Matthew 23:1-4

SECTION 59
JESUS ATTACKS THE SIN OF THE RIGHTEOUS

(Parallels: Mark 12:38-40; Luke 20:45-47)

TEXT: 23:1-4

1 Then spake Jesus to the multitudes and to his disciples, 2 saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses-' seat: 3 all things therefore whatsoever they bid you, these do and observe: but do not ye after their works; for they say, and do not. 4 Yea, they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

a.

Although much of this sermon is directed to the scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, Matthew affirms that the message is initially spoken to the multitudes and to His disciples. What do you think is Jesus-' purpose for this kind of approach? Do you think that there were some scribes and Pharisees present among the crowds to hear Him say this? If His purpose is largely to criticize the scribes and Pharisees, why does Jesus bring the multitudes and His disciples into a question that directly involves others?

b.

What do you think is the crucial importance of mentioning Moses in this context?

c.

After all that Jesus has suffered at the hands of the scribes and Pharisees, and in view of how He condemns them, how can He possibly recommend that the nation do and observe all things that they bid? Is not this a self-contradiction? Do you think He approves the traditions of the elders as taught by these religious leaders?

d.

What arguments do you believe the religious leaders could have used to justify their creation of their heavy burdens, grievous to be born? What do you think they were trying to accomplish this way?

e.

What arguments could these same religious leaders have offered for stedfast refusal to help people struggling under these religious burdens? In fact, how were they being perfectly consistent with their system by refusing to lighten these burdens?

f.

If the burdens placed upon people represented the conscientious thinking of the theologians, what motives should have convinced the latter that their own conscience had been wrongly educated or formed? Jesus thinks that they SHOULD have been ready to help people. What over-riding considerations could Jesus have cited to sustain this conclusion?

g.

What fundamental principle(s) are at the base of Jesus-' argumentation in this section?

h.

When is it ever right to follow hypocrites? Jesus called the scribes and Pharisees hypocrites, yet He pointed out one area in which it was absolutely obligatory service to God to follow their lead. What was this area? Do you agree with Jesus?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

In the hearing of all the people Jesus then addressed His disciples, Beware of the theologians. They and the Pharisees represent the legitimate authority of Moses, sitting as teachers of his Law. So practice and observe what they tell you, but stop being guided by their lives. They do not practice what they preach. They enslave men's conscience with unbearable moral responsibilities. They themselves, however, make no exceptions for the hardship cases to which their casuistry leads.

SUMMARY

Whereinsofar the theologians speak God's Word, follow them. However, beware of the hypocritical example that betrays their inconsistency and unfaithfulness to His Word. They make God's Word harder to practice than God Himself made it! Yet they do not help people to keep it.

NOTES
I. CONTRAST BETWEEN SPIRITUAL LEADERS
Is Matthew Collecting Again, or Is This One Sermon?

Matthew 23:1 Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples. Admittedly, Matthew definitely signals the beginning of a new discourse. However, these words do not necessarily disavow all connection with the controversies of the preceding chapter. They may simply suggest that Jesus-' resounding victory over the enemies had prompted a murmur of enthusiastic approval that swept the gathered throng. Many listeners, loyal to popular leaders and parties, may have muttered tense disagreement. Others perhaps created an informal intermission by turning His answers over in their mind or by discussing them aloud with people nearby. Jesus, however, was not through with the Pharisean leadership of the nation. He must expose their hypocrisy and disabuse the public regarding its false heroes and effect their disaffection. So, He formally begins again to speak.

Some commentators confidently assert that Matthew has merely collected together here as one discourse some declarations Jesus made on various occasions. (Cf. Plummer, Matthew, 313.) Evidence offered for this conclusion involves the supposition that Matthew has done so elsewhere (i.e. chaps. 5-7, 10 and 13) and the fact that much of Matthew's material is also found in Luke 11:39-52; Luke 13:34 f; Luke 14:11; Luke 18:14. Ironically, Plummer undermines his own theory by surmising (ibid., 315), It is not impossible that Christ may have made the charge on two separate occasions, and in both places the context is suitable, a true observation that may also be applied to the other supposed collections!

Further, the absence of any notice of change in the scene of Jesus-' activities, beginning from the moment He entered the temple (Matthew 21:23) until He left (Matthew 24:1), argues that there is an uninterrupted connection between the wide-ranging debates with the Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, chief priests and elders (Matthew 21:22) and this divine counter-attack so very relevant and opportune under the circumstances Additional corroboration comes from Mark (Mark 12:37 f.) and Luke (Luke 20:45) who report the presence of a great, eager throng in whose presence Jesus spoke the words quoted by Matthew.

Another connection is the substance of Jesus-' sermon put succinctly by Mark and Luke: Beware of the scribes! (Mark 12:38 = Luke 20:46). It was to the assembled crowds who had just witnessed the scribes-' inability to answer a plain question that they, of all people, must know (Mark 12:35), to whom Jesus directed this warning. The crowds had already begun to sense their leaders-' theological incompetence. They must now also learn of their hypocrisy and wickedness, all of which had long been hidden under a veneer of pious respectability and idle, disputatious speculation that passed for serious reflection on God's Word, Matthew 23 is the sort of message to be expected in this context. Jesus-' timely repetition of accusations here that He had made earlier (i.e. Luke 11:39-52; Luke 13:34 f.) should not surprise anyone, since the hypocrisy and presumption He targeted were widespread and needed repeated condemnation. The surprise, rather, is that Jesus should have repeated this discourse so seldom!

So, this verse is not merely literary device, but the necessary historical framework which introduces the sermon following. Those who doubt this must furnish valid textual or historical criteria for distinguishing what is here offered as the factual beginning of a single message, from any other objectively historical fact that Matthew records, like the resurrection.

Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples. Shocking, indeed, at first glance is the fact that our Lord should publicize the weaknesses of the religious leaders rather than discuss them with them privately (cf. Matthew 18:15). After all, what need did the multitudes and his disciples have, or what good could be served, that others-' sins should be paraded this way and then criticized?.

1.

The multitudes and his disciples, most of whom were not from Jerusalem, but from Galilee and foreign countries, all too often followed these bigoted leaders, hence needed warning. His frank denunciations of the scribes aim at undermining the undeserved confidence that people placed in them. So long as others naively herded together behind those saintly men, they would be torn between Jesus-' revelations of truth and the slavery of conscience proclaimed by the Pharisees.

2.

The multitudes and his disciples would be sorely tempted to imitate the human bibles their teachers so notoriously displayed. By setting His criticisms in a neutral setting, i.e. by condemning the scribes-' conduct, Jesus did not attack the sins of His potentially savable audience directly. Rather, He objectified truth by applying it to others first, furnishing clear examples of what not to be or do. The prevalence of Judaizing tendencies in the early Church renders this major position statement imperative (Acts 15:5; Galatians 2:1-5).

3.

The conscience of the nation was at stake. Must the Righteous One be silent while the wicked freely strut about and when what is vile is honored among men (Psalms 12:8)? The moral order is turned upside down, when men call evil Pharisees good, but call humble, repentant publicans and harlots bad! Should not God's Prophet cry out against it?!

4.

Just as the world needed to hear the Sermon on the Mount describe the ideal citizen of God's Kingdom, so it must now face the Christian's perfect opposite, the hypocrite. Jesus must decisively pronounce sentence upon the deadliest type of wickedness any age can produce: religious pretense. Disciples must learn not to confuse for Christianity a merely up-to-date copy of the same theological system or mentality that Jesus Himself unsparingly refused to tolerate. The inability of the modern Christian unfalteringly to identify with Jesus-' anti-Pharisaic polemic gauges his own degree of sympathy more with those who murdered Him, than with Christ Himself. (Cf. Bruce's eloquent defense of this discourse against those who criticize Jesus. Training, 318ff.)

5.

This sermon is no mere exposé of uniquely Pharisean sins. Jesus is hammering at real, universally human problems produced by self-righteousness, sectarianism, evasion of responsibility, indifference to social justice, exaggerated emphasis on religious trivia, self-glorification, etc. in short, by selfishness and sin in any age. To conceive of Matthew's major concern behind his inclusion of this major anti-Pharisaic polemic in his gospel as mainly to meet the danger of the Pharisean sect's influence in his local area or congregation(s), is to miss the far broader human temptation Pharisaism represents for every century and culture Although the SECT of Pharisees has no appreciable influence on the Church of Jesus Christ today, the SPIRIT behind Pharisaism, its attitudes and poisonous fruits are anything but dead and gone!

6.

Because this was to be Jesus-' last public address, it was His final opportunity to admonish the Jewish leadership personally. They had just demonstrated themselves incorrigibly closed to His truth (chap. 22). There was no winning them right now. So, as a class, their leadership is in question and on trial. Should not the Judge of all earth do right?! Jesus is JUDGE (John 5:22; John 5:27; John 5:30; 1 Corinthians 4:3 ff.; 2 Corinthians 5:10). Not only can He infallibly expose the thoughts of men's hearts (John 2:25; Revelation 2:18; Revelation 2:23), but also His sense of right timing for exposing hypocrites to others-' gaze is unquestionable.

7.

Those who allege that Jesus failed to be true to His own ethic by failing to love His enemies and by exposing the Pharisees and scribes to this scathing denunciation, forget that this exposure of hypocrisy and adulteration of godliness is no evidence of personal; enmity or personal bitterness. Rather, what stirred Jesus-' righteous indignation was the monstrous debasement of true religion and the gross misrepresentation of His Father's Word. His wrath is not motivated by personal bitterness gone amok. This is godly anger against evil. Had our Lord NOT been deeply stirred by the evils He uncovered here, or had He toned down their seriousness, His would have been a faithless, courageless betrayal of God's truth! Because Christians too are sometimes called to this painful task (cf. Acts 20:29; 2 Corinthians 11:13; Galatians 2:14; Philippians 3:2; 1 Timothy 5:20), we would do well to study His motives and His methods.

The multitudes, by contrast, who had already gravitated to Jesus-' side and eagerly drank in His message (Mark 12:37), unlike His critics, had heard His commendation of the wise Pharisee (Mark 12:34) and they would hear His sad lament over Jerusalem (Matthew 23:37 ff.), and so were in a better position to sense that He loved people as dearly as He loved truth and hated iniquity and what it did to both. There is no evidence that these multitudes were disappointed by Jesus-' attitude, no suspicion that He withheld love from the Pharisees or were treating them with inhumanity.

For months Jesus-' enemies had attempted without success to expose Him as unfit to lead the nation. Now, with a few swift strokes that sketch typical Jewish scholarship at its best as hypocritical, Jesus masterfully unseated His opposition. Mingled with indignation and heartbreak, His charges warned Israel that its apparently most pious men were fakes, and that truth and godliness must be found elsewherein Himself alone.

Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples. Luke has: in the hearing of all the people, He said to His disciples.. All heard, but His specific objective was to instruct His own followers. Were the scribes present to hear Jesus-' introduction?

1.

How could they escape and return for the second part (cf. Matthew 23:13 ff.).

2.

Jesus-' addressing the disciples and crowds does not exclude the scribes-' being present to face Jesus-' disapprobation implied in the first part (Matthew 23:1-12). Just because He did not address them directly does not prove they were not there.

3.

By addressing the crowds, rather than the scribes first, Jesus achieved a precious, psychological advantage. The crowds would press in to hear teaching addressed specifically to them, and, by their massive interest in what He had to say, would stymie any counter planning the muttering scribes still present might attempt.

Matthew 23:2 The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses-' seat. Moses-' seat is his cathedra, his Bible Chair from which his doctrine is read and expounded. In Malachi's day it was the priests who had the magisterial responsibility (Malachi 2:7 ff.), a duty as old as the priesthood itself (Leviticus 10:17; Deuteronomy 17:9-13). But with Ezra the priest and scribe (Nehemiah 12:26) the function began shifting onto professional scribes (Nehemiah 8:4; Nehemiah 8:7-9; Nehemiah 8:13; Nehemiah 8:18; cf. Ezra 7:1-6; Ezra 7:10). Many such scribes were still within the priesthood, a phenomenon still reflected in the New Testament where scribes of the Pharisees are mentioned (Mark 2:16; Luke 5:30; Acts 23:9), a fact that implies there were also scribes of the Sadducees, the priestly party. The scribes, because of their familiarity with Moses-' Law, were recognized as the authorized theologians and seminary professors in Israel. Moses-' seat, in Jesus-' day, could be found throughout Israel, wherever from early generations Moses has in every city those who preach him, for he is read every sabbath in the synagogues (Acts 15:21). The Pharisees come under Jesus-' fire, because their party zeal strenuously applied the theologians-' legalistic conclusions to everyday life with a rigor that required everyone to fall in lock-step behind them. In this sense, the Pharisees, too, were Israel's teachers, even if unofficially. As a reform movement in Judaism, they aimed to keep the nation pure, truly a people of God, obedient to the Law, living out its requirements in everyday life. Personally determined to root out laxness and restore God's Word, Pharisees won Israel's praise and respect for their diligence and conscientiousness. Where they went wrong Jesus will point out. But here He must mention them, because, despite their faults, they uphold Moses, as opposed to the paganizing leadership of the Sadducean priesthood. So, although the scribes were really the official teachers, the addition of Pharisees here is not a mistaken embellishment by Matthew.

Moses-' Law was yet in force, therefore to be obeyed by those subject to it. At Christ's death, the Mosaic dispensation officially expired. But until it did, that Law was God's Word to Israel, and, for most people in Israel, the scribes remained the chief, if not the only, accessible source of information regarding the Law. His implication is clear: whatever comes from Moses is from God and to be received with full confidence and submission, Merely because Jesus must undercut the unjustified pretensions of the Jewish magisterium does not mean that Moses must go too. So, before beginning His condemnation of the unfaithfulness and sinful conduct of the religious leaders, He calls for sincere reverence for God's Law.
So, by saying, the scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses-' seat, Jesus merely states the fact, without necessarily praising or blaming them. The question now, however, is where do we go from here? This He answers next.

Lack of Sincere Earnestness and Personal Consistency

Matthew 23:3 All things therefore whatsoever they bid you, these do and observe. Therefore (oûn) introduces, not a justification of Pharisean occupation of the teaching chair, but information: Given the present situation, you should act as follows. And yet, when this apparently unqualified statement is weighed in the light of the general New Testament picture of these scholars-' unrelenting opposition to Jesus, His words are shocking and appear quite mistaken. How could He justify this encouragement to follow those whom He must characterize elsewhere as thieves and robbers and against whose deadly, insidious influence He had warned His followers (John 10:1; Matthew 16:12)? Several reasons for this admonition might be:

1.

He does not intend their human traditions. Because Jesus publicly and resolutely repudiated all that is inconsistent with God's Law (Matthew 15:1-20), it is clear that He means all that they bid you that is in strict harmony with Moses-' Law, not their multitudinous technicalities, frivolous traditions and other rules that are contrary both to its letter and its spirit. It is rather when they sit on Moses-' seat that they are to be heard, i.e. when they teach the Law itself. His criticism is that they say (what is recognized as divine truth) and do not. Jesus-' present accusation is not that they do not preach Moses at all, but that they do not practice what Moses demands. So, He draws a sharp distinction between the office and the men who hold it. The office is to be respected for its lawful teaching and exposition of the Law, because it carries out Moses-' function in Israel, i.e. that of teacher of God's will.

We must not abolish authority structures in the Church merely because some office holders abuse their powers. Rather, we must raise up better men who will do honor to their position and thereby honor God, not self. Jesus did not eliminate Moses-' seat merely because it was temporarily occupied by hypocrites. Rather, He sent Israel some NEW prophets, wisemen and scribes filled with God's spirit and message (Matthew 23:34).

What a time for Jesus to express Himself like this! On the very day when these hard-nosed legalists and scholars had shown no reluctance to question His authority, our Lord shows no reluctance to uphold what is legitimate in theirs! No sooner had they most severely brought their high position into disrepute by attacking Him, than He holds their position in highest repute! When they were cocksure, He defeated them. Now that they have crumbled, He sustains their right to teach!

2.

This order to listen to the scholars as they taught Moses-' Law is absolutely essential in Jesus-' thought, because Moses-' teaching was intended to prepare men for Christ (Galatians 3:24; John 5:45 ff.). Jesus could not undermine the authority of Moses without destroying the basis upon which He intended to establish His own. (See notes on Matthew 5:17.)

3.

Further, He refused to throw out the precious with the worthless, the Old Testament along with the traditions. With even-handed moderation He could distinguish between the true message of the Old Testament and the corrupt and corrupting interpretations and practice by these scholars. Unfortunately, those who admire Jesus have not always followed His lead. They reject not only a corrupt -Church but also the Church's Bible which could yet lead them back to truth.

4.

Nor would Jesus have these Hebrews reject conscience. Since early childhood they had been led to believe that their leaders-' traditional interpretations and public practice were as much a part of the truth of God as His very revelations. Until the majority of Jesus-' followers grew into greater maturity through an increased knowledge of God's new revelation, they would not be in an adequate position to distinguish the true gold of the Old Testament from the fool's gold of human tradition. (Consider Acts 11:1-3 as illustrating how slowly traditions were overcome.) However wrong their present habits might have been in the light of the Old Testament, these convictions had been arrived at more or less conscientiously. Jesus would re-educate their conscience through the Gospel, but until then, He would not for an instant encourage unconscientiousness, even though this behavior represented enthusiasm for His movement. (Cf. Romans 14:14; Romans 14:23; 1 Corinthians 8:7.)

These do and observe (polésate kaì terête). If Jesus intends to distinguish doing and observing, perhaps the tenses (aorist and present imperative, respectively) indicate the difference:

1.

Do: perform each duty as the opportunity presents itself.

2.

Observe: Make habitual observance your regular manner of life and practice.

For the Hebrews before the cross, to obey the scribes is to obey Moses, and to submit to Moses is to please Jesus. Jesus could have agreed with much of the Pharisean exposition of Moses-' Law. In fact, in general, many of His own views were mirrored in Pharisean tenets (cf. Acts 23:6; Acts 23:8). He only opposed what in their system contradicted God's intentions in the Old Testament. But, in the main, Pharisees were extremely conservative. So, when they preached what Moses said and meant, Israel was to pay attention.

But do not ye after their works. The rest of this chapter will amply illustrate which Pharisean works Jesus rejects and are not to be considered normative for God's people. Their works are the natural outgrowth of a broad, fundamental failure:

1.

They say and do not: i.e. lack of personal consistency. Although they preach Moses-' truth, they vitiate it by their habit of not obeying its plain import themselves. They either flagrantly violated what he taught or by their twisted interpretations that broke the force of God's commands, they excused their not doing what was required by the plain force of Moses-' precepts.

The painful truth is that not even the practice of the most orthodox and conscientious of preachers today is absolutely consistent with all the truth they know and believe. Therefore, Jesus warns, the revealed will of God remains the standard under whose judgment everyone standsteachers and taught alike. None can excuse himself for failure to practice what he knows of God's will, merely because he never saw anyone doing it. Each is to be judged on his own grasp of the Word, not on the malpractice of others, be they leaders or not. This makes everyone responsible, not for his teachers-' practice, but for his own and for whether or not it mirrors God's will correctly stated by even the worst of preachers. We must not misjudge or fail to receive and practice God's truth, merely because it is preached by bad men!

2.

They say and do not. Although the Pharisees actually observed hundreds of things commanded by Moses, they did not do them with the motives, in the spirit and for the purpose God intended. Rather, they acted for human applause and to put God in debt to them. Again, they scrupulously followed the external regulations rather than develop the inward character that would fulfill their moral duty to be just, merciful and trustworthy. So, regardless of how many works they did, their motives kept erasing them from God's record. So, God counted none of their works as ever having been done.

3.

They say and do not. Though they are most demanding that others bend their will to obey God, they reserve to themselves a freedom to disobey which they deny to others. The fact that they say proves that they do know. Otherwise, how could they repeat God's will for others? They do not, then, means that they are substituting knowledge for practice. Often this overemphasis on the intellectual part of Christian knowledge is paired with a corresponding deficiency in morally lax conduct. (Study 1 Corinthians 8.) This kind of hypocrisy tempts believers in any age, because God's will is easier to talk about than to do.

4.

They say and do not. Lenski (Matthew, 895) is right to remind us of the broad, fundamental principles of Old Testament religion that Pharisaism generally garbed in their transmitting it and bungled in their practice. God's plan of salvation has always been the same: consciousness of sin, repentance, faith in His grace and obedience to whatever He commands, all out of love and gratitude toward God. (See notes on Matthew 7:21-23; Matthew 21:30; Matthew 23:23.) Unquestionably, Pharisean doctors read and commented upon the Old Testament texts that uplift these grand concepts, but, by a slavish system of self-justification, they muddled and consequently did not practice what God intended to save them. Remember Paul's commentary in Romans 2! (Cf. Romans 9:30 to Romans 10:3; Romans 11:6 f.)

But who is Jesus to pass sentence on Israel's leaders-' failure to measure up, unless He too says and does God's will perfectly (John 5:19-47; John 6:45-51; John 6:68 f.; John 7:16-18; John 8:26; John 8:29; John 8:46 f.; John 10:25; John 10:37 f.; John 12:44-50; John 14:6). Is this censure merely another manifestation of superficial holiness and greater pride, or, rather, an expression of His true moral perfection that is the highest imaginable qualification for judging? (Study Luke's sentence: Jesus began (1) to do and (2) teach, Acts 1:1.)

Harshness and Lack of Human Sympathy

Matthew 23:4 Yea, they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger. Freely reworked by Jesus, this rabbinic allusion to the binding of doctrines on people's conscience (see notes on Matthew 16:19, binding and loosing) pictures someone tying loads to be carried by a bearer. Although he makes them too heavy for the man to carry, the indifferent leader offers no assistance, but stolidly continues to insist that the load be borne as is. But what are the heavy burdens?

1.

The Law merely? Because the Jewish scholars are scored for saying but not doing (v. 3), Alford (226) and Plummer (Luke, 312) argue that the heavy burdens cannot be human rules, but the rigorousness of Moses-' Law, because they would not neglect their own traditions. Lenski (Luke, 664) adds that these lawyers force others to carry the Old Testament requirements but would not themselves even pretend to observe them. These views, however, fail to grasp the spirit of Pharisaism that could cheat both on the rabbinical traditions and on Mosaic legislation whenever convenient or supposedly necessary.

2.

The Law and its interpretations? Although Jesus says, they bind, he does not necessarily limit the heavy burdens to traditions in antithesis to the Law, because Pharisees considered both as binding. In fact, to the Pharisean mind, the Law and its traditional interpretations, taken together, became one divine entity, one divine Law, from which nothing could be omitted.

a.

Heavy burdens is decidedly the right word! Their earnest legalism produced one dismal result: they turned the piety expressed in the Mosaic ordinances into the observance of a myriad of minute traditions and rabbinical decisions that touch all of life. So doing, they turned what was intended to be a joyous help to bring man to God, into an unbearable, depressing deadweight that must be borne without any hope of succeeding perfectly.

b.

The Law itself was heavy enough (Acts 15:10), without innumerable additions besides, not to mention those subterfuges whereby a Pharisee could excuse himself for any lack of strictness in keeping what he did not want to. (Cf. the Corban rule, Matthew 15:4-6 = Mark 7:9-13; special ways of hand-washing, Mark 7:3; and oath formulas, Matthew 23:16 ff.)

How, then, did their system lead to the evil results Jesus denounces? Beginning from Moses-' Law, the scholastics in Judaism had created a total legal system that closed up all the loopholes God intentionally left open in His system. By creating laws where God made none, they took away human freedom to think responsibly and to make free decisions where God intended to develop this very maturity. (See How to Avoid Becoming a Pharisee in my Vol. III, 375ff. where this problem is discussed at length.) Generally interpreting the unclear issues on the side of greater rigor, they tended to make the Law severer than originally intended by God. They only succeeded in producing a sterner, more impossible law that must necessarily condemn all those who lived under it, but could not observe it perfectly. They had never learned I desire mercy and not sacrifice. (See on Matthew 9:13; Matthew 12:7.) Not understanding grace, they turned everything else into more LAW. How closely do modern legalists follow this pattern?

But they themselves will not move them with their finger. It misunderstands the main thrust of legalism to suppose that Pharisees could have seen the need to get these exasperating restrictions abolished. For the legalistic mentality can have no such intention, because it aims at inventing even more rules to cover every imaginable exigency. So, naturally, they could never think of removing them! Their sin lies elsewhere, but how did Jesus intend His criticism? Does He mean (1) move them (the burdensome laws) by obeying them personally, or (2) move them by assisting the burdened people to bear them by taking their life situation into account or by mercifully coming to the aid of unprosperous, adversely affected people?

1.

Is it that they are severe with others, but indulgent toward themselves? If so, they do not even try to observe the very rules they themselves make, while justifying their own real evasions of duty. If so, then Jesus means they must be consistent with their teaching. The fact that they say but do not do (v. 3) seems to support this conclusion. However, by supposing that Jesus meant they never kept their own rules, Bruce (Expositor's Greek Testament, 279) must take this verse with reservations, since teachers who absolutely disregarded their own laws would soon forfeit all respect.

2.

The leaders callously offered no help to the burdened people of God, mercilessly demanding that each bear his own load without any help from them. Edersheim (Life, I, 101) taught that these burdens could be laid on, or moved away, according to the varying judgment or severity of a Rabbinic College, decided by whether or not a majority of the congregation is able to bear it. So, the precedent had already been established for deciding issues in line with humane considerations, but Pharisees tended to make the requirements as rigorous as possible! Their interpretations led to impossible legal demands so time-consuming that only people of means and free time really hope to observe them all. The net result of this policy was to produce a proud elite, capable of doing these exceptional, difficult rules, an exclusive group of insiders who alone were the pure and holy.

Contrast their attitude with the yoke and burden of Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30), or with the attitude of the early Christians (Acts 15:28; 1 Corinthians 7:28; 1 Corinthians 9:12) and the burdens laid upon believers by their leaders! Here, then, is one striking difference between Jesus and legalists and between their respective approaches to human problems. Pharisees care more about their rules than they do about people, but Jesus keeps God and people at the center of His concern. Programs and procedures, laws and institutions are made to help people obey God. But when they become more important than people, or when they damage or harrass them, then they have become an obstacle to God and people. According to Jesus, then, men may and must remove these burdensome accretions to God's Word, lightening the load on people's conscience and restoring their moral energy to do the things that bless.

Criterion of False Religion

When irrational, inhumane demands that God did not make are multiplied supposedly to render possible total legalistic obedience to God, this is not the Christianity Jesus has in mind. When people submit to authority God did not authorize and obey anything else in addition to His Word, this is not true religion, but an undiscriminating slavery to human opinions. Mere proclamation of God's truth, unaccompanied by practical submission to its ethical demands, is also false religion.

FACT QUESTIONS

1.

To whom is the message of this chapter addressed, according to Matthew?

2.

What is Moses-' seat? Where was this seat located? How could so many people sit on it?

3.

What unusual order did Jesus give His disciples with reference to the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees? Why did He require this?

4.

What is meant by the expression, whatever they tell you: the law of God? the traditions of the scribes and Pharisees? or both?

5.

What, according to Jesus, is the reason for not learning proper conduct from the religious leaders-' example?

6.

What are the heavy burdens, grievous to be borne laid upon men's shoulders?

7.

In what way are the religious leaders particularly guilty for not moving them with their finger? That is, how SHOULD these leaders move (the burdens) with their finger?

8.

In what way does Jesus defend the high importance of the Old Testament in this section?

9.

In what way does the teaching of this section compare with the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount?