Luke 16:14-18

Jesus Replies to The Mockery of the Pharisees Directed At His Ideas About Wealth (16:14-18).

The Pharisees had been listening in to his advice to His disciples and they derided Him. For in their eyes having wealth was a good thing. Some of them were wealthy, and others of them coveted wealth. But both were agreed that being wealthy and prospering was an evidence of being pleasing to God (compare Luke 20:47; Matthew 23:14; Matthew 23:16; Romans 7:7). They thus did not see mammon as ‘unrighteous', for they failed to look at the motives that lay behind wealth gathering, and failed to see how selfish it made people.

In reply Jesus does not specifically argue about wealth. He goes deeper down to consider the more basic problem of their whole attitude to life, and replies by pointing out how many are the ways in which they are lacking because of the sin in their hearts. His point is that they hold most of the views that they do because their hearts are not genuinely pure. This is not only demonstrated by their views about wealth, but also by the fact that they have not recognised that the new age is present. Unlike His disciples, they are not pressing into the Kingly Rule of God and responding to Jesus' teaching. They are blind to heavenly realities. Furthermore they are also not observing the genuine details of the God-given written Law in which they boast, and this is evidenced by the fact that some of them even have their eyes on other people's wives, and are justifying their behaviour by manipulating the Law so as to be able to marry them. They may deride Him, but if they would but look into their hearts they would scoff at themselves.

In the chiasmus for the whole section this passage is paralleled with the blind man at Jericho who insistently pressed himself on Jesus until his eyes had been opened. Here it is the Pharisees who are spiritually blind, while the disciples (who had been spiritually blind) are pressing into the Kingly Rule of God.

Analysis.

a The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things; and they scoffed at him (Luke 16:14).

b And he said to them, “You are they who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts, for that which is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15).

c “The law and the prophets were until John, from that time the Good News of the Kingly Rule of God is preached, and every man enters violently into it” (Luke 16:16).

b “But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one tittle of the law to fall” (Luke 16:17).

a “Every one who puts away his wife, and marries another, commits adultery, and he who marries one who is put away from a husband commits adultery” (Luke 16:18).

Note that in ‘a' the Pharisees are seen as lovers of money and in the parallel they are seen as lovers of other men's wives. In ‘b' we are told of what is exalted among men and is an abomination to God (their own interpretation of the Law), and in the parallel we have what is exalted by God, the genuine written words of the Law. And in ‘c' and centrally we have what has even surpassed what is exalted by God, the Kingly Rule of God itself which all whose hearts are right (which sadly excludes the Pharisees who are dedicated to their own teaching) press violently into.