesar—then the Herodians could immediately reported Him to the Roman governor. Either way Jesus answers, He loses.

But as we’ve read about our Lord in the Gospel, one of the things we have seen about the Him is that He rarely gave “yes” and “no” answers. And so, look next at . . .

2. The Exposing Response (Matt. 22:18-22)

Matthew 22:18 says, “But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, ‘Why do you test Me, you hypocrites?’” The Lord blew the cover right off their plot. He saw right through their flattery and trickery. They had put forth the false appearance of virtue, but their hearts were full of wickedness. In Matthew 23 Jesus will repeatedly condemn their hypocrisy.

I love how Jesus puts the question back to them. He says, “Show Me the tax money” (Matt. 22:19). So, someone “brought Him a denarius.” The denarius was a Roman coin that bore the graven image of Emperor Tiberius. At the time of Jesus, most coins would have had the following inscription: “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus” and “Pontifux maximus”, meaning highest priest. No wonder the Pharisees hated paying it! And Jesus held it up and asked, “Whose image and inscription is this?” (Matt. 22:20).

Jesus masterfully causes them to answer their own question by answering his. When they said the obvious—that the image and inscription on the coin were “Caesar’s”, then Jesus simply replied, “Render, therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s . . .” It’s Caesar’s coin. Give it back to him.

And that brings us to our final point. In Matthew 22:21, Jesus gives us …

3. The Enlightening Principle (Matt. 22:21)

Jesus didn’t fall into their trap of saying yes or no to the question of paying taxes. Instead, by using a brilliant but simple illustration, He helps us understand the right relationship between God and government. We often struggle to find the right relationship between religion and politics, between God and government.

Jesus’ enlightening principle regarding God and government is: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matt. 22:21). The principle is straight forward. The word “render” literally means to “give back” or return. It is the verb for paying a bill or settling a debt. In their question, the Pharisees asked if they should “give” the tax to Caesar. Jesus says to give it back, implying a debt that is owed. By admitting that it was Caesar’s coin, they acknowledged their subjection to his government and their obligation to pay what they owed.

The Bible consistently teaches the rightful domain of government and our obligation to it. Romans 13:1-7, for example, says;

Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor (Romans 13:1-7).

Fulfilling our God-appointed obligations to the government, as good citizens, is a matter of obedience to our Lord Himself. I am, first, a citizen of My Father’s kingdom. And because I am a citizen of His eternal kingdom first, I am therefore obligated to be a good and faithful citizen of the temporal kingdom in which He has placed me. This is why I pay my taxes, obey the laws, and fulfill my duty to vote.

But I believe the greatest emphasis in Jesus’ principle is not on that first part of our Lord’s answer, it is on the second part. We are to render “to God the things that are God’s” (Matt. 22:21).

That second obligation, it seems to me, is what really brought the conviction down on those who were seeking to trap Him with their question. Matthew tells us “When they had heard these words, they marveled, and left Him and went their way.” Luke tells us, that “they could not catch Him in His words in the presence of the people” (Luke 20:26). If they had given to God what first belonged to God, they would not only render to Caesar what was Caesar’s, but they would have also bowed down before the Lord Jesus Christ and pledged their first allegiance to Him.

Jesus’ statement implies that just as the Roman coin had Caesar’s image stamped on it and thus rightfully fell under his jurisdiction, so every person has God’s image stamped on him or her and thus rightfully belongs to God. Genesis 1 declares that God made mankind, male and female, in His own image. We owe God our very existence. We rightfully belong to Him. Everything we have belongs to Him.

If we are not yielding ourselves completely to God’s sovereign lordship, we are disobeying the supreme authority of the universe! By challenging Jesus, these Pharisees and Herodians were guilty of not rendering to God the things that are God’s. They came to Jesus, not to obey Him, but to trap Him. They acted as if they were sincerely interested in His opinion about a moral issue, but they had no intention of obeying what He said.

Listen, the only way you can come to Christ is to come honestly, repenting of your sins, believing in Him, being willing to obey Him. If you come to contend with the Lord in order to get your own way, beware! He knows the secret motives of your heart! One day every knee will bow before Him. So the overarching principle is that we must submit all of our lives to the absolute sovereignty of God, the supreme ruler of the universe.[i]

How careful are we to render to God the things that we owe to Him? This is a greater obligation than all others. How are we doing in terms of keeping it?

Do you make the worship of God a priority? Spend time reading God’s word and praying. Worship God in your homes with your families. Be faithful in your attendance at church. It’s rendering to God the things that are God’s. You owe your worship to the Lord because He is worthy. Jesus died for you that you might live for Him. Therefore, you owe Him your life. You owe Him your love and your worship. You Him your loyalty and your obedience. You owe Him your humble confession of sin and your desire to please and glorify and honor Him first in your life. Everything you have comes from God. Therefore, you owe God everything.

Hymnwriter Frances Havergal wrote:

Take my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;
Take my moments and my days,
Let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my silver and my gold,
Not a mite would I withhold;
Take my intellect and use
Every power as Thou shalt choose.

Dear brothers and sisters, it’s our duty to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But let’s be even more sure that we do the greater duty—to faithfully render to God what is God’s.

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[i] Steven Cole, Lesson 92: Guile, Government, and God (Luke 20:20-26), https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-92-guile-government-and-god-luke-2020-26

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The Parable of the Wedding Banquet – Matthew 22:1-14

matthew-the-kingdom-of-heaven

The Parable of the Wedding Banquet

Matthew 22:1-14

The events in Matthew 22 take place during the last week of Jesus’ life. Earlier in the week, Jesus had come into the city of Jerusalem while His disciples and other Jews praised Him as the Messiah and King. The next day, Jesus went into the temple and cleansed it, driving out those who had made His Father’s house a marketplace and a den of thieves. The following day, He’s back in the temple teaching the people when the chief priests and elders confront Him about His authority to do these things. And He silenced them, as He always did. And then Jesus spoke three parables, one right after the other.

In the parable of the two sons, Jesus condemned their hypocrisy and unbelief, saying, “Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you…” (Matt. 21:31), because they believed, but you did not repent and believe (Matt. 21:32). Then in the parable of the vineyard, He exposed their treachery and told them, “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).

Now, in the parable of the wedding banquet, Jesus explains that statement. There are two scenes in the parable. They both have invitations, responses, and then judgment. The first scene in the parable focuses on those who refuse to come. The second scene focuses on those who do come. And then at the end of the passage Jesus applies the parable, saying, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matt. 22:14).

First, we see …

1. The Invitation Refused (Matt. 22:1-7)

Look at Matthew 22:1-2:

1 And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son,“ (Matt. 22:1-2)

Jesus is teaching about “The kingdom of heaven,” and He compares it to “a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son” (Matt. 22:2). It’s obvious that the king in Jesus’ parable is symbolic of His heavenly Father, and Jesus Himself is the ‘bridegroom son’. The “marriage,” or wedding feast, was a way of illustrating the entry into the full blessings of the kingdom of heaven. The ‘invited guests’ are His covenant people—the Jews and particularly the Jewish leaders of that generation. The parable illustrates how Jesus came and presented Himself to them as the Messiah, the Son of God, and how they rejected Him.

A wedding and the wedding banquet is usually a blessed and joyful event in the life of any family. In the time of Jesus, it included many days spent feasting and celebrating. But this was no ordinary the wedding. It was the royal wedding of the king’s son. To receive an invitation to such a prestigious event would have been the highlight of your life. It’s not the sort of thing you miss, if you are allowed to go.

When the time came for the royal wedding feast, the king “… sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding,” (Matt. 22:3a). The king would have sent out invitations in advance, and the people would have been expected to prepare to attend. Then, once the event was ready, he sent out his servants to tell everyone it was time to come.

But then, we are shocked to hear that “… they were not willing to come” (Matt. 22:3). You can almost hear the gasp of the crowd Jesus when Jesus says this. Not only were these people missing out on the greatest event in the kingdom, but they took the risk of insulting the king himself! Their will was set against it.

Even so, the king was gracious and patient. He sent out his servants again, this time urging them, “See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.” (Matt. 22:4). The servants explain the lavishness and the urgency of the wedding. Everything is ready. You need to come now!

But again, inexplicably, the response of the invited guests in Matthew 22:5 is “But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business.” The phrase that is translated “they made light of it” comes from a word that means “to have no care or concern; to be neglectful.” The careless guests neglected the king’s invitation. They were more concerned about their own lives than attending the banquet. One had his farm that needed his attention. Another had pressing business to attend to. But think about it! Compared to the royal wedding feast, these everyday, mundane things are insignificant.

 In Luke 14, Jesus gave a similar parable, where three different people gave three different excuses for not coming to the feast. One said, ” I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused” (Luke 14:18). Another said, ” I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused” (Luke 14:19). A third said, “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come” (Luke 14:20). What lame excuses! Who buys a filed without seeing it or oxen without first testing them? In the minds of these people, their land or animals or wife were more important than the wedding feast. How incredibly self absorbed these people were! When the king invites you to a royal wedding, you can take time off of your daily activities to honor him. The land will be there tomorrow. You can test out your new oxen later. Your wife can come with you.

Then, even more inexplicably, Jesus says in Matthew 22:6, “And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them.” Jesus is illustrating the same thing here that He just showed in the parable of the vineyard. The owner of the vineyard was gracious and patient with the wicked vinedressers. Yet, “the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another” (Matt. 21:35). They were ungrateful and obstinate.

I wonder if you can see in this the great patience of our heavenly Father toward those to whom the Lord Jesus was sent as King. The Jewish nation had been given promises in the Scriptures and from the prophets, who told them again and again that their King was coming. The announcement had already been sent out to them. Then, God sent a mighty herald to announce coming of the King in the person of John the Baptist. He preached in the wilderness of the Jordan to the Jewish people and made it clear to everyone who could hear him that Jesus was the Christ, calling people to repent of their sins. But again, they didn’t listen. King Herod had John beheaded, and the Jewish religious leaders refused to repent at his message.

Then Jesus came preaching the kingdom and proving that He was the Son of God through miracles, signs, and wonders. God was inviting the Jews to receive their King, but for the most part, His invitation was met with indifference. And with the religious authorities, Jesus faced violent opposition. Even now, they were plotting to destroy Him.

And for most, their obstinate unbelief continued even after God raised His Son from the dead. They continued to persecute the apostles and all who believed in Jesus. The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ had invited His covenant people to receive their King, and to enter into the full blessings of His kingdom reign. But His invitation had been met with indifference, and then with scorn, and then finally with violence. And yet, He patiently continued to issue the invitation. What a horrible thing—to harden one’s heart against the greatest invitation ever given! But what a patient God it is that gives the invitation again, and again, and again!

When God calls you to the kingdom, it is foolish to refuse to come. How many people today are just indifferent to the call of the gospel of Christ? They are so caught up with concerns and pleasures of this life that they refuse to even think about God’s eternal kingdom. Some today are still violently opposed to the gospel. But whether you are just indifferent or violently opposed, the judgment is the same.

Jesus says, “But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.” (Matt. 22:7). To scorn the gracious offer to attend the joyous wedding feast of the king’s son was to rebel against the king himself.

And likewise, to refuse the offer to receive God’s Son as King is to reject God Himself. As Jesus said, “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him” (John 5:23b). And there comes a time when the Father’s patience is exhausted toward those who persist in disregarding His Son and scorning His rights as King. And sadly, the day came—within forty years of our Lord speaking these words—when the Roman armies came and destroyed the city of Jerusalem. “Not one stone” of the temple, as Jesus had warned, would be left upon another, “that shall not be thrown down” (Matt. 24:2).

When we snub God’s invitation, we open ourselves to judgment. God in His grace makes repeated invitations, but the day will come when the invitation is withdrawn, and those who refuse to come will face judgment. That is the fate of those who refuse to come to Christ.

Next we see…

2. The Invitaton Received (Matt. 22:8-13)

8 Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. 9 ‘Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.’ (Matt. 22:8-9).

Notice that the wedding feast had not been canceled. It would go on as scheduled—even though those who had been invited had shown themselves unworthy of the great privilege of attending. The king graciously sent his servants out onto the highways and into the outer reaches to find as many people as they could, and invite them to come to his son’s wedding feast and fill his son’s banquet table.

Matthew 22:10 says, “So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.” There were no qualifications. Whoever they may be, wherever they were, they were gathered in. And when it was over, the banquet hall was filled with happy guests—people who perhaps were beggars, or common laborers, or sinners, or even foreigners from far outside the king’s realm—people who never would have expected that they would be so privileged as to sit at the wedding feast of the son of a king. And yet, there they were!

In truth, when it comes to God’s kingdom, none of us are worthy to come. We are all sinners who have broken God’s laws. None of us deserve to come. But when it comes to God’s kingdom, the worthy are those realize they are not worthy! The worthy are those who respond to God’s free gift of grace. Those who are brought into the kingdom, unworthy as they are, arrive as special guests to the wedding feast.

And that brings us to a very serious note. The invitation to come to the wedding feast was open to all who would receive it. But there was a problem. Jesus tells us, “But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment.” (Matt. 22:11). This is the most difficult part of the parable to understand, and the most disturbing. It is meant to be disturbing. You read this and say, “Wait a minute! How did this guy get in if he didn’t have any wedding clothes? And why was he thrown out? Does this mean we can get thrown out of heaven?”

When a great king would put on a feast, he would not only provide the invitation and all the food, but sometimes he would also provide the necessary garments to wear at the feast. The wearing of a wedding garment was an important expression of the dignity of the feast. This man had no such garment on. All that he wore were the filthy rags of his own provision. And when the king saw him, he said, “Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?”

The man in Jesus’ parable was “speechless”. This would have been a perfect opportunity for the man to say something like, “Oh; please tell me how I may get a wedding garment, so I can enjoy your gracious offer to attend the feast of your son!” But he didn’t. He has nothing he can say in his own defense. He presumed himself to enjoy the benefits of the feast, while refusing to be adorned with the proper garment. And as a result, the king ordered that he not be merely shown to the door. Rather, he was bound “hand and foot” and “cast into outer darkness”, where, as Jesus says, “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 22:13).

This is a warning. We must not think that we can enter into the blessings of the Kingdom of heaven apart from being adorned—by faith—with Christ’s own righteousness. When the Bible speaks of that great future day of the wedding feast of Christ, it says, “Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9). But it also says that “His wife has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints” (Rev. 19:8).

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.” Christ took our filthy garments of sin upon Himself on the cross. He suffered and died to redeem us. He is our propitiation, God’s willing sacrifice to remove His wrath against our sin. When we trust in Christ, we receive by grace the righteousness of Christ. Chris Anderson’s hymn puts it beautifully,

His robes for mine: O wonderful exchange!
Clothed in my sin, Christ suffered ‘neath God’s rage.
Draped in His righteousness, I’m justified.
In Christ I live, for in my place He died.

Revelation 22:14 (NASB) says, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.” We come to Jesus as we are, but we don’t stay that way. He imputes to us His righteousness and washes us in His blood. He makes us righteous by His ongoing sanctification through His word. Jesus not only saves us from the penalty of sin. He also saves us from the power of sin.

So, what was wrong with the man who tried to enter the wedding banquet without a wedding garment? He thought his own clothes were good enough. He thought he didn’t have to change. He is a picture of those who think they don’t need Jesus. He pictures those who trust in their own righteousness instead of Jesus’ righteousness. The only garment that the Father will accept at His Son’s wedding feast is that of His Son’s own righteousness. Anything less than that will result in being thrown out into outer darkness.

Finally, we see..

3. The Parable Applied (Matt. 22:14)

Jesus closes by saying, “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14).

The first part is that “many are called.” The gospel call goes out to all, and the Bible says whosoever will, may come. We read in Revelation 22:17, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.” So, that’s the first part: many are called.

But the second part is this: “few are chosen.” In other words, the invitation goes out to all, but not everyone who is invited comes. Why do some people respond while others do not? Remember the guests in the parable? Jesus said, “they were not willing to come” (Matt. 22:3). Their wills were set against it. That is all of us. Apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, our wills are set against God. We don’t want to come. And so, when the gospel invitation comes, we make all sorts of excuses. We put our own plans and priorities first. Some even get hostile towards those who are sharing the good news.

Just as none of the original guests in the parable came to the wedding, so none of us can come to Christ on our own. Jesus says in John 6:44: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.” Jesus also says this in John 6:37: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” And He says in John 15:16, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” Put it all together, and this is what Jesus is saying. No one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him, and everyone whom the Father draws will come. We did not choose him, but he chose us. Many are called, but few are chosen.

So, this is the application of the parable. The gospel call goes out to everyone. No one is excluded. There is a paradox here. Whosever will may come, but no one comes unless the Father draws them. He calls us to repent and believe in Christ. We love God because He first loved us. Many are called, but few are chosen.

And you may say, “How then do I know for sure that I’m among the chosen?” The answer is simple. How have you responded to the call? Have you repented and believed in Christ? When you heard the message of His sacrifice for you on the cross, did you place your trust in His sacrifice as payment for your sins? Do you, by faith, count on His righteousness alone to make you acceptable in God’s sight? And in response, are you progressively turning from sin and following Him in loving obedience?

If so, you are among those who He not only called, but also chosen. You have a place awaiting you at the table of the joyous wedding feast of God’s Son!

And what a place at the table it is! What a great celebration it will be! Because behold, you are the Bride! Give God the glory!

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